Czarina

Ooooold story by Cornfed.

CZARINA

“A frightening prospect, certainly, dear Potemkin. . . but are we not obliged by the dictates of diplomacy to provide them with the finest Mother Russia has to offer?”

“Certainly, Majesty, but. . .”

“But what, dear? Are we to balk because their customs seem brutal to us? Might I remind you that most of our history is not for the faint of heart?” She stepped closer to him, placing one slender jeweled finger on the very tip of his chin. “Help me arrange this, love, and there will be more than a small reward in it for you. Not to mention my. . .” Her finger trailed down to the top button of his woolen coat. “. . .undying gratitude.”

“Of course, Majesty. As you wish.” She could see the tremble in his lips as he spoke.

“Thank you, dear Potemkin.” She leaned forward as if to kiss his cheek but stopped just short of touching him. “Now send me my cook and the chamberlain. I have a meal to plan.”

* * *

To the four hundred soldiers assembled in the courtyard of the Imperial Palace, the approaching bustle seemed almost silly. Remote, at least. These were men who’d been called from far fields, from the outer reaches of the Russian Empire, who’d marched and ridden days to answer a call from sources uncertain about a mission kept secret from even their superior officers. To them, this bustle of kowtowing sycophants and effete diplomats had the look of swarming gnats. A faint, barely perceptible impatience passed through the ranks as the excitement of the scurrying and nodding staff rounded the stone terrace at the head of the courtyard, turned to face them, and parted.

And then she emerged.

The Czarina; already known around the world as Catherine the Great.

To a man, four hundred soldiers stood stock still but for their eyes. Some locked their gaze on her sparkling, dangerous eyes. Some were drawn without will to the pale swell of flesh above the embroidered bodice of her gown. Some bold men swept their gazes up the length of her long body and down again in open admiration and lust. The eyes of at least one man fell to the trampled ground beneath her feet, unwilling or unable to bear the full impact of her.

The Czarina strode forward to the front rank of men and began to survey them, speaking softly to her chamberlain and shaking her head with quiet dismissal at most. She walked quickly past some men as she swept down one rank and then up another. Occasionally she’d stop to face one and speak. It was difficult to tell from her demeanor or her actions what she was looking for. Her questions were quick, direct, and inaudible except by the men directly in front of her. Once or twice she’d walk in a slow circle around a man as if she were memorizing each curve of his body. She took the hand of one man and turned it palm-upward, trailing a long and graceful finger across the pads of flesh at the beds of his fingers, then dropped it unceremoniously and moved on. One man’s teeth were cursorily examined. One man was made to unbutton his coat and then just as unceremoniously she closed it and again moved on.

She continued her survey. As she moved through the waiting soldiers her steps became quicker, her seeming rejection of each more sure and swift. From her expression it appeared she was gathering more information about what she didn’t want than about whom she would ultimately choose.

“What’s taking so long?” It was the whispered voice of a soldier, not more than eighteen years old, in the back of the ranks.

A deeper, older voice answered from in front of him. “The Czarina can take all the time she likes. Besides, this is for a mission of great importance, I’m told.”

“But what could be so important that the Czarina herself would ask to inspect men in person?”

“Ssssh. It will be over soon enough.”

And still no one knew what she was looking for or what this mission would bring to the lucky or unlucky soldier she chose.

Another whisper from the ranks, this one brashly losing patience. “What the hell is she doing?”

At his right, a man he’d served with in the north. “Hmph. I’d wager she’s looking for a new cushion for her bed.”

From his right came, “You’re joking.”

“A man can hope,” said the second man.

The first man smirked. “A man like you couldn’t survive her bed.” The three men stifled a round of lusty laughter.

A few men puffed with pride at her approach, certain that they would be chosen – certain that even by secret criteria they would surely be among the best. These she barely noticed once she’d surveyed more than one row, pride and bravado apparently ranking among the qualities she did not require. Most of the men were silent and still, patiently or impatiently waiting to be rejected and sent back to their duties in the field. To the surprise of some of the men, she spent the most time inspecting quietest ones, the ones most humble in appearance and demeanor. If she found a man who would not meet her gaze, she might stay half a minute or more examining him, asking questions. But eventually even these she left behind, looking still for some unnamed quality that would end her careful search.

As she reached the row of men that marked the halfway point of her procession through the four hundred even the most disciplined were visibly restless. At the back, the conversation grew bold.

“Perhaps she’s looking for a bodyguard.”

“No, she has the palace guard for that. And besides, she’d have her Chief Minister Potemkin make those arrangements.”

“I hear those aren’t the only arrangements he makes for her. . .”

