‘Lie still, you silly girl,’ Magda’s deep voice reprimanded. ‘Relax. It’s worse when you tighten up. It’ll be over in five minutes.’ She gestured impatiently. ‘Joanne, come and hold the other cheek. There!’
The petite, dark-honey blonde figure moved obediently, and with her manicured fingers held the soft flesh of Debbie’s left buttock, deep on its inner surface, holding open the cleft while the tattooist pulled back on its twin. Quickly and expertly he completed his assignment, one of the strangest he had known, and added a small letter B to go with the W he had already inscribed on the inner slope of the other cheek. They would be invisible unless anyone should do what Joanne and the artist were presently doing and open the tight divide.
Debbie gave a shaky little laughing sob of relief. She was lying face down on a padded bench, her skirt folded up onto her back, her white micro briefs down just below her bottom.
‘There we go, all done,’ Magda said lightly. ‘Now pull your knickers up. That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
Debbie obeyed gratefully, sliding her panties up. She climbed off the bench and shook her skirt down into place.
Magda paid the tattooist, who winked and said, ‘Who’s the lucky man?’
Magda stared down at him from her lofty height, her wide eyes fluttering. ‘What makes you think it’s a man, sweety?’
‘Now you really are one of us, sweetheart,’ Magda smiled, when the three of them were sitting in the rear of Lord Burnopside’s car. She turned Debbie’s face towards her, and planted a searching kiss on her lips.
Debbie shivered as, at her other side, she felt Joanne’s fingers slide up her bare thigh under the thin material of her skirt, until the fingers traced the edge of the narrow silk, then stroked the moist swell of her mound itself. She felt a hot embarrassment at the thought of Reeves, the uniformed driver, watching all this activity through the mirror, but then her mind spun away with the ongoing asses and caresses to her body.
Her life had been transformed so completely these past few weeks. It sometimes seemed as though it was all happening to someone else, or happening on some great screen.
She had always seen herself more as the victim of her senses rather than a transgressor. Try telling that to her morally outdated father, though, who had attempted to beat it out of her until she was ready to run away from home. But she was clever, and devious, and so she bided her time and lied convincingly. When she won a place at college she knew it was the road to freedom. Or so she had thought, until she discovered that she had perhaps been right all along; she was a victim.
Her heady liberty was nowhere more reflected than in her sex life. Parties and partners; a long succession of them throughout that first year. She had even considered going on the game, except that it all seemed too cold blooded, and she was anything but that. She might change her companions rapidly, but however briefly each association lasted, and some were scarcely more than a single night, she was passionately involved.
When a girlfriend came up with the information about the escort agency, Debbie felt it was the answer to her wishes. Good pay, as much or little work as she wanted, and all the clients were so well heeled it was unbelievable. Then one night she had entertained a middle-aged banker who introduced her to his cronies, and that had led to Lord Burnopside and a weekend at his fabulous country home. Which led in turn, shatteringly, to the incomparable Magda.
Debbie did not consider herself gay. She had fooled around, aped at playing the fashionable lipstick lezzie role with one of her closest college chums, had even, one drunken night, shared a bed and let the friend fool about literally with her body. She had even enjoyed it, which was why, perhaps, she had shied away from letting it progress further.
But from the first it had been different with Magda. Debbie could not explain it. She had been excited by her long before Magda had made any move towards her. Weeks had passed; weeks during which Debbie found herself spending more and more time in the same exotic company as the commanding figure, in circles so rich and privileged it made her dizzy. When Magda finally initiated the sexual contact between them, Debbie no longer knew whether it was she or the mysteriously alluring woman who had triggered it off.
She revelled in the fem role assigned to her. Magda’s powerful physique - the first night, in front of a group of chuckling and cheering male friends and their lovely female partners, she had picked Debbie up easily and carried her up the wide flight of stairs - and her dominant personality, added up to their clearly delineated roles it the relationship.
When she had time to reflect on such matters, Debbie was shocked at her own complicity in it. The tender ministrations, the kisses, exploring tongue and hands claiming every part of her surrendered body, were rapturously received. But then came the other manifestations of their... love? The roughness of passion, the ingenious and shocking array of sex aids which Magda introduced into their love play, such as the series of penetrative devices, from smoothly purring plastic vibrators to veined latex facsimiles of rampant erections, and the strap-on dildos which brought their bodies into writhing, clashing contact.
It was soon after this that there came the most amazing transformation of all- a transformation that still disturbed Debbie deeply when she allowed her mind to dwell on it. Their activity crossed into the bounds of SM, and Debbie discovered the frightening reality that pain and pleasure could be intrinsically fused as an aspect of love. There had been glimpses of this already, in the more boisterous, light-hearted moments, when Magda would pull the struggling figure over her knee and deliver a few stinging slaps to her behind, and more alarmingly, in those final frenetic cuttings when Magda penetrated her.
It was only at these climactic moments - quite rare moments, fortunately - that Magda gave any sign of being brought to that point of losing the control she could so shatteringly induce in the lovely brown figure delivered up to her. The large form would begin frenzied lunges whose stabbing thrusts translated into pain in the body smothered beneath her, who was drifting back to awareness in a post-orgasmic haze of bliss. Magda, eyes closed, her lovely face twisted into a grimace of intensity, would grunt and shudder until came that last thrust, the convulsive judder and gasping cry which would herald a climax of some sort, at which she would collapse, a dead weight on the pierced and whimpering frame underneath.
‘Why won’t you let me make love to you?’ Debbie complained one afternoon, having recovered from the ecstasy to which Magda had taken her. ‘I mean properly? Why do you never let me go down on you?’ Her heart beating unaccountably quickly as she went on, ‘I’ve never seen you naked - I mean, completely naked.’ She reached down and touched the tiny leather cache-sexe, with the little embossed silver designs on it, which Magda always wore. The thin strap snaked around her hips, joined at the back in the region of her coccyx where the other strap emerged from between her statuesque buttocks.
She would allow her lover to play with her breasts, and even to lick and suck at the pale pink nipples. The rounds felt, to Debbie’s touch, much firmer than her own. But even this privilege was strictly regulated. Soon those large hands would pluck her head away from her bosom, with a throaty laugh of protest and an exaggerated shiver. ‘That’s enough, sugar. It’s too much. I can’t bear it.’
Now, Magda listened to Debbie’s tender complaint and smiled enigmatically. ‘Yours is not to reason why,’ she murmured, lifting Debbie’s wrist from the region of that embossed leather groin. ‘You know I get off just making love to you.’
Debbie pouted prettily. ‘You’re a spoil sport, you know.’
‘There are other ways to prove you love me.’ Those magnetic eyes stared, enveloping her in their mystical warmth and closeness. ‘To make me happier.’
Debbie felt a familiar weakness, a thrill of both fear and joy. ‘I’d do anything for you,’ she whispered. ‘You know I would.’
Magda stared as though making up her mind on some matter. ‘Would you?’ she asked softly. Then she got up from the bed and went out of the room. Debbie lay there in the tangled sheets, her heart beating fast. When Magda came back she was wearing her loose Grecian style tunic, and carrying a long box. She took out a pair of handcuffs, whose inner surfaces were lined with a soft spongy material. ‘Give me your wrists,’ she ordered. Too astonished to demur, Debbie did as she was bidden, and soon she was manacled. A short silver chain separated the twin bracelets, and to this Magda attached a longer chain. She pulled Debbie to her feet and led her over to the door.
‘Whu - what are you going to do?’ Debbie asked nervously, as Magda reached up and tossed the chain over the top of the door, securing it to the handle on the other side. Thus, Debbie was pinioned, her front touching the cold wood, her arms raised over her head.
‘Teach you what true obedience means, my darling,’ Magda breathed softly, moving behind and nestling into her. Her hands played over the shivering brown skin, from neck down to the taut bottom, stroking and hefting the cheeks, which flexed and quivered under her touch. ‘We’d better use this for our first lesson, my dear.’
Debbie’s eyes widened. She didn’t recognise the object at first, then realised it was a gag, with a thick mouthpiece which Magda wedged between her parted teeth. She adjusted the buckles on the leather straps carefully, so that they fitted snugly around Debbie’s head.
‘We don’t want any curious neighbours, do we, Debs?’ Debbie was trembling, but she recognised the fierce pulse of excitement within her sex. When Magda produced a black whip, with its short plaited handle and thin rubber strands trailing over her dimpling brown bottom and the backs of her rigid thighs, Debbie was roused by the prospect of such a novel experience.
Until the first hissing, viciously stinging lash fell across her buttocks and hips.
She screamed at the torment, the sound trapped and muffled in her throat. Her behind was on fire, lacerated with a myriad of thin lines of throbbing agony, when Magda stopped some dozen strokes later. The brown body sagged, glistening with the sweat of fear, and she sobbed when Magda tenderly released her and withdrew the choking gag from her stretched and aching mouth. She sagged in those strong arms, which lifted her easily and bore her once more to the bed, where she was laid on her stomach and her wounds bathed, a blessedly cold cream smeared thickly on them.
Later still, when Magda once more made love to her, Debbie thought she had never experienced such consuming joy as her body soared off on its timeless response to those liberating caresses.
Somehow, Debbie found herself accepting her masochistic role, until it became an inseparable part of the relationship. By which time she had met the other girls united in this strange bonding, and knew she was being prepared for initiation into the strange esoteric society of the Whores of Babylon, whose unique doctrines had now taken over her life.
The car took the three girls back through the rich countryside, which was turning in the last old gold and russet hues of autumn, beautiful even on a sombre day such as this. Back in the library of Burnopside Hall a log fire was already blazing cheerfully, and drinks were waiting.
‘Let me see,’ his lordship commanded eagerly, and Magda nodded proudly. Debbie stepped forward and turned, still with that endearing air of shyness, and bent slightly, presenting her backside to the seated figure, and lifting her skirt to reveal the tiny white knickers beneath. The gnarled hands reached out and slipped the briefs down off her bottom until they hung at the knee. The large thumbs pressed apart her cheeks, and examined the tattoo artist’s handiwork. He slapped the resilient rounds firmly before he drew back. ‘Excellent. Welcome aboard, my dear.’
Magda chuckled. ‘We were wondering whether it might be better to have her done in a different colour. Perhaps something lighter, eh, my little black beauty?’
Debbie flashed her an injured look, but smiled at the burst of laughter which followed the remark.
Up in the capital another bottom was being inspected, but with far less frivolity. Felicity, wearing one of her plain white nightshirts, which was bunched up around her waist, was lying face down over the edge of her bed, while her cousin stared at the enflamed red mass spread over a generous area of both cheeks.
‘I can’t bear to sit down,’ Felicity grunted. Her face looked drawn, her eyes swollen from weeping. ‘I can hardly bear to put a pair of knickers on.’
‘No hardship, surely?’ John quipped, then smothered his grin at the injured look Felicity threw him. Her behind was shiny with the cream she’d been slathering on in an effort to reduce the throbbing soreness.
