by Anya Howard
It was a strange feeling to know this. Even after she had disobeyed the rules, they wanted her. Many of the prisoners made her uncomfortable, yet she was sure she would get used to their disapproval. She was beginning to admire the reliably stern Madam. The guards made her feel safe. Her roommates were all sweet girls. She saw that, together, Leather Wives and Disciples were the balancing forces of Nemi. She continued to wonder about the elusive Ur’theriems, mainly why they cared so much about Earth and the fate of its inhabitants. But there were other questions as well.
What exactly were Ur’theriems? That handsome Xaqriel, was he one of them? Were they truly angels, or incubi, or something else altogether?
“Demons of spirit.”
The unexpected words startled her. She spun on the grass toward the speaker and saw a figure standing in the shadowed clearing between the spiral and the woods. Naked and as towering as Xaqriel, his entire body was covered by skin of stone-gray scales. His eyes had the look of a human’s except that his irises were yellow. A mane of pewter-colored hair fell wildly about his shoulders. His mouth was at once cruel and exotic, and when he stepped to the very edge of the circle, every hair on Gillian’s body stood on end.
Somehow she managed to rise and speak. “Who are you?”
“Come out here where the shade is kinder, so that I may see you clearly,” he answered.
Gillian could not have moved if she had wanted to. He paced the boundary of the spiral, his features revealing a myriad of emotions she could not decipher. When he looked up again, his eyes had changed to a soft shade of olive. Almost seductive they were now, and with them, he canvassed her from head to toe. His right hand touched his great manhood. It was russet-colored and had a fat spade-shaped head. He stroked it slowly, from the heavy balls to the head and down to the root again, compelling it into an upward-arching snake in his palm.
Gillian looked all over for signs of the others, but there was none. She tried to tell herself there was nothing to be afraid of; this was surely only one of Xaqriel’s brother angels.
His lips formed a circle and he blew toward her. A blast of heat wafted through the boundaries and licked her flesh. Her senses were drugged with an overpowering lust.
“Come to me, little one!”
Light, feminine voices sounded from the woods, snapping her hypnotized mind back to consciousness. She watched as he cocked his head toward the sound and narrowed his eyes. As the voices drew closer, his scales altered to a mottled tint of indigo, and then into an ill orange hue. The air grew hotter until suddenly his legs and torso burst into flame. All of him above the waist diminished to a swirling semblance of flesh. As Gillian faltered back, gasping, she watched his face spin and blacken, and before the next inhalation of her breath, the creature of flame diminished into an indigo spark no bigger than her fist and rocketed into the cloud-wisped sky.
Gillian was relieved to see Domme Camille and one of the priestess’s attendants walking toward the circle. She ran to them and told them what had happened.
Domme Camille’s brow furrowed and she and the attendant both searched the sky.
The attendant murmured a single word: “Dhjinn-E’noch.”
The Leather Wife smiled wryly at Gillian. “You were wise to stay in the circle, for his kind cannot pass through it. But you must take care now to never venture alone out-of-doors. Now that he has laid eyes upon you this close, he may come looking for you. We must report this to Madam.”
Gillian sighed. She felt as if she should miss the enlightening privacy the moments alone had allowed. And yet, such moments were not to be had often, she realized, and her instincts sensed the day still offered ripe and exciting prospects.
“Now, be silent again, dear Gillian,” Camille told her firmly, “for your probation is over and ’tis time for real work.”
8
For extra security, Prisoner Jay accompanied them to the pavilion. On the way, Domme Camille told Gillian that she would be working that afternoon for one of the prisoners given limited trustee privileges.
“Although not ready to be trusted outside the immediate scrutiny of the guards,” she explained, “these men have been evaluated as ready for supervised governing of the Disciples. And though there will be guards about, you must remember to show this man obedience. Always be compliant, submissive, eager. So for the afternoon you must think of him as your master, and seek to please him as you would me or any other Leather Wife.”
