Free A Gentlemen's Agreement by Ashley Zacharias Page B

I was
first sold.”
    It was a grim way to count the
years toward the day when she would be considered too old to be a pleasure
slave and be sent to a labor auction.
    Tamarind noted the unhappy look on
Irene’s face. “Hey, don’t let me get you down. It’s not so bad. Most of my
owners have been good men. I’ve never been sold to the professor, so that’s
lucky.”
    “The professor?”
    “Don’t you know about the
professor? I thought everyone knew about him. He’s a sadist. Proud
of it. He tortures his slaves. That’s how he amuses himself. Non-stop
torture. You don’t ever want to get sold to the professor.” She leaned close
and said, in a low voice, “If you make your owner unhappy, if he wants to
really punish you, he’ll sell you to the professor. It’s worse than getting
sold to a brothel and you don’t want that, either.”
    Tamarind leaned back in her chair.
“Anyway, I guess my owners liked me well enough. Not well enough to keep me for
a long time, but well enough that they never sold me to the professor. Or to a
brothel.”
    “What’s the longest that an owner
has kept you?”
    “Almost two years. I was nineteen
when Sir Goulfkik bought me and I was twenty-one when
he sold me. It was winter when he bought me and winter when he sold me, so I
know that it was nearly two years.”
    “My first owner only kept me for a
short while. I think it was about three months.” Irene wasn’t certain but she
had tried to keep a rough count of the weeks. “He didn’t sell me. He traded me
to Lord Snow in return for a promise of knighthood.”
    “A lot of owners turn over slaves
pretty fast. It doesn’t take a gentleman long to get bored with a slave when
there are new ones available at auction every month.”
    Irene knew that her ex-husband
seldom kept a slave for more than a few months. She wondered how long Lord Snow
would keep her. “I guess Lord Snow will sell me when I can’t think up any more
amusing entertainments.”
    “I guess.” Tamarind was quiet for
a moment. “I… We… Me and the other slaves… We understand that Lord Snow
doesn’t… Doesn’t use you like the rest of us.”
    “You mean that he doesn’t use my
sexual services?”
    She nodded.
    “No. He doesn’t. Damn him. I used
to be the wife of his best friend and I think that bothers him. He’d feel like
he was betraying James if he used me.”
    “That must be nice. Not having to
service anyone.”
    Irene shook her head ruefully.
“You think that chastity is nice? It’s awful. I want to get fucked so bad, I
can taste it.”
    Tamarind looked at her with wide
eyes. “You can’t mean that.”
    “Of course I mean it. When I was a
lady, I didn’t get fucked often enough so I sold myself into slavery. Now, it
turns out, I’m the only slave in the world who never gets fucked at all. If I’d
known that this would happen, I would have stayed a lady.”
    “I’d rather never get fucked than
get fucked a dozen times in a night, every couple of nights.”
    Irene smiled. “That’s because
you’ve never had chastity forced on you. It might not be nice to get fucked too
much, but I’d take that over never getting any. What’s the longest that you’ve
ever gone without getting fucked?”
    Tamarind thought for a minute. “Four
or five days, I guess. My owner got the flu once and he didn’t use me or lend
me out until he got better.”
    “So, since the age of fifteen,
you’ve never had to go for longer than five days without sex. Look at me. How
long has it been since Lord Snow bought me? A couple of
months, at least. That feels like a long drought. The big question is
how long is he going to keep me. For all I know, I might not get fucked again
for the rest of my life. He might well keep me until I’m too old and then sell
me directly into labor. I’m twenty-eight. That’s much too young to be left high
and dry for the rest of my life.”
    “Well, if you ever want to trade
places with me, just let me know.”
    “I