SLAVE TWINS

Stephanie

Why had her life been stolen from her? –thought Stephanie, her naked back leaning against the stones of her dungeon. Of so many girls in her village, in the fields, in the mountains, in the city, what had been the reason for her and her sister to be the ones destined to fall into the hands of those abominable men? They had not been bad girls, perhaps a little rebellious, especially in her case, but they had never disrespected or disobeyed their parents, their teachers or their superiors. It was an undeserved punishment, applied with cruelty and severity; a condemnation to be dead in life, to suffer until the last day of their miserable lives. She had not tolerated any human being since her arrival in that horrible place, with the exception of Vartar, that attractive boy hired as foreman, although better qualified to serve as spiritual leader or sentimental counselor, if he had the opportunity, and not as a man in charge of giving orders, monitoring and punishing. But qualities were of no use when he was just one among hundreds of men around him, with tastes incompatible with those of most men. Vartar might be the only salvageable being for miles around, but he could never help her, especially if he wanted to try to show off and win the man of her dreams, Gagadel, the white-haired man who, six years ago, had tied them to the rope pulled by his horse to bring them to that place. But Gagadel had too many admirers in that nation of homosexual men and there was little time left in his schedule to devote to Vartar. In fact, the few meritorious acts of gratitude on her part towards the young foreman consisted in having informed her about her sister and not having made cruelty one of his qualities, as the rest of the foremen had done during those years. She knew about Valentina's work and life, her incomparable beauty and her great desire to meet her twin again. ‘’Stephanie, you and your sister are the most beautiful women who have passed through here, and it is not only my opinion, it is the opinion of all the foremen’’. He had always found Vartar's words curious; she didn't quite understand how a homosexual could have such an opinion about women. But one day, when they managed to broach the subject for a few brief minutes, he explained to her how homosexual men had a certain kind of weakness for the aesthetic, the beautiful and the outstanding. ‘’I couldn't kiss you, Stephanie, much less make love to you, but men like me, who only like other men, know how to recognize beauty where it exists, and if it doesn't exist, we try to create it with our own hands or with the hands of our slaves. If you notice, with the exception of the dungeons, all the buildings, the gardens, the facilities of this place, they are all very beautiful, they are well maintained, and we want you girls to look good, and even if you are chained and half-naked, you know that we force you to bathe twice a day, to take care of your figure, your hair, your nails’’. Stephanie could not deny the foreman's statement: thanks to the strenuous work, but with a relatively good diet, the great majority of the slaves could be grateful for having a good figure and the necessary elements to care for and maintain their beauty, including oils produced by the priests which, when applied to the skin, protected it from the strong rays of the sun. There was also no lack of moisturizing and medicinal potions and the attention of a doctor when a slave fell ill. ‘’You are very valuable to our empire, so we cannot allow you to die, otherwise who would do all the work?’’ Likewise, thanks to Vartar, she had learned the philosophy of Gagadel and his assistants regarding the kind of women trapped and forced to become slaves: ‘’Only pretty girls should be captured, otherwise it would be an insult to our sight’’. That idea had made her hate her own beauty, despise it as much as possible, and think of it as the cause of all her sufferings. It had been of no use to her or Valentina to have inherited the fine and beautiful features of their parents; on the contrary, it had been the main factor in their becoming slaves of another nation. It had not even served her to seduce anyone. Naturally that idea was out of the question when living in a nation where it would be impossible to find a heterosexual man for miles around. And with women, although there were some very beautiful ones, the strict rules made it impossible to try to form a relationship with any of them. It was clear to her the hatred inspired in her being by those men, which had managed, through the years, to incline her taste towards women. If she had known good men since that day, when her hormones decided to wake up, things might have been different. But her memories only spoke to her of feelings of hatred, mistreatment, cruelty and injustice coming from humans of the opposite s*x, which led her to detest them and to focus exclusively on the beauty and attractiveness of her female companions.

     A few days later, in the last dialogue held with Vartar before her birthday and her transfer to the area destined for women over eighteen, she dared to ask him, while cleaning one of the stables, how did a nation composed only of homosexual men and slave women reproduce. The young foreman's answer came after a sly smile: ‘’It is a process invented a long time ago, by someone who was the leader of this empire, or at least that's what the elders say... I can tell you about something called artificial insemination, and it consists of introducing the man's seed into the woman's uterus without the need for them to have relations, and logically from there the new person is formed. Now, you may wonder which women are in charge of that and I can tell you that they are the most beautiful slaves, once they reach the age of twenty-five.’’ If what Vartar said about her and her sister's beauty was true, there would be no doubt about their role when they reach the designated age. When asked about the kind of life led by these women, the young overseer replied: ‘’that is the best thing that can happen to one of you, I think... You dedicate yourselves only to having children, you live in good places, you work very little and in soft things, you are not victims of the whip nor of the cross, and in spite of having some restrictions, you have a much better time than any slave. ‘’ The restrictions, in Vartar's words, consisted of wearing wrist and ankle chains, staying in their rooms most of the day and going out to sunbathe for a couple of hours, something not too far from the life led by any prisoner in her former country, but perceived as a paradise when compared to her current life.  ‘’They devote a large part of their lives to it... The idea is that each woman can have at least a dozen children. ‘’ But the most surprising information received by Stephanie was the explanation about the method used by those men to manipulate the s****l preferences of the children created under that system: ‘’the baby only stays with his mother for a year, then they take him to a very attractive place, but totally isolated... There they do not see women for several years... Basically they grow up without knowing of their existence, and in that way they end up developing attraction towards their partners. ‘’ But not only the concept of that lack of knowledge shocked the beautiful slave; she also found incredible the test to be passed by those boys, who had to have s****l relations with at least two of their companions, before being able to go out and enjoy the outside world, once they turned eighteen years old. That philosophy, that organization, out of its depth according to Stephanie’s concept, seemed to be based on extreme fanaticism, on mentally ill people. She did not criticize homosexuality, being a girl who considered herself a lesbian, despite never having kissed anyone; but forcing innocent children to take a predetermined path, without the option of deciding for themselves, was just one more proof of having been imprisoned and enslaved by a savage and mentally underdeveloped people.