by Vlad Kahany
May held her breath as she picked up the skirt and slowly pulled it up to her waist, exposing her long legs, spread wide open, her white thighs and, to Lord Ashbee’s delight, her sex that glistened with wetness.
“Oh, May,” Lord Ashbee exhaled, taking in the sight of her, all her charms, moist and slightly moving to the rhythm of her heavy breathing. She looked like a goddess—the hair pinned in the back of her head, the long slender neck, the perfect young breast, the white thin arms, and hands that clutched the skirt around her waist, the long legs that hung on each side of the armchair and between them as if on a pedestal, ah, the heart of her femininity, the precious flower, the pink folds that were only for his, Lord Ashbee’s, view. So naked and open, May lured him in. How much effort it took for him not to ravish her this very instant!
“Sweetheart, look at me,” he said, restraining himself, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat.
She raised her eyes and met his, dark and smiling. Oh, how she wanted him to hurry up, to tear his clothes off, to fling himself at her, to take her right away, kiss her, please her, thrust into her! But no! He was taking his time, slowly unbuttoning his white shirt now.
“Show me how you missed me, May. Just like you did before I came,” he said in a low voice with a sly smile.
Ah! That smile! He knew it all too well!
She swallowed hard, not being able to move.
“May?” he repeated.
Not taking her eyes off him, she slid her fingers down between her legs and started softly stroking herself, blushing the deeper shade of scarlet.
Lord Ashbee grunted in satisfaction, laying his shirt on top of the jacket, his body—tense from anticipation.
“That’s my girl,” he whispered, his eyes transfixed on the fingers that moved in timid strokes between her legs.
May kept touching herself and felt the liquid flood her sex. Her breathing quickened as she watched Lord Ashbee unbutton his trousers and take them off with the rest of the attire. He straightened up, and she threw a glance at his member already erect and ready. Her fingers applied more pressure to her intimate parts as she took in his naked body, strong and beautiful. She didn’t quite get any satisfaction from him being inside her before, but she felt she wanted it again. As if his erection was the key to curing her burning needs.
Lord Ashbee made a step closer, his hand wrapped around his member and started moving slowly. Up. And down. And up again, circling the tip. His eyes on May. Hers—fixed on his shaft.
He was pleasing himself! She thought in delight.
He stood just a foot away from her and watched her fingers at work, circling the clit, increasing the speed, then slide deeper into the folds and come back up again as her hips moved slightly to the rhythm of her fingers.
“Oh, May,” he whispered. “You are beautiful. Is that how you do it when you think of me?”
She looked into his eyes, but there was no mockery in them, just a question.
“Yes,” she heard herself say.
He moved towards her, leaned over, and hooked his hands under her thighs, pulling her sex closer to the edge of the chair. His right knee slipped under her left leg, and now his upright member was right next to her soaked blossom, just inches away.
Her fingers stopped as she looked at his smooth member, waiting for his next move.
“Don’t stop, May,” he said in a low voice and switched hands. His right arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer to him, and his left hand now wrapped around his swollen member, stroking it slowly.
He was so close to her now!
Almost touching her!
But not quite!
Her fingers started moving fast again, their foreheads were almost touching, and her breasts rose in heavy breathing.
God, she was going to burst in frustration if he didn’t do something!
His naked body was next to her, his strong arm around her waist, and she wanted his fingers, his lips, his member—all at once!
He nudged his hips towards her, still stroking his cock up and down, and the smooth head touched her folds.
“Ah,” she exhaled, and nudged herself towards it, moving her fingers faster. They slid around the tip of his erection, and he exhaled in satisfaction.
“Tell me what you want, May,” his voice more urgent now, his hand still around his member, the tip of it sliding around her wet clit and down to her folds but not going any further.
Her fingers kept moving, faster now, lost between both their flesh.
“I want you,” she exhaled, pushing her sex against his member.
“What do you want me to do, May?” he asked, sliding the tip of his erection up and down her center, touching her fingers that answered with impatient strokes.
He burnt with desire but waited, watching May struggle with words.
“I want you inside of me,” she exhaled. “Please,” she said quieter. “Please,” she added in a whisper.
Ah, she couldn’t wait any longer!
“Oh, sweetheart,” he echoed, sliding his erection inside her just a tiny bit.
“Ah!” she moaned, and he pulled away and paused.
“Like that?” he whispered and leaned to kiss her cheek.
“Yes.” She stared down at his member that barely touched her folds. “Please,” she whispered.
He pushed his erection inside her gently again, thrusting deeper but not letting his hand go.
She moaned and pushed her sex against him. But he pulled himself out and stopped again.
“Like that?” he whispered.
“Please! Faster!” she begged, moving her hips impatiently.
She was burning from want!
“Lord Ashbee!” she pleaded, her hands clasped his arms as if nudging him to action, and he gave in.
“As you wish, May.” He slid the tip of his member up and down between the lips, the pink folds, then guided it towards the center of her senses and slid inside her flesh that swallowed it eagerly.
“May,” he grunted as he thrust deeper in soft strokes, slowly moved in and out, in and out, feeling his urge intensify, almost unbearable. “You feel so good.”