‘Why on earth did you let her do that to you?’ he asked, genuinely intrigued. ‘Is she really so butch?’
‘She’s a maniac,’ Felicity scowled, wincing as she rolled over and• stiffly levered herself to her feet, allowing the short nightshirt to cover her loins. ‘She threatened to spill all the gory beans to Michael. I just had to bend over and let her thrash me. I didn’t think it would be this bad, though.’ Her troubled gaze fixed on him, the tears close. ‘What am I going to do, Johnny?’ she appealed hopelessly.
She made two mugs of coffee, then stood while he sat at the small breakfast bar and sipped his.
‘Maybe it’s time you told Mike everything,’ he suggested, with a shrug. ‘Get him over and show him your flayed arse. He’s bound to sympathise, isn’t he?’ he added, after a fractional pause.
Now it was her turn to pause. ‘I just don’t know,’ she confessed. ‘He can be so straight sometimes. He’s been so tetchy about this Woman’s Touch business all along. I don’t know what the hell he’d do if he found out it was for real.’
‘Do you really want to marry him, Feely?’ he asked, genuinely curious.
She frowned impatiently. ‘Of course I do. I love him, dummy!’ Then she pulled a face of rueful self-disgust. ‘I know. It’s crazy, isn’t it, when I’m such a libidinous bitch. But he’s so different, Johnny. I’m so different when I’m with him.’
‘Cheers. Thanks a bundle!’ He grinned again, then moved in and slid his arms around her.
She pulled away. ‘Don’t, Johnny. I’m not in the mood.
Anyway, I can’t bear the slightest touch on my bum, honestly.’
‘You won’t have to,’ he promised. ‘Come on.’ As he spoke he slipped his hands on her shoulders, pulling her down towards the tiled floor. He lay under her and slid his hands up inside her nightie, savouring her warm flesh. She was kneeling now, her legs either side of him, and he slid under her until his head was directly under her crotch. He reached up and lightly kissed the puckered folds at the base of her dark pubis. He lapped at the salty tissue. She was leaning forward, gingerly keeping her bottom away from any contact with him.
‘Beast...’ she groaned, and lowered her belly forward onto that exquisitely melting embrace. Her hips circled, her belly undulated back and forth, her head arched back and her long black hair tossed, brushing across John’s arms as he held her slim waist. Feeling her orgasm approaching she reached back, still rotating over his face, and fumbled at the conflux of his thighs. She experienced a sharp dismay at the feel of his prick, already slimy with his copious emission and small and soft. With a hoarse cry she drove her loins forward and ground her wet vulva savagely against his face, smothering him, flooding him with her coming.
‘Look, things just aren’t working out for us at the moment, are they? We haven’t spent a night together in ages.’ Michael’s voice reflected the tension he was under, in spite of the reasonableness of his words. Felicity eyed him in mute dismay across the restaurant table. The bustle of the lunchtime scene gave them a curious anonymity. ‘Is there anything wrong?’ he asked. ‘Between us, I mean. Are you cooling off?’
‘Are you?’
‘Of course not. You know I’m not. But I never seem to be able to see you. Not alone, anyway. Not properly.’ He gestured at the crowded dining room. ‘It’s not exactly private, is it? And now you tell me you’re going to be away for a week. By the time you get back I’ll be in Brussels.’
His handsome face took on an almost comic look of childish pique. She felt a swift stab of real anger, mingled with contempt, which was followed immediately by shame. But why was he always so restrained, so nobly decent? She wished briefly that he would blow his top, create a scene. What? her inner voice mocked. Put you over his knee for a damned good spanking? And what a shock he’d get if he did!
The angry redness of her bottom had changed over the intervening days to a rich variety of bruises, a multi-hued tapestry of shades from faint yellow to plum purple. They were the reason why Michael had, literally, seen so little of her. There was no way she could explain them, least of all by telling him the truth.
She wept that evening when she told her cousin about the luncheon date, and the mutually unrequited passion. She peeled off her clothes for a bath, kicking them to the floor as she shed them, then stood, hands on hips, with her back to him, looking at him over her shoulder. She stuck out her bottom. ‘How the hell could I explain this to him?’ she demanded.
John, who was busy undressing, shrugged. Suddenly he dived across the bed, grabbed her and pulled her on top of him. They rolled naked, wrestling like kids, and she fought on top of him, sitting astride his chest and pinning his wrists on either side of his head. He felt her thighs gripping him, the rasp of her pubes and the soft cushion of her mons rubbing on him.
‘At least you still get your nooky,’ he panted. ‘What about poor old Mikey?’
‘He should have ravished me there and then. He should have laid me across the table and shagged me silly!’ She was startled herself at the vehemence with which the words escaped. She continued roughly, ‘Anyway, shut your mouth, slave! Or put it to its proper use.’ She eased herself further up his body, spreading her thighs wider, thrusting her pubic bush under his chin, pressing her dampening slit lasciviously against him. ‘Smell me,’ she breathed, growing more excited with every passing second.
He could feel her buttocks rocking on his breastbone, and could scarcely breathe for the smothering weight of her pressing against him.
‘I’m grotty as hell,’ she said. ‘I might as well get my rocks off before my bath. Save washing it twice, eh?’ But this time, instead of remaining limply pinned underneath her, paying her his unique lip service, he surprised her by heaving upward and flinging her off him. She squealed at the brute force with which he rolled over on top of her, so that now it was she who lay sprawled and captured, her wrists held above her head, her thighs spread by his knees. The dome of his penis jabbed at her belly, bludgeoned its way through her yielding labia and found her wet and eager to receive the stabbing length. He rode furiously, and soon her belly was buffeting against his, her buttocks lifting clear of the floor to meet the frenzy that sped them to the onrushing climax.
‘Look, we might as well use this auspicious occasion to make an announcement.’ Stella beamed her professional smile at the intense looking figure of the talk-show presenter, Mary Westerman. ‘An exclusive for your show, Mary. We’re past the watershed, aren’t we?’ She crossed her legs, generously displayed in the sheer stockings and tight grey skirt which only reached mid-thigh. On their host’s other side, Felicity sat in frozen horror as Stella gazed over to her with a look of narrow-eyed passion, and pursed her lips in a clear and intimate kissing gesture. ‘Sorry, darling,’ she breathed, at her sexiest, ‘but I can’t keep our little secret any longer. I want the whole world to know.’
She paused. Felicity couldn’t breathe. She stared like a mouse in the path of a snake.
‘I’m afraid this gorgeous creature and I are more than just screen lovers,’ Stella continued. ‘You can call this our coming out party, Mary. Felicity and I have been an item since we started filming - months ago. I’ve never felt like this about anyone in my whole life. Sorry folks.’ As she spoke she rose seductively, moved round behind the astonished interviewer and, lifting Felicity’s astonished face, firmly planted a lingering kiss on her parted lips. Like talons her painted nails dug deep into the flesh of Felicity’s shoulders, carrying their private message of challenge and warning. Felicity remained incapable of movement or protest.
She was gasping, sitting ashen-faced, when Stella at last broke away. A wild burst of cheering and clapping had broken out from the audience. The show, which went out at ten p.m. on Fridays, Westerman’s Week, was noted for its forthright feminist views and controversial topics. Now that its eponymous presenter had recovered, her sharp features split into a delighted grin. This was a real and welcome bonus. The subject of lesbianism as portrayed on the screen had been given a most unexpected boost, and she shivered with dawning pleasure.
Felicity continued to sit in stunned silence, smiling mechanically and idiotically whenever Mary attempted to bring her into the conversation. Stella handled it superbly, and when Felicity watched the show’s transmission a couple of hours later, her grief was intensified by the almost imbecilic portrait of herself she exhibited.
She had made a desperate plea as soon as the studio lights faded. ‘You can’t let that go out!’ she complained, while Mary Westerman stared at her blankly.
Stella was immediately at her side again, the arm this time possessively encircling her waist, while again those secretly pinching fingers exerted their censoring influence. ‘Felicity’s a little concerned about our going public, aren’t you, my love? But I’ve told her, it’s probably harder to try to go on hiding the truth.’
‘Of course, you’re right,’ Mary gushed. ‘Listen, I’d like you on again. As soon as we can fix it. This is going to be a very hot issue, take my word for it.’
Her forecast was extremely accurate. Felicity was still too dazed to put up any real fight when Stella led her, their arms linked, out to a waiting taxi and back to the dockside apartment. Their mobiles were bleeping even before they got home. Felicity was imagining Michael, sitting up in his hotel room, gaping at the TV set, unable to believe what he had just heard. That was probably him right now. Which was why she wouldn’t answer.
Stella’s first call was from Ally. ‘My God!’ the director sniggered, his camp tones reflecting his awed respect. ‘You’ve certainly put the cat among the fan shit, or whatever! Our noble lords are peeing in their ermine knickers, sweety. You’d better get into the studio first thing. Tell Felicity, darling. I’m sure you two will be snuggling up together tonight, doing whatever it is you deviant dollies get up to for fun!’
‘Michael will never speak to me again,’ Felicity murmured, too shocked still to cry.
‘Nonsense,’ Stella contradicted. ‘It’ll probably put a bit of ginger into him. There’s nothing turns a man on so much as the idea that his girl likes a bit of pussy on the side. If not, there’s no hope for him, and he’s not worth bothering about.’
‘Thank you for ruining my life,’ Felicity replied bitterly. ‘What do you want me for now? Are you going to smack my arse again?’
‘Would you like me to?’
At last the tears came. Felicity sobbed, heartbroken. She was too lost, and too much in need of any kind of comfort, to resist Stella’s tender advances. The blonde gently undressed her, then shed her own clothes, and soon their bodies were entwined before the rosy glow of the fire, on the soft rug, the thick pile of which Felicity’s outstretched fingers were clawing in the excess of sensations exploding through her arched and spread-eagled frame.
The world outside was waiting, however. The studio was buzzing when they dutifully reported at nine 0’ clock. One of the first figures they saw was the craggy Lord B. He wagged his finger at them. ‘You naughty pair,’ he growled. ‘You’ve set the whole place alight, you brazen hussies!’ It was evident that he was far from displeased, and Felicity soon realised why, for every newspaper, broadsheet and tabloid, as well as most magazines, from the kind that featured centrefolds where it was possible to take a pubic hair count to those that concentrated on knitting patterns, carried stories about the latest duo.
‘We couldn’t have had better publicity if we’d tried - and we did,’ his lordship chortled. ‘You’ve guaranteed that every adult, male and female, with the faintest spark of pulse left, will be riveted to the screen next month. Well done.’
Felicity discovered there was no way she could retract from this declaration of her lesbianism. In the restrained luxury of the executive suite, she tried in private to explain her dilemma. Lord B listened sympathetically. ‘I didn’t wuh - want it to huh - happen,’ she stammered, unable to stem the tears. ‘And certainly not for the whole world to knuh - know about it. I could die!’
