Changed Circumstances

By: Jean-Christophe
(© 2011-2013 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Chapter 57
“An Unhappy Event”

Guy:

My plans to secretly dispose of Rafe and Norge have come to nothing. It has been some weeks since I’d conspired with Lionel Schuster to smuggle the two slaves out of the country and to sell them abroad.

I am becoming frustrated by Lionel Schuster’s apparent lack of action and, increasingly, I worry about my future and that of my son, Etienne. As long as Rafe remains visible to his old friends and their growing band of supporters, he is a potential threat to my financial wellbeing.

And despite the fact I’ve already made several large cash payments to the slave-dealer for “services rendered” nothing has happened as yet. 

I haven’t spoken to Miles Fortescue or Francois Fournier since our initial meeting but I know their efforts to free Rafe continue unabated. I have been kept informed of their activities by the lawyer, Simon Barrow who acts as my eyes and ears on the ground.

While Simon is a fellow conspirator, I don’t delude myself that he does this out of any friendship for me. Certainly we work closely together - he is after all my right hand man in the Maratier business empire - and his services there are invaluable to me. 

However, ours is a marriage of convenience. Simon Barrow is a member of a minor but respectable family and because the establishment will never accept me into their august ranks, despite my prodigious wealth, he acts as my conduit into areas that are forever closed to me. The circumstances surrounding my grandmother’s “scandalous” marriage to a socially inferior man have never been forgotten by the establishment and I pay the heavy price of their ostracism for her ancient indiscretion.

Many of the city’s leading citizens must do business with one or another of the Maratier companies but they baulk at face to face meetings with me. Consequently, all their business dealings are done through an intermediary and Simon acts as my proxy. This, of course, gives him considerable power within my enterprises and an enormous amount of prestige within the business community.

No doubt, they see Simon as the de facto head of my companies and this is a situation I am happy with as long as it produces the results I want. For my part, I have no desire to move into the stultifying world of the old money families; the few friends I do have are members of  the entrepreneurial class of the noveau riche who, like me, are despised and ostracized by the stagnating, aristocratic clique.

I reward Simon handsomely and he now enjoys an enviable lifestyle which includes a large city home, a moderately sized, rural holding and many slaves. I do know he skims off small amounts of my profits into his own pockets to finance this lavish lifestyle. But as long as he doesn’t become too greedy and the scope of his embezzlement remains moderate, I’ll turn a blind eye to his dishonesty. Why do I do this?

I suppose it’s a small price to pay for his undoubted and valued services to Maratier Enterprises and for his support of me in getting rid of Rafe.

I have managed to keep my plans for Rafe secret from my household slaves and he suspects nothing. This is as I want it! It is better that Rafe doesn’t know of my plans for him and Norge until they are implemented and it is too late for his supporters to act to free him.

*******

Rafe:

The feeble light of the new dawn lifts the gloom of the stable as Norge stirs out of his deep sleep. He stretches provocatively, turns onto his side and facing me he takes my hand and places it on his early morning tumescence. As always, he is iron rod hard and I feel the blood heat of his rampant erection. His action is an unspoken instruction to me to lower my head to his groin and to take his cock into the moist embrace of my mouth. I do so willingly!

This is now our standard greeting of each new day. I use my mouth to pleasure Norge and when he is ready, he’ll place me either on my back or on all fours and fuck me. I live for these moments. The fact that we’d fucked last night before drifting off to sleep locked in the tight embrace of each other’s arms only whets my appetite for more.  I can never have enough of Norge’s magnificent cock and I willingly submit to his “mastery” over me.

It could be said that I have two masters. The more obvious one is Guy Maratier who owns my body and the other, less obvious, is Norge who owns my soul and rules over my emotions.

Silence reigns in the stillness of our stable stall and is broken only by the soft slurping of my lips as they piston along the hard shaft of Norge’s erection. His responsive moans show his appreciation of my oral skills.

