Territory Slaves

Chapter Ten - Control

Sesul dreaded answering the summons from his owner. Unlike Kinnet, he rarely dealt with Mijre. He frequently received his orders from Kinnet and made his reports to her. If he thought Mijre might have an important mission for him, he wouldn’t have been concerned, but she said they were staying on the station. He knew her mood too. The Pietsi situation was getting beyond her control. His owner didn’t deal with lack of control well. After what she’d inflicted on him in his youth, he didn’t deal well with lack of control either. A trait she enjoyed exploiting.

The door to her suite opened for him as he approached. Inside, past the foyer, Mijre reclined on a elegant chaise. She had a look in her eyes Sesul knew far too well. Tension thrummed through his nerves.

“Strip,” she ordered.

His eyes bored into hers for a few moments before he removed his clothing, moving no faster or slower than he would if he were in his suite, as she gazed at his body.

Mijre usually tired of her pets within a year or two, then she allowed them to find a kind of life elsewhere in her service, but she kept Lehu, Sesul, and Kinnet close to her. Kinnet thought perhaps Mijre continued to be interested in them because they were the only slaves to successfully defy her. Fortunately, Mijre treated Kinnet like a protégé, teaching her and having her take over administrative tasks. Lehu often took the punishments if one of the three of them pushed Mijre too far and she occasionally toyed with Sesul, as if he’d never stopped being her pet.

He believed Mijre played with him because she knew he hated her.

When Sesul stood naked before Mijre, Conal, a mere servant, stepped out of the shadows of the suite. With a frightened and apologetic look, he guided Sesul to an ottoman in front of Mijre’s chaise, pushed him to his knees, and bent him over it.

Sesul could feel Conal’s hands shaking as he caught Sesul’s wrists, cuffed them, and set them in the small of his back. Even though he must have been following Mijre’s orders, he obviously feared retribution. Sesul felt the tip of his erection nudge at his entrance, then hands gripped his hips. Sesul certainly didn’t mind Conal’s fear. Conal entered him slowly and gently. The entry hurt less than it could have, indicating the man had lubricated himself well.

Sesul ground his teeth, but forced his body to relax. Fighting would only hurt. Glaring at Mijre would only please her. Instead, with no display of emotion, he rested his cheek on the ottoman.

Inside he was raging.

***
Jahhan waited on his knees by the door of his master’s suite. He’d cleaned the suite according to his master’s preferences and properly prepared everything for his master’s arrival. He hoped. After spending the last couple of months under Sesul’s supervision, Jahhan feared meeting his expectations might prove to be impossible.

He had expected Sesul to be a hard master, but he hadn’t fully appreciated Sesul’s attention to detail. He taught Jahhan so many rules. Every act of service had to be performed in a specific way and every error was punished. Jahhan’s previous lessons had merely scratched the surface of protocol and service. He suffered several punishments before he learned how to perform obeisance with the proper grace. He could only be grateful his master patiently explained the reasons for each punishment and told him again the correct way.

They were still working on controlling his orgasms or—more accurately—giving control of his orgasms to his master. Jahhan shuddered. Failing at the task and receiving punishment was painful, but success often meant receiving overwhelming stimulation from a well-trained pleasure slave and not reaching completion. When he was allowed to try to sleep, he’d be awake for hours, clenching his hands in an effort not to touch himself. Sesul had to work hard to make failure worse than success. Fortunately, Sesul was good at that, and just when fear of punishment had trampled his ability to orgasm, Sesul would order him to come.

Sesul reinforced his Bese lessons as well. Slips into his native language, errors in his Bese, and hesitations while he mentally translated an order earned him a sharp slap.

The amused, mocking torturer made no appearance in training, though. Sesul was always patient, cold, and implacable. He’d begun to have the bizarre thought, regardless of the frequent punishments, that Sesul wasn’t as cruel as he seemed. Maybe he was a performer in Mijre’s games, as much as Jahhan.

Or maybe he just wanted to believe that.

Even though the stress of trying to please Sesul tied his muscles and stomach into knots, Jahhan longed for a connection with the living person near him. Sesul’s voice controlled him, Sesul’s hands hurt him, but Sesul made him feel less alone. He could almost hear his owner saying, “Good. You are caught in my trap.” He didn’t care.

He stifled a sigh. He’d been through that line of thinking before. At least he slept on a palette instead of the floor and Sesul’s quarters were warmer than his cell. He even had access to a shower with hot water.

