For his part, Rene wasn't looking forward to this trip as much as he had to similar ones he had carried out with young women who were just as beautiful as his latest songstress. It would have dented his ego somewhat to admit that he would have preferred to keep this one to himself. Deep down, he knew it was the truth. But tradition demanded he submit to the will of his ancestors.
So stop looking at her, he told himself. If you keep glancing at her like that, she will smile like she does, then you will have to pull over to the side of the road and take her here and now. That means you would have spoiled the merchandise, and Mother would not be pleased with you.
So Rene made an extra effort to keep his eyes on the road while Sheree gazed unseeing at the scenery.
Despite the roads from New Orleans having been upgraded in recent years with the coming of the automobile, their condition deteriorated once they'd gained the rich countryside around the Mississippi delta where mules hadn't entirely been superseded by the tractor.
Rene narrowed his eyes as he drove and did his best to divert his mind from the young woman sat beside him. Because of what was about to happen, his thoughts automatically went to his wife.
Stacey had been peeved as usual when he'd told her where he was going. He'd asked her to accompany him, but she'd declined.
'And wilt beneath your mother's contemptuous gaze. Not me, Rene darling. I'd sooner wilt in the heat of this damned city. And, anyway, it's her world. Her show.'
Rene had not been entirely disappointed that his wife would not be accompanying him. He smiled as he glanced appreciably at the slim form beside him so elegantly turned out in a bright yellow shift and a matching hat with navy trim and similar shoes. He could hear the rustle of her silk stockings as her knees rubbed against each other. Just thinking like that, he began to imagine the way her stocking enclosed her leg and how her garter formed a barrier between the covered flesh of her leg and the white, naked flesh of her upper thighs.
He took a deep breath of air, but in his mind he was sniffing the warmer confines up under her skirt. He was imagining the feel of her flesh beneath his hands and the smell of her once he had coaxed her legs open.
In his mind his fingers were sliding over her inner thighs and sliding beneath the crutch of her silky soft knickers to her silky soft pubic hair.
Tight curls, he thought. Tight, black curls that spring around the fingers. And warm, slippery, sensual flesh that moistens the fingertips and swells in response to gentle manipulation.
Perhaps, he thought, the moment might come yet. If he could lay his sense of duty aside, he would have her in exactly the way he wanted to have her. But tradition...
No. He mustn't think like that. He must remember what she represented; what he represented. Best if he'd never set eyes on her. But he had, and doing so could be his undoing.
From the first moment he'd seen her, he'd contemplated her body, but only whilst in the company of his wife.
But he had fallen for Sheree. He knew it and Stacey knew it.
'Get her to sign that contract, Rene,' Stacey had insisted. 'It's time for her to go.'
He had deliberated. He admitted that. But now it was done and there was no turning back. Sheree and her contract would be up to the highest bidder and, so far, she knew nothing about this. But she soon would. Once they were at his family home he would put her at ease by showing her round the place. After that, his mother would take charge of her and, following in a long line of historical precedents, she would get her ready for the main event.
He tried to convince himself that everything would go smoothly; that Sheree would not kick up a fuss at being sold along with her contract.
He thought of the others who had gone the same way. Others like Emmeline who had gone on to dance at the famous Cotton Club.
There were no guarantees that everything would run smoothly. His mother ran a strict house and Sheree might be a little surprised at some of her eccentricities. Not that those eccentricities were part of her character, but more an inherent family tradition.
What would be Sheree's response, he wondered.
He took the opportunity to glance at her. He smiled at her reassuringly before turning his eyes back to the road. It wasn't easy to concentrate, and the vision of her naked thighs and the feel of her sex beneath its covering of silk didn't help.
His thigh rubbed gently against hers, which in turn ignited a delicious tingling in his crotch. Say something, he thought to himself. If you say something, you'll regain your self-control.
'Nearly there.' It was all he could manage as the red dust that gathered between road and gutter swirled up then resettled as they passed.
