by Suzi Love
“Oh, look now,” Anna said, pointing at the glass.
The dancers, in unison and in a rhythmic action, opened the plackets of the men’s trousers and drew out their genitals, exposing them to the air. The three ladies watching from above gave a collective gasp, but Justin noticed their noses pressed even harder against the pane and their bodies leaned further forward. Using their hands, the entertainers commenced an up-and-down motion on the men’s phalluses, until one by one, all along the line, each man’s shaft snapped to attention, stood tall and erect. Some extended longer and straighter than others, while some were shorter but needed a girl’s entire hand to encompass its girth.
Justin was fascinated to see Chrissie’s head swivel backwards and forwards like a wind- up toy as she absorbed the scene. She ripped off her mask and her wide-eyed gaze fixed on the bobbing penises, jaw dropped as she studied different shapes and sizes.
“Oh, my goodness gracious,” she said, her tone one of awe. “I never, ever imagined.”
Standing close behind her so he could hear her gasps and catch every astounded utterance, Justin chuckled. He placed his hands around her waist so he could lean forward and glimpse the performance for himself, but his own pleasure came from seeing, first-hand, Chrissie’s uninhibited reactions to the antics, rather than from watching acts he’d long since stopped viewing.
Chrissie remained so absorbed in the erotic scene before her, she failed to notice his grasp of her person. Failed to reprimand him, as she normally did.
“I imagine,” Justin murmured, letting his lips linger beside her ear as he spoke, “you’ve never seen so many men’s prize possessions displayed for your comparison before.”
Her head moved from side to side, slowly. “I’ve only ever seen… one.”
Anna turned toward them and in a breathless rush of words said, “I’ve never seen even one before.”
“Dammit. You shouldn’t be seeing any,” Thomas growled out.
“I’ve only seen one, as well,” Gillian murmured.
“Just as well,” Edward muttered harshly. “And a married lady shouldn’t be gaping at these either.”
“Edward, I love you dearly, but there nothing in this world will drag me from this sight tonight. I came to London to broaden my education. I’ve no intention of leaving this establishment until I’ve accomplished my goal.”
Edward groaned. “But, Gillian, you don’t need to broaden anything. You know enough to enthrall me forever.”
“And yet you left my bed. What is more, you’re here.” Her voice increased in stridency with every sentence, her chest moving up and down in small, agitated jerks. “At a brothel. Seeking other women.” She swiped at her eyes with a red-gloved fist.
“No, no, you misunderstand.
Hawkesbury told me you’d be in attendance. Naturally, I didn’t believe him, but he insisted I come and see for myself. He told me you thought I’d taken a mistress. I left because I thought my constant desire for you became an embarrassment.”
“What?”
“When your mother informed me of all the ungentlemanly acts I was committing, well, naturally, I felt like a complete heel. Better to leave while I could.”
“Oh, Edward.” Gillian touched her husband’s face, gently, with all her love shining from her eyes.
Chrissie dropped her gaze, unable to bear looking any longer at the pure happiness and love between this married couple. Not something she’d been lucky enough to experience. She glanced up, caught the same look on Hawkesbury’s face as she was sure was on hers. She bit her lip, praying he didn’t also see the raw envy that stabbed at her, or sense the nagging ache in her heart. Though she was happy for her friend, nothing could stop her feeling a sharp sense of loss for what might have been in her own marriage.
The poignancy of the moment fractured when Anna gave another shocked gasp, the sound a mixture of dismay, horror, yet titillation. A sound that already seemed normal for this evening. Each time Chrissie glanced at Anna’s face, she didn’t see repulsion so much as attraction and fascination.
“I cannot understand what those women are doing to the men. Or why. Doesn’t it hurt them?”
Anna’s tone sounded so indignant on behalf of the gentlemen she assumed suffered some sort of physical torture, the three men snorted.