“So do you,” she whispered without realizing her words.
She exhaled loudly with every thrust, her breath mixed with muffled moans. It hurt just a little this time, but how it filled her up and soothed the throbbing inside of her!
“Lord Ashbee,” she whispered, her hands moved up to cup his face, and she kissed him, her tongue invading his mouth to the rhythm of him thrusting into her.
He broke away from her lips, and his hands grabbed her thighs, thrusting deeper. Her legs that were still over the sidearms of the chair opened her to him perfectly. He watched his erection slide into her and disappear, his pubic hair touching her wet curls, then reappear again.
May felt intoxicated with pleasure as their bodies rocked together like waves, her mouth gasped open, wanting to cry out in desire that Lord Ashbee was trying to satisfy in her throbbing womb.
“May,” he grunted, feeling his own buildup and not sure he could hold it any longer. “I want you to use your fingers, sweetheart.”
“Ah,” the short moan was her answer, and her fingers went to work, her hips began to move faster, her whole body, her naked torso moved in a wave. She masturbated violently, pushing onto his erection, and in a matter of seconds, she cried out in ecstasy, then again, and again, exhaling the release as Lord Ashbee pulled himself out and spilled his semen on the beautiful flower of her sex that was in front of him.
He pressed May closer, and wrapped her legs around his hips, her arms around his waist, as she breathed heavily into his neck, planting soft kisses and finally, reaching his mouth for a longer one.
When she pulled away, he stroked the side of her face watching her with a smile.
“Good girl,” he said softly.
—————
It was getting dark, and Lord Ashbee lit up the candle by the bed. May, wearing just the white chemise over her b
ody, watched him with admiration. Despite the quite scandalous arrangement, she felt proud that this man was in her room.
Suddenly, her eyes stopped on his back, and she felt a wave of shock. At first, she thought it was the play of the shadows that projected an intricate ornament onto his back. Her eyes stayed glued to it for a second, and she realized—no, not shadows. They were scars!
“What are these?” She frowned.
“What is what?” He turned around and gave her an inquiring look.
She walked up to him and went around to look at his back.
“These,” she murmured as her eyes widened.
The straight jagged lines crisscrossed his entire back. Short, long, deep—old, healed a long time ago—the scars splayed the skin like a macabre grid. She lifted her hand and moved her fingers along the scarred skin, but he turned around and pulled her to him.
“They are the reminder that life is a beautiful and precious thing,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.
“Beautiful?!” She stared at him in shock and shook her head. “That doesn’t come from beauty.”
She searched his eyes for an answer, and it was in his smile that was on his lips but not in his eyes.
“Who did this to you?” she asked him quietly.
“It’s a long story. One day I will tell you.”
“Did they get punished for that?”
He chuckled.
“They did that because I asked them.”
“You asked for that?” She looked horrified. He leaned to kiss her, but she bent away, trying to get an answer. “You did that willingly? Why?”
Ah, it was too early for her to know about the East End, about The Man, about his youth.
“Let’s say, I wanted to forget certain things. Here. That’s an easy way to explain it.” He let go of her and walked to the coffee table to pour himself a drink.
“So you tried to suppress your desires? Is that what it is about?” she asked. She thought she understood now.
“Oh, no, May. They are the desire. The desire to know more. To feel more. To test the limits. To ease other pains. One should never suppress the desires unless there is an important reason to. And social morals are never a good one. Whenever you deny your desires, they sink deeper into your soul, poison you, grow threefold, and seep into your mind, leading it into madness.”
“What is the solution? Wait, don’t tell me. I know your logic. The way out is to embrace them and give in to whatever it is you want”—she smirked—“and then what?”
“And then what?” Lord Ashbee repeated with a cunning smile and led her to the bed where he lay down, propped on the pillows, with her by his side.
“How do you save yourself from the life of sin?” she insisted, nudging closer to him, supporting her head with one hand, the other—on his chest. “How do you reconcile the fall with the virtue that one strives for?”
“Oh? You think one strives for virtue. Some, maybe.”
“Some? Don’t we all want to be good?”
“We all want to feed our desires. Most are ashamed to admit it and try hard to limit themselves. There is a difference, May.”
“Huh,” May exhaled, thinking something over. “But…”—a small frown appeared on her forehead as she tried to think of an argument—“some of the greatest examples from history show us that even the biggest sinners, the darkest of souls that gave in to sins for the longest time found the way out into the light and it brought them the biggest relief and—“
“Like who?”
“St. Augustine. St. Mathew,” she said and tried to think of others. “Mary Magdalene found God and was saved.”
“Saved?” Lord Ashbee chuckled. “If you call it so.”
“What do you call it?”
“Acceptance.”
“Acceptance? Accepting one’s sins, you mean?”
“The meaning of sin is in the eye of the beholder.”
May frowned. “The society has a certain—“
“The society,” Lord Ashbee interrupted her, “sets the morals that serve the current political and economic needs. If you studied history, you would know that brothels, since it’s a relevant topic, were legal in London at certain periods, or, on the contrary, heavily prosecuted. It all depended on the ruler’s point of view and what course he or she was taking. Consequently, if it’s legal—it is a service to society, just like anything else. If it’s illegal—it is a sin. If sin were a universal concept, this wouldn’t make sense, would it?”
