Her Majesty Queen Eleanor

Madame Rochement was very pleased with herself as she viewed the four beauties kneeling in full curtsy before Queen Eleanor. The ivory whiteness of their swanlike necks, the unblemished smoothness of their bared shoulders, the deep cleavage of their décolletage, all forecast the beauty of their faces, hidden from the queen by the full bow of those necks. Madame Rochement herself was in full curtsy, but her neck was not bowed. She looked straight at her queen with a haughtiness and self-assuredness, which would have earned any other courtier dismissal from the court, if not residence in the Bastille. But Renée Rochement was no ordinary courtier--or courtesan. Thirty years ago--twice the lifetimes of the young women kneeling alongside her--she too stood a similar inspection. Since then she had progressed from courtesan to royal mistress to Mistress of the Queen's Bedchamber. Having borne three royal bastards, she could have posed a threat to the dynasty.

Eleanor and Renee both knew their roles and their places. The queen had produced three heirs to the throne, and enough daughters to cement alliances with all of France's adversaries--except the English. Renee's two sons were titled officers heading regiments in the personal guards of their royal half-brothers, and their service in defense of both the dynasty and of France vouchsafed their loyalty to both. Her daughter was one of the great beauties of the court, the king's favorite, although officially unacknowledged, daughter.

If there was any jealousy between the two women, it was over this daughter, Joisette. The queen's daughters, like the queen herself, were bred for statecraft. They enjoyed lives without want or care, but also without freedom. Who they would marry, where they would live, who would be their friends--or more accurately their associates--were determined by their parents--or again more accurately their parents' advisors. Moreover, they inherited both their parents' looks. Joisette was free to choose her own friends, and--more importantly--her own lovers. The prerogatives of a royal princess with none of the duties or responsibilities. But Renee had schooled her daughter well. As a child, Joisette was always the perfect playmate to her half-sisters. To the queen, she showed a deference even Cardinal Richelieu envied. The king was an indulgent uncle, her half-brothers her royal protectors.

But Renee and Eleanor had more in common than having shared the king's bed and borne him children. Eleanor was not the handsomeness of women, and it soon developed in her marriage that the king--then the crown prince--was not sufficiently aroused by her alone to perform his princely duties to assure the dynasty. Hence a third party had to be introduced into the bedroom, and Renee went from courtesan to concubine. Eleanor could have brooded, but she found the prince as unappealing as he found her. She was the first-born daughter of a royal house, and had been bred and reared to continue another royal house. If she needed to learn those techniques which would ensure her husband's performance until a sufficient number of male heirs existed, then she would not spurn a teacher of proven merit in this field. And thus Renee became Mistress of the Bedchamber of the Crown Princess.

The arrangement surprised the entire court. The court knew nothing of the sexual problems of the royal bedchamber and thought the crown princess a saint not only to tolerate her husband's infidelity--after all, what king, prince, duke, count, knight or even burgher did not have a mistress or two. But to embrace that mistress, to bring her into the most intimate of the princess' household circle, and to bestow upon her the highest position for women in that circle. Only an angel could be so forbearing!

But it was passion, not forbearance, which was the basis of their relationship. For in her lessons on arousing and satisfying the prince, Renee had to often play the man. And Eleanor found that her passions were truly aroused in the arms of a woman. So as prince became king he found two women fully ready to meet his needs, yet happy when enjoying only the company of each other. He, like the court, ascribed this to the saintliness of his wife, who not only tolerated his infidelity and elevated his mistress, but also treated Renee's children by him as her own, and was known throughout Europe never to have known a man other than him.

The day came, however, when their skills could not offset the passage of time and the bearing of children. While still attractive for a woman of her years, Renee was a woman of her years. And the queen was still the queen. If the king wanted youth and beauty, would it not be best for queen and mistress to become procuresses? Knowing him best, who was better than they to select his future bedmates? Of course, they would choose girls just entering womanhood whose youth would be matched by their naivetee, whose innocence would appeal to the king, yet permit both queen and mistress control. The king would be indulged, the dynasty would be protected, queen and mistress would be free to enjoy each other, and both court and Europe would marvel that the queen's saintliness had inspired a like feeling in the courtesan.

