Besides, some stories just beg to be told. Or, rather, some of them demand to be told. There is romance in struggle.
Wrapped in Silence
Wincing as the twine digs into his flesh, Dyehen tries once
more to pull himself free. He feels the muscles in his shoulders flex and
strain. Briefly, he wonders which would give first: the skin around his wrists
or the twine binding them together. He pulls, teeth gritted, trying to get the
slightest bit of give, ignoring the pain, knowing that the warmth on his hands is
his own blood.
Eventually, his shoulders relax against his will, leaving
him with a burning ache around his wrists and a wave of exhaustion crashing
through his body.
“I do so love when they resist,” the woman looks down at him
and shakes her head, smirking at him. He raises his head, forces himself to his
feet, and glares at her, not giving her the satisfaction of his words.
Still several inches taller than him, the amazon looks down
at him, her smirk turning into a sneer. “Life will be easier for you,” she
says, one hand grabbing his chin like a steel vice, “when you learn your place,
boy.” He snarls noiselessly, trying to yank himself out of her grip. She
squeezes, and it feels like his jaw is going to snap in half at the dimple in
his chin. The woman growls at him. “You are a slave,” she says, the words
biting off at each syllable. “Get used to it.”
As if knowing he was about to spit in her face, the woman
pushes him away. Unable to use his hands to balance himself, the swift kick of
her foot drops him onto his back, grunting as he splatters into the mud.
“Do we break him?” Dyehen looks up and sees the whip
uncoiling from the other woman’s belt, the long braided snake skin leather
glistening, the three strands at the tip, each one tipped by a fang that itself
tapered to a needle point gliding across her boot as she began moving it back
and forth. “I could flay the skin from his chest for a while. Just until he
sobs and begs me to stop. Just until he learns his place.” She speaks as
casually as if she was suggesting getting her nails done. “Or we could just castrate
him.”
The first woman, the one who had tossed him around so
easily, shakes her head. “He’s worth more healthy,” she says. “Let whoever buys
him decide if they want to castrate him.”
“I like it when they fight,” the one with the whip says.
“So you buy him.”
They laugh and walk off, leaving Dyehen in the mud. His
wrists complain at the pressure as he pulls himself to a sitting position and
starts to stand again. Suddenly, there is something at his neck, smooth and
scaled. The whip.
“I think I will buy you,” the woman says. “Then I’ll make
you beg me to castrate you. I’ll make you beg me to cut it off, and then I’ll
make you eat it and thank me for the privilege.” She leans in close, her teeth
at his ear lobe. “How much pain do you think that would take?” she nibbles his
ear, then bites down hard. Dyehen winces, but doesn’t make a sound, even when
he feels the blood start to drip from where she bit. “I’m willing to find out.
I’ll break you, boy. You will beg me.”
And then she’s gone, and Dyehen lets himself feel a little
bit of the fear that’s been waiting there, just behind his anger, ever since
the trap that had grabbed him two days ago. He hadn’t been able to untie the
rope around his ankle, he couldn’t break the twine around his wrists, and it
didn’t look like there was all that much chance to get away. He was tired, he
was hungry, and he could barely think straight. All he could do was focus on
his silence. He wrapped it around himself like armor, as if it was the one
thing, the only thing, that might keep him safe.
The market is not as glamorous as the slave markets he’d
imagined. The block is nothing more than a pole stuck in the muck. A rope
looped around his neck is attached to the loop, leaving him unable to pull
away, unable to even drop to his knees, no matter how exhausted he was. He was
forced to stand, filthy, hungry, exhausted, but still proud. He stares straight
ahead, refusing to meet the taunting gaze of his earlier tormenter, refusing to
look at any of the women who had come to bid on this latest batch of captives.
He stands with his mouth closed, his jaw tight, protected by his silence.
He ignores the prices that are offered, doesn’t even try to
consider whether he is being sold for more or less than the men before him. He
doesn’t let himself hear the taunts of the women, ignores their insistence that
he is worthless. He ignores the laughter of his tormenter, ignores the way she
insists that he will be a cheap purchase. He ignores her taunting questions
about how much abuse it would take before he begs her to castrate him.
He doesn’t let himself show his fear. Doesn’t let himself
worry. Doesn’t let himself feel sorrow or to pity himself for his circumstance.
He knows that sooner or later, she will do what she threatens. Sooner or later,
she will break him. Everyone breaks.
