by Mind Guest
"Now that I've caught you, I believe I shall make use of you," he said,
moving his hand from under my chin to touch my face. "Have you the
ability to serve me properly, girl?"
"I-I am not much used, lord," I whispered, borrowing some of Bellna's
wide-eyed, disbelieving fear. "I will serve as best I may."
"You will serve better than that," he said, his tone dry. "You may be
very sure I will see to it. Come and put yourself in my lap now."
He moved past me to reclaim the chair, then looked up as he sipped from
the wineglass he held. He'd given himself three or four times what he'd
given me, and was even getting to drink some of it. Being careful not
to jiggle his arm I climbed into his lap, feeling as ridiculous as I
always did in a situation like that. Grigon was a big man, but I'm not
what might be described as a little girl. Behind my eyes Bellna was
beginning to come out of the shock she'd felt, heavy coils of outrage
forming, almost ready to explode. I took a good grip on the rather
large reserve of single-mindedness I come equipped with, and tried to
ignore her.
"I shall now allow you the sip of wine I promised earlier," Grigon
said, his supercilious Ruthor-tones increasing in patronizing-load. I
reached for the glass he held out toward me, but he shook his head.
"Both hands, if you please, little peasant. I should dislike having the
contents of this glass emptied upon me. You have my word that I would
dislike it a very great deal."
The hardened glint in his eyes told me that he would undoubtedly use an
excuse like that to beat me, and a beating was one thing I couldn't
risk. I didn't yet have an experienced-enough hold on the Bellna
presence to believe I could hold her back during the infliction of
pain; I could finally see that what I'd done to Valdon must have been
because of the faulty impression. If Grigon hurt me and I loosened his
teeth in revenge it would be satisfying, but it would also lose me the
game.
"Now for the sip," Grigon directed once I had the glass in both hands.
he watched carefully as I took a single, undersized swallow, but didn't
see anything of Bellna's sputtering rage. Her intense feelings of
humiliation poured through me, bringing a trembling to my hands, but
the trembling was perfectly in character. The swallow of wine would awe
and impress a real peasant, who would hardly be expected to know the
vintage was just backward enough to keep it from being considered
really good. My throat swallowed and my hands trembled, but Grigon
didn't take the glass when I offered it back to him.
"You may hold that for me for the moment," he said, putting one hand on
my skirt-covered leg and looking down at my boots. "I am unaccustomed
to seeing one of your station draped about so. We will first remove
those, and then perhaps have another sip of wine." His hands went to the lacings on my hoot, and Bellna was again shocked
as well as scandalized. She was too young and inexperienced to
understand the smirking pleasure Grigon was showing in his role of
Ruthor; after all, all he was doing was taking off - It was an action
fit for a servant. I sighed to myself, thinking about groaning as well;
how would she react once she began to understand?
Grigon unlaced my hoots slowly, drew them off one at a time, then
reached out to take the wine glass from me. he had raised the bottom of
my skirt to my knees to reach the lacings, and hadn't lowered it again
after the boots were gone. He sipped at his wine as he ran one palm
over my now bare calf, and anyone who could have heard the racket in my
head would have thought he was running his hand over my naked body.
Although outraged, I did not pull the skirt back down, but couldn't
keep from shifting a little in the presence of Bellna's furious
embarrassment.
"A wench who blushes!" Grigon-Ruthor chuckled, his warm, broad hand
still moving slowly over my leg. "How delightful I find you, my young
innocent. Your times at use must have been few indeed. Take the glass
and hold it, but do not drink. Such youth and innocence must not be
wasted in a drunken stupor."
I took the glass with two hands again, finding the very real amusement
in his eyes as difficult to bear as Bellna's raving. I wasn't the
blushing type, but apparently Bellna was. I had enough time to be
grateful that Grigon didn't know me better, and then all I could do was
gasp and try not to spill the wine. Grigon-Ruthor was sliding his palm
up under the skirt and along my leg to my thigh, and Bellna was just
about jumping out of her skin.
"You have not been given my permission to be quite as shy as that,
little peasant," Grigon said, his hand having paused in its upward
movement. "Unlock your muscles, and do not attempt to refuse me again.
You are aware, are you not, that you are mine to do with as I please?"
"Yes, Lord," I whispered, forcing my knees apart against tremendous
resistance. I had never before had to fight to control my own body in
quite the same way, and the sweat breaking out all over me under the
dress was adding to the mad I was beginning to feel. That was my body,
damn it, and no one else had the right to try to run it! I held the
wine glass carefully, forced my knees apart with mental teeth clenched,
and thought I could feel some of the strength in the Bellna ravings
fade a little.
