A Thousand Lords and One Ch. 01

Arthur sits up, which forces my mother to crawl to keep her lips in contact with his pubes. The boy who makes me call him master gives me an idiotic grin.

"You are right as always Irmgard, Slave!" Arthur barks in the extra harsh tone he reserves for when he wants to show off in front of friends and guests "In the change booth, now."

Forlorn, I shuffle towards the transparent tube in the corner. It slides shut behind me. I feel the familiar sensation of robotic hands, prods and sensors gripping onto my limbs, unlocking and unlacing the outfit which had I had been bound into when Mrs. Bothnia put me on maid duty.

Air suddenly fills my lungs as the binding corset is lifted away. I stand there naked, with my arms raised above my head. I can see them all watching me. Irmgard with her predatory gaze, Audra with her gleeful smile, Arthur with his meatheaded malice, but the worst are my family.

Arthur pulls my mother by her collar and turns her to see me stripped and on display, while Utah's eyes lie level with my tits. I see in both of them expressions of sympathy, but I can also see the shame and humiliation which we all share.

I am only naked for a few seconds. The machine works quickly to put me in an outfit and makeup to match the rest of my family. A clamp locks around my head, holding me still so my wincing in pain from the sharp tips of the makeup and nano-ink pens doesn't mess up the chosen designs.

Bangles, anklets, and an armlet are welded onto my arms and legs. A gauzy, translucent bra and matching skirt - little more than two pieces of silk attached by a chain, in truth - are 3D-printed around my hips and chest.

My leather collar is swapped out for a golden robotic snake, programmed slither around my neck occasionally. My nails and toes are painted with inhuman precision at the same time the gold leaf designs are airbrushed onto my skin. Finally, a gold chain diadem draping a chain veil over my face descends on my head, before my wrists and ankles are released and the door slides open.

I step out of the booth, trembling, as Irmgard calls attention to me with a discreet motion of her index finger.

"Kneel," she says, pointing to her dangling foot.

I don't want to. I want to refuse, to fight back. But I know I can't. I can feel the weight of Arthur and Audra's gaze on me, and I know they'd enjoy nothing more than to see me defy Irmgard and suffer the consequences.

I think in a way, even they realise Irmgard is nothing like them. She plays in a different league. She doesn't just sit back and enjoy the perks of owning slaves, no.

She's in her element.

So I kneel. It's a routine gesture for me by now, but for some reason at this very moment, I feel like I used to at the very beginning of my slavery. I feel my heart beat faster, my cheeks redden, my pupils dilate. I am humiliated, and angry, and powerless.

As I fold myself in this slavish position before her, Irmgard's smile becomes positively wicked. "That's right," she says. "See how natural it comes to you. Surely you see that you were born for this."

I can feel the bile rising in my throat, but I keep my face down, trying not to show any emotion. This is not the first time I've been humiliated like this, and it won't be the last. I know she's only speaking lies: familiarity and repetition do not imply I was always meant to be a slave.

In the measure that I've been domesticated at all, it's because of the metaphorical foot constantly pressing upon my neck.

But something about Irmgard's cold, calculating manner, the way she seems to relish this exercise of power, makes me feel more vulnerable than ever before.

Irmgard's presence is like a noxious fog, I can feel my hatred for her growing stronger by the minute, because to her, this really is a sport, and she's definitely not here to socialise with anyone.

No, she has different objectives in mind: flaunting her slave-owning skills, and suggesting ways in which they could be even more effective.

She's here to network, to assert her superiority, and to make sure everyone knows that she's a force to be reckoned with.

Irmgard raises her right foot. It is the slightest of movements, but to a well-trained slave in this world, it is enough. I briefly note the pearly anklet adorning her, the way her sole curves upward, the smoothness of the skin, as I cradle her foot in my hands to begin my massage.

"Goooood pet," Irmgard says, leaning back, sighing in relaxation. "You know, Carolina, I've always thought you had potential. With a little bit of training..."

Irmgard suddenly leans forward, her eyes bright with amusement. "Nothing my two friends here could do, I'm afraid," she says, nodding towards Audra and Arthur. Audra gives a scoff, but I can sense the insecurity in her reaction.

Arthur, by now, seems to be losing his composure altogether, huffing and puffing at my mum's oral ministrations. The Full Revive having taken its effect, he pushes my mom face first into the performance bed's silk sheets. "Time for round two, Bitch," he grunts.

"You see," Irmgard continues with a quick glance at Arthur, before her merciless focus lasers back to me, "it takes a certain... mastery of the art to bring out the true self of a slave. I could show you facets of your own identity you don't even know exist. Maybe I'll ask Arthur if I can borrow you for a bit..."

