Master of Babylon Ch. 02

It takes half an hour for the lawyer to read the will. The meat of it is simple enough; a declaration near the start that I am to be emancipated and adopted as my master and biological father's son, and that the freedman Mr Julius Hawthorne is therefore his heir and successor.

The rest is a list of assets that rolls over me like the tide I've never seen. Babylon is first, of course, my entire world and all the people within her reduced to the opening of a list of corporations, accounts, publications, cars, second homes, third homes, a hotel, some casino in the middle of nowhere. Some failing, some succeeding, some derelict or rusting in a garage. A nebulous amount of liquid capital tied up in different wealth management funds. I thought I was overeducated, but I can't even begin to fathom the new world opening up before me.

My collar feels like a noose tightening around my neck, the weight of the will a millstone on my back and yet underneath it all I feel like I'm twelve feet tall and strong enough to lift the world. It's an impossible mix of sensations, a contradiction that feels like it could tear me apart.

"There is one condition to this inheritance," Navarro continues, his tone driving another spike of alarm into my brain. He sets the folder down for a moment, looking across at me with the same grave expression he'd worn when announcing my father's death.

"You have a twin sister, Julia?"

"Yes," I say, strangling a torrent of words that tries to leap out of my mouth. Is this her doing, somehow? All her time with Hawthorne senior laying the groundwork for our emancipation, whether consciously or not?

"She must remain a slave."

"What?" I ask, shock surging into anger. "Why?"

"The document does not say. You have every right to emancipate her, of course, but if you do then your inheritance will amount to no more than the legal fees needed to pay for her emancipation. All other assets will be sold in open auction and the proceeds given to the publication company, which will go on the stock exchange."

I want to leap over the desk and strangle him, as though he could somehow transfer that violence to the corpse that's named him its mouthpiece. It's the sight of Amita that calms me, still standing to the side of the desk, frozen like a statue of servile dignity. I settle back into my seat, adopting a mask of my own. No slave lasts long without learning that trick.

"I understand," I say, in a level tone.

"The post-mortem emancipation of an heir cuts through much of the legal red tape. In all other circumstances, emancipation requires an appearance before a judge, but often an estate simply can't wait for an appointment to be made. Property must have an owner, after all."

He smiles like he's made a joke. I manage to smile back.

"In effect you are already free, but that state is contingent on the proper paperwork being filed within a reasonable timeframe. Fortunately, Babylon counts a number of judges among her patrons. I am due to appear before one in an hour and a half, to conclude the formal process and pay the government its fee."

"Thank you, Mr Navarro," I say, rising from my seat and holding out a hand in the full knowledge that I'm forcing him to stand as well. "I look forward to working with you."

"As I with you," he acknowledges, accepting my handshake before leaving the room, the folder tucked under his armpit. Once he's gone, I sink back down, staring dumbly up at the vaulted ceiling and trying to process how my life can be turned on its head in less than an hour.

"Can I trust him?" I finally ask.

"Mr Navarro is also a patron of Babylon, Master," Amata answers with a title that sounds impossible coming from her lips to me. "I've had him hooked for almost as long as you've been alive."

I look up at her as she walks towards the desk, moving almost hesitantly as she reaches for a small pocket hidden in the lining of her bolero jacket, barely large enough for a credit card.

"Master Julius, I imagine you'll want this."

She sets a key down on the table. It's only an inch long with a couple of teeth at the end, but the locks it was made for aren't large. Anyone could break them with a little force or leverage, but only a handful of people in Babylon can unlock them.

I take up the key, turning it over and watching the way it catches the light. I almost want to wait, as though it's unlocking my collar that will really cast me from one life to another. But I can't put off something that's already happened. The lock gives with a faint click, the collar opening with ease.

There's no weight taken of my shoulders, just a feeling of absence on my neck. I wonder how long it'll take to fade.

"Amata," I say, testing the word. I can't remember the last time I used her name to her face, and even then it would have been preceded by 'miss.' "Why did our Master free me and not my sister? I've never spoken to him. I'm not sure he's ever seen me."

