Mindgames Ch. 11

Chapter 11: Pain

Present day

Gabriel led Mariah out of the mansion to the great lawn. The pavement of the walkway felt warm beneath her feet. "Master?" she asked tentatively.

Master Gabriel blinked, and didn't respond, clearly lost in thought. After a moment he looked at her.

Mariah took a deep breath, realizing that was all the permission to speak he would give her. "After Lenny dies . . ." She tried to formulate her question in a way that would make sense. "Is that all?" When Master Gabriel just gave her a small, puzzled smile she tried again. "Is there another mindgame - another life - after this one?" She blushed, embarrassed by how stupid she sounded.

Master Gabriel pushed his finger through the hair that flopped on his forehead. "I don't know," he said. "I don't think it matters."

"How can it not?" Mariah asked. "I mean . . ." But she didn't know what she meant.

Master Gabriel led Mariah over to a bench swing under an oak tree. "A lot of people who lived long ago thought it mattered," he said. "Some believed in heaven - a paradise where good people would go after they died. Some believed that people would be reborn as other people, or even animals, depending on how they acted in this life. Some believed dead bodies would be brought back to life."

He pushed the ground with his foot, making the swing move. "The earth was populated, then, from one ocean to the next, and on continents across the oceans. There were people everywhere. And no matter what the people believed, they used the earth up, and they fought tremendous bloody battles against each other, sometimes because of what they believed, until there was hardly anyone left, billions of people dead, devastation like we can't imagine." Mariah had heard the basic facts, but she was transfixed by Master Gabriel's description. He continued, "And of those who were left, some people who believed and some who didn't became masters and some people who believed and some who didn't became slaves."

He stood up, and gave his hand to Mariah to help her up. "It doesn't matter what happens after we die. What matters is what we do while we're alive. Do we help each other, and stand up for what's right? Or do we . . ." He pointed to a mistress a few yards away, forcing a crying slave to walk into a wild rose patch, her skin torn by the thorns . . . "Do we act like that?" He started to walk, and Mariah came with him.

Mariah remembers

That afternoon Mariah still basked in the high of the morning's small rebellion. As she kneeled obediently, knees wide, butt on heels, hands palm up on her thighs, she focused on not glancing at Tabitha or Gino, who were kneeling on either side of her. She sucked in her cheeks, hot with pleasure, to keep from smiling.

Mistress Desiree was punishing a new girl, Erennia. Mariah had not been listening and did not know what the girl's supposed crime was. It didn't matter.

She was suddenly aware of a change in the air around her. Mistress Desiree had left Erennia tied to a footstool and was scanning the other slaves.

Cold premonition came to Mariah, like it had so long ago in the fields when Vancea's mistress had chosen her. Desperately, Mariah looked down, at Mistress Desiree's feet pacing back and forth in front of the group. It did no good.

When Mistress Desiree called her name she had no choice but to look up, and when ordered to do so she had to stand and approach.

Mistress Desiree placed a whip in her hand. The carved wood of the handle was warm and damp from the human woman's grip. For a split second Mariah did not react, but as she felt the handle's solidity she dropped it and took a step back. She willed herself not to protect her body from the punishment that must follow. But Mistress Desiree smiled at her. "Is this your first time with a whip?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," Mariah answered, her voice shaking, the joy of just a few moments ago obliterated.

"It's okay," Mistress Desiree said. "Pick it up." As Mariah held the whip handle, Mistress Desiree said, "Feel the grain of the wood. You know what the other end feels like. This is where it begins, power surging from your body through the instrument and turning into pain in the prostrate slave receiving it."

Mariah, sickened, concentrated on remaining expressionless, but Mistress Desiree seemed to be speaking more to herself than to her. She moved behind Mariah, close, until her front was touching Mariah's back, much as when she had forced Mariah to orgasm at the Exchange. She slid her palm down the outside of Mariah's arm, until she had engulfed the back of her hand. Slowly she drew Mariah's hand up and back. "Ready?" she breathed in Mariah's ear.

"No!" Mariah said inside her head. "Never!" But out loud she said, "Yes, Mistress."

"Watch the backlash," Mistress Desiree said. "It's common to slash your own face when you're still learning." Mariah wondered whether she could manage to hit Mistress Desiree, but dismissed the thought. She hadn't the skill.

And then Mistress Desiree was directing her arm back and forth, and the leather of the whip snaked, and its end snapped Erennia in the lower back, just above her buttock. It left a small mark, maybe an inch long, and as Erennia grunted the thong came back, going wide of both Mariah and her mistress.

