by Marvin Kaye
surrounding the estate, the nearest neighbors had to be over a mile away in every
direction.
Phaedra steered the car up the lengthy drive that led to the old -fashioned
covered carriage port at the side of the house, the gravel crunching loudly under
the wheels.
"Wow, this place really is something," he said, leaning back in his seat to ogle
the building. "How much does a house like this go for, nowadays?"
Phaedra shrugged indifferently. It was clear that the subject did not interest her
in the slightest. "A million, maybe two, if you count the lakefront that's attached to
it. The Contessa says it's been in the family for generations, and that's probably
where it's going to stay."
She switched the car off and turned to face him. She moved quickly, leaning in
to plant a deep, passionate kiss on his mouth. His thoughts of money and real
estate disappeared entirely, turned to steam by the heat growing within his belly.
He took her in his arms, holding her body tight against his own. In twelve years of
marriage, he had never experienced anything as sensuous as Phaedra's lips moving
against his own.
Phaedra broke away from the kiss, studying him with hooded eyes, a sly smile
on her lips. "You're shivering," she said. "How sweet."
"I don't know what to say. This is all so new to me," he lied.
"I think we better go inside before you cum outside," she said with a wink.
"Uh, yeah," he grunted.
The interior of the house was as impressive as its exterior. The first thing he
saw was a grand foyer with an elaborate parquet floor and a grand staircase that
split on the second floor into two separate wings. An antique chandelier swayed in
the air above their heads like a giant gold and crystal wind chime. The walls of the
reception hall were paneled in the finest cherry wood, burnished to a healthy glow.
Marble hamadryads sported with marble fauns while a massive grandfather's clock
with a zodiac face counted out the time nearby. Twin mirrors in gilt rococo
frames, each the size of a door, made the foyer seem even larger than it already
was.
"Man, this must have really been something, back in the day," John marveled
aloud, his voice echoing in the hall.
"You have no idea how grand it was, young man. No idea at all."
There was a buzzing sound, and an electric wheelchair emerged from the parlor
off the foyer. The rider was an old woman dressed in a velvet housecoat the color
of oxblood, a woolen throw draped across her lap for extra warmth. Her face was
as wrinkled as that of an apple-doll, her swan white hair bound in a long braid and
coiled about her fragile shoulders like an albino python. The old woman's hands
were as gnarled and twisted as the claws of a vulture, the nails long and yellowish.
None of this was unusual, given her obvious great age. However, what he was
unprepared for was the sight of metal legs that resembled a cross between stilts
and pogo sticks emerging from underneath the fringe of the blanket covering the
old lady's lap. Upon noticing his stare, the Contessa hastily rearranged the throw,
screening the prostheses from view.
"Contessa! What are you doing up at this hour?" Phaedra said mockreproachfully, bending to kiss her benefactor's withered cheek.
"It's these bones of mine. The older they get, the harder it is to sleep the night
through. I did not mean to startle your gentleman friend, my dear."
"Allow me to introduce you: Contessa, this is… John."
The Contessa offered her gnarled hand to him. There was a ring with a
diamond the size of a man's thumb glinting on one arthritic finger.
" Enchanted, my dear," she said, smiling crookedly.
"My pleasure, ma'am."
"I have no doubt it will be," the old woman said, a sly grin on her face.
"Uh, right." He smiled awkwardly and pulled away, unsure of how to react.
"Can I get you anything, Contessa?" Phaedra asked, apparently unfazed by the
old woman's behavior towards her guest.
"No, my dear. Do not mind me," she said, toggling the joystick so that the
chair went back the way it came. "You two have fun," she said over her shoulder.
"That is what youth is for, after all!" Something about what she had just said must
have struck the old woman as funny, because she began to laugh. It was a wild
sound, like the call of a screech owl.
Phaedra took his hand and led him towards the stairs. He paused to look back
towards the parlor, where the Contessa sat chuckling to herself.
"She doesn't mind you bringing men home?"
"Mind? Why should she mind?" Phaedra snorted. "Remember what I told you
about Red Velvet Manor? She used to run the joint."
A leer spread across his face. "You mean she was a—?"
"Yes. But not since they closed the place back in '44. She married an expatriate
Romanian nobleman who didn't have anything but a title. But that's okay, because
that's all she wanted from him."
"What happened to her, uh, you know… ?"
"Her legs were amputated a few years ago, due to complications from
diabetes. That's when I began working for her."
"You're her nurse?"
"She prefers the title 'companion.' So do I. I've accompanied her on numerous
trips around the world. It's only recently that her condition forced her to return
here."
"Real jet-setter, eh?"
"She knew them all: Rita and Ah', Liz and Dick, Rainier and Grace, Coward,
Capote, Warhol…" She turned suddenly to fix him with her gaze. "But that's
enough about the Contessa. We've got better things to do. Don't you agree?"
