Emperor Jack #01

As she left, one of my advisors came in. Not Chuck--I was sure he was balls-deep in that cheerleader right about now. I began to dictate my response to Asim's request--they weren't going to like it. What she was really saying was that there was violence along ethnic lines, that they couldn't get used to the idea that they were all one now. I couldn't believe it was Asiatica that was having the most trouble letting go of old separations and adopting a new unified identity; I expected Arabica would be the problem there. Without saying so, what the Asiatics really wanted separation along ethnic lines. What they would get instead is more integration; people HAD to let old divisions and borders die. We were all part of a bigger system now, and petty historical squabbles had no place in it. That's the thing about the delegate system--sexual favors can be used to earn the chance to plead a case. There's nothing that says I'm going to do what they ask.

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You may be wondering how the entire planet came to be governed by a single Emperor. Naturally it didn't happen overnight. When the aliens first made contact, they came in peace, but they were clearly far advanced of ourselves. We were a galactic boondock; out in a spiral arm of the Milky Way, known to the rest of the universe as the Myrg Galaxy. Like the other galaxies, all of the sentient beings of Myrg were part of a single central government, the Myrg Galactic Federation or MGF. But because the Earth, now known as Terra, was out on a spiral arm hundreds of light-years from the central disk where most intelligent life resided, it took them a long time to find us. Once they made contact, it became clear that our technology was backward but our climate divine--and one of the first things they helped us with was controlling our greenhouse gasses to keep it that way. But after having spent a few hundred years as an industrialized economy, it was quite a shock when the economics of the MGF drove us to becoming being primarily agrarian again. Some of the Earth's indigenous plants became prized commodities (animal products cannot be exported by interplanetary law) and imported graw-gyn grew like a weed on the fertile soil of Terra. (Graw-gyn is the primary staple of the MGF, and makes quite a tasty bread--if you can get past it's blue color). There was a huge culture shock: humans demanded goods imported from more advanced planets, and the only commodity they wanted back was food, so the economics of Earth were forced to shift. Hundreds of years of migration into urban areas reversed as people flocked back to the fields.

Governments had even more difficulty adapting to the changes than the people themselves. The Federation would come to the leaders of the various nations of the time and ask them for information. They would be trying to maximize yield, or help with our greenhouse gasses, or otherwise try to make Terra better and more efficient for everyone's sake. But Terran assistance often left much to be desired; miles of red tape and international non-cooperation hindered their ability to get what they wanted.

In those days, I was an attache in the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It was my job to analyze numbers and generate statistics, so a lot of the aliens' requests came to me. I'm sure that similar requests went to other departments and other countries, but I guess I was more efficient at getting answers, even if it wasn't necessarily my department. I dunno, maybe everyone else figured that if the aliens didn't vaporize us right off the bat they never would. I never looked at it that way. I figured that we'd better not piss them off, because they really didn't us around. It seemed to me sometimes that they were more concerned about the long-term future of Terra than we were, even though we lived here. Somewhere along the line, someone in the MGF must have noticed that a lot of the answers came from the same portal into the GWW (galaxy-wide web). They found out who I was, and started posing their questions to me directly rather than wasting weeks going through official channels only to have the request land on my desk anyway. For my part, if they snapped their fingers, I jumped.

Totally out of the blue, the Federation ambassador to Terra asked me to join him for dinner one night. Sitting in a restaurant in DC, he asked me why it took so long for others to get answers, but not me. I said I thought maybe I just had a better idea where to look. He didn't believe that was the answer. Then he asked me if I thought I could run a big organization. I told him "I don't really like to manage people. But I think I could make good strategic decisions."

"Do you think you could find someone who is good at managing people?" he asked.

I nodded. "Sure. I've got a good friend Chuck who's really good at it."

"It is always important to know both your strengths and your limitations. It is a wise man that avoids arenas where he is sure to fail. That is lesson many of your fellow Terrans could stand to learn," he said ominously. I walked away that night feeling that I'd made a good impression on the aliens, but a vague uneasiness about why they had wanted to talk to me in the first place.

