12. A Days Labor
Chapter 12
A Day's Labor
I n the morning, she woke, still in his arms. Tristien smiled down at her. He was wide awake. Maybe he never slept? Maybe he only pretended to.
“The star rises,” Tristien whispered. He kissed her on the forehead.
Celestine fluttered her eyes, raising her head and looking around the room. “Did I sleep here all night?”
“Wondrous, isn’t it?” Tristien kissed her forehead again. “You did so well Celestine. You are strong, and the strong never know how to lay down their burden.”
He lowered her into the sheets between his lap. She stretched, feeling like she was rising from a great slumber out of a myth.
“I was afraid, last night.”
“I felt it.” Tristien looked down at her. “Yet you never asked to be released.”
“Felt it?”
He smiled coyly. Celestine sat up on one elbow, no longer feeling shy about being nude around him.
“You felt me, in the ribbons?”
“One could say… I was the touch you felt all night.” The lord of summer ran a tanned finger over her chin. “You did so well. I wanted you to feel the peace so many never know.”
These beings will be the death of me.
“You coaxed me, for hours…” Celestine looked down at the bedsheets and pulled the covers back, seeing the edge of his manhood.
“Now that the gag is gone, you know what I’m going to put in your mouth?” Tristien fixed his eyes on her.
Celestine smiled, raising her eyebrows. “What’s that?”
Tristien leaned down to kiss her, she arched her head up but he stopped. His eyes stared into hers.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Celestine said. He is not Encarmine, but there is such an easy way about him. This plush life. This luxury and his beauty. Maybe I am a simple creature.
“I’m going to fill you with…” Tristien whispered.
Celestine pursed her lips for a kiss, but he arched back and clapped loudly. “ Breakfast. ”
The doors swung open. Celestine scrambled and laughed, hiding under the covers. A stream of attendants came in, all women of course, carrying trays of bright fruit, of pastries and streamers of hot coffee.
“Set it right over here!” Tristien laughed the words. Celestine shook her head as the attendants set down a feast for the two of them on the bed. There was more than enough space.
She blushed with embarrassment, not just at being unclothed under the covers, but with a man in front of others. Several of the female attendants tried to stifle wry smiles. When they finally left, Tristien bade her.
“Please, eat my love.”
Celestine reached up to her collar, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Will you wear it for me?” Tristien asked. “Please.”
There was a smoldering in his eyes. After her time in the red realm, she felt fiercer. Fierce enough to enjoy this game, and not let it consume her.
“If you wish it,” Celestine whispered.
After breakfast with Tristien, Celestine was taken to her dressing chambers and attended to. It was a strange, yet pleasant thing, to have others dote upon you.
Mother save me from getting too used to this…
The night before lingered in her mind, like a wine so complex she wasn’t sure if her palate could appreciate—or even fully understand the depth of. There had been such delicious tension in her body, such agony, yet the surrender to Tristien had been the most peaceful thing she had felt in a long time.
Once she was dressed and readied for the day, James escorted her down to the front of the mansion where Tristien waited for her.
“Ready, my love?”
“Yes.” She smiled. The demigod bowed, wearing a matching outfit of canary and white pearl, but with a blue tint that mimicked the sky’s shade this day. He opened a carriage drawn by horses instead of men, and she climbed aboard.
As Tristien shut the door and sat across from her, she saw the glimmer of a mirror. When Celestine turned her head, she saw Captain Aidric of Calendar standing near the entrance to the mansion. He did not vanish, he did not acknowledge her. The presence of the man was the only clashing of color and style in this world where everything was to Tristien’s liking.
Surprisingly, Tristien raised his hand in greeting. “Good day to you, Captain.”
The masked man nodded with a face of sliding silver, the blue sky reflecting off of it. Tristien waved to their carriage driver and the carriage moved under the pull of horseflesh.
“He waits?” Celestine asked. “In your land?”
“It is a new contest,” Tristien said with a shrug. Yet underneath his easy demeanor, not all was right with the Captain’s presence. “The game must be adhered to. Captain Aidric is always welcome in my lands. If anything, he can stand in as a mirror for my guests.”
Celestine grinned back at Tristien’s easy smile. She decided not to press with more questions.
“How are you feeling, after last night?” the demigod stared at her.
“It was… different. Not something I am used to.”
“As I told you, Celestine.” Tristien’s eyes slid over her neckline. “I seek you to know me. To hold you after such release was greater than any dish we tasted at the feast last evening.”
Celestine chewed her smile and glanced out the opening of the carriage into his golden world. This dress did feel different. Just a week past she had been wearing sparring armor, she had hefted a spear.
“I look forward to learning more,” she said.
They rode the rest of the way glancing at one another. A world of words unspoken. Encarmine had fought steadily into her heart, but Tristien’s approach was different. One that tantalized, one that began with flesh and stepped into where her flank was exposed.
He’s proud of me.
The thought wasn’t without its appeal. Her life had been one of praise, surely—yet never from the mouth of one she sought it from. Except her father. Now she was courted by gods and it was hard not to seek what they could give her.
They rode for several miles until she saw a large procession of parked carriages, horses, and men at arms watching over a field of workers. As they pulled towards it, their own vehicle slowed and shouts came out for the Yellow Lord.
“Lord Solis!” a voice called out.
