Longings of Surrender by Sophie Kisker

Author:Sophie Kisker [Sophie Kisker]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Odyssey Press
Published: 2024-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Enna:

Matias instantly lets go, and I scramble out from underneath him, back towards the wall. I curl over, my arms wrapped around my waist, and try to handle the swarm of images that floods my mind. Dimly, I’m aware of being pulled into his arms, and I accept his comfort while I struggle to calm my panicked breathing.

“Enna, what happened? Was this part of the ‘night lesson’?” he finally asks after I stop shaking. It takes a few minutes to get the courage to speak, but I’m tired of holding in bad things.

“No. This was different.” I’m exhausted and defeated. “It was after Miria was born. I was breastfeeding. Master decided he wanted to taste the milk, and he liked it so much he kept... And he thought it was fun to hold me down and bite me when he did it, over and over...” I falter, my resolve to let everything out warring with my reluctance to give the memory more power by speaking the words. “That’s why I reacted like I did.”

“What about Miria?”

I draw a circle in the dirt with my finger. “Miria wasn’t getting enough milk because of him, and when I told the doctor why her weight wasn’t increasing, the doctor informed me that my milk belonged to my master if he wanted it. He arranged for Miria to get milk from some other mother, in a bottle. Eventually, my breasts dried up, from stress, I suppose, and Master eventually lost interest.”

“Oh, my gods, Enna.” There’s horror in his voice. “I am so, so sorry. I can’t even conceive of a person vile enough to do everything he did to you.”

“Not every master is that bad. I know some slaves who have masters they love very much, who treat them well. I was just...lucky... I guess.” I let out a derisive snort. Did your sister’s master treat her well?”

Matias is silent for a minute, stroking my hair. “That kind of depends on what you define as ‘well’. He cared for her, and he did what I’m sure he thought was best for her, but to me it sounded awful. He put her through something called ‘re-imprinting’ after she fell in love with someone else.”

I shudder. Re-imprinting is the stuff of nightmares. “Did it work?”

He chuckles. “Not in the way he hoped. She was so in love with the other man, James, that she imprinted on him. Her master ended up selling her to James because he knew she’d be unhappy for the rest of her life otherwise.”

“So, in the end, he did what was best for her. Sounds pretty nice to me.”

“I guess so.”

A silence stretches out between us while I struggle to form the right words to a question I’ve been thinking about since yesterday.

“Matias, you don’t have slaves.”

“No.”

“Then, what do you call a woman you, um, are with? If you’re with her, I mean. That doesn’t make sense, sorry.”

He chuckles. “Well, they go by several different names, depending on the relationship. Girlfriend, partner, wife.

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