Tag Archive | tirnacali

Restraint, a story of TirNaCali for #3WW #weblit

Jan26

Three Word Wednesday is a once-weekly 3-word writing prompt.

Last week’s three words were descent, kill, surreal.

This is a sequel to Keyed Up and Gifted, and thus completes the triptych.

Restraint

She’d never admit it to anyone, but as she tried to pretend she wasn’t waiting for word, Ursula, granddaughter to Duchess Lemaria but heir to nothing more than the family temper, was nervous.

It was novel, almost thrilling, to be a bit frightened of a man, of a male slave. He was bigger than her, stronger than her – sure, the other harem slaves might be a bit taller than her, but very few of them seriously outmassed her – and he saw no reason why he should be obedient. It made him dangerous, and that made him exciting.

She was self-aware enough to know, then, that being miffed with him for taking his time to come visit her was silly, but still, she was both impatient and a bit annoyed. He’d gotten her gift days ago. Wasn’t he at least curious?

It was more than a little ridiculous, but she had been turning down invitations to go out, staying close to home in case he decided to grace her with his presence. She’d also declined three requests from Efran in as many days, the poor puppy. So very well-trained, she didn’t think he’d ever understand why she’d passed him over for the American.

Then again, her sisters and cousins wouldn’t understand, either. They liked their easy harem-slave bed partners. They liked their lives, in general, easy, and their lady grandmother loved to provide it.

Ursula wondered if she was the only one who noticed that, while the Duchess provided all of this, the men she took to her own bed were almost invariably Americans.

The phone startled her out of her sulk; she picked it up before the first ring had ended.

“He’s on his way.” She knew the voice at the other end – Toma, the harem mistress. “As you wished, Lady Ursula, he’s not restrained.” The woman’s voice was etched with disapproval.

“Thank you, Toma.” Now she was really nervous. It would take, what, ten minutes for him to walk here from the harems? More if he gave the guards trouble, less if he was in a hurry.

If he’d been in a hurry, he would have been here three days ago when he unwrapped her present. She brushed her hair, changed her shirt, and made sure the papers she wanted were at hand. She’d just started considering doing all of that again when the knock came.

She needed a personal assistant, but she didn’t like the constant crowding of having someone else in her living space. College and two years in military service had cured her of the need to be waited on hand and foot, anyway. She answered the door herself, be damned how it looked.

He stood there, Stephen, next to the guard, neither of them smiling, but without the violent tension they sometimes showed when she opened her door for them. His hands were clasped in front of him; he looked the most placid Ursula had ever seen him.

The guard bowed; belatedly, Stephen remembered to bow as well. “Your Ladyship, as requested by the harem, I’m delivering this slave to you.”

“Thank you, Emmund. You can leave him.”

Emmund was too gracious to glower in her presence, but he bowed and left stone-faced.

“Come in.” She wasn’t paying any mind to Stephen’s expressions yet, not until she could get her own emotions under control. She was alone with him, unchained, in her bedroom.

“You gave me a key,” he accused her, but he stepped into her room and shut the door.

“I did. Kill the lights and come over here.” The light on her nightstand would be enough, and it was an order he wouldn’t think twice about following.

“They forgot the chains.” He flipped the light switch off and followed her across the room, to the chair by the side of her bed. “Think you can get me to play footstool without them?”

“If I asked nicely enough.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and gestured at the chair.

He looked between her and it, looking for the trap, but sat, gingerly, glaring at her. “Why?”

She didn’t waste time dissembling or pretending she didn’t know what he meant. “You don’t seem to enjoy harem service.”

“You don’t seem to care all that much about my enjoyment.” She could see from his expression, though, that he knew that wasn’t entirely true. She’d hoped he’d noticed that.

“I enjoy your company, too,” she admitted. She didn’t want to see him broken by one of her harsher aunts.

“Are you going to lie to yourself if I move in? Tell yourself I was a good little boy and serve me dessert for yelling at you?” He sounded, she realized, confused. She’d changed the game just when he’d figured out the rules.

“I might.”

“I don’t want to be a lapdog like Efram. I won’t do it, Lady, no matter how much you whip me. Use me as a footstool all you want, you won’t break me.”

She smiled wickedly, crossed her feet at the ankles, and held her legs out in mid-air. “All right.”

