"What's wrong, Zaccheus?"
"What? Nothing."
"Nothing. Right."
Arif crossed the room we shared and took two glasses and the decanter from the dresser and came back to where I stood, looking out our small window over the garden. He filled one crystal challis and offered it to me. I took it and drew in a taste of the warm port, turning back to the soothing vista of night sky and moonlit garden. Arif remained by my side, sipping from his glass.
"Tell me, Zaccheus, what happened on your shift tonight."
I turned from the cool breeze to face him. He was grinning with wicked curiosity. Something told me he already had a fairly clear idea of what sort of thing had transpired that night in the master's salon. Arif had been in the master's employ for more than a year, while I had only arrived the week before, on my eighteenth birthday. In the nine days since my arrival Arif had been tutoring me in my various duties, which until that night had been light. Surprisingly so. Little more than attending the master in the evenings as he took his meal at table, staying nearby when he adjourned to the library, fetching his pipe and filling his glass as he read by the fire. But this night had been very different.
Like all those employed in the mansion I had been raised on the property—schooled by the teachers in the master's employ, brought up by parents who had been taught the same lessons in the same little stone building when they had been children. I had been lessoned very thoroughly and very strictly, like all the boys and girls who had grown up with me, on matters of morality and propriety. Then, like all the other souls belonging to Lord Melchior, on my tenth birthday I had left my family and moved into the boys' boarding school to finish my education. What I had seen, what I had been made to do that night violated everything I had been taught. Everything except the one rule which was understood to be supreme above all the others: that Lord Melchior was to be obeyed in everything, without question.
I drained the last of the port from my glass and Arif quickly filled it again. As the warmth of the drink spread through me some of my anxiety abated, and as my mind roamed over the images of what I had seen and my body remembered what it had felt, my prick stirred restlessly in my snug breeches. Arif's eyes drifted from my flushed face down to my crotch and his dirty grin widened.
"Sit down, Zaccheus. I have a feeling the story you've got to tell is worth hearing in detail. We may as well be comfortable."
I was still unused to the luxuriant accommodations. The little cottage I had shared with my parents and siblings had only the barest of furnishings. My little cot had served as bed and bench. The boarding school, too, had been austere. But in the room I shared with Arif, we not only had two comfortable beds, but two armchairs, upholstered in rich fabric and very soft to sit upon. And certainly I had never eaten such rich food as we were given here, nor tasted a drop of wine. But our decanter was filled each evening and we were permitted to drink as much of it as we liked once we had finished our evening's work. Now, relaxed by the port I sank down into one chair, and Arif pulled the second just opposite and sat down.
"Come on, let's have it."
It seemed wrong to speak of it, but after all that Lord Melchior had asked of me, of all of us that night, I doubted that I knew any longer what was right and what wrong. I felt terribly confused. Perhaps if I told Arif what had happened, he could help me understand.
"Well," I began, seeing Arif's mouth spread in a smile now that I was finally relenting, "the evening started out normally enough. I was warned in advance by Jeremy that the master would have company, and though I'd never attended him before in the presence of a guest, it wasn't any more difficult than usual. As always, I merely stood at his elbow, waiting to see if he would need anything from me. The hardest thing for me was keeping my eyes straight ahead, not looking at Lord Eldrich, who was sitting just opposite our master. I could tell from his voice that old Lord Eldrich was terribly nervous, and though I don't really understand such matters, it was clear enough that our master has the old fellow over a barrel on some financial matter between the two of them. It was very strange, seeing a nobleman like the master sweating and trembling with fear, hearing his raspy old voice waver, hearing his obsequious tone each time he made a reply to some question of the master's."
"The other thing that made it strange for me was the large staff in attendance. I'm accustomed to seeing no one but Jeremy. But tonight, because of the guest, I suppose, there were four guards standing at attention along the wall behind Lord Eldrich. From the moment I entered the salon at the master's side those four gave me a fright. Such big, brutish looking fellows, standing at rigid attention, their heavy batons hanging gleaming at their sides. They paid me no mind, though, and only stared straight ahead at nothing as we've all been taught."
"Then there was the girl."
"Ah, so there was a girl, was there?"
Arif looked really pleased now, and my feeling of shame at all that had happened, all I was about to tell, rose up in me again with that little smirk of his.
"Yes. I didn't understand why, at first, but instead of Jeremy, there was a young girl waiting on the master and his guest, bringing them small plates of fruit and pastries, filling their glasses with wine. I could not help watching her, though I was careful to follow her only with my eyes, keeping my head facing forward. But I had to look. I hadn't seen a woman since I left home and went to the boarding school."
"What was she like?" Arif asked hungrily, again reminding me of my shame.
"Very young. And so nervous."
"I'll bet!" Arif blurted in a laugh.
"I pitied her. Nervous as I was, I couldn't imagine how frightened she must have been, in that room with all those men. Each time she carried a plate or filled a glass from the decanter it was plain that her hands were shaking."
"What did she look like?"
"Well..."
To me she had seemed incredibly pretty, but then I had only distant memories of my mother and the neighbor women to which I might have compared her. I only knew that when I saw her my insides seemed to melt a little and I was terrified that my prick would get hard and Eldrich or the master would notice.
"...her hair is a deep, glossy auburn, long and wavy. Almost curly. She has big hazel eyes that show her every emotion, and her skin is pale. It has almost no color to it at all."
"And her body?"
Oh, her body. I felt myself blush and Arif laughed at me. He seemed to be enjoying my embarrassment almost as much as the master had enjoyed poor Rasha's.
"Her body is...soft."
"Tall? Short?"
"Perhaps two inches shorter than me."
"Tall for a woman, then. What sort of figure? Was she a straight up and down sort of girl? Or round and curvy?"
"At first, you know, I couldn't see. She wore a long white skirt and a long white shift, and over that a tight vest."
"Of course, right. You tell me about her body later. Just go on with your story."
"Well, the master and Lord Eldrich went on eating their food, drinking their wine, and talking business for a while, the master getting increasingly annoyed with what Lord Eldrich was telling him, and Lord Eldrich getting more and more nervous. It was embarrassing hearing him making excuses and sniveling to the master. I never imagined I'd hear a nobleman talking that way. Finally the master seemed fed up with it and sent Eldrich on his way, bowing and scraping through a humiliating exit. I was feeling rather sickened by the whole thing, and poor Rasha's trembling nervousness just made the whole scene unbearable. I had to hold in a heavy sigh of relief to see Lord Eldrich go, for I was anxious to have the evening done with, to return to the comfort of our room. Rasha, too, looked relieved, as she must have imagined, or hoped, that with Eldrich's departure she would soon be free to leave. But as she stood by the sideboard, clearly hoping for a word from the master that she might make her escape, I saw her shudder with a terrible fear that was far beyond the tense embarrassment she had been displaying all evening as she served. I could not see the master, but stealing a long look at her I felt sure that he was raking his eyes over her."
"What's your name, girl?" he called across the room to her.