Upon entering the meadow grounds, Gillian looked at the pavilion. Sunlight poured through the canvas and the breeze played with the ribbons that were tied at the tops of the poles. In the distance two guards stood at the section of fence near some shade trees. A single prisoner paced near the pavilion’s entranceway. He pulled aside the entrance flap for a Disciple who emerged with a chamber pot. It was not the pavilion to which Camille headed but toward the far grounds at their left. Passing two guards talking among themselves, Gillian then spotted what she had not seen during the night: a small stream on the other side of a knoll beside this part of the fence. It flowed from the surrounding woodland and cut gently through to meander toward the prison outskirts.
She followed Domme Camille down the knoll, where six or seven baskets of dirty laundry had been assembled. Nearby was a clothesline that hung between two high wood braces. Two Disciples knelt on the bank and washed clothes, piling the wet, clean items into the baskets that must have previously contained the dirty heap now turned out over the grass nearby. A prisoner overlooked them from the knoll. Upon seeing Domme Camille, he trotted over and inclined his head.
“Domme Camille,” he said. Despite his pleasant tone, Gillian perceived a hint of mockery in his voice.
“Prisoner Thomas W., our new Disciple, Gillian, will be under your supervision for a time. When you are finished with her, the guards will oversee her until my return. Oh, and I shall have enough lunch sent for all the girls.”
The prisoner shrugged. “There’s really no need. The prison maids always send more than enough.”
Camille nodded and gave Gillian a parting cautionary look. “I’ll be back in time to take you for dinner in the household tonight, Gillian. Do behave.”
Gillian watched her start away with Prisoner Jay and turned with a silent sigh to Prisoner Thomas W. He was an unimposing man with sandy hair, but the smirk on his face betrayed his inflated ego. Still, he spoke congenially enough.
“You will carry the loads of washed laundry to the clothesline to hang.”
She nodded and waited as the other two girls washed what was left of their load. When the basket was full, she picked it up and toted it away, finding a cloth caddy filled with clothespins on the line. While she worked, a shrill squeal arose from across the meadow. Gillian looked up to see the prisoner she had seen earlier at the pavilion entranceway now chasing a Disciple through the grass. The guards watched, too, as he caught the Disciple by the wrist and heaved her up over one shoulder. She fussed as he carried her into the pavilion and moments later, Gillian heard the rapt sound of a fleshly chastisement echo from inside. The Disciple wailed out in despairing apology, and the guards exchanged grins and went back to their conversation.
When Gillian turned back, Thomas W. was regarding her hard. As she lowered the basket, he walked up on her.
“No one told you to stop working, did they?”
She shook her head, and she saw how he was trying to mimic the self-possession that came so easily for the guards. He amused her in this, but she knew better than to let him see it.
“No, sir.”
“Well, don’t do it again.”
During the next hour, Gillian secretly caught sight of the prisoner at the Pavilion as he and the Disciples came out again. He held a double chain in his hand. It was locked to the wrist cuffs that had been put on the girl she had seen before. He turned her over to the guards and started toward the prison gate. Gillian did not watch further, remembering the recent warning. Her arms were starting to grow tired from the cont
inual lifting of the wet clothes. To her relief, a guard arrived soon with a tray of sandwiches and grapes and a small-lipped stone jug. These he handed to Thomas W. With the guard gone, Thomas W. called the girls to come eat with him on the grass.
As they all left their tasks, he sat down and patted the ground to his right. “Here, Deidre.” And gesturing to his left, “You here, Patsy.”
Gillian saw them obey immediately, each reclining daintily on one hip. Thomas W. looked up at Gillian and said, “You may sit across from me, just like they do.”
She complied, though she found it distasteful to have to face him. As Thomas W. divided the lunch among them all, she wondered why she disliked him so much. Her feelings toward Clive had been so different.
When they were all finished eating, he made an announcement that startled her.
“You may now show me your appreciation, girls.”
Gillian watched as Deidre and Patsy bowed and kissed his bare feet. As their lips pressed his feet, he shoved up the hem of Patsy’s violet dress and pulled her panties down. Then, pulling down those under the hem of Deidre’s gold jumper, his hands roamed over their upturned pussies.
He eyed Gillian expectantly. “Well?”
She flushed, but made herself crawl around the tray and kissed the same foot that Deidre’s lips pressed.
