A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man

by Celeste Bradley

  He was right. They were only words. “I must confess, I needed that,” I told him. “Your tongue is most talented, but it did me good to be fucked, even a little.”

  He tipped my face up and caught my gaze with his blue eyes. “I will fuck you at the orgy,” he promised, or perhaps threatened. It was difficult to tell with him. “I will take you so hard you will wince when you sit.”

  I met his gaze boldly. “I shall return the favor, my lord. Right down to the wincing part.”

  This bargain struck, I began to look forward to the orgy with great anticipation.

  * * *

  Our destination was a country house outside of the city, the C____ estate in Surrey. The carriage ride might have been tedious but for Lord B____’s imaginative use of time. I arrived breathless and exhausted and my knickers had disappeared entirely, though I searched the interior of the carriage well. Anticipation alone would have kept me in a state of semiarousal. Lord B____’s clever hands turned anticipation into torturous denial.

  I loved every moment of it.

  I scarcely cared about the details of our host’s home, but the grandeur eventually penetrated the fog of my sexual heat. Grand foyer, grand staircase, grand guest chamber. Our host for this event, Lord C____, had once offered a fortune for a mere week of my time, but the man’s flat, icy gaze left me feeling as though I ought to check on my loved ones. The thought of his hard hands on my body made me shiver and not in a pleasing way.

  But I was not here to sleep in Lord C____’s bed. I had my lover and he had me. We had come to watch and be watched. If Lord C____’s reptilian gaze was one of those in the crowd, I scarcely cared. Let him see what he was missing.

  Lord B____ and I took a moment to retreat to our chamber and refresh ourselves. I decided against seeking out another set of pantaloons from my baggage, for my lack of them tended to make Lord B____’s eyes darken in hunger whenever I reminded him. He pulled me close before we left our room.

  “Sit on my hand at dinner,” he demanded. “I will service you until the last napkin hits the table.”

  I licked the outer edge of his ear. “I will rub you beneath the tablecloth until your rigid cock tilts the table. Everyone will wonder why the apples keep rolling away.”

  We ran hand in hand down the hallway, eager to begin our wicked, wild adventure.

  Twenty-five

  After an amusing feast of food presented in the shapes of various body parts, downed with copious amounts of rather good wine and accompanied by a very ribald minstrel fellow who composed filthy ditties about the various guests on the spot, our group retired to the main event.

  The ballroom of the great house was festooned in black drapery. Fainting couches and cushioned settees occupied the not-very-private nooks created by these hangings. At intervals throughout the room, strange exotic objects sat on lacquered pedestals. Some I recognized. There were several olisbos, a few of them of outrageous proportions. I saw marble carvings shaped like elongated eggs, which Lord B____ promised to demonstrate for me as he passed a possessive hand over my bottom. There were black silken ropes, gags with balls, riding crops, and even some silver spurs.

  I had dressed for the evening in a deceptively demure gown of pale blue silk. The bodice exposed a great deal of pale flesh and, if tugged just so, would reveal two rosy semicircles of aureola. In addition, if I stood in the right light, the skirts of my new dress became quite translucent, revealing that I wore nothing underneath.

  A burly footman announced the next entertainment. A dancer from a faraway land, he told us, a recent acquisition of our host’s. The minstrel put down his lute and began to beat a rhythm from a small hide-covered drum.

  As we watched, Lord B____ stood behind me with his arms about my waist. I leaned back against him. The girl before us was quite beautiful, in a dark, earthy way. Like me, she was small. Unlike me, she was slender and delicate. Her face was sharply featured, almost boyish. Her body was somewhat boyish as well, very lean and even a bit muscled. I thought of a ballerina, honed and strong.

  When she began to move to the drumbeat, I understood her lithe figure. She leaped high, like a cat, then whirled like a dervish until her skirts flared about her flashing ankles and calves. Her exposed midriff undulated in a way I had never seen. Her raised arms beckoned even as she whirled away from us. She seduced us with the erotic motions of her body and then defied us with her angry dark eyes.

  Try to tame me, she dared the crowd. I cannot be caged.

