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CHAPTER 19: Two courtyards
Mariah slammed open the door to Gabriel’s apartment, causing it to reverberate on its hinges. She hated herself. She had acted the fool, letting down her guard and allowing a human being to crawl inside her head and read her secret thoughts and torment her with them.
Is it really too soon to run? Reliving the torture would be better than living with this mindgame – no, mindgame was too tame. Than living with that mindraping bastard, Master Gabriel.
She started to breathe slowly and deeply to center her thoughts, then remembered that Master Gabriel had taught her that trick. She expelled her breath so quickly that she coughed. Bastard.
It is too soon to run. Her body was too weak, and she was far from the wall, and she had no plan.
A movement in the courtyard caught her eye. Two sparrows were chasing each other. Nearby, Master Animal was sleeping in a divan chair in the sun.
I’ll show him I’m not giving into the game. I make my own rules.
She crossed to the sliding door to the courtyard and opened it silently. She glanced over into Animal’s apartment and his studio. The lights were off. If Rose was around there was no sign of her. She walked over to the divan where Animal lay dozing, her bare feet making no sound. Do I dare? Slaves did not approach human beings. I escaped. I break the rules.
Silently she kneeled by the divan chair. Animals’ legs were slightly spread. She put her right hand firmly on his inner thigh, over his pants leg, near his groin, and bent her head down to the slight bulge beneath his button fly.
Animal startled. His body jumped back in the divan. “Wha . . . ? Rose?” Quick as thought he was pulling the back of Mariah’s head up by her hair. He stared at her, wild-eyed, almost panicked. “Mariah? What are you . . . ?” He held her hair in a death grip.
Mariah could find no words. Dry-mouthed, she suddenly realized that she wasn’t ready for this mindgame to be over. What have I done?
Animal let go of her so suddenly that she fell, skinning her knee on a cobblestone. He sat up and swung his feet over to the ground. His knees and his ankles were pressed firmly together. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his wrists crossed, protecting his middle. “You mind telling me what you were doing?” he asked Mariah mildly, although his chest rose and fell with hard breath.
Mariah raised her chin. “I wanted to pleasure you,” she said.
Animal said harshly, “I’m no innocent outlander, Mariah. Tell me the truth.”
Mariah grasped for a lie that would be believable. “I’m horny,” she said. But when she said it she realized it was true.
“You know I’m not your master.” Animal’s voice, if not gentle, was less hard.
“Master Gabriel wouldn’t mind,” Mariah said. She met his eye, trying for defiance again, against any kindness.
Animal snorted. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“It’s true,” Mariah said. “Master Gabriel told me he doesn’t fuck slaves.” She was surprised by the bitterness so clear in her voice.
Animal could hear it too. His pulse not pounding quite so loudly in his ears, he took a deep breath and looked closely at his friend’s slave. From habit he pictured her as the subject of a painting. She kneeled before him in obeisance, but her green eyes glared at him. Her face was framed by her dark, almost black hair, that was still uneven from where it had been pulled out and was growing back. Her cheeks flushed with emotion, but whether it was anger or embarrassment or shame he could not tell. He knew what the title of the painting would be: “Defeated but unbroken.” He couldn’t help but admire her, a little. Still, for all her bold colors he was glad she wasn’t his. He thought of Rose, pastels and light browns.
“I don’t fuck slaves either,” he said to Mariah. “Except my own.”
Mariah’s eyes stung. I’m done with crying. She took a deep breath. “Is this the torture, then?” she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral. “To never fuck again?”
Animal did not answer immediately. He didn’t know what Gabriel had in mind for Mariah, now that she was healing. “He doesn’t mean it as torture,” he said at last. “And I think you know that.”
Mindraping bastard, Mariah thought again. How could she guess what he meant or didn’t mean? She breathed deeply in and out, once, twice. She was so, so tired of this game. Torture masquerading as kindness. Kindness masquerading as torture. Was there a way to cut through it, to end it now? She looked up. “Aren’t you going to punish me for touching you?” she asked.
Animal fingered the whip on his belt. “Is that what you want?” He sounded disappointed. “Are you a pain slut?”
“No!” Mariah said, recoiling, revolted and offended by the accusation, stung that Master Animal would think that of her.
“Good,” said Animal with a grim small smile. “Because I’m a pansy. Since you don’t like being punished, and I’m too lazy to punish you, this once we’ll let things slide.“
Was it kindness? Or had Animal just outsmarted her? Or was he really such a pansy that she could take any liberties? “Is this slave supposed to thank you, Master?” she asked, her voice sarcastic.
