The Slave (Free Men Book 1)(10)

"It's better warm," I apologised when he jumped. "Next time, I'll send for some from the kitchen."

Once wetted, I rubbed a little soap into his hairs, smearing lather  across his cheeks and neck. He narrowed his eyes as I took up the razor,  tipped his chin with my fingers, and dragged carefully along his jaw.  His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, and I paused, waiting for him  to remain utterly still before I continued. For a while there was  silence, save the soft scrape of the razor and the sound of our mingled  breaths.

I am not a hirsute man-none of my race are. My cheeks were still as soft  and hair-free as an adolescent's, the only hairs on my body thin tufts  that grew in my armpits and dark blond curled in my groin. I kept myself  trimmed, but I had never needed the razor for myself. Yet I enjoyed  shaving: the ritual of it, the intimacy. That Master trusted me to shave  him was a source of secret joy. Not only that he allowed me to approach  him with a blade-to press it to his very neck-but that he would share  his grooming routine, let me see him tousled and unkempt, the real man,  as he donned his mask for the day.

Shaving Kai felt different, almost like I was exposing him. He had  hidden behind the scruffy beard, afraid of making the most of himself  for fear of what might come after.

I wiped his chin with a damp cloth and patted it dry with another. His  skin was soft, silky, and-for now at least-as smooth as my own. I cupped  his jaw, brushed my thumbs over the small dimples that showed when he  smiled, bent forward and kissed him.

His eyes widened, transfixed, as I descended. They were still wide when I  rose, confusion warring with uncertainty and what looked like a strong  desire to bolt upright and away. But I noticed his pink tongue poke out  to chase the faint impression of my lips pressed chastely to his.

I smiled and stroked his cheek, signalling for him to sit up. I busied  myself cleaning my razor, and returned it to its place in my room. When I  re-entered he was standing, his body language awkward.

I rolled my eyes. "It was only a little kiss."

He ducked his head, cheeks flushed. His hand gave an involuntary  twitch-towards his mouth, I was sure-before he regained control and kept  it at his side.

"Come on." I settled on the mattress, patting beside me for him to sit. "It's time you began to learn Thirskan."





CHAPTER SEVEN





The day passed quickly. I had never taught anything before and wasn't  sure how to begin, but Kai's own enthusiasm guided me, commencing with  profanities until we were trading insults, laughing, Kai adamant that it  was impossible to be offensive when speaking the lilting, musical  language of Thirsk. Certainly the guttural quality of the Granthian  words seemed better suited to the offensive, aggressive things we were  saying. Yet there was no real aggression, no offence taken or meant. The  crudity bonded us as it bonds all boys until we were giggling  helplessly on his bed, as immature as children but suddenly friends.         

     



 

The distant sound of Master's arrival wiped the easy smile from Kai's  face. He shifted, head cocked as he listened to the metallic clatter of  the compound gate opening and closing, the shouts of the guards drifting  in through the window. I stroked his arm, and he jumped.

"Don't be scared," I tried to reassure him.

"He said he wouldn't force me." Kai swallowed thickly.

"I don't believe he will."

"So why does he want me in his room?"

I shrugged. "I don't know."

In truth, my stomach was in knots as I chivvied Kai to get ready. To my  knowledge I was the only pleasureslave Master had ever owned, and I had  been more than eager to fulfil my obligations in that role. The puppy  love of my youth had, with adolescence, grown, my desire for him  white-hot in its newfound intensity. I had always felt safe and cared  for and protected, sitting on his lap or sleeping in his bed, but as I  grew into my teens, I found I wanted more from him.

Suddenly I didn't want to feel safe anymore. I wanted him to overpower  me, use me, hurt me. Take his pleasure from my body and let me revel in  simply being surrounded by him, overwhelmed and desired and owned more  completely than any slave he'd possessed either before or since.

Was I jealous of Kai, that he was being summoned even against his will? Absolutely.

