More wine spilled down his arm and, now, over the floor.
Again de Vere rose and replenished John’s goblet. But this time he did not return to his chair.
He stood behind John, and looked to Richard, raising his eyebrows. Richard’s mouth curved in a sly, secret smile, and he gave a slight nod. Then, as de Vere moved to the door, Richard spoke again to John. “Your grace, Rob and I wonder if we might offer you something a little softer than the wine to slake your needs?”
“What?” John said, struggling to sit a little higher in the chair.
De Vere had opened the door, and motioned to the men-at-arms outside to allow someone through.
“This,” said Richard, and looked toward the door.
“What?” John said again, turning his head to look at the door.
His mouth gaped open, his eyes refocusing rapidly. “Oooh,” he whispered.
A young girl, not more than fourteen or fifteen, came in through the door which de Vere closed behind her.
She was very pretty, with blue eyes and fair curly hair that fell down the full length of her back. She wore a cloak, but as she passed de Vere, she stopped at his murmur, and shrugged the cloak off, letting it fall to the floor.
Underneath she wore nothing but a loose and diaphanous shift. Its skirt was split from hem to hip on either side, and the front was slashed almost to her waist.
At each step, one or other of her breasts slipped free from its confines to enjoy a brief
exposure to the warm air and John’s lustful eyes.
Again Richard and de Vere exchanged glances, smiling. De Vere had found the young girl plying her flesh down the alleys behind St. Paul’s. She was perfect for their needs: pretty, sexually experienced—de Vere had ridden her personally to make sure she could perform to the full extent of her boasts—and young enough not only to pander to John’s old-man lusts, but also naive enough not to understand immediately all that went on around her.
De Vere had caused her to be brought to Westminster this afternoon, stripped down, given a good wash and a close inspection for fleas and lice by one of the laundresses, and some new and fresh clothes: the privy purse could surely stand a simple shift… and when all was done the cloak could be brushed and returned to the man-at-arms who currently stood shivering at his post.
Neither de Vere nor Richard had any doubt that the girl would perform her function adequately.
John was still gape-mouthed as the girl walked slowly toward him. He began to draw in harsh, deep breaths as she approached, and his hands trembled alarmingly on the armrests.
De Vere moved quickly forward and slid John’s goblet from his hand, taking it to a side table where stood several earthenware ewers. He put the goblet down, but did not, for the moment, refill it.
John wet his lips, and glanced at Richard.
“A gift,” Richard said. “Take her. Or rather,” he laughed shrilly, “let her take you!”
De Vere also laughed softly, turning to face the back of King John’s chair. He rested his buttocks on the edge of the table, stretched out his legs comfortably, and crossed his arms.
Watching would be almost as much pleasure as partaking.
The girl moved to within a pace of King John. She smiled, slow and seductive—the expression a grimace on her young, corrupted face—and took the neckline of her shift in both hands.
John blinked, his tongue protruding slightly over his top lip.
The girl’s smile hardened, then with an abrupt motion she tore the shift down its center seam, letting the now useless garment puddle about her ankles. All three men stared.
Her form was one which drove most men who saw it into thoughts of wantonness. Her breasts were full, high and firm, their pale pink nipples puckered by her determined pinching as she’d waited outside the chamber. Her waist was slim; small enough to be spanned by a man’s clasped hands, and, as it had never been swollen and disfigured by pregnancy, it gave the girl an aura of virginity. From her waist her hips flared out, round and infinitely agreeable.
She had plucked away her pubic hair so that her cleft stood exposed … smooth and inviting.
John moaned, his hands fumbling at the front of his tunic.
Richard’s hand had also crept down to his own groin, but de Vere remained still, his eyes hard on the girl. He could sate his lust later, when she was gone.
“Oh,” the girl whispered to King John, as de Vere had instructed her, “let me do that for you, sire.” She moved forward to John, and bent over his lap, lifting up his tunic and undershirt so that they folded over his round, wrinkled belly, and then undid and pulled apart his hose.
John’s eyes were almost popping out of his head, and his breath came even faster and harsher. He grabbed at the girl’s breasts, pinching and kneading.
She winced, then quickly replaced her grimace with a smile of pleasure. She moaned also, practiced, and wriggled her hips, then took the French king’s semi-engorged penis between her hands and massaged it, rousing it until it stood fully erect before her.
“Thus shall the great king of France conquer all that lies before him!” Richard said, but John was way beyond conversational niceties.
He had slid halfway down his chair, and now lolled back, his face slack, his eyes clouded as they continued to stare at the girl before him. His blood pounded in his ears, and his hands now trembled so badly they kept slipping off the girl’s breasts.
She murmured to him, soothing him, then lifted a leg and straddled the king, allowing his penis to finally slip into her cleft until her body had absorbed its entire length.
John’s eyes closed, and the pounding of his blood and lust now obscured everything else that might be happening around him.
The girl’s expression flattened into contempt, but at Vere’s gesture she dutifully pumped her hips up and down.
John began to wheeze violently, and his hands clamped viciously about the girl’s breasts until she cried out in pain.
But her eyes were on de Vere, and she put her hands on the armrests so that she could increase the rhythm and strength of her pumping, squeezing her flesh about John’s penis until the old man shrieked and writhed beneath her.
The girl’s face was sweating—with sheer effort rather than lust—and she muttered a curse, wondering if this ancient French prick would ever manage to spurt forth his seminal muck.
And then, to everyone’s surprise, it did, and the French king dropped his hands from the girl’s breasts and collapsed slack in the chair, gasping for air.
The girl, her face wrinkled in disgust, made as if to rise, but de Vere motioned her to stay put.
“Best to keep him warm for the moment,” he said, and swiveled back to the table. He lifted John’s goblet and filled it once more—but not from the ewer he’d used previously.
When he turned around, de Vere’s eyes met Richard’s, and both men’s expressions were hard.
De Vere walked over to John’s chair, stared for a moment at the king slumped muddled and half-senseless from the effort of his orgasm, and handed the goblet to the girl. “He needs to drink,” de Vere said, and then wandered slowly over to the door of the chamber.
The girl sighed—was not her work yet done?—and leaned forward and tilted the goblet into John’s mouth so the king could suck and slurp at its contents. As she did so de Vere leaned down to the cloak lying on the floor and slipped a small vial into one of its inside pockets.
John gulped the wine down, and felt sufficiently revived to once more ogle the girl’s body above him.
This had been a most happy night, indeed.
Then he gasped, his eyes more wide and starting than they had been at his orgasmic height, and his body suddenly spasmed violently.
The girl cried out in shock, lifting away from the king’s body, but he was now convulsing so severely she found it difficult to disentangle herself from his flesh. At the same moment, Richard jumped to his feet and de Vere threw open the door, surprising the men-at-arms outside.
“A murder!” de Vere cried. “A murder most foul!”
And he pointed at the now screaming girl, trying desperately to clamber off the dying king’s body.
Several men-at-arms rushed inside just as the girl managed to finally free herself, tripping and falling to the floor as she did so.
John’s violent convulsions stopped as she fell away, although his entire body continued to quiver. His eyes stared unblinking at the ceiling of the chamber.
Although his muscles still spasmed, King John was already very, very dead.