The Final Veil: Who had kidnapped America's favorite belly dancer? Page 3

  "A master need not consider a girl's feelings when deciding what silk to put her in, or for that matter, what garb to put her in," said Kitten. "But April and I enjoy serving men, so we were glad to wear red silk."

  "You know, as a private investigator, I make a fair amount of money because one person is jealous of another, or one person fails to consider another's feelings," I said, gazing down at the beautiful face smiling up at me from my crotch. "I know that as a Gorean slavegirl you are not supposed to have any feelings of being neglected or abused when Jeff sends you out as red silk. I know Jeff is not supposed to feel jealous when he sees you and April serving other masters. And I suppose other masters are not supposed to covet you and April after experiencing your sexual talents. But although you call yourselves Goreans, you are still human. You still come from our culture, American culture, where people feel jealousy and love and hatred and covet one another sexually. So the thing I am wondering, and which I'd like to address is, don't you think any of those emotions are lurking under the surface in your relationships with one another?"

  "Well, of course they exist," said Kitten. "We are, as you say, human. But one reason we are Goreans is that we do not care for those kinds of feelings and the relationships that engender them. Also, I think you should put your powers of detection to the task of detecting what it might mean to live in a society which both honors sexuality and encourages its members to participate in it and express it, without regard to wealth or status. “

  "A Gorean master may order his slavegirl to suck his cock for an hour or two hours, and she will do so," Kitten continued. "Think what this means. If a Gorean man is horny, it is by choice alone. His girl must serve him when he orders her to. And if he wants variety he need only attend a meet and there will be slavegirls to attend him. A Gorean slavegirl's sexuality is prized, and not just in the abstract. This girl knows that her sexual skills are discussed by men, and that she is compared to other girls. This girl knows that her sexual abilities are prized by her friends, her lovers and other Goreans generally. This girl gets nothing but praise and respect for expressing her sexuality. This girl is very sexual and very happy about it. But if this girl were to fully express her sexuality in mainstream culture she would be considered a whore, a slut, a disgusting and useless person because what the mainstream prizes mainly is repression of sexuality. You know, when this girl was in college, she knew a lot of young men and women who were going to be writers and artists and so forth. But they never got around to actually writing or drawing or painting. They just talked about it and talked themselves into believing that talking about it was the same as doing it. This girl sees mainstream as being the same way about love. You talk about loving one another, but you don't do anything about it, and you talk yourselves into believing that all that talk is the same as love. This girl make love at least half a dozen times a day, every day, sometimes several dozen times. This doesn't just talk about making love, this girl does it. This girl lives it. And that is why this girl thinks you are making a mistake if you judge Goreans in mainstream terms."

  "This detective realizes that different subcultures have different values," I said, beginning to understand why Kitten was wearing that gag ball around her neck. "A lot of crime happens because people in subcultures in which $1,000 is pocket change do not understand that there are other subcultures out there for which $1,000 is such a fortune that killing for it is a minor matter. It's the same $1,000 but it means very different things to different people. So I can see that you Goreans have different ideas about love. All I mean by saying that you're humans and Americans is that maybe sometimes and in some ways you revert at times. You're all striving for something better, but maybe some of you don't always achieve it."

  "Master has a point," said Kitten. "This girl has seen instances of jealousy and covetousness at some meets."

  "Did you see any involving April?" I asked.

  "Not that this girl remembers," said Kitten. "April and this girl were always ready to serve any man we met."

  "Even an unattractive man?" I asked.

  "April and this girl do not find many men unattractive," said Kitten. "One of the pleasures of being a slave is that this girl knows that any man she meets she might have to serve as her master, if she's ordered to. For example, Jeff has told this girl that she is to treat you as a master. So if you order this girl to suck your cock of give you access to any part of her body, she will do so, for as long as you require."

  "Would you like me to tell you to suck my cock?" I asked.

