4 comments/ 25844 views/ 13 favorites My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 01 By: ZoZa CHAPTER I 'CLYTEMNESTRA' ((Author's note: This is the first thing I've written since school, which was a long time ago now. It started off as a fairly crazy idea to simply set down a fantasy I had as prose and grew from there. Be warned, it features moderately strong wetting/watersports and knicker-fetish themes, if that's not your taste, turn back.)) I suppose I simply... Willed myself here? It's not a good explanation but it's the only one I have. Wherever 'here' is? Everything is different, if familiar. I'm on a worn earthen path surrounded on both sides by trees. A forest of broad-leafed deciduous trees of the kind I'd expect to see at home. The air, though is warm, tropically so, and laden with sweet, exotic scents that I do not recognise. Fruits, flowers, spices and other, more earthy, fecund smells that I've never encountered before but understand on a deeper, animal level. Sounds of birdsong and gentle arboreal rustling back my every movement. It's all unfamiliar, I swear I've never been here, but I feel comfortable. Moreso than I ever have before. I feel... At peace. There are splashes of deepest blue sky visible through the canopy and the warm weather makes me feel happy, as it always does. I'm different too, I realise, examining myself. Same old me, but better. I'm dressed all in white, which is odd. I never dress like that, and my midriff is showing! My waist is so narrow! I'm wearing a long white skirt and a short, sleeveless white shirt which shows my navel and the trail of dark hair leading down from it into my skirt. My little breasts are even smaller! I think my nipples are bigger, though. They jut through the fabric and I cannot help but feel a frisson at the sensation of tight cloth across them. When I look down a long, long plaited ponytail falls across my chest. My own brown hair turned black, but so much longer. Glasses! I'm not wearing any, but I can see with perfect clarity! I reach up and feel the bridge of my nose, there's not even the indentation that'd show I ever wore them. I lift my skirt a little, tall boots of soft white leather and white woollen knee-socks come to light. When I take a step I realise that my knickers must be at least a couple of sizes too small, they hug me tightly. Irresistibly I take a look inside the waistband of my skirt. White. Plain white cotton knickers, definitely too small, excitingly so. They put noticeable pressure on my sex with every movement of my hips. A goodly amount of pubic hair peeks from around the edges, stark black against the white, it reaches all the way to my navel in a dense treasure trail. I peek within my little white pants, with a little difficulty, they are tight! There's a lot of hair there, more and more dense than I ever had before. Same goes for my armpits when I check. My whole body is... Is similar to the way it should be, only better. My bare stomach is flat and toned, I think I even see the suggestion of ribs. My skin, what I can see of it is pale and without blemish, like I've been expertly airbrushed. Not enough to look artificial, but enough to look very, very good. I'm not sure how long I've been standing here, wherever here is, but I think I'd better do something. The path isn't very wide, and grown with grass in patches, as though disused, but it's fully usable. In either direction it travels, curving after a dozen yards one way or two dozen the other, no clues as to where it may lead. I don't know which way to go, forward or back seem the same. I decide to go forward simply because that's the way I'm facing. Perhaps a little fun first, though. I stand here, hands behind my back, eyes closed, legs together and concentrate for a moment. It only takes a moment, these days. So unlike the first few times I tried, when it could take half an hour or more of effort. I feel the warmth spread over my groin. So hot, so wet. I shiver when it begins to trickle down my inner thighs. The flow gets very strong very fast and my knickers are soaked, the stream penetrates them and a wet patch grows on the front of my white skirt as more and more piss flows down the inside of my legs. I feel it soak into my socks and the patch on my skirt gets bigger yet, staining the white cloth light yellow. Maybe it's my too-tight knickers, but I hadn't realised how much pressure there was on my bladder, how full I was. I piss for such a long time! Loving every second of the hot, wet feeling. It flows down both legs, stroking them, almost. I'm tempted to touch myself but I know from experience that that only spoils the moment. I finish peeing, the last drops mixing with the juice of my aroused sex. The wet spot on my skirt is huge, all the way from waistband to the hem down at my ankles. The puddle beneath my feet is bigger yet and spreads in thick, dark rivulets across the hot, packed earth. Well, that tells me something too. I never wet myself unless I'm certain I won't meet anyone before I have the chance to clean myself up. Wherever this place is, it's affected more than just my body. For all I know anyone could come around the corner right now and see me standing here in a puddle of piss rubbing myself through my soaked skirt. I set off down the path, savouring the strong smell of ammonia as it mingles with the other scents in the air, and exhilarating in that binding, rubbing feeling one only gets when walking with inner thighs drenched in one's own piss. My wet legs now feel deliciously cool but they dry quickly in the warm air, like my skirt and unlike my knickers which are flooding with another substance entirely... I wonder if I should stop and take care of that, but I want to see where this path leads. Clearly, my body is fitter than I feel it ought to be, as evidenced by my complete lack of fat, and my toned tummy. Despite the heat I'm making good progress, and not tiring at all. Although I am getting a little thirsty. Damn, I'm starting to wish I hadn't wasted all my pee on the ground. Only makes you thirstier in the long run of course, but I guess it'd have solved the problem briefly and been fun. The forest clears and I see the lake. Truly this place is good to me. The woods circle it, forming a clearing perhaps a mile across, with a river flowing into it about a quarter-way around and I guess another flowing out somewhere. Oddly, the heat's no worse as I step out of the shade. Even a little ameliorated by a gentle breeze. There are baroque purple mountains with jaunty snow caps on the horizon to my left, the same direction from whence the river flows. Before me, the lake sparkles in the bright sunlight, little ripples and waves throwing golden reflections at me as I approach through the thick, broad-bladed grass that grows here. I stop on the edge, tempted to drink, but holding back. The water is so clear that I can see the stony bed, even as I cast my eye far out from shore. But then, the things that I'm worrying about aren't visible, are they? I look around, there are no birds on the water, though a few fly overhead from time to time, I think I see a kestrel, or some similar hovering raptor. Then I hear a rustling, more pronounced than the gentle movement of the trees which have accompanied me since I arrived here. Turning I see her. Just emerging from the same path that had brought me here, she sees me in the same moment. She's a centaur. Clear as day and just as obvious. I'm stunned, immobile, I can but drink her in. Eight or nine feet tall, easily and at least six long. Her equine coat is glossy black all over, save white coronet markings which I glimpse as she approaches. Powerful muscles flow under her skin and and I find myself considering the terrible strength she must possess. If only for a moment -- as I am quickly drawn to her hominine part. She is flawless. Straight-backed with lithe, sinewy muscles and rich brown skin. Her hair is shortish and a little scruffy, but shows off her cute, pointed ears. She smiles when she sees me and it just lights up her whole face, I cannot help but smile back, disarmed and suddenly relieved of the sense of dread that I hadn't even noticed building. She's not wearing much. A small, at least for her, leather halter top that holds her plump breasts perfectly still, and a wide belt about the base of her hominine torso. That might've been the source of my dread. There's a brobdingnagian two-handed sword on her right and a rifle every bit the sword's equal in a rifle-scabbard on her left along with a pair of satchel like bags. Even the rifle cartridges in the loops of the belt are as long as my hand. She walks right up to me as I stand rooted to the spot, and places her right hand on my shoulder. I imagine it's some sort of greeting but I certainly cannot return it, so I settle for smiling hopefully and wishing I could say something. "Clytemnestra," she says, her voice musical and utterly feminine, surprising in a being so large. "What?" "My name is Clytemnestra," she smiles still, and I stammer out my name, at which she squeezes my shoulder and lets go. "You're a traveller, like me?" she asks. "I suppose?" Well, it's as good a answer as any, "I... I wanted a drink," glance at the lake, "Is it safe to drink?" "But of course," she looks confused for a moment, the question was not one she'd been expecting, "Will you join me?" With that she releases the buckle of her belt and lowers it, with its cargo to the ground, her halter top follows a moment later and she walks into the water. I can merely stare at her. A moment later I am undressing as swiftly as I ever have, throwing off my white clothes and dancing excitingly into the cool water. My breath catches at the sudden chill and Clytemnestra laughs like a child, her magnificent body wet and glowing in the sun, her breasts jiggling with her mirth. She cups her hands and drinks deeply of the water, as do I a moment later. As a drink, I hate water, I don't like the taste at all, but this is different. Like everything here, the same, but somehow better. I drink until my stomach is taught and sloshing while farther out where it's deeper Clytemnestra smooths water over herself, washing the dust and sweat from her skin and coat. I try to get nearer but very soon the water is up to my chin and I'm still a good way from her, unwilling to put my very weak swimming to the test. She walks to me until her bow-wave washes over my face and I come up spluttering and have to retreat. She splashes me again and again until I fall backwards and simply lay there, floating on my back as she towers over me, dark skin running with water. The light breeze has made her nipples hard and from where I lie looking up they are silhouetted wonderfully against the bottomless sky. In a moment she is gone and I stay, floating and reflecting on the sight, my hand strays toward my centre, but I catch it in time, lest she notice. Standing again I see Clytemnestra walking from the lake, water running from her body, hair and tail plastered down and little droplets flinging, sparkling, from her hands and hooves as she moves. I want to follow her, but I cannot imagine what I'd do or say. Part of me wants to stay here in the cool water, too. I dither for a moment before following her and trusting to fate that I can find some way to talk to this magnificent woman. I reach the shallows and cannot help but look over my naked form, my arms and legs are wiry with small, hard muscles and I can definitely discern my ribs, albeit subtly. Every square inch of my crotch is covered in dark hair, longer, denser and greater in area than before, it's something to behold. When I look up Clytemnestra is standing by the little white pile of my clothes, she's in the act of rising and has a scrap of white in her hand. My knickers! She brings them to her nose and inhales deeply as she looks me right in the eyes. I nearly stumble, stunned for the second time. "It was you," she says as I stagger from the water. She takes another big breath, holding the gusset right to her nose. "I wondered if it had been. It was you who pissed all over the path," she walks imperiously toward me until she's standing so close that I have to look almost straight up to see her face framed between those wonderful breasts. Before I can reply, if even I could, she presses my nasty knickers to my nose and despite myself I smell them. I enjoy the smell of piss and my own juice as she holds the little pants to my face and the next thing I know they're gone to be replaced by her own face. She kisses my roughly, leaning down and pulling me to her. Her long tongue forcing its way between my lips. She may have perfect human proportions from the waist up, but everything about her human part is bigger. To scale with the rest of her. Her tongue is long and thick and I am sucking it as much as I am kissing her. "Mm," is all Clytemnestra offers as she settles onto her knees and then further until she is lying before me, putting us almost on eye level. She takes another long sniff at my knickers and as soon as she finishes I kiss her again, holding tight around her and feeling her firm breasts against my own tiny titties. I'm lost in the sensation. The feel of her breasts, her smell. The sound of my heart beating so very hard. The taste of her lips. The taste of her tongue exploring my mouth, the honey pooling between my legs. The kiss only ends when I gasp as her fingers trace my cunt. She takes the opportunity to raise them to her mouth and lasciviously lick my juices from them. I look into her eyes and see only lust, burning like fire, she seizes me and I'm spun around to face away from her even as she clamps me to her. One hand roughly mauls at my breasts, the other again seeks my dripping cunt. She hauls my legs apart with irresistible strength exposing my furry slit. I try to moan as she strokes my opening, but her mouth covers mine. Her fingers press against my needy cunt sending electric waves of pleasure through me, wonderfully counterpointed as her other hand gently tweaks my nipple. Suddenly her tongue is gone from my mouth replaced by her fingers, and I greedily suck on my own mild flavour. She's biting on my ear now as her arm holds me ever tighter to her and her other hand returns to my bush. I strain to look down as her fingers disappear into my thick hair and cry out as she suddenly strokes a fingertip across my clitty. I'm hers utterly. My world is her hot breath in my ear, her strong arm around my chest, her wonderful, wonderful fingers caressing my cunt to heights undreamed. A feedback loop of pleasure from my clit to my nipples and back again. She strokes her fingers faster and faster through my wet slit, she rubs at my clit until I'm convulsing with pleasure and she kisses me as I come. I come harder than I ever thought possible, unable even to kiss back. She lets me fall to the ground where I lie, mewling as she licks her hand clean and takes another sniff of my pissy knickers. She stands and reaches down, all the way down to help me to my feet. I'm still a little unsteady and another long kiss doesn't help, I hold her close and she me. My feet leave the ground entirely, my weight nothing to her as she shares her hot, wild kiss with me. But that's not enough for her, not right now. I understand that wholly as she puts me back on the ground and without a word, turns her back on me. Her tail, almost dry now from the warm air, swishes restlessly and I can see her sex, dripping wet and pulsating. Glossy black outer lips winking wide to reveal the sweet pink within. How can I refuse? How can I resist? I moan her name, "Clytemnestra," that name to me right now is all that is woman, and all that is sex. I can wait no longer and lean forward to lick her slick equine sex from bottom to top. That alone makes her sigh contentedly but I don't stop there. I fall to with enthusiasm, lapping, licking, caressing that most extraordinary cunt. Sweet sighs of feminine joy rewarded me. Sighs and so much nectar, slightly thicker and more flavourful than my own, a little bitter and salty, and I insatiably drink down every drop with questing tongue and long, sucking kisses. With my left hand I explore the folds of her creamy cunt, finding her hard, jutting button with ease and stroking it with my thumb, while never letting up with my tongue. Clytemnestra cries out for pleasure and stamps a hoof the moment I touch her there. Her breathing becomes more erratic even as her cries become softer moans of pleasure and I devour her with my lips and tongue. Her juices coat my face, my hand, my neck, flowing down across my chest as our lovemaking goes on. My other hand reaches under her, and I soon find my target there between her legs: her nipples, her other, equine nipples. Big and stiff, I have my revenge for her abuse of my breasts, rubbing her clitty with my left hand and rolling one nipple and then the other with my right. The first tweak of her nipple makes her cry out, the next, sigh and her transports grow to a higher plane still. Her tail is sticking high in the air above me, the long hair tickling my back as I give her my all. When she comes it's like an earthquake. She cries aloud and her flanks and dock shake powerfully. The force of her orgasmic spasms knocks me to the ground and I look up, dazed, as she stamps and roars her pleasure to the world. Womanly fluids cascade from her quaking cunt and part of me can only lament that I am not there to receive them. She looks over her shoulder, smiling that smile I so love, "Not bad, sweetie." I wonder how to respond... Flippancy or nonchalance, or a declaration of love, or lust at least. Clytemnestra doesn't give me time. She's still looking at me over her shoulder and even as I try to summon some response her tail swishes to the side and a strong, hot jet of liquid strikes me. That brings me back to my senses very fast. I open my mouth trying to catch her precious pee. The stream is powerful and so very, very hot and there's so much. I can swallow only a fraction as it plays all over my face and body, my eyes shut tight and my mouth open wide questing for the hot salt flavour. It's over too soon and I'm drenched in her piss, sitting in a huge puddle that even now is soaking into the rich earth. For the second time, Clytemnestra picks me up and kisses me lustily. A long, sloppy kiss that intermixes with her licking my face and neck. I return it eagerly, and wrap my arms and legs about her torso, grinding my hairy cunt against her belly and smearing her piss all over her. She licks my cheek one last time. "Enough... Enough! Ooh, that's quite enough, lady," she laughs trying to put me down. "Not for me!" "Is that so?" She canters into the lake again and heaves me across the water with a mighty throw. I squeal, flailing all my arms and legs and am suddenly doused. Struggling to the surface coughing I cannot help but just laugh just as she is. She splashes over to me and dumps big double-handfuls of water over my head, rubbing her hands over my naked body, washing her pee off of my skin, out of my hair and I do the same for her, as best I am able. Both of us let our hands linger on our favourite parts of one another's anatomy. Both of us share many kisses, some brief, some not so as we play in the cool water. We lie on the soft grass as the sun and the warm air dry our naked bodies. I lie against Clytemnestra. The sensation of her slow, powerful breathing a strange pleasure to me. "Where are you going?" she asks. I have not moved, but that's not what she's asking, I think. I'd called myself a traveller. "I don't know where I am. Maybe I'm there already?" "That's no answer, little one." "It's all I have," I reply, a little petulantly, looking up at her. She's not looking at me, but across the lake, "Where are we?" My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 01 "Maybe it has a name, I don't know. Should one wonderer who doesn't know where she is expect better from another?" "You're a traveller too?" She looks at me over her shoulder and nods, "But I know where I'm going." I wait for her to continue, and she does, "Everywhere. The world is more beautiful than we can know. Larger than we can feel. Filled with more and more interesting people than we can imagine." "I believe you," I say, almost a whisper. Her voice is so sincere. She speaks almost religiously. "Why just today I made love to a stranger and then threw her in a lake! Imagine what tomorrow may bring." "If you like, you could make love to her again." She licks her lips and seems to think over the idea. "I could... unless of course..." "Unless?" "We're both travellers, but you think you may have arrived, and I have not. I go on." "I think I have arrived. I think you're my destination. So if you go on, so do I, for as long as you'll have me." I stand and kiss her again. "I'd like that," she puts her hand on my shoulder again and this time I can do the same, which makes her smile. I love her smile most of all. "Where are you going next?" She looks across the lake, "North, But I don't know what I'll find. What we'll find. These woods are big and I don't expect to be free of them for a little time. I think we'll stay here the night.. I had not expected to pause for so long and I doubt we'll find a better spot before nightfall." I look at the sky. The sun has moved but a little, westering since I'd entered the clearing, it is maybe mid afternoon. I wonder if the days are twenty four hours here, but I don't much feel like asking a question like that. I nod, "That's wise, this is a perfect place." Since I'm beginning to feel a little self conscious of my nakedness, I start to dress. Funny, that. I am a little self conscious, but I should be mortified to be naked, and to have done such lewd things with a stranger. I put on my clean white blouse and my messy white knickers. After a moments thought, though, I take my skirt and socks down to the shore and rinse them in the lake. Whether it's a property of the cloth or this strange, pleasant to drink water, I could not say but the pale yellow stains vanish almost immediately, cleansed as though by touch alone. After a moment's thought I wring them and put them straight on. A little primitive perhaps but body heat is a very efficacious way to dry clothes. Clytemnestra has produced a half-loaf of rich brown read from her satchel and offers me some when I've slipped my white boots on. It's dense and very flavourful, if perhaps a little stale. "Where's your pack?" she asks when I thank her for it. "I... I'm wearing everything I own," I conclude, weakly. I'd not considered that, until now. I have literally nothing but the clothes I stand up in. "Robbed?" "No, I... I... Well, I never intended to be here, or to go anywhere. Come to think of it I doubt I could have packed if I'd known before hand." "Ah, you're a runaway. What are you running from?" "Life, I suppose. My old life?" She thinks on that for a while, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want." "Thanks, Clytemnestra," I love saying that name. I eat a little more and thank her again for the food, for want of anything more useful to say, and for fear of the conversation ending. I'm beginning to understand that she has a taciturn streak to her, and I'm often at a loss for words, a symptom of the somewhat unusual day I'm having, no doubt. "Won't last," she says, and clarifies, "The food. I've only got a little." So saying, she stands and sweeps up her halter top, fastening it about her chest and denying me the view that I had been enjoying these last few moments. Her broad belt follows thereafter. "Where are you going?" "To get some food," she clarifies the statement by drawing her rifle from it's scabbard. It's easily six feet long with two barrels arranged over and under, I don't doubt it'd break a human's collar bone. She breaks it and slides two huge cartridges home before snapping it closed again. "Can I come with you?" "Can you stalk?" Well, yes I can, I'd hunted small game often as a youngster. I tell her as much but she looks doubtfully at my long skirt, and then at the fairly dense forest and I'm forced to concede the point. Clytemnestra takes a hatchet from her bag and hands it over, asking me to make a fire. I wonder how a woman of her size will fair in there, but she must know what she's doing and I let it go as she vanishes almost immediately upon passing the border. I heft the hatchet experimentally, for Clytemnestra it's a hatchet, for me a good sized axe. I select a smallish tree with suitable looking limbs and start to hack at them. I've never cut wood before and it's not as easy as it looks. My new body may be fit, but I don't have the technique and I make rather a hash of it over the twenty minutes or so that it takes me to hack half a dozen limbs from the tree with this over-sized axe. I carry them back to the lake shore and select a suitable spot away from the grass or anything else flammable looking. The part I'd really dreaded is now. No matches, no lighter, no tools of any kind save the axe. Thinking about a lighter makes me want a cigarette. One more problem, but a minor one compared. A quick examination reveals that all of the stones on the shore are sedimentary, not a sign of flint, not that I think I could make a fire with flint and the axe. I dither for a few more minutes before I hear a boom and a roaring, rolling echo from behind me. I take that as a sign that Clytemnestra's had more success than I and decide to wait for her. Presently, Clytemnestra emerges from the trees, rifle stowed and a wild pig lolling over her withers, held still with a careless hand. "Fire?" she asks. "I don't know how," I admit, "I've never had to make fire before, at least, not without tools." She giggles good naturedly and drops the pig to the floor exposing a mighty exit wound in its side. "Then I probably should have left you this," it's a little metal cylinder, a tinderbox, in fact. I've never seen one in person before and I cannot help but be fascinated as Clytemnestra kneels, and strikes sparks onto the charcloth, and then lights the kindling I'd already arranged. I doubt I'd have managed things half so well even if she had left me the tinderbox. I think I score a few points back when I'm happy and confident to help butcher the pig. Even if I'd only dealt with rabbits, geese, ducks and pheasants before. My dad would have been most unhappy to raise the sort of girl who couldn't handle cutting up the animals she'd shot. Clytemnestra has a long knife, it looks to me more like a fighting knife than a survival one, but we cut the flesh into long strips that can be cooked over our fire and share a little more of her bread. We cook as much as we can, to keep for the next day or two. I wonder at the whole affair. I'd have thought -- if I'd thought about it at all -- that centaurs would be herbivores. Clytemnestra certainly isn't, she eats with gusto and eats a great deal, too. I cannot recall the last time I've enjoyed a meal so. Partly it's the food, fresh meat always tastes better, and there's a lot to be said for it being cooked over an open fire. I think it's also very likely that the meat in this world is as superior as everything else seems to be too. Mostly though, I revel in the company. I immerse myself in simply being near Clytemnestra. She is the most sexually appealing woman of whom I can conceive, and moreover I start to understand that I simply like being with her on an entirely non-sexual level. Even though she says little as we eat I luxuriate in her presence. By the time we've butchered, cooked and eaten the pig -- and frankly, Clytemnestra did most of all of those things -- the sun has vanished behind the trees. We've spoken little. I think she wants to talk to me, but is unsure what to say. She seemed several times to be on the verge of speaking, only to see me look and change her mind. "Clytemnestra... I want to thank you..." "For the best sex you've ever had?" "Uh..." "Absolutely my pleasure, lady," she swoops in and kisses me, laughing. "Not just for that," I struggle to get back on track before my lust gets the better of me, "I want to thank you for... Well, everything. I think we've established that I'm woefully unsuited to being out here and I'm pretty lucky you showed up." "Everything happens for a reason. I got lucky too." "How so?" I ask. "No, listen -- I got lucky too." I stare at her for a moment, not sure how to respond to her taking something heartfelt and making a pun in reply. She seems to understand what I'm thinking, "Awww... don't be like that. Everything really does happen for a reason and when two people meet, both are equal in fortune. So take everything as it comes, give thanks if you want, but it's more important to be happy, and I am." "Me too." I sit pondering her philosophy as she stands and walks away without another word. She walks to the shore and produces a large canteen which she empties on the ground before refilling it, drinking and filling it again. I'm starting wonder how voluminous those satchels are given the things she carries in them. "Clytemnestra... I er... I suppose you haven't any tea in there, have you?" "Not a leaf." That's a real shame. Not to be any less casual than she I take up her axe again and go to cut a little more wood, lest the fire go out overnight. She lies by the fire as I return, the sight, as she is lit against the deepening twilight is inspiring. I dump the wood a little way from the fire and then move to stand by her side. "Are you... Oh!" whatever she's about to say is interrupted as I put one arm around her shoulders and with the other hand, cup a perfect breast, squeezing slightly through the leather. If she's going to say anything more I'll never know as I kiss her lips. I kiss her and circle in front to embrace her properly. I love the addicting feelings that flow through my body when I kiss her, when I feel her warm, soft lips against mine. Her lust grows with mine, our hard, sensuous kiss sharing feelings, needs that must be satisfied. I hold her with all my strength. Her arms are around me too, but far from still. She strokes my neck, my back, and runs her fingers down to my bottom. I gasp into her mouth when she gropes my arse coarsely and slides her hand beneath my waistband and between my cheeks. I break the kiss and stare into her great dark eyes. She leans forward and bites my lower lip, pulling me to kiss her again as her hand paws wantonly at my bum. That's all I need to start fumbling for the laces that hold her top closed and even distracted as I am I soon haul it over her head and have at my prize. I excitedly kiss her soft, firm breasts. I lick the dark flesh and trail my teeth lightly across her sensitive skin biting gently, as she thrusts them eagerly toward me. My sex is wet with arousal. So wet, I'm certain I must be juicier in this world than I ever have been before, and by a long, long way. I take a dark brown nipple gently between my teeth and pull ever so slightly before closing my lips about it. I risk a slightly harder nip and she squeaks in excitement. I can hear her long tail swish through the grass, and feel as she arcs her back thrusting those dark orbs forward. I trace the tip of my tongue around her stiff nipple and flick it over the tip. Her hands close around my head and she brings me up for a quick, hard kiss on the lips before directing me to her other breast. Clytemnestra moans as I nip and suck at her stiff nipple. My hand is inside my knickers and I moan too, stroking my centre. She takes her other bud between her fingers and tugs it obscenely. That gives me the confidence to be a touch rougher, biting and tugging until she cries aloud. I bite her with exquisite care, as she gasps my name. She reaches for my waist unfastening my skirt and it drops to the ground, the white cloth a pool of orange in the firelight. With that she's out of my grip, rolling onto her back. "Give it to me!" she calls, pulling at me with her hands even as all her legs kick at the sky. She pulls me down upon her and I settle my cotton covered snatch to her lips. I try to pull the crotch of my pants aside and she swats my hand away, licking at the sopping, stained material for her own pleasure and pressing with her lips for mine. I rock my hips and fuck myself on her mouth as her hands seize my own and bring them to her proud breasts. Somehow she speaks again, "Give it to me, lady!" and I do. I'm thankful I've had so much practice, enough to pee almost at will. It takes but a moment to feel the thrill as my already wet cunt floods her face with hot piss. I grind my cunt against her hard working mouth, waves of ecstasy radiating from my clit as she struggles to swallow the piss filtering through my much abused knickers. She grips me about the hips and guides my motion. Her lips and the fabric of my knickers stimulate my little clitty as she works hard to swallow. Her face is all wet, my thighs too. Her teeth rub against my lips through thin, wet cloth. I hump her face, pissing all over it and whimpering inarticulate noises to the darkness. I quiver as orgasm builds within my racked body and collapse upon Clytemnestra's supine form, sobbing with pleasure as I come, piss still leaking from my hairy cunt and she still drinking it down and licking me down from the heights of pleasure. "You're the best," I pant, "You're the best, you're the best, you're the best." "Then we're almost even," she says as I try to crawl off her. She pulls me back, "almost." Se laughs a happy innocent laugh at odds with what she's just done and I have to kiss her. I kiss her sodden lips, I lick my pee from her face, I taste it in her mouth, I drink it from the hollow above her collar bone, I kiss her again and again and again. Long wet wonderfully obscene kisses of lust and greed. "You taste good, don't you?" she she asks between kisses. "I do," I kiss her again, "but not," I lick her wet neck, "As good as you," I stand and walk to the other end of her long body, trailing a fingernail from her navel, all the way down her equine underbelly to her sex and eliciting a squeal of thrill for it. It's dark and I can scarcely see the pink folds within her quivering black quim but I can smell her arousal, overpowering and erotic beyond words. The ground and the base of her tail are wet with her love as I sit and lean forward to lick all the way from her dock up across her sphincter to her clit and further up until my face is between her spread rear legs and my lips find her erect nipples. Again she moans as I nibble her stiff buds and roll them between my fingers, tweaking them harder this time and making her gasp with pleasure and pain. I continue to suck and tease at her nipples while my fingers move back down. I feel the rough, winking, dripping lips and the soft, soft texture of her needy wet sex. I smell her arousal now underscored with the deeper scent of her coat, her body. My fingers brush teasingly along her lips until I know her frustration must be growing unbearable and then I glide just one into her centre as my thumb seeks her hard pleasure button and she shivers all over, almost coming. I bite just a little harder to bring her down and she grunts in pain and denial. I want to touch my own flooded twatt so badly but this is her time. She moans harder as another finger enters her pink folds, and then another and I wonder just how many she can take in her equine cunt. I slide three fingers into her and out again, rubbing her clitty with my thumb. Her juices splash on my wrist and on my thighs. I can wait no more, she takes four fingers easily and on the next stroke I fold my thumb against my palm and slide within her slick sex as she wails her joy. My lips leave her abused nipples and seek instead her clitty as I pump my closed fist inside her deep horse cunt. Her body surges back against me with every thrust of my arm into her. Her walls squeeze me so tight it almost hurts. A flood of wet love accompanies every out stroke, a gasp and a reciprocating push back every in stroke. She grunts every time I thrust my arm deeper inside her, cries every time my tongue lashes her clit. I pound my fist into her with all my strength, pushing up to my elbow with every stroke and loving the roars of passion I get from her. Her legs kick at the air and her tail tries to thrash at the ground between my open legs. Her cunt grips my arm so very tightly in time with her rolling waves of pleasure, growing with her ecstatic cries until the wave breaks and I have to gasp in pain as she comes and my hand is crushed by her internal muscles in the throes of her powerful, volcanic orgasm. I slowly, very slowly withdraw my arm. Clytemnestra whimpers happily with every little move I make and sighs loudly as it is finally expelled from her drooling, sated cunt. I lean down again and give her a big, slurping lick that makes her squeal again before I stand. My thighs are soaked in her juice, and my own, and I carefully lick the whole length of my forearm all over as I sit down by her lolling head. "Where've you been all my life?" That's a good question and I'm not at all sure how to answer it. I settle for a kiss, just a quick touch of my lips to hers. I pull my skirt on again and lie back as Clytemnestra rolls right side up again and shakes her wet tail. I imagine she's not too comfortable on her back. She pokes the fire with a stick and then snaps it in two to throw it into the flames. Her strength is effortless, a little frightening. I flex the fingers of my right hand, still sore from her orgasm. "You really don't want to talk about it?" "About what?" I ask. "Where you've been? It was rhetorical, but the way you reacted... Whatever you're running away from..." "I'm not running from anything. I shouldn't have said that. It's... No, I don't really want to talk about it." "I said you didn't have to tell me if you didn't want to." "Thanks," I reach out and she takes my hand in hers for a moment. That feels good. Her hand is big and strong, calloused but not rough. We both lie there for a long time after she lets go. I don't recognise any of the constellations overhead, and I'm a knowledgeable stargazer, I see no moon. The fire crackles cheerily nearby and strange night-sounds flicker in the forest over the ever present lapping of the lake. The night is only a little cooler than the day was and I'd be quite comfortable without the fire. I smell its pleasant smoke mixed with the scent of our sex and the perfumes of the forest. I don't recall a time I've ever felt so connected to the world around me, so in tune with the simple activity of living. "You're right, Clytemnestra, the world really is a wonder, and the people in it." "Ah, so I am." My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 02 CHAPTER II 'LECTO' Last night I'd have sworn I'd never sleep. Not on the ground, without even a cover, in this strange world and with so much to run through my mind. Yet I did, for now Clytemnestra wakes me gently. She says she'd like a little sleep. It seems she hasn't slept yet? The sky is rich purple and I think even a little lighter in the east, I must have slept many hours. I watch Clytemnestra as she settles herself. Apparently intending to sleep standing. That tallies. I stand and stretch my stiff joints, I could really go for tea and a cigarette about now but I settle for a little more of the pork we cooked last night and large handfuls of the sweet lake water. The fire has burned down to fine grey ash. I've nothing to do but wait. Wait and regard Clytemnestra's somnolent form in the growing light in the east. Dawn comes and the forest about us seems to wake almost as one. Birdsong and the calls of other, larger animals welcoming the new day. I'm impatient and increasingly bored, pacing around. Logically if Clytemnestra sleeps like a horse, she may need as little sleep as a horse, perhaps a couple of hours a night, and she'd certainly implied as much. She sleeps for less than that, in fact. I can't judge well with no watch or clock, but I think perhaps forty five minutes or so. I don't even realise that she's awake until I hear movement and turn to see her walk to the shore. She stretches all the way down to gather a great double handful of water and tip it over herself, and again before she's satisfied. By then I'm at her side and she smiles down on me, water dripping from her beautiful face and running in a channel between her breasts. I take her hands and pull until she leans toward me close enough for a long good morning kiss. Drops of water fall on my face from her short, floppy hair and for some reason I find that wildly exciting. "We should go soon," she says, straightening up, "The road's not getting any shorter." "I can't wait!" I really mean that. Clytemnestra shows me how to wrap the cooked pork in broad leaves to keep it clean in her satchels and we both drink as much as we are able before setting off, though she says that rain is coming in a day or two. I take her at her word though the sky is almost cloudless right now. I hope she's right because her canteen, large as it is to me will be scarcely sufficient for the two of us for more than that. Particularly since today promises to be as warm as yesterday. We set an easy pace around the lake, heading north and Clytemnestra explains her plans, which are our plans now. "The woods are big, On my own I should guess another four days to the northern border. Together, maybe twice that." I have the good grace to look embarrassed about that. She notices and dismisses any such feeling, placing a hand on the side of my neck, as close to an embrace as she can manage without stopping or leaning down. "I begrudge you nothing, lady. Your company promises to make our journey more agreeable than I had any right to expect." I put my hand on hers, and then in it and for a time we walk holding hands and she goes on. "The road we follow is little trafficked today, but I believe that once it leaves the forest it should soon join a main artery serving one of the northern cities and I have it in mind to visit the place. Beyond that I don't care to plan." There's something agreeable in her free-spiritedness and I give my assent. It's full day, bright and warm as we find the path again on the northern side of the lake. I'm happy to once again be under the shade of the canopy, even if it has no effect on the heat. As before, the path is somewhat grass-grown, obviously disused as Clytemnestra had said and I wonder who made it and why they stopped coming. So we walk for two days, talking at times, but more often not. Clytemnestra is as good as her word and never once asks me about my past, and I don't