Acquired Tastes; Delicious Morsels

"I do not care for the olives, Master," Mina said to me.

With the groves tended to, and Tor-tu-Gor starting to give way to the moons, I am frequently on the back porch of the villa working on the olives. I do not mind the preparation, but it takes a few hands before one may enjoy the fruit one has harvested, so to speak.

"They are an acquired taste," I answered, as I squeezed a bit of tospit juice into a pot of sufficiently soaked and rinsed olives. "Doubtless, they do not compare to the ambrosia that is your gruel."

Her nose wrinkled. It could not be a non-verbal, nonplussed response to the notion that her gruel was delicious. Once, having complained that her gruel was cold, and having been subsequently denied nourishment for two days, she assured me that her gruel was highly pleasing to her. Eminently palatable, even when cold.

"Am I an acquired taste?" she asked. I had to think on that for a moment.

"One makes do with what one has," I said with a shrug, as I sliced garlic for the brine.

"Master makes do with what he has," she pressed. "Often."

"It is often foolish to assume there are correlations, based on insufficient and inherently biased data," I countered.

"Master?"

"For example, you assume that I have 'acquired a taste' for you due to the fact that I make use of you, when and where I please, and frequently," I said.

She bit her lip, and squirmed a bit. 'Yes, Master."

"Further, you have attempted to draw an analogy to the fact that most, if not all, must acquire a taste for olives to yourself, implying that most would not like the taste of you from the first bite."

Her eyes widened a bit, briefly, and she blushed.

"That is patently false," I continued. "You are a delicious, little tart. Soft, and moist. Fragrant. Like the flaky crust of a tart, you are delicate. Easily crumbled."

"Master," she whispered, scandalized. I found it humorous, after all I have subjected her to in these past months, that Mina might still be, quite easily, scandalized.

I shrugged.

"Am I any good?" she asked.

I paused for a moment, and considered the question before I replied. "You are adequate. One could own worse."

"I do not understand," she said. I suppose it could be confusing, to be told she was delicious, but also only adequate.

"There are sweet tarts, and savory tarts. There are tarts baked in the kitchens of Ko-ro-ba, Torcadino, and such. And there are tarts baked in the kitchens of Ar," I said. "There are bakeries here, in Venna, that draw men from hundreds of pasangs."

I placed a cork in the pot of olives I had been preparing, having added garlic and the juice of a tospit to the brine, and used a grease pencil to note the date of preparation. These things are important. Once must allow the ingredients time to come together.

"I am a delicious, little tart," she said.

"Quite," I agreed.

"And adequately pleasing?" she asked.

"Just," I confirmed.

"I will endeavor to be sweet," she said. "And sometimes savory."

"You have no choice in the matter," I informed her.

"Have me, Master," she begged, suddenly. She is only a girl. Her needs come upon her like that, not infrequently.

"Perhaps later," I said.

"Please, Master," she sued. "Taste Mina."

"In an ahn or two," I said. "Or tomorrow, maybe."

"Am I not delicious?" she asked.

"Quite," I assured her as I corked another pot of olives and set it on a tray to cure with the others. "You will be tastier, I think, in an ahn or two. Tastier still, tomorrow."

She wept a bit, genuinely I thought. How attractive the vulnerability of a slave can be! I resolved myself, however, to wait a bit. To let her simmer. To let her, not unlike the olives in the clay pots, cure in her own juices for a bit. Yes, she would be tastier in an ahn or two. Tastier still, tomorrow.

"Please," she begged, her upper body bent between her spread thighs, her cheek on my bare thigh, beneath the hem of my tunic, licking at my leg as she could.

A devious slut, I thought, for I knew she would derive pleasure from this, even if she were not touched or caressed herself.

"Tomorrow, I think, is soon enough for having you," I said, fixing my hand in her hair.

