Unspoken

I had been avoiding him. I had been keeping to myself mostly, the estate was the size of a small city so this was not exactly difficult. I had been spending time with the seamstress and a few of the women who were, basically, paid to pretend to like me. They were high caste women of course, hoping to land an influential man.

And there had been the headaches that could keep me in bed for hours some days. But I always joined him at meals, which were not small intimate affairs, but normally included complete strangers and heads of state. I was polite, cordial and charming. Even if I spent most of the time imagining horrible, beastly things about them. Especially the Initiate. I don't know why the holy man affected me the way he did but every time I saw him I felt.. meek, mild.. and excited. I had slid my hands between my thighs more then once imagining what it would be like to feel Lucien inside of me in one of the temples.. I wondered if the initiate would watch. The position of Ubara would censor my mouth but nothing would ever censor my mind.

How boring I would be if I ever stopped.. thinking.

So I had been avoiding the Ubar and thinking bad things about holy men. When he found me He pulled me into his lap and I laughed. Lucien was a mystery to me but .. I was still just a woman, I needed this attention. I needed to know someone cared about me. He kissed me, softly, sweetly and the night could have been great. We could have made love without.. hurting each other. We could have not told lies. I could have let him lick the tears of my frustration.

Instead.. I referred to myself as his political prisoner and he stood up, pushing me away from him. HE argued hotly, briefly.

"When the contract is up you will be relieved then, Xia?"

"When the contract is up, Lucien, I will do what is best for Cos." My heart was pounding.

He smiled, darkly. "You will do what I tell you too"

"Yes." I replied softly.

I felt his hand on my arm, pulling and then Garrick and his woman entered and some slaves. Lucien let me go and polite conversation. except for the part where I said something about someone giving someone head...

Right about then Lucien took me by the elbow and 'escorted' me to my rooms. His grip was.. not nice.

"You are hurting me." I complained, irritably.

"I know." He smiled at me.

Some men like to kiss a woman behind her ear or gently hold her hand.. My Ubar prefers to slam me against the wall so hard my eyes water as he tears the veils from my face. He would rather bruise my lips then hold me gently.

He made my knees weak.

"Tell me you don't love me Xia, tell me the truth." He demanded, my hips brushing mine. I moaned.

"You cannot make me." And just like that he let me go again, turned his back to me and washed his face. Fucking asshole. I hated that. He knew just how to make sure I knew how little I meant. There was silence between us and I walked towards him, met him in the bathroom by the sink. My fingers brushed over his bare back once he pulled off his tunic.

"You said you would raze cities for me.. did you mean it?"

"Xia.. I would scour Gor to find you if anyone took you from me." I did not meet his eyes. "I would have the head of any person who sought to cause you harm. You are my Ubara."

"I still think of Agrippa." I whispered, I was wearing perfume Agrippa had given me. Something he had let me purchase as we left the paga den in port when I was still his tina. I think Lucien knew.. The conversation began to die as I leaned back on the counter. I never really teased Lucien, his appetite was too large.. I could not flash him .. an ankle or a bare wrist and expect to get away unscathed. Tonight was no different...

I had not told him I loved him but beneath him that night, on the cool tiles of the bathroom floor.. I showed him I was his. All his.

When I woke in the morning to the display of elegant purfume bottles and fresh scents made just for me.. I began to understand a little more about the Ubar of Cos.

He wanted to keep me.

...Blur

Who am I again? Xianthe of Temos, Ubara of Cos. The coldest, cruelest woman this place has ever seen?

I suppose that is true. I suppose the people who say such things want me to be hurt. I suppose they are moronic little bitches. I am not a woman to be easily wounded and should you somehow manage to hurt me? You will be sorry, so very sorry. Your family will be sorry, your children in their cribs will be sorry. I suppose I am cold and cruel.

Despite all my.. faults, I am still a woman. I am still confused, living a life between two men. Agrippa has been on my mind lately. I wonder if he knows, what he thinks.. what he will do now. Actually no, I do not wonder what he will do, I know him better then that. He will do nothing, I am the Ubara of Cos and nothing means more to Agrippa then Cos. His loyalty is, perhaps, even stronger then my own.