  "A girl would be very happy to serve her master," said Kitten, which I think meant she wanted me to order her to suck my cock. Which my cock was definitely ready for. With all that beautiful female face only inches from it, my cock was rock hard and throbbing.

  I stared down at her face and felt a familiar feeling, a sense of excitement and adventure and also a tiny bit of dread. The dread came from my married days, when I had given in to the excitement and adventure on far too many occasions, which had had a predictable effect on my marriage. I was no longer married, there would be no personal repercussions to enjoying the slavegirl who presented herself to me, but the dread still remained, an angry ghost.

  But the dread had not been enough to stop me back when it had been a living consequence in my life. It would not stop me now, I knew, it would just make me enjoy the sex a bit less, based on past experience.

  "I know I would enjoy the feel of your tongue on my cock, but I am here to find April," I said. "Perhaps you can serve me another time."

  "It would not take long," Kitten said. "I bet I could make you come in less than two minutes."

  "That's not the point," I said. "I'm not here to enjoy your talents, I'm here to find April."

  "You have asked much about Goreans," Kitten said. "Learn about Goreans through experience. Take me as the slavegirl I am. Have me. Own me."

  I really should not have said "Yes," but I came from that uptight, repressed, sexually starved culture Kitten had been describing and having a beautiful naked woman between my legs more or less begging to suck my cock was hard to resist, especially when she cast it as a form of research.

  "May a girl ask that you collar her and cuff her hands behind her back as she serves you?" Kitten requested. "A girl so loves to feel owned and controlled by her master when she is taken. And this is a typical Gorean modality of service."

  "Well, then it counts as research, doesn't it?" I commented as I reached forward and used the clips attached to Kittens bracelets to secure them and her hands together behind her back. Then I secured the collar that dangled beneath my "throne" to her neck.

  "Thank you, master," Kitten said.

  I leaned back and prepared to unbutton my pants.

  "If master would please allow this girl to serve him, he need only relax," Kitten said shyly. She meant she thought she could undo my pants with her wrists cuffed behind her back.

  "Go to it, slavegirl," I said.

  Kitten leaned forward, and using only her mouth, had my pants opened and my shorts pulled down beneath them. The dextrousness of her lips and tongue were amazing -- there was no fumbling and grasping at the catch that held my slacks in place. Just a quick, sure pull, a slide, and it was undone. She grasped my zipper with the same sureness and pulled it down in one smooth motion. She slipped her teeth over the band of my boxers and in a second they were down, and my cock was waving in the air, like a long-buried monument to male lust brought to hideous new life by some witch's spell.

  Kitten, who had her eyes on business while undressing me, now looked up at me with an adoring expression as she took my cock into her mouth. She first kissed its tip softly, reverently almost, and then slowly slid her mouth over it, going down until she had all of it in her mouth -- and it was quite lengthy, though I'm not the sort to brag.

  She then began the most incredible and adroit use of her lips and tongue I had ever experienced. She started at the base of my cock and went upward, and as she went up her ton
gue and lips delivered the most incredibly pleasant sensations imaginable. Then she got to the top of my cock and worked the sensitive area just beneath its base with her lips and tongue with a skill and sureness I had never experienced before.

  In seconds she had my at the point of climax. I believe she could have made me come in 30 seconds (granted, my cock had been stiff almost the entire time her face had been down there next to it, so it wasn't as if she were starting from scratch, as it were).

  I put my hands on top of her head, and she accepted it. Wrapped my fingers in her hair, and she let me. Then I lost all presence of mind as her tongue and lips really got to work on my cock. She worked it with such skill that it felt as is she literally grabbed the orgasm inside me and pulled it out with her tongue. When I came it wasn't so much a release as an explosion. The genie wasn't flowing out of the bottle, it was blown out.

  As I came, Kitten turned her eyes up to look at me, her eyes smoky and hot with passion, her hands writhing in their bonds.

  Finally she leaned back and bowed her head.

  "Oh, that was great!" I said.