“I hear she keeps prisoners of war for her pleasure.”

“I hear Potemkin brings them to her two by two.”

“They say it’s not just the old whore’s morals that are loose. . .” And at that the disrespectful soldier hit with a force that knocked his breath and his weapon from him. A man of astounding size, standing in the rank before the wag, had turned and with one lightning sharp move, driven the but of his musket into the wag’s guts. The wag, more angry and surprised than hurt, grunted in fury and made a grab for the bayonet at his belt. The bigger soldier jabbed again with his musket butt into the wag’s throat, quickly eliminating the possibility of catching his breath, and then into groin. The wag’s legs collapsed and he pitched face first onto the muddy grass beneath him. He felt very little of the impact as he his testicles were pounding like drums in his breeches.

Before the wag could recover, several other soldiers, most of them older, restrained the bigger man and yanked the wag, wobbling, to his feet. Following closely behind them were the Palace Guard. Quickly both men were held tight by the skilled hands of body guards, arms bent painfully behind them until they doubled over seeking relief.

“What is this?” The Czarina’s voice was sharp, withering, as she approached the site of the struggle.

One of the Guardsman holding the larger man, the attacker, spoke. “This man broke ranks to attack another soldier, Your Majesty. We have them subdued now. Please do not concern yourself. We will take care of them.”

The Czarina paused a moment and took in these two fighting men. One, the smaller one who’d been the victim of the attack, was still catching his breath yet still defiantly met her gaze. He seemed more angry to have had the fight stopped than he was to have been attacked in the first place. The larger one seemed not to have broken a sweat and stood very tall but with head bowed, almost completely still in front of her. If his hands were not twisted behind him by brutal guards he might easily have been praying, he was so quiet. She took a step towards him.

“Why did you do this, soldier?” she asked, the sharpness of her voice mitigated only slightly by her curiosity.

The soldier breathed deeply and bowed his head further.

She took one more step, so that she was standing not more than two feet in front of him. His bowed head fell near her own and she could hear his breath now moving past her ear. “Soldier. Tell me. What foolish thing would make you attack one of your own?”

The tall soldier did not speak at first, and when he spoke he broke free of the men holding him and dropped to his knees in front of her, snatching his fur cap from his head.

“Please forgive me, Czarina Catherine. I may be a fool, but I cannot let an insult lie when it impugns the honor of the Czarina.”

“What insult is that?”

His strong back bowed even further. “Please, Your Majesty. Do not make me repeat such ugly things in the royal presence. I will take my punishment gladly if I know that your honor has been made whole and that his insult has been answered.”

The Czarina herself took a deep breath. She was touched far beyond expectation by this man’s apparent devotion. With a gesture she dismissed the guards holding the small soldier and watched them take him away before turning again to look down on this man who had unexpectedly become her champion. He was tall and thick, but not too thick. His face, what she could see of it, was humble but around his eyes almost pretty. His eyes were expressive. His enormous hands and shoulders had doubtlessly been subject to much hard work. She could see his great chest move with his breath. He was certainly all she had hoped to find for this mission, and most importantly he seemed absolutely devoted to duty. And to her. “I am grateful for your protection,” she smiled indulgently. She reached down to touch his matted hair and smiled “Your devotion is most touching.”

“Your wish is my solemn oath. I am your servant.”

She laughed softly. She nodded, as if coming to a decision. “Yes. Yes, you are.” And at that soft declaration she summoned her chamberlain with a gesture. “Take this man to the east parlor and have him fed. Get me his service records and I will join you there in a while. The rest of these men are dismissed.”

* * *

“You have served me well in the Caucasus, soldier.” The Czarina sat upright in a padded chair in the center of the room, his military record spread out on the ornate desk before her. Her soldier knelt before the desk, but was still tall enough to look her in the eye, had he dared to. “You have been decorated twice and mentioned in dispatches many times.”

“Yes, Majesty. My regiment has fought for many months against the hated Turk. My comrades and I have made great advances in your name.”

“You are too modest. You should be proud of the work you have done. You have faced considerable risk and hardship in your Czarina’s name.”

“I will be proud when my duty is done, Majesty.”

“Ah, yes. So humble. Then I shall be proud for you.”

“Thank you, Majesty.”

“In all this fighting, have you been prepared to die for your homeland?”

“Yes, Majesty. It is my sincerest wish that if I must die, that it be in your service.”

The Czarina rose and walked around the desk, slowly circling him, taking in the full impact of his broad, strong back and bowed head. “You have high ideals, young man. You make me wonder if your lofty wishes would hold up in the face of the cold certainty of death.”

