The Princess's Princess

I do not often find opportunity to remember my youth. I have lived long and held great power. I have been both generous and mean, wise and foolhardy. Yet, I have loved only once. The pleasures of my eighteenth year are the stuff of dreams, and they deserve a place now among my memoirs. Alongside tragic war diaries and the penning of monumental decrees there must also be Jin. When all else fades from my memory, there will always be Jin.

Two days after my eighteenth birthday, as I lamented the burdens my parents the King and Queen placed upon me as heir to the throne, I was sitting in my ridiculously well appointed chambers, avoiding my studies after having dismissed my tutor. The Lord High Chamberlain announced himself and requested entrance. He said he had brought someone to meet me at the behest of my father. I bade him enter, welcoming the diversion. He produced a lovely young thing whose looks made it plain she was from a distant land. As he guided her into the room, I immediately concluded she was to be my slave, or at least my servant. Surely she was a tribute to my family from some kingdom that needed our good will or our troops or our food or some other favor that did not and need not concern me.

The girl was clad in lush silks and sparkling baubles. Golden bracelets ran from wrist nearly to elbow on each arm; tiny gilded mirrors glinted from a broad midnight blue silk sash over her shoulder. Her lowered eyelids glittered, and her alabaster ankles were painted with elaborate shining swirls. She even had a tiny gold crown atop her black, ornately wrapped hair. But I did not see the magnificent, royal-born creature before me: all I saw was a beautifully wrapped gift that I longed to play with. I commanded the girl to sit at the foot of my bed, and she did so, while the Chamberlain gasped and gawped.

“Your Majesty…” he stammered.

Both Jin and I replied, “Yes?” at the same instant, Jin with the lilt of a sensuous foreign tongue. I looked down at her and she up at me. I can only imagine now the glare of immature fury that must have been on my face at that moment. Was the girl mocking me?

He began again, “Forgive me, Majesties—I meant Princess Jin.”

“Princess?” I burst out, glaring at the Chamberlain. Why had he not told me the moment she entered? He had humiliated me! But no, I decided, not he: she!

I slowly returned my gaze to Jin, who continued to look up at me from her lowly position on my rug. Her feet were neatly tucked under her, hands in her lap, like the most obedient and well trained of slaves. I knew I would never sit so, and certainly not on the floor. Why had she done it? To make me feel the fool: there was no other explanation.

“You are a princess?” I asked in a quietly threatening voice.

“One is,” she replied with a nod, humble and soft-spoken as I myself never was.

“Well, get up then! A princess should never abase herself so!” I thought that if I acted outraged enough, perhaps the Chamberlain would not tell every servant and slave in the castle that I had made an ass of myself before visiting royalty.

Jin rose silently and nimbly. I envied every inch of her graceful, modest demeanor. And I hated her for it, and for the indirect way she referred to herself as “One.”

“One has a gift for Your Highness,” she offered (adding insult to injury), removing a gold ring from a tiny pouch she wore at her waist.

The ring was richly wrought, and seemed to suggest the figure of a woman, twisted around in a perfect circle, hands reaching up between her legs. It seemed an odd gift to me, when surely the Princess’s land had some precious gems they might instead have fashioned atop the golden band. I tried not to show my disappointment, knowing the Chamberlain was watching and that I already looked an idiot. (“Never wear your emotions in your eyes,” my father always told me. “Wear your power with ease not struggle.”)

“I thank you, Princess—.” I stopped short, for I did not remember her name. Again, I was at a disadvantage, and, again, I did not like it.

“This is Princess Jin of Dinzhan,” the Chamberlain chimed in. “His Majesty the King has invited Princess Jin and her mother, Queen Yin, to stay in the palace for a time. A great treaty between our kingdom and theirs will mean greater prosperity for all…”

I tuned out the words of the paunchy, pompous fool, focused as I was on simply regaining the upper hand in this situation.

“I thank you, Princess Jin,” I began again, clipping the end of the Chamberlain’s sentence, “for your generous gift. We are honored to have you within our humble walls.” That should fix her. Our castle was the grandest in the land—our land or any other, I surmised with infinite arrogance and utter ignorance of the world beyond the palace in which I had lived my meager years.