Norge lies prone on our straw bedding with his hands entwined behind his head and he watches the bobbing of my head as my eager mouth works the length of his cock. The manner of his lying displays his torso to perfection. Each muscle is clearly delineated and every tendon is stretched to the limit. With each bob of my head, my hair brushes the concave of his belly as my eyes focus on the rapidly increasing rise and fall his powerful chest. Both pectorals are hard slabs of muscle and each is crowned by a rosy-red nipple of needle-point sharpness. I am besotted by his masculine beauty and the sheer physicality of his nearness to me.  Intoxicated, I breathe in the heady aroma of his masculinity; a potent potpourri of sweat, male musk blending with the lingering scent of yesterday’s body oil and overlaid with the meadow-sweet smell of the fresh straw we lie upon. It is a powerful aphrodisiac and it works its spell on me for I am rampantly erect and dripping precum.

Our ardour rises until suddenly, Norge orders me to lie on my back and to lift my legs over my shoulders so that my ass cheeks are spread wide for him. I feel the stretch of my anus and I feel its impatient pulsing as it winks an invitation to him to enter me.  It is an invitation that Norge never refuses and this morning is no exception.

He positions himself at my ass and I feel the conical head of his penis pressing against my anus with some urgency. I relax to give Norge easier entry into the tight confines of my rectum and I wince as his prodigious cock pushes past the constricting ring of my sphincter.

Slowly at first, Norge’s penis glides in and out of my eager ass. He takes hold of my upraised ankles and spreads them wide to use as supports against the increasing tempo of his impatient thrusting. This also elevates my ass and I now feel - and hear - the slapping of his heavy balls against my bare buttocks. 

As our passions intensify, I feel the wild throbbing of his cock and the reciprocal response of my ass muscles gripping and massaging this most welcome intruder. Despite the coolness of the early morning air both of us are soon sweat lathered as we work hard towards our mounting climaxes. I feel the first warning shots of his impending ejaculation and momentarily Norge is still as his balls churn. He arches his body backwards and pushes harder into me; it’s as though he has to bury himself deeper within me so that not one drop of his precious seed is wasted.

Then, I hear his solitary, triumphal grunt and I feel his body convulsed by a great shudder as he climaxes. I am overwhelmed by my own pleasurable enjoyment as his cock pulses with primal energy. Suddenly, my innards are scorched by the hot semen of his fiery eruption causing me to ejaculate simultaneously with Norge. My own semen discharges in a creamy-white arc over my belly to land with a soft splat on my chest and face.

Finally, we are spent and Norge falls forward and lies on top of me as erotically, our sweat-slicked bodies slither against each other. For now our sexual needs have been met and we are happy in the knowledge that our lovemaking will be repeated tonight. We wait for our cocks to soften until his slips out of me with a soft plop. Contentedly, we lie cradled in each other’s arms. Norge falls silent and closes his eyes to snatch a few minutes precious sleep before we begin our new work day. I on the other hand am wide awake and lost in my solitary thoughts of Norge, of my great love for him and my life as his fellow slave.

And neither of us is aware that today will prove a momentous one with the most far-reaching consequences.

It must be said that life continues as normal for me. I have long reconciled myself to my slavery and I no longer yearn to be free. After all, what use is there in hoping for the impossible? My life changed irrevocably the day I was enslaved and in the intervening period I have adjusted my mindset to that of a slave.

Now, my life is centred on Norge and my great love for him. He is the brightest star in the dark firmament of my life and without him at my side, I could never have survived. In those early days, just after I became a slave, it was his determination that saw me through the traumas of my changed circumstances and it was his great strength that I drew on to continue living.

My days are filled with Norge running at my side as we pull our Master’s cart behind us and my nights with him lying alongside me in our stable as we make love. Norge’s love dominates me and I happily surrender to him in all things. There is no greater happiness for me than to have Norge enter me and claim me as his own.

The tempo of our lives never changes; but I suppose that is true for all slaves. Time belongs to our owners and not to us. Nor does the pattern of our days vary. Each day is the same as the one before and tomorrow will be the same as today. That is one of the immutable laws of slavery.

Each morning we are woken at first light by one of the groom slaves who feeds and waters us before leading us to the latrines to relieve ourselves, then we are hosed down, body shaved and scrubbed clean before our bodies are oiled for the day. The body oil serves two purposes.

