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The Horsewomen
by Jeanne de Stein (address defunct)

***

In an alternate universe it's not so nice being a male, 
when females run the world. (Fdom/M, bi, nc, rp, tor, 
bd, fantasy)

***

CHAPTER 1: THE CAPTURE
----------------------

He ran, without knowing why. He knew that he was lost. 
They were mounted, he was on foot. They could have 
taken him anytime, but they were probably playing him, 
the way you play a fish on a hook.

Why, by the Nether Gods, had he been dumb enough to try 
to cross the Grasslands? Especially on foot? Out here, 
he was helpless. He should have found a way through the 
forest instead. It might have taken him two weeks, 
three weeks, but so what? He would have made it. But 
now... he tried not to think of what lay in store for 
him.

Instead, he ran. Not that it would change the outcome; 
but there are times when reason is not applicable. His 
breath seared his throat, his lungs fought for air and 
his legs were growing ever heavier. Still, he ran, 
while the horizon rocked slowly in front of him and the 
ochre grass grew fuzzy.

The Coastlands and the Marches were alive with the 
rumours of what the Horsewomen did to the males that 
fell into their hands. If you were lucky, they knifed 
you before cutting off your member for a trophy, but 
you could just as well be out of luck. Those who 
screamed were sometimes silenced by having their 
testicles thrust down their throats. 

If you were really out of luck, you would be spared for 
the moment, only to be slowly tortured to death later, 
for the amusement of the sisterhood. These women were 
said to delight in torturing males. Even staying with 
the Lord En-Tor and accepting your punishment for 
insubordination would have been better. At least, he 
would have stayed alive... presumably.

They were close now. He could hear the sound of hooves, 
hear the pursuers yelling in their harsh voices, like 
birds of prey on the wing. There were other stories of 
course, about how captive males were used, yarns that 
had been spun with delight mixed with horror. It was 
known that the horsewomen kept male slaves, too. But 
just now these stories lacked credibility. Therefore he 
kept running in a gathering red mist.

The ground was rising in front of him, and the horizon 
closed in. He felt his legs wobble. Near the top of the 
little rise...it was not six feet high...they folded 
under him and that was the end of it. The ground reeled 
under him. The grass was dry and coarse and tasted of 
dust, a bitter mineral taste. He heard the rumble of 
thunder coming up close; or was it the hoofs?

He stayed face down, desperately clutching at the grass 
that stung his skin, waiting for the cold steel between 
his shoulder-blades. He would have preferred to meet 
them standing, but his body deserted him. Now he felt a 
knee in the small of his back; he froze but caught a 
glimpse of a leather boot, and further away the other 
horsewoman, mounted, black against the sun and with a 
lance pointing in his direction. 

He fought desperately for air. The woman behind his 
back yelped a command and gripped him above both 
elbows. He felt her strap his arms together behind his 
back, very hard, very close to each other, and his face 
was again ground into the warm, bitter dust. His brain 
seemed to have ceased to function; his wits had 
deserted him completely.

She rose and nudged him between his ribs with the toe 
of her boot. Again she yelped; groaning, he rolled over 
and saw her as a shadow above him. Her foot against his 
shoulder, she pushed him down and tore off his 
loincloth. The mounted woman barked and they laughed, 
both of them. A knife flashed. His belly muscles 
contracted, but the dismounted woman put the blade 
between her teeth, and in her hands she held a long 
lariat-strap of rawhide. 

Then the knee again, and roughly, roughly the strap was 
tied around his testicle bag. Her hands were hard and 
purposeful and awakened no response in him. She jerked 
the lariat, no misunderstanding on his part was 
possible-- and she rose, standing over him with her 
hands on her hips, dark against the dark blue dry-
season sky.

So they would not kill him at once. The only thing he 
could do was to obey them and bide his time. Perhaps an 
opportunity to escape would offer itself, if only the 
two horsewomen would grow careless. His eyes were 
working better now, though his throat was still hurting 
and his heart thumped; he could discern the women 
clearly. He had never seen horsewomen before. 

They were naked like thrall-women... well, nearly... 
but they had no masters, that he knew. The mounted one, 
with the feathered lance that was still pointing at 
him, was older than the woman who had captured him. The 
young one had a quiver on her back, the strap tight 
between her breasts, the older one a rawhide-lariat 
with a eye made of bone, looped across her shoulders. 

The older horse witch wore her straight, raven-black 
hair in a topknot slightly to the side of her head, the 
young one had gathered it in the same place but in a 
waving plume. Both wore necklaces of animal fangs on 
strings. Their only real article of clothing was a 
crotch clout. From their broad belts, decorated with 
cowrie shells, hung pouches, ivory cases, knives with 
fringed sheaths and carved bone handles and the straps 
that held the crotch-length soft boots, also 
embellished with fringes and lines of cowries.

But the most striking thing was not their nakedness or 
their strange outfits but their tattoos. The dark blue 
patterns began at the hairline, changed their faces 
into cruel tiger masks, covered their arms and bodies 
and continued into the tops of their boots. Even the 
nipples of the young one were tattooed. 

The right breast was completely covered by a whirling 
pattern, on the left one the skin shone untouched 
between the starry rosette of the aureole and the 
ornaments of her chest, where birds and beasts seemed 
to be tearing each other to pieces among swirling lines 
and tatters of blue-black ornament. The older one was 
so dark of skin that her patterns were difficult to 
discern.

The impression of unbridled savagery was overwhelming. 
If the rumours were only half true, the impression 
would be correct.

Their horses were shaggy, with long manes and tails. 
The women rode with wooden stirrups and with furs over 
their saddles; when the hand-horse walked past he could 
see the bow in its case by the saddle. They seemed to 
use no other rein than a strap around the lower jaw of 
the horse.

The young one was jerking at the lariat again, pulling 
him to his knees. The horizon was still unsteady, and 
he was not getting enough air. An inner voice told him 
though, very insistently, that he must not make these 
strange women impatient. 

Submissively, he tried to rise, but got only to his 
knees, reeling. Now the woman was holding a leather 
flask. With her other hand she grasped his hair, with 
her teeth she pulled the plug and then she stuck the 
neck of the bottle into his mouth. It was water. It had 
a stale leathery taste, but it was life. He shook his 
head and he regained his feet, reeling. More water? He 
shook his head again, but gratefully, hoping that his 
emotion was showing. What more did he need? Freedom? 
Just keeping alive, perhaps.

The young one mounted her horse. She paid out enough 
lariat so that he could march behind her horse, and 
started out in an easterly direction at a walk. The 
older one brought up the rear with her lance 
nonchalantly balanced across the withers of the horse. 
What could a prisoner do, on foot, his hands tied 
behind his back and towed by his balls? They rode 
slowly, fortunately.

He felt dejected, as if walls had suddenly closed 
around him. He had briefly tasted freedom, and now it 
was gone. The sunlight and the sky had lost their 
sparkle. His limbs felt heavy, and there was a metallic 
taste in his mouth. Was it real, or was it the taste of 
captivity? The water had helped, however. He felt 
stronger, and soon he no longer experienced that 
stinging sensation in his back when he was thinking of 
the lance point. The woman in front kept the strap 
taut, however. 

He trotted along, his eyes fixed on her. They followed 
the back of her head with the tightly gathered hair, 
the slender but strong neck, where the pattern lines of 
her tattoos ran from her cheeks down to the muscular 
back; her shoulders, broad for a woman, her narrow 
waist and curving hips. Her buttocks rested in the 
saddle-fur but her thighs were hidden by the boots. 
Without noticing the change, he was starting to see her 
as a woman, not only as a mounted she-savage. She would 
have been comely without her strange body decoration 
and in proper dress...or completely naked, for that 
matter.

What sort of woman would she be, this being out of a 
tale only half believed, a story out of the plains that 
had given birth to so many legends? Was she a merciless 
killer, or an equally merciless user of male flesh, as 
some would have it...or was there some trace in her of 
humanity (whatever that might mean), or even of 
womanhood as he had known and appreciated it? She would 
not be soft and submissive, of course. Mastering her 
would be like taming a wild animal. Still, in spite of 
her fierceness, she would be good to touch, good to 
bed.

It was perhaps idle thoughts like these; perhaps it was 
the sight of her shameless nakedness, he was used to 
seeing civilized women, well protected from unchaste 
eyes -- or the constant pull of the strap around his 
testicles, but after about one hour's march he had a 
respectable hard-on. When he became aware of it, he was 
terrified: would his guards discover it and be 
offended? On no account did he want to arouse their 
ire, now that he was completely in their power.

He did not escape his fate however. The young one 
looked behind herself, saw his impudent erection and 
reined in her horse. His heartbeat came to a dead stop. 
But a grin cleaved her grotesque mask, and she called 
to her companion, who came up alongside them, thrust 
her lance into the turf, jumped off her horse and stood 
close to him; the corners of her eyes wrinkled merrily. 
Unceremoniously, she gripped his shoulder with one hand 
and his member with the other, while she exchanged 
comments with her companion. 

To his amazement, he felt himself grow even stiffer. 
How could this horse-witch make him horny, in spite of 
the fear that he felt of her (he admitted this to 
himself: when she laid her hand upon him, only his 
stiffness had saved him from pissing out of sheer 
terror). The young horsewoman put a question to the old 
one; the witch laughed and shook her head. She mounted 
her pony again and the caravan moved on. But for a long 
time, the two women continued to crack jokes about him 
and laugh loudly and without restraint, and he could 
only guess at what they were saying.

They travelled slowly and with many pauses while the 
sun drifted west. Near the evening, when the shadows 
were long and the sunlight was an orange glow suffusing 
the world, carrying only a memory of the searing heat 
of the day, the ground began to sink ahead of them and 
look greener. Bushes were growing in denser clumps now, 
and a little later, they became sparse trees; the 
steppe had changed into park-like savanna. 

They were now following a clearly visible track, 
running alongside a skittish little brook bordered by 
green foliage. The track rounded a rocky knoll where 
the boulders seemed to have been shattered like skulls 
by a giant's axe in ages past. Behind it, the brook 
tumbled noisily into a little pond edged by gravel and 
small stones, and there were sheltering walls of stone 
and a hut or rather a windbreak, open to the south, of 
loosely piled rock and with a simple ridged grass roof 
held down by more stones. Here they halted.

The women did not take the trouble to tether him. He 
could not hope to escape anyway, with his arms 
immobilised and without a horse. They busied themselves 
with the horses, which were hobbled with straps around 
their front legs, and then put out to graze on their 
own. The water-skins were filled. The older woman made 
a fire and fetched water in a leather pail. A bronze 
kettle was lifted from its hook under the ridgepole and 
put on the fire.

Now he could have a closer look at them. The young one 
might be twenty or a little more, it was not easy to 
judge the age of a woman of such strange aspect. Her 
skin under the tattoos was olive brown, smooth over 
firm muscles; she was very erect and walked with a 
nonchalant swagger that he had hitherto seen only in 
men and only in the strongest and most self-assured 
among them. 

The older one was even more difficult to assess, but 
she had a few grey hairs in among the black. None of 
them had an ounce of superfluous fat on their bodies, 
but while the young witch was made up entirely of 
muscle, the older one seemed to have been braided, 
knotted and twisted out of bundles of rawhide. Both had 
small, pointed breasts, the young one's firmer, but the 
older woman's were still springy.

What did their faces look like behind their bestial 
masks? His first impression was that they were 
outlandishly ugly. They had slightly sloping foreheads, 
long prominent noses (the older one's boldly hooked), 
high cheekbones, broad mouths and receding chins. In 
the face of the older woman, wind and sun had wrinkled 
the skin around her eyes, and decisiveness and cruelty 
were written around the corners of her mouth. Both of 
them had peculiarly light brown, nearly yellow eyes, 
like animals. But boldness and power shone like an aura 
around them. They moved like lionesses, and suddenly he 
saw that, though abominable, they were beautiful.

The young witch rested her quiver against the saddle, 
by the wall, and without embarrassment she took off 
what little she had on. He tried not to show that he 
was stealing a look. With the aid of her teeth she 
untied the left arm's leather bowstring guard, unhooked 
the bronze buckle of her belt and stepped out of her 
boots. Her tattoos continued down to her toes. Then the 
crotch-clout, and she was naked, apart from the 
necklace. 

Without condescending to give the captive a look, she 
walked into the water-hole up to her hips and washed 
with visible pleasure. When she emerged from the water, 
she shook herself like a wet dog, shedding water in all 
directions while she passed close by her captive. Now 
she stopped and looked at him, covered with sweat and 
dust as he was. Then she smiled inscrutably, but still 
a smile... picked up the strap and led him into the 
water.

It was cool and refreshing; the bottom of gravel and 
stone was firm. She was quite considerate: she made him 
sit down and she washed his face and shoulders; she 
stood him up and rubbed him clean with her hands. Now 
they had the older witch for company, just as naked as 
they were, and she scrubbed his back and behind while 
the young one washed his member and balls carefully. 

She was very close now; while her companion washed, she 
grasped his shoulders and rubbed herself against him. 
Though he was tired and cold, her touch lit a spark of 
lust inside him. Her face was very close to his, but he 
could not bring himself to look into her eyes...perhaps 
he should avoid doing that and try to look completely 
subdued. Instead he looked past her and saw the older 
horsewoman, her arms raised while she gathered her wet 
hair; and to his amazement, she too fanned that spark. 
What could make him lust for women such as these?

Back on dry ground, the red sun was still giving off a 
feeble warmth, but he started to shake. He felt 
desperately tired. They rubbed him dry with a bundle of 
hay, as if he had been a horse, and put a coarsely 
woven riding cloak around him. When his shaking had 
ceased, they stood quietly watching him. The young one 
caught his eye, laid her hand between her breasts and 
said, "Sarissa." Then she indicated her companion and 
gave her a name too, "Atossa."

