The Slave of Lidir

by Aran Ashe

  The guard carefully and slowly rubbed those leaves from side to side, and then, looking at Anya, ensuring she was watching still, he raised his hand again. The stinging smack against her swelling made her buck her hips again, and roll her head to fight off that surging need for her fulfilment. The guard waited gently touching Anya's ever thickening leaves, until her head had stilled, her eyes were open, and she looked at him again. His jaw was set against that pleading in her eyes. He bedded his hand more firmly to the joins above her thighs, so the pressure forced an ache of wanting into Anya's sex. The cruel hand of stinging pleasure was lifted up and, dropping like a stone, the fingertips snapped against those tight and polished flesh leaves, sending a delicious aching shock of pleasure through them. Then he finger-smacked her without mercy, very steadily, slapping down the length of Anya's bursting, blood-filled leaves, and slowly back up to the top, then concentrating on the fleshy hood, until her sex was filled with an aching welling flame of pleasure and that sharp vibration, transmitting through her rigid, puffed up leaves, right into Anya's nubbin, made her cry out: "No - Ahh, no, please, I beg of you, not this way ..." for her pleasure verged so very closely on release, and Anya was so ashamed that she would disgrace herself before this guard by taking wanton gratification in so debased a manner.

  "Well now ..." The guard rested his fingers against her burning flesh, and then squeezed it in a way which brought Anya very deep and cruel pleasure, as the pressure ebbed and then swelled again as if to burst her. "And has Milady thawed?" Anya turned her face away; she licked her lip, then swallowed. "Answer ..." His voice sounded so unsparing. "Has your stone cold flesh then warmed to my common touch?" The fingers kept pulling, palpitating Anya's leaves, until he had forced her to reply. "Speak," he demanded very softy, but squeezed those lips up tight and held them under that constant ache of pleasure.

  "Yes ..." she said, in shame and throbbing, miserable pleasure. But he would not let her be:

  "And this uncouth style of discipline, this smacking of her person - does Milady's royal flesh take pleasure in that too?" Anya shut her eyes; she did not want to answer; this question was too cruelly intimate, too abasing. She could never bring herself to say it.

  "Answer." Anya sealed her lips so very tight; he could never make her say it. "Very well." There was satisfaction in his voice. "Since this discipline means nothing to you, we shall take it one stage further."

  And now, each time he smacked those fingerpads against her pleasure-soaked leaves of flesh, he forced her first to hold her breath and to bear down very hard into the join between her thighs, and to contract her bottom tightly round the thumb that pushed inside her, so her belly felt as hard as iron and her sex was pushed out further, after which the slaps were that much more telling. The ache of pleasure was so great that after only five such slaps - each one timed precisely to come at that point where pleasure ebbed away - Anya began to gasp and moan; she tried to close her legs about the hand that held her cruelly open, against those shameful contractions which made her nubbin pulse so hard and so very, very lewdly. The guard quite simply stopped and watched, and waited till they slowed. Then he made her squeeze very tight indeed - the first time, he was unsatisfied about her strength of squeezing, so he made her start again and hold her breath again whilst squeezing - for a count of ten - while his hand was poised above her, ready to descend. And this time Anya's sex began to spasm even though the hand had yet to drop. Her belly shook; she gulped for air, for she was ready now to deliver her body to this shameful degradation there and then - but now the guard had decided not to allow her that release. He jumped up, and dragged her to her feet. Anya was still shaking; her sex was still contracting as she was made to stand there, under his direction, with her feet placed wide apart, her hands behind her head, and the grey guard's fingers pulling at the curls of Anya's bush, pulling Anya's leaves apart, holding Anya very open as Anya's pip pulsated in her desperate wanting for release.

