Phoebe wrinkled her nose with a lot more disgust than before. But that was all she did. Phoebe never got offended by anything Katie said. She loved her too much for that.
High cheekbones shining from her bath and eyes gleaming, Katie dropped the bath towel. Like the best and leanest of statues, she stretched her arms above her head and stood on tiptoe before the window. As her flesh tingled in response to the air, she threw back her head and closed her eyes. For the moment, she was all woman again and allowed herself to feel and look everything she should be. In response to the chill air, her nipples hardened and her public hair appeared to tremble.
Fascinated, Phoebe watched in silence. Her mouth hung open and she had a melting expression in her pale blue eyes.
Katie knew she was watching, and also knew what would please her. She deserves something, she said to herself. And come to that, so do I.
‘Phoebe,’ said Katie as she opened her eyes and let her arms fall to her sides. ‘I am glad to be back and I truly value your friendship and support. Come, let me hug you again.’
Invitation smiled on her lips and Phoebe instantly put her arms around her and hugged her close.
‘I have been worried about you, Katie darling,’ she said between scattered kisses. ‘Up there among all those rough men. Some of them are quite dangerous, you know.’ She sounded terribly serious, extremely worried. ‘Especially Carew, Katie darling. I mean, is it really worth it?’
Katie passed her hand through what was left of her hair. ‘I think so. It’s a personal challenge, to me, and to women in general. Anyway, Carew only uses women, and in his presence I am not a woman. I am a boy - a boy named Oliver Tempest.’
Katie kissed her friend on the mouth. Out of choice, she did not mention the way Gareth had used the prettiness of her mouth the evening before, or the way Carew had allowed the boy, Oliver, to administer to his aching need. She had given those services freely. Just thinking of them sent urgent demand racing through her own body. Now it was her turn for a similar service herself.
Her hand caressed Phoebe’s cheek and ran down to caress her silky neck.
She kissed her mouth and her cheek, then nibbled her ear before she spoke. ‘Your suit is a little itchy, my love. I think it would be best removed.’
With purposeful provocation, Katie rubbed her naked breasts against Phoebe’s covered ones. She had a need to change the subject. This obsession she had to master a man who only mastered others was something she alone must deal with. Time was of the utmost and the need in her groin ached for attention.
‘Oh, Katie, darling. I have missed you,’ murmured Phoebe, her voice trembling with adoration. Her hands caressed the sweep of Katie’s spine before spreading over the cheeks of her behind.
Swaying her hips from side to side, Katie murmured with pleasure and kissed her friend. ‘Then show me how much you’ve missed me.’
Phoebe’s eyes sparkled and, as though Katie was but a child or a shy virgin, she took hold of her hand and led her to the bed.
Smooth satin, as bright and shiny as a glass lake, covered the bed. There were hints of blue in it, hints of aqua, and luminescent shades of pale green. The pillow on which Katie lay the nakedness of her cropped head was made of the same stuff and trimmed with dark blue crochet.
She watched as Phoebe removed her clothes until only her pale cream stockings and her red silk garters remained.
‘I always think,’ she said, ‘that bare flesh is more naked, more erotic when just the stockings remain.’ Just saying it made her run her hands down over her body and slightly finger the damp lips that were so well-hidden behind her thatch of pubic hair.
‘Do you really?’ laughed Phoebe as she danced a little jig. Katie laughed, then sighed, and rubbed her bottom against the satin sheet. Once Phoebe approached, she lay on her back, then rolled over and lay front down, bottom up. Beneath the flatness of her belly and the rise of her breasts, the satin was cooly seductive. Her nipples hardened against it as though they’d been dipped in ice, her stomach muscles tightened, and her mons prickled as though stung by a current of electricity.
‘Let me help you relax, my darling.’ Phoebe’s hand soothed the tension in Katie’s shoulder muscles, but tantalised her skin. She shivered as her friend’s cool fingers ran down her spine, then trailed like cobwebs across the cheeks of her behind.
