Consorts for Ladies

The guilty smile remained, but a touch of a brag crept into his voice.

Elizabeth would never tell.

"Who administered it?" Elizabeth asked. "Headmistress Jane? Yourself?"

"Goodness, no," Christopher put a hand to his chest, right at the low neckline of his gown, in shock. "There's a machine. I'm not certain how it works. We're blindfolded and immobilized while it... works on us. To prevent us from gaining premature knowledge of our bodies. It's the only way to keep our virginity perfect. So, if you, just for example, were to become my permanent lady, you could be assured that you would be the first to teach me the pleasure of human touch."

He rested his hands on the table, soft skin and short, polished nails easily available to her, but not presuming.

Elizabeth was just about to suggest that he draw a question from the other bowl, when Jane announced, "Time's up! Aspirants, switch."

Christopher gave her a reluctant goodbye smile as he lifted himself, and his dress, off the stool without disturbing it.

He and the rest of the aspirants at the tables switched places with those lined up along the wall.

The next aspirant to stand at Elizabeth's table was Daisy.

Hoping to be able to fit in more than a single question this time, Elizabeth remembered to give her permission to sit and speak before Jane had even overturned the hourglass.

Again, the metal of a belt clinked against the wood, and Elizabeth found herself curiously picturing it, and how Daisy's might be designed differently from the others.

"It's nice to meet you," said Elizabeth.

"You as well," Daisy said sweetly, and then segued into a neutral comment on the blooms in the garden.

It took effort for Elizabeth to keep her attention on Daisy's face.

There was something so... perverse about seeing a woman in a gown. It didn't feel like it should have been allowed. The corset pushed her breasts together and up, almost to the point of spilling out. Far stranger than the aesthetics, though, were the delicate, submissive, male mannerisms Daisy had obviously learned here.

Elizabeth realized now that she'd never given a second thought to the way men folded their limbs to take up as little space as possible, the way they dropped their gazes when they felt observed, or the way they so carefully selected the softest possible version of their words, even without Heartgarden training.

It took seeing those habits on a woman to make her consciously notice them.

Elizabeth wasn't sure she liked the combination... but she wasn't sure that she didn't, either.

As a change of pace, perhaps. A novelty.

"Shall we?" Elizabeth asked, when Daisy had finished talking about the roses outside.

Daisy nodded agreeably, twirling one of the shiny black curls that hung artfully from her up-do.

"Do you ever wish for more freedom?" Elizabeth read the question aloud.

Daisy took that same moment Christopher had, to do the math on what this question licensed her to say.

"I miss it now and then," she admitted. "But all in all, no. I like my keeping to be strict."

"Why?" Elizabeth improvised. "Do you enjoy being punished?"

She had heard of such things, but never discussed them with anyone in any detail.

"Sometimes I do," Daisy admitted easily, and then her eyes went wide. "But that doesn't mean I won't do my best to serve my lady well! What I mean is, I'd rather know that I'll be punished for my transgressions than wonder whether anyone notices or cares what I do."

"So, when you're chosen, you're hoping things will stay more or less the same for you?" Elizabeth asked.

"I will adapt to my lady's needs," Daisy recited automatically.

"But what are you hoping for?"

Daisy thought.

"I want her to know what she wants from me, and to teach and enforce it ruthlessly. Whether it's the same as what I was taught here, I don't much care. The only thing I'm hoping will be different..."

Elizabeth leaned in, encouraging her to finish her thought.

"I'm hoping that I might have my lady's attention all to myself," said Daisy, her gray eyes wide again, with an added sparkle. "That I might serve her and take her training and discipline one-on-one, always. But even if I don't, I doubt I'll have to share with hundreds of other aspirants."

"I'm sure you won't," said Elizabeth.

She almost let slip that she was looking for a sole spouse, but it felt too much like a promise. Instead, she gestured to the right bowl.

"Your turn."

Daisy chose a slip of paper and unfolded it.

"What is your favorite dessert?"

Elizabeth wasn't sure if she was supposed to answer provocatively or literally. She took the safe approach. "Apple cake."

Daisy seemed pleased enough with this answer. She smiled and looked away to resist saying something.