  My heart quickened at her teeth-bared defiance. She was a free and wild creature, brought here against her will, imprisoned like an animal, displayed like a possession. Her black eyes promised retribution, yet she danced on command.

  Survival, I thought. She is merely biding her time. The man who thinks her conquered might just wake up dead one morning.

  Good for her.

  She must have caught something of my empathy in my gaze, for she circled the room in a wide circle, growing ever closer to me, her eyes never leaving mine. Even as she whirled, her head snapped back around to fix me with her feral gaze. My breath quickened as she neared me, for she was lovely in her ferocity. I had admired the Swan’s beauty and noticed the lush bodies of the other courtesans at the bacchanal, but I had never been stirred by another woman.

  Until now. I wanted her to draw closer. I wanted to reach my hand out to stroke her gleaming golden skin. I wanted to feel the rippling strength of her dancing thighs beneath my palms. I wanted to press my pink lips to her cocoa-tinted ones, to taste her wildness, to sample her defiance.

  What was this strange excitement? How could I desire a woman when all I had ever thought about were men?

  Then a wave of dizziness struck me. My heart began to pound. I think I must have sagged a bit in Lord B____’s grasp, for his hands tightened about me.

  “It’s all right,” he murmured in my ear. “It is only the Spanish fly.”

  I gasped. I could not have lived among the demimonde for five years without knowing of Spanish fly. Used as an aphrodisiac, the powder was ground from dried blister beetles. However, I had never experimented with it for it was known to be a dangerous poison if misused.

  Lord B____ must have felt my fright, for he laughed reassuringly in my ear. “Do not fret, my wanton. Lord C____ knows his methods well. There would not be enough in the food to harm, only to titillate. You’ll like what it does to you. Or at least, if you don’t, I will.”

  He laughed again, sounding hollow and strange in my drugged hearing. I did not understand the jest.

  Yet, I could not deny the heat rising within me. The room spun a bit and the candle flames seemed to swell in my vision. I blinked several times to clear my sight, only to realize that the dancer had stopped before me. She stood proudly, shoulders back, one gleaming thigh cocked to show through her slitted skirts. Her chest rose and fell, displaying a sheen of sweat across her shoulders and bosom.

  So outrageous. So exotic. My mouth went dry. I licked my lips.

  “She likes you,” Lord B____ murmured. “Do you like her as well?”

  I did not know. I felt a dreamy curiosity mingled with the itch to taste her skin. Which feelings were caused by the drug and which by the girl?

  Apparently weary of waiting, the dancer reached out a sure hand to release the tie of my neckline. With a flick of her wrist I was bared nearly to the nipples. The thin silk hung there from my rigid tips as I gazed at the girl in shock. She flashed her white teeth at me, less of a smile than a dare.

  I never could refuse a dare. I reached out quickly to snatch at the closest wafting scarf attached to the belt around her waist. It came away in my hand, revealing a swell of golden hip and more of that tantalizing thigh. Lord B____ laughed low.

  The dancer bent to take the scarf from my tingling fingers. Then she straightened and stepped closer still. Then another step, until I could feel the heat of her skin against mine. I waited breathless, unsure of what I wanted to happen next.

  The dancer came on
e more step and then brought her lips to mine. My own lips parted in surprise. At the last moment, she did not kiss me but leaned to one side, the side away from Lord B____. I could not honestly say if I was disappointed or relieved.

  She whispered in my ear.

  “Run away,” she told me in a husky, accented voice, with her breath sweet and hot against my cheek. Then she whirled away once more, moving to the drumbeat, the reclaimed scarf trailing high from her raised hands.

  My heart thudded as I watched her entertain us all with her flashing limbs and hot defiance. Did anyone else even see her fury? Their eyes were glazed with their own importance. No, they only saw a half-naked woman gyrating before them. Only I had understood her.

  Run away. From what? From her? From this house? From Lord B____?

  It turned out that she meant all of the above.

  * * *

  After the dancing ended, the guests began to pair off, or in some cases separate into groups of three and even four. We watched. Lord B____ moved us from place to place, enjoying the show with an easy smile. I felt very strange.

