After our mating had reached its climax and our blood was cooling, I resolved to show her the tenderness she deserved. I turned her to face me and held her against my chest as though to shield her from the harsh judgment of society. I murmured the endearments that women so long to hear. I promised to be her loving husband as long as she remained my loyal wife. Deceived as I was, I was happier then than I have been from that moment forward.
Hand in hand, we returned to the spot where our clothing awaited us. A folded square of paper lay on the grass where it had evidently fallen out of its hiding place near my Alison’s skin. I bent to pick up the incongruous paper, and saw that it was a letter.
“Leave it!” warned Alison before she could compose herself to speak more sensibly. “It is nothing, Frank dear.”
“We have no secrets from each other, my darling,” I reminded her. “And I am interested in all your correspondence, from your shopping lists to the invitations you receive from your lady-friends.”
Alison looked as though she might faint. She busied herself with her stockings, deliberately turning away from me.
I unfolded the letter and read these words, as I remember them:
Dear Mistress Alison,
How odd it seems to address you in this way after what has passed between us. Please understand that I intend no presumption, but in any contest between nature and the silly laws of Man, nature will win. It is best if you do as I have said. I will count the minutes until two o’clock in the afternoon on Tuesday next, in the place you know. Do not be tardy unless you wish to be punished!
Your devoted, etc.,
Mary
I felt as though I had been thrown from my horse. “Alison,” I spoke her name more harshly than usual. “Is this a letter from your maid, Mary Bentley?”
Alison’s confusion spoke more clearly than words. “Is it?” I repeated.
“Yes,” she admitted softly.
“This is outrageous,” I told her. “You must dismiss her, or your father must do it. No servant with an ounce of common sense would write such words to the one she serves. The woman is clearly out of her wits, or more depraved than you can fathom, dearest. She is as poisonous as a viper, and you must not keep her under your roof for another day!”
I was somewhat pleased to see that my Alison looked truly ashamed. She blushed so prettily that I was tempted to tumble her again, but my parents had asked me to bring her to tea, and we had little time to waste.
I tore the letter into tiny pieces, and offered them to the breeze. As I helped Alison into her gown, the previous location of that insolent parody of a friendly message troubled me a great deal. “Darling,” I asked her, “why in heaven’s name did you carry that letter on your person?”
She turned to face me and looked boldly into my eyes. “Would you have believed it, Frank,” she asked, “had you not read it yourself?”
“Perhaps not,” I mused, startled by her sangfroid.
“Then you see,” she explained, “why evidence may be valuable.”
The oddness of this remark, expressing as it did a certain feminine caprice, caused me briefly to lose my composure. I realized momentarily that my Alison needed the protection and guidance of a husband in her dealings with servants. As Lady Barrenfield, she would certainly need to know how to run a household with grace and authority.
Pardon me, gentlemen. Recounting my dashed hopes is exceedingly painful for me.
When we arrived at my parents’ home, Barrenfield Hall, I am sure that we both presented an appearance of youthful gaiety, perhaps shadowed slightly by the many concerns involved in planning a wedding. While listening distractedly to tea-table chatter, I could not help thinking about Mary, the lady’s-maid who presumed to have such a perversely intimate relationship with my Alison.
Mary Bentley had been employed by the Sweet family for five years, I believed. Her whereabouts before that were open to speculation. When I made inquiries during the following days, I was told that she had worked in a tavern where she was, in effect, a woman of ill repute. There she had enjoyed the patronage of gentlemen of quality who were willing to supply her with the necessary letters of reference to gain her entrance into a respectable household. Far from being a trained lady’smaid, she was apparently an experienced procuress.
No, gentlemen, I have no proof of the veracity of this information. Your insinuation that I might have known the woman in question in her previous circumstances is highly unwelcome. Furthermore, I defy you to deny that personal reputations have currency in a court of law.
