Pleasure Island [The Chronicles of Lidir] (34 page)

On deck that afternoon, Anya asked about the rescue.

'The young woman - Ikahiti - saw the footprints on the beach, then she found my signet in the sand. She cares for you a great deal. She was a friend?'

'Yes,' said Anya and glanced away. Her hand came to rest on the gilded ropework armband she still wore.

'But she was crying, as if it were her fault.'

Anya bit her lip. 'I must see her - to thank her. We must go ashore.' But the Prince seemed very reluctant. 'What is it?' said Anya.

'I must stay with the ship. I will not lose another.'

'But the ship is safe now. Your men are here.' He stayed silent, so she asked about the wreck.

'We managed to make rafts,' he said. 'We ferried the men and what little we could salvage from the reef to shore. Then we trekked through the mountains.'

'How did you know which way to go?'

'The pirates seemed to be sailing round the island - they never approached the shore. We guessed and headed north. Eventually we came to a river, followed it and the women found us. We were picked off in twos and threes.

'They ... they took you to the Princess?'

He would not look at her. 'Kalisha - yes,' he whispered. But she could imagine the rest - the cruel punishments in the clearing, the torturing of his flesh; and she had seen the signs upon his body. But how had he been freed and allowed to lead the rescue?

'They knew we understood ships. None of them had been inside one; they had no knowledge of the layout; no woman who had been taken to a ship had ever come back and I think they were afraid.' As he spoke, there was an intensity in his gaze which surprised her. And there was a hurriedness in his words. The words were spilling out. 'The one you call Niri - that word means something else - she is Aka-lisha; she is the sister to Kalisha. She was taken on another ship. They had given up all hope of seeing her again.' Anya stared at him; he seemed to realise and turned away. She wondered how so much had been communicated when none of the women spoke Lidiran. She should have asked him, but she didn't; something in his expression prevented her.

Late in the afternoon, they went ashore. A boat came for them and it was paddled by two of the painted women, the Princess's guards. Anya was a little anxious; she was still afraid of these women and of the Princess, to whom they were clearly being taken.

But her fears were dispelled when they entered the cave. A large throng had gathered there; there was dancing, singing and feasting; drums and long instruments resembling heavy flutes were being played. There were men - the shackled slaves and also the Prince's men, who were mixing freely with the women, but there were none of the island men. The Princess sat majestically in a great chair before a fire. Tied to the leg of the chair was her slave. She smiled at the Prince while she stroked her slave like a dog. To one side was a smaller chair containing the cat-woman; behind her stood more of the painted women. But to the Princess's right was a woman of great beauty, whom Anya did not recognise until she stood directly opposite her. It was Niri, but gone was the cowering Niri that Anya remembered. Her movements were graceful. She seemed taller. She was dressed in a pure white costume embroidered with shell and gold; her arms bore bangles of fine twisted gold inlaid with sparkling jewels; her hair was polished, tied and pinned. The eyes were the same - wide and very dark - but sedate, no longer frightened. They were looking with admiration at the Prince, who kept glancing at her as if he too did not recognise her.

The Princess stood and there was silence; the dancing stopped while she made a long speech interspersed with many smiles at the Prince, references to Aka-lisha and gestures with her hands - they kept coming to rest against the Prince's arm and then his hands until she finally took his fingers in her own while a wreath of large bright flowers was brought and placed around his neck. Anya watched the smooth pale bronze fingers that were closed about his and she waited for the contact to be broken. She glanced at the Princess, then at Aka-lisha, their faces full of rapture. She felt very uneasy. At last the Prince withdrew his hand and, by gesture, introduced Anya. The Princess smiled at her briefly. Extra chain were brought; she was placed to the Princess's left and the Prince was placed on the other side, between the Princess and Aka-lisha. Anya was upset to be separated from her Prince and he too seemed unhappy and rather nervous whenever Kalisha addressed him.

Anya had hoped very much to see Ikahiti, but she never appeared and that seemed odd. Then something even more odd happened. She was staring at the fire when something dropped into her lap - a bracelet. She heard a giggle and turned, but could see no one who might have thrown it. When she examined it more closely, she saw it was made of plaited twine. She stared around again, but nobody seemed to have noticed. She toyed with it for a minute, then slipped it over her wrist. She suspected where it might have come from, but she spent a long time wondering what it meant.

