"Oh the poor dear" began Ms’ Tricks as she stretched out her arms to take the child. Though she had never produced any offspring of her own, Ms’ Tricks was great with children, especially babies. Almost as soon as she was safely in the arms of the old woman, Daisy stopped her crying and began to stare up at the wrinkled face of Ms’ Tricks, unsure of what to make of the ravages of time.
"Oh, what a sweet little baby. She'll be Princess Regent someday".
As much as he wanted to, Kenneth did not point out that, sweet as his little baby was, London would have to be on the brink of destruction before his daughter was in line for the throne. Instead, the proud father asked Ms’ Tricks if she would care to look after his child while he ventured to the house of Mary Mine in search of his wife. Of course, Ms’ Tricks was more than happy to oblige and Kenneth was soon on his way to the most infamous house in London.
Chapter 3
"You need to get away from your husband for good" Mary told Anne as she poured her a glass of cheap but drinkable wine.
"I can't do that. I took a vow,” replied the wedded Anne.
"Forget about vows, this is London. This is a different time. The King isn't even the King."
Though Anne appreciated the opinion of her lifelong friend, she loved her husband and had no desire to leave him. All she needed was somebody on the side to give her an orgasm every now and then and her life was perfect.
As Anne drained her glass, Mary lingered over her young lover. She was so close that Anne could smell the perfume she had doused her neck and wrists with. It mixed with the scent of the wine to create a strange yet strangely arousing aroma.
"All done?" joked Mary as Anne lowered the glass from her lips. The sight of Anne's rouge lipstick on her glass excited Mary for in a moment the same lipstick would be covering the outskirts of her mouth. She slid two fingers beneath Anne's chin and raised the flawless face towards her. Anne trembled with anticipation. As Mary's lips slowly grew closer to her, the smell of her sweet breath made Anne’s nostrils dance with delight (if nostrils could indeed dance). Finally, that moment of connection came and Mary's soft lips pressed against Anne's, giving the married woman a sensation which she did not experience nearly as often as she would have liked. Anne's lips put up no resistance when Mary's tongue pushed through them and entered the young lady's mouth. Mary's tongue soon found the tongue of her partner and it wasn't long before both tongues were wrestling in a bout where it did not matter who won or who lost; the spirit of competition was its own reward.
Anne could feel the slender fingers of her female lover run up her back, stopping only once they reached the buttons of her dress. Her heart began to beat faster and faster as one by one, the buttons of her dress were separated from their eyelets and the dress was completely undone. A cheeky smile formed on the face of Anne as she slid her long, skinny arms out of her dress before bringing it to her ankles and stepping out of it as if she were standing inside some spoke-less wheel. There was something about Anne's bare frame which made Mary Mine feel something no man had ever made her feel before. Anne's nude body seemed warm and inviting, as if it were calling her to lick it and caress it and just generally love it. Mary wrapped her arms around the perfect body before her and allowed her hands to come to rest on Anne's smooth, ideally formed rear. Whatever it was about Anne's love, it just made Mary feel right. Anne began to unbutton Mary's blouse, it should have been an easy task but it was made considerably more difficult by her clumsy fingers, which were shaking with excitement. She knew Mary was not wearing anything beneath that blouse and that those buttons were the only thing standing between her and immortality. Mary, having never been the patient type, could not wait any longer for her chest to be exposed. She needed the thrill of feeling her bare flesh pressed up against the bare flesh of Anne and so she swiped the delicate hands of her lover away and deployed all of her female might to tear open her own blouse, sending a dozen buttons scattering to the floor around her.
While the buttons of her blouse (and the blouse itself) went to the floor, Mary's lips went to the breasts of Anne and she took the right nipple of her clandestine lover between her teeth. Anne's body trembled and she moaned with pleasure as Mary began to grind her teeth from side to side. What Anne was experiencing at this moment it not easy to describe. Some would argue that such an intense feeling of pleasure is impossible to put into words; but let it suffice to say that Anne was feeling something few people ever feel or make someone feel in their lifetime. She was feeling the kind of pleasure one can only experience when they encounter the perfect sexual partner. The one who knows exactly what to do and just how hard to do it in order to help their lover reach orgasm. While Mary did get Anne extremely close to an orgasm (as close as one can possibly be without actually having an orgasm), she did not manage to complete the process as the couple's lovemaking was interrupted by a sudden knock to the door.
