"An emerald! A real emerald! Green is my favorite color. You remembered."
"I remembered. You said it was what you wanted." He paused, adding heavily, "I'll give you anything you want."
She held it up to the flickering light, gloating, as he added, "There's more. Just a little thing. Look deeper."
She pulled out the long plantain at the bottom, and I couldn't see until she held it up that something lacy and green was wrapped around it.
"Silk garters," he said low, "from Paris. To match your necklace." In a commanding tone, he added, "Put them on."
Coyly, she said, "I'm not wearing stockings. It's too hot."
"You don't need them. They'll be just as beautiful on your skin."
She sat on the edge of the bed and began unwrapping them from the long plantain, while he stepped to her, the hard flesh still rising out of his clothes, leading him. Slowly he raised her skirts, knowing, I suppose, that he would find no underthings beneath, while she would find no punishment as I had. To my shock and dismay he went down on one knee, removing her slippers, then slid the first garter up her long leg, tying the ribbon, taking as much time as possible.
He murmured, "I was right. You don't need any stockings."
She unwrapped the other and handed it down to him, still toying with the plantain in her hand provocatively. He slid the other up her leg as she watched, gloating over his place at her feet. He stared only a moment, and with no warning his hands gripped her legs, yanking them open wider. His eyes sparkled, as greedily as hers had staring at the necklace, then he reached out with one hand, smoothing over the crack she'd spread so wide for him. She leaned her head back a little, making a mewing sound.
"Harder. You've kept me waiting for two days, off playing with your coffee instead of me. I want it harder."
He obliged, and the sound from her throat grew louder, before she whispered, "Pinch me a little," crying out when he did. Then she raised her head, smiling, and slid the long, hard plantain down her front until it was between her legs. She began rubbing herself with the tip of it, still staring down at him.
"I like it," she purred, adding, "I've never done it before. It's rough on the end, isn't it?"
"It's rough as hell. But you like that, don't you?" he asked, taking it from her hand and shoving it inside her. She gasped, and he drove it in and out a few times, before she demanded, "Higher. Bring it back up higher. I want it on my clit."
He pulled it from inside her and drug it up slowly, then began to rub it against her. She sighed, swaying a little as her spine arched backward.
I didn't think she could spread her legs any farther apart, but she did, and finally, impatient, she raised them in the air, taking her knees in her hands.
"Faster. Do it faster!"
His arm was pumping furiously, until at last she nearly screamed, coming against it. My father's arm slowed, still running it over her lips, as she grew calmer, murmuring, "I never could stand the things. But I think I'll fry that one up."
With that she stood, then stepped from him and began to undress before him, having him undo her ties at the back, her movements deliberate and absolutely shameless. He did the same, utterly relaxed, and she even helped remove his boots. I knew that this was anything but the first time between them. And once her gown fell to the floor, my heart dropped into my stomach, for she was of remarkable beauty, as I'd imagined the Queen of Sheba must have been, luscious, with high, large breasts, and a deliciously rounded belly that competed with an even rounder backside.
Naked, she held up the necklace, handing it to him and turning around.
"Put it on me first. I want to wear it while you fuck me."
In a tone not altogether strict, he said, "You know I don't approve of vulgarity."
"You don't approve? You're going to put your cock in my cunt. That's not vulgarity. That's fucking. And you know what it is as well as I do." Her voice dropped, throaty again, as she taunted, "I haven't been away as long as that. I know what you want. All your bekés ladies do is cross their legs tight. Like that bitch you married. And you want a fuck as much as I do. You're aching for it. Look how stiff you are. If you get any bigger you'll split me in half."
His face was strange in that moment, almost like another man, the planes of it hard, his eyes darkening, like a coming storm.
"Get on the bed. On your knees."
She smiled with feline victory.
"I will for you. Only for you, Master."
In her flawless French, with her lilting voice, she sounded more like an empress than one of the workers in our field, their French saturated with the patois I knew as well as my own tongue, though strangers to our island found it impenetrable. She'd said the word "master" in a silken fashion that even made my stomach tighten, far less could I wonder what it did to my father.
