I beg and plead, because that’s what he wants, but it only delays the inevitable. He takes a broad leather strap, and for the first time one of my own kind beats the living daylights out of me. I barely even remember the rape in its aftermath. I was half-unconscious by then. I just remember wishing that at the moment on the landing pad, when I’d just arrived on the surface of Aghara-Penthay, that I’d thrown myself from the tower.
Society on Aghara-Penthay is divided into four factions, each with a leader, also known as the Chief. The Flower Garden happens to be under the faction of The Alien, Jackran-ad-Aktar, the same faction which happened to be responsible for the raid where I was taken.
In the Rape Run, each faction leader, known as a Hunter for the duration of the contest, attempts to catch the most females. When a Runner is caught, she is raped, the violation broadcast for the enjoyment of the galactic audience, and then afterwards she is auctioned into slavery. Failed Rape Runners, their faces known across the cosmos, auction for staggering sums of credits. Only the last Runner evading capture is released, traumatized, but with her implant dormant, and otherwise unharmed.
As part of the Alien’s faction, we are expected to support his efforts to hunt the most Runners, even though the outcome makes no different to a slave girl. Clan colors decorate the walls. Coverage in the Flower Garden favors showing the Alien, or the Runners closest to him.
Lotho-Etsarra makes the first catch of the year, a non-human sportswoman named Siilka Noneeva. Jabal, who had a bet that Jackran-ad-Aktar would be first, is in a foul mood for the rest of the day, and we must do the best captives can to keep out of his way.
Lotho-Etsarra should be making the most of his lead and Hunting with renewed vigor, but if he does, oddly we see no coverage of him in the next day’s streams, and the Rape Run’s presenter, Wagner, makes no mention of him either. But Jackran-ad-Aktar takes advantage of the lull, and makes the first catch of Day 2, Rape Run 4454 – Baleria Acron, the host of an erotic gameshow named Harem. I used to love Harem – I’d laugh out loud at it from beginning to end. Now it is nothing to me – something banal, irrelevant. I don’t know why I ever even found it amusing.
Jackran-ad-Aktar is returning to his camp to destroy Baleria with his monstrous organ when he runs right across the Djenerion leader Tisya, caught in a risky crossing of open ground. Bad news for her, good news for us. Slavers love gambling, and Jabal gives all the slaves a sweet treat, sharing the winnings from backing his leader.
Our faction chief’s alien biology prevents him raping too frequently. Wagner’s official highlights broadcast of Baleria’s rape goes out across the universe, while Tisya has to wait in a side room, listening to the cries and anticipating her turn later in the day. And then Jackran-ad-Aktar’s feed drops. Technical problems are usually fixed quickly, but minutes turn to hours and there’s still no fresh footage of the Alien, and Lotho-Etsarra hasn’t been seen by the audience since yesterday evening either.
Even the slaves can tell something is wrong. The Slaver men are busy, apprehensive, talking to each other in urgent whispers. Guards are summoned to the surface, and they go with heavy armaments.
“… some kind of power play within one of the factions,” I overhear one of the guards tell Jabal.
The streams of the Hunters in the Run still show Salarin and Cronorgan. Salarin catches the news anchor, Donaya Oshanka, whom we saw on the shuttle, and as is his manner, begins to torment her brutally. Poor woman. But by now only the tourists are showing much interest in both the feeds, and in the females. A human male arrives from deep in the Republic, from the President’s home planet of Odaron Prime. He is a minor diplomat, and knows from my information that I was studying politics. He has no interest in discussing that, however. He has a fetish for sex with alien girls.
I know better than to reproach him for travelling to Aghara-Penthay to satisfy his vices with me, when touching me in the Republic would be an imprisonable offense. I thank him when it’s over, as I must do with all the men who buy the use of me. If a man seems less cruel to me than most, sometimes I will beg them to buy me permanently, and take me from this place. But the diplomat brushes my humble plea away. He just wanted one experience with a Dystyr, and now he will move on to his next species. Later in the day he returns to us, and chooses one of the Gaianesians for an hour.
I am considered desirable, and have knowledge and training in diplomacy. I would have made a useful consort to that male. But it seems I was not good enough to tempt him. And when someone does come who wants me, of course I only get slave luck.
11 – Luck
Eight days later, it is my turn to occupy the wooden wall. My hips and my lower body, behind the wall, are completely defenseless. My upper body is little better, for my wrists are trapped in the smaller holes at my sides. Although I can’t use my hands to protect myself, at least from the front I can see threats approaching. The wall holds me in a position leaning forwards, so after a while holding my head up causes an intense pain in my back and neck. The weight of my scorns hanging downwards makes this pose more uncomfortable than it is for women without the accessories.
My pitiable life on the Hub continues as normal, but down on the surface of the planet below me, there have been significant changes.
It turns out there was a reason for the disappearance of Lotho-Etsarra and Jackran-ad-Aktar from our screens during the Rape Run 4454. A group of brave women from the Djenerion Sect infiltrated the planet’s surface, reaching The Zone where the Run takes place, and in retribution for the Slavers abducting their leader, Tisya, these women began eliminating the faction chiefs.
The luckier members of the group were killed during the raid, but some, including their leader, were taken alive. An example had to be made of them – a fate so horrific it would deter any other women from taking a stand against the Slavers of Aghara-Penthay. This planet and its Hub are generally accepted to be the worst world in the universe to be female, but compared to those poor creatures, I have achieved slave luck. Those women had their limbs amputated; they were muted; muted in every respect so they couldn’t even communicate by moving their heads; and then they were handed over to the Elmek. The Elmek, Wagner told us, are a species of tiny humanlike beings, who fetishize devouring the sex organs of normal sized females. Slowly. It will take months for those poor Djenerion to be devoured. All those months they will spend in terrible pain; unable to move; unable to speak; unable to flee; unable to beg. They will lie there, reflecting on their actions, praying to their Gods for a salvation that will never come.
The men of Aghara-Penthay cannot be without faction leaders, and the power vacuum was quickly filled. Some of the men of The Alien and The Libido’s faction went over to Salarin and Cronorgan, but most united under a powerful new chief. His name is Monad. This brothel, the Flower Garden, was formally under Jackran-ad-Aktar, so Jabal, like most men, lacking the courage to form his own faction, quickly swore his fealty to Monad.