The Luckiest Man Alive Ch. 03-04

But there was another way. I saw that now, clear as a cloudless dawn. There was a road where we all built something rare and wonderful together. Was it even possible? Could the five be one? We had to try.

We were the Court of Five Queens or we were nothing.

I realized then and there that to draw forth this rarest of hands, to make this madness work and to win my sister's heart, these wonders could only be accomplished by the luckiest man alive.

Chapter IV

Mercury's Day at the Collegium, mid-week, was allotted for physical education and artistic expression amongst the student body, neither of which allowed for a slave study companion. That meant for the first time since classes began, Stella was preoccupied neither with taking notes nor preparing homework nor helping Gaia with her courses. She was in fact stuck here with the rest of us slaves all day.

Except that we weren't stuck here at all!

Today we finally got our act together and asked Gaia, before she left for classes, to sign authorization slips for us to leave the dorm to accomplish some errands on her behalf. She happily agreed, signing and sealing all the necessary paperwork. Stella prepared everything and negotiated the bureaucracy for us. Thanks to her, we now had a small pile of Gaia's scarce cash and signed notes that authorized us to do a grocery run to fill the fridge so our domina could have snacks.

Zee still had her driver's license and so, again with her domina's written permission, we could borrow Gaia's car, leave campus and go shopping. Anything off campus had far more reasonable prices and far better selection than the cash-trap convenience stores run by the Collegium. Because of these little slips of paper I was going to be free about town for the first time in months! That's where I was -- the thought of going to a damn Albertonius grocery store was making me giddy.

First we had calisthenics, breakfast, tea with Gaia and then (with my sister off to her classes), we all went down to the front desk. We proudly presented our paperwork to a bored looking security guard. She barely glanced at it, we signed out and then we slaves escaped the Q!

Over to the parking garage. More bored security. More signing and then we made it to Gaia's sapphire blue Silvanus. We loaded up, Zee took the driver's seat and Stella sat beside her. Cat and me were in the back. Cat grabbed my butt and then smiled innocently. I considered making out with her in the back seat but Zee gave us a cold look that said, wordlessly, 'don't make turn this damn car around, you crazy kids.'

So, we behaved. Sort of.

Zee, for her part, popped some tunes in the CD player. It was an oldie but a goodie. The first track cranked up quick with the Hammond organ grinding away. It was six minutes of loud magnificence that made us all into highway stars even though we never even got near an actual highway. We headed to the grocery store with the same enthusiasm as if we were taking a rocket ship to the moon.

One of the great things about going to a grocery store in the nearby city of Palus Alta, I discovered -- virtually everyone within was a slave. The clerks were slaves. The butchers, stockers and janitors were slaves. Even most of the our fellow shoppers were slaves. This was a rich college town -- nobody free and poor lived here and nobody rich did their own grocery shopping if they could help it. Yeah, somewhere up above, behind the cameras, there was a manager and security. But, whatever. We didn't see them and they didn't bother us.

We were just here to shop.

It really took the pressure off. There were no DeeDees skulking around wanting to see if our knees were slightly scuffed. There were hardly any signs that threatened us with lashes. Everyone was friendly and treated us with respect. There was, if I'm being honest, a bit of a spirit of camaraderie. We non-persons were all facing this thing called life together here at the mega-mart.

We were on a strict budget so we kept careful track of each item's cost. Stella, ever prepared, even brought a pocket calculator. We also gave due consideration to what our half-sized dorm fridge could hold. Nothing individually too large made the cut. But in the end, we still managed to nearly fill our rickety old shopping cart.

We bought some good stuff -- sandwich makings, Gaia's favorite snack (carrot sticks with garlic hummus), grapes and tea. But we also bought some absolute trash -- candy bars, malted milk balls, chocolate milk, snack cakes and microwave pizza. But if you had to pick the single item that most excited me -- we bought a small plain set of salt and pepper shakers. You see, while we slaves were not allowed to take food in or out of the cafeteria, Stella had discovered that according to the school bylaws we were allowed (sing it with me, brothers and sisters, 'with our owner's permission') to bring these in. Pepper! Food could have at least a little flavor again.

