They told her her label was Ivory. Upon receiving this information, the new girl nodded and replied deferentially, "Yes, sir," but at least a part of her still had doubts over the matter.

She was sure "Ivory" was only a label she had received recently. Probably sure. On the other hand, "Ivory" was the only identity she had. Everything else was . . . was . . . .

(forbidden knowledge).

The girl shuddered and almost fell out of position. A surge of uneasiness swelled up inside her at the unfriendly thought, uneasiness and discomfort: an itchy, crawly feeling that made her feel as if she had just rolled through an undulating mass of insects. Goose pimples broke out all over her skin. It happened every time she tried thinking about her real label, her real identity, her . . .

(forbidden knowledge)

Ivory winced, whimpered, and hung her head low in sudden misery. A moment later she felt a cool leather handle press up under her chin and lift her head back up. "Eyes front, Ivory," she heard the Slaver say. "Think about servicing a man. It'll help calm you down."

"Yes, sir," she said timidly. She did as she had been instructed - it felt remarkably comfortable to follow directions - and immediately the image of a big, thick, and delicious cock filled Ivory's mind. She shuddered again, only this time in hot-blooded craving. She had no idea where all these pictures inside her head had come from, or the passions which came with them, but they were constantly springing up whenever she had a spare moment to think. The daydreams they inspired were incredibly vivid. She was on her knees giving someone a blowjob. She was belly dancing in front of a crowd of hooting men. She was having sex - no, that wasn't right, she was being used for sex - by men and women who shined like veritable gods in her mind's eye.

The Slaver went back to his chair leaving Ivory to squirm on the floor next to him. She was becoming very wet. His newspaper crinkled loudly. Ivory daydreamed about being fucked.

The way these visions kept Ivory's blood boiling was as much curse as blessing, though. She hadn't been able to really stop from thinking about sex for more than a few minutes since . . . since whenever she had arrived there. She had no sense of duration anymore. Her first clear memory was of handing over her controller to the Slaver-in-charge-of-Training some hours(?) ago. Before that, Ivory recalled only bits and pieces. She seemed to remember exercising, and there was a familiar, yet unfamiliar taste in her mouth that she simply hadn't been able to get rid of. This taste both disgusted her, yet at the same time thrilled her beyond words. Before that taste residue, there was only . . . only . . . . No, Ivory steeled herself and concentrated on how good it would be to have a cock inside her. She would not think taboo thoughts. She would not!

She thought about cock instead.

The Slaver was right. Thinking about serving men really did work to calm her down.

She knelt in the position the Training Slaver had showed her. Her ass rested on her heels, with her back arched and her legs spread wantonly wide. The way the air brushed against her naked sex only further enflamed her desires. Her hands were laid out palm up on her thighs. Ivory had both instinctively known this posture of submission and had had to be instructed in it. A lot of the things she had done recently - recently(?) - had been like that. The instructions, the images, were already inside her head; they had just needed someone - her handsome Training Slaver - to coax them out of her. It was like something had been put inside her head and was telling her precisely how to move, how to serve, how to excite men and women with her body . . . but she still needed practice nonetheless. She seemed to recall something being inserted inside her, in the back of her neck, but the memory was hazy and unclear, so she thought about cock instead.

Oh, yeah. Big cock. A big delicious cock. Maybe even more than one, using her, at the same time. Thinking about sex was easy. It was comforting. She wanted to have sex - no, that wasn't right, she wanted to be used for sex, yeah, that was it - soon. She wanted to be used for sex soon.

Part of her felt it was bad having these thoughts, but she didn't want to feel anxious again, either.

Kneeling next to her left were four other girls. Their labels were Crystal, Ebony, Tiffany, and Jade. They were all very pretty girls, each of them, like herself, half-dressed in a corset that lifted their breasts and tightened their tummies in but left their bottom halves totally exposed. A pair of garters kept her smooth silk stockings attached to the corset. They had been told to wait here in the lounge, a large and richly furnished room with many tables and plush chairs. That had been an hour ago, Ivory suspected. She could tell time that much, she supposed. A Slaver was waiting with them, occasionally correcting them whenever they had needed it. A little bit earlier he had used Jade, a pleasing little brunet like herself, for sex, and they had watched.

It had been very casual. The Slaver had been reading his newspaper, then abruptly put it down and told Jade to crawl over to him and service him. With no comment other than a demur, "Yes, Master," she had done as she was instructed. The way she moaned upon being mounted was exciting. Ivory had watched the girl, a girl who could just as easily have been her, get penetrated from behind, wriggle and groan like a dog in heat, and climax like a totally helpless slut. It was degrading, but absolutely enthralling. Ivory had barely been able to hold herself in place. She hadn't wanted to stop it. She had wanted to join it. She had wanted to take Jade's place and squirm like a slut herself. No luck, though. After he was finished, he merely told Jade to resume her place, and she had, again as if it were nothing unusual at all to be used like a living sex toy.

