Wheldrake
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On the Block
A fantasy of slavery by Wheldrake, Part 3
With five passengers the carriage seemed crowded. Relkada sat between Lohni and me, separating us, while Crell and Clista faced us impassively from the opposite bench. By accident or design, Clista had ended up directly across from me, and I was intensely aware of the casual but unwavering scrutiny of her hard brown eyes even when I looked away from her. Did she think I was going to launch some desperate plan of escape, despite being shackled and collared and completely naked beneath the enveloping blanket? My leash, the ultimate symbol of my captivity, was clenched along with Lohni's in one of Relkada's hands. I felt intimidated and almost absurdly helpless, and at the same time I could feel the pressure of Relkada's thigh and shoulder against mine and smell a dense, musky perfume that was very different from the scent she had been wearing when she bought me at the auction. Her black gown had a rather high neck, but I could see her arm almost up to the shoulder and her legs up to the middle of the thigh. The proximity of her dusky skin and wiry muscles excited me, and her power over me accentuated the feeling in a way I found difficult to understand.
It was no longer raining, and the carriage seemed to be travelling uphill on a well-paved road. I had lost all sense of direction, and I had no idea whether we were heading into the city or away from it. Relkada had told me much earlier not to speak unless spoken to, but I was not sure whether the injunction still applied and in any case I was beginning to find the silence oppressive.
"Where are you taking us, my lady?" I asked aloud.
"To the Suzerain Karyana's palace, of course," Relkada replied mildly. "Where you will be made to perform under my direction, for the pleasure of Karyana and her guests. I hope you are prepared to be pleasing." She turned to me and smiled, not unkindly. The Suzerain Karyana was a remote, unknown presence, but I suddenly wanted to please Relkada Tiren very much indeed.
"I don't think I know how to be pleasing, my lady," I confessed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Clista's hard, amused smile.
"I will see to it, for the most part," Relkada assured me. "I know how to make you give Karyana what she and her guests enjoy. If you want to make it a little easier for yourself, abandon all hope of comfort and dignity and obey every command you are given. If you refuse to obey, you will have to be forced, and that often ends in tears." She caressed my hair with unexpected tenderness and added, "I'm sure it isn't easy, being dragged in front of an audience of decadent nobles and tormented for their amusement. Just remember that no matter how frightening it becomes, or how much pain you're suffering through, I won't let you actually come to harm. After all, you're valuable property."
I shuddered underneath the blanket. "You’re not going to be gentle this first time, my lady?"
"Not a chance, Areth," Relkada said firmly. "You northerners are supposed to be tough – I'm sure you'll survive." She turned abruptly to Lohni. "And as for you, this is your first time with a matched partner, isn't it?"
"Yes, my lady," Lohni replied in a small, subdued voice. I smiled ruefully to myself, remembering her air of superiority in the deserted hall of Relkada's manor.
"Then this will be very different from all of our previous outings," Relkada told her seriously. "You can rest assured that I'll explore at least some of the possibilities. But if you do as you're told, as you generally do, I promise you won't find it too much worse than usual."
"Yes, my lady," Lohni all but whispered, and I was actually delighted to hear the nervous catch in her voice. It made me feel that the two of us were somehow on an equal footing, both uncertain and both intimidated by the ordeal that clearly lay ahead.
I looked over towards Lohni with a sense of solidarity, but Relkada was between us and prevented me from meeting her eyes. At the same moment the carriage lurched to a halt, and I heard the ominous creak of an iron gate. Our surroundings were otherwise quiet, and I was certain that we had not entered the city. Karyana's palace was clearly on the outskirts, like Relkada's manor. I clenched my fists behind my back and tried to fight down a rising sense of panic as the carriage resumed its motion, its pace now slow and stately.
There came another pause, another creaking, another brief spell of forward motion, and then silence. The liveried coachman opened the carriage door and bowed.
"Welcome to the palace of your Suzerain," Relkada said, suddenly businesslike. "You've already heard how I expect you to behave. Are you ready to do your best for me?" She looked from one of us to the other.
"Yes, my lady," we all but chorused.
"Good," Relkada proclaimed with a brisk nod. She raised her eyes to Crell and Clista, who were seated opposite in patient silence. "They're to go straight up to the platform in the dining hall. The two of you will have to eat with Karyana's handlers unless she says otherwise, and I doubt she will."
