The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Revenge of the Unicorn (Fourth Letter)

by Eromel

Letter the Fourth

You seem to have consigned me to the flames, although not in quite the same manner as Fra Scarpiglione. You made no response to my last epistle, in which I recounted the story of my brilliant success in abducting the Lady Leonora from her inmost chambers, an act which I accomplished not against the wishes of, but actually with the connivance of her immediate entourage and more remarkably, the Chancellor of State, Father Scarpiglione himself, a man whom I have vowed to destroy.

Even to I, who planned it all, it seemed a miracle, although a timely one and not unexpected. For I had observed that our stars, that is to say mine and Scarpiglione’s, were in close conjunction, and while in this intimate aspect ripe for the exchange of mutually beneficial energies. From this time onward they were doomed, once again, to diverge, my swift Mars outstripping the melancholic pace of his Saturn, progressing inevitably towards those unfavorable stations in which we would find ourselves at open war. Therefore I braced myself for battle, casting away all moderation. For you know, gentle Telesio, that once the battle lines are drawn, the practicers of our art cast aside that virtue which the philosophers call temperance and go to extremes. Then our motto becomes: To the brilliant more brilliance, to the obscure more obscurity, for the cold more frigidity, and for the hot more heat.

Therefore, if your silence indicates disapproval of my treatment of the Lady Leonora, and fancying that I had already held her feet too closely to the coals as retribution for the peccadillo of conniving with a tyrant, then let me refresh your memory as to the way such operations are conducted in the lines which follow. If you disapprove, I invite your censure. But remember our maxim...for the hot more heat!

On that lonely path which goes down to the sea we saw few, and those few we saw we passed without greeting, for we were traversing those barren fens along that portion of the Adriatic coast contested by the leagues of the Pope and the Emperor, but controlled by neither. To travel that road was to be bound by the polite but draconian etiquette of thieves, so we kept our horses at a steady pace and minded our own business.

At length the Lady Leonora, who up to that point had shown no signs of complaint or discomfort asked, “Where are we heading for?”

“Regrado.”

“I have never heard of it...is it a city?”

“Perhaps you might call it a kind of city. Soon you will see it down there, on the strand.”

Indeed, Regrado quickly came into view, although the lady was probably disappointed in its want of urban splendor. It contained only two buildings made of stone. One was a ruined temple to the old gods from time immemorial, with its roof caved in, all that remained of it were the tattered walls of the naos and some scattered pillars of what had once been the stereobate, or colonnade. The other, in nearly as bad repair, was an old keep, hearkening from the times of the Ostrogothic kingdom. Between the two structures was Regrado proper, a sea of tents and booths, and offshore were moored several vessels of varying tonnage and rigging. Regrado appears on no map, and this is only fitting since it doesn’t always exist. Unprotected by either a prince or a true harbor, its existence or otherwise is dictated by such fickle factors as the winds of the Adriatic and the willingness of the Republic of Venice to finance the policing of the seas. For the moment I was in luck, for we approached a jostling and flamboyant crowd rather than a pile of ghostly ruins. There in that makeshift emporium were merchants from every quarter of the world, hawking their wares in a cacophony of tongues, and selling every commodity under the sun, licit or illicit. As we came closer to the rise which was crowned by the ruined temple I could see men, women, and children chained to the colonnades, and I trembled in rage at the memory of that sermon which Fra Scarpiglione had preached with such eloquence on the feast day of St. Joseph of Egypt.

