Eternal Slave Ch. 06 - Slave Power

It was some time later that I found myself alone with Captain Ember in her office. By now things were awkward, definitively awkward. Were still awkward. They had been that way ever since our orgasms had died out, and we had realized that we had just had participated in some kind of strange group sex where all three of us had lost control at the end.

I had gotten off the table, unsure of what to do with my hands and eyes. Why couldn't I have been tied up instead? That way I wouldn't have to worry about finding anything to occupy myself with that seemed natural. The Captain had rushed off behind the screen and brushed her loose hair before furiously redoing her braid. Only Sergeant Tease had seemed anything close to her normal self. There was a faint, cynical glint behind her long lashes, perhaps, but she had smiled and tossed me my clothes before she adjusted her own. Told us how refreshing it had all been, welcomed me into the army with a deep, half-mocking bow, then said she had to change into her uniform before the evening meal. And left.

Captain Ember and I had barely spoken since then. It had been clear the Sergeant wanted us to have some time alone, to bond or something, but it hadn't happened. I had gotten dressed and knotted my tongue up just as tight as the green tie. The Captain had claimed she needed to work. I had said that was fine. She had handed me a book called 'the Comprehensive Military Stratic History Study of Windy Isle and the Republic,' and had suggested I read it, claiming it was excellent and not dry at all.

It was not the title that had made me unable to pay any attention to it. And it was not all of today's 'time-stealing distractions' that had made Captain Ember look so irritated as she read documents and wrote furious replies with a goose feather pen.

"I like the tie," I said at last. That was true. It sat tight, yet comfortable, around my naked neck. The end hang down and fell across my crotch. I had spent some time staring at the book, dreaming, wishing, that the Captain would reach out for my leash. Hold it, perhaps. Tie it to her table leg, maybe. Or just place the ink bottle on top of it as I knelt next to her. Either way was fine and would certainly break the ice. As well as be sexy as hell. "Ma'am," I added.

"Thank you, soldier," she said.

"I enjoy wearing it, Ma'am."

"That is good to hear."

"It makes me feel good, Ma'am."

"Excellent."

"I am happy that you made it-"

I was about to make an even bigger ass of myself by ranting on and on about the tie, when I was saved. There came a hard, almost aggressive, knock on the door. Whoever it was, I thought to myself, it could not be Sergeant Tease.

"Enter!" Captain Ember said.

It was Sergeant Tease, now wearing the same kind of functional uniform as the Captain. Her curves protested its non-sexual nature by twisting it into something that no man would be able to plunge his spear into. Other kinds of spears, I mean, not the fleshy kind. I found myself missing the black, leather skirt and the blouse, though. She'd even removed the golden hoops. I was devastated.

The reason I had made a wrong guess with respect to the nature of the knocking was obvious. The taller woman was flustered, her eyes wild under the long lashes. "Chief, we have a problem. A potentially big, big problem."

"How so, Sergeant?" Captain Ember said. "Should I send him out?"

"Oh no," Sergeant Tease said, barely looking at me. "He needs to hear it. Chief, did you talk to any men after you had sex with private Sam earlier?"

The Captain cleared her throat at the mention of what we had done, then answered. "I spoke briefly with your men, Sergeant."

"My men," Sergeant Tease said and pursed her lips, thoughtful. "Yet my men worship you."

"It's awfully kind of you say that, Sergeant, but I think 'respect' is a better word."

"Worship. Please listen to me, chief," Sergeant Tease said. "After I changed I went out to see if I could convince Dabbler in the kitchen to part with a flagon of wine by batting my lashes at him. You know, since it's not yet supper but I was still thirsty."

"Please go on, Sergeant," Captain Ember said.

"I didn't get that far. Just outside the door I met two common soldiers. I've never seen them before, yet they came up to me and started to chat me up."

"You're a beautiful woman, Sergeant. I'm sure this is not the first time. I take it you chastised them properly?"

"Normally I would goad them on, but it was never like this. They were hungry, eager, obsessed. Both of them actually blushed, one drooled. It freaked me out, and I can't remember the last time attention from a guy upset me. Usually, I find a way to have him make a fool of himself before I send him spinning. Two guys at the same time? Never. They wanted to accompany me to wherever, so I decided to turn back. I had to pull a fast one to get rid of them, or I would have been dragging them up the stairs, their teeth locked to my pant legs."

