The Sixth Woman
by YFNR

Author's note: I write stories with a bondage slant, not bondage scenes spliced together with a little bit of story.  If you want nothing but descriptions of sex with whips and chains, then I am not the author for you.

ON ERICPOTSDAM, 24th CENTURY AFTER THE PLANET WAS HIJACKED

This story is another sequel to "Three Women", which is a sequel to "The Story of Sindrelaine deta Lensering.". I won't repeat the complete introduction again.  Please read the previous stories instead.

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The Sixth of the Seven Women: Tinceiza

Right Honorable Tinceiza deta Rosskin

Tinceiza sat at her desk in Rosskin Palace, her old family home.  She combed her long russet-brown hair back off of her face; she had refused to allow it to be cut since her return.  She began to write a letter:

To: Mallin Tfarr,

Dearest Master,

I am living in my family's palace here in Vegonyn City.  I wear a doublet ring engraved with a Rosskin crest, and an honors sash when I'm dressed up.  Everybody defers to me and is very polite.

But I can see past the deference.  Nobody really wants me here.  I used to be a slave.  Members of the House of Rosskin aren't supposed to be former slaves.  They think that I am a disgrace to the entire family.

They are arranging a marriage for me.  I have met the guy.  He is middle-aged, and fat, and lazy, and he drinks.  He doesn't give a damn about me, beyond wanting to play with my body.

Tinceiza understood why her prospective husband wanted to play.  She had always had a pretty face.  While under slave discipline, she had lost weight and developed a figure that made her body look gorgeous.  She continued writing:

He just wants to be allied with my family by marriage.  I hate it all.

I keep thinking about the times I had with you, wearing your chains, completely under your control.

Tinceiza paused in her writing, and stared at the wall, and began to count her memories of moments in Lovant . . .

-   -   -   -   -  1  -   -   -   -   -

She wore nothing at all.  A large man dragged her onto an auction block by a chain leash.  The auctioneer proclaimed "This one used to be an Imperial aristocrat.  Now she's just a scared little slave girl.  It's her first sale.  Head up, slave girl.  Show off your body; she's 1.75-meters tall, folks, according to her stat sheet.  Don't hunker down.  Hands by your sides, don't hide anything.  Slave girls aren't allowed to be shy."   He poked and prodded her with a stiff whip, pushing her hands down and her chin up.  "How much am I bid to take a whip to a former Imperial noblewoman and teach her what's what?"

A nasty-looking character said "Three hundred tallhers."  Tinceiza shuddered at the possibility of being sold to this character.  He saw the shudder, and grinned.  His thoughts showed in his expression; he was looking forward to introducing a former aristocrat to a slave whip.

"I'm bid three hundred.  Will somebody say three twenty-five?  And twenty-five, and fifty, and seventy-five, and four hundred, and four twenty-five, and fifty, and seventy-five, bid five hundred, bid five hundred . . . Come now gentlemen, isn't the chance to whip a pretty and proud Imperial aristocrat worth at least five hundred tallhers?"

Tinceiza scanned the crowd.  She thought that they were a bunch of ruffians.  It seemed that she had nothing to look forward to but whippings and bad treatment.  Then her eyes landed on a man who seemed different, somehow.  He was slim, with broad shoulders and dark hair, and he wore a gray military-style officer's suit with a natural air of authority, even though there were no badges of rank on his uniform jacket.

His brown eyes met her blue eyes, and there was an instant connection.  He called out "eight hundred."

"Eight hundred going once, eight hundred going twice, Sold, for eight hundred tallhers."  Tinceiza had never thought that she could feel grateful to a man who bought her as a slave.  He must have seen that gratitude in her expression.  He smiled back.  Would he be as nice as he seemed?  She hoped and prayed that he would be.  If he was, slavery might not be so horrible after all.

He tied her hands behind her back, and paid her purchase price, and kept her by his side in the auction hall until the end of the day's sales.  The highest bid for any of the other slave girls was only five hundred twenty-five tallhers.   Some of those women were very pretty.  Tinceiza promised herself that she would do everything she could to make her new owner feel that his money had not been wasted. She didn't want to face another chance of being sold to the nasty-looking character who had made the first bid.

