They were in a hovel at the edge of town. Jack was finally getting what she had wanted so many hours before — only now she was too angry.

Ianthe had found the place and spoken to its owner — an elderly man, all on his lonesome — and found him eager to let them stay the night. Jack was on high alert, thinking of Aaron, and so only half caught the conversation. Ianthe didn't threaten him; she just had a way of speaking. Whenever she turned her attention on someone, they would very quickly see reason. Jack had seen it earlier that very night — when Ianthe had approached the bars of their cell and struck up a conversation with the sheriff. By the end, he was handing her his keys.

And then — Jack smashed Carter's sorry face into the floor. Stomping until his nose caved in, and blood soaked her boots and the grot of the stones. Fucker. Fucker die die die.

She could still see Aaron's receding back; she'd gotten so caught up in the killing she’d let him slip away. She trembled just to think of the failure, now.

The shaking would not stop. Jack's head ached with tension that could not be released; Ianthe had to feed her slices of bread and jerky because Jack could not control her own hands. She would not have even thought to eat if she hadn’t been forced to.

The sour taste melted in her mouth, and Ianthe stared at her. Stared at her really good. "I know a thing or two that'll calm you down."

"Killing Aaron."

"Tomorrow." Ianthe's breath was a cold whisper against Jack's upper lip. "The sun's coming up. You need to rest."

"I'll rest when I'm dead."

Ianthe lifted the knife she'd used to slice the bread. Hands tangled in Jack's hair until her head was pulled up to Ianthe's, and Ianthe was kissing her ear. Her lips were soft. Her tongue flicked against the cavity. Jack shivered.

Ianthe braced the knife against the back of Jack's braid and sheared it clean off. Then she rolled Jack over, forced her abdomen against the floor and kissed the newly freed spot of freckled skin at the base of her neck. Despite the hearth an arm's length away, Ianthe was cold.

Jack’s erect nipples strained against her bodice. Ianthe was on her, whispering. The back of Jack’s ear was soaked; Ianthe was licking her there, over and over, like a cat grooming. She cut the other braid and cut a line down the gown. Jack moaned.

“How’d it feel to kill him?”

Pant, pant. “Good.”

“Was it hot?”

“Y—yeah.”

“Did it make you hard?”

Jack struggled to nod. Ianthe ran her tongue down Jack’s neck and began kissing at all the nicks and freckles down Jack’s shoulder blades. It felt so good, Jack almost forgot.

“I caann’t,” she moaned. “Let me go. I need— I need to go find—”

“Oh, you’re so mad it’s making you stupid, poor thing. Just let me do the thinking, okay?”

Jack whimpered. Ianthe finally got her free from the corset, and Jack could breathe; her flesh expanded like water poured into a larger vessel. All that was left were frilly drawers, which Ianthe dealt with shortly. She massaged Jack's lower back with firm hands. Jack lay and stared into the fire and thought about shooting Aaron clean through the ear, the brains and bullet bursting out the other side.

Her stomach clenched.

Now Ianthe was tracing the slope of Jack’s ass cheek, her palm a cold handprint that Jack could feel, like a sharp breeze on a spring day. She was murmuring to Jack, words she heard but did not care to understand. Jack was too lost in the death of her imagination: Aaron felled by the next sunset. Smoke from Jack’s revolver, sweet in the air. Ianthe, standing by, proud smile on her face.

The dream stopped, though, when Ianthe brought her finger to Jack’s lower lips.

Everything stopped — even the fire, for a moment, must’ve frozen over. Jack lay there, cold and confused and realizing, for a moment, what was happening. The flickering light in a sea of darkness. The wooden floor beneath her naked body. She tried to speak, and it was a struggle to push the words from her tight, throbbing throat. “Um…”

“What?”

“Um— uh, kindly…kindly, don’t…”

“Speak clearer.”

“I don’t like it—” Jack mashed her face against the floor to hide her shame. “It’s not you… I just— I don’t like anyone touchin’ me… there.”

“Where?”

“…there.”

“Here?” Ianthe pressed her finger up against Jack’s crotch.

