These stairs held the smell of spirits and age, of dust and good drinking sessions. They bypassed the lounge, she noted, straight for the bed. No messing around here, no coffee and drinks, just -
A huge chamber that held an old bed sagging heavily in the middle, and there was the mirror, as out of place as she would be in her current outfit in the offices of Brooks Wilkins & Co.
"Well, my fine lady, what is it you'd like? What would please you the most, I wonder? A taste of leather, a touch of hand?"
Abigail smiled as softly as she could while inwardly quaking, longing to submit herself completely to this man, this dominant man, but still holding back just a little.
"Sir, I am in your house, I am at your mercy. Do with me as you would."
His eyes gleamed with barely contained lust.
"Lie down. Face down."
"Shall I..." she gestured at her clothes.
"No, just lie down." His hands went to the huge buckle on the belt, undid it, began to slide it carefully through the loops. Feeling vaguely foolish, used to being loved, kissed and possibly undressed before any activity, Abigail took off her long boots and lay down on the bed, pressing her face into the coverlet, uncaring of her eye makeup and bright red lipstick plastering everywhere. That was his problem, not hers. There was a sound, a movement, a thrill of air, and she was stung by something which hurt so much her head flew back in astonishment. (Why don't I ever remember how much it hurts?)
"Ah, that's more like it. Reaction at last. You felt that, didn't you?"
Again the belt descended, catching her across the top of the thighs, bringing a shriek to her lips. She tried to roll over, but he pushed her down with one large hand.
"You'll lie there and you'll take it, my girl. You asked for it, and damned if you ain't gonna get it!"
Through her clothes, through her inadequate clothes, the leather bit hard, sending bands of fire through her, nerve ends shrieking in pain. She clutched the coverlet with both hands, bit it, moaned, screamed and cried aloud as he brought the leather down again and again.
Suddenly he stopped, ripped her skirt in one swift movement, tearing at her skin with the force of it, tearing the panties, exposing skin which must have been scarlet. Abigail quivered, feeling the pain, the burning heat, the sheer fear which held her face-down, not moving, afraid to move, afraid to annoy him, this dangerous man with the power to hurt.
And she acknowledged her submission to him, her thrill at submitting to him, the thrill of being dominated so completely. Somewhere, deep below the pain, the core of her being responded to the whole situation and she almost almost smiled.
He laughed. "Damned if that ain't the prettiest sight I done seen in many a moonlit night!" and the belt came down again, harder than ever, flattening her onto the ancient bed. Tears formed, fell. Black mascara ran down her face and onto the cover.
"Oh no, please no. Let me up. No, please, stop..." An endless moaning litany which he ignored, continuing to thrash her until she found everything going faintly woozy and giddy. Then, mercy of mercies, he stopped. She lay very still, feeling intense pain, burning, nerve ends radiating agony at her, feeling tears spilling hopelessly everywhere, wanting to do no more than lie there and cry herself to sleep. But there was no rest.
"Up on your knees, slut. Come on - all fours, like the bitch you are."
Obediently she obeyed, pulling herself up with a supreme effort, resting her head on the pillow, her arms at each side, trying to support herself, feeling weak and almost shattered by the pain. She felt the bed move as he climbed onto it, urgent fingers at her slit, the telltale moistness from Des and from the experience she had just had, warm and cold together. He moved, and then rammed deep into her, making her cry out.
He was harder, longer and firmer even than Des, now nothing but a distant memory of pleasurable lovemaking and gentle hands compared to this man; brute strength and vicious aim with a belt. He gripped her stomach with both hands, brought her burning cheeks back onto his hairy body, and rammed against her time and time again, until her cries became cries of pure pleasure, until she cried out to him:
"Yes, yes! harder, harder!" And he did it harder, impossibly harder, until they collapsed together in an orgasm so big it almost threatened to carry her away.
"Damn me if you ain't the finest bit of arse I've had and seen in a long time." Admiring voice, gentle fingers, burning cheeks.
"I could do with a drink," Abigail murmured into his tattooed shoulder.
"Damn right. I could do with one too. Stay where you are." The bed moved, the floor creaked, and he left the room.
In a moment Abigail was off the bed, snatching up the torn skirt and panties. She threw her bag over her shoulder, rushed to the mirror and looked at her tear-stained mascara-streaked self.
And was gone.
The gamekeeper was good.
That was an easy one for me. I found a late-Victorian dress in the theatre wardrobe, full flowing sleeves and long flowing skirt, let my hair hang down in half curls, wore buttoned boots and carried a parasol. Glanced in my magical mirror and was ...
In a woodland clearing. Somewhere, a small stream talked to itself as it hurried on its way, passing messages to stones and rushes as it went along. A bird or two called, fluttered, rocked branches. Beetles swarmed over trees, butterflies decorated an afternoon sky, flashing colours on pale blue, rather like the dress I was wearing.
