Page 51 of The Tsarina's Favorite
“You plan on handling it, ma’am?”
“I plan on its obedience, however that is achieved.”
“Why would you want to keep something so awful and strange near you?”
“Because it amuses me to do so.I do not plan on letting my firebird go after it took so long to obtain.Now, enough about that thing.Come, ladies.”
The gaggle wandered into the dressing room, the laughter and chatter fading with their withdrawal.
As long as the ladies remained, I could breathe.She wouldn’t do anything while they were there lest they suspect her true designs on me.
I settled back against the floor and did not bother straining to hear the chatter.I did not think any of their discourse would be helpful or pertinent.
A servant brought evening chocolate.Then another served other offerings.The ladies only began filtering back out to the bedroom once the tsarina yawned.
“Have a lovely night,” one of the ladies told her.
“Will you be able to sleep well with that thing so close?”
“That sounds like a punishment!”
“It knows better than to give me any trouble,” the tsarina assured them.“And if it does, it will learn not to.”
“We only worry about you,” Ekaterina assured her.
“Go now,” the tsarina told them, almost sweetly.“I will see you all tomorrow.Pietrodillo has assured me that he has another fantastic routine for us.”
I recognized Drook’s public name and wished I could get a message to him somehow.I didn’t know what I would say though.I couldn’t tell him I was alive and well, because though alive, I was not well.Could I send a message conveying my distress?I very much might have appreciated rescuing or a merciful death, but then truly it would damn me, if not because the tsarina assured me anonymity was my only way out, then because I did not want anyone to know me like this as Mikhail.Pride ever my downfall, I could not imagine the depth of my shame if even they should know the true extent of my debasement.
“Good night,” echoed from several ladies as their skirts and slippers and voices faded down the corridor and the doors clicked shut behind them.
The tsarina made several more movements around the room before approaching the bed.She tapped me with her foot between the wings.I rolled onto my back as much as the wings would allow to face her direction, even though I was still hooded and could not see.
“Are you going to behave tonight, my dear?”She waited a moment, and when I didn’t respond, she hummed through pursed lips in dismay.“Nothing to say?I can see you’re not muzzled.”
“I have nothing to say,” I confirmed.
“Very well.We can make this quick then.”
She climbed over me and sat.She began working in silence, and when my body responded, she took up her position and worked me until she was spent.My ankles jingled, and I could not prevent the occasional grunt or whimper, but all of it got lost in her vocalizations.And then she climbed off me.
“So much easier than last time,” she said, “though not nearly as much fun.Where’s your wit, my dear?”
It ran away, I almost said, because I cannot.But I didn’t say anything.I just rolled over onto my side again and breathed.
In.Out.In.Out.
Why did breathing have to be so difficult?And why couldn’t I stop when I wanted to?
Eventually, she left my side and climbed into her bed.
Long after I thought she had fallen asleep, she whispered into the dark, “I wish you had said ‘yes’ from the beginning.None of this would have had to happen.”
“None of this had to happen even then,” I whispered back.
“It’ll get easier, my dear.”She shifted in the bed, the swish of sheets and blankets and the groaning of boards suggested she sat upright.“Just do as I wish, and you will be happy again.”
I didn’t know how she could make such a promise since she had never possessed the ability to make me happy.And that was the problem, right there.I had never been happy with her, not then as a lover, never as a prospective wife, and not now — and she couldn’t stand it.