Admittedly, I considered advancing her cheek further up my thigh, with the intention of feeding her something other than gruel, but I steeled myself against this. Mina, I realized, was becoming a slave girl, inwardly and outwardly. She was beginning to understand what she was for, what all women, essentially, were for. I would have to chain her tonight, wrists behind her, and gag her. Tomorrow would be soon enough. Early in the morning, when she had finally, fitfully, succumbing to exhaustion, fallen asleep, I would slap her awake, startling her, causing her to whimper behind the gag. Then, at her most helpless, gagged and bound, I would make use of her. Then, having contented myself, she would attend her chores for the day.

A Cup Raised

I let myself get drunk about a hand or so ago. Well and truly drunk, the way I used to with men like Seth Gage, Plythias, and Russ Finn. My brother, Varhan, and I, too, used to drink to excess now and again. And Sal DeVade, wherever he may be. I raised a cup to them all. It was the first bottle from the vineyard, you see, that aged two years without turning to piss. I've since sent a few crates to the Marketplaces of Ar, along with several small pots of olives. There isn't any profit in this endeavor, nor is there meant to be. Not that I intend to drink myself out of any potential profits, just that the margins for such an enterprise are best understood by the Vintners; men whose business it is to grow, harvest, ferment, and bottle ta-grapes, and the succulent fruit of ka-la-na trees. I have a modest grove, nothing more than a testament to vanity, perhaps. I am a vagabond Poet, sometimes a playwright, once a politician and whoremonger. I know plenty about turning a phrase, twisting a plot, the realities of red-tape, and turning a slut out. I know very little about how one becomes wealthy from the growing of fruit, nor do I care to know. It is enough to have the wine and the olives, and to have enough to share. And while I had raised a cup to my brother, and friends I once called brother, I raised my cup first to a mere girl. She followed along with me to wipe the sweat from my brow as I tilled the field and plotted the stakes. Her hands picked the first harvest with me, and her feet later stomped them. After pressing, and filtering, she handed me the nails when I hammered the lid to that first barrel, sealing it shut for fermentation.

Were she here today, she would have been permitted to drink this first bottle with me.

Poetry in the Margin

Just a little softer, for
I know your secret, and
I feel it, dull and aching
Throbbing there
Beside my heart, where
You kissed and slipped away

Blood and bone, I alone
Know the unknown, and
I felt it, rent and breaking
Pouring freely
Soaking the stones, where
You watched me fade away

Yesterday and Today

"Master," she whispered from her place at the foot of my couch.
The day had been long for her. Every day is long for her. She is a slave. I no longer own a brothel full of slaves to put to tasks both menial and mundane. There is only Mina, and she is enough. She wakes at dawn most days, often with a kick to her flank. I suppose I am strict. I have been many things to slaves in the past. Harsh, at times. Loving, at others. Understanding, on one hand. Unreasonable, on the other. I have walked hand in hand with a girl down a public street, illiciting murmurs of 'coddler' from the more judgmental of my peers. I have walked down that same street with a girl bent at the waist, her head to my hip and her hair grasped roughly in my fist. I have had girls branded, and chosen not to do so with others. I have freed a slave or two in my day, and kept others in the most abject positions on my chain with little or no hope for a better lot in life, let alone the notion of existence out of the collar.
"Please have me," she begged, tears welling.
I have had slaves intensely devoted to me, and others that I frustrated so deeply that they ran from me. Of those that ran, I hunted a few. Others, I let run. I have had women that were nothing more than physical diversions, used for the desire their scent and their curves provoked in me. I have had others that I enjoyed speaking with, at length, on a variety of subjects. These were women that were obviously thoughtful, and laudably intelligent before they became the property of men. I have taught whores and barbarians to read and write The Language, and play musical instruments. A few times in my life, I allowed a mere slave girl to assume the role of 'every woman' to me. I took the time to learn everything about her, physically and emotionally, stripping her bare before me, leaving her utterly vulnerable beneath me.
"Please," she said.
Her cheek was on the bare floor, staring boldly at me. She was nude. Her shoulders were low and her hips were high. After an exhausting day, she was yet restless. She wound the heavy chain I secure her with about her body, circling her waist with it. There are times she fights me, asks too many questions of me. There are times she earns the whip that I put to her on a regular basis. And there are times she simply submits, both to me and to herself. Mina is not very good, but she is hungry. And she is learning.