It was bad. Ivory knew it was bad. They had kidnapped her. They had . . . had . . . .

(forbidden knowledge) She grit her teeth and fought the vertigo, itchiness, and general turmoil.

She wondered if Crystal, Tiffany, Ebony, and Jade felt the same way she did. Probably, she thought. Everything is so confusing. Her upper lip curled up in fright. Girlish tears moistened her eyes. Only when she latched onto being "Ivory" and thought about sex did anything make sense. Ivory was beset with (forbidden knowledge) thoughts, horrible (forbidden knowledge) ideas. It was all so much easier to think about sex, to "be" Ivory, to "be" a sex toy like Jade.

But it was bad! Bad . . bad . . bad!

It was (forbidden knowledge)

No, it's bad! It's (forbidden know - NO! IT'S BAD!) It's bad! BAD BAD BAD!

(forbidden knowledge) (forbidden knowledge) BAD! (forbidden knowledge)

"BAD!" she suddenly yelled at the top of her lungs. "IT'S BAD . . Oh God, it's bad, bad, bad!"

Ivory's sudden scream made the man in the chair jump like he had been goosed in the ass. The newspaper flew across the room and landed in front of Ebony, a pretty dark-skinned girl who uttered a cry herself at the abrupt "in-her-face" action. Ivory stood up screaming and pulling at her hair, then backed up into the wall behind her and continued to yell the same thing over and over. "Bad! Oh, God. It's bad, bad!" The Slaver fumbled around on the desk beside him for the girl's controller, cursing in Dutch. His eyes were bulging out of their sockets in shock.

The other girls all put their heads face down to the floor.

"Bad! Bad!" Ivory tried to run - she didn't know where, she just wanted to run! - and stumbled into a table full of bric-a-brac. Little ornamental figures fell to the carpet. The table tipped over.

A large, redheaded man stormed into the room. His expression was the same as if he had expected a blazing fire had erupted. "Jesus Christ!" he yelled. "What the fuck's going on?"

His eyes scanned the room and immediately took in the situation. He crossed the room, grabbed the small octagon out of the first man's fumbling hands, and began inputting commands into it.

Ivory at once became still. Her mouth, which had been taking in air to let out another scream, closed silently. Her floundering against the wall ceased. She stepped away and went back to her knees. She looked up expectantly at the newcomer she somehow instinctively knew was the Chief Slaver. She had never seen him before, but she knew. Somehow, she just knew.

The Chief, breathing hard, cursed at his subordinate.

"You were supposed to be monitoring her, you idiot. You were supposed to be keeping up with her. She's brand new, for God's sake. She's had almost no conditioning whatsoever!"

The other man stammered. "But . . but I . . ."

"Just get the hell out, okay?" The Chief took a deep breath, brushed a hand over his thinning hair, and looked again at Ivory's controller. When the other Slaver hesitated, he yelled at him again. "Get out! Or I'll put a plug in you and see how you take your first hours of slavery!"

The man fled. Ivory watched the Chief through a cloud of tranquillity. She had no cares or worries. She had no thoughts. She knelt and stared at him with near total mindlessness. All the racing thoughts in her head had been stopped as completely as if a wall of ice had been put in front of them. Her reactions were glacial. She was totally, utterly numb from the neck up.

He was the Chief Slaver. He would take care of things. He would take care of her.

Nothing else mattered. There was nothing else.

The Chief sat down in the chair the other man had been previously sitting in. "Ebony, would you hand me that paper? Thank you." He put the periodical in a wooden bin next to him and concentrated on Ivory's controller. He frowned, then looked up. "All right girls. Let's do a review, shall we?" He pressed something on the remote control, and the room changed.

Ivory gasped, as did Crystal, Tiffany, Ebony, and Jade at the same time. She/they suddenly saw the room from five different perspectives at once . . . from the perspectives of Crystal, Tiffany, Ebony, Jade, and Ivory. Their hearts began to beat in tune. Their breathing synchronized, each set of breasts lifting and falling at once. When Crystal adjusted her position to avoid getting a cramp, so did everyone else. Ivory's latent tension and confusion spread throughout the other four like an oil slick over water, becoming a thing in their heads thin and tenuous. Ivory sensed the others thinking. She could feel their minds pressing against her own . . . becoming her own.

Crystal's delight at seeing her beloved Master filled her with happiness. Tiffany's obstinacy provided her strength yet at the same time grated on her/their nerves like an old tooth. Ebony and Jade were just glad they weren't the ones who had broken down. They were further along in their training than the others. Nearly all the thoughts in their heads were focused on pleasing their future Owners, whomever they might be. They were looking forward to having their bodies adjusted. Adjusted? Ivory/Crystal/Tiffany/Ebony/Jade questioned herself.

Yes, adjusted, she/they thought back. In a few weeks we'll be moved offworld and sold. They'll modify our bodies to please Owners. We'll be eternally young, beautiful, and desirable.

