For Orella and Hanna the two weeks of their training seemed to pass quickly. Past the first day everything became easier. After the fourth class Orella was never again lashed with the flail. The former princess still did not like eating quim but it became continually easier and the guards became less confrontational and more gentle with each passing day.
Orella and Hanna found that pleasing men was indeed easier but sometimes less satisfying. The men expected the same thing each time even though neither Hanna nor Orella had serviced the same archer twice. Both grew accustomed to the pungent taste of male ejaculate.
On the other hand the female guards, while they circulated through all of the virgin slaves, definitely had favorites. Orella had attracted the attention of a tall strawberry blonde guard who was quite youthful and very pretty. For reasons she did not understand; Orella found that not only did she not mind servicing this guard, she actually began to enjoy it. It disappointed Orella to not even know her name. In the slave complex the controlling women were either attendant, instructor, or guard. Names were never used. The strawberry blonde called Orella, simply, slave and Orella called her guard. Orella and Hanna were also not permitted to use their given names within earshot of the guards or they were punished. As one guard put it.
"You lost your name and identity when you were captured and your future masters will give you new names so it is best for all of you to forget your pasts. Thinking about yesterday and freedom only causes sadness and misery."
Every three days the virgin slaves were led to the baths for a brief release from their chastity devices before they were bathed and depilated again and the objects were returned to their loins.In addition to being given classes in the art or oral pleasure the slaves were also given courses in how to properly greet a master, how to properly worship a master, and dealing with issues such as how to handle the wife or husband of your master. Hanna was also gone for long hours from her cell supplementing her education and being interviewed by agents for potential buyers.
Teachers, and skilled tradespeople were the only slaves allowed to keep a semblance of their former lives. Although they had lost their freedom no one wanted to see them lose their talents as well. The skilled and professors and tutors rarely ended up as slaves. Most were captured as spoils of war or on raids. Why take your enemies sappers, for example, and turn them into laborers when the can become YOUR sappers?
It was considered a status symbol among the very rich to own the teacher of your children or to have you own private stonemason. Hanna would be given a new name by her owner but in most respects her life would continue on the trajectory on which it had begun. A few days before their scheduled sale Hanna's simple collar identifying her as a tutor was removed. It would not be needed on the sales floor.
Orella realized that she would miss Hanna deeply. They had been so close. Orella also wondered about her nurse Cordellia. Since entering the slave complex she had learned that women such as Cordellia were trained and sold very quickly. Orella said a prayer for her nurse every day but she wondered if her prayers were heard for she had plead for her freedom incessantly since her capture. But since the god of her people had allowed her father to die and, her country as well as her freedom to vanish, perhaps he no longer listened to her. She knew that her own education was at an end.
It was illegal to teach pleasure slaves, which is what Orella would end up being, most things save, perhaps the new language of their masters as well as the customs and laws of the slave's new country. She was to be mostly silent except around other slaves or to boost the esteem of her master. Some masters enjoyed talking to their slaves and Orella prayed that she would be purchased by that kind of master. She loved to talk.
The most difficult thing for her now, besides the obvious dreadfulness of being a slave in the first place was the current lectures she was receiving on intercourse. She had understood, dimly, that men and women (and sometimes men and men or women and women) would lie together to produce either a child or pleasure but the actual mechanism had been hidden from her. A male master and his female slave had been coming to the lecture hall for the past three days. Even though no one knew when (or even if) Orella's virginity would be forfeited, she had to know the positions and reactions expected of her when the time came. Orella could hardly believe that the female slave seemed to enjoy her master entering her in so many different ways and so many times. It reminded the former princess of rutting animals.
Despite her prayers, the fourteenth day since she had entered the complex arrived. She and Hanna would be sold tomorrow and would never see each other again. Quietly, so as not to attract the attention of the guards, Orella and Hanna whispered to each other. They pledged their undying devotion to one another and Hanna said that if there were any way possible she would try to find Orella and would come to visit her. They blew kisses to each other and at last fell asleep.
The morning bells woke the sleeping slaves. When the enormity of the day donned on some of the captives they began weeping but Orella had decided that since her god had abandoned her, she no longer had need of grief. What ever happened to her she would try to accept as best she could.The slaves were led to the baths where the attendants payed extra careful attention to them. After her bath and hair removal, Orella's ivory skin fairly glowed. Instead of the usual braids, a hairdresser came into the chamber to fix all of the slave's hair in very becoming ways. The virgins were informed that they would not be in chastity devices while being auctioned off, however, the devices would be placed back upon them once their sales were final.
From a balcony, the virgin slaves watched the sale of what the guards called, "Mostly inferior stock."
Skilled tradesfolk, tutors and virgins were sold last. Orella thought the process horrific even though she had been told exactly what it would entail. First to appear on the selling floor were the least desirable men. Orella was shocked. Some had been captured in war and lacked either an arm or a leg and sometimes both. They were naked and ugly.The guard supervising the virgins said men like this would be bought to do things such as operate factory levers for hours on end or tend fires at the incinerator. Orella felt pity for these men. The ones who were not war wounded were obviously weak and sickly. Most sold for only a few credits. With men such as these, Orella was led to understand, no one even bothered to train them.
Gradually those occupying the selling floor became healthier and more numerous. At last it came time for the tradesmen and teachers to be sold. There was no effort to segregate these slaves by sex. Hanna mounted the stage between two men who had been shorn of body hair. The slave on her right was a naked engineer who appeared to be in his mid twenties and left was a surveyor who was clearly past thirty and paunchy. Orella felt happy to see Hanna this one last time.
The former princess soon witnessed with her own eyes that the male slaves had been trained in many of the same ways as the female slaves when she witnessed a male slave preform fellatio on his purchaser. A bidding war erupted for Hanna. She had demonstrated in interviews that she as an excellent teacher. The fact that she was so youthful meant that she could be kept in the household for quite a long time and then rented to other households after her own pupils had come into adulthood.
