Cruel Enchantment (Black Lace)

by Janine Ashbless

  ‘If I liked it, Marlam wouldn’t do it,’ she said through twisted lips.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He likes to find something to punish me for,’ she muttered, the words crawling from her throat like slugs. ‘He will really go at me for sitting on your lap. I …’

  She stopped. She had not come here for sympathy. They were probably getting off on the thought themselves.

  ‘So why don’t you leave him?’ Tarkelion Dirskis asked.

  She twisted her hands together at her throat and faltered; ‘I haven’t any family here. I’ve no one to go to. Raurinel is too far for me to travel alone and the only way the Guild helped when my father died was to pass me on to Marlam.’ Her voice was shaking, but it was hard, too. ‘His first wife had killed herself. I will not end up like that.’

  ‘I see,’ he said again. ‘So you thought I was a better risk?’

  ‘Better than the devil I know. If he touches me again I will take a knife to the bastard, and then he’ll either have to finish me off properly or …’ She bit her lip then to stop it wobbling.

  Tarkelion Dirskis rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully and looked over at Soron Shal before turning upon Elgith with a shrug. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I certainly have no objections to your staying here; and I’m sure the army has none either.’ He advanced on her again and this time she had nowhere to back away to. Instead she averted her face.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered to the gods.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Tarkelion Dirskis, misunderstanding. ‘You will be earning your keep, after all.’ He put one hand to her throat and jaw. His touch was warm, though the fingers were callused. ‘Stop shaking, girl,’ he added gently; ‘I’m not a bloody monster.’

  She squared her shoulders against the pillar and tried to face him, but her eyes kept squeezing shut. He cupped her face in both hands and lifted it. ‘Come on, look at me. This was your idea, don’t forget. It’s not that bad. Now, what’s your name?’

  ‘Elgith,’ she whispered.

  ‘Elgith. That’s better. Nice name. God’s ballocks, girl – green eyes and copper hair; where did you get those? You’re rare enough for the Emperor himself.’

  She concentrated on staying upright and fixed her eyes on the low ceiling beyond him as his hands explored her throat and breasts, the layers and fastenings of her clothing. She wore a pale linen shirt under the tight constriction of her front-laced bodice, and a long woollen skirt to her ankles beneath that. He slipped the bow and pulled the laces of her bodice from the top eyelets with a small rasping noise, enough to loosen her shoulder-straps and allow him to tug the blouse down from her bare shoulders. Hair stood up on the nape of Elgith’s neck. His movements were neither rough nor deferential, merely business-like, though his touch lingered in the cleft of her freckle-starred breastbone. He was not in any hurry. Slipping one hand after another under the linen, he eased her breasts up into the light where he might admire them. Supported now rather than flattened by her stiffened corset, they jutted plumply, pale as small moons, and he covered them with warm palms. Elgith stared at the wooden groining overhead and bit her lip again. It did not feel unpleasant, not in itself, this kneading and caressing of her exposed flesh; only when she remembered that it was a stranger’s hands upon her did her skin crawl.

  Still cupping her breasts, pinching her small nipples tight between thumbs and forefingers, he pressed the length of his body against hers. It felt almost as hard as the wooden pillar at her back. His still-hidden cock nudged her thigh through the intervening layers of cloth, stabbing bluntly at her skirted groin; he dropped his face to her neck, breathing the scent of her hair and skin. She heard him groan into her throat: ‘Ah, yes …’

  He smelled warm and beery and sweet, his breath hot on her throat. Elgith felt a tiny answering warmth move within her, like the tickle of thaw-water on ice.

  He sought up under the bottom edge of her bodice, found the drawstring of her skirt and pulled it free. Her skirt, plain and respectable, tugged loose easily then and he let it fall at her feet, followed it up with two layers of underskirts that had plumped and muffled the long lines of her legs, and then pushed his fingertips through the bright copper wire of her pubic hair. She quivered and this made him laugh in his throat. He slid down on one knee, hands on her hips, the better to examine his new toy – and found the lines of bruises, green and purple, across the insides of her thighs. Elgith stared down at the top of his head, at the complicated knots binding the brass rings into his hair, hating the tokens of her victimisation, hating him for being a witness to them – just for a moment. Then he leaned in to her, his lips soft on the vulnerable crease between thigh and pubic mound, his tongue exploring her tickling flesh. She raised her eyes defiantly across the room and saw Soron Shal, propped up one side, his face set in calm concentration, his hose open, his right hand busy at his crotch. He was pulling upon the long curve of his penis, squeezing the smooth shaft, dropping his palm to cup and caress his balls; without hurry, without apparent passion. Elgith had never seen such meditative perfection. She thought of Marlam standing outside the door, sick with rage, while one soldier of the hated Empire buried his face in her muff and the other watched and masturbated. A soft warmth burst within her, like a flower opening.

