February 2, 1922
Steamboat Springs, Colorado
My darling, foolish Rèmy,
First: I happen to like parentheses (except in fiction), and I have no intention of giving them up just because you find them “syntactically sloppy.”
Second: Your assurance that I am far from plain, that I am in fact, “the very model of lissome female perfection,” is very sweet and very much appreciated, but not really necessary now that looks like mine have become, in recent years, all the rage. Looking back, I'm actually glad that I came of age feeling like an ugly duckling. It's good to be plain when you're young, I've decided. It builds character.
Third: No, I did not do it with Nils, and no, I'm not lying about it to spare your feelings. It really was just a dream. My God, he's twenty! For one thing. For another, if you honestly think nookie's on the agenda for me in my present condition, it's because you haven't seen me, propped up in my wheelchair with my casts and my afghan and my sad, sad hair. A crisp little bob like this has to be trimmed regularly, or it looks like hell, and I was due for a haircut even before I came here. My bangs have gotten so long I've had to pin them to the side, imparting an insouciant Appalachian aura that should ensure my complete fidelity until I see you next.
Not that fidelity is an issue with us, but you know what I mean. And just for the record, because this Nils thing seems to have really gotten under your skin, in the year that we've been together, I haven't yet actually exercised my option to sleep with anyone else. I still, however, consider that option to be fully in effect, which is why I'm frankly a little surprised by your jealous horror at the notion that I might have spread these crippled old gams for Nils. Just because we haven't taken advantage of our right to see other people doesn't mean that right has disappeared.
I should say, just because I haven't taken advantage of that right. We never discussed the whole disclosure question, in other words whether we would tell each other about our conquests outside of our relationship. But now that the subject has arisen (and I suppose it's easier to discuss it in a letter than face-to-face), perhaps we should both come clean. Or rather, since I've already done so, perhaps it's your turn. Please don't think I'm going to throw some kind of bourgeois tantrum if you tell me you've gotten some tail here and there. This whole free love thing was my idea, after all, and I should hope I'm not that much of a hypocrite. If I wanted to keep you on a short leash, I'd marry you.
About that: your argument that I could be a “real stepmother” to Jules and Inès if we were husband and wife doesn't really hold water. Jules is eleven, Inès is nine. They know I'm not their mother. They live with her. They only see me when they visit you. It's not as if they're going to suddenly start calling me Mère if you put a ring on my finger, nor would I want them to. I much prefer being the eccentric, beloved aunt-like figure. It's a role I've perfected with Kitty, and one that suits me to a T. I love your children so much, Rèmy, and we have such a warm, comfortable relationship. It's perfect as it is. I mean honestly, sweetheart. Don't you think you're clutching at straws?
Moving on, it tickles me to report that Kitty and Nils have a little necking session every time he drops off the mail. Ah, to be sixteen again. Except that they're twenty-one and twenty, respectively, a bit long in the tooth, methinks, to be stalled out at the osculation stage. The problem, of course, is the torch Nils is carrying for this church girl, combined with his conviction, all too common among well-brought-up young men, that if you like and respect a woman, it's hands off. Women encourage this behavior, of course, for reasons quite beyond my ken. Yes, I know, I'm a fine one to talk, having held on to my virginity till twenty-four, but times were different then. Kitty has had a diaphragm since she was nineteen. I know—I took her to get it.
Speaking of my virginity, and this serialized account of how I lost it, your reaction to that whole Claude-getting-head-in-the-landau scene really threw me for a loop. For you to say you felt “emotionally ambushed” because the fellatrix turned out to be a fellator strikes me as just a tad melodramatic, not to mention antediluvian.