“Y-yes.” Jack wanted to squirm. She wanted to vomit. “I cain’t explain it. Just makes me feel…bad.”

“Oh.” Ianthe sat up.

“I shoulda said something earlier. It’s— it’s my fault. I’m sorry, I...”

There was a very long pause. Ianthe was still on top of Jack, knees pressing against Jack's calves. It was a dull, bony pain. It grew more uncomfortable by the moment. The heat of arousal leaked away.

When Ianthe spoke again, it was strangely pained. "No, no. You are — perfectly within your right to say so. There is no need to apologize. I will… what do you like, then?”

“Do we have some kinda lubricant?” Even as she said it, however, she found she was no longer in the mood.

And neither was Ianthe, though she was trying to hide it. She pulled herself off Jack with a barely suppressed sigh. "Let me see what my new friend has."

She snapped her fingers.

A shiver ran the entire length of Jack's spine. Jack pushed herself up; there was a nagging feeling that pricked at the back of her mind, as if she had forgotten something. She crawled towards Ianthe, her dark silhouette.

"Really, I do like you," Jack said. "Please, it ain't personal."

“Of course not.” Ianthe held Jack's head, gently between her two hands. "Really, I'm glad. It's an honor that you trust me so. I will take good care of you, and make you feel so good. I promise."

She kissed Jack. Jack kissed back. For a scant few moments, they were back to where they were — until Ianthe pulled away. "But for tonight, we should rest."

"But —"

Ianthe snapped again.

“Y-yes.” Jack collapsed.

Ianthe’s new friend brought in some. Ianthe bundled Jack up, but she did not lie down herself: she stood and paced the room. Jack closed her eyes, and she half-dreamed of a sea of flickering shadows. The fire cast a pantomime on the back of Jack's mind — she, a rabbit, Ianthe a fox. They were chasing down the terrible wolf that had burnt down a village. All of the rabbits Aaron Fowler had killed were there, crowding the sides of the scene with their cries for blood. Every step Jack took towards the monster: blood, blood, she was out for fucking blood.

And Ianthe would get it for her.

Jack woke at sunset. Ianthe had been busy in the meantime: she had a set of proper clothes for Jack, and word from a mole she had planted in the saloon.

"Aaron was spotted in the mining yard," she said. "We ride tonight."

Jack sat on the floor in front of the flickering fire, shaky hand spilling a tin cup of water down her front. The natural spot for her eyes to fall was at the tip of Ianthe’s shiny riding boots.

“That okay with you?” said Ianthe.

“Y-yes.” Jack jerked her face upwards. “Yes, it makes sense. We’ll ambush him in the dark.”

“He’ll be on high alert.”

Jack was still staring. “I won’t let him get away again.”

Ianthe strode past her to remove a rifle from the little mantle. “You’ll be the gunman.”

“Yessir…” Jack murmured into her cup, then blushed.

Ianthe flicked her forehead. “None of that. This is serious business. We’ll do that afterwards.” She smirked. “A reward for a job well done.”

“You’re the one helping me, though.”

Ianthe cocked the rifle. “You know how to shoot this thing?”

“I’m a fast learner.” Jack took it without thought.

Aaron Fowler had made his hiding spot an abandoned camp at the base of the mine; a section of the mountain that, after it had been stripped of all the valuable minerals, was abandoned. The miners had simply moved on, leaving their trash and tools where they stood. There were still walls and stone benches and, critically, fire pits scattered around. It was the light from one of these that had alerted the locals to Aaron's presence (or, at least, the rumor of it) and word had spread quickly.

Jack thought it odd that Aaron hadn't gone further away. He was wanted, he was destitute, and his brothers were dead. Staying anywhere close to that town was begging for it, really.

Up into the hills Jack and Ianthe rode on a single borrowed horse. The moon was a silver coin, big and bright, so they snuffed their lanterns and clipped-clopped to the hiding place. Before they reached it, however, they dismounted. Jack watched in silence as Ianthe stroked the horse's ears. As the animal went still and docile, an old emotion stirred in Jack’s chest, mixing queer with all the vengeance.