When I'd first shown that my interest in Master was something more than a  childish need for security, he had put me from him, punishing my  fledgling erections and locking me in my room when I would have crept to  his. I cried bitter tears that he could so easily set me aside, too  young to understand his misgivings, knowing only that I loved him and I  could please him if he'd only let me try.

We waited for him beside his door, neatly flanking the entrance. He  smiled, beckoning us to follow as he stepped inside. Kai could not keep  still, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot, taking in the  details of Master's suite: the marble floor, the thick fur rugs, his  wooden desk, open and strewn with parchments. His bed.

"Tam."

I advanced at the summons, taking Master's cloak, brushing the dust from the folds and hanging it in his wardrobe.

He splashed water on his face, patted his skin with a soft towel, and  rubbed his eyes as though he were weary. I approached, concerned,  wanting to ease the stresses and strains of his day and make him smile,  light and carefree as when he was a young man.

He contented himself with a kiss, soft and undemanding and almost  chaste. I smiled at him, willing to give whatever he needed to take.

"I have some work to do." He indicated the messy desk. "What have you been doing today?"

"Teaching Kai to speak Thirskan."

"Good." He nodded. "Why don't you continue with that for a while?"

"We won't disturb you?" I knew he preferred silence while he worked.

"No, not today. I'd like to hear how you progress."

"As you wish."

I returned to Kai, still standing apprehensively just inside the door.  He calmed a little as Master sat at his desk, and I took his hand,  leading him to a large bearskin rug before the empty grate.

Master took up a quill, scratching softly over the parchment. His chair  creaked as he moved, the papers rustled, he cleared his throat. Kai and I  sat in silence, staring at one another. It was harder with an audience  to relax, to find the easy camaraderie we'd shared alone in his bedroom,  even with an audience as conspicuously not listening as Master.

I commenced pointing out items in the room and naming them. Kai  responded, reciting back a dull litany of books and chairs and curtains.  When I didn't know the Granthian word for something I paused and asked  him, the lesson growing familiar as we worked. This was how Master had  first taught me, I remembered. I had come to him as a child of the  desert, illiterate and fluent only in the strange pidgin of my people.  Almost-Thirskan, almost-Granthian, not quite either. Like an animal, at  first I had understood more from his tone than his words, but he had  been patient with me, cobbling two whole languages from my strange  Creole until I was fluent in both.

At least, fluent enough to be understood, if not taken for a native.  Kai's laughter rang out as I struggled with the pronunciation of the  hard, guttural sounds of his tongue, clear and joyful. From the corner  of my eye, I saw Master sit a little straighter in his chair, his head  inclined towards us and a slow smile teasing his lips.

I'd swear I heard a stifled snort as Kai cursed me fluently in Thirskan  for my inability to master his language to his satisfaction.

The shadows stretched around us as the day drew to a close, the first  sun set and the second sun dying in a blaze of glorious red outside the  window. The faint shadows of the planet rings glowed in the sky like  ghosts, striping the distant horizon over the high walls of Master's  compound. The scratching of his quill stopped and he stretched, cracking  his knuckles.         

     



 

Kai had the objects in the room down pat, his sharp mind quick to pick  up the lesson. We fell into chattering quietly on the rug as I struggled  to teach the more abstract concepts of sentence construction and  indefinite articles. Maybe I started in the wrong place, but I'd never  taught a language before, and simply speaking about safe, easy,  impersonal things seemed to be working.

Master turned in his chair and spoke. "It's getting cold. Kai, can you light the fire?"

Kai eyed the empty grate and the neat stacks of kindling and coals in their scuttles beside it.

"Tam, help him."

We knelt on the rug, the soft fur cushioning our knees and winding  between our toes as I explained how to position the kindling so the air  could flow properly to feed the fire and light the carefully placed  coals. As it crackled and took, Master rose, moving to a more  comfortable high-backed armchair before the hearth. He beckoned and I  went to him, curling at his feet. His fingers found and lightly rippled  through my hair.