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Several nights later, Catherine goes to Henry. She arrives before him and is in bed when he arrives. She watches, her hair loose around her shoulders, as his squires attend to him. It feels, almost, as if he is the virgin bride after a wedding, his attendants stripping him to lay him down on the marriage bed for the very first time. It feels, almost, as if he is as she was last June. They take from him the robe and gown of a king and wash his body clean, making him merely a man, a body. He is a lean man, a sparse man. His body seems like it is made from stone; even damp, even in the light of the fire and the burning candles, it seems pale and hard. But Catherine knows there is blood and flesh beneath his skin, that the coldness of his body is only some trick of the eye. He is not unpleasant to look at, if he stands at the angle he does and the ruin of his face is averted from the eyes, and even if he does not, she finds the ruin strangely compelling.
Naked, he dismisses his attendants and paces the length of the room, arms crossed over his chest. Again, he seems like a shy bride, hiding herself from the gaze of her new husband and trying to avoid the marriage bed. Catherine cannot remember if she had been such a bride; she has never felt much shame in possessing a body. Henry begins to extinguish the candles but when the first two are blown out, she speaks.
‘Oh, don’t,’ she says. ‘Leave them.’
He frowns. ‘Leave them?’
‘I want the light,’ she says, ‘I want to see you.’
‘You’ve seen me all day,’ he says.
‘You were dressed then,’ she says. ‘You are my husband, are you not? It is a wife’s right to gaze upon her husband’s body.’
For a moment, his face is strange and she wonders what he is thinking. His full mouth parts as if surprised, and then he averts his gaze, turning his dark eyes to the candles clustered on the table near the armoire. Catherine looks too. Their flickering flames throw strange depth to the armoire’s carved doors. The scenes of men and women at hunt seem alive, the arm of the hawking queen lifting higher as her falcon soars. Then he looks at her again.
‘If my queen commands it, she will have light,’ he says.
‘I do command it’
Then, he smiles and bows to her. Her lips curve upwards, her belly tightens, her skin prickles. She has given him a command and he has obeyed it. She has spoken her will out loud and he has submitted to her. Submission – his submission. She thinks of the night after her coronation, how she had taken charge, had ridden his cock, and now she wants. She wants more. But what does she want? It is incoherent and bewildering, this desire. She does not know how to achieve it, she does not even know how to name it. She pushes down the covers and stands up, moving towards him, then away.
‘Catherine?’ he says.
‘No,’ she says. ‘Do not speak, I—’
She fears she will lose the thread of her desire if he does. She stops by the table with the candles. Wax puddles in their silver dishes, the small flames flicker. If she reaches out, she could feel their heat against her palm. Henry follows her with his eyes. Can he see her? Can he see what she wants, can he interpret her desire into words and deeds? But she does not want him to. It is hers, not his, even if he is bound up in it. She circles him, traces the line of his back and cleft of his buttocks with her eyes, then steps forwards and traces the same line with her fingertips. He shudders, his shoulders slumping, as her fingers come to the end of his tailbone, the skin soft and damp with sweat.
‘Will you,’ she says, ‘will you kneel?’
‘To you?’ he says. ‘Yes – always.’
She closes her eyes at the swell of pleasure his words bring. She smiles, stretches up to kiss his shoulder and then moves away, sitting in the chair by the fire, her hands grasping the inlaid arms. She parts her legs to make space for him. His eyes seem black when they look at her, they fall to the juncture of her thighs where the hair is dark and wet.
‘Come,’ she says, ‘kneel.’
He comes to her and goes down on his knees, shuffling the last distance between them. She thinks: he has done this before. Then: of course he has, he was many things before he was a king. She looks down at the crown of his head, the abject position of him, and desire rolls through her body. She touches his face, strokes her finger across the sharp arch of the one perfect cheekbone, then rubs her thumb across his full lips. They part and she presses her fingers inside his mouth, touching his tongue, his teeth. He is as docile as a fire-warmed cat, nothing like the leopards of England. His eyes are downcast, the lids cast low. In the fire’s light, the scar on his face seems like a black hole in the ruined cheek. She does not touch it, though she wants to. She wants put her finger inside it to see how deep it goes; part of her even wants the wound to be fresh again so she could press inside and touch the parts of him that no one has ever touched, save, perhaps, the surgeon who tended the wound. But Henry cannot abide the scar being touched, so instead she puts her hand in his hair.
