The Queen's Pleasure

The congestion

When Maya walked out the door, Carina had no strength to stand anymore. She dismissed Keisha and asked Keisha to send Jo to her room in the morning. Carina stripped naked and got into bed, alone, crying till her body grew so weak it had no other choice but to fall asleep.

The next morning, when Jo came into Carina's room, Carina was just out of the shower.

"Your majesty," Jo greets.

"Jo, I'd like you to dismiss Alvero," Carina said. Alvero was the suitor she had chosen.

"Yes, your majesty," Jo said and then waited.

When the queen struggled to say what she wanted to next, Jo spoke. "Keisha told me, what happened last night," she said. Carina closed her eyes wincing at the memory.

It wasn't one of her best moments. She was angry and she was vengeful and she treated Maya badly. She tried telling herself that it was a fair trade. Maya had humiliated her and now she humiliated Maya. They were even now. But if they were even, why did she feel like a stone had lodged itself in her heart?

"Do you want to talk about it?" Jo asked, knowing that Carina needed 'Jo' - her friend and not 'Jo' her subordinate.

"What's there to talk about?" Carina asked, not looking up at Jo still. But now taking a seat at the edge of her bed, knowing she was not strong enough to relay everything that happened last evening and still be on her two feet.

Jo noted how her shoulders were sunken and her eyes puffy. She noted how her nose was red and her body looked tired like she hadn't rested one bit last night.

"Jo, I think I broke her," she said, a sob escaping her throat.

Jo hurried to sit by her, she put her arm around her shoulder.

"I...I humiliated her, I only meant to make her feel what I felt, but I think I broke her spirit, the look in her eyes when she said she wanted to leave, is haunting me, it won't leave my mind, she won't leave my mind," Carina said, crying into her hands.

"I was angry, I was upset, but what I did to her, she didn't deserve all of it," Carina said.

"Your majesty," Jo started, "you acted on impulse," she said.

"No, I had planned to humiliate her," Carina corrected. "But I should have stopped, somewhere, I should have stopped before I broke her," she said.

"Someone wise had said "we're never irreparably broken," " Jo said.

"I don't know, Jo, I don't know if she'll come back," Carina said, "not to the palace, but to her own heart," Carina said, "to herself, if she'll forgive herself, after the way I treated her if she'll forgive me," Carina said.

Jo knew that no words could console the weeping queen. She knew that this was now a big mess that only time could heal. But she couldn't stop herself from letting the queen know.

"She wanted you," Jo said. "She never wanted Keisha," she added. "The reason she asked for her was because you had said you wouldn't go down on your knees for her, she didn't know you were there in her room that day to take her like that, she least expected it," Jo said.

"She told me that every time that Keisha did suck her off, she never thought of Keisha, she would imagine you, she wanted you, she wanted your mouth, she had no fancy for Keisha, no interest at all," she said.

"After what happened, she was ashamed and repentful, she felt humiliated enough when she told Keisha and me about it, and she begged me to help her find a way to talk to you," Jo said.

"But you wanted to move on," Jo said. "And when she finally managed to return to the palace, to come to your room to see you, you were far gone, out of her hands, and into another's," Jo said. "It broke her spirit to see you like that, happy, pleasured," Jo said.