“But they look as if they’re about to … to eat—” Anna’s hands flew to her cheeks, as she gasped again. “Are they … can they … “
“Yes, Anna. Eating them. Well, sucking really.” Justin pushed off the wall where he’d lounged after Chrissie gained control of her laughter and her wobbly legs.
“About to gobble them up and swallow them with their beautiful, wide mouths. So, as you ladies are about to be shocked into swooning, I suggest you depart now. And quickly.” He glanced at Chrissie, his expression smug, arrogant, knowing. “Before any of you faint dead away, and need to be carried out in full view of all the gentlemen in the anteroom.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Hawkesbury,” Chrissie said, hands planted on her hips as she faced him. “I, for one, came to see everything. And I’ll not depart until you’ve shown us all the themed rooms.”
“And me,” Gillian added.
“Me also,” Anna piped up, her voice laced with determination.
“Anna,” Thomas said, frowning, shaking her hands lightly in his, “no one will think less of you if you leave now. I’m positive you’ve seen more enough to comprehend the decadent manner of things happening here.”
Anna placed a hand on Thomas’s sleeve, looked up at him with big eyes, and pleaded. “But, my wonderfully concerned friend, if I’m to attract my dearly beloved when he returns home, there is so much more I need to learn. I’m not such an innocent I haven’t heard talk of camp followers. I do understand men, perhaps even my betrothed, find women to comfort them along their travels, but as he has always been such a gentle soul—”
Justin made a strangled sound, while Thomas spluttered.
“What is the matter?” Chrissie studied their expressions, her eyes widening as realization dawned. “What do you two know of Anna’s betrothed?”
Thomas’s round cheeks pinked, and sweat droplets beaded his brow. He looked at Justin, a question in his eyes.
“Well, do you know my fiancé?” Anna repeated the question.
Justin sighed and replied, “Bart can explain more later. When we’re away from here. But he did discover today—”
Chrissie grasped his forearm, forced him to address her. “You tracked down Edward, and then you investigated Captain Martin. Did you also spend your day investigating my circumstances?”
“No need.”
She sighed and relaxed her grip on his arm.
“If you recall, I attended to that matter after you departed from my home last evening.” He grinned, the unrepentant cad. “So my footmen had already collected more than enough information on you.”
“I see.”
He patted her hand where her fingers dug into his coat sleeve. She hoped she’d dug hard enough to leave permanent marks in his flesh. The odious man deserved an injury, being entirely too smug, and too conceited, in all his actions.
“Lady Wellsby, I do recall you doing the same. Before you came to me, you had me thoroughly investigated. I know, as I checked.”
She bristled at his tone. “That was different.”
He laughed. “No, it wasn’t. You’re just insulted I can have people investigated faster than you can. I know it took you several weeks, and several hundred pounds paid out, to find out about me. So, I assume you now have your money’s worth and we can leave.”
“No,” three females voices said in unison.
Justin and the other men looked taken aback at the force of their responses, but Chrissie knew they all felt the same. This sample, dangled in front of their noses by Hawkesbury in order to frighten them, merely whetted their appetites.
“For someone with such intimate knowledge of women, Hawkesbury, you know so little of how t
heir minds work.” Chrissie spun back to the window in time to see the girls bend their heads and slide their mouths over the lengths of the men’s phalluses.
Behind her she heard Thomas chortle. “The lady has you there, Justin. Bart and I know far more about women than you do, despite being called the Virile Viscount.”
“I’ve never needed to know more than how to satisfy their bodies and take their money,” Justin said. “Because all women are the same, Thomas—eager to throw money my way without me having to exert myself to make any sort of emotional connection with them. Most women are shallow creatures.”
Chrissie didn’t need to see his face to know the remark was directed at her and her friends. She squinted at the faces of the men below. Lord Mitchell lounged on a cushion in full light so he’d been easy to distinguish, but now she peered at the other faces, wondering if she also knew them.
She watched in silence for several minutes, as did her two friends, then she gasped and pointed. “At the end. Isn’t that … isn’t that man … “
Justin leaned over her shoulder, his voice close behind her ear sounded amused, but unconcerned. “Bart. Hum, yes, it is. He’s maneuvered himself into the line-up for Magdalene’s first performance.”
