The Nail that Sticks Out gets Hammered Down

Commision For NoLongerInnocent.

The streets of Antilla was crowded, filled with horses pulling cards and men and women in all sorts of dress walking this way and that as the activity of midday rushed towards the start of evening, and everyone was eager to get to where they were going. No one paid attention to a single cloaked figure as she walked down the street, her cowl up to hide her face even when the day was warm, and no one thought much of it when she moved into the alley between two stone buildings, vanishing off the street entirely. Now safely out of sight for the first time in hours, Lady Elise pulled down the hood, letting her golden hair catch the dim rays of the sun that still shone into the darkness.

Unfastening the cloak, she pulled it from her body, revealing the tight clothing she wore beneath it… revealing and almost skintight, it was nevertheless of obvious quality. Dueling clothing, such as a nobleman would wear or a retainer of lords. Certainly her father wouldn’t have approved of Lady Elise wearing such a thing, or being seen in it, but there was much that her father didn’t approve of. The thought made her want to sob for a brief second before she buried the memories… there would be time for that later. In truth, she had to admit that she didn’t especially improve of the clothing either… it was fine enough, but there wasn’t enough of it, and even when there was clothing it was far too tight. Lady Elise didn’t think of herself as much of a noblewoman, but she wasn’t a whore either. The clothing was necessary, though… necessary for the same reason she had taken off the cloak and was even now folding it up neatly… too much fabric would be dangerous once she started climbing.

Elise had climbed up from here more times than she could remember… it was one of her favorite portals into the greater city’s rooftops. The masonery of the buildings was as fine as any buildings in the world, but the structures were ancients, and enough of the mortar had crumbled to make good hand and footholds for her. Staying on her feet to find her balance, the blonde noblewoman jumped, catching her fingertips on the same holds she had used a hundred times. A noblewoman’s fingers were supposed to be dainty, used only for embroidery or sewing. Her own fingers were strong and callused, easily finding their grip and holding her weight while she planted her feet and began to climb, moving quickly between holds by long established memories.

Lady Elise had grown up in her father’s estate, but her true home had always been on the rooftops. Before she had died birthing Elise’s youngest brother, her mother had once told her that she had been climbing before she had learned to walk. As a young girl, climbing had given her a way to avoid her chores and the nagging of her nanny, a wonderful way to play. Her father’s estate was ancient, as was their family, and the mansion was a maze of walls and old towers spiraling out to the four corners of the grounds… winding and organic, as if they had grown rather than be built over hundreds of years of expansion. Before she was ten, Elise had been leaving the grounds on the rooftops and outside in the city, it was even more mad… most of the buildings were more orderly, but there were so many of so many different heights, and hundreds of archways and bridges and gables that would allow her to travel half the breadth of the city a hundred feet from the ground.

The blonde girl loved how it felt when she climbed, pulling himself up a wall stone by stone, fingers and feet digging hard into the small crevices between stones… feeling the sweet ache it left in her muscles afterward. The air up here always felt impossibly crisp up here… clean and sweet and cold. Arm over arm she climbed, until her fingers fastened around one of the old broken gargoyles, using it to pull herself further up. Elise reached the roof, pulling herself onto the slightly slope of the shingles and then sat and rested a moment, her feet dangling down as she looked down over the city in a glance. She wasn’t that high yet… only about forty feet, but she was still further up than fully half the buildings nearby, and nearly twenty feet above the walls of her father’s estate, visible just barely in the dimming light several blocks back. Elise could perch for hours among the rain-worn gargoyles that brooded over the buildings, watching it all below her: Merchants trundling on their way, boys and girls at play on the streets, pickpockets trying to work their trade, the slowly rising smoke of cooks tending their fires in the nearby buildings, restless dogs running back and forth in the back alleys, and the servant girls gossiping beside the water well.

Sighing, she rose to her feet and began to stalk across the rooftops, moving over a stone bridge to the next building and up another five feet, then climbed a spire to go up another ten feet as she worked towards the taller buildings in the center of Antilla. Yes, as a child climbing had been a game, but now it was an escape. Her father had long since forbidden her from climbing… he was relying on her, and it wasn’t proper behavior for the lady… and god forbid if she were to fall and he couldn’t marry her off anymore. She had no intention of stopping her favorite thing, though… for a while her father had the guards chase her whenever they saw her on the roofs, and try to take her back down to the ground. That had been fun… it was like playing a game with her brothers and sisters, except this was a game that Elise couldn’t lose. Not one of the guards could climb worth a damn. Anyway, most of the time they never saw her anyway… People never looked up. These days, that was the thing Elise liked the most about climbing… it was almost like being invisible. That was another thing he liked about climbing; it was almost like being invisible. Like being free.

