Istanza

A new feeling took over Leeann then, as the afterglow of her orgasm subsided and the image of Silra's sad face etched itself permanently into her memories. She stood, paced forwards quickly and took Silra into an embrace, pushing her crying face into her neck.

"There, there." She cooed. "You've been a good girl. A very good girl." She deftly unfastened the knot at Silra's back and let the rope fall from between her legs, then slipped it loose and let the whole tiny garment fall to the floor. Silra stepped out of it, shaking slightly. "I usually make Koda wear that all night." She paused, then added: "But I don't usually make Koda make themselves come in it. You've been a good girl tonight. Haven't you?"

"Mistress, yes, Mistress." Silra replied, straightening up. "Mistress, thank you, Mistress."

"Good girl." Leeann said, then stepped away from her embrace, picked up her shorts and pulled them up her legs. "I have to leave now." She said, deliberately choosing a cold tone of voice. She had shown compassion, and she wasn't sure why; it wasn't in character, and it possibly wasn't proper, either. "I will return tomorrow night, if you want more."

"Mistress, yes please, Mistress. Thank you, Mistress." Silra said weakly. Her tears had dried, but she was clearly exhausted, and no wonder. It was getting late, and she had done a full day's labour before her punishment had started.

"Get some sleep. I will want you refreshed and ready tomorrow night."

Leeann remained awake for a long time, her heart still pounding despite her fatigue. A brisk autumn storm was raging outside the windows, which rattled in their primitive frames. The palace was in a mountainous part of Krakus that was prone to storms all year round, and those in autumn were the worst of all. They could roll across an empty sky in less than an hour, and once caught around the spires of the palace could hang there all night. Even in the lavish apartments that the Istanza were granted, the draughts still played around the window frames and tickled underneath the doors, and heating the big old stone manse was an endless task.

Leeann couldn't get the image of Silra's pre-orgasmic face from her mind, tears glistening beneath her puffy red eyes as she cried, mouth tight and round against the bomb that was about to detonate between her legs. Every time she saw that face she felt her heart judder. Why was this? The girl was just another Koda, just another throwaway life in the Sect's cruel temple.

She pulled her luxurious blankets closer around her neck as another strong gust shook the windows and blasted a squall of raindrops the size of golf balls against the slates overhead. The ancient iron radiator on the far side of the room was too hot to touch, but too far away to make anything but the slightest difference. In the dead of winter, condensation would often freeze on the inside of the windows. The blankets were her best defence against the cold, and besides – she was fit and healthy, and enjoyed the fresh feeling of a cold breeze against her cheek as she slept.

Silra's face kept on playing in her mind. She couldn't help but think of Silra in her cold cell, with only her thin grey robe to keep her warm. The cells were in the heart of the palace, deep in the bowels of the building, and the drafts were not so fierce there, but the whole level was permeated by a more intrusive cold, the type of numb cold that penetrated the very stone of the walls, floor and ceiling and chilled the air, crept into the bone like rising damp. She would be shivering, now that her excitement had worn off. She would be cold all over and throughout, all except one area, which would burn all night long.

Leeann knew. She had been made to wear the same knotted rope g-string when she was Koda. She knew how it bit like angry insect teeth as it was tightened, how every slight move made one's most delicate skin seethe in irritated heat. She knew how difficult it had been to spend a night in that horrible garment, and how her skin had stung the following morning and well into the next day. It had taken all of her willpower to keep on working, and not stop every ten minutes to moisten her fingers with her tongue and rub saliva into herself in a vain attempt to reduce the soreness. She had worked so hard to not be the lowest performer, to ensure that she did not have to wear it a second time.

She should not have made poor Silra wear it. She had not worn it for long, but she had cruelly been made to rub it into herself, accelerating the rate at which it had damaged her skin. She may not sleep with the pain, and she may suffer in the daylight hours with fatigue and soreness. It was not fair.

Leeann stopped herself. Why did she care? Silra was just another Koda. She was nothing. And yet, she really was something... She could do things to Leeann that nobody else had done. She did them willingly. She was every one of Leeann's fantasies rolled into one. She really was special, and she deserved to be treated so.

Tomorrow she would be visited again. Leeann would steal into her cell after she had punished the lowest-performing Koda, and spend another hour or so in her company. She would punish her, if that was what Silra wanted, and then she would allow Silra to do what she did best, and take her to ecstasy.

