Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 18:26:05 -0800 (PST)
From: B Chapel <merdement@yahoo.com>
Subject: empire ch.6

Dear reader,

This story, and those that may follow, involve a
place, time and people that never were. There will be
a healthy dose of lesbian erotica; plus some BD/SM,
non-consensual, adult-youth and possibly some (gasp)
hetero as the plot progresses. Any comments -- good and
especially bad -- are very welcome and encouraged via
the e-mail address at the bottom. One cannot progress
without feedback.

THE LEGAL THING: This is a work of fiction. Any
similarities to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental. Any similarities to characters in
other fictional works, other than those pulled from
classical mythology (and therefore within the public
domain), are also coincidental. If individuals feel
that this story impinges on their person or work
should take no offense, as none is meant or was
intended. They should also relax and obsess less.

Remember, if we stopped writing when we ran out of
original themes, literature would have died with the
Greeks.

Enjoy,

The Author

EXTRA AUTHOR'S NOTE: All chapters of "Empire" were
written under the influence of Metallica's "Garage
Days," Tenacious D, the "Red Violin" soundtrack,
Queen's Greatest Hits, Tori Amos, Blues Explosion,
Pink Floyd's "Animals" and on-the-hour NPR news
updates. WDET rocks!


********

Chapter 6

Yassine chose a white toga with muted gold silk piping
for her dinner with Yevtana and Manolo. Her
grandmother, the wise Amma-Kahn, taught her the
importance of dressing correctly. Clothing is not for
the wearer, she said as seamstresses draped the young
princess in fine fabrics; clothing is for those the
wearer interacts with. When the business is sharp and
bloody -- dress conservatively to show attention to
detail and honesty. When the sun shines softly -- wear
something light for movement and to set your guests at
leisure. In any case, never let your appearance be an
afterthought. Once your intent is set, dress in a way
that compliments that intent.
Amma-Kahn, she thought of the old woman with fondness,
a great queen of the Amazons and an even greater
teacher. She had been the one to teach her the sword
and the axe, and the more subtle arts of statecraft;
such as the etiquette of dress. She put on the dress
and adjusted the gilded belt so that the buckle hung
the right way in front below her waist.
The padding of bare feet and a slight wafting of
perfume told Yassine that Pari had entered the room.
She set a tray of light fruits on the side table and
proceeded to set it with service for one.
"That is a lovely garment, princess," she said. "Are
you going to tour the city tonight?"
"No, Choura and I have been invited to a dinner by
Commander Yevtana at her home."
Pari tilted her head and smiled, "The commander is a
great warrior, I'm sure you and Choura are going to
have a lot to talk about."
The girl took a brush from the nightstand and started
in to work on Yassine's hair. Normally, the Amazon
didn't allow anyone to groom her, but the desert girl
had performed more intimate care for her, so she
didn't mind. She sat in one of the chairs to give the
girl easier access.
"Is that how you think of me, as only a warrior?"
"You are a princess," Pari said, her tone careful.
"Heir to a great nation of warriors."
"Is that what you think of the Amazons? Warriors?"
Pari drew the brush through Yassine's hair slowly,
avoiding tangles as she went. "That is all I know of
Amazonia. My people had only stories of the island of
soldier women. The records here talk of your
grandmother, the Khan, and how she helped Magda I.
There isn't that much information. Have I offended
you?"
"No," she said. "But we are not just warriors. We are
farmers, builders, artists and thinkers. Our market is
only different from the Imperial Bazaar in size. We
aren't that different."
"Oh," the girl said. There was a silence for a while
as Pari chose some silvery threads from a basket of
accents on the nightstand, "But there are no men."
Yassine saw the line of questioning coming, "No. There
are no male Amazons."
"Then how are there female Amazons with no males?"
Yassine turned a thought over in her head, as if
testing its flavor; "We use an ancient magic, the
working of it known only to the Queen and the holy
women, to conceive new daughters. It has been the way
forever."
"Magic," she said, bluntly. "There is no act of love?"
Yassine turned and looked into the girl's green eyes,
they were sad. "Of course there is. A child born from
anything less than love is doomed."
"Is that part of the magic?" Pari's voice was
tremulous.
"No," she kissed the girl lightly. "It's part of
humanity. Without love, a child dies before it lives,
leaving a corpse to shuffle through the world."
There was a silence as Pari continued to work on the
Amazon's hair. Yassine thought she heard a sniffle but
could not bring herself to look back. After a while,
the girl spoke again, "Is that Amazonian philosophy?"
"No, I just believe that," Yassine said. "Would you
like to hear a song?"
"Yes."
Yassine took a breath and began to sing. She chose one
of the old songs, composed when the earliest queens
ruled a nation of thatched huts. The song told the
tale of lost love and squandered chances, of battles
won and bitter victory. She used the old high language
with its intricate phrasing and multiple meanings,
that version better suited to a lone voice without
accompaniment.
When she finished, the last echoes of the song
resonated against the marble walls. Pari had stopped
working the Amazon's hair while the song went on. Her
voice was shaky, "Did E'Shar ever find her lover?"
"No," Yassine said. "That song was the last of the
cycle. The play was one of the tragedies... how did you
understand it?"
"The spell on the room..." Pari sobbed and sat on the
floor. Yassine wrapped her arms around the girl and
rocked her back and forth, murmuring soft comforts
into her ear. She stroked her back until the weeping
subsided.
"Would you like to come to dinner with me tonight?"
"What?"
"Choura won't be coming to Yevtana's house tonight,
she wants to see more of the city herself," Yassine
said. "Why don't you come to dinner with me?"
The desert girl snuffled, wiped her eyes and smiled.
"But I don't have a thing to wear."
Yassine pulled her to her feet and patted her on the
rump, "This is a palace, I'm sure someone has
something in your size."
The servant thanked her and ran from the room to get
something suitable for dinner at a commander's home.
Yassine liked the simple wrap the girl wore, for more
reasons than one, but knew that it just wasn't the
right attire for dinner out.
As she watched her disappear, her gaze fell across one
of the mirrors in the room. Her hair was held up by an
intricate webwork of silver threads that created a
corona of blonde strands behind her head that trailed
to her shoulders.
"That's a good look for me," she said without
inflection.

