Vicki collapsed into an armchair. She had surely been through one of the most stressful days of her life. The third most stressful. The first was the day her mother died. The second was the day her father died. No one had died that day, but it felt like, in some way, Vicki had died. And that Cressida was someone new. Troy felt different from everywhere else she'd visited. Every time she left the TARDIS, she could almost see herself walking back through the doors again. She'd have solved an alien plot, Steven would have been knocked unconscious at least once, and the Doctor would have worn drag for some reason or another. But when she left the TARDIS in Greece, it felt different somehow. She didn't exactly know how.

And now she was in Troy, and they were calling her Cressida, and thought she was sent by the gods. How was she going to get back to the Doctor and Steven now? If she knew her history right, Troy wasn't going to go too well in this war, and she didn't want to perish with it. And then there was Cassandra. She knew Vicki wasn't a goddess, but she thought she was something worse.

Vicki couldn't handle this stress anymore. It was too much. Her head felt like it was full of a thousand bee-stings, surgically removed from people's arms and stitched together to create some kind of Frankenstein uber-bee-sting. She supposed that wasn't a very good allegory.

What did she used to do when the stress got too much? The second Vicki asked herself, she received an answer. Of course, she'd masturbate. But she wasn't a teenager anymore. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time she'd done it. She certainly hadn't since she boarded the TARDIS, and she couldn't imagine feeling comfortable doing it in the presence of that creep, Bennett. But she had done it a lot around the time her mother died. Every time a boy smiled at her, she'd take the next opportunity to go into her room and strum away the tension.

She supposed she could masturbate, although she wasn't too confident it would be as effective as it used to. Also, despite being in her quarters, she was still in a very public place. She could imagine some poor servant walking in on her and, well, she'd never heard anything about it in history class, but she assumed the Trojans weren't exactly swingers.

But, what the hell, it was worth trying anything to relieve that soul-crushing stress. Vicki looked at her fingers to make sure she hadn't somehow accidentally picked up a splinter or something, and then began pulling at her dress. She knew it was a pretty heavy dress, but up until that moment, she didn't quite know the scale of it. There must have been ten layers. After pulling them up and up and up again, Vicki briefly considered just giving up. But she'd come so far, so she didn't.

She lightly brought her hand up her legs. Vicki smiled as the familiar tickle rushed through her thighs. She gently patted her labia and then slid her finger in. It was cold, then it was warm. It was painful, then it was ecstatic. And then it settled somewhere in between. Memories of her teenage came flooding back to her and she soon found herself moving it up and down and side to side like she had only done it last yesterday.

Then she was faced with a problem. Who would she think about? All the Trojan and Greek men were muscly, but they had generic faces. To Vicki, sexiness depended mostly on the face. Steven had a nice face. But Vicki thought of Steven like a friend, or maybe even like a brother, and wasn't really attracted to him at all. She briefly considered the Doctor, then laughed out loud, and quickly suppressed the thought. She mused that the human mind often thinks of weird things on the edge of the conscious and no one cares. It is only during sex that the mind tries to suppress these thoughts, as though sex is the only time in which the mind is pure. Vicki thought of telling that to her priest back on Earth, and laughed again. But it was less of a humorous laugh as the last one was, and more of a declaration of superiority to that farty old man she loathed so much. That scared Vicki. Then she realised she was thinking about the priest and quickly stopped.

'Miss Cressida,' came a gentle voice from behind Vicki. She panicked and quickly withdrew her fingers. So quickly that she accidentally bumped the sides a bit too hard and strikes of pain ran up her body. This preoccupied her to the extent that it slipped her mind to lower her dresses, and her moist vagina was now completely exposed to the intruder, who had wandered in front of her.

It was Katarina, that peculiar brunette handmaiden of Cassandra's. Probably sent to gather reconnaissance on her, Vicki thought. The momentary pain had dulled. 'I'm sorry I startled you, Cressida. Forgive me,' she whispered, and then bowed.

'Oh, er, forgiven,' said Vicki, a bit flustered. 'What do you want?' She then realised she was naked and quickly threw out her hands to pull her dress down. Katarina gripped Vicki's wrists mid-flight tightly. Their eyes met fleetingly, and then darted apart.

'Don't do that, Cressida!' Katarina whined, and slowly put Vicki's hands back on her lap. After she was sure Vicki wouldn't try to lower her dress again, she let go.

'Why ever not, Katarina?' asked Vicki. She was most disturbed by this odd turn of events. Then why aren't you pulling your dress back down? the back of her mind wondered. Vicki quickly shut this off. It seemed that it wasn't just in sex that the mind flushes out unwelcome thoughts.

