…ask her to stay.

“Wait...” you manage, before collapsing into another fit of coughing. She pauses and turns, eyes sorrowful. You don’t say any more, but she sees the permission in your gaze when you look back up. Tears well in her eyes as she rushes forward. She quickly stops, turned back by your rank state, but rather than quit, she retreats, to pick up a bucket just outside the door and rush back to kneel before you. You fall back yourself, going from all fours to a kneeling seated position. The impact of your rear resting on your ankles seems to dislodge a large congealed clump deep inside your womanhood and sets it slowly seeping down at its own pace. The bucket contains crystal clear water, twinkling in the reflected sunlight coming through the open door, and two damp cloths hanging over the edge. One looks suspiciously like the one they tied around your head. It came off when they had you in the kitchen and thought of a better use for your mouth, so it’s probably the same. A limp scrap of cloth, picked up and used unthinkingly thanks to its convenience. You almost sympathise.

She picks it up and gives it a quick dunk before she gently dabs at your face, acting as though you’re made of the finest and most delicate porcelain. She softly touches your cheek before you reach up and take her hand, moving the rag over your mouth and squeezing the water down your throat. While they had made you swallow, they hadn’t let you drink, and cool refreshing fluid was gratefully received. You had almost forgotten what cool liquid feels like: lacking the gungy feel and the salty after taste that had become so familiar in the long night. Her hand shakes in your own, and as you let go, you see her shoulders jumping with sobs. She really does look a state, crying away with a face full of bruises. It’s a strange feeling; having someone so sorry looking brought to tears by your condition. You must look a thousand times worse.

The man kneels down and takes up a rag as well, with far less pity. After a quick soak and squeeze, he moves the rag and his hand to your chest, rubbing your breast with eager thoroughness. You feel yourself jiggle and move as he wipes away, palm flat like a window washer. It scrapes across your sore bruised nipple. Why grown men feel the need to suckle and suck like a babe you have no idea; they appeared to be getting far more joy elsewhere anyway, yet they often seemed obsessed, drawn back to your unimpressive mounds like moths to a pair of particularly vibrant flames. He’s quickly beaten away when the maid notices. She chases him out the room, whipping him with her own damp cloth. You had scarcely realised what he had done was wrong. What would have had you screaming like a banshee and clawing his eyes out just yesterday now sees you almost not notice. You suppose having three different men dicking three different holes at once shifts your perspective on these things quite a bit.

The sudden memory freezes your mind like a lake of ice, sending other thoughts slipping and sliding across its surface. Like three different poorly wound clocks ticking at separate speeds, the men had gone from chaotic pounding to perfectly synchronised and back several times before they were done. Fortunately it had only happened once; the turns both before and after rarely rose above one man at a time. You blink as the maid runs the rag over your split lip, more from forgetting that she was there than any pain.

“Sorry.” She whispers. From being so close, you can see that she sports a split lip of her own. She catches you looking. “I...You know, you... I came back from the inn...” She keeps wiping, moving on to your neck as she talks. “You’re actually not the...well... Maxaine got off worse...” You find that hard to believe. She looks at her hands as she talks, following her own gentle wiping and dabbing motions. “A bunch of Captain Rolands men, they... they got her upstairs somehow, in the inn and...and they did the same thing to er as was done to you, only there was more of them an...an she didn’t survive...” Is that worse? Not surviving? **** to **** wasn’t a very dignified end, but what future do you otherwise have in her stead? None of this seems very...recoverable.

“It’s all my fault...” Her tears return, but she doesn’t let them stop the story or her cleaning. “Benji won’t say nothing, least not to me... Ee’s all cut up an all. I think they... I think they... Gods, I think they ad im as well, or made im watch or something terrible!” She wipes your bruised arms with shaking hands. Sympathy seems to in short supply; what would have once been a fire in your chest now seem like less than the meanest foxfire. So the boy was fucked a few times up the arse, or simply watched it happen to someone else? Try it a dozen or so times, then you’ve got something to be sorry about. While you’re at it, raise the stakes by two more holes! Men! They should all get fucked!

Your mental tirade is cut short as she continues. “Started a fight, it did. Two crew went at each other pretty fierce, ‘pparently.” Her hands slip down between your sore and sorry breasts, before circling around them and over them. The rag returns to the bucket for another wetting. The water is already cloudy and you haven’t even reached your hips.