-   -   -   -   -   2  -   -   -   -   -

She wore a full apron that covered the front of her body but left her back exposed.  A leather panel gag, with a plug poking in, sealed her mouth completely.   She was confined to the kitchen by a chain from one ankle to an anchor point.

She knelt down in front of the oven and took a roaster out.  She transferred a freshly-cooked chicken from the roaster to a serving platter, covered that platter, and put it on the pass-through counter alongside the other serving dishes.  Her master Mallin was entertaining some friends on this night.  She assumed that her master, or one of the other servants, would move these dishes from the counter on to the dining-room table.

Tinceiza then retreated to the cage against the wall by the anchor point of her ankle chain, crawled in, and pulled the door shut behind herself.  The door lock clicked.  She hoped to be allowed to have some left-overs before she was taken to bed.  Her panel gag had blocked her from trying any samples.

Her master came into the kitchen with a slave tunic over one arm.  He unlocked the cage, handed her the tunic, released her anchor chain, and said "Change quickly, Tinceiza.  You will be serving the food.  Come into the dining room as soon as you are ready." She couldn't say 'yes sir' around her gag, so she acknowledged the order with a sharp nod.

So it was Tinceiza who transferred the serving dishes away from the pass-through counter.   When the food was all on the table, Mallin ordered her to kneel on a slave hassock by his chair.  He strapped her legs to the the hassock, cuffed her hands behind her back, and then unlocked and removed her gag.  She looked up at him.  He looked down at her, and they exchanged smiles.  And then he fed her, one forkful at a time.  No words were spoken between them, but their emotional link was obvious to his guests.

-   -   -   -   -   3  -   -   -   -   -

She wore close-fitting knitted short white shorts, and canvas shoes with rubber soles and heels, and a sturdy bra. Her only restraint was a meter and a half of chain connecting her collar to Mallin's belt.  Mallin was also wearing shorts and running shoes, with a T-shirt top.

They jogged all the way around the running track at the sports club where Mallin was a member.  Tinceiza felt great.  The first time that Mallin had taken her on this track, she had been unable to get more than half way around before becoming totally exhausted.  A few months of practice had made a big difference.

Mallin picked up the pace, and they ran all the way around the track.  Tinceiza still felt good.

Mallin looked back at her, checking her condition, and then started running another lap.  He had never taken her quite so far, quite so fast, before.  By the time they finished the back stretch, her breathing was getting ragged.  By the time they came around the bend and onto the home stretch, her whole world was going gray.  Nothing existed for her but a meter or two of track under her feet, and her leash, and the collar that was pulling her onward.  Then the gray closed in from both sides, and there was nothing at all.

Tinceiza recovered consciousness sitting in Mallin's lap on a trackside bench.  She said "I'm sorry, Master."

Mallin showed her a plunger-top bottle of sports drink that he held in one hand.  She opened her mouth; he aimed the nozzle and squeezed the plunger to give her some urgently needed sugar, salt, and water.  He asked "What are you sorry about?"

"I wanted to finish the lap.  Instead I collapsed.  I tried, Master, really I tried."  She swallowed another squirt of sports drink and repeated "I'm sorry."

"You've got nothing to be sorry about.  You did finish the lap.  You may have been unconscious when you crossed the finish line, but you were still running.  Tinceiza, you've got guts, and determination, and courage.  And you are beautiful.  I have never been prouder of you.  Can you walk now?"

"I'm not sure, Master."

"No problem.  I'll carry you."  And he did, bride-at-wedding style, with one arm under her knees and one arm behind her back.  She relaxed against him all the way to the locker room.

They showered together.  He covered every inch of her body with soapy water, and then rinsed it all off.  She still could barely stand, and he knew that she was too worn out to be turned on.  There was nothing erotic about this shower.  But there was an immense amount of tenderness and love.

