Chapter Ten
Wedding and Consummation
Emperor Consort Austin Burnell
For a moment I blink blankly at the ceiling above me, not recognising it. Then reality falls into place. This is where I'm going to sleep from now on; this is the apartment I designed for myself, for the person I'll be from today onwards.
I withdraw my left hand from beneath the covers – plain linen, very different from what will be on the bed when I bring my bride to it tonight – and study it. No marks, no rings; short, clean nails on tapering, well-shaped fingers. The hand of a powerful man, certainly, but still the hand of a commoner. A few hours from now, that will change. I'll take the first of two steps towards ultimate power – the ultimate goal of the Pack.
Life hasn't allowed me much time to pursue philosophical reflections. Keeping myself alive and, insofar as possible, in control has taken most of my energies. Being the SiC to the Head of Imperial Security was no sinecure; every second of every day was taken up, and for most of them I felt like a man trying to juggle twenty different objects, any of which will kill him if they hit the floor. That's not to say I didn't love it, and not just for the rewards it brought me, which were considerable, although nothing by comparison to those I'll have when I take this penultimate step today. I relished the challenge, just as I will the one I'm about to take on.
I've woken some ten minutes before the carefully-laid-out plans for my wedding day are scheduled to begin. Until the body-servants who are to begin preparing me for my wedding knock to ask for admittance, I can lie here and think in silence – the last such opportunity I'll have until my new wife and I are ceremoniously put into this bed side by side. If this proximity ever leads to her being actually willing for me to touch her sexually I'll repeat with considerably more nuance the event that will form an unavoidable part of today's proceedings, but I'm wise enough to know that for the time being it will be no more than a formality. As soon as we're certain that all our attendants and general hangers-on have departed, she'll slip out of my bed and return to her own. Whether our relationship will ever develop to the point where she's willing to trust her body to me I don't know, though I'm willing to try to make that part of it work just as every other part should.
It has to be admitted that my inner feelings towards that part of things are somewhat ambivalent. Being homosexual, I don't find women's bodies particularly arousing, though I'm as capable of appreciating beauty in a female body as I am in a well-crafted work of art or a particularly glorious sunset. And even without being particularly aroused sexually, I can enjoy a sensual experience for itself. I've no doubt that Hoshi Sato has more than enough skills to provide any male companion with pleasure, and I flatter myself that I'm perfectly capable of reciprocating that. Just because I am what I am doesn't mean there's no middle ground we can occupy; compromise is an art, and if both of us are willing to explore the possibilities, I see no reason why our marriage should be just an empty title. At any rate, there will have to be occasions when she'll have to submit to being penetrated, whether she likes it or not.
After our first child, as I explained to her on that memorable day when I presented myself to her as her future husband, she can have her eggs harvested to be fertilised in vitro and carried by surrogates. But since I'm going to have to reinforce my status as her husband by having sex with her, it makes sense to me (unless she really seriously objects) to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. In the meantime, there's apparently a procedure already in existence to insert a pre-fertilised egg fitted with nanobots into position for insertion during intercourse – taking at least some of the guesswork out of the equation – and I submitted to that last night. The nanobots are programmed to conduct the zygote through the cervix, find the optimal location for implantation in the uterine lining, and attach it there. Then, they will shut down, and the proteins of which they are constructed will be absorbed by the growing foetus. Of course, it may not have been wholly possible to tweak my future wife's hormones to provide a perfectly receptive environment in the time we had, but I'm assured that whatever can be done has been done. If pregnancy is not feasible at this time, then my wife will be none the wiser when the zygote and bots shed with everything else during menstruation. I want an heir, I need an heir, and the prospect of a secured succession in a very short space of time will be the ideal signal to the Empire that I mean to found a dynasty. I have no doubt that even in spite of being expected to perform as the centre of over a hundred pairs of eyes I will be able to do what's required, but it will certainly spur me on, knowing that there's far more significance to the act than simply signalling my consortship.