Gossiping seems to be a natural outlet for the girl and the physical activity of cleaning seem to help as well. Even as you say nothing back, her explanation of the fight and its aftermath visibly calms her. Apparently, seven of Captain Roland’s men had been flogged as a result and the supposed ringleader was hung. Roland’s smug ‘apology’ had angered the crew further, forcing him to leave or risk an all out riot from the sound of things. No mention was made about the men involved in your own near fatal ****; only that they had left with Captain Wendigo in the morning. They probably all received medals or something.

You have to take the rag yourself when she hesitantly stops just above your well worn sex. She moves onto your back with the discarded second rag and a discreet second bucket while you dig your fingers inside and pull out as much as you can. Your hands feel numb and clumsy, your mind having a hard time regaining the control you relinquished to your attackers. Apparent it was Zap, the backdoor guard, that had told her about your location and sorry state. She seems genially thankful to him for the gesture, saying you could have been completely forgotten about if he hadn’t said anything. You wonder if she knows that he was the first of them, and was the one who instigated your whole ordeal. Most of what you’re pulling out is probably his. It doesn’t feel like your body at all; more like... their leftovers.

Both buckets are tipped out, and hers is changed for fresher water from a pump in the kitchen before she returns to help you stand on your unsteady legs. You hold on to the lower shelf in the dark room as she works over your cheeks and legs. She doesn’t go too near the natural crack of your hips that was so thoroughly mined the night before, but she does pour enough water down it to clean it up some. Being slightly bent over while someone works your rear is nothing new to you, but this is the first time the other person has felt more obvious embarrassment. You can’t see her face, but you can almost feel the heat coming off it when her cleaning takes her too close to your behind.

Garran, the man who had come to ‘help out’ with the cleaning, had been the one who beat her. Apparently, that was a good thing, as all the blows were to her face and made to look worse than they were as a show to the Captain. From what you gather, it also meant nothing more was done to her.

“Oh Garren’s a sweetheart really. He likes to play it all cool and he can be a bit of a perv, as you know...not to mention he can be lazy as a mule sometimes, but he’s an all right sort.” She looks at you as she gives your feet a final rub, smiling at the result of her cleansing. She stands and takes your arm. “Come on. This way. There you go.” You follow sluggishly as she leads you into the light of the kitchen, ankle a distant, ignorable pain. You lean on a counter and watch as the very murky water once more goes sailing out the backdoor before the bucket is placed under the pump and filled a final time. She leads you outside.

The light. It’s what you imagine being born feels like. All the pain and ache that’s been soaked into your body seem to shy away from the suns warmth. It bathes you, like Samia bathed you; washing away the night before. You close your eyes, listen to the sound of birds and distant oceans and for the briefest of brief moments, you’re not you anymore. You’re someone else, someone far away from the cares of the world. The moment does only last for a moment though. Reality soon rears its ugly head.

You look down. Your weak looking body is awash with bruises, cuts, and scrapes, revealed by the bright light and careful cleaning. Patches of angry red, sickly yellow, and blue black congregate around the areas they were most interested in. You can almost see the finger marks in the bruises where they manhandled you: another careless way that the men marked you theirs. A hand on your shoulder makes you jump, but it’s just Samia, pushing you to sit on a stool that wasn’t there before. Water cascades over your head as she upends the bucket above you, soaking you completely. She uses her fingers, running them through your hair to tug out the worst of the snarls and set it to some semblance of neatness. She hums as the sun dries you.

What do you do now? What’s the plan? There must be a plan. Do you go after Captain Washkin? The men who took turns with your body? It feels like that ship has sailed in more ways than one. You need to get off the island, that much is certain.

“There are still some boats down at the docs.” The voice behind you chimes eagerly, pausing its off key humming while she does. You weren’t aware that you said anything but...yes...yes you suppose you did mutter your need. “You may need to hurry. Most go quickly when the Captains gone. No need to hang about I suppose.”

That does it then. You’ll take a boat to...to... to where? Home? Your small rented apartment on the Coronac mainland? Just continue like nothing happened? You could go to your parents in Everglen. Seeing them now would be... A brief flash of their faces when they learn their little girl has been gang **** dashes that hope. There is no comfort they could provide that would be worth breaking their hearts. You should...You’ll need to raise whatever is growing inside you in secret. You’ll need to go...far away.

Samia is gone. You look about as you sit alone and try to recall the last thing she said. The sound of running feet disrupts your effort.