He stared at her incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”

“And if I am?” A little thrill ran up her. She wouldn’t call the guards, not unless she thought her life was in danger. He could hurt her a lot without endangering her life.

“What’s in it for me?”

Ursula reminded herself forcefully that she’d wanted the untamed slave, the argumentative one, that she’d encouraged his bad attitude. “Answers. You want to know why I gave you the key, what I want from you. I, at the moment, want a footstool.”

He shook his head. “You expect me to curl up and act like a lapdog just because you want me to?”

“No.” This was fun! “I expect you to kneel and act like a footstool – you’re too big for my lap, anyway – because you want information.”

A moment paused, and another, and another. He was going to say no. He was going to threaten her. He was going to stomp out of the room. He was…

Kneeling in front of her, crouching, really, ass to heels, elbows and forehead to the floor, like she’d had him bound, that first time. “Yes, Lady Ursula.”

She set her feet down on his back and lounged. It was a bit silly, wasn’t it, having him like this? She didn’t even do things quite this bad with the born slaves (but, then again, they rarely needed reminding of their status). She picked up her files from the nightstand and flipped through them, although he couldn’t really seem them.

“This is a detailed lineage report I had worked up on your bloodline.” It hadn’t been cheap, or quick, but she had both money and time to spare. “You’re of Irish descent.”

“So are you,” he grunted, twisting to look up at her. “So?”

“Exactly.” She tapped the folder. “You come from the same ancestors as my people do, if you go far enough back. You’re, very, very distantly, my cousin. And Efran’s,” she added thoughtfully.

“Ha,” he snorted.

“Exactly,” she repeated. “You have a strong – strong being the imperative word – Irish bloodline. And strong men breed strong children.”

Under her feet, he froze. “Oh, hell no. No fucking way, you crazy bitch.”

She toed him gently in the kidney. “None of that.”

He settled, but his tone was not much more civil when he continued. “I won’t give you my kids to be raised as slaves.”

“I’d be bearing them, so they wouldn’t be slaves, they’d be royal. I’d be willing to allow you to share in their rearing, as well. It’s a better offer than anyone else would give you – you know most of them would just say ‘lay back and grab the headboard’ and consider that sufficient warning.”

He looked back up at her. “You’re serious. You want to have my kids.”

“It’s that or take your chances with the harem,” she pointed out, wondering which he would chose. How would she handle the stigma of being rejected by an American slave? Her sisters and cousins would never let her live it down.

“But I hate you. I hate everything about this place.”

“No-one said you had to like me, Stephen. You don’t even have to enjoy the sex, although it’s more fun all around if you do.” Gods below, had she just said that?

He sat silently for long enough that she began to wonder if she really hadn’t said it. “I’ll do it,” he agreed. “But I’m not going to be a very good pet for you, not like Efran would. Should have given him the key.”

She leaned over to stroke his cheek, loving the way he shuddered, trying to hold still and wanting to shy away. “I didn’t want Efran. I want you.”

Keyed Up, a story of Tir Na Cali #weblit

Dec2

This is a sequel to “Gifted,” a story set in a Duchess’ harem in my Tir na Cali setting.

Keyed Up
Stephen stared at the slender box with the single key. The other gifts had ranged from neutral, co-worker, distant-relative sorts of Christmas presents (Yule, this fucked-up place had no Christmas, just a knockoff holiday they called something different, even if there was feasting and presents and even a day, thank God, of vacation, even for the toys, even for the prisoners of war) – normal, neutral gifts – socks, even, cufflinks, a coffee mug – to the humiliating and confusing.

But this. The born slaves, the skinny pretty-boys who might as well be girls with cocks, were staring at him, staring at the key as if someone had just given him a million dollars, as if someone had just unlocked the goddamned slave collar and handed him a plane ticket back home. And it was just a key.

It wouldn’t unlock the collar. He’d spent hours in the bathroom fiddling with a paper clip and just gotten an electric shock and a whipping for his efforts; whatever closed the collar, it didn’t take a normal key. The door to their prison was guarded by the implacable harem mistress and locked from the outside; it wouldn’t get him out of here. It wasn’t a car key. What the hell did it mean?

