Paroxysms of Love and Sacrifice

Veroe

Maestro/Truthseeker
Joined
Apr 5, 2009
Posts
62,053
((Closed for Myself and Vailyn))



IC: Marcus Leander

Marcus Leander was a young man he had just celebrated his twenty-second birthday by getting released from the Legion's hospital for an extended convalescence leave. He Straightened his dress uniform. The two new medals gleaned in the sundrenched light from the villa's portico. They were heavy weights as well on his chest. The Imperial Eagle, given only to those in the legions that displayed exceptional courage beyond the norm for those called to serve the glory of the Reisan Empire. The other the crossed heart given those that had been wounded in that same service to Empire and Emperor.

The leg was coming along, he could walk without the crutches or cane now-if with a pronounced limp. The medicus said it too would fade in a few weeks. The ribs were healing a little faster. Though slipping the sleeves of the uniform's jacket over his arms and shoulders lit his sides with a fire that almost brought him to his knees. Other than that he was fit and healthy with a lean athletic figure.

Ahead one the General's house slaves was vacuuming. She stopped and bowed her head as he passed like Marcus was someone important. He was an orphan from a farming province who joined the legions as soon as he was old enough-anything to leave that armpit of nobodyness. He had served even been selected to go to the Imperial war-college. There he met the house slave's master, and the one man he respected most in the world.

He opened the door to the villa's balcony. From it he could see the skyline of Reise the Imperial city. The high skyscrapers, the tall belltowers of the temples in the city even the Imperial Colliseum in the distance. They were supposed to be holding gladiatorial games celebrating their victory in the conquest of the Dharizan barbrians adding yet another land and slaves for the bloated Empire. Above the arena Marcus could see the goodAnnos blimp circling over it for the television audience.

He hoped those Dharisian bastards suffer before the gladiators finish them off.

"Ah Marcus," The voice came from the corner of the room. He turned to see the General, Gaius Antony Cicero, behind his desk piled high with papers and files from the master of the house being away from it for months. He shut down the computer and turned the wheelchair he was confined to for the rest of his life and rolled it out towards him. Marcus limped forward to meet him halfway in the middle of the room. So the general wouldn't have to push himself that far,

Other than being in the wheel chair Gaius was a handsome dark and tall man-if he could stand to his full height. With dark hair greying a bit from seeing the dawn of his fifth decade. His face was lined with some wrinkles that only showed when he laughed or cried.

"I have something to tell you," He said looking up at Marcus, "But let us talk of it out on the balcony."

Marcus nodded and limped behind him pushing the wheelchair out through the open glass doors into the bright autumn sun. Below one the general's house slaves was cleaning the villa's pool another was tending the gardens riding one of those zero-point turning lawnmowers. In the far distance he could see a car, a sleek and fast and mean and expensive-looking black Gladius Guiardo 500 coming up along the road that wrapped around the Villa's grounds.

"Expecting company, sir," He asked gesturing to the oncoming sportscar.

"I invited a special someone to come and get her opinion on you," The general nodded, "I haven't seen her in so long. I need to see her to..." He trailed off looking up at him.

"Marcus," The General said, "I'm going to tell you this as straight as I can. You know I never married? And so I have no sons?"

Marcus nodded in answer curious as to where he was going.

"The medicus said I will be in this wheelchair until the day I die," He stated, "Shrapnel from that RPG in Dharisan...some of it hit me low in the back...that grenade would've killed me if you hadn't shielded me..."

"Sir, you don't have to thank me," Marcus shook his head, "I only did what my duty to you and to the Empire needed me to."

"...I can't feel anything below my waist," Gaius told him he looked down at himself, "Nothing, not my feet, not my legs, nothing...I need someone to help me just to take a shit or a piss. And I will never have a son. The name of Cicero ends with me. I can not allow that."

"You can adopt a son," He put in.

"Yes, I can," He nodded looking up at Marcus expectantly, "But I do not wish to raise a child. I would be a poor father."

"Don't say that, sir," Marcus said feelingly, "I never had a father, but if I had one..."

"Marcus, I want to name you as my heir."

Marcus took a moment looking down at the man he had always seen as the father the gods had never blessed him to have. "It would be an honor sir, but surely you should look for someone more worthy than me to bear the name of Cicero."

From beyond the doors they heard someone walking down the hall to the door. What was that? Metal against the marble floors?

"Think it over Marcus, I understand its a big step and you'll need time," Gaius said turning the wheelchair to face the door, "But now there's someone I want you to meet. Someone very special."

Marcus heard the sound of the metal footsteps stop just beyond the door. The doorknob turns and the door opens. One of the houseslaves his head and eyes downcast is at the door but behind him stood a figure, a woman...she was wearing an old style black cloak that ran the length of her body from her shoulders down to just above her ankles hiding any appraisal of her figure. He could see the reason why her footsteps had sounded so metallic. She was wearing leather boots with high heels, solid metal ones that ended at a sharp looking point. But that wasn't the most eye catching thing the woman in the door way wore. It was a black mask covering her eyes with gold and the lower half veiled with sheer lace. Marcus could see her full lips deep red and luscious-made by the gods for kissing-under the sheer material.

Marcus had heard of her, or at least what she was. Descriptions and ribald stories of what she was and did were passed between randy legionnaires many times, but honestly Marcus thought what she was had gone all but extinct.

This masked woman was a priestess of Belerephus, twin sibling of Belerephina, the goddess of love, but the brother Belerephus was the dark and twisted evil patron of that. He was god of lust and pleasure, need, obsession, and pain, all the darker passions.

She stepped inside looking at Gaius but not saying a word. The houseslave carried a heavy black bag inside the room then shut the door behind her. She stood there watching Gaius without saying anything.

"Domina," Gaius said lifting himself from the wheel chair to fall onto the floor.

"Sir," Marcus exclaimed bending down to help him. He glanced at the woman noting with some anger that she made no move or reaction to a man falling out of a wheelchair. But then she lifted one boot and placed it forward. The cloak pulled up to her shin.

Gaius tried to drag himself over to her and pushing Marcus away, "Help me over to her. I have to kiss my Domina's boot."

"What," He asked looking up to the priestess who still stood there watching Gaius expectantly. She wasn't going to lift a single finger to help the general one bit.

Ignoring the surge of agony from his leg and ribs Marcus did as Gaius had asked dragging the old soldier over to the woman.

Gaius finally placed his lips on the toe of her boot. It wasn't a quick peck either lasting several beats before the woman slipped her boot away from him.

Gaius started babbling then, "Forgive me Domina. Forgive me for disobeying your last order to me. I came back to you from war, but I did not come back whole and healthy."

Marcus rose up to look the woman in the eyes. She had stark blue eyes that he would have said were pretty if he wasn't so upset at her. She was looking at him rather than at Gaius.

This was all too much to take in. Gaius' offer to name him his son...the general...a Belerephite...a worshipper of the dark god...this woman who forced a parapalegic to drag himself across the room just to kiss her boot.

Marcus glared at the masked woman-not the safest thing to do if the reputations of Priestesses of Belerephus had any truth to them, but he didn't care. How could she have been so cruel.

"Well say something," He said,
 
Today is a very special day, and Phaedra made a point of marking the importance by taking very good care of her appearance before the assignation. The morning had been spent at Helena Tower Spa and her body was treated to a sinful regimen that turned her soft skin to silk, removed unwanted body hair, and painted all her nails a daring crimson. A dash of careful makeup made her ice blue orbs larger and more compelling beneath finely arched black brows. The current favorite red lip color, Dark Eros, was brushed over her plump bow shaped lips and just a tint of bronze drew out the high cheekbones to frame a finely toned, oval face. All of her thick black hair was caught up and tied in a high ponytail that stood out from the back of her head, and fell in a long stream down to her mid-back. Phaedra approved of the morning's labors and smiled wickedly at her reflection.

It's been a long time since she has seen Gaius due to his duties for the Empire, but she remembered how much he loved her voluptuous form. How much he adored being teased by a glimpse of bare skin rather than outright nudity. She pulled on a sheer, black lace sleeveless tunic dress that flowed over her curvy body and stopped at her feet. She buttoned the snug collar of the dress at the side of her neck and admired the exotic flora print and leaves that decorated the gown and strategically displayed sweeping spans of her skin in various points of interest.

Next, she stepped into her favorite knee high, black leather boots with an army of buckles to strap about her calves. She pulled the laces first and tightened the soft leather around her legs and then strapped herself into her favorite footwear. Crossing one leg in front of the other, she turned with one fluid twist and looked over her shoulder to look at the five inch steel stiletto heels. A sinuous gold, wingless dragon coiled about the steel and rested its head on the outside curve of the boot. A shining ruby eye glinted against the black leather. The pair of golden dragons were old companions, friends and guardians that were given to her by her beloved Master.

Phaedra pulled a black steel ribbed leather corset over her head and set it around her torso to rested beneath her beguiling chest. She pulled the front lacing tight until her waist became a third size smaller. The corset cinched in her waist until it became small enough for a man with large hands to span the whole of it, pushed up her ripe mounds as a delectable display to feast on, and emphasized the rich curve of her hips in a decadent manner that none could resist. A line of seven silver buckles crossing over the lacing and tightened the corset's grip that locked her within.

After one last glance over her attire to check the overall affect, she grabbed a beautiful gold mask with decorative black iron curlicues and sheer black lace veil from the vanity, picked up the large black satchel full of her tools and toys, draped the midnight blue cloak over her arm and nabbed the keys from the side table before leaving her airy haven. The door closed and locked automatically behind her.

~*~

Phaedra drove up the familiar driveway to the villa and parked in front of the entrance. Attentive house slaves stood ready to take her satchel and keys. She stepped out of the car, wrapped herself in the midnight blue velvet cloak with the Celtic design embroidered in silver thread along the edges, covered her face with the gold mask and made sure the cloak was drawn closed. Squaring her shoulders, she walked into the villa with a confident, hip rolling stride. One slave drove her car away to be parked in the garage as the other slave followed with her bag of goodies. A third slave walked before her and opened the doors in her path. Even though it has been long months since she had last visited, the house slaves knew how to serve a Priestess of Belerephus.

She entered the familiar room and caught a glimpse of bodies out on the balcony. A tall silhouette stood next to a man sitting in a wheelchair. She had heard the reports of his injuries but this was the first time she saw him face to face. Pain sharpened its claws in her heart and she wanted to cry out when she saw how he looked, diminished and small, propped up in a wheelchair and his tall athletic body seemed wasted in his seat.

Yet, none of her emotions or thoughts were seen by the men who turned towards her entrance. She sent up a little prayer of thanks for the mask she wore. It helped disguise her momentary lapse and kept her strength vitally alive. Gaius did not need her pity. He needed his dark muse and loving Mistress to show him her utter love and affection with her wicked ways.

Phaedra did not notice the slave placing her bag of toys and delights on the floor by her feet. All of her attention was focused on her beloved friend and lover, General Gaius Antony Cicero. Their eyes met across the length of the room full of books. He called to her. She watched him as he grappled his way out of the wheelchair and fell onto the unforgiving marble floor.

