Encircled

by Robin Roseau

  “So she’s been talking to you but won’t talk to me.”

  “You’re an amazing person, Claary, but when you become emotionally invested, you can turn damned judgmental. I don’t.”

  “I would like to hear about this plan we have,” Olivia said.

  “Oh, please,” I told her. “You intend to enslave half the country, perhaps three quarters, and perhaps every single one of us.”

  “If that’s our plan, why haven’t we done it?”

  “Jessla and I had this conversation,” I said. “You’re getting us used to the idea. You’re letting some of us come to it willingly.”

  “Like your mother.”

  “Yes, like Mother. I understand why you invaded. I don’t blame you.”

  “You don’t blame us. But do you agree with us?”

  “I don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “You don’t blame us. That’s not the same thing as saying you agree with our choice.”

  “You invaded my country, kicked out half the population, and changed the fabric of our society to suit yourselves. Those who don’t like that change, or who want to be reunited with husbands or fathers are denied the opportunity. Why won’t you let anyone leave?”

  “Because it’s not in their best interests.”

  “That shouldn’t be your decision,” I said. “Unless we’re your slaves already. Are we?”

  She studied me. “We’ve let some leave.”

  “I run an inn,” I said. “One of the hubs of gossip in the city. If you were letting people leave, it would have been discussed in my inn, and I’d have heard.”

  “It hasn’t been many,” she said. “We’re not letting anyone leave until she’s been through her first time. The main reason to want to leave is fear of what we’re doing.”

  “The main reason to leave is to be reunited with husbands and sons.”

  “Those are the ones we’ve let leave. But there hasn’t been any attempt at mass exodus. No one is beating my door down demanding to leave. Not once have you said you want to leave. You’ve admitted the city is better now than it was. You’ve admitted your inn is better than it was.”

  “Because you arranged charity.”

  “What are you talking about.”

  “I have several employees you sent for reasons unclear to me. It certainly isn’t for what I can pay them.”

  “You’re right. It’s for the free food.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m serious. It’s for the free food, the experience, and because I asked a few to volunteer. We’ve been doing it all over town, helping to keep businesses running during this transition period. We’re trying to keep the city vibrant, Claary. If we were here to enslave the lot of you, I would have started with you. Instead I have invested much effort ensuring you become a citizen. And you’re not the only one receiving attention.”

  I said nothing, and the three of them looked at me. Jessla finally said, “You could acknowledge when someone has made a valid point.”

  “No one manipulated Kathareet,” Olivia said. “Giselt asked for a relationship. Kathareet asked for this type of relationship. Giselt told her it didn’t have to be this way.”

  “I bet she doesn’t have a problem with it.”

  “No, she doesn’t. I imagine she’s perfectly fine with it. But it was your mother’s choice.”

  “You overrode Jessla.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Kathareet was quite convincing. It was largely an emotional appeal.”

  “If she had argued with me like she did with Olivia,” Jessla said gently, “I would have granted the petition. I stand by my decision based on the petition as presented by Giselt, but in the end, Olivia made the right choice. The only reason it’s at all questionable is this conversation.”

  I stood up and walked to the window, staring outside for a while. “She didn’t give me a chance to talk her out of it.”

  “Would you have given her a chance?” Olivia asked. “Since we arrived, how many decisions have you discussed with her, before or after coming to a conclusion. It is not the nature of parents to accept advice from their children, but why haven’t you asked her for any?”

  I turned around. “She’s talked to you,” I said to Lisbon. “And not me.”

  “She didn’t want a fight, Claary. You know I think you’re amazing. But you can be a poop, too. It can be really, really hard to get you to listen. I’m willing to stand up to you sometimes, but Mother doesn’t like it, and she avoids it.”

  I turned back to the window. “When is it happening.”

  “How much longer do you need before you can wish her happiness?” Olivia asked. “Add ten minutes. But you’re going to make a promise to me, or I will have you pacified before you see her.”

  I spun to her. “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that, but I am not letting you ruin this for them. You will promise to be supportive. You won’t do a thing to suggest she’s making a mistake. You won’t complain she didn’t talk to you first. You won’t even say anything about wishing she’d been more open with you. You will say that you hope they’ll be happy, and you’ll hug both your mother and Giselt. Or I swear, I will have you pacified and then order all that out of you. Giselt will figure out I did it, but Kathareet won’t.”

  “Don’t you want Mother to be happy?” Lisbon asked.

  My voice cracked. “Will we even see her again?”

  “If you’re not a poop to Giselt,” Lisbon said. “Right, Olivia?”

  “It will be Giselt’s decision,” Olivia said. “This isn’t that unlike families as you have known them. Some stay in contact. Some move across the world.”

  “I have a sister I haven’t talked to in twenty-five years,” Jessla said. “We’ve always fought, and the last time we talked, we both said some terribly mean things.”

  “Which won’t be the case here,” Olivia said. “Is it, Claary?” She said the last words quite pointedly. Then she made a clink sound when she set a vial down on her desk. “Do you want me to use this?”

  “Now you’re asking me?”

  “Do you think I want to drive a wedge between us?”