However it was not that dolorous ruin towards which we slowly wound our way through the riotous crowd but the old keep at the other end of the emporium. At some time in the distant past it had fallen from its original knightly use and become a stable for pack animals, then in more recent times it had been further degraded to the status of a common inn, and the abode of even less courteous creatures. The lady and I entered through what must have once been a postern gate, and found ourselves enveloped in a semi-darkness, alleviated only by the flickering of candles set on tables in the middle of a cavernous chamber. As our eyes adjusted we noticed that on the middle and largest table a woman was dancing, clad only in diaphanous pantaloons and a necklace of bangles insufficient to cover her bosoms. A boy was playing a tune, allegro, on a dither as she jostled with savage intensity to its rhythm, setting the bangles to a clashing accompaniment. I glanced at the Lady Leonora and noticed that, even through the darkness, her eyes were transfixed to the barbarous spectacle, no less than a serpent in the command of a snake charmer.

When the innkeeper accosted us with his solicitations I pressed a gold florin into his palm and he looked up to me as if he was entertaining a demi-god. In esteeming me such he was, I must say in all humility, not far from the truth, even though it was provoked only by the florin, since the currency of that establishment normally consisted of debased asseni, numeni, pfenings, and similarly worn or shaven coppers and bronzes. Immediately he understood that we required the best of his accommodations, and he gestured for us to follow him through the shadowed and tobacco fogged chasm of the single chamber which constituted his estate. Around the sides of the chamber there were booths for what might be charitably called private occupation. In fact they were the ruined remains of what had once been animal stalls, still furnished, apart from the stray pillow and tapestry, only with the straw which had been the delight of their previous occupants. These booths being walled, at best, on just three sides, were cloaked only by clouds of hemp and tobacco, as well as the general obscurity, from the view of the central hall. Passing several of them I, and more particularly the lady, noticed their writhing inhabitants engaging in the most intimate activities, distaining either to conceal their flesh or to muffle the groans of their pleasure.

At length our host ushered us into our own booth, indistinguishable from any of the others, except perhaps in being more dingy and unkempt. I helped the lady off with her cloak and hood, and she was startled to discover that she was wearing nothing on underneath save the linen sheet which she had been wrapped in at that time I had burst upon her toiletries at the palace. Such was the amnesiac state into which she had entered that nothing clear about the particulars of her past actions could be recalled. Therefore she knew not whether to reprove me or herself for the neglect of her modesty. However, having been introduced to the relaxed customs of the inn, she was no longer of an inclination to take great alarm at the sparseness of her attire. With a congenial smile she merely observed, “It seems, Master Isidor, that at some point we became parted from my wardrobe. You will have to purchase me a new set of clothing in this place...wherever we are...Regrado you say.”

“Indeed my lady. I shall ensure that you appear in a style appropriate to your station.” Noticing that the innkeeper had returned with a flagon of his best wine and some victuals I continued, “And now my lady...what is thy pleasure? For we have abandoned the ardors of holy pilgrimage to indulge ourselves at the fleshpots of Regrado. And if we cannot bear to walk the narrow path of virtue which Fra Scarpiglione has charted for us to follow, then we ought at least to distinguish ourselves in vice.” As I spoke thus I succeeded in making a sort of divan for her to rest on, by gathering up the straw and throwing our cloaks over it.

She reclined on the makeshift divan exclaiming, “How good it is to be able to relax after a weary ride through those noxious fens. Somehow the indigent simplicity of this inn puts me at ease, and I no longer feel oppressed by the burdens of my rank. As for my pleasure, I pay you, Counselor Isidor, to do my thinking for me. You know what I like, provide it for me.”

“Then my lady, I would not go far wrong if I suggested a game of chance.” Her emerald like eyes lit up with excitement, for there was nothing, with the possible exception of music and the dance, which the ducal princess esteemed more highly than the gaming tables. “It is only a question of cards or dice...and as I recall cards were your premier delight.”

She nodded her assent and I called to the innkeeper for cards. Eager to be of assistance he returned with a worn but serviceable deck of tarrocco. I seated next to her ladyship on the divan and began shuffling the cards on the small portable table which had been provided for our food and drink. We soon fell to the latter, being parched from our hard journey.