Recently, his master had begun to leave small portions of his real food aside for Jahhan. He said Jahhan needed to gain weight. The “nutritional composite” he’d been eating had reduced his weight too much to be pleasing to patrons and he was to transition to real food. Jahhan savored the thought of eating nothing but real food almost as much as he savored the small portions of food he received off of his master’s plate.

The door slid open, interrupting his thoughts, and he pressed his forehead to the floor. Only to be yanked to his feet a moment later by his hair. His master wasn’t prone to unexpected violence in his suite, unlike sessions. Punishments were deliberate and precise. Jahhan failed to contain a grunt of surprise as he was pulled to a chaise by his hair and pushed over the raised end. Sesul released him, but Jahhan stayed still.

He expected his master to tell him what he’d done wrong and the number of blows he’d be receiving, but Sesul said nothing. With his cheek against the pillows, he watched Sesul stalk to the chest with his punishment implements and take out a cane. Shivering with nervous anticipation, Jahhan turned his head and pressed his forehead into the pillows. The chaise had no back so he was able to reach down on each side and grip the wood.

The first blow still brought him halfway up in shock. As much as he hated the cane, he’d never experienced that much pain from a single stroke. He never realized how much his master had been holding back. He was pushed down again.

As the blows rained down, Jahhan cried out into the pillows. Suddenly the blows stopped. He waited for them to resume, or for Sesul to finally tell him what he’d done, but there was only silence. Finally, Sesul cursed and threw the cane in the direction of the chest. He yanked Jahhan up by the arm and dragged him to the door.

“Go to Kinnet.” He ordered, his voice deadly flat. He shoved Jahhan through the door, which shut behind him.

Jahhan stood in the corridor in shock for the space of several pounding heartbeats, then realized he had an order and no way to obey. He had no idea where Kinnet was or how to find her. He shuddered. With the mood his master was in, he feared disobeying him more than usual. He began to walk, just to put distance between himself and the suite. If he got out of the immediate vicinity, maybe he could figure out a way to obey the order before his master came for him.

He turned the corner, but went no farther. He knew what could happen to an unranked slave without an escort outside of the section reserved for new slaves where his classrooms were located. He couldn’t risk asking for help. If someone came, perhaps he could make it back to the suite. Perhaps his master would open the door, but then he’d have to face punishment for not following an order. And if he didn’t make it back, he could end up suffering a great deal more than a few blows from the cane.

He had decided to return to the suite, admit he couldn’t follow the order, and face the consequences when he noticed one of the panels he’d seen Sesul use to communicate. He’d seen Sesul use it to locate Lehu. He had no idea if it would work for him, or if he’d be punished for using it, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

Shaking, he put his hand against the panel.

“Acknowledged. Unranked slave. Speak.” Even their automated systems treated him as inferior. He wondered if the system had the authority to give him permission to speak. If not, he was inviting even more punishment.

“I need to find Kinnet.” Sir? Surely not. He left the word off with an effort.

“By whose authorization?”

“Um. Sesul?” who told him to go to Kinnet, but hadn’t told him to use the panel. The voice was silent for several moments, as fear dug talons into Jahhan’s chest.

“Wait for retrieval,” the voice said finally and went silent.

Jahhan bent over and gripped his knees, ignoring the similarity to the position he often held for punishments. He fought to regain his equilibrium. His every move had been controlled by others for months. Any capability he once had to act on his own had been brutally, relentlessly, deliberately excised. The autonomy of using the panel triggered a spiraling panic.

Bastards. Fucking bastards, he thought, but even anger floundered in the clamor of fear. He was almost too immersed in the panic to notice when the figure bundled in layer upon layer of black turned a corner down the corridor in front of him. Fortunately, he saw her before she reached him. He didn’t need to see her face to recognize the only person he knew who wore enough black silk to get lost in. He went to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground. He sighed in relief as the panic released him with the arrival of a superior. He was still afraid, but he was more or less used to that.

Gloved hands on his shoulders startled him and he jerked, then berated himself internally, but the hands remained gentle as they urged him to stand. Kinnet kept her hands lightly on his shoulders after he stood.

“Look at me, please. What happened? You have permission to speak to me.” Sympathetic green eyes met his. His tenuous control almost broke again. He concentrated on breathing steadily, on the not-angry eyes, and the light touch on his shoulders. She showed no impatience while he tried to get words out of his closed throat.

“Sesul is very angry, mistress. He punished me, but he only got angrier. He said, ‘Go to Kinnet’, then he pushed me into the hall.”

“You didn’t know how to find me, so you accessed the station’s system?”

He nodded, miserably.

“You’ll be punished for using a system you’re forbidden to access.”