He looked at May, who listened to him with fascination. Her fingers that caressed his bare chest paused.
“Same goes to murder,” he continued, “and theft, and—”
“What about the Bible?” she cut in. “Doesn’t it say God condemns the sin? Are you saying the people who wrote down His words were ignorant?”
“Who is ‘he’, and who were those people, sweetheart?”
May shrugged her shoulders.
“Exactly. No one knows. The philosophers? The thinkers that hid in caves and had a lot of time on their hands to contemplate life, or fight their demons? The deeply tormented individuals? The romantics? The idealists?”
“But they knew the word of God, whoever they were.”
“And so can you, sweetheart. You don’t need a book if you know who you are. But the majority of people don’t. They need others’ guidance. Advice. A set of rules to live by. The Bible is exactly that—a deeply philosophical book with witty ideas so abstract and conflicting within themselves that any person that picks up and reads the book can interpret them the way it suits them.”
“But God—“
“God is us, May. There is no God there”—he motioned upwards towards the ceiling—“or there”—he nodded towards the window—“he is here, sweetheart”—he lifted his hand and gently tapped her temple with his forefinger—“and here”—his hand slid down to the part of her chest where her heart was and circled the fabric around her left breast, his thumb quickly brushing over her nipple.
She smiled shyly and lowered her eyes.
“Your philosophy is surely self-accommodating.”
“Just like everything in this world. Sin, my dear, is the personal concept. Your Mary Magdalene is an example of acceptance. A fictional one, to be precise. You can call it saving, redemption, whatever you want. But it’s when she accepted herself, accepted God in herself that everything else became irrelevant. Once you accept who you are, the suffering is over. It’s that simple. Life is what we believe it is. If you think life is pleasure—then it is. Some people you saw in the slums accepted themselves and are happy living in filth and darkness. If you think life is torture—then no matter how much power and money you have, they are not going to save you from constant suffering.”
“What is life to you?” she asked, looking at him with interest.
He smiled.
“Curiosity. The infinite striving for knowledge and experiences. What about you?”
His eyes smiled cunningly at May, but she looked down at her fingers that were drawing the invisible designs on his chest. She thought about it for a second.
“I am afraid I don’t know,” she answered finally, looking up at him. “I didn’t see or learn enough to know. Perhaps you are telling me things I might consider. I used to think life was nobility. But then I arrived at the Belle House, and that shattered my illusions.”
Lord Ashbee chuckled at the response.
“I thought it was virtue,” she continued, “but my idea of virtue was that from the books.”
He nodded in agreement.
“I thought it was love, but then…”
Her eyes shifted to the window, and she went silent, lost in her thoughts.
“And then?” Lord Ashbee raised one of his eyebrows. This conversation was getting interesting, he thought.
“But then I didn’t know what love was,” she said, and her eyes came back to his face.
“Didn’t? What changed?”
“The Belle Ho
use,” she answered and smiled cunningly.
“Oh!” Lord Ashbee smiled in return. He liked where this was going. “It showed you love?” He picked up a loose strand of her hair and started playing with it.
“It showed me what it wasn’t and what it could be.”
“Could be…” he echoed.
“Do you believe in love, Lord Ashbee?” May asked with a timid smile.
“Ah! Love!” Lord chuckled, but there was hesitation in his eyes. “Sure”—he threw his head back against the pillow as if remembering—“Love! A short experience of an overwhelming surge of emotions towards another person. A chemical imbalance in the brain, I suppose. You could call it love, yes. It’s a weakness. The most glorified but also short-lived and the most disappointing state that could ever possess a human being.”
It was May’s turn to raise an eyebrow.
“How so?” she asked, surprised, for that was not the answer she had expected.
“Love, as a psychological phenomenon, lasts several months, sometimes, half a year, a year at most after which it runs its course. The mind keeps running on the aftereffects for maybe another year, or two, but inevitably the illusions are broken, the senses are dulled and come back to their normal state, but the bitterness of disappointment stays. It turns the two people that were in love into the creatures that stay together only to justify their foolish, broken expectations. That’s why people don’t marry for love—they marry for convenience. It’s the smartest economic arrangement of society. Moreover, as a wise man said, it is impossible to love and be wise.”
May beamed.
“Ah! Said the very man who wasn’t wise either with love or money.”
Lord Ashbee cocked an eyebrow.
“Francis Bacon, isn’t it?” May cocked an eyebrow to match his.
Lord Ashbee narrowed his eyes at her as if trying to figure out how she knew the name. Definitely a creature of the finer world.
“Did you ever love anyone?” May asked curiously.
“Once”—he chuckled—“when I was young, foolish, and full of idealistic notions.”
“What happened?”
“The woman I was infatuated with was smart enough to marry someone for money. I didn’t have that much money back then, you see? So she did both of us a favor. She went on to prove that a woman needs money more than love. I went on to prove that when a man has money, love is a disposable commodity easy to find.”
