A/N- I own nothing associated with The Handmaid's Tale either.
Excerpt from the Morning Instruction to the Factory Young Males.
There was a time when men ruled the world.
They were our leaders and our philosophers, our priests and our doctors.
They held every position of authority.
And they abused it.
They caused wars, famines, plagues and let diseases and horrors run rampant.
Which is why we, women, took it away from them.
After the Terrible Event befell our land, the Republic of Harmony was established by good, righteous women and, in time, when they were shown that they were repentant, men asked for the privilege to serve women, as they were born to do.
This is why workmen and spouses exist today.
To serve women.
Niklaus had known.
He had always known.
When he was ten years old, he would be taken away.
As Finn had been. As Elijah had been. As Kol would be and Henrik too, even though he was only a baby and had so many years left.
But it was the law.
At the age of ten, all male children were to be removed from their families and taken to the Factory, where they would be assigned into two categories.
Workmen- those who performed menial, hard-labour tasks, in factories and mines until they died at thirty- if they were lucky.
Or the spouses- those who performed for the women.
Niklaus had been told, even before the selection process that with his blonde hair and blue eyes, he was a shoo in to be a spouse.
And he was selected and told that he was lucky.
He would be raised in the Factory until he was eighteen, at which point he would be placed on the market, for purchase by women.
His job would be to please them; in any way they saw fit but especially sexually.
In return, he would have food and board and never have to work in the mines or factories.
He was lucky.
Every day when he was woken up at six and made to exercise with his peers before eating meals designed for nutrition and health rather than taste, when he spent hours undergoing 'education' and having his every waking moment monitored by the Trainers- harsh women who smacked him if they thought he was growing lazy- he was told he was lucky.
When he was sixteen, he was ordered to find an interest and found joy in art, he then had an extra three hours a day lost to 'hobby training' so that he would be even more appealing to the women who would own him.
At seventeen he underwent 'passion training', a woman named Genevieve came to his room every afternoon between cooking lessons and before hobby training, to teach him how to pleasure a woman.
He was told that if he was very skilled at passion, that he might even graduate from pleasure-spouse to brood spouse and then, if he developed a good reputation amongst the women, he might even become a life spouse!
A life spouse meant that he would spend seven years with the same woman, that he would be allowed to go outside without her permission and even, perhaps, be allowed to find out what had become of his family.
Except that he's not supposed to think of it that way.
He's supposed to think of the honour of being a life-spouse, of wearing the gold ring and being a role model to the other male concubines.
That glory is what he's supposed to fixate on when Genevieve dig her nails into his scalp and forces him to his knees.
He's so lucky already and has the chance to be even luckier!
He wants to die.
The house is cast into darkness and Niklaus likes it that way.
Nobody can see him in the darkness, easing his way down the hall, his red robe barely tied around him, his lips stained with her juices and his treacherous penis still erect.
'You can use the bathroom to take care of that' she had told him, before rolling over and falling asleep.
How generous of her.
He was expected to pleasure her any time she wished, in any way she wished, but he was supposed to be grateful that she'd let him finish in a bathroom instead of ignoring the issue completely.
Then again, at least she was kind, after all, for her nothing was off the table sexually or physically provided she was willing to pay for any permanent damage she did to him.
And instead she let him use the hallway bathroom, the same bathroom that the rest of the house would use instead of the tiny one in the male quarters.
How privileged he was.
He steps into the bathroom, the tiles cold against his feet and flicks on the light for only a second, long enough to see where the shower was and then throw the room back into darkness.
He doesn't want to run the risk of seeing himself like this.
Hot water is a luxury.
Not because he had ever been denied it, but because it's one of the only things he is allowed that hasn't been regulated past the point of finding any pleasure in the experience.
So he waits until the temperature is just short of unbearable and steps under the spray, bowing his head and feeling his muscles relax as the water scalds his skin.
The heat makes him light headed and it's only then that he can bare to touch himself. To put his hand on his penis and stroke himself to release.
His mind is blank as he masturbates.
He has nothing to fantasize about.
Except perhaps a freedom he will never know.
He can't shower for too long, otherwise he risks waking up the house and being punished for having done so. He allows himself five minutes before he steps out and takes a deep breath before turning on the bathroom light.
His haunted eyes stare back at him in reluctant wonder.
When was the last time he'd looked into a glass mirror?
