A Ind of Freedom

This series follows on my prior Sex and Vengeance stories. Reading them is not essential, but may provide some background, and at the end I include a small index for your convenience. Start with chapter 2 of those, if you like - the first one is much too rough around the edges to recommend. As with all my work, it is set in the world of the Eternal Republic: a kind of thought experiment in social eroticism, of fantastic worldbuilding that combines a kind of ahistorical Gilded Age of oligarchs and aristocrats from the 18th to early 20th centuries with elves and other fantastic beasties, and wonders what happens if we tweak various social mores around the intersection of sex, social standing, and public morality.

This particular series will deal at various points with drug use; heavy sadomasochism and consensual slavery; big ol' dicks; incest; hermaphroditism; acts of dubious morality; humiliation play; the sexual liberty of colonial spaces for citizens of the metropole; pregnancy; lesbianism; adultery, cuckolding and cuckqueaning; male homosexuality; non-sexual violence; and a whole lot more. Individual chapters will have more specific content notices as needed, but if any of that doesn't interest and/or offends you, turn back now.

______________

Karandreya slept fitfully the night of her ordeal. It was hard to find a comfortable position - the welts and bruises on her back (all over, from her shoulders down to her calves) and her breasts from her first ever beating saw to that - but her overheated mind was the true obstacle. Exhausted as she was, down into her bones, she could no more quiet her racing mind than turn back what she'd done. In a fit of pique, she had conspired to seduce her rival's wife, the Lady Starshadow, only to walk into a trap that had left her... Left her...

It had left her in what she could only describe, with her diet of bourgeoisie morality and romances, as a state of wantonness. Over and over that night, she touched herself desperately, needily, replaying it all. The sensation of the rope, the crash of the flogger into her body, the raw stretching ache of her tormentor's impossibly oversized prick in her cunt, still puffy and sore... Relief never came, and each time, she threw her head back onto the pillows with a groan, acutely aware of her heartbeat, of the coiling tension deep in every muscle in her body.

In her desperate neediness, she even considered lifting her punishment on Adrene, her adulterous husband whose short-sighted lust had sparked her need for revenge, and allowing him into her bed. But that could never happen, not while the marks of her own immorality were so deliciously etched into the soft expanse of her back. The cruellest thing the Lady Starshadow had done to her was to awaken this desperate need in her and then stop, walk away, and have her escorted out of the Locks club.

When Tira, her Lady's Maid - a small mousy woman from some dreadful provincial northern town or other - drew the curtains to admit the bright sunlight at the usual hour of nine in the morning, she felt more exhausted than when she had laid herself down. The mental fog of her prolonged arousal paired with the wretched drained feeling of waking from a tenuous, fragile sleep into a kind of maddening trembling rage and terror, and she curled to hide her face from the world, stifling a sobbed groan in her pillow.

"My lady?" Tira asked gently, pausing at the foot of the bed. "Would... Would you like me to come back later?"

Shuddering against the prospect of being jolted from her sleep again, Dreya sniffed and rose slowly in her bed - hissing at the newfound ache of her bruises - and shaking her head.

"No," she said. "Bring me my breakfast, and prepare a bath... A hot one. Quite hot. I'm... I'm terribly stiff, Tira. And tell Adrene I shan't see him today, and certainly not before luncheon."

As Tira nodded, curtseyed, and took her leave, her mistress took her first tentative steps out of bed, padding towards the wall mirror. Each step drew a fresh hiss, the deep bruises from the Lady Starshadow's thorough punishment expressing their deep displeasure with renewed vigour. Why, she wondered, did the twinges seem to turn the key to the coiling clockwork inside her tighter, sapping her breath with a giddy little tremble?

Her reflection was dire. Her hair was a mess, her eyes red and face puffy from the poor sleep and the free flowing tears of frustration and anger and need during the night. Two small circular burns decorated her neck from that dreadful (not exciting, she insisted to herself - dreadful) shock collar, like the bites of a vampire in the tawdry gothic romances she had devoured as a youth. But hidden beneath her white cotton shift... She shivered, hesitating.

