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Learning Anew
The passage of time is swift in its passing, in only three months so much to speak of, so many alterations in my physical conditions and the state of my mind. From a slave to abuse and hate, to a slave bound in love, and in looking back I feel a sense of wonder and vast bewilderment at my transformation. All in just twelve short weeks? I feel I have lived a lifetime encapsulated in as many months that comprises only a passing change of season.
It was hard to think of him as only Frej, but it was important for me that I did. It was also a blessing Master Svend kept me from his contact. For the longest time my existence here was a secret, and Frej did not even think to look for me. He had I believe troubles enough of his own. He had gone to ground, no one could find him, family or friend, but I digress for am quite ahead of myself.
It was not easy, not at the first. That first morning I woke beside this man who was now my new Master. I felt an emptiness that I had not expected. I fought the strong urge to cry, he could not hear it, he could not know. I had given myself to him after all, on his terms and conditions. I could expect no quarter, and on day one it felt like a mistake. Yet I could not say why.
My fingers were at the collar and the ring suspended at the base of my throat, cold and smooth. Its newness, like his newness, familiar; yet not at all the same as my previous ownership.
I regarded him in his sleep,
could he keep me safe? I hoped so.
He had the resources undeniably. He was strong, equally as strong as his younger sibling, but mentally far stronger. I acutely feared this man's mental acuity, I always had, I knew he would employ it to trip me up and free me from the shackles of my past. However the path toward this I instinctively knew would be fraught with pain.
He was sound asleep, the morning light seeping in to cross his recumbent, peaceful features. My fertile mind had begun to asses him with more intensity than before. I now felt a great need to know him well, not in the cursory manner I had attributed him previous. After all he must from this day forward become the center of my universe, and I must push my previous expectations aside.
Frej, damn him, he was always there. Hovering in my dreams, my twilight world. It did not help my cause the brothers looked so alike. I must shake his hold, this man before me would demand I was his and his alone.
I thought more on his words of last evening, were they wise or indeed spoken in haste? I could not know. He could not love me he had said. Words that left me hollow and worn, defeated before I had begun. Was I really only chasing a phantasm, yielding myself to more of the same, another hard uncaring man?
I held on to the fact I knew he loved Ona, passionately, without reserve. It would be my failing if I could not garner his love, but to do so I would have to give him my heart. A heart that was bruised and closed. I had opened it once, and I had learned to fear offering it again.
This midsummer morn I regarded him carefully, he was easier to study as he slept. I wondered, had he got the tattoos that adorned his arms and mighty shoulders in his youth, and did he regret them now, or were they part of him? Did they in fact have a meaning? One day maybe I would feel brave and at ease enough to ask.
Of course I regretted mine, but then mine had been forced on me in a drugged flurry of tears. I already knew he did not approve of my defacement.
I dared to touch him then, gently, tracing the meandering designs, more art than bodily graffiti, boldly and beautifully executed. Demons and eagles running into the other, swirling circles and archaic runic phrases in greens reds and black. They only added to his masculine wiles. I suddenly found I had opened my mind to him, I wanted to know him with far more intimacy and fervor than I had before.
Black sheets of Egyptian cotton, smooth and fresh smelling. He was highlighted against them, a showcase for his masculine perfection, golden and strong. Yet I thought of a lighter shade of gold, the gold of his brother.
Where was he now, what was he doing?
He crept into the corner of my mind no matter what I did to push him aside, he was as much this man who lay naked and sleeping before me as he was himself. Svend, Frej, they were as one.
I felt hot shame at the tangent of my thoughts as his golden eyelashes fluttered open, gray eyes regarding me. He smiled, still luxuriating in the comfort of half sleep, he had a lazy satisfied smile on his lips.
He pulled me to him wordless, I knew by the intensity of his grasp what he demanded. I set to work appeasing him as I would have my previous owner, however his hand stayed me well before I could lift the sheets.
"We are not the same." His voice passionate and deep, harboring no remorse. Something quivered deep inside, some nameless thing, this clever man had indeed read my mind. I lowered my eyes in a voiceless admission of my sin and in abeyance to his superior intellect, letting him lead.