It was an introduction. Of all the things that had 
happened to him since his capture, nothing had 
reassured him more than this simple act of 
communication. You do not formally introduce yourself 
to somebody you intend to torture to death. He told his 
own name but got shakes of heads and two indulgent 
laughs for an answer. "Ha ha! Androu! Androu!" Were 
males not allowed names in their world?

They rested around the fire. He was beginning to feel 
warm again, and more at ease. Slowly, strength was 
returning to him. The women, who had dressed again (if 
one may call it that) gave him to drink and fed him 
strips of dried meat, boiled with herbs. His arms were 
still tied very uncomfortably together and they had not 
taken the trouble to remove the bag-strap either, but 
the fire gave comfort, the sight of female bodies was 
somehow comforting too, and the behaviour of the two 
women was not in the least alarming. 

Sarissa and Atossa talked softly between them; now and 
then they glanced at him with a mischievous look in 
their faces. By and by, they grew exhilarated. They 
laughed between them, sat down on both sides of him and 
pushed him over, felt and squeezed him.

Soon, they were caressing him. He was resting in an 
uncomfortable position, his back arched and his hips 
high as his arms were tied under him. Still, he felt it 
prudent to accept this. The two women set to work in 
earnest. They were good, even the young Sarissa seemed 
to know exactly how to make a male randy. An 
unreasonable but uncontrollable fear of what their 
hands would do to him, when they got down to business, 
possessed him at first. 

When finally this fear had abated, his real excitement 
began. He banished all thought of what would become of 
him and thought of the present only. He groaned with 
pleasure while Sarissa pulled the skin of his member up 
and down. Atossa tickled, pulled, wrenched, pinched and 
bit his nipples. She hurt him, but curiously enough, 
the pain increased his randiness instead of quenching 
it. They both observed him carefully: obviously, they 
did not want to lose control of him.

Atossa departed but returned with an oblong object made 
out of horn, in the shape of a thick male organ. He 
looked at it in dumb horror. He had begun to expect a 
pleasant night; had he misjudged the situation 
completely? Gesturing at their knifes, the women had 
him lie face down across Atossa's saddle. 

He knew better than trying to resist; after all, 
torture and death were not quite the same thing. 
Torture could be worse than death itself: he had seen 
this himself, and this fact was the very foundation of 
Lord En-Tor's rule. But it could also be a temporary 
horror, possible to survive. Atossa gave him a last 
shove, and then she put the tip of the unspeakable 
instrument to his anus. Then, slowly but inexorably she 
pushed the rod into him, impaling him. 

It hurt him, but he would not reward them with more 
than a groan, in spite of his fear. This seemed to be 
all that they required, however. Atossa pushed and 
turned the tool; when he felt it moving inside him, a 
warm sensation spread across his crotch and reached his 
sex in spite of the pain. Again, his member stiffened.

But his suspicion was aroused again when Sarissa 
hammered down four tethering stakes into the floor of 
the hut with a stone maul. Now they released his arms, 
but Atossa stood erect with her hand on the knife: no, 
he was not going to provoke her. Moving clumsily 
because of the rod, he suffered Sarissa to turn him on 
his back and tie his wrists to two of the stakes, then 
his ankles to the other two. The straps were pulled 
taut, and he was utterly helpless. He was telling 
himself again and again that nothing in their behaviour 
threatened actual death or mutilation, at least he 
tried to convince himself that it was so. 

Fear and excitement were struggling for his attention; 
excitement won. Then the two witches started their game 
anew. They threw off their crotch- clouts and were 
naked again, except for their belts and boots. They 
met, kissed avidly, sucked each other's breasts and 
stuck their hands into each other's sex in a rising 
fury. Panting, they rubbed their bodies against each 
other. 

Nothing had prepared him to believe that these women 
would actually make love to each other. With the usual 
smugness of the male, he had believed and nothing in 
the tales of the plains had suggested otherwise, that 
the horsewomen had to rely on males exclusively for 
their sexual pleasure. That this was not so was a 
deeply disturbing thought, but at least, they did seem 
interested in him in his capacity as a male. He was so 
fascinated with the spectacle of the two furies in 
front of him that the thought never occurred to him 
that his virility might desert him.

Finally, Atossa disengaged; she crawled all over her 
prisoner, straddled him and rubbed him with her wet 
vulva. Soon she was sitting on his face, and his mouth 
and nose were enclosed by her labia. She had a wild 
smell in spite of her bath. He saw her body in a 
grotesque but exciting perspective, the demon-like face 
looking down on him between the jutting breasts, and 
then she changed her position so that she was facing 
down his body. 

She pulled roughly at his nipples, and, half 
suffocated, he felt Sarissa sitting astride himself, 
burying her nails in his scrotum and member. He 
whimpered. His signs of pain seemed to increase their 
excitement. Atossa rose, and he saw Sarissa's dancing 
body and narrow, slanting eyes in the flickering light 
of the fire.

Atossa returned a second time. Horrified, he saw the 
two long, coarse skewers in her hand. He scarcely 
noticed that Sarissa raised herself and guided the tip 
of his member into her body. Again, Atossa's sex was 
all over him. They rode him unmercifully, and now he 
was aware that he was inside Sarissa and pleasure was 
rising like pain inside him. But there was real pain, 
too: she was coming down hard on his balls every time 
she rode down on him.

He was close, and they noticed it. 

This was when Atossa grasped his right nipple, pulled 
it savagely and thrust one of the skewers through the 
aureole. The pain was a shock that ran through his 
entire body. He screamed without restraint into her 
sex. The witches exulted and Sarissa took the gallop. 
Atossa pierced the other nipple while her dripping wet 
vulva suffocated his screaming and he came, unable to 
sort out the pleasure from the pain; Sarissa gave a 
cry. They collapsed on top of him while the jerking of 
his body slowly died away.

They were strangely gentle afterwards. Atossa was lying 
with her arm around him, panting, Sarissa was rubbing 
her face against his. But they would not set him free: 
that night, he had to sleep with his arms still tied to 
the stakes, and with both the rod and the skewers in 
place. 

His last thought, before his soul began its night-walk, 
was that a repetition of this evening's experiences was 
an idea too horrible to contemplate; but at the same 
time, he knew that he desired these two women so much 
that he would soon be willing to face the music again, 
just in order to earn their attentions.

***

Next morning, they continued their march, now with 
Atossa leading; she rode leaning back and swaying in 
the saddle; occasionally, both of them sang. His arms 
were still tied behind his back and Atossa was holding 
the lariat, but they had at least pulled the rod out of 
his ass-hole (and he had been made to wash it, of 
course, his anus still searing with the memory of it). 

Sarissa rode next to him when the ground permitted it, 
and once or twice she looked down and smiled at him. 
But the two skewers remained where Atossa had pierced 
him, and they were spreading a dull pain which changed 
into a sting whenever he moved his shoulders. He was 
still afraid of the two horsewomen, but for a different 
reason: now he feared their caresses, not their knives.

At noon, Sarissa reined in her horse, gazed at the 
horizon and exchanged a few words with Atossa, who 
nodded and urged her prisoner on again. But Sarissa 
trotted north and disappeared. Atossa walked him toward 
a shady umbrella-tree nearby, one that he had already 
cast longing eyes at for a while. Here they paused. The 
witch spread her cloak on the ground and he was allowed 
to lie down. The horse was free to graze, but soon it 
too withdrew into the shade. 

Around them, the grasslands quivered and danced with 
the heat. Atossa's mind seemed to have mellowed; she 
gave the prisoner water and felt his arms which were 
swollen around the straps. She thought for a moment. 
Then she tied his ankles together, freed his arms and 
pulled them up above his head. At first he thought that 
she would fetter him the same way as the previous 
evening, and to the same purpose, and for a moment, he 
was simultaneously scared and expectant; but she tied 
his wrists around the trunk of a sapling that grew 
close to the large tree, and then she untied the strap 
around his ankles again. 

Relieved, he understood her intention: she wanted to 
keep him under total control while she rested, but at 
the same time, she would give him a chance to 
recuperate. The new position was a relief to his aching 
shoulders. She went as far as unknotting the strap 
around his scrotum that he had worn for a day and a 
night now without respite. He felt a sting of lust, 
together with the crawling sensation of the blood that 
circulated freely again, but Atossa was businesslike 
and quick and it was soon over.

Now she bent over him and examined his nipples, still 
pierced by the two skewers. She grunted and fetched a 
box that contained a salve with a strong smell of 
herbs; she put on a little of it with her finger on 
each nipple. It hurt, but he kept a straight face. She 
clearly wanted to help and heal him, not torture him. 
And strangely enough, her touch awakened a vivid memory 
of the past night, and not only of the pain and the 
terror but also of the lust and the pleasure, which now 
seemed to him the greater and more important memory.

Involuntarily, he sighed. Atossa pricked up her ears. 
She regarded him for a while and this time he returned 
her gaze, looking straight into her yellow eyes. Not a 
muscle moved in her face. Then she laid herself down by 
his side and grasped his member. Gradually, it 
stiffened under her fingers. She squeezed, and then she 
began to caress him slowly. She took her time, lots of 
time. But when, after what seemed an eternity, his 
breath grew irregular, she pressed her nails into his 
rod and slapped it with her palm. 

She saw him grimace and she smiled a she-wolf smile, 
but her eyes were more amused than cruel. She gripped 
his testicles and squeezed them, but now he had 
gathered his wits and he did not show any fear. Atossa 
looked searchingly at him; then she rested again, still 
with his bag in a firm grip. He wished she would caress 
him again, but she did not. 

After a while, his excitement and his erection receded. 
Still, they were resting quietly, looking into each 
other's eyes when Sarissa returned much later with a 
little grass antelope slung in front of her saddle.

Again, the two women made a fire with a stone and a 
piece of steel out of Atossa's belt pouch. The meat was 
grilled and eaten, and the captive too was fed. When 
the sun moved west, they continued through the heat and 
the blinding light. Atossa was her harsh self again, 
but the memory of her unexpected charity remained. She 
was human after all. She could even be tender. 

His arms were tied behind his back again, but by his 
wrists now, and he was better able to move his 
shoulders. But he was still treated very 
unceremoniously. After a while, his bladder began to 
trouble him, but he dared not try to make the women 
halt. When the urge grew so strong that he could not 
restrain himself but began to urinate, writhing 
inwardly with shame, he had to continue to do so while 
walking. But when the women understood that he had to 
ease himself more, they stopped and had him squat in 
the high grass.

***

That night they slept in the open, under another 
umbrella-tree, warmed by a dying fire and by each 
other. Atossa shared her cloak with him. She seemed 
interested in his welfare, even protective. He had 
wondered, half scared and half expectant, if they would 
amuse themselves by playing with him again, but they 
seemed to be completely sated. He rested for a while, 
listening to the deafening night concert of the grass 
and tree creatures and the sound of the wind in the 
high crown of the tree, but at last he slept. What his 
spirit did that night, he did not know.

He woke up with a hard-on, and again, he felt Atossa's 
hand around his member while he disentangled himself 
from his night thoughts. But that was all, and after a 
quick and frugal breakfast, they continued their way. 
They marched for most of the morning, rested without 
eating, but also without tying him up, and continued. 
The ache and the swelling around the skewers were 
subsiding, but he wondered how long the march would be, 
and how many days he would spend walking on a leash.

Still, it was with some trepidation that he saw Sarissa 
halt on the crest of a ridge and understood that this 
was the end of the voyage. Below, a watercourse 
zigzagged through a nearly dry bed...months had passed 
since the great rains. Beyond it was a cluster of brown 
tents. Smoke rose, dogs barked, horsed moved on the 
slope beyond the camp.

Atossa rose in her stirrups and gave a call that seemed 
to turn somersaults in her throat. Human figures stood 
up and emerged from the tents, and the call came back, 
faint because of the distance. They continued down the 
slope, crossed the brook where the water felt tepid 
around his ankles, and the march was over. 


CHAPTER 2: THE CAMP
-------------------

They struggled up from the bed of the brook, he with a 
real effort. Women, girls and hags gathered around them 
as they entered among the tents. The women of the camp 
greeted Sarissa and Atossa with embraces. One of them, 
a girl of fifteen or sixteen, showed more emotion than 
the others; she reached out and touched Atossa briefly 
and the woman spoke softly to her in passing. All the 
onlookers were very curious about the prisoner; the 
skewers gave rise to lively comment. A few hands 
reached out and touched him, but Atossa growled and the 
fingering ceased abruptly.

He observed the horsewomen intently but fearful of 
appearing to ogle them. The young girls were still not 
tattooed and fairly light of complexion; they went 
completely naked except for some kind of charm on a 
narrow string around their necks. The adult women were 
much like the ones he already knew. Here around camp, 
they did not wear boots however, but half-high 
moccasins. 

It struck him suddenly that the difference in looks 
between Sarissa and Atossa was not simply caused by the 
difference of age: young or old, all the horsewomen he 
could see belonged to two obvious groups, one that 
mostly looked like Atossa and one that had more in 
common with Sarissa. 

The two groups had differently patterned tattoos, too; 
but what all this might mean he did not know, and he 
was not of a mind to be bothered about that just now. 
The hags were incredibly wrinkled and weather beaten, 
but straight and proud; their teeth were remarkably 
sound, though yellowed like animal tusks. But in their 
eyes, he discerned a glint of cruelty that worried him.

It gave him a nasty shock to discover that a discussion 
had broken out, and that he was the subject. Some of 
the women made gestures that could not be 
misunderstood, one or two even had their knives out. 
They were looking forward to entertainment, and one of 
them became quite insistent. But Sarissa and Atossa 
stood their ground. Especially the older woman spoke 
forcefully and with authority. 

