Sans Raiment

Notes: So…after a long hiatus I got some inspiration. I have a plan for a few chapters, but not many. I dunno how far I’ll get, or if I’ll ever finish, since my inspiration seems to go where it pleases. So please be patient with me *puppy eyes*

Anyway, I wanted to thank the people that reviewed. It really does make my day to see the nice comments people leave. I like it when you say you enjoyed the chapter and say what scene or line you liked. So thank you. And thanks to everyone who reads too.

I’m glad you enjoy, so enjoy another chapter!

Sans Raiment 5

Filling out the letters to Cliff was both exciting and tedious to Albel. On the one hand, he had waited for some time to finally disclose his secrets to his lover. On the other hand, thinking of his traumatic, destructive relationship with Vox depressed him and he wanted to think of it no more. But he had promised Cliff he would tell. Even if he didn’t want to think of the depressing truths of his time spent with the late Duke, he would keep his word and tell.

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…For three months after the first time they had been intimate, Albel had avoided Vox. He now knew the cunning, clever tactics the man used to get his way. He saw it in war meetings and when they had interacted. Though he believed he could hold his own in a physical battle, Vox’s deceptive tricks seemed beyond his capacity. Avoidance was the best plan Albel had. If he stayed away from the man and never spoke to him when alone, then he could not be cornered into something unpleasant, as had happened before.

After awhile, the young captain began to slowly let his guard down. He stopped running from the war meetings and skulking around the castle when he visited, peeking around corners like he was a thief desperate not to get caught. After their…encounter, Vox had shown no interest in Albel. He would occasionally glance at the boy during the meetings, but he never attempted to touch or talk like he had before. It appeared to be a sign that Albel need not worry any more.

Albel had thought all was well and he could put the matter behind him, but when he was walking through the castle corridor one day someone grabbed his arm from behind and pulled him into a room. His first response was to struggle, but a slap to his behind halted him.

“Now, now, stop that. There’s no need to struggle so.”

The young man looked at his captor, eyes widening slightly. Vox looked back at him, smiling pleasantly. He released his grip on Albel, but a hand remained on the boy’s shoulder.

“I’ve missed you lately. Where have you been?”

Albel did not answer; he continued to stare at the man.

Vox laughed then feigned a hurt expression. “You’re not talking to me? How sad. And here I had been prepared to treat you to something special tonight to celebrate your returning to me.”

Albel took a step backwards. Vox’s hand fell from his shoulder. “I’m not returning to you.”

“Of course you are. Why else would you be here?”

“I have a report to give to his majesty.”

“A likely story.” Vox grinned, stepping towards Albel, despite the boy’s obvious wish to stay far apart. “You don’t have to pretend. I know you came back to see me. And how can I blame you for that? You miss your lover, naturally.”

“You are not my lover!” The young man yelled, suddenly angry.

“Shhhh. My dear little one, you and I are together all the time. Of course we are in a relationship. Even Arzei thinks so.”

That bit of information startled Albel. He did not want anyone to think that he and Vox were a couple, least of all the king. The thought of lodging a complaint with Arzei crossed his mind, but if the king believed that he and Vox were dating, then the man might just excuse it as a lovers tiff. Who’s to say Arzei would listen at all? Even if the king did believe him, would he do anything? Vox was the man’s uncle. Albel suspected that Arzei would listen to family over a disgruntled employee.

“We aren’t a couple.” Albel said sternly.

“Think what you want, little one,” Vox said, sneering patronizingly, “but that does not change the fact that you and I are together in the eyes of the world. I will give you some time to come to terms with that fact, since you seem so startled. I am a kind lover, after all. But I expect you to return to me in due time. Is that understood?”

The man looked at Albel. He looked back at Vox.

The duke narrowed his eyes. “Say you understand.”

After swallowing a lump in throat, Albel managed to mumbled that he understood.

“Good boy. I will expect you to return to me within several weeks. No more than a month. And don’t bother Arzei or your beloved protector, Woltar. They know you and I are in a relationship. Be a good boy and keep your troubles to yourself.”

The duke disappeared then, leaving Albel alone with his thoughts. For a moment, the young man was still, then his arms began to tremble in anger. Yet again, he had found himself in a situation that he could not get out of. If everyone thought that he and Vox were a couple, there was no way to change their minds. Any decrying he did would only make him look like a baby. No one would believe his word over Vox’s! Especially when appearances supported what the man said. Vox was right; they were constantly together, but that did not mean they were romantically together!

