In The Now

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It is quiet as she waits for her master.

She is on her side on the low bed, unmoving save to breathe, long, slender legs just bent at the knees, her eyes narrow, almost closed. The air, warm against her bare skin, seems rich with the scent of her perfume, and she blushes, not knowing why.

She waits. Now. Do you know this word? What is "now", to a slave girl, to a Taiyiha?

We must consider this, just as she does.

For Jacqueline it is the moment, this moment. All her life seems this moment, and the next and the next, one after another after another, unending. She is forever in the now, in the present. There is still a sense of time in her, an ability to distinguish yesterday from today from tomorrow, but these things, all of them, are still the present, the ongoing passage of time that is her life.

Here, on Vandhaqa, this world that sometimes seems more a dream than reality. To serve those who own her. To be pleasing.

Another moment passes.

Jacqueline still does not move, there nearly naked on the soft, satin sheets of the bed. She hopes to extend this moment, perhaps to stop, if only for a bit, the motion of time, to preserve this present, comfortable and alone.

But she knows that soon it will end, her reverie.

Move, Taiyiha. Serve. Obey.

Long experience has taught her not to think about this while she waits. What will happen will happen, when the Usahar comes for her. She is a slave to it, to all Usahar, and this reality at least cannot be denied. But as she lies there, Jacqueline thinks of the past. Not yesterday, but before that, long before. The real past.

Let us remember with her.

There was that time, so much of which she can still recall. A time before all this, before she was brought here as a slave, before she was made Taiyiha. She recalls this time, the years of it, passing, growing, becoming. She remembers her life then, in those days and weeks and years, family and school and then college, life spent in things and with people who seem so distant now.

To Jacqueline.

Distant, far away, fading. It's hard to remember their faces, the sounds of their voices, the touch of a man's hand on hers. Hard to remember how it felt, to be...

To be.

Free?

Not to be what she is now.

Jacqueline still, yes; that is her name, she who lies silently. That is the name they use, the Usahar and the Adhal, the appellation by which they call her. Despite it all they have not renamed her.

But am I Jacqueline? she wonders. Am I?

She knows the answer. As the present goes forward she will still know it.

Yes, Jacqueline. You are. But not just Jacqueline, not anymore.

Her masters have seen to that.

Taiyiha. I am Taiyiha.

She moves a bit, unable to help herself. She feels the tightness between her buttocks, the lace there, drawn tight, pulled intimately against her. This sensation is both familiar and not, the tiny frills, the ruffles of her thong panties. Pretty. She knows pretty, knows pretty things, and her masters know them too. They have made her so, with perfume and makeup and hairstyles and the sheer, tiny things she wears. The Usahar like her to be pretty when they take her, and there has always been that part of her that likes it too, that enjoys the process of becoming pretty, of becoming beautiful, despite it all.

Or perhaps because of it. This is unclear. All the times Jacqueline has thought about it, pondered it, tried to make sense of it, of what they have changed and done to her and made her, all the truths that are Taiyiha, even after all these times she still isn't sure.

None of the other girls are either; they never have been.

The words to the lament come to Jacqueline now, and she whispers them softly.

I want to know,

but cannot.

I want to understand,

but do not.

Why I ache for you, Usahar.

Why I burn with need.

But you do not tell me,

and will not.

Instead I am simply yours.

The now has moved forward. Jacqueline stirs a bit. They make her wait, sometimes, the present stretching on and on. But it will have an end, you know. It always does.

They will not wait forever.

She turns again, the soft, satin sheets beneath her rustling with the motion. The tiny panties, lace and frills, the sheer, tiny bra, these are tight against her body. Save for her thin collar and bracelets and anklets they are all Jacqueline wears, all she has been given. The bits of lingerie will be enough, enough to be pulled away for the Usahar's pleasure.

Soon.

What is the future, Taiyiha? There is a past, for you, for the others. A past even for the Adhal, who rule here; you learned their epics as they remade you. You can remember the past, weep for it, for its loss. Because it is not the present, the now; the now is more recent time, time like this moment, but all this time seems the same. You are bound; you are Taiyiha. You serve, and you are pleasing. That is what they made you, in the now, in the first days here. There is the past, and then the present that stretches back for years.

Look.

The door opens.

Jacqueline raises her head, eyes open, her lips just parted, red, glistening, her teeth white and small beneath them, her long, dark hair falling in a soft tumble around her shoulders. Her breath quickens and she draws it in, as her thighs, quite without thought or intention, rub gently together.

The Usahar sees this. They miss little, the Usahar. Jacqueline watches it as she feels its gaze roam over her. How like a man it appears, broad in its shoulders, bare chest sculpted, bare legs muscled. Beneath the kilt it wears there is little doubt as to the form of its hips, its buttocks. So much like a man and more, perfect, designed to be so, unyielding. She is suddenly aware, Jacqueline is, of herself, there before it as it speaks.

"Greetings, Jacqueline."

She says nothing. The Usahar moves closer, still watching. Its words are ritual now.

"Are you pleasing, Taiyiha?"

She answers as she has been taught, in the now, in the present that never ends.

"Yes, if it is your pleasure."

The Usahar smiles. It is power, control. Where it leads, in what it makes her do and feel, she will follow. Jacqueline knows this, and she feels the response of her body as the Usahar speaks again.

