Sir Elizabeth woke with her arm draped across the width of the luxuriously oversized bed she had been assigned at Heartgarden castle.

Registering the empty space beside her, she pushed herself upright, hoping to catch Gabriel, her new trial consort, in the act of performing his morning routine like an earthly human being.

As always, she was too late, and he responded to the sound of her movement by stepping out of the attached bathing room as if he were stepping out of a painting.

“Good morning, my lady,” he smiled warmly. “I hope you slept well.”

His corset was cinched tight, his lace stockings protected from the stone floor by high-heeled slippers, his lips and cheeks brightened with a tasteful hint of rouge. The only visible “imperfections” were the intentional ones he maintained at all hours, the slightly overgrown eyebrows and daringly loose curtain of hair under a thin crown of simple braids.

The man was either clairvoyant or barely slept. In the week since Elizabeth had claimed him, she had woken as late as nine and as early as six with the same results.

She wasn’t certain if his morning precision was simply a habit borne of his strict Heartgarden training — even the most rebellious of their certified aspirants were still among the most refined potential consorts in the world — or if he was making an extra effort to convince her to keep him.

If it was all for her benefit, perhaps she should suggest that he linger in bed with her a while, and then let her help him with his corset strings before he needed to be presentable to anyone else.

Then again, she supposed the extra lounging time might not be as pleasant for him as it would be for her, with his chastity belt holding his cock safely down and out of the way of anything that might tarnish his value to a discerning lady.

Elizabeth adjusted the silver chain around her neck, working out the tangles it had acquired during the night, and closed her hand around the key that hung from it.

The thrill of its presence had not faded for her, and by the way Gabriel’s eyes followed her fingers, full of both mischievous longing and embarrassed glee, the same seemed to be true for him.

“I…” he looked away with a soft giggle. “I believe breakfast will be served in the lavender room shortly. Though I can, of course, fetch something if you’d prefer to stay here.”

“No,” said Elizabeth, pushing the blankets aside. “I’ll get dressed.”

As tempting as it was to spend the whole day alone with Gabriel, talking, reading to each other, enjoying his extraordinary massages, she had already given in to that temptation twice this week. Assuming she selected him as her permanent consort at the end of the season — a decision she was finding increasingly difficult to pretend she hadn’t already made — there would be plenty of days to spend that way.

Wintering at the Heartgarden, on the other hand, was something she would likely do just once in her life. She did not mean to miss the experience, nor seem an ungrateful guest.

#

“…And at eight, an ensemble of aspirants will be presenting a performance of ‘Taming Patrick,’” Headmistress Jane was in the middle of reciting the day’s itinerary, when Elizabeth entered the lavender drawing room, with Gabriel on her arm.

Most of the other ladies were lounging on sofas, enjoying plates from the breakfast buffet that presently took up two walls of the room.

A few of them shot glances at Elizabeth when she selected a scone for herself and motioned for Gabriel to help himself as he pleased.

Elizabeth was still the only guest to have claimed a trial consort. She had the right to invite Gabriel to share her company in the guest activities if it pleased her, but at present, it made him the only aspirant eating among the ladies.

Gabriel plated himself a few boiled eggs and picked at them self-consciously.

“We also have twelve infractions currently in need of correction,” Jane continued, “if any of you ladies would be willing to contribute your services.”

She unfurled a scroll and set it hanging on a wrought iron stand for the ladies’ perusal.

All ladies invited to the Heartgarden were required to step in and handle disciplinary issues that arose suddenly among the aspirants while there were no trainers present. They were also expected to assist with the trainers’ overall workload, administering routine corrections.

The trainers were more than capable, of course, but the idea was for the aspirants to grow accustomed to receiving discipline from new hands, and for the ladies to have the opportunity to practice before taking a consort home, with experts nearby to answer their questions.

Elizabeth had not yet participated, and she skimmed the scroll now with more obligation than interest, finding most of the usual nonsense.

Marcus — Uncleanliness, moderate, occasional. Day-old stubble found on legs, underarms, and neck.

Charles — Presumption, mild, unusual. Sitting without permission, extenuating circumstances present.

Tristan — Pride, moderate, unusual. Boasting of superior crochet skills.

Then her eyes lit upon a meatier line.

Christopher — Tactlessness, severe, recurrent. Speaking ill of fellow aspirant, Daisy.

“What did he say?” Elizabeth asked, pointing.

Jane checked her notes. “Something to the effect that he pitied her, being too feeble to make an adequate woman, but that he felt it gave her no right to intrude on the domain of gentlemen with her…” Jane adjusted her glasses and squinted, “…grotesque mimicry.”

