“And now the race is on! With both of you wed, we must see who can first produce a male heir that looks most like his grandsire!”
Both Baslik and his twin grinned broadly at their father and then glared at each other. It was like seeing mirror images of ugliness, ambition, and greed reflected in both beady sets of eyes, I thought. I tried to smile at my new sister-in-law, but she simply gave me a bland, blank look. Clearly there was to be no sisterly camaraderie between us.
After meeting my new in-laws, there was a towering cake and the expensive bubble wine from Seldon Four never stopped flowing. I drank more than my usual half glass, hoping to get tipsy enough not to mind what was to come. For I knew it was coming. During the drinking and feasting Le’rank leaned over to whisper in my ear that he knew how to make me glow and that he intended to get a child on me that very night.
The thought of those clammy hands on me, of enduring his wet, slimy kisses on my naked skin, made my flesh want to crawl clean off my body. But I simply smiled and sipped more bubble wine and nodded to my Nana who had been sniffling through the whole ceremony. She looked frailer than ever, seated as she was between my two burly uncles. They were already drunk and grabbing at the female servers who were passing among the crowd, handing around more drinks.
I should have been one of them—a server, I remember thinking. Anything rather than marrying a man who turned my stomach.
But I knew that was not really an option for me. A female of a high-born family had but two choices in my society—she could marry or she could prostitute herself at a house of Ill Repute. There were many such houses that proudly advertised high-born ladies amongst their stables. Only the finest would do for their royal and noble patrons.
I had been mere microns from ending up in such a place, I reminded myself. I should be grateful that Lord Le’rank had found my picture in my old school’s database and decided that none other than a rare Moonstone goddess would do for his wife.
Yet later that night, I had cause to think otherwise. When all the guests were gone and the music was stilled and the wine had stopped flowing, my new husband dragged me to the bridal suite and stripped me of my gown.
He wasn’t gentle—he ripped open the delicate lace panels, tearing them in the process as the pearl and diamond buttons popped off and skittered across the floor. He stripped me naked and when my beautiful gown lay in a ruined, crumbled heap at my feet, he walked around me, inspecting me as though I was something he had bought and paid for—which I supposed he had.
“Yes, yes—lovely. If a bit too curvy,” he remarked. “My brother’s wife is thinner but she had the face of a cow—and of course she cannot give him a son with his exact visage, as you can do for me, my dear. So I suppose I shall put up with you being overweight—for now.”
I said nothing—what could I say? My figure might be one of the reasons I had not found a husband until Baslik came looking for me. I was shaped like an overfull hourglass and curvy females were not in fashion at the time. But though I had tried to lose weight, my body remained stubbornly full-figured.
Even when Nana and I were living on near-starvation rations, I hadn’t dropped so much as a gram. So I only looked down at my feet and did my best to cover myself—no man had ever seen me naked before and I felt terribly vulnerable.
“Don’t hide yourself from me!” Baslik snapped, snatching at my arms and forcing me to show my breasts and sex. “Yes, very nice—though you’re fat, at least your breasts are full and firm. Do you know, my dear, that my people have a belief that the more roughly you breed a female the more likely the child you plant in her belly will be male?”
“I…I had not heard such, no,” I whispered, my voice quavering. “But my Lord, if you remember what my Nana told you—you have only to wait until my first glowing and then the child will almost certainly be male.”
“Ah yes—the first glowing. Let’s see if we can’t make that happen, shall we?”
He grabbed my full breasts roughly, filling his hands with them like a miser clutching handfuls of gold. “Your nipples are so large my dear—I think I know just how to make you glow.”
Releasing my breasts, he gripped both my pink points, which were tight with fear, and twisted them mercilessly until I cried out in pain.