Sneak Peek: A Song of Silk and Shadows - On Corsets (Patreon)

Hello all.  The week's writing continues apace: started Constant, and managed a bit of Song and Silk on the side.  Don't want to shove it completely to one side yet, not until the current scene is done.  

In the sneak peek below, I'm working through a bit of a metaphor.  Not entirely sure it's come out as I wanted, but I think it holds together as a first draft.  I wanted to convey that this item Duncan hates represents an economic miracle - the coming together of items from the four corners of the kingdom (and its allies), crafted by artisans into this cunning piece of shapewear - not just a frivolous fashion piece, but an emblem of peace and prosperity.  

In reading up a bit on corsetry-I'm hardly an expert-the wikipedia (or somewhere) entry had a sentence about how the boning prevents the deforming of the fabric; the fabric creates the shaping effect, the boning supports it.  A metaphor immediately suggested itself from there - I think in the redraft it'll need a bit of expanding, but I think it works as a different way into the ages-old idea of women as the foundation of empire.

Enjoy the below, and let me know what you think.

***  

Darkness took you, briefly. You blinked and when you woke found yourself sprawled naked—but for the sheath pinning your cock back between your legs, of course—in a comfortable chair in a warm room lit by a dancing fire.

Two figures stood by the fire, their silhouette casting long, flickering shadows in your direction.

The first, short and whip-thin, gleamed in a sleek dress made of strips of leather so thin as to be nearly translucent. The leather was stained black and oiled and polished until it shone like a wet veil of shadows stretched taut across her form. Woven into a spiral sheath accentuating the dramatic curves induced by fierce corseting, she projected a threatening energy, like a coiled whip the moment before it snaps. Her skin was very pale and very smooth, and a faint webwork of purpled veins reached up her neck and across the top of her long, narrow hands. Each slender finger was tipped in talon-like nails, long, painted and shaped; and her raven hair, streaked with grey, was wound in a single, heavy braid reaching nearly to her knees, the winding leather thong binding it tightly decorated with bright metal spikes.

Whereas the woman projected a compact, restrained energy, a terrifying robustness wrapped in leather and silk, the man suggested an almost comical frailty. He seemed impossibly tall and thin, as though his spine must snap under his own weight. His scalp was dotted with stray patches of white fuzz and brown age spots. Long, skeletal fingers of one hand lay lightly in the palm of the other, fingers heavy with chunky jewelled rings, and the nail of each index finger as long, shaped and painted as the woman’s. His eyes perched atop a hawkish nose over sunken cheeks; they were sunken, sockets bruised and very dark under eyebrows so thin and pale as to be nearly invisible. He wore a simple rough robe, the cowl thrown back, and his head inclined towards the woman as he listened intently to her whispered words.

Lady Castigan; and her presence snapped you to full wakefulness. Your instinctive fear would’ve been reserved entirely for her had it not been for the other figure: Master Tobrik, Flesh-shaper of House Melveil. You knew, better than most, that his weak and frail appearance belied a terrible capacity for inflicting pain.

Instantly aware of your waking, both turned towards you.

“Aubriella,” Castigan said, her voice sharp.

“Lady,” you began, and instincts honed over the past year drove you to leap to your feet—or at least try before gasping in pain and collapsing back into the chair.

“Foolish girl,” she tutted, flowing towards you. Even in pain you marvelled at the ease and grace with which she moved, feeling—surely not envy?—at her approach. Beneath the long tight sheath, her feet were doubtlessly invisibly perched in shoes well beyond your ability to wear and navigate, yet she moved with a mannered sultriness that somehow bordered on the terrifying. More than anything, she made you think of the spider’s graceful glide along its web approaching trapped prey.

“I—” You swallowed as your voice failed you, but then you often found yourself voiceless around her. Strong emotion gripped you, and it took you a moment to realise you felt—ashamed, like a child who has disappointed its mother, as though you had somehow failed her. You blinked against a totally unexpected feeling of tears.