  "A girl is pleased to hear that she has brought her master pleasure," said Kitten softly.

  "You have every reason to be pleased, then," I said. Then I made this low-pitched moaning sound, like an air bag that had been punctured.

  Well, it had been awhile.

  Then I noticed the condom hanging off the end of my cock. I hadn't put it there, and my powers of deduction told me who had. I was, after all, a trained detective.

  "How'd you get that condom on me?" I asked.

  "A girl has her ways," Kitten said.

  "Oh, you've got your ways, all rightie," I said, removing the condom and pulling my pants up again. "Any cynicism I might have had about your claims are gone like the wind."

  "A girl is pleased to help her master in his work," said Kitten.

  "That reminds me," I said, running my fingers idly through Kitten's hair, to which she responded like a pussycat getting a long-desired stroking, her entire body exuding pleasure. "I was wondering, do slavegirls ever get tired of being slavegirls? Do they ever get a desire to get away from it all, however nice it all is?"

  "It's happened a few times," Kitten said. "I know of three or four times a slavegirl has just chucked it all."

  "What do they do?" I asked, wondering what the 'it all' was a slavegirl had to chuck.

  "They stay with family or friends," said Kitten, "or with older Goreans sometimes."

  "Older Goreans?" I asked.

  "Goreans tend to drop out of the meet scene when they have kids," said Kitten. "It gets down to Daddy, Mommy and kid stuff for awhile, at least until the kids are old enough to go to school. Of course, there's still orgies, I mean, it's a great opportunity to organize babysitting as well as get a little fun in. The older Goreans act as mentors to younger Goreans, and if a girl feel she must leave her master but does not want to go back to her parents, she usually goes to an older Gorean woman and asks her if she can stay. I have never heard of a girl being refused."

  "Wouldn't the master have anything to say about this?" I asked.

  "The older Gorean masters tend to be very ... agreeable with the slavegirls who are the mothers of their children, and generally legally speaking, their wives. Plus, they generally have use rights over the girl while she is with them, if she is inclined to continue Gorean practices."

  "Ah," I said. "So you're saying a Gorean slavegirl always has a place to run to if she feels she has to. And I guess you've already called any of these older Goreans whom you think she might have gone to."

  "Yes," said Kitten. "We thought she might have gone to Bettina's place, since Bettina got her involved in Gorean dance and danced with her often. But they haven't seen her."

  "Would they tell you if they had?" I asked. "I mean, they're supposed to be helping her hide out."

  "This girl was the one who called, they'd tell this girl," Kitten said. "They know that April and this girl love one another."

  "I still might like to talk with them," I said.

  "This girl is sure they will be happy to talk with you," Kitten said.

  A few minutes later, I was driving home. Kitten had invited me to join the rest of the group in the living room, but it was after midnight and I wanted to get a sharp start tomorrow, and be sharp all day. Sitting around drinking and watching half-naked women dance was something I ordinarily enjoyed a lot, and on most other cases it wouldn't have been a problem. But disappearances were time-sensitive. Although I strongly suspected that April would show up in the next day or two, looking healthy and happily and (probably) thoroughly fucked by some new lover. But I'd agreed to take the case on the understanding that her disappearance was involuntary, and I meant to act on that.

  Though, to tell the truth, I don't know if I'd have been so willing to forego the naked dancing and drinking if Kitten hadn't mellowed me out with that nice blowjob. I must admit, once I went to bed I fell asleep right away and slept the sleep of the well and truly sucked.

  Chapter 2

  I'd never been doomed before

  I got up the next morning feeling pretty damned mellow and made myself breakfast -- black coffee, instant grits and toast. I tended to like bacon and scrambled eggs when I had the time, but not this morning.

  While I ate, I ran the hospital and jail checks. As I expected, nothing. There WAS an A. Dancer checked into the DeKalb County jail, but her stats indicated she was a middle-aged black woman.

