The Novice Prey

Chapter One

Alexa blinked as someone took the heavy black cloth hood off of her head. She looked up to find out who had done it and saw the tall, black-clad woman who had introduced herself as Miss Lydia, her guide, a short ATV ride and a long walk ago. She was a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman. Alexa guessed her age as somewhere between thirty and thirty-five.

"Is it time now?" Alexa asked. She instinctively looked at her left wrist before realizing that she'd had to leave her watch, along with so many other little things, back at the hotel in Gordburg.

"No, not quite yet," the woman smiled down at her. "But it won't make any difference now if you can see your surroundings. I wanted to have a short chat with you, and we're granted some leeway in following the rules here, so long as we adhere to the spirit of them."

"Oh." Alexa nodded absently. "Is it okay if I stand up now, then?" She looked down. "This tree stump isn't very comfortable after a couple of minutes."

"Of course," the other woman smiled. "And you can call me 'Lydia' for as long as we're out here together."

"Thanks," Alexa nodded again as she rose. She looked around. They were somewhere out in the woods. Most of the trees she saw were pines, though there was a sprinkling of hardwoods. She could see her gear and supplies stacked in a neat pile against one of them. She wanted to go over and take inventory, but that might be a bit premature. Anyway, it looked as if it was all there.

"Yes, it's all there," Lydia said with a smile. "I do have to ask you, though, why you insisted on bringing more than you could possibly carry. You do appear to be incredibly fit, but it took two men to lug it all the way here."

"Oh, that," Alexa shrugged. "I figured I'd stash most of it away, hide it someplace, and come back to it when I started to run low." She looked at Lydia's severe style of dress and just had to ask a question of her own.

"Why are you dressed like that?" She pointed at Lydia's long, plain black dress, with its high collar, ankle-length skirt and row of buttons all down the front of it.

"This?" Lydia looked down at herself. "Well, it's a uniform of sorts in this place."

"You look like a cross between an old schoolmarm and a widow," Alexa said, "especially with your hair done up in that tight bun."

Lydia laughed. "I suppose I do," she agreed. "But it's unmistakable, and anyone who sees it knows that I'm a proctor."

"Proctor?"

"Think of me as a referee," Lydia shrugged. "This place needs someone with the authority to step in if something is going too far."

"Oh." Alexa wondered what could possibly be considered 'going too far' in 'this place'. She was already wondering if she'd gone a bit too far herself.

"Don't you think that's rather risky?" Lydia asked, pointing at the pile of gear. "If you keep coming back to the same place when your supplies get low, someone is likely to spot you sooner or later."

"Oh, I thought I'd scatter stuff around in different places," Alexa replied easily.

"I see," Lydia nodded. "Well, it might work out for you. Best of luck with that. Though I can't help but think that it's a little out of keeping with the, shall we say, spirit of the competition."

"What do you mean?" Alexa asked.

"You and your friends arranged all this, as I understand, based on what you'd all heard about a woman who'd come here before and called herself 'Elf-Girl'.

"Well, yes...sort of," Alexa agreed...sort of.

"It's my understanding that 'Elf-Girl' actually evaded the hunters for quite some time with hardly any equipment at all."

"I heard that too," Alexa said. "But wasn't she some kind of super outdoorswoman? I heard that she was really skilled in survival techniques."

Lydia threw her head back and laughed uproariously. "Oh, my," she managed to say once she was done laughing. "She is a bit of a local legend, but it's truly amusing to see how legends can grow until you don't even recognize them anymore. I actually had an opportunity to see her in the flesh, and I do mean in the flesh because it was after she had finally been captured and the man responsible put her on public display, naked, for a while so that people could satisfy their curiosity. She was a slender little thing with short blonde hair. She was an archaeologist, I'm told, so I suppose she was used to being outdoors, but in no way was she any kind of superwoman survivalist. I remember that she did look more than a little tired when I saw her, and I thought that it was truly interesting that such a delicate-looking young woman could have raised so much fuss her very first time here." She chuckled.

