by Kathryn Moon
I felt antsy without anything to do with myself, anything to carry or hold to keep my hands busy, so I found myself watching the butler’s back. Either he had grown recently, filling out the suit to the point of risking its seams, or someone liked to dress him dangerously. I couldn’t say I blamed them, the stretch of his shoulders across his back was a nice view.
“Thank you, Booker.”
I tore my eyes away from the swell of the butler’s rump and rose up on my toes to peer around his shoulder. The speaker was a woman, elegant and strange in the doorway, wearing a red velvet robe with black roses crawling up the sleeves and tangling around the bodice. There didn’t seem to be anything beneath the robe, and it bared milky white skin down a lengthy neck and almost to her navel. Her hair was wrapped in a red turban, thin curls of black framing her face. She had huge, unnatural eyes that even from a distance, seemed to catch light like some kind of jewel, and she grinned widely at me, teeth large and bright and straight.
“There you are, little darling,” she said to me. Her large eyes ran from my hair down to my toes, and she added, “Yes, you’ll do very nicely. Come in, come in.”
And then she ducked into the dark mouth of the manor, Booker following after her. I stopped on the front step, looking up at the dark brick rising up above my head, at the heavy door in front of me, trying to see into the darkness that waited ahead. There was a creeping, crawling worry sneaking up my back and twisting my insides around each other. Was I safe here? Really? I only had Dr. Underwood’s word to go by.
But thinking of Dr. Underwood had me thinking of the night in his office again, and with that, the nervousness turned into needy shivers and my belly warmed. I thought of the hulking Mr. Tanner teasing and toying and taking from me. I wanted more, and he’d promised that was what I would find in this house.
I stepped inside, and the door shut behind me. It’d been a gloomy day outside, but with the door closed, the room turned black as my eyes struggled to adjust.
“I apologize for the rather dreary setting, darling. I know you’re used to London, but our patrons prefer their privacy and the sunlight can be…detrimental to some. Booker, some candles.”
A flare of light bloomed, and the entry hall appeared, stealing any answer I might have thought to give to the lady.
The room was enormous. Black curtains hung over the windows, and beneath my feet, more dark tile seemed to spiral across the floor, one branch leading to the door, two more out of the room and into halls, a fourth up to the wide staircase that led deeper into the manor. Booker’s stone-white face was reflected in a mirror in front of me as he lit thin candles on the branches of a candelabra. The woman appeared in front of me, smile wide and toothy still.
“Let’s have a longer look at you,” she said, lifting a soft hand to my chin but taking it in a firm grip. “Mhmm, a good face. Gentle, open, brave. Just like our men here need. Do you like sex, darling?”
“I love it,” I said, without thinking, and when she grinned, her cheeks dimpled and my own lips stretched to mirror hers.
“Good, that’s very good,” she said. “I’m Magdalena Mortimer, darling, and while this isn’t my house, I am in charge here. My promise to you is that you will be wonderfully spoiled and well cared for. The only promise I ask for in exchange is that you use that gentle, open, brave heart of yours to care for the gentlemen who come here to see you.”
“Is… Will Dr. Underwood be one of those men?” I asked, chewing at my lip. I imagined I could still feel that same stretch inside of me, Mr. Tanner filling me up, even though it had been a little over a week.
Magdalena grinned again. “He’s asked to be, if you’d like that. It will always be your choice.”
“Yes, please,” I said quickly, and Magdalena gave out a trilling little giggle.
“Very well. Now, let’s sit for some tea, and I’ll share a few details you ought to know.” She linked her arm with mine, the velvet brushing lushly over my skin. “Tea in my office, Booker, please.”
I looked over my shoulder as Magdalena began to lead me away. For the first time, I caught the butler’s blue-white eyes on me. He was nearly expressionless, but he didn’t seem to resent his orders, he simply stared at my face another moment and then bent lightly in a bow before straightening and walking into the opposite hall.
