moment, then Mama said, 'I was telling them about young Sylvia'.
Eveline drew in her breath, got up, and rushed out of the room.
Jane and I looked serious and tried to hide our smiles. 'Ah, Sylvia, your aunt. Yes, dear. An adorable creature, was she not.
So…' 'You ought to know', Mama said, interrupting him, whereat he perched himself on the arm of her chair and squeezed her shoulders lovingly, donating a kiss upon her bunched-up hair. 'I was about to say, a very quiet lady', he declared, and looked straight at me, and at Jane. 'That is precisely what I told them, dear', Mama said, and looked very sweetly smug at the way that he was hugging her.
In fact, they kissed, and Jane and I held hands. A merriness, like Christmas, was upon us then. On the night before our departure-half asleep, I felt my bed invaded and James nibbled at my ear, urging his hard young prick against my bottom's cleft. 'Go 'way', I uttered drowsily and tried without success to shake him off.
Lying behind me as he was, he forced my knees up with his own and brought his knob to nestle underneath my furry quim, my nightgown being all rucked up. I felt its throbbing and the urge of it.
'No, James', I gritted. 'Yes', he said, and murmured urgently, 'Do not disturb them-they are still awake'. He meant, Mama, Papa. 'You beast', I whispered. -'Draw your legs up more', he croaked. I hissed, 'No, no!', but then he pushed my knees up till they touched my belly and, at that, nestled his crest between my sleep-moist lips and, biting at my shoulder, pushed it slowly up, parting the spongy walls until it was full in. 'Oh, James!', I moaned. His cock throbbed red-hot in my purse of love. 'Ask me to fuck you, Emily!'-'No, won't! Oh, take it out, you wicked… AAAH!'
'Mmmm… darling… you're as tight as Eveline'. 'D… d… don't!', I stammered, but the sweetly stinging, burning upthrusts of his cock made my head swim. I turned my neck-our mouths, tongues, met.
The sibilant juiciness of our desire came sweet to both our ears from down below. His balls squashed under me for a long moment as we kissed, and then he drew it out, wet, long, and rolled me swiftly on my back. He hovered over me, cock-twitching, and I stared at him, his legs between my own-he vulture-poised. 'Ask me to do it to you'. 'No!' I would not say, and yet he knew that I remembered all. The memories of Mary sucking on his penis still obtained. Papa was looking at me, and my drawers were down. Mama had said to keep our doors closed and be quiet. I had been quiet. Many a girl is rucked in silence in the night-only the muffled sounds of kisses and the slurping of a cock within her nest. And then in passion I drew James on top of me, widened my legs and brought him to my thatch. He groaned. The lips enfolded his proud crest. I quivered, arched my back as it sank up and feverishly brought his hands beneath my bottom as it did. 'Say it!', he begged again, mouth blurting moist upon my own. 'Mmmm… yes,… all right. Come on, but do it slow. OOOOH! Put your finger in my bottomhole'. His thighs were naked to my own. My curls grazed his, our bellies bumped. Tongue wet to tongue and all the night was ours, the pumpings and the moanings. I was blind to all save to draw his sperm out, gushing up my honeypot, his young loins vibrant, twitching, as he came, spilling our surpluses upon the sheet until it rucked up stickily beneath my open rose-then sleep, then waking, and James stumbling out into the colder dark beyond. I curled my toes and knew no sense of sin. I had made him do it twice to me within an hour, and felt as cosy as a queen. 'I heard your bed a-tinkle in the night', Jane said next morning when the carriage took us off. 'Did you? I must have turned a lot', I said and threw a sideways glance at her and added, 'I did not hear yours'.
'Oh, mine is quieter', she said with a laugh, but had the grace to blush and look away.