So this will be the first step, and in a month's time – I'd prefer it to be sooner, but there has to be time for delegates from all the Conquered Worlds to arrive – it will be the day of my coronation. The day when I become Emperor, not just because I happen to be married to the Empress, but in my own name… 'His Most Imperial Majesty, Father of the Fatherland, Overlord of Vulcan, Imperius of Tellar, Rex Andor, Austin Robert Burnell'.
One step at a time, my natural caution warns me. Many a good plan has been spoiled by paying too much attention to the future and not enough to the present, and however glorious that beckoning future may be, I intend to get there by making sure the present goes exactly as planned. The week that's just passed has been a frenzy of preparation for an event nobody expected, but though the time frame has been so short I believe that everything is in place. Only time will tell, and the time is very nearly here.
As a matter of fact, it is here. The knock on the door is punctual to the second, and the solemn preparation begins.
No doubt my wife-to-be is being prepared with even more ceremony for her wedding day. At a guess it's one she hoped never to see, but realistically it was never likely she could hold on to total rule indefinitely; rightly or wrongly, people perceive men as the stronger sex, and a woman would always be the target for a bid for power. She may not be happy about her new position, but as I explained to her a week ago, it could have been infinitely worse. At least I've allowed her to keep her position as my empress; her fate under Hernandez's plans would have been considerably less agreeable.
It begins with a shower, and then a bath. The water for both is of a quality and purity that would probably make it more expensive per litre than my Cardhu, though it has to be said the only difference I can perceive is the quantity of lather produced from a relatively small amount of soap; no doubt that means (for a moment I almost hear the words in ex-General Reed's mockingly humorous voice) I'm 'just a damn serf at heart, getting above my station'. The soap is fine but odour-free, though the lotion that's smoothed into my body afterwards smells wonderful – myrrh and musk – and the robes waiting for me are redolent of the cedar chips they've been stored in. I submit to the reverent handling of my attendants like a racehorse being prepared for a champion's derby or (the thought produces a brief, wry smile) an ox being garlanded for sacrifice.
I'm not used to such sybaritic luxury but I suppose I'd better resign myself to it. Though I've no intention of allowing it to make me soft; at least some of my daily regime will be given over to keeping myself as hard and fit as I am now. Nor do I intend to depend completely on the advice of the army of Palace 'advisers' who are undoubtedly already queuing up to attract my confidence. I already know who I'm going to advance and who I can depend on – as well as the exact extent of the trust I can place in them.
Even my wedding day can't be allowed to completely distract me from the demands of my duties until I finally delegate at least some of them. As I'm having my nails carefully manicured (something else I've never experienced before, but needs must), Ian comes in and reads the reports from Jupiter Station, where Commander Kelby seems to be doing a fair job of occupying ex-Commodore Tucker's shoes. The Commodore wasn't the only one who seriously underestimated Kelby, to be honest, but given decent training and a chance to prove himself, he's stepped up to the plate. Given the passionate loyalty Tucker engendered on the station I'm still keeping an eye on the place, but it seems they feel that the best tribute they can pay to their fallen idol is to carry on just as he would have wished – to take the chance he won for them with that devil's deal with Erika Hernandez.
Ian's already under orders that if there's anything else he thinks I need to know he's to tell me, protocol be damned. When he's finished reading the last of the reports he sets down the PADD, blushes and shuffles his feet a bit, and I imagine there's something he's reluctant to tell me on my wedding day.
"Out with it, Ian," I drawl. "I promise not to have you executed for obeying orders."
He blushes even more. "I – I just wanted to wish you happiness, sir. On your wedding."
It's strange. I don't think anyone has actually said it until now. Oh, I've had congratulations on all sides, most of them flowery and all of them aimed at cultivating my favour now I'm one step away from the throne; but Ian doesn't mean it in that way.
"Thank you." I incline my head, more moved than I allow myself to show. "I appreciate that."
