Thrall

© 1999 Dark Angel.

darkangelxena@hotmail.com

I'd seen my share of colorful parades with young men polished and gleaming, ready to do battle and, if needed, surrender their lives in my name. But the weather had brought me out; that and the realization I'd not seen the outside of my palace walls for quite some time. In reflection, my decision to view the slavers' propositions that day had been as instinctive as my presence to watch my city's sons.

I paid 500 dinars for her: A reasonable price considering she'd already had her turn on the slaver's platform more than once. I suppose the real question was why I actually paid for her at all. I mean she'd been sold back to the government, apparently some matter of different priorities at a previous post. So theoretically she was already my property. I know it would have made more sense to rent a whore for an hour. But then again, I never was much for taking my time in a queue and she'd already caught my eye.

I made a fair show of it, inspecting the entire line up of body servants on display. I paced the stock from beginning to end, flanked by two of my royal elite and wearing robes usually preserved for leading a troop to claim new land. No one would have guessed what was on my mind, nor I think I, completely comprehended.

She looked mortified when I finally brought myself and my entourage back in front of her. I remember watching her knees shudder beneath a faded piece of cloth before she somehow got a hold of herself. I remember too that she smelled like corn soap and fresh washing though I suspect it was because they'd scrubbed her and her garments down first. Her hair caught the noon day sun in a way that made her appear almost angelic, soft and younger than her 18 years. Whenever I smell corn soap, even now - or see the daylight cut through shards of wheat, I can't help but think of that girl. Can't help thinking how different things between us could have been.

I turned away from where she stood with no more than a postured wave to mark how her life had just been altered. Then I proceeded to take my time about the streets, gathering a crowd and walking among my people. I was in no hurry, I knew my purchase would be waiting to serve on my return behind the palace gates.

She had been made wait on her knees for sometime, it appeared. Still, she looked a little different without the brilliance of direct sun on her face. Less naive, thinner perhaps. I don't know, only that I decided that it didn't matter for what I wanted, and I wasn't going to be troubled with sending her back.

I kept my commands simple not knowing how much she would understand. I made her strip and turn and bend to show me what she had. She seemed to manage it all well enough, so at least I knew she wasn't an imbecile. I had her lay down in the middle of my bed and put her hands above her head.

I didn't dispense with my robe, simply mounting her and doing what I needed to get myself started. It never took me much in those days. A squeeze or two - a handful of thrusts. She was under no allusion and it just saved the time. She didn't so much as blink or make a sound, but then again, I doubt it wouldn't have made any difference to me if she had. I came easy as expected and I got up as soon as I was able. I moved away from where she still lay looking a little surprised it was apparently over. I turned back only long enough to tell her she was done. Then I dismissed her and went on about my day.

It should have been the end of it. I'd never had the time or inclination to have anyone around me for more than what was needed. Certainly nothing regular to address my private needs. I returned to the business of my states and pushed the fineness of her hair, the softness of her body against mine from my thoughts.

It was Autumn and Crycus was moving south again. Mycilis was opposing the new embargo orders to the east. I watched two more parades from my balcony window. I rode each morning, pushing me and my steed as hard as I dared. I presided over a dozen or so strategy meetings and ordered three more executions in the cells. But no matter how I tried , or what I did, when my day was done and I returned to my chambers alone, the slave girl's breath still prickled my skin.

When I'd finally had enough I sent for her, though it took several of my guards searching half a morning to locate her back at the slavers pen. She didn't appear that well that time, but neither did she seem surprised to be kneeling at my feet again.

She wasn't fresh as I had first predicted, but I assumed correctly she'd not been with a woman before. I didn't let it bother me and told her it just saved me the work. I instructed her what to expect and what part I preferred the best and if she was surprised she hid it well. When I was done saying and doing what would become our habit, I said she could eat in the kitchen and made sure she'd have some extra to take away.

