The Initiation of Phoebe

by Regina Green

  The truth was, I loved it.

  I would have been happy to be his mistress, but it wasn’t to be, and we both knew it. My lover had to be someone whom my father couldn’t punish or seek revenge on, someone higher up, out of reach of petty village gossip.

  There was only one man around here that would do for me, Tootle told me, now standing in front of me as I sprawled on the edge of the cot, legs wide and bent, holding onto my ankles as he ravished me, plundering me with his powerful cock.

  It was Jake Burlington.

  And as he said Jake’s name, the most delicious warmth spread through me and he spent his seed inside me, grunting and holding my legs up against him.

  “Flo Hendrick can’t ever know about this,” he said, looking down at me. “I love her dearly, but the woman has a—streak of insanity. You’re a beautiful girl and I don’t know what she might do.”

  I didn’t want him to move out of me yet. I knew that I had my own flaws, that I could be desperate and hungry, needy and selfish. I’d taken another woman’s man without a second thought.

  “Could a man love me if I’m like this?” I asked him. I had no one else to ask, no wise older woman in my life.

  “Depends what you mean,” he said, a smile on his face as he pulled out. He showed me where to wash and I sponged myself quickly, making sure all the blood and fluids were gone.

  “You know…” I said softly. It was easier to be soft and vulnerable when you’d been well fucked, like I had. “If I show how much I like going to bed with them. If I do things that are wrong and immoral and seem to enjoy them.”

  He thought for a long moment as I pulled on my undergarments and smoothed down my dress.

  “A man might love you, yes, but only a very worldly one,” he replied. “And there aren’t too many of those that are worth anything.”

  “Were you like that when you were younger?” I asked.

  Tootle sighed. “Yes, Phoebe, I suppose I was.”

  We embraced in the inner room before I left the shop. He pressed his lips to my forehead as if to say, “I’m back to being your harmless uncle, my dear.” And I knew that he would never fuck me again.

  The whole thing had lasted less than an hour, but there had been years of experience crammed into that hour.

  That’s why when I saw Jake in the pub the next month I was so nervous—I was desperate to make a good impression, I was breathing hard.

  And honestly, I was eager to get fucked again.

  Now, at Burling, I knew that my fate had been sealed. I’d be Phoebe the kept woman, the wicked girl who opens her legs to not one, but two men on a daily basis.

  I’d lost my reputation already the minute I drove away in that carriage. No man in the village would ever look at me as a marriage prospect after this. People weren’t stupid, and they knew that Jake would be having his way with me. They probably wouldn’t suspect about Ben.

  But I disliked the few young men that lived in Cheltringham, anyway—mealy-mouthed, uneducated louts. The clever ones went into service.

  Ben was beautiful and gentle, Jake was gorgeous, manly, and driven: The two of them together made up the perfect man for me.

  That they were clearly also lovers didn’t matter to me in the least.

  I needed men who understood and respected my appetites. At least one of these men was capable of loving me, I knew.

  I would make it my mission to learn all that I didn’t yet know about the forbidden pleasures of the body at Burling Abbey, I vowed that first restless night, staring at the glowing lamp that Cook had left for me on the table near my bed. She had helped me undress, and her hand had brushed against my sensitive nipples, not once, but twice. It seemed like a tiny taste of what was to come here—of all the perverse pleasures that lay in store for me.

  I trusted Ben already; I didn’t quite trust the other two, but honestly, I’d learned that that made the pleasure more keenly delicious.

  I think it’s the spice of life not to be sure of people’s motives. After all, how can you ever be sure?

  FIVE

  I lay awake the next morning listening to the birds twittering outside and watching the room slowly brighten.

  Mrs. Hendrick had shown me a chamber pot under the bed. When I woke up I’d got up to use it, and tried the door. It was locked.

  Instead of scaring me, it gave me a funny feeling of excitement. Jake had plans for me. Perhaps Mrs. Hendrick would give me an idea of what those plans were.