“I cannot lie to you – I fear death as all men do. But I am sworn to you, Majesty. I hope I do not appear too proud when I say that I would face any peril, even sure death, if I were doing so in your name. I believe that is my destiny.”

She stopped behind him and bent to whisper in his ear. “If I asked you to die, right here and right now. . . if I slid a knife into your collar and pressed it to your throat you would yield to me? You would let me take your life?”

A shiver passed visibly down his spine and his breath quickened. “I, I . . . ” he stuttered obviously shocked.

She took a handful of his hair and bent his head to the side so that she could see the pulsing veins in his neck. “It would serve my will. As your Czarina, I am the embodiment of your nation. To die because it is my will is to die for Russia. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes. Yes, Majesty.” A fierce sigh escaped his lips. “Yes. I would die for you.”

“Then stand, soldier. Face me. I have a mission for you so gruesome that it will try your devotion to its limit, and yet you will never actually leave this palace.” She lifted his chin so that she could look directly into his eyes. “In this mission you will die. And before you die you may know fear and doubt and horror as you have never imagined. But know that with your death our eastern borders with the Mongols will be secure. Your country will be strong and proud. And I. . .” She leaned in to whisper to him. “. . .and I will carry your sacrifice with me to the end of my reign.” She paused to let him take this in. “Soldier – will you accept this mission? Do I have your solemn vow?”

His breath was quick and sharp. His heart beat so hard he thought it might burst. His body filled with fear and, if he were honest, he would admit that at that moment he felt a bolt of raw desire tear through his flesh. “Yes, Majesty.”

She stepped back and took his hand, bowing slightly at the knees in a gesture meant to honor him before bringing his fingers to her face. Turning his palm upward she pressed her lips into the callused flesh of his hand. “Beautiful soldier. I am grateful for your service.”

The Czarina watched unnoticed by her staff from a shadowed vantage point at the southern entrance to the palace’s enormous kitchen. She surveyed the soldier’s flesh: warm pink flushes beneath pale, tender skin; broad, high haunches; meaty thighs and forearms; a generous layer of softness enveloping all of him. Her nostrils flared at the sight of him being prepared for his mission. She felt the tips of her breasts harden and press uncomfortably against the seam of her corset.

The soldier was seated in an enormous washbasin that he had been asked to drag with some effort into the kitchen by the hearth. Two kitchen maids worked meticulously over his body, scrubbing every inch of his skin until it glowed pink and then carefully running a long, sharp straight-razor past every hair that stood on end from his shivering skin. The soldier suffered them passively, allowing these attentions to continue unquestioned, though his face betrayed an apprehensive curiosity.

He was a field soldier, accustomed more than most men to uncomfortable accommodations and filthy conditions. While it could be granted that his knowledge of courtly customs was thin, he was sure that this level of attention to hygienic detail was something special. . . and a little frightening. Frightening especially when you take into account the sort of personal ablution he had been asked to perform in his bedchamber that morning. He had to have the use of the curious bladder and blunt-ended hose explained to him. He could not imagine why, or he could imagine but preferred not to . . . why he would have to wash his insides in such a way. Not that he would have been loathe to perform any act if asked by his Czarina, and certainly in the field some men were not above occasionally using prisoners or even the younger recruits . . . But he understood his actions in this mission to have diplomatic consequences. What consequences could something like this possibly have? He shook his head again as he considered it. In the end he preferred not to speculate as to the specific sacrifice he’d be asked to perform. At least not yet.

Bathed and shaved (but for his thick beard and short hair), even the tender flesh of his hind quarters and weighty ball sac, he stood shivering in the enormous pail. The woman everyone addressed as “Cook,” a thunderous cube-shaped woman with steel grey hair pulled back from her face and a crisp white floor length apron covering her dress and generous folds of her flesh, walked briskly toward him and barked at the girls attending him. “Let’s get him weighed!”

He looked up. Against the far wall of the kitchen, where the light was dim, was tucked large iron scale. One of the kitchen maids led him toward this device and asked to stand in a large bronze bowl suspended with iron chains from one arm of the scale. While one girl held his arm as if to steady him, the other girl placed a very large sack of grain in the opposite bowl. And another. And another. When she had stacked more than a dozen sacks in a precarious pyramid in the bowl, he could sit comfortably in the bowl as they adjusted the counterweights.

Weight, he thought. This is damnable strange. Bathed, shaved, weighed. What mission could require this? Short of being shot from a cannon, he couldn’t imagine what sort of duty he was being meticulously prepared for. As he waited, as Cook and her staff moved industriously and quickly around him, his apprehension rose. His heart rate quickened and he felt his blood running beneath the surface of his skin. Weighed. Shaved. Bathed. Here. In the. . . He found it increasingly difficult to breathe.