"Did she ever come back again?" Alexa asked. She was starting to feel better about her chances now.

"Not yet," Lydia said with a shake of her head. "I think she came here looking for something very specific and very special and was lucky enough to find it. I really don't know anything about where she is now, or what she's doing."

"Specific?" Alexa asked. "Special? What do you mean?"

"Why, the man who tracked her down, of course," Lydia responded. "I saw him, too. He was good-looking, but not especially so, but he wanted her, and her alone, so badly that he almost ran himself into the ground hunting her." She sighed. "It's quite romantic, isn't it?"

Alexa couldn't answer right away. Yes, it did seem romantic, in a very bizarre way, but the public display part sounded distinctly off-putting. She realized that she might also be put on display and rejected the notion. She couldn't be put on display if she was never caught, and she had absolutely no intention of being caught. That wouldn't be the only way that she could win this competition, but it was the only way she wanted to win. She thought that she had a pretty good shot at it. And if she somehow got caught after all...well, they had all agreed to literally put their shapely asses on the line for this. But she wasn't going to get caught. No way.

She heard something buzz and instinctively looked around for whatever monster bug was flying near her head.

"Ah, it's going to begin soon," Lydia said. "That was the ten-minute warning."

"That was you?" Alexa asked.

"I carry some communication equipment," Lydia answered. She didn't elaborate. "Now, do you feel ready to start this competition?"

"Yes," Alexa nodded.

"You know what can happen to you if you get caught?"

"Uh...yes." This time, Alexa didn't nod.

"They took you on a tour of the old part of Gordburg?"

"If you mean, did they show me the slave market, yes they did," Alexa replied. "They even took us all to one of the slave auctions. When it was over, they brought us all up on the stage, introduced us all, and let the men there leer at us for a while." It had been a disturbing experience, but not impossibly so. What had really bothered her was how Martina had showed up in cutoff jeans that showed off her long legs and a tight, sheer tank top with no bra that showed off the fact that her big, round tits had perky, poky nipples. Most of the leering had been directed at her, with her long, dark-blonde hair and...

"Alexa?" Lydia peered at her intently.

"Huh? Sorry, what?"

"You just kind of drifted off there for a moment. Are you feeling all right?"

"Yeah, fine," Alexa shook her head. "I just started thinking."

"It's perfectly normal to start having second thoughts," Lydia smiled, "especially since you've never done anything like this before. You haven't, have you?"

"Not even remotely," Alexa replied.

"So it's all feeling a bit scary now? You can still back out."

"No," Alexa set her jaw. "I'm not backing out. I'm going to finally beat those bitches."

"Pardon?"

"Oh." Alexa laughed nervously. "Just psyching myself up before the big game."

"I see," Lydia said. She didn't sound entirely convinced. "Well, it will be starting soon, so let me quickly cover the main points of this competition."

"Yes, please."

"Very well. All four of you are being released north of the main road, in different locations. This area isn't as built up as the lands south of the road, so there aren't as many people here. It will pretty much just be you, your friends, and the parties hunting for you. So if you see a man, or men, you can be sure that they're after you."

"I understand," Alexa said.

"Now, there are a few places up this way that you can go to for supplies, or temporary shelter, or medical attention..."

"Medical attention?" Alexa interrupted.

"Well, yes," Lydia nodded. "We take all the reasonable precautions we can, but this is still a wilderness setting, and accidents can happen."

"Oh, that," Alexa said. "I've broken my leg once, and an arm. You don't mean anything worse than that, do you?"

"No. Truth be told, we have more incidents at the pools than we do in the woods. We have excellent medical staffs here, in any case."

"Okay," Alexa nodded. "Now, what about these places?"

"South of the road we actually have a string of small towns," Lydia continued. "North of the road, we only have what you might call a few trading posts. They're usually no more than a building or two. It's possible for you to stay overnight at one of them if the weather turns too bad, but you absolutely must leave the following morning."

