Main house, assault, a role to play…
Sarita realized she had been singled out by the woman asking the questions, but she’d not been questioned. The young woman motioned to her to follow, and Sarita felt her use some compulsion on her. She started to tell her it was not necessary but found herself unable to speak. She rose and followed the other woman. She wanted a bath more than anything else. The last two days had been spent in the hold of the ship with the others who had been taken. It had been rank with human waste and illness. Sarita’s stomach was still upset from the drugs the pirates had given her, but her desire to be clean was more urgent.
She tried to overcome the compulsion but was only able to croak at the woman leading her. The other woman stopped and glanced at her.
“What’s wrong? We need to get you out of the sun. Follow me. Name’s Mandy, by the way.” Sarita felt the compulsion lessen a bit.
“Need water, a drink, and a bath. Please?” Sarita was exhausted and her head was beginning to hurt from her effort to overcome the compulsion.
“Newbie, here in Port, fresh water is the most precious commodity around. We don’t waste it on drinking or washing our bodies. I’ll bring you a bucket of wash water and there is a sink in the waste room and a towel. Just don’t try to drink any of it. Later you can go down to the beach for a swim. You do know how to swim, don’t you?”
“Never in the sea,” Sarita stammered. “We learned to swim in the lake near the farm. The sea was too rough to swim.”
“It gets rough here too, but that’s the only place we have to wash our clothes and bodies. You’ll get used to it. Spacer will be in to see you in a couple of hours. I’ll bring you some food. Don’t try to leave the room or I’ll have to chain you up and Spacer does not like that in his buffer women.”
“What’s a buffer woman?” Sarita asked as she walked alongside Mandy into the center of the village. They crossed an open area and entered the double door of a large, lava-stone house. A man lay sleeping on a bench carved into the wall of the entry hall. Mandy motioned her to be quiet and led her down a side hall to a small, windowless room.
“Spacer is a telepath, but he can’t block, so he gets a good power user to block the rest of the world out. We call anyone who can block power a buffer.”
“My power hasn’t manifested yet, so how can I be his buffer woman?”
“Oh, we have ways to fixing that here in Port. You don’t need to be bonded to get mounted, you know.”
“But that might destroy my power,” Sarita was frightened. “I have seen what happens when a woman is raped. If it doesn’t kill her, she is brain damaged and powerless.”
“Spacer won’t rape you. He is just bonding with you so you can work with him. Besides, we have a way to keep the burn-out from happening,” Mandy said soothingly. “You wait, it won’t be bad. He is not a rough man. He wants you to help him, so he won’t hurt you.”
“Why aren’t you his buffer woman?” Sarita demanded.
“Because buffer women burn-out pretty fast with Spacer, so be ready for that too,” Mandy snapped. “Don’t get any ideas about running off. Spacer doesn’t like to mount a chained woman, but he will if you force him to.” Mandy left the room abruptly and locked the door behind her. She needed to get the drugs ready to put in Sarita’s food.
Stupid woman, to fight it like this. She could have been sent to the Tail and sold to the highest bidder. Mandy had seen that happen far too often. Some of the men who did not have long term relationships were pretty rough on the auctioned off virgins. She should be glad Mandy had chosen her. Maybe this one would be strong enough to last.
Sarita made a quick search of the room for a way of escape. The metal brackets attached to the wall at the head of the bed verified what Mandy had said. She could be chained if she resisted. In addition to the door that the young woman had left from, there was another small door. It opened into a waste room with a waste stool and a small sink. It had no windows, only a small slit around the top of the wall for ventilation. The roof was made of translucent material, so the room had light, but she knew it was probably too hard to break out. And besides, where would she go? The room itself was sparsely furnished. The walls were of lava-stone with benches and the bed base carved from the same rock as the walls. A couple of lidded baskets sat on one of the wall benches. One held some clothing like what Mandy wore and the other held what appeared to be clean bedclothes.
Mandy returned with two buckets of cloudy water. Sarita stripped off the filthy coverall and stood over a drain in the floor of the waste room. Mandy poured the first bucket of lukewarm water slowly over her head as she scrubbed herself with a vegetable sponge and some soft, oily soap. Mandy had to get a third bucket of water before she was satisfied. Sarita suspected the water was recycled because it was not as salty as the seawater the pirates had rinsed them off with when they were first brought up from the hold of the ship. Mandy kept a steady flow of light chatter about the weather and what Sarita’s duties would be as a filter or barrier for the man Spacer. She left Sarita drying her hair and recommended she try on some of the clothing in the basket by the door. She again locked the door.
