Crimson part one
May. 14th, 2008 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maculategiraffeOK so this story's going to be more than one part. Sue me.
Background.
Greta's first glimpse of Crimson went a long way towards explaining his nickname. The thick russet hair bespoke the same delicate, fair skin that had been so attractive in her youth and was going horribly, prematurely crinkly now, and there were probably freckles in there somewhere, under better circumstances. But just now it looked as if the boy had been crying for a matter of hours and showed no signs of stopping any time soon; his face was wet, swollen, contorted, and the vivid shade-- crimson-- that Greta knew her own skin tended to go under similar conditions.
He was gagged, too, which couldn't make it easy to breathe given the tears-- and which surprised Greta; Holden hardly ever brought a kid home gagged. Of course, the kid might have been a biter. Greta couldn't tell much about his temperament given the gag, or how much he would have been struggling if he hadn't been locked into a number of restraints, including elbow-to-wrist leather cuffs that laced together behind his back, wide leather shackles on his ankles with a short length of thick chain between them, and a heavy leather collar with a chain leash attached and Holden grasping the other end, giving Crimson occasional short, sharp jerks to make him follow or get his attention. There were a couple of suspiciously inorganic silhouettes against his tunic when he moved a certain way that suggested the restraints didn't end with what Greta could see, but she chose not to indulge her imagination there.
He certainly wasn't fighting now, whatever he might have been doing to get himself so heavily restrained; he wasn't even looking up at the impromptu assembly that had gathered in the foyer at the sound of the car outside.
"This is Crimson," said Holden, rather obviously. "Crimson, this is my wife, your mistress. The rest of these people are your fellow slaves. Yves, Jer, and Bran belong to me, and Greta belongs to your mistress."
Crimson nodded without looking up, the slump of his shoulders so defeated that Greta felt a flash of indignation towards Holden. Holden caught her expression and sent her the long-suffering, put-upon, nobody-knows-what-I-go-through-for-my-work expression that still annoyed her after all this time. As if he'd even have a business or a vocation-- or still be alive, for that matter-- without Alix.
Greta was good at appropriate facial expressions, though, unlike some people, so she sent her master back a conciliatory look, hoping things didn't get so bad she had to risk interfering. She and Holden had a truce and even some genuine affection between them by now, but Holden was Holden, and interfering in Holden's affairs was a bad idea unless he was insanely in love with you, which he certainly wasn't with Greta. Not that she wanted him to be, since she liked her skin with a minimum of bruises and welts. But to each his own.
"I'm going to bathe him and get him oriented," Holden continued. "Show him the training room, and all that. Bran, come with me."
All right, so that was nice. Crimson would be reassured by the presence of another kid close to his own age who was so obviously well cared for and adored by the master they now shared; as for Bran, being singled out to get to spend time with Holden after the two days he'd spent missing him, and feeling useful to boot, would settle his insecurities at the sight of the new, pretty boy, not to mention ease the sting when Holden chose Yves or Jer or both to share his bed tonight. Holden had turned out, over the past year, to have a real talent for harem management.
"When you decide to acquire an auxiliary girl in a newer model," she'd half-joked to her mistress in bed, in the weeks after Jer and Bran had both proved to be permanent additions to the household, "do you think you can time it so it doesn't fall within the same week as your reunion with the old flame who's always had a piece of your heart?" She was lying very still on her stomach with her head resting on her folded arms, as Alix's delicate fingers traced over the flesh of her bottom. "I mean, if I was Yves-- there's being a good sport, and then there's are you kidding me, you know?"
Alix traced along the lips of Greta's sex, touching so softly that she didn't actually touch the dampening flesh, just the downy hair at its edges. "I know."
Greta's stomach turned over a little; she tried to concentrate on the touch, but she really didn't like what Alix hadn't said. Not that saying it was any guarantee, but it was something.
"So do you have a backup girl in mind?" she asked, trying to sound purely teasing. "Kit's coming along nicely, but you might want one in a contrasting hair color. Or a delinquent-- she might be oh fucking Skuld!"
"Language, darling," said Alix, her fingers twisting deeper inside Greta, hitting her G-spot at an agonizingly delicious angle as Greta cried out and writhed. "And hold still. What were you saying?"
