by Thom Lane
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Gambling Heart
Loose Id Titles by Thom Lane
Thom Lane
Tales of Amaranth:
GAMBLING HEART
Thom Lane
www.loose-id.com
Tales of Amaranth: Gambling Heart
Copyright © September 2013 by Thom Lane
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eISBN 9781623004989
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Gambling Heart
I knew it, the moment he woke up. He didn’t stir, he didn’t speak, but even so I knew. A little shiver ran all through me, a kind of nervous anticipation: a new day, a new life. A new man. For the first time in months, I had no idea what my future looked like.
A hollow groan rose in the dark beside me. I swallowed down an answering chuckle and nuzzled his shoulder gently instead, just to make sure he knew that I was there. And awake, and ready for him, but mostly just there.
He tasted of salt and smoke and brandy too. I don’t know if people can really sweat out alcohol, but that morning I thought I could get drunk myself just by kissing his skin. If I was allowed to.
I heard him stifle another groan. A moment later, a curious hand reached out beneath the covers and touched my thigh, then my cock.
It lingered there for a minute, curled around my morning stiffness; then slid up over my belly and chest, light and inquiring, until it found its way to the iron collar around my neck and the chain clipped to its ring.
That must have answered both the immediate questions in his surely muzzy head: I was male, and I was slave.
Hopefully, he could work the rest out for himself.
His fingers traced my lips, my eyes, my hair, as if he was reaching for a touch memory in the dark, building a picture in his head. Hoping to trigger some clear recollection, maybe, just what might have happened the night before…
His body shifted, rising above me as he propped himself up on one elbow. Moving was a mistake, though, fatal. A moment later he was sitting bolt upright in the bed and swallowing convulsively. “I need—”
I was way ahead of him, reaching out to snatch up the basin I’d left handy just in case. I thrust that into his lap just in time; he bent over it, spewing wretchedly.
I knelt on the mattress beside him, holding his shoulders until he was down to dry retching. Then I pushed my fingers through the sweat-soaked tangle of his hair, and nudged him into sitting back against the headboard.
“Wait one minute, Master.”
Working by touch, I found the ewer on the side table and poured a beaker of cool water. I pressed that into his hands, making sure he had a grip before I took my own hands away. “Here. Swill and spit, don’t swallow.”
He did what he was told, my good master, then handed me the basin mutely. The chain on my collar ran to a staple at the foot of the bed; it was just long enough—or this room was just small enough—to let me reach the door unhindered.
I had to feel in the darkness for the unfamiliar latch, but there was an unshuttered window in the passage outside. The gray smudge of the predawn sky gave me light enough to see what I was doing as I set the basin down on the floor. It’d be full day in an hour. I wasn’t any too impressed with my new owner’s accommodations, but even in a rooming house as cheap as this I reckoned I could count on a slave coming by soon enough. I’d noticed last night that the rooms might be mean but the floors were scrubbed and the brass was polished. That didn’t happen by magic.
I closed the door with relief on the foul-smelling basin, and made my way back to the bed. He was still sitting there, hiccuping gently, with the beaker clasped loosely in his hands. I filled it again and this time encouraged him to drink.
“Better now?”
“My head hurts.”
“Yes, Master. I know a cure for that.”
“I’m not drinking some foul witches’ brew. I’ve tried too many miracle cures. None of them works, and they all taste more disgusting than each other.”
You drink too much, I thought cheerfully, Master mine. I might have to do something about that. For now I just knelt astride his legs, wrapped my arms loosely around his neck, nuzzled at his lips until they parted. His breath was still tainted with acid, but I kissed him determinedly. Then I murmured, “This cure tastes better than that. And works better too,” as I tugged him down onto the mattress and pulled the covers up over our heads.
I made him sweat again, and then I let him sleep again. I slept too, curled against his side, until I felt him shift and stretch. I was instantly awake then, opening my eyes to find his just a hand span away, looking at me quizzically. It was hard to be sure in the dim light, but I thought they were gray, his eyes, behind his absurdly thick lashes. His hair was a dark, overgrown disgrace that my fingers yearned to play with; I wanted to brush it into glossy good order, then tie it back in a ponytail, just for the pleasure of pulling the ribbon loose again and watching his hair fall back in soft, natural waves around the extraordinary beauty of his face.
“Hullo.” His voice was awkward, still hoarse from last night, and still careful from this morning’s consequences.
“’Morning, Master.”
His fingers were at my throat, puzzled, feeling at the ring of my collar for a tag that wasn’t there.
“What’s your name, boy?”
I just shrugged, and shook my head slightly. I didn’t have one yet.
“Well, who do you belong to?”