-   -   -   -   -   4  -   -   -   -   -

She wore only handcuffs behind her back, in the showers on another day at the running track with Mallin.  She had kept up with him this time without collapsing.  The cuffs kept her hands out of the way during their shower.  Mallin enjoyed touching her, and she enjoyed being touched. Mallin and Tinceiza finished and stepped out of the shower stall.  Another male voice said "So that's what they look like.  You should show them off more often."  One of Mallin's younger and cruder acquaintances had come into the shower room.  Tinceiza had never liked this guy, and now he was staring at her chest.  He didn't have to explain in words what "they" were.

Mallin answered politely "It's OK to show them off if you plan to trade the girl in for a new and younger one every few years.  In that case you may not care that bouncing around a running track stretches the ligaments that support them and leaves the girl with a saggy chest.  Tinceiza is a keeper.  I want hers to be as perky in ten or twenty years as they are right now.  So she will always wear a support bra when she goes running."

"What's the use of keeping them perky if nobody ever sees them?"

"I see them.  At night, in our bedroom, I see them.  I think that they are beautiful.  They really aren't anybody else's business."

"You'll still be looking at them in twenty years?  Twenty years with the same slave girl should get rather boring, even if she still has perky boobs at the end."

"Twenty years with this particular slave girl probably won't be enough.  Maybe, someday, you will find a girl this good of your very own.  Then you will understand.  But not until then. Obviously. "

As a slave, Tinceiza couldn't even give Mallin's acquaintance a dirty look.  Instead she ignored the guy and looked up at Mallin, who turned away from his acquaintance and looked down at her.  Tinceiza and Mallin shared one very gentle and tender kiss.  The other guy watched them walk away toward the lockers.  Just before they went around the corner and out of his view, he called "She has a nice ass too."

-   -   -   -   -   5  -   -   -   -   -

She wore a skimpy bikini, just four triangles of black cloth and a few strings holding them on.  She was barefoot.  Her hands were cuffed behind her back, a collar was locked around her neck, and her Master Mallin Tfarr led her down a city sidewalk with her leash handle in his hand.

A squad of soldiers came marching up the street, with a sergeant in command counting cadence.  When they were about to pass Mallin and Tinceiza, the sergeant said "Hup, two, tree, forr, Eyes--Right!   Ready, . . .Salute!"  The entire squad delivered a massed wolf whistle.

Tinceiza responded by looking back at the soldiers, smiling, and lifting her knees higher to shift from an ordinary walking step to a prance.  The prancing step slowed her down.  Mallin noticed the extra tension on the leash, and turned his head back to see the cause.  The turned head let Tinceiza see the proud grin on his face.

Tinceiza looked around and saw that the massed wolf whistle had attracted attention.  Other men on the street and sidewalk were looking her way.  So she returned their smiles, and kept on prancing.  She realized that she would have been horribly embarrassed to attract attention in this way if she had still been an aristocratic woman.  Her parents and her nanny would have been shocked.  But she had become a slave girl.  Attracting male attention by showing off was a perfectly normal thing to do, and she enjoyed doing it.

-   -   -   -   -   6  -   -   -   -   -

She wore a network of straps. They wrapped around her at neck, and chest, and waist.  They held pads over her eyes, blindfolding her.  They held a bit across her mouth with a 25-mm ball on the end of a pin poking in and making speech impossible, although she could still breathe or scream.

More straps secured her forearms wrist-to-elbow across her back; supported semi-rigid leather half-cups against the bottom of her breasts; and tied the tops of her breasts down so that they were as well controlled as they ever had been by a sports bra.  She was more on display than any sports bra could allow, although her nipples weren't exposed.

Her lower body was even less covered.  Three straps converged from her waist to pass through her crotch.  A soft leather pad wrapped around these straps and kept them from abrading her sex and her inner thighs, but the pad added no coverage.  Her sandals had heavy multi-layer center bands on top from her toes to above her ankles.  A network of narrow straps wrapped up her calves and held those center bands, and also sturdy soles, two-centimeter heels, and knee pads securely in place.

The final straps were reins, reaching back from her bit to Mallin who was seated behind her in a two-wheel buggy made from aluminum tubing and fabric bands.  Mallin clicked his tongue and tapped her butt with a whip.  Tinceiza leaned into her load and began to pull.

