The Palace

Chapter One As she wandered through the court Pauline was alternately given withering glares from jealous and judgmental ladies, especially from the ladies that attended Margareta, and words and nods of admiration, mostly from the lords and minor nobles that sought to curry favor from Roderick but often from the men who were admiring Pauline’s beauty. It wasn’t a contest, but Roderick enjoyed having the court debate the two beauties who alternately shared his bed. Princess Margareta was almost doll-like in her beauty: china pale skin, sapphire blue eyes, and brilliant blonde hair. That she was barely taller than a boy entering adolescence only enhanced her doll-like charm. In contrast, Pauline cut a near-towering figure with her sharp features, black hair and olive-toned skin. Her eyes were dark and flashing and full of mirth. There was an athleticism to the way she held herself and moved, most likely owing to her early years where she trained as dancer, an indulgence of her father, a merchant who quickly became wealthy trading in goods of questionable origin and morality. The bulge of her stomach was enhanced by her dress. What good was it to be the prince’s pregnant mistress if she couldn’t show it off? “My princess,” she said to Roderick’s mother, performing the best curtsy she could considering the circumstances. It was tradition for all ladies to present themselves to the next queen-apparent. “Mistress Pauline,” Princess Nadine replied neutrally. “So good to see you back at court.” It was an obvious lie to everyone in the court, but no one called her out on it. “Your visit to your family was pleasing, I take it?” “Yes, Princess,” Pauline replied. Nothing more was required of her. She faded into the background and the events at court continued around her, but all eyes were on her. Or flicking back and forth between Roderick and his mistress. Roderick was standing off to the side, next to his very un-pregnant wife. The baths at the palace were much better than the ones in her family’s home. The marble was smoother, the water was hotter, the soaps were perfectly scented, and having the maids attend to her was much better than having to do everything for herself. While her father might have amassed a huge fortune, he was extremely tight fisted in spending it on anything that he viewed as unnecessary. But soaking forever in the hot water was a luxury she could never have in her father’s house. “If you stay in there forever, you’ll turn into a prune,” Roderick said with a smile on his face. Pauline was leaning back on slope of the bath, her head resting on a rolled up towel. Parts of her body were just visible above the bubbles and water. Her knees. The tops of her breasts. The swell of her belly. They all made little islands in the water. Her eyes were closed but she recognized the voice of her lover right away. How could she not? “Would you like me that way? A prune instead of fat and pregnant?” “I’d love you no matter what you looked like.” It was too much effort to open her eyes, but Pauline knew he was lying. Roderick took pleasure in her beauty and her body and how she offered both to him. If she couldn’t breed, she’d be useless to him. He claimed to love her—and while she found the emotion a sweet gesture—but she knew it was untrue. It was just something he said to keep her in line. It almost worked. “Liar,” she accused him, but it was said without malice. He gasped in mock surprise. “I love everything about you,” he said. “Your face, your hair, your skin, your legs, your toes,” he said as she allowed her feet to float upward in the bubbly water, “your back, your ass, your t**s, your tummy, and your cunt. I love all of you.” She smiled sweetly at him while forcing her eyes open. Pauline didn’t comment on the fact he didn’t say a word about her personality and how he enjoyed her company. That didn’t matter. They were using each other for purposes other than love. “Do you want to show me how much you love me?” she asked as she forced herself to her feet, taking care to move cautiously on the slippery surface of the tub. Pauline stood unashamed and naked in front of the prince. Her tummy swelled out in front of her, but that was the bond that held them together. Her eyes went to the front of his pants. The bulge in the front told her everything she needed to know. “I’d love to show you how much I love you,” he said, pulling at his clothing. Even with the overly ornate uniform the crown prince demanded all members of the aristocracy wear to court, Roderick was able to get out of his clothes in the blink of an eye. He wasn’t the least bit shy about joining his lover in her bath, kissing her, feeling the slick soap on her skin, and basking in the heat of her skin, her body having been warmed by the hot water. He wasn’t able to bend her back slightly and press his body to hers, not because of his erection, but because of the bulge of her belly. The bath was deep enough to come up to her thighs and was large enough to accommodate many more than just two bathers. She allowed his kiss for a minute and then turned her head. “If you truly love any part of me, it’s my cunt, isn’t it, my prince?” she asked coyly. Roderick laughed at her. “Why would you say that?” he asked, kissing her neck, another part of her body he professed to love. “It’s to path to my womb,” she told him. “Where your child is growing…and that’s the true reason you profess your love for me.” He laughed again and forced a kiss on her which she willingly accepted. “You think I only need you to carry my child?” She allowed her hand to trail down his muscular chest to where his c**k stood up proudly from his crotch. Roderick shivered as she ever so lightly ran her finger on the underside of his manhood. Her skills as a lover was another reason he was sure he loved her. “I think your wife isn’t able to carry a child, so I’m the next best thing.” His lips twisted in amusement and a second later he spun her around, aided by the slippery floor of the tub. She was so much smaller than he was, so she was helpless to resist, but he also caught her as she started to fall. His arms cradled her gently as he pushed her into position. His c**k quickly found its way between her legs, but couldn’t find the entrance to her cunt. “Does my prince love me so?” she asked as she did nothing to aid his entrance. “He would love you more if he could get into your sweet cunt!” Laughing with delight she reached down between her thighs, found his manhood, and guided it into her wetness. They groaned together as their bodies were joined. “You don’t have to do this, my prince,” Pauline panted as Roderick grabbed her hips and started pumping his c**k in