There is a memory of him that sticks out the most.. a mission he was sent on where 'Xia' could not go but 'tina' could. He made sure I played my part well, I traveled as Tina, I lived and breathed as Tina. By the time we arrived in Brundisium I was Tina. He dressed me in pretty gold fabric and hung jewels on my body. It was exciting to be led, nearly naked, from the ship. I could feel men looking at me, women too. I could feel the things they wanted to do to me deep in the pit of my belly. He took me to a den to watch a .. well I am still not sure what I saw that night. It may have been a dance, it may have been a show.. but I saw a young woman violently gang raped. I knelt at Agrippas feet and watched with rapt attention. That was when I lost a little of the frigidness of a free woman and I don’t want it back. I know things many free women will never know and I pity them for it. I begged that night, in public, I begged him to do that to me too. I wanted to be the girl on the dias. Agrippa knew me better then I knew myself though and I was not placed in the hands of strangers.. I would have died if he had. But he took me, there, on his lap. I loved him shamelessly and everyone saw it. I was Tina the hot little slave of a sailor. I have always longed to know what Agrippa thought of that night, if it changed him at all like it changed me. Changed the whole world. It made me softer, it made me angrier. It is frustrating to know so much about two different worlds.

This morning when I woke I found a note from the Ubar on my pillow; several small boxes had been arranged on my dressing table. I grinned, excited by the gifts and excited that he had been in here while I slept. He would never let anyone else in here.. I was dangerous alone with men and I was equally dangerous to slaves who entered my space unbidden. Rings and necklaces and bracelets, most of them rubies. Red was the color of me. The color of blood, the color of sex. I knew I had to face him sooner or later. There were things to be said.. questions to be asked.

Emotions to be dealt with.

I'd find him quite by accident.. on the terrace by the clinic when I was searching for something to stop the incessant pounding my head. The evening began with..

"Why are you avoiding me Xia?"

And ended with..

"Do you love me, Ubara?"

To be Cont.

Game. Set..... Match?

Lucien returned last night and I was pleased to see him. He is my only companionship and I have been lonely in his absence. I was waiting for him in the estate rose gardens, I did not mean to act as happy as I did. He asked me if anything had happened while he was away and I answered him honestly.

"How should I know? No one would tell me if it did and I am unable to leave."

So he graciously gave me guards so I could where I wished. Thirty men at my disposal. Thirty fucking men. How did he even find that many men willing to deal with me? How much was he paying all of them? And was this all just a cleverly designed trick to keep me locked up in the house, under his thumb? I could understand if it was, I could admire the wiseness of that decision.

When I pressed him about the guards that's when he said the last thing I'd expected to hear....

"I'd raze cities for you, Xianthe."

My face flushed and I was left speechless as he kissed me. His arms slid around my waist and tightened there as if to punctuate his words. I closed my eyes and let the weight of that small statement settle in my belly.

Later when he lay sleeping beside me, I watched him, so calm and relaxed. My fingers brushed a dirty blond curl from his face. The stakes were being raised little by little in the game of us. My rules were being rewritten.

I was gone by the time he woke and for a hand or so afterwards I avoided him. We met for meals of course, but those were often such political affairs that I did not have to speak to him. I could feel him watching me though, his gaze was heavy on me, it slithered around me like snakes. It took all I had not to meet it.

"I'd raze cities for you, Xianthe."

I will never forget.

To be trusted

I have never been a friendly woman; I never had a best friend when I was younger. I do not think I have ever giggled in my life and the only sweetness I ever knew was the cream cakes Sorp would sneak into me when we were girls. Sorp is five years older then I and as little as I discuss her.. It is her life that made me who I am today. When I was 12 my father collared Sorp, then known as Xatrina.

She had kissed a boy in the gardens.

Xatrina had always giggled and smiled and been a happy yellow haired girl. My father, who always liked her best, had taught me a valuable lesson that day. Giggles are for slaves, pretty things are for slaves and I.. I was to be above all that. I would companion the General and live my life as a perfectly respectable and boring woman of means, a woman of great wealth.