That brought his head up sharply. No one had ever expressly forbidden him from using the system, but not being given permission amounted to the same thing, except in the severity of the punishment. If he did something he’d never received permission to do, he’d suffer a moderate punishment. Doing something he was forbidden to do, whether or not he’d been told, probably meant a session.

He didn’t know if he would have preferred to face Sesul in the mood he was in now or in a session. At least in session, he had monitors on him to keep him alive.

Kinnet simply watched him, head canted to the side, as if she were deciding something. Then she released his shoulders and hooked her hand around his elbow. Her relaxed attitude siphoned off some his anxiety. By the time they reached her quarters, he felt calm despite the punishment he would likely receive in the future.

The “mistress” in Kinnet immediately honed in on the bloody welts across his buttocks and thighs. With all the detached efficiency of the medical attendants, she got a painkiller in him, had him laid out on a chaise, washed away the blood, and administered one of the Territories’ miracle medicines.

The attention almost made him smile. One thing (among the very few) Jahhan had come to appreciate about having a master was the responsibility Sesul had shown towards him, mostly since he’d taken Jahhan’s training on himself. Sesul checked the damage from punishments, though never offered painkillers, and checked Jahhan over after a session before he allowed medical to release him.

Once Jahhan sprained his ankle during exercises. The instructor had ignored his silent, but obvious, pain and distress. Jahhan couldn’t speak or stop the exercises. Fortunately, the next instructor sent him to medical. The next day, Sesul had a few words with the instructor. The man seemed a bit shaky afterwards and Jahhan was excused from the exercises until he’d healed.

While this “care” only served to keep Jahhan in good condition so he’d be ready to serve and entertain, Jahhan did appreciate having someone trying to keep him in one piece.

Kinnet questioned him after tending his hurts. “Sesul doesn’t draw blood during a punishment, does he?”

Jahhan glanced at her chin questioningly.

“Yes,” she said, answering his unspoken query, “you still have permission to speak and look at me for the remainder of the evening. Hell, whenever you’re here. I probably should make myself completely clear. You have permission to speak and meet my eyes any time you are in my quarters from now on unless I tell you differently. Oh, and no ‘mistressing’ me after every sentence in my quarters either. Now, the blood?”

“No, he doesn’t draw blood or draws an insignificant amount of blood.” He cut the “mistress” off the sentence just in time.

She reached out and tucked loose hair behind his ear. Out of habit, he expected some kind of cruelty to follow the soft touch. Instead, she asked softly, “Do you think you angered him?”

Jahhan considered the events before Sesul’s explosion carefully. “No. He usually tells me what I’ve done before he punishes me.”

“Thought as much. Why don’t you rest here. I don’t know how long I’ll be away.”

He wanted to tell her to be careful, but based on what he’d heard, she was probably the only person who didn’t need the warning.

She paused at the door. “I can’t remove the record of your access to the system. I can’t compromise station security. I’m sorry for that. Sesul will be sorry too after he comes back to himself.”

Jahhan doubted it.

***
“He found you.” Sesul stated when she entered his suite.

“He used the panel. What happened?”

“Mijre.”

“I was afraid of that. What happened?” she repeated.

A flash of violence raced through his body. He struck out, his fist slamming into the wall hard and fast. He winced. Station walls weren’t made like the weak wood and plaster walls planet-side. They were nearly as dense as metal. Sesul dented the wall, and possibly his hand. He flexed his fingers. At least everything seemed to be in place and working.

Kinnet sighed and crooked a finger at him. He followed her to the training center. She quickly found an empty room. By the time they stood facing each other on the large mat, he already felt calmer.

The sparring match started intense. They were nearly equal in strength, but Sesul had been fighting for several decades longer. Kinnet had gone one step further in enhancements and was faster. They knew how hard they could play with one another, and they pushed that limit without causing real harm. Eventually, though, the anger thrumming through Sesul’s body began to ebb.

The aggression of the fight didn’t ease his mood; the need to concentrate did. Kinnet landed enough hard blows to force him to let go of his anger in order to focus on her, then the sparring match was less like a fight and more like a dance. A dance that reminded Sesul of the benefits he enjoyed: speed, strength, two people he trusted with his life, his work as an ambassador which was important even in the vast arena of the Territories, and he even counted the half-broken slave who provided him with company, of a sort.

He held a hand up to Kinnet to signal an end to the dance.

When they had cooled down, he admitted, “Kinnet, she’s going to hurt him for this. Badly. She’s in a mood worse than mine and looking to cause pain. She knows she can only push me so far. He’s her safest outlet.”

“You shouldn’t have hurt him, and you shouldn’t have given him an order he couldn’t follow without doing something forbidden, but if she’s in the wrong mood, she’ll hurt him anyway. He won’t blame you.”