  I then did a search for the Mothers of Propriety and the Angry Lesbian Feminist Alliance. The Mothers search turned up a national web page based out of Washington, but nothing local. There was a phone number and an email address, so I dashed off an email asking about local contacts, giving my name as J. Bowman. Let 'em wonder.

  The ALFA group had a contact address and phone, which I quickly discovered was the address and phone of a local feminist bookstore, "The Women's Pages." They opened at ten, and given that rush hour made the 15-mile trip more than an hour's drive away, I'd get there just as they opened if I left just after showering and shaving.

  The traffic was just as bad as I thought it would be, which is to say, awful, so while I was stacked behind a line of cars doing about 3 mph at one point I called my old partner Al Jenkins at the Atlanta P.D.

  "What do you want, gumshoe?" Al asked me with his characteristic politeness. "Is some John Doe doing unnatural things to his credit card?"

  "Well, yeah," I said, "but I didn't call to tell you about my sex life. I'm on the trail of a missing beautiful babe, and I thought I'd give you a heads-up about it."

  "Yeah?" Al asked.

  "Yeah," I said. "I've been hired to track down April Dancer."

  "No shit," said Al, and for the first time since I'd left the force, he sounded envious. I've course, it was the first time since I'd left the force he'd had any cause to be. So I told him about the case.

  "Looks like it could be a real snatch," I said. "Or she could have run off. I'm not sure yet. The key point is, I get paid either way, even if I don't really figure anything out."

  "You always had a real clear perspective, John," said Al. "Give me a heads-up if this turns into a case on your end, and I'll give you a heads-up if it turns into a case on my end."

  The Women's Pages was housed in one of those old, dark-red brick homes that were once upper middle class, had briefly been lower-class, and then were gentrified back into the upper middle class by hordes of yuppies starting in the 80s. It wasn't too long after ten that I pulled into the parking lot and stretched my legs on the dry, crunching gravel. The inside of the store was cool and dry and filled with many shelves of books, almost all of them angry screeds about how horrible men are or loving paeans to how wonderful women are.

  I found myself thinking I was definitely gender-challenged here and that I should really have considered cross-dressing for this trip, when a tall woman -- almost as tall as me, and with pretty broad shoulders for a woman, stepped up to
me.

  "Is there something I can help you find?" she asked in a voice that strove to be neutral but had a definite cool undercurrent to it.

  "Yes," I said. "I understand this is the headquarters of ALFA, and I was hoping I might speak with an officer of that organization."

  "Might I ask what this is about?" the woman asked casually. I recognized her stance and the way she was looking at me. She was security. She was staying balanced, keeping her center of gravity slightly forward and watching carefully where mine was, in case she had to subdue me. Probably best to calm her down.

  "Sure," I said. "My name is John Bowman, I'm a licensed private investigator investigating the disappearance of April Dancer."

  "What would that have to do with ALFA?" she asked.

  "Dancer received some fairly heated emails from people identifying themselves as ALFA members," I said. "I was hoping ya'll might be able to tell me if any of the authors had shown any signs of going off the deep end lately."

  She did not ask me, "What makes you think we'd tell you if you did?" but I could see the question in her eyes. Instead she says, "Fair enough, but first let me see some ID."

  I slowly and carefully reached into my breast pocket and brought out my wallet, which had a transparent window for my drivers' license on one side and my P.I. license on the other. She gave it a hard look, then handed it back to me.

  "We have a rule about weapons on our premises," she said pointedly as she returned the license to me.

  "Fine," I said, slowly reaching into my coat and pulling my .38 out of its shoulder holster.

  "Would you mind if I just patted you down?" she asked as she set the gun on an upper shelf, well out of reach of most customers.

  "Sure," I said. I had been identified as a testosterone-poisoned weapon-carrier, there would be no trusting me now.

  She patted me down very professionally and pulled my taser gun out of my inside coat pocket.

  "What's this?" she asked, looking at its array of wire packs.

  "It's a taser gun," I said.