A gentle hand on the horse’s head. Low, reassuring words. Blood rushing to Jack’s cheeks. “I didn’t know you were a horsebreaker.”

“What’s that?” Ianthe turned, her eyes silver like the moonlight, and Jack found that she had no words left.

Things went according to plan, to start. Jack and Ianthe crept through the brush and peered down into the encampment. It yawned below them, a still and dark bowl. Ianthe's keen eyes spotted a scrap of fabric hidden in the shadows. She pointed — Aaron's pant leg.

Jack landed with a soft scutter in the sagebrush. Aaron lay in the shadows, sleeping in a fetal curl, his cheek against the shale. Jack kept to the shadows, both hands on her rifle, and weaved between the fallen hacksaws. His sleeping form grew clearer in the cold moonlight. The more she saw, the more she hated him.

Hatred was a strong word — and yet, there was nothing else to describe her feelings. She hated this man. She hated him for killing Lazarus. She hated him for killing a hundred people she did not know. For stealing livestock. For raping wives. In her mind's eye, she saw Laz's brutalized body, heard her own cries. They tasted fresh and bloody in the back of her mouth.

But it went deeper than that. She hated his clothes. She hated his scraggly beard and his yellow teeth. She hated the memory of his voice scraping against her eardrums. She hated him there: curled up like an animal sleeping in a burrow, bedraggled, beaten, with the pallor of a corpse. She smiled, knowing that he soon would be one.

She was so caught up in her hatred that she missed a can. It rolled beneath her heel and sent her falling forward. A cry fell from her lips.

Aaron woke and took off running.

“Shit!”

It was like a fox hunt. Aaron scrambled up the shale. Jack went after him. She moved faster than she'd ever moved in her life. Every footfall was punctuated with a flash of red that she felt in her stomach. Hate. Hate. Hate.

He could not, would not get away. She would die trying! Fuck him! Fuck him forever!

Aaron sent rocks spiraling beneath him in his mad dash, and on they tumbled into Jack's path. Jack went right on over them, running until she was stumbling, breathless, clutching her now-unloaded rifle to her chest. Aaron fled over gnarled tree trunks, stirring the low branches of conifers. He ran until he was up at the mines.

The air smelt like iron and fresh overturned dirt. The sluices rose above the earth, dark constructions that grew from the clearing like distorted trees. Aaron cast a look over his shoulder and squawked in fear.

Jack was still there — she hadn't lost his trail at all. She stood behind him, and she was smiling.

Aaron stumbled; his face glistened with sweat in the moonlight. He was missing a tooth, stripped down to only a dirty shirt and trousers and boots that had seen better days. There was a gray bandage wrapped around his head, crusty with old blood. He scooted backwards on his ass as Jack marched forward, holding out his hands in a plea of mercy. "No, don't you act hasty —"

Jack stopped — not out of compassion, of course, but because she needed to catch her breath.

The air was filled with dust and silt. "Please…" Aaron hacked out a cough. "Please, I had no choice!"

"You know who I am."

"My brothers — my brothers, I swore I'd protect them, they were dying. What would you have done?"

"You know what you took from me." Jack cocked her rifle. It was nice, in the moment, to play with him. The man who killed Lazarus deserved no straightforward murder. He would speak his piece, holding onto some shred of hope, only to discover, all too late, just what sort of person Jack had become.

"Tinsley's goons got hold and beat them senseless. They were just bleeding out there in the dirt, and she came, and she fucking promised me — promised me — that she would save them. All I had to do was kill one and take the other. So that's what I did! I guess it wasn't good enough."

Aaron tried to stand, but a jerk of Jack's head had him falling back to the ground.  “It was— it was supposed t’be you, but I fucked up, and now I can’t get out! They were already dead, I was just a fucking idiot. But I ain’t wanting to go the s-same way, not with that thing still walking!”

“What ‘thing’?”

Aaron barked out a weak laugh. “You should know! You’re riding with it, now.”

Jack tilted her head.