Masochist. Painslut. Pervert. The words echoed in her ears from a distance, like thunder over water, and her eyelids fluttered closed. The feel of that knife's edge... The flogger... The spanking... Despite herself, Dreya felt the needy heat begin to blossom anew between her thighs, and she ground them together standing there - and sighed desperately with the pain. Lady Starshadow's obscenely oversized endowment had bruised her there too, and the movement revived the exquisite aching throb that - no! She would not think of it. Of what she could never have.

Instead, she opened her eyes and tore herself away from the mirror, burying her desperate urge to admire her bruises in the rage at being so cruelly misused. As Tira returned with her breakfast of tea, toast, and dates, she lowered herself (with considerable difficulty) into the seat of her small writing desk and took up her pen. There was still one path left to her to extract her vengeance on the Lady Bliss - one final tactic to satisfy herself on that fat-uddered bitch wife of the Lady Starshadow (for whom she held a new jealousy.) Seizing it, heedless of the consequences, she began to write the missive that would forever alter her life.

_______________

On the other side of the world, Arcadia sweltered. The cooling breeze had not come yet, and the evening fog that rose from the bay was trapped by thick black stormclouds that petulantly refused to discharge their rain over the sprawl of the most densely populated city known to man, elf, and orc alike. There, Tifereth sweltered too, fanning herself as she waited in line at her favourite vendor, shirt clinging to her skin with sweat. The air was heavy with the humid droplets that formed in the air where the steam, sea spray, and oil of the roadside cooks met and combined.

Tall, green-eyed, powerfully built, and blonde, her highborn Elven heritage was obvious to all around her - but all the same, she grinned as her favourite vendor, Mira, ladled out a bowl of oily Makrenese rice with crispy pieces of fried duck for her, and offered clumsy thanks in Makranet where many of her kinfolk would've treated the woman with the disdain they routinely offered to colonial subjects. She turned with her food, studiously ignoring her bodyguard from the local affiliate of her Family, and took up one of the precious seats at a narrow counter overlooking the bay itself.

Each trip she made to Arcadia was different. Her purpose was the same - scouting talent - but there was no end to the local variations. The constant changes necessitated the company of Banh, her far from unobtrusive shadow, who took up the stool beside her with a fragrant glass of tea. Bodyguard, translator (even after sixty years of possession first by the Kingdom and then the Republic, many of the common people of Arcadia spoke only a few words of even the Low Speech), and cultural advisor, he was a flashy dresser with the taste for colourful satined silk suits that so many of the local crime families adopted.

"I know you still don't like being followed," Banh finally said, breaking the silence between them. His teeth and lips were perpetually stained red from betel. "But the protections your family name carries are... Liabilities, here. You understand this."

Tifereth sullenly remained silent, chewing at a sumptuous mouthful of fried duck. Out on the water, shallow boats drifted between the great liners and the shore, lit by lanterns. The postal clipper that had brought her out was already departing after just a few hours transferring letters (and, discreetly, bundles of opium and cocaine), back on its way to Deveraux.

"We had fun last time, didn't we? We went to the parlours, and the races - we had fun." Banh continued, doing his best. He was, to Tifereth's perpetual annoyance, a talker - and uncomfortable in prolonged silences. "How is your Nahe coming along?"

"Poorly." She finally replied, washing the word out of her mouth with a sip of the local palm wine, refreshingly sour with age. Nahe, the local lingua franca, was a frustrating language, full of twists of the tongue and infuriating little tonal signifiers that defied Republicans.

"Well, that's why I'm here, right? Help you along, make sure everyone understands one another, no unhappy mistakes."

"Yes, Banh, I understand why I have to have you. I'm not an idiot." She snapped at him, turning on her stool. "I'm not in the family business, I don't want a fucking bodyguard on me, but. Here. We. Are."

Banh stared at her a moment, then shrugged, his broad-featured face splitting into a grin that wrinkled the swirling patterns tattooed on his cheeks.

"Here we are, Miss Tifereth, here we are. You're stuck with me, I'm stuck with you. I look away and you get kidnapped to ransom, you think your mother lets me go when I say 'oh, sorry sir, so sorry'? No, she has me crucified! As you say it: Here. We. Are."

"At least get yourself a drink, then." Tifereth sighed, relenting and slumping in her seat, burying her frustration in her food.

