The Surrender of Lady Charlotte (6 page)

But then Caius continued saying, “Into an arch.” While Charlotte watched enthralled by the symmetry of gracefulness, Loria pulled out of her lewd bridge, and kneeling, leaned back, arched her breasts toward the ceiling, and let her head fall back so her long hair dangled freely with the ends grazing the floor. “She will stay like this a full hour, if I so demand. By then, her thighs will quake and her arms burn to be freed, but she will hold the posture because I command her to. She knows the price for disobedience and the triumph in compliance. She would rather die than disappoint me. I make her bear these stances long and proudly so that she enjoys within herself the satisfaction found in the simple gift they give her. She blesses herself as much as she blesses me.” Caius seemed both smitten and in awe of his slave, nearly overwhelmed by the determination she displayed so willingly. He turned to Charlotte. “I do not know if you can ever understand this sort of vassalage. Your mind has not dwelt on these things all your life as Loria’s has.”

“I should worry that I cannot,” Charlotte whispered. She was truly fearful that her own desire would not be enough to ensure her success.

“Yes, you should worry. The slavery of the female is bred into our women from their birth. Of course, some take to it more easily than others do. Some fail so miserably it’s almost laughable, but then there are those like Loria. She is noble born, directly from Lord Nor’s stock. But she thinks nothing of that now; and there was no fight to win her submission.”

“How did she come here?” Charlotte ventured.

Caius’ momentary reveries allowed the question without an eyebrow raised and he answered, “She came here to be trained and simply never left.” Turning himself back to his posed slave, he gathered his tender sentiments into himself and restored his stern expression. “Up now, bitch, on hands and knees.”

Loria’s awkward climb from arch to cat position was not awkward at all, though she seemed somewhat grateful that her master allowed her to ease out of the strenuous pose. Now, in the classic style of a four-legged animal, she waited for her last command. There were ten poses and this was the ninth.

“This one, little miscreant, requires minimal effort but it is extremely useful as it allows an easy penetration for an anxious prick. Accomplish it with the same refinement as the others, you’ll set yourself apart from the average whore who only knows it as the pose of being taken. Ah! You’ll be taken like this many times. Your Lord finds it most pleasing to ride the haunches of his harlots, lunging his blast of fire deep inside the belly. More often, though, he’ll ride your ass like this and ream it well.” He shook his head as though he doubted Charlotte’s resolve and ability. “You have much to get used to, a good deal to learn. Stand for punishment!” he suddenly ripped off. Charlotte herself wondered if he were meaning her; but in the time she took to consider this, Loria shot from her position. Standing, she bent over and placed her hands just above her knees.

Without another word, Caius came from behind and ripped the rod against Loria’s ass with ruthless intensity, until even this faultless slave could not help but cry out. Charlotte watched with a compassionate shudder running the length of her body as four deep weals rose out of Loria’s smooth skin.

“The games are played for slaves to lose,” Caius said as he replaced his rod on the wall. “Don’t expect to win. Expect that if you’re lucky, your lord will appreciate your efforts to please him.”

Charlotte had much to think about, but little time to think. Her training began that hour, under the kind hand of Loria who would instruct her in the forms of surrender until she’d mastered them enough to come before Caius.

Practice was grueling and fitful—hours spent going over the intricacies of an art that was better not considered an art at all, but the essence of a life. Her initial attempts were clumsy, and often met with a good number of cuts to her flesh from a leather thong, which Loria was quite at ease applying to correct Charlotte’s careless efforts. Though Charlotte’s anger would flare, a few sharp snaps of leather against her skin and she would be silenced; in time, turning almost docile.

She was determined, playing out the role of slave even when her heart and head found the treatment cruel and irrational. As often as she failed—realizing the worst of punishment when Caius would step in and thrash her—she found some success, so that her training seemed less arduous with every new day that dawned.

Patterning her movements after the gentle Loria, Charlotte could feel her insides altering to fit the role she’d chosen. Days on days, her outward acts soon worked on her inner thoughts, changing her mind about herself, about lowliness and subservience. In several poses, she realized some tender peace she’d never known before. Some days she rose, relishing the thought of her practice with a longing that seemed so far from the woman she once believed herself to be that she could hardly recognize herself.