After that first meeting, coldness between Jin and me kept us far apart except when necessary. A few weeks later, Queen Yin formally presented my father with a huge, ornate wall-hanging that depicted a map of her kingdom, which turned out to be thrice the size of my father’s. I had to attend the gift ceremony. As I gaped at the tapestry, I felt my earlier condescension with an inward cringe that I could only hope would not show outwardly as the radiant Jin smiled into my eyes and said, as if we were continuing a conversation from our first meeting, “And these are this one’s humble walls.”

Yet it was that very day that the ice broke between us. I muttered “Humble indeed,” in response to her taunt in the guise of false modesty, and she murmured back, “That is just what this one was going to say.”

“Twit,” I snapped.

“Spoiled brat,” she hissed.

“Idiot!”

“Child.”

With that, we suddenly found we had everyone’s attention in the room. My father’s stern glare was mirrored in the eyes of both my mother and Jin’s. We were both in trouble. But Jin spoke up immediately: “Please forgive these childish games, Your Highnesses. The Princess and this one are just like sisters; and thus, like sisters, we squabble. The outburst was this one’s fault entirely.” And she made a pretty little bow that had my father and the two queens beaming.

My competitive streak had me wanting to outdo the princess in humility, of course, but I could not think of anything to say. Frankly, I was too unhumble to fake it. So, I reached out and embraced her. At first she stood, stiff as a pike: not only had we never hugged, we had never so much as touched. But then she softened, wrapped her arms around me, and brought her lips to my cheek for a kiss. I felt a tingle then, and marveled at it. Before I could make more of the strange sensation, however, Jin had moved her mouth to my ear and whispered, “You are no child to have such soft, lush lukshas.”

I was entirely shocked at her words as she released me, but there was no question that lukshas meant my bosom, which she had pressed against so warmly. The tingle quickly became a flush down my throat and out to the tips of my heretofore-unnoticed breasts. They were only of average size and I had never thought them special, but to Jin they were apparently worthy of comment. I relished the praise more than I could say and for a reason I could not name. In fact, I cannot remember anything else that was said as we hung the tapestry in the Great Hall that day, and I retreated to my chambers as swiftly as I could when dismissed. I think my mother quipped something about my looking pale, but I could not remember ever feeling more overheated.

Back in my rooms, I began to rethink the matter in my adolescent way. What did Jin mean by her remarks? I pondered. Was she simply taunting me, increasing the stakes in our ridiculous rivalry? No. That did not ring true, and my knowledge that Jin’s voice had been a soft, lusty purr unlike any voice ever addressed to me only made me more uncomfortable. I decided the only way to resolve my feeling of discomfort was to confront Jin. I made my way down the long hallway to Jin’s rooms, passing a chambermaid and a guard, both of whom I was sure could see the arousal and confusion in my bearing, though neither did more than show the usual signs of deference to their Princess.

When I burst into Jin’s room without so much as a pause to knock, she turned from her work with a gasp. She was painting a nude female, and her model, sitting on a small platform opposite her, seemed to be one of the palace slave women. Her red-gold hair was done up as Jin’s usually was, and her plump pale arms wore bracelets like Jin’s. The woman quickly reached for a cloth to cover herself. More, I could tell there had been some light merriment in conversation that I had interrupted. She lowered her eyes, and asked Jin quietly if she should go.

“Forgive me for intruding, Princess,” I said, too loudly, feeling foolish and out of place. I turned to leave.

“Please, do not go,” Jin hastily replied. “It is time that one gives a break to one’s companion from the dull work of modeling.” She smiled warmly and the slave smiled back through lowered lashes.

I saw the friendship between them and was envious. I would never have spoken with such affection to a slave, servant, or even to others, like the Chamberlain, to whom I owed respect. My father had taught me haughtiness—perhaps more than he meant to—and it had left me alone and standoffish. Yet, here was Princess Jin, my equal in stature and my superior in age, maturity, gentility, and tact, and I had thrown away a chance at friendship with her. I flushed again and, again, felt my nipples grow taut beneath my dress.