From direct observation, I knew that Mary had a certain disagreeable forthrightness of manner that made her expressions of deference to her betters seem subtly mocking. Her features had a masculine boldness of line that is admired by some painters, but not by true connoisseurs of feminine beauty. She expressed herself with greater eloquence than one would expect from a woman of her station. When I remarked on it to Alison, she innocently explained to me that Mary claimed to be the bastard child of a sea-captain who had provided her with an unusual education. The captain’s mistress, whom he had probably met in the sort of establishment where sailors seek diversion, had undoubtedly intended to further her own ambitions through a daughter who could not hope to be satisfied with her lot in life.
To return to my narrative, however: I decided to investigate the mysterious appointment referred to in the fateful letter. After reminding Alison that her maid must be dismissed and that she must be prepared to dress her own hair until a suitable replacement could be found, I told her that I had an appointment with my solicitor on the following Tuesday afternoon. I assured her that I needed to make financial arrangements which would ensure her security as my wife.
Half an hour before the appointed time, I waited behind a hedge on the grounds of the Sweet family home for a sight of my beloved. She appeared, looking apprehensive, and walked briskly in the direction of the woods. Before she could disappear from my view, I followed stealthily.
As silently as an Indian scout, I followed her into the woods and at length to the banks of a stream where, in a happier time, Alison and I had dined in the open air after a leisurely rowing expedition. Now the figure of a man in hunting clothes approached my Alison, striding vigorously from the opposite direction. I reached for one of the pistols that I carry with me on occasions when I may be required to protect those in danger.
To my horror, Alison flung herself upon the stranger before I could ascertain his identity. The familiar angularity of his face and the sensuous ease of his gait led me to recognize him as Mary Bentley!
“Come, my girl,” commanded the male-female monster abruptly. “We must not be seen.” The two figures retreated into a secluded opening in the woods. I had to adjust my own position behind a bush in order to keep them in my sight.
“You would fool anyone, dearest,” laughed my faithless Alison between the aggressive kisses of the one who held her. It was unbelievable! I felt rooted to the spot with revulsion, but also with a sickened curiosity. I needed to learn the extent of Alison’s betrayal of me, and of her corruption.
“My angel,” demanded Mary, “will you accept me as your husband in America?”
My senses seemed as heightened at that moment as those of a man on his deathbed. I perceived everything in vivid and even excruciating detail: the mournful rustling of leaves, the splashing of fresh water over stones, and the cawing of crows, which sounded to my stricken ears like an ironic comment on Mary’s ridiculous proposal.
“My husband!” laughed Alison with horrid glee. She no longer appeared to be even a distant cousin of the young lady with whom I had fallen in love. “My husband, my mistress, my lover—if the old words will not fit, I will make up new ones, my love. In America or anywhere else. Oh, Bentley, how I wish I had known my own heart sooner! Are you sure you can forgive me?”
In answer, Mary kissed her passionately on the mouth, then left a trail of kisses down her soft neck and the creamy skin that led to her décoll
etage. “Silly goose,” chided the female seducer. “There is nothing to forgive. Papa’s ship sails next month, and we will be aboard. No man can claim you as his property when you are beyond the laws of this kingdom. The salt air will melt away your promise to Frank, and his ring will fetch a pretty price in New York. The Devil shall be forced to give up your soul.”
Mary stroked Alison’s hair, adding further assurances that the breaking of a sacred vow would be of no consequence, that it was even the duty of every woman who loved freedom!
The confused Alison clung to the clever-tongued Mary, who pressed her to her bosom and lowered her to the ground. Both women unfastened each other’s garments in an energetic dance of mutual unveiling. Mary’s male disguise was removed, piece by piece, and the body of a strong, voluptuous woman emerged into the light of an unblinking sun. Her arms held Alison with a strength that seemed better suited to the work of a laundress, while her melon-like teats seemed to bask in the warm air like those of a shameless animal. Her robust, sun-browned form served as a foil for Alison’s rose-and-white delicacy.