He toyed with the idea of going to Woltar for some time, but he gave up on that plan, knowing that the old man already treated him like a child. Woltar would just think he was having difficulty in his first relationship. There was no one for him to go to for aid. His hope that Vox would leave him alone dwindled. Albel continued to avoid the duke, but everywhere he went the man also seemed to be there. Vox did not approach him or speak directly on the subject of their ‘relationship’, but he was always close. The man was a silent, heavy presence, telling Albel that there was no way for him escape. It was inevitable.

The next time that Vox pulled him aside after a war meeting, Albel knew there was no reason to put up a fight. He expected to be whisked away to the man’s bedroom and ravished, but Vox had anticipated his expectations. He did not touch Albel that first night. They ate dinner together, Vox doing most of the talking. The duke didn’t touch him the following night either. Or the evening after that and after that. Vox was a perfectly respectable gentleman, sharing dinner with his lover each night.

The apparent lack of interest confused Albel, but it settled his nerves. After a week of being forced to endure the duke’s company, but not being touched, the young man started to feel slightly at ease. That was a mistake. After dinner had been cleared away, Albel stood to leave.

Vox looked surprised. “Where are you going? We aren’t done here.”

The young man gulped and sank back into his seat. “We aren’t?”

“Of course not. I’ve kindly given you time to adjust, now it is time for you to take your place.”

“What place is that?”

“In bed, of course.” The man gestured to the bedroom. Albel’s body tensed and the duke laughed. “Did you think we were done being intimate? You belong to me now. And all couples have sex. It’s natural.” Vox’s smile turned sinister. “ Now go into the other room.”

Albel opened his mouth to protest, but before a sound could leave his mouth he was slapped. His hand instinctively flew to his inflamed cheek.

“Get into the bedroom, now.”

Albel opened his mouth again, but when the duke raised his hand to strike once more he promptly shut it.

“Good. Now go.”

His feet were trembling as he stood and pushed away from the table. When Albel glanced back at the duke, he received a stern look, which was all the prompting he needed to enter the bedroom. Albel stopped in the middle of the room, resolutely swearing to himself that he would take no other step forward, which he didn’t. He was shoved instead.

Albel caught himself before he hit the ground, reaching out and grabbing hold of the side of the bed. He glared over his shoulder at Vox.

The man stared back impassively. “Don’t look at me so coldly. You’re just being shy. Take your clothes off so we can begin.”

Again, he tried to protest, but after only a few seconds Albel was hit again, much harder than before. While he stumbled back, his wrist was grabbed in an iron grasp. He was too focused on the pain radiating from his face to give the pain in his wrist more than a fleeting thought. So much happened in that moment of confusion that when Albel came back to his senses his face was pressed against one of the bed posts. The duke was restraining his hands behind his back.

“Seeing how obstinate you are tonight,” he jerked the boy’s wrists painfully, “I think I’ll punish you before we begin. You need to know your place.”

Albel wracked his brain to decipher what the man could possibly mean, but he came up with no answers. His hands were suddenly forced above his head. For a second, Albel believed Vox would release him, then he felt the press of metal against his flesh wrist. When he looked up, he saw that the man was shackling his wrists to the bedpost to prevent escape. A thrill of panic traveled up his spine and the young captain instinctively pulled back, trying to break free. His attempt was unsuccessful; the wood would not budge.

Behind him, Vox chuckled. The man toyed with the knot in Albel’s sarong, then undid it, allowing the garment to slip to the floor. “I wouldn’t bother struggling. Even the strength of your gauntlet cannot break free of those shackles. If you accept your punishment, it will go much quicker.”

As the man spoke, he continued to strip Albel of his clothes. He could not get the boy’s shirt off, but he rolled it up, past Albel’s nipples. With a pat on the side, the man left the room to fetch his riding crop. When he returned, he paused to enjoy the spectacle of Albel chained to the bed, prone and almost completely nude.

He stepped closer and ran a finger up the line of the boy’s back. “You’re exquisitely shaped, do you know? Perfectly curved, yet maintaining a degree of masculinity. Now if only you weren’t so willful. But you will learn. I will teach you. And this will be lesson one.”

Albel gasped when he felt the tip of the riding crop move between his legs, rubbing against his sac and then prodding his entrance. Vox traced the outline of the boy’s puckered hole and then pushed against it insistently, at last working the tip of the crop inside of the young captain’s body. Albel gasped again, jerking against the shackles. He heard the duke laugh and then felt the riding crop push further, forcing into his resisting body. The man played with him like that, thrusting the leather tool in and out of Albel’s body, exalting in the sounds the young captain made each time he scraped the boy’s inner walls so hard they bled.