The slave slipped out the servant’s door at the back of the room, bowing as she went. I stood, waiting for Jin to speak again. Without moving, I took in the room around me, a room that I had ventured into a few times in my life but to which I had paid little attention, save to note its similarity to so many guest chambers in the palace. Jin had transformed it. With sheer draperies, musky incense that lent a smoky warmth to the room, and tapestries like the one her mother had given to my parents but featuring unfamiliar landscapes and birds of bright plumage, Jin had made this cold chamber her own. Then there was her work area in the corner, full of paints, brushes, and canvases.

“Would you like to model?” Jin asked, bringing me out of my reverie.

“M-me?” I stammered, shocked but also tempted, lured by the delicious note of seduction in Jin’s sweetly accented voice. “You want me to…let you paint me…without my clothes?” Even as I said the words, I could feel the tightness, the restrictiveness of my heavy garments.

Jin walked over to me and took my hand, laughing lightly. Her face was radiant with mirth; her eyes sparkled and her fingertips were delicate and warm. How could I not have noticed the Princess’s exquisite fineness? How could I have thought myself higher than this goddess?

I let her guide me to the tiny dais the slave model had been sitting on. It was draped with rich sable furs. How delicious it would feel on my bare backside, I thought, shocked at myself.

“Do not blush, sister,” Jin whispered. “Though it looks well on you.”

I brought my fingers to my cheeks to hide them from Jin’s acute gaze. I felt an ass again; it seemed I could not stop feeling immature and foolish in front of this infernal girl!
“Would you truly display yourself for one’s brush?” Jin teased, bringing the tip of a paintbrush to play across her fingertips. “As you can see, one’s talents are meager, but the art is only as good as the subject, kaa?” She winked, and gently brushed tip of my nose.

I smiled, despite myself, and gazed up at her. I was a silly little fly, caught in the elegant web of her silken words and sensuous movements. I began unlacing the front of my gown, my eyes never leaving Jin’s.

She watched me, and I could tell she was as shocked at my undressing as I was to be doing it. When I slipped my shoulders from the sleeves and stood before her, bare-breasted, I felt the thrill of sexual self-awareness as I never had before. I turned slightly and dared to look at myself in the mirror. The sun poured in through the open casement opposite, and the light was uncompromising. Yet I did not see the usual imperfections I hunted for in my teen-aged reflection. Instead, I saw a raven-haired girl with reddened cheeks, almond eyes, softly parted lips, and maturing breasts with large dusky nipples that ached for a touch. Could I reach my hands up and feel them myself? Better still: could I somehow get Jin to embrace me again, this time with her breasts exposed as well?

But no, I was not so brave. I turned my eyes back to Jin, who was now sucking on her paintbrush, eyes fastened on my navel. Her eyes flickered, then met mine. There was such heat there it made me blush harder—if that were possible. She returned again to looking at my belly then back up to my eyes. And soon I realized that her gaze was settling lower: she wanted to see all of me. I swallowed hard and bit my lip. She smiled, obviously seeing my apprehension and enjoying that, too. A trace of my competitive feeling surfaced again and decided me. I pushed the fabric over my hips and let it drop heavily down my legs and to the floor.

Then I was paralyzed. I had been naked in front of serving girls for as long as I could remember. They helped me dress, washed and dried me, powdered and adorned me, brushed and styled my hair. But they never stood, hand on hip, devouring me with their eyes. They would not dare—nor perhaps desire to. Jin dared, as she had with that slave woman, too. And thinking about that slave did a surprising thing for me at that moment: it freed me. I imagined I was simply Jin’s model, a humble girl with no pretensions to power or prestige. She could do anything she wanted with me and I would let her. I would glory in it. I let my eyelids softly close and awaited Jin’s touch.

When it came, just after a slight rustling of her skirts that made my flesh prickle and my breath quicken, I was more completely unprepared that I thought it possible to be. Her hands cupped both of my breasts, weighing them gently, then she left only her palms there and began to move them in tiny circles. My nipples tingled and the tingle rapidly became an ache. Jin seemed to know the effects she was causing, and began to gently rub my left nipple with her thumb. As that gesture became a rhythmic stroking, I suddenly felt her hand on my sex. She nimbly slipped fingers down and gently opened me in a way I had never imagined. I gasped and jumped back, tripping over my gown, and fell on my backside.

