Beatrice

TWELVE

Were they good today?" my uncle asked that evening.

We were dressed once more in clinging dresses of the finest wool, our curves displayed. Our boots were thighboots. Stockings. Otherwise we were naked beneath.

"They played in the garden. It was sweet to see them playing in the garden," my aunt replied.

Katherine was dressed in black-a high-necked dress. A pearl choker adorned her neck. Jenny was dressed identically. My aunt was less formal in an ordinary day gown. Amanda was absent. We sat formally.

"You may talk," Jenny told us.

Caroline and I looked at one another. We had nothing to say. It was all in the looking. Her nipples peaked through the wool of her dress as did mine. Our globes were outlined. Katherine rose and played softly at the piano. We waited for dinner.

Katherine smiled at us. "They do not talk very much," she said.

My aunt inclined her head. "No-they are lost in their dreams," she replied. She clapped her hands. There was a tinkling, footsteps. It was Amanda. She bore a tray sparkling with glasses. A tiny white lace cap perched on the side of her glossed hair. The pale-pink of her breasts showed through a thin white blouse. The black maid's skirt that she wore had been shortened to show her thighs. With the swaying of its hem the metal rings showed, ringing her black stocking tops.

Walking to my uncle first she bent and offered him a dry sherry. The skirt rose at her bending. Her naked bottom shone pale. No one spoke. When she came to Caroline and me a flush showed on her cheeks. I posted a small smile between her lips. My look was motherly.

Jiggling her bottom cheeks selfconsciously, she left. Our eyes were pasted on the halfmoons of her bottom like mementoes of a journey.

"She will train better here than at home," Aunt Maude said. There was a nodding.

"He will give you jewels," Jenny said and pouted. There was laughter. I contained my own. Caroline's laugh was a small apology of nervousness. My uncle consulted his watch. There was the sound of carriage wheels beyond, a crunching of gravel. The housekeeper flurried to the door. It was Arabella. Her cloak removed in the hallway, she entered in a dull-red dress of silk with elaborate overlays of white lace about the neck. Her diamonds sent messages of light. Without a word she stepped daintily past our chairs like one who is uncertain where to sit. A glass of sherry waited at her elbow.

"The days are good," my aunt said and smiled at her, raising her glass. Caroline and I were as invisible. "You have passed the days well?" It was my uncle's voice.

"There was hunting," Arabella said. She looked faintly bored, as aristocrats often affect to do. Leaning back in her chair she crossed her legs with an audible swishing of silk. "Three girlspretty and sprightly. They ran not far. We used the walls of the enclosures and the rose garden beyond. They squealed louder than rabbits upon being caught. We pinioned them and carried them within. There were pleasantries. The gentlemen mounted them in turn. They were common girls-field-girls given to such lusts, I believe. Of no account."

Rising, she opened her purse and took out a cigarette from a paper packet. It was not too new a habit then, but few women indulged in it in public. Her hands trembled slightly as she lit it from a candle. The aroma was Turkish.

"You have not behaved. Have you behaved?" Aunt Maude asked her. "The reports have not been good."

The Lady Arabella's face was blurred through smoke. Did Caroline recognise her voice?

"I did not want," Arabella began. Then the gong for dinner sounded. We entered the dining room. Frederick and Amanda served us. Our glasses were refilled constantly. They were the finest wines. My uncle conversed with Aunt Maude and Katherine about the house, the grounds, the farm. There would be a new summerhouse, he said. I squeezed Caroline's thigh. She had the grace to blush. My aunt whispered with Arabella who occasionally shook her head.

"I did not come for this. Will there not be an entertainment?" I heard her ask.

"You know why you were sent again. Disobedience ill becomes you," my aunt told her. Arabella glanced at us for the first time to see if we were listening. Our heads were bowed. We absorbed ourselves in lobster and Chateauneuf du Pape.

"They were blindfolded before," Arabella muttered.

My aunt waved her hand. "It is of no account," she said, "come, you must permit at least a little display." Rising, she moved behind Arabella, bent over her and unbuttoned her dress at the front. I saw the purpose of its buttoning there. As the sides slid away her breasts were lifted out in all their splendour. Her nipples were rouged. Katherine slid her chair back and did the same to Caroline and I. Aunt Maude smiled, took her seat once more and brought a goblet of wine to Arabella's lips. Her throat worked as she drank.

"So you must sit in future when you return-it is more seemly," my aunt told her.

