Choice of Masters

by Joey W. Hill

  When Zorac had brought her here, she had no experience, no understanding of the knife edge of arousal he had invoked within her. In her ignorance, there were no shields to protect her from her body’s responses. She had no control. Zorac had allowed her free rein around the castle and she had flung herself upon guardsmen who were strangers. She had wrapped her legs around them and undulated shamelessly against their cocks while they laughed. As each guardsmen bore her to the rushes to thrust into her, it heightened her raw desire. When one man relieved his own need, the next took his place. In the end, she rolled on the dirty floor, half-mad, her hands seeking herself, rubbing herself furiously for something, she knew not what. Her hands were wrenched away. In those first days, she was often chained up on the table, like a rabid dog, to buck in a sensual display for the pleasure of the guardsmen. A gag silenced her wails of confusion and need. Zorac watched her ignorant distress with a look of grim satisfaction.

  She had learned then what true hatred was, and that she had pride that existed beyond childish vanity and self-pity. She learned to suffer her body’s torment in silence, to fight her desire to rub and fornicate every second until exhaustion granted her a few moments of sleep. She learned it was tolerable if she was able to be still. Movement of any kind made it worse. Walking, the rubbing together of one’s thighs, sitting where one’s privates were in contact with a cushion, all those were things to be avoided.

  She grew paler and thinner, but she grew proportionately stronger in will. The fire of hatred that fueled her rose into her eyes and burned there, so the guardsmen, while not averse to fucking her, rarely met her gaze.

  She found her shields. She could not stop the desire from wracking her body ceaselessly, but now Zorac had to go to extra efforts to reduce her to those levels. She had no illusions. He could do it. Sometimes he pushed her that far, just to show her he could, but he seemed satisfied knowing how much effort she had to devote to keeping the slightest amount of dignity for herself.

  Zorac had thought to punish her further with Thomas, as he had punished her by using her for the entertainment of his guests in the past. But Thomas was different.

  She could no longer hold her shields in place. It was as if the first climax had shattered them, cleansed her with those purifying elements of fire and water to prepare her for this, this plunge into the primitive grasp of dark earth and howling winds. Her body arched higher, and still her passions were stoked, the phallus rubbing her in tiny, sinuous circles on a place inside that would destroy her when it exploded. Her thighs spread wide, straining against the manacles, working it, and the earthen lance thrust in deeper, rasping against her silken walls. The wind rose outside, and she cried out, a guttural cry, as the feathers picked up their dance, every touch a diamond spark against quivering, sensitive flesh.

  “Thomas, my lord,” she gasped. “Thomas…”

  His name gave her an anchor, and he was there, at her head, by her side, kneeling where she could see him. He was so beautiful. She wondered if he knew that, how his amber eyes and copper hair enhanced a strong, sensual face that no woman would ever forget. And as if that were not enough, he had been blessed with a lean, muscular body that seemed quite capable of serving a woman’s every need, whether it be from her heart or body. And he was hers, wasn’t he? Didn’t he say so? Why did she resist the thought?

  “We may not touch, my lady, not yet,” he murmured. “Though I dearly wish to do so. But I am here. Do not be afraid. Let every shield fall, and give yourself to me.”

  How had he known? She suddenly, desperately wanted to reach out to him, could not bear it if he moved away. She was afraid to do this alone, without his touch. Her mind was no longer able to think of anything that had sustained her until now. Not pride, not hatred. All that was mutable, but there was Thomas. Thomas was somehow eternal. She could almost see the light of him shining through the earthly skin and bone as she spiraled higher. The body would wither away in time, but the light would remain, would always be there to warm her, guide her.

  A gust of wind loosed the shutter and the hard clap, along with the burst of erratic air, stroked the feather across her gate. Her thighs yanked back against her chains as if she was about to give labor, driving the phallus hard into her.