“I’ll do it,” Elizabeth volunteered.

Gabriel turned his head sharply toward her, beginning to raise one of his unfashionably strong eyebrows, but quickly returned his attention to his plate, before Jane could notice his reaction.

Elizabeth couldn’t guess the reason for his sudden distress, and didn’t dare ask him here. She put a hand on his shoulder and gently stroked the back of his neck in the way that usually seemed to calm him.

Like Gabriel, Elizabeth found herself at odds with the Heartgarden’s code as often as not. Opportunities to fit in were rarely as appealing as this one.

She had no interest in whipping some poor aspirant for failing to notice a hole in his stockings, but Daisy was a darling, and Elizabeth rather admired the boldness of the choice she’d made, claiming the role she wanted, without regard for who else might consider it odd or beneath them.

Daisy was currently the only fully qualified female aspirant in the whole Heartgarden, and Elizabeth couldn’t imagine her ever doing anything to anyone that would justify Christopher’s rudeness.

“Very well,” Jane agreed, disconnecting one of the largest keys from the vast collection that always hung from her hip, and handing it to Elizabeth. “Have Christopher ready in the east courtyard in, let’s say, an hour. Given the nature of the transgression and mandatory penalty, all other ladies are, of course, invited to attend at their leisure.”

#

When Elizabeth started down the narrow spiral stone staircase into Castle Heartgarden’s dungeons, Gabriel walked behind her in silence.

This was normal behavior for aspirants in general, but not for Gabriel when the two of them were alone. Elizabeth had given him more blanket permissions than she was really allowed to, and she’d grown attached to him taking liberties with her, trusting her to keep them private.

The sudden return to complete formality was rather lonely.

“You still have permission to speak your mind in my presence,” Elizabeth reminded him.

“Thank you, my lady,” Gabriel acknowledged, but said no more.

“Are you feeling protective of Christopher?”

“No,” Gabriel answered with an emphatic laugh. “Christopher is the only person in the whole castle who lives up to his idea of what this place is supposed to be. For every tactless thing he’s caught saying about the other aspirants, he gets away with ten more. It’s past time he incurred more serious correction.”

“Then why are you bothered that I volunteered to help?”

Gabriel’s shoulders were high and tense. “I am not bothered, my lady.”

“I did not give you special permission to lie to me,” Elizabeth reminded him.

Gabriel sighed and drooped, running his hand along the stone wall as they descended. “It seems painfully obvious to me,” he said haltingly. “So much that it’s difficult to say aloud.”

“Well, it’s not obvious to me,” said Elizabeth.

“You’ve repeatedly refused my offer to assist with certain of your needs,” said Gabriel. “As is your right, of course. But to refuse me and then agree to this… it feels like a deliberate snub.”

“Wait.” Elizabeth stopped on the stairs. “What does the one thing have to do with the other?”

Gabriel gaped at her for several seconds. Then, a smile of understanding crept through his annoyance, thinning but not dissipating it.

“You have no idea what the penalty is for recurrent tactlessness, do you?” he asked.

Elizabeth put a hand to the ever-present satchel on her hip and smiled back sheepishly, caught once again for the outsider she was. “I was going to check the rulebook before we got there. Until your sour mood distracted me.”

Gabriel shook his head, tossing a lock of hair behind him. “Come on, turn left at the bottom of the stairs. I’ll help you prepare your kit for him. What would you do without me?”

#

The dungeon tack room was larger than any of the parlors or drawing rooms above, and filled with a maze of wooden shelves lined with all manner of restraints and tools of torture.

Elizabeth could make neither heads nor tails of most of it, and there were a few pieces, like the basket of branding irons near the door, that she shuddered to imagine in use on a human being.

Still, there were others that intrigued her. She would have denied it, even to herself, had she been brought down here on her first day at the castle. Such thoughts were easier to think now that she had confessed her enjoyment of having Gabriel under lock and key, and learned that he found perverse enjoyment in it too.

“What rule would you have to break to earn an encounter with this fascinating contraption?” she asked playfully, running her fingers along the armrest of an oversized chair covered all over with differently sized marble pegs, just the right shape to slide into a misbehaving aspirant’s anal passage. “And how much encouragement would you require to break it for me?”

A harness and pulley system hanging above the seat looked designed for a trainer or lady to raise and lower the subject onto different parts of the chair with pinpoint precision.

The wicked image of Gabriel, held in literal and figurative suspense, cock straining for unattainable freedom, while Elizabeth decided how far to stretch his bare ass on his next securely controlled drop, melted away when the real Gabriel glanced back at her.

