Reckoning

Between the times Marius and I have spent packing up the steamer trunks for lengthy travel, I have managed to spend what brief few moments I can afford with the girl whose name I have since learned, is Capriel. It pains me that I am unable to find it within myself to admit to her that I am no free man. How much easier it would be to suffer her angry retribution, than to see her heart breaking with the false assumption that I do not want her. Even a poor man would do all in his power to garner unto himself that which he cannot live without.


Since the days of my confinement passed, Marius has not brought up the subject of the girl. And neither have I. There is a peace between us that I have no desire to alter, nor do I wish to see him riled with disappointment in me ever again. My priorities were quite remiss for a little while, yet I am relieved that I did not go so far as to push him into disposing of me for a few coins. I need Marius.. as much as I am sure that he needs me.

We'll be sailing across Thassa in just a few days time. Port Kar awaits us with anticipation and open arms. It is said that the port city is the cesspool of all cities, and the worst of denizens, often outlawed from their original Home Stones make their abode there. Too, there is rumor that the kajirae in that city are not rivaled in dance or wile.. that they possess a haughty arrogance unmatched in any of the other cities on the face of Gor. Yet if this be the truth, I know I shall see none but the face of Capriel upon each and every one of them, with her inconsolable broken heart.

Therein lies the base of my reckoning; it is to Marius that I belong.
And to Marius that I owe a debt I can never repay.

Fetter

Marius never lacks the ability to make himself clear to me. His swift reply to my less than subtle petition was to leave me imprisoned in shackles for several days, to dwell in my solitude upon my good fortune and my acute sense of ungratefulness. Fitting as he says, for a man sick with the disease known as Woman.


Do you think Marius has breached the line yet, where I myself would begin to despise him? I will admit that during this blur of days in my solitary confinement, I pondered upon this very thing several times. But always I come to the same conclusion.. he is the Master of a slave, and his actions have neither been remiss nor unexpected. It was I who behaved the part of the fool. I who challenged my boundaries. And I who pushed Marius into separation from me these past several days.

I am torn yet, and not wholly cured of my disease.

I fear for my Master's sake, that I shall become as a rabid beast with longing for her.

Petition

Unable to rouse myself from my bed today, I remained there, growing sick with fever and waning appetites. By about the ninth ahn Marius had come looking for me, and I suppose that this was what I had expected all along. I have been unable to face him on my own with my petition, wrangling over it inside of myself until I have become fraught with anxious turmoil. I could see much concern etched into the lines on Marius' face, concern for a possession whose glowing light swiftly fades like a dying ember.


What was wrong with me, he wanted to know. Marius laid his hand across my brow that had grown dotted with cold sweat, confimation it seemed, that I was not quite myself. It was now or never.. and with my eyes I did finally beseech him, revealing the prurient source of my soul's growing unhealth. I demanded my Master obtain this girl for me.

Girl

During the times when Marius is preoccupied with his canvas and paints, I have found myself venturing into the Cosian market districts, each time a little deeper and further than the time before. It was yesterday that I found myself in the sort of district that I am not much familiar with. Aside from auction houses that seem to permeate this particular quarter where slaves like me might be traded for coin, there were other types of houses and dens where the rooms are typically rented by the hour rather than the whole night.

It is not at all unusual to be accosted in the street outside of these establishments by one or more kajirae at a time attempting to lure me inside with solicitous expletives, or even beseeching me to purchase them outright. Sometimes with such frantic desperation in their painted eyes that I am unnerved.


On one of these such days I met a girl who was part of a Slaver's chain. A pretty girl whose name I never learned. I do not know what it costs to have such a girl, nor what is involved in obtaining certificates of ownership. I do not know why silver is more valuable than copper.. they shine just the same in sunlight. But I know that I must have this particular girl for my own or I shall die a slow and painful death of relief.

Is it unreasonable that I should desire such a strumpet plaything of my very own? I wonder how Marius will respond to such a petition, and whether he will scoff with objection to such a request? Am I so sheltered from the harsher vicissitudes of everyday life that I believe he would grant me such a thing on a whim? Is my world nothing more than a colorful dichotomy of contradictions behind this façade?

I do not know how to present my case to Marius, yet I am beside myself with desire for that girl.

Captivated. Starcrossed.
Her soul is like Giselle's.

