Pleasure Knight

From here I could finally see the Unicorn's Horn in all its glory. I had noticed the shimmering, silvery tip in the moonlight last night, but now I saw the steep mountain peak it was resting on, and every, single foot of gleaming white marble, if that it was, like melting ice and crystals. The Sibyl's palace.

"Look at the Unicorn's Horn," Lady Deep Shadow said. "At the Tower of Flutes. The Houses of the two most noble Ladies on the Hill. Look at them. Do you think the Healers would accomplish much if they didn't get fresh batches of cureall clover each morning? From my garden? Or how would the Weather Girls keep the winter storms away without stillwind reeds? Reeds that thrive only in my pools? What if I withheld my assistance? For just a week? Wouldn't they come begging for it? They know. Oh, they know. Yet, I have never refused them. Do you know why? Because there's just as much power in giving a favor as in withholding it. You just have to know what to do when."

I smiled and nodded, even though there was not much to smile and nod at. I could see what she was driving at, but I did not have to like it. Protesting was dangerous, but I decided to try bravery for once.

"Lady Deep Shadow! Don't you know that the Dead Lands are growing? That they are everywhere in the Wild? Don't you know that the lowlanders are being killed or enslaved if they don't flee up on the hills? Don't you know they even conquered Coal Peak and turned it into a city of living death? You can even see Bleak Hill from here! Please, Lady Deep Shadow! If there is anything you can do, please help?"

"Sir Weed." I could hear how she took two steps back. I could feel how she closed the dressing gown tight at her throat. "I understand your concern, but I am not the right person. Why do you bother me and not the Sibyl? She is the ruler of Perfume Hill."

I turned around to find her face as closed as her robe.

"Please," I said. "Please help."

She just looked at me and made no reply until Flame returned with new drinks and new ways of bending that turned my head. Then a smile forced its way back under her eyes.

"All right," she said. "I will make an effort for you, Sir Weed. Let's toast to that before we get to it, shall we?"

She nodded at me and drained her cup.

I did the same.

-

Shouldn't have. Of course not. The drug hit me like a sledgehammer carrying the flu. It shoved me out of the chair and made me crumble on the wooden floor.

The last thing I heard was Flame giggling, sweet as a clear spring.

-

I had a dream.

I was floating above the world, as free as a cloud on a sunny day.

Almost.

Something held me in place. My body was shackled to a pair of enormous boulders by two long, wicked iron chains.

The wind invited me to play. The sun beckoned me up towards her.

I couldn't join either of them, and so cried out in anguish.

After a while two figures appeared, gliding out of the sun. Two female figures. I was sure of that, even though they were pure light. As they descended, they started to circle, spiraling down towards me, closer and closer.

I shouted for them to come to me, to embrace me, set me free and take me with them up to the sun. But they did not answer.

When they came close enough to touch, I felt their heat, burning, glowing. I reached out with my arms to hold them, but they slid away. Instead their hands found the two iron chains. They grasped them, began to melt them with the sun's fire. To set me free!

At first I cheered them on, then the heat became searing, unbearable. I yelled, I screamed at them to wait. Not to stop, because I ached to be free, but to be careful.

They went on. Perhaps they didn't even hear me? The iron turned red hot. The iron stretched, became thin, weak, almost translucent. Then, the chains broke. They snapped, and I was free.

Free, yet huge, heavy drops of iron seared, burned, mutilated my body. My screams flowed away on the soothing wind.

Still, now I could float. I could go where I pleased. I could look down on the Hills and the Wild beneath me.

The two females went with me, fluttering around me like butterflies on fire. They rose, goading me up.

I could see more and more of the Wild until I could take in the entire, green globe beneath me, against the blackness of space with the moons and the stars and the blinding, majestic light of her. Of the sun.

Closer and closer we drifted. My skin got tan. I had to shield my eyes from the merciless fire, yet there was no way of stopping the ascent.

Higher and higher, until the sun covered half the sky, higher and higher until all around was light, light, light, and I was set on fire and everything became utter pleasure and utter pain, and I woke up.

To find that they had cut my balls off.

-

I didn't realize that straight away when I woke up.

