Cyler closed his eyes to catch his breath, and when he opened them, he gazed into the brilliant blue orbs of his Hanna, his offering. The inside of her thighs glistened, as did the near-white mound between them. Her nipples, hard as the glaciers of Farjhem, heaved up and down with her ragged breaths.
As the attendants straddled her over him, Cyler witnessed the first flash of fear since she’d heard the truth of her future. Her lids lowered, eyes darkening.
“I won’t hurt you,” he promised, though utterly unsure he could keep the vow. He could not be held to what might happen when her soft, wet heat enfolded him. What he might turn into.
A single tear glistened at the corner of her right eye, and she bowed her head. “Aye. But I wish you would.”
Before he could say another comforting word, her hand reached for his cock and guided it into her core, with all the finesse he might expect from one who had been here for years, not moments.
At the second of connection, Cyler’s groan filled the air. Hanna’s slow, hot descent over his throbbing cock was torture. He was desperate to seize her hips and slam her body down over him, to fuck her into oblivion, until one or both of them passed out from the overwhelming pleasure.
Hanna pressed her tiny hands against his chest and maneuvered herself up and down over him, her wetness sliding down over his balls, between his ass cheeks. Instinctively knowing she needed something, but not sure how exactly, her movements were awkward and uneven. “Ahh, Emyr,” he whispered, as his hands found the ridge above the cut of her hips and he guided her, faster, faster. Driving the head of his cock along the rippled top of her passage, reveling in the heat and texture of their joining.
He would not last. There was no question of it anymore. Not with her soft, wet folds overcoming him without relent. Or how, having perfected the arched rocking motion he’d demonstrated, she quickened her pace when he pinched her nipples.
Remembering what Thaddeus had done the night before, Cyler slipped his thumb and forefinger between her legs, finding the sensitive bundle of nerves riding the ridge of his cock.
Hanna’s reaction did not disappoint. Her moans turned visceral, one hand pressing down on his, showing him exactly what she desired.
Cyler’s resistance crumbled and his orgasm erupted with a force that nearly sent the girl rocking backward off the altar. At the extra rush of wet heat his cum created, her own climax rippled through her and she fell upon his chest, panting and crying. Laughing.
Cyler’s head swam with a dizzy, delicious stupor, and he wished for nothing more than an endless sleep. But as the girl was lifted from him, drunk with her own pleasure, he had an equally consuming urge to talk to her. To make sure she was okay. To see if there was anything he could do to help her.
As the attendants ushered him away and tended to his cleanup with warm, moist towels, Cyler’s knees buckled and he pitched forward. He landed on his knees before the duchess, nude, spent, and utterly vulnerable.
“What say you now, Vakkar?”
“I am yours, Duchess,” he managed, before he succumbed to his exhaustion.
IX
Freedom! Was this what the other girls experienced after their first night? Could it be that anyone upon this Earth could embrace exactly the release Hanna did in the week following her awakening?
She thought not.
After, the glorious, breathtaking duchess had pulled her aside, offering a smile filled with pride. “You are my new especial favorite, Hanna. It appears I need not ask whether you choose to stay. What name will you take, for the remainder of your days? Select wisely. You can only do so once.”
“Illsa,” Hanna whispered, breathlessly, taking a shortened version of the Norwegian word for rebirth.
“Lovely,” Oriana replied, clasping her jeweled hands together in delight. “Well chosen. Your life here will be full of things the world outside could never offer.”
The duchess went on to speak, for the last time, of the truths revealed on the dais. Of her father’s selling her to a man who would sell her again. She spoke directly, but with a delicate tilt, gleaning to understand if Hanna—Illsa—accepted these truths and could leave them at the threshold.
How could Illsa convey in adequate words that it was these truths, these horrible, awful truths, which allowed her to see her life for the stark and tragic reality it surely was? She was nothing. Had nothing. For all she’d lacked the first two decades of her life, that poverty was nothing compared to what awaited if she’d stepped into a life with Johan and his wicked business.
In here, she was everything. Had everything.
“You need not ever worry about me, Duchess. I surrender all I was, to become all you offer.”
“Splendid. Now, go and join the other pets in your new and more lavish quarters. Embrace this life, and you’ll not want for anything, Illsa. Not ever.”
“Not ever,” Illsa whispered as the duchess sauntered away, moving toward her next amusement.
She joined the others in their new accommodations. The décor was similar to where they rested upon their arrival, but so much more vast… it seemed unending. As if they could walk, skip, run forever and never reach the boundaries. An entire world of elaborate flora and abundance beyond measure.
Sometime after her arrival, the hour of day no longer having any bearing on her life, five rules were laid out. Illsa listened with barely-disguised impatience, ready to be out in The Menagerie again.
Rule 1: Pets will wear no clothing while in The Menagerie. In private quarters, blankets and robes are allowed.
Rule 2: Pets must have their lavender bath prior to entering The Menagerie.
Rule 3: No long-term fraternizing between pet and pet, or pet and Empyrean. The Menagerie exists to sample delights. We do not abide relationships.