I ought to have shamed them both by bursting from my hiding place to interrupt their sordid game. Inexplicably, I could not do it. I remained languorously still, as the pain in my heart warred with the discomfort in my breeches.
I did not even protest when Alison lowered her mouth to Mary’s unfettered dugs and sucked like a calf. “Ah!” sighed the coarse object of her attention. “Little nursling.”
There followed such fondling, tweaking and kissing that the two women fell into competition as to who would first penetrate the other’s inner sanctum. “Impudent girl,” chided Mary, holding one of Alison’s arms behind her back in a way that forced her lovely breasts into prominence. “Do you need a taste of the birch?”
Writhing in her companion’s arms, Alison confessed her perverse desire. “From you, Bentley,” she replied in a whisper that fell on my ears like sweet-tasting poison. “I am so naughty and so frightened that I need correction from your stern hand. Yours alone.”
Like a miserable sailor who has been forced onto the deck to watch his younger brother be flogged, I felt compelled to watch as Mary dragged Alison by the hair to the foot of a tree where several slim branches lay waiting for her hand. She selected a supple branch adorned with budded offshoots.
Seating herself on a large rock as though it were her throne of office, she pulled Alison to her, and the obedient girl complied by arranging herself on the lap of her she-master with many seductive movements of her hips and bottom. Mary passed one of her work-coarsened hands slowly over the soft, pale skin on which she intended to leave her own cruel imprint, and smiled in triumphant pleasure. “Tell me, dearest,” she coaxed, “for what you deserve to be punished.”
“For dissembling so well,” answered the helpless captive, hiding her blushes behind her veil of hair. “For hiding my plans from Frank, who thinks we have no secrets from each other! For responding to him with such passion that he cannot guess how much I fear the life of a wife and mother for which I have been trained. Oh, Mary! I am afraid of a long sea voyage with a rough new country at the end of it, but I cannot stay here! I would go mad as Frank’s wife, even if I am destined to starve to death in America! I am no purer than a common whore who has been caught stealing a gentleman’s purse, and my word is not to be trusted. My own soul is like a bog full of vile creatures half-hidden even from me.”
“What a dreadful confession, my love!” exclaimed Mary, as judge and executioner. “Your soul must certainly be examined and scrubbed as clean as it can be made.” As she spoke these words, Mary spread Alison’s legs apart with a hand that appeared to be holding a kind of stuffed leather pouch, the sort of thing the French call a godemiche, which their women use to console themselves in the absence of their husbands. In despair (as though I were already an insubstantial ghost), I watched as Mary pushed this device into Alison’s obliging cunt. The young lady whom I could no longer call my own sighed loudly.
“There,” chuckled Mary. “You have a choice bit to fill you while I give your outside something to contemplate. Are you ready, my dear?”
“Yes, Mary,” answered the willing Alison. “Only, if I may ask a favor.” The doomed culprit hesitated, as though suddenly overwhelmed by indecision.
“Ask now, Alison, or be silent until I am through with you,” warned Mary.
“Will you begin with gentle strokes? The first few are always such a shock,” complained the pretty captive.
“If I do,” returned Mary, “I will strengthen my strokes until your lovely bottom is sore enough to spur you to good behavior until our next meeting.”
With that, the depraved Mary firmly grasped her branch of chastisement and commenced to apply it to the buttocks that surely deserved as much pain as they could bear. Alison responded with quiet moans, which soon grew to muffled yelps and then to strangled screams, as the sting of the birch echoed in her flesh and stirred the obscene object inside her. Dear God! How well the oath-breaker deserved to be flayed alive, and how sorry I was that I had been too tenderhearted to do it myself! Yet how little she deserved any attention that could satisfy her, even at the price of bruising her skin.
While watching this near-inconceivable display, so suggestive of the vilest performances of the most abandoned harlots, I could scarcely remain silent myself. As Alison shivered violently in her own ecstasy of sin and repentance, I could not remain unaffected. My outraged love reached its own crisis, and I was thus enabled to remain patient for a while longer.
