How I Became Emperor Ch. 02: Thursday

I realize in hindsight that I should perhaps explain: the sci-fi & fantasy-ness of this story will appear from time to time, but not again be as major a part as it was in the first submission. Apologies if I may have misled you there. Indeed, this story over the course of its run is expected to dip into a lot of different genres, with some mild exceptions (I currently don't foresee any non-compliance/reluctance, incest or mind control elements for example). I hope readers will be happy with that!

As before, I look forward to any commentary you might have!

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Thursday

We came from completely different worlds, Cindy and I. I was the privileged kid my whole life, wandering from silver spoon to the future career presented on a platter in my uncle's publishing house (to have entered my father's legal office would have smacked too much of nepotism). She had come up the hard way, the first in her family to go to university (on a fully paid sports scholarship). As she would tell me later, her childhood was marred with distasteful moments. Her eldest brother was completely kicked out of the family when they found out he had secured himself a job as a drug dealer, her father was laid off when she was only 6 and since then her mother had worked two jobs as a waitress in a local seedy bar, and as a cleaner during the nights until her father finally found another job when she turned 15.

I was a young man full of angst, a misfit in any situation and a weakling who backed down from every fight. I loved to philosophise, and was given to somber reflection and serious discussion. She was a young girl full of joy, who cared little for the horrors of the world and preferred to laugh. The queen of society, sporty, outgoing and always with a wry smile no matter the situation, it was a wonder to me how with history she had she could still be so lighthearted, though looking back on my own history I had no reason for my own sobriety.

We found very quickly that our two worlds complimented each other very well. We were both slightly bored with our comfort zones, and looking for something new.

That first morning we woke up together in the same bed I will always remember. It was closer to midday when I finally opened my eyes to be greeted with her big blue eyes. Her head rested on my bare chest, her hand intertwined with mine, and a full smile on her lips. Even tousled and without make-up she was a vision of beauty.

"Good morning, sleepy head." She greeted me and bent her head to kiss me lightly on the chest.

"Morning" I replied, revelling in the gentle touch of her lips.

"Breakfast?" she asked between kisses.

"Mmmmh" I moaned, not wanting her to stop.

"Come on. We got to eat sometime." She sat up, tactically wrapping the sheet about her to hide her nakedness. Cindy sauntered into the bathroom and I could hear her start the shower. I lay in her bed wondering whether I should get up and leave. Perhaps she wanted to get rid of me - expected me to be gone by the time she got out of the shower. In those days I was really bad at picking up on the right signals.

I had sat up and was looking for my pants when she stuck her head out of the bathroom door and asked "Are you going to come join me?"

I didn't need asking twice. A little self-conscious about my nakedness and the stickiness around my groin I got up to follow her into the bathroom. The small tiled room was already filled with steam, and she had hidden herself again behind the milky door of the shower. I could just make out her figure as she undulated sexily under the hot water. It was more than enough to reawaken the briefly dimmed desire I had for her.

I think Cindy came a number of times during our sexual escapade in the shower. It was hard to tell, not least because of the water already flowing all about us to disguise her own fluids. At any rate I felt her tense various muscles, her legs, belly and groin in particular. I simply tried to keep a steady rhythm and provide her great satisfaction. When the wave of sensations - and I think the number of orgasms she experienced - finally became too much for her, Cindy straightened again with me still inside her, her back arched to tenuously maintain that connection. We kissed, and my hands moved up to her breasts eliciting more excited moans from Cindy.

"I could get far too used to this feeling" Cindy smiled at me, and turned fully, letting me slip from her warm body.

We embraced in another kiss, and the goddess moved her hand down to stroke at my sensitive foreskin. "Time to bring you to a release." She whispered to me intimately.

I don't know what fantasies you, dear reader, harbour, but I grimly think that it was there in that shower that I lost my heart to Cindy. We had barely spoken about any formative things. I knew as little about this woman in my arms, kneading my penis under the hot stream of water, as I did from the next stranger on the street. But it was enough for me to say that I would have walked through fire for her. She may have sensed my thoughts, particularly after she brought forth my sticky milk.