"You are my Master now," Amata corrects me, though with none of her usual sternness. Before answering my question she moves her hands behind her back, using the moment to steal a quick breath I almost don't notice. She's even treating me like I'm free, down to hiding her emotions.

"Your father's interest in you waxed and waned over time, Master. You were never at the forefront of his mind, but on occasion he would ask after you. Sometimes fondly, sometimes as though your existence was embarrassing. He was never interested in fathering male children, or being a father to anyone, but you were a fraternal twin. A package deal."

It's not news to me. Babylon is a closed world, her population carefully maintained at replacement level. One child per woman, just before she ages out of the escort roster, and always a daughter. Even if you have to roll the dice a few times to get one. I'm not the only twin, nor my father's only bastard, but I'm the only one who's male.

"In the last weeks of his life, your father became obsessed with you. I offered to introduce you to him, but I think he was afraid to face you. He called on your sister instead, though he never confided in her. He came to terms with his own mortality very late in life and I believe he felt he'd lost the only chance he had at a son."

"And my sister?"

Amata frowns ever so slightly, her head lowering a fraction of an inch as she wrestles with a truth that's uncomfortable even to her.

"Thomas Hawthorne didn't trust women he didn't own. He was paranoid about losing Babylon in a divorce, or being forced to tone her down to suit a wife's taste. Women generally accept that a rich husband will likely already own at least one other woman, but Babylon is a lot. Perhaps he feared your sister would try to manipulate you or contest your control of Babylon. Perhaps it's because he was an only child, so he wanted you to live like he did. It may simply be policy; Babylon doesn't emancipate, until you."

I try to see things through my father's eyes, but I just can't. I was never an only child. Even without Julia, there were plenty of girls a little older or younger than us and more than a few shared our blood. That's what stings the most. My master had several daughters and he knew all of them better than he knew me, but in the end I win and they stay enslaved. I've always known what Babylon was, but it felt different when I was just part of an unfair world, rather than its master.

That acknowledgement of my new reality brings me up short.

"Why haven't you sat down?" I ask Amata, who'd delivered her whole speech standing next to the empty chair across from mine, her posture rigid and formal. She sits at once, sinking into the seat with long practiced grace, folding her hands in her lap and crossing one leg over the other, but her back remains arrow straight.

"Stand up," I order, my voice suddenly sharp. She complies at once, reversing her previous motion until she's at attention once again.

"Turn around."

Amata turns in three fluid paces, bringing her heels together in an L shape, then swinging her left foot in front of her right to form a T before completing the motion. She doesn't stop there, however, instead moving her hands so they're clasped in front of her and taking a single sidestep to put her feet shoulder-width apart.

She's presenting her silhouette to me. Her tight waist, her long legs in their sleek stockings, the negative space between her legs from her titanic battle to regain most of her figure after her pregnancy. The tails of her coat run down her ass cheeks, presented to me by the cut of her leotard and decorated by the white puffball at the base of her spine.

"Turn around."

My former overseer repeats the movement again, her hands moving behind her as she arches her back to subtly present her breasts. I can't tell if she's doing it consciously or if it's just decades of muscle memory. Her face is placid, her eyes canted downwards. I'm so hard it hurts, my cock pressing against my trousers as I look at her, enraptured by this sudden reversal in authority.

"Kneel down."

Amata doesn't sink to her knees at once. For a heartbeat I wonder if I've found the limit of my authority, but then she walks slowly around the desk as I swivel my seat around to follow her. She stops close enough that I can smell her perfume, close enough that I could reach out and touch her stomach without even extending my arm. Then she sinks to her knees, legs together and hands resting on her thighs as she tilts her head up to meet my stare.

"It must feel so intoxicating, Master," she whispers. "It took me twenty-five years of constant work to climb as high as I have, but you've been propelled into the stars in a single moment."

She brings her hands up to my thighs, sliding them along the black fabric of my uniform slacks before finding the rigid shaft pressing against the zipper.

