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She would not know them, but the people her father had hired to speak for him assured her that each suitor would make himself memorable for her, and that with each memory, the image of the criminal rogue would fade from her mind. That man, she was promised, would go on to other things and forget her as surely as he forgot the favors he must owe higher borne men - to live this long with his foul behavior without being thrown into some stockade, or losing his head. She was reminded again and again that he stole himself into her ceremony, disrespecting the guards and the kingdom as a whole, and he ate from the table that had been prepared by a visiting prince. It seemed that nothing offended her family so much as his bad manners.
    When Crystal brought up her right to make her decision on this day, the extensions of her father's will corrected her by explaining that the marriage was an agreement for the family. A woman of Crystal's lineage was worthy of celebration on this holy occasion, but because she was worthy her family had many interests in mind, and these interests should be tended to with the delicacy of jewelers who carefully counted the angles and the sparkling shine of the sun within a prism of a rather large crystal.
    ‘ This decision is more important than what you want alone,’ came the endless tirade. ‘You must ensure your family's continued wealth and a healthy suitor for your own children, that you may give birth to another woman with your gifts.’
    And so Crystal was excused to her private confines that made up her eternal prison, to a wait the mysterious presentment of more anonymous men trying to win her favor with shows of wealth and winning paperwork. She was greeted several times in the interim by several of the servant men, who wished to inquire about her present company, and she declined three before the fourth one broke down her reservations and she took him underneath the sheets to work out her frustrations with the bucking intensities of a fucking that was the farthest thing removed from lovemaking. She would have frightened herself, if she was a woman delicate enough to be frightened, and as it was she seemed to frighten the man, who quickly gathered up his clothes once she had climaxed and scurried out of the room the way of rodents who feared the boots of giants. The fervor of her awakening had flamed out at him like the burst of a fire, and he had run from it, as many men choose to do when the true passion of female loins showed themselves in untamed glory.
    Crystal sighed.
    She longed all by herself, and found herself once again wondering about the fantasies of an unwatched life walked down the roads less traveled.
    She had lost all sense of suspense for her new suitors and was therefore su rprised when the first suitor introduced himself as forwardly as he did, striding into her private quarters, evidently having wooed the servants or guards or maids, showing the hand of his authority as deftly as any magician. It was rare that a stranger was allowed into the corridors outside her bedroom, much less the room itself, and that alone spoke to his stature.
    Of course she needed no names to place these men. Their behaviors placed them immediately.
    Crystal would have normally been put on the defensive should another tall man such as this come into her room, but the suitor struck her differently. His body and presentment was vulnerable in the charming way of younger men and boys, who did not have the ego, and the weight of that ego, holding down their motions with the slow toddles of people under stone.
    ‘ Are you to be my first guest?’ she asked coyly.
    He did not reply.
    Again she would have normally become suspicious about the silence of any man, but this one remained with boyish behavior that did not intimidate her, only stroked her curiosity like a needy hand exploring the nether regions of her body. His face was more feminine than stout. His shoulders were slender, not broad, and his body