"Nicely done," Mistress Desiree said. "Again!" She directed Mariah's arm, forward and back, and the whip hit Erennia and Erennia groaned as the whip came back.

"You try it," Mistress Desiree said. She stepped away from Mariah, far enough that she could not be hit by the rebound. Mariah took a breath, tried to imitate what Mistress Desiree had done, and ended up hitting Erennia much harder, square across her buttocks. Erennia screamed. The whip came back and hit Mariah in the shoulder, cutting her. "Try again," Mistress Desiree said. "Watch your angle."

Mariah snapped the whip. It was a sweet stroke, the end of the whip hitting Erennia in the triangle between her spread legs, not hard enough to do any real damage but hard enough to make Erennia cry out, "Please! Please!" Mariah drew her arm back wide, to direct the whip away from her own body.

"Feel the power," Mistress Desiree said. "Feed on her pain."

The lash was still swaying. Mariah looked over to Mistress Desiree, wondering if she was done. "Go on, girl," she said. "Punish her as she deserves."

Mariah looked back at the spread figure in front of her. She gritted her teeth as she raised her arm. She remembered the promise she had made to herself at the rape factory. "Not for my pleasure," she said to herself. She snapped the whip, trying to do it gently. The lash hit Erennia midback. Erennia shuddered but made no sound.

"Harder," Mistress Desiree said. "Make her feel it. Enjoy it."

"Never for my pleasure," Mariah said to herself, as she snapped the whip harder, hitting Erennia lower down, making her cry out.

"Again!" Mistress Desiree said. Mariah whipped the girl over and over, each time telling herself, "Never for my pleasure." Each time, Mistress Desiree commanded her to continue. Mariah gradually learned to control where the lash landed.

When Erennia was marked from her knees to neck, and Mariah's arm ached, Mistress Desiree said, "Enough." Gratefully Mariah lowered the whip.

But Mistress Desiree was not done with her. She stood behind Mariah, snaked her arm around Mariah's middle, and put her fingers on her sex. "You're practically dry," Mistress Desiree said, astonishment mixed with disapproval.

"I . . ." Mariah began, but there was nothing she could say. Fear gripped her as she realized her miscalculation.

Mistress Desiree pulled away from Mariah. She pointed at Tabitha and Gino, sitting among the other slaves, and crooked her finger towards them. As they approached she said to Gino, "Untie Errenia." When he complied, Mistress Desiree waved Erennia vaguely toward the kneeling slaves. With a gulp of relief Erennia scurried to them.

Mistress Desiree turned back to the three slaves before her. She squinted at Tabitha, deliberating. "Untied, I think," she murmured mostly to herself. She gestured Tabitha over to the footstool, still wet with Erennia's sweat. "Make sure you keep your knees wider than the legs of the stool."

With one dark glance at Mariah, Tabitha assumed the same position that Erennia had been in but with no ropes to restrain her.

Mariah still held the whip limply in her hand. Mistress Desiree forcibly spun her into position behind Tabitha, and kicked her legs apart. She pointed at Gino. "Knees," she said. Gino knelt before Mariah.

Mariah did not need to hear her mistress's words to know what she would say. "You'll whip her until you orgasm." She added, "Mind the backswing; they'll be no stopping just because you slice your partner's ear."

Gino had already seized Mariah's buttocks and pulled her closer, trying for a headstart to save Tabitha some misery. He placed his tongue on Mariah's slit and his upper lip on top of her clit and began to suck. Mariah was not prepared and involuntarily took a half step back. Mistress Desiree smiled. "Begin," she said.

As Gino pulled her towards him, Mariah raised her whip arm and twitched it. The lash hit Tabitha midback. "Harder," Mistress Desiree said, "unless you fancy the rest of the day on the sawhorse." Mariah flicked the whip harder, without aim. The lash crashed into Tabitha's left inner thigh. Tabitha inched her legs together, only for an instant, but Mistress Desiree noticed. "Move them again, and we'll finish this while you're wearing a buttplug coated with hot pepper oil." Although Gino had pulled back for a moment, Mariah felt the tightness begin.

She flicked the whip, trying for an impact that was not so soft as to arouse Mistress Desiree's ire, and not so hard as to make Tabitha move her legs. As the blow landed Gino put his fingers in her crack, one of them resting on her asshole. He tongued her in wide circles below her clit. But Mariah was nowhere near ready.

