‘Here,’ she said, picking up his stab and forcing it into his reluctant fingers. ‘Hold it like that, see? Now stick it into the meat. There! Easy, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Chegory.
Blurting out the word in blurred tones but a heartbeat from tears or panic. He hunched his head down, his shoulders up, desperately trying to make himself a more difficult target for the decapitating scimitar he expected to strike at any moment.
‘Try it again,’ said Justina in her most encouraging voice.
Chegory complied.
‘Good, good!’ said the Empress. ‘You see? You can do it if you try. Very well! Now feed me!’
‘Now…?’'
‘Feed me! You know! Stab in the meat, meat in my mouth. Come on, Chegory darling. It’s fun!’
‘I… I can’t. I mustn’t!’
‘Of course you can! Of course you must! It’s an imperial command, isn’t it? We can’t have high treason at table, can we now? Come on, Chegory! Stab in meat, meat in my mouth! Let’s do it by the numbers, shall we? Number one, stab in meat.’
Chegory tried to obey. But his hand refused to obey his will. So the Empress Justina closed her own hot, sweating fingers about his hand and guided his stab into a piece of meat. Then pulled Chegory’s stab-holding hand to her mouth. She sucked off the meat. Grinned at him.
‘Easy, isn’t it? You do it now.’
Hesitantly, he complied. He raised cold steel to the mouth of the Empress. She opened her lips, revealing a dangling uvula, a tongue, a dozen ragged brown teeth, a glistening cavity where food fragments danced amidst saliva. Her lips accepted a piece of dog liver from his stab.
Then Justina skewered a titbit from her own plate and fed it to Chegory. He returned the compliment. They executed this joint manoeuvre again. Then again.
‘My! What white fangs you have!’ said Justina.
‘I chew pandanus,’ said Chegory.
‘Ah yes,’ said Justina. ‘That’s the way to keep them in order. Pandanus in plenty — and stay way from the sugarcane.’
‘Yes, my lady,’ said Chegory.
‘Call me Juzzy,’ said Justina. ‘And I’ll call you… Cheggy. You like that name?’
‘I… um… yes, my lady. Cheggy will do fine.’
‘Splendid!’ said Justina, and opened her mouth to accept another fragment of meat.
Chegory was starting to get confident. He glanced at the scimitarists. They had not moved. The muscle men were still standing immobile, the points of their razorblade weapons still resting on blocks of cork.
‘That’s good,’ said Justina, as Chegory fed her once again. ‘You’re getting the hang of it. Now faster!’
‘Faster?’
‘Yes, faster! You know. Speed, Chegory, speed! Fun!’
Chegory did not think it fun at all, but nevertheless hastened his fingers. Justina accelerated her own hand in response. From plate to mouth flew their stabs. In — out! In — out! Swift as lightning their dancing steel flashed. Cat meat! Frog meat! Poultry! Dog! To lips to mouth to lips to Home went Chegory’s steel!
‘Aagh!’
The Empress Justina wrenched her head back.
Chegory had stabbed her in the lower lip.
‘You cut me!’ said Justina.
Chegory dropped his stab. The bloodstained steel tinkled to his plate. The Empress Justina was clutching her lip. Chegory could not breathe, or speak, or move. Slowly the Empress withdrew her bloodstained hand. She turned her terrible eyes upon young Chegory Guy. She announced his doom:
‘You must kiss it better.’
‘I must…?’
The entire banqueting hall was silent. Even the waiters were watching. Justina placed one fleshy hand round the back of Chegory’s neck and drew him toward her. He could not resist. A roar of applause erupted from the guests as Chegory’s lips touched those of his Empress. Still she pulled him on and in. Hot and wet was her mouth, hot and wet, her tongue forcing its way into his own oral cavity as her hand fondled his neck in a rhythm suggestive of greater pleasures yet to come.
Then, mercifully, she released him.
‘Ah!’ she said. ‘Pure pleasure, is it not?’
‘Indeed, my lady,’ said Chegory, hot and shaken, sweating and trembling, dazed and bestaggered.
‘Juzzy,’ said the Empress Justina. ‘Have you forgotten already, Cheggy- my love?’
‘I… I’m sorry, uh, Juzzy.’
‘That’s better! But don’t forget again!’
Chegory^ promised most sincerely that he would not forget — and the banquet proceeded.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When the meat dish was finished Chegory got to his feet and retreated to the sanctuary of the latrines. He had drunk but a third of a glass of wine yet felt decidedly unsteady on his feet. His sweat had overwhelmed the perfumes with which he had been so liberally annointed after his bath. This banqueting was hard work!
In the latrines he was long fumbling with the codpiece built into the unfamiliar silks in which he had been dressed. At last he retrieved his anatomy from the complexities of his new garments. Then leaned his head against the cold marble of the wall as he pissed into a bloodstone gutter. Uckermark joined him while he was so engaged.
‘How’s it going?’ said the corpse master as he pulled out his shlong.
‘That woman’s going to rape me,’ groaned Chegory.
‘No!’ said Uckermark, pissing prodigiously. ‘You’re imagining things. The Empress? With you? Who do you think you are?’
Chegory looked sideways at Uckermark and saw the corpse master was grinning.
‘Help me!’ said Chegory, desperately.
‘You really want help?’ said Uckermark. ‘What’s it worth?’
‘My undying gratitude,’ said Chegory.
‘Very well then,’ said Uckermark, buttoning up his codpiece. ‘I’ll tell you two things which might help you a lot.’
‘What?’
‘First, you’re supposed to enjoy it. So whatever happens, show some enthusiasm! All right? Good!’
‘And second…?’
‘She likes to be licked,’ said Uckermark, washing his hands in the flow of water outgulping from a golden goldfish.
‘Licked?’ said Chegory.
‘You understand, don’t you?’
‘I’m a dumb Ebby,’ said Chegory. ‘I don’t understand anything.’
‘Then listen…’ said Uckermark.
The gist of his account is [Here a ten-thousand-word disquisition on a certain subject has been deleted on the orders of the Chief Censor. Need we state the reason?]
— and thus bring the woman to a pitch of delight unobtainable by any other means.
‘Well,’ said Chegory doubtfully, once he had received this detailed intelligence. ‘Well… thank you, I suppose.’ ‘Relax,’ said Uckermark, slapping him on the back. ‘You’ll be all right once she gets you into bed.’
‘But — but — there’s uh, um, there’s impotence, I might be impotent, or, ah, pregnancy, what if someone gets pregnant, or, or, you know, venereal diseases, she, she’s…’ ‘She commands every scimitar within this fair city