I turned my attention to the hall we entered, dimly lit with lamps, and my feet tripped on the thick carpet as I saw the art on the walls. Every painting stole my breath, all vividly depicted images of naked women, faces torn with pleasure, being taken by monsters. Magdalena slowed to allow me to look.
A woman with her head thrown back in ecstasy, fists wrapped around the horns of an onyx-skinned demon whose face was buried between her thighs, their bodies stretched across lavish pillows. Another of a woman, arms stretched and tied above her, legs wrapped around the hips of a pale man with fire-red hair, his mouth opened wide to reveal long fangs tipped with red. And another, a male figure covered in scales with jewel black eyes, stretched over the back of a woman, just a glimpse of an emerald cock nestling inside of her, her dark fingers clutching a pillow.
“The works of one of our manor ladies. She’s a lovely painter,” Magdalena said lightly.
My mouth was dry, and I licked my lips to try to draw thought back into my head. “And this… These are the kind of men who come here?” I asked, knowing it to be true.
“These and many other kinds,” Magdalena said. I could feel her eyes watching me, but I was more interested in the arousal that was beginning to dew between my thighs.
“And I can have all of them?” I asked.
Magdalena laughed then, bright and surprised. “What a curious creature you are,” she said. “Not many seem as pleased as you to be here.”
“I’ve had a fair share of men, Madame, but not one with scales. Do they go…” I wiggled my eyebrows at her.
I thought she might have blushed, but it was hard to tell in the dark hall. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know, darling,” she said. “My work here is…primarily of a different nature.”
So she hadn’t had a scaled bloke either. I wondered if I’d get to.
We arrived at a room at the end of the corridor. Magdalena opened the door, and inside was one of the strangest rooms I had ever seen. Where I had been expecting a proper office, with a desk and books and papers, instead there was a nest of unusual objects. Strands of bones hung from a lamp, and from the rafters hung hooks with dangling herbs. There was a round table in the center, with four chairs around it, and a glass globe sitting in the center on a bright gold stand. There were books on the shelves, but old ones with crumbling spines. Scented smoke billowed out of a gold canister, and instead of curtains, the windows were covered with handwritten letters.
“Here’s our man with the tea,” Magdalena said, and I jumped away from the door, not having realized Booker was waiting behind me to enter.
I skirted over to the table and took a seat as Magdalena took the tea service from the butler and served us both. Booker remained, looming in the doorway, gaze sliding above our heads to cross the room. I wanted him to look at me again, and I remained staring at him until Magdalena slid a cup of steaming tea to me, leaves swirling in the water.
“Now, a few ground rules, darling,” Magdalena said. “No man or woman in this house will touch you without your permission, and you’re expected to extend the same courtesy.” Her tone was so firm, I found myself nodding along obediently at once. “Some of our gentlemen can be…territorial. We find it works best when a girl has her particular group of gentlemen she enjoys company with, rather than everyone wandering about as they please. This suits the girls and keeps them from being overworked, and keeps the gentlemen’s tempers in line. How many men you see will be up to you, but I ask that you take their own happiness and peace of mind into consideration.”
“Of course,” I said. I wondered how many Mr. Tanner would let me have. I wondered what other gentlemen I would meet.
“Y
our room and board are covered, they won’t be taken out of your wages,” Magdalena continued with a smile. “And while I’m sure you’ll receive a number of gifts from your gentlemen, I do have a seamstress who will fit you with a few gowns just in case. That’s also covered. More delicately, and at your choice, we can ensure that you don't become unexpectedly with child during your stay."
I gasped at that. "How?" It had always been a risk in my habits, one I did my best to avoid, but it would be a much greater risk if I was having sex regularly.
Magdalena only smiled benignly and shrugged. "Magic, darling girl. I take it you're interested?"
"Very," I said, nodding quickly.
She made a note for herself on a scrap of paper. "I'll take care of it then. There is a waitlist for membership at Rooksgrave, and I only accept the very best. I have a handful of men who have been waiting to meet a young lady like you. You are under no obligation to like them or vice versa, although…well, I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to see you, darling.”