  When Tarkelion Dirskis spread her labia with his fingers and sank his lips and tongue into her cleft, she did not try to stifle her wriggle of pleasure. Instead, she eased herself open, allowing him greater access to the taste of her wetness. A flush drowned her freckles. She was very aware of herself, clothed only between hip and breastbone, her figure constrained by the tightness of a bodice from which her breasts overflowed, unconcealed; it must make a fine sight for Soron Shal, whose hand was moving faster now as Tarkelion Dirskis ground his face back and forth, deeper into her flesh. Elgith sank her fingers into the military adviser’s dark hair and pulled him closer still; she saw his eyebrows flash in surprise, felt his tongue boring eagerly into her. Marlam was waiting outside the door, she told herself; helpless, humiliated, full of a hatred for her that was entirely impotent.

  Orgasm hit Elgith like a whiplash, coming from nowhere, leaving her shocked and shaking and hot. Her upthrust breasts wobbled shamefully as she writhed on the face of the enemy. But as soon as she had stilled he pulled away from her, rose to his feet – blocking her view of Soron Shal on the bed beyond – and cleared his throat.

  ‘You’re full of surprises,’ he said thickly. His chin was slick with her juices and he smelled of her, onion-sharp; Elgith felt confusedly that this was wrong and she nuzzled into the stubble of his beard, trying to lick him clean of the alien scent. Tarkelion Dirskis gave one groan of helpless shock and his hands at last freed his own desperate member from his hose, guiding it into her as he partly lifted her, partly crushed her against the pillar. They were well-matched for height; she barely had to straddle to admit him access. The feeling of his hands on her buttocks, his thick cock splitting her swollen flesh, stretching her tight, aching quim, was better than she could have dared hoped. It rekindled her arousal and brought her back to a new plateau of desire. He was so very strong; she let him support the whole of her weight, lifting her from the ground with each swift thrust, digging his fingers into her splayed arse-cheeks, gasping into her neck and hair. She lurched towards orgasm again – but his desire was too great and he climaxed before she could, shuddering upwards into her and then holding as motionless as a statue, hardly breathing. Elgith clung to him, not daring to voice her own frustration.

  Without unsheathing himself, he lifted her weight on to his hips, turned and carried her the few paces to the pallet-bed, where he laid her back upon the wool-filled mattress and paused for a moment, his knees beneath her thighs, to look down at her. He stroked her mound with one hand. Elgith was still flushed and panting; she watched her possessor from beneath lowered lashes, wondering what he planned next. There was no sign of his erection flagging; he still filled her, but he showed no inclination to renew
his exertions just yet. Elgith dared to steal a glance over at the other bed and saw that Soron Shal was now sitting at its edge, thighs parted, a mottled flush upon his sweat-sheened chest. The soldier scratched lazily at the back of his neck, his smile reeking of satisfaction.

  ‘Charming,’ he said – or, rather, that was what it sounded like to Elgith.

  Tarkelion Dirskis laid one finger accurately upon her exposed clitoris and began to stir. She whimpered. Without taking his eyes from her face he asked a question, low and husky, in the Empire language. Soron Shal gave a considered, expansive, reply.

  ‘I think,’ said Tarkelion Dirskis to her, pulling slowly free and stretching out at full length by her side, ‘that there are depths to you that will take long, careful exploration.’ His voice was low in her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. ‘Some tasks are worth spending a lot of time on. Hmm? I also think Soron Shal would very much like you to wrap those lips around his hard cock.’

  Elgith glanced sharply over at the other man, uneasy. There was something in Soron Shal’s sardonic coolness that she mistrusted. ‘He … has already spent,’ she protested.