This time, I couldn’t keep the smile from my face. “Don’t you remember?”
His turn to shake his head, gingerly. “I remember…I remember dinner at the tavern and getting into a game I couldn’t afford. Nothing new there,” he added ruefully, “except how surprised I was that they would ever play with me.” Free folk are heedless with their slaves sometimes, confessing things they’d never tell their friends. “After that… No, I don’t remember. Did I borrow you from someone?”
“No, Master.” I couldn’t speak for his friends, but the people he gambled with were not that generous, to lend their slaves to him.
“Hire you for the night, then?” His hand on my cheek said he could un
derstand why he would have done that; his anxious frown said he really couldn’t afford it if he had.
I turned my head to kiss his fingers. “Not that either. I belong to you now.”
“You—what?”
“Belong to you. Master.”
“Oh, gods. Don’t tell me I bought you? If I could afford to keep a boy, don’t you think I’d have one already?” His gaze swept around the room, in a gesture that pointed up both his poverty and his desperate need of a body slave. The more light that leaked in through the cracked shutters, the more it revealed about the way he lived. Young man adrift in the big city, barely keeping body and soul together. His clothes were threadbare and scattered any old how across the furniture and the floor. His boots were scuffed and shamefully dull. The sword hanging on the back of the door lacked a scabbard, and I thought there was rust on the blade.
“You didn’t buy me. You won me.” In that game you couldn’t afford, my extravagant Master.
“I…won you?”
“Yes, Master.”
“I never win anything.”
I could believe that. His whole life had an air of bitter bad luck about it. And yet he kept playing, he didn’t give up. I thought I could admire that, perhaps. Even while I rolled my eyes at his intransigence.
I thought I might have to do a lot of eye rolling, in days to come.
For a minute then he didn’t say anything, only lay there with one hand exploring my body slowly. Then he slapped my flank, suddenly decisive; said, “Get up and open the shutters. Carefully,” added with a quick anticipatory wince.
I slithered out of bed and crossed the room, stalked by a metallic rustle as I felt the weight of chain dragging behind me. The shutter’s hinges creaked as I drew them open; the fall of sunlight was warm and welcome on my bare skin.
“Come here.”
Back across the room I went, a few short strides, feeling the weight of his gaze now, heavier than the chain and warmer than sunlight. He was squinting a little against that light as he looked me up and down. I stood passive and exposed before him, hands behind my back, eyes down, legs apart, the image of an obedient slave boy.
“Show.”
Eyes up, hands behind my head, legs wider. My body was there before my mind caught up. That’s what training does; it settles bone-deep. Obedience is almost instinct after a while.
He looked his fill and took his time about it. Free folk seldom hurry; it’s what they keep us for, to do their hurrying for them.
“Turn.”
I turned around on the word, still holding the same pose, letting him see the back of me.
He grunted. “Bad boy, are you?”
“N-no, Master.”
“This says you are. Not such a bargain after all. Maybe your last master was glad to be shot of you, eh? ”
It wasn’t a question; I didn’t say a word. Besides, I had my lip caught tight between my teeth to keep myself from yelping as his thumbs counted off the evidence, all the welts and bruises from my last whipping.
That had been three days before. This slow exploration of the damage almost hurt worse. Almost. The soreness settles into your bones and you learn to live with it, almost to take it for granted; you learn to how to move and how to lie still, how not to disturb it while it slumbers, while you heal. Then along comes a free man with a devil in his fingers, who seems to know just how to pinch and where to press, to wake it all into fire again.
I did try not to, but maybe I sniffed too loudly, maybe I squirmed too much. His hard hand slapped me again, more purposefully. “Hold still, and don’t whimper. You’re not that hurt. By now it all looks worse than it is; these bruises are yellowing already, and your last master must have been an artist with the leather. He hasn’t even broken the skin. Still, I hope you did something to deserve this, because he obviously meant it.”
My last master always meant it. Whether I deserved it or not. That’s why I was relieved and grateful to find myself in new hands now. However hard they pinched.
Those new hands were suddenly very still, though, resting on my hip bones; at the same time, their owner—my owner!—went suddenly very quiet. I took a chance and glanced over my shoulder.
Saw him swallow, and saw how pale his skin was, slick with a chilly sweat. That was his bad stomach backing up on him again. I twisted around in an instant, knelt between his legs, held his hands for comfort and said, “Do you need the bowl? I can fetch it.”
Perhaps I should, even without orders. Better that than cleaning up the mess after, if I was too slow.
He shook his head, though, my stubborn master; and clenched his jaw hard, gulped again, managed to squeeze a few words safely out. “No. No, I just… You stay where you are,” his hands gripping my shoulders to be sure of me. “I’ll be fine.”