Have you forgotten that blue movie we watched with Margaux and Denis in your office at Pathé-Cinéma last summer after everyone had gone home? The one where the man discovers the housemaid diddling herself with the vacuum cleaner hose, so he calls the wife in for a little ménage? You told me those two women going down on each other was the hottest thing you'd ever seen, and I well believe it, given how, the moment we were alone, you shoved me to my knees, pulled out your cock, and growled, “Suce-le.” I get wet just remembering how brutish and commanding you were. When you told me to stop sucking you and bend over the desk, I came without even being touched, the only time in my life that's ever happened to me (awake). If you recall, I had an unbroken string of screaming Os while you were hammering away inside me—plus a couple more when you pulled the car into that alley on the way home, hauled me onto your lap, and drilled me again. You are by far the sexiest man I've ever known, and the most uninhibited lover. I can't believe how lucky I was to find you.
But I'm digressing into sappiness. The reason I brought up that movie is that I don't understand, if you have no objection to watching a woman eat another woman, why it's “disturbing and unpleasant” when it's two men. Are you afraid you'll get an itch in the old pénis and have to ponder the implications? Just asking, because I find it perplexing that a man as open-minded as you should exhibit such a pedestrian reaction.
Now, back to this week's installment of Emily's Adventures at the Château, Partie Deux.
Hickley and I had the expected confrontation later that afternoon, when he tracked me down and found me weeping in the library. Or rather, I confronted him, while he mostly just stood there looking bewildered by this strange and unfamiliar liquid leaking from my eyes. I had to yell to be heard over the drumming of rain on the roof, because the library, which Kit told me he'd completely redesigned, soared up three stories, with a wide, stack-filled gallery halfway up the front wall. It was the most extravagant and well-stocked private library I've ever seen.
I accused Hickley of faithlessness, perversity, and fraud, that last for having led me to think he cared about me, when all he really cared about was my father's two million dollars. I said he'd manipulated me into believing that ours would be a marriage of the heart, when it was really just another business transaction between a greedy British lord and a gullible American heiress. I yanked off that sapphire ring and threw it at his head, which was when I think he truly grasped the depth of my fury and its implications for him: the Yanky Banky (I had figured it out) had informed him that his business was no longer welcome.
His demeanor changed then, mild bemusement giving way to a distress that seemed entirely genuine, and probably was—but not for the reasons he led me to believe. He started shoveling it hard and fast, swore he'd never considered our engagement a business transaction, in fact, he cared for me far more than he'd let on, but he'd been afraid to declare himself because we'd only known each other such a short time, and he was sure I couldn't have fallen in love with him as quickly as he'd fallen in love with me, and oh, if I would only give him a second chance . . .
I told him I wasn't buying it. If he loved me, there would have been more than that one little dry peck back in New York. “I know I'm not beautiful, but if you love a woman, don't you want to . . . express that love with more than words?”
Hickley told me he was mad about me, but that he'd been keeping himself on a tight rein lest he get carried away and overstep himself. He said all men had needs, but that a true gentleman wouldn't dream of compromising the innocence and reputation of his fiancée. That was why he, like every other bachelor of his acquaintance, relieved his lust with “baggage one never has to see again.” (Note that he did not contradict me on the subject of my lack of beauty.)
As for the accusation of perversity, he maintained that I was only shocked by what I saw because Americans are so straightlaced compared to Europeans. Enlightened tho
ugh I was, he said, my culture had never prepared me for the prospect of anything other than “doing one's wifely duty with the lights off and the nightgown on.” So, of course, being a typically guileless, uninformed American girl, I would naturally find the more creative forms of lovemaking repulsive.
Well, of course, I was mortified by being lumped in with the common herd, which was undoubtedly his intention, but having never been exposed to so smooth a schemer, I didn't figure that out until later. I lied and claimed I wasn't repulsed at all, when, in fact, the cunnilingus had appalled me and I hadn't known what to make of the whipping. I said I was just “taken aback a bit” and disappointed by his infidelity. And then, God help me, I told him that I now understood and appreciated why he'd held himself back with me, but that it really hadn't been necessary, since I was anything but straightlaced.
