I.

There was little in the way of foliage on the small hill—just a bit of dead yellow grass, matted from the recent siroccos, and a tree in decline, a very old oak tree of twisted and broken branches, certainly ten yards high at the very least, I would say.  Most of the leaves had fallen and blown away already, this late in autumn.  The few remaining leaves littering the ground were red and brown.

Our entourage stopped.  I, the Countess, and Dorga, alighted, stretching our limbs and fanning ourselves, for the weather was unseasonably warm and humid.  We left the condemned girl sulking in the coach for the nonce.

"Antonia, come!  You must see the view!" said the Countess.

Holding our dresses high, we ran together to a precipice with an amazing view of the rest of the Countess' gardens, as well as the ruins of a Roman settlement, one that I had not yet visited during my many months with the Countess.  "Is this not a perfectly wonderful day?"  We walked back together, holding hands and chatting about the Magyar history.

The men had removed two barrels and placed them with great care beneath the tree.  By the captain's order, four metal stakes were driven into the ground.  With each blow, the girl in the coach flinched.  A paisley blanket was placed between the stakes.

The Countess told her, "Darling.  Was it not ever so thoughtful of us to bring this blanket for you?  We could not bear it if you scratched your back.  Won't you sit down and tell us if it is comfortable?"

The girl dismounted from the coach and stumbled to the blanket as if ready to collapse.  She looked around at us all, dazed and blinking.  She started to seat herself, but was stopped with a gesture.

"Not yet, Dear.  First disrobe."

"Disrobe, Madame?"

The men snickered on their horses as if it were all a lark.

"Yes."

"Madame," she whispered, looking around at the men.  "Surely . . ."

The Countess spoke more slowly.  "We said, disrobe.  Is that not clear?"

Her face wrinkled up and her eyes welled with tears, but the Countess was not moved, and neither were the men, who leaned forward on their horses in amusement.  The girl sobbed as she unlaced her dress, lowering it neatly, carefully folding each article and placing it on the blanket.  When she was down to a petticoat, the Countess said, "All of it.  Hurry, now!  We haven't all day.  Did we not give you this nice paisley blanket to lie on?  You know you don't deserve such courtesy, you treacherous little thief."

"Oh Madame!" she said, sobbing.  She stretched out her arms to us, but Dorga stopped that.

"You heard the Countess.  Don't make us do it for you."

The Countess frowned.  "Yes. You would not like that at all, now, would you?"

The girl nodded and stoically removed the last of her clothing, turning her back to the men from shame.  Except for the blue whip marks and dried blood, her skin was as beautiful porcelain.  She covered her womanly areas with twisted arms and legs like a well-polished statue of Eve after the fall.
 

II.

When my mother sent me to live with the Countess, she told me that we, of a noble family in financial decline, could only profit from this opportunity to make friendships with those, such as the Countess Erzebet, in better straits than ours.

"It cannot hurt to learn more sophisticated ways," she told me.  "Do not be surprised if those in other lands have different habits.  The Countess is of good birth and Christian.  This will surely be a good thing for you, and for us all, don't you think?"

It mattered not one whit what I thought.  Venice was my home!  Yet all my tearful complaints and threats of ending my life were in vain.  They packed my bags without asking once what I thought I would need.

The journey to the land of the Magyars took days, over sea then over land, all of it dreadfully bumpy and unpleasant.  I was never meant for such travels.  Ill near to death from contaminated food and water, I gasped with relief when we finally sighted the Countess' schloss—a massive work of medieval stone, stained by age and guarded on the parapets by pointy-eared gargoyles.

In the courtyard, a cart had just arrived bearing new peasant girls, all destined for servant work, all bearing expressions of bewilderment and fear.  Later, when I learned more of the Countess' methods of discipline, I understood better their dismay; the ways of Magyar nobility are indeed different.

The Countess' servant, Dorga, a tiny and dour woman of dark and coarse features, led me to the main hall, where I was to be presented.

I was unprepared for the beauty that glided down the staircase to meet me.  Her lovely black hair was plaited, arranged artfully with a diadem of diamonds and gleaming gold, and the flawless milk-white skin of her bosom was adorned with the most beautiful rubies I had ever seen.  And her face—oh, it was the face of a playful child, innocent and pure, decent and chaste, with guileless eyes that beamed wholesome delight to see me, so unlike the elder matron I had expected.  She was so radiant, in her presence, I felt common and ugly.  Pale and faint from traveling, I tried to hold myself up.

