Xiaomei's Habit - The Commander's Concubine: Chapter 1

Here it is. Volume 1, Chapter 1 of the Slave Girls of Centralia series. Excuse the sometimes archaic language. My "editor" (read "my Master") has always insisted that erotica is sexier when the vocabulary the writer uses is not as low-brow as what people would actually say in these situation. Anyway, this chapter is more an introduction of the characters and the setting than anything else but it has its 'moments.' Enjoy!

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The sun through the window of the kennel awakened Xiaomei, as it had every morning for the past 12 years. She sat up and gave her young and supple body a brief stretch before pulling back the thin gray slave blanket and rising from her cot. With practiced ease she folded the blanket and placed it at the foot of her cot, donning the simple gray tunic that was the uniform of the house-girls. The tunic was brief, revealing and flimsy enough to be virtually transparent, but there was no lace or appliqué. The tiny skirt’s hem was slightly above the lower curve of her buttocks and above the waist there was little more than an apron in front (an apron which would have left a generous amount of her bosom revealed, if her young body had much to reveal) which was fastened about her neck by a single thin tie behind her neck. The back was bare, a tenet of the tunic’s cut that seemed to constantly remind the girl who wore it that she was eternally unprotected from the whip.

As Xiaomei fastened the tie around her neck she hesitated for an instant, glancing in each direction just to make sure she was not being scrutinized, then threaded the tie through her silver-plated collar. The result of this was that if the tunic was pulled from any direction, the collar would tug against her slender throat, a sensation she had discovered (quite by accident) that she enjoyed – not that she harbored the heretical thought that a slave girl’s enjoyment mattered. With her tunic properly adjusted, she deftly tiptoed past the cots where the other house-girls slept. It was inconceivable that any of the Master’s playthings would be awake at this hour, but the house-girls would be rising soon and she wanted to finish the morning prayer ritual alone and unwatched… in case her recent habit struck again.

The door leading from the kennel into the Greatroom, mercifully, didn’t squeak as she slowly opened it. Once it was shut behind her, Xiaomei knelt down (for it was forbidden for a house-girl to walk before she had completed her morning prayer ritual) and crawled to the center of the Greatroom, where a life-sized statue of the Master stood. Xiaomei did not raise her eyes to look at the statue (this too was forbidden before morning prayer), but its appearance was burned into her memory from hours spent gazing at it dreamily. The statue depicted the Master in the battle uniform of the Federation Army. One of the thick, strong arms was bent so that his hand could rest on the hilt of the pistol at his side, while the other arm held a flagpole bearing the Federation banner. At the base of this flagpole, the statue was carved to resemble the tattered remnant of the ruined flag of Centralia, the land that had been her birthplace. On the other side at the foot of the statue was the pleading, piteous form of a Centralian girl, her hands stretched beseechingly out to the man who towered over her. The face, twelve years younger than the Master was presently but still unmistakable, was set in a look of utter triumph with the chin high and forward. Xiaomei approached the statue until her head was directly over the toe of the left boot and began her morning prayer.

“Master,” Xiaomei began in a voice barely above a whisper, “I am not fit to address you. A Centralian girl, plain and not fair, the daughter of a broken People, throwbacks to a forgotten age, there is nothing about me that deserves your attention. Your People, more advanced than mine, shattered my primitive culture, crushed the weak and undeserving men of Centralia and uplifted their wives and daughters to a life in the service of True Men. It is an honor to be permitted to serve, an honor I do not deserve. Though I am unworthy of having your eye fall upon me, I pray to you that you will allow me to be of service in some way, however small. I have no other fulfillment in life than this. My life is not my own. My body is not my own. My mind, my soul, if I have them, are not my own. I am not my own. I am yours. I exist only for you.” With this prayer completed, she lowered her lips the remaining few centimeters to the toe of the statue’s boot and kissed it softly. That was all that was required for the ritual, but something within her had stirred as she prayed, and she knew that this morning would see her indulge in her habit again.

With a sigh of both satisfaction and resignation, Xiaomei let her lips linger upon the boot, slowly parting them to bring her tongue to it. She licked timidly at first, as if embarrassed. She imagined that the cold, hard eyes of the statue – her Master’s eyes – were looking sternly down at her as she indulged her peculiar habit. The thought of being watched by those fierce eyes as she debased herself like this humiliated her, but at the same time she found it strangely intoxicating. In moments she was lavishly licking the foot of the statue, her face pressed against the alabaster as she stretched as much of her tongue as she could against it. She licked more vigorously, lifting her hips high and keeping her face and hands at ground level. Though she was alone, she could not help but anticipate the stroke of a palm, a belt, a whip, some kind of blow against her almost fully exposed rump as gravity pulled her skirt down her back. She imagined that blow coming, and with it a harsh bark of rebuke from the Man whose boot she was licking. “What must it be like,” she thought to herself as the taste of alabaster and dust overwhelmed her tongue. "Do the playthings serve Him like this before He takes them?" She doubted it. She doubted the Master would find pleasure in something as sordid and filthy as these whims in the mind of a creature like her, a creature so pathetic, so base and lowly…

