Once Upon a Time

by Luna Doerr

  “So Charles isn’t going to fantasize about spanking Erica anymore?”

  “No, I don’t think he is.”

  She feigns disappointment and it makee me laugh again. Or at least, I thinks she’s feigning disappointment. She had definitely enjoyed the spanking.

  “That wasn’t the kind of pain I was referring to anyway.”

  “I know. I’m just baiting you.”

  Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her. No matter how much her soft pink lips were practically begging for it.

  I stand, a little painfully given the erection that shows no signs of abating anytime soon, and pull a fluffy bath sheet from the shelf. I shake it out and hold it open for her.

  When she steps out of the tub, I wrap her tightly in it and dry the water from her perfect bath-warmed skin. Then I pick her up, carry her back to the bed, and tuck her in.

  She falls asleep quickly, the ups and downs of the day finally catching up to her. I tiptoe from the room and retrieve my laptop and a bottle of bourbon from the office. I resettle myself in the wing chair across the room from her bed.

  I’m tired, too, from the ups and downs of the day. But I have a new idea for a scene in the book. I want to get it down before I sleep. Good ideas have a way of fleeing during REM sleep.

  Charles’ heart had stopped when the neighbor pulled up in his carriage and carried from it a bruised and barely conscious Frederica.

  “Her horse threw her. I saw it happen as I was driving past. My boy is chasing down the horse now. He’ll bring him here when he finds him.”

  Charles gathered her up in his arms—how soft, how light she was!—and carried her to his room. While the maid—he still couldn’t remember her damn name—went to fix tea and bring back a pitcher of water, he gently laid his Erica onto the bed. The bed he had dreamed of all those years away at war, the bed he had imagined sharing with her, waking up in with her. Of all the ways he had imagined their marriage bed, this wasn’t it. Her eyes fluttered open as he began to unbutton the bodice of her dress.

  “My lord,” she whispered.

  “Shhh. Rest. I’m going to get these clothes off you and clean you up.”

  “What happened?”

  “The horse threw you. Are you in any pain?”

  She seemed to consider the question for a moment. Then she replied, “Just generally sore, I suppose. He’s never thrown me before. I wonder what happened?” She tried to sit up and help him with her dress.

  “Let me. Just rest.” He carefully removed the rest of her clothing, being careful to avert his eyes from the pale shadow of hair on her mons. After all the dreams, he finally got to see her body up close and unclothed and she is hurt. He cannot touch her. Just as well, he told himself.

  The maid returned with the pitcher and a linen cloth. “I can bathe her, sir,” the maid offered.

  Charles shooed her off. “I will do it.”

  When the maid had left, Erica said, “I can bathe myself. You don’t have to stay.”

  He dipped the cloth into the pitcher and began washing her face and neck. “I want to stay. It is my duty to take care of you.”

  He ran the cloth gently over her shoulders, then her sternum. Her nipples were pebbled before the cloth even touched them. He washed her breasts, trying to ignore the feel of her hard nipples through the cloth. She had beautiful breasts, far lovelier than the ones he availed himself of at the brothel. Those breasts were much-used, ill-used. But Erica’s? He realized with no small pleasure that he was the only man who had ever touched her breasts. Ever seen them, in fact. They had a lovely curve to them, as full on top as underneath. Her areolas were a pale pinkish brown, her nipples a few shades darker.

  “My lord,” she said.

  His eyes darted up to her face, and he was startled to see arousal darkening her emerald green eyes.

  “I don’t think those were very dirty to begin with,” she added.

  Was he imagining it, or was her voice husky with desire too? He shook his head to clear his thoughts and dipped the cloth into the pitcher again. For a moment there, he had confused his wife lying on the bed with the wanton wife of his dreams. She was a lady. Wantonness did not become her. That was the purview of whores who got paid to indulge a man’s wicked desires. Or pretend to indulge them, in any case.

