"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 skirt and drew it up above her stocking tops. Plump thighs gleamed. The simple garters she wore bit tightly into her flesh.
"No, please, M'am."
Neither listened. Aunt Maude's toes were caressing her neck and up behind her ear. Katherine's toes delved upwards beneath the hang of the upflipped skirt. The woman's hands scrabbled on the carpet. My aunt's toes soothed over her mouth. A choking little cry and the maid's back arched. The delicate searching movements of Katherine's toes up between her thighs made the black material ripple. The maid's cheeks were pink. Her lips parted beneath the sole of my aunt's foot which rubbed suavely, skimming her mouth. Katherine's toes projected up into the skirt. Her heel was rubbing now.
The maid moaned and closed her eyes. Beside me, Caroline puffed out her breath. The maid's eyes closed. Her bottom worked slightly. She drew up one knee. My uncle's eyes were strangely incurious. Aunt Maude slipped down on to her knees beside the maid and began unbuttoning the front of her dress. The ripe gourds of her breasts came into view. Her nipples were stark and thick in their conical rising.
Katherine slid down onto her knees in turn. Her hands swept the skirt of the maid's dress up to her waist. A bulge of pubic hairs sprouted thickly. The maid covered her face and made little cries.
"Open your legs properly!" Katherine told her sharply. Still with her eyes covered the maid began to edge her ankles apart. It would be her first such pleasuring, perhaps, though female servants who shared bedrooms frequently fingered one another.
Uncle loomed up before me. He smiled, drew my hand towards him.