A/N: needless to say that I don't own the characters from the Twilight saga; the magnificent Stephenie Meyer does. I'm glad you're still with me, dear readers, and I hope you'll stay tuned even after this chapter which, I must warn you, is a bit hard to swallow. But, hey, it's rated M for a reason... or many. Good reading and please, let me know what you think. I'm no Icy but I, too, appreciate your comments :-)

Chapter 25

Jasper Whitlock

JasperPOV

Volterra, June 1662

Today is a day I wish had never come. I must follow my father out of the city to attend the punishment of one of the slave workers who, apparently, doesn't put enough effort into his job, therefore upsetting the Volturi.

It's been a few weeks since I turned twelve, and my father spent the last two years telling me stories of slaves who are lazy, incompetent, and arrogant, when they are not trying to escape the domain outright. You see, my father's in charge of forty men who are held prisoners by the Volturi, forced to work in the fields without receiving a penny in return. He told me that when I reach twelve, he'd start my training so I can become his proud successor.

I hate my father with all my heart, and I loathe my life in the Volturi's palace. I've often wished my father had abandoned me at the orphanage when my mother died in childbirth, instead of being lugged around until we ended up here when he offered his service as a slave guardian to Aro. However, I was only a toddler at the time and I couldn't protest. Besides, we had been traveling all over France ever since I was born and my father was tired of this nomad life. Someone told him about those lands located between France and Italy which weren't part of any jurisdiction. That's how he came to Volterra to become the three Volturi brothers' employee. I was put under the watch and care of some of the castle's female slaves, namely the cooks and the washerwomen.

One of the main reasons why I hate my dad – aside from the fact that he earns a living beating the crap out of vulnerable men – is that because of the life I've lived until now, I received no education whatsoever… unless all that I know about sex counts as an education. With all the money he receives from the Volturi, my old man could easily have sent me to a boarding school where I could have learned a bunch of things and also how to socialize with people my own age. I don't have any friends in Volterra. Obviously the kids from the city know my father is the slaves' tormentor, and this fact is frightening enough to keep them from playing with me when I go out of the palace to explore the surroundings. But if they stopped and listened to my stories, they'd learn interesting and disturbing things…

Given my age, my "nannies" can't really watch my comings and goings. Therefore, I like to sneak around on the floor where the harem is located so I can get a chance to admire the beautiful captives the Volturi keep in the castle to satisfy all their sexual fancies. Yes, I'm only a kid, but I live in a place ruled by three utterly depraved men, and I know more about their dissolute way of life than is appropriate for a boy my age. And it's all thanks to my father who shouldn't have brought me here in the first place.

When I was strolling around a couple of months ago, I discovered a secret door accessing the slaves' spa room. Ever since I made this discovery, I spend a lot of time hiding behind a little wall in the great pool room* or behind a door in the sauna. I like to watch the girls swimming naked in the pool and trading confidences. I learned a great deal while doing so. Among the things I learned, one fact captured my attention the most: apparently one of the Volturi brothers got a sex slave pregnant a couple of years back, and she gave birth to twins in the greatest secrecy. I don't know what happened to that slave and her two preemies, but according to the other prisoners of the harem, it seems the young new mother couldn't tell for sure who the father was.

As for the sauna, it's appealing to me for another reason: indeed, I can witness two or even several women caressing each other, and it's a very entertaining demonstration. It awakens some mysterious sensations in my core. Yes, I must admit that the sight of women pleasuring each other mutually is quite arousing, even though I find it goes against nature. However, I understand perfectly that the captives want to take advantage of the sauna to enjoy themselves as much as possible. Let's face it: the Volturi's sex slaves are not treated very well by their masters, and they are only surrounded by eunuchs all day long. Now, I know what a eunuch is and I know they can satisfy a woman's needs like any other man, but it is my understanding that the ones employed by the Volturi are not really into it. Perhaps it's because Aro doesn't allow them to be in close contact with the slaves except for bathing time. All I know is that the slaves must be bored, and so they try to distract themselves by all means. If you wonder how I know that the women living in the harem are abused and mistreated by their masters on a daily basis, it's because I have yet to reveal the extent of my knowledge of the palace happenings.