“She wants you to be in personal service to her,” the most effete of the lot, Wensleydale, explained. Steven tried to hide the nausea; the little bitches that had been born into this were snitches, and took every opportunity to try to get the American-kidnapped slaves into trouble. He’d gotten more than his fair share of beatings for speaking ill of the women who he was forced to service before he’d realized he couldn’t trust anyone in the harems. Even the other Americans would stab him in the back if it kept the heat off them for a day or two.

The Californians all looked pissed, muttering among themselves, trying to figure out why the bitch would want him. Why wouldn’t she want Efran, who had been serving her so well for the last year. Why she wouldn’t pick another Californian born-slave, with their immaculate pedigree, like some sort of show dog, and their well-trained manners. Pets, all of them, proud of their leashes and their shiny collars, barking for treats.

Steven knew, and it made him a little bit ill, staring at the damn key on its little chain. Ursula didn’t want someone tame. Sure, they were fine to show off to her friends, like a new purse or a piece of jewelry, but, in the end, they belonged to her grandmother and all she was doing was showing off the family jewels. She wanted a rough-cut diamond, she’d said. She wanted someone she could polish herself.

He’d told her to fuck off. She’d hit him for it.

He’d told her to fuck off again, and tried to hit her back. He’d expected her to send him away for a whipping. He was getting used to the whippings, although he wondered how long before they realized that he preferred the beatings to the use under the self-righteous, selfish, arrogant bitches that called themselves Ladies and helped themselves to his body.

She hadn’t sent him away. She hadn’t even fucked him that day. She’d had him cuffed and bound and used him as a footstool for the next two hours, but, whatever she’d told the harem mistress, it hadn’t involved the abuse, because he had, for the first time in months, not been reprimanded when he was returned from a Lady’s bedroom. He’d even gotten dessert at dinner, something that normally seemed reserved for the spoiled, entitled born slaves.

Things had been going on like that for months. He’d fight her, and she’d send him back with a glowing review. If he didn’t fight, she used him like all her bitchy cousins and aunts and sisters did, and sent him back with enough praise that he didn’t get beaten. It was as if she wanted him to fight, which worked out well enough for him, since he really liked fighting. It reminded him he was still alive, still human, somewhere inside the way they treated him.

But this, this key, this meant that the game was changing, and he didn’t know why, or into what. This meant she was moving him out of the harem rules, out of – he was horrified to find himself thinking of it this way – the harem’s protection, the breathing room of serving more than one woman, of being sent back to his bunk at night. It meant, he thought, serving the bitch full time, whenever and whatever she wanted.

Wensleydale was still looking at him, not quite with the naked awe and envy of the other born-slave lapdogs, but with curiosity. He seemed to know what was going on, and he seemed to be willing to explain it. More, Steven had never caught the skinny blond guy snitching on him.

“So what does it mean?” he asked, quietly, under the hubbub of the rest of the harem. “This thing. This being in personal service. What is it all about?”

“It’s what it sounds like.” The blond flopped down on the foot of Steven’s bed, and held out his hand for the box. Feeling stupidly hesitant to give it up, Steven passed it over. “It’s a way out of the harems. It means that you don’t get passed around anymore like a napkin, used by anyone who wants you like a box of tissues. It means you only have to answer to one woman.”

“Okay. But what does it mean? Is it just the same thing, in a different room?”

“It can be.” The boy leaned back against the footboard, and looked like he was trying to remember childhood stories. “I mean, I’ve heard. I’ve never been in personal service.” He winced. “I think that would be worse than just being in the harems. To be serving a lady and fail so badly that you got sent back here in disgrace.”

“Try being free and then getting shoved in here,” Stephan muttered. “But, so what have you heard? If it’s just like harem service, but twenty-four-seven and for just one wom… Lady, then you’d think it would be better to be back here. I mean, there’s a little breathing room, here.” He gestured wryly at the barracks-like space. “Some time to yourself. They have that in the kitchens, too, right, and in the fields?” Wensleydale nodded. “So why would it be all that cool, to give that up for… a key? Can I turn it down, or is this one of those ‘offer you can’t refuse’ sorts of gifts?”

It took the kid a minute – “kid,” because, beardless and slender, none of the born slaves looked like men, even though Wensleydale had enough stories to suggest that he was at least thirty. The idea of turning down the key seemed to horrify him, and, tiredly, Stephen wondered if he had another beating coming.

