by E. Liddell
Author's Note: Well, I did it again. Let them dare me, that is. Sardonyx (yes, it's still your fault!) challenged me to write a lemon about a youma on a dinner date. Slightly kinky graphic sex. Read at your own risk.
As usual, Sailor Moon and associated characters do not belong to me, yadda yadda yadda.
Direct any feedback to eliddell@dark-kingdom.de.
We were scrubbing the floor of Beryl's throne room when he came.
I wasn't even aware of his approach. I was too busy trying to rub away a trail of phosphorescent slime that someone or something had left behind to dismay the cleaning staff. It just would not come off the rock no matter how hard I scrubbed, and I was rubbing at it frantically when all of a sudden, everyone else in the room went very still.
"On your feet," the supervisor snapped, and I scrambled up, knowing that we must have been interrupted by someone Very Important. I stood with my eyes carefully downcast and waited for whoever-it-was to leave. After all, what interest could an officer possibly have in a pack of youma servants?
To my surprise, I heard footsteps crossing the room at a slow, measured pace, stopping occasionally to do I knew not what. Slowly, they moved nearer, and nearer . . . and stopped again. I bit my lip. A pair of shiny boots were planted directly in front of me.
Silence. Then a hand reached out, grabbed my chin, and tilted my head roughly up, and I got my first really good look at him.
Handsome, regular features, short blonde hair, skin that was pale pink and not purple or orange or green, and the coldest pair of blue-violet eyes that I had ever seen . . . I had never been so close to any true male before, much less one of his rank, but there could be no mistake. This was King Jadeite- sama, the fifth most important being in the Dark Kingdom.
I was paralyzed, staring at him, mesmerized as moths are by flame. Beautiful . . . I've never seen anyone so beautiful. But then, the only people I had ever seen close up before were youma . . .
"Your number." He had a pleasant enough voice, although it was as devoid of warmth as his eyes.
"89764C, m-my Lord." I barely remembered to give him his correct title.
He nodded slightly, not bothering to ask for my name. Workers don't rate names, and the nicknames we use among ourselves are never allowed to come to the attention of the officers.
"89764C," he repeated, and something about the way he said it made me shiver. Oh, not with fear, with . . . Actually, I wasn't quite sure, but somehow, I wasn't frightened of him, although I should have been. "You will come with me, and follow any orders that I see fit to give you. Is that clear?"
"Yes, my Lord."
"Good." Finally, he released my chin and I was able to lower my eyes again, to not look at that beautiful, disturbing face.
I followed his boots along the row of other youma who were still standing eyes downcast like my own, beside their discarded cleaning implements (one of them hissing "half-male" at me as I passed, as though I had offered Lord Jadeite my favours so that he would take special notice of me), out the door, and into a corridor. We walked in silence for several minutes, and I was beginning to wonder if he had forgotten me when he finally stopped in front of a door and placed his hand against the lockplate. There was a click, and he pushed it open.
"In here," he commanded, waving his hand in a sweeping gesture when I didn't react immediately.
"Yes, my Lord." I stepped through the door, and instantly sank ankle-deep into . . . carpet?
I took two steps forward and one sideways to clear the door for him, and then dared raise my eyes from the floor and look around.
The room was softly lit and sparsely furnished with pieces carven from priceless Earth-grown woods. The carpet was so thick that, looking down, I couldn't see my own sandaled feet. Not even the warriors lived in such luxury, and I understood instantly that I was inside Lord Jadeite's private quarters.
"Through there," my Lord commanded, pointing at another door somewhere over to my left as he closed the one through which we had entered. "Wait for me inside."
"Yes, my Lord." I was getting rather tired of speaking those words, but any other response to his commands would have meant instant death.
I padded across the floor, opened the indicated door, and stepped through . . . into chaos.
It looked vaguely like it might have been a dressing room--there was a full-length mirror and a lot of pegs and racks for hanging things on--but it was a real mess at the moment. Trousers and shirts and jackets and other things which I didn't even have a name for were strewn all over the floor and across one of the two tables that bracketed the mirror. There was a single overturned boot lying on the floor beside the door, its mate apparently lost somewhere under everything else. I was afraid to move away from the door in case I stepped on something. Underneath the clothes, the floor here seemed to be covered with some sort of matting, which was more serviceable but less luxurious than the carpeting in the first room.
I sank into a squatting position on the floor. What is this place for, anyway? What could he possibly need all these clothes for? Hell, what could he possibly need me for? Somehow, I doubt it's just that he needs someone to get this place cleaned up and organized.
The door swung open again behind me, and the toe of a boot prodded at my buttock. "Get up."
I obeyed instantly.
"Turn around."
I turned, directing my gaze once more at his feet. A hand wrenched at my chin.
"Keep your head up and your shoulders back. I want a better look at you. Are you male?"
