(Warning for delicate readers. This chapter contains sexually explicit descriptions.).

CHAPTER TWELVE

Helen was stripped of her clothes and finding herself in unaccustomed nudity tried to cover her breasts with her hand.

“None of that,” said Phalarea smiling at her. “From now on you own no part of ­that body of yours. It is to be changed into an instrument of service for the Elite. Come dear, surely, you don’t want to work in the marshes?”

Helen had doubts about whether, in fact, the marshes would have been preferable to the bondage into which she was now being initiated.

“Amalia, see that Helen will be properly processed as befits your classical Trojans’ namesake?” continued Phalarea.

Helen was led into a small ante-room from which a semi-circular staircase led down into a sunken hemi-style shaped bath. Two concubines washed her body with sponges and soft seaweed and dried it in a perfumed linen towel. She was then led to another room and told to lie down on a satin-covered couch. Here her limbs, her arms, her breasts were massaged with scented unguents and rich oils. Cosmeticians painted her eyelids, her finger and toe nails. Another concubine led her to a large chest filled with gems and jewels and asked her to choose from the dazzling treasure.

Unsure of her choice Helen looked at one of them. “You choose,” she said.

Helen found her arms loaded with bracelets set with agate and chalcedony. Her newly-pierced ears were now adorned with golden ear-rings and sapphire-studded necklaces encircled her neck and stretched down to her freshly-talcumed breasts. Every one of her fingers sported a richly elaborate ring, some with amaranthine, others with ruby stones. Rings and anklets encircled her toes and limbs. Her lips were reddened with bright ochre and the nipples of her breasts were likewise heightened with reddish tints

“How beautiful you look now, “said her attendant Amalia. You resemble a real prince, ready to act and serve your lord and master.”

Helen gawked at her in disbelief.

“Verily, I could fall in love with you right now,” added Amalia.

“Is she ready yet?” asked Phalarea.

“Truly, she is as ready as she or any other woman could ever hope to be, a feast for all princes and kings of this earth.

“Then let her be instructed in her tasks,” commanded Phalarea. “You, Amalia, will begin teaching her duties towards the men of this court.”

Amalia took Helen to one side of the room and told her to lie down on a scattered cushion.

“I will now teach you the different ways of caressing and stroking,” she said to her softly. “You need to know how to start making the most of your assets.

Amalia started gently touching Helen’s legs and moving up and down her flanks. “You have such a beautiful body;” she remarked.

Her hands then found her breasts and she carefully stroked them with a circular motion paying special attention to the rising nipples. Helen felt a surge of quiet pleasure rise in her skin. Amalia moved her face towards Helen, caressed her cheeks and then firmly and surely implanted a sweet liquid kiss on her mouth. Her tongue parted her lips and searched her palate, the lips ever more strongly pressing on each other, her head moving from side to side as if trying to squeeze the kiss ever more deeply.

Helen tried to push her aside but felt tightened by Amalia’s embrace.

Her assistant’s hands now started exploring the cleft between Helen’s legs. Gently stroking her mount in gradually increasing movement Amalia heard Helen starting to moan distantly, her initial resistance, now sinking away quickly. Amalia moved her hands even faster over Helen’s clitoris. Helen felt herself weakened all over; helpless to put up any resistance to Amalia’s expert master strokes she gave herself inevitably in to the oncoming moment and felt a supreme wave of pleasure fill her body from head to toe with consummate delight as her orgasm shuddered through her every vein and pore; an orgasm nurtured by Amalia’s delicate fingers and succulent lips.

“My love,” she whispered.

“You too are my love” concurred Amalia. ‘

And together bound each to each by their soft-skinned bejewelled arms, their limbs intertwined, they fell back lip-to-lip into the depth of the satined cushion and entered into the sleep, the dreamy sleep, of newly-found lovers.

(Hector Hanoteau and Gustave Courbet, 1858)