“He should. I wish he would. Keep him for a few days. I know how soft you are on the downtrodden.” She arched an eyebrow, but didn’t disagree. “If Mijre asks, I’ll tell her I needed him out of my way.”

Letting Jahhan have a few days rest with Kinnet was all Sesul could do for him.

***
Two weeks after using the communication panel to locate Kinnet, Jahhan found himself back in the luxurious dining area. The moment he went to his knees and touched his forehead to the floor, Mijre ordered him to rise and walk to stand before her chaise. She ordered him to face the guests. He turned so he faced Kinnet and Sesul, sharing a chaise to the left of the door he had entered through.

Mijre announced, cheerfully, that he would be providing the evening’s entertainment as punishment for using the system. This time he would entertain the guest with his suffering.

“Stand in the center of the room facing me and wait for your punishment,” she told him.

He stood still and straight as conversations went on around him. He knew this punishment would be particularly bad, though not because of the gravity of his infraction. Sesul had warned him of the nature of her mood and the bad timing of his error. Or Sesul’s error. Sesul actually seemed to feel guilt for the incident. Jahhan could hardly believe it.

After an eternity of agonized waiting, slaves bearing a sturdy table with restraints arrived. One of Mijre’s torturers, Etirn, followed behind them. Jahhan knew him. Etirn was always more than happy to hurt him. The slaves set the table in front of him.

“Prepare yourself,” Etirn said.

Jahhan climbed onto the table, and set his arms and legs in the restraints.

***
Jahhan panted and moaned, and watched Mijre watch him. A beautiful slave girl had vanished under a cloth draped over her legs. Jahhan might have almost pitied her for having to touch Mijre, if it wasn’t for his own predicament. The torturer nudged the weight hanging from his testicles and he choked down a cry. His earlier screams had already torn his throat raw.

He was now certain this wasn’t really about punishment. Mijre made sure he knew she displayed him for her pleasure with no white wall between them. He suffered a mere few yards from her. His long hair had been tied back. She even ordered him to look at her now and then. Fortunately for the rest of the guests, mirrors on either side of her made sure no one else missed an angle of his endless suffering.

His knees wanted to give out. He didn’t know how long he’d been standing with his legs spread, but he didn’t think he could hold on much longer. He wondered if he would at least faint when his nipples tore. The other motivation to stay on his feet didn’t bear thinking about until the torturer nudged that too. Jahhan ground his teeth together to hold back a scream, which tore out of his throat anyway.

Before removing him from the table and setting him on his feet, they inserted a rod into his drug-induced erection. The pain of the rod had been bad, but then the torturer turned a little screw and agony became the center of his world. He was certain their drugs kept him from losing consciousness. No one could stay aware during such unbearable pain otherwise.

Etirn explained, when Jahhan managed to stop screaming long enough, the rod had tiny needles buried in him. With a hard enough pull, they’d be reconstructing his manhood. They placed rings with more needles on his nipples. They left him to writhe and scream, then they set him on his spread legs, tied his hands behind his back, and hung weights from his arms and balls. Finally, before the guests attended to their meal, the torturer attached hooks to the ends of the rod and on the rings to lines dangling from the ceiling. The lines pulled taut and he was left to struggle to stand.

Of course, the torturer entertained the guests by occasionally fiddling with the devices on Jahhan, amplifying the agony surging through his body.

The guests had finished eating and had socialized. Jahhan had been gagged during the conversations so his cries wouldn’t interrupt them. Now they reclined and watched the entertainment. Some even had slaves attending them.

He watched Sesul in the mirror when the haze of suffering didn’t cloud his vision and when Mijre hadn’t asked for his attention. His master still shared a chaise with Kinnet. They weren’t engaging in any pleasurable activity at his suffering, and they had the only two faces he could look at without feeling ill.

The idea of Sesul coming to his aid never occurred to him, but he wished Sesul toyed with him instead of the unknown torturer. Focusing on his master’s presence and voice helped him endure suffering.

Even still, his endurance must have been too great for their stamina. The torturer began adding weights. God, they really meant to take him down. He’d been keeping himself up on the hope they’d be satiated by the long hours of his torture and remove the devices without ripping his flesh instead.

He still couldn’t force himself just to let his knees give way. He held until the fourth addition. His knees buckled and pain shattered him. Unconsciousness still eluded him, but agony overrode sight, sound, and thought. He couldn’t bear the pain, but he couldn’t die. He could only scream.