Well, now he was pretty sure he had me, and I'm ashamed to admit that I was questioning my earlier resolve to end the engagement. The bastard actually got down on one knee, took my hands, and told me he'd never been in love before, never even had a real relationship, and couldn't bear the thought of losing me. Since it troubled me to think of him with other women, he promised to “be an absolute monk” until the wedding. As for afterward, he assured me that our “marital relations” would be only as adventuresome as I wished them to be.
I told him I'd always considered myself adventurous. “I may not know much about such matters at present, but I assure you I have an open mind and am willing to learn—if and when the time comes.”
Well, that was all he needed to hear. He jumped up, crossed to the far corner of the library, slid out a book, and brought it back. “They've got an outstanding little collection of bawdy literature here, but this one's my favorite. You might find it instructive, that is if you're willing to read this sort of thing.”
I took it, saying, “I'm not much for self-censorship,” although, of course, I had never read such literature in my life. The book was the first volume of My Secret Life by “Walter.” He told me it would teach me a great deal about the sexual inclinations of men. “It can only benefit our marriage.”
Hickley tried to get me to take back the ring, but I told him I'd have to think about it—a decision for which I've thanked myself ever since, as it allowed me to salvage some small shred of dignity out of the humiliating episode. He told me that he and his friends would be leaving the next morning for the French Alps, but that they'd be coming back that way in a few days, and that he hoped I would be “in a suitable frame of mind to accept the ring” then. I said I'd be gone by then, weather permitting. (As it happened, I wasn't, but not because of the weather.) I resisted his attempt to kiss me good-bye, which caused him to walk away looking like a whipped puppy.
The housekeeper told me that my luggage had been left in la Chambre Rouge, a bedchamber on the second floor of the castle's east range. To get there, I had to climb the winding stone staircase in the southeast tower. As I did so, My Secret Life in hand, an elegantly attired couple dashed up the stairs from behind, pushing past me with a breathless apology.
“Oh, it's Randy's Yank,” said the woman over her shoulder as she paused a few steps above me. It was “Fuck Me or Frig Me” Fanny. “Do join us. I hear Lucinda Mumford's upstairs hitting the slit in the Boudoir.”
Having no idea what that meant, but filled with curiosity, I followed them to the top of the tower. As soon as I stepped onto the landing, I knew that I'd entered a special place. I'll describe it as best I can. The tower was round and quite large, its thick outer stone wall perforated with arrow slits. The lower levels were comprised of one or more stone-walled rooms, sometimes pentagonal or otherwise strangely shaped in order to fit into the circular space. On this top level, however, there was just one round room somewhat smaller in circumference than the tower itself, leaving a sort of corridor about six feet wide all around the outside of it that was furnished with couches and chaise longues.
The round room looked to be of newer construction than most of the rest of the castle, judging from its exterior walls, which were darkly paneled, but with a tall window every few feet. Through these windows could be seen the interior room, the walls of which were papered in apricot watered silk and lined with gilt-framed full-length mirrors. In the center of this strange “Boudoir,” suffused with afternoon sunshine from skylights in the conical roof, stood a large four-poster bed. On the bed lay a beautiful young woman in a black satin gown and glittering jewels, masturbating.
She lay on her stomach with her skirts bunched around her waist in a great froth of black petticoats and her ruffled drawers, also black, pulled down to the tops of her stockings. The only exposed part of her was her ass, which I recall as looking like smooth white marble against all that black. Her hips were slowly rocking, and I saw that she had one arm beneath her, moving rhythmically. Her mouth was open, her eyes heavy-lidded, dreamy. Through the glass, I could hear her shuddery breathing, and I remember thinking, My God,this is real. She's really diddling herself, and I'm really watching.
Fanny and her companion reclined on a leather couch against the wall in the semidarkness of the outer corridor, she unbuttoning his trousers as he worked his hand under her skirt, both of them staring into the round room. I heard stertorous breathing and low voices from elsewhere in the corridor, and realized they weren't the only couple enjoying this display. But how were we able to see into the room through what were obviously mirrors?
“They're transparent mirrors,” whispered a man I hadn't realized was standing next to me.
