Humbling His Bride Read online

  “Lydia Leon?”

  “Yes,” she said, trying to be brave. “That’s me.”

  The soldier who had spoken nodded. “Come with us, please.”

  She was rather curious about these uniformed men, who spoke to her in respectful tones while ushering her into a waiting car. One even offered her a hand to help her get in.

  Perhaps this would not be so bad, Lydia thought to herself as she settled back in the leather seat. A lifetime of noble nonsense had taught her that rumors were almost always greatly exaggerated. Esme had once claimed that she was to have a unicorn at her party, but everyone had known that it was simply a white horse with a horn glued to its head. Perhaps the choosing place would be like a finishing school or some such thing. Perhaps they would be kind to her. Thus far the soldiers were being rather nice, if quite stoic and silent.

  The new regime were headquartered in what used to be the old palace. Where royal standards once flew, now the blue and red striped flag with the bright white star of the new order hung heavy.

  It was a pity, really. New Paris was a jewel among the colonies, a civilization run by technologies so advanced that only a few understood them at all, and even fewer knew how to fix. It had probably always merely been a matter of time before the technocrats and the military joined forces to overthrow the aristocracy.

  Unfortunately for Lydia, she had come of age at the peak of the revolution and as a result she found herself being ushered into a room that contained little other than a dozen other women. When the palace was originally built, this room would have been designed for servants. It was small and had no windows and nothing in the way of ornamentation. It was so plain as to be quite curious in itself. Lydia was certain she had never stood on bare wood boards before. In her world, all floors were polished stone or plush carpet.

  In preparation for the day’s events, Lydia had dressed herself in a simple blue silk gown that brought the color out in her eyes and matched rather closely the color of the new regime’s uniform. Looking around, she saw that the other young ladies had prepared themselves in similar fashions. They had been told to dress simply, but simple was hardly in the vocabulary of a noblewoman. Flounces and fringes and billowing skirts dominated the room, a thoroughly eclectic display of fashion and taste.

  Most of the ladies present were familiar to Lydia. They were of the same age and had attended the same schools. New Paris was a very small city in many respects, especially when it came to the upper echelons of society.

  “Lydia!” Mary Mandefort waved to her and Lydia went over to join the little gaggle clustered in a corner, glad to see that she would not be alone in whatever ordeal was to come. There were all sorts of rumors about the choosing, but nobody really seemed to know what took place behind the closed doors. The women who had been through it never appeared in good and decent society again. A veil of secrecy covered the whole affair, leaving some scared and some anticipating a grand adventure.

  “I don’t mind if I am chosen,” Mary said in her typical excited chatter. “It’s so boring at home; you know they took Cyril off to train as a soldier and Mother and Father are so worried about losing the house, they speak of very little else. If they could load it onto an interstellar transporter, I think they would!”

  A great many aristocratic families had fled the new regime. Lydia was beginning to wish her father had had the foresight to do the same with his, but he was so very attached to their home and to the position of power he still seemed to feel he had even though his title and any influence had long ago been stripped away by the new government.

  After a few minutes of conversation, Lydia almost forgot about the choosing entirely. The women were enjoying unchaperoned conversation out from under the expectations of their noble parents, freed temporarily from the pressures that had kept them confined in unseen chains of speech and thought since the beginning of their lives. The hum of verbal intercourse rose to such a peak that not a single one of the women realized that the door had opened once more and a man had entered. He was a tall, thin fellow with an impressive glossy mustache and dark hair slicked back over his head. He broke through the chatter with a curt order issued at the volume of a shout.

  “Silence!”

  The feminine cacophony stopped instantly and a dozen and one pairs of eyes went wide. Not a single young woman in the room was used to being spoken to in such a fashion. They found themselves all under a steely gaze that swept over each and every one of them, seeming to pick out each individual woman among the group.

  “My name is Officer Hatton,” he said by way of introduction. “You are here because you are the daughters of the privileged and because you must pay the debt of that privilege by presenting yourselves as prospective mates to the officers of the new regime. You are used to being coddled, but you will not receive any coddling here. You will be given orders and you will obey them, or you will be punished severely.”

  The ladies looked at one another. Lydia shrank back from the man, finding him absolutely terrifying.

  “You will now remove your clothing,” he went on to say. “And you will present yourselves for medical inspection.”

  A gasp of dismay went up around the small group. Remove their clothes? Such immodesty! The orders were unthinkable. For a moment nothing happened.

  “Now!” Hatton barked at them.

  Still nothing happened. Lydia was absolutely paralyzed with embarrassment at the notion, as were most of her compatriots. Then one bold soul stepped forward to defend them all.

  “I am Melanie Lonfort,” she declared. “And you are nothing but a jumped-up worker bee in a suit far too fine for you! We will not do as you say. We may only be women, but we are made of much sterner stuff than you might imagine.”

  Hatton’s mustache bristled as his lips turned up in a very unpleasant smile. He took three crisp steps to stand before Melanie. She was a rather short young woman and as a result she was quite dwarfed by the stern officer. “I see we have a volunteer who is willing to make an example of herself. Most kind of you.”