Phaedra ignored the tall, young man hovering over the honored General of the Empire. She let her eyes smile into Gaius' tense gaze and placed one boot forward. Without a word, she commanded him to come to her and greet her with loving respect.

The proud Gaius lowered himself to ask for the other man's assistance and awkwardly crawled, dragged himself over to Phaedra's silent form. It was not at all smooth or easy endevour. The clean cut, amber haired man had to bend over in a unwieldy crouch, that obviously pained him, in order to assist Gaius. Long, aching minutes passed before Gaius came to rest before Phaedra's boot and kissed the leather in proper greeting of his Mistress.

Gaius started babbling then, "Forgive me Domina. Forgive me for disobeying your last order to me. I came back to you from war, but I did not come back whole and healthy."

Her watched her lover with calm accepting eyes and let his words pour out of him in a rush, lacking his usual pride or dignity. He was in pain in more ways than one. It was obvious to her that he did not see himself as a man. That he feared to be less than one, and he had no desire to live as a half man.

The young one's pointed anger made itself noted and took away her focus from the man she was here to see and shower with her attentions. Show her love in her own unique fashion. She raised her eyes to meet the guard dog's vehement glare in defense of his lord. He thought he had the right to make demands. To interfere in a private exchange between her and Gaius.

"Leave," She only said the one command in her rich, alto voice. She could see the flare of reactive angst flare in the younger man's eyes. A part of her wanted to see what he would do. A part of her wanted him to act and give her the freedom to wreck her own brand of edifying enlightenment. Before she could, Gaius spoke from the ground.

"Listen to her, Marcus. Leave us. I need to be alone with her."

Phaedra's amusement grew as she watched the young soldier battle against his lord's command but submitted to it without grace. He body stiff from painful wounds and bristling anger in his lord's defense. She waited for him to leave and close the door. All the while, her eyes traveled over her lover's partially prone form. Taking in the dark blue shadows lying beneath his bright eyes, the extra fine lines that gave more character to his handsome face, the way his clothes seem to hang a little more on his broad frame and the slight trembling of his arms that he could not entirely mask.

Once the door closed, she knelt down to the ground and took Gaius in a heated, long celebratory kiss that stole his very air and made their hearts pound with a different kind of thrill. She made a sound of approval as she pulled away from his lips. She smiled warmly at her lover before standing up again. "I have missed your handsome face, Gaius. I have missed my strapping pet while he went off to play war for the Empire. I give you my heartfelt joy for your return. Now it's time for your punishment."

She stood tall in her five inch heeled boots. "Be the man I adore, Gaius, and take your punishment like the lovely man that I know you are. Wait here."

Phaedra walked to the door and called for one of the slaves. She gave him clear instructions and returned to stand by Gaius. She urged him to rest against her leg as they waited and stroked her fingers through his hair. The slaves came into the office and hooked up a harness to the built in hooks in the ceiling. They lifted Gaius, settled him into the harness and strapped him in. It gave the illusion that Gaius was standing on his own feet. It revealed his true height and the two could look at each other eye to eye. The five inch heels gave Phaedra the extra boost to meet Gaius' own height. She walked around him and looked over his body anew. When she returned in front of him, she asked him with amusement laced in her voice, "Did you forget the proper way to stand, pet?"

"Hands behind your back." She ordered briskly as she walked over to the bag of toys and opened it. She removed a thin wooden switch and removed her cloak. She wanted freedom of movement to punish her pet properly. One of the slaves took the cloak from her and hung it.

Stalking back to Gaius with feline grace, the switch whistled in the air as she slapped it against the palm of her hand. "You failed to come back to me as you promised, pet. You failed to remember how to stand properly in my presence. But the worst of all, it seems that you have forgotten the fact that I adore you because you are a man of strength, courage and intellect. It seems that your virtues have been crushed by your pain and fear. Let me teach you what pain is and remind you that you are still a man of strength, courage, and intellect."
 
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IC: Marcus Leander

"Well say something," He said glaring at her.

Was all this really happening? Marcus felt as if the whole world was suddenly turned upside down. All of this, everything it just couldn't be real. He had just not been offered the one thing everyone in the world had that he had never known: family. And there was no Belerephite priestess in the General's villa. The general was not on the ground groveling at her feet. He was a strong man. A man Marcus respected deeply, and this-none of this-could possibly be happeni-

"Leave," The cloaked woman finally spoke breaking the web of denial he had been weaving. And her voice rich and sultry swept over him like she reached out and ran her fingers slowly down his skin. Could just hearing someone's voice really do that?

He shook himself and cast eyes down to Gaius. He looked up to Marcus. "Do you want me to go?"

"Listen to her, Marcus. Leave us." He told him, his eyes had a desperation to them-they couldn't be his General's eyes. "I need to be alone with her."

Marcus looked back at the woman. She seemed to be waiting on him. He pursed his lips. There ought to be a law against having eyes that blue-it was like looking into a lake frozen over in winter. He somehow got the sense that layer of ice could crack within a moment and he'd fall into the depths below. "I'll be right down the hall, if you need anything, sir."

He turned and stepped toward the door doing so brought him right against her. His arm brushed against her cloak-covered shoulder. It was only a momentary contact but there was an electric thrill that rushed up over his body at the contact. Was this happening?

He left them then, not certain how he felt about leaving Gaius alone with her. The door shut behind him.

He forced himself to walk down the hall and to Gaius' study. He loved books they never got news at the orphanage so he had to read an reread them. His fingers flitted over the spines reading the titles. He stopped at one on the top shelf. A big one old and worn battered with age and its spine bent inward with use.

Viginti Tormenta belerephus

The title meant: The twenty torments of Belerephus. He opened the first page open and began reading.

cepit eam sororem, purus purus, misericors et ardebit usque ad inferni Belerephina. Nam cupiebatur pro Belerephus erat enim pulchra et dilexit eum tenebris sed spreta Dei officiorum.
Sic fecit in profundissimis puteis locum ejus et vinctum ejus vita et membris rapere eum de egit cum viginti tormentis ...

therein he took his sister, pure, chaste, compassionate, Belerephina to the depths of the underworld. For Belerephus desired for her for she was beautiful and loved him but spurned the dark god's attentions.
So in the deepest pits he made a place for her and bound her life and limb to take what she kept from him with twenty torments...


He sat down in the leather arm chair and read on trying not keep his ears straining to hear any sound of what was going on down the hall. He told himself it was concern for Gaius, but that woman....

Growing up in an orphanage you learn which were the cruel ones. You recognize it in the eyes when they look back, Those crystalline blue eyes had cruelty but that was not all he had seen in them. He didn't know what it was not kindness-no that was the right word..it was something undefinable but not evil.

He read and listened.

-----------------------X

IC: Gaius Antony Cicero

"Leave," She said to Marcus.

Phaedra, his Domina, the only woman who would ever make Gaius grovel like this, and not because she was intimidating-she was. Phaedra could make Juireno, king of the gods prostrate himself before her. It was her kindness-not the patronizing kindness of the pure, but the more powerful kindness of a woman who was cruel in her kindness.

An oxymoron to be sure: Cruel Kindness, but just because it was a contradiction did not make it any less real. That was Phaedra-standing even as all the forces of logic told her to move.

The boy looked down and Gaius' head raised so he could meet them eye to eye. "Do you want me to go?"

Good lad, poor lad, putting him through this without any warning, but it was necessary. He had to see with his own eyes uncolored by talking it over before hand...it was how it was done for him.

"Listen to her, Marcus. Leave us." He told with his desperation for only what Phaedra could ever give him shining in his eyes. It had been too long, the burden was too heavy he couldn't bear it any longer. "I need to be alone with her."

As Marcus left he could feel her eyes graze over him like one of those wurtenberg wheels she had used on him the weekend she had given him the command he had not kept. She lowered kneeling beside him one hand rising from her cloak to lift the veil from her mouth, the other grabbed him roughly by the hair on his neck raising his head up for the sweetest lips the world over-he knew Gaius had traveled much of it and looked-claimed his.

She was cruel and she was kind too. A contradiction: yes. To the underworld with you and all your minions logic.

He kissed her back pouring all his affection and love and passion for this woman-passion he'd never be able to express in any form more substantial than this kiss. It was kind and it was cruel and all the many shades between. It was good.

The kiss seemed to suck the very breath from his lungs and if he had any left the sound of approval made would have stolen it too. She pulled back up and he could see the cruelty and the kindness and so many shades between in them. Who could not cry out for mercy under them?

"I have missed your handsome face, Gaius." Her voice rolled over him like a kitten's purr inviting him to reach out for a caress, scratch behind the ears-if he was lucky she'd be the one doing the scratching. "I have missed my strapping pet while he went off to play war for the Empire."

"It was not easy," He told her with the anguish only other military officers could understand, "So many of my men, mere boys like young Marcus, only returning home in body bags. It was a nightmare. We were decimated and not as discipline like in the old days, but by my shortcomings-my fault." He glanced down at her feet eyes haunted. "I had three legions, it should have been enough." The Dharisian military had been a joke, wrecked by corruption in the ranks, lacking discipline, and deciscive leadership. It should have been easy in and out withing three months. They had swept all organized resistance aside within the first three weeks. But what no one could forsee was the native Dharisian's reaction to it. The answer ended up being not well. Thirteen months of fighting the entire population and returning a tenth of the number of men, decimation, that was victory. What a fucking joke?

"I give you my heartfelt joy for your return." Her voice came lifting him from his macabre thoughts, "Now it's time for your punishment."

"Past time Domina," He agreed. It had been so long since he had felt clean, "But he was not wothy of being in the same room with her now. He had allowed himself to be broken. Gaius was only half of a man now. Would she even desire him now? His little soldier would not even stand up a salute any more. If he were her, he wouldn't.

She stood towering over him, not as difficult now as it had been before Dharisan.

"Be the man I adore, Gaius," She said, "And take your punishment like the lovely man that I know you are."

"Yes Domina," He said. Man? He had stopped being that months ago, now there was only a broken husk of a man left.

"Wait here." She ordered him, like he had any other choice. She opened the door and called for one of his houseslaves to help her. Servan his Braulish man servant came inside. Gaius didn't feel embarrassed about Servan seeing him like this. Phaedra had long since divested him of any propriety among his own slaves. And Servan had seen him in much much more compromising situations. there was one when she had stayed with him for weeks and made him nothing more than a rutting animal parading him around his own home in front of his servants and had her way with him within each and every room inside. Servan had brought her a glass of wine as she had fisted and given him a handjob until he came all over the expensive rug from Myssidia. She had then led him away by his leash to the next room leaving Servan with a soiled rug to clean. She never did drink any of the wine.

After speaking with Servan he left to get the implements she had specified. Then she stood beside him and allowed him to lean against her leg and run her hands through his hair like she used to. They stayed that way for several minutes, Gaius luxuriating in the feel of her fingers gently going through his hair.