As you know Telesio, the Master taught us the art of Mithradites, by which any substance, inebriating or poisonous, might be quaffed in any quantity without affecting mind or body. It would have been well within my power to drug her ladyship while supping from the same cup. However I was in a festive mood on this occasion, and wished to enjoy my wine in common with the princess regent. For we had arrived in at a critical juncture in the web of fate, and I wished to lay down the mantle of my powers before Almighty Jove and, scarcely less important, you my friend, before shooting my last and fatal arrows into the bosom of her ladyship. Hitherto I had employed none of those powers which belong to the black arts in the proper sense of the term. True I had tempted the princess regent to rid herself of the burdens of knowledge and memory, but I had not yet robbed her of the autonomy of her person. In technical terms, I had not yet attempted to interfere directly with her will, her “voluntas”, or deprive her of a capacity for independent thinking, her “ingenium.” Even her fawning infatuation with me was the result of genuine gratitude, a requital for what she considered the boon of a clear and untroubled mind.

However, even such minute circumspection, though perhaps sufficient to acquit me before the Court of Heaven, was not likely to exonerate me according to your tender scruples, O good Telesio. Therefore I devised a final test to divine whether providence indeed smiled upon my plans, and to allow the Lady Leonora a final and fair chance to escape from the terrible fate which, unbeknownst to herself, was racing forward to consume her ladyship.

“And what, O dearest Isidor,” she inquired, as she reclined in her simplicity on the straw, “shall be the game...and what the stakes?”

“The game, the simplest. The stakes, the highest.”

“The highest? Make yourself plain, O counselor and friend.”

“I have always eschewed gambling, for it generally strikes me as an ignoble occupation...even when engaged in by someone as noble as you my lady. Low stakes are, like the tithing of the Pharisees, mere vanity and show...without a tincture of manly, or for that matter, womanly courage. Fra Scarpiglione, for all his faults, did well in suppressing that halfway house of vice, that nursery of small souls, which we term the gaming tables. For there is no honor, no magnanimity, save in wagering all one has, and those are stakes which, even before the coming of the preacher, were illicit in Parva.”

“How well you speak Isidor!” I could see from the gleam in her verdant eyes that the Lady Leonora’s praise was genuine. “You have made me see this matter in an entirely different light, and you have shamed me for the parsimonious wagers of my past. But how do you suggest we proceed?”

“In Parva madam, in Parva yes, such things are impossible, but this is Regrado. Here fate turns on a man’s single word or the steel edge of a knife. Did you behold madam, the melancholy sight of children chained to the post of that ruined temple which overlooks the strand? Perchance among them was the firstborn son of some wealthy man who, the night before, in his cups, staked the most prized of his possessions.”

As I said this I looked deep into the countenance of the princess. In any woman born under favorable stars I would expect to see an upwelling of pity, but there was none of this in the Lady Leonora, only a savage anticipation, a willingness for me to drive my point to its logical conclusion. Seeing this, what none but me could see in her, I felt vindicated in choosing the lady as the instrument of my plans, for beneath her varnished exterior she had precisely the raw material which, passed through the pitiless forge of experience, would harden into my weapon.

“Get to your conclusion Isidor. What of the wager?”

“It is this madam, that you will wager all you have, the Duchy of Parva, all your titles, rights, and possessions, down to your naked skin. In my turn, should I loose, I consent to taking you in the way of man and woman.”

For a while she looked at me dumbfounded, then broke into laughter. “Master Isidor, in addition to all the other posts to which I have elevated you, it seems that now I must appoint you court jester as well. As I to take these wagers as anything other than a jest? In either case you win...either all that I have, or me!”

“My lady, you do me wrong. These are most equal terms. On the one hand, all you stand to loose are the cares of the throne. How many have gladly renounced rule to become philosophers, saints, hermits, monks, nuns, or vagabonds? Have you not recently, and with increasing insistence, expressed such sentiments yourself? For my part, in releasing my seed into your bosom, I would be uncorking the choicest vintage of my powers, for my efficacy as a mental philosopher depends on celibacy. In short I would be ruined, a common paramour and an ornament of your couch.”

