"There, there, dear" Katrina said as she rose from her chair and wrapped her arms around Alexia. "It will be alright."
"Why must I be in such an unhappy marriage? Why may I not enjoy the marital bliss which you and the Duke have?"
"Marriage is not easy. The Duke and I have our problems too."
Alexia looked up. "You do?"
"Indeed we do."
This news comforted her. She was pleased to hear that the perfect couple were not as perfect as they seemed.
Katrina wiped a tear from Alexia's eye before it had a chance to stain her cheeks. She then wiped away another. And another. Another tear did not follow. Alexia was beginning to compose herself and was embarrassed, if not ashamed, by her inability to control her emotions.
'Look at me,'' she said as she sniffed, forcing all rogue mucus back inside her reddened nostrils. "I am a mess."
"Oh, everybody cries, dear. It is nothing to be ashamed of."
"I know, I know. But I can't help it. Paul is so unemotional. You would not believe it if you read his books. They are such wonderful works of art. But he is like a stone when he is not bent over a sheet of paper."
"That is why you must leave him. Find a man your own age. It is what's best for you."
"I know, I know."
"Now, my dear" Katrina said as she raised the bottle of wine over Alexia's recently emptied glass, "more wine?" Alexia laughed. Or perhaps 'cackled' would be more accurate and replied in the affirmative.
"Of course!" she cried. "As the saying goes, wine heals all wounds!"
Chapter Five
The theatre was busy that night. While on most nights, the proprietors could expect a house half full - and on special nights, three quarters full - this night saw a full house. Hundreds of people had come out that evening to witness the work of the immortal Bard for themselves. There were Shakespeare enthusiasts who never missed a performance of his work. Critics who would spend the following day writing a report on the talent - or lack thereof - of the actors. There were less-educated members of the middle-class who had read the fantastic reviews this particular performance of Macbeth had been receiving. And then, of course, there was the Duke and his maid, who sat high above the public in a private box, which the theatre reserved for only the most respected members of English society.
"My goodness," Betty said as she looked down at the hats and bald patches, "it is so full of people." She was giddy with excitement, like a child, and mesmerised by the sights and sounds and everything else that was going on around her. The theatre was a great deal larger than she had imagined and far more glamorous than she would have ever believed. The Duke did not share her wonder. He was used to the magnificence of the theatre and the general decadence, which his position allowed him to experience on a daily basis. He did not realise it, but this fact was a greater tragedy than the play that he was about to see.
Betty let out a shout of glee when the three witches gathered on stage to begin the first act. Her cry was so loud that many of those in the seats below turned their head upwards in an attempt to see the unruly woman who had disrupted the opening of the play. The Duke nudged her and calmly advised her to remain quiet or risk being escorted out of the theatre. Betty obeyed this command, but it was difficult to do so. With each passing line, she became more and more excited. She knew nearly the entire play by heart and had to throw her hands over her mouth whenever a player faltered, taking too much of a pause between words or getting just two lines in the wrong order. And this was just in the first scene. It became a great deal trickier to keep her mouth shut when the actors playing Macbeth and Banquo, his dearest friend, appeared on the stage for the first time. The player in the title role nearly made her dive from the box in the sky and storm the stage. He was a sight to behold. With long blonde hair and a day's worth of stubble on his face, he was not far from what one would imagine a fearsome warrior to look like. He was tall, unusually so, and had biceps as large as her husband's head. And when he spoke, he spoke with such clarity and believability that the maid was convinced that the man she was falling in love with was, indeed, Macbeth. And she was Lady Macbeth. Why, if the actor had called her name and demanded she murder Gordon so he could take the man's place as Duke, she probably would have done so.
Betty left the theatre that night feeling more sexually charged than ever. It annoyed her that something, which she had hoped would take her mind off her sexual problems, had only served to worsen them. Now she was so aroused that she was even considering masturbating upon returning to the manor. It was not hard for the Duke to tell that something was amiss with the maid. She was usually an extremely talkative person and any conversation with her was absent of awkward silences. He had prepared himself for at least an hour of the maid mindlessly chattering about how fantastic the performance had been. However, she had managed nothing more than a "that was good" upon the completion of the play. She had been quiet since that moment. And she was quiet in the carriage as the driver brought her and the Duke back to the master's manor. In the carriage, Betty felt her hand begin to venture towards the Duke. It seemed to move independently of her and there was nothing she could do to control it. For a brief moment, she was able to assert some degree of dominance over it, but she quickly lost control again. It was as if her sexual desires were taking control of her body. Before she knew it, her hand was upon the Duke's lap and before the Duke knew it, his hand was on hers.
Chapter Six
After completing his usual tasks about the house, Harrison returned to his chamber, expecting to find his wife already asleep. However, the woman was nowhere to be found. In her stead, the butler discovered the note that she had left to explain her absence.
"Harrison, I have gone to the theatre with Gordon.
I shall be home quite late. Do not wait up."
