La Kajira

"No, it was just for fun."

"For fun? That's like people who try to get me to love Dune when it's the driest damned book ever."

"Excuse you, what? You don't like Dune? And that's not fair. It can't help it that it's so dry when there's all that sand on Arrakis."

I had stopped for a full five seconds before I dropped the phone from my ear when I couldn't contain my laughter, when it burst from me like so many rays of sunshine and joy. I shifted on the furs and sat my phone on the side, glancing to her blanket where it still lay, where she'd slept on the same furs rather than in the bed. There was something about the purity of how much comfort she took in the setup, when something like those furs were from a different reasoning in those books. Not that I'd gotten to use them for that reason yet. Even so, it did feel nice to lay in that room and to enjoy the scene, so I got it. "Okay, now that you've made that joke, you have to finish at least the first one. Also, I'm just kidding. I love Dune, but if I say something bad about it to any somewhat nerdy, philosophy lover, it's always funny."

"I should have known better! And, oh no, I'm invested. I don't know why because it shouldn't be as addictive as it is, but... I'm having fun."

I had to smile. "I'm glad." When I had first discovered Gor, it had been because I'd had interests in things like Conan of Cimmeria and the other books of that nature and time period. I hadn't picked it up with any foreknowledge, like I'd told her, and it'd been this kind of magical thing actually. Because she was right. It was fun, even if you couldn't say why, even if the dialogue was ridiculous and the philosophy was often questionable and one sentence felt like it could last for three pages sometimes. There was something about it that was just fun.

Gor, I think, was a large part of why I had learned early to suspend my sense of judgment in people when they had likes and didn't fully know why they had those likes. Some things were like that. Some things gave people a sense of joy even if they couldn't say why.

She messaged me other times, telling me about a part with the Tarn, when she realized that was the bird painted on the ceiling, and we talked Caste systems and economic theory. We talked of all kinds of things that were probably weird as hell, if anyone had been around to hear them, but that's part of what made them fun. For instance, one series of messages was her with a question, So, let's say you could start a society with a base group of people, right, and let's say you did try to limit their weaponry advancement. Do you think it'd work?

No. And I'd gone into a conversation that involved everything to how there was one rule of the Garden of Eden to break and we'd broken it to why Marxism looked so good on paper and wouldn't work in real life to the faults in Ayn Rand's arguments involving the car factory in Atlas Shrugged.

Philosophy, I'd found, was the thing that made the frightened princess comfortable enough to speak, when it had felt like so long before I could get her to start these conversations. That brought with it a sense of caution, in the sense that it would feel like a sin to betray her trust when she was talking so freely, when she was showing someone, anyone, the girl behind the face of the fearful, perfect angel that everyone knew. It also felt a little overwhelming at times, that I was that someone.

But she did get quieter for a few days after that. Oh, she still talked, but there seemed to be a flow where she talked less and less and I just assumed that she was busy with work, when her job was something impressive. She was a legal and media safeguard for her mother's company and she worked tirelessly, only seeming to take breaks to indulge in her odd reading forays and her quiet, hidden nook.

That did turn out to be an accurate guess, but it wasn't the entirety of the reason. The day I found out the entirety of the reason was one where I woke up having a strange sense of Deja Vu.

----

It started with an omen again and, at first, it felt like a bad omen.

Because I woke to my father messaging me to let me know he had emailed Ryan Garner in a fit of irritation when he needed the data reports early for a meeting. See, here's why that pissed me off. Ryan was something of my, er, puppy of a data scientist. I protected him from just about everything, to the point that Ryan had a work phone from my father and as soon as my father had given him that phone, I had told him to turn it off, keep it turned off, and to never look at it again. Then, I'd personally bought him his real work phone. My father was abrasive and Ryan was extremely passive, to the point that I thought he'd leave if he had to deal with too much confrontation. He was well paid, but I thought he'd take half the pay for less stress if it felt like too much. He was just that kind of person, the kind that wasn't just bought, and I appreciated that in him.