“Here it is!” Samia holds up an old looking yellow dress, several sizes too big for you in both height and width. “I couldn’t find your other clothes and, as I say, this is probably too big, but better than walking about in just your skin!” She seems so eager; glad to have some means of helping. Any hatred you may have had for the woman melts away under her charity. You’re just glad she’s here, now, despite her actions before. You lift your arms as she threads it over you. It’s like wearing a sack. The looseness is a blessing; the less touching you and your... rawness the better.

You take a slow and steady walk down the gravel path to the village. The small stones dig into your bare feet but it’s a small and almost welcome discomfort besides the feeling of walking at all. Your stretched and bruised rear hole burns with each step shuddering up your legs, and your ankle reminds you how it kept you from running with every limp upon it. Both work together to make moving a misery, though the limping movement is almost lost within the folds of the baggy dress. You look down at it. The bodice hangs so loose that you can actually look down the length of your body still. Fortunately, it hangs on the shoulders quite high and would likely look modest on the woman beside you. Its faded yellow reminds you of the jacket you wore. What had happened to it? Hadn’t the bald man from the cellar come to reclaim it? That doesn’t seem right. As you think, a vision fills your mind. Your own open mouthed face reflected in the bald sweaty scalp beneath you. Was it beneath you? You were crying out at the pain of the strong sucking on your nipple, but when he moved away, he moved up. He’d gone in between your legs, that’s right, and joined the man beneath you, both pressed together while pounding your-

“Passage for one please.” Samia talks to a rotund looking man before a ship. You look around. When did you get to the docks? Several ships are lapped by the waves and the activity of the men relates to work rather than play. Rigging is being rigged, ropes tied and untied, cargo loaded and sailors are getting yelled at for being too slow, too sloppy, or just too hung-over from the night before.

“Five gold” he says in a bored voice. You don’t have any gold. You don’t have any anything anymore.

“Nonsense! Five Gold! Don’t be ridiculous!” She berates the man; a constant torrent of reasons for him to lower his prices. That you are no trouble, that you’re family, that you’re **** and scared, that he needs to undo the offence he caused her, that she has powerful friends and a fearsome temper of her own. To sooth her upset, he agrees to one silver piece and a copper, albeit with a significant amount of grumbling. She hands over the coins without consulting you.

You feel like you should thank her. You also feel like that would be a massive miss-step. She still owes you, right? She could never repay you for the harm she’s done. She could never be forgiven... She looks at you with concern, holding your shoulders and your gaze, keeping you from that long fall into your own mind. It’s a moment that lasts a heartbeat before she embraces you, wrapping you in her arms.

It’s a strange feeling. You don’t want to be touched yet you want to be held forever. You want her to squeeze all the bad memories out of you, yet her grip remind you of those that put them there in the first place. Her arms stroke your back and her shoulder cradles your head, yet all you can think about is feel of hand spreading your legs, gripping your hips or pulling your hair.

“I’m SO sorry...” She whispers. The boat waits out of sight.

“Thank you.”

It’s all you can think to say.

And so, you found yourself on a boat, sailing south. The direction didn’t really matter but the climate got hotter. Summer hits the south hard and only the nights hold any reprieve. The ship was reasonably sized, with a crew of twelve or fifteen if you count the pets, and aiming towards the trade city of Lacresh in the empire to offload plundered Coronac ivory and ores for southern silks and crafts. The days pass slowly as you spend them mostly inside your own head. Sometimes you think of that night but most times you think of nothing at all, just letting the hours slip away while you stare at the wood of the empty bunk above.

The crew **** you, during the journey. Of course they did. About eight or nine times, it happened. Late at night, a crewmen would sneak into your tiny crawlspace of a cabin, clamp his hand over your mouth, hitch up your dress and enter you. They were all so stealthy about it as well, as though they were some kind of master criminal, hoping to keep the attack quiet while being blissfully unaware that others have had the same idea. At first they held you tight, like you were some blushing virgin who’d scream and fight and bite and beg. It all ends much faster if you just let it happen, though doing so did lead to some unwelcome repeat visits. Your crotch already itched and burned before the first man came. As such discomfort was given to you, so too do you let the others take it. A small act of unthinking retaliation.

After two weeks of fast sailing south, the archipelago thins and fades behind. The ship starts to stick close to the mainland shore as the endless sea stretches unbroken on the other side. The costal tree’s change their type in the distance; remaining green but somehow looking more tropical. They were wild and inviting. It was another busy night, the crew having fallen into routine with you, which by then included the occasional demanded suck, before you decided to swim for them.

