Chapter Thirteen The Sultan turned to his mother. “I apologize for the obscene behavior of this white dog, mother,” he said to her. The old Arab woman nodded. “I shall have his penis lopped off at once.” “No!” I shrieked. Bits of the pie on my face flew from my lips and landed on the Sultan’s expensive robes, but I didn’t care. I began sobbing. The Sultan looked at me in alarm. “Chloe,” the Sultan said, in a grave, measured voice. “You are making me jealous with your constant outbursts on this criminal’s behalf. First you save his head from the block. Now you cry out to save his worthless cock--” “It isn’t worthless!” I said, mustering my nerve. “It’s imporatant!” My words came out all mangled and mistaken (a man’s cock important? Yes, but how silly to put it that way!) The Sultan grinned at my tears and the way I was trying to speak, the bits of pie flying off my face and the tears rolling down my cream smeared cheeks. “Alright, Chloe,” the Sultan relented. “I’ll do you the favor of sparing this man’s cock. But on one condition-- I shall have his cock used on you in the coming days however I please, even to the point of torturing you with his cock!” I sniffled. The old Arab woman cursed. “Fear not, mother,” the Sultan said. “If little Chloe agrees to my bargain, justice will be done. But she will have to bear it, instead of Rutland. Do you agree, Chloe?” I gulped and, to be honest, I had to think about it a minute. Good Lord, what was I agreeing to? It wasn’t me who’d peed all over the floor. Nonetheless, on the gamble that whatever might happen to me wouldn’t be as bad as what was about to happen to Jim, I agreed. I shook my head and said “yes.” “Oh, God, Chloe!” my aunt blurted. “Please! He’s just some man! A criminal!” “I don’t want to see him hurt, auntie!” I cried, mournfully. “I don’t see the problem,” Jim said. “I mean, I was looking to use the latrine, and when I saw this place, I figured, ‘Hmmm, this must be it!’” “Oh, shuttup!” my auntie cried at Rutland, her voice sounding terribly frightened. “Hmmm, more insults,” the Sultan said. “I shall not forgive you again, Rutland. You have my absolute word on that. You will obey, do you understand?” Rutland looked down at the puddle he’d made on the floor. “Ah, fuck!” he swore. He spit. The Sultan’s face reddened with rage. “Shit,” Rutland said. “I’ve never looked out for anyone but myself before, but-- shit!” He looked at me. I trembled. Then he looked at the Sultan. “On account of this girl here, I’ll do as you say,” he told the Sultan. “Thank you,” I said, meekly, to Rutland. I heard my aunt exhale with a sigh of relief. “Very well,” the Sultan said. “You are a prisoner for one month, Rutland, just like these two girls. You will do all that’s expected of you, and more. You will be constantly ready for sex. I mean it! I expect that penis of yours to be erect at all times. You will be a stud to these two females, and they will be made to work your cock repeatedly. You will be fed large meals and exercised daily by Glenda, to make your physique as perfect as it can be. Any laziness in your exercising, any refusal to fuck whatever is presented to you, and I will reconsider your fate. You will be eating plenty of eggs, and drinking goat’s milk straight from the teat, to ensure a constant supply of sperm for your balls. When you are not required to exercise, your arms and legs will often be bound. This will leave only your penis hanging naked and free, so that you might focus all your attention upon it. Even then, if I am dissatisfied with your performance, I may, after your month is up, cut off your dick anyway.” “Oh, please!” I moaned, on Rutland’s behalf. The Sultan gave me a cross look. He held up his hand. I bit my lip and said nothing, fearing I’d plunge us all into even deeper straights than we already were. “Do not tempt my temper, Rutland,” the Sultan continued. “And let this be a warning to you: I may work your cock so hard that, in the end, you might wish you’d had it cut off, so you could be rid of it, and all the work it brings into your life.” The Sultan laughed. I gasped. I looked at Rutland. He grinned, half-heartedly, still trying to be carefree and insolent. But, to my great relief, he said nothing, and only nodded. “Now we must go downstairs,” the Sultan said. He looked at Rutland’s dick. His eyes gleamed. He looked at Glenda. “If I cannot whack his penis off with a sword, perhaps you can whack it off?” “Of course, sire,” Glenda smiled. “Good,” the Sultan said. “It will be his first test. We’ll see how quickly he recovers from it. Whack him off with your hands, dear Glenda. It does quite annoy me to see him sticking his thing out at me like that.” Glenda looked at Rutland. She smiled. “Now we’ll see just what quality of stud you are,” she said. Rutland gulped. The Sultan laughed. “Ha! See? Already he is nervous. Good. In the end you’ll beg me to cut your pecker