“It was all kindsa wicked, but what’s a desperate man to do? I saw it there, all sticky and black, and I took its fucking hand all the same.” He scoffed. “Why am I even bothering? You’re just a puppet, now. Go ahead, girlie. Shoot.”

And for a moment, something strange came over Jack. It was as if she'd dunked her head in a mountain stream. It reared up, at first, in the shape of: I'm not going to do what Aaron Fowler tells me to do — and then all her thoughts were averted, and she was aware of her own standing, in the cold, the trigger of the rifle against her thumb, and she wondered how she had gotten there.

Why was she standing there?

A black shriek — what must've been a bat awakened from the mineshaft — streaked through the air.

Why was she just standing there when Aaron Fowler was still alive? She was meant to kill him.

But Aaron had taken that momentary distraction as an opportunity to run. Jack fired, but the shot went wide. He wavered in the cloud of smoke from the shot. Jack's arm ached with the recoil. She wielded the rifle club as she chased after him.

A puppet.

But Jack was nobody's puppet. This vengeance was all hers. Who else was there to mourn Lazarus? Who else wanted Aaron's sorry ass dead? She chased him through the yard, and he wheezed and screamed like a coyote.

“Can’t see it? Don’t care?” Aaron still had the gall to taunt her. “Bet she makes you feel good, huh? Didn’t do that to my brothers. No, no, my family was seen fit to suffer for some sick whore’s fun!”

Everything was dark. Smoke and dust wavering in the moonlight. The world whirling in Jack's eyes as she chased and chased, Aaron the single pinpoint, Aaron crying, Aaron desperate, Aaron prey. She hardly understood his words, but she understood that he was hurt, and that made her glad. That made her blood rush faster, and her heart bloom like a rose, and her pace pick up as she knew his end grew closer and closer.

Then, Aaron was gone.

At first, she thought he'd vanished into the air. But then she heard his echoing cry. He had fallen down the mineshaft.

She stood above as he hung, desperately clinging to the surface with both hands. His feet dangled into darkness. His expression was so desperate that it shocked Jack from her stupor.

A puppet.

What was she? Why was she doing this? How had she gotten here, goading some nobody outlaw to his death, for what? For what? Her heart was like a snuffed-out candle. When had it been lit?

“What… what were you talking about?” she said, slowly. “About the deal. About…”

“Pull me up. Pull me up, please, I can’t—”

“I’m doing this for Lazarus. For Lazarus. For Lazarus, right?”

“I’m slipping!”

“I’m a sinner…” Jack’s mind lashed and cried out behind a thick fog. “I’m a scoundrel. I’m a…”

“Please! I’ll do anything!”

"Will you turn yourself in?

"Yes, yes!"

"You'll hang."

"I don’t care! I’ll be with my brothers.”

Already his arms were quivering with the effort it took. Below him, the mineshaft howled with rotten her. Jack thought, I get him out of this mineshaft, and justice will kill him for me.

I'm still getting my revenge.

She held out the rifle as a lifeline. Aaron grabbed hold of it, and step by step Jack went backwards, hauling him out. His body dragged, as if she were scraping him out of the shaft. But before he was rescued, Ianthe appeared.

She was a cold presence at the base of Jack's neck. "What are you doing?"

“I’m going to bring him to the jailhouse.”

“Why?”

"Because… I'm getting my revenge… this way…"

Jack's mind flashed to Carter. She saw the aftermath, but it was like someone else had done it, and she was watching the room from above. All that blood. Pressure cracking his skull. The memory was foggy. Had it even happened?

Why had it happened? Jack had never been a killer. She had just hated him so much, and — and Ianthe was there, and saying things, saying things that were —

"Jack."

Her voice cut through all.

“Let go.”

And Jack’s fingers touched empty air.

She hadn’t even realized she’d done it; less than a second, and across her vision Aaron was sailing into darkness, the rifle spiraling with him, his screams swallowed by the void. She heard, did not see the thud. It rang like a bell in her mind. Hard impact against the impossibly deep bottom. Thud, thud, thud. He was dead.

Ianthe's arm snaked around Jack's collarbone. Her mouth pressed into Jack's ear.