When the feasting was done, the Princess offered them the freedom of her quarters and Anya was very relieved when they were able to take their leave. She was still afraid of the Princess; she did not like the way she looked at the Prince or the way she had touched his hand and she believed that the Prince too was afraid. She could see the uncertainty on his face, the reluctance to enter this place, though it was very beautifully decorated. She thought of Kalisha's slave and of the marks she had seen on the Prince and she wished they were aboard the ship. When they had bathed, Anya stretched out on the bed beside her Prince. He was looking at the ceiling.

'What are you thinking, Sire?' she asked. It was a very large bed and Anya had to stretch across it to offer her hand. He took it but did not reply, though when she kissed him, he smiled. 'Is it about the Princess?' Anya asked. The smile faded and the Prince turned away and remembered.

When he closed his eyes, he saw her - her sweet golden body, not decked in royal finery, but naked - so very naked, so very sweetly nude. All that she wore was the small jewelled sword on its chain around her neck, the sword that matched the image on his signet ring. How she had come upon this amulet, he knew not, for he had seen its counterpart only in the Castle of Lidir, yet it was clear that she cherished it deeply. She had kissed it, then she had kissed the seal upon his ring. And on this very bed he had taken her in his arms and touched her nudity, so smooth and bronze and inked with precisely curling patterns. Those perfect lips between her legs had seemed swollen with desire and between them was a curious attachment slipped beneath the hood, a tapering segmented snake fashioned from burnished gold. It was about as long as his little finger and it had slunk with a heavy liquidity each time her body moved. He had held it in his palm as it moved like a living thing; he had felt her naked sex lips touching his skin, brushing the hairs on the back of his hand, while he held this heavy slippy golden thing that flowed with living quickness in his palm and her belly had tightened, sunk, then slowly bulged as her fingertips squeezed her nipples. When he had slipped the flesh sheathing back, he had seen that the snake was fastened by a fine gold wire in such a way that the tiny gold teeth lining its mouth appeared to grip the distending nubbin. He had turned the snake's tail round and used it to tickle this point of attachment till the belly writhed. Then he had opened the lips and fitted the body of the snake between them. He had held her, kissed her and touched those bulging lips until her body had turned to stone and she had shuddered - her lips had trembled against his nipple; the small distended bud in the mouth of the snake had seemed to burst and his fingertips had been covered in warm wetness.

Then he had laid her down and opened her and kissed her, licked the snake, sucked the point of its attachment; he had drunk her warm emissions; then he had lifted the snake and draped it over her naked belly. Her sex had formed an open small soft rubber ring which felt too tight to take him when he entered, yet her legs had opened wide. Her fingertips had slipped between them to coax and tease the head of the snake. Then her legs had wrapped around him to fix his buttocks open. The painted women had approached. He had murmured his faint protest. He had not seen, yet he had felt something firm and round being pushed inside him - like a plug it felt, though it was not. It was a broad gold ring that kept him open - open though he tried to close; open when the Princess squeezed him, pushed her small warm tongue into his mouth, then pinched his nipples; open when her urgent fingers wrapped the cord around him; open when the women slipped the heavy cold sliding flexible thing up through the ring. And when it weighed against him deep inside, then it was twisted, so the weight moved and the coldness touched again, his pleasure came, though with the cord fastened and now nipped tight, the pleasure could not escape and he felt that deep inside him, he had burst. Yet the Princess kept moving, kept him open with her legs around his and her sex softly sucking upon his stem while her small tongue continued to explore his gasping lips and her neat round breasts and precisely pointed nipples gently rubbed against his chest. Then later, when he had felt the pleasure coming the second time, she had held him down and pinched his nose between her heels while she had dangled the snake attached to her sex inside his open mouth. She had bound the cord around him again and kissed his cockhead slowly and wetly and the pleasure had seemed to burst behind his eyes.

But how had he allowed himself to do it? To come so far to seek one woman, only to end up in another's arms? And afterwards, he had not had the courage to face the woman he was supposed to have loved - he had sent the ring with Ikahiti - and he had almost lost Anya for good. She had nearly died.

He felt her fingertips stroking his shoulders now. And from her words, it seemed to him she sensed his anguish.

'My lord. Think not of her - of the cruel things she did - think only of me,' Anya whispered. He turned and kissed her full warm lips; he tasted there the warmth of a forgiveness that he needed. He felt the stirrings of desire. And very soon his desire would burn, for though neither knew it, his atonement was at hand.