The buggy had independent brakes on its wheels, operated by pedals under Mallin's feet.  He could signal a gentle turn by applying the brake on one side, which made the shaft on that side pull on Tinceiza's waist belt.  For sharper maneuvers, he used the reins.  With the blinding pads over her eyes, Tinceiza'a only guidance came from those shafts, and the reins on the bit in her mouth, and from Mallin's voice and taps from Mallin's whip.  Two tongue clicks and two whip taps were her signal to speed up to an easy jog.  She could hold this pace for miles, and that appeared to be the plan.

Mallin clicked his tongue once, and tapped with the whip once, and pulled back gently on both reins.  Tinceiza followed those signals and slowed to a walk.  The tug of the shafts became stronger.  She realized that they were going up a hill.

The climb continued relentlessly for ten or fifteen minutes.  It became very much tougher for about thirty seconds, forcing Tinceiza to work even harder.  Then it eased off to level ground.  Mallin said "Whoa!" and pulled on the reins, and Tinceiza stopped.  She felt Mallin get off of the buggy and walk up to her.  He stuck a slim metal tube in her mouth and said "Suck!".  She closed her lips around her gag pin and the tube, and she pulled in a very refreshing mouthful of ice-cold sports drink.

As she got her own breathing back under full control, she began to notice the sound of somebody else breathing hard.  Apparently somebody else was out getting some exercise, or perhaps another master was taking a slave out for some work.  This guess was confirmed when a new male voice asked "Are you just starting out in training your slave to a buggy?"

Mallin answered "Not particularly.  We've been at it for almost a year now.  What made you think it was new to us?"

"No plumes on her headdress yet.  No horsetail butt plug.  No horseshoe-soled heelless boots.  No feathers on your buggy.  Your slave's form could use some work; she has no prance to her step at all.  Her form would be much better if she lifted her knees more."

"We aren't training for dressage.  We are training for trail work.  We are getting to be well trained for that sort of thing, but the goals are entirely different from dressage."

"Are you working with a trainer?  You keep saying 'we', as if you were both being trained."

"Yes.  Wilbur Bannester."

There was a moment of silence, and then the other person said "Oh!"  Tinceiza had never before heard so much respect squeezed into one short syllable.  She had never realized that her trainer was anybody special.

The other person asked "So what are the goals of your trail work training?"

"Efficient movement, of course.  No energy-wasting high-knee prancing.  But the most important goals are trust, and trustworthiness.  She can't see at all, with those blinder pads in place.  She has to learn to trust the cues from my reins and my whip and my voice.  I have to learn to watch constantly for any potholes, or stones, or anything else that could throw her off her stride, and I have to guide her safely.  If she does stumble, I have to be ready with the brakes and the reins to help keep her upright.  She is wearing kneepads, and her sandals have those heavy top bands, boot leather over padding, to keep her feet from being scraped in case of a fall onto her knees.  But if I were careless, she could land on her face and be pushed forward by the momentum of me and the buggy.  She could be badly bruised and scraped.  I have to stay alert at all times."

"I can see that it must take some training before she trusts you enough."

"Were you going to go down the hill I just came up?  Does your dressage buggy even have brakes?  No?  I think you should get off and walk your slave to the bottom of the hill.  With no brakes, and the pressure of a buggy rolling downhill on the shafts, one small bobble would put her flat on the gravel.  Even if you didn't give a damn about her feelings in the matter, she wouldn't be of much use for dressage if she were covered with scrapes and bruises and probably a black eye.  Not to mention the risk of more severe injury, such as a broken tooth or a cracked kneecap."

"Hmm.  I think I have just had a free secondhand lesson from Wilbur Bannester.  Thanks for the advice."

"You are welcome.  Tinceiza, you and I are going the other way, and we have a long gentle downgrade ahead.  Let's go."  He clicked his tongue three times.  Tinceiza accelerated to an easy running stride and began to cover ground.

