I tried to stay to help with dinner as well, but Mima shooed me out as the others began the process of cleaning up. "I'll need that apron back, sir," she said, her teasing tone still there even though she added an honorific for me. "You can keep the togs on if you don't want to go bare-assed through the halls, though."

  "Thank you, Mima."

  "You're welcome, sir. Come back and see us again." And she bowed her head to me, then looked up and winked before she bustled away with the apron between her hands.

  I made my way from there to the gardens, where the afternoon sun and the sea breeze made for a pleasant combination. It seemed odd to me that no one had come to either return me to a cell or to challenge me in any way, but perhaps my defeat of Jelan had earned me some free time. Technically it wouldn't be someone else's turn at me until tomorrow. This left me restless and bored. I lay back on a stone bench, warmed by the sun, and tried to guess who would be next. Ghiba, maybe? Would she also be above Miera, or had Miera asserted herself some other way?

  I dozed off while thinking about it, and dreamed that Kessa and Siksie were pinning me to the ground. Kessa straddled my face, and my tongue reached between her folds and drew out something round and hard and smooth which I swallowed before I could stop myself... I woke with a shiver, the phantom pains of Kessa's device ghosting across my groin. I shuddered and sat up. Perhaps the damage wasn't as temporary as she claimed. I suspected repeat abuse of my nervous system could definitely impair me, and I wondered how the slaves in her house fared.

  Perhaps she was one of my father's customers. The thought sickened me a little. My father had once been a priest, the high priest, of the twin gods Zal and Kyl. In our reckoning, Zal was the master, Kyl the slave, bonded forever in a relationship of equilibrium and mutual need. Thus the bond of master and slave was considered sacred, a spiritual truth among the Kylar. Where was that spiritual truth, though, in a workforce plucked from other planets, kept illiterate, and subjected to any superior's whims? Or, for that matter, in a circle of bossy dominants jockeying for position when not a one was eager to, or worthy to, serve as slave consort? My head hurt. Now was not the time to wonder how it was that my father went from being the guardian of the old ways to being the head slave trader for the empire, nor how I felt about it. Until I saw him again, spoke with him again, any speculation I had was just likely to upset me.

  I pushed the thoughts aside and instead wondered if I should try to find my way back to my own room. I was looking up at the castle, now in its own shadow as the sun set, trying to remember the way, when I heard voices. Two women, talking.

  At first I thought perhaps it was Siksie and Trella, but as they neared me I saw it was two of the other women in the circle. My hope that one of them would be Miera was dashed when "There he is, Belse," one of them said to the other. These two were cousins, Belse and Vorna, and they had sat together at the opposite end of the table from me that first night.

  "Where?" The one named Belse squinted into the copse of thorny flowering bushes where I had found the bench. "Arshan?"

  It wouldn't do not to answer. "Here."

  They approached me in step with one another. Both had the healthy brown of women who spent much of their time in the sun, both had red highlights in their hair. Belse took the lead. "I thought you were supposed to be with Jelan tonight."

  "Jelan has already had his fill of me," I said. "He's the only person I've seen today. What's going on with you all? I've been wandering about loose. I thought you were supposed to be keeping me."

  Oh, that earned me a slap from Vorna, while Belse spoke. "How dare you speak to your betters that way!"

  "I take it you are next?" Don't ask me why, perhaps it was all the thinking I had been doing, but at that moment I simply did not have it in me to bow to them.

  "We are." Belse gripped me by the chin while Vorna dealt me another blow; this one made me see stars. "We've decided to work together. That makes you ours for twice as long, you know."

  "Do your worst," I said through clenched teeth.

  "With pleasure," Belse said and seemed to snap her fingers.

  The next thing I remembered I was waking up indoors somewhere. The light was very dim, coming from a source I could not see. I was tied down, spread-eagled, on a padded surface with a vaulted ceiling above me. My head was held back so I could not lift it. I had no idea if I was on a platform or on the floor, the ceiling was too high to tell.