*******

Luxia walked into the Gymnasium like a conquering
general. All she saw, she controlled. The smarter
mouths said that she ruled the place like a god. She
held the situation differently: Gods were sometimes
merciful, she wasn't.
But, she thought, the heavens are filled with screams
too.
The room echoed with the sounds of sex in a chaotic
symphony. The moans and cries mixed with the wet slap
of the act itself in mindless harmony. At their right,
a tall black-skinned girl was being stroked head to
toe by three men wielding bundles of peacock feathers.
She rocked back and forth, pinioned at the wrists and
ankles, helplessly trying to escape their teasing
touch.
Another was desperately trying to successfully suck a
man's cock. She was set on a vertical pole which had a
thick, wooden phallus attached to it. As she pulled
close enough to the man to do the job she pulled
herself nearly off the phallus. Whenever that
happened, attending servant girls pelted her backside
with strips of leather for her trouble. As the process
went on, the girl on the pole moved faster and faster
-- taking the course of the stroke and the man's cock
in equal measures.
The scent of sex was thick in the air. Glayen and
Rouelle stood carefully by, waiting to be addressed or
called to service. D'Anya looked on with bright eyes.
"Lord Bres!" Luxia called out, "I need you now."
Across the sea of heaving flesh, a man arose. He
carefully arranged himself into a pair of tight
leather pants and moved quickly toward Luxia. He was
average height, a man in his middle-age, with brown
hair and a pair of oversized brown eyes. Age had given
the man a bit of a paunch, but his frame spoke of
mobile power. He bowed his head to Luxia and darted
his eyes at the two servants trailing her.
"I told ya," he said lightly. "They weren't ready."
"Thou good and faithful servant, you were right,"
Luxia said sarcastically. "Now that you've got that
out of your system, what do we need to do to get them
into shape?"
Bres rubbed his chin, "There are a couple of
punishments going on right now. Perhaps a display
would be in order?"
"What were the offenses?"
"I've got one on unsanctioned fornication, another in
for willful self-pleasuring. One's a trainee, the
other's qualified."
Luxia nodded, "Let's see what you've got arranged,
Bres."
The man took Luxia's arm and led her along the
corridors towards the seaward side of the Gymnasium.
All around them, moans and cries of pleasure rent the
air. A short, black haired girl wrestled against the
bonds holding her arms high while attending blondes,
twins, ran their fingers up and down her skin. Another
stood by and watched carefully that neither girl's
touches brought a too-quick end to the play.