"They aren't such bad company, my lady," Crell assured her.
"Are we going to eat with Karyana's slaves, my lady?" I asked. The mention of food reminded me that I was starving.
Relkada scoffed. "You're going to eat whatever you're given. Which might very well be nothing at all. And no more talking unless spoken to."
"Yes, my lady."
"Good boy." She surprised me by pinching my cheek, as she had after undressing me back in her own home. "I just hope Karyana likes you." Relkada cleared her throat, and turned back to the handlers. "Take them now, please."
Clista squeezed past Crell and accepted Lohni's leash from Relkada. Lohni rose to her feet and followed Clista out of the carriage without having to be told, though I thought I detected a nervous sigh as she stepped down. A moment later Crell took my own leash, and I stood up to walk obediently past Relkada and out into a vast stableroom with a high, vaulted roof. Grooms were already rubbing down Relkada's horses. The floor was made of hard-packed dirt, but someone had laid down a clean strip of white fabric that extended like a causeway from the carriage to a pair of wooden double doors in the wall opposite. I looked down at my bare feet with a smile, thinking that I had not expected Karyana to lay out a carpet to welcome a pair of slaves.
"It's not a kindness," Clista informed me, catching my gaze. "They just don't want your feet getting dirty. Slaves are generally more pleasing when they're clean."
"I understand," I told her weakly.
"Good. Let's go." She gave a peremptory tug on Lohni's leash and the two women moved off towards the double doors, which were standing ajar.
"What about Relkada?" I asked Crell as he began to lead me in the same direction, and he jerked brutally on the leash so that I stumbled haplessly after him for a step or two.
"Silence, boy," he said gruffly. Despite the constant tug on the collar around my neck, I was able to turn my head and look back towards the carriage, and I saw a naked man in a collar and a belt not unlike Lohni's help Relkada down and lead her off in another direction. I could only assume that he was a slave of Karyana's, sent to escort an honoured guest to wherever Karyana was planning to receive her. I felt a pang of something like jealousy when I saw Relkada casually caress his bare buttock and lean close to whisper something into his ear.
For our part, we were passing through the double doors into a warren of passages that Clista navigated with an air of familiarity. Although the corridors were narrow, they had an opulence that made even Relkada's house seem drab and rustic by comparison. The walls were panelled in dark wood, interrupted here and there by tapestries and hanging ornaments and weapons, and the smooth tiles that made up the floor bore intricate, subtly varying geometric patterns in muted colours. I could only imagine the expense and effort that must have been required, all the more astonishing given that this was evidently the part of the palace where menial domestics lived and toiled well out of sight of their betters. We were moving in the same direction as a stream of men and women carrying platters, steaming bowls and trays of goblets that could only be intended for Karyana's dinner table. Many of them were clearly free servants, the men in simple shirts and trousers and the women in equally plain dresses, but there were also a number of male and female slaves in simple, smock-like garments that left their arms bare and scarcely covered their nipples and genitals. We passed two slave men who were entirely naked and carrying between them what appeared to be an entire roasted pig, a female handler walking alongside them with a leather strap dangling casually from a thong around her wrist. I tried to catch the eye of one of the men as we passed by, but he turned away as if reluctant to see me or ashamed to be seen himself. Unlike the slave who had met Relkada in the stable, the men carrying the pig were not belted, and their cocks swung free beneath their thickets of dark hair. The sight of their naked vulnerability made me glad of the enveloping blanket that still concealed my own body.
They took us up a flight of stairs, which led into a long, curving corridor. The slave men were carrying their pig through a huge, arched door, and I expected our party to follow, but instead Clista led the way to a smaller doorway much further down the corridor but opening in roughly the same direction. She paused with her hand on the iron ring of the door and fixed Lohni and me with a stern gaze.
"Best behaviour," she said warningly. "No talking, no foot-dragging, definitely no struggling. That's a personal instruction from me. If I'm not satisfied with how you comport yourselves, I'll make you pay no matter what Relkada says." She grabbed Lohni roughly by the chin. "You know I can do it," Clista added menacingly.
"Yes, Clista," Lohni gasped.
"So tell him," Clista commanded, nodding towards me. Lohni turned her head but kept her eyes down.