Finally Servan and Laila came back with what she had asked for. The harness she had left in her room here. They took several minutes to hook it up to the hooks hanging in the ceiling. As they did Laila glanced down at him. She like Servan was no stranger to seeing their master treated as nothing more than chattel or an object. That same week he had been suspended in the air from those same hooks. with her leaning back underneath and made his cock her plaything as Laila dusted and vacuumed the office around them. She had already been at it for an hour before, then she continued as Laila vacuumed to the music of her master begging, begging, for the priviledge of cumming down his domina's throat, on her breasts, in her hand, on the floor. She hadn't given in. Just let him down and led him to the next room, his cock hard and aching. It had been three more rooms before she had finally allowed him to come.

The two servants helped him into the harness and Gaius felt a sense of relief as for the first time in eight weeks he was finally seeing the world as he used to, standing. But it was only an illusion. He remembered the bite of this harness on his lower body in this position he could feel it some, but for the first time since Phaedra had installed these hooks and placed him in this accursed harness. Now there was pressure, some level of pain as the straps dug into his hips and groin, but not nowhere near what he remembered it should.

She looked into his eyes and he knew she saw through him. She could see it like he could feel it. He was not the man who could take her cruelty and her kindness anymore, that man had died in Dharisan...all that remained was a broken husk of a man.

She circled around him and Gaius waited for the disappointment in her words. He'd never again be able to fuck her like the beast he had been during that week. He'd never be able to fuck anyone ever again.

When she returned to before him looking him eye to eye she asked with amusement in her tone, "Did you forget the proper way to stand, pet?"

"I..." He stammered, "...Yes...I had forgotten, Domina."

"Hands behind your back." She ordered and even as she said it Gaius was doing so out of reflex at her tone of voice. She opened the bag of equipment she had and pulled out a switch from it, and Gaius heart leapt in anticipation and dread-another oxymoron. They two were having a parade of contradictions here.

Then she unclasped her cloak and Gaius got a look at what she wore underneath it. The sheer dress and leather corset. He'd seen her in much less of course and in more, it depended on her mood...apparently she was in the mood to fuck, and here he was incapable of fulfilling that mood.

He lowered his eyes in grief of never again knowing the bliss of pushing into that body. After this time he wouldn't invite her again...it'd be just too painful. He'd just waste away in that wheelchair until the end of his days...a broken husk of a man.

She stalked like a lioness would in the Mesrengeri to approach her chose prey just before she pounced. You failed to come back to me as you promised, pet." The switch struck the inside of her hand.

He nodded, "Yes Domina."

"You failed to remember how to stand properly in my presence."

"Yes, Domina."

"But the worst of all, it seems that you have forgotten the fact that I adore you because you are a man of strength, courage and intellect." She continued.

He didn't answer-something he knew she would catch and make him pay for, but he would not lie to Phaedra. How long before that statement would be an epithet to what they had...when she got bored with all that he could no longer supply her with....a broken husk of a man....who would desire that for long...no one.

"It seems that your virtues have been crushed by your pain and fear." She said like an Empress passing judgment on him, "Let me teach you what pain is and remind you that you are still a man of strength, courage, and intellect."

He swallowed waiting for the strike. He did not doubt Phaedra's desire, but she was a remarkable sorceress, but not even she was a miracle worker.
 
Phaedra watched his familiar face. He's older now than when they had first met. It's already been ten years since that fateful night. It wasn't as though they did not know who each other were. After all, both of them are devote Belerephites and well known in select circles. One could say that her reputation was more infamously known amongst the followers of Belerephus. The sudden reversal of her position to Domina sent titillating shock waves in their society. No one would have ever imagined her to be capable of being the tenderly cruel Domina that she is now. Not if they have ever seen her with her beloved Master Titus.

She had just turned twenty-two and fully embracing a wildly hedonistic exploration of her newly donned role, Domina Phaedra Isadora Alcaeus. Nearly a year has been spent in dedicated study of becoming a Domina of Belerephus, and she has been celebrating her change in status for a mere handful of days. It was only right that she would spend the majority of her time at Nox Noctis, the preferred playground of the local Belerephites.

Tristan, the Bratling Prince and her best friend, had introduced her to Gaius and asked her if she would settle a friendly argument between the two of them. Apparently, Gaius did not believe that he would ever choose to submit to a Domina willingly and stay within her not so tender mercies. The man was fully confident in himself and the knowledge that he would never be less than a leader. The one in control.

Frank dark eyes full of sardonic humor met her taunting, light blue gaze at the end of an intimate, full body perusal and Gaius was lost. A thrum of undeniable energy passed between the two of them, and Phaedra accepted the challenge of making one of the most renown military leaders of the Empire into a willing slave to her desires.

Lush rouged lips curled into a smile full of dark promises, and the General's bewitchment began with one command:

"Kiss me."

He spent one long night in her care and spent the majority of it begging to come, to be punished, to please her in any way that she wished and to be gifted with another drugging kiss. He learned to be silent at command. He learned the folly of failing. He learned to plead to be punished and plead to be given leave to release his aching seed. By morning's light, his voice tight and hoarse from hours of shouting in edged pleasure, he grovelled at Phaedra's feet and besought her for a kiss. Begged her for another taste of her sweet lips.

She had not kissed him on the mouth since that first command and he could not bear to have her leave him without another. He could not bear to have her leave at all. But she did. She let him kiss the toe of her polished black boots, voice throbbing as he whispered his earnest gratitude for her attentions, and left him kneeling on the floor, his powerful body folded in graceless thirds of calves, thighs and torso, without a kiss or promise to return.

The mighty General of the Empire has fallen in one night.

For months, he spent every spare moment he had twisted in bewildering agony of sleepless nights full of searing memories and gnawing desire as he petitioned Phaedra to claim him as hers. Eventually, she did and the affirmation of their relationship was marked by an intense few weeks spent together in his sprawling villa. He had a room redecorated for her and she moved in to live with him as she began his training. He will never look at any part of his home again without memories of her filling him.

Phaedra dragged the thin tip of the light wooden switch along her cheek and down her neck as she watched her lover. The delicate touch focusing her nerve endings to strain for the sensation of the whisper touch. See could see defeat in the set of his broad shoulders. Denial in the guilt wrecked tension of his body. The way his body sank into the harness in unconscious relief to be standing tall and yet bowed by the nightmare vision he has caged around him. Where he had once been thoughtlessly sure of his command and power, he now doubted that he had any right to such as a broken half man incapable of peeing without help.

She knew. She knew what happened to him out there. She read all of the reports about his injuries and recovery. She knew about his current disposition and lackluster interest in his affairs. She knew because Gaius' faithful slaves reported his status to her once a week. That has always been a part of their relationship.

"For every strike, you will count out loud. You will keep your hands behind your back. You will only speak to count and answer questions directed to you. You may not make any other noise." Phaedra looked into his dark brown eyes that were shadowed by layers of physical pain and self defeasance. "Pick a number between one to three. Then your chastisement will begin."

"Three." There was no hesitation in his voice. He was eager for it.

She smiled at his answer and let her pleasure fill her voice. "Ah, there's the one I know and love." She called the house slaves to her side and whispered directions to them. Laila left the room to follow her orders while Servan brought the large black bag closer to Phaedra. He searched the depths, pulled out a plain silver switchblade, opened it with a faint snick and handed it to Phaedra handle first.

"You're wearing too many clothes, pet. Let's take care of that first. Here. Take this in your mouth and hold it while I work. You should have known better than to be dressed." She put the wooden switch in his mouth point first and caressed his cheek as he closed his lips around it.

Phaedra spoke lightly of her activities and various thoughts as she cut off each button from his stark white shirt. Tiny clinks of falling buttons punctuated her aimless commentary as they hit the marble floor. When the last button dropped, she pulled his shirt apart with her hands and dragged the tip of the blade over his skin as she inspected his body. He's lost some of his muscular heft and tone. His ribs stretched tight and showed too clearly. There were more grey in the smattering of dark hair over his chest and the narrow trail that pointed to his belly button.

The tip of the blade pressed a little deeper when it reached up to his collarbone. She held it there for several long seconds. If he moved the wrong way or breath too deeply, the pointed edge would sink easily into him. He did not fail her. He kept still as a statue. In minutes, she had the shirt cut into uneven panels and it fell off of him to billow into a ragged pile at his feet. Next, she slit the loose black, drawstring trousers along the seams. She pulled the quartered pieces off his body and from the grasp of the harness. The pieces fell to land over and around the shredded shirt.

"That's better. A naked warrior just for me."

Phaedra crouched in front of Gaius and examined his lower body with searching eyes. The point of the blade pricked him in various parts of his feet, calves, thighs and groin. Miniature red dots welled like tiny rubies against faded tan.

"Pet, did you feel anything? Tell me where."

She hummed as she closed the switchblade, twisted around to place it back in the bag and pulled out a three inch long and half as wide cylinder with a flattened flared end and a tiny remote. Turning back, she rose up in a languid stretch that elongated all of her muscles for a sinful moment. She called Servan over to hold Gaius' legs apart.

Playfully, she pulled the switch slowly out of her pet's mouth, told him to open wide and suck on the silver cylinder until it was nice and wet. She leaned close until their noses almost touched, pulled the cylinder out of his mouth with a wet pop and languidly slid down his chest. Her puffs of breath hit his bare skin in a halting trail as she breathed him in. She came to rest between his open thighs, ordered Servan to part his Master's rear cheeks and shoved the cylinder in with a hard upward thrust until the flaring end rested against flesh.

Her crimson nails dug into his skin as she rose back up to her feet. Quick as a snake, her fingers grabbed his firm nipple and twisted hard. Phaedra rested her hand over his heart and felt it thump hard and fast. Smiling, she twisted the other nipple just as hard as the first and let go to program the remote. The cylinder was a special vibrator that can be set to a reactionary state. It can be programmed to react to shifts in body pressure against it and turn on for various time settings. Her favorite setting was random timing. The vibrator can turn on for as little as fifteen seconds or as long as two minutes at a time. It made it impossible to judge when it will turn off and build a defense against it.

"I should not have to remind you that you are not allowed to cum. No orgasms for you, pet. If you do, I'll punish you severely." She could see the confusion and denial war with hope in his eyes. "Don't you trust me? You really must relearn your place, pet. To remember that you are a man of strength, courage and intellect. One worthy of being my first pet."

With that promise, Gaius' naked body became Phaedra's living canvas and the switch her brush of choice. As she stalked around him, she strategically laid a variety of stinging red marks on certain pressure points and sensitive areas from his neck down to his upper thighs. Every third strike, she would pause and caress the area she had just hit or taste it with her tongue. Arbitrarily, she would tell him to name the area she had marked or command him to describe how she touched him and what that made him feel.

She knew instantly when the naughty vibrator started to truly affect Gaius. Confusion swept over his face and a different kind of tension filled his body tight. The light sheen of sweat grew heavier and rivulets of his perspiration trailed over his still impressive body. His short dark hair with light wings of grey dripped on his heated skin. Inevitably, he failed to count.

Phaedra's sultry laughter soared and filled the room with rich sound as she stopped in front of him.

"AH! You failed to count. I could start all over again but I don't want to waste all the hard work I've put in. You almost made it to the end, pet. But I must admit, I'm glad to have another reason to punish you."