She watched Tristien smile, raising his hand in greeting. Celestine saw several of his noblemen sitting on a grand dais, observing strong workmen clearing a field of hay.
“Gentlemen,” Tristien greeted them. Celestine saw several faces there, including Donal Dawncrest—men she had seen the night before.
“A wondrous day. We thank you for it, Lord Solis,” A portly nobleman said.
“How goes the clearing?” Tristien asked. He opened the door and slid out, keeping his eyes on his subjects while he held out his hand for Celestine. Despite the beautiful dress, she still wore the collar he had made her.
None of them will even look at me. They don’t wish to give offense.
“Very well, my Lord. A wondrous reaping.”
“Oh, come off it,” Lord Donal sneered. “Lord Solis loves truth above all else. And in truth, my lord, it goes poorly. We are understaffed.”
“Celestine.” Tristien turned to her, eyes guiding her to the field. “Help the other ladies with the bundles.”
“Yes, Tristien,” Celestine murmured. She glanced upon the field and realized, much to her surprise, dozens of ladies and some gentlemen from the night before. There were other bonded workers swinging large scythes while younger men bound the bundles and they moved among the field.
Celestine walked out, unsure of what to do, until she couldn’t believe her eyes. Donal’s wife, Lady Lapis, was carrying a bundle of hay over her shoulder. For a mature woman, she was quite strong. She was completely nude, her strong mound of dark pubic hair slick with sweat, her heavy breasts open to the sun. Her bound choker around her neck glinted in the sunlight.
She greeted Celestine with a smile. “Come to join us, Lady Celestine?”
“I believe so,” Celestine answered and turned, seeing the noblemen and Tristien sitting on the platform drinking. “Should I disrobe?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t,” Lapis answered with a wry grin. “Lest you see every man, including my husband, slain for laying eyes upon your flesh. Keep your garb. Come, grab a bundle.”
Celestine followed and took the heavy bundle of hay over her shoulder, marching on the scratchy grass with her bare feet. Her time with Encarmine had made her stronger. Much stronger than she ever had been. They threw their bundles down together in front of a wagon, where three other women were loading the hay. Each was in various states of dress or undress.
“What is this?” Celestine asked. To see nobles in such states was unusual, like everything else in this place.
“Harvest,” Lapis answered, walking proudly and nude in the sun beside her. “A good day for it.”
“I don’t understand.”
Lapis smiled. “All women serve in some capacity. All belong to another. I belong to Donal, just as he belongs to me. This is my devotion to him. He loves to see me work in the field. It drives him into such a fervor. With the other lords here, he won’t give in to his hunger, but I doubt my legs will stay parted once the carriage door closes.” The admission was followed by a hearty laugh.
“These women and men are married?”
“Many are,” Lapis answered her. “Many are simply devoted. Ours is a complex society. Save for the bonded men and women. They are truly labor made manifest, though they earn wages.”
Celestine walked, confused. She worked steadily with Lapis. If this was a taste of the yellow realm, Celestine began to feel a strange uncertainty. She had envisioned luxury, not labor. Not that she didn’t mind, but the sensual edge to all this, the performative submission was as foreign as it was perplexing.
“How was your first night with Lord Solis?”
“It was… not restful. He… I’m not sure if I should say.”
“Oh please, not shields nor dams that stop rivers can cease the gossip of two women.”
Celestine told her of the evening. All of it.
“Gods, what I’d give to have Lord Solis’s razor upon my thighs. My husband shears me once a year, which he calls our harvest.” Lapis laughed, throwing another bundle down. “He says he loves the sight of it. We are a people of labor and harvest in all things. You saw Lord Solis nude?”
Celestine nodded. "He is… magnificent.”
Lapis smiled. “Most women here would cut your throat for a chance of a night in his bedchambers. I’m glad you are serving him well. I labored for a full month before Donal took me, and by the end of that season, I was his wife.”
“Is this the way of this place? Women are servants and chattel? It’s a strange courtship.”
Lapis laughed. “You have much to learn of the Yellow Banner, my dear Celestine. This is our way of devotion, but it might surprise you Lord Solis is a fair master. Those that abuse or go beyond the means of touch are sent from his realm or imprisoned. Lovers devote themselves to one another. They labor. My husband labors for me when the time is right. I don’t grow wet at the sight of his aged body unless it’s glazed with sweat or his eyes are weary from the road and traveling on business for us. The poor man.”
They continued working. Scythes rose and fell. Commoners handing bundles of wheat to the gentry of their land. The words of Tristien came back to her, of one side of the wheel imitating the other.
Lapis nodded to the dais. “You are a real beauty. He enjoys watching you.”
Celestine turned. Tristien was laughing and dining with the other noblemen. “He isn’t even looking.”
“Of course he is. He hasn’t said when he will take you?”
“Not yet,” Celestine answered. She grabbed another bundle. “Though, I want him to.”
“I’m sure Encarmine was a ferocious lover, but no one will break you like Lord Solis. He won’t batter the castle wall down, he’ll erode it. Until it begs to crumble.”
Celestine continued her work. Other women brought bundles and helped load the cart as another came up. Lapis stopped to grab a waterskin from the cart and held it out to Celestine.
She reached out to take it, then stopped. Celestine turned and looked at Tristien.
