Winner of an Amazon Ice Award

DISCLAIMER:
The characters belong to MCA/Universal and were used without permission. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made.

WARNING:
This story contains consensual, graphic, BDSM sexual activity. There's no rape involved, however. If there were, it would say so, right here in this disclaimer, but there isn't, so there's not. Disclaimers rock.

You can find more of Klancy7's stories at her web site Klancy7 Fan Fiction and at XENADOM.

Send feedback to Klancy7@aol.com

********

The Disclaimer's The Thing
by Klancy7

"Here, read it!"

Gabrielle slapped the scroll down on the ground beside Xena and stalked to the other side of the camp.

Xena lifted the roll of papyrus into her lap gingerly, as if it might erupt in flames. Gabrielle had labored over this scroll, in fits and starts, ever since they left Piraeus. She had never known the bard to struggle so over any creative endeavor -- she'd gnawed her way through three of her best quills, spitting shreds of feather as she sweated over the page.

Any inquiries Xena made into the nature of her work had been met with snarling demands for privacy. The snappishness was new -- since the near-disaster on the boards of the Great Appian Way, the warrior found it increasingly difficult to voice any opinion whatsoever without risking the withering sarcasm of her young partner. Now Gabrielle's green eyes were boring holes in her from across the campfire, and she chose her words carefully.

"Gabrielle? This is kind of long. You're going to have to give me awhile, okay?"

"Take your time." Gabrielle folded her arms, her face a grim mask of patience. "Who's rushing you."

Xena smiled weakly, and scanned the first few lines. "Hey, it's a play."

"The title is RAVISHED, A PLAY IN THREE ACTS. That tip you off?"

Xena shrugged. "Well, you felt your first try at stagecraft didn't turn out too well -- "

"Didn't turn out?" Gabrielle's tone was ominous. "Xena, I am going to be held responsible for unleashing hordes of ravening thespians on the unsuspecting civilized world."

"Not that there's anything wrong with that."

"It was NOT the message I wanted to send!"

Startled birds detonated from nearby treetops. Gabrielle rested her forehead in one hand and perched the other on her hip, sighed, and made an effort to lower her voice.

"Just . . . read . . . the script."

Xena unrolled the scroll. She figured anything could happen before she finished the thing and had to offer a critique. Maybe they'd be jumped by bandits. A rabid wolf could happen by. Gabrielle's stupid period might start at last.

Gabrielle began to pace, as Xena finished the prologue, twisted the rods to advance the papyrus, and read on. Xena's lips moved over a few words, and then her brows rose.

"What?" Gabrielle asked.

Xena looked at her, puzzled.

"Your eyebrows went up."

"Gabrielle."

"Sorry, go on." The bard resumed pacing.

The parchment crackled in Xena's hands as she read through the next several inches. Her blue eyes moved evenly over the delicate writing, and slowly, a flush of color filled the high planes of her cheeks. She drew in a deep breath.

"What, what?"

Xena looked up, frowning.

"You gasped, I heard you."

"Gabrielle."

"You did gasp -- "

"Gabrielle? If you interrupt me again, I will take our only frying pan to your insolent young butt," Xena said politely. "Now shut up, and let me finish this."

Gabrielle plunked down cross-legged, and cradled her close-cropped head in her hands. She recited the meditations Eli gave her to chase off demons of insecurity. She was so tense she couldn't possibly have dozed off, but she never heard Xena get up -- the warrior was just suddenly standing beside her.

Gabrielle scrambled to her feet and looked at Xena closely. "What do you think?"

"Well, I'm no bard." Xena's blue eyes twinkled warmly. "So I'll express myself my way."

She swept her wife into her arms and kissed her, one arm snaking around the small of her back. The warrior's full lips blended warmly against Gabrielle's mouth, and after a moment of surprise, the bard responded.

Her hands rose and explored Xena's face, her slender fingers brushing lightly over her sculpted cheeks and across her brow. Xena drew her lover's tongue into her mouth with gentle insistence, and sucked her while Gabrielle moaned, loose-lipped. The bard's knees weakened, and only the strong arm in the small of her back kept her upright.

They had not kissed this way since India. Since Poteidaia, really, and their reunion. They'd shared one dizzying, primal night, then, and then this odd numbing had set in. Xena had sensed it, and refused, stolidly, to address it. She wasn't addressing it now. It was just good to feel this again.

At last the warrior straightened, and she smiled down at Gabrielle with fond pride. "Bri, it's a beautiful script."

"Script?" Gabrielle's emerald eyes looked fogged, as if she'd over-indulged in henbane again, but they cleared quickly, and she stood on her own power. "Oh, right. Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

The bard smiled, then lowered her head and released a quick sigh of relief and pleasure. She flattened her hands on Xena's chest. "Will you do something for me?"

"Anything."

Gabrielle's green eyes crinkled. "I need to see how it plays."

"How it plays?"

