by Izzy Shows
But it was cute, the effort she went to to court me in what she considered to be the Earthly fashion. She had cooked a meal, or rather had a meal cooked for us, in an attempt to serve me some Earth food. She had thought at the time that it would give me comfort to eat the food of my people and that I would be touched by such an effort.
In truth, I did find it sweet in a way that she was making the effort, but the meal had been comical. She'd tried to make lasagna, but the layers had been…odd. She didn't know what pasta was, so the flat noodles that should have separated the layers were made of something else entirely. I didn't know what, but they had tasted like a kind of gummy candy. The sauce had been something like coffee, and what should have been meat was instead as hard as a rock and tasted like liquified anchovies.
All in all, it had been a revolting meal. But I ate it anyway, because even though she owned me and I hated her for it, I couldn't bring myself to hurt her feelings when she was so damned excited about what she was doing, or trying to do. It was confusing, to say the least, having her try to woo me while she kept me collared, but I refused to let myself forget what was really going on here.
I was owned by this female, and she wanted to have me, even if she was going about it in a kind way.
She'd even brought me a very large rock, which she'd explained was another thing she'd researched about Earth culture. I was fairly certain she was referring to diamonds, but I couldn't be sure. I didn't have the heart to correct her, not after the way she'd deflated when I pointed out that sticks were not the same as flowers.
In between her attempts at courting, I spent my time trying to find a way out of the estate. It wasn't exactly difficult to do, I'd learned, but the shock collar I was wearing was keyed to go off if I left the grounds without Tavixi at my side. I'd learned that the hard way when I tried to leave.
Tavixi had been so sad to learn that I wanted to get away from her that I almost felt bad about it.
Almost.
I wouldn't let her pretense at kindness turn my heart away from wanting to be free.
I have to get out of here soon. Every day I spend here is another day that Xiva spends in captivity, and that's hoping that she's not being abused.
I shuddered at the thought. Every night, after I went to bed, I had nightmares about what might be happening to Xiva, and it spurred me on to find a way out of here. That was why I'd risked leaving with the shock collar on; I'd leave if I could, and try to figure out a way to get rid of the collar later on. But that hadn't been possible.
Which was why I was still here, heading for the large kitchen in the mansion to prepare for serving Tavixi at dinner. It was one of the few tasks she had actually given me; apparently, my escape attempt meant I didn't need as much free time to grow accustomed to my surroundings as she'd originally thought.
I walked into the kitchen, expecting to find the chef and one or two of Tavixi's other slaves, and instead found two strange males I hadn't seen before. Both were dressed in the same type of slave trousers I wearing.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, frowning.
They both looked surprised, turning to glance at one another before looking back at me.
"We're here to serve our mistresses at dinner, of course," one of them said. He had flame-red hair and lavender skin, while the other had ice-blue hair and dark red skin. Each had the same leopard-like spots that Tavixi and all the others here did, which I was growing to understand was a mark of their species.
"I didn't realize anyone else was going to be at dinner."
That didn't sit well with me. I'd served Tavixi at dinner last night and had done a rather decent job of it, according to her; she'd only had to correct me a time or two. If someone else was going to be at dinner, I would have to be on my best behavior or Tavixi would be very upset with me.
My time here had been amusing so far, but I didn't want to find out how much things could change if I drew her ire.
"Well, yes, we are here, and so are our mistresses, and dinner is about to start," the blue-haired one said, nodding at the door to the dining room.
I shrugged, not wanting to say anything further. I wasn't here to make friends with the other slaves. I was going to do what I could to keep Tavixi in good spirits, and work on finding a way out of here when I could. It might be that pleasing Tavixi would be my ticket out of here.
It was a better plan than pissing her off, anyway.
A bell sounded, and the three of us walked out of the kitchen, each carrying a large platter with strange food on it. We went to the large round table in the center of the room and set the platters down, then took up our positions slightly behind and to the side of our mistresses.
The table was low to the floor, and rather than sitting on chairs, our mistresses had little cushions to sit on around the table. There were straw-like mats beside the cushions for the slaves to kneel on while they fed their mistresses. That was what serving at dinner meant; the females did not feed themselves. Apparently, feeding oneself was to pronounce yourself to be the poorest person possible.
I waited for Tavixi to finish speaking to the woman on her right so she could indicate what I was to serve her first. She would do this with a simple gesture; not once would she look at me throughout the evening. Slaves were not worthy of a glance.
"Really, Tavixi, I cannot believe that you're planning to bring that nonsense before the senate," the female on her right said. "Slaves are an integral part of our society, and barring the sale of future slaves would cripple that."
"You should know better than to be surprised by my actions in the senate, Riana. I see I've surprised you several times now, and I suspect I will only go on doing so," Tavixi said, her tone cool and unaffected.
I was amazed to hear the other woman address Tavixi in such a fashion. It wasn't so much a surprise that others held opposing views—honestly, I suspected she was alone in her beliefs—but rather that anyone she had invited into her home would be so rude.
