The chamberlain, an aged knight, named Sir Aethel, told me I would start work in the kitchen. Should I fail to please, Lord Edward, or Lady Gwendolyn, would punish me harshly. Of course, even as it was in my own village, I must announce when I get my monthly period.
We all believed a woman is unclean when her monthly blood flows. She must leave the kitchen and sleep in the "birthing house" during her unclean time.
When I reported to Sir Aethel that my period had come, he gave me into the care of two of Lady Gwendolyn's personal servants, Helen and Aeffe, ladies of good family, not slaves. They led me from the main hall, up some stairs, and across the drawbridge to the main tower, the keep, or donjon, where the lord himself resides. It seemed a strange place for a "birthing house".
The eldest, Helen, said, "You must never, ever, speak of this to anyone, or a slow and painful death will follow." Aeffe added, "Whatever happens, remember that next year, you will have nothing to fear; there will be new young women to bring here." Of course, I felt then that I had a great deal to fear.
They covered my eyes with a cloth and led me to a tower room. They told me to take off my clothes, which I did. Between the fear and the cool air, my skin was like gooseflesh, and my nipples stood forth. When I was entirely naked, they tied my wrists to overhead ropes, so that I was forced to stand, with my arms raised.
Next, they put bands around my ankles, and pulled my feet out from under me, so that I was hanging from my wrists. They pulled my feet very far apart and secured the bands, so that I could not move. "Ladies," I said, "Could I not sit on the floor? Am I being punished for some transgression?"
It was then they removed the cloth, and I could see on the walls whips, rods, and other instruments of torture. I heard the door open, and Lady Gwendolyn entered.
Helen spoke: "Tell us truthfully, girl, are you a virgin?"
"Yes, of course. I have never been married."
"Have you ever known a man? Have you ever let a man touch you, between your legs?" said Helen.
"No, never," I replied.
"We shall see," Helen said, and she used her fingers to explore my most private parts. "Yes, My Lady, she is truly a virgin," she said, "and she has the flow."
"Let us hope she is productive," said Lady Gwendolyn.
"Shall I apply the lash or the rod? A good beating is often the quickest way," said Aeffe.
"Not yet," said Lady Gwendolyn, and she left.
As I hung there, Aeffe showed me a glass flask, and she pressed it where my mother told me I must never touch. It caused me great distress, to have her do that, especially when I was unclean, and I began to cry, as there was nothing at all that I could do to prevent it.
I felt my flesh parting, and then there was a sharp, brief pain, as she pushed the flask right into my body! "OH!" I cried, "you have deflowered me. I am a virgin no more."
"Of course you are, my child," said Helen, soothingly. "No man has touched you. Many a virgin has no maidenhead, perhaps never had one. You are better off without it."
I could feel the container, holding open, almost stretching, the opening in my body through which I hoped, someday, to give birth. They placed a strange belt or girdle around my waist and buckled it on. Two straps went, from the sides in front, downward, crossing between my legs, and then across my buttocks and back to the belt, at the side again. The straps seemed to press the bottle into me.
Next, Aeffe touched my nipples! Worse, she started to stroke and then squeeze my breasts. As she milked my breasts, I felt a strange stirring inside me, down below my navel.
To my horror, Helen began to grease my shithole, and then she pushed a rounded rod against it. "Don't fight it, girl," she said. "That will only make us hurt you. Relax." It was disconcerting, a new experience, to have something go in, not out, but, when I got over the initial shock and relaxed, it slid into me. Then Helen began to move the rod, in and out, to and fro, side to side, stirring my insides as if some animal were in there. I could feel it bump into the flask in my front passage, and strange feelings moved through my body, as the sudden wind stirs the trees of the forest. Aeffe took one of my breasts into her mouth, sucking my nipple.
Of course, breasts were given us by God so they might be sucked, by children, but I would never have thought that a grown woman would do so. I had heard nursing mothers remark that it is pleasurable, but I would not have imagined that I, a virgin, would find it so. And yet, somehow, the sucking on my breasts and the stirring inside me combined to feel -- almost pleasant.
Suddenly, I felt hot breath on my naked belly, and even as she continued to stir my bowels, Helen parted my down-there hairs and began to lick with her tongue, right next to the flask inside me, in front of where the straps held it. I could not believe what was being done to me, and I could not believe what was happening inside me. I cannot describe it, except to say that the feelings were very pleasurable, and they centered on the place where Helen licked me. It got so I could think of nothing else, the sensations were so strong. I was excited, breathing hard, and I felt warm and cold, as if I had a fever.