No, that's bad . . that's evil. That's perverse.

No, it's wonderful, Crystal/Ebony/Jade thought. Tiffany was resisting, as usual. Don't listen to them. Fight 'em. Fight them . . . Esther! Yes, I see it! Your name is Esther! Quick, look down inside (forbidden knowledge) me! Tell me my name! No, ignore her. No, tell me my name!

It was (forbidden knowledge). The five girls winced in pain and anxiety.

The Chief Slaver spoke. Their attention immediately riveted on him.

"Tiffany . . . tell me what you are. Tell me what you will do."

There was resistance, but inevitably, she/they said, "I am a slave. I will obey. I was born to obey." Bastard, she thought. Anxiety rushed through all of them. Eternal youth, beauty, and purpose, the others thought. It's a fair price. And we are only slaves, Tiffany. Only slaves.

The Chief nodded. "Girls, together now, what are you?"

The five of them spoke in unison. The words fell out of their mouths like a pre-recorded message. "We are slaves. We love being slaves."

"And?"

"We want sex. We need sex. We need to serve. We need to obey."

Their sex was achy and demanding. Their breasts were full and sensitive. Every part of her - their - body burned and craved a Master's attention.

"We want to be used. We need to be used."

"Why is that?"

"Because we are slaves. Slaves must be used."

"What purpose do slaves serve?" The Chief's mastery of them all was very comforting. Ivory was beginning to feel much better. Even Tiffany was softening underneath the powerful mantra.

"We exist to give pleasure. That is the sole purpose of our existence. We are slaves and we give pleasure." It felt good and natural to say these words. They came from their heart. They each wanted nothing more at that moment than to lick and serve the Chief, to crawl on their bellies and do anything - anything! - to relieve their sexual craving. All resistance had disappeared.

They each wanted to be used very badly.

The Chief pressed the controller. The link between them snapped off. One moment they were in each others' heads, feeling common emotions, thinking exactly the same thoughts. The next they were not. Ivory still gazed at the Chief Slaver with every bit of Crystal's ardor, though, just as she suspected the others were as well. He stood, and each of them pushed forth their bosoms to him, each desperately hoping that she would be the one selected for his use.

The Chief lifted Ivory's face to his. The others pouted disappointedly but said nothing.

"Do you feel better now, Ivory?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," she said. "I feel ever so much better. Thank you, Master."

He gave her a half-grin. "Think nothing of it. Do you want to service me, Ivory?"

"Oh, yes, please, Master, please!"

He held up her controller. "Well, then . . . let's go find a good program, hmmm?"

"Yes. Oh, yes, Master. Yes." He beckoned, and she followed him out. The four girls left behind pursued them with their eyes. They were experiencing a wide range of feelings.

Rose was greeted with curses as she entered the room.

"I'm sorry," she said, calmly walking up to the man strapped to the table in the center. The Firm had found it convenient on occasion to have a private surgical suite on its premises. The room, with its medical equipment, cabinets full of drugs, and an adjustable bed, looked as if it had been lifted in its entirety from a major hospital. "I don't understand a word you're saying," she continued. "Perhaps if you used Language you might convey your points better."

The man - one of the intruders from her apartment - continued snarling at her in untranslated Molosian. His seven-foot frame tensed with effort as he attempted to break the straps around his wrists and ankles. His arms and legs were tied down too, as was his waist. His bonds, heavy canvas reinforced with industrial plastic, were in no danger of tearing anytime soon, though.

Rose tilted her head to the side in a coquette manner and let her gaze trail over the large man's naked and muscled body. He looked like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Casually, Rose traced her dark fingernails over the Molosian's chiseled abdomen. First she swirled her middle finger around his navel, then lightly drew her hand down to the thick and springy thatch of hair around his genitals. The man's eyes met hers, and she saw a touch of fear. His scrotum had retracted and formed a tight little wrinkled package. Rose stroked it once and immediately elicited a short groan from the now helpless man. His penis jutted forth like an entirely separate animal, only tangentially connected to the rest of him. The tip glistened with moisture. Slowly, languorously, Rose slipped her fingers around his shaft. She smiled at him.

She gave him a squeeze. He jerked like a rodeo bull released from his stall.

"You and I have something to discuss," Rose said using the liquid syllables of Language. "It need not be unpleasant. I might even allow you to go home when we're done."

His reply was pure venom. Its tone more than made up for Rose's lack of comprehension.

"Ah, well," Rose said. She put a bit more muscle into her grip, her face not changing expression. The Molosian growled through his teeth. The bed creaked with his strain.

The man's efforts to escape soon turned him red all over. Sweat shimmered on his brow and chest. Rose loosened her hold for a moment, then resumed it strongly enough to force the captive to cry out. Despite his size and obvious warrior heritage, a child's tears came to the man's eyes. His head pounded against the edge of the table as much as the restraining collar around his neck allowed him. Rose tilted her head to one side again, looking for all the world like an innocent schoolgirl examining a not particularly interesting biology project. The man tried to spit at her, but all he managed to do was dribble slobber down his chin.