“When will I meet them?” I asked, leaning forward in my seat.
Magdalena’s strict expression softened at the question. “Now that you’re here and I’ve met you, I have a better idea of whom to send invitations. I’m sure they’ll arrive soon. As eager as you are, they’ve been waiting a much longer time.” She set her hands atop the table and reached across to link them with mine. “Aside from the bedrooms, you may go anywhere in the manor and on the grounds you please. Our house is…often very nocturnal, so breakfast will be served to the girls at noon in the dining room. Not everyone comes, but it’s a nice time for you all to gossip about your gentlemen. There’s a village nearby you can walk into, but I do ask that you be discreet. We try not to draw attention to the house.”
“Yes, Madame,” I said.
“Good,” Magdalena said, clapping her hands together and grinning. “Booker will show you to your room. And until we find a nice fellow you like, I’m afraid I have to ask if you would keep close to your rooms in the evening when the house livens.”
“Of course, but…why?” I asked. “If the gentlemen won’t hurt me…”
“No, they won’t. But they aren’t the only ones who are territorial. Our girls might get jealous if anyone notices you too much,” Magdalena said with a wink. Then she pulled out a long sheet of paper. “First, a little paperwork. A list of promises I shall keep to you. You can sign at the bottom.”
I barely read the words, just enough to see they were much like she had told me, before I was taking the pen from her fingers. My signature was an excited blur with how fast I signed.
It was hard to believe there was anyone else in the manor but Magdalena, Booker, and me. Nothing stirred in the halls as Booker led me up the stairs and off into the western wing. I thought I saw a flicker of another servant, just as broad and pale as the man I followed, but it was just a glance out of the corner of my eye.
“How many girls live here?” I asked Booker as we tread softly down an upstairs hallway.
His footsteps broke pace for a second, but he didn’t say a word, only shrugged his shoulders. “New,” he said, which had me furrowing my brow for a moment before I realized he meant he was new here.
“Oh! Well then we can learn things together,” I said.
Booker stopped in front of a door and turned to me, looking down with that expressionless stare again, but this time, it was fixed to my face. Maybe there was an expression in there, but it was so hidden, I found myself imagining what I might have seen. Gratitude or interest, or dismissal.
“Together,” he said, with a small nod. Then he opened the door to a large bedroom, and we both stared inside.
There was an exquisite four-poster bed against a wood-paneled wall, large enough not just for two people but certainly three or four. There was a pair of fine armchairs on either side of a small table by a wall of windows, curtains drawn back and glass overlooking the loch behind the manor. Through a doorway, I could see the white tile of a bathroom. A fire was already burning in the hearth at my right. Another door to my right remained open to a small room with a circular dining table and a wall of shelves, trinkets and mirrors and books waiting to be examined. I stared in awe and envy for a long stretch before it suddenly struck me.
This was my room. That was my bathroom. My own private dining space for myself and my gentlemen.
“Oh.” I took small steps into my suite, afraid to disturb anything, afraid that Booker might catch me around the elbow and pull me out again. Could it be a mistake? When I’d been told I’d be treated well, I never imagined that meant I’d be treated like…like someone important. This room was four times the size of the one I’d shared with another maid, and now it was mine alone.
I made it as far in as the rug spread over the wooden floor before I heard my case tap lightly behind me and then a door squeak and click shut. When I spun around, Booker was gone.
The light from outside was turning from a rosy sunset to a purple-blue dusk, and for a long moment, I stood in the quiet, the fire popping at my side. I was not a maid now. I hardly knew what to do with myself. I hadn’t minded the thought of being alone in my room for the evening before, but now I wished I could go downstairs, if only to see the other faces, to be surrounded by people as I usually would be this time of night.
I shook the dreary feeling off and grabbed up my case, taking it over to the gigantic dark wood armoire in the corner. My simple dresses seemed a waste of the enormous space inside. What kinds of dresses would the manor provide me? I had no notion of what might be expected, but I was certain it wasn’t my brown maid’s uniform. I wondered what Mr. Underwood would want to see me wearing.
