Chapter 13

LAURENT: THE GREAT ROYAL PRESENCE

I MOVED AFTER them across the grass, glad for the moment to be out of the glare of attention. Yet it was enervating, the manner in which they whispered to each another and only occasionally coaxed me on with a pat on the head or a tug of my hair.

The garden itself was full of those who still feasted, and panting slaves on display as I had been. Some I saw were still on the crosses or had been put back, and many twisted and struggled violently.

I didn't see Lexius.

But we soon came to a brightly lighted room opening off the garden. There were grooms busy with hundreds of slaves. Scattered tables were covered with manacles, straps, caskets of jewels, and other playthings.

I was made to stand up, and a good-sized bronze phallus was obviously chosen for me and I stood numbly watching as it was oiled, marveling at the detailed carving of the thing, the way the circumcised tip and even the surface of the skin was beautifully realized. it had a round loop of metal, a hook, on the wide, round base end of it.

The grooms never even glanced up as they worked. They expected quiet and total compliance. They inserted the phallus, pushing it well up into me, and then put long leather cuffs on my arms and brought my arms back, forcing me to thrust out my chest, and they bound these bracelets tight to the hook on the base of the phallus.

My arms are rather long even for a man of my height and, had they bound my wrists, it would have been more comfortable.

But the bracelet was above my wrists, and so my shoulders were held well back and my head up, when this was finished. I could see other moist, well-muscled slaves in the room being manacled in the same fashion. In face, there were only big, powerfully built slaves here, none of the smaller, more delicate ones. And the cocks were large, too. And some of the slaves had been soundly thrashed. They had very red backsides.

I tried to yield to this position, to accept the way it forced my chest out, but it was hard for me. The metal phallus felt amazingly hard and punishing, not at all like something made of wood and covered with leather. Next, a large stiff collar was buckled to my neck, one that had several long, narrow, delicate straps dangling from it. It was loose but very strong and rigid, and it forced my chin up high as it rested firmly on my shoulders. Immediately, the long strap that hung down in back--I could feel this--was buckled tight to the phallus hook. Two more straps running from a single hook on the front of the collar were drawn down over my chest and under me, past my organs on either side, and they too were buckled tight to the phallus.

All this was done perfunctorily and with efficient, hard little pulls by the grooms, who then patted my bu**ocks and made me turn around for a quick inspection. I found it infinitely worse than the easy passivity of the cross. And their eyes moving over me, impersonally yet not indifferently, further intensified the feeling of apprehension.

I was patted again on the bu**ocks, the mere touch bringing the tears to my eyes, though it felt oddly good. And the groom gave me a little comforting smile and patted the tip of my c**k quickly also. The phallus seemed to rock inside me with every breath I took. In fact, every breath moved the straps that ran down my chest, and this moved the phallus slightly. I thought of all the cocks that had been inside me, their heat, the slippery sound of them passing in and out, and the phallus seemed to expand, to grow even harder and heavier, as if to remind me of it all, to punish me for it, to protract the pleasure.

I thought of Lexius again, wondered where he was. Had the long whipping during the banquet been his only revenge? I flexed my bu**ocks, feeling the cold round rim of the phallus, feeling the smarting flesh tingle around it.

The grooms oiled my c**k very fast, as if they did not want to overstimulate it or reward it. When it was gleaming, they oiled my scrotum, massaging it with great gentleness. Then, the handsomer of the two, the one who smiled more often, pressed on my thighs until I bent my legs slightly in a fairly awkward squat. He nodded, and patted me approvingly. I glanced around and saw the others were standing in that way also. Every slave I saw had a very red backside. Some had been beaten on the thighs as well.

It came over me with debilitating clarity that I looked as these others looked, the very posture exemplifying discipline and subservience. And for a moment I was weak all over.

Then I saw Lexius in the doorway, watching me. He had his hands clasped in front of him, and his eyes were narrow and serious. The excitement in me, the confusion, doubled, tripled.

My face burned as he approached. Yet I stood in the squatting position, eyes lowered, though I couldn't lower my head, marveling at how difficult this was. Punished on the cross, easy. I did not have to cooperate. Now I cooperated. And he was here.

His hand moved towards me, and I thought surely it was to slap me again, but it touched my hair, gently moving it back from my ear. The grooms then gave something to him. One glance and I saw: a pair of pretty jeweled nipple clamps with three very fine chains connecting them.

My chest seemed more vulnerable, thrust out as it was, my shoulders painfully pulled back. The clamps went on fast, and I was panic-stricken because I couldn't see them. The collar kept my chin too high. I couldn't see the three little chains that must have shivered between the clamps, a humiliating decoration that would register each anxious breath I took like a banner registers the breeze even when it is too soft for you to feel it. The thing glowed in my imagination--the clamps, the chains. The pinching sensation was tantalizing.

And Lexius was here, and I was again his personal prisoner. He touched my arm with maddening tenderness and guided me towards the door. I saw the other manacled slaves at a squat in the line. Their faces, held high by the stiff collars, wore an interesting dignity. Even with tears spilling and lips quivering, they had a new complexity. Tristan was there, his c**k as hard as mine, and the clamps and chains stood out on his chest as I knew they did on mine, the obvious power of his body magnified by the style of the manacling.

Lexius pushed me into the line behind Tristan, his left hand stroking Tristan's hair affectionately. When he turned his full attention to me, giving my hair a more thorough combing now with the same comb he had used earlier for himself, I remembered the chamber, the heat of us together, the baffling exhilaration of being Master.

Through my teeth I whispered:

"Wouldn't you rather be in line with us?"

His eyes were only a few inches from mine, but he was looking at my hair. He went on with the comb as if I hadn't spoken. "It is my destiny to be what I am," he answered, his lips so still it seemed to come direct from his thoughts. "And I cannot change that any more than you can change yours!" He looked directly at me.