Characters appearing or mentioned in this chapter:

Mary Watson – Mariana Maxia Veturius (wife to Junius, mother of his future child)

Molly Hooper – Mariana Tullia Hortensius (midwife and reluctant guardian to her troublesome younger brother)

Molly's troublesome younger brother – Marcus Aegyptius Hortensius

Irene Adler – Eirene Sylvia Aedinius (Mariana Tullia's half-sister & good friend, owner of a local brothel and invaluable dispenser of advice regarding…)

Sherlock Holmes – Sherlock (Briton, Roman slave, Mariana Tullia's eventual lover)

Warnings for sexual bondage including blindfolds, gags & manacles. And smexy stuff.

Part 10 - Vicit Scilicet, et Liberatam (Conquered and Freed)

Mariana's voice was sharp and cold, and Sherlock found himself obeying without consciously deciding to do so. He followed at her heels, his intestines knotted in a combination of unease and anticipation. Everything about her voice, her facial expression, the language writ into the lines of her body – it all told him that she'd settled on a manner in which to deal with his continued insolence and resentment…and he suspected a second whipping would not be a part of it.

What a pity, some part of his mind whispered, and he pictured her standing over him as she had in the courtyard, only this time it was just the two of them, exactly as he'd dreamed. Both of them naked, bodies gleaming with sweat, Mariana's sweet mouth caressing the welts she'd raised on his back…

"Take off your clothes."

Mariana's words brought him out of his reverie, and he stared at her blankly for a moment before finally reversing his actions of only a few minutes earlier; he undid his belt, dropping it to the floor before lifting his tunic over his head and doing the same. He felt his eyebrows raising; this wasn't what he'd anticipated, given her anger at him. The sexual attraction between the two of them had only been growing since their initial meeting, but he'd expected her to continue to deny it. After all, he was a slave and their relationship therefore forbidden, at least by law. And although Mariana (Molly, his mind whispered the pet name he'd made up for her, my Molly…) was somewhat of a nonconformist in many ways, when it came to what she considered issues of morality, she'd always shown herself to be not only chaste but also a woman of quiet convictions.

Clearly he'd managed to upset those convictions with his continual defiance, his inexplicable need to provoke her even after she'd lost patience with him and had him whipped for insolence. He'd convinced himself that he'd acted that way only he'd been sold into slavery and hated the idea of belonging to anyone, much less a woman. Now, however, he was forced to acknowledge that it was entirely due to her. He was in her bedroom and she had ordered him to remove his clothing, which could only mean that both her patience with him and her obedience to the laws of morality had finally come to an end.

As he reached for his loincloth, however, she stopped him with a cool, firm hand on his wrist. "That's enough for now." Maintaining eye contact the entire time, she said, "Kneel with your hands behind your back." When he hesitated, her gaze turned steely and her voice even colder as she said, "NOW."

Why her commanding demeanor should set his heart to pounding he refused to contemplate as he complied with her orders. In all the time he'd known Molly (yes, he would call her that inside his own mind, he refused to entirely bend to the decrees of others, by the Gods!) she'd never been so in control, not with him. With others, yes, but with him there had always been a hesitance. As if she wasn't entirely sure of herself where he was concerned. He'd taken ruthless advantage of that hesitancy, but it appeared that phase of their relationship had come to an end.

She regarded him for a long moment, as if considering her next move, before stepping closer to the bed and lowering herself gracefully to one knee. Without removing her gaze from his, she reached beneath the carved wooden frame and pulled out a length of undyed fabric, plain cotton but finely woven. An unfinished belt, perhaps, or a strip eventually meant to be woven through her thick cinnamon tresses…

Further speculation was cut off as she stood back up and walked over to him, standing so close that he was forced to crane his neck in order to meet her eyes. A disconcerting sensation, since he was used to towering over others from his lanky height. She held the fabric taut in her hands and his eyes widened as he understood what she meant to do with it.

He tensed as she moved behind him, his eyes shutting automatically as she lowered the strip of fabric over his face. He felt her tying a firm knot at the back, but not so tight as to be painful. She even took the time to sweep his hair from beneath it, smoothing it with her fingers before moving away from him.

He strained to hear her movements, to give himself some sort of clue as to what she planned next, his heart hammering in his chest no matter how much he tried to slow it by taking deep, measured breaths. His blood rushing in his ears covered many of the softer sounds Mariana made, but he distinctly recognized the sound of chains rattling, and his hands clenched into fists behind his back as he considered tearing off the blindfold and bolting from the room.