Of course he would, he only had a hangover. It might feel like the end of the world, but that would pass. I’d done what I could for his sore head, by tempting him into a pleasant distraction and an hour’s extra sleep; there wasn’t much I could do for his stomach yet. Not if he was still at the jaw-clenching stage. I rubbed my cheek against the inside of his forearm and murmured, “You sat up too fast, that’s all. Lie down again.”
“What, so you get to lie down too, lazy boy? …Actually, though, I think I will. Either this room is spinning, or else it’s my head. What in hell’s name was I drinking last night?”
“Wine and brandy, Master. Mostly.”
“I…don’t like the sound of that ‘mostly.’ Don’t tell me any more.”
“No, Master.”
He chuckled faintly from the depths of the bed, and his hand scritched me behind my ear as if I were a cat. If I had been a cat, I might have purred. I did lift my chin and lean a little into the caress. His voice was plaintive as he said, “I wish I could remember. Really mine? You, I mean?”
“Really, Master. Really truly.”
“Damn.”
“Master?”
“I’m sorry, lad. I don’t want to, but—well, I really can’t afford a boy. Really truly, I can’t. And of course the other half of that is, I could really use the money that you’d fetch. I could settle half my debts with the price of a pretty lad. I’d better just take you down to market this morning, before we get used to each other. I know a dealer who won’t be unkind. She trades in house slaves, not tavern sluts; she’ll find a good home to sell you to.”
I didn’t say a word. He had another surprise coming, apart from me—but that could wait. He might have been expecting me to whimper, to plead, even to argue. Instead I slithered back up onto the bed, curled my arms around his thighs, and dropped my head into his groin.
Distantly, I heard that thin chuckle again. He must have thought this was another way of pleading, an anxious boy trying any way he could to persuade his new master to keep him. I really wasn’t worried, but I needed him to learn that for himself. Men don’t like their slaves too cocky. Even with good cause.
Maybe especially with good cause.
“It’s no good,” he murmured. “You can’t…”
Yes, I could. I didn’t say so aloud; I was too smart or too well trained to argue. And besides, I already had a mouthful of his cock to stifle me.
No harm if he thought I was trying to inveigle my way into his heart. Maybe that was true, even, though not for the reason he must think.
Mostly I was still thinking about my poor master’s hangover and his queasy belly, applying my own best remedy one more time. Give a man something else, something better to think about; keep him in bed, in the warm dark an hour longer; help him sleep some more if he can. All of that is sovereign for what was ailing him.
If there was pleasure in it for me too, a man’s hot, strong body to explore and test, to challenge and satisfy—well. Even slaves are allowed their pleasures. So long as those don’t conflict with what their owners want, obviously.
Master might not want this right now—or might not realize that he wanted it—but his cock did, rising all independe
ntly under my mouth. I lipped and nipped and licked at it until it stood proud and free and determined. Then I snuggled in closer for a long unhurried session, sensing that was what he most needed, and most likely all he would be up for. There’d be times for sure when he’d want to fuck me, swift and hard—but not this morning. Not anytime this morning.
That was fine with me. There are times when I want to be fucked, when I yearn for it, when I hope more than anything that my master will be in the mood; there’ve been times when I’ve earned myself a whipping just by being too importunate, trying too hard. It doesn’t have to be like that, though. I can be just as happy using my mouth, taking my time, drawing his pleasure out sweet and slow. Even slaves can be subtle sometimes, when we’re allowed to be.
When your master’s feeling sick or sorry for himself, when he maybe wants comfort and distraction more than simple sex, when there’s no urgency and no imperative except that careful, intimate exploration, his body under your tongue—sometimes those are the best times of all.
That morning we were still new to each other, which adds a whole other element of discovery, and that’s good too. Can be good, with the right master.
I suppose he’d say that the other way around.
That morning, him and me, it was very good indeed.
I teased him with lips and tongue and hints of teeth, I strayed my mouth all over his long lean body, though I kept coming back to what mattered most, the core of him, the groin, that focus of hair and balls in their tight sac and jutting cock above. I kissed and sucked and licked until I had him groaning and writhing beneath me, his hips starting to pump, his hands suddenly clenching hard in my hair. Then he was master of the moment, what I’d been working for; I took the whole head of his fat cock into my mouth entire and he held my head clamped there as he came in a hard hot jet to the back of my throat.
Then he sighed, and shivered a little, and settled slowly back into the bedding like a man drained utterly. I nestled closer into the heat of him and licked that firm, fat cock of his as it relaxed, as he did.
