The Gods of Mars: The Venus of Mars

I, John Carter, had laid my head down in one of the more comfortable beds of the First Born city we had taken to sack, but sleep was eluding me. For months now, my love, Dejah Thoris had been separated from me. Issus, false god of the Black Martians, had condemned her with two others to a room in the Temple of the Sun, a heinous prison which constantly rotated so that only one cell was open on any given day. There was a cell for each day of the Martian year, and no cell would be exposed once lost until its day had come again. Thus did six hundred and eighty-seven merciless Barsoomian days separate me from my love.

But yet more distance separated our souls. Fair Thuvia, Princess of Ptarth, had been enslaved by the First Born for many a year. I had freed her in my quest for Dejah Thoris, and in doing so inadvertently won her heart, though mine belonged only and ever to my bride. Yet, in decency and delicacy, there were none more suited to accompany Dejah in her time of sorrow, even though there be none I would wish such a cruel isolation upon.

Were it only her with my wife, I could draw succor from their companionship, for nowhere on Mars are there two more alike in virtue and gentleness. Yet there was also Phaidor, daughter of the cur Matai Shang, leader of the White Martians. And from that Thern among Therns, I feared the blood ran true, for though she had evinced horror at her people’s cruelty and love for me to rival my own for the incomparable Dejah Thoris, in the end, jealousy had overwhelmed her. 

Seeing the love between myself and Dejah, she had gone mad with rage, and sought to plunge her dagger into Dejah’s heart even as I watched in the last moments before that day’s prison was sealed from me by a wall of time. Only Thuvia, who loved me without selfishness or meanness, had been there to spare the lovely Dejah Thoris from her assassin. But the outcome I had not seen.

And so, perhaps the vale of life and death itself further separated me from the Princess of Helium, and a year’s hateful wait would only bring me the body of my beloved, not the soul I had grown to cherish.

I told myself that a night’s sleep would bring me that much closer to our reunion and give me all the more energy to find a way to end her imprisonment before the allotted time, but I could not end my body’s tension. I felt as restless as any man on either of the two worlds I had trod.

And yet, slowly, lying in my careful stillness as I attempted to compel sleep, I found myself growing distinct from my body. I did not feel tired, nor even comfortable, but as the feeling progressed and strengthened, I found myself stepping free of my material body.

I was reminded of how I had similarly shaken off my terrestrial body long ago on Jasoom, called Earth by its own inhabitants, and for a moment, I feared being drawn back to human civilization, as had happened when I’d endeavored to save the life-sustaining atmosphere factory of Mars. But, thankfully, I did not feel compelled or drawn to Earth as I had in my past celestial travels. In this odd projection, I was free and unencumbered.

I knew what I must do. As light as a leaf upon the breeze, I focused all my mind’s energies on the Temple of the Sun, and so I was drawn there, through walls and over vast distances, until I was in the central court. It had taken but a moment! In my spiritual essence, I still perceived the temple as it was in waking—a golden spire wrought in the most fantastic designs, set with an array of gemstones both known to Earth and exclusive to Mars, which in their millions gave the Temple of the Sun a beauty to match the horror of its interior and function.

I sank into the transparent marble which paved the ground, and blindly swam through that subterranean rock until I came upon a room. Alas, it was empty, not that of Dejah Thoris. But I persisted, and passing through the wall, soon I was able to find the next room in the sequence. Persisting in this manner, I searched until I had found that august space and lo, I saw my queen, the loveliness of Dejah Thoris herself!

What’s more, I found that with my mental abilities, I could peer into the thoughts of Dejah. So I found that Thuvia had been successful in saving her life from the envies of Phaidor. I saw the many hours of tense conversation in which the two Red Martians had finally convinced the White that it would be meaningless to kill Dejah, for that would only make it impossible for me to choose Phaidor over Dejah, as she truly wished.

And so, an uneasy peace had formed between the three women. Fortified with the food that my allies had been able to throw into their prison to last them the year, they now waited for their release. And already, my determination to save them was redoubled.

But I also saw that Dejah was sharing a bed with Thuvia. I would dismiss that as being the sisterly affection that I had known would spring up between two such good hearts, but Phaidor too slumbered beside them. Anxious to know how this strange arrangement had come about, I probed into their minds, drawing the experience of all three together to relive it as an artist might use different brushes to paint a single picture. In doing so, I could see the past as clearly as I see my pen and paper before me now!

