This is set in the days of Xena the warlord, long before she ever met Hercules.
Xena gazed at the captured villager, checking out his muscles and his strong, handsome face. He'd do, for the evening.
"Your name?"
"Leo," he said.
She pointed her sword at the drawstring of his pants.
"Drop 'em," she said.
He undid the rope holding up his burlap pants. They fell to the ground, and a phallus of impressive length was revealed. She smiled and stood up.
"You're going to be my evening's entertainment, you lucky boy."
She dropped her robe to the ground and strode purposefully toward him in a seductive kind of dance. She grabbed him by the chin and kissed him ferociously, grinding her body close to his, and put one hand on his flaccid member, working it, waking it up, getting it ready to do her bidding and give her pleasure.
It wasn't responding. She tried again. Still nothing.
She looked at him in surprise. She didn't expect this from a man of his sort.
"What's the matter with you?"
"I'm sorry. I'm trying."
She grabbed a dagger and held it to his neck.
"You'll do better than try. You perform or I'll kill you."
"I'm sorry. I'm married."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"She has my heart."
"I don't give a damn about your heart! I don't want your heart."
"I'm?"
"?sorry, I know. Yes you are, you're about the sorriest man I've ever seen."
"I've always been this way. I need intimacy."
Xena burst out laughing.
"Intimacy!" she said. "Intimacy!"
"I need to be in love. I've always been this way."
Xena's laughter died down.
"You're cursed," she said.
"You wouldn't say that if you knew my wife."
"Shut up," she said. She stood back so he could get a good look at her naked body.
"Look at me," she said.
He made eye contact.
"Look at all of me."
She stroked herself as his eyes roamed over her body, but it didn't seem to excite him, at least not visibly.
"Have you ever managed to have sex?"
"We have two children."
"Really? Say hello to the real father for me."
She sighed and looked at him. There were all sorts of ways he could satisfy her that had nothing to do with his limp and useless member, but it wasn't what she was in the mood for.
She got down on her knees before him. She really didn't want to be doing this, but she had a talented tongue, and she couldn't resist a challenge.
Fifteen minutes later, nothing had changed. She spat it out and looked at him in disgust.
"Get out!" she said.
He pulled up his pants and turned to go.
"Wait," she said. He waited, and she stood up and faced him.
"Tell me about her," she said. "Why do you love her?"
"I'm not sure it's something someone like you could understand."
She slapped him hard across the face.
"Don't you tell me what I can understand! I said tell me about her! Do it, now!"
He shrugged.
"Her name is Laurielle. Everyone loves her. She's just the sort of person who cares for others more than she cares for herself. Helping people comes as naturally as breathing to her. She's so sweet and fun and playful. She makes me smile. Certain people just seem to?I don't know?they just seem to have a beautiful light glowing within them, and she's one of those people who shares her light with others."
"She never gets angry with you?" said Xena. "She sounds too good to be true. Sounds like you beat her."
"I could never hurt her. She does get angry with me. She's not perfect, she can be cranky like anyone else, and she passes up more good chances to keep her mouth shut than anyone I've ever known, but she believes in me and she makes me want to be a better person. You wouldn't believe some of the things she's forgiven me for. She's taught me how to forgive others, including myself. Especially myself.
"I was so lonely for such a long time, and there were parts of my soul I thought I could never show anyone. I've done terrible things in my life, and I was so afraid to feel anything, bad or otherwise, that I was just dead inside. But she brought me back to life. She taught me how to cry. And I needed to cry so much.
"And, you know, she's got this amazing, wonderful giggle. Oh, what a giggle! And you should see her smile. She smiles with her lips, her eyes, her cute little nose, every part of herself. She just unfolds herself in happiness. She blooms! You can't know what it is to make her happy. It's like, you finally know why you were put here on earth."
Standing so close to him, Xena suddenly realized something. She grabbed his pants and yanked them down.
"Ow," he said.
There was his formerly flaccid member, ready for action.
She snarled at him, pure hatred in her eyes. Until then she could've believed he was just another impotent, useless man.
"Get out!" she yelled.
He pulled up his pants again, and stepped away from her. He paused at the door of her tent.
"I did beat her, once," he said. "I even tried to kill her. But she forgave me, because she knew I'd be lost without her. I lost my temper and blamed her for something?"
"Not interested! Get out, now! And don't you ever, ever even pretend that you could understand someone like me! You think I don't understand loving someone like that? You think I wouldn't want someone like that in my life? You don't know anything about it! If I could?if it were possible?if someone like that?if?"
She came very near to losing control. She grabbed the dagger she held earlier, and threw it. It stuck in a post near the man's head, vibrating like a plucked chord.
"Out!" she yelled.
He hurried away. She put on her robe, and went out to tell the guard to put out the torches and tell the men to bed down.
She went back into her tent, fuming with anger. She grabbed the dagger from the post, and imagined using it to disembowel her intended love-slave.
Well, why not do it? Him and his wife, both. They loved each other so much, let 'em be together forever.
She calmed her nerves by reminding herself that most people were not like those two. Most people were like her, or if they weren't it was only because they lacked the raw power to turn their malicious impulses into reality.
Power, that was what she craved. Love, love was useless in the world in which she lived. Love was impossible for someone like her. This "Leo", this fool, he thought he'd done terrible things. He had no idea. Just no idea at all.
Still, she was glad her soldiers hadn't killed him.
She took a moment to imagine the reunion between husband and wife, the two of them hugging and kissing. The happiness in her eyes. And his.
She tried to imagine what the wife looked like, but couldn't choose between long hair or short, redhead or blonde, and finally gave it up and went to bed.
Before she fell asleep she felt some brief stirrings of emotion within her, feelings of remorse, longings for another life, but she quickly suppressed them.
She laughed.
"Taught him how to cry, huh?" she muttered. "Yeah, right. I'll never cry."
THE END