I was intercepted on my way to the office the next morning: it was Friday, August 13. I was escorted to meet the president in the Oval Office. President Carson had been in office for just 8 months, elected on a platform of restoring the US to its primary position among the nations of the world without really being clear how to do that. Several attempts to increase US prominence had been foiled by the MGF; he was frustrated and getting heat from the voters for not delivering on his campaign promises. He took that out on me, laying into me for overstepping my bounds, acting beyond my authority. I told him I with the ambassador as a citizen, not as a representative of the government, but he wouldn't accept that... to make a long story short, I was escorted from the Oval Office straight to jail facing possible charges of treason. That turned out to be a very bad move on the president's part.

From jail, I used my one allotted phone call to call the ambassador. In the next 24 hours, the MGF moved in an razed the entire political structure of the planet. All of the leaders of the existing states were rounded up, boarded onto freighters, and shipped to MGF headquarters. In its place one central government was declared, and to my great surprise I was declared its Emperor. I didn't feel anything close to qualified for the job, but now especially crossing the Federation just didn't seem to be a good idea. Naturally there were howls of protest, but the will of the MGF was backed up by the strength of the Federation army. Once we reorganized Terra's native militaries and started paying their checks, any serious threat of rebellion abated. So it was that in the course of three days I went from pencil-pusher to Public Enemy to Emperor of Terra. Because it was August, I adopted the name Emperor Augustus, attempting to conjure up connotations to the glories of ancient Rome. If nothing else, it sounded more official than Emperor Jack.

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I sat in my private quarters, dreading that night. There was an official state dinner, and they are one of the things I hate most about my position. I was going to have to listen to dozens of delegates from each of the provinces, each trying to bend my ear about some issue of theirs. I wasn't even expecting any Federation ambassadors tonight, so all conversation was going to be directed at me. I couldn't afford to drink, and there wasn't even a dance later to distract people, not if the Emperor didn't have an Empress with whom to dance. So I had nothing to look forward to but four hours of boring people pelting me with petty problems. Sigh. The only bright spot was that maybe, just maybe, something interesting might happen with Shana. There was a knock at my door--I was 15 minutes late already. With a sigh, I picked myself up and steeled myself for what was to come. I forced myself to stand, and headed towards the door.

Everyone was standing as I entered. I proceeded solemnly to the head table. With a slight bow/nod, I sat, and everyone else did, too. There was a head table where I sat with the Head Ministers of every province seated on one side, myself in the middle. The other side was left open so the three hundred other guests seated in three long rows perpendicular to the head table could see us. There wasn't a riser, but our chairs were slightly taller than the others. It felt like being at a wedding, minus the bride.

Most of the tables were attended to by a gang of kitchen staff, but our table had dedicated staff assigned just to us--a barmaid, our usual waitress, and Shana, dressed in a waitress' medieval wench gown an standing at her side. Shana followed the regular waitress around, doing whatever she did. She kept her eyes downcast, like she was afraid to look in the eyes of all the so-called powerful people in attendance. I was served first, but later when she came to refill the roll basket I was able to mumble "Thank you, Shana," in her direction. She glanced up at me briefly with doe eyes. I happened to catch that the Minister from Brittania looked up from his food and did a double-take when he heard the name, then acted as if nothing had happened.He must have been involved in her selection, I thought. Because of the importance of selecting the right delegate, provincial ministers are wise to become very involved in the selection process, which I imagine might bear more than a passing resemblance to casting a porno.