Ikahiti and the blonde girl swooped into the bedchamber; the attack was planned, the execution was smooth. Before he knew what had befallen, his wrists were tied above his head, the rope was fastened down and he was gagged. Anya recognised the posture; she saw the glint in the blonde girl's eye. Ikahiti put her finger to Anya's lips, then kissed them. Anya, not knowing what to do, glanced across to the Prince, then back. Her heart was thumping. Ikahiti touched the knotted rope round Anya's arm, smiled, then kissed her again. She began kissing down her body. Her nipples were gently sucked. Then she felt her ankles being drawn down the bed. It was too late now; Anya had succumbed. She would not need to give her thanks to Ikahiti - Ikahiti would take those thanks in kind. Anya's thumbs were tied together; small leather cuffs were slipped about each big toe; the cords were tightened; the feeling was sweet. Her nipples were sucked again, then pinched; tiny cuffs were slipped about them too. Cords were fastened around each leg at the top. The ends were fastened loosely to the ring between her legs and the feeling now was awful; the loose loops brushed her sex lips when she moved. She was aware of each constriction - her toes, her nipples, the tops of her legs and the ring that seemed to nip her swelling nubbin. Her arms were lifted to form an arch above her head. Her underarms were kissed simultaneously; two pairs of lips explored her, one pair warmer, thicker, softer, brown, the other more tickling, pink. Then her underarms were wetted with saliva, bathed until they dripped, until the hair slicked down in deep red shining swirls.

And the Prince, tied and gagged, was forced to watch his lover being pleasured at his side. He was forced to watch her body caressed by eyes which were wide and deep with love, and her flesh being teased by lips and tongues and fingers that were ruthless. Her lips were kissed - deep sucking kisses which she returned - while her legs were held open, the cords between were readjusted, traced by two pale fingers, then her upper thighs were tickled. When the cuffs about her nipples were tightened, the sides of her sex - the places that were bruised - were wetted with the point of a small pink tongue. Her feet were lifted in the air; then the sides of her sex were tongue-washed until the strands of hair were plastered down in narrow lines and the sex looked almost bare. Then the cords of the cuffs about her big toes were tied together. She was left thus, her hands above her head, her legs tucked up, the wetness evaporating slowly from her underarms and the tender bare flesh at the sides of her sex, while her lover was taken in hand and spanked - a task which fell to the blonde girl, who blamed him for many things not entirely of his doing, whilst giving him insufficient credit for having introduced her to Ikahiti.

Before she spanked, she touched the scratch-marks she had yesterday ingrained into his cheeks, knowing there would be marks ingrained elsewhere ere long. Then she removed the gag and placed loosely over his mouth and nose a soft brushed-velvet cloth, one of several mementos recovered that evening in a secret pillage of the ship. His legs were free: he could have struggled, not then perhaps, when the touch was tender, but later when the pleasure and pain were one. But his legs and belly remained still, acquiescent to her will. Perhaps he conceded it as part of his atonement. Perhaps there was simply a peculiar pleasure for a Prince in such a situation; perhaps he had never been used in quite this way before. Perhaps pleasure was not the right word, for the way that she smacked was cruel. She had had a good instructress.

She knelt astride him so his upstanding sex rested against her lower belly and, from behind, he could see her buttocks moving, but he could not see what she was doing. She wetted the underside of his stem with spittle at the place where it joined the bag. She concentrated the rubbing around the soft thick tube within. Then she held the sex up against her belly, so the cap was poised below the hollow of her navel. Her caresses were deceptive. She lifted up the bag and pressed his legs together. Then she moved back. Her bare and faintly bristled sex brushed over his belly and the cock slipped down, but not completely, for it was hard. He saw her buttocks open, the small eye peep, then the hands lift to remove a leather choker that was fastened at her neck. She used it as a strap. At the first smack, he tried to lift, but could not, for Ikahiti held his feet. At the second, he tried to cry out, but the girl reached back and stretched the velvet over his open mouth. All that he could smell was female heat; the cloth was steeped in it; his burning breath released it. At the third smack, the buttocks above him moved back and deliberately opened wider. The bare sex felt as hot as fire against his chest. He could feel her wetted fingertips caressing the tip of his cock, rubbing smoothly, slipping, pleasuring him slowly; then suddenly, the next smack came and his belly tried to throw her in the air. His head jerked, the velvet fell away and as he gulped for air, he could smell her.