Yes, tomorrow she would see her again. Less than one day.

She rolled over, adjusted the blankets around her neck. It was easy to get a stiff neck in the cold breeze, if she wasn't careful to keep the blankets sealed high around her chin and ears. She found herself wishing that Silra was sharing the bed with her. Not for more torture or more sex – she was too tired for that – but Silra was warm and soft, her skin inviting. Silra's body could keep her warm despite the cold.

Stop it, Leeann said to herself. Getting romantic over Koda. Forget her, go to sleep. Tomorrow is another day.

* * *

The next day slid past as slowly as the last. Outside the storm abated during the daylight hours, which at least was a blessing for the Koda that were set to work in the courtyards beyond the protection of the palace roofs. Silra was among them, Leeann noticed. She hadn't consciously set to seek her out, but merely followed her duty to keep a watchful eye on the Koda by climbing into one of the towers that overlooked the kitchen garden where they worked, tending the ground and clearing the first of the autumn leaves like the well-behaved slaves they had already learnt to be. They were a good batch, but dull – apart from Silra, who was anything but.

Leeann's eyes set upon her almost immediately. She would have been dismayed at the fact, had her heart not skipped a beat. She was merely casting her gaze across the rows of hastily-working hands under arched backs until her eyes set upon a pair of buttocks pointed almost straight at her. Even with Silra's face obscured behind her knees she had recognised her. It was something about the way she held herself – strong, even when bent over picking up leaves; proud, even in her simple grey shift. What was it that gave her such strength? Of what was she so proud, even when she was up to her elbows in dirt, being driven to work by a short fat man in a leather skirt waving a whip uselessly towards her and her unfortunate associates?

There was a stubborn defiance in her, that was for sure. It was almost unnatural, the way she maintained her dignity where the others were hunched over their work, trying to be smaller than everyone else, lest they be noticed by their drivers. It didn't work for the Koda, for the smaller they made themselves appear, the more feeble lashes from the driver's whip they seemed to attract; yet for Silra the opposite worked perfectly. The driver almost ignored her, passing around her as if she were an ornament or a tree in order to flick more pathetic lashes from his leather strand to those Koda who failed to meet his half-hearted standards.

It was only when Silra turned away from her work that Leeann realised how well she had been hiding her pain. She walked back into the palace with that careful walk, those ginger steps, that delicate sway that gave away the soreness between her legs. Leeann felt a little tightness play at the back of her throat when she remembered that she was responsible for Silra's pain, with her cruel game with the rough rope thong. Silra had suffered in silence all day long because of her sick desires and her need to see somebody in pain after Danielle had annoyed her. It wasn't fair. She knew that pain too well, for she had suffered it before. The rope burned like fire, and even when it was gone its sting remained for a long while afterwards.

Leeann finally turned away from the window once Silra's form was out of sight, back inside the ground levels of the palace far beneath the tower. Only then did she realise, with a sinking heart, that she had been standing in one place, watching Silra from high above, for some time. The autumn sun was already low on the horizon, and soon it would be time to go see to her Koda.

She couldn't escape the feeling that it wasn't right for Istanza to devote so much time and thought to one individual Koda, or feel such unfamiliar feelings inside when she did. Nobody else could know, and so no harm yet was done, but she could not help wondering how long it would be before the Sect became aware that she was devoting excess attention to one single slave. Would that be a problem?

She would have to consult the holy book.

In the meantime, the pale autumn sun was setting over the horizon of Krakus, and there were Koda that required her attention. There would be a lowest performer, for sure. There always was. She would need to suffer for her performance, or lack thereof. It was the way of the Sect. It was her way, the way of her employment. It must be done, and she was the one who must do it.

She wasn't really in the mood.

She did it any way. The lowest performer this time had so far escaped her attentions, but for one reason or another – be it fatigue, depression or illness – she had let herself down, and her work had suffered. Leeann went through the motions, this time favouring evil spring-clamps and chilli oil, until the girl was a quivering wreck hanging limply from the shackles on the beam across her cell, and then – when she had tidied her implements away and left the girl to recover alone – she stole quietly into Silra's quiet chamber, so excited in her heart that she forgot to glance through the grate on the door first to see if Silra was still awake for her.