By this time his lordship’s sympathy had become more tactile, and she was sitting on his knee, cradled in his arms and trying to ignore the substantial lump she could feel pressing into her thigh. ‘It’s my fiance,’ she wept. ‘He - he won’t understand. He’ll nuh - never...’
‘There, my dear creature, don’t take on so. We’ll think of something.’ He offered her his spotless handkerchief, and she dabbed and blew obediently. ‘But as to making a public denial, I’m afraid that wouldn’t do at all. No, it’s gone too far. Besides,’ he went on gently, crooking his finger under her chin and lifting her tragic young face to meet his gaze, ‘that wouldn’t be true, would it? You are Stella’s lover, aren’t you?’ Felicity hung her head and remained silent. ‘Not to mention your little dilly-dallying with the redoubtable Magda,’ he added, to her intense chagrin. ‘Perhaps your young man should show a little tolerance for your catholic tastes, eh? Perhaps we could have him down to the Hall some weekend for a few lessons in broadmindedness. That would be a good place to begin, wouldn’t you say?’
Felicity tried to imagine Michael’s reaction to such an enterprise, and shook her head hopelessly.
‘You’re a star now,’ his lordship resumed. ‘Famous all over the world. You’ll have to get used to it. And so will he, if he wants to keep you.’
She gave a sudden gasp. While he’d been talking and comforting her, his lordship’s hand had crept beneath her jumper and thin cotton crop top, and located her left breast, which it was exploring and playing with in a manner which stirred new feelings in her troubled mind; feelings which were proving a growing distraction. He pulled at the tight clothing until her breast, with its budding nipple erect, poked out from beneath the displaced garments, allowing him to dip his head and caress it with his lapping tongue. She felt the tickling scrape of his moustache on her sensitive flesh.
‘Someone might come, my lord,’ she gasped, her fingers twining in his silvery locks and holding him firmly to her bosom. She blushed at his deep chuckle, and her unintentional ambiguity.
‘Not yet, surely?’ he said, his voice muffled in her perfumed cleavage. ‘Don’t worry, my dear, we won’t be disturbed.’ His hand left her breast, and he was now dealing with the button and the zip fastener of her jeans, with such success that they quickly gaped open and the white triangle of her cotton briefs showed. His thick fingers negotiated their elasticated waist and delved from above. They teased at the curls of her pubic hair, then slipped lower, to the damp and yielding softness of her mound and the pout of the divide, which was throbbing with arousal. She squirmed, and suddenly she slid off his knee as he rose, dragging his hand with some difficulty from its nest within her underwear.
He gathered her under her arms and lifted her onto the splendid polished surface of the long conference table, and she lay• back among the tooled leather pads and the blotting paper squares, her legs dangling over the table’s edge, the hard wood cold on her bruised bottom. Which was soon on view as he eagerly manipulated her tight jeans and cotton knickers down off her hips until they clung in an undignified manner around her knees.
‘A lovers’ tiff?’ he chuckled. ‘Never mind, I’m delighted. Whoever was responsible, I’m glad to know that you understand discipline.’
The craggy head dipped and his hands pushed her top up from her flat stomach. The tip of his tongue dipped into the shallow little recess of her navel, trailed across the quivering skin, over the tufted rise of her pubic mound to the now distinctly moist divide beneath, and her tangled legs kicked helplessly. His fingers delicately parted her labia to give him access to the glistening inner folds, their slipperiness betokened the height of her arousal.
There was an agonising pause while Lord Burnopside wrestled with her recalcitrant ankle boots. She lay with one arm crooked over her eyes, shivering and whimpering with desire, and eventually he managed to tug them free. Impatiently, he wrenched jeans and knickers together off her feet, which he left encased in the thick brown woollen socks. At last she could raise her knees and spread herself wide, opening to his devouring mouth, his hands pushing at her thighs, the noise of his lapping loud over her ragged sighs. Her belly began to lift and her bottom bunch in rhythmic urgency.
His fingers played along with his working lips at her running flesh, sought out her beating clitoris, and she was soon crying frenziedly, about to come, pulling at his silver hair and begging for release. For an instant she felt an overwhelming despair as he left her, but only to straighten and to claw his rampant prick from its tight concealment. It jutted, red and engorged, eager for fulfilment. He seized her feet, tucked her legs under his arms and, pulling her to the very edge of the table, drove deep into her pulsing sheath.
Felicity started to come before his rigid manhood had bored fully home.
‘Where the hell is she? What on earth are you doing here?’
John could tell at once that Michael had been drinking, from his dishevelled appearance and his slurred speech. It was also indicative of his emotion that he should speak in such an abrupt manner, so divorced from his characteristic friendliness. He looked careworn, his eyes reflecting his disturbed state.
‘You’d better come in,’ John said, stepping aside. The taller figure entered and stared around at the familiar setting of Felicity’s flat. ‘Can I get you anything?’ John asked pointedly. ‘Coffee?’
Michael slumped in the’ nearest armchair. John felt a deep sympathy for his obvious confusion and distress. Again, he was struck by the contrast between the seated wreck and his usual suave appearance and polished behaviour. He repeated his question, and Michael blinked up at him.
‘Eh?’ the drunk mumbled. ‘Oh, coffee, please. Black.’ He stood, wobbled through to the bedroom, stared at the unmade bed and the untidiness of the scattered clothes and shoes. He weaved over to the dressing table and picked up a pair of Felicity’s satin briefs, held them against his face, feeling their cool caress, breathing in their fragrance, and then dropped them hastily, blushing in embarrassment. John was watching him from the doorway.
‘She asked me to flat-sit the place for a bit,’ John explained.
‘Where is she? Tell me. Please!’ John recognised the desperation in the deep voice. ‘I’ve been ringing for days. I’ve rung the studio... everywhere. Can’t get in touch with her. You must know where she is. You’re so close to her.’
John answered gently, ‘I honestly don’t know, Mike.
She wouldn’t say. She’ll be back soon, I’m sure. As soon as she shows up I’ll tell her.’
Michael sat down on the bed, elbows on knees, his head in his hands. He groaned. ‘She’s told you about our row? It was terrible. But honestly - it was all such a shock. Those awful things in all the papers. On the bloody telly morning noon and night. I just couldn’t take it. And since then I just haven’t been able to get near. She won’t even talk to me.’ He glanced up at John, his gaze pleading. ‘Is it really true? Margot - a lot of people - are saying it’s all just a publicity stunt. To promote that sodding film. I can’t believe she would...’
John looked down at him with a mixture of pity and contempt. ‘Would it matter if she did?’ he said. ‘She’s still your lover, isn’t she? I guess it doesn’t alter how she feels about you, even if she has got the hots for Stella Priest. Anyway, maybe it’s just a one off thing. Maybe it’ll wear off now they’ve finished working together.’
Michael stared up at him in horror. ‘But... how can she? She can’t love me and... and...’ He shook his head hopelessly, and John felt a sudden stab of impatience with his squareness. He had a strong urge to tell him the truth: Your beloved likes to fuck around with a good number, ducky, including yours truly, a six foot dyke, and a white-haired peer of the realm. But he couldn’t be that cruel. He suddenly realised that poor old Mikey would never be a good match for his mercurial cousin, and he felt even more sorry for him. The poor sod was way out of his depth.
‘Let’s have something a bit stronger,’ he suggested. ‘You’re well pissed now. You can kip here if you like. She might ring later.’
This last argument was the clincher, and Michael morosely agreed. They went through and sat in the cosily lit sitting room with a whisky bottle between them.
Michael lost on all counts, John thought compassionately, for he couldn’t even hold his liquor too well, though, to be fair, he must have had quite a skin-full before he arrived. Soon his dark blond head was nodding as though too heavy for his neck muscles, his eyes blinking slowly and deliberately, and his speech even more disconnected and rambling than it had been earlier.
‘I just can’t... I love her, John. You know that?’ His face was red and slack. He frowned, trying to concentrate, then smiled. ‘You know - you’re really like her, John. You two - you’re a helluva lot alike. Twins, almost.’ He shook his head, which sagged even lower.
‘Come on, old son,’ John said. ‘I reckon we’d better get you to bed. Sleep it off and hope you feel better in the morning.’ He tugged at Michael’s arm, persuading him to stand. Michael almost collapsed against the slighter figure, who just managed to steady him. Arm in arm they made staggering progress through to the bedroom. The bed crashed as Michael fell headlong upon it. He buried his face deep in a pillow and breathed heavily, inhaling the faint trace of her perfume.
‘Oh God!’ he moaned, fighting to choke back the tears. ‘I love her, John. I love her.’
‘Yes, of course you do. Now come on. Help me, for Christ’s sake!’ John pulled and tugged, succeeded in getting the jacket off, and then the tie and shirt. The shoes and socks were easy. though the long limbs were a dead weight. Then came the problem of the trousers.
Michael giggled helplessly. ‘You’re undressing me,’ he muttered into the soft pillow.
‘Trying,’ John gasped, struggling to roll the heavy weight over. He undid Michael’s trousers and, by dint of some serious tugging and pulling, he fought them down off hips and flanks, and finally succeeded in drawing them off the sturdy legs. A fetching pair of briefs was the sole garment remaining. John stared down at the tempting swell of the tight genitals hidden snugly beneath the taut white cotton. Michael was floundering, like an inexpert swimmer under water, as John drew the sheets down and helped him to negotiate the bedclothes.
‘You’re all right, John,’ Michael murmured, eyes already closed. ‘Good chap. You look like her, you know. Helluva lot.’
‘Goodnight,’ John said, and then went back into the living room. He sat and poured another measure of whisky. He was feeling a little pissed himself, he acknowledged with a wry smile. He stared at the comfortable settee on which he was stretched. Here was a turn up for the books, all right. He and Mikey kipping in Feely’s flat, both of them horny as hell for her, and she nowhere to be seen. One thing was for sure, he reasoned, the smile broadening, she wouldn’t be feeling as frustrated as they were right now. She was down in the country, safely hidden at Burnopside Hall, where there was plenty to distract her. That six foot wonder woman, as well as a host of other delectable girlies, and, if that palled, there was always the randy old dandy himself, or one of his aristocratic chums.
As he drank his way further down the bottle a wicked thought crept into his mind, and stayed buzzing with increasing irritation, like a fly trapped in a bottle. He recalled the feel and the smell of Mikey’s helpless body, the vulnerability of that toned frame as he pulled it back and forth, and its clean-cut manliness. Soon his prick was erect, pushing up against the restriction of his clothing with maddening insistence.
Another glass of whisky and a few minutes later, he made his mind up.
