Chapter 7 #2
This revelation causes a small stab of shame as Perl wonders exactly how much Vane told Kerik last night.
It can’t have been all of it. Kerik would never be silent if he knew everything.
“I can change the size of the hip cloth to fit your cock if it is of such a size you require it. Go and fetch one. Choose the one you’d most like to wear. ”
Kerik says nothing. He climbs from the bed in his sleeping shirt and trips off to the dressing chamber, returning with a fabric scrap in his hand.
He shakes it out. It is indeed very small.
Perl had always liked that. The most humiliating, revealing hip cloths.
So excruciatingly mortifying to be ordered to wear one to serve.
Tiny garments that make it clear the wearer’s purpose is the pleasure of another.
More degrading somehow than being naked.
He finds himself sucking his lower lip to think of it.
But that had been long ago.
“You know,” Kerik says, turning the fabric around as if inspecting it from all angles, “I don’t think this would fit around Seridil’s hips either. It would only fit someone very slender.” He gives Perl a pointed look.
“Then it’s a good job I can do this,” Perl says, casting idly, doubling the fabric’s size.
It’s quite satisfying the way Kerik gasps and marvels at the newly enhanced cloth. “You can just do that,” he says. All his cocky smugness is gone. He is looking at Perl wide-eyed.
“Yes. It’s a simple matter. And it’s easy here as the power in the air is so strong. I barely need to expend any of my own.”
Kerik is clearly fascinated. “Can you show me how to do that? Make a piece of fabric double in size.”
Perl looks at Kerik. Perhaps… “I don’t need to show you. Just do it.”
“Just…?” Kerik looks at Perl. “But I can’t.”
“Can’t you? Change it. Use your will and make it different.”
Kerik looks quite amazed at the suggestion, but he holds up the cloth and shakes it, face tight with concentration. Then he gasps. He feels it. And the cloth in his hands turns from white to black.
“Oh,” Perl exclaims in genuine surprise. “That is very neat. I’m not sure if a thrall can wear a black hip cloth though. It’s quite unusual. The are usually white or gold”
“It’s your colour,” Kerik says, clearly still thrilled by what he’s just done. “It matches your clothing,” he grins. “And my collar.”
Before Perl can say another word, Kerik pulls off his sleeping shirt.
Perl does not turn away, although he ought to.
Instead he watches Kerik’s muscular, well-shaped body move as he ties on the hip cloth.
He allows himself the briefest glance at Kerik’s cock.
It’s soft, but it has a sweet weight to it.
He feels a distinct heat between his legs at the sight.
Kerik has barely finished adjusting the hip cloth when there is a sharp knock on the door. Perl removes the wards and calls out, “Come in.” He is grateful that they switched places last night and he is already in the correct bed.
A page stands in the doorway, holding a chest of pale wood with silver fittings. She looks at Perl, addressing only him. “Her Grand Majesty, Exeinil-Que-zeren-ai had this prepared,” she says. “To ensure your thrall is correctly dressed for the Silver Ball.”
“Thank you,” Perl says. “Please bring it in.” It seems Kerik’s new hip cloth won’t be needed and he feels a small spark of dread in his belly at the thought of what Exeinil might have sent instead.
The page places the box on the table, bows simply and leaves.
Kerik looks at the box and then at Perl. “So, what do you think she wants me to wear?” Kerik says. “Do you think she somehow sensed you might be allowing me a scandalous black hip cloth?”
“I am sorry to say that for a Silver Ball there are some specific ensembles for thralls. All of them quite ridiculous. But we should probably comply with Exeinil's wishes. Do you mind?”
Kerik looks at Perl wide-eyed. “I don’t have a choice, do I? And you shouldn’t be giving me one. What if we are spied upon?”
“We are not being spied upon. My chamber’s wards are still in place and they are very intensive.”
“So tell me about this outfit you are going to force me to wear,” Kerik wiggles in the hip cloth. His tongue flickers over his top lip. “Or are you too lost in your own daydreams about it to speak? Is it very scandalous?”
“That is one way to describe it, I suppose. Let me show you.”
Perl climbs from his bed and goes over to the box on the table.
The contents are not unexpected.