She flicked the whip. Tabitha cried out. Gino moved his thumb down and gently penetrated her vagina with it, circling her clit with his tongue, not touching it. The whip, and Tabitha's groan, and Gino's thumb moving up her slit. The whip, and Tabitha's pain, and Gino's thumb just below her clit. The whip, and Tabitha in a blur, and Gino using his tongue to push her clit onto the hardness of his thumb.

It was not enough. Mariah was panting, from Gino, from her exertion, from the confusion, but she was not ready yet. "Aim for her crack," Mistress Desiree commanded her. Mariah did. As the lash landed, Gino pushed his finger into Mariah's ass. Then his thumb was in her pussy, and he was pushing his finger in and out of her ass and his thumb in and out of her sex as he licked her clit. Mariah whipped Tabitha. Tabitha cried out. Her body wriggled as she struggled to keep her knees wide. Gino swept his tongue from the entrance to Mariah's pussy to just below her clit, and stopped.

Mariah whipped Tabitha. The cry, the wriggle, the struggle, and Gino's tongue on her. Again, and again.

And then, every time the whip connected to Tabitha, Gino licked Mariah's clit. On the backswing he pulled back. She whipped Tabitha. He licked her clit. Lightning behind her eyes, but only when the whip connects. The whip, the tongue, the whip, the tongue. She is close now. She accidently flicks the whip harder, and Tabitha cries out louder. Gino draws her clit into his mouth. His tongue continues to circle. Mariah hits Tabitha hard, and Tabitha cries out. The whip, the cry, the tongue circling.

The crash is about to overtake Mariah. The whip goes wild; it wraps around Tabitha to the side of her breast squished into the footstool, and Tabitha shrieks, and Mariah shrieks, and Gino fingers her ass and her pussy harder, deeper, and sucks her clit, and Mariah brings the whip down one more time and Tabitha cries out one more time, and Mariah is pushed over the edge, into Gino's mouth, spasming, and as she does she whips Tabitha again, again, and her cries are louder than Tabitha's. And then she can barely hold up the whip, or herself. Gino has pulled back, and Tabitha is quiet and still, bleeding where the whipmarks have crossed. And Mistress Desiree says to them, "You are dismissed." Gino helps Tabitha up. Mariah staggers and no one catches her.

Present day

When they came to the stable yard Mariah hesitated, surprised. Master Gabriel stopped too. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry. I came here out of habit." He ran his fingers through his hair, perplexed. "Are you tired?"

Mariah was exhausted. But she shook her head. "Only if it pleases you, my lord," she said.

"As I've told you a thousand times, it would please me if you would stop talking that way," he said, almost by rote. "Since we're here, would you like to ride a horse?" He smiled, looking sunny and boyish and hopeful in a way that Mariah rarely saw in him.

She bit down her fear and lifted her chin. "If it pleases you, my lord." She looked at him from the corner of her eye, and at his frown of annoyance she grinned and looked quickly away.

Master Gabriel led Mariah through the stable yard and into the third entrance. They stopped at the threshold, to give their eyes a chance to adjust to the dimmer light.

A slave appeared before them. "May I serve you, my lord?" he asked.

"Ah, Remarque," Master Gabriel said with a smile. "How's your shoulder today?"

As Mariah looked with interest at the boy she had seen Master Gabriel stitch up weeks earlier, Remarque rolled his shoulders expressively. "Good as new, Master," he said.

Master Gabriel led Remarque out into the sunshine, where he looked critically at the puckered scar at the border of his shoulder and neck. "May I?" he murmured to Remarque before touching it gently with his finger. He nodded. "I'm afraid you'll always have a bit of a mark there," he said. "Sloppy work on my part. I'm sorry."

Without warning Remarque fell to his knees in front of Master Gabriel. Master Gabriel took a step back. "Remarque! What are you . . ."

Remarque stayed where he was. "Master, you saved my life! This is the only way I know how to thank you." And he slowly lowered his forehead to the ground.

"I expect Gabriel would appreciate your gratitude more if you gave it to him standing up," Master Stefan drawled, leading a large speckled white mare to the entryway.

Remarque scrambled to his feet. "Master," he said to Master Stefan. "I didn't see . . ."

"Clearly," Master Stefan said. "Now go to your duties." A look passed between them, and Mariah knew that Remarque would be punished. Remarque backed away before turning and hurrying inside the stable.

Master Stefan turned to Mariah. "Ah," he said with a sardonic smile. "The runaway graces us with her presence." Mariah flushed.

"I was hoping you could help us," Master Gabriel said. "Mariah wants to ride, but her ribs aren't healed. I was thinking if she could mount and dismount from a bench she wouldn't have to put pressure on them. And if you had a smooth, easy ride for her . . ."

