Mirrorland

"Do I?" I asked again, anxious for her answer.

Antoinette's face vanished between my open hips. I heard her inhale deeply and whimper. Without looking up, she nodded slowly, her face buried in the remote regions of my body. I began to stroke her hair as she nuzzled the inside of my thigh, bathed in my private scent. I felt like the ocean was moving through me, a constant ebb and flow of tremendous power, like a growing storm surge, and just as wet.

Moments later, it happened.

Antoinette and I had kissed countless times, always innocently, save for that special kiss in the bath earlier. However, this was a different thing, entirely. I felt her warm lips upon me; not on my cheek, or my neck, or even my mouth -- I felt them in the most intimate place imaginable. A place where my body opened up to her like a flower. She kissed my petals, so wet as if with morning dew, and then she kissed them some more.

I closed my eyes and surrendered to the sensation. I could feel every desperate indulging of Antoinette's curiosity, animating her fingers, spreading me open and gazing in wonder at my widened delta before covering it with more sweet kisses. However, I soon learned that it was not merely my scent that she so desired. I felt Antoinette's warm tongue begin to explore me, parting my delicate folds and tasting the result of my fresh pleasure as it flowed freely from my body. She sucked gently at my lips with such curiosity, enamored by my silken flesh made creamier by the second in response to her affections.

In an instant that changed my world forever, she found my little budding nub, quite sensitive and eager for her lips. With a simple lash of her tiny tongue, I felt as if Atlas had batted the globe of the Earth and sent it spinning about on its axis.

I moaned loudly, feeling as though the stars had just fallen from heaven and were now flowing through my body. Antoinette became delighted by my pleasure and suddenly grew more confident. I squirmed, widening my hips even further and offering my intimacy to her. With a joyous excitement, she became like the ravenous kittens lapping at bowls of milk that I so often saw outside the dairy at the edge of the palace grounds.

"Antoinette!" I screamed, panting uncontrollably, my eyes twinkling with excitement. I had never felt such pleasure in my life. That gateway to another world was surely there -- and she had skillfully found the means of transport. Unable to withstand any more, I wrestled back control of my body. "Please! Let me try!" I cried out after catching my breath.

She rose from my hips, her eyes wide and full of life, her mouth glistening and messy with me. It was the most delicious look I had ever seen; captivated by what we had just achieved so unexpectedly and impressed with herself for what she had done to me. Antoinette threw herself onto the pillows beside me and threw her legs apart.

In all the times I had admired the soft folds of her delicate outer labia, I never quite imagined the exquisite riches of her body that they hid. I ran my fingers through her fine-spun hair and parted her eagerly. She split open like an exotic fruit, juicy inside with pink flesh that seemed so full of sweetness. I had admired her for so long -- and yet all the while there was so much more of her to admire!

"I want you to know me intimately..." she meekly admitted, both of us eager, yet hesitant, to speak precisely the way we were told ladies should not.

Without haste, I crawled between her open thighs and began to cover her sweet, wet flesh with loving kisses. I inhaled the deep, earthy scent of her body, I gently nibbled at her loose, pliant flesh, and I drew my tongue through her quivering depths. My mind raced with a thousand thoughts that could not seem to form a coherent thread for very long.

All I could hear was the gossip of the boys out behind the stables, at the far side of the parade grounds, whom I spied upon as they flipped through a book they were naughty to have been in possession of. One of them referred to a woman's parts, using terms such as "humid" and "grotto", allusions I found so odd and distasteful. And yet now I suddenly understood, buried in the heat and humidity of Antoinette's sacred offering, listening to her cry out, squirm and jerk her hips with a strange new pleasure.

I sought her nub, just as she did mine. My tongue danced across her clit, I felt her body convulse as if a violent earthquake had been summoned from within.

"Gisele!" Antoinette exclaimed, frantic for my embrace. I threw myself in her arms and we kissed feverishly, our lips laced with the taste of one another; a flavor only made complete by their luscious admixture. "I want to try the object!" she cried out, desperately seeking the little pile of lace that rested on the bed, hiding its secret treasure inside.