"And it's because of this. Your key to Babylon and every life within her walls."

She teases the zip down, the bulge in my boxer shorts slipping partway through my fly before she undoes the buttons and frees it entirely, my head throbbing red in the light of the study.

"I was going to arrange someone closer to your own age," Amata remarks, her gaze falling from my face to my cock, "but perhaps it's for the best that I greet my new lord and master."

Without another word she parts her lips and sinks down my shaft in stages, circling my penis with her tongue to wet it before moving down another each until she reaches the end of her descent, her nose pressing against my shaved skin.

Then she begins to raise and lower her head in a rhythm as perfectly regular as her walk, her one folded ear flopping up and down with each motion. The sensation is almost unimaginable, so distinct from the stolen moments with girls who framed our encounters as 'practice,' both of us terrified of discovery and the resulting punishments.

We were terrified of Miss Amata, yet here she is plunging onto my cock again and again, rising to circle its tip with her tongue only to sink back down. Almost without meaning to, I bring my right hand to the back of her head and sink my fingers into her severe bun, my thumb resting on the plastic band of her ears for just a moment before I grab her unresisting head and push her down right as I come, what feels like a torrent disappearing down her throat as I let go.

She withdraws slowly in another reversed motion, reversing her inch-by-inch descent of my cock until she reaches the summit, leaving me with a single lick up my glans and a kiss on its tip as a parting gift. Some part of me still expects her to rise, but instead she brings up her hands and tucks my penis away again, still kneeling at my feet.

"Sit down, Amata," I order, following the command with an awkward "thank you."

"You could still free Julia," she says as she takes her seat, falling back into her perfect posture as if nothing had happened. "You'd never be rich, Master, but I've made sure you're both educated enough to live on your own. The world outside would take some getting used to, but that's not an argument against it."

"And Babylon would be sold," I counter, pre-empting her. "And her new owner might strip her apart, or up the tempo, or cut the dead wheat."

Amata nods deferentially.

"How secure is the will?" I ask, even asking bringing a stab of fear. I've had power for ten minutes and already I can't bear to lose it.

"Mr Navarro believes it's ironclad. Your father was declared lucid and capable by three doctors, he was an only child and had no free children. Any relatives you may have outside these walls are too distant to lodge any claim."

I let out a long breath, just looking at Amata for a few moments as she waits in complete stillness for my next question. I pause, spotting something, and bring up a finger to the corner of my lip.

Amata mirrors the gesture, finding a drop of semen. She brings it before her eyes as though inspecting it, then licks it off.

"I must be out of practice," she remarks, frowning.

"The lawyer doesn't ask for that?"

"He goes down on me, Master," she retorts, shocking me with her disregard for a guest's privacy, even if that guest is on my payroll.

"I can't even think right now," I confess. "I don't know what I'm doing here, Amata."

She nods. For a moment I see her consider fixing her expression in a reassuring smile before thinking better of it.

"The status quo in Babylon is not always pleasant, Master, but I've done what I can to see that it's never unnecessarily so. Your father was never interested in the reality of Babylon. He had a dream and he left it to others to make that dream real, but she's always been a business. We have to turn a profit."

"Are we?"

"Babylon is stable, Master. She's no longer reliant on funds from your media empire, which itself is now entirely self-managing. The problem is that Babylon won't remain stable with your father dead and a slave elevated to his position. It will affect our clients' confidence."

Amata pauses again, another expression smothered before it can show its face.

"I can only advise you, Master, and I cannot be seen to be advising you. Babylon needs a smooth transition with an acceptable amount of mourning. We could stop operations for a week, but we already have rooms and suites booked. I think we should schedule a funeral during the next non-working period but otherwise continue as best we can."

"How many guests are here now? Do they know?"

"Twelve. They may be the only people who don't. Word of your father's death had spread through the whole house by the time I woke you up. Rumours about your inheritance are probably already spreading. I'll notify our guests after this and offer them refunds if they choose to leave. The same for anyone booked in the next fortnight."

