Chapter 10

LAURENT: A LESSON IN SUBMISSION

WE WERE back in the palace, in the cool darkness of the corridors, with the smell of burning oil and burning resin from the torches and no sound but Lexius's pounding feet and my hands and knees on the marble.

I knew when he slammed the door and bolted it that we were back in his chamber. I could feel his anger. I took a deep breath, staring at the pattern of stars in the marble. I hadn't remembered them. Lovely red and green stars with circles inside them. And the sunlight made the marble warm. The whole room was warm and quiet. I saw the bed in the corner of my eye--I hadn't remembered that either. Red silk, piled with cushions, lamps on chains hanging on either side of it. He had crossed the room, taken down a long leather strap from the wall. Good. Now we had something. Not those stupid thongs. I knelt back on my heels again, my c**k pumping under the tight circle of the c**k strap.

He turned and held the strap in his hands. It was heavy. It would hurt nicely. I might even be sorry before it was done, very sorry. I looked at him levelly. "You're going to cover me or I'm going to cover you before we leave here," I thought. "I make you that wager, young and elegant and silver-tongued Master."

But I just smiled at him. And he stopped, staring at me, his face suddenly blank, as if he didn't believe I was smiling at him.

"You cannot speak in this palace!" he said between his clenched teeth. "You will never dare to do that again!

"Are you a gelding or not?" I asked. I raised my eyebrows. "Come, Master." I smiled again slowly. "You can tell me. I won't tell anyone."

He appeared to be trying to regain his composure. He took a deep breath. Maybe he was thinking of something worse than whipping, and I wasn't being clever enough. I wanted the whipping!

Around him the little room seemed to glow in the slanting sun--the patterned floor, the red silk bed, the heap of cushions. The windows were covered with enameled and filigreed screens making them into thousands of little windows. And he seemed very much a part of it in his narrow velvet robe, his black hair swept back behind his ears, the little earrings glittering.

"You think you can provoke me into taking you?" he whispered. His lips quivered slightly, revealing the tension in him. His eyes were glittering with anger. Or with excitement. Hard to tell which. But what is the difference, really, whether the source of the light is burning oil or burning wood? It's the light that matters.

I didn't speak. My body was speaking, however. I looked him up and down, the slender reed of a man that he was, the way his fine, supple skin wrinkled delicately at the edges of his mouth.

His hand moved. It went to his girdle and unfastened it. The thing dropped and his robe opened, the fabric very heavy, the two sides of the robe standing open, and underneath I saw his naked chest, the black curly hair between his legs, and his c**k rising like a spike, curving slightly. And the scrotum, quite large, swathed in fine, lacy, dark curls.

"Come here," he said. "On your hands and knees."

I waited a heartbeat or two before I responded. Then I went down on all fours again, my eyes still on him, and I crossed the distance between us. I sat back again without his telling me that I could, and I smelled the cedar and spice perfume rising from his robes, I smelled his dark male smell, and looked up to see the wine-colored ni**les under the flap of the robe. I thought about the clamps the grooms had put on me, the way the leashes had pulled them.

"Now we'll see if your tongue can do anything except spout impertinence," he said. He couldn't keep his chest from heaving, couldn't keep his body from giving him away, though the voice was flinty. "Lick it," he said softly.

I gave a secretive laugh. And I knelt up again, careful not to touch his clothes, and I drew in close and licked not the cock, but the scrotum. I licked it closely underneath, pushing the balls up a little with my tongue, stabbing at them with my tongue, then I licked under them to the flesh right behind them. I felt him push forward a little. I felt him sigh. I knew he wanted me to take the balls in my mouth, or to go at them with more pressure, but I did exactly what he had told me to do. If he wanted more, he would have to ask for it.

"Mouth them," he said.

I laughed to myself again.

"Gladly, Master," I said. He tensed at the impertinence. But I had my open mouth against his scrotum and I was sucking at the balls, one and then the other, trying to get both of them into my mouth, but they were too big. And my own c**k was on the edge of agony. I twisted my hips, rotated them, and the pleasure pumped through me, thudding into pain. I opened my mouth wider and pulled at the scrotum.

"The cock," he whispered.

And then I had what I wanted. He pushed it against the roof of my mouth, then down deep into my throat, and I sucked it in long powerful strokes, running my tongue along it, and letting my teeth scrape it lightly. My head swam. My own pelvis was stiff, and the muscles in my legs were so tense they would ache after. He moved forward pressing his crotch into my face, and I felt his hand on the back of my head. He was going to come any second. I backed off, and licked at the tip of the cock, deliberately teasing him. His hand tightened, but he didn't say anything. I licked his c**k slowly, playing with the tip. I moved my hands into his robe. The fabric was cool and soft, but the real silk was the flesh of his backside. I closed my hands on it, pinching the flesh, and let my little fingers curl towards his anus.

He reached down to pull my arms out of his robe. He dropped the strap.

And I stood up and flung him back towards the bed, tripping him so that he lost his balance. I jerked him around by the right arm so that he fell on his face, and I started to tear the robe off him.

He was strong, very strong, and he struggled violently. But I was much stronger and considerably bigger. And he had his arms caught in the robe, and, in a moment, I had it torn off him and thrown aside.

"Damn you! Stop this. Damn you!" he said and then came a nice string of threats or curses in his own tongue, but he didn't dare to shout aloud. And the door was bolted. How would anyone get in to help him?

I was laughing. I shoved him down into the silk mattress and held him with my hands and my bent knee and looked at him, his long smooth back, the purest skin, and this backside, this muscular unpunished backside, just waiting for me.

He was struggling like mad. I almost went right into him. But I wanted to do it differently.

"You'll be punished for this, you mad and stupid Prince," he said. And it had conviction, and I liked the sound of it. But I said: