The mighty 4!
My honourable friends,
our fourth prompt post!
That's right, number FOUR.
Like the nucleobases, the fundamental forces of physics and the horsemen of the apocalypse.
Like the number of seasons, the number of letters in most swear words and the number of boxes each tetris shape is made of.
In this spirit, here are four things to keep in mind:
1) The ( Read more... )
our fourth prompt post!
That's right, number FOUR.
Like the nucleobases, the fundamental forces of physics and the horsemen of the apocalypse.
Like the number of seasons, the number of letters in most swear words and the number of boxes each tetris shape is made of.
In this spirit, here are four things to keep in mind:
1) The ( Read more... )
I have this sort-of half-written, but I'm a bit stuck, so I reckoned that if I posted up the beginnings of what I've got it might help get me past the block.
Slavers' Gift
“Prime Minister, this way” - “Mr Cameron, how do you feel - ” - “Just one more, Prime Minister!”
The big black door swung shut on the flashing cameras and hubbub of reporters and David Cameron dropped his hand and his affable ‘Meet the public’ smile with a sigh of relief, only to break into a much more relaxed grin as the group of people gathered in the foyer of No. 10 Downing St. burst into spontaneous applause.
As he began to work his way towards the stairs the clustered aides and staff continued to congratulate him, the bravest clapping him on the shoulder, the rest offering a more restrained handshake or a nod and a smile, and he acknowledged them all with careful courtesy, noting names and faces for future reference and pushing his relief and sheer, disbelieving delight to the back of his mind. He was Prime Minister of Great Britain. He’d made it - with a little help from a rival party, admittedly, but he’d closed the deal. He was the one who’d made it work, he’d persuaded his party that they could work with the Liberals -
“Dave.”
Andy Coulson’s quiet voice was pitched to reach his ears only, and Dave turned to face his press chief, a thrill of apprehension suddenly dampening his euphoria.
“We have a problem.”
Coulson raised his voice a little for the benefit of those still within earshot.
“Allow me to show you to your main office, Prime Minister. There are many messages and of course gifts for you to see, and Steve Hilton asked me to inform you that the President of the Confederate States of America will be telephoning to congratulate you very shortly.”
As the crowd fell back Coulson ushered Cameron up the stairs towards the suite of rooms which included the Prime Minister’s Office, waving away the aides who occasionally tried to approach them.
“What’s this problem?” muttered Dave, carefully quiet.
Moving ahead of him to open the door, Coulson said grimly, “You’ll see.”
He gestured at the outer office, where two junior Conservative aides were opening piles of envelopes and sorting the contents - cards and messages of congratulations and goodwill - into stacks ready for answering. Piled by the table, ready for unwrapping later, were glittering, lavishly-wrapped parcels and bundles, as well as the odd bouquet of flowers, and Cameron shook his head in disbelief at it all. He’d always been vaguely aware of the old tradition of gifting a brand new Prime Minister with a small token of esteem, but he’d had no idea that so many guilds and businesses followed the custom - nor that such gifts could be so extravagant. Given the parlous state of the country’s finances, he couldn’t help wondering where all these organisations, businesses and trade guilds had found the funds.
“Good heavens, it looks like a wedding reception in here!”
“Well, the PM is supposed to be married to the country. Perhaps it’s just as well you’re single, or there’d be twice as many,” Coulson pointed out, his gaze skipping over the richly-wrapped boxes. “That’s not what I wanted you to see, though. In here.”
He gestured at the door to the inner sanctum of the PM’s private office, adding to the nearest aide, “Where did you put him? In there?”
The man nodded. “I thought it best, sir,” he said. “Pending a decision on what to do with him.”
Him? thought Dave. What the devil -
Then Andy opened the door and waved him through into the large, comfortable room beyond, and he understood.
Kneeling in front of the empty desk, hands resting correctly on thighs and neat red-brown head bowed, was a man dressed in the thin trousers and short-sleeved shirt that was the standard livery for a slave.And not just any slave, either, Dave realized through his slow-growing anger, recognising the colourful design tattooed on the left forearm - a bed slave.
Someone had gifted the Prime Minister with a bed slave.
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“The Slavers’ Guild, of course,” Coulson shot back, closing the door carefully behind him. “The new PM is always gifted with a slave after an election! Didn’t you know?”
“Yes, but it’s usually a cook or a valet, something like that. Not a - not a whore!” snapped Cameron. He glared at the motionless figure in front of him and thought he saw a minute tremor run through the thin body.
