The Gingerbread Dungeon (11 page)

“Oh.” Petra smiled hungrily at Maya. “And is this Marquis de Carabas skilled at such worship?”

“Your Highness…” Green and amber eyes met over the table with matching heat. “I can guarantee that he will please.”

“I do believe I would like to meet this Marquis.” The Princess stood. “Arrange it for me.”

“I will have him naked in your chamber with your tea tomorrow, if you so desire it.”

“If you can get me what I what…” The Princess put her hand on the course cloth that covered Maya’s arm, “I promise that I will set you free. I will also provide you with a title and an estate so that you will never have to call any man master again.”

“It shall be done.” Maya curtsied before taking the remains of the tea tray and leaving the room.

After emptying the tray in the kitchen, Maya began to gather her things.

“Oh no!” Amanda cried. “Has the Princess frightened you away too?”

“No,” Maya shook her head. “She was surprisingly kind. I think she liked that special pastry I made for her. The one with the spices that I had in my bag? She has sent me to get more. I should be back early tomorrow.”

“I’m so glad.” Amanda threw her arms around Maya in a tight hug. “I didn’t want to lose my new friend.”

Maya tried not to feel too guilty about misleading the kind girl as she walked away, but with her master’s fortune and her own freedom at stake she would do anything she needed to assure her success.

****

On her way back to the village where she had left Johannes, Maya braced herself to address the one uncertain element of her plan. Then she turned down a side path and walked deep into the forest until she reached a small, but elegant manor.

As she approached, she realized that the house was shabbier than it had been when last she’d seen it a few months before. Worry made her hesitant as she knocked at the door and then, at the lack of answer, went inside.

Maya thought she heard a distant pounding and wandered through the dusty rooms until she located the sound. In a back bedroom, a handsome, older man with long gray-streaked black hair was trying to hammer a leg back onto a table that had seen better days.

For a while, Maya just watched the man work, enjoying the play of his muscles under his skin and sniffing the air to catch his scent amidst the smell of dust and wood.

Seeing him was like a balm to her spirit, and she felt knots she hadn’t known were inside her slowly loosen and relax until she could not help but speak his name.

“Zachariah?” she asked tentatively, not knowing how he would react to her presence.

The man put down the hammer and turned. For a moment the look on his face was frightened, as though he had seen a ghost, and then suddenly she was in his arms.

“Maya,” he whispered into her hair.

He held her so tightly that she could barely breathe, but Maya didn’t care. She just buried her face in his neck and breathed in the scent of his skin, a scent that to her would always mean home. 

“Gods I missed you,” he said, pulling back to look at her from head to toe.

“You’re the one who told me not to come.” Maya’s voice was sad.

“I know, I know.” Zachariah began to pace around the room. “I couldn’t bear seeing you while knowing that I didn’t have the funds to buy you from your service.”

“The money didn’t matter. I could never have let you own me.” The anger in her voice stopped Zachariah in his tracks. “If I had,” Maya continued, her tone softening “you might sometimes have doubted that you were truly mine.”

Zachariah flung himself to his knees before her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” he said, “since the day we met. All I’ve ever wanted was to belong to you.”

“I know,” Maya said, raising his face to hers and pressing her lips to his forehead. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted too.”

They stood there, just like that, for one perfect moment and then Zachariah broke away.

“It’s too hard,” he said, picking up the hammer again and once more beginning to pound on the table, “knowing that I can’t be yours for another seven years, knowing that these are just stolen moments before you have to leave again, knowing that another man is allowed to kneel before you while I live here alone.”

“What if I said there might be a way?”

The look of hope in her lover’s eyes as he turned to her made Maya’s heart ache.

“You’d have to give up the manor and the title,” she said. “You’d have to be willing to let go of everything just for the chance to be with me.”

“I have no family left but you,” Zachariah responded. “What is an empty title and a manor I can barely afford to keep from falling down when I might be able to spend the rest of my life in service to you?”

“I love you so much.” Maya could feel tears forming in her eyes as she flung herself back into Zachariah’s arms.

“Anything for you, my love,” he murmured into her hair. “Just tell me what I have to do.”  

Maya pulled back to kiss him deeply. “Your role is simple enough,” she said. “Make the public rooms of your manor as beautiful as you can manage, so that the house looks fit for a Marquis. Pack any belongings you wish to take with you when we leave so that they are close at hand.”

“And then?”

“And then, my love, you wait for my return.”

“As you wish,” he said, and knelt before her in the graceful way that always made her heart skip a beat.

“I cannot stay much longer,” Maya said sadly, “but before I go, would you come with me to bed?”

She held out her hand to him, but Zachariah did not take it.

“A boon, my lady, if I might ask for one?” his gaze met hers as he remained on his knees.

Maya nodded and waited for him to speak.

Zachariah blushed and took a moment to gather his courage before he spoke. “I know it is a strange request, but since my dearest wish will soon come true… I would like to wait to orgasm again until the day that I am truly yours.”

This time, Maya let the tears flow down her cheeks as she raised him to his feet. “It is not a strange request at all.” She kissed him deeply before stepping back. “I think it is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Do you still have the device you had made for me, all those years ago?” Maya asked, wiping the tears of joy from her face. “Or have you been forced to sell it in search of funds?”

Zachariah smiled and shook his head, “I could never let it go.”

“Do you wish to wear it for me, my love?” Her voice was suddenly intense with arousal. “Even if I don’t know how long it will be before I see you again?”