She merely smiled. He wondered what she was thinking.
Had Stacey told her of the family business and how a humble bunch of Canucks had ended up owning such a fine house and land? He hoped not. Not yet. It might frighten her away.
Chapter 18
Errol made a few enquiries at big houses where servants were changed as often as bed linen, but didn't get very far until he reached the last one.
It was a cream painted house with green and yellow sun-blinds pulled out over the windows, the same sort he'd seen used over the windows of ice-cream parlours.
He'd got no reply at the front door, so went round to the back and knocked on a pale green door that looked in need of painting.
A slim, big-eyed girl with her black, woolly hair tied back in a stiff bun beneath a starched white cap opened the door about six inches, looked him up and down, then opened it wide.
He asked her whether Shirley Anne had come asking for a job.
'Can't say I remember the name. What sort of job would she have been after?'
Errol shrugged. 'Hell. I don't know. Maid, I suppose. Something like that.'
The girl he was talking to pursed her lips. There was a lot of daring in her eyes and a sassy tilt to the way she held her chin. 'Was she pretty?'
She raised one eyebrow suggestively while she studied him from head to toe.
Errol nodded. 'Yes. Green eyes. Dark brown hair. Slim. Nice figure. Like yourself.'
She smiled. 'Thanks, big boy.'
Errol felt like blushing. It wasn't that anyone hadn't called him that before, it was just that this saucy piece of skirt had glanced suggestively at his cock as she said it, and his cock responded as though taking it personally.
Sweat erupted at the nape of his neck and began a slow, sexy trickle down his spine.
The girl seemed to notice he was getting uptight. 'You feeling hot?' she asked him. 'Like a lemonade here in the cool?'
As she asked, she jerked her head in the direction of the cool from behind her.
Although he had certain reservations, Errol nodded. Yes, he was thirsty. Yes, he was hot. But the last time he'd gone into a grand house, he'd been treated to a lot more than a glass of cool lemonade.
'It's freshly made,' the girl said as Errol followed her into a stone-slabbed room which looked as if it were used for storing anything that needed to be kept cool.
Hams, smoked to a deep ginger, hung from iron hooks set into a white painted wooden ceiling. A truckle of cheese from which wedges had already been cut sat on a bench along with a churn of milk, a mountain of bright yellow butter and three basins of eggs.
The mix of smells was like a range of curtains hanging in the air. Walk near the hams, it was their smell that floated up his nose. Walk next to the cheese, it was that.
Errol's stomach rumbled in anticipation that he might yet get more than mere lemonade. Food of this quality wasn't obtainable in some of the cheap joints he'd been eating in.
The sound of a bolt being pulled across a door made him jump suddenly.
'Hey,' he said, hands up, palms outwards as he backed away from the girl and in the direction of the door through which he had entered. 'I don't like being locked in. You hear?'
The girl tilted her head to one side like she had before and folded her arms. Her look was disdainful.
&
nbsp; 'I was going to give you some food as well as some lemonade. Do you think I want to lose my job? If anyone comes through that door there, I sure will. So do you want to eat or what?'
Errol thought for a moment. The door behind him was still unlocked. The door across which she had slid the bolt was behind her and obviously led into the rest of the house.
He nodded. 'I want to eat, and some of that lemonade of yours will go down well.'
'Hm!' She tossed her head, then put two big tumblers on the table. After that, she fetched a big stone jug.
Errol licked his bottom lip as the cool-looking liquid poured from one receptacle to the other. The smell of lemons hung gently in the air.
He reached for the lemonade.
'Sit down,' the girl said. 'I'll slice you off some ham and some cheese.'
As he drained the last of the lemonade she slid the plate of ham, cheese, butter and thick crusty bread under his nose. Errol breathed in the smell of the food before attacking it. Once his teeth were embedded in the cheese, the girl refilled his tumbler.
'So what's your girl's name again?' she asked.