Stop it, Dave, the voice of his conscience told him. The poor bugger’s terrified - look at him. It’s hardly his fault, you mustn’t take it out on him -
But he stayed furious, with himself as much as anything. How could he have forgotten the Slavers’ Gift? Politically this could be disastrous for the new Coalition. Cameron led the party which supported the old traditions and the old ways, yes, but as PM he was now allied with the party which had made the abolition of slavery the central tenet of their policies for at least the last forty years, if not longer…
“Manumit him,” he decided abruptly. “That’s what Blair did with his Slavers’ Gift, and Smith before him.”
Coulson snorted.
“I only wish you could. But you’re a Tory, Dave, remember? The Slavers’ Guild is one of the party’s biggest donors - you can’t afford to piss them off! Besides, this is a bed slave. You can’t just manumit a bed slave like you can a nanny or a driver!”
No. Of course you couldn’t. Bed slaves were carefully trained and conditioned over many months, sometimes years, to service their users, and it took months to de-condition them. It was why they were so rare, and so expensive…
Which wasn’t to say that it couldn’t be done.
“If I keep him,” the Prime Minister pointed out, “The Liberals will scream blue murder. And I can’t say I’d blame them either,” he added. “We’ve just spent nearly a week thrashing out a coalition agreement in which they’ve already had to compromise part of their manifesto. How is the fact that the PM owns a slave - not just any slave, but a bed slave, the most highly-trained and least -” he waved a hand frustratedly around, trying to find a word to fit, “ - least… manumit-able type of slave there is… How is that going to go down with their MPs?
“Or with the country? Not forgetting your mates in the media, they’ll have a ball with this!”
He took a deep breath and let it out, consciously reaching for calm.
“Right, Andy. You’re my chief of communications - time to earn your pay. Call Gabby and Steve and get them in here, as quickly as you can. The Liberals will be here very soon and we’ve got to decide what we’re going to do before they arrive. Once we’ve got that far, ,i>you can figure out a way to sell it to them.”
Coulson nodded and pulled out his BlackBerry, his eyes already intent as he began to work on the problem even as he texted the two other members of Cameron’s inner circle of advisers. Leaving him to it, Dave decided to learn a little more about his latest acquisition and approached the kneeling slave.
“What’s your name, boy?”
The slave knelt up a little straighter at being addressed.
“Nick, master.”
“Just Nick? Don’t you have a lineage name? And look at me,” Dave added, a little irritably, “It’s incredibly off-putting, trying to talk to a mop of hair.”
The slave raised his head a little but kept his eyes deferentially lowered as was proper. Nevertheless Dave could see that this... Nick possessed an oval face with an unexpectedly stubborn chin, open, youthful features and intelligent - if apprehensive - grey or blue eyes below a floppy, endearingly fluffy fringe of red-brown hair. More hair was visible at the collar of the light cotton shirt whose short sleeves showed the slave’s lean, muscled forearms to advantage, and suddenly Dave found himself thinking that the Slavers’ Guild had certainly done their research. If Cameron had, for some unimaginable reason, ever decided to buy himself a bed slave, these were precisely the looks that he’d have gone for. Even the age was right - close to his own. Christ, this slave could have been deliberately designed to suit one David William Donald Cameron…
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Still watching him sidelong, the fear fading into a slave’s usual wariness, Nick sat back on his heels and came to his feet, staggering a little as stiffened muscles refused to work smoothly. Dave moved back a little, an odd sensation running through him as the other man straightened to his full height. Why, he was tall! Close to Cameron in height, but lightly-built, lean - not a lot of weight to him…
Strong hands, though, Dave noticed, that odd feeling getting stronger, and he found himself swallowing as his mind, purely of its own volition, began presenting him with pictures of what those attractive, blunt-fingered hands would feel like, and what they had been trained to do.
Abruptly he turned away, feeling the heat rise in his face. This was ridiculous! He was 41 years old and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, not some hormone-driven teenager desperate to fuck anything that moved!
“Come on, Andy,” he said abruptly, “How long before Gabby and Steve arrive? Kennedy and Laws - and their aides - are due to arrive in less than an hour!”
Coulson looked up from his BlackBerry and nodded at the door. “Steve’ll be here any minute - Gabby says ten. She’s already suggested one possible approach, and if you like it, I can think of two possible ways to sell it…”
Dave sat down on the big, overstuffed sofa, kicked back, and prepared to listen.
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I've got about 7000 words so far, so there's a bit more to come!
And I've just had an idea for the next bit, so posting's worked - at least a little!
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There are a few other differences which will come to light as we go through, but I don't want to give them away too early! :)
author anon.
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I'm looking forward to the next part already.
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