Blushing deeper still, he beats a hasty retreat; and, sighing soundlessly, I abandon myself to more fuss being made of my perfectly clean nails than I've devoted to them in the entire course of my life until now.
It's a rather tedious business, and as far as I'm concerned, completely unnecessary. Maybe I'm so bored that I actually slip towards sleep for a fraction of a second. Because I can't imagine why else I could have had a brief, split-second dream/memory/hallucination of lying naked and drugged on a laboratory bench with someone carefully clipping my nails, which are long and filthy and covered in dried blood.
I jerk awake – if I was asleep – and the manicurist jumps backwards, terrified he may have accidentally nipped my skin. There was a time when it would have been appropriate for me to apologise and tell him I nodded off for a second, but this is no longer that time and I am no longer that person. So I just order him to get on with it, and he does, though I feel the faint quiver of his fear through his fingers as he starts again, even more achingly careful than he was before.
And whatever it was just has to be filed under 'Later'. Because this isn't the first of these incidents and it probably won't be the last.
=/\=
Time was when the wedding would have taken place in the grandest of cathedrals and been officiated by the most senior religious representative of whatever faith; but it's been years now since religion and the Empire went their separate ways. At first the persecution was fairly severe – as it had to be, since obedience to a God often required disobedience to the authorities – but over time, as full control was established, the practising of religion was tacitly permitted, as long as numbers remained low, behaviour remained meek and sedition was carefully avoided. Anything that helped to resign people to their lot was generally regarded as something to be allowed if not actually encouraged, though the punishment for anyone who mistook the Empire's tolerance for weakness swiftly disabused them of that error.
Historical records, for those who are allowed to study them, are full of the accounts of magnificent buildings dedicated to the glory of God in all the forms in which man conceived him to exist. To judge by the pictures, many of them must have been truly awe-inspiring. The Abbey of Westminster, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona, the Shwedagon Pagoda in Myanmar, St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, the Duomo of Milan; but war – war on a scale far beyond the wildest imaginations of the men who raised these marvellous buildings – is no respecter of architecture. By the time one conflict after another had ravaged the planet and the authorities had finally decided that order must be imposed under one single jurisdiction, hardly a stone of any of these remained on top of another. Or, indeed, of almost any other of the tremendous legacy of our forefathers' breathtaking imagination and skill; and though in the service of the Empire buildings of immense size and strength have arisen to replace them, there's a lost poetry that has never been rediscovered. The buildings overawe, but they do not inspire. Instead of pointing the soul towards a putative heaven, they emphasise the soulless, overbearing power of the state, crushing the viewer into suitable subservience.
But the Grand Reception Hall of the Imperial Palace is magnificent enough, because after all, if power requires magnificence then ultimate power surely requires ultimate magnificence. Built to accommodate nearly two thousand guests, its external shape's vaguely reminiscent of a cathedral in that its height and massive windows are enabled by airy flying buttresses, and its far end rises in a single tapering tower that overtops every other building in the city. Inside it's all polished marble flooring and fan vaulting, its design deliberately aping those vanished splendours, though the long nave leads up not to an altar but to the dais where the Empire's ultimate power sits enthroned with the symbol of it occupying the entire wall behind as a mosaic of semi-precious stones on a background of tiles of lapis lazuli. The lights are cunningly positioned to be unobtrusive as one approaches the dais between the packed rows of 'the great and the good' of the Empire, summoned to witness the start of the transfer of power and the end of very much more than one ambition.
Our arrival as perfectly timed as everything else must be on this day, my bride and I will meet for the first time in the corridor that separates the external doors from the internal doors, approaching each other from opposite sides.
I'm dressed in a super-elegant, immaculately-tailored version of my MACO uniform, with my medals blazing on my chest and a ceremonial sword hanging from the buckles at my belt. I'm going to become Commander-in-Chief of all the Empire's military forces, so I may as well start the way I mean to go on.
