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Captain Jacper didn’t place a bid on the navy’s behalf. I found that slightly reassuring: clearly the admiralty had placed limits on the expenditure for bed girls for the fleet. That put the requisition in the category of imperial foolishness I called, to myself, merely “insane,” rather than “utterly unhinged.”
I tried not to let myself get distracted by my extensive negative opinions on the emperor’s recent decision-making. First of all, I found it boring even by ordinary standards, given how much of my daily life the topic occupied, and how exhausting it was to maintain the facade of enthusiastic approval necessary topreserve one’s life and livelihood in the imperial court. Second of all, and much more importantly, the prospect of buying a concubine deserved all my attention—if only to justify how much I was paying Franla.
“You’re set on Wetquim, I gather?” she murmured to me as an agent led Silverstar away to the corral where her new owner would collect her. “I think you may get her relatively cheaply. I didn’t notice very much interest—at least of the sort to worry you.”
No, I thought, most Vionians of the concubine-owning class would think the extensive bruising on the girl’s backside a sign of trouble to come. Not I.
I had begun my survey of the Kamnians in the cages with misgivings about the whole enterprise. My resolution to indulge my rather unexpected, rather whimsical desire to have a bed girl of my own had started to seem foolish. After all, I had more than one friend willing to send me a concubine of his on any given evening, if I needed to fuck as sheer stress-relief from the pressures of court life. Moreover, all those generous friends would happily send me a naughty girl, if I asked, so long as I undertook to correct her faults and left the evidence of her obedience-lesson on her well-fucked arse.
Why had I decided to spend hundreds of thousands of credits—among the girl herself, her board, and Madame Franla’s fees—on the frivolous project? Lovely blue-haired girls in cages, naked and submissively displaying themselves to the eyes of a well-heeled Vionian crowd had their charms, of course. I had no wish to deny it: my cock stirred against my thigh as we strolled down the row, careful not to show interest in any girl in particular but nevertheless inspecting each downturned face, each blue-furred quim.
Franla was charging me five hundred credits an hour, though, and I had found it hard to take my mind off that fact. I could just as easily, I knew, have come down to the concubine market on my own and enjoyed surveying the virgin bed girls on offer for free.
Then she had said, very quietly in my ear, “Lot five, where Lady Bresil is standing.”
I had looked over and seen the couple in front of the cage. I had caught a glimpse of Wetquim’s face, and then an arresting little scene of harsh discipline when the cage’s punisher had played itself out, before the girl had turned around, and showed the onlookers what the agent had done with his paddle, far away on Kamnos, to enforce her submission.
I put my lips close to Franla’s ear. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll pay anything.”
Well,I thought as the bidding concluded on lot three—another fuck toy for the imperial navy, at thirty-three thousand credits,at least I have the solace of knowing my credits will be worthless within the year, at this rate. Why not spend them on a spirited young woman who needs a firm hand just as much as I need to train her for my pleasure?
Chalondra
“Lot four, on the block now,” the auctioneer announced, “Darkeyes. A very good girl, though I’m afraid no longer a virgin. A bargain for the fleet, perhaps, Captain? Shall we start at twenty?”
I frowned deeply, wondering desperately how the girl had becomeno longer a virgin.
I had snuck a few glances at the crowd seated in the stands, facing the auctioneer. I had seen the naval officer in the blue uniform who must be Captain Jacper, the one buying concubines for the imperial fleet. The first rows were clearly reserved for the nobility, I realized. Their special robes, alongside the gray dresses of the mistresses, made that front section very colorful.
I tried to remember the exact shade of red I thought Baron Gravamir’s robe had displayed. In the brief glimpses I dared to take, though, when the agent led off the girl who had just been sold and it seemed like their attention had focused on her, I had no luck in picking it out: too many noblemen seemed to wear similar robes.
Nor did I really want to see him, I kept telling myself. Why would I?
Because I don’t want to be bought for the imperial navy.
I swallowed hard at the thought, staring down at my bare feet on the rough wood of the platform. I understood so little, but I knew that.
“Sold for twenty thousand to Captain Jacper for the fleet,” the auctioneer said, his voice sounding a little deflated. “Our valiant officers certainly know how to treat a girl like you, Darkeyes.”
At the edge of my vision, I could see an agent leading the girl off. The boots of another appeared next to me.
“Go ahead, Wetquim,” a gruff masculine voice said. “It’s your turn. Don’t make me activate the cuffs.”
He hadn’t said that when he had sent Darkeyes to the block, the small raised area in front of the rostrum that a girl had to climb for the crowd to see her and bid on her. The thought that I had gotten a reputation as a bad girl, in need of threatening, froze me in my tracks.
“Or does this work better?” the agent said, and he put his hand on my bottom and squeezed hard.
I let out a little cry of pain, and I started forward, my face burning like the surface of a star. The discomfort from my backside made my gait terribly, humiliatingly awkward. I heard a ripple of laughter travel through the crowd. When the auctioneer spoke over the loudspeaker, I could hear the merriment in his voice, too.
“Coming a little slowly onto the block, now, Lot 5, the intriguingly named Wetquim.”
The laughter grew. I wondered if I had somehow fallen asleep in my cage and I was actually having a nightmare.
“You can see in your programs that this girl will prove an enjoyable challenge for her lucky owner. Captain Jacper, I believe those of your officers who concern themselves most seriously with discipline might find her a welcome diversion? Will the fleet help me open at thirty thousand?”
My feet had reached the step that I had to climb, to take my place on the auction block. I felt my face crumple, tears pricking almost painfully at the corners of my eyes.
“Get up there, Wetquim,” I heard a voice from the stands say. Startled, I looked up, searching, fruitlessly, for a face into which I could stare with the defiance that had suddenly risen in me.