From the beginning, she had a kind of intuition about my wishes. A way of knowing what I would want and complying, at least physically with little or no prompting. I would say 'table' and she would go to the small dinning counter I kept in my chambers for meals and bend over it, positioning herself in a way that permitted best access for me from behind. I would say 'bed' and she would lay face up, raise her hands above her head and clasp them lightly together. Then she would open her legs and find some spot on the ceiling to contemplate. It became clear too that in spite of my indifference and rigor, her body won over occasionally from the thoughts of being no more than property, and release would come for her too.

We went on like that for months. Me, her lord and master summoning her under armed escort from her cell deep within the city slums. She, a houseless beggar, arriving at my suite after being hosed down first. She would spend an hour or two performing what ever was my bidding, being dismissed with no hint that she would have a place in my bed or another meal to count on in the future. But I suppose it was as obvious to her as it was to me that she would return. She learned that and everything else quite quickly.

I had her installed in a room that had previously been used for storage. Nothing special, just enough space for a single pallet and a place for the gowns she'd been issued. Certainly nothing that gave the impression she was there for anything other than convenience.

I didn't need an excuse to touch her - or hear her cries when I took her rough. I didn't care what business I ignored, which dignitaries I kept waiting, or whether we had an audience or were left to ourselves. I did everything to her. Things I barely allowed myself to fantasize and things I had not considered arousing enough to contemplate. Somehow, she made me an animal, a beast with a need no other had ever tapped and for that, I treated her as the tormenter she had become. I called her my 'bitch' and exercised my prerogative in being no more than that myself.

Generally while I did it, I would taunt her saying it was she who loved it most, that she couldn't live without me drilling her senseless at least once a day. She would whimper and moan as if struggling with saying it was simply her place to serve, and agreeing that she needed me that way.

I ignored her tears and slapped her whenever they got the better of me. Sometimes I slapped her for the lack of them. Mostly I hit her simply because it excited me. I openly gloated at the way her body shook and strained against the bindings, more so when there were no bindings at all and she had to hold herself steady, knowing she couldn't hide behind chains or strips of leather. But no matter how hard my blows were, or the level I dragged her too, she kept herself at least some how separate to me. Unquestioningly bound but free somewhere deep in her own thoughts.

Sometimes I wished she would struggle, knowing it would have been such a futile exercise in itself. She was no more than half my size and could easily have died from any misplaced blow. Sometimes, in desperation, I wondered if one of those blows would have spared us both.

Within our first year together, I gave her a permanent reminder of whose she actually was. It wasn't administered so much from any premeditated plan, but from anger. That kind of anger would clamor up inside of me from nowhere in those days. And I nor anyone else could harness it until it had run its course. Mostly I needed no reason for the rage to surface, but on that occasion my justification had been fueled by what was clearly her lack of allegiance to me - her utter and intolerable disregard for the master she serviced.

I was the ruler of all of Greece. Grown men cowered at my feet, women much more grand than I hid themselves in fear. Yet a useless piece of garbage I pulled off a slaver's cavalcade, whom I fed and clothed, thought she could test me so and remain unscathed.

I had risen from my bed in the dead of night to attend a message I'd been told was urgent. From my standing position near the reading lamp, I saw her eying the young guard, perhaps no older than herself who'd accompanied the note. She had been sitting up in the center of that same bed with the sheets tucked up for modesty, as if they could cover what I'd been doing to her. He had braved an open glance in her direction. The Gods only knew why. I suppose because he was new and stupid, wanting to see for himself what his master laid.

I interpreted her interest in him, whether it was real or not, his presence in a room that hung heavily with her scent and mine as her fooling herself she had a life beyond my reach. That she would consider others as being potential parts of that imaginary world infuriated me. I sent him out and proceeded to teach her the one lesson she'll wear to her grave.

I flogged her with my belt to start while she kneeled dazed and confused, making no effort to block the strikes. I dragged her then, me shouting and she begging through the corridors of my home in the state she dreaded most.