All in all, we spent less than seventy five denarii here at the mega-mart. Gaia's gold and sapphire watch cost more than two hundred times that amount. I know -- I was there when it was purchased for her sixteenth birthday and I even helped father pick it out. We even gassed up Gaia's four-wheel Silvanus and still had enough left over to get drive-thru burritos. Mine had steak, rice, beans and chipotle. It was smoky, spicy awesomeness. And we were still back in time to unpack and report for lunch, which having already eaten, we mostly spent chatting about our morning out.

Spirits were high amongst the slaves of dorm 513.

After our lunchtime social, today was the day that Cat managed to drag me to the weight room on the first floor of the Q. After a daily hour of required calisthenics each morning, I've got tell you I was somewhat reluctant to go but Cat didn't want to go alone and... have you noticed that I was terrible at telling attractive women no? Given my evolving set of circumstances, I had to work on this skill or I was going to die.

We did thirty minutes on various machines. Today we focused on arms, upper body and core. By the end of it I was ready to pay the ferryman, cross the river, go to the underworld and greet my ancestors. Cat though was buzzing from the exertion and seemed ready to do another round.

My lovely little pixie-cat was a monster.

We had further paper work that allowed us to walk about campus (to take a constitutional as the dated authorization form called it). Stella and Zee declined. They were sun and social-ed out and instead chose to relax and read in the dorm room.

After I recovered from the machines, Cat and I took a tour of the campus at large. Gaia had not been wrong -- the buildings of the Collegium were grand and gorgeous, the architecture a fascinating blend of the old and the new. The entire campus was beautifully terraced and full of well-manicured greenery.

There were numerous statuary, fountains and water features and even a small river that flowed through the middle of the school and into a nearby lake that served as the dwelling for countless ducks and swans. There was also a forested park near the campus center that, save for a few paved paths, seemed almost like natural woodlands. Here dwelled the university mascots, the Pantherae regis aka The King's Panthers.

The story goes that they were captured by an alumni of the university during the campaign to subjugate the Hindustani Kingdom. They were taken from the royal gardens of the King himself and then gifted to the university as a sort of bizarre trophy. The original gift consisted of seven breeding pairs and in the hundred and fifty years since the panthers' arrival, their number had greatly increased. Now of course, these cats were also part of the conservation effort to revive the endangered wild panther. So, they were primarily bred with other zoos. They were separated from the students of course, but the designers had cleverly used local materials to make it look like the great cats just lived wild in the forest. Of course if you looked close enough you could tell they were always safely separated from us by moat, stone and metal.

The campus was amazing and beautiful, and I did enjoy our constitutional, but there was also needs to be cautious. There were far more savage hunters than the panthers about and these monsters were allowed to roam free. Lest you think I paint with too broad a brush, understand me -- the overwhelming majority of the students attending the College of the Seven Stars were fine and decent people here solely to pursue their chosen academic field of study. But my life amongst the nobility had long ago taught me that there was a portion of my fellow highborn who were absolute horror shows. Most would count me, a convicted murderer, amongst that portion if I'm being honest.

Most of these monsters shared certain recognizable characteristics. They were usually young and male, almost universally were born into dazzling wealth and were most commonly forced to go to Collegium by their elders to "make something of themselves". Oh, yes, and they carried very fancy, very sharp swords.

Here's the rub -- there is no way to tell the good noblemen from the bad and so we made a policy of avoiding them all. This was no easy feat. Young well-dressed male students were all over the Collegium and some few had literally nothing better to do with their time than to mess with unaccompanied slaves. And by "mess", I mean to physically or sexually assault.

In response to this peril, Cat and I quickly perfected "the slave stroll". The stroll could be slow, to let a band of students move ahead and away from us. The stroll could be at a decent clip to keep distance from those behind. It always had to be conspicuously casual. It definitely could not seem we were trying to avoid these fine young well-armed exemplars of the New Empire. What you definitely did not want was to get too close or to make eye contact. Head down. Deferential. Busy.

Looking busy was another critical aspect of the stroll. See, we weren't just looking about, wasting time. We weren't tourists! Perish the thought! We were on an important errand on behalf of our mistress, the Lady Gaia Vetronius. Were you, mister bored nobleman, going to stop us from serving our domina?

