Arcana of Pleasure
Selmara lived in the same house near the forest, almost at the edge of the village on the road that led to the castle of Nebelheim, a kingdom nestled in the heart of the now decaying and confused Holy Roman Empire.
The villagers felt a mixture of lust and fear toward her. She was a woman of undeniable beauty; her garments, always black and tightly fitted to her body, stirred the imagination of the village men. Yet they spoke with conviction that she practiced dark and mystical arts, that she could summon demons.
Some women visited her in secret, seeking answers through her oracles. Many who did were never quite the same again; they carried a secret they dared not reveal.
The most intriguing thing about her was how long she had lived there. Though she appeared barely twenty, the oldest villager swore that as a child he had already seen her in that same house, with the same youthful beauty she had now.
And so, in that strange blend of desire and dread, Selmara remained in her home. The villagers admired her and sought her divinatory gifts, even as they feared her supposed occult powers.
But now the skies had darkened.
Selmara knew, by intuition and by her own oracles, that this was only the beginning. The winter would be harsher than usual. The summer would vanish. Crops would wither. And the fear of the villagers, inflamed by superstition, would inevitably turn against her, though she had nothing to do with the calamity.
She feared for her safety, yes, but she would face it with pride.
Accustomed to foreseeing the future, she was not surprised when a carriage and horses stopped at her door and royal soldiers invited her to come with them. She gathered her few belongings, including her tarot deck, and entered the escorted carriage.
The surprise came when she realized they were not heading toward a church or a court; the carriage rolled toward the castle, entering discreetly through one of the side gates.
Inside, a maid led her through silent corridors. Soon she realized she was in the royal bedchambers. The maid opened one of the rooms and gestured for Selmara to enter. Inside, a beautiful young woman, about twenty, with innocent, curious eyes, awaited. Selmara assumed she was one of the princesses.
“Your Highness must be Princess Liesel,” Selmara said.
“How did you guess?”
“I know I’m in the royal chambers of Nebelheim Castle. Your Highness is of the right age to be the youngest of Queen Mother Eleonore’s three children: Leopold, Teresa, and Liesel.”
“How well informed you are about the royal family.”
“What I don’t know by myself, the cards will reveal,” Selmara replied seriously.
“How old are you?” asked Liesel. “They say you’ve lived for centuries near the village.”
“Frankly, Your Highness, I doubt your soldiers escorted me here so you could ask about me,” Selmara said sharply. “I believe it is your own life you wish to question.”
Liesel blushed. She sat at a table near the bed and motioned for Selmara to join her. Taking a deep breath, she whispered, “Tristan… I wish to know if Tristan would be a good husband.”
Selmara shuffled the cards, focusing to channel her power. The cards would tell everything Liesel dared not confess.
“The Star… naïve hope. Giving too soon. She was sincere. He… was not.”
Liesel watched anxiously. Selmara drew another card.
“The Devil. He exposed the Kingdom, and the Queen. Not just her daughter.”
Liesel froze, near shock. Another card.
“Justice does not listen to the heart. It cuts to restore balance.”
“What does that mean?” Liesel asked.
“It was not wise, Your Highness, to give yourself to a soldier of low rank,” Selmara continued. “Tristan saw you as a prize. He was indiscreet. Your night of love was the talk of taverns and has reached your mother’s ears. For the honor of Nebelheim… he will be imprisoned and executed.”
“That’s horrible!” cried Liesel. “He can’t have done this. There must be some mistake.”
“The cards do not lie, Your Highness.”
“What a curse! What of my future, then? Who shall I marry?”
“We can see, Your Highness.”
Selmara reshuffled the cards again, this time to glimpse Liesel von Nebelheim’s fate.
“The Lovers. You burn like wine left in the sun. You take lovers as you breathe. Men and women. Tristan was far from the first. And you feel no guilt.”
Liesel gasped. Selmara knew of her adventures, secrets she thought unreachable. She blushed, considered denying it, then realized it was useless. Disarmed, she smiled.
“Is that bad?”
Selmara merely turned the next card.
