Panther Tales Ch 02

Any character engaging in any kind of sexual activity in this or any of my stories is over the age of 18.

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Panther Tales II-Snow's Story

Part One

'At least it's finally over,' Sally thought as she walked awkwardly toward the sleen pens. A guard held each of her biceps, towering over her small frame, making sure she didn't fall. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and her ankles were hobbled, forcing her to take short, shuffling steps.

'Give me liberty or give me death.' The mantra flashed through her mind again. The simple phrase had helped give her the strength to resist for three endless, brutal months since she had been kidnapped from her apartment on Earth and brought to Gor to be turned into a slave girl.

She had snarled it at guards and trainers, barked it at the other girls when she saw them weakening, and chanted it to herself when she was being beaten or raped. In the end, sadly, it was all in vain. The rest of the girls were now docile kajira, and she was about to become sleen food.

She heard the growls and snarls of the massive predators, and felt strangely calm. Now that the moment was at hand, she realized that yes, she truly would rather be dead than a slave. Her anger-the fury that had served her so well in the kennels-was quiet but still there, simmering just below the surface, still there if she needed it.

She jerked to a halt, surprising the two men flanking her, and looked up at the one on her left, her electric-blue eyes blazing with defiance.

"I can walk on my own," she snarled in Gorean, and the guard blinked in surprise. A big part of Sally's resistance had been her absolute refusal to say a single word in their language, or even to acknowledge that she could understand any of it.

"How about that?" he said with a smirk. "The little barbarian can speak a civilized language."

Sally rolled her eyes. "Any idiot can learn Gorean in a week. It's barely a language-but I guess it has to be simple so you animals can use it."

She turned back toward the cage, her head held high. The guard raised an arm, as if he was going to strike her, then thought better of it. Why bother when in a few moments she'd be torn to pieces anyway?

Sally thought about her father as she shuffled towards the cage, and for the first time in her life she actually appreciated the rat bastard. She had once told a friend 'the best thing I can say about my Dad is at least he never molested me,' but now she realized that all those times he had used his belt, a switch or his fists on her when she was a little girl had made it possible for her to endure the whippings and beatings she had received on Gor.

It gave her a huge advantage over the other girls in the kennels. The ones from Earth all seemed to be spoiled rich girls-Sally doubted any of them had ever been struck before. And the Gorean girls all seemed resigned to their fate, having been taught all their lives that the only girls that wore collars were the girls that deserved collars.

Next she thought about Max, and her eyes grew misty. He was the one good thing that had ever happened to her.

At 16, she had run away from her rural North Dakota home, working her way east all the way to Philadelphia. Those three years had been a tough, hungry time, but she'd survived, and in Philly finally caught a break. She found a job serving drinks in an upscale lounge.

She was sure she'd been hired because the manager-a butch lesbian lady in her 50s-had enjoyed flirting with her. Sally wasn't interested in girls, but she had learned early in her life to use her looks when she could. She didn't think she was that gorgeous-too skinny and flat-but she was cute, with striking blue eyes, platinum blond hair that had earned her the childhood nickname 'Snow', and a naturally soft, flirty voice.

The contrast between her angelic looks and fiery personality surprised a lot of people. She had a dangerous temper and had been in more than her share of fights. Small yes-only a couple inches over five feet and barely 100 pounds-but she was stronger than she looked and utterly fearless.

Maxwell Lewis was forty years older than her, and hopelessly smitten from the first time he laid eyes on her. From a distance, it looked like just another horny old man and young golddigger couple, and maybe it was at first. But as they spent time together they grew to care for each other deeply.

He loved her energy, her fire, and the way she attacked any problem head on. In return, she loved how gentle he was, how he lifted her up, exposing her to art and music and a world she'd never even dreamed of before. He helped her get her GED, and encouraged her to take sculpting, ceramics and self-defense classes. She wasn't sure if her feelings for him were love, but the tears she had shed at his funeral were 100% genuine.