On the ground, she was never free. Father never spoke of finances with a woman, but Lady Elise had eyes and a keen mind… she knew that they were deeply in debt, their family fortune squandered by generations of living like kings. She didn’t understand why didn’t didn’t just leave the servants, leave the guards, leave the silks and the jewelry and the crumbling mansion and live sensibly, but she knew her father wouldn’t hear of it. He was always plotting of ways to restore the family name and fortune. One of her elder sisters had already been married to some other noble family for a handsome dowery, and while it felt cruel to think it her other elder sister was no prize. Two of her brothers had already been promised, and she had always known it was a matter of time before her father tried to marry her off.

She had no intention of obeying. She would run if she had to, but her father had never been able to make her do anything before… Lady Elise was not going to be chattle to be sold. She had grown up on tales of women from other lands making their ways alone… warriors and artists and musicians and merchants and explorers. In her heart, she knew that was who she was… not a domestic woman to be sold as a wife to a rich man for the benefit of her crumbling family. When she first knew the touch of a man, it would be a man she had chosen, one she loved… not some filthy beast for whom the size of his purse was only surpassed by the size of his gut.

Still, when her father had summoned her today, and told her of his arrangement, it had come as a shock. He hadn’t promised to her to a noble, but instead to a merchant prince named Tanis that she had never met, from a faraway city, and she was going to be taken to him at the end of the week. She had refused, of course, but he had only smiled at her and told her that it was done, and there would be no arguing. So Elise hadn’t argued… she had simply left the estate, heading to her refuge on the rooftops. She had no real plan, she had to admit… she couldn’t stay up here forever. Still, it cleared her head to stalk the rooftops, and she could always think better up here. She would think of something…

The attack caught her by surprise. At the sun set, the roofs grew darker and darker, but the glare of the sun got worse as it reflected off shingles, making her almost blind. She didn’t see the man hiding between a turret, but as she passed he rose and grabbed her long hair. She cried out as he sharply pulled back, falling onto her back on the slanted roof. Her feet kicked for purchase as she started to slide towards the edge, not finding any. Then her scalp burned as he did not release her hair and his grip kept her from falling to her death off the edge, her feet kicking just over the open air as her hands scrabbled across the tile, finally finding a crevice to wedge themselves into.

“So what do we have here?” the man said as he looked down on her in the dying light of the day. Elise could barely see him, shadowed by the setting sun, but he seemed older than her by several years, hidden by a black cloak and wearing leather. “I thought the only people who climbed this high were criminals. I didn’t expect to find a whore here.” He knelt down, still holding her hair. “Well, it seems I have some time to pass then. Might as well entertain me, whore… what’s your price?”

“Wha… Who… what…?” Elise sputtered as several different thoughts fought for control of her scattered mind. At last, one of her feet found purchase on the lip, and she used it to push herself back fully onto the roof. She wanted to ask who he was, what he was doing here. In all the time she had been climbing, she had never found another person. She wanted to ask what he thought he was doing attacking her, and didn’t he know who she was? She would have the guards flay him alive if he touched her again! She wanted to protest that she wasn’t a whore… to strike him for even thinking such a filthy thought. “Let me go!” She cried out at last, her hand holding her hair and trying to pull it free of the man’s iron grip. “Your making a mistake, you can’t hit me! I’m no man’s whore… release me at once!”

White teeth flashed in the shadows as he smiled at her, and her head burned as he pulled at her hair again, pulling her back up the roof, onto the turret he had been hiding behind where the ground was flat. “No, you’ve made a mistake, pretty thing. There is no one up here but us. I already told you… no one comes up here but criminals…” He pulled back his hood, revealing a handsome, thirty something man with a trimmed beard. “Including me. And that means that if I say you’re a whore…” he took his left hand and moved it to her breast where she was laying on her back, squeezing the swell of her tit though her clothing. “Then you’re a whore.”

Suddenly Elise’s mind was filled with other stories… not the ones about strong women making a life on their own, but the ones about what could happen to young girls alone. The ones that always had made her grateful to live in a house with guards. “No!” She screamed. “Help! Help!”

The dark man laughed before kicking her in the side. It wasn’t all that hard, but it was more than enough for a woman who had never suffered injury before or known hardship… she lost her breath, and her screams broke into gasping coughs. “You’re almost a hundred feet off the ground, in the dark of evening. No one is going to hear you, whore. Even if someone does, what do you think they are going to do? Climb up here and save you?” He grinned down at her again. “I think not. Scream all you want… you’re mine.”

