Cries of Penance: 5 (Chronicles of Surrender)

by Harte, Roxy

  I didn’t expect that.

  He continues, “Put a ring on her finger. For real. No fake documents.”

  I snort. “You really haven’t figured out that our life is not that simple anymore. If I go a legal route, we will be rounded up, separated and forced into whatever greater plan the Guardians would have for us.”

  Under his breath he whispers, “I could go back to being Lewd Larry.”

  “If you believe that I will drop you at the next corner.”

  Our gazes collide and he releases a long exhale. “I don’t, not really, but it isn’t going to be the same ménage. Be her husband. Be a good one.”

  “Are you walking away from being her Master? Are you releasing Kitten?”

  “No but I’m not her primary anymore, you are.” He shakes his head. “She doesn’t trust me anymore. That’s my fault and it’s going to take time before I can regain her complete trust.”

  “If ever,” I agree.

  “I’m walking away from any relationship with you.”

  His tone tells me he means it and it wasn’t a response to my last shot. I’ve been expecting this for a while. When he jerks his gaze away and stares at the passing view before I can respond, I know no response is necessary.

  “It is not wise to neglect the present for the future, for who knows what the future will be…?”

  H. Rider Haggard, Allan Quatermain

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Celia

  Five months later

  St. Paul, Minnesota

  I settle the twins into a tandem stroller for an afternoon walk. I love walking around the neighborhood when the sun is high in the sky and the air has a crispness to it. Sweater weather. The leaves are changing color, making me realize how much I’ve missed seasons living out West. We have a large maple tree in the front yard and it is a brilliant shade of orange. The falling leaves have been raked into piles for jumping into.

  The children are adjusting to our new home. Our new life. At the moment the oldest two are in school, both a grade lower than my husband would have liked, but after placement tests, the best place for them to start. The school’s academic counselor assured us it was because their standards were so much higher than the norm, and we didn’t volunteer that they hadn’t had formalized schooling for over a year.

  We have a three-story brick English Tudor with nine bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a full, finished attic, which we turned into a delightful playroom. The house is as old as the town, constructed in the 1830s when houses were designed with parlors instead of great rooms and real wood was used everywhere. It has history. It seems ironic that we are creating a future here based on falsehoods and doing everything in our power to hide our pasts.

  “Hello, Mrs. Xanthis!” My widowed neighbor across the road calls out to me and waves. She is ancient, her face wrinkled and her hair snow-white. She keeps her hair pulled up into a tight bun and she is so thin a strong wind would blow her away. I push the stroller across the street. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Karasavas.”

  I wasn’t surprised when I learned our new, quiet neighborhood was predominantly Greek. My husband seems to have a knack for finding places where he unobtrusively fits in. Though he was disappointed there wasn’t a private Greek school for our children nearby, there is an Orthodox church and an independent private school not too far away. I’m sure we seem very ordinary.

  The widow bends over and touches her arthritic, deformed finger to my youngest son’s cheek. “He is so innocent. So precious. How many children do you have?”

  I’ve told her several times already over the months we’ve lived across the road from her. “We have six children.” Hektor and Olympia. “Giorgios and Ourania.” Nikkos. “Dionissis, though we call him Nissos.” Athena-Sophia and the babies. “Anthanasia, who we nicknamed Atso, Stavros and Thanos.”

  She nods and smiles. “Strong names.”

  “Yes, my husband named them.”

  “Your husband.”

  “Yes, my husband, the artist, Kyriakos, remember? He showed you his studio just last week.”

  She smiles, her eyes twinkling. “Oh yes, the handsome artist. He’s your husband, you say?”

  I stifle a laugh. “Yes, he’s my husband.” My mind travels to our wedding. Performed in the middle of the night. Secret. It wasn’t big, but it was beautiful. We wed in a church, the historic Saint George’s Greek Orthodox Church in Toronto, and it was romantic, and real, before God and the only witnesses who matter, our children. As was fitting. Garrett gave me away.

