Calypso Slaves - Ghost Story

In any case, the tattooed slaves seemed like a more immediate problem, even if all they'd done so far was glower in large numbers. "What do you want?" Cassie asked.

"Stay out of this, newbie," one of the tattooed slaves, a pale blonde, said, grabbing Cassie and shoving her aside. It took her by surprise and she fell to the ground on shackled legs, but immediately got up again. Tanirt bolted up and towered over everyone else, but Cassie wasn't sure what she could possibly plan on doing with shackled feet and cuffed hands. Headbutt? The tattooed slaves had encircled Lily, who'd gotten to her feet, staring down the tattooed slaves. "The boss has been wondering who's been cutting our lunch breaks down the past couple of days," one of them said.

"Wait," Cassie said, stepping in between Lily and the other girls, "this isn't going to help."

"Shut up," the blonde tattooed slave said, trying to shove Cassie aside.

But she was ready for it this time, and swung one foot while keeping the other planted, so that she didn't shift position much. "You think she's gonna work harder with a broken leg? Or if you take her out of the line completely, you think they're gonna drop the quota because we've got one less slave?"

"I told you to stay out of this, newbie," the blonde slave said, placing a hand on Cassie's collar bone and pushing her against a wall.

"I'll make sure she keeps on quota, alright?" Cassie said, "I can get her working full speed again, broken bones aren't going to do that."

The blonde slave glared at Cassie, the others apparently waiting on her to make a move. Cassie guessed she was probably in charge here. "You'd better keep that promise, newbie," she said, and then punched Cassie hard in the gut, "or next time we're gonna grind you up."

By now a pair of guards had arrived, stun batons drawn. "Get out of the cell!" one of them demanded. Cassie, Lily, and the tattoos started to leave, Cassie keeping her distance from the others, but the guard stopped Cassie and Lily on their way out, pushing them back to the cell. "Stay here," he commanded.

It was right around lockdown anyway. Giovanna walked up behind the guards while they were still putting all the tattoos into their cuffs. "Take a detour, slave," the guard said

"That's my cell," Giovanna gestured, "where'm I supposed to sleep?"

"Get inside," the guard said, and Giovanna walked in. A few minutes later, Cassie could hear the crack of a whip and the muted grunts of pain from the blonde slave while bars came down, locking her in for the night.

"Thanks," Lily said.

"Don't mention it," Cassie said.

"What was that?" Giovanna asked.

"What're you willing to pay for that information?" Cassie asked.

"That joke's gettin' old," Giovanna said.

"Just now? I thought it was old the first time I heard it," Cassie said.

"You gonna tell me or not?" Giovanna asked.

"Some slaves with tattoos were angry at Lily for holding up the work, I talked them down long enough for the guards to come and get rid of them," Cassie said.

"You mean the Dragons? Those punks are making threats to you?" Giovanna said.

"Yeah, I guess? There were a lot of them," Cassie said.

"That's still pretty bad," Giovanna said, "that problem's gonna need fixing."

"For a price?" Cassie asked.

"For as long as you two still owe me whore jobs," Giovanna said, "broken kneecaps make it hard to lick."

"I don't want to be involved in this. Your power plays, I mean, the sex deal is still on," Cassie said.

"Hey, I didn't offer you shit. I just said the problem needs fixing. If a solution happens along, great. You aren't involved in that. I'm not even involved in that, yeah?" Giovanna said.

"Okay," Cassie said, "thanks."

"For what?" Giovanna said. Cassie shrugged. Eventually a guard came by and they all lined up to put their hands through the bars so he could cuff them to their waist chains, and lightsoff was soon after.

The end of the week was approaching. Giovanna said she wanted Cassie and Lily on standby in the last hour of the free period to hold up their end of their bargain with her. She had no particular clients lined up but thought she might by the end of the day. That last hour was after the workshop classes let out anyway. That left the first two hours of the free period, when the classes and religious services ran, free for Cassie and Lily to do what they liked.

Cassie and Lily walked through the deserted workshop, doing their best to look like they were inconspicuously wandering to avoid the suspicions of the guard. Lily was jumpy, looking over her shoulder, hugging herself tight. Cassie had tried asking her what was wrong a couple of times and she'd been pretty adamant that everything was fine and okay and nothing was wrong at all. Cassie wondered if this place might be getting to her. If that was the case, maybe breaking into some place they weren't supposed to be would cheer her up.