"It is."

The Usahar moves to the bed. It needs no command now, as Jacqueline reaches out and releases its kilt. Her hand trembles as she sees its phallus, growing hard, erect, perfect. The Usahar lays beside her and leans in for a kiss, its breath warm, lips as well. She cries out softly as its hand finds her breast, caressing through the sheer material of her bra and then pulling the cup away, revealing her, moving its lips and tongue to her hardening nipple.

A moan, soft, tender, urgent. She wants to beg, wants not to, wants to surrender but tries to resist. There will be no resisting in the end, of course. She is Taiyiha, slave. She, like the others, learned this early, learned it slowly and steadily as she was remade and trained, learned it the first time she was taken.

Just as she will be now. That first time, burned into her memory with what she did, with her cries and the feeling of that first Usahar, there in the high tower in the shining city of Iyakk, the shameful joy as it took her and as she came, helpless to it, that time is no different than this. It is the present as much as it is the past, because it is her life.

To serve, to please. To submit.

"You are lovely, Taiyiha," the Usahar whispers, its hand caressing down her flank. With a cry she arches her hips up to it, her heartbeat rapid, her need sudden and urgent. The Usahar teases at the tiny panties, pulling them a bit, letting them draw tightly against the lips of her sex, now moist. And then its fingers draw the thin material aside and touch directly at her, intimately, pressing against her, her entire body suddenly quivering at the sensations it brings. Its lips have met hers again, stifling any protest, and slowly it masturbates her, teasing, bringing her close, letting her shiver with desire, with pleasure not complete.

This too is now. This too is Taiyiha. There is no denying it, no helping it. Even as she whimpers Jacqueline knows this, cannot help but know it.

The Usahar knows it too, as its hand and fingers work gently between her thighs.

She cries out, helpless.

And in time, in delicious, endless time, Jacqueline feels the Usahar push her to her back against the soft, satin sheets. Its hands grip the waistband of her panties and pull them down her long legs, the material rolling as it moves, and as they come free of her she parts her thighs, shivering as its hand traces back up her leg, settling once more against the wet folds of her sex. She moans, looking up at it, and it speaks again.

"Are you a hot Taiyiha, Jacqueline?"

"Yes..." she manages. "Please, yes..."

One leg crosses hers, pinning it. She can feel the Usahar's cock against her thigh, long and hard. She aches for it, squirms where she is held. The fingers against her are agony and joy, the sheets beneath her buttocks wet from her arousal.

"Do you beg?" it asks.

She draws in a breath, warm and ragged. And her hands are at its shoulders, pulling weakly and helplessly against it, trying to bring it close.

"Yes," she moans. "Please... take me... use me..."

It moves. Yes. Its other leg over hers, her thighs now parting widely, her hips rising, begging, welcoming.

I am Taiyiha. I am yours.

The length of its cock rests against her mons, and her hands grip tightly at its shoulders. In a practiced motion it moves, hips back, phallus sliding down, then touching at her, the wide crown just pressing. Her moans are feral as slowly the Usahar enters her, as she feels its full length fill her deeply, her body tight and wet around it.

Take me. Please.

Slowly the Usahar does. In, then back, gentle at first but soon harder, using her, riding her. And helpless, Jacqueline can only feel, can only be, for this is to be Taiyiha, to be so taken. There is only the now, the here, this bed, this room, this submission. There was, so long ago, a Jacqueline who was free. But it is easy to forget her as suddenly the first orgasm comes, ripping through her and bringing forth a loud cry, to be followed by another and a third, even as she feels the Usahar explode within her, knowing that it needs no rest, for it is not a man, and that it will take her as it desires.

Yes. Jacqueline gasps, cries out, holding the Usahar close, pleading for it never to end.

Lost in the pleasure it brings.

#

In time, exhausted, she lies cuddled beside the Usahar, caressing its broad chest, naked and warm in her glow. Its arm is around her as it lets her rest. And the third thing comes to her as she lays there: tomorrow will be now, another day like today. She will serve and be pleasing. But she wonders, too, Jacqueline does, if perhaps a time will come that is not now, that is as distinct from it as the nearly forgotten past.

A future?

Maybe. She remembers the final stanza to the Hymn to the Lost Moon , the holy words of it. These speak of the future, do they not? But perhaps they are only words, spoken with empty hope by Taiyiha who long for home; this Jacqueline does not know.

A second passes, and another, in the warm embrace of the Usahar. To be free; that is the only future she can conceive, impossible as it is to imagine. To be a slave will always be in the present, in the now. And so as she moans, her body warm and alive and wet with her lust and her need, Jacqueline thinks of the future, of that imagined place of that last, holy stanza, and she knows that she must hold to it, must never let it go. There must always be a future, just as there was a past.

Always.

But not today.

Beside her, the Usahar has stirred, its hand moving to her bare bottom, caressing there, its finger pressing between the two rounded globes of her buttocks, teasing at sensitive flesh. Jacqueline moans, her body reacting even as the Usahar takes her hair in its hand and guides her head down so that she may pleasure it with her lips and tongue. The future will come, or not. But for now, there is only the present and the intimate service she has been commanded to provide. It is to this that she turns her attention.

?2004 by Karen Anne Mitchell

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