"Stay where you are," she ordered him, as if reading his thoughts. More likely she read the set of his shoulders and saw the tight line of his mouth, deducing him exactly as he so often deduced others. Conversely this helped him to relax, to regain some control over his reactions; his breathing slowed and so did his heartbeat, allowing him to hear the rustling of the bedclothes as she arranged the chains…near the headboard, he thought, brow furrowing in concentration, the soft fabric covering his eyes shifting slightly with the movement. Then there was silence, although he could feel her gaze upon him, or thought he did.

Her approach was heralded by the soft whisper of her sandals on the floor and the scent of her perfume grazing his nose, which twitched in reaction to the scent. He considered pretending to sneeze, but her next movements once again froze him in place: with a soft sigh of fabric, he heard her removing her clothing and allowing it to fall to the floor. "Come with me," she said, and he rose unsteadily to his feet, off balance by the enforced blindness, or so he told himself.

She took his arm and led him slowly, carefully to her bed, pressing on his shoulders to indicate he should sit. He did so, his groin tightening at the sensation of her hands on his bare flesh, lying back against the mound of pillows, legs extended and hands by his side.

He had already started to raise his arms in anticipation of her next command, and stifled a smirk at the sound of her light gasp of surprise. Did she think he would fight her, humiliate himself further by forcing her to have him held down while she manacled his wrists? No one would say a word against her in this house; her slaves and servants were far too loyal to carry gossip to the market, even gossip as salacious as the fact that Mariana Tullia had taken a slave as a lover.

Her fingers tugging at his hair, forcing his head back so that his chin pointed toward the ceiling, told him that she'd seen that almost-smirk. "Don't move unless I tell you to. Am I clear?"

"Yes," he replied, sullenly refusing to use her title. If this was to be a battle of wills, he was determined to succeed in the one area where she could fault him least; he would obey her commands to the letter, but unless she forced him to, he refused to use her title.

Mariana released her grip on his hair (firm, the analytical part of his mind noted, but not painfully so) and he felt her leaning over him. He heard the rattle of chains and once again tensed; although part of him was screaming at him not to let her do this, panicking at the thought of what she could do to him once he was helpless, the rest of him only sighed and murmured yesssss.

While he fought his inner conflict, she lifted his wrists one at a time, crossing them over his head and closing the manacles around them. They were lined with something – leather, he thought, yes, he could smell it now – so that it wasn't simply bare metal on his skin.

Sherlock remained utterly still as she chained him to the headboard, but he couldn't stop his mouth from spewing out the deductions as soon as he made them, mostly because of that panicky part of his mind. "You've been thinking about doing this for a long time now. Not just taking my virginity," he curled his lip to show how much value he placed on that so-called 'commodity', "but how exactly you plan to do it. To demonstrate your control over me. No doubt your half-sister the lena coached you on the correct procedures to use when you visited her last, possibly to help one of her girls rid herself of an unwanted pregnancy."

As soon as he stopped speaking he felt Mariana's fingers on his head again, this time tugging the blindfold off so she could gaze down at him. He took in the sight of her nude form, automatically cataloging the size and shape of her breasts, the graceful curve of her waist, the sight of her body bare of any ornamentation at all, before forcing his sullen gaze back up to meet hers.

Instead of losing her temper, Mariana simply leaned back, holding the blindfold loosely in one hand. "I am not an abortionist, Sherlock. You should know me better by now." Her voice was quietly chastising and he felt a flash of shame; she was right, he did know better. His Molly (wait, when had she become 'his' anything, what was wrong with him?) was a healer, not a killer; he'd seen her mourning the deaths of the few infants and mothers who hadn't survived the birthing process over which she'd presided, and knew she felt each loss keenly. But it wasn't in him to apologize unless forced, and so he simply gritted his teeth and turned his head away, unable to face the disappointment in her eyes.

He heard her rising to her feet, but refused to turn his head to see what she was doing, instead relying on his hearing. He heard the sound of a basket being pulled from beneath the bed, the rustle of fabric – was she returning the blindfold to its holding place? No, he concluded as he felt the bed settle beneath her slight weight, she'd selected a second piece. Unable to contain his curiosity – and rising apprehension – he turned to face her again.

In spite of his mental commands to himself not to look below her neck, he couldn't stop himself; once again he found his eyes taking in the details of her nude form. She'd removed every stitch of clothing, leaving herself not even the modesty she'd allowed him.