How subtly corruption lays hold of the most unsuspecting soul! While trying to recover my composure, I could well imagine the terrible relief in surrender that must have affected those hapless ladies and gentlemen of France who found themselves bound by drunken ruffians beneath the swift, shining blade of the guillotine. When all hope—or l’esperance, as they must have called it in their prayers—had fled, what calm anticipation must have flowed through them in their last moments. If this is God’s compensation for injustice, I hope it will not fail me when I face my own end.
I continued watching the two naked females as the tear-stained Alison knelt between Mary’s knees to kiss the bearded lips between them. With no sign of distaste or hesitation, Alison used her rosy lips and tongue to give pleasure until Mary shuddered and panted like a hunting dog in full chase. The graceless pleasure-seeker caressed her willing servant’s hair and face, and told her that it was enough.
“My beautiful girl,” murmured the self-styled she-husband. “I love you so much. Have courage, dear. You are stronger than you know, and I will be with you always.”
Alison rested her head on Mary’s knees. “Darling,” she asked, “do you think that women in America have all the rights of citizens?”
“I am sure they have,” responded Mary. “The Americans are allies of France, and their government was founded on the same principles: liberté, égalité, fraternité. They can hardly deny us any of the Rights of Man.”
“Oh Mary,” sighed the juvenile and misguided young lady. “I would give up everything I own to be as free as a man! I want to earn my keep, but what trade could I follow in America?”
Mary gently raised her companion up until the two were standing together, wrapped in each other’s arms. They swayed gently in a rhythmic, silent dance as Mary sought to comfort Alison without words. I was given a clear view of Alison’s red bottom, which aroused me despite the distaste-fulness of my position. We three seemed wrapped in a strange and potent spell.
Mary broke the silence at length. “You are a clever pupil, my darling,” she assured her, “and could learn any trade you please.” She continued: “You are a good shot with your bow and arrows, and a fair rider. You could be a huntress in the wilderness, as free as the goddess Diana. And I can always keep us by the skills of my hands, if not by my wits. Now we must dress ourselves again to face the world, my good wife.”
Alison seemed to be assailed by doubt. She touched her own belly, tears shi
ning in her eyes. “What if I were with child, Mary? What could I do?”
“You would bear it in our new home, dearest, and we would raise our son or daughter with love to spare. No child of yours will ever be called a bastard while I am alive, Alison. You must trust me.”
After much kissing and exchanging of sounds too low to be heard clearly, the two deluded women helped each other into their clothes. And then Alison spoke my name in a tone which assaulted my ears like a blow. “What if Frank discovers us, my love?” she demanded. “He distrusts me already.”
Mary laughed like a fishwife who is accustomed to shouting in the streets. “Even if he were watching us now,” she boasted with arrogant deliberation, “would he denounce me as his rival and challenge me to a duel? Would he inform the police that his fiancée has been stolen by her own maid? Would he take you to be examined by a physician who would confirm that you have been ruined? Would he carry you off before the wedding day? Not he. His own pride will protect us until we make our escape.”
At once, my own cowardice rose up in my throat like bile. Had the two females intended to lure me into the foul pit of their degeneracy in order to watch me suffer? Had the whole world turned upside down so that those who had once been lowest now held all power? Intolerable!
“Damn you!” I roared, springing to my feet. Before I could control my emotions, I seized one of my pistols and aimed it at Mary, the cause of my Alison’s downfall.
“Frank!” screamed my former sweetheart, eyes wide with fear. “No!” She threw herself upon her lover to shield her. I realized that I had fired when Alison sank to the ground, blood pouring from a wound in her neck.
From that moment, I was like a man possessed. The fiendish Mary, dressed as a man, moved toward my poor fallen Alison, and I felt as though I would lose my wits at the sight. How many more young lives would the unnatural being destroy if she were allowed to live?
Best Lesbian Erotica 2007 Page 18
