Bred by the Spartans (14 page)

Finally, when they were already on the road, Thaleia said, “My Spartans, you are very brave, but I think you must be afraid to say that which you are thinking about this prophecy, which is, I think, the very same thing that I am thinking.”

She watched the look pass between Leontes and Theoleon—the look that she had decided must mean that they wanted Thaleia for their own.

Leontes said, “Perhaps it is because our fortune seems too good to be true.”

“Yes,” Theoleon said.

“For it seems to be the answer to our desires,” Leontes finished. “And how sad we would be, if our interpretation should prove false.”

“But we must discuss it,” said Thaleia. She was desperate to bring them to discuss the part of the prophecy that, as she turned the words over in her mind, she knew that the curse of Eros would prevent her from talking about on her own—the part that was also making her wet with desire even now as she rode upon Leontes’ back.

Theoleon said, “Yes, that is true, sweet Thaleia.”

“It is your prophecy, Thaleia,” said Leontes. “Tell us what you think it means, and we will tell you whether we agree.”

Thaleia set her jaw in frustration. They would never discuss the most important part of the prophecy—at least as she saw it right now, quivering with desire—if she had to introduce the subject. She had heard that prophecies were difficult to interpret. Perhaps this was the special difficulty of this prophecy, that the most important part of it was something that Leontes and Theoleon would never bring up, and that Thaleia couldn’t bring up, because of the curse that the prophecy seemed to say it would solve.

Thaleia took a little comfort, though, in knowing that as a prophecy of Apollo, it would have to come true eventually. Her difficulty was that she wanted it to come true right away.

“Well,” she said, “it seems clear that I shall have a son named Monocrates.”

“And Monocrates will have a descendant someday,” said Theoleon.

“Who will save Greece,” said Leontes.

Thaleia waited in hope that Leontes would continue, and discuss the issue of where Monocrates would come from, but she waited in vain.

“And…” she finally continued. “Monocrates will be the son, somehow, of twin forces.”

“Yes,” said Leontes unhelpfully, “of twin forces.”

“And,” Thaleia asked, “who do you think those twin forces are?”

“Well,” said Leontes, “that is hard to say. The prophecy does not help with that matter.”

Thaleia made a little frustrated noise in her throat. “You cannot possibly be this stupid, can you, my Spartans?”

A different kind of look passed between Leontes and Theoleon. “You’ll have a spanking for that,” Leontes said.

“And a plugging,” contributed Theoleon.

Thaleia felt her wetness increase greatly at the idea that she would feel Spartan discipline again before too long. But as she must, because of the curse, she said, “Oh, please, no! I am sorry!”

“We will make you sorrier,” said Leontes, “before the day is done.”

Thaleia gave a little whimper at that both of fear at his stern tone, and of arousal at the thought.

What was she to do? She could not speak of them fathering her hero son, and it appeared she could not make them speak of it on their own, either.

“Punish me if you must,” she pleaded, into Leontes’ jogging back, “but please speak of these things that I may not speak of, for they are of the utmost significance to me!”

They exchanged the look—the good look. Then Leontes said, “It is only because we cannot believe our good fortune, sweet girl, I think, that we do not say what is in our minds.”

“Please, say it!” Thaleia wailed.

“Very well,” Leontes said. “In any case it appears that there is nothing to stop us from trying to fulfill the prophecy as we think it should be fulfilled.”

Thaleia felt the hope rise in her chest—the hope of the thing she had never yet dared truly hope for.

“We are going to take you home,” Theoleon said.

“To our little house in Sparta,” Leontes continued. “And after we punish you for calling us stupid, we are going to try to put Monocrates in your womb.”

She fought hard against the curse, and finally managed to say, “How?”

“I do not think we know, yet, exactly,” said Leontes. “But I cannot think that we will not take pleasure in trying to figure it out.”

Thaleia laughed at that. Though they had still not mentioned the part of the prophecy that she could not push from her mind, and that she could not bring up herself, she knew at least that her Spartans would keep her for a while.

“And afterward?” she asked. “If you make Monocrates inside me? Will you keep me in your house?”

“Do you want us to keep you in our house?” asked Theoleon, seriously.