-   -   -   -   -   7  -   -   -   -   -

She wore a canvas strait jacket and leather chaps which laced onto her legs, and sturdy hiking boots.  She pulled a narrow two-wheel baggage cart, resembling a fat golf bag, which was linked by metal rods to a belt around her waist.  There were no restraints on her legs or feet, but her master Mallin had tied an ingenious piece of ropework around her waist to keep her from running away.  If she pulled the rope leash handle out of his hand, a loop would drop from her waist to her knees and pull tight.

He was wearing sturdy outdoor denim hiking clothing and a backpack.  He had been leading her up the main trail toward the top of Pine Tree Hill, until he paused, and said "This is where we turn."  Then he took her down a narrow overgrown side path.

The purpose of the canvas strait jacket and the leather chaps quickly became evident.  Springy branches lashed at Tinceiza, and thorns stabbed at her.  Her clothing kept her well protected.

After about twenty minutes on the overgrown path, they came to a clearing.  On the far side of this clearing was a small cliff, dropping away for about twenty meters.  The pine forest resumed at the bottom of this cliff.  The view from the clearing extended over the tops of the trees, on down to the valley and the farms and the houses and the town below, with the hills on the other side of the valley as a backdrop.  All of the trees displayed the fresh green color of early spring.  A steam locomotive whistle echoed faintly in the distance.  Mallin said "This is one of my favorite outlooks and favorite camping spots."

Tinceiza answered "Wow!  I can see why, Master."

Mallin took off his backpack and emptied it.  The contents included an eight-meter length of lightweight chain which he padlocked to Tinceiza's collar.  The other end of the chain locked around a sturdy pine tree at the left-hand end of the clearing.  He detached Tinceiza from her baggage cart, removed all of her clothing, and stuffed the clothes neatly into the freshly-emptied backpack.  He hung the backpack in another tree at the right-hand end of the clearing out of her reach.  Tinceiza was comfortable in the bright sunlit spring afternoon, but she realized that she would be cold if she were kept naked in the night.  The warmth of summer had not yet arrived.

Among other things, the cart contained aluminum poles, and strong lightweight waterproofed sea-cotton fabric, and some stakes and cord.  Mallin said "Let's get working."  He pounded stakes into the ground while Tinceiza deployed the poles, and then the fabric.  Soon they had set up a tent, which was then filled with a single large sleeping bag, easily big enough for two people.

Mallin began gathering brushwood, which he piled into a ring of stones that was in the middle of the clearing.  The spot had obviously been used for camping before.  He started the brushwood burning.  He handed a pan and some cans of food to Tinceiza and said "Get cooking!"  He went to work with a small ax to supplement the brushwood with some longer-burning logs.

Tinceiza did her job and filled two dishes with ham slices, and peas, and foil-baked potatoes.  Mallin poured two cups of their favorite flavor of sports drink.  They both ate supper.  As the sun set, Mallin undressed in the tent and told Tinceiza "There is only one really warm place within reach of your collar chain.  You have permission to approach that place, and ask to be allowed in, but you do not have permission to enter it yet.  Do you think that you can persuade me to grant permission?"

Tinceiza knelt down in front of the tent entrance and answered "Please Master.  I promise that if you let me in, I will keep touching you, and holding you, and I will never let go as long as I am in with you.  You will be warmer in the cold night.  Please, Master?"  She held her hands together in front as if she were praying.

Mallin said "Oh, OK."  Tinceiza kept her promise all night long.

The next morning it rained.  Tinceiza and Mallin were content to stay together in the warm dry tent, leaving only to dash behind the trees for calls of nature.  Breakfast and lunch were both cold sandwiches and fruit.  Between meals, the passion continued to flow.

The sun finally broke through in the afternoon.  They struck and packed the tent and cleaned up their camping area.  Mallin dressed Tinceiza again in strait jacket and chaps; the clothes had stayed dry in his waterproof back pack.  Then he unchained her and they started their return journey.  The wet branches and thorns attacked Tinceiza once again on the overgrown path.  Once again her clothes protected her as they hiked homeward down Pine Tree Hill.