“Magdalene? Ah, I see. The one at your house.”
“Yes, one of the women who were—”
“Servicing you and your friends?”
He snorted. “Not servicing. Well, not last night, anyway. Auditioning. For their employment here.”
“And Bart is such a dedicated friend to you,” Chrissie said, dripping sarcasm. “So kind of him to sacrifice himself, to place himself on view down there, to test you’ve the best women to entertain your clients.”
Justin placed his hand over his heart in a theatrical gesture. “A truly dedicated friend.” He peered past Chrissie’s shoulder to where Bart’s arms were flung back on the cushions, his back arched up, lower legs supported by his booted feet widespread and planted on the carpet, his trousers hanging forgotten around his ankles.
He pointed toward Magdalene, and to her profile clearly outlined as her head dipped across Bart’s long lean body. She was on one knee with the other leg crooked, harem pants split open along her bare thighs, revealing her thatch of dark hair. Bart reached down, slid his fingers along her thigh and they disappeared into the depths of her sheath. As Chrissie watched, Magdalene’s shoulder shook with laughter, her enjoyment of Bart’s unexpected move evident.
“Does Bart have his limbs bound for disobedience?”
“Only if one of the palace eunuchs catches him.”
“He’s certainly a sly one.”
She turned back in time to see Bart’s body go rigid, as the movements of Magdalene’s head grew faster, up and down, as she sucked him toward completion. His body bowed and bucked, his hands twisted in the tassels of the cushions, and he shouted out. In the final throes of his orgasm, his hands threaded through the long dark tresses dangling and tangling around Magdalene’s shoulders and he tugged, holding her head down close to his shaft.
When he’d given his last jerk and buck, the dark-headed enchantress lifted her head, gazed at Bart, and slowly licked her lips. They could see Bart’s wide-eyed stare fixed on his slave, and Chrissie realized Magdalene, indeed all these women, wielded incredible power in those moments. In her own marriage, she’d ruled the household, the estate, yet never the bedroom. Had never known the ability to hold sway over her husband’s emotions or his mind existed.
Until the moment that she’d observed Bart’s eyes, the pure admiration, adoration even, for the woman who brought him to such ecstasy, she’d not comprehended a woman could do that. Could hold a man in the palm of her hand. Could make him her slave, despite Magdalene wearing the slave costume here tonight and Bart supposedly the master.
Justin’s breath tickled her neck as he whispered to her, “Any woman who can bring such pleasure to a man is to be truly admired, don’t you think?”
She swallowed down the lump in her throat. “I … I wouldn’t know.”
“Did you never service your husband in that way? Did you never suck his swollen penis into your mouth until he spurted his hot seed down your throat in a rush of pleasure?”
She tensed, unable to catch her next breath. “No, no,” she said, a rush of words between panted breaths. “He never wanted that sort of thing from me. Gentlemen don’t expect … “ She searched for a word.
“A wife to pop his cork, to ring his bell, using their mouth? Or their pretty little white teeth.”
“Teeth?” She was intrigued despite herself. “I simply cannot envisage most husbands expecting their wives to do those things to their bodies.”
“Huh, don’t tell me. Your husband groped you furtively under the covers with the lights off, did he? How the hell did you manage to even see one penis?”
The lump in her throat rose up again, threatened to choke her, yet she refused to back down from his taunts. “I saw it often. When I undressed him when he came home drunk, filthy, and reeling of cheap perfume. There. Does that knowledge give you an advantage over me? Make you feel superior to me? Enjoy your victory.”
She spun away toward the stairs, intending to descend, but Justin strode after her, grasped her shoulder, spun her into his body.
“Bloody hell. I’m sorry. I’m a complete bastard to taunt you, but sometimes I don’t seem to know any better.” He released her to run his fingers through his thick hair, the gesture of frustration she’d already come to recognize. “God knows what I’ll do or say if my mother and sisters do come home. I’ll embarrass them every step of the way.”
