I kiss Jane again. Yes, a tackiness as if of sperm scarce dried. She has perhaps more mischief in her than I now recall. I would pass my hand beneath her skirt, but a bed awaits us.
“Driver, we will enter the hotel by the rear.”
“As you wish, Miss. Ill have to go round in that case by Coram Street.”
Hannah's hand is to my hand, Jane's hand to mine. We are come upon adventures, upraisings, undoings. They are both of then, and both of now, as I. We attain at last the porters' entrance at the rear, the bold plain doors through whence the servants pass. With some difficulty we attain my suite. The drawing comes immediate to their eyes, perched as it is upon the mantelpiece. “It is not yet!”
Hannah exclaims, steps back, then peers again. “Hannah, do not wail, you silly. All things are such as they are and all things shall surely be as they shall be, for so Papa taught me. Let us to bed, for there we may cuddle and sleep comfortably, may we not?”
A knock discreet and well tapped sounds. Jane to the bedroom runs. Hannah in hesitation stands.
“It is the groom! Send him away, if he it be. You said not yet, not yet, not yet.”
I go imperiously, unlatch the door. A servant, drab and crafty in his look, regards my eyes that mirror nothing to him.
“A carriage downstairs, Miss.”
“Yes? There are many carriages downstairs.”
“One as awaits you, Miss, and your visitors.”
“What do you know of visitors and carriages? My door is to be locked now for the night.”
“Then I won't know what to say, Miss.”
“Perhaps you have never known. There are ever people as unfortunate as you.” Hannah laughs-a sound of relief upon my closing of the door, the turning of the key. What a small thing a key is that it can enclose a world, make tight the walls and leave the windows free. “Shall we then stay? We shall, we shall!” She rushes to me, would embrace. Was it so in our beginnings? I know the music and the haunting bars. Only the words are lost. A wind long came and swept them all away. If I muse, though, in finding Hannah's lips. If I muse and seek the wetness, coiling back of tongue, then urgency of orb to loose the penis-probe, eject it from its haven, if I do.
“Let us to bed, my love. Have we not so much to remember? Jane, are you undressed?”
“I am in bed, yes. Will you not come?”
Hannah stays me in my passage. I remember now how brown her nipples are.
“Were we here before, Laura-here before?”
“Of course? When were we not? What entertainments, jollities, there were! We shall pass the hedges again where the May-blossoms flowered. The dust of the lanes will rise and fall again, churned by the wheels of carriages when there are parties, assemblies, receptions, congregations of minds.”
“It was at one such!”
Her hand goes to her mouth. She has recalled. I in my turn can only probe.
“Inebriation is a wickedness, my pet. You were sufficiently so to have your drawers removed. Where did Jane dally, and where Mama? I have forgotten. Only upon that occasion I have forgotten.”
“It is not yet, not yet! If we take another carriage, enter not the selfsame roads and lanes-if we do.”
“The drawing is immutable-it signals Time not come or Time yet passed.”
“I was older then. Jane was the mischief of it. If she had not let him, did not let.”
“Even so, you were proud to be fondled before she was ridden. Eyes liked orchids watched amid the fronds. Bold of bottom and sticky yet between your thighs were you fondled. Garters of blue. Do you remember your garters of blue? In the fine lambent light of the conservatory, the panes of glass milky or clear, your skirt raised, his hands assuaged your thighs while yet you strained your neck away, the tendon taut, a blush upon your cheeks.”
“I knew not how to fend him off, nor what to say.”
“You were as one transfixed. So are some females who would thus invite. When you were to the stable led, upon a bale put down and fondled. The groom-yes, he-silent and mindful of his duties held your legs apart, your hand to your master's breeches drawn. The crotch of your drawers showed. It was ever to be voluntary, but you would not have it so, turning and crying, twisting all about. It was ever to be voluntary, Hannah.”
“I did not want.”
Her eyes sulk.
“Why do you not come? She is a story!” Jane cries out.
“Are we not all?”
I make my merriments, draw Hannah with a smile within. Betwixt pomegranates and small melons, Jane's hillocks gleam above the sheet. I undress swiftly. Hannah doubtful stands, then follows suit. We are naked all and in the bed embrace, I tight between the two.
“When you were first, Jane, was it nice?”
“Oh, shush! You did not see, you did not see.”
“Come, little minx, let me feel your bottom. When there is no one to see, when there is no one to see, is it not the nicest of the nice? Hannah was foolish-dragged to the chaise-longue, she kicked and was held.”
“That was at tea and I was not drunk! Oh, I shall not repeat that, not!”
Hannah would rise from the bed, but I hold her, am upon her, clasp her wrists and roll about and hold her tight to me.
“Put your finger in her bottom, Jane, for that she ever liked.”
“Noooo!”
The sheets are twisted, wreathed and writhed about. She kicks, would kick against my calves as once of old she kicked. I grasp her hair. She screeches, owl-cries, jerks her hips. Cuddled tight behind her, Jane in-dips and delicately probes her puckered rose.
“Put out your tongue now, Hannah, put it out. Into my mouth. O sweet your darling mouth, suck on my tongue.”
She burbles, twists, rebellions are put down. Legs jerk, a mist of perspiration here and there as, cupped, her quim soft pulses on my palm and Jane her urgent, eager digit works. So we are come now to the matter of the moment-moment of the matter.
“Hannah-relax, relax, relax.”
“I did not want to, do not want! Ah-ooh, her finger! Take it out!”
“You will take bigger by far again and soon-maybe on the morrow. If you are good I will unfold the time, delay the action, twist the hands of clocks, scatter rose leaves as we ofttimes did and seek Mama as chaperone. Shall it then be so?”
“Ah yes, if you but will, but will! Delay the moment and belay desire. Turn his desire about-ah! oooh!”
“She is coming, Jane. Her cunny pulses eager on my palm as ever then it did, his pestle moving slow between her cheeks as once it did 'twixt yours.”
“Mmmm! Yes! I was not, though, as she, not she. He laid himself between my thighs and came upon my belly white. I did not kick my legs as she, not when I felt his knob between my lips. Pushed gently in, I felt my titties swell. His pumpkin-pounder threshed me all the night- gurgles and moans of lust he came and came.”
“The moments are ever too brief, yet all moments are eternal moments and so are linked in chains.”
I philosophise so even as Hannah spurts. A trickle-tingle on my moving hand. My palm is smeared, oiled with her muchness, hapless as it is. Coagulation of desires, coagulation of tongues. Reaching my face over Hannah's shoulder, I bring Jane's mouth to mine. Small is her mouth and quickly sleeks her tongue. My breasts to Hannah's squashed, our nipples rub. I will have them put to perfect lathers in their time, soaped shall be their quims with sperm and oiled their cheeks. Workings of mystery are here, yet all when shredded of enclosing thoughts are but simplicity.
“You will obey now, Hannah!”
“Oh, God, Ma-Ma, dear heavens, save me!”
“What a mischief she made of it and what a tittle-tattle would have been!”
So Jane laughs while Hannah sighs, rolls, falls inert. Her belly quivers. In her comings. I stroke it gently and would have it still. He came not between her thighs, so I believe. Her bottom-poking was her punishment for coyness all too often shown. Mine was my benediction.
“Change the time, change the time.”
Her voice is but a sigh of scuttling leaves, the summer flashing of the lightning, seen, not felt.