When awareness filtered through the haze of agony, he saw the torturer kneeling over him. Jahhan closed his eyes, as blades of pain continued to slice through his nerves. Maybe he could avoid looking at himself until they reconstructed his shredded flesh.

Etirn did something and a part supposedly no longer attached screamed in response. He looked down at himself. The devices were still attached, as was his flesh. The hooks must have been designed to give way instead. Bastards, Jahhan thought, with relief.

The torturer had attached a tube to the rod in his penis and thick fluid filled him as the device slid out. Medicine, probably, so he would be whole for the next torture. The rest of the devices were removed. Each removal blinded him with searing pain.

Cheerfully, the torturer demonstrated how the needles protruding from the devices tripled as the hooks gave way.

Sesul finally came to him. He pulled Jahhan to his feet by his aching arms and led him, mostly dragged him, to the double doors. He released Jahhan beyond the doors, then turned around and went back through them. Jahhan stared at the doors until medical came for him.

***
Sesul found himself watching Jahhan in the tank after copying Kinnet’s trick of sedating him. As often as he was the one to inflict the pain, he rarely, if ever, had been the one to cause the session to happen. Mijre may have arranged this session even if he hadn’t forced Jahhan to give her an excuse to hurt him. Mijre wouldn’t tell him either way. She’d prefer to see him suffer under the weight of his guilt. And she knew he felt guilty, no matter how hard he’d tried to hide his feelings from her.

No one deserved that, but Jahhan in particular had earned some peace.

Jahhan didn’t fight them. He capitulated moderately easily, moderately early. He became obedient. He accepted his position. He bent the way they pushed. And bent, and bent. And still hadn’t broken.

Kinnet hadn’t been half as tough herself. She’d had a brittle psyche. Her hidden strength was only revealed when her, as she put it, “self-doubting, forever indecisive” mind had broken under the pressure he applied. Afterwards, her capabilities became apparent. They’d ordered her to learn the impossible to set her up for punishment, and she’d learn. Order her to do the impossible, and she would. Her first fight would be remembered for a long time.

The habit had annoyed Mijre for a minute, maybe two. Sesul himself thought he’d seen the moment she realized what she had on her hands. She’d filled Kinnet’s head with knowledge, and had them train her body until her muscles had their own knowledge, then Kinnet’s will returned with a vengeance, or made a first appearance. Whichever, it was one hell of a will and one hell of a grand entrance. Several people nearly didn’t survive the confrontation that followed between Mijre and Kinnet.

Kinnet went into the tank, and he and Lehu swore they would never see her in one again. Then they swore on their lives to Mijre they would never see Kinnet in a tank again. Sesul still didn’t know if Mijre saw that coming or not. Impossible to tell with her.

Something about Mijre’s hidden plans changed. The next time Mijre laid eyes on the recovered Kinnet, Sesul had been present, and the look Mijre gave her had changed. And Mijre wasn’t displeased. Even when Kinnet wanted. Even when Kinnet demanded. Perhaps the fact Kinnet hardly ever wanted anything other than more knowledge, more skills, and more strength—which she put to whatever use Mijre wanted—helped.

Nothing about the girl he met 13 years ago spoke of the ambition she would manifest later. Sesul feared taking any other into their circle in part because they already had four members: himself, Lehu, Kinnet, and Kinnet’s ambition. Fortunately, her ambition was appeased for the time being. Her current mountain of responsibilities and intrigues kept her swirling mind occupied.

He had nightmares of what could happened when her ambitious drive resumed, and the delicate peace between her and hers, and their owner was threatened. Nonetheless, despite the uncertainty she brought with her into the pact, Kinnet had marked a turning point in their lives. She and her ambitions drew them out of the state of merely existing they had lived in since Lehu had been sent away and Mijre had turned her attention on Sesul. She ended almost 70 years bleached of feeling.

Since he’d planted the idea in his own mind by warning Kinnet, Sesul couldn’t help but consider what contribution an adaptable, bright mind like Jahhan’s could make, not to mention his even temperament. How long ago had he accused Kinnet of feeling similar emotions? He’d worried Kinnet would see her homeland in Jahhan. Instead he saw Kinnet in Jahhan.

He shook off the thought. He would do his best to see Jahhan settled into a decent life on Railu Station after Mijre was finished with him—maybe even working with one of them—but the agreement didn’t need additional strain.

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DrkDreamer and RAVEN: Thank you for your reviews!
DrkDreamer: Plot? Oh right, yeah, that. Not much plot in this chapter. More plot next chapter.
RAVEN: Sesul is fond of Cai, but Sesul’s grown a bit attached to Jahhan. I’m just not sure that’s very healthy for Jahhan.

***