There was one more inspection the Queen had to perform. She stood, that motion itself a command. Madame Rochement stood also, turning to the young women.

"Elaine, you may rise."

The woman farthest from Renée rose. She was the most beautiful of the four, and the lowest born. She was meant for the king, for both Queen and comtesse did not want any bastards she bore to have any claim on the throne.

"Approach her Majesty and lift your skirts."

Elaine did as commanded. She had undergone this inspection several times to be in this room. First the agent of the comtesse, then a nun of this convent, then the abbess herself, then the comtesse. Now the Queen! The Queen put the fingers of her right hand under Elaine's chin and raised her face. Elaine tried to lower her eyes in deference.

"Look at me, child," the Queen commanded.

Elaine looked into the coldest gray eyes she had ever seen. For the first time in this process she knew fear, and it showed on her face. The Queen was pleased. Fear of the queen in a courtesan is always a good thing. She smiled slightly as she inserted two fingers into the girl's vagina. Elaine tried to relax, but it was the Queen who was fingering her, not some over-the-hill courtesan or a nun.

And the Queen did not just test for her maidenhead! She ran her fingers up and down Elaine's vulva. She rubbed her thumb over the top of that slit, finding a bump Elaine did not know existed. And she kept rubbing it! Elaine felt herself grow faint and weak in the knees.. A loud gasp escaped her, causing the other girls to look up. What they saw they had never been prepared to see. Their queen moving her fingers in and out of their companion, the queen kissing her fully on the mouth as would a man. A flush was rapidly spreading from the sparse hair covering Elaine's mons up her belly and down her thighs, turning the porcelain white skin crimson. And moisture. Surely Elaine was not peeing on the Queen's hand?

"Majesty," Renee softly intoned. Her voice brought Eleanor back to her senses. She withdrew her fingers and brought them to her lips. She sniffed them before sticking out her tongue to taste the fluid.

"Elaine, is it?"

"Yes, Majesty," the startled girl answered.

"You will do nicely. You may withdraw."

Elaine curtsied deeply, then backed away to her former position. Renee brought a damp cloth and wiped the Queen's hand, then dried it. The ritual was repeated thrice more--with Josephine, for the crown prince; with Anne, for the middle son; and with Caroline, for the youngest. Satisfied that all were virgins, the Queen resumed her seat as the quartet was led from the room by a nun.

This exhibition was witnessed by two other pairs of eyes. What looked like an air vent just below the ceiling from inside the room was actually a window to a narrow corridor just behind and above the room occupied by the two women. As the door closed leaving the two women alone, Eleanor was the first to speak.

"I had forgotten how tempting a young virgin can be. Thank you, Renee. A few moments more and I would have been disgracing myself on the floor."

Serving you is thanks enough, Majesty," Renee replied, crossing the room and locking the door. Turning, she leaned against the door as she unlaced the bodice of her gown, her eyes fixed on the face of her sovereign. "You will have the rest of their lives to enjoy them."

The nuns of several convents were once the mistresses and concubines of the royal family and other magnates of France. And though many were forced into the cloister once their services were no longer desired, vows taken under coercion are seldom respected. Many a nunnery was nothing more than a church-sanctioned house of pleasure. The convent of St. Helene du Elios was one such, though its nuns engaged in that form of love practiced on the isle of Lesbos. Many of the great men of France sent their wives, daughters, nieces and wards here when they went off to the wars, believing them safe from carnal temptation. Men on campaigns of rape and ravine fear that what they did to other women, others would want to do to theirs. That the arms which embraced their womenfolk, and the waists around which those womenfolk wrapped their legs would be female never occurred to them. Little did they know that their women welcomed the campaigns, and only feigned dismay at being sent to a cloistered convent.