In a strange way, I couldn't help but be aroused by their play, for even in my irritating state of innocence, I understood that this was play between them. Solange was a free woman of color, a thing in which she took great pride. She did not belong to my father, and was no man's property. Somehow, I understood this wasn't the reason she called him master at all, though I understood something more, as well. That in her hatred for the planters, she was goading him, mocking him, yet, despite his own considerable pride, he allowed it, perhaps even enjoyed it, for the sake of satisfying his desire.
She climbed up onto the bed, on her knees, pushing her naked, generous backside into the air, seeming to sway it gently from side to side, as if to call him to her. Obviously it worked, for he watched with burning eyes for only a moment before he got on his knees behind her, then reached out and grasped her by the hips, lightly slapping her raised cheeks several times with loud smacks. With her, at least, he had no fear of using bare flesh rather than the switch.
"Don't tempt me with that, you shameless creature, or I'll beat you until it's not brown or white, but only red as an Indian."
Continuing to sway, she turned her face to command in a raspy drawl, "Then do it. Slap it again. Harder."
At this moment in particular my mouth went dry as she writhed under his hand when he struck her again with a loud report that would have been heard far beyond where I stood, if anyone had been there. He'd chosen her little cottage well, I thought bitterly.
"I think you want to be taken in hand, you little whore. I think you enjoy it."
"And you don't?"
"I enjoy it. But I'd enjoy something else more."
In a fierce tone, she said, "Then do it. Fuck me!"
He took his cock in hand and plunged it into her from behind. She cried out, quite theatrically I thought, pushing toward him as he began to pump himself into her, his skin slapping at her rounded cheeks as his hand had done. She threw her head back, and his palm reached out, smoothing over the front of her long throat, pulling her spine into a deeper arch.
The "vulgarity" I was not allowed at home poured from her in a steady stream, her words obviously exciting him as he pounded into her body, the pleasure of it making him jerk, convulsions that rippled through him as he rammed himself into her.
"Oh God, God, fuck me! Plow me with it! Harder!"
He obeyed, her plaything now, until after a few minutes of groping at her breasts hanging below her, he withdrew from her, his enormity shimmering with the slimy essence of her.
Then he stood at the foot of the bed and roughly turned her over onto her back, grabbing her by the legs and yanking her toward him as he buried himself into her again, pistoning just as violently as she wrapped her legs around him.
I could see the witch lifting her hips from the bed to cleave to him, her belly rising and falling, obviously increasing his pleasure. His breath was heaving. One hand was toying with her clit as well, and she yowled with enjoyment, like a cat caught in the briars. He leaned over, taking one of her breasts in his mouth and tugging on it, as I heard her whisper, "Bite it," and he did as she commanded. The master was not the master at all. She was playing him like an i
nstrument, using his own lust as her weapon, and even I was mature enough to realize it.
After a joining that seemed to go on forever, he threw back his head with a roar of triumph, pumping and twisting even harder, and I was sure it was what I felt beneath the covers at night, except that, rather than soft and achingly sweet, it was violent, primitive. Perhaps it was my father, or perhaps all men, I had no way of knowing. I only knew, with a heavy heart, that I had lost him. Worse, that he had never been mine, and never would be. I could bear to watch no more. Turning away, I slipped over the railing and into the greenery, walking across the turf, my face wet, flooded with tears.
I don't know how my father sensed my awareness of the situation, although, at that age, I suppose I wasn't particularly subtle. For the first time tension settled between us, and I spent as much time as possible out of the house, and even more time with the Ducasses, knowing it would anger him if he heard of it.
It was a heavy tension but a silent one, though it was bound to erupt at last. And it did, one day in the kitchens, as I was pressing one of his shirts, a task that now left me petulant. My father entered the room, to ask the cook about dinner, and glanced aside, seeing a coil of smoke rising from the cradle of the iron.