"Are you thinking about one of your preferences?" Elizabeth guessed. "Is that your favorite too?"

Daisy shook her head.

"Are you thinking about how good you are at something?" Elizabeth tried again.

Daisy did not quite nod, but the deepening of her smile gave confirmation.

"How good are you at baking apple cake, Daisy?"

The smile became a grin, before Daisy reined it carefully back in. "I am competent, my lady."

Before Elizabeth could give her the right prompt to allow her to brag a little harder, Jane announced the time to switch.

The group of aspirants waiting against the wall shifted one space to the right, with the one on the far right sashaying across to the far left, so that they could each approach a new table and trade places with the aspirant there.

#

Elizabeth had to admit, it would be easy to get used to this. So much beauty, so much polished flirtation, so much hope and eagerness focused on her.

She could have done without the distracting behavior of the other ladies, however.

Everything had started out well enough, but as the game went on, most of the ladies grew obnoxiously bored with it. Countess Vera of Arbelle, on Elizabeth's left, had started ordering her aspirants to sit on the armrest of her chair instead of the stool, so that she could fondle each of their muscle groups in turn, while barely pretending to listen to their answers to the questions.

Lady Mary of Dinore, two seats to Elizabeth's right, had swept both bowls off the table to shatter on the floor, and was directing each aspirant to dance for her among the fragments, before pulling them across her lap and spanking them soundly for no reason at all, not even a pretense of one.

Jane showed no interest in correcting this clear violation of the guest rules. Not as long as Lady Mary was the one committing it, anyway. Elizabeth was quite sure she herself could not have gotten away with such disregard.

Not that she wanted to.

The aspirants were so sweet and dutiful already. How hard was it to show them even the slightest bit of respect?

After a while, Elizabeth found herself wanting to apologize for what each aspirant had already been subjected to by the time they reached her table.

Most of them did a good job of hiding their feelings about this treatment, but it weighed visibly on Gabriel.

He arrived in front of Elizabeth with his skinny shoulders raised cautiously toward his ears. He averted his gaze from hers, but only by a few degrees, so that he could watch for oncoming attacks.

"Hello, Gabriel, I'm Elizabeth. You have my permission to sit, and to speak as freely as the code allows," Elizabeth recited her recently perfected introduction. "I'll do my best to give you more specific permissions as they come up."

Gabriel looked at her with a more suspicious, evaluating gaze than she'd seen on an aspirant so far, as he perched himself on the stool.

Elizabeth examined him in return. He looked about as different from the others as was allowed, she realized, in every possible way. His dark brown hair was washed and brushed, but fell mostly loose around his shoulders, down to his waist. Only two sections, at his temples, were braided and tied together with a ribbon in technical compliance with the code.

His lips were painted, but with a more natural tone of pink.

His eyebrows were groomed, any stray hairs removed, but while the other aspirants' brows were plucked back to thin, arched lines, his retained an expressive thickness that made his gaze more intense.

His look might have been harsh, almost unmanly, if it weren't for his large, delicate Adam's apple. The way it fluttered in time with his thoughts would have made him look soft and pretty even in knight's armor.

Elizabeth picked a slip of paper, curious to know more about him.

"If I had the key to your chastity belt, what would you be willing to do for it?" she read.

"What would you make me do?" Gabriel fired back, instantly.

His defiance was subtle, wrapped in airs of innocence. Still, it was so different from the way all the other aspirants conducted themselves that Elizabeth looked instinctively over both shoulders, to check if anyone else had noticed. The ladies on either side of her were preoccupied with their own aspirants, and Jane was at the other end of the room.

This didn't put Elizabeth fully at ease. She leaned closer across the table.

"Are you some kind of test?" she whispered to Gabriel.

"Why would someone be testing you, my lady?"

Elizabeth was fairly sure there was no rule against her answering him honestly.

"You know that if I'm caught letting you get away with anything, I'll be sent home, right?" she hissed. "Did Headmistress Jane send you to trick me into giving her an excuse?"

"Am I in danger of getting away with something?" Gabriel asked.

"You're required to obey all rules spoken and unspoken, including in games," Elizabeth recalled. "There's an unspoken rule here that you're supposed to answer the question."

Gabriel paused half a second, before smiling and showing off his perfect teeth, caught in the act.