ask about her's. I learn as much as I can, though without giving away my profound ignorance of the word around me. I learn that the day is, at least roughly, twenty four hours long, with as much light and dark as I'd expect in the summer. There's no moon, Clytemnestra has never heard the word and when I describe it she wonders how I came up with such a bizarre concept. The nights are lighter than I expect though and the sky never gets darker than a rich bottomless purple. Sickness and disease are all but unknown here, but tea is widely drunk. Ideal. Clytemnestra likes to sleep about three hours a day, but broken up into up to a dozen little snoozes here and there. She says she prefers to sleep lying down, but doesn't have to, at least, not every day. I think she hasn't known many humans well, because my need for a good eight hours a night somewhat scandalises her. She has known humans though, that's worth knowing. I certainly am slowing her down, more than she feared, in fact not only by my slow pace but my need to sleep for so long. She really seems not to mind, though. She says she has all the time in the world. We don't make love again, though not for want of passion. Our lips often meet, our hands often stray to one another's body. The path feels inconducive to anything more, though. In the evening of the second day Clytemnestra finds a grove of wild amaranth and the leaves and tender stems make a nice addition to the last of our pork. She shows me where and how to dig for water, though we don't bother doing it since even I can tell it's going to rain tonight. It does. Great sheets of rain lashing down at our leafy roof. Perhaps two hours of monsoon like rain a little before sunset. We take what shelter we can beneath the densest parts of the forest canopy but it has little effect. We are soaked in warm rainwater in a way that's not actually unpleasant. Clytemnestra gathers water with a swatch of oilskin she has apparently for that purpose and makes licentious comments about the way my wet white clothes cling, nigh transparent, to my body. The rain ends almost as swiftly as it started. Clytemnestra says that's the way of rain, she seems surprised that I might think differently. Steam rises from her broad black back as we force our way a little deeper into the forest seeking some slightly dryer spot to rest for the night. It's pure chance that we see a glow of light through the trees. "I don't like that," she whispers to me, silently sliding her rifle from its scabbard and loading it with infinite care, "No fire should be burning so soon after such rain, and not so deep in the wood." I take her at her word. One'd certainly have to be going some to keep fuel dry in that downpour. I start to creep closer and Clytemnestra lets me get ahead, superior as her bushcraft is, she cannot help but make more noise than me in this dense woodland. I see it first, a little house, a cottage perhaps is a better word. Light flickers behind glass windows, firelight and I think perhaps something more steady too. Clytemnestra has moved much slower than I in her caution, but catches me up as I pause. "A house," I whisper redundantly. It looks ever so cheery to me, standing wet and bedraggled here in the wilds, "Do you think they'd let us lodge there tonight?" I'm not at all keen on sleeping on the wet ground, and it's hypothetically possible that such luxuries as tea might exist within. It has walls of irregular shaped stones stacked atop each other and a verdant sod roof that must keep it nicely warm in the winter, small clean glass windows and a red door. Well tended patches of vegetables grow about it in the small clearing it occupies and a little well stands nearby. All together agreeable. Clytemnestra seems to be considering broadly the same things as me, "It's often the case that folks will offer hospitality to travellers in return for news, company or a little coin. Thereagin it's often the case that folks will rob travellers." That puts a little dampener on my increasingly optimistic fantasies of what wonders may lie within, which had grown to include hot soup and cigarettes. "I find that folks are generally pretty decent if you give them the chance," I whisper back." "Do you?" "Yes. I do. And... I mean, you trusted me." "You're a lot smaller than I am, and unarmed. Anyone may live there." I have to concede that point, but deep down I think Clytemnestra feels the same as me about strangers, and probably about hot soup and tea. After a long moment's thought she slides her rifle back into her scabbard, though I note she doesn't unload it first. It has no safety and she's not given to keeping it loaded, so I don't imagine she's entirely trusting as we make our way slowly toward the cottage and emerge from the tree line. I knock at the door and we hear movement within, footsteps and the door is opened by a an attractive, narrow-waisted woman in a long dark red dress that shows perhaps a little more décolletage than is strictly necessary for an evening at home. She seems surprised to have visitors, but smiles at me and peers outside to look up at Clytemnestra. "Good evening, lady," Clytemnestra takes charge and I'm happy to let her, "My companion and I saw the light at your window and wondered perhaps if two weary wayfarers might find hospitality for a night? We have travelled far and did not think to find anyone living in this wood." "Nor should you have," the woman replies in an exotic sing-song accent that I find most attractive, "Few are those who walk the road I watch, and I alone live by it. Come in and be welcome for a night." She stands aside and motions us to enter. Just as I do I wonder if perhaps she has a pair of burly sons waiting to seize me as I cross the threshold, but no such thing happens. Inside the cottage is all one room with a flagstone floor covered in many rugs. Shelves over wooden chests line every wall holding a huge assortment of seemingly unrelated bric-a-brac. Clytemnestra has to bow low to pass through the doorway, only just fitting and she soon elects to settle on the floor by the large, empty stone fireplace. "My name is Lecto, and you are most welcome to my home, travellers." Clytemnestra gives her our names. I'm starting to feel rather exposed as I stand dripping wet in thin, clinging white clothes before this attractive stranger. For someone who apparently lives alone in the depths of a forest, she takes very good care of herself. Her dark blond hair is clean and arranged just-so, her short nails perfectly smooth and clean, it cannot be easy to work her gardens and maintain them so. Her exotic, spicy perfume is distinct from the delicate scent of the dried flowers and herbs that hang in little bunches from the rafters. "You are hungry?" she asks, perhaps seeing my eyes stray to the herbs and the little stock of vegetables and hanging game in one corner of the house. "We have eaten already, lady," Clytemnestra says, "Though if if you have wine we have a little coin." Lecto goes to the place where she's stocked her provender and produces a tall, stoppered jug that I'd previously not noticed, she pours pale wine into three earthenware cups and passes two to us. It's tart and I think quite strong. I cannot tell what it's made from, but not grapes. Clytemnestra drains her cup in one slow swallow and licks her lips. "Drink and be at rest, if only for a night," Lecto sips a little of her wine and I sip a little more of mine. Clytemnestra drops her cup to the floor and collapses after it. Without thinking I rush to her. Lecto is standing back, she points at me with her left hand, her fingers... They are glowing. "Hold! Girl, hold or it'll be the worse for you." I cower back against Clytemnestra's unconscious form as my skin begins to tingle. "Trespassers in my woods is it! And come even to me to beg shelter and wine... Wine!" "We didn't know!" I stammer out. "As though I care," the tingling of my skin intensifies and I feel the little bone buttons on my blouse start to unfasten on their own. Lecto still speaks, "Your spirits will nourish the forest that your bodies defile," unseen force rips the blouse from my body and I gasp. Lecto takes a step forward "But first, your body will serve me." Lecto drains her wine cup and I move as fast as I am able snatching Clytemnestra's heavy gun from the scabbard and swinging it 'round even as I pull the trigger. In the small stone cottage the report is like a physical blow. The gun is catapulted out of my hands and I fall back against Clytemnestra. I scrabble to sit upright, I can hear nothing but tinnitus. Lecto's body sprawls face-down on the floor. The shot must have spun her about. A mighty crater covers most of her back, and an equally mighty one mars the stone wall behind her amid smashed shelves and dripping red gore. I sit stunned for some time, thinking nothing, feeling nothing. The first sensation that reaches me is movement. My back is tight against Clytemnestra and her long, slow breathing rocks me gently as I come to my senses. Blood soaks the rugs beneath Lecto, it darkens the already dark red dress she wears. I can just about stagger to the door before horror-born nausea overtakes me. Even as I vomit I'm a little proud that I made it to the door first. I shake all over as I timidly approach Lecto's body and queasily throw a rug over her. It's only when I turn away that I realise my white top is still lying on the floor. I put it back on with shaking hands and try to rouse Clytemnestra. I'd have as much success trying to wake Lecto. She's out cold, hominine torso stretched across the floor. I find a nasty gouge in her flank, bleeding a little and probably badly bruised, from where the butt of her gun hit her when I fired. I don't understand that. She'd drunk her whole cup, but Lecto and I had both drunk too and and Clytemnestra must weigh half a ton or more. No drug could have done that to her and not affected us. I'd swear Lecto hadn't had the chance to slip something into one cup and not the others, I'd watched her pour them out. I pace back and forth, too nervous, too sick to sit, certainly to sleep. I check on Clytemnestra often, and she does not change, always breathing comfortably, her pulse strong, very strong in fact. I cannot quite bare to look at the lumpen shape beneath the rug by the wall. I examine the strange collection of things that line the shelves all around me. It seems obvious now. There's cooking gear, mess tins, tinderboxes, lots of things like that. There are compasses and walking sticks, several firearms of different types and other weapons besides, clubs and daggers mostly. It seem obvious that Lecto has taken most of these things from travellers in 'her' woods. Everything on these shelves I could see being carried by some luckless bastard drugged and murdered by Lecto. What had she said? That our bodies defile it, but our spirits will nourish it... And then, then there's what she'd done. Her fingers had glowed, literally shed light, she'd undone my buttons and ripped the shirt off my back without touching a thing. It all smacks of, of magic. I might've guessed. I think I'm taking the implications of my deduction pretty well, but I've spent the last three days with a centaur, so there's a level of acclimatisation at work. It has a logic to it. A witch in the woods, makes perfect sense. My mind runs in circles about these ideas for some hours. I cannot bring myself to pick up Clytemnestra's rifle where it lays pointing -- naturally -- at the body so badly hidden. My hands still shake. Worse when I look at the gun, or where it is pointing. I cannot help but practice my justifications. She is a bandit, very likely a murderer, quite possibly a wicked witch, and sounded very much like a rapist. She'd drugged my friend, I was acting in self defence, I'd had no time to think. I wonder if any one of those things actually makes what I did okay, or even all of them together. Now I wonder if I'd feel the same way if she'd looked like a wicked witch instead of the attractive lady with the alluring accent she had been. I wish Clytemnestra were awake. It's very dark outside now, but four oil lamps glow brightly in the cottage. I try to turn them up a little more, wanting more light, but there are no wicks, no oil in any, just flame, burning nothing. Despite my earlier conclusions that frightens me a little and I retreat to the centre of the room, sitting right against Clytemnestra, in the crook of her foreleg. She is a big, warm presence against me, and I feel a little calmer. It's some hours later. At times I've paced, or tried to fiddle with the things on the shelves, but mostly I've sat with Clytemnestra. I've put some more rugs and some cushions from Lecto's bed under her hominine body and I hear these rustling as she stirs in her sleep. I shake her, cry out her name and she stirs more restlessly, waking slowly with unfocussed eyes. I wrap my arms around her, hold her tight and she holds me without really knowing why, I think. "I... I..." she looks around, disentangles herself from me. She sees her gun on the floor immediately, she sees the shape under the rug against the wall, the wet red bullet hole in the wall. She takes hold of me again, both hands on my shoulders, "What happened?" "She drugged you! She... I... I mean, she drugged you and then, her hand was glowing. And she said our spirits would feed the forest. She was going to hurt us. Look at all this stuff, she took it from other people." Clytemnestra picks up her rifle, breaks it and extracts the shells, one empty, one charged. "She said our bodies defiled the wood, but out spirits would feed it and her hands were glowing and then I started to feel weird all over, and I got your gun and, well..." Clytemnestra just nods. She stows the gun and takes me into her arms again, soothing me, "If she was a sorceress that will be why no one comes here any more," she holds me tight as I melt into her, "You did well. It's a good thing this place is so small. Not many people could have shot a sorceress." "I didn't mean to!" "You didn't?" "No! Or, maybe, I just, she was coming for me and I reacted without thinking and I killed her." "Ah. Good thing too. World's a lot better off without her witchery, and I think all the people who came here before us would agree." "That doesn't make it okay." She thinks about that for a moment, "Well, no, in a sense, it doesn't, No right thinking person ever celebrated a death, but I think the next person who passes this way might disagree with you. Her deeds were bound to catch up with her sooner or later, evil sown is evil reaped." "What are we going to do now?" "I won't speak for her spirit, but her body is going to feed the forest. In the morning, we'll go on. The sun will rise, I'll kiss my lady, the world will turn and travellers abroad will be a very little safer." Clytemnestra hushes me with a finger as I am about to speak again, she rises quite steadily to her hooves. For my sake I think she picks up Lecto's body, rug and all and carries it outside. She's gone for several minutes and I just wait for her to return. She returns, ducking low through the doorway and I go to her, wanting again the comfort of her arms. I feel her pick me up and she carries me the few steps into the middle of the room where she gracefully settles down and places me on the cushions I had gathered for her. She tenderly kisses me again as she lays me down. Our lips part, I look into her great dark eyes, I feel the heat of her body over me, her firm breasts against me, her hand running up my thigh. Her finger brushes over my centre and all the horrors of the night are forgotten in my desire for the woman above me. Another kiss, her tongue probes my mouth, her hands glide around my hips and up, and up. She catches my blouse, pulls it over my head without troubling to unfasten it. Her fingernails trail across exposed skin, across my shoulders, my breasts, my nipples, electric paths of pleasure and anticipation. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 02 My sex aches for her to touch me there again, but she does not. Her skilled fingers tease at my nipples while she kisses a trail from my lips down. When she takes a nipple in her mouth I moan aloud and my hands try to force her lower, but she does not move. The gentlest nip of her teeth warns me not to rush her. She licks her way to the other tip and the slow teasing stimulation starts again, until I think I'll not stand it any longer. Finally she's satisfied in her work and she resumes her kissing, licking journey lower. She pauses again at my navel but I am distracted by the surge of hope as her hands pull my skirt down and I can kick it off. I try to pull my wet knickers off and her strong hands force mine away as her lips have reached my needy cunt. She takes a long, slow lick of the drenched fabric, and another before she pulls them slowly down my legs. Finally I am laid open before her. My hands pull her head toward me and for once she does not resist, lowering her lips to my cunt with a lust almost the equal of my own. I gasp as she gives me a long deep lick, more for her pleasure than mine and then she settles her wonderful lips deep into my thick delta of hair. She eats noisily, wetly at my dripping cunt and I'm lost in pleasure, writhing under her stroking tongue, I grip great handfuls of the rugs and cushions, I shudder wonderfully as her upper lip caresses the hood of my little clit and cry nonsense as her tongue encircles the point itself. Agonisingly, she backs down before I can come, her lips slow, her tongue retreats and for long moments she she slowly teases me down from the hight of ecstasy. She sucks on my outer lips and laps at the juices dripping freely from my overheated honeypot. I look down, her face is buried in my hairy cunt but her eyes look straight into mine. In that moment her tongue laps at my clit and I come, my eyes locked with hers until I fall back, squirming and crying out. The air is sweet with perfume, I'm warm and comfortable and I don't want to move. Soft sounds of birdsong and gentle movement invade my ears along with a rhythmic striking sound that I think must have woken me. Wait, where am I? I open my eyes. It's morning, sunlight streams through the cottage's small windows. I'm in bed, Lecto's bed! I freeze expecting creeping horror to overcome me but somehow, it does not. I feel barely a tremor as everything of last night comes back to me. Clytemnestra is lighting the fire, she sees that I am awake and smiles sweetly. "Sleep well?" "What happened?" "You fell asleep, so I put you to bed. I think you were a bit overcome." "Overcome isn't the word I'd use," I say shedding the blankets and standing, naked. "Well, I'm not one to boast." "That's not what I meant," I gather up my clothes. "Even so, you had a stressful experience. I thought it best to take your mind off of it, the best way I know how. Things like that catch you up eventually. Wait, wait, don't put that on." "You're insatiable! Can't I at least have a drink first?" Clytemnestra laughs and shakes her head, "That's not what I meant. I've been going through some of these things. Most of the sorceress's clothes should fit you and you can't wear the same thing every day." "You do," I reply half-heartedly, looking through a modest selection of clothes that Clytemnestra has set out. It looks like every garment Lecto owned was some shade of red. I pick up a pair of her knickers and smell them. They are clean, but there is that unmistakeable, exciting scent of woman. That gives me pause as I realise what it is I'm doing. I'm smelling the knickers of a dead woman, one I killed, and I'm getting hot. Clytemnestra slaps my bum. "Get dressed, naughty. There'll be time for that later," she ducks out of the door. Chastened, I slip the red knickers on along with a long wine-coloured dress and my white boots. I feel... conflicted. I don't feel the horror that I should, though. There is something, some sense that what I did last night was wrong, but I feel distant from it -- as though it happened years ago, as though I've had all the time I need to come to terms with something that no one should ever do, and why I did it. I am troubled, but not by what I did, or how I feel about it, but by the lack of feeling. As I pull my boots on Clytemnestra comes back in with a big clay pitcher of well water. "I think we can call this a win from almost any angle," she says pouring the water into an iron kettle which she hangs over the small fire she's made, "We made this wood a little safer for everyone else, we found you something to wear and unless I miss my guess, some of this stuff will fetch a pretty penny in the city." I don't care about that right now, Clytemnestra is boiling a kettle! "Is there tea?" "There certainly is! I thought you'd be happy about that." To say the least, I am. It's rich and dark and aromatic, and not any variety that I recognise, but it's real tea, perfect and cleansing for to a troubled soul. I drink it slowly savouring the heady steam and the bitter, earthy aftertaste while Clytemnestra watches occasionally, smiling at the pleasure she's brought me. She is rattling around the room opening chests and scanning shelves, examining Lecto's stolen possessions, sometimes selecting something and laying it on the bed. She seems to be selecting things based on saleability, she's gathered a goodly amount of jewellery and coin, almost all the firearms, a couple of handsome leather books and anything else that looks more valuable than bulky. The books prove to be, for want of a better word, spell books. Hand written records of Lecto's magic. They are incomprehensible to me, but just the idea is thrilling. "You should take one of these for yourself," she waves at the guns, "It might be good for both of us," she rubs her flank where the blow she'd taken from her own rifle butt is swollen and sore looking. "I'm sorry about that, I really didn't mean to..." "I'm honestly glad you did. You saved both our lives and that gun was never intended to be used by anyone your size. I think we both came out the other end better than we had any right to expect." "Does it hurt bad?" "Yes. Yes it does." I stammer and she sweeps me closer to plant a kiss on the top of my head, "All the same I'd feel better if you had a gun made for small, breakable people." There's not much to say to that, and in fact, after last night I would feel better armed. I look over the firearms and select a lever-action rifle with a beautiful polished walnut stock furnished in silver. I'm not sure Clytemnestra is as impressed by it as I am. Her own rifle is much more utilitarian, but this one fits my shooting stance perfectly and if the finely adjustable sights are anything to go by, it'll prove highly accurate. Clytemnestra scrounges up the cartridges that go with it and the tube-magazine accepts six of the two dozen she finds. I'm inclined to keep the magazine charged. I genuinely do feel better for being less helpless in what I now know to be a potentially deadly world. I'm even a little tempted to take an attractive rapier, but I know nothing about swordplay, and I'm not quite dumb enough to think I can wing it. But I do see something I can use, and it excites me far more than it probably should. "What's that?" Clytemnestra asks, seeing my pick up the brass disc, grinning like a child. "A slide-rule!" I show her how the cursor rotates about the disc. "What's it for?" "Maths!" I ask her for a couple of big numbers and multiply them together, then divide them. I think she's impressed in an abstract sense, but she clearly doesn't share my excitement. "It's a good job you're pretty," she concludes, leaving me to my toy. It is a very nice rule, though, both aesthetically and in terms of function, having both trigonometric and root functions as well as the normal log scales. A good portion of the morning has slipped us by by the time we've packed up everything we want to take and I've zeroed the sights of my rifle as best I can without wasting more than six shots. Clytemnestra makes me bring the spent brass with me. All of my clothes, a good sized canteen, my slide-rule and almost a pound of tea go in a tough-looking leather pack with the brass. Well, almost all of my clothes. "Clytemnestra," I call, while packing, "Where are my knickers, my old white knickers?" "Maybe someone's put them in her own bag... For when she's alone." And she'd called me naughty. It's fair to say that Clytemnestra is carrying far more than I. Everything except my pack and my new rifle is lashed from her broad back and, even accustomed to her feats of strength as I am I wonder if she hasn't underestimated the difficulty of hauling all this stuff for more than a week. Nevertheless, she never complains about it as we walk. Even I, now carrying a rifle and a canteen and a pack full of clothes feel lighter putting that place behind me. The path from the cottage takes us directly to the wider way we've been following since the lake and we resume our slow progress northwards. Clytemnestra says I look good in red and better with a gun. She says it wouldn't do for a centaur to fall for someone who cannot shoot, but all I hear of that is 'fall for'. "Centaurs learn to shoot as soon as we can hold a gun. We're the best hunters, the best markswomen and the best gunsmiths in the world. Humans overcomplicate things. I could have guessed you'd choose that gun, I've never seen a more human looking gun in all my days. No matter though, follow me and you'll cut an apple's stalk at a hundred yards." I'm a fair shot, or at least I was when I was younger, but that seemed unlikely. I let her go on though. I just plain like the sound of her voice. "Why the sword, then?" "What?" "Why do you have that sword? I can't imagine it's more useful than a gun?" "People, of course." "People!?" "You were lucky with the sorceress. Close range and maybe she hadn't even shielded herself, who knows, but you can't rely on that." Clytemnestra explains, she's surprised that she even needs to, that most people, at least, most people who are at all likely to be shot at, are protected by spells. Magical shields that any sell-spell will cast for a small fee. She says such spells will turn most bullets, almost all of them beyond point-blank range but have a much harder time turning the blade of someone trained to fence against them. It's the sort of thing that everyone should know and my ignorance is clearly out of place. It's also disturbing to my recent feeling of confidence. I really am lucky that Lecto was so close when I fired, and that Clytemnestra's rifle is so large a calibre that her shield could not turn it. Clytemnestra says she has such a spell on her and is worried that I do not. It'd never occurred to her to ask. We stop for the night at a picturesque stone bridge which flies in two short arches across the river we'd seen leaving the lake four days ago. It's perhaps still a little early to stop for the night, but we think we won't find a more agreeable spot. I'm glad of the halt and though she doesn't say it, I think Clytemnestra is too. She shucks her load with every sign of pleasure and splashes into the river to sooth her tired muscles. I am more tired than I have been before at the end of day on account of the extra weight I'm carrying. I can but reflect on how poorly I'd be bearing up if my body were as it should be, rather than this fit, strong form I'm wearing here. I prepare a fire while Clytemnestra bathes. I'm getting pretty good at fire making, though Clytemnestra's firesteel is sized for a centaur's hand and is a touch unwieldy for me. I should have tried to find one amongst the travelling gear at Lecto's cottage. Ah, hindsight. Clytemnestra comes back to me, wet and naked and lovely. It really is surprising the difference between clothed and naked on her. The only things she ever wears are her halter top and that belt, most of her body is never covered, and yet... Somehow, to me there is a profound psychological difference between her naked and clothed states. A difference that I cannot fully explain. Centaurs have no shame about their bodies, she'd told me before, and will happily go naked at all times. Clytemnestra regards humans' clothing as a harmless, slightly adorable cultural foible and only wears a halter top to stop her breasts bouncing painfully when she needs to move. The fire and the late evening sun glisten off her wet, dark skin in a most attractive way and if I were not so tired and hungry I think she'd have to watch her back very carefully. Clytemnestra relaxes on the soft grass while I boil water for tea and play with my slide-rule for the simple mechanical pleasure of it. She watches me like I'm a baby who'd rather play with the box than the Christmas present that came in it. "May I see the books we took?" I ask her presently. "Of course," she hands them over, "I guessed you could read when you got excited over that toy." "Toy... wait, you can't?" "I'm no scholar." That's interesting. I suppose literacy isn't something I should take for granted, even amongst demonstrably intelligent people like Clytemnestra. "They're spellbooks, aren't they, I bet?" I nod, "They seem so." "Thinking of learning sorcery, are you?" That's... That's an interesting question. In fact I'm simply curious. I want to see if they say anything about the shields Clytemnestra had told me about. That and just again to see real spell books. "Can people? Can one just... Learn sorcery?" I ask. "They must be able to," she says,, "Else how could anyone become a sorceress?" "Is it that simple?" "I doubt it." I open the smaller book at the beginning. It's akin to some kind of work book or research journal. Most of it means nothing to me, less than nothing, but there are notes, margin scrawls, points of conjecture and such that I can read. I scan through page after page. Here and there, reading everything that I can. The whole book is the same, as is the other, larger volume, though this one is unfinished, the last two thirds blank paper waiting to be filled. I go back the the smaller book and start at the beginning again. Clearly, this is not the first book Lecto ever used for this purpose, the first pages are little different to the last, rather than showing any kind of growing complexity like one'd expect from a learner. "Why'd you take these if you're not thinking of learning sorcery?" "Spellbooks are probably worth something to someone, and I didn't want to leave them laying around to fall into just anyone's hands." That makes sense. I carry on reading, skipping between both books and find nothing that seems anything to do with a spell shield. Nevertheless I keep at it most of that evening, until the light starts to fade, and most of the next few evenings as I find I am beginning to comprehend what's going on in these opaque texts. I notice repetitions in the spell-writing. Phrases and strings that crop up together, or in related ways throughout the books. I begin to deduce that certain words are always associated with light, or liquid or pain. It seems to me that magic is very much like a computer language, and spells are very much like programmes written in the language and executed by the universe. Those are the analogies I use to myself for magic seems to possess all the positive and negative traits implied by them. Magic seems to be utterly logical and complex only in the sense that it is usually an agglomeration of many very simple elements. On the downside it seems dangerously literal and most useful spells appear to require a very complex arrangement of those simple elements. Real sorcery seems very daunting, certainly a lifetime's work, but I imagine almost anyone could come to grips with a 'hello world' sort of spell. I begin to create one. An essay in magic to test my theories and to prove that those elements I think I understand do mean what they seem. I study in the evenings and we walk all day. The path now runs along the bank of the river, which has grown broad and calm. We stop only briefly every couple of hours. Clytemnestra often likes to sleep for ten or fifteen minutes during these pauses. When she does I read from Lecto's books. Clytemnestra asks me if I really am teaching myself magic and I admit that it is so. She's supportive, but warns me against taking too much inspiration from books which belonged to one who clearly abused magic. On the night of the eighth day I think I'm ready. Clytemnestra expects that we will find the edge of the forest tomorrow or perhaps the day after. We are camped on the riverbank and have a small fire burning as normal -- Clytemnestra has shot a bear and we're cooking the least tough meat. "I think I'm ready to try a little magic." "Are you certain?" "As I can be," I say confidently. Clytemnestra still looks skittish and I cannot blame her, though I'm only afraid of failure, rather than disaster. I cannot imagine any way the spell I've designed can go wrong, other than by simply not working. I look into the fire, think the spell-machine I've designed and the flames turn purple-blue. Clytemnestra flinches, startled and my skin tingles just like the last time I was near magic. She peers at the amethyst fire, "Is it safe?" "Well... Not really. It's still fire." "Is it safe to cook over it?" "It's exactly as it always was, but for the colour." "You're sure?" "Without a doubt," and I am. The spell is very very simple, there's nothing in it that can alter any property of the fire but the colour of light it sheds. I can almost see the logic-processes at work beneath the universe - an endless logical flow of execute, if-then and go-to. Magic cannot do anything but what it is told, to the letter. The flames burn purple all night, as I know they will. I'd set no end-condition in my spell so it will last as long as the fire does. Clytemnestra calls me her sorceress and holds me against her as we watch it burn, I can feel her pride. I ask her to tell me about the north, and about the city we're heading for. "I don't know what it's called. No one does." "No one?" "No one I've spoken to. Few travel the old forest road today, and with good reason, and if there is a road west of the mountains I don't know it. They say the north is a land of city states, every one a princedom unto itself. Some trade with one another and some likely plot war after the manner of princes everywhere." "But there's one near here?" "Perhaps. It's said this path joins some wider way and roads don't exist without places to go. Likely we will find our city, but I care not very much." "You don't?" "I've enjoyed travelling with you this little time, lady. I could stand to travel much farther in your company, and the world is full enough of good things to see that missing one city will not matter much." "I've enjoyed travelling with you too," I say, snuggling deeper into her embrace, "More than I've ever enjoyed anything before." "You'll make me vain talking like that." "Will it be dangerous? The north?" "I should think so, everywhere is in its right way. What have we to fear though? Are we not a markswoman of the Dawn Plains and a mighty sorceress?" I look up at her liquid eyes lit by the flickering purple fire and can feel her lust for life, if not her confidence. "Tell me about the south, then, if you can't talk about the north. Tell me about the Dawn Plains." "Ah, you should see my country. Where the high plain lasts forever and the sky is so large you might never see it all." I've never asked Clytemnestra about her past, self conscious of my refusal to share mine, but 'Dawn Plains' sounds romantic to me and there is obvious pride on the way she speaks. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 02 "The sunrise is swift and fierce and far seeing, like the people. The wildflowers cover everything and game of every kind so abundant that hunters may choose only the best." "I should very much like to see it." "You may, and yet, perhaps not if you travel with me. There's so much more I have to see before I ever think of home." "Don't you think you'll ever grow tired of wandering?" "I hope not. And there are advantages to being a wanderer." "Such as?" To answer me she slips a hand under my red silk top and massages a small breast, "I meet the most interesting people." I wriggle delightedly back against her hard body and her other hand starts pawing at me too. It slides under my waistband and inside my knickers. I push my centre into her questing fingers and squeak as she nips with her teeth at the tip of my ear. Her hand comes back and she rubs my juice between her fingers. I lean forward to lick it up but she smears it over my lips and kisses me hard from behind. I hear her tail swish through the grass, lashing back and forth as it always does when she's aroused. I want her so badly! She gently pinches my stiff nipple as her left hand takes another slow swipe of my honeypot. I franticly unbutton my top. Her fingers are coated in my juice again and we both suck on them, kissing and licking her wet fingers in equal measure. I struggle to my feet and shed my skirt awkwardly while Clytemnestra gropes at whatever she can. She licks my hairy armpit and then plants a healthy swat on my arse when I giggle, dancing out of her reach clad only Lecto's lacy red pants. Before she can rise and pursue I scamper around behind her and slap her bum in return. "Ah!" she cries out, so I spank her again. "Will you play fair?" "Oh! Yes! Another stinging slap on the other side of her broad bum, "Will you play nice?" "Anything, lady," she moans, twitching that gorgeous equine rear at me." Smack! "Will you piss all over me?" My drippy knickers get even wetter at the nasty question. "Try and stop me!" I don't. Her tail swishes more excitedly still and I drop to me knees behind her, her hindquarters rising to meet me. I plant a long wet, licking kiss on her delicious cunny filling my mouth with the taste. "Mmmm," she moans, "It's coming." My fingers rub my wet sex through a thin layer of red silk and my tongue lightly traces her quivering black lips. "It's coming," her voice is heady with lust. "Piss on me, Clytemnestra," I pant between sloppy, slurping licks at her quaking cunt, "Piss all over me!" My hips rock back and forth, driving my snatch against my wanton, rubbing fingers. Clytemnestra's hot love drips from my chin and runs down my naked chest. Her womanhood spasms around my tongue and an instant later I am driven back by torrent of hot urine. My stinging eyes snap shut and I fall back, startled by the force, I'm instantly soaked head to foot. Masturbating furiously I open my mouth to catch the wild stream as it plays across my whole body. My sex pulses with every splash of steaming piss. I rub harder and faster with each second, coming closer to nirvana every moment. Clytemnestra jerks her rear and the jet of piss washes all over my face. The taste alone sends me over the edge, my sex convulses and I fall back, panting on the wet ground, steaming gently in the amethyst firelight. The last of her urine sluices from Clytemnestra's equine slit. I'm not done with her yet. I kneel up again, even as the aftershocks make me clasp my wet thighs together. Clytemnestra's cunt drips with love and piss, the smell is overpowering, divine, sexual beyond words. I drink down the cocktail flowing from her winking sex, lapping at her sensitive walls, pulling at her soft lips with my own. I feel her secret place pulsing around my tongue as I lick her deep within. She moans as my fingers massage her proud clit. Her body is shaking with pleasure. I spread her lips with both hands, and lick her slick sex all the way up until she shrieks in surprise when my tongue lightly strokes her tight little bum. The slightest touch there makes her quiver and I cannot help but do it again, harder this time before moving back down. I lap delicately at her clitty before taking it between my lips. I flick my tongue across the swollen centre of her desire and her body tenses all at once and she cries aloud. I lick her lips hard and press my face deeper into her spasming cunt as she comes, hammering the ground with her fists. I stride impudently around to stand in font of her, licking my lips, "You're right... There are advantages in being a wanderer." I leave her with a lingering, wet kiss and wade into the river to wash my skin and hair clean. I'm feeling fantastic. I've demonstrated legitimate magical power, and my ability to bring so magnificent a woman as Clytemnestra to the height of pleasure is every bit as wondrous to me. I feel about a hundred feet tall as I strut wet and almost naked back toward the fire. I peel off my knickers and lay them out to air dry while I sit dripping on Lecto's red blanket, letting the fire and the warm night air dry my skin. Clytemnestra cannot take her eyes off me, It's all I can do not to shout and laugh and roar defiance at the gods themselves. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 03 CHAPTER III 'ISIS & JUNO' Clytemnestra's sources, whoever they were, had been accurate. Within an hour of leaving the forest our path meets a real road. A wide, straight, flagged road on a raised dyke that shoots arrow-straight in both directions across the open green farmland to vanishing point in the east. It terminates in the west in a dark smudge of city nestling amongst the foothills of the imposing, muscular mountains which had loomed over our shoulder throughout our woodland journey. Here and there little blurs of other traffic can be seen on the road, but far less than so broad an artery deserves. People work the fields either side of the road, growing the food the city needs to prosper. "Think we'll make it by nightfall?" I ask, pessimistically. "I could, you won't." I've wondered before about the protocol and politics of asking her to carry me. I have no intention of actually asking, especially not when she already has a lot of weight to carry from Lecto's house, but the thought does cross my mind from time to time. So we walk. Clytemnestra's unshod hooves clop cheerfully along the worn flagstones and I tinker with spell elements in my mind. It's altogether a pleasant walk for perhaps an hour until another sound reaches us: gunfire. We both turn as one and shading my eyes against the sun I can make out a big wagon perhaps half a mile behind us. Little figures scamper about it and there's another gunshot. Immediately Clytemnestra is thundering towards the scene and I hare after her as best I can. She outpaces me easily, but even at full gallop she can load and fire that colossal gun. She fires twice and the figures, five or six I think, scatter. I guess they must have spell-shields because I cannot imagine Clytemnestra missing, even at the gallop. Desultory return fire patters back at her... And me! I skid to a halt, not daring to go any closer unprotected. I drop to my knee, working the lever of my rifle to chamber a round and sighting along the barrel as Clytemnestra crashes into the scattering figures, sword drawn. She hews down two before I can do more than that and the rest flee as I let fly, aiming wide despite Clytemnestra's shield. My shots have no effect save perhaps chasing the fleeing figures of a little more emphatically. Hands shaking I sling my rifle and trot the good distance to the wagon, where Clytemnestra waits, blood-slicked sword in hand. Two corpses, both cleaved almost in two lay haloed in blood on the road and I note academically that the sight does not affect me nearly so strongly as Lecto's body did. A pretty, brown-skinned woman clutches the reins of the wagon and stammers her thanks to Clytemnestra, who callously wipes her blade clean on a scrap of her foe's clothing and sheaths it. "Think nothing of it, lady. Bandits are the enemy of all." "If you hadn't been there... I just don't know what I would've done!" she cries, standing on the running board and clutching at Clytemnestra's hand. She is in fact a startlingly pretty woman, with very fine, elfin features, deep, clear brown eyes like a gazelle and long, lustrous black hair, not only on her head, but distinctly peeking out from under her arms. Her bust is nearly flat under a cream-coloured linen blouse trimmed with lace. "They would have robbed you of everything you carry," Clytemnestra sniffs dismissively, "what is it you carry?" The wagon is open-topped and filled with big barrels, at least a dozen of them. "Spirits, exotic spirits." That's torn it. Clytemnestra has mentioned, more than once, her love of a good drink and I can almost see the wheels turning in her head. "You were lucky we were here. They would have taken every drop. Wicked women they were, maybe would have had their way with you first." "I really cannot thank you enough!" "Perhaps there's some more solid way to show your appreciation... Or liquid way," Clytemnestra smiles hopefully, "It's just a shame those bastards ran away so soon. My companion here is a sorceress, you know." I nod dumbly when the woman looks at me and wonder how deep Clytemnestra can dig. The woman looks between us for a moment and then nods, "Of course! My sister and I run an ordinary in the city, the Cross Staves. You are most welcome! Both of you!" "You are too kind," replies Clytemnestra as though she's not planning to drink the place dry. "Would... would you travel with me? You are going to Pyre Silver?" "We'd be delighted." That's that. The woman invites me to sit by her on the wagon and she whips up her four oxen. She introduces herself as Isis and I introduce myself and Clytemnestra, who walks companionably alongside. "You're really a sorceress, Mistress?" she asks, not quite looking me in the eye. I think fast and have no choice but to allow that it is so, "I am." Well, I am in a very very technical sense. I've cast three different spells in my life and own two spellbooks. It's not a lie, just a massive exaggeration. Isis asks why we're going to the city – to Pyre Silver – and I have to think for a moment before replying. I settle on, "We're simple wanderers. We travel the world for its own sake." "That sounds nice," she sighs. "It has its moments." "Ah, but then, I couldn't do that. I've too much to leave behind, and besides, seven days' journey from Pyre Huntingbird nearly did for me, had you not been there." "Clytemnestra saved you, not me," I point out truthfully. Not that I really want to disabuse her of any goodwill she might have for me, she's a most attractive woman. "You'd have done the same if your legs were less short," Clytemnestra lies, smiling. Part of me wonders how willingly she'd run into a fusillade without magical protection, but honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if she would act just the same. I unsling my rifle and start sliding fresh cartages into the tube magazine. It seems a suitably martial, 'woman of action' sort of thing to do at that moment and it has the desired effect on Isis, who looks at me with something not a hundred miles away from awe. It's a look she gives me again that evening when we halt a little way off the road. Clytemnestra cut some firewood before we left the forest and has been carrying it ever since. I never even thought to. She arranges it in a little pile and hands one of the stouter pieces to me. I hold it in my hand and mentally tell it that it's twenty times as hot as it was. It starts to smoulder, and within thirty seconds, is alight. I've kindled fire with a thought, just as I did last night. I've almost no idea how I might create fire from nothing, creating anything from nothing seems to me very very complicated, but altering a single property of something that already exists, temperature, for example, is almost too easy. Isis gasps when smoke appears, and leaps almost to her feet when flame overtakes the end of the stick. I wriggle it into the middle of the firewood and tell her that everything is okay. She does settle down, but keeps eyeing me warily. I've cemented my reputation in her mind as a sorceress of great power, I think. Clytemnestra seems to think it's all very funny, to judge from her broad, pretty smile. We reach Pyre Silver around midday. Clytemnestra has been walking lighter with her luggage on the cart and I think Isis was driving a little faster than she normally would in her excitement to get home. The road ends at the walled city's broad gates where soldiers in mail quiz us about our business. Isis tells them that we've been to Pyre Huntingbird, apparently another northern city, to buy rare spirits for her business and that satisfies them. We roll into the city along a wide cobbled road that leads all the way from this eastern gate to what I judge a palace in the centre of the city. Grand gabbled houses line both sides and multitudes of people bustle around us. Oh! The people! Women and men of all ages hurrying everywhere, else standing and talking, or shouting or laughing or kissing. Every one of them looks fit and healthy and slim and strong. Everyone has the same attractive brown skin as Isis, varying by only a few shades lighter or darker. All of the women are narrow-wasted, with breasts ranging from small to entirely flat. Most of them wear abbreviated tops which show off their toned tummies and, as often as not, dark trails of hair from the navel on down under their waistbands. I had feared that Clytemnestra might attract a lot of attention, and she does. I see no other centaur anywhere. What I had not anticipated is how much attention I attract. I've never felt so obvious, so distinct, pale and blue eyed in a city where everyone has rich dark skin and brown eyes. Clytemnestra and I could not more obviously be strangers here if we tried. "Ah, homecoming is good for the heart" Isis smiles happily. "I wouldn't know," admits Clytemnestra, equally happily. "I'm... not sure I can go home." I mutter. Isis shrugs, "Then take me at my word, it is. I have travelled for two weeks. Less than you maybe, but I'm ill-made for such privations. In an hour or less I shall see my sister again, there will be much joy to share. And I will not forget to tell her how you came to my aid my heroines, and her gratitude will be no less than mine." In fact it proves to be more than an hour – the pedestrians are thick on the ground and once we leave the main road the streets become hazardously narrow for our unwieldy overland cart. Nevertheless, we eventually turn into a walled-off stable yard which abuts a fine brick building and an ostler appears who defers to Isis and calls her 'ma'am'. "Welcome to my home," she declares inviting us to go with her as more servants gather, first carrying her little luggage for her and then starting to unhitch the oxen and manhandle the barrels off the cart. It appears as though Isis and her sister are fairly wealthy from the number of servants they have, and the appointment of their home. The walls are handsomely papered, the carpets thick and the ceilings tall enough that, once she's ducked through the door, even Clytemnestra can stand upright without fear. We've barely been inside a minute when who can only be Isis' sister appears. She's so obviously not only Isis' sister, but her identical twin. She is almost indistinguishable, the same long blue-black hair, warm brown skin, pretty, elegant face, narrow waist and flat breasts. Unlike Isis, who's attired for travelling, her twin wears a revealing gown of cream coloured silk embroidered with gold flowers and slit high, showing a generous portion of tasty, toned thigh. A diamond-shaped cut-out shows off her navel and a thick treasure-trail. Just the sort of thing to make a weary traveller smile. Isis runs to embrace her sister warmly and for a moment they chatter greetings without a care for us as Clytemnestra and I stand awkwardly forgotten. All of a sudden, "Juno, we have guests! They saved me from bandits yesterday." I smile modestly as Isis introduces us. Clytemnestra is less modest, helpfully describing her own heroics in vivid detail as Isis tells the story. Juno really is as grateful as Isis had promised, embracing us both tightly, with real tears in her eyes. Her perfume smells bewitchingly of jasmine and spice, I cannot help but appreciate the feel of her firm body pressed hard against me through her thin silk gown. "I promised them a reward, Juno." "Of course! Of course! Name it, money? Jewels? Introductions?" "I believe a drink was mentioned?" suggests Clytemnestra. "Anything!" cries Juno, taking Clytemnestra's hand and leading her deeper into the house while Isis and I follow. She leads us into a big hall full of tables perhaps a quarter of them occupied, there's a long bar along the near edge with many big, tapped barrels on stands behind it. There must be seats for two hundred people in here. The décor is a complete change to the attractive, opulent apartment we'd just left. The walls are whitewashed and the bare floorboards are lavishly stained, all of the furniture is simple and solid and much of it equally stained, notched and knocked about. The smell of sweat, alcohol and stale smoke permeates everything. Juno looks entirely out of place in her fine dress. She takes a seat at the bar and I do likewise, Clytemnestra clears some stools out of her way and settles directly on the floorboards. A pretty, cheeky looking young girl with most of her ample brown bust on display hurries to serve us and Juno tells her to bring whatever we desire. Clytemnestra asks for sack, its served in a small copper cup which she drains before I can even ask if I could have some tea, please? Clytemnestra makes the girl bring her a cup more suited to her thirst and then I ask for tea, which comes and is quite excellent, if again, unidentifiable as any kind I know. Juno makes us recount 'our' fight fight with the bandits again, which Clytemnestra does, in suitably lurid terms while keeping the barmaid busy topping up her big goblet. I'm certain I'd be unconscious if I drank half what she is. Juno can't get enough of the story, and when Isis arrives a little later, dressed rather like her sister but in green and looking refreshed, it's demanded once again. This time complimented by Isis' own, somewhat exaggerated recollections, which have grown to the point where she recalls my firing a hail of sorcerous bolts from my rifle and quite possibly having eyes burning with inner fire. If that's the way she chooses to remember things then I choose to let her. Since our stock seems good here I ask after cigarettes, but am met with blank looks. When I ask after tobacco the barmaid brings me a clay pot full of long, slim cigars. I take one and, mostly for devilment, I ignore the proffered taper and light it magically as I had the firewood. Juno is as agog as Isis had been last night as I puff experimentally, it isn't bad at all. Juno excuses herself and takes Isis to the other end of the bar where they chat animatedly for a while. "Lovely girl, no?" muses Clytemnestra. "Very. Both of them, in fact," I'm determined not to be out-cooled. "We were lucky those bastards wanted a bit of Isis. Very pleasant welcome to a new city this is. I think you're my good luck charm, lady." "Or maybe you're mine. If it weren't for you I'd still be wondering the forest, starving to death... If I was lucky..." I shiver involuntary as I recall Lecto. "Then two halves make a whole," she smiles, reminding my how much I like her smile, and knocks her goblet against my clay mug. "I like the sound of that." "Me too. I think we'll stay here a little longer," she takes a drink, "Possibly a lot longer... Where was I? Yes, stay here a while and then we'll have to see about lodging. I don't know about prices in this city, but I think we can cover the night, and the loot from Lecto's we can sell in the morning. Unless I miss my guess it'll see us live well for a little while." That does sound nice. I'm feeling pretty good sitting here, drinking tea and smoking, and the idea of sleeping in a bed, perhaps even having a hot bath first sounds like the perfect encore. Isis comes back to us and asks us to join her in the apartment. She leads us back the way we came and into a beautiful sitting room with embroidered tapestries hanging on the walls, handsome soft furniture and a grand marble fireplace on one side. Juno is reclined one one of a pair of identical chaises longues and Isis takes the other, inviting us to sit too. I sit in a big leather armchair while Clytemnestra settles on the floor as she usually does. "The ordinary can be very rowdy after dark, quite rough indeed," says Isis, waving a hand in the direction of the drinking hall from which we've just come, "We used to employ a couple of bouncers to keep things in order. I thought we still did." Juno takes the thread, "The guard came and took them away a few nights ago. Seems they were supplementing their income. Hired muscle, shaking down debtors, the occasional knife in the back." "Nasty stuff," adds Isis. "So we're short two bouncers, and that's not good in this business, not in this place, and I asked myself what to do?" "And then I come home with two brave fighters," says Isis. "Like the answer to my question," Juno goes on. Isis takes it again, "You'd have to be a fool to misbehave when you're being watched by a sorceress and a centaur." "Bloody idiot more like," says Juno, candidly, "How about it? The money is good if you can keep the peace, and I'm sure you can, and room and board, you need somewhere to stay in Pyre Silver, right?" I glance at Clytemnestra. The idea of being a bouncer in a 'rough' place like this is supposed to be is intimidating to me, especially considering that I'm not half, not one tenth of the sorceress that the twins seem to think I am. Clytemnestra needs little convincing, "We do indeed need somewhere to stay, and I for one can think of no better place," she looks at me. With a real sense of dread I agree, "Sounds ideal." We hash out the details with the twins for a while, discussing money, hours, duties and such. A servant brings food and watered wine on silver trays while we talk. With lunch and our negotiations concluded satisfactorily the twins stand and so do I. They each shake my hand warmly and then Clytemnestra's. "I think that there is only one more thing remaining," says Clytemnestra, a familiar wild look in her eye. She seizes Isis in her arms and plants a long, passionate kiss right on her lips, Isis freezes for just an instant before returning it. In a moment Clytemnestra does it again, taking Juno and kissing her deeply. "I told you," pants Isis, when her sister is released. I can only stare, shocked until Juno slinks over to me, taking my chin on one finger and teasing me into a lingering kiss of her own. I fall into the scent of her jasmine perfume, the taste of sweet wine on her lips, the feel as her sister caresses me from behind and then pulls me away to kiss her. Juno is taken from my arms and Isis slides into them, her body against mine, her hands running over my back, my waist, my hips. I lean into her, stroking her lithe, hard body and trailing kisses over her neck. Juno is barely two steps away, worshipping Clytemnestra's bare breasts with her lips and tongue. I take a step forward, and another, forcing Isis back until she's back to back with her sister, I feel them rubbing lasciviously against one another and against us. My hands quest around both bodies until I am cupping Juno's firm, flat breasts and kissing her sister at the same time. A strong hand twines through my hair and guides me to Clytemnestra's lips now. Her tongue enters my mouth and dances with my own as we share a lusty kiss across the twins' shoulders while they writhe against one another. As I suck Clytemnestra's long tongue the twins turn about one another until it's Juno in front of me and she tears me from Clytemnestra, shoving me forcefully on the chest and forcing me back until I fall sitting on the armchair. Juno's cream gown falls to the floor as she strides toward me a naked vision of rich dark skin and feminine curves. Her golden brown skin is almost glowing in the soft light. Her deep black delta of pubic hair is wide and thick and glistening with moisture. Her dark brown nipples are long and stiff and just asking to be kissed. She kneels on the chair, straddling me and I take a stiff brown nipple between my lips as she circles her hairy sex against my navel. She works her rocking hips against me for a moment and then starts to slide lower and lower still, arching her flexible spine to maintain as much contact as she can between us. I kiss her hard as her face comes level with mine, forcing my lips to hers, my tongue past her teeth, but even that does not stay her for long. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 03 She kisses my neck, and on down between my breasts, she bites gently at a nipple that stands proud under my thin top, she licks where her wet slit has left damp spots on my clothes. All the while she sinks lower until she kneels on the floor, her face in my lap. Her strong hands seize my skirt and pull, ridding me of it as I hang on to the chair. She rids me of my flooded knickers just as easily and tosses them to her sister where she lies, face down, arse up while Clytemnestra's tongue explores her most intimate places. Isis seizes the scrap of wet lace and Brings it to her face licking my juices from the garment just as her sister starts to lap the same from the source. Juno's talented tongue runs across my outer lips and I sigh, it traces my inner lips and I gasp. My short fingernails dig into the chair's thick leather as Juno tries to bury her face deeper into my spread sex. Isis and I both moan wildly as Juno finds my little clitty at the same time, I'm sure, as Clytemnestra finds her sister's. I wrap both hands around the back of Juno's head guiding her, holding her to my pleasure button as I lock eyes with her sister. Isis and I stare into one another's eyes as I ride her sister's face to ecstasy. Isis moans whorishly into my wet knickers, Clytemnestra's wonderful tongue working its magic on her cunt. My hips rock to meet the rhythm of Juno's mouth kissing my sex, drinking down my juices. She takes my clit between her soft lips making me shudder, I almost come right now but she backs off, licking my outer lips again. I match her licks with my own motion, my eyes still staring into her sister's. Isis' lewd display, the wet sounds of Clytemnestra's cunnilingus, the overpowering scent of female lust, they all hammer at my senses. I know Juno is listening to her sister's wild moans of passion, for only when Isis shows signs of imminent orgasm does she start to ramp up her assault on my cunny. I unconsciously squeeze her face between my thighs, clamping down as her tongue penetrates me, as she sucks on my exposed clit. I fuck myself against her hard working mouth, matching my mounting climax to Isis' and coming with her. Juno licks through my orgasm as I shudder along with her sister and collapse, slumped forward on top of her. Juno stands and steps over her spent, panting sister lying on the floor. I watch unbelieving as she strides before Clytemnestra, takes her by the chin and slowly, lovingly licks her own sister's juices from the centaur's mouth. Even Clytemnestra seems shocked by that, if for a moment, before she starts to kiss away my love from Juno's wet face and they share a long, licking kiss, cleaning one another of the spoils of their labour. I hadn't realised it, but my fingers are stroking my honeypot at Juno's perverse display. I stop, wanting more than my fingers can provide and knowing just where I can find it. Isis is still Lying on the floor sighing in pleasure, hardly surprising either. I roll her onto her back and plant myself against her toned thigh for the capital act. She needs no more encouragement to get to work. Her legs are slightly parted, moisture glistens on the dark hair around her sex. Her hips rock fluidly and so do mine as I fall into her body, tribbing myself against her thigh, she against mine. My mouth finds hers, our kiss is fast, but delicate and never ceasing. The taste of her lips and the smell and feel of her sweaty body beneath me drive me on. My spine undulates, my body rippling against hers, driving, rubbing thrusting my lustful wet sex against her. Her hands seize my arse, pulling me tighter to her, spreading my cheeks and magnifying her own pleasure against my thigh. Every wave of joy Isis pours into my tribbing cunt I pour again into hers. She's so wet, so wet. So am I. Distractedly I wonder if all women in this world are simply juicier than normal. I think so. I hope so. I know I will not last long, I'm too aroused, Isis' slender, toned thigh too hard – her hot, hungry mouth too arousing, her fingers too lewd. Ecstatic pleasure rolls through me with every stroke of her tongue, every bite of her nails, every twitch of my hips. My muscles stiffen and seize on their own, my mind swims in lust. A foot away Clytemnestra is sighing in carnal satisfaction, the sound alone is so exciting to me. Every wonderful, erotic sensation reinforces the rest. The sounds of passion Juno wrings from Clytemnestra. The feel of Isis' hairy cunt on my thigh, and mine on hers. The smell of our lovemaking and the taste of our kiss. The sound of my heart hammering in my ears. The feel of my nipples rubbing against Isis' body. I moan desire into Isis' mouth, every muscle jerks and I come even more powerfully than I just did. My climax, my jerking, my flickering tongue, my ecstatic feedback triggers Isis' own plateau. No longer able to support my own weight I collapse on top of Isis, mewling softly, shuddering through one wonderful, shared aftershock after another. Isis gives me a gentle, but irresistible push backwards and rolls me off of her to lie panting on the floor, very much as she had a little while ago. Like her I'm not left in peace either. Clytemnestra's beautiful face looms over me, upside down and smiling wickedly. Suddenly she's leaning all the way down to kiss me. From her ragged, lusty breathing and the slick, wet sounds I know that Juno must be very busy behind her. It's an interesting and most delightful kiss. From where we lie, upside down to one another we may both kiss the other's lower lip, even simultaneously, which is a novel pleasure that we enjoy several times between long, luxurious explorations of one another's mouths. I feel Clytemnestra's already significant excitement grow all of a sudden and she holds my head tightly, crying out in ecstasy. I'm certain, by the end of her long orgasm that her fingernails have left deep marks in my face and I rub at the sore skin as I sit up. Clearly Isis had joined her sister's efforts and that is what triggered Clytemnestra's orgasm. I can see them both there, behind her prostrate form. Each has an arm around her sister's shoulders and when they see me looking, they turn deliberately, ostentatiously to one another for a very unsisterly kiss. I can do nothing but watch in awe and lust. They stand, still with arms around one another, and I think, very amused at my shock. "I think you will both fit in very well here," one of them says – I've lost track of which is which. "I... I hope... so?" Both sisters laugh, kiss each other again, probably just to tease me, and tell us to get dressed. With that they're gone, walking, arm in arm and still naked, from the room, bottoms wiggling saucily with every step. "Did you see that?" I ask, almost rhetorically. "Kinky missies," Clytemnestra has a talent for understatement, I feel, "We've fallen on our hooves here and no mistake, lady." I find my skirt and knickers, puling them on, "Definitely... Or at least, mostly. A bar bouncer I'm not." "You are now. And once the word goes 'round that you're a sorceress nobody's going to make trouble." "Until they realise that I know as much fighting magic as..." "Learn," she interrupts, cheerfully. Clytemnestra pours out two generous glasses of wine and hands me one, clinking hers against it. "Drink your wine, love your woman and trust time to provide tomorrow." I take a sip of the sweet white wine, "You will look after me, won't you? Out there, I mean." "As you will me. As you already have me, in fact." Presently a servant comes and takes us to the ground-floor room that has been assigned us. It's not nearly so lavish as the sisters' apartment, but better than I'd feared. Two narrow beds with straw mattresses and clean, crisp linen, one chest of draws and hanging on the wall a full-length wood framed mirror are the only furnishings. Clytemnestra points out the obvious and one of the beds is swapped for a larger straw mattress and several colourful blankets. We're shown around the servants quarters, which also houses some of the other ordinary staff. There's a big bathroom with four handsome wrought iron baths on clawed feet and a copper water heater in the corner. There's also a small annex abutting the ordinary's kitchen where we are supposed to dine. Throughout the servants quarters there is an air of faded elegance – the décor clearly was very fine once, but is now in disrepair and somewhat dusty and faded. It gives the place a rather raffish, romantic quality that has always appealed to me. By the time we've settled in, eaten, splashed a little water around and I've changed my travel-worn clothes for the most severe looking outfit Lecto had it's time for us to start our duties. Isis came and told us that we'd be working essentially from whenever the ordinary started filling up of an evening until the last drunk ran out of money, whenever that is. She says we may drink for cost, but had better not get drunk – which I had no intention of doing. So we sit at an out of the way table in the vast, busy hall. Clytemnestra is wearing her sword, but neither of us have our rifles, which would be of limited use indoors, in a bar fight. After some thought I have taken a five-shot revolver from the guns we found at Lecto's house. Long-barrelled with an elaborate muzzle-break and a grip which I suspect was designed for a woman. I've never shot a pistol in my life, but I feel more comfortable about using it than I would a sword, and at close range it has a fair chance of breaking through a spell shield, if not as good a chance as a blade. It's holstered on my hip on a gunbelt covered with shells in little leather loops, the weight strange, but comforting in my nervous state. The place is getting busier every minute. There are at least a dozen girls behind the long bar, or dashing around the floor, all of them working hard, and all of them highly attractive in abbreviated white blouses and short, tight little black skirts that show off their knickers whenever they lean over to get a glass from the other side of a table. That does not surprise me, given their employers' tastes. I wonder if all these girls had as pleasant an interview as Clytemnestra and I did. There must be over a hundred customers in here already, most of them rough, desperate looking people, some of them armed with swords or guns or both, though most seem not to be. I drink tea and ponder the last few weeks. This place, world, whatever it is is bizarre, but seems to operate consistently within itself. Almost everything here is a little better than I expect it to be. The water, the wine and the tea all taste better than I expect. It's always warm, but never oppressively so, even the rain is brief and exciting, rather than long and dreary. Everyone I've encountered has been physically fit and attractive. All of the women around me, and all those I've seen before are fine-featured with rich dark skin, small to flat breasts and slim, hourglass waists just like I like. I watch two such beauties share a loving kiss at a table a little ways away. No one else pays any attention, for such things seem entirely normal here. I'm no expert on men, but even they seem to fit the normal definitions of male comeliness and best of luck to them. Moreover, Clytemnestra's easy-going philosophy of letting fate provide seems in this world entirely workable. Through nothing but luck, she and I really have fallen on our feet. In fact, I'm bound to say that it was pure luck that we met, and that we survived the potential unpleasantness at Lecto's house. Luck that I encountered a centaur! A centaur who seems to love me, or at least, lust for me as I do her, and who shares at least two of my... My more idiosyncratic kinks. Perhaps three if I count centaurs. Oh, and I'm a sorceress here. Can't forget that. All in all, it's hard to imagine a more perfect world, which bothers me since I know not how I got here or why. I wish I could talk to Clytemnestra about it all, but I've already decided to spare us both that conversation. She's been as good as her word and not once asked about my past, and I respect that a great deal. "You're quiet," she says, still watching the crowd. "Sorry, just thinking." "About?" "How lucky I am, I suppose." "Still nervous?" "Yes." "It'll pass." Easy for her to say, she's bigger than anyone else in the room. I find my hand resting on the butt of my revolver and wonder when that happened. The room doesn't seem at all calm to me, it's noisy and smoky and hectic. People are drinking and gambling over dice or cards. The barmaids hurry around, or else sit on the laps of favoured, or more likely wealthy, customers playing with them coquettishly. Nervous as I am really wouldn't mind at all if one of them came and sat on my lap, arms around me, giggling and flirting. Probably take my mind off things very nicely. Presently of course, this practice gets one of them in a little more than just a tip or a pinch on the bum and she starts calling our names and trying to bat down the amorous drunkard pawing at her. "Go on," Clytemnestra pushes me in the direction of the scuffle and I rush over, still far from sure about the plan she'd hatched an hour earlier. I hear the clop of hooves a fair way behind me as I square up to the drunk, and that gives me a little more courage, "Put her down," fortunately, my voice doesn't tremble above half. "Two for the price of one, is it?" she slurs. "I said 'Put her down', idiot," so far so good, "So put her down and fuck off before things get unpleasant." She laughs and so do her mates sitting around the table. That stops immediately the tip of my pointing finger starts to glow. The barmaid scurries out of her very distracted grip and I'm suddenly aware that the whole room has gone silent. I desperately hope no one is about to call my bluff because a glowing finger is the apex of my magical power. "We were just going," one of the drunk's mates mutters, taking her by the shoulder and steering her forcefully toward the door, along with the rest of the party. My spell, which merely shifted the infra-red of my body heat into visible light, ends and I essay a stern glare at the room in general, which is still very quiet. Clytemnestra, who was standing ten feet behind me the whole time, and I return to our table. Customers gradually start talking again, but I see a good dozen at least leave very swiftly afterwards, glancing at me. I hope I've not lost the sisters much custom. "Good job," Clytemnestra offers. My hands are shaking from adrenalin. "Well, it worked, but it wasn't fun." "I told you it would. You'd have to be a fool to stand up to a sorceress." "And horny drunks are renowned for their wisdom." "You're just determined to be a wet blanket aren't you?" "Sorry, Clytemnestra... Stress?" I think Clytemnestra's about to say something, but at that moment one of the Barmaids approaches, the same one I'd just 'rescued', Niah. Niah thanks me sweetly and says that everyone feels better about having me around – apparently the last few days since the old bouncers departed have been pretty stressful. I note that Niah is only thanking me, only saying she's glad I'm here, she scarcely acknowledges Clytemnestra, which annoys me. Part of me wonders if I can leverage her gratitude into something more physical, but that strikes me as a cruel way to behave and I'm a bit ashamed to think it. The next day, I'm woken uncomfortably early, by the sound of a woman screaming in ecstasy. I suppose it's about breakfast time, really, but considering how late we worked last night that's early. I listen to the woman broadcast her orgasm, a little aroused, but mostly sleepy. "Lucky girl," offers Clytemnestra, devilish grin on her face. She's eager to avail herself of the city's bazaar and trade the stuff we took from Lecto for a nice pile of jangly coins and since I'm awake now she insists we not waste time. The first thing we do is find a gunsmith. Clytemnestra took ten different rifles and pistols from Lecto's house, not counting the two I'd selected for my own, and she haggles over their sale price for a good thirty minutes while I mooch around examining the pieces on display. We also buy fifty rounds apiece for my guns, two bullet moulds and enough powder and primers to reload any spent brass for a good long while. Clytemnestra says she has other reloading equipment herself, I'm no longer surprised. Given the volume of stuff she has pulled out of them since I've known her I strongly suspect her bags are magical and conceivably may hold almost anything. We sell the jewellery and other odds and sods at a pawn shop and Clytemnestra gives me a fistful of fat silver coins. She says that half of the proceeds are mine, though she doubts my ability to carry that much metal around, but thinks I should have some spending money on me. On an impulse, I buy a modest sized blank book, and some metal inkpens and ink, that I might start creating my own magic book. I also buy a bundle of thin cigars wrapped in waxed paper and we track down a sell-spell's shop where I have a spell shield cast on me. I'm very excited to observe the process, but it is not illuminating at all. The mage simply passes his hand over my prone from, I feel a now familiar tingling in my skin, and it is done. The spell is pretty expensive, but Clytemnestra and I both consider it well worth the cost. It's a most productive day and, to my surprise, I rather enjoy just wondering around this exciting, exotic city, holding Clytemnestra's hand. Ah, that may be it. As a rule I don't like cities, but I love holding Clytemnestra's hand. As before, everywhere I look I see attractive, smiling women, and in this climate, few are overdressed. Clytemnestra and I both attract attention, but I no longer feel quite so self conscious as we make our way back to the Crossed Staves for a late lunch. The ordinary only serves one meal each day, today it's lightly spiced rice and peppers and slices of pastry with a little sugar on top. We both eat heartily having skipped breakfast, and Clytemnestra asks how long we should stay here in Pyre Silver. "We've only just arrived," I point out. "Certainly, we'll stay a little longer, some weeks maybe, but how long?" "I don't know... to be honest, I was so focused on getting here, or at least, the north that I hadn't thought about anything after." "It's nice to have a roof and a bed, but don't put down roots, lady, you'll never see the world through a window." "So how long?" She smiles and thinks a while, "Until we know where else there is to aim for next. Normally I'd say until we had a little money, but we have a lot." "I'll probably kick myself for saying it when I'm cold and wet and trying to sleep in a ditch, but that's a good reason not to stay in a city too long. Money tends to burn a hole in my pocket." "Spend your money or don't, but don't buy anything you'd not want to carry with you." Easy for her to say – especially if my suspicions about her bags are correct. "I've already collected more than I probably should, since meeting you. You remember? I had nothing but the clothes I stood up in. Now I've got, what? Guns, clothes, my slide rule, two books, no, three. Who knows what besides..." "I told you that the world will provide if you let it." "And you were right." "You don't regret then, falling in behind a horizon chasing vagabond?" "Hurry up and eat, vagabond." "You don't want to leave right now?" "No, I want to take you to our room and show you my lack of regret." I believe I may even be giving her a predatory smile, and she certainly does finish her pastry in record time. We scamper back to our room, locking the door behind us. Clytemnestra is beautiful! There, I said it. Sometimes, as now when I look at her I am simply stunned by her powerful, sexual perfection. Her dark, liquid-brown eyes, three feet above my own. Her cute, pointed ears and scruffy black hair, her smile, which I'll remember if I forget everything else I've ever seen. She has adorable little rings of white hair just above her hooves. They stand out against the rest of her night-black coat which slides smoothly over hard muscle. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 03 I love the way the shapely feminine curves of her torso merge seamlessly with the powerful chest and shoulders of her equine half. I love the way her face is framed by those firm brown breasts as I look up adoringly at her. I love the feel of her long, soft black tail as she swishes it at me when I walk admiring around her. I love too her wet, glistening black equine womanhood, enfolding a little splash of pink which I glimpse as I do so. I walk all the way around her, slowly, basking in her presence. I trail my fingers along her body, savouring the feel of the short, glossy hairs under my fingers, feeling her powerful body heat against my skin. It's a feeling more than sexual, more than mere lust... But then, utterly sexual, utterly lustful... I'm standing before her again, she's shed her top and I look up to see the smile I love, and the breasts too, all proud and naked with jutting little nipples. I wrap my arms around her womanly waist and kiss her navel, as high as I can reach. I lick inside her navel and she giggles softly, making her firm stomach move against me. Her skin tastes of salt and smells of musk, and sweat and it is powerfully, irresistibly erotic. I kiss her a little lower, just below the navel, and lick her again, and lower still, kissing and licking until I soon come to the border where black equine hair begins to grow, sparsely at first and then thicker and dense and I keep kissing and licking until I almost have vanished between her shapely, sexy forelegs. Clytemnestra rubs one knee against my cheek for a moment, she does it so gently for so large a woman, but I can feel the raw power she holds back. In a moment the sensation of her coat against my skin is gone and she takes a couple of steps forward, stepping either side of me until I am underneath her, almost between her hind legs. I know what she's doing. Her hominine breasts may be out of my lip's reach, but her equine nipples are not. I eagerly take one hard, dark nub in my mouth. I know she likes her nipples treated a little roughly so I give one a gentle pinch for her pleasure while I suck on the other for mine, my lips are tickled by the little wisps of coat around it. Her scent is so much stronger here, stronger and admixed with the dust in her coat and the unmistakable smell of a woman's love. I pull gently at her nipple, held between my lips and teeth, then a little harder until she sighs and I let go, to do it again. Now I switch to the other side, nipping playfully at her sensitive tip until she nudges me in the bum with a fore hoof. ""Don't get too distracted there, lady," before I can reply she gives me a harder push, shoving me out between her hind legs and she settles gracefully to the floor, tail swishing impatiently. I seize her tail at the base and comb it through with my fingers, feeling the length of the actual tail within the glossy black hair and prolonging Clytemnestra's frustration. Her vagina is winking with anticipation, glistening wet runners of juice tracing down from her enticing black folds. Finally satisfied with teasing her tail I lightly trace a finger up one of the lines of moisture, she shudders just at the touch. I taste my wet fingertip, then do it again, gathering more of her dew. It makes her quiver exquisitely and swish her tail. "Eat me!" she whines longingly, leaning back and peering over her shoulder. I can see her hands mauling at her breasts, "I need you now!" Just the idea that so desirable a woman needs me is a wonderful feeling. The idea that she might crave my touch as much as I her body elates me and I can no longer resist giving her that which we both desire so much. I settle lower, letting her tail hang over my shoulder, pausing only briefly to gaze hungrily at the wet equine cunt before me, letting her feel my breath on her crinkled lips and slick inner walls. She scoots backwards and her sex is suddenly hard against my face. I'm coated in her juices from the bridge of my nose to my chin and I automatically lap at her smooth inner folds. Just for the joy of it I slurp noisily at her free flowing cunt and she squeaks excitedly at the strange sensation. I slow down a little, running my tongue up and down her slit several times and then licking her puffy black lips with their sparse little hairs coated in juice. I plant quick, powerful kisses all the way up both lips. Clytemnestra moans softly and continues to do so as I start eating her cunt in earnest. Swift, hard licks at the base of her cunt, I can feel the hard nub of her proud clitty against my tongue and I circle it with the tip, loving every moment, craving the taste and smell of her arousal, wanting more and more. My left hand is inside my skirt, rubbing furiously at my own button through a layer of thin wet silk. Clytemnestra pants, "Right there... Don't stop lady, right there..." I slide three fingers into her hot sex, deep in and then out again. Loving her clit with my lips and tongue I fuck her with my fingers, my knuckles rubbing hard against my cheek, her tail tangled in my hair, her nectar coats my whole face, flowing down my chin. Her body heat against my face is incredible, her cunt clenches tightly at my fingers. I'm rubbing myself so hard, riding my hand, I'm so close when she comes. She comes. She comes crying out and hammering on the mattress with her fist and I keep licking, sucking, drinking her juices until I reach my own peak moaning into her wonderful sex, jerking against her with little muscular misfires. I crawl around and flop on my back next to her , breathing as hard as she. Little droplets of her love pool and drip down my face, tickling pleasantly. I take her hand and hold it to my chest, just for the feeling of doing so. "You are... The most wonderful, the sexiest, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen," I tell her, contentedly. She gives my hand a squeeze, "Then it's important that we travel together long time, that you see a lot more women." "Won't matter. None will come close." "Even if that's true, and I doubt it, there are a lot of women to see, and more than just see." "Like the twins?" "Mmmm" she sighs, contentedly at the memory, "I wonder if we might play with them again. It'd be a shame to leave without another taste." "I wonder if they'd wet themselves for us?" "That would be fun!" Clytemnestra giggles, "Or perhaps each other, and then let me lick them all clean!" "Us. Let us..." "One each or both together?" I affect a sigh, "Ah, decisions..." The mental image is making me hot again so I sit up then crawl back to Clytemnestra's wet rump, to have another taste of her irresistible honeypot. "Oh!" she exclaims, "Well, if you insist." My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 04 CHAPTER IV 'KYANI' Over the next week or so Clytemnestra and I have come to know many of the ordinary's bar staff tolerably well. There's Niah, of course, the girl I'd 'saved' with my 'sorcery' that first night, and Atron -- who'd woken me up the next morning with her noisy climax... That proved to be a feature of living in this place. Others too like Morra, who never wears knickers, which means she constantly flashes her exposed sex under that tiny skirt the barmaids wear, to the benefit of her tips, I gather, and to the detriment of Clytemnestra and I who often have to come to her aid. Aniviv is a pretty, well-spoken girl who can read and write and wants to be a playwrite, but has never found her break, and there's Ti who gives herself airs because she (claims she) is the Prince of the city's bastard. Dalla came to me after her shift one night and asked me to teach her sorcery, which I obviously had to decline since I barely know a thing myself and daren't reveal that. And Kyani... I wonder in to the bathroom with the towel, sponge and the cake of pink, cherry-scented soap I'd bought yesterday. I'm very much looking forward to a long soak. It's a big bathroom with four handsome clawed baths in it and a copper water heater large enough to fill all of them. There are some wicker chairs here and there, presumably so one can wait for hot water or just as a place to drape clothes. Kyani is already there, about light the fire under the water heater. "Oh, uh... Hi," she mutters, a little wary. We've not really spoken before and some of the staff seem a bit afraid of me, "Do you want... want me to put some more water on?" Kyani, like me, has a particularly broad, dense treasure trail and extraordinarily hirsute armpits, both traits which are considered highly attractive here in this odd, charming world. "That won't be necessary," I say in as nice a voice as I can manage. Trying not to appear threatening. I turn on one of the four taps letting cold water flood into a bath, "I can heat it much quicker." "Can... Oh, wow," She looks gratifyingly impressed. I shut off the tap, dip my hand into the water and tell it it's nice and hot. Curling, cloudy steam starts to issue from the surface, and the water is warm enough to turn my skin pink. "Would you like me to warm yours?" I offer, then pause as I can almost hear Clytemnestra's voice in my head, telling me to go for broke, "Unless, you'd rather share mine, that is?" I smile and raise an eyebrow in what I hope is an inviting manner. I don't doubt she knows exactly what I'm suggesting. After a moment, she smiles excitedly and I quickly step forward and kiss her right on the lips. Mmm. After a instant's passion, and a little grope of her nice pert bottom I let her go again and quickly strip my top off, then my skirt and pants. As I'm straightening up again Kyani has shed her tiny skirt and I get a glimpse of a quantity of thick black hair escaping the edges of her white knickers, not to mention a startlingly thick treasure trail all the way from her navel. In a trice she's as naked as I am and I openly stare at her thick, dense bush. Her crotch is even hairier than mine, which which has become noticeably so since arriving in this world. Kyani herself is a lovely woman, very very thin with bouncy little breasts and light brown skin and such a narrow waist, but oh, her hair! She has a great diamond-shaped patch of long, thick hair all the way from her navel to the crux of her legs. Kyani sees me staring and shyly covers herself with her hands. "Oh! No, no, no. That's a sight to behold!" I exclaim joyfully, moving her hands away. As I do I can see equally impressive patches under each arm. I cannot help but raise her arm up and give one armpit a long lick. That makes her laugh loudly and try to bat me away with the other hand, so I seize that, raise it and lick her under there. So much hair. Her armpits are great, dense, thatches of black hair, glistening, beaded with perspiration. I lick again and again at her coarse hair, I taste her salt sweat and breathe her womanly musk. "I've got to taste you," I pant excitedly, pulling on her hand until she follows me to one of the chairs. I throw my towel over the coarse wicker and settle Kyani down. "What about the bath?" she giggles. "It'll keep. Now scoot forward, that's right, good girl." I kneel in front of her, between her long, slim legs as she perches that lovely patch of fur right on the edge of the chair, an inch from my nose. Her scent is strong and slightly spicy, exotic and tempting. I suppose I should draw things out, but I can't. Even this close I can scarcely make out her slit through all that hair. I give a deep, hard lick, tasting salt sweat and the beginnings of her arousal. I feel the thick hair against my tongue, my lips, my cheeks, my nose. I kiss her messily, licking and nuzzling. Kissing all the way up her hairy trail and licking the recess of her navel while she giggles and writhes. My eyes are closed, all of my other senses are focused on the wonderful hairy woman before my lips. The tip of my tongue slides across her soft, slick folds and I taste her. My nose is pressed deep into her hot sex and I smell her, her thighs grip my head, her thick hair against my face and I feel her. My world shrinks until it is her alone, and the sensations she gives me. My fingers part the dense hair, uncovering her soft, wet folds and her hands wrap around the back of my head, pulling me to her. I lick small, gentle circles about her most sensitive spot, making her gasp quietly and tangle her fingers in my hair. Her sex is hot and wet and delicious. Her lips slide under mine, my mouth all over her cunt, my fingers deep in her wiry hair, spreading her flower for my hungry mouth as she starts to tremble. I lovingly lick my tongue up and down, drinking down her nectar. My mouth moves up to her clitty, slowly circling it, teasing the hood, licking it, kissing it. Now I slide my tongue over it, at last gently, oh-so-gently, licking her fully exposed bud. Kyani moans in wanton pleasure. Her hips are in constant motion now, her spine undulating sinuously as she fucks herself on my lips, rubbing all that hair over my face. My tongue plunges deep into her sex and she rubs her clit against my lip. Her hands hold me tight to her rubbing, grinding cunt, her mass of hair everywhere about me, tickling my cheeks and nose. "Deeper!" she orders, half insensible, "Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!" I force one finger between my face and her needy cunt, rubbing at the top of her slit and try to force my tongue deeper still. She's fucking herself against my face so hard and fast that it's almost painful. That hairy snatch is working for itself now, I doubt I even need do anything but enjoy it. I do, I love the taste of her love, the smell of her hairy, wet sex, the feel of that mass of thick hair against my face, in my mouth. "Look at me!" she orders, "Look at meee!" I open my eyes and stare up at her, her wild brown eyes meet mine and she comes, staring down at me, my face more than half buried in her huge bush. Her hands clamp me even more powerfully to her shuddering sex, her thighs squeeze me, but her eyes never leave mine until, spent, she flops back into the chair, finally freeing me from her grip. I can but sit there, almost as dazed as she, smiling happily with wet lips and a mouth full of hair. "Mmm, thank you." she sighs, finally. "You are most, most welcome," I rise, and slide up her naked body to kiss her lips, to let her taste her dew on mine, "Most welcome indeed. I'll be very unhappy," another swift kiss, "If you don't let me eat your cunny again." Kyani laughs softly, "Well, I wouldn't want to anger a sorceress." "Nor should you. You come to me whenever you like. Promise? Good, now come on before our bath gets cold again." We jump up and, holding hands, step into the warm water. It's cooled slightly while I was lost in Kyani's jungle, but feels invigorating against my skin as we settle splashily down and recline, me leaning back against Kyani's slim body. Her hands immediately find my little breasts, groping lewdly for a long moment as I relax deeper into the water, and into her. I slip neck-deep beneath the water and I lay my head back on her shoulder. Kyani feels my body for the simple joy of it and I am content to let her, staring at the cracked plaster ceiling, feeling her hands roam over my body, or stroke my hair. Presently she sits me up straight and starts to wash me with my sea sponge and my cherry scented soap, rubbing the rough sponge hard against my body until my skin turns pink, and then washing my long, long hair. It's a novel and very enjoyable sensation, to be washed by another. Especially by this lithe, slippery, soapy, wet woman with a kind, happy face and huge bush. I wonder how it would feel to be washed by Clytemnestra, or better yet, to wash her magnificent body. Ah, but where would I find a bath big enough... It's Kyani's turn and I have her stand up. Water cascades from her brown skin, running freely over her slim body and shedding in torrents from the long black hair covering her sex. I cannot resist beginning there, rubbing the pink soap all over that huge patch of hair until it is a mess of fluffy white suds which I massage lovingly with my fingers. I rub farther afield, up the hairy cleft between her firm cheeks and across her arse and back again until I'm sure she knows this is more about my fun than her cleanliness. Eventually I have to take up the sponge and rubbing the soap on it, I scrub her all over until her brown skin is streaked with white residue and she can sit down to wash it all off while I wash her hair. When we're done washing one another, and playing with one another, and then washing one another again, just for the fun of it, and the water is getting cool we reluctantly admit that we cannot stay in the bath all day. I let her get out first, just so I can watch the water cascade from her pubic hair again, and then follow her. Kyani scrubs herself with a towel, but I just tell the water on my body that it's steam. All of a sudden she screams in panic as a cloud of vapour explodes from my body, and I can't help but laugh at her alarm, wafting away the thick clouds which are even now condensing on the floor, lacking enough heat to stay steam. "Don't worry, sorry! I should have warned you." She stammers some justifications and says she was merely surprised. I wrap my towel around me and and gather up my clothes. "Those are mine," Kyani interjects as I pick up her white knickers and add them to my own bundle of clothes. "I know," I smile sweetly. "Oh... Well, um?" I bring her knickers to my face and inhale her scent. "I didn't realise that was your thing," she says, folding my hand around her knickers, "Enjoy." I'm feeling very good indeed back in our room, not to mention particularly horny. Clytemnestra isn't back from her exploration of the city yet, but when she does arrive she'd better be ready for action! My escapades with Kyani have built quite a fire between my legs. I throw off my towel and start brushing my hair in front of the mirror, enjoying my improved body very much. I wonder if it's vain to be attracted to one's own body if that body is not the one one's accustomed to wearing? There's a question for the philosophers. My skin is smooth and flawless, my tummy is flat and my waist is so very narrow. I can almost encircle it with my hands! My nipples are proud and pointy on my teeny breasts. So cute! So tiny! If I hadn't just eaten Kyani I'd have said my armpits and my crotch are supremely hairy too. Just for the hell of it I drag my hairbrush across my dark delta of pubic hair, enjoying the rough sensation across my most sensitive place. I'm wet already. I get so very wet when I'm aroused these days, and order of magnitude more than I ever used to. Kyani's hairy snatch was running over with nectar, so was Isis'. Clytemnestra's cunny is almost like a tap. I think it's just the way this world is, the women here are juicy beyond the dreams of lust. Lucky old me! I squat down in front of the mirror, spreading my knees as far apart as they will go. My aroused quim is on full display in the glass, spread and dripping wet surrounded by black hair. I run my fingers across it just once and then cup my hand with only a moment's concentration I let a little pee dribble out into my cupped palm. It feels hot and wet and thrilling and I rub it into my sex. Grinding my pleasure centre against the heel of my hand. I do it again, cupping my hand beneath my sex and squirting a more powerful jet of piss into my hand. A little splashes onto the floor and I almost can't stop the flow before my hand overflows. I rub it quickly into my wet pubic hair before it can drain away through my fingers and when my hand is still wet with piss and juice I rub it all across my face, licking my palm and breathing deep of the smell. It's hard not to just let myself pee now, all over the floor, but I don't want to waste it. I seize one of the copper cups next to the pitcher on the chest of draws and hold it bellow my drippy cunt. My piss comes in a torrent now, hissing and gurgling into the cup, splashing almost over the sides and I fill the small vessel almost immediately having a great deal of trouble stopping now. I raise the cup before me, the hot, slightly frothy pee sloshing in my trembling hand. The strong, erotic smell exciting me. My reflection watches in pure lust as I bring the cup to my lips and drink. I never break eye contact with myself as I drain the cup of it's nectar. My cunt is aflame, the need to piss, barely held in check, the nasty, dirty, thrilling feeling of watching myself drink my own pee! I fill the cup again and drink, watching my reflection, watching my hand rub at my pleasure button, watching my throat move, swallowing. When there's but a mouthful remaining in the cup I tilt my head back and tip it over my face, eyes closed, mouth open. It runs across my already wet face. Down my cheeks, into my hair. My reflection is sordid and nasty and sexy. Squatting before me legs wide open, lewdly rubbing at her cunt, piss glistening on her face, eyes wild with lust. I want to piss all over her. I take the long mirror from the wall and lay it down, squatting over it. I massage my clitty, watching my reflection do the same beneath me, gazing at my own spread sex. I release my bladder and a powerful stream of piss jets into my reflection's face, wobbling as I masturbate and splashing everywhere from the hard glass surface. I piss all over the mirror until a shallow, froth-islanded film of pee covers the whole surface, pooled within the wooden frame, rippling gently as the last drips fall from my cunt. I lay my hand palm down in the precious liquid and then rub the wetness all over my face, then my breasts and my already sopping wet crotch. I fall to all fours, straddling the mirror and looking into my yellow-tinted reflection's eyes through the pool of pee. I lean down and lick her, as she does me, licking the pissy glass and masturbating wildly. I lick and lick, kissing my reflection, drinking the piss and rubbing my chest into the wet glass, my arse still high in the air, my hand abusing my burning clitty. Finally, I come, shuddering and collapse into the wet mirror, covering myself in piss. I lie here for a long time, sighing contentedly and lapping gently at the moist surface. I'm spent, and content, but soon, realise the situation I'm in. It takes me some time to clean up after myself, I use a little magic, but it's mostly by hand, by necessity since I only know a very little magic. It was fun but I don't think I should do that too often, I conclude, as I head back to the bathroom for another bath. Clytemnestra dumps her bags and belt on the floor, "You should have come with me, lady. A most productive morning." I smile at her from my bed, where I've been lying for an hour or so, studying one of Lecto's books, making slide-rule calculations and noting the conclusions in my own book, "I wanted a bath. Felt good." "A real bath is in a river or lake. It's cool and deep and big, not a little bowl of water to sit in." "Kyani sat in mine with me. That was fun." "Ah, that's how it is. I'm gone for a few hours and you jump in the bath with the first pretty face that wonders by?" "Well..." Actually, that's exactly what happened, "Well, yes." I can't help but smile warmly at the memory of that oh-so-hairy honeypot. "Good! For one dreadful moment I thought you'd spent the entire morning reading and playing with your silly number disc." "Wouldn't be the first time." "Any progress?" she asks, peering without comprehension at my book. "Yes, I got her knickers." "I meant..." "I know what you meant. It's hard to describe... Elements, some elements make sense. I can change a thing's temperature, or the wavelength... that means colour. Colour of light, or make a solid a liquid or gas or vice versa. A few other tricks too. But those are only changing one thing, trying to combine two effects is more than twice as complicated and it gets more-so from there. I don't even know where I'd begin if I wanted to create something new, rather than just altering something that already exists." "Ah, you can't expect these things to be swift. Now put that book down and come and get some lunch." So I do, and we go to the ordinary and eat kedgeree and apples and watch the peaceful late-lunchtime customers. Clytemnestra tells me all about her morning -- how she'd made her way to the merchants' quarter and spoken at length to caravan drivers and traders about the geography of the north and where a traveller might go next. She talks about a long disused trading road north, and high mountain passes west and the coastal cities of the east from whence we might sail almost anywhere and she makes each option sound exciting and romantic, but gives me little by which to choose between them. Suddenly I realise she's not talking and I've simply been sitting here daydreaming and staring into her beautiful eyes... I swiftly try to gather my wits. "How can I choose?" I ask, weakly. "Then perhaps I will, or perhaps not. These are just ideas. We needn't leave just yet." "Good. I'm still not thrilled about being a... A bouncer, but this place isn't bad, or this city." "How should you know. You've scarcely left this building since we arrived." That's true. Clytemnestra has been out and about almost every day -- and some nights too, I think. She sleeps so much less than I, I can't blame her for not staying in our room all night. I, though, I haven't left the ordinary more than once or twice since that first day. "Well... uh. I suppose not. I'm a country girl, always have been. I don't like cities. Cities frazzle my nerves a bit, they're too hectic, too busy, too crowded. But for a city, this isn't that bad." "You're a strange one. Your kind build cities -- you're a social people, even more than centaurs. You love being amongst others, masses of them. I just assumed you'd be happy to be here." "I am! Well, mostly. It's nice to have a roof, and regular meals and... and lots of women to look at... Not that they compare to you. But on the whole, no, I don't like cities." Clytemnestra smiles at the compliment. I don't know if she believes me, though of course it's the truth. It's also true that I am enjoying the chance to rest my eyes on a lot of very attractive women, women who mostly seem to like other women. "Ah, but you said you would travel with me, and see the world, no?" Clytemnestra asks, wistfully." "I did." "And will you hide away from this part of it? Come out with me tomorrow, as a favour to me, for my pleasure in your company?" My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 04 "You mean, like a date?" She thinks on that for only a moment, "Yes." "I'd love to." Clytemnestra leans over the table and kisses me gently. I'm excited as we set out in the morning. I've put on my nicest clothes, my sleeveless red satin blouse and my long, pleated red skirt embroidered with roses. My blouse is so short, leaving my flat tummy exposed and showing my thick, dark treasure rail all the way down from my navel disappearing under the waistband of my skirt. Thick tufts of black hair are easily visible beneath my arms and on full display every time I raise them in this loose, sleeveless top. A broad, dense treasure trail and a great patch of hair beneath each arm is considered highly attractive in this world, part of the cultural ideal of female beauty and something to show off with clothes that reveal both. I plait my hair like Clytemnestra likes, it's so long, and such a pain to do, but she's worth it. I don't know what she may have planned, if anything, but I am content just to walk by her side, to hold her hand and be in her company. As intoxicating as Clytemnestra's company is, and it is, I am equally thrilled just to be able to walk with the woman I love, to hold her hand, kiss her if I want and be normal! In this world I can do all of those things, and no one thinks it's strange, or wrong, or right, or some kind of political point-scoring demonstration of pride! I can be in love with a woman and it's not a matter for shame or pride, or any kind of emotion but that love itself. As bizarre as it sounds, I -- a sorceress, and the only light-skinned person in this city, walking hand in hand with a centaur, feel normal. Normalcy is a powerful, addictive feeling. Clytemnestra shows me to the merchants' quarter where she'd been yesterday and we slowly wonder amongst the vast open-air market. People hawk spices and dyes and bright coloured cloth and pretty birds with ribbons tied to their legs. Clytemnestra buys me a piece of hot, fresh gingerbread when I tell her it's my favourite. Of course, I haven't anything like her stamina, and even if I did, I really do find such crowded places stressful. So, after a few such hours of wondering and window shopping I'm very happy to find that we have reached a strip of lush, attractive pleasure gardens which run for some way along the riverbank. With hindsight, Clytemnestra was clearly guiding our seemingly aimless wandering to this place. Attractive, happy looking people promenade by the sparkling green water and handsome, painted marble statues dot the landscape amongst old growth trees. Clytemnestra leads me deeper into the gardens until we come to a wide shallow amphitheatre. There are already many people here, couples and families with excited children all talking amongst themselves, or laughing or waving to friends. Some of the children gasp and point at Clytemnestra and she giggles until their parents tell them not to. A little troop of people in the centre mill about, tinkering with the contents of a couple of wheeled chests. It's all together an agreeable spot to pause and enjoy a little wine which Clytemnestra produces proudly from her bag. I recline comfortably against her body and light one of my long, thin cigars. Clytemnestra explains her devious plan, how carefully she'd had to regulate our morning to arrive here just at the right time, which we have. The performers in the centre, dressed in outrageous rainbow-coloured clothes and wielding props twice the size or more of whatever they represent begin their story. It's a wonderful kind of pantomime about a knight called Pretty Silly (and she is both of those things) and her best friend Bookish the Sorceress and their increasingly convoluted schemes to get married and get rich, respectively. The plot, such as it is, is all mixed with with big doses of knockabout comedy, a legion of puns, long stretches of swapping jokes with the audience and an ad-libbed interlude where the characters complain about what terrible actors they have to portray them. I love every minute of it. When a girl makes her way through the audience collecting donations in a leather bag, Clytemnestra and I both pay generously and consider it well worth the price. In the finale Pretty Silly rushes up the amphitheatre's steps brandishing her oversized gun and sword to save the money collector from the audience -- describing us as a mean looking bunch who will no doubt want our money back after such a terrible play. The money collector gives Pretty Silly the takings in gratitude and since that makes Pretty Silly rich, Bookish marries her and everyone's happy. Clytemnestra and I applaud as loudly as anyone when the cast bow and wave. We sit for just a little while longer while other people climb the amphitheatre and go on with their days and the actors at the bottom pack up their giant props and silly clothes. I admit I had my doubts about spending the day roaming the city, but walking back to the the ordinary I feel very content. I squeeze Clytemnestra's hand in my own and lean against her strong, comforting body as we walk. I really did enjoy looking around the markets of the merchants' quarter, despite the crowds. The play was just the thing to make me forget my fraying nerves afterwards and it was very funny. Moreover, I still, still just love to be with Clytemnestra. I'm in an excellent mood all the afternoon and even into the evening while she and I watch the taproom and deal with the night-to-night villainy that has become almost routine to me. I'm no longer so intimidated by it, I accept it and by accepting it, it's power over me is broken somewhat. So comfortable am I that come closing time, for the first time I'm not completely impatient to escape the place at once. Clytemnestra gratefully bids goodnight to the waitresses and heads for our room. I know her routine well by now, she'll have one of her little fifteen minute naps and I decide to hang around the taproom for that quarter hour and have a little drink. Then I'll go and give her a damned good seeing to! That seems like a splendid plan to me. Kyani passes by clearing tables and I ask her for a cup of red wine. When she returns she puts the cup in front of me and then sits herself down on my lap, arms around my neck and enticing little boobies thrusting under my chin. I can't help but be a little surprised, "Ooh!" Surprised, but not at all unhappy. "Yesterday was fun!" she giggles into my ear. Her giggle sets those lovely brown breasts quivering excitedly in her teeny tiny top. She squirms tighter into my lap and I put my hands around her narrow waist. "I had fun too." "Well there'll always be a place for you between my legs," she whispers happily, "Especially tonight. I need another ride on your lips." My body can't fail to respond to such lewd talk, already aroused as I am by thoughts of Clytemnestra. Ah, Clytemnestra, or Kyani... No contest. I love Kyani's cunt, but I love Clytemnestra. There's the difference. For emphasis, Kyani kisses the lips she wants to ride, visions of her huge bush swim in my lust-drenched mind. Distractedly I hear the tittering of a couple of the other barmaids. "Ah, but I think," I manage to mutter, fleeing her kiss for a moment, "I think That would be too selfish of me... Unless of course, you'd consent to giving Clytemnestra a taste too?" "Clytemnestra!? So you and she really are? I mean, do? She's a centaur!" "I've noticed." "That sounds so wrong..." "Try it, you may like it," I lick my lips, "And I'll not give you so much as a kiss on the cunny unless she can too." I can see real temptation in Kyani's eyes. It's gratifying to know how much the girl wants me, or at least, my mouth, and I certainly want her, if less than I want Clytemnestra. Both together though? That will be a lot of fun. "Okay, you win. Oh! What won't I do for a woman with a tongue like yours?" I can't help but flash her a predatory smile and steal another kiss while the other girls nudge one another and make salacious comments in undertones on their way out of the taproom. She tries and fails to stand, wheels turn in my head. I keep my grip about her waist. "No," I say, sweetly. "What?" "What wont you do for a woman with a tongue like mine?" "What do you mean?" "I mean, let's see what you'll do for me? Will you sit right here, on my lap and wet yourself?" "Wet my..! You can't be serious." Her face is halfway between shock and laughter, as though I may be joking. Of course I'm not. She looks dumbly at me for a long time. I meet her stare, eye to eye. "I want you to wet yourself, right now, right here." "I... I can't!" "Try," I enthuse, before kissing her, she doesn't kiss me back, shocked and confused. "I... I... I..." she stammers and looks around the empty room for I don't know what. "Wet yourself, Kyani." I'm so excited, so turned on. Kyani is shaking on my lap, her body flooded with conflicting desires, with fear and lust and revulsion and more besides. "It's wrong..." I interrupt her, speaking quiet, urgent words, my lips almost against her ear, as intimate as telepathy, "It's wet, and it's hot and nasty and sexy and sordid and I want you to wet yourself right now and I want to feel your piss soaking into my lap and running down my thighs and wetting my wet cunt!" "I don't... I can't..." I can almost hear her heartbeat, she's trembling with nerves, but I feel her weight shift subtly, I feel muscles shift against my lap, I feel her tense slightly. "Good girl." It takes a long time. So long. But yes! Her weight shifts slightly again and I feel a hot, wet trickle. A wonderful patch of warmth and wet grows against my thighs. I kiss her and kiss her and kiss her. "I'm doing it! I'm doing it!" She's almost laughing. Her face is wild and exultant and shocked all at once. She stares down unbelievingly at the dark wet spot growing on her short black skirt Now a thin stream of pee splashes between her slightly parted legs, the force pushing it through her no doubt sodden pants. Oh! I must taste it! I snatch up my wine cup and hold it to the stream. Kyani's lovely piss splashes noisily into the red wine, throwing glittering droplets into the air. The cup is brimming almost immediately and I bring it to my thirsty lips. Kyani gasps unbelieving as I down the froth topped pissy wine in one long draught. Wonderful, the taste is just watery wine, but the knowledge of what I'm drinking is erotic and nasty and I love it! Kyani's shock and the wet heat soaking through my skirt is beyond exciting. Just in time I return the cup to her flowing crotch to catch the last little spurts to make it through her knickers. Kyani has barely begun to recover her composure when I bring the cup toward her lips and she recoils in horror. "No!" Shame, that would have been so perfect, but I'm not inclined to force her. I've had better of her than I'd hoped and on the up side, if she won't drink it, I can, and do. She watches me drink, fascinated horror on her face, like someone watching an accident and unable to look away. I put the cup down again and for one long moment, debate kissing her. No. Not yet anyway. She's squirming on my lap again, clearly unused to the feeling of wet thighs and clothes. Her sex must be soaked, all that thick black hair, absolutely dripping with her piss. I have to get her to the bedroom now! "Wonderful..." I sigh, meaning it, "Delicious." "I... That was..." She can't seem to think of a way to end that thought, so I heave her to her feet and, taking her by the hand, steer her for the exit and the bedroom I share with Clytemnestra. I almost wish it was farther to go to reach our bedroom, just to walk farther all lovely and wet with Kyani's pee. It's soaked my skirt, making a giant wet spot all across my thighs and wrapping around. I can even see little drops running down Kyani's thighs. It's all I can do not to dive down and lick her all clean again. We barge into the bedroom... Well, I do, Kyani I think is still in shock at what I made her do, she just follows her own hand as I pull it, and her inside. My name dies on Clytemnestra's lips as she sees I'm not alone. Immediately she also sees the big wet spots on our skirts and smiles lustily. "What have we here?" she purrs. "Um... Clytemnestra... Um... Hi?" Kyani manages, weakly, trying hopelessly to hide her wet crotch from view. I skip into the sexy centaur's arms and kiss her lavishly when she bends down to meet my lips. Kyani gasps, no doubt remembering me swallowing her piss a minute before. I wonder if Clytemnestra can taste it. "Well I never have seen the like!" Clytemnestra exclaims, when I let her, "Two grown women have both wet themselves Kyani squeaks, panicked and shamed, glancing about, at a loss for what to say. "That's not true!" I reply, acting just as indignant as Clytemnestra is pretending to be, "I did not wet myself." I pause for just a moment before switching to a far more petulant tone, "Kyani wet us both, so there!" That's more than enough teasing of the poor girl. I fall to my knees before her, raising the hem of her tiny skirt. "And now, it's time for her reward." Her little white pants are utterly wet, soaked through with heady, aromatic pee and muskier feminine love. Masses of black hair escapes from all edges and shows through the wet material. I press my face hard to her pissy wet knickers and breath deep. My hand rubs hard, trying to stimulate my cunt through my clothes. "You're really going to eat me after that?" "Try and stop me!" I lick passionately at her knickers. Even if I never get at her sex I could lick her knickers all night long and be happy. "What if I try?" Clytemnestra's strong hands ease me back from Kyani, "I think it's only fair, don't you?" She takes Kyani by the hand and seats her on the edge of my normally unused bed. I can only watch enviously as Clytemnestra settles to the floor and leans between Kyani's shapely brown legs. By the time I've torn my clothing off, Clytemnestra has Kyani's out of her pants and I deftly snatch them from her hand. The most beautiful woman in the world is right in front of me, lapping noisily at the hairiest cunt I've ever seen. If a sight alone could send me over the edge of ecstasy then I'd know, because this would be it. I jump on to my bed where I can see them perfectly. My fingers work hard at my overexcited sex while with the other hand I hold Kyani's soaking knickers to my face. I draw great lungfuls of her wonderful scents, else lick greedily at the wet fabric. Kyani's hands grip the centaur's head, her joyful mewling mixes with my own little gasps of pleasure as we both rise toward our plateaux. I masturbate faster and faster, watching these two women, remembering the feeling of Kyani's hair against my face and the feel of Clytemnestra's mouth against my sex. Three fingers continuously make a rapid circuit over my clitty, driving me higher toward the peak of pleasure, my own dense pubic hair tickling the palm of my hand delightfully. The taste and smell of Kyani's piss drenched pants underline every erotic sensation, every sound and sight of the woman herself quaking under my lover's assault. I come at last with a long, hard-drawn sigh, my fingers jerking wildly, sex contracting, spasming making every muscle in my body misfire until I fall back on the bed, sniffing Kyani's knickers and listening to her own orgasm. Too good an opportunity to pass up and in a trice I'm on her, kissing her moaning mouth and groping a firm breast through her thin top. I kiss her down from orgasm. I kiss her soft, warm lips and she kisses me back, hungry for the sensual pleasure until, as her orgasm ebbs she freezes. She realises, I think, who she's kissing, whose lips and what those lips have done! I look at her. Our lips part and our eyes meet, holding one another's gaze for a long moment, faces inches apart. I kiss her again and she doesn't resist. I kiss along the line of her jaw, and down her neck. My lips trail little kisses and licks across her collar bone and down her chest, toward her tempting cleavage as I open her blouse. She's worked up quite a sweat under Clytemnestra's care and I can taste the salt tang on her skin. I raise her arms above her head. Little droplets of crystal sweat cling to the mass of black hair under each arm until I lick it away, the the strong sweet scent and salt taste as powerfully erotic as the feel of the rough hair against my tongue. No! I shan't be distracted. As desirable as Kyani is, I want Clytemnestra right now! There she is, still licking Kyani's hairy snatch just for the fun of the thing, and who can blame her? I roll to my feet and scamper around her, pausing only for the quickest squeeze of her breasts. Just because I can. Kyani's disappointed sigh would bring almost anyone back to her. Not me though! Not now I can see Clytemnestra's infinitely edible sex so wonderfully on display beneath her swishing black tail. Clear trails of glistening nectar run down from her beckoning black womanhood. It winks constantly, showing me little flashes of pink from between the engorged black lips. Clytemnestra's whole body jerks the moment my fingers touch her there. She's so sensitive and I love the power I have to make her feel nice. I settle as close as I can to her big, glossy, black body, leaning forward until my face is an inch away from her most intimate place. The heat radiating from her is amazing, the smell of her arousal all-consuming I carefully spread her lips apart exposing her wonderful hard clitty just waiting to be suckled. I wait as long as I can stand, until I know that Clytemnestra can feel my hot breath on her wet lips and must be aching for the feel of my lips and tongue. Finally when I can no longer stand to wait I tease her labia with just the tip of my tongue. I want more. I love the way her cunt tastes and smells. I want it so badly, but I can be strong a little longer. I slowly, lightly work my way up and down the spread lips and even gently touch her clit. I think I can stand no more teasing. At last I allow my tongue deeper into her sex. The warm, wet embrace against my face is heaven. I lap at her slick pink walls, noisy and wet and wonderful. Her juices overflow and I do my utmost to suck and lick every drop up. Her love coats my face and drips down my chin, I feel it run down my neck, and drips fall onto my thighs. Two fingers slide effortlessly into her slick canal, but I know she can take more than that. She can take more than that and I can give it to her! Two fingers glide in and out of her streaming cunny, then three and four. Four fingers piston into her and her body jerks back and forth to meet them. I give her a long moment of this stimulation before folding my thumb tight into my palm and on the final forward-stroke I'm in! "Aaah!" She cannot help but cry out, even muffled as she is by Kyani's hairy jungle. My whole hand is in her tight horsey cunt! In, out, in, out every stroke a fraction deeper than the one before. So tight and so, so very hot, I need all my strength to drive my arm within her. My muscles burn and sweat beads on my brow with the effort of it. Clytemnestra is quivering all over, no longer able to meet my thrusts in any deliberate way, she gasps insensibly into Kyani's bush. Her quaking cunt contracts rhythmically around my arm, now thrusting almost elbow deep. She must be so close to coming and I want nothing more than to drive her over that divine precipice. She wails aloud, body quaking like never before, her cunt spasming, locking down so tight that I too cry out, in pain not pleasure. Her orgasm is almost tectonic in ferocity. Kyani squeals in fright, cringing away and I can but suffer through the pain as my hand is crushed by Clytemnestra's sex. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 04 Finally, mercifully, she descends from space I withdraw my abused, aching arm inch by inch, slowly since every motion makes her love canal tense up again. With a last gentle tug I am free and I stagger to my bed where Kyani sits shocked, and Clytemnestra's hominine half lays panting deliriously. I lay back heavily, laughing gently at the wonderful feeling. The feeling that I, small and unimportant, can have such an effect on so magnificent, majestic woman as Clytemnestra is overwhelming. There's movement on the bed and a soft, warm tongue touches my chest, Kyani licks the centaur's nectar from my skin and I let her, too tired to stop her or play with her. Her hands stroke my skin, grope at my little breasts while her lips encircle a nipple. Now, more hands, large and strong. Clytemnestra spreads my legs and pulls me toward her until my arse hangs over the edge of the bed and my legs are around her hot body. I let her have her way, to tired to resist. Kyani's soft lips suck at my breasts. Clytemnestra's finds my cunt. I sigh happily and start to pee. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 05 CHAPTER V 'MINERVA' I've learned a great deal in the five weeks Clytemnestra and I have been working at the Crossed Staves. With my magic I find I can alter or maintain most of the simple properties of things around me. Things like temperature, state, mass, the wavelength of light and sound. These things are just numbers to me now, numbers I can rewrite at will, provided I have physical contact. More advanced magic, real spells still elude me, but I feel powerful, moreso than I probably should, but perhaps, less? Even these simple tricks can be used in a huge number of ways. Yes, my magical studies have advanced in their own slow way, but perhaps more importantly I find I now feel as though I understand the world I'm living in. It's a simple thing, and a simple thing to feel, but I never knew how critical that feeling could be until I missed it. There is no sickness here, and little illness. No parasites, no fleas or bed bugs or their kind, nor viruses and harmful bacteria. Or at least, if those things exist, they do not cause diseases. With no moon, the tides are slight and the seasons mild. Crops may be grown year round, at least, in this part of the world. The thrusting, muscular mountains against which Pyre Silver is built are overflowing with valuable metals and minerals, especially the silver for which this city is named. In this world, there is no religion! The very concept is unknown – no one has ever thought to postulate gods and monsters. Aniviv, who is well educated, could barely understand the questions I put to her on the subject, and seemed to write them off as the bizarre sort of ideas one should naturally expect from a sorceress. I found that hilarious and I'm not sure why. She made excuses and left quickly. That explains something that I had not realised had been bothering me. Unconsciously I think I had noticed it. No temples or shrines in the city. No-one ever prayed, or swore, or or even mentioned prayers or gods. Again I asked Aniviv, by far the best educated person on the staff, how people explained the things they don't understand, she thought the question was silly, things which people don't understand cannot be explained yet. No sickness, no gods, no shortage of food or land or materials... Yet for all that there is still war, and crime. It just goes to show that human nature is the same here, mostly. Avarice is not to be sated no matter how abundant the things we crave are. I call it a good thing. Desire is what drives civilisation, and what drives individuals. That's something that comes home to me very personally today! Clytemnestra and I are eating spicy beef soup in the taproom, watching the early lunchtime customers when Ti approaches us. "Miss.. Er... Miss Juno and Miss Isis want to see you both," Ti tells us. "Did they say what about?" I'm a little worried, wondering if I've done something wrong. We've barely seen either of the sisters since our memorable 'interview' five weeks ago. "No. Just, can I go fetch you when you're done eating?" Clytemnestra stands up, "Of course." Ti leads us through into the sisters' apartment and to the same little parlour where we had played with the sisters that first day. She knocks on the door, but doesn't enter when it opens. One of the sisters, and I still cannot tell them apart (save by taste!) bids us sit and offers us sweet white wine in crystal glasses. The other speaks next, "How are you both? Settled in?" "Very nicely, lady, very comfortable," Clytemnestra replies, and sips her wine. "Mmm. Nice to have a roof over my head again," I add. "Excellent! Juno and I couldn't be happier with your work," ah, so this must be Isis in green satin today, and that is Juno in blue, "The place is as well ordered as it's ever been, haven't had a real brawl since you started." I nod as though I agree. It chills my soul to think what might qualify as a real brawl, given some of the scrapes I've seen here. "Better, even! Some of the nobility like to go slumming once in a while and they've latched onto the Crossed Staves since they think it's safer than the competition," enthuses Juno. "Swimming in money," adds Isis happily. Juno becomes more serious, "Only one dark spot on the horizon." "Nasty is what I'd call it," says Isis, "Extortion!" "Blackmail," Juno. "Vendetta," Isis. "What is?" I ask, worried. "Those scoundrels you replaced," says Juno. Isis exclaims, "Scoundrels is the word! We told you they were doing other work besides?" "Thuggery, hired muscle," Juno clarifies. "Yes?" "Well," says Isis, "It was worse than that! Mixed up in the Half Feather, they were." Juno sees our puzzled looks and explains, "Criminal gang, bastards to a woman." "Bastards. They paid us a visit this morning," Isis goes on, "Tried to take a slice of our pie." Juno nods, "Tried to intimidate us! Cheek!" "Of course, we didn't get where we are today by being intimidated," Isis points out. "And we didn't stay where we are today by not having hired muscle of our own." I have a feeling I know where this is going. This 'Half Feather' doesn't sound very threatening, as a name, but then, if the gang itself is, it can probably get away with a soft sounding name. Besides, Clytemnestra and I are only two people, one of them not one tenth the sorceress she's supposed to be. How are we supposed to fight gangsters? "Obviously," Isis continues, "there'll be a little something extra in it for you, since this is a little over what we hired you for." "Not to mention our own significant gratitude," Juno adds, less than subtly. "Say no more," Clytemnestra says, damn her, "We've no more love for banditry inside city walls than we have for it in the wilds." How my face isn't showing raw horror I can't imagine, "What... What exactly is it you want us to do?" I ask, trying to keep my voice businesslike. "Warn them off," says Isis. Juno adds, "We don't really care how." "Folks don't tell us how to do our job and we don't believe in telling folks how to do theirs," concludes Isis. "Commendable attitude," Clytemnestra reckons, "It does you credit. Although we will need a little more to go on. Where does this Half Feather operate from? Who is in charge, do you know?" "If we knew that we'd tell the Prince and scoop the bounty on their heads," Juno points out, reasonably. Isis carries on the thread, "And the same for where they hole up, I think it's part of being criminals." "The two who were here this morning said they'd be back tomorrow, same time for our answer," explains Juno. "I don't think either of us is cut out for following them back to their lair," I point out – I'm the only light skinned woman I've seen in this city and Clytemnestra is nearly nine feet tall and partially a horse – blend in we do not. "That's not what I was going to suggest. As Isis said, we don't tell people how to do things, but I suppose if you were to make one of them, for example, explode, the other might convey the message back to her masters..." "Explode!" I splutter. "Or whatever you think best," Juno permits. Isis jumps in, "Not explode, please, we're rather fond of the carpets here." "That's true, not explode, but something sufficiently nasty that anyone who hears about it would not want to cross your employer," Juno looks hopefully at me. "I... I promise I won't make anyone explode," I manage, truthfully. "That's settled then!" the sisters clap excitedly. Our shift in the ordinary passes quietly. Normally I'd be glad of that, but I could really use something to take my mind off of tomorrow. That night in our room Clytemnestra slips a hand around me, cupping a breast as I lie against her warm, hard body. She is obviously desiring sex and for the first time I do not leap at the chance. I take her hand in both of mine and hold on tight, hugging it to me as we lie on her bed. I take comfort from simple physical contact. "Worry will kill you, lady," she says kindly, stroking my hair. "I can't stop, though. What am I going to do tomorrow!?" "You'll think of something. You could... I don't know. You can set fire to things. Do that." "I have to be touching them, and it takes a while even then. Besides, you remember what Isis said about the carpet?" "That's what you're worried about?" "No! Oh... You know... Couldn't we just shoot them?" I suddenly realise what I'm thinking, "And how can I just... Just lie here and think up ways to kill someone?" "They're bad people." "That's not how it works. You don't just have good people here and bad people there and it's okay to kill those ones." "Sometimes it is. What about Lecto." "That was different. She was... Well, I don't even know what she was about to do, but she was going to kill us! She said it, it was her or us." "Ah, now we understand your morality. Your life, oh, and mine, must be protected, but the lives of strangers can just blow in the wind." "That's not what I mean." "No, I don't think it is what you mean, but it's what you said. Tomorrow, when we stand against the Half Feather's women, we will not be protecting you or me, but we will be protecting Isis and Juno, and a lot of other people we never will meet, but who are worth just as much as us, or them. Or may we let them suffer just because they were foolish enough not to meet us and become our friends and lovers?" "That... Still doesn't make it okay to kill people." "You're a strange lady. Your heart is both too soft and too hard. But while it is so, point perhaps the hard part toward the evil and the soft part toward their victims?" "I... don't know how! And I still don't know how I'm supposed to do anything tomorrow!" "I often find that, having fallen asleep on a problem, I awake on a solution... and since you sleep so damned long, I expect you to have an excellent solution come morning. Clear?" I don't think I'll ever fall asleep, but of course I do eventually, curled up naked against Clytemnestra's large body. I awake tangled in my thin blanket and alone on her bed. Ominously Clytemnestra is a few feet away, cleaning our guns, the thin, sweet smell of gun oil is in the air and she smiles happily as I stretch. "Has a solution presented itself in the night?" she asks. I think about that for a long moment, "I'm going to have to wing it." "See, I told you." I should have expected her to think that's a good idea, that's her life's philosophy! I dress in the plain white clothes that I first had, I've not worn them since Lecto's house, but it seems appropriate. They are fresh and clean from the laundry, but of course, Clytemnestra is still hanging on to my knickers, so I wear the pair I took from Kyani. I should wear other people's knickers more often, it's fun. Presently, we meet the sisters in their parlour. Isis and Juno both seem a little surprised at my appearance, this is the first time they've seen my wear anything but red. Clytemnestra intends to wait just outside the parlour, since her presence would likely give the game away. I am very disturbed to see her go, and when the door closes behind her I feel very, very alone. One of the sisters, I still cannot tell them apart, asks me if I'm ready. "As I'll ever be." "What does that mean." "I... uh, I really don't like hurting people." "Well I should think not. No right-thinking person does like hurting people." "Outside the bedroom," adds her sister, and they share a glance. Before I can deal with that, one of the servants knocks on the door. That's the sisters' cue to leave, which they do through the other door, following Clytemnestra. I summon the servant inside, he hands me a small pasteboard card and introduces two women as Miss Leah and Miss Dinah. The card belongs to Leah Merroa. Both are clearly dangerous sorts of people. They carry themselves with utter confidence, contempt written on their faces. They are wearing conservative, probably fairly expensive dresses over hard, athletic bodies. Leah has a short sword around her waist and Dinah has a metal truncheon. "Good morning," says Dinah, brightly as the servant retreats, "Who're you?" she glares at me. My heart hammers in my chest as I stand, I feel my hand tremble with nerves and adrenaline as I extend it toward Leah, who is closest. "Good morning," I say, offering my hand, "I'm here to negotiate terms for the sisters." Leah takes my hand automatically and I change her body's temperature to well over boiling point. She screams horribly and I throw her hand from my own, my palm and fingers burned by the contact! Leah collapses on the floor, shrieking in agony, Clytemnestra bursts through the doors, sword drawn. It's the most horrible thing I've ever seen, Leah's death takes at least half a minute, writhing, screaming, wailing on the floor as Dinah and I stare in shock. Finally, her red, blistered body lies still, steam flowing freely from her eyes and mouth. Dinah looks between the body, and me, and Clytemnestra's naked blade. Clytemnestra sheaths it now, but keeps her hand near the hilt. "Those are our terms," she says, cooly. Dinah looks at me and I decide I'd better shift the light reflecting from my eyes into the red spectrum, just in case. She instantly looks away, frightened. Clytemnestra goes on, "The Crossed Staves is our house, and it is protected. The half Feather made a mistake coming here, and it will be its last." "What... what do you mean?" Dinah stammers. "Tell us where we can find the head." "What!?" Clytemnestra glances at me and I raise my hand, finger pointed at Dinah's chest. "Tell us!" she demands, "Tell us who is in charge." Dinah looks at me, at Leah's steaming corpse, and gives in. It's almost impossible in fact to shut her up. She tells us everything she knows, the Half Feather's leaders, its bases of operation, it's businesses, even history. When she's done Clytemnestra gives her a handful of money and tells her to leave the city and not come back if she knows what's good for her. "Are you sure it was wise to let her go, Clytemnestra? There's every chance she'll go straight back to her mistress, tell her what happened and we'll both be killed in our sleep." "I doubt it. The girl's scared out of her little mind, besides, her mistress can't kill us in our sleep if she dies today." Clytemnestra opens the parlour doors and invites the sisters back in, saying that everything's safe now. They eye the poached body on the floor with distaste. "Those two won't bother you again, ladies, but we're going to need the night off tonight." "What for, what happened?" one of the sisters asks. Clytemnestra points at the body, "Her friend was very talkative. We're going to cut the head off this snake, to make sure no-one else comes looking for victims here or anywhere else. The head of the Half Feather is Minerva Kanna. Heard of her?" Both sisters nod emphatically, "Everyone knows Lady Kanna, fabulously wealthy, sleeps on a pile of money ten feet deep I shouldn't wonder." "Rumour is she owns half the knocking shops in the city," says one. "And fond of sampling her own wares," volunteers the other, "They say her first wife used to be an employee." "They don't say it to her face," the other adds, "People who get on her wrong side tend to be unlucky. Like her first wife, for example. Not a huge leap from there to things more shady, sill." "Don't worry about a thing, this time tomorrow the Half Feather will be a memory," Clytemnestra smiles broadly, but for the first time it doesn't reach her eyes. She and I give the sisters assurances that I don't fully feel and we return to our room. "Pack your things, lady." Clytemnestra is even now packing hers, putting everything she owns into her magic bags, and then starting on mine when I dither. "We're leaving?" "Of course we're leaving..." she looks at me with feeling, "I'm sorry. I thought we could stay a little longer too, but that's life." "But what about the sisters, and this Kanna woman?" "Oh, we're going to slit her throat, and the Half Feather will be stirred up nicely for, ooh, up to a week! Good for us. Then someone else will take the lead and their first order of business will be to kill her killers, which is us if you've not been following." "So we just, just run away?" "Walk, but yes. Time to move on, the horizon's not getting any closer while we lie on our tails, you know." "Seems like a... Mean thing to do." Clytemnestra laughs and strokes my hair, "To whom? Mean to ditch Isis and Juno, or mean to assassinate Lady Kanna?" "Er... I meant the first one." "But killings not?" "You know how I feel about that." "About as well as you do, which is garbled and confusing." "That doesn't make much sense." "Nor do you," she kisses me on the top of my head, "But I like you anyway." When we've packed we drop our bags through the window and then leave by the back door, carrying only our weapons. We tell the sisters that we're going to deal with Lady Kanna, but deliberately give no hint that we do not intend to return! Once we've collected our bags we go to a market and waste a few hours buying provisions of the kind likely to survive on the road, and enjoy a long, leisurely lunch of the kind we won't see again outside of civilisation. Lady Kanna's house is grand and large, there can be no doubt that she's as wealthy as advertised. Clytemnestra and I walk slowly, innocently even, along the road to get a good look at the place. It, and all the neighbouring houses are four-story brick buildings with large glass windows that overlook the small, woody park across the road. After our pass we veer into the park. "Are you ready?" Clytemnestra asks. "As I'll ever be," my heart is thumping and I'm not at all happy, but it's got to be done. We owe the sisters that much for all they've done for us. I give Clytemnestra my guns and my pack. I compose myself as best I can and make a show of confidence as I stride to Kanna's door and pull the bell. It rings deep within the house and the door opens very quickly, revealing a conservatively dressed butler. "Yes, madam?" I smile pleasantly and present Leah's pasteboard card, "Good afternoon, I wish to see Lady Kanna, my card." The butler takes it automatically. "It is a matter of some importance," I tell her. "Very good, madam. If you would care to step inside I shall inform her Ladyship that you are here." She leads me into a sitting room and departs with the card while my panicked mind runs over the myriad things that might go wrong, or may have gone wrong already. Dinah had said she'd never been here, and I see no reason why Leah would have, but I still fear the butler might know what Leah looks like, and that I am not she. Moreover, I am afraid that I won't be able to kill Lady Kanna silently and make my escape undetected. And now I'm worrying that I can so casually plan to kill a stranger and I'm worrying that I should feel something other than nervous. The butler returns in less time than it feels and says that Lady Kanna will see me now. I stand and, after she's frisked me thoroughly I follow her, clasping both hands tightly behind my back to keep them from shaking. I'm shown into a handsome marble-floored study. Who can only be Lady Kanna is sitting behind an ornate gold-leafed desk. She's still a good looking woman, for all that she must be fifty at least, imperious looking, both stern and wise and still very bedable, I should say. Though right now she looks very angry. As soon as the door is closed behind me she demands, "Who are you, girl?" "I... I'm a messenger," I stammer, voice quaking in genuine fear, "From the Crossed Staves." "Are you!? And where are my women?" She's frighteningly angry and I cannot even meet her eye, I almost stumble back as I mentally bind a temperature-maintaining spell to my body. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 05 "They... Well, um... One of them, I mean... One is dead and I don't know where the other is," I rush out in a mostly not-fake timid voice. Lady Kanna leaps to her feet and in the same moment I throw myself forward in a wild rugby tackle, sliding over the desk and seizing her about the middle even as I void her body of all heat! She shatters instantly and I land crumpled and bruised amid splinters of her chair and shards of her body! I'm shaking all over and hurting quite badly from where I hit the chair, and the floor and wall too in my wild lunge, but I cannot stop. I haul the sash window open and spring out, dialling my mass way down until air resistance is sufficient to let me float gently to the ground two stories below. The moment my feet hit the ground I'm haring into the park and the little woody thicket where Clytemnestra awaits. It's less than two minutes from when I saw Lady Kanna to when I see Clytemnestra, but it feels like an hour, or a second, I don't know. The moment she catches sight of me she seizes me bodily and is galloping the length of the park until, very soon, she puts me down and we emerge again into the streets, a quarter-mile or so from Lady Kanna's house and heading swiftly east, toward the city gates. Once outside Pyre Silver we leave the road almost immediately. It runs east toward Pyre Huntingbird and is the obvious route for any fugitives. Clytemnestra and I resolve to stay off the road for a day or two. Of course, the chance that anyone might follow is is slim, but even a slim chance is a chance. We head north-east amongst the rolling foothills of the mountains, and avoiding the farmed land around the road. "Do you think we did the right thing, Clytemnestra?" To put it mildly, it's been a rough day and my mind is barely catching up. The last hour feels like a second. Yesterday is a lifetime ago. "Yes. And for more than one reason. We should not have stayed in the city much longer than we did. I meant what I said, we cannot see the whole world through the window of one ordinary, no matter how shapely the proprietors." "But just... Just running off like this." "They're grown girls, they'll manage. Do you not feel good to be abroad again?" I say nothing for a good long while, pondering that question. I do feel bad about betraying the sisters' trust. Alright, I accept that. Now, compartmentalise that and ask myself, how do I feel about the present, and future? The air is warm and calm, lush green grass grows on the gentle hills that mark the boundary between the farmed plains and the true foothills of the mountain range to our west. Clytemnestra is beautiful and holding my hand in her own. The mountains are just far enough away to be picturesque, rather than imposing. My lady and I have a whole world to explore, and Pyre Silver is one small city. "I suppose I do," and I mean it, "And you're right, any longer and I'd have been as desperate to get moving as you." "Ah... You almost understand, I see." "Go on? What do I understand?" "Almost. I say you almost understand. We trust the future to provide for us." "Well... I suppose. I'm not quite as comfortable as you about it, but yes, it seems to be working so far." And it is. Clytemnestra's fairly passive philosophy does seem to work for her, and for me so far, in this world. "We trust the future," she goes on, "But this is half only. The past must be able to trust us to pass on our bounties." "What does that mean?" "We trust the future to provide what we need, and it does. In turn we must not hold on to anything given us overlong. All things that the future once provided us, wealth, comfort, shelter, love, we must be ready to give to the past, when the time comes." I consider this for a moment. "What about us? Will you just... Just 'give us to the past'?" Clytemnestra squeezes my hand in hers, "When the time comes, we will both know it. We will both be richer for the love we shared, and ready for the future. Until that time, and I think it will be a long time coming, until that time drink your wine, love your woman and trust time to provide tomorrow." We walk silently for maybe half a mile while I consider that. Clytemnestra does not disturb me. She knows me well enough to know I need time to think. I cannot imagine a time when I'll think it right to leave her. I'm not sure I could do it even if I did think so. Impulsively I squeeze her hand tighter and try to think of what the future might provide, not what I might loose. "You know... I do love you. You know that, right?" "I know it well, Lady. As well as you know I love you," she smiles down at me, oh, that smile. "I love you so, so much. I always will" "Then we are of a common heart." "We'll cross the mountains," I say, as decisively as I know how, "You spoke of passes to the west. That is the way we'll go." I've no reason to choose one way over another, I am placing all my trust in the idea that the future will provide.. "So be it, Lady." We turn more northwards until we are walking in line with the mountains to our left. They march north until the horizon takes them. Muscular, rounded mountains capped with snow. We are walking along the crest of one of innumerable gentle whalebacked hills and here and there before us we can see silver thread streams of glacier water flowing from the mountains and out into the plains to our east. Somewhere out there is the route west through the high pass. "Though you may regret your choice when we are nearer," she goes on, "I don't doubt it is quite cold in the high passes, and neither of us has suitable clothing." "I thought centaurs don't wear clothes." "I think everyone does when it's cold enough." Clytemnestra only wears her tight leather halter top to keep her breasts still, but I suppose she's right, cold enough and even people as large as centaurs will feel the chill. "Don't worry about it, I can keep us warm. I'm not the most powerful sorceress who ever lived.. Not yet, anyway, but even I can stave off the cold." "And there are always other ways to keep warm.," she laughs saucily. "Oh, hush you," I let go her hand and fall back to give her a swift slap on the bottom, "We should try and put as much space between us and the city as possible tonight before getting... Distracted." "Right!" She exclaims, putting on a stern, serious face and crossing her arms, "No distractions. I am the perfect model of concentration." She's mocking me and I know it. "Hey, Clytemnestra?" "What?" I say nothing. "What is it, lady?" She looks down at me, puzzled for a moment before she sees the dark patch spreading over the front of my red skirt and laughs happily. Pee runs down my legs, and soaks into my skirt. It makes my thighs catch and rub excitingly together as we walk. Clytemnestra reaches down and rubs the wet fabric just over my pissing cunt and I let her for only a moment before pushing her hand away. "No. you are the model of concentration, remember." She puts on a sulky face and licks the fingers that'd touched my wet patch. "You have a cruel streak, you know that, lady?" "Anticipation, my love. Better than the moment, or the memory. Savour it, and think of what you might do with me tonight." "Oh, I can think of plenty, just you wait." So can I, but for now I am actually quite content just to walk with Clytemnestra, and enjoy her company and my wet pants. It's been entirely too long since I enjoyed the simple pleasure of wetting myself. Any wonder I don't like cities, where one cannot have a moment's privacy to go for a walk with piss soaked knickers? We walk on. Clytemnestra often glances down at my wet skirt, so do I, for that matter. Sometimes we talk, more often we don't, just content to be with one another, no words are necessary. I don't know exactly what time we left Pyre Silver, early afternoon or so. We walk for a good three hours before our first break. Clytemnestra has a little snooze and I just have a sit down for a little while. I won't let us tarry any longer, though and we press on for another good while until the sun is close to setting and I for one really don't much feel like walking any farther. We're in a small valley by the side of one of the little mountain streams where the water flows cold and clear and is rather wonderful for weary feet. It's a pleasure just to sit on the lush grass with my back leaning against Clytemnestra's equine chest and my feet in the cool water and watch the sky slowly purpling. The sense of many miles covered, the smell of wood smoke and the feel of dinner settling in my stomach is just perfect. I remark on the fact to Clytemnestra and she says she has something that might make things even better. With the air of a conjurer performing a particularly special trick she produces a bottle of white wine from one of her bags. "One last taste of civilisation?" she asks. She pulls the stopper from the bottle and takes a long draught before handing it to me. The wine is slightly tart and, I think, very strong, but not at all unpleasant and I drink deeply before handing it back. "Clytemnestra... What is it you look for in a woman?" She drinks before answering, "What I look for? What makes you think I look. It's not how I choose to live. So many wonderful women out there, I'll not bind myself to specifics." "But still, even if you don't... Don't bind yourself..." she passes the bottle back and I have a little more wine, "Even then, there must be some qualities that you find more attractive than others?" "That's a different question. I confess a soft spot for the scholar," she absolutely ruffles my hair, "Someone who laughs at my jokes and isn't afraid to get her hands dirty. And someone who can be romantic too. Can't forget that." I'm not sure how fully I fit any of those those requirements, but it's something to work on. Funny thing, I've always had a weakness for romance, but never been really able to pull it off myself. "What about physically?" I wonder, "What' does a really sexy woman look like to your mind?" "Ah, but there are so many choices." "And nothing jumps out? Nothing floats into view when you close your eyes?" After a while, and a drink Clytemnestra does come up with something, "There's a great deal to be said for a really nice bum." "I'd have to agree with that," I add thoughtfully. "Mm, yes. A well toned bum. Plump and glossy with a long tail and a big wet honeypot in the middle." I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, but we were imagining two different things, there. Not that I can disagree with Clytemnestra at all, that does sound nice. It must be very strong wine because by the time we've drunk half the bottle between us I have a distinct buzz in my head and I'm ready for a little devilment. Clytemnestra hands the half empty bottle back to me for my turn at drinking and I stand, shaking water from my feet. "Where're you going?" she asks, puzzled. "To top up the bottle." I wander 'round behind her and move her tail out of the way. I enjoyed red wine mixed with Kyani's pee and I see no reason my white mixed with Clytemnestra's could be any less fun. "Now top it up, there's a good girl," I add, kneeling down behind the sexy centaur's rump. Clytemnestra flinches slightly as the mouth of the bottle touches her secret place and I can't resist the temptation to stroke it up and down along her lips a couple of times until the trickle starts. All of a sudden the trickle is a stream and I work to catch as much as I can in the narrow mouth of the bottle. There's far too much of course and the bottle is almost instantly full! I'm almost instantly soaked too, of course. The powerful stream striking my chest square on and then gradually moving down my tummy and playing over my lap as the pressure drops. I hang around until the last drips are running down her lips and then carry the hot bottle back to her. It is hot, so hot in my hands, and wet all over, just like me. I sit down again, leaning against her and letting my wet clothes stick to my body. Her arms fold around me as I raise the bottle to my lips and drink. It is good. Clytemnestra's flavour is stronger than Kyani's, lending the hot watery wine a subtle, exotic savour. I pass the bottle up to her. "Mm, warm," she purrs, taking it. I watch her drink of it. I watch her lips touch the bottle in the fading light, her throat moves as she swallows. It's an experience made intensely erotic not by the sight itself, but by the knowledge of what she is doing. What we do, for our pleasure, between ourselves is harmless and objectively, even a little silly. But objectivity has no place in it. My mind, every instinct of my culture and the social norms imprinted on me throughout my whole life tell me that it is wrong, but it is sexy. I've wondered at it before, but I do not argue with it. Our special wine vanishes fast, both of us greedy for our turn to drink. When there's but a mouthful left I stand and make to tip it into Clytemnestra's waiting mouth. She gasps when, at the last moment, I instead pour it over her bare breasts and lick it all up. Her fingers fumble over my clothes, undoing fastenings and ridding me of the wet fabric until only my lacy red knickers remain. "Eek!" I squeal in surprise as her strong hands seize me about the middle and effortlessly lift me high above the ground so she can lick my wet pants. As though I weigh nothing she holds me there, my legs kicking at empty space and sucks noisily at my crotch until I apologise for my trickery with the wine, whereupon she consents to put me down. Clytemnestra laughs merrily, white teeth flashing in the dim light. "Not funny." "Oh, lady, I think it is." She leans forward and licks me from navel to chin, licking up her pee which had soaked through my clothes. "Ah, but maybe I should apologise?" So saying she kisses me gently on the lips. Now her hands are on my shoulders, a gentle, irresistible pressure which forces me down, she has me lay back in the long, lush grass and her body follows mine. Her hands flow down my body, across my breasts, encircling my waist and the slowly drawing my knickers down and off. "Clytemnestra..." I whisper her name as I feel her breath against my centre. Cool night air caresses my damp body, heightening every sensation. The soft grass and rich dark earth mould to my body, supporting me all over. Clytemnestra's hands massage my thighs, spread my legs until I am utterly open before her. Defenceless. My hands take hers a moment before I feel her lips kiss my tenderness. She holds my small hands in hers as she licks gently through my spread, waiting flower. I cannot help but sigh. One by one the stars are coming out above me and Clytemnestra's tongue strokes my sex. Long, slow loving licks drawing such pleasure through me to a gathering place at apex of my womanhood. She blows a gentle stream of cool air across my sensitive clit making me gasp and writhe. My heart pounds and my body tenses in anticipation of her touch there, but it doesn't come. Now her mouth traces the outline of my outer lips, up and down, up and down again and then a tiny, sharp pain as she gently pulls on a few hairs with her lips. Just enough to edge me back from the precipice of pleasure and start the whole slow process over again. Soft sighs escape me and Clytemnestra's mouth makes little bolts of pleasure run through my overheated sex. The anticipation is overwhelming as she works closer and closer to my little clitty. So close now I can feel her lip almost there! My body is writhing in the grass, automatically trying to force my needy quim against Clytemnestra. Finally her tongue strokes my clit and I am at the very brink of ecstasy. Again and again she licks at my most sensitive spot and my hips respond without me, rising to her touch, forcing more contact, more pleasure. "Oh, my! Oh, yes! I'm coming, Clytemnestra! Clytemnestra! Yes! Oh, oh, oh, yes! I'm coming for you, Clytemnestra! Clytemnestraaaa!" The final syllable is a long, pleasure-wrought cry of delirious overload. My body arcs, my hips all the way off the ground, my every muscle tense, my mind lost to her wonderful mouth. One single instant stretching I don't know how long until with a thump my body goes limp and I can but lie whimpering in the grass, still holding on to her hands. We make love long into the night. Slow and romantic by the light of the fire, our bodies each a wondrous gift to one another. Come morning I wake curled in my blanket hard against Clytemnestra, my head resting on her foreleg. I feel safe and so very at peace with the world while she holds me. Unfortunately, when I try to snuggle deeper into her she realizes that I must be awake. She shakes me out of my blanket to sprawl naked on the ground and then stands with obvious relief. I suppose she didn't want to move for fear of disturbing me, which is sweet. We walk all day, save brief rests, much as we travelled before coming to Pyre Silver. To my surprise I seem no less fit for five weeks fairly good living in the city and the long hours of walking still phase me less than I feel in my heart that they should. Clytemnestra's mood is ebullient and to be around her in her wanderlust is invigorating. Her good humour lasts many days and mine, if anything grows. Free of the city I feel at home. Ironic since a home is what I absolutely do not have here. I raise the point with Clytemnestra and she says the world is home for both of us. That I simply had not realised it until now. Still, I love the peace, the quiet, the feeling of freedom that I can never feel amongst crowds. Game and edible plants are surprisingly common. We see, and from time to time shoot deer, wild sheep and rabbit and never want for food or clear glacier water. These northern plains are every bit as hospitable as the forest in which I first arrived in this wonderful world. Perhaps moreso. In the forest we should never have seen the stone circle which Clytemnestra points out to me. "There, lady is our landmark. The pass is just a little beyond that circle." I shade my eyes and squint into the distance. For the first time in a long time I'm conscious of not wearing glasses. My vision is perfect, but it's only at times like this that I suddenly recall it ought not be. There, on the edge of vision the circle stands proud of the landscape. Unmissable, the only artificial shape we've seen since leaving the farmland days and days before. "Once we pass the circle, we should see the route into the mountains and thence through the pass. It was built to guard the way." "From what?" I ask, more curious than worried. "I couldn't say. The merchant who told me of it said it is old beyond mortal counting," she laughs softly, "So anywhere between ten years ago and the dawn of time, I suppose." "If we hurry we can be there by nightfall." Excitement lends our feet speed. A little too much speed in Clytemnestra's case. She's not an impatient woman by any stretch, but she does just love to see what might be around the next bend in the road, metaphorically. She normally walks much slower than she otherwise would, just so I can keep up with her, but with so tempting a thing just ahead, she unthinkingly leaves me behind a few times during the day's march. All day the circle grows and the closer we come to it, the less it looks like I had expected. True, it is composed of mighty grey sarsens arranged in a circle, but where I was expecting a tumbled down ruin overgrown with moss and grass it looks almost brand new. It must be a good half mile in diameter, composed of four concentric rings of standing stones topped with contiguous lintels, every one looking almost fresh from the quarry. It stands guard by what can only be the path, following a small river into the mountains and up to the pass. Even the smallest outermost ring looms twice Clytemnestra's height and each ring is taller than the last. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 05 It's sunset by the time Clytemnestra and I reach the stones. I think we both feel the same mix of awe and trepidation. I feel almost as though entering the ring would be... Trespassing? For all that the stone looks new-worked this is so obviously a place of great antiquity. I can feel a whole age of the world looking over my shoulder. I can feel something else, too. "Clytemnestra," I whisper, reverentially – I feel like a normal speaking voice is somehow inappropriate, "There's... There's magic here." For the first time since I've known her Clytemnestra looks afraid. The look doesn't suit her. I take a few steps forward and lay my hand on the nearest sarsen. My eyes close and I feel. I Feel. I've always been able to sense magic. That first time I encountered it my skin tingled when Lecto used her spells on me. The same thing happened when we paid that Pyre Silver sell-spell to protect me from bullets. I even feel the same thing when I use my own little tricks. It's that sense I'm using now . Using it deliberately, deliberately feeling for magic, rather than passively sensing it. "Is it safe?" Clytemnestra's voice seems a little too far away as I concentrate on my magical sense to the exclusion of all others. "It's... There's much magic here. Almost everything here is magic, but it's not doing anything." I wish, oh how I do wish I were a better sorceress. "I think it's safe. There's magic everywhere here, but it's still. Magic is change, and this magic is not changing anything," I wish I were better at explaining it to Clytemnestra, too. "Are you sure?" I step back from the stones and turn to her. "No, I'm not sure, but I'm as sure as I can be. The magic here is waiting for something, and not us. There's a trigger condition. A... A keyhole, and it's not shaped like you or me." "Good enough for me," The look of fear is gone from Clytemnestra's eyes. Good, she looked strange, I didn't like it. She strides confidently between the standing stones and I have to hurry to follow. The structure still fills me with awe, but I no longer feel so intimidated by it. I no longer feel as though I must whisper and creep around. The brief glimpse I had of the magic in this place was tantalizing, I'd like very much to see more. Once within the innermost circle the ground is a mosaic of flawlessly tessellating marble stars. They are arranged so neatly that one could not slip a cigarette paper between them, and not a single blade of grass grows through a single crack. Right at the axis of the circle is a stone table, or perhaps a great stone curule seat. The sun is fully set now and stars are coming out across the purple-black dome of sky described by the stone circle. Clytemnestra's hooves clop hauntingly on the marble floor and I hold my breath, feeling... I don't know what. The world is waiting for something. From without the circle there comes the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 06 CHAPTER VI 'ARISTOMACHE & EUPRAXIA' A gunshot! And not too far away either. Clytemnestra and I both instantly turn to face the direction of the sound, even as the echo rolls around the landscape. The standing stones of the four concentric stone circles block all vision. I drop my pack and unsling my rifle working the leaver to chamber a cartridge. Clytemnestra is loading hers at the same time. Glancing at one another we creep toward the perimeter of the stone circle. I wince every time Clytemnestra's hooves clip-clop against the hard marble floor. It feels like an age before we reach the edge of the outermost ring of stones and can peer fearfully into the night. The sun has been down for a good hour now and we have only the bright starlight to see by. Absently I wonder why the nights of this world are so less dark than they should be. "There," Clytemnestra hisses, pointing. Yes, I can see now, a light-coloured shape moving in the distance. Maybe a person? I'm glad of my dark red clothing now. Had I been wearing white I'd show up like her. I lie prone and aim down the barrel of my rifle, fixing my aim on the centre of mass. Seconds tick by. Whoever fired that gun, they are coming this way, I'm certain of it. I have to blink and when I do my vision swims for a moment. My eyes focus again and I know what I see, I'm certain. I glance up at Clytemnestra. "It's a centaur," I whisper, as loud as I dare. "Not a centaur, two," she whispers back. I raise my head a little. She's right! I had been so intent on my aim at the white centaur that I'd completely missed the dark coloured smudge of the other. I'm sure they've not seen us yet. Clytemnestra's dark coat and deep brown skin and my dark red clothes are helping us hide in the shadows of the stones, where these two centaurs are more obvious even in the starlight. "Far enough, friends!" Clytemnestra's voice booms out and I've never been so grateful that I had good trigger discipline drilled into me at a young age. If my finger had been on the trigger I could easily have fired in surprise. Both centaurs stop dead, looking about. I glance up at Clytemnestra as she strides into the open, rifle levelled. I quickly take aim again, covering her. "What were you shooting at?" The white centaur speaks, clear and clam, "Game only! Put up your gun and call us friend again, friend!" They are about a hundred yards off, I don't see any weapons in their hands, but unless I miss my guess both have rifles scabbarded at their waists. Clytemnestra lowers her gun, and breaks it, but does not unload it or put it away. I watch carefully as she walks closer to them, and they to her. She puts her arm on the shoulder of each in turn, just as she once did to me, and they both return the gesture as I could not. I think they talk briefly, but I cannot hear. Now Clytemnestra calls to me, she sounds calm, even happy. I walk closer. My gun is still in my hands, but not pointed at anything. I'm ready, though, ready to bring it to my shoulder at a moment's notice. The three centaurs stand easy, smiling cheerfully. For the first time in a long time I realise just how big Clytemnestra is. I've always known it of course, but familiarity has a way of dulling one's perceptions until suddenly I am standing amongst three people who could each snap me like a twig. I look up at their faces, feeling very small and alien. Alien, different, not normal. I wonder if this is how Clytemnestra feels amongst humans? I doubt it, she's too strong willed to let such things bother her. I feel it, though. Clytemnestra calls me her companion, she introduces me to these other centaurs, Aristomache and her wife Eupraxia, as though they are old friends. I shouldn't be surprised, isn't that how she acted to me when first we met? Aristomache is tall, even for a centaur, or so I think. She's more than nine feet I'm sure. Tall, broad shouldered, muscular and full breasted with a strong, Junoesque face given to easy confidence. She has long chestnut red hair and coat and tanned, coppery skin with intricate knotted tattoos that look Celtic to me. Her round breasts are all but bursting forth from a bustier of similar design, but distinct style to Clytemnestra's halter top. Eupraxia is less tall, and more finely built, slim and lithe with almost no bust at all. In fact, unlike Clytemnestra and Aristomache she clearly feels no need to wear anything to restrain her tiny breasts. No wonder she stood out in the dark so. Her hair and coat are pure white to match her pale skin. A mass of excited white hair boils forth beneath each arm. Both of them are belted with leather scabbards holding long rifles similar to Clytemnestra's, and Eupraxia has a dead deer thrown over her withers explaining the shot we heard. "Nice to meet you?" I manage, presently. I am a little stunned, to say the least. Whatever part of my brain it is that's responsible for sorting the world into the categories of normal and amazing had apparently managed to file Clytemnestra, somehow, as normal without remotely preparing me for the possibility of meeting other centaurs. Standing here, gazing up at them, somehow I'm no better prepared to deal with the sight than I was when I first saw Clytemnestra. "A meeting is a blessing," Aristomache smiles, laying her hand on my shoulder like a sack of lead shot. "You've no need for weapons with us, little one," Eupraxia adds, nodding at my rifle. I glance at Clytemnestra and she nods. The two newcomers invite us to join them for dinner and, my misgivings rapidly evaporating under a genuine sense of trust about them, I'm glad to accept, as is Clytemnestra. By the time I've dashed back to the centre of the stone circle to retrieve by pack and got back, a not inconsiderable distance, there is a merry little fire burning and all three centaurs are settled around it in a circle. As is my custom I sit with Clytemnestra, leaning against her warm, hard body. "We're travelling the world," she says, "Just for the sake of doing it, of seeing new things and meeting new people. Eupraxia's hands clasp together, "How romantic." "What about you?" I ask, both for curiosity and for something to say, "We're a long way from anywhere and we haven't seen anyone else out here." "We're going to cross the mountains," Aristomache points through the stone circle toward where the pass is, "We carry messages for the Grand Master of Zoa." "Zoa?" "The land beyond the mountains. That is your destination, isn't it?" "Well, yes... We just didn't know what it was called. What's it like?" It's taken me a while to lift my eyes from Eupraxia's almost-flat chest. There's something fascinating about tiny little breasts, something deeply sexy. When I do manage to lift my eyes from Eupraxia's inviting lack of bust I meet her eyes! Orange. Not brown, like Clytemnestra and Aristomache, but pure tangerine. The colour is startling and I'm lost in them for a moment. "Few know," Eupraxia says, startling me, "Aristomache's mother was a great favourite in the court of Zoa in her youth, but few others have been there. It is a place of fabulous wealth and huge power, or so she said. They know much magic and science there, but guard it jealously." That certainly excites my interest. It sounds like a fascinating place, depending on how jealously they do in fact guard their knowledge. Aristomache takes up the thread, "My mother said that she saw things there the like of which exists nowhere else. It was her final wish in life that I see what she had seen, and that I carry her letter to the Grand Master who rules that land." "I should very much like to see it too," Clytemnestra says, excitedly. "Zoa is called the 'city on the bridge'. That is just what it is. My mother described it often. There is a lake, long and wide, and over it, a bridge. The bridge is black stone and reaches from one shore to the other, and so wide and long that there is a city on its back. There are homes and palaces and places of business and of pleasure, all built upon the bridge. If you cross the mountains, you will see a sight such as few have." Clytemnestra is growing more excited as Aristomache speaks, "You're right, we do mean to cross the mountains, and I for one should love to have such pleasant company for the trip, if you'll consent." "Provided," I must interject, "You don't mind my slowing you down." "Gladly," Aristomache beams, "If the road beyond the pass is as difficult as we have been told, you may outpace any of us, in fact." Oh joy. I wonder how bad this road might be if she thinks I'll make better progress than three centaurs. My train of thought is disturbed by Eupraxia rising to her hooves. By pure reflex I ask, "Where are you going?" "I need a pee," she replies carelessly. Clytemnestra's excited voice pipes up, "Ooh! Can I watch?" "What?" both the other centaurs look at her. "I like watching attractive women peeing," she replies matter-of-factly, then adding, for some damned reason,"It's a thing I have." I can't say I'm surprised. In fact, I've been waiting for Clytemnestra to try and put her, for want of a better word, moves on them. Even I wouldn't have predicted it'd be like this, though. Eupraxia looks at her for a long moment and then shrugs slightly, "Why not?" "Can I watch too?" I'm a little surprised at my own courage, but it does sound like fun. "Why not?" Eupraxia's voice is halfway between laughter and exasperation, "Anyone else? Aristomache do you want to watch me?" "Alright." That surprises Eupraxia, "I didn't think you were like that." "Well... If everyone else is..." she smiles uncertainly. Eupraxia looks at each of us in turn as though not entirely sure how things came to this point and then just shakes her head. Clytemnestra tells her to turn around and she does. Eupraxia's long white tail swishes away revealing her sexy equine womanhood, dark amid her white coat. From my brief but extraordinarily attentive study of centaur sexuality I'd say she's at least a bit turned on, whatever else she might think of what we're asking her to do. Nothing happens. I suppose I can hardly blame her for having difficulty performing for an audience, and the view is nice. Clytemnestra slips a hand into my top, cupping a small breast and squeezing very slightly. Eupraxia spreads her rear legs a little and her sex winks at us. "I can't go," she whines. "Patience," Clytemnestra soothes, "Just let it come in your own time." Another long minute passes. I'm certain that Eupraxia is getting excited and wet. I know I am. Sparkling in the firelight there's a distinct glistening within her lips that was not there before. My fingers slowly massage my centre through my dampening knickers. Now! Yes, there's a trickle from Eupraxia, and almost instantly it grows into a strong arcing jet! A stream of coruscating pee erupts from between Eupraxia's dark lips. Hissing and splashing it strikes the ground throwing up droplets which spark and twinkle briefly in the firelight before falling back to earth. I inhale the strong, sexy scent, not merely massaging myself now my self stimulation has advanced to real masturbation, while Clytemnestra excitedly gropes at my breasts. Alas, Eupraxia is finished far too quickly, long before I can finish, that is. Her scintillating stream of pee failing slowly and then ceasing altogether with a few last drops running down her wet sex. "Look at her!" Aristomache laughs excitedly, pointing I realise, at me! Eupraxia turns quickly, catching me sheepishly pulling my hand out of my skirt, not quite able to meet her bewitching tangerine eyes. "She must really have enjoyed the show," Aristomache leers at me, still laughing, "I want to see you pee, little one!" Eupraxia looks surprised, but masters herself quickly as she takes her place by the fire again. I'm all for it! I jump to my feet and start pulling my clothes off eager to piss for the three centaurs. All three are watching me closely, Eupraxia is absolutely leaning in to get a better look at my hairy crotch. I wonder of she or Aristomache have seen a nude human before? I spread my legs quite wide, wider than I normally would and lace my fingers behind my head, giving them all a good look. It's a wonderful, wild exhilarating feeling when I let myself go. I feel hot sexy piss splash out from within me, I feel three deeply attractive women concentrating all their attention on me. There is both amusement and a bit of genuine lust on Aristomache's face. Clytemnestra catches my eye and deliberately licks her lips. Eupraxia seems stunned, unable to believe what she's doing, or what she did. When I'm finished I stride impudently back to Clytemnestra, not bothering to get dressed again. "Me next!" she cries excitedly, before I can sit down with her. In a trice she's up and displaying her lovely sex for us. Her arousal is beyond question, nectar dripping from her slick opening. I've seen her piss often enough of course, and much as I do enjoy it I take the chance to watch our companions. Eupraxia is perfectly still, her eyes fixed unblinking on Clytemnestra's show. Aristomache is grinning widely, enjoying things more for the novelty than the eroticism, I deem. "Should I do it too?" she asks when Clytemnestra has finished. "He he! I can't believe I'm going to do it!" She stands but I stop her just before she can turn around. "Well then," I interrupt, "I suppose you've never peed on anyone either?" I dash over and lay my hand on her shapely haunch, "Wanna change that?" She giggles uncertainly, "On you?" "All over me!" "Do it..." Eupraxia's voice is strange, filled with lust and I think even she's a little surprised to hear herself say that aloud. "Do it!" Clytemnestra cheers, "Do it! Do it!" Aristomache laughs disbelievingly and tells me to get ready. I take a seat and she turns around pointing her wet womanhood right at me. Of course, nothing happens for a long time. She's no more accustomed to an audience than Eupraxia, I guess, and Clytemnestra's continued encouragement probably doesn't help. Just when I'm starting to lose hope and feel a bit silly sitting here with my mouth open Aristomache manages a squirt, and then another and now I'm struck by her hot, hot stream. My eyes snap shut and I feel it play across my body. I try to chase it, try to get a taste and succeed in snatching a mouthful here and there as it zooms across my body in an exhilarating, forceful massage. Wet, hot and sexy pee runs in rivulets all down my bare skin, tickling, touching, caressing me. I'm wet head to toe! I feel her piss running, flowing, dripping all over my body. Aristomache examines her handiwork, hand over her mouth. I glance at our audience, Clytemnestra's clearly having the time of her life and Eupraxia... My word! Naked lust is etched across her, clear as day. Aristomache finds her voice, "I can't believe I just did that!" I stand and stride, strut, in fact, to Clytemnestra and we share a lusty, licking wet kiss. Aristomache's gasp is a joy to my ears. Well it's about to get better. I think Clytemnestra's surprised when all to soon I shake myself free of her and go now to Eupraxia. I was right. There's no lust like a centaur's and she is fully under its spell. There's no hesitation, no second thought as I throw myself into her arms and our lips meet. We kiss for but a moment, though, She's strong, so strong, I am powerless to resist as she acts solely for herself. For her own lust she kisses me, she licks my cheek, my neck, she sucks at my nipples and licks and kisses all across my wet chest and then on down still. Eupraxia is so clearly thinking only of her pleasure, but I can be patient now as I take my ease on the soft grass and let her have her way with me. Her fingers, her hands, slide all over me, her tongue licks across my wet skin all the while drawing nearer my most intimate treasure. A soft gasp makes me look around. Clytemnestra and Aristomache are far from idle. The stand side by side, facing opposite directions an each very obviously stimulating the other with her hand. I can see Clytemnestra's skilled fingers at work against Aristomache's pretty quim. I can hear both vocalising the pleasure the other is giving her. For all that she's not even trying to get me off it's not at all unpleasant to just lie here in the grass and let Eupraxia lick away at me. That's not to say I don't want a little more from her, though. The other two centaurs are becoming more heated, Clytemnestra's fingers are a blur in the firelight. I take Eupraxia's head between my hands, guiding her toward my own desires as well as hers. "Ooh! Oh yes, good girl, just there! Just there..." Her lips just brush my pleasure centre, making me squirm and shiver delightedly. I'd bet she's never eaten a human woman before, but I'm certain she's had a lot of practice with someone! She admixes hearty licking of my lips and the moistness within with oh-so-gentle caressing of my excited clitty with her mouth, not enough to make it sore, just enough to drive me wild with lust. Every step builds my excitement just a little higher before letting me level off and hang in luxurious anticipation of the next. She has me sighing my joy, writhing and tearing up little clumped handfuls of grass while always she is flicking, licking, teasing at my rapidly boiling sex. I force myself against her now. Rocking my hips, holding tight to her forcing her to drive me on to ecstasy. I'm so close! Aristomache noisily gasps through her orgasm and moments later so does Clytemnestra I'm so close! Fucking myself on the centaur's face, her loving tongue meeting every thrust of my hips, lifting me to the pinnacle of joy! For one instant I am suspended, arched entirely off the ground, muscles taught and mind lost in pleasure-wrought unthinking. I fall, I collapse panting to the ground. Aristomache's soft, lusty chuckles ghosting through my mind. I open my eyes just in time for Clytemnestra to step over my prone body, a momentarily frighting experience. She takes Eupraxia by the hand and guides her to her stand up, whereupon I scamper from beneath their large bodies and they share a lingering, sensual kiss flavoured with my own nectar. I sense a presence behind me and in a moment Aristomache's equine chest is pressed to my neck. Her hands snake around me, cupping my small breasts and I lean back into her. "Eeek!" I squeal in shock as she effortlessly hoists me up, cradled like a child in her arms. She's absolutely still chuckling at my fright! I throw my arms around her and at that she kisses me. A hard, hungry kiss as strong and irresistible as everything about her. "Ooh! Look at that," she half whispers, half laughs into my ear, moving her arms to point me back toward our friends. Clytemnestra and Eupraxia are back to back. Slightly offset and each forcing herself against the other, tribbing herself on the other's powerful haunch. Clytemnestra is clearly pinching at her own nipples, pinching, rolling and pulling more forcefully than I'd ever dare, even knowing ho much she likes her nipples mistreated. Eupraxia's hands are on her equine back, her head is thrown back and she utters little gasping sighs of pleasure with every stroke of their lovemaking. "Mm," I sigh, "I wish I could do that with her." "And I wish I could do that!" Aristomache nods down at me, at my hand working away at my sex. "Well, if you want, I could do it for you?" She kisses me again, just as hard before setting me down so I can dash back to her waiting honeypot. So wet! So very very wet, winking and opening wide, rivulets of tempting juice running from her big horse cunt. This is no time for subtlety or finesse. I dive right in, planting a long slurping, sucking lick all the way up that sexy, drippy mess. Her body flinches at my sudden, rough stimulation and then she twitches her broad backside, forcing herself against me with such eagerness that I am almost knocked down. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 06 Face-deep in her juicy snatch I know I've read my woman right. Artless, enthusiastic cuntlicking of a kind I'm more than happy to provide. My hands find her stiff, aroused nipples and I'm rewarded with a happy moan. I take a chance and directly suck on her long, stiff clit making her shiver all over. Her flavour is mild and slightly bitter and feminine and erotic beyond thought. I swallow more of her juices with every lick and more still coats my face, drips from my chin, else runs down my neck or splashes on my chest. All I taste is her nectar, all I hear are her moans of lust, all I feel is the heat of her body and the touch of her tail on my back. My fingers massage her hard nipples, my tongue probes every part of her slick slit. In and out, down and up, right and left, tasting everywhere, drawing patterns of pleasure in her temple of love. Aristomache's moans are growing louder. Louder and more rapid, the pulsing of her cunt is faster too and her body jerks now and again as pleasure takes over from control. I feel a hoof stamping and pawing at the ground, Her gasps become more and more high-pitched, surprisingly so for a woman her size, and at the apex of her joy she comes, quaking all over and with a long, drawn-out wail of delight. I eagerly lick up the love that flows freely from her. Come morning I'm really disinclined to move. Cuddled up naked in my blanket I try to resist Clytemnestra's shaking my body. The four of us made love late into the night. Mmm – I licked three different women's cunts last night, three different centaur's cunts! One after the other. There's a happy memory to replay in the morning. Clytemnestra gives me one last shake and then whips my blanket away, pulling me fully out of my pleasant memory, "Get up, lazybones! And stop masturbating!" "I wasn't!" which is to say I was just about to when she pulled my blanket off, but she didn't give me time. Aristomache laughs at my indigence and I huffily get up and wonder down to the river to splash a little water around before getting dressed. "You sleep a long time, don't you?" Eupraxia asks. "So I've been told." "We've a long way to go. Do you always sleep all night long?" "I'm afraid so." I make some tea and natter with Eupraxia a little longer. I can see she's wondering how much I'll slow the journey down. "If you need to sleep, you need to sleep and that's an end to it. We should start moving soon," Aristomache adds. "Alright. I would like to examine those stones a little more though. Your arrival last night interrupted things before I could get a good feel of things." "She said there's magic in them," Clytemnestra explains, "She's a sorceress you know." I'm uncomfortably aware of both other centaurs looking suddenly at me. "I!" Aristomache sputters, "You mean I... Pissed on a sorceress!" "Yes," I confirm, dully, "I don't imagine there are lots of people who can say that... Probably more than you might think though." I let her process that thought. Clytemnestra is thoroughly enjoying things. I leave them to it and walk back with my tea to the circle a little ways away. There's that feeling again. Magic. A great swell of magic all around me. Waiting. Limitless potential for change, waiting for something to trigger it. I wonder between the stones, laying my hand now and again on one or another, feeling the magic within. Now I've reached the innermost circle. I hear movement behind and see all three centaurs are following me, but not too close, watching me. Each has some degree of awe, or fear or wonder on her face, even Clytemnestra. All pause as I turn and look at them. I go on to the centre of the circle, to the stone curule. It's as high as my waist, rectangular and very broad. I can feel the magic absolutely billowing from it before I even lay a hand to the stone. My skin thrums with the trapped, waiting power when I touch it. My eyes close and I bring the magic of this place into focus within my mind. I can see it, clear and obvious. Branching lines of logic, commands, conditions, variables and subroutines. A vast spell-programme still functioning, and waiting. But not for me... The spell is too big, to complex for me to decode, not if I had a year to do it, but it's obvious even now that, whatever the circle is waiting for, it's not me. If it were, it would already be doing... Whatever it is that it does. "It's quite safe," I smile gently at the centaurs, who are standing a dozen paces away, glancing between one another. They approach a little closer and I go to them, taking Clytemnestra's hand in mine. "I've seen what I wanted to see." The mountains, until now scenic and attractive suddenly take on a considerably more imposing aspect in my mind, now that we are walking toward them. Our path drives straight toward the gap between two peaks, the much anticipated pass, but clearly it will still involve ascending some thousands of feet – a fact attested to by the fact that even before the day is out we are walking up a noticeable incline. The next day things become even more arduous. By mid morning our path is a long series of looping switchbacks cut into the living stone by some unknown hand. It's just wide enough that two centaurs may walk side by side, provided one of them is not too afraid of heights. We walk in single file. The stream which had babbled calmly down by the stone circle now cascades excitedly through a series of short falls and cataracts which pool in wide shallow basins before leaping again down to the next. According to Aristomache, her mother made the climb in two days. With me slowing everything down five seems the least we will manage. So the days go by. At once point our road makes a more extravagant loop than most, swinging wide out at the valley's edge and providing us a dizzying view straight down to the plains below through thousands of feet of empty air. Clytemnestra points into the distance, claiming to see the forest where we first met. Perhaps she can but I can't. That night is the first we notice a distinct chill in the air. In fact, it's the first time since arriving in this world that I've felt anything approaching cold. Aristomache and Eupraxia both came prepared. They each have a large, thick wool and fur cloak cut and formed to protect both parts of their bodies. Clytemnestra and I have no such garments but it's a very simple matter now for me to protect us both from changing temperature. When Eupraxia asks I provide the same protection for her and her wife. I feel really rather magical right now and their impressed looks are very gratifying. Having climbed for six days our road is now almost level now we are in the much advertised pass. In my mind I had pictured snow and ice, perhaps some manner of narrow rock shelf clinging to the side of a mountain, Certainly the risks of avalanche and blizzard. All the things that 'mountain pass' naturally conjures to my mind. Of course, the actual pass proves to be no such thing. It is a very attractive alpine meadow. Cold, yes, but certainly not snowbound. Lush grass and red and blue wildflowers grow between the snowy peaks to our left and right. Here and there mighty house-sized boulders sit brooding. Clytemnestra says they are remnants of rock-slides, though things seem very calm now. At the far end, where the pass once again becomes a much narrower way descending the mountains I spy what initially seems to be a large group of such stones. Once we are nearer though it's obvious what they are, or, were. Statues, three of them. Three stone centaurs, now tumbled to rubble and ruin. Each one must have been twenty feet tall at the withers when they stood. We pause to examine them. Aristomache says her mother never mentioned these statues, though I suppose she could not have recounted every detail of the journey. Up close it's obvious, despite decades, maybe centuries of weathering, the statues were hugely defaced at some point. The faces of all three have been smashed to dust by picks or hammers and all of their limbs and the swords and lances they once carried are broken apart too thoroughly to be the result of simple time. It's a strange mood amongst us as we make camp among the rubble that night. Someone once went to a huge amount of hardship to place these statues in this high place, and someone else put a lot of effort into smashing them to pieces for some reason. Aristomache cannot comment on either event, pointing out that both must have been a long, long time before her mother travelled this way. Shame. I'd have liked to see them as they must have been. Very soon after leaving the pass the path opens out again showing us most of our route down and a huge vista of the country spread out before us. Unmissable, a huge shard of silver water. I know it is no sea, for we are going inland, but this is a truly cyclopean lake, almost an inland sea. Just as obvious, the wide, dark line cutting across the water. Zoa, city on the bridge. Even knowing that it is large enough to hold a city I am staggered by the scale of the thing. Even from so far away it looks big. It must be twenty miles long and at least two wide, maybe more. The shores of the lake show obvious geometric patterns of farming and irrigation and long, straight roads cut through the countryside, meeting inevitably at the bridge itself. In between us and the city though... That is another matter. Forest is not the word I'd use, the expanse of green stretching for miles beyond the mountains is very definitely jungle. I point this out to my travelling companions. Eupraxia nods solemnly, "Why do you think Aristomache's mother is so rare? Why do so few people visit Zoa, or come from there?" "So we have to go through there?" "Yes," Aristomache points out a winding green snake of river visible flowing through the jungle and thence on to the lake, "That is our way. We must reach the river and build a raft, the current will carry us the rest of the way." The river, so far as I can tell, flows nowhere near where we are, or where our path down the mountain seems to be carrying us. Nevertheless, that is our path and we follow it. The temperature grows as we descend over the next couple of days. So much so in fact that I have no desire to lift my thermostasis spell, which is now keeping us cool, rather than warm. Within two days we are in the jungle, though still a good way up the mountain. It only gets hotter as we travel deeper and down. The centaurs have deep misgivings about our surroundings. They feel claustrophobic and are not in high spirits as the trees close about us. Ah, but I am... This place is a very Eden. I feel healed, nurtured by every minute I spend here. The air is perfumed by wild flowers and rich, healthy soil and all good things which grow. Gentle currents of air cool the skin else carry colourful exotic birds and shimmering butterflies as broad as my hand. From time to time we come across some sight that is almost heart-stopping in its singular splendour. Here, a perfect, golden beam of sunlight lances down from the canopy, illuminating a hundred million grains of pollen dancing within it. There a mighty tree, thick as a castle's tower has fallen and now has new young trees growing from it's bulk. We make camp on the third night in a small clearing by the edge of a wide, circular plunge-pool. A tall waterfall leaps down into it from somewhere above the canopy and splashes excitedly in rainbow sprays of crystal clear water. It's quite wonderfully beautiful, backed by the deep green jungle scattered with vibrant bright flowers. The roar of water and the cheerful birdsong and other calls of the wildlife beyond join together almost musically. Eupraxia almost instantly scampers into the water and I cannot resist tearing off my clothes and following her splashily out into the cool, clear water. I feel the fine white sand squish beneath my feet, between my toes and I shiver as the cool, crisp water massages my naked skin. I wade out to the deepest part of the pool where the water comes up to my hips and I am in almost standing beneath the falls. Spray is thrown up all around us where the fall knifes deep into our wonderful pool. It mists my body and her's and we're surrounded by rainbows and the sound of churning, splashing, laughing water. Eupraxia gasps as she walks right through the falling water, emerging utterly wet, her long white hair clinging most attractively to her sexy body. About the same time, Clytemnestra and then Aristomache join us and we all dance through the falls many times. To start with it is a frightening, even panicking sensation as all that water pours down and my body feels like I am drowning. Then suddenly I'm back in the clear air, sputtering for breath and wiping drips from my eyes. Thereafter it's much more fun until, after a little while, just as I have emerged from the falls again, strong hands suddenly seize me about the shoulders and drag me back under to be kissed with great force and then just as strongly ejected back from whence I had been dragged. Of course, I fall over and by the time I erupt back out of the water, Clytemnestra is right there, laughing and winking at me. "Not fair!" "Oh lady! If it were fair it wouldn't be such fun!" "Get her!" With that cry I charge forward, kicking great waves of water before me and uselessly laying my shoulder to Clytemnestra's immovable chest as though I could push her beneath the falls. With a surprised yelp she suddenly is forced back as Aristomache lends me aid and even Clytemnestra cannot resist the larger centaur. We push her all the way back through the falls and out the other side. "Quarter! Quarter! I submit," she laughs, and Aristomache lets her go. Aristomache lets her go just so she can put a stinging smack on Clytemnestra's glossy wet hindquarters. "Ow! Why... Ow!" Aristomache does it again, "So that's how it is?" Clytemnestra rears around and slaps Aristomache's bum in turn and both of them are cantering about one another in circles, casting giant waves that quite knock me from my feet and slapping one another's rumps for all their worth. All I can do is hang on to Eupraxia for support against the waves and watch, and listen to the sharp wet slaps. Eventually their spanking fight wears itself out and Eupraxia tells them to 'kiss and make up' which they do with no little enthusiasm. It's an attractive sight to say the least, one to stir desire in a woman. In fact I'm reminded of a desire I've had for a while and, albeit with a little backwards glance, leave them to it for a moment to go and fetch my sea sponge and my now rather reduced cherry scented soap. When their lips have parted, I take my cue, "There's something I've wanted to do to you for a long time, now," I say, taking Clytemnestra by the hand and leading her into the deepest part of the pool. "Oh? And what might that be, lady?" "I want," I turn around to face her, "To give you," I raise the soap menacingly, "A bath!" She gives me a saucy smile, spreads her arms wide and bids me do just that. Oh, but she is the most magnificent woman! Sometimes, too often, I find I have become... Accustomed to her, I take her for granted, lose my sense of wonder at her sheer presence. And then, at times like this it hits me afresh. She kneels down in the water, until I can reach up and scrub the pink soap against her chest. Rub it back and forth leaving smears of white suds against her rich brown skin. Little rivulets of soap run down between her firm round breasts. I scrub it across the crinkly, darker skin of her areolae and up and across and down. All over her flat tummy, I can feel the gentle shapes of ribs and hard, toned muscle under my hands, her skin soapy and slippy and wet. Down I go until near the water's surface her black, equine coat begins, sparse at first and then thicker and darker and more glossy . All over her sides and up to the thick, dark hair under her arms which I turn white and spiky with soap. I lean around, resting my hip against her flank to scrub the soap all over her back. I have to stretch and worm my way up her side as I strive to reach her head, to wash her hair until now I am all but sitting on her withers. With a heave and a great sluicing of water Clytemnestra rises to her hooves and I am fully sitting on her back. I squeal in surprise, hanging on to her about the shoulders and now sitting side-saddle, quivering for balance. "Go on," she says. So I do. I soap all over her back and then reach up to soap her short, scruffy black hair. Simply for balance my leg comes across and I am straddling her withers. Now I pass her the soap to hold and start to scrub at her body with my sponge. It's quite by accident of course, I'd certainly not planned it, but as a purely natural reaction to my scrubbing away, the rest of my body moves too. Back and forth, my hips rocking, wonderful, pleasurable sensations start to build at my centre. Within very little time my focus has shifted entirely, the sponge floats off on the water's surface where I dropped it, by hands roam over Clytemnestra's slick, soapy body and my hips roll, driving my lustful cunt against her withers. My arms embrace Clytemnestra, my hands cupping her exquisite breasts, else touching, tugging, teasing at her stiff, aroused nipples. Her hands reach back to me, taking me about the waist, guiding my rocking hips. My thighs clamp harder to her wet flanks, striving to magnify the sensations flowing into my overheated womanhood. Back and forth, back and forth, again and again, rolling my hips, my spine undulating like a snake, tribbing myself against her. Rubbing my spread sex against this spectacular woman. My hands slide all over her body, slipping across her skin without friction, always returning though to her firm, feminine orbs. "Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra." I'm close. Getting closer. Every roll of my hips drives me on a little more, rubbing my most sensitive spot against her, feeding the growing heat between my legs. My head is swimming in the sensation, my cunt wet with desire against her coat. My legs are spread so wide, thighs hard against her hard flesh, I'm so open. I cling hard about her. Her breasts firm and slippery under my hands. My own hard against her soapy back. Can she feel? My nipples are so hard, can she feel them against her back? The thought excites me more. A wild, bucking, rocking ride carries me higher toward he peak of sexual fulfilment. Every part of my body strives to be against her, I hold her so tight, I fuck myself against her so hard and fast. The muscles in my thighs burning with the effort. I can do nothing but sob out incoherent gasps of joy until my legs clamp more tightly still around her and I come, crying out and holding her in a desperate, passionate orgasm that leaves me panting for breath, clinging still, weakly, to her back. "I might've guessed that's what you had in mind, lady. Wash me, indeed?" "What? No! No... I just... got distracted." It's true, too. Ah, but how could I not? I realise that even now, I'm starting to tribb myself against her again and it takes a conscious effort to stop. I slide gingerly down from her back and guide her down into the water again where I can, having collected my sponge, start to wash the suds from her skin. Not that I am remotely done, now. We move into shallower water where it is my very great pleasure to start working the soap into her equine coat. All along her flank I scrub the soap accompanied by Aristomache's moans of pleasure. Eupraxia is kneeling behind her wife and to judge, most skilfully eating that delicious quim. I don't know which of them I envy more. Time enough for that later. I continue to apply soap in long, creamy swathes to Clytemnestra's wet black coat, circling around behind her, drawing the soap through her long tail and paying special care to her sex, which is wet not just with water. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 06 I was right. So right when I imagined how pleasurable it might be to wash her. To have license to run my hands all across every part of the woman I love. To feel her wet, slippery body all over. I caress her everywhere, feeling bone and strong muscle rippling under her skin. Up and down all four of her long, powerful legs, underneath her, smearing soap from her chest all along across her proud nipples and down her inner thighs. We splash deeper again into the pool for me to wash the soap from her again as Aristomache comes noisily on the shore. Once again I play with every wonderful inch of Clytemnestra's irresistible body. For long moments she vanishes completely underwater, only to emerge again wet and wonderful and now and again caressing me as much as I am her. Even as I am wondering how practically we might be able to make love beneath a waterfall as the cliché has it Eupraxia has waded to us and asks if I might be willing to wash her too. How can I refuse? I splash over to her and sense something odd. She's wet from the head down and there is a familiar scent in the air. A long lick up her tummy confirms it. Aristomache must have peed all over her, either before or after Eupraxia licked her. I purr my approval and lick her yummy tummy again. Suddenly I'm in shadow and Clytemnestra, no doubt having deduced the same as me is kissing and licking at Eupraxia's tiny breasts. I only wish I could reach that high. The next morning when we press on into the jungle I'm feeling really rather excited. Navigation shouldn't be a problem, all we have to do is keep moving in the same direction and we will hit the river sooner or later. Aristomache has a compass that will ensure we do just that. I'd once asked Clytemnestra if she had a compass and been told that if one doesn't care where one is going, there's no need for a compass, which about sums the woman up for good and ill. The Jungle is hard going, though. Clytemnestra and Aristomache take turns at the front of our party hacking through with Clytemnestra's colossal sword. They both consider Eupraxia a little weedy for the task and I'm not even worth talking about. For all that, though, I am feeling optimistic, Thick as it is, the Jungle seems entirely benign. Spiders, especially the giant, hairy, terrifying ones no doubt endemic to most jungles are unknown in this world, which is a great comfort to my mind. The other hazards and privations of jungle exploring are similarly lessened, my magic keeps the heat at bay and since poisonous plants and virulent sicknesses are all but unknown, we feel confident about eating any fruits which looks tempting, and many do. It seems only a matter of time until we will reach the river and be well on our way to Zoa. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 07 CHAPTER VII 'SALMACIS' We've been in this jungle for five days. Aristomache was right, I would be outpacing the centaurs if I did not slow myself for their sakes. In places the plant growth is so dense and close together that a centaur literally cannot squeeze through and we are often forced to take meandering detours until a way becomes apparent. The jungle also has a psychological effect on my companions. Clytemnestra has reminded me several times that her kind are people of the plains and steppes. Wide open country where the horizon is all the limits the view. It's true, too. She, Aristomache and Eupraxia are all starting to go a little stir-crazy. The jungle is too cramped, the trees too close and the sky never visible through the canopy. Of course, I do all I can to make things easier, which is almost nothing, and being rational adults, they are keeping their discomfort under control, but it's clear that none of them are happy. That's why, when we find the path in the afternoon of this fifth day there is a great rejoicing. It's not much, but it is a real path, a bare earth path, just about two yards wide with not a speck of grass growing on it. It permits a view of a good hundred yards in either direction before corners seal it off. Even that little respite from the claustrophobic pressing of trees all around is enough to make my three companions happy. "What do you think made it?" I wonder. Clytemnestra answers a second before Eupraxia, "This is no game trail. It was made deliberately, by thinking people." "Do people live here?" "My mother mentioned no one living amongst the trees, and no path," Aristomache replies, "But if our way has been true, the river is squarely that way." She points almost directly parallel with the path and we set off, somewhat cautiously. Without conferring, all four of us have readied our rifles. Having seen that, I deliberately sling mine again. No one else does, but I'm at least going to try and look friendly should we meet whoever made the path. "Wait," I mutter, a little way along the way. I squat down by a little triangular black stone laying right in the middle of the way, slightly embedded in the ground. "What is it?" "Magic," I reply. There's an intake of breath and Eupraxia mutters something I don't hear. I can feel magic flowing from the stone, little wafts of it like dry ice fog flowing across a floor. It's a little thing, the stone, only a few inches at each edge, pure black, but scuffed and a little dusty. All together rather dull, save for the magic within it. I touch the stone and try to feel the shape of the spell. "Clever," I mutter, impressed by the spell, and by myself for deciphering it. Not that it's that complex. "What is it? Is it safe?" "Perfectly," I nod, standing, "It stops plants growing, that's what makes the path, I think. Unless I miss my guess, there will be others like it all along the way." "So... whoever made it used sorcery?" I nod again, "Maybe. Probably. But somebody definitely is using, or used, sorcery to keep the path open after it was made." When we proceed, the centaurs are, if anything, even more cautious. Even Clytemnestra , who is generally fearless, and who even encourages my dabbling in the art has a wary attitude toward sorcerers in general. I can't fully bring myself to blame her. For all that, though, I cannot quite bring myself to feel the same fear. The path is pleasant, edged with wildflowers and kindly-seeming, healthy trees. Nowhere do I sense any evil. Birds sing, some other, unidentified animals make their own right calls and all seems right with the world. So we walk, cautiously, for almost another hour, encountering three more of the little triangular black stones, each with the same properties. From time to time the path makes a little wandering corner, probably avoiding some inconvenient bit of jungle, but always heading roughly in the direction we wish to go, on toward where we believe the river lies. Rounding another of these corners I, who am ahead right now am the first to see her. There's a bow in her hands, and an arrow nocked on the string, though both are held at rest. She's human, and not very tall, and has copper skin and short, dark hair flopping about her ears. Three hoops of fine gold wire are pierced through each ear. All of her clothes are in dull browns and greens, though, like her hooded cloak which is a random patchwork of different cloths and leathers in every jungle colour. I'm certain she could have blended perfectly with our surroundings had she a mind to. She smiles a pretty, confident smile and casts a look over each of us in turn. Her eyes are gold. Pure gold! "Which of you," her voice is sweet as honey, "Is the sorceress?" We glance at one another for a moment, all of us trying, I think, to work out what's going on and what's safe to say. Suddenly the woman's voice cuts through our indecision, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Aristomache, I realise, was raising her rifle and I forcefully push the barrel down with my hand. "That wound be me," I declare, with only a small tremor in my voice, I think. She nods, smiling that nice smile again, "I thought so." "Why?" "Someone examined my spells, one of you. You're the only one who's not cradling her gun and shying away from the trees like a witch is about to burst out." Well, if she wants to see things that way, let her. It'd be a lie to say I'm not scared. Probably moreso than the others since I know what a real sorceress could do to us where they only have their imaginations. Trying to keep my voice level I engage her, "I meant no intrusion, I merely sensed your magic in the stones and wanted to make sure the path was safe to use." "A wise precaution," She smiles devilishly at some secret joke. "We mean you no harm, we only wish to go on." I wish someone else would say something! I hate talking for the group and I feel as though a single wrong word may doom us all, or possibly we're already doomed and nothing I say can make things better or worse. Damn. How many witches can the woods of this world hold? "Er..." I stumble for something to say, "If that's okay?" She laughs, "What is your name, little sister?" I give her my name, and those of my companions and when I do she introduces herself as Salmacis. She tells us to follow her, and then turns and starts walking without a backwards glance. After a confused moment we all do follow and I trot forward to catch up with her. "Wait, where are we going?" Salmacis doesn't wait, doesn't turn, doesn't break stride but she does reply in a soft, lilting voice meant only for me, "I don't know, where are you going?" "The... The river. That's all. We didn't know anyone lived here. We're just trying to reach the river." "My path will take you there. Do you fear me, my sister?" It takes me a long moment to reply, "Yes." "Wise, but you may stop... If you can. I will not harm you. I could have shot you all before you were even aware you were attacked. Yet I did not." "We're shielded, you must sense that." Salmacis harrumphs, it's a disturbingly cute noise, "And what is that to a sorceress?" "You mean you can break them?" "You cannot?" "Er... Well, no... I mean, probably... Yes, but I don't know how, so no." "I see," she glances at me and I feel magic occur, too swiftly for me to react and it's over. "What was that?" I'm panicked and frightened. "Forgive me. I say again, I will not harm you. Now, sister, answer me this honestly... Or don't. It's one to me, but think on your answer: what manner of sorceress are you?" I do think on my answer a good long time, and when I reply, it is honest, "A very, very poor one." "Oh?" "My magic is very rudimentary. I can... change things, here and there, or stop them from changing, I can sense magic and feel spells, but real spells, performing them, making them is beyond my understanding." "Ah. Why is this?" "Honestly?" "Yes, if that is your way." "It's too difficult. I can't make a spell up in my mind and hold it there together long enough to make it work." "Yes. Trying to do that would make you a poor sorceress indeed." "Trying to do what? How else can I..." Salmacis raises her voice, including the centaurs in what she says, "For using my road I levy neither toll nor charge. If the river is your destination then you will not reach it before dark, but you are welcome to Salmacis' hospitality tonight." Now her voice is soft again, speaking to me, "I should like you all to take up my invitation, for I much desire to speak with you. I can teach you many things, little sister, but unlike my road, my knowledge has a price." With some fear, but also real desire for that knowledge I ask her, "What is that price." "It has been many years since Salmacis had a woman's company, and her home here sates all hungers and thirsts but one." "I... er... I should talk it over with my companions." "Do so, we are some way yet from my home. I will go no farther than that tonight, you may do as you will." My mind rapidly working I slow my pace until I fall level with the centaurs some way back. "She wants us to stay with her tonight." "So she says," says Eupraxia. "So did Lecto," Clytemnestra points out, very reasonably. Very, very reasonably. "I don't think she means to hurt us... She could have done so already, if she'd wanted to. Lecto didn't know we were there until we pitched up on her doorstep. Salmacis knew we were here from the moment I examined that stone." Eupraxia asks us, "Who is Lecto?" "'Who was Lecto', you mean," Clytemnestra shakes her head ruefully, "A sorceress, abiding alone in the woods. We encountered her and she meant us ill. Dead now and well served." "She, Salmacis, she said she could teach me things." "I dare say she could, lady, but don't let that possibility blind you to other less wholesome designs she may have too." "What does your heart tell you?" "Ah, there's the question, no? By my nature I am inclined to trust all who have not shown themselves untrustworthy, yet, also I do beware sorceresses." At this moment, Aristomache, who has been silent throughout takes a few swift strides forward until almost alongside Salmacis and calls out to her. "Sorceress, have you ever heard the name of Zenaida?" "And if I have?" "Tell me of her." "She was considered a great poet, and a sublime beauty, after the manner of your kind. A great favourite of the previous Grand Master of Zoa, who heaped every kind of favour upon her. Every kind of favour... Yes." "Did you know her?" "I did, for my part, once. Since you ask of her, and are in form very much like her I shall say you are her kin? Daughter, I think?" "I am that. And you, Salmacis, you are the sorceress who served Grand Master Phoebe." "I am she." The rest of us, of course can only look on in wonder as we listen. "Does this knowledge make you more or less inclined to trust Salmacis, oh travellers?" "That may depend," Clytemnestra replies, "On how the court magician of Zoa came to be living alone in the jungle?" "You risk much by asking. Perhaps it is a thing that might rouse my anger? Perhaps once, but time dulls the edge. Suffice it to say, Grand Master Kallisto is not one tenth the woman her mother was. So inferior a ruler as she does not deserve Salmacis' service." "Why do you say that?" "Ask no more else I shall become angry, daughter-of-Zenaida. Your mother once earned my respect, to her daughter I owe nothing." There's not much Aristomache seems able to say to that and she falls back to walk with the rest of us. She does seem to want to trust Salmacis' benign intentions though, and so do I, for whatever reason. So it is that when, after almost two hour's walking, Salmacis says we are at her home, we all of us elect to accept her hospitality, whatever that may be, and go no farther tonight. "We can't get up there," Clytemnestra points out, obviously. She is putting it mildly. Salmacis home is well over fifty feet above even Aristomache's head, suspended upon the trunks of three almighty trees. Tree house is to give only the meanest of names! Tree mansion, tree palace? Perhaps? A great number of structures, walkways, balconies and mezzanines are visible clinging to the three trees, all hung with bright, multi-coloured lanterns and speckled with growing flowers. Salmacis smiles, obviously proud of her home and enjoying my look of awe -- a look shared only ambivalently by the centaurs. "I invited you to partake of my hospitality, but not of my home," she clarifies, and then looks directly at me, "Unless you wish to learn what I have to teach." I swallow hard, and look at Clytemnestra, and at my other two companions before turning back to Salmacis. "I do," I say, nervous and excited, "If that's okay?" I address that to Clytemnestra. "You need my permission for nothing, lady. Do as you will with my blessing." Salmacis looks up at her home and instantly a long, snaking rope ladder falls at her feet, stretching all the way up, she begins to climb and, though she hasn't told me to, I follow. It's a hard, tricky climb. The ladder wobbles all over the place and a long, slightly billowy red silk skirt isn't the ideal attire for climbing it. With little grace and much slowness I reach the top and haul myself vertiginously over the parapet. Salmacis is already within her home and I follow. It's a wondrous place. All wooden floors draped with skins and carpets, the walls are wood, or sometimes leather stretched tautly between stout staves. Some parts seem built, others excavated from the living wood and some parts of her home seem in form to have been grown from the trees themselves. There are obviously magical lights scattered all about, not physical objects but little floating points of light which make my skin tingle deliciously. Salmacis ushers me deeper into the slightly labyrinthine structure. She has a sextet of large, silver amphorae and holds one out to me until I take it. It's quite empty but when Salmacis touches it again, I feel a significant swell of magic and suddenly the amphora is so heavy in my hands, sloshing with splashing, laughing water. Another touch of the vessel, another sense of magic and the liquid within is dark and aromatic and clearly wine. "This is but a taste of the things I could teach you, sister. All I ask in return is your company for a night, or two." "Why?" She gives me a strange look, as though that's not the answer she expected, "Is it so wrong for one who has lived alone these long years to crave the company of her own kind?" "No... I meant, why are you willing to teach me? Most people, most sorcerers guard their knowledge quite jealously." "And Salmacis does not? Do not mistake me, I am offering you no great secrets, nothing I pass to you will see you unmaking armies and conquering cities. If Salmacis knows such magics, and perhaps she may, she keeps them for herself," she laughs quietly, "But I'd not have you go on calling yourself a sorceress, and my sister, and not knowing the meanest crafts which should go with that title." "Then I gratefully accept." "Good," she fills each of the remaining amphorae, one after the other with clear water and turns each to wine, "Now take these to your companions and tell them that they may shoot Salmacis game, if they wish, and drink her wine, but that they shall not see you or her for a day and a night." So I do, though it presents me a problem. I cannot imagine how I might descend that twisting, swaying ladder with just one of these heavy amphorae, let alone six and I stand at the top for long minutes trying to puzzle it out until the obvious solution strikes me. Just as I did once before when escaping from Lady Kanna's house I dial my mass way way down and step lightly from the balcony, floating gently down to the ground, much to the awe of Eupraxia and Aristomache. I tell them what I've been bidden to say, and I apologise for leaving them out here on the ground, for which I genuinely do feel bad. I feel even worse, in fact, when all three of them are magnanimous and do not begrudge me at all. Especially Clytemnestra, who I think suspects that we aren't only going to be playing at magic tricks up there. Still, they're no worse off than they would have been had we not met Salmacis. Very much better in fact, given that a sufficient quantity of wine will win over almost any centaur. Clytemnestra gives me a lusty kiss goodbye, and a hard grope before sending me on my way. Mmmmm. Salmacis is waiting for me when I clamber again to the top of that horrible ladder, she's shed her cloak and her tall leather boots and is smiling a pretty, eager smile. She's a peach! Sprightly, lithe as anything with excited, golden eyes and a face made for laughing and loving. "I'm ready," I say, as she motions me within, following on herself directly, "Ready to learn everything you will teach me." "Patience, little sister, be patient for your prize as I have been for mine... Come morning I will keep my promise, but the night is for lovers, and for love." I wonder how old she really is, obviously more than she looks, much much more if she was already an adult, and a powerful sorceress in the time of Aristomache's mother. I wonder if she will teach me the magics to stay young. Her arm snakes around my hips, her body is pressed against mine and she guides me, steers me through the winding wooden corridors and over the narrow bridges of her home. Now we are climbing a long staircase -- a staircase so obviously grown, not carven or built - which spirals all about the trunk of the greatest tree, up and on up until we come at last to the highest point of Salmacis' home. It is a great oval platform girt about with a low balustrade and scattered all over with furs and silks and cushions. So high are we, so tall is this one tree that we are well above the canopy of the jungle and our view is unobstructed all the way from the mountains to the lake and to Zoa itself. Overhead tiny points of magical light twinkle amongst the foliage like the stars which are now coming out in the bottomless purple-black sky. Wind chimes softly tingle-tangle here and there about our perch and nocturnal birds sing back at them. Salmacis bids me sit, recline in fact, with her amid the disarrayed furs and silks and rich velvet and satin cushions. There is nothing rustic about the way she lives. Nothing rustic about the rich, soft materials on which we recline, nor anything but fancy finery about us, nor anything wanting from the silver platter of ripe, fresh fruits, tempting meat and bread and dainties, nor the stemmed glasses from which we drink, nor the cut crystal decanter from which she pours fragrant wine, so dark as to be black under the twinkling magical stars. We recline, facing one another, each of us propped up on her elbow, supported by cushions and dining as we please from the single platter. It is by far and away the best meal I've eaten in months. There are fat little olives in spiced oil, and pheasant and rabbit and rich white bread still warm enough to melt the fresh butter, oh, and dates, which I love very much. I suspect my enthusiasm shows. "Salmacis hospitality is to her sister's liking?" "I... I've, that is to say, we've been on the road a long time. Where does it all come from?" "I told you, my home satisfies its mistress." "Milk? Olives? Dates? The jungle provides them?" "Some things I create myself, some, the jungle provides me, some are given me in tribute." "Tribute?" "Grand Master," she puts such scorn into the title, spitting out like poison, "Kallisto may not be worthy of Salmacis' power, but there remain some in Zoa who remember who she is. Some come seeking some boon, some try to buy my favour, else willingly give me gifts in thanks for the path you followed today." My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 07 She smiles to herself, and then at me, "Salmacis lives well, does she not?" "She certainly does," I have to admit. "It is the way of things, an you become so powerful as I, you too shall find many people offering tribute to you, without your asking or earning. Should this happen, you shall accept. Yes, you shall, for people can become offended if you do not. It is the right way of the world." "That will be a long time, if ever." "Maybe, maybe. But you will remember Salmacis' words." At that, she pushes the laden silver platter away and rolls over until her body is hard against mine. The last morsel of food is snatched from my fingers and carelessly flung over the edge of our eyrie. "You will remember Salmacis' words, and maybe you will remember Salmacis too, who had not had woman's company for too many long years, and bid you make love to her 'neath the stars." Well what can one do, or say to that? I kiss her gently on the lips, they are warm and soft and open eagerly. Her arms fly around me and her body pushes me back until she is atop me, kissing hungrily. Her body presses tight against mine, eager for the physical contact, her tongue in my mouth, her hair tickling my face, her hands roaming my body wantonly. Salmacis' breathing is hot and ragged and there is a desperate, animal need in her eyes when she breaks our kiss to tear my blouse open. Bone buttons ping and skitter around and Salmacis licks me all the way from navel to sternum and then kisses me again, hard and eager while both her hands grope and squeeze and rub at my little breasts. Her breath is hot on my skin in the cool night air, but her mouth leaves a cool, wet trail that makes me shiver delightedly. Her hands roam all over my body, just for the sensation of touching a woman again, I think. Forcing my arms up and over my head Salmacis spends long minutes licking at my armpits, long, hard, flat licks at my dark hair making me squirm and giggle until she has to kiss me quiet again and I almost swear I can taste my sweat in her kiss. She kisses me again and again, long and forceful and driven by so many years alone. Only when I pull her top off over her head does she stop, eyes shining in the twilight, hair in disarray from the garment's passage and chest heaving with excitement and lust. Oh my! Both her nipples, her long, eager brown nipples are pierced through with fat golden rings! Immediately she is free she turns her lust upon my own naked chest, kissing and sucking and biting at my nipples and then kissing my mouth again, and my breasts again and again. Now eager, grasping hands seize my waistband and pull, dragging my skirt and knickers off as one and she gasps with pleasure at the sight of my engorged, wet sex. Her face is instantly buried in my thick hair, not eating, just smelling. She inhales great breaths of the scent of my arousal. Over and over she breaths in my scent before finally tasting me. Once. Just one lick, so deep, so slow, her tongue gilding deep between my open petals. Salmacis quivers and so do I. Now she's kneeling up, fumbling at her belt. She forces the clasp open and I seize her trousers about the waist, hauling until they turn inside out and she must fall back, kicking and wriggling out of them and leaving her clad solely in a pair of tight, wet, sky-blue knickers. The moment she is, she is on me again, her lips to mine kissing me in blazing passion, her hands to my chest, her sex to my hip. Waves roll down her flexible spine and her hips roll against mine, her wet womanhood grinds against my pelvis, Salmacis sighs rhythmically, tribbing herself against me through her wet pants. At first her body against mine, but now vertical, towering above my supine form, her hands on my breasts, groping me, tweaking my poor nipples, holding purchase to enhance the power of her grinding, rubbing, milling cunt. She grunts coarsely in time with her hard, thrusting hips. Her dark face alive with lust and joy in the fading light. White teeth and wide, golden eyes exult her conquest of my body. The heavy gold rings transfixing her nipples sway pendulously with every motion of her body. A rhythmic, hypnotising display. My hands go about her hips, and down and up and all over her body, caressing her as she fucks herself against me. Her tribbing increases in speed and intensity, scarcely possible though it seems. With every thrust of her wet, cloth covered quim against my firm thigh she utters a little cry of joy, her eyes no longer open, screwed tight closed as she comes, sighing and falling back into the cushions and furs behind her. I can hear her panting, her soft 'mmm's of satisfaction. I right myself and crawl to her. Oh! Her knickers are so wet! A great big, dark, wet patch of blue cloth covers her crotch. Coarse, excited tufts of hair emerge eagerly from every edge of her pants. As she did to me I press my nose to her and inhale her womanly scent. I taste the sopping wet cloth, licking over it again and again as she coos in pleasure. I lick at the border of her knickers, licking the hair which sticks out all around. I lick hard, right above her pleasure centre, nuzzling and stimulating her through the cloth. For long, wonderful minutes I lick and sniff and rub and tease at Salmacis' tight, wet pants while she recovers from her orgasm. My hand sneaks down to my own womanhood, burying my fingers in my long, wet hair. My fingers circle over my excited clitty as I'm lost to her wonderful, love-infused knickers. My first little moan of building pleasure brings Salmacis back to me, rising and taking my head in her hands she kisses me once again. Less forcefully now, less hungry, more sensual. A kiss two women share for equal pleasure, not to sate the hunger of one alone. Again though, her hands push me down into the silks and furs and cushions and Salmacis lips trail kisses all down my body, stopping only just short of my waiting sex. Perhaps just for the delight of frustrating me... Ah! But lightly her finger traces my spread, outer lips and then she tastes my nectar, licking it from that same finger. "Sister!" her voice is husky, breathless and exciting, "Sister, sister... You cannot know how I have craved..." She licks my spread flower deep and hard, making me gasp, "You cannot know the long nights and empty hours when I'd have traded fortunes for just one taste..." She licks me again and again, she rubs her face against my crotch, she seizes a goodly clump of my thick pubic hair between her teeth and tugs until I gasp. Sudden inspiration strikes and in a trice she wriggles out of her sky-blue pants, casting them away, beyond my reach and I sigh in disappointment. But only for a moment as Salmacis turns, swinging her leg over me, planting her womanhood right on my face even as she eagerly sets about my own, eating me now properly and not merely losing herself in the joy of my body. Her cunt is a beautiful mess of thick black hair, glistening and matted with her juices and she spreads her legs so wide that it is instantly within my reach. Such flavour, such scent, and so talented and joyful a mouth working its magic between my legs. My hands seize her about the bum, spreading her cheeks, forcing her sex tighter to my licking, kissing, slurping, drinking mouth. My tongue drives deep within her, else licks lustily at her hot, wet lips, tasting everywhere, stimulating her most intimate folds and taking for myself the love which flows from within her. I take care not to come too close to her clit, she's just come and is probably rather sensitive. Salmacis shows no such restraint, making me cry and writhe beneath her as she explores every part of me. So good! So good, so good! I'm holding on so tight about her massaging her pert bottom with my hands, massaging her oh-so-juicy quim with my mouth, but she? Oh, Salmacis' knows just where to touch me, just where to lick me. Her tongue traces my engorged outer lips, else dives deep within me, else licks up and around my very pleasure centre or down again along my sensitive inner lips and she is so good! Such a fire is she building between my spread legs I can scarcely concentrate on pleasuring her, scarcely even just enjoy the cunt thrust against my face! But I try. With every care and ounce of effort I can muster I eat her long neglected sex. Wetting one finger in her abundant love I now massage her tight little sphincter too. Eating, licking, touching stroking trying to pour as much pleasure into Salmacis as she does into me. And losing. So close... I'm so close now that all I can do is gasp and sigh and let her juices roll down my cheeks, my eyes screwed tight shut, my hips rising on their own. One hand still, still rubbing franticly at her secret place, the other gripping so tight around a fistful of silk and fur. My mind is lost in sexual bliss as I find my release and collapse, spent under her body, panting and staring stupidly at her dripping, spread cunt. It's a good sight. In an instant, it's gone. Gone and in it's place Salmacis' beaming, wet face. She kisses me hungrily, sharing my flavour and admixing it with her own. The thick golden rings dangling from her breasts feel strange against me. Strange and exciting. We kiss for a long moment and then Salmacis withdraws, taking up her wineglass and draining it in one. She's still lying on me, her body heavy and very, very naked. I can still feel her piercings between us. She looks so happy, looking into my eyes, smiling like a child. And yet, so like a woman. "Ahhh... Salmacis' has not lost her touch, it seems," she looks down contentedly at me, chin resting on one hand while her other plays with a lock of my hair." "It seems not," I smile back, wrapping my arms about her, kissing her again and tasting red wine. Hours later... Many hours later, It is cuddling time. Our bodies wrapped around one another, sharing the sated lazy feeling of love well made for so, so long. We lie on and under her silks and furs, just holding one another. How long has it been, I wonder, since I've done this? I love Clytemnestra, but she's restless, not made for staying still too long, and, well, too large to cuddle. This is nice. "I know why you missed it," I say. "You love the dark centaur," it's a statement, not a question. "Yes." "That is good. Salmacis does not care for centaurs' charms, but that is good too. Love her, and make love to her as your heart directs, but do not forsake your own kind entirely." "You never made love to a centaur? I... I just assumed, living in Zoa." "Never." "I love them. So much... Everything... They're so... Sexual. There's no other word for it." "You will enjoy Zoa, and it, I think, will enjoy you," she titters softly and snuggles tighter against my body, "But Salmacis still has you for herself, now." "You're right though, I never thought I'd say it but I think I would miss my own kind, eventually." "This is the nature of things, I think beneath us your companions pass their time in the way that is right when humans are not present, just as we have passed our time. Like calls unto like." "Of course." She's quite right though, I am starting to realise that I would miss humans. I would, do in fact, miss, well, just being able to lie and cuddle with one's partner after making love, to hold her in my arms, to feel her heartbeat. Powerful as a centaur's heart is, it is buried deep within her equine body and quite undetectable most of the time. Something I only now realise I do miss. "I do love her, though," I say, softly. "Good. Love her, be with her, make love to her, but know that it is only for a season. One day you and she both will want what the other cannot give. Like calls unto like, centaur calls unto centaur, human calls unto human." "Woman calls unto woman?" I ask, I don't know why I say it. "Of course." "Just the way the word works?" "It is the nature of things." I hold her tighter and enjoy the warm, soft feeling of the furs and of her body against mine, drifting slowly closer to sleep. "Spells are beyond you because even the simplest will not fit into your mind," Salmacis taps me lightly on the forehead. We slept long into the morning and awoke still in one another's arms, tangled together and more tangled still in silk and fur. Even now, while Salmacis makes good her promise, we are still naked and entwined together. It's not remotely how I imagined a lesson in magic, but it is magical. I think Salmacis just does not want to miss a moment of my body. We are making a gentle, casual breakfast of fruits left over from last night and pausing now and again to watch colourful birds that flutter nearby. I bite into a plump, ripe pear and Salmacis licks away the juice which escapes my lips before she goes on, "Had you had any formal training at all, your mistress would have aided you in the creation of a Rod and Plate." "And those are?" "Spells. The foundation of almost all magic, both are permanent spells bound into your own body. The Rod permits you to alter the world around you without needing to physically touch it, the Plate is a spell onto which any other spells may be engraved, so that you do not need to hold them in your mind." I think I just about get the picture. Salmacis takes my hand and bids me open my magical senses. I do and all of sudden I am utterly surrounded by spells! Or, no. Like spells, but not. Like the difference between a blueprint and a building. For one moment I see spells waiting to be. "Feel fortunate. Never before has Salmacis allowed another to see her Plate." I understand, The Plate is like a spell book, or a disc full of programmes waiting to be executed. Salmacis does not have to create a spell when she needs to cast, she has only to select from the ones she has already written to her Plate. "You can help me make one too?" "I can, and will, a Plate and Rod." It's... Not how I imagined. Learning magic. I'd not imagined it happening, lying naked with this enigmatic, copper-skinned beauty with her cheeky little boobies peeking out of the silks wrapped around us. No, not like I might have pictured it at all, much, much better! I watch her write a spell into my body, into the code of my being. Two spells in fact, first one, then the next. It makes me want to laugh. I do that, sometimes. I watch someone skilfully doing something very difficult and I just... Laugh, I don't know why. The sun climbs higher into the sky and some hours pass in the creation of the spells and presently, as lovely as it is to snuggle up with Salmacis and watch her work her magic, we do have to get up. Salmacis, when the spells are complete, tells me that we are done for the present and simply departs. She descends from this high platform, naked save for the rings pierced through her body and I can only assume I'm meant to follow. I'm not quite so comfortable though and I dress in clean clothes before following. Well, obviously, I dress in clean clothes and have a good long sniff of her abandoned knickers before following. To thine own self be true. It's empty. Her home is empty and there's no sign of where Salmacis may have gone. I wonder from room to room, and over bridges and up and down ladders from structure to structure and see not a sign of my host. The ladder to the ground is tightly curled and held fast by magic that I am not brave enough to try and undo. I could easily reach the ground, floating safely down, but if I did I'd never be able to get back up again. I'm not troubled, exactly but I am rather confused, and rather uncomfortable at being left along in the home of, well, if not exactly a stranger, then someone I do not know well. Wow! This world is having a powerful effect on me, I realise. Unless I think about it, it does not seem at all strange that two strangers may simply choose to make love upon meeting for the first time. I never would have behaved as I have, but I cannot bring myself to feel either shame or unhappiness about my sexual escapades. A strange thing indeed. Lost in introspection I spend perhaps an hour in wondering Salmacis' home, or examining the surrounding jungle from one or other lofty balcony before the lady herself is suddenly with me again. Her arms sneak around my waist and I feel her naked body pressed against mine. She turns me around, still embracing me and now resting her head on my chest. I cannot help but hold her too. "Last night was a pleasure I'll long remember," she purrs. "Me too," I give her naked body a squeeze. "Tonight will be better still." "Difficult, but it will be fun trying." She looks into my eyes, smiling strangely, and with a little of that lustful hunger of last night, "Tonight we make love as sorceresses." I cannot help but gasp as a wave of warmth and wonderful joy radiates from my centre out, all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes. Salmacis giggles softly at my reaction to what must be some kind of pleasure spell. "How..." She kisses me silent and says, "All in good time, sister. The night is for lovers, remember?" Salmacis takes my hand and leads me back inside her home, and deeper within to what I think serves as her study. She has many, many sheafs of thick, yellow paper written with red and blue ink, magic writings, I can tell instantly. They have similarities to Lecto's but are not identical, but then, my own are slightly different too, such is the nature of magic, I think. Mine are far closer to Lecto's than Salmacis' are. She bids me sit in a pile of soft, fluffy cushions and immediately I do so, she sits on my lap, snuggling her naked body against me and flicking through her papers. "We shall write this to your plate, this too, and some more," she waves various sheets at me, though I'm having a hard time concentrating with her firm, sexy body so available. She slaps one of my exploring hands away, "Stop that.. Ooh! No... Well, if you insist." Salmacis permits me a kiss, a very long, deep kiss before pulling away, and I think it took her no little willpower to end it. Once again our magics commingle as our bodies have, Salmacis spells flow from her into me and I engrave them upon the Plate spell already written through me. Slowly, piece by piece, element by element I form these new spells, taking care to understand each part. Salmacis is patient and allows me to study what she is giving me. The spell she'd used on me is very simple, just an instant, transitory sexual thrill, but some of the others! With what she is teaching me, I could make almost anyone feel almost anything, from pleasure beyond consciousness to agony to hunger or just tickling... More spells too she teaches me, but the last one... Ah, now I understand what she means. Now I understand how Sorceresses make love. "Show me what you have learned, sister." "With pleasure." In a trice I'm up and peeling my clothes off. I'm excited, but also nervous. I let her feel it, I touch her mind with my own, let her feel what I feel. She smiles and so do I. I can feel her pride, and her lust, and she feels my lust for her. She reclines farther back on the cushions and I can feel her comfort and the sense of pleasure she gets from the soft silk against her skin. I feel her building lust for my body, her great sense of thankfulness for my presence and her pride in having taught me such things as she has today. I know that she feels my my emotions too, my desire, my sense of power and intimacy and my brute wonder at the ability to do what I can do. My heart beats fast as I advance on her, I'm trembling as I stand over her, lowering myself to her. Our kiss is electric, I swear I can feel my lips on hers, hers on mine. I'm lying nestled in soft silk cushions as I kiss myself. Salmacis writhes as she presses herself against her own body. We are one, lost between ourselves, feeling all, sensation passes from one body to another and back again with no beginning or end. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 08 CHAPTER VIII 'KALLIDORA' I could have stayed with Salmacis a long, long time. She would have let me, too. But it was not to be. I love Clytemnestra, even if it is only for a season, as Salmacis said. As Clytemnestra herself said too, in her way. So I departed with Clytemnestra, and with Eupraxia and Aristomache we went on towards the river, where now we find ourselves. My, but it is a mighty artery already. It didn't look so from high up in the mountains, but here on the banks it is a sight to behold. It must be half a mile broad, a vast expanse of sparkling bottle-green water flowing before us. Clytemnestra and Aristomache are cutting wood to make a raft, but neither is working very hard or fast at it and I don't fully blame them. I'm quite excited about sailing a log raft down an exotic jungle river. It's so... So irresistibly adventurous to my mind! I can scarcely contain my enthusiasm for the endeavour, but to the centaur mind, rafting is one of the very few things less appealing than bushwhacking through a dense jungle, which is saying something. Still, this is the way we must go, so I tolerate their lack of enthusiasm. "Are you sure I can't help?" I ask, trying to show willing. "Take your rest, Lady. Two people can't swing one axe," Clytemnestra tousles my hair fondly and starts knotting the latest log into the array of fibrous twines we've scrounged up from the jungle. "Fair enough. There's nothing so relaxing as watching other people work." Eupraxia giggles and nods. I suspect that we could have been done hours ago if Eupraxia and I had been more help, but there really has been little for us to do and I know the raft will not be finished before dusk, much to the centaur's joy, I suspect. Fortunately we have a pleasant spot to camp for the night. We are settled in modest clearing between the river and jungle, carpeted with soft grass and little blue flowers. Our raft takes shape over the few remaining hours before sunset. It's around twenty-five feet square, formed of a double-layer of long, narrow logs bound tightly together cross-grain to keep it stiff. To my eye it doesn't look the most seaworthy vessel in creation, but the river is wide and slow and I have assured the others that, in a pinch I can make up any shortcomings with a little magic. I think I probably can too! The sun sinks beneath the canopy of trees and I spark a little fire amongst some offcuts and kindling. We make a supper of the last of the bread and cheese Salmacis gave us a couple of days ago. Aristomache 'mmm's contentedly as she shrugs out of her halter top and stretches the kinks from her muscles, a moment later, Clytemnestra does the same, contentedly letting her bouncy round boobies out of captivity. That's an enjoyable sight. Centaurs wear little anyway, usually just a halter top or some such to keep their breasts from jiggling, but there is still such a difference, perhaps if only psychological, between clothed and naked. I could look at centaurs' breasts all day. In fact, I have done so, Eupraxia's flat little bust rarely needs restraining so she almost always goes nude, but it's still a treat to see the others on full display. On a whim I remove most of my clothes too, my boots and socks, my top and skirt until I'm wearing only my knickers... Well, they were originally Kyani's knickers, but they're mine now. I settle back down, leaning against Clytemnestra's firm, warm body. Aristomache looks at me for a moment, taking in my barely dressed state, "Why do you leave the last garment on?" "Just for fun," I shrug. It's the truth, but it sounds silly to say it out loud. "She likes them," Clytemnestra explains. "Why?" I ponder Aristomache's question for a moment, "Why does anyone like anything? It's... It's difficult to explain. Especially to a centaur." "You will try?" she asks, apparently with genuine interest. I stroke my pants, the cloth is a little damp, just thinking about them is exciting. "Well... first off, these aren't mine, they belonged to a woman I made love to once, more than once, actually. Mostly my own pants don't turn me on, mostly. But, just... just think about it..." I'm still stroking my knickers, stroking myself through the slowly moistening cloth, slow, gentle, circular motions, feeling the slightly rough texture of the cotton, the shape of my womanhood beneath, the irregular sinuous complexity of my thick pubic hair trapped under the tight, taut fabric. "Knickers are.. Are sexy. Tight, damp cloth wrapped hard around a woman's most intimate place... Hard about her body, infused with her scent, her taste," I squirm delightedly at the thought, wriggling against Clytemnestra soft, glossy black horsehair and still teasing at my flooded cunny through Kyani's pants. "They're intimate, personal. Sexy, it's not a good explanation, but... But that's all there is to it. Give me a nice pair of used knickers and I'm happy, the smell, the feel the... Just the feeling of holding someone else's knickers, sniffing them, licking them, wearing them." I'm masturbating properly now, through these wonderful used knickers, my love infusing them, joining with the old infusion Kyani gave them when she wore them. "And if she's wet them... Ooh! It's not better, maybe, just different. If she's wet herself, there's something so sordid, so sexual about holding a pair of pee soaked knickers, the smell and feel of them. Even mine, but someone else's are always better. The smell changes as they dry out, but it's still just as good. It's... It's..." It's getting harder to talk as I tease myself higher toward my plateau, my mind floods with wonderful images of sexy knickers and lewd, wet women wearing them, wetting them. Having come under the influence of such delightful mental images I gradually become aware that all three of my companions are watching with a degree of amusement. I can only smile half-heartedly and snuggle back against Clytemnestra's flank, licking my fingers. "May I try them?" Eupraxia's voice startles me slightly, she's soft-spoken and hasn't said much until now. "What?" "Your knickers, may I smell them?" Oh wow... just hearing her say something like that, in her soft, sexy voice is electrifying. "Of course." I slip my thumbs under the waistband and wriggle the warm, wet pants off as she approaches. She takes them from my hand and raises them to her face, pressing the scrap of white cloth to her nose and inhaling deeply. She dos it again, sniffing my dirty knickers, turning them to find the wet spot, her eyes closed to fully appreciate the smell. She sniffs again, then licks at the damp fabric. It's a wonderful sight. I lean back against Clytemnestra, gazing up at this wonderful, pale centaur sniffing and licking my knickers. My pulse thrums, my heart hammers with excitement. Her hand falls again, she tosses the pants into my lap, "Now pee in them for me." It's such a simple thing to say... So simple, yet so lewd, so sexy, all the moreso for its simplicity, for its very matter-of-fact nature. She asks this incredibly sordid thing of me so sweetly. I leap to my feet as though galvanised and slip the still-warm pants on again, pulling them tight against my wildly excited cunt. Eupraxia settles herself to the ground before me, taking me in her arms, she kisses me softly on the lips and then looks me right in the eye. "Wet yourself for me, please," she bids, her tangerine eyes lancing into mine. I hold her tight, and she me, our bodies together, my cloth-covered womanhood is hard against her hard body as I piss for her. She gasps, so do I, the hot, hot wet pee gushes forth, instantly flooding my knickers, it splashes down my legs, and across her skin. I feel wonderful, tingling rivulets of urine flow between my thighs. Her strong arms hold me tighter to her, forcing my pissing flower against her alabaster coat. I kiss her again, "That's it..." She lets me free, her hand traces the outline of my lips through the thin layer of utterly wet cotton. She tastes her fingers, just once and then draws the pants down over my wet, clammy thighs, down and to the ground and I step out of them. Instantly she has the knickers to her face, she sniffs heartily, licks at the wet material, sucks noisily with the cloth between her lips. Strong brown arms encircle me from behind, Clytemnestra runs her hands all over my body, but especially over my wet legs, else through my wetter pubic hair. She tastes my piss from her fingers, and lets me taste too. "You are wrong," Eupraxia says. "About... Ooh, about what?" It's hard to concentrate with Clytemnestra pawing wantonly at my damp thighs. "You said knickers were not better for having been pissed in, you're wrong." "Not better, just different. Both are good." "These are better," Eupraxia states flatly. Clytemnestra has her own opinion on the matter, "You're doing it all wrong," she says, accusingly. Clytemnestra's hand darts out and snatches the wet knickers from Eupraxia. Her arms go about me again and she shakes them open ordering me to step into them, which I eagerly do. Ooh! They're wet and cool against my skin, delightfully kinky. "Now lie down," she orders Eupraxia, "On your back." Eupraxia looks askance, but complies. Centaurs rarely lay on their backs, it's not very comfortable I think. Still she does as she's told and Clytemnestra forces me down, her hands on my shoulders she makes me sink down atop Eupraxia, my wet thighs either side of her head, my soaking, pissy pants lowered to her suddenly comprehending face. We both moan excitedly when she kisses my crotch, hard and thirsty and eager. My hands find her flat breasts, questing all over, groping her lavishly. Her lips work at my fabric-covered flower, her hands circle my waist and I start to move, to trib myself against her face. She gives out a muffled, merry moan as my rocking hips find their rhythm. Far away, all the way at the other end of Eupraxia's body Aristomache settles herself down and descends upon her wife's neglected sex, Eupraxia quivers and squirms beneath me as Aristomache stimulates her. Clytemnestra plays with my body for her own pleasure, she cups my small breasts, her hands engulfing them entirely, else nibbles gently at my ear or neck. I fuck myself harder and harder against Eupraxia, against her biting, licking, kissing mouth. It'd hurt a human, I'm sure, but she can take it! Her body thrills under my hands, driven higher toward her peak by her Aristomache's spirited cunnilingus. I whimper rhythmically in time with my own grinding hips, Eupraxia's hooves kick mindlessly into the sky, her hands mimic Clytemnestra's, caressing me all over. I'm close! So close! Tribbing myself wildly against her through my piss flooded knickers. I come, jerking, spasming and collapse on top of her moments before the lady herself cries out in ecstasy. We both lie there for a moment, lost in the union of our bodies, then she gently rolls me from her, and rights herself, smiling happily. I scamper to my feet, kiss her hard, kiss the lips I fucked my wet knickers against. Then I kiss Aristomache too, just because I can. Ooh! Her lips taste of cunt! Her strong arms wrap around me, holding me tight to her body, she kisses me back. Her tongue deep in my mouth, her hard, round breasts crushing my petite bust, her stiff nipples delightfully proud against my skin. She takes me up in her arms only to lay me gently down again in the soft grass before her. Her lips leave mine, kiss me again, and then again at my neck, and still lower. She trails kisses down my neck, down my chest. Her lips trail light, flighty tickle-kisses all over my little breasts, but never stop. Now she has covered my breasts in kisses she goes on, raising my arms above my head, I feel her hot breath at my armpit. I can't help giggling! Her nose is buried amongst the thick, dark hair there, tickling me, she inhales full, centaur-sized lungfuls of my scent and moans her approval. Her tongue snakes out to lick me, kiss me with delicate precision tickling me all the more for her gentleness. It's all a wonderful distraction! With a great heave she rids me of my wet knickers in a trice, making me squeal in shock. A strong copper-skinned hand touches my sternum, pushing me irresistibly back to earth and her she resumes her kissing journey down my body. Oh, but I know her destination! "Aaah!" Without so much as a preliminary kiss her hard, strong tongue licks me right between the lips, she smiles widely, but only for a moment, realising that she's been too rough. The next is more gentle. Having just come, riding her wife's face, I'm so very sensitive, and she is a woman given to hearty, powerful tongue lashings. Her tongue and lips drive my coming orgasm unstoppably. Her face, part buried in my deep jungle presses hard against me and I can but let her take me. Squirming powerlessly against her licking, kissing, drinking mouth. Suddenly deeper shadows close in around me, the sky is obscured by Clytemnestra and Eupraxia, their shapely hominine torsos looming over me, closing in above me as each swoops down on my naked breasts. All three centaurs work at my body with their lips and tongues and teeth. Licking my quailing sex, kissing my tender breasts, nipping oh-so-gently at my so-stiff nipples. No woman could resist for long, no human woman could endure for long against the might of three horny centaurs! I come with geologic ferocity, crying aloud, tearing up great fistfuls of grass, body shuddering all over with the intensity of my third orgasm. It leaves me panting, gasping like a landed fish, the world spinning around me. One by one, the centaurs stand, smiling at the destruction they've wrought in me. Ohhhh... Last night, there seemed to me something exciting, something indescribably romantic about sailing down an exotic jungle river on a handmade log raft. Standing here in the dawn's new light the placid, twinkling, green water seems to have taken on a hungry, threatening aura. It laps against the edge of our beached raft as though tasting it, preliminary to tasting us too. My heart beats swiftly and adrenaline thrills my nerves as I step aboard. Clytemnestra, Eupraxia and Aristomache all have long, stout staves with which to guide our course and they set these to the beach, their great strength forcing our less-than-doughty seeming craft fully into the ominous water. The current takes us and the raft spins lazily around, rocking vertiginously as the centaurs scramble for balance, their hooves widely spread and striking splinters from the greenwood logs with every wild, lurching step. If I'm feeling nervous, and I am, my companions are far worse, I think. We drift with lazy inevitability a little farther out toward the middle of the river until Aristomache tries to arrest our motion, succeeding mostly, but making us spin in the opposite direction now, slow, gentle revolutions as the current plays with our brutally unhydrodynamic square raft. Eupraxia and Clytemnestra are laying down and actually holding on to the raft with their hands, for which I'm glad as every step Aristomache takes tilts our little vessel under my feet. The current is slow, ponderous and irresistible, carrying us on past endless green jungle on either bank. Bank? Ha! For the most part the meeting of river and land is indistinct, swallowed up in tangles of vegetation and the shadows of mighty, trees growing, it seems, directly from the waters themselves. I keep a watchful eye downstream for the watercraft I know sometimes come this way. Travellers from Zoa coming upriver to seek out Salmacis the Sorceress, or more rarely still, to cross the mountains. None appear, though, and as time drags on my mind wonders sometimes to that most fascinating woman... To make love with her was... Transcendent. A more-than-physical act, but that is not what sticks in my mind now. My mind submerges itself in memories of the gentle intimacy we often shared following the capital act. I think of the long hours we spent just holding one another. At times she felt like all elbows and knees, our limbs tangled about one another sharing the warm comfort of her bed. Physical in a way entirely divorced from sex. Moments like those have a magic all their own, and rarer than sex too. As my time in this odd, wonderful world goes on, I find I learn things hitherto unsuspended about myself. About my companions too, for that matter. By the time some hours have passed they have fallen entirely silent and almost entirely immobile. All three are obviously deeply unhappy to be afloat. Shame. I am actually starting to rather enjoy myself again. This morning's apprehension has almost entirely worn off and my earlier sense of exhilaration at rafting down an exotic jungle river has returned tenfold. I wish I could share it with the centaurs. In fact, I suppose I could, but I'm strongly disinclined to use magic on them. Another idea does present itself, however. Reaching out with my Rod spell I snare a likely fragment of driftwood and, though unmoving physically, I position it about a hundred yards ahead of our craft before pointing it out to the other three. "See that piece of wood?" I nod at it. "What of it, Lady?" Clytemnestra frowns. "Think you could hit it in one shot?" "Why?" Clytemnestra peers at it more closely, as though I may have spotted some danger about it. "I could!" Aristomache boasts. "Even from a raft on a river?" I ask. "From a cloud in a hurricane!" Clytemnestra has already chambered a shell and fires sending our craft gently spinning and blowing the wood to splinters and splashes. Eupraxia giggles, "I can top that!" Her own rifle comes out and she sights along the barrel for a dark speck in the water way off astern, aiming for a long moment as our craft bobs and turns before pulling the trigger and destroying whatever it may have been. That's solved the problem nicely. Centaurs consider markswomanship amongst the highest peaks of excellence and showing off their skills in this unique, and highly challenging setting is more than enough to take their minds off any distress they may have been feeling. Not to mention, cause me some. The motion of our raft grows increasingly erratic with the pronounced effect that three moving centaurs and their guns' recoil has on it over and above that of the river. Perhaps I didn't fully think this through... I've no interest in competing myself, of course. In other company I might go so far as to call myself a fair shot, but I know when I'm outclassed. Simply taking my ease as our craft drifts with the stream and my companions eventually exhaust their attention, and expendable ammunition I suppose, at their game. The hours roll on with the same inexorability as the river, as life itself. The hours roll on, and soon the days. We float ever farther from the mountains, through green jungle which in time thins, and sputters and vanishes altogether while we spend our days afloat and our nights in some secluded space of bank or another. One morning I wake to see a bright silver line on the distant horizon, quite invisible the night before. Much is made of it and with good spirits we set sail on what we think must be the final leg. Zoa is... Magnificent. I'd had some idea, some hint at least, from my first glimpse of the City on the Bridge. How could it not be? Now though, as I sorcerously guide our raft, our stout little servant these last few days toward the city I appreciate it fully. Its piers rise precipitously from the water, every one of stone carven in the shape of titanic monsters supporting the city herself, these beasts are of all shapes and kinds and kins, every one intertwined with its fellows, carved in stone stained green with long exposure to the waters around. The buildings of the city grow almost organically from their monstrous backs and shoulders. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 08 About most of the piers cluster small docks and jetties and ramshackle landings inexpertly built and entirely unmaintained. Most, it seems, are abandoned, mouldering away in the wet and wash of the lake along with the ancient boats tied to them, or incorporated rudely into their structure. I try to quell a feeling disquiet as I push the raft towards an obviously used, and usable marina. We can see activity on and around it. Small crafts, fishing boats and flat-bottomed barges with human women and men on their decks, and we can see centaurs here and there on the marina. We bump jarringly against the ancient wooden posts and planks of the marina and I hold our raft tight to it it, nuzzling clumsily against the wood while my companions gracelessly disembark. Some passers by, centaurs of course, help them scamper and scramble onto the marina and I vault assure with what I fondly imagine is impressive ease. Our loyal little raft drifts off, forgotten while Aristomache diverts the locals' questions and tries to divert the people themselves from our party. "Why'd you shoo them off?" I ask, genuinely curious now that she has made sure we're all alone. "What would you have me do? You," she indicates Clytemnestra and me, "And we had a common destination, but I don't want to be surrounded with strangers the moment we arrive." "They could've told us where we need to go... Or something... Where do we need to go? You've got a letter for this Grand Master woman?" We walk easily the paths of the marina and now find ourselves climbing long, shallow stair winding around the body of a serpentine seamonster as it climbs toward the city itself. The air smells of algae and impurities decayed in water and the stone under us is damp and slippy. All of that, however, is forgotten. Zoa is breathtaking. All of a sudden we are at street level, thrown instantly into a bustling pedestrian way hurry-scurrying between mighty gothic stone buildings looming up all about us. Every building is a thing of art where no whim or talent of mason or architect was ever denied. Every wall is a relief of carven images broken only by tall, dark stained glass and flying buttresses and leering grotesques. Ah, and the people! Centaurs, of course, all of them. I feel so obviously alien surrounded by them all. I cower close to Clytemnestra for fear of being trampled or swept away in the crowd. She lays her hand protectively on my shoulder. So many centaurs, the woman attractive, very, very shapely and less than half wearing any clothing. Everywhere I look my eyes are massaged by firm, smooth flesh, glossy dark coats, copper skin and round, tempting breasts. Men too, I've never seen male centaurs before, scarcely thought of them. They're taller than the women, for the most part, and mostly broader, too, more muscular, but sharing that same undeniable wildness of spirit in their eyes. None of them are clothed and for the most part their tails are little able to conceal their obvious intimidating maleness. Almost everyone around us, women and men alike have body piercings. Their ears, noses, nipples and more besides. I no longer wonder at Salmacis ponderous gold rings. "That's our way," Aristomache points, I think west, the spiral stair and tall, strange buildings have cost me my sense of direction, "The Grand Master's palace is at the centre of the bridge." So saying she leads us on. So many centaurs! Everywhere. I hold tight to Clytemnestra's hand, a little frightened. Clytemnestra asks after the city, "When was this built?" "I know not," Aristomache shrugs without turning around, "My mother never said, if she knew. A long time, I think. You are coming to the palace? You could ask there." "Are we?" My voice is small and soft against the constant background of rich, full centaur voices in the street and I have to repeat myself to be heard. Eupraxia looks down at me, surprised, "Are you not?" "I don't know... We were going the same way as you, but we don't have any... Any real plans here." So we follow. Clytemnestra squeezes my hand and she keeps walking and so do I. As simple as that. I cannot begin to speculate how old this city may be, but with every new vista of it I grow more certain that no centaur built it. The doorways are too small – most modified, but obviously so. The statuary along the roads and the images carved into the walls does depict centaurs, but far less often than human women and men. And what centaur, I ask myself, would build a city requiring so many staircases? Stairs around the piers, stairs outside buildings, stairs, no doubt within all these tall edifices. Yet more stairs, now. They lead up to the cyclopean doors of the Palace and when we climb them a phalanx of centaurs swoop down on us, bringing us to a halt. Each of them has a long, leaf-bladed weapon like a cross between spear and lance, and each has a rifle scabbarded at her waist. "Far enough, citizens," one says. She may be the leader, others seem to defer to her. Aristomache smiles warmly and I silently curse when the first words she speaks are, "We're strangers, not citizens." I can't imagine that will win us any friends in these fierce, well armed, soldiers and my eyes automatically scan for the best escape route. I think, if I have to, I'll take my chances with the stairs crawling around the outside of the nearest building. "Be about your business, strangers," the leader tells us, "This is the Palace of the Grand Master and you are not permitted within." Aristomache keeps smiling innocently, "We carry a letter for the Grand Master. A letter from Zenaida the Fair, and I am Aristomache, daughter of Zenaida." "Indeed?" the soldiers look her over closely, and look over each of us too, "And who are these others?" Aristomache introduces Eupraxia as her wife, and Clytemnestra and me as travelling companions from the east. The soldiers' leader converses briefly with one of her women and then nods at us. "You will come with me, Daughter of Zenaida." So saying she leads Aristomache through the palace's great door and we follow, thankfully unmolested. Through the magnificent arched doorway and into a vast, echoing marble hall whose roof is supported by tree-like pillars with stone roots that spill out over the floor and branches which intertwine with the ribs of the distant, vaulted ceiling. Between the pillars are tall brightly painted statues of centaurs, each atop a black marble plinth. "See," Aristomache singles one such statue from the others, "My mother, Zenaida." Zenaida's statue shows her standing on four legs, one arm cradling an open book, the other raised as though orating. Her head is thrown back, her considerable bosom thrust forward over her book. "She was a poet?" I ask, remembering Salmacis' description. Aristomache nods, "The very finest poet and dramatist you may ever know." "That she was," the soldier speaks for the first time since ordering us follow her, "Her departure was a day of sadness for Zoa." Presently we arrive at a waiting room where we are ordered to remain, and then left quite alone when the soldier closes the door behind her. Remain we do for about an hour, I think, interrupted only once when a boy, a centaur boy, brings us a gilded tray with four vast mugs of white wine. Each one is two pints at least and I find myself holding mine, staring nervously at it. "Problem, lady?" asks Clytemnestra, already well on the way to defeating her own. "Do you think I have to drink it?" "Have to? Why? And why wouldn't you?" "I don't know... Maybe it'll offend them if I don't." "Then do." "If half of what you've told my about centaur booze is true, I doubt I'd survive the attempt." I essay a mouthful and confirm my suspicions, it's a very potent, and in fact, rather unpleasant drink. I have a quick glance around to make sure no one is walking through the door and then transform it into water. I'm glad none of my companions notice either, they'd probably think it deeply wrong to waste alcohol like that. That brief crisis solved I'm still sober by the time another servant, this one a much older man dripping in gold chains and rings and piercings arrives. "Thank you for waiting, Daughter of Zenaida," he starts, without introductions, "Her Grace will see you and your companions now." "Excellent!" Aristomache moves to follow him and the rest of us tag after her until he stops us. "Her Grace will see the three of you," he turns to me, looking down somewhat ambivalently, "However, she does not treat with your kind lightly. Quarters have been prepared for all of you and you must remain there until the audience is complete." I stare at him for a moment before remembering myself, "How long..." "As long as her Grace wishes." "Lady, if you..." I cut Clytemnestra off, "It's fine. I'll be here when you're finished." I pat her hand fondly and smile at Eupraxia and Aristomache. I suppose this is only fair after I ditched them to stay with Salmacis. The old centaur leads them out of the waiting room and another figure enters immediately. A startlingly cute woman with rich, golden palomino colouration on her equine body matched by the pale skin and silver-white hair of her hominine half. "My apologies, ma'am, I'm sure you will not be separated long. Please, come with me and I will show you to your rooms." She indicates for me to follow and I do, happily watching her sexy, shapely rump sway in front of me and stealthily trying to catch a glimpse under her long white tail. She's just the cutest thing ever, very petite, fine, almost elfin features and sparkling blue eyes. She's just made for a pixie haircut, but in fact it's long and loose and swishing about her pale shoulders. Her small, perky, excited breasts have a fine golden chain strung from pointed nipple to pointed nipple. "These rooms are yours for as long as you are staying with us," she shows me into an exotically elegant room of veined red and white marble splashed all over with gold-leaf. I stand for a moment drinking it in. In the centre a huge mattress rests on the floor as centaurs like things, draped in fur and silk. Here a polished walnut writing desk, there a dark mahogany wardrobe. I wonder through a doorway into an adjoining room dominated by vast bath cut into the marble floor, a bath more than large enough for a centaur, or two. "Will there be anything else, ma'am? I'm instructed to provide anything you desire to make your stay as pleasant as possible." "What's your name?" "Kallidora, ma'am." "And you're to provide anything I desire?" "Yes ma'am." "And should I desire Kallidora?" I trail my fingers softly down her warm flank, walking slowly along her body She flinches slightly at my touch, swallows breathlessly, smiles warmly, "Anything," she purrs. I walk behind her, tracing my fingers across her broad, mouth-watering arse, "Anything," I repeat, completing my circuit of her sexy body. 'Anything'. Ah, I know what I want of her! My red satin top floats to the floor, Kallidora catches her breath and eyes my naked chest hungrily even as I wriggle out of my skirt and then my pants too. She gasps, such a quick, cute sound, gasps at my revealed garden of pubic hair, staring openly, desirously, as I comb my fingers through that thick dark jungle. "You've never seen a human unclothed?" I ask, walking to the desk and kicking off my boots and socks on the way. "No ma'am." "Never made love to a human?" "No ma'am." "Mm, never," I take up the silver chalice which sits next to the decanter on the desk, "tasted a human?" "No ma'am," Such desire in her eyes, her voice, her body. Kallidora's sexy white tail is lashing back and forth and I smell the unmistakable scent of centaurs' lust in the air. She shivers as I approach her, the cup dangling loosely from my fingers. "Anything?" I ask, lightly grasping the sparkling golden chain between her erect nipples, pulling gently until she leans down and I can steal a brief, almost chaste kiss from her lips. "Anything!" a centaur's lust is powerful, all-consuming, irresistible, the poor girl must be crazy with need. I release the chain, "then taste." The chalice is between my slightly spread thighs, the silver metal cool against my flushed skin. Cool and deliciously exciting. A trickle, just a little trickle flows from my engorged, wet lips. A little splash of pee flows into the chalice. I sigh, she gasps, I pee a little more, filling the metal cup while she watches, unblinking. I lift the cup, bring it to my lips and sip just a very little of my so-warm pee pee. "Taste," I say, raising the chalice to her. My heart hammers, my sex burns with desire and excitement as she takes the cup from me, her fingers brushing mine, wrapping around the hot metal. "Anything," she pants, lifting the cup to her lips. She drinks. She tips the cup filling her mouth with my piss, her eyes close and her throat moves, swallowing every drop, draining the chalice in one long, slow draught. My pee glistens on her slightly parted lips, she catches one last shining drop as it falls from the chalice's rim to her tongue and swallows greedily. My cunt yearns to be touched, teased into ecstasy by the erotic vision before me. Touch me she does. The now warm metal cup she presses to my hairy sex, her desire shouted without a single word. What can I do? I let myself go again, let myself fall again into the wonderful sensation of peeing in front of her. A jet of excited piss leaps from within my mass of dark hair, splashing noisily into the cup and throwing droplets over the edge until it is very swiftly filled again. Again she lifts it and there is no more erotic sight to my mind right now. Soft moist lips kiss the silver-white vessel and she tips it back, her head falling back too, drinking deeply. I stroke myself openly, running my fingertips over the centre of my lust while she drains that wicked cup. Her hooves sound suddenly, hard and loud on the marble floor, she is suddenly with me, bodily close. I snatch away the cup and drop it clattering to the ground, taking her hands in mine and pulling her to me to kiss those irresistible wet lips. Soft. Soft and warm and moist and intimate beyond thinking. All that a kiss can be. Kallidora's arms go around me, holding me, her skin is hot and soft and she smells bewitchingly of spice and flowers, but also of sweat and lust and woman. I step back and she forwards, I pull and she follows me. I throw myself backwards into the feather-soft embrace of the mattress and she is not a moment behind. Her hominine form looming over me, smiling like an angel as her long, sexy legs fold beneath her to the ground. I kiss her again, my arms around her neck pulling her to me as her hair falls all about us like a veil of white. We kiss and kiss and she giggles and brushes her hair aside and we kiss again. I hold her so tight, pulling her body to mine and throw my legs about her narrow waist, gasping when her eager, questing fingers sneak down to grope at my bum. I gasp and giggle and now sigh as those same fingers feel between my spread legs, combing through my hair and brushing deliciously over my wet, wanting, womanhood. She cannot help but notice and I cannot help but shiver and sigh when she does it again. "Ahh, good girl," I quiver , shiver and wriggle my hips against her hand, tightening my grip around her with my legs. Her golden chain is hard and teasing pressed against my yielding bosom. I kiss her lips, her cheek, her jaw, I nip cheekily at her ear and purr my pleasure at the poems of lust her wanton, wonderful fingers are writing into the open pages of my sex. So good. So very good. Her hand is writing a climax into my cunt, building it moment by moment as I writhe beneath her. Her breath is hot on my face, her lips soft and open against mine and I kiss the mouth that drank my pee. I hold so tight about her, my arms and legs locked in an irresistible embrace while I rock my sex into her loving fingers. "Ohh, good girl, good girl... I'm almost there!" I buck against her fingers, she drives her thumb over my soaked petals and teases at my clit all the more, rubbing eager, exquisite pleasure into my most sensitive spot and I will her on, panting in time with her loving rhythm. Closer and closer still until, with a needful, hungry kiss of her lips I find my ecstatic peak, seizing her with every limb, holding on as she forces me into bliss. I hold her, I hold her... I fall back to the bed... I lie, panting, writhing, weakly and she kisses me softly. "That was... Mm, exquisite," I purr. "Thank you. Mm! Thank you!" she licks her fingers greedily, smiling with joy. Ah, but she's just the cutest woman ever! She licks each finger in turn, grinning like the cat that got the cream and absolutely thanking me for letting her masturbate me like that. All of a sudden she turns and vanishes! Even as I wriggle and raise myself on my elbows she's back, though, that nasty, lovely cup in her hands and she's still grinning as she puts it between my legs. The cold metal rim makes me shiver. "May I have some more?" she beams, all big, bright eyes and lusty desire. There's not a soul alive who could deny her, so earnest, so sexy! She bites her lip, watching so closely as I piss for her, filling her silver goblet with my golden pee. Mm! I can barely stop myself now, barely keep from overfilling it. She lifts it to her lips again, panting in anticipation. So am I, so excited by the scene she plays out before me as I recline on my elbows, legs spread lewdly before her. Her mouth floods with my fresh pee and she swallows, eyes closed, savouring every moment. She looks down at me again, her eyes lock with mine and she leans over me once more, filling my vision. The cup, its bright silver surface here and there bejewelled with droplets of urine, tips in her hand. It's still nearly full and she pours out the hot, aromatic contents. Pours it over my body. The wave of piss falls across my chest, splashing and sparkling all over my flushed, bare breasts, all down my body, pooling in my navel and running over my waist. "Kallidora!" I gasp, shocked and aroused and thrilled beyond thought. I can only gasp again as she descends upon me, kissing my wet body, licking me again and again. Kissing my soaked breasts, licking the lovely pee from my skin, nipping at my eager nipples and lapping the pool of piss in the middle of my flat tummy. I gasp and giggle and pant beneath her while she licks up every drop of gold. And then... And then she takes another cupful from between my legs, and another, and another and does it all again! Her face is shiny and wet when she's finished. Droplets of pee cling here and there in her white hair. I kiss her so deep and long, hold her to my wet body, twine my fingers through her wet hair, lose myself in her erotic wonder. "You'll still do anything for me?" I sigh between kisses. She nods eagerly, "Anything!" "You'll pee for me? Pee for me and let me drink too?" She beams excitedly, "Of course!" nodding and snatching up the silver goblet. "No," I admonish her, taking the cup from her hands and casting it away, I will drink from the source!" She leaps up as though galvanised, clapping excitedly and chattering her eager consent. In a trice she's facing away from me and that cute, round arse of hers is above me, coming down, and down, and down while I scramble out from under her. She settles herself on the mattress, bum sticking up slightly and I settle behind her, cross-legged. Who could ever get tired of seeing an aroused centaur's womanhood? Not I. Never! I move her restless, fidgety tail aside and gaze longingly at her wet, quivering cunt. Black lipped, winking wetly, so big ad lump and kissable! Spread and ready it glistens before me in the middle of her golden behind. The smell is overpowering, I can feel the heat on my face as I lean in. Her little peehole is just visible, winking within her womanly folds and I give it a lick, making her flinch. My Travels with Clytemnestra Ch. 08 I warn her, "Just a little! Just a little, I don't want to waste a drop!" She giggles and I press my face into her big, wet sex, opening my lips for her to pee in my mouth. She does. Ah! So hot, so hot and so wet and strong and so much! I sputter and gasp and her piss splashes all over my face! "Again. Just a little!" Again she does, slower this time, with less force. My mouth fills with her strong, hot urine, fills full very quickly and she stops peeing. I swallow that big gulp of pee, shivering with intimate thrills of pleasure and wrongness. "More! I demand. Sealing my mouth to her cunt again I'm rewarded with another deep draught of her heady, womanly wee. She fills my mouth perfectly and knows just when to stop, letting me swallow the hot liquid and then giving me more. Her tail swishes excitedly over my shoulder, across my naked back as I drink gulp after gulp from her bladder. Her hot, salt-bitter urine flows down my throat, mouthful by mouthful, minute by minute. My hand extends beneath her, between her sexy, spread thighs and finds her nipples. Oh my! Another chain, another fine little chain is strung between hoops pierced through her equine nipples. I joyously drink from her cunt and play with her firm, big, tips. Kallidora sighs so sweetly at every gentle tug on her piercings and fills my mouth with pee. So much hot piss. She has so much for me and I drink so much, I never want to stop, but presently, I have to. I have to stop, leaning against her firm, sexy thigh, I sigh happily. My stomach is sloshy and full of her pee-pee, so full! My face is wet and drippy and my mouth tastes of centaur pee, it is a good taste! "Enough," I manage, weakly. She looks at me fondly, "Already? But I'm not done," she pouts. "Oh, but I am! I can't drink another drop!" She giggles and so do I while she turns about and kisses away the wetness on my face. "Just go," I urge her. She looks worried, "Go?" "Mm... Just go. Go all over the floor, let it all go." Understanding dawns and, though she looks askance for a moment, she complies peeing all over the marble floor. The sound is sexy and exciting, the stream of yellow pee cascades from behind her, hitting the hard floor and splashing everywhere while a big puddle grows around her hooves. "Thank you," I say, when she's done, "You'd best run along now. I don't know how long that audience might take and we don't want to be caught like this." She looks upset, but nods slowly, "What about that?" she asks, pointing at the puddle off pee she's made on the floor. "What about it?" I ask, feigning nonchalance, "Along with you now. I'm sure you have things to do... But! But I think I will ask you to attend me again soon, if you don't mind?" "Anything!" she giggles. She's so cute! She trots off, leaving me alone in the big, empty room and I think I will definitely have to see her again! Still, I really don't know how long I may have before my companions are done with their audience and I don't really want to be found naked on the bed in front of a puddle of piss. Standing I banish the accumulated pee from my body and gather my clothes. Oh! I can't resist! I soak my knickers in the big pool off pee Kallidora left, and then pull them on, all wet and sloppy and sexy. Ah! The sudden cold wetness around my nethers sends a frisson thrilling deliciously through my body. Mm, that feels so good! Her pee runs down my thighs and soaks into my pubic hair. I finish dressing, my knickers still wet with her pee and then magically banish the puddle. So wet! My clammy thighs bind against one another and my wet knickers squish so viscerally at the crux of my legs, my bum as soaking in pee. I perhaps could have thought this through a little better, my skirt is very quickly wet too, a definite dark patch spread above where it touches my knickers. With some sadness I dry myself off with a touch of magic. It felt nice and so sexy, but I really don't want to be seen like that... Well, not by most people. I really wish I'd not sent Kallidora away so soon. It's more than an hour before I hear hoofsteps in the corridor outside my rooms, more than an hour I might have spent making love to her, rather than just thinking about the same. It's not Kallidora who has come to summon me, alas. The old man with all the gold chains knocks on my door and bids me follow him. "Where are we going?" "Her Grace the Grand Master will see you," he says, not quite answering my question. "Why?" "In Zoa it's not our custom to demand explanations for the Grand Master's instructions." "Well, I thought it wasn't her custom to talk to the likes of me, either." He looks down at me unkindly, I don't think he likes me much, "It is not, you are given a rare honour." "Good for me. Will my friends be there?" "Enough questions, we are here." He's led me through increasingly grand and opulent spaces until we find ourselves before an almighty set of gold-leafed double doors, on which he knocks. Without waiting for a response he opens one and enters, I follow since I think I'm supposed to. "The Sorceress, your Grace." Wonderful. I bet Clytemnestra's behind this. I was expecting a throne room, but this is nothing like one. It's a grand, but homey sitting room appointed with a great many mirrors on each wall, and much very fine furniture of dark, polished wood. There are two other people in the room besides me and my guide. One, so obviously Grand Master Kallisto stands to greet me. She's not terribly tall for a centaur, with a handsome, smiling face and clever brown eyes. She has an elaborate gold filigree choker around her neck set with opals and both of her brown nipples are pierced with ruby rings. Her coat and hair are rich, chocolate brown and her skin just one shade lighter. The other woman doesn't stand. In fact, her hominine torso is stooped like a vulture with a bad back and she barely seems to notice my arrival. Kallisto dismisses my guide with all the chains and greets me by name, "Welcome to my city. I am Kallisto." "Thank you," I bow and hope that's appropriate. She motions to a big cushion on the floor because centaurs don't have chairs in their palaces, "Be at ease and talk with us a while. This is Chloe, my sorceress." "Sister," I say respectfully, nodding my head before sitting. Kallisto settles herself to the floor again, an excited expression rolling over her face, "We have much to discuss."