I blushed. "No, my lord. I am female and fertile, merely . . . deformed." I stared at his collar, which, fortunately, was almost exactly at my eye level.
He snorted. "Well, I suppose that if you were male, I would hardly have found you scrubbing floors. Take off your clothes."
"What?!" It burst out before I really thought, and I blushed even harder, knowing that my blue skin was probably turquoise all the way down to the middle of my chest by now and mortified that I had forgotten where I was and who I was with and waiting for Lord Jadeite to blast me into cinders.
"I need to know exactly what I have to work with here. Take off your clothes." His voice dropped to a near- whisper. "I will not repeat myself again."
"Yes, my Lord. I'm sorry, my Lord." Being completely flat-chested, I'd never needed to wear a breastband, so all I had to do was kick my sandals off, then lower my hands to my waist and untie the rope belt that supported my loincloth, letting it fall. Turquoise to my fingertips, I awaited the inspection that I knew was coming.
"'Deformed,'" Lord Jadeite quoted. "I see. Does it function at all?" Then he answered his own question by reaching down to stroke the finger of flesh that dangled between my thighs. There was no way that I could possibly have blushed more than I already was, but I wanted to as his touch made me begin to swell, although I wasn't sure whether I was more embarrassed or surprised. Normally, the warriors had to drug or bespell me to get me to perform for them, and this gentle stroking shouldn't have been doing what it obviously was . . . then he lifted his hand away, and it became much easier to think. "So that's why that other youma called you 'half-male'. Do you service them?"
"Sometimes, my Lord. To the extent that I'm able."
"In any case, it appears that you will serve my need quite well. Would you like to take a trip to the human world, little one?"
"T-the human world, my Lord? I'd be honoured." No worker youma had left the Dark Kingdom since the end of the Silver Millennium. It was an extraordinary privilege.
"Excellent. Now, hold still."
His gloved hands traced a pattern against my skin, webbing it with glowing lines wherever they touched. No part of me escaped--not even the soles of my feet, or my pitiful little excuse for a penis, although his fingers barely skimmed over the mouth of the slit hidden further back between my thighs, which his handling was beginning to cause to dampen and ache. Then he was in front of me again, hands to either side of my shoulders, not quite touching me as he spoke a single, sharp word.
Rainbow light rippled over my skin, making it tingle. Then there was a bright flash, and . . . nothing. Absolutely nothing seemed to have changed.
"Look in the mirror," Lord Jadeite prompted. "Go on."
I picked my way carefully across the floor to the full- length mirror I had seen earlier and pulled away the robe-like garment, carelessly flung across it, that obscured half its surface . . . then froze with the length of cloth still in my hand.
"What . . . how?"
The person looking back at me from the mirror . . . wasn't me. Oh, there were hints of me here and there in the structure of his face, and in his hands, surprisingly fine despite the thick calluses and ragged nails, but he . . . was human, with soft pink skin like Lord Jadeite's, and truly male. Very male. He had long, slightly curly, pale blue hair, exactly the colour that my skin normally was, that tumbled around his shoulders and framed his face, softening the sharp bones of it and accentuating a very speaking pair of dark eyes. Overall, he was almost as beautiful as Lord Jadeite, although in a more fragile sort of way.
"You can see through the illusion, since it was cast on you, as can I, since I was the caster, but the humans won't be able to," Lord Jadeite said, coming up beside me. He had taken off his jacket and his gloves, and somehow looked a little less formidable, although his eyes were just as cold. "It will last for several hours."
I looked in the mirror, where two handsome young men stood side-by-side, and then down at the reality of my scrawny, blue-skinned body. "I understand, my Lord. May I ask what it is that you wish me to do?"
"Merely stay with me, try to look pretty, and talk as little as possible. You're necessary camouflage, nothing more. Beryl has given me orders to search the human world for possible sources of life energy that we can use to revive the Empress Metallia, and it would look very strange for me to enter the place I intend to scout out tonight without another man with me. I would have taken one of the warriors, but the illusion will hold better if the image it presents isn't too much at variance with the physical form of the person to whom it has been applied, and while I might have hired a human for the purpose, I could not have trusted him to obey my orders. Do you understand now?"
Barely. "Yes, my Lord."
He was already turning away from me and the mirror, rummaging through the mounds of clothing on and under the one table. He soon threw several items at me--shirt, trousers, one shoe, then another, other things.
"Well, don't just stand there. Get dressed."
My human reflection in the mirror turned even pinker as I said, "My Lord, I don't know what to do with most of these. I've never worn so much clothing before."
He frowned, and I trembled. Then he walked over and helped me separate the clothes and explained what to put on first and how. Underclothing, socks, the tight blue trousers that he called jeans, and the loose white shirt . . . all ridiculous-looking on my youma frame, but the story the mirror told was quite different. It shouldn't be possible to find your own reflection attractive--or at least, not that way--but I did.
