FIC: The Gifts of Heaven (Chapters 2-3, NC-17)
Title: The Gifts of Heaven (Chapters 2-3/9, completed fic)
Author: Snowgrouse
Fandom: The Thief of Bagdad (1940), but readable as original fiction
Pairing: Jaffar/Princess, Jaffar/Zainab, Princess/Sarosh the Sexbot, and the ships without sex scenes are Fadl/Zainab and background Zainab/Lina and Jaffar/Fadl.
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Historical Erotic Romance, Het with background slash and femslash, Fantasy.
Warnings: Light BDSM, Anal Sex, robot sex, and a big non-sexual one but it's a major spoiler. See Ao3 for full list of tags.
Length: ~29 000 words
Summary: The heavens themselves resolve to bless Yassamin and Jaffar and strengthen their love. Yet the same cannot be said for Fadl and Zainab, the rift between whom but deepens due to a different kind of heavenly intervention. As Yassamin deserves a rest, Jaffar sets out for New Lesbos alone, hoping to help Zainab settle her score with Fadl once and for all.
(Even if she could turn Sarosh on and merely ask him to climb onto the dais himself, she nevertheless wishes to wait: wait until she herself is ready.
For there is such a sweet thrill to her preparing a bed, preparing herself like this for love, a thrill a little sinful, even: for is this not what adulteresses feel like when they make ready a bedroom for a secret tryst? For as absurd as the idea is, as spell-protected as the shabestan is, she still feels as if she could be walked in on any moment and a scandal would erupt; that what she's doing is somehow immoral, criminal instead of a pleasure not only condoned by but encouraged by her husband.
This fantasy of a secret affair titillates her so that she does not suppress it, instead spinning it on further, letting her imagination flow. Let us see, then... why would I be having a tryst in the first place? Why would I have need of a lover? Soon, her imagination has concocted an entire alternative life-story for her, one where she is married to another--a man respectable but dull, a fool she feels no desire for. For is that not how it almost went, that she married a dullard of a prince? She shudders to think of it, of a decade trapped in a marriage with Ahmad, realising he could never love her the way she needed to be loved, finding out too late that she was never cut out for the tedious, strictly circumscribed life of a queen, trapped behind harem walls.
To think of it: that the passionate Yassamin she now knows herself to be, the Yassamin who has explored entire, vast worlds of love, sampled perversions that would make most women blanch--that she would have lain dormant for over a decade, lifeless, unknown. Until finally, Jaffar would have arrived to rescue her, to lift her out of her stagnation, to save her from her life of self-suffocation: Jaffar, awakening the passionate, grown woman within, so that from her living death, Yassamin the lover could be reborn.
Yes, that is how it must be: she, the bold wanton, is now arranging for an assignation with her true love, Jaffar.
It is a crime for which the punishment could be death: yet, it is only in love that she is fully alive. Therefore, for this love, she is ready to risk all.
And only a fool would approach such a costly pleasure frivolously, without making sure she enjoys its every aspect to the fullest, sating all her senses: one would not die for something ordinary, dull, trivial.
Indeed, it would never do to arrive at such a tryst looking like she does, a weary housewife with her hair ruffled and in her work-clothes, stained with engine-grease. Thus, she withdraws into the washing alcove with a determination to make her toilette itself, and all of its sensual joys, a part of this night of love that may be her last.
She cannot very well use the bath-house or call in her servants--how they would gossip!--but scrubs herself clean underneath the shower, using magic to blast her body with hot rosewater steam. In lieu of servants, she utilises two serving-maid automatons to wash and oil and braid her hair, to perfume her, to paint her hands and her feet with henna. With the delight of a little girl, she casts heating-runes over the henna to hasten the staining process; she bites her tongue in glee as the paste dries and cracks, revealing patterns as rich in colour as those left to set overnight. Jaffar's name is to be found there, of course, cleverly entwined within the curclicues of vines, irrevocably incriminating her, were they to be caught: but love scoffs at death, does it not?)