My fury raised enough concern to gather a tribe of followers on our trek. All trailing a safe distance behind, along a route I had subconsciously mapped out even before pushing her out into the halls. One of them had been the boy whose presence had sparked the whole thing off. Livid, I offered her to him and others, and thought I would see him soil himself in front of his league. Had he really believed I hadn't seen, wouldn't notice he fancied himself a suitor to my whore?

At the blacksmith's gate, I made him and his captain take her arms, two others to hold her hips and force her to her knees. She fought for her life then and it took all of them and more to get her and keep her completely down. Then in front of six of my best and the smithy, I stroked her face and lowered my tone.

"Who do you belong to?" I asked, as intimately as if we were alone.

At first, she was too wrought to speak. I slapped her face and asked again.

"You, my lord," she spluttered, barely able to get the words out.

I dragged a nail across her cheek leaving a mark in the tear trails along her dank flesh.

"Are you sure?" I chided. "You have no other master, do you? No one else under this roof who decides your fate?"

She shook her head hysterically, agreeing that there was only me.

"And what have I, as your only master of this house, been doing for the better part of this night?"

As her pleas for mercy filled the stables, I grabbed a fist of her hair and pulled her back so she could see my rage. She mumbled what of course she knew she must. I narrowed my sight and stared her down, not trusting that I could repeat myself again without killing her there and then. She quietened the blubbering, choking a little and needing to take a couple of gulps to catch her breath. My palm still rested against her face and she pushed a little so I could feel her skin on mine. A last attempt to melt a heart she must have known had frozen over long ago.

"You've been taking what is yours, my lord," she moaned solemnly but clearer the second time.

She'd shut her eyes unable to see my smirk appear or my head lower a little in assent. But she would have been the only close enough to hear me whisper, 'just checking.' before I stood up properly, parting my robe for her to show her worth.

I gripped her with both hands, knotting fingers deeper through her mass to direct the rhythm. Then as two guards followed out my order, I pressed her so she could only swallow, continuing my pleasure as the iron X changed the sight of her back forever. The smell and sounds drenched my senses and I kept her there till I'd soaked her too - then let her drop.

She didn't pass out, but I guess I had a sense she was made of stronger stuff. So with her screaming and writhing at my feet, I ordered the guards and the blacksmith back to bed - and took her again on the livery floor.

She scared over sooner than the healers predicted, but not quick enough to witness the boy pay his own price to me. For six months after I made her present naked to the waist so her mark was always visible. With her collar fixed and her leach in hand she began and ended each session with, 'I am yours'.

Sometimes I knew if I stayed around her I would have killed her or us both. The very smell of her hair, the way her hips swayed when she walked, would drive me to thoughts that ranged from murderous rage to denouncing all to lay but a moment equally in her arms. I would force myself to lay alone in my bed, not foolish enough to think I could take another, and she alone in hers. Needing days and sometimes weeks to get a grip. Calling her to me only when I could be assured my resolve was back in place. That my position as Empress, as ruler of all the lands would not amount to nothing because of the power of a slave - a possession.

Just as early, I dubbed her as a dreamer, a scattered wench who pondered too much on meanings when there was none to find. I used her idealism as an excuse a lot of the time to justify what was more my own protection from what I felt. But it wasn't until much later, perhaps a decade into her ownership, that I realized she still had hold of a least one of those childish dreams.

I caught her trying to decipher an old piece of delivery parchment and instead of taking my usual ride, I called her to my chambers for the second time that morning.

Standing before her in slick britches and knee high boots, I forced a gait that spoke volumes even then. Late in her twenty's, she too still kneeled between those boots with a reasonable apprehension sparked whenever I broke from my normal routine. I hadn't hit her in months by then and she must have thought the time to renew my right was close at hand.

I waited, silent for longer than I needed, secretly loving the sight she made. The way her breasts strained against her bustle, how her hair shone through the window light. Legs and petticoats sprawled like a doll's that had fallen from it's stand. Then with no warning, I let the book I'd been holding fall between us. Watching as it landed face up at its middle. She looked through tousled hair and hooded eyes, not knowing what to say.

