The Skin Game - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Exposure

Two hours latter, Jesera and Kaessi sat atop the shelter roof, back to back. With their night vision they felt confident that they could see anything approaching before it would be a significant threat. Both were wrapped in blankets against the cold night and had a staff across their knees. After a while Kaessi spoke.

"Mistress, how is it that the border guards had records of me?"

"What? If I remember correctly all the Watch Orbs are linked. Your name, likeness and why you were sought were probably put into a Watch Orb when you first fled."

"That's just it Mistress. I never fled."

"But you said..."

"Mistress, I wrote a back story on a computer about a slave girl that fled. I never fled."

"Oh!"

"So if Kaessi didn't really exist until I made her up in the game. Tell me Mistress, how did the Watch Orb have record of her."

Kaessi could feel Jesera nod her head. "And they had record of me being a Princess of Greenwood Clan. That was just something I wrote into Jesera's back story. Or at least I think I did."

"You don't remember Mistress?"

"Well, I think I do. I guess the question is, how much can we trust either set of memories?"

That thought echoed in their heads for a while, then Kaessi said, "If we can't trust who we are, or who we were, what can we trust?"

Jesera said, "And what is it that we truly gain from this quest?"

After a while Jesera said, "I think if I had to pick the set of memories I wished were true, I'd pick those that are mine. I mean, those that are Jesera's. But, somehow they just don't seem as real."

Kaessi sat for a moment. If she had to choose one set of memories, which would she rather be real. It might be easy for Jesera, in this world she was a noble and a wizard. But Kaessi's choices were thief turned slave girl, or a bitter, lonely cripple. In neither life had she had many options. She had taken such opportunities as presented themselves.

Jesera asked her after a while, "Which do you think is the real you."

"Mistress, I too feel like my memories from Earth are somehow more real, more truly mine."

"You must really want to get home."

Kaessi was quiet for a moment and said, "Some of what I feel might be the obedience ring, but right now, I'm happy to be here with you Mistress. My life on Earth was no joy. I was not, am not, a happy person. I am happier this moment than I can remember being. As Kaessi I remember loving Hacer, the thief who bought and trained me. I remember being happy when I was with him. That is what I feel like now, with you. But this feels...More real? I have never felt that before. I have never felt like I belonged anywhere, that anyone wanted to be with me or wanted me to be with them."

Kaessi turned her head and found Jesera looking over her shoulder as well.

Jesera said, "You can see behind me if you are sitting in my lap."

"Would that please Mistress?"

"Very much."

Kaessi lay aside the blanket and crawled around in front of Jesera and sat across her knees. Jesera opened her blanket revealing that she too had not bothered to dress. Kaessi put her thighs over Jeseras and wrapped her ankles around her lower back. Jesera closed her blanket around them both, putting Kaessi inside the circle of her arms.

Kaessi hugged her Mistress back and started to cry. Jesera said, "It's okay, we'll make it through this. We're heroes remember."

Kaessi just kept crying. Her emotions were a conflicting maelstrom. She felt like she was in love with Jesera. But were either of them real. Was the Kaessi that she was now real? Would she someday revert back to the old Kaessi? What about Casey? Did Jesera really love her? How much was truly her own feelings, how much was influenced by the obedience ring? It had occurred to her that an obvious way to be a better slave was to fall in love with your owner.

And as much as her life here might suck, here she was healthy, beautiful, powerful and had friends. If they were successful and she returned to Earth, she would again be Casey the lonely cripple who tried to fill his need for human interaction through computer games.

Their watch was uneventful and they were eventually relieved by Izhak and William. As they readied for bed Kaessi told Jesera of Hern's outburst, and that he might have something of a point.

Jesera said, "For now, you're mine. That should settle it."

Kaessi wasn't so sure, but she said only, "Yes Mistress."

Kaessi and Jesera quietly snuggled into their bed roll and dozed off.

---

The next morning Hern woke Kaessi and they had breakfast prepared by the time everyone else was up and ready. Odan and Jesera got stuck with the dishes but all went smoothly, as though they had been doing this for a long time. As they headed off down the road Kaessi thought, in a way they had. Just not with each other.

All of them were living incarnations of characters that had been played up to twenty-first level. The game supported higher levels, but at twenty-first a character had acquired all of their most important powers and abilities. She wasn't sure, but it was almost a sure thing that everyone but she and Odan had typically worked in a group. Monks, rangers and thieves were the only character types that could easily accomplish major quests on their own. They were the only classes capable of the stealth needed to slip in and out of places. She was pretty sure William was a ranger, but he just didn't seem the type to go off by himself. Odan... there was something odd about Odan.