"You're right, of course, my lady. You'd better check the punishment for that. For both our sakes."

Elizabeth pulled the book from her satchel and flipped through the pages as fast as she could, aware of Gabriel watching and waiting.

Disobedience (unspoken rule, first daily offense): Bare-handed strangulation, 30 seconds, applied in kneeling position.

"Kneel beside my chair," Elizabeth ordered, her voice uncertain in her own ears.

Gabriel gathered up his skirts and obeyed.

He clasped his hands behind his back and offered no resistance as she wrapped her hands around his slender neck.

No resistance, that was, except for his uncomfortably perceptive gaze, which remained fixed on her.

Tentatively, Elizabeth squeezed, and began counting the seconds.

Gabriel seemed to slip into a practiced sort of trance, conserving his energy and oxygen, still using her face as his focal point.

He made it look so easy that Elizabeth tightened her grip, afraid to be caught going too soft on him.

But even with his pulse beating against her palms, that delicate Adam's apple of his struggling under her thumbs, Elizabeth couldn't help feeling that some of the control she'd held in this game was slipping through her fingers, her future forming itself without her input.

When she let go at the end of the thirty seconds, they were both breathing hard.

She ordered him back to his stool.

"Pick one," she told him, nodding at the right bowl.

This part seemed to be easier on the aspirants, and allowed Elizabeth to do more of the talking. Maybe they could run out the clock this way without Gabriel feeling the need to do anything else that Elizabeth would be expected to punish.

He chose and unfolded one of the papers.

"What's your favorite book?"

Elizabeth felt her face fill with a completely uncalculated smile. "The Ballad of Delena."

Before she could launch into summarizing it for Gabriel's benefit, he let out a breath of recognition.

"You've read it?" Elizabeth asked.

"Yes, my lady."

Elizabeth hadn't thought there were any men who read Rencepia's ballads on their own.

"What do you think of it?" she remembered to ask directly.

"It's one of my favorite fantasies," he answered.

"Fantasies?"

"About the possibility of rising up from the bottom," he explained.

That was what Elizabeth liked most about it too.

"Switch!" Jane announced the time.

"Request me," Gabriel whispered urgently as he lifted his skirts from around the stool.

"What?" asked Elizabeth.

"This evening, you'll be asked if you're interested in a longer trial period with any of us that you've met so far. Request me." He took a nervous sideways glance at Lady Mary, who blew him a taunting kiss with her foot on Charles's face.

"Please," Gabriel added, and then returned to the wall.

With his plea still in her ears, Elizabeth tidied the accumulated paper slips into a pile. As she did so, she turned over the slip he'd drawn.

How do you like your laundry done? it said.

She looked up. Gabriel was still eyeing her from across the room, waiting for her to discover his lie, watching for her reaction.

By that time, her next aspirant was standing at the ready behind the stool.

She greeted the new one, crumpling Gabriel's slip casually into the pile.

#

The game of questions was followed by a lunch banquet, a longer dance display, an even larger dinner banquet, and then cocktails in one of the rose gardens.

The conversation during the cocktail hour was mostly between the ladies. A group of aspirants hovered nearby, serving them their drinks and trying to discreetly avoid Lady Mary and her cluster of friends.

When Lady Mary ordered one of the aspirants to lap up a drink she'd spilled in a flowerbed, Elizabeth decided to retire early.

An envelope was waiting under the door of her room when she arrived.

Just as Gabriel had predicted, the papers inside informed her of her right to request a specific aspirant as her trial consort.

This right may be exercised multiple times, and at any point during your stay, but you may not have multiple trials running concurrently. Beginning a trial later may help you make a more informed request. Beginning one earlier may prevent your preferred consort from being selected by someone else, and will allow for a longer trial period before final choosing.

After the main letter, there was an explanation of a complicated point system, which would allow her to make multiple requests with different weightings, in case more than one lady requested the same aspirant at the same time.

Elizabeth spent a long time staring at the list of all of the available aspirants. There were beauties here she'd barely become acquainted with, and others she hadn't even been introduced to.

Part of her felt cheated. She had only been here a day, and already her "gallantry," as Jane had mocked her for it on her way in, might end up dictating the rest of her experience.

