Lady in Waiting Ch. 05

The following three days were a vague blur for Kira. She slept long and often, although she rarely felt any fatigue. The sheer strangeness of her circumstances seemed to wear her out. When she wasn't asleep, her primary occupation was watching the landscape.

The low, rolling plains of her village gave way to large hills and trees. A chance glimpse of a crossroad sign on the third day told Kira that they had already passed the most distant human town she'd ever heard of. The town was nearly a week from her village by horse... or at least, by human horse. Kira had known that the white elfsteeds were magnificent animals, but no horse she knew could travel so quickly or with so little rest. If she'd come this far in just three days, how much farther to the elven capital? The sheer distance was frightening – or at least, a bit worrisome. The world was still wrapped in a dreamy fog that seemed to dampen Kira's fear.

That fog, Kira felt increasingly sure, was Lady Melia's doing. A side effect of her magic – or maybe a deliberate choice, for all Kira knew. It wasn't unpleasant or disorienting; it simply made everything a little unreal, a little distant. At times, Kira felt as though someone else had taken control of her actions, and she was just observing behind her eyes.

Mostly, of course, she was observing the countryside. There was little to do in the carriage. Lady Melia occupied much of her time with some sort of weird elven exercise. Early on the first day, she had taken a pale green crystal from a box beneath the bench seat. She'd calmly ordered Kira not to talk unless something urgent came up, and then closed her eyes as if to sleep. For most of their days, Lady Melia sat silent and apparently unaware, but the stone glowed faintly in her hands.

The rest of the time, Kira continued her training. That was much more pleasant, on the whole, and a great deal of her landscape viewing time was spent in blissful remembrance of Lady Melia's touch. Kira pleasured the Lady several times each day, with hands and mouth and worshipful eyes. She remembered the lovely sight of that redheaded servant's green eyes gazing up at her from her own mound, the excitement in the woman's willing submission, and tried to reflect the same feelings herself.

Lady Melia returned Kira's attentions, though with a very different attitude. Kira was always required to pleasure the fire-haired noblewoman from submissive postures, mostly on her knees in the aisle between seats. For her part, Lady Melia insisted on contorting Kira's body to her own convenience. Once, she ordered Kira to bend over in front of her. Melia stayed sitting, while Kira stood in the aisle, splayed her legs open, and bent at the waist until her hands were on the floor. Only then did Melia lean forward and set her tongue to work in Kira's pussy. When Kira tried to adjust her posture, the Lady sharply ordered her to stay where she was.

Maintaining that posture was hard, but the worst was Kira's unbearable horniness. True to her word, Lady Melia did not allow Kira to cum again on that first day; nor the second, nor the third. Each day, repeatedly, she worked Kira to a fever pitch of arousal and then denied her.

The lessons involved more than just pleasure. Lady Melia taught Kira the anatomy of sex between women – terminology, technique, and even philosophy. "Any exposed skin is an erogenous zone," Melia said firmly, and went on to reduce Kira to a trembling pre-orgasmic wreck without ever touching her breasts or pussy. There were no taboos; Kira learned about anal sex on her first day, first from observing the soldiers' orgy, then from Lady Melia's soft tongue and gentle fingers.

Only one act was forbidden: penetrating Kira's own vagina. Lady Melia was firm about this. "Your virginity is part of the gift," she said sternly. "We elves have no care for it among our own kind, but we do not have a maidenhead. The virginity of a female human is a sexual delicacy. The unique pain of deflowerment is a rite of passage for you, Kira, and taking you through that rite will be Their Majesties' prerogative."

"You won't take me yourself?" Kira asked plaintively. She felt she could trust the Lady's compassion, but having her maidenhood passed off to some stranger seemed fearful, even if it was a King.

Melia shook her head. "I am favored at court, little Kira, but not so greatly as that." She smiled, though.

During this time, Kira only left the coach to bathe and relieve herself. At each evening break, the servants set up a small metal tub near the carriage door and filled it with warm water. Lady Melia insisted on cleanliness, and Kira was just as happy to comply as ever. The Lady also gave her a packet of small cloths made from a strange fragile fabric; she discarded these in the latrine. The first morning's humiliating public exposure was repeated each time. No matter when Lady Melia stopped the column for her, Kira was forced to piss and defecate in front of a crowd of laughing soldiers.