The final sentence of this note was rather unnecessary as there was little to no chance of the butler waiting up for his wife. In fact, the entire note was rather unnecessary. Unlike the Duke, Harrison would not have been annoyed by his wife's failure to inform him of her sudden trip. In all likelihood, without a note, he would have simply assumed that she was completing some mundane task somewhere in the manor. There was one advantage of her leaving a note, however. Now that he knew the manor was empty and that nobody would be home for quite some time, the butler could pleasure himself without having to rush or pause after every stroke to listen for somebody coming (other than himself). Standing in the middle of the chamber, he began to unfasten his belt without even closing the door. Then he stopped. He had been so excited by the prospect of masturbating without any potential disturbances that he had forgotten to arouse himself. His penis was still curled away inside his underwear, flaccid and showing no signs of hardening. It generally took the butler at least half of an hour to become aroused as he was living in a cursed time where pornography was not easy to access. It was up to Harrison and Harrison alone to make his penis erect. The power of his orgasm depended on the power of his imagination.
In recent days, the butler had found himself fantasising about the Duchess. While she was absolutely off limits in the real world, the ageing man could not help but think of her when he was touching himself. She was simply too attractive not to be sexualised. He imagined her naked, her perfect breasts pointing towards him rather than sagging towards the ground. He imagined her on her knees before him, taking his penis in her mouth and covering it with her saliva. He imagined her lying back and spreading her legs, inviting him to come and enter her. His imagination was so vivid that he could almost hear her moans and smell the fine perfume, which poured from her body as he made love to her. He was semi-erect. Another minute or so of thoughts like this would have made him suitably hard. But he stopped again for he had a realisation. He did not need to imagine the scent of the Duchess when he could experience it in the real world.
"I have an empty manor for quite some time," he said to himself, "it would be a shame to waste it." With this, he refastened his belt
and left the chamber. His almost erect penis made it a little difficult for him to walk, but he eventually made his way down the stairs and into the manor hallway, where there was a coat stand bearing two jackets belonging to the Duke and an immeasurable number of jackets belonging to the Duchess.
Harrison reached for the red velvet jacket with the black buttons, which the Duchess had worn the previous day to do a spot of shopping in the city. He had always loved the way that jacket looked on her. It fit her body so perfectly that nobody could doubt it had been tailor made. When those black buttons were fastened, the jacket fit so snuggly to her chest that one could see the individual shape of each of her breasts. How he would have loved to see her in that jacket before pulling it from her, revealing a pair of breasts, which were just waiting to be sucked upon. He slid one hand down his trousers and with the other, pressed the jacket to his face. It smelled wonderful, divine even. It smelled of her. This jacket, this bearer of the Duchess' scent, was the most powerful sexual stimulant that the butler had ever encountered. Almost immediately, he became fully erect. He pressed the jacket even closer to his nose and inhaled as much as he lungs would allow him. Goodness gracious, that woman smelled amazing. Now the garment was pressed so tightly to the butler's face that he could see nothing but the fibres that composed it. The sleeves hung on either side of his head, not unlike pigtails, and the buttons brushed against his face.
Harrison pleasured himself as much as he could while still wearing his trousers, but he was soon forced to remove them. At first, he had planned to return to his chamber and strip there, but the excitement became too much. What was the harm in masturbating right there in the hall? He had more than enough time to complete the act and clean up afterwards. Nobody would ever know. Having decided to remain where he was, the butler reluctantly dropped the Duchess' jacket on the ground, removing one's trousers and underwear requires two hands working together. However, Harrison did not even get as far pulling his trousers to his ankles, for when he removed the Duchess' red velvet jacket from his face, he saw the Duchess standing before him.
Harrison was stunned. He had not the slightest idea how he was supposed to react. His gut told him to run, but his feet where rooted to the floor. Luckily for him, the Duchess was also not certain what reaction was expected of her. In fact, she was not certain if this ridiculous scene was actually happening. She had, after all, consumed quite a bit of wine that night. Perhaps what she was seeing was but a piece of fiction caused by the sheer amount of alcohol pumping through her veins. Had she attended the theatre that night, she may have questioned, "Is this a masturbating butler I see before me?" But she had not and so she did not. Finally, it was the masturbating butler who broke the silence. Granted, all he could muster was a stammer, but it broke the silence nonetheless. He stammered a second time. Then a third, and finally a fourth time. Then, the embarrassed butler was able to speak.
"Madam, I am so terribly sorry." The sound of the butler's voice was all the Duchess needed to hear to convince her that this was truly happening. An alcohol-fuelled mirage could not be so clear.
"Harrison, I do not know what to say."
"I understand, madam. I am so incredibly embarrassed. It is the first time I have ever done something like this, I assure you."