Satisfied with the accuracy of his weight, Cook gestured for him to rise and stand.

BAM!

A crash of metal against stone accompanied the violent pitch of the opposite bowl onto the kitchen floor. Sacks of grain tumbled. One split and spilled its contents at his feet.

“Ha! Now that’s a healthy man!” The Czarina’s laughter rang through the room in the aftermath of the crash. She stepped out of the corner where she was concealed and into a pool of light directly in front of the soldier. His breath caught as he jumped to attention, painfully aware of his nakedness in her presence. As her laughing, appreciative gaze moved up and down the length of his body, she caught a shiver run through him.

“Cook! Stoke up the fire! Our guest is cold!”

She reached out, took his hand, and led him into the brighter light where she stood next to an enormous granite-topped preparation table. His skin gleamed wetly from his bath. His expression, eyes averted from her direct gaze, played between terror and a kind of guarded pride. His breath was uneven and shallow and quick. So beautiful, my queen, he thought. And so terrible. What is it you want with me?

Turning her head toward Cook, who was directing her staff to lay wood on the fire and work the bellows, she asked coolly, “Has he been told the nature of his mission?”

“No, Majesty.” Cook stepped forward. “I have been wondering at what point I should . . . when I should . . .” She paused and then quietly under her breath, “He should probably be restrained, Majesty.”

The soldier’s heart nearly beat through the plate of his chest. What. . .

The Czarina spoke warmly to her soldier. “My dear boy. . .” She took his hand. “You wouldn’t run. I know you. You are a creature of duty.”

“Yes, Majesty.” He bowed his head. His ears rang with anticipation and fear.

“My dear, it’s time for you assignment. If it has not already become clear to you, it is now time for you to know what your sacrifice will be. Are you ready?”

He swallowed, still looking down. “Yes, Majesty.”

“Good. Now, dear boy -- what has been done to you so far today?”

“I’ve been shaved and weighed and. . . bathed. . .”

“Yes. And do you know why you have been treated this way?”

“I cannot guess, Majesty.”

The Czarina paused and breathed deeply. With her long index finger she raised the soldier’s chin so that his eyes met hers. She spoke slowly, quietly. “I believe you can, if you look around you.”

The soldier surveyed the room. Four kitchen maids stood at their stations, large knives poised above vegetables and fruit in mid-chop, rapt by the scene playing out before them. They were surrounded by platters of more vegetables and fruits, and rich white butter and vials of oils and heaps of freshly cut herbs. Cook stood between the Czarina and the hearth, presiding over the work. Above the hearth, below the high-arched mantle that concealed a cavernous chimney, hung a long iron spit bent twice at one end to form a sort of hand crank . . .

“Your Majesty, please. . .” A wave of unthinking emotion rushed through his lungs, not quite fear, not quite lust, not quite anything he had felt before even in battle.

“And if I were to tell you that tonight I will entertain a party of ambassadors from the east, here to negotiate a treaty that might very well cede a considerable portion of their territory to our holdings – what then might you guess?”

Images of savage Mongol cavalry with fierce and bloody curved swords filled his vision. Once during his short military career his regiment had engaged a horde of Mongols on the banks of the Tunguska river. Dark eyes and skin, the smell of rancid meat and spices on them, fierce unflinching faces in battle. . . and the rumors, too. That they kill for sport, that they eat their own. . .

They eat their own.

“Your Majesty, please. . .” His head bowed further. Behind the Czarina the cook leaned forward and braced herself to stop him if he ran. He shifted on his feet. . .

. . .and dropped to his knees. Tears flowed from the corners of his closed eyes as he spoke, carefully and quietly. “Will I. . . Might I. . . Will it please Your Majesty to offer. . .?”

She took a step and was just inches away from his cold, naked skin. He was so clean that she imagined she could see his heart beating against his chest. She took his hand and led him to his feet, then leaned in to place her ear against his breastbone and listened. His heart was racing, and to feel it against her ear was strangely thrilling. She remembered this feeling from her childhood, tucking her head behind the powerful front legs of her first mount after a hard run and taking in his powerful racing heartbeat. Here was a graceful and dutiful soldier, a surprising find among the ruggedly independent and often savage men who fought in her name, but like a horse or a lover he was no automaton. He was flesh and blood, simply – devoted flesh and blood that would serve her well, that would serve her guests well (she chuckled inwardly at the pun), but not without feelings of his own. If he could see himself through her eyes, he would be proud.