‘You have such a beautiful behind,’ Phoebe said. Katie moaned slightly. Not only had she heard those words spoken against the soft skin of her right buttock, she had also felt them on her friend’s breath. She made more approving sounds as Phoebe cupped each buttock in both hands and kissed it. One buttock was no more favoured than the other.
Pressing her mons more effectively against the cool satin, Katie purred like a sleeping cat. Her dark lashes caressed her cheeks and her tongue licked the dryness of her lips. This was something, she told herself, that she had earned and that she deserved.
Delicately, as though she were painting a canvas with the softest of brushes, Phoebe’s fingers and lips worked on her back, her behind and the backs of her legs. nails of enriched sensation followed their journey and Katie murmured appreciatively. It is as though, she thought to herself, my flesh is being touched by the softest, coolest of silk. But this was not something inanimate. This was a real person. Phoebe was making her feel like this; Phoebe, the friend, the woman. Silk was the touch but in her imagination, that touch belonged to someone else; it was Carew doing this, or perhaps Gareth, or perhaps both, taking it in turns to touch her, to enjoy the privilege of arousing her.
Only they would go further, she told herself. They would pry more deeply into the deep cleft between her buttocks and their fingers would prod at the puckered entrance so secretly hidden there. Determinedly, even forcibly, their hands would part her legs and slither into the moistness of her sex. Perhaps the other would enter her mouth, his cock hard and hot; succulent upon her tongue.
As her imagination outstripped the reality, she clutched at the pillow, pressed and wriggled against the sheer softness of the sheets. She moaned and words of appreciation fell from her mouth. Phoebe noticed them.
‘Is this good, my darling Katie? Is this truly good?’ Katie merely murmured something unintelligible, though supremely appropriate.
How adoring Phoebe sounded, she thought, and how loyal a friend she was. What would she say or do if she knew it was men in my mind, even though it is her hands that caress my body?
With subtle strokes, Phoebe massaged each thigh, each calf and, when she came to Katie’s feet, each dainty toe, her touch soft and falling slightly short of ticklish. When she had finished the smallest toe, Katie turned over onto her back. She folded her arms under her head. She smiled at Phoebe just once, her eyes expressing her pleasure above her striking cheekbones and succulent lips.
‘That was a good start, Phoebe my love. Do you have more for me, my darling?’
Blue eyes sparkling, Phoebe beamed, proud that her ministrations brought forth such sweet words and a sweeter smile.
‘Oh, yes,’ she replied, her breath hot on Katie’s mouth before she kissed her. ‘I have much more to give you, my darling.’
Gently, her lips kissed Katie’s cheek, then neck, and travelled along her shoulder. She treated the other cheek and shoulder the same as the first.
Softly, the warm lips kissed along her collarbone before trespassing onto the swell of her breasts, kissing each one and then the division in between.
Through all this, Katie kept her eyes tight shut, breathed deeply through her nose, and murmured light purrs of ecstasy through her half-open lips.
Affected by the feel of Phoebe’s lips on her nipples, she opened her legs, then arched her back as dextrous fingers ran down over her stomach and tangled in her pubic crest.
Her groans intensified as one finger, then two, delved between her pubic lips. Raising
her hips up from what had been cool satin but now was warm, she met the prying fingers.
Imagining that the female mouth was a man’s and that the fingers had somehow fused and become something essentially male was not easy. But Phoebe was nibbling at her ear, and by turning her nose away from her friend the smell of woman receded, and her imagination became the reality.
Spasms of sensation speared from her vagina and ran in hot rivulets through her body. Her back arched, her hips heaved towards the fingers that delved, the thumb that tapped at her burning clitoris. Secondary to her main sensations, and by no means less pleasurable, her nipples tingled in response to Phoebe’s hot mouth and exploring tongue.