“Yes,” Animal said. “By letting me finish my nap.” And he laid back on the divan and closed his eyes. Mariah watched him uncertainly for a moment, then rose to her feet and walked back to Gabriel’s apartment. As she started to open the sliding door Animal called her name. When she turned to him he said, “If you come near my junk again I will punish you, in a way you won’t forget. I’m a pansy but I’m not a fanatic.” There was a hard anger in his voice that made Mariah automatically say, “Yes, my lord,” before she went back into the apartment.
***
Crawling, Mariah could not see where Master Jonas was taking her, only that they went through huge wooden doors that led her out of the Factory. Mariah thought back to the horseback ride from the fields to the mansion. Like then, she now had no idea what was coming. She snorted as she recalled how naive and hopeful she had been then. Master Jonas flicked her ass with his whip and she increased her pace, her knees and wrists protesting.
It seemed to her and her aching body that the crawl was endless, but rationally she knew they hadn't gone very far when Master Jonas directed her to go through a doorway. Mariah caught a hubbub of voices.
Master Jonas paused. They were in a large cobblestoned courtyard, shaded here and there by trees. Throughout the courtyard were slaves shackled to metal rings set in the ground or wooden posts that stood upright. Humans milled around the slaves, some gazing from one slave to another, others studying a single slave intently. One mistress was checking the teeth of a young male, while another was finger fucking a cunt who gyrated while biting the inside of her cheeks to keep from crying out.
“This is called the Exchange,” Master Jonas told Mariah. “There are several of them throughout the mansion. Slaves are brought here for new assignments, and humans come here to find new slaves.”
Mariah digested this new information. Master Jonas was done with her, then. She felt a lightness throughout her body. It was hope.
Master Jonas indicated that Mariah should stand up. “Most of the slaves at this Exchange have come straight from the factory and need training.” At Mariah’s puzzled look, he laughed. “Oh, I’ve begun to train your body,” he said, “but a slave needs to know how to do more than fuck. Most of the slaves, especially the cunts, will learn to serve in a household, while they are young.”
Mariah looked down. There was so much more she wanted to know. “You can ask your questions,” Master Jonas said.
“You said while they’re young, Master.” Mariah said. “What happens after that?”
“It depends,” Master Jonas answered. “Some stay in household service for years. But most, once they start to lose their looks, will be moved along to other jobs. Or they might get sent back to the farm. Nearly all slaves end up back there sooner or later.”
Mariah looked around again, grateful for the information. She watched a master making his way among the slaves. He wasn’t handsome, exactly, but he gave off an air of cheerfulness. He stopped by a blonde slave girl who Mariah recognized from the exercise yard at the factory and asked her a question. She answered, looking down, and then in response to his command looked up. He was smiling and in response she smiled too, tentatively.
Mariah looked away, embarrassed. There was something deeply private about the exchange she had witnessed. She wondered if it would be the same when she was chosen.
Master Jonas had seen the same thing. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he said to Mariah. He took hold of her wrist, circling it strongly with his thumb and fingers. “A kind master to belong to?”
No, Mariah thought. It would be too personal. But out loud she said, “I don’t know, master.”
Master Jonas pointed out a mistress who was trailed by three slaves, two cunts and a dick. “That’s Mistress Miranda. She trains houseslaves, and is known for teaching them to be outstanding cooks. There’s a waiting list for her slaves, and their owners usually treat them well and keep them for a long time. Maybe you’d like to be one of them?”
Nervousness washed over Mariah. Why was Master Jonas asking her these questions? She would have no choice in the matter. She searched for an acceptable answer. “I want to do what pleases you, my lord,” she said.
Master Jonas laughed at that. “It’s a pity you didn’t feel that way when we first met,” he said. He tugged her closer to him, brushed her hair away from her ear, and whispered, “It’s time for your punishment for that day.”
Mariah’s blood ran cold. It took every ounce of her energy not to pull away from Master Jonas. He had told her he would torture her to death. But surely he hadn’t meant it, after the time he had spent breaking her body. All that effort would be wasted.
Master Jonas pulled Mariah inexorably by the wrist to the middle of the courtyard. There was a platform there, perhaps two feet above the ground. Like the rest of the courtyard, it had metal rings on its floor and wooden posts that stood upright.
Master Jonas stepped onto the platform and pulled Mariah up behind him. He turned to her suddenly, so that they were face to face and almost touching. She started to back away but the edge of the platform stopped her. He bent so that he was whispering in her ear again. “Do you remember how it felt when I fucked you earlier?” he asked, and he touched her breasts lightly with his fingers.
“Yes, Master,” Mariah said, and already, with just his breath in her ear and his hands on her breasts, her cunt was burning, although the sensation was not as strong as the fear that coursed through her body.
“Would you like me to whip your breasts?” he whispered to her.
