up toward her body. She resisted this last and sat up.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I am placing you in the position outlined in the instructions,” he replied.
“May I see?” she asked.
He paused another moment before turning the parchment over and holding the instructions up in front of her face. Her breath caught in her throat as stared at it. She was silent and still for several minutes.
“Shall I help you with the position?” the prince asked her at last.
“No,” she replied. “I will do it.” But she could not seem to make her body move. “Look the other way,” she implored him.
The prince had brought with him a bowl of water and now he brushed some of the water onto the sheet of parchment and placedit carefully on the wall beside the bed. When he was satisfied with its location he smoothed the parchment out over the wall. Next he arranged a nearby chair just so.
Meanwhile, Princess Conscia lay back down on the bed. Taking a deep breath, she bent her legs and brought them all the way up until her thighs touched her shoulders. She clasped her arms together behind her knees just as the instructions indicated. Her feet rested on the headboard behind her. She breathed out and in deliberately, trying her best to rest comfortably in the awkward position, but even her limbs were rejecting the unfamiliar pull on their ligaments as every part of her struggled to stay put and await the approaching events. A tingling sensation prickled sharply within her.
“Ready,” she said at last in a strangled voice.
The prince turned toward her and stopped. He stared openly for several moments, causing a rush of blood to engorge her exposed area. She could feel it beginning to warm and swell, even as she fought against her embarrassment.
Sensing her discomfort, the prince suddenly moved into action. He adjusted the light over her exposed flesh, warming her with the comforting heat of it. Her genitalia felt prickly and engorged. She continued to breathe in and out forcibly, achieving some degree of calm from the fact that she had given her word to do everything as instructed, and, too, possessing enough curiosity to want to find out where all of this might lead. If truth be told, it was not the end of the world to be laid bare in such a way under the deliciously warm lights, especially when the person she was exposing herself to was as kind and gentle as her husband. She knew that this would be especially pleasurable for him. Wasn’t he always longing to see more of her? Although she could not really see his face from her position, she imagined shecould feel his eyes upon her and it caused her skin to tingle.
“You are beautiful,” she heard him murmur. “It will truly take magic to capture on the parchment what I’m seeing here.” His husky voice sent vibrations throughout her body, beginning in the exposed area between her legs and from there coursing through every single vein and artery.
Princess Conscia felt as if she were in a dream. The moment did not feel like an actual part of her life, and it was almost as if it was someone else entirely who calmly replied, “I didn’t even know that you painted.”
“I don’t,” he admitted. “But it seems this is a magic brush that allows me to recreate an image I see by visualizing it on the parchment.”
“Oh, my,” she remarked. “What an amazing thing!”
“Yes,” he replied absently, concentrating wholeheartedly on the task in front of him. “The most remarkable thing is the colors. I simply dip the brush in water and it creates the exact color of whatever I am painting. I think I have an aptitude for this.”
Princess Conscia was as relaxed as she was capable of being in her situation, except for the spine-tingling vibrations that here and again assailed her senses. It seemed that all her awareness was focused on that part of her body that she spent most of her life trying to avoid. She was wondering what she looked like in this most unusual position, and tried to visualize the image that presented itself before her husband. All aspects of her consciousness were concentrated on the small amount of flesh that rested between her legs; even her heart seemed to be steadily pounding, pounding, pounding…from within that place. And with each pounding beat she fancied she could feel the flesh there becoming more and more engorged, swelling to enormous proportions until it seemed to be absorbing the rest of her body. Herbreathing was becoming more and more rapid. She tried to focus on something else but could not.
The prince noticed his wife’s discomfort and was amazed and delighted that her response was so similar to his own. He had thought she would hate every minute of this, but he saw now that he had misjudged her. Perhaps her previous anxieties in the bedroom were not caused by a lack of desire, but something else entirely. As he painted he could not help noticing her laborious breathing and the flushed and engorged flesh between her legs. His own body was steadily growing and hardening, and his breathing, too, was becoming more labored.
Princess Conscia wondered that her husband did not touch her. She had been thinking about the different ways he had stroked her before and how he might caress her now. Mostly she was just aching for the feel of his hands on her. Why didn’t he touch her? What would it feel like when he finally did? She had never wanted to be touched so badly. Her flesh seemed to be rising up into the air with its desire for contact. All her senses waited, alert, for him to touch her. While she waited she could almost imagine that she felt each individual ray from the warm light as it met her sensitive flesh. It was all she could do not to reach her hand down and stroke herself. What would her husband think if she did that?
The prince noticed that his wife seemed to be becoming more and more agitated. Every now and then her hips would jolt ever so slightly upward, causing his own body to surge forward in a similar manner. He longed to touch her, but concentrated on his painting.
Suddenly, the princess became aware of the moisture that had been accumulating inside her since the moment when she had first removed her robe for her husband. The pressure had been building until it seemed that she could hold no more inside and so, ever so stealthily, a single droplet began to push its way out through the thick fleshy walls. And she could feel it! She held her breath, trying to keep it in, but it continued its agonizingly slow descent. The thought of her husband noticing it, too, caused another surge of excitement in her that brought even more of the silky liquid to the fore. At length the little droplet squeezed its way out through the nearest exit point, where it sat precariously balanced on the warm, tender flesh. The princess expelled her held breath with a small, involuntary moan.
The prince heard her moan and his paintbrush stopped in midair. He noticed the little droplet then and stared at it, mesmerized as it sparkled and enticed in the warmth of the light. The instructions had been firm and clear in their edict that the painting be completed before anything else, but how could he resist that little drop of moisture and all that it signified? It seemed to be communicating something to him; something that he had been longing to hear since that very first night they had spent together as man and wife. He knew she loved him but he had doubted her need for him—until now. In that little droplet he seemed to find everything he had been searching for in his wife. And he wanted to respond to it. He wanted to touch it—and taste it. And yet he knew he must capture this moment first. He must finish the painting, if only to show his wife what he had seen. She would understand everything, he was certain, if she could just see what he was seeing. With a groan, he dipped his paintbrush in the water, trying with all his might to capture the exquisite beauty and all it meant with the strokes of the magic brush.
The princess was hovering somewhere beyond reality and fantasy. Nothing seemed real. She had never felt such longing. She hardly cared anymore what she looked like or how she appeared. She was a sensual being. She was, at that moment, like