  The light from Thomas exploded, blinding her, consuming her. The climax rolled over her with the power of the ocean thundering just beyond the castle. She felt as if the energy detonating from within her could have called the sea to rise up over the diminutive structure of Zorac’s castle, crash over and through it, drowning them all.

  She suddenly could see herself through Thomas’s eyes, her body immersed in sensuality, her breasts thrust up as rigid as mountains from the slopes of the earth herself, her hair spread like fire upon the unicorn’s pelt. Her dark eyes were onyx embedded with amber, and her slim fingers clutched the pelts she wished were the secure anchor of his skin and muscle.

  She was helpless as an infant, and she gave a cry of terror and loss.

  I shall not survive this.

  I am here, Lilith. I am here.

  Her breasts were impossibly full. They would have spilled over the cup of Thomas’s large palm, and she could imagine them there, caressed by his long fingers. Her cunt was spilling honey over the contours of the cock inside her, onto her thighs, soaking the fur beneath her.

  The cry escalated into a scream, the movements of her hips pumping her impossibly higher. The feather licked her like a wet mouth, the wind its breath, playing in among the saturated fronds.

  Her sweating body formed a bridge, rising up in a graceful arch from the pillows. She was still screaming. The pleasure was tearing her, taking her on a ride like a galloping horse, rushing for a cliff. The stallion flung itself into the air. It tumbled her into a glittering stillness of white light and final, powerful silence.

  I can take no more.

  I am here, my lady, my own…

  Thomas, my lord…

  * * * * *

  She was floating in that whiteness. There was no form or shape to the world around her. It was peaceful, still, the whiteness given texture by drifts like clouds traveling through the air around her, touching her skin with the kiss of fog-like mist.

  Had she died? No, she knew she could not be dead. Somehow the ritual had taken her here. Perhaps this was the sacred circle of which he had spoken. Perhaps she was unconscious and dreaming.

  She heard laughter, unkind laughter coming from the throat of a girl she knew, and her heart stilled. She turned, and the mist lifted a few paces away, as if she had the front seat for a stage play.

  She looked at herself as she had been five years before, a prettier version, with a voluptuous body and no lines of pain or dark shadows in those bright brown eyes.

  Her younger self stood before a young man with a fall of blonde hair and an earnest, somewhat scholarly face. He knelt to her.

  “What may I do for you, my lady, to prove my love?”

  “No,” Lilith whispered. She felt Thomas here, behind her, and did not want him to see, but she could not turn, could do nothing but watch.

  The girl looked at her hand, clasped in that of her suitor, and considered. She blushed modestly, but Lilith saw the bored annoyance beneath the flirtatious lashes. It was so obvious, she wondered the young man did not see it.

  Many of the young men pursuing the ideal of courtly love had gotten more obsessed with their flowery phrases than the women they claimed inspired them. But if she had only known how to look, through the eyes of experience and wisdom, she would have seen that this boy meant them deeply, even if his passion obscured the mettle of the woman to whom he said them.

  “Prove your love to me in arms, my lord. Take yourself far away, to the service of Christendom and our country, on the borders. Die with my name on your lips.”

  Her voice was so gentle in its mockery, he never heard the acid undertones. Lilith wanted to believe she hadn’t meant it, but she knew the truth was worse than if she had meant it. She ha
dn’t cared whether she meant it or not. She had simply wanted him gone.

  He stood, keeping her hand. Lilith’s fingers fluttered, remembering her desire to pull free, get away.

  “Your wish, my lady, is my only desire. Grant me a token of yours to give me strength and to send back to you when I have proven my love to you.”

  She didn’t care for the necklace she wore anyway. It was a gift from her aunt, who had the taste of a stable hand. This was a good way to be done with it. The young Lilith put it on his neck, accepted with barely contained impatience his fervent thanks, and turned away. She did not bother to watch him leave.

  The older Lilith watched the young man. He pressed his lips to the garish medallion of her necklace, touched with wonder the skin of his neck where she had touched him when she placed it on him. He had been so young, but she realized he had likely had no more years than she had now. She felt centuries older than he had ever been.