Amanda entered. Frederick followed and cleared away our plates. He went out. In Amanda's hand was a silver jug.

"You have brought the cream?" Katherine asked her. "It is warm?"

Amanda nodded. There was bemusement in her face. A cloud of unknowing lay upon her features. Her lips were rouged, her eyes shadowed. She looked beautiful, I thought. At the flaring of her skirt as she passed I saw faint pink marks upon her bottom cheeks. The hem fell like a broken promise and then lifted again. She approached Katherine's side.

"Not here-to the Lady Arabella," Katherine said impatiently. My aunt's hands disappeared beneath the table at Arabella's side. Arabella's face suffused. Her body seemed to lift a little. There was a loud rustling of silk. Her skirt had been drawn up. Amanda's footsteps were quick, small and elegant as she moved around the long table to Arabella. She appeared to be learning quickly-in hope, no doubt, that she would be released. Would she run to the woods and hide? There would be a hunting. She would be trussed and taken home, her skirt wound upwards amid the tight cords.

"Pour," my aunt said. She appeared to grip Arabella's hand nearest to her own beneath the tablecloth.

Arabella gave a start, her chair creaked. Amanda had bent and poured the warm, rich cream between the valley of her breasts, the deep divide. I wanted to rise and see its trickling-the white lava. I dared not.

"Be still-it will flow down-let it flow," my aunt told Arabella.

A balloon of smoke from my uncle's cigar floated over the table. We were virginal in our sitting, Caroline and I. We looked and did not look.

"Down, girl!" my aunt said to Amanda. Their eyes clashed like rapiers. The jug was empty. Its creaming oozed its last over the lip. Falteringly Amanda placed it on the table. Her knees bent. She disappeared. Beneath the polished table of oak 1 felt her. Her bottom nudged my toe. Arabella's eyes rolled, she leaned back. A soft gasp. I could feel her legs open, guided no doubt by my aunt's busy hands. The warm cream made a white trail down between her luscious breasts and disappeared beneath the looseness of her dress where Aunt Maude had slipped the tie at her waist.

"You liked the horses?" It was my uncle's voice. He addressed me.

"Yes, Uncle." Caroline said yes uncle in turn. The wine bottles passed. Our glasses were refilled.

"Let us be quiet for a moment," my aunt admonished as if we had been chattering constantly. I wanted my boot to slide off to feel with my stockinged toes the bulge of Amanda's bottom as she knelt, her face most obviously now between Arabella's thighs. Tasting cream. Cream on her bush, her pouting, her sticky.

Arabella gave a little jump. Her eyes half closed. "Drink your wine," my aunt told her. The goblet was raised to her lips anew. Her lips slurped. Beneath my feet there came another slurping. Arabella bubbled and spluttered into her goblet.

"Mounted but twice indeed since you visited," my aunt said to her scoldingly. "Are you not bad, my love?"

Arabella's eyes closed. She moved her lips away pettishly from the goblet. Wine spilled its fall on to her breasts. "P… p… p. .. p…" Little explosions of sound from her mouth. Her hips worked, breasts jiggling. The slurping noise beneath the table increased.

"Such ripeness-it is always pretty to see," Katherine murmured. She emptied the rest of her wine into my uncle's glass. He drank upon it immediately. My aunt glared at her. Katherine smiled. For a moment I thought she would embrace me but instead she got up and passed around behind me to Caroline. Bending over her and drawing her face round, she covered Caroline's mouth with her own and passed her fingertips suavely about the snowy hillocks which stood revealed. I could feel the tingling in my mouth of my sister's nipples. Katherine's tongue delved. I could feel it delve.

The feet of Arabella's chair were scraping. The chair rocked.

"You are difficult, too, Caroline, are you not?" Katherine purred. Her mouth was a rose. Would I ever kiss her fully? She desired to make me jealous, I know. The sound of Amanda's lapping tongue was in my ears. Small noises of hysterical sound wisped from Arabella's lips. My aunt held her.

"Look at me, Caroline-haven't you been difficult?" Katherine coaxed. "Yesssssss," Caroline gritted. "Oh, but it was so big and.."

"What nonsense she speaks," my aunt laughed, "you have sucked it-I know you have. Amanda, rise, leave her!"

A scuffling, Amanda appeared, face hot, lips wet. My uncle beckoned her. Her skirt, caught up, betrayed the wantonness of her bare bottom.

"Your report was no better. Worse, indeed," he told her. "Is it not true?"