Elizabeth watched him closely, hoping to learn whether the idea excited him, frightened him, or both. He staunchly refused her any hints, keeping his face impassive except for his restrained annoyance. After only a second, he returned to filling a large sack with the items she would need for the task she had agreed to.

“Read your book, my lady,” he suggested, pushing the kit sack into her hands. “May I be excused? I would not place more demands on your attention while it will be so intensely needed elsewhere.”

A falling feeling painted itself around Elizabeth’s heart.

“You are welcome to observe,” she said. “You did say you were anticipating Christopher’s comeuppance.”

“Forgive me, my lady. I feel unwell.”

He made a token fanning motion toward his neck, though he looked neither flushed nor pallid, in no obvious danger of fainting.

“Of course,” said Elizabeth.

#

When Elizabeth dropped the heavy sack of materials on the stones in front of Christopher’s holding cell, he sprang up from the cot inside and hurried to re-fasten the front clasps of his open corset.

Once his proper shape was restored, he reached to toss his silk gown back on over his underclothes.

“You won’t need that today,” Elizabeth reminded him.

Christopher paused a moment, overcoming some manner of resistance inside himself, and draped the dress neatly back over the end of the cot. “Yes, my lady.”

His wavy, light brown hair was still in yesterday’s braid, the color faded from his lips and cheeks.

Still, he did the best he could under the circumstances to look the part of a polished consort, curtseying in his plain linen chemise and settling into his tall, graceful dancer’s stance, hands folded on one hip. The illusion of a refined gentleman was so strong that it was hard to imagine that those horrible words about Daisy had come out of that sweet face.

“Do you understand why you’re scheduled to be punished today?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yes, my lady. My apologies. I was surly from my weekly extraction yesterday, and spoke out of turn.”

“Your extraction?” Elizabeth repeated. This was not among the excuses she’d been expecting. “You mean to tell me your judgement was compromised because your little jewels were too empty, rather than too full? Contrary to all known theory on masculine humors?”

“The emptying process…” Christopher paused. “The method used to keep us chaste is painful, my lady.”

“Ah.” That helped explain the timing of his outburst, and his choice of target. “You were jealous of Daisy’s lack of seed buildup? Would you prefer the pain of a monthly hemorrhaging gut wound?”

“No, my lady,” Christopher shook his head. “I meant no disrespect to the fortitude of women, and all they endure to provide us with soft, gentlemanly lives. Quite the opposite. To tell truth, I had drunk too much while keeping Lady Mary company—”

“I take it you are not guilty of dishonesty in addition to tactlessness,” Elizabeth let her disappointment show in her voice. “Drunks are notorious for sharing their most sincerely held horrible notions.”

“I… I expressed myself very poorly, my lady,” said Christopher.

“What was it you were trying to express?”

“Only that… only that a woman should be strong.”

“Why?”

Christopher looked confused. “…My lady?”

“Why should a woman be strong?” Elizabeth pushed him. “Because you prefer us that way? Do you believe your fellow consorts, like Daisy, are here to serve you?”

“No, my lady!”

“Do you believe the entire world should revolve around what makes you swoon?”

“No, my lady.”

“Yet your tactlessness seems to stem from placing excessive value on your own preferences. I have half a mind to find you guilty of selfishness.”

“It was not only my preferences I was expressing,” Christopher protested. “I believe… I believe disgust is a common reaction to behavior like Daisy’s!”

Angry bile rose in Elizabeth’s throat. A fat lot this posturing ninny knew about causes for disgust.

“Not as common as you’d like,” she pointed out. “If everyone felt the same way about Daisy, you would have no reason to find her as threatening as you do.”

Christopher looked to the floor.

“My lady, would you… may I ask, will you—”

“Are you trying to express another preference without expressing it?” Elizabeth asked.

“I suppose so, my lady,” Christopher admitted.

“Get it over with, then,” said Elizabeth. “You have permission to tell me what it is.”

“I would like to proceed with the correction, as soon as is acceptable to you.”

“In other words, you’d like me to take your mouth away from you before it can get you in even more trouble.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Well,” she smiled, with disgust lingering at the back of her throat. “At least it’s an intelligent request.”

Elizabeth opened the kit sack and pulled out the heavy, iron manacles for Christopher’s ankles, wrists, and neck.

“Put them on and turn around,” she instructed, passing them through to him.

Christopher obeyed and stood with his back to the bars, hands behind him, manacles loosely closed in all the right places.

Elizabeth fitted the fastenings together, and threaded a heavy chain through them to trap them shut.

With Christopher certain not to run, she took the large key Jane had given her from her pocket and unlocked the door to his cell. Taking hold of the loose lengths of chain hanging from his neck and ankles, she led him up the dungeon stairs and out into the east courtyard.