"Good enough," Lord Jadeite said, tugging my collar straight. "Now. One more thing. If any of the humans asks your name, it's 'Hikaru Tanaka'. Can you remember that?"
"Yes, my Lord." A name? He was giving me a name? A real name?
"I wouldn't bother, but the humans don't have servant castes, and they wouldn't understand." Standing beside me, he draped one arm over my shoulders, both holding me and confining me as the room around us dissolved into mist.
When the mist dissipated, we were standing on an uneven surface in a narrow passageway that was open to . . . the sky? I heard that there was such a thing, even in the Dark Kingdom, but my entire life had been spent confined within the corridors of Beryl's palace, and so I had never seen it until now. It was dark, the walls to either side of us were etched with graffiti, and the smell . . . I had to breathe only through my mouth, or else asphyxiate. Perhaps the humans needed servant castes, if this was what they let their world come to in their absence!
Unexpectedly, Lord Jadeite's arm tightened a bit around my shoulders, as though to reassure me. "I don't like it either, little one, but it's a place near where I need to go tonight that's almost never visited by the humans. Come."
He drew me with him along the narrow passageway and out into a much wider one, cautioning me, "Try not to stare too much." It was much-needed advice, because, without it, I would have been gaping at everything--the dozens of humans around us, the brightly-lit buildings, the vehicles whizzing by off to our left . . . I did risk one brief glance upward, at the sky. It was black, but sprinkled here and there with little sparks of white light. Were these the stars that King Nephrite-sama was said to worship?
Lord Jadeite steered me into the entrance to one of the buildings, and, in the process, into yet another different world, softly lit, but with pounding music coming from somewhere up ahead that made it noisier than the outside. It made it difficult to hear what Lord Jadeite was saying to the human standing behind the counter across from us, although I could catch bits here and there.
"--reservation--Tsumeta--"
"--moment--" the human responded, leafing through a book. "--here--this way--" He took a pair of small books or folders from under the counter and stepped around it, leading the way deeper into the building.
The music washed over us in a wave as we passed through the inner doors, so loud that it shook the floor and I could feel it in my bones. I cringed, pressing my body close against Lord Jadeite's. It was just too much--the noise, the flashing lights below and to our right, the humans crowding the place and half-shouting to be heard over the noise . . . all men, I noticed, and all in groups of at least two. Well, that explained my presence here, anyway.
We stopped beside a small table and the man who had been leading us across the floor pulled out one of the chairs that flanked it. Lord Jadeite lifted his arm away from my shoulders and gave me a little push towards it. I stumbled over to stand beside the piece of furniture.
"--with him?" our guide asked.
"--nervous--country kid--first time--Tokyo--wouldn't put up--but--well-hung and got a nice ass." And with that, Lord Jadeite groped me between the thighs. It was completely unexpected, and I shivered, not sure whether I wanted to flinch away or press closer. "Shy, too," Lord Jadeite added. "--be okay."
"Whatever--say." Our guide placed the two book/folders on the table, one in front of each chair, and then abandoned us.
Lord Jadeite made a flicking gesture with one hand, and all of a sudden, the noise was . . . well, still there, but less overwhelming. Magic, I realized with a twinge of envy. I myself was not blessed with such powers. Metallia never grants Her grace to mere worker-youma.
"Sit down," he ordered. I sat. He took the chair across from mine, picked up the booklike thing that our guide had left for him, and opened it. I mimicked him, but the symbols inside swam so in front of my eyes that I couldn't have focused on them enough to read them even if I had known how.
"I take it that you can't read."
I started, wondering if Lord Jadeite had read my mind. "Uh, no, my Lord."
"Well, you should at least turn that thing right side up if you're going to pretend."
Instead, I closed it and set it aside. Our table was set right up against a railing, beyond which the floor dropped straight down for perhaps my height. I looked over the edge, curious about the bright lights and the noise in that part of the room.
There were humans down there, all men, in pairs, swaying and gyrating in time with the music. I watched them for a while, fascinated, then glanced up to see that Lord Jadeite had set his almost-book aside too, and was watching me with something vaguely like . . . could it really be indulgent amusement?
"What are they doing, my Lord?" I dared to ask.
"It's called dancing, little one." He seemed about to say something else, but a human dressed vaguely like our guide had been approached us at that moment.
"May I take your order?"
I didn't hear what Lord Jadeite said to him, because I was really more interested in watching the dancing, but eventually he went away, and then returned with two glasses on a tray, setting one in front of me and one in front of Lord Jadeite. My Lord took a sip from his, and I copied him . . . then stopped, spluttering.
"This . . . this is . . ."
