by John Benson
Mother was knitting. Anna mended socks. Typical Sunday afternoon. Father put down his ledger book, took off his spectacles, and massaged the bridge of his nose. He sighed.
"I've heard from Nickelovsky," Father said. "He's interested in a marriage."
Anna bristled. Nickelovsky was a drunk. "How nice for you," she said. "But aren't you already married?"
"You're not," Mother said. "And it's high time. You're being selfish, girl. Think of someone other than yourself."
The twins breezed in begging for a snack. They were told to go outside and play in a tone they recognized, and left without complaint. They were even careful to shut the door. Anna's back was up, though. She wasn't listening to verbal cues.
"This is the third time you've refused me," Father said. "You know what I told you would happen if I found three suitors for you and you refused them all."
Anna's blood turned to ice water. The Slut-peddlers. "But you wouldn't," she said. "It was just a bluff."
"There are bills," Mother said. She put down her knitting and was wringing her hands. "And I have three other children to consider."
Three? There were the twins and ... the knitting. Mother was knitting baby things. This was bad. Father might sell her because she had disobeyed. Mother would have been her champion, but not with a baby in the picture. In her world, new life always took precedence over old.
"Don't do this," Anna said.
Father rose. There was something in his hand. Shackles. "Choose quickly," he said. "Nickelovsky or the Slut-peddlers."
Anger trumped fear. They just cared about the money. The money they would be paid in return for signing a marriage contract, or in this case a bill of sale. "You can go straight to Hell," she said. "And you can take Nickelovsky with you."
He came across the room and jerked her to her feet. A shackle clicked around one wrist. She screamed and tried to wrench free. He pinned her arms behind her back. The other shackle clicked. She screamed. He stuck a sock in her mouth.
Mother approached with a scissors. She wouldn't look Anna in the eye. She touched a spot about mid-way from crotch to knee. "About there?" she said.
"A little higher," Father said. He was looking. His hard look, after his mind was made up and he wasn't going to change it.
"They can always take off more," Mother said.
"All right then," Father said.
Anna tried to spit the sock out. The scissors did its dirty work, making her dress too short to belong on anyone but a slave. At least it was all one color now. The generous hem which had been let down over the years to expose more fabric as she grew was all down on the floor. Mother retrieved it for her rag bag. Waste not. Anna tried to spit out the sock, just so she could curse.
"You were always too willful," Mother said. "Now look where it's got you." Her voice was heavy with regret. Anna wished bad dreams on her. There was a knock at the door.
"I'll get it," Father said.
Anna's wrists hurt from the shackles. There was nowhere to run. She could not speak, even to change her mind and undo this. Too late. How had she not seen this coming? A man was with Father. He wore buckskin and there was a crow perched on his shoulder. The man's eyes were green. The crow's eyes were violet.
"I hear you have a slut to sell," the man said. There was something odd about this. Birds aren't that tame.
"Just now this minute," Mother said. "So how did you know?"
Father cleared his throat. "Mages got their own ways," he said. "Maybe a little bird told him."
The crow cawed. It sounded almost like a laugh.
"Oh," Mother said. She sounded flustered. "Welcome to our home, Respected Sir."
"I bid thirty pieces of silver," the Mage said. "It's traditional."
"Done," Father said. A small purse changed hands. Anna half-expected Father to count it, but that would have been massively impolite.
The man advanced. Anna shrank back, but there was nowhere to hide. She was studied by green and violet eyes. "She'll be pretty," the Mage said. "When she's not so frightened and angry." He laid his hand on the top of her head.
Green. Green light suffused the room. Green filaments wrapped themselves tightly around her soul. Black dots blotted out bits of green. More dots, growing together, blotting out everything. "Help me get her to my wagon," a distant voice said. Blackness conquered, and she fell.
Discomfort. Motion. Noise. She was in the back of some sort of farm cart, jolted every time it hit a bump. The Mage was driving, and his crow soared ahead as if to scout the way. The world was shot through with a mesh of green lines going into things. Around things. A green braid trailed from crow to Mage. She blinked, and the world was normal. She rolled over and sat up. There were no shackles on her wrists, but they still ached from the insult. Her mouth was dry, but at least there was no sock.
"Come up and sit with me now that you're awake," the Mage said. "It'll be more comfortable than riding like a sack of flour."
She made her way forward. She was this man's slave now, with all that entailed. Curiosity overcame reticence. There was no point in even being angry with this stranger, at least not yet. Her parents had stolen away her life. This guy was just holder in due course. She lowered herself to the wagon bench. Green eyes. A nice smile. A puff of breeze reminded her how short her dress was. How vulnerable she was.
"I'm Anna," she said.
"Vlad."
"And I'm what, part of your harem now?" The words came out a bit more easily than she might have expected.
Nice smile. "Only," he said. "A woman can be a distraction, so I'd decided to live my life without one. But not having a woman is just a different kind of distraction. So I decided at least the emotional investment needed to keep a slave is less than that needed to keep a wife."
The man was lonely, and either so supremely confident or enormously naive that he didn't mind admitting it. "Tell me about the spell," she said.