"Mistress--"
"Oh, yes," said Alix, her thumb locating Greta's clit and rubbing softly as she finger-fucked Greta; sometimes Greta thought her mistress must sprout more than five fingers on each hand when Greta wasn't looking. "Another girl. Do you want one, darling? I know my breasts are on the small side, but I thought--"
Greta wailed wordlessly, seeing stars, as Alix reached up and pulled her over onto her back without removing the fingers of her other hand from Greta's cunt.
"Spread your legs wider, love," she said. "That's better. I thought we were doing rather well, just the two of us. But if you think we need backup, then by all means-- Well, think it over while I do this."
Greta had found herself entirely incapable of obeying that particular order, but her mistress hadn't seemed to mind.
The next time she saw Crimson, at breakfast the next morning, his face had returned to its normal color, revealing that he did indeed have freckles on his fair, nearly translucent skin. The gag was gone, though all the other restraints were still in place, including-- again rarely for Holden, at least inside the house-- the leash and collar. Crimson was following, perforce, close at Holden's heels, and Bran was following close at Crimson's, seemingly keeping an eye on him, though he didn't seem overly concerned given Holden's abrupt attitude and Crimson's pale, subdued demeanor.
Holden led him to the table and pointed to the floor, and Crimson sank to his knees, quite gracefully considering his current plight, and stayed kneeling up. Greta had an inkling he wasn't comfortable putting weight on-- things. It wasn't a type of inkling she particularly went looking for before breakfast.
Holden hand-fed the kid breakfast, chatting quite matter-of-factly with everyone else, and after the meal was over, tugged him to his feet by the leash. Crimson stumbled a little, getting up, and when Greta finally managed to catch his eye, gave her an unexpectedly sweet if slightly wan smile that made her want to snatch him up in her arms and away from Holden, who had obviously taken a dislike to him for some unfathomable reason of his own.
"What did he do to piss the master off so bad?" she asked Bran the next time she managed to get him alone, when Holden had dragged Crimson off to the training room to do whatever he did to boys who didn't smile pretty enough. "Do you know? He seems like such a nice kid."
"The master isn't pissed off at him," said Bran, looking apologetic. Well, it wasn't as if Holden would ever look apologetic for his behavior-- maybe he'd delegated the responsibility to Bran. "Crimson likes-- being restrained. When the master took everything off for bed, he, um, he didn't react well."
"What did he do?" Greta wondered. "I mean-- what? Biting? Kicking? Screaming?"
"Crying," said Bran. "And apologizing, and begging for another chance with his old master."
Greta frowned, puzzled. Surely sweet, fussy Lord Durnovo wouldn't have fed his troublesome boy all those horror stories about the slave breakers; he was more likely to have spent days reassuring the kid that Holden wouldn't mistreat him. "What's got him so scared?"
"I don't think he's scared," said Bran. "Not of the master, anyway."
"Then why is he crying and begging?"
Bran shrugged, looking uncomfortable, and Greta dropped the subject; Bran was useless when you tried to get him to question anything Holden did.
Jer was more forthcoming when Greta brought the subject up later that afternoon, as he sat on the pretty lace coverlet Greta had knitted for her own bed in a sea-green-and-silver yarn that she knew complemented her eyes, hair, and skin. Alix appreciated things like that; she had a nice eye for color and tone, but she didn't like Greta to actually wear anything but the light, loose slave tunic that was designed to make you easy and quick of access, so Greta did what she could.
The coverlet didn't complement Jer in quite the same way that it complemented Greta, though it made an interesting contrast, Jer's muscular, solid body resting on something so fragile and cobwebby. But Greta, perched on her chair in the light from the window, was currently focusing on his face. Jer was being very patient and pleasant; he liked Greta, though she wasn't sure why, since she'd fucked his former master with results that had to have put Argounov in a seriously unpleasant mood at home for some time. But if there was one thing Greta had gotten better at over the years, it was telling when someone was faking and when he actually liked you.
"Cute kid," Jer said of Crimson, shifting position slightly. "Trouble on wheels, though."
"You think?" Greta was shading in her sketch of his face, in three-quarter profile; the grim expression around his mouth gave her another reason to keep him talking about Crimson as she tried to capture it. "How come?"
"I know that type," said Jer, and Greta pencilled in a quick, thin line between the eyebrows of her drawing. "The cuddly-sex-kitten type."
"Like Bran?"
Jer shook his head. "Not like Bran. Bran's your standard-issue puppy dog. All adoration and faithfulness and obedience, and jumping all over the master every time he walks into a room like he's been gone for a hundred years. Jumping with his eyes, anyway."