A modesty he very much appreciated as his examination of her was causing a very primal stirring in his loins, to his dismay. He'd seen naked women before, more than once and a few times under very similar circumstances, where seduction was the goal, but never had his body betrayed him by reacting like that of any other man, except when she was involved. His cheeks flushed with heat and the tightening in his groin continued to plague him as he examined her.

Her legs were smooth, her pale body marked only by the tuft of dark hair at the juncture of torso and legs, covering her sex. He hips had a pleasing swell to them and her stomach looked touchably soft. Her breasts, as he'd already noted, were small but jutted proudly, her nipples a lighter pink surrounded by the darker aureoles and seeming disproportionately large juxtaposed against the small (yet perfectly shaped) globes that supported them.

His mouth watered at the sight, and he swallowed involuntarily, then tightened his lips in annoyance as he finally brought his gaze up to Mariana's face…and saw the quietly triumphant expression she wore. "The body is only transport for the mind," he snapped, lifting his chin in an attempt at a mocking challenge. "If you think I can't retain control over my own body…"

He fell silent as she showed him the two narrow strips of dark fabric she now held, the blindfold and a slighter narrower piece. Then, without speaking or reacting to his words, she once again knelt on the bed, moving with serene confidence to straddle his body while never touching it with her own. He swallowed again, hard, and waited with mingled anticipation and alarm for her to make the next move.

It wasn't long in coming. First she held up the narrower of the two strips of cloth, holding it against his lips, the intent obvious. He considered struggling, but contented himself with glaring at her while obediently cracking his mouth open enough for her to slip the silky fabric between his teeth. He even went so far as to raise his head to allow her to knot it, although it was uncomfortable returning to his original position and feeling it digging into the lower part of his head. Mariana then repeated the process with the larger strip of fabric, unknotting it and re-covering his eyes. Bound, blindfolded, and gagged, he was now utterly helpless to resist anything she wished to do to him.

So why, he wondered, did he feel a sudden lightening of his spirit, as if by binding him she'd somehow…set him free?

Then she started touching him, driving all other thoughts from his mind except how exquisitely gentle her fingertips felt as they started gliding across his abdomen. He'd never felt anything like this before in his life. Mariana's hands were small but strong, and he grunted involuntarily when she brushed them against the growing bulge beneath his loincloth. The blindfold meant he couldn't anticipate her movements, which was obviously exactly what she wanted. She was touching him everywhere, only occasionally gliding her hands across the fabric covering his prick and bollocks, and it was almost more than he could bear.

He still couldn't fathom how he'd allowed himself to be placed into this position, with only his senses of touch and scent to guide him since Mariana maintained the silence that had fallen over her since putting the blindfold and gag in place. No sight, no ability to speak, barely any sound; only the scent of incense and candle wax in the air, silence filling his ears, the touch of Mariana's hands on his body and the feel of his bonds as he involuntarily strained against them whenever her fingers found a particularly sensitive area. Yes, he'd pushed her again, but he couldn't help it; there was just something about her that destroyed his sense of self-preservation, and made him want to tear down that cool façade she seemed to feel was necessary for her to be taken seriously in her chosen roles. He ignored the internal voice that jibed it was exactly how he felt he had to present himself to the world…then listened to it when it added that perhaps this was her way of pushing him.

No, no 'perhaps' about it. That was exactly it. That sudden insight was like a bolt of lightning, but instead of giving him purely intellectual satisfaction, it was as if the lightning had struck him directly in the groin, jolting along every nerve ending until his entire body was lit up from within with a furious energy.

He was unable to control his physical reaction; his hips jutted upward and a strangled curse left his throat, robbed of clarity by the silken fabric between his lips. Mariana laughed, the first sound she'd made since gagging and blindfolding him…how long ago? His sense of time was usually accurate, but he had no idea if he'd been bound like this for mere minutes or an hour or even longer.

He felt the bed move; Mariana was crawling toward him, he could picture it clearly in his mind's eye, so clearly that he didn't flinch when he felt her hot breath on his ear as she whispered, "What is my title, slave?" Deft fingers undid the gag and he coughed a bit as the fabric was removed. There was more movement, then the sound of some sort of liquid being poured from one container to another. Mariana's hand on his neck encouraged him to raise his head, and he felt the edge of a clay mug against his lips. He sipped gratefully at the water, vaguely surprised that it wasn't wine. If the end-game of all this was to strip him of his virginity (his cock twitched at the mental vision he suddenly had of her naked form writhing against his), then surely it would be in her best interests to do everything she could to get him to cooperate.