Antoinette unearthed the ivory phallus and held it between us, her hands trembling from a rush of adrenaline. We exchanged a look of excitement for what we were about to share, then we flipped onto our hands and knees as the young women Antoinette had described had done, placing our bottoms close to one another. I felt her reaching between us with the strange object, aligning it to our hips. I heard her moan, then fish for my body. Her fingers made contact with my sex and she guided the other end of the object inside me.

We pressed our hips back and I felt the smooth object penetrate my body. Immediately, I shivered with discomfort. The object felt alien to me, so hard and cold, and I wondered at first why such a thing should ever be used. However, as our bodies began to gently warm the object and render it increasingly slippery, I felt my first beautiful sensation of bliss from sharing a skillfully abducted dildo with Antoinette.

The sensation was incredibly intimate; I felt at once seamlessly connected to her body but at the same time a recipient of her feverish want. Awkwardly, we issued our bottoms forward and back, letting the smooth object glide through our bodies. I felt myself expanding from the inside, growing increasingly wet with pleasure. The position was not altogether one I was used to. I let my head hang low, my hair whipping about my face as our buttocks began to slap together more rapidly. I could not tell if the moisture I was feeling was from my body or hers but I did not care. I felt we were one, connected as if by a cord, our passion and pleasure flowing back and forth from one to the other.

But something was missing; I was desperate to see her face, to be lost in those eyes as they expressed such longing for me -- desperate to know the joy of one another's bliss, shared in perfect unison.

"I want to see you!" I blurted, and it could not have been more true. I so badly wanted to witness her pleasure.

The dildo slid from our vaginas as we drew forward and flipped over onto our bums. Antoinette wasted no time in snatching it up again, finding it already creamy and viscous from our mutual delight. There we sat across from each other, our legs interlocked and hips as close as possible after she inserted the object back into our bodies.

As we began jerking our hips back and forth, finding a comfortable rhythm together, I remember being enthralled with the sight of each other's pussy, scandalously naked and intimate as they were. With each helpless thrust of our hips, they widened like deep pink portals, encircled by little rings of soft hair, yawning like hungry mouths as they received the shared object which connected one of us to the other, its slick ivory surface increasingly glossy with our intermingling fluids.

Antoinette's face was reddish and I could feel the heat radiating from her body, her deep, heady odor lingering all around us, her cries and whimpers filling the air with the sweet music of an incredible pleasure. I watched as we thrust our hairy mounds together, our sensitive flesh ruddy from friction, back and forth toward each other, each time venturing to go deeper, further, bringing our bodies closer until finally, we connected, having swallowed that object whole.

She looked at me in a way she'd never looked at me before; her secret affections graduating into a raw, visible lust. I suddenly wanted to laugh; her fragrant sex looked to me like one of the whiskered clams that were brought in from the coast at banquet times. My mother had once demonstrated the correct way to enjoy them. Inside, their savory, coral pink flesh waited to be feasted upon and I remembered having become intoxicated with their briny liquors.

In fact, Antoinette's entire body was a sumptuous feast. Her breasts were two mounds of fruited gelatin, her nipples like small cherries. I thought of all those banquets, held in honor of some victory or another, and reasoned that they should dispense with the whole affair and serve only her. For all the exotic and rare delicacies they brought in, for all the riches of gastronomy they laid out on those long tables with the promise that I could taste anything my heart desired -- the rarest and most exquisite delicacy had grown right there, surrounded by the familiar walls and sprawling gardens of Versailles itself. It was Antoinette herself!

With each urgent thrust, our sopping mounds kissed, then parted, spawning sticky strands as evidence of a frantic desire to remain as united through passion as humanly possible. Our bodies came so perfectly together.

"Gisele!" Antoinette whined. "I love you!"

I suffered her pleasure willingly -- and I moaned, listening to her anguished plaints. "I love you so much, Antoinette!"

She began to shed tears of happiness and I followed. We shared that object for so long and with such eagerness that Antoinette was soon a magnificent mess. Her skin was clammy, her hair clung to her face, her lips frequently parted with an excess of labored breath. Antoinette's mirthful, erect nipples seemed to beg for my touch as her small breasts jittered about her chest, subject to the whims of her exhausted, heaving body. She looked at me with such devotion, such vulnerability, such devastation, and I her, as the two of us invested every last bit of energy we could summon to frantically explore, for the very first time, what kind of magic our bodies could conjure together.