Greta giggled, then frowned; Jer wasn't looking grim enough any more. "Stop smiling."
"I'm not smiling," said Jer, the corners of his mouth turning up, then down, and Greta tried not to smile herself. "Crimson, now he's a kitty cat. Cute, and cuddly-- he's trying to cuddle up even in that lockdown the master's got him in-- but unpredictable. You can be petting some lady's kitten and he looks like he's so blissed out he's got no bones left, and the next thing you know he's clawing the shit out of your arm and then running to hide under the bed, and you're getting punished for pissing him off."
Greta had thought her own experience with a master who had once been her loathed and loathing fellow slave had been traumatic enough, but sometimes the things Jer said-- like the implication that he'd actually been punished in the past for upsetting somebody's pet kitten-- unsettled her no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Jer saw her face, and his eyes narrowed.
"Not that you'd know anything about that, I guess," he said, as she dropped her gaze to her work, her face reddening, and concentrated on carefully feathering in fine lines around the corners of the eyes. "Mistress' sweet baby girl, aren't you? Ever since you were fifteen?"
"Fourteen, actually," said Greta a little wistfully, remembering her early, childish awe of Alix's beauty and sophistication, "but we didn't sleep together until I was sixteen. She didn't want to make me..."
She trailed off, blushing harder; what an idiotic thing to say to someone who'd probably never been shown the slightest bit of forbearance in his life, at least up until his master had tossed him at Holden like a child bequeathing an outworn toy to a younger sibling. She didn't look up until, to her surprise, she heard him chuckle.
"I don't know if that makes it worse or better," he said. "If they don't want to make you. And you wouldn't know."
It wasn't a question, but Greta shook her head anyway. She'd wondered, herself, whether certain things in her life might not have been easier if she hadn't had a choice: sleeping with Alix, for example, and, later, Holden. And, of course, having Valor. But if they'd told her she had to have an abortion...
"What's wrong?" Jer demanded.
"Nothing," said Greta, breathing in to banish the stab of agony that had gone through her at the mere thought of not having been allowed to have Valor, and looked up with her face composed. "Want to see?"
Jer held out his hand, and Greta handed him the sketch pad. He looked at it for a long time with what seemed to be a worried expression, and then, suddenly, almost shyly, smiled.
"Nice of you to flatter me," he said, handing back the drawing, and when she started to protest, "You draw the rest of them?"
"Just my mistress," said Greta, accepting the drawing and the shift in subject at the same time. "Val won't sit still for long enough, and the master doesn't like being... scrutinized. And Yves talks too much. You know how much his face moves when he talks."
"Yeah," Jer conceded. "What about the kid?"
"Bran?" Greta shrugged. "Everything's already out there. Nothing to draw."
"See what you mean," said Jer after a moment. "Hey-- you could draw Crimson."
"I could," said Greta meditatively. "At least I wouldn't have to worry about him sitting still for it, not the way the master's got him trussed up."
Jer grinned. "Sure, as long as you watched he didn't sweet-talk you into undoing the restraints."
"You mean the restraints the master put on?" Greta asked incredulously. "Do I look like I want to die painfully?"
"Got to watch out for those kittens," said Jer, getting up abruptly. "This was fun. Thanks."
"Thank you," Greta said to his back as he left, and after he was gone, smiled again as she put her drawing away.
Crimson was still on the leash at dinner that night, but after dinner, when they were all dispersing to the lounge, Holden held Crimson back by the leash, drew him close, and unhooked it from his collar. When Crimson sent a puzzled look up at him, Holden reached out, slid a hand through the boy's thick hair and made a fist with it, while the other hand rubbed slowly and deliberately down Crimson's body. Crimson whimpered and fell back a little under what looked an almost punishing pressure, and Holden pushed him back further, sharply enough that he would have fallen-- and badly, given the restraints-- if the wall hadn't been right there to catch him. Backed against the wall, he stared up at Holden, looking about to cry again. Holden tipped his head back by the hair and ran a hand over the kid's chest, pinching and twisting a nipple hard enough that Crimson made a sound like a sob and then tried to lean into Holden, who held him where he was for a moment and then pulled him in for what looked like a hug, whispering something in his ear. Listening, Crimson went crimson.