  I knew she would be in soon. I looked around the room. It was so plain, like a little monastic cell, white walls, clean wooden floorboards. I wracked my brain. Hadn’t Burling Abbey been a monastery, back in the days of Henry VIII? And then the monks had been cruelly attacked and forced out when Henry converted the country to the Church of England in the sixteenth century. The house would have been given to a wealthy supporter of the King. Jake’s ancestor.

  I heard footsteps approaching the door. Mrs. Hendrick entered, faintly smiling. She carried a tray over to a sideboard on the wall. It looked so normal: a teapot, a cup and saucer, a covered dish. She closed the door and stepped over to open the curtains. A thin ray of sunlight entered the room.

  “Good morning, Phoebe,” she said, almost sweetly.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Hendrick.”

  I must have sounded a bit timid because she came and plumped herself down at the side of the bed.

  I looked up at her, smiling a little, and she met my eyes. There was something quite masculine about the woman, I thought. It was strange to think of Tootle being besotted with her. I didn’t know if Jake slept with her, too. He probably did. He seemed to be unable to keep his hands off anything female.

  I was glad to have another female in the house, even if this one wasn’t exactly the motherly sort. I didn’t mind. I liked women who had lead interesting lives. I’d only met one of them up to this point in my life. My Aunt Min…

  Min, short for Minna, had come to visit the summer that I was 15. She was my mother’s sister, and she lived in London. I wasn’t told what she did for a living, but she wasn’t married. At first I was amazed by how different she looked and sounded to us country folk. There was something sleek about her, like a seal. And her voice was low and hoarse; she said it was because of the London fogs. Her hands were soft. She was a big woman with an impressive cleavage and I noticed instantly how my father bristled when he looked at her.

  She slept in my room in a brass bed that had been brought in and hastily put together. It creaked when she moved. Later I realized that Father did not trust her to have her own room.

  We gossiped at night, as females will. I’m ashamed when I remember how she asked me serious, probing questions, and I replied with insipid answers, giggling often. I was still plump, shy little Phoebe. When she asked me what kind of life I wanted for myself, I told her I wanted to get married, of course. “Life doesn’t really begin till you get married, does it?” I said to her.

  Min just smiled, rather a bitter smile, and said, “Sometimes it ends,” but I didn’t know what she meant.

  She gave me a thick, hardbound novel, telling me to hide it under the bed so that my parents would never see. It was Madame Bovary. I read it many times after she left abruptly.

  Min’s visit was cut short when I returned early from school one day (the village school took a very short summer break). I pushed the door of my room partly open and saw movement on Min’s bed. It was George, our lodger, who was about 25. He was above Min, staring down at her, and moving up and down on top of her. Min was moaning and staring at him. They were both naked. They seemed so wrapped up in each other. I watched, incredulous. If it had been my parents there I would have recoiled in horror, but because it wasn’t, I was fascinated. How rough it was! I thought. I’d always assumed a man lay flat atop a woman and stiffly poked at her while lying under a thick blanket. Min’s bouncing breasts with their puffy nipples caught my attention and my breath got short. George’s face was red and dripping with sweat. Up
till now he’d been a shy blond boy who went to church with us on Sundays and chatted amiably with my father. I kept staring, my mouth agape, until I heard the sound of my father thundering up the stairs behind me. “Phoebe, your mother is calling you! Stop dawdling!” he roared. Throwing open my door wide, he caught sight of the bed and nearly had a heart attack.

  “Stop that!” he yelled, and the two lovers froze. My mother came rushing up and pulled me away. I could hear my father cursing at George, and only a few minutes later, it seemed, George was all packed and slinking away from the pub with his carpet bag, never to return. He nodded to my mother, who gave him a pained smile.

  Min came down a little later. She had also packed her things. The sisters just stared at each other. My mother sighed and said, “Oh Min!” Min actually smiled a little, giving Mum and me a rueful shrug. A man walked in the door yelling, “Carriage for Miss Brown!” And Min was off, but not before giving me a long hug, pressing her soft cheek against mine. She had dressed carelessly and I felt her breasts rub against me. She slipped me a piece of paper with her address in London on it. I have it to this day.

