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She had closed her eyes, and a little sob had risen from her throat. All my compassion had flown away, now that I knew the next thing that would befall me would be a terrible ride atop my guardian’s punishment horse. I had let out a snort of derision, and neither Viola nor I had spoken again as I had dried myself off and donned the lingerie, and gathered my hair in the Magisterian purple ribbon that Philip had given to Viola.
Prince Hendren’s utterly Magisterian smile reminded me of the ribbon, of the way it made me a match for the purple-uniformed officer who meant to claim me so utterly. My heart pounded, and I found myself looking down at my bare feet, both hands behind me to guard myself despite the absolute futility of the gesture.
“We’re live in three… two…” said one of the cameramen. My brain tried feebly to remember how important that old, old way of beginning a live broadcast had been to me, when I had served as a cabinet secretary to the treasonous, pitiful woman who stood just behind me to my right side.
His Royal Highness spoke.
“Hello and welcome to this special broadcast from the Magisterian Federation’s new Artemisia Reformation Center to the entirety of the federation, but in particular to the citizens of Artemisia itself.”
I tried to keep my face neutral, though I could feel tears prickling at the corners of my eyes. With a massive effort of will I raised my eyes to Philip’s face. He still stood two meters or so away from me, and he still wore the smile that I found by turns maddening and maddeningly arousing. I took my hands from my backside and put them at my sides, curled into loose fists, trying as hard as I could to keep my body relaxed.
Distantly, I realized that my training as a public relations professional had unexpectedly kicked in, as if my body knew how to act in the middle of a transmission going out to the whole of my planet. I thought in that moment that if I could keep my eyes up and away from the things that would remind me of the humiliating circumstances, I might forget at least for a little while about why I stood here and what this broadcast actually meant. Maybe, I thought, I would show myself able to maintain a stalwart, honorable resistance to the ordeal Viola had delivered me to.
The prince had other ideas, clearly.
“Before I even get to the more formal announcements about what this broadcast means for you, my Artemisian friends, I want to introduce you to someone the more politically inclined among you may already know. The lovely young woman standing to my left is Miss Sara Granzofar, and she was Artemisia’s secretary of public relations, a member of the cabinet of the woman standing near her, whom I’m certain you allwillrecognize—Miss Viola Herranofar, your former president.”
Keep your eyes off the camera.I knew that simply from my former career.Myrealcareer, dammit.It didn’t help that every time I thought of looking toward the lens that I knew must have begun intercutting close-ups of my and Viola’s faces with a medium shot of the prince—or that represented what I would have done, anyway—I wanted to move my hands back behind my bottom again.
The thought that my guardian would punish me for violating a basic rule of public relation—a rule my actual real-life training had taught me, one that represented a bedrock layer of the professionalism that had landed me at the very top of my society… no, it didn’t help at all. Exactly the opposite, in fact: contrary to all that egalitarian career training, I desperately wanted to look at the camera to figure out when it had its lidless eye on me or on Viola or maybe on Philip.
Instead I took a little comfort from the way my instincts pushed back. It didn’t constitute actual defiance, but at least I could keep looking into the middle distance, pretending to the global and galactic audience that the Magisterians could kidnap me and strip me and put me in lacy lingerie—and they could do to my innocent body the terrible things my guardian had promised—but they couldn’t break my egalitarian spirit.
“Viola,” the prince said, “wisely decided that she shouldn’t be the one to undergo what you’ll see Sara experiencing tonight. The price of that decision is that your former president is here tonight as my guest, dressed as I chose to dress her, and she will watch as her public relations secretary and—I should add—friend, at least before this morning, is disciplined on her behalf and yours, citizens of Artemisia.”
I think the prince hoped I would look at Viola at that point. I felt certain she had looked at me. I managed to stare straight ahead, just as I always had during my press conferences. I felt my hands clench a little tighter at my sides, though, and I couldn’t help wondering if the cameramen had the skill to pick that up—or whether perhaps the director, calling the shots from his control room, had asked for a close-up of my little hands tensing in fear and arousal.