"Can you read it?" I asked knowing full well she couldn't. She hesitated but a moment, I don't believe she ever even attempted to lie to me. Then shook her head almost shamefully, and she made the sound that always meant she was trying not to cry.

"No, my lord - I can not read. I try, but I have no..."

I scoffed loudly, cutting her off to hide my own realization that she should wish for so little and be denied it nonetheless.

"Well no one here will teach you." I told her, maintaining my scowl.

Her head lowered further still, eyes apparently fixed on the collection of symbols on the page. I almost faltered then, torn between wanting to shunt the book aside with my boot and sending her flying too, and lifting her and it to meet me. Instead I crotched down and reclaimed the book, leafing through it nonchalantly in an open palm.

"But," I continued as I flicked the pages to find what I'd been searching for. "If you can read these few short lines by the next full moon, you may keep the book and practice when the time permits."

I turned the latest edition to my library around and held a short piece by a known poet out for her to view. Her face beamed as she braved a brief glimpse of me and the verse. Then she lowered her eyes again.

"I will learn the words, my Lord, I promise. Thank you, thank...."

I let the book tumble from my fingers to land before her once again and I watched as she rose a little to start unfastening her top.

"No!" I scolded, pushing her hard enough to lose her balance. "I have no interest with that right now." Her lip looked like it was about to start its familiar tremble but she stopped it, regathering herself and the book and bowed her way out of my sight.

Sure enough, on the eve of the next full moon, she stood square shouldered in a dress she knew I favored and recited the verse as best she could.

I kept my word and let her have the book.

Throughout all my battles, my countless deals and ultimate conquests, she stayed her place and served me as I expected none ever could. She bore my treatments and my absence equally, at least it appeared to me, as if they were the same. She leaned to walk like a woman of breeding and not some nervous stray. Visiting officials would come to pay me due and ask after her by name. Sometimes I even almost forgot myself and would call her to do the greetings at my side. She'd look at me with that same horror she used to get in our early days and I'd know that what I risked and how it would have shamed us both.

Even now, as gray pushes its way through my inky tresses in abundance, she lays with me because I command it and for no other reason. We rest quietly as I catch my wind. She is still beside me, waiting for me to go again. To instruct how I want her, or just to have it done which is more the case.

In a moments folly, I break my usual armor down to say what's been in my heart for years. Of course it comes out harsh, barely a hint of gentleness in my tone - but all I fear I am capable of now. She shifts a little under the covers and I feel her hand move towards me, as if to stroke my back. But the smaller hand doesn't quite connect and I sense the limb has pulled away. She believes my words I know, but she too because of what has been our lot, is capable of nothing more than silent obedience.

I do not blame her, I have showed her no compassion, no light for all my dark. And now with our lives closer to ending than beginning, I can no more turn and face her with my words than she can initiate a gesture that speaks of her own free will.

She prepares to leave me as I am apparently done with her for the night. I don't know why I still can't say;

'I want you to sleep here - its half your bed anyway.'

But I can't. Instead I reach back and snare her wrist, a powerful grip that she knows better than to argue with.

"I'm not done." I say, though I doubt how convincingly. We are both exhausted and I no where near as virile as I was in my youth. I ponder whether she truly believes that. Or if over the years she has learned to read between my words as I have forced her to.

I feel her settle back, waiting.

I picture her behind me, the expression I know she maintains even in the darkness. She has practiced it for decades and got it, I think, to a point that nothing - not even I can shake.

Her hands move again and I know they are clasped together resting low on her belly. Soft hands, supple from the cream she rubs into them every day. Her body has filled out in places that once would have meant it was time to cast her free. Her hair too fights to maintain its gold and she squints whenever she reads too long at night.

But I kid no one, especially myself, to think that another could satisfy that part of me I do not leave on her skin or within the sheets.

My heart is as much her chattel as the body of a slave is mine.