Vandira lit a cigar and, just like the day before, sat down on the chair and put her legs on the desk. Liberated and anxious to show my worth, I scribbled quickly as she spoke, asking for clarifications where I thought it was necessary.
"After being banished, my first thought wasn't how to plot my return," she said. "I decided to go to the south-west, past the mountains, to the port of Umbaya, simply because that was the nearest city with a branch of the Stoneheart bank, where my assets were. As I said, I had money - my idea was to leave the past lie and maybe buy an inn along the harbour. The heavy ship traffic all but guaranteed customers, and if needed, I could always turn it into a brothel. The Church holds no sway over the Umbayans. And this could have been my life, if not for a couple of events."
A scruffy-looking soldier came in unannounced, whispered something to the Queen and gave her a parchment to inspect. She absentmindedly signed it without stopping her narration.
"The road south until you reach the mountains is safe enough. There are plenty of inns, taverns and the like along the way, so if you are willing to suck a few cocks or finger a young horny waitress you can get some food and a corner to sleep on without trouble. Once you reach the mountain pass though, there's always the danger of running into bandits. The Umbayans guard their side of the pass, but they don't waste resources beyond their border - most of their trade is by sea, so what if a few caravans get attacked? It makes little difference to them."
She got up, poured a glass of wine for herself, and this time took a second goblet and motioned me to come and fill it. I limped there as graciously as I could. She smirked.
"You should try someone less rough for the next couple of days. Your cunt isn't ready for guys like Harad pounding it often."
Well, there goes the discretion she had shown till now, I thought. "I may not be, uhm, partaking of the services today, your Grace." I didn't have to tell her that, since it was not exactly her business. But I actually liked the interest she showed, as embarrassing as it felt.
"Nonsense. You can still have fun. I suggest Naira. But first, earn it. We still have a lot to cover." She had a sip and gathered her thoughts.
I went back to the desk and tried the wine. Uncultured as I was, I had no idea if it was good or not, but the goblet in my hand made me feel like I belonged to the Queen's entourage.
"Anyway, given the bandit threat, I thought it was safer to follow a merchant caravan, since they had guards with them. As it turned out, that was not too wise - bandits are more likely to ignore a lone traveler than four wagons full of stuff. When we got attacked, the caravan guards were no match for the company of Khonran the Savage. Although, to be fair, that moniker is unfair. Khonran is rather noble for a man of his reputation. Which is to say his men carried me back to their camp hog-tied, but kept their hands off.
"They had no plans for me. Other prisoners could fetch some ransom, however small, but not me - and they didn't believe me when I told them I could pay for my own freedom if they just let me visit the bank. They were also vehemently against slavery - kidnapping was fine, of course - so they wouldn't sell me away. I think what they did in such cases was keep the woman in their camp until she decided her best option was to attach herself to one of them. Of course that was a game I knew how to play better than they did."
Taking advantage of the pause as she waited for me to write that down, I decided to ask her about the famous Savage. "Is Khonran as the songs say he is?" I had to drag some info out of her, as she tended to gloss over descriptions.
She seemed to wait for me to continue, as if she had no idea what the songs said.
I sighed and did my best to sing the tune:
Hither he comes, with hair black as night,
Hither he comes, foreboding, gloomy-eyed;
Sword in hand, to steal, to raid, to kill.
His sorrows great, his passions supreme;
Hither he comes. Hither he comes.
Vandira clapped joyfully at my sad attempt. "Not very informative though, is it? Yes, his hair was black, and yes, he had this smouldering look on his face. But he's not the giant mountain of muscle people think he is. Don't get me wrong, he can lift you with one hand and throw you, but he isn't as wide as you imagine."
"But is he as...large as I imagine?" I told myself I was supposed to be writing her memoirs, and they were supposed to be more erotic than they had been so far - it was only fair to ask.
She gestured indifferently at my question. "Don't get ahead of the story. As it happened, I decided that if I could just woo Khonran, he would eventually let me go. The man was constantly talking about how he is free like the mountain air or the eagle or whatnot; it was easy to pull his strings with a few well-positioned sighs about missing your freedom. So, I waited a couple of days and then started cosying up to him. Slowly - he wouldn't appreciate an obvious attempt, he is the kind who likes to imagine it's his charm that does the trick."
The Queen laughed to herself. I, on the other hand, was a little disappointed - either Khonran was not quite the brutal but charming outlaw from the far north that many a maiden dreamed of, or Vandira was undermining his reputation to portray herself better. In any case, I thought it made for a worse tale.
"Of course, getting into his bed wasn't hard, and I wasn't the only one in the camp to do it. Getting him to pay some attention to me was slightly harder. Then again, I had the advantage of being a sex professional. When he saw this smile" - the Queen momentarily smiled in a way I hadn't seen her do before, her eyes shining and her dimples transforming her face into the very image of youthful joy - "covered in cum a couple of times, I became his favourite. And do you know what he liked best?" she asked quietly, leaning a bit in my direction.
I shook my head, hanging on her words. She smiled, mischievously this time, though with no less charm.
"You might not like it, but I assure you it made him much more interesting in my eyes."
She got up, walked over to me and whispered in my ear, "He liked getting fucked."
Seeing my confusion, she rolled her eyes and clarified, "I mean he wanted me to fuck him. In the ass," punctuating the words by thrusting her pelvis like a drunkard insulting the waitress in a tavern.
I frowned, but mostly in surprise. It wasn't something I would have associated with Khonran, with all the tales about his womanising, but I didn't really find it weird - in my village men fucked each other as much as they did women. This was something I had suspected at an early age, after I walked in one of my brothers sucking off his best friend, and became pretty sure about it a couple of years later, walking in on another of my brothers fucking the blacksmith's apprentice. None of them were concerned about me telling anyone.
I told as much to the Queen and she seemed pleased - she said other places and peoples were not quite so open-minded about that sort of thing.
"Khonran," she continued, "would occasionally take a couple of the newest members of his band of outlaws, but still was reluctant about, well, being taken. Who knows how male hierarchy works in such groups? I guess he feared that surrendering his authority during sex would be like surrendering it in general. Mind you, I can attest this is not the case. So anyway, reluctant to ask his men for the favour, when my fingers wandered off a bit during a blowjob, he decided he had found who could fulfill this particular fantasy."
The Queen changed her voice to presumably offer an imitation of the famous savage warrior: "Vandira, I think surrendering to you completely will give me a sense of freedom I have never felt before." Then, switching to her own voice, she hurried to add, "I am not making fun, though. His obsession with feeling free gets tiring, but he was right. Complete surrender does release your soul in ways you didn't think possible. You should try it sometime," she said looking straight in my eyes.
I lowered my gaze, blushing. She didn't comment on that, and went to a more detailed, matter-of-fact description of her experience.
According to the Queen, Khonran is about average in size, but has other gifts in abundance - not just his rock-hard muscles, but mostly the endurance a body like this provides. He scheduled an entire day for them to be left undisturbed; then fucked her for an entire hour the first time around, before going down on her for almost as long. She described the experience with several vulgar hand gestures, even though I told her it wasn't making my job any easier.
She admitted she was exhausted by both the physical exercise and the multiple orgasms he had given her by the time he asked her to wear her strap-on (at this point I asked how exactly that works, having never seen one, and she told me to look in one of the desk's drawers - whether she just keeps those there or she had expected me to ask and planted it I don't know, but she wore it over her leather skirt and bent me over the desk for an unnecessary demonstration of the basics. I admit I got so wet that I almost forgot myself and my lingering soreness from the day before and was about ready to ask her to continue and actually fuck me when she stopped, assuming she had made her point).