"My Lady, you are out of the grounds of the house."
The man's voice caught me by surprise. Although I was looking for someone, I did not see him among the trees, his tweeds blending so well with the foliage, the brown trunks, the crawling ivy that clung and patterned the bark.
He was a tall, strong man, face browned with rain and wind, sun and snow, neat trimmed moustache, eyes that missed nothing, looked through my clothes as if I wore nothing, as if I were naked in the clearing - as well I might be for all that the world knew of my being there.
"Her Ladyship will wonder where you are," he went on,
moving closer, almost silently though he trod twigs and branches, dead leaves and debris thrown down unwanted by the forest in which we stood.
"I don't think her ladyship will miss me." I smiled as best I could, eyeing the body, knowing it was what I wanted. Here. Now. But the ground was rough and my dress might get torn and I would have to explain it away to someone somewhere if I did. "And you are?"
He came closer, put a hand on my arm, a hand roughened by work and wild life.
"Travis, Miss. Her Ladyship's gamekeeper. I was keeping a watch on these woods for poachers, you see."
"I'm no poacher." I laughed quietly, spreading my hands to show I had nothing but a ruffled parasol that would not keep off a raindrop let alone a shower.
"I can see that, Miss."
"So, Travis, what shall we do about this situation in which we find ourselves?" I put my tongue between my teeth very quickly, and looked at him with a saucy inviting look.
He read the message and flushed just a little.
"That's up to you, Miss."
"Will her Ladyship mind if you don't patrol these woods this afternoon?"
"Her Ladyship never asks what I be about, Miss."
"In that case - "
"It is not often a lady gets to be so bold."
"I know that, but I do not have a lot of time and there are things I want to experience."
He read it the wrong way, as I'd hoped he would.
"Young ladies these days do not get much chance of freedom, it seems to me, never a chance to get out and find out about life and things like that. I understand, Miss. Come with me."
And he set off at a fast pace through the woods, following a track I could barely see. I had to hurry to keep up with him, catching my sleeves on bramble and elder, finding an oak trunk here, an elm there to stop myself from falling. He paid no attention to my stumbling, made no effort to help me through the rough patches.
His cottage appeared suddenly; a magic co
ttage, a witch's cottage, low-gabled with leaded windows, gloomy porch and a doorway overhung with black bryony in place of roses. A few cabbages and other vegetables studded the neglected flowerbeds, and a rosemary bush leaned sorrowfully to one side. I ran my hand over it, savouring the sharp, piquant scent as we entered.
A man's place: a pipe in a bowl on the table, a tobacco jar, a flint and steel. A tankard on the sideboard, a bowl of fruit, none fresh. A few prints, no flowers, no polish, no sense of being cared for.
"Tea?"
"No, thank you."
"Impatient, are you?"
"Sort of." The one thing I didn't know then or now is how long the mirror would let me be somewhere - would it call me back or could I stay as long as I wanted? I hadn't tried to find out.
"The bedroom's through here."
No subtlety here either, just woodsmoke and heather, rosemary on my hands, a man kissing my face and neck in a way no one had done before, lips as hard as the fingers which sought and found breasts, nipples, which caught at the skirt, tore at the petticoats, found my moistness and made me gasp with pleasure.
"I knew you be out looking for sommat, Miss, and now you've found it." I tossed the parasol aside and the dress with it, fell back on the bed and let the rough hard fingers, as rough as the bark of any tree I ever touched, find their way in and around my various secret places, revelling in the torment of being brought to near orgasm and allowed to sink back, only to be brought up again and again. I knew not then where he found his expertise, and I did not ask. I would not ask. I loved every moment: no questions asked, no quarter given, none asked or taken.
I said nothing, just grasped him in both my hands, held him firm, felt the strength, a branch of its own, let him take me, wrapped my legs round his waist and cried out as he thrust, let him turn me over onto all fours, let him take me again and again that way.
I let him drop me, rag-doll like, over the side of the bed, exhausted and satiated; let his member slide limp into my hand, then played and teased and sucked and kissed and tormented until it rose as strong and fit again as a plant after rain. My answering body, bent over the end of the bed, let him take me in the other orifice, his fingers deep in the front, his cock deep in the back. Could there be such pleasure? Could there be such feelings? Could there be such satisfaction?
"Do you have a mirror?" I asked, wanting to tidy the wayward half curls and straighten my dress before venturing back to the house, wherever it was.
"Here." He took me to the other room where the mirror waited. "Her Ladyship gave it to me for she said it reflected nothing she wanted to see."
"Thank you." As he turned away, I looked in it...
I know just how long I am gone each time - less than a second. I know, because the watch I leave on the table begins the sweep of the second hand as I look in the mirror and has yet to touch six before I am back and picking it up again. Less than a second to have hours of pleasure, for a touch of fear that is mustard on the ham, the fear I might not find the mirror, the fear that something will go wrong; it makes the making even more pleasurable. Much more pleasurable. No wonder I find today's lovers so ... dull!
