Halfway through the evening meal she dismissed Zeras and the rest of her servants. "I wish to be alone," she said, and not even Zeras would dare to argue with her. She ate silently, absently feeding him bits of food. Finally, when several minutes had passed, and she appeared to have forgotten him, the leash slipping from her hand, Dagon slid beneath the table. Positioning himself before Kalida, he began to slowly push her gown up, kissing her feet, her ankles, her knees as the fabric slithered higher and higher until it reached the tops of her thighs. Wordlessly she opened her legs to him, and he licked the soft, warm flesh of her inner thighs. Then his dark head dove deep, his fingers peeling back her already moist pouting nether lips as he sought her pleasure point. His tongue flicked back and forth over the pinkish flesh. He saw her excitement build as the softness grew darker, the nub swelling and stiffening.

Kalida's breath was coming in short, hard gasps. Her slender white fingers kneaded his dark head, encouraging him to continue. The tightness built, and she struggled to hold on to the delicious feeling, but she could not. The hot sweetness broke, filling her with pleasure, even as he drew away from her. "That was wonderful!" she told him enthusiastically. "I shall end my meal each night that way from now on, Dagon!" She managed to stand up, albeit shakily. "Let us seek my bedchamber. You have but whetted my appetite for passion."

Once within the privacy of her chamber, Kalida tore off her gown and unfastened Dagon's collar. "There!" she said. "We are now once again equals. Were you angry at me for my behavior today? I believe Zeras does not suspect a thing, my prince. I was very bad, though. Will you punish me, Dagon?"

"It is not a slave's place to punish his mistress," Dagon said. He reached out to take her in his arms, but Kalida spun away from his grasp.

"I was very bad," she repeated. "I should be spanked, Dagon."

"Spanked? You want to be spanked, my queen?"

"Yes!" she said. "I command you to spank me!"

He was astounded by her request. "Have you ever been spanked?" he asked her. "What do you know of spanking?"

"Zeras spanked me when I was a little girl," Kalida told him. "Of course my aunts made him stop, and sent him for common pleasures to punish him for behaving so crudely toward a female. He would have stopped anyhow, though," she giggled.

"Why?" Dagon demanded.

"He discovered that I liked it," Kalida replied with complete candor. "When I told my aunts, they said I was an unnatural child. That I must never relinquish myself to another's power, particularly a man's. I have not been spanked in many years, but when I saw how your glorious manhood reacted to my whip today, I remembered being spanked, and the childish pleasure it gave me. You have opened my world to pleasure once more, Dagon, and I have given you my trust. I would be spanked by you."

"What if someone should hear you cry out, my queen. Your guards would rush to your aid, and seeing me apparently abusing you, they would slay me where I stood," he protested.

She pushed him into a seated position upon the bed. Then she stood between his long legs. "Once we draw the draperies about the bed, Dagon, no one can hear us. All Kavan women have draperies of this sort. They look as if they have been spun by spiders, but drawn, no sound penetrates them. It is a magic known only to Kava." Reaching for the drawstring to the curtains, she drew them so that they encircled the bed. Then she called out in a loud voice,"Guards! To the queen!"

To his great amazement, no one came.

Kalida looked down into his handsome face. "Spank me," she purred at him, and lay herself facedown across his broad lap.

Dagon looked down at the split peach of her deliciously round and tempting bottom. "Your behavior in dragging me about the city this morning was rather unforgivable," he reasoned. His big hand smoothed in a circular motion over her skin. She wiggled against his lap in a most provocative fashion. Raising his hand, he brought it down hard.

"Whoooooo!" she squealed, wriggling more, and the hand punishing her came down again, and again and again until her backside was stinging and she could feel the heat of it. There was also a distinct tingling in her nether regions that was very familiar, and felt quite good. "More!" she demanded of him.

"No," he said quietly, "but you shall learn something else new, my sweet, naughty queen." His hand again smoothed over the very pink, warm flesh. Then his finger found its way between the twin moons of her bottom to rub suggestively against the tight, puckered orifice.

Her breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she could not breathe. Finally, she said, "I had heard it could be done there, but I never have. None before you even hinted at it."

His finger pressed firmly against the aperture. "Only if you desire it, and not tonight, my queen," he told her. "We but explore the possibilities now." He felt the vent yielding to the pressure of his finger, and then it slipped in to the first joint.

"Ooooooooo!" Kalida hissed breathlessly.

The finger pushed deeper, first to his knuckle, and then its entire length where he kept it, allowing her body to adjust to this new invasion. After a short while, he began to move his finger rhythmically within the narrow channel. His other hand slipped beneath her lover's mount, cupping it, a single finger seeking and finding her pleasure place, teasing it until his hand was sticky with her love juices that his dual actions had convinced her to release in a shuddering zenith of pleasure.

She slid off his lap. Kneeling between his legs, she took his already aroused manhood into her mouth. Her pointed little tongue encircled the ruby head of it, teasing, taunting. He was astounded, and utterly gratified, when she took him completely into her mouth, her throat relaxing as she half swallowed him. He groaned with delight, his eyes closing as he allowed the pleasure to sweep over him. But he wanted to release himself within her body, and so he finally pulled her away, lifting her up to sheath him as she sat upon his lap.

Kalida sighed with enjoyment as she felt him pushing into her. She surrounded him with a hot throbbing that roused his lust even higher. Dagon took her face between his two big hands and kissed her deeply, passionately, his sensuous mouth ravishing her with pleasure. Their bodies moved together in a hot, furious rhythm.