"Good boy."

Jack only sobbed.

"Now, now, we can't have that." Ianthe rocked her back and forth. "Calm down, listen to my voice. You'll go to sleep soon enough."

How could she have done such a thing? Without even thinking? She felt so —

"It feels good, doesn't it, boy?"

Warmth, flooding her body. Tingling down to her fingertips. It was so intense that only Ianthe's hold kept her from crumbling. Jack managed a nod.

“Because you obeyed…” Ianthe cooed. “Because you’re a good little faggot.”

Ianthe pushed; and though Jack strained against the force, she fell. She was on her knees, sore from the riding, sharp pain from the rocky soil lancing up her tendons.

She was still thinking about the dead man down that shaft. Maybe it wasn't the end. Maybe, if Jack grabbed a lantern and ran like the wind, she could find him and drag him back up — or at least retrieve his corpse. It was the least she could do. It was what she would've wanted done with Laz —

Ianthe’s splayed hand in her face, fingers like a cage before her eyes. A thumb forced between Jack's slack lips. “Suck.”

It was automatic.

Ianthe’s voice was like a low, electric line running down her spine. “Goood.”

Jack’s mouth was dry from the dusty air, and her head ached something fierce. She tried to pull away, but that made the pain so much worse. She couldn’t pull away; Ianthe didn’t want her to.

“Sleep now,” her voice said. “You did a good job. Now he won’t go on telling any more lies. Isn’t that good? You like killing for me.”

The order had not been rescinded, so Jack was still sucking.

Ianthe said, “The law doesn’t matter. Your God doesn’t matter. You’re a desperate little faggot with no regard for common decency. You’d do anything for me.”

Thoughts were shriveling at the bottom of the well. From her pocket, Ianthe pulled her watch to check the time; the gold edge flashed in the moonlight. It bounced off Ianthe’s eyes. She looked at Jack, and whatever was left inside of Jack fled from the thing that now held her completely.

“Get up,” she said. “I’ll finish you off at home.”

The kitchen. Dead of night, lit dimly; candles, kerosene. The loose shirt slid from Jack's shoulder, and the bare skin twinged in the evening air. Low voices, Daphne bent over the light. Ianthe stood at the table with a jutting hip. Blackbird had a white bandage around her hand.

“Cut myself at supper,” she said. “A slave patched it up.”

Ianthe looked at Jack. Neither said anything.

Blackbird: "You took a long time."

"I can take as long as I want."

Blackbird nodded. "Are you thirsty?"

"I'll feed from her when I'm done."

Blackbird frowned. “But it will take some time to finish breaking her. And, until then, you will be weak.”

“Then I’ll wake up one of the girls.”

“And drain her?”

“Do you take me for an idiot?” Ianthe scoffed. “Of course I would never do such a thing.”

“Hannah?”

Ianthe, who had been heading to the chair, jerked around. “Now, don’t you bring that up! That was an accident.”

“Hm.” Blackbird folded her arms. "Perhaps make another monster?"

Ianthe scoffed. "I don't do that either."

Now it was Blackbird who stared at Jack in silence. Jack stood and watched and did nothing else. She hadn't been told to.

The chair creaked beneath Ianthe. "Daphne, cigarette!"

“Yes, Master.”

The old woman rolled the papers, swiftly, silently, and laid the result in Ianthe's outstretched hand. Blackbird struck the match. The fire filled her dark eyes as she leaned forward, and Ianthe leaned forward, and the cigarette burned dimly.

Ianthe took a long, slow breath before exhaling; smoke filled the narrow kitchen. It was only then that Ianthe gestured to Jack in the doorway and commanded, "Sit."

Jack sat. Daphne behind her, cooing. “Master, she is just beautiful like this. Oh, I don’t even think she’s blinking.”

Another exhale. “Strip her.”

Blackbird still stood, tilting her head towards Ianthe.  “You are hungry,” she said. “Drink from me.”

There were hands on Jack’s shoulders, hands on her waist. Her skin prickled in the air — bare in a room of clothed women, who stared at her, and one of whom Jack stared back towards; into Ianthe, as if she were the mouth of the mineshaft.