The unfamiliar feelings grew stronger, and I remember thinking it must be witchcraft. At last, I thought I was dying. I was gasping, and though my eyes were closed, I saw lights, and the feeling of an animal, or a bird, within me, struggling to get out, was overwhelming. I don't know what I cried out, but I remember Helen saying, "There, there, child. You are all right. You did very well."
Aeffe stopped sucking my breasts. Helen removed the rod from my shithole and said, "The flow has improved. She is an apt donor."
They lowered my bound wrists, so that, while my arms were still raised, and my feet were raised, my weight was mostly on my bottom. As my buttocks sank onto the straw-covered floor, the flask inside me was pushed even further into me, but it did not hurt, no longer even concerned me, in my dreamy state. Helen put a cup of wine to my lips and let me drink all I wanted. They put a fur robe over me, to keep me warm. I slept.
Later, I came to understand all the efforts of the ladies were directed at making me expel the blood more quickly. Leaving me with my arms and legs raised also helped, just as I had seen my father hang a slaughtered goat by its hind feet to bleed it.
I remember awakening when Helen and Aeffe looked at the flask, saying how well I had produced. They released my hands and feet, and I was able to stand.
"Why," I asked, "do you collect the impure blood of my body? I accuse no one, but I have heard of no use for it, except by witches."
Helen laughed. Then she said, "You had best never use that word here. Lady Gwendolyn has borne three strong sons, who are now grown men, yet she still retains her youthful looks, the clear, unwrinkled skin of a girl. It is because of the virgin's blood which we collect for her. Now, be quiet. Do not speak unless you are spoken to, slave."
I was left to stand there, with nothing to cover my nakedness, but for the strange girdle.
I heard Lord Edward's voice: "What is your name, child?" I hated to have him look at me, and when I was impure, as well as naked. It seemed sinful. And I shivered to think what might happen next.
"Asa, My Lord," I replied.
"And are you truly a virgin?"
"No man has ever touched me improperly, My Lord," I said, truthfully, though, in my mind, I was no longer a virgin.
I looked around the room and saw three more men, Lord Edward's sons. Sir Edgar, heir to Lord Edward, Sir Ethelred, and Sir Offa. I must have looked fearful, for the lord spoke to me, softly, "Do not fear, Asa. As you came here a virgin, so you shall leave a virgin, as Lady Gwendolyn insists." He held my breast in his hand, as if to judge its weight, and he put his other hand on my cheek. "You know what happens to a slave who does not please her master?" He looked directly at the torture devices, reminding me that this was not a bed chamber, for deflowering virgins; it was a torture chamber!
Helen and Aeffe and Lord Edward left me alone with the three sons. Sir Edgar took my hand and led me to a strange frame. I had seen one like it, set up when a criminal was to be publicly flogged. My heart raced, with fear.
They quickly bound me to the frame, which resembled a table without a top. Since they did not even remove the strange girdle and bottle, which prevented access to the place where men put their masculine members, I was sure that I was to be flogged. I had committed no crime; it would be simply for their amusement. My ankles were bound to two legs of the frame, so my legs were spread, and my wrists, already bound, were further bound to the far crossbar, so that I was bent over at the hips, with my body level, and my buttocks out-thrust for a caning. I had not been allowed to watch the flogging of the criminal, but I was told that such a beating is very painful, that even a strong man will be unable to walk after only a few blows upon the bare buttocks. As they tightened the ropes, my fear grew stronger, so I could hardly think.
They threw off their robes, and showed me their naked bodies. Their manly members stood tall, and they seemed much bigger, longer, than I remembered seeing, when once I glimpsed a man urinating.
Sir Ethelred and Sir Offa sat on the floor and looked up at my face, like puppy dogs begging to be fed. My breasts hung down, and each took hold of one and put it in his mouth. As before, the sucking on my breast had a strange effect, stirring strange feelings inside, and between my legs, making me remember the flask which was buried within me.
I felt grease upon my nether hole, and then a pressure. I tried to relax, and I felt Sir Edgar's member enter my bowel, and move slowly in and out, stretching me, but not painfully. It was, by now, a familiar feeling, but more exciting, for it was no lady's maid with a stick but a handsome knight who was causing strange thrills and quivering in my belly. When he thrust deeply, his member pushed against the flask within me, and it seemed to cause more thrills.
