My second bath with Oksha, the maid, was a particularly painful shade of embarrassing. I admit that as she cleaned my face with warm, lavender scented urns of water, I could not help but weep. Before my abduction I had a general idea of what happens between a man and a wife after their wedding, or for the wicked, any night beforehand. However not in my most wild and imaginative state could I have envisioned what Gareth had just done to me. He had stuck his cock far into my mouth, and without worrying about my need to breath or swallow, used me for his pleasure.
My mind shied to think of what had happened next, but Oshka's warm washcloth wiping up my face was a continuous reminder. He had spent himself on me, making his seed run down my face like obscene tears. It had gotten in my hair, and in my eyes, and even flecks of it were evident on the beautiful silk robe that had been lying on the floor beneath me. And as if this degradation had not been enough, he had proceeded to torturing my clit.
Admittedly my sobbing in that bath was not entirely over my hurt and disgust, but also was the result of my frustration and shame. For long minutes Gareth had assailed my clit, building up a heat and a pressure deep in me. After he had left the pressure had remained. I could still feel my heartbeat between my legs, beating a reminder of his relentless fingers. I found myself thinking back to the day before, and how it had felt to be taken by Gareth on Kavan's table. I was thinking about his cock tearing through my most private of places, and the savage rhythm that our bodies had made together. These thoughts only made the pressure worse. I wanted to reach down and touch my clit in the way Gareth had just done, but the presence of Oshka in the room stymied this desire.
By the time I was on to my next ordeal I had cried myself out. In fact, I looked quite presentable. My hair had been combed out by Oshka again, into a straight, silky curtain. My face was clean, my eyebrows had been plucked, and even my teeth had been rubbed to a shine with some paste. I was given a robe to wear, green this time, with an elegant crane embroidered on it, while the tailor and her assistants set up in my bedchamber. They instructed me to stand on a small pedestal, and like a swarm of bees, started taking my measurements. The tailor's girls spoke similarly to girls from my village, and this small connection to the world outside the castle warmed my heart. They complained amiably about having to get a wedding gown done in half a day, but I could tell they were excited.
When the robe got in the way of the measurements the tailor had me cast it aside. I was relieved to note there was not a single man in the room. Even my door guard was waiting in the hall. The girls seemed completely comfortable with my nudity and continued to take measurements on my body for which I could not even imagine a purpose. "Your neck is so delicate, Lady Isme. It must look so elegant in your jewels," One piped up, to my surprise.
"Your hips are so full! I want hips like those," the girl who was measuring around my thighs sighed wistfully.
"Her hair! I never can grow mine out that long." Another assistant girl whispered to yet another and pulled at her chin-length sandy hair. "Oh it will be so lovely at the wedding!"
In a motherly way the tailor shushed them, "the fact that not all of us are cut out to be Queen of this country... should be surprising to none of us." She had a long-suffering tone as if she spent too much of her time having to keep these girls in their respective places. "Be quick now, there is much to be done." The girls turned back to their work, except one, who's gaze lingered on my full breasts, as if wondering what she would look like with them.
The girls' reactions to me shocked me. In my village my beauty had been a source of shame. Women cast me out of their conversations when they saw their husbands eyeing me. They called me a whore and a slattern under their breaths and stepped on the hems of my dresses to try to trip me. It had felt so unfair, because I had done nothing to encourage their husband's sideways glances. In fact, I had never talked to men, unless it was absolutely crucial to an errand I was forced to run. Besides maybe once, I had done nothing in my life that deserved such cruel words.
Once, when the faire had been in town, I had caught the eye of one of the traveling storytellers. He had bought me drinks, which I had refused to imbibe, and plied me with compliments that I did not even half believe. However, he was charming, and nice on the eyes, with his dark shaggy beard and blue eyes, so I found myself unable to convincingly banish him from my presence. One night, with a sly look in his eyes, he commanded me to meet him by the riverside at midnight. I told him I would not go, but he had just replied sternly that I would. He seemed to know about a facet of me that even I had not guessed at. That night I did indeed show up at the riverbank.