‘Look at me,’ she says, lifting his head.
He does, his dark eyes wide.
‘Would you do this if I was not your queen?’ she demands.
‘But you are my queen,’ he says.
‘That was not what I asked,’ she says. ‘Would you kneel to your wife if she was not your queen? Would you kneel to me if I was only Catherine?’
She bites the inside of her cheek. Do you love me? The words crawl in her throat and she does not want to speak them. Whatever answer he might give, she does not want to know.
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘What do you think I want?’ she says.
He licks his lips, his tongue pink. ‘Mastery,’ he says. ‘Sovereignty. Dominion.’
They are all good words. Her blood quickens with each of them, spoken by the king at her feet. She strokes her fingers through his hair, looks down at where his soft cock lies against his thigh, his hands on the floor.
‘Do you yield to me, then?’
‘Yes,’ he says.
Her blood turns molten with that heavy word. She pulls his head between her thighs and cries out as he kisses the swollen bud of her clitoris. He worries at it with his lips and tongue, and she shakes, the pleasure like lightning. Her fingers clutch at the chair arms, her nails digging into wood and inlay, as his tongue moves down, lapping at her slick, swollen folds until it delves inside her cunt. His tongue is clever, mobile, thrusting in deep and searching for the places where she’s most sensitive. Her thighs splay open one moment, wanting more, and the next clamp down around his head to keep him in place. At times, she wants to push him away, the pleasure close to unbearable and the sound of his mouth against her is too loud. She pulls at his hair. The fire spits, a log breaking open with a flaring of light; she sees his brow, his closed eyes. Her back arches, she hooks one of her legs over his shoulder, digging her heel in as if he is a horse to be spurred on. She rocks herself down, rubbing her cunt against his tongue and then moans when his thumb circles her clitoris. She yanks at his hair and comes with a gasp, arching off the chair.
She falls back, body trembling. Her head feels heavy, her face aflame. He turns his face, his unsteady breath hot against the crease of her thigh, but he is otherwise still. After a while, he eases her leg down and shuffles back. Catherine stares up at the ceiling, the arches carved and painted with English leopards. They seem to prowl before her eyes. Her breath steadies. She looks at her hands and then at him. His hair is messy and his cock is half-hard. But it is his face she likes best. His cheeks are pink, chafed by her thighs, and his mouth is red and swollen. All of his face is wet with her arousal.
She thinks, smiling: I have the greatest of England’s leopards kneeling at my feet. She might come again from the sight and the thought. Instead, she reaches out to cup his cheek and then draw his head up so she might kiss him. She tastes herself on his lips, on his tongue. Drawing back, she rests her brow against his and breathes him in. His own scents are almost lost in the smell of her. It almost as if she has unmade him and left a double of her self in his place. Made him into a vessel, or vassal, of herself.
He closes his eyes, long eyelashes brushing against her cheek.
‘Lie down on the bed,’ she says, ‘and do not cover yourself. I wish—’
‘To see me?’ he says, his lips turning up in a half-smile.
‘Yes,’ she said.
He pushes himself off the floor once she lets him go, glancing back at her as if expecting another instruction. One day, perhaps, there will be other things she will ask him to do, when she is surer of what, precisely, she desires and how he will react to her requests. She does not want to ask and risk his refusal, that way she would be exposed and humiliated. At the bed, Henry pushes the sheets and cover down and then lies down, his head on the pillow. He makes as to reach for his cock.
‘No,’ she says.
For a moment, Catherine regrets it when Henry obeys, laying his hands on the mattress. She would like to see him handle himself, perhaps learn how he best likes to be touched, but not this night.
She stands and picks one of the candles, cradling its warm silver dish in the palm of her hand. Then, she crosses to him and the bed. She sits beside him, picking his arm and laying it across her lap. He smiles, a little, his thumb stroking her thigh. He seems nervous. She brings the candle close to his face.