I will tell you the truth of what I saw, but first, I must describe the three women so that my relay might be perceived accurately by the reader.

Dejah Thoris, of course, you well know. Her beauty has captivated both my worlds, in her personage on Barsoom and even in my inelegant prose on Earth. Many have been the artists who sought to imagine her likeness, but no scribble or mess of paint can replicate the Princess of Helium. She is red-skinned, as all her people are, the tint of her much like a fair-skinned woman of Earth might look were the setting desert sun to shine upon her in all its burning fury. She wore almost nothing, as nothing could improve upon the perfection of her buxom curves or her tall and athletic form. And so, I can only assume the few baubles she wears are there to distract from her beauty rather than enhance it. There are ornaments to cover her nipples on her otherwise unencumbered breasts, sandals whose straps rise to her knees, rings and bracelets that ensconce her arms from fingertip to shoulder, her crown and a few bands in her voluminous hair, a neckpiece, and a loincloth that is so thin as to be pointless in terms of modesty. But on Barsoom, as on Earth, I do not pretend to find function in the wearings of women.

Thuvia too is a Red Martian, but of a paler strip than her Helium brethren. Her people tattoo their skin palely in wide swaths, which to my earthly eye makes her look like a fair-skinned woman with red tattoos. She is younger than Dejah Thoris, who was four hundred of my years when I first met her, but no less a woman for it. Merely inexperienced where Dejah has the confidence and fullest personality of any Southern belle. And, though I hesitate to describe it as ‘lacking,’ Thuvia does not have Dejah’s voluptuousness in overflowing bust and wide hips, though that is not to diminish her own considerable beauty in the least. Rather, Thuvia’s body is sylphlike, with the kind of delicacy that calls upon the height of a man’s gentleness, and correspondingly the desire to exercise that gentleness with her. Her hair was also red, the differing shade to that of her skin giving a hint of intrigue to her very obvious beauty. As I have described Dejah’s dress, so too does Thuvia clothe (or not clothe) herself, with allowance for minor variance in custom between the peoples of Helium and Ptarth. 

Of Phaidor, I would be remiss not to be truthful. For all I have described her impetuousness and the rage of which she is capable, I must equally be forthcoming of her great beauty. A White Martian, she is pale in the extreme—even her hair is the whitest stripe of blonde imaginable. She is tall and lean, with an imperious look near ever-present on a face I must confess is perfectly lovely. Frequently her narrow face, slitted eyes, and Roman nose would look with disdain on one of the many things which, in the time I knew her, failed to meet her imperious standards. It is a shame that she was so generous in her scorn, for were she not so aloof—if she possessed more of the good heart and cheer with which my own Dejah Thoris has cultivated in herself—she would be a beauty for the ages. Yet, I must allow there is an appeal to her unkind and intensive mien, though it hardly is a wifely demeanor. I can only ascribe to her the beauty with which men might regard a polar landscape, while still knowing it unfit for habitation. A collar ran around her neck with an expanse of silk falling from it; this covered her breasts, pulled taut by a cord that attached to either side of the ‘handkerchief’ and went around her back. Another layer of silk was affixed over her pubis, held in place with cords that ran around her hips.

And now, removing myself from the narration as so often my dear nephew Edgar has, I will try to relate this strange quirk of Barsoomian custom.

***

Aching with her yearning for John Carter, Dejah Thoris left the lavatory, allowing Phaidor to take her place. She wandered into the main chamber still naked. Thuvia was upon the chamber’s single bed, doing her nails. As a mark of Issus’s sadistic humor, their prison was well-appointed with all the little luxuries. Thuvia was wearing a filmy nightie that had managed to scrunch up over the ripe moons of her buttocks.

Standing there looking at Thuvia’s beautiful bare ass, Dejah suddenly realized that she was damp, and from more than just her sponge bath. She told herself it was just that she had been thinking of her beloved John. Yet it felt like more than that. Don’t be silly, she told herself. You’ve never felt anything like that before. It’s dreaming about John that’s heated you up like this.

But she couldn’t take her eyes off Thuvia’s full asscheeks and long, shapely legs. 

Thuvia didn’t seem to notice that Dejah had come into the room. And Dejah couldn’t take her eyes off the princess’s round ass. She was shocked when she realized she wanted to put her hands and mouth on it, as John had done for herself. And just like he had done, Dejah wanted to squeeze Thuvia and kiss her and suck her…

By the moons, I’ve never done anything like that before! Why should I want to? It’s sick!