The thoughts produced a quivering sensation within Xiaomei, as such self-degrading thoughts always did. Quickly, hungrily, she pulled her skirt up (or down as it were) until the hem was above her belly while the other hand slid down between her thighs. Tracing two trembling inner fingers over the cleft there, she felt the wetness –indeed the utter saturation- brought on by her indulgences. She felt as if she was on fire, and there was only one way to extinguish the flame. Eagerly, wantonly, her fingers began to rub, almost feverishly reaching toward the bead where she could reach the level of satisfaction she needed. Her tongue still never left the boot of the statue, and she had now made the statue’s foot almost as wet as her thighs. “Master,” she moaned. “My Master, my Lord, my Conqueror…” she slid her fingers a bit deeper and rubbed faster as she continued. “Please, Master… I beg you. Beat me… hurt me…”

Faster still.

“Break me…”

Faster still.

“Conquer me!”

Xiaomei’s wrist hurt from how quickly she was rubbing, and her jaw ached from holding it open so wide as she licked. There would be red marks on her knees from the hard tile floor. Yet each pain only increased her thirst. In just a moment it would happen, and it would take all her strength to stifle a moan -or even a scream- and she would collapse into a trembling, post-climactic heap on the floor, barely able to move her arms or legs. Just a moment more…

Her vision exploded into a sea of stars, and the moment never came. Her mind seemed to have been plunged into a sea of pain, coming from the very place where she had been anticipating completion as a blow struck her there.

“That hole doesn’t belong to you,” she heard a cold, alto voice say from behind and above her. It was Matron, the woman whose duty was to oversee the house-girls. Matron was not her true name, but Xiaomei could not remember ever hearing her true name uttered. All that mattered was that she was Matron, the Priestess, the one who made sure Master’s will was obeyed.

“No, Matron,” Xiaomei squeaked as the throbbing pain between her legs subsided enough that she could speak.

Another blow fell, this time upon the bare buttocks. Xiaomei could tell from the sound what it was that produced that pain. It was a leather strap Matron carried; a strap that had once been Master’s belt, in an age when Matron had been younger and, carrying the title “Honored Favorite,” had served in the Master’s bedchamber. Matron was the only slave in the house whose hands were allowed to touch such a thing, let alone carry it. ‘Master’s will, my word; Master’s whip, my hand,’ Matron had a habit of saying to the other slaves. Matron reminded them all, and frequently, that there was not one living being in the house whose pleasure had any meaning other than the Master, though most of the house-girls were convinced that she derived pleasure of her own from harshly punishing even the slightest infraction.

And the infraction in which Xiaomei had just been caught was not slight.

“Who owns that,” Matron asked, with the word ‘that’ emphasized by a disdainful sneer and another lash of the belt against the exposed wet flesh between Xiaomei’s legs.

“Master does, Matron,” Xiaomei answered softly, her face having not yet moved from the foot of the statue as Matron stood behind her.

“And whose pleasure is its purpose?

“Master’s pleasure, Matron.”

“And when is a cunt the most pleasing for the Master?”

Xiaomei suppressed a sigh of irony. This had been in one of Matron’s daily moral lessons to the house-girls her age just a few days prior. “When it is frustrated and unfulfilled, Matron.”

“Why?”

“Because Master liked His girls to be eager and desperate when He uses them, Matron,” Xiaomei answered. “We are more passionate in our pursuit of His pleasure then.”

“And, did the Master derive any pleasure from what you just did?”

“No, Matron. I’m sorry.”

Matron gave a mirthless ‘hmph.’ “Yes, you’re about as sorry as I’ve ever seen. So then,” her voice returned to its former tone. “Unbidden use of Master’s property, namely your cunt, for the pleasure of someone –or maybe that should be something- other than its Owner, resulting in a house-girl being less useful to the Master. It seems I have taught you a maxim about that, have I not?”

Xiaomei could not suppress a sigh. “You have, Matron.”

“Recite it,” Matron snapped with a stroke of the belt for emphasis.

“Masturbation is adultery and theft,” Xiaomei recited. “A slave cannot pleasure herself because she does not own herself.”