“May I have some water, Tristien?” she called out to him.
Tristien regarded her, then nodded. If this game was to be played, she would do her part. She took the waterskin and drank deeply, the day’s labor and exhaustion sliding away from her as the cool liquid parched her throat.
She gasped, choking as it went down roughly. Some water spilled out of her mouth.
A nobleman, a younger one whom she had seen at the feast, laughed loudly. You could hear he was far more intoxicated than the other men.
“She might need some practice swallowing, Lord Solis!” the young man laughed.
“Come now.” Lapis grabbed her and turned her way. Celestine struggled for a moment to turn, but Lapis held her tight. “Don’t look.”
The sound of the strike was sudden, like the air rending itself apart. There was a commotion on the dais. The young man’s laughter turned into grunts and gurgles.
“Please, Lord Solis,” Donal’s voice rang out. “He is a fool and new to the reins. Spare his life.”
Celestine bent low, grabbing another bundle a woman had just finished tying. When she turned, she saw the young man at the foot of the ground, thrown from the dais, his body shaking.
Tristien stared at the man fallen from the platform. “Never speak of Lady Celestine again.” The words grew louder as Celestine walked towards the cart, pretending to ignore what was going on.
Tristien leapt down from the dais, standing over the man. He held the long studded handle of bone out to the groaning man’s face.
“She will not enter your sight, nor your tongue again. Not in compliment, in praise, in error. Do you understand me, you fucking worm ?”
The man groaned. “Yes, Lord Solis. I apologize—I apologize to Lady Celestine.”
Celestine saw the handle of the whip slam down onto the man’s thigh. He shrieked. “Not in apology. Not in praise. Her name does not exist for you. The brightest and final star in the sky does not move for the likes of you.” Tristien turned, his face furious and dark. The same darkness she had seen the first night when she opened the box and took his collar.
“Get him out of my sight,” Tristien snarled to two bonded men. They stepped forward and grabbed the young aristocrat, carrying him away in a series of groans.
Celestine had seen battle. She had witnessed true violence where lives were at stake and—even worse, where lives were lost. Encarmine’s cruelty had only risen when Vermilion dared capture her. Though the words had been disgusting, Tristien’s response was a different intensity. She wouldn’t put it past him to snatch the eye of a wayward glance out of someone’s skull.
Encarmine’s love had been a noble pursuit of her, even if a dangerous one. Tristien’s was a slower courtship, a crueler one that she felt in the labor of her body now, here in the sun. It was like when he had cut her shift from her. He would pare away at the support until the very weight of existing would break that which he laid siege to.
I fear him. And I fear how I want to know more of him.
It was the same feeling she had at Calendar, seeing four demigods duel over a right to an evening. She shuddered to think if another season had won her. What her treatment would have been like in the icy barbs of the Winter Lords or the trappings of the Spring Lords.
It disturbed her, and yet she found herself standing a bit straighter with such a quick correction of brutality. Tristien safeguarded every facet of her.
Our courtship is him unwrapping me slowly, replacing each layer with a binding. His tutelage is exact, purposeful, and he pushes me to new limits.
That much was true. Celestine worked the field now, silent, with Lapis. The older woman had a beautiful figure, enhanced by age, the curves and strength of life itself. Tristien was shaping her will itself. She reminded herself that she could leave this realm and travel to another under Captain Aidric’s guidance.
“That killed the mood,” Lapis spoke as they worked. They were heading deeper into the field.
“Which mood?”
“Look upon the dais. Can’t you feel the cock of every husband stirring as their wives work this field? Each of us was looking forward to a needy passion. This labor and devotion stirs them. No man grows more lustful than seeing his wife serve him and the ministrations of his realm. Now, I fear every nobleman will be unable to grow firm under the apprehension. Every discussion will be about how to go about our lives, and to not disturb Lord Solis’s possible betrothed.”
Celestine bit her lip. The rhythm of the work had changed. Lapis was right. Each lady and gentleman in the field moved with a somber step, eyes downcast from the sun.
Even the sunlight itself seems lesser, colder. Is that him? I wonder.
They walked to the cart, the bundles of hay even heavier now, her feet sore and scratched from this field. Lapis threw a bundle down and looked up to the dais, hands on her broad and lovely hips. Every lord around the table looked elsewhere, afraid to glance at Celestine.
The young brute had ruined this strange ritual for everyone.
Lady Lapis spoke up, “Thank you, Lord Solis, as you can obviously tell. Even our younger people need your guidance in all things if not manners.”
Tristien regarded her. He was still as a statue. Lapis continued, “With your permission, Lord, send my husband forth to give me a silken kiss.”
Celestine saw Lord Donal look up. Tristien nodded and fixed his eyes upon Celestine.
Sir Donal stepped down from the dais. Other women gathered nearby, ceasing their labors. The entire congregation glad for a respite from the brutality they had witnessed.
Lapis smiled and held her hands out. Her husband took them gingerly, wrapping silken bindings around them and leading her to the cart.
“The single?” Celestine heard the nobleman ask.
“The many,” Lapis whispered back. “I’m ready.”
Donal tethered Lady Lapis to the cart-wheel, arms bound to each wide spoke. Her nude form spread like a spatchcocked bird upon. He fastened the loop of her necklace to the wheel, and she strained against it.