Renée pulled the gown from her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet. Only her chemise prevented her from appearing before the queen as she had been born. Well not exactly as she had been born. As round and rosy and cuddly as she may have been as a baby, no baby had her full breasts with their large areoles, pointing through the chemise at the royal lady. The fullness and roundness of her hips were not that of the newborn, but of one who had borne another. The queen's face showed the battle between the restraint her social position and upbringing had taught her and the passion she had learned from Renee. Renee stepped out of the garment gathered at her feet, deliberately crossed over to the queen, grabbed the royal head between her hands and pulled the royal face to her own. Eleanor was taller than most women, indeed taller than most of the men at court. She readily bent the royal neck to accept the kiss of her subject. Like a gourmet, Renee noted the subtle flavors of the four young women still lingering in the queen's mouth.

Breaking the kiss, Renee stepped back and removed her chemise. Clad only in her stockings and slippers, she let the queen drink her in. The queen sighed at her beauty, wondering how her husband could abandon a woman who still had such translucent skin and full breasts and supple curves. Ahh, men! Preferring youth to experience, and not knowing true beauty even when he has enjoyed it often. Renee began undressing the queen, moving around her to loosen laces, unfasten hooks, slip buttons, remove pins, until the queen was soon attired only by nature.

With the removal of the last garments Renee let her hand linger on the queen's ass, giving it a caress with her fingertips stoking just inside the cleft. As she moved around the queen, Renée kissed Eleanor's breast, starting at the side and continuing until she reached the nipple. She tongued it like a clitoris, then took the entire aureole into her mouth, suckling like one of the royal offspring. After several minutes, she switched to the queen' other tit. All the while her right hand continued cupping the royal cheek, her fingers in the royal ass, with her left hand complementing the right by caressing Eleanor's pussy, Renée's index and ring fingers inside the queen. Eleanor shivered and anointed Renée 's fingers.

The comtesse guided the queen to the bed, sitting her on the coarse mattress. Kneeling before her, Renee spread the royal thighs and leaded forward to pay homage to the mother of the nation. She began with a kiss, treating the nether lips as she had the queen's mouth. Her lips on the nether lips, her tongue parting those lips, seeking the flesh within, then that tongue scouring that lower mouth from bottom to top ending with it circling the royal love button.

Eleanor moaned loudly, nearly shouting her pleasure. She grabbed Renee's head, pressing the courtesan's face into the royal pussy even as she lifted her ass off the bed in ecstasy. No sooner had she done this the queen dropped her hips back to the bed and brought her knees to her breasts so that she was completely exposed to Renee, her feet at Renee's head. Renee stuck the forefinger of her left hand into Eleanor's ass and two fingers of her right hand into the queen's pussy as she continued to tongue Eleanor's clit. For several minutes the room reverberated with the sounds of the queen's pleasure mixed with the rocking of the bed on the stone floor. The queen was never in the same position for more than a few seconds. She was now on her back, legs drawn up, then with legs stretched out across Renee's shoulders and down her back, then with feet planted on either side of the courtesan, her hips in the air, next laying down with legs straight above their prone forms. And through it all, Rene maintained oral contact, aided greatly by the queen's hands being thoroughly entwined in the comtesse's luxuriant tresses.

But all good things must come to an end. Knowing that Eleanor could continue to climax endlessly, Renée ceased her oral ministrations and removed her finger from the queen's ass. It took Eleanor several minutes to realize that the only sensations she was having came from the fingers still in her pussy. Lowering her legs alongside Renee, she looked down her body at the face bearded by her pussy. With her orgasms subsiding, she released the courtesan's hair, stroking Renee's face as the her fingers joined the courtesan's in the queen's cunt. They played finger games there for several more minutes, not to elicit more pleasure, but to express a bond both of sisterhood and of lovers.