In order to underline her point, she pulled the 
prisoner forward by the bag-strap (it had been put on 
again early that morning), squeezed his arm muscles, 
slapped his buttocks and finished by pulling his 
member. She raised her palms, quite a distance from 
each other, and there was general laughter. He did not 
bother to produce more than a tired grimace of a smile. 
But one of the women...he knew not which of 
them...cried aloud, fallou, fallou! And though he did 
not know it then, this was to become his slave-name.

Now one of the oldest hags spoke up. She seemed to be a 
person of authority, though she wore no outer sign of 
it. Everyone listened respectfully, and when she was 
finished, all nodded assent and indicated that they had 
accepted her verdict. Atossa and Sarissa looked 
relieved. He felt gratitude mingled with a strange 
warmth. They had defended him, energetically and 
successfully, and that old witch had saved him. When he 
had time to think of just what she had saved him from, 
he felt sick and his knees trembled.

He got no time to nurse his fear. Now he was marched 
toward of one of the tents. His owners...obviously he 
had to call them that...had a lively conversation with 
one or two of the other women; some of them were 
looking appreciatively at him, whispering between them. 
The recent decision was clearly not unpopular. Dogs ran 
after them and they sniffed him suspiciously. Now he 
also saw two or three males that stared back at him. 
One was a boy that had not yet reached puberty, the 
others were grown men. 

They looked sleek and healthy enough, but they seemed 
shy and they kept meekly out of the way of the women, 
who ignored them. Except for the boy, they wore thin 
golden rings through their nipples; so this was why 
Atossa had pierced him! One of the males stepped 
clumsily aside, and he wore leg-irons, riveted in place 
with a short chain joining them; leather rags around 
his ankles protected them from chafing. Had he done 
something improper to deserve this punishment? Or was 
this just an example of wanton cruelty?

Bending over, the prisoner entered the tent they had 
led him to. His eyes, blinded by the strong noonday 
light, perceived at first only a darkness inside. There 
was a smell of sun-scorched canvas and hay. Stumbling, 
he was brought to a resting-place and pushed down on 
it; furs tickled his skin. At last the strap around his 
sex was removed, but he was not relieved of the one 
around his wrists. Atossa spoke sternly to him, and he 
understood that he must remain here. Then he was left 
alone.

For a moment, he thought of escape. But he knew too 
little about his situation and its possibilities as 
yet, and his back-bound hands were a difficult obstacle 
anyway. Later, he would think that he had abandoned his 
escape plans with suspicious haste. 

Now when he knew that he would live and that the 
rumours had told the truth about the horsewomen's use 
of their man-slaves, the need to escape did not seem so 
urgent any more. Anyway, he would be safe from En-Tor 
here. He made himself as comfortable as possible and 
reclined, listening to the sounds outside, the yelping 
of dogs, the clanking of metal vessels, voices, someone 
who was cutting firewood and a horse neighing in the 
far distance.

The darkness lifted by and by and he could take a look 
around. The tent was furnished with furs, painted iron-
bound travelling chests and variegated textiles from 
the coast peoples. Ornate fittings of iron and bronze 
and a hanging lamp of brass indicated a certain 
prosperity. He sighed and tried to doze. He did not 
dare sleep, and he was too excited anyway.

His solitude did not continue for long. The entrance 
darkened and a girl entered and squatted down beside 
him. She would be twelve or thirteen, and though her 
lack of tattoos indicated that she had not yet been 
taken into the circle of women, she had several animal 
teeth in her necklace. She looked faintly like Sarissa, 
a very young Sarissa. The girl scrutinized him without 
embarrassment for some time, and then she started a 
lively but for the moment somewhat one-sided 
conversation.

Her name was Niki. Like Atossa and Sarissa, she was not 
the least interested in his name, but she ferreted out 
where he came from. As far as he could understand, she 
was the daughter of someone called Lykomaki. Then she 
began teaching him the names of various body parts, and 
she laughed with a gleam of white teeth when he made a 
fool of himself. After some time she tired of the 
language lesson, fell silent and regarded him 
pensively. She felt the skewers. 

He did not dare show that she was hurting him: that 
might have led her thoughts in the wrong direction. The 
children were probably no less savage than the adults. 
Come to think of it, children were often more cruel 
than adults. She moved her attention to his sex and she 
took a hard grip on his member. He did not dare but let 
her have her way; that much did he understand, that he 
had no will of his own anymore, and that every 
horsewoman must be obeyed.

Still, he worried. What would happen if they were 
discovered? The girl was not sexually mature, and he 
belonged to Atossa and Sarissa anyway (mostly to 
Sarissa, he hoped). What if one of them returned? 
Slaves were usually punished for the wrongdoing of the 
freemen, and he understood that his position in the 
Sisterhood was still insecure. But he could not stop 
himself from growing randy, and from showing it.

Niki grew noticeably interested. She was obviously 
enjoying the impression she was making on him. At the 
same time, she was showing signs of excitement herself. 
That children too are erotic beings was an insight that 
was suppressed among his own people, but the years at 
En-Tor's court had disabused him of his innocence, and 
he was not surprised now. His apprehension increased, 
however. What was this girl-child going to do with him?

She sat astride him. But surely she would not... But 
she contented herself with rubbing her hairless vulva 
against the underside of his member. She looked down on 
him with moist eyes and panting, half-open mouth. His 
back-bound hands made his position very uncomfortable, 
still he found himself moving his hips rhythmically. 

Soon he had to concentrate on not letting his rising 
excitement run away with him. Now Niki leant over him 
and presented her nipples; she had no breasts yet. He 
kissed them obediently, and when she pressed herself 
against him he sucked them cautiously. Slowly, the 
pleasure ache receded in his abandoned sex. Her panting 
increased. She rose, and for a moment she was standing 
on all fours over him.

He knew beforehand what she would do. She sat down on 
his face and pressed her sex against his mouth. This 
was only the second time in his life that he had been 
forced to do the cunnilingus (at En-Tor's house, where 
women were objects of pleasure, fellatio was the thing) 
but he responded bravely. The sooner the girl was 
satisfied and left him alone, the better. But as he 
could concentrate on the act this time, he learnt more. 

Niki showed him clearly what she wanted and what she 
enjoyed. He kissed her clitoris, ran his tongue along 
her smooth labia and stuck it into the opening of her 
tight little vagina to the accompaniment of her 
encouraging squeaks and gasps. She tasted of salt; she 
must have urinated since she bathed last. All the time 
she kept a hard grip on his hair. At last she came. She 
jerked convulsively and she fell forward. This was 
exactly the moment when he discovered that Atossa was 
in the tent. His heart froze.

Niki looked ashamed. Where Atossa was standing, dark 
against the light from the tent door, he could not see 
her countenance. He sent her a pleading glance. But she 
gave her attention mostly to Niki. She spoke to the 
girl with a sternness which the listening slave 
suddenly discovered to be feigned. The child was sent 
out of the tent with a slap, and Atossa stood above 
him, looking down at him.

He was not punished. Instead, she leaned down and 
smoothed his hair, tousled by Niki. She regarded him 
for a moment; her face was immobile but she breathed 
heavily. Then she untied her breech-clout and took the 
girl's place. Without demur, he started all over again. 
By the bones of Hurri, he thought, I do hope they do 
not prefer this kind of pleasure all of them all the 
time!

But Atossa withdrew before reaching her climax. She 
left him after releasing his hands. He did not think of 
escape anymore, and she seemed to understand it. That 
evening he rested very quietly on a thin bed near the 
opening of the tent, covered head to toe with a black 
sheet which he did not dare throw off; but he heard how 
the two women made love long and intensely. Atossa 
cried out aloud from the crest of her ecstasy. Then the 
two rested together for some time, talking. They seemed 
to have forgotten him, and finally he went to sleep, 
still under the sheet. 

He woke up in the middle of the night, half suffocated 
and sweating, and pushed it away. The moon was up, and 
in the faint light that reached the interior of the 
tent, he could barely make out the sleeping figures of 
Sarissa and Atossa. The older woman's arm was thrown 
across the shoulders of her lover. He rested long, 
looking at them, without being able to untangle his 
emotions; but at last he went to sleep again and slept 
like dead until the morning.

Thus began his life among the horsewomen. His two 
owners kept him under strict surveillance, and he was 
constantly in their company, except when one of them 
was out hunting. Now and then, the two women were 
briefly joined by the very young but fully tattooed 
girl who had greeted Atossa with such affection on her 
arrival back in camp. And he gathered that she was 
Atossa's daughter, and that Halanna was her name, but 
where in the camp she lived and with whom he did not 
know. She visited her mother in her tent occasionally, 
but obviously she slept somewhere else.

His early weeks in the camp shaped up into something 
that he soon understood to be a kind of obedience 
training. He was constantly in the presence of one or 
both of his mistresses, and gradually, his entire 
conscious mind came to be centred on them. Never was he 
left to his own devices; instead, the two women were 
constantly forcing their will on him, and with less and 
less effort. This did not mean that their demands on 
him grew less. 

He was not only required to attend his mistresses and 
do chores such as fetching water and grinding grain, 
but was also burdened with tasks that were unpleasant 
and seemingly meaningless, such as being led, on a 
leash and on all fours like a dog, around the camp 
among amused women and giggling little girls, or lying 
immobile on his back on sharp stones.

Staring into the deep blue sky, he more sensed than saw 
his surroundings. The stones soon grew painful, digging 
into his back, but he was also uncomfortable because of 
the way his back was arched and his head was slumped 
down on the other side of the heap. 

His legs were slightly parted and his arms were thrown 
out to the sides; he did not dare move a finger, for 
Sarissa was standing guard, and she looked implacable. 
To his annoyance, he had an erection, and, again to his 
annoyance, both Sarissa and three or four other women 
noticed it. Damn it, why did these things stimulate 
him? He was not born a slave. 

Submission should not come natural to him, even less be 
pleasurable. But the fact was incontrovertible: he did 
enjoy it. Yes, he did enjoy it even though the stones 
were hurting him like hell, for he knew that this was 
part of the whole, of his entire relationship with 
these two women, and that relationship revolved around 
the moments of closeness and pleasure he experienced 
with them, in spite of the fact that they did not grant 
him sexual release. His celibacy was a mortification of 
the body, not of the soul.

It dawned on him that Atossa's methods (for it was 
mostly she that handled the dressage) were subtle 
enough. The obvious uselessness of the things they 
forced him to do made obedience itself the main object. 
And he obeyed. Attentively, he tried to read the 
gestures, faces and words of his two owners. His reward 
was that they encouraged him more and more often. 

He frequently gave them pleasure with lips and tongue, 
but he was always himself denied it, and his pent-up 
desire for the two women grew constantly. But this too 
was clearly part of Atossa's intentions. His fantasies 
about what he would do to them, given a chance, changed 
with time into expectation mixed with fear of what they 
would do to him next. He knew that he was not just any 
slave. He was a manslave, a tongue-slave and a penis-
slave, and the power and the glory of his two 
mistresses was his also. 

If they had tried to whip him into submission, he would 
have resisted or at least thought of escape, but games 
like these were something else, and he felt himself 
slowly being drawn into an implicit understanding with 
the two. The games were his too to play, and he played 
them. As long as Atossa and Sarissa continued to play 
by these rules, he would stay with them.

Already the day after his arrival in the camp, he had 
been pushed down on his back and tied, and then Atossa 
had pulled out the skewers. She had replaced them with 
short studs. It hurt and some blood came, but he was 
still relieved. The skewers had been far more 
inconvenient. His nipples healed rapidly around the 
studs, helped by Atossa's salve, and they were now 
permanently pierced.

He ate the same food as the women. By this time of the 
year it was frugal but satisfactory, consisting mostly 
of wild herbs, roots and seeds, with some dried meat or 
pemmican. He knew enough about the grasslands to 
understand that the game had dispersed over enormous 
areas now at the end of the dry season, and that large-
scale hunting was impossible. 

Groups of women went out every morning to gather 
foodstuffs, each accompanied by one or several man-
slaves. Even the chained man was relieved of his leg-
irons in order to participate in the labour. The 
threatening behaviour of the women made it clear that 
the prisoner had made an attempt at escape, had been 
captured and had been forced to wear irons as a 
punishment.

He was himself taken out to forage several times. He 
was kept to hard work, but Sarissa and Niki taught him 
to recognize and name many edible plants. But he was 
frequently left in camp while his two owners were out 
hunting. The first time this happened, they led him to 
a stake in the centre of the camp and tied him to it so 
thoroughly that he could not move a hand. Chest and 
hips, arms and legs were bound separately with 
crisscrossing straps. 

He was terrified though he did not dare show it; he 
thought that the women had changed their minds and 
would kill him slowly for their own entertainment, as 
was notoriously the habit of these people. His relief 
was great when Sarissa patted his cheek and rubbed her 
face against his before leaving him. Obviously, this 
was just-- just... part of the training he was 
undergoing.

Several other women had looked on with interest from a 
distance, but they left him alone for the moment. The 
straps were firmly but not brutally tightened, and 
apart from the burning sunshine, which had already 
tanned his constantly naked body a dark brown, standing 
at the stake was no great suffering. After some hours 
though, his immobility was growing intolerable, and he 
smiled again inwardly when he understood the cunning of 
the women. 

No pain, no threats and no excitement drew his 
attention away from the bonds themselves, which were 
instead constantly present in his consciousness and 
underlined his helplessness. He longed for the return 
of the two women, and he found himself hoping that they 
would use their hands on him before releasing him. 

The sexual fantasies which were now occupying all of 
his free time and which the combination of celibacy and 
constant stimulation made ever more torrid, had 
actually grown more and more cruel too. His experiences 
made it difficult for him to imagine himself as the 
active party in a love-game with Sarissa (not to speak 
of the savage Atossa). Being used by them meant being 
raped by them, and they would give him pain as a matter 
of course. He did not fear it. Well, not too much, 
anyway.