He crushed me to him, not an embrace of force or pain, but one of overwhelming power. I melted in his grasp. His lips sought mine his eyes were closed, was he deep in her? No time to dwell on this, I lost myself in the sensation of wanton deliciousness, his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth.
Oh it had been so long since I had had such a kiss. It was more erotic to me than anything, even being bound and powerless before a muscled god. It did not come to me with the trappings of fear, it was only of an aspect of pure joy and love. Ona was indeed a lucky woman to have captured such a man's affections. Could I?
I came many times long before our morning dalliance ended in coupling, and it occurred to me as I lay there recovering my breathless rapture, and muddled thoughts in his arms, he was right, he was not the same.
*****
The first few days of my new ownership were hard. I was glad this time he did not resort to tranquilizers to calm me, though I guess the presence of the baby had made that decision for him.
It was difficult to transpose this more senior man's mastery over me and accept it in my own mind even though I had invited it. I was shell shocked. I could not believe I had surrendered to him. I always imagined Frej telling me I had been freed. The shame and self torture of abandonment, not this. Part of me really needed to hear those words from his lips so I could have a sense of closure. However given the circumstance it was not possible.
Life was very different yet it was in many ways the same. Master Svend was even busier than his younger brother had ever been. He had meetings to attend, worksites to supervise, and rich customers throughout Europe to court.
It was odd as he still used English to address me. I had to admire him for it. It appeared he could amazingly speak multiple languages, and had attended of all things Oxford at his father's insistence. He was not the barbarian I had painted him. I felt both humbled and unworthy in his presence, driven mainly by my exodus of the education system at fourteen.
My first week in his company was fraught with self recrimination, and confusion. I feel such depressive guilt, though he cares for me and takes me for his own I feel love still for another younger, more violent man. A man who does not deserve my feelings, but I find to my chagrin cannot cast them aside. When we are alone together in the dark I reach out and I imagine I touch him still. All he was, and is, will not leave me be.
My hand strays often to my throat, devoid of his token of ownership, replaced by another. I look at my new Master, I am not worthy. I hang my head I already know why, I have never called him that not once. I cannot bring myself to. I do not deserve him.
Hesitancy dogged my every act, and the title Master I could not bestow on him.
To begin with he centered me with a very rigid routine. His orders simple and concise. He was demanding and hard on me. I had no time to dwell on the past. He wanted things from me I knew, things I could not supply. He wanted to know so many confidences, dark duplicities I was most uncomfortable with. Intimacies I knew of his wayward brother. I did what I had learned when I felt cornered, I revealed nothing. I invited his frustration and wrath, and for many days he vented neither.
I swam in a sea of guilt, I could not shake the thought of the child I had stolen from him. Even though I now carried another very real new life soon to be born. I saw the way Master Svend reacted to my pregnant state. He was not like Frej repelled by what he had made, he was entranced by it, doubly fueling my guilt at what I had done. He would rest his large hands on my belly often, walk up behind me and just stand and feel the kicks of the child. It was not his, but he behaved as if it had been.
I had been at the sink still doing the dishes by hand, he laughed at this and showed me the dishwasher. It felt wrong to use it, it was like cheating. However I could not reason with his logic the china washed his way felt far cleaner than that which I had labored long over to both wash and towel dry.
It was his usual habit to put his arms about me at the sink, always when my hands were occupied. He seemed to enjoy this game. He was ever curious of the child and the changes in my body, and even at times when I felt repelled at some of the things that were now happening to me he drank them in and made me feel beautiful.
The hard last quarter of pregnancy was setting in. I had begun to want my body back, it seemed I was no longer me, just a vessel for the life I contained. I felt, tired, bulky and unattractive, not to mention being on occasion alarmingly short of breath.
There had been strangers working in the house on the upper story, a crew of painters. This intrusion had made me nervous, outsiders always did. Thankfully he had sensed this and kept me from their prying eyes, closing the door of the office as I sat on the plush carpet by his feet while he worked.