"We have to act it out."

"Act it out?"

"Xena, warrior parrot." Gabrielle stood on her toes and kissed Xena's cheek, then stepped back and started waving her arms. "Yeah, I need to know if it works, visually -- viscerally, as a scene."

"Oh, it's visceral," Xena assured her. "But I'm not sure you want us to -- "

"Xena, it's not like we haven't done it."

Gabrielle tried for an air of sophistication, but she felt her face filling with color. She dimpled and dropped her eyes, knowing her attempt at worldliness was transparent, and then peered up at Xena through spiky blond bangs. "We've played with it, at least. This is just taking it a step further, that's all."

"True." Xena worried her lower lip with her teeth for a moment, and then cupped Gabrielle's chin in her hand, her fingers drifting against the side of her face. It was one of their oldest ways of touching, as natural and familiar now as drawing breath; Xena's caress of her lover's face was both sisterly and sensual. "Okay, if you're sure. But you're the director, Gabrielle. I want you to promise me you'll call this off if you -- "

Gabrielle threw her arms up around Xena's neck and hugged her fiercely, then gave the taller woman's cheek another smacking kiss. "You get the props, I get a head start."

Gabrielle turned and ran, a blur of color and a flash of tanned thigh imprinting on Xena's vision. She leaped over a bedroll and disappeared into the dark woods surrounding their camp.

The warrior grinned, listening to her partner's fast step fade in the distance. She brushed her hands together and winked at Argo. "Hot doggy," she murmured, and started to chuckle.

Argo sighed.

Xena loped to their stock, and pulled out a gunny sack. She rummaged in her saddle bag and extracted lengths of rope, a dagger, and accessories.

She slung the bag over her shoulder and paused, still grinning fiercely, and looked back above her shoulder at the cold, inscrutable face of Artemis' full moon. Xena raised her head, and let out a trilling war cry that sent the night birds scattering again. Then she bolted after Gabrielle.

The young priestess tore her way through the tangled shrubbery blocking her path up the slope. She reached deep inside for a last burst of strength, and made it over the crest of the hill before collapsing on her knees in the deep grass.

The priestess was fit, but racing a full league up a forested rise would leave anyone gasping. She lay a hand on one breast, and made herself breathe more quietly so she could listen.

The terrifying crashing in the brush that had followed her the first half-league had fallen silent the last, as had the blood-chilling cries that chased her into the hills. Either she had out-distanced her pursuer, or misdirected her.

She couldn't be complacent about her escape, however, not with a demon queen thirsting for her blood. The priestess climbed to her feet, and pulled a deep draught of cold mountain air deep into her lungs before beginning the next leg of her flight.

That same clear air shattered as the clarion cry sounded just behind and above her.

The priestess flinched down as the dark form flew over her, twisting in mid-air gracefully. The queen landed so lightly in front of her there was no sound. She was just suddenly there, blocking her path of escape, her tall, muscular body as impassable as a pillar of rock. She regarded the priestess with a slowly dawning smile, her black hair a tousled wildness framing her distinctive features.

The priestess took an instinctive step backwards toward the lip of the rise.

The queen's full lips pursed in amusement. "Does the little fox think she'll be harder to catch running downhill?" she purred.

"I believe vixen are underestimated in animal lore," the priestess replied calmly, her hands loose at her sides. "They have teeth."

The queen smiled, and clasped her hands behind her back, waiting.

"I was nearly out of your reach, you know." The younger woman was stalling, hoping to quell the trembling that had started in her belly. "Once I made it past your sentries, and climbed above the pastures, I stopped hearing you."

"Yes, dear, I was able to stop imitating an elephant when you finally started running in the direction I intended." The queen turned slightly and gestured toward the center of the circle of trees, an almost courtly invitation. "Shall we, priestess?"

The priestess looked past her into the shadowed grove, and then into the mocking eyes of the dark woman. Her own green orbs flashed, and a grim resolve replaced the insecurity that had threatened for a moment.

"If you think any brand of persuasion will convince me to sign a treaty bonding our people, you're deluded."

This calm speech sustained her as she strolled past the queen and into the center of the grove.

"Perhaps my chance of success would be higher," the queen said pleasantly, "if priestesses weren't drawn from the ranks of village virgins."

The priestess whirled. Her hand darted up and grasped the astonished queen's chin, and before she could react, the priestess surged against her and kissed her, harshly. Then she flattened her tongue against her cheek and dragged it up the side of her face with a sibilant hiss. She pushed the taller woman back with a scathingly contemptuous smack on the chest. Her emerald eyes seared up into the startled blue ones above her.

"Your reputation for coarseness is richly deserved, your majesty. As is my own, for a spiteful nature."

The queen stood immobile, staring down at her.

The priestess waited. Then she cleared her throat, concerned, and snapped her fingers beneath the queen's nose. "Xena."

"That wasn't in the script," Xena stammered.