He was dwelling on thoughts like these when he 
discovered that two other women were looking at him. 
They saw that he had an incipient erection...he had not 
himself been aware of it until then and they smiled 
sardonically. They were Niki's mother Lykomaki and an 
old woman called Timesse. Both had been among the women 
who had demanded to be allowed to torture him; he hoped 
that his fear did not show.

But this was obviously not the kind of entertainment 
they had in mind.

They felt his straps and then they let their hands 
slide across his body. They continued by rubbing 
themselves against him with increasing excitement. Half 
against his will, he felt his own mounting randiness. 
Lykomaki clutched the skin at the back of his neck with 
one hand, and with the other she gripped his member. 
Her nails bored into its soft underside.

Timesse put her claws into his bag and squeezed his 
testicles. She increased the pressure slowly. Lykomaki 
massaged him brutally, but the pleasure was 
counteracted by the increasing pain from the balls. 
Finally, he had to groan. They squeezed with all their 
might, their eyes shining with lust. He barely kept 
himself from screaming, but his pain was there 
nevertheless for them to enjoy. Then they drew away. 
The pain died away, but he felt sick. He felt no 
pleasure anymore, and he understood that he had lost 
his hard-on. Niki stood at a distance, looking 
delighted.

Timesse departed and was away for some time. Lykomaki's 
hands were soft again, and slowly he regained his 
virility. She made reassuring sounds and he managed a 
smile. He would do well to ingratiate himself with 
these two women! When Timesse returned, she was 
carrying a long, soft thorn-vine. She knotted the large 
end around his sex. 

Handling the vine with heavy palm-gloves, she wound it 
as tightly as she could, turn after turn, around the 
bag and his member, while Lykomaki egged her on. The 
thorns stung and burned his skin. The thin end of the 
vine Timesse tied carefully around the tip of his 
penis; his foreskin had been pulled back as far as it 
would go.

It hurt like the very devil. All living and moving 
things of the grasslands avoided the thornvine with its 
thousands of sharp needles. Timesse and Lykomaki 
stepped back, cocked their heads and enjoyed the 
effect, cackling merrily. Then they departed, their 
arms around each other's shoulders.

Niki remained. With his eyes and with pleading sounds 
he tried to move her to relieve him of the vine, but 
without success. She was too obviously delighted with 
the experiment and was in no mood to interrupt it. 
Instead, she came up and tested the vine by pulling it. 
His pain increased and he grimaced. Niki found this a 
wonderful new game. 

She pushed a stick under the vine and twisted; while 
doing it, she looked at him attentively in order to 
ascertain his reaction. He begged her to stop it. She 
did not understand what he was saying, of course, but 
she understood very well what he wanted to say, and his 
entreaties had rather the opposite effect of the 
intended one.

At last she tired of the game, let go of the stick and 
skipped away, clearly thinking of something entirely 
different. His eyes followed her. In spite of her 
childishness, she was entirely a horsewoman, and a 
sexual being; he wondered what she would be like in a 
year or two? In spite of the pain, or perhaps because 
of it, he was now nearly desperately randy. He actually 
found himself wishing that Niki would come back to him, 
or even her mother.

Nobody else took pity on him. The women that walked 
past looked at him and smiled but did not come to his 
aid. He remained standing thus the whole afternoon; 
slowly, the acute pain changed into an ache that with 
time became intolerable, mostly because he could do 
absolutely nothing about it. Very clever of them! 

He invented complicated forms of revenge: the two hags 
themselves deserved to be tied with thornvines around 
their crotch and breasts (Lykomaki was only Atossa's 
age and attractive in her way, but for the moment he 
had no eye for her advantages). His owners returned at 
last, but they just laughed at him. They did release 
him from the stake after quite some time, but they 
prohibited him with threatening grimaces from touching 
his sex.

He had to wear the damn vine until nightfall. He was 
still wearing it when Atossa pushed him over on his 
face and impaled him on the horn-member again. This was 
nearly too much. The training in self-restraint that 
the women had given him, perhaps unintentionally, 
helped him to endure in stoic silence however, which 
obviously made some impression on his owners. They 
played with him speaking with mild voices, and their 
hands were tender.

They pushed him over on his back after a while and 
bound him in the same way as that first evening, when 
they had just captured him. He suspected that he would 
now collect the reward for his obedience. Again the 
women caressed each other, and he could now look at 
them with as little shame as they were showing 
themselves; he had learnt to accept that the 
horsewomen, all of them and not only Atossa and 
Sarissa, lived in loving relationships which were both 
intense and lasting. Their use of males seemed to be an 
entirely different matter; males were tools of their 
physical lust only (a fact which did not exclude an 
attachment of the kind we feel for pets).

It was Sarissa's turn to be served by his tongue. While 
Atossa was ridding him of the vine at last, Sarissa sat 
astride his face. In the dim light he saw her supple 
body above himself in a violently foreshortened 
perspective, which was at the same time peculiarly 
attractive; he wished intensively that he would have 
been able to caress her with his hands. She took her 
time, and Atossa was now relieving the stinging 
sensation in his member by holding it in her warm hand. 

Sarissa seemed several times to be balancing on the 
brink of orgasm, only to retreat from it again. When 
she came at last, with the tongue of her slave pushed 
as far inside her vagina as he was capable of, he felt 
a curious satisfaction, the cause of which he was 
unable to understand rightly; for his own lust was 
still a torture inside him.

Sarissa dismounted, still panting. It was Atossa, not 
him that she kissed gratefully, but he was nevertheless 
given a smile and an appreciative smoothing of his 
hair. Now it was Atossa who sat across his hips and 
looked searchingly at him.

What would she do with him? The last time around, she 
had caused him the most cruel suffering he had yet 
experienced, more cruel (though not more brutal) than 
any that he had expected from the minions of En-Tor, 
and still his member was stiffer than ever. But Atossa 
grasped it, and it slid slowly into her while she let 
herself sink downward.

He froze. The initial sensation of penetration was 
intensive, and he felt as if his own member was being 
pierced lengthwise. His eyes half closed and his face 
stiffened. Atossa seemed herself to notice his 
situation; the tattooed body of the she-savage, the 
face with the burning eyes, the waving plume of 
hair...she did not wear it in a bun today... all was 
still. Then she came down carefully in position on top 
of him.

She was quiet for a long time before she began to move 
like a reptile on top his body. Her face was only a 
couple of inches above his. Again his lust was rising 
in him. He raised his hips and met her, and his 
maltreated member ached inside her. He had to get a 
grip on himself, he had to continue to be useful to her 
until she came. 

He closed his eyes, for the sight of her face was 
making him lose control of himself, and as a diversion, 
he tried to recall to his memory the details of her 
back tattoos, but he found to his horror that the very 
thought of her backside was stimulating him; he began 
counting the horses of the Sisterhood instead. Atossa 
seemed to sense his predicament and reined herself in 
again.

The ecstasy subsided, changed its countenance and was 
transformed from a threat into pleasure. Now he felt 
that he could let himself be fucked forever without 
losing either his self-control or his ability.

He moved his hips, and the muscular female body on top 
of him responded rhythmically. Atossa was still 
piercing him with her eyes. In a state of intensive 
concentration, he felt his pleasure slowly intensifying 
and approaching the threshold of pain. 

Atossa noticed it too and quickened her pace. She 
gripped his shoulders mercilessly, and her breath came 
in bursts from her throat while she threw herself 
violently up and down as if she were trying to tear his 
member off his body. His anus contracted in cramps 
around the tool that had penetrated it. The horsewoman 
cried out like a bird of prey. He came. After weeks of 
abstinence, the orgasm was so brutal that it hurt 
physically; for a moment he thought that Atossa had 
harmed him.

She remained long on top of him, warm and heavy, until 
she had calmed down. Then she raised her head again and 
looked at him, until she rolled away and left him. When 
they freed him much later, he was granted an unexampled 
privilege: he was permitted to sleep by the feet of the 
two women.

There was no doubt that he belonged to Atossa and 
Sarissa (mostly to Atossa, and now he found this quite 
natural and even right). But it soon dawned upon him 
that this ownership was more of a prior claim than a 
monopoly. It was obvious that they had no exclusive 
rights to him, and they in turn found it natural that 
he had to serve nearly every postpubertal woman of the 
Sisterhood, one after the other, from half-grown girls 
of fifteen to wrinkled witches with breasts like pieces 
of leather. Atossa's and Sarissa's permission was 
always sought, but clearly only as a matter of form; 
the permission was always given.

Without exception he had to lie bound on his back while 
the women rode him. Several of them kept their knives 
hanging between their breasts during the ride, some 
wore their whips wound and knotted around their waists; 
but there was no need to chastise him and they all 
seemed to find him satisfactory. 

Remarkably enough, Lykomaki gave him one of his most 
satisfying experiences, and he wondered after it if the 
memory of the pain she had given him, and his fear of 
her, had not contributed. He had worried about his 
ability to be useful to the old witches, but was soon 
relieved of his fear. They preferred to make their 
rides at night, in the darkness of their tents, and in 
its cover their vitality and their clever hands made 
him forget their looks.

Afterwards, it was the common experience he remembered, 
and he was beginning to see their bodies as the worn 
sheaths of powerful, fascinating personalities. It was 
nevertheless these women who, next to the very young 
girls, showed the least consideration of his own 
feelings, and they often left him physically un-
released. No matter. To be allowed to satisfy them, and 
to receive proof that they were pleased with him in 
their reserved way, was a distinction. He found himself 
admiring these old women, queenly like greying old 
lionesses and the unquestioned mothers and leaders of 
their pride.

He found the girls touching like pups. Among the most 
interesting was Aryana, Hakki's daughter. She was still 
light of skin under her tattoos, which she must have 
received recently, just like Halanna; she was clearly 
proud of them and of her position as a full horsewoman. 
She was deliberately hard on her prisoner... she was 
actually the only one to deliberately give him pain. 

She had given him several lashes with a short scourge, 
while standing astride him on her knees. But he 
suspected that she had held herself back, that she 
wished to be a merciless and cruel brave, and again and 
again, the hard mask fell away momentarily and afforded 
him glimpses of another Aryana, merry and girlishly 
tender. He often found himself thinking of Niki.

Was this what she was going to be? He remembered the 
vine and how she had tightened it around his sex, and 
he thought, no; but then he saw her in his mind 
visiting him in the tent, on his first day in camp, and 
changed his opinion. 


CHAPTER 3: WINTER
-----------------

They tied his hands behind his back, not cruelly but in 
a matter-of-fact way, just to keep him under control, 
and marched him to Ariti, the smith. She had her little 
portable forge going and she was clearly expecting 
them. Sarissa offered to work the bellows. They made 
him kneel before the little anvil, and then Atossa 
carefully removed the studs from his pierced nipples, 
which had healed completely now. 

She handed the studs to Ariti, who had obviously lent 
them to her. Instead, rings of red gold were pushed 
through the holes, and he wisely kept as immobile as he 
could while Ariti bent the ends of each ring so that 
they overlapped, fished out a red-hot little rivet from 
the charcoal-fired forge and joined the ends together. 

She repeated the procedure with the second ring, and he 
was truly a horsewoman's slave.

He was told to stand up, and obeyed (he understood 
enough of the language now to know what his owners 
expected of him). Both Sarissa and Atossa felt the 
rings and looked very pleased. Atossa looked him 
straight in the eye while she twisted the rings gently, 
testing his reaction. He was not afraid of what she 
would do, and she sensed it. She smiled and patted him 
on his cheek. He had clearly been a good dog. All the 
while, the girl Halanna had been present, looking on in 
silence. And now he knew that Halanna lived with Ariti, 
and he presumed that they were lovers.

By now, the women moved camp very frequently, as the 
game and the edible plants and the grazing of the 
immediate neighbourhood were rapidly exhausted. The 
high-wheeled carts were rolled up to the tents, and 
each household -- normally two women, occasionally 
three, or two and one girl -- loaded their belongings, 
hitched the horses to the vehicles, mounted their 
steeds, and the horde left what had been a lively scene 
just minutes before. 

Now only circles of flattened grass, the black hearths 
and the ubiquitous fettering-pole remained to tell a 
passer-by that horsewomen had lived here. The 
squeaking, ungainly carts made up the centre of the 
procession. Archers trotted off to form an advance 
screen, the main body of horsewomen rode ahead of the 
vehicles, and there was a small rearguard too. 

The older women kept close to the chiefess Hikati, the 
woman who had decided that the captive Fallou should 
live--and the girl who carried the standard, the light 
pole with its grotesque array of horsetails, red 
ribbons, brass bells and the white male skull with the 
dangling jaw. The slaves travelled on the carts, one or 
two of them driving (the other carts were usually 
handled either by young girls or by very old women).

There was one exception: he had to walk, and he had to 
do it just as when Atossa and Sarissa were bringing him 
home after the capture, his elbows held by straps and 
with a lariat tied to his balls. It was perhaps 
deliberate cruelty. He felt honoured. Women riding 
close by him sometimes smiled at him, and occasionally 
they lashed him loosely and playfully with the end of 
their reins, still smiling their friendly smiles. He 
returned them with what he hoped was the right mixture 
of frankness and deference.

These marches were not in any way exhausting. He was 
hardened now, and the Sisterhood travelled slowly 
because of the clumsy carts, and in easy day's marches. 
At night, they slept under the open sky, which was no 
hardship either in this hot and dry weather. Then his 
arms were free, but never his sex; and he would long 
remember these nights, when he rested between his two 
mistresses in the ring of sleepers around the 
smoldering night-fire. 

Nobody used him sexually while on the trail, but he 
helped keep the two women warm on chilly mornings. He 
enjoyed that. Those sleepy moments gave him much of the 
closeness that he craved, as a consequence of his 
growing devotion to his two strange owners.

At last, after just two days on the last campsite, 
there was a new tension in the morning air. Several of 
the old women stood outside their tents, sniffing the 
dry wind. He sniffed it too, but could not discern 
anything out of the ordinary. Then he saw the thin 
white chalk-lines across the morning sky, the high 
feather clouds that boded a change of the weather.