“Turn it down?” he finally repeated. “I don’t know. I don’t know anyone who’s ever tried. A Consort’s ring, that you can turn down, but that’s… different.” He stared longingly at the key. “Why would you want to turn it down?”

“Because I don’t know what she wants,” Stephen exploded, although habit kept his voice to a loud whisper. “What does it mean, ki- Wesleydale? This whole thing?”

“People talk about it differently. Some people say it’s, like you said, same thing, different room. But my older brother was in personal service to Lady Priscilla, and then she offered him a Consort’s ring. That’s the next best thing to being freed, and you get to speak with your Lady’s voice.”

“Sounds lovely.” There was clearly something he was missing. “So it comes with degrees of suckitude or the lack thereof. What’s she going to expect out of me?”

That made the boy blink in confusion. “Expect out of you? What do they all expect out of all of us?”

Stephen sighed. “If I could figure that out, you wouldn’t be able to play tic-tac-toe on my back, now would you?”

“I figured you were doing that on purpose. I didn’t think you didn’t know what you were supposed to do.” Now, now he looked horrified, and a little bit guilty.

“What I’m supposed to do?” He looked sidelong at the kid. “Lay there and take it like a bitch, you mean?”

“Obey, and make it look like you enjoy it.”

“Same thing, different words. Efran enjoyed it, and look what he got. I fight her every step of the way, and I get a fucking key.” Look like you enjoy it. It was good advice, if he was minded to give in. If he’d given in, maybe she wouldn’t have given him the damn key.

Wesleydale shrugged philosophically. “Maybe she enjoys a challenge?”

“Well,” Stephen sighed grimly, “I guess I’ll give her one.”

Gift, a Yuletide story of TirNaCali #weblit

Nov22

TirNaCali is an alternate-history setting of mine, set in a world where the West Coast of the United States is its own nation, a matriarchal nation of magic-using lovelies who are both slave-owning and kidnap people from America to serve as slaves. It’s an entirely self-indulgent setting, but fun to write in.

This story is from a Seventh Sanctum prompt.

Gift

Life in Duchess Lemaria’s harem was not, as far as such things went, a bad life. The work, while sometimes painful and often degrading, was never onerous; the Ladies they serviced were, as a matter of course, beautiful, and rarely too rough with them; and the chances for upward mobility were certainly greater than they were in the kitchens or the fields.

The slaves of the harem were still, however, slaves, locked in their barracks at night, serving entirely at the whim of a compound full of impatient and sometimes demanding royal women, with no say in who or when they would serve. They craved the promotion, the day when one Lady would requisition them into exclusive service.

Lady Ursula had been calling for Efran’s service on a weekly basis since the vernal equinox, when he’d impressed her with a bit of linguistic talent; as they neared Yule, she’d started calling for him twice a week, and now three and four times a week. He had not only a nimble tongue but a good bloodline, and he had done his best to impress her with his abilities outside of the bedroom, in what little time she gave him to do so.

She had, as of the last few weeks, been giving him more opportunities to show off such, taking him to charity balls, a wedding, a few small business affairs. That she had been calling for another harem boy for her bed time bothered Efran not at all: Stephan was an import, a rough American. He was never going to be any sort of real competition. That position in personal service to the Lady was already in the bag.

That didn’t stop Efran from watching the boy when he came back from serving the Lady. He never looked happy about it, which was confusing – she had a light touch, a pleasant manner, and a way of speaking that made one feel, for a few minutes, almost free. Compared to some of the other Ladies they’d both served under, she was kindness itself.

Unless, Efran thought with some glee, she was only like that with him. Unless he was special, dear to her in a way some cheap ill-mannered kidnapped slave never would be; unless she was gentle with him and rough like her temperamental older sister with Stephan. The new slave was still rebellious, after all; maybe he needed heavy discipline.

If Stephan noticed the attention, he hid it well. He ignored Efran the way he ignored all of the born-Californian harem slaves, especially those with the slight stature and grey eyes that meant their blood was, however tainted, royal. The Americans didn’t like them, didn’t feel comfortable around them, and generally treated them like some sort of obnoxious yipping dog, an attitude Efran thought was funny from a bunch of badly-trained shaggy monster dogs.