He nodded. His eye went up to the crow riding a thermal, and then back to her. "Perfect obedience turns a person into a thing," he said. "If I used too heavy-handed a spell you'd lose your personality. If that's what I wanted, I could have used a sheep. So instead I did less. You must submit to me any time I wish to punish you. Otherwise, you are pretty much untouched."
It was true. He could punish her. She heard the truth of it and knew it deeply in her being. No manacles. No chains. He did not need them. "What if I run?" she said.
Nice smile. "You might make it for an hour or two," he said. "But then common sense would convince you I was annoyed and wanted to punish you, and you'd come crawling back."
Invisible chains. Chains which would rest easy on her unless she tried to break them. The Mage was subtle. Perhaps she should fear him, but she did not. "And what brought you to my father's door?" she said.
"A vision," the Mage said. "I saw you being slutted in a vision. And since I was sort of in the market, I decided to take advantage. It was not a vision I'd cultivated. It isn't as if I was searching for my perfect life-mate or anything. Fate is playing games with me, I guess."
"Or with me," Anna said. "And now you'll rape me into slavery." Half of her was curious, even excited by the idea. The other half was disgusted by the first half.
"Later this evening," he said. "That is after all the idea, but a little anticipation might add spice." They pulled off the main road into a little lane she hadn't known was there. A wooded path opened into a clearing. The crow soared and landed on the peak of a little cottage. They left the wagon in the yard, and she helped him put the horse in the pasture. Goats baaed.
"Look around," the Mage said. "Don't go too far or I'll spank you when you get back."
The word 'spank' hung in the air, laden with sex. Her expression lit his face up with a smile. He went indoors, whistling.
Anna explored. Goats in one fenced enclosure, the horse was in another. Behind was quite a field of hay. She'd thought it was all woods out this way. There was a vegetable garden. A herb garden. The Mage was quite a farmer. She wondered when he found time for all the necessary work, or whether he used magic. Something mewed.
Anna looked down. A half-grown tabby with violet eyes. "So pretty," Anna said. "Can I be your friend?" She sat down on the grass, embarrassed again by the unexpected feel of the slut-length hem.
"Of course," the kitten said. "I am your creature." It stepped forward on dainty little feet.
"It talks," Anna said. It must not be all that strange for the house of a Mage to be populated by supernatural beasts. Like the crow.
"It listens," the kitten said. "Of course I talk. I am your creature. Be nice to me, and receive loyalty and help."
She reached out and touched the silky fur. "I will do what I can to make you happy," she said. "But I am a slave here, so I don't know how much help I can be." A shadow touched her. She looked up. It was Vlad, standing over her and blocking out the setting sun.
"Dinner's ready," he said. He held out his hand and helped her rise. She did not shy away from the touch. He was acting more like a gentleman than a rapist.
"It's a talking cat," she said. She brushed dust and dry grass from her dress.
The kitten mewed. It dashed off to chase a butterfly. Failed in its pounce and sat down suddenly to wash. Vlad chuckled. Anna couldn't tell if he was laughing at the kitten's antics or at her silly assertion.
"Does so," Anna said. The kitten mewed.
"My familiar talks," the Mage said. "His name is Sky. Maybe he'll talk to you once he gets to know you better. Right now I guess he's kind of jealous."
The crow was on the roof top, preening. "They say they're on loan from the Devil," Anna said.
"They're spirits," Vlad said. "But they do not serve the Dark. Come in. Tell me if stew hurried along by magic tastes any different than one that's been simmering all day."
Stepping into his cottage was like going back in time. Everything was hand-hewn timber, now gray with age. The table, the chairs. The rafters were a somewhat darker hue, stained by centuries of fireplace soot. A sleeping loft made a partial upper story, accessed by a ladder. Anna knew she would end up there, and the thought was at least as titillating as it was shameful. Some light came in through the windows, a little more from the fireplace. Not enough for a lot of detail.
Vlad went to the fireplace and ladled brown stuff into brown bowls of fired but unglazed pottery which could have been prehistoric. They sat at the rustic table. Something brushed up against her leg. The kitten.
She tasted onion, mint, carrot, and rabbit. "Different," she said. "But good." She spooned out a particularly gristly chunk and passed it under the table to the cat.
"Are you pregnant, Anna?"
Her head snapped up. "What? No. Good heavens."
"I assume you were having an affair with an unsuitable man," he said. "Why else do parents ever go so far as to slut their own child?"
She swallowed stew. Not that bad, really. Beneath the table, the kitty was washing herself contentedly. "I refused my father three times," she said. "Three offers of marriage which I refused because they were not my choice. More like business dealings than matters of the heart."
Nice smile, if a trifle sad. "Which only led you to a final business proposition," he said. "Another man who is not your choice. But this time, you cannot refuse."
She should hate him. She should hate what he would soon do to her, but she did not. It was almost a relief, to have no choice. And the man. There was strength in him, and kindness. She did not mind very much. Not very much at all.
"At least you are an adventure," she said. "Something altogether different. And you won't come to me smelling of cigars and port."
"Finish your stew," he said. "It's time."
She could feel her heart beat. She finished all but one bite, then dawdled just to tease him.
"I'll spank you if you don't hurry up," he said. Nice smile.
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