We broke camp first thing in the morning, and the men were ready to travel by the time the sky was fully light for the day. It was my chain and collar that held up our departure for half the morning while Lance and his friends tried to remove the thing, without hurting me. It was while they were removing the collar, that I began to understand just how gentle these men were. Not once while they were cutting at the collar did they ever let me feel the blades they were using. It wasn't until they had cut the thing clear off, and I saw how it was made, that I began to appreciate the trouble they went through to free me, without injury.
I don't know what I expected travel with Lance and his friends to be like, but what it turned out to be was relaxed. At no time did these men ever get in a hurry, and there was no compunction on their part to keep to any kind of a schedule. We moved slowly through the wilderness, zigzagging back and forth across the trackless forests in no particular pattern that I could discover. Not that it mattered at all to me. I was just glad to have been picked up by a gentle, low-key group such as these men were.
One of the conditions on which I had been accepted as the sixth traveling companion was that I never ask where we were going to next, or the directions to anywhere, from where we were at the time. Lance had made it clear, that while the five of them didn't feel I was any particular threat to them personally, they were in no hurry to arm me with the kind of knowledge that might make it possible for me to abandon them at some point, and put their security at risk. I did, however, note the lay of the principal landmarks, and the way they moved around us as we traveled in overlapping circles.
I nearly blew my welcome with the group soon though, when I asked them why we were traveling in circles. Their reaction to my knowledge of our travel pattern was to draw away from me and entertain the idea of abandoning me right then and there. When I gave it some real empathetic thought, I could see how they could reason it out that I had no need of navigation unless I were planning to run, when we were within running distance of someplace I might have known. It was a good long time before I ever again let on that I knew anything at all about where we were, or our direction of travel.
Soon after the tense moment over our circular travel pattern, I noted that we were now headed in a generally easterly direction. I was interested in this change for the obvious reason that we were now entering the foothills of the eastern mountain strongholds of the men. We had been traveling towards the east for several days and the hills were becoming steeper, and higher, with each passing day we went that direction.
I was becoming very nervous about the prospect of running into one or the other of the warlike groups, when the subject of my safety came up for discussion after the evening meal. The way the subject came up was not exactly how Lance or the others intended that it should come up though, and I had to do some quick talking to be allowed to take part in the discussion.
We had stopped for the night by a small stream at the foot of a narrow cut in the mountains. The horses had been hobbled, and a protected area chosen for our beds. Lance had sent Jack and Joe up the ravine on foot to see if we could follow it through the mountains, or if it would come to a steep, impassable end as the past two we had tried did. I had just started our dinner on a small cooking fire when the two of them came down the ravine with the news that although it was passable, it was also guarded at the top by a small group of well armed men.
The fire I'd built to cook over was quickly put out so the smell and the smoke didn't give our presence away. When they did that, I demanded to know why, having not heard them report to Lance. The two of them looked at each other, then back at me, and said nothing, except that I was not to rebuild the fire. Lance called the men together to talk the situation over, and tried to exclude me again, but I wouldn't let them alone, and in fact finally just plain came out and told them how I felt.
"Since the problem appears to be me, I want to be in on the discussion of what to do about the problem. Me!"
At first the men all balked at the idea that I should be included in on this discussion of strategy, saying, "You agreed to stay out of our discussions or planning meetings when we allowed you to come with us. Now stay out!"
"That's true," I conceded, "I did agree not to enter into your travel planning of discussions about what you have learned about the women of this area. However what you are now about to discuss concerns the groups safety as a whole; but more to the point, my personal safety. "I stopped for a moment and looked at each of them in turn, then went on. "The point is that if it were your life that hung directly in the balance, like mine does now, you would each be animate that it was your right to be in on any planning for your survival! Am I really wrong to claim the same right!"