  My father spoiled the end of the scene—or made it stick endlessly in my memory—by stalking down the stairs and saying loudly, “Is that streetwalker gone yet?” No one answered, but Min gave him an icy look. And then she was gone.

  My mother wept later in their bedroom for a long time. I heard her. And by the time I went back up to my room Min’s bed was gone. It was as if nothing had ever happened. But Min had tossed her stays into the corner—grown-up things—and I fingered them and smelt them, the scent of her sweat arousing and strange to me. I imagined George removing them before he touched her breasts. Sometimes when I childishly pleasured myself at night, I would bury my face in them.

  I kept the novel safe and read it over and over again. It made me understand a little bit of what Min had meant about marriage being an ending. It made me skeptical.

  * * *

  “Master Jake will be in soon, Phoebe,” Mrs. Hendrick said. Her voice was a bit hoarse, too. “Are you hungry?”

  “Not really, Mrs. Hendrick.”

  “You’ll have to call me Flo, dear.”

  I nodded.

  She leaned over and partly unbuttoned my nightgown. “I think Master Jake would like to see a bit more of you.”

  I giggled slightly, out of nervousness. Her hand felt delicious on my skin. She cupped my breast and then slid my nightgown down so that they were both exposed.

  “Does Jake like breasts?” I asked.

  “That’s a good question, Phoebe,” Flo said thoughtfully. “You have beautiful ones, very perky. It’s possible Ben might like them more than Master Jake. I like them.”

  “Ohhh,” I moaned, because she was squeezing my nipples. I tried to remember if Tootle had done it. Yes, but we’d been so rushed.

  It wasn’t odd to have a woman touching me, although I’d never really thought about being touched by a woman. It was a delight, a new experience.

  Flo smiled at my reaction. “Do you enjoy that, Phoebe?”

  I nodded.

  She leaned down, her hair brushing against my skin, her mouth enclosing a nipple, sucking. I felt my whole body writhing.

  I don’t know how long she took, because I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, Jake was standing at the edge of the bed. Both Jake and Flo were smiling.

  Flo gently eased my nightie higher and higher to give Jake a good look at my lower legs, my knees, my upper thighs, my hips…

  “It’s very good of you to prepare Phoebe for me, Cook,” Jake said, a teasing tone in his voice. “Would you like to see how wet she is?”

  “Yes, Master Jake,” Flo replied politely. Her hand brushed between my legs, gently and insistently stroking me down there until I parted my trembling legs, burying my face into her warm bosom.

  Jake eased himself down onto me, his nakedness causing a delicious friction. He paused as if not sure whether to go further. His hand probed down there, his finger pushing into me. Cook handled his cock while he played with me.

  I could feel the gush of my wetness meet his fingers and he gasped slightly.

  “She’s very ready for your cock, Master Jake,” Flo said quietly.

  His cock slipped inside me.

  I wanted to be quiet, but I’m afraid our lovemaking sounded embarrassingly loud in that little room. Jake’s powerful thrusts filled me. He hadn’t lain atop me in the carriage, Ben had, so this was new. This really felt like fucking, the kind of fucking that makes a bed creak. My bed creaked. Flo stayed close to me. I could feel her breath on my face, though I did not dare look at her. As I was close to coming, she gently turned my head toward her and our lips met. Her tongue surged into my mouth as Jake pounded me. He grunted and pulled out, spilling seed all over my belly. I was immersed in the kiss, my body exquisitely aroused but not yet released. Jake said something sharp like, “Clean her up,” and to my astonishment, Flo moved quickly downward. I thought she would just lick my belly, but she proceeded to go lower. To my amazement, she was lapping in between my legs. Jake, flushed and sweating, stood behind her, easing her skirt up.

  Flo’s rough tongue kept on and on, even as Jake pushed into her. I wasn’t shocked, I just didn’t want her to stop tonguing me. And she continued for a very long time. Her face was burning.

  Little darts of pleasure from her tongue made me cry out and half swoon. When I came to, Jake was lying on the bed facing me, and we were alone in the room. He gently grasped my wrists and pulled my body up on top of his swelling member. I put my hands on either side of him and I rode him as he pumped me from below. It was the most thrilling thing. Sensation filled me, and I felt light-headed.