Elise was still trying to catch her breath when he was on top of her, sitting on her upper thighs and abdomen while he pulled her hands together and began to wrap a chord around them, binding them above her head before his hands found the clasps of her bodice, opening it down the middle to expose her bare breasts beneath it, nipples hard in the cold air. “Nice rack, whore,” he mocked as she let out a gasping sob, trying to bring down her bound arms to covered her exposed tits… something she had never shown to a man before. “I’m glad I decided to make you a whore… tits like these are wasted on anyone else.”

He moved slightly down her body so he could grip her belt and begin to undo it, leading Elise to start crying. “No!” she cried. “Please, stop it! I can pay you, please, my family has money…”

The man looked up at her in annoyance. “I don’t think you understand how being a whore works,” he said coldly. “You don’t pay me. I pay you.” He reached into his pocket, took out a small coin purse, and as she opened her mouth to protest again he stuffed the cloth and coins both into her open mouth. “And you’re annoying me now.” Her belt came off easily enough, and he tugged at her pants sharply, getting off of her and dragging her across the rough stone of the turret as he yanked at her armored pants until they had slid all the way off of her long, slender legs. With his weight off of her, she turned to the side away from him, hiding her breasts and as much of her undergarment-covered groin as possible, but he didn’t mind. “And now you’re mine,” he said as he began to undo his own pants.

As his pants came free, the terrified noble girl caught sight of his cock… the first she had ever seen. She had heard the maids and servants whisper of their lovers before, how mighty their cocks were and how good they felt, but this shaft didn’t look good to Elise… it looking terrifying. Her attacker was fully erect, his cock jutting out eight inches front his body towards Elise’s vulnerable form. “Mmff!” she screamed through the makeshift gag. Panicking, Elise tried to kick at her him but her attempts were feeble and utterly futile given her complete lack of leverage. Mercilessly, the larger man lowed himself back onto her, pinning her as he forced her knees apart, exposing her most intimate place to the open air, protected only by a slight shift of cotton that he grabbed without a second thought and tore from her body, adding even more shame and terror to what she was already feeling. Her eyes were fixed on his cock, the huge, long thing that would soon defile her. “Pees,” she whimpered, tears streaming down her cheeks and down her chin. “Dnnn!”

The dark man did not waste time with her pleading. He wanted her now and he was going to take her. So, looming over her, ignoring her feeble attempt to defend herself, grabbed her bound arms with one hand and used the other to guide the head of his cock towards the entrance to her innocent cunt… and then took her virginity with one powerful thrust that impossibly sank his entire length all the way into the young Elise.

The man’s moan of pleasure was contrasted completely with the wail of agony that tore itself from Lady Elise’s throat, loud even through the gag. The young noblewoman had never felt such terrible pain in her life, never even imagined anything could hurt so much. With one single thrust deeply into her, this monster had taken her innocence away forever, not caring about her own wishes or comfort… Elise wailed and sobbed, new tears springing from her eyes. All her fantasies of strength and independence felt so far away at this second, shoved into fantasy by the brutal reality of this savage rape. She could feel him inside her, drilling deeply into her defenseless sex, his cock stretching her unwilling, unprepared opening tortuously.

Elise couldn’t even try to plead anymore, all that came out of her mouth were pitiful cries and sobs as this man violated her, hurt her more than she ever thought possible. Squirming, writhing beneath him, she thrashed, throwing her head from side to side even as scream after scream escaped from her gagged lips. She tried to fight him, to kick him or throw him off of her, but he did not even register her efforts, completely unbudging. All he did was grin down at her, his eyes all but glowing with lust and joy in her defilement while he punished her pussy with hard, deep thrusts, forcing his cock deeper into her each time he pushed.

“I knew you’d be a good fuck the moment I saw you,” he mocked as he thrust into her, grinning at the blonde noble’s obvious misery. “But you’re even tighter than I thought you would be. Didn’t think a rebellious whore would be kind enough to save her cherry for me, though,” he laughed as he brutally deflowered his victim. Elise’s entire world was shrunk down to the pain in her pussy, the utter defeat and humiliation of being helpless beneath her rapist. She could feel him lamming into her again and again and again, unsure how long he fucked her for while she sobbed and cried and thrashed and screamed. The dark man knew he was rapidly approaching his climax, Elise’s misery and pained screams fueling his arousal as he plunged his thick cock into her as hard as he could. He didn’t want to just take her virginity… he wanted to plunder ever bit of her completely. “Yes…” he groaned. “You’ll make a fine fucktoy.” He wasn’t sure if Elise could hear him, and didn’t really care. He closed his eyes as he felt his balls tightening, her cunt clenching around him and milking his cock to climax against her will.