Better yet, Mr. Tanner? Probably nothing. I grinned at that.
I finished unpacking, dropping a handful of magazines I’d collected with pocket money onto the bed, and crossed over to the window. The loch below the house was still, and there was a wide patio underneath my window and a stretch of open land scattered with trees leading up to the shore. If it was nice out in the morning, I’d have a little walk around the shore. I wondered what was living under the water and if it ever came into the house.
I started to giggle at the thought when I saw a shadow moving through the trees, crouched low and slinking along the ground. My breath caught as it stepped out from between the trees. A wolf, huge and dark. It was watching the house, padding carefully closer. My eyes were fixed to it for so long that I almost didn’t notice the woman appearing on the patio. She was just stepping down into the grass, and I scrambled to find a window to unlatch, to shout down to her, warn her about the animal. She was moving closer, and the wolf was slinking along the edges of the trees.
I had just cracked a window open when I heard her.
“There you are,” she said, the last dredges of light catching across her pale hair. The wolf answered with a growl, the pair of them only handfuls of feet apart. My mouth was hanging open and my heart was pounding in my chest as my head struggled to catch up to the scene.
The woman sank down to her knees, her dark skirt billowing around her for a moment before settling in the grass with her. She had her back to me, just turned enough to the wolf to let me see her reaching up and unbuttoning the front of her dress. Her head leaned back, baring her white neck to the animal, and his growls deepened. His. His growls.
“Werewolf.” I mouthed the word. I’d read a little story about them once in the back of a penny dreadful. Of course. That was just the kind of gentleman that came to this house, wasn’t it?
They were far enough away from the house not to hear me but I didn’t want the pair to realize I was spying on them. I also didn’t want to stop spying on them.
The wolf’s growls deepened, grew louder, as he moved closer and closer to the woman, who was pushing her dress back off her shoulders, lifting her breasts up to the wolf. I could see her sigh as he moved close enough, snarled muzzle jutting into her skin. The jagged edge of the growl faded, and I saw a red tongue app
earing, swiping around the tip of one breast.
“Lord, I’ve missed you,” the woman said.
All at once, the wolf reared back and lunged forward again. I gasped, but it was drowned out by the sound of his roar as his body stretched and twisted and shifted until it was not a wolf pinning the woman to the ground, but a naked man. His skin was browned, turning her paler by contrast, and dark-haired arms were wrestling her skirts up over those perfectly pale legs.
My fingers were clutched around the windowsill as I watched, unable to stop, uninterested in stopping. Would I have a man like him? With her skirts up to her waist, the man took the woman’s wrists from where her hands clutched at his shoulders and pinned her to the ground as he thrust inside of her. Her body rolled beneath his. He was still growling, but it was almost like a purr, and she was making no effort to quiet her pleasure.
I found myself pressing my hips against the wall beneath me, wishing I were on the ground in her place, or at least that I was not alone in the room. That there was someone with me to relieve this ache in my cunt, in my breasts.
He was nipping and biting at her neck and breasts, his hips snapping. She almost wrestled beneath him, arms and legs twisting as if to get away, but the smile on her face was enormous and the sounds she made were…well, I knew what those sounds meant. I’d made those sounds with the doctor and his friend.
The wolf-man reared back, and I stepped back from the window just enough to still be able to see them. He was smiling too, something between feral and delighted. A wicked smile. She was in for a long night.
I took another step back from the window and closed my eyes, taking in a long breath and listening to them. I could hear the slap of skin, the needy whines, the grunts of effort. I turned, as if to look for my own wild man in the room. Finding nothing, no one, I ran and launched myself into the bed, snatching a pillow from the headboard and stuffing it beneath my hips.
I rutted against the cushion in time to their sounds, my forehead knotting. It was too soft. There was nothing to stretch open the place inside of me that ached the most. But soon I could feel it, just a little shimmery sweetness, faint compared to what I wanted. I didn’t stop until I came, half atop the bed, almost sobbing with frustration.