Higher and higher she soared. She was as much in tune with the fantasies in her mind as with the actualities her body was going through. Dipping and climbing, diving and soaring, swiftly, then slowly, she rode the sensations that swept through her body. Then there was no more diving, no more dipping. Faster and higher, circling like two birds; the scene in her mind and the sensations of her body. Two birds, crashing, fusing into each other until they had become one, until she climaxed and fell back to earth like a shower of shining feathers.
Phoebe knelt at the side of the bed. Katie was aware of her hot cheek resting on her hand. She frowned. Carew had been in her mind, and so had Gareth. But they had used her; like Carew did women, like Gareth, thinking her a boy, had used her. There was a difference in the two, yet also a likeness. Strangely enough, she also saw a likeness with herself.
Casually, she raised her arm and looked for the time on Phoebe’s bedroom clock which was made of brass and held by a woman made of pink plaster.
‘Good grief! Quick, Phoebe. I have to be going. Where’s my things? Get the car. Quickly!’
It was a scramble, but she got back into her things, ruffed her hair a little more than it was already, then slammed the cap back on her head.
Her other stuff was gathered into a bundle, and this time the cloth holding it was grey and a bit scruffy. Losing the red-spotted handkerchief in Pursington, and her extra food to a dog, had proved providential in the long run. Only someone as romantic as Phoebe could possibly think that all young rovers carried red-spotted handkerchiefs. “Like bloody Dick Whittington!” Katie had said.
Having little time to lose, Katie dashed out of the house to await Phoebe and the car. Whilst she was waiting, she dirtied her hand in the rose bed and in turn dirtied her face.
She got Phoebe to drop her on the other side of Pursington village and pretty near the main gate to Thompson Towers. Before getting out of the car, she took a furtive look round just to make sure they were alone.
The road past the ivy-coloured walls and the ornate gates was empty. As far as she could see, only the stone griffons squatting on the high pillars on either side of the gates could possibly witness her return.
‘Will anyone open the gate for you?’
Phoebe asked the question in complete innocence. How a house, let alone an estate was managed, was pure science to her. Anything remotely resembling academia was as high as the moon and twice as mysterious.
‘No, stupid. I have to go round the back. There’s a small gate along the side there at the other end of that lane. I’ll be off.’
‘When will I see you again?’
Katie shrugged. Her thoughts were already here at Thompson Towers. The world outside was receding. Quickly, she glanced around her. ‘I can’t see anyone. But I mustn’t hang around.’ Her eyes darted over the lawned verges at the foot of the wall and the black battalions of fir trees on the opposite side of the road. ‘I’ll see you around the tea shop. Usual time. If we keep to that every day, no one’s likely to be suspicious.’
‘So I still can’t tell Edgar?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘He was asking where you were.’
‘I don’t care. Let him ask. It’s none of his business.’ Phoebe looked bruised.
Katie sighed, then smiled. ‘I’m sorry, Phoebe my love. I appreciate your concern about all this. But don’t worry. Bear with it, and I’ll come shining through. I guarantee it. Come on. Let me kiss you.’
They kissed. Phoebe was clinging. Firmly, but gently,
Katie pushed her away, then patted her shoulders.
‘Keep your chin up.’
‘Don’t forget your change of clothes and things.’
Katie took the bundle, smiled a crisp smile, then walked swiftly away.
Don’t look back, she told herself. If you look back, you’ll chicken out and now you’ve started this you must go on.
The lane at the side of the wall that ran all around the estate was wide enough to take something as traditional as the milk cart and something as wide as the latest motor lorry. All tradesmen used the rear entrance, and so did the staff. Although the back of the house was as beautiful as the front, the area designated as trade and service was bounded by greenhouses, rows of thriving vegetables, and piles of rotting compost; a far cry from the front of the place.
Thompson Towers had been built in the sixteenth century by an enterprising merchant venturer of Lutheran persuasion. Father having passed the property to son and so forth, by the time of Charles the First the family patriarch had become even more anti-papist and more parliamentarian than his predecessors. Disaster came with the Restoration and an old Royalist servant named Samuel Thompson had saved their bacon by marrying the daughter.
