Galley Slave: Rising of the Tide -1

*Boom....Boom...Boom*

Ada groans, as she always does after working 12 hours straight. She pulls the heavy wooden oar backwards, her arms raised high, leaning her naked torso back in one smooth motion, getting her aching muscles ready to push down and forward. She needs as much force as her half-starved body can muster - she must keep the rhythm. The chains attached to her wrists clink as she moves, sweat rolling down her light, bruised skin and getting in her eyes and red hair. She pushes against a nearby board with her feet to gain purchase, and her ankle chains clink in harmony with those on her wrist. She doesn't hear, or even feel the chains anymore, though. She only feels the rhythm.

The rhythm set by the drum is her life in this stifling oar-deck. Nothing else matters - not politics, not family , not God, not even herself. Nothing, absolutely nothing but the rhythm matters anymore. The whip had taught her that lesson long ago, and it is one she knew she must follow - keep the rhythm, or die.

Not that she hadn't flirted with the idea of death many times during her 3 years as a galley slave. She had often thought at the beginning of simply giving up, of laying down on her oar, and letting the roaming, knuckle-dragging overseers lay the lash upon her until she died. But every time the lash actually hit her skin, she lost all courage, and her most primal instincts kicked in - instincts built to keep her alive, not to kill her.

Now, she was more instinct than woman. The ever-present lash created a creature governed by fear and an irrational will to live - a beast of burden. She was nothing but a galley slave girl, chained to the rhythm of the drum.

*Boom...Boom...Boom...CRACK*

Ada hears the whip land close to her, but it does not touch her. She glances to the side to see it was meant for her partner on the oar, a new girl, only in place for a week. "Get moving, you fucking lazy whore!" yells a fat overseer clad only in a loincloth. "Work, or I'll flay you alive, cock-socket!" he sneers as he lands another blow between her shoulder blades. The green slave, naked like all the others, arches her back and cries out in miserable agony. She begins to frantically pull the oar in her chains, tears streaming down her face, panting and sobbing. The overseer, after watching her lustily for a few moments, finally moves away, seemingly satisfied for now.  

Ada almost rolls her eyes, even though she feels for the new girl deep down. There is no room for tears in this place. They do you no good, earn you no sympathy. Your only response to pain is to work, to toil until your muscles tear, and then toil some more. The new girl would realize this soon, and become a slave like all the others have. Or she wouldn't, and would die gasping for mercy that will never come, like all the others have.

Ada hears the whip again, further up this time. She looks to see it is a girl to her right, a strong black slave with large breasts, and the muscle mass to match. Ada knows her well - she used to be Ada's partner. Neila is her name, if Ada remembers the whispered conversations during the rest period correctly. Ada never can be sure of her memory these days, though - the starvation rations tend to affect her ability to think, and every day in this hellish place blends together.

The one thing Ada can remember is stories - it's about the only thing that slaves still have, still own. It's the one thing that makes these girls at least sub-human instead of wholly animal. In her time at the oar, Ada has had many different partners, and therefore has heard many different stories - all of them cruel and unjust. Seeing Neila reminds Ada of her story, which reminds her of all the others. Ada continues to push and pull, grunting and panting, but she lets her eyes wander, the stories flooding her mind in a rare moment of lucidity.

Neila told her once, as they leaned together on the oar, waiting to be fed, that she was a convicted murderer - and she really did it, too. Neila was married in her home country to an cruel man, a man who would rape her every morning and then force her to work in the fields all day as he lounged at home, only to rape her again every night. Eventually, this all became too much, and she strangled the man one night as she rode his cock. She was immediately sentenced to life on the galleys. She didn't regret killing him, she said - she only regretted getting caught.

Ada's eyes move to Neila's oar partner, an older, well-tanned woman named Darma with shiny black hair and piercing blue eyes. Darma was at least 50 years old, and had been a slave for at least 30 of them. Ada never was able to figure out how long she'd been a galley slave, but from her lean muscles, it was clear she was no stranger to hard labor. Darma had grown up an orphan and a beggar - and therefore, a thief. When she was eventually caught around the age of 19, she was sentenced to life in "The Circuit," an ever-changing assortment of mines, quarries, farms, and other hard labor camps to which criminals were sold in order to provide a state labor force. She had worked at every conceivable kind of labor for her whole life since then, toiling away her youth, naked and in chains, in the burning sun and pouring rain, constantly under the lash and always at the mercy of an overseer's cock. At some point, her handlers stuck her on a galley, and evidently forgot about her - her chains were old and rusted, and she knew more about the galley than anyone else alive. That's how she herself stayed alive - experience that only the whip can give.  

Ada moves on from Darma to the two slender slave girls straining in front of her - Medina and Marene. These two were sisters, sold at their 18th birthday to a sheik's harem. They had learned the art of pleasing men together - they were always forced to work as a team. Once they were fully trained, their sheik forced them to earn money for him in the royal brothels, fucking customer after customer, sometimes for 48 hours at a time. Everyone wanted a piece of the Slut Sisters, as they came to be known. At least...everyone did for a time. After 10 years of this exhausting routine, the sheik saw that they were becoming less popular with his customers, and decided they'd outlived their usefulness to him. They were chained to the oar the next day, and they've sweated and sucked in this hellhole ever since.

