Leo

CHAPTER 1: A QUESTION OF POWER AND CHOICE

She was wearing a very tatty dress that was too flimsy and short to be decent. It was an important day, after all, so she had to wear her best dress.

Though tatty, she was clean; like every other slave in line to meet the king, her owner had allowed her to wash herself in the garden using a bucket of cold water. She *felt* regal, with such fine treatment.

The line was long, but the day was fine, and, compared with the kind of work she was used to, standing up and waiting in pleasant weather was an easy chore for her. One might go as far as to say she was enjoying herself.

The throne had been carried outside of the throne room where it usually resided, and set up in the courtyard outside. The line filled the entire courtyard, winding this way and that, and out into the streets of the city beyond the castle walls, continuing down the entire High Street and snaking its way through many other streets. This was a city full of slaves, and the rumour was the king was looking for a particular one for something very important, but of course those lowly slaves weren't told what it was - they were just to be shown to him one by one until he found what he was searching for.

When she finally reached the courtyard, she watched as each slave was taken to the king and presented by their owner, one by one. Each bowed, was asked a question by His Royal Highness, answered briefly, and was dismissed. This had been going on for hours. And that was only today. Apparently, not one had pleased His Royal Eyeness yet.

As the morning stretched on and the sun climbed higher, the line in front of her grew shorter and shorter. By the time of no shadows, it was her turn.

"May I present the slave Leo. Female. 26 years old. Domestic labour."

Leo tried to remember what she'd been told to do and ignore the butterflies in her stomach dancing around. *Bow*. *Don't look him in the eye*. *Answer questions politely but briefly*.

*Bow*.

She bowed, and waited. After a few moments thus prostrated, she heard a low command:

"Stand."

*Don't look him in the eye*.

She stood and directed her gaze to his right ear. She wanted to see his face but knew looking him in the eye would earn her a serious punishment - from him, from her owner, from both - but this way she wasn't breaking the rule *and* she got to look at him.

He looked both very serious, and very bored. He was as good looking as they said, but she found his extravagant clothing gaudy rather than fine. She thought he would have looked much better without it.

From her peripheries she saw him appraise her at his leisure.

"Leo. Named for your master, I presume."

*Answer questions politely but briefly.*

"In part, Sire," she replied. Being careful not to cave into the intense desire to meet his gaze, she concentrated on staring at his ear. She thought it was a very nice ear, totally in proportion to the size of his head, not like her owner, whose ears were much too small for his large face.

"Explain," he said.

I'd heard that royals never asked questions, only issued commands and statements. It was a sign of their superiority. It was unnerving to experience it first hand, and yet somehow also exciting.

"I'm named in part for my owner, and in part for my character, Sire."

"Your character," he said.

"Yes, Sire."

She couldn't be sure since she was still looking at his ear, but she felt like she saw the ghost of a smile cross his face.

What felt like a long silence ensued. At length he broke it.

"You are looking at my ear."

That threw her. *Answer questions politely but briefly.*

"Yes, Sire," she said. She could hear the change in tone in her own voice: she sounded surprised.

"You find my ear intriguing in some way."

She didn't know how she knew it, but she knew he was playing with her. He must have known that she did not, but that she could not possibly say that His Royal Highness' ear wasn't intriguing.

*Answer politely but briefly.*

"His Highness' ear is proportionate to his head," she said.

This time there was no mistaking it: there was a definite flash of a smile.

"Come here," he said, beckoning her forward.

She moved to approach him and stood directly in front of him as he sat on his throne. Still taking care to avoid his eyes, she moved her gaze to his mouth. This close, she thought it best to drop her eyes respectfully.

Plus, this meant she got to look at his mouth.

It was an almost pouty, sultry, mouth; a mouth clearly used to issuing commands. And having those commands obeyed.

He put his hands on her waist and appraised her with his sense of touch.

"There's been better, and there's been worse," he said indifferently.

A long pause.

"Now you are looking at my mouth."

"I - I am bowing my gaze in respect of His Highness," she said.

"And yet," he said slowly. His mouth seemed to be enjoyed its speech. "Yet you must know that a truly respectful gaze would mean bowing your head entirely. Tell me why you find my *mouth* intriguing, now. My poor ear is very jealous."

