Ivan follows Anna into his room and for him too it is quite changed. What was merely a place of retreat from the capricious tyranny of his mother is now alive with the intensity of. something. He is not sure what. Oh, the mechanics, yes - gentleman or serf, they are all country people - but something more than that and he doesn’t want to know, not articulate it, pin it down with words in his usual way. He senses that he should say nothing, think nothing; just experience.
Anna turns to him, steps close and looks up and their eyes meet again, but this time the right way round. They are both startled to bridge so suddenly the chasm of their social distance. She links her hands behind his neck and draws him down. It is her first kiss without revulsion, without holding her breath against the stench of an old man’s rotten mouth. For Ivan it is simply his first kiss and the shock unbalances him. He reaches for the cool brass rail of his bed as Anna steps back.
‘Undress,’ she says, softly, the word stretched and savoured, but unmistakably an order. It thrills her to give it. This once only, she will have the knowledge and the power. She has observed her young master at the miracles of writing and reading, and so comfortable in the alien melodies of French and felt ashamed of her ignorance, but not here and not now.
Ivan struggles out of his boots, still holding on to the bed. He shrugs his jacket to the floor and pushes his braces off his shoulders. He treads down his breeches and stands for a moment before Anna in a long, loose shirt. It is the primitive, collarless, square-cut undergarment everyone wears, and Anna sees before her a youth like those who might be within her reach - were she but given the choice. She smiles and nods to give him the confidence and Ivan takes the neck of the shirt and pulls it over his head.
Anna is the same age as Ivan but had to give up her virginity a year ago. She is betrothed to a man from the village, a widower friend of her father. He has demanded and been granted the right to prove his virility and the girl’s fertility before marrying her, so twice a week the old goat opens his breeches and forces her legs apart on a heap of rags on top of the stove in his hut. The encounters are mercifully brief but Anna never feels free from the stench of him or from his ugly, poxy face above her in her dreams. Her father considers the village postman a good catch for his daughter and actively sought permission for the union from Old Turgenev, who himself likes to catch Anna unawares at her duties and grab her breasts to bruising. ‘You like a bit of that, don’t you, Anna?’ he laughs, and she wonders how he could possibly imagine that she would. He gropes under her skirts and there is nothing she can do. If she complains, the Mistress will certainly blame her and she will be beaten and dismissed.
But when this boy before her lifts the shirt up and over his head and drops it to the floor, it is her turn to be unbalanced by the glory of him, standing there, clean and smooth and perfect, and his root standing out in front, tall and strong. That dried-up bitch. She doesn’t know how much I want this. Probably thinks it’s a punishment. Thinks we’re all like her, all skinny and burnt out with rage.
‘Go to bed,’ she whispers. Before they even touch, the heat in her belly makes sense of the love stories told by her bedfellows as they sit up round the sewing basket in those precious moments before sleep or wash each other’s hair in gatherings from the meadows.
Ivan flings back the great bag of goose feathers and throws himself into the centre of the mattress, turning in the air like a fish. Anna glimpses yellow and red marks on his back from old and fresh beatings. How that woman hates beauty. He falls back against the heap of pillows with a soft thud, sleek and dark in the failing light.
Anna lights a candle, closes the curtains and locks the door. Returning to the bed, she says, ‘Watch very carefully, and learn.’
Ivan puts his hands behind his head and raises one knee. His root sways heavily and his onions slip plump and shining between his thighs. The horsehair mattress mutters as he settles.
As instructed, Ivan studies each move of Anna’s undressing with the greatest care. She is wearing most of what she possesses. There are four skirts in all, each delayed by knotted tapes which must be swung to the front in a whisper of promise. He watches her soft, stubby fingers tease open the tie, fold the cloth and drop it over the bed-rail with a fluttering of the candle. After the fourth, there is only the hem of her shirt to mid-thigh, and Anna observes his root leap and she fears to spoil the moment.
‘Be still,’ she says, ‘don’t hold yourself tight.’
Ivan breathes deep and slow as Anna lifts each knee in turn towards his face and reaches to remove a canvas slipper. He peers into the dark between her legs but the fall of the shirt and the position of the candle allow him no more than possibility.