  The guard then waited until the contractions in her sex had lessened, though they would not stop completely, and Anya, after each very short respite, would feel again a pulling sinking feeling which her body tried in vain to fight against, and then that irrepressible tumbling squeeze of pleasure focused in that spot. It made her thighs shiver in their tension, and the tiny gasping tongue between those leaves, held so wide apart, reach as if to touch against warm flesh that was not there. He flicked that pulsing tongue, waited till her shivering belly shakes had stopped, then kept wetting his fingers and milking it slowly, then pausing, keeping her legs wide apart, then repeating the milking until she gasped out, "Please ..." She could not bear that pleasure any more. Suddenly, he let go of her, but would not let her close her thighs; the guard stood up, and smiled a smile of evil satisfaction.

  "And so, her ladyship's flesh had lost that edge of loftiness and finery." And then his voice was grating: "Her ladyship is now nothing but a bitch in heat." Anya's neck was burning, in her shame. "A common wench whose flesh," he placed the back of his hand against her openness, and drew it sharply away, as if it had hurt him, "Whose flesh is boiling up with lust. A wench who pleads for satisfaction." Anya was mortified. Her heat was there - she could not deny it - but she had been forced into this cruel state of degradation by what he had done, and now the guard was blaming her. It seemed so wickedly unfair. "Do not look away from me. We soldiers like a simmering pot of flesh like this. In fact, we must not let its heat escape before we serve you up."

  He forced Anya to march before him in a most degrading way, by standing behind her, then thrusting his hand between her legs, cupping her swollen mound and holding it a prisoner, whilst her wrists were pinned, high up behind her back. That hand was so large that it almost lifted her from her feet, and then once more, she could not even close her thighs; she had to walk with her legs apart. And in this shameful fashion, the shaking prisoner was marched along the corridors, then up into the courtyard, in broad daylight, for everyone - freemen, peasants, guards and masters - to see.

  They laughed to watch her stumble in the muddied snow, and then to see her dragged back to her feet, only to be led with greater roughness than before - with his fingers now thrust inside her flesh 'to keep a firmer hold' - towards that very gatehouse where she had been admitted to the castle, then through a door and up into the guardroom.

  13

  Defenders of Lidir

  The wave of sickly heat, the staleness and the smell of sweat and long-spilled beer met her, and the raucous laughter stopped. Anya looked down, at the paths cut through the congealed sawdust drifting on the floor, and then through half closed eyes she risked a look at that discordant crew - the short, the tall, the ruddy-faced and the pallid, the unkempt, the unwashed, the drunk and the downright filthy and, sitting at the table, a man clad, not in drab, but in a black leather jerkin, a man who clearly stood out from the rest. And Anya glanced around the walls, bedecked with swords, and knives, cudgels, drums, horns of bronze, and red and gold banners. Above the fireplace, stretched all the way across the wall, was a tapestry, fringed in red and gold braid, which seemed to be an image of this land, showing hills and forests, lakes, fields of corn and rivers stretching to the sea; below this picture were rows of ciphers - symbols of thoughts and words, Anya recognised them to be - which probably told a story. In the middleground, set against a storm-filled sky, was a great grey castle - the Castle of Lidir - and in the foreground, an image of a woman in white, with head held high, and long red hair that flowed around her shoulders. She seemed so strong and so defiant. How Anya wished that she could show such courage now, against her captors.

  Then all those eyes were fixed upon her as the guard held her up. Her wrists were back to back above her head, and the hand was in her crotch; her feet were scarcely touching the floor. She was held up like a chicken at the market. And Anya felt as limp and lifeless as that chicken. Those eyes, scattered about the room, by the fire, lolling up against the wall, and sitting round the table, were so intent, so piercing;
a dozen knives struck through her flesh and bedded in her heart. The last remaining drops of Anya's self-respect welled out of those wounds and left her drained of any spirit.

  "Another pigeon for the pot," the guard declared and, shoving Anya down the steps, he sent her sprawling across the table, overturning mugs of beer and plates of meat and game and pastry. Anya just lay there, face down amid the disarray, for she was too terrified to move.

