The Slave of Lidir

by Aran Ashe

"Now you stay here, by the fire, while I'm gone, for I must bring the Taskmistress." Then Marella frowned. "She will want to examine you, Anya. You must do exactly as she asks of you. Promise me that?"

  Anya nodded, though her heart was beating faster. "The Taskmistress, she wondered anxiously, what will she want of me? In what way will she examine me?

  "Do not speak unless she asks a direct question, and keep your eyes averted. Address her as "Ma'am", but only if she asks you something. You must not speak first. She may appear very ..." Marella was searching for the word, "... stern, but that is her duty ... You have nothing to fear if you do precisely as she asks of you. And she will be asking nothing that is beyond your capability. Now I must go." And Marella disappeared through the door.

  Anya was feeling really quite frightened by now. She did not like the sound of this person at all, and she was very worried about what might be done to her; Marella's reassurance had been too guarded to give her any comfort in that respect. She felt so vulnerable like this, with nothing but a blanket around her. And that man - he was no protection for her - it was he who had brought her to this. She wanted to cry, but the tears would not come.

  When the Taskmistress arrived, Marella crept in quietly behind her. Anya, still stationed by the fire, felt a wave of cold; an icy plume enveloped her and she began to shake. The Taskmistress seemed tall and thin, and older than Anya but not so old as Marella; she wore a long red flowing robe; her hair was dark - it could have been black - and was tied up at the back. Anya had been able to make out no more in the instant the woman walked in, for she had remembered Marella's words and kept very still, with her eyes cast down towards the floor. Her husband was still behind her; he had hardly moved since they arrived, and hadn't spoken since Marella had left the room. He was probably standing by the table, Anya thought. Marella remained over by the door.

  The woman in red strode across to Anya and, turning her sharply, she looked her in the face. Anya very wisely did not look up. The woman's fingers were digging through the blanket into her arms.

  "I am Ildren, your Taskmistress," she announced ominously. Her voice had a hard edge to it, as if she had spoken through her teeth, as if, thought Anya, she were full to overflowing with hatred. "You shall address me only as "Ma'am", or "Taskmistress"." The grip on Anya's arms tightened. "Only if I speak to you shall you address me," she said. "And you shall not look me in the face unless I so require you. Is that clear to you?"

  Anya nodded weakly. Marella had warned her, but it still seemed frightening to hear it said, and in so cruel a tone.

  "Now - what is my name, child?" the woman asked more softly.

  "Ildren." Too late, Anya realised she'd been trapped.

  Smack! "Taskmistress!" the woman screamed. The blow across Anya's cheek nearly knocked her to the floor. She heard her husband jump and, at the same time, Marella's strangled cry, as if it were she, and not Anya, who had been struck. "In future, pay attention to what your Taskmistress tells you," the woman glowered, taking Anya's other cheek between her thumb and finger and pinching it cruelly. Anya could feel the tears beginning to well, but she fought them back again. She was determined not to give in and cry in front of this evil-hearted woman; she would deny her that satisfaction for as long as she was able.

  "Let this be the first and last time I am forced to chastise you in this way," Ildren warned, then she suddenly changed her tone: "Anya ..." she said slowly, "yours is a very lovely name." Marella must have told her my name, thought Anya, but she did not know what to make of this statement. Was it just another trick, to make her look at the Taskmistress, or smile perhaps and then be struck down again for such a display of emotion? Her cheeks were burning now from her ill-treatment. She decided to say nothing, and to keep looking at the floor.

  "And now we shall see if you are really as lovely as your name suggests," the woman said very slyly. "For now I must examine you ... Open your mouth."

  Anya was terrified; she did as she was told, but she was shaking uncontrollably - she did not know what to expect of this woman.

  "Keep still," the Taskmistress ordered. Then she looked in Anya's mouth, examining her teeth it seemed, lifting up her tongue, then holding her mouth open with two hands, as if she were examining a horse to see how old it was, to see if it were a bargain. Her fingers tasted strange and spicy, not unpleasant really, but the way she pushed them deep into Anya's mouth made her want to retch.