"Sir?" Amanda asked thickly. Her eyes were bleared, her expression slightly vacant. I expected him to draw her forward and fondle her bottom. To my surprise he did not. I thought of Father. He lay on the beach, perhaps, his cutlass limp, fallen. Pebbles stirred as people approached and stared down at him. He rested in his waiting.

A murmuring beside me, a soft moist sound of lips. I hated Caroline. She was shy. She had sucked the liqueur of love-the sperm had inundated her mouth. She had lain on her bed naked, her thighs apart. Her nest had waited for his eggs to nestle against it. I would whip her.

Arabella lay back against the high back of her chair. Her mouth was open, a look of languishing upon her face. I judged her about twenty-seven. Her hand wore no wedding ring. Her fingernails glistened, perfectly manicured. My aunt's hand worked gently beneath the table, between her thighs. Arabella's eyelashes fluttered.

My uncle waved his cigar. "Take her upstairs," he said to Katherine. Led out in docile tread, Caroline did not look back. Footsteps on the stairs. Katherine returned.

"As to Amanda…" Katherine said. Everyone waited for her to speak except perhaps Arabella who was floating still in a luxury of sensations. "Amanda, stand in the corner there facing us. How wicked you have been!"

My aunt rang a bell. Frederick entered. He carried a small silver bucket wherein stood a wine bottle packed around with ice. Placing it on the table, he removed the bottle, wiped it with a napkin and left it there. The door closed again behind him. The cork of the bottle was round, black and polished.

"Lift your skirts-part your legs," Katherine ordered. My uncle did not turn to look. Amanda's eyes were lanterns. The black flaring of her bush. The curls looked thicker now. The creamy tint of her flat belly.

"Wicked!" Katherine intoned. She took the bottle and moved to Amanda whose eyes hunted the ceiling. The neck of the bottle lowered and hovered beneath her pubic mound. It hung in a straight line down between her stockinged thighs. "Draw your legs together, Amanda-grip it!"

A long hush-rushing sound like a sudden movement of water surged from Amanda's throat. Her eyes screwed up. Her long eyelashes trembled. Ice-cold, the bottle was gripped between her trembling thighs. Expressionless, Katherine placed her fingers delicately beneath the base of the bottle and urged it gently up.

"Noooo-Aaaaah!" Amanda moaned. The black, round shiny cork parted her lovelips and was gripped within it.

Katherine drew down the tiny skirt.

"Whooooo!" Amanda jittered. Her skirt hid all but the base of the bottle. Her teeth chattered. Small pearls of white. 1 want to run my teeth around them.

"Finish the wine," my uncle said. He rose-an avuncular hostand filled our glasses. Arabella's head had sunk. Her spirit moved through forests afar. The cream had long been lapped from her slit, her tight-purse, her nutcracker, her penis-pouter. Her bottom cheeks relaxed in their fullness, naked upon her seat.

I dipped the tip of my tongue in my glass. It swam like a goldfish. I wanted to French-drink again. Was it forbidden? Arabella had opened her eyes and sat up. She seemed more composed. Her head inclined towards Aunt Maude's. Sitting beside me again, Katherine slid her hand on to my thigh and caressed it. I would not look at her. 1 cast my eyes down upon the tablecloth, the white, the serene.

"Are we loved?" she asked me. My mind had already begun to catch at the comers of reason. Amanda stood in her aloneness. I did not reply. I wanted to catch the words my aunt was speaking. Of them all, the Lady Arabella intrigued me most. Her coming was totally voluntary, I felt. Her body held an arrogance of desire, unfulfilled until it was drawn forth by persuasion. Were we all the same? To what dark altars were we led? Darkness was strawberries -the sunlight cream.

"It excites me-I fear it," Arabella said,

"The root of desire is fearing. When you were caught with your drawers down, did you not intend to be caught?"

"I was dragged to my room," Arabella muttered. Her voice contained a sulkiness of satisfaction.

"And mounted admirably," my aunt said dryly, "as you were here, after your bitching. You prefer to be bitched?"

"Not always, but the strap…"

"It subdues you, yes, but you must not grow reliant upon it. Marriage will be no cure for you. It will dilute the very qualities that give you such attraction, my dear. I shall recommend that you are blindfolded in future. It will enclose such modesty as you have."