He tried to answer, but something in the way she looked at him made it hard
for him to formulate a coherent sentence, so he contented himself with nodding his
head. As she resumed her climb, he lagged behind a few steps, watching her
perfectly formed ass. This was all too good to be true. She had to be a pro. He'd
been around enough to know the difference between a call girl and a bored
housewife on the prowl. Her mentioning the old lady's former profession had to
be a tip-off. No doubt once the credit card clicker finally made its appearance,
she'd be charging for her services, but something told him it would be well worth
the expense. He'd had his share of paid women before, but none of them had this
amount of style or heat.
She paused in front of an elaborately carved wooden door at the end of the
second-floor hallway. "This is my room," she said with a smile. "Come on in."
She opened the door and stepped inside, motioning for him to follow.
He followed, moving cautiously into the darkened room.
"Hey… where did you go?" he said with a nervous laugh. All of a sudden he
was aware of the fact that nobody knew he was miles from the city, in an isolated
house occupied by strangers whose last names he didn't know.
"Wait a second—I'll get the lights." Phaedra's voice came out of the darkness,
behind and to one side of where he stood.
The lights came on with a sudden flash of brilliance, enough to make him
wince. The first thing he noticed was that the walls were the color of spilled blood.
The second thing he noticed was the huge mirror mounted on the ceiling, which
; reflected plush carpeting a shade lighter than the walls. The overhead light fixtures
and wall sconces were shaped like gilded cherubs armed with cornucopias. In the
middle of the room was a king-size circular bed outfitted with red satin sheets.
Heavy crimson velvet curtains covered the windows.
"We can do whatever we like without disturbing anyone," Phaedra said. She
was still behind him, near the light switch. "All the bedrooms are soundproofed."
He turned to face her, but whatever he was planning to say never found its way
past his lips. Phaedra was leaning against the bloodred wall, stark nude except for
her shoes. Her dress lay in a pool at her feet, as if it had melted off her body.
"You like?" She smiled.
Unable to find his voice, he nodded vigorously.
She gave a little chuckle and did something with the light switch, and the room
abruptly dimmed. "That's better," she said, stepping towards him.
He began to remove his own clothes, but his fingers kept fumbling because he
couldn't take his eyes off her. Her skin was as white and flawless as an alabaster
statue, her hips shapely and inviting, without a hint of cellulite. Her belly was flat,
and her pubic hair carefully trimmed. She smelled of sex and expensive perfume
and did not want to discuss children, in-laws, bank balances, mortgage payments,
or any of the things that defined the confines of his life. She was young and
desirable and available. And the knowledge that he was none of these things made
his penis so painfully rigid it vibrated like a tuning fork.
He was breathing fast and his mouth was open as Phaedra approached him.
She stood facing him, close enough that he could feel the heat from her body. She
looked into his eyes, then down at his penis, jutting forward from underneath the
swell of his middle-management paunch.
As Phaedra's hand wrapped around his erection, his wife's face shimmered
across the back of his eyes like a summer haze, then was gone. Phaedra began to
rub his cock up and down with sure, practiced strokes. He gave a choked little cry
and placed his hand atop her own, staying the movements.
"That feels too good," he whispered hoarsely.
"But I want you to feel good," she purred. "I want you to feel better than you
ever have… or ever will again." She pressed herself tightly against his body,
rubbing her breasts against the naked expanse of his chest. "That's why you're
here, isn't it? To make yourself feel good?"
With a sly smile, she gracefully dropped to her knees before him. He gave a
groan of approval and tilted his head back, staring up at his reflection in the
mirrored ceiling.
As his cock slid into her ready mouth, his vision grew blurry around the edges
and a groan of intense pleasure escaped him. Phaedra's lips glided over the shaft,
her tongue exploring every inch of him. He'd never felt anything so incredible in
his life, not with his wife or any of the coworkers or call girls he had used over the
years. At first her movements were slow, but quickly picked up speed and
intensity. He could feel her fingernails dig into his ass cheeks, urging him onward.
That was all the encouragement he needed to surrender to the urge that had
been gnawing at his loins all night long. He dug his fingers tight into the hair at the
back of Phaedra's head and began fiercely pumping in and out of her mouth. Even
if she had wanted to stop, there was no way he was going to let her. He wanted—
no, needed—to cum in her mouth more than anything in his life. He needed it
more than a promotion, more than food and shelter. Somehow, everything that
was wrong and dull and empty in his life would be set right, if only he could reach
orgasm with this woman. And at that moment he was willing to sacrifice everything
he had ever held dear—his wife, his children, his career—if it meant he could
empty himself between her bloodred lips.
