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Ketha had her own ship and she had learned to fly it at an early age. She’d always been self-reliant—not wanting to depend on anyone else to take her places. Her mother called it being “headstrong and rebellious” but Ketha thought it was practical. She liked being able to leave any place at any time she wanted without having to wait for a ride and go wherever she wanted without always begging for permission.
So she flew her little racing shuttle—which had just room enough for two—over to the Flesh Bazaar.
The Flesh Bazaar was the oldest slave market in the Yonnite sector and it was where most of the discerning Mistresses got their male bodyslaves. One saw female slaves for sale there as well, but then, one saweverykind of creature for sale there, including just about every sentient species in the galaxy.
Ketha strolled through the large chamber with its vaulted ceiling, echoing with the cries of “slaves for sale!” The enormous space was dotted with square pedestals where the various slaves were displayed.
Most of the slaves were naked and already had pain collars on to keep them in line. There were Zorthian laborers with leathery green skin and bulging yellow eyes, Mis’landra milk-dancing girls who had two sets of breasts, one right under the other, all of which were constantly lactating, and Fri’drops which were excellent as severs or hairdressers, due to their eight long, flexible, tentacle-like arms. (Though they had to have a large pool to live in, due to their extreme hydration needs.)
As she walked, Ketha tried to imagine being one of the slaves up for sale. What would it be like to be stripped of your clothes and forced to stand on a stone pedestal? To have prospective buyers fondle your body and look at your teeth to determine if they wanted to buy you or not? The thought made her shiver and she felt sorry for the slaves.
Her mother treated the males who served them like dirt, but Ketha had a soft spot in her heart for them. Probably because the only kind and caring adult in her life as she was growing up had been her mother’s ancient bodyslave-butler, Speaks Softly. He had been a sweet old male who had held Ketha on his knee and told her fascinating stories of his home world of Twin Moons, where there were two males to every female and the Goddess ruled over them all with love and compassion.
Speaks, as he was called for short, was a Kindred—a race which was much prized for bodyslaves because they refused to hurt women. Any Yonnite Mistress who owned a Kindred knew she had a trustworthy male who wouldn’t try to murder her in her sleep—as many other kinds of slaves would.
Being a Kindred, Speaks had been kind and protective of Ketha—almost like a father would have been—if she’d had one. Of course, no one on Yonnie Six had a father—at least, not in the rich and fashionable circles of the Yonnite Mistresses. They all went to the Conception Centers to get pregnant with their heirs. But because of Speaks Softly, Ketha grew up liking males rather than disliking and distrusting them, like many other Yonnites did.
He had told her often of his home world and how he had lost his twin and brother, a male called Shouts Loudly. Ketha got the feeling that if his twin had still been alive, Speaks would have tried to escape. But when he lost his brother, he also lost the ability to call a mate and to have a normal life—well, whatever was normal for a Twin Kindred, anyway, which seemed strange to her. So he was content to stay in bondage to her mother and to act as a surrogate father to Ketha.
Unfortunately, Speaks had died recently—passing peacefully in his tiny room at the back of the penthouse. He’d had a short illness and Ketha had refused to let her mother send him away to the Dream Gas mines—which Mistress Morebutt had wanted to do because he “wasn’t useful anymore.” She had nursed the old bodyslave herself—though her mother had complained it was beneath her—and had done her best to make his last moments easy.
In the very end, Ketha had been holding his hand and she knew she would never forget it. Just as Speaks had been about to breathe his last, his faded blue eyes had opened wide, as though seeing some glory that no one else could comprehend.
“Oh, it’s you, Shouts…Brother, I hear you calling me. Goddess—I’m coming home!” he had breathed and then his hand had gone limp in Ketha’s and she’d known he was gone.
“Now why did you have to think about that?” she muttered to herself, because her eyes were suddenly stinging with tears. She still missed the old Kindred bodyslave, she admitted to herself. Missed him more that she could say. It had only been six solar months since his passing and she still felt his loss deeply.