But that brought back the duality of their natures. Were they their game characters with their Earth personalities superimposed, or were they Earth people somehow thrust into this world as the game characters? Was this question even important. The question she had asked of Jesera the night before kept running through her mind. If we can't trust who we are, or who we were, what can we trust?

She realized that she could trust who she currently was. Regardless of who she had been, in this world or any other. Which set of memories was real? Was that important? She let her mind wonder, trying to remember Kaessi memories. Many of her memories still had that veneer of unreality. But some had become more vivid, more real. After last night, when her mind happened to turn to those times she had given pleasure to another woman, they seemed more vivid.

As they walked down the road, they were passed by other travelers on horse back, or going the opposite way. All of them looked her over quite frankly. Their looks were appraising, gauging her not as a person, but as valuable and desired animal or object. As her awareness of these gazes increased, so too did the vividness of memories of similar events.

It occurred to her that the fuzzy nature of Kaessi memories was somehow being eroded by exposure to similar experiences. Given that, over time, would her Kaessi memories become just as real as those of Casey?

As she thought about this she looked over to her Mistress, who walked along beside her when they were alone on the road, sometimes taking her hand. When others approached Kaessi would slow and drop two steps behind. Sometimes this put her almost even with Hern in the rear, who seemed to be deep in thought today.

Shortly before noon they were passed by two young men in chariots. Obviously wealthy Romarian noblemen. They called out to Hern asking if she was for sale, or at least for rent. Hern told them to ask Lady Jesera, as she was the owner. After one good look at Jesera, and probably thanks to her expression, they just nodded a greeting and rode on.

Such incidents made Kaessi very aware of the fact that the only things she was wearing were her collar and her enchanted shoulder bag of holding. Her sandals and staff were in the bag with her other belongings. A host of similar incidents from her past floated vividly through her mind. Again she was struck by the thought that as she spent more time as Kaessi, she was going to become more Kaessi, and less Casey.

Hern took a quick step forward, touched her shoulder and pointed to a small clearing with a stream running through it a short distance off the road. He said, "That looks like a great place for lunch."

The party headed off the road and were soon flopped in the soft grass adjacent to the stream. As Hern relaxed he looked over to Kaessi and smiled. She had a sudden flashback. It started very crisply, but then took on strange ghost-like overtones. Her memories were of Kaessi and living each moment, and of sitting in front of a computer screen watching avatars go about their lives.

She remember meeting Hern and his adventuring companions at the trade hall. It was a safe place to sell expensive items like the enchanted axe that Hern still carried. A peace ward on the building made it impossible for a character harm another. But Hern and his companions had not harmed her that day. She had wanted more gold than he wanted to offer, so she had offered herself as well as the axe. He had accepted and taken her there on the floor of their private room. She remembered that Hern was a natural blond, and that he was well endowed. It had been her first sexual encounter since being purchased by Hacer. And she had enjoyed it. Kaessi realized that she really liked sex, all forms of sex.

It was strange to find herself wandering down memory lane, through a set of memories that seemed shrouded in gauze and mist. Back to her earliest memories of childhood, living in the joy house. She had been well cared for, as a slave, by the standards of the Romarians. By the standards of Earth that Casey would use, she had been abused since her early childhood.

As a very young girl she had been infibulated, so that her maidenhead would not be lost before such time as her owners wanted to sell it. The rings she had in her labia were remnants of that treatment. When she turned sixteen she had been auctioned off to the highest bidder for the night. She had fetched thirty-seven gold marks, for a single evening. She was a virgin who had been schooled from her earliest years with the other pleasure slaves in how to serve a master or mistress. She had no pretense of shame or modesty, only an eagerness to please, more skill than a virgin should have and a desire to experience the pleasures of the flesh. Kaessi had been given only two choices, she could learn to enjoy her lot in life, which meant enjoying sex. Or she could have chosen to fight her fate and lived a tortured existence.

She had been engaging in sexual activities with women, so being with her Mistress had brought up those memories, and they were seeming more real, more truly hers. Being near Hern was helping the time with him to seem less foggy. She looked around, and her gaze settled on Izhak.

Another foggy memory came to her. Almost every girl and boy in the joy house had been hired for private party at a noble residence. On arriving, the slaves found that a menagerie had also been hired. They were required to select one of the beasts, then to couple with it before the guests as part of the evening's entertainment.