"Refined spirits." Once more, I sensed that tiny bit of amused indulgence in him. "One of humanity's better inventions, really, but a bit of an acquired taste."
I set my glass down and stared into it as though I had magical powers and could scry using the amber liquid. He's being . . . almost nice to me. Strange thought. Why?
"Be quiet for a bit, little one. I need to get a sense of the energy currents in this place."
He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes, and I was left to mull over my questions alone.
He stayed that way until one of the humans who seemed to take the role of servants in this place approached us again, this time carrying a platter with two plates of food on it. My mouth watered as I caught a whiff of the steam rising off of them. Even mixed with the scents of smoke and human that permeated this place, the smell was remarkably appetizing. No mushroom porridge, this.
The plate that was placed in front of me bore what looked like, but couldn't possibly be, chopped bits of some kind of animal, covered with sauce and mixed with noodles. Meat? Real meat? Even the warriors ate such things seldom, and I had never even seen any before.
I reached for the chopsticks beside the plate. The food didn't disappear. Tentatively, I picked a little of it up and placed it in my mouth.
The taste was everything that the smell had promised. I forced myself to eat slowly, savouring every bite, knowing that I would never in my life have a chance like this again.
Lord Jadeite finished long before I did, and leaned back in his chair, sipping his drink and watching me with the same blend of amusement and indulgence as before. I half- expected him to try to hurry me along, but he seemed content to wait until I was done. It wasn't until my plate was clean that he pushed his chair back and stood up, setting down his empty glass.
"A-are we leaving now, my Lord?" I still expected him to blast me into ashes every time I asked a question, although he had been oddly even-tempered so far.
"Not quite, little one. I need to spend a bit of time down on the dance floor first." He dropped some small pieces of paper onto the table, then threw his arm around my shoulders as he had earlier and guided me towards a staircase.
Side by side, we walked downward into the flashing lights and the press of bodies. The music was so loud here that I could feel it in my bones even with Lord Jadeite's soundproofing spell baffling it. Again, I pressed myself close against his side. He might well be the most dangerous creature here, but at least he was familiar.
The tempo of the music slowed as we reached the floor, and Lord Jadeite, to my shock, drew me around in front of him, clasping one of my hands in his and wrapping his other arm around my waist, pulling me so close that our bodies were almost touching.
"You'll have to be quiet again for a while," he warned me. And, "Try not to step on my feet."
We moved out across the floor at a slow shuffle. Lord Jadeite's eyes were half-closed, his forehead furrowed in concentration, and I assumed that he was trying to sense the ambient energies again and didn't want to be bothered for a while.
Wandering aimlessly, we drifted a little too close to another couple, and a glancing contact with another man's hip send me staggering half a step forward, so that my body was pressed against Lord Jadeite's. I pressed my face against his shoulder, feeling the warm, hard muscle under the loose cloth of his shirt. He smelled . . . different, not unlike the humans all around us, but with a hint of something that reminded me of cold darkness and empty spaces. How could he be so very human, and yet . . . not? Perhaps there was some truth to the rumour that the Lords Jadeite and Nephrite and Zoisite and Kunzite had been four humans that Metallia had corrupted.
Tentatively, I wrapped my own free arm, which had been hanging at my side, around his waist. He still seemed to be paying me little or no attention. I could feel a throbbing ache beginning in my groin, just as it had earlier when he had . . . handled me there . . . while setting his illusion on me. What was wrong with me? No one had ever done this to me before. No one had ever made me feel this way.
I want him.
My eyes flew open wide as the thought crossed my mind.
I want him.
I had never wanted anyone before. My life had been one long sequence of . . . of rapes and prostitution. I'd traded my body and its particular ability to my peers for favours. The warriors had just taken me without asking, or offering me anything in return. And now, here, in this place, with this beautiful man who would probably kill me without a second thought when this was over . . .
"Can I cut in?"
I jumped and loosened my grip on Lord Jadeite, whose eyes had snapped open at the sound of the stranger's voice.
"No," my Lord said. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees as he spoke.
"I inshisht." The stranger grabbed my arm with one hand and gave it a tug. I cowered back against Lord Jadeite. This human was big and coarse and smelled of something like the drink I had tasted earlier. He reminded me too much of the warriors who had been abusing me most of my life, and he frightened me, even if he was just a human. "Pretty little thing like that should be with a real man, not a pansy like you."
Lord Jadeite took the human's wrist between his forefinger and thumb, and squeezed. The big man yelped, and his grip on my arm loosened. Lord Jadeite drew me away.
"Hikaru, it's time that we left." My Lord's voice was pitched to carry. It was a moment before I remembered the name he had given me and realized that I was the one he was talking to.
"Please," I replied, proud that I somehow managed to keep my voice from shaking.