Sergeant Tease sighed and sat down. Her leather army boots did not even try to flirt with any part of my body, which I found kind of sad. Apparently women did not spend all of their time trying to arouse men sexually, even ones they had recently slept with. How could that be?

"I convinced them I would be delighted if they could bring me some flowers from the castle park. Luckily they ran off as fast as they could, all but fighting over who would be first. Then Sergeant Task came along just as I opened the door. You know, the man who's recently married and totally professional and all? Well, now he came on to me like a horny buck. Told me he'd divorce his wife for me, that we'd run away together. That was scary. I had to get angry with him, then forced my way inside and locked the door to the tower."

Captain Ember's green eyes narrowed. She gave me quick glance, then turned back to her Sergeant.

"Chief," Sergeant Tease said. "What did you really feel after having sex with Sam?"

The Captain's face remained impassive.

"I am convinced there was something special that you felt after the act. After all, I've never seen you so upset as you were just an hour ago. I suspected... No, I don't know what I suspected. Just that there was something different about this one, what he'd done to you. Something that meant we couldn't let him go, in particular not let him slip back into the clutches of the witch from Slave Fountain Island. We had to initiate him. But I had to do it, chief. I wouldn't dream of putting anyone else, in particular you, in danger."

Sergeant Tease looked at me and smiled. "I'm so sorry, soldier," she said. "We're excluding you again. And I don't mean to say you're responsible for any of this. You are what you are, and whatever the Lady put into you when you came here wasn't your idea."

"I know, Ma'am," I said. "But I don't like it. I want to know what kind of evil I... My... The whole power thing."

The Sergeant nodded again. "Yes, we all do. And we need to find out. Here, and now. Please, Captain? What did you really feel?"

Captain Ember didn't move many muscles in her flawless, arrogant face, but those that did shuffle around were really tense and taut.

"Deference? Affection? That's what I did," Sergeant Tease said.

The Captain inclined her head, a reluctant nod.

"You know what I think, chief? I think Sam here is just like the Eternal Lord."

I perked my ears up. There were a lot of reasons for that. First of all, I had the feeling that another avalanche of epic fantasy world building was about to crash on top of my head and bury me. Also, being compared to this guy called the Eternal Lord seemed very important, somehow. Finally, hadn't the Lady Desire said something like this? About an Eternal Lord? Or an Eternal Slave? Or False Lord? I couldn't remember, I had been busy losing my virginity at the time.

"Do you know anything about the Lady of Desire and the Lord of Lust?" Sergeant Tease asked me.

"Yes, Ma'am," I said as the exposition began. "At least the Lady. She brings gift slaves to this world to teach women to be assertive."

"Yes, why not? That explanation is as good as any," she said and shrugged. "And the Lord?"

I shook my head.

"The Lord also wants women to be more assertive. But he wants to do it through sexual desire and not the desire to dominate men. Because of this, many women in this world have incredible libidos." She raised her hand and gave us a wicked smile. "Guilty as charged. The only problem following from this is that many of these women have their emotions hijacked by their raw desire. They constantly seek out men for sex, and then they fall for them. Worship them. If they're lucky they can, just like gift slaves, end up with someone who loves them back, and a beautiful relationship with cartloads of sex is had by both until the end of their days. For those women who are trapped by an evil man? Well, you know."

I knew. There were too many women on Earth who lived with men they shouldn't be with. Dangerous, violent men, yet their women still loved them and refused to leave them.

"And the Lord of Lust is the Eternal Lord, Ma'am?" I said, trying to see the connection.

"No, private," she said and shook her head. "The Eternal Lord is a man. A man who claims to be a God, but a man nonetheless. Or, so we think."

I nodded. This was familiar territory. I had read hundreds of thick books in several volumes where the big bad was a man claiming to be a God.

"More than two hundred years ago, there fell a shadow on a country called the Hundred Peaks."

I could accept that. Nice name, nice turn of phrase. Usually the time frame was at least a thousand years, but all right. "The rightful King was killed and his heirs forced to flee, Ma'am?"

"Have you heard the story?" she said.

"Just a bit of comparative politics on my part, Ma'am," I said. "And the heirs of the King? Are they still wandering the wilderness, waiting for the day when they may take back the throne?"