  Hot tears stung her eyes and she reached out a hand, but the boy was gone. She recoiled as another stepped through his melting apparition. Zorac, with the same blue eyes as his younger brother, only his eyes and mouth were hard with grief.

  The wizard strode to the younger Lilith, where she played with her friends in the solar. He spoke his introduction and extended the necklace. “My brother sends this to you as proof of his love.”

  Lilith watched herself take it, visibly try to remember who this man’s brother might be. She shrugged, assessed the value of the gift she also did not recognize, then laid it aside. She used the moment to assess the potential of the messenger beneath her lashes and found him to her liking. She smiled up at Zorac in practiced innocent flirtation. The expression died before the rage that swept over his grief-ravaged face.

  The images wavered and dissipated in the mist, and Lilith stood, staring at where they had been. She had lived portions of those two scenes over in her mind so many times. This time it was so real, it allowed her no place to hide from any moment of it. She could offer no apologies, could not beg for forgiveness, for her crime had been so great, she did not have the right to do either.

  “How may I prove my love to you, lady?”

  Like a warm wave of tears that passed through her entire body, his voice spoke to her.

  Lilith turned.

  Thomas stood ten paces away, but in this dream reality, his words were against her ear.

  He was naked, as she was, and she drew in her breath at the fineness of him. Strong limbs, thighs and arms covered by a light mat of hair that gleamed with the same copper highlights of his hair. His proud cock was aroused and thick. She looked at it and it was as if her eyes were intimately connected to all the nerves of her body, for she could feel what it would be like to have the broad shaft of that cock against her dripping sex. She could feel it push in between the walls of flesh and claim its sovereignty in that dark, moist castle.

  She had never felt that way about any man, not under Zorac’s spell, not ever. He was here, in her world of sorrow, stillness and shame. He did not come to condemn her, or exonerate her, but to stand at her side. His lips and eyes reflected his love and gentleness.

  Perhaps it was the purifying steps of the ritual he had taken, perhaps it was some magic she did not understand. However, the pride he had roused in her to resist his claim melted away. She was here in this space, just Lilith, and she needed him in her life, more than she would ever need anything again.

  “I am not worthy of your love,” she said, her voice as small as she felt herself to be.

  “That is for me to decide, lady. How may I prove my love to you?”

  She faced him, two beings as bare and alone as the day Adam and Eve faced one another in Eden, God’s presence a mist around them.

  “Be my Master,” she said, “and never leave me.”

  She moved then. It was ten steps to reach him, and when she got there, his arms were open. She moved into them and him, pressing all of herself against him. She choked on her emotions as she realized she could raise her arms, wrap them around his hard waist, and hold him as close as he was holding her.

  “How will I prove myself to you, my lord?” She spoke into his chest.

  “You need do nothing, my lady, but be who you are.”

  She could not dare to trust the simplicity of that, but in his arms, here, it felt possible. “Will you kiss me?” she asked, as she had before, on a more earthly plane. She was seized with the fear this was a dream, and she would wake and none of it would have happened.

  “I will do much more than that, Lady,” he said, his head bending to reach her upturned face. “It is time, now that you have accepted me, to make you mine in truth.”

  Before she could reply to that, his lips were upon hers, and all the hard urgency she had seen him bank within himself as he prepared her for the ritual now poured into that kiss.

  His palms slid down her bare arms, cupping her elbows, drawing her in so her breasts were on his chest. His cock pressed in a hot and insistent way against her, almost comforting in its demand, the wet tip making a line of need across her skin. Her hands clutched his sides, tracing the bottom of his ribs, wondering which was the empty spot where God had given one from man to woman, to join them forever.

  “Your mouth, lady,” he murmured. “Open it to mine, as you will your moist cunt to my lance, in due time.”

  She obeyed, and his tongue found hers, stroked, thrust and made her open wider, press more tightly to him, and keen deep in her throat, her fingers digging into his skin.