-   -   -   -   -   8  -   -   -   -   -

She wore a slave-girl party dress.  It was made from ribbons, each five centimeters wide, bright satin fabric, red and gold and blue and green and orange.  Each ribbon overlapped its neighbors by about a centimeter, but they were connected together only by black ribbons around her body just above her breasts and at her hips.  The result was an over-all peek-a -boo effect.  The ribbons reached about half way down her thighs.  A slave bell weighted the end of each ribbon.  She was barefoot.

She stood on one of the stages of an alcovia, a restaurant where men went to eat and to put their women on display.  Each table was in a semi-private alcove with a small stage at the far end.  The first alcovias had been in Vegonyn City, but they had spread throughout the Empire.  They were as popular with rebels as they were with Vegonesi aristocrats.

Tinceiza's wrist cuffs were linked to anchor points about two meters up on each side of the stage arch.  There was enough slack to allow her to fold both of her elbows a bit tighter than a right angle at the same time.  This gave her plenty of room to dance. The band at the end of the restaurant gave her a strong solid beat.

Prance to the right, until her left arm and chain were stretched straight toward their anchor point.  Right arm up, down, forward, back.  Hips bouncing and slave bells jingling.

Shuffle to the left, until her right arm and chain were stretched straight toward their anchor point.  Left arm up, down, forward, back.  Hips still bouncing, and slave bells still jingling.

Shuffle back to the center, then prance forward, knees coming high with each step, until both arms were stretched up and back.  Hips moving forward, back, left, right.

Short steps backward, bouncing up on toes with each step, until both arms were stretched up and forward.  High kicks with each leg, toward the left, then toward the right.

The band came to the end of its number.  Tinceiza moved to the center of the area that her chains allowed her and let her arms hang loose.  She was smiling.  That dance had been fun.

Her master Mallin was chatting with his old friend Shonn, who had just returned from an extended journey.  They were seated at opposite sides of the long table in the alcove, adjacent to the stage.  They had to speak loudly to be heard across the table over the background noise of the restaurant.  Tinceiza could easily overhear them.

Shonn asked "This slave girl is really good.  Where did you get her?  Did you trade in that enslaved aristocrat that you paid too much money for at the auction the year before last?"

"Nope.  That's the enslaved aristocrat.  On the stage."

"That's her?!  That's the shy, slightly flabby, completely untrained slave girl that you spent eight hundred tallhers for?"

"Yup.  That's about it."

"I'll ask you a slightly personal question.  Why did you jump the bidding so high?  She might be worth that kind of money now, but she certainly wasn't then.  You could have bought her for hundreds of tallhers less."

"I could probably have bought her for a mediocre price.  But then I would have gotten a mediocre slave girl.  She knows how much I paid for her.  She knows how highly I value her.  When other slave girls brag about the prices their masters paid, she knows that she has almost all of them beat.  That has done wonderful things for her pride.  She has worked hard to live up to her price tag.  I think that she has succeeded."

"So you jumped the bidding because you wanted her, and because you wanted an eight-hundred-tallher slave girl."

"Yup.  That's about it."

"I think you got your money's worth."

"So do I."

-   -   -   -   -  9, 10, 11, 12, and more   -   -   -   -   -

She wore nothing but a single pair of handcuffs, behind her back.  She was standing in the shower stall with Mallin at his house while the warm water poured over them both. These showers at home were a wonderful warm-up for nights of passion, much more so than the showers at the sports club.  The soap that he washed her with seemed to smell better than any other soap she had ever used.  The washcloths and the towels were the softest she had known.  Nothing else had ever felt as glorious as his fingers working shampoo into her hair and into her scalp.

She knew that she would soon be helpless beside Mallin in bed, stretched out and strapped down, while his hands and lips caressed her.  He could take hours to bring her to her first orgasm.  She knew it would be coming, and she knew that it would shake her soul like an earthquake when it arrived.  But she couldn't speed things up or slow them down.  He wouldn't let her.