“Very good, girls,” he murmured and lay down on his back. “Patsy, take off those bloomers and come here.”
Patsy hopped up and removed her panties. She went to Thomas W.’s outspread arms and mounted his chest. His hands plowed up her dress so that he could grope her breasts. Over her lascivious moan, he told Deidre to unbutton his pants.
His cock was hardly the biggest Gillian had ever seen, but it was erect and pointed straight to the sky.
“Deidre, you take care of that,” he said, “and Gillian, you eat her pussy while she does.”
Gillian lifted her head as Deidre crawled to his side and drew his cock into her pursed lips. Thomas W. pulled Patsy’s hips up so that her pussy hovered over his face and parted her pubic hair. As Deidre concentrated on sucking his organ, he drilled Patsy’s damp sex with his tongue.
“Are you just a voyeur, Gillian?” He watched as she crawled behind Deidre. His eyes were still upon her as she grasped Deidre’s hips and began to work her tongue over the exposed, glistening mound of Deidre’s pussy.
A few moments later, he drew Patsy down completely over his mouth. Gillian concentrated on her own task, prodding Deidre’s ever wetter slit with her tongue. After a while, she paused and masturbated Deidre’s clit with two fingers, watching as the girl’s head bobbed up and down over the prisoner’s cock. The sight of her firm, tanned buttocks whetted Gillian’s own desire; the rising moans from Patsy made the desire almost painful. She plunged the forefinger of her other hand into Deidre’s pussy and felt the girl climax.
Deidre moaned deeply and paused in her sucking as the orgasm passed through her quivering limbs.
“Oooh,” she cried out. Swaying her butt back and forth, she begged, “Deeper now, fill me!”
Thomas W. stopped eating Patsy’s cunt and said, darkly, “You mind your own work, Deidre.”
She whimpered but obeyed. Gillian licked her pussy and thighs, careful not to stir her too much lest it break the girl’s focus. Soon Patsy wailed and fell forward, shuddering fiercely. Deidre reacted by sucking Thomas W. faster and did not stop until he went limp with his own orgasm. She swallowed his cum without spilling a drop, but as Patsy dismounted, Gillian saw the grimace on his brow.
He ordered Gillian to pull up his pants and button them. She did so, looking hungrily at his dwindling cock. She didn’t really want him in particular, but all she could think about was riding some man. Thomas was content just to order them back to work now that his appetite was sated. He didn’t even offer Patsy or Deidre a kiss.
Now Gillian understood her dislike for him. For whatever progress he made in his attitude toward women, he sorely lacked any sense of cherishing those with whom he was intimate. She was not surprised that his privileges were limited. At least Clive’s only drawback seemed to be a hesitance in taking command.
For an hour or more, Gillian and the other two Disciples worked. When the last shirt was hung on the clothesline, the guard who delivered the tray returned. As he took it up, he spoke to Thomas W.
“You can escort them inside now,” he said, his gaze sweeping over the three young women. “The girls who usually take fresh linens to the solitary ward are elsewhere today.”
Thomas W. seemed to take great delight in ordering his charges to walk before him to the prison grounds. There were two guards to welcome them at the gate, but Gillian noticed their tone toward Thomas W. was far from cordial.
One of these said to Thomas W., “So, how did you enjoy an afternoon impersonating a man?”
At the guard’s gesture, the three girls walked in, followed by the now angrily flushed prisoner. Gillian heard Thomas W. reply to the guard, “I’ve brought them back to serve in distributing lines in solitary, Sir George.”
Sir George inclined his head toward the looming red brick prison. “You go on then, Weems. I’ll escort them to the storage keeper.”
Thomas W.’s mouth hardened and his eyes were almost contrite as he looked at the Disciples.
“See you later, girls.”
He walked off then, through the heavy double doors of the prison. As the Disciples fell in step after Sir George, Gillian again was struck by the atmosphere of the place. Smoke billowed out of one of the three chimneys and voices could be heard through the barred windows. Its sober, no-nonsense design reminded her of a photograph of a Victorian workhouse she had come across once in an encyclopedia, and the rusty red bricking only added to the dismal ambiance.