  “I keep waiting for you to tell me to stop, Phoebe,” Jake said. “Don’t you want me to stop?”

  “No!” I cried, my mouth dry.

  My mouth may have been dry, but my throbbing sex was wet and greedy, clutching him. I could see Jake relishing this.

  “I’m going to keep you up here for the next three days,” Jake said calmly. “And I’m going to roger you senseless. And Cook will help pleasure you, because I see you like that.”

  I nodded, a flush spreading across my face, already beaded with perspiration. I looked down at him.

  “I think I can keep up with you,” I panted.

  I don’t know why I said that, but he suddenly rose up and overturned me. I was back on my back. And he ravished me then, holding down my arms, and thrusting into me with full force.

  I loved every minute of it.

  * * *

  Later he fed me and we talked. I was always very conscious of his eyes on me, of his nakedness. Of the next thing he would want to do to me.

  The next day he stayed very close to my side. We fell into a rhythm of fucking and resting. Sometimes I slept for a little while.

  Each time I felt a little more drowsy and relaxed.

  I was vaguely aware of Cook bringing in lunch and later dinner. The world seemed to narrow down to Jake and me.

  SIX

  The third morning I woke as the key turned in the lock. Flo Hendrick slipped inside, not in uniform yet, just a light, greenish-blue gown. She placed the breakfast things in their usual spot, then disrobed and silently joined me in bed. We began kissing. I felt a surge of excitement as our naked bodies meshed. She kissed so beautifully, her warm tongue searching my mouth. I moaned and moaned.

  “Master Jake’s given us an hour, then I’m supposed to take you to him,” she whispered.

  She pushed her full breast into my mouth and I sucked obediently, like a baby. It was delicious, comforting. I was so wet.

  “Did you like the things I did before?” Flo asked.

  “Yes,” I gasped.

  It felt like she was stirring my insides with her finger now. “This is called frigging,” she explained. Her fingers—two, then three—plied me and opened me roughly.

  “Oh Flo!” I screamed. She gave a little laugh.

 
; “It’s good to see I haven’t lost my touch,” she whispered, as if to herself.

  I didn’t understand why I was letting her do these things. They felt so natural, but nobody in my world, growing up, had ever spoken about them. Was everybody doing forbidden things behind closed doors? I began to wonder now.

  I stared up at her. She looked so intent in her task, in pleasuring me. So lost in it. She seemed to love touching me…

  She pulled her hand out of my hot, wet cunt and lowered herself to lap there. I lay back, smiling, touching her hair. Letting her pleasure me.

  “This is called gamahuching, Phoebe,” Flo whispered. “I learned it in France from my friend Suzette, a maid in the house where I worked as a nanny for two young boys. We used to gamahuche each other every morning before the master would come in to fuck us.” She bent her head back to her task.

  “You must have loved Suzette,” I said lazily, and her strokes grew deeper and harder. She began sucking a tiny nub of flesh that tingled deliciously and seemed to swell.

  “Oh…” I moaned.

  “That’s your clitoris,” Flo said hoarsely, enjoying playing teacher. “The clitoris is the woman’s pleasure spot. It’s what makes this feel good.”

  I was clutching her with my thighs, my breathing quick and hard.

  “Please, Flo,” I said. She pushed a finger inside me roughly and suddenly I came in a wave of violent pleasure. I pulled her up against me and groaned into her soft neck.

  “Why do I want cock too?” I murmured. “That was so satisfying, but…”

  “It’s normal to want both, Phoebe,” she said, looking down at me almost tenderly. And then, “I think one enhances the other. I’ve always thought that. When Suzette introduced me to it, I understood pleasure for the first time. And after that, I came really hard with the master, too.”

  “It’s shocking that he fucked both of you,” I said.

  “The French are like that. His wife was ill. He was wealthy. He didn’t work. He had a lot of pent-up energy, passion. He really liked making us scream. We were shameless together, Suzette and I, and he loved watching us. It lasted for five years. I wish it had lasted longer… but then his wife died, and the children were sent away to school, so I was no longer needed.”