Pleasure Knight

I suddenly became acutely aware of Flame's long blood red nails, when she started using them to touch me on each side of my base, pinching lightly as if testing the skin of a fruit. A few more pinches and my wilting vegetable returned to full, glorious health.

She kept on poking and prodding me with her nails alone, scratching lightly, pushing me, egging me harder. Touching almost enough for me to ascend up to the sun, missing just that final, little push that would make me forget everything.

I couldn't control my voice, I couldn't control my breathing, I couldn't stop my body from shaking and my feet from wiggling, and I ignored the raging pain from the lost balls as I lay there groaning and moaning beneath her touches.

Suddenly, though, there was no more pinching.

-

I waited, my eyes closed.

No, no. The pain would come. A hundred imaginary hairs would be pulled off.

But... It didn't happen.

"Uh?" I said when I realized she was as unlikely to act as my rod was to shrink again.

"Yes?" A long, drawn out 'Yes' that was.

"Please?"

"Please what, Sir Weed?"

"Touch me? Please?"

"I can't," she said.

"Can't?" What did she mean? Of course she could!

"I need to peel off the bandage first."

"Why? Why!"

"So that you heal faster, Sir Weed."

"Then do it!"

"You want me to tear at it?"

"Yes!"

"Sure?"

"Please, please, please do it!"

-

I don't know what was the most humiliating. Listening to my own voice as I begged, getting excited by the giggling that just wouldn't stop, or yelling at her to go on tearing each time she pretended to be concerned over my pain. I did know that it was all worth it, though, when she put all five fingers on my still raging organ.

At first she didn't seem to know what to do with it. A light touch here, a little stroke there. They still made me howl, though, but then the hand closed around me. Or tried to close. Maybe her fingers were short? Or maybe my member just was this thick? I didn't remember, I had stopped touching myself a long time ago.

She giggled at my animal noises, then turned around to look at me for the first and only time during the ordeal. It was the look a particularly arrogant warrior might give a vanquished enemy just before the coup-de-grace.

I became aware that she had just given me a bucket-full of chances to save myself, but that I had rejected them all. Something bad was about to happen to me and I would do nothing but cheer her on.

She turned back again and her ponytail spread out across my chest like a sheet of silk, as if her blouse just went on and on. Her hand moved and every motion, up or down, moved my soul along with it.

There was nothing else in the world but Flame and my desire right now. I did not care about her evil actions, about her cruel smile or wicked plans for me. All I knew was that with every touch or stroke I belonged more and more to her.

I had no idea if she started to grip me harder or if she moved her hands faster. All I knew was that I was soaring up towards the sun and that this time nothing, nothing at all!, would stop me. Up, up, up!

Except... Except that the sun remained far away no matter how quickly I rose, no matter how much of my mind I was losing as I thrashed and sweated myself into insanity.

From out of nowhere I heard her voice, heard Flame speaking to me, teasing me, in control of me. "Do you want it, Sir Weed?"

"Yes!"

"Do you?"

"Yes!"

"Then let it happen."

"Yes!"

I shouted 'Yes!' a few more times, but 'it' never happened. The sun was impossibly distant. I could never, never, never get close enough.

Flame giggled, but that only fueled the fire even more. If it was at all possible. "Not like that, Sir Weed. You have to beg me."

"Please!"

"Louder."

"Please!"

"Please what?"

"Please let me come!"

She laughed. She laughed until she cried. There was nothing I could do to stop her, so long as her hand polished my rod.

Then her head moved downwards. Moved and so pulled the ponytail over every, single sensitive inch of skin on my chest.

Lips. Lips on my smooth head. Lips down the back. Lips closing on, encompassing, cradling, soothing, teasing me.

Tongue. Tongue doing more than five, or ever five hundred, fingers could ever do.

Her lips moved and her tongue moved, and in a single, glorious moment I crossed the last, vast abyss of space and plunged like a snowflake into the sun.

It went on and on, that final moment of bliss. I laughed, I cried, I moaned, I roared, I promised Flame everything, I told her how much I loved her.

Afterwards I could not understand what had happened to me. All I could think was that if this was it, if this was the reward that men got from their women, then there was not a single thing I would not do to feel this again.