“What you will see befall Miss Sara Granzofar over the next hour, my Artemisian friends, will represent no more nor less than the formal beginning of the reparations your world has agreed to supply to the Magisterian Federation for your support of the Vionian Empire’s unprovoked aggression against us. Because Magisterian society is founded on an honest desire to make clear to all the human worlds the benefits of our culture and our gender norms, much of these reparations will involve the voluntary restructuring of your social institutions. Sara here will, we hope, symbolize that transition visibly and helpfully. You will see her soundly punished simply because her guardian has decided she needs it and will profit from it. You will see how she responds sexually to this forced submission, and how her guardian trains her for her new life of sexual service with a Magisterian master.”
I tried so very hard to keep my face neutral. I did manage not to look at the prince, or at Philip, or even at the floor. I saw only the doorframe, and I pretended the room beyond it held no terrors, no bench for strapping a young woman to and whipping her bare bottom until she would do anything to escape the cane. But I couldn’t keep my breathing steady: I felt my nostrils flare, and my cheeks get red, and I knew any director worth his salt would long since have gone to a close-up of my face while the prince delivered his terrible decree.
“While we bring Sara into the room where Major Harrow, her guardian, will whip her, we’re going to show you a scene from earlier today that we hope will put your minds at ease about whether the reformative training we’re giving Sara really is good for her. You’ll see this lovely young woman learn to masturbate with a special toy in her most private place, and I think you’ll find Sara’s performance just as touching as you do arousing—I certainly did, when I saw it the first time.”
CHAPTER26
Sara
Cut,I thought to myself as I sensed the familiar relaxation I had felt in so many news studios, while a tape rolled and everyone involved in the live broadcast caught their breath. My eyes went to Philip, searching instinctively, though absurdly, for some sign of professional fellowship. To my astonishment, he winked at me.
I had to suppress a gasp of astonishment, though I couldn’t keep my lips from parting in surprise and my eyes from widening.
“How…?” I started to demand.
“Hush, my dear,” he said, and the assured tone of command in his voice together with the smile on his face—and the horrible cane in his hands—made my close my mouth and scowl at him. Inside my chest, though, I felt my heart start to beat faster, and not with fear, despite my brain screaming at me that of course I should feel afraid of this arrogant man.
“Sara,” the prince said, his voice assuming a warning tone. I looked over at him wildly, the fear I should have felt about Philip transferring in an instant to this royal asshole. He raised his finger as if he were scolding a child and continued, “You don’t want your whole world to see that petulant face, do you?”
I let out a slow, angry breath through my nose and narrowed my eyes at him. At the moment, I didn’t care whether it earned me extra strokes with the fucking cane. I glared at His Royal Highness with all the egalitarian fury of my proud culture.
A voice at the back of my head observed with a little anxiety and little satisfaction—and a little grudging affection for Philip—that I had recovered some of my spirit. I tried for a moment to find something else to attribute it to, something besides his wink. I refused to rule out the possibility that having had the chance to behave coldly to Viola in the bathroom had stiffened my backbone a little, but truthfully I couldn’t help admitting it: the man who held the cane, who would soon make me an example of abject, degraded submission for my entire planet, had won my heart.
Maybe not all of it—but definitely an amount that I found dismaying, if also—stereotypically and inevitably, as if thousands of years of egalitarian cultural development had never happened—heartwarming and marvelous.
Part of me wanted to scream out loud that it simply shouldnotwork like that… that no man should have the power to expose a woman’s regressive erotic needs that way. I put all of that silenced protest into my glare at the prince. My guardian, an officer of the Magisterian Federation and an undeniably arrogant man, at least had made it plain that he cared about my feelings. His Royal Highness Prince Hendren of Magisteria seemed only to care about getting his rocks off.
“Your Highness,” Philip said, his tone measured but his voice proud, “will forgive me if I assert my right and duty to take charge of Sara. I know for certain that when we go live again she will comport herself as befits her very difficult position.”
The angry expression fled from my face, and I turned to my guardian, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, my cheeks blazing with heat and, I knew, color. I felt the familiar tingle between my thighs, too, but faintly, which made me realize that all my responses to him before he had so dominantly, if politely, told his prince off and claimed me as his own property had not involved my pussy at all. The warmth inside me, to my mingled delight and concern, had more to do with my heart’s affection than with my clit’s dark needs.