“Take it, whore! Take my load again like a good cunt!” Holding her down, the dark man laughed as he felt his cock spray a huge load deeply into the helpless girl whose cries became more shrill as she felt his hot semen splash against her tormented inner walls. He didn’t stop raping her then, however… instead, he kept slamming his length into her until his balls felt empty and his load was all inside. Only then did he pull out and step back, leaving the Elise a sobbing wreck on the rooftop, curling into a ball to protect herself from further abuse. “Thanks for the lay. You weren’t a bad whore,” he mocked as he pulled up his pants, then pulled the hood back up over his head. “Good luck,” he said with a grin before he vaulted the turret wall, striding into the darkness of the night with a carefree whistle.

Elise lay there on the stone, feeling cum seep out of her ravaged hole, listening in terror as the whistling disappeared into the distance. Only after it was gone, and had been gone for what felt like a half hour, did she dare to move, beginning to worry again at the ropes that held her wrists. The man had tied them in a hurry, and now that he wasn’t holding her down she could take a look at the knot, bring it to her mouth to worry at it… it wasn’t especially tight, and it only took her a few minutes to loosen it enough she could slip her wrists free. Still softly crying, she grabbed at her pants and starting pulling them up over her bare legs, painfully aware of the touch of the fabric against her sore crotch, at how she was smearing her rapist’s cum on her clothing. Elise fumbled three times trying to close her bodice again, her fear-hardened nipples rubbing uncomfortably against the stiff leather that made up the cup over her breasts. Then she leaned back against the castle, sobbing.

She wasn’t sure how long she lay there before her fear began to overwhelm her self pity… she was still waiting where he had raped her. What if he came back, and she was still here? That thought finally got her up and all but scrambling across the roof… nowhere near as comfortable and certain as she had been when she started. It was full dark now, but it wasn’t the night that made her steps wary, or even the soreness of her violated body, but her fear. Her sense of safety on the rooftops had been badly damaged. She looked around like a timid animal ready to bolt as she sneaked across the rooftops to her favorite point to climb down, then slipped down the wall like she was racing before sprinting back to her father’s estate and locking herself into her room, managing to fall into bed before she broke down completely into sobbing.

Lady Elise wasn’t sure when she fell asleep, but she didn’t wake up until nearly the next sundown. Food was delivered to her room, but no one came to see her and she wasn’t about to step outside. Her father no doubt assumed she was sulking over her arranged marriage… and for once she was grateful he was such an uncompassionate father because she didn’t want to look at him or anyone else right now. After sulking for hours, scrubbing herself so raw in a bath that her skin was nearly crimson, and crying for a few more hours, she at last felt like she couldn’t look at her walls for another second. She was done with pity, and now she was furious. She was not going to be defeated by some man in a black cloak! She had explored the rooftops for nearly a decade without seeing another soul… one night was not going to spoil it for her. Oh, she was going to be more careful, but the heights above the city were her safe spot, and she refused to give them up.

Still, just to be safe, she climbed up in a different spot.

For the rest of the night, she prowled the dark rooftops, becoming increasingly confident as she worked her way higher and higher up the city, sure that her sanctuary was still hers… until she heard his voice. “I love whores that want a repeat customer.” For a split second, Elise froze, terrified… and it was enough for the man in the dark cloak to step out from behind a broken gargoyle and strike her in the stomach, driving her to the ground and holding her down as he climbed on top of the sobbing girl again, fighting even more ferociously this time as he proceeded to rape her again before leaving her facedown in the cum that had leaked out of her when he came.

This time, it took her two days to leave her room and find another alley. She stared at the wall for over an hour, visualizing the handholds as she tried to work up the courage to climb. She was still doing it when she was grabbed from behind, a hand pressed against her mouth, his mouth against her ear as he growled. “I love it when the whore’s can’t get enough of me.” This time she almost couldn’t bring herself to fight she was so stunned. How… how had he found her? She wasn’t even on the rooftops this time, just standing in an alley… but there was still no one around to save her as he forced her to the group and held his hand over her mouth while her raped her again, leaving her sobbing as he strode out of the alley like nothing happened.