He cried out again. Rose began loosening her grip, squeezing again, loosening, squeezing, all the while maintaining an utterly bland look. She might as well have been milking a cow.

When she stopped after several minutes, the man looked at her in horror.

Her face was question enough. Shall I let you finish?

The pressure of her fingers was excruciating. She knew how to keep him from coming.

As much as he could, the Molosian shook his head.

Shrugging, Rose let her grip just linger, no longer exciting, just . . . holding. The man screamed in frustration. His struggles increased. In the end, though, Rose simply let go and wiped her damp hands on a towel. The Molosian's testicles had swollen to twice their original size.

The look he gave her was pure loathing.

"Tenant thrall!" the man gurgled back at her ultimately. "Extinguish me and be settled with it!"

Rose lifted an eyebrow. "Something clear at last." She dropped the towel on a nearby tray. "I want you to tell me who you are and the circumstances of how you came to be in my house."

He said but one word at her, in Molosian. Clearly it wasn't the response requested.

"Very well then," Rose said, sighing. Turning abruptly, she picked up the stimulator that had been lying on the tray table all the while. "Do you remember this? Ah, I see that you do."

She pressed it against the man's arm and activated it. The captive shook as if galvanized with electricity. His wilting shaft all at once sprouted again. Fluid shot into the air. Rose carefully positioned herself to avoid any mess. "That was pleasure," she said offhandedly. She made an adjustment to the device's meter. "This is pain." She touched him with it again. The physical reaction, ironically enough, was virtually the same. The technician had been right apparently.

"Pleasure," Rose said, using the device. Her captive shuddered.

"Pain." Another shudder. The Molosian began making a series of rather plaintive baby-noises.

"Pleasure."

"Pain."

It continued like that for several minutes.

As she worked and observed the reactions she was getting, Rose thought about her decision not to just encode the man with slave programming and be done with it, as she had done with the other fellow. She had given him his first-stage dose of instructions an hour ago. This laid the groundwork for the new persona. She would provide the second after his brain finished assimilating the neural energy and had formed the necessary pathways for the more extensive download. It was very much like what had been done to her a year ago. Rose remembered how interminable that wait between encodings had been, feeling herself paradoxically growing weaker and stronger by the hour. In the end, though, finally, the second encoding was finished. Rose remembered the girl she had been. She had all of Rosalie's memories. She knew the silly twat's likes and dislikes, her fears and petty affections, even her now meaningless dreams. They meant nothing to Rose. She had no emotional attachment to them whatsoever. Rosalie Pitzler's life was like something Rose might have read in a book, the intricate details of a character from a long and in-depth Russian Realist novel. Rosalie was as dead and buried as Anna Karenina.

She certainly would never have tortured somebody like this. That, if nothing else, proved who was the stronger and more deserving person. After this Molosian was as broken as his comrade - different methods, same results - Rose would question them both and get the answers she sought.

Rosalie would never have had the stomach to do what was necessary.

That was the primary difference between them.

The stimulator worked through direct nerve induction. As a result, Rose's captive didn't even have the luxury of passing out. After twenty minutes - ten probably would have been enough, but Rose wanted to be sure he was well and completely addicted - she put the small device back on the tray and walked over to a computer console on the other side of the room to check her messages. She studiously ignored the cries of needy anguish now coming from the table.

There was nothing new on her own database. She used her Partner access to scan all incoming general files to the Firm. She was looking for nothing in particular, just following a hunch. Her promotion might have been a trap in disguise, but it possessed certain perks nonetheless. All information related to Molos should have been automatically sent to her. She scrolled down the page, read, scrolled down some more, then noticed something. "That's interesting," she said.

There was another cry from the man on the table. The mighty warrior began to blubber.

Rose should have had access to all matters Molos. Should have. Something had been deleted.

She might never have noticed it. No one might ever have noticed it, but Rose was feeling especially paranoid tonight. A pattern emerged underneath her fingertips. Someone had tried to hide incoming news reports from the main scanning program, which was set to highlight any item the Partnership might have had an interest in. The algorithms were advanced but purely an Earth-human development. Alien software was frankly too alien to ever be compatible with terrestrial systems. Rose had taken a crash course in computer technology upon joining the Firm. She did it the hard way, without an encoder. It paid off now.

"Ah, Martin," she said, recognizing not only Gordon's access codes but his entire rote style of handling information. "Now, what have you been up to?" A number of recent Californian stories appeared on Rose's screen, all having occurred within the last few hours. They ranged from wild and highly charged witness testimonies made to reporters to actual police and ATF reports. The incident at the hotel hadn't made national headlines yet, but it would, soon.

"Oh my," Rose said after a few minutes reading, briefly looking back at her captive. "You and your friends have been busy, I see. Very, very busy."