As for my 'Best Man', well strangely enough, if things had been different I'd quite possibly have invited Commodore Tucker to do the honours, but then he'd still have to be Commodore Tucker and not a prisoner awaiting trial for treason and other crimes against the Empire. Since I'm stepping up to the role that would have been General Reed's natural ambition it stands to reason that he would no longer have been available to be asked, because if he hadn't fled I would have killed him, and he would have died and been remembered as General Reed, instead of a traitor and deserter. I should have killed him anyway, and my failure to do so still occasionally irks me, but this is no time to be reproaching myself over a missed opportunity; the chance will come again, and next time things will be different. But for all that, as I studied my reflection in the mirror for the last time before setting out to walk here I couldn't help a fleeting, wistful feeling that if he'd seen me he'd have been proud – a duality of emotion that Pack practicality accepts without any of the sense of divided loyalties that would trouble an ordinary human.
In the absence of either of those two who loomed so large in my life for so long, and feeling that it would be appropriate for a high-ranking military officer to stand with me, I've asked Captain Georgiou to do the honours and he's among those waiting at the dais. I know perfectly well that he was completely loyal to the General and would undoubtedly have risked everything trying to defend him if he hadn't been ordered at the last minute to stand down; moreover, he's one of the most senior Pack captains in the Fleet. I'm sending a signal that I hold no grudges against anyone who supported ex-General Reed, that as long as loyalties are now transferred wholeheartedly to me there will be no revenges. The past is the past, and now we have to look to the future.
Members of both my family and Hoshi's are in places of honour. I won't be able to speak to any of them until after the ceremony, but I'm glad they can be here. I just hope Mum's wearing waterproof mascara.
The music for our entrance will be the 'Imperial Hero's March', hurriedly given an even grander arrangement than was originally written for it. There are singers placed in large side-alcoves almost like transepts, but faintly in the distance I hear Tallis's Spem in Alium, which is an impressive choral work that will draw to an end when the doors open. It has to be said that I feel somewhat of a fraud using the 'Hero's March', since I've done so very little to merit the title – stepping very much in the footprints of giants, so to speak – but it's a marvellous piece of music and completely apt for the occasion if not the groom, so I must endeavour to deserve it retrospectively.
Our joint arrival is perfectly timed. As I turn the last corner, Hoshi turns from the opposite one. She's always gorgeously dressed, but the designers and seamstresses have outdone themselves today. There are echoes of her Japanese heritage in the Kanzashi ornaments in her hair, but though long, jewelled chains of silk flowers called shidare hang down on either side of her face, she's eschewed the formal white face-paint in favour of dramatic sweeps of colour that enhance her eyes and make her look almost otherworldly. The beauty and elegance of traditional Japanese design has been incorporated into the fabulous gown without completely dictating its style. The fabric is, of course, her favourite Triaxian silk, ivory in colour. It's embroidered with a scene of cranes and koi in a pond framed by cherry blossoms, and is both flattering and luxurious as it pays homage to her ancestry, the fabric rustling ever so slightly she advances unhurriedly to meet me, smiling sweetly, exactly as a happy bride is expected to.
She's accompanied by a bevy of pretty little girls bearing baskets of flower petals. All of these youngsters, between three and five years old, are offspring of some of the wedding guests, and are supervised in their duties by a handful of slightly older ones between twelve and fifteen years of age. Several of the more mature of these young people are carrying her metres-long train.
As we link arms and our attendants make the very last checks to see that every last detail of our appearance is perfect, I hear the music beyond the doors come to an end. The doors are swung open to a bray of trumpets, and the organ swells into the first chords of the Heroes' March as the now standing congregation turns and bows to us like a cornfield bent over by a gust of wind.
We pace up the aisle side by side, me looking – as a bridegroom should – dapper and charming and pleased and a little bit smug (though no one would dare say so aloud) in my dress uniform, she smiling sweetly and looking genuinely, convincingly happy. Whether she actually is, is irrelevant; the point is that nobody at all, no matter how hard they look, will ever see the slightest indication that this isn't the high point of her life so far and a marriage that she chose for herself without the faintest coercion from anybody.