Christopher shuffled his shackled feet along in sensible silence, though Elizabeth did not fail to note the sulky tone of his posture.

#

The east courtyard, presently deserted in spite of the lovely angle of the morning light, had for its centerpiece an ancient oak tree. This tree was the reason it was favored for the particular brand of discipline Christopher’s infraction required.

Elizabeth led him out to the tree and looped the ends of his chain around one of the lower boughs for temporary safekeeping. She pulled the pair of scissors Gabriel had packed out of the bag, took hold of the skirt of Christopher’s chemise, and cut it off in rough sections, just below his corset, to display his chastity belt, with his delicate testicles and the very tip of his confined penis poking out in the open air.

Picking up the chain again, she wrapped it around the trunk of the tree and latched the ends together, far out of his reach

The tree’s width took up almost all of the slack on the chain, forcing the three sets of manacles closer together.

Half-naked in his corset and lace stockings, Christopher knelt in the dirt in front of the tree, with his hands pinned to his ankles behind him, and his neck pulled back toward them, so that his back arched and his chin turned toward the sky.

“What is your mouth for?” Elizabeth read out of the book.

“For bringing delight to others, and to my true lady above all,” Christopher recited with obvious practice.

“What additional privileges have you been permitted to use it for?”

“For eating, and for speaking words of my own selection.”

“And what is it most certainly not for?”

Christopher sighed. “Causing discord or distress.”

“Do you understand that you have the right to forfeit your position as an eligible aspiring consort at this time, leave the Heartgarden without further correction, and return to where you came from?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“And do you understand that if you choose to stay, your mouth will be put to work and stripped of its privileges for twelve hours, and then permanently modified to better serve its primary function?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Open it, if you wish to remain an aspirant in good standing.”

Christopher spread his jaws wide. Elizabeth pulled the correction gag from her kit sack, and eased it into place.

Much like the chastity belts the aspirants wore, the gag was made up of a sturdy plate of metal with a hole in the middle. The edges of the hole curled up sharply, like the neck of a bottle, and it was this hollow protrusion that fit between Christopher’s teeth.

Once Elizabeth had pulled the chains on the sides of the gag tight at the nape of his neck, and fastened them there with a padlock, there was no way he could close his mouth, or push the intruding metal out of it.

The key, she threaded onto her necklace, letting it hang next to the one for Gabriel’s chastity belt.

Christopher’s teeth ground against the short metal tube, helpless to bite or form the shapes of words.

There really was only one remaining thing his mouth could do.

“Present your tongue,” Elizabeth ordered.

Christopher stuck his tongue out through the tube of the gag.

There was one tool left in the bag: a velvet pouch full of condoms.

Elizabeth hung the pouch from a branch and selected one from inside. It was made from a narrow length of cured sheep intestine, and took some patient stretching to slide all the way onto Christopher’s tongue.

Elizabeth eased a finger in on each side of the gag’s opening to make sure the condom was all the way in place.

“If you can learn your lesson, your true lady might allow you touch and taste while using your tongue this way,” she reminded him, in compliance with the code. “But for now, your purity remains the priority.”

Elizabeth’s hands hesitated a moment on the way to her leggings. When she had read the punishment Christopher was due for, she’d thought she was prepared, but it felt a bit different, standing out here in the courtyard, where anyone might wander through, and a crowd was due to gather at any moment.

She had engaged in a sort of public intimacy in her claiming ceremony with Gabriel, but that had required no real exposure on her part. She couldn’t be entirely sure how her body would react to these unfamiliar conditions.

There was no point thinking about it too much. Christopher wasn’t about to abandon the Heartgarden, and nor was Elizabeth. And within the garden’s code, taking the first turn retraining his mouth was an essential part of the duty she’d accepted as his disciplinarian in this matter.

She pulled up the front of her tunic and opened the flaps of fabric.

Christopher had retracted his tongue for a brief respite once the condom was in place, but he hurriedly presented it again now, flicking it back and forth, as if to limber it up.

Elizabeth grabbed him by the wavy brown wisps that had escaped his braid, raised her right leg to rest against one of the low knots on the tree trunk, and pressed her cunt to his confined, virgin mouth.

Christopher licked faithfully. The condom didn’t feel quite like the spongy texture of tastebuds, but the outside was slick with his saliva and pleasantly smooth against her folds.

Any doubts Elizabeth had harbored about her ability to take the satisfaction he was required to give her dissolved within seconds.