  ‘Ah, I think you’ll find he is a man of unusual talents,’ Tarkelion Dirskis murmured. He ceased caressing her throbbing crotch and gestured with sticky fingers. Soron Shal eased himself to his feet and walked over and, as he did so, Tarkelion Dirskis rolled on to his knees and pulled Elgith into his lap, her back to his chest, facing the soldier as she had done at the table earlier in the day. She was given a very good look at what was coming for her; a smooth, almost elegant curve of flesh, still plump with blood but far less veined and ridged than the siege engineers’ thick member, and swinging beneath that a hairless, velvety pouch bigger than her clenched fist. Elgith’s eyes widened.

  Tarkelion Dirskis wrapped both arms around her and stroked the lower part of her belly, tickling her pubic mound.

  ‘He’s hung like a ram,’ Elgith whispered, awe-struck. The man at her back chuckled; Soron Shal raised one brow and then stroked two fingers down the length of his shaft in an inflammatory caress. There was quivering tension in his erection still and it leaped at his touch; the swollen purplish glans peeking past his foreskin.

  ‘You’ve already made him come once,’ Tarkelion Dirskis said in her ear. ‘Clean him up.’

  Elgith leaned forwards. There were glistening snail-trails of semen spattered across the soldier’s belly and pendent in his glossy pubic hair. She tongued these delicately from his skin; they were cool despite the heat of his flesh beneath, and bitter on her palate. Soron Shal held very still under her ministrations, but his member jerked and nudged her jaw.

  ‘Suck him,’ Tarkelion Dirskis instructed.

  Elgith shied away. ‘I won’t be any good at this,’ she confessed; ‘I’ve never – Marlam didn’t like me to –’

  Soron Shal snorted.

  ‘It’ll come with practice,’ Tarkelion Dirskis promised; he reached out and to Elgith’s shock took the struggling cock in a firm, familiar grip. ‘Here.’ He pulled the foreskin back and eased Elgith forwards, guiding her mouth down over the fat cock-head before she had time to protest. ‘That’s it. Good girl.’ Soron Shal groaned and put a hand on either side of her head. His cock was absolutely rigid in her mouth now, like a length of hot iron sheathed in velvet.

  ‘Suck it. Lick it. Take it all the way to the back of your throat. Gently, now – no teeth. Use your tongue and your lips. That’s right, Copperhead.’ Tarkelion Dirskis matched her pace as he spoke, cupping and stroking Soron Shal’s huge balls rhythmically, reaching forwards between his braced thighs to gently torture the spot behind the soldier’s scrotum. Their victim heaved and writhed with pleasure, teeth bared, belly hard as a board, sliding his long wet member in and out between Elgith’s pursed lips. Her eyes watered and she had to fight for breath against his alien beat, but there was an extraordinary gentle power in this that made Elgith’s heart thump. She ran her tongue down the gaping slit of his glans and shivered inwardly in wonder as he reacted, quivering at her touch.

  When Tarkelion Dirskis was assured that she had found her proper rhythm he relinquished his hold of the other man and pulled back behind her again, kicking his hose off and sliding his own hot cock up between her rocking thighs. Elgith found herself hung on the hooks of two men, the one at her rear working carefully, the one in her mouth thrusting more and more quickly. It was the strangest sensation she had ever yielded to, frightening and comforting all at once. Hot shivers of pleasure chased up her stomach. She lost her rhythm for a moment, forgetting Soron Shal’s demands in a wave of her own desire. The soldier seemed to realise that she was losing control; he tightened his grip on her and let her go passive, moving his hips to compensate for her and pushing her head from side to side. Tarkelion Dirskis slipped one hand around the front of her thighs and plunged his fingers into the swamp of her groin, finding the agonised focus of her pleasure, whipping her excitement to an unbearable pitch until she started to shake all over, muscles screaming in spasm, unable to rock or lick or breathe. She felt Soron Shal tighten up. Tarkelion Dirskis was slapping into her wet pussy like a man hammering a stake into the ground, his hand was making her boil – and she came in a wrench of ecstasy, felt Soron Shal arrive at the same moment, her throat opening slackly to him, his hot distillation foaming into her, filling her mouth as she convulsed on him, on them, both men holding her up, filling her, tearing her apart with their caresses.

  At the moment she felt she could finally open her eyes again, Tarkelion Dirskis pulled her from his companion, rolled her over on to her back and parted her thighs anew. He was not rough but he was quite urgent, his own neglected weapon a small fist punching into her gaping crotch. She spread her legs wide for him, soft with gratitude and joy, wrapping her legs around the small of his back so that he might impale her deeper and deeper. His mouth closed over hers and his tongue slipped into her; he tasted Soron Shal’s semen in her and groaned.