"I was improvising," Gabrielle said calmly. She looked up at the warrior with serene green eyes. "Why? Didn't it work?"

Xena grinned, and the dark slurring of her warlord days suffused her rich voice. "You young slut." She took the priestess's bare arm and spun her, then planted a firm hand between her shoulder blades and pushed.

**********

The queen had obviously chosen this location for it's natural assets. She had the angry priestess tethered in a tight, standing spread between two trees even before the large fire crackled high, illuminating the grove, and the girl's still-clothed body, in gold light.

Now she strolled slowly back and forth before her, enjoying the play of muscle in her bare arms as the young woman pulled against the restraints. The flat belly rippled, too, as she struggled, and the look of outrage in the jewel-green eyes was pure aphrodisiac.

The tall woman paused, then turned to her partner.

"Gabrielle." Xena's voice was gentle. "This next bit is all action. Your stage directions call for me to gag you, but I'm not going to do that. You must be able to speak at all times, in case you want me to stop. I won't argue that -- " Xena lifted a hand as Gabrielle started to speak. "But neither will I stop again, unless you ask me to."

A little of Gabrielle's bravado deserted her, and she swallowed visibly.

Xena smiled at her, the transformed again as Gabrielle watched, the kindness in her eyes becoming the cat-like greed of the queen's. The queen inserted the tip of her dagger between the sheaves of fine fabric at the priestess's throat. One skilled flick of a wrist sent the wicked blade gliding soundlessly downward, separating the silk with a sibilant hiss.

The queen's long fingers tickled their way into the tear, and jerked the tattered material wide. The priestess's full, pale breasts bounced free in the scarlet wash of firelight. The queen's eyes sparked with pleasure, and she lifted the torn halves over the priestess's shoulders, baring her completely to the waist.

The blond woman's eyes drifted closed in stages and her back arched, in unwilling response to the cool air playing over the sensitive tips of her breasts, coupled with the liquid heat of Xena's gaze on her nipples. The familiar weight of the succulent mounds on her chest suddenly grew lighter, and she could feel her buds swell and harden beneath her lover's stern blue eyes.

"A woman's nipples pucker so beautifully when she's frightened, don't you agree?"

The queen ducked under the priestess's raised arm and sidled up behind her. She pressed the cold metal of her chestplate against the warmth of the girl's bare shoulders, and her hands curled around in front of her. The long fingers tickled the rounded swells of both breasts, and a breathless moan escaped the priestess's parted lips. The queen lifted the taut globes in her palms, and splayed her fingers over their tips, rubbing in small, tight circles..

Then her fingers straightened and pinched, hard, and Gabrielle's stiffening nipples blushed red between them. The smaller woman's head smacked back into Xena's shoulder, and she emitted an unladylike groan, a sound so surprisingly sensual that they both shivered slightly. The bound bard felt a small fireball ignite deep in her loins.

Xena allowed instinct to take over, blackly frightening but familiar, as Gabrielle's body arched in her hands. She closed her eyes and tested their safety, and was satisfied. She knew she wouldn't hurt Gabrielle, and she trusted her young partner to safeguard both of their hearts.

She moved around in front of the bard and pushed firmly up against her, covering her naked breasts with smooth, cold steel. "You're going to have to let me have this one, Gabrielle," Xena said quietly, looking down into heated green eyes. "We can get back to the script presently, but first -- "

Gabrielle spat out a hissing curse. "Will you shut UP, Xena, by the gods, all this blasted chatter -- "

Gabrielle's insolence was cut off when Xena stepped back and ripped her skirt from her hips, stripping her with such rude abruptness that a spurt of arousal flooded from the bard's slit. The soft mound between her legs quivered under the warrior's blistering gaze, bulging out toward her in spite of her efforts to remain still.

Xena's eyes were changing again, turning an eerie shade of silver. Gabrielle swore to this phenomenon, but she was rarely believed. It was just as well -- even her command of poetry couldn't describe how that simmering gaze filled her with twisting heat. It was doing it again now.

There was just a brief flash of fear across Gabrielle's lovely features as Xena reached down and wormed her fingers between her spread thighs. The warrior cupped the hairy swell in her palm and squeezed, her silver eyes patient.. Finally Gabrielle's gaze softened, and her eyes closed in acceptance.

Xena probed the girl's nether lips apart and drilled up between them, inserting three fingers to the second knuckle. Then she closed her hand again, milking her, raking her palm in rough circles over Gabrielle's flattened, straining clitoris.

Xena stepped closer, and rested her brow on the top of Gabrielle's head. "Fight me," she said softly. "Try to avoid my touch."

A sob escaped Gabrielle, and her hips surged forward on Xena's hand, straining to drive her fingers deeper. Xena's palm spun faster, grinding her clit into her silken wetness. Gabrielle gasped, struggling to pull herself up and off the skewering fingers continually flexing deep within her.

