Chapter 3: The Rounds End
The afternoon sun pressed down on the southern fields, a heavy, golden weight that made the air shimmer above the dark earth. The tomato rows ran in long, even lines toward the distant treeline, their vines heavy with fruit that hung in clusters of red and green. The scent of crushed leaves and warm soil hung thick and sweet.
Odette walked the last row slowly, her fingers brushing the ripe tomatoes with the same care she had once given to quarterly reports. She checked for blight, for the small bite marks of insects, for any sign that the plants were struggling. The black cotton dress clung to her curves with the heat, and she could feel the slow, lingering throb of her own denied arousal, a pulse that had not faded since the morning. Her hands trembled faintly as she worked, and she let them, finding a strange comfort in the evidence of her own need.
She rounded the end of the row and found the others already there.
Nia stood at the head of the next row, her hemp tunic dusty at the hem, her close-cropped braids catching the light. She was bent low, checking the base of a plant with an intensity that bordered on suspicion, her copper bangle glinting. Beside her, Karin crouched in his frayed skirt, pink twin tails brushing his shoulders as he reached for a low-hanging cluster. He moved with a delicate economy, his pale arms streaked with dirt.
And Margot. Margot was further down the row, one hand pressed to the small of her back, wobbling slightly as she straightened. Her jute dress hung loose and jagged, and her face was flushed, not just from the sun. She was trying very hard to look steady.
Odette said nothing. She moved to the next row and knelt, reaching into the dense green for a ripe tomato, the coarse cotton of her dress pulling across her thighs.
Karin straightened and wiped a strand of pink hair from his face, his eyes finding Margot with a sharp, teasing glint.
"You've got dirt on your chin," he said. "And you're wobbling."
Margot's hand flew to her chin, then dropped. Her flush deepened. "I am not."
"You absolutely are." Karin's voice was light, almost musical. "You're listing like a boat in a storm. Did you get hit by a wave this morning?"
Nia's eyes lifted from the plant she was inspecting. She watched Margot with an unreadable expression, dark and patient.
Margot laughed, a short, breathless sound that caught in her throat. "Something like that."
"I heard." Karin's smile widened, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "I heard the whole hall heard. You were making sounds like a dying animal."
"Nia cracked one eye open, still watching. "Karin."
"What? It's a compliment." He turned back to Margot, hands on his hips, his skirt swinging. "I wish I could make sounds like that."
Margot pressed her lips together, but a laugh escaped anyway. "It was... it was a lot."
"A lot." Karin said the word with a knowing, almost envious drawl. "A lot is the point, isn't it? The more the better. The more he sees, the more he remembers you."
Nia snorted softly and went back to the plants. "He remembers everything. You don't need to make a spectacle."
"Oh, of course you'd say that." Karin's voice sharpened, the teasing edge giving way to something real. "You don't have to work for it. You're already his favorite, the one he sends to fetch and carry. Some of us have to make impressions."
Nia straightened, wiping her hands on her tunic. Her dark eyes fixed on Karin with a cool, level gaze. "There's no favorite. There's only service that's remembered and service that's forgotten."
Karin opened his mouth to retort, then closed it. He looked away, fussing with a tomato vine, his fingers turning a red fruit over and over in his hands.
Odette watched them from her row, a quiet smile curving her lips. The tremor in her hands had not stopped, but it no longer bothered her. She let it be.
Margot wobbled again, catching herself on a stake with a soft gasp.
"You really are shaky," Karin said, his voice softening. He stood and crossed to her, his skirt swaying. "Here, sit. I'll take your row."
Margot hesitated, then sank down onto the warm earth with a grateful exhale. "Thank you."
Karin knelt in her place, his fingers finding the work with an ease that suggested he had done this a hundred times. "Don't mention it. I need the exercise anyway. Keeps my thighs tight."
Nia laughed, a short, genuine sound that surprised them all. "You're shameless."
"I'm practical." Karin's cheeks dimpled. "When I'm finally chosen, I want him to have something worth looking at."
Odette's smile deepened. She had been wealthy for decades, had watched women and men perform for her favor in boardrooms and galas, and she recognized the same hunger here, stripped of gold and silk and reduced to raw, honest need. It was cleaner this way. Truer.
"His attention is a gift," Odette said quietly, and the others fell silent, turning toward her. "But it's not something you earn through display. It's something you receive. And it comes when he decides it comes."
Karin's hands stilled. He looked at her with a flicker of something like gratitude, then looked away.
Margot shifted on the ground, pulling her knees up to her chest. "Do you think... will he call for me again? Soon?"
Odette considered the question. She remembered the weight of the dildo in her hands, the slick feel of it as she cleaned it, the trembling reverence in her own fingers. She had not been chosen. She had only been useful.
"I don't know," Odette said honestly. "But I know he saw you. And he doesn't forget what he sees."
Margot's eyes went distant, dreamy. She hugged her knees tighter and rocked, a slow, almost swaying motion.
Nia watched her for a long moment, then returned to her plants. The silence settled around them, broken only by the rustle of leaves and the distant call of a bird.
The sun had begun to lean toward the horizon, casting long shadows across the rows. The heat relented, softening to a bronzed warmth. Odette worked on, her hands steady now, her mind quiet.
Karin hummed a low, tuneful melody as he worked, and after a moment Margot joined in, her voice thin but sweet. Nia did not hum, but she did not tell them to stop.
The southern fields held them all, four small figures moving through the green and the gold, waiting for their god to look their way again.