His immobility made his tongue useable to her in a different way than she was used to from her few courtly affairs. She could put it right where she wanted it, and thrust right up against it or retreat almost out of reach to adjust the pressure as she pleased.

After learning how venomous Christopher’s sweetness could suddenly become, there was also a certain delicious relief in knowing that he wouldn’t be able to spoil the moment by speaking.

“Ah, good,” Jane’s voice entered the courtyard behind Elizabeth. “This is underway.”

A handful of ladies strolled in behind her and settled into the little garden tables to wait in comfort and shade, while more aspirants waited near the edges to freshen drinks or join conversations when invited.

Elizabeth gripped the bark of the tree with her free hand, relieved to find that the responses of her body did not even pause at the crowd’s presence.

Unafraid of the observations or judgments of the higher, nobler ladies, she proceeded with her enjoyable chore. After all, the other ladies would soon be displaying their own carnal natures without a second thought for what Elizabeth might think.

She dragged her clit back and forth over Christopher’s insulated muscle a few more times and then brought it up to rub against the metal covering his upper lip, which was now warm with his breath. In this position, she could press her opening right to the opening of the gag.

Christopher obligingly plunged his tongue as deep as he could reach.

“How is he doing?” Jane asked, approaching to within a few feet of the tree.

“It would be difficult to ask him just now,” said Elizabeth. “But he’s been meek as a mouse since the gag went in.”

“Tongue still incessantly wagging?”

“Less so now,” said Elizabeth.

Christopher’s tongue was twitching inside her, lacking the substance of a finger, let alone a smooth, clean cock, but still offering tickling reminders of its aliveness.

“Well, that’s to be expected,” said Jane. “But don’t let him grow lazy.”

She ran the end of her riding crop along Christopher’s cheek, while Elizabeth steadily pleasured herself with his gag and tongue.

“Don’t rest,” Jane warned him. “Accept the strain. Accept this rare opportunity to redeem a part of your body you chose to sully with ungentlemanly behavior. Such a feat cannot be achieved painlessly.”

Christopher’s tongue ceased most of its unfocused twitches and hardened to a stationary pillar of resolve.

Elizabeth ground against it at her own pace, stirring her muscles to their own point of twitching excitability.

“You do have a fondness for unruly mouths, don’t you, Sir Elizabeth?” Jane observed, as Elizabeth sighed with building pleasure. “You know, I could have another correction gag made, for you to take with you when you leave here. If keep your present choice of consort, I’m sure you’ll have no shortage of use for it.”

“Gabriel’s tongue may have some charmingly rough edges,” Elizabeth acknowledged, “but none vile enough to require the same regimen of polishing as this one.” She thrust herself as far down onto Christopher’s tongue as the gag allowed. “Frankly, I don’t know how you could certify this one with such severe hidden gaps in his training.”

“Yes, well.” Jane pursed her lips. “We certainly value your feedback and assistance. The Heartgarden is in a state of perpetual improvement.”

“My pleasure,” said Elizabeth.

“But charming or not,” Jane mused, “I suspect you’d enjoy gagging Gabriel from time to time. You could always pretend his mouth belongs to someone else, someone you’d rather shut up, but will never be able to.”

Elizabeth turned her head to smile at Jane, shifting to put Christopher’s tongue back to work on her clit.

If Jane thought her jabbering was making this more difficult for Elizabeth, she was mistaken. If anything, righteously correcting one of Jane’s precious Heartgarden graduates in front of her, the ones she took such pride in ensuring were fit only for the highest nobles, and certainly not for a knight such as Elizabeth, held as much thrill as the act itself.

Her legs trembled under her, as all the muscles of her lower body flexed in anticipation. Each of her breaths became a grunt of approval, informing Christopher of his progress.

When the climax finally came upon her, she gripped his hair tighter, holding him steady, warning him not to dare retracting his tongue until she was quite finished with him.

Panting, she let go, and stayed leaning against the tree. The other ladies could wait a few more seconds for her to catch her breath. Christopher wasn’t going anywhere.

“I’m sure he can always stand to learn something from it, anyway,” Jane went on, as if what Elizabeth had just done were no more consequential than scratching an itch. Nothing to stop a conversation over.

Elizabeth’s head was floating with clouds, and it took her a moment to piece together which “he” Jane was referring to.

“Where is Gabriel, by the way?” Jane asked innocently.

Faint annoyance crept up Elizabeth’s spine. It was none of Jane’s business to piece together why Gabriel was not at her side, and use it as fuel for her smirks.

“This sort of display was too much for his sensibilities this morning,” Elizabeth answered honestly, re-fastening her leggings. “You know how gentlemen can be.”

