Master’s Schiavo by Laura Lascarso
11
We spend the next day lounging around Master’s bedroom suite where he pampers me like his little prince and serves me breakfast in bed. My asshole is too sore for fucking, and my throat is still raw from taking Silvio’s monster cock, so Master blows me, then spits my cum into my mouth so that I may swallow it like a good boy. He kisses me too, slow languid strokes inside my mouth and soft nibbles at my lips. This sort of open affection is rare for him, and I lap it up eagerly.
And with each hour that passes, his departure approaches like a looming executioner. It helps that he seems sad about it too, but my feelings go deeper than sadness. My entire identity has been constructed around servicing my Master these past three years. He makes all my decisions for me—what I wear (or don’t), what I eat, how I part my hair… Who am I without him? What is my purpose when there is no beloved Master to serve?
Silvio sits down with us the morning before Master leaves to go over my written schedule again as well as my limits. When I inquire about following Master’s rules, he tells me to do my best, but that Silvio is in charge of amending them in his absence.
“Gio needs clear instruction,” Master says to Silvio. “He has to be able to depend on you to not only for your guidance and reassurance, but to enforce the rules you’ve set.”
“Yes, Valentin.” Silvio nods and squeezes my hand.
“Remember your virtues, Giovanni,” Master says while we’re waiting for the ferry that will take him back to the mainland. “I expect you to stick to our routines. And call me if you need me.”
“Yes, Master. This slave will try to honor your teachings in your absence.”
I try to keep a stiff upper lip when he boards the ferry, but I end up crumbling all the same. Master kisses my forehead and tells me that he loves me and that he’ll miss me, then steers me over to Silvio who wraps me in his thick arms and holds me together while Master becomes a blurry speck in the distance.
I am subdued back at the villa. Silvio has agreed to move into Master’s manor in his absence, which is mainly for my comfort as all of my things are here already, and my routines revolve around the safe spaces Master has created for me.
Silvio and Anthony make dinner—grilled amberjack that he caught fresh off his boat and wild rice, but I can only pick at mine. The demons are quiet for now, but they are only biding their time.
I ask to be excused early and Silvio grants me permission, eying me with concern as I depart to Master’s bedroom. He sends Anthony along with me and says he’ll join me in a bit. I go through my nightly beauty ritual, even though Master isn’t here to appreciate the softness of my skin or the silkiness of my hair. I think about where Master might be right now, on a train to Rome where he will depart for New York soon after. With each passing hour, he is traveling farther away from me. Is Master missing his slave or is he relieved to not have the responsibility of taking care of a boy with so many needs?
Silvio comes in a little while later to find me still sitting at the vanity, staring blankly at the mirror. I don’t really see myself at all, and I wonder if I ever have. Who am I but Master’s ideal of the perfect slave boy made flesh? Like Geppetto’s puppet Pinocchio. Who is Giovanni Ricci but a made-up identity for a made-up person?
Silvio’s hand on my shoulder gently squeezing reminds me that even without my Master to serve, I may be useful still.
“Would you like me to service your cock, Signore?” I ask in a flat tone. I am grasping for a purpose, and Silvio must know it judging by the sympathetic way he looks at me. He doesn’t want a dead-eyed fuck toy. Some men might, but not him.
Silvio shakes his head slowly and says, “How about bed? You’ve had a long day and could probably use the rest. Don’t all princesses need their beauty sleep?”
He’s trying to make me smile, but as I hang up my robe and slip nude between Master’s expensive sheets, lying next to a man who is practically a stranger, I think the worst feeling for this slave isn’t to be mistreated but to be undesired.
I wakeup the next morning alone. I pull back the covers and smooth my hands over the sheets next to me as if to prove that Silvio is not here. Was there some emergency? Where could he be? When will he come back? How will I maintain my schedule?
I consider calling Master but with the time difference, it’s the middle of the night there after a long day of travel, so I swallow the lump in my throat and determine that I will carry on as if nothing is amiss. Master told me to stick to our routines, so I’ll pretend it’s a workday for Silvio just as if it was for Master. I unroll my yoga mat and do my Sun Salutations, feeling anything but grateful for this new day I’ve been given.
Breakfast is a disaster. The eggs turn out runny and pellucid, the toast is burnt around the edges, and the coffee is going cold because Silvio still has not arrived. Anthony is hovering around me like a mother hen, so I ask if he’s seen him.
“Not yet this morning,” he says.
Useless, as always.
I pace the length of the loggia where I’ve set up breakfast and consider skipping it altogether in favor of a swim, but Master wouldn’t want me to exercise on an empty stomach, and I haven’t earned my breakfast yet because no service has been given.
This is your life now,the demons whisper, a worthless boy spinning his wheels, waiting for a Master who will never come and a Sir who doesn’t want you. You may as well—
“Shut up,” I snap, which startles Anthony who has been watching me slowly unravel.
