Chapter 4 His Reveries
Warning for description of sexual behavior and fantasies. Even if you normally avoid that, I still recommend skimming this chapter for what Gilbert's fantasies say about him and how he views Danzig. Oh, and if you have been wondering about Adeladja's appearance, this chapter gives you some detail.
She was lovelier than he had remembered, Gilbert thinks. The current styles flattered her as much they did Hungary, but her figure was even more feminine and her posture more aristocratic than Elizabeta's. He recalls how she looked at the train station in Berlin. She didn't know that he had been watching her, poor civilian unused to surveillance. She had looked about, turning her long neck, blue-gray eyes wide with curiousity rather than alarm, a filly in a new paddock. Through his field glasses, he saw her rosy lips (he wondered if she painted) and her ivory cheeks flushing pink in the October air. The wind had ruffled her amber-colored hair, just as he had longed to do.
He had let her wait, watched her gloved hands begin to wring in concern. And then hehad revealed himself to her, and he was pleased to see her look of recognition shift to approval. Ja, he wasn't that scrawny boy she had bitten, nor was he her brother's downtrodden vassal anymore. He was a kingdom now, the greatest one in the German Empire, her lord and owner, and she no longer had anyone stepping in to keep him from her. And the best part, he laughs to himself as he swaggers down the hallway, was that the poor pretty fool had initiated the correspondence that proposed the change to the agreement about her brother from the Congress of Vienna.
He recalls how Austria and Hungary had cornered him into an agreement that he would leave the personification of Danzig alone. He could have her port, her citizens, her imports and her taxes, but not her person. France and Poland (How did that loser Francis have so much say at the Congress?1 His verdammt mortal Napoleon had been defeated for good!) had offered the arrangement of Feliks traveling from Warsaw to Krakow to Danzig in order to spare his sisters. Ivan and Roderich had agreed to it, and then they had presented it to him as a done deal. Mein Gott, he had been so angry! But he had kept his word, not least because Russia had hinted he would like a port on the Baltic coast and that was the threat the others had used to keep him in line. Besides, having Feliks under his thumb for several decades had given Gilbert many enjoyable moments of humiliating revenge for his former lord's arrogant, thoughtless treatment of him.
Gilbert has, if you will, a scrapbook of mental images to amuse himself on nights such as these, when loose mortals have inflamed him, but not to the point where he could get past the death-rot of their enticing bodies. He staggers back from the officers' drinking party and collapses on his bed in the Stadtschlosse. He lazily unbuttons his uniform tunic and pulls open his shirt, tracing his fingers along his nipples. At times like these, he imagines the city of Danzig in any variety of postures and moods, but always available and fulfilling.
Today, for example, when he saw her dancing down the hallway. That was a charming sight, and he could imagine himself clasping her waist and guiding her around a dance floor, eventually coaxing her to a corner. He imagines her eager mouth meeting his, her hands rummaging in his breeches, even as he pushes her skirts up for greater access to her cozy little alley.
Then later, when she had looked so haughtily at him and he had had to scold her, that invited another, even more pleasing idea. In retrospect, he should have made her show a little more gratitude to him, he thinks as his hands stray to his trouser buttons. A curtsey and apology weren't enough; he should have forced her over that chair or on her knees, whatever would have given him greater pleasure and her greater humiliation. But he had let the moment go. Oh well, he reasons, as he fingers the growing bulge under his trouser fly, there would be plenty of time.
Once, he would have forced her on the first day, but he had learned from two mortals the pleasure of delayed gratification. There was Old Fritz, of course, that refined tease, but even his new boss had taught him the importance of the deep game and the well-played dramatic scene. He doesn't love Bismarck, of course—he would never love another mortal after Old Fritz—but he respects him and recognizes he could learn from him. And so he is willing to wait, to toy, to plot, and to stock his mind with fantasies that he knows will eventually come true.
Gilbert squeezes himself, feeling the heat and energy rise and stir within his lower body. He often imagines the City of Danzig at work in her dingy office, growing lonely and bored, turning to thoughts of him. He sees her tilting back in her chair, absently stroking her breasts and then her thighs, pulling up her skirts and petticoats. He smiles as he imagines her head lolling, panting slightly as her hands travel between her upper thighs. He feels himself twitch at the thought of her fingers probing within herself, stirring up her latent desire for him. "Preußen, MeinHerr Preußen," he hears her moan with just enough of an accent to be intriguing, and then he's there, pulling her towards him, undoing his fly as he is doing just now.
He imagines her awe as he lets loose his length (just as he is doing now) and strokes it before her. Sometimes he sees fear in her eyes, because she is a virgin and terrified of the pain he will cause her; other times, she licks her lips eagerly, taking him in her elegant hand (just as he is doing now), swirling her thumb around his tip, spreading the clear fluid. He sees her lean forward, place her pink lips around him and run her tongue around the sensitive glans and underside, causing him to jerk, just as he is doing now.