As Elizabeth stepped away from the tree, Lady Mary pushed her way past a few others, to be the first to pull a fresh condom from the pouch.

She switched them out roughly, drawing a gagging sound from Christopher when she pushed the new one into place. As soon as this was done, Mary turned around, pulled her leggings down to her knees, and splayed her ass gleefully for his tongue.

“Don’t you hesitate now,” she warned him. “It’s not as if your mouth can get any dirtier.”

“Do you recall what it was he said?” Elizabeth asked Mary, keeping the taunting in her voice as mild as could be. “Perhaps you could explain again what was wrong about it. If only so he won’t forget.”

Mary shot Elizabeth a furious glance, and then proceeded to ignore her utterly, plunging her hand down the front of her leggings to better enjoy Christopher’s tongue between her cheeks.

Elizabeth chose a seat at one of the garden tables, dismissing the persistent feeling that she ought to make herself scarce before the higher ladies.

She waved politely but firmly to summon one of the aspirants.

“Would you kindly fetch my trial consort for me?” she asked the young man, who she was fairly sure was named James. “I believe he’s rested long enough to return to some light social life. Have him bring a nice picnic basket.”

#

Gabriel arrived still out of sorts, but he did arrive, carrying the requested basket.

He set it down by dropping it from an inch above the ground, and then curtseyed deeply, with a hard, grudging smile.

When he rose, he stole a glance at Christopher, now in use by Lady Vera, and then ever so briefly at the hem of Elizabeth’s tunic, as if he might catch the wrinkles of it having been recently pulled up.

“Lay out the blanket here,” Elizabeth directed, pointing to a patch of grass just to Christopher’s left side, where it would be easy for him to see them, even with his head pulled back and the ongoing queue of ladies blocking his view from the front.

Gabriel took the blanket from on top of the basket and flapped it with a little extra violence in the wind, before spreading it out perfectly on the indicated spot.

“Sit with me,” said Elizabeth, settling herself onto the blanket.

Gabriel knelt on the other side of the basket, near the blanket’s edge.

“I know your mouth has been feeling neglected,” said Elizabeth, opening the flaps of the basket to check what she had to work with inside. “I wanted to remind you of some of the perks of your current situation.”

Strawberries. Perfect.

The Heartgarden’s regimen of discipline, while certainly thorough and strict, lacked a certain humanity, in Elizabeth’s estimation. The aspirants knew well what would happen if they misbehaved, but where was the encouragement for doing well?

Elizabeth selected one of the strawberries and held it out by the leaves.

“May I feed you, my dear?” she asked more gently.

Relenting slowly, by stages, Gabriel softened his posture and inched closer on the blanket, bringing his sweet, soft mouth within reach.

Elizabeth ran the tip of the berry along his lower lip. Gabriel raised his eyes to hers and licked the tip gently, taking what opportunity he could to advertise his skills, before opening to accept the treat.

Christopher sighed with envy in the background, as Vera delighted in pinching his encased tongue punishingly hard between her fingers, before setting it back to work between her legs.

“You’re not the most submissive or perfect aspirant in the Heartgarden, are you?” Elizabeth prompted Gabriel, choosing another berry.

“I doubt anyone would argue that I am,” Gabriel acknowledged, and crouched forward on all fours to bite the berry a little more savagely.

“Yet you always seem to manage basic decency. And that’s all it took for you to be sitting here, instead of there.”

“Yes, my lady,” Gabriel agreed, rolling onto his back, resting his head on Elizabeth’s leg, and waiting happily for the next bite.

#

Christopher’s correction lasted late into the evening. Elizabeth was required to check in frequently, to walk him to the privy by his chains or help him swallow small sips of water with his mouth still propped open, but she was able to get away long enough to take Gabriel to the evening play as a guest, and then chat at length over a roast chicken about how the titular Patrick had been tamed.

Gabriel felt it had happened too cruelly, yet too easily at the same time.

At nine-thirty in the evening, they both returned to the east courtyard, with a new kit sack ready for the final step. Per Elizabeth’s request, Daisy was already there to meet them.

Christopher was resting heavily against his neck manacle, surrounded by discarded condoms. The pouch hanging from the branch looked much lighter than it had in the morning. By now, Elizabeth was probably the only lady in the castle who had used him only once.

Jane had returned to the courtyard and was looking at her pocket watch when Elizabeth and Gabriel arrived.

At a nod from Jane, Elizabeth directed Gabriel and Daisy to move one of the garden tables closer to the tree in preparation.

Elizabeth opened the sack, set a steel tray on the table, laid out the tools, and poured a layer of alcohol over them.

“Daisy, would you like to collect his apology?” she asked.