  The rings were blessed, we were blessed. The clergy intoned in a lyrical voice, “The servant of God, Kyriakos, is betrothed unto the handmaiden of God, Sophia. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

  I was calm as words were spoken and rings placed on our fingers. The clergy prayed and sang and then prayed some more in Greek so I didn’t understand a word. It was so foreign to what I had grown up with but it was so right.

  Lord Fyre was becoming my husband. Forever and always.

  I glance down at my rings. Hard not to. I’m still not used to it. We have elaborate matching bands. The large square-cut diamond glints in the late-autumn sun.

  “There’s another handsome fellow I see going in and out. Is he married?”

  “No, that’s my brother, Gregar Leschova.” It’s so hard to think of him as Gregar instead of Garrett, but when I see him leave on Friday nights to spend the weekend with new friends, I know he is still Lewd Larry and has many lovers we don’t discuss. “He lives with us. I told you that. He teaches at the university.” I smile secretively. It is still very hard to call him my brother. He is my lover, my Master, but this sweet old woman wouldn’t understand our lifestyle, our life.

  “Oh! A professor. My husband was an educated man. Poor thing died five winters ago. You say your brother’s single?”

  “Sophia?” Fortunately my brother calls my name from the front porch. “Lunch is ready.”

  I turn and wave at him. “Coming!”

  Excusing myself from Mrs. Karasavas is never easy, but I manage to get back across the road. Eventually. Hurrying inside, I am grabbed and pulled against a solid body with enough force to knock the wind out of me. The foyer is dark, and although I might have screamed given the last few months, I don’t. A rough hand covers my mouth but I remain calm. My pussy tightens, knowing.

  “The boys are asleep,” Master whispers against my ear. “Nissos and Atso are out in the studio with their daddy.”

  Even though the hold he has on me is painful, his voice holds promise of fun to come. “I’ll take the twins to him. Go to the basement.”

  He releases me and I fall backward a step. He is already pushing the stroller toward the studio at the back of the house. I think I hear him humming. Our life is so very different here than what we had before, and I worried that of all of us Master would have the hardest time adjusting. He has and hasn’t. It was strange at first, a foreign world, with new rules of behavior, but once he started teaching at the university things improved. He seems happier and more relaxed than he’s been in years, although…our relationship remains strained. I don’t trust him completely yet, and he knows it. It’s my fault. I hold a grudge. I know in my heart he would have forced me to have an unnecessary and unwanted Cesarean section and he would have circumcised the babies without mine or Kyriakos’ permission if given a chance.

  I don’t dawdle, knowing what is expected of me, and I try, I really try not to linger too much in the past. I remind myself life is good here…often.

  I hurry through a small door and down a dark stairwell. I hate the dark, but don’t dare turn on a light. I tread carefully, not risking falling, and when I reach level ground I feel my way to the center of the room.

  It is pitch-black and chilly.

  I shiver, both cold and afraid of what hides in the darkness. Silly. Childish. As I undress, letting the damp underground air caress my skin, I imagine eyes watching me.

  I. Hate
. The. Dark.

  I drop my sweater and undershirt on the ground. I unbutton and unzip my pants, hearing every sound. Creaking floorboards above, hissing and pinging pipes below. I pull my pants down as I step out of my shoes, then hop on one foot to remove my socks. I hear a tiny squeak. No, no, no. I know we have mice, I hope we don’t have rats. What is taking Master so long?

  Squeak.

  My ass clenches in fear, and it is all I can do to pull down my panties and kneel on the cold, damp concrete floor. I lean forward, presenting myself in complete obeisance. Hurry, Master.

  My ass is in the air and I feel horribly exposed as a cool breeze teases over my labia. I’m wet, ready, growing wetter with every passing apprehensive second.

  Drip, drip, drip. The sound is from a leaking water pipe. Old house. Old problems. The dripping doesn’t make me fret. The scurry of little mice-sized toenails on cement does. I whimper, I can’t help it.