-

It was over. It was over, and for the first time as a grown man I could well and truly relax. That is, until Flame tore off the final inch of bandage in a single, soul-wrenching yank, and sent me screaming.

"Well, Sir Weed?" She sat up, her face as innocent and unblemished as ever, her ponytail without a single strand out of place. "That was worth it, wasn't it?"

I didn't answer, just followed her with my eyes as she returned to the basin to soak the black cloth again. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"You sweated just as much in half an hour as you did during your entire surgery," she said and proceeded to clean me again. "But this is the last time. I am not doing this again."

I took a few, deep breaths, then asked. "Why? Why did you do this? Both things, I mean. The castration and the... sucking. And, isn't it impossible for a man without his... to do what I just did?"

She just giggled and went on cleaning me.

"Answer me!"

She didn't.

I tried grasping hold of her. The pain convinced me to stop trying.

When I was clean, soft rod and all, and she had taken a vicious delight in cleaning the red, ugly wound, she put the cloth away and fetched a small jar from a cupboard. It contained a yellowish goo of some sort, and she pried a gob out with her fingers.

"This will hurt a little," she said and began to smear it on the wound.

It hurt. Not a little. Not at first. After a while, though, the touch became almost pleasant. Then I got used to it. Then I enjoyed it. After a long while of such enjoyment I did something I had just sworn to myself I would never do again.

"Please?" I said.

"What?" Giggle.

"Please touch me again?"

"Nope." She went over to the basin and washed her hands. Then she picked up her tray, winked at me, and strode out of the room. "I am all done here."

"Please!" the clown with the fresh hard-on shouted as the footsteps of her small, shiny black shoes were lost in the night sounds of the Flower Garden.

-

I spent a lot of time thinking about what had just happened. No, first I spent a little while trying to fight the pain and touch myself in order to get relief, utterly failing to do so. Then followed some feeling miserable, then falling asleep, then waking up to what looked like a drab, rainy day, then actually starting to think.

My first reflection was that I was not in some prison cell buried fifty feel below ground. That someone might actually hear me, should I scream for help. Someone who was not Flame. Or Lady Deep Shadow. Or Poppy, or any of her other apprentices, or... So, no shouting, eh?

My second thought was that my crotch didn't hurt as much as last night. In fact, there was only a persistent murmur down there.

So, if I got up I could sneak out the door of the cast iron cage, find the wall that surrounded the Flower Garden, climb it, jump down on the other side, and lose myself and any pursuers in the city. I had no idea what I should do then, but I sincerely hoped it would involve me moving out to a small, isolated cottage in the Wild, some place where there never, ever, ever came any women.

My plan worked all the way up to the 'getting up' part. Moving apparently meant feeling like I was continually kicked in my missing balls. Leaving the bed took so long that if I moved towards the door at the same speed, then there would be moss growing on me before I saw the sun.

I got up on my feet, but my crotch had not yet healed. Not by far. Still, standing up I could see a set of clothes on a shelf over by one of the walls. They wouldn't help me much, though. I wouldn't be able to walk over there with steps longer than the nails of my pinky toes. I wouldn't be able to bend my legs to fit into the dark blue, sharp-looking pants. Wouldn't be able to endure the fabric pressing against my groin.

A lot of time was spent deciding to, then actually going through with, visiting the toilet which was hidden away at the other end of the room. After all this time I had no choice, but I wish I did.

There was a small pool of water that apparently was for drinking. At least I decided it was. Eventually I was able to get back on the bed and feel, if not content, then at least able to be philosophical.

-

The questions 'What were these women doing?' and 'Why were they doing it?' as well as the essential 'Why were they doing it to me?' weren't immediately resolved, but I did manage to make a few deductions which would make me, if not my philosophy teacher's pet, then at least on the receiving end of an acknowledging nod.

The yellow goo Flame had smeared on my wound had healed it. A lot. Fast. She could only apply the goo after she had torn the bandage off. She did not peel the bandage off until she had made me beg her. Which had required me to be ready to beg. Conclusion? She had already planned the mouth and manhood thing before she came into the room.

Now, call me an amateur when it comes to females, but I have recently, very recently, found out that it was the male who got the benefit of the mouth and manhood thing.

Corollary? The mouth and manhood thing had some nefarious purpose. Another corollary? She would not have left until I succumbed to my desire. Final corollary before I became a mathematician on a roll? I could think of far worse ways to fall under the spell of an evil siren than to be sucked into it.