There had been a lizardman. He had been domesticated. His claws trimmed, his fangs pulled. He had not been nearly as large or muscular as Izhak. But he had two penises. Kaessi had taken one in her ass, and one in her pussy, at the same time. She had done so in front of dozens of watchers, and she had experienced multiple screaming orgasms that had amused the host and his guests greatly. Her owners and overseers had even considered buying a lizardman for her to entertain with regularly, but such slaves were expensive and difficult to manage. Kaessi had given good performances with all sorts of partners, so it was not felt worth the expense and trouble. But Kaessi remembered, there had been something about the experience, the nonhuman taboo, or the texture perhaps, that brought her to an unusually powerful series climaxes. Even though the haze of unreality the memory was making her aroused as she looked over at Izhak.

Suddenly Izhak looked up at her, his nostrils dilated and his long pink tongue came out and tasted the air. Kaessi made a small squeek and Izhak chuckled. She looked around and noticed that everyone had noticed and was looking at her. A sudden wash of warmth across her face and upper chest let her know she was blushing.

It also came to her that she liked being the center of attention, she liked an audience. She remembered the time Hern had taken her, his friends had stood around them and yelled encouragement. Telling him to "pound the slut." They had worked themselves into such a state that she had been showered with more gold, and covered by more men in short order. Even a woman had used her that day. As she recalled the priest that Hern had usually traveled with had been a woman.

She wondered if all of their make-believe friends, family and acquaintances were now as real as they were. However real that was. She asked the question out loud causing a wave of reactions to travel around the group. But no one conjectured.

Finally Hern heaved himself up off the grass and said, "I need to eat something and I'm not cooking. Cold lunch unless one of you wants to make something."

Jesera looked over at Kaessi, "Kaessi, do you feel like cooking?"

Kaessi could tell that her Mistress wanted hot food, so she said, "Of course Mistress." She pulled herself up off the grass, then began to collect cooking gear and food. While she did this, William had made her a small fire. She thanked him, which caused him to stammer a reply. In short order she had made grilled sandwhiches for everyone.

Jesera sat facing her as they ate. Kaessi quickly ate hers, and sat watching as her Mistress ate hers in small bites. Jesera was watching her back, in between bites she got a sort of strange look on her face. The expression could be described as impish. After a moment she said, "Kaessi, come here."

Kaessi rose and knee walked the couple of paces to her Mistress. She started to kneel again and Jesera quickly said, "Stay like that." Kaessi froze. Jesera gestured with her hands and said, "Actually stay upright like that, but spread you legs apart. I want your knees wider than your shoulders. Hands on top of your head."

Kaessi felt herself blushing again, but complied. Jesera reached out and pressed a finger between her breasts and said, "Arch your back a bit."

Kaessi complied.

The she said, "Push your hips a bit forward."

Again Kaessi did as commanded. This position put her on display. She felt herself flushing again. Her nipples were hard and erect, and she could feel her pussy, already wet from her walk down memory lane juicing again.

Jesera ran her fingers up the inside of her left thigh. Kaessi gasped in surprise, but remained in position. Jesera held up her finger. In the bright light the sheen of moisture could easily be seen.

Jesera gave her a positively evil smile and said, "You seem to like spending time naked."

Kaessi didn't want to admit that. Or to be more precise, Casey didn't want to admit that. Kaessi had spent most of her life naked or nearly so. Admitting that she was comfortable that way shouldn't bother her. But that was only part of the story. The obedience ring wanted her to be a good slave. Good slaves are truthful to their owners. She felt compelled to be honest with Jesera, but she really didn't want to be honest. She realized that Jesera hadn't asked her a question, she had made a statement. At that realization the pressure to admit her feelings eased and she just waited. Her pulse quickened as Jesera held her finger up to Kaessi's mouth.

"I've got something on my finger, why don't you lick it off for me."

Kaessi took the finger into her mouth and again tasted her own juices. She was doing this in front of the others. Why was Jesera doing this to her?

"I think if you like being naked that much, you should be. You will remain nude until we reach the Northern Wastes outpost. After that I expect it will be too cold to keep you naked."

Willaim spoke up, "What are you doing? Why are you being cruel to her. After all that she's been through. I bet you have a dress in that coffer that would fit her. Even if it's another one like that see through outfit you seem fond of, its better than being nude!"

Jesera turned her head to William and said, "Kaessi is mine. I'll do with her as I please."

