She groped my gown, began to draw it up.-'No, no-what do you do?' I blurted, felt her feel my thighs. She snapped my garters playfully and kissed my neck, forcing my legs apart to roll between, was heavy on me, breasts upon my own. 'He will birch me if I don't, and may birch you. Are you not birched?' she asked me. Her words spluttered on my lips. 'No please, get off. If Mama knows…' 'Your Mama knows'. The door re-opened and I heard his voice and saw the looming form above. Tell her that her Mama knows', he said. 'Of course, of course she knows. They are all busy downstairs, anyway', the girl said, mouth warm on my own. 'Let me get up!' I strained to force her off. At that, he fell beside us both and placed his stronger grip upon my arms. 'Take off her drawers and pleasure her', I heard. I squeaked, I kicked, I shook my head, hearing my own squeals-and yet I muffled them. Laughter and cries came faintly from below. I thought of Eveline and how she often leaned against the bedroom door to hear the sounds that floated up on long weekends and how I wished that she would not. My clothes thrown up, my bottom bumped. Ties of my drawers were loosed. I shrieked, whereat his hand clamped firm over my mouth. My drawers descended and were pulled right off, her shoulders forced between my thighs, knees on the floor as then she was. Tip of her tongue-a stamen seeking me between my pouting lovelips.
'GOOO!' I choked. Legs quivering, I felt her find my spot and titillate it, tongue-tip swirling, moist. My tummy tightened and grew warm. 'Descending into pits of love'. His voice was husky to my ear. Oh, I remember, I remember, yes, the curling shadows and the single lamp, the silence save for the warm hissing through my nose as her tongue lapped. My head sank back-his hand slipped from my lips.
Unwanted were his lips upon my own, invasion of his tongue within my mouth. He held my chin to hold my mouth beneath. Oh yes-remembering how my legs strained, strained forward then, knees limp upon her shoulders and my toes a-curl in the first onrush of my spilling spurts. 'She is coming-coming on?' Raising his hungry mouth from mine, he held my shoulders down and turned his head. 'Mmmm…', came her murmur. 'HAAAR!', I gasped. I arched my back. Her lips clamped to me suavely and her tongue still lapped, I spurting on-a fine rain in her mouth, and then, and then, my legs hung still and limp. Half closed as were my eyes, I saw the ceiling as a cloud. The house was not my own, no longer real. 'A fire will be lit in here in winter', the girl said. She rose and wiped her lips, then loosed her dress and drew it off. Beneath, she wore only a chemise and stockings tightly gartered. The hem of the chemise swayed and flirted and I saw her bush. Placing his hands beneath my arms, limp arms, the man drew me up and sideways on the bed, my head upon a pillow, my dress rucked up the more, my belly shown. 'Remain so, for you look so sweet in disarray', he said. 'Me, too?', the girl laughed and she clambered over us and lay on the other side of me so that I then lay in between the pair. 'Mama…', I began. My mouth felt very soft. It was not a cry, but the beginning of an expression of belief that she might mount the stairs and intervene. 'Fires will be lit in many rooms tonight', the man said. Then he took my mouth.
The girl caressed my thighs and fluffed my pubic hairs. Once, I recall, when our carriage toppled, one wheel in a ditch and Mama screamed, I knew only the little world of the dust-hazed coach and its lopsidedness- knew only panic, fear. The world beyond had vanished. So it was within that bedroom then. The drawing room was part then of some otherness, as were the other rooms about the house. The gardens, dark with night, became a bog or a morass, perhaps. Fingertips soothed the innerness of both my thighs-eased them apart again. 'Make her come again', the man said, 'Let me watch her eyes'. I bleated 'No'. Her mouth came over mine and then she slithered on to me again.
'No', I said 'No' again, but clutched her arms. Her stockings rasped to mine and then her bush purred moistly, stickily, to mine, and she began to move her hips and rub. I heard my breath hurr deep into her mouth and clutched her arms. The bed bounced softly as we bumped.
'Do not!', my mind said, but I could not stop. Squirming of oily lovelips to my own, her belly warm and sleek to mine. 'Give me your tongue', the man said, and he took my face, brought it from under hers to gaze into his own. His hands cupped underneath my head. The breath kissed from my nostrils to his own. My knees pressed sideways, opened by the girl. Her breathing came as hurriedly as mine. The seconds passed; I stared into his eyes and through his eyes, my lips apart. He made me stay so, made me stay, watching the hidden flames behind my eyes. My belly tingled warmly and I felt her spurt her little rills of liquid round my quim. 'Emily-extend your tongue.