Two flower-decked miniature lecterns have been set up on the step of the dais immediately below the Imperial throne. These are facing one another perhaps half a metre apart, and the officiator is already standing between them. Behind them at either side are our chosen attendants – Jignesh, Ian and Amanda for me, two women and a man for Hoshi, just to keep things even like three sets of salt and pepper shakers. On top of each lectern rests the PADD that contain the text of our wedding vows. On top of each of these is a gold wedding ring – I see no reason why any third party should be expected to be responsible for them being produced at the relevant moment if they can just as easily be put into position for use when required.
The timing has been planned to the last second and our progress up the aisle takes precisely the three minutes and twenty-seven seconds of the march to reach our places on the dais.
The music comes to an end. We stare at one another for a second, and then it's my turn to take the vows.
Though there are no high-ranking religious officials as such in the Empire, I thought it important to have someone actually officiate. After some thought, I made a choice that has probably surprised many, including the person chosen: Olivia Dowden, Minister for the Imperial Department of Vital Statistics. This was a strategic decision on my part because Dowden is the least powerful of all the cabinet members. Instead, she's at the beck and call of all the other ministers as well as the military, the BII, the Exchequer, and nearly every other governmental agency, including many sub-cabinet officials – in some cases she actually answers to people who are officially her subordinates. In fact, IDVS would be useless if the other departments would do their own research, so I'm considering eliminating it as part of an initiative to streamline the government, but that's part of a very long-term plan, and in the meantime, nobody else gets to feel elevated above the rest of the competition.
The PADD is ready to prompt me, but I already know the words. As I begin speaking, Hoshi extends her left hand so I can take it in mine. There's no tremor of nerves, no tingle of perspiration; under all the cosmetics her eyes are steady on my face.
"In front of all the witnesses here present, I, Austin Robert Burnell, take you, Hoshi Sato, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to care for, to honour, respect and safeguard, to share your burdens and ensure your sexual satisfaction until you have fulfilled your procreative obligation to the Imperial Dynasty." My voice is clear and steady as the cameras and microphones beam this from one end of the Empire to the other. "And before all these witnesses I give you this ring, in token of my truth and fidelity."
The ring is cool and hard in my fingers, the tangible sign of what's happening. Just for an instant I feel as if my hand might shake as the reality hits me, but I control it, and without a tremor I slip the narrow, plain circlet of gold over Hoshi's third finger, careful not to even touch the exquisite painting on her nail.
Then it's her turn. I offer my left hand precisely as required. The whole assembly is so quiet you could have heard a pin drop as she opens her mouth to recite exactly the same words, with the names reversed, though hers includes the promise of obedience as mine did not (I insisted on that), and the words "I will observe complete marital fidelity until our Imperial bloodline is established and secured."
The Supreme Commander of the Empire is taking me as her husband, promising in front of all these witnesses to be my partner, though not my equal. I suppose I can understand her resistance to the word 'obey', but I felt it was essential to establish me as the head of the Imperial Household from this point onward. In order to get her comfortable saying that one word, we spent a great deal of time negotiating which of her rights and responsibilities enumerated in the marriage contract would be completely free of my jurisdiction. I don't think either of us was completely happy with the ultimate agreement, so it must have been a good compromise. Once again the external world fades out, though I watch her lips shaping the words as she speaks with the same calm clarity I did.
"…And before all these witnesses I give you this ring, in token of my truth and fidelity."
I'm a married man. The consort of the Empress, soon to be Emperor in my own right. As I withdraw my hand, and Minister Dowden announces in a voice that quivers slightly with nerves that 'she now pronounces us man and wife', the slight, strange, new pressure of the ring anchors me to the new reality.
This is forbidden.
