70s or 80s novel. Couple abducted from planet, man is killed and woman eventually takes over ship (Adult themes)

Question

Paperback from the 70s or 80s. It might have been part of an Adult themed series. (much like the Longarm western series) But I am not sure.

A Couple on an low tech farming type planet head out in a field/meadow (pretty sure it newlyweds fooling around, or one had been away for a long time so they were just getting back together) A slaver spaceship lands to abducts them. (The man might have fought back, and gets killed so they only get the woman, or he was killed very shortly after getting them on the ship)

Specifics I remember:

1. Initially the woman did not speak the same language as the people on the ship. (But she does quickly learn it in some Sci-Fi way as opposed to months and months of learning)

2. After they get her on-board, The Captain orders the crew to feed or inject the woman full of drugs & aphrodisiacs so she is an eager & willing participant as the crew gang rapes her. But when the drugs wear off she vividly remembers the horror of the experience.

3. Later in the story she somehow gets the upper hand and takes over the ship killing most of the crew.

4. While she was killing everyone, one of the crewmen (Eng? Nav? XO?) tells her he did not want to do any of it (killing her man and raping her) Doesn't she remember him saying "something in a foreign language" [either to the captain, or to her, as he was taking his turn] She does remember him repeatedly saying those words during the gang rape, and now that she knows the language, knows that he is telling the truth and the only reason he did it was the Captain threatened to kill he if he didn't. So she lets him live. (I think he then assists her in running the ship)

Doing Google Searches, one possibility I came up with is it might be part of John Cleve's Spaceway Series. But I cant find much more than single line descriptions of the some of the books so I am not sure if its one of those.

Answer 1

The book is indeed part of John Cleve's Spaceways series (John Cleve was a pen name of Andrew J. Offutt). It is Of Alien Bondage, which is the first book in the series.

The book starts just after the protagonist Janja has been captured. Her husband has already been killed by this point:

Janja wasn't the strangest piece of cargo he'd carried, but she was the most valuable.

Captain Jonuta of the spaceship Coronet stood In the hatchway yelling at his crewman. "It wasn't enough that you fried the male with her, you had to shove her in here with the others. You're lucky they haven't torn her apart, you underbrained sisterslicer. Look other! She's ... white!"

The chagrined crewman moved forward, toward the small, pale girl. He reached out for her - and she pounced. In an Instant her fingers closed around his throat.

This Is no scared little prey Jonuta realized. She actually means to kill him. He matched her speed and pried her loose from the limp crewman, bending her arm back and nearly breaking it. He held her in a grip of iron, debating his next move. "If I release you," he said, "what will you do?"

"Whatever I can," Janja said.

The drug Janja is given is called Breeder's Friend:

The Jarp also brought something in a squeeze-tube. First the creature whistled, then paused to turn on its translator, to tell her the purpose of the skin conditioner. The small quantity of Breeder's Friend Jonuta had measured into the food began to take effect after some eleven minutes. Janja became openly flirty with the Jarp. She ignored its bandeau and stared at its crotch. With two minutes more she was importuning and making strong hunching movements in the event the orange creature was too stupid to know what she wanted-no, needed; no-had to have!

I don't know if Offutt intended the books to be parody or they really are the tacky rubbish they appear to be at first sight. The fact he used a pen name suggests the latter.