Maybe... Maybe there were alternatives to the female-free cottage in the forest? Maybe I could play along? See what kind of secret information I could learn if I chose to submit to a few more rounds of oral manipulation? I did have a quest, after all, and the answers to my questions lay inside this House. With Lady Deep Shadow and, by extension, her apprentices. In fact, it was my sworn and solemn duty to work as hard as I could to let myself be subjected to this treatment as often as I could. Just the thought of being touched by Flame again was enough to make me...

...pretty embarrassed over the stiffness of my naked body when Lady Deep Shadow stepped into the room and wished me a good afternoon.

She carried a tray filled with food. Rancloes, pancakes, and chopshop, if I was not mistaken. It ought to make my body relocate its cravings from my groin to a point a few inches higher up.

Maybe it was her dress that prevented that? A white, flowing, light thing, decorated with roses and forget-me-nots, still a little wet from the rain outside? Was it the droplets that made her lazy, glossy, brown curls glitter? Or the floral perfume?

So many options, so long a time before I managed to pull the duvet over my rigid shame.

"Are you hungry?" She put the tray down where Flame had put hers and smiled, looking like a nurse trained to be motherly and ignore whatever idiosyncrasies her patients might exhibit, thank the Lady. "It's officially too late for breakfast, but I told the cook that you overslept today."

With Mr Stiffy now put away, I felt brave enough to work myself into some long-awaited, rightful indignation. "What have you done to me!" I didn't add the word 'bitch.' Somehow I got the feeling Lady Deep Shadow would be far more offended than Flame.

"Excuse me?" The nurse's smile was still on.

"You cut my balls off! Why did you cut my balls off! Who gave you permission to trick me, to drug me, to cut my balls off?"

"Sir Weed." Her face was blank now. "You just had an operation. That's all. Soon-"

"You castrated me!"

"Did we, Sir Weed? Didn't you only last night take great pleasure from the services of my apprentice? Could a eunuch do what you did?"

"My balls are gone!"

"Yes, Sir Weed. You have said so. Many times. You had an operation. A complicated, expensive operation. Paid for by me. An operation which set you free. So, Sir Weed: Why are you then accusing me?"

"Set me free?"

"Yes, Sir Weed. Am I right in claiming that what happened to you last night has never done so before?"

My face told her both 'Yes' and 'How did you know?'

"So, by performing this operation, for free, we have liberated you, have we not? Did you not enjoy what my apprentice did to you?"

I had. A lot. Yet...

"But, but! Why didn't you... You could have asked!"

She smiled as if trying to reason with a child who insists on staying up past midnight eating candy.

"Would you, would any man, have consented to this operation?"

'No way!' said my face.

"Then how can you blame us for doing it without your agreement?"

How could she be so wrong and me unable to refute her?

"Then..." I tried another line of inquiry. "Why did you-"

"Decide to help you?"

"-do it?" I insisted.

"I decided to help you since I am always on the lookout for good men. Brave men like yourself. Men with skills beyond that of the common man. Perfume Hill may be a woman's city, but you would not believe how much brutality and violence is hidden beneath the silken surface and the lipstick smiles. Simply put: I need a man like you to protect me, Sir Weed. How does that sound?"

That... That sounded insane. "But, my quest! I am a Wanderer."

"Your quest," she said, "has brought you here. Maybe that's what your oracle meant for you?"

"No, that's not what the prophecy means!"

"How can you be so sure? You're a young, foolish man. I am neither, and I recognized you for what you are the instant I saw you. I saw the need in you, Sir Weed."

"The need?"

"The need to become the Pleasure Knight."

Pleasure Knight? I didn't get it. Had no idea what she meant. I told her.

"Deep inside you, Sir Weed," she said patiently, "there is an unfulfilled yearning to feel what you were meant to feel, to dedicate yourself to what you were born to do. To serve and protect your women. Flame showed you last night, and I will today."

"Show me?" I asked. I didn't dare ask 'how.' I didn't want to know if I would end up cheering her on. Why did my body hate me so much?

"You should eat your breakfast while it is hot."

"Answer me!"

"You do like pancakes, no?"

"Answer me!"