Michael’s snores filled• the darkened bedroom. His exciting aroma overlaid the subtle traces of the feminine scent of its usual occupant. Tingling in every nerve, John silently stripped and slipped naked into the bed. He fitted himself to the warm back next to him and slipped his hands under the inert anus, his fingers stroking the tiny nipples and pectoral swells they found. Very slowly and carefully he let his hand slide down over the smooth stomach. He encountered the broad elastic band of the underpants, and slid his fingers delicately beneath it. Below the coils of pubic hair the waiting penis was thick, warm and satin smooth. He felt the thick rim of the foreskin shrouding the helm, and felt the length quiver and stir into life.
Michael whimpered and stirred in John’s anus, their legs spooned together. ‘What? Who... what?’ The drugged voice drifted up through the layers of sleep.
John clung to him. His hand, in the tight nest of the briefs, massaged firmly, skilfully, and he felt the prick stiffen and elongate mightily until it strained against its confines and stretched his fist. Michael gave a startled gasp, consciousness slowly returning.
‘There,’ whispered John, his lips touching the earlobe.
He planted small kisses on the smoothness of the neck, where it met the shoulder, and he felt the form against him give a responsive shudder. ‘There there, Mikey,’ he whispered again. ‘I’ve got you, baby. Just relax.’ There was another quiver of the warm body, then came the sound of muffled weeping. The tense muscles gave way and the crying increased, while, unseen in the dark, John’s hand worked its rhythmical magic of release. John could feel the body twisting, the buttocks flexing, the movements mirroring the helpless little groans and whimpers. John’s hand-strokes grew faster and more deliberate, stretching the dampening material. The elastic waistband slid down and the rigid penis thrust above it, rearing in its newfound freedom. The briefs were now tight around the hairy balls. John knew what was coming, and wasn’t surprised when the frame to which he clung shuddered convulsively. There was a muffled cry and he felt the violent surge as Michael’s come jetted thickly between his fingers and onto the sheets.
Felicity wondered if she were dreaming. She had wanted to escape, to flee from the intolerable pressures that had been brought to bear on her; the nightmare that meant she couldn’t go home without running the gauntlet of a horde of voracious reporters. They loitered permanently outside with cameras trained on every window, so that she had to keep the curtains drawn and lived in a twilight or electric world. And on top of all that her own private life was shattered, smashed to fragments, thanks to that golden-haired beautiful bitch who’d seduced her. The row with Michael had been closely followed by another, with the chief author of her misery.
‘You can fuck off!’ she had screamed, harpy-like, mascara streaming. ‘It doesn’t matter any more! You’ve succeeded, you bitch! He’s dumped me, just like you wanted. Except that you’ve lost me, too. I’ll never go with you again!’
Her satisfaction at delivering this verbal broadside was short-lived. ‘You need cooling off, kiddo!’ Stella had replied, and the next thing Felicity knew her hair was seized in a vice-like grip, and she was dragged across the room to the toilet, where her captive head was forced painfully down the bowl and the cistern flushed on her, drowning out her screams of protest. She came up blinded and spluttering, her hair plastered over eyes and face, which seriously hampered her in the attack which followed. She did her best to defend herself and even strike some blows of her own. But as she had always known, she was no fighter, and within minutes she was lying on the floor of the dressing room, her shirt in shreds and her vest a tattered strip around her neck. Stella was well on the way to stripping her altogether, in spite of the skintight jeans, when a posse burst in on them and saved Felicity from further degradation, not to say physical harm.
That very evening a solution had been found, and Felicity was whisked away by car to Burnopside Hall, and an existence which seemed even more fantastic than any her vivid imagination could ever have conjured up.
Within the fine old building and its beautiful grounds she was totally insulated from all the pressures which had turned her life upside down. She marvelled at his lordship’s ability to keep the media away from her, at a time when everyone at home and abroad wanted to talk to the two stars of A Woman’s Touch.
‘The only thing is,’ Lord B told her reasonably, stroking her hand securely held in his, ‘you’ll have to go along with the publicity when the first episode goes out in two weeks. You and Stella will have to appear like bed and bosom chums for a wee while. But I’m sure you can manage that. You’re both splendid actresses, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t lay a finger on you in private. In anger or in amorality, eh? We’ll set Magda on her if she does.’
It was that strikingly tall figure which was largely responsible for the sense of surrealism which pervaded so much of Felicity’s stay at the Hall. As soon as Felicity appeared in the drawing room Magda came to her, arms outstretched, and gathered her in to her wonderful bosom, then planted a kiss on her uplifted mouth of such tender yet rousing passion that Felicity sagged giddily in her arms. And in front of a whole room full of people, too, who applauded the embrace.
‘Come and get settled in,’ Magda said possessively, refusing to surrender her hold. ‘I’ll show you your room. We can chat while you have a bath.’
Once upstairs Felicity suddenly felt awkward and shy, but Magda’s ease of manner soon had her relaxed again. The large yet beautiful hands plucked at Felicity’s clothing as Magda chatted easily, and Felicity was quickly naked and being guided to the foaming tub. Moments later she was trembling all over with desire as those capable hands soaped and sponged her, covering every inch of her flesh as she stood obediently like a child with its nurse. She climbed out into the warm waiting towel, which engulfed her. The sweet torture continued as the hands patted her dry, caressing her intimate curves until she was gnawing at her bottom lip, trying to suppress her need.
‘Have you missed me, baby?’ the deep voice crooned, seeming to pass down to the very pit of her stomach as she was edged back onto the bed. And she wept for joy when the strong arms parted her thighs and the dark curtain of hair cloaked over her midriff as that head dipped to slake the drumming passions so tempestuously stirred.
The magic never left in the days that followed. At first she was puzzled to discover that the band of lovely girls appeared to be permanent residents at the Hall. Doubts assailed her. Were they simply the most expensive of hookers, employed solely by the wealthy Lord B for his private pleasure and that of his privileged chums? And yet there was something different about them, about their whole bearing and attitude. They were all so unfailingly nice; to her, to each other, to everyone. And above all they each seemed to acknowledge Magda as their leader - their spiritual guide.
At first she could not stifle the inner stab of jealousy at the level of intimacy they all shared with the tall figure. Yet there was no reciprocal resentment at the clear indications that Felicity and Magda were lovers; at the glorious height of a new and passionate attachment. She was accepted. The girls made every effort to make her feel welcome. Yet she was disturbed by a feeling she could not shake that, despite their friendliness and Magda’s physical attraction to her, she remained outside their charmed circle.
They were a very tactile bunch, and totally uninhibited when they were on their own, when there were no visitors to the Hall. They would embrace like lovers, would often recline together in the deep armchairs or on the long sofas with limbs entwined and mouths regularly bestowing kisses upon lips or any other available parts of the anatomy. Though Magda did not indulge in such lingering and lavish displays of affection, she would often embrace them upon greeting or parting, and Felicity could not help speculating that her newest lover had shared passions with them as intense as those she now brought to her.
The lovely coloured girl, Debbie, who’d been John’s partner for most of the night when they last visited Burnopside, especially intrigued Felicity.
‘You look so like him,’ Debbie marvelled, when they were out walking on the wooded slopes above the mansion one grey day. Felicity had jumped at the chance to be on her own with Debbie, for she felt she might learn a little more about the strange nuances which bound this odd little group together under the auspices of his lordship. Debbie was the latest member of this close-knit group, but in spite of her ready friendliness, it soon became evident that she, too, was not prepared to divulge anything concrete.
Felicity was forced to bluntness. ‘What is it about you lot?’ she asked. ‘I don’t get it. Are you some kind of escort girls? Does Lord B pay you for your services?’
Debbie giggled. ‘We’re his sex slaves, darling. Haven’t you twigged that yet?’ Her tone indicated that she was far from being serious. But she soon found another more effective way to deflect Felicity’s curiosity.
‘You know,’ she declared, ‘you’re so like Johnny, you’ve got me sticky as hell. I can’t keep my hands off you any longer. Come on, there’s a sort of tower thing up here on top of the hill. It’s a folly.’
Minutes later they were inside the narrow circular building. Felicity shivered. ‘It’s too cold—’ but Debbie’s sweet mouth smothered any further protest. When they broke from the kiss she plucked off Felicity’s thick jacket, backed her up against the damp and crumbling wall, and then tugged determinedly at the belt around Felicity’s slacks. Soon she was naked from waist to knees, where her slacks and knickers were bunched around the tops of her boots.
‘That’ll do me, cocker!’ the coloured girl grinned, as her cold hand slid between Felicity’s welcoming, opening thighs.
The fingers teased delicately around the outer surfaces of the rapidly moistening folds, which soon parted to allow an exploration of their glistening inner slopes. The enflamed trigger of Felicity’s clitoris throbbed with sweet torment at the caresses that stirred it, before two fingers worked their way into her tight vagina and began to thrust more vigorously back and forth. Far from resisting the invasion, Felicity reached down, captured the brown wrist and urged it to even deeper penetration, her booted feet scraping the dusty floor, her knees stretching the clinging bonds of knickers and trousers as she soared towards the dizzying climax her loving assailant brought to her.
Daylight knifed its way through Michael’s screwed up eyes into his throbbing head. His fuzzy awakening view of the world suddenly swam into clear focus. Slowly he realised he was in Felicity’s bedroom. Then his jaw dropped at the vision of the slim, smiling, naked figure standing by the window.
‘Here,’ it said, ‘I’ve brought you a cup of coffee. Are you feeling dreadful? You must be.’ John came so close that Michael found himself staring from inches at the neat penis and compact scrotum, the smoothness of the belly and slender thighs. Words failed him as John put the mug of coffee on the bedside table, then moved around to the other side of the bed. He climbed in, the mattress dipping as he did so. Michael felt a foot scrape lightly across his leg.
Oh God! This was some kind of sick nightmare! Surely he couldn’t be awake. Not naked in Felicity’s bed - with her cousin. Fragments of memory began to swim back. His lonely drunken evening... then sitting opposite John... the whisky bottle... his swimming drunkenness. Then - his mind tried to shy away from the crowding, tormenting thoughts - the touch of hands, pulling him this way and that, dragging off his clothes. The feel of a slim body nestled against him... and then those hands again...
His muscles bunched to propel him out of the bed, when suddenly another realisation struck him, stopping him from movement. He was naked, too. Completely naked. But surely he’d been wearing underpants? His horrified gaze identified the crumpled garment on the rug by the side of the bed. A vivid memory of Felicity’s knickers lying in just such a position, tinged with the evidence of her excitement and their love, assailed his mind.
As though tuning in to his mental anguish, John stirred and moved even closer, so that his warm thigh and leg rested against Michael’s limb. He was sitting up on the pillows, above Michael, and he slipped his arm with casual possession over the broader shoulders at his side. ‘Come on, drink up while it’s hot,’ he said. ‘It’ll do you good.’
At last Michael was galvanised into action. Wildly, he flung aside the blankets and leapt out of bed, while John swore as the coffee he was holding slopped onto the sheet.