She turned her face against his chest and pressed her lips to his skin.

His breath caught in his throat. An gasp jumped from between his trembling lips.

She bared her teeth and tongue and slowly bit into him like a ripe pear, not breaking the skin but still leaving a small purple mark where her incisors had pressed to firmly against him. Pulling back, seeing the mark she’d left, touched by his simple acceptance of (or even gratitude for?) his fate, she found herself unexpectedly aroused. Such succulent flesh – it was no wonder she found herself drawn to this alien ritual of hospitality. She was discovering that her own natural lust for flesh was easily translated toward this more “unnatural” act of consumption. Although perhaps “unnatural” was a misnomer. After all, she was said to “devour” the hearts and bodies of the lovers she took to her bed – why not make that metaphor manifest?

Meanwhile her orders and her teeth on his skin had not left the soldier unaffected. While his face remained humble and his eyes cast downward, his manhood rose in front of him like the branch of an oak.

She took his hand and drew his arm out from his body. Smiling enigmatically at him, she began a thorough inspection. With careful, sensitive fingertips she brushed up and down, back and forth across his skin, inspecting him for stray hair and rough patches of skin. Where she found a hair or two missed by Cook’s razor she deftly plucked them with a golden tweezers she normally reserved for her brows. His skin was smooth and almost perfectly pink but for his elbows and knees, roughed from hard work, and his callused feet and hands. Not to worry, she noted – Cook’s oils will take care of those rough spots.

She looked at everything: the curve of his spine and the swell of muscles on either side, the arc of his collarbone and the broad muscles that flared from the round ball of his shoulders across his broad chest, the tender soft fat of his belly and the sweetbreads she imagined hidden behind. . . As she inspected his body for flaws, she rather enjoyed imagining the meat beneath his skin – its flavor and texture, the effect of his emotional state on the taste of his musculature, whether the flesh of his magnificent cock and balls would be as tender and sweet as she hoped.

Standing behind him she lightly nudged the soft flesh at the tops of his inner thighs with her hand, indicating that he should spread his legs. His sac hung heavy now as the room grew warmer, and swung like figs on a tree when he moved. Moved by the comparison in her mind, she reached out to the bowl of ripe fruit on the table in front of her and plucked up a full, ripe fig. She walked around to face him, holding the fig loosely between thumb and forefinger so that it dangled like its southern counterparts between his legs.

“This is my favorite delicacy. Warm from the sun, rich and soft and sweet, so heavy it nearly bursts through its own skin. The first taste of syrup as I bite into a fully ripe fig is nothing short of ecstasy.”

She dropped to her knees before him. He moved to join her, shocked at the thought of his Czarina on bended knee when in truth he longed to reverse their positions. Cook gave him a sharp look, however, and he remained standing. His hand longed to reach forward and touch her beautiful ebony hair, but he would not dare such a liberty.

“Ecstasy,” she purred. Holding the fig just below the base of his now aching cock she bared her snow-white teeth, met his gaze, and pierced the skin of the fig. The sight of her teeth sinking into the flesh of the fig made him involuntarily jump, after all, from his point of view it looked more like third testicle than like a soft Mediterranean fruit. Slurping indelicately, lustfully, she took the entirety of the fig onto her tongue in seconds. With her lips still sticky from the juice, she then opened her mouth and took in the salty head of his dripping, priapic member.

The soldier gasped, his head spinning, barely able to take in all that had occurred up to this point – his mysterious mission, the joy of serving his beautiful Czarina, the confusing mix of dread and pride and humble honor that flooded him as he divined what would be his fate. . . and now this sensation: royal lips and tongue swirling around his cock. He could hardly breathe.

Nor could she. She had not anticipated that this task would inspire such enormous lust in her. Beneath the layers of her embroidered skirt her loins pounded like a second heart. She could not wait until he was cooked to enjoy his flesh. She must have a taste now.

She stood and, leaning back against the tabletop, raised her leg to offer the soldier her delicately laced boot. Understanding without words his place in this minuet he knelt, raising her foot to his lips and pressing his lips warmly against the soft leather. He rested her foot on his knee, then undid the fine laces and gently removed her shoe before rubbing her toes and arch gently but firmly. And the same with the other foot: a warm kiss, freedom, and a satisfying massage. The Czarina smiled indulgently at him while he worked, openly admiring his manner. . . and as always his flesh.

