In the Flesh

by Portia Da Costa

  The dining tables themselves were not to be seen at first, but then Beatrice realized that they were all set in deep alcoves around the perimeter of the room. Each of these niches was hung with ruby-colored velvet curtains, and while some were caught back with gilded cords allowing the diners to view the room and enjoy the music, other alcoves were enclosed in a cocoon of tantalizing privacy.

  As she followed the maître d’ around the edge of the pocket-size dance floor, Beatrice couldn’t help speculating on what might be going on within the closed alcoves.

  Assignations like hers and Ritchie’s? Risqué activities in a semipublic place? Men aroused. Women, with bodices unbuttoned, panting as their paramours toyed with them. Skirts raised, and even sly fingers exploring the apertures in silk drawers just like hers.

  Suddenly the light corset didn’t seem quite so light and an unbecoming sweat broke out beneath it. Heat filled Beatrice’s face, and between her legs a familiar heaviness gathered. In the space of a few heartbeats, she was the woman with the raised skirt, and Ritchie the man with the deft, exploring fingers.

  “Here we are, Madame de la Tour.”

  The maître d’ stepped back and allowed her to precede him as they reached what appeared to be the most spacious yet secluded of all the alcoves.

  Trust Ritchie to secure the premier table, nothing but the best for him.

  Am I the best, too?

  Her qualms evaporated when Ritchie rose from his seat to greet her. His smile quelled all doubts and left only delicious anticipation. Every time anew he looked more handsome. Every time anew, he turned her head, made her heart race and her body quicken.

  “Beatrice, you look wonderful!” Ritchie took both her hands, making her little bag swing wildly as he raised first one then the other to his lips, kissing them hard through the kid leather of her gloves.

  “I must say that’s a very fine ensemble.” As he straightened, his blue gaze traveled from her toes of her new glacé kid boots to the very crown of her jaunty leghorn hat. “Have you arrived directly from the typewriting school? You’re looking fetchingly businesslike.”

  “Thank you. One aims to impress.” Beatrice kept her tone light, but inside his compliment made her bubble. She’d put a great deal of thought into choosing her clothing.

  Courtesans were supposed to wear sumptuous gowns, elaborate jewels, the best and most feminine of everything, but even though she was strangely glad to be a demimondaine, Beatrice didn’t want to look like the rest of her new sisterhood. To look as if her sole purpose in life was to please a man.

  So Beatrice had selected garments she would still be able to wear when her month with Ritchie was over and done with. Her neatly tailored midnight-blue costume had almost masculine revers and an immaculate white under-bodice cut like a man’s shirt, and she’d even borrowed one of Charlie’s neckties and a pin. Sofia’s modiste had tut-tutted at her, zut alors, when she’d chosen the very serious ensemble, but Sofia had smiled and nodded, her face approving and knowing.

  “With you dressed like that, Beatrice, I shall feel as if I’m corrupting the very sternest suffragette.” Ritchie beamed, still holding her hands, then leaned in. “And that’s a prospect I find disturbingly arousing.”

  “You said you approved of women’s rights,” Beatrice reminded him as he ushered her into the alcove almost before she could feast her eyes on his ensemble.

  “I do. Especially yours.”

  Almost as if he’d anticipated her choices, Ritchie too had eschewed full evening dress. The stern cut of his attire seemed to complement her own and his dark gray frock coat, with just the merest hint of blue, made his eyes glow the color of a twilight sky. His waistcoat was the same shade, as was his neckwear, and today’s pin was a subtle golden bead.

  I don’t think I want any dinner. I just want you, Mr. Ritchie. You’re so handsome I simply want to devour you!

  The thought made Beatrice’s heart thud, and she felt intoxicated before wine had even been brought.

  Ritchie assisted her as she slid along the plush banquette behind the exquisitely set table, then took his place beside her as she tugged off her gloves, struggling with what suddenly seemed like a surfeit of thumbs. The intimacy of sitting side by side, thighs almost touching, made Beatrice want to fidget with suppressed energy beneath the voluminous fine lawn tablecloth and wonder what activities might be concealed beneath its acreage.