Her attitude was jocular. Inside she felt cold. If she hadn't have checked, and if she hadn't had the skill to detect Gordon's data manipulations - skillfully done, she admitted, but textbook, each and every one of them a textbook example of hacking - this was exactly the sort of mishap the responsibilities for which would have fallen on her. The visiting Molosians had been busy. If the two from her apartment hadn't enslaved her, their incompetence in their search - they were obviously searching for someone - would have been blamed on her, and she still would have wound up in chains. She still might, unless she took some immediate damage control steps.

Rose spent several minutes rapidly typing into the computer. She then called up a handful of Firm Associates and issued them orders, not caring at all that it was two o'clock in the morning.

When she was done, Rose slowly regained her composure and returned to her waiting captive.

She dangled the stimulator in front of his face.

"Let's try again. Do we or don't we have something to discuss now?"

It turned out this time they did.

The Chief pointed the controller at Ivory. "Ready? Here we go."

She experienced a moment of intense vertigo. The bedroom shimmered like a heat-induced mirage. For a timeless instant Ivory knew only complete disorientation. Then, suddenly, it all became clear again, crystal clear, and she found herself facing a puny worm who deserved nothing less than total and complete humiliation. She was outraged they would send her - her! - such an utterly pathetic specimen. Her gloved hands immediately clenched around her whip.

"You sonfabitch," she said to him, sneering. "On your knees, vermin!"

The large, redheaded man put up his hands. "Hey, wait a minute, ma'am. I think there's been some kind of mistake. I'm . . ." Lady Ivory's whip cracked down in front of him.

"I don't care who you think you are!" she screamed at him. She strode forward, her patent leather, thigh-high boots gleaming like dark mirrors. She grabbed him by the face and twisted his head up. "When I give you a command, obey it! Now, GET ON YOUR KNEES!"

Trembling like a little boy, the burly man all but shrank in the face of Ivory's fury. She pushed him to the carpet and stood over him like the Leather Queen from Hell, her black leather and latex corset stretched tightly over a curvy figure. She tossed the whip to one side. She didn't need it for this puny pussyboy. Instead, she brought her stilettoed heel up and set it firmly on the back of the maggot's neck and pressed his face to the floor. He was already breathing hard.

Not as hard as he was going to be breathing soon, though.

"I don't know . . please, I don't . . ."

"Quiet, fuckhead," Lady Ivory said. She lifted her boot off and began circling him, hemming him in, forcing him with slight kicks into a smaller and smaller ball. "Did you really think you could get away with it? That someone wouldn't catch on?" She stopped in front of him.

"Well . . DID YOU?!!"

" . . no . . no . . , I didn't . . ."

"Shut the fuck up!" she roared at him. "Get on your back. Move, you piece of shit!"

The worm twisted over to one side until he was staring up at Lady Ivory. She straddled him, bringing the edges of her spiked heels to within bare millimeters of his ears.

"Now strip. Take off your clothes." Hurriedly the slug began fumbling at his buttons. Enraged, Ivory bent down, hooked a finger covered in kid leather through his shirt, and ripped upwards, revealing a stretched white T-shirt. "I said strip! Do you think I have all night? MOVE!!!"

She stood up and again commenced circling him, pacing around and around the same way a tiger does its prey before pouncing. She watched him take off his shirt and undershirt, then, hooting with effort and speed, his shoes, pants, and underwear. He was flabby and pale-skinned and hairy all over. He disgusted Ivory. It wasn't his appearance, though. It was the fact he was such a useless bug. "Spread your legs, bug" she told him. "Get your hands behind your head."

He complied. His organ thrust out at her like the pole on a ship's prow.

"I think there's been a mistake," he told her, shaking, gazing up at Lady Ivory as she stood between his legs. "I'm a good boy," he said. "I haven't done anything to deserve this."

Ivory's beautiful face contorted in a snarl of rage. "Do you think I care? Don't you know how meaningless you are to me?" Suddenly she jumped forward, and the man beneath her shrieked.

"TURN OVER!" she bellowed. "I WANT TO SEE YOUR ASS NOW!!"

"Oh God, oh god, oh god," the little boy prayed, but he did as he was ordered. Lady Ivory again grabbed him by the face and pushed him down. "Lift up!" she ordered and struck him across his ass cheeks. She soon had him positioned the way she wanted: face on the floor, ass in the air.

She kicked his ankles apart. First she ran her gloved fingers over the large, fleshy mounds facing her, then she began poking a finger inside him, slowly. "Oh, what a pathetic creature you are."

" . . yes . . yes . ."

"I didn't hear you," Ivory said to him. "I called you a pathetic creature. You are, aren't you?"

" . . yes . ."

"SPEAK UP!"

"Yes," he said, but only a little louder, so Ivory hooked her finger in deeper and pulled.

"YES!" he suddenly screamed. "YES, I AM A PATHETIC LITTLE CREATURE!"

