AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I let out a tiny whimper, and I obeyed. I hadn’t considered until that moment why the agent would give me that command, but I discovered the answer as I realized just how exposed a naked young woman feels when she puts her hands on her head. I bit my lip at the way the posture seemed to thrust my little breasts forward and tense the muscles of my abdomen, displaying me for the agent’s roving eyes.
The left corner of his mouth went up a millimeter or two.
“Good girl,” he pronounced.
I felt my forehead work, and my teeth clamped down harder on my lower lip as I tried to quell the unwelcome wave of idiotic warmth that filled my chest at this humiliating praise.
“Now,” Agent Delvik continued, “come out here, please. You’re going to come over to this side of the table and stand in front of me. Your hands are to remain where they are.”
My feet stayed where they were. I swallowed hard, trying to work up the courage to ask the question that seemed to press against the inside of my skull, knowing more agony lay only a touch of his finger away but even more fearful of what lay outside the cage, if I did as he had told me.
“Sir?” I said, trying to gain a little time by using that terribly unfamiliar yet terribly significant word—the one he had told me I must use, the one that echoed to me from school-tales of imperial exploits, soldiers and sailors under discipline, answering to the officers and the nobles who held all the power.
“Yes, girl?” he asked, a note of impatience in his tone making my pulse jump.
“How… how are you… how…?” I couldn’t say it, but Agent Delvik obviously knew precisely the terror that occupied my mind.
“How will I punish you, my dear?” he asked, his voice suddenly patronizing again.
I nodded, swallowing again, trying vainly to clear the lump of terror from my throat.
“You’ll see, once I’ve inspected you thoroughly,” the agent replied. “I think you’ll find it easier in some ways than the cage’s punisher—and more difficult in others. At any rate, it’s a form of discipline I’m sure your master will use with great frequency to control your behavior, and so you should start to get used to it as soon as possible.”
My mouth opened and closed. I had no idea what to make of his words, and the knowledge that Agent Delvik had intended precisely that confusion made me feel like a fool. The blush that had reddened my cheeks from the moment I took my hands away from my breasts and my pussy grew even hotter.
The worst part—the completely unexpected part—of his cryptic answer echoed in my mind.Once I’ve inspected you thoroughly.I looked at him, chewing the inside of my cheek so hard I could taste the salt of my blood.
He raised his eyebrows again. His finger made a circle over the screen of the handheld, and I let out a cry of fear. My feet moved of their own accord, my body desperate to remove itself from the cage at any cost.
Any cost, the rational voice in my mind said, with what might have been a grim little chuckle if the words had actually come out of my mouth.This cost may well make me wish I hadn’t left the cage, agony or not.
The dirt of the basement floor felt reassuring and familiar after the metal of the cage and its capacity to punish every attempt I made at resistance. For a moment, the rational part of me forced me to keep walking forward despite how my whole face burned at the sight of Agent Delvik’s frank evaluation of my naked body.
Then my feet stopped, as if the feeling of my native world’s soil beneath them had stirred my spirit in my chest. My eyes stayed locked on the man in the red uniform, sitting so casually, waiting for me to reach him so that he could begin doing whatever terrible things he intended to do as a means of breaking my will.
He spoke, his voice just as nonchalant as his posture, despite the terrible degradation in his words. “Eyes down, girl. From now on you won’t look a Vionian in the eye unless he or she tells you to.”
My lips parted, and my eyes went wide. Instinct took over: I removed my hands from my head, and turned my eyes wildly around the basement room, taking in the support columns, the metal door through which the elders had brought me. I felt tears starting up anew in the corners of my eyes, and I found myself closing my mouth so that I could swallow hard as the flight reflex built and built in my nervous system and my muscles.
I couldn’t have said why—why the idea of having to look at the floor while my masters and mistresses took their eyes’ satisfaction of my furnished body had pushed me into the necessity of doing something, anything to escape, no matter how foolish. It probably had something to do with the feeling of Kamnian dirt under my feet, and the knowledge that when the agent put me back in the cage, as he would surely do, I would probably never again feel grounded that way.
“Chalondra, my dear,” I heard him say, his tone chiding. He didn’t need to say anything more: the condescension in his voice spoke volumes.Are you going to throw away the progress you’ve made? Are you going to make me treat you like a bad girl again?
Progress towards… a sob wrenched itself from my chest, as much at my own complicity as at the terrible things Agent Delvik had done to me and the undoubtedly worse ones he meant to do. I hadn’t had the spirit to resist. I had raised my dress for him to watch me pee my panties. I had stripped naked, put my hands on my head, stepped out of my cage. I had helped the horrible agent prepare me to serve his company and whomever the company sold me to.
“No,” I choked out, and though it made no logical sense at all, I ran for the door. I wove my way around two pillars, going wide to avoid Agent Delvik. I noticed that he was not moving quickly, the way I had expected him to do in order to catch me.
I had won many races in our school athletics events: my speed and agility as I easily got to the door somehow persuaded me, just for an instant, that I would actually escape. The door would open, and I would fly up the stairs, out of the village house, across the plaza, and into the woods.
None of the people there would even notice my nakedness: Kamnian women exercised in breast halters and tight shorts, so as soon as I got halfway across the plaza I would just look like a young woman out for a very fast run. I couldn’t go back to my family of course, but I could steal a dress from somewhere and start walking to another village. There I would pretend to have lost my memory, and a new life would begin: a husband, children, everything the company had tried to take away with their requisition… I’d have all of it, because the door would open.
Somehow I managed to make that plan in the six or seven steps it took me to get to the other end of the room. I reached out for the doorknob, ready to turn it, pull, and then slip around onto the landing at the base of the stairs.
The door didn’t even have a knob. Its smooth, gray metal presented an absolutely featureless surface. In disbelief, I touched it where the knob should have been.
I should have known better by now. I heard the warning beep, and I felt the searing pain between my legs. I screamed and snatched my hand back, retreating a pace back into the room.
I felt my naked back press hard up against something warm, firm, and covered in fabric. Agent Delvik, right behind me. I tried to turn to face him, thinking I would plead with him, apologize, promise to keep my eyes on the ground.