She thought little of Mountbane because when she did her poses and attitude would change, sometimes just the tiniest bit. But Loria could sense the odd switch in her demeanor. The wrinkle in her brow, the hardness in her jaw, a painful grimace. Charlotte wondered if it were foolish of her to even attempt such complete surrender when her feelings for Mountbane were so hopelessly jumbled, and the thought of him alone caused her training to suffer. Loathing and desire commingled freely, though it was clear that those times when she dwelt on him, her body was most replete with restless sexual need. So much so, she couldn’t disguise the painful agitation. Her dilemma seemed to have no solution.

These matters aside, however, whether she was doing this for love or hate, it wasn’t important. Mountbane was her path to freedom, her only means of liberty. He held the key to the dreadful chastity belt and controlled her fate with an iron fist. This knowledge drove her, inspired her, required she lose herself and forget everything but the surrender of her body as a lowly Ilusian slave. Strange that it would be the thought of Mountbane—the ultimate goal of her venture—that caused her the most graceless lapses.

“You will never have him if you can’t let go of your rage,” Loria spoke to her one day after seeing a trace of frustration in her face. It was a most uncomely thing when she was trying hard to maintain a gentle air of acquiescence.

It was odd to hear Loria’s voice in a manner so direct. She spoke most often in compliant tones. When she wished to instruct, she used her thong and her voice was silent. “I have tried,” Charlotte told her with a bit of frustration showing.

“Then try harder! You burn inside. Some day you’ll incinerate yourself, scorching your body with these flames.”

“I cannot help what I feel,” she wailed.

“But you can. You think I easily took my place at Caius’ feet? He is a romantic about these things. He doesn’t remember how I fought the training. He didn’t have me until there was only the polish remaining before I’d be ready. Before that, I spent one long year in another man’s dungeon having my haughtiness beat out of me. Thankfully, I left that obstinate woman behind and found my better self. You have to leave the shrew. You’ll need to beg him and be sincere about your desires. Mountbane will read right through any deceit. He is more a master than my Caius is. There is no one better in these rituals than he. You wonder that he’s had nothing but a string of useless lovers. There have been none to match him. You must be better than all of them. You have to be better than me. He is the Lord ruler of our province. He will accept nothing less than a matchless prize.” Loria looked down on her with an intensity rare in this meek woman. “Why do you think he chose you?” she asked.

“I have no idea?” She was on her knees, looking up, too overcome to know anything, Loria’s wit so astounded her.

“There is no triumph for a man to take a naturally born slave and make her his chattel. But you, coming out of hatred, carving in yourself a place of service and surrender… to take what you loathe and have that loathing lost… so that you will beg as you’ve already begun to beg. That is his victory. And you will give him that.”

Charlotte’s rage seemed to breed on these thoughts. But Loria quickly saw that rage, and speaking softly now, said, “Don’t allow yourself the luxury of your anger. Let it be defeated. It serves you no purpose. I know that you returned here simply to have that device ripped from your crotch. You started this because you cannot submerge your sexual need. Mountbane gave you that savage cunt, and then he tore it away. What a cunning punishment! Like hell would be, I suppose…” her voice drifted wistfully as the bronze beauty gazed toward the center of the room, to a dais where she’d given herself to Caius the night before. Charlotte had watched their copulation and cried as each lunge of the master’s great cock pierced his slave’s womb. Oh! How she’d seemed to weep with a sexual joy Charlotte could not guess at!

“I will try again,” Charlotte disclosed.

“Yes, you will,” Loria agreed with a firm and final sound in her voice.

d

That night in another part of the castle, the Lord of them all lay on a pile of pillows enjoying the attentions of three beauties his men had captured beyond the border of his province. One was fair, but brash. Mountbane had her tied to a post where she was whipped about the buttocks soundly. The second, a dark-haired lovely, liked sucking cock, which she was adequately doing whenever the master allowed her to. The third, he liked the best—a comely waifish sort of whore who loved being ridden in the ass. Seemed he could have all he wanted in feminine flesh, but he, like the noblewoman in the bowels of his castle, was restless. He paced the floor more than he played, finally provoking Sir Tristan to suggest, “You look as though you have a hornet up your ass.”

He turned to the man. “Do I now? Wonder why?”