  "He's awake." That was Vorna's voice, somewhere to my right.

  From my left came Belse, and it appeared I was on a platform because she climbed up and then crawled over me. She was naked, her skin glistening with a sweet scented oil, and she lay herself down along the length of me. "Siksie has told us you are not allowed to come."

  I didn't answer, but she didn't hit me.

  "She has also told us that if you do, you'll have to start the eight days of punishment over again." She closed her mouth over mine, her tongue pushing between my lips, my teeth. I did not bite her. "We know you've studied the Arian disciplines."

  Vorna climbed up beside her. "We've studied the Velian disciplines," she said with her white teeth flashing in her shadowed face. "And there are two of us."

  "And we have two days," Belse added. "Shall I start?" she asked Vorna, who gave her a curt nod and slipped off the platform.

  So they sought to break me with pleasure, to make me give up my self-control. "And if I do not break?"

  She laughed. "You'll break. And then we'll get to do this all over again." She cupped my balls in her hand and the next thing I felt was her mouth, warm and soft, on the head of my penis.

  I took a deep breath and concentrated on what I had been trying to teach Jelan earlier in the day. I dammed up the flow of arousal down the front of my body, hitching my breath and concentrating, while at the same time trying to let energy flow out through my feet, to reverse the tide.

  It worked for a while, a long while, I think, though once I entered that state it was impossible to tell how much time passed. But her mouth was relentless and her fingers kept trailing up my stomach, up the thin line drawn between my groin and belly button, then up to my nipples, which she barely touched, barely caressed. A few minutes of that would have been of no consequence, but she did not stop. Had an hour gone by? Two? Three? I did not know, but my nipples had become rock hard, the water behind the dam rising higher and higher.

  Then suddenly she gripped my nipples, flicking both hard with her thumbs. and I felt the water begin to spill over. She raked her nails down my stomach then, as if she could hurry the stream of arousal toward my cock—which I suppose is exactly what she did. I could stay deflated no longer, and some blood did rush in.

  Now she turned around, straddling my stomach so that I was staring at her backside, and she raked her nails gently, so gently, up the insides of my thighs, up the underside of my ball sac, up the half-hard center length of my cock.

  I regained a small bit of control, breathing deeply and then willing my inner muscles to relax, but it was only a matter of time before she had chipped away the defense. Eventually I was rampant, and beginning to sweat. The Arian disciplines allowed a measure of control on a part of the body that otherwise would act like it had a mind of its own, but they were not foolproof. And I was not made of stone.

  "This is beautiful," she said to me, admiring the length and curve of my member with her eyes and her hands. "I like it just like this." With that she climbed onto me, inserted me deep in her folds, and I gasped as she slid down. She was contracting her vaginal muscles as she did so, in a way that I had never felt before. I opened my eyes wide in surprise.

  I was still far from coming, but Belse had already gotten further than I had expected her to. On Phynia, no girl had ever been able to make me hard if I had been trying to hold back. Even Mirell, when she had sent me back to Audan, had boasted of my abilities. But Mirell was not a Velian adept, and she had never had a serious incentive to break me. Belse had every reason to.

  She seemed to lose herself for a while then, riding me and enjoying the feeling. Part of me enjoyed it, too, for while she was distracted I was able to keep my arousal from rising any more. I even began to soften slightly as she began to increase her pace, but of course she noticed that immediately. "Oh no, I need you harder," she said, and snapped a ring in place around my cock and balls. She went back to her manual manipulation and oral stimulation, and soon I was as hard as before, with the blood flow now trapped in my organ.

  If I had to guess I would say she rode me, bringing herself to orgasm numerous times, for two hours. Then she slid off, kissing me again as she did so, and Vorna climbed on.