“Only if it pleases you, my lord,” Mariah answered.
Master Jonas leaned away from her. “It is such a pity what I must do to you,” he said, and he licked his lips. “I’m not going to whip your breasts.”
“Thank you, Master,” Mariah said.
“And I’m not going to beat your cunt.”
Unsure, Mariah said, “Thank you, Master.”
Master Jonas smiled. “I’m going to whip your wrist.”
“My wrist, Master?” Mariah had seen slaves beaten on the bottom of their feet, or on the palms of their hand. But her wrist seemed . . . benign.
Master Jonas nodded. “I’m going to whip your wrist, right here.” He took her hand and touched her lightly where a blue-green vein stood out just above her hand. “I’m going to whip it over and over again, until you start to bleed there. And then I’m going to do the same thing to your other wrist.” He picked up her other hand and touched it in the same spot. “And then I’m going to put a spreader bar between your hands so that you can’t use them to stop the bleeding. And then I’m going to leave you here, and watch as the life drain out of you.” He dropped her hand and smiled. “Such a waste.”
Mariah involuntarily took a step back, horrified. Her foot touched the edge of the platform. I want to live. His hand was still holding her wrist. She brought it up to her face in a quick movement and bit his arm as hard as she could. He yelped and let go of his grip on her. She turned and jumped, running through the courtyard, dodging the shackled slaves, trying desperately for the door they had come through. A guard stepped in front of it. “Now, now,” he said, and caught her, and held her. When she struggled, the guard deftly turned her around so her back was against him, crossed her arms in front, and grabbed each wrist from behind. She was bound by her own arms.
Master Jonas had come down from the stage and was walking to her, slowly, a slight smile on his face, while the guard held her tight. “Please,” Mariah begged him. “He’s going to kill me.”
“Hush, now,” the guard said. “Be good.”
Master Jonas nodded to the guard, and grabbed Mariah by the hair. He lowered his arm so that she was bent double, and then started to walk back to the platform. When Mariah stumbled he simply dragged her until she was able to find her footing. His grip on her scalp was so tight that she could not struggle. There were jeers and catcalls but she could not translate them into anything she could understand.
When they reached the platform Master Jonas let go of her, but many hands grabbed her and lifted her onto it and secured her feet to shackles and her arms to posts. Struggling was useless. She was overpowered.
When she was secured she felt the first lash. The whip wrapped around her wrist, leaving a red mark. It only stung, but Mariah, having no other way to fight, screamed with all her might. Laughter, jeering, catcalls, another strike. This one cut her a little, on her forearm, where the lash crossed the previous mark. She was still screaming. She pulled frantically on her bindings, but they were secure.
The next lash fell on her other arm. With all her might Mariah tried to form words. “Help me!” It came out as a screech. “I don’t want to die!” Then, all she could do was scream.
When her noise stopped as she took a quick breath, there was silence. The whip had not fallen again. Mariah opened her eyes which she had not realized had been shut. A short, silver-haired mistress was on the platform, her hands on her hips, glaring at Master Jonas. “Do you have permission from the Bearer to kill her?” Blood leaked from Mariah’s forearm towards her shoulder.
Master Jonas looked down, red-faced. “I was just having some fun, Corinne,” he said.
“This is not the theater, young man,” the mistress said. “If you’ve come to leave your cunt at the exchange, leave her now.”
“Let me whip her first,” Master Jonas said, almost pleading. “She’s nothing but a torture cunt. Let me mark her so all will know.”
The mistress looked Mariah up and down. “She’s young,” she said. “Looks like she just came from the factory.”
“She did,” Master Jonas said. “I broke her in.”
The mistress sniffed disdainfully. “You must have botched it if she’s to be made a torture cunt so young,” she said.
“No!” Master Jonas said. “It’s all she’s good for, I tell you. She just tried to run away from me. Anyone here can tell you that.”
“Is that true, girl?” Mistress Corinne asked Mariah. “Did you just try to run away?”
Mariah tried to put every ounce of humility she could find into her battered voice. “Yes, mistress,” she said.
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“I don’t want to die, Mistress,” Mariah said, and tears ran down her face and her knees buckled so that she was supported only by the shackles on her arms.
Mistress Corinne said to a young slave standing near the platform, “Anna, untie her and wrap her wounds.”
She turned back to Master Jonas. “I’m sick to death of you people ruining perfectly good slaves. You’ve no respect, that’s what. Leave her, and get out of here.”
As Mariah was freed from her restraints she saw Master Jonas glaring with hate. But he was looking at Mistress Corinne, not at her. Without a word to her he turned on his heels and walked away, even as soothing hands began to put bandages on her bleeding wrist.
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