Lord Donal stepped back and produced a woven yellow belt of some sort. It was like a cat-of-nine tails but with silken ribbon woven in fat knots. A beautiful tool and instrument.
He hissed and swung the silken flail upon his wife’s back. Her muscles contracted in quick agony. His stroke was expert.
“Yes,” Lapis huffed.
“You are too slow today, woman.” Lord Donal shook his head, spinning the flail back and forth between them.
“Yes, my lord.”
Another blow, this one underhanded, rising up like a set of golden snakes dancing up her left calf and thigh. Celestine stifled a squeal. Red marks answered the onslaught of her flesh. It was not a deep whipping. It was meant to coax and weave the flesh, to dance upon it with illicit stings.
Lapis stuck her rear towards her husband, straining against the bindings.
It isn’t escape she wants, but more.
Donal continued, arcing the flail now across her thick buttocks, stinging and slapping them in a twirl. When they landed, Lady Lapis groaned as if she was taking him.
“You embarrass me! Our home!” Donal sneered. Lapis groaned under another blow, this one up her spine that drove her head back against the restraints, the binding of her necklace drawing tight.
It is a dance, a courtship of flesh.
Celestine looked up at the dais as many noblemen nodded and murmured their approval. The mood in the air was changing, back to where it had hailed from. Tristien straightened, staring at Celestine, probing her for a reaction.
Donal worked with expert precision. He knew how to work his wife’s flesh, and Celestine blushed when she saw how wet Lady Lapis grew under his silken kisses. More than his whip, his tongue was the true lash. He hurled controlled correction and chastisement in wicked wonder.
“You will do better! ” Lord Donal instructed. Lapis groaned under his flail’s touch, her hands straining against her bindings. She was like a bitch in heat, her ass and sex sticking out, trying to bend lower.
“Yes, my lord husband. I will.”
“Swear it.”
Lapis nodded. “I swear it, husband. I shall serve. I’m sorry.”
Donal nodded, coiling his flail. He stepped forth and undid the bindings on his wife. With a snap of his fingers, an attendant brought a robe for the Lady, but he dismissed the girl from draping it on his wife’s shoulders.
Lapis turned to him, her dark pubis proud and slick. Her husband kissed her on her brow like a doted patron proud of his ward.
Applause broke out among the field from the wives and women in their various states of undress. As did the noblemen and landed men upon the dais.
Tristien clapped slowly, giving his approval, his blue eyes fixated upon Celestine.
“You did so well, my love.” Donal took his wife’s head into his chest. “You have done me proud.”
“Thank you, my love,” Lapis murmured, and at that moment, Celestine saw such a tenderness, a trust, and praise between two. What she stared at was a moment built upon decades of marriage, of understanding. She wanted it. At that moment, Celestine knew that this entire dance and its performative ritual had all led to this moment. The sweetness and fierce pride Lord Donal held for his wife Lapis, this tenderness was sweeter because of the lash’s sting.
“Shall we adjourn home?” Donal asked.
Lapis kissed her husband, holding his chin. It was such an interesting dynamic and one that Lapis steered. Celestine saw that now.
“Let us finish the day.” Lapis turned to the ladies and men in the field. “Come now, we are nearly done!”
Several shouts of agreement broke out. Lord Donal inspected his wife, but she brushed him off. “Such light kisses, husband. You know I prefer you even deeper in my flesh.”
“Then I’ll have to show you later.”
“I must get these whelps in a hurry then,” Lapis said with a grin. She walked back to Celestine, her body striped with light red marks.
“Are you alright?” Celestine asked as she took her under an arm.
“In truth, I need him in me now. But this slow torture, it’s exquisite. The denial.”
“You were moaning under his lash.”
Lapis nodded, walking with her to the far field to clear the last section. “My mouth is much filthier, as is his in our private corrections. He is a good man.”
Celestine shook her head. “This is a strange place.”
Lapis grabbed her hand. “But it is exquisite, Celestine. It’s not the lash, but it’s denial. The space between blows that is the true agony. Punishment in the hands of the man that owns you. And yours upon him.”
“Does he really possess you?”
Lapis smiled, playing the part of the elder matron to the young woman. “We all own each other in our ways. All I can tell you is to enjoy it. Enjoy every moment, every denial, every binding. Time is the cruelest lash from which there is no recovery.”
A song took up among the women in the field. The women murmured a lovely lilting shanty, with bawdy lyrics and a strong chorus as they hefted bales of wheat and hay to the wagons. Celestine looked back often, seeing Tristien and Lord Donal sitting close by. He had done Tristien a great service in saving the afternoon.
The more Celestine worked and labored, the song weaving a hypnotic trance behind her eyes, the more she wanted Tristien. The denial had been so prolonged so far, and she felt her body ready for him.
I must be bold; I must have him on the carriage ride home. Down low where no one can see us, and bring his wrath.
As the field was cleared, the afternoon came to an end.
When it was done, every noble on the dais stood and applauded their wives, many raising crystal glasses in the afternoon sun. Tristien joined them, tall and tanned, beautiful and lean. Next to normal humans, Tristien looked immortal, as if all men descended from visage. The bonded men in the field bowed, scythes dipping and swinging to their left. As if this was the ending to an intricate dance.