Today we were lucky. No one accosted us and we had a fine walk and explored a healthy portion of the vast Collegium. It was a beautiful place and the open air and sunshine were most welcome. But I was not foolish enough to feel at ease here. Honestly, the campus was great, but I enjoyed the grocery store more.

***

The result of all these errands and adventures was that Gaia's room full of slaves were actually busy until well after lunch. By that time the dorm and bathroom were clean, the laundry was done, the fridge was fully stocked, and we even each managed to get some much needed open air.

Still, about 2:00 pm we once more hit the great afternoon doldrums. All our chores were done. We weren't authorized to leave the dorm again, so now there were four of us stuck in our room till Gaia got back, probably around five. Usually this meant three or so hours of boredom, but today we had a plan.

Cat led the charge. She had known Stella the longest and claimed to know how best to approach her. Stella was predictably already deep in reading a book she'd checked out from the library. It was called "Fabulam de Omicron" by someone named Paullina. The work sounded painfully pedestrian to me but Stella seemed deep into it.

Cat crept up on her longtime friend, who was sitting on one edge of the couch contentedly reading. The pixie simply stared at her, smiling like a Cheshire Cat. Stella ignored her for several long minutes but then finally broke.

"Cat," said Stella obviously annoyed, "what are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Well, could you do nothing... I don't know... literally anywhere else?"

"What ya readin'?" Cat asked.

"A book," Stella answered.

"Oh, yeah? What kind a' book?"

"A good book. Historical fiction actually. Cat, you obviously want something. Can you be a dear and spit it out rather than forcing me to guess."

"You're no fun," sulked Cat.

"I am actually a great deal of fun, thank you very much," and then Stella returned, in something of a huff, to reading her book.

Several more minutes passed. Cat still continued to stare at Stella. Again Stella broke the silence.

"Cat, sweety," said Stella, "you know I love you but I am going to mix rat poison into your hidden stash of whiskey if you don't stop bothering me."

That gave me pause. Cat had whiskey? Why was it that the allegedly poorest of us seem to have all the good stuff?

"But I need your help!" sat Cat feigning oh so much woe.

"Gods, fine!" Stella finely marked her page and slammed her book closed. "What do you need help with, Cat? What could you of all people possibly need help with?"

"Gaia," she said firmly.

"Gaia?" Stella cocked an eyebrow. Wow, she was really good at that! I could not cock an eyebrow anywhere near as severely as Stella could. "What about Gaia?"

"I want her to fall in love with me," said Cat.

"Cat, did you hit your head or something?" asked Stella.

"I want her to fall in love with all of us, actually," said Cat.

Stella finally put the book down entirely. "Are you serious?"

"I'm super serious," said Cat.

Stella sighed. "Let me explain something you may not understand, dear Cat. If I have learned one thing over the last two days, it's that Gaia is presently the target of more romantic interest than any other lifeform on campus. Since classes started, I think she's been approached by twenty young men, all students, all rich and titled, all varying degrees of handsome."

This was not news to me. From her birthday party onward as soon as Gaia hit the magic eighteen, every young, eligible noble bachelor in this portion of the continent had been doing their best to draw her attention. Marrying Gaia Vetronius meant money, power and station all tied up in one hot blonde package. Who wasn't interested?

"She very politely rebuffed them all and is clearly more interested in her studies than romance at this time. Why do you think there is any possibility that she would ever be interested in dating one or even a pack of slaves?"

"There is no good reason," I said, finally joining this conversation, "that's the damn truth. I have never fully understood my sister's affection for us all, but I thank the gods for it."

"If you are interested in your sister, Gaius, and you believe she is interested in you, why not just ask her out?" asked Stella. "Go to a movie. Have dinner together. Get coffee. Do the usual dating stuff. What's so complicated?"

"You already know the answer to that," I said.

"You're her brother and her slave," said Stella. "Okay, yes, granted. Those both do complicate things."

"Another complication," said Zandra, joining the fray, "is that so far both Cat and myself, we've also admitted we have feelings for Gaia."

Stella did not look surprised by these 'revelations'. My guess was that we were not telling her anything she did not already know. Stella was a bright girl.