The first reason we are oiled is to protect us from the elements. The oil acts as a screen against the sun’s intensity and it also serves to waterproof our hides against the rain. It has to be remembered that we are required to pull our Master’s cart naked no matter how inclement the weather.

The second reason is to highlight our musculatures of which our Master is inordinately proud. Many times he has basked in the praise of a passer-by who has stopped to admire us. On those occasions, our Master shows his appreciation by inviting the passer-by to inspect us. This is an invitation that is seldom refused and Norge and I stand passively as strange hands explore our naked bodies. Of course, such an inspection always involves the hand manipulation of our cocks as a test for the strength of our erections, the hefting of our balls to gauge their weight and potency and the parting of our ass-cheeks as a prelude to the inspection of our anuses. And finally there is the examination of our mouths to check the health of our gums and the soundness of our teeth.

I have become immune to these indignities although it wasn’t always so. At first, I resented having my naked body inspected so intimately by a stranger. On those occasions, as Norge stood passively still, I would fidget and move about to show my unwillingness. But my truculence wasn’t tolerated and invariably I would feel the sting of Guy Maratier’s whip on my ass or shoulders together with his admonition to

“Rafe, stand still damn you!”

It only took one or two lashes to subdue me. Still, I seethed with hidden anger and I wondered how Norge could stand passively still as he was publicly humiliated. Then, guiltily, I remembered that I, as Lucien Barrois and his former owner, had been the first to subject Norge to these indignities. As his Master I’d taken pride in my ownership of him and his feelings had never bothered me. After all he was just a slave. And so, shamefully, I came to see the poetic justice of my present situation.

This morning, as these thoughts tumble through my head, I lay on my side propped up by my elbow and gaze upon the sleeping form of my lover. I smile at the occasional fluttering of his long, golden eyelashes and reaching out I place my hand on the warm hardness of his mighty chest. There, I feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing and the strong, rhythmic beating of his loving heart keeping time with the throbbing artery in his neck. Slowly, I toy with his nipples teasing them into needle-points of pleasure. He stirs, opens his eyes and looks at me then smiles. Mirrored in the Nordic blue of his eyes, I see his warmth and love for me and as always, I am overcome by my love for him. Impulsively, I lower my head to kiss him. Our mouths touch and our lips part as our tongues entwine and sinuously dance together.

We are lost in the moment and don’t hear our grooms enter the stables. We only become aware of their presence when we are told to stand so that they can make us ready for our Master. Outside the stable it is barely daylight and I wonder why our Master requires us so early. 

I notice the grooms’ apprehension and nervousness and obviously something has happened to subdue them. My curiosity is aroused and I ask why Guy Maratier requires us in harness so early; much earlier than is normal.

Then they tell us of a momentous event.

Just a few minutes ago, Guy Maratier received news of his beloved grandmother, Charlotte Maratier’s death. She’d died peacefully in her sleep two hours ago. The grooms tell us that our Master is inconsolable and has ordered that we be harnessed and ready for him to leave within the quarter hour.

The grooms tell us there’s no time to feed and water us or to take us to the latrines. And of course there isn’t time to groom us.  They barely have time to place Norge and me in black harness - I suppose this is to be the first sign to the casual observer that Guy Maratier is in mourning - and to hitch us to the cart. In fact, they are still fastening us between the shafts as Guy Maratier hurries across the yard to where we are waiting.

I barely have time to note the greyish pallor of his face or his red-rimmed eyes brimming with tears before he climbs into the driver’s seat and silently takes the proffered reins from a nervous groom. He unfurls the driver’s whip and savagely lashes out at Norge’s and my unprotected bodies and instructs us to.

“WALK ON!”

There is the sound of urgency in his command and once more he applies the whip to us.

As well-trained ponies, Norge and I don’t normally run under the whip. It’s true our driver does use it on us as we run before him but this is for ascetic reasons and to let us know he is in control. And I suspect there is an erotic charge at play in his use of the whip; certainly there was for me when, as a free man, I drove a pony in harness.