Before every conference meeting where Ryan's analysis was needed, he went into the office extremely early to get things ready for me, and then I sent him home for the day when I had everything I knew I'd need.

That email dinged me awake in the dead of night and I set my alarm to wake me up so I would get in the office at Ryan's early hours to head him off, and to hell with the sleep. I didn't care how I got that email deleted. It was getting fucking deleted and he was never laying eyes on it.

I was waiting for him when he got there, a cup of coffee in his hand, and he blinked when he saw me, shying away. But he was wearing the omen of my day, and it was one that made me stop and hide a smile in a sense of surreal happiness.

He was wearing a collar. It was the last place I expected to see something like that and on the last person I would have ever expected it from, but it was there anyway. "I don't have it finished and ready yet."

He always averted his eyes, now that I thought about it, and he'd always been that way. He shied away even then, even with me, and I'd spent a couple of years guarding him. "It's okay. I didn't think you did and didn't expect you to. You haven't looked at your main work email, right, just the one I gave you?"

At that, he blinked curiously. "No, Nathan."

"Okay, you mind logging into that main email in your office and turning your back really quick?"

He gave me a curious look, but he didn't question either. He just did what I asked, opening his office door and logging in, then stepped back with a quiet smile, while I couldn't help but glance at the collar adorning his throat. It was basic black and it wasn't overly ostentatious either, actually. If he wore a jacket, it wouldn't even be obvious at all and he had one with him. Actually, when I considered it, he'd probably worn that jacket up and hadn't expected to run into anyone at all this early. With what I knew about him, he really didn't like attention. I deleted the email to him, flinching at some of my father's abrasive bullshit when I did, and stood up. "Sorry to bother you like that. Dad's being..." I sighed. "Just do what you always do and I'll take care of the rest." It'd be a tense phone call where I told dad to stop driving people up the fucking wall with his micromanaging bullshit when no one wanted to deal with it and also, why was he emailing my data scientist at the God's awful hours of the freaking morning? I took a breath and it was Ryan wearing a collar that made me breathe out, made me let the frustration go, made me remember. It made me think of Christopher teasing about the philosophy of kajirus and how neither of us agreed with that part of the book when we'd both seen too many male submissives who loved being that way. That, in turn, made me think about the nature of philosophy and how no two people would ever, by nature, fully agree on one of those.

"Everything okay?" Ryan's voice was so soft and that made me smile too.

Like I said, some people avoid pressure in life because they don't work well with it or adversity. Others thrive with both of those things and I was one of those latter. His asking it made me stand up straighter and made me rub the sleep from my eyes, when the sight of that collar made me feel like I was the one who should be asking that question and not the other way around. It was my job to be the guard when that's what I wanted in my life.

I don't know why that particular event during that particular day struck me the way it did, but I think it had a great deal to do with my running thoughts on her and how she had never been comfortable enough to talk before. "Yeah, I'm great. I just didn't want you to see that or have to deal with it. I think I might end up getting coffee like you, though."

He grinned a little easier and I had that sensation of when I'd spoken with her again, when these things felt like victories. "It does help, for what it's worth."

"It can't hurt at the moment." I walked around his desk and to his door, then paused. "Ryan?" He tilted his head when I turned around and I smiled. "The collar looks badass on you."

He froze, then blushed, but he had a look that reminded me of a puppy wagging its tail. "Thank you."

"You're very welcome when it's so well earned."

His eyes lit up and I smiled, leaving. Gor got a lot of things wrong, sure, but I feel like it definitely got a few things right. For instance, that moment. You see, the data for my conference was more perfect than I'd ever fucking seen it by the time he gave it to me. He didn't just organize it for me. He gave me extra pages of annotations for what he knew would be covered in that conference and this was a man who regularly made me think the phrase, I wish I had ten versions of Ryan already.

It was the kind of thing that made arguing with Dad feel... kind of fun actually, when I knew why I did and when I knew that arguing with a man like my father only made him work better. It did too. He was one of those people who just worked phenomenally well so long as he had conflict and I felt good enough to go along with that, even if I didn't usually work as well in that way.

