When I was slick enough he entered me and gave me the usual furious pumping that characterised any of our public displays. The slant here was obvious: I had to restrain my joy for fear of attracting all eyes up toward me. It might not be immediately obvious what was going on, especially as he had not stripped me bare first, so although I was threatening to spill out of my top, I was at least half decent for the moment. He could see out perfectly, and watch as more enquiring glances came my way, but even as those below shielded their eyes for a better view, the reflection on the window pane would obliterate any sight of him behind me. At best they would just about make out a shape, and then maybe they could analyse my behaviour and put two and two together. Have you any idea what it is like to be taken hard from behind while pretending to 30 or more onlookers that you are inordinately interested in a Virginia creeper?
It was quite clever, really. I had to admire his ingenuity; the deed being done covertly, but me right out there on display, my odd behaviour drawing ever more stares, trying desperately to pretend I was not being fucked, while the mere thought of it was lessening my self-control. When my climax came I drew blood, I bit my lip so hard. Then the window came up and he slipped me back inside, as if nothing had happened. But what did those poor churchgoers think had just happened? I mean, what else could have been happening? Perhaps they thought I was the family madwoman, getting trapped in an attempt to escape the quarters they locked me in. That might have explained the odd range of noises and facial expressions I was making.
While for him this bizarre fetish was possibly all about spontaneity and sharing, I found the humiliation of being publically used as tantalizing as the actual dirtiness of doing it. Even though I felt rudeness mushrooming inside me on a daily basis, I would still certainly never have instigated such an episode. I had to be made. He said there was another element too, the factor of my looks.
‘Because you are so delicious, most of these people could never hope to see you in such a compromising position. The very beautiful can always choose who, how, and where, and yet there you are, performing before their eyes. It is their gleeful good fortune as well as their yearning that you feel in the atmosphere, mixing with your shame and incredulity and abandonment. You are far, far too gorgeous to be doing it for them, to be such a dirty slut – you know it, and they know it – and that is what makes it so uniquely scintillating.
‘Beauties like you impart the most treasured memories, the most aching need. Those gardeners in the hothouse could have used a hundred whores in a single day, in every way they could imagine, but none of this would be as ingrained in their memory as a single glimpse of her ladyship’s nakedness, let alone the joy of being inside her. You provide an unfading vision for their fantasies that they never thought they deserved. In return, your prize is to know that you are adored above all, and that, with all our human frailties, is more than enough to stoke the fires of one’s soul.’
Well, it was good to know there was an underlying philosophical motive for it all, and I wasn’t just doing it because secretly I was a filthy tart! From that first spring day I saw him, over the three glorious seasons I spent as his “good friend”, we made love over a hundred times, barely a tenth of these when we might have been, or were, seen by others. Yet it is this fraction that my memory unfailingly recalls, that carry the thrill of him.
There were moments – when we laughed ourselves to tears, when we argued the merits of pinot over cabernet, when we lay stock still through a pink, creeping dawn to watch the swans on the lake – that I thought would provide the memories to define us. But when I’m alone with my eyes shut all I see is the time he bent me naked over the ottoman and spanked me as the chambermaid went about her duties and stripped the bed; how he went at me hard from behind, having ordered me to tell the chambermaid exactly what a dirty whore I was and what I wanted her to do to me, and how the chambermaid, now stripped from the waist down, used her feather duster to tease my naughty, stuck-out holes as I went on my knees to finish him in my mouth. That’s all I see, that and those other filthy handful of episodes. So you see, for all my pretentions to the contrary, it seems that I am little more than a hussy. That is the truth he dragged from me.
Chapter Three
I guess I brought the end about myself. I went to see him again when I shouldn’t, something that had become a habit of mine. I wasn’t trying to sabotage his home life; I simply needed to see him. I went in through the kitchens as always, where my approach wouldn’t be witnessed. The staff in collusion whisked me covertly through the herb gardens and out to where he was working in the stables, with Patrick and a groom. Perhaps I was hoping he would spank me for my misdemeanour; I was, after all, getting a taste for such punishment. He greeted me with his usual warmth, even though the ire must have been bubbling inside. Do you know I had yet to see him frown, even once?
‘I had said I would see you tonight, ma chérie,’ he said, calmly.
‘I needed to see you now.’ I smiled.
‘I only have an hour, and I really must get this done.’
‘Well, you had better get on with it,’ I said.
The thing is, every time he saw me he had to make love to me. It wasn’t just his libido, or his ego. I drove the desire in him and it could not be ignored. It was the one power I possessed in our relationship. A gaggle of women could have paraded naked before him and he would have kept on with his labours, but me he had no resistance to. I think that’s why I kept going to him when I knew I shouldn’t; I needed the reminder of my allure, especially as I was nowhere near as confident in my beauty as he seemed to be.
‘Champagne,’ he said quietly to Patrick.
‘I thought you only had an hour,’ I said, archly.