Leeann could barely swallow the hurt in her chest when she saw that Silra was asleep on her bed, facing the wall. Silra had forgotten, or changed her mind. Silra didn't want her. Silra was asleep, or pretending to be asleep. Silra was... No, Silra was awake! She rolled over slowly, fixed Leeann with a smile.

"I was beginning to think you weren't coming." She purred. "Mistress, please, Mistress, will you punish me tonight, Mistress?"

Leeann's heart juddered frantically for a moment, until she stilled it. She lost her words, caught them again, cleared her throat delicately. "I wouldn't forget about my beautiful slave." She whispered.

"Beautiful?" Silra smiled. "You think I'm beautiful?"

Leeann smiled back, then remembered herself, and frowned. "That's Mistress, girl."

"Mistress, sorry, Mistress." Silra said. "Does Mistress think I'm beautiful, Mistress?"

She sat down carefully on the edge of Silra's hard bed. "Of course I do. Proud girl, pretty girl. Beautiful girl."

Silra picked herself up on her elbows, then reached out without a word and took Leeann into an embrace, burying her face into Leeann's neck. "Mistress, thank you, Mistress. That's the sweetest thing I've heard in a long time, Mistress."

A smile washed over Leeann's face that she could not wipe away, but it didn't matter – Silra could surely not see it, with her face buried in her neck. It felt so good just to have her close. She was so warm, despite the autumnal chill in the stones all around. She was soft, and gentle, and the feeling of skin on skin was divine. It had been so long – how long? Longer than she cared to count. Before she had been appointed Istanza of the Sect's Koda, that was for sure; before she was even herself Koda. Far too long since she had last been embraced by somebody.

She felt something soft and moist in Silra's embrace, and realised that she was being kissed, softly and intimately on her neck. Quickly she recoiled, grabbed Silra's hands and pulled them away from her.

"No, girl. Mustn't do that. Not here."

"Mistress, I'm sorry, Mistress." Silra muttered, sitting upright, casting her eyes to the floor. Leeann wondered if she detected a hint of hurt in Silra's reply or in her eyes; she wasn't sure if she didn't feel some herself when the embrace was broken, but that was too much, too fast. Nobody had kissed her for a long time.

She had dreamt of being kissed, when she was first promoted from Koda to Istanza, when the Sect realised that her true value was more than the number of bulbs she could plant in a day or how clean she could polish the flagstone floors. She had had many dreams that took her back to her life before she was Koda, to long-forgotten feelings of joy, of tenderness, of love. The dreams had passed, in time, along with the memories, until it was all some past lifetime, some distant hazy fantasy of a life she'd never lived.

The suddenness of lips on her skin was too much.

Now that it was gone, it wasn't enough. She wanted it back.

No. Silra wanted to be punished. That was why she was here.

Leeann shifted up the bed until she sat next to Silra. She took hold of her wrists gently and pulled them out of her lap, placed them out of the way, and deftly hitched her grey shift up her knees until she could reach her probing hand under the tattered hem to place her palm over Silra's sex.

"Is that sore, girl?"

"Mistress, yes, Mistress."

"I'm sorry I made you suffer with that."

"Mistress, I am worthy only of punishment, Mistress."

"Good girl." Leeann said, forcing a smile. She began to move her palm around in delicate circles, probing with her fingers until she found an entrance to Silra's moist insides. Silra gave a few pained squeaks, but remained still, hands gripping the blanket at her sides. She withdrew her bottom lip and bit it.

"I think you're a little wet inside, girl." Leeann said softly.

"Mistress, yes, Mistress. You do that to me, Mistress."

"I do it to you, or you do it to yourself?"

Silra gulped. "Mistress, holding you made me excited, Mistress."

It was Leeann's turn to swallow. "Why?"

"Because you excite me, Mistress. Your body excites me, Mistress. Holding you excites me, Mistress."

Leeann withdrew her hand and stood quickly. She turned to face Silra. "Put your hands between your legs and play with yourself. I will be back. Don't come."

"Mistress, yes, Mistress." Silra replied, obeying her command immediately. Her face looked more than a little pained, and Leeann knew how sore her sticky red clit would be, but she smiled flatly and left the cell. There was something that would make it better.