Unable to control my weak legs I sank to sit on the floor of the shower, and Cindy followed me down. I just lay, spent, with my head at this woman's breast trying to collect my strength. We cuddled and kissed, and enjoyed the mutual company.

Of course we eventually got back around to actual business, spent some lavish time washing each other thoroughly with many a shared smile and giggle and lingering look, but eventually we did exit the shower. I got dressed in her bedroom while Cindy collected some clothes from her closet and retreated to the bathroom. I sat on the edge of her bed, and tried to make sense of my thoughts.

My phone buzzed and I looked down to see a message from Matt. "So?" Was all it said, and I had to smile at the directness of his question. "Yup" I wrote back. A moment later "DUDE" flashed up. I repeated my "yup". Me and Matt had a great shorthand to all our communication, something that I cherish to this day. He knew everything that had to be said had been said, and left it at that.

Cindy returned in a green t-shirt and some jeans, her hair casually tied up behind her head. She had also applied some unnecessary make-up and smiled at me."So," she began, "breakfast?"

We quit her home and sought out a local pub that offered an all-day-breakfast. Even in the short jaunt from her house to this pub Cindy had to stop twice in order to talk to friends and was consistently waving to someone or other on the street. The first stop was to talk to a beautifully buxom woman named Abby. Cindy made the introductions, but I didn't say much. As already indicated, unless liquored up I am terribly shy. The conversation was brief anyhow, with Abby off to meet her girlfriend, but she and Cindy arranged to meet for lunch the next day. "Nice to meet you." Abby said to me when she left with a small wink that I might have missed. I returned the sentiment.

The second stop was to talk with an incredibly handsome man who was introduced to me as "crazy Chris." We shook hands politely and Cindy quickly extracted us from any lengthy conversation by explaining our incredible hunger. "He's an ex." Cindy informed me as we continued our trek. "Nice guy, but too much of a jock." I immediately felt an incredible wave of jealousy that I forgot as Cindy took my hand.

Only after we had taken our seats, ordered a coke for Cindy and a lemonade for myself did we actually get to talk.

It was a little awkward at first. We had not really talked at all since first meeting, and yet had both already felt an incredible attraction to each other. It seemed simple minded to ask about each other, all the things that one would otherwise do on a first date: what we were studying, why we had come to this university instead of another, what music we liked, what our families were like, where we came from, what our hobbies were.

I learned that she was an English major, with varied interests and therefore a minor in physics, sociology AND history. She was a leading team member in the volleyball and tennis teams which supplied her scholarship fund, and the president of the creative writing club where her poetry had helped secure her rise. We talked about professors, our mutual workload and the lecture discussing Aristotelian medieval philosophy I was actively skipping right then.

"You're not missing anything important?" She asked across our English breakfasts.

"Not really, I pretty much run the class." I boasted. "The professor won't be happy I'm not turning up, I tend to be the main contributor. Most of the other 100 classmates were either simply taking the class to make enough credits, or too shy to challenge the authority of the professor, leaving me as the only real challenge."

"None of the other 100 students speak up?"

"Not unless asked directly, and even then they tend to take a backseat to the heated arguments the professor and I have."

"Ok." Cindy challenged me, "so give me a preview of what the professor would have said in class today."

I laughed a bit, and fulfilled her wish. "My professor would have said: Aristotle formed the core of medieval political theory. His approach to the problem of society, outlining the human conundrum existent between having an efficient government and a good government dovetailed beautifully with the largest tension of medieval politics: that of theological influence on secular matters. The conflict between kings and the pope about who has the responsibility to care for humans, especially the challenge from secularists that the church should focus on saving the human soul in the afterlife while leaving the care of human welfare in this world to the care of kings, gave fodder to many of the great writings that you probably study in class. Dante, William of Ockham and so forth. Aristotle was used in a great part of that discourse as he argued for consolidation of power in a small group of hands. Having too many voices in the political arena only made for confusion and inefficiency, but conversely if too few people held power then tyranny would result. An efficient deployment and separation of powers between those who care for the people in this world and those who sought to care for their post-mortem soul was inherently Aristotelian. As the Middle Ages wore on, and a middle class developed in the guilds and merchant republics, as well as the big cities like Paris, London and Rome, all of whom clamored for some voice in politics and a form of legalism familiar to the modern western diplomatic theory, they began to move away from Aristotle's thought, though its influence can certainly still be felt. The codices of the Hanseatic League, or the Most Serene Republic of Venice did have roots that can be traced back to Aristotle. At least according to my professor." I finished a little sheepishly realising that I had just given Cindy a little speech.