Efran didn’t mind being ignored by the likes of them, though. It meant he and Flores and Wensleydale could watch the usurpers, gauge their weaknesses, and plot how to undermine them without ever being suspected of anything other than a little illicit interest in someone’s ass. (Stephan had a nice ass, but then, for overgrown hairy brutes, the American harem slaves were still universally good-looking).

What they saw, in their spying, assured them that none of the brutes were any risk to their career plans, as it were. They were angry, they were disobedient, they tried to escape, they had no poise. Sure, a Lady might like that, the way she might like a white water rafting ride or a bucking bronco, for a bit of a thrill now and then, but none of the Duchess’s daughters or granddaughters or nieces would want that sort of hassle full-time, not when they could have a well-trained Californian stud. Content in his supremacy, he went on not minding the time Stephan spent under Lady Ursula and enjoying his time on the town.

It was a tradition in the Duchess’s expansive household that all of the slaves were given a holiday around Yuletime. For the harem slaves, this was two days before Yule, a time when they could spend some pocket money on gifts they wanted to give, and were, in return, given gifs by the Ladies they served. Sometimes, they were given promotions out of the harems as part of their gift.

Efran liked Yule best of the four seasonal holidays. Shopping itself wasn’t thrilling, but wandering the mall as a group, loosely escorted by guards as intent on a holiday as they were, was luxury enough to be relaxing. Even the American slaves, he noticed, were laid back, behaving themselves. No-one wanted to ruin the day.

And, as if by magic, when they returned, there were the gifts, sitting on their beds, wrapped in colorful paper and tied with bows. “Like Christmas,” one of the American slaves commented, just like someone did every year, sounding surprised and a little resentful. Efran always thought that was the weirdest, like they’d like it better if nothing good ever happened.

Regardless of the strange faces, they all dug in to their packages like kids getting their first presents, Efran as much as any of them. He was hoping for something special from Lady Ursula, since she’d been monopolizing so much of his time for so long.

Slippers from Lady Tansy. She gave him slippers every year, the same pair. She gave them all slippers every year.

Bracelets from Lady Andrea. The chain bracelets circled his wrists like shackles, and were exactly the right size to cover rope marks. The Lady Andrea was practical in a totally different (and often more pleasant) manner than her Aunt Tansy.

Cookies from Lady Jessica, who had suggested more than once that he was too skinny, that the harem mistress ought to feed him better. A grooming kit from Lady Taima – did she think he needed to take better care of himself? He frowned at the gift and wondered if he could regift it to a shaggy American without being found out. And was there a shaggy American he felt like gifting something to? He tucked it in his sock drawer quickly, just in case.

It was followed quickly by Lady Nagida’s present, something she’d been threatening for a while, but as a Yule gift seemed doubly unfair. Maybe there’d be a key in one of the remaining boxes, and he wouldn’t have to suffer through her using it on him. There were harem slaves who liked that sort of thing; let them have the pleasure of her!

Earrings from Her Grace herself, a little more delicate than he liked, but expensive and attractive enough. They’d go with the shirt & cufflinks from last year that she loved to take off of him. And in the last package…

It was a small chest, five by five by maybe fifteen, nice wood, brass clasp. A strange size for a gift of any sort, and Efran found his heart pumping as he opened the lid.

“What the fuck is this?” He looked up – realized everyone in the harem was looking up – at Stephen, who was staring into a small box, a much smaller box than Efran’s.

“Let me see,” Flores suggested, stepping aside from his own generous pile of gifts to look at the American’s offending present. “Gods below, already?”

“What is it?” Wensleydale demanded, looking up from his own box of slippers. Efran’s pounding heart seemed to stutter, as he glanced down at his gift from Lady Ursula.

Not a key. Not a ring. A bottle of a very nice wine, and a note.

“It’s a key,” Stephen said, his voice full of frustrated disgust. “What is this, some sort of game?”

“Who’s it from?” Flore’s scarred spine was tense, and he wouldn’t turn to look at Efran.

“Lady Ursula, the bi…” Some ounce of self-preservation stopped the brute from finishing the sentence.

“It’s the key to the companion’s room,” Wensleydale explained. “It means she wants you to be in personal service to her, though the Goddess alone knows why.”

Efran barely heard. He was staring at the polite note in Lady Ursula’s precise hand.

Efran, I’ve had a wonderful year with you. But Yule is, as always, a time for renewal and change…