Leni
returned home with his bride. As he rode in the coach, seated across
from her, he marveled at her as he so often did. How she could
constantly surprise him was a true delight, and a complete mystery.
He adored her for it.
They
lived together in the apartments they had let from a very wise and
extremely wizened old woman named Gert. These were on Susio
Boulevard, a posh neighbourhood where only the most extravagantly
wealthy could afford to live. It was a far cry from the little room
he'd had above the Odeum, but that was Leni's skill: to surprise
everyone by defying convention. Somehow – presumably by magic –
he had acquired riches in a very short time. Whenever asked, he gave
always a variation of the same explanation:
“I
always had the money; I simply didn't have any reason to call it to
me – that is until I met this radiant beauty! Look at my
wife-to-be! Isn't she perfect? Such a face, as like a goddess, or a
spirit of the sea that sings men to death upon sharp rocks, but never
ages herself, for she is not truly flesh! But lucky for me, she has
flesh, and it is hot to the touch!”
So
Amos would become the distraction, and if they were men inquiring –
as they most often were – all thoughts of discovering the source of
Leni's unimaginable treasure were driven clear out of their minds by
the much more sensual ideas of discovering Amos'. And while Amos
might burn the toast and drop the kettle and tear the linens and stub
her toes, she was never clumsy in her manipulating of a man.
Women
were much more shrewd at times, but far more discrete. They would
infer from answers much more than they would pose direct questions;
but Leni knew how to charm them all, for he was a quick study when it
came to judging what a woman wanted from a man. His trick in handling
them was to become that, or at least allow them to project their
desires onto him.
Amos
said to him one night, “Between the two of us, we could fuck our
way through the Flood Gate.”What she meant of course was to take
over Caza. To be Lord and Lady, King and Queen, to live in the Spar
and oversee all.
Leni,
laying naked next to her, considered her comment and conceded that
she was right. “But all that responsibility...” he murmured in
her ear. “I wouldn't have the time to fuck your soft little salt
gate.”He patted her ass, played a finger between her hitched legs
in her vulva that still seemed to be vibrating.
Thinking
about these things, Leni knew what he wanted when they got indoors.
He would get her drunk. He would take her up to the rooftop garden.
He would kiss her, and treat her just the way she liked, as a
servant. She loved it when he dominated her, when he clapped the
chains on her. These were strong chains with trick locks that he used
in his show; but he never showed her how to open them with the hidden
latch, and she never asked.
They
arrived at home close to eight o'clock, for the traffic was heavy
that evening: a fire in [district] had caused the many competing
brigades to fill the streets with men and muck, where onlookers cried
out and looters went to work. Leni helped his bride out of the
carriage and together they ascended the steps to the luxurious home,
sold in an estate sale when old Count Levy died with no heirs.
Leni
paused on the stairs and let Amos go ahead of him. He pretended to
look up at the sky which held the last of the day's light like a wine
lover holding up a sample of a golden vintage to examine its legs and
consistency. Really, he just wanted to watch her wiggle in her dress,
and admire the shape of her bottom as he resumed climbing at just the
right time to bring it level with his face.
Within,
it was a strange menagerie of whimsy and ridiculous manifestations.
Amos had started a game with her chosen mate some time ago, and he
had bested her at it to date, much to her frustration. One night,
when he'd spent a good deal of time with his face buried in the ass
he loved so much, he emerged to announce that he would do anything
for her, be anything for her, and give her anything her heart
desired.
So
she decided to test him on this: the following day, she demanded a
rare bird: an ossoplot, that is found only in the high peaks of the
faraway Mali Mountains. Three days later, one arrived in a cage.
After
this, Amos knew that he was challenging her: Leni was daring her to
dare him once more.
She
took one look at the bird with its great plumes and prideful hunter's
eyes, and said, “Release it. I desire now a circus of mice.”
Three
days hence, a man came knocking with seven trained rodents that could
juggle, sing, cavort, tumble. Amos shook her head and clapped her
hands in delight seeing the show they put on – and Leni was glad
that night for pulling it off, for she used her mouth in a blissfully
magnificent way to pull him off.
In
the morning, Amos smiled at her love and said, “I want you to win
me a Faoro.”