For starters, there's a dirty scumbag who works for the Volturi and who's in charge of providing girls to them night after night. That bastard's name is James, and his job here consists of only escorting the slaves between the harem and the Volturi's chamber so they won't get lost. Truth be told, it's a job I could do, and probably better than him, for that matter. After all, the castle and its multiple labyrinthine corridors don't hold any mystery to me anymore. James is a sexual predator, and I saw him raping one slave or another repeatedly while he was accompanying them. I mean, I assume he does that all the time because every time I happen to be sneaking around and he thinks nobody is watching, he does it. I know those girls are here to serve as sex toys, but it's no excuse to take advantage of them so basely. As for Aro, Caius and Marcus, they know about James' despicable behavior, but they prefer to close their eyes. They're no better with their slaves anyway, but at least they have the excuse of owning these women.

That said, now that I've seen for myself the extent to which the prisoners are mistreated, I sincerely regret being so curious in the first place. The night when I attended one of the Volturi's orgies, a month or so ago, I thought I'd landed in hell. I knew the room reserved for the brothers' sex games was empty at dinner time, so I chose that moment to get in slyly, and found a hiding place under the gigantic bed which was covered with a quilt so large that it was sweeping the floor. If I pulled it a little, I could watch the whole room without being seen…

Eventually, I saw Aro and his brothers entering the room and beginning to prepare it for their night of depravation. Caius and Marcus appeared to be following Aro's orders; he told them what accessories he wanted them to get out of the drawers and they just complied. Having peeked in those drawers before hiding, I knew their content: candles, clamps, chains, little balls tied together to form some kind of rosary, even bad imitations of cocks – okay, my dick is only starting to grow significantly, but I've seen my father's a few times when we were in the castle's male sauna – whips, riding crops and other instruments that I knew were used to punish disobedient slaves. In short, those drawers didn't contain anything inspiring, and I wondered what the Volturi had in mind that required the use of those objects when the girls would be brought in.

Now I'm stuck forever with terrible images in my head. The night I was there, the Volturi asked for three captives to satisfy their devious sexual drive. I saw Caius whip one of the girls repeatedly before he unshackled her and positioned her on her hands and knees to possess her like an animal. Marcus took the small balls attached together and inserted them inside another girl's genitalia, and then he spanked her with a paddle for a long while. In the end he used his mouth to go get the "rosary" out of the slave's pussy and he forced her to suck it in front of him. It must have been highly arousing to the perv because his dick was all swollen – I forgot to mention everyone was naked in the room – and he put it in the woman's mouth after he had her kneel down at his feet.

But the most disturbing scene was the one involving Aro and his partner. He started by gagging her to prevent her from screaming and then he tied her to the X-shaped cross adorning the wall on one side of the bed. I'd always associated a cross as a religious item, but that was no holy relic. Until that moment, I'd never realized how diabolical that instrument could be. The poor girl was spread-eagled and totally at the mercy of her master, who made the cross flip into a horizontal position like it was a table. Aro grabbed one of the candles that he had lit earlier and dripped the hot liquid wax on the slave's breasts. I heard her scream through her gag.

When he was done dripping wax all over her bust, stomach and thighs, he flipped the cross back to the vertical but turned it upside down. Then he fetched two more tapers and introduced them both in his partner's private parts, but from where I was hiding, I couldn't tell if the tapers were both in the slave's slit or if one was inserted in her asshole. Not that one option was better than the other, mind you; the girl must have hurt like hell because she started sobbing hysterically. But her torture was far from over because then Aro lit the two candles so the wax would drip down her pussy. The slave's sobbing got louder through the gag. To finish, when the wax was hard, Aro took a crop and smacked it all over the girl's body parts covered with a crust. He stopped only when the prisoner's skin was scorched, and only then did he remove the candles half thrust inside her. And how do I know all those dirty words, you may wonder? Do you think the Volturi stay silent during their nights of debauchery?