Does this help you see why I am the way I am? I am a hateful woman, because I must be. I will betray you because it will further my own causes. I will lie to you so you never see the real me. I will not cry, unless I need your sympathy. I will not laugh, unless I am laughing at you. Do not trust me, I am a wicked woman.

Agrippa always, underneath everything, understood me, my black heart and my pink lace. He took it, tasted it, rolled it around on his tongue and smiled. He knew me, no matter what mask I wear. I hated him for it and loved him for it. Agrippa softened me for the men who would come later, by his simple presence I learned how to lure a man, how to entice him and how to pull him neatly, sweetly into my trap. And when Agrippa turned his back to me, when he trusted me implicitly and showed me how he felt.. I left him.

I loved him and still I left him. This is exactly who I am, see? I am now the companion of an Ubar, I have power beyond compare, I can have anything I want, buy anything I desire. Lucien does not tell me he loves me but I know that part of him, perhaps a dark part, needs me. I know this because.. I did not trick him into this companionship. He has gained nothing from me or my estate. Agrippa still holds the deeds and titles to everything my father owned. All he gets is me.. I am small, mouthy, rude, vindictive, vicious and unlikable. I am snobby, stuck up and I treat most people with outright disdain. Still.. here I am.. the Ubara of Cos.

I am suspicious of Lucien, there has to be a reason for this. By now he should now I am not with child and I have not hidden my dislike of his own children. I avoid them as much as I can. I am sure they want as little to do with me as I them. After all his oldest son is.. older then me.

While he has been away I have been exploring the estate, finding my place here has not been easy, I have not been well received. I had heard Callista left after some silly spat so I let myself into her room. It's a good size.. I wonder if I could make it a walk in closet.

A Gilded Cage

I have not left the house in several hands, not since the ceremony anyway. I want for nothing here and Lucien has been more then kind to me. I am, after all, the Ubara. If want new shoes.. a shoemaker comes to see me. If I want new robes and dresses, a seamstress arrives with in the hour. When I want juice a half naked slave comes running. Someone brings me my meals, someone draws me a bath.

Life is blissful inside of the estate. Why should I leave?

Eventually though, right about now actually, I grow bored with my idleness and long for more to do, more stimulation. I know that I am no longer a spy; I cannot run around in fancy costumes, change my name and play a part. I did enjoy that.. most of it anyway. I suppose I had not given it enough thought. Things have changed, and not all for the better.

Yesterday I dressed, lunched and then, while Lucien was busy dealing with the constant bullshit of being Ubar, I wanted to just go for a walk in the city. Something I did every day of my life whenever I pleased before. When I was younger I took Hector with me, later it was Agrippa and most recently I went alone. Yesterday though.. all that changed. My boots were loud on the floors as I simply tried to leave.

"My lady..." spoke a red headed man with an overgrown stash. "I was not informed that you were going anywhere."

I just looked at him, blankly, over my veils. He stared too. Finally, in frustration I sighed. "Fine, I am leaving. Now you are informed." I smirked and got one and half steps away before he chuckled and wrapped his hand around my elbow. Now I am a small woman, tiny, you might say if you saw me naked but.. I am not weak, I am not without muscle. I jerked my arm away but he took again quickly, tighter.

"I was not informed that you were leaving, My Ubara, and I cannot allow you too, alone, without word from the Ubar."

Free woman of Gor are not as free as they seem. In many ways they are less free then slaves. A slave may, if she is trusted, come and go, alone, unguarded, at her own whim. But I, the Ubara of Cos.. cannot. I inhaled deeply and held my tongue. I wanted to give the man a verbal ass kicking and I would have.. if he had not been right.

I am the Ubara.. but I am still a woman. A woman in a gilded cage. "Fine." I said quietly, which was never a good sign. He released me once I was back inside and I knew he would be keeping an eye on me. He did not need to though as I well know my place. I only needed to speak to Lucien, I was confident he would let me do as I pleased.. as I long as I told him first. While I wouldn't interrupt his day.. I would stand outside the door to his office; my arms folded and wait till he either came out.. or someone complained that I was hanging around the hall.