Like I said, it was a weird omen for the day, but it did ensure that I was a very good version of myself whenever she called me around lunch.

----

"He dies?!" It was the first thing she said, in a distressed voice, and at first I was laughing with how into those books she was apparently getting, but then I was confused.

Because I couldn't figure out what part she might have been talking about in Tarnsman. I tried to think, going through everything I knew when it was still pretty damned recent in my mind. "Er. Where are you at?"

"The book just started with his funeral! I'll kill you if this is sad!"

"Okay, whatever it is, it's not that kind of sad, no, but I'm trying to figure out..." The book started with... Well, that seemed a clear indicator that we weren't on Tarnsman anymore. Which book started with-? "Wait a second. Are you on book five? Assassins of Gor? Is that where we're talking about?"

"Yes!"

I stared at the food I'd been eating in my office and suddenly my boring day with an overly early start was a lot better. "Okay, love, I feel like I have to tell you that a guy needs a context warning sometimes. But, no, you're safe. Keep reading."

"You promise?"

Her voice made me grin, when it sounded high pitched and begging for comfort. "I promise. So, I take it that you like it and found downloads of the other books?"

"Yes! And I don't know why, but it's so happy and there's an honor code and it's fun and the part with the Tatrix, even after she betrayed her word to him, and then Vika of Treve and the Vivarium and the Priest-Kings and Elizabeth and being pierced as a clan slave and 'She took too long getting water'." I felt like I was walking in the clouds, all of a sudden. She took too long getting water. It wasn't too long ago that I was telling Christopher how that was one of my favorite parts of the book.

"Just wait, you're going to love the assassin's caste. That one is really fun. So is Port Kar, actually."

She was laughing and then she fell silent for a moment and when she finally spoke, her voice was that frightened, shy version again. "That room. The fur on the floor."

I turned hard before I could get it under control. "Yeah. That's what it's from."

"I... I got quiet because I can't ask you the questions I have out loud, so I just kept reading instead."

I closed my eyes and my voice turned softer, huskier with this new change of direction, blood pulsing in my ears. "Ask me anything."

She was terrified, but the curiosity was there, too, and that gave me the thought that I wished I had her back in that room again, where everything seemed calmer for her, where she wouldn't be scared, where the veil of fear was ripped from her face. "Is it for that reason?"

That made me smile again. "Intentionally, yes. In practice, not so far."

And then she was brave for me, in a way that made me feel like I was a god of some kind, in the way that made me think of seeing Deirdre act around other people, to reflect her Master in as radiant of a manner as she had in her heart. "Can I come see you again?"

"I'd like that very much."

----

Missy

I had questions. I had so many questions. To preface all of this, I have to be honest about the fact that I don't think I'd have had any of the reactions I was having if it wasn't for him and how he was. There was something about him that felt inherently strong and safe. It was like when you saw someone who was completely abstinent when it came to something like alcohol. They had this control and it was admirable how they didn't have so much as the curiosity of what being drunk would be like and then when you talked with them and learned that they never had, not even in college, it felt like something rare and gorgeous.

That's what he was like, except it wasn't because of something like alcohol, although I think his quiet form of honor and control wouldn't let him be drunk. I was reminded of Eddard Stark again, except, you know, a more intelligent, harder version that wouldn't end up how he did by the end of the story.

When I thought of Nathan and then read the books, it was... this sense of magic and arousal. Sure, I could see what he meant that some of the philosophy was... wow. But I didn't care when some of it just felt so basically good. In the first book, for instance, there was one part dealing with a girl who crosses her wrists in front of her and uses the codes of honor of the world to manipulate the main character. And it feels angry when it happens. You don't like it when you read it. It was like a samurai story in that way, where it makes you feel indignant fury.

