The surgeon went out and the girls followed him. Not one of them even looked back at Blade. He was alone in the whole vast bath chamber, lying on the rug, looking up at the figures writhing across the ceiling.
He was not alone for long, though. The faint squeal, of a door opening was followed by the padding of bare feet approaching him across the rug. He looked up. He hardly needed to do so to know that Queen Roxala was standing there, looking down at him.
She wore a shimmering blue gown bordered with black and gold, with ruby buttons down the front. Blade could not help staring at the rubies. Some of them were the size of pigeon's eggs.
Roxala misinterpreted the stare. «You want me, do you Blade? I could see that in the garden. I can see it now. Am I right?» There was a bantering note in her voice, but also an implied threat.
«You are a superlatively beautiful woman,» said Blade carefully. «How could I help but want you?» And in fact the thought of embracing the body he had seen half-revealed earlier that afternoon had certainly aroused him. Within seconds it had increased to the point where eyes less sharp than the queen's would have seen it. Blade was glad for once that his reason did not control every part of his body. If it had, he would have been hard put to conjure up the response necessary for dealing with this lushly decadent queen.
«You obviously cannot help it,» said Roxala. She reached out a bare foot with gilded toenails and squeezed Blade's stiffened organ with her long supple toes. «That is good for both me and you.» Her hands moved to the top button of her robe and undid it. «Would you like to see me dance for you, Blade?»
Blade was able to come up with what he hoped would be a tactful answer. «If it will display your beauty to yet a greater advantage, Your Majesty, then by all means dance.»
That seemed to please her. She smiled-Blade could almost call it a simper. It seemed horribly out of place, here and on the face of this woman, considering what he knew about her. He despaired of ever trying to make sense of Queen Roxala, and lay back on the rug, head propped on one arm to watch her dance.
She started off with a slow swaying of her hips that made the gown swirl and wave and throw off reflections. The rubies flashed fire. She bent forward, slowly, gracefully, until she was bent almost double, swaying her upper body as she did so. Blade could see the full breasts moving under the thin material of the gown. She bowed further, until her long black hair flowed down to the rug. Then she snapped upright and arched almost as far back as she had arched forward. As she curved backward, thrusting her breasts up at the ceiling, she unhooked another of the buttons. Then she swayed forward again.
This time as she bowed, she shrugged first one shoulder, then the other. The gown slipped down until it was held halfway up her arms. Her breasts were outlined against the gown, full, ripe, and now half-exposed.
She straightened up and began to move in a rapid circle, feet flicking in and out under the skirt of the gown. At the same time her hips went into action again. Not a circular motion this time, but a slow, infinitely sensual rocking back and forth. Inch by inch the gown slipped down. Now it was held only by the swell of her breasts. With thumb and forefinger she teased the third ruby out of its hook. The gown gave up the struggle entirely and slipped down onto the floor.
She waited as it flowed down into a blue pool around her feet, then stepped out of it. Now she was nude except for a golden girdle that rose to just below her breasts. The breasts themselves swayed free, ripe and full like summer melons, boldly tipped with nipples whose darkness was a startling contrast to the white skin with its net of fine blue veins.
Free of the gown, Roxala's movements became freer-and wilder. She whirled and leaped and swayed. She cupped her breasts in her long-fingered hands and thrust them toward Blade. She knelt down and shook her whole upper body, making her breasts wiggle and her hair leap and flow about her shoulders. A thought passed through Blade's mind, ludicrous but undeniable. Perhaps he should try to kidnap Roxala and get her back to Home Dimension. The project could be run for years on what the queen would earn as an erotic dancer. Then Roxala's hands fluttered down to the hooks on the girdle and Blade's attention snapped back to her.
One hook, two hooks-he could see the cleft of her buttocks now, and faint curls of dark hair in front. Three hooks-a quick wiggle of now bared hips, and the girdle slipped down to join the gown on the rag. Naked, flaunting all the magnificence of her body, she rose on tiptoe, raising her arms high over her head and arching her body. Then she flowed down in a single motion onto the floor and rolled over on her back.
«Come to me now, Blade. Come to me now,» she sighed. He did not need her urging. The long slow stripping and the wild erotic fury of her dance had him aroused more than he would have believed possible without physical contact. He did not even take time to rise to his feet, but rolled over and over, across the rug to her.
Her body was already wet with sweat from her dancing and as slippery to his touch as if it had been oiled. She moaned as his hands clamped down on her breasts. Blade sensed she wanted no gentleness, no tenderness, rather strength and fury. So his hands squeezed down hard on the full breasts she again thrust toward him. He was rewarded by feeling those startlingly dark nipples rise and stiffen under his hands, thrusting out into dark spears. It seemed impossible that they could be so long, so hard. He said so.
«Ah, but its how hard you are, how long you are, that's important now,» she said in a half-gasp, half-moan. She reached for his erect phallus and grabbed it with the same vigor he had used on her. «Come on, Blade. Come-on!»
He obliged. He rolled toward her as she twisted on her side and rolled toward him. They met, they joined, he thrust deep into her already slick vagina. He felt her stiffen and saw her head roll back and her eyes roll up as he drove into her. Again he made no effort at gentleness or tenderness, again he hurled himself into the play with all his force. He made no effort to slow himself or hold himself or pace himself, and got away with it all. It was barely seconds before the queen's body shuddered for the first time, enormously and terribly, breath rasping in her throat. It was not much longer before she peaked again. And then Blade's furious vigor brought him to the peak also. His own hot fury spurting into her brought her to the third and most savage — climax. She collapsed beside him, limp and numb. But her arms-strong arms too-held him so tightly that even if he had wanted to, he could not withdraw from her.
They lay on the rug, silent, bodies locked together for a long time. Gradually their breathing slowed to normal, gradually the glazed animal look left Roxala's eyes. She lifted herself up to look at Blade, her nipples brushing his now sweaty chest, and smiled.
«Blade, I think you are what a woman needs. Even a woman who is a queen. You will be staying with me.» It was not a question, not even an order. It was a flat statement, intended to have the force of natural law. And for Roxala, Blade realized that her will was just exactly that.
That was the first time they made love, but not the last. It was not even the last time that day, because Roxala drew Blade into four more bouts before the next dawn. Blade wasn't sure if it was correct to call the queen insatiable, since she was eventually satiated. But no one could ever call her moderate in her pursuit of pleasure.
But Roxala was not a complete slave to her pleasures-far from it. Though the laws and customs of Rulam offered much freedom to women, it still took unusual force of character for Roxala to have held her own against King Kleptor for nearly twenty years. This was particularly true when one considered that King Kleptor was not in fact a weak character.