She began to twist in her bonds, shrieking in breath between clenched teeth, but the tight ropes on her wrists and ankles kept her widely spread. Her green eyes were locked on Xena's blue ones as she fought, widening when heat spurted through her groin. Gabrielle looked like a young, enraged goddess, filling with a fury of lust as Xena worked her.

Xena stared down at Gabrielle's naked breasts, stippled pink now and heaving with exertion. She continued pumping in and out of her, using smooth, merciless strokes that kept the younger woman bucking repeatedly against her. Xena lifted her free hand to Gabrielle's mouth, and slid her cool fingers between her parted lips. Gabrielle accepted them eagerly, and sucked them hard as she rode.

"You can't close your legs," Xena whispered, her silver eyes on the bard's staring green ones. "I can dig in your pussy like this, fuck up into you like this, and you can only stand there with your legs spread, Gabrielle, and your cunt stretched wide open to my touch, sucking me up into you -- "

"Warriors are all talk." Gabrielle bit her lip, as her bristling mound humped, impaled on Xena's hand. "Can't you find a better use for that mouth?"

Xena blinked at her, and then a truly sinister smile lifted the corner of her sensuous lips. She sank down to her knees, slithering along Gabrielle's sweat-sheened nakedness. She looked up at the emerald eyes above her, shimmering with need.

Still watching Gabrielle's face, Xena rested her full mouth very lightly against the furred swell between her legs. She kissed her there, chastely, almost reverently, in a gesture of thanks to the body she cherished.

Gabrielle smiled down at her sexily, a seductive curling of the lips that the demure bard couldn't hope to duplicate when she was sane. Xena lowered her gaze to the inviting, fire lit juncture between her lover's spread thighs. Her sex hung open, helplessly exposed, twitching and vulnerable.

She lifted Gabrielle's hips, making her vulva yawn wider, and then she buried her face against her silken folds. Gabrielle screamed above her, writhing, but the warrior held on.

Xena plunged her tongue into the bard's narrow channel and began pistoning in and out of her, snarling ravenously between her thrashing thighs. She raked the bursting clit once with her teeth.

Gabrielle came with shattering force. The bard considered those words a piteous cliché until that night, when she adopted them as a particularly apt description of her response to her warrior lover's ministrations. She jerked in her bonds in the fury of climax, bucked, and screamed again. Eventually she managed to calm herself, and finally stood with her head lowered, gasping..

Xena climbed to her feet, panting as well, and rested her hands on her partner's bare shoulders. "Thanks, Bri," she whispered, and rested her forehead on the top of Gabrielle's bowed head.

"Don't m-mention it," Gabrielle gasped, blinking at the ground between her feet. "Sweet Artemis. Hoo. Anything for my art."

The queen's pale features loomed out of the smoky firelight, and the priestess shrank back instinctively. The dark woman smiled, and slipped her small knife from her belt. With one quick movement she cut the ropes binding the young woman's left wrist, then her right. "The night is young, priestess."

"But you're not, your highness." The priestess struggled to remain upright, hating to admit that only the queen's hands on her bare waist kept her from falling. "Don't you think a brief intermission would -- "

The queen gripped the priestess's chin, the cruel pinch of her fingers an erotic parody of her earlier gentle caress. "I suggest you save your breath for something other than foolish questions, girl. You're going to need it."

Moving quickly, the queen stalked behind the blond woman and pulled her arms behind her. The leather thong was wound around her muscular forearms, binding them wrist to elbow in the middle of her back. Her ankles were still encircled with loops of rope, anchoring her legs apart.

The queen came around in front of her prisoner again, and stood regarding the effect of her bondage. The blond woman's carriage, and the directness of her gaze, were pure defiance. The rest of her was a living sculpture worthy of a high temple of Artemis.

The priestess's slender throat moved with suppressed emotion. Her naked breasts were thrust forward, full and trembling above the lean belly, the nipples enormous and pulsing. The sleek lines of the girl's waist swelled at her hips, where her mound still quivered, achingly exposed between wide-spread legs.

The priestess couldn't bear to continue watching the queen's gaze devour her, and she turned her head, catching her lower lip between her teeth as she closed her eyes.

"Your instinct knows more than your temple elders have taught you, priestess.." The queen's molten tone reached her dimly. "Yours is the classic expression of a woman spread naked before hungry eyes, shamed into arousal, and thirsting for more."

There was a brief silence.

Gabrielle opened her eyes to see Xena standing before her, looking at her quizzically. She held two small, evil-looking hinged clamps an inch from her breasts. The bard's eyes widened.

"Uhhh . . . what's up with those?" Gabrielle whispered.

"The priestess's pleasure will be much more intense if I . . ." Xena let her voice trail off as she waggled the delicate chain connecting the clamps invitingly.

Gabrielle's breasts rose and fell once with her deep breath. She searched Xena's face.