"I have tea!" Banh grinned at her, raising the cup in his palm. "And I have my leaves. You should try them, you'll like them. What is it you expats say... Ah... Soak in the local culture, a little?"

"Later, Banh. Later." Pausing over a mouthful of the oily rice, she glanced back over, raising one elegantly arched eyebrow. "And I'm not an expat. I'm here to work, not live."

"Sure, sure. Everyone comes here to work, not live, but - here we are. You think all those villas over there," - he swept his hand out across the bay, pointing to the gleaming hills on the other side where the 'right people' (almost all of them functionaries either from the Republic or from the local benighted branch of the Elven people, who had eagerly sold their services to their new masters in exchange for the survival of their privileged positions) made their homes, which she studiously avoided on every trip - "are people who came here to live? No, Miss Tifereth, they come to work too.

But then, going home every month... Very too much. Two weeks on a ship each way, who can bother? Why not stay, settle in, hire servants, get a plump little hursh for themselves and not tell the wife back home? An expat, Miss Tifereth, is just someone who comes for work then gets honest about liking it. You like it here, don't you?"

For a moment, she held it together, but his grin cracked her and she answered it. Despite the oppressive heat, the humidity, the monsoon rains, the baffling array of languages she could never hope to fully learn... Yes. She liked Arcadia, the gateway to the Southern Archipelago. Rather than admit it, she finished her duck, downed the rest of her palm wine - all with Banh grinning at her knowingly - and slapped a half-mark on the counter as a tip to Mira as she rose out of her seat.

"You might as well fill me in, then. Who am I looking out for this time?" She asked as they strode along the crowded wharf front promenade. The coming and going of the small-boat fishing fleet never ceased, day or night, and the noise of fishermen bringing their catch to the night markets and vendors covered their speech.

"Oh, just the Lantern Group. They want a bigger cut of the opium trade into Mazov and Kazan - we aren't going to give it to them. Not too violent - at least yet. A little blood, a little skirmish. They killed some of our people in the fishers, we burnt a warehouse, you know how these things go, yes?"

"Yes, I suppose I do," She answered with a sigh. At home, she was able to avoid involvement in these affairs. Here... That luxury was not open to her. "The Lanterners are Ramfolk, yes?"

"Yes, very awful people." Banh answered earnestly, strolling beside her with a casual lope that almost disguised his constant vigilance, his roaming eyes that checked every corner as they moved past it. "Very degenerate race."

"Funny. They say the same thing about you sea-nomads in the metropole." Tifereth shot back with a laugh in her voice. "What I mean is that I should be on the watch for anyone with Ram tattoos, yes?"

"Yes, all Ram, no one else. And I tell you, we Kurzai are not degenerate people! We are simply..." He paused for emphasis. "...entrepreneurial, I believe is the word they use for your mother, do they not?"

"As good a word as any, Banh. As good a word as any. Now, is that one baiduk house still open? The one with the - "

"The beautiful women? Yes! Come, I booked you a table..."

Shaking her head, Tifereth smiled and followed up the hill. There were, she wryly admitted, advantages to Banh's presence.

_______________

An entire week passed without incident among the rest of the Starshadow family - or at least, major incident. There were of course the many sundry dramas of any large family with a larger house and staff; a tiff over watercolours improperly appreciated and a subsequent caning by Lady Starshadow for Melos, one of her daughters, most notably. But these dramas constituted little more than the vibrant hum of a healthy family, and in no way prepared them for what arrived on their doorstep one beautiful Tuesday morning in the form of a front page article of the

Life and Times

, the scandal rag of note.

'SCANDALOUS CLAIMS OF SEDUCTION AND SADISTIC ABUSE', read the headline.

'A Prominent Lady of our Society, who will be known to all who were present at the recent soiree given by Lord and Lady Seawhisper,'

it continued,

'has alleged a most callous and malicious misuse of her body by a Notable Senator who is best left unnamed, but whose identity is known to all with cause as being of ill-repute despite Her high standing... The pictures we have seen, which we have not published for the sake of Public Decency, substantiate these appalling claims. We have duly consulted with the husband of this misused woman, who has confirmed her story of seduction and sadism.

