The Balance Ch. 19-21

Naked, beautiful, and holy, she stood before him, unashamed, no, almost arrogant in her beauty. Proud of the gifts with which the Deity had blessed her, she displayed her body with joy. She reached down with one hand, and Paul trembled as he stood. He was taller than she, but she dominated him as a mother does a child. She wrapped her arms around him and embraced him. Feeling his trembling, she stood away.

"By the Wanton's Tits! You're afraid," her voice was soft and wondering, but thankfully not scornful. She looked up quickly, worrying, "I do have it right, don't I, my love? You are not one of those who favor men? If you are, we can run you across to the temple of the Lover. I know a few good priests over there who would be happy to..." her voice trailed off as Paul shouted with laughter.

Gasping with mirth, he sat on the couch, overcome with hilarity at the complete ridiculousness of the situation. And with the laughter, came a cleanness and purity of spirit that he had not known in weeks. Suddenly, he knew what he must do, and his heart was steady within him.

He stood and faced Diana.

"I am twenty-three years old, and have never known a woman's embrace. I was raised in an abbey in the Christian lands, where women were not permitted. Before I came here, I hardly dared dream that creatures as wonderful and beautiful as you existed.

"So yes, Diana," he smiled, "I am afraid. It is the fear a priest or priestess fears when kneeling before her god. It is the fear of a subject before a noble queen. It is the fear of knowing that what is given can also be taken away.

"Please, my lady, take me over the border. But please. Be gentle. Because I am afraid."

Diana stepped near, and now her face was quiet and grave. She raised her hands and slowly unbuttoned Paul's vest. She ran her palms flat over his chest and pushed the garment down his arms to fall on the floor. With agile fingertips, she loosed the buttons that held the flies of his breeches closed. Calmly, carefully, she pulled the tail of his tunic out of his breeches, never venturing near his groin. Slowly, delicately, the bone buttons of that garment came undone, and it joined the vest in a puddle behind his feet.

Moving closer, she brought her face near his. She kissed his cheek, then moved down, palms caressing his chest, honey-colored hair hiding her face as she blew sweet breath through the thin cloth of his under-shirt onto his belly. Her cheek rubbed his cloth-covered phallus through his breeches as her hands worked skilfully, guiding his weight from one foot to another, removing his boots and stockings almost without his being aware.

She stood then, resplendent in her nudity. She cupped his face in her hands.

"Paul, as a priestess I must ask this. Are you certain this is your wish?"

Paul stood silent before her. All the cataclysmic events of the past ten days passed through his mind. The new friendships, the knowledge he had gained, the betrayals. Once he accepted the gift that stood before him, there was no going back.

"My lady, it is."

Her face shone with joy. Turning, she led him to another door. Opening it, she drew him through.

It was a room meant for love. Tapestries hung on the walls, provocative scenes, displaying men and women in every position capable of bringing each other happiness, some of which Paul had never imagined. It was lit with candles, making it almost as bright as midday, and filling the room with the sweet scent of cedar and apples. Standing in the center was an enormous bed, mattress high off the floor, piled deep with pillows, the bedspread a lurid scarlet, the color of passion.

Paul stopped and faced Diana. Wonderingly, he raised a hand and traced her face, fingertips lingering over her eyes, her cheeks. His thumb grazed her lips. Her mouth opened slightly, and the tip of her tongue darted out to touch its tip, tasting him as delicately as a hummingbird did a flower. He looked deep into her eyes.

Reading his mind, she said, "Do you want to explore? Feel free. I am here for you."

Almost weeping with emotion, unable to believe what was occurring, he walked around her. She stood still, as he trembling traced the contours of her spine with one shaking hand. He cupped the sweet curves of her buttocks in his palms and dropped salty tears onto her shoulder as he clumsily kissed her shoulderblade. Standing behind her, he raised her arms so he could run his hands along the outside of her body. Down from her uplifted palms, down her arms until he brushed the curve of her breasts, heaving as she gasped with desire, down the sides of her flat stomach, down her hips to her thighs, down at last to her feet.

Down on the floor, kneeling like a supplicant, he raised his eyes to hers. Of his own will his hands found the under-shirt and pulled it over his head. He stood, and without a wasted motion, sure at last, he pushed down the breeches and stepped out of them to stand before Diana, the spirit of the Wanton filling her, his phallus high and hard and aching for her.

She pulled his head down to hers and kissed him. His hands found the curve of her hips as her mouth opened under his. Darting like an arrow, the narrow point of her tongue pried at his lips until they opened to her invitation. Her arms came hard around his waist as she explored his sweet mouth, his phallus hot and hard as an iron bar against her belly. Slowly he learned the secrets of kissing her. Where to apply pressure, and where to be gentle. Softly he grazed the inside of her lips with his tongue, and with delight he felt her tremble in pleasure.