"I don't know," Sergeant Tease said. "Who cares?"

"Please pay attention and do not interrupt unless you have something worthwhile to add, private," Captain Ember said. "You may be a powerful gift slave, but you also just a soldier of the Dux's armed forces."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," I said.

"Can I go on now?" Sergeant Tease said. "I am trying to tell a story here."

We nodded.

"You're so clever, private," she said. "Tell me how the country was taken over?"

"Uh," I said, blushed, looked from face to face. Had no idea. Then I thought about what the Sergeant had just experienced and put two and two together. "A dominant woman made all the men... No, no, wait!" I said when she raised her finger. "A dominant woman with a gift slave made all the men obey her and give her the kingdom? Using his powers?"

"Precisely! You're brilliant," she said and leaned over to pat my shoulder. Funny, it was not a flirtatious or even remotely sensual gesture. Didn't she think about having sex with me all the time? Crazy. "Except..." she said and raised her finger again. "No-one knew about the gift slave back then. No-one knows for sure. We just think the gift slave was present, based on information gathered in the time since the event."

I nodded some more. Now she was talking like a intelligence officer, not someone trying to channel Tolkien. I had a feeling that was closer to who she really was, and what we were truly talking about.

"She was called Queen Brilliance. Was a very nasty ruler. All the men were her slaves, working themselves to death, and all the women were locked up and made to produce babies. She also introduced a new religion. All were to worship the Eternal Lord, the master of men, the ruler of women. She instituted an order of priestesses, a thousand in all, called the Choir of Grace. They made sure the men all stayed obedient slaves. Then, something funny happened. Queen Brilliance disappeared after some twenty years. To be replaced by the direct rule by the Eternal Lord, supported by the Choir of Grace. Can you guess what had happened, private?"

I shook my head. The tie swung as I did so. I was trying to sit with my back bent a little forward to make sure they noticed the tie was there. That the tie waited for them, wanted them, needed them. It would have been so easy to have me kneeling on the floor next to one of them as we talked, the heel of a boot pressing down on the green satin. Why didn't they? Why wasn't I allowed to serve?

The Sergeant didn't look at the tie, she looked at the Captain.

Captain Ember sighed. "You want me to say it, Sergeant?"

"If you want, chief."

Captain Ember trembled for a moment, then turned to face me, green eyes empty. "The Eternal Lord had enslaved the entire Choir. A thousand women."

"Exactly. What we think happened was this," Sergeant Tease said and now her eyes were strange as she looked at me. "The Eternal Lord is a gift slave with powers given to him both by the Lady and the Lord. He gives women the power to go out and enslave all men they meet, for some time. Queen Brilliance used this power to take control over the Hundred Peaks. But the Eternal Lord also gains power of his very own. Slowly, slowly he enslaves all women he has sex with. And when they are truly his, they become his devoted, utterly loyal agents. Cunning women, powerful women, women with arcane powers. For over more than one hundred and fifty years the Eternal Lord has used them to keep the population of the Hundred Peaks, now called the Steel Jaw, as slaves. For over more than one hundred and fifty years the Steel Jaws have closed down on the unprotected belly of the lands of the Five Rivers. For over more than one hundred and fifty years dangerous, female agents, Choir members, have been sent out into the wide world to create havoc, to start wars, to bring down governments, to destroy alliances, to disrupt trade, to, at the very end, bring the whole world under the heel, or should I say cock, of the Eternal Lord."

Apart from the 'cock' part, I had also heard stories like this before. Didn't scare me any less for that, since this was for real. "So," I said. "The Sea Hag...?"

"We think she's one who Sings With Grace. No proof, though."

I looked at her. She looked at me.

I looked at Captain Ember. She looked at me.

"So..." I said once again. "Let me get this straight, and I apologize for changing the subject completely, but you understand why. Because you both had sex with me..."

Sergeant Tease nodded. Captain Ember didn't.

"...all men you meet for... an hour? a day? many days? ...will be your slaves?"

Sergeant Tease nodded. Captain Ember didn't.

"And..."

"Yes..." Sergeant Tease said.

"If the two of you..."

"Yes..."

"Or any woman..."

"Yes..."

"Has sex with me too often..."

"Yes..."

"She will be my..."

"Slave, yes. Your slave, private. Until she dies."