Trying to control herself, she walked over and reintroduced herself by pulling Thuvia’s nightie down over her luscious ass.

“Perhaps it’s lucky we’re down here,” Dejah joked. “If we weren’t, you’d have every male for ten haads in here with us.”

Thuvia glanced up from her wet nails. It was only when Dejah saw her eyes that she realized she herself was no more modest than Thuvia, still wet and nude from her bathing. And why shouldn’t she be? No Barsoomian was overly fond of garments. Why should they, friends and sisters, be so circumspect around each other?

Yet Thuvia seemed hypnotized by her body, eyes fastened on Dejah’s full breasts and their large, hardened nipples. Then Thuvia too seemed to realize what undue attention she was giving another’s naked body. She shook her head and turned away.

“Yes… males… ten haads…” she stammered.

Her hands shook as she started applying polish again, and her fingers were smeared instead of her nails.

“Oh, curse me for a calot! Look what I’ve done!” She looked up at Dejah, displaying for her the botched work. “This is the second time I’ve started, too.”

“Would you like me to do it for you?” Dejah asked.

“Would you?”

Blood as hot as the burning sands of Mars hammered through Dejah’s body as she sat down on the bed and took one of Thuvia’s hands. She had not dressed yet. There was no reason too, but all three of them had persisted in wearing their meager clothes since their imprisonment begin. So the fact that Dejah had not put anything on, almost seemed to be refusing to wear anything, was very apparent to young Thuvia.

Dejah’s firm upswept breasts bounded only inches from Thuvia’s face. Thuvia’s hand shook in Dejah’s. Dejah was so nervous that Thuvia might as well have kept at it herself, smudging Thuvia’s knuckle. But she tried to pretend she was calm.

“Now I’m the calot,” Dejah said. She wiped off the mistake and started over. She could feel Thuvia’s eyes upon her body in a way it seemed they had never been before; a way that reminded her of how John had seen her. She didn’t dare look the girl in the eye. What are we doing? What am I doing?

“Could I… ask you something, Dejah?” Thuvia said finally, breaking the fraught silence.

Dejah almost jumped at her soft words. “Of course.”

“It’s somewhat personal. You won’t get mad, will you?”

“Of course not, Thuvia. We’re sisters now. There’s nothing we can’t share.”

“You’ve spoken often of your adventures with John, and your time together, and it’s made the time pass so sweetly I could almost think I was breathing free air and being shined on by the undimmed sun. You’ve even… told me about his kisses… and the feel of him… and though not my own, those rememberings have made my dreams so sweet that I dread to wake. But always you shy away from what happens after… when he’s taken you in his arms and crushed you with his love… how it feels, and how you feel. Tell me, Dejah… does your passion culminate with him, as it does when a female must please herself? No, that’s not what I mean—I know it does, that it must. But does it happen every time? Is it really like that every time?”

Dejah flushed and felt her blood race even faster. The question excited her far too much. She tried hard to keep pretending she was calm.

“If he gives me half a chance,” Dejah said softly, “I do. I almost can’t help it. It just happens. Sometimes it’s like he doesn’t even have to touch me.”

Thuvia didn’t reply. She seemed withdrawn, as if lost in thought. Dejah looked at her and saw Thuvia staring at her breasts. When Dejah took her next breath, she was aware of how her cleavage heaved.

“Why do you ask?” Dejah said, knowing she must keep her voice steady.

“Because I never do.” 

“Come now. I can’t believe that. Not even once?”

Thuvia shook her head. “Not even when I try… on my own.”

She looked downcast. Dejah didn’t know if Thuvia wanted her to say anything or if she was too embarrassed to go on. All she knew was that moments ago, she had wanted to play with Thuvia’s ass. Now she could hear a mad voice inside herself saying if they can’t do it, I can! I can make you come!

But could she? She had never mated with another woman before. She’d never even wanted to. She didn’t know why she wanted to now. What would I do to make her come, she wondered. Just… what John had done before? He had done far more than simply use his member with her. Dejah asked herself if her own slender fingers could feel as good as John’s skillful, callused ones.

Most of all, she wondered why she wasn’t sickened. Instead of any horror at the perverse idea, she was becoming excited. Her cunt was feeling so vibrant that she had to squeeze her thighs together to make the feeling bearable. And Thuvia saw how they clenched together.