"I know what you are now," she said teasingly, as he he dropped a series of kisses along her jawline. "You are a scholar. You want to learn how best to please a woman."

Paul smiled shyly and kissed her mouth again, reveling in the passion he awoke in her, "You flatter me, my lady. But, in case that should be true, will you be my tutor?"

"With all my heart. And for your next lesson, may I direct your attention to my breasts," she said, cupping them in her palms and presenting them to Paul, "They have been sadly neglected by you thus far."

"Well, we will have to remedy that, won't we?" But despite his confident words, he swallowed nervously when he gazed at the glories in front of him. Hesitantly he dropped his hands to her sides. Running them up her ribcage, he reached them, teardrop-shaped wonders, topped with nipples dark and turgid with lust. With shortened breath he held them, weighed them in his palms, then looked at Diana, hoping for approval.

Her eyes were closed, mouth open, breath coming in short gasps.

"Kiss them," she breathed.

Paul sank. He found the angle awkward, so he moved to the bed, guiding her with him. He sat on the bedspread, his feet between hers, his cock jutting up rampantly between them as she stood before him. He cupped his hands around her buttocks and drew her chest towards his face. Hardly daring to breathe, he kissed the slope of her left breast. She cooed with approval, hands tangling in his hair, guiding him. He brought his right hand up, stroking the underside of her breast as he made love to it with his mouth. Her cries grew more urgent, her back arching.

"The nipple. Now. Please," she begged.

Hesitantly, Paul opened his mouth. He kissed her straining nipple, tongue darting out to lick the wonderful fullness, then drew on it like a nursing child. Diana threw her head back in a shout of pleasure, thrusting her breast forward into his mouth.

"More, my love, more. They aren't made of glass. They won't break. Please, give me more."

Paul was rapidly losing control. Shackles of guilt, of habit, of fear, were dropping away one by one. His left hand came up to join the other, cradling her right breast, then squeezing it tight, thumb rubbing the nipple as he moved his head to kiss and lick the tender skin above her breastbone. He rained kisses upon her breasts, puling at her nipples in turn, tongue and lips and hands and fingers working, guided by instinct and by her cries of passion. His arms came up, drawing her face down to kiss him again.

Diana looked at him. Gone was the fearful child who had entered the room with her. In his place was a man, confident of his new-won skill, but desiring to learn more. She smiled. With a cry of joy, she leapt onto the bed to join him, pushing him to his back as she knelt between his thighs and inhaled the musk of his desire. She kissed his shaft delicately, one hand cradling his testes as the other warded away his attempts to draw her towards him.

"Oh, sweet Deity, this is what I live for," she moaned. "You will never know what it is like, my gorgeous man. To be able to draw you over the border into manhood. To feel the sweet release throbbing within myself as your childhood drains away." Her mouth descended on the head of his glans, licking away a pearl of moisture at the tip, taking his length into her mouth. Her tongue traced a molten path of pleasure down his cock as Paul groaned, fists bunching in the bedclothes. By the Deity, he had never imagined such pleasure existed! His seed surged within him, and he knew he had to stop or burst.

"Please," he panted, "let me."

She released his phallus and looked up at him quizzically. "Let you what?"

"Let me do for you what you are doing for me."

With a smile she crawled up his body, nipples tracing twin paths up his chest as she drew near. Cupping his face in her palms, she gave him a long, lingering lovers' kiss.

"You are the sweetest man I have ever known," she said. She rolled to her back and drew her knees up, then let her legs and thighs sag wide, exposing herself lewdly.

"I need to learn," he said, only half in jest, and smiled as she laughed in happy, cheerful lust.

"Yes, you do. Maybe someday another woman will thank me for teaching you so well. Look here," she said. She ran her hands up the inside of her thighs, framing the petals of her sex. "We call this the Wanton's Flower." She delicately dipped two fingers into her folds, displaying her innermost secrets, wet with passion.

"And this," she said, voice suddenly unsteady, finger on a small nubbin of flesh, "is the Flower's Bud. It is the core of a woman's pleasure. We may be given joy through other means, but this is the most sensitive spot of all." She took his hand in hers and guided it toward her heated core. "Treat it gently, my love."

Taking his cue from her words, scarcely daring to breathe, Paul moved his hand towards her folds. First he wet his fingertips in the shiny dew that was gathered on the petals of her flower. He then reached out one finger and softly swept it over her bud.

Sighing softly, Diana smiled, her hands lifting to cradle her breasts, fingers pulling on her nipples. Pulling harder, Paul noticed with some chagrin, than he would have dared. He was tempted to rub harder on her bud, to force her passion, but he quashed that idea ruthlessly and kept up a soft, steady pressure, fingertip circling as more and more moisture gathered in her folds and the sweet smell of her arousal rose around him. Keeping his hand where it was, Paul moved his body up to join Diana. He put his arm around her shoulders and held her close, wishing to see and feel her every response to his touch.