  Indulging a man’s desires was not a wife’s duty. But it was a husband’s duty to take care of her, and he returned his attention to that task at hand. He wiped the damp cloth over her stomach.

  “Am I hurting you?” he asked in alarm. Her abdomen was quivering beneath his touch.

  “No, my lord.”

  “Why do you never use my name? Why do you never call me Charles?”

  “I don’t feel we know each other well enough.”

  With his thumb, he pressed the cloth into her navel and tried to ignore the way her back arched away from the bed.

  “We are husband and wife,” he replied.

  “Those aren’t the same things.”

  She was right, of course. Husbands and wives often barely knew each other, even after years of marriage. He wanted to know Erica better. Before the war, he had been positively fascinated by her charm and grace, her witty conversation, her irrepressible capacity for kindness. But he was no longer that man, strong and unbroken. War broke even the best of men and it had certainly broken him, in both body and spirit.

  I pour myself another bourbon. I’ve never been to war, thankfully, but I am still a broken man. My father had years ago broken any faith I had in the essential goodness of men, of their capacity for love and caring. Weston White had cheated on his wife repeatedly, with impunity, without conscience.

  I had lied to Caterine when I said that my relationship with my girlfriend had simply run its course. In truth, I had cheated on her. Even though I loved her, I cheated on her. Many times with many women. It’s in my blood, a weakness born and bred in my genes. I’ve met a few women over the years for whom I could have seen myself caring, perhaps loving even. I always end things, though, before my true nature has a chance to reveal itself.

  My father had been a monster to women, and I recognize that the same monster lives in me as well. It’s my lot in life to hold the monster at bay, and prevent it from hurting another woman the way it did my girlfriend. If there is one thing I regret in my life it was the unconscionable way I had hurt her.

  Charles ran the wet cloth over her hips, pretending not to notice her most womanly part. He washed her thighs and calves, taking a moment to rub the instep of each foot. He thought he couldn’t sport a harder erection than the one he had now but when she sighed in pleasure, his cock threatened to burst the seams of his pants.

  There was only one part of her left to wash, and Charles hurriedly swiped the cloth over the plush mound between her hips.

  “Touch me.” Her words were barely a whisper, so soft and low that he doubted his own ears. He must be imagining things. “Please, Charles. I am your wife.”

  “No“ His words were stopped by the sight of her opening her thighs to him. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the luscious pink flesh she had revealed. Luscious pink flesh that no man had ever touched.

  He forced himself to close his eyes. “No, Frederica. I consummated our union.”

  “I want more. You are my husband. Is this not also your duty to me?”

  “I am not the husband you married, and I am sorry for that. I should not have married you before I left for the front. It would have freed you to marry another.”

  “Do you not love me?”

  His nostrils flared as he inhaled sharply. “Of course I do.” He loved her more than life itself, loved her so completely that he would forgo his own manly desires to spare her the horror that was his face and body.

  “Then touch me. Please.”

  His head dropped forward in shame. “You cannot want to look upon my ugly face.”

  “I have never thought you ugly. Not for a minute. But I will close my eyes, if you wish.”<
br />
  Could he do it if she closed her eyes? If she couldn’t see him? If only he could see her?

  “Just this once, my lord. I am begging you.”

  Once. He told himself he could do this once. Then she would be satisfied. Or thoroughly disgusted at having been touched by so hideous a man as himself.

  “Once,” he said firmly. “Close your eyes.”

  When he opened his own and looked down upon her face, her green eyes—and the dark arousal he didn’t want to see there—were hidden behind her pale lids. He allowed himself a long leisurely scan of her body. Her breasts and her nipples were still tight with need. He reached down and rubbed one between his thumb and forefinger. Her moan was deep and throaty, almost as if she were in pain, and she pushed her breasts up at him.

  The whores at the brothel rarely made a sound when he touched them, except to hurry him along, remind him of the time. Soon enough another client would be knocking at the door.

  He closed both hands over her breasts and slowly let out his breath at the sheer pleasure of her softness. He fought the urge to bury his face between them, suckle them, bite them, leave his mark on her. He was the only man to be here, to touch these delicate pillows of flesh.