This
was an impossible feat, something which only the truly blessed could
achieve. Over two hundred years hence, a contest had been created in
Caza, in which the best athletes could compete to see who was the
strongest, the lightest of foot, the most aquatically adept. From
there grew a contest for the elite among them, and the most
prestigious of prizes was won by completing a brilliantly designed
and perfectly confounding obstacle course.
The
last, and one of three alone that ever managed to make it through the
gauntlet, to win one of the Faoro – an exquisite trophy made of
finely wrought silver and polished jewels of green – was the
gladiator of legend, Naxa. He had trained for years to increase his
stamina, endurance, acuity, and reflexes; and they say that he made
it through to the end only by sheer luck, for his movements at
certain moments through the course were timed to the second, and had
they been off by just a hair – a hundred times over, with each new
hazard, he would have fallen; he would have failed.
Amos
in demanding this was calling Leni's bluff, or so she thought.
He
took her out of bed that very night and led her to the entrance to
the course. It was locked, of course, but he could be kept out by a
simple padlock. They stole through the dark toward the gate. No one
had tried this in decades, for it was quite an investment of time and
energy to train for it, and the only thing that really came of it was
empty celebrity. There was no prize besides the trophy, and those who
tried and failed – and those three who by some miracle had won –
made their attempts only for the prestige, and the coveted title that
only the winners were honoured with: Honn.
At
the gate, Leni looked at her and gave her a wink. “I'll be back
before you know it,” he said.
Amos
held him back a moment; she nodded her head at the gate. “You're
really going in there?”
“Of
course,” Leni smiled. “I'm a man of my word.”
Amos
gazed into the dark passage.“Is it dangerous?”
“Do
you think I would bother if it weren't?” he answered. Then he
grabbed her, pulled her close, and kissed her with passion and utter
devotion – the kind that all women dream of finding in a man, but
rarely do, for mostly they are surrounded by overgrown boys who have
no concept of how to please the more sophisticated sex.
Leaving
her a little breathless, somewhat dizzy, and decidedly moist in her
panties, Leni bounded away into the gateway where he grasped the
lever that would let him into the labyrinth where some had died, most
had failed, and all who entered despaired and lost hope at least
once.
An
hour later he reappeared with the trophy in his hand. There was not a
scratch on him, but his grin was enormous.
“I
think I deserve another moment in your mouth,” Leni said with happy
smugness. “That thing you do with your tongue is to die for!”
Amos
was speechless; but luckily she didn't have to say anything to tickle
his balls with her tongue.
The
Faoro was noticed missing, but Leni never came forward to reveal
himself as the one who had bested the labyrinth. He went without any
title. He put it away in a high room behind lock and and key, and
gave the key to his flustered fiance.
“How
did you do that?” she asked him then, and for weeks afterward.
Somehow, she was unable to accept this one. All the other tricks,
stunts, and exploits he did she felt must have some explanation. She
didn't need to know his secrets, so long as she felt she could
understand them if ever he revealed them; but this was inexplicable,
incredible, impossible.
Leni
refused to tell her how he'd gotten through the maze unscathed and
all the way to the end to claim the prize; and this drove her mad, to
the point where she broke into his study when he was out one day and
discovered the locked tome, the big book that he would pore over for
hours on his own, a huge album that wouldn't be unhinged, pried open,
or picked.
Ever
since then, Leni had been forced to hide the book from her; but no
matter where he put it, sooner or later, she would ferret it out. She
tried again and again to penetrate his secrets, and failed. Tonight,
however, before he penetrated her, he had to deal with some
troublesome secrets of hers.
Who
was this Wizard she says she spoke to in the caves? Was he even real?
Or was he just a diversion for him, something to distract his focus
while she pulled some trick on him? How could he have the same face?
He
knew the possibility existed that it was exactly as she'd described
it: that it had been Leni and no other that had caught her in that
cave. It was not, however, part of his past, and existed as nothing
he could remember; so it was only possible that these events would
come to pass in his future.
This
idea made him feel sick in his stomach; it was not the first time he
had considered it, and he did not like to dwell on the notion long.
It was for this reason as well that he had never, despite having
heard the story numerous times already, ever ventured to the Azot to
investigate the caves to see if Amos' story was true.
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