Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

“I know you have, Illyra,” said Gilla gently. “And now I must ask you to try just a little longer while I do something harder. I must try to make the goddess beautiful.”

Lalo pulled away and sat looking at her in wonder as Gilla went over to the bed and kissed her daughter gently on the brow. Then she moved majestically to the door and called for Myrtis.

The madam’s eyes widened as she listened to Gilla’s requests, but after a moment she nodded, and her eyes began to glow. “Yes, it is true, though there’s hardly a respectable woman in Sanctuary who would understand what you mean. Certainly I never expected that you…” Myrtis left that comment unfinished as Gilla glared at her, smiled, and turned away to give orders to her girls.

I never expected to do anything like this either, thought Gilla, smoothing her hands over the massive swell of her bosom and along the mighty curve of her thigh. But by the breasts of the goddess I am going to try!

Sitting in the bath with giggling slave-girls fussing over her, Gilla knew the idea had been ridiculous. She had grown-up children, her blood had ceased to answer the call of the moon two years ago, and Lalo was rarely more than a companionable body in her bed anymore. When she had gotten into the marble bathing pool, her bulk had sent scented water slopping over the side in a tidal wave.

She tried to imagine Lalo’s balding head and skinny legs being scrubbed by the girls in the other pool, and thought that he must look even stranger in the midst of all this splendor than she did. She wondered why in the name of the gods he had agreed to it. But of course that was why-because of the gods, or one of them, anyway, and because of a picture that he had once sworn she had been his model for.