They broke camp again and moved to the northwest with 
such haste that he had to ride a cart...males were 
never allowed to ride horses, that was a taboo or a 
superstition among the women. A horse ridden by a male 
would be skittish and unpredictable ever after. Trees 
were more frequently seen now, and late that evening 
they came to the edge of the forest. 

The next day they entered it along a well-worn track, 
and after only three hours on the march they saw what 
was clearly the winter camp. It consisted of two 
longhouses, built out of sods and timber, and a couple 
of simple sheds for firewood, hay and diverse odds, 
ends and purposes. There were several hearths in each 
house, and little compartments around them, suitable 
for two or three to sleep. 

They moved in and settled for the season. Rainstorms 
came and went, with occasional glimpses of the sun in 
between. Life was easy enough. Hunting parties went 
out; it seemed that much of the game had moved into the 
forest, too. There were camp chores to do, and edibles 
to gather from the woods when the weather permitted. 
But there were also long hours spent resting on or 
between the furs and the covers spread around the 
fires, under the smoke-holes. The time was passed with 
storytelling and singing, in between long spells of 
plain dozing. There was lovemaking after dark, too.

Occasionally, other women used him, but it was mostly 
Atossa that rode him. Being used sexually in the 
presence of some twenty savage women and equally savage 
little girls was a new experience to him, but clearly 
quite normal to them. Fortunately, it did not inhibit 
his performance. On the contrary: he had served nearly 
all the onlookers, too, and whoever used him 
represented them all. In his mind, he saw it as a gang-
rape. 

He understood that a rape was a bad experience for a 
woman. He remembered the girl that had been assigned to 
him in En-Tor's house, and though he had at that time 
regarded himself a civilized person who had tried to 
rape her in a considerate manner, he now remembered the 
expression in her eyes and felt ashamed of himself. 
Living with these women had taught him not only to obey 
them, but to respect them.

Using a woman against her will was not only physically 
impossible, it was also unthinkable. But for males, 
this was clearly another matter. He loved it.

There was one thing that really was a mystery to him. 
By now, he had already had sex very often with both 
Atossa and Sarissa, and at least once with practically 
every adult member of the Sisterhood. None of them had 
ever tried to withdraw before the ejaculation, and he 
had not been able to take any precautions at all, of 
course. That was not his business, anyway. Still, only 
two of the women were pregnant, and they had been 
pregnant already when they had used him.

It seemed that these women could somehow control their 
child-bearing in a way that he could not make out. None 
of the -- often quite revolting -- methods of 
erminating a pregnancy that he knew of had been used. 
The whole matter remained an enigma. And, by the way, 
just why were the daughters so uncommonly like their 
mothers?

He did not know the answers to these questions until 
much later, after the end of this story, in fact, and 
then because he had asked about them, and received an 
answer. But there was something that he did learn, and 
that was the language. This was in fact pretty easy to 
do: the guttural pronunciation had hidden from him the 
fact that the structure and much of the vocabulary were 
closely related to the Coast Dialect, which he was 
quite fluent in.

The rest of the words, relating mainly to horse-
womanship and hunting, had originated somewhere to the 
east, among inland tribes that his people knew little 
about. Now when his two owners had time to spare, his 
understanding of the language progressed rapidly, and 
he was also learning to speak it, though more slowly.

Being able to understand Atossa and her lover, and to 
speak with them, deepened his attachment but did not 
otherwise change his relationship with them. 
Occasionally, he found his new role peculiar, not to 
speak of his easy acceptance of it. He had never 
thought of himself as a slave-nature. Slaves were of 
course different from freemen, submission was inborn 
with them. But come to think of it, many slaves had 
been freemen or freewomen earlier, was their nature 
different then? And he had also thought that women were 
naturally submissive, which patently did not apply to 
these ladies! Anyway, he found his slavery under Atossa 
quite natural. 

Indeed, he sometimes caught himself wishing that she 
would treat him sternly, that she would be demanding, 
even deliberately cruel to him, without him knowing 
why, perhaps in order to have her reassure him that she 
really cared about him.

Yes, even cruel. He had always been proud of his 
manliness, and he had taken for granted that he would 
not fear pain if it came his way. Now, the pain that he 
had been given, and was occasionally given again, 
served as proof of his fortitude. His very ability to 
make a good slave, and to bear his slavery with 
dignity, was a matter of self esteem. He did not care 
what they did to him, he could take it.

Correction. He did care about it. For with a slight 
feeling of amazement, he suddenly saw that the thought 
of being tortured by Atossa (and Sarissa, and any one 
of the more attractive horsewomen and girls, such as 
Ariti or Aryana or even Niki, but especially by Atossa) 
aroused him sexually. Whenever his thoughts dwelt on 
his piercing, and his first rectal penetration, and the 
infernal thornvine, and the straps and the indignities, 
an erection was the inevitable result. During his life 
with these women, cruel treatment and sexual pleasure 
had become inextricably associated in his mind.

As long as she would not kill or maim him (and the 
better he came to know her, the less he feared this) he 
actually longed for Atossa to give him pain. And he was 
not the slightest ashamed of himself because of this. 
He did not feel debased by this strange desire, on the 
contrary, he felt stronger, more fully alive; and 
Atossa would surely not cast him aside as long as she 
found it sexually exciting to torture him, which she 
plainly did. And though she was cruel, she was also 
careful not to harm him, and she even seemed 
emotionally attached to him. At least he hoped that he 
was right in thinking so.

He was not alone in eliciting this cruel response in 
the hearts of the horsewomen. They delighted in making 
all their man-slaves helpless, in fettering them, 
chastising them, and making them suffer before using 
them, or preferably while using them. They felt that 
way towards all of them, including Mikrou, the young 
boy.

His face was still beardless, his body hairless. He 
rested, fear in his eyes, on his back on the furs by 
the fire, while the women were all over him. At first 
sight, their behaviour was not threatening. On the 
contrary, it would have been motherly if it had not 
been so overtly sexual, and if their intention 
ultimately to use him had not been so obvious. Lykomaki 
was holding his wrists in a vise-like grip, his arms 
pulled up above his head. 

Ariti and Timesse controlled his widely spread legs. 
Sarissa, who was pinching his ear with two fingers 
while squeezing his little balls with the other hand, 
had her face close to his; Aryana was busy with the 
boy's penis. Would any of the women bother to use it? 
Between them, Sarissa and Aryana had given him a hard-
on that was quite respectable for a child, but it 
hardly seemed up to the job yet. The boy would not be 
ready for his first ride until two or even three years 
had gone by.

Sarissa raised herself a little and glanced at her 
companion, who let go of her toy, only to reclaim it 
when Sarissa came down on top of the boy. She rubbed 
herself voluptuously against him; he whimpered. Was she 
heavy? He nodded. Too heavy? He hesitated and she 
laughed out loud. He was still able to breathe, was he 
not? Both hands in his hair, she kissed him 
aggressively. She forced his mouth open and invaded him 
with her tongue. 

He gave a choked sound but seemed to respond. Perhaps 
this was not his first tongue-rape. Sarissa disengaged, 
and they looked briefly at each other, face to face, 
before she left him, only to be replaced by Aryana. 
Aryana kissed him too, just as brutally; but she also 
wanted her nipples sucked. The boy obeyed, and the 
onlooker felt a pang of longing: he had often wanted to 
do this, or even caress his mistresses' breasts with 
his hands, but he had never been given an opportunity 
to do it.

All the while, Atossa sat close by, looking on; but she 
was holding a long, supple switch in both hands, 
flexing it expectantly.

One by one, all the girls and the women followed 
Sarissa's and Aryana's example. After leaving the boy, 
they began forming couples. Soon, all of them except 
Ariti and Atossa were writhing and squirming all over 
the place, lips around nipples, tongues meeting, 
fingers deep in each other's sex. But they began 
sitting up and taking notice, when Atossa tied the 
boy's hands while Ariti held them.

When the boy understood what they were going to do to 
him, he first seemed to want to protest, or at least 
beg for mercy, but then to change his mind. That was 
understandable. Even these two women, who had not yet 
participated actively in the orgy, were clearly too 
excited to care about his opinion. Atossa threw the 
straps across a rafter, she, Ariti, Lykomaki and 
Timesse grabbed the free ends, and the boy suddenly 
found himself suspended by his wrists, his toes a foot 
above the floor.

The audience was delighted. Girls and women gathered 
around the subject, caressing him and each other, 
slapping him playfully, pinching him. The boy was 
terrified. Atossa elbowed the crowd aside. She stood in 
front of him, speaking softly to him.

She soothed him with her hands. Murmuring inaudibly, 
she held his sex between them and restored his erection 
and his arousal, which fear had repressed. They were 
both breathing audibly. It was understandable that the 
child was sexually excited; but Atossa too was visibly 
aroused, with parted lips and a curious light in her 
yellow eyes. She moved her hips a little, and suddenly 
Fallou saw that she was lubricating so copiously that 
the tattooed insides of her thighs were wet. The other 
women went back to their previous activities, but with 
an eye on the show.

And then Atossa stepped back, raised her right arm and 
started to whip the boy. In a panic, he tried to evade 
her strokes, but in vain: he managed only to produce a 
helpless dance that simply served to increase the 
enthusiasm of his tormentor. He screamed, and Atossa 
screamed triumphantly back at him. In spite of her 
savage excitement and his attempts at evasion, she 
managed to whip him systematically, half inch by half-
inch, from the shoulders down, until some twenty lashes 
later, she dealt the last blow just a finger above the 
root of his penis, which was now pathetically flaccid. 
Clearly, his only remaining sensation was pain. His 
shrill screams gave additional proof of this.

By now, the other horsewomen were quiescent. Ariti was 
the last to calm down: she had found Halanna and was 
busy with her. Niki rested beside a girl of Sarissa's 
age, Artanne. Atossa looked around and found her slave. 
She dragged him to his feet and gave him a quick and 
quite brutal version of the sexual massage that she had 
given to the boy. It did not take long: he already had 
an erection that he had been too absorbed in the 
spectacle to notice.

She pushed him toward the boy, who was covered with red 
stripes and had tears rolling down his face, and made 
her wishes clear.

He was to suck the boy off. That was really very nice 
of her, wanting to give her victim pleasure after the 
terror and the pain. But Fallou had never considered 
doing a thing like this, not even after his capture; he 
looked imploringly at her and tried to resist. 
Impatiently, she kicked him over and began whipping 
him. She stood over him, keeping him down with one foot 
on his belly while the lashes rained down on him. He 
could have evaded them, or at least tried to do so, but 
this thought never came to him. 

More in fear of Atossa's displeasure than of the pain 
she was giving him, he cried out his surrender. He 
would have to do it. He made no resistance as Atossa 
took him by his hair and dragged him to his knees. The 
onlookers cheered. He looked up and saw the boy's face, 
grimy, marked with tears, terrified and expectant. 
Bravely, he scampered forward, drew a deep breath and 
took the childish little thing in his mouth.

The owner squealed and swung his hips. Fallou sucked 
the penis cautiously and felt it grow on top of his 
tongue. He also saw Atossa take up position behind the 
boy, switch in hand. And then, the beating started 
anew.

Very deliberately, Atossa laid cut after cut across the 
boy's buttocks. Each time one of them landed, the boy 
jerked violently forward, ramming his member into the 
man that fellated him. Now he was crying out again, and 
the delighted screams and groans of the women kept the 
beat of the whipping. Hurri's bones, thought Fallou, 
the pain must slow him down. I'd better try to bring 
him as quickly as possible, that will be better for 
both of us. He sucked more energetically, and in 
between, he used the tip of his tongue on the underside 
of the gland, just as En-Tor's most experienced 
slavewomen used to do. With his hands, he held on to 
the balls.

He did not know how many lashes the boy had received 
when the penis suddenly began to jerk, and Mikrou came, 
ejaculating a thimbleful of salty, pungent come. The 
boy's cries took on another sound, and those women that 
had not yet had their orgasms had them now, to judge by 
the noise they made. Fallou swallowed convulsively, 
then he sucked once or twice, opened his mouth and sat 
back. Atossa threw down the switch.

And then she raped him. She did not bother to fetter 
him, she just bowled him over in the hay and then she 
was on top of him like a hawk striking her prey. At 
first she held his wrists, but she had to let go of one 
of them in order to give a helping hand to his member, 
and then she took a firm grip on his ears instead. She 
did not ride him but half-rested on top of him, her 
wild-animal face inches from his. He looked into her 
eyes, quietly jubilant. 

She did not try to restrain him when he touched first 
her face, then her breasts. He found her nipples and 
tweaked them cautiously, while the pain pleasure grew 
so overwhelming that his penis felt as if it had been 
cut open lengthwise. He pulled, and she gasped and 
forced his mouth open and tongued him brusquely; she 
did not seem to mind the lingering taste of the boy. 
Then she put both her hands behind his head and lifted 
it, pulling it close to her left breast.

For a moment, he saw it close up, the dark, tattooed 
nipple and aureole and the olive- coloured half-dome of 
the breast itself. Then he took the nipple between his 
lips and sucked it cautiously into his mouth. Atossa 
shoved herself at him, and he sucked a little bit 
harder and played the tip of his tongue again, this 
time over his owner's nipple. She groaned with 
pleasure, disengaged and gave him the other breast. 

He complied willingly and massaged the first breast 
with his fingers. Her movements were growing violent, 
and now she took her breasts away from him, pinned down 
his wrists and began kissing him instead. When she 
came, she cried out into his open mouth, and he cried 
back as her orgasm triggered his, and they came both of 
them together and now he did not know the difference 
between pain and pleasure. She had used him, that was 
enough.