*******

Yevtana's home was a richly appointed estate in the
hills surrounding the palace and its city. It had
white marble walls and thick-planked wooden floors. A
fire blazed in a corner of the main room, over which
servants had cooked the evening's meal. The walls were
adorned with the trappings of someone who had traveled
the continent at the head of a conquering army.
Yassine picked at the last of the morsels on her
plate, a piece of roasted meat wrapped in a grape
leaf, "That's a Dilexian war standard, isn't it?"
"Correct," said Yevtana. "The blue and black accents
connote a winter campaign. We caught up with this
particular war band toward the end of last year's cold
season."
Yevtana wore a gold-weave skirt that ended just above
her knees with a pair of matching slippers. Her chest
was bare and a thin silver ring connected to her right
ear by a slim platinum chain pierced one nipple.
Against her snowy skin and shining white hair, the
outfit made her look like a temple statue come to
life. Her features amplified the comparison. She had
smooth, unbroken skin and large eyes. The eyes'
blood-red aspect made her placid gaze strangely
piercing. Yassine wondered what the gaze would look
like when enraged.
Manolo sat beside her at the low table. Although it
was obvious he had washed before coming to dinner, it
seemed that the leather pants he was wearing were the
same he wore in the courtyard earlier in the day. He
had lost his shirt sometime since the afternoon.
"Why does the face on it appear to be smiling?" said
Pari, nibbling on a mango rind. She had simply wrapped
fringed white silk around her chest and hips. A single
golden thread held her thick curls away from her face,
"I thought you were supposed to present anger and
menace on the battlefield?"
"Those are the Dilexians for you," said Manolo as he
took another tall bottle of wine out of the cool stone
cupboard near the banner. "They believe that one
should carry a happy totem into battle to please the
gods with their optimism."
"Does that work?"
"Perhaps," he said as he refilled everyone's goblets
with a shrug. "Not for them in this case. The gods are
almost as strange as we are, kitten. If you win, your
faith in the gods is reaffirmed. If you lose, you can
take it up with them."
He sat down behind Yevtana, curling himself around her
and settling into the pillows, "Me, I don't care. If
the gods were interested they'd send more blue bolts
from the clouds."
"You don't believe in gods?" Pari was a little
concerned.
"I believe that every second spent praying before a
battle is a second you could have spent preparing," he
said, there was more than a little wine running
through his accent and lazy smile. "I'm sure your tall
friend feels the same way."
Pari shot a concerned look at Yassine, suddenly
worried about the princess. Before she could reply
Yevtana gave her man a little slap on the cheek,
"Manolo! No difficult discussions at my dinner table."
"Forgive?"
She kissed him and rubbed the cheek she hit, "Not
nearly. Why don't you fetch the hookah and bring it
out for our guests?"
Manolo was on his feet in a single snapping motion and
trotting into another room, "Si, general!"
"Never say that again!" she called out after him.
Yassine sipped her wine, "How are you able to command
your lover in battle?"
"I command many soldiers in battle, I spend all of my
time around the Empress' warriors," she said,
matter-of-factly. "Where else will I find a love?"
"Don't you find it difficult to love someone who you
could send to her death?"
Yevtana turned up a slight smile, "His death," she
corrected. "I don't worry. He's promised me that he
will survive to return to me always. I have faith in
him. And I feel as the Emperor does, one man in a
thousand is a terrible thing to lose."
"In war, that's a hard standard to hold to," Yassine
said.
"I have faith," she said. "If love isn't faith I don't
know what is."
Yassine nodded as Manolo reentered the room carrying a
three-foot tall hookah in one hand and a lacquered box
under his arm. He laid each down on the table with a
flourish, "Dear maids, warriors and ladies in waiting,
a dessert for your enjoyment."
Yassine crinkled her brow, "I'm sorry. I don't think
there's a maid in the room." She spoke without
inflection.
Manolo gave a lavish bow, "You stumble over a subtlety
in the language. A maid can also be an unmarried
woman. Surely no offense, or are you married?"
The Amazon gave the archer a wry smile, she knew he
was trying to find the lengths of her sense of humor,
and he was well within those borders. "That had better
not be a proposal," she said. "My mother would never
approve."
The archer laughed, "And my mother would never believe
it. This is something special, a treat picked up in
the desert by an old friend of mine. Trust me when I
say it, you don't get this everywhere."