Patrick was already obeying, lifting the lid on the cool box within a picnic set and popping the cork of a chilled bottle. That was another thing about him. He was always ready for guests, as if they might drop in at the slightest moment, as if others would inevitably be drawn to him, whatever he was doing. I didn’t have time for champagne, and this I told him. If he hadn’t acted I would have lifted my skirts to display my lack of underwear, regardless of all his previous efforts to hide my bareness from others. That was the kind of immoral wretch he had made of me.
He took me in his arms and kissed me, moving me back toward a low stack of hay bales. He sat me up onto it, gathering up my loose skirt as he parted my legs, then moved between them to prevent my modesty being compromised. He noted my nakedness beneath the skirt and made no comment, though his zip came down hurriedly, and as he pulled himself out I could see he was already hard and bobbing from the onrush of blood. I loved that he was always instantly like this for me.
I expected to be plundered immediately, but for once he showed restraint. He looked back to the servants, Patrick still holding the glass flutes upon his salver, the bulge at his groin very noticeable.
‘See to him while I see to her,’ he ordered the groom.
The younger servant immediately went behind Patrick, reaching around to release the pressure of the bulge and haul out what was simply the biggest member I have ever seen, in both length and girth. It wasn’t even done yet. It filled further under the groom’s expert touch, bloating out and lengthening to bring the shining head clear. It looked fit to burst and truly wonderful. As the end cried a little opaque tear I felt the plunge inside and I cried out as I was filled.
He found his usual hard, deep rhythm that always had my wet softness slapping lewdly and sending the droplets of my bliss spattering down my thighs. He raised my legs and held me behind the knees to gain better purchase, but I could still see through the gaps in our limbs to the servants behind. It was me who was the watcher now. While being plumbed I watched the groom’s fist sliding swiftly upon the vast, rigid shaft. I imagined it going inside me, opening me up, stretching me wider than ever before, touching my belly within. I wanted it. I didn’t know how to ask, but I wanted it.
The words were shyly gathering in my hea
d: I need it right now. Give me your beautiful cock. Just the thought of actually saying them out loud made me shiver. I could be taken in front of them, but such vocal evidence of my smuttiness was surely a barrier too far? And Patrick was remaining so staunchly proper. Despite the pleasure being wrenched from him he was trying to hold his ground, to appear unflustered, like a flag bearer standing tall against a cannonade. The expression tried hard not to betray him, the glasses stayed upon the salver without wobbling, the knees refused to give at all. Even as his fountain burst his eyes only flickered, and the jerking motions of his groin were checked with great resolve.
I couldn’t display such control. The sight of the head swelling even further, then firing out its plumes of spray, had me crying out loud. I had always tried to cover my own finish for fear of sounding like a wailing slut, but this time there was no chance of stopping myself. The shame made my shudder even more intense. Then I felt the extra heat of his rush inside and I was bucking frantically from another wave before the last had even subsided, my cries and my rudeness echoing around the stable. In those moments I had wanted all of them upon me and in me, not just him. I might have cried out for it. Possibly it was just in my head, but to my eternal mortification I think I might have shouted it out loud.
My cheeks were still burning as I left, but my head was high. It wasn’t just humiliation; it was from the surge of boldness within. It was from finally giving vent to my lust so openly. I spent that bright late autumn afternoon at home lazing dreamily, thinking of what I had become through him, desperate for him to come again so I could tell him. I saw what I was now. I had been reticent before, hiding urges for the sake of reputation. Perhaps I assumed that if you resisted such urges, the love that eventually came your way would always be more sublime. Maybe because people seemed to so admire my beauty I thought I was destined for higher things. The trouble is I now realise my most scintillating thrills come from the very basest things: from being taken and openly used, loved and disgraced at the same time.
I realised that afternoon while I was dying for him why her ladyship had cracked that day in the hothouse. If you are gifted with the looks to pick and choose it is easy to fool yourself into thinking you deserve a higher love. If you place too much store in love then it will become your only expectation. It will leave you broken when you find that others aren’t playing the same game. When you are sifting through the pieces, railing at how unfairly you had been treated when morality was your watchword, you will come to realise that it was only you who wasn’t aware of that game. Pleasure and decorum do not go hand in hand. Pleasure is not dependent on beauty. You can play the princess in the tower, chastely waiting for her prince, but he might have been through all the wenches in the shire before he reaches you and plenty more after, and he will be all the better for it.
For his part, he had always tried to show me this.
‘You only have the one life,’ he would say. ‘You won’t get a prize at the end for abstention. You will only have a reminder of what could have been.’
It is hard to admit to yourself that you are a natural born hussy. I’d always assumed morality went hand in hand with self-respect. He behaved immorally when he took me, but I never in hindsight question this; I was simply glad he had acted and bemoaned the fact I had to share him at all. When he first took me he never asked if I was free to be taken, nor did he ever demand monogamy from me. I just took it as read that I should be faithful, even though he could not be. If anything, he tried to discourage this trait. For him, it was all about taking advantages in life, about sharing the goodness.
