Reply #157: :D

[ForrestGump]

You're so cute when you roll on the floor with no underwear. Definitely. :hug:

All right..picking up where we left off. Your tummy okay?:

*ahem*

She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.

"I think," said the prince with a smile, "that if you had been sent instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King of Prussia's consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me a cup of Pepsi?"

"In a moment. A propos," she added, becoming calm again, "I am expecting two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Memphis, who is connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best French families. He is one of the genuine emigres, the good ones. And also the Abbe Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been received by the Emperor. Had you heard?"

"I shall be delighted to meet them," said the prince. "But tell me," he added with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred to him, though the question he was about to ask was the chief motive of his visit, "is it true that the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke to be appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts is a funky motherf***er."

Prince Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were trying through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna to secure it for the baron.

Anna Pavlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was pleased with.

"Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her sister," was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.

As she named the Empress, Anna Pavlovna's face suddenly assumed an expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke beaucoup d'estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.

The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pavlovna wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak he had done of a man recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she said:

"Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly beautiful. Howard Stern would love her."

The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.

"I often think," she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer to the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political and social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate conversation -- "I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life are distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children? I don't speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don't like him: he's a snotty little sumbitch" she added in a tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows. "Two such charming children. And really you appreciate them less than anyone, and so you don't deserve to have them."

And she smiled her ecstatic smile.

"I can't help it," said the prince. "Lavater would have said I lack the bump of paternity. Oh, look, my bump's growing by the minute"

"Don't joke," she reprimanded, "and find some looser pants, will you? K-Mart in Cincinatti will definitely cloth you more appropriately; and I mean to have a serious talk with you, you lecherous f***. Do you know I am dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves" (and her face assumed its melancholy expression), "he was mentioned at Her Majesty's and you were pitied...."

The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly, awaiting a reply. He frowned.

"What would you have me do?" he said at last. "You know I did all a father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools. Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That is the only difference between them." He said this smiling in a way more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round his mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and unpleasant.

"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a father there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna Pavlovna, looking up pensively.

"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That is how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped!"

He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a gesture. Anna Pavlovna meditated, wishing that he had never brought up mention of their wild BDSM weekend in the Poconos.

"Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?" she asked. "They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I don't feel that weakness in myself as yet,I know a little person who is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess Mary Bolkonskaya."

Prince Vasili did not reply, though, wondering in what municipality marrying his own son could possibly be considered morally sound, and with the quickness of memory and perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of the head that he was considering this information.

"Do you know," he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad current of his thoughts, "that Anatole is costing me forty thousand big ones a year? And," he went on after a pause, "what will it be in five years, if he goes on like this? I mean, the f***ing credit card companies have got me by the cojones as it is" Presently he added: "That's what we fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours rich? Is she stacked?"

"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is the well-known Prince Bolkonski who had to retire from the army under the late Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is very clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She has a brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately. He is an aide-de-camp of Kutuzov's and will be here tonight."

"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna Pavlovna's hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave -- slafe wigh an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich and of good family and that's all I want. And her bottom is very nice in its proportions."

There was that word again: slave. Or 'slafe.' And she'd forgotten the 'safe word.'

And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the maid of honor's left breast to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro as he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.

And he sang:

When I walk through the door
Baby be polite
You gonna make me sore
If you don't greet me right
Don't you ever kiss me once
Kiss me twice
Treat me nice

I know that you've been told
It's not fair to tease
So if you come on cold
I'm really gonna freeze
If you don't want me to be
Cold as ice
Treat me nice

Make me feel at home
If you really care
Scratch my back and run your pretty
Fingers through my hair

You know I'll be your slave
If you ask me to
But if you don't behave
I'll walk right out on you
If you want my love then take my advice
Treat me nice

There it was again -- the smarmy sonofabitch just couldn't even make it through a song without getting hooked on the memory of that weekend of pain and passion. She sighed heavily, starting as she was suddenly surprised by how turned on she definitely was.

:D