She especially loved how secure life was with Max, both emotionally and financially. He was steady and stable. She knew he'd never hurt her, hit her, belittle her or make her feel stupid and worthless. And the money was amazing. She sometimes felt he spent more in an average month than she'd made in her entire life.

For their first wedding anniversary, they'd had a big party. That's where she first met Weston Summerville, who was a junior vice-president in one of Max's companies. He was in his 30s, tall and good looking but with an arrogance she immediately disliked. When he asked her to dance, she was going to refuse but Max insisted.

Weston had hit on her right there on the dance floor, crudely and appallingly. His approach was basically 'I know the old man isn't giving a hot young thing like you enough sex-why don't you let me make up the difference?' It took all of her self control not to kick his smirking ass right there in front of everybody.

"Yeah, he's a pig," Max had said when she told him about it later, "but sadly he's also the kind of driven, ruthless bastard every company needs a few of. Don't worry about him angel." She hadn't liked it, but she agreed you couldn't fire a guy just for being a sleazeball.

For two years, everything was wonderful. Then one awful night it ended suddenly. They were supposed to co-host a charity art auction, but Max hadn't been feeling good and stayed home. When she got home late that night, he was gone. A massive brain embolism, the doctors told her. He was only 65, and she was a 22 year old widow.

For a few months she was a basket case, lying in bed, her phone turned off, barely able to function. But they'd talked about what would happen after he passed away, and eventually she forced herself back out into the world.

She ran into Summerville again a few weeks later, and this time when he started his slimy I'm-God's-gift-to-women act she DID slap his face, leaving him rubbing his cheek, his eyes burning with anger.

Max had two previous wives and a couple children, but still left her with more than enough to live comfortably, as well as the penthouse apartment they had shared. She once told someone who'd been worried about her financial situation, 'When I was a kid, if you wanted to eat a lot of times it meant you had to go kill something. I'll be fine.' Others wondered how she could stay in a place with so many memories. The truth was, she liked being reminded of Max and their happy time together.

Very late one night, almost ten months after Max's death, she was awakened by noises in the other room. She went to investigate, and their were two men in her apartment-massive, hulking men with long hair and rough features. Before she could scream or run, another man popped up from behind the open bedroom door and clamped a powerful hand over her mouth.

She kicked and struggled, thrashing wildly, but couldn't escaped his hold. The three brutes surrounded her, and she felt the sting of a needle in her left thigh.

When she woke up, she was naked in a cage on Gor.

There were twenty-one girls in her training group-eight from Earth, the rest Gorean born. Eighteen were left, soon to be seventeen once the sleens were done with her. The first day was lectures, threats, a medical exam and a whipping. The guards, about half of whom spoke English, called it a taste of the strap-five lashes and a warning that any disobedience would be punished by much worse.

Most of the captives, especially the Gorean girls, were cowed pretty easily, but a few resisted. Sally was one of the last girls whipped, and it did something that surprised her, and scared her a little. When the first blow fell, it lit an angry fire inside her. She was furious.

The blazing rage roared through her, obliterating the pain and fear. She screamed her defiance and cursed the guards, yanking at the ropes holding her wrists and ankles until they bled.

They gave her an extra five lashes, but it was just fuel for her fury. The instant they untied her hands she swung at the nearest guard. It wasn't much of a punch, but his eyes widened in surprise-Goreans weren't used to bravery from kajira, let alone violence.

She continued to thrash and kick and scream as they dragged her to her cage, and in the darkness she yelled obscenities and kicked at the bars with all her strength until finally collapsing from sheer exhaustion, barely noticing the sounds of the other girls whimpering and sobbing all around her.

It was still very dark in the chamber when she woke up. It was then she gave the first of her 'lectures.'

"Who's here?" she called into the gloom. "What are your names?"

A few girls replied, a few just began crying, and some of the Goreans grumbled at her in their strange language.

"Are you American?" Sally continued. There were some answered yeses, as well as a couple girls who identified themselves as Canadian.

"Give me liberty or give me death!" she sang out. "Recognize those words? Our ancestors fought and suffered and died so we could be free! Are you such cowards you're gonna give that up and disgrace their memory just because some asshole taps you on the butt a few times?"