'Shirley Anne,' he replied after swallowing enough to allow him to speak.
'And what's yours?' she added.
'Errol,' he managed to say.
As he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes met hers. She was staring at him, but smiling as she did so. There was some hint of intent in her eyes and Errol was jolted into sudden reality. What would she want in return for the drink and the food? There had to be a catch somewhere.
'My name's Lacey Lee,' she said suddenly. 'Kind-hearted sort, I am. Wouldn't you say so?'
He nodded and drained some more of the lemonade.
'Can't help you with looking for your girl, though. I'm afraid the food will have to be enough for you.'
He murmured his thanks, buried his mouth and eyes in his lemonade again and began to think about leaving.
'Of course,' she went on. 'There is a price.'
He looked across at her and caught his breath. She was smiling and stroking her neck. But it wasn't that he was looking at.
Lacey Lee had unbuttoned the front of her dress. Her small, brown breasts were resting on the table, the nipples almost as big as saucers and staring straight at him.
The chair Errol had been sitting on fell backwards as he jumped to his feet.
'I have to go!' he blurted.
'You can't,' she said, smiling. 'Not yet. Not until you've paid me for what you ate and what you drank.'
His experiences with Amber still fresh in his mind, Errol stared at her. He suddenly remembered the money he had in his pocket and began to rummage.
'Here,' he said, pulling out a few dollars and thrusting them at her.
Lacey Lee continued to smile.
'It's not money I want.'
'Look,' Errol blurted nervously. 'I got to find Shirley Anne. I don't want to linger round here. No, sir! No way!'
Lacey Lee continued to smile.
'I'll tell you where she is - if you give me what I want.'
Errol was halfway to the door when she said that. He stopped in his tracks. The hand that reached for the door handle stopped as if frozen, then fell to his side.
'You know where she is?'
Smiling, Lacey Lee nodded. There was a look of triumph in her eyes.
'The master was going to give her a job. He'd have given her a lot more too, given half the chance. But my mistress stepped in. She didn't exactly read his mind, but she sure knew a rival when she saw one. There was no way that girl was getting a job in this house or any other around here.'
'So where did she go?'
Lacey Lee cupped her breasts and let them rest on the table while she used her fingers and thumbs to stroke her nipples to greater prominence.
Errol let his eyes fall on what she was offering him. Would it matter if he complied with what she wanted? After all, who would know about it?
Let yourself go.
His body immediately complied.
Her breasts were shiny, her nipples dark as tamarind seeds. They'd feel nice, he concluded. The thought took root in his mind, and his groin. His penis stirred and hardened.
He went behind Lacey Lee. He paused, took a deep breath then, like a diver, he plunged in.
She moaned and lay her head back against his belly as his hands kneaded her neck and her shoulders. She closed her eyes. He cupped her face in his hands, bent over, kissed her forehead, her nose, lips and chin. As he did this, his hands cruised down over her breasts until his fingers were on her nipples.
Immediately he had touched the fatal hardness of her nipples, his cock filled with blood and desire.
Her breasts were soft as silk, yet firm with youth. At first her nipples were tight and hard like pecan nuts but, with his assistance, they grew until they resembled the corks he'd pulled from ginger-beer bottles.
He pulled at her nipples almost cruelly as he used them to lift her breasts from off the table.
She cried out, a thin, wailing sound that arced between being a sob of pain and a cry of delight.
The sound pleased him. It was like a salve to the way he had been treated by the red-haired, white-fleshed Amber.
Revenge made him calculating. Lacey Lee was using him. Not as Amber had used him. He was not chained up and made the subject of perverted games, but she was still forcing him to do this. Not that it wasn't pleasant. Lacey Lee was a pretty girl and one he wouldn't have passed by in ordinary circumstances.
But things were no longer ordinary and, in his mind, he began calculating just how he wanted to use her.
First he pulled her to her feet and forced her to lie across the table, her breasts squashed against the rough wood of what was obviously used as a chopping block.