"Darling?" said Alix in Greta's ear, making Greta jump so badly that Alix laughed and Holden looked up, though Crimson didn't. It was Greta's turn to go crimson as Holden's lips quirked in a smile and her mistress wrapped a firm hand around Greta's upper arm and escorted her from the dining room-- and towards the stairs.
Greta swallowed hard. It wasn't that she was afraid of her mistress, but she'd been staring awfully hard at someone else, and while that wasn't exactly a punishable offense, Alix sometimes had... interesting... methods of refocusing Greta's attention. And Alix's hand was very, very firm on her arm.
But once upstairs in Greta's room, Alix didn't seem to be in a rough mood. She undressed Greta gently and laid her out on her lacy green coverlet, tying her wrists above her head with the silk scarf that was always on the bedpost and securing them to the headboard, and then curled up next to her, still dressed, stroking her hair tenderly back from her face.
"What is it, my love?" she asked softly. "You're trembling. And not in the way I like."
Greta breathed easier, relaxing into her helplessness as her mistress caressed her skin. She should have known Alix would notice how she was feeling. Alix was good about noticing everything about Greta, ever since the time when her failure to notice had had such near-catastrophic consequences.
"I'm not sure, mistress," she said, with the shyness she'd never quite managed to shake around Alix, even after all these years. Maybe it was that very close attention Alix paid, or maybe it was that Alix was so much more articulate than Greta, but Greta felt she'd rather wait for Alix to explain to her how she was feeling than attempt to explain it herself.
Alix cupped her left breast gently in one cool palm. "Are you worried about Crimson?"
"A little." Greta closed her eyes; it was easier to talk without looking into Alix's face. "The master's being awfully... rough with him."
"Maybe that's what he needs," said Alix's voice, in the darkness behind Greta's eyelids; her breath ghosted across Greta's cheek, and her warm lips were on Greta's lips, kissing her very softly before she added, "If it were gentleness he needed, I can't imagine Fyodor of all people would have had to sell him to the slave breakers."
"Yes, mistress," Greta murmured, wanting more kisses now, not talk about Crimson.
Both her breasts were in Alix's hands now, and Alix was kneading them softly; her lips pressed against one nipple, then the other. Greta was squirming, biting her lips. "Mistress, please, I need--"
"I know what you need, dearest," Alix whispered. "I'm here."
Background.
Greta's first glimpse of Crimson went a long way towards explaining his nickname. The thick russet hair bespoke the same delicate, fair skin that had been so attractive in her youth and was going horribly, prematurely crinkly now, and there were probably freckles in there somewhere, under better circumstances. But just now it looked as if the boy had been crying for a matter of hours and showed no signs of stopping any time soon; his face was wet, swollen, contorted, and the vivid shade-- crimson-- that Greta knew her own skin tended to go under similar conditions.
He was gagged, too, which couldn't make it easy to breathe given the tears-- and which surprised Greta; Holden hardly ever brought a kid home gagged. Of course, the kid might have been a biter. Greta couldn't tell much about his temperament given the gag, or how much he would have been struggling if he hadn't been locked into a number of restraints, including elbow-to-wrist leather cuffs that laced together behind his back, wide leather shackles on his ankles with a short length of thick chain between them, and a heavy leather collar with a chain leash attached and Holden grasping the other end, giving Crimson occasional short, sharp jerks to make him follow or get his attention. There were a couple of suspiciously inorganic silhouettes against his tunic when he moved a certain way that suggested the restraints didn't end with what Greta could see, but she chose not to indulge her imagination there.
He certainly wasn't fighting now, whatever he might have been doing to get himself so heavily restrained; he wasn't even looking up at the impromptu assembly that had gathered in the foyer at the sound of the car outside.
"This is Crimson," said Holden, rather obviously. "Crimson, this is my wife, your mistress. The rest of these people are your fellow slaves. Yves, Jer, and Bran belong to me, and Greta belongs to your mistress."
Crimson nodded without looking up, the slump of his shoulders so defeated that Greta felt a flash of indignation towards Holden. Holden caught her expression and sent her the long-suffering, put-upon, nobody-knows-what-I-go-through-for-my-work expression that still annoyed her after all this time. As if he'd even have a business or a vocation-- or still be alive, for that matter-- without Alix.
