Beatrice

THIRTEEN

The laurel leaves of the garden hedge were dry. I moved my cheek against them. The breeze fluttered my skirt. For two hours on the following morning we had been caged, Caroline, Amanda and I. Then Jenny had taken us out one by one and accorded us twelve strokes of the strap across our naked bottoms.

"Your morning exercise-you may be given more pleasant ones shortly," she said. Amanda blubbered quietly. Each of us sank down in our cage again, our bottoms seared. We were not to talk, we were told.

Released first and dressed, this time in a white wool dress with a gold chain at my waist, I was sent into the garden. I loitered palely. My hands toyed with twigs. The maidservant Mary brought out lemonade. It cooled my body with a sheet of cold within. My eyes were quiet against her own. I felt intimations of newness within me.

Father on the high seas sailing. I would write to him. By fast packet-ship my letter would arrive shortly after his landing. I returned within the house, not knowing whether I was permitted to return, and asked my aunt. The space where the two leather seat-supports had been the night before was now filled again by a small table. Bric-a- brac and vases stood upon it. I looked for the impress of the feet of the chairs in the carpet but saw none.

Aunt Maude sat embroidering. I asked if I might write. Her expression issued surprise. I would find paper, pen and ink already placed in my room, she said. As I made to go she beckoned me. I stood close. Her hand passed up beneath the clinging of my dress-perhaps to satisfy her that I was wearing no drawers.

"How firm and fleshy you are," she said, and sighed. The heat of the strap was still in my bottom. It communicated itself to her fingertips. Her hand slipped down, caressing the backs of my thighs as it went. "Write well and clearly," she told me.

I ascended to my room. All was put ready for me as if it had been anticipated. A small escritoire stood against one wall. I seated myself and drew the paper toward me. The ink was black. I swirled it gently with the decorated steel nib of the pen. "Dearest Father… ." A bird's wings rustled against the window. I rose, but it was gone. No message lay upon the sill. I leaned my forehead against the glass. "Dearest Father…"

I started and turned at the sudden entrance of Katherine.

"There is nothing to say," she said, "it is all in the doing."

"It is not true," I said. I wanted to cry. Her arms enfolded me lightly as one embraces a child who must leave soon upon a feared journey.

"It is good that you know. If you had not known you would be writing swiftly. Is that not so?"

Her voice. coaxed. I nodded against her shoulder. A simple movement of her supple form sufficed to bring her curves tightly against mine. Half swooning I moved my belly in a sinuous sleeking against her own. She released me too quickly with a smile that I could feel passing over my own mouth in its passing.

"There is to be a reception. Brush your hair, wear a boater-it suits you," Katherine said. She waited while I obeyed. Descending, she took hat and gloves from Mary who stood waiting. Two horses pawed the dust outside. This time the carriage was a hansom.

"May Caroline not come?" I asked. My question was ignored. I entered first, followed by Katherine who sat close beside me.

"We are going to see a friend," she said.

The journey took an hour. We passed the house where Amanda lived. The children with the hoops had gone. They sat in some small schoolhouse, perhaps, learning the directions of rivers and the trade winds. Katherine had not conversed with me except to ask if I was thirsty. When I nodded we reined in at an inn. A potboy brought us out mugs of ale. The coachman quaffed his own loudly. With a belching from above and a cracking of the whip we were off again.

The house at which we arrived lay like my uncle's in rural isolation. Stone columns adorned with Cupids ranged at the entrance. The drive was long and straight. Immediately the hansom braked, a butler appeared and ushered us in with the grave mien of one who has important people to announce. We entered a drawing room where, to my astonishment, Arabella sat picking at crochet work. From a chair facing her own, the man with the military moustache who I had seen with her before rose and greeted us. Arabella nodded politely and smiled at Katherine. Her long fingers worked elegantly.

The gentleman, whose name was Rupert, drew Katherine aside to the end of the long room. I caught but a few words of their whisperings. "It will progress her," I heard him say. I glanced at Arabella. Her lips had pursed tightly. I perceived a slight tremor of her fingers.

Katherine turned back to me. "We shall go upstairs," she said. I wondered in my wonderings. The room was one of great charm. An Adams fireplace stood resplendent. Two small lions carved in stone rested on either side of the big brass fender. Blue velvet drapes were abundant. The furniture smelled of newness.

Katherine's voice seemed to encompass Arabella also. Her hands flirted with the piece of crochet work and fell. The gentleman spoke her name. She got up, her eyes uncertain. The lacework fluttered to the floor. Preceding us he advanced into the hallway and up the wide, curving staircase. There, at the first landing, several doors faced us as did also three young girls in servant attire who appeared to be in-waiting. They stood side by side against a wall. Their hands were bound behind them, their mouths gagged. Their black dresses, white aprons and morning caps were of the utmost neatness.