Henry breathes in sharply, his pupils constricting.
His irises are so dark that usually it is impossible to see the different shades of them unless he is standing in direct sunlight. The candle’s flame is not bright enough to reveal what the sun does but she can see the faint impression of the different shades. The pupil is like a narrow hole, going forever down. He blinks, worrying at his swollen mouth, and she shifts her gaze down. The sharp nose that is a little strange – it has not been broken, she thinks, but it has been hurt and healed oddly; perhaps the wound that left the scar did this. Then, the scar. The vividness of it, the strange texture of the skin and the colours in it. She quickly passes it over. When he is sleeping, perhaps, she will examine it as she wants. The cheeks, still a little pink, and rough with the stubble that will be shaved away in the morning. The full mouth, no longer captive to his teeth, she kisses, and then the cleft of his chin.
‘Well?’ he says, voice a little strained.
‘What?’ she says.
‘Am I satisfactory?’ he says.
‘Oh, more than,’ she says cheerfully.
He looks at her a little doubtfully. She kisses him again, letting her hand stroke down his long neck, down to the gap between his collarbones and then across one, then the other. She rests her fingers over the bone, stroking. She feels something like an eager groom, examining his new bride’s body and finding the things that please him the most. She bends her head and kisses the start of his sternum, then lets her hand sweep downwards. The candle’s light shows the paleness of skin that never sees the sun, his nipples are almost the same red as his mouth, only a shade or two lighter. She plucks at one gently, rolling it between her fingers, then the other, until they draw up like tight buds. Then she bends her head to lay a kiss on each one, stroking them with her tongue. A quick glance downwards reveals the stiffening line of his cock. Her hand shifts lower, lays itself on the flat plane of his belly, and his body shifts for the first time, eagerness and arousal getting in the way of his self-imposed passivity.
His hips angle up, as if urging her to touch his cock, and then, as if supressing the urge, he makes them lie flat, the cords of his neck standing out in stark relief. She smiles. Mastery, he said.
She wants to see more; she draws the candle along the length of his body. Her eyes drift up to the candle’s flame, sees the way melted wax pools around the wick and drips down to the side. Then her eyes fall back to his body. The flat belly, heaving with breath. The shadowed dip of his navel, the sharp jut of his hipbones. Her hand tilts, the candle spills, he cries out and her cunt clenches. She stares at the spill of white wax against his skin. It looks, she thinks, something like semen. The thought surges heat throughout her body, she has to catch her breath.
‘Oh!’ she says, a moment too late. ‘Sorry! I didn’t—’
Catherine doesn’t know if the tilt of her hand was deliberate or not.
Henry’s eyes are wild, staring at her, then down the wax, cooling and hardening on his skin, then her thighs, the skin gleaming with slick arousal. He licks his lips, his mouth parted.
‘Do it again,’ he says.
Is he mad? But she wants to and he knows she wants to and he wants her to. She takes a breath, moves the candle and then tilts her hand. A line of wax falls across his belly and he groans loudly, his cock pulsing precome. She dips her fingers in it, smears it across his skin and mixes it in the cooling wax. His eyes slide closed, he pants. She doesn’t wait for him to say again – he promised her mastery, after all – but drips a line of wax over his hip, following the bone. He breathes hard, his skin flushing a brilliant pink. She leans up, lets the wax fall across his chest, drawing a circle around one red nipple and letting a single drop fall onto the other. He cries out, fingers tearing at the sheets.
When Catherine takes his cock in her hand, it’s wet with pre-ejaculate. She lifts it away from his body, looks at his balls, drawn up tight with arousal. She tugs on his cock, presses her thumb to the head, the nail rubbing at his slit, and he moans, arching into her touch. His cock leaks even more, her thumb slick with it.
‘You’re so wet,’ she says softly.
She didn’t think it was possible for his face to flush even redder but she loves that he proves her wrong. She holds her hand still, bewildered by the strength of her desire. Her cunt clenches and unclenches. It would be so easy to do what she did some nights ago, to straddle him and take his cock inside her. But she hasn’t finished looking at him yet. She lets go of his cock and he groans, the sound heavy with frustration. She taps the inside of his thigh with her fingernails.