A sweat broke out all over his body as his balls jerked up to the sides of his
cock, flooding her mouth with their warm, bitter cream. His head dropped back,
his mouth open, as his hips continued to thrust blindly forward. A deep groan
escaped him, and then his hands let go of her head as he stepped back on numbed
legs, his wilted penis sliding free of her lips. He was light -headed and rubberkneed, as weak and vulnerable as a freshly foaled colt.
Phaedra was still kneeling before him, wiping spittle and semen from her lower
lip with the back of her hand. There was a distance in her eyes he had not seen
before, or at least had not allowed himself to notice. Although less than five
seconds before they had been as intimate as two humans could possibly be, it was
as if she were miles away.
"I-I need to pee," he stammered.
Phaedra pointed silently in the direction of the bathroom door. He staggered
away from her, glad to be free of her thousand-yard stare. She was probably
thinking he was a jerk for coming so soon. He meant to apologize, say something
about her being so sexy he couldn't hold back, but he couldn't work up the energy
to bother with it. Besides, she didn't seem so much disappointed as kind of dazed.
Maybe those Bloody Marys were finally catching up with her, after all.
The bathroom, in keeping with the rest of the house, was much larger and far
grander than anything he'd ever seen in a private residence. The walls were
mirrored, casting myriad images of his nakedness into infinity. The floor was
ceramic tile, embossed with starfish and crustaceans painted in Mediterranean
blue. The oceanic theme was continued by a wash basin fashioned from a gigantic
conch shell and solid gold fixtures shaped like medieval dolphins. As impressive
as those features were, the piece de résistance was the huge, oval-shaped marble
tub that sat atop its own dais in the middle of the room. The bathroom looked like
something you might expect to see in an old-fashioned movie star's home… or a
high-class knocking shop.
He climbed up the steps that led to the tub and gazed down at it. It was easily
the width of a child's swimming pool, and twice as deep. The sides were worn
smooth from use and sloped steeply towards the drain, which looked somewhat
rusty, set squarely in the bottom of the tub. Still, he couldn't help but feel that
there was something not quite right. Then he realized there was no faucet anywhere
in sight. Perplexed, he looked upward, thinking there might be a showerhead in the
ceiling.
There was something affixed to the ceiling, but it wasn't plumbing. As he stood
gaping up at the ceiling, he was dimly aware of Phaedra having joined him in the
bathroom.
"What the fuck is that doing up there?" he asked, pointing at the old-fashioned
block and tackle suspended over the tub.
Phaedra's answer came in the form of a baseball bat connecting with the side
of his head.
The first thing he felt upon regaining consciousness was the congestive
pressure of his own blood in his ears. The second thing he felt was pain from his
broken jaw. He tried to open his eyes, but his right one was swollen shut. Still, he
didn't need both eyes to know that he was hanging upside down by his heels over
the marble tub.
&
nbsp; "That didn't take long."
He recognized the voice as the Contessa's. He caught a glimpse of her in one
of the mirrors, her wheelchair parked in the open door of the bathroom.
"Thank God for small favors. And I do mean small," Phaedra sneered. She
was seated on the toilet, smoking a cigarette. "I prefer it when they cum in my
mouth. I hate it when they stick it in me." She shivered with revulsion at the very
thought.
"Yes, my dear. I understand all too well," the Contessa said sympathetically.
"The penis is such a transgressive organ."
He tried to open his mouth to demand that they let him go, but the pain from
his shattered jaw turned his shout into an agonized moan. The two women glanced
up at him as if he were nothing more than a chiming clock.
"He's awake," Phaedra said, flicking the cigarette into the conch-shaped wash
basin.
"Good," the Contessa said, tossing aside her lap blanket and levering herself
out of the wheelchair. "Let's get this over with."
Compared to the rest of her body, the tubular metal and carbon filaments of
her prosthetic limbs were frighteningly sturdy. She wavered like a young tree in a
stiff wind, then took a step forward, the hydraulic knees and tendons hissing and
popping like steam-driven pogo sticks.
Phaedra moved to meet the Contessa, helping the older woman to remove her
garment. Her body was so wrinkled it was almost impossible to tell what sex she
was, her dried-up dugs hanging flat against her chest like deflated wineskins. With
trembling, gnarled fingers, the Contessa loosened her hair, allowing it to spill down
upon her shoulders like a fall of snow.
The old woman nodded to the younger one, and Phaedra began methodically
to unfasten the elaborate suspension gear—half corset, half truss—that held the
Contessa's artificial legs in place. When the last strap was finished with, the
Contessa linked her arms around Phaedra's neck as her companion lifted her free
of the legs. The prostheses, empty of their operator, dropped to the tiled floor
with a loud clatter.
Phaedra carried her mistress easily up the steps of the dais and carefully
balanced her on its worn lip. Using her arms to propel her, the Contessa scuttled
down the side of the tub like a pallid crab.