"She can always find ways," she told me in a breathy monotone. "Relkada owns us, but it's the handlers who get us up in the morning and put us to bed at night and keep an eye on us in between. If the handlers have it in for you, there's no escaping them. And none of the other handlers will go against Clista."
"Couldn't have put it better myself." She pinched my chin between her thumb and forefinger, just the way she had held Lohni a moment ago, and the grip was powerful enough to be mildly painful even though she was not digging in with her nails. "Got it, boy?" she asked curtly, putting her face close to mine.
"Yes, Clista," I said with great sincerity. Of course I was going to be on my best behaviour. I was so frightened that I felt as if my belly was full of ice. From behind the small wooden door I could now make out the sounds of laughing voices and the courtly music of plucked zithers. The room beyond could only be Karyana's banquet hall, and Lohni and I were about to be marched into it with collars around our necks.
Clista opened the door, and I realised instantly just how much sound it had been absorbing. The banquet hall was enormous, and probably more than a hundred people were already seated along both sides of a series of wooden tables. The laughter and conversation emanating from the tables would have been loud in itself, and combined with the zither music and the clatter of dishes being laid down it made a cacophony that seemed deafening after the orderly bustle of the servants' corridors.
Remembering Clista's injunction against foot-dragging, I hurried after Crell as he advanced into the room. The floor was of grey marble tiles, cold under my feet, and I could see that the banquet hall was an oblong, high-ceilinged chamber with a gigantic hearth at one end and a towering statue of a falcon at the other. The falcon was an ancient symbol of the City of Ariskayne, and the sight of the proud beak and cruel talons reminded me forcefully that I was a helpless captive in a foreign land that was hardly renowned for gentleness and mercy.
We were closer to the statue than to the hearth, and our end of the hall also appeared to be the one reserved for the nobility and other favoured guests. I could see a number of patrician faces that I remembered from the auction hall among the company seated around the table nearest to the falcon. To my surprise, Relkada was already there as well, and seemed to be deep in conversation with a tall woman seated at her left hand. Most of the people around the high table were also women, although to my consternation I also recognised the bearded man who had tried so hard to purchase me earlier that day.
The female figure at the head of the table, in the very shadow of the falcon, could only be Karyana el-Hatri. In contrast to most of the people around her, she was wearing nothing more ostentatious than a plain silk blouse and a pair of loose trousers, and her jet black hair was cut short like a slave girl's. I wondered if these apparent eccentricities were actually a backhanded assertion of her status, a statement that her power and authority were so obvious that it did not matter how she dressed and groomed herself. Her skin was dark even by the standards of the city, light brown rather than olive, with small dark eyes embedded in a face that was perhaps not beautiful but certainly striking and sensual. As I watched, a nude and entirely hairless male slave leaned across her to pour blood-red wine into her goblet, and she seized him by the back of the neck and pressed her wide, full lips to the smooth skin of his shoulder before dismissing him with a casual thrust of her hand. An impatient jerk on my leash made me realise that I had slowed down to stare at her, and I hastened after Crell obediently. We were being led towards a wooden platform near the head of the table, a kind of waist-high stage that measured about two paces on each side. The musicians, two men and woman, were on a second stage further down the table.
To my surprise, Karyana's eyes swivelled towards us and she made a slight, beckoning movement of her hand. Crell and Clista must have been watching her for a possible signal, because they immediately changed course and led us over to the head of the table. Relkada smiled at us and addressed the Suzerain.
"I hope they are to your liking, your excellency."
"I can hardly tell when they're bundled up like that," Karyana complained. Though her tone was diffident, and might even have been taken for one of displeasure, her eyes seemed to twinkle in the bright lamplight and her lips had curved into a faint smile.
"Unwrap them," Relkada said simply, as though Lohni and I were gifts, and Crell and Clista unceremoniously divested us of our blankets. Although the banquet hall was warm, the sudden feeling of open air against my body still came as a rude shock that accentuated the discomfort of being exposed to Karyana and anyone else who cared to look. I had to admit that Karyana rather intimidated me, and not only because of her status as Suzerain of the city. She was nowhere near the physical size of Viyana but she had the same air of gravity and solidity, of being in complete command of her own domain. The difference was that Viyana's domain was limited to a single house where slaves were housed, trained and ultimately sold, whereas Karyana's encompassed the entire Free City of Ariskayne and the surrounding countryside. It was literally terrifying to find myself naked and chained in her banquet hall.