“The High Priestess. Your adventures will not go unnoticed. You shall not marry. The Queen Mother will treat your fire of desire by confining you to a convent. You will be made an example to inspire the women of the realm. And to prevent further scandals. You shall wear no crown.”
Liesel’s eyes widened. Selmara revealed the final card.
“The Moon. There will be vows of chastity, yes. But vows… can be broken. Your desires will not cease; they will only be redirected. And they will bring the novices nights of pleasure, sin, and guilt.”
Liesel stared at her, speechless, hopeless.
“Is that truly my future? Or can it be changed?”
“The future can be changed, Your Highness. And I can help you.”
Selmara rose and walked calmly to Liesel, who remained seated. She placed her hands upon the princess’s shoulders, caressing them lightly with her fingers as if reading an invisible script.
“You must learn to contain the fire of your desire, Highness,” she murmured, lips near Liesel’s ear. “It is your burning lust that brings you trouble.”
Liesel frowned, both uneasy and intrigued.
“And how do you intend to do that?”
Selmara did not answer right away. She slid her hands along the princess’s neck, then down her arms, tracing slow, continuous motions. Her nails curved in soft, magnetic touches.
“Your body does not want what your mind fears, Highness,” she whispered.
Liesel closed her eyes. A shiver ran down her spine. There was something in Selmara’s touch unlike anything she had ever felt with soldiers, or even with her maids. A strange heat, dizzying. She couldn’t tell whether it was magic or desire, or if there was any difference between the two.
Selmara knelt before her, holding her gaze, firm, as if beginning a sacred rite.
Silently, slowly, she parted the princess’s legs. With ceremonial precision, she slid her fingers to Liesel’s undergarments and pushed them aside without hesitation, exposing her flesh to the dim candlelight.
Then she began to lick her cunt with the devotion of someone reading a forbidden psalm.
Liesel was seized by horror, and even more by pleasure.
“You insolent witch… how dare you…?”
Her lips uttered insults, but her body betrayed her. Her sex grew slick with desire. Selmara’s tongue explored every fold, every trembling nerve, with expert precision. She was a mistress of pleasure, knowing exactly how to tease, look, and dominate.
The princess arched on the chair, moaning, until she reached her climax.
The candlelight flickered, painting the ceiling with liquid shadows. Liesel was still panting, thighs trembling, her body numb from Selmara’s touch.
“Is that it?” Liesel asked. “Every time I feel desire, will you do this?”
“Let’s be honest, Your Highness,” said Selmara with a half-smile. “That was merely an appetizer. But your hunger is for a feast.”
She picked up the Lovers card between her fingers and lifted it to her heart, murmuring in ceremonial Latin:
“Gemellus, vultus unius, corda duplicata… apparere, amare, consumare.”
The card glowed with purple and golden light. A thick, warm mist rose from the floor. Liesel tried to stand, but her body would not obey, not from fear, but from a shiver that paralyzed her, as if her own sex had fallen into a trance.
From the mist, two bodies emerged.
Twins. Masculine. Strong.
Both wore golden tunics draped over broad shoulders and sculpted chests. Their long hair was tied in ritual knots; their eyes dark as onyx, their jaws sharp as living statues of forgotten gods.
Between them, they held a sphere of golden light, throbbing like a burning heart.
Liesel could hardly breathe.
One twin approached with slow, firm steps, running his fingers through her damp hair, lowering his lips to kiss her neck. The other positioned himself behind her, kneeling with reverence.
“You were made to be worshipped, princess,” said Selmara. “To be touched in unison, possessed in reflection.”
Selmara stepped back and sat in a dark velvet armchair, legs crossed, watching as though presiding over an ancient ritual. Her eyes gleamed. A faint touch between her thighs betrayed her silent pleasure.
The twins began to undress her. The tunic slid off Liesel’s shoulders as if surrendering to gravity itself. Her breasts were bare, her nipples hard. One twin kissed them slowly while the other pulled her closer, brushing his lips along the base of her spine.
The first lifted her onto his lap; the second held her open by the thighs. Suspended in the air, she seemed to float, supported by strong arms, wrapped in heat and light.