Zachariah moaned at the tone of command that underlay the request. “Oh yes, my lady. Although I may need a few moments before you can fit it on.”

“Then take your time while you go fetch it, but be ready when you bring it here.”

When Zachariah returned a short while later, he handed Maya a contraption made of leather and steel. She gestured for him to remove his trousers and then had him stand before her with his legs spread.

She stood, gazing at his member, beautiful even when not aroused, and licked her lips, but then he interrupted.

“My lady?”

“Yes, Zachariah?”

“If you keep looking at me like that, I will not be able to contain my arousal for long.”

Maya took a deep breath. “Then I will have to do so for you.”

Kneeling down, she gently lifted his balls and wrapped them in the first leather strap. Then she threaded the shaft of his penis through a series of metal rings linked together by three more straps. When she finished, his cock was caged in leather and steel in such a way that getting an erection would be painful or even impossible, and Maya was so turned on by the sight that she could barely breathe.

“You told me that you did not wish to orgasm,” Maya said, looking at the way his body was beginning to strain against his imprisonment, “but does that mean you also wish to wait to service me?”

“No, my lady.” Zachariah’s breathing coarsened as he fought for control.

“Then sit down upon that chair,” she gestured to a large cushioned arm chair in the corner. When he did, she quickly shed her dress and, after allowing him a moment to gaze at her where she stood before him, nude but for those leather boots, she walked over to sit in his lap.

“I want one hand on my breasts,” she said, leaning back against his chest and feeling the chastity belt press against her buttocks, “and the other between my legs.”

Zachariah moaned in arousal and pain as his cock started to strain against the confines of its cage, but he focused his attentions on Maya’s body as she had ordered.

Using his left hand to gently pull and stretch her nipples the way he knew she preferred, he reached around to stroke his fingers along her folds, playing with the slick fluids he found there and moving them up to coat her swollen clitoris.

As Maya moaned at the sensations, he continued his gentle teasing. A finger would dally at the entrance to her body and then stroke upwards along her inner lips, flicking at her clitoris before dropping down to begin their journey again.

Maya pulled her knees up, resting her boots outside his thighs to open her body further and give him better access to the heat at her core.

“Is that an invitation?” he gasped in her ear.

“Consider it an order,” Maya replied, and she moaned as he thrust first one and then two fingers deeply inside her.

“More,” she said and enjoyed the feeling of fullness as he added a third finger and began to penetrate her more vigorously.

“Now continue just like that,” Maya dug her nails into his thigh to encourage him. “But bring your thumb up to rub my clitoris while you do. Yes. Like that.” She moaned. “Now, a little deeper with your fingers and wrap them up towards your thumb…”

Just then, Zachariah whimpered in pain as his arousal tried to slip past his control and the combination of the sound and the sensations was so intense that Maya came in a gush of fluid all over his hand.

When she could finally breathe normally again, Maya stood up and turned to look at her lover where he sat, beautifully in pain.

“You have always been mine,” she said, before kissing him and motioning for him to stay where he was as she retrieved her dress. .

“And I always will be.” The look in his eyes spoke of devotion and love.

“I promise I’ll return soon” Maya said, putting her hand to his cheek and smiling as he pressed his lips to her palm.

“I know,” Zachariah replied, and with one last look at him she left and was on her way.

An hour later, night had fallen and Maya had returned to Johannes.

“In the morning, you’ll need to be ready to travel at first light,” she said, as soon as he finished babbling about how happy he was to see her. “We are going to the King’s castle.”

“What? Why?” he asked her.

“You’re going to marry the Princess.”

“But, I’m just a miller’s son!”

“Not any more,” Maya replied calmly. “Now you’re the Marquis de Carabas.”

“Maya, I’m not a Marquis! I don’t even have access to a mill, let alone nice clothing or an estate!”

“You don’t need to,” she replied, and as he continued to sputter she kissed him on the forehead. “Sleep now. I’ll explain it on the way.”

In the end, she had to spank him to get him to be quiet, but eventually they went to bed, and the next morning they were on the road at first light.

“First things first,” Maya said, as they walked quickly along the road. “We must convince the Princess that she wants to marry you.”

“Why would she?”

Maya could hear it in Johannes’ voice. He was starting to sulk.

She spun around in exasperation, stopping abruptly in front of him so that he was forced to either look up or crash into her and knock both of them over.

 “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for a woman to find a man like you?” Maya asked, planting her finger on his sternum.

Johannes shrugged.

“Her father,” Maya continued, poking him again, “has been trying to marry her off for years, and his efforts have been futile. Do you know why?”

“No, Maya.”

Grabbing his hair in one hand, she raised his face so that Johannes was forced to meet her eyes. “Because she wants a nice docile husband who will do as she pleases.”

“Oh.” Johannes' eyes brightened and he suddenly looked hopeful.

“A nice, docile husband who will do
everything
she pleases.”

“Oh.” His voice started to become more enthusiastic.

“A nice, docile husband who will let her beat him and fuck him, and who will love every minute of it.” Maya tightened her fingers in his hair enough to make him whimper as she whispered into his ear. “Could that possibly describe you, Johannes?”

 “Yes, Maya,” he gasped as her tongue flickered against him.

“And might you conceivably wish to marry a beautiful, wealthy, redheaded goddess who will abuse you in all the ways you desire and never leave you wanting for anything again?” Her other hand wrapped tightly around the sudden arousal that now strained the front of his breeches.