Chapter 19: The Closed Palanquin

The palanquin was a small red room on eight shoulders, and the curtains were drawn tight.

Eight bearers walked with a steady swaying step, and the road to the Temple of the Moon ran a quarter of an hour through the city.

Inside, Murong Yue sat on the cushions in her crown and scarlet robes.

Qinglan sat across from her with her medicine box on her knees, for appearances, and the wooden pin in her hair.

For the first three minutes, neither of them said anything.

A guard's voice called the crossing at the east gate.

Yue's eyes were on Qinglan's, black and bright.

Qinglan put the medicine box on the floor.

"Come here," she said, very low.

"I cannot. The robes."

"Then lift them."

The Dowager looked at her.

Then she gathered the heavy scarlet skirts with both hands, slowly, and drew them up over her knees, her thighs, her waist.

Under the robes she wore nothing but the white under-robe, and Qinglan had untied the sash of that herself this morning.

The pale thighs were bare.

The curls at the junction were dark and damp.

"Kneel on the cushions," Qinglan whispered. "Over me. I'm lying back."

She slid down onto the cushion floor, head near the cushioned side, and Yue climbed over her with the stiff crown tilting.

The skirts fell over Qinglan's face, scarlet and hot and smelling of incense and wet skin.

Above her, she heard the Dowager's breath catch.

"Lower."

"The bearers."

"They can't see. They can't hear, if you stay quiet."

"You said I would not."

"I said you wouldn't manage it."

She took the thighs in her hands and drew the Dowager down onto her mouth.

The first taste was hot and sweet, and so wet it ran over her lips.

She licked a long stripe through the folds, and above her Yue made a strangled sound, instantly smothered.

"Quiet."

"I am. I am trying."

"Try harder."

The palanquin swayed with the bearers' steps, and each swing rocked Yue's cunt against Qinglan's tongue in a rhythm neither of them had chosen.

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