In Which Ella Is Stirred

August 19, 1192

"Let me guess," Ella groaned to Sev's friend--she thought his name was Florian?--as she joined him on the library bench. "Sev and Rennie are doing that thing again when they're insulting each other in cute voices with their faces inches apart and you wish they'd just start making out all right because it would be more bearable than their conversations."

The friend sighed. "You put it better than I could have. There's a reason I sought refuge in here."

"I'll grant that they'll make cute babies--cute, ridiculously inbred Kemorin babies--but the rest of us don't need to be privy to the making of such, at least if they're not interested in a group arrangement." Ella kicked up her legs, slipper dangling off her toe before she snapped it back to her heel. She hadn't bothered with stockings in the summer for years now. Her comfort trumped her modesty, if she'd ever had much modesty to begin with. "I can't imagine why they're so eager to swear off other people so soon anyway."

"I can't either. I mean, I can see the appeal of having a primary lover, but... why does it need to be exclusive, as long as it's respectful?"

"No idea. All of my friends are so boring when it comes to that sort of thing. If you ask me, a man worth having doesn't get jealous when he sees you with another man." She winked. "He watches."

"And likewise with a woman worth having! I'd like to think we'd each be so pleased with the idea of the other being pleasured that we wouldn't much care who does the pleasuring."

"And perhaps this ideal man and ideal woman would compromise on the idea of bringing a third party into the bed." This had always been a not-so-private fantasy of Ella's, two men in her bed at once. Maybe even a man and a woman, just to try it. "Or even a fourth."

"Why stop there? They could make a whole feast and party of it."

"Feasting on foods, or on each other?"

"Both, and perhaps foods off of each other." Florian--yes, she was pretty sure it was Florian--leaned back, a wistful grin on his mouth. If his experience had been anything like hers, he'd yet to manage holding someone this long to this sort of conversation.

"I think I'd quite like to lick pastry filling off a man's chest."

"And I think I'd quite like to lick pastry filling off a woman's chest--among other places." Oooh! Ella crossed her legs, as if that could help much with the stirring. "But do you know what I've always wanted to try?"

Lord knew she did. "What?"

"Being tied up."

"Like, to the bedposts?"

"The bedposts, a chair, my own contorted body..."

She held her legs a little tighter together. "Could you imagine having a whole room in your house devoted to sexual pursuits? You could have chains, whips, the occasional apparatus..."

"What could be an apparatus?"

Ella shrugged. "I guess anything. The rafters, an old saddle... maybe even a library bench?"

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