It wasn't as if she wanted to spend her winter at the Heartgarden behaving like Lady Mary, but was it so unreasonable to want to take her time? At least have the chance to meet everyone before making a commitment?

All of the aspirants here were hoping to be chosen, and a lot of them were probably hoping not to be chosen by Lady Mary. What made Gabriel so special that she felt compelled to stake a protective claim on him? Was it just because he'd asked her to?

No. It was more than that.

She had never in her life met a man quite like Gabriel. And she knew what happened to unpowerful people who stood out too much in the presence of nobles.

Gabriel certainly stood out, more even than Daisy. Whether by choice or because he couldn't help it, he wore his sharp, intelligent identity on his sleeve, over the soft cookie-cutter one the Heartgarden had assigned to him.

That was blood in the water for ladies like Mary, the ones who actually wanted to be hated by the people they controlled.

The other aspirants could accept how she treated them in a boring enough way that she might lose interest and move on to the next. But Gabriel's indignation would have piqued her interest the moment she got him across her lap. His unclaimed days were numbered, and his opportunities to catch a kinder lady's eye were running out.

Elizabeth opened the bottle of ink at the desk in her room, picked up the quill, and committed all of her choosing points for the night to Gabriel.

Unless someone else did the same before tomorrow, he was hers.

There. She'd done what she could.

And it wasn't a firm commitment, she reminded herself. She was still free to get to know the others. A higher lady certainly wouldn't hold herself back just because she had a trial consort.

At worst, she could keep Gabriel out of Mary's hands for a while, as they both explored their options.

#

The knock that woke Elizabeth the next morning did not lead her to a breakfast tray and an empty corridor.

The moment she opened her door, the hands of six other ladies reached through to pull her from her room.

"First claim! First claim! First claim!" the ladies chanted, shrieking with laughter and pushing her down the corridor, still in her long night shirt and bare feet.

"Congratulations!" Countess Vera crowed, the first words she had spoken to Elizabeth since they had arrived. "I never knew you could be so decisive!"

Lady Mary fumed as she watched Elizabeth pass, decidedly not chanting. This seemed to add to the amusement for most of the others.

Aspirants, already dressed for the day, lined both sides of a predetermined path through the castle. They applauded and curtsied as the other ladies marched Elizabeth past them.

The march ended in the grand central courtyard, which was packed with yet more aspirants, along with several women Jane's age and older who must have been their trainers.

A path down the exact center of the courtyard was left open for Elizabeth, leading between the flowerbeds and up to a raised, canopied platform.

Headmistress Jane was already waiting there, standing behind a low stone altar, with Gabriel on her left.

At one end of the altar were a silk scarf, a pair of gloves, and a riding crop to match Jane's own.

Elizabeth walked the path with all eyes on her, the ladies and the aspirants from the corridors filling in the space behind her as she went.

She climbed the steps to the platform and stood in the conspicuously empty space on Jane's right, behind the altar. This must have been correct, because Jane responded only with a stiff nod of acknowledgement.

Gabriel leaned forward slightly to send Elizabeth a grateful glance.

"We have our first trial consort of the season," Jane announced to the crowd, prompting a deafening cheer. "Aspirant Gabriel, sit on the altar and prepare yourself for transferal."

Gabriel moved around to the front of the altar, sat on the edge, and lifted his skirts resolutely up over his waist. His chastity belt glinted in the sunlight for all the crowd to see.

It was a single plate of molded metal covering his pubis, with a faucet-like tube encasing his cock, holding it in its flaccid shape and size. The tip of the head was just visible, sticking out of the end.

A hole below the tube allowed his testicles to hang out, unprotected.

It was all held in place with a set of chains around his waist and hips, drawn together at the back with a single heavy padlock.

"Sir Elizabeth, do you vow to safeguard this aspirant's chastity and virginity from all pleasurable human touch, and to uphold his training for his permanent lady, whether or not she be you?"

"I do," said Elizabeth, because absolutely no good could come of saying anything else at that moment.

"Aspirant Gabriel, do you vow to respect, worship, serve, and obey Sir Elizabeth as the highest-ranking person in your world, before even Her Majesty, for as long as you remain bound to her?"