"Desireus, here, would have no home if it weren't for me," the woman went on, gesturing at the slave behind her. "I feed and clothe him, and I would say I am a very caring mistress. I do not use those horrid pain collars. I believe in proper punishment and pleasure used together to keep a slave in line."
"And I do not believe that a slave should be kept in line at all," Tavixi said. "I believe that if a slave has a problem with what they are asked to do, that problem should be addressed and corrected, not the slave."
"And yet you have a collar on your slave," sneered the woman on Tavixi's left.
Tavixi stiffened. "It is a necessity. My new slave has a history of violence, and until he has proven his loyalty, he will have to wear the collar. I assure you, it is not something I enjoy doing."
"Why should you be allowed to purchase a new slave if you are attempting to stop others from doing the same?"
"I am not suggesting that anyone should stop before the bill has passed through the appropriate channels. After it becomes law, everyone will follow it, including myself."
The woman on her left sniffed disdainfully. "I would think that a female with your particular beliefs would make an example of herself, rather than allowing her actions to protest her words."
"My purchase of the new slave saved his life, thank you very much. I did not do it for my own pleasure."
Liar. You did it because you want to fuck me.
But I didn't say that. I knew better than to speak out during any of this; it would only reflect poorly on Tavixi, and she was having a hard enough time wrangling the other females as it was.
The evening went on like that for quite some time, the females more or less insulting Tavixi at every available opportunity and speaking as if their slaves weren't there at all. It was a little surprising to see how freely they spoke, without concern for those who were listening to them.
They thought very little of their slaves, I could see, and it appeared that they barely believed their slaves to be sentient creatures. They a
cknowledged that they could speak, at least, and hypothesized that they were capable of some levels of thought, but the agreed-upon notion was that a male had to have a female to take care of him; otherwise, he would get himself into trouble. He couldn't be trusted with his own life, according to them.
"Really, Tavixi, I can't believe you would say such a thing!" the woman on her right said with a horrified look on her face, causing me to tune back in to the conversation. "We're your only friends. You might want to keep that in mind. No one else will even associate with you."
That was surprising, that Tavixi considered these females to be her friends. I would have thought this was some sort of political dinner, where Tavixi had to host the others as a requirement of some kind. But was it, in fact, just her getting together with her friends?
Why would she voluntarily put herself through a dinner where all her 'friends' did was reprimand her and insult her? I would have preferred to live in isolation.
But I remembered the lonely look in Tavixi's eyes when she'd first dressed me in my slave clothes. No doubt she had been on her own for quite a long time, and she craved the companionship of others, even if she had to put up with a lot of abuse to get it.
To her credit, though, no matter what the females said to her, she didn't break. She didn't allow herself to show the pain I was sure she was feeling, because the females were truly cruel to her.
She was a strong woman, capable of weathering their insults without so much as a flinch.
I couldn't help but respect her for that.
Kaidan
I can't believe I'm doing this again, I thought as Tavixi regarded herself in the sapphire mirror, turning to one side to view her long dress from another angle. It was a beautiful garment, split at the knees to allow a glimpse of her legs and afford her a greater range of movement.
Undressing her at night was another of the few tasks she had given me, though it was obviously a thinly veiled attempt at seduction. She thought if I saw her like this, if I participated in removing her clothing and stood close to her, I would be tempted by her.
It wasn't that she was unattractive; she was a beautiful female. Her skin, a soft purple, shimmered in the light whenever it struck her just right, her face was made up of delicate features, and she had ample curves that would no doubt have aroused another man. But she did nothing for me. I simply was not attracted to her, no matter how much she tried to change that.
Which was odd. If I recalled correctly, Tavixi resembled one of the alien women I had engaged with a few years back, and I had enjoyed her immensely. So, it wasn't that Tavixi wasn't my type, and I doubted it had anything to do with the fact that she owned me. Such a thing might be repellent to me emotionally, but I doubted it would have an effect on my physical reaction to her.
But whatever the reason was, my body didn't respond to her. In fact, it didn't respond to any of the females I had interacted with since I'd come to her planet.
"Kaidan? Aren't you going to assist me?" Tavixi asked, turning to face me with a small smile on her face.
"Of course, mistress," I murmured, stepping forward.
She turned her back to me again, and I made quick work of the laces that held her dress up. I was rather adept with most women's clothing, and I'd found that it wasn't terribly different across the various cultures I had interacted with over the years, my learning having come from several intimate interactions with alien species.
I was a soldier, not a dead man, and I had never denied myself a willing female in the past. At least, not one I had wanted.
The dress fell to pool around her feet, and she stepped out of it, clad now only in her undergarments. She was wearing a simple band around her chest that rose up in the front to cup her breasts with pale pink lace that was quite suggestive, and her underpants were little more than a scrap of lace that barely served to cover her. It was incredibly see-through.