“I could speculate more,” Tristan offered.

“And what, pray tell, is the cause of my consternation?” He looked sincerely baffled, unless it was such a good mockery that no one could see the sneer behind his perplexed guise.

“A woman,” Tristan said plainly.

“You mean a slave?”

“I beg to differ, Mountbane, I mean a woman. The one ensconced in your dungeon. What has it been?” he had wily grin on his face. “Three months since you ordered her back to Caius’ lair. Perhaps, it’s time she resurfaced—before you turn into a madman.”

“I am not mad,” he took offense.

“I guess I am contrary today, sir.”

“But you’re usually wise,” the Lord considered thoughtfully. “I hear she’s become most practiced. Loria’s pet.”

The others in the room chuckled at the thought of Loria leading anyone. “Perhaps our hefty brute, Caius, should worry!” Tibold snickered as he raised his glass for another toast.

“
I
would be more likely bested than Caius,” Mountbane jibed back. “Though I assure you, Loria knows her place. Bring my shrew to me, Tristan. We’ll see what service she might render me now.”

Charlotte rested in her cell, well-worked, tired and ready for sleep, when her jailer lodged his key in the lock and bade her exit.

“Does it serve you to call for me at this hour?” she wondered, somewhat meekly.

“Not I, but Sir Tristan, on behalf of Mountbane,” Caius informed her.

She blanched in fear, “But I’m not ready.”

“Ready, like all things, is not a decision for you to make. Get on with you.”

“Milady, come,” Sir Tristan called to her with his palm held open for her to take.

She saw the serenity in his face and was gladdened by the sight of him. Unlike the other times she surfaced from the dungeon, she performed this trip in the normal manner—walking toward her fate—even though her nervous body felt as though she were crawling to the gallows.

Those inside the dining chamber froze as Tristan and the slave approached; a hushed and weary silence filling it as a fog would fill the air on a damp morning. Naked, resplendent breasts peaked with fat pink nipples, and the redolence of her feminine perfume leading, Charlotte moved into the doorway of the hall, hiding well her nervous fears. Her chastity belt gleamed but not derisively as it once had. She wore it proudly for one who’d become so humble. Pushed toward Mountbane, Charlotte gazed on him but a second before Sir Tristan nudged her one step more and she fell at her master’s feet in the pose of the slave, first kissing the ground, then resting her cheek to the cold stone, ass high, her hands clamped behind her in perfect form. Her body breathed with new fire, new life. Expectancy circled the air with an energy that opened the eyes of the nearly asleep, awakening Mountbane from his fog as well.

“Tell me, slave. How have you fared?” His voice was hushed but heard clearly from one end of the room to the other.

“Well, sir,” Charlotte spoke. She didn’t rise as she might have months before, but kept her position as though she were now made of stone like the floor beneath her.

“Lift your head and rest back on your feet,” Mountbane ordered as he sat back in a chair appraising her with interest.

Charlotte obeyed, yieldingly letting her eyes gaze down at the toe of Mountbane’s boot. She opened her palms as Loria had shown her to do, and kept her mind focused on the picture of a willow tree in order to remain yielding, even as her ears stayed alert to the master’s voice.

“What is it now that your heart desires?” he asked.

“I desire to be your slave, and should I prove worthy enough, become your wife.” Still she didn’t flinch. There was not one ripple of anxiety in her voice, no anger, no falseness. Her words rang true.

“You can hold your pose five minutes—can you surrender for an hour? A day? A week? The remainder of your life?”

“Sir, I beg you test me today and everyday hereafter,” she replied.

Without directly looking in his eyes, she could see from the corner of hers a hint of wonder in his. “Words are nothing. The act is everything.”

She thought so, too. There was something easy in this, a strange sort of peace. She knew then she would survive.

“Well, then, let’s be on with it!” the Lord announced, jumping to his feet.

For the next several hours of the night, Charlotte bore her trial. Relinquishing, surrendering, sustaining the postures she’d been primed for, as well as others demanded of her that were more difficult and fatiguing than the practiced ones. Her attitude graced her, and there were none who were not in awe of this slave’s transformation—while at the same time, none forgot the behavior of her first days in Ilusia. She’d been in her adopted country merely six months and had other trials yet to endure.