Author's Note: This chapter is long, but it's filthy. I'm still weaving a plot and a story but there from this point on, sex plays an important role. I hope you enjoy it.
*****
In the dark caravan, Leda considered what her life might have been. What if she had accepted her fate and become a whore? What if she not run that day after Gerald disowned her?
His name had been blacked out on her chest and she lay on the straw, recovering. She was sure the needle they used to black out names was duller than the ones they used to write. She was vaguely delirious when she heard the men discussing what came next.
There would be an inspection, some paperwork, and then she's be taken away on one of those caravans.
Maybe they thought she was asleep, maybe they didn't care if she knew. No women can do much about the groping and weighing of flesh that occurred when a women needed to be repurposed. But after an old man run his hands over her breasts and put his fingers in her mouth to inspect her teeth, he left. And Leda had been alone with the paperwork.
The only thing which separated herself from the women here was the ability to write.
With a different mother - she might have been like Nadine. As the caravan rumbled though the forest, Nadine shared her story readily, as though she needed to provide Leda with some context for why, hours before, she had wanted to kill her with a crossbow. She had been passed around dozens of camps, and serviced countless men before she found Teeth and decided it was better to be a killer and a whore. And she was just a child. She was disowned before she was 15. Tatiana and Maria were mates and whores for years before they found each other. Whomever it was who decided those two women should be in one place together didn't realize what kind danger he had put himself in until it was too late.
Would Leda have been brave enough to rebel like these women had? Disappearing from the State is one thing. All she had had to do was forge a few documents. But if that hadn't worked, would she have been brave enough to kill someone for her freedom?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a two sharp knocks. Maria was coming up on the encampment.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Tatiana peered at Leda in the dark.
Leda cleared her throat.
"Do you think it will work?"
"It's a good plan," Tatiana said flatly. "But I don't know you very well. You might not be clever enough to pull it off."
Leda smiled. Tatiana's honesty was bracing - an unsubtle reminder to keep her wits about her. She wasn't alone on the lake anymore. She would have to interact with people. And she wouldn't have the upper hand.
"If you do fail," Nadine said. "It won't be because of your clothes. You look like a proper whore."
"I don't think she looks like a proper anything," This was Nora, or maybe Beth. Leda couldn't see through the dark. There were a few hushed giggles. They were close to the camp now, and the girls wouldn't get their haul if they knew how many girls were hiding in the caravan.
Leda reddened in the dark. She was tied so tightly into her corset she could barely bend. Her waist was squeezed into nothing as her breasts nearly spilled over top. Instead of wearing a proper dress, Tatiana had given her an embroidered shawl to cover her shoulders, and a long green skirt trailed behind her, it's excess fabric a cruel joke considering the nakedness of her breasts. Even her hair felt different, the long curls brushed out into soft waves which brushed her elbows as she sat against the wall. She tried not to think of what might happen to her, dressed like this. She tried to remember that bad things had happened to her no matter how covered her breasts were. Still, she felt vulnerable. Even if this was just another uniform.
The caravan lurched suddenly. Tatiana took Leda's hand.
"Let's see if they take the bait,"
"They always do," said a voice in the dark.
Leda squeezed Tatiana's fingers, then stepped out into the woods.
It was dusk by then. They'd been travelling all day and Maria had run the caravan into a small ditch. She was working on a small campfire, now, a different person out of pants and in her whore's corset and skirts. Soon the flames burned brightly; a beacon to lure a few rangers out to the woods.
"Here," she handed Leda a branch. "Fan the fire, and try to send the smoke towards the fort."
Leda did as she was told, and soon they could hear the rustle of horses approaching.
"Remember, Leda, things don't always go as we expect them to," Maria said. "You'll have to improvise."
"Luckily for us, it always takes some time for them to realize that women can scheme," Tatiana said. "Now push up your tits and look dimwitted and scared."
Three riders came out of the woods and Leda couldn't recognize one of them. They were shabby men on shabby horses, but they looked utterly gleefully when they found the source of the firelight.
"Hello hello, ladies," a man with long, ratty hair dismounted. "What's happening here?"
"Our caravan, it's broken," Leda could barely recognize the voice as Maria's. She spoke like a little girl.
The ratty haired man inspected the caravan briefly, as if he needed to confirm that a caravan, stuck in a ditch and lacking two wheels, was indeed broken.
"And where's your caravan leader?" he said, coming closer.
"He went for help," Maria looked down at the ground. "He said he'd only be gone a few minutes but..."
"That was yesterday," Tatiana, too, sounded like a lost child. "And we have no food, we haven't even gone out to look for water. He told us not to move."
The other men dismounted then, looking for a place to tie their animals. The ratty haired leader came up to Maria, and slowly, brought his hand to her hair, taking a handful of the black locks and running his dirty fingers through them languidly.
"Ned, why don't you give these girls some water," he spoke to his man without taking his eyes off Maria.
"Thank you," she whispered.
The ratty haired man kissed her then, pressing his chapped lips against hers roughly. Maria struggled, but he held her face to his, forcing a tongue between her lips harshly. Leda shuffled indignantly but Tatiana reached out and touched her arm, forcing her to relax.