"Ah, you seek to please me," Grigon-Ruthor said, the supercilious smile
back in place. "I do indeed find myself pleased, for I mean to see if I
may know how many men you have served before me.
I had a sudden, horrible premonition that he knew something I didn't,
but I wouldn't have had the time to ask about it even if the question
would have been in character. His hand slid quickly up between my
thighs before I could utter a sound, and the next instant I was gasping
in my own disbelief and trying to move away from him. His other hand in
the middle of my back kept me from moving that way, and the glass of
wine I held kept me from flying up toward the ceiling.
"Why, you are scarcely removed from the state of virginity," he
laughed, watching my face as I closed my eyes and trembled. "I would be
very much surprised if there has been more than a single man who has
tasted you. And I must say how thoughtful I consider you, to have
refrained from wearing the undergarments of a lady when you donned the
outer garments. Such a lack would show your true origins to any man who
touched you."
The half-growl in his voice was more accusation than approval, but at that point I really didn't care. I hadn't worn the heavy, uncomfortable
underwear simply because I hadn't expected anyone to be checking for
their presence; the fact that be was checking was the least of my
worries. I'd been told I'd be matched to Bellna, but I hadn't expected
to be matched to the extent of being turned into the next thing to a
virgin! My own reflexive urge to push his hand away stumbled into
Bellna's desperate need, the two flowed together, and it was all I
could do to keep fr
om really defending myself. I kept my eyes closed
tight and trembled from the effort to do no more than that, and
Ruthor's chuckle sounded again.
"How strong an appeal I find in the innocent," he said, the faint slur
in his voice pointing up the interest of an apprentice sadist. "You may
release the wine now, and when I am done with it we will continue."
I opened my eyes to an awareness of the fact that he had been trying to
take the wine glass back from me, but hadn't been able to get my hands
to release their hold. I surrendered the glass to his smirk without
argument, despite the fact that I would have been willing to fight him
for it. Backward or not I could have used that wine, which was probably
his reason for refusing itto me. If I won the game it would be without
help, especially the sort that would steady my jangled nerve-endings
and numb my perceptions to a certain degree. Under normal conditions I
preferred keeping a clear head during a job, but on that job a clear
head was the one thing I wouldn't have no matter how little I drank. I
took a deep breath against the clamor still raging in my skull,
pretending I didn't see the way Grigon-Ruthor was staring at me over
his glass rim, reflecting that it was a good thing I'd opted for being
an "innocent" peasant girl. Being inexperienced can excuse a lot of
blunders, but it was also helping me cover my fight against Bellna. Her
time with Remo had been the sort of frustratingly distasteful
experience very sheltered women often have during their first taste of
sex. Remo had been too eager to arouse her properly before going for
his good time, and by the time she was past the fear and pain of his
attack and just beginning to feel some-thing else, he was already
through with her. There hadn't been more than that one bout between
them, and Bellna, childlike, expected all subsequent experiences to be
like the first. No one had told her any differently, and I had already
discovered that although I could hear her thoughts, none of mine
reached her. The fear that underlay her shock and outrage was worse
than those other two emotions and I swallowed hard, trying to get rid
of the taste of it.
"Do you anticipate my continued attention, child?" Grigon-Ruthor asked,
finishing off the last of his wine and tossing the glass away. "You
seem unsettled and unsure, yet this cannot be so. You are eager to
serve and please me, are you not?"
"Yes, Lord," I whispered, wishing he would get on with it rather than
dragging it out the way he was doing. "I am eager to serve and please
you."
"As you should be," he said, the smugness in his voice setting my teeth
on edge. "It is the place of peasant girls to be eager to serve their
betters, and yet there are times when reluctance and inexperience are a
good deal more - warming her eager anticipation. If I were to release
you from the need to give me service, would you find yourself filled
with gratitude toward me?"
I blinked at the faintly smiling indulgence on his face, wondering what
he was up to, wondering if he meant what he said. Was he really going
to let me off?"
"Lord, I would be grateful for whatever attention was given me by you," I whispered, deciding to play it as safe as possible. "If I were to be
left untouched, however, I would be. . ."
"Deeply disappointed," he interupted, nodding with world-weary
acceptance, knowing damned well that that wasn't what I'd been about to
say. "I have no other recourse then than to complete what was begun. Ah
me, how difficult it is at times to see to one's duty as a lord. Come
and lay your head upon my chest, child, and we will see to your lusts
as well as we may."