With no real censure, he said, "Careful, Létice. You're going to burn that."
It wasn't his fault. He couldn't possibly have known, couldn't have understood, that he had struck to my very heart, like one tiny spark to an island distillery, turning sugar to an explosive inferno that could rage for days with volcanic fury.
I lifted my face and stared at him only a moment, before I flung his shirt to the floor, shouting, "Then why don't you have Solange do it for you? If she can learn how! All she does is sit on her ass anyway!"
I think, in that moment, he was so stunned that discipline and anger had been driven from his mind. But just as his face darkened, I turned and ran from him, upstairs to my bedroom. I locked myself in the rest of the night, refusing dinner, even refusing Nana admittance. Consumed with rage and grief, I had no subtle instinct of warning in the laden silence, and no idea the calamity about to befall me.
Two sullen weeks later, the axe descended, at breakfast.
"In one month's time your uncle will be arriving in Fort-Royal to load my first shipment of coffee. You will accompany him, back to France. I've written to l'Acadamie des Femmes at Saint Geneviève. It's the finest Catholic girls' schools in France. They had already said they would welcome you at any time. You will finish your education there. You're becoming a young woman. It's far past time for you to see something of the proper world." Softening but little, he added, "It's for the best."
I had been dismissed. Like a servant who hadn't been satisfactory. The shock and pain of it was something that, even now, I truly cannot bear to dwell on.
I had no idea why, in my bitterness, I was determined I would not leave my island home a virgin. I believe I was trying to punish him. If he had no desire for my maidenhead, I would offer it up elsewhere, to someone who cared enough to take it.
I began plotting that very night, to ease the rage that was holding sleep from me. I knew from Nana's wisdom that I would suffer no swollen belly from it. I'd seen her brew up the concoction myself. It gifted me with even more courage.
Chapter Four
In mapping out my first attempt at seduction, I found myself hoping that what Nana had said so often was true, that men of every color had one thing in common, this being they would take almost anything that was freely offered. I felt sure I wasn't ugly, but beyond that wasn't certain if I were pretty, or worse, desirable. There was nothing exceptional in my appearance that I could see, nothing alluring, like Solange Doumier.
The most famed beauty on earth, the incomparable empress, Josephine, was a woman of Martinique, but this was small comfort. Unlike her, my coloring was typical of the north of France, of Normandy, my mother's ancestral home. My skin was fair, and though Nana mixed a salve to keep it so, there was still a tint of the sun in it. My hair was honeyed, but not blonde enough to suit my desire for the golden curls of a Madame Tallien, my eyes blue, but not sparkling with enticement like Madame Récamier. These were among the great French beauties whose lithographs had been cut from the newspaper and kept in my bureau drawer. I longed to possess at the least, if not beauty, the sensuous air of the great courtesans, a thing it was said was even more important. The incessant taunts and hoots of the boys my own age meant nothing, since they would hoot and taunt anything that had a hole between its legs.
As the days passed, my banishment looming, candidate after candidate passed through my mind and was discarded. A few men among my father's friends were attractive enough, but I felt certain they would be constrained by their friendship for him. Their sons were far less temperate, and the libertinage of some was nearly legend, leaving me with a sense of danger for myself, in their drunken loutishness. I even thought of Solange's brother, César, a desirable man, and there would be such poetic justice in it. Yet this I recoiled from, not for my sake, but his. If it were ever to reach the ears of anyone else on the island, it could endanger his work, and make him anathema to the planters, among whom he was slowly and carefully building alliances. He would have taken the white daughter of one of the grands blancs, and would never again be trusted. Even if I could make him want me, I wouldn't see him destroyed by my selfish desire to have vengeance on his sister.
As fate would have it, my choice of a ravisher in the end was one of opportunity rather than strategy. Eugène Ducasse was my own age, and for two years his taunts and hoots had been the loudest of all, while he seized every chance to reach inside my bodice or lift my skirts. His importuning was, in fact, annoyingly incessant, despite his being a handsome young man, with chestnut curls and a winning smile.