He was joking with her! She could hardly credit it. The king was joking with her, a slave.

*Answer politely but briefly.*

"His Highness' mouth appears to enjoy its speech," she said.

At that, he broke out into a full grin.

"I think I understand your name, now, Leo," he said. "You are very insolent, but in a way I have never quite come across before. I believe I shall punish you and see how your *character* responds to that."

She sighed internally. She'd played by the rules and still fucked it up.

He leant forward out of the throne and grabbed hold of her waist with both of his large hands. He picked her up and deftly laid her across his lap, face down. With her thus in place, he pushed down on her back to hold her there with one hand, and lifted up her dress with the other. She never wore any underwear - she didn't have any - so she was immediately exposed to him. He spanked her ten times, not softly, but not hard either. It didn't really hurt, but she'd been beaten enough to know to react before it got *really* painful, so she emitted a small noise to acknowledge the sensation.

He laughed. "I do not believe you are suffering for this."

He spanked her harder another ten times. She increased the volume of her noise slightly, though it still barely affected her.

He laughed again. This time he spanked her very hard. She let out a genuine noise of reaction to the pain.

"That's better," he said, and did it again, but harder.

This time she moved slightly with the discomfort and cried out a little more.

"Excellent," he said, and did it again; this time it felt like he put his entire strength into it.

But about half way in, he stopped suddenly.

"You - you are *aroused*," he said. This time it was his turn for his voice to change to a tone of surprise.

She groaned internally. Her owner was too stupid to know how to tell when a woman was genuinely aroused - it was very unlikely he had ever seen such a thing - so it always escaped him when his beatings sometimes had the opposite effect to the one intended - and she wasn't stupid enough to tell him.

But a king, and one with quite nice ears and mouth, would be of real interest to many women, so it was no surprise that he could tell.

"A reaction beyond my control, Sire," she said honestly.

He picked her up and plonked her down in front of him again, but this time with her back to him. She was facing the crowd - the line of slaves and slave owners she had just been in. Her dress was still around her middle, so she had to stand thus exposed as she heard noises of clothes rustling and buckles jangling behind her.

Then his hands were around her waist again, and he was lifting her up bodily. It seemed to be easy for him to do. He plunged her down onto his lap, spearing her straight down onto his cock.

He was going to fuck her right there in front of the entire crowd, with her facing them all.

With his hands tightly around her waist, he lifted her up and slammed her down on him, ramming her hard each time. Her cunt was already ready for this thanks to the affect the pain had had on her, and she experienced each hard slam onto his lap as pleasure, mounting a little more in pressure each time. She tried to hide it - she felt it imprudent to show that she, a slave, was taking pleasure from he, a king - but it built up into such a crescendo that she could not.

Biting her lip so hard in a vain attempt to keep quiet that she feared she might draw blood, as she neared climax a small but distinct cry left her mouth.

It was immediately clear that he heard it; he stopped fucking her and plucked her off his cock, stood her up again and whipped her round to face him.

He looked incredulous; a look that *might* have been wonder, had he not been a king and thus could not but maintain an expression of haughty indifference.

"You took pleasure from *that*, also," he said, holding her wrists with his hands.

She blinked and swallowed her fear. "Yes, Sire."

"In front of this entire crowd."

"Yes, Sire."

"What a curious creature you are. I wonder whether you will also take pleasure from this."

He stood up quickly, his erect shaft still visible, but the rest of his clothing firmly in place. As he stood he pushed down on the top of her head with his hand, sending her sinking to her knees.

"Open your mouth," he said, and she opened it to give him entrance. He held her head in place, one hand grasping the back of her head, fingers entangled in her hair, the other under her chin, holding her jaw firmly. He thrust in hard, straight to the back of her throat. She gagged slightly at the sudden intrusion, her eyes watering a little. He withdrew and went in for a second assault. He kept this up: hard, merciless thrusts penetrating deep into her throat, making me cough, gag, and writhe in discomfort.

But as it went on, she found herself sinking into a curious place of serenity. Despite, or perhaps because, of the brutality of the attack he was doing to her mouth and throat, she began to find herself immersed in a feeling of stillness. The notion that there was an enormous crowd watching this humiliation faded out, until she felt like he and she were the only people in existence. As this happened, her throat stopped resisting him, opened to him, and allowed him full and easy access. Her body relaxed, and she felt whole.

