“Moist between your cheeks and moist before. Let me but feel you lightly through your drawers. How bulbous will your bottom mound into the bath! What perfumes you will leave!”
“You intoxicate yourself with your imaginings. I in my turn might say how rich your cock will be with sperm and spendings. Did you teach me to talk thus? I have never talked thus! Tell me I have not!”
“Lewd in your fancies and ever by day a lady-would you have me say this? It is true. Did not the others follow when you beckoned, sparkling of bush, your lovelips thickly dewed?”
“Charlotte brought her tongue to me. I recall now. Over the sofa's edge and I was held.”
“What is to forget? No more than what is to remember. When there were huntings of girls, shy the fillies, then you ever led. Calm in your commandings, you saw to their strappings, the bleatings quick subdued, the legs spread wide. When there were cozenings and comfortings to be done, you saw to it, whimperings of wildness put down, the velvet of your lips assuaging. I have seen you docile at the fire by dusk with angels on your eyelids, yet have seen you wild as flames, your bottom squirming to the penis thrusts.”
I giggle, cannot help myself; the time is all wrapped-in, yet lies about as might cloth unfolded after many years.
“You said once that I bubble like a stew.”
I make my voice a baby-voice as he would wish.
“Bubbling and wriggling, was that not ever the lure of you? Jane is unclothed by now. You had best attend her.”
“Shall you play stallion to the fillies, then?”
I am filled with laughter even as a room is filled with music. There is comfort here, the music heard, unheard. He frowns a little. It is not the time. Hannah enters, followed by Mama. I, quick released, obtain an attitude of waiting.
“Is there linen clean? Chemises, drawers?”
Agnes is at the bustle, enters the hall and then ascends.
“Oh, Laura, Hannah, hurry! The water grows less warm.”
Jane's shrilling trill descends. The time unfolds, the time unfolds. The bathroom-an immensity of space whose fireplace waits for winter-draws us in. Splashings and laughter, fumblings, foolishness.
“Mama said we would speak of ordinary things, sit upon the five-barred gate, prepare for picnics. Mama will chaperone us.”
“Yes, Hannah, yes.”
“How dull she is!” Jane laughs and frills the water with her hands, the first to sit within. I enter, poised between her legs, embrace her to the lapping of the warmth. My titties nudge her mouth, she licks the tips, drawing the nipples up to sweet brown points while Hannah will not look and will not look.
“Come, kneel, Jane. Move your bottom up and down within the water's weight as I do mine. How nice it feels, the surging to our cunnies! Now, Hannah, come within- oh, do but try!”
“I cannot. How foolish of you. What kissings you make!”
“Our lips will be the more ruby for it and our breasts the harder. You shall not spoil today, my love, or I will have you whipped. Come, Jane, she is a spoilsome thing, and she the elder! Have your splash then, Hannah, and retire.
Hereafter your papa will take the water. Drawers and chemises will suffice until you find your rooms. Draw up your stockings well and keep them taut.”
“I would stay with you, Laura, until the lunchbell sounds.”
“You may not stay with me, Hannah. You know the way of it-the teachings are prescribed. Each must make ready for her future fate.”
“I shall lock my door then.”
“You will get no benefit from that. Have you forgotten there is still a waiting time? Did I not promise? Out with you, dry yourself and go. In your walking move your bottom well. Such things are looked for. Roll your hips a little but not overmuch.
“I will not, shall not!”
Face crimson, she departs. Jane, loathe to move, receives my fingers at her bottom's bulge.
“Powder it, my pet, that it may be scented, polished to the touch.”
“Yeth. I shall not lock my door, I promise not.”
“One kiss, my love, and I shall make your cunny tingle for it all the more. In crossing and uncrossing your legs when you sit today, take care to do so slowly that your stockings hiss of all that lies above.”
So am I mistress sudden of this realm? A clock chimes deep below, is resonant takes comfort from its sound.
Agnes is to some seclusion gone, changing her gown, errant in wardrobes. She will brush Charlotte's hair or Charlotte hers. Their breasts will be reflected in a mirror. Oiled is the surface of the water with our leavings. His balls will float in it, his stem stiffen. Hemispheres of bliss will in his dreams plump down upon his knob.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I know my room. Whence do I know my room? Ivy at the walls. The ivy that will listen. A rose garden below, its walls tawny with a splendour of old age. There below a gardener snuffles. I rode once on his back, his leather jerkin rubbing to my crotch. I was fourteen then. There were memories made of it.
Hannah said I should not do it for my knees showed. Her mama replying that all indecencies were not such, I drew my skirt higher but was then struck across my brow by a small branch and cried. Much fuss was made of me. Hannah's papa, carrying me within, laid me on the selfsame sofa where I was yet to be mounted, made careful play of my thighs with his fingers, and kissed my nose with such playful passion that his lips ofttimes brushed my own. I believe this was my first understanding of such matters, for I felt with my knee the upward stemming of his stalk and gave a little jump at that, he laughing and moving his coat to cover it.
Well in this known and unknown world do I remember the laying down of Jane upon a Christmas night, carried in laughter to her room and there the closing of her door. Through the keyhole I saw but a blur of legs. My forehead tapped the panels, moist at wood. Being heard, known, sensed-indeed, perhaps anticipated-I was drawn within. Wine was on our lips, there were sparklings of the night, the woods and fields beyond dark in their waiting for the humankind to come again.
Merry she was. Her mouth, a pussycat, slurred to my mouth. Gently between us were her drawers eased down despite her fretful kicks and wonderments. I cupped her breasts, felt for her nipples hard, gliding my hand within her loosened gown, hiding her face to his as low she moaned and-flustering-heard trousers quick descend.
“Must not, must not, Mama will come!”
“Shush, baby, shush-all shall be well. Have you not seen him stark before, stiff in his ridings?”
How warm the innerness of her sweet thighs, tops of her stockings rolled and ridged to fingers sleek!
While I caressed her there, he watched. Her anguished eyes saw then his balls and cock. She stared, mouth open, while I teased her quim, then-twitching, jerking as she was-brought her with soothing care full under him. Majestic did his brawny buttocks toil. Slow in, slow out, he eased his long, thick tool, probing her nest with liquid fire, both trembling in an agony of bliss.
Perfervid my imagination runs before, as children run in parks when summer glows and ancients frown and stir their withered limbs, dry under wrappings of despair. I shall become middle-aged and haunt the rooms of alchemists of gold, clockmakers, jewellers, turners of fine wood. I shall collect rings, lockets, baubles, mirrors cracked with Time, brown at the edges, potlids, watercolours of the rural scenes. I shall have paintings within which birds shall move, flitting from bough to bough, and then are still again. Only upon my comings will they fly. Others may remark their different dispositions. I, affecting not to notice, will say such things are known to happen.
Statues stir. Perdita once stirred in the rain. Father, whom I called to see, said it was but a trick of light and water, whereat I grew moody, said she had a soul. He laughed. We quarrelled upon that, though not so mindfully that he might not kiss my brow betwixt our arguments, snuffling his mouth within my darkling hair.