  I stared at the vial. I actually stared at it, wondering if it would make this easier. “What about the inn?”

  “What about it?”

  “What happens to it? Does it become Giselt’s? Do I work for her now?”

  “No. Giselt will possibly collect some of your mother’s personal effects, although perhaps very little. Everything else she owns will follow our inheritance laws, unless she has a will specifying something else.”

  “If she does, I don’t know it. What is the law?”

  “Everything goes to the eldest daughter.”

  “No.”

  “You asked me what the law is. Are you now demanding I change it?”

  “Lisbon and I to share equally. 50-50.”

  “The law allows you to give away anything you wish to give away,” Olivia said. “But you may wish to contract a lawyer first.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you and I have a fight,” Lisbon said, “I could sell my half of the inn to Olivia, and then you’d have to deal with her all the time.”

  I laughed. “I can think of worse things.”

  “You should have an agreement,” Olivia said. “Each of you has right of first refusal if the other wishes to sell.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means I’d have to let you buy it,” Lisbon said.

  “These agreements can be simple or complicated. Which is why you should involve a lawyer.”

  “All right, but in case Lisbon and I have a fight tomorrow, can we do something binding now, with you to judge what is fair to sell her share and join a traveling circus?”

  Olivia cracked a smile. “Jessla, you know the laws better.”

  “I’ll have someone on my staff draft something. It won’t take long,
and it might actually be sufficient. Right of first refusal, inheritance rights. How do you want disputes handled? 50-50 is awkward.”

  “Maybe it 60-40 in her favor,” Lisbon said. “But a requirement she at least fairly discuss major decisions with me, and if she fails to do so, I get to enslave her for a period of time based on the egregious nature of the unilateral decision she’s made.”

  I snorted. “I’m not going to be your pleasure slave.”

  “God no. You’re my sister. You’ll be the household slave.” She grinned. “And you know it’s going to happen, at least once, because you won’t be able to help yourself.”

  “I’m not agreeing to that.”

  “It’s actually not that unusual a clause,” Jessla said. “Minority owners deserve protection.”

  “You know you’re going to get your way,” Lisbon said. “But you should at least talk to me first, and it’s going to take a couple of times before you get it through your thick skull. If they can recommend something else that anyone in the room thinks will work, that’s fine by me. And before you suggest you don’t have to give me anything, I will say you’re right. You don’t. And I don’t have to stay.”

  “Don’t threaten me.”

  “I’m not. I’m telling you I want to be treated fairly. You seem to think it’s fair if I receive my share of an inheritance. I agree with you. I don’t want us to fight over decisions, but I want to be consulted. Do you think that’s unfair?”

  “No, and you’re probably right.” I shifted my gaze to Jessla. “This is common?”

  “It’s not unusual. I don’t typically handle business law, so I don’t know percentages off the top of my head. But this is a pretty simple agreement, and I have staff who will do a better job writing this than I will.”

  “All right,” I said. Lisbon began smiling broadly. I wondered how many times I’d belong to her before I became less heavy-handed. She was right about that. “Can we agree with a handshake for now?”

  “With the two of us as witnesses,” Jessla said. “It’s binding, with good faith negotiations on the details.”

  “In other words, if the two of you clasp hands, then I can enforce whatever agreement Jessla tells me to enforce,” Olivia said.

  We didn’t clasp hands. We hugged, and I whispered to her that I was sorry I was an ass sometimes. She whispered she loved me anyway.

  “Let’s go see Mother and Giselt,” she said. “Do you need the tonic, Sis?”

  “No. I’ll smile. I’ll tell Mother I love her. I will say I’m sure she’ll be happy. I’ll hug Giselt, if she lets me, and thank her for taking care of Mother. And then I’ll sit and watch this happen. But I still think it’s wrong.”

  “And this time, you’re the one who is wrong,” Lisbon said. “It’s what she wants.” She knocked my head with her knuckles. “If you go visit Olivia tonight, I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong.”

  “You just want the whole inn.”

  “Hell, no. I’m not ready to run it. Yet.” She grinned. “You’ll have to teach me.”

  “I’d loan her to you, Lisbon,” Olivia said.

  “That works for me.”

  * * * *

  I watched this time, my heart breaking.

  I wasn’t ready to be the head of our household. Right then, I wanted my mother to hold me and tell me it was all going to be all right. But I was never going to have that again.

  I felt like an orphan.

  I was only 22. I knew how young that was. Yes, Lisbon was right. I could be hard-headed, and I had largely outgrown needing Mother to ratify my decisions for me. But that didn’t mean a girl didn’t need her mother from time to time, and it didn’t mean I didn’t need Mother’s approval from time to time, too. I could be just as insecure as the next person, and having Mother smile and tell me I’d made the right decision, or I’d done a good job, or just that I looked very nice tonight meant more to me than from anyone else who might see it.

  And I didn’t have that anymore.

  My heart was breaking, but Mother was going to be very happy, and she’d never be lonely again.

  And that was far more important than my heart.

