all girls, mustn’t it? It is a part of life, my lord. You have said you mean me no harm, and so I have hope that you will be patient and gentle with me.” She gave him a faint smile.
“My brother and I love differently. That is why I have insisted upon being the first with you,” Enda said. “I will be gentle, and I will be patient. I have great hopes of you, Lara. But Durga is a bull of a man. He is likely to be rough and impatient with you in his lust. But remember, I will be by your side, too, and after tonight he must wait several months again before I will share you with him.”
She wanted to ask why he wanted her. Why his brother wanted her. Why they would share her body between them. But he had already warned her away from the subject, and even her crystal guardian had said it was too soon for her to know all. She looked up at him, her green eyes unwavering. “May I have my bath, my lord?”
He nodded. “Yes, come, and I will take you,” he said. Then grasping her small hand in his larger one he led her from his rooms, and from his brother’s great hall. They descended the winding stairs, but this time they stopped at a small landing, and he led her down another flight of steps that went around the huge tree until Lara found herself in a pretty village. The houses all blended into the landscape. They were wood with thatched roofs, which she recognized from her grandmother’s description of country houses. In the central square was a great stone fountain where women were even now drawing water. They looked briefly at her as she passed with Enda. Finally they arrived at a square stone building.
“Og!” Enda shouted. “Where are you?”
“I am here, my lord,” came a voice, and a huge creature shuffled from the dimness. When he straightened himself up, Lara gasped. He had to stand at least six cubits tall. “How may I serve you, master?”
“Stoke the furnace up. My new Pleasure Woman would bathe herself,” Enda said.
Og shuffled away, bending to pass beneath the stone archway.
“I have never seen a creature like that,” Lara admitted. “What is he?”
“The last of the Forest giants,” Enda told her. “They have served us for centuries.” He drew her down upon a stone bench. “He will tell us when your bath is ready.” His hands began to fondle her breasts. “I am told a maid’s breasts grow with loving,” he said, and brushed her lips with his. “Tira has almost no breasts at all. I shall have a great deal of work on my hands,” he chuckled, “to give her pretty tits. You, however, have two nice little fruits about the size of summer peaches. I shall attempt to grow them to nice large apples by autumn.” He undid her gown, and slid his hand beneath her chemise, touching her skin with easy fingers. “Do you like it when I touch you, Lara? You must not be afraid to tell me what pleases you as I tutor you in passion.” His thumb rubbed a nipple, and he smiled as it puckered. “Ah, you do like it, don’t you?”
She hid her face in his shoulder. His hands were invasive, but it was exciting.
“They say daughters are like their mothers. If that be true then you will have a deliciously licentious and lascivious faerie nature. They say faerie women enjoy humans because they are more passionate. Is that so, my girl?” he murmured in her ear, nipping the lobe, and licking at it seductively as his fingers tightened about her breast.
“I do not know, my lord,” Lara half gasped. “I have never had a lover.” Why did her blood feel like it was beginning to boil?
“No, little virgin, you haven’t, have you? But tonight I will instruct you in the joys of passion. You are going to like it, I promise you.”
But to what purpose, Lara wondered once again, and then she sighed, which seemed to please him greatly.
“The water is growing hotter by the minute, my lord.” The giant, Og, had returned. He seemed able to stand within the bathhouse, but for the arches.
“There is soap? Drying cloths?” Enda demanded as he loosened his grip on Lara, and drew his hand from her chemise.
“Everything is as you would have it, my lord,” the giant replied.
“Then get out, and do not return until you are certain we are gone. Go and ask for food at my brother’s hall. Tell them I said you were to have it.”
“Thank you, my lord, you are generous,” Og said, bowing, but Lara heard the hint of sardonic rebellion in his voice. The giant withdrew from the bathhouse.
“He sleeps here,” Enda said. “It is the only place in the village large enough for him. Come!” He led her into a room with a great stone tub in the floor. “Take off your garments, but do not enter the water until I have had my fill of looking at you.”
Lara complied with his request, feeling shy, but refusing to show it. Enda and Durga had seen her naked when they had inspected her, but that was somehow different. She slipped slowly from her gown and chemise, standing quietly beneath his gaze.
He stared hard, and then said, “The hours until I can couple with you will be long, Lara. Get into the water, and do what you must.” He sat down on a single stone bench in the bathing room, and watched as she bathed herself thoroughly. He almost wept at the beauty of her body, and the long hair she now washed. Even dirty, it was glorious.
When she had finished she said quietly, “Would you not like to bathe, too, my lord? I have been taught by my stepmother how to wash a man.”
He couldn’t resist, stripping his clothing off so quickly she had no time to look at his masculine attributes, but she noted that his arms and legs were hairy. Well, she thought, soon enough she would be most familiar with them. He slid into the warm water and placed himself in her capable hands.
He would have never admitted it aloud, but this custom of the City’s was a most enjoyable one. Her soft hands moving the washing cloth over his shoulders, his back, his chest, was not simply pleasant, it was seductive as well, although he could see she was working hard not to entice him.
“I’m going to wash your hair,” she told him, and before he might protest she did just that. And then she washed his face, his neck and his ears as well. “There!” she said finally. “We are done, my lord.” And she climbed swiftly up the tub’s steps, and wrapped herself in a drying cloth, while holding one out for him.
He entered it meekly, and sat quietly as she dried him efficiently. Then he watched as she dried herself off, and toweled her long hair damp.
“I’m sorry you must wear dirty garments,” she said. “Mine were clean this morning. I should have thought to bring some. Next time, then.” She handed him his clothing while quickly donning her own. “Did you like it?”
“I did, and Durga will be most jealous when he learns of this interlude. But then, if he had come with us he would have not been able to restrain himself, and would have taken you upon the floor. But we will bring him next time, eh?”
“It is your right to command, my lord, and mine but to obey,” Lara responded.
Enda laughed. “Why is it I sense you are not as meek as you pretend?” he asked her. “But I shall soon teach you that a man is the master.” He caressed her beautiful face with his hand. “And when I have taught you the beginnings of passion, I shall make you beg me for the pleasures a man and woman can give one another when his manroot is buried deep in a woman’s hidden garden.” Then he yanked Lara into his arms, and kissed her surprised mouth hard. “Tell me you want me,” he groaned.
“Not yet,” Lara heard herself say, and wondered where the answer had come from. She was amazed at her calm in the face of her situation. She felt an odd strength filling her, and knew that she was indeed protected, as the guardian of the crystal had told her.
“Tonight you will,” he said curtly, ashamed to have shown her even the slightest moment of weakness. What was the matter with him? This faerie girl was intoxicating, and he began to wonder if they had not made a mistake in purchasing her. “Come,” he said. “I must return to my brother’s hall, and you to my rooms. You will not yet be allowed to speak with our women.”
Back in the dayroom Lara found her supper waiting. She had been given a portion of broiled trout, a ham slice and a roasted capon’s wing. There was bread, and cheese, and another peach. And wine, a large carafe of it. She ate everything and drank sparingly. Then, finished, she washed her hands and face, and cleaned her teeth. Removing her clothing she climbed into the large bed. She instinctively knew he would want her naked, and she had few garments as it was. Tonight she could hear singing from Durga’s hall. She finally fell asleep, only to awaken at the sound of a footfall in the other room. She heard wine being poured into the silver goblet that had arrived this evening with her meal.
Enda entered the room and slowly pulled off his garments, folding them neatly and laying them upon the chair.