He wraps his silence tight around himself, determined to make her work for it,
determined to resist as long as he can.
But then another voice cuts through the crowd, a voice that
is at the same time fills Dyehen with hope and with dread. She bids against his
tormenter. Her voice is soft, gentle like a velvet glove wrapped around an iron
fist.
She only bids once. But once is enough. His tormenter,
clearly frustrated, withdraws her own bid and gives him a look that would
curdle milk. He can see how badly she wants to hit him, how desperately she
wants to make him suffer. And, though he knows it isn’t a good idea, and though
he tries not to, he can’t help himself. He smiles at her.
Her face goes white with rage, and Dyehen realizes that
while he did try not smile, he didn’t try very hard. A brief flash of fear
makes him wonder if the woman will bid on him again anyway, if her anger will
overcome whatever it was that made her submit to this other woman, but she
doesn’t. There are no more bids. There is no haggling.
The woman bringing him to his new ‘home’ isn’t cruel, but
nor is she gentle. She doesn’t speak to him, and he doesn’t speak to her. No
words for these women, no sounds from him. The silence remains strong, armor
without a chink. He keeps pace with the woman, never forcing her to yank on the
leash, never walking so fast as to seem an eager slave. He has been rescued
from one tormenter, but he has no idea what awaits him. No idea if that velvet
voice was a blessing or just a new hell for him to experience.
He is cleaned, cold water dousing his body. What little
clothing remains is stripped away, and he is scrubbed down, then drenched in
near frozen liquid again. A smaller woman, barely tall enough to reach his
chest, examines his wrists. She makes disapproving sounds and presses something
against them, something that burns with healing pain. Then she wraps his wrists
with bandages, but does not tie him up.
The woman who brought him back from the market fits a collar
around his neck, and he winces at the intense heat as the collar is sealed, the
latch melted shut. But his flesh is unburned. A strange silver lining, but
there nonetheless.
“You’re going to have to speak,” the woman says to him,
pressing a cloth to the back of his neck. The part that hits his neck is cool
and wet, but he hears the hissing of metal as it cools. “The mistress insists
that her slaves be able to acknowledge their orders.”
Dyehen looks at the woman with a cool indifference. There is
no anger in his gaze, no hatred. Nothing whatsoever beyond the frank and
complete refusal to respond.
The woman sighs. “You are making things harder for yourself,”
she says.
He shrugs.
“Have it your way,” she says. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She walks away from him, towards the door. Halfway there, she stops and turns
on her bare foot. “Are you going to at least come quietly, or will I have to
whip you like a dog to make you obedient?”
Though desperate to know where they are going, Dyehen
refuses to ask. He simply takes a step towards her.
The woman smiles. “Thank you,” she says. “Others may take
pleasure from disciplining men, but I prefer they just obey. Treat them almost like
real people, and it works just as well as a beating.”
She turns away again and walks out of the room. Dyehen
glares at her back hard enough that he expects it to start smoking, but he says
nothing. He just pulls the silence tighter, readying himself for what comes
next, readying himself for the mistress.
Nina sits on her throne, one leg crossed over the other, her
foot tapping to a silent beat. She looks down at the knee high leather that her
other slave had spent an hour scrubbing to a high polish. She hadn’t let him
lick it, knowing that his tongue, like the tongues of her other slaves, was
unworthy of her boots. She rubs her gloved hand against the leather, feeling the
soft give and enjoying the contrast of its gentle feel with the amount of pain
it has inflicted on slaves. The blood stains are clean, but she can almost
smell it still.
The slaves around the room stand with blank stares, wills as
broken as shattered glass, all hint of disobedience long since beaten out of them.
They do was they are told with an eager pleasure that, had it been there from
the start, would make her proud. As it was, they just angered her. They were
broken, truly. Toys that should be discarded.
She wonders if the new one will break. She wonders if he
will be just as dissatisfying as all the others, just as pathetically easy to
destroy. She wonders if he will dive down into submission like so many of the
others. Will he fight for a bit before breaking? Will he struggle? Will he
scream? How long will it take before the calm and quiet defiance she saw in him
at the market is replaced with the same dulled glaze of the men around the
room?
She sighs. Patience has never been her strong suit; it has
never had to be. She was in her proper place, and it was the duty of others –men
and women both– to serve her on her whims. She was never kept waiting by
anything or anyone. And yet this one took so long to be made presentable.