Greta was good at appropriate facial expressions, though, unlike some people, so she sent her master back a conciliatory look, hoping things didn't get so bad she had to risk interfering. She and Holden had a truce and even some genuine affection between them by now, but Holden was Holden, and interfering in Holden's affairs was a bad idea unless he was insanely in love with you, which he certainly wasn't with Greta. Not that she wanted him to be, since she liked her skin with a minimum of bruises and welts. But to each his own.
"I'm going to bathe him and get him oriented," Holden continued. "Show him the training room, and all that. Bran, come with me."
All right, so that was nice. Crimson would be reassured by the presence of another kid close to his own age who was so obviously well cared for and adored by the master they now shared; as for Bran, being singled out to get to spend time with Holden after the two days he'd spent missing him, and feeling useful to boot, would settle his insecurities at the sight of the new, pretty boy, not to mention ease the sting when Holden chose Yves or Jer or both to share his bed tonight. Holden had turned out, over the past year, to have a real talent for harem management.
"When you decide to acquire an auxiliary girl in a newer model," she'd half-joked to her mistress in bed, in the weeks after Jer and Bran had both proved to be permanent additions to the household, "do you think you can time it so it doesn't fall within the same week as your reunion with the old flame who's always had a piece of your heart?" She was lying very still on her stomach with her head resting on her folded arms, as Alix's delicate fingers traced over the flesh of her bottom. "I mean, if I was Yves-- there's being a good sport, and then there's are you kidding me, you know?"
Alix traced along the lips of Greta's sex, touching so softly that she didn't actually touch the dampening flesh, just the downy hair at its edges. "I know."
Greta's stomach turned over a little; she tried to concentrate on the touch, but she really didn't like what Alix hadn't said. Not that saying it was any guarantee, but it was something.
"So do you have a backup girl in mind?" she asked, trying to sound purely teasing. "Kit's coming along nicely, but you might want one in a contrasting hair color. Or a delinquent-- she might be oh fucking Skuld!"
"Language, darling," said Alix, her fingers twisting deeper inside Greta, hitting her G-spot at an agonizingly delicious angle as Greta cried out and writhed. "And hold still. What were you saying?"
"Mistress--"
"Oh, yes," said Alix, her thumb locating Greta's clit and rubbing softly as she finger-fucked Greta; sometimes Greta thought her mistress must sprout more than five fingers on each hand when Greta wasn't looking. "Another girl. Do you want one, darling? I know my breasts are on the small side, but I thought--"
Greta wailed wordlessly, seeing stars, as Alix reached up and pulled her over onto her back without removing the fingers of her other hand from Greta's cunt.
"Spread your legs wider, love," she said. "That's better. I thought we were doing rather well, just the two of us. But if you think we need backup, then by all means-- Well, think it over while I do this."
Greta had found herself entirely incapable of obeying that particular order, but her mistress hadn't seemed to mind.
The next time she saw Crimson, at breakfast the next morning, his face had returned to its normal color, revealing that he did indeed have freckles on his fair, nearly translucent skin. The gag was gone, though all the other restraints were still in place, including-- again rarely for Holden, at least inside the house-- the leash and collar. Crimson was following, perforce, close at Holden's heels, and Bran was following close at Crimson's, seemingly keeping an eye on him, though he didn't seem overly concerned given Holden's abrupt attitude and Crimson's pale, subdued demeanor.
Holden led him to the table and pointed to the floor, and Crimson sank to his knees, quite gracefully considering his current plight, and stayed kneeling up. Greta had an inkling he wasn't comfortable putting weight on-- things. It wasn't a type of inkling she particularly went looking for before breakfast.
Holden hand-fed the kid breakfast, chatting quite matter-of-factly with everyone else, and after the meal was over, tugged him to his feet by the leash. Crimson stumbled a little, getting up, and when Greta finally managed to catch his eye, gave her an unexpectedly sweet if slightly wan smile that made her want to snatch him up in her arms and away from Holden, who had obviously taken a dislike to him for some unfathomable reason of his own.
"What did he do to piss the master off so bad?" she asked Bran the next time she managed to get him alone, when Holden had dragged Crimson off to the training room to do whatever he did to boys who didn't smile pretty enough. "Do you know? He seems like such a nice kid."
"The master isn't pissed off at him," said Bran, looking apologetic. Well, it wasn't as if Holden would ever look apologetic for his behavior-- maybe he'd delegated the responsibility to Bran. "Crimson likes-- being restrained. When the master took everything off for bed, he, um, he didn't react well."