I was in what seemed almost like a bed in the hospital wing back home. Rectangular walls made a huge cage of cast iron bars, intertwined with living vines. These were thicker and older than in Poppy's room. But the handiwork, I sensed, was done with less skill. Hence the need for the metal framework. Or maybe it was a cell. If so, then Lady Deep Shadow's prison was the most normal hut in her House. Furnished with shelves, cupboards, chairs, a table, a wardrobe, and a bed all made of real, dead wood, it had everything required to calm the nerves of the most typical patient.

Since I didn't feel like a typical patient I didn't pay much attention. I was more concerned with my crotch being on fire. It was so painful that I think I spent more than an hour removing the duvet. Too bad, it was apparently a very lovely evening outside. The warm, lazy rays of the sun stretched and yawned their way in through the foliage.

Who knew that duvets were so hard and heavy and resistant to pulling? I could only conclude that things just couldn't get any worse.

Something one should never do.

Bandages. I was naked except that my entire crotch was covered in bandages. Green, organic, hemp bandages. Removing those would not only be beyond painful, but also, if any of my suspicions were true, dangerous. If any of my suspicions were true, however, then I really had to confirm them. Really.

Evening turned into night as I got busy teaching myself a few new subjects:

What Pain Really Is.

How Stupid Am I?

Why Do I Do This?

How Many Layers Of Bandages Are Really Necessary?

When there was only one bandage left, I stopped. It was bloody, it was sticky, it was so tender that even I was sensible enough not to go on.

Besides, removing the other strips of fabric had answered my question for me.

I couldn't say that I had been lucky, I certainly couldn't do that, but things could surprisingly enough have been worse.

There it was. Flaccid, black and blue, but alive, attached, and whole. Yet there was nothing, nothing at all!, below it. Just a far too flat bandage instead of a pair of lumpy things.

I spent some time wishing I could swap destiny with a fellow Wanderer I had known, who had once ended his days down in the Wild, impaled on a brigand's sword. After all, he had only had limited time to tell himself how much he hated how his life had turned out.

That 'some time' was cut short when the leaves in the doorway rustled and were pushed aside.

Flame entered.

-

She still wore brilliant green, but the dress had been dropped in favor of a voluminous satin blouse with long sleeves and a single button at the level of her breasts. A wide skirt fell down with an almost golden sheen in the light of the lamp she carried. In the other hand she had a tray with a plate of wafers, a large mug, and a piece of cloth. The ponytail hadn't changed one bit, and swung from side to side as if daring me to challenge her and her sweet, innocent smile.

"What did you do to me, you bitch!" It felt good saying that. It felt real good.

She didn't answer me, just giggled. Which didn't feel nearly as good.

I decided to get up and showing her what's what. When I had moved an inch I decided to never move another ever and let what remain what it was.

"Oh! Poor Sir Weed! Are you in pain?" She put her dainty hand over her mouth and gasped as if I had just smacked my head into a low door frame and she had cared.

"What did you do to me?" I repeated, adding some more colorful curse words.

"Look, Sir Weed!" She put the lamp down on my table and extended the plate. "I brought you something to eat and drink! You must be starving." Her smile was a cheery as all nurses' are.

I told her what she could do with the items. That shocked her.

No, she only appeared to be shocked. Gasping, breath drawn, eyes widening, all on purpose.

"Sir Weed!" She put the plate down next to the lamp and walked over to a small branch sticking out of the wall in a far corner. "Please mind your language!"

I didn't mind it.

"Sir Weed!" She broke off the branch and plucked off the leaves. "Please!"

I didn't please her.

"Sir Weed," she said for the third time and came over to me. "I think we've had enough of this, don't you?"

I didn't think it we had had enough.

"In that case," she said and bent the branch into an arc just above the bandage, "I have to insist that you stop."

She insisted that I stop. I stopped. I stopped and I stopped, and I cursed myself in silence for a long, long time for being so angry it had bordered on stupidity.

"It's for your own good!" She giggled, lifted the ponytail with the branch, and let it fall over her shoulder. I was not in the mood. "Lady Deep Shadow doesn't like rudeness."

She didn't, did she?

"Now, Sir Weed. You need to regain your strength." She came over with the mug. "You are not going to refuse to drink, are you?"

Was there hope in her voice? I lifted my head as high I could without disturbing my lower body, and drank from her hand like an abandoned calf. Tasted good, tasted healthy.