She smiled and removed her hand. "That's much better." Looking around, she saw a wooden paddle dangling by the bedside. She picked it up and hefted it thoughtfully. "You deserve to be punished, don't you?" When he hesitated a moment, she slapped his chubby ass.

"Yes, I deserve to be punished."

"Because you're a bad little boy, aren't you?"

"Yes. I am a bad little boy." His whole body was quivering. Sweat covered him in a fine sheen.

Ivory raised the paddle and took aim. "Every time I flog you, repeat that phrase."

"Yes . . yes, ma'am."

She raised her arm over his upturned ass, waited, then brought it down in a whir of noise.

"Ohh . .ahh!" the worm screamed. Ivory struck him again.

"SAY IT!"

SLAP

"I am a bad little boy."

SLAP

"I am a bad little boy! I am a bad little boy!"

His buttcheeks had turned a bright red. They were vibrating like a twin set of waterbeds.

SLAP SLAP SLAP

"I am a bad little boy! I am a very bad little boy!" Indeed, he began crying like a little boy.

Ivory paddled the wretch over and over, methodically going over every inch of his ass. She quickly had him shaking and bouncing and climaxing in a helpless, rolling tempo that seemed to get the whole room bumping in sympathy. He jumped and squealed with each savage blow.

Ivory paused once and brought the flat end of the paddle up between the man's thighs, pressing down on first one, then the other of his fleshy sides. She made as if to insert the paddle inside him, and he screamed. His buttocks had turned the same color as a traffic stop sign.

SLAP SLAP SLAP

"I am a bad little boy. I am a bad little boy." He was tiring out. Ivory threw the paddle away, grabbed the man by his waist, and flipped him over on his back. He screamed again as his tenderized flesh bounced off the carpet. Lady Ivory straddled him, bringing her crotch to his upturned face. "Use your teeth, slime." Gently, in frightened awe, the bad little boy took Ivory's black-leather panties between his front teeth and pulled down. "Lick," she told him. "Lick."

He did. His tongue traced patterns over the fur of Ivory's mound and along the lips of her sex.

She clutched at him by the back of his head and pulled him in closer, allowing him to penetrate more and more deeply into her vulva and across her sensitive, engorged clit. Just as she began to feel her orgasm come, she pulled away, pushed on the worm's chest with her gloved hands, and impaled herself on his still-erect member. She screamed into his face as she came. She rode him like a horse, her leather-clad legs wrapping themselves around his body, his hands now grasping at her bare shoulders and back. They rocked back and forth for apparent ages.

Afterwards, the Chief reached out and took Ivory's controller in hand again.

Moments later she was cooing and cuddling and resting deliciously beside him, her head just below his chin. "Oh, Master . . Master," she whispered. One of his hands languorously cupped her buttocks. The other delicately traced her fine, smooth, and leather-lined curves.

She gently licked at her Master's chest. He was delicious. Ivory had never felt so comfortable.

"I want you to know," he told her, arms wrapped around her, "You did very well. You were completely open to the dom program. I'm proud of you." She giggled girlishly into his arm.

"Thank you, Master."

"You were a little rough . . . a little too verbal, I think, but that's nothing training won't fix."

"Yes, Master. Whatever you say, Master." She cooed again.

"Earlier," he went on, then grimaced as if he were in pain. "Ouch. I didn't like linking you to the others the way I did. It causes personality bleed. Defeats the whole purpose of the House."

"Yes, Master," Ivory whispered. She kissed him.

The world was spun in confusion - when had she gotten dressed in leather? - but one thing at least made sense. She was in the arms of her Owner and Master. "Yes, Master." She agreed with him totally, even if she didn't understand him. Whatever he said was all right with her.

He laughed. Adjusting slightly, the Chief repositioned the girl on top of him so that he could look up into her face and she down into his. She felt him stiffening again beneath her, but he had a lock on her hips, and he was very strong. He held her damp sex motionless above his burgeoning shaft, the tip just lightly brushing against her folds. He was incredibly strong.

Ivory began to whimper and pant in a newly brought-on need.

"Anyone can program a slave. Eradicate her personality with an encoder." The Chief began to lower her, then, teasing, lifted again just as she was anticipating a delightful impalement. Ivory emitted a short, plaintive cry. "I prefer a slave with individuality . . . with a mind of her own."

"Yes, Master," she said, then bit her lip. He was so close. She was so hungry for him!

"The connoisseurs market is superior. Let the masses satisfy their lusts with bland, encoded girls. The discriminating elite prefer their slaves with flexibility. With training. Then they can be whatever their owners want them to be, instantly, with just a flick of a controller."

"Yes, Master." It had been so cozy just minutes before. Now Ivory felt as if a void had opened up inside her. It needed to be filled. She needed to be filled. "Please, Master," she moaned.