She pressed a solitary finger to your lips. “Quiet.” Her voice was a soft purr curling around your shame as she pursed thin lips painted blood red. Her fingers coiled around your chin, the edge of long fingernails sharp again the tender skin of your cheeks. You shivered at her touch, so gentle yet poignant, in both fear and with yearning, and despite everything—exhaustion and pain and shame—you felt your cock stir in its prison, and nearly whimpered with lust and the anticipation of pain.

Almost tenderly, she moved your head to one side, then the other, examining the damage to your face. “Disappointing.” The edge of her eyes creased, the corner of her lips turned very slightly downwards, and your bowels ran cold. “I taught you better than this, Aubriella.”

“He—hit me,” you protested weakly.

“You provoked him.” Her fingers tightened around your chin and you winced in pain.

“He stripped me—”

“You enticed him.” She shook her head slightly, and the shadow of her braid lashed the far wall. “Too strongly.” Her hand closed around your chin again, palm against your neck, and she shoved your head back into the chair, dismissively. “Though the foolish man should have known better.”

Injustice and outrage warred with your fear of this woman. “Edmund…”

“Lord Malveil to you!” Castigan snapped, and her hand whipped out and caught you across the face. Already bruised and sore, pain flared anew and you saw stars and tasted blood once more. “Remember your place, Aubriella.” She towered over you now, a dark silhouette against the crimson flames behind. “I will not be embarrassed by—some silly, stupid little girl—by you; you will not waste a year of my time and effort. Did my training mean nothing to you?” One long, curved fingernail held you beneath the chin and the slightest press there raised your eyes to hers. “You are no good to anyone—to me—if you are dead; my gifts are not for the foolish who would see themselves killed.”

You spoke around the taste of blood. “I am… sorry, my lady,” you said, and you meant it, you truly did it, looking up at her with anguish swelling inside.

“Yes, you are,” she said, and now her lips curved upwards in the slightest hint of a chilling smile. “And yes, you will be, Aubriella.”

You couldn’t help yourself; you trembled with fear. “Please, my Lady, it wasn’t my fault.”

“Yes, it was,” she said. “In a world of men, women are always at fault. I would have expected you more than anyone to understand this.” Sounding mildly disappointed, she stepped away from you, gliding back towards the fire. “Really, Aubriella. I had thought us beyond the need for punishment.”

You went to protest, remembered yourself, and fighting back tears answered, “Yes, my Lady.”

She paused by the fire. Looking at you over her shoulder, she stood like a statue of polished ebony cast against the leaping flames. Her voice—softened is perhaps too strong a word; she remained coldly disappointed in you, underscored by an unexpectedly passionate warmth. “The Sister visited her blessing on you,” she said. “Yet you squandered it. You will learn to submit, as all women must.” She sighed. “A moment of freedom, and what did you do with it? Violence.”

“I—” Throat dry, you swallowed. “I forgot myself, my lady.”

Her smile is heard than seen. “Indeed,” she said. “But whom did you forget: Aubriella or Duncan?”

You had no response to this, especially as Master Tobrik shuffled forward at this point. You flinched back in your seat. Ostensibly, this skeletal man—this monster—is a doctor, appointed by the College to House Malveil; you knew him only as a harbinger of pain, as the Flesh-shaper that stripped your strength away, visited agony upon you and moulded you into your current shape.

So when he reached out for you with his bony hand, you flinched—you drew back into your chair with an intake of breath.

“Sit still, girl,” Castigan snapped.

A deep breath, and you stilled yourself, though you couldn’t suppress a final shudder as the horrible man’s fingers caressed your cheek.

“Yes. Yes, you remember the pain, yes?” His voice is dry and wheezy as his fingers slid over the damage he finds: the black-and-yellow bruises, the split skin, the swelling. His touch was dry and cool. “Pain for beauty, yes?” He grinned, a too-familiar rictus smile that stabbed fear into your belly. The pads of his fingers swept across your nose. “Broken.” He sounds disappointed, even slightly cross. “A waste. Really, Aubriella, after all my hard work, yes? My artistry? You must take better care of yourself.”