Then, I’d delighted in watching the powerful interplay of the slave’s back muscles as he ran before me. I’d salivated at the undulations of his ass-cheeks and his low hanging balls swinging freely between his flexing thighs. And with each stroke of my whip - always applied lightly to avoid any lasting damage to the pony - my cock grew harder. For me there was no more satisfying sight than to see the red stripes of my whip on the sweaty shoulders and ass of my pony. And I suspect this is much the same for our driver.

However, this morning it is different for Guy Maratier drives us like a man possessed. He is unrelenting in his demands of us and merciless in his application of the whip to see we meet those demands. His whip is never still.

My pony training at La Forêt had been intensive and it had prepared me well for my role as a pony slave. Once I’d overcome the shame of running naked through the city streets, I’d even found satisfaction in my new role. Running with Norge at my side challenged me to strive to be the best that I could while his longer experience set the challenge which I endeavoured to match.

Even now a friendly rivalry exists between us as we match the pace of our running and our steps to one another. We are both in superb physical condition and each of us is filled with boundless energy that must be released through physical exertion. Paradoxically, even though I am restricted by the harness that binds me to Guy Maratier’s cart, I find freedom in my labours. How can I describe the exuberance I feel as I run alongside Norge with the sun’s warmth on my body and the wind tossing my hair? And what can match the stressed beauty of Norge’s form or the heady aroma of his sweat-soaked torso shackled just a few inches away from me?

However, my initial training and subsequent experience hasn’t prepared me for this morning’s run. Consumed by his grief, Guy Maratier doesn’t give our wellbeing a second thought. Under the savage onslaught of his whip he makes us run at an unprecedented speed and still he isn’t satisfied.

And for some reason, I seem to be bearing the brunt of his impatience. Certainly, I am feeling the whip’s fiery bite more often than Norge.

Soon my chest is heaving with the exertion of our running and my heart and lungs feel as though they are at bursting point. Despite the early morning coolness, sweat flows in ever quickening rivulets down my torso and my legs turn to jelly. Panicky, I feel that I am on the verge of collapse. But the whip’s savage fury doesn’t allow me to give into myself;  just when I feel  I can go no further, the lash sears its dreadful pain into my yielding flesh and from some hidden reserve of energy deep within me, I find the strength to continue and to put the next foot forward. And I can tell by Norge’s tortured breathing and pain racked face that he is as distressed as I am.

It is still early morning, the streets are deserted and our driver is able to have us run at breakneck speed. There’s no pedestrian or vehicular traffic about to impede our progress or to slow us down and we arrive at the very recently deceased Charlotte Maratier’s home in record time. Fortunately, for us, her home is but a short distance from her grandson’s home. It’s a journey Norge and I have made on numerous occasions and it had always been a pleasant jog which had never overtaxed us.

As we are driven up the sweeping driveway to the house, the pounding of our feet and the scrunching of the cart’s wheels in the loose gravel announce our arrival to the major domo and a house slave who wait under the portico for us. Guy pulls back hard on the reins to bring us to a sudden halt causing the bits to cut cruelly into the corners of our mouths. The house slave hurries forward to take the reins from a distraught Guy as he jumps out of the driver’s seat, speaks briefly to the major domo and hurries indoors.

Norge and I are left to recover and to wait until we are next required. Slowly our laboured breathing returns to normal and the jellylike quivering in our stressed legs eases. The slave left in charge of us leads us into the shade of a large, spreading oak of venerable age and brings us fresh water to drink and a bucket in which to relieve our overfull bladders. Never has water tasted so good - truly it is nectar of the gods - nor was a morning piss ever more satisfying.

I look towards the house and see that the drapes are drawn and a funereal laurel wreath hangs on the front door. Already Charlotte Maratier’s household has gone into mourning lamenting her demise.

I’m aware of the deep affection that Guy Maratier has for his grandmother and I know that he would be inconsolable in his grief for her. But it’s not a grief that I share. While it was never in my nature to wish ill on any person, nevertheless it would be hypocritical of me to say I didn’t feel some pleasure in her death. Truthfully, there is a sense of elation that the woman who was my Nemesis is no more.

She was, after all, the architect of my downfall. It was her pathological hatred of her former Barrois family that saw me stripped of my name, my identity, all of my worldly possessions and enslaved. How then can I feel any pity for this detestable woman who’d hated me with such malevolence? By her actions, she had forever changed the circumstances of my life.