"Thank you, again, Renee," the queen said, gripping Renee's fingers and pulling her upward. Renee pulled her fingers from the queen's cunt and slithered up her body and kissed her. Of all of Renee's female lovers, only Eleanor enjoyed the taste of herself on the lips of another. The two kissed fervently, Eleanor alternately kissing and licking Renee's lips, cheeks, chin, eyelids. The difference in their heights was all in Eleanor's legs. From the top of their heads to the bottom of their nether cheeks they were perfectly equal. Well, equal in length, for Renee was much fuller in bosom, in belly, and in buttock. As they kissed and caressed, Renee maneuvered them so that she was on her back with the queen laying on top of her.

"Would Majesty please be the knight?" she asked.

"Ah, Renee," the Queen sighed, "you know me all too well."

And well she should, for Eleanor enjoyed more than one form of feminine love. From the first time Renée had laid on top of her and ridden her as the prince had, Eleanor could not resist the pleasure of having another pussy rub hers, another clit against hers, another set of vaginal lips caressing hers. She had been surprised--no, shocked--but the initial pleasure was great, and even greater was that pleasure when the queen was on top controlling the contact, the pressure, and the movements. So while she knew she would end the night serving her subject as her subject had served her, for now she would give them both that pleasure that only two women can give each other.

Reneee reached between them and adjusted their lips in that special kiss as Eleanor began rocking her hips. Renee cupped the queen's left buttock with her right hand, so that the tips of her fingernails caressed the area between the cleft of the queen's ass and her cunt. She placed her other hand around the queen's back, pressing gently. She brought her legs up slightly, forming a saddle of her hips as she rested her calves on the back of the queen's thighs. Renee could not demand, or even suggest, that the queen reciprocate in giving pleasure. But by the pressure of her hands, the touch of her nails, the grip of her legs, and the movement of her own hips Renee controlled Eleanor's movements more than Eleanor did. As cunt lips caressed cunt lips, and clit sparred with clit, as belly rubbed belly and breast rolled against breast, comtesse commanded and queen obeyed. They would remain like this well into the night when the candles that lit the room had burned out, leaving them in darkness.

***

That darkness extended to the narrow corridor, ending the viewing of the women's lovemaking. Closing the grate of the vent, the abbess quickly led the way to a stairway that led to her study. She was followed by a tall thin man, whose sharp features were made more so by the strange light in his grey eyes. Grey also was his beard, in what today would be called a van dyke. If it had a name in his day, it most certainly would have been a Richelieu, for the first minister to the king would not have a mere painter's name attached to anything about his person, and a Dutch painter at that! Strolling over to the fireplace, he stretched fully, the red robes of his order temporarily blocking all light from the fireplace.

"Thank you, Reverend Mother," he said, removing a small pouch from his robes. Laying it on the table at which she sat, the Cardinal referred to only as "His Eminence" continued. "A most interesting performance. You did not tell me about the second act."

The abbess studied the Cardinal's face as she weighed his words, and the tone in which they were delivered. His Eminence did not like surprises, even those which benefited him. "Is His Eminence shocked?" she asked in a voice which stated she believed nothing would shock him.

Before she came to this order she had shared the bed of this king's father, and several of his uncles. She knew the secrets of many of the royalty and nobility--and not just of France. Or of just the nobility. The princes of the Church also had their secrets--including His Eminence. Few people knew secrets about him, and none as many as she. Nor were any in as great a position to harm him, should they choose. In the fifty years since they first met, he had seen her as courtesan, courtier, conspirator and co-conspirator. Her discretion and guile she used in her later years as effectively as she had used her beauty and sex in her youth. If their genders were changed, it would be Abbess Richelieu and Cardinal Delille in this room at this moment.

Richelieu stared at her. He did not like secrets being kept from him, especially a secret about the sexuality of the royal family. It was clear that Queen Eleanor and the Comtesse Rochement had enjoyed their relationship for years, yet this was the first he knew of it. What else did the abbess know that she kept from him? He could not make her features clearly in the flickering firelight. His backside was growing warm from the fire and he would have preferred to turn and face it. But he felt less uncomfortable with his back to the fire than to the abbess.

"Just surprised, Reverend Mother," he replied. "You will let me know whenever this play is performed."

The abbess nodded her assent as she opened the pouch and counted the silver pieces. Thirty.