"Very nice," Karyana said after a moment. "I understand you bought him from Viyana just today?"
"This very afternoon," Relkada affirmed. "For a good deal more than I normally pay for the men, but I badly wanted a match for Lohni. Don't they make a pretty pair?"
"Lovely northern barbarian animals," Karyana said delightedly. "Although I know that Lohni has been well tamed, and I trust the same will be true of the new boy. What do you call him?"
"His name is Areth," Relkada told her. "I see no reason not to let him keep it."
"Indeed." Karyana seemed to be somehow weighing me with her eyes. "We'll see what he's made of a little later," she said finally. "Will it spoil your plans if we have them on the platform while we eat? I want my guests and my household to have a good look."
"I had planned on displaying them, your excellency. I thought we might also relieve Lohni of that cumbersome belt, and both of them of their shackles. They can't run away now."
"By all means. And as nice as those leather leashes are, I'd rather see them chained to the platform." Relkada nodded instantly, and Karyana turned fractionally to call out to a tall, slender woman in a dark coat. "Valthin! Bring chain leashes for Relkada's slaves." The woman inclined her head and moved off quickly through the crowd.
Relkada arose from the table and came towards us brandishing a ring of tiny keys. Her cheeks were a little flushed, and I could see that she was excited to be presenting Lohni and me to Karyana. Relkada came to a halt facing Lohni and met her eyes, and Lohni shuffled her feet apart with a small sigh. Relkada nodded briskly and reached down to unlock the steel belt that imprisoned Lohni's vulva. I turned my eyes self-consciously down towards the floor, then remembered that we slaves were supposed to be on display to each other as well as to our betters. I let curiosity drag my gaze towards Lohni as the belt came free, revealing a smooth mound of flesh that was as pale and perfectly hairless as the rest of her naked body. I had never before seen a woman with her groin denuded like that, her most secret parts exposed without even the slightest covering of hair. I stared, fascinated, and Lohni favoured me with a rueful little smile. Her gaze dipped downward, reminding me that I was on display to her as well, and I realised at the same moment that my cock had stiffened appreciably. I felt heat rising in my cheeks, but no one seemed to be taking a particular interest in my erection. What could be more natural, after all, for a male slave stripped and presented alongside a female counterpart?
"I'm going to unshackle your wrists and ankles now," Relkada told both of us. "Your collars will stay, of course. You're not to use your hands to conceal your bodies in any way, and you're not to touch yourselves or each other."
Without waiting for an answer she set to work on Lohni's restraints, and then mine. It felt strange to have my wrists free for the first time since the brief interval between being untied at Relkada's house and feeling the embrace of the steel cuffs.
Relkada lifted the stiff shaft of my cock with one finger, as if to display it to Karyana. "He seems ready for the evening's diversions, your excellency," she remarked dryly.
"Ready and eager, I would say, though I suspect he'll be sorely disappointed if he expects the desires pent up in his manhood to be satisfied. How long has it been for you, Areth?"
It was the first time she had addressed me directly, and the note of authority was as unmistakable as it was unnerving. "About a week, your excellency," I stammered.
Crell instantly slapped my buttock hard enough to make me gasp in pain. "You're a slave," he said gruffly. "Call her 'my lady'."
"I'm s-sorry," I stammered, feeling awkward and embarassed. I wondered how many other rules of protocol I was doomed to violate before the end of the evening.
"No matter," Karyana said lightly. "The boy will learn." She still seemed more interested in the state of my cock. "A week is a long time for a young male slave. Perhaps Relkada will take pity on you tonight after all." Karyana turned to Relkada and added, "Not that I'm trying to hint at anything. I'll allow your plans for the evening to unfold as you wish. Your genius is that you seem to know what will please me better than I know myself."
Relkada bowed slightly. "That is my vocation, your excellency. Shall I take them up to the platform? The servants are already laying out the meal."
Karyana inclined her head. "By all means."
Valthin had already returned with the chains. A dry, severe woman with grey-streaked hair, she did not exactly look like a slave handler, and I assumed she was a high-ranking servant of Karyana's. With the help of Crell and Clista she removed the leather leads from our collars and replaced them with gleaming lengths of surprisingly heavy chain, which Relkada took in hand to lead us to the platform.