"Sir Weed." Her eyes became as dark as a bottomless pit. "You should eat. The cooks will not be persuaded to prepare another meal for an ungrateful, little boy such as yourself. You can fulfill your destiny willingly, or you can fight it. Your choice." She picked up the tray and made as if to walk out the door.

"Wait!" I shouted.

"Yes?"

"Leave the food."

She nodded as if I had said something very clever, came over, put the tray next to me on the bed, and sat down beside it. "Let me help, Sir Weed. I bet you are still raw from the operation. We did our best to be gentle, but still... Pancakes with or without chopshop?"

"Uh..." I said.

"Tea?"

"Uh... Yes, please."

She filled two small, wooden cups with something whose smell told me that the Flower Girls knew how to grow the best herbs, as they should. Darned good tea, it seemed.

"Cheers, Sir Weed," she said and drank.

I hesitated.

She just smiled and took a sip from mine as well. "Nothing wrong with this," she said. "No need to help you in a clandestine fashion anymore."

I believed her. Or maybe I just didn't care. If they wanted to knock off more of my body parts, they would surely find a way to do it.

Sitting up was still a painfully complicated process, but the tea was almost worth it.

"Would you like your pancakes with or without chopshop?" she repeated.

-

I ate everything on my plate. Every last crumb. How long had it been since I had tasted anything but stupid, thin wafers?

Lady Deep Shadow behaved like the perfect hostess, cutting up my food, pouring tea, talking about the flock of geese she kept in the garden and which her huntsman would prune every now and again to make sure there was enough chopshop in the House for everybody. Including big, strong men such as myself.

When I was done she put everything but the teacups away. We each held on to ours. and she sat down closer to me and kept talking.

I sensed danger immediately.

She wore the light, flowery dress, and I wore the edge of the duvet across my lap. In particular, none of us wore anything underneath: Her soft buttocks were not creased by the presence of panties. Her breasts didn't need a bra to stay up and be very, very big. The sleeves were short and her skin was dangerously close to mine.

"I am tired," I managed to say. "And I got a headache. I should get some sleep."

"You need to stay up a little to avoid getting bedsores. Sit for a while, maybe take a few steps."

"My heads really, really hurts." What I meant to say was 'My manhood really, really wants you to see it standing up. And evidently it is in charge.'

"I know," she said.

"You do?"

"Yes. It's because of the pressure you are under. Let me loosen the knots in your neck. That will ease the tension."

She touched my left shoulder and I knew from the way I shivered that I had lost the first bout.

Yet, the battle was not over. With my right hand, my long, thick, muscular hand that could knock a man across the floor, I pushed her away. Barely. With a huge effort.

"What?" she said. "Why did you do that?"

"I... Just tired."

"No, Sir Weed. You are being very ungrateful!" Lady Deep Shadow was not faking her displeasure. Not at all.

"No, I-"

"First you insult both poor Flame and me for regaling your with a gift that will make your life so much better. Then you argue with me, and now you slap my hand away and refuse to let me ease what little bother you experienced after the operation. Had I known you were such a selfish, rude man, I should never have let you into my House!"

I should have retorted with "Well, then! Send this ungrateful punk away! As fast as you can!"

I didn't. I have been taught to be polite at all times, and towards women in particular. So, I said I was sorry.

"Good," she replied. "Now, think before you act the next time around, Sir Weed."

Her face slowly turned from showing hurt and anger to understanding and overbearing. Once again she touched me. My hands, which could have snapped her arms in one sudden movement, lay restless and defeated by my sides.

-

"Just a moment," she said. "I need to get into position." With that she climbed onto the bed, being careful not to jolt me, and sat down behind me, one brown leg on each side of my pale ones.

And she didn't wear any panties!

Her hands found my neck and touched it on each side. "Now, Sir Weed," she said. "Try to relax."

If there was one thing I didn't do, then it was 'relax.' First of all, what I was used to in terms of massage was to have some veteran Wanderer who had lost a leg or two, and so couldn't enter the Wild no more, punch and twist and stretch my body in an effort to work off some of his anger and frustration at his fate.

Pinching with the whole hand and rubbing me up and down the back might be the preferred alternative in more civilized societies, but to me it felt more like foreplay. I hadn't been tense before, but now that certain parts of my body decided to wave the flag, my neck became one, big, painful knot.