Other times, he pictures her growing uncomfortably warm (how in that cold office in early December, he doesn't know, but that is why it is a fantasy) and shedding her dress. That is just when he would enter, seeing her breasts bobble as she jumps at his sudden arrival. She's in her corset, shift and stockings, just like a brothel whore, but more embarrassed and alluring. She blushes and apologizes, but he imagines how quickly he silences her when he straddles her and releases his cock. Her embarrassment turns to wonder, especially as he lifts her legs up and places them on her shoulders. He licks his lips, starting to pump himself with his fist as he imagines entering her, hearing her squeals and pants as he thrust his hips into her (just as he's doing now). She'd be tight and wet (he pauses to spit in his hand and goes back to gripping himself), because deep down inside, she wants him, even though she may act so haughty and proud towards him in public.
Sometimes, she fights back, pummeling uselessly with her fists and crying how dare he! as he shoves her down onto the table in the office, cuffing her as she snarls at him. Then her pride turns to hurt and she cries; he bares his teeth, grinning at the image as he pumps harder into his fist. His abdominal muscles coil, gathering themselves for the final spring. He slows down, pulling out the time, so he can enjoy himself more. Danzig is no longer so regal and composed in his mind. Her cool blue eyes are wide with fear, her pale skin red from shame and slaps and shiny from tears, her amber hair cast out of its coils. He imagines her begging for mercy, promising to be good, to do whatever he wants. Gilbert runs his tongue along his teeth, imagining the taste of her tears on his tongue, her tongue running along his cock head as she fondles his Eier, just like he's doing now.2 He lets a moan loose, imagining hers in reply.
His thigh and buttock muscles tighten as his hips rise higher. Now he sees her on top of him, the little wanton forgetting her dignity, her Brüste bouncing as she rides him.3 She really is a little Schlampe, a beast under that cool, calm exterior; he can tell from the flashes in her eyes when she is angry or offended. Blue-gray eyes like the Baltic sea, a slender ivory neck begging to be bruised with bites, creamy, pink-tipped globes, red moist tongue, mouth—
He groans a volley of obscenities as he quivers and spurts of semen hit his stomach and chest. Pleasure shudders through his body, reminders of the great burst just seconds before. He blinks and lazily grabs a handkerchief to wipe himself off. At this point, Danzig often conveniently disappears, but tonight he imagines her obediently cleaning him up with her tongue, a devoted, doting odalisque, her thick long hair brushing his skin. He would reward her, he decides, with praise and caresses, and she would curl her warm, soft body against him in gratitude.
Let Austria keep Hungary, he thinks. Gilbert remembers how she had supported the arrogant Roderich as he dictated the terms of the Polish agreement, how stunned and betrayed he had felt. It had felt good to remind Elizabeta that Austria was a gentleman, and everyone knows gentlemen don't marry their whores. And then he did just that in 1867 and they had had the verdammt nerve to invite him to the wedding. He had sent Ludwig with a punch bowl and the most formal, lukewarm message of congratulations he could compose. He hopes both of them are miserable, disappointed with the realization of whom they have really married: A wild, high-spirited hoyden yoked to a cold, formal aesthete. Stupid Austria, thinking he could turn his whore into a lady. Well, Gilbert would go one better: he would turn one of Poland's royal sisters, a wealthy, refined lady into his panting, eager whore. Kesesese, he whickers as he drifts off to sleep.
The next morning, he strolls down the hallway of humble clerks, imagining his lovely girl in some posture of erotic abandon, ripe for the taking. His stomach flutters as he raps at the door and pushes it open. And he sees a serious young woman in a Prussian-blue dress looking up from her desk, as her ink-stained fingers tuck a strand of amber hair behind her shell-pink ear. Her inscrutable blue-gray eyes meet his, a polite smile on her thin lips.
So what do you think of Gilbert's fantasies? Does he really see the Adeladja we see or something else? How do you think that's going to play out between the two of them? I love reading and responding to reviews—they make me happy!
1 The Congress of Vienna was a meeting of ambassadors from European nations from 1814 to 1815 in Vienna. They met to redraw the map of Europe and try to stabilize the balance of power left in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and the end of the Napoloeonic Wars. In my headcanon, this is where little Ludwig is named the German Confederation, Prussia and Austria get joint custody of him, and of course, where Feliks proposes spending equal time amongst the three partition powers in order to spare his sisters Krakow and Danzig the brunt of partition.
2 German: literally, eggs. Slang, testicles, balls.
3 German: Breasts, boobs