Except, I'd gotten quiet with him because of the rest of that samurai story, the rest of the feelings. And the rest of those feelings would have made me upset if it hadn't been for that wild sense of connection, that safety with his control and an honor code.

What I'm trying to say is, I was a virgin too scared of my scars to be with a guy, but I'd masturbated 13 times in four days over some of the parts of the books he'd gotten me into when combined with thoughts of him. I'd spent nights rubbing my clit over my lacy panties and thongs, trying to keep from touching my skin, when that reminded me of the twisting scars up my left side. But that hadn't mattered anyway and I'd cum so hard it made cry out by myself in my bed.

I stood outside of his door and paced, thoughts racing. Just knock on the door and ask him. Ask him why he has that room. Ask him what kind of a relationship he'd want in life that he has an entire elaborate room centered on something called love furs and the candles of love. That's all it is. You know he'll tell you. You know he won't lie.

Horny philosophy should be a college class. That last one was the one that made me finally knock, when it was so far out of left field that it definitely had to be something borne of my working myself up. But then I remembered reaching the part where Tarl and Vella were together in the House of Cernus, when I'd gotten a chance to read more of Assassins of Gor, and how it described the difference between a white silk and red silk slave, how it described the bath houses.

His eyes were alight with happiness when he opened the door, in a way that made my fears stop their wild sway. "Brave Missy." I laughed when he tugged me inside, so that his smile widened even though I didn't feel so very brave. "I know that wasn't easy. Ask me."

"Okay, okay. I'll do it, but I'll have you know that if anyone could hear this, it would be like this defining moment or something. You should be proud of getting me to ask this, is all I mean." His expression said he was well aware and that he was so happy about the fact. "Is that what you want in life?"

"My kajira, you mean? Yes, that's what I want in my life."

And I'd known that. I'd known that, you see, because there was no way to pretend otherwise when he had that room, when there were iron rings screwed into the floor, and when it was so obviously, carefully crafted. You didn't put that much care into something without having all the fantasies that went with it. I hadn't spent so much time making my hidden bookshelf room without happily daydreaming about the Beast holding Belle his prisoner, keeping her locked up, but not in the tower when she was a more delicate captive. "I want you to tell me more."

He laughed. "How curious are you feeling?"

"Enough to kill a cat, probably, so whatever it is, now is probably the best chance you'll ever have."

I felt kind of exhilarated actually. It was so strange, so odd, but it was him and I didn't feel so much fear that I couldn't feel excitement, either. I'd spent nights messaging Tara about her forays in a place called Sulfur's, so I wasn't totally oblivious to life's kinky joys, even if I hadn't experienced them myself, obviously. Even if I for damn sure never thought I was going to experience them myself. Honestly, I kind of thought I was just going to be a crazy cat witch later in life, the one that lived at the end of a street in that gothic house with gargoyles while kids whispered about the enchantments on it. And my secret was going to be that I was just an agoraphobic who was terrified of everything to do with people and filled my need for companionship with those cats.

"Okay, then come on and I'll show you two other rooms besides that one."

Ye gods. I took his hand, feeling thrills and confused desires, the kind that went with how many times I'd been masturbating lately, the kind that went with how I was starting to throb whenever slave girls and the societal views on them were mentioned in the books. He looked more out of place than ever now that I'd started through reading them, especially when he wore jeans and a tee, the same that I did that night. That was it and it was too plain for someone like him, even while that strange chain choker and lock he wore was too plain for someone like him. He looked back to wink at me while he led me down the hallway, past the room I already knew. Intentionally yes. In practice, not so far. But that's what he wanted, he'd said, and it wasn't all too difficult to see why someone like him would be drawn to that fantasy.

Because someone like me was being drawn to it and that felt way wilder.

"This one is the least frightening, by the way." He paused when he turned to me, then gave me a guilty smile. "It's not frightening at all actually, but it is an overindulgence of the kind only capitalism could allow and you'll see why, now that you know more of the story."

"Oh, there's more modeled after the story? Okay, then, you surpassed me because I don't have anything past my secret bookshelf."