He took a deep breath, his chest expanding as if to make room for his pounding heart. There was a thudding in his head. Sweat glistened on his forehead and ran gently into his eyebrows. Even when a droplet of sweat trickled down his cheek, he did not avert his gaze from the scene before him. Sheree was making love to her statue again.
Each undulation she made on her wooden lover was accompanied by soft, mewing cries of wonder, delight, and sheer abandon. As her hips gyrated, she threw her head back and fondled her own breasts. So piquant, so delectable was the scene of this slim young woman, back arched and eyes closed, that Rene almost forgot that it was Stacey's mouth around his penis. In his mind it was Sheree's vagina.
'That's it, baby,' he was saying. 'That's it. Take it in. Relax. Let it come.'
He groaned when he came, his eyes narrowed as he watched the object of his desire do the same in the other room. It was as if, he thought, there were only the two of them in the whole building; that there was no wall between them, and that Stacey wasn't there either.
Even when Sheree was no longer in the room through the mirror, Rene continued to stare.
Stacey had given good account of herself as usual and he had climaxed easily, encouraged by her considerable expertise. And yet, he felt oddly unfulfilled. He had a tremendous urge to be more intimate with his latest chanteuse. Not just to feel her naked body beneath him. He wanted more than that. He wanted to know that she was near, to smell her perfume, her femininity, and hear silk rustle suggestively and know that she was behind him.
Placing her hands on his knees, Stacey pulled herself up to face him. She kissed him on the mouth and he smelt his own gender. He didn't like it.
'Please don't.' He turned his head. Her kiss landed on his cheek.
Stacey's face darkened. 'Don't do this to me, Rene!'
He blinked before looking at her. 'What do you mean?'
'Don't come the innocent, Rene. I know you. I'm married to you. I've observed every little emotion that's ever crossed your face or been in your eyes. I know when you're falling in love. You did once with me. Remember?'
Rene took her face between his hands.
'And I still love you, my darling.'
A deep frown furrowed Stacey's brow. There was anger in her eyes, venom on her tongue.
'You'd better still love me, Rene Brabonne. You'd better still love me or it'll be the worse for you, so help me!'
The smile that had been playing round Rene's mouth turned to a sneer. His fingers tightened on her jaw and her cheeks and a dark hardness came to his eyes.
Stacey pulled at his hands.
'Rene! You're hurting me! Stop it!'
Rene's face came close to hers.
'Understand me, dear wife. No male member of my family is used to being given orders by some female member. You knew my habits and my passions before you married me. You thought you were my mistress as well as my wife. You cannot be that. A mistress is always obeyed and, for a time, I did obey you. But not anymore. I am out of my kennel and I will run any hare to ground that I choose!'
Stacey had never seen such anger in her husband's eyes before. Even her usual bravado seemed unwilling to rise to the surface and do battle with him.
Fear rose in Stacey's heart and became etched on her face. Rene was indeed slipping his leash. Stacey was in danger of losing her husband.
When he at last loosened his grip, she jerked her head away.
'You're going to take her out there, aren't you?'
She used both hands to rub at her reddened cheeks and her frown didn't go away.
Adjusting his clothes as he did so, Rene rose to his feet.
Stacey stayed kneeling as she looked up at him.
Rene was smiling, but not with happiness. There was a hint of contempt around his mouth and something unpleasant in his eyes.
A weak woman would have shivered, but Stacey was not a weak woman.
Rene laughed.
'That's right. I'm going to take her back to my roots. I'm going to give her a taste of all that has gone before in my family. Sometime in the past, the history of my family might well have been bound up with hers - judging by her appearance. Don't you think so, my darling Stacey?'
Stacey glowered.
'You don't?'
Rene began to laugh again. 'Well, I am afraid it will not make too much difference, ma cherie. What I want, I get. What I will do, I will do.'
'You'll regret it, Rene,' Stacey growled in a low, threatening voice. 'I swear to you, you'll live to regret it.'
But Rene had already left her. He strode out of the door and he was whistling. She'd heard that tune before. Knew what was on his mind. Knew what his intentions were. She also knew she had no chance of stopping him.
Chapter 14
The train broke down in some godforsaken place that Emmeline had never heard of. She supposed she was in Kentucky or Tennessee judging by the scenery, but she hadn't really been taking a great deal of notice of town, county or state signs after her experience in the luggage car.
All she knew was that this place was pretty dusty, but well nourished by water judging by the amount of birch and maple growing around.
'Have I got time to stretch my legs?' she asked the conductor.
He looked her up and down. Apparently liking what he saw, he gave her a white-toothed smile.
'Stretch anything you want, ma'am. If you've a mind.'
He raised his eyebrows suggestively.
She raised hers as though he had just uttered naughty little words that no decent lady should ever hear. But he probably knew she was no decent lady. Hell, who wanted to be that anyways?
The heat hit her as she alighted from the train and she pulled her sunhat down close to her face so she didn't have to squint to see her whereabouts. She'd also heard or read somewhere that wrinkles come easy in strong sunlight.