Lapis winked at her husband, licking her lips slowly. Lord Donal was fixated upon her, his eyes dark with lust and pride. They were champions of a sort, Celestine knew. This dance had been done exquisitely, not despite the misstep of the chastised noblemen but because of it.
“You do us great honor, Lady Lapis.” Tristien raised a glass to her. For an insane moment, Celestine grew wrathful at him, giving attention to the other woman.
Where did that come from?
“Will I see you this evening?” Celestine asked Lapis. The older woman shook her head as her carriage was prepared.
“I think not, my friend. Lord Solis’s attention will be on entertaining you, alone. The kiss of his touch will probably be followed by more.” Lapis winked and turned to her carriage, where her husband waited. The beautiful, venerable woman rose upon the steps slowly. The markings plain as day on her back.
Celestine saw Lord Donal already had his breeches opened, and Lapis was bent over quickly, her legs spread apart as Donal undid his belt.
The door shut before she could see more.
“Come,” Tristien ordered. Celestine turned and took his hand, her feet sore and ravaged from the field, singing their pain with each step into the carpeted carriage. Tristien joined her, resplendent, smelling of hay and sparkling wine.
The carriage door shut, and Tristien sat across from her. In his hand, he still held the handle of his whip, gripped in his fist.
The procession moved, taking them back to the castle.
Celestine sought to break the silence, fearing his mood would come upon him again. “I would see more of your realm, Tristien.”
Tristien glanced at her, then spoke to the driver, who was out of sight. “Take us around the south end, near the lakes.”
“My Lord,” the driver spoke and snapped the reins of his team.
The carriage rocked, and they stared at one another.
“You did will, Lady Celestine.”
“Thank you…” Celestine spoke.
Be fiercer, be forward, like Lapis.
Celestine knelt from her seat, sliding her hands across his legs. “I want to please you, Tristien. Did I please you?”
“That whelp did not please me,” Tristien snarled, staring at the whip handle in his hand. It was bone, nearly a foot long, with smooth studs upon it and a shaved bone tip smooth as silk.
“You corrected him well.”
“Did I?” Tristien’s eyes flashed. Celestine continued, despite his anger. She reached out to his hand, clasped across the whip’s handle.
“It isn’t…” Celestine whispered, reaching up to his trousers, “my place to say.”
Tristien loosened his grip. Celestine smiled and traced her hands up to his waist.
“Kiss it,” Tristien ordered.
“Yes, my lord.” Celestine whispered, undoing his belt. He was so thick. She had seen him in their chambers. His cock had hung with such heft.
But it wasn’t his manhood he brought to her lips. Tristien held out the handle of the whip, strong and stiff in his hand, in front of her lips.
Despite being taken aback, Celestine managed to steady herself.
“Show me how you would please me.”
Celestine opened her mouth slowly, his eyes upon her. After seeing Lapis and her ways, she felt a new path open before.
Even here, kneeling and under his command, I can steer.
She kissed the tip of the whip, then opened her mouth and slid her lips and tongue across its ridge shaft while Tristien held it. Her eyes never left Tristien’s. Celestine groaned, imagining it was his flesh. Her hand reached out to his left leg, feeling the thickness of his cock growing under his pale trousers. Such smooth cloth outlining the perfect tool.
“My sweet, sweet Lord of Summer,” Celestine groaned and feasted upon the whip, running her lips and tongue all across its exquisite peaks. Her right hand gripped his cock through his pants, churning him.
“Open your mouth,” Tristien ordered in a lustful whisper. Celestine obeyed. The reins were in his hand, and she loved him for it. There was no need to think, to plan or plot. His lust and need and precise control guided the two of them. Even this was a denial.
Celestine opened her mouth, and Tristien slid the whip’s handle, the very one he had beaten a man nearly to death with, into her lips. He fucked her mouth with it. She moaned his name, jaw opening as wide as she could manage.
Her cunt begged for any touch, even her own. All she had to do was reach down.
Not without his permission.He shapes me to his whims, and I follow him greedily.
Celestine sucked on the whip, popping it out of her mouth, seeking to prove her devotion to how she would serve his cock. She tugged on his manhood, pleading with impatience.
“I could smell your excitement when I beat him,” Tristien whispered. He drove the whip’s handle deeper into her mouth, into her throat, where she gagged. Even here, he was an expert, blocking off her breath with his whip. When she could not take anymore, he withdrew, the carriage filling with her moans.
“Put some slop on it.” Tristien’s eyes were fiery, and he fucked her throat deeper with the handle. Celestine nodded, gagging, gurgling, her quim dangerously wet.
The bone handle of the whip was drenched in her saliva, thick from her throat. Celestine gasped for air.
Tristien leaned forward and held her chin. He kissed her lips, and when he did, her entire body trembled. Just the barest touch of him on her chin, the grip of it, was complete control. To be with him was to drown under the weight of velvet, never wanting to come up for air. Her will was a coin that flitted across his knuckles, ever on the edge, ever moving, so easy to fall.
He stared into her eyes, breaking the kiss, holding her chin. “Free me.”
Celestine dove forward, eager now, pulling at his belt and hoisting his pants down. It was too much. What had shaped such a man? He was smooth, muscled, hairless. Tristien was supple and long, his tanned flesh contrasting with the paleness of where his trousers began to slide down.