"What did he do?" Greta wondered. "I mean-- what? Biting? Kicking? Screaming?"
"Crying," said Bran. "And apologizing, and begging for another chance with his old master."
Greta frowned, puzzled. Surely sweet, fussy Lord Durnovo wouldn't have fed his troublesome boy all those horror stories about the slave breakers; he was more likely to have spent days reassuring the kid that Holden wouldn't mistreat him. "What's got him so scared?"
"I don't think he's scared," said Bran. "Not of the master, anyway."
"Then why is he crying and begging?"
Bran shrugged, looking uncomfortable, and Greta dropped the subject; Bran was useless when you tried to get him to question anything Holden did.
Jer was more forthcoming when Greta brought the subject up later that afternoon, as he sat on the pretty lace coverlet Greta had knitted for her own bed in a sea-green-and-silver yarn that she knew complemented her eyes, hair, and skin. Alix appreciated things like that; she had a nice eye for color and tone, but she didn't like Greta to actually wear anything but the light, loose slave tunic that was designed to make you easy and quick of access, so Greta did what she could.
The coverlet didn't complement Jer in quite the same way that it complemented Greta, though it made an interesting contrast, Jer's muscular, solid body resting on something so fragile and cobwebby. But Greta, perched on her chair in the light from the window, was currently focusing on his face. Jer was being very patient and pleasant; he liked Greta, though she wasn't sure why, since she'd fucked his former master with results that had to have put Argounov in a seriously unpleasant mood at home for some time. But if there was one thing Greta had gotten better at over the years, it was telling when someone was faking and when he actually liked you.
"Cute kid," Jer said of Crimson, shifting position slightly. "Trouble on wheels, though."
"You think?" Greta was shading in her sketch of his face, in three-quarter profile; the grim expression around his mouth gave her another reason to keep him talking about Crimson as she tried to capture it. "How come?"
"I know that type," said Jer, and Greta pencilled in a quick, thin line between the eyebrows of her drawing. "The cuddly-sex-kitten type."
"Like Bran?"
Jer shook his head. "Not like Bran. Bran's your standard-issue puppy dog. All adoration and faithfulness and obedience, and jumping all over the master every time he walks into a room like he's been gone for a hundred years. Jumping with his eyes, anyway."
Greta giggled, then frowned; Jer wasn't looking grim enough any more. "Stop smiling."
"I'm not smiling," said Jer, the corners of his mouth turning up, then down, and Greta tried not to smile herself. "Crimson, now he's a kitty cat. Cute, and cuddly-- he's trying to cuddle up even in that lockdown the master's got him in-- but unpredictable. You can be petting some lady's kitten and he looks like he's so blissed out he's got no bones left, and the next thing you know he's clawing the shit out of your arm and then running to hide under the bed, and you're getting punished for pissing him off."
Greta had thought her own experience with a master who had once been her loathed and loathing fellow slave had been traumatic enough, but sometimes the things Jer said-- like the implication that he'd actually been punished in the past for upsetting somebody's pet kitten-- unsettled her no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Jer saw her face, and his eyes narrowed.
"Not that you'd know anything about that, I guess," he said, as she dropped her gaze to her work, her face reddening, and concentrated on carefully feathering in fine lines around the corners of the eyes. "Mistress' sweet baby girl, aren't you? Ever since you were fifteen?"
"Fourteen, actually," said Greta a little wistfully, remembering her early, childish awe of Alix's beauty and sophistication, "but we didn't sleep together until I was sixteen. She didn't want to make me..."
She trailed off, blushing harder; what an idiotic thing to say to someone who'd probably never been shown the slightest bit of forbearance in his life, at least up until his master had tossed him at Holden like a child bequeathing an outworn toy to a younger sibling. She didn't look up until, to her surprise, she heard him chuckle.
"I don't know if that makes it worse or better," he said. "If they don't want to make you. And you wouldn't know."
It wasn't a question, but Greta shook her head anyway. She'd wondered, herself, whether certain things in her life might not have been easier if she hadn't had a choice: sleeping with Alix, for example, and, later, Holden. And, of course, having Valor. But if they'd told her she had to have an abortion...
"What's wrong?" Jer demanded.
"Nothing," said Greta, breathing in to banish the stab of agony that had gone through her at the mere thought of not having been allowed to have Valor, and looked up with her face composed. "Want to see?"