‘Jesus! What’s going on here?’ Michael cried, his eyes bulging. He was standing hunched, his hands cupped over his genitals. He bent and grabbed at his underpants, felt the crusting semen, smelt its unmistakable odour, and dropped them again with disgust. His hands flew back to hide his shrivelled prick.
‘What did you do to me?’ His voice rose in his agitation and disbelief.
John laughed mischievously. ‘Why? What’s wrong? Are you sore?’
‘What?’ Michael glanced down at his crossed hands, then up again at John, his face reflecting his terror. ‘What do you mean? You bastard!’ Suddenly his stomach gave a great heave of revulsion and he staggered desperately, doubled up, for the bathroom, where he dropped to his knees over the lavatory and retched dryly for some minutes.
With a deep moan he slumped and folded his arms on the plastic seat, lowered his head onto them, and began to sob.
A spasm of disgust flickered over John’s features as he swung out of bed and followed him to the bathroom. So much for macho man, he thought, unable to suppress his mean satisfaction at the crumpled image of masculinity crouched on the floor in front of him. Then the beauty of the naked figure registered, and he felt his penis stir and throb again. He bent, put his hands under those heaving shoulders, and drew him gently to his feet. Michael’s chin was on his chest as he cried softly, unable to look at him. John knew at once there would be no resistance, no violent attempt to prove or defend his heterosexuality. With an arm around the shoulders, he steered him back to the bedroom. Michael moved as in a dream, still weeping like a boy.
‘There’s nothing wrong, Mikey baby,’ John crooned, his own excitement flaring, his prick rising and stiffening. ‘Nothing to be ashamed of. It was good, wasn’t it? Don’t tell me you don’t remember. Don’t fool yourself. It can be good - you know it can.’
As he spoke, he eased Michael down upon the bed again, and let their bodies touch. He lay on top of him, their bellies and thighs pressing together. He felt his prick heaving against Michael’s warm body, felt the responsive quiver in the penis that lay beneath his own; its swelling arousal, their mutual warmth.
Slowly, he let his face approach the red visage under his, saw the sparkle of tears on the cheeks and glistening in the fair eyelashes, saw the wild fear in the eyes, before his lips closed on the warm mouth. Michael’s throat worked and his Adam’s apple bobbed violently, but John’s fingers dug into his hollowed cheeks and held his mouth imprisoned to the kiss until he felt the stiff resistance ebb from the body beneath him, and heard the choking gasp of surrender.
John’s hand dipped down between their bellies, found the swollen column it sought, and jerked vigorously. A huge sob shook Michael’s ribcage and sent his chest heaving upward. A spasm wracked the supine frame and his legs twitched reflexively at John’s knowing strokes. John’s head dipped and his feather-light tongue flicked at the hard nipples. Then on, over the slight dip covered by a fine swirl of hair, down over the quivering stomach, past the recessed navel, to the thick bush and the stiff penis, the helm gleaming purple and fully emergent from his fist. A drop of fluid shimmered at the tiny slit, and John lapped at it.
Michael was moaning softly, his head rolling tormentedly from side to side, his hips and belly lifting in helpless response to John’s stimulation. The prick was beating mightily in John’s grip now, the head more swollen than ever. He licked at it, teasing the flanged rim where it met the long shaft, until Michael tossed and whimpered. Straining his jaws, John slid his lips over the shining helmet and sucked deeply, taking as much of the throbbing penis as he could into his working mouth. He gagged, fought for air through his nostrils, then released the captive flesh. He relaxed his hold on the rigid column, pushed it back against the pubis and belly, lapped greedily at the ball bag, then up the root of the shaft, back to that engorged head.
Michael began to kick, his feet scissoring just like Felicity’s in the throes of orgasm, and his creamy seed erupted with such pent up force that it splattered onto his chest and into the recess of his palpitating navel, hanging in pearly gobs among the dark curls of his pubis. Some of it spilled onto John’s chin, and he dipped his head rapturously to lap at the residue that still oozed thickly from the softening cock.
‘You gorgeous fucking man!’ he breathed, and buried his face in all that sweet and cloying softness.
‘What is it?’ Debbie’s voice trembled with her nervousness. It was the first time she’d been back in this secret room since the ceremony of her initiation. This time, as far as she knew, only she and Magda were present. She was startled to find the tall figure clothed in her robe of office, her splendid figure hidden by the long scarlet robe. Again, the pool of brilliant light fell on that marble circle and the outer edges of the strange room were in deep shadow. ‘I’m sorry,’ she faltered, her heart racing. ‘What have I done?’
‘You went out with Felicity this morning, didn’t you? Where did you go?’
‘For a walk. That’s all. I didn’t tell her anything. Not a thing. Honestly.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Just up through the wood.’ She hesitated fractionally.
‘I took her to the folly.’
‘And what did you do there?’
‘We talked.’ Debbie felt her face growing warm. ‘I - I gave her a bit of a cuddle. And...’
‘Is that all? Tell me.’
‘I didn’t know - we fooled around. I mean - I made love. I just fingered her, you know? She wanted it. She’s lovely. I’m sorry, Magda. I didn’t know we weren’t supposed to. I mean, we all do it, don’t we? The rest of us...’ her voice faded.
‘But Felicity isn’t one of us,’ Magda said softly. ‘She’s not a daughter. You had no right to touch her. Not without my permission. And you didn’t have that, did you?’
‘No. But I didn’t know... I’m sorry.’ Debbie’s tone betrayed her fear. ‘I won’t do it again,’ she added, in a chastened voice.
Magda smiled. ‘No, you won’t do it again, my black beauty. But you have to be punished. Don’t you?’
The dark eyes widened in alarm. Debbie swallowed, and then nodded.
‘Right,’ Magda continued abruptly. ‘Undress.’
Debbie was wearing clothing suitable for the cold weather. She removed the thick sweater and the camisole top beneath, exposing her pointed breasts, then unhooked the skirt and stepped out of it. She wore panties of pristine white. The rich dark tones of her upper body stood out in delightful contrast. There was a narrow band of brown thigh, then the thick ribbed woollen stockings and narrow pointed ankle boots. A few more seconds and all these garments joined the others on the floor. Naked, Debbie stood and shivered, her hands clenched at her sides.
‘Lie down. On the star.’
Debbie gasped at the icy bite of the marble. Gingerly she stretched out, face down, and spread her arms and legs out wide, following the black points. She heard Magda move, heard the swish as the heavy cloak was flung back to give her freer access• to wield the instrument of punishment. It was the three-stranded whip. Debbie shivered anew as its thin tails trailed over her flexing behind, and tickled the backs of her thighs.
‘Keep still,’ Magda warned, ‘or it will hurt far more.’ The soft whistle was followed by a stinging line of fire right across the centre of Debbie’s bottom. It burnt so fiercely that, for all her determination, she was unable to obey her mistress’s dictate, and squirmed, sobbing, before she could bring herself to lie still again and spread herself as before. The whip stung again, and every muscle locked in an effort to keep her from threshing around, with a little more success this time, despite the fiery pain. She bit down on her lip until she tasted blood, trying to smother the cry threatening to burst forth.
Three more times the whip whistled and struck, until her behind was aflame with a torment that forced her to move. Her flanks jerked, her knees and feet banged against the marble in her involuntary squirming, and the sobbing became audible. Her hands reached out behind her, moved to touch the throbbing rounds, and snatched away again, for the slightest contact sent darts of fresh pain through her.
She lay there, her body shaken with her weeping, blind in her ordeal, until Magda’s voice penetrated her misery. She was aware of the feet planted firmly apart near her head, and the voice coming from the heights above her. ‘You’ve forgotten to thank me,’ it said.
‘Thuh - thank you,’ Debbie stammered at once. The tears flowed, soaking her cheeks, then she gasped as she felt a sudden iciness touch her throbbing bottom. Magda was bending, spraying on a freezing substance that took away the throbbing burn immediately. Then those gentle hands were turning her, and she lay, her eyes filled with tears, and saw the hazy shape hovering over her like some winged angel. The robe was open, its edges held wide around that splendidly sculpted nakedness, which she could not see properly, did not have time to see, before it descended to cover her own eager frame.
Debbie’s head swam, and with tears now of transported joy her former suffering was forgotten. Her whole being and body was alive with need. In an instant she relived the magical conjunction at her initiation, the dreamlike splendour of it, which afterwards had seemed too strangely wonderful to be true. She had thought she’d been drugged somehow; could not have experienced what her body had fantasised. But now it was happening again, that miraculous lovemaking which, her giddy mind told her, could not take place. She felt fingers moving, opening her centre once more, as before, then the penetration, not of those fingers, but of another, fabulous, more solid piece of flesh. It was an impossible amalgam of sexes as that gloriously beautiful body covered hers, and thrust onto and into her with shattering dominion.
‘Where’s Debbie?’ Felicity asked after breakfast the following day.
Magda smiled. ‘I think she’s having a day in bed, sugar.
Not feeling well. Time of the month, eh?’
‘Oh, I’ll pop up and see her. Sit with her a while. I know how miserable it can be if it’s rough.’
‘I don’t think so, lover.’ Felicity stared in amazement at Magda’s words. ‘Why?’ the deep voice went on, mockingly. ‘You can bear to be without her for one day, surely? Let the poor girl have some rest. She won’t be much use to you anyway.’
Felicity’s face flooded with colour. ‘I - what on earth do you mean?’ she flustered, aware of the guilt stamped on her features.
‘I know what you two were up to yesterday,’ Magda answered levelly. ‘I think we’d better have a little talk.’ She opened the door and courteously ushered Felicity out before her. Firmly gripping her above the left elbow, she steered her up the wide staircase and along the landing. She closed the door of Felicity’s room behind them, and nodded towards the bed. ‘Sit down,’ she said pleasantly, and Felicity obeyed.
‘You’re a promiscuous little slag, aren’t you?’ Magda continued, in the same light tone.
Felicity blushed deeply, and her eyes instantly blurred with tears. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. She could think of no defence against the accusation. ‘I’m sorry,’ she eventually muttered. ‘I just thought everyone here seems so free... with everyone else.’ She paused. ‘It wasn’t my idea.’ She felt more and more like a sulky schoolgirl. ‘It was Debbie who suggested going up to the folly. Debbie who - did everything. I didn’t—’
‘And you put up a terrific fight, eh?’ Magda interrupted dryly. ‘It was all very much against your will. A case of rapine, was it?’
Felicity shrugged miserably. ‘No, not exactly,’ she murmured, head down. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind. You all seem like I said... so close.’
‘We are, my dear. We’re very close. Which is why nothing happens around here - to the girls, that is - without my say-so. Didn’t you realise that?’
Felicity shrugged uncomfortably. She was beginning to wonder if Debbie’s absence today had anything to do with yesterday’s incident, and she felt a tiny pulse of both fear and excitement begin to beat deep within.
‘I asked you a question,’ Magda prompted gently, and again Felicity felt reduced to the status of a naughty child.