We climbed the stairs and walked out into the night without saying anything further. Back into the noisome, narrow passage where we had first appeared, and then the mists swept over us again and we were back in the cluttered room full of clothing in Lord Jadeite's private quarters.
My Lord was unexpectedly gentle as he stroked the side of my face with one hand. "You did well tonight, little one-- better than I would ever have expected. I'll reward you well for this when I get back from submitting my report." He released me and plucked his jacket off the top of one of the piles of clothing on the floor, swinging it into place around his shoulders and beginning to fasten it. "For now, change back into your own clothes and wait for me in the room outside."
"Yes, my Lord." But I couldn't bring myself to start undressing until he had left.
Once more wearing my own coarse loincloth and sandals, I crouched on the floor of the big carpeted room and waited for him to come back, doubting that his indulgence extended to letting me leave clawmarks on his chairs. I felt like I had been there forever by the time I saw the glow in the air that meant he was coming back.
But as it faded, he just stood there, with his back mostly to me, standing rigidly upright with both hands clenched into fists. He's shaking, I realized. What happened?
I heard him take one slow, deep breath, then another. Slowly, his fingers straightened, and he reached around in front of himself. His jacket came loose and slid down to the floor after a moment.
The shirt underneath had red blotches all over it. How could he have spattered it with anything if it was under--Oh. Oh, no. That's blood. He's been hurt!
"My Lord?"
For a moment, I thought that he hadn't heard me. Then, "Hikaru," he said, in a soft, strained voice. "I'd forgotten you were here, little one. Go into the other room and stay there."
"No, my Lord."
"No?" His voice, while still soft, was more menacing than strained now. "I think you're forgetting your place, little one." He turned, slowly. The was blood soaking through the front of his shirt too, but he seemed to be paying it no attention as he moved toward me, stalking with a grace that belied the pain he had to be in . . . until he spoiled it by staggering, breath hissing between his teeth. If I hadn't lunged forward and jammed my shoulder under his arm, I think he would have fallen.
He wavered for a moment, then steadied, although he was still leaning on me.
"I'm going to have to kill you now," he said, sounding almost apologetic.
"I understand, my Lord." I'd known from the moment that I had refused his order that I was going to die. He couldn't let me live after seeing him in this state--would probably have killed me even if I had obeyed him and gone into the other room. "When you're well enough. Right now, you need my help."
"I can manage," he growled.
"I'm sure you can, my Lord." Or at least, he had gotten this far, even though I suspected that a youma would be unconscious by now. "Still, I would like to spare you what pain I can." And have the satisfaction of touching him, at least for a little while . . .
"Very well, then." He shifted his weight off me. "Do you see that cabinet over there, little one? There's a sealed pot made out of green ceramic in the bottom drawer. Get it and bring it here. And if you see a knife there, bring it as well. My feet are rather badly swollen, and you're going to have to cut my boots off."
"Yes, my Lord." I went to the indicated cabinet, found the pot and a knife, and brought them back to where he was standing, in the middle of the floor. By that time, he had his shirt and his gloves off.
I gasped in dismay. His entire upper body was covered with narrow, bloody welts, as though he had been beaten with a cane, and the skin on his hands was reddened, with blisters rising on the outer edge of the left one. Oddly enough, his face and neck were untouched.
"My Lord, who did this to you?"
"Queen Beryl." He gave me a ghost of a smile. "Apparently she didn't like my report. Or perhaps she was just having a bad day. It's difficult to tell. Don't worry, little one. I'm too valuable for her to maim or permanently disfigure me. This looks worse than it is. Now. Open that pot for me, will you?"
I pried loose the seals around the lid, was rewarded with a familiar scent. Healing ointment. Like that smashed crock I'd cleaned up in the warriors' infirmary a while back.
Lord Jadeite leaned forward and plunged his hands into the stuff. To my surprise, when he pulled them out, the redness and blisters were already fading. Magically enhanced?
"Do my back for me, little one, if you would."
I stuck my fingers into the pot, lifted out a dollop of the pungent stuff, and began smoothing it carefully over the welts on his back. They faded almost immediately into inflamed red scars. I could see other, fainter, lines crisscrossing his skin, testimony to the fact that this wasn't the first time that something like this had happened to him.
He feels so soft . . .
Slowly, he shuffled over to lean on a chair, shifted all of his weight onto one foot. "My boots, little one."
I picked up the knife that I had fetched earlier and walked over to stand beside him.
A few moments later, he was standing there, quite naked, while I rubbed salve into his feet and calves. Even the soles of his feet were damaged--burned and blistered the way his left hand had been--and I honestly didn't know how he had managed to stay standing for so long. A youma, even a warrior, would have been curled up in a little ball on the floor, whimpering in pain, but this man . . . he was so magnificent, so tremendously strong . . .