  A hand stretched out from the opposite side; it grasped her by the hair and pulled remorselessly until she cried and squirmed and thrashed her arms, but all to no avail. The pulling still continued, and now her hair was twisted, forcing her over on her back, so her feet were on the table; she had to crawl upon her back through all the food and drink; it was the only way she could stop her hair from being torn out by the roots. And in this manner, screaming, crying, fighting back, she was dragged across the table until her flailing arms were seized by strong, not large, but determined hands and she was staring, upside down, at a rugged youthful face, a smooth yet incised blue-black chin, pale blue eyes and black, black, slightly wavy hair, and those lips that descended now to seal about her own, to imprison them in a powerful but sensitive and deliciously upside down embrace which, against all her fear and pique and indignation, somehow made her belly want to melt.

  "Though my table is all bollixed up under your direction, your Captain likes your fire, wench. Your Captain likes your heat." And as he bent to kiss her again, Anya felt the lukewarm beer seeping slowly underneath her shoulders and soaking down her back, like the heavy, honeyed seepings lower down, which her slowly overturning tightening belly was squeezing so deliciously from her so defenceless person. For that kiss of self-assured tenderness seemed so overwhelmingly sincere, so lusciously inviting, so welcome, that her body cried out for those strong soft lips again.

  His hands cupped around her cheeks and beneath her upturned chin, and held her very gently whilst he kissed her - a host of tiny kisses planted on her eyelids, cheeks and chin, the corners of her mouth, that furrow in her lip, below her nose, and then more definitely, moistly, on her upturned bottom lip, just sucking at its fullness. Without releasing that gently captivated swollen fruit, his hand moved down her body - it tiptoed down her length, across the swelling of her bosom, across that hardening knot of brown-black softness which was now angled to the side, as it capped the heavy weight of Anya's milk-white breast, and then the hand crossed the rounded smoothness of Anya's belly, so tight in her desire; it parted Anya's softened curls, and then - more tentatively - those softened leaves, to reveal that tiny, pearly bud of flesh, which was swimming in a tiny pool of Anya's female liquor. And Anya's need was so intense, with that kissing, oh so gentle, that nothing mattered to her now but that the kissing should continue, and progress. She did not care that she was outspread on the table, with food and drink spilled all about her, with all those other eyes upon her, ogling her. But now those whisperings and muttered gibes had all but died away. Anya felt as if her body heat - the weight of her desire - was rising from her in a column, and anyone with a heart that was not stone could surely feel that heady weight of sensuality which now descended on the room to intoxicate those erstwhile gloating eyes, to melt those hard hearts with that soft and tender distillation of Anya's loving need.

  Anya opened her mouth to make her lips into a liquid, pouting 'O', to take the Captain's tongue, not to suck it, but to stroke it with the tender, ticklish, inner skin of Anya's lips. And when his little finger touched her, the shudder was transmitted to those lips about that tongue; they pressed around it in a shivering band of nervous flesh. Anya cried a tiny, muffled cry of pleasured protest, through her nose, and her tongue-tip curved to touch his, very lightly. Her tongue-tip showed his little finger how to touch her, how to elicit that depth of blackness of desire, by circling gently round and round that pulsing nub, only barely touching and tapping at that liquid coated tip, at the pace her tongue-tip now dictated. And in the way her lips pushed up around it to draw his tongue more fully into her mouth - the more clearly to expose it to that precisely licking tip - so his fingertips pressed back the hooded join of Anya's leaves, the more definitely to subject her sweet and pushed-out, defenceless nub to those tickling strokes and tiny palpitations that his finger now bestowed. Each brush of Anya's tongue evoked a brush upon her nubbin; the stifled gasps of pleasure kept sounding through her nose. The tongue withdrew, but very slowly; her lips sucked down it to the tip, until that last seductive drop of spittle was shed into her mouth. The Captain looked at Anya for a very long while, and all that while his fingertips, though unmoving, held those leaves of flesh apart. Anya was dissolving in a sea of liquid honey. He looked upon her in her desire; she offered her body to him, in her eyes. She wanted this very powerful kind of loving to transform her; she wanted to drown in this oily sensuality. The Captain seemed to fill her with such delicious, black excitement.