There was a clapperboard station building beside the track. Nothing remotely resembling the white painted type of buildings you might see in Maine or Virginia - it was far too dilapidated for that. The window panes were cracked and the rain guttering and drainpipe leaned too far away from the roof to ever be of any use.
Here and there the termites and the weather had eaten through the layered wood. Someone had tried patching it up with odd bits taken from some other construction judging by the variety of differing colours and textures. In a way the odd bits matched because, like the building, they were flaking and dry as cinder.
Chickens in search of scattered crumbs poked their heads through handy holes. There was something macabre about their bodies being left out in the open, a ghostly enactment of their eventual fate.
Emmeline turned away from them and strolled a little. A dust-laden breeze clutched at her skirt and made it rustle and swish up over her knees. It was pale blue with pink and red roses scattered over it. She wore a matching blue scarf around her hat which was also caught by the breeze and blown across her face.
The sound of clucking chickens mixed with that of a rickety rocker as it squeaked back and forth on the porch, the boards beneath it squealing in reply.
Emmeline eyed its occupant, but he didn't eye her. He seemed more interested in the iron beast that sat belching steam as the engineers shouted, clanged heavy tools against unyielding metal, and swore in violet streams at the locomotive's intractability.
'I think I'll just take a walk down by them trees,' she muttered once she'd made her mind up the loco was taking no notice of either the men's language or their mechanical know how.
Before taking a step, she pressed her hat down more firmly on her head and made a swift decision about direction.
There was a path leading through a gap in the trees. It wasn't a proper path, just a track made by animals and people that had eroded the grass and left the red clay hard and bare.
Once under the canopy of high trees, she felt almost sleepy. Only the thought of the guard and his love hate relationship with leather kept her from lying down in the grass and dozing of
f completely. She hadn't gone back to visit him, although he had asked her if she would. Once, she had decided, was enough. Besides, she wanted some time to think about her and Max. There was a burning in her that only Max could ignite into a flame. As sexually liberated as she was, there was something between her and that big black trumpet player that she couldn't get away from. What was more, she was going back to it. It was only Rene that had put a distance between her and Max. Rene with his soft words about her doing better in the Big Apple than she could ever do in New Orleans. He might well be right. But it didn't really matter anymore. She didn't care if some English lord was drooling over her. It was Max she wanted.
As she walked, she trailed her fingers over the foliage that fringed the path and kissed her face and her hair.
At last, the lure of the cool green grass and chunks of dark ferns were too much to resist.
Train journeys made her hot and weren't designed to be comfortable or interesting, that much was for sure. They were purely a method of getting from A to B until something better turned up. Cars were OK, but not always reliable. Perhaps, she mused, aeroplanes would be the thing of the future that would take her from one end of the continent to the other. But not if she had to get up in them leather hats and goggles that all the famous flyers sported when they posed for photographs and such.
Perhaps it might be aeroplanes, she said to herself as she peeled her dress from off her shoulders and let it fall quivering to her feet.
She was about to lie down wearing only her underwear, but stopped suddenly.
She looked around her, narrowing her eyes so she could see more clearly into the darker shadows that squatted beneath the trees.
I'm alone, she thought to herself. All alone. It felt kind of nice.
Smiling, she stretched her arms above her head so that her camisole rode up above her waist. Then, as though she were dancing like she had done at the Cotton Club and the Catnip Club before it, she peeled her silk top over her head and, once it was free, flung it to one side.
Her bare breasts tingled. She looked down at them and, pleased with their shape and the brazen way her nipples were reacting to the air, she wriggled her torso so that they jiggled and swayed from side to side.
She laughed, then studied them more seriously because they seemed to be begging her to. Tantalising tingles reminiscent of icy, unseen fingers caressed each enticing orb. An odd ache played around her nipples, inviting her fingers to touch them, to feel the hardness of their core and the softness of their surrounding halos.
She flicked at them with her fingers, then her thumbs.
Her lips parted. Her breath quickened.
Closing her eyes, she stretched her arms above her head again, then, moving like the dancer she was, she lowered them and slowly undid the buttons of the pale blue satin items that hid her lower torso.
As she did so, she hummed a favourite tune and pretended that the bushes and trees were her audience all there for a private viewing. Today, cried the master of ceremonies, who of course only lived in her head, you will see far more of Emmeline Emerald than you have ever seen before.
Softly, with hardly a whisper of sound, her lace-trimmed cami-knickers fell to her ankles. Emmeline kicked them to one side, wiggled her hips, then threw her arms into the air.
'Dah-dah!' She sang the words as if she were taking a final encore. A flock of birds scattered from the nearest tree.
Dropping her arms to her sides, she slowly lowered herself onto the silky grass and murmured as its silky softness caressed her flesh.
Head resting on arms, she stretched and closed her eyes so she could more fully appreciate the coolness and texture of her bed.
By closing her eyes, she blotted out her surroundings, and yet they were more real to her somehow. It was as if Nature itself were touching her, caressing her breasts and blowing at her pubic hair with a gentle, warm breath.