You swallowed against bitter indignation and swore—not for the first time—that some day Master Tobrik would come to know your own specialty: the artistry of violence synonymous with the Axe of the North.

“Stand, girl,” he ordered, fingers curled into your shoulders. With eyes on Lady Castigan standing by the fire and observing in silence, you stood. His touch swept across your body and you shivered as he paddled your breasts, your sides and buttocks and finally, with a groan and creek, knelt and examined you thighs, calves and feet. You flushed with indignation at this man’s exploration of your body but under Castigan’s baleful gaze, submitted to his study.

Finally, with a sigh and another creek and groan, he stood. “Sit,” he said. Still watching your mistress, you lowered yourself into the seat, back straight, chest out, primly sitting as you’ve been taught despite the pain burning in your side.

Master Tobrik nodded in approval. “Such damage to my work,” he said, speaking over his shoulder to Lady Castigan. “Her nose is broken. Contusion across her face. Broken ribs. Two, yes? And punctured lung. Possible concussion.” His eyes glitter deep in their sockets as he looks over you, briefly touching each damaged feature. He signalled his displeasure with a click of the tongue.

“She’s lucky to be alive,” Lady Castigan said. “Can you fix her—quickly? I need her whole; first, to punish; then to prepare, as per Lord Malveil’s orders.” Though you quailed silently at the thought of punishment, you also wondered at the disdain that dripped from her voice as she spoke Edmund’s name. “Time is of the essence.”

“Fix, yes?” His smile chilled you. “Quickly, yes?” Deft fingers danced across the rings adorning his finger before stopping at the middle finger: the ring was a thick band of white gold topped by a multi-faceted ruby. A twist and the heavy gem flipped back and from beneath he poured a thin stream of yellow-whitish powder into the palm of his hand. He spat into his palm and rubbed the mixture into his hand and reached for you again.

You flinched, again, in memory of past pains.

“Ah, you remember, do you, little one? Yes?” He shook his head. “Good. But not today.”

And when he touched you this time it was different. First, an intensifying warmth as he held his palm to your cheek. His eyes were open but distant. From somewhere deep in his throat his voice rumbled; a familiar, sonorous rhythm you associate with pain but there is something to its character unlike before—the timbre, deeper—and then, unexpectedly—cooling relief.

The pain faded beneath his palm and then you watched in shock as a bruise formed on the man’s face in the same place as yours had been. The skin purpled and swelled—and broke and bled. He seemed oblivious to the wound as his hand moved to cover your nose and then you heard a sharp crack. The hawkish bridge of Tobrik’s nose collapsed. Your breathing eased.

Master Tobrik neither grunted nor flinched. His hand continued to slide over the damages inflicted by Edmund’s fists. Where his touch travelled, pain numbed, faded and disappeared; exhaustion lifted. He touched your side. He pressed down, harder. You felt your rib, shift; a brief conflagration of pain beneath the skin. Just as you were about to cry out or pull away—a loud crack, and another; this time, he flinched, his side twitching beneath the loose folds of his robes; and he grimaced, though only for a moment, before the same placid, distant look overtook him.

His hands roamed across your body for some time, at first brushing across the surface but then with gentle pressure, and eventually kneading your flesh, the warmth of his touch penetrating deeply. Then he was with you again. He smiled, and there was unexpected warmth to his smile. “Better, yes?” His face was battered and bruised, the lip split, the nose crooked, a patchwork of purple and yellow reaching from the left temple across his nose to his wrinkled neck.

“Better than better?” He leaned in very slightly closer. “A gift, yes?” his whispered, for you to hear alone. He stood—soundlessly—and gazed down on you fondly.

You looked up at him in wonder. He stepped away—sagged—and Lady Castigan was there, supporting him. “Easy, Aster,” she murmured, and you’d never heard her sound so—caring; soft, even.

