The white hot iron

She was strapped onto the branding horse. Her legs & body held immobile by the thick leather straps of the racking. Her pinioned positioning was all fours bottom in the air. Her buttocks were held even more tightly & immobile by the strap through her crotch & holding her thighs tightly. She literally couldn’t move a muscle in that area. She was gagged with a quite massive & uncomfortable ball and wide strap combination. There was a lot of screaming here if permitted. It helps the girl in the rack to scream, if she is permitted. If not the gag was very effective. Her screams would be well muffled. The gag itself was pitted with teeth marks, completely ineffective against the stout contraption. The straps of the horse were slimy with fear, but buckled down so tightly as to prevent any movement except the most pathetic ineffective squirming. Her buttocks themselves were completely immobile. The metal rack under her was also slimy with fear & saliva. All the girls soil themselves on the racking, they have to lick it & the straps clean.
She waited terrified she was the last of five to be branded this morning. This not being a slave auction day only five girls were to be marked today. She had been hooded & gagged, chained tightly to a pole & left waiting. The poles were fixed in the window of the smithies. Advertising the business so to speak. She had listened numbly to the screams of two girls & the muffled struggles of the other two, with a mounting state of stark helpless panic.
The loud sizzle of hot metal on skin. Then flesh. & Then fat. The shrieks of agony. The smell of cooking, burning meat. Vaporised skin. Burnt flesh. Burnt hot fat.
Done slowly & deliberately, casual in their skills by the smithies. Stopping to drink & smoke as they pleased, laughing & telling stories. Generally ignoring the property in their charge except in marking her efficiently.
She had waited chained to the metal pole. Her buttocks squirming inadvertently with fright on the pole. Gagged in the tight leather hood & choking with fear. In the window on display. Men were going about their business feet from her. In years gone by free women would have been horrified & scandalised by such a sight. Yet would led past their by male companions, to teach them not to be so haughty. Or be drawn themselves to walk past, agape in fascination. Often in these times. The café’s & outdoor tables of taverns in the area would be unusually popular, with such clientele on slave auction day. When naturally the smithies were busiest.
That morning she had been released from the spreader bar & bracelets & instructed to clean the alcove of her rape filth. In addition to the twenty men on her raffle chain the curtain hade been left open. For anyone who chose to rape her. & she was raped again & again all evening & into the early hours. Gorean men ejaculate copiously & by morning the thin leather mat was sticky & slick with her use. She had been curtly bidden to have the mat & the alcove spotlessly clean & gleaming before he returned, or she would be punished. She knew how she would be punished. & desperately licked the leather clean swallowing the foul tasting smelly & sticky mess. & then polished the surfaces feverishly with the tiny rag provided. The golden foil panties she had been wearing when she had been sold last night. She had worked to furiously to recognize them. She finished quickly.
He had been listening outside to her frightened whimpers as she worked. When he estimated she had only just finished he tapped the leather curtain with the whip as if to come in. In panic she had desperately scrutinised the room looking for anything she may have missed. Then started again polishing every surface even more furiously. He had smiled & sat down again to finish his coffee. She was working so furiously she hadn’t realized how wet she had become in her sexual funk. From outside the alcove he could clearly hear her slippery thighs squelching. & could smell her from outside the curtain.
His treatment of her was in kindness rather than cruelty. The deeper & sooner she learnt to fear & obey her owners. The easier her acceptance of her slavery would be. She would be disciplined less for punishment & more for, admittedly his & only his, sexual pleasure. The more loving & submissive she would be as a slave.
When he opened the curtain her smell & heat emanated from the alcove. He sent her on all fours to the tavern floor. To begin scrubbing the hard tiles with the other slaves. Gratefully through her tears she had tried to smile back at the other girls genuine beams of friendly welcome to a new girl. Radiant feminine & happy in their servitude. They weren’t allowed to talk, but the naked girls all hummed happily & unobtrusively at their chores. It was still only 7 in the morning. Most of the men were still sleeping.
She had worked with the other slaves whilst the men woke. & showered, then breakfasted. Not knowing which of those, if any or all, eating had partaken in her rape. Nobody paid her or the other slaves any attention at all.
Then at about 11 she had been abruptly stopped. Chained, hooded, leashed & led away to the smithies.
The two smithies were laughing coarsely over their cigarettes. One of them stood still laughing & picked a test iron from the brazier it glowed white hot. She watched it fascinated as he went to a wooden pillar & plunged it in the wood sparked & flamed. He examined the burn. Then sensing her eyes on this he looked round still holding the now cooling rod.
“Not hot enough yet little one.” He had said almost soothingly.
She had just sobbed in fright, muffled by the gag.
But it had soon enough been time. Struggling desperately & utterly futile on the branding horse, he had shown her the now white hot branding iron. Even as he lifted it from the brazier she had felt its heat. He had held it in front of her eyes for a second before going behind her. Then an agonized wait not knowing which buttock was to be marked. As it happened on the right cheek, marking her as a barbarian import, if her hair didn’t do so deliciously already, & marginally more worthless than her fellow slaves.