Lily had grabbed an unused pair of tongs on the way in. The door wouldn't let them leave with contraband, but it'd let Lily fiddle with its control panel with contraband, so long as Cassie was pacing in front of it to keep the motion sensor camera distracted while Lily's comparatively small motions went ignored. Lily got the panel open, then used the rough end of the open panel to slowly saw the wires apart and rewire them. "Got it!" she whispered as the panel lit up green, and then the massive door ground open loud enough to be heard across the entire workshop. "Oh, right," Lily added, looking over her shoulder.

Cassie spun around away from the module, looking behind her to try and see what was inside. Tall, vague shapes loomed in the shadows, but before Cassie could pick out any details, the guard came sprinting their way. Cassie's legs tensed to try and run and hide, but she abandoned the plan before she even started moving. She'd been occupying the camera's attention for several minutes. Making this harder on the guards would only get them hurt worse when they were inevitably caught. Lily seemed to have come to a similar conclusion, or else she just didn't want to leave Cassie. The guard rounded the corner with his pistol drawn and pointed at the two of them. Cassie put her hands up and said "no, don't shoot!"

"Stay there!" the guard shouted.

"Yes, sir," Cassie said, thinking please, God, don't let me die here, I'll take the punishment just please don't let him shoot me.

He holstered his pistol as he drew near and pulled Cassie's and Lily's hands behind their backs, cuffing them to their waist chains. With his stun baton, he tapped their asses to get them moving. As soon as the electric club drew near Cassie's skin, an arc shot out to zap her unprotected ass, and she moaned and began walking. "I'm sorry, Cassie," Lily whispered as they walked.

Then she yelped as the stun baton was drawn near one of her breasts, zapping her nipple. "Shut up, slut," the guard said.

"Yes, sir," Lily said.

And this was how Cassie learned that the whipping post could have a slave hitched to it from either end. The guard stood behind Lily. Her previous whipping had only just healed. Cassie stood on tiptoe, wrists pulled high above her by her shackles, feet already aching from the strain.

"Do I even have to bother explaining to you what you've done wrong?" the guard asked.

"No, sir," Lily said. The next instant the whip cracked. "One, sir!" she shouted, barely swallowing a moan. Cassie winced with each blow as Lily gasped and moaned out the count. Three...Four...Five...Six. Willful disobedience like this carried a higher price than just being sloppy. Seven...Eight...Nine. Lily had gone past sobbing and was crying by now. "Ten, sir!" she whimpered, and the guard moved away from her to stand behind Cassie.

Cassie screwed her eyes shut and waited for it to begin. The whip stung across her back. "One, sir!" she shouted. She was never going to get used to this much pain. She wriggled naked in her binds as it lashed across her again. "Two, sir!" She could barely make it to five before she was desperate for it to stop last time, but she'd toughened up since then. As the lashes wore on, she tensed and writhed beneath them, but she could go further than before. "Five, sir!" she said, and then another crack drew the first sob from her as she whimpered out "six, sir!" She'd get through this.

The whip cracked again, "seven, sir," and she fought down thoughts about how she'd only been here one week out of twelve years, and that's if they didn't take her out of the system and neglect to inform the local authorities when she was due for release. She focused on nothing else but the count and how much closer she was to the end while the whip continued to dig into her. "Nine, sir!" Almost there. One more splash of pain playing through her vulnerable body. "Ten, sir!"

The guard unchained the both of them. "Unless you want more, you'll tell me what you were doing trying to get in there and you won't try to bullshit me."

"We were just exploring," Cassie said, "I know that sounds like a stupid lie, but please, sir, it's true. We know there's places where slaves meet out of sight and none of the others will tell us where it is, so we were trying to find it." The guard brought the haft of the whip up to push Cassie's chin up until her eyes were looking directly into his. Just feeling the whip, even unmoving, against her skin made her shaking knees nearly give way beneath her. "Please, sir, don't hurt me, it's the truth," Cassie said.

"From now on, you're to report to manufacturing classes when you have free time," the guard said, coiling up his whip at his belt and pulling out a palm tablet. He pointed it at first Cassie's, and then Lily's collars and this, Cassie assumed, did something. "Any guard who catches you out of classes will know to punish you."

"Yes, sir," the two said, and the guard walked off.

