Marikus, chief amongst the castle servants, walked the long stone corridors towards his queen's bedchambers. He was a man of around twenty, tall and leanly muscular, but more 'pretty' than 'handsome'. This was to be expected. He was a eunuch after all, castrated young enough he could barely remember it, his body and mind unmarred by the taint of vulgar masculinity. Hence why he was 'chief of servants'. Of all the men in the castle, he was the only one the women trusted. And when the King is off at war, the Queen and her cohort rule the roost.

His queen had summoned him to her chambers yet again this evening. He had spent many evenings there with her as of late, discussing and advising her on matters of state. She had been summoning him like this more and more often in recent weeks. He finally reached the wide double-doors of the queen's private chamber. He knocked on her door and waited for a response. He heard voices coming from within, before the door swung open and a lady peeked out. She smiled warmly at Marikus, gesturing for him to enter. "Come in, sir" The lady spoke courteously. Marikus nodded and stepped into her chamber.

The chamber was smaller than many would have expected, but this was the queen's personal chamber, not the true one that the king and queen shared when both were present. And it was quite cozy, with bookcases everywhere and wardrobes overstuffed with clothes.

Queen Amelia smiled at him warmly. She was a head shorter than him and only a few years younger than him, maybe 25. He had been her servant since they were both children, and he had come with her from the eastern courts when she married the King. Her raven hair fell in long waves, contrasting perfectly with her creamy skin. At the moment, she was still wearing her formal dress, a complex thing with far too much cloth and lace and gold and silver and rhinestones. Something made not to be beautiful, but to display wealth, beauty be damned.

"I can’t move in this thing. Would you be so kind as to undress me?” She asked him. She smirked for some reason whenever she asked him to do this. As if there were some jokes he was not privy to.

He stood behind her and began slowly undoing the metal fasteners. They were very small, so as to be nearly invisible from a distance, but that also made them a pain to work with. He moves slowly, careful not to tear the expensive foreign fabric. It was buttoned skin-tight up to her throat, so it took a while to get her out of it. The whole process reminded him of armor, actually; putting a knight in full plate armor took a team of squires several minutes. Longer if the horse needed armor. Eventually, he lifted the thing over her head- it weighed nearly thirty pounds- and set it on the ground, where it stood upright under it’s own power. Amelia now stood before him in her underwear, long lace stockings with a matching bustier, and a ventilated whalebone corset.

Amelia had a reputation as being one of the most beautiful women alive, and even Marikus could appreciate that this was true. She had a lovely face with fine features. She had been a bit of a tomboy in her youth, but giving birth to a pair of twins a few years ago, rather than damaging her figure as it did to some, had simply moved her from one kind of beauty to another, layering generous curves atop the old muscle. And her skin was flawless. But while he understood her beauty, he never understood the lust that men felt towards her, the bestial, predatory hunger in their gaze whenever she was near. He had asked them, in private, what this ‘hunger’ felt like, and most of the answers were beyond his understanding. He felt like a fish trying to understand what calculus was. And the answers that he could understand had sickened him.

In all the years of his life, he had rarely felt envy for the men around him, even more rarely as the years went on.

“Would you kindly ready a bath, Marikus? I feel a little grimey.”

“Certainly mistress.”

Marikus felt her gaze on his back as he walked away.

The bath chamber smelled of soap and oil. The oversized ceramic basin, large enough for two to share, was filled with hot soapy water. Towels lay folded in neat square piles, and a robe hung from a hook by the bath.

Amelia walked in. “Is it ready? Nice and hot?”

Marikus nodded. “With your preferred soaps and whatnot all added.”

Ameila smiled, and began slowly sliding off her underwear. Very slowly, wiggling her hips now and then as she did so. Staring Marikus dead in the eye the entire time, smirking like an idiot.

“The water will not remain hot forever, mistress.”

With that, Amelia rolled her eyes and finished quickly, with much less wiggling. She stood now fully nude, hands on her broad hips, shoulders back and chest thrust forward. Marikus had seen her in the nude hundreds of times over the years, and she had been making this pose with that smug smile since she was twelve. Even a normal male would have long since ceased to see it in a sexual way.