She just smiled at me, nodded her head and asked: "And what would you have said?"

"Well," I began, "in my opinion that focus on Aristotle by medieval scholars was more of an accident than an actual intent. My professor would probably concede that fact, simply because Aristotle was one of the few great ancient thinkers that had been translated into Latin at the time. In contrast Plato and Socrates who were translated into Arabic first saw much greater prominence and equality in the Middle East. Had they been translated into Latin then they would have found similar importance in Christendom, as happened during the renaissance. However, the focus of medieval politics in my opinion, or all the influence that Aristotle had, was more the result of the legal conceptualisation left behind by the Roman Empire. The idea of the citizen, of codexes of law to which kings, emperors and popes should be held as well as the average peasant, the belief in a separation of church and state are all rooted in the concepts of Roman citizenship, the Pax Romana and the position of Pontifex Maximus vs. those of political office. These Roman traditions respectively formed the core of medieval political thinking. You can see this in the fascination that medieval people had with either recreating the Roman system throughout Christendom, going so far as to name Germania 'the Holy Roman Empire' and placing importance on citizenship in the Italian city states. My professor would not have disagreed really, just challenged me on proving that importance... Did all that make sense?"

"A bit." Cindy conceded. "I may not have understood it all, but I like to see you so engaged! Maybe I can come to one of your lectures one day."

Our conversation continued on from there. I eulogized a bit more, and Cindy listened intently before we moved on to less erudite topics. Our conversation roamed, often on flirtatious tangents, and we quickly found that Cindy and I got on famously.

Knowledge is a precious thing. We can know many things: truths, falsehoods, intuitions, beliefs, emotions, rules, laws, histories, futures, places, names, languages, hopes, fears, dreams, wishes, enmities, friendships, gods, devils, fashions, codes, secrets, persons, traditions, tastes, procedures, hierarchies, and more. Knowledge, no matter what kind or how true, is never to be underestimated. More than intelligence - which is simply the capacity of an individual to know things and use knowledge - knowledge is a measure by which I fashion my relationships. Anybody, everybody who has a friend has them because of a respect for their knowledge. Anybody and everybody who has knowledge has the capacity to act and to use that knowledge.

In the halls of power, knowledge is a commodity and a precious one. It is only with knowledge, about myself, about the political process, of Cindy, of my friends and my enemies that I became Emperor. Hand-in-hand with that, my knowledge of sex gave me the opportunities to rise to that highest of positions. I had already widened my eyes considerably from that geek who spent his time on porn sites and with nude magazines since meeting Cindy, and in that pub the morning after our first meeting we expanded that knowledge of each other beyond the simply physical. We talked for many hours, ordering a number of non-alcoholic drinks and simply discovering each other's histories.

Across the table we held hands and underneath the table we played a game of foot tag, while we discussed politics, literature, philosophy and sociology. I caught the waitress giving us a couple of knowing smiles as she saw our initial romantic endeavours, and noted some other customers who would glance at us with their own nostalgic memories of their own first dates. I was struck by that thought: that this would be a date, and posed the question to Cindy: "So does this constitute a date?"

She blushed a little bit, "I think so. After all, you're going to pick up the bill, right?"

"Of course! I wouldn't dream of failing in my gentlemanly duties!" I exclaimed in mock shock.

"Well then, you can kiss me, and it will be our first date." Cindy replied and leaned across the table.

We kissed briefly, aware of our surroundings.

