Maxim Jakubowski: The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels

As the ladies readied the shallow basin, the high priest from the inner sanctum explained: “We don’t want to shock the surface of her skin. We must proceed with precision and care. She has been nurtured on salty seawater until now. She will fight us if we don’t introduce her to the purified water in increments.”

The creature was helped to stand in the enamelled basin and was held firmly by either arm by the palace ladies.

“I’ll begin with your enchanting face,” the high priest announced quietly. As he pressed the soaked sea sponge to the creature’s delicate cheek, she resisted only slightly, for his touch was light. As he carefully washed the traces of the membranous sac from her unusual face, the high priest studied her thoughtfully. Though he’d never actually seen a round-eyed creature, he’d heard about them in fabled myths and legends, as he’d prepared his whole life for just this moment of readying the emperor’s bride.

“That wasn’t so bad”, he encouraged her as he completed the cleansing of the creature’s face and began on her pale shoulders. Her skin was still so new, so delicate, it was verily translucent, like gleaming pearls.

The priest dipped the sea sponge once again into the purified water and rinsed it lightly over the creature’s arms. “You see,” he directed the attention of the palace ladies, “how her skin is blanketed in golden hairs which weren’t perceptible at first? She seems to be undergoing the final completion process right before our eyes.”

The palace ladies marvelled at the female with respectful awe.

“You see how the quality of her skin is changing?” he continued excitedly, bathing the beauty’s arms. “How it is covered with downy hair? This is a very good sign.”

When it seemed the female was steady enough on her feet, one of the palace ladies attended to the creature’s hair. It was long and tangled and still slippery with the viscous fluid from the sac. The palace lady lathered the long golden strands with a mild soap normally reserved for bathing infants. Carelessly, however, the palace lady ascended a small stool and poured purified water over the top of the creature’s head to rinse away the suds.

“No, no, no!” the high priest cried.

But it was too late. A terrible whimpering ensued that was of such a high pitch it pierced all their hearts and chilled their spines. The creature attempted to flee the basin but the high priest grabbed her and steadied her back in the bowl.

“We’ll try to be a little more careful”, he assured her, glancing sternly at the palace ladies.

The creature blinked at him, seemingly terrified.

“That was probably the worst of it,” he encouraged her again.

The lady culprit, in turn, stepped timidly from her stool and retreated quietly to a chair in the corner.

The high priest continued his steady, meticulous cleansing of the creature, washing her round breasts and her full, round belly. When he came to that delicate spot between the creature’s legs, he carefully washed the membranous residue from her tightly curled golden hairs.

And then, to the surprise of all those present, the creature released her water, sending a stream of it in a great splash down into the basin. It was so sudden, even the dignified high priest couldn’t hide his surprise.

The two palace ladies glanced gleefully at each other, while the creature rapidly blinked her round eyes and smiled.

“You’re pleased with yourself, is that it?” the high priest sighed.

The creature’s eyes shone all the more.

“Well, as reluctant as I am to admit it, that was an extremely good sign. Come,” he said, urning to the palace ladies, “we can’t let her just stand in it. One of you empty this basin and we’ll attend to her feet.”

At last the creature was washed and dried, her hair hanging in fluffy golden curls. The ladies helped her into an embroidered robe of crimson and, following the high priest, led her through an intricately carved passageway, deep into the sacred chamber where the great emperor anxiously waited.

No one but the high priest had ever entered this level of the emperor’s sacred chamber.

It was ablaze with flickering candles, and the palace ladies gazed in wonder at the splendid secret room, at the vibrant murals that lined its walls, depicting the distant mountains as they shimmered in an endless vista, rising beyond the mystical clouds.

The room itself was alive with flowers and smelled faintly of heaven, as an aroma of dizzying fragrance scented the air.

Along one wall a towering waterfall trickled and splashed lightly over jagged layers of flat stones, adorned on either side by velvety moss and wild ferns. The water, which seemed to the palace ladies to originate somehow from the majestic lagoon, splashed endlessly into a deep but contained pool, where fat goldfish with billowy fins darted among the sunken rocks and underwater greenery.

The emperor himself was seated rather tentatively on a huge carved throne of teakwood in the centre of the chamber, set grandly on a raised platform of graduated marble, each platform carved by hand to form ornate and opulent steps.

Beyond the throne, and mostly hidden from view by carved ivory screens depicting the fable of the sun and moon in their coital embrace in heaven before they burst into the multitude of stars, stood the royal bed. All the ladies could discern from where they stood was that a beautiful lace netting, suspended from a delicate fixture in the ceiling, draped over the royal resting place like a heavenly veil. The palace ladies recognized this exquisite lace as the type made by the ancient ladies of the distant palisades; the cliff-dwelling ancients who lived so high in the peaks that even in the scorching days of mid-summer, they could not be reached without first traversing for many days deep gorges of ice and snow.

When the great emperor realized the palace ladies were too curious for his comfort, he dispersed them. His high priest, though, remained behind.

“Tell me,” the emperor beseeched him, “how do I live through this night? If she won’t produce a pearl, she will dissolve into salty water and I will die from the pain of losing her. If she does produce a pearl, I am told she will steal my fire. Either way, I will die.”

The high priest chose his words carefully. “There is much I do not know. I only know we have prepared for this throughout our entire existences. If the time has not yet come for her to be your bride – and let me add that the signs do not seem to point to this outcome – rest assured she will come again, at a more propitious time, for that is the nature of all that exists; that is the ebb and flow of life, and that is the law of the sea. If, however, her time has come and she is ready to accept your fire, look on it as a release. You will not die, not in the mortal sense; you will transmogrify into something grander, for you are an energy that never ends.”

The emperor tried to take comfort in the high priest’s words, but he could not overlook the hint of sorrow creeping into the high priest’s face.

“I’ve been lonely far too long”, the emperor began. But then he saw that mere words were useless in the face of destiny and so he bid his high priest to take leave of the sacred chamber.

The emperor parted the lace netting and helped his bride onto the conjugal bed. It was a fine, large bed of carved cedar, padded with a thick mat of embroidered silk over a layer of down.

The emperor could not help but marvel at his creature. Her fine limbs and well-appointed face made her seem quite human, but her curling tresses and translucent skin were much softer than anything he’d known.

He propped her tender back against a pile of soft pillows and then climbed onto the bed himself. He knelt next to her and studied the perfect roundness of her form.