The opportunity arrived without planning or thought, and I knew I had to take it, for I was leaving very soon. The sun had yet to set, and there were at least a dozen of us swimming that Saturday. Deliberately I headed off alone, and when I swam around the nearby cay, to my delight, he followed.
Nana had once joked that every man had a favored part of a woman's body, and I knew Eugène had never left his Mama's teat behind, forever trying to get his hand around one of mine. As we swam past the sandbar and closer to shore, I dove underwater and loosed the coiled tie of my madras, my movements unseen. Eugène had swum underneath me, and sure enough, tried to grope one of my breasts when he came up the other side, while I spun out of his reach. But still leading him slowly toward the shore, and the darkened, quiet cove.
As the others faded away, far from us, we circled one another in the water. He wore only a pair of tattered breeches cut at the knee. The boys swam naked when they were alone, but donned such as this when the girls were with them. I brushed my shoulder lightly over his bare chest, and the contact drew him even nearer, until he put his arms around me as I floated, growing serious.
"Let me, Létice. Please, let me, just once. That's all. Just once."
For the first time, I didn't extend my usual ridicule or irritated retort. Instead, I pushed myself from him, but not far. I freed myself in one easy movement from the loosened madras, letting it drift to shore on the waves. Then I floated again, arching my back so my bare nipples broke the surface.
Eugène was awestruck, gazing at them for some time. When he reached out I pulled away, but once again, not far. As if feebleminded, he repeated his words.
"Let me, Létice. Please. I know you'll love it. I hear the women in my father's room at night. They yell like dogs in heat."
"How romantic."
Dropping his voice, he tried another tack.
"I'll give you anything you want. Anything."
These words brought an unpleasant catch to my heart. My father's words to his witch.
I snapped, "I don't want anything, Eugène." Softening, I deliberately pressed my hand over the front of his breeches, once. "Then again, maybe I do want something. I haven't decided yet." Teasingly, I repeated,
"But maybe I do," with what I hoped was a provocative smile.
His face was dazed, wondering if I had found a new and much crueler way to reject him.
"What do you mean, Létice?"
"I mean that soon I'll be eighteen, and my father is going to lock me up in a nunnery for the next two years. I mean that I'm a woman, and I want to find out what all the fuss is about." I turned my head again, still floating, my breasts still the object of his enraptured stare. I raised them even higher. "Can you show me what it feels like? Or are you still a little boy, and all talk."
His face grew flushed, his hand reaching out and closing over one again. He squeezed it, too hard.
"Just let me, and I'll show you I'm not a boy anymore. You'll be a woman then."
"How do I know that? How do I know you've even done this?"
"Of course I've done it!" he fired back, in a way that told me nothing of the kind was probably the case. It surprised me, for I'd thought that surely, at the least, he'd taken advantage of the quarters, with his father's shining example of morality before him. Perhaps he'd been forbidden it for some reason, by his father's whim, or more likely possessive jealousy over his private hunting ground.
"Well, I suppose you'll have to prove that, won't you?"
My own father called me his little fish, for I'd taken to water before I could walk, and could out-swim just about anyone on the island. I'd even gone far enough out to play with the dolphins and the harmless cat sharks and sea turtles that we sometimes captured to make into so many delicacies. Leading Eugène where I wanted him to go was child's play. I tightened my legs like a mermaid and flipped about, speeding away from him, and as I'd hoped, he followed.
Though I took a circuitous route, I was heading for the high rocks of the cove, with the twisted hallways and secret alcoves within, darkened chambers like a phantasmal manor of stone with a sand floor. Purposely I came out of the sea naked in the full light of sunset, the waves surging around my legs. I walked slowly toward my wrap, my head up, rather than crouching and running for it. Then I draped it around me, wet and clinging. His open-mouthed stare was quite satisfying.
Martinique (The Acolyte Book 1) Page 3