She pulled his pants lower and lower, the dimples on his hips, the sweet line of his abs. She saw his smooth mound and ran her hand over it. Lower, lower she pulled, seeing the cleavage of his cock, so heavy and turned like a downed beast. Her eyes widened as inch after inch revealed itself until finally, his pale cock, heavy and thicker than her forearm, hung between his thighs.
“Tristien…” Celestine murmured, entranced by this member. She leaned down, lifting his fat cock, limp and semi-hard, and eased the skin back, revealing a beautiful pale pink head as wide as her mouth. His musk was bright and sweet, and she snaked her tongue out to his tip, tasting him for a moment before he stopped her by pulling on her collar.
“You did not ask,” Tristien said.
“Please, my lord. Please, just… let me taste it.” Celestine’s lust was a fervor. The day’s labors. “Aren’t you proud of me? I worked the harvest.”
Tristien leaned back, shaking his head in disapproval. He reached out and placed a loving hand around her neck, his embrace hot and warm. “You’ve been showing off all day, shirking your duties. Flashing that which belongs to me to others.”
“I’m sorry…” Celestine groaned under his grip. She was loving his control, his patient demeanor. As he had explained their first evening, consent was everything, but if she ever felt it was too much, she simple had to make the sign agreed between them.
“Sorry… what?”
“Sorry… Lord Solis.”
A playful slap came across her cheek. “No.”
“Sorry, Tristien.”
Another slap, this one stinging her cheek perfectly. How was he so good at this?
He moves the sun and sky. He is a Lord of Summer, that’s how. Nothing grows without his consent or control.
“Sorry… sir.”
“Better,” Tristien kissed her forehead and leaned back. “Take the ribbon behind you, tie it around the base of me.”
Celestine turned, grabbing the silken ribbon. She reached up to grab his heavy member but stopped.
“May I?”
Tristien glowered at her. “May I what?”
“May I, Tristien?”
“Yes.”
Celestine shuddered under his praise. The carriage bobbed along. She lifted his massive pale cock. He lengthened and grew harder in her hand.
“Several loops,” Tristien commanded. “Stroke it slightly. No. No. Listen to me. Higher, yes, there.”
Celestine slowly slid his skin back and forth from the middle of his shaft. It was so thick, so long, the pink head of him appeared and disappeared as she stroked, finally pulling his skin down, so soft in its membrane. She held it up and looped the ribbon once, twice, then three times at the base.
“Tighter, slave.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am not sir. I am a Lord of Summer, the season itself. My very name is respect. Now say it.”
“Yes,” Celestine groaned. “Tristien. My season.”
The final loop she tightened harshly. His cock swelled, growing darker, firmer.
“Are you alright, Celestine? Am I being too harsh?”
Celestine darted her eyes up to him. “More…”
Tristien nodded. “You enjoyed watching Lapis being flogged, didn’t you?”
Celestine nodded, eyes transfixed on his turgid member. Veins of white like lightning grew all over it. She wanted to touch her shaved cunt so badly, but she didn’t dare ask his permission yet. She found herself in such a new mindset of absolute freedom and wanting to please him and be ordered around. This carriage was a prison she never wanted to leave.
“I did, sir.”
“Open your mouth,” Tristien said.
She did. Her tongue was out, waiting. She hoped he let her feast, let her serve him with her mouth.
“I want to make you feel so good, Tristien.”
“Quiet,” Tristien growled. He leaned forward and put the whip in her mouth again, stuffing her throat. She groaned as the ivory slid back and forth, choking her. She reached out to touch his cock. He withdrew the whip.
“Fuck me,” she begged.
Blond hair, blue eyes, and a face of an angel with the fury of the cruelest master stared back at her.
“You haven’t done well enough today, Celestine.”
“Please,” Celestine murmured, staring into his beautiful eyes. His irises were so blue, like the sea under the sun she wanted to dive into and drown.
Tristien reached low now, the handle of his whip slick with the slop of her throat. He held it low in a gripped fist.
He is so much larger than I. They all are.
"Ride it.”
Celestine looked down at the whip handle. It was made for this. It was large, not as large as him, but all the studs, the thick head…
He looped a leash of yellow through her collar, drawing her forth. She straddled over it.
“Are you going to be good?”
“Yes,” Celestine murmured, her thighs trembling from the squat after so much labor. He wasn’t letting her sit, not letting her stand. Her entire body was locked in contortion.
“Ride it. Show me how you would serve me.”
Celestine’s eyes never left his. They were her rock, her support, her guiding line as the silken leash slid through his fingertips, and she sat lower until the bulbous head of the whip pressed against her lips. She grunted, so slick and engorged with the readiness for him. It stretched her opening, and she sat on it, taking the head.
“Good. More.”
Celestine bit her lip, lowering herself, the broad head of his whip sliding deeper into her cunt. Her labia strained, gliding down on the studs of the handle, each causing a tremor as it tantalized her.
“That’s it, yes. Do it. Do it for me, Celestine. You want to be good for me, don't you?”
“Yes, Tristien,” Celestine purred the words. Her nipples grew even harder. Knowing her need, Tristien slapped them. Then again. She groaned and sat lower, her cheeks spreading as she squatted to the floor.