  I jerk at the sound of a striking match, not realizing Master has joined me. I was too focused on my fear. He lights a small glass-domed oil lantern and brings it near, casting a circle of light over my naked body. Squatting, he draws his finger down my bare arm. The touch makes me realize I am shaking. Cold? Fear? I think he guesses fear because he says, “I like it when you tremble.”

  “Master?”

  “Sh-h, relax.” He sets the flickering lamp on a low table and walks a slow circle around me. “Whatever should I do to amuse myself this afternoon?”

  I let out a slow breath, only slightly less nervous now that he is here. I could think of a few things we could do, but he doesn’t ask my opinion.

  “Stand up.”

  I obey, moving quickly, glad to be off the cool concrete. He takes hold of my elbow and leads me to one of the floor-beam supports. “Lie with your head next to the beam.”

  Great, on the floor again. I lie down on my back.

  “Pull your knees up.”

  I do, tucking so that my knees are close to my shoulders.

  He produces a length of rope and, working by the light of the single flame, ties my ankles high and tight, pulling them toward the beam. My knees are pressed to my shoulders.

  “Hands.”

  I stretch toward him and he wraps my wrists similarly and ties them to the beam as well. I feel like a crab stuck on my back, opened, exposed. I watch as he gathers four sections of metal wire grid and attaches the sections around me on the floor, boxing me in. The hair stands up on the nape of my neck. I don’t like where this scene is going at all.

  He disappears into the shadows and returns with a small cage that holds four white mice. Oh no. No, no, no!

  He lifts one of the mice out of the cage by its tail and dangles it over my stomach, letting me see it up close and personal as it struggles for freedom. “Isn’t it lovely?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t think its little red beady eyes are cute?” He brings the mouse close to my face so that I can get a good look at its eyes.

  I shriek a little. “I don’t like this.”

  “You will,” he promises and lowers the mouse onto my bare stomach.

  “Ahhh! No. P-please. D-don’t do this.” I am verging on totally freaking out. I try to relax and rationally tell myself it’s only a single mouse. It isn’t going to bite me. I am so close to safe wording right now—but I won’t—and Master is counting on me not to. We agreed, Lord Ice would only come out to play if I didn’t safe word and if I do…

  “Oh God, oh God. Oh God!”

  Master lowers the three remaining mice onto my chest and stomach. One of them sits between my breasts, looking at me, stroking his whiskers with his paw. The other three scurry around, running back and forth on my stomach. I am not sure who is more afraid—them or me.

  Chuckling, Master blows out the flame.

  I’m good for two minutes, maybe two minutes, it seems like hours. I cry out each time they move…and they move around a lot, running on and off my stomach, running around and under my ass. One falls and rolls off my stomach, its warm fur a caress I don’t enjoy. Another runs over my exposed genitals, its small toenails feeling like a Wartenberg wheel. I shriek, scream, cry, beg. I don’t safe word. I do piss myself, not even realizing I’ve pissed myself until I feel the warm liquid pool under my ass.

  “Please! Lord Ice. Stop this. Please?”

  An eternity later, the flickering flame returns and I realize he has been sitting beside me the entire time. He didn’t leave. I look down, looking for the mice and find them huddled in a corner. Master collects them one at a time and puts them back in their cage though the last one he dangles over my face. “Kiss it on the nose.”

  I shake my head.

  “Kiss the little mouse goodbye and thank him for playing with you today, or we’ll start this game all over again.”

  He lowers the mouse until its face is almost touching my mouth. As soon as I pucker, I feel it bob against my lips. Oh God. “Th-thank you f-for p-playing, Mr. Mouse.”

  Lord Ice takes the mice away in their cage, disappearing into the shadows. I try to pull myself together. I shudder and shake in my bonds.

  Master returns and folds away the metal pen.

  He steps closer, kneeling. He brushes his fingers over my mouth. “Did you like kissing the mouse?”

