already mounted; and another, fair-skinned European slave with dark red hair, probably a Prince taken from our benevolent Queen; and two empty crosses waiting for Tristan and me.
The grooms appeared and lifted Tristan as I watched, and mounted him efficiently and quickly. They didn’t insert the phallus until they had his thighs comfortably fitted into the curve of the brass hooks, and when I saw the size of the phallus I winced. In an instant, his wrists were chained to the end of the thing, with the upright wood of the cross between them. His cock couldn’t have been any harder.
As the grooms went to combing his hair and binding his feet in place, I realized I had only seconds to do something rash if I was going to do it. I looked up at the Master’s still face. His lips were parted as he studied Tristan. His cheeks were slightly red.
I was still on all fours. I moved closer to him until I was against his robe, and then slowly, deliberately, I sat back on my ankles and looked up at him. A strange expression crossed his face, a prelude to rage that I had dared to do this. I whispered without moving my lips so that the grooms couldn’t hear me.
“What have you got under that robe,” I said, “that you torment us like this? You’re a eunuch, aren’t you? I don’t see any hair on your pretty face. That’s what you are, aren’t you?”
I thought I could see the hair of his head stand on end. The grooms were polishing Tristan’s muscles with clear oil and carefully wiping away what the skin did not absorb. But that was just a little blaze in the corner of my eye.
I was staring up at the Master.
“Well, are you a eunuch?” I whispered, barely moving my lips. “Or have you got something under those fancy robes worth ramming into me!” I laughed with my lips closed, a real evil-sounding laugh. I was really amusing myself. And I knew that it could well go awry. But the look on his face—the pure astonishment—was worth it.
He colored beautifully, the rage cresting, then melting under his control. His eyes narrowed.
“You’re a handsome bastard, you know, eunuch or no eunuch!” I hissed.
“Silence!” he thundered.
The grooms were startled. The word echoed throughout the garden. Then his voice crackled as he gave some quick commands. The grooms, terrified, finished with Tristan and hurried off silently.
I had bowed my head, but now I looked up again.
“You dare!” he whispered. And it was an interesting moment because he was whispering exactly the way I had. He couldn’t dare speak to me aloud any more than I could speak to him.
I smiled. My cock was pumping with juice, just ready to spill.
“I’ll cover you, if you prefer!” I whispered. “I mean if it doesn’t work, that thing you have—”
The slap came so fast I didn’t see it. He knocked me off balance. I was on all fours again. I heard a whistling sound, something that struck fear for reasons I couldn’t remember. I glanced up and saw he was pulling out a long leather leash from his girdle. It had been wound around his waist, hidden in the folds of velvet. It had a little loop on the end of it, just big enough for a regular cock, not mine, I didn’t think.
He grabbed me by the hair of my head and pulled me up. I felt the pain like a burn. He smacked me twice, hard, and I saw the garden in flashes of color as my head turned. Tumult in paradise. I felt his fingers raking my balls, pulling them up, and the cock strap went round and was buckled tight. Good fit, actually. And the leash dragged my whole pelvis forward, my knees scraping on the grass, as I tried to gain my balance.
My head was forced down by him until he could get the almighty slipper on the back of my neck, and then it was down to the ground again, though the leash ran under my chest, and he pulled it roughly, forcing me to hurry on all fours after him.
I wished I could look back at Tristan. I felt as if I’d betrayed him. And I thought suddenly I’d made a hideous mistake, that I’d wind up in one of the corridors, or something worse. But it was too late now. The strap tightened on my cock as he pulled me harder towards