They touched her as if she were an offering, as if every moan were part of a profane litany.
And Liesel surrendered.
She hung between their bodies like a living prayer upon the altar of desire. The twins held her with devotion, one by her waist, the other by her thighs, as though their strength had been forged for this single purpose.
The first twin, with dark, intense eyes, brushed his lips over her skin, from clavicle to chin, while the one behind her nibbled at her neck with precision, making her tremble like a taut violin string.
Selmara, sitting close by, watched in complete silence. Her eyes reflected the golden light between the twins; her fingers, now discreetly between her own legs, slid in a calm rhythm, not from need, but from communion.
Liesel gasped, legs trembling, her body entirely surrendered. One twin lowered her onto the velvet carpet; the other knelt beside her, caressing her face with the back of his hand. Her desire was inflamed, her legs opened naturally, an instinctive, urgent invitation.
The first twin positioned himself between her thighs and entered her in a single motion, slow, deep, absolute. Liesel arched, moaning sharply, the sound echoing through the chamber.
The second lay behind her, pulling gently at her waist, fondling her breasts while his mouth explored her neck, then her ear, then the curve of her shoulder.
Selmara rose from the divan and approached, unhurried.
The twin between her legs quickened his rhythm, firm thrusts alternating between deep and desperate. The other whispered words at her ear, as if knowing her thoughts before she did.
Sweat dripped from their bodies. The scent of incense mingled with sex. Candles quivered to the rhythm of their movement. Liesel felt full, alive, as if every inch of her body were praying in pleasure.
Then, unexpectedly, the twin behind her drew closer. He slid a finger along her slit, wetting himself with her juices, then guided it to the other entrance. When he entered her from behind, firm yet careful, Liesel cried out, not from pain but from shock, from ecstasy. She had never been touched like this, with such strength and such reverence.
Two men. Two rhythms. One body between them.
And at the center… absolute pleasure.
Selmara touched the Lovers’ symbol on the floor with her fingertip. The golden sphere’s light pulsed in sync with Liesel’s moans. And then, at the peak of their motion, when both thrust deep within her at once, the orgasm came like a hot storm.
Liesel screamed.
Selmara rose slowly, as if the room itself breathed with her. She loosened the tie of her black robe, letting it slide to her feet. Naked, pale, and timelessly curved, she walked among the three like a sacred creature.
The twins knelt before her, recognizing her dominion.
Selmara lay beside Liesel, pulling her gently into an embrace. Their breasts touched. Their thighs met. She ran her fingers between the princess’s trembling, still-wet legs.
With a gesture, she beckoned one twin behind her the other before Liesel. Between them, Selmara held the princess’s face and kissed her.
A deep, hot, commanding kiss.
Meanwhile, the twins entered them both, the first into Selmara, with slow, majestic force; the second into Liesel’s mouth, which received him like ritual wine. Selmara’s hands gripped Liesel’s hips, guiding her rhythm, pressing her deeper.
“Yes, my little heiress of chaos…” Selmara murmured, arching in pleasure. “Learn from the Arcana what they never taught you in the convent.”
Selmara climaxed first, with a cry that sounded like an ancient Latin word. Liesel followed soon after, swallowing the twin’s pleasure with tears in her eyes, her body convulsing between moans and kisses.
When the golden sphere’s light faded, the twins vanished like smoke, returning to the deck.
Selmara, still naked, sat beside the princess, stroking her hair as both lay panting.
“Now, Your Highness… your initiation is complete.”
They lay for hours, naked and entwined. Liesel felt utterly satisfied, for now.
“So that’s the plan?” Liesel asked softly. “Every time I feel desire, you’ll use the card, and… it will happen?”
“Yes, and admit it’s a splendid plan, princess.”
“What do you want in return?” Liesel asked.
“Protection, Your Highness,” Selmara replied. “With the great mist covering the sun, the village is no longer safe for me.”
“Then it shall be this way,” said Liesel. “I’ll protect you from the world outside… and you’ll protect me from myself.”
“Agreed.”