Jin made her own little gasp, and came to help me up. “What happened? Are you all right?”

I was so embarrassed that as I scrambled to get back to my feet, all I managed to do was become more entangled in my clothing. Without grace or patience, I finally kicked free of the garment and ran for the door. Heaven only knows where my brains had gone to, but thankfully Jin still had hers. “Stop!” she shouted imperiously as I put my hand on the handle to let myself out.

I turned and looked at Jin, her face a mask of anxious concern. Only when reflected in her eyes did I realize that I was about to walk out into the hall, completely undressed. The scandal would have been terrible, perhaps ruinous to Jin’s stay, and mortifying to my parents, not to mention me.

I rushed back to my gown and hastily tried to dress, wishing Jin would stop watching me. She came over quietly and put her hand on my bare shoulder. I felt the rush of arousal again and tried to move out of her reach without being obvious. “Princess,” she said, grasping me more firmly by both shoulders and turning me to face her. She kissed me then, sweetly and firmly, and it both stirred and calmed me. Then she spoke again. “One is so sorry if one frightened you—”

“No—” I began, wanting to stop Jin from saying something that would embarrass me further.

But she shook her head and continued, her voice rich as honey. “Let us not push ourselves too quickly. Let us seek pleasures we can give ourselves…together, kaa?”

I did not know exactly what she meant, but I knew I would not flee again. She took my hand and guided me to her bed, draped with silks of the same midnight blue she always wore. Could any color have set off the creamy glow of her skin better? I could not imagine it, especially as she stood on the bed before me—so high was the canopy that she could do so—upon the tousled linen. Had her slave model trespassed here, too? I would not think on it. Unwrapping the winding cloth from her torso, I saw her perfect small breasts and slender, muscled arms. She was magnificent, a pale goddess I longed for but feared to worship with my whole body and soul. As I leaned back on a plump feather pillow, I feigned an ease in watching her disrobe that I desperately wished I could feel. But Jin did not betray her awareness of my nervousness if she sensed it. Instead, she stood on the bed, and in that darkened world of shadowed warmth, she revealed herself to me in a seductive, undulating dance. Each new inch of flesh enflamed me, and I grew from anxious to eager to passionate, until finally she stood before me, a glittering creature of fantasy, lithe and slim-hipped, adult in years but neither fully woman nor yet a child in spirit, an androgynous being of unearthly beauty.

When she at last slipped down to sit beside me, I could scarcely breathe. Her breath, too, came fast, and I could feel its warmth on my cheek as she leaned nearer. Her body arched toward me. She placed a kiss on my cheek as her hand reached between my legs. I stiffened without meaning to. She withdrew her fingers and sat back, as if this was exactly what she had planned.

I reddened, ashamed that I was so shy with one I so wished to please. I felt I had rejected her dreadfully, but she did not show signs of being either upset or amused. She just pushed back a bit and made herself comfortable, our seated bodies mirroring one another, legs folded, face to face. She leaned on some pillows behind her, propping herself up on one elbow. I watched. She nodded her head, bidding me silently to do the same. I followed suit.

She placed two fingers in her mouth and sucked softly on them, holding my eyes. I watched, puzzled yet aroused at the sight. She nodded again, and I came to understand that I was to do exactly what she did. I slipped two fingers into my mouth. And when she then took her wet digits from between her lips and reached them down between her thighs, I knew I must do this, too. I felt dizzy and unsure, but I obeyed.

She spoke then: “Before you can enjoy the touch of others, Princess, you must enjoy your own touch. Gardens of pleasure are our bodies. Ripe, fleshy fruit are our mouths; both fruit and tight bud are our breasts; a full bloom is our sex. Part the petals, sweet Princess, and explore the dewy warmth of your blossoming flower.” Her eyes drifted shut as she coaxed herself apart with first finger and pinky, then brought her two middle fingers to open her glistening inner lips. I saw between them a tiny bud, which she massaged in little circles, alternating with occasional dips into her core, where her fingers were wetted, producing soft sighs. She stretched her legs and spread them wide, and I tingled where her thighs brushed up against mine.