Ada hears a slave cry out behind her as the lash whistles through the air; it sounded like Lily, another former partner. She was a young thing at 20, with bright green eyes and dirty blonde hair. The poor girl was forced to the galley through no fault of her own - she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Occasionally, the harsh treatment of slaves on the galleys creates vacancies - empty spots that need to be filled as soon as possible. The overseers would first scour the slave markets for cheap cunt, but if that proved unsuccessful, the men would simply grab girls off the street who looked like they might not be missed. The men were not often wrong. Lily, who's father was a simple dock worker, was one of these girls. As she walked down the street in her shabby dress to visit her father and perhaps aid him in his work, several burly men grabbed her, gagged her, and carried her onto a ship before she could even process what was happening. She protested her slavery at first, crying out that it was an injustice, but the whip taught her better. No one deserves this, and it will never be rectified, so she might as well shut up and put her back into it.

Ada glances over at her partner, a brunette girl with pale skin who seems about the same age as Lily. Ada doesn't know her name yet - she's only been here a week, and Ada's not really sure she is worth getting to know. No point in learning the stories of those weak slaves sure to die soon. It only makes it harder when they go.

Ada then circles back to herself for a moment - her own story. No...not today. Ada didn't like to think about her own story. She learned other's stories to help her forget her own. It was just...too painful....

Suddenly, Ada is snapped out of her reminiscences by a blow to a ram's horn coming from the back of the ship. Instantly, all the slaves drop their oars and collapse, coughing and moaning. Ada and her new partner do the same. The new girl wretches a few times as if to vomit, but there is nothing in her stomach to vomit.

Ada then hears boots coming down the gangplank to the galley deck. She looks up blearily to see the Galley Master slowly descending into the slaves midst. The slaves become suddenly quiet, and they each avoid eye contact with him. The Galley Master, the captain of the ship, is known to the slave girls only as Hans. He is never called that by a slave, though - slaves only speak when spoken to, and even then are only to address men as "Master." Ada has seen what happens to girls who break this rule, as well as a bevy of other seemingly minor rules, and she does not want to experience their fate. She keeps her head down, submissive, terrified.

"Why, hello girls!" Hans says with an insincere cheerfulness, immediately bouncing up to the slave nearest him - a girl named Greta, sold into slavery to pay her father's debts, well-worn but still surprisingly beautiful. "And how are we this fine day?" Hans asks, roughly grabbing one of her whip-kissed breasts. Greta winces but responds immediately, though quietly. "Wonderful, Master," she squeaks out. "W...We've rowed so very hard for you today. We...we look forward to working even harder..." Hans keeps staring at her, smiling as though talking to a friend, but he does not release her breast. Greta, terrified, keeps talking. "And...and we look forward to being punished...like...like the lazy, stupid g...galley slaves we are..."

These words are a well-rehearsed routine, an outline of degradation that each girl makes her own when asked a question - any question. All the slave girls know that only fawning praise and servile humility can keep from incurring the Galley Master's wrath.

In this case, though, Greta's submissive performance does not work. The expression on Han's face slowly changes from false joy to absolutely sincere hatred. His smile shrinks, his eyes go dead, and he slowly releases Greta's breast. "I'm sure you are looking forward to it, slut," he says coldly, and then proceeds to slap Greta hard across the face, drawing blood. Ada and the other slaves, chained in this galley with a madman, look on in terror.


"I have news, whore girls," Hans says in a slow, deep voice, a voice that puts a chill down each girl's spine. "There has opened up a special opportunity for one of you galley wenches. It is not a position at the oar - it is a bit of an upgrade, if you ask me." Hans waltzs slowly down the aisle between the oar benches on both sides, seeming to examine each slave as he goes. "It is a challenging position, but I guarantee it will be well worth it for the winner. I will be watching each and every one of you to see who should be picked - there is only one position available. I will only pick my best slave, so if you wish to leave this place, I suggest you become my best slave. Whatever that may mean."

Hans suddenly turns and makes his way back up the aisle and gangplank. Before exiting, however, he turns back to the slave girls, eyeing them with a sadistic twinkle in his eye. "Row well, sluts, and you will be rewarded." He then turns, and at that moment the ram's horn blows again. Each slave instantly picks their oar back up and begins to row, at full speed and strength, the whips of the overseers out in full force to encourage the slaves' initiative.

However, the atmosphere is different than just a few minutes earlier. Now, mixed with the despair, exhaustion, desperation, and terror, is a sense of hope. Hope for the future - hope that there is a future. In her time at the oar, Ada has never experienced that feeling before. She grunts as she pulls on the oar, her arms high, readying herself to push down and forward. But she does so with renewed vigor, as do her oar-mates. Freedom is in the air, and it's infectious.

Ada would prove she was worthy - whatever that may mean.

*Boom...Boom....Boom...*