'Well, I was just over there dusting some of Miss Cassandra's bowls,' said Katarina, pointing in a direction more generic than the faces of Trojan men. 'And I heard laughter, so I came looking to see if there was a comedian in the palace. I do love to laugh, Cressida. And I found you and you were, well, pleasuring yourself.'

Vicki was right to think the Trojans were conservative. She now understood exactly what Katarina was doing, and absolutely loathed the girl. So what if she was masturbating? What does that have to do with her? The exact reasons she gave up on religion, she realized. So then why did she stop you from pulling your dress down? 'I don't know what you're getting at, Katarina [she did], but I think it is a goddess' business what she does with her own body. Now if you would kindly remove yourself from my sight, I will do whatever I deem fit without damnation from servants, thank you very much!'

As soon as she realised what Vicki was saying, Katarina swooped her arm up and bowed violently. 'Forgive me, Cressida! Forgive me!'

'All is forgiven,' said Vicki, who had begun to think she might be suffering from delusions of grandeur. Katarina would walk off, and it would all be sorted. So pull your dress down, then.

'You misinterpret my words,' said Katarina, flustered. 'I meant to ask as to why you would pleasure yourself when a servant could do a much finer job. That is all I meant.'

Vicki felt stupid. And she liked this idea of sexy slaves, as un-sexy as Trojan men were to her. 'Oh,' she said, acting normal for the first time since she had come to Troy, 'I'm sorry, Katarina. As always, I assumed the worst of people. Ignore me, I haven't slept much.'

Vicki could see on Katarina's face that she was surprised to be treated as an equal by a demi-goddess. 'You needn't apologise to me, Miss Cressida.'

Vicki gave her a sympathetic smile and then realised that she had been naked for most of the conversation. Trojans weren't as conservative as she assumed, obviously. If you assume, you make an ass out of you and me, the old priest used to say. She supposed he was trying to appeal to the youth by using a remotely rude word, but it was kind of hypocritical. He assumed the Bible was true. Did that make him an ass? Still, it had sucked Vicki in as a child. She liked puns like that, they never failed to amuse her.

The task at hand drifted back into Vicki's head: Did she want to get a Trojan guy to stick his fingers in her? Answer: Yes, she wouldn't mind it. 'That sounds great, Katarina,' she said, 'Where can I find such a servant?'

'Well,' said Katarina, 'It isn't very common amongst servants. But anyone would do it if you asked. They couldn't say no to a woman as fair as you.'

And also because they think I'm a goddess, Vicki thought, and then, Wait, did she just say- So, again, she'd assumed things. And she'd made an ass out of herself and … whoever the you in the situation was. It was probably Katarina. But she wasn't an ass. But you'd like to see her a-

So Vicki was right all along. The Trojans were indeed massive conserva-

'I would enjoy doing it for you,' said Katarina.

-tives.

'What?' Vicki asked, a bit taken aback.

'You heard me,' said Katarina, smirking. That was the first time she'd even come close to treating Vicki as an equal. She thought Katarina knew that she wasn't Cressida. She seemed a lot wiser than she let people know.

'Um, um, um,' said Vicki in rapid succession. That was a bit much. No. Her answer was no. Vicki never got into the whole bisexual thing. It was embraced in her time, unlike in Troy (she assumed), but she never saw the use of going out with girls. She liked boys just fine; she didn't see the need to like girls as well. But did she like Katarina? She hadn't pulled her pants back down. Even when she thought the handmaiden was going to yell at her, she never made an attempt to cover herself. There was some perverse part of her brain that wanted the Trojan to see it. She liked to think of her subconsciously lusting after Vicki, but supressing it, just like everyone supresses everything. But it seemed Katarina's lust was far from subconscious.

'Yes. Sure,' said Vicki nervously. The moment it came out of her lips, she regretted saying it. What was she thinking?

Katarina smiled and bent down on her knees, looking intently at Vicki's groin. She shuffled closer, slowly, and then put her hands gently on Vicki's thighs. Vicki tensed up. Goosebumps sprung up quicker than she thought possible. All of her muscles seemed to contract at once. Katarina stroked her left hand across Vicki's smooth skin. 'It's okay,' said Katarina, and then let out a drowsiness-inducing 'Shhhhh'.

No, thought Vicki, this was weird. It had to stop. She would tell Katarina to get back up and leave. This was ridiculous. Then why aren't I saying anything?

Katarina kept her left hand where it was, but clenched Vicki's flesh just a little bit tighter. She dropped her right arm and produced a stiff index finger. She lifted it slowly to her mouth and stuck it in, licking it playfully with her tongue. She tightened her lips around it and sucked. When she pulled it free, it had a fine glaze of saliva coating it. She swallowed the excess. All of this time, her gaze never left Vicki's vagina.

