I’d been writing at my table for over an hour—confiding to the parchment my private thoughts on how the old ways of Queen Eleanor might indeed be improved should King Laurent and Queen Beauty consult me on such a thing. The rooms provided for me in this castle were large and elegant, and so it was with our entire party.

I had remained dressed in the same green Venetian silk gown I’d worn for the earlier conference, but I had let my hair down free over my shoulders. And I was ready at any moment to be summoned for further questions or observations.

Severin, stripped naked once more, was asleep in my bed—a rare privilege which I thought he deserved after the arduous journey. The night before our arrival in the kingdom, we’d stayed in rather luxurious quarters at an old inn on the border of King Laurent’s kingdom, and I’d had more than two hours to play with Severin and correct and punish all faults I’d observed in him during our traveling.

Tristan had brought Blanche with him, and last night he’d begged me to discipline Blanche for him, as he was tired and anxious about his meeting with Laurent and Beauty. “After all,” he’d said. “How do I know what the King feels at this juncture about my having once coupled with his queen?”

I had no such worries, but had been glad of the opportunity to have Blanche to myself, and she’d received at my hands blows as harsh as those rained down upon Severin. I wondered if Tristan was more at ease this evening as the King and Queen did seem favorably disposed to accept Bellavalten. What was happening between him and Blanche just now?

But more important, what was happening with our gracious hosts?

We could be certain of nothing until they gave us their decision in the morning. But I was hopeful, beyond hopeful, and the future of Bellavalten blazed before me with uncommon brightness. King Laurent was far more handsome even than anyone had ever described him. Words could not do justice to the vitality of his face, or his deep yet lyrical voice, and the way he smiled naturally when he spoke, and seemed to delight in each exchange as if he were unspoiled and eager for it. As for the Queen, she appeared as a girl, as if the fairies had gifted her with eternal youth and sweetness. Yet there were depths to the Queen, lovely depths reflected not only in her fathomless eyes but in her quiet and strong demeanor.

I sat back annoyed. These voluminous sleeves were getting in my way as I wrote, as they always did, and I was tempted to strip off the gown and continue writing in my chemise. But before I could make up my mind there came a soft knock at the door.

I answered at once.

Captain Gordon stood there, and I could see he was anxious.

“Lady Eva,” he said. “You must dress and go at once to the King in Lady Elvera’s quarters. I’ll show you the way. Lady Eva, much hangs on this meeting.”

“Well, I am dressed, Captain, but allow me to pin up my hair . . .”

“Oh, no, my lady. Let me suggest that for this you leave it down,” he said now taking my measure. “And your slippers, yes, they have raised heels, don’t they? I think that is nearly perfect.”

“And what concern is all this of yours?” I asked. Captain Gordon had perfect manners. I’d never submitted myself or my costume to him for inspection.

“My lady,” he went on. “Did you bring with you certain . . . certain instruments. . . .” He gestured to the distant bed where Severin lay sleeping as deeply as ever.

“What do you mean—for discipline? Yes, I have my paddles and straps, some potions. You know me and my potions.”

“Oh, yes, the potions,” he said. “I doubt that our gracious king and queen have ever heard of your potions. Allow me to gather up these things and bring them along with us.”

I gestured to the casket on the nearby sideboard. It was open. A gilded paddle and a long folded gilded leather strap lay inside, with covered jars and a neat stack of linen handkerchiefs.

He inspected the contents, closed the casket, and lifted it, gesturing for me to go before him.

“You look beautiful tonight, Lady Eva,” he said as we hurried along the passage. “Forgive me for presuming to compliment you, but it’s true.”

“Men are fools for small changes,” I said. “My hair is down, that is all.”

“No, my lady, that is not all. You shone brightly before the King, and the Queen was also delighted with you.” He said all this while looking straight ahead as we moved down the long shadowy corridor.

A torch in a sconce at the far end appeared to be our destination.

“Well, Captain, my personal gifts are not so very important right now, are they?”

“Much more important than you imagine,” he said, glancing at me, and then ahead again. “And your lavish dress of silk and brocade is most becoming. And your heels make a nice crisp sound on the stone flooring.”

“Whatever are you talking about, Captain?” I asked. “I must confess I always feel smart when I wear these gold-heeled slippers.”

We had reached a pair of double doors and the torch that hung beside them.