Odan said, "Kaessi is yours by Romarian law. We are all from Earth here, yes? We don't believe in slavery. While we're around Kaessi is a slave in name only. Also, I wont stand for you doing anything to, or with, her that endangers our quest."

William said, "Indeed!"

Hern and Izhak nodded their heads.

Jesera looked over at them haughtily, every inch a princess. Then she said, "I do not intend to do anything to endanger our quest, or to hurt Kaessi." She turned her head to Kaessi, "Kaessi, do you like being naked?"

That was a question, she could fight the urge to answer, but she chose not to do so. "Yes Mistress."

Jesera went on, "Do you like it because you think in pleases me, or because it turns you on."

"Both Mistress."

"Which would bring you more pleasure? Wearing clothes, or being naked."

"Naked, Mistress."

Jesera turned back to the men and said, "See!"

William persisted, "I still don't think its right. It humiliates her. Every time someone passes us they look at her like some piece of meat they would like to have for dinner."

Jesera said, "Why do you think she likes it? You think she's some sort of naturalist who believes going unclothed promotes better health?" Jesera turned back to Kaessi, "Kaessi, how do you feel when that sort of encounter happens."

Kaessi pushed back on the Obedience Ring's pressure and simply said, "Humiliated."

Jesera raised an eyebrow and said, "And?"

Kaessi relaxed, fighting the constant continuous urge from the ring was possible, but exhausting. She said, "And very excited Mistress."

"Why?"

"I know they want me. And I know that there is a chance, maybe just a small chance, that they will have me. That thought, of being taken without my consent, it makes me very aroused."

William looked horrified. "You want to be raped!?"

Odan said, "She said without her consent, not against her will." He got up and walked over to the half-elven girl, once there he dropped into a squat only a couple of feet away and caught her eyes with his. "Not having to make the choice, not having to say yes, or no. That's what you crave isn't it. Not being brutalized or taken by brute force. You want freedom. Freedom from choice."

Kaessi looked at Odan with a look that could be described as terror. Somehow he understood. He understood that she had no choice but to fight for anything and everything as Casey. For Casey nothing in life had been easy, nothing had been handed to him. Casey knew he was not desired, or wanted. He had known little physical pleasure that did not involve his own hand. Reviewing Kaessi's memories was showing him another way. A way that made life simpler, and more pleasurable, if perhaps not more pleasant.

Kaessi knew that if she had been ugly and undesirable, maybe she would not have felt such an attraction to it. But she knew that all men, and many women, wanted her. She knew with the others near her, she was not going to be hurt. The idea of living as the wanton sex slave that Casey had envisioned, when he designed her as his in game character, was seducing her with alarming rapidity.

Jesera said, "Kaessi, is Odan right? Do you want freedom from choice?"

Kaessi tried to muster the willpower to fight the Obedience Ring, but she didn't have the will to fight the enchantment, and herself. She cast her eyes to the ground feeling deeply degraded and exposed as she said, "Yes Mistress."

William stood and said, "Kaessi, fight that damned ring, Remember you're a powerful twenty-first level character. You don't have to do what it wants. You don't have to be what it wants."

Jesera said, "I think the ring is helping her to see what she wants. But I think she is the one who wants to be a sex slave. It's a fairly common fantasy." She looked up at William and cocked her head, "Remember, we are all someone's fantasy." She motioned to Kaessi. "Hers just turned out to be a lot more explicit that yours."

Jesera turned again to Kaessi and said, "Kaessi, I order you to tell us the truth. The whole unvarnished truth. It will greatly displease me if you don't."

Kaessi felt her stomach plummet, she was going to have to spill everything!

Jesera continued, "Tell us. Do you want to be treated as an exhibitionistist and sex slave? Or do you want to be treated as an equal?"

Kaessi felt her stomach flop again, that question she could answer without revealing those things she most desperately wanted to keep secret. She quickly said, "Mistress I want to be a sex slave. Your sex slave. Please treat me as one."

William stood open mouthed, then turned and walked off up stream.

Odan smiled at her and shrugged. He said, "Well this should be interesting."

Izhak tilted his head appraisingly, and said, "To be sssure."

Hern said nothing, but he began to collect their things for cleaning.

Jesera said, "Kaessi, why don't you go down to the stream and wash up. All over. When you are done, come back to me."

"Yes Mistress!" as she scampered to her feet and ran to the stream. She felt a sense of liberation and excitement. A strange sort of hope filled her as she washed in the cold water. She felt more alive, more real, than she had ever felt before.

Continued in Chapter 5

---