Anna straightens up and looks to the lacing of her tight-fitting bodice. Her bosom swells above it as she inhales. How full I am, like a tree in blossom. In a few years it will have passed, but this is my time and I must have it.
When she draws the lace from its rings, the restraint falls away and her body can relax into its natural shape inside the shirt. Unlike Ivan’s, hers is slit to the waist and closed with little bows of red ribbon. The area usually hidden by the bodice is decorated with patterns in coloured thread; the secret creativity of the servant-girls’ bed in the attic. No one else has seen it before. It is more private than her body. Almost as private is her hair. She pulls off her cap and the hidden treasure spills to her shoulders, dark gold in the candle-light.
Ivan watches Anna untie each bow in turn and Anna watches in case his cream should burst out and pool in his birth-scar. She knows that she might fall for a child with that cream and knows that she would be sent away and married off quickly - probably to someone lower than the postman. But a serf, particularly a girl, does not live by future hopes, but by whatever she has now. And what she has is right here. With or without orders she would not be elsewhere and is prepared to take her chance.
The last bow is undone and Anna pauses to observe the beautiful lines up the side of the boy’s chest and upraised arms, framing his head. Now she draws the shirt up and away and Ivan sees how her breasts bob solidly when she lowers her arms, how her ample flesh folds above her hips, how her belly is as rounded as a drunken puppy’s, how her face is as smooth and beautiful as a peach and how she smiles as she raises one knee and places it beside his hip and lifts the other up and over him. She leans forward to kiss him full and deep and Ivan takes a heavy breast in each hand and breathes the camomile in her hair. Anna pulls away from his mouth and sits up and lowers all her weight onto his root, so that it lies between her lilies and she slides on her juice, slowly back and forth.
She cannot wait, and nor can he. She raises herself and takes his root with both hands and guides it to the place. Ivan is holding the folds at her waist as she sinks onto him and she feels him burst into her immediately. She senses some similar explosion in her own body, just out of reach.
‘That’s just a beginning. There is much more.’
Ivan is unable to reply.
Anna runs her hands over his chest, keeping him inside. He is magnificent, and so is she, and what they have done feels like everything she needs. Ivan’s hands on her back find her own recent wounds and she winces. That scrawny bitch. I wish she was watching. I’d love to show her what she’s never had. Make her cry.
Anna lifts herself a little and Ivan’s root falls wetly and heavily out of her. She slips to the side of him and places her head in the hollow of his shoulder. He begins to explore the sumptuous richness of her, from her hair to her throat to her breasts to. ah yes. Oh yes, how quickly he learns, this boy. She opens herself, arms and legs and mouth, and they roll in the crisp linen and she feels that fire rising again; a little nearer this time. She is full of rude ideas that excite and amaze her. She darts down and gives the end of his root a quick lick. It leaps to readiness and she throws herself back with a laugh which turns to a gasp as he enters her. As she reaches for that burning and feels it coming, coming, she has time to relish her triumph.
>
I will make him love me and she will send him away to school in the city and he will hate her for the rest of her life.
Later, as the evening cools, they pull up the goose-feather bag and stare into each other’s eyes in the last of the candle. They have spoken very little. Language can only divide them. When Ivan falls asleep with his arms around her, Anna peers through half-closed eyes at the candle-stars on the brass rails and comes to a certainty.
She will fight her marriage, she will find herself a young man. She will shame her father and Old Turgenev with her youth and if they take no notice, which is very likely, she will still find herself a young man. She cannot live without this pleasure and this beauty. When all the rest of her life will be so hard, she must have this, and later the memory of this, to bear it.
A Trick Of The Light by Imogen Gray
It’s Friday evening and as I load the dishwasher I try not to think how weary I am feeling. Sam has had a busy day too, I’ve heard about it over dinner, his unreliable office staff and how the majority are taking time off due to ‘stress’.
‘Stress!’ he exclaims, they’ve never done a day’s work in their lives, how can they have stress?’