Laila carried a bowl full of a pungent herb. She brought it over to the Domina and knelt by her side. Phaedra bent over to reach between Gaius' legs and pulled out the vibrating cylinder. She had to work to pull the device lose from his body's possessive grasp and used it to stir the light yellow mash in the bowl until the herb coated it. Then without warning or ceremony, she shoved the cylinder back into Gaius.

Servan rolled the wheelchair a few feet in front of Gaius and Phaedra settled into it. The long slits in the sheer gown made it easy for her to throw one leg over the arm of the wheelchair and tucked the front length of the gown to one side. She slouched in the chair to show off her secret place. It glistened with delicate dewdrops that seeped from inner vales. The corset and posture forced her bountiful mounds to swell against the thin dress and threaten to burst free. One arm rested against her raised leg and tapped the switch lightly against her boot. The other hand fell to rest between her legs and played with swollen pink-red folds. She watched Gaius as she toyed with herself and took in every moment of his reaction to his latest punishment.

Ginger root has a variety of uses. It's spicy juice can have an extremely painful and deliciously wicked sensual affect on the body. The sensations start off mild and grow rapidly in context until a roaring burn flames from the points of contact. Mixed with the sensory vibrator, Gaius had no ready defenses for the dueling effects. Though only three minutes have passed, it was an eternity of sensations warring in Gaius and Phaedra could see each passing expression and physical reaction as her pet battled to hold his body in control. To deny the feelings that rocketed in his system. His eyes shut tight as a fierce grimace stripped the usual sensuality from his lips.

Phaedra motioned to Laila. The slave woman quickly withdrew the cylinder from Gaius and walked away to wash the device. After a few minutes have passed and Gaius' body had settled down from clenching shudders to a fine tremble, she ordered the slaves to release Gaius from the harness and bring him to her. They tenderly cared for their Master, freed him from the harness and settled him to sit before his Mistress.

"Look at me, pet." she commanded softly. He raised his head slowly. A wild storm of thoughts and emotions colored his eyes. A fine tremor still shivered along his harshly worked body. "Tell me how you feel. Am I wrong? Are you not the man I know and adore? Do you not have strength, courage and intellect?"

Tenderly, she cupped his face with her hand and pulled him close to rest his head on her naked thigh. His face only inches away from her center. For a long while, she stroked his head on her lap until his body relaxed into simple exhaustion. The switch tapped his cheek, gained his attention and pointed to the hidden valley. "A treat for taking your punishment like the man I adore. You may kiss me there until I count to three." She pulled his face closer to her moist mound.

"One."

His lips landed.​

"Two."

Her abdomen clenched as her inner passage pulsed.​

"Three."

She gave a soundless sigh as he reluctantly pulled away.​

"Beloved, I am happy that you are home alive. It has been too long." She stroked his hair tenderly until his eyes closed. Suddenly, her fingers fisted in his short locks and pulled his head back harshly. "You are mine, pet. Mine! Do not forget your place. Do not forget my rules that you must obey. If you fail, you know what fate waits. After all, you are mine."

Phaedra leaned down to capture his lips in a hard kiss that turned tender and loving. A kiss that blended their tastes and shared the flavor of her arousal. A kiss that ran the gauntlet of emotions that were roused by their intimate session. A kiss of passion, forgiveness, remembrance, need and affirmation.
 
IC: Gaius Antony Cicero

"It seems that your virtues have been crushed by your pain and fear." She said like an Empress passing judgment on him, "Let me teach you what pain is and remind you that you are still a man of strength, courage, and intellect."

He swallowed waiting for the strike. He did not doubt Phaedra's desire, but she was a remarkable sorceress, but not even she was a miracle worker.

She watched, waiting like a cat would with a mouse. Gaius wallowed in anticipation for the moment her hand would move, and he'd feel that flash of pain, and something within him only she could find would begin to crumble.

The switch lowered tracing the tip over the side of her cheek and neck to her collarbone making him want chase after it with his tongue over her skin.

Gaius remembered that first night, he and Tristan joking about a long standing bet. Phaedra had been known renowned as a submissive. He had thought she'd be easy as a domina. He had been wrong. He had been so wrong, and yet in that wrong assumption something right had been born. Gaius was a soldier, an officer. He was decisive and quick and dynamic on the battlefield. He was king of all he surveyed.

He had not known he needed to give that up, the graven image of a general to free the man trapped beneath it. She had known...somehow..she had seen it.

"Kiss me," she had said.

She spoke finally, "For every strike, you will count out loud. You will keep your hands behind your back. You will only speak to count and answer questions directed to you. You may not make any other noise."

Then she peered in close into his eyes, past them to the man she had freed from under the bronze idol of a general. Only now he was being crushed under the wheel of a wheelchair.

"Pick a number between one to three. Then your chastisement will begin."

This was one of her favorite games to play. Force him to choose a number without knowing how many of what he was deciding on. It could be anything. It could be how many strikes with the most agonizing rattan cane she had here. It could be how many hours she was going to keep him in this harness. It could be how many orgasms she gave him tonight-that is if he was still capable of climaxing.

Still whatever she chose, his answer would always be the same. Whatever she wanted to give him he would always choose the maximum she offered. "Three," He announced immediately without reluctance in his voice.

She smiled at that and said in a pleased voice, "Ah, there's the one I know and love."

He remained silent hanging there in his harness as she called Servan and Laila and gave them instructions.

He remembered Tristan's words that first night. "I'm telling you, Gaius that Phaedra is something else."

"Tristan," He said skeptically, "If I had an ass and tits like hers you'd say I was something else too."

"I think you're protesting a little too much," His compatriot raised a mischevious eyebrow at that. "She's a dome, and the best I've ever seen."

Gaius had glowered at the insufferable man. He liked Tristan well enough but the man believed he was the gods gift to women the world over. So he tended towards an annoying sense of vanity, and he enjoyed poking people like this just to see them jump. "Just what are you implying?"

"That you are a switch," Tristen stated plainly for once.

"And just what gave you that idea." He had thundered, "I have never submitted myself to anyone. No one here is capable of bringing me that low."

Tristan pointed at him, "Then you're fooling yourself Gaius. Everytime there is a public display with a domme and her submissive Your eyes stick to her the whole time not the sub."

I was just admiring their techniques." He had folded his arms and growled, "And its besides the point no woman could ever bring me to my knees before her, why if I had a denarii for-"

"Excellent idea," Tristan laughed, "I'll bet you twenty-five thousand denarii that Phaedra will change your mind and have you kneeling at her feet by the end of the night."

Gaius had looked at the woman with an appraising eye. He remembered her being an exceptional slave and here she was strutting around like a dominant, but it was an act. A tiger doesn't change its stripes that easy. He could do it. He'd enjoy spending the night turning the tables on her and savoring that delectable submissive's ass again until morning.

"Deal, Tristan, have the twenty-five thousand by tomorrow. I'll try not spend all your money in one place."

Tristan then walked over to Phaedra and talked it over with her. When she came over he rose from his seat and made it obvious his eyes were grazing over her in a domme costume. The long legs in accentuated in leather pants and high heels. the revealing slitted bodice that begged the eyes to play peekaboo with her breasts.

He could feel a flow of energy between them. He had felt it with the women he had dominated in the past, but this, this...it was in the opposite direction.

Then came her words. The two words that had changed his life. "Kiss me."

Then that ass Tristan's last words. "Oh the most beautiful woman in the empire wants to chain you up and have her way with you. What will you ever do now?"

In the present Phaedra said, "You're wearing too many clothes, pet. Let's take care of that first." He had seen Servan hand her the knife. It had been a long time since she had brought knives into their times together. He inhaled deep trying to steel himself for the sharp piercing sensation she would gift to him with that knife. Maybe breaking his promise to her was unforgiveable? Maybe it deserved a punishment much more severe.

"Take this in your mouth and hold it while I work." She said placing the switch pointed end first into his mouth so it jabbed the back. His lips and teeth closed on it determined not to let it fall. He wanted to lean into the feel of her hand as Phaedra ran it tenderly over his cheek. You should have known better than to be dressed."

He had dressed for Marcus' sake, and he had chosen a shirt and pants that he would not miss losing.

She set about it removing his clothes slicing off one button at a time. As she did she told of how she had spent the year he had been away from her. Her blossoming art career until free of its buttons she pulled it away from his chest. She traced the tip of the knife up over his stomach up up over her rapidly hammering heart to the soft flesh just below his collar bone. The tip held if he did not remain calm or still she could easily hurt him. His eyes widened looking into hers as she tested his level of fear.

Once satisfied she began cutting the shirt into wide strips that fell to the floor at his feet. Next came his pants and a mere matter of moments later she had divested him of his clothes and he hung there before her laid bare, naked, half of the man she knew.

"That's better," She said sizing him up, "A naked warrior just for me."

She was wrong. He was no warrior, not anymore. Maybe that was pity talking, though Phaedra was pretty much the one woman he trusted in all the world to be honest with him, but...how can he be anything if he was like this, unable to even kneel before her.

She crouched down her sheer lace dress folding over the toned folded legs in an appealing way, that Gaius wished could have the same effect on him as it used to. But his cock remained flaccid and pathetic before her.

She began to press the tip of the knife into various parts of his legs and feet and groing. "Pet, did you feel anything?" She asked him, "Tell me where."

"Domina," He said clumsily with the switch in his mouth, "I feel some, pressure, the tickle of a little pain, but it is not enough." He is voice clouded in a moment's desperation. "It's not enough."

She hummed as she put the blade away in her bag and Gaius watched as she rose stretching that beautiful body enticingly. Unfortunately it was completely lost on Gaius. His cock remained limp and useless.

She ordered Servan over with a silver cylinder and pulled it out with her usual playful flair. Servan spread his legs making him wish he could feel it fully, but all he felt was a tenth of what he used to. Phaedra had him suck on the cylinder as his housleslave held open his legs for her. She pulled it out of his mouth and lowered blowing hot air that rose goose bumps down towards his groin and then nothing. She was kneeling between his legs and all it did for Gaius was less than nothing. How he had hoped to have her kneeling between his thighs in the past but now-

He felt the pressure of the cylinder shoved up his ass. and grimaced not from the pain, that was pathetic compared to the past when she had inserted things there before. This he felt something more....he could feel the object in his rectum.

She rose up trailing her nails up his body then swiftly biting his nipple and twisting hard with them as her other hand laid over his heart, in a heart-warming tender gesture, before moving and twisting his other nipple. The pain arched over his nerves from his abused nipples to his head.

He held back the moan stuck in his throat.

Then she pulled back to program the remote to the vibrator shoved into his ass. "I should not have to remind you that you are not allowed to cum. No orgasms for you, pet. If you do, I'll punish you severely."

He looked at her in confused denial. Did she not understand he could not...he never would again.

"Don't you trust me?" She asked, "You really must relearn your place, pet. To remember that you are a man of strength, courage and intellect. One worthy of being my first pet."

And then with that promise she began circling him hitting various places, the most sensitive ones she knew well from his neck down to his thighs. He kept counting as he felt the familiar tension, the wheel of that giant wheel chair begin to shift off him metaphorically.