If Speaks had still been alive, she might have consented to have the baby her mother so desperately wanted for her second heir. The old Kindred bodyslave had been excellent with children and he would have helped Ketha raise her daughter. (And itdefinitelywould have been a daughter—the Conception Centersonlyused seed that was guaranteed to produce female heirs.)
Of course, she could always use a nanny-bot—a specially programmed AI robot which was made specifically to raise the heirs of Yonnite Mistresses. But Ketha herself had been given over to a nanny-bot at birth and she remembered how cold and unloving it had been. Without Speaks to care for her, she would have had a loveless childhood, since Mistress Morebutt couldn’t be bothered to come see her more than once a week or so, when she was little.
So if shedidever have a child, she was going to raise the little girl by hand and not pass her off to a machine, Ketha swore to herself. She sighed. IfonlySpeaks was still around. He was always so good with children—they trusted him instinctively because they could sense his gentle nature and kind heart.
She wondered if the new bodyslave would be anything like him. Her mother had ordered another Kindred from their usual slave dealer, but it had taken him some time to procure one.
Apparently the Kindred—which were a race that was ninety-five percent male—now knew that they were considered prime candidates for bodyslaves by Yonnite Mistresses and they were being more careful. So it was getting harder and harder to buy one—even at the elite dealers of the Flesh Bazaar. Still, Mistress Morebutt had stuck to her standards, refusing to eventhinkof any other species when she decided to replace Speaks.
“I won’t have any other kind of male running my household!” she’d told the slave dealer, who was a shifty-eyed Saurian with scaly skin and slitted yellow eyes. “I simplymusthave a male I can trust, and the Kindred are theonlymales who absolutely will not harm a female.”
“They are getting difficult to procure, Missstresss,” the dealer had hissed doubtfully. “It may take me sssome time to get you one.”
“I’ll wait,” Mistress Morebutt had said. “Ketha and I will simply have to make do with a robo-butler until you can get me a Kindred.”
Actually, Ketha didn’t mind the robo-butler. True it was clunky and its hands were too cold and metallic to give a good massage—the one time Ketha had tried its massage function, she had found it was like being rubbed by an ice-cold metal rolling pin. But it was good at keeping track of her mother’s appointments and it was easy to fool, so she could sneak out at night if she wanted to.
Shouldn’t have to be sneaking anywhere,she thought to herself resentfully, as she continued through the Bazaar, waving off achuni-meat vendor who was trying to sell her a candied Koo-lock penis on a stick.I’m a grown woman, past the age of maturity. Mother needs to stop treating me like a child!
The problem with Mistress Morebutt was her intense need to micromanage and control everything and everyone in her life. She wasawfulto live with—especially now that they didn’t have Speaks to act as a kind of buffer-zone between them. He had always been able to mitigate any conflict between Ketha and her mother and bring peace. Now that he was gone, their entire relationship was nothingbutconflict!
Ketha sighed when she thought of all the things the old Kindred bodyslave had done, from parenting her when her mother refused to be bothered, to acting as a sounding board when she needed good advice, to keeping the entire household running smoothly—all while keeping her and her mother from biting each other’s heads off. How could the new bodyslave—even if he was a sweet, mild-tempered Kindred—be anywherenearas good as the one they had lost?
“He can’t be,” Ketha muttered to herself. “There’s no way he can fill Speaks’ place—even if he tries. No matter how sweet and kind he is, he won’t be Speaks.”
She had reached the back of the vast, echoing hall by now. Finally she saw the golden curtain which led to the elite slave dealers in the back. They sold only the best of the best to the richest and most exacting Yonnite Mistresses. Mistress Morebutt had never purchased a slave from the “front room” as she scathingly called it. There was nothing worth having until you got past that golden curtain, at least in her opinion.
Ketha was stopped by an attendant at the curtain but the moment he recognized her as Mistress Morebutt’s heir, she was allowed to pass at once. She nodded her thanks and pushed on through.
Behind the sparkling metallic fabric was a long hall, carpeted in lushvelkapelts. The carpeting went up the walls and ceiling too, which gave the feeling of walking down a long, furry tunnel. This served to keep everything whisper quiet, since the dense black and white pelts had natural noise canceling properties.