"Mary Mine!" called a voice from behind the door. "Open up right now!"
"Oh no" muttered Mary. "It must be a love-struck client. Sometimes they get obsessed and come calling at odd hours." Anne advised Mary not to answer the door. She didn't want her childhood friend to fall victim to some crazed murderer. Highwaymen were running rampant at this time. Perhaps they had begun making house calls.
"Mary Mine!" the voice came again. Whoever it was, he was angry and he certainly didn't seem like he was going to go away before the door was answered.
"Mary Mine!" he called a third time, his voice louder and his fists hammering harder than both previous times. At this moment, Anne began to recognise the voice. It sounded an awful lot like her husband, though he wasn't one to shout or yell. The voice called for Mary Mine a fourth time and this time, Anne was convinced that the man on the other side of the door was indeed her husband.
Without consulting her friend, Mary decided that her best course of action was to open her front door and confront the man. The door was made from weak wood anyway and could be easily kicked down if the man so desired. By greeting him voluntarily, Mary was only speeding up the inevitable and saving herself the expense of a carpenter and blacksmith. The man was still yelling and demanding for Mary Mine to open the door for him as the homeowner forced the key to turn in the rusted lock.
"Yes?" she asked when she finally swung open the door. She was surprised to be greeted by somebody she did not recognise. Mary entertained a lot of clients at her home, but not so many that she couldn't remember all the faces.
"Where is my wife?" demanded Kenneth while Mary still tried to put a name to the face. The enraged husband did not wait for an answer and jostled his way into Mary's home and stampeded into the dimly lit living room in search of his wife.
"Anne!" he called over the sound of his thunderous footsteps. "Are you in..." Kenneth was stifled mid-sentence by the sight of his naked wife, clamouring desperately to hide her shame from the man she was married to.
"What is the meaning of this?" yelled Kenneth, demanding his wife to answer him despite the tears, which were forming in her eyes.
"Kenneth... I... I..."
"Why are you here?" he asked, adding to the list of questions his wife was expected to answer. "Are you a prostitute? Is that how low you have sunk?"
"No, Kenneth" his wife answered through her sobs, "no I'm not a prostitute."
Anne's answer did little to ease Kenneth's mind and only served to send him into an even greater rage.
"Well if you're not a whore, what are you? Why are you in this house and void of any article of clothing?"
"I... I..." Anne began to stammer once again. She knew there would be no good excuse for the situation. Her only option was to tell her husband the truth, but he would surely be driven into a blind rage by her confession. He would divorce her. He would slander her name all over London. Worst of all, he would never allow her to see her own daughter again.
"Well?" pressured Kenneth, interrupting his wife's thoughts with his insistence upon an answer then and there.
"
Kenneth, I don't know what to say" she began. "I'm... I'm..."
"She's my lover,” said Mary as she entered the room. The lady of the night and woman of the streets had been standing in her hallway for much of the conversation between the husband and wife. She knew it wouldn't be appropriate to enter the room during such a pivotal moment in their relationship, but she was also aware that Anne was not strong enough to make a full confession of her own accord. If any progress was ever going to be made, Mary was the one who would have to break the news to Kenneth.
Obviously, Kenneth reacted in the same manner in which any man in his situation would be expected to act; that is to say, he went into a state of panic and total denial.