Daisy glanced hesitantly at Jane, who nodded again, and approached the tree.

“Where would you like him to kiss you to make it up?” Elizabeth asked. “Somewhere accessible, obviously.”

Chaste and bound by the same dress code as any other aspirant, Daisy could not take pleasure from Christopher the way the ladies had, but that still left a few options for reclaiming her dignity from him.

Daisy chose one of the kindest, extending her hand like her majesty accepting a kiss of tribute.

Christopher ran his bare tongue unhesitatingly up and down her knuckles.

Daisy giggled in that curiously soft, masculine way she had, squeezing her knees together as if tickled. The slit between her closed fingers and the slit locked away between her legs had a resemblance that was difficult to ignore, knowing what Christopher’s tongue had been doing all day. Daisy was probably tingling with imaginings of what it would be like to swap one for the other.

“Not so bad, is it?” Elizabeth asked Christopher. “Being civil to a woman with hands as soft as yours? It doesn’t hurt.”

Christopher did not attempt to answer through the gag, only continued licking. There was no reproach in his tired eyes. After the day he’d had, this was nothing.

“And you? How does his tongue feel?” she asked Daisy.

“Harmless, my lady,” Daisy answered with another giggle. “Smoother than I thought.”

“Let go so he can feel it against the roof of his mouth,” Elizabeth directed.

Daisy complied and took a step back.

“It will never be quite that smooth again,” mused Elizabeth.

After giving Christopher a moment to feel his own tongue and think on that fact, Elizabeth picked up the small pair of wire tongs, clicked them once, and reached into his locked open mouth.

Gently, she pulled his tongue back into the light one more time and adjusted the placement of the tongs, so that the holes in the centers of its two wire grips were in the exact middle of the muscle.

“Cleanse it, please,” she asked Gabriel.

Gabriel smiled with private satisfaction as he splashed both sides of Christopher’s tongue with salt water to discourage any agents of rot that might be lying in wait there.

“Daisy, I think you deserve the honors.”

“What do I do, my lady?” Daisy asked nervously.

“Use the hollow needle,” Elizabeth pointed. “Press it straight down through the grips of the tongs. Don’t drift to the side, and don’t hesitate.”

Daisy picked up the needle and lined it up with the hole in the upper grip, just touching Christopher’s tongue, waiting for a final go-ahead.

Elizabeth paused, brushing stray locks of hair behind Christopher’s ears.

“Don’t you wish you had been a better gentleman in the first place?”

With his eyes on Daisy, momentarily focused by fear, Christopher made a sound that might have been an attempted word.

Elizabeth nodded, and Daisy shoved the needle decisively through.

Christopher winced, squeaking slightly in the back of his throat and squeezing his eyes shut, causing a couple of anticipatory tears to slip down onto his cheeks.

Almost as quickly, however, he opened his eyes again in surprise at the mildness of the pain.

In three quick motions, Elizabeth slid the piercing bar into the middle of the needle, withdrew the needle itself, and screwed the iridescent pearl bead onto the top end of the bar.

In truth, she was as surprised as Christopher by how easy it had been.

“Oh, isn’t that lovely?” she sighed with genuine admiration for the shy little glitter of jewelry peeking out from his mouth. She squeezed Daisy’s shoulders. “Just imagine how good that’s going to feel against a clit the next time he’s called upon for service.”

Daisy smiled politely.

“Oh, I know it won’t be your clit,” said Elizabeth, “but you’ll get to be part of the reason. And if a lady chooses him permanently, so she can do away with all the barriers between her and that pretty pearl? That would almost be worth putting up with the rest of his mouth.” She patted Christopher’s cheek. “Pity it’ll be eight whole weeks before he can have any contact there at all.”

Circling around to the other side of the tree, Elizabeth unlatched Christopher’s chain and pulled it free of his manacles. They fell open, allowing him to stand again for the first time since morning. He stretched his back with several grateful, thunderous cracks.

Next, she removed the key to Christopher’s gag from her necklace. Aware of Gabriel’s suddenly sharp attention upon her, she refastened the necklace itself, making quite certain that Gabriel’s chastity key was still there, hanging down under her tunic.

Christopher groaned slightly as she removed the metal from his sore jaws, but he had no urgent first words waiting. He simply stood rubbing his cheeks, delighting in his ability to shut his mouth, curiously playing with its new metal addition.

“Daisy, please walk him back to the aspirant private chambers so that he can rest and make himself presentable for tomorrow.”

“Of course, my lady.”

Elizabeth gathered the chains and gag to return to the trainers for sorting.

“Gabriel,” Elizabeth stopped her trial consort before he could follow her. “Wait for me in my chamber.”