It was too late to go to any classes now, so they went back to their cell. Tanirt was still there, but it was otherwise empty. Lily was still kind of jumpy. Cassie could see her hands shaking a bit, remembered how she wasn't supposed to get the salve in any place the skin had broken, and told Lily she'd do her back first. Once Cassie finished salving Lily's back, she told Lily that she was fine, she didn't need the salve, better to conserve it.

"It's 'cause I'm shaking, isn't it?" Lily said. "I can't...Keep it steady anymore," she continued, holding a hand in front of her. It steadied for a second, but then started jittering again.

"Lily, what's wrong?" Cassie asked.

"Nothing!" Lily shouted, standing up from the bed, "there is nothing wrong with me, stop asking!"

Cassie shrank back from the sudden outburst. She'd learned not to flinch from this kind of thing in general, but this was her friend. "I'm sorry, Lily, I'm just worried. I didn't mean to pry."

"Cassie..." Lily said, remembering herself. "Don't be sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled."

Cassie got up and wrapped her arms around Lily's waist, hugging her tight without touching the wounds on her back. She crumpled a little into Cassie's shoulder. "I don't know what I'm gonna do, Cassie," she says.

"Remember what you said to me, about how you wanted to make me happy?" Cassie said. Lily nodded her head into Cassie's shoulder. "I wanna make you happy too, Lily. If you ever need help, please tell me. I'll be here for you." Lily sobbed and nodded again.

Cassie held her like that for a while, until finally Lily tugged herself a few inches away, still standing just a few inches from Cassie, Cassie's arms still around her waist. "Cassie, I...I'm..."

"Whatever it is, Lily, I won't be angry or judge you for it," Cassie said.

"...I'm an addict," Lily said, "drugs. And it's fucking me up and I've tried to kick it before but it's never worked and..." Lily took a deep breath and steadied herself. "If I could just have a few months not to worry about anything but breaking the habit I could make it," Lily said, "but in here, I just...I can't. I need a hit, Cassie. It's the only way I'll ever get through this."

"I'm here for you," Cassie said, but it was just kind of a placeholder while she tried to figure out what to do. Was encouraging Lily's addiction a good idea, given the circumstances? Was this a good thing for her, ultimately?

"They've gotta have drugs on the black market. But if Giovanna knows I need them she can hold that over me forever," Lily whispered, "I don't know if I can make it 'till we've fucked three people, Cassie. How long's it going to take for her to set up that many deals? I'm already dying!"

"Lily, you can't let anyone know you're an addict," Cassie said, "they'll use it to control you."

"I know," Lily moaned.

"This is the best chance you'll get to kick the habit," Cassie said.

"Cassie, no," Lily said.

"It's gonna hurt a lot, but they won't let you die, we're worth too much for them," Cassie said.

"No, shut up!" Lily said, and shoved Cassie away. She struggled to keep her balance on shackled feet.

"Lily, I'm trying to help," Cassie said.

"You're quoting fucking Dominion crime propaganda!" Lily shouted, "you don't have a goddamn clue how this works!"

"Then explain it to me," Cassie said.

"I need it," Lily said, "I can't quit like this, it's too hard, I need a few months to just deal with it and nothing else."

"Lily, that's an excuse and you know it," Cassie said.

"No it isn't," Lily spat the words at Cassie, and the depth and nuance of her counterargument spoke to how well she'd thought this through.

"You want to break the habit," Cassie said, "and they're going to break the habit, Lily. They're going to hurt you because that's all they ever do here, they hurt us until they get what they want from us," Cassie's face contorted with a growing pain that she'd been quietly ignoring, a hate brought to the surface by the bald-faced acknowledgment of what they did to people, to her and to Lily, "but at least this time you'll get something from it." Her face straightened, she'd buried her poisonous feelings again.

"No, I can't, I just can't," Lily said, "are you my friend or not, Cassie?"

"Of course I am," Cassie said, "don't say that, Lily."

"Then help me! Just help me get through this and I'll quit when I get out," Lily said.

"Lily, I'm not helping you by enabling you," Cassie said, deciding to ignore the 'we're probably never getting out' issue.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Lily said, "you really, completely don't. Everything you say about this is pulled from a commercial."