  Hmm. Delicate pillows of flesh. That might be too much. But I leave it for now.

  He was overcome with a sudden possessiveness he had never felt before. Erica was his. She could never belong to another man. Even though this was to be the only time he would touch her in an intimate way, it was like branding her with his mark.

  She had parted her legs for him in invitation. Charles pushed them wider apart. If this were to be his only time with her, he wanted to see all of her. Slowly he parted her pink folds, rubbing them gently between his fingers. He was rewarded with an even deeper moan from Erica. It occurred to him that he had no idea whether or not this really felt good to a woman or not. The madam’s girls simply lay there, for the most part, and let him do what he was paying for. Roving through a pink pussy certainly aroused him, but could it also arouse a woman?

  “Do you enjoy that, love?” he asked as he fondled her lips some more.

  Erica’s lips curved into a gentle smile. “Oh yes, my lord. Very much so.”

  “Would you like me to continue?”

  “Please.”

  The word had an edge of desperation to it, the sort of desperation Charles felt when one of the whores was mouthing his cock and he was so close to release, but not there yet. He knew women could have orgasms, though he’d never witnessed a female orgasm himself. The whores didn’t bother, of course. Not that he was the sort of man who could inspire such a reaction anyway.

  He parted her inner lips, exposing the firm round nub of her clitoris. When his thumb brushed it, Erica nearly bucked off the bed.

  “Oh!” Her cry was surprised and genuine.

  He glanced up at her face to make sure her eyes were still closed, then he quickly unbuttoned his trousers to relieve the pressure on his aching cock. He had never been this hard before, nor this large. The whores wouldn’t be so loose on him now, would they? He quickly shut down that thought. He needed to stop thinking about himself entirely.

  His fingers drifted down to her sweet hole, a tunnel of love waiting for him to fill it. Which he wouldn’t, not again of course. When he had taken her on the desk, he’d been in too much of a rush to get it over with. He couldn’t even remember well what it felt like. What he remembered was the shame of it and his anger at her tempting him, at his inability to resist her.

  As he circled her hole with his thumb, her juices began to flow and the scent wafted up to his nose, sweet and enticing. The vein on his cock was throbbing now, near to bursting with his blood. He slipped a finger into her and Erica’s groan was like no sound he had ever heard before. It rolled down her spine and right into the finger he was caressing her inner wall with. He slipped another finger inside her and began pumping gently in and out. Her hips rocked in time with his fingers, and he wondered at the graceful movement. The whores were usually so motionless, it was like fucking a dead person sometimes.

  He watched her face as he quickened the pace of his fingers. Her soft lips had fallen slightly open, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes fluttered beneath her closed eyelids. Damn but this was a sight to behold.

  He looked down at his hand, now dripping with her juices. He wanted to plunge his face into her pussy and lap up every last drop. He wanted to taste her and feel her soft folds tremble on his tongue. He bit back a groan of his own as his cock swelled further. He would do no such thing, of course. That was a step too far, and one that would surely shock Erica into revulsion and loathing.

  “Oh my lord,” she breathed. “I feel like … something is … I think I should ask you to stop and yet I don’t want to.”

  An irrational sense of power and pride swelled in Charles’ chest to rival the swelling between his legs. He would not stop now, even if she begged him to. He wanted to give her an orgasm, give her that ultimate pleasure, a joy no other man had the right to bestow upon her. He thrust his fingers harder into her. With his other hand, he touched her clitoris, circling round and round, until Erica was writhing on his bed, her hands clutching the sheets by her side. He watched, mesmerized, as she ground her pussy against his hand, wanting more and more and more …

  I shift my body in the wing chair and glance over at the bed in which Caterine is asleep. Every so often she makes these soft, adorable sounds and it’s like a feather tickling my cock. It’s been years since I was in the habit of sleeping in the same room with a woman. That night in the hotel in Virginia broke my run as a solitary sleeper.