There were murmurs, sniffles and even a couple of 'hell no's', and Sally lay on her back and bent her knees.

"I will NOT be a slave," she snarled. "I will die first."

She began kicking again, bruising her bare feet against the bars. The clanging sound echoed through the chamber, and she grinned when at least two other girls joined her.

A door opened, and some light entered the room. Several guards hustled in, growling angrily and slapping at the girl's cages.

"Stop that! Stop it right this instant!" one of them commanded as others lit lamps and torches. "Any girl that makes any more noise will be whipped!"

"FUCK YOU!" Sally screamed, and kicked even harder, but she was the only one. Sadly, the courage of the other girl's melted when they saw a guard brandish his whip. Several guards surrounded her cage, and she spun around quickly, poised on her hands and knees as one unlocked the door.

The cage was only about four feet high by six feet long, too small to stand but deep enough to stretch out. She braced her feet against the back bars, and when the first guard reached in to grab her she launched herself, shrieking with rage and clawing at his face.

She managed to draw some blood, but soon found herself back on the X-shaped whipping frame. Ten more lashes did nothing to silence her, and they were forced to gag her.

The second day the girls received collars-simple bands of plain steel hammered into place around their necks-and each one was branded, a cursive letter 'K' burned into their upper left thigh, about the size of a silver dollar.

If Sally had thought she knew anger before, having a mark burned into her flesh made her previous rage seem like mild annoyance. Even gagged, her fury and defiance was obvious, and some of the guards began wondering if a mistake had been made bringing her to their kennel.

It began a pattern that would endure her entire time in captivity. Even as the other girls gave up their pride and dignity, too afraid of punishment to do anything but obey, Sally kept battling. Even seeing other girls killed didn't subdue her.

The first murder took place after only a few days. She was pretty sure it was planned-the girl was Gorean, probably the least attractive girl in the entire group, and didn't seem any more defiant or inept than any other girl. The guards gathered them all in two rows-Sally gagged, with her hands bound behind her back-and called dragged the victim out of the line.

One held her arms and yanked her head back by the hair, and another slit her throat. As she lay there bleeding to death, the guard waved his bloody knife at the shocked, crying girls.

"You are slaves. You are property. Your owners can do whatever they wish with you. They can sell you, whip you, maim you, fuck you or kill you and no one will care."

About a week later one of the guards, frustrated when a girl wouldn't stop clutching his leg and begging for mercy, grabbed her by the hair and flung her against a wall. She broke her neck and died.

And a month into their training, when they moved past simple phrases and poses and started their sexual training, one of the girls panicked when a guard forced her to deep throat him and tried to bite down. They impaled her, and left her hanging on the spike right in the middle of the girl's cages for two days, her screams of agony turning into whimpers and moans as she weakened.

It all just made Sally angrier and more determined to resist.

She did win a few victories. Her second night in the cage, they left her wrists tied behind her back and put a bowl of slave gruel on the ground, expecting to degrade her by forcing her to eat like a dog. Instead, she slipped her feet over the chain and managed to twist and squirm until her hands were in front of her, nearly yanking her arms out of their sockets.

When they added a second rope up above her elbows the next night, she simply refused to eat, and spent the whole night tugging at her bonds until fresh blood dripped from her fingertips. For three days she ignored the food, convincing them she was serious, and from then on they left her untied in her cage.

They had daily 'classes' in speaking Gorean, beginning with the phrase 'la kajira' (I am a slave), and continuing through simple commands and useful phrases. Sally absolutely refused to say a single word in Gorean. Any time they took her gag out and demanded she say la kajira, she responded with curses and insults.

Whipping her just made her shout them louder, and before too many days her back and buttocks were so welted and raw they couldn't use the lash without risking unsightly scars, which would significantly lower her value as a slave.

Likewise, her wrists and ankles grew so raw and bloody they were reluctant to cuff or tie her, and any time they did she struggled and yanked wildly at the bonds, heedless of the injuries she was causing herself. Eventually they resorted to having a guard hold each hand and foot when they needed to restrain her.