“Would you like to join me?” Amelia asked with a smirk.

Marikus’s eyes lit up. “My lady, it would be an honor. Such a luxury would be far beyond my station, normally.”

“Very well. Strip.”

Marikus stripped off his clothes, the simple shirt and trousers of a servant. He folded and stacked them neatly as he removed them.

Being made into a eunuch as young as he had did strange things to his anatomy as he developed. He was tall- a head taller than anyone else in the castle, with queen Amelia only coming up to his upper chest. His musculature lacked the bulk of the other servants, but was quite toned, and his austere lifestyle left him with little fat. His skin was smooth, with neither body hair nor other blemishes. His head-hair had not receded an inch though, despite him nearing thirty. He looked strange, very strange. Not masculine, not feminine, not even really in-between either. Something altogether else, perpendicular to either.

His penis was small, though not as small as some who had seen it had expected. More strange was his scrotum, which, with no testicles inside, had mostly receded back into his body. A penis with no sack beneath it.

His penis was also soft. To his memory, it had never been hard. He had read erotica in the library, and been unimpressed. Once, the guards had dragged him along on their trip to the brothel down in town, and what he had seen was more terrifying than anything else. One of the girls had been left in such a sorry state after the guards were finished with her, sobbing incoherently and bleeding from all three holes, that he had stayed behind overnight to patch her up and keep her company. Oh, how he detested those beasts that prowled the castle.

Amelia looked him over. She seemed to be enjoying what she saw, though she seemed a touch crestfallen when she saw his softness. She strode over to the tub and sunk in, slowly, hissing at the heat.

“Well? Come and join me.”

Slowly, not wanting to spill the water inside, Marikus slid into the tub, one leg, then the other, then sat down, opposite Amelia, facing her. The water was hot, and smelled of flowers.

Smiling slyly, Amelia held out a washcloth to him and raised a leg out of the surface of the water.

“My legs are sore after standing all day. A scrub would feel nice.”

Taking the cloth, he set to work, scrubbing at the skin and kneading at the muscle underneath. First her foot, which he knew from experience was ticklish. Then the rest of her leg. Her thighs were thick; some of it was the weight she had put on after the twins, but he could feel, as he kneaded the flesh, the old, coltish muscle, still there beneath the new growth. Indeed, the muscles had perhaps grown too a bit; he knew she stayed active, helping the librarians to push carts laden with hundreds of pounds of books and administrative papers.

Eventually, he finished, hanging the cloth on the rim of the tub.

“Was I to your satisfaction, mistress?” Marikus asked. He was eager to please her. Not simply because she was his employer, or even because she was his friend. He was a servant, and his dedication to the craft in all it’s elements would not let him be subpar.

“Yes. Very satisfying.” She moved, turning around and shuffling backwards, until she was sitting in his lap. She pushed back into him, her back against his chest. The water came nearly to her neck. “Put your arms around me, Marikus. Hold me. Give me a little squeeze.”

Marikus’ blood ran cold, despite the baths heat. She had never acted like this to him before. What was going on?

He obeyed. He always obeyed. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly to his chest, like a stuffed animal. She shifted, burying her head into his neck. She let out a little sigh, closing her eyes.

They sat in silence for a time. Marikus was afraid to move, and even more afraid to speak and ask anything. What was she doing? This was highly irregular, and more importantly, out of character for her. She was married. And though it would be a stretch to say she ‘loved’ him, she had always taken her marriage to the King very seriously.

“Don’t fall asleep, mistress.” He said to her, trying to put some false levity into his voice, “It would be hard for me to carry you back to bed. She purred and smiled, her eyes still closed. “Don’t worry. I can walk back to bed fine on my own. Would you like to join me?”