All during the banquet, the Minister from Asiatica was at my left and kept jawing about the same shit Asim had sucked me off to tell me about earlier. I nodded noncommittally, thinkingboy are you gonna be pissed when you find out how I'm ACTUALLY going to respond to your problem. Then I realized that I could sneak glances over his left shoulder and see Shana and her mentor standing against the wall. When she wasn't doing something, she was scanning the crowd, wide-eyed at the dignitaries in the room. And she kept throwing glances at me, although as soon as I caught her she would look away. I noticed her gulp a few times after she did.Damn... I think she's worrying about what's going to happen later. That's not a good sign... Then she glanced my way, and caught me looking at HER. That caught her off guard; I guess she didn't expect that, with all these important people in the room, I'd be looking at her. Then I rolled my eyes so only she could see. I saw her crack up, then look away and try to regain her serious countenance. I couldn't help but grin a little as the Minister kept jabbering away in his heavily accented Myrgan, oblivious. His accent in itself was telling; Asim, for example, was nowhere near as hard to understand. It told me the Minister only spoke Myrgan at official functions, and used traditional languages in other contexts--perhaps even in his office, which would be against the rules. Accents were turning out to be a pretty good indicator of who was really making efforts to assimilate and who was just playing along.

I was pleasantly surprised that there was entertainment planned. After dinner everyone was taken outside and treated to a show by traditional Hawaiian dancers. It was a special treat for me to see a regular attendant that stood in my great hall every day up on stage, dancing in a coconut-shell bikini and grass skirt, a very sensual hula.I may just have to slip that one a piece of pork one of these days, I mused. Not today, though--I was saving my bacon for Shana, hopefully.

I hung out for a while after the show until I felt I could leave without offending any of these pricks. I slipped away, grabbed Shana by the hand and escaped to my private quarters. There was apprehension in her eyes, though, and I felt her hesitation as I led her to the bedroom. I opened the door, releasing her hand, and exclaimed, "Whew. Man am I glad THAT is over." I took off my shoes and sat down on the bed.

Shana watched. She took a step towards me haltingly, then stopped. With consternation, she looked away. "I'm sorry, your Imperial Highness. I... I don't know why, but I don't seem to be able to do this..."

"Are you a virgin, Shana?"

"No!" she protested. "And I'm not a prude. I don't understand... I mean, yeah, I don't really know you, but neither do the others... I don't know. I just... feel so much pressure to perform... it's just messing with my system. I'm not responding the way I usually do..."

I tapped the bed next to me with my hand. "Come sit next to me, Shana," I invited. There was a pause, then she nervously came and sat stiffly on the bed.

"Relax, Shana. I'm not going to bite you." She smiled nervously. I sat silently, breathing slowly. She heard me and tried to calm herself as well. "That's better. Now then... please deliver your message."

"Pardon?" she asked, perplexed.

"Your message. The reason you came here? The thing you were supposed to tell me?"

"But I..."

"Just tell me the message," I said calmly. And so she did. It seems that one of the issues with joining the Scandinavian countries with Great Britain when I formed Brittania is that Europa kind of jutted into the way. The only way to get things from one part to the other was by sea, and they were having difficulties with Europa stopping their ships and extracting duties on cargos as they passed through the North Sea. I called for the Exalted Advisor at once, and dictated a policy that would ensure that ships bound from the British Isles to Scandinavia had free and clear passage.

"Oh, your Majesty, thank you so much," she gushed when I finished.

"No, thank you," I demurred. "That is EXACTLY the kind of message I need to hear, and one that needs directives from the central authority to correct."

"This will really help with the spiraling inflation in Brittania," she observed.

"I hope so," I agreed. "And... now do you feel better? You've delivered your message, the pressure is off. You can go home and collect your fee now."

She paused, thinking. Then she responded "kind of. But now I feel like I've taken something without paying for it, and need to make amends."

I laughed. "Are you a Papist, Shana?"

"I was raised that way... why?"

"Who else could turn a gift freely given into a reason to feel guilty?" She frowned knowingly and turned her gaze to the floor; perhaps it was not the first time she had heard such a message. "Do you have a boyfriend, Shana?" She nodded. "Do you feel guilty being here with me, because of him?"

"Not really," she replied. "I mean, he's not very happy about it, but I don't feel like I owe him anything. It's not like I go around picking up other men in bars; this is a very different circumstance. We really need the money, and it's not like he put a ring on my finger."

I nodded. "Do you like to make love to your boyfriend, Shana?"

"Sure... I know I must seem totally frigid to you, but really... our love life is pretty good..."

