Thanks again to Avicia for editing.
Chapter 12 -- Submission, Letters, and a Duel
A LETTER TO HER MOTHER
Lena wanted revenge.
Lena, in some ways, envied the other women on the Everleigh. Lena only caught glimpses of them with short conversations as they ate or exercised, but, as far as Lena could see, the other women had moulded themselves or been moulded into roles in which they were cared for like helpless pets. They had to make no decisions more complex than those involved in exercising whatever discretion the customer had allowed them during sex. Most of those issues, such as how long the customer wanted to use the woman's mouth before entering her pussy, could largely be left to instinct.
In short, the sex slaves on the Everleigh received a comfortable lifestyle of food, sleep and sex dictated by the boat and customers. To Lena, it seemed that those women had all decided that that was all they wanted.
Of course, for all the sex slaves, pregnancy is uncomfortable, and childbirth is painful, but that is just part of being a woman. The Everleigh Entertainment Company was doing its best to minimize the discomfort and pain within the limits set by Free State law that prohibited any form of birth control except lactation.
If Lena had ever wanted to fit into the mould, it was not happening. Lena had not been allowed to become a pet pussycat. Many men from the Free States wanted to enjoy her discomfort, humiliation and pain. Lena had been an adventurer, a striver and a troublemaker. She had caused some of the customers great embarrassment while she was on the loose. Now she had fallen about as low as a woman could fall. The only things saving her from utter degradation and destruction was the desire of the Everleigh's management to maximize profits and disagreements between the forces holding her in captivity as to how best to exploit her.
Everleigh Captain Semmes was among those exploiting her, but whether he was genuinely chivalrous or just saw that his best interest was to soothe Lena, Semmes always was as much a gentleman around her as one can be to a sex slave. Semmes brought Lena to his suite on the boat once a week, poured expensive champagne, and made love to her like she was the noblest courtesan in the most civilized court. He even inquired how she was doing and what she wanted sometimes.
Otherwise, Lena seemed to control nothing but her own thoughts, and that only to a limited extent. Many men not only fucked her, they endlessly reminded her that she was nothing but a toy and a breeding animal. They would have her hold her hips up after they shot their sperm into her to increase the chance of impregnation. They flogged or spanked Lena with devices that did not break the skin but destroyed any chance for Lena to think of anything but her pain and degradation.
It was not only the customers from the Free American States under God who did this. There were also many men from the Social Democratic States, the Pacific and Mountain States and Europe who seemed to have come to the boat to get what they could not get at home; the ability to dominate and abuse a woman thoroughly. Of course, they could have some of that satisfaction through the use of any of the slaves on board, but it was best to be able literally to stick it to a European woman who had made a career out of embarrassing powerful men.
But Lena's soul was not so easily conquered.
Still, in planning her little act of revenge, Lena recognized that she only hated a few of the customers. Also, she had decided that she would never use anything a man said to her against him. That might get her killed. Lena had decided that, even if her life was hopeless and not worth living (and she did not believe that), she would have plenty of time to be dead. There was no need to speed getting to that state.
She did not seek information from any of the many indentured servants around her and could hardly say much to them. Sometimes, though, Lena would use them to confirm information she got elsewhere. For example, Lena might kid a woman Lena had been told had had a job as a teacher who was changing Lena's bedsheets, that the woman was having "playground duty." Such a joke might elicit a useful reaction confirming what Lena had been told.
Also, Lena knew that if there was a way to get information out into the world, Lena would have to be extremely selective as to the targets, the information used, and the way it was transmitted. Further, she'd have to make friends from among those who had enslaved her even as she struck out at some of the bastards.
Lena started by writing a few innocuous letters to her mother. She sent them to Frau Direktor Marlene Sprengler's home address. She correctly believed that Sprengler would guess what Lena was doing and would read and copy the letters before forwarding them to Lena's mother. Lena made a point of writing in English in order, she said repeatedly in her letters, "to use the language of God," and to make sure that the officials in Little Rock "would have no trouble taking out anything" she wrote that might be inappropriate.
Her first letters were innocent. They hardly discussed anything but the weather and how happy she was to spend her time serving men and reading the Bible. In March 2046, though. Lena wrote a letter that was very long. It mainly consisted of tiresome details about the boat, the scenery she could see through her portal, and a vast number of quotations from the King James Bible. But for those who, unlike most people in the Free States, could understand the language of irony and sarcasm, there was much more.
Lena knew she could not expect much sympathy for herself, an investigative reporter known for putting herself in situations where she would engage in highly dangerous and promiscuous behaviour who got herself into trouble by flagrantly violating the local laws.