Jer held out his hand, and Greta handed him the sketch pad. He looked at it for a long time with what seemed to be a worried expression, and then, suddenly, almost shyly, smiled.
"Nice of you to flatter me," he said, handing back the drawing, and when she started to protest, "You draw the rest of them?"
"Just my mistress," said Greta, accepting the drawing and the shift in subject at the same time. "Val won't sit still for long enough, and the master doesn't like being... scrutinized. And Yves talks too much. You know how much his face moves when he talks."
"Yeah," Jer conceded. "What about the kid?"
"Bran?" Greta shrugged. "Everything's already out there. Nothing to draw."
"See what you mean," said Jer after a moment. "Hey-- you could draw Crimson."
"I could," said Greta meditatively. "At least I wouldn't have to worry about him sitting still for it, not the way the master's got him trussed up."
Jer grinned. "Sure, as long as you watched he didn't sweet-talk you into undoing the restraints."
"You mean the restraints the master put on?" Greta asked incredulously. "Do I look like I want to die painfully?"
"Got to watch out for those kittens," said Jer, getting up abruptly. "This was fun. Thanks."
"Thank you," Greta said to his back as he left, and after he was gone, smiled again as she put her drawing away.
Crimson was still on the leash at dinner that night, but after dinner, when they were all dispersing to the lounge, Holden held Crimson back by the leash, drew him close, and unhooked it from his collar. When Crimson sent a puzzled look up at him, Holden reached out, slid a hand through the boy's thick hair and made a fist with it, while the other hand rubbed slowly and deliberately down Crimson's body. Crimson whimpered and fell back a little under what looked an almost punishing pressure, and Holden pushed him back further, sharply enough that he would have fallen-- and badly, given the restraints-- if the wall hadn't been right there to catch him. Backed against the wall, he stared up at Holden, looking about to cry again. Holden tipped his head back by the hair and ran a hand over the kid's chest, pinching and twisting a nipple hard enough that Crimson made a sound like a sob and then tried to lean into Holden, who held him where he was for a moment and then pulled him in for what looked like a hug, whispering something in his ear. Listening, Crimson went crimson.
"Darling?" said Alix in Greta's ear, making Greta jump so badly that Alix laughed and Holden looked up, though Crimson didn't. It was Greta's turn to go crimson as Holden's lips quirked in a smile and her mistress wrapped a firm hand around Greta's upper arm and escorted her from the dining room-- and towards the stairs.
Greta swallowed hard. It wasn't that she was afraid of her mistress, but she'd been staring awfully hard at someone else, and while that wasn't exactly a punishable offense, Alix sometimes had... interesting... methods of refocusing Greta's attention. And Alix's hand was very, very firm on her arm.
But once upstairs in Greta's room, Alix didn't seem to be in a rough mood. She undressed Greta gently and laid her out on her lacy green coverlet, tying her wrists above her head with the silk scarf that was always on the bedpost and securing them to the headboard, and then curled up next to her, still dressed, stroking her hair tenderly back from her face.
"What is it, my love?" she asked softly. "You're trembling. And not in the way I like."
Greta breathed easier, relaxing into her helplessness as her mistress caressed her skin. She should have known Alix would notice how she was feeling. Alix was good about noticing everything about Greta, ever since the time when her failure to notice had had such near-catastrophic consequences.
"I'm not sure, mistress," she said, with the shyness she'd never quite managed to shake around Alix, even after all these years. Maybe it was that very close attention Alix paid, or maybe it was that Alix was so much more articulate than Greta, but Greta felt she'd rather wait for Alix to explain to her how she was feeling than attempt to explain it herself.
Alix cupped her left breast gently in one cool palm. "Are you worried about Crimson?"
"A little." Greta closed her eyes; it was easier to talk without looking into Alix's face. "The master's being awfully... rough with him."
"Maybe that's what he needs," said Alix's voice, in the darkness behind Greta's eyelids; her breath ghosted across Greta's cheek, and her warm lips were on Greta's lips, kissing her very softly before she added, "If it were gentleness he needed, I can't imagine Fyodor of all people would have had to sell him to the slave breakers."
"Yes, mistress," Greta murmured, wanting more kisses now, not talk about Crimson.
Both her breasts were in Alix's hands now, and Alix was kneading them softly; her lips pressed against one nipple, then the other. Greta was squirming, biting her lips. "Mistress, please, I need--"
"I know what you need, dearest," Alix whispered. "I'm here."