Yet! There is no hope for Relief from the Courts, for not only has the once serious offence of adulterous seduction and criminal conversation been reduced to the merest fine, but it is the advice of our Lawyers that in such matters as these, the consent to engage in adulterous acts renders any subsequent claim of abuse unprosecutable!

It is a dire reflection of the Moral Degradation of the Peerage of this once great Republic that such matters should not only be not unheard of, but all but legally sanctioned - for if our very Senate falls prey to such vice, what hope is there to control the masses and steer them away from the unproductive and ruinous vices of sodomy that are thus alleged? The husband of this poorly misused woman is, we are reliably told, already preparing to act. Of course, we no more wish to see blood in the streets than the further degeneration of the Morality of our Great Republic, but we understand that a man's honour can be pushed only so far...'

Shaking her head, Hainora, Lady Starshadow, threw the tabloid down in the reading room of the Locks club. At the hour of eleven, it was sparsely populated. There was only herself, her ever-present companion and sister-in-law Shareena (dozing on one of the well-padded chintz lounges with her arm flung over her face to shield her eyes from the light), and a few of the dissipated heirs of lesser houses who could no longer afford libraries of their own to quietly gamble on trivia in.

It was rare, she sighed to herself, that vengeance seekers managed something like this. Most had too much sense to bother. Karandreya's letter to the tabloid would utterly destroy her but that offered little solace. The scandal about to blossom would be irritating to navigate, and almost certainly result in another of those dreadful swarms of investigative journalists poking and prying into corners of no concern to them at all.

Tapping the ash from her cigarette, she rose with a faint groan on account of her stiff knee, and paced back and forth before the high, narrow windows of reinforced glass. A part of her admired the damned woman: she'd committed to her plot for vengeance after all, even to the point of self sacrifice. A former lover had once called her so proud that she'd cut off her nose to spite her face, and Dreya, it seemed, shared that same pride despite her masochistic tendencies. But the rest of her mind, the portion not given over to romanticizing her opponents, set to the practical affairs that would have to be put into place.

"Shareena. Wake up and take notes." She muttered as she passed the lounge, smacking her dozing partner in crime lightly on the elbow. Shareena answered with a grumble but sat up, rubbing at her nose, and listened intently. There was no need for pen and paper - her memory was keen, and left very few trails for snoopers to pry into.

"Arrange for Paradise to revert to ordinary entertainments for a few days. No violence from any of our people for a week or two, if it can be avoided. And... Go ahead and write to some of our dear friends in the archipelago. I think your sister needs to take a holiday, and she might as well take a circuit visiting. She stirred this hornet's nest up, the last thing we need is her getting directly involved if it escalates... Book tickets for her on the Sonnet Line - I believe the

Maenad

leaves port in two days, that'll do nicely."

She stopped in her pacing to stare out at the city. Scandals erupted regularly, of course - they were all that kept the high society from falling asleep in their comfortable houses and apartments. Managed correctly, the temporary annoyance might even stoke further business, and she was already figuring an angle on it - there'd be fresh demand for specialized whores and pornography as people's curiosity got the better of them about just what kind of cruel misuse might have taken place. But under her waistcoat, just beneath her right breast, an old knife scar was burning in faint memory of the last time her predilections had been so wantonly exposed to the public. She made up her mind on the spot.

"You stay here in town and handle that side of things. I'll have them bring Lian'thera and the car around and go and deal with Bliss myself."

_______________

"Astonishing..." Bliss sighed to herself, staring out the porthole at the sunset. "Simply astonishing."

"My lady?"

"Just the colours, Jachir... Do you know if sunsets at sea are always so purple?"

"I'm afraid I do not, my Lady. I will ask the crew at the earliest opportunity."

Bliss sighed again. The water rippled with the fiery red-gold of the setting sun, which hung for a precious few lingering moments at the horizon in an otherwise impossibly dark indigo field. She had never been much of a painter, but a sight like that stirred the

artiste

in any sensitive soul, and she wished she had taken up the brush. But then the magic of it faded. The sun slunk a little lower, and the perfect radiance of the band of shimmering gold dulled.

"No." She replied, turning from the porthole to face her lady's maid, struggling to keep a hint of bitter melancholy from her tone. "No need. We'll have plenty of opportunity to find out for ourselves, won't we?"