When he had completed his small ritual the Czarina lifted one foot to his shoulder, then she hooked her other ankle around back around his neck. With a strong tug towards her she sent him off his knees. Unbalanced, his only choice to break his fall was to brace his strong hand against her inner thigh. But her legs were strong. Years of horseback riding and squeezing lovers between her thighs has toned her legs to steel springs. Off balance, his hand could not prevent him from being pulled face first into her steaming quim. At the sensation of his beard against her inner thighs Catherine laughed heartily. Her laughter turned to gasps as he readily and without direction began to devour her wet and hungry sex.

“Feed, boy!” she breathed between gasps, and laughed out load at how greedily the concepts of food and sex folded into one another.

His tongue was clever, ravenous, insatiable. And so was she. Her body was wracked with powerful convulsions and then calmed, then rushed toward release again. Twice, thrice, more, he pressed his face into her open thighs and brought her the pleasure she hungered for. The only sound in the kitchen, besides the Czarina’s unexpurgated moans of pleasure, the wet gobbling between her thighs, was the roar of the fire. The kitchen maids stood frozen, knives raised in mid-chop over their vegetable-filled blocks, their mouths agape at the scene of furious lust before them. Even the normally unflappable Cook wrung her apron with white-knuckled hands, more out of jealously than shock. But finally, after an eternity for the kitchen staff and the blink of an eye for the kneeling soldier, the Czarina had her fill. She raised his face to hers, breathed in the musky smell of her desire on his beard, and kissed him.

“Yes. I will be proud to serve this cut of meat. Proud, in fact, to take the first taste myself.”

The rest of the preparations were both terrifying and luxurious. Cook bid him to lie on his back on the broad granite table that dominated the room. His feet hung past the end of the table so he was made to bend his knees and plant his feet flat on the tabletop, a position that reminded him uncomfortably of the vulnerability of a woman during childbirth. This feeling was compounded (and made enticingly erotic) by the presence of the Czarina, who was seated in a wide, high chair at his feet; visible framed by his knees when he raised his head. He could feel her gaze, now intimate and warm but still infused with the rigid authority of her rank, caressing the delicate skin between his legs.

The kitchen maids busied themselves around him. While two of them, the youngest it seemed, chopped turnips and potatoes and other earthy vegetables near his head, the two older maids (older, though they were themselves only barely of marriageable age) brought two large decanters of greenish oil from their posts near the fire. In one floated fat cloves of fresh garlic. In the other waved branches of dark green rosemary. After donning sturdy canvas aprons, the two maids began to pour the oils in thin rivulets onto his skin.

“More! More! Can’t you see he’s a large man?” bellowed the Czarina from her kitchen throne.

“Yes, Majesty!” jumped the maids and increased their flow to trickles the width of a quill pen.

“More, I say!” The Czarina rose to her feet. “Pour it on!” She paused as the maids again adjusted their application. “Yes, dears! That’s it! This is the poor boy’s last experience of women’s hands. Make it rich for him, my girls. Make it good!”

The maids stifled giggles as their hands pressed the mounds and streams of thick oil across the expanse of his hairless chest. With each movement they seemed to relax to their task, and so did he. Their hands were strong but more delicate than the hands of servant women and peasant girls he was acquainted with at his home in the south. Their fingertips played deftly across his muscles, kneading the oils with increasing insistence into his softening muscles. He was made to roll over onto his stomach to endure their attentions across the tight muscles of his back, then rolled over again onto his back so that they could once again oil his chest and arms and thighs.

Perhaps out of a sense of delicacy, perhaps out of girlish shyness, or perhaps out of respect for the Czarina, the kitchen maids judiciously avoided his private parts. The tender (and now desperately yearning) skin of his swollen member, the tender brown skin trailing from behind his balls to his ass, these portions of him remained unoiled except for the excess that pooled around them. He had been relieved early in their preparations when he realized that there would be no further sexual undertones to their attentions –relieved not because he felt any surfeit of desire, but because he did not want to be made a sexual plaything for these women unless it was specifically to please the Czarina. It was she who held him in thrall, not these giggling girls. To allow them to amuse themselves with him seemed cheap to him, inappropriate, common. This late in the experience, however, he began to realize that their intentions couldn’t matter less to his mindless privates: his skin tingled with longing and his blood slammed in his veins like a raging herd of caged livestock from his brain to his loins. Despite the lack of physical contact, or perhaps because of it, his cock was unbearably and embarrassingly rigid.

And this fact made him more than uncomfortable. As he’d been oiled and otherwise attended to and as the knowledge of his short future coagulated from unbelievable fiction to terrifying fact in his mind, he’d resisted the temptation to cry out many times. The horror, the anticipation, the uncertainty, the physical stimulation of hands roaming his now fragrant and oily flesh, the stunning fact that he would end this day in the belly of he Czarina and her Mongol guests. . . he had chosen to push these aside in favor of simpler, purer emotions: a quiet pride, a humble acceptance, a kind of dignity with which he could smother any of the smaller indignities of this process. Embarrassingly, his lust could not be extinguished, or even held in check.