“Lady Eva,” he said in a whisper. “Everything depends on you now, on your youthful self-confidence, and the gifts that have kept the kingdom in order since the old queen departed. Please. Show spirit. Lady Elvera and I have failed in complying with King Laurent’s request. Again, everything depends upon your being able to grant it.”

Without waiting for me to answer he opened the door and led the way into a vast bedchamber.

Several iron candelabra along the walls gave a soft pleasing light to the room, and there was a healthy little fire going in the great fireplace.

We stood now in a space that was like a parlor, but I could see dimly the great bed beyond and the figure of a naked man kneeling before it, with his back to me. The man appeared young and powerfully built with a mane of thick wavy brown hair. And immediately I felt a stab of desire between my legs as I looked at his naked backside. It was tightly muscled yet pleasingly curved. But this was no young boy.

Lady Elvera stood primly to one side of the naked man, and when she saw me she came forward to meet me anxiously.

“Lady Eva, you must punish the King,” she said in a low commanding voice. “It is his wish, and if you fail in this, there may be no new destiny for Bellavalten.”

I almost laughed. So you two have failed at it, I thought, but I didn’t speak the words.

“Of course,” I said. “Captain, put my casket of implements on that small table there by the fire, and both of you be gone from here now.”

Lady Elvera drew herself up as if she were insulted. “You remember that this is your lord, the King!” she declared.

“Yes, Lady Eva, please,” said the Captain softly. “This is the King.”

“And you have disappointed him, have you not?” I said. “Now go, both of you. You who dare to refuse a king’s command. I’ll send for you when and if I have any need of you.”

The Captain at once nodded and moved to the door. Lady Elvera appeared outraged. “Take care, Lady Eva,” she whispered under her breath as she stormed past. “This is the King who has all power in his hands.”

The Captain hesitated as she went out past him. “Lady Eva,” he said in a low voice. “He asks that he be thoroughly mastered.”

Then he disappeared and the doors were shut.

I quickly threw the bolt. “Idiots,” I whispered.

I moved forward slowly on the great Indian carpet before the fireplace, closer to the kneeling figure which had not moved all this while.

The King. Yes, the King. The warmth between my legs was excruciating. I felt the juices against my inner thighs. I knew I might lose control of that rising, rolling pleasure now and again and again as I proceeded. But I struggled to hold it back, to put my eyes on what lay before me and not let my own passion overcome me.

He knelt still as if he had heard none of this annoying nonsense. His legs were parted, and I could see he’d been beaten not only on his strong tight bottom, but on his well-muscled thighs and calves. His skin appeared golden in the firelight. Smooth. Flawless. His shoulders were large, and the muscles of his back were rather irresistible, as irresistible as the exquisitely curved bottom. I wanted to take hold of his bottom in both hands.

I could see they had delivered a few blows there. But the flesh was for my purposes fresh and virginal, the flesh of a man, not a boy, a man and a king. I could scarcely contain myself.

I’d spanked enough bad boys of twenty and twenty-five and so forth and so on, children still as they groped for manhood. I’d never had a true man before, an older man, a man much older than me, a man who would be filled with inevitable pride and dignity.

My nipples were hardening beneath my gown. I let a deep sigh pass through my lips.

I turned to the casket, opened it, and took out the golden paddle. This one had been made especially for me, with a long handle that felt good to my small fingers, and the thin gilded wood had been well polished by Severin’s bottom.

It was a superb instrument for stinging and humiliating.

I drew up beside the kneeling figure. He bowed his head and started to turn away from me. His cock was immense and it was hard, wondrously hard, and gleaming in the half-light.

“Oh, no, you must not do that, my lord,” I said, reaching for his chin with my left hand, and gradually turning his face back towards me. “No, you must never turn away from me without my permission. Do you hear? I don’t mean for you to speak, I mean for you to nod only. The speaking will come later.”

He nodded. His cock jumped. I could all but feel its pain, its hunger.

The scent coming up from his skin was delicious, and it had been so well oiled that it glistened beautifully in the light of the fire. Such powerful arms, such broad shoulders. And every inch of him was polished as if he were made of bronze.

“Now look down as you know you should,” I said. “Always keep your eyes down unless I say you might raise them.” But I turned his face full towards me. And I could see the tears now clearly, sparkling in his dark lashes, and on his skin. He was trembling.