I turn the dial, it clicks and I hear the whoosh of water beginning to fill the dishwasher. It’s a signal to Sam; he will appear in the doorway and wink at me. I know this because it’s Friday and for the greater part of our married life we always have had sex on a Friday evening. And there he is, one arm resting on the doorframe, I notice he is looking older than his forty-four years but, as he winks, he smiles and his face lifts, I catch a glimpse of the young man I once knew.
‘Time for bed then,’ he announces, it is more of a statement than a question.
‘Of course.’ I say making my way past him towards the stairway. I wish he would take my hand or tap my bum or something but he never has and I think it’s too late to ask him to change.
In our bedroom we fall into our pattern of bed preparation, we are like synchronised swimmers in our own home, an intricate pattern of our bodies weaving but not actually touching. Sam is in the en suite, cleaning his teeth, gargling with mouthwash. The laundry bin lid shuts with a bang but I know he’ll still be wearing his boxer-shorts, he will remove them just as he gets into bed. I use the family bathroom, and after fourteen years of marriage I still dab a little perfume in my cleavage. My nightdress is short, Sam commented on it once in a disapproving way. The lights are off when I return to the bedroom but it’s not completely dark, there is a gap in the curtains and the street lamp outside the window shines orange. As I slide into bed Sam places his hand gently on my thigh, I turn to kiss him, we rarely use tongues, although I can detect his mouthwash, it’s spearmint and too strong. We dispense with foreplay, Sam is aroused almost immediately and manoeuvres himself on top of me, as our faces meet he kisses my forehead, I raise my nightdress, shuffling gently so it’s above my bottom. He pushes hard to enter me, I’ve learned over the years how to relax my legs, he groans very quietly. In the semi-darkness I can see his face, eyes closed and brow creased. It will not take long, Sam always comes quickly, a little bead of sweat will appear on his top lip, he will groan and it will be my cue to breathe and gasp. As he comes he shudders and for a moment his body weight falls heavily onto mine. He rolls to one side and instantly grabs at the box of tissues at the side of the bed. Before he slips into a contented sleep he kisses me again, just once on the forehead. It’s not so bad, once a week and my man is happy. Tomorrow as he washes the car and mows the lawn he’ll wave to me as I stand at the kitchen window. I’ll smile and wave back happily for he doesn’t know, after three years, he still doesn’t know.
Ritchie is twenty-five, when I met him he was the most arrogant and gorgeous man I had ever come across. Three years on not much has changed, he’s fiercely independent, a solitary soul who keeps everything about himself and his life guarded. I met him on a rare night out with my girlfriends; we kept colliding into each other visiting the bar. I remember smiling and saying something trite like ‘fancy bumping into you again’ and he offered up a half smile. By the end of the evening we were both at the bar for last orders and, fuelled by too many white wines, I felt confident enough to attempt to chat to him. He barely acknowledged me; instead he slid his business card across the bar to me, collected his drinks, turned and wandered back to his friends. Most of me wanted to leave it there on the bar, its sharp white crispness soaking up the beer slops, but the temptation and intrigue got the better of me so I grabbed it and closeted it away in my handbag.
It took me two weeks after that night to muster up the courage to ring him. Surprisingly he remembered who I was and commented how long it had taken for me to get in touch. Within minutes he had made arrangements for us to meet at a small pub miles away. And so it started - my meetings with Ritchie. Within weeks we dispensed with pubs, I would visit him at home and three years later I still do.
I have a key; I’ve been discreet enough to keep it on a separate ring, zipped away in the back of my purse. As I arrive, it’s beginning to rain. I like to visit Ritchie in the rain. His apartment is light and airy with skylights. The rain can be deafening at times; it reminds me of being a child on camping holidays in caravans, being safe and cosy inside. He’s not at home, he often runs late, owning his business and taking hours out here and there tends to complicate his day. I open the fridge; it is stocked mainly with wine, Ritchie being a take-away/eat out person. There is milk so I fill the kettle; he’ll want coffee, good coffee ‘none of that instant crap!’ As I pour the coffee I hear the front door open, then shut, and him throwing his keys on the small table, they jangle noisily. He arrives in the kitchen, his hair damp from the rain; its messiness suits him.