Just like that, her own anger and frustration deflated like a hot air balloon leaking gas. The man, and his sudden changes of temperament, was a menace to her own equilibrium. He rocked her moral core as an over-eager boy rocked a rowing boat on a lake.
She laid her hands on both his sleeves to halt his obsessive combing of his hair with rough fingers. “No. When you bring your family back to live with you, you’ll know exactly the right thing to say and do to comfort and support them, because that is the sort of gentleman you remain at your heart, no matter what has transpired during your last three desperate years.”
“And you try to read too much good in people, where none exists.” “Not everyone. I’m afraid in the end, try as I might, I found nothing good left in my husband. The man I married no longer existed in the stranger who slept off his drunk in our house each day and awoke demanding, belligerent, hopeless.” She glanced down into the room again. “And yet even he never expected me to do that to him, or for him. Why? Don’t all men enjoy it?”
He sighed. “I cannot explain to you your husband’s thinking. But look down there.” He pointed to the other end of the passageway.
“Edward quite obviously does, and Gillian’s smiling at her husband.” Chrissie looked where he indicated. Edward stood watching the performance, enthralled, as was Thomas. Chrissie could see that most of the men had climaxed, spent themselves into the eager mouths of their partners. Once finished, the girls reassumed their roles of slaves and carefully washed their master’s spent organs using silken cloths dipped in steaming basins of soapy water.
For some of the men, the act of being washed, stroked, cleansed by such caring hands seemed to bring them another sort of pleasure. Perhaps nearly as much as their previous pleasure. Edward and Thomas looked as if they might leap through the glass and join Bart and the other men and find their own pleasure, while Gillian and Anna glanced alternately between the room and the faces of the men standing beside them.
Gillian laid her hand on her husband’s arm and he jumped. “Edward. Are you all right?”
He leaned away from Gillian, rested his hands flat on the wall beside the viewing oblong, his chest heaving. “No, I’m not all right.” They heard him along the passageway, his words practically a shout. “We need to leave now.”
“Yes,” Thomas said, speaking to Justin. “Now. We must leave now.”
/> Justin straightened and with what seemed like reluctance, released his hold on Chrissie. He waved his hand at the doorway leading back to the street, indicated the way to their conveyance. Their exit from his house of debauchery.
“After you, my dear ladies,” he said.
She studied the expressions on the faces of the three men. Two were contorted with agitation, one portrayed absolute calm. In fact, Justin’s face held that same half smile of smug amusement and self- satisfaction that had irritated Chrissie the entire night. She looked toward her friends, brows raised in silent questioning. And then as one, she, Anna, and Gillian faced the men and shook their heads. One word dropped into the tense silence from all their lips.
“No!”
Chapter Six
“No?” Justin tensed. “What do you mean by ‘no’?”
Edward and Thomas scowled at him, while the three women smiled as if they were about to partake of a formal afternoon tea in his parlor.
“How—” Edward held his wife’s arms, stuttered over his words. “How can you say—say no?”
“I should think it’s obvious, dearest.” Gillian patted his hand as if he were a two-year-old. “We ladies aren’t finished here. If you wish to depart, I’ll understand completely. A brothel isn’t the sort of place you feel comfortable in, is it?” She smiled, her sickly sweet sincerity making Justin’s teeth ache.
Edward ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up in brown spikes. Poor man looked like an agitated porcupine. “What the hell is a man supposed to answer to that? If I say I’ve never visited a brothel, I sound like an untried greenhorn who doesn’t know how to satisfy his own wife in the bedroom. But if I say yes, you’ll accuse me once again of keeping a mistress. Or two.”
Poor Edward spun away and paced across the confined corridor, oblivious to the others listening. Chrissie pretended to block her ears to what should be a private conversation by half-turning away from the quarreling couple, yet Justin knew she listened as intently as the rest of them.