Rule 4: No violence of any kind will be tolerated. This includes sexual exploits of a non-consensual nature. All who are here, pets and Empyreans equally, choose their activities.
Rule 5: Pets are not to leave, for any reason, unless dismissed from the compound by the duchess herself.
Violation of rules one and two would be met with an initial warning, resulting in a one-week ban from The Menagerie’s delights. Violation of the other decrees were met with death.
Death. The weight of this last should have hit Illsa, but she could not fathom ever breaking any of the rules set out for her. She desired no long-term relationship and did not have a violent bone in her body. And why would she ever, in her right mind, choose to leave?
Of course, not all were like Illsa, unfortunately. While she, the twins, Greta, and Olav enjoyed their new lives, Nikola’s results were far different.
No one knew his fate, but they could guess.
Upon the completion of his awakening, he’d erupted in tears, begging to leave. The promise given them upon their arrival, that they could leave willingly, ended the moment they stepped upon the dais and surrendered to their secret sexual desires.
So while no one spoke of Nikola’s fate, they accepted he was with the Lord.
Rather than this angering the pets, or creating within them a sad indignity at this false note of freedom, they pitied him. A disappointment, a sadness that he could not see what they saw, or experience what they intrinsically enjoyed.
If he could not accept these things, perhaps death was the better alternative.
X
With a restful night’s sleep behind him, Cyler could approach the happenings of the evening prior with a clear mind.
His first thoughts were of Hanna.
Beautiful, innocent Hanna.
She’d stepped upon the dais an inoffensive young girl, on the eve of her life. Then she’d given it all away to the duchess, without question. She became someone else entirely as she sat upon him, riding him with all the expertise of a woman years into her sexual exploration.
And for what? A whisper of a tragic future? Who was to even say that any of what Oriana claimed was truth and not a carefully constructed lie,
aimed at pulling Children of Men from their families. Abduction disguised as a gift.
Entertaining these thoughts was treason. The duchess, while not highly regarded outside her own world, was still the duchess. The eldest daughter of Grand Emperor Aeron, and unpunishable for her willful disregard of laws in The Menagerie.
Blood rushed to his face, followed by a rough wave of anger. What had Hanna, Greta, and the others been told when they were swept away from their homes?
Cyler decided he needed to see Hanna. Only without distraction could he discern if persuasion had been used on her, and the others. If she truly had chosen this life with that unusually quick embrace, of her own free will, he could not and would not step in the way.
But if she hadn’t…
…no, he couldn’t think upon that quite yet.
That evening in The Menagerie, there were no further initiations, or “awakenings” as they apparently called them.
Instead, pets and Empyreans wandered around the lush garden paradise, the former in the nude, the latter in whatever suited them. Many were engaged in one embrace or another, fornicating with wild abandon, no care to those around them.
Across the entry wall, adorned with jeweled paintings, was a fresh coat of paint, red as blood. Not yet dry.
Cyler scanned for Hanna, his eyes falling on one blonde beauty after another. None were her. After an evening, sharing such an experience as they had, he would know her anywhere. Sweet, honeyed breath, set against lavender. Her feline eyes, with blue flecks that flashed with her ecstasy.
Oriana, thankfully, was engaged with some admirer or another, and did not seek him out. His head was hot with accusation and he needed to clear his concerns before addressing her. And he could not do that until he saw his Hanna.
Several figures emerged from behind a chartreuse beaded curtain. Five, he counted, before he realized these were the recently “awakened” pets. Where was the sixth?
In the group, he spotted her immediately, and didn’t hesitate to approach. Her pale, Nordic face lit up to see him, then blushed, glancing to her left as if she’d recalled the intensity of her ardor and decided it unmet.
“Hanna,” he breathed, unable to prevent his hand from brushing a stray hair off her forehead. His eyes fell to her small breasts and then strayed lower. He swallowed, but it did nothing for the growing hardness in his trousers.
“I’m Illsa now,” she replied, awakening under his touch. “You are Vakkar?”
“That is what she calls me here,” he answered, not needing to be more explicit on the definition of “she.” There was only one “she” in The Menagerie.
“Ahh. Will you be visiting often?”
“I leave in less than a fortnight.” I wish to take you with me, he thought, to himself only. He didn’t yet understand how much truth lie in the sentiment.
Her face fell. “I’ll be sad to see you go. Though, it matters not. Our rules forbid ongoing fraternization.”
“Do they? In what manner?”
“We are to choose a different mate each evening. We can visit with the same one more than once, but there cannot be any hint of attachment. We’re told some of the Empyreans have their favorites, of course, but they don’t visit often enough to invoke scandal. I know not what your punishment would be for such a violation, but for us, it is death.”
Cyler watched her. “What else is punishable by death?”
“Violence. Attempting to leave.”
And what of your free will, then? The double-edged sword of Oriana’s mercy grew clearer by the moment.