  He grasped Melanie by the forearm and tugged her roughly across the room to a simple wood chair. There he sat down and used his grip on the flailing Ms. Lonfort to pull her over his lap. She went in a cascade of fabric and choice words, her hem flying up over her back to reveal a pair of silk undergarments, which were peeled down in very short order. Lydia gasped as Melanie’s bottom came into view, two ample rounds and in the low crevice between them, the furred mound of her lady parts.

  As Lydia watched horrified, nasty Officer Hatton took a leather paddle from his belt. Lydia had not noticed it upon his entry, being far too generally discombobulated to take everything in. The paddle was about twelve inches long and four inches wide and made of what looked like reinforced leather.

  “This is what will happen if you choose to be disobedient,” he said with a steely glare at the assembled group. He wrapped his left arm firmly around Melanie’s wriggling waist, lifted the right high in the air, and brought the paddle down very swiftly so that when it made contact with Melanie’s bottom a loud crack echoed around the room. It was followed by a collective gasp from the onlookers and a squeal from the unfortunate Ms. Lonfort, who received another two dozen of those slaps in very short order, each of them leaving a big pink mark on her rear. They must have hurt quite terribly, for her cries grew increasingly desperate and her legs kicked so furiously that one of her shoes came off entirely and arced across the room.

  There was no escaping the immodesty of the position the unfortunate young woman found herself in, or the resolve of the officer to punish her thoroughly. It appeared that his initial comment had been one of genuine warning, not a bluff to be called. Lydia’s eyes widened as the officer passed the palm of his left hand over Melanie’s cheeks, seemed unsatisfied by what he felt, and then imparted another dozen swats of the paddle in cracking quick time. Melanie’s cries quickly turned to tears, which seemed to satisfy him, but even when the officer was done with the padd
ling he was not done with the humiliation.

  Hatton put the paddle down and began stripping Melanie while still holding her over his knee. Her panties had worked their way down her thighs during the course of her punishment and all it took was one rough tug to see them slide off her legs and be dropped on the floor. A gruff order to lift her hips soon resulted in her dress being peeled off over her head. There was only one garment remaining and Officer Hatton proved adept in unhooking her brassiere and pushing it over her arms so it fell atop her dress.

  Melanie looked quite different without the benefit of clothing. In her dress she had seemed quite regal and even somewhat imposing, but the naked truth of the matter was that she was soft and curvy and very vulnerable without her clothes, especially the twin rounds of her blushing buttocks.

  Hatton wasted no further time. He stood Melanie up, slapped her bottom with the flat of his hand, and sent her into the nearest corner. She fled, sobbing for all she was worth. Her bottom remained bright in the relatively dark corner where she hid her face, all eyes fixated on her undoing as the officer turned his glare on the remaining young women.

  “Now, will the rest of you undress, or will you receive the same punishment and then be forcibly stripped?”

  No longer making eye contact with one another, the women began to disrobe. Lydia did so very slowly indeed, her mind racing with ideas as to how she might save herself the embarrassment. She hoped very much someone else would do something to stop the proceedings, but as Melanie whimpered naked and red-bottomed in the corner of the room, nobody seemed very much inclined to make another bold stand.

  A dozen dresses slipped to the floor, followed by undergarments. Lydia was glad for her makeup, for though she was entirely naked, it felt as though she had some modesty beneath foundation, powder, and paint.

  “I doubt that your parents have bothered to explain to you the full reasoning behind this procedure,” Officer Hatton said, addressing the squirming naked young ladies as a group. “Before we go further, I will explain the reason for your presence here today in the hopes you find it in yourselves to be graciously compliant. You are here because you are healthy, single young women of marriageable age, a relative rarity in the world outside the city limits. Each of you has grown up with the technology of New Paris and has probably imagined that it simply runs itself. It does not. It was manufactured a very long time ago and it is now winding down much like the old timepieces used to.”

  The women exchanged uncertain looks at the mention of old timepieces. They did not have the vaguest idea what the officer was talking about, but none of them dared question him.

  “You have lived in an ever dwindling bubble of mechanical stability,” Officer Hatton lectured. “And perhaps, if the fathers of your fathers had bothered to learn how it worked, you might not be here today. But they did not. They took the machines for granted, and now the men who have the knowledge to keep the systems running have taken control.”

  “Along with the military,” some brave girl muttered.

  “Quite,” Hatton agreed. “The aristocracy has been replaced with a military technocracy. None of those terms may mean anything to you, and they are not important. What is important is that you understand your place in this new regime. Each of you will be chosen as the wife of an officer. You will honor him, obey him, and you will bear his progeny. That is the role history has chosen for you. Thus we will begin with a medical exam to assess the status of your virginity and reproductive health. This way, ladies.”

  * * *

  The blushing group of young women were rather cowed, but they would have been utterly mortified had they noticed the cameras located all around the room—and probably utterly frozen if they had known that those cameras were being watched by none other than the president himself.