“You are ready for this, aren’t you?” I said the words with low fervor. “You need this so very much, and it’s been a long time, has it not, since anyone took command of your desires.”

Again, he nodded. But he couldn’t keep his eyes from moving over me feverishly before he looked down again contritely.

I grabbed a handful of his silky hair.

“Well, tell me what you saw,” I said, “since you could not quite command your impudent gaze, and be very careful that you say nothing to displease me.”

“A mistress of great beauty,” he said softly.

“And was not Lady Elvera a mistress of great beauty years ago when she whipped you daily?”

“Yes, madam, she was,” he replied, eyes down as before. “And she is beautiful now, undeniably, but she is frightened of me.”

Perfect answer. His tone was very reverential and polite.

“Well, I am not frightened of you at all. I’m in love with you. Now stand up quickly.”

He did as I commanded. Oh, he was surely the most splendid male human being I’d ever beheld, bar none. His shadowy chest and belly were tight and firm, and the cock, though not monstrously long, no, a comfortable size, was exceptionally thick, rising out of its nest of moist dark hair as if a sculptor had made it for the gods, or for me, little Eva, in this moment.

I stood on tiptoe to kiss his face. I kissed his wet cheeks. Ah, this was paradise! I had wanted to do this, so wanted to do it the first time I’d ever seen him. I kissed his eyelids now, felt his eyes moving beneath his lids, beneath my lips, felt his eyelashes against me. I covered him in kisses, sealing my lips to the hard bone of his jaw, to his cheekbones, to his forehead. Rough the shadow of his beard, deliciously rough though it had been shaven close. My left hand played with his hair, smoothing it back, stroking the skin. Dark hair is so soft, always so soft, so much finer than light hair.

I heard him sigh under my kisses, my fingers caressing him. I gathered up his hair in my hand and tugged at it.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you?” I said. “You’ve given the order but you’re afraid.”

“Yes, madam.”

“And well you should be,” I said softly, lovingly. I turned his face to me and kissed him full on the mouth, my left hand tightening on the back of his neck, breathing into his mouth, stabbing my tongue into his mouth. As I drew back I saw his cock jump again as if it had claimed his soul for its own.

“Your cock knows what you need, doesn’t it?” I breathed into his ear. “Now quickly, put your hands on the back of your neck and keep them there, and spread your legs wide.”

I stood to one side, my left hand on his right shoulder.

As he obeyed I slipped the loop on the paddle around my right wrist, and felt of his scrotum with my right hand, cupping my hand under it as best I could, and weighing it slowly, then letting it go. With my left hand I lifted his chin. I gave his cock a fierce slap that startled him. He was so ready. I slapped it again, hard, and again and again.

He winced, the muscles of his torso tightening, but he didn’t make a sound, and those tears slipped down his face. There was dark hair on his chest, lovely dark hair, curling around his nipples. I hadn’t seen it clearly at first in these shadows. But now that I did see it, I loved it. I stroked it, played with it, played with the thin little curls around his nipples.

I slapped his cock right and left and then slapped his face hard.

He was shocked but his cock was harder than ever, dancing superbly.

“You’re mine,” I said, “and there is no one to interfere, you understand?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Now turn around, and get down on all fours in front of the fire, and hurry. I want to see your face clearly by that light as I punish you.”

He obeyed at once.

“And your lips are sealed now. Sealed.”

He nodded.

“Your rebellious heart drove them wild in the old days,” I said. “I’ve heard plenty enough about it. But you won’t rebel against me. You won’t dare.”

Again, he nodded.

I knelt up beside him. I had his handsome bottom to my right and now at last I kneaded those exquisite fleshly cheeks, felt just how tight they were and how soft and hard at the same time, such a sublime mixture of strength and vulnerability.

I slipped the handle of the paddle into my hand.

And lifting his chin with my left hand, I rained down on him the strongest spanking blows I could deliver. I let loose with all my strength, paddling him again and again with the full force of my arm. At once he struggled to be quiet, helpless little gasps escaping his lips, and as I continued to spank him as hard as I could and as fast as I could, he shifted, struggled, tightened, and finally shuddered all over in his struggle to remain still.

On and on I went with it, giving full vent to my strength, my teeth clenched, but my eyes remained fixed on his face, on his knotted brows and the wet, squinting eyes, my hand keeping his chin elevated mercilessly.