Sir George opened the doors and she followed Patsy and Deidre inside. To her surprise, they stepped onto a courtyard of red stone tiles, where the full light of the sun filtered in through a plate-glass roof. As they walked through, Gillian looked up to her right and saw the bars of the cells on the second floor. The left side of the building was a walled annex. A sign that hung over the only door leading into it read: GUARDS AND SUPERVISED WOMEN ONLY. The courtyard was well maintained, with hanging plants and flowers in wooden bins set about. A shallow pool with lily pads vining over the water’s surface had been constructed in the center of the stones. A prisoner sat on a bench beside it, gazing at the golden carps that swam about.
At the end of the courtyard stood a statue of what Gillian assumed was a carved effigy of an Ur’theriem with its great wings and severe countenance. Its left arm stretched gracefully up, while its right held a thunderbolt tightly in its palm. But it was the spot between its thighs that drew Gillian’s surprise. A naked Disciple had been mounted right on the statue’s penis, her wrists encased by manacles bolted into the stone just below the concave navel. The girl’s hips strained gently but fretfully against the intrusive phallus. By the way she pouted Gillian knew she was tormented by frustrated passion as well as humiliation.
As Sir George led the trio past the statue, he playfully smacked the thigh of the bound Disciple. She whimpered, eliciting a smile from the guard. He continued past, to a door at the wall they came to. It must have been over seven feet high, and he had to unlock it before even attempting to open it.
“On in, sweeties,” he said as he held the door open. The girls scurried through, entering a passageway of smooth, bright sandstone. There were doors everywhere, and as they proceeded, Gillian glanced through one that was opened somewhat. It looked like a canteen of sorts. She could see Disciples running back and forth bringing pitchers and mugs to the guards sitting at the tables. Through another door, she saw great stone ovens and hanging baskets filled with onions and other vegetables, but it was empty for the time being.
Sir George stopped at one door and ordered the Disciples to wait while he went in. He came back out soon, carrying two armloads of sheets, which the girls took and divided among themselves.
They followed him to the end of the passageway. Here they ascended a wrought iron staircase. Sir George led the girls up, bringing them through the arched entranceway of a high-vaulted circular room. The common floor was solid red brick and there were no windows except for a thick oval glass positioned in the center of the dome. Dozens of doors circled the length of the mortar wall, and candles burned in sconces between each one. A sliding panel was set high at each door; narrow wood panels, about the length of a man’s forearm, all latched with chained iron pegs, dropped through iron loops that were screwed into the wood of the doors.
“I’ll be waiting for you on the second floor,” said Sir George. Turning, he left the Disciples and returned down the staircase.
The echo of his voice eventually died away, but the cool dankness of the place seemed to creep into Gillian’s bones. She shivered and Patsy rubbed her arm briskly.
“It’s not so much the temperature as the place itself,” she said kindly. “But we all get used to it.”
Deidre wrinkled her nose. “And sometimes this atmosphere gives the impression the air reeks, but in truth, the guards keep the cells very clean.”
Gillian looked around and said curiously, “I saw cells above that courtyard. Is that not where the prisoners are kept?”
“This is the solitary hold,” explained Patsy, “where the most stubborn prisoners are kept. They are confined here either because of their incorrigible attitudes, or are in wait for the verdict of the Ur’theriem council.”
Gillian frowned. “Verdict?”
“Yes. If they have served a long while and it’s found they are simply beyond rehabilitating, the Ur’theriems hold a hearing to determine their future.”
Deidre nodded darkly. “If their crimes were not violent before coming, they are sometimes allowed to be taken back to the time when they were apprehended. If they were violent, however…” Her words drifted off for a moment or two and she sighed. “Well, the Ur’theriems feel it is their responsibility to eradicate them so they cannot return to harm others. It is a serious consideration, to take the chance in altering the world’s destiny by the death of a mortal. But as they oblige themselves in the moment they remove a prisoner from his earthly time, they feel duty-bound in assuming responsibility for him and all those he has affected, or may affect, during the natural course of his mortal life.”