"I wanted to ask you a question, mistress," I said, forcing myself to use the correct form of address. Though I had learned to use it some time ago, it was still something I had to think about, something I had to make myself do.
Submitting was not something I was fond of.
"Anything, Kaidan," she said, smiling. "Whatever you wish, just say so."
Not whatever I wish. You wouldn't grant me my freedom if I asked for it.
But I didn't say that. It would do me no good.
"I wanted to know why you keep slaves," I said bluntly. "You appear to be very much against slavery, and I've heard you talk about it with several people now. Putting aside your purchase of me, why do you keep the other slaves? Why do you not set them free?"
She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips as she walked to her bed and took a seat on the edge.
"That's a very complicated question, Kaidan, and I don't expect you to understand my reasons." She crossed one leg over the other and leaned back to rest her weight on her palms, displaying her chest for me to view. "This is the way things are done right now, and I'm working within the system to change it, but I have to play under the same rules as anyone else. If I want to be taken seriously, I have to own slaves to maintain my status. If I don't, I won't be received in polite society, and my opinions will be dismissed."
I narrowed my eyes. "You seem to occupy a particularly important position, if you're able to present a bill to your senate. If you were to free your slaves, it would make a statement that no one would be able to ignore."
"And then I'd be ignored in society, as well as politically. No one would take me seriously if I did that. Yes, it would cause quite the splash for a lunar cycle or so, but it would likely be very quickly overshadowed by some pageant or other. People would allow themselves to forget about what is important. They don't want to pay attention to politics, not if they can help it."
A frustrated growl built in my throat, but I forced myself to swallow it. Losing my temper wasn't going to do me any good here, although I could clearly see that I wasn't going to make any headway with Tavixi.
That wasn't news to me. I had never been a very adept public speaker, and I had always preferred to leave such things to others. Walter was better at this than I was, which was why he'd been so useful when we were trying to keep Xiva safe from the scientists who had wanted to experiment on her back when we'd first found her.
I wished desperately that he had been here to help me now. And then I took that thought back, because if Walter had been here to help me, he would be a slave just as much as I was, and I wouldn't wish that on him. He didn't have the fortitude to withstand this. I was certain of that.
Hope the kid is safe. It's a damned good thing I made him stay on the ship.
But what had happened to him when we didn't come back? Did he go looking for us and end up captured himself? I hoped not. I hoped he'd been intelligent enough to leave that damned planet and find someone to help him. Hell, I wouldn't even blame him if he'd gone straight back to Earth, where it was safe.
I wanted him to be safe. He'd wormed his way into my heart, and I didn't want anything bad to happen to him.
"Kaidan?"
"Yes, mistress?"
"Was there anything else you wanted to say?"
I contemplated that for a moment but came up with nothing. Nothing I could say was going to sway her, not tonight.
"All right, then," she said with a sigh, and stood up from the bed. "Help me out of this and into my nightclothes."
I went to her, unhooked the band she was wearing over her breasts and laid it to the side, then helped her shimmy out of the scrap of fabric below. She was naked in front of me then, and she waited a long moment before she told me to get her nightgown. She was letting me look at her as long as possible, I knew, but I kept my eyes carefully trained on the floor.
I didn't want to give her any indication that I might have even a passing interest in her.
"Fetch my gown, then, Kaidan," she said.
I did as she had instructed, walking into her closet and removing the nightgo
wn from its hanger. The little slip of fabric she wore to bed couldn't afford her much protection from the cold, and I doubted it was the most comfortable garment in the world to begin with, but it was what she wanted to wear.
I brought it to her, and when she lifted her arms over her head, I slipped it onto her.
"There we are. Time for bed, then," she said, then padded over to her bed and slipped under the covers. "Won't you kiss me good night, Kaidan?"
She was looking at me expectantly, just as she did every night. And like every night, I said the same thing.
"No, mistress. That, I will not do."
Her face fell just a bit, and more than any other night, she looked lonely. It almost made me want to give in, but I held on to my morals. I wasn't going to allow her to use my body as long as I had some control over it.
I went to the foot of the bed, where my pallet was, and lay down for the night.
Like a damned dog, I slept at the foot of her bed.
Xiva
My soul was weary, but not yet broken. There had been many more proving fights, and the days had begun to blur together. I didn't know how battles I'd fought in, or what day it was, and I was beginning to care less and less. My body was fine—I healed it every night. It was my psyche that was taking the beating.
I didn't know how much longer I could keep this up without giving in to the hopeless despair that waited for me every night when I went to sleep. The thought of never finding my freedom, of living the rest of my life without my yeva…
The yeva bond was sacred, and I had never heard of a pair being separated after the bond had formed. It wasn't the most profound thing in the world, I could admit that, but it was important all the same. The partner you were meant to fight your entire life with, that you could trust with every inch of yourself, that you knew better than anyone else: that was what a yeva was. You were never meant to be separated from your yeva. I didn't even know what the effects of such a separation would be.