The men looked from one to the other, and finally had to concede the validity of my point. In a few minutes, they grudgingly allowed me to be a part of this discussion. It was, in fact, because of my presence, that the meeting was being held at all, to discuss what to do to protect their new friend. I didn't say it at the time, but later when we talked about the incident, I confronted them with the idea that they were willing to take the risk of having me with them because they liked the services I performed for them around camp, and more importantly, in their beds. The men were willing to take some rather incredible risks to keep their camp whore with them!
In retrospect, the arrangement was equitable enough, just as it was at the time I joined them. I made their lives more comfortable for them by providing labor around the camp, and comfort for them in their beds by servicing their sexual needs and desires on demand. In return I was insured safety with them, and plenty of food to eat. I was also insured I would be a mother before the year was out. A prospect that most women would never again come to know! A bonus, so to speak.
"The easiest way to avoid the problem, short of sending Sandy away, is to avoid contact with the men from the mountain strong-holds." It was Jason who had opened the discussion.
"That's true." replied Lance, "But we need some supplies, and our horses need shoes."
"What that means is that we must make contact." Observed Terry, "But is it necessary that we all go in? What prevents us from splitting up for a short time, while, say, four of us go into the men's towns, and get what we need?"
There was a period of silence while the group thought about the proposal. Finally, Joe, offered the reason the idea was abandoned. "We have six horses right now. All of them need to be shod. What kind of attention would it draw, to have four men come to town with six horses, try to buy a seventh, and also buy supplies for six people?" It seems to me someone would notice and demand an explanation for the oddities anyway."
All the rest of us had to agree with Joe on that point. Someone would notice and suspicion would be high. Lance said what we were all thinking, "In all probability, a party of the inhabitants own men would follow the back trail of the four who went to town. They would find Sandy and the other man anyway, confirming the towns idea that something is wrong. There would be little hope of Sandy's staying with us at that point, as she will be the price for the rest of our freedom."
Jack, the oldest of the five men, finally asked, "Do we have any idea if there is a friendlier town somewhere, and how long it will be before we can get there?"
The men looked at Jack, and then at me, making it obvious none of the rest were yet willing to talk about directions, or distances in front of me. I noted the problem and said, "Look you ass-holes, you want to keep me around to cook and clean for you, not to mention to plant your roots in! I want to stay around you because it's plain to me that you five treat me better than I can expect to be treated by most other men."
The group of them were plainly shocked by my direct and heated narrative, so I used their shock to my advantage, "If you can trust me at all, you can trust me with that knowledge too. You seem to forget, I can't go back to the women's city, they would take me back out and chain me to another tree someplace else. Probably one near, or in, an area where the warlike men are patrolling." I paused to let the meaning of my words sink in, then continued. "I can see no percentage in your continued mistrust of me. It only makes traveling with me, especially in hostile territory, more difficult!"
It was Jack who came to my aid in the argument and supported my position with the other four. "If we stop and think about it, she is correct." He said to the rest. "There is no way she can return to the City of Towers, and her fate with the indigenous male residents of this area is all to well known to all of us." Jacks eyes flashed as he looked from one to the other of his companions. "We have been carefully checking our own back trail, and we know she is not bait in a trap. There is nobody following us, unless they are invisible!" Again Jack paused and looked into the respective eyes of his four companions. "I can see no reason for us to continue to try and keep the knowledge of where we are, or where we are going from Sandy. I, for one, think she's more than earned the right to hear the truth from us, even if we do treat her like some sort of slave!"
With the last sentence, Jack's voice almost became a shout as he voiced the way he felt about trusting me. None of the other men had anything to say about the subject for quite some time, as we all stood in a group and thought our own thoughts for the moment.
It was me, who finally broke the silence that settled on our little discussion. "Thank you for the vote of confidence, Jack. You've made me feel good with your words. Thanks."
Jack's reply was somewhat diminutive. "I only spoke the truth, Sandy. Nothing special."
"Yes, you did. For that I thank you. It's about time someone started, and I appreciate it. At least you treat me like a human, with feelings."