  If Ritchie felt the same agitation, his powers of self-control were far superior. He calmly ordered champagne, choosing a remarkable vintage, then consulted with Beatrice over the sumptuous menu, comparing dishes he liked with her preferences. He asked her opinion of the Gilbert and Sullivan, so finely played.

  He even pointed out several exalted personages in the open alcoves. Personages who were dining with personages of the opposite gender with whom they really shouldn’t have been dining. He smiled and winked at her, nodding at alcoves where the curtains were tightly closed.

  But he didn’t touch her. At least not with his hands or his strong thigh next to hers.

  It was his only eyes that were attentive. He met her gaze courteously, but every now and again, his regard would drift over her, lingering at the line of her throat above her crisp white collar, or the curve of her breasts beneath the blue barathea of her jacket.

  Studying her hair for a moment, his mouth curved in an unmistakable arc.

  Blatant lust.

  “What is it?” There was no use dissembling. “What are you thinking, Ritchie?” Anticipation bubbled in her like the delicious Veuve Clicquot they were drinking. With Ritchie, Champagne held no negative connotations.

  “Your hair, Beatrice. I want to see it set loose and streaming over your shoulders. And then sweeping like a curtain of gilded crimson as you bend to suck my cock.”

  Beatrice quelled a sputter. Bubbles threatened to go up her nose, but she managed to control herself. She’d seen Arabella Southern perform that particular act on her handsome paramour, Yuri, and Sofia on her darling Ambrose. And she’d read a hair-raisingly naughty set of instructions on how to do it, too, in one of the many explicit books and journals she’d perused at Sofia’s pleasure house.

  “Well, I’m certainly looking forward to making the acquaintance of that particular portion of your anatomy, Mr. Ritchie. So far I’ve been denied a formal introduction.”

  Ritchie chuckled and reached for her hand. She thought he was going to conduct it to the very organ they were discussing, but instead he ran his thumb slowly and seductively over her knuckles, the action making her own intimate regions tingle in response.

  “You’re a very forward young woman, Madame de la Tour. So audacious I ought to pick you up, throw you over my shoulder, then cart you out of here and give you a spanking.”

  Beatrice had seen that in Sofia’s saucy magazines, too.

  Ritchie beamed at her. Reading her mind again?

  “Why take me to task? You’re the one who started this with your talk of my hair and your thighs…and…um…sucking.” His fingers explored her hand and somehow the very tip of one managed to sneak beneath the edge of her sleeve and find the very spot where a doctor would read her pulse. Her voice began to shake as it circled and massaged.

  “Look here, Ritchie, it’s too late for me to play the delicate, incorruptible miss with you. We both know I’ve revealed my true nature. So why not reveal the full extent of yours?”

  Ritchie’s face hardened, his eyes suddenly stricken. But the flash of dark emotion was over again as soon as it had registered, leaving Beatrice wondering if she’d imagined it.

  “So what do you want, Bea?”

  With her free hand, she reached for her champagne glass and took a fortifying drink of the glorious pale golden liquid.

  “Everything,” she said simply, then added in the
lowest voice possible, “and especially, I want you to fuck me.”

  The forbidden word brought a flush to her cheeks, for all her resolve to be a bold, unprissy miss. Ritchie’s eyes twinkled like stars, expunging all memory of their momentary darkness.

  “Well then…would you like to forgo dinner? I have a private room reserved for us upstairs.”

  Beatrice’s heart thudded. Messages sped along her nerves, conducting instructions to her thighs and the muscles in her haunches, telling them to slide along the banquette and stand so that Ritchie could lead her away to that private room upstairs. But the butterflies of anticipation needed a little something to fight with first.

  “No, thank you, Ritchie, not just yet.” If he was disappointed, he hid it well behind his smiling mask. “I think I’ll eat a bite of dinner first. I’ve a feeling I might need my strength shortly.”

  Ritchie shook his head and winked at her, then signaled for the waiter.