‘I didn’t know I had to have your permission,’ Felicity replied, with a hint of defiance she didn’t really feel.
‘You’re my girl,’ Magda said strongly. Again, Felicity felt an inward shiver of delight at the dominance in that phrase. ‘At least while you’re here. And so is Debbie. You don’t do anything without my permission.’
Felicity gasped at the bold directness of the statement.
She stared up at the tall figure standing over her, but said nothing.
‘I think we need a little lesson,’ the deep tones went on. ‘Lie down on your tum. It’s all right; you can leave your boots on.’
Part of her shocked at her own compliance, Felicity found herself obediently stretching out on the bed. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘You’re not going to beat me too?’ Her voice carried a trace of bitterness.
Magda chuckled. ‘Just a little, baby. We’ve got to teach you obedience.’
Felicity was too amazed to put up any real resistance when she felt her arms captured, and a pair of cuffs slipped over her wrists. They were softly padded on their inner surface, and linked by a short chain that Magda padlocked to the bed frame behind the pillow. She began, tardily, to twist a little in protest as Magda plucked up her short jumper and unfastened the waistband of her jeans. She hauled them down off her hips, then rolled the tiny black briefs down off her bottom.
A large hand explored the dimpling cheeks, caressing, stroking, the fingers delving into the tightness of the cleft until Felicity was writhing once more, though not with any thought of escape. Magda leaned close, her lips touching behind Felicity’s ear. ‘Love taps, my darling,’ she crooned. ‘Be a good girl and show me how brave you are.’
The bed rocked slightly as she stood up. Felicity’s bottom clenched and she began to whimper. ‘Don’t hurt me,’ she pleaded feebly. ‘I can’t stand it.’
The first blow landed with a loud splat. It stung, and she yelped, stiffening instinctively. The second blow fell almost immediately. The instrument was a slipper, the pliant sole raising blotchy outlines on the quivering rounds until they were soon a rosy red. Though Felicity flinched at each burning slap, she remained otherwise still, her loins thrusting into the yielding mattress, her face buried in the pillow to smother her cries.
The pain burned steadily, and she knew it was over. Strangely, the tears flowed more freely then, her sobs growing more tempestuous. To her surprise, and dismay, she heard the door open and close, and she lay alone in the bright room, weeping, arms pinioned above her head, her behind throbbing painfully.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Stella hissed, keeping her voice low so that the crowds bustling round them would not hear. ‘People have been looking everywhere for you.’
It was the first time the two had met since their disastrous clash two weeks ago. Lord B had been right when he’d said they would need their skill as actresses when they were next exposed to the public gaze. The strain of appearing not only bosom friends but lovers was already, after only minutes, beginning to tell. What made it worse was that they were doing an interview and some intimate photo shots for Liberelle, a recently released women’s magazine which no one was sure how to pronounce but which most people, and all with-it females under forty-five, had heard of.
They were using one of the interior sets at the studio, one that figured famously in the screen epic and was most appropriate to the tone of the article; the bedroom shared by Kathy Weldon and Stella Mann. Several other agencies had been brought in on the pic shoot, though the interview was exclusive to Liberelle. That had been bad enough. But now they were required to change into the flimsy nightwear which had featured so much in the film, with the hard bitch from the magazine leering and chatting cosily all the while.
‘I’d like a shot of the two in bed,’ she announced dramatically to the room. ‘Starkers, if that’s all right.’
‘Why not?’ Stella beamed. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ she flashed a withering glare of warning at Felicity, ‘and it certainly won’t be the last.’ She laughed lecherously, and Felicity fought to keep the revulsion from her face.
They slipped off their negligees and slid under the covers, Felicity only too well aware of the ogling cameramen itching to snap them. The Liberelle woman deftly arranged them, fluffing up pillows and lowering the sheet until their breasts were fully exposed.
‘We’ve got to have your titties, darlings,’ she brayed, while the male photographers grunted their approval. ‘Our readers would never forgive us. In fact they’d like a lot more - well, wouldn’t we all, eh lads? But then again, I’d like to keep my job,’ and she tittered affectedly.
Felicity felt Stella’s arm slide around her, drawing her into an embrace, and cameras whirred incessantly.
It was Ally who finally got rid of them all. Felicity refused to budge until everyone had left. She dragged on the pearly negligee before she got out of bed. Though it covered her from shoulders to feet, its translucence barely hid the naked beauty beneath. But it would do until she got back to the dressing room.
In its spartan privacy she quickly hauled on her clothes, glad to be decently covered under Stella’s appraising stare. ‘You certainly went to ground all right,’ the blonde pursued vindictively. ‘Been sharing a love nest with your giant dyke?’
Felicity tried not to let her emotion show. She answered lightly, ‘How did you guess?’ Stella had planted herself in front of the door, and Felicity stood in front of her. ‘Do I have to call security?’ she asked acidly. ‘I promise I’ll sue you for assault this time.’ She flinched in alarm as the lovely face thrust close to hers.
‘You’re a cold little bitch!’ Stella hissed. ‘Is that it then?
Don’t you feel anything for me? You can just walk out, like this?’
Felicity was surprised at the depth of emotion she saw in Stella’s countenance. The blue-grey eyes filled suddenly with tears, and she looked almost pathetic in her hurt. Even the voice suddenly dropped to a husky, pleading tone. ‘Can’t we start over?’
‘No,’ Felicity replied with brutal softness, ‘we can’t. We never really started, Stella. It was you. From the beginning you went out to get me.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘And you succeeded. Just be content with that.’ The smile was translated into a brittle little laugh. ‘I suppose I ought to be grateful to you. You taught me a lot - about myself, I mean. I’ll never be the same again. You also ruined my real love relationship. I won’t forget that... ever.’
Stella stood like a statue as Felicity walked around her, and out of the room.
But the furore over the screening of A Woman’s Touch inevitably flung them together in public. And furore it was. Even a head of the Church had a much-publicised view on it. Ratings for the repeat of the first episode and all three remaining parts broke all records, as forecast. It was sold around the world, a series of books were produced and, on the Internet, someone started a lewd comic-strip about the infamous duo. By early December both Felicity and Stella were the world’s most revered icons of lesbianism, even though, by the middle of the month, newspapers were reporting their break-up. Indeed, the split served only to refresh the public’s eagerly prurient interest in their affairs.
Burnopside Hall became a haven for Felicity. She escaped there whenever she could, and, miraculously, her stays there and her friendship with Lord B remained a well-guarded secret. More and more she felt at home, and more and more she felt drawn to its enclosed society. The world was left outside. Within those secluded bounds she was simply Felicity, one of the girls whose nucleus was the fascinating Magda, to whom she became increasingly devoted.
To Felicity it was the life outside those privileged confines that became unreal. She was still of course caught up in it. And she still spent a considerable time in the company of her cousin during the week, when she was required to be up in town. They continued to amuse and divert each other in their customary ways. But, as they untangled their naked limbs in the glow of the fire one evening, a week before Christmas, John observed, ‘You’ve changed a hell of a lot, Feely, since you got mixed up with Lord B’s crowd.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked innocently.
He shrugged absent-mindedly, and toyed with her nearest breast until she squirmed away from him. ‘It’s hard to say, really. You’re just different. Quieter. More self-contained, sort of.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘And what makes you think it’s Burnopside that’s made the difference? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my life’s been turned upside down by this movie. I’ve become the lezzie of the century. I’ll go down in the history books.’ She frowned. ‘I’ve lost my lover. My family.’
There had been a very painful scene with her parents only days after the release of A Woman’s Touch. It seemed their lives had been shaken up too, so that, according to her father, they hardly dared show their faces anywhere any more. It had led to a blazing row, and Felicity’s determination that she would not see them again, at least in the short-term future.
‘Why don’t you see Mikey again?’ John said carefully. ‘He still feels the same, you know. He’s crazy for you...’ She shot him a glance that showed how deeply troubled she felt. ‘He hasn’t tried all that hard, has he? For a start he kept away for weeks.’
‘Oh, come on!’ her cousin protested. ‘You did your disappearing act for a couple of weeks. He was going off his rocker wondering where you were. I told you, the poor sod was permanently pissed.’ Although she didn’t know it, John’s conscience was almost equally painful on the subject of her fiance - or ex-fiance, as he must now be called.
His own part in the shattering of Michael’s well-ordered successful existence was no small one. And yet John excused himself; it ought to have done Michael so much good to see at first hand how shockingly uncertain people’s sexuality could be, dependent on circumstances - and opportunity. Their brief foray into homoeroticism might have started in a drunken spree, but surely it had made Michael readjust his altogether too conventional and judgmental view of such things?
John had of course said nothing to Felicity about the adventure. Close they might be, but not that close! Besides, she was going through her own crisis of sexual identity; sea changes had been happening to her too, with just as profound an effect. He was not exaggerating when he talked of the transformation within her. She was so much more mysterious; adult, contained. And more fascinating than ever.
He rolled over onto his stomach, positioning himself at her feet. He felt the tickle of the rug’s pile on his belly and damp penis, which stirred with renewed sensation, despite his recent ejaculation. He thrust his loins pleasurably into the hardness under him. He picked up her right foot, holding it by the heel in his left hand, propped on his elbow. He lapped gently at the painted toenails, and the toes themselves, which waggled at his moist caresses. She shivered and he tightened his grip on her, so that she could not withdraw her foot. His tongue explored further, more firmly, at the ball of the foot, the narrow arch, the instep, to the swell of the prominent anklebone.
She shivered and jerked against his touch. ‘Christ... don’t,’ she gasped, a hint of pleading in her voice. ‘You’re a menace, you know that? You’ll have me utterly shagged out, and I’ve a hell of a day tomorrow.’
His thumbs pressed on the fragile structure, massaging, digging deeply, and she shivered again. ‘You’ll give Mikey another call?’ he coaxed, like a hypnotist. He bent and licked again, then let one hand slide up her leg, slowly caressing its contours, until he reached the fullness of her satin inner thigh.
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ she chided, then groaned again. ‘Bastard,’ she panted raggedly. The backs of his fingers were brushing, light as feathers, across her labia, which were rapidly responding and dampening yet again to his wicked moves.
His fingertips traced the divide and nuzzled subtly within, and she grabbed at his wrist and pulled him into her softness, grinding herself against him in abandon. ‘You will,’ he murmured insistently.
‘Oh fuck... why does everyone tell me what to do all the time?’ she moaned. Her hips squirmed and she wriggled down towards him, her head falling back among the cushions, her legs parting while she held him to her, pulling his fingers deep inside her beating orifice.
Michael knocked her wrist away from his loins and rolled over, hiding his limp penis from her. He gave a shuddering sob, his face buried in his folded arm on the pillow. ‘Leave it, for God’s sake.’ His voice was muffled.
