"I, I didn't have possessions like these when I was free," he admitted, running a tentative hand across the contents of the nearest shelf. He lingered over a small effigy of a nomadic tribesman cast in bronze.
"My father." I nodded at the figurine. "It reminded me of him."
Kai's eyes were bright when he raised them to meet mine. "And he let you have it?"
I smiled, remembering. "He insisted."
Kai recoiled with a stifled cry, turning and covering his face with his hands. Instantly I was at his side, holding him as his shoulders shook.
"What's wrong? Kai? Kai, talk to me. What did I say?"
"Nothing," he said weakly, wiping his eyes and sniffing loudly. "It's nothing you've said."
"What, then?" I refused to let it drop. I'd thought it would help, showing him the possessions I'd accumulated over the years. Prove to him that being a slave didn't always mean he'd have nothing. I certainly hadn't intended to make him cry.
"You wouldn't understand," he said, but he didn't resist as I led him to my bed and urged him to sit. I folded myself down beside him and maintained contact, resting my hand on his arm, but skin-to-skin, showing him he wasn't alone. He would never be alone again.
"Explain it to me," I prompted when no further response was forthcoming.
"You don't.... You can't...." Another choked sound. He swallowed and tried again. "I was poor, Tam. My family were poor. The army was the only option for me, and they paid precious little. Everything I had, I paid for in blood and sweat. I went hungry each day to save a few coins. When I was captured, they took it all. Everything I'd struggled so hard to get, and it was nothing, Tam. Nothing. The men, they didn't believe that was all I had, but it was. It was."
It was as much as he'd ever opened up about his past, and I had no reply, no idea how to soothe his broken heart. Instead I crept closer, holding him in the hope my jumbled thoughts would transfer through my skin and somehow make sense.
"And you." He laughed bitterly. "You have more than I could ever dream of, and you're only a slave! How is that fair?"
His words stung, but I refused to flinch. I knew he spoke without thought and didn't mean to be hurtful, even though he was.
"They could be yours, too," I said, trying to console him. "Master is generous-"
"Don't you get it, Tam? They don't matter. Things. I spent my freedom as a slave to things. I don't need them now."
I pouted, despite my best efforts not to. "If that's how you feel, then you're right, you don't need them."
"How else am I supposed to feel?" he demanded.
"You could try grateful."
Kai laughed angrily. "What have I possibly got to be grateful for?"
"That you're not dead? That if you have to be a slave, you at least have a master who respects you, who won't hurt you. One who will give you presents to show he cares, things to keep you entertained when he's not here, things that remind you how your life was before. I don't know much about life outside this compound, but even I know that's unusual."
"So what?" Kai muttered sulkily, crossing his arms over his chest. "So he gives you things to keep you quiet. He lets you remember your old life, but he won't let you go, will he? He won't set you free."
"I don't want freedom," I replied simply. "I told you what freedom was like for me. I'm better off here." I hesitated, then spoke exactly what was on my mind. "I think, if you were honest with yourself, you'd admit you're better off here, too."
Kai gave me a long, cold look. "If that's what you think, then you don't know me at all," he snapped. "I'll never be better off here, Tam. Neither of us will!"
"Then why don't you leave?" I bit back. "Try to escape, run away. Even if the guards kill you, it'll be better than staying here and living like an animal."
Kai gasped. "Is that what you want?"
"I wish you'd never come here," I said. "I was happy before you arrived."
"Then what was last night?" he demanded. "You didn't seem so miserable then."
"Neither did you."
We glared at each other furiously. A hundred more accusations welled in my breast, waiting to be hurled at him, but as I looked deep into his emerald eyes, the will to hurt him subsided.
"I didn't mean that," I said, instantly contrite.
"Which part?" he asked sulkily.
"Any of it. I don't hate you, Kai. I admit, I didn't want you here, but now you are, I don't want you to leave."
"I don't understand why I am here," he said plaintively. "Master obviously doesn't want me for a pleasureslave, so for what have I been purchased?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "But don't think he doesn't want you, Kai. He doesn't want to force you."
"He must be the only one," Kai huffed.
"Don't you dare," I snapped, riled again. "I didn't force you, and you know it!"
"I didn't mean you." He touched my hand, risking a small smile. "Last night.... You didn't force me. Far from it."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying... I don't know what I'm saying." He shrugged helplessly. "This is all new to me. I like you, Tam. If things were different, if we were free men.... I don't know."
"You think I can't decide to give myself to you because I'm not a free man? It's not you who owns me, Kai."
"What if I don't want to share you?"
I laughed, but not unkindly. "You don't get to make that choice."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Time passed. Within a month I could paddle the length of the swimming pool unaided, and Kai's Thirskan had come along in leaps and bounds, as had his reading in his own language. Indeed, I found myself growing jealous of the time Master devoted to him in the evenings, my place having been relegated to that of observer, or houseboy. I resented tidying Master's chamber and turning down his bed while he read to Kai, or Kai read to him. I would throw myself into his arms the moment they were done, demanding his full attention. Master would dismiss Kai, and I would comport myself shamelessly, reminding him that in this most fundamental of ways, he only had me.
Kai was still skittish around him when it came to matters of sex, although Master had been true to his word and hadn't pushed Kai for anything. The way he flinched when Master touched his arm or petted his hair-growing out of its shorn state and still at the awkward stage when it was more fuzz than anything, and beyond my ability to ever make truly presentable-made the green-eyed monster dwelling in my breast growl with anger, that he would snub small gestures which I would gladly have welcomed in his stead.
When it came to me, however, Kai had become a different animal. His emerald eyes blazed with anger every time Master dismissed him for the evening and I remained behind, and when I returned to his chamber-for I now slept there six nights out of seven-he would pin me aggressively against the mattress and jerk my sensitised cock until I came in painful spurts, as though my ejaculate were some sort of proof I cared more for him than I did the man who owned us.
In truth, I was growing to care for them both. How there was room in my heart for Kai alongside our master, I did not know, and the thought perturbed me. Was I so shallow in my affections, so quick to forsake the first man I had ever loved? And yet I never felt my feelings for Master diminish.
"It pains you, doesn't it, when I send you away."
We were in Master's chamber, at the close of another evening spent like so many before. I was already straddled across Master's lap, Kai having been dismissed for the night, but Master's words surprised me, and I lifted my head to see Kai standing in the doorway.
Kai grunted, and I smiled. He was surly when it came to this, still reluctant to admit all the things he desired.
"Stay."
It was an order, and Kai recognised it as such. Closing the door against the draught coming in from the darkened corridor beyond, he approached us.
"You may sit in this chair."
Master rose to make way for him, lifting me effortlessly and placing me on the end of his bed.
"Face the bed."
Kai turned the chair away from the hearth, facing it towards us. Reluctantly, he sat.
Master turned to me, blocking my view of Kai. A question mark furrowed my brow, but he clasped my face and kissed it away, then kissed lower, down the bridge of my nose until our mouths met.
I reclined on the bed as Master climbed over me, covering my body with his. His brilliant green robes-the same green as Kai's eyes, I had thought when I first saw them-fell over us both, leaving his broad chest exposed. I took advantage, rolling his nipples between my thumbs and index fingers, pulling off them with a gentle pinch. Master groaned, his head drooping, and I sucked one into my mouth, teasing the erect nub with my teeth.