"Do you trust me?" Xena whispered.

"Always."

Xena nodded, thumbed open the clamps, and snapped them over the swollen nipples.

Gabrielle arched violently, and her breath emerged in a strangled moan. The pain was immediate, streaking up her breasts and sizzling in her throbbing, clamped knobs. The first stinging shock retreated to a bearable, but darkly erotic, throbbing. The bard held her position, panting, her back curved, her breasts jutting, the delicate gold chain bouncing between them.

Xena was deciding she really, really liked theater.

Gabrielle felt a dry, slithering tickle wash over the creamy swells of her breasts, and her eyes shot open. Xena stood before her, slowly draping the half-dozen thin tethers that composed her flail over one of her lover's breasts, then the other. Gabrielle's nerve faltered again at the sight of the small whip.

"Xena . . . "

"Say the word, and I'll stop." The blue eyes on the girl's breasts were still remote and cold, the gaze of the queen -- but the rich, loving voice was Xena's. Gabrielle looked into Xena's hooded gaze, and saw a carefully banked flame of arousal in her eyes. That decided her. A thrill of alien joy sang through Gabrielle's blood, and her chin lifted.

"Scourge me as you will, wanton queen. You can possess this body, caress these curves and violate the sanctity of my chastity . . . "

Xena was mesmerized. Her eyebrows rose, and she waited. "But?" she whispered finally.

"No buts." Gabrielle frowned. "Caress these curves and violate some sanctity."

A burst of laughter escaped Xena, a pure peal of child-like pleasure, before her eyes darkened again, and she snapped the flail across Gabrielle's bare breasts.

That knocked whatever look of smugness Gabrielle might have worn straight off her face.

"This is no scourging, girl," Xena murmured, hefting the right breast with the handle of the flail, then letting it drop, "because this is no whip. If I wanted you scourged, I'd have brought a cat. This pussy won't even scratch your porcelain skin."

Gabrielle's breath was starting to hitch in her chest, making her full globes bounce in the firelight. The flail struck the left breast next, and her shoulders jerked back as she flinched, her blonde hair sweeping across her damp brow.

But instead of fear, there was a dauntless challenge growing in Gabrielle's eyes. The tethers across the bard's nipples made her cry out, but it was less a plea for mercy than a war cry. Green fire flashed from Gabrielle's eyes, directly into Xena's icy blue ones. She began to writhe in her bonds in earnest, her back arching away from the lash, her hips grinding in flat circles as the whipping continued.

Xena handled the flail as skillfully as her partner welded her quills, and with equally poetic results. Her blue eyes deepened with pleasure as she watched her lover battle her restraints, her own wetness soft and steaming between her legs.

The flail whickered through the chill air, slapping across the flat belly, the top of one thigh. It left blushing red lines in its wake, but no real injury -- just fleeting trails of stinging heat that stoked the girl's arousal higher.

Suddenly Xena adjusted her aim from an adroit overhand to a quicksilver undersnap, which sent the flail slapping up between Gabrielle's wide-spread legs.. The leather strips smacked stingingly against her tender folds, curling around her damp nether lips to emerge with a crack between her taut buttocks.

Gabrielle's head dropped back and she emitted a soft scream, her pudenda held rigid between her straining thighs as she absorbed the pain. She had no real time to register the changing of sensation, from pain to erotic pleasure, before she was jerked back to full awareness.

The tall warrior was behind her again, the heavy black silk of her cloak skating lightly over Gabrielle's nakedness as she moved. She jammed her left arm across her slender throat, and pulled her head up against her shoulder. Her right hand, meanwhile, went foraging.

The long fingers skated once over her cold breasts, then snarled in the gold chain between them and tugged. Gabrielle grunted loudly as her nipples were squeezed in the pinching clamps, knowing the spectacle she made as she arched her back against Xena, her face filling with color. The dark warrior breathed the words she'd written in her ear, as delicious heat bubbled through her groin.

"In the early days of my rule," the queen whispered, fingering the trembling, clamped nipples, "this kind of negotiation was held before my assembled court. I wanted my victim surrounded by hundreds of lusting eyes, serenaded by the jeers and envious gasps of my courtiers. . . "

Xena released Gabrielle's neck, and slid the flail down the shining curves of her breasts and belly. She snarled the damp leather into the soft hair between the girl's legs, and began grinding it gently in circles against her open vulva. One hand kept twisting the chain connecting the clamped nipples, as the other ground the leather strips against the bard's swelling clit.

"Look at them, priestess." Xena gripped Gabrielle's chin in her hand tightly, squeezing until the green eyes opened. "They're out there now, in the dark, just beyond the flames that illuminate your twisting body for their pleasure. Feel their eyes on you, crawling over your luscious breasts -- " A sharp flick of a fingernail against one turgid nipple made the bard cry out. "Delving into the sweet, furry darkness between your sluttishly spread legs -- "

It built in her -- that dark, hissing voice behind her, the image of ravenous eyes, the sinister twirl of the flail in her wetness. Gabrielle lowered her head and tried to fold into herself, to hide her body from the insatiable hunger of the demon queen who held her. But Xena flattened her forearm against her taut throat and jerked her erect, still stirring the leather strips busily into her twitching slit.