‘In a moment,’ she says. ‘Roll over. I’ve only seen half of you.’
He stares, confused, and she waits. He nods, once, and then heaves himself over onto his belly. Catherine brings the candle close, begins her scrutiny. She starts with the top of his head, the dark, gleaming hair that is soft beneath her fingertips, then the curve of his shaved skull, smooth from the barber’s razor. Then the long, straight neck, the broad shoulders and the blades shifting a little beneath her gaze, closing in on the spine. She likes his back, the long, straight line of it. Catherine runs her fingers down the length of his spine, tracing the bones of it, and lets her hand come to rest in the small of his back.
The candle is still burning, freshly melted wax pooling in the silver dish, waiting for her. She inclines her hand, lets the wax fall in uneven stripes against his back, crisscrossing the spine. His muscles tense, his shoulder blades flex in, and he makes a soft sound, something like a low groan. She waits a moment for the wax to begin to cool, then drags her finger through it again, tracing his spine again, coming to rest at his tailbone.
Henry is a thin man but there is enough of a pleasing amount of fat on his buttocks that they may be called rounded. She drips wax over one cheek and thinks again of semen and of Henry bearing her marks. Her body goes hot all over. His legs are long, thin, but finely muscled. She touches one calf, watches the flex of bony toes. She leans back, watches the stillness of his body. It is not really stillness; she sees the minute shift of muscle, the movement of his breath. She blows the candle out, sets it on the floor. There is enough light from the other candles that she can still see his body clearly.
It is not quite enough. She doesn’t know what she wants.
Catherine remembers when they were first put to bed as husband and wife. She remembers the mixture of fear and excitement, then the confusion when he waited for her to come to him, to press her hand against his. She remembers how he had taken her hips in his hands, how he had raised her thighs, then spread them so he could kiss her cunt.
She nudges Henry up now, onto his hands and knees, and enjoys his unquestioning obedience. Even without the candle, she can see the wet spot he has made on the sheets. His scrotum dangles between his legs, she bends her head and kisses it lightly. She kisses his tailbone next, touching her tongue to the droplet of wax that has cooled and hardened there. She places both hands on his buttocks and spreads his cheeks, revealing the last and most secret place of his body to her eyes.
The skin here is soft and clean but damp with sweat. His hole is a pale pink and there is something about the tight furl of it that gives it an expression like a haughty pout. Catherine runs a single finger down Henry’s cleft, starting at the tip of his tailbone and ending at his perineum. He lets out a sigh, his head dropping down between his arms. Catherine repeats the gesture, sweeping her fingers down only this time she lingers over his hole, feeling the wrinkled skin, the way it clenches at her touch. She lets her fingers move on but each time she repeats the gesture, she finds her fingers stroking over the unnameable, hidden and abject part of his body. She stops, the pad of one finger against the opening of his body.
‘Can I?’ she says.
She knows what she is asking for, though she will be shamed if he doesn’t and she must say the words aloud. Can I put my fingers in you? Can I touch the insides of you? Can we be joined in a new way, find a new pleasure? There can be nothing profane if it is done willingly between wife and husband.
‘Yes,’ says Henry. ‘Please.’
His voice is strained, dark. She bites down a whimper as she touches herself in order to slick her fingers. She slides them along his cleft again, making his skin shine with her wetness, and then presses one against his hole. She pushes that finger slowly in. He moans, the sound soft, guttural. Inside, he is hot and tight, his flesh rippling. It is – extraordinary, she cannot quite comprehend it. She stares down at the sight of his body pierced and penetrated by her body.
Since they were married at Troyes in June last year, they have regularly made their bodies one flesh but never like this. She eases her finger out and his hole clenches under her gaze. Catherine, face aflame, cannot look away. She pushes her finger back inside him, feels again his hot flesh clasping her tightly. She pulls back, the movement slow, careful, then slides a second finger in with the first. His back arches and with a loud moan, he hitches his hips back against her hand.
