Jägersmuth Pt. 01

Content Notice -- skip past if you don't care about content notices

This is a story of dubious consent, featuring many, many partners, submission, BDSM, public play, humiliation, freeuse, cumplay, and more. The setting is lightly surreal.

PART 1

The navy-blue SUV slid left onto the motorway, departing outright its suburban habitat on its course for rural pastures. Georgia relaxed, the open road demanding less supervision of her. It could finally start to feel like a road trip.

"You wanna put some music on?"

"What? Oh." Alice, her sole passenger, remained fixated on her phone. "Uh... whatever you want." Alice was 24, two whole decades below Georgia, and outside of their knitting group, they didn't have a whole lot to talk about. Georgia had hoped that giving her a ride to the retreat would at least spark a little more one-on-one conversation, but so far, Alice had been content to ignore her, and text with the other girls. With whom they were due to meet up anyway.

Alice was dressed in a very unassuming white tee tucked into black men's jeans, rolled up above her ankles -- a standard outfit for her, and Georgia had noted more than once that the young woman's strikingly angular features tended to impress, while her short, messy hair and normcore sense of style refrained from projecting effort. Georgia herself had prepared for their long weekend by having her long, dark-brown hair styled a little, and she'd hit the road in a loose sky-blue sundress that she hoped would flatter her generous figure. Her differences in age and physicality weren't exclusive with Alice; all four of the girls were around their mid-20s, and in what Georgia thought of as perfect shape.

Georgia, a now-separated mother of three, had happened upon the group in a deliberate effort to make friends. Her social life had stagnated horribly over the years, a hazard of only meeting other people with kids, with precious little in common in terms of activities or interests. It was hard enough to get away for an evening. But she'd practiced knitting and crocheting in all her life, regularly making hats and pullovers for her family, and had seized on the ad for a women-only gossip and knitting group -- Tink & Wink -- as a chance to finally carve out a social niche for herself.

Even when the group had turned out to be much younger, and consistently more single, she hadn't been discouraged. She liked these girls, and they were welcoming enough, for all the difference in their respective worlds. Alice, Melissa, Aubrey, and Christine talked almost exclusively about sex -- with men, with women, without regard for definitions of gender or preference -- and Georgia was more than happy to trade her advanced yarn skills for a front seat to their endless parade of smut. She didn't have an unhappy sex life, at least not prior to the separation, but nothing new had happened in a very long time. These girls got up to more in a week than she ever had in a year. It was fun, at least, to listen to their stories.

The fact that Aubrey was getting married didn't seem to affect her lifestyle, either. Georgia surmised that she and her fiancé had an arrangement, although she didn't feel equipped to parse the distinction between open and polyamorous, and she felt even more nervous to ask and expose her surburban obliviousness to the girls. But this weekend was Aubrey's bachelorette, and it had been a happy surprise for Georgia to find herself on the email chain for organising the retreat.

She knew the broad strokes. Catering, Scavenger Hunt, two days of spa treatments. Just the prospect of being pampered and playing games with the girls renewed her self esteem. She'd been overrun and the emails had come thick and fast and she'd only been able to skim, but she caught the important points, and promptly paid her fee. She'd managed to convince John to let her take the big car, too, in the hopes that all the girls would drive down together.

But only Alice had accepted the offer. Alice, who'd been mute and withdrawn for the entire journey. It was a two-hour drive and change, with very few words exchanged. It reminded Georgia of arriving early to T&W, and enduring uncomfortable silences. She tried not to take such things personally; they were simply of a different generation, and the group had existed before her, and to their credit, they were basically accepting of her.

Eventually, the highway became a dirt road that passed what looked like an antiquated stone watchtower and a matching, dilapidated wall that presumably ran the boundary of the grounds. Past the wall, the road continued through open fields, with idyllic-looking patches of woodland all around, trees lush and clearly untouched for a lifetime. There were occasional small barns, more houses of similar stonework.

"The game covers all this ground?"

Alice, who had been glancing around, seemed to perk up at the question. "Yeah, the Hunt covers the whole territory. As the crow flies it's about an hour's walk from the gate to the main house."

"We're staying at the main house, right? That's where the Spa is?"

Alice shot her a look, eyebrow slightly raised. "Um... yeah?"