“I’m fine.” He gently pushed her away. “She is yours, yes? Whole. Physically, at least. Punish her as you must. I….” He swayed, and with Lady Castigan’s help sank into a chair near the fire. “I will rest. Yes.”

When Lady Castigan turned to you, her gaze was cold and angry. “He suffers for your stupidity,” she said. “Stand.”

You jumped to your feet. You marvelled at the vigour you felt, the energy. You felt strong and powerful and… rested. Yes, you felt rested in a way you could hardly remember, as though the exhaustion of the past year had been taken from you. Seeing Tobrik in his chair, eyes closed, you supposed it had been. Your wounds, your tiredness, transferred to him.

But there was no time to consider this new version of Master Tobrik: the compassionate healer as opposed to the bringer of pain, the monstrous flesh-shaper. (There would be time later, of course, during your punishment.) For now, Castigan descended on you.

“Move, you stupid girl,” she ordered, ushering you into an antechamber. It was a lady’s closet, well-appointed and decorated with mirrors, cabinets and vanities, nearly overflowing with clothes appropriate for court (and many that were not). She rang a small bell and almost instantly a pair of serving girls appeared from a side door.

“Prepare her,” she instructed, and so they did. A visit to a chamber pot to void bowels and bladder, and then they bathed you, sloughing away the dirt and dried blood. Your hair was cleaned and combed and oiled. There touch was, as always, challenging: at times roughly utilitarian as they vigorously scrubbed you clean; other times, frustratingly sensual, as they gently stroked and rubbed your breasts and buttocks and thighs with scented oils. It’s been so very long since you’ve enjoyed any release, and your cock strains painfully and you nearly whimper with desire before the steel restraints painfully remind you of the impossibility of relief.

Food came as they prepared you: a few light dried fruits, some nuts—you wanted more but knew better than to ask. There was a warming drink that brought a calming numbness. Seren tea: mildly narcotic, and commonly enough served to women to keep them docile, and again you knew better than to protest. Besides, your body still hummed with Tobrik’s healing; you felt as though you could shake off the effects of the drink at will.

Then they brought you back to Castigan. Under her instruction you took on the apparel of Aubriella once more. Layer by layer, you felt this other self, the female identity forced upon you over the past year, reassert herself.

It was the corset that nearly undid you. You balked as Lady Castigan approached with the hateful undergarment open and unlaced. She saw the fear in your eyes, the resentment.

“You hate it, don’t you?” she asked, holding up the corset. It shimmered in the light, a stormy grey inlaid with metallic thread in a dizzying pattern. Metals clasps at the end of silk strips dangled from its bottom edge, and the metal busk shone. Even unlaced, you could see the dramatic curves the hidden boning promised.

You hesitated, unsure how to respond.

“Speak,” she commanded. “Truthfully, always, when speaking to me in private.”

And you nodded, and mouthed ‘yes’ because—it was true, of course, you despised everything the hateful item represented. More than anything, more than the dresses or skirts, shoes or jewellery, the cosmetics, nails, hair… the corset was everything you hated about this forced existence. Tight, restrictive, heavy, strangling, somehow undeniably feminine in the delicate sheen of its surface yet relentless in its control. Without it, you were—free; squeezed in its intractable grip, a prisoner to a life you loathed.

“Of course you do,” she said, drawing nearer. Castigan’s own corsetry was visible beneath the nearly transparent sheen of her dress. She seemed unbothered by her severely narrowed waist. A raised eyebrow invited you to step forward and into the grip of the corset she held open. She pulled it closed about you and you felt its soft grip through the thin shift between you and the inner lining. You shivered. Something inside immediately yearned to break away and flee, for the moment those metals clasps were closed you knew the trap was sprung once again.

The moment came, and then it went. You were once again secured within that feminine prison. You turned within its grasp and surrendered the laces to Castigan.

“You look up on this item and see another form of control wielded against you,” she said, as she began the laborious process of lacing you into the corset. “You hate it for the perceived frivolity of it, a self-inflicted torture by flighty women obsessed with superficialities of fashion and appearance—just another variation on the cosmetics we wear, or the dresses we choose.” You felt her fingers spider along the laces, working from top to middle, bottom to middle, quickly and inexorably drawing the corset tighter.