"Anne, I demand to know the real reason you are here. You are my wife and I expect you to tell me the truth." The anger, which had been so evident in Kenneth's voice just moments before, had been reduced to but a trickle. Now, both Anne and Mary could sense the desperation in his words. He was desperate to be given any other explanation as to why his wife was nude in the house of Mary Mine; and that meant any explanation. By this point, Kenneth would have been happy to learn his wife had been whoring herself to every man in England's capital. As far as he was concerned, having a wife who was paid to have sex with other men was a great deal more acceptable than having a wife who cheated on him with a woman for free.
"Anne, tell me the truth,” pleaded the near-heartbroken husband.
Anne wiped a tear from her eye and sighed before telling her husband; "That is the truth. We're lovers."
Again, Kenneth went into a state of denial. His heart began to race, his stomach began to churn and his brain began to pound as he did all he could to convince himself that his wife was not telling him the truth.
"You're lying,” insisted Kenneth.
"She's not lying to you, this is real." Mary found herself interjecting again out of necessity.
"You're lying" Kenneth said again. He had long stopped sounding like an angry husband. His tone of voice was now closer to that of an orphan child. Once again, Mary sensed that no progress was being made. If Kenneth and Anne were ever to pass this endless cycle of truth and denial, she would have to take matters into her own hands for a third time; and she did just that.
While Anne and Kenneth still argued over what was and what was not the truth, Mary made the brash decision to walk the dangerous trail which lead to Anne, take her face in her hands and kiss her as passionately as she had done in the moments before Kenneth's interruption. Kenneth was speechless when he saw Mary draw his wife's lips to her own, as was Anne; and not just because of the tongue in her mouth. For the briefest of moments, Kenneth was insulted by what was unfolding before his eyes. These feelings of negativity, however, soon gave way to more positive and relaxed emotions. What he was watching intrigued him. He had rarely seen two human beings kiss in the past, let alone two women. He couldn't quite explain it, but the sight of his wife engaging in such an intimate activity with another woman began to test his loyalty to Jesus, God and the standards of the day. Anne was also excited. The kiss of Mary was, in every sense, too powerful for her to pull away from.
Mary and Anne continued their "sinful" activity and soon the wave of pleasure washing over Kenneth's wife was so strong that couldn't help but drop the clothes she had been using to shield her naked body. Once again, Anne's bare flesh was on show and linked directly to the bosom of Mary, which was covered only by the tattered blouse she had hastily put on when those knocks first came to her door. As he watched the women hold each other ever tighter, Kenneth hardly noticed his right hand begin to venture down to his nether regions in search of self-serving delight. As unruly as he had been before his marriage, he had never performed such an act on himself before; on this occasion however, masturbating seemed to be the appropriate action to take.
While masturbation was the first of Kenneth's sexual explorations on that night, it would not be his last. Between deep moans and piercing sighs, Mary caught sight of what was going on the other side of her room and decided she had to put a stop to it. No man would ever masturbate himself in her home; she liked to consider herself a good host and so in the spirit of hospitality, she left her post at Anne's lips in favour of the awaiting penis.
"You poor boy" said Mary as her tiny feet carried her in the direction of Kenneth, "let me show you how to do that right." With these words, Mary reached her arm out and seized Kenneth's penis tightly in her hand; her veteran palms knew all the right movements to turn Kenneth into a quivering mass of jelly. Of course, there was still another person in the room and, not wanting to be left out, she found her way to the back of Mary where she took the flesh of the busy woman's neck between her teeth as she had done so many times in the past. Kenneth shook, Mary trembled and Anne snarled; she knew Mary enjoyed being able to hear her as she bit down harder and harder on her skin. The feeling of Anne's warm breath on the back of her neck made Mary's body tingle so much that she feared she would be incapable of fulfilling her obligations to Kenneth. She was almost certain she would fall to the ground and spend the following days in an orgasm-induced blackness. Thankfully, Mary did not pass out and was able to successfully complete the task at hand. In turn, Anne ensured that her girlfriend experienced an orgasm before turning her fingers on herself while her husband and lover lay slumped together, holding each other tightly and feeling like they had just stumbled upon the most perfect arrangement.