  Sex is one thing, one form of intimacy, but to sleep mere inches from another person takes an altogether different level of trust.

  I reluctantly tear my attention away from Caterine. It’s getting late and Erica needs her release.

  And then the orgasm began to ripple its way through her body, and Charles had never seen nor heard anything more beautiful. His name was falling from her soft lips over and over. Her spine rose like a wave, her hips rolling as the orgasm crashed into them. He continued touching her until he sensed her body coming back to earth, then he reluctantly withdrew his hand. Erica lay there, her thighs quivering from the effort, her lungs gulping in air.

  “Oh. Oh.”

  Charles’ erection had him nearly out of his mind.

  “Keep your eyes closed for another moment, please,” he said.

  “Oh. Oh.”

  He wasn’t sure whether his words had registered with her or not, but he couldn’t wait a second longer. He pulled his raging cock from his pants and began furiously stroking it, chasing relief with a desperation he’d never felt before. It was madness, the way his cock yearned for her, yearned for those wet swollen lips still laid out as like a banquet before him. It took all his strength of will to keep from ramming every inch of himself into her. He wouldn’t spoil her pleasure that way.

  He turned away from the sight and tightened his grip, biting down hard on his lower lip to keep from shouting as his own pleasure shot out hot and wet onto the bedcovers. He tucked himself back into his pants, then lay down beside Erica and enfolded her still trembling body in his arms. He would hold her until she fell asleep.

  31

  Caterine

  In the morning, I awaken to find Alaric’s leg draped heavily over my hip and his warm breath tickling my shoulder. It surprises me. But it doesn’t bother me.

  I spot a bottle of bourbon and his laptop on the side table across the room. I’m certain those weren’t there when I fell asleep last night. That meant he left the room to go get them. Then came back. To my bed.

  I’m not entirely sure what to make of that. Or what to make of the entire day yesterday. It was eventful, to say the least. And I saw a sweeter, tender side to Alaric when he ran me the bath and washed my back. There’s no question in my mind that he was genuinely sorry about what had happened with Sim.

  I carefully extricate myse
lf from his leg and retrieve my bathrobe from the hook in the bathroom. Then I open his laptop and read what he apparently wrote while I slept.

  Whew. I have to stop and fan myself several times. Things are heating up between Charles and Erica. For real, not just in his dreams. I wonder, though, what Erica thinks of what has transpired. She’s just had her first orgasm and a pretty good one at that.

  I glance over at Alaric, who is still sound asleep. He hasn’t moved so much as a muscle. I begin to type.

  Erica was surprised to find Charles still in the bed with her as the first rays of dawn seeped into the room. Of course, this was his bedroom and his bed so best not to read too much into it. Perhaps she should be surprised to find herself still in his bed. He could have carried her to her own room sometime in the night. She moved her legs to test how sore she was after yesterday’s accident. Yes, definitely sore.

  But her body felt different in another way, too. She now understood what her sister was always going on about. What Charles had done to her last night, it had been … exquisite. That was the only word she could come up with at the moment. Exquisite, and even that was inadequate. She knew about orgasms. She might have been a virgin when her husband came back from the war, but she wasn’t completely naive. She hadn’t expected one to feel so intense though. She had nearly lost all control over her body. Her mind, even. His touches had sent her to a place where she no longer cared about anything, where the entire world was shrunk down to just this one moment, this one need for pleasure.

  She had loved it.

  She carefully turned to face the slumbering Charles, wincing again as her bruised limbs protested any movement at all. In sleep, his face was relaxed. All the tension of his days was gone, all the memories of war—she imagined—put away for a few hours. He had come back with a scarred slash across his face. It extended from his ear to his chin. His lips were scarred where the blade had cut them, too. But he wasn’t ugly to her. And she knew he had been changed by the war and wasn’t the same man she had married. She had loved him then and she would love the man he had become, too. People change over the course of their lives, anyway, even without war.