Finally, after attending to every inch of the rest of him, the most experienced kitchen maid took a deep breath and, looking to Cook for permission, edged her oiled hand past the base of his belly.

“Aaahh!” The cry escaped his lips unbidden. Her tender, hesitant touch was beyond exquisite. His body had wrenched convulsively at the slight brush of her hand. His need was desperately excruciating.

And humiliating. That he would cry out with lust now when he’d held back in the face of far more devastating feelings was shameful. He blushed as he grimaced and fiercely squeezed his eyes closed to contain himself.

The maids, meanwhile, gasped and jumped away, unsure whether they’d hurt him or perhaps caused some more private apocalypse. It took several long moments before anyone in the room breathed fully and deeply; the maids waiting for a sign that he would not lash out; Cook waiting for the girls to come to their senses; the soldier and the Czarina waiting for his returning self-control. Soon, his chest rose and fell more evenly.

“Good boy. That’s it.” The Czarina’s voice came now from behind his head. His eyes closed, he hadn’t seen her approach. Her tone was soothing, almost maternal.

“These girls!” Cook grumbled as she nudged the oldest maid out of the way, replacing the girl’s delicate fingers with her large, callused, almost brutish hands. The soldier bit his lip – her touch was no less stimulating than the maid’s, perhaps more so – but his control stayed intact. Her strong fingers worked the oil first into the skin of his cock (the herbal oils steeped in the olive oil stung the sensitive head just enough to remind him that this was not a romantic gesture), then around the shirred skin of his sac (the pressure from within and from her hands without was now more than painful) and then finally swirling around, and ever so slightly into, the tender channel of his ass. She worked quickly, but even so it was increasingly difficult for him to hold back the cataclysm building in his loins. He focused on the Czarina’s hands instead, which were now gently stroking his temples.

Finished with the oils, Cook then signaled for a length of rope which was brought to her by the smallest maid. Expeditiously, Cook wound the rope through his ankles and secured them using knots the soldier recognized from his brief training in things nautical. Then she tugged the rope up, lifting his legs from the countertop and bending his knees towards his chest. As he rolled his hips she patted his hindquarters with her still oily hand. The gentle but authoritative slap was not unlike what he imagined a calf would fee when coaxed into the stanchion for branding or gelding. Once his knees were above his chest, she wrapped the rope around his knees, leaving some slack between them, and took first his right and then his left wrist and bound them to the other end of the rope. In this arrangement, his elbows rested between his loosely bound knees and his bound wrists were secured just shy of his tightly bound his ankles. He felt like a trussed turkey, except that upon reflection he did at least find this position comfortable.

In the meantime, one of the maids saw to stoking up the fire as the others continued their work with vegetables and fruits. He noted that what they were doing with small, sharp knives was removing not only the stems but any sharp edge or rough patch from the food they busily pruned. The potatoes were as smooth as glass. The carrots and turnips were as polished wood. The figs, ripe and dangerously blushed, were carefully relieved of their stems and sat like fat, pendant raindrops in their bowl by his hip.

All this time, the Czarina rubbed his temples. She sat at his head, leaning over his left ear, and cooed and whispered to him as his body was manipulated by the skillful but unfeeling hands of Cook. “That’s a boy,” she hummed to him. “That’s my brave soldier. Yes. . . You are so beautiful, so delicious, so inestimably brave. . .” Her voice calmed him, helped him breathe through the fear and lust. He focused his conscious attention there, at the point in space above his head where her voice resided. Yes. . . Hear her. Her voice is home. Her voice is all I need to hold on. . .

The discomfort of something small and round and cold slipping past the tight ring of his rectum jarred him out of his reverie and caused him to jump involuntarily. “Shhhh. . ..” whispered the Czarina’s voice above him. “Shhhhh. . . it’s all right my dear. . . Everything is fine. . . It’s just the stuffing, my love. Just the stuffing. . .”

“The stuffing?” He struggled to keep his voice calm.

“Shhhhh. . . Dear, shhhhh. . . First a small round potato. . .” As she spoke she felt her hand steal beneath his knees to gently caress his belly. He realized it wasn’t possible, but it felt as if her focal point just below his navel was the actual new residence of the potato in question. “Then a turnip. . .” Her hand slipped farther down to rest on the throbbing underside of his cock. She dragged her graceful fingernails ever so lightly across his veined surface. “Then seven ripe, round figs. . .”

