The Queen singled me out from the rubble of girls that she had carried off from what was now a smouldering ruin, but used to be the, visually at least, resplendent city-state of Amberstrat. I didn't stand out from the rest, except perhaps in looking even more rugged. I was just the first to raise my hand when she asked if any among us knew how to read and write. I regretted my initiative as soon as my hand went up and her eyes fixed on me. During the siege, there were whispers that she had come to liberate us from the whorehouses and the slave arenas that were our destiny as foreign, destitute females. But, I thought as she motioned me to come forward, it might have been wishful thinking to believe these rumours - others insisted she was just here to abduct us for her own slave workforce and pleasure domes. She was after all known throughout the continent as the Whore Queen.
I approached her and she lifted my chin, preventing me from looking away as she gazed straight into my eyes. Forced to look at her face, I was surprised by what I saw. She was of course very pretty - but where I had expected to see a cold face with icy eyes piercing my soul, I saw a woman who sort of reminded me of the blacksmith's wife from back home. Her fiery hair and large hazel eyes prevented her from looking too intimidating even though she tried to look strict.
"Clean her and bring her to my tent," she ordered one of her guards and turned away. Her voice was deeper than I would have expected.
Two armoured figures grabbed me each by an arm and carried me away like a stick to a pavillion where I was stripped, and thrown into a wooden bathtub before being showered with barrels of lukewarm water emptied on me. I was then put into a simple but clean dress and carried the same way to a large - but not the largest in the camp as far as I could tell - tent. The guards threw me in and stood outside. The tent was empty for the time being. I was worried - what did she want with me? The forced bath made me think of various stories about what it meant to be in the service of the Whore Queen, but then again, she picked me solely for knowing reading and writing - clean or not, I was as attractive as a goat. I always thought my destiny in Amberstrat would have been one of the cheapest brothels, the ones where paying a little extra meant that a customer was free to return the merchandise in bad condition - or not at all.
Remembering this, I calmed down - nothing would be as bad. I checked out the tent. It contained a desk with a couple of chairs, two large chests that I assumed contained the Queen's attire, a small round table, and a bed, which was more like a pile of giant pillows. Three tall lantern posts would illuminate it at night.
"You might like to eat something," I heard that deep voice from behind me and jumped.
The Queen looked at me and forced herself to smile as she laid down a small tray on the table. She had dimples that would make her look cute when she wanted to - if she ever wanted to, which I was beginning to doubt. I glanced at the trey - it contained bread, some cheese, and dried meat. I fell on it.
"I have decided to write my memoirs," she declared. "Do you know what that is?"
I nodded. Before my ill-fated decision to cross the border, which landed me in the human bazaars of Amberstrat just days before the siege began, I had had a pretty decent education.
"My advisors suggested a number of respected scholars that I could turn to for that sort of thing, but it felt wrong. I am after all the Whore Queen. I rose from nothing, and it is fitting that my chronicler should be of the same mold."
She looked at me as if expecting confirmation. I nodded again, not knowing what else to do.
"Hrmph. Are you done with that?" she asked, pointing at the food that had vanished. I nodded a third time, still swallowing the last bite. I considered asking for more but didn't want to push my lack.
"Good. Sit at the desk and grab a pen. I hope you didn't lie about your skills - your inability to speak makes me wonder if you have understood a word I said."
I did as she asked and waited for her to begin. She looked at me thoughtfully.
"I wasn't that much older than you when I first sucked dick for a few tin coins - fuck, I was probably younger. I was poor - not quite that poor that I didn't have a choice, mind you. Not poor enough to worry much about food, but just so that I could not fulfill any more than my basic desires. I think I wanted to buy a pendant - that's how it started. A cheap thing, really, but pretty. And I couldn't afford it. So when the idea came to me, it seemed really simple and clever." She paused to make sure I was following and came to look over my shoulder checking if I was writing it down correctly. Content, she continued.
"I had left school by that point, but it was close to my house, and I could see the students leaving every day. I picked my target - some guy I knew already from my own time there - just because he was passing through an alley behind my house. I waited for him there 'accidentally' and started chatting. Once I saw he was looking down my chest, I told him I would suck his dick for a price. He accepted immediately. I had never sucked cock before, but I guess he was similarly inexperienced; I don't think it was my natural talent as a cocksucker that amazed him. In any case, he asked if I would be there again the next day, and I said sure, why not." Her eyes darkened at that last bit.
"Sorry," I interrupted, "but do you want me to edit that a bit?"
"She speaks!" she said sarcastically. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, you said 'suck his dick', then 'sucked cock', then 'cocksucker' in close succession. Maybe you want me to paraphrase a bit?" I hoped she wouldn't take this as criticism.
She frowned. "No. Yes. Maybe. Well, a little, as long as the essence is the same."
I motioned her to continue. She smiled a little less forcibly at my increased self-confidence.
"The next day, of course, he had told his friends. So five guys arrived from both sides of the alley, all leering at me. I could tell they were not here to ask for my services. One of them grabbed me and held my hands behind my back as the rest surrounded me. I did the only thing I could think of. I told them I would blow them all for ten tin coins each. That caught them by surprise. Two said that was double what their friend had paid the day before, the rest wondered why they should pay, at all when there was nothing I could do to stop them. I pointed out a willing blowjob would be more pleasant for them. That seemed to convince them. It was not more pleasant for me of course." She paused for a bit. "But it taught me how much power my tongue had. In all its functions. That was the beginning of my journey. I never went back to that alley, but I found another city corner where I offered blowjobs for two bronze coins, then for three, and eventually for five."
I had her repeat a couple of things as she had blurted a few of these sentences too rapidly.
"I'm sorry," I said. It felt correct.
She smiled, earnestly now. "Don't be. As soon as I gained a little power, I had them all killed."
Going on as if that was the most natural thing in the world, she said "I guess I got better - though in truth, my success was more due to local morals. Prudes they were, my countrymen, scared of the Black Priests' teachings against the pleasures of the flesh. I eventually found out that even the whores didn't use their mouths - which was the only part that I used, giving me a competitive advantage, I guess. Having grown up in the poorest neighbourhoods where the priests didn't enter often, and the people were less likely to give up their only source of joy, I was not imbued with their preconceptions."
I nodded in agreement - I grew up in a rural area, but I had the same impression: the poor fucked more freely, without needing to ponder the morality of it. I looked up to see why she had stopped talking.
"What about you, girl? Have you ever done it?" she asked, making a motion with her hand and mouth that had an obvious meaning but was most unbecoming of a queen, even one so named.
I blushed a little, but I thought it was only fair to answer. Yes, I had once sucked a boy back in the village, then a guard at the border to thank him for letting me through - little did I know. No, neither one was exciting. The boy had emptied his balls into my mouth almost immediately; just as he had done the next day when I offered a different part of me to him. The experience with the guard could have been nice if he hadn't been sweating in the sun all day.
She nodded. "That's the truth of it. Don't think I enjoyed it much more - but I started making money, lots of it, and that I did enjoy. I rented an apartment together with two friends I'd made; Juar was a messenger and his girlfriend Aru a seamstress. And yes, I fucked them both. They were my first real lovers, and taught me just how pleasurable sex can be - though I like to think I taught them quite a bit as well."
Her gaze became lost, for a moment, but she waived some intruding thoughts away. "Anyway. Long story short, I eventually started having regular clients among the members of the city's ruling council of nobles..."
"Sorry," I interrupted, "but long story short is not a phrase fitting a memoir."