First, he lifts out the collar. A very different collar from the one Kerik wears currently. That collar had looked so strange on Kerik when Perl had first buckled it around his throat. And he is sure, it had seemed strange to Kerik too.
But now, Perl has grown used to seeing it there. It almost suits him, dark like Kerik’s own dark colouring. He wonders if Kerik has also grown used to its weight about his throat.
If he has, that will not be the case with this new one.
The collar Perl holds is made of bright silver. It is far wider than the leather one. So wide that it requires a small indentation at the front to make room for the chin. “This,” Perl says, “will hold your head up. So your gaze is high.”
“So, at least I will be able to look around,” says Kerik, sounding unconcerned about the restrictiveness of the collar. “My eyes will not be forced to the floor.”
“In a way,” says Perl, although the way it is shaped around your chin means it prevents you from moving your head almost at all.”
“Oh,” Kerik says, walking over to inspect the box’s contents himself. Drawn by curiosity. He takes the collar from Perl with a smile. “What a diabolical thing.” He sounds almost gleeful about it.
“There are also cuffs for your wrists and these…” Perl picks up the jewelled clamps and shows them to Kerik. Tiny silver clasps with jagged teeth and diamonds sparkling in curled silver fittings.
Kerik takes them. “Where do these…?” He stops. “Oh.” With a finger tip he touches his own nipple.
“They are quite uncomfortable. At least, at first.”
Kerik pulls his shoulders back. “You think I can’t handle it, faerie?”
“I hope you can handle it.”
Kerik hands the jewelled clamps back to Perl. “Don’t worry. I can manage having clips on my teats for an evening. Is there anything else? What do I actually wear? I have seen no clothing?”
Perl reaches into the chest. “If you are asking what will cover your cock, then the answer is this.” He holds out the small silver cage to Kerik. It sparkles, studded with diamonds like the jewel clamps. It is shaped for what it will contain.
Kerik takes it. “That?” His eyes stretch wide. “This thing on my cock is all I am to wear?”
Perl turns back to the box. “Not quite. There are two more items in here,” he says. Perl lifts out one. It’s a small silver jar. He opens it and shows it to Kerik. It seems to contain a silverish coloured paste. “This is paint.”
“Paint? Paint for what.”
“It's a kind of body decoration.” Perl lifts a small brush from the jar to show Kerik how the paint is applied to his skin.
“What part of my body do you plan to decorate?”
“It is usual for you to have the name of your owner written on your chest.”
Kerik looks a little pale at this. But all he says is, “Go on then. Show me how that will look.”
“Now?”
“Yes now, write your name on me, Master.” Of course he makes it sound like a command.
“Very well.” Perl lifts the brush and nods. He leans in.
Kerik yelps as soon as the brush touches his skin. “That tickles,” he says, looking up into Perl’s eyes. “And it is colder even than your frozen touches.”
“I’m sorry,” Perl says, then swallows and tries again, doing his best to make the letters neat despite the way Kerik yelps and wriggles and his own hands shake.
When Perl pulls back, his work complete, he puts a hand on Kerik’s upper arm. Kerik almost flinches away like a shying horse.
He looks down at the neat lettering. “Does that say Perl?” he says, voice heavier than before.
“It says my full name. Perlash-zeren-ai.’
The letters glow softly as the painted words set on Kerik’s skin. Perl supposes they look quite pretty.
Kerik nods. “And the other item in the chest? You said there were two.”
Perl sets down the jar and lifts out the last item. “Ah, yes, this.”
It’s a tangle of leather straps. Black leather with bright silver fixings.
“And what is that? It looks like a horse’s tack.”
“It is traditional. Part of the ensemble you are wearing. It’s a bridle.”
“For me?”
“It’s hardly for me.”
“Are you planning to ride me like a horse?”
“No,” Perl says with a small smile. “Although that is sometimes done.”
Kerik raises both eyebrows at Perl as if he is unsure whether Perl will actually do this.
But he seems to draw his strength to say, “So I am to be in wrist cuffs and a horse’s bridle with your name painted on my chest and jewels attached to my nipples and this cruel collar.