After every third she paused running her hands over the places she hit tenderly showing the depth of her affection for him that Gaius felt all the way through to his heart. Either that or she'd lean forward and that oh so talented tongue would stretch out and lave the red line on his flesh she had just left raising goose bumps around it.

Sweating and panting from the ordeal or heaven-he could never decide which-he kept counting loud and declarative, soft and sibilant, but consistent until...the vibrator came on, and Gaius' eyes widened and inhaled instead of counting out loud the strike she had just placed on the spot below his left nipple.

"AH! You failed to count," She lauged that sultry laugh that he had always felt reach through him all the way down to his balls. "I could start all over again but I don't want to waste all the hard work I've put in. You almost made it to the end, pet. But I must admit, I'm glad to have another reason to punish you."

He swallowed a little nervously at that as the vibrator amped up to a higher speed in his ass. Then Laila brought over a bowl of something smelling awful and pungent. He watched the enticing display of Phaedra bending over and pulling it out of him. It was hard she knew what a greedy ass he had for whatever she deigned to put in there. Then she took-what was in that bowl-it smelled like Ginger.

Wait...she wouldn't.

Phaedra then began to reinsert the vibrating cylinder back inside his ass. Servan holding his cheeks open for it.

That was when he discovered his ass still had the ability to feel close to what he had before the shrapnel grazing his spinal column had taken that from him. That fact alone was enough to send his spirit soaring, but he didn't much feel like celebrating that fact as the burning sensation of the Ginger mash began to grow and turn that joy into pain.

Gaius' hands clenched and his face tightened and he battled heroically to not cry out, as she had commanded of him. He could only grimace shuddering, shutting his eyes tight against the overriding sensation. Then Laila pulled it out and he gazed with affection at Phaedra, his domina, as the burning began to lessen...she was a miracle worker bringing sensation that intense back to him.

Servan took his chair, that damned chair, and rolled out in front of him, and Gaius watched as Phaedra bent down and sat that heart shaped perfect ass in his wheelchair like it was her throne. She bent one leg over the arm of the chair slouching back in the chair and pulled dress to one side baring her glissening wet paradise of her pussy to his hungry eyes.

Then Laila pulled out the virbrator and Gaius began to ease down from the torment. Then the two servants began to release him from the harness and drag him upright towards her.

"Look at me, pet." she commanded softly.

His head raised slowly to look upon her. Swirling emotions and thought storming through his eyes. His shuddering now falling back to a slight tremor.

"Tell me how you feel." she stated " Am I wrong? Are you not the man I know and adore? Do you not have strength, courage and intellect?"

He swallowed looking into her eyes, "Yes, Domina, though if I strength it is because you give it. If I have courage it is because you inspire it. If I am a man of intellect it is because you support it."

She reached up cupping his chin softly and pulled him down Laila and Servan supporting his body as he lowered and she rested his head on his thigh and he stared directly at her sex. After a moment his body began to relax and Servan and Laila pulled away leaving their maser lying his head on the inner thigh of his Domina.

He felt the tap of her switch against his cheek and then saw as she point it towards the folds of her pussy. "A treat for taking your punishment like the man I adore." She told him, "You may kiss me there until I count to three."

Her finger slipped into his hair and tenderly closed into a handle for his head. Then she pulled his face a hairsbreadth from her sex.

"One."

His lips landed.
"Two."

Her abdomen clenched as her inner passage pulsed.
"Three."

She gave a soundless sigh as he reluctantly pulled away.


"Beloved, I am happy that you are home alive. It has been too long." She stroked his hair tenderly until his eyes closed. Suddenly, her fingers fisted in his short locks and pulled his head back harshly. "You are mine, pet. Mine! Do not forget your place. Do not forget my rules that you must obey. If you fail, you know what fate waits. After all, you are mine."

He swallowed again grateful, grateful of the affection and pain and discipline she had brought into his life. He looked up at her eyes giving the only reply that mattered that of a submissive looking up at his Domina.

She then bent down and kissed him and Gaius knew peace and absolution for the first time in so long. Without her he was not a man at all.

The stayed like that for a long time. Gaius looking up at her and she stroking his hair and cheek with affection of a pleased Domina.

Then quietly he said, "Domina we must talk about Marcus. He was the boy that was here with me just now. I spoke of him before that week you visited me when I taught at the Legion's war college. I told you of a bright young cadet who I had decided to take under my wing. He saved my life dragging me through the battlefield with broken ribs and shrapnel in his own leg"

"During the campaign in Dharisan we became close. I look upon him as a son and I wish to make that formality into a reality now. And as every member of the house of Cicero has worshipped Belerephus, I beg of you, Domina." He looked up into her eyes, "I do not want my family name to end with me or its devotion to the dark god. I beg of you, spend time with him. Evaluate him. See if he will accept the initiation into the circle, and sponsor it if he does. I would trust no one else to this."

He closed his eyes knowing she'd see the rest of his thinking, Once Marcus was a Cicero and Belerephite Gaius would be able to fall upon his sword and end the misery of his life in that damned chair.
 
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Phaedra listened to Gaius talk about the young solider that had accompanied him earlier. It wasn't news that Gaius was fond of the Marcus. He's mentioned him several times in his emails and calls. However, it was surprising to hear that he planned to name him as his heir and wished for him to become a Belerephite.

"I do not want my family name to end with me or its devotion to the dark god. I beg of you, spend time with him. Evaluate him. See if he will accept the initiation into the circle, and sponsor it if he does. I would trust no one else to this."

She watched him from lazily shaded eyes and knew he was holding back something important. It was in the way his gaze dropped away and closed his eyes. Gaius has never tried to hide himself from her. To do so would derail the balance of trust and affection that makes the foundation of their relationship. Not that it mattered. Whatever he may be planning, she will be present to witness it for herself. Her fingernails scrapped over his scalp in a soothing pattern and his dense weight leaned harder against her.

"I've decided to come back to the villa, Gaius. It's been too long since we've had more than a night together and I need more time with you, pet." She leaned down to lay a light kiss on his head and returned to lounge in the wheelchair. "I will do as you ask and get to know this remarkable young man. If nothing else, he has earned my good graces by saving your life. As for initiating him as a Belerephite... you know that some part of the ways must be inherent in him or it will never become a true part of his life."

Tenderly, she caressed her warrior until she could tell that his exhaustion from the injury and his punishments were pushing the man beyond his current stamina and limits. She cupped his square jaw in her hand and pulled his head up to have his eyes meet hers. Dark glazed eyes opened with effort. Phaedra leaned forward to kiss him lightly and promised, "I shall be back this evening, Gaius. Our session is long from over. Until then, Servan and Laila will make sure to clean you up. Rest well while I'm gone. I need you to regain your strength or you will not be able to keep up with me tonight." She dug her bright red nail into his jawline and left a scoring mark that bruised the flesh but did not draw blood. "You don't want to do that now, do you, pet?"

"Never, Domina. I would not miss one second of your affections." he groaned with sexual need and submission.

She simply smiled back at him and stood up to step away. The lacy gown fell back into an elegant drape over her legs and leaving a teasing view of her voluptuous, corseted body. "Servan, have my rooms aired and ready for me. I'll return tonight."

A To Do list began as Phaedra left the room and a thoughtful smile of possibilities flirted on her lips. Movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention and she stopped when she saw the young warrior Gaius wished to name as his heir. He was sitting in the study and seemed to be oblivious to his surroundings as he read an old book. Stepping quietly to cancel the tell-tell announcement of her metal heels, Phaedra sneaked up to Marcus, settled herself onto the arm of the leather chair and leaned into him as she looked at the book.

"Ah! Viginti Tormenta Belerephus. The tale of the God Belerephus and the Twenty Torments of the Flesh he used to seduce his sister, Belerephina, and bind her will to his. A good book to read if you mean to become a Belerephite."

She turned to look at him. Their faces only inches away from one another. Her clear, light blue eyes watched him. Amusement filled her voice as she whispered dramatically, "Wait till you get to the third torment. It will curl your toes, make your gut wrench and your balls heavy with the need to spill."

Phaedra took in the short brush of golden brown hair that topped his head, the slash of golden brows over stormy sea-blue eyes, long nose leading down to pale lips and scruffy jaw. She raised her hand to sweep over the brown bristle and was surprised to find it soft and almost tickling her.

"Hello, Marcus. I am Domina Phaedra Isadora Alcaeus. You can call me lady love, Mistress, my love, Ms. Alcaeus or Phaedra. Gaius has given you to me. You'll be my assistant and doomed to follow my orders while I stay here." She grabbed his jaw and tilted it up. She laid a soft kiss on his lips. The lace veil a thin guard between the two of them. Laughing, she playfully tapped the dimple in his chin. "Let's go! I need to go home and pack. I'll definitely need more clothes, shoes, gear, supplies and the Shields knows what else! It's your job to make my life easier. Come, come!"

A quick swing of her legs gave her the burst of momentum to jump to her feet and she started to walk away. She stopped to look over her shoulder and saw that he had not moved. "Aren't you too young to be so slow?" She crooked her finger at him. "I have a lot to do with very little time. The longer you make me wait, the faster I'll end up driving. And the worse your first punishment will become."

Phaedra flashed a wicked red smile and walked away with a confident stride, her hips moving in a rolling sway. It only took a few minutes to walk out of the sprawling villa. An older, gray haired house slave bowed and smile at Phaedra as she exited. "How are you, Remus? I'll be returning to stay for a while. If the servants and slaves do not know yet, let word spread. I want no surprises. Nor would I want to shock anyone to their deaths." Her eyes twinkled with mischief and Remus smiled warmly back at her. He opened the door of her Gladius Guiardo 500, waited for her to settle in and buckled the safety belt for her. "Thank you, Remus."

She flashed a wink at the house slave and turned her head to watch Marcus striding down the stairs. When he settled into the passenger seat, she turned on the car and revved the engine. She laughed with pure joy, pulled off the golden mask and tossed it into Marcus' lap. "Hold on to that! It's my favorite mask and worth more than you want to know."

The drive to Phaedra's penthouse was fast, full of wicked laughter and blaring horns noting her beauty or roaring at her capricious driving. She stopped in front of her building, unbuckled her belt and straddled Marcus in the passenger seat. She held herself over him, the full round globes of her breasts swelling over the corset and placed right in front of Marcus' mouth. If she came closer, his nose would be wedged in her deep cleavage. Her bright red nails sank into his shoulders and squeezed a few times. "You should learn to relax. You're muscles are tighter than they should be."

The uniformed doorman opened the passenger door, Phaedra sat down to swivel on Marcus' lap twice, her shoulders shaking a bit from held in laughter and exited the car. This time, she waited for him to get out, grabbed his hand and dragged him into the building, the elevator and into her penthouse. She fell into a dark brown leather loveseat and kicked her leg up at him. "Remove my boots."

She watched him from beneath her dark lashes.
 
IC: Marcus Leander

A grandfather clock ticked and tocked away in the corner, but other than that Gaius' study was quiet he had heard noises, moans, whimpers, and voices from down the hall but now it was all silence. He had gotten wrapped up in the book. He was already on the eighteenth page and its only been how many minutes....who could tell. He turned the page for the next chapter.