As her sighs became exquisite moans, I began to stroke myself gently. I did not look down, afraid to miss a moment of Jin’s beautiful self-pleasuring. I moaned along with her as I watched her bloom and swell, the flesh of her sex reddening to a ripe blush. Suddenly, she gasped, her muscles locked and her teeth sank into her bottom lip. She stroked furiously then lay back fully and brought her other hand to pump fingers in and out of her opening. She cried out in pleasure. Her body began to shake, then arched hard and I sensed a sudden bursting within her. I marveled at her movements and sounds, wondering what she must be feeling.

Her trembling lessened and her fingers stopped thrusting, and I could not help but go to her side and wrap myself around her. I wanted to comfort her, though I knew she was not in distress. I clung to her, kissing her ear, neck, and shoulder. She accepted my tribute, giggling softly as her body rocked with tiny spasms. Then she threw her arms around me and pressed the whole of our bodies together. “Precious innocent,” she murmured. “Did you enjoy my little display?”

I nodded, sheepishly, into her neck.

Jin stretched her lithe frame and bade me sit up. “Then you must do the same for this one,” she purred.

I rose, but shook my head. “I… cannot…”

“Of course you can,” she interrupted, putting a finger to my lips. “You can please yourself better than anyone else, ever. Enjoy the touch of others when you are ready, but now give this gift to yourself.” She took my hand in hers and brought it between my legs. “Just touch yourself, Princess, and see what pleases you.” She removed her hand but kept her eyes on mine. “Go on, lovely one: soon you will find your way.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my hand to cup my sex. I worried I would not be able to do as she had done. I worried she would grow displeased or, worse, disinterested. I took a deep breath and sighed it out. I would meet this challenge for my goddess. And, if I were very lucky, perhaps I would feel some small bit of the pleasure she had experienced for herself. I squeezed myself gingerly, and felt the heat there.

“One will very much enjoy watching you,” she whispered, encouraging me as if she had read my thoughts. And though her words should have brought me more embarrassment, they did not. I felt moisture pool and brought my fingers to my slickened entrance. I pressed my two middle fingers inside, as Jin had done, and I was rewarded with a shudder throughout my body. I was soft and wet inside—a juicy, pulpy fruit—yet warm and welcoming. I had never explored myself this way, and now I marveled at that fact. Whose body was this but my own? Who else should plumb its depths, riper than I had ever imagined? I withdrew my fingers until only the tips were left inside, then drove them in more forcefully and felt a rush of heat and wetness. This was good. I smiled to myself, eyes still closed tightly, and was urged on by the sound of Jin’s moan. I wanted to see her face, but I feared I would break the spell of my own wantonness if I raised my eyelids.

I continued to delve, fingers thrusting in and out, then brought my right hand to join my left, tracing circles around and across that tiny node of pleasure. I grew dizzy from the rush of arousal and from the exertion of making my hands do as my excitement demanded. I labored long, soon losing track of anything but the needs of my body, centered in the fiery core of me. I arched into my own hands as though it was not I who brought this pleasure; my muscles tightened and my legs spread wide of their own accord. My flesh ripened and swelled around my eager fingers, fingers far nimbler than I ever knew them to be. And after an eternity that was simultaneously but a moment, I felt a sharpening of my senses, a drawing in of all my energies. All of my blood was flowing to my sex. All of the universe was entering into me, until my entire being was a knot of unendurable tightness. My body opened like a young flower thirsting for a downpour. My fingers were numb, and I ached for release, for something I could not name but which approached with increasing force from just beyond my reach.

Suddenly it hit me. I peaked with the explosion of thunder in the heavens. I was torn as lightning splits a tree asunder. I was… But, oh, I cannot do it justice. Such words pale by comparison to the experience. And, when I reopened my eyes, Jin’s smile was so broad and ripe that I knew we had shared this pleasure as fully as we would come to share so many other pleasures together. She had given my body and my desire to me even as she absorbed them through her rapt attention—and I knew I had given the same to her.

Now, so many years later that I am loathe to count them, I chronicle my life, and the Jin of my eighteenth year returns to me. I am honored, though, that I am able not only to remember back to those early years but also to continue to create new memories of pleasure of both body and soul. “Being a queen has more privileges than one can count,” as Jin, my royal consort of more than sixty years, says.

Evil Elegance