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Chapter 20: Denial
“There you go, pretty thing, drink, grow and be strong,” Gabriel murmured to the marjoram plant as he watered it on the windowsill of his clinic. He sighed when he heard the door to the adjoining room open. His posted hours were over.
“Excuse me,” a querulous voice called to him. “Can you help me with a pimple on my belly button?”
Gabriel answered without turning around, “Exercise, think pure thoughts, and drink a gallon of water a day.”
“I think I’ll just pop it,” Animal said with a sour grin as we ambled into Gabriel’s office.
Gabriel nodded. “That might work too.” He put down his watering can, picked up a bottle of vinegar, and began to spray his countertop and wipe it down. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit, oh pimpled one?”
When Animal didn’t answer Gabriel glanced over to him. His grin gone, he was staring moodily at the spray bottle, apparently lost in thought.
Gabriel finished with the countertop, took a broom and dustpan from the closet and started to sweep the floor. Animal broke from his reverie. “You should get Mariah to do that for you.”
“I’m perfectly capable of cleaning up for myself,” Gabriel responded, and continued to sweep.
“She should do it for you!” Animal said. “She’s well enough now to attend to her duties.”
Gabriel looked up, surprised, to Animal’s glare. “You forget. She is a patient under my care, that’s all. I have no duties for her.”
Animal stepped toward Gabriel and grabbed the top of the broom handle so Gabriel couldn’t sweep any more. “Whether you call yourself her master or not, she has no other,” he said tersely. “If you don’t start acting like it, you’ll lose her.”
“What do you mean?” Gabriel asked, surrendering the broom to Animal. “The Bearer gave her to me. No one would try to take her.”
Animal leaned the broom in the corner of the room and turned back to Gabriel. “The Bearer won’t stop a human being from disciplining a slave who acts out,” he said. “Sooner or later she’s going to provoke someone to punishing her beyond your skill to heal.”
“You’re wrong,” Gabriel said. “She’s smarter than that.”
“I’m not wrong,” Animal said. He stared at Gabriel, unrelenting. “And you know it.”
Gabriel started to protest, but he pictured Mariah the first time he had seen her, outside the wall, running away; the horrible punishment after she was caught that brought her near death; and every confrontation she seemed to seek with masters and mistresses when she was on the lawn with him, provoking them, provoking them, provoking them. He expelled a breath, and nodded, slowly.
“Look, brother, you’re a fine healer, a great one, no one disputes that,” Animal said. “But you’re not a vet. You don’t understand slaves. They might look like humans, but they’re not.” He tapped his head. “It’s just fluff up here for them. It’s all feelings, wants, needs.” When Gabriel started to protest, Animal held up his hands to silence him. “If you want to keep Mariah safe you have to make sure her needs get met.”
“I do,” Gabriel protested. “I’m healing her. I make sure she has healthy food, exercise, whatever freedom of movement I can give her . . . “
“What she needs,” Animal interrupted, enunciating slowly, “is a good fucking.”
Gabriel took two steps back, bumping into the counter. “No,” he said. “I would never. Never! I’ve told her that already.”
“So she said,” said Animal, his face carefully neutral. “An hour ago, after she tried to rape me while I was sleeping.”
“What?” Gabriel jolted. “She what?”
Animal looked down at the floor and then back up at Gabriel. “I’m coming to you as your friend,” Animal said. “Another man might have killed her for what she did.”
Gabriel turned his back to Animal. “And did you . . . ?” he asked, his voice unnaturally thick as he sprayed with vinegar the counter he had just finished cleaning.
“Did I what?”Animal asked. “Kill her?”
Gabriel asked, his back still turned to Animal, “Did you have sex with her?”
“Of course not!” Animal said. “For a slave to approach a human . . .” He shuddered.
Gabriel continued to spray the counter, until the vinegar pooled on it. Animal could see the hot flush on his cheek.
“You do want her, don’t you?” he said softly.
Gabriel slammed the spray bottle onto the counter with a bang. “It doesn’t matter what I want! To have sex with a patient would be bad enough. But to rape a slave? I would never . . .” he repeated, and trailed off.
Animal sighed in exasperation. “If you won’t fuck her you need to have someone else do it,” he said. “Or the next human she approaches might not be your friend, or a pansy.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Gabriel said, scrubbing the counter with a towel in tiny, hard circles. “She can learn to control herself.”
Animal walked over to Gabriel and put his hand on the towel, stopping him. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” he said. “She can’t control herself. She’s a slave. Cats chase mice, cows chew their cud, and slaves fuck. It’s what they’re bred for, and it’s all they know.”
Gabriel stared at him, breathing hard, and Animal met his eye steadily. At last Gabriel said, “You can’t believe that about Rose.”