Other generations had added on extra bits to the place - mostly at the back. At the front, the old place still boasted its antiquity, although an orangery, a stable block, and a Queen Anne block had been added.
The gate squeaked as Katie opened it and prepared to make her way to the stable block and the work that awaited her.
A tall figure in beige jodhpurs, yellow pullover with Fair Isle trim, and a felt brown hat stood between her and the stable door. Light glinted from a tightly squeezed monocle and an impatient hand beat a silver-handled crop against one firm thigh.
This, Katie realised, was no welcoming committee.
Lady Thompson was obviously waiting for her.
Chapter 8
Carew was walking the dogs beneath the black firs when the neat, dark green Austin Tourer pulled up at the gates. Its spokes glinted like silver in the sun and a plume of dust rose quickly, then fell gently as it braked.
The car hood was down and, initially, he barely glanced at the woman who was driving. He narrowed his eyes and focused more seriously on the second person. A slim figure with close-cropped dark hair and dark-green-and-rust-coloured clothes alighted from the passenger side.
Heat flared in his cheeks and suddenly his mouth felt uncommonly dry. It was the boy, Oliver. He was sure of it. Had some passing motorist given him a lift? Then he saw them kiss as though they were old friends.
Carew felt instantly jealous.
Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. You can’t be jealous. You’ve never been jealous about a woman having another man. Why should you feel this way about a boy?
But he couldn’t help it. In fact, just thinking about them together made him grind his teeth.
But you shouldn’t, he told himself. You shouldn’t feel that way at all.
His mind and his body seemed to be in conflict. Guilt, even shame, mixed with other sensations that appeared to centre on his loins and cruise up the length of his member like molten lead along a narrow and enclosed channel. His heart began to hammer against his ribcage. It was Oliver alright, the boy whose lips were as soft and sweet as a girl’s, his eyes uncommonly beguiling and curiously disarming.
Carew flushed more hotly as he remembered the softness of Oliver’s hands, the delicate touch of his fingers on his stem as he had watched his head groom impaling the willing Suzanne. Instantly, as though it had a mind of its own, his phallus had responded, uncoiling and jerking
without restraint into the young man’s hand. It was, he thought, the most erotic moment of his life. He had watched the two people coupling among the ferns and the trees, unobserved and apart from them, yet not apart. At the same moment that Gareth had ejaculated into Suzanne, he too had been coerced to give his own semen into a knowing hand. But it was a boy’s hand!
He swallowed as if that would take the guilt through his system and purge him of his unclean thoughts.
It’s a boy, damn you, he said to himself, just like the ones you used to do it with at school. And yet something inside him would not countenance that. Something inside him told him it was not so, or perhaps that it didn’t matter. Oliver was more beautiful than most adolescents. He was also entertaining and, at the same time, intriguing. Despite all• the arguments against it, Carew was drawn to him.
Only women had ever made him feel the way he was feeling now, though once he had taken them, used them and worn them out with every diversion he could think of, they’d been easily discarded. No woman had ever affected him like this. But Oliver was not a woman.
What’s happening to me? he asked himself. Bending his head back and closing his eyes he tried to clear his head. He opened them again and stared at the overhead branches that seemed to be scratching the sky. ‘What’s happening to me?’ he whispered, but his words were lost on the wind.
Katie had never been inside Thompson Towers in her guise as Oliver, and had certainly never contemplated entering the rear corridors and stairways that led from one scullery and storeroom to another. After all, she was not a servant or a tradesperson.
Ahead of her, Lady Maude paced along like an army Major, head high, left arm swinging, and silver-topped riding crop tightly gripped between right arm and stoutly-clothed ribcage.
The corridor they were walking down had cold stone floors and small windows. Here and there was a faded oil painting or a late Victorian mezzotint; too shabby for above stairs, but too good to be thrown away.
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