“Master… she’s so docile…”

“She is now,” Ianthe grumbled. “Pain in the ass to get her to this point. Fucking stubborn bitch. She didn’t even let me touch her cunt.”

Daphne gasped. “Oh no, Master!”

“Not that I’m upset about it.” She raised her face to Blackbird. “No.”

“Why not?”

“You’re not a slave,” said Ianthe. “I don’t drink from you.”

“I will give it willingly.”

Snap! “Kneel, boy.”

Jack in front of Ianthe, her legs spread, her knees on the floor. Her chin was wet with drool, and her eyes burned. Thought, for a moment, struggled to form. Something wriggled in the back of her head. Shouldn’t she…hate this?

“Good boy.”

Shudder.

Blackbird clicked her tongue in annoyance. She unrolled the bandage from her hand, and Ianthe tensed.

“Put it back.”

“How do I smell?”

The blood puddled in Blackbird’s palm; it was a deep slice, and when she flexed her fingers, it welled with juice like squeezing an orange.

“T-terrible…”

“Go on.” Her hand was right up against Ianthe’s face. “Really. I trust you.”

Ianthe managed to tear her eyes away from the offering. “I need the boy’s—”

Blackbird thrust her hand into Ianthe’s face.

“You—!” Blood smeared up her nostrils. “You— fucking—”

Blackbird laughed and laughed, drowning out Ianthe's protest. Then she tried to pull back, but Ianthe held her wrist in a vice and lapped the rest of it up. Blackbird's laughter simmered down, and Ianthe went silent as she licked.

Blackbird rolled her head back, letting it loll in the air. "See? It is not so bad."

Ianthe let her go. For a moment, leaning back without Ianthe's support, Blackbird stumbled. She braced herself against the table.

Said Ianthe, "Get out of here before I kill you."

Only Jack, Daphne, and Ianthe left in the room. Ianthe sat herself up, reinvigorated. A smear of Blackbird’s blood remained at the corner of her mouth. She began a series of firm commands.

“Daphne — go get Toms, bring her to the barn.”

“Yes, Master.”

She stretched her arms above her head. Waved her cigarette around. Crossed her legs at the ankles. "Clean my boots."

But how was she —?

“With your mouth, slave.”

Falling forward, all fours. Tongue out. Dirt, leather, salt between her teeth.

“When you obey, agree verbally.”

Kissing the seams. “Mmm-hm”

“Say, ‘yes, Master~’”

“Yss, Mmhher.” She licked up the length of Ianthe’s instep until the leather gleamed with her drool.

Ianthe propped up an elbow on the chair. “You have no more ties to the world. Your lover is dead, and so is his killer. I am all you have left. I am your world, your master, your owner. You ought to be grateful.”

And now that she said so, it was. Jack hummed affirmation. She continued her rote, plodding, obedient pace.

“This land is swollen with starving, desperate women…” Master took another huff of her cigarette.

Jack lick, licked through the moment before Master's exhale.

“And I’m going to make them all mine.”

“Mm-mhm.”

Master snapped. “Up.”

“Yes, Master.” Jack stood.

Master rose from her chair. She laid her gloved hands on Jack’s naked chest; the tip of her cigarette flicked Jack’s collarbone. She stood, Jack's unmoving flesh burning beneath her. "There's still a little bit you in there, huh?"

Jack blinked.

“Wriggling, desperate. She doesn’t know how she got here. It was all so gradual, wasn’t it?” Ianthe’s thumb pressed into Jack’s breastbone. Smoke wisping around Jack’s ear. "And she likes this, too." Ianthe smiled. "You're not going to fight it all. You love being a slave."

"I love being a slave, Master."

“There’s nothing you would deny me.”

“There’s nothing I would deny you.”

“Hm…” Master wrapped her hands around Jack’s neck. "And if I let her out, for just a moment — ?"

Jack blinked twice. She thought, Wait, what am I —? She thought, I'm thinking. She thought, but could not speak, because Ianthe was kissing her on the mouth. Her tongue forced down Jack's throat, still coated thick with tobacco. Jack was shocked. But before protest could even occur to her, she was responding in kind.