"I am so delighted that you came!  I have been so lonely of late.  How wonderful to have another of high birth to keep me company."  She took my hands and kissed me.

I tried to answer, but ill as I was, the words choked in my throat.  The world turned gray, whirling and twirling around me.  I actually swooned!  As Dorga ran for water, the Countess held me and whispered gentle things.

"We shall be like sisters, and I shall spoil you rotten."

Oh, how I adored her!
 

III.

"It is such a shame," she said with a sigh.  "She is quite lovely, is she not?"

"Oh yes," I answered.  "Indeed, dear Erzebet.  Is all this really necessary?  Would it not have been much simpler to punish her at the schloss?"

She ignored me and ordered the girl, "Lay down on the blanket."

As the girl knelt, the Countess replied to me.  "Dear Antonia, you would not ‘believe' the problems we have with the help when such trifling matters go unpunished!  We cannot brook betrayal of any kind, certainly not in Bulgar trash such as this.  So many of these Bulgars are thieves at heart, almost as bad as the Gypsies, but not quite."  She looked to Dorga.  "Dorga, may we finish this dreadful business?  We think our darling Antonia is quickly bored."

The unresisting girl lay on the blanket with hands folded atop breasts and hair arrayed around her.  The men grabbed her bruised wrists and ankles.  She blushed and closed her eyes as her limbs were tied tautly to the stakes, exposing her like some obscene upturned starfish.

From the coach, Dorga brought the first honeypot, a large ceramic pot with a thick amber bead dripping down its side.  She stirred its thick contents with a scullery spoon as she hobbled over to the girl.

The girl cringed and cried out, "Please Madame!  I swear to you!  I never meant to steal anything at all!"

The Countess shook her head.  "You awful little light-fingered wretch.  Why do you want to make us angrier with your lies?"  To Dorga she said, "Apply the honey."

Dorga knelt and tipped the honeypot over the girl's stomach.  The stiff honey was thick and unwilling to be poured, so she shook the pot violently.  Eventually, a huge disgusting lump dripped out, stuck to the girl's side for a moment, then oozed down to the blanket in a dreadful mess.

"Oh, dear.  Must you be so untidy?"

Dorga looked to the Countess in confusion, mumbling, "I am sorry, Madame!"

"For heaven's sake!  Have you no aesthetic sense at all?"  She sighed and rolled her eyes skyward.  "Why, oh why must I do everything around here?"  She seated herself on the blanket, beside the hapless girl, tucking her dress properly beneath her.  "Very well.  Give me the honey."

"Yes, Madame."

"Now, let me show you," she said, stirring the honeypot.

With the wooden spoon, the Countess scooped a lump from the pot and twirled it around neatly, gathering the last sticky threads until it was a solid yellow mass.  She held this over the girl's bare thigh until, with maddeningly snail-ish motion, a small drop fell to her skin.  A thin golden rope trailed from the spoon, which the Countess twirled around and around in delightful curlicues.  She draped thin lines of honey back and forth across the girl's leg.

"One must merely take one's time."

"Oh yes, Madame!  I am so incompetent Madame!  You are so much better than I, Madame!"

As she drizzled it across the other leg, I paced, feeling ignored and left out.  "Will this take long?  I feel so thirsty."

"We have wine, Madame," said Dorga, as if I had addressed her.  "And cheese, too."

"Cheese!  Oh my!" I said, feeling much happier about things.  "This will be just like a picnic!"

From her satchel in the coach, she fetched a wheel of cheese, a bottle of mead, and glasses.  Although I do not normally care for mead, in my parched condition, it was excellent.  I sat beside the girl, across from the Countess, sipping my mead and nibbling on my slice of cheese like a happy little mouse.

The Countess drizzled a path from the girl's stomach to the tips of her toes, which she covered generously.  The honey slowly ran down the soles of her feet, which were blackened and swollen from some other punishment  business.  The poor girl squirmed and wiggled her honey-covered toes.  I could not help but squirm myself.  I am sure it was quite ticklish.

The Countess wound another meandering path across the other leg.

"Erzebet," I said, as I nibbled.  "I am totally at a loss.  Might I ask what all this honey is for?"