“Stop it!” Albel cried at last when he thought he could not stand the pain any longer.

To his surprise, Vox did stop. He pulled the crop free from Albel’s body, chuckling with pleasure at the blood he saw on the crop. He then patted the boy’s behind apologetically. There was no movement that Albel could discern for some time. For a brief moment he hoped the man would let him go, but that hope vanished when he felt a sudden, biting pain strike his back. He was too surprised by the pain to make any noise, but when it struck again in almost the same spot he screamed.

“Stop screaming, child. You have much more to suffer.”

The pain assaulted Albel from all sides, stinging and burning into his bare flesh. He lowered his head and screwed his eyes shut, trying to find peace inside of himself, trying to find a place far from the pain. He tried to find a peaceful forest, a quiet spring, a warm beach, but each time the crop hit him the vision would break. When he dared to look back at the duke, the boy grimaced at the face Vox was making. The duke was grinning, showing his white teeth in a fierce smile as he drew his arm back and then unleashed his strength in the fall of the crop. He reveled in the blood that appeared on the welts and the droplets that clung to the crop. Even as the leather bit into his flesh, Albel knew Vox was holding back; if the man put his full strength into the whipping, his skin would be nothing but bloody ribbons.

He did not know how long Vox used his crop, but when the man was finished and released the shackles, Albel slipped to the floor, exhausted and trembling in pain. He sat there for several minutes, wrapping his arms around himself in an attempt to quell the shaking. Vox was silent, watching the boy as he tried to compose himself after his first session of punishment. It was an exhilarating sight, he thought, to see Albel’s first reaction to a pain he would know intimately and eventually crave. The way the young captain quivered and the tears leaked from his eyes without thought was delightful. And erotic.

When what he considered a decent amount of time had passed, the duke knelt on the ground. He took Albel’s chin in hand and forced the boy to meet his gaze.

“That was lesson one. You will have many more, but I want you to remember the pain you feel now. Each time I strike you with my crop or my whip I want you to think of this night and how you trembled and cried.”

Albel stared at him blankly, gulping down air and trying to blink away the tears that refused to stop coursing down his cheeks. It was his body’s reaction to the pain, but he cursed himself for allowing the wetness to escape his eyes. When Vox released his face, he again hoped he would be freed. And again he was disappointed. Vox put a hand on the back of Albel’s neck and forced his head down. The young captain stayed like that, afraid, honestly, to move. The man shifted behind him and a moment later Albel felt the heat of the man’s cock pressed against his back.

“Show me that you’ve learned your lesson of obedience. Bend over.”

He hesitated for a moment, but not so long as to raise the duke’s ire. Slowly, Albel planted his hands on the floor and bent over. His body still shivered and when Vox got behind him and forced two fingers inside of his body without preparation, the quaking started anew. The pain was much less than when the crop had been striking his skin, so Albel was able to drown it out. He was so focused on escaping the moment that he barely noticed when the man entered him.

The first hard thrust the duke delivered into his body startled him out of his dream world. Albel gasped at the pain of his body tearing to accommodate the duke’s cock. He bit down on his lip to keep in a pained sound. If Vox noticed his pain, he did not care. The man continued to thrust, ignoring Albel altogether. He had been reduced to the duke’s fuck toy.

As he knelt, braced against the floor, Albel felt the tears begin to flow with the advent of the new pain. Just the weight of the man leaning against his injured back caused such pain that he wanted to cry out. The added throb of his torn body made him want to scream. But he did not. Albel dug his nails into the floor, the claws of his gauntlet scratching deep into the wood. He endured the pain of the man’s body valiantly, doing his best to hide the terrible agony he was in. The pain was so strong, he could focus on nothing else.

Like the first time the duke had thrust, Albel came back to his senses when a new pain assaulted him. The feel of the man’s hot semen spurting and getting into the fissures inside of his body stung so badly that Albel hissed. He could not take the pain any longer and bucked backwards, trying to knock Vox off. The duke shifted back, taking the hint, but he gave Albel a good smack on the ass as punishment.

When Vox had left his body, Albel fell onto his side and curled into a ball, trying to assuage the pain. He panted and cursed, feeling the semen drip from his abused entrance. He lay curled in his misery for he knew not how long before Vox knelt down again. After such pain, Albel shied away from the man’s touch.

Vox smiled calmly. “Let me clean you and then you may rest.”

Still shaking, the boy eventually managed to nod his head. The duke retrieved a basin of hot water and a washcloth and carefully cleaned the young captain of blood. Albel hissed as the stubbly cloth ran over his wounds, stinging him.