” He touches it, lying on the table. “And a gilded cage around my cock?”
“That is the idea. You are on display. At a Silver Ball the role of the thralls is to be decorative.”
“No wonder you have to send all your thralls to a brutal pit to be trained to endure this. It’s ridiculous.”
“I am aware of how ridiculous it is. I did not design these protocols. Take them up with The Aeons.” Perl sighs. “I am sorry. These events are not held often. I did not expect there to be one when we were here.”
“Shall I put the rest of it on? The cuffs and the bridle and the cock covering and the nipple clamps. Try it all together?” Kerik raises an eyebrow in a gesture that Perl is quickly learning means he is about to say something infuriating.
“Would you like to see me dressed decoratively, for your pleasure, Master?”
“I suppose it would make sense for you to put it on so you can get used to it.”
Kerik picks up the wrist cuffs and turns them over in his hands.
They’re smooth pieces of metal, not a hinge or a clasp anywhere. They’re sized for Kerik’s wrists, or, at least, for a man with wrists that size, but there is no way he can get them on over his hands.
Perl waits, watching Kerik puzzle over them. Eventually Kerik looks up at Perl and says, “How do these work?” He holds out the silver cuffs to Perl.
Perl takes them. “Ah,” he says simply. “These are magic.”
“I am actually aware of that fact. Of course they are magic. If they’re not magic they’d be useless.”
“And they’re spelled to me.”
“Your Queen thinks of everything.”
Perl runs a pale thumb across the width of one of the cuffs and it opens, simply glides into two semi circles of metal. He leans in a little closer to fix the cuff around one of Kerik’s wrists, then does the same with the other.
“Your fingers are so cold,” Kerik says with a small shudder as the pad of Perl’s first finger grazes his inner wrist.
Perl finds himself swallowing. “I am a fae.”
“And all fae are this cold? So I must feel very hot for you?”
“Yes, your skin feels distinctly warm. It is a noted factor of mortal’s physicality that many fae find rather pleasant. Although some consider it quite revolting.”
“Which are you?” Kerik says, looking at the skin on his arms.
“Why would I have opinions on your body temperature?” Perl says, stepping back.
Kerik lifts his arms and inspects the cuffs. “These are for binding me?”
Perl nods. “They will be fastened together behind your back for the ball, yes.”
“I see.” Kerik actually sounds a little concerned.
Perhaps the heavy cuffs and the prospect of being displayed practically naked with his wrists bound is actually melting his bravado.
But he seems to pull himself together, drawing strength from somewhere and lifting up the bridle. “You’ll have to help me with this too.”
Perl wasn’t sure if he’d remember how to affix a bridle. The bridles fae like to use for mortals are similar to those worn by horses, although different enough that applying one takes a little thought.
Unlike a horse’s bridal, these are designed to be purely decorative.
Just ornamentation for thralls and a means to hold a bit in place in the mouth.
Although Perl does not use the bit, removing and slipping it into his pocket, as he winds the straps around Kerik’s head.
It sparkles a little with some light magic.
It is not spelled to weave itself in place, as some are — and which would have been useful — only with the same bonding magic as the wrist cuffs, so that it can only be unfastened by Perl’s own hand.
He works as fast as he can to buckle each strap in place. Around Kerik’s forehead and across his cheeks, feeling the sweet warmth of his skin.
As Perl finishes fixing the straps of the bridle around Kerik’s head a gong sounds, its shimmering chime magically reverberates through the air. “That is the summoning gong,” Perl says. “The ball must be beginning.”
“Already? What happened to the rest of the day?”
Perl simply shrugs. “Faerie can be that way sometimes. I told you, time here is slippery and strange. If Exeinil wants the ball to begin, it does. But the ball will likely last for some time. We can make ready at our leisure.”
“What will it be like,” Kerik says, “this Silver Ball? What will happen? I ask because balls in Azuria do not involve costuming like this, so I assume it will be quite different.”
“If they have not changed the way they throw revels here in the last century, it will be a debauched scene of music, lewd dancing and public coupling.”
“Like an Azurian Pleasure Night?”
“Similar.”
“And what of you? Will you be wearing something formal?”
“Sadly, yes.”