“Sometimes you were, sometimes were not. Three or four abed you liked. Said then your eyes were hidden, but there were lamps always.”
“They gave some warmth! I needed then the warmth. No fire lit, he said, for the bad state of the chimney.”
I mumble, would recover, but she has me tight.
“Ha! You and your la-de-dah ways about chimneys, fires, and lamps! Cold was your bottom often when put up to him, but soon it warmed. How's the master going to do you, eh? How going to-same as before?”
“Why? Shall you watch? Pray, do not watch.”
I am become as Jane on Christmas night. And yet I watched, and yet I watched, until I to her eyes became a blur, bumping of bellies, wrigglings of her bottom. A jerk, a sigh, she quivered and went under him, upgliding of it twixt her lovelips tight.
“You and your larkiness, Laura! I loves to see you give a little jerk. You always gives a little jerk when it goes in.”
“I don't!”
I laugh, am proud to give my jerk, drawing in the plumlike knob until the sleek tube's gripped within my rim, and all is pleasure then and pleasure known.
The air shimmers of a sudden. Voices die. The sun is dimmed, the morning is as dusk. The floorboards growl and roll, are still again.
Be still, be still, there is nothing but the waiting now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When there is stillness there is plentitude. When there is movement passions reign.
So once my aunt conveyed to me.
“There are two delights of the senses, Laura. The one is spiritual, the other is voluptuous. The former is of this world, yet not. The latter is earthy, earthly, fundamental to our beings in this worldly form. Of the voluptuous you may choose between eating, drinking, and libertine play. Be not sparing in the last, for here rivers, oceans, streams, and sparklings of delight. Have no reservations or the rhythm will be broken and the time undone.”
Having yielded myself often by then, I asked how I might so yield myself to all unearthly things.
“In silence where all plentitude obtains. Have no movement and be mindful of your breathing. Our earthly world is made of thoughts, perceptions through the lenses of the eyes that ever ill-obtain reality. Be not surprised at this for it is true. Once you have stilled your mind completely all phenomena are gone.”
“I would be blind then, would I not, dear aunt?”
“No, my love, for in the seeing of no-seeing all is seen, not with fretful, passion-muddied thoughts but as a mirror sees. A deaf man blows a trumpet in an empty desert. When there is no one to hear, where is the sound?”
“It is here,” father said, then blew an imaginary trumpet.
Such japes were played on me, though yet to guide my mind. Surrounded by all things, I pass the memories by. Groping at smoke, I seek to find the flames.
Now the room is still, the room is still, the light returns again and Agnes enters drably clothed in black. Her hair is drawn back tight into a bun. Jade earrings dangle from her lobes. Her eyes are mindful of us both. Charlotte steps back, the sunlight on her face renewed.
“Are you not at your business, girl, errant in wardrobes, chasing dust with brooms?”
“Yes, ma'am.” She scuttles out, we are alone.
“Are you not the mother here?”
A querulousness has seized me. I remark the station of her dress, pawned once or twice perhaps, put on again. Grey her underwear and grey her face.
“Would you be ever mothered, then? All wish to be. A fine time I has of it with Hannah, Jane, ever a smacking of their bottoms, puttings up and puttings down. Are your limbs sleek, your bottom tight, your stockings full up-drawn? Has she brushed you? Brushed you up between your thighs and fluffed you up there nice? Come- show me, girl.”
I part my thighs, push down my drawers, the cotton banding tightly to my knees.
“She hasn't done you, has she? Hannah's done, and all prepared amid her snivellings. Time she was up, about, and on her horse, bare of bottom to the saddle's rim, waiting in woodland rides, the air cool at her cleft. Was it not said so?”
“I do not know.” I brood, look down.
The time is clear undone. Dust dances at my well-shod feet, the little fairies of my childhood days.
“She is prepared, but he will have you first. Bend over well and draw up your chemise. Floating in the bath your bottoms proud indeed, and him at mercy to your succourings! Show up your cleft full now, your drawers well down. He likes your feet entrapped. If he comes first in you, I won't doubt your silence on the matter. Well trained, was you-made to stir your hips, wriggle your bum well and press it in?”
“How vulgar you are! There were never speakings.”
Slapped, I am turned, bent over, and put down. Rustling of drawers that to my ankles pool. The bed drapes now are blue, yet once I knew them cream, black stockings ever worn and garters tight.
“If he has you turn and turn about, it were never of my doing, Laura, never was. I likes to see you proud up for it, though. Your bum fair gleams, is white as snow. Hell snuffle first his knob in, hold it there, as ever was. You know that.”
“Yes.”
“Cream and jelly there'll be for tea, buns and butter, butter at your lips. Dip your back, girl, more-present it full. If wet of knob he comes, he goes in easier. Master- here! She is prepared for you.”
I do not hear him come and yet he comes. I sense his nakedness, his stiffened staff.
“Be out with you, about with you, Agnes, and do not watch!”
She cackles, the door rattles, she is gone. I breathe more softly now, extend my orb and feel his finger titillate my quim.
Gently were you strapped at first?”
“No-ever hard.”
“So it should be, quick to Perdition led, the cork put in and wonders of you made. Hot arse up to his loins, your thighs full held.”
“Yes.”
There is crudeness here. Must I indulge in it? Shimmering with lust, his finger moves, explores my apertures, my ever-readiness. When my aunt held me, but she did not hold me. If she had held me, ah! I quick am slapped.
“Jellied, is it not, but firm! Were you tickled up, made fond of first?”
“No.”
I lie, I lie. Once in the garden in the dreaming sun, my thighs explored, my lips to pillage put, tickling of fingertip against my crotch and moisture on my brow and 'twixt my legs. I jerked and dreamed, sought with a hand both bold and shy the hardening of his cock. When he panted, coming in his trousers, panting, ah…Faintness of lips then weaker on my own, and brushed by leaves I ran and hid myself, trembling of limbs, and watched his wet patch spread, Adonis crumpled on the yielding lawn.
“You lie, you lie.”
He brings the strap to me, once, twice, then hard across my orb until I bleat but leave untold my dreams, close-folded my confessions so he cannot see, nor read a word or line of them.
Nel' mezzo del camin di nostra vita…
It is not yet, it is not yet, dark drawing of the woods about me, paths that lead to empty clearings, broken boughs. “AH-OOOOH!” I gasp within myself and feel the burning of the leather's sting. My hips weave, sway, out- push and yield again, the heat blurs, ravaging my globe, and spreads.
“Bend your knees a trifle, Laura-more! The pose is seemly for a girl on heat. How ridged in waiting do the lips