However, whilst her departure from the world gives me some small measure of satisfaction, I soberly remind myself that nothing changes for me with her death. Bitterly, her legacy lives on in the fact that I am still a slave while her grandson and great grandson now possess everything that was once mine.

Guy:

Damn these ponies! I am overwhelmed by my grief and I desperately need to be with my deceased grandmother - and quickly. Why can’t they run faster? It’s obvious I have been too lenient with them and allowed them to become lazy. I rarely place great demands on them and on this one occasion, when I really need them to fully extend themselves, they fail me.  Well then, I have no other option but to liberally apply the whip to their lazy hides. I unfurl my whip and bring it into play lashing their lazy asses and shoulders constantly until they reach the speed I demand of them.

Although my grandmother’s death was inevitable, it still comes as a shock to me. I was woken from my sleep and told a slave from her household had news for me. I’d hurried downstairs to where the slave waited and listened as he fearfully told me she’d passed away peacefully in her sleep. I suppose there is some small measure of comfort in hearing that her passing was peaceful and that she hadn’t suffered. Although her stroke had been debilitating and had robbed her of her mobility and speech, I nevertheless clung to her and wanted her to live. This was selfish of me I know but she was such a fixture in my life that I couldn’t contemplate her never being there for me. She’d been my rock and my anchor and together, we’d weathered many storms.

Our lives were defined by our poverty - a poverty forced upon her by the cruel rejection of her family because she’d dared to love and marry a man far below her social status. Their rejection had hurt her - I know this because she’d told me so on many occasions - and her disinheritance had seen her condemned to a poverty-stricken existence. Slowly, over the years, her hurt and bitterness festered deep within her and ate away at her spirit like a malevolent cancer. Incrementally, as her hatred for her family grew, her need for revenge against them increased proportionally.

Who can blame her for becoming the embittered soul that she was. But I knew another side to my grandmother; the one who loved me unconditionally. And it is a love I return in equal measure. 

This need for revenge against the Barrois family became the daily mantra she lived by and throughout my formative years, she’d instilled it into my impressionable, young mind. Eventually, I too came to hate the Barrois name with passion and to share her need for revenge.

How glad I am that my beloved grandmother had lived to see the hated Barrois name discredited and her own married name substituted in its place. I know she’d derived great satisfaction in seeing all the Barrois possessions pass from the control of the usurper, Lucien Barrois into my Maratier hands. And how gratified she’d been when Lucien Barrois was dispossessed and became the slave, Rafe.

This morning, Rafe runs before me and my attention is centred on him. I reflect on my grandmother’s unhappy life and Rafe becomes the personification of the hated Barrois name and the embodiment of her long years of suffering.

As I think about my grandmother’s demise, a great sob wells up within my chest and my tears for her passing flow freely. And, in my grief, I feel anger and resentment towards Rafe. Vindictively, I lash out at him with my whip and apply it as never before. Usually, I take great care never to apply the whip with too much force in case it permanently marks his hide. This morning, I don’t care. If my whip draws blood so be it. After all, if all goes to plan, I’ll soon be free of him and he’ll probably end up as a heavy duty, work slave working under an overseer’s savage bullwhip where, no doubt, his back will be laid open on many occasions. 

My grief and anger consume me and the need to make Rafe pay for my grandmother’s unhappiness consumes me. I watch with satisfaction as my raw emotions manifest themselves as angry, red stripes on his unprotected and vulnerable body.

Finally, we arrive at my grandmother’s home where her major domo, Cadmus waits with another slave under the front portico. I pull the two ponies to a sudden halt as the slave hurries forward to take their reins from me.  Cadmus’s greeting is respectfully subdued and he expresses his condolences to me. I thank him then hurry inside to spend time alone with my grandmother where I can weep for her in private. 

In my grief, I’m not able to think too far ahead. However, I know much needs to be done and when I am over my initial grieving, I will send for Simon Barrow to attend to them. How glad I am to have him to lean upon in this moment of great personal loss and sorrow.

To be continued...

Posted: 10/11/13