out of her opened dress, gave her a perfect aspect of voluptuousness.
His breeches slid farther down. He whispered, as I thought, something in her ear. Her face was deeply flushed. Her lips moved. Her hands clasped timourously at his shirt.
'Your tongue,' he husked, 'your tongue now, Arabella.'
Her breath scooped in audibly as if drawn by some inward suction in her throat.
'You must not come! Oh! You must not come!'
The couch jolted, stirred. The pleasure train of pleasure had begun.
Her tongue protruded, thrust within his mouth. Their mouths gobbled. Glistening, his shaft emerged-sank in again. Rocking, creaking. His pace quickened. Her knees bent as if shyly at first. Her calves lifted, uncertain in their seeking. In a moment, his cock pounding her with virile force, they were knotted about his loins. A squelching. Their tongues worked. Moaning they squirmed their loins.
The maid who lay at my feet stirred. She had not the vision of them in her eyes. Awkwardly she struggled to her knees.
Katherine, whose absorption in the lustful scene was as my own, even so swung her head around.
'No!' she snapped. 'Stand by the door-your back to us.'
The girl obeyed. Out of the corners of her eyes as she passed the couch she watched the threshings of desire. He was long at his task-longer than I had deemed he could hold in his excitement. Then at last his rattling cry- a swift tightening of Arabella's legs. Her breasts were at pillage. He sucked upon them greedily in his coming, his outspurting. Judders, quivers, a last tight clenching of her cuntlips. Then was stillness.
Arabella's head lay back, her eyes and mouth open. Her legs slackened, fell. Her entire body seemed to quiver at the withdrawal of his cock which left a snail's trail of sperm down her thigh. Her face held a look of vacant surprise. Made to rise at last, her dress caught up, she leaned against him foolishly.
'Tonight again,' he said. He patted her bottom. Her eyes would not look at my eyes. Turning away she patted haplessly at her hair and then covered herself. I knew her wetness.
'In your silences shall you be saved, Beatrice,' Katherine murmured to me. There was approval in her look. Releasing me, she fussed about my tidiness like a nurse.
The maid, ignored, was left to her own devices. Sedately we descended, walking quietly as people entering a theatre after the curtain has risen. In the drawing room the lady we had encountered above sat drinking wine. A maid entered and filled the glasses that awaited us on a sideboard.
'Arabella-you dropped your crochet on the floor,' the lady said. Her tone was reproachful. Rupert had not followed us into the room, I noticed. His orgasm must have been excessive on their first such bout.
'1 am sorry,' Arabella replied in a muted voice. She picked it up from where it lay and took it upon her lap again. There was a flush on her cheeks but otherwise she appeared composed again.
We sat drinking our wine and spoke of mundane things.
FOURTEEN
'Ah!, how she was fucked!' Katherine said as we entered the hansom again.
I had never heard such coarseness. 1 stared at her. Her eyes had a light in them I had not seen before.
'Should not he have fucked her-spilled his semen within her richness? When he buggered her, over the table - ah, how we had to hold her-his cock disappearing within her cleft. Come, kiss me, Beatrice!'
Her arm enfolded my shoulders. Our lips met in a haze of sweetness. Deep her long tongue delved within my mouth. The jolting of the carriage added to the excitement of our embrace. I felt her hand pass up beneath my skirt. I parted my thighs to her seeking. Her thumb brushed the lips of my slit. I choked my little gasps within her mouth.
'Seven years-seven years it has taken him to bring her to thatyet she obeys us now. He will fuck her again tonight. How timid she will be at first, how flushed! His tongue will lick at her nipples, stir her being. Her thighs will move awkwardly, seeking to be opened and yet not. Their tongues will meet. Falteringly her hand will find his cock. She adores bottom fucking now, though he has had her that way but thrice, each time held down. She will come to the strap and birch more easily now, knowing her reward -the slug of flesh within her bottom gripped. Do you hear me, Beatrice?'
I could not hear. I knew not her wording. My slit creamed, bubbled, spurting. Sliding from the carriage seat, I all but fell on the floor. My dignity, my being, lay scattered about me like dying petals. I clasped her, in my falling clasped.
'I love you,' I said.
Katherine laughed and pushed me roughly into the corner. Her fingers glistened. Would she lick them?
'Did you not like my litany?' she asked.
I nodded. The words had been thrown at me out of a box. I had caught them yet I needs must arrange them. A sullenness crossed my features. I wanted to cry. I sought greater fulfilment. Cock. He had lain upon her and given her his cock. I hated the crudities. I shuttered them off in my mind. They tapped at the shutters. I ignored them.
Katherine's eyes were mocking. 'You did not like it?' she asked.
Was 1 under test? I shook my head. 'I do not know,' I said.
Katherine laughed. 'You fool. There are clues. You have not found them yet, Beatrice. Be silent now. Await the teaching.'
Dinner that evening was formal. Caroline sat quiet, attentive. She had been a good girl, my aunt said. Amanda, it seemed, was caged upstairs, her meal taken to her. I wore black, the wool clinging as tightly as ever. There was a new serving maid, a woman of about thirty, comely and plump. The dull black dress and white apron suited her. During the whole meal she was not required to say a word. I wondered if she had eaten and drunk before us. Such things engage my mind sometimes. It is a kindness. Father told me once that it was my old-fashioned way.
We took coffee in the lounge, then turned to liqueurs. There was a festive air. I could feel it. We lounged at our ease. The shackles were cast. Caroline laughed occasionally with Uncle. We were tamed.
When the maid brought in the Cointreau, Katherine took her wrist.
'Drink with us,' she said.
'M'am?' The maid's cheeks coloured.
'Drink with us-sit with us-here at my feet-take a glass.' Katherine's words were pellets. They stung against my skin. The woman skimmed a nervous look around where we sat in a circle.
'Look, I will hold your glass while you sit,' Aunt Maude told her.
The maid obeyed at last, discomforted in her sitting on the floor. Her legs coiled under her. I liked the shape of her calves. Her ankles were slender. Slender ankles and plump thighs often betoken sensuousness to some degree.
'Lean back and be comfortable,' Aunt Maude said. She dropped a cushion onto the carpet for the maid to lean upon. She looked like a houri-an odalisque. Uncle was whispering to Caroline. What were they saying?
'Attractive women often sit on the floor,' Katherine remarked. The maid looked at her and did not know whether to smile or not. Katherine's smile was a cat's smile. With a flip of her toes she kicked off one of the gold Turkish slippers she was wearing and, to the woman's startlement, laid her toes on her thigh. Her toes curled.
'It is nice,' Katherine said. Her foot moved upwards along the maid's hip and felt its curving. 'Drink your drink,' she said sharply. The woman obeyed. My aunt eased a shoe off in turn. Sitting obliquely behind the maid she lifted her leg, eased her stockinged foot beneath the woman's chin and lifted it.
'Lie down-down!' my aunt said.
The maid's arm made a querulous seeking gesture, but she obeyed. The cushion squeezed itself from under her. Katherine circled her leg and moved the sole of her foot lightly over the woman's prominent breasts. She started and would have sat up if Aunt Maude's foot had not then moved with a twist of ankle to the front of her neck.
The maid's eyes bulged.
'M'am-I don't want to,' she whined.
'Oh, be quiet!' Katherine said impatiently. Her foot slid back down. Her toes hooked in the hem of the maid's