“What’s the matter?” Thuvia asked softly.

“It’s the way you’re looking at my breasts,” Dejah whispered. “Like you want to…”

Thuvia licked her plump lips. “Kiss them? Touch them?”

Dejah closed her eyes, then opened them again quickly. She couldn’t believe this, couldn’t believe herself. Her brilliant mind could offer no answers, only fixate on the open nail polish bottle on the bed. Dejah could laugh at her own attentiveness to detail. She picked it up and closed it and said “Yes” to Thuvia’s questions.

“Your breasts are so big. And soft,” Thuvia gasped gently.

“Yes,” Dejah said, feeling foolish. “I know.”

And she ached with the desire to feel Thuvia’s sensual lips on them, just as she had when John had said the same thing to her. It confused her, that there were two people who her heart responded to this way. She felt like something was happening that she had never thought about before. And she wasn’t going to lift a finger to stop it.

“Let me put this out of the way,” she said, leaning off the bed to place the bottle safely underneath the mattress.

When she straightened, Thuvia had moved closer to her. Thuvia’s hands moved up to Dejah’s full naked breasts and molded to their heft. Her eyes burned into Dejah’s, full of the kind of questions that scared Dejah so. Like…

“Do you mind?” Thuvia whispered.

“No.”

Dejah watched Thuvia lower her face. It was as if she were waiting, feeling the pleasure already, but holding back the sigh of it until Thuvia’s mouth caressed the upper slopes of her breasts, lips brushing along the deep valley between them. Dejah held her breath, trembling. Thuvia’s slow tenderness was so much like John could be, but so unlike his rough, demanding passion. The same, but different. She couldn’t explain it, not with all her genius.

“Aaahh!” she moaned as Thuvia’s wet lips closed over a nipple.

Thuvia sucked at it, and as she sucked, she pushed against the breast she was suckling, gently making Dejah lean back onto the bed’s pillows. And Dejah surrendered completely, to Thuvia’s gentle leading and to how her nipple throbbed in Thuvia’s sucking mouth and then to the agonizing tenderness she felt when Thuvia rhythmically squeezed her breasts. Her whole body was pulsing wildly, feeling nothing but Thuvia’s touch and Thuvia’s heat.

She was going to come, she had to come! Just from this! It was too soon, she wanted this to go on and on!

“Dejah, dearest Dejah, they’re so beautiful!” Thuvia murmured against the breasts that bewitched her, even as the sensations Thuvia filled them with bewitched Dejah.

And the feeling went on, far beyond how long Dejah believed that ecstasy could last. Thuvia sucked and tongued her flaring nipples as if it were second nature to her; her tongue knew magic Dejah could never explain. She would curl it around one of Dejah’s large nipples, then draw on it with her lips, before biting down on the areola. All the while, tight cries of pleasure would fly from Dejah’s mouth.

Her body began gyrating uncontrollably. She arched her back, pushing her aching breasts up into the pleasure Dejah’s mouth offered. Writhing, she tried to prolong the delight of her agonizing suspension, but the urgency of her coming orgasm would not be denied.

“By the River Iss… Thuvia… the River Iss… it feels so good!” she panted. “I’m almost finished… I can’t help it… you’ve brought me so close! Fuck me with your hand, please! Use it just like you would on yourself! Bring me off, I know you can!”

Thuvia’s hand obediently tucked between Dejah’s thighs and found her gushing sex. Straining, quivering with need, Dejah pushed up into Thuvia’s fingers. They pushed down. At the same instant, Thuvia bit down hard on Dejah’s nipple. Dejah’s body clenched, as if trying to contain the explosion that burst upon her the merest second later.

“Oh! OOOHHNNNN! AAANIIIEEE!”

A river of fire was in Dejah’s veins. She gasped and squirmed as it poured through her. When the fiery climax began to wane, she pulled Thuvia closed to her and kissed those wonderful lips as if to thank them for her pleasure.

“Oh beloved… my beloved!” she gasped. Her hands raced under Thuvia’s nightie, seeking bare flesh. “Take this off, take it off! I want to feel you, all of you, against me—inside me!”

The two of them soon had pulled Thuvia’s nightie over her head. Dejah flung it across the room.