  Then he froze. Elgith opened her eyes and saw Soron Shal hovering over them both, falling like a shadow, like a winged bull. He held himself up, pushing no extra weight on to the woman at the bottom, but Elgith felt his descent through Tarkelion Dirskis’ flesh, felt her rider yield and flatten and open to the warrior, saw his eyes roll back and sweat spring from his brow, his throat a taut line of unutterable sensation. In that tiny still moment, she licked the sweat from the bronze amulet that hung there. Then Tarkelion Dirskis, impaled between heaven above and below, fell – and cried out as he plummeted.

  Elgith woke to the sound of the cockerel, as she did every day, and saw the pale predawn light ghosting the bare floorboards. It took her a few moments to recognise the transformed room from such a strange angle. She raised her head. The shutters had been left open all night; she could see a slight haze of mist creeping in from over the rooftops. Soron Shal had retired at some point to the big bed, where he lay shrouded in white sheets and black hair. She was still on the pallet with Tarkelion Dirskis, wrapped in a tangle of warm limbs, her back to his chest, his breath slow and even in her ear. She stretched cautiously and then began to ease out from the mattress on to the floorboards.

  The circle of his arms tightened around her at once.

  ‘I have to get up,’ she whispered.

  ‘No,’ he grunted, half or fully asleep.

  She smiled tentatively to herself. ‘It’s nearly dawn. I have to make breakfast for everyone. You too.’

  ‘Mmm.’ He stirred groggily. ‘All right. Come back here afterwards.’ His arm sagged rather than loosened and she slipped out from beneath it.

  She pulled her clothes on, not bothering to lace up the bodice, and approached the door. For a moment, she entertained the horrible fear that Marlam would be standing on the other side as she opened it, waiting for her as he had waited all night. But when she lifted the latch and pulled it open, there was no one in the darkened corridor.

  ‘Tell your husband,’ came Tarkelion Dirskis’ voice thickly from behind her,
‘that he’s not to touch you again. If he does, I’ll see him dead. You tell him that. I will, too.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Elgith whispered.

  She went out into the silent house and felt her way down into the kitchen. Flinging open a shutter to let in the light, she leaned out into the courtyard. The world seemed very still; even the cockerel had ceased crowing for the moment. She breathed in the cool misty air and smiled to herself. She stank of sex. Her legs felt wobbly, her throat was raw. She had hardly had more than a couple hours of proper sleep. Her position was scandalous, dangerously insecure, entirely foolish. But for the moment – just at this moment and for the first time she could recall in years – it tasted like freedom.

  Captive Audience

  JADE WOKE KNOWING that there was a man in her room. Through the soft, embracing darkness, the chime of the wind-bells in the night breeze and the gentle scent of musk and jasmine that perfumed her chamber, something alien had come to her and roused her from sleep. Some scuffling foot upon the ebony boards, perhaps, or a stifled masculine cough, or the warmth of a stranger’s body.

  The moment she awoke, the caryatids at her bed-head sprang into motion. There was the sound of pounding feet, a gasp and a thump, the squeal of a knife-blade skidding across metal.

  Jade sat up in bed, the silk sheets sliding from her, and clapped her hands. Flames leaped up in the lamps and disclosed the scene before her. A man was pinned, twisting, in the grasp of two life-sized bronze statues. The metallic figures gleamed in the lamp-flame: one masculine, one feminine, both muscular, faceless and inhuman. The man was unshaven, dressed in soft shoes, close-fitting trousers and a leather jerkin that left his arms bare and now cruelly pinched in the unyielding hands of his captors. He stared wildly at them and gaped at her. She could see the whites of his wide eyes. A fallen knife gleamed on the sheets at the foot of the bed.

  Jade pulled a fold of silk up to hide her breasts, her sapphire gaze as startled as his. She had never been seen naked by any man since babyhood and she was not sure she wanted this intruder to be the first. She could feel her pulse dancing in her throat. This was a man of the city – she could tell that from his plain attire and his rough demeanour. Not a slave, not a eunuch, not a court official or a nobleman. One of the common people. She had never imagined that she could be so close to one. It was repulsive and yet exciting. She kneeled up in the bed.