Into my mouth. Now, do it, girl', he said. 'WHOO-AAAR!', I moaned. The white flames, small flames, 'flickers' (as I called them since) expanded in my honeypot, then held themselves as if within a ball, a sphere, that waits to burst. My corsage was unbuttoned as our mouths met in a sudden fury of desire, tongue long to tongue and wet and whirling round. My hand was taken, drawn down, grasped the root of him, thick root. I squeezed naively and I rubbed him there and felt him throbbing even more than I, his hand insurgent in my dress, my thorn-hard nipples stark against his palm… 'He would have done it to me sooner if you had not brought him on', the girl said in our limpness afterwards. My hand was sticky from the stain that showed upon his trousercloth. The man lay still and sighed and stretched his legs. 'Mama may come', I said. 'She will not, but you seem to have a fear of it. How pleasant it was, though, was it not?', the girl said, warm thigh to my own, two pillows shared between the three of us. 'There will be fires lit in the rooms in winter', said the man. He moved his hand, his knuckles to the wetness of my bush. I felt my tummy ripple to his touch. The girl moved slowly off the bed and slipped off her chemise. Her titties bobbled as she moved. 'You may watch us. Do you want to watch?', she asked. 'She cannot stay', the man said. He sat up, rubbed his face, then turned his body, kissed me on the lips. 'Already you have learned to wriggle and to kiss', he said. 'I cannot stay', I echoed, and my voice was like a piece of paper that lies blank, waits to be written on. Partly to my relief the girl moved round the bed and flung herself beside him. A possessive look was clear upon her face. I found… I found it difficult to move. They knew I found it difficult to move. The man lay back again. Both closed their eyes. The stain upon his trousers was a map of nowhere- nothingness, and yet was stark. 'Goodnight', I said. My voice rang hollow in the large, high-ceilinged room. The door seemed heavier than I remembered all the doors. I heard them say 'Goodnight' and there was honey in the satisfaction of their tones.
Along the corridor I stopped at Eveline's room, soothing my hair with fussy, trembling hands. Her lamp was lit still, underneath the door I saw its gleam and turned the knob. Naked she lay, one arm across her eyes. Her nipples glistened, quivered on their crests, were moist. 'Eveline?' 'Emily? Someone came and kissed me, took my nightdress off. And it was dark. I know not who it was', she said.
CHAPTER 2
'Did you sleep with Rose last night?', Mama asked after breakfast when our guests had gone. 'Rose?', I asked, 'Rose?' 'The girl whose things you went upstairs to see. Or did you not?' 'Oh yes-I did a little, yes. She fell asleep so quickly, though. I went back to my room at last'. I blushed. I tried to hide my blush, but I could not. 'I have noticed in dreams an instantaneous transition from one state to another, from one action to another, that does not occur in our waking lives.
Instantaneous', said Papa. He unfolded his newspaper as he spoke and held it up before him-gazed into its pages. As if I could see his eyes; as if I could see his eyes. 'Am I as slim, my skin as fair, as when you married me?', Mama asked him. 'Instantaneous. There is no sense of suspension between one moment and another', said Papa.
Was it in part an answer to her question? Such subtleties were often spoken in our house. I felt that he was wrong, yet dared not say so. At the moment of the utmost warmth and moisture in my honeypot the night before; at the moment of the electric tingling of another's tongue within my mouth, all had seemed instantaneous. All moments merged into the next. Mama was jealous, perhaps, of Adelaide. I felt a spite for her myself. Had she put her tongue in Papa's mouth last night? In his solidity, his breadth, his strength, solemn of demeanour as he often was, I thought it quite impossible. And yet her corsage had been loosed and half her breasts exposed in seeming readiness. And Eveline, her nightgown off and nipples risen. Quite plump already were her yearling tits. Many such have I since caressed and known the ineluctable, firm-silky feel of them. Their very brazenness invites the palm to shape the waiting globes. Eveline and James had gone to play, Mama said. Often she said 'play', though we three were too old for such. I found them in the narrow walk between the conservatory and the potting shed. Eveline was struggling closely in James' arms. Her hand was down between them and I saw his cock, the helmet ruby and the stem brown-white. I stayed my steps. They had not seen me then.- 'Don't! Stop it, no!', said Eveline. James' neck was flushed; he held her dress half up, her stockings white around her slim, young legs. 'Hold it, you
