Page 76 of Of Monsters Of Kings

“Let us speak of that night so that we might be easy with each other again,” I said to him.

King See shifted in his armchair in the corner of the room. He was in his true form and closer than he’d been since I entered monsterdom. That only reinforced that I was stronger and more ancient than before this slumber.

He released a breath. “I am glad you have opened yourself to a resolution. Let me speak first, Perantiqua, for I have had months to consider my words. I start by saying that night was transcendent. For me. I have been furious many times that you did not feel as I. But your last words of that night haunt me along with the memory of your breathless moans and small arches. You said that I had forgotten the newness of your monster. I have since grown to feel that you would know your newness best. I implore you to explain that to a fuller degree, so that we might make amends, and so I might speak proper apology.”

Things were much clearer from this side of slumber. What turmoil I’d been in before Change gifted me more rest. “I can do that, sir. You see, I stored great faith in your ancientness. When you looked upon me that night, I felt something never experienced. But I did not fear this great feeling because of my faith in you. Then, when I sought an end to the torment, you did not deliver. I lacked outlet for everything inside, and I felt betrayed that you had led me to such a state, then left me there alone, crying, and confused.”

“I am informed. You trusted me to guide you, and I failed.” He exhaled. “To be clear, to ensure I understand completely, what torment did you seek an end to, mistress?”

My lips twisted, and I wondered at the new certainty in myself. “I wanted you to pleasure me, King See.”

There was a slight jolt to his blur as he stiffened. “Mistress?—"

“I had not been aroused before, sir, and what I wanted from you—after being sent away in such a cruel manner—was left to fester into shame. The lustful thoughts I had were an embarrassment such that I could not admit them to myself.”

He seemed struck to silence, though his breaths were rapid. Eventually, he said, “But… never aroused?”

“Never. When I started to guess what arousal was about, you ordered it ended.” And so I’d hidden away in oversized clothes instead of finding the courage to ask him a simple question.

I asked him now, “Why did you order me to stop touching my body? Did the sight repulse?”

I, even quite ancient, squeezed my eyes closed in wait.

“Do not speak of yourself so.”

My hands twisted in the black silk sheet as his rage pushed against me. I’d never heard him so angry.

“Mistress,” he said tightly. “Do not suggest that you repulse me again. I find it infuriates me beyond reason. Beyond anything. Is that what I made you feel that night?”

He cursed in a language I did not know and paced across the room.

“I will have you know that I asked you to stop because I felt the power I held that night far exceeded yours. I expected that you must have felt arousal in the past, but I assumed you could not have been much aroused in your short life, and never aroused by an immortal king. You would have done all I asked that night and played the part beautifully. Perantiqua, magnificent Perantiqua, how I longed to make you do my bidding—to probe, to circle, to pinch. I am the greatest fool, perhaps, for turning from such sights and scents and sounds, yet I feared you would hate me after if I continued. This stopped me when I did not want to stop and when my senses were filled with your longing and desperation, your fear and trembling. How I stopped, I cannot say, and I might sorely regret such a path in time after hearing how you wished my body united with yours that night.”

His voice hitched. His words were deeply felt, and I couldn’t help but respond in kind.

“My embarrassment and shame after felt boundless,” I confessed.

“Do you feel this way still?”

“Time will tell, sir.” If I paused to reflect with my more ancient mind, I could connect that King See was half responsible for the symptoms of that night, but not the cause of my distress. He couldn’t have made me feel embarrassed and ashamed if I didn’t already feel that way about my stitches and patches.

“What might convince you to feel neither?” he demanded.

“The way I feel about myself is not something to demand away, sir.” Only I could help myself. The time drew nearer when I must make good with my monster. But would I go the way of Change after? Or would I love her? My future could be altered by the monstrous sight of me, so I couldn’t underestimate the importance and weight of this task, nor would I rush into it. I must prepare as best I was able.

“You do not feel like an exquisite creature?” King See was dumbfounded.

I pressed my lips together. They didn’t align to achieve the expression. “Why can’t I tell you things that I can tell others? Why do I place more importance on how you might respond?”

“I do not like that others might know you better,” he replied.

“I fear your effect on me, sir. That is it. I fear your effect on me more than ever after the night we spent on your landing. I will not answer your question about how exquisite I feel or do not.”

He snarled, pacing faster. “But I do not like what you’ve implied with your non-answer. Shall I tell you that I took my length in my hand after you left my palace? Shall I tell you that I pumped my body for hours because the torment of our night would not exit my mind? Shall I tell you how the arch of your body made me ache and pain? Of how I shattered and regrew my teeth clenching them as I imagined pulling that suit of yours taut between your folds? You wanted me to pleasure you, Perantiqua, and I wanted to do that and more. I had forgotten I was king. I’d forgotten my purpose. The need to claim you might have seen me defile you that night.”

My chest rose and fell. “What does that mean? To defile?”

“It means that I expose your most feminine parts in a casual way that doesn’t befit you. It means that I use you at my leisure as deeply and quickly or as slowly and shallowly as I desire with little or no regard for your fulfillment. I make you believe that you deserve such treatment and I make you want it. Defilement means that I leave you displayed with the traces of my pleasure slickening you so that every king knows I’ve been there first and ruined you for anyone else.”

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