Those glorious nights came after days when she had made Mallin happy and proud.  On days when she didn't, she wore punishment chains, when she had to do everything in an awkward way because her wrists were at opposite ends of a rigid bar.  There were times - fortunately very few - when he chained her to the whipping post; he left her blindfolded and completely immobilized for hours and hours.  She never knew when the next lash would hit and mark her reddened behind.  Flexing her muscles again afterwards was such sweet torture.

* * *

Tinceiza realized that it was time to drop her memories and go back to her pen and paper.  If she didn't, then sooner or later somebody would come by and look over her shoulder and read the letter she was writing .  The consequences of that would certainly be unpleasant.  So she began to write again:

I would be happier being punished by you right now than I am here, even though I'm never chained or whipped while I am here.

I remember the looks that you gave me.  You were so proud of having me.  I never realized it until now, but I was just as proud of having a wonderful man like you as my Master.

I trusted you.  I still trust you, more than I trust any members of my own family.  I always knew what to expect from you.  You never schemed to do anything about me or with me behind my back.  Of course you never had to.  You were always in complete control.

And I suppose I might as well admit it.  I love you.  Despite all of the chains and the cages and the punishments, I still love you.  Because of all the chains and the cages and the loving punishments, I still love you.

Please, Master, don't leave me here.  I want to wear your collar again.  I want to come home.

You can write me at P.O. Box 44314, Vegonyn City Central Post Office.  If you write me at the Rosskin Palace, my family will open it and learn what I have been thinking about.  They would probably throw your answer away before I got a chance to read it.

Mallin's Replied:

Right Honorable Miss deta Rosskin,

Do you really want to give that fancy title up, and lose all that it means?  I will be delighted to have you again, but you had better think twice.  If you come here, you will be staying.  I will never let you go again.  Losing you once was bad enough.

I am willing to gamble the price of a train ticket that you really do mean it.  Your letter certainly sounded sincere.  The ticket is enclosed.  I am also enclosing a custom-made set of high-security handcuffs.  I have the only keys that fit.

Arrange your journey to arrive at 6:15 pm on the day express from Vegonyn City to Shallach, on Wednesday the 15th of March.  The waiting room has a row of slave anchor points along the west wall, on the other end from the ticket counter.  Chain yourself to one of them.

"I will definitely meet that train.  I will hope to see you then.  I will desperately hope to see you then.  I love you too."

* * *

Ten minutes past the appointed time, Mallin Tfarr walked into the main waiting room at Shallach Central Station.  Tinceiza was waiting for him.

He had expected her to wear a dress or skirt with a hem down to the knees, or perhaps even longer.  But Tinceiza's skirt was definitely slave length, a bit shorter than halfway down her thighs.  Her top left her midriff bare, another sign of slavery.  Free women in Danitz and the Empire never showed their midriffs in public.

He had expected her to lock one cuff onto a slave anchor pole, and the other around one wrist.  Most slaves at those poles are confined by one cuff or by one collar and leash.  Instead, she had wrapped her arms around one of the anchoring poles, behind her back, and she cuffed her wrists there.  She was even wearing a slave collar.  When he looked closer, he saw that it was her old slave collar, the one that had been cut off her neck en route to Vegonyn City when she was freed.

Mallin put one hand around her waist and the other into her hair at the back of her neck.  He tilted her head back, and gave her a very enthusiastic kiss.  His fingers probed the back of her collar. There was a new lock welded on to that collar at the spot where it had been cut.

He asked "Where is the key?"

Tinceiza answered "It's on a string around my neck.  I know that I am not supposed to have access to it, but it's a dead-bolt lock, and I needed the key to lock the collar on.  Now that my wrists are cuffed, I don't have access any more."

Mallin reached around her neck and picked up the collar key and the string.  He took a leather collar, a one-meter leash, and a set of leg irons with a 40 cm chain from his coat pockets.  He locked them on her and said "Now you can never run away."  Then he released her from the pole and re-cuffed her wrists behind her back, and he led her out of the station using the leash.

The former Right Honorable Tinceiza deta Rosskin spent the rest of her life locked in Mallin Tfarr's chains or behind the bars of his cages and cells.  She never looked back.

The End

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