She rested for a long time, slumped on top of him, 
without in any way trying to relieve her weight upon 
him. He liked it that way. They both breathed heavily, 
but neither of them moved until his shrinking organ 
softly left her of its own accord, and he felt 
something wet running down the inside of one of his 
thighs.

A little later, he stood by the brook cleaning himself, 
shivering and with chattering teeth in the cold grey 
light, and Atossa appeared in the doorway and called 
him back in a voice he had never before heard her use.

When he returned, they had taken the boy down and put 
him between Niki and Artanne. They seemed to take good 
care of him, but Fallou wondered what the experience 
had done to him. He was after all just a child. Atossa 
gestured Fallou to her side. She warmed him, and then 
they slept, half-waking when one or the other moved. 
Once, he nuzzled her face, and she responded with a 
drowsy kiss, a gentle one this time.

What was he to her? Not a lover; he dismissed that 
thought out of hand. The inequality between them was 
too great, greater than that between a man and a woman 
of his own people, greater even than that between a 
freeman and his slave woman. He could love her, of 
course, as long as he did not aspire to the standing 
that would entitle him to be loved by her. 

He wondered to what extent she understood his feelings 
toward her, and cared about them. Sometimes he 
suspected that she understood them very well, and was 
amused, the way a great lady might be amused by the 
clumsy calf love of a page, or by the tail-wagging 
devotion of a dog. That was perhaps what he was: a pet.

But you can appreciate a pet, its obedience and its 
love, and this was perhaps what she did. For there was 
this new voice she used sometimes, and there were 
little gestures and caresses that were quite 
unnecessary, if she just wanted him to perform 
sexually, and unnecessary by definition if she just 
wanted him to do her bidding. So perhaps she felt 
differently about him than about other slaves, or even 
than horsewomen did feel about slaves in general. 

If this was an illusion, it was at least a comforting 
illusion. And he also remembered how at first he had 
hoped that he would be Sarissa's slave, and not 
Atossa's; but Atossa seemed to treat him with much more 
consideration than her younger friend did, who was 
certainly amused, and even tolerantly amused at times, 
but always in a contemptuous fashion, and who would 
occasionally reveal that his feelings, his pain were of 
very little account to her. Atossa could be cruel; 
callous she was not.

Now and then, he was reminded that he was an outsider, 
in the Sisterhood but not of it, and with a limited 
understanding only of its mores. One day, for instance, 
the slaves were unceremoniously bundled out of the 
longhouses and had to huddle in the hay shed instead, 
with the wrappings they had managed to snatch before 
their expulsion. 

The women then seemed to redistribute themselves, with 
Atossa and Timesse and Halanna and Aryana and Pirritta 
and Artanne and their likes in one house and Sarissa, 
Hikati, Lykomaki, Ariti, Niki and so forth in the 
other... every pairing was dissolved. 

There was singing, of which he could hear little and 
understand nothing, and drums and rattles, and at times 
women crossed the yard, from one longhouse to the 
other, in complete nudity; and once or twice loud 
screams were heard that drowned among the voices of the 
other sisters. This continued far into the night, and 
the voices grew silent without any command or 
invitation coming to return to the houses; the sisters 
were probably too exhausted to care about their slaves.

He asked the oldest of them, Kakou, about this custom, 
but got nothing intelligible out of him except some 
obscure hints about spirits and unspeakable 
obscenities. He wondered briefly what an unspeakable 
obscenity would be, considering those that were nearly 
everyday occurrences here. But he got nowhere.

Instead he found that the boy Mikrou had crept up to 
him and was huddling close to him. That was 
understandable in the cold and the damp; but then he 
recalled that though the boy had been cruelly whipped 
on that evening a couple of weeks ago, he had received 
nothing but pleasure from himself. The lad seemed to be 
randy, in fact. Fallou had known men who had preferred 
or at least used young boys, of course. This sort of 
thing was common among En-Tor's retainers and quite 
accepted along the coast too. He had never practiced 
this custom himself...except on that evening, of 
course, but that was under duress. Still, he was not 
really shocked.

Instead, he was stimulated. He pinned the boy down with 
a knee and both hands and came down half on top of him. 
He could not use a woman the way a woman should be 
used...so why not the boy instead? He held both wrists 
and kissed the boy, who submitted without a sound. He 
thrust his tongue inside while rubbing his sex against 
the boy's thigh, and his own thigh against the boy's 
penis, which he could feel erecting. He was now fully 
on top of Mikrou, pushing his legs apart as if he had 
been a girl, rubbing sex against sex, and the boy 
panted and was clearly aroused. 

He pinched the boy's nipples, and the panting grew 
heavier; he pinched harder, and the subject gasped, and 
harder, and he whimpered; and then he pinned down the 
wrists again and kissed him again. He disengaged. The 
boy was either too randy or to scared to move. 

Fallou thought later that he should have asked himself 
which, but he did not. He took the boy's member and 
massaged it gently and the boy moved his hips 
appreciatively. He changed his grip on the wrists and 
brought one of Mikrou's hands down to his own sex. The 
boy took the member obediently and moved the skin up 
and down.

They rested a while, slowly masturbating each other. 
Then he grabbed the boy by the hair and pushed his head 
down. He had sucked him off once... now the boy could 
damn well return the service. Mikrou did not make too 
many difficulties. The Dark Ladies would know if he had 
not done this before. He did a passable job of it, too, 
apart from some choking when he had to take rather too 
much aboard. But when he proved his competence by using 
the tip of his tongue on the gland, Fallou pushed the 
boy away. He had got another idea.

He would use the boy for a woman. He turned him over on 
his face, got between his legs without listening to his 
whispered protests, and impaled him though his anus. It 
was tight. He hurt, both of them hurt, and still he 
pushed his way in gradually, into the warm soft little 
body that he could hear weep softly under him, gritting 
his teeth to keep his orgasm back. He took a deep 
breath; the immediate danger was over. He pushed his 
hands under the boy and took his nipples again; the he 
began thrusting gently.

The boy seemed calmer. He seemed to respond to the 
nipple-teasing: perhaps he was feeling more than just 
pain. Down to his penis. Masturbate him. Do it while 
you thrust, and in the same rhythm. The boy gasped. And 
suddenly he came, wetly, spurting pathetically while 
calling out into the rainy night. Quiet...be still.

Fallou was not done yet. He started his thrusting 
again, slowly, very slowly. It was cruel, of course: 
the boy had spent whatever lust he had known and had to 
endure the remaining torture. Mikrou panted again, but 
differently. The boy whimpered while his tormentor 
grimly held himself under control, seemingly for ever, 
until the pain-pleasure became unendurable and he could 
not hold back anymore and he banged away like possessed 
on top of the sobbing boy and then he climaxed and 
pumped his come into his victim.

He disengaged, trying to extract himself without 
causing more pain. Then for a while, he rested by the 
boy he had used in such an inconsiderate fashion, 
listening to the miserable little sounds he was making. 
He did not know what to do to comfort him, or even to 
ask forgiveness; his feeble command of the language 
failed him completely, the words he had learnt from his 
mistresses were harsh words of command and obedience 
only. 

He imagined that it would not do to just try to hold 
the boy. It occurred to him that whatever the women did 
to males, their slaves should not do it to each other. 
And he was completely powerless to explain his sudden 
insight to Mikrou. Damn it, he thought -- was this the 
regular lot of slaves among all peoples, including his 
own?

If he ever returned to claim his inheritance (a thought 
that he had very rarely now) then he would be more 
compassionate to his house slaves than he had once been 
taught to be.

And then he had to go down to the brook of course in 
the miserable dark and dank and stand on the soggy ice-
cold ground while he washed his sex, and no Atossa 
called him back in to warm his shaking body.


CHAPTER 4: THE RING AND THE STAKE
---------------------------------

Had he been too hard on the boy? In spite of his 
revulsion immediately after the act, he tried to 
convince himself that he had not; the boy did not in 
fact seem to avoid him or to bear him any grudge. Very 
probably, he had not been a virgin. But then he 
remembered that slave-girl again, and thought that he 
had seen something of the same expression in the boy's 
eyes. 

Being raped by a woman was a pleasant experience to a 
male, or could be one; he always thought of his 
copulations with Atossa and Sarissa and the other women 
as rapes. But being raped by a male would really be a 
different matter. After all, it had never happened to 
himself (except when Atossa had used the horn-penis on 
him, and then she had been a very different kind of 
male!) Perhaps he had hurt Mikrou more than he had hurt 
himself?

Again, he told himself that he should be more 
considerate in the future. If he wanted pleasure from 
the boy and the sodomy had been physically enjoyable 
while it was going on, then he should find out what was 
acceptable or not. And he had not liked that forlorn, 
deserted feeling afterwards. 

There had always been a sense of belonging, even when 
Atossa had slept in Sarissa's company after using him, 
and that sense had become stronger now that his 
mistress occasionally showed her appreciation. Did he 
actually think, without really being aware of it, that 
he had been unfaithful? Atossa ruled him absolutely: 
surely she should also be the absolute ruler of his 
sex. Yes, he should have sex with other partners, 
female or male, only when she ordered him to do it.

The weather grew colder. Snow fell at times. He was 
often miserable when he had to work out of doors, but 
he had enough to eat and the two horsewomen kept him 
warm at night. Then there was a storm, and immense 
quantities of snow came down, smothering the forest. 
After it, there was silence and whiteness under the 
blue-grey sky.

There was a bath-hut on the edge of the winter camp. 
After the great snowfall, a fire was made under the 
stones in its centre, and when they were red hot, a 
great throng of naked women piled in, and poured water 
on them, making a great cloud of steam. His mistress 
had brought him along, and there he sat wedged between 
her and Sarissa, half buried in a great heap of 
tattooed female flesh. He had seen all the women naked, 
or near-naked before, of course. He had even been used 
by them. Still, the situation was peculiarly 
arousing...perhaps it was the feeling of utter abandon 
in the crowded bath.

Steam billowed, half hiding the massed breasts and 
ornamented rumps and decorated backs, and he broke into 
a sweat. So did the women. Suddenly, switches were 
produced. Ariti whipped Halanna's back, Silini scourged 
Pirritta and the squealing girl was soon more red than 
pink and sweated profusely. 

In no time, a general whipping orgy developed, the 
women lashing out indiscriminately at backs, buttocks, 
bellies; women who were lovers even whipped each 
other's sexes. Only the breasts were spared. This was 
when it dawned on him that this was not just the normal 
procedure in a steam-bath, but sexual foreplay... a 
savage caress. Then Lykomaki discovered that he had an 
erection and lost no time in pointing it out to the 
other women.

There was a howl of delight. In no time, he found 
himself lying face down across two or three writhing 
female bodies that he could scarcely identify, his 
wrists and ankles held immobile by unseen hands. His 
head was tightly clamped between two thighs that he 
suspected were Sarissa's; he had difficulty breathing 
in the damp heat and he nearly got himself in a panic. 

Somebody... Atossa...? used the switch on his back. It 
stung him. The stimulated skin produced rivers of 
sweat, running in rivulets down his back, in the 
armpits and down the cleft between his buttocks. He 
gasped; women laughed and screeched and joined in the 
fun, using their birches on him.

Atossa called out. The whipping ceased, but only in 
order to give the women a chance to turn him over on 
his back. Bodies closed in on him, cutting off his 
view, hands were laid upon him, his member and his 
balls were squeezed, his nipples pinched. When he was 
securely held by the expectantly grinning women, a girl 
pushed forward between them. It was Niki, clutching her 
switch. Her eyes were half closed, her mouth half open; 
she knelt between his widely splayed-out legs and 
raised her right arm, and then she started to whip him.

She whipped his chest; it hurt, but no more than it 
used to do. She whipped his flanks; she beat his belly, 
and that hurt more; she lashed at the insides of his 
thighs, and finally she whipped his private parts. Half 
suffocated, he made incoherent sounds and fought, but 
the women that held him were strong. New rivers of 
sweat were flowing, brought forth by the sting of the 
switch and by his struggling. Dimly though the steam, 
he could see that Niki's face was contorted, that her 
nipples were erected and her labia swollen. She was in 
a fury, or an ecstasy, of sexual arousal. The little 
bitch, he thought. The infernal little bitch.

Throwing down the switch, she fell upon him. She 
crawled all over him, rubbing herself against him, 
helpless to put out the raging fire within. She 
scratched him; she kissed him, forcing her way in and 
using his mouth with an aggressiveness that was amazing 
in such a young girl... but of course she was not an 
ordinary child but a young horsewoman. For a moment the 
slave thought, as he had briefly done at their first 
meeting, that she would forget her limitations and try 
to impale herself on him. But again, she sat on his 
face, and this time he understood her commands and the 
obscenities that she was hurling at him.

Desperately, he pushed his tongue into her. He sensed 
that another woman was straddling his chest; she leant 
briefly to one side and he glimpsed her face; it was 
Aryana. She was sitting behind Niki, caressing her 
body, kissing her neck, tickling and pinching her 
nipples. Niki gave a half-gasp or a half-scream, came 
and collapsed on top of him. 

She rolled away and her place was taken by Aryana, but 
not until the new rider had given him six or seven of 
the best with her own switch. The performance was 
repeated, and all the time, he felt other women's hands 
on his body. When Aryana was finished with him, her 
place was taken by Sarissa. He served her too, panting 
and slavering away. Hands were tugging at his sex, 
masturbating him.

Several of the women wanted to follow her, but Atossa 
sang out harshly. She produced a long rawhide thong. 
With Sarissa's help, she tied his wrists together 
behind his back, then she lashed them to his balls and, 
holding the free end of the thong...it was still four 
or five feet long, she brutally jerked him to his feet 
and out through the door.

The winter air was a cold slap across his face and his 
dripping body. He reeled down the path to the brook, 
walking behind Atossa; she stood him on a stone and 
then she emptied a leather bucket full of ice-water 
over him. The shock nearly robbed him of his 
consciousness. When he could see again, Atossa was 
repeating the procedure on herself. She gave a hoarse 
cry as the water splashed all over her, from her loose 
hair to her feet.