Maybe Anthony could find him,the demons say, and I know better than to trust their suggestion, but I’m not sure there’s a better idea.
“Can you find Silvio for me?” I ask Anthony. He’s been given explicit instructions not to leave me alone, especially right now, so soon after Master’s departure, but he sees the conundrum presented here, a slave with no Master and no Signore either. It would be like Anthony hanging around with no body to protect. By leaving, Master has rendered us both redundant, but no, Anthony is here to babysit me, isn’t he? Well, what will he do when I’m gone?
“I’ll try calling him,” Anthony says.
Tell him you’re going to get a drink from the kitchen.
“I’ll be right back,” I say to Anthony, who’s stabbing his phone with his thick pointer finger. “I forgot something in the kitchen.”
I turn away before Anthony can argue and make my way back to the splendid kitchen with every convenience a kept boy could possibly want. I scan the counters and notice the wooden block containing the steak knives is absent. I open the cutlery drawer to find the sharpest tool within it is a butter knife.
Master hid the knives, or he told Anthony and Silvio to hide them because he knew the demons would demand a sacrifice. How dare he leave this slave without even the tiniest outlet for the panic that is inflating inside him like a balloon. He’s trapped me, caged me, and the demons don’t like to be caged. The rage comes swiftly, and I can’t really differentiate if it’s the demons or myself.
“Giovanni?” Anthony asks. He’s across the counter from me, eyeing me with trepidation. When the demons grow strong, I begin to sway back and forth like a hypnotized cobra. I can feel myself doing that now.
“Anthony, where are the knives?” I ask carefully. The demons want me to appear disinterested.
“They’re put away. Boss didn’t think—”
“Anthony, how can I cut melon without a knife?” Knives are practical if nothing else. The melon isn’t ripe yet, but Anthony doesn’t know that.
“I can ask Silvio for one when he gets back.”
“Where is Silvio?” How far away is he and how long do I have?
“He went to check on his boat, but he said he’s on his way.”
He’ll be too late,the demons say. We want blood. We want it now. Just a little cut. Make us feel something good. Give it to us, give it to us, give it to us…
I grab a half-empty wine bottle and break it across the counter, sending the red liquid flooding across the marble. I present my forearm for the blood sacrifice. I won’t go deep, and I won’t go hard, nothing that will need stitches, just a surface cut really, one that will heal before Master returns, if he returns… I’m negotiating with the demons, discussing desires and limits as if they’re a rational entity while they hiss, yes, yes, yes…
Anthony is waving his hands as he approaches, but he’s too far away. I press the broken glass to my flesh so that it dimples and pricks, droplets of blood blooming on my golden skin. Master likes gold but the demons like blood red. As I’m about to drag it along my flesh to give the demons room to escape, a large hand swoops down and clamps around my wrist, yanking back my hand and thwarting my demons’ desires.
The pressure around my wrist is a vice that forces me to drop the broken bottle. The demons don’t like this, not the interruption of a blood sacrifice, nor the grip that restrains me, holding me down. I struggle to yank my hand away, but I’m pulled backward and surrounded by a wall of flesh. I can’t move, I can’t move, and I hear them coming, their heavy footsteps just outside the door, and now they’re inside the room, casually discussing the unspeakable things they’re going to do to me and how much it will cost them, bargaining over the price of my rape. The demons rage, they rage, but they are trapped inside this body and cannot get out. I can’t fight them alone and Master isn’t here to protect me. I need the demons’ help, so I give up resisting and let them take over.
I claw at the arm that holds me and then at their face. I use the back of my head to dislodge their grip and kick my heel up, aiming for something soft and tender. There is shouting, a commotion. I’ve gone feral.
“Lock me in the box,” I shout above the din.
Strong arms wrap around me again as they haul me off my feet and drag me, kicking and screaming, into Master’s bedroom, but Master is not here. Master has forsaken me, has left me at the mercy of my demons and the cruelty of bad men. They shove me inside the box and lock the door and my demons are so furious at what they’ve been denied. They are through with me, unwanted and discarded, a dirty little faggot who cannot do anything for himself, who cannot even satisfy his demons.
I cannot fend them off any longer and so, I surrender to their wrath.
Haveyou ever seen a demonic possession? Put aside for the moment whether it’s “real” or not. Whether it’s demons or voices or stress, whatever it is, the entity that takes over a rational human being when the person can no longer cope. You can see it in their eyes, the demons look past you, unfocused, dazed. The demons answer to only themselves. They cannot be rationalized or convinced they’re not right; their desires are the only thing that matters, and they demand immediate satisfaction. They cannot be controlled or calmed or sated with reason. They want blood or pain or poison or death. And whatever it is that they want, they will have it, even if they put you through hell to get it. There is no way to stop the demons once they take over, but sometimes, you can wait them out.