His hand forced me down against him, my cheek to his shoulder, the
disappoint went welling up from inside me bringing actual tears to my
eyes. Even as I fought against being overwhelmed I cursed silently,
finally understanding that his little act of supposed generosity had
been designed to reach Bellna rather than me. He was trying to force
her reactions out into the open, beyond my control, to a place where he
could see them and recognize them for what they were. If I had been
silly enough to believe him myself he might have gotten what he wanted,
but I'm not what could be described as a trusting soul. I'd hoped he'd
meant what he'd said, but I hadn't believed it; the little girl inside
my head had believed, and I couldn't escape paying the price for her
gullibility. Bellna didn't know what was going on, but she certainly
knew she wanted no more of it.
Grigon's shirt was a semi-soft linen, undoubtedly the best material
available to those who were above the level of peasant but below the
level of nobility. I found a faint, musky, masculine odor and
concentrated on that, trying to keep my attention away from where my
antagonist's free hand had returned. Bellna wanted to kick and scream
and fight and throw herself around, but the peasant I was supposed to
be would never be allowed that kind of theatrics. Grigon had taken to
indulging in a bout of slow teasing, and after a few minutes of his
silent indulgence, I made another unpleasant discovery. It had been a
long time since I'd last seen to my sexual needs, and although my body
had been made to match Bellna's, my reactions to things like Grigon's
teasing were strictly my own. It came to me that this rime the bastard
was after me, but there was less I could do about it than when he'd dug
for Bellna's reactions. I'd been able to keep her from taking over when
he'd been the victim, but keeping control was going to be harder with
me on the hot seat. I squirmed involuntarily at the picture those
thought-words evoked, and immediately regretted it. Grigon-Ruthor
laughed softly and increased his efforts, the predator immediately
attacking at the scent of blood. He was going to get me one way or the
other, and he damned well knew it.
It didn't take long before I was hanging onto the back of his shirt
with trembling fists, my face against his shoulder, my eyes closed
again. I had to remember not to let Bellna take over, remember not to
break the role of peasant girl, and remember not to react the way an
experienced woman would, all while being subjected to the close
attention of a man who knew his way around a woman's body a hell of a
lot better than any Tildorani would have. I was somehow managing to do
everything I had to, but only if you don't count breathing normally as
part of everything. I may be fairly capable in my chosen line of work,
but I'm still human; I wanted to stroke Grigon's body the way he
stroked mine, kiss his face softly to tell him I was ready to move on
to better things. I wanted to begin opening his shirt as he ran his
hands over me - but that wasn't what he wanted, or Bellna either. She
didn't understand the strange feelings assaulting her, and she feared
them; Grigon understood only too well, and wasn't about to let up.
"You may begin to undo the clothing of a lady," he said in Ruthor's lazy tones, making no effort to hide th
e growing slur in his voice.
"Should the sight of your body please me, you may well find yourself
ravaged without mercy."
I almost gasped at the throbbing wave of fear coursing through me,
finding it necessary to sit still for a brief moment before pushing
away from his chest. Grigon was now conducting an attack on two fronts,
trying to prod Bellna and me both at the same time. If I wanted what I
needed, and also wanted to keep from breaking my role I had to listen
to him, but if I did as he said Bellna would surely become even more
violent than she had been. She knew he was hardly likely tQ dislike her
body, and the panic was already begmm to set in. I forced myself to
raise my hands to the buttons on the front of my dress, feeling my
cheeks flame with Bellna's embarrassment, finding it impossible to sit
still in the face of Grigon's toying, biting my lip to show the
consternation of a very young peasant girl. I felt as though I were
three people and briefly, dizzyingly, couldn't remember which of the
three was supposed to show. The buttons fought my fingers the way
every-thing on that planet was fighting me, and hot, fat tears began to
roll down my cheek, courtesy of Bellna's fright and misery.
"Does your clumsiness distress you, little one?" GrigonRuthor asked
with oh-so-much concern in his voice, finally taking his hand away from
me. "You attempt to obey me., yet find yourself unable to do so. It is
clear I must assist you."
His hands came to mine to push them gently away, and then he tackled
the buttons. He wet his lips with pleased anticipation as he undid
them, but his expression changed-abruptly when the opened buttons
showed nothing but the silken under dress I hadn't been able to get out
of wearing. He was so obviously disappointed that nothing sexy showed
that his expression was downright comical. Under normal circumstances I
might have smiled to myself and saved the snicker for a private time,
but those circumstances were far from normal. Bellna was a little girl,
and so was the peasant girl of my role; the two of them combined and
giggled aloud in relief.
"You dare to laugh at me?" Grigon-Ruthor thundered, his frown widening
my eyes above the hand I'd hastily clapped over my mouth. "You dare to
find amusement in the doings of your lord?"
I was about to assure him very sincerely that I hadn't been laughing,