Okay, thought Vicki, say 'stop' now. Otherwise she'll start touching you and once she starts, you won't be able to stop her. Vicki meant this seriously, there was no unsure voice at the back of her mind telling her otherwise. So she was going to say 'Sorry, Katarina, but I'm uncomfortable with this and I think that you should leave, thank you.' She managed to let out the 'S', but by this stage, Katarina had slid inside of her. She did it with such grace, such subtlety. Vicki cringed with delight. The 'S' strung out into one long hiss and she closed her eyes, smiling. Just as she had predicted, now that Katarina had started, she couldn't get her to stop.

When Vicki was touching herself, it had been so mechanical. In, out, in, out, in, out. But Katarina did it in such a different way. Sometimes she would glide in slowly, other times she would stab in, almost violently. Sometimes she would stay in for a while, sometimes she would pull back out immediately. Sometimes she would tickle the left of Vicki's vulva, other times she would tickle the right. Sometimes she would wait what seemed like decades before returning, other times it seemed she just couldn't wait to return. She had real talent, although Vicki didn't suppose there was much she could do with it.

And then, as she was nearly laughing in ecstasy, a problem returned to Vicki. Who should she think about? Her mind recapped all the boring Trojan men she had seen that day and nothing took her fancy. Then she moved onto the Greeks and they were all boring too. After a while, she realised her eyes were open again, and she was staring at Katarina. She was thinking about her. Well, it made sense. For a second, Vicki was uncomfortable about it, but then she embraced it.

She studied the handmaiden up and down. Her wild, black, almost bestial hair. Her angular, romantic face. Her eyes, studying her clit so intently. Her mouth, that she would lick with her slender tongue whenever her arousal became too much. Her slender, yet somewhat voluptuous frame. Her breasts, which were almost the size of watermelons, yet Vicki thought, would feel soft, like butter.

It wasn't long before Vicki began to climax. She instinctively tried to withdraw, squirming in her seat. Katarina was fast and she closed in so that Vicki didn't know that she'd ever left. Suddenly, she became mechanical. In, out, in, out; in quick succession. Vicki licked her lips. She was becoming dehydrated. Katarina was smiling so hard that she was baring her teeth. She let go of Vicki's thigh and used her left hand to reinforce her right, getting harder, and quicker, constantly. Vicki let out a cry. This was starting to look like the best orgasm she'd ever had.

'Do you need to scream?' asked Katarina. She didn't sound shy and submissive anymore.

'Yes,' Vicki panted. Suddenly, Katarina dropped away. She withdrew and shuffled away from Vicki. What was she doing? Oh God, this was horrible. Vicki needed to cum. She needed it. And now Katarina had left, what was she going to do?

She squeezed her legs together. The climax was still growing. Then she came, and it was the greatest orgasm she had ever had. She screamed and she felt like she should stop screaming because she was being stupid, but for once she listened to the little voice in the back of her head and she did and it was fantastic. It was probably just the relief, that she could still cum without Katarina's finger. She understood now that Katarina had given her a greater and more powerful orgasm by withdrawing, and she respected her for it. She might even have loved her for it.

Vicki slumped down and let out a harsh, high-pitched sigh. Katarina stood up, and dusted off her gown. Vicki looked up to see her walking with that graceful walk of hers, over to where she sat. She didn't know what her lover was going to do.

Katarina looked deeply into Vicki's eyes. She placed a hand in her hair and seized a clump of it. She held Vicki's head still and then moved in for a kiss. Her tongue slipped into Vicki's mouth. There, it found Vicki waiting. She licked her tongue downwards and pressed Katarina's into her jaw, where she gently massaged it, back and forth. Suddenly, Katarina broke free, and she began to stroke up and down Vicki's throat. Vicki chased her and lightly tickled the underside of her tongue. Katarina withdrew and, perhaps accidentally, let a large pool of saliva slip into Vicki's mouth. Katarina pulled away and wiped her mouth. Correction: that was the most powerful orgasm Vicki had ever had. It wasn't a physical orgasm, but it was an orgasm all the same, in some weird, transcendental way. Katarina looked into Vicki's eyes again, and then she turned and walked away.

Vicki licked the sides of her mouth where Katarina's saliva lay. She expected to taste her, and to be overwhelmed by it. But there was no taste. She swallowed and took one last glance at the beautiful handmaiden. Now she got a look at the woman's arse, but there was nothing special about it.

She blinked, and then Katarina was gone.