Marikus stared down at her in shocked silence for several seconds. His brain refused to process what he was hearing. It was absurd, on multiple levels. The queen, an unceasingly devoted wife to her husband, was attempting to seduce him, her servant, who was also her long-term childhood friend, who was also also more like a big brother than anything else, and who was also also also a eunuch. Marikus abruptly stood up, stepped out of the bath, and wrapped himself in a towel.

“Nope. Nopenopenopenope.” He sputtered, before walking out of the bathroom into the next room, which just happened to be her bedchambers. He cast the towel aside for a bathrobe. Behind him, he heard his queen stomping towards him.

“Marikus.” She growled in what was supposed to be a menacing voice, but failed entirely to menace. “I did not give you permission to leave yet.”

Slowly, Marikus turned to face Amelia. She was naked, dripping wet, scowling at him with her hands on her hips.

“What are you trying to do? You are a queen. You have a husband and children, and an entire kingdom who looks up to you. And with me, of all people? Have you gone mad? What do you want?”

Amelia’s face softened, and she turned her head, staring mutely into the fireplace. She seemed to shrink as the anger faded out of her. They were both silent for some time.

“My husband is not an evil man. Not truly. But I do not love him. I have come to… respect him over the years, to an extent, but love? No. He is constantly gone, off to war in some distant borderland, or touring to hold court here or there. And he doesn’t love me either. I at least pretended to love him, for as long as I could bear the strain. He could never be bothered to do the same.”

“But why are you doing this? Why try fucking someone else behind his back? Do you have any idea the hell that would break loose-”

“I don't suppose you would understand, given your nature. Love is a need as fundamental to a human as food. No, as air. The warmth of friendship. The grounding of family. The passion of a genuine lover. All these have been taken from me, denied to me. I’m suffocating, Marikus. I can feel the void gnawing at me, killing me a little at a time.”

Markikus was taken aback, for her words resonated in him more than he expected. The cold distance between himself and the other servants. The mutual contempt between him and the men of the castle. His empty bed, built to hold two despite his sleeping alone. He had always viewed his condition as a blessing, for the level headedness it brought him, and for his seemingly unique ability to see the women he met as people and not prey. But he realized in that moment that it had come at a price. He would never feel hunger in his life, but starvation had taken it’s toll nonetheless.

“Why me?” he asked quietly.

Amelia looked up at him, seemingly at the edge of tears. She looked terrified, as she stepped towards him, wrapped her arms around him, and buried her face into the soft skin of his chest.

“Because I love you, Marikus. I have always loved you. Even since we were children, I cannot remember a time I did not love you. You were always there for me, Marikus. The quiet not-quite-boy, ever at my side.”

After a few moments frozen in shock, he returned her hug, pulling her wet body against his, bare skin on bare skin. She was shivering in the cold air, and he opened up his robes to wrap it around both of them, pulling her in tighter.

It occurred to him that this was the most physical contact he had had at once in memory. He had only even been hugged a handful of times in his life, all of them by Amelia. He slept alone. He bathed alone. Most days he worked alone, and most meals he ate alone.

“I love you, too.” Marikus eventually said. The revelation shocked him. He had assumed he was incapable of such things, and had never once thought that he would feel it towards her.

He began to cry as well, and hugged her so tightly that for a moment he was afraid he would hurt her. He planted a kiss on the top of her head, and then another, and then a flurry. Her body was warm against his, pulsing with life. He tried to speak, but only a raw croaking noise came out of his mouth.

After a few minutes of this, they decoupled. He draped a second robe over her and they sat next to each other on the bed in silence, his hand resting comfortingly on her thigh.

“When I first married the King. When the time came to consummate the marriage, I closed my eyes and imagined I was making love to you. I tried that a few times, but it felt all wrong. He was far rougher than I imagined you would be.” Marikus turned his effeminate face to look at her. She looked exactly the same as she always had, and yet, now she seemed to be an entirely different creature, blazing radiant with beauty. “I do not know if I even can make love with you, in the way a husband and wife are supposed to. But I will try, if you would permit me, mistress.” Slowly, Marikus slid his hand up her thigh, inching gradually closer to her womanhood. Her eyes locked with his, not moving. She gave a small nod without breaking contact. Urging him onward.