  Dinner Party

  I signed the papers Jessla gave us. Whoever had done them had thought of everything, or so I thought. Lisbon checked one thing: that I’d have to be her slave if I made any major decisions without consulting her first, and it was written to favor her. She read that section, whooped, and then jumped to the bottom, signing very carefully and with her own flourish. Olivia and Jessla both witnessed, and it was done.

  The inn was ours.

  Olivia asked if I wanted to come over. I told her ‘no’, but asked if I’d be welcome in a few days. She smiled. I asked if she wanted to arrange a 48-hour practice challenge, private only.

  “How about a dinner party challenge?” she counter-offered.

  “I want to come,” Lisbon said.

  “We can’t both be gone from the inn for 48 hours.”

  “Yes, we can,” she said. “If we plan ahead. We have good staff, Claary. I will point out I wasn’t saying I wanted a practice challenge. I haven’t decided.” She turned to Olivia. “May I come, and may I bring a date?”

  “I won’t get between you and Claary,” Olivia said. “But if she agrees, then I’d love to have you.”

  “You have a thing for sisters,” I said.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. This isn’t some convoluted plot.”

  “I wasn’t saying that. You don’t get both of us as the same time. If you beat me, and then Lisbon asks for her own challenge, you have to say ‘no’. She can come back next week, if that’s what she wants.”

  “All right,” she said. “So we’re agreed?”

  “Yes. Are you inviting Jessla?”

  “Yes. It will be intimate, perhaps about eight. Some of those may bring dates. Some may bring a slave or two. Slaves will serve and then join us for dinner. How does that sound?”

  “That sounds fine,” I said.

  * * * *

  Lisbon invited Lassa. Jessla brought Emmy and Vi-vi, dressed in red. Bee and Dee were there, of course. Olivia invited Captain Bess and Colonel Melstie plus three other Charthans. Two of them brought dates, for a total of twelve plus the slaves. We had a nice dinner.

  Over dinner, Bess surprised me. She challenged Jessla, suggesting two weeks.

  “I accept,” Jessla said. “Except this event may only host 48-hour agreements. If you want a longer agreement, it must be another time.” She smiled. “And my slaves will be playing. I made promises to them.”

  “Agreed,” Bess said. “Could we go first?”

  I’m not sure she even tried. If she was disappointed she ended by wearing black instead of red, I couldn’t tell.

  “Colonel Melstie,” said a woman named Blenda Foxdell. She indicated her date. “We’d like to challenge you.”

  “Both of you together?”

  They grinned. “Yes. Two of us to belong to the third.”

  “Do you expect to operate as a team?”

  “Not necessarily. We were going to challenge each other, but we discussed something like this last night. We want it to be fair. We want a reasonable chance one of us could win. Are you willing to risk it?”

  “Lady Olivia, if I became unavailable for 48 hours, is that a problem?”

  “No, Melstie.”

  “Jessla, about, oh, six years ago, Taralt accepted a challenge, two on one. Do you remember it?”

  “I do,” Jessla said. “Although it wasn’t one of mine.”

  “Do you remember it well enough to reproduce it, or something close to it?”

  “I believe I do. You perhaps remember that Taralt lost, and the two in question were half her age.”

  “These two are half mine,” she said. “And I’m better than Taralt.”

  “All right.” She smiled. “This will be a three-way event, but there isn’t anything against making a temporary alliance.”

  The two
women grinned. Melstie almost beat both of them. I don’t know what happened. She was ahead, both of them nearly entirely covered in red. But then she gave a groan, and it was like her resistance collapsed. The resin rushed up her body and engulfed her at the same time as she began thrashing and quivering.

  Blenda was all of fifteen seconds behind her, and so the two of them belonged to Remma Brightlake, who seemed stunned at the turn of events.

  My event with Olivia was interesting. Olivia herself didn’t actually touch me until the end. Instead, she sat on a stool with her feet in the resin, and she sent Bee to play with me. But somehow she was linked to both the sisters, so as they grew excited, so did she.

  Bee and I played. She was, of course, very good, and she got me worked up, but I got her more worked up. Then Olivia added Dee. The two of them brought their joy to the game, of course. They giggled and laughed and touched and teased and kissed and entirely overwhelmed me.

  Which was, of course, the entire idea.

  They convinced me to crawl to Olivia. Her legs were coated in resin, just watching us, and they encouraged me to play with her for a minute or two. Oh, I loved stroking those resin-coated legs. I loved playing with her and teasing her. And then the two slaves pulled me across Olivia’s lap. I didn’t resist, but they held me there. And that was when Olivia entered me, first with just her fingers, and then with one of the devices.

  I came, long and hard, not much after. When I was done and had recovered, I kissed the two slaves and thanked them, then looked up at Olivia and thanked her as well.

  “God, that was hot,” Lisbon declared. “Lassa, I wish a practice challenge with you, but only if we can do something at least half as hot as that was.”

  I think she waited intentionally, knowing I couldn’t protest anymore. I don’t know if I would have. I’d let her come, and I had a pretty good idea she had something in mind. When she arrived with Lassa, I had an idea with whom.

  There was a pause as Olivia pulled on proper clothing. She collected her slaves and moved to a sofa then said, “Dee? Bee? Would you like to help with Lisbon and Lassa’s challenge?”