Although it might seem absurd, at the time I really was clueless to the meaning of the proceedings.  It seemed such a silly way to punish a servant!

The Countess rocked back on her knees and smiled cheerfully at me.  "Dearest Antonia, it is not that complicated.  It is a terrible punishment, but she has certainly earned it.  The ants here . . ." She looked around as if searching for them.  "They are quite voracious little monsters.  We merely make their way easier."

I nodded my head, not understanding a word she had said; it all sounded so bizarre.  "One of these?"  I noticed a few stray ants milling about on the ground.  I picked one up on the tip of my finger, thinking it a cute little red thing, letting it crawl across one hand, and then the other.  And then the little beast bit me!  I yelped and shook it from my finger.  The men started to laugh, but one glaring glance put a quick stop to that.

"I hate all insects!"

The Countess bit her lip and cocked her head for a moment, examining her work.  "This could be tedious.  Do you know what we really need?"

"What . . ."

"We need a paintbrush!  Oh, Dorga, dear heart!  Please say you brought one!  Can you get us a brush?"

"Yes, Madame," said Dorga.  She rushed on her little legs to the black bag and brought back two brushes: a small paintbrush, such as are used in painting fine details on a portrait, and a larger brush.

"That will do very well."

The Bulgar girl was in a state of distress.  Her chin quivered, and her eyes were open so wide, I thought they would pop right out of her head!  "Poor darling," the Countess told her with a kiss, stroking her hair and wiping sweat from her brow.  "This part isn't so bad, is it?"

"No, Madame," she stammered, pressing her face against the Countess' hand.  "But please . . . Don't . . ."

I could not resist dipping my cheese in the small puddle of honey on the girl's stomach.  I was startled by the taste.

"Erzebet!  You absolutely must taste this!  Is there a clover field near here?  I distinctly taste clover in this honey!"  I scooped up a dab on the tip of my finger and leaned across the girl.

"What is it?"  The Countess held my hand and licked the sweetness from my finger.  A surprised smile blossomed on her face.  "Why, I taste it too!"  She scooped up another droplet of honey and leaned across, rubbing her finger slowly across my lips until I bit it.  We both erupted into giggles.

"I love clover honey.  Oh Captain!  Are there any clover fields nearby?" I asked.

He looked around, thinking.  "Madame, I cannot say I know of any nearby clover fields."

Dorga added, "I am sure if the Madame tastes it, it must certainly be so."

The Countess dipped her finger in the honey again and offered it to the girl.  The girl, bound as she was, craned her head forward to taste it.

"What do you think, thief?"

The girl nodded her head as best she could, under the circumstances, then gasped out, "Yes, Madame.  I, too, taste clover."

"Now see.  If you had only been this sweet before all this . . ."  She squinted as she slowly painted a broad path upwards across the girl's breasts, which were already painted black and blue by the whip.
". . .Then none of this would be necessary."

The girl gasped when the brush crossed her nipples.  I could not help but blush as if I had felt it on my own body.  The Countess saw my reaction and covered her mouth to let out a conspiratorial giggle.  Through our eyes, we shared a great secret.

"Did I not say this would be amusing?"

She did it again, but more slowly and deliberately, flicking the brush back and forth like a tiny broom, as the girl twitched and pulled at her bonds.

"Yes, you did," I whispered.  I looked nervously at the men, mounted on their horses, trying to hide their vile amusement.

She dabbed her brush into the pool of honey on the girl's stomach, then painted her way down between the girl's widespread legs, to those most sensitive and tender parts we dare not mention.  The Countess brushed back and forth across them until the girl blushed blotchy red across her bosom.

I pulled at my sleeves and collar.  The weather suddenly seemed much too hot and humid.  Dreadfully humid.

The Countess brushed there again, thrusting a bit, until the girl rolled her hips obscenely.

"Don't do that," I told the Countess with a giggle.  "You're making me nervous!"

The men snickered.  I don't know if it was because of my timid complaint or the girl's ungentle writhing.

The Countess giggled.  "We're only trying to be thorough!"  She raised her brush and examined the girl.  Stretched taut and quivering helplessly, her whole torso lay shiny and golden.  "Are we too much the perfectionist?"

Dorga piped in.  "Oh Madame!  No, Madame.  No!  You are only an artist.  That is no flaw."