The shame never seemed to diminish, but Kira also found herself gradually less reluctant to suffer it. She had to go, and she couldn't seem to arrange it any other way. She wasn't required to repeat her masturbation display every time, but at least once per day, Lady Melia ordered her to perform some sort of sexual act in front of a crowd after she'd finished at the latrine.

Not just a crowd of soldiers, either. Though Kira never heard a word about it, some of the human servants were there for each subsequent display. They didn't cheer like the soldiers – mostly, they moaned and grunted as soldiers took the opportunity to mount them. Kira suspected Lady Melia's hand in their presence from the way that they always watched her, even through the hardest pounding, and from the fact that nobody came to use their mouths (and thereby block their views). The little redhead servant was always there, too, and Kira almost violated her prohibition against orgasm the first time those green eyes meet hers from the crowd.

Mealtimes were also an opportunity for sexual exposure. Kira suspected that Lady Melia planned some of her training around the camp schedule, for they were interrupted no less than four times by servants bearing food. Each time, Lady Melia would stop the servant for short conversations while blithely continuing to toy with Kira. They never again joined the soldier's relaxation time during meals, though Kira could occasionally hear screams of pain or pleasure during their twice-daily rest stops.

At all other times, the column was moving. The servants must have ridden in one of the other carriages, for they were never at less than a trot, day or night. There was only a single unplanned halt; a rider interrupted Lady Melia's meditations on the second day, and whispered something to her that Kira didn't understand. The Lady only nodded, ordered Kira to stay where she was, and then left the coach. She was gone for an hour, during which time nothing happened except for a great crash somewhere off in the distance. When she returned, Lady Melia looked as serene as ever, but Kira noticed that three riderless white horses carrying large sacks had joined them in the center of the column.

Lady Melia woke Kira on the fourth morning with a firm kiss and a slap on the dark girl's generous ass. "We've reached the border," she said. "Get up, Kira."

Kira stirred sleepily – the bench made a very comfortable bed in the motionless coach. "What happens now?" she asked.

"Bureaucracy," Melia sighed. "The prices of empire: blood, sweat, and ink." She sounded as if she were quoting an aphorism.

"You're claiming me as property," Kira said quietly.

Lady Melia nodded. "As my property, for now." She reached out and touched Kira's face. "I have been good to you, have I not? There will be words on paper, my dear, but only lawyers and quartermasters truly care for such details. We nobility prefer to approach our relationships with mutual respect and appreciation."

Kira said nothing. She tried hard to remember "her place," but found her thoughts returning to her distant childhood of long ago last week. Humans kept no slaves; humans were the oppressed, not the oppressors. The priest had always said that God most loved the weak, and surely humans were weak.

But if God loves us, why do we suffer? she thought. Lady Melia's philosophy included the constant refrain that God had ordained a hierarchy, with elves at the summit. At the moment, submission to that hierarchy seemed a surer path to happiness than any amount of freedom.

Kira blinked away her ruminations and stood to leave the carriage. Lady Melia opened the door, and Kira shivered violently as a blast of cold wind blew inside. She still had not been given clothes, but between the warmth of autumn on the plains and the enchantment on the coach, she'd scarcely needed any. But as she stepped outside, she could see that they'd left the plains behind. Towering mountains stood in the near distance and the road continued up through a pass. Great hills rose up on either side of Kira, while an unbroken wall of smooth stone lay directly ahead. Kira realized that the wall spanned the entire gap between the hills, and wondered how they could possibly continue.

Lady Melia led Kira on foot to the base of the wall, then raised her hand. Her eyes flashed with a sudden silver fire, and a great slab of stone wavered like mist and vanished to reveal a tall arch-shaped passage. Without a word or backward glance, the Lady led Kira into the wall. They walked in silence for fifty feet, blinded by sunlight streaming through the far end. Kira only looked back once, near the exit, to find that the entrance had closed behind them, as if it had never been.