  “Yes, Master,” I lie.

  He presses his lips to mine, a soft kiss, a chaste kiss. From his pocket he retrieves two small mousetraps. “I found these. Barbaric. I think we can put them to a better use than killing those adorable creatures, don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  He pinches my left nipple out and traps it between the wood and metal of the trap.

  “Ahhh!” It hurts, radiating pain all the way back to my spine. Nursing has desensitized them some, but not enough.

  He traps the other nipple.

  “Oh God!” My pussy contracts with the pain, and suddenly my breasts are filling with milk from the stimulation. Within seconds I feel full and want relief, then immediately think of my sweet, beautiful babies latching on to a nipple that was trod over by a mouse. Ewww.

  Master rubs his hands over my skin and cups the underside of my breasts without disturbing the mouse traps. “How beautiful.”

  “I feel dirty and disgusting.”

  He taps the trap, making the metal bite tighter. “I didn’t ask.”

  Standing, he walks to a cabinet and takes out a thin birch cane. I know what’s coming and brace for it as much as I can in my tied position. Returning, he doesn’t announce that he is going to punish me. He just does. Striking the back of my thighs, my ass, the sweet spot that makes me scream because it hurts so badly it feels amazing. I want him to hit me there again and again, even though I know it will hurt to sit for a week.

  * * * * *

  There is a small shower stall in the basement, and I am more grateful than words can express when I am finally allowed to wash. I hated the mice, I loved the caning. As soon as the warm water hits my breasts my milk lets down and pours over my stomach. I bathe quickly, dry, wrap in a terrycloth robe and race up the stairs. Master preceded me and I meet him in the parlor where he has the twins waiting.

  If I said it wasn’t strange going from scene to mommy, I’d be lying.

  I sit carefully, my welted bottom yet another reminder of just how odd my life has become. Not because I have the welts, but because I am nursing a child and I have welts.

  With Master’s help I attach each of my babies to a nipple and enjoy the sheer bliss of having them drain me. He leaves me with my sons, disappearing into the kitchen where there are shouts of “Uncle Gar!”

  Some things have changed. Some have stayed the same.

  I hear the clang of pans and know that Gregar has started dinner. Most nights his nieces and nephews help—it’s becoming a family tradition. That is a change I like very, very much.

  I sigh contentedly when Kyriakos joins me, sitting at my feet and watching the babies nurse. I smile at him gently when he l
ays his head on my knees and stares up at me.

  “What?” I ask softly, watching his face.

  His hair is finally growing out. I like it long. He promises that this time he is going to let it grow so long he can sit on it, his beard too. The thought makes me smile, because he is my eccentric artist husband and that allows me to be a little odd too.

  Where my robe fell open, he kisses my bare knee and then the inside of my thigh. “I was just thinking I’d really like to make love to my wife tonight.”

  I blush, I can’t help it. My Lord Fyre in husband and father mode is quite adorable. I bite my bottom lip more than anything because Lord Ice didn’t fuck me in the basement, he only built my need to a point of agonizing ache—and then set me free. “I’d like that too.”

  “I think it’s Uncle Gar’s turn to tuck all the munchkins in bed and read bedtime stories.”

  “Oh, I quite agree. It’s the least he can do.”

  Kyriakos smiles wickedly, making me wonder if he was aware of Master’s plans for the mice. I ask, “Did you know?”

  He only smiles evilly and takes Thanos to burp. I lift Stavros to my shoulder and pat his back. I accuse, “You did.”

  He laughs openly.

  “I hate you both!”

  He shakes his head. “No, you don’t. You love us.”

  I don’t admit anything because it is too true. I do love them both.

  An hour later we are sitting at dinner and Giorgios can’t sit still because he is so excited about his science project and his father told him he must wait until after we eat to tell me about it. The moment is finally at hand and he enthusiastically leaves the room…and returns with a small cage, holding four white mice. He brings them near so I can get a very close look at them. It is all I can do not to scream.