Tasia shuddered.
“Haven’t you ever wondered,” Mylla whispered, positioning herself so that the leather cylinder’s tip tickled between her thighs, “what it would have been like if you had been born with one of these between your legs?” She reached around Tasia’s back with both hands, untying her brazier. “Markas would never think he stood a chance with you; guardsmen would never mistake you for a cheap and willing whore; and your father wouldn’t be nearly so concerned with marrying you off.”
Slowly, Mylla pulled the brazier up and over Tasia’s head. Once it had joined Tasia’s rough linen drawers on the rug, Mylla lowered her mouth to one of Tasia’s nipples and sucked, then teased it with her teeth. Her thighs rubbed against the leather at the same time, and every bit of pressure she put on it resulted in a corresponding pressure against Tasia.
“Never,” Tasia breathed. “I’ve never wanted a boy’s appendage between my legs. Though if I had one, maybe you’d never leave me for some rich Western ambassador. Maybe I would marry you, make you my Empress.”
Mylla laughed musically, rolling off Tasia and laying back onto the pillow. She grasped Tasia’s hands and pulled her forward. The Princess placed her hands on either side of Mylla’s face, gazing down at the most beautiful creature she knew.
“I would never marry you if you were a man, Tasia,” Mylla said. “You would grow up to be a self-involved, spoiled little brat. Your father would’ve seen to that. You wouldn’t have been worth the trouble, not even to be your Empress. Or your mistress.” She flicked the tip of the leather dildo. “That’s the best thing about this, you know. When we finish, it goes back between the mattresses, and you go back to being my lovely, sweet princess.” Mylla spread her legs wide, hooked her heels around the backs of Tasia’s thighs. “Now take me. Show me what you would do with me if you’d been born Nathaniel instead of Natasia.”
Tasia lowered her hips towards Mylla. The tip of the dildo seemed to hesitate as if uncertain, floating half an inch above the handmaid sex.
“But I can’t feel it when it touches you,” Tasia said. “What if I hurt — ”
But Mylla silenced her by taking the leather shaft with both hands and guiding it inside, letting out a small moan as she did. The sound seemed to erase the last of Tasia’s hesitancy, and she thrust down and forward, driving the dildo deeper inside her handmaid. At the same time, as if a reward for good work, the smaller piece of the device inside Tasia dug in, sending an undulating ripple of pleasure down her hips and thighs, up her spine. Encouraged, she thrust again harder, and again.
She glanced at Mylla, worried her sudden lack of grace might’ve hurt the girl, but Mylla’s eyes were closed — mouth half ajar, head tilted back. The handmaid lifted her feet, locking her ankles together in the small of Tasia’s back.
That did it. Tasia gave in to her desire, letting her hips rock up and down in a rhythm all their own as Mylla’s hands clenched around fistfuls of sheets. Tasia’s hips demanded she go faster, deeper, and she put her hands onto Mylla’s shoulders, pushing the girl down even as she continued to thrust up. After a minute or two of this, Tasia felt her own orgasm on its way, just on the edge of its sweet release. Mylla let out a low groan and dug her heels deeper into Tasia’s back, her body rocking with a spasm; Tasia’s own body followed suit a moment later.
Tasia let out a long and satisfied moan, then collapsed forward onto Mylla’s chest, the dildo pulling out at the same time with a tug and a wet squelch.
“Mother Moon,” Mylla said between gasps of breath a few moments later. She rolled Tasia off her, wiped the sweat from her brow. “I might retract what I said earlier about refusing to be your mistress had you been born Nathaniel. I still wouldn’t have married you, but you would’ve been good for an occasional roll. You seem like you know how to use one of those things properly. I suppose you should — you’ve had enough practice on the receiving end, haven’t you?”
Tasia laid on her back, said nothing. Like her, Mylla had already enjoyed her share of male lovers. If anything, Mylla’s promiscuity was exactly why Tasia had so many men herself. It seemed so easy for Mylla to be callous, casual about what transpired between them alone in Tasia’s bedchamber. It seemed so easy for Mylla to make Tasia one of many. So Tasia would be callous, too. She would make Mylla one of many, too. If it was only a game to the handmaid, then it would be nothing more than a game to the Princess.
Tasia held her tongue rather than answer Mylla’s question about having plenty of practice. She also swallowed the comment about how no man had ever pleased her the way Mylla did. Tasia stared in silence instead at the moist leather shaft of the dildo jutting upright from her crotch. The candles cast dancing shadows across it, and it looked like a living thing.
Mylla rose, tied her night robe back on, and padded barefoot from the room.
A minute passed, and the handmaid hadn’t returned. “Mylla?” Tasia called. “Where’d you go?”
No answer. The girl must have gone out of earshot.
“Myll?”
How was it possible, Tasia wondered as she laid alone in the dim bedchamber, for so many wonderful and horrible things to happen all in the same night? A meaningless, careless night with Markas that nearly ended in her death. A mad rush towards the Sunfall Gate, escaping a city guardsman who seemed intent on raping her. A tense meeting with her father, followed by the healing touch of Mylla. A peak of pleasure unlike anything she’d ever felt before, only for her lover to walk from the room afterwards without explanation.
Mylla indeed would leave her Princess one day, permanently. She would leave without thinking twice, as soon as she came of age six months from now, as soon as an eligible bachelor with the right-sized coin purse who appealed to both Mylla and her father came along. And that would be the end of this nighttime secret they shared. Forever.
“Mylla?” Tasia called, louder this time.
But all remained quiet. The exhaustion Tasia should’ve felt hours ago finally caught her, and her eyes drifted closed.
“I’m back, Princess,” came the handmaid’s voice just as sleep took Tasia. “I had to make a run to the garderobe. I picked your delicates up off the floor while I was up… Tasia?”
Tasia forced her eyes back open. “I’m sorry. I think I must’ve fallen asleep.”
“You’ve had a long night,” Mylla said kindly, stroking Tasia’s cheek. She glanced down and chuckled. “But your little soldier seems ready to keep going, doesn’t he?”
Tasia lifted her head enough to see the upright dildo at her midsection, then laid back onto the pillow. “Let’s not call it a ‘he,’” she said groggily. “I’ve had enough men for a lifetime already.”
She struggled to stay awake, but her eyes closed on their own accord while Mylla fiddled with the bridle-like straps around her thighs and waist. The handmaid grunted, tugging it off, then settled down beside Tasia, nestling her face against the Princess’s shoulder. Mylla yawned and pulled the bedcovers up around them.
“Whatever you wish, my Princess,” she said.
What I wish… Tasia thought. I wish for an Empire in which I could make you my wife, in which our daughters would be our heirs, in which belonging to a royal house wasn’t their prison sentence. What I wish is…