I nod, as though I played any part in that decision. I need to wake up; I'm scared I'll go through the rest of my life in this dreamlike haze if I don't find some way to make this new world real.

"Take me to my father," I order. It's the first real decision I've ever made.

The late Thomas Hawthorne lived in an expansive apartment in the east wing of the manor, with views over the gardens and enough rooms for himself and a rotating harem of girls. Towards the end of his life he retreated into those rooms, the harem's quarters gutted to make space for a lounge and a dining room, so he didn't have to travel too far within the mansion.

He didn't leave the apartment at any point in the last four months of his life. We sent up meals every morning, noon and night, the fare growing simpler and easier to digest over time. Where once he'd never go without a coterie of women around him, he died a frugal man in the company of his nurse and the entirely chaste attendance of only one girl at a time.

On the way, Amata tells me she bought the nurse. One fewer point of failure for the tabloids to hook onto.

Hawthorne's last home stinks of decay, the curtains drawn to let in only a little light. Unlike the rest of Babylon, the walls are covered in photographs of smiling men, their arms over Hawthorne's shoulders and his girls clinging to their waists. I recognise many of the faces from magazines and news stories. It's a shrine to celebrity and the prestige that Hawthorne bought with the flesh of girls like my sister. Like all the women he left behind.

His bedroom is right at the end of the hall, as though his bed were the throne of some ancient castle. It's an immense thing of dark wood, with four posts rising up to a curtained awning. The body isn't there, the bed stripped down to the mattress, which I imagine will be destroyed as soon as we can get some labourers up here to carry it down. We're too late; the coroners have been and gone.

All that's left is the evidence of his decline. An ornate glass cabinet that was probably intended for crystal decanters of liquor holds shelves of orange pill bottles. Medical machinery has been scattered across the room by the coroners as they moved the body, tubes and wires tangled on the floor. In the corner of the room, on a cheap camp cot with a few spare sheets, a woman in burgundy nurse's scrubs weeps helplessly into her hands.

"Fuck," Amata hisses beside me.

"You left her alone in here!?" I snap, reeling on her. The nurse leaps up at the sound of my voice, her red face contorting as she recognises Amata and drops to her knees, her hands clenching into terrified fists as she stares at the carpet, her throat pressing against her wipe-clean plastic collar as she takes in great sucking breaths.

"Ma'am," she exclaims, clearly terrified. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in."

"It's fine, Lilac," Amata says in the reassuring tone she sometimes uses with the kids. "Please stand up. This is Mr Julius Hawthorne, Master Hawthorne's heir."

The nurse stumbles to her feet on trembling legs, flashing her eyes up in a fleeting glance before bowing deeply. If she notices my uniform, she doesn't react to it.

"Master, I'm so sorry for your loss," she stammers. "I swear to you I did everything I could."

"I know," I tell her, like I'm talking to my sister after a particularly rough night. "You made sure his last days were comfortable, and I appreciate that. Amata will find you a place in the household."

Her breath hitches, then she nods. I wonder if she's been sold often; passed from one geriatric deathbed to another. She looks like she's in her early thirties. I can't imagine how long she's been doing this.

"Will I be given ears?" she asks, fishing for an answer to her real question. Will she be a whore?

"No," I answer. "The ears are a certification for girls who've been trained and made their debut. They keep them when they move onto the staff. It's a sisterhood thing."

"We always have work for a trained nurse," Amata remarks. "Master Julius, with your permission I'll show you to one of the guest suites so you can freshen up for the day? Lilac can come with us, then I'll make sure she's fed and catches up on some sleep."

I nod, suddenly struck by the thought that this is what she does all the time. All these wheels moving beneath my master's notice. Intakes and purchases, training and discipline, sickness and breakages. I was a cog in an immense machine, but now I feel apart from it all. Like if I looked too closely the gears would grab me and grind me into pieces.

"I could do with some breakfast as well," I say, knowing just how many moving parts that idle comment will force into action. "And I have to tell Julia."