Again and again, I spanked him. He was dancing now, he couldn’t help it, his bottom contracting, then loosening, his legs swaying even though he struggled to kneel firmly, but I went on, spreading the blows, smacking him on the right side more and then more on the left, and suddenly letting loose with a torrent on his sturdy thighs. Now he could barely keep quiet. Yet his hands and knees remained firmly on the carpet.

A low delicious groan came from deep within his chest.

“Lips sealed,” I reminded him. “Groan if you will, but lips sealed.” I put the fingers of my left hand over his mouth. He shivered and then I heard a sob deep in his throat.

But I continued to work with the paddle, going back now to his bottom, slamming it as hard as I could, delighting in the loud, crisp cracking noise that the paddle made.

“You know, Your Majesty, you don’t have to be a bad boy to deserve punishment like this,” I said in his ear. “You only have to be a boy! And a beautiful boy at that! You do understand that, don’t you?”

He nodded as best he could with me holding his chin.

“And I so love to do it,” I said. “I have so wanted to do it since the moment I first saw you.”

I dropped the paddle on the Indian carpet.

I came round and knelt down in front of him, and pressed his hot wet face against my bosom. He sobbed against me, against the tight green brocade. I stroked his thick wavy hair. I might have come then, just from this, if I had not struggled against it, against my nipples burning, my nether mouth burning.

“You are mine,” I said in a low confidential voice. “And now you may speak to me, you may answer, you may acknowledge this.”

“Yes, Eva,” he said. His voice as low as mine, as confidential. “Yes, Lady Eva!”

“Oh, we’ll forgive that little infraction,” I said. “Once, but never twice.”

I could feel him sobbing harder, feel the sobs cutting loose one after another as he pressed his lips against my breasts. It wasn’t the pain that was making him sob. He could take a great deal more pain than that. It was that he felt helpless.

“Tear the cloth, tear them free,” I said. “Gowns I have aplenty.”

At once with his teeth he bit at the gold border of the tunic, then tore the brocade loose, ripping it down and away from the right sleeve as a beast might tear it, exposing my breasts.

“Suckle them,” I said.

I could hear him moan, but he was barely kissing my nipples, the tears shining in his dark lashes.

“Suckle,” I said. “The rouge on my nipples is flavored with the essence of cherries. Can you taste it?”

He murmured his assent to this.

His mouth closed on my left nipple and he drew on it with the fierceness of a babe. I sighed, the sudden throb of pleasure so full and huge inside of me that I almost went over the brink. My breasts had always been too sensitive, my nipples connected directly to the throbbing clitoris between my legs.

“But wait,” I said, pressing his forehead, moving him back. “Kneel up, hands on the back of your neck facing the fire, and stay there.”

I went to the chair. It was time for the golden strap. The strap was wide and soft and not too heavy but heavy enough and plenty long. It felt as good as it looked. Then of course there was the belt I wore, but it was heavy, cumbersome. No. I chose the golden strap.

I doubled it over and whacked my left hand with it. Perfect.

I went back to the fireplace, standing in the wide margin between his kneeling body and the hearth, facing him.

Kneeling down in front of him, I bit at his nipples again, hearing him gasp, bit at them fiercely, and then drawing back, I whipped his chest with the belt, hard, over and over again. He was plainly writhing in misery, and yet his cock, his splendid cock, was hard and shining and dancing to the tune of it. I kept my eyes on his cock as I whipped him, whipped his hard belly.

He bent forward, face tightened with pain, narrow eyes still sparkling with those abundant tears, and I think he tried with all his might to draw away from the belt without moving, but it was pointless of course, and I thrashed him harder and harder with it. I thrashed his thighs.

“Knees wider apart,” I said, “wider. Come on. You can do better than that. Wider.” I never stopped spanking him with the strap.

I stopped. I stroked his face with my left hand. “Does it hurt more than you remember?” He didn’t make a sound. I covered his face in kisses, nuzzling against his neck. “Well, does it?”

“Yes and no, Lady Eva,” he whispered.

I laughed, a low full-throated laugh. I couldn’t help myself.

“And look what you’ve done to my pretty gown,” I crooned in his ear. “Look.”

His eyes moved to my breasts. I could see the pupils dancing.

“Are they pretty?”

“Beautiful,” he murmured. He sighed.

I rose to my feet, the belt thrown over my shoulder. I stood just in front of him, but he was so tall that his head was almost to my breasts.