Then he hoisted her skirt up to her waist.
As he unbuttoned his trousers he surveyed the thin white fabric that covered her plump bottom. Plain black garters held up her black, wool stockings. Between them and her knickers, the backs of her thighs were as shiny and dark as the buttocks that strained against her underwear.
Errol hooked his fingers in her knickers and wound the crutch round tightly so that it almost disappeared into the crack of her bottom and the cleft between her legs.
'Oow, use me,' groaned Lacey Lee.
It was then it occurred to him that rough treatment was Lacey Lee's pleasure. In effect, she was the opposite of Amber. She was the one who wanted to be cruelly used. He was the one who must use her.
Something of the memory of what he had been through, coupled with the sight of Lacey Lee's bottom and the smell of her sex, made him want to do all that he could to her.
Close to his face, a carving knife had been left embedded in the joint of ham. Errol took hold of it. Tugging the screwed up underwear away from Lacey Lee's body, he sliced the knife through the thin material so that the crutch fell away. He hacked at the rest of the material until that too fell from her body.
'Oh, more!' he heard Lacey Lee cry, her big brown bottom wriggling and now exposed fully to his view.
He threw the knife to one side. The sight of the girl's naked buttocks was too much to resist. He placed his palms on them and began to knead them in big, firm circles, pushing them inwards, then pulling them outwards at which point he could gaze at the small daisy of a hole that nestled in between.
'Please,' he heard the girl murmur. 'Please...'
But he didn't want it to end. Not just yet.
Instinctively, he knew she didn't want it to end either. He eyed her shiny-skinned buttocks. They quivered slightly, and suddenly he knew he wanted them to quiver more.
He raised his hand, then brought it down to land with a loud thwack.
'Oh! No!'
The cheeks of her bottom quivered, then tightened. The sight of it responding that way made Errol pause for a moment. Then his cock, which was now free of his trousers, jumped with excitement.
Errol landed another loud slap on her bottom.
Then another.
Each time the richly coloured flesh rippled, then firmed up.
'Stop doing that,' Errol cried, his hand landing on her behind yet again. 'Stop tightening up. Stay loose. I want you to stay loose!'
'Whatever you want me to do. Whatever. Anything at all.'
Errol could hardly believe his ears. His heart was already thudding in his chest. Never could he have imagined that revenge could taste so sweet.
Hearing her words made him think of how Amber had tied him up and told him he would do whatever she wanted him to do. Thinking of her voice ordering him like that made him decide what he wanted to do to Lacey Lee.
He glanced at the shredded knickers, then up at the hooks from which the cured hams were hanging.
The pieces of shredded underwear were quickly picked up from the floor.
'That's right,' he exclaimed. 'You will do whatever I want.'
He tied the pieces of fabric around her wrists but left a loop in the middle.
He pulled Lacey Lee to her feet then, lifting her up, he looped the fabric that tied her wrists together over one of the empty hooks that hung from the ceiling.
Arms stretched high above her head, only Lacey Lee's toes reached the floor. She looked at him from between her arms, her eyes full of a strange kind of fear.
Aware that his penis was thrust out before him like a drum-major's baton, Errol wondered whether the sight of it frightened her.
Then he realised it wasn't fear at all. It was anticipation. Lacey Lee was wondering what he was going to do next.
There she hung, her dress hiding her body. The dress. Errol decided it had to go.
He looked round him to see where the knife had landed. Once it was in his grasp he slashed at her dress and her underwear so that it fell in pieces from her body.
'Oh my!' she cried. 'My dress. It's ruined! What are you going to do to me? What are you going to do?'
This, Errol knew, was all part of the acting. She was enjoying this, savouring the trepidation of not knowing what he would do next.
The throb in his groin was so powerful that he could feel its echo in his ears. Sexual desire had replaced the blood in his body. It flowed through his veins like hot, molten lava, newly excreted from a deep, hot volcano.
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