the outstretched paw

He burns with indignation, but knows better than to strike back — his uncle’s hand spans the top of his naked thigh, a hand heavy with fat but broad enough to convey former power. Heavy that hateful body might be, but not weak — or slow. Feyd might as well be naked beside him, for all the brevity of his tunic. His limbs are still hot from exertion, sweat-wet and fresh from the gymnasium floor, but the dry pressure of that caressing hand sends him cold and rigid with unalloyed hate.

“What kind of blow leaves a mark like that, I wonder? Have you been so careless, nephew?”

The Baron’s words are punctuated by a hard pinch, pressing into the blood-dark heart of one bruise. It would serve him right to hear it — that the constellation of marks were won among the soft, scented girls of the slave quarters and not in combat. They both know well enough that such an insult from a sparring partner would never go unpunished — the Baron had enforced the policy himself once upon a time, before his na-Baron had reached an age for manly pride. Only one man takes such liberties and lives.

Always touching — a richly-ringed hand upon his knee, his arm, the undefended nape of his neck. From a distance it might have appeared fond. A hand against his inner thigh, so close to handling him beyond all denial, so close to abandoning pretense and taking him all at once. Feyd’s stomach turns.

A girl had bitten him there and he had enjoyed it. She had marked him with her teeth, she had said, for good luck in the arena. What does a slave-girl know about luck? There were thousands of pretty girls at Baathaas, and the prettiest ones were unlucky indeed, fine to look at but no good for the hateful Reverend Mothers’ purposes. Bad enough to be born a woman at all. He does not hate his women — he scarcely thinks of them when he has no need of their attentions – and yet now he thinks, what a hateful thing it is to be desired.

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen bares his teeth, arranging his face in a passably comely smile. “I think you know best of all, dear uncle.” What with always looking at him like he’d like to sink his teeth in — one day, Feyd thinks, he’ll have those plump hands for trophies.