You remember walking for days, though thick woods and trees, following a stream and eating strange moss and insects. Your ordeal did many things to you, physically and mentally, but it didn’t leave you squeamish. Every time something looked too disgusting to eat, you would simply remember what has already been in your mouth and stomach. It was all so unthinking; you walked as you ate, rarely drank, and slept when it got too dark to walk.

Eventually you got to the village, ancient, abandoned, and ramshackle; it was made from clay stone in the walls and roofed with wood and thatch that had long since rotted away. It was just several shells that lined a woodland clearing, cliffs at the back, river to the side, overgrown and dark. It would be on the northern edge of the empire, which should only hold a technical claim; Lacresh was still weeks away to the south, but the village was still much further south than you have ever been before. It was land abandoned, now wild and uncivilised.

After looking about and determining that you were very much alone, you got to work, cannibalising the huts into one, belly swelling with the days.

Now, the tall one rummages through your makeshift shelf. Crude tools dropping to the floor, scattering and rolling across its surface. You swept that floor just this morning. A sharpened peace of the thin hollow tube tree, the kind that grows nearby, rolls towards Hanfast. He doesn’t take it. Indeed, he hasn’t moved since they took a rock to his head this morning. Your son is dead. The man who did it strokes your thigh idly. It had been three years since you were last ****. Today, these fourteen men reset that counter again and again and again.

His fingers slip in; deep brown, almost black skin native to these parts standing stark against your creamy hew. You’re a delicacy to them, your skin rare, your body soft, your screams music. He looks at you and smiles, wide nose and mouth close to your cheek. His dark brown eyes twinkle as another finger joins its fellows. He’s not even the leader. That one is outside somewhere, overseeing the theft of your stocks. That one was first inside, you remember; he pulled your hair while he did it and made you watch as they killed Hanfast. Poor Hanfast. You wish his final sight hadn’t been his mother on her hands and knees. Your tears are all dried up. The sun is setting. The day is ending. Apparently they’re going to spend the night. A hand lands on your chest and pushes you back, lying you down on the floor they stain with their boots. The grinning fool climbs over your leg and takes his position. He’s not the biggest of the lot, but he’s not the smallest.

The impacts move you up and down as the leader walks in. He’s wearing that strange armour they wear in the empire; all small plates over plates with larger, ornate sections over the chest and shoulders. It’s practically a work of art. He looks the same as the rest underneath it. His hand rests on his sword hilt like some kind of general. He doesn’t even look at you.

“All right, we stay tonight. Throw dat out side-“ His name is Hanfast. “- I want a watch tonight” There’s a grumble at this, from everyone except the man busying himself between your legs. ”Silence! You will do this! I don’t want any of this one’s friends surprising us-” The jokes on them, you don’t have any friends. You don’t have anyone anymore. “-and we still do not know if the Mikalocia whore follows!”

“What are we going to do with her?”

A drop of sweat lands on your cheek. You look up in time to see another roll across his bald head, down his nose and land just under your eye. He smiles at the brief eye contact you gave him, licking your face before he increases his speed.

“She’ll have to stay. I don’t want her slowing us down.” Another groan from the group. That’s not bad, you can go with Hanfast after their gone. “Don’t complain. We have this one all night still. Pretend she is Vush. Plenty of time for fun.” As if on cue, the man inside you releases his seed with a breathy cry, adding it to the ample collection he and his friends have already deposited. You’re surprised there’s enough room inside you to hold it all; they tread old ground.

The leader is next again, stripping of his beautiful armour piece by piece before getting down and pulling your small form on top of him like a bed spread. He places one of your hanging breasts into his mouth and starts sucking. You ignore him. At least this lot took turns. They don’t much like using you while someone else is already inside. That means your arsehole has only been fucked five or so times so far and none of them have fucked your face yet. Small mercy but you’ll take what you can get. All your struggle has gone now. If they don’t kill you before they go then you will after. You’ve accepted it and embraced what little peace it offers. Hanfast was your world but you don’t have nearly enough love left in your heart to raze another child of ****.

Your breast comes out with a pop and he soon repositions you so your hips align. Bigger, but again, not the biggest. You lie limp on his wide dark chest like a broken doll; strings cut, phantom life over. He holds your hips in the waning light of day as your last night approaches.

“You have stopped da moaning? You still enjoying dis, dyed white northern whore?”

He laughs before moving your hips, holding them in his wide hands and rolling them, as though they were his to play with.

If you still believed in the gods, you’d pray tonight was a short one.