“Quite right,” Matron answered. Xiamoei heard the slow, rhythmic click of Matron’s high-heeled shoes on the tiled floor as Matron walked around to stand beside the statue. “Look up at me,” she said, less harshly but still with steel in her voice, and Xiaomei obeyed. Matron was standing right next to the carving of the pleading Centralian girl with outstretched arms. Though she was not young (Matron had to have been approaching 40 years), her skin was not yet wrinkled and her body still held onto a dancer’s physique. Her legs were long and lean, a fact emphasized by her impressive high heels and the double-slitted velvet dress she wore. The cheongsam-style upper body of the dress nearly hid her collar, but it failed to hide her ample (at least compared to Xiaomei) bosom. Gazing up at her from the floor, Xiaomei could see why Master had favored her in her youthful beauty. Indeed, not all of her beauty had been lost with her youth. She still seemed that she would make a fine ornament on the Master’s arm, if not in his bed.

It occurred to Xiaomei suddenly –and she could scarcely believe that she had never noticed it before- that the carving of the pleading girl at the Master’s feet looked like Matron, albeit younger. It also occurred to her that she and Matron were no longer alone in the Greatroom. The house-girls were awakening, either from the noise or because she had been lost in her indulgent fantasies with the Master’s foot for longer than she thought. When Matron spoke again it was with the air of a teacher reinforcing a difficult lesson. “How old were you when you were collared, little one?”

“Four years old, Matron.”

Matron clicked her tongue. “Too young to remember what it was like before.” She spoke the word ‘before’ with the emphasis that negated the need for the preposition to have an object; before the collapse of Centralia, before the Federation crushed the Centralian Army in a show of dominance unparalleled in Human history, before their Master, an officer in the Federation Army, assumed governance over the Centralian capitol of Norcap and was allotted his choice of 12 women and 56 girls. "And the first time the Master took you to bed?" Matron continued.

Xiaomei's eyes fell for a moment before the snapping sound of the leather strap brought them back to Matron's face. "The first time I have that honor... will be the next, Matron."

Matron made a sound like saying 'aha' except that she never opened her mouth. "You are untouched then."

Xiaomei winced. In post-Fall Centralia, that term was not an honor. "Yes, Matron."

Matron adjusted the leather strap. "Well, just because you've never been worthy of the Master's attention doesn't mean you are permitted to tend to matters yourself with stray fingers. On your back! Legs parted, ankles above your shoulders."

Xiaomei could not stop herself from a gasp of shock. She knew the position she was being instructed to take. She'd seen the Master's playthings in that position before, being quite openly and casually used by the Master -"plowed" was the term the Master commonly used, an apt enough term for how forcefully he ravaged them.

"Don't get your hopes up, little one," Matron answered, seeming to read Xiaomei's thoughts. "The Master won't be awake for at least another half an hour and He has better cunts than yours at His disposal for His morning pleasure." The leather strap cracked again. "On your back!"

Xiaomei obeyed, holding her supple and flexible legs above her head with her arms. The cold air on her saturated pussy was more than a little stimulating, but she did not have much time to think of that before a new sensation struck her there. It was the lash of Matron's strap, brought down hard and whip-like between her legs with uncanny precision. On reflex she closed her thighs.

"Open them!" Matron commanded, giving Xiaomei's inner thighs a kick from her pointed shoe. "The more you try to avoid correction, the worse that correction will be." It took Xiaomei a few seconds to force her legs open again, as her ingrained tendency to obey conflicted with the reflex to avoid pain. When she did, Matron's strap came down again. Xiaomei nearly closed her thighs again, but forced them to remain open and wait for the next blow. "What does a proper slave say in the face of correction?" Matron asked with unnerving calm.

"Thank you, Matron," Xiaomei said through gritted teeth.

"You will repeat that after each lash," Matron replied before the lash came down again.

"Thank you, Matron," Xiaomei gasped.

Again, again, and again the strap came down, and each time Xiaomei cried out her forced thanks to Matron. Soon, the blows came with increasing frequency until Matron was lashing her so rapidly that Xiaomei could not even finish 'thanking' her for one before the next one fell. She could feel welts forming on the soft, unprotected flesh and felt certain she was bleeding, but Matron kept lashing. After a few minutes, Xiaomei's 'thanks' dissolved into a continual wail and her body twisted spasmically. Finally, there was a momentary pause before the strap whistled through the air in one last great lash, causing Xiaomei's screams to erupt in both pitch and volume. If Matron's fury had not been exhausted, Xiaomei still could not have stopped herself from rolling onto her side in a gasping, trembling heap. She and Matron were both breathing heavily, and she heard Matron mutter something about a cigarette.

"Now get up," Matron hissed. "Get up, and report to the maid cellar."

"Yes Matron," Xiaomei gasped as she rose first to all fours, then to her knees, then to her feet in the practiced, ritualistic way slaves were taught to rise. She bowed to Matron, as was expected, and whispered "thank you for this lesson" before hurrying away. She made sure her eyes never met Matron's. She knew if she looked into Matron's eyes, Matron would know something Xiaomei desperately hoped to keep hidden...

...Her trembling, and her scream as Matron whipped her 'slave-petals' had not been from pain.