As the November sun slipped behind the orchard beyond my window, I realised I was ready to share myself as he wanted, and to share him too, even though my jealousy still yelled that it wanted him all to itself. He was showing me that satisfaction in life was not exclusively dependent on love, so I needn’t be hurt by the pain of it again. In that sense he freed me. I decided I would be his plaything under his terms because it gave my life its biggest pleasures, and if I needed more I was free to take it from elsewhere. I was resolved to never put him at risk again by turning up uninvited. I would do his bidding from that moment on, taking pleasure as he gave it to me because I knew that he would and that it would always be wonderful. The gaps when he wasn’t there I would have to wear with good grace, and realise I was free to do with this time as I wished, and with whomsoever I wished.
All this I decided; the birth of the “new me”. I could barely wait to tell him – I almost ran back to his home to share the good news! So, imagine the crush when I slid across beside him that very night and felt his rise against my bare thigh, when I curled my fingers around him as the blood still swelled the cells, and in the darkness he said to me, ‘If I gave you two options, I wonder which one you would choose.’
And thus my fate with him was sealed. I didn’t argue or beg – how could I? I wasn’t even sure I could keep the promises I had so recently made to myself. My decision to stop behaving like a lovesick puppy had come too late, and so I had lost him. At least I could be defiant in my defeat. I could draw on my self-assurance and let it mix with my new-found need for wantonness and bask in the glorious thought of the “one final night” he proposed. It was the thrill of what this might bring that defeated disappointment’s emptying wrench. It had me closing my grip on him and tugging harder to encourage his swell, pushing down the jealousy that still wanted me to cry.
It was his point-blank refusal to reveal any of the pleasures the final night might yield that got the blood fizzing in my veins, that had me leaching and squirming upon his fingers. It was this that made me forget myself and breathlessly beg him to throw me onto my front and force me open. So that’s how he took me on that last night we spent all alone. I was pressed flat to the mattress in the shape of a cross, my arms out at each side and his fingers entwined with mine, the crush of his chest against my back. My face was squashed into the pillow, my breaths coming in ever more desperate snorts, the curled feathers absorbing my increasingly louder cries as I forced my rear up against his weight to take his heavy juddering, thrusts.
I couldn’t believe I had thrown all this away, but I had.
PART TWO
THE FINAL NIGHT
Chapter Four
I’ve only had to wait a week for my final night. He called me yesterday to let me know. Perhaps he feared I might pay him unsolicited visits or bombard his phone with lovesick calls if I had to wait longer. I have done neither as it happens, possibly because it is yet to sink in it that our relationship is over. I stuck to my vows to leave him in peace until he called, even though his silence burned. The thought of a life without him has been tempered by the flow of excitement regarding tonight’s events. The preceding days have crawled by with agonizing lethargy. Withstanding the urge to see him became an exquisite torture, a thrill that drove me to my room over and over. Why hadn’t I just waited for his call all those times, rather than turning up uninvited? I might still have been with him now.
Tonight he is giving a soirée for some ambassador or another, along with other dignitaries. It is ostensibly a business affair but, typically of him, he has spiced it up by making the event fancy dress. There is a loose theme of “Revolution and Empire”, so I’m envisaging countless cleavage-tumbling Josephines amongst the ladies, and a lot of military wear amongst the men, hopefully with tight breeches and leather knee-boots predominating. He relayed the details, but omitted to tell me what I was supposed to wear. The answer, it transpires, is nothing.
His car collected me at seven, just as his first guests would have been arriving for drinks and canapés. I was instructed to pour myself some champagne in the back seat, a glass or two of Salon to settle the nerves; still only the best for me. It was pitch dark when we approached, the chateau lit up by spotlights around the lawns and the lights of the lower floors blazing out into the darkness.
I was whisked in the back way, met by Patrick but hurried in through the noisy kitchens where the gr
and repast was being prepared, the plates of oysters piling up for the first course. I was kept to the servant’s corridors and the secret passageways that were hidden behind the panelled walls, taken through a creaking door to the foot of a gloomy set of steps. On the landing above, sat upon an ancient grey bench, was a dashing captain of the Royal Cuirassiers, complete with epaulettes and plume both in bright red, plus a spotlessly shining breastplate, and very tight riding trousers. It was him, of course.
‘Unsheathe your sword, sir!’ I called up to him.
I clambered up excitedly and he greeted me with a kiss on each cheek, no more than any of the other female guests would have got from him this evening, but then maybe it is hard to embrace someone lovingly when your breastplate is getting in the way.
‘No swords allowed tonight.’ He laughed. ‘I don’t want the Ambassador getting hacked to death before he’s even got his feet under the desk. He is, after all, such a dislikeable fellow.’
I noticed he hadn’t called me “ma chérie”, as was his habit. He had seemingly already set me adrift, despite the promises of the night. It was too much to hope now he didn’t want me that he would look ridiculous in his fancy dress. He looked irresistible. It was an exact copy – the original displayed in a glass case in the library – of the uniform one of his many proud forebears wore at both Austerlitz and Friedland. It made him look every inch the hero, but I already knew this. He bade me sit down beside him. It seemed an odd spot to meet one’s Waterloo, sat facing the wood panelling that separated this dim, dusty, undecorated backstage from the glories of the main house. It was cool and quiet but I could hear the clamour of a gathering coming through the wall. I suddenly felt very isolated.
One Final Night Page 3