He was there waiting for me, and business-like, told me to pull down my dress to show him my breasts. All the flattery in his voice was gone, leaving a deep, forceful voice that I had a hard time refusing. My hands performed the task he wanted, while my brain was confused why he was getting his way. I knew I should not encourage him, and that I should stay completely chaste for my future husband. "Stand still now for me." He cupped my now exposed breasts, using his thumbs to roll my nipples in small circles. I had been breathing shallowly and felt as if a veil of unreality was covering my vision. I felt like I could not move, both out of fear and out of a strange desire to please him. I had let him suck on my breasts, and bite at them. He only stopped when a group of three drunk lads from the village stumbled down the riverbank near us. The storyteller had pulled my dress back up, and ordered me back to bed, as if being out there had been my idea. The rest of the week I had struggled to hide the blue teeth-marks he had left on my breasts from my aunt and the other women bathing at the river.
Back then I had not been anyone important. I was a poor, orphaned ward of my aunt and uncle, and my looks had singled me out and put me in danger. Now, betrothed to a Duke, who somehow aspired to be King, I was someone these seamstresses admired. Ironically, now that I had every reason to be called a whore, I was being called a Lady.
The rest of the hour passed in a parade of colorful silks. Every color was held up to my skin to see if it was acceptable. Sometimes the tailor even asked my opinion. Gowns in late stages of completion were fitted to my form, and vast swaths of ivory lace were pinned around me, then whisked away. Thinking about the eventual purpose of the mountain of ivory cloth made my stomach clench and spin. Despite not wearing a corset, I found it hard to breath. I had always known that I was to be wed off, and not to a man of my choosing. But I had not anticipated the man being anything like Kavan. I was soon let off my pedestal and outfitted in a gown of sage and lilac cloth. While it managed to cover all of the parts of me, I was still lacking undergarments. I was led from the bedchamber by a harried-looking Oshka. She took me through too many passageways and portals to count on my fingers, eventually depositing me in a prim sitting room.
The woman that awaited me there looked formidable. She had high cheek bones and an even higher collar on a severe black dress. "I am Madame Depanne, and I am to teach you everything you need to know, in one hour." The thin line of her mouth made it clear how she felt about this task. "I am to turn you," she gestured at me dubiously, "into a functioning member of this court. How I am to do that," she waved her hand in the air, "evades me." She held a stick in her left hand that looked like a thin, bejeweled cane. "Can you read, girl?"
"No." I whispered, cowed by this woman's sophistication and disdain. Whap! As quickly as a striking snake she rapped the top of my wrist with her cane.
"No, Madame, is what you shall say. Now sit up straight. A queen is to always have each of her vertebrae perfectly at her command." Frightened and stinging, I tried to copy her posture. She then went about teaching me the names, titles and holdings of all of the important families in court, and how to greet them. She quizzed me, and when I forgot a detail, she would ruthlessly employ her rod. Her favorite spots to hit were the palms of my hand and the tops of my thighs. Soon these spots were pale blue with bruises, like a winter pond. "To whom is Lady Callaway of Pentree married?"
"Earl Lackmore, Madame?" I hedged. Whap! The stick hit the tender skin on the bottom of my forearm, causing a red mark to blossom against my smooth tan skin.
"Earl Lackimore. Also, her father is a Loyalist." She sniffed with disgust. Confused by how this information was relevant, I looked back down at my arm. Madame Depanne caught me wincing and cracked a humorless smile. "I believe in your time here you will have to grow a thicker skin." She caressed the line of my jaw with the jewel at the end of her stick. "Lord Kavan is not a bad man. No, he is not bad, but in this castle his appetites are... known of. And you are so pretty," Depanne mused, touching my loose hair with her cane. "Do you know what to do when a man strikes you?"
"No, Madame," Whap! She hit me on the upper thigh, by my hip bone.