"Oh," I said.

"I know what you're thinking, private."

"This is horrible! I don't want this!"

"You don't want us as your-"

"No!"

"Well, but that is life. That's just how your cards were dealt. I know the other thing you're thinking too, private."

"I didn't know! I didn't ask for this! I don't want this!"

"Don't worry, we know. The Captain and I only did it with you once each. We might always look upon you with favorable eyes, but we're safe. For now. Who knows what we feel after romp number ten? I also know the third thing you're thinking, private."

"Huh?"

She winked at me. "That you won't get to have sex nearly as often as you'd like. Far from it. Maybe never."

***

I could handle a life without sex, I told myself. Easily.

"Private Sam," Captain Ember said and offered me a look that was close to being sympathetic. "I understand that this news is bound to have upset you, and I assure you that at any other time, I would be the first to offer you a shoulder on which to cry. However, this matter is urgent. We need to make certain decisions. Please remember, though, that what we've told you about your probable powers and the analysis of the nature of the Eternal Lord are both state secrets, and telling anyone about them will get you immediately imprisoned, awaiting trial for treachery and possible execution."

This was no problem, I told myself. There were so many other things one could dedicate one's attention to. Calligraphy. Flower arrangement. Brewing IPA.

"So," Sergeant Tease said. "You cannot tell the next woman why you won't sleep with her. You know, just so you can make it easier for her to accept being spurned. I suggest claiming that you're gay."

"Amusing jokes aside, Sergeant," Captain Ember said. "The potential powers you and I currently possess are vast and dangerous. To put it plainly, either one of us could make all male soldiers in the castle our slaves, and that includes the Commandant himself."

I had lived for twenty-four years without it, so what was the difference? This was a piece of cake.

"That's interesting," Sergeant Tease said. "Commandant Boulder is a very handsome man, strong and tough. And he has that imperious streak that has always tickled my fancy a little. I'd like to take him down a peg or two. I wonder what he would look like on his knees with a-"

"I repeat, this is not the time for jokes, Sergeant," Captain Ember said. "If we were to descend into the city, even the Dux and all the men on the Council of the Republic would fall for us. We could rule Windy Isle before morning comes."

In fact, celibacy was supposed to bring peace of mind and a more spiritual outlook on life, I told myself.

"Hey, stop that!" Sergeant Tease said. "I was just kidding, chief!"

"Sergeant, this is serious. We need to stay away from all men until the effect goes away. We need to communicate through female soldiers or your men only. They should be used to feeling deference towards us."

"Phew! I thought you were going to suggest we take power!"

Look, buddy. Stop kidding yourself. You're going to need a 24/7 suicide watch for the rest of your life, and you know it. Fucking hell, but I wanted to start bawling.

"Sergeant, if I suspected you of treason, I would cut you down right here and now."

"Even if all I want is to watch Commandant Boulder and the Dux fight over who gets to kiss my feet?"

An icy stared was delivered, then deflected by a sassy wink. A very sassy wink. From a warm, brown eye. With long lashes attached. In a face made for looking down at kneeling men. I was getting hard again. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

"It is imperative that we keep this quiet, Sergeant," Captain Ember said. "On no account must news of this spread through the ranks. We cannot risk that having any ambitious female officer, or noblewoman, or merchant for that matter, decide to make a grab for private Sam in order to topple the republic. I would rather cut him down right here and now."

I looked at Captain Ember. Her face was so fabulous with that proud chin, the green eyes, the flawless pale skin. Her braid hung down the back of her chair, gently swinging. I remembered how it had looked when it fell loose, like paradise appearing before my eyes. She was too beautiful for me to fear, yet I knew that she was telling the truth. Still, I had to wonder at how many times we would have to have sex before she was unable to hurt me?

"Did you hear that, private?" Sergeant Tease said to me. "You and me could be cut down together. That would be both fun and romantic."

"Maybe," I said. "I've never been cut down before, so I wouldn't know, Ma'am."

"Oh, it's very dramatic," Sergeant Tease said. "You need to prepare some nice last words, though. That's important."

"Please stop joking," Captain Ember said. "We need to keep private Sam safe. No-one should see him or meet him. We may even have to tell lies-"

Sergeant Tease gasped, clearly shocked at such an outrageous suggestion. Tell lies, indeed!