  I was drunk on the sights around me and fevered from the drug-induced heat in my blood. When Lord B____ stroked his hands over my shoulders and then down to cup my nearly bared breasts, I shuddered. It seemed as if every inch of my skin were on fire. His touch was unbearable. I needed it. Only my release would ease the intolerable tension within me, I thought.

  “I’m going to do just as you told me,” he murmured.

  I was scarcely listening. Lord C____ held the tawny dancer astride him on the fainting couch. She rode him hard as he twisted her small brown nipples. Did he even realize that the foreign words she shouted in her orgasm were obscenities? I could hear them echo black with hatred in my mind.

  Lord B____ slid his hands down my arms to take my hands into his. I let him, dazed at the sight of a man suckling at the large breasts of a courtesan while another naked woman caned his bared bottom. His pasty buttocks were striped with angry red marks and bristling black hair. I was nauseated. Fascinated.

  When my hands were tugged behind my back, I hesitated a split second too long to pull away. In mere seconds, Lord B____ had twisted a thick cord about my wrists and pulled it tight, binding me securely.

  “Wh—what?” I tried to jerk away from him, but he pulled me back against him.

  “Is this not just as you described to me?” His hot hands covered my breasts again and squeezed. I gasped and twisted in his embrace, but he only rolled my nipples between his thumbs and fingers.

  “I was to bind you and strip you,” he growled in my ear. “Then I was to lead you to the center of the room and fuck you before all their eyes. My bitch in heat.”

  Hot, yes. My body did not feel like it belonged to me at all. I was nearly swooning from the fever in my blood and the burning of his torturous fingers on my sensitized nipples. My heart pounded. My cunte throbbed and moistened. I found myself grinding my buttocks back against him, seeking the rocklike rod of his erection. I found it.

  Yet my heart wasn’t partaking of the lust. My mind was fogged and slow, but my spirit wanted to pull away. Part of me longed to flee these bonds and this room and this steaming midden heap drenched in power, submission, and the drugged, heartless drive to satiation.

  Who were these panting monsters, these dull-eyed bulls, these shrieking, jiggling cows? What was this soulless place?

  My mind fought to make sense of it all. I am in the country house of Lord C____. I am here because I wanted to come. I am here because Lord B____ wished me to come. He wants to take me like these women are being taken … like an animal … like a grunting farm beast …

  I felt hot. I felt ill. I felt lust that had nothing to do with what I wanted. It was infused in my blood, a poison in my veins. My mouth was so dry I could not speak a protest. My feet seemed very far away from my mind’s control. I stumbled as Lord B____ led me to the center of the room. The chandeliers dazzled my vision as if they were made of suns, not mere candles. There was a buzzing in my ears.

  I am sick. Help me. Take care of me.

  Take me away from here.

  I don’t know if I managed to whisper the words or not. I know that Lord B____ did not listen if he heard me. I was led to the dais where the dancer had begun her first leap. I was lifted. The room changed and spun yet more from my changed perspective.

  Then I felt the first sharp tug. My bodice tore, exposing my right breast. I staggered but I was held upright as more tugs turned my gown to shreds that gaped open nearly to my waist and slit high upon my thighs. The humid air of the room was like the slime of a slug against my exposed skin. Naked, or nearly so. Bound.

  Helpless.

  “I do not wish this.” Yes, I had managed to speak aloud that time. I heard my own voice quite clearly. Heartened, I pulled at my bonds. I needed merely to ask to be released. Lord B____ cared for me. He would help me if he understood. “Untie me, darling. I’ve changed my mind.”

  He moved before me and simply stood there, his arms crossed over his chest and a sneer upon his handsome face. “So sorry, darling, but you made your own wicked little bed. Time to lie down in it.”

  He jumped up upon the dais beside me and turned to the ogling crowd. “Gather round, ye wicked throng, and place your pennies on the barrel!”

  His words sounded almost like those used in the beast market. With horror clogging my throat, I realized that I was the item up for auction!