"Up," she said, delivering a casual slap to my ass. I clambered a bit awkwardly onto the platform, and Lohni and Relkada herself both vaulted up much more smoothly. Lohni and I stood passive and unresisting as Relkada fastened our chains to an iron ring in the middle of the platform. We had a great deal of room for manoeuvre, but wandering off was clearly out of the question. Karyana and the guests at her high table watched us with hungry eyes, and the music of the zithers became low and ominous.
Relkada took Lohni by the shoulders. "On one knee," she commanded, and Lohni obeyed instantly with a small, worried frown. Relkada positioned her precisely, making her kneel near the iron ring with her hands clasped behind her head. Then it was my turn. Relkada guided me down into a reclining position, so that I was on my right side with one arm propping up my head and the other draped down behind my back. I faced the banquet table with Lohni looming behind me and my erection sticking out awkwardly in front.
"You are statues," Relkada informed us in a quiet voice that was clearly not supposed to reach our audience. "Smile, both of you, and then don't move a muscle until I say."
She dropped down and joined the others at the table, where heavily laden platters were already circulating. The musicians concluded their tune with a flourish and then descended from their own platform, their melodies giving way to the rising and falling murmur of conversation. I tried to remain perfectly still and to keep an artificial smile plastered across my features. I wanted to avoid punishment, and for some reason I instinctively dreaded the possibility of disappointing Relkada or embarrassing her in front of the Suzerain. No matter how determinedly I tried to think of her as nothing more than my captress and oppressor, I felt an insistent desire to please her and win her approval.
She interrupted her meal at one point to come to the platform and reposition us. Lohni and I ended up kneeling side by side with our hands behind our backs, our heads bowed and our faces solemn. My thigh and shoulder were pressed against hers, feeling her warmth, and my erection – which had softened somewhat as I lay on my side with nothing to do – returned with a vengeance. With my eyes turned downwards I could no longer look out at the obviously aristocratic crowd around the high table, but I could still smell the food and hear the carefree laughter. I sighed, knowing that I was condemned to hunger and helplessness.
I was surprised when Crell appeared suddenly in my limited field of vision. I was careful not to move, but I bit my lip nervously as he went round to the other side of the platform and vaulted up behind Lohni and me. I heard the rattle of chains and realised that he was unlocking us from the ring, and Clista came up to wait expectantly near Lohni's side of the platform. Crell handed Lohni's chain to Clista and took mine himself, then grabbed my arm to guide me down off the platform. The handlers led us over to Karyana's table, where most of the platters had been decimated. A few of the nobles were still picking at their food, but for the most part they seemed to be finished eating – and ready, presumably, for a little entertainment. I eyed Relkada and Karyana warily.
"Have them start at the far end," Relkada instructed, "by the fireplace. They can finish up here."
"Come," Crell grunted, and started to lead me down towards the servants' end of the table. However, Karyana intercepted him by laying a hand on his arm.
"Wait a minute, not like that," she said with a hint of excitement in her voice. "Relkada, I want the man to take Lohni and the woman to take Areth, if that won't spoil your plans too badly." Her resolve not to interfere with Relkada's arrangements seemed to be wavering.
I thought I saw a tiny, momentary frown cross Relkada's face, but she immediately nodded. "Of course, your excellency. Crell, take Lohni and leave Areth for Clista. Have them come down opposite sides of the table. Oh, and you'll need your straps, in case of reluctance."
Clista smiled. "But of course. This way, boy. You're with me." She grabbed my chain and led me towards the foot of the banquet hall, where stable boys and scullery maids in rough clothes of wool and leather and linen were stuffing themselves with food that was considerably coarser and plainer than anything on offer at Karyana's table. The distance seemed immense, and I walked behind Clista in a state of painful unease. Lohni and I were obviously going to be paraded somehow, but I was not sure exactly what to expect. I had a distinct feeling, however, that the experience was going to be an uncomfortable one and that Clista would enjoy every second of it. Crell was efficient and unsympathetic, but Clista seemed to approach her work with a harshness that bordered on cruelty.
Finally we reached the foot of the whole series of tables, where a stout female servant was just getting to the bottom of a mug of dark ale. Clista shifted her grip so that she was grasping a part of the chain that was only inches from my collar, and gave a sharp downward tug.
"Hands and knees," she said simply.
