Golden rays of light danced across Maximus' face. The warmth awakened him, He expected to awaken with his tongue still buried deep in the most holy holies of Captain Ouralia. Looking about the master bedroom, found himself alone and still dressed in the tattered remains of his tunic and his wool braccae. The tight rope bonds that had handicapped his hands still chaffed at the skin of his wrists.
He rose from the bed with not a sound, his bare feet making special care to not clomp across the wooden floorboards. Sharpened ears tried to dial in his surroundings as he held his breath. Outside he heard several birds nesting in the crumbling remains of a church, this commingled with the clattering of a war camp packing up for a long journey. His veteran's ears knew the difference between a ladle scraping out the last of the morning porridge and hungover soldiers begrudgingly putting on their arms and armor. The sound soothed him somewhat.
Then came something unfamiliar but far closer. From beyond the master bedroom's door he heard a pair of hard heeled boots striding confidently toward it. It clattered open before he had a chance to make himself decent, the swinging wooden door revealing Ouralia.
She was dressed in ornamental tunic made from dark purple velvet. Thread of gold skulls adorned it in a repeating pattern. Her legs were clad in a pair of leather chaps that highlighted the cream colored breeches she wore beneath. High heeled riding boots draped her shapely legs in supple brown leather up to the thigh. She looked at him with the same cold lust as last night mixed with a professionally practiced sense of disgust.
"Ah good morning pet, so good to see that you've decided to join us!" Her tone was jovial as she bounded into the room on wide clacking steps. She put her hands behind her back like every military commander seems to learn to do when they have enough campaigns under their belt and blood on their hands.
"You've missed breakfast, but I trust you've eaten your fill of pussy pie." She chuckled coyly to herself as a familiar blush spread across her cheeks. Clearing her throat, she wiped the smile off her face with the back of one hand. She pivoted so that she was standing side face to Maximus like a fencer poised to strike, her opposite hand drew a riding crop and brandishing its leathery tip to where it was inches from his mouth. Reactively, the place where she had reddened his bottom the night before began to sting.
"If we're to get you to the auction block in a timely manner you'll have to step quickly pet. Now you've already made us lose two hours of daylight, kiss the crop in penance." Her tone was condescending as if she was dangling some sweetened treat over his head.
Maximus could only grunt in compliance as he planted a kiss on the head of the crop. She swung it in a crisp arc that nearly scratched the tip of his nose before she stylishly slid it underneath her arm.
"Good boy, with that out of the way shall we join the land of the living?" He could feel how much she was reveling in having power over him, the eternal stick held high that spurred him to do her bidding.
He grunted affirmatively, nodded, and trudged forward into the mercenary camp.
The afternoon sun hung hot and low overhead as the mercenary camp made it way down the road. By his mistress' mercy, Maximus had his lead tied to the back of a painted wooden wagon. He marched along quickly trying to keep pace with it so as to keep from being pulled or chafed.
He kept his eyes forward at the road before him, watching mercenaries share stories or bawdy jokes with each other as they marched freely. Once in a while he'd see one turn back to him, her face redden and then she quickly spun back around to giggle with whomever was nearest. The worst of these were the two wagon drivers, the company's stern faced and plain featured paymistress and their minstrel.
Throughout their afternoon hike he would watch as the paymistress would hand off the reigns to her traveling companion, mercifully pausing the ever worsening songs about anal sex. She'd then put both hands on the side of the wagon to steady herself as she creeped ever so slowly to look at him. Her pale features and doe eyes drank in every inch of his well toned physique. He noticed how her eyes danced over the exposed nipple and any other skin that shown through the tatters of the tunic clinging to him.
Each time his sharp black eyes would lock with hers she emitted a frightened little eep and returned to steering the wagon, her face a deep shade of crimson.
"Gee Chandra, if he gets you so hot an bothered under the collar why don't you ask the Captain for a little...release?" The minstrel would chatter each time like a trained monkey, her shrill voice just loud enough to tease the ears of the nearest four mercenaries.
"Shut your mouth Alips! Remember your place!" Chandra's voice was a whip crack in of itself but it did nothing to temper the uproarious laughter from the rest of the company.
Maximus' mind wandered as he walked. He imagined himself back in his villa at home. Crimson and thread gold sheets adorning the rounded bed as he lays Chandra onto her back. He kneels over her trembling, still clothed body. She whimpers and looks into his eyes as fingers trail down her yellow blouse. Pouty lips begin sucking at the air absently as his fingers brush against her stomach.
He was wrenched from his daydream with a lurching halt. His face colliding with the corner of the wagon and bending his nose into a forty-five degree angle.
"Halt! Halt! Halt!" He hears the commands bellowing from Ouralia, her voice dies down as the thundering of hooves grows closer to him. In a matter of seconds she's on him. Towering over him astride a black destrier, her eyes filled with revulsion. She looks down to the growing erection that betrays him from beneath his braccae.
"Daydreaming while on the march eh cur?" In one smooth motion she dismounts and strides toward Maximus. "I instructed you to obey my every desire, my every wish, and to perform well. What part of that..." She extended her riding crop like it was a fencer's blade once again. "...includes having lurid fantasies about my senior staff?"
He gave a noncommittal grumble and twisted at the ropes around his wrists. Blood dribbled from his nostril and onto the hempen strands. The cool, smooth leather tip of the crop slid beneath his chin as she raised it so he would look her in the eye.
"You have potential cur, but you lack discipline to follow the orders of your betters. Unfortunately for that you must be punished." She looked to the mid afternoon sky, its red sun now creeping to their backs.
"Alright, get off the road everyone. We'll break for a midday meal and disciplining this cur." She scanned the crowd of mercenaries before her eyes set upon a short, blonde woman. "Walpurg, fetch Andrew's Cross would you?"
Later, Alips knelt beside the crystal blue waters of a lagoon she had stumbled across. She was just far enough from the company that she could not hear their revelry anymore but not so far that she could not still smell their midday feast. Although she could not hear it anymore, somewhere she knew the rhythmic strikes of the flogger onto the cur's back still rang out. The sound of discipline always made her stomach churn.
She looked across the lagoon to a mighty waterfall that fed it, a small path of worn stones created an overlook perfect for diving. She unfastened the ribbon at her shirt collar, letting her colorful motley outfit breathe. She relaxed and sank into the silence of nature around her. Wandering hands reached up to the now exposed leather collar that sat snugly around her neck. She fingered the steely ring at its center as her mind wandered to thoughts of the cur, how his physicality seemed to please Chandra.