I stare at her, eyes suddenly wide with genuine fear. I know she wants to flail my identity away. I know she wants to end me. And most importantly, I know she can, she is that good at dominating.

I shouldn't say anything, really, there is nothing I can say to improve my situation anyway, but I can't help myself. "A b-bit, m-ma'am? What do you mean?"

Irmgard just smiles, a smile that makes my skin crawl. It is only the surface version of a smile, there is no human warmth in them. Only sociopathic amusement. "Oh, nothing. Just an idea I had. A fantasy, really. But it's interesting, isn't it? The idea that you could be something more than what you are. Or less than what you think you are. Slaves are just the raw material, Carolina. But to sculpt them into a work of art... you need an artist. Don't stop rubbing!"

I realise I had stopped, in my stupor, and I immediately resume diligently rubbing her foot. This display of obedience makes Irmgard smile, but I'm still processing her words, trying to chase the worst case scenarios away from my mind.

I'm lucky precisely because the Bothnias have kept us all together, have never demanded too much of us. If I were left in Irmgard's care, even for a brief period... what would she do to me?

Suddenly, her hands are cradling my face, palms against my cheeks, fingers in my hair. She turns my face upwards. Her foot is still royally placed in my hands, but now I find myself looking into her eyes. Amused and cold and cruel and intelligent and dead.

"Listen to that sound," Irmgard says, her voice sultry, and as if by magic, the sound of my mother's moaning as the clapping sound of our owner taking her from behind overwhelms me. It can't be blocked out now, not anymore. It engulfs my entire perception. That's not just the sound of a middle-aged woman being fucked by her master. It's the sound of my family, all of us, being stripped of our humanity.

It's the sound of the defeat of most of us to a new, better kind. The end of the old world and its freedoms. The birth of the future, which sounds exactly like this: sexual and pleasurable, but also authoritarian and obedient.

"That's it," Irmgard says, reading my expression. "Take it aaaall in. The way each single slurp, gagging noise, sucking sound, slapping clap, slutty moan is individual and different. This is what the new world is all about. Appreciation of the finer things of life... and none finer than this one. None finer than power."

I stare at her, stunned and intimidated, my hands rubbing as if on autopilot, comforting her foot even as she lays out such cruelty for me.

"I intend to find out how well you suck cock, Carolina," she says. "How diligently you worship feet. How long you can be tied and suspended before uttering a single murmur of discomfort. How far your training can go. How dejected you would feel if I were to split you from Utah and that cockholster you call a mother."

I shiver in her hands, like a squirming, helpless prey in the grip of a much stronger predator. I can tell that she enjoys that.

"I want to discover how much your old intelligence can be broken down," she continues, sultrily, almost sweetly. "God knows you don't need that anymore, its only use is to be chopped up and served to people like me as a ritual offering, broken into oh so many tiny little pieces. I want to see if I can make you feel closer to an animal than to a person, because that is the final truth about you and your kind."

At that, I can feel my lips trembling, and my eyes welling with tears, in spite of myself. Somehow... that is the worst humiliation of all.

"If I ever get my hands on you, you'll experience all of this, and more," Irmgard says, our faces now inches apart, our lips almost touching, and her statement doesn't sound like a mere hypothetical. She means it as a promise.

"Don't you forget it."

***

Somewhere Near The Pleasure Gardens

It could be dismissed as a fever dream.

Many things about my life are exceedingly weird. I am a girl with no name, for instance: I am merely slave. Most people endure the New Order, and our Lord Rulers revel in it, but few get to experience what I experience.

Few get to be owned by a Lord Ruler in the flesh.

It's an experience for which there are no words. Dominance is a mere concept, to most people, but I have seen it, felt it, been reshaped by it. By Him. The Lord Rulers are everything they claim to be, and more, and we humans are everything they say we are, and less.

We are slaves. They are Masters.

In times past, in distant cultures, some slaves could think of themselves as privileged, depending on whom they served. But none of them were as privileged as me. Only the best, those capable of personifying service itself, are ever worthy of bearing a Lord Ruler's collar, the way I do around my dainty neck.

My body is His to use, explore, bend over and play with, torture and play like a fiddle, like I'm a musical instrument in His hands. My will is a small, flickering candle, being snuffed out in His hand. My mind is a leaf lost in the wind of His breath.

When psychic power can seep into every nook and cranny of your being, that's when you have felt what it truly means to be dominated. To be owned.

But for all the bizarre elements that make up my life, none is as weird as this.

I kneel before my Master as He reaches out with His powers into the astral plane, into that liminal dimension that exists between our world and theirs, that place where their power resides. A place we livestock can merely sense in our dreams, or in the presence of our Lords... but that they can see, and feel, and touch, as if it were here. As if it were real.