"Why?" I asked pleadingly. "What are you going to – ow!" She backhanded me across the mouth and smiled, as if daring me to argue further. Hurt and intimidated, I dropped into a crawling position, blinking back sudden tears. I was practically at the feet of the servant woman, who gave a rough laugh that was soon echoed by those around her. Looking up at Clista, I saw her nonchalantly unhook a heavy leather strap from her belt and heft it in her right hand, gripping the implement by a short wooden handle. Her left hand still held my chain in close, controlling grip.
The servants at the table seemed to understand what was happening, and turned their chairs so that they were facing out into the room. There was much chuckling and mutual nudging. I had only a moment to speculate about what it all might mean before Clista turned me around, by applying a gentle but unwavering tension to my chain, and began to lead me back up the table towards Karyana. She was walking very slowly and I heeled her obediently, trying to ignore the discomfort of crawling across a hard marble floor. The servant woman, still laughing, gave my ass a hard pinch as I passed by, and I winced in pain. Clista seemed intent on making me run a gauntlet of all Karyana's dinner guests, beginning with the humblest. When the man sitting next to the servant woman pushed a crust of bread in front of my face, however, I realised that this was also how I was going to be fed.
This development was a welcome one, considering that I was ravenous. A dry crust was not exactly my first choice, but at Viyana's House I had quickly learned that a slave could not afford to be too fussy about his diet. I took the crust in my mouth and choked it down, wishing I could at least have a little water. The man who had given it to me ruffled my hair, and I blushed and stared down at the floor.
Clista led me slowly back towards the head of the table, past a long line of rough leather shoes that eventually gave way to the high black boots of Karyana's guards and handlers and finally the exquisitely decorated footwear of the nobility. A minority of the people at the table simply ignored me as I crawled by, but many of them reached out to slap, caress or pinch my naked body and some offered scraps of food from the table. I greedily accepted more pieces of bread, the occasional vegetable or spoonful of rice, and once a strip of beef that I gulped down with real enthusiasm. I balked only once, when a young noblewoman held out a piece of purple squash on the end of an eating knife. She was probably trying to be kind, since people born and bred in the city tended to love the stuff, but I had always found it nauseating. I turned my head away decisively, only to feel Clista's strap descend hard across my shoulders. I yelped in pain and surprise.
"Take what you're given, Areth," she said coolly. The noblewoman tittered with laughter, grabbed me by the hair, and thrust the piece of squash into my mouth. I forced myself to chew and swallow, realising at the same moment that the young woman feeding me so insistently was the haughty-looking one who had bid on me during the early stages of the auction. Here at Karyana's table she looked far more relaxed, and seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to have a little fun with a slave who had slipped through her fingers. At least the man who had been bidding was on the far side of the table, so I was safe from him for the moment.
The journey up the table continued. Relkada touched the fresh welt on my shoulders as I passed her seat, in reassurance or perhaps as a rebuke for having earned the punishment in the first place. A moment later Clista hauled upwards on my collar, bringing me up short and forcing me to kneel erect beside Karyana's chair. Lohni was already on her knees on the opposite side, licking plum sauce off the fingers of one of Karyana's hands while the other caressed her short yellow hair. The darting movements of Lohni's pink little tongue fascinated me, and I had to admit that I was aroused by the sight of my fellow slave lapping at Karyana's fingers like an animal. At the same time, the plum sauce looked delicious, and to my humiliation I caught myself hoping that I would be allowed to have a turn when Lohni was finished. Once upon a time I had honestly thought that I could become a slave without ever beginning to think like one, but now that aspiration seemed hollow indeed.
"My dear," said Karyana finally, and to my amazement she leaned forward and planted a brief kiss on Lohni's lips. "My lovely golden bitch of the north. You'll be good for us this evening, won't you?"
"Yes, my lady," Lohni gasped.
"Good." Karyana stroked her breast and then made a small gesture to Crell, who dragged her roughly back from Karyana's chair. Clista nudged me forwards with her boot as Karyana turned in my direction. She loomed over me, a sturdy woman practically old enough to be my mother who also happened to reign over the city and everyone in it as a near-absolute monarch. There I was at her feet, a naked slave with a raging erection and a steel collar around my neck. It was all I could do not to literally tremble before her.
She reached out and grasped a handful of my blond curls with an air of solemnity, then slapped me fairly hard across the face with the heavy palm of her other hand.