I look around anxiously. Only the alpha wolves in the pack are allowed to mate, and I hardly even qualify as a junior member of it. The alpha bitch has identified unerringly the scent that signals one of the lower-ranking females has come into heat, and has bullied her without mercy ever since that first instinct of awareness. No amount of cringing and squealing and abasement saves the no-tail from endless punishment for the smallest infraction. Until the condition passes, she will not live one second within sight of the alpha male without being seen as cowering, spineless, unworthy. Her hairless skin is livid with bites that at other times she is deft enough to avoid earning, but when she smells like this, she is a walking target.
The pack has decided to hunt. One by one they slip away, leaving me to guard the cubs.
But the young no-tail dawdles. Looks back. The others ignore her, intent on the quest for food. And, realising that her absence has not – for a few brief moments – been noticed, she turns and scurries back to me.
She squats and urinates, her scent pungent with hormones. Then, with a wild, terrified glance around to make sure we're unobserved, she licks me on the mouth. Begging.
The hallucination switches off. I don't think any time has passed; nobody is looking at me with even the hint of a question, and my mind refastens itself to reality with a smoothness that allows me to push these vivid, terrible, strangely fascinating images into a mental folder now labelled memories.
There's only one more thing necessary to cement my position beyond question, and it's not one that will take place in front of the television cameras. There have to be witnesses, that goes without saying, and the event will have to be recorded so that evidence can be produced in the case of any future challenge. But as with the old custom of signing the marriage register, there's a separate room waiting, to which – to the renewed strains of Spem in Alium – I lead my new bride, while the appointed witnesses step forward from their places in the congregation and follow us and a tangible rustle of lascivious speculation passes through those not so privileged. But as soon as we've left the main body of the Hall, they're free to eddy out to the reception for canapés and cocktails, and we'll rejoin them after the serious business is done. As far as photographs are concerned, the formal shots were taken days ago and will be released later this evening; candid 'on the day' shots will be taken from the video footage.
The separate room's modestly sized, some twelve metres square, and dominated by what looks almost like an altar at the far end. But the height and above all the decoration of this make it plain that this has no religious function whatsoever. It may be surrounded by lavish displays of flowers, but the top is padded silk, with a cushion placed ready.
There's a painted screen set to one side, and Hoshi passes behind it with her attendants, to emerge a couple of moments later clad only in her shift of embroidered linen. Her face as still as marble, she seats herself on one end of the 'altar' and lies back. One of her maids positions the cushion carefully under her head and another settles the lower part of the shift delicately across her thighs. Then they curtsey to me and withdraw.
There are rows of chairs set ready and the hundred or so witnesses file in to take their places. These include the Chief Minister and First Assistant Minister of each cabinet department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the senior member of each of their respective staffs, the director of the BII and his senior assistant director. The more powerful planetary governors and their wives (at least Andoria, Vulcan, Denobula and Tellar) are all automatically here, and many of the Imperial departments have corresponding Homeworld departments to ensure that whatever happens in the Empire, Earth will remain a) safe and b) the seat of power. Then there are those who have been invited either as special recognition for their service or as a reminder to stay in their place – these include a now very much subdued Admiral Hernandez and some of the other admirals and the rest of the MACOs I leaped over when I was promoted to Colonel. Of necessity, the Chief Physician of the Imperial Household will be there watching a medical monitor to confirm that penetration is achieved and ejaculation is completed – I don't suppose the Empress's orgasm is required or even expected in such circumstances, and during our discussion on the subject a few days ago she gave me to understand that she would prefer the entire affair to be as short and minimalist as possible, without any attempt at preparatory stimulation. Lastly, my attendants Ian, Jignesh and Amanda are once again present as my personal staff while as a courtesy to Hoshi, I've allowed her to bring not only her original altar-attendants for moral support, but also Della as well.
My heart's beating furiously in my throat while my wife lies there like an alabaster image, staring at the ceiling while her attendants cluster behind her. Della is nearly close enough to touch her arm encouragingly if such a thing would be allowed, which of course it isn't, but I can imagine the thought passes between them.
