Tir na Cali. Cali has a landing page here (or on LJ)
After Too Hot for Prime Time (and on LJ) from September’s Giraffe Call.
Commenters: 6
Jason was still trying to figure out what was going on, but the tall woman who has just bought him was, comments about babies or not, still better than the work camps, as far as he could tell, and he didn’t want to give her any reason to change her mind, so he didn’t ask any questions, or give her any trouble, as she steered him by the back of his collar out of the auction hall.
He hadn’t been outside, except in the back of a van, since he’d been taken; the sun was bright and the air chill on his skin. He tried to keep walking anyway, relying on his Mistress’s hand to direct him. Mistress. She might not be a work camp, but she’d still bought him, like a piece of property. He struggled against the uncomfortable gratitude that someone, anyone, had turned out to want him and the unhappy feeling that he was letting this place get to him.
“Here,” she murmured, and, like putting a prisoner in the back of a cop car, pressed down on the back of his head until he bowed and folded into the back of a car. “Try to get comfortable,” she suggested, as she belted him in. “It’s a long drive.”
And, it seemed, she was driving it herself. Jason let his eyes adjust to the sun as she maneuvered the big, expensive-looking car onto the road; by the time she was in traffic, he could study his surroundings.
The city buildings looked, more or less, like a city – a little brighter, a little taller, a little less square than he was used to, but still city-shaped. The roads had less cars than he’d expect, but maybe it wasn’t a high-traffic time? And the people…
He stared at the people going by in awe. He wasn’t even the least-dressed person around, although the lady with the feathers at least had paint. And most of them weren’t wearing slave collars, although he saw one lovely redheaded girl in an expensive-looking gold collar, wearing a high, gold crown to match her collar and an elaborate kimono and geisha face paint.
It wasn’t until he passed three people in a dragon costume, dancing around a man dressed like Uncle Sam, that Jason found his voice. “It looks like Mardi Gras,” he marveled. Mardi Gras with no morals; there were three people having a very fun naked time on the base of a statute while a fourth took pictures. “It looks like…” Like the things in the anti-California pamphlets that made the country seem so interesting.
His Mistress chuckled, looking back at him in the rear-view mirror. “It’s Samhain,” she told him. “I think it’s called Hallowe’en in your country? And, lucky you, I even have a costume for you.”
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Ooh, Cali-ween! Moar please.
Cali-ween? You know, I think that’s the least objectionable Halloween renaming I’ve heard in some time. It even seems to flow off the tongue well. Hmm. Put him in a suit & tie as an American? “Ooh, and he’s playing the role so well!”
*grin* Yeah, now I Have to come up with what the heck she meant!
*grins* I take it you like it?
Ummmm, let’s see 1. Samhain (a harvest festival) 2. Troublesome slave. 3. Costume just happens to already prepared. Warning! Warning! Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! “Mistress, this wicker is kinda itchy against my skin…”
O_O I hadn’t even thought of that, oh, dear!!
On the other hand Morrigan believes that even their worst brothels treat their slaves better than that poor rent boy was being treated. Burning someone seems to contradict that, although people can have big blind spots about religion.
??? (Admitting, of course, that I don’t know what my blind spots are because i can’t see them.)
Man… oh, I know what I did! I did an action in pointy brackets, sorry I meant to post “*nods*” Yes. It is unlikely he is going to be burnt alive.
That is good – I’m sure he would find that reassuring, unless he asks “What do you mean ‘unlikely’?”
Heee. She wants his seed, she’s not going to get that if he’s on fire. but if he doesn’t cooperate….
Oh my. Huh, I associate Halloween with cold weather. I would think it would be nice and warm in Cali, but maybe the northern bits have the chill air he noticed?
Tir Na Cali covers the whole West Coast of what’s the US in our world, so plenty of northern to be chilly!
If there are people having naked fun at the base of a statue, it can’t be that cold!
Or they don’t care 😉 But yes, I figure more temperate than where Eseme & I live, but not So-Cal warm.