"This one," Katherine said. She selected the smallest girl who looked about seventeen, her fulsomeness evident in the sheathing of her dress about her curves.

Rupert jerked his head and the girl detached herself and followed us, her gait made slightly awkward by her bound wrists.

We ascended again to the second floor where a lady of singular beauty, in her middle years, appeared as if to descend. She halted and appraised us. "A progression, yes," she echoed as the gentleman spoke to her, "it will be good for her. Arabella, you will obey, my dear." Kissing her on the cheek she passed on and down. To untie the other two maids, I thought. I knew their posture, the inwardseeking of their thoughts, the tightness of their bottom cheeks. Their thighs would tremble in the mystery of their beings.

A door opened. We entered a room that was longer than the drawing room beneath. Four windows ranged along the farther wall, the drapes drawn back. The double doors closed heavily. Arabella, the maid and I were ushered to the centre of the room.

I saw then the paintings which hung along the wall facing the windows. There were men and girls in bonds. The men exhibited penises that were either bound in leather or protruded boldly in their nakedness. Each vein was so cunningly painted that one could have touched and felt the slight swellings. Women lay bound, naked or in curious attire, one upon the other. Men with their wrists bound and their eyes blindfolded knelt in their penisseeking between the splayed thighs of naked ladies.

My eyes passed through them as if through mirrors. Except for one. It was of a girl who wore thigh boots and black tights. The tights had been lowered to her knees. Each hair of her pubic curls had been painted separately with the finest of brushes. She was bound to a post that stood alone in the centre of a planked floor. She wore no gag. Her head was upright and her eyes proud. Her long golden hair was as mine. The cherry nipples of her breasts peaked their proudness.

Katherine moved beside me. "It is better to be bound than to see others bound, is it not?" she asked me. I sought Arabella's eyes but she would not look. Her white dress was as simple as my own. I divined her nudity beneath. "I do not know," I murmured.

"Come-we shall know the answer," Katherine replied. Close to the far end of the room a stout post stood, even as in the painting. To the back of it was fastened four lengths of wood in the shape of a square that protruded on either side. Led forward, I was turned so that my back came against the post.

"Raise your arms," Katherine instructed. I did so. My wrists came against the lengths of wood. Taking cords she bound them so that I was held as on a cross. "He will not have seen you before," Katherine said and threw a smile over her shoulder at Rupert who had moved closely behind Arabella. I watched her head jerk nervously as he palmed her bottom.

Katherine bent and raised my dress, coiling the wool up until it wreathed tightly about my hips. My pubis bared, 1 blinked and endeavoured to stare past the pair facing me, but the increasing wriggling of Arabella's hips was lure to my eyes.

Drawn wide apart, my ankles were next secured. The lips of my slit parted stickily, warmed and moistened as they had been by our journey. Arabella murmured and choked a small cry. Her dress was being slowly lifted at the back by Rupert. The maid stood like a small tree waiting.

Katherine beckoned her. In her awkwardness she came. Katherine pushed her to her knees before me and removed her gag.

"Have you taught her to lick?" she asked Rupert, whose hands were now busy beneath the back of Arabella's dress. The young woman blushed deeply but seemed frozen to the spot. At the back her bottom was now bared, lush and full in all its proud paleness. At the front the material of her dress looped with some modesty still to hide her pussy.

Rupert shook his head. With such treasures of firm flesh as bulged into his hands, he was equally entranced by the vision I presented.

"Dearest Father…"

The paper lay forlorn where I had left it. No signals flew. At the first touch of the maid's nose to my belly I quivered in my longings. Katherine nudged her and she sank lower as one who makes to drink from a tap.

She kissed my knees. Her mouth absorbed itself above and circled in an O about my thighs. Her lips teased the tight banding of my stocking tops. Her tongue sought the soft-firm flesh of my inner thighs. I bent my knees slightly. I offered, sought. As through crazed glass I watched Rupert's hands desert Arabella's bottom and glide beneath her armpits to unfasten the front of her dress.

I wanted her. Her mouth, her tongue. I sought to reach her with my eyes, but hers were dazed. As her breasts were bared she whimpered and struggled. Pink of face he held her. Her nipples extended through his fingers. The jellied mounds stirred beneath his seekings.

I felt the outflicking of the maid's tongue ere it reached me, touched my lovelies. I wanted not to moan. I must not moan. Thumbs parted my lips and sought my clitoris, my button, my ariser. The tongue tip swirled. I knew its cunning. Ah! she was good. Starshells burst in my belly. I whimpered, ground my hips. Her tongue would not reach into me. I wanted it.

Did I cry out? On the brink of my salty spray, my spilling, 1 tremored in a cloud of delight.

"There is nothing to say. It is all in the doing," Katherine had said.. Arabella was as one swooning. The arms of Rupert upheld her. Her dress was raised in front-her thighs, her longing. Her bush was plump-a perfect mound of Venus. Had it been creamed, or only her bottom yet? I knew the answer soon.