"I guess what we really want to know, Stella, is..." I paused. In fact, the whole room paused. I don't think anyone was even breathing.

"I have no idea what you're even asking me," she said defensively.

"Stella, sweety," said Cat smiling, "honey britches, we know you know exactly what we're talking about. Confess. Join our cult! I'll even let you be our high priestess..."

The long pause dragged out into a really long silence and then the dam broke.

"By the giant junk of Jupiter," said Stella, finally taking a long breath, "Okay, yes, I'm in love with Gaia."

"Hah!" laughed Cat, almost falling over with delight. "I knew it!"

"How can you not be hot for Gaia?" said Stella. "She's brilliant, she's witty, she is inexplicably kind-hearted and generous. Given her family, how that happened I'll never know..."

"I'm right here," I said pointedly.

Stella ignored me. "Add to that she's so damn well read and she speaks five languages. She's deep as the ocean and as passionate and yet has this innocence, this optimism... She's a hot, blonde, brilliant poetry nerd. If I didn't love her, I'd hate the lucky bitch," said Stella with a longing sigh.

"Five languages?" I asked. "When did it go to five? She speaks Imperial English, Old Imperial, Gallic, German..."

"Gods, Gaius, you've never heard your sister speak Spanish? Last year, she read to me Don Quixote. I nearly came." Stella strayed then for a moment deep into memory. "La Libertad, Sancho, es uno de los más preciosos dones que a los hombres dieron los dioses; con ella no pueden igualarse los tesoros que encierran la tierra y el mar: por la libertad, asi como por la honra, se puede y debe aventurar la vida."

I did not speak Spanish, so I got nearly none of that. What I did get, thanks to Stella's sultry, breathy recitation is her clear passion for my sister. Thankfully, she translated the passage for me.

"Freedom, Sancho," recited Stella rapturously, "is one of the most precious gifts the gods gave men; the treasures under the earth and beneath the sea cannot compare; for freedom, as well as for honor, one can and must risk one's life."

"She's got it bad," said Cat, unable to hide her amusement.

Stella, her confession done, did look more than a little uncomfortable. But now, at last, all four slaves of dorm 513 had come clean about their feelings for Gaia. We had matters to discuss.

"So, I've been giving this a lot of thought," said Zandra, "and I think I know what we need to do. I just don't know how we should approach her."

"I'm listening," I said genuinely interested.

"Who here has Gaia kissed? Like on the mouth, passionately?" asked Zee. She was the first to raise her hand.

I followed suit, "She kissed me at our birthday party."

Stella blushed and raised hers, "When we went to the opera together midsummer, on the carriage ride home... we may have made out just a little bit."

"Made out?" pressed Cat.

"When we were alone in the carriage," Stella whispered warily, even though it was just us, "she told me how beautiful I was, leaned over and kissed me. Then she asked for my forgiveness and felt up both my breasts. She told me she had wanted to do that all evening. I was really rocking a bodice, if I'm honest..."

"Now I'm jealous," I said.

"That is awesome," said a flustered Zee. She looked down at her own chest self-consciously and sighed a little.

Cat smiled and raised her hand as well, "I think I can beat it. That time she caught me stealing chocolate, as I was waiting for the cab to take me home, she came out of the house gave me a box of my own. She then commanded, like forcefully commanded me, to open my mouth. She fed me a piece of chocolate. It was a hot summer day, so it was all melty. She order me to lick the chocolate off her fingers and then used her own tongue to lick a little smear off my lips."

"Gods, that's hot," I remarked.

"I know, right?" agreed Stella.

"It was super-hot," said Cat. "I nearly melted. That night, when I got home, I frigged for like hours and I came so hard..."

Ah, dear, wicked, filthy little Cat!

"Anyways," interrupted Zandra, "the point is that I think she's already in love with the four of us. That's why we're here. At college. With her. All four of us were in trouble and she rescued us in the only way she could. Now here we are all stuck in a dorm room together."

"I think you're right," said Stella, "and I also think Gaia feels bad about what she's done."

"She does?" I said genuinely surprised. "She doesn't need to feel bad about what she did to me! I am eternally grateful for her rescue."