“Kneel up,” I said. And at once he obeyed.

Now he was at the right level.

I lifted my skirts. My sex was hot and dripping. I knew that he could see it, see the telltale moisture sliding down my naked inner thighs. I wished there had been a long mirror there so I might see it. I was in agony for him.

“Pleasure me, sire,” I said in a low voice. “Do it well.”

He needed no urging.

He came forward eagerly and clamped his mouth on my sex, and his tongue went deep inside me. I could scarcely remain standing upright. I struggled not to fall under the onslaught of pleasure, and as the orgasm broke loose, as it rolled like a great exploding flame up through me, I cried aloud as I hadn’t once permitted him to do. On and on came his tongue, licking at my clitoris, licking at my vagina, licking, and his hungry lips worked the flesh, my secret most sensitive flesh, sucking at my pubic lips, sucking, and finally I screamed for him to stop. The pleasure had emptied me, taken the breath out of me. Yet the faint echoing shimmers of it would not stop.

I pushed him away.

I wanted to lie down and then I thought, Well, why not? And I did. I lay back on the carpet looking up at him, looking at him kneeling there again near me, over me on all fours, this great strong man, this man who could have overpowered me with one hand, and I looked at his starved cock, and at his smooth perfect obedient face. He seemed ageless, a child and a man, the tears flashing in his eyes beautifully, his strong well-shaped mouth trembling just a little, only a little, the teeth touching the lower lip.

Finally I sat up. I reached out and fondled his scrotum again, leaning against his arm as I did it. “Have you ever been more ready, Your Majesty.”

“No, Lady Eva,” he said. There was a tiny smile on his lips.

“You think this is finished?” I teased him. “You think I’m going to let that cock have what it wants?”

No answer.

“Take a guess.”

“No, Lady Eva.”

I rose to my feet. I quickly laced up my dress in front as best as I could, but it was quite beyond repair.

Then I knelt again and took his head in my hands, kissing his eyes again, and running my fingers back through his thick hair. He shuddered all over. Every touch of my fingers, every kiss of my lips, was sending shivers through him.

Perfect.

“Kneel up and turn around. You know where your hands belong. I want to see your backside,” I said. “I want to see how well I’ve punished you.”

Ah, it was all quite beautiful, the dark red marks, the patches of glowing red, the white welts and the overall flaming redness of the whole, even to his thighs. But there was so much more to do. So much more.

With both hands, I played with the welts, pushing and scratching at them lightly with my fingernails. I have always had very strong fingernails. And I do not grow them overly long, but keep them filed in perfect ovals. And with these I scratched him idly and not hard, playing, teasing, knowing how this both hurt and pleasured him nearly beyond endurance.

My left hand slipped round in front and felt of the root of his cock. It couldn’t get any harder.

“Where did I leave that paddle?” I asked. I rose to my feet straightening my skirts. I saw the paddle, gleaming on the carpet only a few feet away. “Go get it and bring it here in your teeth.”

He obeyed more quickly than I had quite anticipated.

He stopped in front of me with his head bowed, and I took the paddle from his teeth. And then suddenly he kissed my feet, kissed my naked insteps, and kissed the toes of my slippers and even kissed my heels, those little golden heels that were an inch high. He stopped, his head pressed to the floor in front of me.

“That was always allowed at the castle, and in the village, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes, Lady Eva. Forgive me that I didn’t ask.” This was said in the simplest most sincere voice. No cowardice and no drama. Ah, I thought, the finest slaves are the honest slaves and the clever ones who grasp all things perfectly.

I gathered up a great hunk of his beautiful soft hair and dragged him up on his knees and after me as I headed for one of the lovely high-backed chairs scattered about the room and I sat down in front of him. Nice down cushion, but quite comfortable. A sturdy chair.

A fresh volley of tears had broken out on his face. I pushed up my skirts until my thighs were naked.

“Come round to this side of me, and when I bend you over my lap, don’t you dare let that cock touch me or this chair, do you hear?”

“Yes, Lady Eva.” He was shaking all over.

Again, it wasn’t the pain. It was the helplessness. He had to obey. He had no choice. And it was the exquisite humiliation of the “over the knee” position that never failed even with the most experienced or well-trained slave.

But what did I care what it was? I threw him down over my naked lap and waled at his gorgeous bottom with the paddle, giving it all my strength again, spanking him and spanking him until his legs were dancing again and those muffled groans were coming over and over again.