As I reached the limit of our indulgent excess, I felt suddenly like the two of us were portals to distant oceans, sometimes calm and placid, sometimes moved to huge swells. A storm now raged inside me, my body about to bear a crashing wave. As I listened to Antoinette's screams rent the air, I felt it rumbling through me. We threw ourselves into each other's arms and I clutched her helplessly, our bosoms tightly bound. I felt like the enchanted figurehead of some adventuresome pirate ship, bursting over the tops of high waves. Our bodies crashed together in fits and spasms, spitting seafoam, I felt her quaking in my arms.

I thought perhaps I would die and, if I did, it would be the sweetest death one had ever known.

Instead of dying, however, I felt the roll of thunder pass through me and the seas returned to relative calm. We collapsed in each other's arms, our chests still heaving and gasping for air. Having lost all our senses and drained of all our strength, we soon fell victim to the mountain of soft pillows at the head of my bed.

Arm in arm, forehead to forehead, we felt our eyelids growing heavy, weighed down with the thoughts of what we had just shared until it lulled as away into a beautiful, perfect slumber.

***

After the first night we lay together, it became like that one day to the next. As if having just solved the great mystery of our bodies, we could not get enough of it -- or each other. We traveled to the depths of one another and back. I left no inch of her body without the simple gift of my kiss. I gave her my scent and taste she so enjoyed over and over, as she offered me her own. After days of excitement and exploration, I felt I knew Antoinette's body better and more intimately than even my own.

This kind of passion proved a suitable distraction to the great black cloud which constantly hung over us, but it was growing. In the back of my mind, I knew it would soon consume us...

On the day Antoinette's wedding finally arrived, I found myself struggling to fit into a dress designed to grant me a body I did not have, even with the help of several attendants. "This is what my love for Antoinette feels like," I thought, "Something too nebulous, too personal in shape and form to be fit into a mold dictated by ancient customs."

Later, I watched the procession as Antoinette, dressed in a white and gold-embroidered satin dress with her face obscured behind a veil, approached the priest in his more somber vestments. I observed the tragedy from afar, eager to hide my tears which began to flood my face during the blessing of the ring. I stood there frozen like a dead thing, turning blue, the knife still lodged deep in my chest.

After the sad deed was done, we gathered in the salon to commence a typically lavish dinner. Such weddings were amongst the most extravagant affairs at Versailles, requiring terrific preparations -- yet I wanted no part of it. I felt insulted by the long tables brought out and plentifully bestrewn with all the elements of a grand feast. To be surrounded by such things -- fresh vegetables from the kitchen garden of the king, so well-celebrated at Versailles, seemed like some cruel joke. For the first time I looked at those colorful tomatoes and eggplants, dimpled strawberries and melons normally as sweet as sugar, and could only imagine they all tasted like the dirt they grew from.

I had only happy memories to haunt me, since Antoinette and I typically raided such offerings, dining on oysters, eggs, sweet peas, artichokes, and our famous oranges. How many times we had exploited an ingenious technique, invented at Versailles itself by the great Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, allowing us to indulge in the most delicious figs come mid-June. He had produced fifty varieties of pear and no less than twenty types of apple! And yet, I felt as if those delicacies had all gone to rot.

Lamb was served, studded with garlic and fresh chervil, parsley, mint, or tarragon -- but it just turned my stomach. I could not even bear to look at the entire small pigs roasted whole, as well as ducks cooked slowly in their own juices and other small birds that had been encountered on a ceremonial hunt. My heart ached when I recalled how Antoinette and I had so often gorged ourselves on pickled and jellied meats as well as a thick pottage of potatoes and leeks which had always been my favorite. All along, it was none of these things that I had a taste for -- it had been Antoinette's presence alone which permitted me to enjoy that world of excess!