“You will remember this pain for the rest of your life, Albel, and you will thank me for it. Perhaps not soon, but one day you will see that this was for your benefit and then you will thank me.”

The man paused in his cleaning.

“I am giving you a new rule to obey, Albel, so listen closely. When you come to my quarters you will immediately undress. When we are in private, I want to see you stripped; sans raiment. That is how you will truly know that I own you. Do you understand? I hope for your own sake you do, otherwise you will be put through another discipline session like this.”

From his position, Albel could not see the man’s face, but he did not want to. Listening to the duke’s voice made him simmer in rage and if he saw Vox’s face he was sure he would try to do something irrational. So he closed his eyes instead and resigned himself to letting the man attend to him. It felt disgusting to have the one who had caused him such pain treat his wounds, but he could not do anything in his current state. He was in too much pain.

Vox finished cleaning him and helped Albel stand up. Before he could be led to the bed, Albel lurched, hunched over, and vomited onto the floor. The duke cursed, slapped his pained back, then shoved him onto the bed. Albel did not bother to stay conscious after that. When he fell into the bed, he crawled to the edge and curled up in the pillows. He had never felt so vulnerable and weak and he hated it. It felt just as bad as when he had failed the Ascension of the Flames ceremony. Perhaps worse, as he suspected this was going to be a prolonged agonizing experience.

That thought brought an onslaught of question about what his father would think or do if he were in Albel’s position. He fell asleep mulling over the questions and did not stir until morning, even when Vox joined him in bed.

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The next morning, Albel was prodded awake by the duke. The man looked disgruntled, perhaps still angry that the boy had vomited the previous evening. He said little, only that Albel should dress and leave immediately, before the castle staff began to scurry about the hallways.

As he pulled his clothing on, Albel could not ignore the feeling of disgust in his belly. He was disgusted with Vox for what he had done and he was disgusted with himself for allowing the man to do that to him. The urge to vomit rose again, but he swallowed the bile and hurriedly left the duke’s quarters.

When he returned to his own quarters, Albel rushed to his wash basin and vomited for five minutes. The servant girl who took the bowl to clean it gave him a worried look and when she returned with the clean bowl she also had some soup and medicine for him. Under normal circumstances, he would have given the girl a good tongue lashing for daring to presume what he needed, but he was too exhausted. Albel took the offered soup, happy to have something fill his stomach.

He laid down once he had eaten, immensely happy to be in his own bed. After tossing and turning for an hour though, unsuccessful in finding sleep, Albel fell into musing. If he went to Woltar now or Arzei he could say that he was not in a relationship with Vox and he would have the physical proof to back it up. The lashings on his back would not fade for a very long time. All he would need to do is say the man abused him and then show his back.

But he knew it would not be that simple. No matter what he said, no matter what Arzei or Woltar did, Vox would find some way to get to him, Albel knew. Now that the man had had him, Vox would never let him go. If he showed his back to Arzei, Vox would just say that Albel had gotten the marks from some other source and was blaming him. If the man was ordered to stay away from the young captain, Vox would not listen and simply take what he wanted. He was the uncle of the king and he controlled Arzei; he could have whatever he wanted. That was why he knew Arzei would never warn the duke to stay away.

For hours he tried to devise some plan that would get the man away from him. The only solution to get the man to leave him alone forever was to have one of them die and Albel doubted that if he murdered the duke he would get away with it. He could find no solution and, Albel admitted with a sinking heart, he did not believe there was one to be found. He feared that he would be forced to stay with Vox for as long as the man desired.

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…It was a particularly difficult story to tell, and Albel hesitated when it came time to send the letter. He read over the last letter he had received from Cliff. Despite being royally pissed--at the duke, not Albel--Cliff wanted to know more.

Albel pressed the send button. Cliff wanted to know, and if the man was going to eventually settle down with him then Cliff also deserved to know. A part of him regretted sending the letter, thinking it would perhaps be better for him and the Ox if they buried the past, but Albel reminded himself that he was also teaching Cliff a lesson. This was not just about sharing, this was about making sure Cliff understood why he could not break promises and abuse the affection Albel had for him.

He would not have to worry about the Klausian’s future actions, Albel thought later. Once Cliff knew the entire story, he would be dedicated to proving he was the best damn mate in the universe. That was the man’s nature and if Albel was honest with himself, which he was for once, that dedication and kindness was one of the reasons why he cared for Cliff

~END

It hurt me thinking of what Vox was doing to Albel this chapter. Now review please! Your nice reviews actually make me want to write, so there’s incentive haha