At least his male parts had managed to escape injury. I winced, remembering what it had felt like the time I had been with a warrior who had teeth . . . down there . . . and she had lost control for a moment. Lord Jadeite was easily three or four times my size in that department, and I couldn't even imagine that kind of pain multiplied by a factor of three or four.
Then, finally, the last welt had been ministered to. The tension went out of Lord Jadeite's shoulders, and he shook his head.
"Another uniform ruined--well, I suppose I can salvage the jacket, but the rest is a lost cause. Come on, little one." He began to walk, slowly, towards one of the doors in the far wall, one that I hadn't been through yet.
"Where are we going, my Lord?" I fell into step behind him, ready to catch him if he started to stagger or shake again.
"I need a good long bath to soak the pain out of my bruises, and I'm certainly in no shape to wash my own back."
"Uh, my Lord . . ." The bath? Wash his back? Suddenly, I was very aware of the way a little bump was showing through my loincloth. Touching his body, even for such a completely unerotic purpose, had made me hard and wet and aching again. I scrambled for some other excuse. "The salve?"
"Has already transferred most of its virtue to my body--it's all right to wash it off now. You're getting to be very forward for a youma servant, little one."
"You can only kill me once, my Lord," I pointed out recklessly, and was rewarded with something that sounded almost like a laugh.
"True."
The bath was a sunken, heated pool inside a grey-tiled room larger than the dormitory that I shared with three other youma of my caste. He turned his back to me in order to climb down the shallow steps into it, and I breathed a sigh of relief, able to kick off my sandals and drop my loincloth and slip over the edge into the water without him being able to see me.
Lord Jadeite waded all the way over to the other side of the pool, and I followed, feeling the water washing around my waist getting warmer the farther I moved in that direction. When he finally stopped and went down on his knees, clasping his hands on the edge of the pool and resting his chin on him, the water was verging on being uncomfortably warm. I knelt beside him and began, gingerly, to rub at his back.
"Mmmmm. Little one, you have some of the most unexpected skills. Perhaps I won't kill you after all. It's been a while since I last had a body-servant. I'll have to put you under a geas of silence, of course."
"Whatever my Lord wishes." He was joking, of course. Even I knew that geases were complicated spells. I wasn't worth that kind of work.
It was getting difficult to concentrate on what I was doing. The heat of the water and the feel of that salve-slicked soft skin and those hard, smooth muscles under my hands were making my arousal almost unbearable. I'm already a dead youma . . . surely it won't matter if . . .
I moved a little closer to him and ground my aching groin against his hip.
He lifted his head from where it had been resting on his hands and turned slowly towards me. I shrank back, certain that this time I had gone too far, that he really was going to kill me on the spot.
Instead, he reached out to grip my shoulder and pull me towards him again, then leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine. My eyes opened wide, in shock, and he used my instant of surprised inactivity to slide his tongue past my lips and deep into my mouth. His hands shifted, the one on my shoulder rising to the back of my neck, the other sliding down between my legs, fingers entering a space that few other than myself had ever touched. I ground myself against it, moaning softly into his mouth.
"Why?" I whispered when he finally let me up for air.
"I promised you a reward." His voice sounded oddly husky. "And I hate breaking promises, little one. It's been obvious from the first that you wanted me. Come with me, now. Having sex in the bath is wet and messy and I'm not up to it tonight."
He rose to his feet and shifted his grip on me again. One arm under my buttocks, the other across my back . . . I didn't realize what he had in mind until he lifted me.
"My Lord, your wounds!"
" . . . aren't very bad, all things considered. A little tender, but mostly healed. And we're not going far. Trust me to know my own limits, little one. I was a thousand years old when you were hatched."
I gave in, relaxing against his shoulder as he climbed the steps out of the bath and carried me through the far door, then laid me on my back on a huge, unmade bed.
I didn't have much of a chance to look around the room, because he was right there, on top of me, straddling my thighs and pressing me back against the sheets. Our erections rubbed together as he leaned forward to press another kiss on me, and I moaned softly and arched my back. How else was I supposed to react to the feeling of lightning pulsing up my spine?
"Wait for just a moment," he breathed in my ear, and rolled off me. I shut my eyes and concentrated on regulating my breathing. Then he was back, one hand sliding down between my thighs.
"Roll over," he demanded, and I shifted so that I was lying on my stomach. One of his fingers probed at the cleft between my buttocks.
"My Lord? What are you doing?" None of my lovers had ever shown any interest in touching me there before.
The tone of his voice told me that he was probably smiling as he replied, "I'm going to take you as though you were a woman, of course, little one, but it would be unfair for me to forget that you're part male, too. Now, this is going to feel a bit odd at first, but I think you'll like it when you get used to it."