"Will you sign, little priestess? Or should I turn you over to them, to the grasping hands and skewering cocks of my soldiers? Would you prefer their probing to my tender touch, this gentle tickling of your -- "

Gabrielle bucked once in her arms, and came like a banshee, her hips thrusting uncontrollably through crashing waves of climax. Her head dropped back against Xena's shoulder and the cords in her neck stood out in sharp relief as she snapped rigid with the final surge, the leather still grinding furiously against her cunt -- and then, finally, slowing to a calming, circling motion as she came down.

Gabrielle didn't see Xena bend to cut the two ropes binding her ankles, and she didn't remember the warrior easing her down to the ground. Her arms were still tied behind her, but the straining tension in her thighs relaxed at last as she collapsed in the grass. She leaned heavily against Xena, who supported her with one warm arm bracing her shaking shoulders. She stroked her short blond hair, murmuring comfort as the bard regained her composure. Gabrielle heard her make a clicking sound of regret.

"My timing's off," Xena sighed.

Gabrielle cleared her throat, still trying to bring her pulse into normal range. "T-timing?"

"Yeah, the queen has two more of those little monologues before the priestess reaches climax." Xena sounded disappointed. "Really good speeches, too, more about those watching courtiers and probing -- "

"Cut 'em," Gabrielle gasped, resting her head on Xena's chest. "I'm cutting the last two monologues, by -- the gods -- or my audience will perish of -- exploded hearts.

Xena smiled, tickling a circle around the top of Gabrielle's bare shoulder. "We can't have that."

Gabrielle lifted her head with effort, and blinked blearily up into Xena's warm blue eyes. The bard's lips curled into a feline, satisfied smile as she nuzzled the warrior's neck. "Curtain," she murmured.

"Curtain," Gabrielle repeated, her eyes drifting closed as she leaned her head against Xena's shoulder. "Time out. Halt. Just five minutes. Please."

With one effortless movement, Xena swept Gabrielle up into her arms and rose to her feet. "Not a problem."

"Whoa!" Gabrielle slapped the warrior's chest, laughing. "Xena, we don't need a caveman-type ravishing as a subplot! Believe me, what we've got is more than -- "

"Hush, Bri." Xena held her young partner against her chest, and puffed a wisp of blonde hair softly off her forehead. "It's been a long night, just rest for a moment."

"You're serious?" Bleary green eyes batted teasingly. "You're calling a king's-ex, here? I'm not going to doze off, and suddenly find the queen is forcefully defiling the princess again in her sleep?"

"Nah. Maybe later." Xena grinned down at her, patting her shoulder absently. "Tell you what. When I get you back to camp, I'll wait for you to doze off. Then I'll defile you again so thoroughly, we won't see Argo for a week.."

"Argo?" Gabrielle was startled out of a yawn. "Is that why she keeps taking off on us?"

"Honey, you haven't heard yourself when you get going. The shrieking alone -- "

"Wimpy prude warhorse."

"Hey."

"Sorry." Gabrielle smiled and gave Xena's cheek a sisterly kiss.

"Those ropes too tight?"

The bard tested the bonds tying her arms behind her back, wrist to elbow. "No, they're fine."

"You're not too cold?"

"Xena, I'm buck naked. Of course I'm cold."

"Okay. We can take care of that."

Gabrielle lifted her head from Xena's shoulder warily. "Curtain time again, huh?"

Xena's shrugged, her blue eyes steady. Unlike her partner's, her sexual boiler system had not had the opportunity, as yet, to dump pressure, and she was more than willing to proceed with the evening's entertainment. It was, however -- now and forever -- Gabrielle's call.

Gabrielle saw the banked flame of arousal in her lover's eyes, and she shivered with anticipation. Then she rested her lips against the warm skin at the base of the warrior's taut throat. She kissed Xena, gently, with the lightest brush of her tongue at the end. Then she looked up at her, her green eyes filling with a light as rich with love as lust.

"Xena. You listening?"

Xena started, breaking her transfixed gaze from the bard's eyes with effort.

Gabrielle waited until she focused on her again, smiling slightly, knowing her power. Knowing exactly who was in charge tonight, because that was their agreement. The younger woman felt that trust between them as vividly as the touch of Xena's fingers on her face.

"Fear at first. That works best for me."

Xena nodded agreement.

"But I want to end strong." Gabrielle dimpled. "That's best for you."

"Hey . . . thank you." Xena was touched.

Gabrielle smiled, her head moved forward, and she kissed Xena's throat again, the soft, pulsing skin over the jugular. This time the bard used her teeth, biting gently, sucking hard.