He was not cold. On the contrary, he glowed. Atossa 
shook herself like a dog, collected herself and tugged 
him away. They had not to go far. She pushed him over 
in a large snowdrift; nearly buried in it, he was 
ridden at a gallop until first Atossa, then he 
climaxed.

It was over. Lying on top of him, she shook 
uncontrollably. Then, dazed, she got to her feet, made 
him stand up and took him down to the water again. She 
washed his penis and her own sex. Then she walked him 
to the longhouse and freed his hands, but not his 
balls, and they rubbed each other down as if they had 
been two female lovers, and got in between the furs and 
rested, holding each other tightly. 

She tied the leash to her own left wrist. He felt 
completely exhausted, released, clean. When she decided 
to use him as a mattress, lying on top of him with her 
arms around his neck, he felt that this had absolutely 
nothing to do with being used. There was only a great 
closeness. He did not deserve it; it was a privilege. 
His mistress was very good to him.

There were times when he still worried because of this 
carefree abandoning of himself to his savage goddess, 
Atossa. He had been born a freeman. This had raised him 
above the slave herd; slaves were of course 
contemptible, and he should have despised himself. He 
also should have sought a way to free himself, to 
escape. But he did not: being owned and used by his 
mistress, obeying her least wish, longing for signs of 
her gracious appreciation, seemed perfectly natural to 
him. He existed only in and through and for Atossa. 
That might be an unhealthy situation, even a dangerous 
one. But it bothered him only occasionally.

Instead, he dreamed. When a long time had gone by since 
his last ride, his early morning fantasies explored 
alternative relationships between himself and different 
women or girls. What if... what if he returned to his 
own people, and to his place among them, with one, two 
or three captive horsewomen? What if they were his 
slaves, for him to use as he pleased?

He would be stern. He would bend them to his will, the 
way you break a filly or a wild animal. That would 
serve them right. He would use them as they had used 
him, fettered, helpless, raping them brutally. And 
still with consideration, respecting them; for he could 
not help but seeing them as they were, wild and free, 
and he could not completely jettison the notion that 
they were superior to him, and would remain so. And the 
writhing bodies did not long remain anonymous, either. 
He always found himself thinking of individual women. 

He let his thoughts dwell on most of them, even on 
middle-aged ones like the robust Ariti or Lykomaki. He 
considered the young girls and especially the delights 
of using Aryana or perhaps Silini, Hikati's daughter 
and Ariti's younger sister; but curiously enough, Niki 
was also there. He was not clear about what he could 
reasonably do with her, if anything, but she always 
wormed herself into any scenario he could dream up. 
Even in real life, he stood a good chance to be the 
first male to enter her, of course.

But he returned always to Sarissa and Atossa. 
Especially Atossa. It would probably be necessary to 
keep them chained. He would tie Atossa's hands (or 
Sarissa's?) to a ring in the wall and whip her... who? 
Sarissa, probably. No, Atossa... until she screamed. It 
would be difficult to make her scream. 

She was tough, she was proud. Yes, obstinate, more than 
any other of these self-willed, obstinate women. But a 
curious transposition always made the dream end with 
her whipping him instead, until he screamed. He did not 
think that he would be obstinate. He would scream 
freely, giving her the stimulation that aroused her so. 
She would be more cruel, more vicious than she had ever 
been before. And he had an erection, and here she was, 
close to him, and he moved over, edging closer, hoping 
that she would wake up and feel just a little bit 
randy, as she used to do in the morning, and hold him 
and perhaps order him to kiss her breasts.

Atossa was holding whispered conversations with Ariti. 
He wondered idly what they were up to; Atossa seemed to 
draw something with her fingers in the air. Ariti 
nodded. Then the two women giggled together like little 
girls that have played an unmerciful joke on somebody. 
Perhaps he should worry about their cabal? The joke 
might be on him, after all.

He was right. They came over to him and pushed him over 
on his back. Atossa restrained him and Ariti started to 
masturbate him slowly. She was really quite good; he 
rested on his back looking up at her and could not help 
admiring her. She was the most powerfully built of all 
the women, with strong shoulders and arms, and she had 
a little bit more fat on her body than the others, too, 
which actually looked good on her sturdy frame. It was 
easy to respond to her ministrations; would she use 
him? That would be nice.

She worked up a really good hard-on. But she did not 
use it, instead, she seemed to measure it with her 
fingers. She nodded and told Atossa that 'it' (whatever 
it was) should work out very nicely, and they laughed 
again. Then they released him. Ariti went out to her 
little shed.

Nothing more happened for a couple of days... nothing. 
Atossa caressed him mornings and nights, each time 
bringing him close to orgasm, but never all the way.

He felt frustrated. Was this a new stint of celibacy, 
intended to soften him up for more dressage? But on the 
evening of the third day, Ariti brought Atossa 
something small and bright. Atossa was delighted and 
showed the thing to Sarissa, who was very interested.

They got up. Ariti and Atossa went out, while Sarissa 
pushed away furs and hay until black earth showed. The 
two women returned, Ariti with a maul, Atossa with four 
iron stakes which Ariti hammered into the ground. So 
they would tie him again, and probably use him. Just 
about time, too.

The nagging question was, what more would they do to 
him?

He arranged himself in the usual manner without making 
any fuss, the coming ride uppermost in his mind. They 
tied him very securely. Then they looked at each other: 
Atossa nodded at Ariti, who undressed while Sarissa 
piled more wood on the fire. Ariti sat down by him, 
took his member between her hands and very slowly, she 
got him going.

It was very pleasant, in spite of the restraints. To be 
quite honest about it, he got a thrill out of the 
restraints, too. Ariti handled him with considerable 
finesse, in spite of her calloused hands. After a 
while, he had a very large and very hard erection. Then 
Atossa handed her the shiny little thing, and Ariti 
demonstrated and explained it to her captive, who 
listened and looked with rising consternation.

It was a brass ring. It was large enough so that the 
gland of the erected penis could be drawn through it, 
but it would be a very tight fit. It was very cleverly 
shaped to the contour of the underside of the gland 
itself; it would sit exactly where a male's sex is most 
sensitive, to pleasure and to pain. And that was indeed 
the point, or to be exact, the points. 

All around the circumference of the ring, directed 
inward, there was a succession of sharp little barbs 
which would bite and claw mercilessly when the ride 
started, pulling the skin of his sex sharply back and 
forth. Two of the points were larger than the others. 
They were placed where the curve of the ring made a 
sharp upward bend, and they would press into his skin 
where it was most tender, on the underside of the 
member, on both sides of the little skin fold there.

Chuckling merrily, Ariti pushed the ring down over the 
tip of the member as far as it would go; then she 
pinched the gland between her thumb and her first 
finger, and pulled. It hurt. Not terribly, but very 
noticeably, and he grimaced; Ariti saw it, and she 
loved it and beamed at him. Gradually, a fraction of an 
inch at a time, she massaged the ring in place, until 
it was home. 

Then she took a hard grip on the member and pushed down 
violently. That really hurt. It must have shown; Ariti 
was delighted. She straddled him, rubbing the underside 
of his penis in the cleft between her labia. The pain 
seemed to balance the pleasure exactly. She came down 
on top of him, very heavy, and kissed him; he loved 
that. Then she sat up, and there was a short stick in 
her hand.

She pushed the stick through one of his nipple-rings 
and turned it full circle. Still holding it, she stuck 
one finger through the other nipple-ring and turned 
that too, and then the free end of the stick went 
through this second ring, so that both of them were 
held under tension. This too was painful, not 
unendurable, but impossible to forget. And so she gave 
him a friendly smile and guided his member into her 
vagina and sat down hard on him.

Now he knew precisely what the ring did to him. The 
fact that the pain was given in exactly the same spot 
as the pleasure made for a most curious effect. He 
simply could not distinguish between them. As she rode 
him at a steady pace, his face stiffened into a mask; 
he must not come this early, Ariti might be displeased 
with him; but she noticed his predicament and froze. 

She was perfectly immobile while he fought the orgasm 
back. She rested for a little while on top of him, then 
she withdrew and made place for Sarissa. She too rode 
him for a few paces, but when she had reached the 
breaking-point, she remained sitting, looking 
sarcastically down upon him. His next rider was Atossa.

Atossa behaved more like Ariti. There was a strange 
expression in her face when she observed her steed; was 
there tenderness in it? But there was no doubt about 
the main ingredient. It was cruel amusement. He had 
expected that Atossa would be his last rider, but she 
too reined herself in, dismounted and handed him back 
to Ariti.

She kissed him and took possession of him. His gaze was 
fixed on the powerful torso above him, but he did 
notice that Atossa and Sarissa fell upon each other and 
made love a little to one side. So they would not use 
him: Ariti would be the last to ride him. He liked 
that, she was very attractive to him, and she had of 
course made the ring. Ariti panted, her mouth half open 
in a grin that made her teeth show, but it was plain 
that she was very close to her climax now. She gave a 
hoarse cry, dug her fingers deep into his arms, and 
withdrew into the seclusion of her orgasm.

As soon as she had regained mastery of herself, she 
increased the tempo of her ride, mauling his sex 
ruthlessly. He cried out; she rode even faster, hurting 
him even more, and he too came deep inside her and he 
cried out, and Ariti told him of her own pleasure.

And then she rested on top of him again, and she was 
heavy and warm and told him, in a very friendly 
fashion, that Atossa's invention had been a very good 
one, and that she was very pleased with it, and with 
him. She would ask Atossa's permission to use the ring 
on him on all occasions in the future. Her expression 
when she told him this was such that he returned her 
gaze boldly and told her that she was welcome.

He had expected his member to be stained with blood 
when it at last emerged from Ariti's body, but the 
points had only dug into his sex, not pierced the skin. 
The pain and the pleasure had intensified each other 
until he had become quite unable to judge the level of 
either. It had been a very strange experience. Just 
now, he wanted no more of it. But, knowing himself, he 
admitted to himself that soon, he would want just that 
again.

He did not have to wait long. From now on, Atossa used 
the ring on him very often, and Sarissa always. The 
innovation caught on, and a couple of other women 
ordered penis rings for their own males too; and when 
friends borrowed Atossa's slave, they borrowed the ring 
with him. But he still felt that of all the horsewomen, 
only Atossa and Ariti really had the right to give him 
this kind of pain, and those two alone could awaken in 
him the kind of anticipation that stimulated him... the 
anticipation he felt when he knew that someone he liked 
and desired very much would torture him sexually.

The winter was short. The snow melted and new 
vegetation sprouted from the damp earth. The horsewomen 
stayed put until the ground was firm enough to carry 
the carts; then they broke camp and moved out into the 
plains again.

The old routines were resumed. Hunting parties went 
out; at first, they killed only for the immediate needs 
of the Sisterhood, but it was good to have plenty of 
meat again. Even the males could eat their fill. 
Atossa's slave at least had never gone hungry, but red 
meat was better than both gruel and pemmican. Slowly, 
the weather got warmer, and the women discarded their 
trousers and jackets and cloaks, and the slaves their 
rags.

The grasslands were green, not brown and ochre and red 
as the slave had seen them last. Life was good. The new 
intimacy between Atossa and her slave deepened. He saw 
even the ring as a symbol of it: it seemed quite 
natural that if a horsewoman felt affection for a male, 
then considerate sexual torture was her way of 
demonstrating it. But at least in Atossa's case, it was 
not the only way. 

There was a different mood to her games with him before 
using him; and after he had served her and given her 
his pain and his service, she would rest by him, 
holding him and telling him of her pleasure, especially 
the pleasure that his suffering had given her. He did 
not grudge her that. It was her right, after all. Her 
behaviour was curiously reminiscent of that of a strict 
but loving husband. All right, then he would be a 
loving and submissive wife.

It was simply too idyllic to last. One evening, a 
patrol returned to camp with a male prisoner. They 
explained that they had surprised an illicit hunting 
party that had dared enter their territory. It was of 
course generally understood that the inner grasslands 
belonged to the horsewomen, and that you went there 
with their permission, or with an army. But some people 
would never learn, young bloods perhaps who had bragged 
a bit too thoughtlessly, carried away by drink at a 
feast. Now the reckoning was coming.

The women had not bothered to bring the captive home 
slowly on foot, as Atossa and Sarissa had done once. 
They had simply slung him, bound hand and foot, across 
the back of a loose-horse, though that horse would have 
to be ritually cleansed later in a special ceremony; if 
he had actually defiled it by riding it, they would 
have killed it.

Now they dumped him in the middle of the camp, close by 
the stake.

The Sisterhood gathered around the victim, very 
excited, in a cacophony of voices. The agenda of the 
discussion was the same as when Atossa and Sarissa had 
brought in their captive, but it was clear that the 
outcome would be entirely different this time. The 
prisoner was not regarded as especially useful or 
desirable; he was a smallish, swarthy, ungainly fellow 
with an unpleasant face, and nobody spoke in favour of 
him. They would kill him. There could be no doubt about 
how they would kill him -- unpleasantly, or 
entertainingly, depending on your point of view.

Fallou did not care for the coming show and tried to 
keep away, inventing some unnecessary chore that would 
keep him busy on the outskirts of the camp. But it was 
immediately made clear to him that his attendance was 
required, as was that of the other slaves. They had 
better see what horsewomen did to males who did not 
please them. He was dragged along and deposited on the 
periphery of the excited crowd, but with a good view. 
Other women tied the captive to the pole, face out. The 
show could begin.

