village goats on your skin, and in your hair. Hair like yours should not even hint of goat.” He led her quickly from the main corridor down a narrow hallway at the end of which was a great wooden door.
Outside the door a guard stood. Seeing the prince and Lara he turned sharply and flung open the portal so that at no time did they slow their pace. A serving woman hurried forward to greet them, bowing obsequiously to the prince. Without even being told she took Lara’s all-enveloping garments from her. Beneath, Lara was wearing a sleeveless round necked gown of a natural colored linen she had recently made for herself. She slipped from her sandals.
The serving woman next undid the ribbons at Lara’s shoulders, and her gown fell to the floor. She stepped from it not in the least embarrassed by her nudity.
“You are even lovelier than I had anticipated,” Kaliq told her, shedding his own clothing. While every bit as tall as the Foresters she had known, he was far more slender, Lara saw. His skin where the sun touched it was like bronze-colored satin, but where the sun could not reach it was like golden cream. She thought him beautiful, and smiling, told him so.
“Then we are well matched,” he replied, “but I knew it the moment I saw you at the oasis. Come now, and let me wash you.” He led her into the bath where there were several smooth depressions in the marble floor against a wall. Water fell from curved spouts in that wall. Placing her in one of the hollows the prince took up a sponge laden with soft soap, and began to wash Lara.
“I can wash myself,” she protested softly.
“But is this not much nicer?” he said. The sponge moved over her chest, neck and shoulders. Then it was swept over her breasts with great care, and down her torso. Kneeling, he washed her thighs, legs and feet then, turning her about, sponged her buttocks, stood up and did all of her back. He set her firmly beneath the curved spout and rinsed the foamy soap from her skin. Finally drawing her from beneath the water, he announced, “I will now wash your lovely hair.” And to her surprise he did. When he had finished, he wrung out the long tresses and pinned them wet atop her head, giving her a hard kiss as he did so. His hand went to her pubic mound, fingering the golden curls.
“I have been denuded there before, but in the Forest there were no such niceties. How would you have me, my lord prince?” Lara asked him.
“Your curls are charming, but I prefer a woman’s body to be smooth and free of hair but for her head,” he told her. “I will go and wash myself. The alabaster jar has what you will need, and the bath attendant will help you. When you are finished we will dress. There is no time for massage now, but later I will caress your body with scented cream.”
The bath attendant came, and there was nothing for Lara to do but stand patiently as the woman smoothed the thick paste over her legs, mons and beneath her arms. Within minutes she was being rinsed free of her superfluous hair. She stepped from the basin, and Kaliq was there, wrapping her in a towel.
“Come, we must dry your hair,” he said, and seated her upon a marble bench. With another towel he rubbed all the water from her hair, and then began to brush it with expert strokes. “I love your hair!” he said. “It is like the finest thistledown. Only Forest Faeries have such hair. What was your mother’s name?”
“Ilona,” Lara answered. She could get used to being bathed and brushed by this handsome man. And to her surprise, at no time had he made suggestive remarks, or touched her in a sensual manner. Nor had the sight of her even aroused his manhood, a slender length of flesh she had discreetly noted.
“Then you are, I believe, Maeve’s granddaughter, for Maeve had a daughter named Ilona. She was a rebellious girl for a time, but now I understand she remains by her mother’s side, for Maeve is very old and reaching the point where she will fade away into the next world,” Prince Kaliq said. “Ilona will be the next queen of the faeries, my beauty.”
“Did you know my mother?” Lara asked him.
“Only by reputation,” he answered her.
“How old are you?” she queried, suddenly curious.
He laughed. “I am older than you, of course, but I am yet young enough to be your lover, and teach you of passion, delight and desire,” Kaliq responded. He began to plait several strands of her long gilt hair, but left most of it hanging free. When he had finished he stood up. “Come, it is time for us to dress so we may view the matings between my stallion and the mares.”