Animal snorted. “Rose?” he said. “I grant you she can cook better than most, and she keeps the apartments clean enough. But do you know why?” When Gabriel shook his head, Animal continued, “It’s because I make her come every night. Without fail. She knows it, and that lets her focus enough during the day to be a decent housecunt. She’s no different from any slave I’ve had.”
Gabriel shook his head. “You’re a fool,” he said, almost to himself.
“No,” Animal said with his sour grin, “I’m a pansy.”
“You’re a fool,” Gabriel said more forcefully. “Rose takes good care of you because she cares for you.” Animal started to speak, but Gabriel interrupted him. “You’re supposed to be the artist who sees things. Haven’t you noticed how she always serves you a little more food than me, how she always puts a few more flowers in the vase in your apartment than in mine, how she always has a smile that is for you alone?”
Animal frowned. “I’ll put a stop to that,” he said, and he unconsciously reached for the whip on his belt. “The Bearer said she should treat you better than me.”
“No!” Gabriel said. “She does these things as a gift for you, because it’s all that she can give.” He turned back to his counter and started scrubbing it again. Then he slapped his cleaning rag against it, hard, and pivoted again to Animal. He said, “And you? You’re a brute who doesn’t deserve her.”
The two men glared at each other. Animal gave in first, taking a step back and putting his hands up in mock surrender before he turned and left Gabriel’s office without another word.
***
Mistress Corinne was examining the hands of a slave, helping Master Tonit determine his suitability for work in the bakery that served the south wing of the mansion. “You’ll have to break him in slowly,” she said. “He’s lost his calluses from the field.”
Mariah knelt to her Mistress’s side, her knees apart, her hands clasped behind her back, her eyes respectfully on her mistress’s feet, awaiting her next orders.
“I just don’t know if he’s strong enough,” Tonit said, squeezing the slave’s biceps.
Mariah knew that would annoy her mistress. “He’s young,” Mistress Corinne said. “He hasn’t reached his full strength. This is the factory exchange. If you want an older slave, you’ll have to look elsewhere.”
“No, I want one who I don’t need to break of bad habits,” he said. “But the bakery’s hard work. I need a boy who can lift.”
Mistress Corinne turned away, having lost all interest in the conversation. “If this one doesn’t suit you, you’re free to look around,’ she said. She looked down at Mariah. “Did you finish cleaning out the supply closet?” she asked.
“Yes, mistress,” Mariah answered, not raising her eyes.
“It had better be spotless,” Mistress Corinne said, but she knew it would be. It had been over a week since she had rescued the cunt from that idiot Jonas, and her work had been flawless. And yet . . .
“Under that oak tree, do you see that group of cunts?” she asked Mariah. Mariah looked over. “Yes, mistress.”
“I want you to pleasure each of them. Use your mouth. And no more than ten minutes each. Make sure they come.”
“Yes, mistress,” Mariah said. Her tone was deferential, but her heart sank. She wanted desperately to please this mistress, to keep her from marking her as a torture cunt as Master Jonas had suggested. She was on edge all the time, fearing that rebellion would slip out – the same rebellion she had showed to Master Jonas when he had chosen her. Sometimes her eyes ached from looking down, when she longed to look her mistress full in the face.
But that was nothing compared to the constant, unbearable ache that originated in her sex and spread outward until it took over her whole body. Mistress Corinne had her pleasure other slaves daily, sometimes more, but had not yet seen fit to allow Mariah release. The greatest torture was pleasuring other cunts, feeling with her tongue the same contours as her own sex, tasting their desire, feeling their surge of freedom at the end.
Mariah knew that among both humans and slaves there were some who preferred their own kind – female to female or male to male. She didn’t think she was one of those. In her dreams, awake or asleep, it was the hardness of men that satisfied her. Not just their sex in hers; she knew that there were substitutes that could be used for that. It wasn’t the strength of their bodies alone that she was drawn to, but the strength of their will – something she was not sure she had ever encountered when awake, among men or women, human or slaves.
Pleasuring the dicks in the exchange made her burn, but not as much as her dreams did. The slaves were not allowed to move besides the small gyrations they could not help, the collapse at the end. They could not choose to touch her as they wanted; or to have her touch them. She enjoyed giving them relief because they were happy, grateful, to receive it.
But pleasuring the girls made her think of her own pleasure. She touched them as she longed to be touched; gave them the relief she longed to receive. And when they exploded onto her, just the slightest touch, she knew, would create her own explosion. That touch never came. She fought to keep her knees spread, to prevent any accidents, to show her mistress that she was obedient and good. And with that hope – that she could convince Mistress Corinne that she was worthy – she trudged to the slave girls who awaited her.
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