  "Now close your mouth. - Don't look at me," Ildren warned. She had dark brown eyes, Anya had noticed, and full and luscious lips. She hadn't expected that. "Fold the blanket down, around your waist," the woman called; she was now behind Anya.

  And what she saw made Ildren catch her breath, then bite her lip, and slowly lift up Anya's curls to expose a neck so white it turned the hair to fiery red against it. Anya's shoulders and her upper back were drenched in red-brown freckles; she looked as if she had walked nude underneath a cascade of freckle-tincture; the droplets coalesced to powder shades of bay and burnt sienna, then dusted down her back to pearly white, flecked here and there with nut-brown. Ildren ran her fingertip right across the shoulder, from one side to the other, then absent-mindedly turned over her hand and examined the finger end, as if perhaps subconsciously she had been expecting it to have changed colour. She took hold of Anya's arm and turned her round, so she faced away from the fire, then saw her nipples, which in this light looked black against the white swell of her breasts.

  Ildren's breathing had changed, Anya noticed - it sounded slower, yet heavier, and she was reaching now to touch her. Anya shivered as her breasts were lifted on the backs of Ildren's hands, and the hands next slid away to the sides, so her breasts fell and gently bounced; the feeling was delicious. Then Ildren cupped and pressed the breasts together firmly, until she made the nipples touch, and she rubbed them slowly up against each other, until they stiffened up to points, then pushed them wide apart again, so they brushed against the fine downy hair which covered Anya's arms. The Taskmistress was watching her face intently all the while, Anya knew, though she did not dare look up.

  "Lift your breasts," Ildren said quite simply, and Anya did as she was bid, though with difficulty, since she had to use both elbows to hold the blanket at her waist to prevent it falling away altogether.

  "She is not with child ...?" Ildren had addressed the man; once again, Anya had been ignored. How would he know, she wanted to say, this is my body. Anya knew very well that she was not pregnant, so why did the woman not ask her opinion? How could a man, especially a man such as this, who had scarcely ever ...

  "No ... no," the man replied after a pause, though he did not sound at all certain.

  The Taskmistress brushed Anya's nipples very gently with her thumbs, then squeezed them harder, as if she were in some way expressing dissatisfaction with his answer, as if perhaps she expected milk to seep out from them. His response only made her probe more deeply:

  "She is not then ... a virgin?" It was clear from her tone that she now thought it a distinct possibility. Anya shifted uneasily; what if she should want to check for herself? A cold chill ran down between her legs. She hoped her husband would be more convincing this time.

  "No! She is not!" he cried, as if he had been accused of some terrible crime. Anya relaxed a little, and allowed herself an inner smile, at the ardour of his words on this subject.

  "Lift your breasts up higher." The blanket almost slipped, and Ildren's lip curled in a half smile. Anya kept stealing glances when Ildren was engrossed in other things, and she was certain the woman could not see her. She wanted to try to fathom this person, who seemed so calculating and cruel. The Taskmistress was now fingering Anya's nipples again, rolling them alternately between her fingers, sending little quivers through them, making it feel as if they were joined together by a thread which was drawn taut between them and looped around her backbone. She closed her eyes. Each stroke of the Taskmistress's fingers tightened the thread, until it thrummed inside her, making her want to .
..

  "Black cherries ..." Ildren said softly, "with a stone." Now she was tapping each nipple very gently. Anya felt her knees begin to sag. "I wonder ..." Ildren's voice was deeper now. Anya could hear her breathing; it sounded fast, as if she were out of breath but trying to control it. "I wonder ... Your rashers, your fleshy fin-tails, will they be shaded like your berries? Will they be a match for them in hue?"

  The shock of what she'd said made Anya freeze. It was as if a long-embedded stone had been overturned, and slimy, crawling creatures were worming out in every direction - Anya's shame, long bottled up inside her, was spilling out again. She opened her eyes, to a second shock - the Taskmistress staring straight at her. Immediately, Anya dropped her gaze, but her heart was in her throat.