"Jasper, son, it's time to take care of serious business," my dad says as I'm finishing my breakfast.

Bloody great… as if I want to see a guy's skin being ripped off his back!

"Even if you force me to watch a man being tortured, I'll never become like you, Colin," I reply to my old man.

I don't use a formal tone with him. And if he's not happy with it, he just has to send me to the Jesuits to learn some good manners before it's too late. But the way it's headed, and despite my deepest convictions, I risk becoming just like Colin, a cold brute who's no better than his employers. If only I could run away and start over somewhere else, I could perhaps avoid the influence of this shithole of a place which is tainted with physical and sexual violence.

"You need to see what it's all about before you decide it's not for you, son," is all my father says. My lack of enthusiasm doesn't seem to dissuade him. "I'm going to wait for you outside and we're leaving in five minutes, Jasper."

Three minutes later I join him and I mount the horse he saddled up for me.

"You could at least explain what the poor man did to deserve twenty blows with the whip and fifteen with the cane. It would be a good start to my training," I remark sarcastically.

While we cross the countryside to get to the spot of the current harvesting, a strawberry field located two miles away from the city, my father tells me in detail what the male slave did to receive such a brutal punishment.

"Eleazar is a notorious lazy ass who never reaches Aro's required quotas. In the past two weeks, he has filled up only six containers of strawberries per day instead of the ten the other slaves can fill. Moreover, he's unable to avoid crushing the berries during the picking. His ineptitude and slowness can't be tolerated anymore."

The Volturi are super wealthy; I still don't understand why they use slaves instead of hiring labor motivated to do the work. They wouldn't need to pay the men huge salaries; France is barely recovering from the crisis that hit fifteen years ago, and the countryside inhabitants left their area in quest of jobs – any job – to support themselves. The only reason I see for the Volturi to employ only a few people is because their licentious behavior must remain a secret, and they couldn't prevent an ordinary worker from crossing the domain borders and revealing what's going on here. Ultimately, by paying a few loyal servants quite highly, the Volturi are also buying their silence.

We have crossed the few miles separating Volterra from the strawberry fields and have dismounted. My father ties the horses to a fence while I take a look at the surroundings. The male slaves have been busy picking since dawn, more than three hours ago. The containers they are using for their task are as large as the basins used by the washerwomen to clean the castle's bedding. How can a single man fill up ten of these containers in one day? I know that it's the time of the year when the days are the longest and the prisoners can spend fifteen hours in the fields before it gets too dark, but still… Stefan and Vladimir, the men employed by Colin to insure that the work is progressing fast enough, approach us. My father addresses the subaltern who stands the closest to him, "Stefan, I must punish Eleazar this morning before I leave the domain to go on a business trip with my son. Go fetch the bastard and make sure the other slaves continue their work. I don't have any time to waste today."

The employee obeys without commenting. I watch him as he makes his way toward one of the slaves and orders him to come to us. When the man walks to us, I notice that he's about thirty-five, yet he looks exhausted. Colin explains, "Usually the other slaves are allowed to take a break to attend their companion's punishment, but at the moment there's too much work to do and I don't want them to lose one minute of their time."

That said, he brutally grabs Eleazar's arm and drags him to a post used to support the man being punished if he can't stand by himself during his ordeal. I know all about that because my father has prepared me mentally for what I'm about to witness. Rings are fixed to the post and I watch Colin as he tears the unfortunate prisoner's shirt off and shackles his wrists and ankles. I've been warned by him that if I close my eyes while he's giving the punishment, he's going to spank me in front of all the prisoners. I wouldn't mind receiving a spanking, but I would be ashamed if it were conducted in public, not to mention the men would then be forced to take a pause and that would jeopardize their performance. I wouldn't want to cause a slowdown in their work.

