Exhausted, Linda Wells trudged along next to her companions of misfortune. She had rebuffed any offers of proximity from the "freaks", as she silently dubbed the horsewomen. She had crossed the seemingly endless prairie on foot, as she didn't trust the freaks one bit. She was convinced the aliens had taken human form to trick them into whatever sick game they were into, although she could not understand why they would use arrows and bows when they could surely use more sophisticated weapons against their abductees.
"Regardez, regardez," said a slender Frenchwoman with pale skin and long arms and straight brown hair. She pointed to a city that lay near a river, surrounded by ramparts of stone topped by battlements. "It looks like... Rome, old Rome," the girl added in broken English. "With houses... with columns..."
Despite the distance, Linda was able to see what the Frenchwoman meant. The "houses with columns" were probably temples, courts or other public buildings. They reminded her of Washington, D.C.. She had seen those magnificent, imposing buildings when she visited the White House on a school-sanctioned tour.
As they approached their destination, the city walls grew taller and more awe-inspiring. Linda noticed the battlements were defended by archers and war machines resembling catapults. Intrigued, she kept staring at the defenders of the city, forgetting her own fatigue. Eventually she had to shield her eyes from the strong luminosity given off by Alpha Centauri A.
Linda tried to discern whether the guards were men or women, but it was impossible to tell. The city walls were at least 60-feet tall. She was impressed by the their gigantic proportions. It would have cost years and many lives if they had built them by hand, but she was sure they hadn't. If they could build spaceships, walls like these would be an easy enough task.
There was a long pause before their column of horsewomen and abductees were allowed in. To Linda's disappointment, the guards at the gate were women as well, although these wore breastplates, helmets, shields and spears, and looked even less friendly. When it was her turn to be frisked, she turned around before one of the guards pushed her roughly against the wall. Rough hands touched her everywhere, her breasts, her vagina and anus, as though she was a convicted criminal. She shut her eyes, holding in her anger and humiliation. What were they afraid of? What could she possibly smuggle in inside her sex and asshole, huh? Drugs?
Once inside, they were greeted by a curious crowd of women, girls, but curiously there wasn't a child in sight. They wore a kind of tunica and sandals, like the ancient Roman women. Like the Frenchwoman had pointed out, the buildings were like those of ancient Rome as well. She loved Rome. She had visited the city twice during their endless trips to Europe during her career as a fashion model. And now... it seemed as though she had traveled back in time and... space... She experienced an eerie feeling that there was something wrong with that picture, whatever that was. A chill shot down her spine. She shook her head as an attempt to snap out of whatever trance she was falling into.
The amazons formed a ring of security separating the throng of city women from the abductees. Her companions seemed as much as in awe as Linda was. The horsewomen brought them to another gate protected by uniformed guards. These guards wore a kind of darker leather under their breastplates than the guards at the outer gate of the city. One of them spoke with Mora, the amazon's leader, and she handed the horsewoman a heavy-looking small bag. Before Linda could fully comprehend what was happening, the gate doors gyrated on their hinges and a menacing phalanx of guards spewed forth from the open gate and surrounded Linda and her companions in a matter of seconds.
Suddenly, someone cried out, "We've been sold... Those bitches sold us out." But whoever said that was immediately pushed in and disappeared from view. One by one, Linda's companions were escorted in by guards. When Linda's turn came, two pairs of hands got hold of her arms and pulled her along. Too awestruck to react, she didn't fight. On the other side of the gate there was an open space enveloped by a monumental peristyle. The strong light blinded her for a moment. She closed her eyes, realizing how hard her heart was beating. What were going to do with them? With her? Was she going to die? Was she going to be thrown to the lions like in those Hollywood movies about ancient Rome she had seen in her youth? With her mother beside her...
"Mom," she began to cry. "Mom... Oh, Mom... What are they going to do with me? Please, help me. HELP MEE!!!"
