Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 75260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
I tried to go back to the beginning—to my first taste of politics, of influence, of power, at the summer program for promising student leaders I had attended when I was eighteen. I conjured up the beautiful campus of Artemisia’s School of Arts and Letters, and I tried to put myself in the splendid lecture hall where the president himself, Jianor Tralofar, my predecessor’s predecessor, had come to speak to us.
Instead, in my mind’s eye, I ended up in my dorm room, shared with another aspiring politician, trying to keep my hand from drifting down between my legs as I remembered the president’s speech. How handsome and confident he had seemed, full of wisdom and trust in the future. How mortifyingly needy I had gotten, right there in the splendid lecture hall, as I imagined him claiming my virginity.
When the sergeant-at-arms had bound my hands to the wall I had thought it an absurd, empty gesture—a little over-the-top display of masculinist power, ensuring that women soon to be punished couldn’t play with themselves when no woman in this position could ever even think of doing that. Ten minutes into this terrible night, I realized that at least for a woman like me—my master’s trained concubine… His Royal Highness’ dirty little slut… the prince’s naughty whore—the restraint represented a serious interdiction of satisfying a need I suddenly felt desperate to yield to, degrading as it might be.
My memories began to blur together in the dim light of the cell, exhaustion making the boundaries between past and future dissolve. The handsome president from my youth transformed in my mind’s eye, his features shifting and blending until he became someone else entirely—older, more distinguished, with the bearing of authority I recognized from diplomatic functions.
President Marcan Valerrar. My immediate predecessor. The man who had led Artemisia before me, who had retired to write his memoirs just as the Federation began its expansion into our sector. In my fevered imagination, he stood beside Prince Hendren in some vast chamber, nodding gravely as my master explained my failures.
“She never understood the weight of true leadership,” the phantom Valerrar said, his voice carrying the disappointment I had always feared to hear from him. “Perhaps if she had accepted guidance from her elders, Artemisia might have been spared.”
Prince Hendren’s eyes fixed on my imagined naked form, bound helplessly before them both. “Then you’ll assist in her correction? Show her what proper submission to masculine authority looks like?”
The fantasy unfolded with terrible vividness. I saw myself positioned over some brutal apparatus, my bottom raised high and vulnerable, while both men examined the implements of my punishment. Valerrar selected a cane with the same careful consideration he had once used to choose his words in council meetings.
“Six strokes from me,” he said, testing the flexible rod with practiced expertise. “For the failures of leadership I should have prevented by training her properly. Then she’s yours to finish, Your Royal Highness.”
The first imaginary stroke sent fire across my phantom flesh, and I bit my lip to stifle the whimper that wanted to escape. But in the twisted logic of my exhausted mind, the pain transformed almost immediately into something else. After Valerrar delivered his measured punishment, he moved to stand before my bound form, his hands working at his ceremonial robes.
“A president must learn to serve those wiser than herself,” he murmured, guiding his hardened length to my lips. “Take this as the instruction you never received.”
My hips began moving involuntarily against the thin padding of the cell’s bed, seeking friction as the fantasy consumed me. I squeezed my thighs together, clenching the muscles of my core as I imagined serving both men with desperate enthusiasm. The restraints on my wrists made the sensation more intense somehow, the vanity of any resistance feeding the shameful arousal that flooded my system.
In my mind, Valerrar claimed my mouth with the same authority he had once wielded in the council chamber, while Prince Hendren positioned himself behind me. “Your predecessor is quite right,” my master’s voice echoed in my imagination. “You need to understand your place completely.”
I pressed my face into the padding to muffle my breathing as I worked my hips more frantically, chasing the building pressure between my legs. The fantasy shifted and changed—now Prince Hendren was taking my mouth while Valerrar claimed my bottom with brutal force, his hands gripping my hips as he drove into me with punishing intensity.
I bit down hard on my lower lip, tasting copper as I fought to keep from crying out with desperate need. The fantasy was consuming me completely, my body writhing against the thin mattress as I chased the building ecstasy. Just as the pleasure threatened to overwhelm me entirely, I felt the familiar sensation of the governor activating between my thighs.
But this time, instead of the surge of stimulation I had wildly supposed my master might give me, there was nothing. The suppressive function. Worse than nothing—a cold, neutering repression that drained away every trace of physical arousal with ruthless efficiency. The wet heat between my legs simply vanished, my swollen flesh returning to the same kind of sensation I might get from my elbow or my heel, as if someone had thrown a switch.