In the basket with the clothes, Sarita found a comb. She used it to work some of the knots out of her hair. Her mother and Uncle Tony had insisted she let it grow because that was the way women in Refugio wore their hair. It was longer than she had ever worn her hair, but still not long enough to tie up like her mother wore hers. The clothing was soft and so loose it could fit almost anyone. Sarita managed to wrap herself decently before Mandy returned.
“Move away from the door,” Mandy called before she unlocked it. She carried in a tray full of dishes and a folding rack to set the tray on. She unfolded the rack and set the tray on it next to one of the wall benches.
“I suspect you’re hungry. The drug they gave you on the ship makes everyone hungry. Eat all of this. You’ll need your strength. Manifesting your power takes a lot of energy, and you’ll need to get to work pretty quickly. There is stuff in this juice to clear out the drug they gave you on the ship. You had better drink it first or you might spew your food.” Mandy handed her a gourd cup full of a pulpy liquid.
“What is it?” Sarita wrinkled up her nose. It smelled rotten.
“The cleansing drug is pretty nasty, so we use the sweetest juice we have. Gulp it down. It will help.” Mandy hated lying but she had gotten used to it. The extract didn’t clean out the drug from the ship but put you into a trance-like state like the mugging drug the ship had used. With your body detached from your awareness, a woman would manifest her power and be bonded to the man mounting her without fighting the bond. Or that was what happened most of the time. Sometimes, a woman was so strong her manifestation would burn her out, or Spacer would when he took control of her mind. Mandy hoped this young woman would not burn out. Spacer needed a buffer bad. She watched Sarita swallow the juice in two gulps then she sat down next to the table and began to eat the food Mandy had brought. It would take about an hour for the drug to hit her. Mandy gathered up Sarita’s dirty coverall and went to see how sober Spacer was.
Sarita ate the strange food with relish. On the ship, they had gotten only the drugged liquid and she was extremely hungry. This fresh fish and sweetened pudding were delicious. As she ate, she went through all the instructions her mother and sister had given her about surviving the bonding night. She was frightened. This was not what she had dreamed of—what she had wanted. Even when she agreed to go to Refugio and bond with the First Successor, she had envisioned being in control of the situation. Now she faced a man she did not know and there was no way to avoid it. Mandy had said he was not going to hurt her, but she was still afraid. This was not what she had wanted for her manifestation.
As she finished her meal, she began to feel lightheaded and fuzzy. It was a bit like the drug the pirates had fed them on the ship. She tried to get up to spew the food and the drug out of her system, but she could not make her body work. She slumped back onto the bench unable to move. Demons take them! Mandy had lied. She was drugged yet again.
Mandy found her there a few minutes later.
“Guess it worked faster on you than others. Must have been the empty stomach. This is what I told you about. We have a way to help you manifest without fighting the bond. That’s fine, because Spacer is sobered up and back from a swim. As soon as he has eaten, he’ll be in to visit you.” Mandy smirked. “Most of his buffer women enjoy his company after this first night, so don’t be too worried. He won’t hurt you.” Mandy picked up the tray of dishes and the rack, walking out of the room and leaving the door to the hall open. Sarita wanted to scream but she could not. Much to her disgust, tears began to flow from her eyes, and she began to whimper like a small animal. Mandy came back with another woman who carried a rolled-up pad for the bed. They took bedclothes out of the basket and made up the bed then lifted Sarita from the bench and stripped all her clothes off.
“There, stop that whining.” The older woman slapped Sarita lightly on the cheek. “You’ll put Spacer in a bad mood with crying.”
“Leave her be, Kali,” Mandy told the older woman. “She’s scared. Bet you were the first time they drugged you. Oh, pardon me. You’re a quiet mind, so they didn’t need to.”
“Hush your sassy mouth girl,” the older woman snarled. “Day will come Spacer won’t need you either.”
The two women moved Sarita to the bed and lay her down in the middle of the bed. They covered her with a light sheet and moved the lamps they had carried into a notch over the bed. The room had begun to darken and was only lit with a dim glow from the setting sun.
“Spacer will be here in a few minutes. Don’t you start whining again or he might get rough.” The older woman shook her head as she and Mandy left the room.
Sarita began the exercise to place herself in deep trance like they used for discerning. She concentrated on the image of still water and slipped deeply into the trance. She felt the man lay down next to her on the bed, but it was as if she were watching from outside her body. He murmured to her he was not going to hurt her and for her to just relax and concentrate on controlling her power when it began to flow. His hands were rough from work. He began to stoke her body. Sarita desperately began to concentrate on the still pool and the deep trance state her mother had taught her. It was strange. She felt as if she were outside her body but could still remotely feel the man’s hands fondling her. She began to feel the surge of warmth as he stroked between her legs and with it the blossoming of her power. Waves of pleasure and pain coursed through her brain. She struggled to control it as her mother had taught her. Sarita fought to stop her body as it responded to his caresses. He slipped his arm under her and easily picked her off the bed and placed her buttocks on a padded shelf at the head of the bed. He spread her legs apart and buried his face in her pubic area. Sarita shivered as the sensations raced as bands of color through her brain.
