“I am not one of his concubines, by the way.”
The man visibly blanched. “Oh, no, my lady! I would never think that!”
Bael edged to her right, facing her at any angle. “He knows who you are, Leianna,” he said, voice thick with exaggerated patience and male exasperation.
The younger guard, dark-eyed and dark-haired, cracked a minuscule smile. The older guard appealed again to Bael. “My Lord?”
Bael flung his right hand outward, waving at the doors. “Let her in then. Maybe she’ll want to stay!”
Leianna laughed, her laugh not amused but incredulous. “In your dreams.”
“No, my dear,” Bael countered, “yours. After all, you are astrally projected.”
The guards were beginning to enjoy her and Bael’s verbal sparring a bit too much. Leianna could feel Bael’s increasing ire, as if it were his honor on the line and not hers. Well, his male pride would just have to heal. “Open the doors, please,” she told the wardens.
They turned to obey her, but before they could touch the brass handles on either side, both doors swung slowly inward, creaking loudly. Leianna couldn’t see who labored to open the heavy doors wide enough to comfortably permit her and Bael’s entrance. She suspected the concubines themselves from the slow pace, but Sharlan herself stood a few yards back from the doorway, tall and proud in a diaphanous, nearly see-through white negligee and golden-heeled sandals.
The doors continued to protest audibly before their movement finally ceased. Leianna stared, perturbed, at Sharlan, then at the confused wardens, who obviously couldn’t decide who was trumping whom and who wouldn’t dare bet on a favorite.
Leianna drew herself up as regally as her petite frame allowed, hands on her hips, and eyed both guards. “You really have to oil those hinges, guys.” So saying, she lowered her hands from her hips, her fists still curled into balls, and strode into the harem foyer, past Sharlan without looking at her, and into what appeared to be a large, main room with couches and chairs on both the lower floor and two raised floor levels, each three steps up on either side. The levels were circular and decorated in red and gold. “My goodness,” Leianna said as she reached the room’s center and turned around to face Sharlan and Bael, the wardens, and a set of two women each on either side of the partially opened brass doors. “Look at this. You’ve built the main room to resemble the three lowest levels of Hell.”
Sharlan approached her, her gait relaxed, and stopped halfway. “I see Bael gave you a geography lesson at dinner.” She turned to the guards.” You really don’t have to protect us. Those hinges screech so loudly that an intruder might as well carry a loudspeaker and announce his intentions.”
The younger guard knelt on one knee. “My pardon, my lady, my Lord. We will report it immediately to the head palace custodian as soon as we are off duty.”
Bael walked to a point between Leianna and Sharlan. “Sharlan, you know they cannot leave their posts until their replacements arrive. And I do not believe those doors creaked before tonight.” He eyed Leianna. “At least, I have not heard such.”
Leianna waved her hand nonchalantly. “He hasn’t been around here lately, you know. He’s been commuting these last seven years . . . to Earth and to Heaven.” She glanced at the other women, the four near the doors and eight more lounging in various other areas of the room, besides Sharlan, all in attractive and revealing lingerie. “Well, I must thank you all for dressing up for my visit to your harem.”
“Lord Baelzebub’s harem,” a short, blonde girl, much thinner than Leianna, in a conspicuous, genie-type costume, drawled. “And we ain’t dressed for you!”
“Well, that’s what I came to talk to you about, actually. You don’t have to lower yourselves in this manner. No woman should be subjugated by a man. Not even in Hell and certainly not by my betrothed. I’m going to make him free you, and then you can go off and live your lives fully. There’s going to be changes in Hell, and this is the first.” She swiveled toward Bael, watching his reaction.
He pointed to the wardens. “Leave and close the doors.” They quickly complied, the hinges protesting. “And get those damned things oiled!”
“Yes, my Lord,” they each said and pulled the doors harder until both closed with a resounding clang. “Now,” Bael said. He covered the distance between him and Leianna. She backed up an inch or two. “Who do you think you are, telling them what to do?”
“Your future wife!”
He sighed theatrically and turned in a half circle, grinning to his concubines. “I’m surprised that she still wants to marry me, now that she’s met you, my lovelies.” And to her, “Leianna, things cannot be changed overnight.”
“This can.”
The skinny blonde inched closer. “Tell her to leave, Lord. We love you and won’t speak back to you.”
A tall, fiery redhead, her hair styled much like Sharlan’s, in a black, silky nightgown, folded her arms defiantly. “Yes, Lord. We take your demands. We do not make them on you.”
Leianna addressed them quizzically. “Don’t you understand? He doesn’t love you. Not really. If you dared to be yourselves, outside of your sexual subordination, to challenge him for your rights, would he still find you lovely?”
“Leianna,” he said. She could almost see his muscles tensing.
“Well, would you?”
The little blonde came right up to her. “We don’t wanta challenge him. We wanta please him. He fucks real good! I bet you just lay there like a wet piece of spaghetti.” She giggled. “Bet your tits are flabby and floppy!”
Leianna, mouth opened in dumbfounded amazement, just stared at her. Another blonde, this one with ringlets and a girl-next-door smile, sauntered over, her baby-doll nightie of silk and lace showing her long legs and pert curves. “Yes, we love serving Lord Baelzebub. He’s a stallion. Freedom is overrated when you have a stud that good.”
“So,” Leianna said, her tone measured, “he never leaves you lonely and you’re planning a large family to perpetuate your love.”
The baby-doll blonde’s innocent smile twisted into a snarl so nasty, Leianna almost felt it as a physical slap. “The great Leianna!” The girl’s voice now held a razor-sharp sneer. “The woman whose memory haunted him. So considerate, so kind and loving was she! But now she’s a haughty little bitch who reminds the women who comforted him that they can’t conceive!”
“Yeh, that’s right,” the skinny blonde put in. “Maybe you’re barren, too, all shriveled up inside your cunt!”
“Enough!” Surprisingly, the reprimand did not come from Bael, but from Sharlan, her voice firm and resonant.
The tall redhead moved toward her. “But, Sharlan, you, out of all of us, should hate her.”
“Yeh, the tiny blonde muttered, “after what he did to your . . .” She stopped herself, mid-sentence.
Bael pinned her with his gaze. “What did I do, Sally Louise?”
She was obviously frightened. Leianna wondered what additional beans the girl had almost spilled. The little mealy-mouth struggled to apologize now. “You know me, Lord. Sally the sassy!” She laughed weakly, shooting a glance at Leianna. “None of her business, I suppose.”
Sharlan came over and, laying her hand on Sally Louise’s nearly flat chest, shoved her back brusquely, away from Leianna. “It is her business. It’s none of yours to tell it, something you heard secondhand, for I never shared my true memories with the likes of you. Now go. Return to your room and stay there until you are summoned.” When the girl hesitated, lifting her blue eyes timidly to Bael in appeal, Sharlan reiterated in a tone of absolute command. “Go!” The girl fled up and out the three levels and through a hallway leading beyond the harem’s common room.