"Kind of like a bed and breakfast with no breakfast," Alexa said.

"Actually, you can get a hot meal at any one of them, but the quality varies depending on the skills of whoever's running the place. At the worst, you can expect a warmed-up can of hash or chili."

"Do I have to pay for that stuff?"

"Well, of course, but all you have to do is let them pass a scanner over the tiny chip in your ear and it will automatically be charged to your account. You don't have to carry any cash."

"Yeah." Alexa scratched at her right earlobe. The chip had been implanted there yesterday, and while the procedure hadn't hurt at all, the site had itched for several hours afterwards. It seemed okay now, but just hearing the chip mentioned prompted her to scratch. It occurred to her that her ear was now some sort of ATM card. She'd have to be careful not to misplace it.

"Now, I can't tell you exactly where any of those places are," Lydia went on. "But there is at least one within easy walking distance of you right now." She cast an eye at the pile of supplies. "I don't think you'll be needing to go there any time soon. But you can get just about anything you want there, should the need arise. Additionally, as long as you're on the grounds of one of the trading posts, you're safe from capture."

"What are the chances that somebody'll be hanging around one of those places, waiting for me or one of my friends?"

"Not very high the first couple of days," Lydia answered. "But after that, it can become very risky to approach them."

"Why is that?"

"The men who will be hunting you have all done this before," Lydia told her. "Some of them have become quite skilled at hunting women. They know that the more time passes the more likely one of you will need to get something. So be careful."

"Oh. So they know the ground here too?"

"Some of them might," Lydia agreed. "Many of them might have been in this area in the past. The question then is how much do they remember, especially if they've only been in this part once or twice? Rest assured you've all got a fair chance. And so do all the men."

"I see," Alexa said. They seemed to be very well organized here. She wondered how long this peculiar resort town had been involved in this strange business, and how Martina had ever heard of it.

"Now, if you're taken and things become just too much for you, all you have to do is use your escape word, and it will all stop immediately. Of course, that will also mean that you're bailing out of the competition."

"Yes. I understand that," Alexa said. "But, uh, just how bad might things actually get?"

"You must understand that we have a very, very selective screening process here," Lydia replied. "The men have some very strict rules that they must follow. If they don't, they're banned for life."

"Has that ever happened?"

"Once or twice," Lydia admitted. "It's very rare. If you were a man who'd gone through the long process of being approved to come here, wouldn't you be very, very careful not to do anything to get yourself thrown out?"

"I suppose," Alexa shrugged. "But about what could happen?"

"Oh," Lydia smiled. "Well, obviously, if you're captured by a group of men all of them will want to make use of you."

"In what ways?" Alexa pressed.

"Straight, oral and anal," Lydia replied clinically. "You're free to try to resist, of course, but many women find that once they've been taken captive that submitting comes fairly easily. Some of them resist anyway, chiefly so that the men have to 'force' them. There are all sorts of sexual fantasies."

"Um...yeah, sure," Alexa said. "But wouldn't some of that hurt?"

"Some women also enjoy the pain," Lydia answered. "And the men have all been given extensive training to avoid doing any serious damage."

"And you just...act as a referee for all of this?"

"Not just," Lydia said. "Look." She began unbuttoning the high collar of her dress. She pulled the material away so that Alexa could see that under it she wore a thin black leather collar with a big, silvery metal ring dangling from it.

"What's that for?" Alexa asked.

"Another part of the uniform," Lydia smiled as she buttoned back up. "It never shows, but anyone who's been here before knows it's there, under the dress."

"Why?" Now Alexa felt confused.

Lydia's smile widened. "Because sometimes I get to play too," she said. "And some men really, really like the idea of bagging a proctor. Here's this woman with absolute authority over them, and if they can just find a way to get her out of her dress she's theirs to play with however they want...for a while, anyway. As I said, there are all sorts of sexual fantasies." She buttoned back up. "This is a unique place where many of them can be acted out." She tilted her head and looked at Alexa. "Do you have any that you'd like to act out?"