"Enough!" Katherine said. She stirred the maid with her foot. The girl fell back and twisted sideways. Her shoulder bumped the floor. Her small pink tongue licked around her lips.

Arabella's struggles renewed at Katherine's turning. Her eyes were wild as hunted fawns. Traitorous, her nipples shone erect. Her thighs clenched together. Her stockings of light grey silk rubbed. The noise made an electric hissing. Did she not know it as an invitation?

I held upon my cross. The maid beneath me did not stir save to glance slyly up between my legs. I used the coldness of my eyes upon her. She blushed and hid her eyes. They were eyes that would move and rustle in the grass at night. In her truckle bed she would lie at evening beneath a coarse blanket. Upon heavy footsteps waiting. A cottage smallness. The cramped places of lust. A heaving of loins. lettings of desire. Globules of sperm upon her pussy hairs. Small legs, perfectly shaped, stirred beneath her skirt-.

I would buy her, perhaps.

"No!"

Arabella screamed foolishly as she was borne to a couch of purple velvet, her dress raised high to bare her belly.

"Wha-aaaaah!" Her screams became hysteria as Katherine assisted in thrusting her down, mounting upon her shoulders as she had mounted upon my face. Wildly as Arabella kicked she could not escape the scooping back of her knees by Katherine. Her slit showed pulpy in its fullness.

For the battle now Rupert prepared, casting off his jacket and lowering his breeches. His cockprong pronged a full nine inches long. The head was purplish, swollen. His hands assisted Katherine's in parting Arabella's long milky thighs. Arabella's shoulders bucked. She was held. Her anguished cries half-extinguished beneath Katherine's skirt bubbled away. "You have had her bottom only?" Katherine asked.

"Thrice-including her penance over the table when she was birched. How magnificent she looks!"

For long moments while Arabella blindly squirmed her hips, he gazed upon the fount of his desiring. I wanted the maid again-her tongue. In my proudness I did not ask. Only the silent pulsing of my quim beseeched.

With a groan he was entered.

"Slowly-slowly," Katherine breathed. An eagle perched, she gazed upon the conquest-the curl-fringed lips that rolled in succulence, parting to the charger's crest. Arabella's thighs quivered in their grip. Hands scooped her bottom, the strength of him lifting her.

Inklings of surrender I sensed even as the veined shaft sank within. Inklings. It is a pretty word. Small notes of sound spattered with ink. The acquiescence of her bottom stirred me. It shifted little on his cupping palms once she was shafted to the full.

My instincts were shared, it seemed. Of a sudden, Katherine dismounted from the nubile beauty who held the cock fullclenched within her now. Puffed of cheeks that were sheened with moisture, Arabella stirred but faintly. His belly pressed upon hers. Their pubic hairs mingled. I could feel his throbbing as within myself-the gently ticking impulse of desire.

Arabella succumbed. Elegant in their fullness, her stockinged legs slid down from his loosing grasp. The heels of her boots stirred upon the velvet of the couch. Her legs trembled and straightened. Her large breasts, tumbled out of her opened dress, gave her a perfect aspect of voluptuousness.

His breeches slid farther down. He whispered, as I thought, something in her ear. Her face was deeply flushed. Her lips moved. Her hands clasped timourously at his shirt.

"Your tongue," he husked, "your tongue now, Arabella."

Her breath scooped in audibly as if drawn by some inward suction in her throat.

"You must not come! Oh! You must not come!"

The couch jolted, stirred. The pleasure train of pleasure had begun.

Her tongue protruded, thrust within his mouth. Their mouths gobbled. Glistening, his shaft emerged-sank in again. Rocking, creaking. His pace quickened. Her knees bent as if shyly at first. Her calves lifted, uncertain in their seeking. In a moment, his cock pounding her with virile force, they were knotted about his loins. A squelching. Their tongues worked. Moaning they squirmed their loins.

The maid who lay at my feet stirred. She had not the vision of them in her eyes. Awkwardly she struggled to her knees.

Katherine, whose absorption in the lustful scene was as my own, even so swung her head around.

"No!" she snapped. "Stand by the door-your back to us."

The girl obeyed. Out of the corners of her eyes as she passed the couch she watched the threshings of desire. He was long at his task-longer than I had deemed he could hold in his excitement. Then at last his rattling cry- a swift tightening of Arabella's legs. Her breasts were at pillage. He sucked upon them greedily in his coming, his outspurting. Judders, quivers, a last tight clenching of her cuntlips. Then was stillness.

Arabella's head lay back, her eyes and mouth open. Her legs slackened, fell. Her entire body seemed to quiver at the withdrawal of his cock which left a snail's trail of sperm down her thigh. Her face held a look of vacant surprise. Made to rise at last, her dress caught up, she leaned against him foolishly.

"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.