"We've been through this circle before, Lily," Cassie said, "you don't have any kind of plan or reason to want another hit, you just want it. I'm not gonna pretend I know what you're going through because I don't, but I damn well understand the science. You need to get the drugs out of your system and it really doesn't make a difference to your biology how painful the process is. I wish I could give you an ideal detox but I can't."

"Fuck you," Lily said, and did her best job of storming out of the cell in her shackles.

"Lily, we're not allowed to wander anymore, remember? Just come back where it's safe, we don't have to talk!" Cassie called after her, but Lily ignored her. Cassie got that she didn't want to be with her right now, but Cassie would rather occupy opposite ends of the cell and ignore each other than see Lily get whipped twice in one day. Cassie briefly considered following her, but following her to do what? Follow this argument around a couple more times? Get whipped with her? The guards were extremely sparse, so hopefully Lily would be lucky enough to avoid a run-in with one of them.

Giovanna came in a few minutes after Lily left. "Where's Lily?" she asked.

"She ran into some trouble with the guards. They let me go but I haven't seen her. I'll hold up the deal alone today," Cassie said.

"Good thing the client I lined up isn't picky. Go to the empty room in the cellblock, the one that's divided in half for whatever reason. The back room's camera has a huge blind spot near the window in the divider wall, the front room's camera is pointed straight at it but if you stay below the wall it can't see you. Just walk in and sit down, camera doesn't need to know if you change positions after that," Giovanna said.

Cassie followed her instructions. A pair of the tattoo slaves -- Dragons, apparently -- were waiting there. They watched Cassie from the moment she entered until she sat down beneath the camera in the backroom, then they ignored her.

Cassie sat there, fidgeting intermittently, until one of the Dragons walked past her and sat down about a dozen feet down the window. She looked over to Cassie and said "over here, whore." Cassie crawled over, keeping out of sight of the front room camera, took in a deep breath for resolve, and then bent over and began licking at the Dragon's slit. The Dragon didn't change position, evidently enjoying having the wall to rest against, and Cassie couldn't get directly in front of her without her legs showing up very obviously intertwined with the Dragon's through the window, so she twisted her neck, playing with the Dragon's clit while her tongue dipped inside the Dragon's folds, licking at her hole. The Dragon sucked in a sharp breath, her chest rising and falling, one hand gripping Cassie's hair tight and keeping her in place. Cassie wriggled a bit beneath the rough grip, but didn't let up. "That's it, slut, keep going...Keep going..." the Dragon said, and Cassie moaned softly and went on licking while the Dragon's spare hand moved to Cassie's tits, roughly groping them and giving her nipple the occasional twist, which elicited a soft moan of pain from her.

Finally, the Dragon came. Cassie wasn't really sure if licking up the mess was part of the agreement, but she didn't want to antagonize the Dragons, so she licked the Dragon's pussy clean. The Dragon stood up and stretched, pointing to the bit of cum left on the ground. "Clean the floor, too, whore," she said, and with a grimace Cassie leaned over and licked it clean before crawling back to where she sat down originally to stand up again and walk out.

When Cassie arrived back at her cell, she asked Giovanna "was that part of your solution?"

"What solution?" Giovanna asked. Cassie sighed. It didn't really matter. If they were leaving her alone, they were leaving her alone, and she was one down, two to go. And then Giovanna would give up the secret of the black market. To Cassie and also to Lily. Her drug addicted friend who's desperate for a hit.

Lily came back just before lockdown sporting a fresh set of whip marks on her back, sobbing. She ignored Cassie and lay facedown on her bed, burying her face in the pillow. Cassie grabbed the tube of salve, already about a third of the way empty, and silently and carefully applied it to her wounds. Her sobbing eased a bit underneath her touch. The guard came by a few moments later, and the four of them knelt, Lily reluctantly dragging herself from the darkness of her pillow, and the guard cuffed each of their hands to their waist chains. Except for Tanirt who was, still, in them already, though for whatever reason she was required to kneel with the rest of them while the guard cuffed them. Andraste had been missing a week. What were they doing to her?

By now Cassie had gotten used to waking up with lightson and the guard coming by to unlock her cuffs. She was washing herself while the shower was still on, head bent forward so that the shampoo in her hair, cheap stuff full of unidentifiable grit, didn't flow down and agitate the healing whip marks on her back. Lily was standing awkwardly in front of her. "How's your back?" Cassie asked between strands of her wet hair.

"Better," Lily said. "Cassie...I..."