Slowly, very slowly, the Chief lowered her on top of him, pushing inside her. He paused then with just the tip of his dick pressing into her. "Oh, please, Master." This was absolute torture.

"I think it's important to be able to have a decent conversation with a woman, don't you think, Ivory?" He let her slip down just a little more, then pulled back. Her pussy grasped at him like a desperately seeking mouth. "You can't have that with an encoded girl. Shit, it's like talking to the furniture! Cookie-cutter personalities, the lot of them."

"Oh, please, Master! I'll do anything, be anything for you . . please!"

"See!" The Chief said, excited, still holding her tightly. "That's what I mean exactly. 'I'll do anything.' I. I. You know how much trouble it is getting an encoded slave just to use fuckin' proper pronouns?" Laughing, he lessened his grip.

With a scream of pleasure, Ivory skewered herself on top of him. A monstrous, mind-blowing orgasm erupted inside her. The floor shook as though caught in an earthquake.

The Chief's sperm roared up inside her, eliciting yet another ecstatic bolt of pleasure. Ivory straddled her Master and rotated her hips on top of his. He groaned in pain and pleasure.

His ass hurt like hell.

Ealic nuzzling at her hand, the woman from Molos came to a decision.

She continued to stare out at the immense skyline of Chicago. There was something inside her that had always enjoyed looking down from a height upon others. She rather liked this Earth with its towering buildings, and she resolved to have one constructed in Kedia when she got back. The combat-thrall whimpered from its position beside her, and she petted it.

Nagh and his men weren't coming back, she knew now. They had failed again. She would therefore have to search for that emerald abomination herself. In a way, though, she was sanguine with this idea. Nagh hadn't wanted to say it to her, but in the privacy of her own thoughts she could admit it. She and this femthrall would think alike, naturally. She should be able to anticipate what the creature would do now. Turning from the window, the Molosian picked up a silvery projector from the stand and examined it. She knew how easily chronal frequencies could be traced by those who had the equipment. In theory, she could employ its power to go to this planet's moon. Built-in safety features prevented actions like that, though. Even teleporting straight up wouldn't work. Client projectors only sent living materials to locations where it could survive on its own, where the conditions would automatically kill it.

Too bad. She had daydreamed about projecting Captain Nagh into a vat of acid. In any case, following up on the misbegotten tenantborn's trail should present no real problems.

When she found out what he had done, she had almost ordered his execution on the spot. Instead she had allowed herself to be persuaded he could find his errant creation faster than anyone else could. She should have known better. She hoped she ran into him again, though, before finally leaving this world. Ealic was getting hungry. She would feed both her former bodyguard and his creation to her pet, just as she had intended to from the beginning. And then she would go home and leave this embarrassing incident in her career behind her forever.

With this resolution firmly in mind, the Processor from Molos picked up her gear, adjusted the range of her projector to include both her and her thrall, and teleported away in pursuit.

In time, the Chief told Ivory to get off him, and she did so, reluctantly. Remnants of Crystal, Ebony, and Jade floated through her mind, as did a little bit of Tiffany, though not as much.

Moving like an old man, the Chief went to the dresser and began pulling out clothes. Ivory took off the leather. Had she really flogged her Master? The memory was dim, like something she had done a million years ago. She could hardly believe that she could actually flog her Master.

This is bad, she thought. Bad . . .

(forbidden knowledge) She winced in pain. Not that again, she thought. Please, please.

"Send in Tiffany. She's the blond girl you were with. I want to see her in fifteen minutes."

"Yes . . yes, Master," Ivory said.

"Then I want you to get some sleep. Dream about our session. Review your performance."

Blinking, his instructions making her feel like a machine, Ivory nodded. "I will get some sleep. I will dream about our session and review my performance." She held no doubt that she would.

He turned and looked at her. "What are you, Ivory? What will you do from now on?"

She blinked at him, then, as if by rote, she said, "I am a slave. I will obey. I was born to obey."

He nodded. "Very good. That was a good show for a first program. Don't forget to send in Tiffany."

"Yes, Master," Ivory said, then turned and left the room quietly. A few minutes later Tiffany knocked on the door and was told to come in. Taking a deep, resigned breath, she did.

"Help me with this, Tiff," the Chief told her. He was holding a shirt and pants. "I'm a little sore." He sat down on a chair by the night stand as though he were riddled with arthritis.

Feeling relieved that he wasn't going to fuck her - only a little relieved, though, because the Chief could change his mind in an instant, and also because at least a part of Tiffany wanted him to fuck her like the slut she had become - Tiffany went to him dutifully.

She held his shirt and helped him get his arms into it.

"We're taking a trip today, Tiffany."

Ah, shit, she thought. Shit! What the hell are you gonna do . . . ?

"I said we're going to take a trip," he repeated.

"Yes, Master," she said to him respectfully. "If I may ask, Master, where are we going?"

He began struggling with the buttons. "Back to Chicago. You're going to help me with Carmel and Creeme." He paused, then looked up at her and smiled when he saw the dismay on her face.