When Elise walked back to her room this time, she felt like a zombie… she didn’t look at anyone, didn’t speak to anyone, didn’t even see anyone. She wasn’t even sure if she cried or not before falling asleep, and she wasn’t sure how long she slept before waking, or how long she was awake before she slept again. She only knew that when the man in black crawled through her window and woke her by pouncing on her in bed, she was too full of despair to even be shocked. Her wails of despair and misery muffled by her own panties, he raped her again in her own bed while whispering in her ear that he had gotten tired of waiting for her, that she had johns eagerly waiting for her.

When he left, her left her naked in bed, and she couldn’t bring herself to get dressed again or clean herself up before passing out. That was how her maids found her the next day… wordlessly, they cleaned her up and prepared her to be taken to the carriage her father had gotten for her to ride to her promised Merchant Prince. Lady Elise no longer felt capable of objecting. The idea of an arranged marriage no longer seemed anywhere near as abhorrent to her… not when it would get her out of this city and away from the man who was preying on her. Her father didn’t even come out to see her off, but her brothers and sisters did… she hoped she wasn’t too rude to them, but she really didn’t know what to say or want to talk to anyone.

The wagon ride was a long one, more than a week of travel to the city of Taylentis where her promised husband awaited. It didn’t matter to her how ugly he was, or how vile a man he might be… all that mattered was that she had left Antilla behind. She could find new safe places here, a new life for herself. She didn’t have to bow her head to her husband… she could still be the woman she had always promised herself she would be.

The mansion they stopped before was a grand one… nothing like her father’s crumbling estate. The merchant prince Tanis was as rich as she had expected, and idly she wondered how much he had paid her father to received the most beautiful girl he had as his bride. As she stepped out of the carriage, she hated herself for almost feeling free again, even though she knew she was about to step into a set of shackles… she was trying desperately to convince herself it wouldn’t be that bad. Her two handmaidens followed after her, carrying the chest of her clothing and important belongings up the stairs… the rest of her belongings would follow after, or be provided new by her new wealthy husband, she knew. Lady Elise was left behind to await her new husband in the main hall.

“Welcome to your new home, My Lady.” The voice came from behind her.

No.

Slowly, her back rigid, fists clenched at her sides, Elise turned around. The man before her was dressed in gold and crimson silks, embroidered with a coat of arms of a dragon. His hair was coiffed tightly and he wore no beard… but she recognized him instantly. “Y… yy….” She stuttered, disbelief coloring her tone. Denial fluttered through her head. How had he found her here? Had he followed her? Followed the carriage on the long trip?

Her rapist smiled as he took a slow step towards her. “Yes, of course me. You didn’t think I would pay such a rich dowery for you without seeing the legendary beauty of Elise for myself, did you?” He grinned at the noblewoman’s stunned face. “Oh, your father warned me you would be difficult, that you thought you were too good for marriage… that you wanted to be different. I told him I would teach you.” The look on her face must have been horrified, because his smiled widened and he chuckled. “Oh, I didn’t tell him what I planned to do, but I think he knew. He had given up on you, you know. Your reputation proceeded you… almost everyone he approached to take your hand in marriage turned him down, knowing what a rebellious girl you were. That your beauty was not worth the shame you would bring on them. He was going to settle for a tiny dowery if I hadn’t made my offer. It’s not surprising he didn’t look overly hard at what I had planned for you.”

Elise didn’t realize she had begun to cry, her makeup running down her cheeks. “Why…” she asked in a small voice.

Tanis smiled, stepping forward again… he was just feet away now, but still Elise was frozen to the spot. “Because I wanted to sample you to see if you were worth the price. Because I wanted to. Because I could. But mostly… because that’s what happens to girls who don’t fit in. You had your head all filled with fantasies and tales of heroism and independence… but the world doesn’t work like that. You’re a woman. You have only one purpose in this life… to serve a man. So I wanted you to understand the choice you have in front of you.” He took a final step forward, his arm darting forward to hold her hair tightly behind her head while his other hand grouped her tits through her fine dress. “When I first saw you, you were wearing almost nothing… armored dueling cloths fit for the warrior you thought of yourself as. Now you’re wearing a fine dress and makeup. You get to choose now. You can be my wife… marry me, live in this mansion and have everything you need, satisfy me, give me children and bring my family into the nobility…” he moved his hand down to grab at her cunt through the fabric of her dress, the silks brushing against her thighs like the kiss of a snake’s tongue. “Or you can be my whore, and I’ll just do whatever I want with you.” He glared at her, but the smile on his face never changed. “Choose.”