I stopped, stroking his bottom with my left hand, parting the cheeks, touching the little pink mouth there, pushing at it, teasing it. His bottom was so hot now, so deliciously feverish and red.

It was so exquisite having him like this, so intimate, over my naked thighs and just taking my time with this warm pulsing flesh. How it must have burned. How it must have throbbed. Even here and there was a very fine bit of dark hair, hard to see in the shadowy light, but not hard to feel as I inspected him, and of course the little pink mouth of his anus seemed to be hiding in its tiny nest of hair, shyly, as if begging to escape humiliation.

I started spanking him again, hard and fast, furiously in fact, sparing no inch of his bottom, giving him the full force of my arm, giving him the full force of my heart.

My juices were flowing again, the little fount in me was sending its waves up through my breasts once more, and I could feel myself almost rising off the chair, pressing my tummy and thighs against his powerful torso, yet spanking him hard all the while.

Finally I pulled him back and stood up and ordered him to crawl to the bed and now.

“Oh, there are so many other games, tasks, tests . . . things that we might do, but I’m hungry for that cock,” I said. “I must have it, and what I must have is what must be done. Now up on your knees and rip this dress from me, rip every stitch of it off now with your teeth, hands behind your neck. You dare move your hands and I’ll whip your ankles and the soles of your feet. Hurry!”

In a frenzy he obeyed, ripping off my jeweled belt, and tearing the brocade wide open, and dragging it from my arms till the tatters lay in a shining puddle at my feet. Ah, so much for that expensive Venetian fabric, but I would treasure these rags forever.

“Now look at me!”

He did, though it was quite obvious that he might have preferred to look at my sex instead of at my face. He turned his large brown eyes up obediently. We remained still, him on his knees and me naked in my satin slippers, staring at one another, and his eyes seemed filled with curiosity and awe.

“You’re so beautiful, Your Majesty!” I said.

A short muffled laugh escaped his lips. “You think so, Lady Eva?” he whispered.

I took his face in both my hands, pressing his cheeks with my thumbs. I bent to kiss him hard on the mouth, but then a wild idea came to me. I glanced at the nearby table. There stood a silver pitcher and a goblet and several linen serviettes. I could smell the wine.

“Open your mouth,” I said.

He hesitated but when I slapped him hard he obeyed.

I filled the goblet, swirling the red wine for a moment to look at it in the light, and then I put it before his lips. “Now when I fill your mouth you will not close it, do you hear me.”

I poured the wine on his tongue, and he trembled all over trying to swallow without closing his lips as I’d commanded, the wine slipping down the sides of his face and down his chin. But he managed to obey, gasping and struggling.

I poured wine onto one of the serviettes now and began to clean his teeth vigorously with it.

Again, he gasped, and he trembled. This had clearly never been done to him before. And as I worked away on his back teeth, he groaned, unable to help himself.

I held his head firmly with my left hand, almost cruelly, as I worked away polishing every tooth in his mouth, his lips trembling violently. Then I lifted the goblet. “Spit in here now,” I commanded.

He struggled to obey, spitting out what little wine had been left, pressing his lips together frantically suddenly. I slapped him hard again. “Open your mouth, wide!” I said. “I never told you that you could close it.”

It seemed he was moaning for mercy. I kissed his teeth, ran my tongue along the upper teeth and then the lower. I touched his tongue with my tongue. Again, he gasped, as if keeping his mouth open took all his will, and I imagine that it did.

“Close your lips,” I said, and I laid mine against his as he did so. The tears were sliding down his cheeks. A long shuddering sigh came from him.

He kissed me back, hungrily, almost desperately. His cock was again dancing wildly. I had never seen a more powerful shaft, a more deeply colored shaft, and he struggled, obviously, to keep it back away from me. Just for a second his hands went loose from his neck, but then he remembered himself and put them back into place. I pretended I hadn’t seen it.

I went quickly to my casket on the sideboard, and removed a pot of scented cream, and came back to him, opening the little glass pot and then setting it on the bedside table.

I took a lovely dollop of the cream in the palm of my hand. This was a sweet salve that I’d blended myself with the scent of apricots and sunshine in it, and bits of ground rose petals.

“Stand,” I said. I worked the cream all over my hands.

At once he obeyed, as limber as a boy.