Jack simply looked directly at me, and smiled into my eyes. "Don't praise me too highly," he said, then dropped his gaze to my body an committed visual rape. I felt my pussy start to run its juices as he did so. "I may treat you like a person in most matters, but you're still an object of lust at the same time."
"I hope so, I truly hope so." was my whispered reply to his perusal of my womanhood through my deep blush. "I doubt you would be much of a man if you didn't think of me as a receptacle for your lust, and your cocks deliverance!"
Lance brought us back to the here and now. "OK you two! We have a problem to resolve. You can go screw your brains out as soon as we've agreed on our plan of action!"
Joe said, "Or we could all gang bang her when we've made our decision!"
I bristled at his remark, and said, "If that's the way you men want me, then ask me! Just don't assume I'm always ready for a group screwing; unless of course you want me to break that thing off of you for your trouble!"
"Bitch, pure bitch!" mumbled Joe, "She can't even take a ribbing!"
"Oh, I can, and I will. All you men have to do is ask for it that way, you'll get it that way." I stopped and glared at my five companions. "But I am a person, not a thing. All I want is to be treated like I have a mind, and feelings too! That's all!"
When I finished I stood, with my hands on my hips, and stared each of them down until I came to Jack. He just returned my gaze, nodded his consent to my demand, and them visually raped me again. This time the juices actually started running from my pussy as my body reacted to his lustful looks at me, and I had to sit before I fell down; my legs became so weak with the desire for his cock. "That man know how to get to me!" I thought to myself, but said nothing.
While I sat there trying to take back control of my body, I smiled at the course the discussion had taken. What had started off as a strategy discussion, had turned into a woman's rights forum. The woman the rights were for, me! During the extended silence of the moment, I reflected on how, "I really didn't want to be equal to these men in every way, just equal in my own, woman's way!"
Now that was an odd sort of thought!
The sky was nearly fully dark by the time anyone spoke again. It was Jason this time, he said. "I think maybe we should just get some sleep for now, and continue this discussion when we're rested."
Someone seconded the motion, and we all agreed things would probably make more sense in the morning. Jack turned to me when that was decided, and without a word picked me up, then carried me to his bed. None of the others complained. I don't think any of them had the courage to at the moment.
When Jack took me to his bed, I wasn't sure what to expect. This was the first time any of the men had taken me for their own, in any sense of the word. For all I knew, he intended to take me for his pleasure, then turn me over to another of his companions as had happened so many times in the past. The difference being that on all those previous occasions, the men had taken turns with me at the fireside. Never before had one of them taken me away from the group to his own bed since I'd joined their traveling group.
I felt warm and comfortable in Jack's arms as he took me to his blankets, and the gentleness he showed me that night was exquisite. When we got to where his bedroll was laid out, he gently laid me in his blankets, then slowly removed his clothing in front of me. When he did come to lay with me in his bed, we were both completely disrobed, and the touch of his skin on mine sent wonderful chills up and down my body.
Jack used his hands gently as he rubbed me down from head to toe, exploring every curve and crevice of my body with his strong, callused, firm, yet gentle touch. His kisses were electrifying, and I found my body responding to him on its own, as he aroused me much the same way Geoff had done back in Tower One. He used his mouth on all of my body, but the most wonderful sensation of all was his tongue, while he breathed in and out over my little organ of nerves until I was in a state of input overload.
Once he got hold of that passion pit guardian, I was like butter in his hands, as my mind clouded over and my whole being centered on the sensations of Jacks attentions to my whole body. In the end I begged him to put his cock in me, and when at last he did, I must have given him a ride to remember. I don't really remember much except for the white hot sensations I felt in the pit of my belly as his cock touched my very soul, and sent me into my velvet blackness, my heaven on earth.
I do know that when I woke up, just as the first light of day was showing, he was still on and in me, so I managed to arouse his cock to an early morning erection, and treat him to waking up just in time to dive into his own climax. The man awoke in heaven, the least I could do for him after he had so completely sent me to mine the night before.