Part 12 (2/2)
Flame noticed, but she didn't have the heart to raise her head and acknowledge his success.
Sapphire had to help Flame to her feet. Flame's body ached to her bones and her spirit had been crushed to ash. Sapphire felt only physical exhaustion.
As she gathered up the dresses, hairpins, and shoes that had been discarded at the beginning of the entertainment, Sapphire said, ”That wasn't too bad. You were cuffed for a while, but n.o.body got paddled. Or worse.”
Flame looked at the shelf of toys. She saw paddles, floggers, d.i.l.d.os, vibrators, clamps, and a variety of ropes and chains. Except for the cuffs, they hadn't been used.
”An evening of straight s.e.x is about as good as entertainment gets,” Sapphire said. ”But even that leaves you pretty sore.”
Flame nodded and took some of the clothes out of Sapphire's hands.
As they padded down the stone corridor back to the kennels, Flame in bare feet and Sapphire still in red stockings, Sapphire said, ”That baronet had a special hard on for you. For a while, I was afraid that he was going to do something terrible to you.”
He had, but Flame would never be able to explain it was so that Sapphire would understand. ”Last year, when I was a lady, I refused a dance with him.”
Sapphire giggled. ”As a slave, you're never going to refuse a dance with anyone again.”
Flame managed a bitter laugh. ”That's what I volunteered for.”
”We say that any ill a slave does to a man will be visited on her a hundred fold in return. That doesn't start when a woman is enslaved, it extends all the way back to her birth.” Another cruel truth about the life of a slave. ”I've had hundreds of strokes of the cane visited on my back and that was for doing only what I was commanded.”
Flame looked at Sapphire and felt ashamed by her weakness. As cruelly as Grenfeld had treated her, Sapphire had lived through far worse. Flame was no longer a lady who had the luxury of delicate sensibilities. A slave had to be tough enough to survive any humiliation, no matter how sharply it cut.
”How did you become a slave?” Flame asked.
”I didn't become a slave. I was born to it. My mother's owner decided to breed her for profit. He withdrew the contraceptive injections and let her get pregnant. She dropped a new slave every year for ten years.”
Flame knew that some were born into slavery but she'd never thought about the horror of it. ”Were you... As a child, were you... You know... used... like tonight?”
Sapphire shook her head. ”No. That doesn't happen much. Few men are interested in children. Especially slave owners who can get f.u.c.ked any time they want by a woman who's far more compliant than any child. Also, the government keeps an eye on child slaves to make sure that they are treated properly. No one cares about adult slaves but children get inspected every month. And they get surprise inspections on top of that. Child abuse would start a scandal that would blacken the name of every slave owner.”
”When were men first allowed to use you?”
”I was sold at fifteen. I've been owned by twenty-two different men since then. I saw my value rise from nineteen thousand to a high of thirty-one and drop down to twelve. Every slave knows what she's worth to the nearest plaq.” Sapphire glanced at Flame. ”How much did you fetch?”
”Dodge paid a hundred thousand for me.”
Sapphire's eyes grew wide. ”I've met seventy-five thousand plaq slaves before, but never a hundred thousand.”
”I was a novelty. But I wasn't the most expensive. My husband paid a hundred and fifteen for a slave at the same auction.”
”Really? That's the highest price that I've ever heard. You're sure? A hundred and fifteen thousand plaquettes sterling?”
”I saw the bidding myself.”
”She must have been something special.”
”She was a felon. She'd been convicted of adopting a false ident.i.ty for the purpose of sedition.”
”Oh. She was high-born.”
”How did you know?”
”You know what that means? Adopting a false ident.i.ty for the purpose of sedition?”
”That she was some kind of revolutionary?”
”Hardly. Every so often a highborn woman is adjudicated into slavery on that charge. It's always a lady who was engaged to someone of rank a lord, at least, or maybe even an earl and tried to run away. The running away is the false ident.i.ty she was pretending that she wasn't a fiancee and the high rank of her fiance made it sedition. An insult to the n.o.bility. The highborn punish disrespect and disobedience severely, especially from their own. You didn't know that? I thought that you were highborn.”
”I didn't try to run away from my engagement. I never heard of anyone who did. It's something that just isn't done. Every lady that I know respects and obeys both her father and her husband. Within reason.”
”I guess not many try to strike out on their own when getting caught means getting adjudicated into slavery.”
Flame thought about that the rest of the way back to the kennel. For her entire life, she had been told, every day and in every way, what it meant to be a highborn lady. No one had ever mentioned that there would be consequences for disobedience. It had simply never been an issue.
Until it did. Until she couldn't stand being a lady any longer and fled into a life of slavery.
”You shower first,” Sapphire said. ”You look like you've been racked.”
Before she stepped into the bathroom, Flame looked hard at Sapphire. ”When we were giving a show at the beginning. When I was licking you. Did you ... you know ... really come?”
Sapphire blushed. ”No. Just part of the act.” She spoke too quickly for that to be true.
Flame smiled. ”Pity. I know how hard you worked to save me from the worst tonight. You deserve all the thanks that I can give you.”
Sapphire blushed a deeper shade of red. ”Just doing my job.”
Flame felt good about having given Sapphire a few moments of pleasure, job or not.
In the morning, Sapphire was gone before the Flame awoke. The kennelman didn't arrive until later in the morning.
”How did it go last night?”
”The entertainment?”
”What else? I have a note that it was your first. After an entertainment, you need a full checkup to make sure that nothing is torn or broken.”
”Your advice about keeping my a.s.shole loose and lubed saved me a lot of grief. Thank you.”
”Just part of the service.”
”My jaw is pretty sore. I want to thank you properly but I'd like to wait until tomorrow so that I can do a proper job. Do you mind?”
He smiled. ”I'll look forward to tomorrow.”
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