‘Does it feel good?’ she asks.
He nods his head desperately, his breath hiccups and pants. He doesn’t say anything out loud, perhaps because she won’t stop fucking him languidly with her fingers. His hands are fists, the knuckles digging into the mattress and his body is flushed all over, the white wax standing out starkly.
‘Yes,’ he says at last, voice hoarse. ‘Yes. Do you like seeing me like this?’
There’s a crack in his voice, something vulnerable. She presses her cheek against the small of his back. Her hair sticks to their sweat-damp skin.
‘I do,’ she says. ‘I think you look rather lovely like this.’
He snorts, amused, but she thinks he is also relieved. She curls her fingers upwards, finds a small, malleable bump of flesh beneath her fingertips, different from the rest, and about the size of a walnut. Her touch tears a soft cry from his throat, his cock jerks, more precome leaking from the tip and running down the shaft. Catherine wonders what it is that she’s touching that makes him feel so good. She doesn’t ask; he doesn’t seem capable of answering and she likes the effect on him too much to give it up and stop so he could recover himself enough to answer.
He whimpers faintly when she slowly circles that little bump of flesh, and that whimper grows louder the quicker her fingers move. When she presses that bump, the whimper becomes a moan. He pushes himself back into her touch, sweat dripping down his face and pooling between his shoulder blades, his skin shining. She enjoys it all. Her husband, the king, one of England’s leopards, at her mercy, his body ceded to her.
His cock is leaking steadily now, a continuous flow of fluid from the tip. She wonders if he can come like this, with her fingers inside him. The thought runs through her, lightning-hot. She reaches around, takes his cock in her free hand and begins to tug on it as her fingers massage the spot within him. The sounds he makes transform again; his breath is so thick that it sounds as if he is sobbing. She kisses the base of his spine, her tongue touching that droplet of hardened wax. She scrapes at it with her teeth.
‘Catherine,’ he say.
She raises her head a little. He doesn’t say anything more. His head is hanging down low between his arms, his body rocks. One moment, he sinks back onto her fingers and the next thrusts forward, into the ring her hand makes around his prick. She barely has to do anything, only hold still and let him fuck himself.
But she doesn’t want that. She does not want to be passive and still, she does not want to be the mere tool by which he receives pleasure. So she takes her hand from his prick and puts it in his hair, pulling his head up as she fucks him. There are tears in his dark eyes, they seep down his cheeks and run past his open, red mouth. He whines a little, the sound small but desperate.
‘Will you come like this?’ she asks.
He stutters and groans, tries to nod though the gesture makes her fingers tear at his hair.
‘For me?’ she says.
‘Yes.’
She smiles, leans up to kiss his shoulder and lets her teeth taste his skin. In response, his hole clutches her fingers tighter. It isn’t quite enough, Catherine is not quite satisfied. He is beautiful like this, she is thrilled by his submission, but she wishes for something more. To do something more. She glances around the room. Most of the candles are still alight, their flames wavering and casting their bodies in shifting hues of gold and amber. The shadows are constantly moving, making strange shapes and the mirror on the table, left face-up, glows softly. Catherine’s heart feels too large for her ribs. She looks back at Henry, at his body beneath hers. She doesn’t know what she wants. If she had a cock, she would fuck him.
Catherine’s breath escapes from her chest in one long exhale. She slides her two fingers out of him and adds a third when she fills him again. He grunts, hitching his hips back, his hot flesh clutching at her. She presses that little piece of flesh inside him again, massages it, and his grunt becomes a whimper.
She raises herself up, folds herself over his body. Her hips cradle his buttocks, her breasts press against his back, and she is leaking, slick dripping from her cunt down onto his thighs. She moans softly. The dried wax is cool and hard between their skin, the bed creaks. She grinds against his arse, thrusting her fingers in deep. He cries, his body trembles and rocks. Catherine reaches down to touch his engorged cock. He’s dripping wet, her fingers slip over his prick until she wraps a fist around it. At first, she tugs at it slowly, drawing her hand up, then down, at odds with the speed at which she’s fucking his arse. A twist of her hand, the nail of her ring finger digging to his leaking slit, the sudden shove of her fingers at that flesh, and his body convulses, spasms. The sound pulled from his throat is a hybrid of a sob and a cry. Seed erupts from his cock, over her fingers, across his chest and belly and onto the sheets.