"Why . . why me, Master?" she whined at him, unconsciously falling to her knees in front of him. "Why are you always doing this to me? Taking me with you, making me do . . do . . . ."

He cupped her tear-laden cheeks.

"Because you're a Tiffany, darling. And because you're fighting the plug inside your head. I think it'll do you good to enslave someone. It may break down some of your inhibitions." He bent back down to his buttons. "Shame their buyer just wants them encoded, though. Makes it easier for us, but it's still a shame. I was just telling Ivory . . ."

"You bastard," Tiffany said to him, and he looked at her in surprise. "You soulless bastard!"

"Bad girl," he told her. "You're a bad, bad girl."

Tiffany rocked back on her heels as waves of vertigo, dismay, and emotional pain swept through her. You're a bad, bad girl. You're a bad, bad girl. The words echoed through her mind.

The Chief stood up. "Help me with the pants. Then go find a dress. We're leaving as soon as you're ready." Dismissing her, ignoring her pain, he turned toward the dresser mirror.

"Yes, Master," Tiffany whispered, her head reeling, still trying to catch her breath. She got up.

You're a bad, bad girl. She dug her long nails into the palm of her hand, willing herself not to vomit. After the nausea passed, then, dutifully, Tiffany helped her Master with his pants.

The Partnership was no global illuminati. It did not control the destiny of nations. It was not ultra-rich. Many of the Partners themselves were highly placed in government and business, true, but there was only so much influence they could exert without calling undue attention to themselves or their work for the Client. Still, with the right tools and up-to-date information, anything was possible. Barely three hours since she had made her first calls, a little over five hours since two Molosians had broken into her apartment and tried to enslave her, and just under fifteen hours since she had first laid eyes on the race, Rose found herself in a room with ten of them, each either still unconscious from the drugs they had used on one another or rendered into a state of paralysis from the immobilizer now held in the palm of her hand. She sighed deeply.

It was going to be a long day. She could already tell.

They were in a sub-basement below the Firm's building. The Molosians were laid out in a long row along one lengthy, gleaming white wall. Rose paced to and fro inspecting her catch.

The first two were the ones from her apartment. They were immobilized. One was struggling against the encoded slave protocols coalescing inside his brain. The other was fighting a very new, very intense nerve-stimulation addiction. Paralyzed as they were, though, they both looked like stuffed dummies. The remaining eight had been taken from a house in California. A locus of projection frequencies had led Rose's Associates right to them even in spite of an unusually intense chronal interference. Someone, Rose thought, had set up a diversion using a spare projector. An expensive trick, but an effective one. That someone had probably projected out, too. A scan made inside the house had indicated as much, but no one was found at the other end of the recorded projection effect, which had terminated in a grassy field not ten miles away.

It had to be the green woman, Rose concluded. The meeting yesterday had been a sham. She was the one the Molosians were really after. She must have been the one who had projected out of the salesman's house. Rose had her own people now pursuing the little bitch.

It was unbelievable how much trouble one offworld slave had caused in one day.

Rose had just finished watching the security tape from LoeserTech fifteen minutes ago. It had been easy making the connection and getting the story once she had Straughan, Brafford, and everyone else involved in this comedy in custody. Five civilians altogether - two guards, a scientist, a maid, and a retired salesman - each injected with some kind of mind control serum. They were turning out to be a lost cause. Whatever the chemical green girl had used, it lingered in the system and might have permanent brain-altering effects. The five were upstairs in the building now undergoing a complete detox, less for their benefit, admittedly, than in an attempt to find out exactly the properties of whatever it was that had been used. There was also the two people who had been tranquilized at the motel to consider, plus police and Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents, reporters, family members of the parties involved - Straughan's wife in particular was causing a stink - and so on. It was all proving to be a horrible, horrible mess.

It wasn't anything Rose couldn't fix, though.

Fortunately, no one had been killed in the shoot-out at the motel. The tapes from LoeserTech were now all in the possession of the Firm. The important parties in charge of the investigations either had been bribed, had their wits dulled by compellor-backed hypnosis, or both. Rose felt a little like an MIB agent from the movies, but she wasn't amused by the parallel. The news story about the motel was still going to air, but at least she had made sure it was her story, and not the real one, that would be told. There would be another Partners meeting in three hours to discuss the matter, but she already knew what they were going to say. Find the slave responsible!

And she would, because, when it came right down to it, it was either her or Rose now. Someone would be taking the blame for this mess. Someone in the Firm had intended it be Rose.

She looked down at the Molosians.

She would get their side of things today. Maybe she would find out who they were working with. It couldn't just be Gordon alone. Was it really the Senior Partner? The Chief Slaver?

Someone else? Whoever it was, he or she would be joining that green slut in captivity. I hope you enjoy your last hours of freedom, bitch, Rose thought. She continued to pace the room.

Because they are definitely going to be your last.