Silent servants brought them comfortable white silk kaftans with the necklines embroidered in gold threads. Golden sandals were provided for their feet. When they were garbed he took her hand, leading her from the baths down the narrow hallway again and back into the wide open corridor overlooking the green valley where the large herd of mares grazed peacefully in the sunlight. There were horses of every color-black, white, gray, chestnut, bay, dun, sorrel and roan.
Prince Kaliq lifted a hand, and almost immediately a great white stallion was released into the valley. Snorting proudly, his coal-black mane and tail flying, he dashed among the mares who scattered, panic-stricken. The first mare he separated from the herd was a dainty black. She stood trembling as the stallion covered her with his large body, nuzzling at her neck and breathing heavily. When he had finished with her, servants raced out to capture the mare and lead her away.
The stallion seemed tireless. He cut one gray, two white and three chestnut mares from the herd, mounting each as he had the black mare, filling them with his foaming seed. But he was not yet satisfied. He circled the herd again and again, looking, seeking, and then Lara saw the delicately built golden mare. The stallion saw her, too. He stopped, rearing up on his hind legs as he made quick eye contact with the mare. He began to move toward her, ignoring the other mares in his desire to reach her.
The golden mare saw him coming and, turning, fled the white stallion, but he quickly caught up with her, pushing her with his velvety muzzle into a corner of the greensward, screaming with triumph as he mounted her. They could see the stallion’s great penis as he slowly pushed it into the mare. Lara was not even certain if she was breathing at that point. Then the prince’s arm slipped about her waist, his breath soft on her skin. She could feel the slim length of his body pressing against her slender frame. He nuzzled at her pale hair, and to her surprise Lara felt a stab of pure desire in her vitals.
“It is exciting to watch, isn’t it?” His breath was hot in her ear.
“Yes,” she murmured, surprised that she could talk at all. She was trembling. “I could never have imagined anything like it.” Her legs felt weak, and instinctively she leaned back against him, concentrating on the golden mare now being led away as, bored, the stallion began to graze in the green grass.
He kissed the soft nape of her neck. He could sense her confusion, yet he could also feel her resistance beginning to ease. He pressed his advantage, for this first time their mating must be swift lest she grow wary again. There would be time for the slow, drawn-out pleasure of passion that he well knew how to give. But this first time he must show her that the coming together of a man and a woman was sweet and tender, not hard and cruel. “I shall be the white stallion to your golden mare, Lara,” he told her. “Did you not find the mating between those two symbolic?” His hand undid the neckline of her kaftan, baring her two breasts, and he began to fondle them gently. “A woman’s body is to be treated with tenderness, and worshipped,” he told her low.
“The Forest Lords thought of a woman’s body only as a vessel,” she replied.
“I saw the bruises on you, Lara. Tell me they did not beat you,” he said.
“Nay, they treated me as well as they knew how to treat a woman, for they sought a faerie child of me. But their manner was rough, as I have said.” His hands on her were unlike anything she had ever known. She sighed, realizing that she was actually enjoying his touch, watching as her nipples hardened when he teased them.
He smiled as he sensed her reaction to his hands. She had the loveliest breasts. They were like small summer fruits, round and perfect, but not yet quite ripe. He caressed them, one in each hand now. His lips brushed the graceful curve of her neck, nuzzling her long hair aside, moving down to the soft curve of her shoulder. Her head fell back against him, and her green eyes were closed. She sighed again, this time more deeply.
“You are not sickened then?” he asked her.
She shook her head in the negative. “I like it,” Lara told him. “Is it always like this, my lord prince?”
“I will try to make it so, especially as you have had such a bad experience with the Foresters,” he told her. Then his hands fell away from her breasts, and he turned her about to face him. His lips began to kiss her-first her mouth, which he explored tenderly with his tongue, then her face and her eyelids.
Their bodies were touching. Her breasts against his smooth chest, her belly and legs pressed to his warm flesh. His arms wrapped about her, holding her as close as he could. She could feel his manroot stirring and swelling as
