Claiming Crystal by Kayleen Knight

backs was called a beast because it was sinful, and sex was thought to be sinful outside of proper marriage because the act was a celebration of a singularity that overrode the slavery and bondage in which most people lived day in and day out. The two peasants who rode each other in the trenches of the road were not considering their taxes, their allegiances or the greater laws of their lordship; they were only considering each other, and perhaps something even deeper that connected them into a single place of focus. There could be no greater offense than that.
    When this seducer was done with his art he excused the dried up men and women out of the confines and then returned himself to the eleven cups he had filled to the brim with the climaxes of twenty strong and healthy people.
    ‘The seed of my athletes is nothing so crass as the cum of your cohorts,’ he said smoothly, lifting a chalice and smelling it like a fine wine. ‘I have studied men who have measured the contents and declared them the healthiest juices in the land. They are tastier than coconuts and and healthier than jams.’ He brought the brim of the cup to his mouth, as if daring a taste, and then brought it slowly back down when Crystal called his bluff and simply stared at him expectantly, as if bored by the spectacle, eager for some foolish man to start sipping down the cum of his people.
    ‘ What are you going to do with all of that?’ Crystal asked. ‘Or are you just putting on a show for me?’
    ‘ Your father has told me very little about you,’ the seducer began, quietly revealing that indeed he was one of the suitors her family had arranged to win her over in place of the unsuitable rogue. ‘I know only about your birth rite. I know what your family has for its woman. I know what makes you special. But the rest of you I only suspect. But I am a very suspicious man, and I believe that you are a curious woman who should be treated as a girl.’
    ‘ Is that what you like?’ Crystal challenged with a grin. ‘Little girls?’
    The seducer shook his head gravely. ‘I would have nothing to do with that. But I only speak as though to treat you as a girl, for you must surely be one, to be trapped in this room for your years. You must not know about the world outside your kingdom – outside even this small place. I would like to show you so many things, but first I must see if you are willing to be shown. I will not offer myself to a woman who does not care to explore. I think of myself as something of an explorer, and my wife must be one as well, even if our marriage is only a sham for powers.’
    Crystal considered what he had to say and decided it pleased her. He acknowledged the silliness of their situation frankly, and he teased her with the possibility of undiscovered horizons in the bedroom and beyond. ‘Then what do you have to show me?’ she asked.
    ‘ Lay down,’ he instructed coolly.
    Crystal did, for she had the fearlessness that overcame any daughter of royalty who had never known a man to slap her except for her suitors. She had never been threatened in her entire life, and the very prospect that someone could threaten her was ludicrous. It was so outside of her life's experience that she could not take it seriously, and that was why she had not been as alarmed as she should have been when a strange man entered the room, and that was why she listened to him now and laid herself down on the bed like a willing supplicant.
    ‘ Lie down on your stomach. Lay your face somewhere comfortable.’
    ‘ What are you going to do to me?’ Crystal wondered, following his instructions because she was very used to following instructions. Her entire life had been a series of commands and ordinances, and in a strange sort of way they had prepared her for these strange bedroom games.
    ‘ I am going to give you a simple massage,’ the seducer replied. ‘Now close your eyes and do not speak to me until I am finished. I have to