In profundissimum infernum Belerephus, Deus tenebris vinctus sororem suam castitatem et continentiam, et infernorum Belerephina columnas posuit in suo corpore semper negavit eum manus suas. Ex ore usque ad talos revincta manibus eius nunquam ante tetigit florem juvenilem.
Factum est autem quasi horarum transierunt mutata in Belerephina. Ea dissentiente factus gemit. Luctatur effugiet eam demulces eius factus urget in illis. NESCIO innocenter et sublata est mulier voluptatis ad praecipitium, et cum clamavit ad fratrem obsecrantes pro eo magis Belerephus tunc tergum ejus, et dimisit eam solus in concupiscentiis eius virgine nititur ad intelligendum ...
... et ideo secundus erat tormentum ... Belerephus Praecipias desiderium.


...In the deepest pit Belerephus, the dark god, chained his sister, chaste and pure, Belerephina to the two pillars of the underworld and claimed her body, always denied him, with his hands. From her chained wrists to her ankles her mouth down to the never before touched flower of her womanhood.
But as the hours passed a changed happened in Belerephina. Her protests became moans. Her struggles to escape his caress became presses into them. Unknowing and innocently she was taken to the precipice of pleasure, and when she called out to her brother begging him for more Belerephus then backed away and left her alone in her struggles to understand her virgin lusts...
...and thus was the second torment of Belerephus...Anticipation and Yearning.

Marcus shifted in his chair as he read the old book. Fuck, this thing was starting to give him a hard on.

He was in the legions and he had heard of things. He had seen some things too, but he had never had the chance to make love with a woman. Once in Dharisan before things went all too shit, his buddies had arranged a camp follower to go to his quarters for a night, but it turned out she was from Appodocia province too, and they had talked and talked about home the whole night. He hadn't even touched her. They just talked. It wasn't until the morning and she was gone did he learn she was actually from Myssidia province. She had lied to him and walked away with his buddies' hard earned denarii in hand.

It was probably for the best. Marcus had been too nervous to really go for it. Besides, father Septimus, the priest of Belerephina that had run the orphanage he had grown up in taught him that love was a special gift meant for only one person. Part of him believed that, and that...whore...was not the one that deserved such a precious thing.

The attitude in this book was completely opposite of that view. In it sex was still precious but not a gift for one special person but an expression of oneself to any and all that would receive it. It was eye opening really.

These two differing outlooks on sex was fighting it out somewhere within him.

He flipped back to the table of contents in the beginning of the book. Each chapter was titled after a torment. Chapter one was the torment of fear and helplessness, the one he was on now was called the torment of anticipation and Yearning, the third was titled the torment of Pain and Pleasure.

He didn't understand that one at all. Pain and Pleasure were contradictory experiences. How could they have both? It had to be one or the other, didn't it? And more to the point why would anyone want to inflict pain on someone else along with pleasure? He didn't understand that at all. What could push someone to desire such a twisted thing?

He turned back to the page he paused at when he felt someone sit beside him on the arm of the chair and lean into him looking at the text over his shoulder. "Ah! Viginti Tormenta Belerephus. The tale of the God Belerephus and the Twenty Torments of the Flesh he used to seduce his sister, Belerephina, and bind her will to his."

He jumped in the chair his head whipping around to look at her. How had she came up on him without him hearing her. In those heals people all the way in Dharisan would be able to hear every foot step she made. So how...

Then what she was wearing registered in his brain stopping all further thought. She wore a gown of black lace from her neck down to her ankles. It was so sheer he could see her body underneath though a floral pattern over it obscured the details of her naked body just enough to tantalize. Over the dress she wore a corset of what looked to him like black leather that cupped and lifted up her large breasts as if saying: Hey look at these. Come and touch them.

"A good book to read if you mean to become a Belerephite."

He looked up blushing as his eyes found hers, knowing she had noticed he had been ogling her breasts. She made no move to stop him. Those full lips were curved in an amused smile.

"I...I just pulled it off the shelf. It's the general's not mine." Gods he sounded pathetic. "And until just now I thought Belerephites were a thing of urban legends." He looked down at the book in his hands. "I was just curious. What makes you think I want to be one of you."

She turned her head inches from his face the whisper of her veil across his cheek made him turn back to look into her eyes, crystal blue pools. Marcus thought one could dive in those waters and never come back up for air.

"Wait till you get to the third torment. It will curl your toes,make your gut wrench and your balls heavy with the need to spill."

He didn't know what to say to that extremely forward announcement. Any words were caught in the gasp stuck in his throat. His blush deepened, curse him and the erection making a tent in his uniform slacks throbbed at her regard.

He shook himself reminding himself that she had forced a man he deeply respected to crawl to her from his wheel chair just to kiss her boot, "Are you for real?"

Her hand reached over and he felt her fingers brush over the scruff of the beard he was trying to grow out to make him look older and more dignified, less like a wide-eyed and naieve teenager. "Hello, Marcus. I am Domina Phaedra Isadora Alcaeus. You can call me lady love, Mistress, my love, Ms. Alcaeus or Phaedra."

"Phaedra," He said testing her name out over his tongue, "Why are you here talking to me. I thought you were here to see the general."

"Gaius has given you to me," She replied.

"He has?" He raised an eyebrow at that. What was he a child that needed her to babysit him? He was old enough to drink, to fight and survive a war, to vote. Just because this was all new to him did not mean he was a child.

"You'll be my assistant and doomed to follow my orders while I stay here." She grabbed his jaw and tilted it up.

His eyes widened. "What are you-" He never got to finish as her head bent down and through the sheer veil her lips pressed against his in a kiss. It was soft and quick but it thundered through him like a bolt of lightning from his lips to his groin. The book clattered onto the floor. When she pulled away from the kiss his breath let out in an unthinking, "Yes."

She laughed touching the little crease in his chin, "Let's go! I need to go home and pack. I'll definitely need more clothes, shoes, gear, supplies and the Shields knows what else!"

He shook himself as if he was coming out of a dream. "You're coming back here...for..." His eyes widened as the reason occurred to him, "...You and the General...Oh."

"It's your job to make my life easier." She said springing up to her feet, "Come, come!" She headed for the door but looked back at him still sitting in the chair.

"Aren't you too young to be so slow?" She crooked her finger at him. "I have a lot to do with very little time. The longer you make me wait, the faster I'll end up driving. And the worse your first punishment will become."

Marcus watched her leave him then. She had a nice butt and those long legs made it do amazing things as he watched her strut out of the room.

"My job," He called out after her unsure if she heard it, "When did I agree to work for you?"

She was gone, and Marcus bit his lip trying to decide what to do. This Phaedra was obviously crazy if she thought he was just going to be her personal slave-and not in the typical way for Belerephites either-on her say so. He glanced down at the book lying open on the floor where he had dropped it. It said Torment two was named Anticipation and Yearning. He looked back at the door she had left through and swore at himself for getting up and following after her.

This was not going to end well. She was teasing him, or he was getting the wrong signals from her-he was terrible at reading the signals from interested women-part of the reason they always fooled him. But what was pushing him to follow after her was not his brain, well not the one in his head.

Gods she had been beautiful. She was also cruel to the general, but somehow that made her more attractive to him. Why? He didn't know. His experience with women was nonexistent.

So he followed after her to the front of the villa. She had already gotten into her car, the big expensive black Gladius he had seen pull up earlier. He strided down the stairs the pain in his leg and ribs not being too bad.

"Nice car," He told her sliding into the passenger seat. "I decided a trip into the city would be a good experience for me."

She turned on the engine and let it roar. He saw the thrill the powerful motor's growl gave her light in her eye. But before she set off she reached up and undid the clasp of her mask. A flick of her wrist and the mask landed in his lap.

He finally got to see her face. She was beautiful with strong cheekbones and dark sultry eyes. She was older than he'd have guessed. He would guess Phaedra was ten maybe as much as twelve years older than him, but still beautiful....she was the most beautiful woman Marcus had ever seen.

"Hold on to that," She told him placing her hand on the shifter, "It's my favorite mask and worth more than you want to know."

He looked down at it. It had landed right across the tent his cock was making in his pants. He picked it up feeling the veil attached spill over his hand. The other reached up for his seat belt, but he didn't get a chance as Phaedra shifted the car into gear and pressed onto the gas. The big black sportscar roared out of the driveway and onto the little road down through the Cicero family's property.

He braced himself against the dash of the car. Scrambling to pull the seatbelt into place. The mask landed right back over his crotch in the process. "Whoa, whoa. Are you trying to get us killed?"

She only laughed with wicked glee as they pulled off the road and onto the via pulcher aspectu, the highway that would take them the twenty minutes down the valley to Reische, capital for the mighty Reischan empire.

Outside beautiful tree lined rolling hills and picturesque villas. It was still early in autumn so the leaves were just starting to turn color so the vista was painted green with growing red and yellow making the roads namesake very true.

It was a beautiful view, but Marcus was too busy looking ahead. As the engine roared giving him the impression that the very notion of making it obey the speeding limit was an affront to its very existence. Phaedra didn't seem to have any desire to offend it that way. She rocketed the car down highway past slower cars, weaving through traffic.

"Aren't you worried about getting a ticket," He asked but she didn't answer as she came upon a big testudine eighteen wheeler and slipped around and past them. Marcus watched her apply brake and acceleration and gear changes...pushing the car to its peak performance smoothly and expertly. She looked thrilled, exhilarated, pushing the exquisitely powerful machine under her control and obeying her every whim. She looked focused, alive, fulfilled.

They sped into Reische weaving through traffic into just left of its beating heart in a district of the city that called itself the Promissorium. The traffic was thicker and the holes she squeezed the expensive car into were tighter. She laughed as hapless drivers in the other cars honked their horns at her aggressive driving.

Finally they arrived at an apartment building's entrance, but instead of opening her door she released the seatbelt and climbed over on top of him. She stayed like that her head bent and pressed against the roof of the car, hands on the headrest, and knees resting on either side of his legs. Her long ponytail spilled down over her shoulder and onto his face. The silken feel of her hair was the only part of her that actually touched her. The rest was held a few inches away, waiting for him to reach out cross that distance by his own choice.

Her breasts were right in front of his eyes. Every breath she took stretched the sheer fabric over them. He could see the raised ridges her nipples made in them. The drive had aroused her, or perhaps she hadn't stopped being aroused since first she stepped foot into Gaius' office.

They stayed like that for a long moment. Marcus didn't move, he didn't budge a muscle, didn't even breathe. His muscles were tense tight as a stone. Her hands moved landed on his shoulders. Her bright red nails sunk into him and squeezed a couple times. Jolts of pain raced from her nails through his shoulder down to resonate in his cock.

He lifted her mask between them, "Would you like it back now?"

"You should learn to relax." she told him as the doorman lifted up the switchblade door for them, "You're muscles are tighter than they should be."

"And whose fault is that," He grumbled, "You're the one wh-"

He didn't get to finish as she dropped down on top of him. Her bottom landed right against his erection. There was no way she wouldn't know it was there now. Then she swiveled around ontop of it.