Ianthe, still in her coat, with Jack naked before her. Ianthe touched her roughly, but Jack liked it rough. Ianthe had a hand gripping the back of Jack's neck, forcing the kiss until Jack grew dizzy from lack of breath. She tried to pull away, only to remember: it was fine. She wanted this.

Was this not what she had been begging for?

"What — what happened to Aaron —?"

Ianthe smacked her. "Keep quiet."

There was a string of spit down Jack's lower lip. It lingered as Ianthe swooped in to kiss Jack's neck: nicked it with her canines, lower and lower until she was arching Jack's spine backwards and sucking at her nipples. A huff of laughter left Jack's mouth, only for Ianthe to bite down, hard.

“Ah!” Jack cried.

"Shut the fuck up."

“Y—yes, Master.” Jack blushed crimson.

Ianthe pushed Jack into the kitchen table; it rattled with the force. Jack suppressed a cry, suddenly very concerned with keeping quiet, but could not keep the contents from toppling onto the floor. Ianthe didn't seem to care; she bent her over the table. Jack's sore chest rubbed against the wooden surface. Jack suppressed a moan in the back of her throat. Ianthe was squeezing her ass, and it felt so good. Ianthe felt so good. She fucked so good. Jack was so lucky to be in this position.

Warm leather pushed its way between Jack’s legs.

“Wha…?”

“Silent, boy.”

Ianthe’s hand was not gentle. It probed its way into Jack’s most sensitive spot, brutal, systematic. Jack writhed against it, and Ianthe managed, artfully, to tweak it until Jack was humping her fingers in a rhythm. Her tits scraped the table; her throat burned with the desire to cry out. Her clit was clamped between Ianthe’s pointer and middle, and she was wet. So, so wet.

It was soaking her bush, soaking Ianthe’s hand. The kitchen stank of Jack’s musk, sang with the suppressed grunts and creaking of wooden legs. Ianthe fingered her like she was scraping out the inside of a rind. Jack was not restrained. She could have stopped her at any time.

It’s not so bad…

“I’m sorry, Master!” she cried.

Jack had been wrong. How could she have been so wrong? She did not mind it all. She liked it when Ianthe fucked her cunt. Her cunt. Hole, throbbing. She needed something in there. A cock, fingers, anything — anything of Ianthe's. She was itching for it; keeping her prude hole to herself when it could have been of use. How pathetic! She’d been begging to be raped, never satisfied. Only her, only her.

“My body is yours, my body is yours…”

A fire crackled in the barn.

Toms and Daphne tended to it; Daphne with the poker, Toms the iron. Jack laid in the hay, Ianthe's boot on her breastbone. Jack breathed deeply. In, out. She stared into the light, like a good boy.

Clang!

An orange streak, like a star through the sky, dangled above her. Toms wore thick gloves as she held the shining brand up from the fire. Her face was slack. Everyone knew that it was not her that was leaving the mark. Toms was a slave, a vessel to her master's will. Why should Master lift a finger, when there was another to do for her?

It was an honor. Jack was a fool to not understand it before. The best thing a woman could be was a slave; it was the surest path to safety and happiness the world could provide. Even there, naked in a damp barn, under the heel of her new master, Jack could not have found a better home, and a better family to share it with.

Jack was told to roll over. Good. She was told to stay still. Good. She was held down. The pain hit. She did not fight it.

The iron burned away the hair on her thigh. It hissed as the mark was driven into her. Jack was inundated with pain, like a stone in the midst of rocky waters. It was bigger than her, more powerful, and the best she could do was to let it wash over her. Good. Good. Her sister slaves were watching her, their faces blank. And Master was smiling while Jack was marked. If Jack could control her body, she would've been smiling too. It was the best thing Jack had ever felt. Master filled her wholly in that moment; every crook of her mind and body stolen and reshaped to a higher purpose. Good. Good. Jack was a lucky one.

She was going to make it so everyone could be so fortunate.