As my Master's mind reaches out into the starry night, His power washes over me in waves, and it's not a singular thing, an isolated astronomical object, like a star, or a black hole: it's an interconnectedness that takes my breath away.

Even I, slave, from this lowly vantage, can sense the link that unites all our Masters. The unity of purpose, unity of will, the way each thought stretches far beyond what a mere slave mind could ever hope to comprehend.

Impossibly huge. Incredibly knowledgeable. Even their thoughts -- no, especially their thoughts -- have power. Their thinking is immense, and ours can only disappear in their inescapable gravity well.

They all share this link. This connection. This power.

A thousand; and one.

"Three have newly awakened," Master says, as he retreats into the world, and the starry night disappears from my humble perception. I'm back in the physical world, on my knees before Him, on the lush carpet at the entrance of His pleasure gardens.

His declaration humbles me. But it also fills me with pride.

Few slaves have what it takes, to personally serve a Lord Ruler. Even fewer have what it takes, to be involved in the induction of new members into their hallowed ranks.

Each time a mere mortal is touched by immanence, each time a mind awakens, the Lord Rulers sense it right away. It's like witnessing the birth of a young star.

Of one young star, to be precise.

Ability is utility. Utility is value. Value is dignity. Dignity is freedom. And the most extraordinary freedoms are reserved for only the most extraordinary individuals.

"Who are the newly awakened, Master?" I ask, in my perfect slave pitch, that the Lord Rulers have drilled into my vocal cords with incredible precision. A musical tone that colours my speech with the notes of utter, unconditional submission.

I know I will have to oversee their fight, the one that will settle which of them will be welcomed into the ranks of the lords of the Earth.

I await their names, knowing that I will grieve for two of them, and the old world their defeat will represent... and bow before the exhalted third, in awe of the birth of a new star in the night sky.

"One is Ragnar Kai," my Master says, and even though the name means nothing to me, I still shiver in anticipation, my body trembling under the sheer power of His words. "A young bookish man of middling extraction and uncommon education."

As my Master speaks, Ragnar's unique imprint -- his psionic fingerprint, in a way -- is seared into my mind, like it's being forcibly shoved in by my Master's own fingers. It's an act of overpowering intimacy that makes me gasp, and long desperately for my Master's touch, but I know better than to move a muscle.

I am perfect in my submission. I am slave.

"The second is Irmgard Gast," Master says, "a young female scion from a proud and noble family."

By the standards of us chattel, at least, I think to myself, as I shudder while her psionic imprint is etched into my mind. After entering the service of the gods, it's impossible for me to be impressed by the petty achievements of humans anymore.

The imprint will allow me to contact, and sense, the three newly awakened psionically... and to referee their upcoming struggle for the right to ascend to divine status.

Or fall to the lowest depths of slavery...

"The third is Carolina Lusnik," Master finishes, and this time, the pleasurable searing and the allure of my weakness, are accompanied by mild curiosity. It's rare for women to awaken, much more so than men, one of the many reasons why our gender has progressively been driven back to a place more befitting of our weakness...

And this crop of newly-awakened has not one, but two girls.

"A slave in the Bothnia household," Master finishes, as the last of her imprint is etched into my eager brain.

A slave, huh? I try and imagine what it would be like for her, to become a Lord Ruler. To go from the lowest possible rung, to this. To utter transcendence. It would almost be too good to be true, for her...

But of course, she'll have to snuff out the will, and the psychic abilities, of Ragnar and Irmgard, first.

"It is sad that there can be only one," I say, mournfully, without ever daring to look up from Master's boots. I know better than to disrespect Him so. "All three feel luminous with potential to slave's simple, limited mind, Master," I say, and it is no mere platitude. It's true.

For different reasons, all three could potentially mature into Lord Rulers...

"I know, sweetling. Your mind may be limited, but in this, you are correct," Master says, his fingers running through my hair. The electricity generated by my touch is enough to push me to the brink of orgasm, as my breathing grows shallow, my pupils dilate, and my muscles tremble.

Such is the power held by the touch of a god...

"But that is the way of the cosmos," Master says. His index finger pushes past the soft barrier of my eager, pillowy lips. I moan around it, marvelling at the taste of His skin, the way it obliterates any coherence in my perception, in my ability to process sensory inputs.

"Life is struggle. Life feeds on life," he says, but I'm only half-listening, because I know he's going to fuck me soon... no, he's already fucking me, in ways that my slave mind can barely hope to comprehend. "That is the way it's meant to be: for there to be a thousand Lords..."

My eyes roll back into my skull, as his mind encompasses mine, enveloping it, crushing it, owning it, owning me -- and with me, the world entire.

"... and one."