Chapter 4
The weeks and months past, as weeks and months are prone to do, and the odd relationship between Kenneth, Anne and Mary continued to grow. No longer did Anne have to silently creep away in the middle of the night to be satisfied by another women and no longer did Mary have to turn to the street to make her meagre living. Instead, the arrangement was made that Mary would move into the house of Kenneth and Anne under the guise of a maid and the trio would spend the rest of their days as sexual partners. Of course, this plan, like all similar plans, was doomed from the start but the pig-headed couple and the foolhardy woman were too stubborn to realise this. The one catch to this new arrangement was that all parties involved were forbidden to engage in intercourse with each other unless all three members of the relationship were present. At first, this did not pose an issue and life proceeded as normal (or at least as normal as it possibly could), but one day would lead to not only the downfall of the relationship, but the downfall of all those involved.
The day in question came during a particularly hot July in 1817. Like the days that had preceded it and the days which would follow it, this was a Saturday of singing birds, stinging bees and sweltering heat. The lady of the house had gone, as she did every Saturday, to the market where she would purchase a variety of breads and jams before calling into Ms’ Tricks to sample her freshly made goods. She had taken little Daisy with her in the pram and so the house contained only half its usual occupants. In the garden, Kenneth tended to the flowers that had become an obsession of his ever since the day they bloomed. They looked so beautiful on their first day from the soil that he could not stand to see them deteriorate in appearance and so whenever the weather and time were in agreement, he would inspect, trim and generally maintain them. Inside, Mary, nearly driven insane by the heat, decided to take a cold bath. Kenneth and Anne kept a large basin beneath the kitchen sink which was used whenever a bath was in order; however, they had strict rules as to the amount of hot water which could be used and so Mary often found herself sitting in a basin which was only a quarter filled. With no need or desire for hot water on this day, Mary was looking forward to filling the basin to the brim and spending a satisfying and cooling afternoon immersed in cold water.
Mary's body glistened with sweat as she undressed herself in preparation for the bath. The basin, filled with ice cold water, lay in waiting while the young woman stepped out of her undergarments and into her own skin. She had always felt much more comfortable in the nude. While some people may feel insecure or vulnerable when in a state of undress, Mary found it li
berating. To her, the human body was a wonderful thing and that included her own. In fact, there were a great deal of men (and women, for that matter) who would say Mary's body was a tad more wonderful than other human bodies. Though she was a humble person, Mary had to admit her body was an attractive one. She had done her best to keep it in a pristine state and had been quite successful in not losing her trim figure, as she grew older. Mary slowly ran her hands down her chest, running one down each leg once she reached her midsection. She crouched a little to make sure she was able to touch all of her leg before running her hands back up to her chest and starting again. This time, Mary gently traced the outsides of her breasts with her long, painted nails and shivered as she brought each index finger to her nipples and entered the basin.
While Mary soaked herself in the bath, Kenneth continued his household chores in the garden. The spring had given the garden such perfect flowers that it seemed a crime to not pick some for the house.
"I'll only pick four" thought Kenneth, "one for everybody in the house." The flowerbeds would never miss four flowers, there were more than enough to make up for the loss. In one flowerbed alone grew daffodils, sunflowers and roses; all within close proximity of each other. Though he intended to pick just four daffodils, Kenneth's capacity for choice waned as he began to imagine how Anne and Mary would react when they saw his selfless gifts. They would be without any physical gifts to give Kenneth in reciprocation and so would have to throw themselves at his feet and pledge their sexual services. The lips of both Anne and Mary would be placed on his penis while they covered it in saliva, pushing the spit out of their mouths with swirling tongues. Then, he would watch as both women pleasured each other in a number of different ways. Maybe Mary would force Anne to bend over the bed (or table, wherever they happened to be) for a nice, hard spanking. The sound of Mary's hand crashing against the rear of his wife brought Kenneth's male instincts to boiling point and there was rarely anything he could do to stop his cooling juices pouring out of the tip of his penis.
The Duke's Dilemma: Regency Romance Menage Short Stories Page 90