He groaned with a burgeoning need he had never fully felt before-not like this-not without her bringing it out of her. The friction of her bottom swiveling around against the tent in his pants....was this what a lapdance felt like? If it was he could see why they were so popular. She then rose up off him and stood waiting for him to follow.

Without dignity and only with help from the doorman he managed to climb out. She was right. Marcus was too tight. He looked up at her building but glanced back down as she grabbed his hand and pulled him inside.

He noticed people in the lobby looking at them. Well the guys watched Phaedra, the women just rolled their eyes at the whole thing, but then cast curious glances towards him that made him feel slightly uncomfortable. The elevator doors opened for them and she pulled him inside. As the elevator went up to the top floor he found he still had her mask in hand.

The doors opened to a spacious apartment at the very top of the building he followed her out of the elevator. He whistled softly. "I didn't realize what you did paid so well."

He looked around the open concept apartment. They walked past stairs leading to a second and third floor leading to what Marcus assumed were bedrooms and into the living room area with a sofa and recliner a big screen tv. Next was the kitchen large enough to have four cooks in it without bumping into each other. Beyond that in the distance was what looked an art studio with half finished clay model, a painter's easel and photography lights....so she had a life outside of being a Belerephite. Interesting.

"Remove my boots."

He turned to see her laying back in a large leather recliner one long shapely leg kicked up so the heel pointed directly at him. At that angle the dress sheer and floral slid between her legs and was the only thing barring him from staring at a body part of a woman he had never seen before.
Did she know how sexy that pose looked or was it all just a big coincidence?

But at her words Marcus crossed his arms and set his jaw stubbornly. "Would you like me to crawl and kiss your boot first like you made Gaius do," He said, "I'm not a Belerephite, and you're not my Domina. Neither of you even asked me what I wanted."

"So to your request of me..." He stepped forward but stopped just an inch from her raised boot. "...You have hands," He growled, "Why don't you use them?"
 
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She watched him talk. The words almost meaningless in comparison to the emotions that shouted from his body. The way he stood with ingrained confidence. His weight split between his feet that are set exactly shoulder width apart. Even with his injuries, he couldn't help but stand with his back straight and chin up. Yet, the cross of his arms was defensive, the tight line of his lean jaw was too taunt and the noticeable bulge between his legs let her know that he was affected. That he wanted her. Though he may deny it.

That won't last.

"Do you care for Gaius? Don't you want to please him? He looks upon you as the son he has never had. He's afraid that he won't be able to have any at this point. Would you deny him? The man you care for and admire of the little things that may be exactly what you have always needed? Being a Belerephite isn't just about saying you are one. To be one, it has to be a true part of you. A part of your heart and soul. Deep in your subconscious mind and a wild part of all your desires. Regardless of all that, can you be so rudely ill mannered that you cannot follow a simple request of your General and fill the role of my assistant?"

Phaedra kicked her leg up towards his face. The steel heel of her boot almost hit the telling mound in his trousers. It reached as high as his breastbone before falling back to sway closer to his upper thigh.

"Will you not be a good solider? A good son? Instead of being an ill mannered boar, why don't you show me your manners and follow Gaius' request. Be my assistant. You and I will be spending a lot of time together. I'm moving into the villa tonight. The servants are getting my rooms ready as we speak."

She liked the way his voice became huskier when he growled at her. Trying to tell her what to do. Remembering it made her smile grow wider. Only a glimmer of her eyes peeked from beneath her lowered lashes. She purred, "Whether you know it or not, we've already started. After all, we did kiss."

Phaedra watched as color flushed his face with strong emotions. The small muscles in his cheek, jaw and neck moving in tiny jerks and spasms. His own memories and thoughts flooded his mind. She can read it in his eyes. The way his eyes dart from one point to another and widen at certain points. She let her last words sink in. She wondered if he knew how he leaned closer to her when she lowered her voice.

"Marcus." Steel wrapped in velvet. The voice of power that she welded with ease. With her Lord, she would have never really dreamed of being the one in control. Not like this. But without him, she's learned that she has more to herself than she had ever dreamed. She's sure he knew it too. Titus knew everything. Even the secrets she never uttered.

"Remove my boots."
 
IC: Marcus Leander

"Remove my boots."

Marcus turned to see her. She was lying back in a large leather recliner. One long shapely leg kicked up so the heel pointed directly at him. At that angle the sheer and floral dress slid between her legs, and was the only thing barring him from staring at a body part of a woman he had never seen before.
Did she know how sexy that pose looked or was it all just a big coincidence?

But at her words Marcus crossed his arms and set his jaw stubbornly. "Would you like me to crawl and kiss your boot first like you made Gaius do," He said, "I'm not a Belerephite, and you're not my Domina. Neither of you even asked me what I wanted."

"Do you care for Gaius?" She asked him instead, "Don't you want to please him?"

"Of course I do. The General took me under his wing when I was nothing but a green cadet." He said looking her over. She had the longest, sexiest, legs he'd ever seen trapped in those boots. Why did she have to be so gods-be-damned sexy? It would be so much easier to not like her then. He should hate this woman.

Yet Marcus could not deny that he felt drawn to her, and not just because she was beautiful and confident in her sexuality. Phaedra was so far beyond anything that he had ever even imagined a woman could be before today.

There was a streak of cruelty to her, but he saw a kindness in those eyes as well. Did she know what kind of a contradiction she was? Did she know how arousing those two polar opposites were within her?

She was pulling on something primal found underneath his lifetime of manners and civility. Pulling on something deep down. So deep Marcus had never known it was within him, and had no name for it yet. It was scary and exhilarating at the same time, and he could not decide if he liked it. Was this love or lust? He realized he never felt anything even close to this way before. Marcus had no frame of reference on anything close to that.

"He looks upon you as the son he has never had," She stated, "He's afraid that he won't be able to have any at this point. Would you deny him? The man you care for and admire of the little things that may be exactly what you have always needed?"

He shook his head. He could feel her pulling him in with her words, calling out to him like the sirens from mythology. The cadence of her voice. The sweet sultry tone to her words. They felt on his ears just like her ass had as she had swiveled her hips over his erection before she climbed out of her Gladius.

Every pause she made to breathe he strained in anticipation of the caress of her next words.

"I would say yes...I mean I grew up an orphan. Family is something I've always wanted, but this is all coming on too fast." He looked down into her eyes. She even had sexy eyes, which was so not fair. Well Marcus was not just going to roll over and be her lapdog just because she was unbelievably hot. "So is that my choice? To gain a father I have to become a belerephite, and become your slave? Can't I just sign my name on something...maybe donate a few denarii once a year?"

"Being a Belerephite isn't just about saying you are one," She replied, "To be one, it has to be a true part of you. A part of your heart and soul. Deep in your subconscious mind and a wild part of all your desires. Regardless of all that, can you be so rudely ill mannered that you cannot follow a simple request of your General and fill the role of my assistant?"

"A part of my heart and sou-hey!" He flinched as her boot kicked up narrowly missing the bulge in his pants. It raised up high enough to reach the middle of his chest then down so sway so close to the outside of his thigh. As it did he found himself wondering what it would feel like if he just reached out and ran his hand over her swaying leg. His fingers would slide over the leather of her boot and then the exposed skin of her thigh.

Would her skin be smoother, silkier than the leather? It certainly looked like it would be.

"Will you not be a good solider? A good son?" Her words shook him from the directions of his thoughts. He raised his eyes up from her leg to her eyes again. "Instead of being an ill mannered boar, why don't you show me your manners and follow Gaius' request. Be my assistant. You and I will be spending a lot of time together. I'm moving into the villa tonight. The servants are getting my rooms ready as we speak."

"You're trying to push me into it," He growled to her his voice huskier with a desire he had never felt before. "Just stop for a minute and let me think this through."

"Whether you know it or not, we've already started," She purred like a cat. That was a good description though Marcus didn't care for it so much. That made him the mouse she was playing with. "After all, we did kiss."

Memories of her lips through the veil of her mask pressed against his. His face and eyes telling her in no uncertain terms that she had succeeded in rousing him. It had been so brief but so aggressive, so desirous, and so confident. It was magnetic.

The kiss of the siren.

"Marcus," She said in a tone that he felt all down to his testicles. It was a tone of voice he recognized. He had heard it from superior officers as a legionnaire within the war college and in Dharisan, but Phaedra made it more. It was a tone of command, but seductive and alluring too. It was dark, and dominant, and undeniable. Marcus couldn't turn away from it. "Remove my boots."

He was shocked that without his conscious consent he was already bending down. Fingers tracing over the leather of her boots. So smooth and cool. He freed the first of the ludicrous amount of buckles binding it around her leg.

"You're a siren," He said with resignation to his fate. He looked up at her as he bent down and his knee lowered to the floor. He knelt before her set to his task, "What sort of spell did you cast on me?" The second buckle came undone, and his fingers slid down to the third.

"This Belerephite thing...is it complicated?" The third and fourth buckles came free. He was now working on the second to last. "If I join up I expect it will involve some sort of ritual that will hurt, right? That is what you do, right? Hurt people for some kind of weird thrill?"

He was now working on the fifth and final buckle just above her ankle. "I don't know about this. I want to become Gaius' son...so much I can't trust it. Growing up as an orphan you learn to never want something that much. So you will save yourself from the crushing disappointment to come." He freed the last buckle and reached up to lower the boot's zipper.

"I want to be Gaius' son, and I want...." He looked up at her again and pulled the boot off. It revealed her leg long and slender inch by inch. There was a lean muscle tone to it that suggested Phaedra was a practiced dancer. Marcus had never realized how sexy a bare leg was until he saw Phaedra's. "...I want ...something else..."

He didn't look up at her. His face had gotten too red, as he thought about just what else he wanted. After a moment to collect himself. "I want it, but I can't trust it. Everything I've ever wanted so much has never came through. I've had to fight, and study, and earn everything on my own."

He put the boot down on the floor and resisted the urge to reach out and stroke his fingers along the long length of her leg. He looked up into the sexy eyes of hers and added, "That's one. You want out of the other one next?"
 
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Phaedra watched him intently. Her light blue eyes keen to take in the details she had not had a chance to take in before. She noted his lean build, the way his short golden locks tried to rebelliously curl, the shadows of pain bruising beneath his eyes, the strong planes of his cheeks and jaw, and large hands that were strong and surprisingly tender. Despite looking like a young solider, there was something about him that made her think of an innocent child. A youth who still held a hint of wonder.

He is passionate and pure in his emotions. Whatever he feels, he feels it with the whole of his heart. It... is charming. I would hate to take that away from him. She contemplated the young man as he rambled, and thought about how she would make Gaius' dream for him be truth. Phadrea took in what he said, the way he moved, how his body yearned and the fears that he believed to be rational caution. She laid her arm on the couch and tucked her chin to rest on her palm as her crimson fingernails lightly drummed against her cheek.

"That's one. You want out of the other one next?"

Her booted foot trailed up Marcus' thigh, the edge of the wicked dragon draped heel scrapped over his groin and stopped just above his belt.