"Good boy," she said. "And now, some wafers. Open up!"

I ate the wafers. Just to disappoint her.

"Very good!" She clasped her hands together with the innocence of a killer bunny. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

I didn't shake my head. I said "No," instead. The pain from eating and drinking had been bad enough.

"Then, I will leave you to get some more sleep." She turned around like a gust of wind, making her ponytail and skirt whirl up and around, almost straight in my face.

That... affected me. Somehow.

Wasn't that impossible when you lost your balls? I had heard something like that, but didn't really know. Good thing she was leaving, though. Very good.

-

"Oh, I forgot," Flame stopped and looked at me over her shoulder. "Completely slipped my mind. Lady Deep Shadow asked me to clean you."

"C-clean me?"

"Yes..." She purred. "After all, you have been through a lot while you were out. Sweating and all that. It would be terribly, terribly rude if we let you lie and fester. Unhygienic. I really have to clean you. All over."

Oh no, I thought. No, no. Oh no, no, no.

I was forced to spend a lot of time thinking 'no,' because Flame spent that same time using the lamp to heat water in a small basin she fetched from a cupboard. All the while we waited she didn't take her eyes of me once. Her smile was so sweet and her eyes so clear and beautiful that I almost fooled myself into thinking she was sincere.

At last she put a few drops of some kind of oil into the smoking water. The room was filled with the scent of women getting dressed and putting on makeup before a royal ball. Oh, no. She soaked the cloth, a jet black velvety thing, in the basin and came over. No, no.

The first thing she was washed was my feet. That felt good. She had gentle hands. It felt kind of like the rubdown we used to get back at the barracks after a tough exercise, only far less energetic.

I could live with this if I hadn't known things were about to get worse. When she came over to wash my arms I became acutely aware of how light and smooth her touch was. How silky green her blouse was. How good it felt when she accidentally brushed against me.

I didn't dare move any part of my body except for my eyes. They shifted from her emerald ones to the ponytail that never seemed to rest. The worst part of it all? Whenever she went over to the basin to soak the cloth, I wished for her to come back.

She washed my brow, my cheeks, my ears, my nose, and the scent of utter femaleness filled my head as if I was drowning in a sea of smiles and giggles and light touches.

It became hard to remember that I had been maimed. Hard to remember that Flame was an evil, crazy woman. Hard to remember that what was beginning to happen shouldn't be possible.

-

It all came tumbling down when she passed the cloth back and forth over the upper part of my chest. The scent was still overpowering, and the satin sleeves caressed my belly with every move she made.

"Don't look down!" I screamed at her in my mind. "Just please don't look-"

She took in all of my body from under her long, thick eyelashes, as demure as a maiden who has never been alone with a man before. She saw The Trunk, and the expression she faked was as shocked as if she had happened to walk in on me naked. Yet, she went on.

When she reached my abdomen I didn't care what my body told her or didn't tell her, didn't care about the pain its treacherous movements caused me. When she reached my left thigh I was moaning on the inside, grasping the sheets with desperate fingers, curling my toes. When she reached the right, there was no question of keeping any kind of sound internal.

I wanted Flame, I needed Flame, and I didn't care about the consequences one way or the other.

-

"And..." she said at last, when she had circled in on the area in question. "...let's stop there. We don't want to disturb your wound, do we?"

She stood up, went over to the basin, put the cloth away, and started to wash her hands. That accursed and holy ponytail dangled down her back like a jeering, red silky monkey.

"No! Please!" I said. Only I didn't say it. I groaned it.

"Excuse me?" She looked at me with so much feigned, innocent ignorance that I couldn't insist she knew exactly what I meant.

"Can you..."

"Yes?"

"I need..."

"Yes, Sir Weed. What do you need?"

I could tell how much she enjoyed this just by the faint trembling in her voice.

"Touch me?" I asked.

"But, Sir Weed, I have already cleaned you."

"No! Touch me... there."

"There, Sir Weed?"

"Touch my... manhood." I swallowed.

She looked down my body again.

I didn't. I could feel The Thing. How it pointed up along my belly. How rigid it was, how it swayed to the rhythm of my heart, how the pain under the bandage was defeated, quenched by desire.