  "No ... look at me, my child. I am right, am I not?" Anya slowly raised her eyes, but kept her lips sealed tight against her shame. "It does not matter; I can see your answer in your eyes," the woman said, then suddenly she bent her head and pressed her ear to Anya's breast, and Anya could smell the faintly spicy aroma in her hair. "I can hear it in your heartbeat, child. You can have no secrets from your Taskmistress - your body is my domain. I shall acquaint myself with every little thing about you; every detail of your make-up I will come to know, so I can understand your feelings and your needs ... until I know you better than you know yourself." And with that, Ildren placed her palms against Anya's breasts and then rotated them very slowly against the nipples, barely touching her, until Anya wanted to close her eyes again. "Now tell me," Ildren persisted. "For I shall see them soon enough: are your lips around your fleshpot black?"

  Anya's heart was thumping and her head was buzzing. Her lips quivered; she hesitated, then coughed, then furrowed her brow, then finally took a very deep breath.

  "Yes," she said at last, then bent her head and closed her eyes. Her head was bursting and her cheeks were burning now with shame. It is true, she thought, I can surely have no secrets here, not from this woman.

  She heard the Taskmistress sigh, then go very quiet. Anya waited. When the Taskmistress spoke, it was in a very subdued voice indeed, as if she were speaking to herself. "Then it is true," she whispered. "She is indeed a rare beauty ..." and she sighed again.

  What could she mean by that, Anya puzzled? This stain upon her tenderness, this blackened rust burned into her flesh had been her bane ever since she could remember. How often had she scrubbed this blemish, rubbed it till the flesh was raw and bleeding, yet without subduing it one shade? And it had darkened with the years, as the affliction had ripened like some living evil imbued into her skin. She was branded; her stigma marked her out as different from other women - that much she knew, and the Taskmistress had now confirmed it - but rare beauty, she had said. Was her black shame, which had brought nothing but ridicule and degradation ever since she was a child, which she had even tried and failed to keep a secret from her husband, only to be made to witness his revulsion, giving way eventually to a grudging, complaining tolerance of her disfigurement - was this besmirchment of her womanhood then in some way prized in this castle? She could not believe it could be so.

  "Turn round, my dear," Ildren said, and Anya could hear the tremble in the Taskmistress's voice. She turned back to face the fire again. "Re ... remove the blanket." The voice had faltered this time. Anya let the blanket drop to the floor. There were butterflies in her stomach. Her hearing seemed heightened - it was as if she could sense everything in the room - Marella shifting by the door; the crackle of the firewood; its billowing warmth which licked about her belly and her breasts; her husband's heavy breathing; Ildren's breath upon her neck, tickling underneath her earlobes; the spicy scent which welled around Anya, threatening to envelop her; and in her mouth a salt-sweet taste of apprehension, mingled with suppressed desire. Anya swallowed. Her tongue felt swollen. She licked the fine-dewed salt-sweat from her upper lip.

  "Now spread your legs."

  Those words sent crawling shivers up Anya's thighs; a wave of gooseflesh descended in a curtain down behind her, from her middle to her heels; icy shivers cascaded down her buttocks and the backs of her thighs, and fingers of coldness slid around the front and out between her legs.

  "Do as I say!" the Taskmistress commanded, and her hand came round and pinched Anya cruelly on the underbelly of her breast. "Take that as a warning. In future, I shall not expect to tell you twice. Now proceed ..." Anya was terrified as she slowly moved her legs apart, expecting those wicked fingers at any moment to intrude between her legs and pinch her there, in her intimacy. She stiffened, waiting for the touch to come, then jumped when the woman spoke again.

  "Spread wider ... Now bend over. Place your hands about your ankles ..." Ildren caught her breath as Anya spread before her; those pure white globes were shaded-in too deeply at their parting, and the secret of Anya's staining stood revealed. The velvet darkness of the skin within her groove looked so unreal. It was as if Anya had been made to double over, in the pose she now assumed, while brown-black ink was poured precisely into the well within her cleft until it had filled the well, then had overflowed down around her flesh lips and dripped away at last exactly from their node.