  Tristan Kane stood before a monitor that fed directly from the intake room and watched as the shapely young women reluctantly followed the officer into the medical bay. He had switched the feed on upon receiving word that there was some trouble in the group, in order to satisfy himself that the troublemaker in question was dealt with fairly, but firmly. Most of the young ladies were compliant and Hatton’s stern demeanor usually meant that discipline was unnecessary, but every now and then there was cause for discipline. When there was, Tristan liked to ensure that it was meted out according to his preferences.

  He chuckled upon winding the recording back and seeing the outburst that had earned the unfortunate woman the paddling. He did not blame her for her obstreperousness; actually he had quite a measure of respect for any woman not willing to immediately obey. It showed spirit and strength of character, and both were needed in the new regime. As was usually the case with Hatton’s treatment, the troublemaker was quickly neutralized. Tristan would have turned the video feed off entirely but for his eye being caught by another of the now naked women. Though she was devoid of clothing, she was wearing such a preponderance of cosmetics that she may as well have been wearing a mask. A clever way to avoid the embarrassment of the situation, though he doubted she had anticipated finding herself in her current predicament any more than the others had.

  Most of the young women wore cosmetics of some kind; however, this young lady was in a league of her own. Nobody had come to the choosing looking quite so… he wasn’t sure what the word was that described her visage. He knew only that he could not stop looking at her rouge red lips, so full and starkly bright against the pale tones of her skin. Her cheekbones were highlighted in two feminine slashes, drawing his gaze up to dark lashes and black to gray shadow that radiated out around blue eyes that seemed to hold an abundance of mischief even in this most desperate of situations. There was no doubting that her makeup was artful. It imparted more than mere feminine appeal; it also portrayed strength, elegance, and a certain resilient resistance.

  “Caesar, who is that young lady?”

  “Lydia Leon, sir,” his aide said quickly. “She is the daughter of an ex-minister.”

  “Ah, one of the true aristocrats,” Tristan murmured to himself. “I wonder what she looks like under all that paint.”

  In spite of the overt harshness of the choosing ceremonies, Tristan certainly bore no ill will toward any of the women now being taken through the difficult process of being matched with a husband from the new regime. Indeed, he had made absolutely certain from the outset that no harm could come to any of the daughters or wives of the aristocracy. History usually told a very different story when a civilization crumbled and was invaded by a stronger force. It was animal nature that dictated that conquering men should take their wives from the vanquished ones. Knowing that, Tristan had put in place what might have seemed to be a cruel system, but one in which each of the women were well cared for, well fed, and highly valued by their husbands once chosen. There was no room in his regime for cruelty, though discipline was a given. Some of the women were incapable of discerning between the two, at least at first.

  Lydia continued to hold his gaze. There was just something about her, something that had grasped his attention and would not let it go. It wasn’t just the makeup, he was sure of that. Though naked and likely shamed, she moved with a quiet grace and dignity that made him flip the feed from the intake room to the medical bay where several chairs with stirrups were waiting to receive the women. The doctors were well qualified and professional, but that didn’t make the procedure any less embarrassing as the young ladies were carefully prepared for their examinations…

  Chapter Three

  Lydia settled her bottom against the medical chair and watched as the doctor pulled the curtains at the sides closed, providing the smallest semblance of privacy possible.

  “First you will be shaved, then you will be examined,” the doctor explained. He was a white-haired gentleman with a kindly demeanor, and if it were not for the content of his words and the fact that she was utterly naked before him, Lydia probably would have returned his smile.

  “Why must we be shaved?” She asked the questi
on nervously as he reached for a straight razor that looked very sharp.

  “It is much easier to conduct a proper, thorough examination,” the doctor explained. “Now, try to relax your thighs a little…”

  Lydia let out a small squeak as cool gel was applied to her mound and rubbed into the dark curling hair that covered it. It was not an unpleasant sensation at all; it was actually a little exciting, though modesty would never have allowed her to make such an admission.

  She watched with uncertain eyes as the doctor put his tool to the hair between her thighs. Though she saw it coming, the cold edge of the razor was a shock against her skin. She let out a little squeak and flinched, causing the doctor to gently chide her to stay still. Once she was relatively stationary he began to move the razor in smooth strokes against her lips, clearing the curling dark hairs and leaving her soft mound utterly clean and clear of any trace of cover. It felt very strange, but also rather nice to be touched with relative gentleness in such a sensitive region.

  Clearly adept at his task, the doctor only took a minute or two before wiping her freshly shaved nether regions with a warm cloth. He nodded approvingly toward her now exposed genitals. “Very well formed,” he said. “And already some signs of a physical response.”

  Lydia blushed furiously under his gaze. He was a doctor and this was in some way a clinical inspection, but it was entirely too intimate. The doctor’s fingers slid over the top of her mound and put pressure at the top of her lips. She felt a tingling as her clit was exposed by his skillful touch, the little pearl-like bud emerging from the apex of her inner lips. She let out a shocked gasp as his thumb gently brushed over it, a little tingle of electric heat rushing through her body as her clit swelled under the stimulation.