His fingertips reached her wet entrance. With his fingertips he made small, gentle circles on the bud of her clit. He had read about a few techniques in the library, out of idle curiosity. Supposedly women quite enjoyed this. She gasped, and he instantly fell still, afraid he had hurt her.

Without breaking eye contact, she took his hand in hers and guided it. “Like this, my love” she said, seemingly relishing the phrase as much as his touch. He mimicked her motions as best as he could, and she let out the cutest little moan.

“Mistress. May I kiss you?”

The moment the words left his mouth, her tongue entered it. Her lips locked against his, their tongues entwining. She tasted sweet and tangy, and her soft membranes felt electric against his. She twitched and jerked under his hands, one resting on her back and one inside the wet warmth of her womanhood. She clenched and writhed around his fingers, rocking her hips back and forth. Amelia sucked at his mouth hungrily, more and more insatiably.

Climax came over her unexpectedly, a wave of shivvers crashing over her as she bucked her hips against his hand.

“Stop- it’s a little sensitive right now.”

He slowly slid his dripping wet fingers out of her body, wiping her slime off on the sheets. She lay back on the soft comforter, panting and staring at the ceiling. Marikus leaned over her and kissed her, cupping her face in his hands. This kiss was slower, gentler than the last.

“Was I satisfying, mistress?”

Amelia smiled wryly at him. “Yes. You were extremely stimulating, Marikus. But do not call me ‘mistress’ any longer. No longer are we master and servant. We are lovers.” Marikus’s heart fluttered in his chest. It made him happy to make her happy. He had been thoroughly.

“Would you like to switch places?” She asked, her hand moving up his exposed thigh. Her fingertips tickled at his soft flesh so sweetly.

“I don’t know. I have never been hard before, but go ahead and take the lead.” Amelia stood up off of the bed and knelt down on the ground before him. She undid and opened his robes and looked him over.

“You look so pretty, Marikus. No hair, no scars, lean and soft. My husband is a bear of a man, but you- you remind me more of a fox”

Marikus blushed and squirmed, and Amelia smirked at him. It was the same smirk she had given him when she was twelve and dropped a frog down the back of his shirt. Amelia took his small cock between her hands and began to knead it gently. Marikus thought it felt… vaguely nice. Ripples of soft, faint warmth ran through him. But he was pretty sure this was not what it was ‘supposed’ to feel like. He got more pleasure from Amelia’s sustained, intense eye-contact than anything else. Yes, she had excellent eyes, glittering emeralds. But slowly, the joy in her face fades, replaced by growing frustration as his cock refuses to become hard. She began to yank and twist harder, and eventually Marikus gave a little yelp at an especially sharp squeeze.

She gave up exasperatedly. “Why? Am I not pleasing you?” Her lips twitched, as if she was about to cry.

Instantly, Marikus reacted. “Oh no, Amelia. You're beauty is infinite. I love you. But this-” he gave his cock an accusatory poke, “-is not going to work. It’s just not what I am.” He crawled over to the middle of the bed and lay down on his side, facing her. “Come. Let me try something else.”

Amelia obliged. They lay on their sides, facing each other. Their faces were close enough that he could feel her warm breath on his face. He reached out a hand and caressed her face. “Your face is perfect, my love. Your brow is elegant, your cheekbones high and proud, your eyes glimmering like stars.” He said, his fingertips running delicately over her features as he named them. “Your cheeks blush with life. You have a strong jawline and chin.”

She cringed at the last part. “My husband said it made me look mannish.”

“Your husband is a fool. Come, give me your hand.” he asked, cupping one hand with both of his. He brushed their fingers together sensuously. He traced the lines of her palm, the veins and tendons on the back of hand; he kissed her finger-tips one at a time, and suckled at the tender flesh of her wrist. She squirmed and let out a noise halfway between an erotic moan and a ticklish giggle.