*******

Lord Bres looked on with professional satisfaction at
the twins torturing the black haired girl.  "How long
has it been?"
One of the blondes, the one underneath the bound girl
licking her breasts responded, "Just over two hours,
Lord."
"She hasn't been allowed to come?" Luxia said with a
touch of warning.
The other twin, who had been rubbing the length of her
torso along the girl's back, shook her head, "Not
once. She'll tell you."
Luxia raised the girl's chin as she crouched down,
"What is your name?"
Sweat was rolling over the girl's face in torrents;
her breath came in gulping spasms, "Minda."
"What did you do that got you here?" Luxia punctuated
the question with a deep kiss. Minda responded
hesitantly, then gave herself entirely to the touch.
Their tongues slid against each other for a few
moments before the mistress pulled away.
"What did you do?"
"I was touching myself in one of the service alcoves,"
Minda said, pushing forward against her bonds, trying
to kiss the mistress again. "One of the pages caught
me."
Over Luxia's shoulder, the twins embraced each other
and exchanged long, passionate kisses. Lord Bres
nodded and allowed them to continue, the display would
further arouse Minda. He was proud of their mastery of
ambiance.
Luxia shook her head at Minda, "You know that
masturbation is expressly forbidden to you, just as it
is forbidden for you to touch the other servants. You
passed your training months ago, I thought you would
know better."
Minda took another few gulps of breath and looked
Luxia in the eyes, "I needed more."
Luxia kissed the girl's forehead and stood, "Finish it
now. I expect to see the two of you," she said as she
pulled the twins apart, "on the verandah in an hour."
She gestured to Lord Bres and the three servants to
come along. She stopped before leaving the room.
"Make that exactly an hour," she said. "Not one minute
less." The twins had gone back to work on Minda. One
had started work below her again, this time pinching
the nipples she once kissed. Behind, the other girl
ran her tongue all around -- but never touching -- her
anus. The girl's cries resumed their former volume.

*******

Yassine looked on with fascination as Manolo took a
small bar of a dark, brittle cake out of the box and
started breaking it into smaller chunks. The smell of
something slightly musty filled the air.
"Is that hashish?"
Yevtana laughed, "If it's just hashish, someone's
going to be in a lot of trouble."
"It's D'ghansa," Pari said. "It's hashish that's been
accented with other herbs and exotic spices. It's very
rare."
Yassine took a square of the stuff from Manolo and
inspected it more closely. It had a gummy texture with
tiny bits of grit throughout. It smelled like a musky
sort of coffee. The darkness of the square was echoed
by its scent, "What does it do?"
"It opens doors within the mind," said Yevtana. "There
is a religious sect in the eastern deserts that uses
D'ghansa to commune with the gods. They believe the
secret of its making is a holy secret that they must
guard with their lives."
"How did you get it?" the Amazon asked.
"Making it is the holy secret," Manolo said as he
placed a burning splint of cedar he pulled from the
fire into the top of the hookah. He carefully laid the
chunks of the D'ghansa into the bowl, "Getting some of
it from them is like funding a holy crusade."
Manolo handed Yassine and Pari molded ivory
mouthpieces connected to the hookah by colorful woven
tubes, he and Yevtana were already pulling on their
tubes. Yassine drew a breath of the fragrant smoke and
found it soothing and cool. Pari took a deep breath
and coughed the greenish smoke out violently.
"Wouldn't it a sin to sell a holy secret?" Yassine
asked.
"They don't sell the secret," Manolo said, a cloud of
emerald smoke rings popping from his o-shaped mouth.
"They just sell the sacrament. Those monks are a
pragmatic bunch, they know the value of holiness."