Felicity felt the heat of her shame rise to her cheeks. It was all going so horribly wrong. What should have been a wonderful reunion of flesh and love was turning into a nightmare of embarrassment. She scrambled hastily out of bed, snatched her silk robe and pulled it tightly around her. She went into the living room, blushed again at her recall of the abandoned lovemaking she had enjoyed with John on the rug there. She poured herself a drink and knelt by the fire, feeling its bathing warmth on her face and her body through the thin silk.
She was stunned by this unexpected reversal. Was it really because of her? Because he simply could not make love to a lesbian? Confusing images of Magda and the lovely girls at Burnopside kept swimming into her mind. Could it be true, that she was indeed gay? But no - she had very clear evidence that she was not. She knew only too well how ready she was for sex with Michael, and that only added to the bitterness of the tears that flowed down her cheeks.
She heard him stir, then he came out, wearing his unbuttoned shirt and trousers. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, in a deflated voice. He too refilled his glass, and then sat in an armchair. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong. Too keyed up, I expect. I’ve been going through a bad time recently. Not just with us. Work’s been hell, too. A lot of problems—’
Suddenly she shook with rage. It welled up inside, almost choking her. With the anger came a rush of contempt for his whining weakness and his inability to satisfy her. When she spoke her words came out in a harsh, cutting snarl. ‘You’ve got problems? What the fuck do you think I’ve been going through? You were the one who broke things off. If you still don’t want me why don’t you have the guts to say so?’ She was crying, but the tears seemed to fuel her fury. ‘It took a hell of a lot to ring you, and now you don’t even want me. That’s bloody marvellous, that is!’
She felt the wildness surging through her, the aggression stirring her excitement like some kind of foreplay. ‘You bastard! I’ve been through hell lately, so don’t come snivelling to me! I want you to fuck me! Understand?’ She flung herself at him, seizing him by his open shirt, clawing it open all the way to his navel as she pulled him off the low chair. He was too shocked to resist. The next thing he knew he was lying flat on his back and she was sitting astride him, beating at his bare chest with her fists and clawing at his pants, ripping them open.
She knelt up and dragged them brutally down off his hips, then the tight white briefs that lay beneath. His prick, large but flexible as a hose, hung there between his thighs. Her fingers closed round it and she pulled, stretching it, and he yelped. She jerked her hand up and down, and the helmet throbbed and swelled under her touch, while he made girlish whimpers of protest. The hand moved, her long fingers curved, the nails dragged up the furrowed underside of his balls. Her black hair swung over her face as her head dipped and she nibbled at the stiffening column, pressing it back flat against his belly, holding it with her fingers while she chewed and worried at it. Her tongue licked, the helm reared, and he was as stiff as iron.
She rose a little, still clinging to his prick, and let her gown flow open as she spread her knees wide and descended, guiding him to her sex, taking him inside, feeling the potent shaft surge into her, filling her tightly welcoming sheath. He grunted at each descent of her body onto his belly and thighs, while she rode him furiously to a shattering climax for both of them.
In the secret upper room, The Babylon Chamber, the arc lights flung down their brilliant whiteness on the marble circle at its centre. Faint blue whirls of smoke drifted up from the shallow metal dishes at the outer surrounds, where the heavy musk of incense burned. From her dais, the scarlet-cloaked Grand Mistress nodded. Her black robed acolytes came forward, carrying a large piece of apparatus, which was a metal frame on a wheeled stand. The frame was laced by strands of broad elasticated tape, which formed a stout but flexible webbing.
They positioned the equipment directly in the centre, on the black star. They then led forward a drooping figure who moved with reluctant obedience. Marie-Angele Carrier, the French girl, was tall, with a mane of rich chestnut hair, which was gathered loosely on top of her head. She was already naked, and the neat triangle of her pubis shone with the same rich redness against the whiteness of her belly and thighs. Her lovely face was stamped with a look of fear, her eyes wild as they moved frantically from one to the other of her companions. Her lips were compressed as she strove to make no sound.
The frame was tilted until it was almost horizontal, and the robed figures helped the girl climb on the webbing and spread herself face down, so her arms and legs stretched out towards the comers. Her wrists and ankles were firmly bound with looped restraints, and she hung there like a pale star, every detail of her body revealed in the brilliance of the light. There were deep hollows in her taut buttocks, shadowed as she clenched them in anticipation of the pain to come.
‘Daughter, you have been chosen to undergo the test of obedience, to accept the chastisement on behalf of the Daughters of Babylon.’
Marie-Angele’s voice came as a smothered sob. ‘I thuh - thank you, mistress, for the great honour bestow upon me.’
Again, the scarlet figure nodded. The frame was tipped once more, so that the captive girl hung at an angle of forty-five degrees, her head uppermost. The muscles on her body could be seen to tense. The frame shook slightly with her involuntary trembling. The first of her punishers stepped forward. Debbie flung back her cloak, revealing the splendour of her brown body as she drew back her arm and delivered the first hissing blow with the three-tailed whip. The webbing strained noisily as the naked girl jerked and a gasp escaped, then a sob, which was quickly bitten off. Her behind flexed. The thin red lines rose, glowing on the abused rounds.
Debbie withdrew into the dimness beyond the circle of light, and another stepped forward quickly. The second blow whistled and struck, the aim as accurate as the first, and more angry lines appeared. A whimper came from the bound form and the webbing creaked again. A third girl replaced the second, struck again, and this was repeated until six lashes had been delivered on the now writhing captive. The French girl was crying, unable to hold back her grief and pain, though the sound of her weeping was muted as she struggled to suppress it.
Magda came down off the dais, into the glare of the light. Gently, she took hold of the crown of red hair and lifted the tearstained face. ‘What do you say, child?’ the deep voice prompted.
‘Thuh - thank you, duh - daughters,’ Marie-Angele sobbed.
Her fellow acolytes now shed their robes, and clustered tenderly about her. The icy spray was produced and her burning flesh administered to. Cool wet cloths were also brought, and the livid stripes were gently bathed and dried. Finally, a soothing cream, which made her bottom glisten in the light, was smeared thickly on her throbbing buttocks, and she was released and carefully lifted clear of the frame. Two of them helped her from the circle of light to the outer darkness, while two more wheeled the punishment frame out of sight.
Then the marble floor was taken up by the naked girls, who stood in pairs facing one another, hands on shoulders, nipples rubbing, as though partners for a dance.
‘And now, after the test of obedience, comes the test of love,’ Magda announced. She stopped at the first pair and held up the object she had taken from the long black box that stood at the foot of her dais. It was about a foot long and of a realistic flesh colour. It was a double-ended artificial penis, complete with twin helms and veined shaft. It was the girth of a turgid erection, and the girls moved, adjusting their spread thighs and hips to accommodate their mistress. Never for an instant breaking their hold on each other’s shoulders, the girls thrust their bellies to take the dildo into their eager slits.
Soon the four couples were joined by the latex dildos, and their bellies jerked in unison to the rhythm of their mutual fucking, the inches between them lessening as excitement grew and more and more of the latex shafts disappeared into their vaginas. The strange, gyrating conjunctions went on for long minutes. Suddenly, the girl with Debbie, a pale blonde of Nordic beauty, gave a wailing cry, shuddered dramatically, and withdrew her end of the gleaming dildo before crumpling to the cold marble floor, her frame still shaking in the dying throes of orgasm. Debbie seized the shaft protruding from her loins and thrust wildly, driving it deep until she too jerked and shivered, and joined her companion on the floor with the instrument still embedded between her thighs.
The other couples hadn’t achieved their climax when Magda finally clapped her hands. The enchanting assortment of bodies, shining with perspiration, their breasts heaving, lined up before their mistress, once more on her dais, and stood like an array of Amazons on parade while they chanted their oath of loyalty. They then swung away obediently and ran out of the pale light.
There was a collective sigh, and a ripple of approbation from the unseen audience above.
In the luxurious communal bathroom in the quarters adjacent to the Chamber, the girls were themselves again, beautiful individuals bound by the close ties of love and friendship. Marie-Angele was lying face down on a massage table, a white towel spread beneath her. Her body was still shaken now and then by the convulsive aftermath of her weeping, and the traces of tears still clung to her long eyelashes, but she managed to smile at the heartfelt sympathy expressed by her comrades. Her bottom was marked by the thin red weals, some of which were raised. One of her friends was dabbing at them gingerly, putting on yet more cooling solution with a piece of cotton wool. Even her lightest touch caused Marie-Angele’s cheeks to tighten and quiver, while she hissed with the sting of it.
‘You buggers. You really whip my arse, hey?’ Her French accent was attractively thick. There was a chorus of penitent apologies. Most of the girls were still in the communal showers, turning this way and that under the soothing jets of hot water, washing the remains of their exertions from them. Several were swiftly bringing to a passionate conclusion the sensations that had been aroused by the coupling in the Chamber, their mouths glued together, fingers working, thighs entwined, bellies thrusting.
‘Don’t worry, Angel,’ Joanne smiled, bending to kiss the prone figure on the shoulder. ‘You’ll get your chance for revenge. We all get our turn on the grill.’
They all turned as the door opened and Magda entered, still in her scarlet robe. ‘That was magnificent as usual, girls,’ she said warmly. ‘Pretty yourselves up, but don’t be too long. The masters are waiting in the supper room.’
Within ten minutes the girls had restored make-up and hairstyles, dabbed on perfume, and moved out for the next stage in the evening’s entertainment. All except Marie-Angele, who lay, still nude, on the table, where Magda gazed at her in anticipation. ‘Now for your reward, my dear,’ she growled, and the French girl shivered with pleasure.
She easily picked the figure up in her arms and carried her out into the discreetly lit corridor, and to a small room next door. In it was a single bed and a few pieces of smartly functional furniture. A dim lamp at the bedside cast a subtle glow, leaving the edges of the small room in deep shadow. Carefully, Magda deposited the trembling girl on the bed. Marie-Angele winced at the touch of the covers on her bottom, but she paid no heed. Her body was aflame with the anticipation of joy she knew would be hers.
She drew up her knees and opened her legs wide, while the tall figure knelt between them, looming like a great vampire as that massive cloak spread its richness, blotting out the ceiling, blotting out everything as the wonderful body descended and claimed her. And she was lost, yielding herself up to that resplendent body, while at her loins she felt the live flesh which bridged their thrusting bellies and made them one.
‘I sometimes wish I could stay here for ever,’ Felicity confessed shyly, her glowing features turned to Lord Burnopside. She felt the sturdy movement of the mare beneath her, and shamefully acknowledged the secret dampness the bouncing canter had induced. She had developed her riding skills considerably since that momentous day of the accident. Her confidence had grown. Sometimes she went out with the groom, sometimes on her own. Occasionally Lord B or one of his guests would accompany her. None of the other girls rode.
She had been glad when she arrived at the Hall yesterday evening to find that no guests were to join them; the first not expected until later this afternoon. It meant a relaxed evening spent with the girls and his lordship, and a taxingly amorous night in the arms of her beloved Magda, who fulfilled for her the combined roles of mother, sister, mistress, and lover, with spectacular success.