CHAPTER 19
Each of us had fifty pounds, donated by Papa, and folded neatly in our reticules. 'We shall go there', said Jane each time we passed a ladies' clothing shop or some fashionable emporium in Knightsbridge and in Kensington. There was much shouting from the cabbies, all the roads full of the bicycles which had become a rage, some furiously ridden on their spidery wheels by men, and more sedately (with some wobblings both of bottoms and of wheels) by ladies wearing knickers similar to those worn by the sterner sex, except that they were of looser fit and were hidden to the knees by a tight coat. Wildly tinkling bells they rode, the horses skittering and many swear-words uttered by the cabmen while enraged old gentlemen occasionally shook their sticks at all as they endeavoured to cross the crowded thoroughfares. The house in which we were to stay was a tall one at the corner of a mews which I thought a pretty place, with flowerpots on the outer sills and crested carriages that gleamed in black and purple-some in grey with linings of maroon or gilt. The Harringtons had gone away we heard first, to our uttermost dismay, but this said by a reedy butler as he let us in, and then a maid appeared and whisked us to the drawing room before we could even get our bonnets off. There, a young lady, tall and slender with a wasplike waist and the most tightly sheathed of derrieres, greeted us gushingly and introduced herself as Catherine.
In the background was a young man, standing quiet. 'Are you Miss Harrington?', I enquired, for she had not introduced herself and evidently thought herself above such mundane things. 'I? No, my dear-oh, goodness, no. I am but a helpless houri if the truth were told. This is young Mister Harrington. I call him George. Come, forward, George. Be introduced. He is quiet, but in his way is useful.
Are you not, George? Say yes to the young ladies-quite the fairest we have had for a long time'. 'Neither of us are likely to say no to that', said I, but did not smile, for I thought her over-forward and too perky-bright. George, in a pearl-grey suit with black cravat, then shook our hands. His own was limper than mine was. I judged him just a year beneath my age, and wondered at his usefulness, but was soon to be informed of that, for thereupon she whisked us up to our respective bedrooms, saw to Jane, and then closeted herself with me. 'When shall the Harringtons be back?', I asked. 'Oh, we are to meet them on their houseboat, dear. Along the river, doncherknow', she drawled, produced a cigarette and then a lucifer and clouded blue smoke about my ears. Taking the moist tip from her lips, she offered it to me. I sensed a challenge, drew on it, and knew a heady, Turkish taste. -'You frequently smoke? Do you frequently do all things-both of you?', she asked, and threw herself upon the bed and gazed at me askance. 'Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. I have not counted them', I said, and took my outer things off and cast them willy-nilly on a chair. There were no maids to help one, so it seemed.
'Sometimes is nice', she said and looked put out at my directness, 'I do it often, though-last night, this morning, and tonight again I shall'. 'Do what?', asked Jane who drifted in.
'Ah-I forgot that you were country girls. There are all sorts of names for it, of course. Some call it sausage and mash, and others…'
'We know what it is called', said Jane, 'but do not relay it quite as loudly as you do. In the countryside we are covered, mounted, if you wish to know'. Her tone was sharp; I had not heard it quite so sharp before. 'Well,… George is good for that, and his Papa as well. I am used by them, m'dears, am used', drawled Catherine, although she looked put out and had evidently thought us bumpkins of some sort. 'Are we not all? But there are ways to use males also.
Perhaps you have not found that out as yet. What are we to do then if the Harringtons are not here?' asked Jane. 'We are to meet them on their boat at Richmond, or somewhere like that', I interjected and then looked down at Catherine and asked her briskly, 'When?' 'Eh?
Oh!' She scrambled up. I envied her long legs a little bit. 'This afternoon, my sweets. Did I not say? A light lunch first and then we shall be off. Come down, come down-I think I hear the gong'. Such was our introduction to the town, so much admired by those who live within its smoky interstices, but not so much by those who live beyond and cherish woodsmoke and the songs of blackbirds more than the arrogance of city noise and bustle. I would as soon live in a small hut in a wood as in the dusty dens of Kensington or Pimlico. The Thames at least was yielding, feathered all along its banks by leaves, stone bridges, idle punts, and tow-paths where the dog-rose grew. I liked it at first sight and so did Jane, though it was a fairer ride than we thought along the roads to Shiplake where the houseboat floated regally. I had thought of it as small-a sort of wooden hut upon a barge, for we had never seen the like before, and Papa had not mentioned it. The Tangerine for some extraordinary reason it was called, perhaps because of the colour of its curtains which I thought were over-bright. The main saloon was twice as long as our own drawing room at home, and the dining room was barely smaller. 'Seven beds it has, my dears', said the Hon. Arnold Harrington when he greeted us, a gold-braided naval officer's cap upon his head. There were fireplaces and parquet floors, brass everywhere and vases filled with flowers. The bedrooms clustered