On future occasions it will be different. There must, there will be more to it than this act which I must perpetrate on her. But without it, there is no incontestable marriage and my position would be fatally flawed from the start.
The legal niceties of the affair are simple to brutality. After making a reverence to me and then to Hoshi, the Chief Physician carries out a pregnancy test on her. Almost nobody in the upper echelons of society cares about a bride's virginity anymore, but if she is found to be pregnant with another man's child on her wedding day, the groom is legally entitled to have it aborted, if he can afford to; and any man with wealth or power to pass on to his progeny will generally demand the procedure on the spot. As Emperor Consort, I am not only entitled, but obligated, to ensure my bride bears children to no man but me. Knowing (and frankly admiring) the value Hoshi places on her own dignity, I'm sure it's more than just good fortune that the result of the test is declared and witnessed to be negative. That done, and any question of the parentage of any subsequent child forestalled, it's time for me to deliver what might be loosely termed the coup de grâce.
Pack pursues Power.
As that inexorable resolution floods through me, I lift my wife's shift. She's completely naked underneath it, and though the sight of her sex doesn't arouse me the thought of what it will bring me is more than enough to do the trick. I'm already painfully hard as I pull down my fly, shuck aside the sides of my trousers so that there will be no obscuring the view for the witnesses or the watching camera, and penetrate her.
I was a little afraid she might be dry – the prospect of sex with me, minus any foreplay or romantic feelings of any kind and in view of roomful of witnesses, is hardly likely to be arousing for her – but she's more than prepared for that. Strategically applied lubrication beforehand means no discomfort for either of us, and not so much as a crease appears between her brows as I start to thrust.
The danger in and of itself set my adrenaline coursing. She positioned herself in front of me, pushing against me, reaching over her shoulder to lick frantically at my chin, my mouth, whatever she could reach. I put a foreleg across her back, uncertain, dizzy with risk, but suddenly wildly excited; like a cub I'd seen getting hold of an injured bird one of the adults had brought back to teach the little ones about killing. It had grasped the broken wing, and the wretched bird had squawked and struggled and slapped at the cub with its uninjured one. If it had stayed still I think it would have lived a little longer, but its struggles just made the cub more and more thrilled, more and more determined. The more it flapped, the harder the cub bit down, and suddenly all the cubs were at it, their instincts kicking in as they grabbed and tore and learned how to kill.
My instinct was kicking in too. I was suddenly wildly aroused, too driven to think of what would happen if the alpha bitch came back and found us. There was a few minutes' fumbling and snarling while both of us tried to get what we wanted to happen and then somehow it did. I slid home and then I began fucking her while she braced for it, whimpering with excitement, our breath pluming in the cold air.
For all her external immobility, I realise almost at once that Hoshi's using her pelvic muscles to stimulate me. I don't suppose it's a gesture of goodwill, more like a cunning way of ensuring that the display will not be an extended one, but whatever it is, it's bloody wonderful. I grit my teeth and resist it as long as I can, but there's only so much I can do when I'm wound up to such a pitch of anticipation. I manage to beat back the explosion a couple of times, but a particularly vicious compression in our secret little war is the undoing of me. I give an animal moan of surrender and abandon myself to the paroxysms of triumph and pleasure, watched avidly by men who wish they were in my place now.
When I'm spent, I withdraw. Our attendants come forward with bowls of scented water and cloths, and clean both of us up before restoring us to respectability. The Chief Physician nods confirmation that not only penetration but also ejaculation has taken place.
Still expressionless, Hoshi sits up again and slips from the altar, duty done. I feel as if there should be something I could say before she retires again behind the screen, but that's not in the protocol. Until we're alone together we're pre-programmed robots, and despite the fact that there's absolutely nothing that I regret and my body is flooded with satiation, a part of me wishes that it could somehow have been less … orchestrated. That somehow there could have been room for contact between us as people rather than just bodies performing what was expected of them.