“Too much of the man remains in you, Aubriella,” Castigan continued. “But you will learn.” She finished another pass and began anew. The corset felt almost—comfortable—at this stage, more a firm embrace than a squeeze. You felt her pause, and she held you by the waist. You felt her fingers draw along the boning that was beginning to delineate your shape. “Do you know what these bones are made of?”

“Steel,” you answered.

“And before?”

You shrugged.

“Reeds,” she said. “Or actual bone.” She returns to drawing the laces tighter. “I still remember my first corset as a young girl. The boning was made of Orix bone; the ribs were slender, pliable but firm.” Her fingers paused for a moment. “One day I fell. The rib cracked, pierced the inner lining and into my side. I nearly died. Master Tobrik saved my life that day.”

You weren’t sure what to say, and so remained silent. She gave a strong tug and you felt the insistent pressure at your waist. “The steel boning in your corset comes from Kitari workshops in the West.” Her fingers pause to sweep across the increasingly hourglass shape of your torso. “Coutil from the Yeoten Mills to the east, using cotton imported across the Stardrop Sea. Silk from the singers of the South. Dyes from—everywhere. All brought together here, in Sangriferia, for guild workers to craft into these gorgeous items you so revile.”

Her voice took on a deeper tone. “In your male ignorance, you see frivolity. But I see the embodiment of the old King’s dream. Peace, Aubriella, and prosperity. Only in peace, through trade, through the myriad compromises and negotiations and talks Orlando inspired could this—this beautifully crafted artefact—exist for you to wear. And in wearing it you embody that dream, the old King’s belief in a better way than the constant warring and death that preceded him. Control, girl. Yielding and compromise.”

“Yes, milady.”

Castigan paused and sighed. “Aubriella, what is the purpose of the boning in your corset?”

You grimaced. “Shape and control,” you said. “It squeezes my torso into the desired shape.”

“No,” she said. “The boning supports the fabric. It prevents its deformation under strain.” She gave a sharp tug and you gasped. “Arms above you head,” she ordered. “And eyes down. Look at the fabric.”

And even as she drew the corset further—tighter, again, ever tighter—and your shoulders burned with the strain of keeping your arms raised—you looked down at the impossible swell of your own breasts and the decorative cups that contained them. The outer layer was dyed the deep portentous grey of a night sky over northern seas. Embroidered silk threads of silver and gold glimmered and drew the eyes along complex lines that twisted and twined out of sight, across your tautly constrained torso. Tiny gems placed where lines intersected glittered like the constellations of strange and unknown skies.

“Imagine this corset as our world,” Castigan continued. “Our people, culture and society. Our history and values and beliefs. This fabric,” she said, and stroked your flanks, “is ours, and beyond value. One that shapes us, all of us. It is strong, yet so easily deformed and torn. And so to protect it from being stretched: boning. Slender, pliable and firm.” Her hands reached up to your elbow and gently brought them back to your side, and you stifled a groan as your body tried and failed to settle comfortably back into its previous position. “Do you understand?” She began, again, to tighten.

You shook your head.

“Mothers and daughters, sisters, and girls like you, Aubriella. Women. We are the boning that support the fabric of society. Without us, it warps and deforms, tears and breaks.” A final, sharp tug, and you feel her tie off and tuck away the laces. “A heavy burden; a serious responsibility. Worth a little discomfort, would you not agree?”

And though you do not, necessarily, agree with what she said, you know better than to voice discontent. “Yes, Lady Castigan.”

You hear her sigh. Her touch at your hips turns you to face her. You remain naked but for the cage at your cock and the corset around your waste, and from her imperiously high-heeled perch she glares down at you. One talon touches you beneath the chin and raises your eyes to meet hers. They are hard, her eyes, glittering stones set in snow. “I treat you as I would any woman under my tutelage,” she said.