For a while she meditated on the proposition, quaffing large quantities of wine and becoming increasingly agitated. At last she spoke, “Very well. And the game?”

“The simplest method is to withdraw a series of single cards, one by one, if the figure on the card is female, I win the wager, if male, you win. You will have the advantage since there are more males than females in a deck of tarrocco.”

“So be it.” There seemed to be an air of defiance in her tone of voice, as if she realized that she had been manipulated into a dangerous corner, but was uncertain how to counterattack, aside from maintaining her air of bravado. “But I insist on shuffling the cards once again and doing the drawing myself.”

“Anything you wish my lady, as long as it ensures your full trust in the honesty of this wager. I am assuming that you will abide by its terms, whatever the outcome, without the necessity of a written contract, on your honor as on mine.” Actually I was assuming no such thing since the notion of “honor” was as foreign to the Lady Leonora as it was to a viper. Rather, my surety of her compliance lay in her very double mindedness, for there was a part of her which earnestly desired to loose and to be reduced to naught but my creature, a part which was now eclipsed by the vainglory of her pride, a part which only awaited a favorable omen to manifest itself in broad daylight and seize command of her soul.

“I shall forfeit all that is mine, saving only my body.” She shuffled the cards with celerity, and smiled, “Or you shall surrender your body to me, becoming my paramour. Paramour, not consort. Perhaps, once you have drained the elixir of your loins into my bosom, and the enchantment is broken, I will see you not as my handsome counselor but as a misshapen toad. Then you will pay the penalty of those creatures who would share a bed with the queen of spiders.”

“It is a risk I gladly undertake.”

Without further hesitation she drew the first card from the deck. It was the ten of swords, a card, as you know Telesio, with an evil reputation among those who practice the low and sometimes cunning art of cartomancy. However, being a pip card of the tarrocco and displaying no human figure it did not signify according to our wager. We smiled at each other in mutual relief, and sipped some more wine before proceeding.

Next she drew an ominous trump, one of those mysterious tarroccos which open the soul to the fear of worlds beyond our own. Being neither a gambler nor a cartomancer I had never bothered to study its symbolism in any great depth, but I knew its designation, for it is called “The Tower” and it is generally taken to signify ruin, wrath, and the reversal of fortune. The lady and I strained our eyes to determine the sex of the two small figures which were being hurtled, headlong to their doom from the ramparts of the burning building, but this was difficult to discern. Their faces were concealed by their long, disheveled locks, and flowing gowns of office, now powerless to protect either their dignity or their lives, covered their bodies.

“It does not signify.” Thus was the verdict of the Lady Leonora, and I was glad to concur, having a suspicion that at least one, and possibly both, of the figures were male. However the grim appearance of that ominous card had a sobering effect on both of us, as if providence had given us a visual depiction of the fate which one of us was soon to suffer. It was only by fortifying herself with more wine that the lady, now fully realizing the seriousness of the wager, was able to stretch out her hand to the table and draw another card.

She looked in dismay at what she had drawn, for it had ruined her. The woman, whose name was now simply Leonora, looked for the first time in her life, as a commoner, in awe and fear at nobility. It was the Queen of Swords who she held in her trembling hand, a figure of cruel majesty, seated upon a throne and holding the weapon proper to her in her right hand, left of the observer, preparing to execute judgment.

I laughed, expelling a thousand emotions which had taxed my brain up until that moment, and addressed myself to the newly minted commoner. “Do not be distressed, little Leonora, in casting off your noble dignity. Look at the burdens of that dreadful queen: The heavy crown, the suffocating robes, the sword which, whichever way it cuts increases her everlasting debt to God and man. Yes Leonora, in the few seasons that you have ruled during your tender years, you have already incurred the odium of a tyrant, and piled up a lengthy sentence in the flames of purgatory. If you were in your right mind you would thank me for putting an end to your iniquities and cutting short the penalties of your damnation. And I have further glad tidings for you to rejoice in, for you shall not have to wait for death to begin a suiting retribution for your life, but rather, from this time forward you shall begin to render satisfaction to heaven for those whom you have stripped of their property and sentenced to death. Of death, that dark mystery, more and darker at a later time, but the stripping may be consummated now.”