"My god," Cindy whispered in mock shock when she broke our contact, "I'm such a slut! Kissing on the first date!"

I had to laugh, "At least you don't put out on the first date." I teased.

"Of course not!" She exclaimed, "I may be a slut, but even I have SOME propriety."

We laughed together and then calmed down some.

"I have to say, I am enjoying our first date," I admitted, "but I have been wearing these clothes for a whole day and before my stench reaches you I'd like an opportunity to change. Plus, didn't you say you had volleyball practice soon?"

"Already looking to get rid of me?" Cindy quipped.

"Not at all!" I said, horrified at the suggestion.

"Well then, how about we join up again after my practice? I'm not quite ready to let go of you just yet."

"It's a date." I agreed getting out my wallet and flagging down the waitress.

I paid, we exited the pub, slowly beginning its afternoon business, kissed passionately and headed our separate ways.

Back home I found my two roommates sitting in front of the Xbox, busy shooting aliens. Alex and Irina had been boyfriend and girlfriend since our first day of university. He was a short-haired man of average build, an IT student like her, and a complete geek. In his free time he would write small programs and try hacking into low security websites just to see if he could do it. Irina was a petite girl with a gothic flair, black hair on a Eastern European face (she is Russian - but without any trace of an accent) with very petite boobs. She was as much a geek as the rest of us, and had become a group favourite for her skill at video games.

"Where've you been?" Irina asked, hardly looking up from the screen, too busy fragging the enemy to pay much attention to me. "We lost you last night, you had some amazing bombshell in your face."

I couldn't help but grin across my entire face, "At her place, at least until we went to get breakfast." That made both of them drop their controllers without pausing the game.

"Uh, mate, breakfast was half-a-day ago." Alex suggested.

"Not for me." I replied, the grin still threatening to pull a muscle.

"Sit." Irina commanded, "pick up a controller and spill!"

"I don't kiss and tell. Besides, I'm just back for a change of clothes. I'm going to meet her in a bit."

Alex just shook his head and whistled. Irina gave him a little punch and said: "Good for you! We're going to have to elect you king of the geeks!"

"Yeah, you'd better be careful," Alex chimed in, "or you're going to become a normal guy on us, and then who would we discuss Star Trek vs. Star Wars with?"

"Guys, I'm still the same geek you knew before. Don't worry, you know you're still my peeps! How about we do a halo-party tomorrow night? Get all the guys 'round, hook up all the xboxes and finish our 12 player campaign?"

They both assented, and promised to arrange the night. "Just remember to tell us every salacious detail tomorrow night!" Alex called after me as I left to my room.

I changed my clothes and grabbed my laptop bag as I left, not ten minutes after I had first returned home. Cindy's volleyball practice was a three hour bout, but our university gym had a viewing balcony behind some glass where Cindy wouldn't see me watch her play. The laptop was to assuage my guilt for having not yet started the term paper due on Friday only one day away. Perhaps I would be able to knock out a couple of paragraphs while waiting.

I spent the first couple of minutes at the game watching the girls go through their warm-ups. These girls were hot: all tall and wearing tight shorts and jerseys. Their trainer, a strict woman, had them run drills, plays and fitness training for the first two hours, and I was treated to a fine sight. I did manage eventually to rip my eyes away from the bounty, and to bring myself to concentrate on writing about 'the European Union and its military influence.' After having outlined and hacked out a couple of good paragraphs I was interrupted by a sudden upshot of shouts and commands from down on the gym floor. Momentarily alarmed I looked up to realise that the girls had simply begun a game to round out their training and were shouting to each other to coordinate their efforts.

Cindy was particularly radiant down below and I had trouble looking away from her. It was a while before I realised I was not alone in the viewing gallery anymore

"She is quite impressive, isn't she?" Abby asked me, not really expecting an answer.

"I- I'm sorry, you startled me." I replied.

"Yeah, well, I can't say I blame you. Not with those girls jumping up and down there like that, I'm actually surprised this gallery isn't always full with lecherous young boys when they practice."