If her orgasm had done anything to satisfy her desires, they were immediately rekindled by the sight of Thuvia nude. The girl was perfect in form. Her breasts were like two swollen fruit, tilted upward and nearly hard in their firmness. Her long midriff tapered into a sweetly slender waist, then swelled just as softly into silky hips and thighs. Dejah embraced her, enjoying the feel of her naked flesh as much as feeling Thuvia enjoying her own nudity.

“By Iss, what are we doing?” Thuvia panted, even as she writhed hotly in Dejah’s embrace. “I’ve never done anything like this before!”

“Neither have I,” Dejah gasped. She could barely speak; it was so much better to squeeze Thuvia’s ripe flesh. “Don’t think about it, my sweet girl. Just feel it. I know you’re enjoying this. Keep enjoying it, as I did. Let me pleasure you, as you pleasured me. Let me make you come like I did.”

Thuvia shook her long coppery hair out of her face and gasped sharply as she felt Dejah’s kiss on her breast, burning right through to her heart.

“But, Dejah, it’s so… it’s wrong!” she gasped. “Oh, yes, that feels good!”

“Perhaps it is wrong,” Dejah replied. “But it definitely feels good. That will have to be enough.”

“Yes! Oh, Dejah, yes!”

Everything Dejah felt was new to her. She had never touched another woman’s breast in this way, never tasted another woman’s flesh. She reeled with lust, sucking and tonguing Thuvia’s nipple, and feeling it spring erect against her lips. Thuvia shivered with passion. She twisted and moaned, her hips squirming instinctively, giving herself to Dejah Thoris with each movement. 

“What are you doing!?” Phaidor demanded, emerging from the bathroom to be so shocked she could not even maintain her lifelong façade of haughtiness. “What—what is this?”

Dejah let go of Thuvia, feeling Phaidor’s eyes on her body both incensed and intrigued. She thought that made Phaidor even angrier than she might’ve been otherwise.

“I, I knew it!” Phaidor cried. “You harridan! Faithless harlot! Even with no men around, you are unfaithful to John Carter! I would make a far finer wife for him, for Phaidor of the Valley Dor would never betray her lord for perverse desires.”

So saying, she seized a dagger from where a game of darts had embedded it in the wall.

“I will punish you now for your deviance!”

She flung herself at the pair, but breaking away from each other, they managed to avoid her clumsy lunge. She became entangled in the sheets, and working as one, the two Red Martians leapt upon and overcame her. The pampered Thern princess had no real knowledge of combat, while Dejah and Thuvia had grown up in the great battlefield of the outside world, where they might ever be called upon to defend themselves. Rapidly was Phaidor disarmed and tied, but still she yelled abuse, so next she found herself gagged.

“And now we’ll pick up where we left off,” Dejah said, “sans your commentary.”

“We… we will?” Thuvia asked.

Dejah graced her with a smile. “Yes, my love. John would not begrudge me finding pleasure in his absence, just as there is nothing he could do to bring comfort to himself that would draw my ire or cause me to love him less. Look into your heart, Thuvia, you who love him as I do. Do you not feel the same way?”

“Yes,” Thuvia said. “Having heard so much of your love for each other, I cannot help but be in love with such affection. Your love cannot be diminished… as I feel, I pray, ours cannot be either.”

“Then let us go on,” Dejah said, ripping a blindfold out of the sheets to go with the bindings they’d already used on Phaidor. “Once we have some privacy.”

“Mmmmmmmm!” Phaidor moaned loudly through her gag, shaking herself so hard that she nearly toppled herself off the bed. “Mmph! Mmf! Mmmm!”

“I see we’ve found the prospect Phaidor finds truly distasteful,” Dejah said. “Thuvia has told me of how the oh-so-holy Therns amused themselves. Bloody combat and perverted games, but only for their slaves. Do you think yourself pure, white woman, because the sins you so avidly watch are reserved for the lesser races?”

Phaidor quieted, now only staring balefully.

“Dejah,” Thuvia said, “she is a prisoner as much as we are, and I would not kill her in cold blood, nor increase her suffering without cause. That is not my way.”

“Neither mine,” Dejah said. “As John might say, ‘we are all in the same boat’ and must coexist. So, Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang, I offer you this unearned boon. Bound you may be, you can go forward enjoying the sight of this aberrant, wicked deed… provided you keep silent and agree to be peaceable from now on!”

Phaidor’s eyes narrowed, but after the offer had sat with her a moment, she nodded her head.

“Very well then,” Dejah said, dropping the blindfold. “Behold the lesser races at play!”