Linda woke up but could not see clearly. The place she was in was humid and moldy. She was scared to death. She tried to move, but every bone of her body ached. At first she thought she was alone but in the semi-darkness she could see she wasn't. Several pairs of eyes stared at her silently. For a panicky moment she thought those eyes were from dead people and she screamed for fear:
"Hey, shut up or the guards will come and smack us again," complained a voice.
"Where are we?" Linda asked.
"In some dungeons," said a second voice. "Like your friend said, we were sold."
"My friend?"
"Yes, your friend, that girl called Sandy, the one who befriended the alien and let us fall into their trap."
"I'm not sure if they are aliens," replied Linda tentatively. "If they are, then they look a lot like us. I think the aliens look a lot different, but..."
"But?" said the first girl, approaching Linda, her face becoming more visible. She was a tall blonde with penetrating blue eyes. Her longs were folded under her lithe body. She wore faded blue jeans with some tears and a black tank top.
"Who are you?"
"Kaija. Kaija Haapalainen."
"I'm her sister, Kateriina Haapalainen," said the second voice. The girl came closer, her face leaving the shadows as well.
Linda experienced some shock. The two girls looked very similar. Although Kaija seemed older and more aggressive, the age gap could not be more than a couple of years.
"We're actually twins," continued Kateriina. "We're Finnish. We come from Finland. The Nokia country, you know," she added with a sudden smile. "You're American?"
"The guards have smacked you before?" Linda asked, turning to see the grating of the dungeon she had been thrown into.
"Yes, they did." Kaija nodded. "They hit me when they tried to separate us I fought with one of them when they wanted to take Kateriina away from me."
"Kaija was furious with them. You should see when my sister gets angry. And then they smacked her again when she complained about this place..."
"And the food. I spat into it."
Linda looked at the Finnish sisters wide-eyed. That place and those girls seemed surreal, as though she was Alice in Wonderland and they were the Queens of Hearts.
"What do you think they are going to do with us?"
"I heard something like they are gonna sell us again," replied Kaija.
"How do you know that? Do you understand their language?"
"No," Kaija said, shaking her head. "But I can guess. I start to understand a few words like 'ish' means 'I' and 'tu' means 'you'."
"That sounds like German," Linda said.
"Yes, it does, doesn't it?" Kaija said, smiling. "And because I speak German I could make the connection. But the similarities end there... The rest is very different from German. Sometimes I have the nagging feeling I can understand them if I listen to them carefully, but if they talk too fast I really don't understand anything they're saying."
Linda and the two Finnish sisters gabbed away for a few hours until all subjects were spent. Linda perched herself on the windowsill, peering through the iron bars that kept her inside. She looked at the word outside with curiosity. She could see a group of soldiers interacting with a couple of young giddy girls, as though the former were the men and the latter the girls proper. But she knew the soldiers were women too. She could see it clearly by their body's shape and the undeniable curves on their breast. It seemed as though that society had adapted itself to the lack of males, but... there was something wrong. She could feel it in her bones, and the way they treated her and her companions. Suddenly, one of the girls laughed louder and kissed one of the soldiers, and for the first time Linda felt her body react. She felt her nipples rise and become slightly stiffer and experienced a kind of pressure inside her sex. Startled, and somewhat disgusted with herself, she looked away and sighed.
She let her body fall on the straw covering her dungeon and returned to where the Finnish sisters were. Kaija's head rested on Kateriina's midriff. They spoke in their incomprehensible mother tongue. Soon as they noticed Linda's stare they stopped talking and Kaija asked: "What happened? It seems you saw a ghost."
"Nothing happened," Linda replied, sitting next to them. "I'm just tired."
"You need food. These bitches want us to starve to death."
Linda stared at Kaija and the hidden anger behind Kaija's blue eyes. Even though they were twins, Kateriina's eyes were a little less blue than her sister's. They had told her that Kaija was born ten minutes before Kateriina, and that made her officially the eldest. Kateriina seemed more patient and more resigned than Kaija, but still Linda could feel the same anger inside the younger Finnish girl, although not as intense. A long moment of silence followed and Linda's eyelids began to bat until they closed. She was assaulted by nightmares about gray shadows and strawberry blonde midgets. Her mother and father spoke to her and warned her about impending danger. Although they spoke to her, she couldn't understand them. She reached out for them, but they dissolved away. Disappointed, she woke up.