I penetrated her mind with that steely glance which the Master taught to reserve for the taming of wild animal spirits. I use it with economy, and then only to instill an example of obedience, as I did in the present case. “Remove everything from your body!”

“Please Isidor!” She begged. “Spare my modesty!” But even as she protested her unwilling, or rather unwilled, hands reached up to loosen the folds of the single garment which veiled her nakedness.

“Stand up!” I commanded, and as she stood up from the divan the garment slipped from her body, the magnetism of the Earth acting as my deputy to strip her of her last possession. For a while I simply reclined and sipped my wine as she presented herself, relishing the sight of Leonora’s demotion from robber baroness to disrobed baress, for I perceived that her clothes, as well appointed as they might have been, did scant justice to the figure which they had concealed. And is it not one of the absurdities of our civilization, O Telesio, that Popes and Emperors commission our finest artists, at great cost, to depict the human form in stone and on the walls and ceilings of their palaces, while the abundant beauties of human flesh go about concealed within vain coverings? By Jove, if I had the ambitions of a Scarpiglione, and was in a position to make a universal reform of human nature, I would not, as he does, bother myself with the business of separating limbs from torsos, but would merely decree that they should be undraped in their entirety!

Therefore, far from having all humanity in my grasp, but as Scarpiglione had so cuttingly observed, only a single woman in my power, I was forced to repeat the experiment of Archimedes, and to assay whether or not she was capable of being bound to a particular spot, from whence she might be used as a fulcrum in lifting fate off its hinges. She was still standing before me, unlike a statue of Venus only in that she was trembling with various emotions: Fear, rage, the simple feelings of chill accompanying someone not used to appearing nude in a public place, and another feeling which I would soon make use of. Since she was at a loss for words it was my office to speak to her. “Leonora, you are now a common woman, destitute and naked. However you are free and beholden to no man. You and I have no further ties and it is your own business to make your way in the world as you wish. Yonder is the door and I will neither hinder you nor lend you any garments, for I perceive that you will attract money and launch yourself on a promising new career if every man in Regrado is able to see you the way I see you now.”

Her response was quick and, to the uninitiated, surprising. Without a word she fell upon me, not with murderous intent, but locking me in a firm embrace with her naked limbs. Pressing her bosom to my chest and her face into mine she rained kisses on my brow, my lips, my cheeks without measure. When she had recovered enough air to breath and speak she begged. “O Master Isidor, never abandon me, I love you. Rightly have you stripped me of those things which I have abused...power, vanity, and pride. Only do not cast me away from yourself, that I could not bear.”

Now at last I had little Leonora lodged in my alembic, a fluttering nymph, which I had trapped like a child catching an insect. It remained only to press the cork down into the neck of the bottle and she would remain there forever.

“I offered you freedom Leonora, a boon not lightly to be refused. But at every turn of the road, every node in the orbit of your being, even when I have left you a way out, however narrow, you have persisted in allowing yourself to be bound more tightly to me. Now I will ask you once and only once, are you willing to remain with me at the price of being my slave, knowing that you must be deprived of your independence of will and thought?”

She burrowed her head into my chest and clutched at me ever more tightly, panting in a plaintive voice. “Take me as your slave, Master Isidor! Take me and use me as you will!”

Having tutored Leonora in the arts of forgetfulness I could hardly scold her for forgetting what I had said about the preservation of my elixir. Inspired by what she had seen in the half-shadows of the adjacent booths, she was endeavoring to win, surreptitiously, the half of the wager which she had lost at cards, entwining her already naked body about mine and tugging at my clothes. Having newly surrendered herself to slavery, she was still under the misapprehension that it was a slave’s office to choose the manner of her service. For a moment, and it was a dangerous moment, there was a reason why I wished to encourage her in this illusion.

