'Julie', he murmured softly. She sat up. I felt her bottom shifting up the sheet, and hoped her nightgown to be fully down. 'I have not heard you say your prayers, as I was asked to do', he said. 'I'm sorry-I forgot'. A whispered squeak, and I affected then a little snore. 'Come, do it now, but let us both be quiet. You do not need your wrap. Come now'. 'Yes'. Hushed and timid was her tone.
Her legs swung out of bed, the bedclothes dragged, dragged down, revealed my bottom where my robe was up. I did not move but hunched my shoulders tight, and she retreating, bare feet on the floor. A mumbling from without, and they were gone, along the corridor, the deep warm sleekness of the silent night. I heard the study door click open quietly, heard the whisper-slither of her toes upon the carpet there within. Whenever people mumble in the night, I think of goblins, small and fat, with mouths that never part beyond an inch. I think of gloomy furniture that never sleeps, inky shadows, of deserted stairs that wait upon the first feet on the mom, the maids' thighs twinkling underneath their skirts, hot tea upon their lips, the kitchen cold and vaster than it looks when day has spread its light more fully. Soft mumblings, yes, I heard. A little 'Oh!' from Julie, then a bump, a thump, as though a pot had fallen on a cushion, such a sound was made. My floorboards creaked. I wished they did not creak, yet knew by sense and sensing where they bent and, slipping from the bed, tiptoed as if on numbered squares to reach my door. It had been left ajar. I opened it, heart-thumping, heard a small, quick 'GLOOO!' from Julie, and then quiet again, or almost quiet, save for the tiny sounds that filter through the walls at night, the ghosts of bats, of leaves that died and seek the tree whence they long were blown. Forward I sneaked, and knew my every edging tread. 'A little more', I heard Papa say, stilled myself, then ventured on again in such fell gloom as makes a yard seem as a furlong is. His door was open and I saw a light within. No sound of prayers came, but another sound, a lipping, squishy-soft sound and a hissing as from Julie's nose.
Oh, venture on, my heart said, but I did not dare. For one long moment just the door absorbed me, and the bar of light.
Then-AH!-a hand clamped from behind across my mouth. An arm encompassed my small waist. The voice of Jane was a fluff-ball in my ear.
'Be quiet, be quiet, you may just for a moment look', she said. I made to kick. I dared not kick nor move, so tense was my astonishment and, overall, the great fear that Papa might know me there or hear her voice and come out to confront us both. 'Now move…', I heard and inch by inch we neared the door, my bottom bulbing to her belly as we moved- a dance, slow dance, of terrified enchantment. Closer and closer came the light, and then I saw within, eyes bulging and her hand still at my mouth. Papa sat foursquare on a simple wooden chair, his legs apart, his trousers ruffled down, though all that I could see were trunklike thighs, the back of Julie's head. She knelt between his legs, her head was bent. One hand was forward and the other somewhere underneath. Her head bobbed and I heard a slurping sound. Papa half closed his eyes and murmured to himself, his hands gripped on the raised arms of the chair. Squishy the sounds, as I had heard before, and then I was half-drawn, half-lifted back, propelled around and guided down the stairs. I sniffled, burbled, but dared make no noise. The stairs creaked and crackled like emergent flames. Not until the drawing room was reached did Jane release my mouth. 'What? Oh!' -I knew not what to say.
'A brandy-shall we steal one each?', she laughed. 'What?', I repeated, feeling rather like a parrot who has learned just that. I made to sit, in my bewilderment, but started up again. More footfalls slithered and Mama came in, floating her fine form in a nightgown of blue silk. The world was upside down-I knew it to be so. She must have passed the study door, the bar of light and Julie there and… 'A half a glass and that is all', she said, picked up a cushion, placed it down again and gazed at me appraisingly as Jane procured a carafe, glasses, and a tray. 'Mama…', I bleated, but Jane shook her head. 'Sometimes I want to cry, sometimes to laugh. Are we not all so?', Mama asked. The lamps that Jane had lit shone through her nightgown, and she wore no drawers. All liquid were our movements.