I caught a brief glimpse of something grey and rubbery in his hand--a rod about the size of my little finger, or of my penis when it was flaccid--and then something damp and oily of about that size was being pushed inside my anus. Not painful, exactly, but . . . very strange. Then Lord Jadeite's finger traced a pattern against my flesh, and I yelped with surprise as the thing began to swell inside me. It had to be several times its original size when it finally stopped and Lord Jadeite stretched out on his stomach beside me, pressing a similar little grey rod into my hand.
"Now you do the same to me," he ordered.
I rose up onto my knees, freezing for a moment when the thing inside me brushed against a sensitive spot that seemed to be directly connected to my groin. Ooooh . . . Can I make it do that again? I rolled my hips experimentally, was rewarded with another little twinge. Mmmmmm . . .
I kneaded Lord Jadeite's buttocks with my hands, enjoying the feel of firm muscle and soft skin under my fingers again for a moment before I spread them and did as he'd asked. His hand reached back to guide mine as I traced the magical pattern that would activate his little toy, and he gave what could only be a sigh of satisfaction as the spell took effect.
Then he rolled over, flipping me and reversing our positions so that he was on top again. He reached past my right shoulder and picked up what looked like a piece of black cloth, perhaps a foot square. His hand slid down and squeezed it into place around my penis.
I gasped and moaned. I wasn't quite sure whether it felt more like a tight sheath of heated velvet or being suddenly immersed in warm oil under pressure, but it was somehow soft and wet at the same time--and very hot, and very tight.
"Now we're ready," Lord Jadeite murmured, and kissed me again. But this time, he didn't stop there. He nibbled at my neck, then slid down further, swirling his tongue around each of my nipples in turn. I was helpless, wriggling and moaning underneath him, not aware of much of anything except his hands and his mouth and the grip around my penis and the rod inside me, which had now swollen even more and was pressing steadily against that sensitive spot it had so briefly found before.
He pressed at my thighs, spreading my legs wider, and then brought his head down. I found myself screaming as he finally turned his attention to my neglected female parts. Rarely had any of my former partners taken any time to pleasure me at all, and certainly none of them had ever been so thorough. His tongue was everywhere, and his fingers were sliding inside me . . . I couldn't breathe except in short gasps.
I whimpered in disappointment as he lifted his head away and rose above me, but quieted as I felt something long and thick sliding into the space he had just emptied.
I screamed again as he finally entered me. I understood now why it was that the warriors forced me into bed, why the other menials begged for my services. I understood why they wanted me so badly, poor ersatz male that I was, not even nearly large enough to satisfy most of them. I understood, because for the first time in my life, I was with someone whose body fitted properly against mine.
I pushed my hips up to meet his, working with every thrust, trying to pull him even deeper inside me. I could feel the orgasm building, tremendously intense, spreading out from three different points--from the tip of my penis where it was pressing against his abdomen, from that sensitive secret place that the rod was pressing against, and most importantly, from somewhere near my womb as he pounded into me.
When it finally came, I couldn't even scream. Every muscle in my body locked solid and my mind seemed to explode. I barely even felt his last few short, hard, irregular thrusts or the spurt of hot liquid inside me as he came as well. I was too busy riding the aftershocks, feeling the last few spasms of pleasure ripple through my helpless body.
It wasn't until he bent forward to kiss me again, and gently licked the tears off my face, that I realized I had been crying.
I thought about talking, decided that I didn't want to, snuggled down into his arms, and fell asleep, hoping that he would kill me before I woke up so that I wouldn't have to deal with the disappointment that my life was going to be after this.
But I did wake up--alone, disoriented for a moment, not remembering whose bed I was in. It was nice, though. Big, with nice soft sheets, and my body feeling pleasantly strung out from sex instead of aching from rape.
That was what jogged my memory. Lord Jadeite . . . I . . . we . . .
I sat up, and discovered that I was alone. In fact, there was no sign, other than the rumpled blankets on the other side of the bed, that anyone else had ever been in the room. Well, all right, that and the clutter on the dresser. How could any one person possibly accumulate so much stuff, even given a thousand years to do it in?
Needing a distraction, I padded over and began to examine the jumble, not quite daring to touch anything, even though I knew I was dead already. Various small weapons, knickknacks, a long-empty bottle of wine . . . Was there something small and colourful jammed in behind that? I teased at it carefully with my claws until I managed to get it loose. A photo? It had to be ancient, because the Lord Jadeite in the image looked much younger than the one I knew. And happier, too. He was smiling, one arm flung over the shoulders of a pale, red-haired girl. She was smiling, too, although the thinness of her face, the hollows just under her eyes, made it look like there was something wrong with her. She wasn't eating enough, was she? Or . . . could she have been ill?
I started and dropped the photo as I heard the door open.