He snorted internally at that thought. Right. As if he wasn't as eager to be inside her as she was to have him there. Their physical union had been a foregone conclusion from the moment she purchased him, every clash and feint between them leading inevitably to this time and place. He saw now what he should have seen from the beginning, when she'd looked at him with such hunger in the slave market. Mariana Maxia and Eirene, he thought with a burst of wry humor, had turned out to be right after all.

He dismissed them from his mind with ease, his thoughts turning once again to the woman kneeling by his side. He shouldn't welcome what she was doing, shouldn't want to let her take him like this, but knew he would be lying if he said he wouldn't be disappointed if this was as far as she took things. The fact that she'd restrained him like this told him nothing new about her; she liked to be in control, and as a woman forging a life for herself within the restrictive patriarchal Roman Empire, he could understand that.

What he still didn't understand, not entirely, was why he wasn't fighting that control.

Apparently Mariana had grown impatient with his continued silence; he felt her fingers tugging at his hair, forcing his blindfolded face upwards as she repeated her question, her voice more demanding this time.

"Say it, Sherlock." Her fingers tightened painfully in his hair, while at the same time her other hand stroked his cheek as gently as if he were Marcus Aegyptus in need of comforting. "Say it, and mean it this time."

Saying the word she wanted to hear would be giving in. Putting himself willingly in her power. Was he ready for that step? After only a few seconds consideration, he took a deep breath and let it out in a soft sigh of capitulation, then whispered, "Domina." No sarcasm tinged his voice or his thoughts; there was no hesitation, no sneer on his mouth or resentment in the word.

He was rewarded by the feeling of her lips on his, a soft, sweet kiss that nevertheless acted like oil on a raging fire, inflaming his already-sensitized nerves, hardening his cock to almost painful stiffness. He let out a groan as she eased her grip on his head, lowering it to the pillow. Then he felt her moving, the touch of her naked thighs against his as her hands drifted down his chest, nails grazing his nipples, which tightened in response.

Now that his mouth was unrestrained, he found no need for words, his weapon of choice. No, the war between them was over, with victory declared on both sides. Instead, he offered her soft sighs and groans as she continued to explore his body, a gasp of encouragement as he felt her hands slide down his abdomen and tug at the knots holding the loincloth in place. When she removed the garment, it was an incredible sensation, like none he'd ever felt before, the cool air against his overheated flesh, his cock freed from its prison of sweat-dampened fabric to bob above his stomach.

This time when she brushed her palm against his bollocks there was nothing between his flesh and hers, and as she grasped his length in her small but strong hands, he found himself once again gasping out the title she'd demanded of him, the one she'd more than earned. A title that had nothing to do with the legalities of ownership, or the circumstances of his enslavement.

"Domina."

Then she lowered her head and took him in her sweet, warm mouth, and he came completely undone. This was utterly unlike those few occasions when he'd pleasured himself with his hands, the times when his body's demands became too strong to resist; he lacked the sense of shame he normally felt at giving in to such base needs. With a strangled shout he tried to warn her away, but she ignored him, continuing to move her head up and down, swallowing down as much of his length as she could manage until he shouted again, his entire body straining as his ejaculate spurted into her mouth. He felt her throat moving, and realized with a sense of wonder that she was swallowing down his emissions, her tongue continuing to stroke his shaft as his mind went completely blank with pleasure.

He simply lay there, panting, body covered in a light sheen of sweat as Mariana moved off the bed. He heard the rustle of clothing again and realized with a feeling of disbelief that she was preparing to dress herself. "Domina?" he asked tentatively, moving his still-blindfolded head in her general direction. "Are we…finished?"

It was an awkward question to ask, but he honestly had no idea what to expect now. He heard her approaching the bed again and felt her hands at his wrists, releasing his manacles. Once freed, he immediately sat up and removed the blindfold, blinking a bit as his eyes adjusted the dim lighting.

Mariana was sitting on the bed, legs curled up beneath her and sipping from a cup of wine. She held his gaze steadily as she finished her drink, then set the cup down on the table and stood up, bending gracefully to pick up her discarded clothing. "For now," she said, then turned and left the bedchamber, closing the door to her private dressing room behind her.