and out of her. They were half bent over, her hands on the stone shelf next to the tub. “I want to do it,” he grunted. “You can’t get me any more pregnant than I already am,” she pointed out unnecessarily. “The good doctor told me this was good for a woman with child,” he said as he increased his speed and force. “Besides, it’s your duty.” “My duty?” “To serve your prince in any and every way he desires and needs.” Her eyes were closed, but she wasn’t focusing on the pleasure, she was focusing on keeping her thoughts straight. “Your needs, my lord?” “I need to f**k you,” he said. “I need to drain my balls. You should know that. It’s not good for a man to abstain.” Pauline didn’t know the truth of that, but she enjoyed being f****d by Prince Roderick. He could have chosen any other woman in the kingdom to f**k—his wife, a daughter of a minor noble, the daughter of another rich merchant, a scullery mail—but he kept coming back to her. Was it love or lust? Did it matter? “I’m so glad you chose me, my prince.” It wasn’t a lie. Before Roderick had picked her from a bevy of other available and willing doxies, she had been forced to get her s****l pleasure from herself or on a few occasions by letting a man spend himself in her ass. There was no way she was going to risk falling pregnant with a commoner’s or low-born’s child when the prince was a possibility. His c**k in her cunt was the culmination of a too-short and completely misspent adolescence. “My cunt desires your c**k more than you can imagine.” It sounded like the words a courtesan would say to flatter a lord. It was exactly what she was doing, flattering Roderick. But she wasn’t lying. She loved the way he f****d her. His thrusting became more vigorous to the point where her whole body was shaking. Her t**s, having grown fuller from her pregnancy, were bouncing back and forth painfully. The slap of his wet flesh on hers filled the air of the bath. It was raw and visceral and she wouldn’t have changed it for anything in the world. Her hand stole down to her cunt and quickly found her swollen clit. When she was like this all it took was a rub or two so she needed to resist until the last moment; it would be a terrible mistake to disappoint her lover. Roderick’s fingers dug into her soft, fleshy hips. It hurt, but she savored the pain. “Slut. Coquette. Doxy. w***e!” He said the words like a mantra and it worked perfectly well. With the last declaration of her status in the world, his c**k started jetting its viscous white fluid into her. Now was the moment. She briskly manipulated her over-stimulated clit and was rewarded with a sudden burst of energy and relief. Her cunt tightened down on his c**k and their dual orgasms washed through their bodies. When it was over, he signaled his completion by smacking her smartly on the ass. Pauline eased herself down to the edge of the tub and then slid down carefully into the hot water. Pipes under the tub kept the water perfectly warmed like she was in a stewpot. She was glad to be in the soapy water because it washed away the sweat that had formed on her body along with the c*m the prince had deposited in her. But Roderick wasn’t done with her yet. While she had exerted herself to exhaustion, he was young and fit and not yet fully spent. He didn’t give her an opportunity to complain, but just presented his c**k to her face. Pauline knew what was expected of her. She delicately took his c**k in her hand and pulled it to her mouth, carefully sucking off his leavings and her pungent secretions. There was no way for her to tell if he actually enjoyed this treatment or if he just did it to control and humiliate her. There was no depth that Pauline wouldn’t plumb to humiliate herself for him. When he judged his c**k was sufficiently clean he lowered himself into her bath, using it for its intended purpose. “Are you going to join me for my beauty time?” she asked him. “Lounging with your lover instead of attending to matters of state?” He scoffed at her mild teasing. “What affairs of state? Grandfather sits on the throne, but father runs everything. My brother is ready to step in the moment Grandfather passes. I’m merely an afterthought.” “You have estates and obligations,” she pointed out. He snorted outright at her statement. “Right now my only obligation is to get my wife pregnant. What grows in your belly very well might be the eventual king if my brother can stop sucking a different c**k every other day and bed a woman for once. And if my wife can’t keep a baby in her belly.” He let the words hang angrily between them. They both knew her father only encouraged the affair between her and Roderick as a means of further legitimizing their station in the kingdom. It was fine to be a rich merchant, but without a landed title, it meant little. Once Roderick’s bastard was born, there was the promise of a title in the family, if not for Master Petnard then certainly for his bastard grandchild, and that would be entrée into the ruling elite. “So why don’t you go f**k her then?” Pauline asked, her anger just barely kept in check. “I’d rather f**k you,” he said. It was an honest admission. “You just did.” “I don’t think I can get it up for her, not today.” “Would you like me to suck it for you?” Pauline asked, surprising herself. The pregnancy had made her randier than normal, which was good. “I can send you to your wife’s bed good and hard.” “That won’t be necessary.” She sloshed across the tub and curled up next to him. Her hand went between his legs and found his c**k. It wasn’t hard, but neither was it completely soft. It wouldn’t take much effort at all to get him hard. “Would you like me to join you in your wife’s bed?” she whispered in his ear. “I can show her the right way to make love to a man. She just needs to be taken in hand and then she’ll give you what you want.” She kissed Roderick, feeling the slight stubble of his beard on her cheeks, even in the tub. The promise she made her lover wasn’t idly pillow talk. She would do anything and everything for him. It was a promise she had made herself—and her father—long ago. “I doubt she’d like that,” Roderick said sourly, pushing her hand aside. “She might not, but I wouldn’t mind at all.” Pauline gave him another kiss and turned her body, letting him feel how her skin felt as it slid along his. “And I’m sure you’d love it.” Her hand went back to his c**k. Once more he freed himself from her grasp. “As tempting as that is—and I’m only say no for now, not forever—I had best go to my wife alone this evening.” “With the stink of another woman’s body on yours?” Pauline teased. “That’s why I’m taking a bath,” he explained to her. “So she won’t know our little secret.”