Thaleia try to shout “Yes!”, but the curse only let her blush furiously at the question. To be kept as the plaything of these warriors was what she wanted most in the cosmos, but it was also something that she might not admit. Why, oh why couldn’t Theoleon and Leontes simply put her in their house and tell her that she must stay there?

Leontes came to the rescue. “Theoleon,” he said, “I am not sure that we have a choice. Can you imagine letting our sweet girl go?”

“No,” said Theoleon, “I cannot. But I love her, and I want her to be happy.”

“Did not the god say that Monocrates will break the curse?” asked Leontes. “Perhaps things will change after that, if we are the twin forces of the prophecy. And until then, we must keep her, or how could we bear to let her go?”

That night, in the house of a Spartan guest-friend near Argos, having smuggled her in covered again in the himation to avoid trouble from the curse, they punished her. Thaleia had to lie down on the sleeping couch, while first Leontes, and then Theoleon, beat her with their punishment strap.

First, though, when she had laid herself down, but before they started spanking her, Theoleon asked her solemnly, “Why are we going to punish you, Thaleia?”

“Because I called you stupid,” she said.

“And why was it wrong to call us stupid?” Leontes asked.

“Because it was disrespectful?” Thaleia asked in return.

“Indeed,” said Theoleon. Then the spanking began.

Theoleon began it, as he always seemed to do. The strap fell fast, and it fell hard. Thaleia was wailing at the very first blow, which seemed to hurt terribly with no hand spanking to prepare her. She felt that her Spartans were truly chastising her for the first time, and Theoleon’s wish to hurt her until she knew his power over her impressed itself upon her even more forcefully than it had the first time he had used the strap upon her.

At least it was over quickly, but then Leontes said, “Count for me, Thaleia,” and struck her across both her cheeks.

“One, sir!” Thaleia said, in anguish. Leontes truly did not strike as hard as Theoleon, but having him go second made the strapping more painful, because his lashes came down upon the blazingly painful marks his spear-brother had made.

Leontes struck again, in the same spot.

“Two, sir!” Thaleia screamed.

“Naughty girl,” said Leontes, dangling the strap so that it caressed Thaleia’s bottom in a way that made her whimper. “Will you try to be better for your guardians?”

“Yes, sir,” Thaleia sobbed. Leontes lashed her three times, as she gasped out the count. Then he began to rub her bottom in that humiliating way that always made Thaleia feel that she was receiving only her due for her naughtiness.

“So naughty,” Leontes murmured. “Tell me how naughty you are, Thaleia.”

“Oh… sir… I…”

Leontes struck, and struck again, and then again. “Tell me how naughty, girl.”

“Very naughty, sir,” she cried.

“So. Very. Naughty.” Leontes said, giving her a lash with each word. “How many is that, girl?”

“Eleven?” Thaleia said.

“Indeed,” she heard Theoleon say.

Leontes gave her one last stroke, and she sobbed, “Twelve, sir.”

After they had each given her twelve blows with their strap, they plugged her as she wailed in discomfort. They left her plugged while they went to get their meal.

Lying there bottom-up, Thaleia again felt that strange comfort that seemed to come from knowing that the punishment plug in her strapped backside had been bestowed on her by her protectors, who loved her. She resolved to be more respectful to them, though she had to confess to herself that she would hate to be so respectful that they never plugged her again.

When they returned with bread and cheese and olives, they removed Thaleia’s plug, and then they all ate together, sitting on the sleeping couch. Thaleia begged them to let her don her chiton, but they refused her request.

“It is the curse, you know,” said Leontes, apologetically. “I think you will be naked all the time in our house in Sparta.”

“Much nicer that way,” said Theoleon.

“Nicer for you,” Thaleia said. She giggled.

She hoped that when the meal was over, and it was time for the deeds of Eros once again, they would mention the part of the prophecy that never seemed to leave her mind. But nothing was said, beyond Leontes and Theoleon casting lots for who would be inside her grotto first.

Leontes won, and arranged her on the bed, on her side, lying behind her. Theoleon lay in front of her, and kissed her, and fondled her little breasts, while Leontes entered her from behind, holding her thigh up so that he could thrust into her moist grotto.