Cyler tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow, and led her across the gardens, moving at a leisurely pace, as was always required, but he did so for deeper cause; he wanted to ask things of Hanna, and he could not draw suspicion in doing so. He must be seen only as one taking his amusement.
He sat upon a silken bed, which was set up before a small but noisy waterfall, palmettos bowing over for privacy. Their words would hopefully be masked here.
Hanna straddled his lap without provocation. He groaned inwardly as her soft mound fell upon the hardness bruising his trousers. Heroism aside, he wanted her. Badly. And he may yet take her.
She nuzzled her lips at his neck. His eyes rolled back, and he swallowed again to steady himself. “Hanna, tell me, are you happy here?”
“Illsa,” she replied sweetly. “Of course I am. What a question!”
“I only mean that when I first laid eyes on you, you seemed terror-struck. Then a change came over you and I daresay you were someone else entirely.”
Hanna stopped her kissing and sat back on his knees. “We’re encouraged never to speak of our old lives, Vakkar. But I will say this, because it was you who brought me through my awakening, and you’ll always be special to me. My eyes were opened. I never questioned anything, not my station in this life, or why I could not choose my bridegroom. I never wanted more than I was given. But as I stood, listening to the words of the duchess, I realized I had been blind. So very, very blind. You cannot know my blindness! And now I see.”
Her words had a logical ring to them—had Cyler not heard the same ones, and been privy to her fate as the rest of the onlookers?—but the glint behind her eyes made him deign to press further.
“Weren’t there six of you?”
“Aye. But now there are five.”
Her answer seemed deliberately evasive. “What happened to the sixth?”
Hanna shrugged, and went about nibbling his ear. “Who knows,” she whispered. “We were told he was unable to remove his blinders.”
Cyler thought of his roommates’ rumormongering. Then of the red swash of “paint” on the entry wall.
A chill passed through him, and did not leave.
“Do you really believe your betrothed would have sold you into slavery?” he probed.
Hanna sighed against his ear. “Vakkar, you ask too many questions. Of course I believe, because the duchess has said it was so. Now… lie back and let me enjoy this evening with you, dear. For we may not get many more without drawing unwanted attention.”
Cyler retreated to his dormitory after dawn, ashamed of his weakened will. Hanna had a power over him, one he both allowed and could not help. Emyr save his soul, he’d gone in there wanting to assist her and ended up taking her for hours, without even a passing thought to her situation.
Sleep did not come for him that evening, or the next.
Three days in a row he visited her. In each liaison, she vacillated between the growing joy of his repeated presence, and the fear of being deemed too fraternous.
But if those who upheld the rules noticed, they said nothing. They left Vakkar and Illsa to their lovemaking, and treasonous whispers (the latter only from Cyler… “Illsa” would hear nothing of his promise of escape, silencing him with a kiss, or with her soft lips enveloping his cock). This absence of punishment forced Cyler’s boldness to a stronger action.
His departure was imminent; only a week away now.
Cyler was determined not to leave without Hanna.
XI
Illsa could not deign to count the blessings heaped upon her since her felicitous arrival at The Menagerie. Ahh, to think of what her life might have been! What she’d been rescued from!
Since being moved in with the other pets, she’d even begun to develop friendships. There were no rules against that, at least. Not that she found the other laws as restricting as some did.
Most were content to pay the small prices for this paradise, but a few dissenters spoke of treachery; of leaving. The stories they told!
Did they really expect her to believe the benevolent duchess painted the walls with defectors? Truly, now. The silliness of such a notion couldn’t be borne!
Currently, rumors were swirling about two pets who had fallen in love and been found out. You know the wall west of the central waterfall? The paint is brighter there. Fresher. Their blood serves as a reminder to the rest of us. We are no better than slaves!
But Illsa, born to poverty, understood one’s station was no more than a mindset. If they believed themselves slaves, then they were.
Illsa believed she’d never been freer in her life, and that no greater freedom could ever exist in the petty world she came from.
This all being true, breaking any of the rules of her liberators seemed beyond foolish, venturing into the territory of ungrateful. It didn’t occur to her to question the prerogatives of those who’d given her life. Her existence now entirely consumed with embracing that life.
She struggled to help Vakkar understand this. His urging for her to question the things told to her, to reach out and discover the truth without trusting so easily, came from a place of love. He’d said as much, and the languid peace in his eyes when she sat astride him, whispering in his ear, told this truth better than any words could.
His presence was a danger to her, though. On his last visit, the duchess’ gaze leveled their direction in a clear warning. You’re very close to a line, the look said. Back away before you cross it.
It was as well Vakkar planned to leave in a few days. He’d explained Empyreans, once they’d departed Farjhem, seldom returned. By the time he did make his journey back, she would be dust upon the Earth.
However, instead of being relieved at the removal of this temptation, Illsa’s heart ached with a longing as yet unfamiliar to her.
Altogether, there were over fifty pets in the harem, none over the age of thirty. Illsa didn’t think to ask what happened when they grew older.
Lagniappes Collection II Page 7