She even got in a few blows of her own. One night when they were still trying to get her to lap her food straight from the bowl like an animal, a guard stuck his arm through the bars to try to pet her hair. She got his thumb in her mouth and bit with all her strength, ripping away the skin and leaving him howling.

She managed to poke another guard in the eye badly enough that he showed up a few days later wearing an eye patch, and kicked another in the balls hard enough that he collapsed to the ground moaning and puking.

They tried to force her to kneel-the simplest, most basic slave pose. No amount of slaps or lashes could make her go to her knees voluntarily, so they tried holding her down. As soon as the guard released the pressure on her shoulders, she was struggling back to her feet.

They tied her wrists to her ankles, and she showed her defiance by flopping onto her side. Finally, they tied her to a post, with cords wrapped around her neck, stomach, and legs, but the whole time she rolled her eyes and shook her head, effectively communicating her contempt in spite of the gag silencing her.

The guards also had to separate her from the other girls. Her resistance set a dangerous example, and besides she never passed up a change to exhort the others to stay strong and fight back.

Slave training is a delicate thing-one set back, one moment of defiance, can undo weeks of work, and slavers make their money by processing girls as quickly as possible. By the second week, the only time the rest of the girls saw her she was fully bound and gagged, her bruised body serving as a warning of the consequences of disobedience.

The one thing Sally couldn't figure out was why they hadn't killed 'her.' It wasn't like she was especially beautiful or desirable-compared to the rest of the girls, she felt pretty plain. And she had done much, much worse things than the girls that had been killed.

She overheard guards say on several occasions that they considered her a waste of time. Average looks, disobedient, lacking 'slave heat'...but still they kept her prisoner and tried futiley to train her.

The 'heat' issue was probably the most puzzling for the guards. In their arrogance, they were used to the girls they raped moaning and thrashing and showing great enthusiasm-not realizing most of the passion was artificial, a desperate attempt to curry favor and avoid punishment.

Gorean males assume all they have to do is stick their dick in a girl and she'll fall in love with them and be their slave for life. Admittedly, some of the girls did get aroused. When you take everything from a woman-every possible source of happiness, of satisfaction, of joy-it's not surprising she will greedily accept the only pleasure they're allowed to have.

Sally, on the other hand, hated every second of it, and made her disgust clearly known. 'Training sex' with her was a chore none of the guards wanted.

The answer to why they hadn't killed her had come earlier in the day, and was the reason she was finally bound for the sleen cage. They'd left her pretty much alone for a couple of days, barely even bothering to try to get her to kneel when they brought her gruel (she never would).

Then this afternoon two guards had come to her cage, one with cuffs and the other carrying a tarn goad. That meant they weren't screwing around. A tarn goad was one thing she couldn't fight. The blast of electrity it emitted was strong enough to affect a bird large and powerful enough to carry two or three warriors, which meant it was more than strong enough to knock a small woman unconsious.

Sally settled for grumbling 'fine, asshole' when they ordered her to turn and give them her wrists.

The first guard grabbed her by the hair and pulled her along in the 'lead' position, forcing her to stumble along, bent at the waist. He got careless, and forgot who he was dealing with. She twisted her lower body away from him, then took two quick little jab steps and flung herself at his near knee.

There was an amazingly loud 'CRACK', and he collapsed, clutching his knee and howling. Sally hit the ground with a thud, unable to use her hands to break her fall. Dazed, she still tried to struggle to her feet to get in another blow, but the other guard was on her before she could rise, digging his knee into the small of her back.

"Stupid bitch!" he snarled as more guards surrounded them. The pained moans of the injured guard were music to Sally's ears, and she loudly taunted the wounded man even as three guards picked her up and carried her into a small training chamber.

She thrashed and fought, but in vain. She could more than match the guards in brains and sneakiness, but was no match for their raw strength. In moments, she was suspended in 'rape ropes', tied so securely she could barely move.