off, Rutland. God, how I’ll make you beg for it!” “Oh, Boo! Hoo!” I sobbed. The Sultan looked at me. My nude breasts quivered with my sobs. “Silence, girl!” the Sultan scolded. “Having a stud to serve you girls is most interesting, if his penis is up to the job. I’ll not have you served by an inferior male, though, no matter how much you cry. Hopefully Rutland is up to the job.” The Sultan smiled, wickedly. “And remember, Rutland, I made you no guarantees about what you would be forced to fuck. Pigs? Goats? Donkeys? Or only girls? Your dick will be put to extensive use, that I promise. Now you shall begin your trials by enjoying the loving hands of my servant Glenda. Tomorrow, in the morning, you’ll be checked to see you’ve recovered. Pray that you wake up with wood. For tomorrow will be a ball-blasting day.” He looked at Glenda. “Milk him, my dear. I want every last drop of his sperm forced out of him.” “Yes, your majesty,” Glenda grinned. She blushed, a little, and looked at Rutland’s penis. “I think it is a wise choice, your majesty,” Glenda told the Sultan. “Empty Rutland’s balls, so that we can start him off with a clean slate tomorrow. By emptying him now, we’ll begin to gauge how quickly he can replace what he’s lost.” “Yes!” the Sultan agreed. “Let us be at it at once.” He stood up. He took his frail mother’s arm, and motioned for us to follow. We did, awkwardly, our faces still smeared with cream, our hands bound behind us. Rutland’s penis bounced in front of him as he walked. His testicle sac hung heavily between his legs. I wished I could disappear with him and spare him his fate, but I couldn’t. I shivered. I had no idea where we were going. I looked at my aunt. She walked with her head bowed, her eyes lowered. She’d already accepted her fate, I realized. Whatever happened, she was willing to do her best to meet it and survive it. Oh, how brave she was! I thought to myself. I watched her bosoms sway with her steps. Her nipples were hard. Her feet, so prettily encased in her heels, moved with dainty grace. I wished I could be like her; submissive, quiet, accepting. There was great courage, I thought, in being so utterly feminine. She was graceful and sweet, even as the Sultan led us into the unknown realms of his most perverse fantasies! “Do not gaze all about, Chloe,” Glenda told me. “Lower your eyes, like your aunt has. You are to pretend you’re a prisoner. A real prisoner, being taken downstairs for punishment. It is not true, of course, but appearances are important. Do not gawk at the walls and the ceiling. It is unseemly. Walk with your eyes toward the floor, but with a certain smoothness and femininity to your step. Even in the worst of circumstances, a girl must always strive her best to be feminine. It is our duty, Chloe, and more than one girl has won the heart of her captors by being utterly feminine, even in the worst of predicaments.” I obeyed. I looked down at my bosoms, bouncing casually on my chest, and tried to look nowhere else. The manacles holding my arms were tight. I wriggled, tried again to curl up my fingers and undo the D rings on them. “No, Chloe,” Glenda said. “Do not fight the manacles. Accept them. Surrender yourself to your master the Sultan. Do whatever he wishes. This is how to win, Chloe. Accept, open yourself to his will. Did you ever hear the story of the slave girl, brought to the Sultan’s harem, who rose to be queen?” Glenda asked me. “No,” I replied quietly. “Let me tell you about her, then,” Glenda said, “as we go downstairs.” “Okay,” I murmured. We arrived at a large room with a television. Just beyond it was a small wooden room. The smaller room was, we were told, a miniature sauna. Jim was escorted into it by Glenda. We were given hassocks to sit on in the room outside. The T.V. in our room was big. It was a wide-screen T.V. It showed an interior view of the sauna. We gazed at it. Two European girls, a redhead and a brunette, whose job it was to always remain ready to serve in the sauna, snapped to attention when Glenda stepped in with Jim. “There are six girls in all,” the Sultan told us, taking his ease in a large leather easy chair in front of the T.V. A male servant approached him, and offered him a pipe. The Sultan nodded. The man prepared the pipe for him and then gave it to the Sultan to smoke. “Sometimes,” the Sultan said, “A man is brought here, like your friend Jim, to be relieved of his sperm. Eunuchs have fallen out of fashion. Hence, those males who serve in my harem repair here regularly to be pumped dry. Intercourse is not permitted; that would reward the male. Rather, he is fondled, forced to ejaculate by the girls’ hands. If they cannot get him to spend with their fingers, they blow upon his penis. If that fails, as a last resort, they suck him. Always it is for a utilitarian purpose; the girls are told to keep their feelings about the man to themselves. “Another sort of man who might be sent here is the prisoner who is about to be demembered,” the Sultan said. “That’s our officialese for a man condemned to have his penis cut off. He is given a final ejaculation, as a kind of ‘last meal.’ The same goes for a man being castrated.” My aunt and I, our arms bound behind us, our faces slathered with dripping cream, listened in awed silence, our bottoms perched on the hassocks. I hated hearing such awful things, but what could I do? I watched with my mouth agape as the two European girls teasingly received Jim into their presence. Glenda explained to them that he was a stud, and they would, on this occasion, be permitted to express awe over his equipment. “He is the Sultan’s special Pet, thanks to the love a girl bears for him, a girl of 13, named Chloe,” Glenda said, her voice coming to us over the T.V. from the wooden room. The Sultan turned up the volume so we could hear every word. “Stroke him, manipulate him, and most of all, jerk him completely dry, girls,” Glenda said. “The Sultan wants every last drop wanked out of him so we can begin to measure his rate of sperm production. We need to start with a clean slate, that is, an empty pair of balls, to properly measure how much sperm he can produce on a given day.” “Oh, Jim, I’m sure you make quite a lot of it!” the redhead proclaimed. She gave her co-worker a smile. They both giggled. “How randy he is!” the brunette said. “God, how it sticks out! Don’t worry, Jim, when you leave here, little boys will boast that yours is smaller than theirs, you’ll be so worn out and exhausted.” “We know all the tricks,” the redhead agreed. “I’d much rather fuck,” Jim said. He watched as the two girls splashed water onto heated coals over a burner that sat in the room. Steam rose up into the room with a loud HISSSSSSSS! The two girls and Glenda knelt, but they kept Jim standing up. His penis displayed itself to our eyes. It was long and throbbed mightily, like some living sausage. The girls had a shelf-full of toys in the room, all within reach of their kneeling figures, which they now resorted to in order to induce Jim to spend. “Every man who comes in here would prefer to fuck us, dear Jim, but it’s not allowed,” the redhead said. How strange, I thought, that they had been told his name, but he was not told theirs! They were anonymous, just fingers, hands, mouths. Their only purpose was to procure his sperm. The brunette held a glass cup under the tip of Jim’s penis. “Just do it right in here when you’re ready, JimBo,” the brunette said. Her eyes danced with encouragement. The redhead popped the top off a tube of vaseline and began squirting it along the length of Jim’s cock. Glenda blew upon his member with her lips. “We have lotions to make your penis hot and lotions to make it cold,” the brunette, holding the glass under Jim’s cockhead, said. She tilted the glass toward the head of Jim’s penis, capturing just the tip within the glass’ open top, so that he could spurt directly into it when he came. “Which do you prefer?” the brunette asked. The redhead kept squeezing vaseline all over his dick, making it drippy and slick. “Let’s apply both,” Glenda said. “We’ll make the upper portion of his rod burn. The bottom part, near the root of his cock, where it meets his warm belly, we’ll make freeze.” “Yes!” the redhead said. She closed the top on the vaseline and put it back on the shelf. The brunette, leaning back, drew more water from a wood pail and tossed it with a ladle onto the burner. More steam hissed from the coals. “How nice and warm it’s getting!” the redhead said. “Relax this big thingie of yours, Jim. It mustn’t stick out so!” the redhead teased Jim, referring to his cock. “Oh, God!” Jim said. The girls began stroking him with maddening slowness. Carefully, expertly, they massaged his big penis. They treated it like some valuable trophy, handling it with utmost respect. Jim shivered. He did not wish to spend like this, for the Sultan’s amusement, especially on T.V.! I couldn’t blame him; for all I knew, the Sultan would replay the tape for his Arab friends, all of them laughing at Jim as he was forced to spurt. “Come on, Jim,” Glenda urged. “Don’t make me take a whip to your ass. We have one here-- see it on that second shelf there? I’ll whip your ass raw if I have to. Spend into the glass that this nice girl is holding under your dick. Do it now, Jim!” My swarthy hero grimaced. He held out against their manipulations. Glenda threatened him with a butt plug if he continued to resist. Then she threatened him with a penile catheter. Jim groaned. “Yes, if I have to, Jim,” Glenda said. “I’ll thread a catheter up your dick and suck the sperm out that way!” She laughed. Then, gently, Glenda squeezed his balls. “Don’t make things difficult for yourself, Jim,” Glenda warned. “Spurt into the glass. Do it just like you would have done it so happily as a little boy. Did you