The Countess smiled at Dorga, then me.  "Yes!" she said.  "That's it.  I am only an artist.  I am so happy that you all appreciate it.  It is like painting, only instead of on canvas, it is on human flesh!"

I could not help but laugh.  She reached out to paint my nose with honey and I laughed and licked the tip of the brush.  I offered her a bite of my cheese, and had Dorga refill my glass.

"Arch your neck and be still, wicked thing," she told the girl.

"Yes, Madame.  But . . ."   She bared her throat to the Countess, who switched from large brush to small as she painted across the jaw line and up to the fine shell-like details of the girl's ears. The girl blinked and licked her lips at the intrusion of the pointy tip.

"Madame . . .  Please . . ." she squeaked out in just the tiniest whimper of a voice.

"Now, now.  We have no time for whining."  She squinted and pressed it into the other ear.  The girl startled us with a sudden jerk and yelp.  I clutched my own ears, just imagining the loathsome sensation.

"Poor thing," the Countess told her with a smile of cruel amusement.  She brushed the girl's hair back and planted a kiss on her wet forehead, then one on each blinking eyelid, and another on her trembling lips.  "We are almost through, Dear.  Worry not!"

The girl's trembling body was covered with a golden sheen from her wiggling toes to her eyes, which peeked out at us in disbelief.  I must confess, I felt the same.  It seemed such a terrible punishment, this by itself.  She looked for all the world like a basted capon ready for the oven.

"It looks very, very complete," I said.  "Will we be leaving soon?  I fear I may be getting a sunburn."

"Well . . ."  She leaned down over the girl's shiny face and rubbed noses.  "I still have one thing left to do."  She dipped her finger into the thick honey that still pooled in the girl's navel, and painted on her forehead the word:

                         T O L V A J

The Hungarian word for Thief.

"Yes!"  She leaned back and grasped her hands together, looking at us all with distinct pleasure in her eyes.  "Now we are done!"  She stood up, admiring her handiwork from all sides.  "Oh, if we but had a canvas!  How I would love to have such a picture."

Dorga said, "We could have the men bring you a canvas if you like, Madame."

"I think not.  It is somewhat late in the day.  Oh goodness!  This feels so sticky on my hands.  I hate it.  Have we no water?"

As Dorga left to fetch some, I asked, "And what shall happen now?"

"We shall let the ants have her, as usual.  I really cannot bear a thief."

The girl pulled at her bonds and screamed, "Please Madame!  If you have any humanity in you . . ."

The Countess gaped.  We all did.  I had come to expect better manners from the Countess' servants than that.

"Did you hear her?" the Countess asked.  Her face filled with rage.  She blinked as if trying to contain herself.

"How dare you speak like that to your Mistress!" I scolded.

The Countess pointed her finger at the girl.  "What an insolent little sow you are, Marischka!  You horrible piece of pilfering rubbish.  What temerity!  I was going to be kind about this!  You're a filthy little beast and God shall punish you!"

I was stunned into silence.  The Countess looked so hurt.  The girl cried silently and stared at the sky, mumbling to herself.  I looked away and paced, wanting to leave.

The Captain and his men hoisted the barrels back onto their cart.  Of course, as I should have known if I had only been thinking, there was a huge ant mound beneath.  The small, red beasts scattered frantically, bewildered by the sudden harsh light.

"Madame," he told her.  "They'll smell the honey and find their own way."

The girl screamed, "'No!  No!  No!!'"

All but Dorga laughed heartily.  I giggled with them, until I saw the few ants crawling up the girl's foot.  It all began to dawn on me.

The Countess laughed mirthlessly with flushed fury.  With a clever smile, she told Dorga, "Slit her eyes, Dear.  She has just been terribly awful to me.  Slit them open like egg yolks."  The girl, shaking her foot didn't hear.  "Then pour the rest of the honey in the sockets."

For the first time in ages, a small smile crept its way across Dorga's always expressionless rough face.  "Yes, Madame," she said, drawing a long, thin knife from her bosom.
 
 

We remounted the coach, tucking our dusty dresses beneath us as we waited for Dorga.  I tried to shut out the screams as she knelt over the girl—I now know her name was Marischka—and did her terrible little deed.

During the bumpy ride back to the schloss, I rested my head under Erzebet's chin and asked, "I know she deserves no pity, but is this really the Christian thing to do?"