“Take it,” Tristien ordered, his eyes patient. “That’s it. You do so well for me. I see it. I see how badly you want to please me, Final Bride.”
She kissed his hand which grazed her cheek. Another inch slid into her, stretching her.
“Now ride,” Tristien ordered.
Celestine gushed under the words, coating the whip with her lust. She strained up. He held her tether, guiding her. A sharp slap came across her breasts, and she cried his name, lowering herself again. Tristien looked low, watching her take his ivory whip.
“More,” he commanded.
The collar tightened, her throat and breath constricted but still flowing. He held her leash in one hand, then he began to rub her clit with the same motion as she rode, up and down, up and down.
“Let me touch it, please.” Celestine stared at his cock, plump and straining under the ribbon she had tied.
“You may,” Tristien allowed.
She reached out eagerly, practically steadying herself on his massive cock. His balls heaved as she slid up and down him, drawing his skin back and forth, her two hands covering nearly half of his middle. The ridges tortured her cunt, satisfying what had been building all day. The collar tightened perfectly—metal shifting under his arcane gaze.
She fucked his whip and stroked his cock, reaching down to grasp his plump heaving balls. Tristien groaned, leaning back, placing his feet upon his own cushions, letting her see the full view of him. Every inch, every sinew, was perfection. Strained and flexing like a ship’s ropes in a strong wind. She held the whip herself, impaling herself upon it, withdrawing it, rubbing the ridges all over her nub and lips while keeping one hand on him.
His hands held her leash and slapped her with abandon. Every time she nodded, showing him she was ready, he struck her exactly where she wanted. Her flank, her mouth, her breasts all felt his sting.
The light from the carriage dimmed. Celestine felt like she was drowning in his leash. The whip was a crucible of delicious agony. Her climax, so long denied, approached like the sun breaking through clouds. She gripped him fiercely, harder than she had, her single hand not enough to encompass him.
“Tristien!” she groaned in both warning and request.
The collar tightened around her neck. The magic of his control. She shuddered, one last slide down, and she would…
He raised her leash, pulling her up. She couldn’t fall. She reached down to drive the whip into her, but his hand met her, stopping it. For a single moment, the climax she so longingly wanted, she pleaded with her eyes.
Eternal patience stared back at her.
“Please….” Celestine whispered through choked breath.
Tristien stared at her as if they had both just stepped off a precipice before the fall. Finally, he loosened the slack on her leash, and she groaned, falling, filling herself, stud after ridged stud until her body clenched upon the whip now held in his powerful grip, and she came. Her pinnacle was not a sudden rush. Under his choking grip, it extended, a slow boiling that shuddered through every part of her body. He held her and supported her with his hand as she was pinned in that place of perfect paralysis.
When she finished, she nearly collapsed, but his firm hands took her into his arms. They stared at one another.
“I have you,” Tristien murmured, stroking a silken feather of her hair behind her ears.
The carriage rocked, and the control he had relaxed now. He was the comfort giver. The medicae for the wounds he himself dealt, and he was an expert in their deliverance and mending. The velvet ocean of sensation was now a cradle he held her in, and she felt stillness.
It is a peace, but a cold one.
But it would do for now.
As the carriage traveled, she stared into him. He had guided her. The entire day, the stairs, scrubbing, field, carriage, and whip had all been for her. To guide her. To teach her, to give her such pleasure and the peace that came after.
Still, his hard cock was splayed underneath her naked body. She reached down, touching a silken strand of pre-release spread between her fingers from his bulbous head.
“Let me serve you, Tristien. You didn’t get to…” Celestine offered, wanting nothing more than to please him.
“You already have,” Tristien said with a soft smile. “I’m so proud of you. You did so well. Such a brave, fierce bride.”
“Will you take me tonight?” Celestine asked, hoping for an answer.
He smiled. “Our courtship continues.”
“What would… you enjoy? How can I please you?”
“Soon,” he murmured.
Celestine shuddered the aftereffects of her finale tantalizing her. Her body readied for more. It felt hungry, hungry for his seed.
My body is fire and it betrays the coldness in me.
"I want you to do what Sir Donal did to his wife.”
“I’m uncertain if you’re ready for that.” Tristien held her closer.
“I am.” Celestine made her point clear with a powerful stare. “I am. Take me there. Take me to that place I saw in her.”
He didn’t answer. Her lover stared at her, a man of over seven feet, for whom the sun and wheat grew under his command.
Finally, he did.
“Very well,” Tristien said. Outside the carriage's windows, the lake slid by, its soft water clear upon river stones.
“Driver, stop ahead.”
“Yes, my lord,” the driver stated.
The carriage pulled to the side after a moment. Tristien stood, leaving the carriage. He set Celestine down gingerly upon the cushions.
“I will take it from here,” she heard him say.
“At once, my lord.”
Celestine glanced to the side and saw the driver walking away into a field, sent to make his way to the mansion.
Tristien drove them for a short span, curling around the lake. His lake. This was all his, every inch of this grand estate, this realm of the Yellow Banner. Finally, the carriage slowed.
The Lord of Summer climbed down from the driver’s post and opened the door.
“No one is near for miles. Step out.”
Celestine stood, climbing out of the carriage. She stood shakily in the sunlight. After such treatments of his attention, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“Looks like I didn’t ask,” Celestine said. “What ever will happen to me now?”