  But contrary to her claims, when the food came, Beatrice couldn’t do much justice to the meltingly tender filet de boeuf roti, the buttered asparagus tips and the pommes de terre madagasque, even though they were all glorious. She couldn’t drink much either, after the first glass of champagne. Ritchie nodded, as if approving her abstemiousness, and requested that the waiter bring her eau Evian instead.

  Sipping the bottled water, Beatrice relished its head-clearing chill. What need was there for alcohol with Ritchie around? He was overproof himself, surging in her veins, every movement and gesture an intoxicant.

  His hands fascinated her, fast becoming an obsession. She’d never seen such objects of grace, so long-fingered and strong. He used his cutlery with elegant precision, even though it was obvious he enjoyed his food. A foolish notion came to Beatrice as he laid down his knife and fork to take a drink of the water he too had chosen. Would he consent, when their month was over, to having his hands molded and a plaster model made so she could keep it and treasure it?

  Don’t be absurd, Bea! How on earth would a busy man like Ritchie ever have time to stay still long enough for the plaster cast to set?

  “What are you thinking about, Bea?”

  Luckily she wasn’t holding her own glass or knife, because his voice made her jump on the banquette. “Your hands,” she blurted out, off guard. “I…I like your hands. They’re very elegant and strong. I find them quite beautiful.”

  His odd, sideways look put her in mind of a bashful boy receiving his first compliment from a girl for whom he harbored a tendre.

  “Thank you, Bea.” Ignoring his meal now, he lifted his hands as if examining a pair of rare artifacts as yet undiscovered. “No one’s ever praised them before…except sometimes to applaud what they can do.”

  His blue eyes were intense as he looked at her, not wavering one iota.

  His women, they were the ones who’d praised his manual dexterity. Beatrice was no poetess, but even she could have composed a sonnet to those magical eight fingers and two thumbs.

  A slow but now familiar smile spread across his handsome features, and he turned sideways on the banquette, to face her.

  Reaching out, he took her hand, her right one, closest to him.

  “I like your hands, too, Bea. They’re delicate and slim—” his fingers slipped to and fro over her knuckles again “—yet clever and deft, capable of the finest work.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it quite hard. Beatrice groaned inside, wishing all their surroundings would suddenly dissolve and they’d find themselves alone. “I’ll wager you’re a wonderful seamstress.”

  Beatrice laughed out loud. “Oh no! You’re completely wrong there. I’m the world’s worst at needlework. I’m the dunce of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle.”

  Slowly, but with purpose, Ritchie turned her hand over, examining the tips of her fingers as if looking for wounds wrought by her wayward embroidery needle. “Ah well, maybe you have other skills to compensate?”

  “I’m not sure…” Her voice shook a little, but she covered it with a smile, her heart bounding. “But I’m always eager to master new accomplishments.”

  “Good girl…good girl…” Ritchie’s voice seemed to vibrate with laughter, and his breath was like a warm wind from the Indies as he kissed her hand again, the palm this time, his lips barely touching her skin. The light contact stirred every inch of her body, bringing a blush to her face and a glow of pleasure to every hidden zone.

  “Would you care for dessert?” he enquired as he put her hand from his lips and settled it on her thigh, barely inches from his own. “The ice cream at Belanger’s is amongst the finest in London. It’s brought in from an establishment in Little Italy, completely unadulterated, a masterpiece of cream and vanilla.” He seemed much closer on the banquette now, and heat of his body permeated though his clothing and hers, all the layers of silk and barathea and fine worsted wool rendered insubstantial.

  The luxurious dessert sounded wonderful. Another time she might have succumbed to it with childlike pleasure, but right now she wasn’t sure she could handle a spoon.

  “Thank you, but I’ve had sufficient to eat. It was all delicious.” She slid out her little finger and touched his thigh with the tip of it. “But you have some. Don’t let me stop you.”

  “I’m not hungry anymore either. At least not for ice cream.” His eyes flicked down, in the direction of the tiny contact, then with a conspiratorial wink, he flicked the tablecloth over their thighs, and her hand. “But I have a fancy for a brandy. How about you, Bea? Will you take a brandy with me?”