He was incredibly good-looking in a sun-gilded Mediterranean way, with a mass of dark, curly hair and sweet, warm, molten chocolate eyes. There was a frankness in his expression and demeanor, an openness, that was utterly disarming. It was the man from the fountain, the one who'd called me a beauty and asked me to join them. Hearing him speak English with an American accent tickled a memory I couldn't quite call up. I had the sense that I'd met him before, or at least seen him, but not there.
“A Russian fellow installed them for us a few months ago,” he said as he raised a wine bottle to his mouth.
“Us?”
“Well, he installed them for Seigneur des Ombres. I'm really just a . . . long-term tenant, you might say.” Gesturing toward the mirrors with the bottle, he said, “They're half-silvered, so that if you're looking into a brightly lit room from a darker room, you can see in, but the people in the room can only see their reflections.”
“Then she doesn't know she's being watched?” I whispered back. “That's horrible. That's . . .”
“Oh, she knows. Everyone knows what le Boudoir des Miroirs is about. There's a waiting list to use this room. You'd be surprised how many people harbor an exhibitionistic streak. It can be booked for the night, or for an ‘afternoon nap,’ like this. I'm Inigo, by the way.” He extended his hand as nonchalantly as if we were meeting at some Fifth Avenue dinner party.
“Emily Townsend.”
“I know.”
“I'm sorry, have we met?”
“Not that I know. Fanny Caddingdon told me your name when I asked her who the pretty new girl was. I don't suppose you have any American cigarettes.”
“Sorry, no.”
A door on the other side of the “Boudoir of Mirrors” opened slowly and a man slipped in. He was around thirty, nice looking, but with a predatory glint in his eye. I felt a very real sense of alarm as he crossed stealthily to the bed.
Patting my back, Inigo said, “This is all part of what Lucinda was hoping for when she asked for this room.”
“You mean, it's staged?”
“Oh, no. Once someone has booked le Boudoir, there's usually a bit of negotiating between the other guests as to which of them will pay the surprise visit, or which group, if that's the plan. But the person sleeping in the Boudoir has no idea who that might be. The uncertainty is part of the thrill. This fellow is Theodore Newton. He and Lucinda are Americans and former lovers, but I understand she turned him in for
an older, richer model a couple of years ago. He's been trying to reignite the flame since they've been here, but she's been giving him the cold shoulder. I say, would you like to sit down?” He pointed to an empty chaise.
“Oh. No. No. I, um . . .”
“Just to sit,” he said. “I didn't necessarily mean . . . you know.”
Necessarily? “I don't mind standing.”
Newton unbuttoned his trousers, withdrew his erection, and gave it a few firm strokes. I knew I should leave that instant, but I was riveted. I'd never seen a penis before, erect or not, and it was quite an eye-opener. I remember being surprised at how satin-smooth it was, with that glistening purple glans. He sucked three fingers into his mouth to moisten them and said, “A penny for your thoughts, Luce.”
She gasped, but before she could react, he pressed a knee to the small of her back and pushed the fingers up her quiver. She shrieked and thrashed, giving him clumsy backward swats with her free hand, the other being pinioned beneath her.
“A penny's not enough?” he said as he worked his fingers around inside her. “No, I don't suppose it would be. But I can guess your thoughts from how wet you are. You must have been imagining all those rubies and emeralds and pearls you traded me in for. That's what gets you dripping, isn't it?”
“You son of a bitch!”
Unlatching one of her necklaces, a strand of diamonds with fat Baroque pearls at regular intervals, he said, “It's what you think about when you're lying there getting pegged with that shriveled up old tiddler. It's this you love.” He shook the necklace in front of her face. “I'll bet you wish you could just fuck the jewelry and skip the middleman. Do you still love taking it in the ass?”
I gaped as he shoved the necklace into her rectum, forcing in one big, irregular pearl after another, until all that was visible was the clasp at the end of a little string of diamonds. It was lewdly beautiful, like jewelry for the derrière. He jiggled it. She sucked in a breath, hips trembling.
Bound in Moonlight Page 4