First they whipped him. They did it two at a time, 
using large, heavy rawhide whips, to the accompaniment 
of his screaming. They all got in a few lashes, or 
rather more than a few, depending on their various 
degrees of enthusiasm...Hikati and Timesse, Lykomaki 
and old Ekebbe, Ariti and Pirritta, Niki and Aryana and 
the others, while the screaming got ever shriller. And 
Atossa and Sarissa, of course. But the most cruel of 
the women, those that did not limit themselves to a 
dozen or half a dozen lashes but hogged both the whip 
and the victim, were the old hags, but also the really 
young girls. This last discovery was really shocking. 

All his experiences, both at home and in En-Tor's house 
and among the horsewomen, should have taught him that 
children and young people in general can be more 
ruthless in their passion, more inconsiderate and 
cruel, that those with more experience of life, and 
with personal knowledge of pain and suffering. Still, 
he felt that especially Niki behaved in a bestial, even 
devilish way. 

This was something different and more evil than her 
childish cruelty to him, different even than the 
thornvine torture...for now she was ready to maim, and 
to kill. But all the girls joined in, even children so 
small that they could not wield the heavy whips but had 
to use smaller child-whips, toy-whips. He shuddered.

But this was only the beginning. While the last, 
panting whip-wielders rested, Pirritta and Aryana 
fetched torches, burning branches from the campfire. 
While the other women gave air to their contempt of the 
man, to their disgust with his behaviour and 
transgression, with his looks and even with his 
maleness itself, the two girls proceeded to burn his 
sex. 

They pushed their torches against it repeatedly until 
it was all black, with soot but perhaps even charred by 
the fire, and the screams were hoarse animal screams 
now; but they had become the solo part in a chorus of 
howls and insults. The prisoner was still trying to 
evade the pain, but to no avail of course. His 
struggling only served to excite his torturers even 
more.

Ariti came up to him. She was holding two tongs, large 
ones that she used for iron work. To the cheering of 
the bystanders, she gripped one nipple with each tong, 
and tore them out with one tremendous pull. Ariti, of 
all people... The victim's voice broke and was silent. 
But the Dark Ladies did not extend their compassion to 
him; he was still conscious.

They used a horse to pull his balls and male member off 
his body. Then they flayed him, cutting strips out of 
his hide and pulling it off, again with Ariti's tongs. 
He was completely silent now, but for a moment, the 
slave caught his eyes. He wished he had not. They were 
the eyes of what was no longer a human being, but a 
breathing corpse. 

He was no longer alive; but neither could he die. And 
this was when Atossa went up to him. She spoke to him 
in a voice the slave had never heard before, and hoped 
that he would never hear again, and only the eyes 
revealed that the victim heard. Then she drew her 
knife, set its point below his left collarbone, and 
pushed it slowly into his body until at last it reached 
his heart and he was truly dead.

This last moment Fallou never saw. He was on his face 
on the ground, shaking uncontrollably, and the women 
closest to him were too absorbed by the spectacle of 
the death of their victim to care or even notice. 
Neither did he see how the cadaver was dragged out of 
the camp. He stayed where he was, clutching the grass, 
and he was back where he was caught by Atossa and 
Sarissa, on that little rise far out in the grasslands 
more than half a year ago. He had thought that he had 
learnt to know these women, or at least Atossa; he had 
not.

His two owners came and fetched him and brought him to 
their tent. They sat talking far into the night, 
sometimes laughing in a dry, unpleasant fashion. They 
ignored him completely, and he was grateful for that. 
Two days later, when Atossa wanted him to serve her 
sexually, he was impotent. Sarissa taunted him, 
suggesting that they should get rid of him as they had 
of the victim of a couple of nights ago. Was she 
serious? 

Atossa spoke harshly to her, and she was silent. Atossa 
seemed to understand him. She contented herself with 
holding him and speaking softly to him, soothing him 
with her hands on his face, even cooing like a mother. 
He lost control of himself completely and burst out 
weeping. She comforted him, and Sarissa seemed to 
change her mind suddenly and helped her, pressing 
himself against his shaking shoulders and buttocks 
while Atossa was embracing him face to face. So perhaps 
Sarissa had not been contemptuous after all, just 
thoughtless.

Atossa continued to hold him while his sobbing 
subsided. She continued to talk to him, trying to 
explain. What he had seen was a punishment meted out to 
a culpable enemy, a transgressor. His body had been 
dragged away by its feet, behind a horse, to a place 
where his friends would find it, and perhaps learn from 
his fate. 

The women's triumph and joy was righteous. But this 
would never happen to him, to Atossa's and Sarissa's 
slave: they would never permit it, and no other 
horsewoman would demand it. He belonged with the 
Sisterhood, as property, certainly, but as valuable, 
even cherished property. Yes, Atossa and Sarissa, and 
the other women too, Ariti and Lykomaki and Hikati 
even, did cherish him. 

Had he not understood that?

She was still holding him when he fell asleep. Unlike 
the two previous nights, his sleep was not disturbed by 
dreams of being in the dead man's place. He woke up 
with his mistress' hand around his member, and with the 
beginning of an erection which she tended carefully. 
But she did not use him until nightfall, and by then, 
he was in working order again. 


CHAPTER 5: RITES OF PASSAGE
---------------------------

They continued their slow and deliberate voyage across 
the grasslands. In a green field near a stream, flowing 
abundantly in this season, they camped and feasted with 
women of several other sisterhoods, women with names 
that were often the same as those that he knew, but 
with tattoos and hairstyles and equipment that were all 
subtly different. 

They eyed him coolly and commented on his advantages, 
sometimes complimenting Atossa on her pleasant slave, 
but they too had slaves of course. Some of them seemed 
to treat their males much more harshly than the women 
of his own Sisterhood did, sometimes even keeping them 
chained by their balls or, in two cases, by rings 
through the little skin folds beneath the glands of 
their penises. These two slaves were boys as young as 
Mikrou or even younger. One adult male had a ring 
through his nose. One or two bore whipping scars.

Slaves were traded, too. One sisterhood seemed to have 
a surplus to sell, but only Aryana bought one, an 
attractive boy with an open, trustful face, slightly 
younger than herself. The price was correspondingly 
high, six horses. One or two women actually asked 
Atossa the price of her slave, but she just laughed the 
offers away. Her slave was not for sale. Fallou warmed 
to her; it was nice to hear that you were appreciated.

There were games, horse races and foot races, archery 
and wrestling. Sarissa won the archery contest, leading 
away the prize horse, and Atossa beat all comers at 
wrestling until a giantess of a woman, nearly black of 
skin, managed to subdue her after a mighty struggle. 
After the match, they both went down to the brook to 
wash off the dust and sweat, and then Atossa followed 
the victor to her tent, amid much laughter and jesting. 

Sarissa, who seemed to be torn between merriment and 
jealousy, explained that this was the victor's prize: 
to possess any one of the women she had got the better 
of, and this time Atossa had been chosen. For a moment 
of horror, Fallou thought that Atossa would be a slave 
herself, and that he would be separated from her for 
ever, but Sarissa reassured him: this was for one night 
only, and it was even regarded as an honour. 

There was henceforth to be a bond of mutual obligation 
between these two women. But yes, there was actually 
one group, the Red Sisters, that took and kept and used 
female slaves. They scorned males completely. But these 
women were enemies, foes of all right womanhood, and he 
should not wish to see them!

If he ever did, they would kill him, and then they 
would eat his flesh.

There was much talking and some singing around the 
campfires that evening, but Atossa was not there, of 
course. When Fallou was alone with Ariti for a 
moment... his attraction to her had at last overcome 
the revulsion he had felt for some time after that 
scene by the stake...he asked her what would be done to 
Atossa. She looked pensively at him, hesitated but told 
him at last that she would be treated like a male. But 
it would not be proper, even for a Sister, to ask her 
afterwards what had been done to her. He had no further 
questions.

Immediately after this jamboree, it was clear that 
Pirritta, the un-tattooed young one, was to be singled 
out for special attention. She was repeatedly secluded 
in a tent with the old women. She went out with a 
hunting party one day and returned proudly with the 
carcass of a bush-cat that still had her short hunting-
spear through its body. The teeth and claws were added 
to her necklace, secret charms and preparations were 
made from other parts of the animal. 

Then something strange was done to the girl: she was 
buried alive, tightly bound in a pit in the ground, 
lined with hay and furs but completely covered with 
sods, resting on dry branches. Around the covered pit 
sat the hags, chanting and chanting for one day and one 
night, until at sunrise on the second day the girl was 
resurrected and her child-name was taken away from her. 

After a merciful time of rest, she spent the next night 
in a small leather tent with two of the oldest women, 
one of them being Hikati, the chiefess and resident 
witch. Strange herbs were burnt, and their smoke 
inhaled, and Atossa explained to her slave that spirits 
appeared out of the dark to guide the Nameless One 
along her passage to womanhood, and to fortify her for 
her coming ordeal. 

She told the slave, in a forthright but compassionate 
manner, that he had been designated to play a part in 
this ceremony. She let him know what it was, and for a 
moment, he was horrified. They were sitting, cross-
legged, opposite each other, and he felt all blood 
leave his face, but then he gathered all his courage 
and returned Atossa's burning stare and spoke to her. 

He would not only submit willingly to the treatment 
that awaited him, though his attitude would of course 
not make the slightest difference, but he would ask to 
be given all that was given to the Nameless One, 
provided only that it would be given to him by Atossa 
herself.

She sat silent for a while, gazing inscrutably at him. 
Then she told him that she would ask Hikati for this 
favour. She left him trembling with fear and 
excitement.

***

Evening came, and they marched away a short distance, 
an hour's walk or so, and came to the Passage-place. It 
was a small rise of the ground, crowned with four great 
upright stones, like fingers against the dark sky, 
groping for the moon. It reeked of holiness.

Fires were made. The women arranged themselves in a 
rough circle, all of them in company with their lovers 
and their males. Atossa however left Sarissa and Fallou 
standing outside the circle and joined the older women, 
the leaders of the ceremony. Fallou saw that the stones 
had been erected in pairs, and each pair was joined by 
a stout crosstree, making two great gates... and then 
he recognised them for what they were, two gallows. 

He felt a lump in his throat, the tongue seemed to grow 
in his dry mouth and his heart thumped. He was scared. 
His decision of the previous night seemed foolish, even 
preposterous. Why ask for more of this outrageous 
treatment than necessary? Would his courage and 
devotion be appreciated, would it even be recognised?

And then Sarissa whispered in his ear, and he knew.

Atossa had been impressed. And yes, she had secured 
permission to be his executioner. He was still scared, 
but now he felt surer of himself. Sarissa was holding 
him in a tight grip, and the feeling was somehow 
reassuring.

The Nameless One, who had also been kept waiting 
outside the circle, was now ceremoniously led in among 
the chanting women. The firelight that flickered on the 
four great monoliths shone bright red on her naked 
body; she seemed half dazed but walked erect and 
without hesitation. She joined in the singing. Sarissa 
took Fallou firmly by his arm and led him forward, 
until he stood between two of the stones, under the 
ominous crosstree. He saw that two heavy ropes hung 
from it, and he knew what they were for.

Sarissa called out softly, and three of the women came 
forward to help her. The slave's wrists were secured to 
the ropes with soft leather straps; the helpers took 
the loose ends and pulled the ropes until his arms were 
raised high above his head. For a moment, he thought of 
Mikrou. But Sarissa hugged him briefly and kissed him, 
and whispered again, and then she joined her comrades 
and helped them to hoist him aloft.

It did not hurt...not yet. His arms seemed to be pulled 
halfway out of their sockets, his wrists would begin to 
smart by and by (though he doubted that he would notice 
it) and his breathing was slightly strained. But the 
most immediate sensation was one of helplessness. With 
his feet twelve inches above the ground, what could he 
do to protect himself? Lying on one's back, tied hand 
and foot in preparation for the rape, should be just as 
bad. It was not. 

He remembered that he had once been told that peoples 
far to the south hanged criminals and sacrificial 
victims by their arms, not by their necks. They were 
just left to hang until they were dead. He knew that 
this would not happen to him, but the thought was still 
unnerving. He squirmed, just in order to remind himself 
that he was still alive. 

Sarissa looked up at him; her face was set in a mask of 
determination and he sensed that inwardly, she had 
already left him to the fate that awaited him. She had 
given him what encouragement she could, now she would 
just be one of the several participators in the rite. 
He felt his heart thump against his ribs.

The chanting ceased abruptly. The Nameless One had 
already been prepared for her own suspension, and 
Hikati asked her if she was ready for the ordeal. Yes, 
she was: her voice was quite steady. How many, to prove 
her worth as a horsewoman and a brave? Thin but clear, 
her voice rang out: four dozen.

A collective breath was drawn. Atossa had of course 
told Fallou about the ceremony, and what he could 
expect for himself...exactly what the Nameless One 
demanded. But this was more than the usual ration. He 
felt his heart sink. And then the women could hardly 
wait to see the subject properly suspended before they 
turned to the slave. And Atossa rose and came forward, 
and she was holding a whip. She spoke to him. 

He understood that these were ritual words, necessary 
words, but they still hurt. He was a male, and by 
definition a slave. Women were real people, but males 
were half-human only, little monsters that existed only 
to serve their mistresses. Women were hunters, 
warriors, braves. Males were timid, fearing for their 
skin, fearing pain. The whip would prove it; his 
screaming and begging for mercy would prove it.

Atossa raised her whip. But she did not yet swing it; 
for across the circle stood another woman, a young 
brave, Silini, daughter of Hikati. And she too spoke, 
to the Nameless One who was now also suspended opposite 
the slave, between the other two monoliths.

She spoke of pride and fortitude, the marks of the true 
horsewoman. The Nameless One had promised that she 
would take four dozen lashes on her naked skin, without 
succumbing to fear or pain, without debasing herself. 
Her courageous silence would prove, together with the 
sacrificial slave's screams, that woman was superior to 
man, that she was born a fighter and a ruler and he a 
slave. And the Dark Ladies, ever waiting outside the 
light of the fires, would receive and accept this 
offering, hallowing the name that the Nameless One 
would recei