  Was it torture? I wish I could say I slipped deep into a trance and woke up two days later with the two of them frustrated and exhausted at the foot of the platform. But there was no trance. There was just moment by agonizing moment of holding back and holding back. It was as if they had made me stand up and hold a giant jug of water over my head, and my goal was not to spill it while they wanted me to douse myself. Hour by hour I grew weaker, and sometimes a few droplets would spill as I shook, but still I held the water back. And yes, it was torture.

  They fed me something through a tube, and made me drink water from a bulb, and undid the strap from time to time to allow the blood to flow out again before they would start all over again making me hard, and bringing me to the brink. I am not sure, but I think it took less time to make me hard each time. In other words, they were gaining on me. I assumed one of them would rest or sleep while the other worked on me with her hands, her mouth, her cunt. Vorna impaled herself in the ass at one point, just for her own pleasure I think, because she could not get the same contracting action she had with her vaginal muscles.

  Me, I did not sleep. Whenever I would drift off, I would begin to lose control, and I could not let that happen. Once in a while they would attach me to a machine that would whoosh all the urine and feces out of me in a few short seconds, leaving me clean and sanitized and ready for more. And then whichever one's turn it was, she would start again.

  Then midway through the second day, they double teamed me. Belse, whose contractions were stronger and more varied in their pattern, riding me, while Vorna fished for my prostate gland. That was when I began to pray.

  The current Emperor Arshan exalted Zal most of all, but it was to Kyl I prayed, while thinking of my father's words. The gods are real, he just didn't believe in them anymore. Kyl, father and mother of my spirit, I prayed, help me. The ones who seek to break me are not worthy of me. Help me find the strength to endure this and make me stronger than they are.

  I wasn't truly sure if I believed in the gods myself, but the prayer seemed to help. I repeated something on that theme over and over to myself as time crawled by. Vorna's fingers stroked the gland inside me and Belse purred in appreciation as my cock twitched inside her. She redoubled her efforts but I kept repeating the prayer to myself, and we seemed to plateau once again. I felt Vorna slip out, away, and then return, something large and cold and slippery now pushing between my ass cheeks.

  And then a voice, startling and real, not Kyl answering me, but Siksie standing somewhere near my head. "Isn't that cheating?"

  Belse made a noise of frustration, and I suddenly knew they were running out of time. "He's right on the edge," she hissed.

  "He's been right on the edge for six hours now," Siksie purred. I felt her fingers, cool and dry against the skin of my neck. She caressed the place I knew the implant had gone in. "I've been monitoring."

  Vorna shoved whatever it was into my ass and I arched upward, bucking against Belse, but I did not come. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to distance myself from the sensation once again, while maintaining control of it at the same time.

  Belse did come, though, herself, one more time, this time with intense shaking and convulsions, a sensation so strong that had Siksie not been there, had I not known that time was running out, it might have been enough to make me give in. Someday I would have to get together with a Velian adept for pleasurably spiritual purposes, I decided.

  She slipped off, exhausted and spent. Vorna pulled whatever it was out of my anal cavity and flung it in frustration at the wall.

  Siksie released the restraint on my head and then stroked my forehead. The look in her eyes radiated approval and her stroking felt as though she were praising me. "You never agreed on what the outcome would be if he won the challenge," she said to the women.

  They were out of my line of sight now. I lay there, relishing the feeling of Siksie's touch and the deflation of my erection.

  "I think that makes it your choice, Arshan." She reached across me to undo one of my arm restraints and the tail of her braided hair tickled my face. Then she did the other. "What will it be? Public abasement?"

  She circled around toward my feet to undo the restraints there. "Reciprocal suffering?" She flashed me a wicked smile. "I know you are in no shape to deliver such a treatment yourself, but someone else could be delegated to."

  I tried to sit up and failed. "I think I'd much rather they swore to obey me when I called on them."

  "Well, you've clearly proven yourself their superior." Siksie turned toward the women and I watched, sleepily fascinated as the red cloth wound in her hair swung back and forth.