"A little bird whispered you were partying on Saturday, Abbey." Sue smiled knowingly as Abbey paused by the secretary's room.
"Yes." Abbey went in, leaned against the spare desk, idly pulled the covers into place. "Someone I met at evening classes, his friends were having an engagement party. We went in style, fancy dress."
"So I heard. They said you looked like Mary Quant!"
"I wanted to be Dusty Springfield but I don't have the right colour hair!"
"I said to my friend, you must be wrong, Sister Abigail doesn't go partying!"
"Depends who's asking."
"Certainly must have made an impact." Sue grinned knowingly. "You'll be down the Private Shop next!"
Little do you know! thought Abbey, hiding a smile behind a cough.
"What evening classes are those, Ab?" asked Linda, tidying her hair before a tiny square of mirror on the mantelpiece.
"Local history. Thought I'd find out something about the place where I live."
The phone started ringing in Abbey's room. She looked ruefully at the two women and went out. So, it had got around already, had it? One party, one night out, and already people were talking! How wise she was to keep her main partying for the past, which was truly another country, where no one knew what went on. Now or then.
Monday morning brought its usual crop of work, divorce problems from the weekend, access orders not adhered to, marital arguments over property flaring up, accidents on the roads, always something happening.
And beneath it all a feeling that she was close to something, something big, something that would shake her very foundations. Abbey wasn't sure where the feeling had come from, but it was there. Waiting. Lurking in the background, waiting to pounce.
She bought sandwiches for her lunch, waited until Linda and Sue went out for a walk in the bright sun, and sat at her machine, swiftly transcribing the typed notes onto disk. Mr Wilkins wouldn't mind, surely he wouldn't. She felt as if she had to have a more permanent record than her papers; what if the flat catches fire while I'm out?
Underneath it ran a different thought, not very often expressed. If I get trapped in the past, if I can't find the mirror, if something goes wrong, I need to leave some other record of where I am and where I might be, and what happened.
Something. Somewhere.
If I get to finish the book, I'll put the disk in the safe.
And she went on to write the next chapter.
The priest was the biggest surprise of all.
Everyone knows what the Church was like in the Middle Ages, everyone knows about bishops having love-children; heavens, it happens even now, but then it was widespread, accepted, usual.
But still, for someone brought up in the Anglican faith where people were loyal to their vows (for the most part), where vicars were married and priests were not, and life on the whole was as you expected it to be, this lover was a shock.
I arrived in a flowing dress of gold-and-russet silk, with high starched collar standing well away from my face which was crowned with combs and a veil. Tight-fitting sleeves flared out from my elbows, gold choker held the collar, and a gold pendant hung at my waist. Elegance, pure exciting elegance. I'd hired it specially from a costume shop. No one in the theatre had such a wonderful dress - we hadn't staged such a performance. I arrived at some kind of musical evening, where musicians delicately plucked lyres and mandolins played plaintive delicate airs that wove themselves in and around the hairs on the back of my neck. I trembled at their touch, as much as I trembled when a man looked at me.
I slipped quietly from the gathering between airs, walked the long corridors, admired the tapestries, glowing, rich, beautiful in a way I had never seen them before. I shivered in the cold draughts which came from everywhere and nowhere. It felt like Danverson Castle, and yet...
"Madam, you are not attending the musical evening?"
A priest, red cloak, red clothes, black hat, heavy silver cross, stood staring at me.
"I... felt a little faint. I sought some air."
"Ah, come with me. I will find you a potion for faintness that will cure it immediately."
We went to a small panelled room where he pressed a piece of carving and a door slid aside.
"You keep your potions in such a place?" I asked, wondering what he was at.
"Come and find out." He pulled my arm and I could do nothing but go with him.
Inside the tiny space it was dark, very dark.
"My secret priests" hiding hole." He grinned in the darkness, lit a candle. I saw his gleaming eyes.
"You are not of the household, nor are you a visitor, my lady. I know not who you are, but I know precisely what you came for."
He was right. Beneath his flowing robes and beneath my flowing dress we had a mutual meeting of bodies, his hard, mine soft, his determined, mine willing, his
fingers quick and eager, mine capable of keeping his spirit alive as long as it took. You need little room when your legs are straight up in the air, if someone is holding you against a wall and ramming against you with all their strength and you are doing nothing but gasping in ecstasy, and if you make too much noise a hand is clapped across your mouth. Have you tried to orgasm in silence? It can be done, but it centres your thoughts on one place and one emotion wonderfully ...
We rested, we waited, we went again; we rested, we waited, we went again and then again.
At last I emerged from his secret hole, tired, shaking, satiated with his juices and my own emotions. I saw the mirror immediately, hanging over the fireplace in which burned a small, sullen fire.
Time of Her Life Page 8