"Goodness gracious, Antonia!  We cannot tolerate a thief in the schloss.  Don't be so naïve."
 

IV.

To my utter despair, she was nowhere to be seen at dinner.  I shouted at the servants in a tantrum.  To my disbelief, they brought me a dish that included quails and chestnuts cooked in honey.  I could hardly stand the sight of it and turned it upside down.  When they removed the plates, Dorga in her black dress came through the room.

"Where is your mistress?" I asked.

"Madame, I am sure she is occupied elsewhere."  She glided out of the room on tiny steps before I could ask her more.  The stone walls of the schloss could hardly have felt more cold and impersonal.

Ilona bathed me for an eternity, trying to get the last of that tacky substance off me.  Then, with the fire roaring, I leapt into bed and pulled the covers over my head, still sulking.  I thought, could the Countess not have at least said good night?

I must have given up hope and fallen hopelessly asleep, for I remember next awakening to purring in my ear.  In the darkness, two tiny eyes gleamed happily.  The Countess' little, black kitten, Lilith, was marching up and down on my breasts and rubbing her little whiskers against my face.

"Little beast!" I whispered.  I reached to pet her, when the Countess, in her nightgown, slid under the covers with me.

"There you are," I told her, embracing her and kissing her on the cheek.  "How I missed you when you did not say good night!"

"Poor Antonia," she said, hugging me tightly.  "Oh, how cold I am!  Let us make each other warm."  She rubbed her icy cold legs against mine as I pulled the blanket tightly around us.  We locked our toes together and giggled as we kissed.  I smelled smoke on her breath, and I knew she had been smoking opium.

We whispered of the day's events, how horrible Marischka had been, not taking her punishment better.  Between innocent kisses, we laughed about it and joked of more stern measures that should have been taken, some very fiendish and horrible.

"How cruel you are," I said.

"How cruel we both are," she replied, stroking my face.

"You are trying to make me that way."

Lilith pranced atop us both, jealous for attention.  "Poor kitten," we murmured, and pulled her under the blanket with us.  Trapped between our bosoms, the warm little thing purred happily.  Her tiny paws kneaded my breasts through my gown.  "Stop that," I told her.

The Countess pulled my gown down and off my shoulders, exposing my breasts to innocent Lilith.

"Erzebet!  She is scratching me!"

With a predatory gleam, the Countess gazed into my eyes.  "How cruel do you think I really am?"  She lowered her lips to mine in a different kind of kiss, one new and confusing.  It lingered wetly on my lips, then moved to my ears, and then my neck, gentle at first, but then fierce and burning.  I tried to pull away, but she embraced me more tightly.

"Don't," I gasped, but she ignored me.  With an intoxicated giggle, she cupped my breast for our little kitten, whose sharp little teeth, far too old for such things, found my nipple and nursed.

"Shh . . . " she said, quieting me with a finger across my brow.  Her kisses, deep, hard and wet, sucked the breath from my lips.  "Will you not kiss me, Antonia?" she asked.  She pressed me back, sweeping her long black hair across my face, so that I lay helpless beneath her.  Lilith worked herself free with a squeaky complaint and skittered away indignantly.  "Are we not sisters?  Do you love me not as a sister?"

"Yes, I do!  But this is so awkward."

With a dreamy smile, she whispered, "Off with these," whisking away our nightgowns.  With the blankets pulled over our heads, flesh to flesh, we suddenly became submerged together in our own dark underwater dream.

"Do you know what I was really thinking today?" she whispered, pulling my hands to the soft skin of her hips.  "How I wanted it to be ‘you' there!  Not that bitch, Marischka."  Her lips peppered my scratched breast with kisses, then enveloped my nipple, which I surrendered with a cry of shamed despair.  "How I wanted to make you squirm."  Her hand infiltrated between my legs.

"Not there."  I closed them in resistance, but it was futile.  She knew just where to touch me to bring about my surrender.  I found my legs, against my will, opened wide to her, my body arching up at her fingers.

"You can't tell me you didn't think the same thing," she said as she plied me ruthlessly.  "I saw it in your eyes!  I wanted so badly to see how ‘you' would move for me, how ‘your' mouth would open and gasp, how your eyes would close and flutter.  Tell me," she said.  "You thought the same things, did you not?"