I smoothed the thick oily emollient over his enormous scrotum and then his cock, watching him twitch and suffer. He could not hide the trembling now. The tip of his cock glistened beautifully and a thick drop of his own fluid hovered there at the tiny mouth. I was careful not to touch it, not to push him over the edge.

I smiled, wiped my hands on a small linen towel for which I was most grateful, and then stared again into his brown eyes.

They fixed on me and were wet and shining with tears.

“Now into bed,” I said.

I climbed up on the bed myself, still wearing my slippers, digging into the burgundy coverlet with my heels, and he came after me and over me. A perfect giant of a man.

“Into me now and hard, and you drive it hard, hard with all your strength, and you come when I come and not one second before, you hear me?”

Without answering he thrust that enormous cock against me like a battering ram. How in the world can that find the little door, I thought with the most exhilarating happiness, but he found it, he ground into it and opened it, parting the dripping wet lips and slamming deep till his belly was against me.

My eyes had closed. I opened them and found myself looking up into his face, into his eyes. Again and again he slammed against me, stretching me, filling me, his arms like pillars beside me, his hair hanging down in his face. I felt the cock fill me up tight, tighter perhaps than I’d ever been filled, oh what cock in the world would ever match this cock, sliding against my clitoris. I started crying out, I couldn’t stop myself.

I wrapped my naked legs tight around him, and drove my hands down into the crack of his backside, my first fingers left and right plunging into his anus.

I would have held off for an hour, letting my passion rise and fall, but I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t. I was writhing against the coverlet trying to control it, riding up with him, slammed down again by him, struggling to bite down against it, but it was useless. My face was burning. All breath had gone out of me. I was nothing and no one.

It was a fire rolling upwards consuming me as I started to come, lifting my hips, crying out, and he let me lift my hips, then forced me down again one final time, coming inside me in one swift glory of jerking movements. It went on and on and finally it was I, I who cried out:

“No more!”

He drew back.

And unbidden, he closed his mouth over mine and kissed me. He drove his tongue deep into me.

“Away, stop!” I sighed. I groaned. No one would call that speaking words.

He fell down right beside me with a long deep sigh and then rolled over on his back. I saw his eyes close.

For a long moment we lay still.

Then I was up and on my feet and inspecting the utter ruin of my garments. I gathered them up as best I could.

I stared down at him. It seemed he was falling into a deep sleep. And on a chair on the far side of the bed, I could see what appeared to be a long robe of red velvet. Surely this was his robe, his dressing gown. He’d been dressed in red when we’d gathered in the great hall. It was his color, red, red trimmed with gold as this robe was.

I put my paddle and strap back in the casket, along with the pot of cream, and stuffed my torn dress inside it and closed it and held it.

“Wake up now,” I said.

He opened his eyes and looked at me. He had a vague heavy sleepy look.

“Get up, put on that red dressing gown and slippers if you have them, and take this coverlet off the bed. Wrap me in it as I am naked and without clothes, and carry me back to my chamber.”

He obeyed without a moment’s hesitation. The moment he closed the long robe around his tall frame, he was every inch the King again, and as he gathered up the coverlet he had an easy graceful air to him as if such a task were nothing.

He held it up for me as if it were a cloak, and as I turned my back to him he wrapped me into it securely and then picked me up as if I were weightless, a light little thing with a casket in her arms, and indeed I was, suddenly cradled in his arms, and staring up at his smiling face.

He carried me out of the bedchamber, easily opening the door, and shoving it back behind us, and then down the long shadowy corridor.

No one was about. If others peeped from recesses in the dark, through keyholes or tiny apertures made for peeping, we didn’t know it, and all the while, all the while, he was smiling down at me.

Smiling.

“This is my door,” I said when we had reached my chamber. “Set me down on my feet.”

He obeyed and then he opened the door for me. A gust of sweet warm air came from my little parlor.

“I’m dismissing you now, sire,” I said in a low confidential voice. “With your permission.”

“Will you grant me one last kiss?” he whispered, and this time his smile was radiant and infectious.

“As you wish,” I said.

He clamped his hands on the sides of my face, and held me captive as he kissed me with as much passion as he had ever kissed me earlier.

“My precious Lady Eva,” he whispered.

And with that he turned and walked down the hall without so much as a glance behind him. Such a stately figure with such a sprightly step.

I rushed into my chambers, shut the door, and collapsed at my writing table.