"Oh!" I gasped, and Karyana mimicked the sound with a curt laugh.
"Why am I always so much harsher with your men, Relkada?" she mused aloud, and I reflected gloomily that my hopes of plum sauce were probably as good as dashed. "Do you have a secret talent for buying the ones that bring that out in me?" She was still holding onto my hair as she spoke, and she was slowly twisting her hand back and forth so that I squirmed and gasped in discomfort.
"I simply try to find ones that will please you, your excellency," Relkada said coolly.
"This one pleases me very much indeed. It's just that he pleases me best when he's like this, kneeling and in pain. Valthin?"
"Yes, your excellency?"
"Do you think we might find another hundred crowns for Relkada? She's brought over a real prize this evening."
"Of course, your excellency."
Valthin hurried off, as if to see to it at once, and Relkada inclined her head. "Thank you, your excellency." I could see her only out of the corner of my eye, but to my surprise she looked only cautiously pleased. A hundred crowns was a considerable sum of money, and it was clearly in addition to some previously agreed payment for providing the evening's entertainment.
Karyana turned her attention back to me. "Is the fare at my table to your liking, Areth?"
"Yes, my lady," I said at once, and Karyana broke into a wide smile.
"I'm so pleased. Here, I'll let you sample a little more of it." She carefully cut what appeared to be a lump of pure fat and gristle from a piece of meat on the nearest platter, and tossed it casually onto the floor near where I was kneeling.
"Please, my lady," I said faintly. Karyana's smile widened as she gave a small nod, and Clista's strap cracked across my buttocks with enough force to make me groan aloud in pain. I was not sure I had ever been hit harder, even by Baric back at the House.
"Again," said Karyana softly, when I still hesitated. Before Clista had time to strike I swallowed my revulsion and lunged for the disgusting morsel Karyana had selected for me, picking it up directly off the floor with my mouth. Clista instantly seized me, dragging me back up to a kneeling position and holding shut my mouth and nose until I swallowed. When she finally released me I drew a long, unsteady breath, suppressing with some difficulty an urge to vomit.
"It will only get worse from here," Karyana told me seriously. "I think they could go to the performance room and stew there while we have dessert, don't you, Relkada? The larger, less intimate one, since we have so many guests tonight."
"Of course, your excellency," said Relkada, sounding a little relieved. "I'll let them have some water and a latrine break, too. They'll need their strength for what I have in mind."
"I hope you're going to put Areth on the spiderweb," Karyana said thoughtfully. "I'd love to see him properly strung up."
"That can be arranged, your excellency. Any requests for Lohni?"
"Just cage her for now, and tie her hands so she can't do anything naughty with them. We can decide what to do with her when everyone is assembled."
"Very good, your excellency. I will be back very soon." Relkada stood up from the table and snapped her fingers. "Areth, Lohni, on your feet. Come."
Crell and Clista led us out of the banquet hall through a small door that led into a narrow, carpeted corridor.
"What is the spiderweb, my lady?" I practically quavered as soon as we were out of earshot.
"You'll find out soon enough," Relkada told me firmly, caressing my smarting bottom. She seemed to have a penchant for touching the marks that Clista's severity left on my body. "I suspect you're in for an especially interesting evening – both of you, that is." Although she sounded as if she was looking forward to the prospect, I thought I also detected a note of uncertainty and even worry.
"I don't know what's got into Karyana, though," Relkada added after a moment. "Normally she's content to sit back and let me orchestrate everything."
"What does it mean, my lady?" Lohni asked anxiously.
"I suspect it means that Karyana likes Areth very much, and indeed that she likes the two of you together. Being liked by Karyana can be a dangerous proposition for slaves, mind you."
She halted and turned to us. "But don't worry your pretty barbarian heads about that. Your concern is to obey and try to bear your travails with some semblance of grace. Be silent now and follow. And whatever commands Karyana might give you tonight, don't forget that you belong to me." Relkada was speaking to both of us, but as she pronounced her final words her eyes were firmly locked on mine.
(To be continued eventually. I think I've learned my lesson about promising to post the next episode quickly, but I'll try to at least make it worth waiting for. Comments, suggestions, and scathing criticisms welcome as always.)
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Femdom Fiction: "On the Block", Part 3 - 
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