Clutching her hand fiercely, I cried out in bewilderment.  I knew I should tell her no, but I could not answer anymore.  I was reduced to panting and bellowing like a beast as she used my body in un-sisterly ways with her relentless hands.  Her wet lips met my trembling ones.  Our hips found a rhythm, an unbearable throbbing rhythm together, and some wicked madness overcame me.

Hordes of ants, I suddenly thought.  Her fingers, curled in the wet pelt between my legs, her lips and teeth nipping at the quivering flesh of my belly, they felt like hordes of hungry ants.  I imagined myself as Marischka, tied down and covered with them, a crawling red blanket.  They crawled over my face, my breasts, in and out of the wetness between my legs and across my sensitive little throbbing nub.  They tickled and bit, those ants.  They stung me until I was aflame and raw, carving words into my flesh.  And, all the while, I dreamed like this, the Countess kissed and licked the length of me, mumbling that we were forever sisters, now.  Sinister words she cooed to me, of unclean love, sweetness, and betrayal.

With my head buried desperately between the softness of her moist breasts, I screamed incoherently, pushed over the edge into a dark pit of madness.

* * *

After she was through, after she had used me so wrongly, she fell back satisfied with herself.  I rolled away, yanking the covers tightly around me to cover my shame.  I felt undone—ashamed of my beastliness!  ‘What had I done?' I knew nothing of the art of love.  The shame I felt.  I loved what she had done to me and I was ashamed.

"Antonia, my sister," she said, nuzzling my shoulder from behind.  She cupped my breasts and, until sleep overcame us, whispered words of strange love.
 

V.

I awoke sometime later that night, awakened by a far off howling sound.  Our legs were still entangled in a lovely but sticky mess that I extricated myself from with care, lest I wake the sleeper that had brought me the scandalous pleasure I already regretted.  She murmured like an innocent babe.

Wrapping myself in a blanket, I walked to the veranda and listened.  The Countess' garden below was a lush dark mass of swaying tree branches.  Far, far away, under the pale light of a moon almost full, I spied a lone hill, and I knew that was the same hill where we had left Marischka.  I could not help but wonder if maybe, as far away as it was, the sound came from her on that lonely hilltop, beneath that oak tree, covered with swarms of red hungry stinging ants and millions of gnawing mouths.

Came again a lonely inhuman cry, so sad, so plaintive.  The wind was chilly.  I wrapped my blanket around myself more tightly.  Then I heard a sound behind me.

"Who goes there?"

It was Ilona, lovely Ilona.

"Mistress," she told me.  "I wondered who might be wandering this late."

"Of course it is me," I told her.  "I heard the baying of a wolf."

With her by my side, we heard it again.

"I wonder if she is thirsty," I said.

Ilona looked into the distance somberly.  "If she is still sane."  A sob suddenly broke from her quivering lips, and she looked at me with tearful eyes.  "Please!  Do not tell the Countess!  It was one of the other girls that stole the fruit . . ."

"Fruit?"

"Yes.  Fruit!  Apples and pears.  And I never told the Countess!  I could not bear to have someone else's life on my conscience!"

Again, that howling sound, almost like a moan.  Ilona gripped the railing with trembling hands and stared into the distance.

I had been so sure it must be gold, or precious gems!  But Ilona's little betrayal still annoyed me.  Had I not learned how we must treat treachery?  I had to decide who I was, and I knew I was not like Ilona or Marischka.

"Well, we shan't tell the Countess of this.  But you must be more loyal to your mistress in the future!  We cannot bear disloyalty."

She never answered me, staring away, so far away, not showing any consciousness of a word I had said.  I went back to bed, glad that I had been so merciful to Ilona, and wrapped myself in the slumbering embrace of my sister.

About the Authoress:

"One day she was a happy biology undergraduate... and then she heard the Call of the Wild.  Reverted.  Damn near bit my dick off, too," said one man.

On nights of the full moon, you can hear her still, sometimes, this
ennui.  You can hear a long, eerie howl at the blue and silver moon,
Luna, the Goddess of tidal urges and menstrual flows.

Men!  Protect your womenfolk!  Give them earplugs and vitamin B6 and make sure they take their OTC every day.  Lest they revert
before your very eyes.

It's not a pretty sight.

(awwRRooooOOoo)