Phaedra waited and she watched.
 
IC: Marcus Leander

He didn't look up at her. His face had gotten too red, as he thought about just what else he wanted. After a moment to collect himself. "I want it, but I can't trust it. Everything I've ever wanted so much has never came through. I've had to fight, and study, and earn everything on my own."

He put the boot down on the floor and resisted the urge to reach out and stroke his fingers along the long length of her leg. He looked up into the sexy eyes of hers and added, "That's one. You want out of the other one next?"

Things would be so much simpler if this Domina Phaedra wasn't undeniably the sexiest woman he had ever seen. Every thing about her he found unbelievably sexy from her brash even reckless self-confidence to every shape and contour of her figure. It was...disconcerting.

It left Marcus feeling uncertain around her, like he was a mere mortal in the presence of a goddess. A provincial gutter child like him, he did not belong around a woman like this. If it wasn't for the General's kindness he would never have beheld her beauty. Despite it proving his own unworthiness.

He jumped when her booted foot raised between his thighs. The stiletto point grazing the shamefully obvious tent in his uniform slacks. He looked down at silver dragon curling up and around the heel and the outside of her foot. It's ruby eye stared back up at him.

His fingers began fumbling with the buckles of her boot. He kept his face down trying to concentrate on freeing each one of the insane amount of buckles on her boots, and to hide how much that blush of a moment before was becoming more and more apparent.

As he worked he swallowed past a dried throat. "So...who are you?"

Marcus finally freed the last buckle and began lowering the zipper to her boot. He clung to the questions he had for her, which were legion, as a life preserver in tumultuous seas. "How did you even become a belerephite of all things. I mean you could be in movies or a supermodel or anything with a face like yo-"

Oh gods, he'd just inferred she was all beauty and no brains. Marcus wished the underworld would open up beneath him and swallow him whole right there. He didn't dare raise his face to see how she'd taken that.
 
The yearning, genuine confusion and the subconscious desire to please spoke volumes about the young man that knelt before her. How he rambled artlessly as he worked with clumsy fingers to remove her boot.

Phaedra's thoughts have been full of Gaius, a lover she's known for many years. It pained her to see how he had become a hollow vision of the commanding strength he had been. She heard Gaius when he implored her to take Marcus to hand and make sure he becomes the heir Gaius wishes him to be. Until this moment, though she certainly had been giving her full attention to the young man, it had been in the context of what Marcus meant to Gaius. She had not been thinking about him as a man with his own share of ideals and fears.

She chided herself. How unlike her to make her thoughts so narrow and rigid. With that small change, Phaedra truly listened and watched without barriers laid.

Phaedra felt the silken caress of her sheer dress pull across her chest as she leaned forward. Her delicate hands, tipped in crimson nails, reached out to take Marcus's face and cradled him within her palms. One finger lightly caressed the side of his cheek as she brought her face close to his. She simply looked into his expressive blue eyes and let him watch her look at him. She let her eyes speak for her.

I see you.

Comfortable silence wrapped around them and it held as Phaedra watched Marcus grow steadily more at ease. The nervous skittish energy that had thrummed inside of him settled. Awareness and calm grew between them and it made her smile. A little turn of her full red lips. The depth of which could be only seen in her smiling eyes.

"Gaius is very important to me. I am going to move back in the villa because I want to help him. He loves you as a true son and wishes you to be his heir. To inherit all that Gaius would like to give you, you must become a Belerephite. Yet, being taught our ways is not enough. To be a Belerephite, we must see if it is an inherent part of you. One does not become a Belerephite because of a rite--though there is a rite of passage you may indeed take part. Belerephites are Belerephites regardless of ritual. It is in the very heart of us and a part of our nature." She drew closer until there was barely a space between their lips. "I shall do my best and teach you our ways. You must choose now if you will bend your strength to me and agree to be mine. To learn from me, you must belong to me."

A crimson nail passed over Marcus' lower lip. His mouth had fallen slightly open with longing and anticipation. She watched just his mouth as she caressed it slowly from one side to the other. She approved of the slight hitch change in his breathing. The feel of his thundering pulse beneath the edge of her hand.

"You must chose to take me as your Mistress, Belerephite Domina, and pledge to belong to me. Or," That lone, taunting nail tapped once upon his lip. "You may return to the villa and decline Gaius."

Intent light blue eyes shined almost silver and captured him completely with her gaze. "Choose to be mine and you may kiss me to seal the pack. Or you may choose to deny all and leave untouched."
 
IC: Marcus Leander

"How did you even become a belerephite of all things. I mean you could be in movies or a supermodel or anything with a face like yo-"

Oh gods, he'd just inferred she was all beauty and no brains. Marcus wished the underworld would open up beneath him and swallow him whole right there. He didn't dare raise his face to see how she'd taken that.

Trying desperately to be smooth and gentle in his movements Marcus pulled the boot off of her foot. He placed it beside its sister on the floor beside the chair she sat upon.

He jumped again when she suddenly shifted forward to take hold of his face with her hands. Those hands lifted his face up to meet hers. They stared at each other eye to eye. Phaedra had the most striking light blue eyes he'd ever seen. They were bright sapphire blue like the color of the cool pristine waters of the lakes in his home province of Appodocia. Like as a boy diving those waters he felt like he was enveloped within her eyes. They made him feel like he could float in them forever without ever reaching the shore again.

They made him feel as if she saw him, that young man starving for a family for the first time since she walked into Gaius' office earlier.

"Gaius is very important to me." Her voice broke the silence pulling him out of his reverie from staring into her eyes, "I am going to move back in the villa because I want to help him."

"The general is important to me too," Marcus replied implied, "I want to help him any way I can."

"He loves you as a true son and wishes you to be his heir," She continued, "To inherit all that Gaius would like to give you, you must become a Belerephite. Yet, being taught our ways is not enough. To be a Belerephite, we must see if it is an inherent part of you."

"Part of me," He repeated, "But can't I just go through some sort of initiation ceremony and everyone will be happy with that?"

"One does not become a Belerephite because of a rite--though there is a rite of passage you may indeed take part. Belerephites are Belerephites regardless of ritual," She told him, "It is in the very heart of us and a part of our nature."

"What if it isn't in my nature at all," He asked her, "How do I know?"

She scooted to the edge of the seat bring her closer to him. Her face mere inches away from his. He could easily lean forward and steal the kiss part of him craved from those perfect plump kissable lips of hers. "I shall do my best and teach you our ways. You must choose now if you will bend your strength to me and agree to be mine."

"What do you mean by..." His blush from before was returning to color his cheeks at the implications of the next word, "...yours?"

"To learn from me, you must belong to me," She replied lifting a finger and tracing a bloodred nail over his bottom lip.

At her words and the sensual feel of her finger on his lip his breath caught on a hitch.

"You must chose to take me as your Mistress, Belerephite Domina, and pledge to belong to me. Or..." She continued tapping that fingernail on his bottom lip with each word, "You may return to the villa and decline Gaius."

At that Marcus inhaled sharply taking the rich and exotically sinful scent of her within his lungs. "If I want that..err...I mean...How would I do that?"

In the light of the room her eyes glinted like they were of silver and she answered, "Choose to be mine and you may kiss me to seal the pack. Or you may choose to deny all and leave untouched."

She was offering to seal his fate with a kiss. How poetic. Yet despite his growing desire for this captivating goddess Marcus' kept going back to the man that had somehow become the father he had never had.

"The General..." He said with a voice made gruff from the rising emotions and desire churned up by Phaedra's mere existence, "...I've seen it during our convalescence. He never mentions it but he hates that I dragged him out of that hole so he'd be stuck in that wheelchair for the rest of his life. Once I become his heir...he will try to kill himself won't he?" His voice broke on that emotion welling up in him, "What good will it be if I become his son only to lose him?"

"If you are his Domina," He continued looking into her crystal blue eyes pleadingly, "Can you do anything to help him embrace his life again even if it is in that gods-damned chair?"

His hands reached up to take hers as he pleaded, "I will be your slave. I will do whatever you ask of me, if you can somehow save him or convince him not to leave me without him."
 
Phaedra kept her gaze locked with Marcus as he rambled out loud the things he wished for and feared to be. She felt the fine shiver that lined his larger hands as he placed them over her own.

"Ah, Marcus. I will fight to make Gaius be the man he is. I will fight for he is one of mine and I love him. Lay aside your fears for Gaius and believe when I say that I promise to make him be a man full of life again." She caressed his lower lip with her perfectly manicured blood-red nail. The slight rake of it promising a glimpse of what is to come and more. "Give yourself to me. Choose to be mine in whatever form I ask. Make your choice."

She grew closer to his face, breathing in his hesitant breathes and left only a whisper of distance between their lips. "Kiss me, Marcus. Choose to be mine. Put yourself into my hands. Let me lay all your fears aside and I will show you the glory that is Belerephite. Be mine, Marcus."

Phaedra let him go and settled back into her seat. She gazed down at Marcus beneath hooded light blue eyes and commanded, "Kiss me, Marcus."

Her foot settled over the hard length of him that surged against his pants. She pressed down on that needy part of him, watching him steadily with her clear eyes and she let the silence stretch as he throbbed beneath her foot.

"Now."
 
IC: Marcus Leander

His hands reached up to take hers as he pleaded, "I will be your slave. I will do whatever you ask of me, if you can somehow save him or convince him not to leave me without him."

"Ah, Marcus. I will fight to make Gaius be the man he is. I will fight for he is one of mine and I love him." She told him reassuringly, "Lay aside your fears for Gaius and believe when I say that I promise to make him be a man full of life again."

Somehow when she said it he believed her.

He winced a little as her nail dragged over his bottom lip a little harder that it was a little painful. "Give yourself to me. Choose to be mine in whatever form I ask." She said seductively, "Make your choice."

He swallowed past the desert that his throat had become. Marcus was getting lost within her eyes, her voice, her touch-gods above her touch.

She leaned in so close he could feel the wash of her breath over his skin raising goosebumps. She continued, "Kiss me, Marcus. Choose to be mine. Put yourself into my hands. Let me lay all your fears aside and I will show you the glory that is Belerephite. Be mine, Marcus."

Then she was gone. Leaning back in her chair like the fucking Empress-consort of Reis. Somehow the idea of her holding that kind of power was not so ludicrous to him.

He should do something, but instead Marcus just stayed still watching her like a foolish peasant boy.

She pinned him with that brilliant sapphire gaze of hers and ordered, "Kiss me, Marcus..." Her foot raised up. Bare toes stroking over and pressing against the hard length of his cock.

His eyes rolled shut at the feel of what she was doing to him.

A moment passed in silence like that before it was broken by her saying one more word in a command, "...Now."

His eyes shot open to meet hers again and Marcus summoned his courage as he leaned in over the chair to bring his face to meet hers. She didn't move towards him. This was something he'd have to do on his own. Closing the last inch between them his lips tentatively pressed against hers.

He hoped he was doing it right. He'd only ever kissed a girl four or five times before, and he'd always thought the activity rather overrated. However here kissing this woman his opinion on kissing suddenly had reason to be changed.
 
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