Well. I've set out my stall on that score, as the saying is. I've told Hoshi what I hope for from our marriage as well as what I expect from it. I don't suppose for a moment she believed it; at best she noted everything and is still awaiting results. Only time will prove that I meant what I said, and show whether she's willing to co-operate.
We have to be married. She can't avoid that, I can't avoid it. Well, I could have done, destroying her as I destroyed Reed with the evidence that she'd connived at the activities of a traitor to the Empire; I could have done what Hernandez would have done. I still can, if she makes it necessary. But this way she has a chance, if she chooses to take it – a chance not only to live and rule, but to set her children on the throne.
When she re-emerges, immaculate and beautiful in a new gown, and not betraying the slightest discomfort that more than a hundred important guests have just watched me having sex with her, we make our way to the Reception Hall where the formal meal will begin on our arrival. The tables are spread with dazzling white linen and shining silverware, while huge formal flower arrangements of English roses interspersed with boughs of cherry blossom spill at every opportunity.
In front of the top table, dominating the room, is the wedding cake: a fantastic confection of six tiers, each ten inches thick. The bottom one echoes the embroidered imagery from Hoshi's gown; the next one is decorated with a scene of old sailing ships, men o'war with billowing sails on a blue sea; the next, a scene from the Imperial Fleet (in tribute to Hoshi's career); the next, featuring MACO insignia; the next, important scenes from Imperial history. The topmost is not a flat tier but a 3-D spherical version of the Globe and Dagger imperial seal with a custom-made porcelain 'bride and groom' in nearly perfect photorealistic representation of Hoshi and I standing atop the pommel of the dagger. It's a work of art that must have taken the entire week and a small army of bakers to construct, and attracts its due share of admiration.
The next item is a banquet, which will be long and tedious but is equally necessary, and an opportunity for gift-giving and speeches of welcome and loyalty. Because weddings are a family event and speeches are almost invariably a signal for children to become bored and restless, in addition to the adult reception there will also be age-appropriate, chaperoned parties for the children (up to age sixteen) of the guests; this also look good for the press, who will report how attuned we are to family needs. Those seventeen and older will join their parents for the meal and then, at their parents' discretion, either remain in the main reception hall or go join the fifteen- to sixteen-year-olds. At some point during our own banquet Hoshi and I will make appearances and distribute favours (very expensive little gifts) at each of the children's parties; not only will this provide more excellent footage for the Press, but it will be our first step in winning the loyalty and admiration of the next generation of Imperial leadership. Naturally it won't be the last. In the Empire, there are few places indeed where a man's followed for what he is rather than what he has to offer.
Jupiter Station was one of them. I've learned lessons from the former Commodore Tucker that I mean, sooner or later, to put into practice, but it must be a slow and cautious process. The world we inhabit doesn't understand that kind of thinking, will too easily interpret it as weakness – exactly as I did when I first encountered it. In order to implement it, I have to survive in a world whose predatory nature I not only understand but in a large part share.
Speeches. I can't say I'm keen on them myself, but I'm more than capable of maintaining an expression of polite interest for as long as I need to, and in the meantime I'll watch and learn as much as I humanly can about this new environment that I'm about to take control of. In addition, I have Jignesh here to be my eyes and ears, and I'm sure he'll have a great deal of useful material to divulge when I have the opportunity to interview him.
I'm the Imperial Consort, acknowledged and witnessed. I have one more step to take, but it will come. For now, as Captain Georgiou as the Best Man rises to make the first speech of the day, I let my eyes linger on the immense wedding cake almost directly in front of me. It's the symbol of what I've achieved today: taking public and total control of the most powerful woman in the Empire. Empress Hoshi Sato lay on her back naked from the waist down and opened her legs for me in front of more than a hundred people, and she let me fuck her in full view of them all because she Had. No. Choice.
Pack pursues Power.
And there's only one more step to take, and then it will be mine. First, the woman; then, the crown.
Absolute Power.
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