  He went on. “I’ve a great bloody debt to pay off, so I want you depraved lot to bid high and long!” Like a carnival barker, he smiled, he charmed, he cajoled and entertained as the bids began to roll in.

  It soon became clear that one bidder was more serious than the rest. Icy malevolent eyes gazed at me hungrily and I knew that Lord C____ had arranged the entire depraved ruse.

  Horror flooded me. I wanted to vomit. My fevered mind fled back to another night when I’d been naked and bound and helpless. I’d been so filled with unbridled arousal that night, that hot, dark, beautiful night with Sir.

  How could I have known that it was not the act that aroused me? How could I, in my inexperience, have realized that it was not the binding, but the man who bound me? It was not the helplessness I enjoyed, but the trust?

  “Sold!” The fat man slapped his meaty hand down upon his improvised auctioneer’s bench, his companion’s jiggling buttocks. “To Lord C____, for the price of two thousand pounds!”

  The last of the false heat drained from my blood as I stood there, chilled by Lord C____’s flat, cold gaze. His gray eyes were empty of emotion, but I saw him clench one fist in triumph. Or preparation.

  Laughter and applause filled the room. I was not admired here. I was envied and resented.

  “It is the most fervent admirers who enjoy my fall the most.”

  The Swan had understood this. In my blithe, willful ignorance, I had chosen to disbelieve it. As I looked around me at the gloating gazes and sneers, my final faint hope of rescue died in my soul, leaving a black, gaping hole. I would not escape this.

  As I looked into the deadened gaze of the man who claimed to own me, I was not even sure I would survive it.

  As Lord C____ triumphantly dragged me away toward his bedchamber, all the orgy participants gathered around in a sort of grotesque shivaree to see me off to my doom.

  The dancer, dark and bold and savage, stepped out of the crowd that surrounded them. She stalked directly to me and raised her hand. I thought she moved to strike. Oddly, this notion hurt more than all the derisive enjoyment of the crowd. However, her hand slowed just before it reached my face. Her fingertips trailed down my temple and cheek, passing lightly down my throat and over my chest. Her palm, hot and callused, came to rest over my exposed breast.

  “Pretty whore.” Her accented voice was husky, her black eyes unreadable.

  Lord C____’s gaze flicked back and forth between us as the onlookers grinned and jeered. “Kiri, do you want her?”

  Kiri did not
respond to him at all. Instead, she tilted her head and let her eyes follow her other hand up to push back the lock of my hair that had fallen over my face in my struggle. Her fingers lingered in my hair, combing slowly down. Then she stepped closer. I could feel the avid spectators hold their breath. I, on the other hand, cared nothing at all. This creature’s inoffensive exploration was nothing compared to the threat of my looming violation by Lord C____.

  Her kiss was dry and brief, although more than a peck. Her lips were full and soft. I remained still and simply waited for her to finish. I imagined an abrupt decrease in the mental facilities of every man in the room as their imaginations stiffened their cocks and deprived their brains.

  When she pulled away, I saw Lord C____ narrow his eyes in consideration. He tugged at my bonds, urging me into the bedchamber. Kiri followed, though I saw no sign of invitation from her master. When the door closed behind the three of us, I felt no relief from the avid eyes of the guests. There was nothing in me but a numb horror and a powerful need to flee.

  My captor pushed me hard and I fell onto the bed, unable to catch myself with my hands tied behind me. In seconds, Kiri was on me. She lay half atop me, pressed bosom to bosom. Her small quick hands played over me like fluttering bird wings as she buried her face in my neck and began to moan with desire.

  My own interest in her had been quite squelched by the minor matter of being sold at auction to a sadist, so I daresay my response was somewhat less than she’d hoped for. All I could feel was Lord C____’s icy gaze running over me as he moved closer to the bed.

  Then Kiri muttered a foreign word in my ear that had the unmistakable ring of “Idiot!” She also managed to give me a solid blow to my thigh with her knee. Her message became clear an instant later when I felt her roving hands at my bound wrists. She was counterfeiting every second of her lust in order to distract his lordship from his intended ravishing.