  Yes. More.

  He broke the kiss, turned her with irresistible strength so her back was against him, and he could caress her at will, explore her body as she rested against him, secure in the circle of his arm, his cheek pressed against her hair.

  He did not explore her in the way she expected, touching her in those places men were wont to touch. He molded his palms to her shoulders, feeling the structure of the bones pressing into his hands. He slid his grip down her arms, and she could feel the sensation, every inch, because of how slowly he did it, learning her, as she learned to accept his touch upon her. He curled his knuckles, followed the indentation of her ribs down to the flare of her hips.

  He was destroying her with his soft caress. Everything inside her trembled, as if her heart itself was capable of tears. His thigh pressed against her buttock and leg and she turned her head, pressing her jaw against his chest as he continued his exploration. He moved his fingers forward, down the curve of her stomach. He lifted his touch from her, just a breath away, and raised the fine hairs of her flesh with the heated aura of his fingertips. Her hips lifted and he made a soothing noise in her ear to settle her down.

  “This is difficult, my lord,” she whispered against his skin as the white mist of this sacred plane curled around them. “It hurts.” Her chest and stomach were aching with something that felt like a wound.

  His lips brushed the back of her neck, and his arms came all the way around her, one across her chest, just above her breasts, the other about her waist, his fingers splayed out on the point of her shoulder and hip.

  A quiet sob, like the sigh of a fawn in a hidden glade, escaped her lips. He held her like that in silence for awhile, letting her feel his heart beat against her shoulder blades, his cock pulse against the small of her back. The taut strength of his thighs, the heat of his chest and stomach against her skin, the movement of his breath against her neck and ear. She felt the white mist roll around them, a blanket shutting out everything but each other and that heart thudding against her. She was weeping, and she did not know why.

  “You will have to choose once more, Lilith,” his voice spoke through her. “You’re almost free, but you must be willing to make a choice, believe you have the right to do so, in the world we have left.”

  She knew he was right, but did not want to face it yet, for she might make the wrong choice, and this would be the last moment of peace she might know again. She knew there was not another Thomas in the world for
her.

  As if he could read her thoughts, he pressed his lips to her throat, using a hint of teeth at first, and then deepening the bite. He did not break the skin but he pressed down hard, marking her in a way she felt tingle to the tips of her breasts and deep within her cunt. She swallowed, and made to turn, but he held her still, cupping her breasts, and ran his fingers over them like the touch of air.

  “Speak your Master’s name,” he said, soft.

  “Thomas,…my lord.”

  It came to her lips before she thought it. It was there, as easy to her as her own name. He had been right, what they were to each other. It made her so terribly afraid, the stark truths of this place where nothing could be hidden, against the reality of the world to which she must return, where her sanity depended on what she could hide.

  It was one thing to obey Zorac by force, another to choose in this way. She realized how little she had given to the wizard. Her body and her hatred were such a little part of the person she was. He was her jailer, not her Master. A Master wanted what Thomas wanted. A total surrender, no secrets, no shields, nothing between them, spirit meeting spirit.

  He turned her in his arms, his eyes intent and burning with the strong light of stars. “I see you still need convincing, my lady,” he said. “Put your arms around my neck.”

  She obeyed, lifting arms that felt as weak as the day she was birthed to his shoulders, and curled them there as he eased her up to her toes, pulling her in to him. He lifted her. She gasped as he effortlessly, and with precision, sheathed his cock deep into her, his hand coming down to the plate of bone just above her buttocks to hold her firmly seated, the other arm around her back.

  It was like the moment of Creation itself, an astounding sensation that catapulted her body’s nerve centers into screaming ecstasy and curious stasis all at once. It was not the perilous edge Zorac had made her ride. This was a sudden sense of utter belonging, of wholeness, that could never lose its sense of wonder. Her senses had known chaos and instability for so long. Now those senses rushed to embrace this wholeness, bond to it in the desperate hope that it never be taken away again.