Master Stefan looked at Mariah appraisingly, but with interest, not meanness. He stroked his chin. "Have you ever ridden before?" he asked.

"Just once, Master," Mariah said, feeling foolish.

Master Stefan turned to Master Gabriel. "We'll put her on Mercy," he said. When Master Gabriel nodded in agreement, Master Stefan said, barely raising his voice, "Remarque." Remarque appeared immediately. "Tell Jordyn to saddle Mercy. Standard saddle."

"Yes, Master," Remarque said. As he turned to go Master Gabriel called to him, "Wait!" When Remarque stopped, he said, "Would you ask Jordyn to saddle Pegasus for me too?" Both Master Stefan and Remarque looked at him in surprise, but Master Gabriel shrugged and indicated Mariah. "She needs to rest."

Mariah flushed, embarrassed, but Master Stefan merely indicated a bench between his stable entrance and the next one over before stalking off, leading the mare by her bridle. "Friendly chap, ain't he?" Master Gabriel said as he brought Mariah over to the bench.

When Mariah sat next to Master Gabriel she was overwhelmed with exhaustion. She closed her eyes just for a moment. She heard a voice say, "Both horses are ready, Master." She felt unaccountably safe, and when she opened her eyes she realized she was leaning against Master Gabriel, his arm around her. She scooted away. Master Gabriel smiled at her. "Good morning, Sunshine," he said. She scowled and stood up, surprised at how rested she felt.

Master Stefan took the horse's reins from Jordyn. He checked the saddle belt and the stirrups, nodded, and walked away. Then Master Gabriel checked the saddle belt and the stirrups.

Master Stefan came back with a short bale of hay, which he put on the bench. "Ordinarily you would pull yourself into the saddle, one foot in the stirrup and then swinging your other leg around," Master Gabriel told Mariah. "But with your ribs you can't do that, yet. So we'll have you just step into the saddle."

Master Gabriel took the horse's reins from Jordyn with a smile, and led her over to the bench. "I'll hold the horse," Master Stefan said to Master Gabriel. "You help the chit. I expect she would prefer you to me." He looked at Mariah, expressionless. Mariah looked away and happened to glance at Jordyn, who winked at her.

"Climb up here," Master Gabriel said to Mariah, indicating the block of hay Master Stefan had placed on the bench. As Mariah did so, Master Stefan urged the horse closer to the bench, until her legs were almost touching it. "Just step right into it," Master Gabriel instructed Mariah. "You can put your hand on the horn," indicating the front of the saddle, "for balance, but don't pull with your arms."

Mariah swung her leg over and landed in the saddle. Master Stefan led the horse away from the bench, and Gabriel adjusted the stirrups until Mariah's feet were in what he deemed to be the proper position. He took the reins from Master Stefan, put them over the horse's head, and placed them in Mariah's hands. "This way to go the right," he said, moving Mariah's hands to the right of the horses neck, "and this way to the left," and he moved her hands to the left. "Pull back to stop." Mariah nodded and looked down. The last time she had been astride a horse she had been blindfolded. She could see why; up here she felt strong and powerful.

Then Mercy began to walk and Mariah grasped at the horn, letting the reins falls. Master Stefan rolled his eyes and handed them back to Mariah as Master Gabriel mounted his own horse. "Sit up straight, and don't touch the horn when you're riding," he said. "It only shows fear."

"I'm not . . ." Mariah spluttered, but Master Stefan had moved away, handing a lead rope to Master Gabriel. Mariah sat up straight and put her left hand on her thigh, firmly away from the horn.

Master Gabriel chirruped to Pegasus, and they started to walk out of the stable yard. By the time they reached the wide road that led away from the mansion, through the fields, Mariah's knees had begun to ache. She shifted uncomfortably in her saddle, which made the horse pick up her pace. She pulled back on the reins and the horse slowed down.

Master Gabriel turned back to her. "Good?" he asked, and she nodded, blankening her face.

The pain in her knees got worse, but she held still, nervous about the effect that fidgeting would have on the horse. She remembered how her knees had ached on her blindfolded ride from the fields to the mansion so long ago.

As they traveled the main road heading east, among the kitchen fields, Gabriel was talking to her, about how his sister had secretly taught herself to ride. Mariah barely listened, focusing on keeping her face blank and not shifting in her saddle, although the pain in her knees was increasingly sharp. Eventually Master Gabriel stopped talking. When at length he turned them around Mariah breathed a small sigh of relief. The aching in her knees was atrocious.