"The sleepyhead is awaken," said Kaija's voice.
"Yes, she is," acquiesced Kateriina. "Here, I saved you some food. Kaija wanted to eat it all up, but I didn't let her."
"Oh, thanks." Linda removed some entangled straws from her hair and accepted a wooden bowl with a disgusting soup of cooked vegetables and some floating round spheres that looked like eyes. "What is this?"
"Just eat it or I'll eat it for you."
Hearing Kaija's threatening reply, with some reluctance she slurped at the cold soup and made a grimace. It was bitter as hell, but she had to eat or die from hunger. She grabbed one of the spheres and it was indeed an eye. She screamed and let the bowl of soup fall onto the straw.
A guard appeared at the dungeon entrance but unimpressed soon went away. Kaija immediately scolded her, eating up what was left from the soup, including the orbits. "Americans are really stupid. They don't know when to keep their big mouth shut."
"Kaija, stop it. She's scared and she's not used to it."
"You weren't used to it and you didn't scream like a scared little girl."
"Kaija, okay, we know how tough you are. Now stop it."
The three girls remained in their prison for it seemed like an eternity but in reality they stayed there for 7 days. Unlike Earth's, that planet's daily cycle took around 32 hours and 23 minutes to complete. The longer days made Linda sleepy and caused her headaches. The Finnish girls seemed perfectly accustomed to it, explaining to her that long days and long nights were not such a strange concept for someone who used to live above the Artic circle. On the seventh day, two guards came for them and with efficiency they encircled the girls' wrists with shackles, which were connected to each other with heavy chains.
"Vini, gotah," said one of the guards. "Krushami wavvan taan."
They walked through empty streets, which were largely unlit save for the torches the guards carried and the lights coming from open windows. Apparently the city's womenfolk was not keen to be on the streets at the end of the day, even though the weak light of Alpha Centauri B prevented complete darkness. Linda heard singing and dancing coming from one of the houses. It seemed as though they were giving a party, but the guards kept marching. Linda began to wonder what they were going to do with them. Kill them? Throw them to the lions as in ancient Rome? Or something even worse?
Linda could see Kateriina's fright on her pale's face, but Kaija looked indifferent and seemingly unafraid. And that reminded her of Sandy Bates, a colleague of profession, a precocious little brat who knew too much for her own good. Still, Linda thought about her and wished Sandy was next to her instead of these kooky Finnish girls. At least Sandy was an American girl, which made her somewhat less unpredictable and so less frightening to her.
Finally the guards entered a magnificent gate protected by a dozen of other guards wearing black leather breastplates instead of the brown leather straps worn by the girls' escort. With haste the guards climbed the hundreds of stairs leading to an impressive building with long columns and a frontispiece with gilt sculpted female figures running after a horse-drawn chariot conducted by a taller woman enveloped in a see-through tunic and crowned with a tiara. Instead of entering through the main entrance, the guards made a quarter of a turn and brought them to a smaller door. They were greeted by an old woman with graying air, which cast a gluttonous look on Linda. Pleased, the old woman began an animated confab with the guards, while Linda and the Finnish girls took in their surroundings. It seemed as though they were in the kitchen of the house and the old woman was one of the cooks.
"Mandy! Mandy, wake up!" Lisa called, afraid of the consequences of sleeping in. They were expected to prepare the breakfast for the mistress of their new home. They heard stories of slaves being whipped and savagely beaten if they didn't obey to their mistresses, and that was what Lisa wanted to avoid at all costs. "Mandy, please wake up." She shook her friend, who thanks to her pleading had been bought by her mistress as well at the Slaves Market. Lisa didn't want to be alone... Mandy gave a her sense of security, although the Australian girl could not do much to protect her. And certainly not by oversleeping.
"Lisa, what's up?"
"Wake up, or we'll get our asses kicked. I'm going to the kitchen and prepare the breakfast."
