Pleasure Island [The Chronicles of Lidir] by Aran Ashe Page A

golden with her moisture - about her sex lips. They had simply made her kneel and rubbed those lips very gently with the backs of their fingers. As the flesh lips swelled, they were captured in the pouch and sealed skin to skin against the leather. Finally, her legs were fitted into thick, bright yellow woollen stockings which, even with their tops turned over, extended nearly to the tops of her thighs. But at no point in these preparations had they unlocked the chains that held her wrists.
     
    And now, Anya stood at the captain's door, afraid of what might befall her at his hands, yet unable to dispel the memory of the gentle stimulation she had experienced with the two young men. It had been so different from the cruel kind of stimulation she had been forced to suffer; it had made the pouch soften again, swell warm; it had left her feeling very aroused.
     
    Ratchitt knocked. He waited, his head bowed, his eyes looking up at Anya then, as he listened, ticking slowly from side to side. On the third tick, a muffled sound was heard. Ratchitt lifted the latch; the heavy door opened smoothly. Anya was ushered in and Ratchitt retreated, quietly closing the door.
     
    The first thing she noticed was the heavy sweet scent of ripened fruit; the second was the evening sky, deep red and capped with purple clouds, framed within the great bow window above the low divan bed. That second vision vanished as the furled, deep orange curtains were drawn together, secured with a sash and the stooped form of an ancient steward lumbered round, lighting extra lamps and drawing them up towards the ceiling, until the room swelled with a light which swept the darkest recesses clean. The walls were dressed with trophies in gold and silver; in the alcoves, jewel-encrusted treasures caught the light. At first, as her eyes had nervously danced about the room, Anya hadn't seen that there were two figures, because one had remained still. She had seen the ornate oak carvings, pillars and fretwork and the inlaid painted panels showing blue seas, ships in full-bellied sail and sunlit shores bedecked with naked bronze-skinned dark-eyed women. And below these panels, to her right, she had seen the table - a great black oak table, laden with mouth-watering roasts and sweetmeats, fruits on golden platters and clear crystal jugs of wine. Behind the table, in the centre, was an enormous chair, so large it would have taken four men to lift it. Like the table, it was made of oak, but it was thickly upholstered in deep orange, so little of the wood was visible. The armrests were as wide as Anya's waist.
     
    Then the second figure moved. She stood. She was nude; her form was sylphlike. Around her waist was a plaited flat green twine. Anya's eyes followed her as she walked over to the great chair and sat upon the armrest casually, as if to assert a claim, then lifted her delicately furrowed chin and looked sidelong at Anya. Finally, to make her position quite clear, she picked up a small green fruit from one of the platters before her, nipped the skin open with her small teeth, spread it and sipped. She did not look at Anya again, but seemed to be engrossed in the detail, or the display, of eating this fruit. Her eyes would close; the lashes would flutter - they were perfectly curved and black, like her eyebrows, dense black - yet her skin was pale and her hair blonde. Anya did not understand this dissonance. And her lips were red, as if they had been painted, yet they had not. As her head tilted and her hair fell back, finely twined as if repeatedly twisted round the finger and combed by the wind, her lips pouted and her tongue emerged to collect the heavy green droplets squeezed out from the fruit. Anya looked to the steward, who had almost finished moving round, but he too ignored her and began adjusting the deep orange cushions on the soft cream sheets of the bed.
     
    The door opened again behind Anya. From the corner of her left eye, she saw the deep red coat,