  She’d poured herself brandy the first time they’d met, the first time he’d touched her. The fiery spirit was their personal sacrament, and she yearned for what it symbolized.

  Sensuality. Contact. The pleasure of touch both received and given.

  But this time, Beatrice wanted to be the one touching, and the prospect of it made her blood surge and an intoxicant far more powerful than fine cognac rush through her veins. She spread out all her fingers across the surface of his trousers, then squeezed the iron-hard muscle beneath.

  Ritchie’s sinfully long eyelashes flickered for a moment, so shockingly dark in contrast to his fair hair. But he remained as calm as a saint when the waiter arrived with barely a summons, and brandy was ordered and plates taken away.

  “Pour me a little more water while we wait, if you would?” Her voice was steady, and so were her eyes, on him.

  “Of course,” he said, and when he reached for the carafe, she slid her hand sideways and covered his groin.

  He still didn’t turn a hair, but Beatrice swore she heard the faintest of sighs. His actions were perfectly steady though as he refilled her glass and reached to set it by her left hand.

  “So, Madame de la Tour, are you fond of exploration?”

  To an outside observer, it would have been the most casual of enquiries, meaningless social chitchat, but Ritchie’s suave tongue-in-cheek tone made Beatrice smirk. She rewarded him with a very gentle squeeze.

  “Indeed I am, Mr. Ritchie, indeed I am.” For a moment, she pursed her lips to stop herself laughing at the way his eyes popped wide. “I love to voyage in the darkest, murkiest undergrowths, discovering new wonders with which to entertain myself.” Massaging him lightly once or twice, she turned her attention then to his fly buttons. Quite a task when she was working blind and at a somewhat awkward angle.

  Ritchie pursed his lips as her knuckles knocked against his erection. “That’s admirable, madame. There’s nothing I respect more than an adventurous woman, and I go out of my way to assist in such endeavors.”

  “Really? How very philanthropic of you.”

  Beneath the cloth, Ritchie’s hands joined hers, first one, then the other, nudging her aside as he negotiated the fastenings of his trousers and his linen.

  Good Lord, I can�
��t believe we’re doing this!

  Ritchie’s hand took hers, drew it near him again, setting her on the most daring path of exploration she could have ever imagined. It took barely more than a heartbeat to part cloth and draw out the princely prize she sought.

  Oh, he was so hot. And hard. And sturdy. Her fingers curved around him just as if they’d known his contours for a lifetime, and loved them as long. It felt perfectly appropriate to be holding him.

  “Oh, Bea,” murmured Ritchie, slumping against the plush upholstery of the banquette, his eyelids fluttering closed in an expression of sublime wonder. She could almost imagine it was the first time he’d been touched by a woman thus, even though that was arrant nonsense. Dozens of lucky females must have handled his trusty treasure. Women far more experienced than she.

  It really was a voyage of discovery.

  Fingers still lightly wrapped around him, Beatrice gnawed her lip. Did men like gentle treatment, or firm? His shape and the lovely silky feel of his skin down there invited an eager examination, but she was aware that too vigorous a handling could be disastrous. At worst, she could hurt him, and at best, precipitate a crisis far sooner than either of them wanted.

  “Something wrong, Bea?” Ritchie’s eyes flicked open and his expression was both smoky and sensual, and at the same time razor sharp. “Your discovery not to your liking?”

  Was he mocking her? Teasing her inexperience? Back at Sofia’s house, he’d seemed to delight in it. Meeting his eyes, she gave his penis a light but determined squeeze, and got the satisfaction of a gasp of indrawn breath.

  “On the contrary, I find it most pleasing and not at all a disappointment.”

  Ritchie laughed, then gasped again as her fingers delicately tightened.

  “A disappointment?”

  “Well, I’ve been led to believe that gentlemen tend to overestimate the qualities of certain…appendages. They lead ladies to expect Corinthian monuments when in reality the item is far less mighty.”