Tristien smiled down at her, a god of sunlight and golden fields.
“Remember, tell me if it is too much.”
In response, Celestine stripped off her homespun gown, feeling the sun on her naked shaved body. She felt wondrous, stepping into the water of the lake, the cold liquid sliding around her calves, her sore feed prodded by smooth stones. She could see several spires of his mansion up high and far away.
When she turned back, Tristien was there, shirtless, holding her. Chest to chest, in the sunlight, his slim frame held her.
“Will you don your circlet?” Celestine asked.
A shadow passed over Tristien’s face. Then he shook his head. “No, Celestine. I cannot. That would not be… wise.”
She wanted to protest, caught in the moment, but knew not to. She settled back into her submission, the parts that they played in this grand dance.
“Well?” she raised her arms
“Well.” Tristien stared at her.
He bound her in silken ribbon, the color of his yellow banners. Tight around her body. First through her legs, then up to her thighs. He bound above and below her breasts. She felt like an insect trapped in a spider’s spinning hands. Her breasts swelled, turning red.
Tristien commanded the blood flow in her body. Slowing it, moving it, denying it.
He led her by the leash along the shoreline. She was nude, swollen, so exposed. Anyone could see, but she knew he would never permit that.
She was his property. His slave. Her entrances, her flesh, her bones. All was his.
“Come,” he said and continued their walk. She toiled, the bindings were tight, and her legs could only move so far, but as she reached the peak of her exhaustion, he led her to a downed tree in the water line. It had fallen, branches first, into the lake. In the far distance was his golden estate, yellow streamers and banners held high.
He eased the knots around her bound body and bent her over the tree, running silken loop after silken loop through her wrists and legs. She was bent over, her rear in the air, completely red and controlled.
Tristien did not gag her. She looked up at his mansion across the sparkling lake.
This could be mine. Ours. And these afternoons could be plentiful.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, struggling against the bindings. There was no choice left for her, no decisions. Anything could happen to her. He could do anything.
“I find this.” Tristien stepped near her, holding a flask from his pocket. “Entices the nerves.” Hot oil, like that from the bath in Scalehall, slid over her entire body. More than the flask could possible contain. It glazed her, sliding down to her shaved lips and folds. It felt like falling into the mouth of a beast. Like drowning in honey.
“He is a glutton, but he makes wondrous oil.”
“Who does?” Celestine turned to ask, but Tristien wasn’t listening. He was staring at her body. Then he brought forth two more ribbons, binding them around the lips of her cunt, making it pout and swell, tightening it like a sailor to the lines of control along her back.
“I love to see it, bound, ready for me,” he murmured. This was for him and her, she knew, unlike the carriage. Never had someone stared at her privates like a painting. He was transfixed.
The flog whispered out through the air, striking across her ass. She never even saw him pull it out. The sting was like the wax of a candle, for a briefest moment, and then it ceased.
Again, he flogged her down her thighs. Celestine grunted and groaned.
“More,” she pleaded.
“Little brat,” Tristien growled and struck her harder. Celestine cried out, loving it. His flog sent lightning through her body, the briefest flash of pain—then such peace. It wasn’t just sexual. Tied to this log, exposed, glazed with oil, she felt her cunt and anus clench and flex involuntarily upon every strike. He flogged her back, her rump, and finally, she moaned his name when he flogged her quim. The barest kiss of it sending her panting.
It was delicious. He worked her flesh with precise care. The spaces, the pauses, all tantalizing. She anticipated him, and he knew when to answer her flesh with punishment.
Her body sang with the crack of his silken flail, and then he came forward and slid the end of the flog into her cunt, leaving it there.
“You will behave,” he growled with authority.
“Yes, Tristien.” Celestine was eager to answer. The sun danced on her oiled skin. The lake moved around in glittering sunlight. He fucked her with the flog, smaller than his whip but thick and perfect. Then he withdrew it and whipped her, softening her hide, readying his feast.
Tristien stopped and bent to her, stroking her face. “Are you doing alright?”
“Please,” Celestine groaned, struggling against the knots that she knew would never break. “Fuck. me.”
Tristien spanked her roughly for that. “Do not presume to command me.”
“Yes Tristien!” Celestine cried out.
The ministrations continued. He touched her with his hands and remarked upon her body's beauty. He described how her cunt and ass flexed and spasmed as he flayed her, sometimes gently, sometimes harshly. In there was praise. Praise for her strength. Praise for how proud she made him.
Tristien slid a single finger into her oiled ring, the tightness of her entrance struggling against him. He sank it slowly into her.
“Grip me,” he hissed. She did, she tried. She clenched around his thick finger. He flogged her across her shoulder blades, and she felt herself milking his finger with her ass. Finally, he withdrew, rubbing her cunt.
“Yes,” Celestine groaned. Completely at peace. Tristien played her body like an instrument.
It went beyond coupling, beyond lust.
A peace unlike anything she had ever known, to be bound and helpless, and completely in his care. She felt safer than she ever had. There in the sunlight and above the glittering water.
When she came, he whipped her perfectly, extending it as if each end of the flog was a string on an instrument that he slowly strummed.
Celestine let go, her climax bringing her to that place where she was wrapped in sunlight—where she surrendered to him. Completely safe.