"I should hope so." She looked to the lower half of his body. His hands were out of his trousers now but there was still quite a large bulge to be seen. Even in her drunken state, the Duchess could tell that this bulge was the butler's penis. She was impressed by the size of the thing. It looked as though it was attempting to burst out of his slacks and come to her. It was definitely larger than the average penis. This was a judgement that the Duchess was qualified to make for she had been far from pure when she married the Duke. Beautiful women are not very often very pure for very long. As a single woman, she had grown so used to sleeping with multiple men that she had found it an impossibly difficult task to commit herself to the Duke. However, she had somehow managed to do so and had not slept with another man in all the time she had been married. But now, with alcohol corrupting her mind, and an already aroused man standing before her, the temptation was getting harder and harder to resist.
The Duchess was not sure what it was which excited her so about the situation. It definitely wasn't the butler, as she had never looked upon him in that way. The size of his penis almost certainly had to do with what she was feeling, as did the fact that she had caught him pressing her jacket up to his face and inhaling as if he were standing outside a baker's shop. She was more aroused by this latter detail than she was by the former. She liked the idea that a man was so crazy about her that he could become aroused just by her aroma. She liked the thought that he had taken it upon himself to fetch her jacket and risk being discovered in such a compromising position. Deep down, like many women, the Duchess was simply happy that somebody needed her. Harrison still wanted to run as fast as his legs could carry him, but he could not control his feet. The Duchess was also finding it difficult to control her feet and could do nothing to stop them from dragging her closer to the butler. She quickly decided that there was no reason trying to fight what her body wanted and allowed her feet to bring her closer and closer to him, stopping only when there was nothing between the two except the man's erect penis. He was fully erect. His penis had decreased in size when he realised he had been caught by the Duchess, but now that she was near him, he was erect once again. She smelled just as good as her jacket, if not better, and her breath had the scent of very expensive red wine.
He wanted to kiss her, and he was beginning to think that she wanted to kiss him. For what other reason would she come this close to him? Perhaps she wanted to slap him to punish him for being so perverted. That seemed more likely than the kiss. Actually, the butler would not have had any major problem with being slapped by the Duchess for it meant that he would get to experience her royal hand against his face. He shut his eyes and braced himself for a slap. However, he did not feel the Duchess' hand upon his cheek. Instead, he felt what felt suspiciously like her lips pressing against his own. With trepidation, he opened one eye, then the other. He was right! The Duchess was kissing him. Harrison came close to passing out with excitement, and he likely would have had he not known that passing out would mean he would miss the kiss of the lady of the house. She was a wonderful kisser. She had experience. He was stunned, but he pulled himself out of his state of shock when he felt the woman's tongue push past his lips and into his mouth. He could not simply stand there and do nothing like a wax statue. The Duchess was a beautiful woman and deserved to experience all the pleasure that the butler could provide. He met her tongue with his and a sort of wrestling match ensued. Harrison had been quite the grappler in his younger years, but on this occasion he was happy to be bested by the Duchess and allow his tongue to be pinned down by hers.
Almost as suddenly as she had kissed him, she reached out and grabbed hold of his private parts. The butler nearly lost control of his body and his knees came within inches of each other. He had never believed a situation such as this would come to pass. Here he was, standing in the hallway of the manor in which he had worked for most of his life, with a Duchess half his age holding onto his penis and testicles and refusing to release them. He did not want her to release them as it felt too incredible. She began to tug hard on his penis and testicles. While this may sound unpleasant at first, the Duchess had discovered in her teenage years that men quite liked the sensation this caused. Their private parts were nowhere near as sensitive as they believed. In all her life, he had encountered only one man who believed she was being too rough, and that was a parish priest. Harrison would not be joining the ranks of the parish priest on this night. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying this form of rough masturbation more than any man the Duchess had ever been with. When she did stop tugging on Harrison's private parts, she did so only to begin tugging on his trousers. He had not fastened his belt upon being caught - he was too frozen with fear to do that - so it was q
uite easy to send his black trousers crashing to his ankles. Then came his underwear, which went just as easily as his trousers did.
Now the butler's penis was free. The Duchess took a step back to see just what she would be working with and she was not disappointed. Harrison's penis was every bit as big as she had imagined it would be. It was possibly the largest penis she had ever seen, certainly larger than her husband's. Just as the butler had imagined, the Duchess dropped to her knees and took hold of his penis before inserting it into her mouth. Her lips formed a tight seal around the head of his member and she tickled the tip with her tongue. The Duke, when weighing the pros and cons of marrying the woman, had told Harrison in secret that she was a master of oral sex. Now that he was experiencing it for himself, the butler could say that yes, the Duchess was highly skilled in the art of oral sex. And it was an art.
As she sucked upon the butler's member, Katrina began to unfasten the jacket that she had worn to visit her depressed friend. She tossed it to the ground, where it joined her red velvet jacket, and quickly set to work removing her dress. This was not such an easy task and she was forced to release Harrison's penis from her mouth and rise to her feet. She turned her back to the man and commanded him to unfasten the buttons, which began at the back of her neck and carried on right down to her lower back. He did not need to be told twice. He was, after all, her butler.
The Duke's Dilemma: Regency Romance Menage Short Stories Page 24