She looks down at the dog by her throne, remembering the
human man he had once been. She wondered if he even thinks anymore, or if his
mind is broken, his conscious thoughts as shattered as his will. The thought of
it disgusts her, and she reaches for one of the crops on her throne, ready to
beat him bloody until her new prize is finally delivered to her.
As if the dog could read her mind, he starts to cower, then
lets out a sigh of relief as the door opened, finally. Nina looks up and sees
her maiden walk in.
She is not holding a leash, nor is she armed with whip,
crop, or cane. She walks with the casual confidence that she knows Nina likes,
but she is not dragging the new slave with her.
Nina feels herself deflate a little bit. If he won’t even resist
the maiden, what possible challenge could he provide her? She wonders if it was
a waste to purchase him. Was it a waste of time for the slaves to lace her into
her boots, to slide the gloves onto her hands, to lace up her corset? Did she
dress for nothing, sitting in her throne and forced to actually wait just to be disappointed?
She frowns, but the frown dissolves when Dyehen walks in. He
does not shuffle his feet, he does not limp in, he does not move like a
creature broken. His stride is full of purpose, his eyes blazing, his lips
pressed tightly together and looking around with a confidence that is almost
confusing.
There’s no sense that he’s looking for an escape. Nor does
it seem like he intends to fight back. He clearly knows where he is, he knows
the situation. But he is not scared. He is not desperate. He does not seem
defiant. Just calm. He looks around without rage, without bravado. He just
takes in the details, as if filing them away for later consideration.
“Does it have a name?” she asks, her tone as imperious as
she can manage.
“I don’t know, mistress,” the maiden says, bowing low as if
afraid to meet Nina’s eyes. At least she didn’t say no. Had she actually said
no, Nina would have been forced to punish her. No one is permitted to flatly
refuse her.
Nina smiles, though it doesn’t reach her cold eyes. “How can
you not know?” she asks. “Have you forgotten?”
“He won’t speak,” the maiden says.
Nina puts her foot down and leans forward, suddenly
interested again. “He is incapable of speech?”
Dyehen looks at her, unabashedly meeting her eyes. Nina is
certain he understands, and wonders if he noticed that she referred to him as
he, not as it, as was her custom with men.
“I,” the maiden shifts a little, as if squirming under the
grinding boot of her mistress. “He has not spoken since his capture,” she says.
“The slavers say he should be capable, but he does not.”
“Not a word?”
The maiden almost shakes her head, but stops herself,
knowing that even the gesture would be like saying no. “He did not cry out when
they beat him,” she says. “He did not beg for food. He did not make a noise
when the bindings cut into his wrists, nor when your holy daughter cleansed him
and his wounds.”
Nina raises an eyebrow. Not one word, not a sound. How very
interesting. “Leave us,” she says, to no one in particular.
The room empties like magic, leaving only Nina, Dyehen, and
the maiden. “You too,” Nina says. The maiden scampers off with grateful desperation.
Dyehen looks at the woman on the throne, investigating the
curves of her body, the shape of her legs, the round gentleness of her face. He
looks at the sadistic slant of her eyes, surprised to see the warmth in them.
He sees the cruel turns of her lips and the twitches of joy hidden within. His
eyes trace over the leather of her boots, over the cream of her skin, the
tightness of her corset, and the soft danger of her gloves.
“Is it true that you won’t speak?” she asks, sizing him up
and enjoying the curves of his body just as he lingers over hers.
He doesn’t answer, only smiles, a combination of defiance
and humor.
Nina laughs. “I like you,” she says.
She stands and takes a few steps towards him, down the steps
of her dais, her heels clicking with the casual pace that causes so many of her
household to shiver in fear. Dyehen stands waiting for her, his hands relaxed
at his sides.
He is tall. Even with her boots, she is barely a few inches
above him. Not like other men. Nina smiles, liking his size, liking the obvious
strength of his muscles, the way they strain against his skin like a living anatomy
lesson. She reaches her hand out slowly and runs the leather of her glove over
his skin, over the ridges of his muscles.
She smiles at him, not bothering to point out that she can
feel his shivering at her touch no matter how hard he tries to hide it.
He looks at her and flushes a little bit. But he is not embarrassed.
Not ashamed. What then?
“Yes,” she says. “I definitely like you.”
Dyehen opens his mouth, but closes it again before he can
speak. The silence is still there, still wrapped around him. His silence is
still his armor.
But now, he knows, there is a chink.
No comments:
Post a Comment