It took her a few minutes to walk to the Sect's medical supply room, to which she was entitled a key in case she should inadvertently damage a Koda during her training, and grabbed a glass jar of scented salve from a cupboard. She made quick paces back to her quadrant of the Kodas' quarters and re-entered Silra's cell.

Silra sat as she had been left, legs apart, robe around her hips, fingers moving in controlled circles around her abused clit. Her mouth was open and her eyes unfocused, her breath heavy.

"Are you enjoying that, girl?"

"Mistress, it's making me horny but it hurts, Mistress."

"You may stop."

"Mistress, thank you, Mistress." Silra said, withdrawing her hand with a long sigh. Her fingertips glistened with heat and her red sex sparkled in the dim light.

"I have something that will help you heal." Leeann said, climbing onto the bed behind Silra and spooning into her back. She placed the glass jar onto the bed beside her and removed the lid, releasing its flavour into the stony frigid air. "It's a salve. It needs to be rubbed thoroughly into the inflamed area. It might sting a little when it's applied, but it will help it get better. Would you like me to apply it, girl?"

"Mistress, please, Mistress." Silra sighed.

"Very well. Grab your robe and hold it up."

Silra did as she was told, clasping the hem of her robe in her hands and pulling it up and away from her sex. Leeann scooped a handful of white salve from the jar and brought her fingertips around Silra's belly, stopping a few millimetres from her aroused and damaged clit. Very slowly she let her fingertip extend, until the tiniest dab of salve was deposited onto the damp red nub.

Silra hissed almost immediately, and her opened legs twitched momentarily as if they wanted to close.

"Does that hurt, girl?"

"Mistress, yes, Mistress."

"Good. Now hold still while I rub it all in."

With no further warning she pressed her palm into Silra's sex, squishing the entire handful of salve onto her inflamed skin. Both hands worked at her flesh, moving around and around quickly, rubbing the oily white substance into every exposed patch of skin. Silra squeaked and whimpered and twitched, but she held her position like a good girl, Leeann thought, and did not speak her pain or try to close her legs. After a while, perhaps two or three minutes of rubbing, while much of the salve still remained, Silra's breaths became slower, deeper, more rhythmical. Then they began to speed up with each firm rub.

"How do you feel, girl?"

Silra released her bottom lip from her teeth and whispered a breathy sigh. "Mistress, you're making me feel good, Mistress. You're making my chest tighten, Mistress."

"Good. Keep talking to me."

"Mistress, yes, Mistress. You're making all the blood rush to my clit. It's throbbing, but it doesn't hurt so bad. It feels nice. I feel pleasure and pain. I'm getting very wet inside. You're making me want to come. Mistress."

"Good. Will you come if I keep doing this?"

"Mistress, yes, Mistress. Please don't stop, Mistress."

Silra's words were fuel to Leeann's growing fire. She massaged a little faster, noting how quickly Silra's breaths adjusted to match her new pace. "Such a good girl." She whispered. "Tell me when you're going to come."

"Mistress, I'm close, Mistress." Silra breathed. "Getting closer. Just a little faster, Mistress. Oh, yes, that's it... On my clit... Oh yeah... Very close now Mistress, very close..."

Leeann glanced up quickly at a noise from the corridor. She stopped her movements at Silra's sex as she strained to listen.

"Mistress, please don't stop..." Silra breathed, but Leeann shushed her with a sharp hiss. There were approaching footsteps. High heels.

Only Istanza wore high heels.

In an instant Leeann pushed Silra hard in the back, throwing her to the hard floor where her knees landed with a double-knock of bone-bruising loudness. She jumped to her feet, withdrew her cane, hoisted Silra's robe and gave three hard, loud strikes to her exposed buttocks, a split-second before Danielle's face appeared at the door grate.

"Hmm... I see you've got your pants on tonight. What a surprise." Danielle said musically.

Leeann said nothing, but raised her bunched fist slowly to Danielle and curled out her middle finger, an ancient gesture that few now understood. She wasn't sure if Danielle knew its meaning or grasped it from the context in which it was displayed, for she simply raised her eyebrows and flashed a humoured smile, then turned away from the grate and walked back the way she had come.

Leeann gave a long outward sigh once Danielle was long out of earshot, then sank back on to the bed and let her cane fall to the floor. What was it with Danielle? Why was she checking up on her every night?