The Human Stain

I just can’t stop shaking. I’m sitting in the back of a carriage covered in blood and being escorted to my new “Master’s” household. I don’t even know this man’s or woman’s name! I don’t even know why I was bought! Honestly I don’t want to think about what kind of sick bastard would want me. I mean what if I was bought for sex, or just to be killed, or to be tortured for the pleasure of their mate, or, or, or! I’m so scared. I don’t want to die. I know I shouldn’t be scared, that this was the only fate for me, but I just can’t help it. I’m human.

I always thought that I would maybe be one of the lucky humans and be able to live out my life without being selected, and just work for my family until I died. A sad existence sure, but it is a hell of a lot better than other options. Although I happen to be living one of those other options at this point.

The wheels of my transport click and rattle and clack over the cobblestone streets and it seems like the only sound being made anywhere, except for the occasional whinny from the horses. I can’t see out any windows they are all covered in heavy curtains and I’m enveloped in a mind altering darkness.. The claustrophobia I was experiencing at the party is nothing compared to this. One of my greatest fears is not being able to see or really having any form of any of my senses. I feel as if I am locked in a box at the bottom of the ocean.

I don’t know how long or how far I am carried in the carriage. My sense of time seems to drift and fade away escaping somewhere out into the darkness. Vaguely I hear church bells ringing and I can’t help but think grimly to myself…for whom the bell tolls.

Will my carcass be drained of my life blood. Will my eyes have been gouged and my organs removed for some cannibalistic feast. Will my head be put onto a pike and displayed proudly in some front garden somewhere. Will I remain changed in a dungeon somewhere until my body rots away to nothing but dust. Will I be burned at the stake like some Salem Witch. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It doesn’t matter.

I feel the carriage pull to a stop and I pull myself into a tightened ball making the chains attached to my arms and legs rattle at the movement. The door is pulled open and a shadow looms over me in the setting sun.

“Stand!” The figure commands and I shuffle slowly to my feet trying to not irritate the wounds more than they already are.

I’m yanked from the carriage and up a stone pathway; I don’t dare raise my head for fear of more punishment. I walk up a set of stairs and hear a lock unlock and a door creak open, and I’m then lead through that door. I attempt to slow my breathing and regain some sort of calm but it seems almost impossible. I study the floor as if it could tell me the secrets of the universe, as if there was a way to escape from this situation.

I hear someone clear their throat and the person holding my chains kicks my legs out from underneath me causing me to fall hard onto the tile floor. I bite my lip to stop myself from crying out, but I can’t stop a lone tear from making it’s way down my face. I feel someone begin to pace around, raking their eyes over every part of me as if I was a piece of meat.

“Well it seems that Grievence wasn’t kidding about you, but you do seem to have some disciplinary problems.” I shiver as he traces his finger slightly over my open wounds. The voice sounds…young not an old crone as I was expecting. The man paces around me several times and I suddenly feel him lift my chin up and I shut my eyes instantly. I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.

“Aw sugar…” the voice purrs rather alluringly I think begrudgingly, “That’s no fun. You smell so good too. Come on now open up.”

My eyes remain closed seeing as I do not have a death wish at this immediate moment, but of course I am ignoring a direct order from my new Master so I’m dead either way. Nothing happens for several moments and I naively begin to think that we’ve reached some sort of stalemate when I’m hit open handed in the back directly on my lashes! I cry out and open my eyes instinctively and am met with a pair of eyes that seem startlingly similar to mine. My breath gets caught in my throat as if it dug invisible claws into the lining of my esophagus.

I see the eyes widen slightly in front of me and they seem as surprised as I am, “Well I’ll be damned…” the man says trailing off, “It is you.”

I have no idea what this man is talking about because at this point I’m still panicking and wondering when the ball is going to drop along with my head. No one speaks for several long minutes and those eyes just stare into mine as if I held some secret, and I stare at him in pure unhinged terror. We both study each other for several minutes him scanning all of me, and I only being able to stare at his eyes and take in his smell. A dom.

Somewhere church bells chime again announcing the time for the masses as nine o clock. The sun has set and the world outside is filled with carriages returning from the Season’s first party, and the sound of young lovers passionately embracing, but no one in this house speaks.
I let out a shuddery breath that I feel like I’ve been holding since the moment I was born and it sounds as if I set off a crate of dynamite, but it appears to have broken the spell.

“Andrew!” The man commands sharply, “Get this man some new clothes. It appears the prodigal son has returned home.”

Notes

I really liked writing this chapter! Oh and some of you may have noticed that I added Blood Splatter-Killjoy as a co-author. I added her so she could beta these chapters. That I'm posting easier. THANKS BLOOD SPLATTER YOU ROCK! Anyway I hope you liked this. I felt kind of poetic...probably cause I was listening to the Vampire Weekend station on Pandora...oops? Song of the chapter: Welcome Home by Radical Face

-T.K.