Home

It is the hiatus between production tours and by the third hand I am already restless with creative energy. I have practiced well-known compositions endlessly and have also written a few new ones of my own. Marius critiques each and every piece until I have rewritten perfection. Yet still I long for something more. Something I just cannot seem to put my finger on.


Marius' house is quite large and situated near the island's shore. On some evenings I like to watch the sun sink down across Thassa where the world ends. Now and then he watches the sunsets with me and although there is very little spoken, I am certain it is me that he is contemplating, for I can sense it in the way his jaw is set.

There is a hired caterer who comes to the house at least every other day with sumptuously prepared food and the finest of Cosian wines. Dining is rarely less than a formal affair, irregardless of whether there are guests, or whether it is just Marius and me alone. I am fond of Cosian wine in particular and have long since realized it is what I miss the most when we are far away from home for months at a time.

Voyage

It is days yet aboard the ship Elizabeth, so named for an historically beautiful Kajira. I find the name aptly given, as the ship herself is one of the more magnificent vessels to sail across the oft and unforgiving Thassa.


I do not make so good a sailing companion however, for the rising breakers and the tempest's tossings rip from me every last vestige of my resolve until I am either forced to my knees or doubled over the starboard side of the ship in heaving illness. Of all the times we have sailed, I have yet to grow stalwart and immune to the ship's constant rocking.

At present we are heading once more for the Island of Cos, where I and my Master live. It is for a month we shall rest and stay, until we set sail again for the mainland. The first stop, Port Kar.

Serenade

On the eve before our parting from the Isle of Thanta, it was with great risk that I withdrew myself from the present festivities held in the theatre troupe's honor. Not because I had desired to be elsewhere, but because I took with me my instrument. It is to the detriment of Marius that this greater risk falls upon, should I, a slave of no esteem, be discovered and bearing upon my person such a precious object of noble import. Moreso, because I act as if the thing is mine and play it's strings so brazenly like a lover.

It was without a hitch yet again, that I crossed this small island city from where we stayed at the Inn, to a House whose occupants I have found myself growing increasingly attached to. One Lady in particular who goes by the name Asia had especially caught my eye, and more than a few times I had been graced with her unveiled presense. It is at the behest of Asia's desire that I so wickedly and boldly granted her this one last serenade.

Beneath an awning covered veranda I stood, just paces from the doors to this magnificent House with my Kalika held in a lover's embrace between the crook of my chin and breastbone. What lust-filled aesthetic melodies ascended then for my intended audience, whose unveiled features bore upon them such divine and cherubic light. Now and again I saw her looking down upon me from her vernada perch high above, only to inspire me further to illicit new and exciting aural movements of the heart and string.

It is with great sorrow and a broken heart that I and my Kalika composed our farewells to this Lady.

I shall think of her often.

Whip

Not from any infraction of mine own, I was forced again to succumb and taste the sting of leather across my flesh. Marius reminds me time and again, that I am endlessly beneath him. I can only grit my teeth and bare this intense pain for so long a time, before I surrender and cry out in anguish. Mercy! How I long for the end of my pain yielding to forgiveness. Yet the lashings do not cease until my mind is blurred with a rush of confusing and pleasurable endorphins. How did I become this way? Though I cannot remember when I wasn't like this.

Striped and bloodied beneath my shirt, I will endure this aching reminder for well over a week. Yet I do not hate him. It is quite the contrary that I find myself desiring more reason to be with him, yet with feeble attempt to obtain my Master's notice and approval. I am a wretch of a creature. Scarcely a man sometimes. Yet I am bent to the desire of one greater than I could ever dream of being. I am not worthy, I think, to even press my lips into the dust beneath the soles of his feet.

Theatre

Opening Night at the Theatre on the Isle of Thanta.. it is much the same as opening night in any other city, and a remarkable wonder that I never tire of. The crowd, too numerous to be counted, packs itself into the odeum, eager to see what whimsically painted masks the Actors don as scenes unfold to spell out the tale of comedic woe. It is I, Damos, who inspires my Lady Kalika to fill each breast with anticipation and emotion as her sweet music lures them into rapt fascination, with lullaby chords that bind each scene. Amidst the timbre of resonating brass, and the sparkle of bell and cymbale, the audience is entreated with a sensual panorama of sight and sound that they are not likely to forget for days to come.