  "Your Captain has never met a wench so hot and so inviting." His voice was very deep and smooth. "He wishes to take this invitation slowly, he wishes to taste this tempting heat." Anya swallowed. The Captain took her by the waist and slid her towards him till her head and arms now overhung the table; her back was arched and her breasts pushed out. He licked in Anya's armpits; he licked into that delicious cup of soft, red curls; his tongue lapped at her body scent, that heat of Anya's fears. Then the Captain stood, and kicked the chair away and gathered her in his arms. And now the jeering started; Anya closed her eyes against the grinning faces, the nudging elbows, the knowing winks and shaking fists; she shut off her ears against all the crudity of tongue, and curled up away from those touching, pinching, probing fingers, reaching out towards her, as the Captain carried her, past the taunting line of guards, to a doorway in the corner of the room.

  He opened the door and peered inside. "Out!" he shouted. "That wench should have been returned two days ago!" Two very dirty, very sheepish guards emerged, with a bedraggled, grimy bondslave close in tow. She looked at Anya with hollow, frightened eyes, and then was hauled away. It made Anya very fearful of what might have been in store for herself, if the Captain had not happened to be here to keep these beasts at bay.

  And for how long might her ordeal last? The Taskmistress had said nothing about that. She realised for the first time that nobody else would be aware of her fate. How would they know she was here, if the Taskmistress did not choose to send for her, if the Taskmistress did not choose to tell them? She tightened her grip about his neck; what if she were to be left down here forever?

  The coarseness of the taunts broke in and stopped her dwelling on this thought. "Save some of that dainty pigeon flesh for us, Captain!" Anya was burning up with humiliation at such brutishness. Just whistle when you need some help!" She hated these creatures, for their savagery and baseness. "Give her good measure, Captain. - But mind you do not burn your stopper!" These animals were disgusting. Anya clung around the Captain's neck, for protection from this ruthless vilification.

  "You'll get your turn!" the Captain cried, as he carried her through the doorway.

  Those words, so casually expressed, were icy fingers round her heart; her body went very limp and heavy; her blood was turned to water. She looked upon that face which she had trusted, which she had thought she had understood, and then she had to look away; how could all her feelings have been so totally misplaced?

  The Captain stood her on the floor, then slammed the door and bolted it against the shouting and the banging. He kicked it, and then the thumping stopped and finally, the mutterings died away.

  Anya had been taken into a small, low and very humble room, which looked like a cell, except that it bolted from the inside. Daylight filtered through a long thin window in the corner. The floor was blanketed in straw. There were three small beds, also covered with straw, and two simple chairs, but no other furniture. The place had the same stale smell that the guardroom had, though this time, it was overlain with dankness.

  "Choose your bed, and spread you
rself upon it." The Captain simply placed a foot upon a chair, and began to unlace his boot. He seemed so cold-blooded now, and so insensitive to her feelings. Anya was trembling. "Did you not hear?" He had raised his voice. Anya could not move. The Captain kicked off the boot, and then untied the other. He did nothing further until this too had dropped to the floor. Then he walked over to where the petrified slave was still standing by the door. His face was very close to Anya's. Though she could neither trust nor understand them now, still his eyes seemed to hold such power over her; his eyes were melting her.

  "Spread your legs." He never took his eyes from hers whilst he opened her with his fingers. "You shall accommodate my touch. You shall do so whenever I choose to penetrate you - do not tighten - in the fashion of my choosing." Anya had to spread herself to take him fully in, to allow his fingers to probe so deeply up into her person. She was trapped, between that gaze and that penetration, and that turmoil deep inside her. That honeyed taste of fear, that baseness of submission, seemed to cause a churning pleasure in her womb. The Captain then withdrew his hand and wiped it in the curls of Anya's belly.