"But I already have changed mine," I said with a faint smile.

"Not enough, I would say!" He gritted his teeth. "See that you please me and the Sultan, or you'll pine on the garden walls for a year, I promise you."

"You won't do that to me," I said confidently. But his threat struck my heart.

He stepped back before I could say anything else, and the line moved forward and I followed. When any slave forgot to bend his legs in the squat, he was rapped with the thong. It was the most degrading way to walk, and each step required conscious compliance.

We moved to a central garden path, and down it single file, and all those in the garden were rising and coming towards the same walkway. Many were looking at us, pointing, gesturing. I found it as bad as being carried into the city from the boat earlier, this being on display, being paraded.

Many other slaves were mounted again on the crosses. Some had been polished with gold, others with silver. I wondered if we had been chosen for our size or for the degree of punishment we'd received.

But what did it matter?

In this humiliating position, we moved on up the path as the crowd gathered on the edges of it. We came to a stop and were then divided to line both sides of the path facing each other. I took my position, with Tristan across from me. I could see and hear the crowd all around, but no one touched us or tormented us. Then the grooms came down the path, tapping our thighs and making us squat much lower. The crowd seemed to enjoy the change.

The grooms made us squat as low as we could without losing our balance. My thighs were smacked over and over with the thong as I struggled to obey. I found it worse even than the little parade. And I felt the nipple clamps pinch me with each shudder that ran through me.

But the air of anticipation suddenly sharpened. The crowd, towering over us and pressing in close so that their robes brushed us, looked towards the doors of the palace to my left. We stared at the path before us.

Suddenly, a gong was sounded. All the Lords bowed from the waist. I knew someone was approaching on the path. I heard moans, soft muted sounds obviously coming from the slaves. I heard such sounds coming from the deepest parts of the garden. And those on my left began to moan, to twist their bodies supplicatingly.

I felt I could not do this. But I remembered Lexius's commands to us, how we must demonstrate our passion. And I had only to think of the words to be suddenly at the mercy of what I truly felt--the desire throbbing in my cock, throbbing in my whole soul, and a sense of my hopelessness and abject position. It was the Sultan who was coming, surely, the Lord who had ordained all this, taught our Queen to keep pleasure slaves, created this great scheme in which we were firmly held as powerless victims of our own desires as well as the pleasure of others. And the scheme was so much more fully realized here, so much more dramatically and efficiently executed.

An eerie pride overcame me, a pride in my own beauty and strength and obvious subjugation. The moaning rose from me with genuine passion, and the tears flooded my eyes. I felt the bracelets holding my arms as I let the feeling move my limbs, let my chest expand, felt the heavy bronze phallus inside me. I wanted my humiliation and obedience to be recognized, if even for an instant. And I had been obedient, despite my little conquest of Lexius. I had been obedient in all other things. And I was overcome with delicious shame and desperation to please, moaning and undulating without resistance.

He was coming nearer. There materialized in the corner of my swimming vision two figures carrying the poles of a high, fringed canopy. Then I saw the figure walking slowly under the canopy.

A young man, perhaps a few years younger than Lexius, and of the same delicate-boned and narrow-limbed race, his body very straight under his heavy robes, his long scarlet cloak, his short dark hair free of any headdress.

He was looking from right to left as he passed. The slaves were crying softly but loudly without moving their lips. I saw him pause, reach out, and examine a slave, but I could not see the slave himself. This was all in luridly colored outline. He moved on now to the next slave, and this one I could see a little better--a black-haired slave with an immense c**k who was weeping bitterly. Again he moved on, and this time his eyes passed over our side of the path, and I felt my sobs catching in my throat. What if he did not notice us?

His robes were tightly fitted, I could see that now, and his hair, much shorter than that of the others, was like a dark halo around his head, and he had a quick and lively expression. Beyond that I couldn't study him. No one had to tell me that it would have been unforgivable to look up at him.

He turned to the other side of the path, though he was almost in front of me. And I wept unstintingly. But I saw he was looking at Tristan. And now he spoke, though I couldn't see whom he addressed. I heard Lexius answer him. Lexius was behind him. He came forward, and together they conversed. And then Lexius snapped his fingers. And Tristan, still in the miserable squatting position, was made to walk off behind Lexius.

So at least Tristan had been singled out. That was good. Or so it seemed, until I thought again that I might not be. And the tears slipped down my face as the Sultan turned back to us. Immediately, I saw him approach. I felt his hand on my hair. And the touch itself seemed to ignite to a blaze my smoldering anxiety and longing.

And a strange thought came to me even in the midst of this terrible moment. All the aching in my thighs, the shuddering in my sore muscles, even the itching soreness of my backside--all of it belonged to this man, the Master. It belonged to him and would have its fullest meaning only if it pleased him. Lexius did not have to tell me so. The crowd, still at a bow, the row of helpless, manacled slaves, the rich canopy and those who held it, and all the rituals of the palace itself--all this told me so. And my nakedness in this moment seemed something quite beyond humiliation. My awkward position seemed perfect for the proper display, and the throbbing in my ni**les and c**k quite appropriate.

The hand lingered. The fingers burned my cheek, caught the tears, grazed my lips. A sob broke from me, though I kept my lips shut. The fingers were right against them. Dare I kiss the fingers? All I saw was the purple of his robe. The gleam of his red slipper. Then I gave the kiss, and the fingers remained, curled, still, hot against my mouth.

And, when I heard his voice, it was as if in a dream, Lexius's soft answer following like an echo. The thong tapped my thighs. A hand cupped my head, turned me. I moved, keeping the low squat, and saw the whole garden again in a blaze of light. Saw the canopy moving on, saw those who carried the poles behind, saw Lexius following at the elbow of the Lord, and the figure of Tristan following with frightening dignity. I was put at Tristan's side. We continued, part of the procession, together.