used to masturbate when you were younger, Jim? It wasn’t so bad, was it? A little humiliating, perhaps, to shoot your sperm out so fruitlessly, but you must have done it many times. Tonight there will be no intercourse for you, Jim. You’re to shoot it all into that barren glass.” “NO!” Jim cried. He worked his hips. He struggled against the handcuffs which kept his hands bound behind his back. The girls frowned. They began to work him harder with their fingers. Glenda squeezed Jim’s balls tighter. “We’ll all be sucking in a minute if he doesn’t cum soon,” Glenda muttered. “I don’t want to get to get a bellyful of sperm, ma’am,” the brunette said to Glenda. “I just ate dinner!” “Jim, shoot your wad,” Glenda said. She reached back and tickled Jim between his buttcheeks with her finger. Still he resisted. Glenda cast a worried look toward us. She jammed her nailed thumb into Jim’s behind. He let out a howl. The brunette pushed the glass urgently up over the head of his dick. His knob was so big it just fit within. She gave him a beseeching look. The redhead liberally sprinkled his dick with burning oil at one end, ice cold oil at the other. She rubbed both oils into his skin. Then, with Jim still holding back, his chin high, his teeth grinding, the redhead grabbed his dick hard and began pulling on it. Jim remained rock hard. Tears appeared in the redhead’s eyes. She pulled harder on his cock, as if trying to wrest the sperm from his balls with the force of her small, squeezing fists. “Oh, please cum, sir! Otherwise we shall be punished!” the redhead implored. “No,” Jim breathed. It was a deep, guttural sound. I felt a shiver run through me. How powerful his loins were! He was straining with need, yet somehow, he held himself back. He resisted. Jesus did not make a greater display of resistance when tempted by Satan. Jim’s face was haggard, but he refused to cum. The Sultan threw the television remote control, which he had been amiably holding, to the floor. It was made of stone, and the remote shattered upon it. From his dissolute position in the easy chair, the Sultan jumped up. He tore the pipe from his mouth and threw it at the T.V. It was a direct hit; the T.V. screen shattered and went dark. “I’ve never been so outshone in my life!” the Sultan bellowed. “Guards! Guards!” he hollared. Men, armed with swords, came running. I heard their footsteps along the stone hall. A moment later they burst into our room. Others, assuming that the source of the trouble must lie in the sauna, rushed into that room and broke up the proceedings. Mr. Jim Rutland was taken out of the sauna, his arms still bound, his cock drooling pre-cum but his balls still full. He had an insolent look on his face. His penis, sticking up hard and full of virility, presented itself to the Sultan’s eyes. “Damn you!” the Sultan muttered to Jim. “I am without a kingdom,” Jim replied. “What money I had has been taken from me. I have no clothes. My body is not my own. I do have a full load of sperm, however, and I intend to discharge it at my own discretion,” Jim said defiantly to the Sultan. The ruler glared back at him. “Were I a rasher, younger, and more impetuous man, and not so enamored of little Chloe here, I would cut that damn thing off of you this instant,” the Sultan told Jim. His guards, their swords drawn, the blades sharp, hovered over Jim, gazing at his stiff member. “As it is, I shall instead have the girls who have failed whipped,” the Sultan said. “Soundly.” “No!” the brunette and redhead cried. Their nude bodies were seized by the guards. They were hauled off, both of them kicking their bare legs and struggling. “Oh, please! What is to become of them?!” I shouted. The Sultan looked at me. “They may be young, but they are not slaves,” he told me. “They have accepted employment here, in my kingdom. And today, despite being well-trained by the older women, they have failed in their duties. For this they will each receive numerous strokes of the lash across their bottoms. They will be back at work tomorrow, I assure you. No true harm will come to them. But they will have well-striped bottoms for the next several days, and they will be taking their meals standing up, and sleeping at night on their bellies, so as not to cause themselves excessive pain.” “Oh, you should not!” I gasped. But I confess that I felt a secret thrill. Imagine! Both females, each only a few years older than myself, being subjected to punishment by the Sultan’s hunky guards! How would they be whipped? How would it feel? I longed, somewhere deep down in the depths of my psyche, to see them put to their trials. Would they bear the lash well, or bawl from the very first stroke? All these questions swirled in my mind as I listened to the two girls being taken away. Peering down the hall, I glimpsed the flash of their legs, kicking out beyond the muscled backs of the two guards who were carrying