Suddenly her thighs clamped around his hand. He could feel the muscles of her legs and stomach spasming. Her hips rose and fell, and she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. Trapped by her legs, he kept his fingertip moving, tracing tiny circles around her bud . With a scream she ripped her mouth away from his and shrieked with joyful orgasm.

"Oh Deity, you have blessed your servant! May the Wanton fill me. Fill me now!"

Diana's hips stuttered upwards, back arching, and her breath came in ragged gasps. Paul looked at her in wonder. She seemed to grow under his gaze, legs elongating, arms becoming fuller, rounder, breasts standing upright in defiance of gravity, nipples lengthening to almost preposterous proportions. She murmured in her throat, body sliding sensuously over the bedspread, as her hands dove deep into her folds, seeking to prolong her pleasure.

When Diana looked back at Paul, he saw something more than human in her gaze. He shrank back, part of him fearing what he saw, but his wrist was captured in an unbreakable grip. She caught his eyes, and he was lost.

Her hair was the color of honey, and of pitch, and of wheat under the sun. Her eyes were fog-gray, and jade-green, the dark blue of the sky at twilight, and the light blue of cowbells. Her skin was honey-golden, milk-white, toast-brown, and the color of fertile earth. Her breasts were small, delicate things, and the proud breasts of Diana and Ariana and Parthia, and the large, sagging breasts of a mother of many children. Her belly was flat and rounded at once. Her hips were bony and thin, and gloriously curved.

She was all women at once. And he desired them all.

Without words he moved above her. Her thighs opened, welcoming him. Knowing that by his actions he sealed a bargain it would be his death to break, he rubbed the head of his glans against her opening, mingling their juices. Swallowing hard, he nervously looked back into her face. It was Diana's, and it was not. Something beyond his knowledge filled his lover, a being of enormous power. Sensing his fear, she laid a hand along his cheek. Diana smiled at him.

"Do not be afraid. She comes to me because she loves you and she wishes to bless you.

"Fill me, my love."

And Paul did. Without thought his hips drove forward, and his cock entered Diana's slick cleft. He howled in rapture as he felt in truth what he had imagined for nights beyond count. Diana's legs wrapped around him, heels digging into his buttocks, urging him on. He raised himself on one elbow, and with his other arm he kneaded Diana's breast, while his mouth dipped down and pulled at the nipple of its sister, suckling in time to his thrusts.

"You are mine," said Diana. She dug her nails into his shoulders and ripped his head from her breast and kissed his mouth as her pubis ground against his groin. Oh, the pleasure! The Wanton had never been this deep in her before! She came again, the muscles of her cunt rippling, pulling at his glorious cock, desperate for him, all of him. Above her, Paul drove his hips forward relentlessly, mindless with desire, all thought lost but for the need driving him. His testes drew up to his groin. The head of his phallus grew, swelling, filling her to bursting. With a shout of pleasure he exploded within her, filling the walls of her womb with his seed.

Paul and Diana lay entangled together on the rumpled bedspread, his head pillowed on Diana's breast.

"Is she gone?" he asked.

Diana laughed softly, "She never really is, not anymore. She's always with me, a little, ever since I took my vows. Even before, I think, when I discovered I might have a vocation." She stroked his hair softly. "what's the matter, love? Do I scare you?"

"You don't. She does. To see that sort of power...it's not natural."

"It comes with the job," she said. She smiled as he looked at her. "Think about it, Paul. Part of my duty is to lead men, and a few women, across the border into adulthood. Many of those are people who, for one reason or another, cannot find someone of their own age to share that joy with. Some of them are simply too shy or nervous. Those are the easy ones. All they need is a little encouragement. Like you. But others?" she sighed, "Most of them have good hearts, but are simply not very attractive. Overweight, or pimply, or just not pleasant looking. Having the Wanton within me helps me to see beyond their physical appearance into their hearts, and to find passion in places other than conventional beauty.

"Now you, on the other hand, my beautiful boy," she purred, "Will never have to worry about that again." Her hand softly stroked his flank, then wandered towards his groin.

On its own, his hand idly drifted down her belly towards her pubis. It amused itself with her hair.

"Yours is much shorter than mine," he noted.

"I trim it," she said primly, "It makes it easier to clean."

Paul frowned, looking at his phallus, nestled limply in a tangled thatch of hair, some of it matted with the results of their love-making.

"Maybe I should do the same thing," he said.

"Maybe you should. I have a pair of scissors here. We can do it after we bathe. But for now," she said, curving her body against his, "Don't you think we could find something more pleasant to do?" She frowned as they heard pounding footsteps in the hall.

"What in the world?" she was asking, when the door to the bedroom was thrown open, and Ariana, her face white as death, stood in the doorway.