Still, this visit to the capital should make up for all that boredom. Orthos' villa, stood on a rise over the city and the spectacular view down onto Vri itself always took her breath away. And when Rhogos was busy meeting with the chiefs of his department, Yamrah could chatter with her old friend Aliciana, Orthos' wife. Aliciana could always make her laugh and Yamrah could talk intimately to her in a way she never could with the wives of her husband's subordinates. Aliciana might be a bitch but she was witty and someone you could relax with.
As the coach drew up to the gates of the estate, Yamrah peeped out of the window in excitement. Orthos was waiting there to meet them, with a servant, a slave girl, kneeling beside her. Yamrah could hardly contain her excitement and only just remembered to allow Rhogos to leave the coach first so that he could hand her down in the proper manner. She allowed Orthos to kiss her in the prescribed manner, politely on both cheeks and then she said:
"And where is dear Aliciana, I've so been looking forward to speaking to her again?"
Orthos' eyes hardened and a very peculiar expression crossed his face. And then he looked down at the slave girl where she knelt on the grass.
Yamrah had not paid much attention to the girl. Nicely brought up women didn't. One knew they were there of course, but paid no more attention to slaves than one did to furniture. One knew too that men (some men, not her Rhogos) used them in ways, well in ways that one did not think about. That was the way things were. So the girl's face had not registered until now.
Kneeling there, her eyes submissively down, her hands resting palm upwards on her widespread thighs was Aliciana! Her beautiful gowns were gone, replaced by a simple (and very short) linen tunic. Her hair was no longer piled up in a fantastic coil that took hours to prepare but hung down her back unbound. Her face was devoid of makeup. As Orthos turned to her she looked up at him. Something in her expression made Yamrah gasp.
She regarded him with awe and a kind of desperate devotion, like that of a dog who fears his master will beat him. Before Aliciana had always regarded her husband with affectionate contempt. Now all that was gone.
Orthos barked: "Show your respect, girl!"
Yamrah watched dumbstruck as Aliciana fell to all fours and crawled the short distance forward to where the guests stood. She kissed the hems of their garments and murmured:
"Welcome, Master. Welcome, Mistress. I am honoured to greet you in my Master's name."
As she came up to Yamrah, the light glinted off a small golden ring set through the septum of her nose. She crawled back to resume her kneeling position by Orthos. Rhogos' laugh jerked Yamrah out of her stupor: "Well, I see there have been some changes around here."
Orthos smiled: "A few. You will want to change and wash before dinner. Come this way. Ali!" The kneeling woman looked up again. "Unload the guests' luggage and have it brought to their rooms."
"Yes, Master."
And she leapt to her feet and eagerly began to lift down the heavy cases as Orthos lead his guests up the path. Yamrah kept looking over her shoulder until they were through the door of the villa and the coach was out of sight.
************
Yamrah brushed her hair for the last time in front of the mirror (as a sign of Orthos' wealth it was the silvered glass kind rather than mere polished copper such as she had been used to on the frontier) and then stood and paced. She had unpacked, bathed and changed for dinner in a sort of trance. She had been unable to get the image of her friend kneeling before her and kissing the hem of her garment out of her mind. In some strange way, thinking about it made her very uneasy. When she thought of how Aliciana had looked up at Orthos, it became somehow harder to breath and she felt sensations and urges she had no real name for. What was happening to her?
She had never thought before now where slave-girls came from, who they had been before they were enslaved. She questioned Rhogos about it be he had merely laughed patronisingly at her concern.
"It's unusual, true. But not illegal. A head of household can enslave any family member if they get into debt or commit a crime against a family member. It looks to me as if Orthos got one of his magician friends to bind her permanently. But don't worry, little love, I'm not likely to do that to you."
Then he had patted her cheek and looked astonished as she stormed out of the room. The door opened and she heard a discreet cough behind her. She turned and kneeling there was Aliciana.
"Mistress, I am sent to tell you that dinner is ready."
For a moment, Yamrah stood there stunned and then dropped to her knees in front of Aliciana and took her hands.
"My dear, what has he done to you?"
The other woman tried to pull back and looked embarrassed.
"Please Mistress, don't. The Master and your husband are waiting..."
"Aliciana, look at me!"
At the direct command, the slavegirl turned her eyes to meet Yamrah's and the gold ring in her nose glistened in the torchlight. On the steel collar locked around her neck was written: I am Ali, household slave of Lord Orthos.
"What has happened to you?"
"I have been enslaved, Mistress. I was displeasing and disobedient as a free woman. Finally, I became a thief and a liar. But my master very kindly choose to have me enslaved instead of executed as was his legal right. Please do not be alarmed. It is nothing to be concerned about."
"Nothing to...Aliciana, how can you..."
"Please, Mistress, I am no longer called by that name. My Master though it too grand for a mere slave. I am now just Ali, the slavegirl. Please try to forget that you knew me before and treat me as you would any other slave. I am not unhappy, now."
"Not unhappy? What do you..."
And at that moment she looked properly into the other's eyes for the first time. Instead of fear and resentment, as she'd expected to find, she saw for the first time on her friend's face real contentment and an expression of what could almost be pity.
But that was absurd. How could a slave pity a free woman, the wife of an important official? Ali smiled and removed her hands from the other woman's.
"If you will come along now, Mistress. Dinner is served."