"Sorry, I tried to read all the materials but there was a lot of stuff. I'm clued in though, mostly, I think."

There was a pause as Alice stared at her a moment longer. "No, yeah. That's okay. There was a lot."

Georgia grinned back. "Well, anyway, it's gonna be fun. Thanks for inviting me."

"Yeah... no problem. Thanks for the lift."

---

They parked at the bottom of the shallow hill on which the house was built. Georgia registered that it had a slightly McMansion-ish look -- a historic stone house with modern extrusions that backed on to more woodland. The extrusions had plaster and wood that had been intended to evoke wattle & daub constructs, but too well-finished, too clean, to really capture the effect. The aspects that maintained the original stonework were very obvious, and had presumably been reinforced and renovated -- but in no way had the capacity or design to accommodate a hotel with a spa. Georgia smirked; it was a minor hobby to scroll property websites and take virtual tours of buildings like this; see whether the interiors were as deranged as the outside, and speculate what kind of parties people had in those outlandish, mismatched rooms.

At the front desk, a young-looking man with a wispy black beard directed them to their rooms. Georgia noted a similar mishmash of old and new world in hers, adjacent to Alice's -- a clean, cuboid bedframe with a generous memoryfoam mattress, against a misshapen backdrop of that same stonework. She guessed it had been transposed from a part of the building, or one of those they'd passed, that hadn't made it.

She hadn't had a chance to sit on the mattress for long before a loud bell rang out, and she heard Alice race out of her room, followed by two more doors, and footsteps thundering down the hall. She darted to the door herself to pursue them back outside.

The girls were already gathered at the picnic table just past the front door, the bell hanging from a tall post a little further behind it. Next to Alice, there was Christine -- pale, with brown pixie hair and a button nose to match; Melissa -- the youngest of the group, with long, messy red hair; and Aubrey, the bride to be, markedly taller and curvier than any of them, her hair golden-brown, rich, and long. The whole group had opted for t-shirts and jeans or sweats, furthering Georgia's anxiety at being overdressed for the evening's games. But as they approached, they held their arms out to hug her, greeting her with warmth and smiles. She reminded herself to temper her insecurities -- they were, after all, on vacation together.

"Is this everybody?" From beside the bell, a tall, bald man with dense but short-cropped facial hair and amazingly broad shoulders stepped forward.

"Okay, then. Hello everyone, my name is Jörg. You pronounce it yurg, you understand? Let's hear you say it."

It was a flirtatous sing song chorus of "hi, Jörg" from the five seated before him.

"Beautiful, thank you so much. Now, I'm happy to welcome you to Jägersmuth as the owner. The land was owned and developed by my ancestors, and I was happy to return here after the passing of my father to carry on his traditions here."

"Where are you from?" Georgia interrupted.

"Ha, well, there is a clue in both my name and the name of the land -- I'm German. Jägersmuth supposedly means "hunter's courage", although it wasn't originally named by German immigrants but by my father during these renovations. So, if you know a little German, maybe you can argue about the name. Although I was born right here, I studied in Berlin, and then worked in Munich before making my way home when I was 40."

Georgia enjoyed looking at him. Listening to him. Just the kind of man she let herself check out and fantasize about. She wondered if any of the girls would agree.

"Which actually brings me back to today's events. The Bride Of The Land is a tradition that my father modernized, which began as a quarterly hunt for specialized game -- bears, wolves, and so on -- and we have evolved to be less of a burden on the local wildlife. We still hold the event each quarter. I want to take this opportunity to say that I'm so happy to have all of you join us for this weekend, and on behalf of everyone here, we hope it is as exciting for you as it is for the rest of us."

The girls swapped grins with each other before nodding with bare enthusiasm. To Georgia, it felt a little tame -- the scavenger hunt was a classic bachelorette activity, of course, but a weekend of spa treatments and Michelin Star meals struck her as the main event. She raised a hand, this time, but spoke again before he'd had a chance to acknowledge her.

"When can we use the Spa?"

Jörg smiled, politely. "The Spa and 24-hour catering will open up after the game is concluded. We like for all of our staff to take part, if they are able, so you can think of the facilities as an opportunity to relax and recuperate afterwards. Ah, speaking of which..."