He felt the figs as they went in. They were firmer than they looked, and felt fatter than they’d seemed in the bowl – but what doesn’t when it treads in places not designed for things so fat and round. After the second fig, the progress became easier. The Czarina’s fingers, moving gently across his now twitching member, eased his discomfort, but he felt the need for release begin to surge through his thighs and belly and his breath quickened as he braced himself to resist.

“Such a courageous servant you are, love. . .” cooed the Czarina. “Such a brave soldier, such a fine sacrifice . . . My dear, you have no idea how lovely you will be tonight, what a marvelous success your appearance will be. . .” She leaned down so that her lips hovered just above his, her sweet fig-scented breath sneaking into his mouth and nostrils and warming him further. Her touch on his cock changed from a tickle to a firm grasp as she wrapped her long fingers around him and squeezed. “My love, are you ready? Have you made your peace with this mission? Are you ready to show your love for your Czarina?”

His voice cracked as he raised it barely above a whisper to answer. Her hand was moving firmly and fervently along the length of his cock. He felt as if his orgasm would rip through seams in his belly and emerge a screaming, ravenous beast but he kept his passion tightly bound as he spoke. “Yes, my Czarina. Yes, my queen.” He paused, eyes open, burying his thoughts in her wide green eyes. Her lips dipped slightly to press against his just once. Once was all it took. He felt the explosion of orgasm boil up throughout his body. As his climax burst forth, every muscle in his body pulled against the ropes that bound him; his eyes shut with exquisite agony. Hot cum splash against his oiled chest as he howled “I love you! Make me yours!”

He did not see his Czarina pull away, nor did he see Cook’s heavy cleaver fall with blinding swiftness through his neck and into the chopping block.

As his head tumbled into the basket by the end of the granite table, the geyser erupting from his cock pulsed in time with the geyser shooting from his severed neck. The kitchen maids hurried to position a large copper pot to catch the scarlet geysers as the Czarina continued to milk his still ejaculating member. The soldier felt no pain; instead he simply felt himself floating, rising above the bustle of the kitchen and the gruesome scene of his own severed neck and the roasting fire and the nervous maids and his beautiful, tender Czarina. He floated and drifted above them, watching them and coming to rest eventually at a vantage point near the ornate back of the kitchen throne she occupied. He watched as the his body was tilted so that the Cook could gather all of his blood for the soup that would serve as the first course. He watched as his Czarina licked the dripping cream from her fingers like a child sucking the frosting from a spreading knife. He watched as Cook and her maids carefully ran the long iron spit through his body and then prepared it to turn over the fire. He knew on some level, in some part of his consciousness, that he was dead. However, what he felt more poignantly was his overwhelming desire to fulfill his duty. As his connection to the physical reality of this kitchen and the political reality of his mission blurred and stretched and faltered, he held steadfastly to his fundamental charge: to be beautiful, to be impressive, to please his Czarina and her guests.

And so he was. As he anxiously watched through fading perception, as if retreating through a slowly advancing mist, he saw the tableaux of the evening pass before him in montage: his flesh roasting, dripping bubbling fat and a sticky sauce of figs and herbs onto red hot smoking embers; the Czarina’s contented smile as she breathed in his deepening aroma; the bustle of preparations for this dinner; the arrival of coaches and horses bearing Mongol Princes and Generals piled high with furs and the golden spoils of past campaigns.

He attended the slow turning of his spitted body as it changed from his familiar pink flesh to the golden brown dinner of queens and generals. And he followed the Czarina as she directed the execution of her careful plans, jumping with what remained of his physical desire as she barked orders at servants too frightened to question her. He saw the devotion with which her chamberlains and her trusted advisor Potemkin attended her, the tenderness with which they treated her in spite of her elegantly fearsome demeanor. He saw the admiration and fear they showed as she revealed the culmination of her weeks of planning, in his fragrant roasted flesh, and the sumptuous spread of decadent and savage hospitality that would surround him.

He saw the private moment of apprehension no living man would ever witness as she paused before making her protocol-bound entrance before her honored guests.

And he saw the pride with which she surveyed the room, the table, the elaborate settings of fabric and silver and hand-crafted glass, his golden roasted flesh, steaming and delicious before her, glistening expectantly under her knife. . . and beside her on a platter surrounded by an abundant harvest fruits and cakes, his perfectly groomed, apparently sleeping head, an apple clasp between his teeth.

“My honored guests, honored Ambassador, please allow me to present the greatest soldier in all my armies. . .”

-fin

Again, thank you! An excellent fantasy! Thanks for sharing!