Xena stood it as long as she could, and then she snarled and dropped one arm, letting the younger woman's legs fall.

The priestess caught herself on the queen's shoulder, alarm streaking through her blood like cold mercury. Which also described the temperature of the ice-blue eyes inches above her. The blonde woman staggered, her arms pinned behind her throwing off her balance, and almost fell when the queen pushed her roughly away. She lifted one hand, and the priestess saw that she held the end of the slender chain that linked the clamps pinching her nipples.

Instinctively the princess straightened and stood very still, breathing rapidly, her green eyes large and frightened on the cruel face watching her.

"Arch your back, girl."

The priestess did. And tried to ignore the warmth that washed through her groin as her breasts bulged, the clamped nipples quivering under the cold gaze. She noted a sheen of sweat shining on the queen's high forehead as her eyes feasted on her firm, bobbing breasts.

"Come."

The command was quietly given. The queen took a step backwards, then another, until the delicate chain held taut in the space separating the dark woman and the light one. The queen stopped. Her mouth curled in a snarl and she jerked her fingers, making the priestess's pink nipples constrict in the chewing grip of the clamps. The priestess's lips tightened. She made herself move. Her mind's eye tried to banish the image of herself being led by a chain clipped to her nipples across the grove.

The queen escorted the naked girl to a wide, fallen tree bordering one side of the roaring campfire. Of considerable girth, the rough bark of the dead tree was softened with a thick layer of moss. The queen dropped the chain, swept off the midnight swirl of her cloak, and spread it over the fallen tree.

She made the priestess lift one leg over the trunk and straddle it. The queen assumed the same position, one leg on either side of the tree, facing her.. The taller woman regarded her frightened adversary with a patronizing smile.

(Gabrielle longed to slap that look off her tall lover's face, but she quelled the impulse, stayed in character, and shivered with rising need.)

"Sit down and lie back."

The priestess sat with a quick economy of movement and a minimum of drama. Laying back came harder, because it meant revealing her widely-spread legs to the queen's gaze. She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and lowered her elbows to the log behind her. Her muscled thighs were splayed over the curve of the trunk, her golden mound beautifully exposed between them.

The priestess adjusted the weight of her upper body on her elbows, trying to find comparative comfort. The shifting also enabled her to keep her gaze lowered, away from the avid heat of the blue eyes on her neat, naked vulva.

The queen stood over her prey, still fingering the gold chain, enjoying the flexing of the flat belly, the quivering in the thighs as the priestess fought the urge to close her legs. She lowered herself to the curved surface, her eyes locked on the red-gold cleft.

"It's never a good idea to rush into these things." The queen's voice held a lazy drawl as she raked her wild dark hair off her forehead. "In a way, this is my favorite part. When I have them positioned and ready for me, but before I touch them again." Cold blue eyes twinkled, condescendingly. "You getting any kind of rush out of this yet, priestess?"

The younger woman felt like a sacrificial offering draped over an altar. She looked down at her naked body and whimpered with shame, seeing the livid red lines lacing the milk-white globes of her breasts. The priestess swallowed, and made herself meet her captor's eyes. "Nothing you can do to me will shake my resolve, evil queen. You can torture my body until snow blankets this grove, and I will never sign your treaty."

"I hadn't counted on either of us being here long enough to see the leaves turn." The sensual lips curled. "Perhaps speedier action is called for."

The queen lifted the small leather flail, reversed it, and showed the priestess the thick, braided tethers of its long shaft.

"No," the priestess whispered, her eyes filling.

"You don't command in this grove, priestess."

The queen fit the smooth, knotted end of the flail into the wet cleft between the priestess's thighs. With one firm thrust, she pushed the leather shaft deeply up the cringing girl's vaginal tunnel.

The priestess's crotch thrust into the air and she unleashed a breathless scream, her hips rooting helplessly as she was engorged with leather. The queen shoved the whiphandle deeper, working it in by inches, her ringing laughter blending with the gasps of her victim.

"They're still here, priestess, can you feel them?" The queen's low voice was a sensuous purr, her fist clenching around the shaft as she began to pull it back out. "The leering eyes of my court, watching you struggle and bounce. Can you feel their hands, prying your knees apart, lifting your hips, that I might grind deeper into you?"

The whip's shaft plunged into the priestess again, skewering up her greased channel, scraping erotically against its clinging walls. She screamed a second time, a broken chain of cries exploding between her clenched teeth as she writhed madly on the log.

The queen fell silent save for a low, musical humming as she worked her prisoner, twisting the rod in her hand as it plunged in and out. She wasn't looking at the young woman's cunt anymore. Instead her gaze locked on the stunned fear in the wide green eyes, the tears coursing unchecked down the contorted face.

The reaming continued, grew harsher.