"But, Sir Weed!" She began drying her hands now, still wide-eyed, still acting.

Why couldn't she just stop it! Why couldn't she skip the 'But, Sir Weed!' nonsense?

"You are wounded," she said. "You should leave that spot well alone."

"Please," I begged. "Please touch me!" I felt as needy as never before. I knew that absolutely nothing would bring me relief, that if I managed to convince her it would only prolong and increase my agony. Still, I couldn't help myself. Were all men this stupid? "Please? I need it!"

She put a finger on her lower lip and looked up at the ceiling as if she was contemplating the matter. Did she for one second think I believed her, or did she just enjoy my whimpering? And did her ponytail hang down on one side like swinging, reddish strands of pure gold by accident, or was she using it to control the pace of my throbbing?

"All right Sir Weed, but on one condition."

My first idea was to shout 'Yes!' and worry about the whatevers afterwards, but I managed to control myself. "And what's that?"

"That I get to remove your last bandage," she said. "Slowly and gently."

That didn't worry me nearly as much as it should. "Yes, yes!" I tried to move my arm to beckon her over. I stopped moving my arm. Ouch. I ought to be worried, all right.

"As you wish, Sir Weed." She fetched the cloth and pulled up a chair. Shook her ponytail. Adjusted her skirt. Showed me a pair of hands with blood red, long nails.

When she leaned over the lower part of my chest, her soft, warm belly and cool, silky blouse both pressed against and tickled my skin. Once again she grabbed and flicked her ponytail, with the result that it landed across my throat and fell to rest there. Like the hot irons of a torturer, impossible to ignore.

She looked down towards my legs, but I had no way of seeing what she was going to do. All that was left for me was wait in utter agony.

It didn't happen until I had drawn three deep breaths, each sending bursts of pain down into my crotch. That's when I felt a small, almost imperceptible, little tug on the bandage.

"Ouch, Sir Weed," she said. "This thing really, really sticks to your poor skin. We have to be careful. Oh, so careful."

I was convinced I didn't have a single hair left down there, but that's what it felt like. As if she were using pincers to pull hair after hair out of the most sensitive part of the male body. I was also convinced that the only reason she did it so methodically was to torment me as much as she could. At least, that's what her giggling told me.

She stopped after number seventy-eight or seventy-nine, not that I knew what I was counting. Jabs of pain, perhaps? The bandage itself couldn't have been pulled off by more than half an inch. My manhood had had enough and started shrink.

"Did you change your mind, Sir Weed?" she asked.

"Uh?" I said, hoarse from roaring in pain.

"Don't you want to be touched anymore?"

I should have said 'no!' Hopefully that would have sent her out of the room and given me some relief. I didn't. Just the sound of her voice, just her sweet scent, just the feel of her ponytail every time I breathed, made me have another go at stupidity again. "I do, I do!"

"Mhm," she said.

-

A few moments later I felt something very light brush against my shaft. I knew what it was. The black cloth. She was probably holding it by her thumb and index finger, maybe even by their red nails, swinging it, letting it caress me, up and down the shaft.

It felt so good. Women have claimed that I have a very long rod, but right now I wished it was several feet long so that there was no end to what she was doing.

"Ooops!" she said from far away and after a long while.

The cloth fell on top of the head, like covering up a glistening work of art.

"I am sorry, Sir Weed. I dropped it." She pulled it off, pulled so lightly that I felt I was inside the most careful, gentle woman in the world.

I expected the cloth to start teasing the shaft again, but it didn't. Instead she started to tear at the bandage.

Sixty-four stings of torture later, she once more asked if I was satisfied.

I wasn't. The Lady curse me, but I wasn't.

She giggled and told me that I was a very brave and valiant Wanderer.

-

Soon I felt a slight pull on my semi-rigid member, and she made a small, surprised noise.

"Oh, Sir Weed! Can you believe what just got caught in my sleeve!"

I could. I could believe that this 'what' was the thing being lifted and released, shaken from side to side, pulled at, rubbed against, played with, made hard as a bar of steel, all by the touch of a finely woven, silky tube of fabric.

"There!" she said after an eternity of this. "I finally managed to untangle us. Good, then we can get on with business."

The business, apparently, was pulling off another half-inch of bandage. Another question followed, and so did another desperate affirmation on my part.