  Ildren inhaled deeply. "Good," she said, "Now your Taskmistress shall explore you ... in your blackness."

  Anya started shaking. The involuntary movements of her legs and hips were magnified by the way her body was held like this, in tension. She had never had to expose herself in this lewd way - not to her husband, not to anyone. And now he was witnessing her degradation; if it had been only the Taskmistress, then perhaps she might have been able to bear the shame, but with him here, and Marella ... Marella, who was supposed to be her friend. Even Marella was doing nothing to intervene.

  The finger touched her in the split between her buttocks. It traced a line downwards, from the small of her back, but working very slowly, in slow brush-like strokes, very softly, backbrushing the skin-hairs after each forward caress, so it advanced along the groove of Anya's bottom very gradually indeed. Anya had never experienced a sensation like it; every nerve within her split was a-tingle now, as if a spider was working up and down in there, strumming the fine hairlets of her skin between its legs, attaching them together with its sticky filaments, until each touch, each nervous spider stride across the drumskin tautness of her flesh, set every hair aquiver. The searching fingertip found the point of Anya's spine, then tickled in a circle till the trickles of pleasure ran up and down her backbone, on the side towards her belly, making Anya gasp out loud in her delight.

  "So, you like to be explored, my lickerish beauty?" the Taskmistress murmured seductively. Anya did not reply; the fingertip was touching that secret, private spot, that place where Anya's outer self became instead her inside, in a tightened fleshy swirling pool of darkness. It was pressing lightly up against the mouth, then it whispered back and forth, then lapped across her tenderness as if it were a tongue-tip, caressing her unashamedly, and tasting her black desire. The stroking tickles resonated up inside her core and out between her thighs.

  "Enjoy, my gentle honeybee," the woman crooned. "And you shall find that all inside these walls is not as you have feared; for within the Castle of Lidir reside many pleasures and desires, the like of which you, in your inexperience, have scarcely dreamt, not even in the most carnal of your fancies." Anya blushed to hear such thoughts spoken out loud, even by a woman such as this. Then Ildren spread her cheeks and twirled her fingertip round and round against Anya's fleshy rim, and Anya's blush was crimson.

  The finger then retreated, and Anya waited; she knew it would move lower, for she knew the Taskmistress would want to test that other very private place, to peel apart the burning leaves, and to delve within her fleshpot. And if she were to touch her there, if she were to touch her secret, her tiny tongue of hidden pleasure and desire, that point of flesh unexplored by anyone but Anya, that nub now swollen with a throbbing aching need, then she knew that she could never bear the shame of it ...

  "Marella, br
ing me a chair," the woman commanded. Anya felt a sinking wave ripple deep inside her, and her belly contracted into a knot. She heard the Taskmistress adjust the chair behind her, then sit down upon it. When she opened her eyes again, she could see the hem of the woman's dress upon the floor. The Taskmistress was making herself comfortable, Anya knew, the better to examine her. She closed her eyes tightly when the hand brushed between her legs, and tickling amongst the curls, closed around her fleshpot.

  "So hot ... My child, your flesh is burning ..." A finger curled around her fleshy leaves and gently pulled, making the sinking pleasure weigh into that very spot which lay nestled uneasily in between them. The finger now was joined by a second; the two were laid carefully to either side of Anya's leaves, which were slowly eased apart. "Mmm ..." the woman murmured, making Anya's heart and belly sink. "A rose bud, so pink and firm and swollen ... and glistening with your dew." The fingertip touched it once, exactly at the tip, sending strands of burning pleasure up through Anya's belly, making her gasp for breath and making her want that touch again; she wanted to press her bud more firmly to the finger, to wet it with her drops of liquid fire. The leaves were softly pressed together and worked around her flesh bud, in a gentle rolling pull which made Anya's heat begin to well in liquid, heavy waves.