Author: Snowgrouse
Fandom: The Thief of Bagdad (1940), but readable as original fiction
Pairing: Jaffar/Princess, Jaffar/Zainab, Princess/Sarosh the Sexbot, and the ships without sex scenes are Fadl/Zainab and background Zainab/Lina and Jaffar/Fadl.
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Historical Erotic Romance, Het with background slash and femslash, Fantasy.
Warnings: Light BDSM, Anal Sex, robot sex, and a big non-sexual one but it's a major spoiler. See Ao3 for full list of tags.
Length: ~29 000 words
Summary: The heavens themselves resolve to bless Yassamin and Jaffar and strengthen their love. Yet the same cannot be said for Fadl and Zainab, the rift between whom but deepens due to a different kind of heavenly intervention. As Yassamin deserves a rest, Jaffar sets out for New Lesbos alone, hoping to help Zainab settle her score with Fadl once and for all.
(Even if she could turn Sarosh on and merely ask him to climb onto the dais himself, she nevertheless wishes to wait: wait until she herself is ready.
For there is such a sweet thrill to her preparing a bed, preparing herself like this for love, a thrill a little sinful, even: for is this not what adulteresses feel like when they make ready a bedroom for a secret tryst? For as absurd as the idea is, as spell-protected as the shabestan is, she still feels as if she could be walked in on any moment and a scandal would erupt; that what she's doing is somehow immoral, criminal instead of a pleasure not only condoned by but encouraged by her husband.
This fantasy of a secret affair titillates her so that she does not suppress it, instead spinning it on further, letting her imagination flow. Let us see, then... why would I be having a tryst in the first place? Why would I have need of a lover? Soon, her imagination has concocted an entire alternative life-story for her, one where she is married to another--a man respectable but dull, a fool she feels no desire for. For is that not how it almost went, that she married a dullard of a prince? She shudders to think of it, of a decade trapped in a marriage with Ahmad, realising he could never love her the way she needed to be loved, finding out too late that she was never cut out for the tedious, strictly circumscribed life of a queen, trapped behind harem walls.
To think of it: that the passionate Yassamin she now knows herself to be, the Yassamin who has explored entire, vast worlds of love, sampled perversions that would make most women blanch--that she would have lain dormant for over a decade, lifeless, unknown. Until finally, Jaffar would have arrived to rescue her, to lift her out of her stagnation, to save her from her life of self-suffocation: Jaffar, awakening the passionate, grown woman within, so that from her living death, Yassamin the lover could be reborn.
Yes, that is how it must be: she, the bold wanton, is now arranging for an assignation with her true love, Jaffar.
It is a crime for which the punishment could be death: yet, it is only in love that she is fully alive. Therefore, for this love, she is ready to risk all.
And only a fool would approach such a costly pleasure frivolously, without making sure she enjoys its every aspect to the fullest, sating all her senses: one would not die for something ordinary, dull, trivial.
Indeed, it would never do to arrive at such a tryst looking like she does, a weary housewife with her hair ruffled and in her work-clothes, stained with engine-grease. Thus, she withdraws into the washing alcove with a determination to make her toilette itself, and all of its sensual joys, a part of this night of love that may be her last.
She cannot very well use the bath-house or call in her servants--how they would gossip!--but scrubs herself clean underneath the shower, using magic to blast her body with hot rosewater steam. In lieu of servants, she utilises two serving-maid automatons to wash and oil and braid her hair, to perfume her, to paint her hands and her feet with henna. With the delight of a little girl, she casts heating-runes over the henna to hasten the staining process; she bites her tongue in glee as the paste dries and cracks, revealing patterns as rich in colour as those left to set overnight. Jaffar's name is to be found there, of course, cleverly entwined within the curclicues of vines, irrevocably incriminating her, were they to be caught: but love scoffs at death, does it not?)