"Oh, you're awake. Good." Lord Jadeite, dressed only in a ragged pair of trousers, padded barefoot into the room carrying a box under one arm. The whip welts that had disfigured him the night before had faded almost into invisibility now. "What's that you're--" Then he stopped talking, and the hint of a smile that had been hovering around the corners of his mouth vanished again. He dropped the box on the bed and strode over to pick up the photograph, staring at it for a moment before tucking it back into obscurity behind the wine bottle.
"Who was she, my Lord?" Why not ask? Like I said last night, he can only kill me once.
"My sister." Now he was staring at nothing, and I thought I saw the glitter of an unshed tear in his eye. "Metallia promised me, you see. Promised me that she would be healthy and happy and strong if only I . . ." His voice trailed off again as the muscles in his shoulders tensed and bunched. "Only half of that promise was kept. She's healthy now, but I can't--I won't--believe that she's happy. Not after everything that's happened. But she's still my sister, and I still love her. And that's why it's so important that I keep my own promises, whenever I can."
Then his mouth firmed and he seemed to become aware of where he was again, and who he was talking to. "No one else knows about that picture, little one, and B--my sister doesn't remember. And I want it to stay that way."
I swallowed. "Are you going to kill me now, my Lord?"
"Of course not." He sat down on the bed, began to open the box. "I did say that I wanted you as a body-servant, didn't I? However, I can't allow you to discuss what I say or do inside my private rooms with anyone else. Outside that door in the main room, everyone must believe that I am colder than Kunzite and just as sadistic as Zoisite, because otherwise, they'll close in like a pack of wolves--and not just on me, but on her, as well, and I can't permit that. But I can't do it alone anymore, little one. I'm getting old and tired, and I . . ." He chuckled softly. "I suppose I want a friend, or at least someone that I can trust to listen without judging. And you're not strong enough to hurt me, and you've proven that you can be trusted, so . . ."
I fell to my knees on the carpet. "Thank you, my Lord."
His hand reached out to ruffle my close-cropped hair. "I think I prefer it when you're impudent, little one. I can see that building up your confidence to the point where you're willing to talk back to me is going to be work."
I leaned into his touch, beginning to understand. There were two different Lord Jadeites, really--the one that everyone else saw, and the one that I was seeing now. The one whose existence I could not be permitted to betray. That made sense out of . . . so many things. The way he had behaved in the human world, when no one from the Dark Kingdom could possibly have been watching us. And the toys he had used to help pleasure me last night . . . I hadn't understood why he possessed such things. Now I knew. A toy couldn't betray him. A toy couldn't gossip with the other youma, couldn't tell them that the great Lord Jadeite reacted to pleasure and pain just like any other creature with a body would, that he was just another mortal being after all, and not a demigod. Yes. I could see him using those things on himself, late at night, when there was no one else around . . . and the image made me ache for closer contact with him than just his hand resting on the top of my head.
"Come here, little one." While I had been thinking, he had been removing things from the box and setting them on the bed beside him. "I'm ready for you now."
It took three hours for him to set the geas. Afterwards, when it was over, and I could no longer speak about his private behaviour to anyone else, he pulled me back down on the bed with him and made love to me again, slowly, savouring it this time.
By the time we were done, we were both crying.
That was four months ago now, and I can't imagine ever going back to the cleaning staff. I've changed, and not just because my body has filled out, now that I'm getting enough food, and my abdomen--but I'll be rid of that last in another few days, so it isn't all that important. But I don't think the same way as I once did, and I know I don't quite talk like a menial anymore. I've picked up too much of the way Lord Jadeite talks.
I still share his bed at night, although there isn't much sex right now. It would be too awkward. Still, even if I had known I was fertile that night, I wouldn't have done anything differently. Even if this is damned uncomfortable. I'm too small to carry an egg, really, and I've asked Lord Jadeite to bespell me the moment I deliver so that it doesn't happen again, but . . .
There's only one thing about all of this that makes me sad.
The child of a youma can never be anything more than another youma, Hikaru, no matter who the father was. I'm sorry.
He was so very sad . . . I think he wants things to be different just as much as I do. I think he would keep you, if he could. As it is, I think it's probably just as well that, after I clutch, your egg will disappear into the nursery and neither of us will ever see you again.
I'm going to leave a name for you with the matrons, though. My own mother didn't even bother. Perhaps she knew . . . But you're going to be a warrior, my daughter. No one with even a fraction of your father's strength could be relegated to the servant castes.
In a year or so, when you're grown, they will call you Titus.
I doubt you'll be able to remember any of this consciously, but they say that we can hear even from inside our unlaid eggs . . . but no, if there were any chance at all, the geas would have stopped my tongue a long time ago. Still, perhaps you'll know by instinct that he is your father.
Love him, daughter. He deserves it more than you likely will ever know.