"Would you close your eyes for a moment, and imagine your boyfriend for a moment? I'm going to rub your shoulder and help you relax." She let out a big sigh, then closed her eyes. I put my hands on her shoulders, bare in the scoop-necked gown, and squeezed gently. "There. Does he rub your shoulders sometimes too?" She nodded. "Good. Just imagine you're with him." I felt her relaxing slightly as I rubbed.

"Does he ever kiss your neck... like this?" I brushed back her hair and softly kissed the side of her neck.

"No," she answered, "...but I like it."

"Good, because your neck is very kissable." I kissed it a few more times, and I felt her relaxing. But I inadvertently let my hands dip further down while kissing her neck, which she interpreted as making a move for her tits I guess. She tensed up anew.

I moved so I was sitting squarely next to her. "I'm going to put my hand on your knee, OK?" She nodded slowly. I gathered up her long dress so that it lay above her knee, and put my hand gently on her knee. With my other hand, I gently brushed her neck and shoulders. "Are you still thinking of your boyfriend?" she nodded. "Good. Now, think back to the last time you made love. Or a particularly memorable time, which ever." I paused to let her imagine. "Are you picturing it now?"

"Yes, but it's difficult," she replied.

"That's OK, keep concentrating on it." I paused for a moment. "Are you in a bed?"

"Yes."

"Good. Are you on top? Or is he on top? or..."

"So far he's on top," she answered in a faraway voice. She was indeed trying to imagine. "We usually start that way, then switch later."

"Good, good. Now, imagine how it feels to make love to him. Can you do that?" she nodded. "All right then, tell me... what do you like best about how it feels?"

While she considered, I gently moved my hand slightly further up her thigh as I caressed her. Finally she answered, "I don't know, a lot of it. I like feeling close to him...I like feeling filled up...and of course it makes my pussy feel good..."

My hand slid further up her thigh. I could faintly feel the warmth of her crotch nearby. She didn't move to close her legs. "Does he ever touch you between the legs?"

"Not usually," she answered. She tensed up a little, but was still relaxed enough to resist the urge to flee. I leaned in, brushed her hair back and kissed her neck again while still stroking her smooth thigh. I saw her breath relax, and she tilted her head slightly away from me so I had more neck to kiss--she seemed to like that, so I kept doing it. After kissing her neck a number of times, I let my fingers slide up further until I reached the point where her two legs met. I feared she would flinch, but she did not--in fact, she seemed to shift so that her legs parted slightly further.

My fingers stroked her crotch gently at first--I would have been just tickling the hairs had there been any, but she had followed her instructions to shave or wax her pubes bare. Her labia were tightly closed, but a warm softness told my fingers where the cleft lay. I stroked it gently, slowly coaxing it to arousal. I felt just a hint of dampness develop, and then I felt a tiny button emerge from hiding under my middle finger. I ran my finger up and down her cleft again, but now circled the rising knob on each pass, making it rise even further. I watched her laying there; her breaths became more salient as her body began responding to my touch.

Shana opened her eyes and turned her face toward me, keeping her legs parted. The look in her eyes was very different from before. They still showed the barest hint of nervousness, but now also vulnerability--and desire. Her lips twitched once. I decided that that meant she wanted to kiss me; perhaps she felt unsure of whether it was acceptable to kiss one's Emperor, even if his hands are between your legs. I leaned forward, allowing our lips to meet. As soon as our lips touched, her resistance started to melt. She kissed me surprising energy, and I could feel her labia soften to my touch. Her reticent stiffness gave way, but she surprised me. The most I had hoped for was that she would be passively accepting of my advances. Instead, a fire of passionate energy glowered, sparked, and slowly took flame.

She brought her closer leg up to her chin, resting it on the bed, providing free and broad access to her mound. Then she leaned back on her elbows, watching me with a sultry look as I touched her pussy. With her legs now far apart, the labia were easily parted, and I felt hot wetness inside her canyon. I glanced under her lifted skirt as I touched her. The bright pink of her pussy glowed in contrast to the pale of her skin. I decided I wanted to taste her.