‘Hello.’ I say, returning the milk to the fridge. Without a word he picks up his coffee mug, it’s one that I have bought for him picturing a boat in Whitstable Harbour. He winces; the coffee is too hot, he returns his mug to the worktop.
‘Alright?’ he asks, but he turns away before I answer. He removes his jacket and throws it haphazardly on the sofa and walks over to face me. He kisses me, a forceful kiss that pushes me backwards. I reach out to him to steady myself. Instantly he pushes my hand down to feel his groin, he is hard. I like it that within moments of him seeing me he is aroused. I run my hand along the inner seam of his jeans, his kissing becoming deeper and deeper, his tongue encircling mine, I can taste the coffee, at first mildly acrid. I can feel his hands on my shoulders, pushing me downwards. I break the kiss and kneel on the floor before him. Deftly I unbutton his jeans, lowering them with his boxers to the floor, he steps out of them. His penis is so hard and erect. I instantly want to taste it, feel the familiarity of it within my mouth. I take him as far as I can into my mouth, cupping my hand around him too, rhythmically I lick and gently suck. His hands weave through my hair, pulling my head back occasionally so he can watch. I can hear his breath catching in his throat. He pushes my head back more forcefully to stop; as I stand up to face him, he smiles. He has a wonderful grin, cheeky and boyish which is hard to resist. His smile is an indication to move to the bedroom. Within seconds of arriving, he is pulling at my clothes, feeling for my breasts. He squeezes my nipples hard making me gasp in pain, he laughs but then takes each breast in turn into his mouth, sucking them gently. I can feel his hand up my skirt, he never allows me to wear trousers, his fingers pushing my knickers to one side and feeling me, entering me, one, two, three fingers. He knows that I can climax this way; he likes the control. He waits until I’m about to cry out and stops abruptly.
‘Not yet.’ He says pushing me backwards onto the bed. His bed is huge, bespoke. With a wrought iron forged head and baseboard; it dominates the room. Ritchie reaches underneath it and pulls out a small wicker basket and flips open the lid. I know what is inside and the thought of it makes my stomach clench with excitement. Firstly he removes silk scarves, then handcuffs, serious ones, not the pink fluffy ones I see in gift shops.
‘I’ll u
se these.’ Without hesitation he grips my arm, forcing it backwards towards the headboard, I resist slightly, teasingly, he bends down and bites my shoulder hard. I am conscious there will be a bruise there tomorrow to disguise. He secures one wrist then the other; the snap of the metal locking heightens my excitement. Ritchie positions himself over me, an impish smirk plays on his face, it never fails to frighten me just a little. Using the scarf he loops it around my head blindfolding my eyes, the fabric is sheer so everything is now visually hazy, softened at the edges.
‘Kiss me,’ I urge and without hesitation he crushes his lips onto mine. He draws away to run his hands down my body, hesitating at my nipples, then my navel, circling them with his tongue. He begins to nibble at my inner thighs, I shiver and pull gently on the cuffs; they reverberate against the iron of the headboard. He senses I’m ready and nudges my legs apart with his knees. He lowers himself into me, it’s gentle at first but then he forces deeply, above his loud breathing, and mine, I’m urging him on, again I hear the cuffs clattering noisily, it turns him on even more. He lifts my legs high, forcing into me even harder. I can feel in the smallness of my back the sensation of an orgasm building, tiny nerve endings springing into life. I cry out to him, his timing is perfect as we climax together. Within seconds, he moves off me and instantly releases the cuffs, as he lowers my arms he kisses my wrists gently. His tenderness is in stark contrast to his earlier arrogance, but he doesn’t say a word. And neither do I!
Sam, staring at the computer screen, sighs loudly, no amount of manipulating the figures will make the office budget work this month, he thinks wearily.
He was tired; his eyes became unfocused as they glanced over the series of debits on the spreadsheet. It was Friday and already he was running late. As he began to gather his things his secretary appeared.
Ultimate Submission Page 13