You can also see the moment the person comes back online. A flicker in their eyes, like a lightbulb being turned on in a dark room or a computer being rebooted, signaling the moment their consciousness slides back into place.
How am I so sure that the demons are to blame? Because my mother was possessed by them too.
When the demons finally finish with me, I find myself kneeling in the box, swaying back and forth as if in a trance. My throat is raw, which means I’ve been screaming, and there are scratches all over my arms and chest. My hair is a tangled nest and my robe, now torn and lying in the corner, smells like piss. The condition of my box is just as bad. The vinyl pad is ripped with chunks of foam everywhere and the books have been shredded. I glance at the four walls that surround me, and I’m relieved to find I haven’t smeared the glass with my feces, but only because I didn’t defecate while the demons were in control.
And as my sight slowly returns, I find that I’m not alone, that Silvio has placed an armchair directly across from me in Master’s room and is leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped between his legs. Anthony stands a little behind him, shell-shocked.
“Is he finished?” Anthony says and the box makes it seem as if he’s speaking underwater, or perhaps it is me staring at them through my glass aquarium.
Am I finished?I don’t know. I hope so.
Silvio says something to Anthony, something I can’t hear, and Anthony leaves. I take a few deep breaths and inspect my arms, which are scratched all to hell but nothing so deep that I’ll need medical attention. Master makes me trim my nails for this reason. But then, Master isn’t here, so who really gives a shit?
Master will return,I tell myself. And he’ll want this slave to be in perfect condition. That is why we don’t mar one’s skin, because Master appreciates beautiful things. He demands excellence in every way. I try to conjure Master’s voice in my head. Remember your virtues, Giovanni, patience, humility, subservience, gratitude…
I whisper my mantras, the ones Master has taught me and others I’ve adopted as my own. The demons aren’t raging but they aren’t silent either. They are a low hum of discontent that could spike at any moment.
A movement across the room catches my attention. Anthony has returned, and in his thick fist is an ice cream cone, which he hands to Silvio. Silvio takes a long lick, collecting the drips with his tongue, and watches me closely.
“Unlock the door,” he says to Anthony.
“You sure about that?”
Silvio nods and Anthony approaches slowly, eying me like I’m a tiger in a cage. I won’t hurt Anthony. I probably won’t hurt Anthony. The only reason I struck out against Silvio was that he tried to restrain me.
The lock is disengaged, and the door opens, silent on its oiled hinges. Anthony backs away like he doesn’t want to be held responsible for what happens next.
“Principessa,” Silvio calls amiably. “Look what I have for you here.”
He takes another long lick of ice cream, and the prospect entices me. I didn’t eat breakfast, which was probably hours ago, and my stomach is growling.
“Come, Giovanni,” he says and makes that kissing noise with his mouth.
I crawl toward the door and climb down the platform on hands and knees, feeling more animal than human. Silvio stays very still and nods at me to continue my trek across the marble floor. I glance over at Anthony with a warning glare, but he seems content to keep his distance.
“Yes, princess, there you are. Come to Silvio now. Have some nice ice cream. Your throat must be sore from all that screaming.”
That must be why my ears are ringing as well. I venture closer to Silvio, and he coaxes me to come right between his open legs. There’s a scratch across his cheek with a little bit of dried blood, but other than that, he looks okay.
“Are you going to hurt me?” I ask. This isn’t the kind of hurt I want.
“No, princess, I want to share my ice cream with you.” He holds it out to me, and I take a tentative lick. It’s as good as I remember, maybe even better. Silvio carefully takes hold of my knotted hair and pushes it away from my face, so it doesn’t get caught in the ice cream. “There you go,” Silvio prods. “But let me have some too.”
He draws the cone away from me momentarily to take a long lick himself. His movements are slow and deliberate, like he doesn’t want to spook me. I watch his tongue draw the cream into his mouth, then travel across his lips to collect the remainder before offering it to me again.
I don’t bother trying to reach for it with my hands. Instead, I let Silvio feed me. Like taming a wild animal with food, he pets my head and lets me eat most of it. The ice cream is soothing to my raw throat and the sweetness is pleasing to my senses. When it’s gone, I sit back on my heels and feel almost human again.
“How about a bath now, princess?” Silvio asks.
I nod with tears brimming in my eyes because I am grateful for this kindness.
Silvio drawsa bath in Master’s luxurious bathroom and, after digging through the cabinets, finds a bath bomb to add as well. I climb into the big porcelain tub and wish I could submerge myself and never resurface.
“May I join you?” Silvio asks.
I nod and watch as he strips off his clothing and climbs in to settle across from me. We eye each other warily, and neither of us makes a move.
“I’m sorry I did that to your face,” I say to him at last. My own abuse I can bear, but I don’t like to hurt others.