“You have not manifested, so I know this is your first time.” He chuckled softly. “I want you to enjoy this. I want you to be my woman completely. Just relax. I softened it up for you, so it won’t hurt much. I can tell what you are thinking, girl. You can’t stop me, and you can’t stop what is going to happen, so just relax and enjoy it.” He raised his body, and she felt his penetration. He moved steadily in and out. She fought against it, but her mind exploded in bright flashes of color, each in time to the friction of his penis against her. The sensations intensified until she cried out as she climaxed.
She struggled to control the manifestation of her power as it flowed through her body and her brain. Suddenly bands of color tried to join to the swirling lights she sensed within her. The man was trying to come into her brain as well as her body. She imagined a wall and blocked the intruder. His colors pushed against her wall, but she began to push back. She was winning but she remembered her mother’s warning her power might be too strong for her bond mate, and she let up. As she withdrew, she realized she had left the wall in place but there was no time to draw it back. She felt the exquisite surge of pleasure again as the man rhythmically moved in and out of her body then he pushed hard, cried out and collapsed pulling her down on top of him. His colors subsided and withdrew.
Her brain was whirling in a riot of color and flashes of light. Brightly colored lines tried to join to something they could not find, so she gathered them in and wrapped them around her sense of being. She began gathering all the threads as her mother had told her she should do, and so began to experience the shaping of her power. It took all her concentration to force the yearning waves back, so they joined and spun around her sense of self. The power wanted to connect to something, to someone. It was not complete, but she was able to control it. She had not allowed any of the colors and waves to escape. She was whole but not whole.
Sarita tried to move away but he caught her in his arms and pulled her against him. “We’ll have another go after I get some rest. You sleep, too.” He gently stoked her breasts and down her body, then pulled the light sheet over them both.
She explored her body with her mind. How amazing it was! She saw the hold the drug had on her body and cleared it, causing her system to process it much faster than normal. She felt a sharp pain in her back and realized she had better not do that again until she better understood what she was doing. But now she could move and tried to move away from the now sleeping man. He responded by hugging her closer to him. She sent out a probe and explored his mind. Sarita gently concentrated on causing him to fall into a deep sleep. If he were asleep, she could attempt to get away.
She waited until his arm became slack and she was able to slide away from him. She went to the waste room and concentrated on her own system. She felt soiled and ashamed. She found the wet towel from earlier and scrubbed her body. Could the man have made her pregnant? She explored her body as she had done when she discarded the drug. She was certain, but not sure why, she was not fertile. So many sensations flooded her mind. She relaxed and began to explore her own body first. She understood now why a couple went away from home for their first bonding and stayed in a quiet, secluded place for the first few days. She was sure it would take her days to understand all she now could do. The discerners had been correct about one thing. Her powers were many. Time would tell how strong they were.
Sarita went quietly out of the waste room and found the clothes the women had taken off her. The man lay deeply asleep. She again probed his mind and encouraged the sleep. The small lamp the woman had carried in was the only light in the room. Night had fallen while he had mounted her. She dressed and tried the door. It was not locked so she slipped out into the hall. She remembered a little of how the house was laid out from when Mandy had brought her to the room. Right now, she wanted to wash her body, to wash away the traces of the man who had just raped her. There she had said it. He had raped her. It didn’t matter why he did it, or whether Mandy had given her the drug so she could not resist. She had not wanted to be mounted by this man. Her emotions were confused. She was excited that her powers had finally manifested, but angry and ashamed she had not given her consent. He had raped her.
Sarita made her way to the other end of the hall. It opened into the large room with the wall benches and the entrance to the house. A translucent roof had louvers cut into it, so the night air flowed in to cool the area. The glow of the sky glitter was less here near the equator of the planet, but it was still nearly as bright as the sky back in Utopia. She saw a wide, closed door at one end of the room but froze as a man spoke.
“‘Bout time you showed up. Change of the watch is supposed to be a midnight, not after.” The replacement guard’s reply was muffled by the thick door. There was no escape that way. She went back to the hall toward the room where she was confined but edged down the hall to a door at the end. The door opened into a fenced area where ropes were strung to hang clothing. It had no gate to the outside, so Sarita tried to climb the wall only to find the top was covered with sharp shells and on the outside, guarded by thorny bushes. Sarita sat down on the ground by the door and her feelings overcame her. She began to sob and finally fell asleep on the sand of the drying area.
Should you want to read the whole story…
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