Then the heat as it approached her skin. The terrible heat. Then the even more terrible crisping of skin. Before the agony as it actually sizzled away and the iron sizzled into her flesh, spitting out her subcutaneous fat. She screamed & screamed into her gag as he steadily pressed the iron firmly into her flesh making a good clean burn deep into her. Even through the gag her screams were vivid & terrible. The other smithy looked on impassively. The first iron marking her as property. He pulled it cleanly free showing her the now fading reddening iron & her burnt flesh on it. She had been completely unaware that she had wet & soiled herself until now. When she noticed the smell and dampness.
Then the second iron marking her as specific property of the tavern or personal master. In this case the tavern. Even more painful than the first she had wet herself again struggling in vain against the straps.
Then after what seemed an eternity it was done. She was released from the rack & made to lap & lick it & the floor clean. After she had done that she was given the irons to lick & polish clean. Then & only then was she allowed to clean her bottom & legs with her hands & lick them clean.
The men allowed her to serve them a cold beer, relaxing after the days work. While she swept the floor with a hand brush on all fours. Slaves after branding are extremely docile & submissive. No matter how harsh or humiliating her treatment before the iron. The white hot metal in her melting flesh, marks a sudden & huge psychological & emotional seismic shift in her being, & sense of being. No matter how little of her sense of personhood she had managed to cling to, the turmoil of the brand, marks her as something between that of an animal, & an item of property. Indeed intrinsically less than those things. Regarded as a pleasure to be enjoyed or used, rather like the taste of a wine, her only worth in his enjoyment of her.
After branding she craves to serve, to just kneel near a master, to hear his voice. The men were enjoying a joke as she finished. She was instructed to kneel at their feet.
“Masters may this girl speak.”
A grunt of assent
“Masters may this one be permitted to pleasure you, please Master?”
“You may beg slave!”
“Thank you Masters, Masters may this girl please you with her mouth.”
They watched her impassively, she was squirming & squelching kneeling before them. Her nipples were quite painfully erect. & her whole body was flushed with slave heat.
“Masters please permit this girl to thank you with her service Masters.”
They watched her squirm in tears at their feet. Her smell very obvious now.
“What if we are too busy to enjoy you now slut?” One of the men teased her
“Arouse yourself, entice us girl.”
“Yes Master, thank you Masters.”
She put her left hand between her legs.
“Right hand slut” She was told to emphasise the sizzling brand on her right buttock.
“Yes Master, thank you Masters.”
They watched her as she became even more desperately aroused.
“Please Masters?” She begged
“If you are too busy this afternoon Masters perhaps you could come to the tavern, so this one can thank you for branding her Master.” Pleading now.
One of the men reached down quickly & braceleted her wrists at her back. The steel cinch bar around her waist keeping her hands well away from the brand. & then gagged her once again with the heavy ball gag. She was in tears now frustrated & desperately needy. The leather hood was pulled over her head & buckled closed.
The smithy regarded her trembling and aroused in the hood.
“You are not in any position to thank us slave”
“You’re service or the intimate service of your pretty body is not yours to give.”
“You are not person.”
“& you will serve everybody your owner wishes you to with utter perfection!”
“I will however inform your owner of this infraction.”
“I’m sure his whip will correct you.”
The two men watched her go pale sob in the hood. She was still very aroused. For a moment they were almost tempted to rape her. Then finishing their drinks they dragged her to the curtained cage at the back of the room. Where the other 4 girls were confined. She was locked kneeling in one of the stocks in the cage. The stock kept her head down & buttocks in the air. The smithy reached into a pot of sticky ointment. He pulled out a handful then wiped the gloop thickly on her brands. She immediately began to struggle & writhe captive in the stock.
The ointment was another legacy from the past & fully healed any wound in just a few hours. It was extremely painful in application, the wound trauma being magnified & heightened by the process. When used on by men it was accompanied by opiates to dull the pain. This wasn’t deemed necessary for slaves. Nor was it desirable. The more painful & traumatic for her the better. She would remember her branding in lurid second by second detail. Her flesh would remember the burning vividly. In fact all it would take was a simple slap to her brand to remind her body of the pain & the overpowering emotional impact of this day. Something men would delighted in doing. Amused watching the poor slave relive the pain & humiliation in stat instant.
The Smithies closed the cage & curtain & left the slaves. The shop was closed up till morning. Behind the curtain the slaves sobbed in the stifling heat. The cage had virtually no air circulation to avoid insects on the wounds. The afternoon was extremely long and hot, the evening not much better for the slaves. Outside the shop the branded slaves could hear the raucous noise from the tavern revelry.
It wasn’t uncommon for slightly drunken men to come into the cage & rape one or more of the captive slaves. In earlier times a free woman might be brought here as punishment & locked in the stocks. Or often tricked into coming here, on some pretence or other. Women are easily tricked into almost anything through flattery. Once locked in she might be raped or left to be branded the next day, more often both. Amusing game for the men. Tonight this wasn’t to be the case though. Each girl sobbed herself to a fitful sleep filled with nightmares about the irons.