The humming wove through the rows for a long while, a soft, wordless thread that bound the four of them together in the slanting light. Karin's melody was the strongest, sure and lilting, and Margot's thin voice followed it like a shadow. Even Nia's fingers kept time against the stakes, a small, unconscious percussion. Odette worked in silence, but her shoulders had loosened, her hands moving through the vines with a calm she had not felt in years.
Karin broke the spell first. He sat back on his heels, wiping his brow with the back of his wrist, and looked at the others with that sharp, evaluating glint in his eyes.
"I get that he has no favorites," he said, his voice carrying across the row. "But who do you all think has the highest chance of being allowed to service him directly? Not as entertainment, not as domestic work. I mean the real honor. Being taken to his bed."
The humming stopped. The rustle of leaves stopped. Even the distant bird fell silent, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
Margot's cheeks went pink. She stared at a tomato as if it held the answer. Nia's hands had frozen mid-reach, her dark eyes fixed on Karin with something unreadable. Odette remained still, her lips parting slightly, her own pulse quickening beneath the black cotton of her dress.
"It would be my daughter," Odette said at last. Her voice was soft, but it carried the weight of a confession. "Margot. He has ordered her to train herself for him. To prepare herself." She paused, her eyes finding her daughter across the row, softening with admiration. "She has been instructed particularly to stretch her asshole. To prepare it for his use. I believe he intends to honor that dedication."
Margot's flush deepened to a burning red, but she lifted her chin, meeting her mother's gaze with pride. "Mother."
"It must be an honor for you," Odette continued, gentle but firm. "To be a part the truth of his design, and your devotion to it."
Nia straightened slowly, her jaw tightening. She brushed the dirt from her palms with a deliberate care, then lifted her chin.
"He'll take me when I've proven myself enough," she said. Her voice was steady, but there was a heat beneath it, a fierce, possessive edge. "I am his most useful devotee. I keep this place running. I enforce his standards. When he sees that I've done everything he needs, everything he commands, he will call me to his bed. Not for entertainment. As a reward."
Karin and Margot exchanged a glance. Something passed between them, a silent, shared agreement, a recognition that Nia's claim was both real and not quite the whole truth.
"What about Bambi?" Margot said, her voice small but clear. "She's new, but he chose her outfit himself. He gave her that. He dressed her with his own hand."
Karin nodded vigorously, his pink twin tails bouncing. "Exactly. That's not nothing. That's a signal. He's already marking her as his."
Nia's expression darkened. Her hands clenched at her sides, the copper bangle flashing in the low sun. "Bambi is a performer. She performs for him, and he watches because it amuses him. But amusement is not trust. It is not the same as being chosen. She has done nothing. She has worked for no one. She arrived with her fame and her body and expects that to be enough."
"And yet he chose her outfit," Karin said, his voice carrying a faint, teasing sting. "You said he remembers everything. Well, he remembers her."
Nia opened her mouth, a sharp retort already forming on her lips, her eyes blazing.
Odette raised a hand, and Nia fell silent, though her jaw stayed tight.
"In the end, it does not matter," Odette said quietly. "It never did. Who he calls to his bed is his decision, and his alone. What matters is that we serve him, in every way he asks, in every way he needs. I am the proof of that." She paused, her hands folded before her, the tremor in her fingers barely visible. "My purpose here is to manage, to provide, to see that his Garden flourishes. He does not take me to his bed. He does not look at me the way he looks at Margot, or at Bambi. He ignores me, sexually, completely, and he has forbidden me from indulging myself in any way."
She looked at them, one by one, her gaze calm and luminous.
"And I have never been happier. I have never been more fulfilled. Because his denial is also his gift. His neglect is his use of me, and I am grateful for it."
The silence that followed was a different kind. Softer. Reverent.
Karin nodded slowly, his teasing edge gone. "Yes," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Yes. That's right."
Margot nodded too, her eyes shining. Nia held herself still for a long moment, then let out a slow breath and inclined her head, a single, quiet motion of acceptance.
They worked on, the tension dissolving into something shared and warm. The sun sank lower, painting the rows in amber and rose. One by one, they finished their rows, rising and stretching, their hands full of ripe fruit.
"Come," Odette said, gathering her basket. "It's time for dinner. We should not be late."
They walked together along the edge of the field, four figures casting long shadows across the dark earth, their bodies tired and their minds quiet. The path led them through the rows and toward the cluster of buildings at the heart of the Garden, where the long wooden table stood beneath the old oak, where the others would already be gathering. Lamplight glowed from the windows of the kitchen, and the smell of bread and roasted vegetables drifted on the cooling air.
"The others will be there," Karin said, tucking a stray strand of pink hair behind his ear. "Vera will have cooked. Bambi will be wearing her string bikini."
"Which Abel chose for her," Margot said, and there was no sting in it, only a quiet, accepting wonder.
They passed the well, its stone lip worn smooth by a hundred hands, and the entrance to the church, dark and still and waiting. And somewhere beyond that, in his private quarters, Abel would be preparing himself for the evening, or simply sitting in the quiet, knowing that they were coming, that they were always coming, drawn to him like the softening light to the earth.
Odette's hands were steady now. The tremor had faded. She walked at the rear of the small procession, watching the others move ahead of her, and she smiled a quiet, fulfilled smile.
If he called for her tonight, she would go. If he ignored her, she would serve. Either way, she was exactly where she was meant to be.