"Yeah," said Mandy, her disheveled stammel hair covering most of her heavy-eyed face. "The bitch's always hungry."
"Yes, whatever. Hurry up."
"I still can't fucking believe it. We've been sold as slaves... I thought this was a thing of the past, but I don't think they live in the 21st Century, do they?"
"I can't stay here and discuss this. We're slaves and there is nothing we can do about it. They killed Paula because she resisted, don't you ever forget that."
"Yes, that was..."
"Marskham wolle ashryah marim?"
Lisa turned and saw an angry Head of Slaves vociferating something she vaguely understood as a threat.
"Sorry, I'm going. Mandy too."
"Marham, gotah, dislla martoh karyam."
Soon Mandy joined Lisa in the kitchen and they prepared a breakfast that was basically an oatmeal with herbs and some slices of dried meat, wine, and a kind of fruit that looked like tiny green grapes but tasted more bitter than sweet. During the first week on that new planet, Lisa had suffered from bellyaches and diarrhea, because of the unfamiliar diet. Everything looked so familiar, but so alien at the same time. Everything seemed unreal, dreamlike, a nightmare she was about to wake up from, but the bad dream would go on and on, relentlessly.
Lisa placed everything on a platter and took it to her mistress, Kashrah ta Abyssa. She would always take her breakfast in bed, surrounded by her two favorite slaves, Myrna and Korah, who were also her lovers. Every time Lisa walked in Kashrah's boudoir, a sense of repulse and fear assaulted her. Lisa knew that Korah resented her, while Myrna looked at her with defiance and disdain. They called Lisa "Samsrukh", which seemed to mean "shorty" or "small" in their language. It was true that the women on that planet tended to be taller than she was, but Lisa hated her new name and the meaning of it. On the other hand, Mandy was called "Kargh", something to do with her reddish, long hair.
"Mistress," she said in the women's language. "May I come in?"
"You may," Lisa heard Myrna reply through gauze-like see-through curtains, and then some chuckles.
When Lisa walked in she saw Myrna and Korah kissing passionately and in apparent abandon, while Kashrah gloated with seemingly wicked pleasure, watching the surprise and repulse hit Lisa's face.
Kashrah ordered something Lisa didn't understand. Her vocabulary was still very primitive and when they spoke too fast Lisa experienced some difficulty in understanding what she was told. Then suddenly she comprehended the order. Her mistress wanted her to make out with Korah. At first Korah didn't seem happy with her mistress' wishes but she quickly regained her smile and stood on her feet, her sinuous body perfectly revealed by a transparent loose silky garment that looked like a blouse and covered part of her breasts and midriff. Her long legs and triangle of dark pubic hair were bare.
"Gotah Samsrukh," Korah said, coming closer to Lisa. "Ish myn syn kalah ramni."
"No," Lisa said, stepping back, the platter almost falling to the floor because of her nervousness.
Korah smiled wilder and grasped Lisa's arm. "Samsrukh, tu vini lassa masrani."
"No, get your hands off of me." When Lisa felt Korah's hand invade her tunic between her legs, she screamed and let the platter fall on the floor along with the hot soup. Korah yelled in pain. Lisa ran to the kitchen and to Mandy. "Oh, Mandy, they..."
Soon after, guards came for her and dragged her to the peristyle of the house. With iron shackles they tied Lisa against a pillar. When all the slaves and the women of the house were gathered around her, she was whipped fifty times. Mandy remained behind when the all the others left, speechless She begged the guards to release her but they kept ignoring her.
"She is in pain, let me help her. Please."
Lisa shut her eyes, making an effort not to dwell too much on the pain. "Mandy, go away. I don't want you to see me like this."
"No."
One guard barked an order, "Shakham, gotah." It looked more and more that "gotah" was an insult, but neither Lisa or Mandy knew what it meant. In spite of Lisa's pleading, Mandy stayed at the feet of her agonizing friend until their mistress allowed her to be released from the pillar and the shackles.
"I'll take care of you, Lisa."
But Lisa didn't reply. Lisa had fainted and was dead to the world.