#

Gabriel chose the safest possible interpretation of Elizabeth’s instructions and waited in the middle of the chamber, fully dressed and standing in his heels, presuming nothing.

“You still have permission to speak,” Elizabeth confirmed when she entered.

“I want to thank you, my lady,” he started. “For the picnic. And the rest of the day. For being so understanding with me.”

“Don’t thank me for that yet,” Elizabeth advised. “But feel free to continue describing what you needed understanding for.”

Gabriel winced, realizing that his worst imagined version of this conversation was likely to be the real one.

“I was jealous,” he admitted, wringing his hands against his stomach and looking to the floor.

“You were jealous,” said Elizabeth. “Of the very idea of another man’s tongue on my cunt before yours. Even in the course of the standard Heartgarden discipline you and your fellow aspirants all agreed to.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Did you imagine I had never had a man before coming here?”

“No, my lady,” said Gabriel. “But it was different, to imagine him—”

“So you decided to use that jealousy,” said Elizabeth, “and all the passive gentlemanly tactics at your disposal, to try to make my day as miserable and full of uncertainty as your own.”

Gabriel sighed. “Yes, my lady. It was unworthy.”

“How long have we known each other?”

“A week, my lady.”

“A week,” Elizabeth emphasized. “A week ago, you begged me to take you, a near stranger, as my trial consort. To sacrifice my openness to all other trial bonds, in order to protect you from ill-use. Have I failed to do that?”

“No, my lady.”

“And did I promise you anything more than that?”

Gabriel’s voice caught slightly as he answered, “No, my lady.”

“You said you wanted me to find a way to treat you as both peer and property, to satisfy your contradictory needs. Which of those modes do you think I should use to handle this?”

Gabriel thought about this for a while before answering, “I have not behaved like a peer to you in this matter.”

“I agree,” said Elizabeth.

“Are you going to punish me for tactlessness?” Gabriel asked. “For suggesting that you were in the wrong for participating in your duties at the garden?”

“What, and give your mouth the fucking you’ve been pining for?” Elizabeth laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re going to have to wait longer now for a chance to impress me with your tongue. Besides, your infraction would be better classified as selfishness. You expressed displeasure, dissatisfaction, and desire, which I would usually excuse, but in this case, you deliberately displeased your lady in the process.”

“I don’t deny it,” said Gabriel, shrugging at his failed gambit. “What does the code prescribe for that?”

Elizabeth made a show of sitting on the bed, pulling the book from her satchel, and consulting the disciplinary notes.

It was difficult to keep her eyes on the pages, with Gabriel standing so nearby, looking so contrite and awaiting his fate.

Following her instincts, Elizabeth put the book aside.

“To hell with what it says. Would you consider yourself treated unfairly if I bent you over my knee?”

Gabriel eyed her lap, seated as she was on the edge of the bed, and the glimmer she had been missing for so much of the day crept back to his eyes. “Not at all, my lady.”

“Get on with it, then,” Elizabeth directed, suppressing a smile.

Gabriel arranged himself across her knees, as relaxed and trusting as if he planned to fall asleep that way.

Slowly, luxuriously, Elizabeth lifted up the many silk, satin, and linen layers of his dress, petticoats, and chemise. She caressed his ass, pleasingly framed by the chains of his chastity belt, and drew sensitive goosebumps from the soft, bare skin.

In her own time, she raised her hand and slapped his right cheek, enjoying its charming jiggles.

Gabriel clenched only briefly and then sighed, wrapping his arms around her back in a tangled hug.

She slapped him again on the other side, and he responded the same, curling up even closer.

“You’d really like to be able to rub your cock against my leg while I do this, wouldn’t you?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yes, my lady,” Gabriel admitted, pressing the downward curving metal protrusion of his belt into the muscle of her thigh.

“You won’t get to.” She slapped him back on the right side. “Certainly not today. How do you feel about that?”

“It makes me want it more,” said Gabriel. “And oh, how I love wanting it.”

Elizabeth continued the spanking, picking up the pace.

“The next time you want more of my attention, what will you do?”

“Tell you, in private, where no one but you can hear me wishing out loud,” Gabriel answered.

“And when you only want to take my attention away from someone else?” Elizabeth asked. “What then?”

“I’ll remember that I’m yours, and you’re not mine. Yet.”

Elizabeth gave him his hardest slap yet for his audacity, but couldn’t help laughing at the same time.

“Yet?” she teased.

“I was wrong to hold you to a promise you hadn’t made, my lady,” Gabriel smiled coyly up at her. “But that doesn’t mean you could never be convinced to make it.”

***

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