For a moment, she is still and he is trembling. Catherine exhales, pushes her fingers deeper within him and he makes a noise as if she is strangling him. She slides her fingers out and he gasps, body buckling. She gets up, washes her hands in the basin. Catherine is dazed, aroused, her nipples tight and her cunt throbbing. Her hands seem the same as they always do yet there must be some change. She has marked him, fucked him.
Henry moves awkwardly, bracing himself on his elbows and shaking legs, shifting himself sideways, away from the wet spot on the mattress and onto his back. His legs are raised and open, his cock softening. The white wax and semen stands out vividly on his flushed skin. He scratches at the drying seed on his belly, scrubbing it away with his hands and then wiping his fingers clean on the sheets. The wax – the marks she gave him – he doesn’t touch.
Catherine’s desire grows and grows. She returns to the bed and kisses Henry filthily, her tongue in his mouth, pushing down his throat. She takes one of his hands and presses it to her breast, he cups it and squeezes, gently, before rolling the nipple between his fingers. She gasps, reaching out to brace herself against the carved headboard. It has been carved in an openwork design, the bedposts in the likeness of oak trees, their branches reaching out towards one another and hung with collars of esses and broom-pods. Catherine raises herself a little, presses her breasts to Henry’s face. He kisses them, takes one pink nipple into his mouth and sucks, his tongue clever and diligent. Her thighs split over his hips, she leaves one hand on the headboard, her fingers curling around a carved leaf, and presses the other between her thighs, rubbing at her cunt.
He releases her nipple to lave the other with attention, nuzzling at her small breasts. Her breath hisses, her fingers seek out her swollen clitoris. Her hips lunge forward, brushing against his soft cock. She considers her position, what she wants now. Placing both hands on the headboard, her fingers slotting through the gaps in the carved leaves, she lifts herself to press her cunt against his mouth.
He obliges, pushing his tongue inside her, his hands cradling her hips and supporting her weight so she might move as she wants. She rocks down, her fingers curling tight around carved leaves and esses, as she fucks his tongue with her cunt. She moves faster and faster, at the whim of her body’s desires. Her voice escapes her, soft cries hiccupping in her throat. He strokes and plays with her twitching clitoris. Her body tips forward, her breasts squashed against the headboard, one nipple rubbing against a broom-pod. She thrusts harder against his face, her movements losing finesse and grace. She looks up, the canopy of his bed in darkness, and her voice rings out as she comes.
*
At first, the only thing Catherine can take note of is her pulse thumping through her body, radiating from her cunt. Then comes her panting breath. Her forehead is pressed against the headboard, becoming carved with leaves. Henry’s hands cup her hips, gently ease her down. She lies with her head against his chest, her fingers idly scratching at the dried wax around one nipple. She chips it away with her nails, sees the red mark beneath. She presses a kiss to it. She likes the thought that he will wear her marks for days.
‘The things I would do to you…’ she whispers.
She doesn’t expect him to hear her, or, at least, she doesn’t expect him to take notice of such idle musings. But he shifts beneath her, his fingers curling around her shoulders.
‘What would you do?’
His voice is a rasp. She shakes her head.
‘I don’t know.’
She doesn’t. Her desire is fiery and ardent, overwhelming, but shapeless. She cannot pull it into place and fix it into a form she can name; she can only want.
‘You could do it,’ he say.
She laughs. ‘I don’t know what I want to do. That’s the problem.’
Catherine raises her head to look at him. He’s smiling a little crookedly, his mouth still swollen and red from pleasing her. They will have to wash, she thinks. Her thighs are sticky, his body is littered with wax.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘We’ll figure it out, together, whatever it is you desire.’
A smile breaks out across her face, her cheeks aching with the force of it. She leans up and kisses him sweetly. He draws back a fraction, his dark eyes trained on her.
‘You, after all, have sovereignty over me,’ he says.