  "I declare it fair," Siksie said, with an official tone in her voice. "Swear it." I could not see, but heard the women drop to their knees and each one kissed the royal attendant on the mons. "Done." And with that, she dismissed them.

  I expected her to leave, too, but the next thing I found was she was up on the platform with me, helping me to roll onto my side. "Zal's whip. Arshan, you're in bad shape."

  "I just need sleep," I said, my eyes closing. "Was it really two days?"

  "Yes, and the bitches dehydrated you." She pressed a water bulb into my hand.

  I was too tired to lift it to my mouth. "Wanna sleep," was all I could say.

  "Ghiba is next," she said softly.

  That woke me a little. "How long?"

  "I can get you a few hours. Not much longer." She took her robe off and covered me with it.

  "You sound like you regret making me run the gantlet," I said, turning slightly so I could see her face.

  She frowned. "Regret is too strong a word. I'm pleased you've done so well so far." She ran her hand over my forehead again. "I dislike seeing those who are not worthy of respect demanding it."

  I suddenly wanted to ask her what she knew about my father and his falling out with the emperor, or what she thought of him and the slave trade, and a hundred other things, but even as I tried to open my mouth she said, "Sleep now. I'll give you as long as I can."

  "Yes, lady," I answered and was asleep before she left my side.

  Part Seven

  I woke to find Ghiba staring at me. I was in a bed, just a normal bed at first glance, with no restraints or moving parts, though I knew they could be hidden. I stared back, my brain foggy and the fatigue in my muscles weighing me down like a sodden blanket.

  She seemed content to stare while I began to think. She was a beauty, this one, with a pronounced curve to her hips and bust, and a curl in her hair. It's a favorite game of Kylaran nobles to guess who has which blood lines. There are no "pure" bloods, of course, not after ten generations of starfaring and conquering, but there are those who, through whatever genetic mix, fall into one of the two classic phenotypes. I was one, the tall, slender type, the aristocratic preference. My father was the other, broad-shouldered, stocky. Kylaran women tended toward small breasts no matter which type they were. Ghiba was clearly neither, both long legged and well-endowed, and curly hair was definitely from some offworld gene. She was a big girl and I wondered again what had passed between her and Kessa such that she lost.

  My brain was also urging me into action. Take the initiative, set the ground rules. But I was too tired.

  She spoke first. "I would have let you sleep longer, but time is finite."

  That reminded me of something that had been nagging me. "Every time I wake up, I'm somewhere different. I'm not that heavy a sleeper."

  She smirked at me. "Are you really as naïve as you act?" She came and sat on the bed next to me, her hand caressing my neck. "It's the slave implant. I can't believe you agreed to have one put in." She smelled salty, like she had been exercising shortly before.

  "I'm under the impression that when my eight days are up, it'll be taken back out." I wanted to sit up now, but with her body weight on the blankets I was actually swaddled as I was.

  "That's undoubtedly true," she said. "But you're no coward, that's for sure."

  I gave a short laugh. "Maybe I would have been, if I had known what I was in for."

  She smiled in return. "I doubt that." She ran her hand through my hair, which was in need of trimming. I had let it go while on Phynia and for whatever reason Audan hadn't made me cut it. "So, tell me about this no-ravishing-the-slave-girls prohibition."

  It took me a moment to catch on, and confusion must have flickered across my face for a second before I said "Oh, that. Well, my father's very into the old ways."

  "What do you mean?"

  "He believes in the bond between one master, one slave, and he practices abstinence as spiritual cleansing." This wasn't strictly true, but I doubted she could test the veracity of anything I said.

  "How romantic." She used her nails to scratch my scalp lightly and my hair stood pleasantly on end. "So, he doesn't want you buggering the help? Is that it?"

  "Well, there's more to it than that," I said, knowing that she had probably seen something in my expression, "but that's the basic idea. He thinks I need to learn to control my appetites." In reality, he had never said such a thing to me, though I sensed he disapproved of some of the excesses I had taken on Phynia.

 

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