*******

Turning into one of the sequestered rooms, Luxia heard
a familiar sound. Even as a girl, she had known she
had superhuman powers of hearing -- a freak of birth --
and could literally hear through walls. Of all the
sounds a human made, including a death cry, nothing
carried so far or so clearly as the sound of tears.
The group turned a corner to see one of the pages,
Paulinius, attempting to enter one of the trainees.
She was a plumpish girl, with brown hair and smooth
white skin. She was bent over one of the training
couches with her bottom raised high over her head. The
knuckles on both her hands had gone white gripping the
arm of the chair as the page tried to force more than
the head of his cock into the girl's cringing anus. He
was making no headway at all.
"What the hell are you doing, boy?" asked Lord Bres
angrily.
Paulinius' head snapped around quickly, his face
filled with shock as he realized that he had a full
audience. Reflexively he pulled away from the girl,
"Yue directed me to open her." He tried to cover
himself before the group, "She told me to come here to
do it"
"I am aware of what I told Yue to accomplish with
Mauxa today," Luxia said sharply. "Why isn't she doing
the job?"
Mauxa had curled herself into a tiny ball, clutching
her breasts in one arm and shielding her behind with
the other. Luxia ordered Glayen and Rouelle to attend
to the girl. They immediately began to massage and
comfort the frightened servant in training.
Paulinius backed away slightly, "She was called away
with the big Amazon, Choochoo..."
"Choura," corrected Lord Bres. "And she chose you for
this careful business?"
He started to shrink, "Y-yes."
Luxia advanced on the boy, her eyes hard as stones. "I
can smell lies, Paulinius. Yours stink."
Lord Bres crossed his arms, "Come clean now, boy. It's
your best chance."
"She told me to get someone to do it," the boy said in
a rush.
"And you thought you were someone?" Bres' voice was
mocking, "What a world it would be if someone like you
was someone. Glayen, Rouelle; how is she?"
"She's not hurt," Glayen said, rubbing the frightened
girl's shoulders.
"She's dry," Rouelle said as she gently stroked
Mauxa's inner thighs.
D'Anya winced. Luxia shook her head with remorse,
"Remove yourself to an antechamber, Paulinius. I will
deal with you later."
The page slunk away quickly. Luxia knelt before Mauxa
and kissed her on the forehead. Taking both hands, she
raised the girl's face so that they were eye-to-eye
and kissed her lips. "I am sorry this happened this
way," she said tenderly. "What was wrong?"
"It just came so suddenly," Mauxa said. "He pulled me
from the Gymnasium and took me in here."
"Everything will be all right," the mistress said. "He
won't be back again. Glayen, Rouelle, care for her."
Immediately, the two servants lavished kisses all over
the trainee's body. Glayen locked her attention on her
breasts while Rouelle gently kissed her reluctant
thighs apart. Mauxa sighed and released her tension,
allowing both total access to her flesh.
Luxia caressed both D'Anya and Bres, both returned the
touches. "It is not about the acts, children. "The
point is the pleasure, whatever happens to reach that
destination is irrelevant."
Rouelle's face was buried in Mauxa's crotch, her head
whipped from side to side as she worked the girl's
inner lips fiercely. Glayen was taking more care with
her breasts; she alternated between gently biting at
her nipples and running her tongue roughly in the
valley between her breasts. Mauxa had begun to moan
beneath the two of them.
"Lord Bres, I believe this is a situation where your
talents are most called for," Luxia said.
The man nodded and lifted a jar of lubricant from a
table beside the couch, "It wouldn't be the first time
I cleaned up after the help."

*******

Yassine could have sworn that the war standard was
laughing at her. It's slanted eyes and crooked teeth
had taken on a particularly satirical tone and seemed
to move in the flickering light of the hearth. She
didn't like the look on that face, but she was having
a hard time prying her eyes away from it.
"I hate that banner," she said, and realized that her
mouth had gone very dry. She looked around for her
wine goblet and realized, late in the search, that it
was in her hand. It was much better-tasting than she
had remembered ¾ slightly dry but with an apple taste.
"I'm pretty," Pari's voice came brightly.
"Hmm?"
"I'm pretty," she said, matter-of-factly. She had
loosed the top of her dress and was examining her
breasts with scientific attention. She shifted her
attention from them to her reflection in a metal
platter previously used to hold fruit. "It's the hair
mostly, but I think I'm a really good looking person
all around."
"Uhhh," Yassine understood perfectly what the girl had
said; it was a straightforward enough statement but
she couldn't make it fit in her mind. Something was
making simple concepts difficult.
"D'Anya has the red hair, and that's really nice. Yue
has long hair that feels like silk," Pari burbled on
happily as she massaged her breasts. "But I'm really
pretty. And I've got nice hair."
Yassine squeezed her eyes shut hard twice and focused
intently on Pari. It was true that the girl was very
pretty. The phrase "fine little piece" filtered
through her head and she was dimly grateful that it
didn't make its way through her lips.
For the first time in the conversation, Pari looked
over at the Amazon and smiled apologetically, "Sorry,
you're really pretty too. I love what you've done with
your hair."
"You did it," Yassine said.
"Yes," the girl said and broke out into gales of
laughter. After a second Yassine joined in and the two
of them rolled about the floor in hysterics. As the
laughter subsided, Pari's face struggled to take on an
air of seriousness. "That's enough silliness, we've
got business to attend to."
Yassine laughed harder, "What?"
"I'm going to have you now," Pari said in total
seriousness, her eyes had a strange hard cast to them.
"I'm going to have you and then I'm going to have you
again. Maybe a third time too."
Yassine stopped laughing and blanched. What the hell
was so funny? She thought. "You mean now? What about
Yevtana and Manolo?"
Pari motioned to the other side of the low table with
her head and indicated their hosts. Manolo was halfway
out of his pants and feasting on Yevtana's bare
breasts as the general was wrestling her own garments
off hastily.
"Oh," said Yassine.
"They only talked about it for fifteen minutes," Pari
said as she released the clasps holding the rest of
her dress and her hair. She stood naked before the
Amazon. A lush, vibrating package of female flesh, "I
want you now."
"Ok."


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