The stage set is lavish. Always. The movements of the Actors so precisely choreographed that I too, am sometimes caught up in the grande illusion. Marguerite's Talena sings like the lark, joined by the voices of others in harmonious perfection, at times to bring a tear to my eye, if not a collective sigh upon the fevered hush of the crowd.

In the play's culmination of the last act, the ovation is a standing one, and many times long before the thick velvet curtains are drawn tight in their final closing. There is just no way to describe those lofty heights that fame's appreciation swells into an Entertainer's heart and soul. As for me, I am rarely seen down beneath the stage in the Musician's pit, yet I thrive on these adulations vicariously. The greatest glory however, is heaped upon Marius, whose productions are known the wide world over as nothing less than stunning perfection.

It is with baited anticipation that I await the next season's tours.

Dreams

Marius and Sleep; two god-like forces, neither to be reckoned with. It is with the latter of them that I have often found myself surrendered to licentious disregard, carried off into the deeper shadows of my subconscious.

Yet my sleep is cut entirely too short, leaving me with the bitter taste of disorientation in my mouth. What I would not give to remain as I am in this libertine landscape of ambiguous imagery and dissolute surrealism, embraced in the warm and tingling tendrils of my mind's making.

Just one hour more.

"’Tis far off;
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four or five women once that tended me?

"O, a cherubim Thou wast, that did preserve me!
Thou didst smile,
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
When I have deck’d the sea with drops full salt,
Under my burden groan’d; which rais’d in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up
Against what should ensue.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
rounded with a little sleep."

~ The Tempest - Shakespeare ~

The Understudy

It is with increasing rarity anymore that I am reminded of my past lives. My days are filled with more than ample work to keep the mind and body spent, as currently we have sailed north from Cos to a small island where Marius' theatre production of Lurius of Jad has caused quite a stir among the Avant-garde. It is interesting to note that the island cities' receptiveness to the piece de resistance, depiciting Arians taking down their fortress walls with their own hands, is not met with near as much enthusiasm as it is with those citizens of Ar.


The Actor Marguerite who portays the role of Talena, has an Understudy whom I have had the opportunity to spend much time with before and after pre-opening rehearsals. She is one of the few in the troupe who is not from Cos, but is herself Arian. There is a sharp wit about her that I find intriguing, despite the fact that we were more or less forced upon one another by Marius. It was not until the last leg of the theatre troupe's three-month tour that she finally decided to speak to me. I had assumed it was because she did not care much for the company of other people. But my assumptions fell flat when I learned that the Lady is a purported mind reader.

It seems she had known of mine and Marius' modus vivendi the moment she had laid eyes upon either of us. Yet I am the only one she has decided to drop this bolt of lightning on. I know what she is, too. Marius, however, remains blissfully in the dark, which puts a chasm between myself and my Master that I grow more and more uncomfortable with each day that goes by.

Master

In the years that I have known Marius, I have come to realize that he is much more complex than I had originally thought. Sometimes when I see him late at night, he is alone. And he doesn't realize that I am watching him. There is a certain meticulousness about him that I still find quite mezmerizing after all these years, especially when he is contemplating my future. At times I get the feeling that he would never part with me. Yet other times I am painfully aware that my very presense frustrates him.

It is much different being owned by a man than it is to be owned by a woman, yet I do not think I have a preference anymore. I know what you're thinking. I myself might be inclined to wonder the same things, if I were not entirely subjective. One thing stands out to me though, I am who I am because of him. Let us say that he has made me into more than I was ever meant to be.

Marius is Master.
My Master.

Masquerade

I think by now that eight years have already passed since Marius first took me to his island home on Cos, though I admit I have lost count. We have traveled several times per year to the mainlands, even as far as Ar, and I am constantly surrounded by the costumed bourgeois masquerading as the elite. Beneath the iron fist of Marius, I too, must live behind a mask.

Because I wear no collar, nor any other visibly outward symbol of my slavery, I am often regarded favorably in the social moorings of those who esteem themseves as my peers. There were times when I did not believe I would ever learn to blend the way Marius insisted. Yet over time, and with constant mentoring and his whip, I have excelled in this masquerade, and have become a star among many in this theatrical firmament.

I am Damos. Dreamer of dreams.
Master of the stringed lady, Kalika.
Slave to the Masquerade.