He finished, shooting into the back of her throat. Then, he pulled her head back, and tipped her chin up so that he might look at me.

"Holy Word," he said, sounding now truly astonished, any attempt to conceal his surprise gone. "Your *eyes*."

He pulled her up sharply. He held her arms tightly against her body and looked at me severely.

"I suppose you enjoy being used as a boy as well," he said, looking at her intensely. She was too far gone into her heady state of mind to remember to drop her gaze and she locked eyes with him.

"No, Sire," she said softly. "I do not take pleasure from that."

They looked at each other for what felt to her like hours. Eventually he loosened his grip on her and pushed her to the side. She watched him call his aide to him.

"Send the rest away and bring her owner to me."

She stood patiently by the side of the throne and watched as the aide relayed this message to the huge crowd still assembled in a long line snaking its way out.

At length the entire multitude was dispersed and all that remained were the king, his aide, his guards, and her.

"Now, Leo, you have a choice. I wish to purchase you from your owner. For him you were a domestic slave. For me you would essentially become my sex slave, although your rank would be very considerably higher than your current one. Your duties, however, would be quite different. Though slaves usually do not have this choice, I offer it to you, for I wish for my partner in pleasure to be willing. Now choose."

She was cracking up internally. He thought sexual slavery would be different to what she was used to? Didn't he *know* slave owners always used their domestic slaves as sex slaves also?

She looked at her former owner, the hideous creature, hideous in every possible way. Hardly daring to believe this was truly happening, she replied without hesitation:

"I choose you, Sire."

He nodded curtly in satisfaction, and turned his attention to her owner.

"Name your price," he said..

Her owner uttered a number, at which the king scoffed.

"You are a fool. She is worth ten times as much." He turned to address his aide. "Give him double and revoke his licence. A man this stupid shouldn't be allowed to sell slaves."

That was the first time she witnessed his capacity for sudden rash cruelty.

Her now-former owner heard this and a look of panic spread across his face.

"Sire, if I may - my family have been slave traders for ten generations -"

The king cut him off with a hand. "As I thought. A damn fool." Turning to his aide again, he said: "Cut off his toes as well."

This time her former owner was not stupid enough to try to argue again. Looking utterly broken, he allowed himself to be led off.

"Wait," the king said. "Bring him back."

He was hauled back by the guards, looking vaguely more hopeful. Leo chanced a look at the king. The look of disdain on his face almost floored her. For once she felt glad to be in her position, and not her former owner's.

"She was a domestic slave in your keeping," the king said.

Her former owner nodded silently.

"Tell me, Leo," he said, turning to her, "what kind of an owner he was."

She knew in that moment that the tables had turned on her and my owner and that his fate now rested in her hands. She could save him further punishment by lying and saying that he was a kind owner. Or she could doom him with the truth. She had never before experienced power. She felt it course through her like a drug.

"Tell me now, Leo," he said, as she had hesitated. "Tell me whether he treated you kindly or cruelly."

She looked her former owner squarely in the eye and replied: "Cruelly, Sire."

The king raised his eyebrows and his lips curled into a grim smile as he looked back at her former owner. "Indeed. Tell me of his cruelty."

"He - he often beat me, Sire."

"Tell me how he beat you."

"With his hands, Sire."

"When you were insolent. As punishment."

"No, Sire. When it pleased him."

The king was silent for a moment. And then: "Cut off his right hand, too."

All the blood from her former owner's face drained instantly. He looked as though he may faint.

The king turned his gaze back to Leo. She realised she was looking directly at him and dropped her own gaze immediately.

"Continue."

"Sire, I -"

"I demand the truth. He beat you. Tell me how else he was cruel."

"He - well, Sire, he - he liked to use me - sexually, Sire."

"The King's Law decrees that domestic slaves may not be used for sexual pleasure."

"Yes, Sire."

A look of faint disgust crossed his face as he looked at her former owner again.

"Pay him nothing and cut off his cock too. Go." He waved his hand and the guards had to drag her former owner away, as he had fainted in terror.

She watched as the triplet of bodies became smaller and smaller. Her former owner's fate was now worse than her own by a long way.

She thought to herself, "This must be what it's like to have a birthday".