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.

You are to go at once to the north tower. You will see an open door at the top of the stairs. The Queen will be waiting there for you.”

The page who delivered that message left immediately. And I hesitated only long enough to comb my hair, eat a slice of ripe apple to freshen my breath, and make certain my attire was as it should be. Then I was off, hurrying through the castle, finding the winding stairs of the north tower easily enough and rushing up towards the open door and its promise.

I don’t know that I quite believed it until I was inside the room, and the Queen stood before me, her large blue eyes as innocent and enchanting as they had been decades ago when we’d first coupled in a little servants’ room near the old queen’s bedchamber. She stood staring at me, dressed only in a long full cloak of black velvet, her lovely blond hair loose over her shoulders. She seemed not a day older than she had been in the long-ago time.

“Close the door, Prince,” she said. “And please bolt it.”

At once I obeyed.

She had moved to the fireplace, and stood with one hand on the heavy stone mantel, looking down into the flames.

To the far right stood a huge bed of dark oak with a paneled ceiling atop its intricately turned posts. It seemed the red brocade coverlet was sewn with hundreds of tiny twinkling jewels, and bits of gold and silver. Chased silver vessels glinted in the half-light on the sideboard. And tapestries enclosed us, of men and women in the Royal Hunt, looking upon us with gentle ever-vigilant eyes.

“My king and I have decided to use this night to ascertain all we need to know for tomorrow’s decision,” Beauty said, her eyes still on the fire.

I drew closer to her. I marveled at the sheen of her hair in the light of the fire and the dewy freshness of her cheeks. It seemed an agony suddenly to be so near her and so alone with her. Why was she subjecting me to such a trial? I trusted she had her purposes.

“I understand, Your Majesty,” I said. “What can I tell you? What questions might I answer?”

“You can take off your clothes and lay them on that table there,” she said. She turned and looked at me.

I was petrified. I couldn’t find words for what I felt. My flesh was responding to her words as if I had no control over it, no control over desire whatsoever. I was speechless.

“Prince Alexi,” she said. “Don’t be so foolish. Do you think I would bring you here without my lord’s permission? Do you think I would expose you to his wrath? You are a guest under my roof. What happens in any chamber of this house tonight happens with King Laurent’s blessing.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said. I couldn’t conceal my relief, or that I was trembling. Quickly, I stripped off all my clothes, my velvet tunic, leggings, everything, and laid all on the table as she had directed me. I felt the warm air moving over my naked skin, and it seemed a riot of memories came back to me, memories of Beauty and me, memories of the kingdom too numerous to assemble in any conceivable order. I felt my face flushed and hot, and with a mind of its own, my cock was hardening. Oh, it was too like the old days, to be naked once more and not hide the subtle and merciless transformation of one’s own body, to be exposed and yet to be free, strangely, wondrously free.

I turned slowly to face her.

She had opened her black velvet cloak. She was naked. Her nipples were pink, girlishly pink as they had been long ago, and the golden hair between her legs was gleaming in the firelight. Her soft, flat rounded belly was as beautiful as her smooth thighs. I had always loved her rounded little belly, hard and flat yet part of her voluptuous little body, rounded as were her thighs and her delectable arms. She was a creature of curves and dimples, of wondrously shaped wrists and ankles.

My cock was now fully hard. I had no hope of concealing it or commanding it.

“You are my queen,” I said. I couldn’t help myself. But I wondered if she knew the weight carried by these words. Of course. She had to know.

We had both been slaves of Queen Eleanor when I had stolen Beauty from the sleeping queen’s closet and brought her to a safe refuge where we could make love together. There, I’d told her the tale myself—of how I’d been captured, stripped, brought helplessly to the kingdom, and how I’d been broken by Queen Eleanor through harsh service in the kitchen of the castle for my rebellion. I’d told her how I won Queen Eleanor’s favor through the most abject of service, and Beauty had known I was the Queen’s favorite.

“Ah, yes, I am your queen now,” she said coming towards me. “But we were lovers in that long-ago time when we met. We made a bower together of a servant’s straw bed as I remember. A little cell became our royal chamber. And I gave myself to you with triumphant abandon. How I loved it. And we will be lovers here again tonight. That is my wish and my command. You are as beautiful, Prince, as you were then. Your hair, such a color, almost red, and then brown, and so thick, so soft.” She reached out to touch it. “And your eyes, your dark eyes as wondering and almost sad as they were then.”

She was scarcely six inches from me.

She looked at my erect organ. I could feel her gaze, feel a subtle heat coming from her, and I saw the blush in her cheeks.

She looked into my eyes again.

“I love men with dark brown eyes,” she said dreamily. She reached towards my cock but she didn’t touch it. I looked down and could see the beads of moisture on the head of it. I felt such a bolt of desire. At the slightest provocation I might come. I wondered if she had any idea what it felt like to be at the mercy of this cock, if she could even guess what it meant for my mind to be emptied now of all will or sense.

What did women feel? What did those little wet hidden pockets really feel? After all these years, these insane ruminations possessed me even when I felt I wasn’t actually thinking anymore. I was hard and I was aware.

I didn’t know what to say or do, except to remain standing there, waiting for her. A sweet floral perfume rose from her. I stared at her nipples, at the pale pink aureoles around them. I wanted to touch them, clasp them, pinch them, take her in my arms.