Anyway, I actually can stare at the man tied up to the fucking post while wandering to a far away land in my mind. My father talked about a business trip to Stefan earlier. That's because we must leave the Volturi's lands to go get some new slaves at the Candie slaves market. Aro is not content with his current captives and he wants Colin to provide him with four supplementary girls. The easiest way to fulfill his request is to buy some women at the Candie market. Sometimes Stefan and Vladimir are sent to cross the domain in search of women who get lost and they kidnap them and bring them back to the palace. If they are young, they are systematically assigned to the seraglio.

While my old man begins to whip poor Eleazar's back, I imagine the journey to reach the island of Candie**. We will be absent from Volterra for at least one month given the distance to get there. Colin wants us to cross all Italy before we board on a ship for the rest of the trip. Apparently he fears brigands less than pirates. Tonight we're going to sleep in a small inn at the Italian border. Honestly, I wish I was there already, because I can barely stand the slave's torture. The man's been gagged, but I still can hear his muffled moans. I hope my dad is almost done with the whipping; the captive's back is bleeding like hell right now. If my father thinks I enjoy watching his work as a tormentor, he's kidding himself big time.

I return to my musing; I see myself aboard the carrack that will take us to Candie. I'm going to offer my service as a sailor to the captain of the ship. And who knows? Maybe we'll be attacked by pirates and they'll want to keep me with them… Colin has traded his whip for a cane, and it's clear that Eleazar won't stand on his legs anymore when my dad is done with him. Fucking shit, he's aiming behind the prisoner's knees on purpose to make him lose his balance. I find it utterly insane and extremely cruel. How can he expect that the slave will be able to continue working afterward?

"Come here, Jasper. I want to show you how we must use the cane to avoid causing too much damage," Colin says.

The worst part is that I have the feeling he's really enjoying himself at the moment. With resignation, I slowly walk toward him. My mind is made up; I'm going to take advantage of the trip to try my luck elsewhere. But for now, I must look impassive to deceive my dad, so I just reply, "You're right, Colin, that job of yours sounds fascinating. I can't wait to see the different means to punish that bunch of jerks without making them totally invalid."

If my father is aware of the sarcasm in my response, he doesn't show it. He smiles ecstatically at me and goes on, "You must never use the cane to hit on the bony parts of the body, or else you risk causing a fracture, and then the prisoner couldn't work for a while, you understand?"

I only nod. Colin demonstrates what he just explained by vigorously hitting Eleazar on his thighs with the cane. The man screams like a beast caught in a fox trap. "Your turn, son. Aim at the calves and hit with all your strength!"

Holy crap! Is the man going to understand that if I hit him it's only because my father is forcing me? Surely this is a punishment that God wants to inflict upon me because I attended one of the Volturi's orgies. As if the memory of that infernal night was not traumatizing enough…

I take the accessory Colin is presenting me and smack the spot he told me without conviction. I don't want to see Eleazar lose his balance and be supported only by his already sore wrists. The way his ankles are shackled, he couldn't move his legs to stand up again if he fell. But of course my action is not to the liking of the slave guardian. He snatches the cane back and yells at me, "What the fuck do you think you're doing? Are you a sissy or what, son? Look how it should be done…"

However, instead of striking at the calves, Colin targets the man's Achille's tendons. Eleazar collapses right away, but his wrists tied over his head prevent him from falling on his knees. I begin to feel sick. If we don't leave very soon, I'll have to hide in the berry trees to puke. All of a sudden, the smell of blood flowing down the captive's back assaults my nose and I don't even have the time to look for a place to relieve myself; I throw up my breakfast at the slave's feet. He tries frantically to move his fettered legs.

I'll never get to know the outcome of his punishment because at that moment, my father is so furious with me that he drops the cane and punches me in the face. The violence of his gesture combined with my sickness makes me faint instantly.

*At the time when Jasper was just a kid, there wasn't running water in the palace and the pools had to be filled up by an "army" of slaves.

**Candie is the former name for the island of Crete.

Next chapter will be about Jasper and Alice and it won't be as hard.

As always I want to thank my dear beta Just4ALE for her precious help. I honestly don't know what I'd do without her.

Happy New Year everyone.

Milk.