It was so close to her vision of the special part of the prophecy, that she felt that she could almost ask for them just to shift a bit and see if they could fulfill it, but Leontes shot his seed inside her, and then Theoleon changed places with him, and found his bliss inside her in the same way.

Then they had her lie on her back, and pull her knees up. They pulled her to the edge of the sleeping couch and stood there, looking down upon their broken goddess.

“Brother,” Leontes said, “are we not the luckiest men in the cosmos? We are Spartiate, and we have won, by the grace of the gods, the most lovely cunt the world has ever seen.”

“The seed runs down,” said Theoleon. Thaleia whimpered at that, wondering if she would be punished.

“Do not fear, sweet girl,” said Leontes. “We have given you more of our seed than any woman’s womb could hold.”

Thaleia felt their manly essence running out of her furrow and onto her bottom, and blushed deeply at the looks of intent arousal on her Spartans’ faces, as they saw it.

“Touch her, brother,” said Theoleon.

“Let us touch her together, and give her bliss such as she has never known,” said Leontes.

And so Thaleia’s Spartans lay down on either side of her each with one hand at her secret places, which they commanded her, under penalty of the strap, to keep holding open. Their other hands they used upon her breasts, and her lips, kissing those places, too.

Thaleia felt it was simply too much, and that her mortal frame could not bear it. Moaning, and gasping, and finally screaming, she tried to say, “I love you,” to each of them, but their lips and fingers took away that power, and she could only tell them with wordless signs of lewd abandon that she belonged to them, until at last she gave one great scream, and felt her whole body go rigid and then shudder on and on for a time she could not measure.

“Whose son will he be, I wonder,” said Leontes.

“He will be the son of both of us, twin forces,” Theoleon speculated.

They had given Thaleia so much pleasure that she could not be angry with them for dancing around the special part of the prophecy. There would be time, she thought, and many nights on which to do the deeds of Eros.

* * *

They reached Sparta at noon the next day.

As they had promised, they kept Thaleia naked—at least when she was in the women’s quarters. She was allowed a chiton when she was directing the female servants who had kept house for the spear-brothers until Thaleia’s arrival. Thaleia got on well with the servants from the beginning, and she learned quickly how to work with them to make Theoleon’s and Leontes’ life at home run smoothly: for food, there was only supper to see to, since they ate dinner with their mess in the town; the rest of Thaleia’s duties was to keep their chitons and himations well taken care of, and to make them new ones.

There was time, too, to make them special little presents like the matching pins with the face of Apollo on them that she was fashioning from bronze. Thaleia missed Argeia terribly, and wondered constantly whether Apollo had given her a hero. She tried to stay busy, but as the days and weeks passed, though, and they did the deeds of Eros with her and filled her with their seed again and again, Thaleia began to despair, and to wonder whether her Spartans even remembered what the words of the prophecy had been.

Then, after her month’s blood came and went, Leontes and Theoleon came in from training one day, to find her spinning wool in the women’s quarters, up the ladder stairs from the courtyard. They were carrying something large, covered in Leontes’ himation. They set whatever it was on the floor in front of her, then, with grave looks on their faces, they sat on the couch opposite her.

“What is it?” asked Thaleia eagerly.

Leontes looked at Theoleon. Theoleon swept the himation off the object.

It was a beautifully fashioned cradle, made of cornel wood. Thaleia felt her tears rising.

“Oh, my Spartans, thank you!” she cried, and got up from her couch and went to embrace them.

Theoleon looked at Leontes. Leontes said, “We made it as a symbol of our faith in the prophecy.”

“Indeed,” said Theoleon.

“I have never seen anything more beautiful,” said Thaleia, “unless it were your faces, men of Sparta.” Her heart felt full of joy; she knew, somehow, that the cradle meant that her protectors had puzzled it out.

And she was right, she heard without delay, for, “Sweet Thaleia,” said Leontes, “there is a part of the prophecy that we have not yet discussed, which Theoleon and I feel we must try to interpret.”

Thaleia felt a thrill of fear, of hope, and of joy, pass through her body. At the same time, knowing that they must mean what she hoped they meant, she felt her furrow instantly gush with wetness.