The stately German reached under the table and produced a handful of photocopied documents, stapled together at the corner.

"As part of our modernising of the game, we have prepared these releases for you. Please read them thoroughly, but these are basically to agree that we are not responsible if you have any sort of injury during your weekend. Now, I want to say that we have never, ever had cause to invoke one of these. Nobody has ever gotten hurt, and we conduct ourselves to the highest standards of safety while you are in our care. But we do require you to sign them in order to facilitate..."

Reading and listening at the same time was difficult for Georgia under any circumstances. The man's deep, warm voice was too much fun for her to listen to -- she felt it in her chest as he intoned. Besides, as a mother, she'd signed a hundred documents like this. If she wanted to, she could have probably recited whole paragraphs without even reading. She scrawled her name on the last page and handed it back.

"...thankyou -- and, yes, you were asking about the Spa treatments, and I wish to make it clear that every member of staff on hand is fully trained to accommodate your needs. Every last one is a licensed massage therapist. If you need a great massage, just grab the first person you see."

"What, even the Chef?"

He chuckled. The girls shot Georgia a look, as if she was asking too many questions, or somehow out of the spirit of proceedings.

"Yes, even the Chef, provided he is not cooking for you at the time, can give you a world class massage with zero notice."

As if this was a cue, three servers made their way out of the building carrying small plates bearing tender cuts of meat decorated with flowers the colour of butter. The girls sat and continued chatting to Jörg for the next hour as they made their way through a full tasting menu -- soups, risottos, cuts in fragrant and delicate sauces, a light meal, but... plenty. Jörg assured them the meal was designed to help them maintain their energy as they roamed the site.

Before they knew it, the bell rang again. Aubrey's hair whipped round as she flashed the table a conspiratorial grin. "Here we go. I can't believe you guys did this." More inward puzzlement for Georgia, but she played along, smiling right back. "We love you. Of course." Enthusiastic nods of assent from the rest of the girls. "Fuck" breathed Melissa, stifling a giggle.

"Okay Ladies, that's the first bell. It's time for you to head out. Thank you once again for joining us for the Bride Of The Land hunt, and I look forward to seeing you out on the field."

The girls stood up promptly, Georgia lagging a little as she attempted to keep up with events. She suddenly didn't feel good about the prospect of going out on her own. She touched Alice's elbow, lightly. "Hey, wanna team up?"

"Um..." Alice looked down at her hand, and back up at Georgia. "Um..." an expression of dismayed pressure. The other girls were already striking out into the distance, having apparently chosen patches of forest to head towards. "Maybe... until we're out there? I think it's best if we play on our own..."

"Oh, yeah, sure, definitely. But like, just to start?" Georgia attempting to mask the pleading edge to her voice she sometimes let slip.

"To start, yeah, sure. Then we can split up. That's fine."

---

Georgia judged that they'd been walking for roughly half an hour, again, mostly in silence. She was becoming less and less certain of the terms of this scavenger hunt -- there hadn't been issued any clues, or anything really to guide them. As far as she could tell, they were simply meandering further and further from the house.

She glanced over her shoulder. She couldn't see the building; hills and trees obscured the view, and she wasn't completely certain she was looking in the right direction to begin with. As they'd had to hand in their phones and other valuables before departing, presumably to prevent cheating, she was unable to verify the time or anything spatial.

"Hey, Alice..." she paused, steeling herself to ask a stupid question. "Did you get, like, a clue sheet I could look at?"

Alice looked at her with genuine bewilderment. "A what?"

"Or, I don't know, a set of... rules? Something? How are we meant to know what we're looking for?"

Alice's gait slowed somewhat, pulling back to walk parallel with Georgia.

"Sorry, I honestly don't know what you're asking me."

"How do we know what to do?"

"Well... Jesus, we just use our intuition, I guess."

Georgia frowned. "We intuit what objects are part of the scavenger hunt?"

Her companion came to a complete stop. "The what?"

"The..." Georgia's face fell. "That's not what it is?"

Alice stared at her for long enough to make the older companion sweat. "No."

There was another, longer pause, neither of the women particularly eager to go first.

"Didn't you read the emails?"

"I skimmed them... I have kids, I'm really busy. I thought I got the gist."