That night I lay in bed alone, naked and sad, wishful for Antoinette's touch and for her to lay by my side. The dildo we had shared was suddenly my prized possession, being the only thing I possessed that still smelled of her. I had discovered it upon returning from the evening ceremonies, tucked beneath my pillow with a little note card that contained nothing but the red imprint of Antoinette's kiss, thus commemorating the fact that she first offered me her sweet lips -- long before arriving at the ceremony where she would offer them to another.

Even then, the card was still stained and damp with her tears.

I wondered if the few words we exchanged that evening would be our last, knowing that the Earl of Chester planned to promptly leave for England, taking her with him and robbing Antoinette of the days of traditional celebrations which she so deserved. I lay there with the full awareness that elsewhere in the palace, on that very night they were wed, he would try to take Antoinette's virginity.

No, he would not. He could not! It was not his to take, for I had already taken it and would treasure it forever.

I cried for some time, then I consoled myself with my own touch, closing my eyes in order to pretend it was Antoinette entertaining herself with the lively presence of my raised nipples, slipping her fingers between my thighs to explore my secrets with tenderness and affection. I widened my legs further, feeling the warm, tingling currents flowing through my body again, like waves from a distant ocean. Soon they were threatening to burst through me, to be born right there upon my bedsheets.

I gazed across the room at the tall oval mirror where Antoinette and I had so often stood, bravely examining our changing bodies like explorers surveying the exotic landscapes of a newly discovered civilization. I watched my own reflection there, my hand zipping back and forth between my legs, moving faster and faster until I jerked and spasmed, suffering a private pleasure that I wished I could share with Antoinette again, even if only once more.

As I sunk back into my pillows, breathless and renewed with a sense of deep sadness, I caught sight of something strange; a pair of green eyes shone back at me as if from within the mirror! They were faint at first, then took on a deeper, more jewel-like tone, emerging from the hazy duplication of my room.

I gasped and threw a sheet over my body, clutching it close to my breasts, and sat upright. I remained there, my heart racing, staring back at those eyes which did not move. They seemed to simply acknowledge that they had been spotted. After a few moments, a body slowly began to emerge around them as if drifting upward from the depths of a deep well. It took shape, crudely at first, then became increasingly more distinct until it resembled a young lady.

The girl, strange as she was for inhabiting a dusty old mirror, seemed to me the very personification of innocence and beauty. Her lithe, nude form resembled that of the sprightly nymphs I was so fond of reading about as a child; the ones that inhabited the fountains, rivers, and streams throughout the idyllic wilds of an Arcadian countryside. The girl raised her hand and, pressing it to the surface of the mirror, caused it to waver and briefly disturb the expression of longing that seemed to linger on her face.

Driven by curiosity, and feeling safe enough to expose myself to a young woman as naked as I was, I slowly removed the sheet I had wrapped myself in, then slid onto my feet beside the bed. I tiptoed across the room and approached the girl in the mirror until we stood face to face. Her soft expression gazed intently back at me, studying my eyes, reading my expression. There was something wondrous and otherworldly about her face like it belonged to a fairy tale.

I dared to reach out but instead of pressing against the hard, reflective surface of the mirror, my hand seemed to move straight through the glass as if passing through cool bathwater. On the other side, I felt the smooth, soft cheek of the strange girl. When I made contact with warm flesh, I was shocked.

With a loud gasp, I withdrew my hand immediately.

The girl was startled by my reaction. She quickly stepped backward, her face drifting into the obscurity of the shadows until it vanished completely, leaving only my own image behind staring back at myself in amazement and confusion. I wanted to tell myself this was a dream, but it was not a dream.

No dream at all.

***

Days passed, which turned into weeks. Through it all, I found myself engulfed in a deep malaise that I could not seem to extract myself from. I mourned Antoinette endlessly, despite being told that mourning the separation from a friend for so long was strictly beneath my status. Nevertheless, I spent long hours not wishing to leave my room; crying so long and hard that my poor little pillow soon tasted distinctly salty and held far more tears than it did downy feathers.

The only thing capable of delivering a brief respite from heartache, however, was the memory of that strange girl who had appeared in my mirror. From time to time, I recalled those eyes staring back at me and the odd figure that had emerged around them. I began to ponder this endlessly, finding her to be a simple distraction from my woes.