The concubines were only allowed plexiglass in case they became suicidal.
He's scrubbed and scoured every last trace of her from his body but he swears that he can still see her fingerprints on his cheeks, his shoulders, his chest.
So he isn't clean.
He isn't dry either.
There are towels hanging on the heated racks but they're rose and lavender coloured, presumably neither are available for him.
He picks up his red robe gingerly and checks it for stains before wrapping it around himself and letting the silk soak up as much as the water as possible.
Flick.
The light is off and he's in merciful darkness once more.
His room is standard regulation concubine quarters.
Bed. Chest of drawers. Window that doesn't open. Chair and small table for eating meals.
White wallpaper. White carpet. White bedding.
His blood would make such a beautiful contrast.
There's a quiet scratching on his door and then a man slips into the room, reeking of sex and in a red robe that has a torn sleeve.
He shuts the door as quietly as possible before turning to face him, "Do you know me?" he asks breathlessly and Niklaus barely manages to nod,
"Big brother." He sighs and Elijah opens his arms and pulls him into a rib cracking hug,
"My brother, I've found you."
"Finn?" Niklaus asks curiously, struggling to breathe in his brother's embrace but relishing the struggle. Elijah shakes his head,
"He was removed from spouse training for being too obstinate and sent…to the mines."
He was dead then.
"Kol?" Niklaus tries again, before remembering that Kol was three years younger than him.
He wouldn't be out of training yet.
"What about…" he pulls away and his smile is like cracked glass, "I suppose she's well."
She, being his half-sister.
Rebekah.
Women had always pitied Esther her brood of sons. After she'd had two, she'd traded in her brood-spouse Mikael for Ansel- Niklaus' father- then when she'd had another son, she'd got rid of him in her frustration and gone back to Mikael, accepting that she was cursed in childbirth.
She had been so happy when she'd finally had a daughter.
A child who wouldn't be enslaved.
Rebekah had been beautiful and such a sweet baby, all her brothers had adored her and they'd played together until she had become old enough for kindergarten.
Three days before she was due to start, Esther had explained to her that she wasn't to play with her brothers anymore, that she was better than them and she could never forget that they were her inferiors.
It would have been an act of rebellion for her to love them or for them to love her.
So Niklaus had loved her with all his heart until the day he was sent away.
And he had seen the pain in Mikael's eyes when the Factory workers had come for him.
At thirty-nine, he was too old to continue being a brood-spouse and Esther had traded him in for a twenty-year old named Tristan.
It was the only time that Niklaus saw tears in Mikael's eyes but it had been enough for him to swear that he would never become a brood-spouse.
He would kill himself first.
He had already planned how he would do it.
He would jam a paintbrush into his neck and bleed out.
Better to die than to be used to procreate, to bring more women into the world to be slave-owners, or worse, a boy to be enslaved.
Elijah reluctantly releases him, "I can't stay long," he sighs, "Katherine will be needing me soon, but I wanted to tell you, this is a good house, I know Caroline, she's a kind woman so you must do whatever is necessary to stay as long as possible. And…we must both do whatever is necessary to stay as long as possible, together, Always and Forever."
Niklaus clapped his brother on the shoulder. They'd be lucky to spend a year together.
"Always and Forever." He lies, while stretching his lips into the bland, brainless smile he'd perfected for the trainers at the Factory.
A buzz stuns them both and they look down to their wristbands, Elijah's flashing green.
"I have to go," he draws himself up and fiddles with the torn sleeve of his robe, "I shall bring you breakfast in the morning…but…"
The wristband flashes again, three times in succession and his brother races from the room, moving swiftly but silently as concubines has been trained to do.
Only elephants were allowed to stomp.
Niklaus lifts his foot up and imagines bringing it down hard against the carpeted floor, or perhaps even jumping up into the air.
He would make a sound.
He would be heard.
And for one second, he would exist outside of this body that didn't even belong to him.
But he couldn't do that.
He would get in trouble.
He would be punished.
And worse still, he would be taken away from his brother.
So instead, he performs the only rebellion allowed to him.
He removes his robe, climbs into the bed, lies on his stomach, buries his face in the pillow,
And screams.
A/N- Yeah, this got pretty dark pretty damn quickly, but I never could stand the master-slave fanfics where everything was happy-go-lucky and angst free.