"It is too much! Too sweet!" Kalida cried as their crisis approached. Then she collapsed against his shoulder, drained and replete with pleasure.

His cock shuddered within her as she squeezed the last drop of his tribute from him. "Ah, the gods! If I were yet my father's heir, I should take you for my queen, Kalida. I love you. There is no other woman for me!"

Now it was she who took his face between her hands, and looking directly into his eyes, Kalida said, "You are he for whom I have been waiting all these years.You are my mate! I would have your daughters."

"My love," he said, as they lay back among the pillows of the bed, "you honor your slave, but I would have you be certain."

"I am certain," Kalida said. "You are the only mate for me, Dagon. Do you not want to be my mate?"

"I do!" he cried, "but allow me a small trial. Tomorrow night, invite both me and another of your choosing into your bed together. If when the dawn arrives, you are still certain that I am your mate, then so be it, my lovely queen. You are the only woman I have ever truly loved, but I love you enough that I would be certain that you will be content and happy with me. For to take me as your mate means that you must give up the rule of Kava, and turn it over to another. Are you certain you are ready to do that?"

"Yes," Kalida answered him without hesitation. "Being a queen is a lonely pursuit. I shall allow you your test of my love, Dagon. You shall see that you are the only mate who can make me happy."

In the morning, Zeras again wished to know if Kalida would send Dagon away.

"No," she answered him. "Have I not said this slave amuses me? What is it that you do not comprehend, Zeras? When I wish to be rid of Zenaida's gift, I will tell you. Do not keep asking me each dawn. I find you irritating beyond all." She turned her back on him, saying to Dagon, "Go to Vernus to be bathed, my pet. Then rejoin me, and we will break our fast."

Dagon bowed deferentially. "As my queen commands," he replied.

"I do not like that fellow," Zeras said when the prince had gone. "Why do you bother with him? You are a great queen. You do not need such a creature about you defiling you with his big hands, and his muscled body. If it is that monstrous dangling penis of his that keeps you entertained I will have it cast in plaster. We shall make a most realistic dildo in any variety of materials for you. Then we may be quit of this Dagon of Aramas."

"You overstep your boundaries, Zeras," Kalida said coldly. "Do you think because you are my body slave, and have been since my birth, that you have the right to speak to me as you have just done? You do not. You are nothing more than a slave, as Dagon is a slave."

"I am your father, and as such am entitled to your respect," Zeras said pompously.

"You are not my sire," Kalida told him. "My mother mounted you once, twice, no more. My mother had dark hair as do you. If you were my sire, how could you have made such as fair a child as me? My sire was golden-haired. His name was Valcon. I'm certain that you remember him. He loved my mother with all his heart. When she died giving birth to his child, he killed himself. I'm sure you remember that, too. "

"It suited my aunts to convince you that I was your child. That way, you would care for me with devotion. They had, as you well know, neither the time nor the inclination to raise an infant. They were actually sorry I was not a boy that they might have rid themselves of me when I reached age eight," Kalida said. "You have served me well, Zeras, and certainly with devotion, but you are a man. In this world men do not have the right to criticize women. You are inferior, as all men are. You hold your little position because I allow you to hold it. Do not overstep your boundaries, Zeras. I have raised you high as I was raised high. I can easily cast you down," Kalida warned him.

"You are a queen because I made you a queen!" he countered angrily. "Do you think the goddess's dove alighted on your shoulder by chance, foolish woman? It was I who sewed grain into the neckline of your gown, thereby guaranteeing that the dove would choose you from all the maidens gathered in the arena that day.Idid it! I, Zeras!"

"I never before realized what a schemer you are, Zeras," Kalida told him. "You have kept me isolated and imprisoned in this palace as Kava's queen far longer than I ought to have reigned. You think you exploited my choosing, but you did not, and you shall no longer keep me from the fate the goddess means me to have. I believe you when you say you sewed grain into my gown that day so long ago; but grain or no, I was chosen by the goddess, even if you choose to believe otherwise, Zeras. "

"Do you think the messenger of the goddess would be tempted by a little grain in a gown? I have been Queen of Kava not because of what you tried to do, but because it was the will of the goddess,not the will of Zeras, a mere man. Go from me now. I am very angry at you, but I will not cast you aside as I should do. Your loyalty to me must count for something."

"Are you preparing to take him for your mate?" Zeras demanded boldly.

"I have not decided yet," Kalida lied smoothly. She would tell Zeras nothing lest he attempt to spoil her happiness. "When I do take a mate, the announcement will be made as tradition demands."

"How do you know Valcon was your sire?" he asked her. He had often wondered how he, Zeras, had made such a beautiful golden child.

"When I became queen, my aunts told me the truth," Kalida replied. "They feared your influence over me."

"Will you make public the truth?" he persisted.

"The truth of what?" she asked him.

"Your parentage," he answered.

"What difference does it make?" she wondered aloud, and then she smiled slyly. "Ahhh, I see, old schemer, what you are about. You have traded upon the rumors that you were my sire to gain your small foothold. Now you fear to lose your prestige." Kalida laughed. "If you do not annoy me further, I shall say nothing. Why would I? It matters not who my sire was. Not in Kava. Go now, or I shall send you from my service forever, Zeras." She watched him leave her presence, his shoulders drooping just slightly, but she noticed as he exited the bedchamber, he made an effort to straighten himself up. Kalida smiled, then turned, and hurried off to her own bath, her thoughts turning to Dagon as she went.