'The three Graces', said Mama and took her glass, we standing as might people in a park who stop to speak and then pass on. She tilted back her head, emptied her glass and bid me do the same. I did so, choked a little and then coughed. 'Discretion is the first thing that we learn-is that not so, Mama?', Jane asked. She slid her free arm round my waist and soothed my bottom gently as she spoke. 'The wedding will be a fine one', said Mama. She spun her glass between her fingers. The rim sparkled, then she drained the final drop. Her tongue peeped pinkly, then withdrew. 'How gently goes the night when all is done and well done, and with quietude, my pets. You have both learned to kiss and stir your hips a little; that is good. Julie will return to you in but a moment, Emily. Go back to bed now'. 'Yes, Mama'.
'She will cuddle you, I do expect', Jane said, but then was shushed. I watched her pick the carafe up. The brandy swilled within the fine, glass globe. I hesitated. Mama pouted at me, said, 'Go on, my pet', and forwarded her glass then up to Jane once more to let the heady liquid spill within. I wandered lonely as a cloud, as Mr.
Wordsworth says. The stairs, dark stairs, received and swallowed me. A scuffling sounded up above; the study door was closed and then on entering my room again I found my cousin back upon my bed, hands up behind her head, her legs apart, lace of her nightgown round her belly's curve, and her dark bush displayed. 'Emily-come and kiss me.' She extended one arm and then tucked it back. 'No', I said, 'No'. 'You have to come to bed'. Smile in the dark-a cat's smile and I hated her. 'There are times when you have to, Emily, and this is one of them'. The voice was not hers, though, but Mama's, who had followed me so quietly that I knew not she was there.
'Mama-she…' Oh, I almost said the words! 'She what? Get into bed, my love. Receive the night, receive the night'. The door was closed. I stumbled forward, all a-maze, head dizzy, and a tingling in my nest I wished there not to be, but Julie's arms enfolded me and drew me down. Her open legs received mine, though I fretted, struggled, then for fear of more alarms, excursions, I lay still and let my belly palpitate on hers. 'Emily, you are a sillikins sometimes. Come-put your tongue into my mouth', she urged.
I spluttered softly, would not do. Her pussy rubbed to mine, her legs hooked mine and held them wide apart. My nightgown raised, our tits were bare again. 'Tasting is nice', said Julie and she stung my tongue, a bee's sting with her own, made my head swim. 'Noo, nooo!' I mumbled, but her legs spread more, rose up, calves crossed in ringlike strength around my waist. 'Rock your bottom, Emily. Oh, nice it is!' 'I shan't!' 'You shall!' 'Oh, stop it, do, you hateful, wicked… oooh!' Mouths open warm and I surrendering, the oily lips of passion there below, between our legs, writhing against each other's as we squirmed. 'You don't know what I did', she mouthed, fur of her bush a-tickling under mine. 'I do. You…
OOOF!' Her finger at my bottom-hole. It entered and I squealed into her mouth, tried to resist it, but it wormed within and held me pinned upon her lambent warmth, our nipples rubbery and stiff. 'Come on, come on!', she puffed. 'Don't w… w… want to…' There was a saltiness upon her tongue. Her lips were rimed with drying cream.
The scent of sperm. I knew it for its savour and its headiness, alike to chestnut blossom, as I thought it then. 'I said my prayers', she laughed beneath my mouth. Far gone, too gone to fret rebellion then, I squirmed my hips, spilled out my spendings, trilling with her own, soared into white clouds tinged with pink and deeper promises of purple far beyond. 'His balls-they were my rosary', she said, and whirling like a leaf I fell, down, down, oh down, into the liquid bliss.
CHAPTER 5
'Many are the marriages made on the moon, and thence the greater part of them should go. Yours is not one of them-no freedom is denied you, nor shall be', Mama said to me on my wedding eve, endeavouring to toss such crumbs of comfort as she could, and yet not coddling me at all. I was directed and diverted as a small stream is, its gullies, channels, passages rock-blocked, stone-hindered, and the glittering waters turned aside to find a new path through a meadow dark, unknown. Therewith there grew in me a hardness that at first I did not recognise, though as a ball of wool is-tossed about a room-I gathered scraps of other colours to me, Stardust that had sprinkled on the floor when humans were not there, and specks and flecks of satisfied desire that fell from under skirts of those more wanton than I then was. My imagination thus was in some rout, yet equally it gathered up a sense of things the more the hours passed to my wedding noon. Upon the afternoon beforehand, when many were the voices in the house, James came to me as I sought solitude and begged me to accompany him to his room. He had been smoking-nervously, I thought-had the aroma of his jacket and looked flushed. 'Only a moment, then', said I. We entered and he closed the door. His room was in a disarray, his guns uncased, books opened