Because her most recent sexual encounter had been with the guard in the luggage van, she had trouble evicting him from her mind. It wasn't the guard she wanted to be there. It was Max who loved her. Max who was easily controlled, yet played her body with as much skill as he played his trumpet.
The grass kissed her flesh. The breeze played over her body more softly than human hand could ever do. Suddenly, something a little more intense than the breeze touched her nipple. It was still fragile. Still incredibly light, yet more tangible than the shifting of the air.
Blue wings fluttered before her open eyes. The most beautiful of butterflies was perched on her nipple, its wings gently fanning the dulcet air.
Hardly daring to breathe, but unable to stop her breast from gently rising and falling, Emmeline watched as the creature moved its feathery legs, preened its lengthy antennae.
Another one joined the first, its touch making her tense her muscles reflexively as it moved hesitantly up and down her stomach. The first butterfly turned in the direction of the second as if it had heard it land.
Could butterflies hear? She wasn't sure. But she could see that they were moving towards each other, the first gently flapping its wings as its spidery legs moved down her breasts.
The wings of the second butterfly didn't move quite so much as it moved closer to the first.
As Emmeline watched, it came to her that the two insects resembled her and Max. One had been set on a pinnacle above the other. They had separated, encouraged by a third source.
A dark cloud seemed to pass between Emmeline and the shafts of sunlight that pierced through the overhead trees as Rene and his ancestral home came suddenly to her mind.
His home was grand as were all the homes of Southern gentlemen, even those whose ancestry was not honest to good English speaking.
But although his home was painted white, there was a darkness to its heart; a scarlet decadence that was at first oddly alluring and then slightly repugnant.
But you escaped it, she told herself with some pride. Your duke or earl, or whatever he was, did a deal on your behalf. Your new boss went along with it, and now you're as free as a bird.
Unwilling to disturb her fluttering guests for a few minutes, Emmeline closed her eyes and tried to regain the pleasant feelings she had experienced when first lying down here.
But the spell had been broken. It was almost impossible not to see the things she didn't want to see. There were bars all around her. She was like a captured canary within a cage, her life dictated by someone who considered it his privilege to do so, and her duty to obey.
The bars disappeared. Now a mass of hands surrounded her. Men touched her intimately, treating her as though they were bidding a price like she was some piece of meat or some thoroughbred mare.
She writhed and struggled to get away from their clawing fingers. But she felt them on her breasts, squeezing them, cupping them. She felt them on her belly, pushing her legs apart, feeling what was between, pushing their fingers into her, trailing them down between her buttocks, testing their firmness.
'No,' she was crying. 'No!'
And suddenly, the dream was left behind. She was crying out for real.
She sat up quickly, so quickly that the two butterflies took flight and flew away.
'No,' she whimpered, her eyes sad as she watched them go and felt the wetness of tears upon her cheeks. 'No.'
Her breasts quivered as she shook with sobs. Max had watched that crowd doing that to her and had been unable to do anything about it. He had also been unable to buy her contract back from Rene.
'One year,' Rene had said. 'Only one year.' But Rene had lied.
She had stayed in New York for one year and had done all that was required of her. She had been outraged when she was told that Rene had signed her contract for two years. She would still be serving out that contract now if it hadn't been for her English duke. He had bought it out. She was free. New York was now behind her.
She'd been so excited once her time was up at last and had written to Max straightaway. At first she had asked him to meet her half
way and had been surprised when he'd refused.
'I want you to come here,' he'd written. 'I want you to face up to what happened. To your fear. To everything.'
She had not understood at first. Only now were things beginning to come clear, and clearest of all were the facial features of her darling Max.
'I'm coming for you, Max,' she cried out to the trees. 'I'm coming for you!'
Chapter 15
Amber was rubbing at Errol's wrists with a special cold cream that she said she'd made up herself. The manacles that had lately held his wrists were now lying on the floor beside him.
'That's good,' Amber murmured as, with his free hand, he massaged her breast.
'I'm glad you like it,' he said before kissing her.
Her mouth opened beneath his, the lips hot and juicy, her tongue dextrous in its determination to enter his mouth.
Errol did not protest that he didn't like such probing tongues. His heart was pounding in his chest. He knew instinctively that the time was close when he could escape this place. Amber trusted him. Not only that, but he had discovered a chink in her dominating armour. Soon, if he moved quickly but carefully, he would be free.
'Do you like this too?' he asked as he took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
Her response was exactly as he'd expected. She groaned and, with the hardening and lengthening of her nipple, he sensed a perceptible weakening in her willpower.
'Oh, stop!' she moaned. 'Stop.'
Her response was so powerful that her whole body writhed, and her back arched, pushing her magnificent breast more firmly into his hand.
'You make me weak, you naughty boy. You shouldn't be doing this!' But her voice wavered. Amber, he had noticed early on, was one of those women who became completely and utterly abandoned once their nipples were being played with.
In the past Errol had read about the Greek hero Achilles whose weakest spot had been his heel. In Amber's case, her nipples were to blame. Once they were touched and being fondly manipulated, she was putty in anyone's hands.
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