There was no mistaking the ardor or the sincerity of her passion. She pressed her body up to mine, as if trying to vindicate what the foolish schoolmen had said about angels, and make it apply to human kind...that two bodies might occupy the same volume of space. Short of our art, O Telesio, such things are impossible, however the situation provided me with the opportunity of conducting a necessary experiment. As she straddled me I wedged my fingers into her venereal region, carefully probing it with the rigor of a physician to see if this delicate furrow had been plowed before. What I discovered was indeed worth the patience and the effort. For her part Leonora, this woman who had already lost her city, her nobility, and her freedom, was eager to loose the last thing remaining to her, as evidenced by the groans of pleasure which greeted my careful explorations of her sensitive inward parts. That, alas, could not be permitted.

Having discovered what I wanted, I could allow things to go no further, and withdrawing my stained hand from her crotch pushed her away with vigor. She looked up in hurt and surprise. “Don’t you want me as your slave?”

“Yes, but not for the pleasures of the couch.”

“Then for what?” She looked up from the ground upon which she had been cast with genuine puzzlement.

I smiled and gestured out to the public center of the chamber, where the pantalooned woman was still dancing on the table. “For that!”

Immediately Leonora grinned and stood up, swaying about the booth and making gesticulations with her hands as she lifted her naked legs in a sort of prancing motion. Now I would see how well my cousin Esmeralda had imparted the skills of the dance to this erstwhile princess. My recently acquired slave was entering into the first movements of what is called “The Flight of the Gazelle” a most demonstrative portrayal of a female ungulate’s attempted escape from the attentions of a stag. Leonora performed the opening sequence with pleasure and precision, and I could see that I had thrust her into her natural element, the transparent and combustible aethers of the sylphs. I sent out a silent invocation, or what ordinary men call a blessing, off to my meritorious cousin, now certainly spending herself into happiness amidst the fleshpots of Milan.

Thus you see, gentle Telesio, how even in our dolorous progress through this world, full of cares and duties we dare not renounce, there are brief moments of respite. Did not the Galilean himself, on the gloomy road to Cavalry, lend his cross to Simon of Cyrene, and indulge one last time in the pastoral contemplation of the Judean hills? Likewise, as I languish here within the narrow cell of my captivity, I have at least the memory of those moments when the woman Leonora danced for me. For they were indeed a station of rest within the labyrinthine peregrination of my scheme. Briefly I could contemplate with satisfaction how I had reduced her from my pupil to my votary, and from my votary to my slave.

If Scarpiglione had been able to witness the scene he would have surely laughed in my face and called me a fool, for I had willingly exchanged a queen for a pawn. Yet even the most subtle chess masters sometimes resort to that desperate expedient, knowing well that in the final stages of the game even a pawn may be subjected to surprising metamorphoses. For that Leonora who had been princess regent and heir to the Duchy of Parva, the game was already over. Her figure had been swept from the board and replaced by that of a naked dancing girl. However for me the contest was still in its opening stages, and I had barely commenced positioning by forces in hopes, nay in expectation, of an eventual checkmate.

Hope, O Telesio, hope is what all human kind save the small number of our fraternity cling to! In place of hope we have calculation and the sure prognostication of future events. If you have the wits that our Master instilled in us then you may even be able to work out the ineluctable progress towards checkmate in your own brain. Otherwise you will have to await those epistles which I scribble in the confidence, not the hope, of victory. However if there is any room for hope in my scheme of things O friend it is this: That I hope to receive the benediction of thy heart on those dread works which I have wrought in the name of justice. For sometimes it seems to me that as an angel of light I have stooped too low to Earth, and injured those who cannot tell light from heat.