And slowly the priestess changed, transforming from a terrorized victim into a captive noblewoman, enraged by her violation. She began thrusting her open crotch toward the queen, in vicious defiance.

"Impale me, vile one," she spat, her blond hair bouncing with the repeated thrusts. "Sink into me, plow me, dig your leather cock deeper -- "

The queen emitted a guttural groan and complied, pistoning in and out of her now. Then, abruptly, she flicked her wrist, and the tethered end of the flail snapped forward. The leather lashes slapped up over the jouncing breasts, snapping against the bursting, clamped nipples. In the same moment, the queen yanked the chain connecting the clamps upward, snapping them off the turgid buds just as the whip lashed them.

The priestess shrieked.

The queen's thumb mashed cruelly down on the girl's straining, spasming clitoris, grinding hard against the nerve-rich nub.

The priestess crashed through swirling waves of pleasure and climaxed, convulsing mindlessly on the log, her crotch swiveling and rooting in pitched ecstasy.

The queen yanked the leather whip-phallus free and threw it from her. She dove over the priestess's supine form and carried her, tumbling, off of the log to roll in the grass. In a dizzy haze of thrashing limbs, the queen managed to draw her knife and cut the young priestess's arms free.

They grappled with each other in the soft, cold thickness of the grass, still hissing obscenities. Only very gradually did the spitting curses soften into laughter -- first one bark of it, then an answering one, until both women lay limp in each other's arms, giggling like schoolgirls.

Gabrielle curled into Xena's lap, snugging the warm black silk of her cloak around them both. She rested her head on the warrior's chest, drained to the point of stupor.

Xena stretched one arm out, snagged the gunny sack, and pulled it to her side. She rummaged in it until she found their wineskin. She plucked the cork out of it with her teeth, and spat it into the fire. She was feeling pretty mellow herself.

"Mam'selle? A leetle veeno? Ze grape of ze veen-yard, to cool your t'roat aftore your ree-gors?"

Gabrielle sputtered laughter against Xena's breast as she accepted the dripping wineskin. "I did not write the queen as the madam of an Italian bordello, Xena."

"You're jealous because I still do accents better than you."

"This is true." Gabrielle took a deep swig of wine. She sloshed it in her mouth with unsophisticated relish. Xena's cloak fell open enough to reveal the lush curves of her body. The bard looked down at herself with dismay, and spat the wine into the grass.

"Xena -- blast you! Look at me, I'm striped!"

Xena peered over her partner's shoulder, and smiled at the evidence of their night's work. Red lines weaved prettily over the creamy swells of the bard's naked breasts. Gabrielle noticed her scrutiny, and snatched the cloak over her breasts again with an indignant squeak.

Xena chortled at this bizarre exhibition of modesty. "Will you stop worrying, please? Those marks will be gone by morning."

"They'd better be." Gabrielle sulked, opening the cloak just wide enough to peek at her chest again. "We're supposed to visit my family now, Xena. Do you want to explain to Lila why her sister's bosoms look like candy Solstice canes? Oh, you think that's funny? My mother birthed no strumpets, warrior." Gabrielle thumped back Xena's chest, rather heavily.

"Oof." Xena chuckled, stretching, and then she wrapped her arms snugly around Gabrielle's shoulders. "No, but she birthed one hell of a good bard. You've written a wonderful play, Gabrielle. It's a shame it can't be staged on the Appian Way."

"Why shouldn't it?" Gabrielle smiled dreamily and lay back more tenderly against the dark woman. "Sure, it's risque, but Grecian drama is filled with sex and plunder."

"Well, there are those who will object to the -- uh, forceful nature of the queen's seduction of the priestess," Xena said tactfully. "Even other playwrights might be uncomfortable with it. They might refuse to have their productions staged on the same street as yours."

"Other playwrights should know better," Gabrielle yawned. "I'm not claiming my play's suitable for children, for Hera's sake."

"Well, you might want to point that out." Xena squinted, thoughtfully. "Not a claim of sexiness -- maybe a -- disclaim? A disclaimer thing, right in front of the theater, warning the faint of heart away."

"Hey, that'll do it." Gabrielle craned her neck and smiled up at Xena, pleased. "I'll write a disclaimer for Ravished, and every playwright in Greece will support my right to artistic freedom. After all, it's their freedom too, right?"

Xena smiled at Gabrielle, a little sadly. "You're so young."

"It's a love story, Xena. You know that."

"I know that."

"Therefore." Gabrielle squirmed around in Xena's embrace until she was facing her. "My script does hold one tragic flaw . . . it seems to me the lucky priestess gets the better part of the deal . . . like, three times?" Gabrielle's hand slipped beneath Xena's breastplate. "While the poor, neglected queen . . . "

"Gabrielle." Xena's sly brow lifted. "Are you telling me you're ready for Act Four?"

"Why not?" Gabrielle licked her lips, and began unbuckling the warrior's armor. "This bard's quills ain't about to run dry . . ."