They cast aside their robes and crawled under the soft covers of the bed, the finest that could be bought. He kissed her, over and over and over again, his hands cupping her face and running through her hair. She kissed him hungrily, and somewhere deep within himself, he felt an echo of the same hunger, unfamiliar and exhilarating. He could not ‘fuck’ her per say. But that did not matter. He wrapped his arms around her and ground his flesh against hers as he planted kiss after kiss on her face, her throat, her delicious lips. His cock remained soft, and would forever he suspected, but some atavistic beast stirred in it’s sleep within him, and he made some vague pantomime of the act, writhing and pressing against her.

He slid under the covers and searched in the dark, examining every inch of her skin with his fingers and his lips. He kissed her collar, her breasts, her navel. He kissed her scars, the thorn-torn wounds of her childhood in the eastern wilds, the fox-bite scar on her calf, the wine-stain birth-mark on her back. He kissed the shoulder scar of the arrow she had taken for her king and husband, he kissed the stretch-marks on her belly from her pregnancy and the crosshatch-scars of the melancholia that had followed, and that with his help she had struggled through and overcome. All of it was Amelia, all of it was beautiful, all of it a perfect whole built of imperfect parts.

He kissed the flower of her womanhood and drank greedily of her nectar as she writhed and moaned and bucked and howled so loud that even through the stone walls someone must have heard. In that moment they did not care. In that moment, they were free. No sooner than he had poked his head up from the covers for yet another kiss than she grabbed him and flipped over, so he lay on his back and her atop him. She returned the favor, covering his chest in kisses and scratches as she ground her against his thigh.

As it turns out, not having sex like a ‘real’ man meant he was not limited like one either. They continued like this, flipping back and forth on who was on top, flesh against tender flesh, Marikus wringing every orgasm from Amela’s body that it could give, their screams filling the air in harmony to the bells marking the passing of hours.

It was nearly noon when he finally woke up. For a moment, he was confused why he was in the wrong bed, until he felt her curled up against him, and memories came back to him. He pulled her sleeping body against his. He held her this way, afraid to even move, until she squirmed and signaled she was awake.

“Morning.” He said, smiling down at her, thinking himself the luckiest creature in the universe.

“Morning.” She said.

“Now what?”

She pulled away from him and lay flat on her back, staring at the ceiling.

“I have no idea. I didn’t plan that far ahead.”

“Shame. Because what we just did could get us both killed.”

She turned her gaze away from the ceiling to the far wall. A larger-than-life portrait of the king and queen hung directly over the cold fireplace. It was a strangely stylized piece, seemingly realistic, until the subtle exaggerations of the king’s proportions became noticeable. The way he dwarfed the queen and crowded out all of the negative space of the painting. His eyes stared down on both of them, serene yet quietly menacing.

“If the king were to die,” Marikus began, “Then the heir apparent would be your son. But, given that he is only four, you would be the de-facto ruler.”

She did not respond immediately. Breath in. Hold. Breath out. Silence.

“If that were to happen, hypothetically, then the power of rule would pass temporarily to a regent.”

“And as the dowager queen, you would pick the regent.”

“Selecting myself would be highly improper.”

“Improper? Yes. But entirely legal. The kings twice-great grandmother did it.”

“The regency only lasted six months. I would have to rule- not just be pretty and play house, but rule- for a decade or more. Assuming the lesser nobles or foreign powers don’t make a power grab”

“All very real risks. But keeping our relationship secret has it’s own risks. The king could get very, very angry. And even if he didn’t kill us outright, there’s no way he would let it stand. He would send me off somewhere to be a steward in some distant dutchy, and we would never meet again.”

“I just got the chance to love you. I haven’t been so happy in years. I spent the last few years in darkness, waking every morning dreading the day to come. Now is the first time I feel hope for brighter days ahead. I cannot go back.” He turned to look at her, taking her hands in his. Their eyes locked, and they stared in silence for a long moment.

“Whatever we do, we must do it together. We have to be on the same page about all this. Whatever we do in the next few days will carry with is for the rest of our lives. We must be in accord. But. Know that I love you. And that I will use every power at my disposal to protect that love.”

They wept. And they kissed.