Alice clasped both hands over her mouth, muffling her words. "Oh, fucking hell, Georgia."

"What?"

"Fuck."

"Oh, god... is this another sex thing?"

Alice's hands dropped back to her sides, revealing her expression of amused disbelief. "I... yeah! Fuck..."

"Stop saying Fuck and tell me what's going on."

"Uh... god, this is so bad... um. Alright, you remember he was saying they used to hunt game out here?"

"...yes..."

"Well, that's us. That's what you volunteered and paid for."

"To be game? To get hunted?"

"Yeah."

"But they're not going to... hurt us, they're --"

"They're going to fuck us. Yeah. Everyone else knew. We all signed up for this. I don't know how you missed it."

Georgia stood, wide-eyed, for a while, before speaking again.

"Who's they?"

"Well, everyone. The staff, the locals, everyone."

"Jörg?"

"Esp... yes, Jörg."

"The... the Massage Chefs?"

"Why are you so hung up on the fucking Chefs?" Alice flattened her palms against her eyes. "Yes. Them. Everyone. Look..." she took a few breaths. "The idea is we get as far out as we can, and when we hear the second bell, they start looking for us. If they catch us, they... they have us. Until the game is over. You understand?"

Georgia tried not to hyperventilate, to keep herself steady. It didn't seem possible.

"You're fucking with me."

"Uh, no, I'm not."

"I can't do this. I'm... well, separated, but I'm married..."

"That's what we all -- for god's sake, Georgia... look, if they catch you, just yell your safeword and they'll take you back to your room."

"Um..." Georgia looked very sheepish. "I don't suppose you know what the safeword..."

"Each of us has our own unique one. It was in big bold letters on the front page of the waiver we all signed, remember?"

"I, uh..."

"You didn't read it."

"I skimmed it! I fucking skimmed it, it's a boring liability waiver!"

"It's a contract that says that they won't let up no matter what you say or do, unless you say the safeword, so you'd better screw your eyes shut and try to remember what yours was."

"I didn't see anything like that." Another pause. "Okay well... can I have yours?"

"No, I need mine! And they have rules and punishments for swapping safewords and shit like that which you'd know if --"

"Yeah, yeah, alright, alright. So, we head back, and I ask to read the waiver again..."

"It's too late for that. The second bell is going to ring pretty soon, and if you run into them going back to the house they really aren't going to be interested in anything you have to say. They're just gonna grab you up."

"Holy shit..."

"Yeah."

Georgia struggled with the implications of the night ahead. It was nothing short of terrifying to think that she'd blithely signed away her consent like this. That she'd set herself up for something she couldn't reasonably allow, and now, couldn't prevent. That she was submerged at the deep end of the girls' lifestyle before she could even consider if she wanted it.

"But... but what about diseases? Isn't this too many people to possibly be safe?"

Alice scrunched her eyes closed. "Again, if you've read... no, wait. How did you get this far without submitting a full STD sheet?"

"Huh?"

"Everyone, even the Chefs, needs to drop a clean result before they can participate. So how the fuck did you get in?"

Realisation dawned on Georgia. "Oh... yeah, that's what that was for."

Alice, eyes wide, shook her head in an expression that amount to "???"

"Yeah, I did get something in the post, a blood sample and stuff... I sent it off. I thought it was from my regular doctor."

"WHY?"

"I do one every year! It's just good practice!"

"You didn't check the return address? Do you ever read anything?"

Georgia glared at the young woman, not saying a word in response.

"Sorry. I'm fucking sorry." Alice paced a way a little, and then came back. "So... okay, I don't think there's a way out of this for you, but maybe we can make it... not so bad...?"

"How?" Georgia was already bargaining in her mind. Part of her had already accepted what was going to happen. The rest was in shock.

"Well, once they get you, you're a slave for the rest of the event..."

"Oh, Jesus..."

"So maybe if you can survive until tomorrow, it won't go on for too much longer?"

"That's your plan?" Georgia shrieked. Truthful to herself, she knew Alice was powerless to stop this. But she only had one person to ask for help.

"I dunno, Georgia, I'm actually trying to win this thing, so I really don't know if I can help you all the way to the end."

"What do you even win?"