them. To think the girls had signed up for such an occupation, knowing the consequences if they should fail! I wondered if they had been punished before, or if this was their first time. I looked at Jim. Inside myself, I felt a sudden rush of blame and accusation towards him. The poor girls had only wanted to give him the pleasure of an orgasm with their small, sweet hands. Now he, withholding himself, had doomed them to painful correction. Such a cad! All this-- just so he could sass the Sultan and show off his dick to him! “Come. Downstairs,” the Sultan ordered. He glanced at Glenda. “You are lucky I have need of you, or you’d join the two who just left,” he warned her. Glenda bowed her head. “I shall do my utmost to please you in all things, sire,” Glenda said. “Very well,” the Sultan replied. “We shall on to the throne room, then.” The throne room! The words sang in my mind. Were we to see the Sultan’s royal throne? I thought we had already, upstairs; in the ball room. We went down a flight of stone steps. We came to a moderately-sized room. There were guests within. I heard singing, laughing. They were celebrating. Amidst the hoopla and laughter, I saw three chairs. Each was an exact replica of the throne the Sultan had sat in upstairs, in the ball room. However, there the resemblance ended, for instead of being encrusted with precious stones, and cast from gold, these thrones were each carved from simple wood. Each had a high back, arms, and stout legs. Underneath each chair, unlike the real throne upstairs, was a maze of cogs and wheels. Small handles jutted from the sides of each chair, underneath each throne replica’s seat. I looked at the machinery built into the underside of each chair and wondered at its purpose. Sitting in two of the three thrones were women. They were nude. Near the thrones that they perched upon were togas; apparently cast off, which now lay on the floor. One of the women was lifting a glass of champagne high over her head. She was pouring its contents in a languid, carefree way down into her mouth. I watched the champagne as it spilled from the glass and poured like a tumbling fountain down into her mouth. Her lips were wide; carelessly the liquor overspilled her lips and ran down her neck onto the naked mounds of her breasts. The fluid dripped from the tips of her bosoms. What wasn’t dripping off her nipples ran between her carelessly wiggling breasts and on down the sloping flatness of her tummy. It collected in her pubic bush. It dripped from her venus mount into a small puddle onto the wooden seat of the chair. The woman had her legs spread wide, displaying her pussy. Her bare feet kicked lightly, joyously. She laughed and closed her eyes and poured more champagne into her mouth. Despite her idyllic appearance, her hair, long and golden, was pinned up with utmost care atop her head. Her makeup was perfect, her nails, on both her fingers and toes, polished to a bright hue. She was a lovely creature, and minded not, it seemed, that all her naked charms were on full display to all half-dozen guests in the room. In the other chair sat another woman. She also held a glass of champagne. She was naked, her toga discarded onto the floor like the first woman’s. She was laughing, and said, “Oh, to think of all that could be done to me in this chair! How awful! How awful!” She lifted her hips and bounced her bottom provocatively on the chair’s seat. Then she lifted her champagne glass and sipped it. Over the rim of her glass she saw us enter. “Oh! The Sultan!” the woman cried. Her companion ceased pouring champagne into her mouth and gazed at us. I looked at the other guests. There were two men, and two women, besides the two women in the chairs. All four women were European. The two men were Arabs. The two women not seated on the fake thrones wore togas; both of their togas still hung from their shoulders, but were ripped open to reveal their nude bodies beneath. The two men were clad in togas. One man’s fell away as we entered, revealing a throbbing hard-on beneath. There was a table with food piled high; plus expensive liquors. Chairs, besides the two thrones, offered mundane seats, their comfort enhanced by small cushions. The three wooden thrones were simple, bare wood, without cushions upon them, or any adornment. Nonetheless the two women seated in them seemed happy to the point of being giddy. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Prince Saul and Prince Havash,” the Sultan said. “Introducing your new female companions to the pleasures of my throne room, eh?” “Yeah,” one of the Arab men replied. He lifted his glass in toast to the Sultan. The others, seeing him do it, lifted their glasses also. “To the Sultan!” they all cried, the women breaking into laughter as soon as they said it. Then they all drank. “I shall have to ask you two to move your party elsewhere,” the Sultan said. “Official business beckons.” He said nothing to the European women, not even nodding to them, as if they were mere wallpaper. “Ah, yes, your highness, if you insist,” the other Arab man said. “But who are the two glorious creatures you have brought down here?” His eyes brightened as he looked with interest at me, then at my aunt. “This is Chloe, and this is her aunt,” the Sultan said. He passed his hand over my head. I shivered. “And this, this infidel dog of a white man, is a Mr. Jim Rutland,” the Sultan said of Jim. “I think I’ve seen him before,” one of the Arabs said. “Yes, he is the one who was to be executed, but I spared him at the last moment,” the Sultan said. The Arab who I later learned was Prince Havash rolled his eyes. “Just what the world needs. Another white man,” Prince Havash said. The Sultan smiled. “From white men come white daughters,” he said. “You have a point,” Prince Havash said. He lifted his liquor glass and declared, “To the wisdom of my older brother, the great Sultan of Quatar!” “To the Sultan of Quatar!” all six partiers announced, including the two women who had mounted themselves on the thrones. They toasted the Sultan again, and drank some more. “May we stay to see your mightiness at work?” one of the women perched on a throne asked. The Sultan regarded her. She had large, perfect tits and a full bottom, surmounted by a waspishly narrow waist. Her long legs dangled from the throne’s seat. Her toes barely touched the floor. “Yes, of course, if one as beautiful as yourself wishes it,” the Sultan said. “You shall see the thrones in all their glory.” “Oh!” the woman said. It was a short, sharp declaration. She smiled sheepishly. Then, nimbly, she leapt down from the throne she was seated upon. Her friend also leaped down. The Sultan had myself and my aunt turn around. He stepped between us. He grasped each of us by our bound wrists, held behind our backs, and lifted our arms to display the full girth of our bottoms, unobstructed by our hands. “My friends,” the Sultan said. He addressed himself to his two younger brothers and the four European women. They drank wine and ate from the food on the table as he spoke. Their eyes gazed attentively at us. “Consider, if you will, these two new girls and their bottoms. One is 13. Observe how her bottom is slim and narrow, almost like a child’s. How pert her cheeks are! How delicate and soft the flesh! Beside her, fuller and shapelier, is her 19-year-old aunt. Her heinie is just as soft, yet, thanks to the extra half-decade in years, it is fleshier and able to endure more. Tonight, with their bare bottoms, these girls will go adventuring on my thrones. With their arms bound, their pretty mouths gagged, they will explore the furthest limits of erotic mischief, all with the unguarded flesh of their soft, bare fannies. They will never forget the night they both sat on my thrones. How their bottoms will ache with the memory! And, if we are fortunate, their nether holes will be widened by the experience, opened to more easily receive a lover, or whatever he may wish to insert there!” “Oh my!” one of the women who’d been sitting on a throne gasped. I myself emitted a cry of alarm, as did my aunt. It did us no good; we were turned, hoisted up by several guards who’d come down with us, and placed onto two of the three thrones. Jim Rutland was seated by Glenda in the third. She smiled, bowed low to him. He merely growled and frowned. There was nothing any of us could do to resist, however; the guards who’d followed us down were all armed with swords, and displayed no hesitation about using them on whomever the Sultan should wish to see cut. “Their faces-- why are they covered with cream?” one of the European women asked. “So that you may lick it off,” the Sultan replied. “Oh!” the woman said. Then, grinning at a companion, she advanced upon me. She grasped my knees, as I sat having my arms worked into a slot at the back of the chair by the guards. With my hands bound behind me, I could not resist. The woman offered her tongue to my face and licked my nose. I wriggled it. She laughed. Her other friend, the one who’d shared the experience of sitting on a throne with her, came forward and began licking my aunt. Together, my aunt and I had our faces cleaned by the women’s tongues. It was most unusual, and embarrassing. I blushed. My aunt did too. All the while guards secured my auntie’s and my hands behind us, fixing them to the backs of the chair’s seats. Then, being not needed, by us, the arms on each throne, and each throne’s tall back, were removed. The guards stacked them in a corner of the room. My aunt and I found ourselves sitting on just the flat seat-portion of each throne. My aunt squirmed, uncomfortably. She had the misfortune of sitting in the puddle made by the woman who’d drunk champagne, and spilled it down her front. My chair at least was dry, but the wood felt cold against me.