************
That night, Yamrah lay awake by the side of her husband. Rhogos was snoring, having fallen asleep as soon as he hit the bed. He had hugely enjoyed the sumptuous meal and the excellent wine, joking with Orthos all the way through. But Yamrah had said little and ate little. Her eyes kept wandering back to where Aliciana (no Ali!) had knelt by the kitchen entrance, waiting to be called to serve by the cook or the diners. She had watched intently as the slavegirl had dutifully carried food and poured wine. Ali seemed especially eager to be near Orthos although he had treated her with something like disdain. And again she felt those unnamed sensations fill her mind and body.
It was no use. She couldn't sleep. Quietly she rose and putting on a gown went over to the doors that lead onto the terrace.
Once outside she took deep breaths of the night air but it failed to clear her head or the confusion in her soul. She began to pace along the terrace, looking down to the lights of the city below. Then she stopped and listened.
She could hear a sound she had only heard once before, when Rhogos' chief steward had disciplined one of the serving wenches for breaking a valuable dish. A swish and then a gasp of suppressed pain. Without thinking she turned and walked towards the sound. She came to a lit window (Real glass! Orthos was almost obscenely wealthy.) and looked in. She then shrank back and did her best to keep herself hidden. Ali hung there in the torchlight. Her wrists were suspended in metal bands dangling from a chain fixed to the ceiling and she had to stand on tip toe. Her long hair had been hung down her front to show her back which was towards Yamrah. The skin of the back was shiny with sweat and crisscrossed with thin, straight marks, some old and some new. As Yamrah watched Orthos stepped out of the shadows and raising a cane brought it down on the woman's back leaving a fresh red line there. Ali gasped as it landed and hung her head. Orthos lowered his arm and went round to stand in front of his victim.
"That's enough for tonight."
Ali raised her head and Yamrah clearly heard her say: "Thank you Master for disciplining me. I will try to be a better slave in future."
To Yamrah's astonishment there was genuine gratitude in her voice. Orthos cupped her chin in his hand. "I think perhaps soon we can stop this nightly ritual. You behaved nearly perfectly today. Even when faced with your old friend you did not forget that you are a slave."
"Yes, poor Yamrah."
(How dare she! thought the hidden watcher. The impudent slut!)
"But Master I hope you will not think I am too perfect. A slave needs to be beaten. And when it comes from the hand of the Master she loves, it is welcome."
Orthos laughed: "I can always find an excuse. For instance, you used a freewoman's name just now, instead of calling her 'Mistress'."
Ali laughed: "Yes, Master. I'm sorry. It won't happen again. Please can I be let down now? Pretty please?"
Orthos tossed the cane aside and cupped her left breast in his hand.
"Perhaps, if you ask nicely enough. And if it pleases me."
He took her hair in his other hand pulled her face to his. Yamrah watched in astonishment as the slavegirl began to writhe under her Master's hands. As Orthos' squeezed and rolled an erect nipple, Yamrah felt her own hands, as if of their own accord, reach inside her robe to find the places where touching made her feel good. She imitated the way he played with Ali. It felt good. It felt wonderful. She began to sense what had driven those women to the arms of barbarian lovers. And she imagined herself taking the place of the slavegirl, helpless and bound in her Master's arms!
Orthos pulled his lips from the slave's and let his hand wander down to between her legs. "How nicely can you beg, little slut? Let me hear you."
"Oh please, Master, please, oh that's nice, yes there, please let me down. Let me suck you, lick you, please let me down oh yes, inside me, oh yes, YESSS!"
Orthos smiled and reached up to release the catch on the wristbands. As Ali collapsed at his feet he pulled his tunic over his head to reveal a body that was still strong and muscular. But the thing that astonished Yamrah most was, well was his thing! She had no other word for it since her husband never referred to his much. And compared to Orthos' it was hardly worth mentioning. Long and thick, it was already half hard when Ali did another astonishing act. She knelt up and lovingly took the thing in her hands and then into her mouth. She pulled back the foreskin and began to suck and lick on the purple knob. Orthos closed his eyes and put his head back and began to breath deeply.
Taking care to keep hidden, Yamrah allowed her right hand to creep down between her legs. She was wet and juicy and hot there, more so than she had ever been under her husband's fumbling attentions. She watched then as Orthos picked up the girl at his feet and threw her on her back on the bed. Ali spread her legs wide, gasping in pleasure as her Master impaled her pussy and then wrapping her legs around his back to pull into her still more deeply.
"Oh, yes Master, fuck me, fuck me, use me, that's it that's lovely, oh lovely Master, lovely cock, thank you, thank you Master, fuck your slave, fuck your slut. Ali is your slut, your slave, fuck her, fuck her. Coming, coming, I'm nearly there, I'm coming for you, Master, cunt is coming, coming, COMING!"
As Ali cried out in ecstasy, outside the window Yamrah bit her lip, to stop herself from crying out with her as she drove herself to her own lonely, sad and jealous climax.
************
Afterwards, Ali had licked her Master's cock clean and had then laid down on a rug at the foot of his bed. He locked a chain to her collar and then laid down in the furs to sleep.
Yamrah left them there, nodding off in the light from a fire in the room and made her way stealthily back to the guest quarters. As she lay down beside her husband and listened to him snoring, tears finally flowed down her cheeks. Tears of joy for her friend who had finally found happiness and tears of sorrow for herself, who would never become a happy, fulfilled slave.
Poor Yamrah!