Silvio shrugs. “Doesn’t hurt too bad. Makes me look tough, no?”
I blink and study him and wonder why he isn’t more upset by it.
“Valentin told me you don’t like to be restrained,” he says and nods as if my mental breakdown is his fault.
“That’s true.”
“So, I’ll be more careful next time.”
Next time? How can Silvio plan to stay here with a literal crazy person who will claw off his face and go for his nuts at his earliest opportunity?
“Why are you doing this?” It doesn’t make any sense to me. Fucking me is certainly a bonus, but there are far easier ways to get laid.
“As a favor to my brother,” Silvio says, “and as a favor to you.”
I hadn’t thought about it like that before, that Silvio might be doing this for me, not only as it relates to my Master.
“You weren’t at breakfast,” I tell him. I don’t mean to sound so accusatory because it’s obviously not his fault—the demons were bound to take over sooner or later.
“I had to check on my house and my boat. But I can see that it really messed up your morning, eh?”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry because that’s such a vast understatement.
“Ah,” he says, delighted. “I am funny, no?”
“Yes, you are funny,” I tell him. “You know that you are.”
“Charming too?”
I glance away, not wanting to admit it.
“It’s okay, princess, you can tell me.”
“You are a little bit charming.”
“A little bit?” he scoffs. “I am my mother’s favorite son.”
“You are your mother’s only son,” I argue.
“And favorite.”
He nudges my thigh with his toe, and I give a shaky smile. I’m holding my knees to my chest while Silvio is splayed out like a Greek god. “So,” he says, “I should have been here for you, and I wasn’t. From now on, we stick to the schedule, I promise.” I nod slowly, and I want to mention something else, but I don’t quite know how. This slave doesn’t make demands. This slave is grateful for whatever attentions are given to him.
“What is it, princess?” he prompts, sensing my inner turmoil.
“This slave needs to feel useful,” I tell him. “And… desired. Even when Master isn’t here, the slave must have a purpose. The slave must be… used.” I stare at my knees, blushing. I’m rarely shy or embarrassed when it comes to Master, but Silvio is not Master.
“Ah,” Silvio nods slowly. “Signore, no?” he asks, my name for him when we’re in a scene.
“Yes. Signore.” Relief washes over me just in saying it.
Silvio licks his lips, then tugs on the lower one as a canny expression lights up his face. “How about this, princess? I wash, you suck?”
I glance up at him to make sure he means it and isn’t just fucking with me. I nod slowly, trapped by his pensive gaze while thinking this could… work.
Silvio opens his legs wider, still bent at the knees, and tells me to come closer. When I do, he turns me around and drags a soapy rag over my body, cleaning the cuts I recently gave myself and wiping away the sweat and grime that accumulated during my rage. He massages shampoo into my hair then pours water over my head to rinse it. Conditioner too, to help with the knots and tangles. His hands feel wonderful against my scalp, gently massaging. My shoulders relax and my eyes close, another sign of trust.
“This is good, yes?” he asks as his hands become familiar with my body. His fingers play with one of my nipple rings, flicking and tugging it gently.
“Yes.”
“Verde?” he asks, his voice dropping a register.
“This is green,” I tell him.
“Turn around, princess.”
I swivel to face him while Silvio hoists himself onto the stone ledge of the tub like Poseidon rising from the frothy, churning sea and plants his feet firmly on either side of me. His cock is a massive sea slug, the head of it wet and slippery and dripping with nutritious seed.
“Prendimi in bocca,” he murmurs. Take me in your mouth. “Give me blowjob, pretty princess. Signore likes your mouth on his cock. Makes him feel so good.”
I am charmed that Silvio is now referring to himself in third person, in some weird role-reversal that shows he is trying to speak my language, even if it is only to tease me.
I edge closer to Silvio and he places his hand on the back of my head, guiding me down, down, smothering my face with his wet groin and making sure I’m saturated with his scent. I close my eyes and rub my lips against his shaft, then my cheeks and my nose. This is something I understand. This is something I’m good at, an expert even. This is one way for this slave to feel useful. Master isn’t here, but Signore is. There is a new man in the house, and he has a thick cock that is as rapacious and greedy as any other. He has big, heavy balls that need draining, lusts to be sated, and a strong, virile body that must be worshipped as a god.
As Silvio’s thick, monstrous cock fills my mouth, giving me both direction and purpose, I think about Adam and Eve and their original sin. According to the Book of Genesis, it was a serpent that tempted Eve to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree, but I believe the snake wasn’t a snake at all, but Adam’s cock. You see, Eve found a new god to worship in Adam, and the fruit was the result of the seed that fertilized her womb. God was jealous of the bond they made and banished them from His holy land to live in a barren landscape and toil under the hot sun, shamed by the sins of their passion.
I would have made the same choice as Eve.
Signoreis not Master, but he is a man all the same.