My aunt twirled the stem of her wine glass. Even as I, she stared at the tablecloth and appeared to muse. "As I recall," she continued, "there is a particular manservant in your house. Is he not called Eric? He is young, lusty. During the act, when your bottom is bared, he will present his to your mouth. Blindfolded you will grope for it even while you are being pistoned…

A cry from Arabella interrupted my aunt. She covered her face. "Oh! I could not!" she burst.

Aunt Maude rose. "Thomas, you will entertain her," she announced. "Amanda, you may go to the kitchen, girl." Her glance encompassed Katherine, Jenny and myself. The drawing room received us. We stood. Parts of the furniture had been cleared away, leaving a space in the centre of the floor. There stood a chair-a black leather one that I had never seen before. It was a simple affair. The strong wooden legs were strutted and rose some three feet. The broad seat -if it could be called one-was a mere sling of leather. Where the uprights of the back rose, another strong width of leather was repeated. In the centre of it was a small hole. Facing the chair so that the fronts of the seats touched was an identical one. In general aspect it was like a crude couch without a back to it. 1 had seen such in ancient Egyptian relics.

We stood. Beside me, Jenny caressed the bulbous curve of my bottom cheeks lightly. Katherine went into the hall and returned shortly. Frederick came with her. He was naked. His prong pronged. Around his neck was a halter to which a chain was attached.

Unspeaking, Katherine led him to the rear of one of the chairs and turned him to face it. His eyes were blind in their unseeing. His balls swung. "Closer!" Katherine snapped at him. His feet shuffled forward, the chain clinking. With a slight grimace of his features, the knob of his erect penis touched the leather slingback. To a slight but disdainful guidance of Katherine's fingers the knob passed through the hole and continued its upward glide until his prick emerged completely on the other side, facing the back of the other chair.

Motionless he stood, the veins raised on his tool which seemed to swell more by the tight enclosure. His balls pressed against the leather below the aperture.

Jenny's fingers quested beneath my bottom, pressing the thin wool up between my cheeks. I strained my legs and endeavoured to stand still. Aunt Maude entered, surveyed the scene and nodded. A faint scuffling of heels came and Arabella was patted and persuaded within by my uncle. Her grown was wreathed up to her hips, her eyes blindfolded. Her legs were superb: statuesque, long, and beautifully curved. The fluff of her tunny was thick with curls. Her thighs rubbed nervously as she stumbled forward.

"It is a simulation," Jenny murmured to me.

Guided by my aunt's hands, Arabella was taken to the chairs and made to kneel upon the seats. But an inch before her mouthhad she but known it then-the servant's prick jutted its menace. Her magnificent bottom cheeks-cheeks such as Michelangelo might have carved in marble-pressed against the back of the other chair. The waiting hole there appeared to centre itself exactly in line with the deep divide between her hemispheres. Melon-full, her exposed breasts hung down. Her knees made to shift in nervous reflex, but the dipping of the sling-seat into which the weight of her legs pressed permitted little movement.

My uncle approached the back of the chair to which her haunches were pressed. His face had a haggard aspect. His jacket and waistcoat had been removed. The top of his breeches was unbuttoned.

"Not yet-you are not privileged," Jenny said. With a last searching caress her hand relinquished my bottom. In my emptiness I stood while she blindfolded me, voices around me. How strange in the darkness of my dark. Did the furniture move-the sideboard menace? I had imaginings. A mystic magic. "Hold her hips." It was my uncle's groan.

"There is no nerd, Thomas. She will be birched if she moves, save in desiring. Open your mouth now, Arabella -feel for it, absorb the knob-now press your bottom back, tight to the leather. Thomas, now!"

Groans, gurgles, cries-a gurgling, a moan. A blubbering, a slap, a sucking sound. Her mouth corked. Her lips would puff around the servant's tool. Creak of wooden legs. A croaking whine from Arabella. Her bottom corked in turn.

In my impossibilities I swayed. But feet away from me the thin inhissing of breath sounded through Arabella's nostrils. Tomorrow perhaps she would receive guests for tea. The polite questions of everydayness would be asked. Music sheets would lay decoratively ranged upon a piano. Her parents would flank her sides. It would be known that she was obedient. The servants would move quietly in their domain. The curtains would be dumb to speak. Her bed would wait for night to fall. Sperm-drops around her stocking tops. Was here salvation? Her eyes would be hollow, receiving messages.

"Ah! in her to the root. She has taken both." It was Katherine's voice. Her tongue licked in my ear. I trembled. I knew I must stand still. In my stillness standing.

No one would ever know. Beyond our circles, no one. We were the chosen, the receptors of lust in our desiring.