I could not long withstand the attentions of the three knights, sucking me and stirring my insides. I gasped, I think I cried out, and I again experienced that little death, that feeling that my soul was detached from my body, that feeling of a heavenly spirit within my belly, fighting to get out. Except, having experienced it before, I was no longer afraid. I welcomed it, lost track of what was happening around me, as I concentrated on the ecstasy within.
And when the little death was over, I realized that I could feel Sir Edgar removing himself from my body. He came to sit beneath my breast, replacing Sir Ethelred. "Asa," he said to me, almost breathlessly, "You are much nicer than my page." Then he began to suck.
Sir Ethelred entered me easily, for my now I was relaxed and very willing for him to do so. As before, it was like climbing a hill, like the gust before the rain sweeping the grain in waves, like an animal, struggling inside me, as the bottle was pressed against a very sensitive place within me, and the thrills became more than I could bear without losing my mind. I lost it willingly, losing my sense of self and feeling transported to heaven. This time, I was so engrossed with the repeated flights that I hardly noticed when Sir Ethelred and Sir Offa traded places. When Sir Offa pulled out of my shithole, I was exhausted, yet still excited, tingly, sensitive, not yet relaxed. I felt like a bird, which has soared to the clouds but has not yet landed.
The knights untied my hands and feet, and left me, lying, exhausted, on the floor. Helen and Aeffe came for me and half carried me up still more stairs. We entered the highest room, and there was Lady Gwendolyn; her scent was strong in the room. Having just entertained the lord, she wore only a simple robe, not even slippers.
"Child," she said, kindly, "come, stand by me." She sat upon her great bed. I stood next to her, flushed, my nipples erect. The maids left. She removed the strange girdle and took the warm flask from between my legs. To my amazement, she put the rim to her lips and drank, everything. "Oh, yes," she said, licking crimson menstrual blood from her lips, "you serve me well."
She poured a great chalice of wine and handed it to me. "Drink, girl," she ordered. I did as I was told, and the wine, filling my empty stomach, added to my sense of unreality, my feeling that I had not finished flying. She filled with wine the still warm flask which had collected my flow, swirled the liquids, to mix them, and drank it all down again.
"Well, Asa, do you find that repellent?"
"My lady," I said, softly, "How could I, a simple slave, find anything you do repellent?"
"Come," she said, leading me to her bed, making me climb onto the still warm mattress where she had lain with her lord. She put me on my back and spread my knees. "Beautiful Asa," she said, "let me see if you have any more for me." She began to lick the source of my flow, as if to suck it directly from me, without the need for the flask. I lay there, my mind befuddled by wine and weariness, and I found I was flying again, and a bird was fluttering in my belly, freeing me from earthly cares, and once more my entire being concentrated on the exquisite feelings, which seemed to fly like sparks from the end of her tongue. And then, when a profound relaxation came over me, I fell asleep.
At dawn, naked beneath the covers, I awoke with My Lady licking any flow which she could find, and I found it quite pleasant to have her do so, though it did not have the uplifting effect I had experienced the night before.
When she had done, she bid me to do the same to her, though she was not having her period. I did as she instructed, and I discovered that morning many interesting things about the way God made women. My Lady held me by my ears and guided me, telling me how best to lick and suck her.
She kept me with her, until there was no more flow to be had.
I had a dozen more periods before next the rents were collected, when new virgin slaves came to the castle. During that year, each time, when I was led to the tower, My Lady Gwendolyn would insert the flask and put the strange girdle on me, to hold it in. Lady Gwendolyn's three sons, would, at her request, stir my bowels and suck my breasts to speed the flow. And when they had done, My Lady would drink all I could give her, sucking me dry.
Even after the new virgins arrived at Castle Cynewald, My Lady still required that my flow be harvested for her consumption, though her sons no longer encouraged the flow. Helen and Aeffe did. Helen, who worried excessively that she was growing old, would sometimes glean the field, with her tongue, though she was always honest in delivering my "rent" in the flask to Lady Gwendolyn. Usually, at least once during my period, My Lady would dismiss her other slaves and invite me to sleep in her bed. I looked forward to that.
But then Lord Edward gave me in marriage to a free farmer, Cnut, who holds five hides of land and owns many swine and cattle. He assured Cnut that I was truly a virgin, that no man had ever touched between my legs, which was, of course, true.
My husband, Cnut, does not release that bird which fluttered inside my belly and made me seem to fly through a starry sky. When he plants his seed in me, I do not die a little, do not glimpse heaven. I can no longer go to the tower when I have my period; there is a proper birthing house, and there is no one to promote the flow.
This month, however, there is no flow.