It all made the morning ride in the damp grey December air even more enjoyable. She was already looking forward to a hot bath, a good lunch, and the afternoon sleep that would ensure she would be at her sparkling best for the social evening ahead.
She had expected to eat a solitary breakfast. Magda always left her in the early hours, insisting that she must retire to her own bed for at least a couple of hours. Neither she nor the others would appear before nine at the earliest, and were far more likely to have a tray taken up to their rooms. They might well have passed a night as strenuous as she herself had done, for they paired up regularly, she had learned, though always with Magda’s foreknowledge.
Felicity was also quite sure that, when she was absent, Magda made use of her girls. She had not plucked up the courage to ask directly, either of the tall figure herself or one of the others, but it seemed so natural. The way she addressed them and embraced them, with long sensual kisses and embraces, made it obvious what her relationship with each of them was. It no longer made Felicity jealous; the only envy she felt nowadays was that they had this wonderful creature to themselves every day.
When his lordship came into the breakfast room in his riding togs, she had been glad to see him. He was, in some ways, the male equivalent of Magda for her, though in the intervening weeks he hadn’t made love to her again since that time on the conference table. But the knowledge that they had fucked brought its own intimacy between them, a knowledge that clearly stamped their relationship.
Now, they threaded their way at a slow walk along a woodland path. The smell of mould and wet leaves hung heavily, and there were traces of mist in the distance between the widely spaced trees. Clouds of vapour snorted from their horses’ nostrils, their own breath steamed in the chill air, and Felicity was thankful she had wrapped up warmly. Lord B edged his horse alongside her, let it gently bump her mount to one side, off the path onto the leaf mould and clumps of grass.
‘Let’s pause here awhile,’ he said. ‘Stretch our legs a bit. It’s quiet here.’
At once she felt her heart flutter a little with nervous excitement, sensing some veiled meaning in his tone. Surely, though, he wouldn’t want to try anything out here, in this weather?
Obediently, she swung her leg over and dismounted, and he tethered their animals to a stout tree. She noticed there was a wire fence and a heavy five-barred gate, which was padlocked, and beyond it an open meadow.
‘How are things going now?’ he asked conversationally. ‘What are your plans?’
She shrugged, and smiled uncertainly. ‘Well, first of all, I want a good long rest. Yvonne, my agent, has promised me some time off. It’s been quite hectic since the summer.’ He chuckled appreciatively. ‘I’ll say! And what about your private life? Is that settled now?’
She felt the blush rising, and glanced down at her polished boots. ‘Not really,’ she murmured. ‘Since all that business with Stella, Michael and I - we’re seeing each other again, but it’s made a big difference. He’s having second thoughts, I think.’
‘Foolish boy,’ Lord B said. ‘I’ve been hearing a bit about your young man. Apparently the city boys think he’s a bit of a whiz kid in his trade.’
‘Oh, he is,’ Felicity concurred enthusiastically. ‘He’s brilliant. He’s the youngest executive his company’s ever had.’
‘Do you still want him?’
Felicity blinked at the bluntness of his question. She reddened once more and shrugged again. ‘I think so,’ she said honestly. Then she gave a little jerk of impatience. ‘Oh, I don’t know any more. I hardly seem to know what I want.’ She paused, and added shyly, ‘That’s why I like coming down here so much. I can’t tell you how much it means to me. I love it -love you all. You make things only feel right when I’m here.’
Impulsively, she reached up and kissed him at the side of his moustache, like a daughter kissing her father. She was startled when he grabbed her, crushed her to him, and planted a searching kiss on her parted lips. They were both panting when he released her.
‘We’re always delighted to have you,’ he said thickly, his blue eyes boring into her. She felt dizzy, as though that look was trying to tell her something, and she could not understand. ‘Are you in love with Magda?’ he asked harshly.
Her face felt steeped in permanent heat as she nodded. ‘Everyone is,’ she whispered faintly.
‘I know all about her lessons of obedience.’ His open face, too, was even ruddier than its normal colour, his eyes blazing with desire. ‘Do you truly want to be one of us?’
She stared at him, unable to speak, but she managed to nod dumbly.
‘I have my own test of obedience,’ he said huskily. ‘I want you to take it now.’
She glanced around her at the misty scene. ‘Here?’ she said incredulously. It was his turn to nod. ‘Very well,’ she managed, her heart pounding.
‘Good girl,’ he grunted. ‘Now get up on the gate.’ He lifted her around the waist and she put out her feet, resting them on the third bar, her back to him. He thrust her down and she bent over the top bar, her legs apart, her behind thrust up in the air. She was expecting him to claw at her breeches and haul them down, so she was surprised when she felt him merely lift the flap of her jacket.
‘Keep still!’ he ordered.
There was a sharp whistling disturbance of air, then a loud crack, and a fiery line burned her backside through the thick material of her jodhpurs and the knickers she wore underneath. The gate shook and her belly squashed against the wood as she jerked and clung on, forcing herself to stay doubled over. She yelped at the next cutting blow and squirmed again, spreading her arms, digging her fingers into the wet wood to maintain her perilous balance. She squealed at the third blow and began to cry. ‘Please,’ she wept pathetically. She hung there, her hard hat falling over her eyes, the tears streaming down her cold face, her bottom on fire. No further blows came, and he lifted her down. The pain throbbed abominably and she couldn’t stop herself from massaging her poor bottom.
She saw his penis hanging free of his breeches. It was long and thick, though not yet erect. She felt his heavy hands on her shoulders, implacably pressing downward, and she sank to her knees in the soggy mould, his prick bobbing mere inches from her face. He removed her hat, dropped it to the ground, and then his fingers entwined in her lustrous hair. Without being told she fumbled off her leather gloves and took his prick in her fingers. It felt alive with pulsing need. She leaned forward and kissed the shining helm softly, fearfully, deeply thrilled by the potent smell of him. Then she seized the root of the stiffening shaft, lifted it, and enveloped the dome with her mouth. It thrust into her, filling her completely, and she slobbered at him avidly, pushing as far down the surging column as she could go. At the last second she instinctively pulled her mouth free as he discharged over her face. Then penitently, she touched her lips to him and absorbed the still pumping fluid into her convulsing throat.
Michael gaped in bleary, drunken amazement. He could not believe what he was seeing. Felicity had told him just two days before that she’d not be there. She was supposed to be miles away, buried in the country at Lord Burnopside’s place with a whole bunch of aristocratic chinless wonders. He had bickered and snapped, and finally they’d had a blazing row, which happened all too easily these days, and she had walked out after telling him he’d not see her at all over the holiday period, and maybe, not after that.
He wasn’t going to go to the studio party on Christmas Eve. Certainly not on his own. That show-biz crowd weren’t his scene at all. He had only been dragged into it all through Felicity. Trouble was, most of his associates from the financial world were older than he was and therefore tucked up in the bosom of their families, and that wasn’t his scene either.
When he rang her flat, just on the off chance that she might not have left for the country yet, he was ready to be suitably abject. Perhaps she would agree to meet him for dinner, or for a drink before she left. When John had answered the phone he’d felt himself blushing, felt that quiver of emotion he didn’t even want to classify. Fear, shame - excitement?
‘Look, come along to the do tomorrow night,’ her cousin had said, his voice warm with persuasion in Michael’s ear. ‘I’m going to be on my own, too. We can keep each other company. I’d like to see you again, on your own. It’ll be good for a laugh.’ There was a pause, then the tone dropped and there was a hint of seductiveness. ‘You’re not still mad at me, are you? I thought we’d sorted that out.’
Michael’s face burned. ‘Of course I’m not,’ he said stiffly, and then laughed awkwardly. ‘We were pissed out of our heads, that’s all.’ He writhed on an internal spit of guilt every time he thought of that weird night - and the morning that followed. He’d felt soiled. He should have thrashed John for taking such disgusting liberties. He should have done something to retrieve his manhood, for God’s sake. Instead of shuffling off, unable even to look him in the face, mumbling like a hopeless kid. For an awful second, in the doorway, he’d thought John was going to kiss him again. He’d put his arm around him and hugged him. Not the sort of thing lads did to one another at all. He still woke up sweating about it occasionally. And it festered like a boil whenever he thought about it.
But now, Christmas Eve and not a soul to turn to, unless he caught the train and turned up at home, which would be the biggest humiliation of all, a yearning weakness overwhelmed him. Somehow he found himself agreeing to attend the party.
‘I’ll see you there then,’ John said. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’
To the last minute he remained undecided. Everyone there would know all about it - about the split between Felicity and him, about the shakiness of their present relationship. Damn it, that blonde pervert herself would be there, laughing at him with her deviant friends. But loneliness had driven him on. That, and the drinks he’d imbibed which, increasingly of late, he’d found to be an aid to comfort and relaxation.
Stella Priest was there. Glittering, beautiful, defiantly feminine, and with a girl in tow whose spiky haircut and waif-like thinness, together with her drab costume of black T-shirt, black jeans, and ugly black bovver boots, could not have contrasted more drearily with her partner. And yet her youthful, sharp-angled features had their own appeal, one which Michael strongly preferred, and which reminded him quite forcibly of Felicity’s vulnerable beauty.
To cap it all there was no sign of John, and with a sense of desperation Michael headed for the bar and hung there on the fringes of umpteen conversations, listening to the riotous laughter and false bonhomie. He was well drunk when he heard and saw a commotion across the crowded room, and there, large as life, was Felicity, swamped at once by a buzzing crowd, making it impossible for him to get anywhere near.
He saw her long black hair as she pushed against the crowd. They were cheering and hooting with laughter, and he stared perplexed. What was wrong with them?
She was pushing hard through the throng towards the golden head of Stella Priest, who seemed to be for once caught off guard, her mouth open, her face tense. Then suddenly they were together and Felicity flung her arms about the woman, pulled her close and gave her a smacking kiss full on the lips. Stella flinched, pulled back, there was an instant tension, and then she was staring, clearly overcome with amazement. She burst out laughing - everyone around them did - and then they embraced again, to thunderous applause.
Sick and furious at that kiss, Michael watched them part again and the dark head glance around, searching for someone.
Him, he realised, as he saw fingers pointed in his direction. Felicity nodded, her face lighting up in recognition. She was making her way through the crowd, who were reaching for her, laughing, touching her slim bare arms, her slender shoulders, so creamy against the severity of the clinging black cocktail dress.
He felt his body tense. He felt trapped, unable to move or breathe in the age it took for her to reach him. Was she going to do the same to him, deliver the same kiss with those lips which had just been plastered against those of her other lover - her lesbian lover? The lover she had assured him she wanted nothing more to do with, whom she could not stand, whom she had never truly loved?
Paralysed, he watched her approach, his drunken thoughts still confused by those grins, the hoots of laughter. Was that why he’d been lured to the party, to be made the fool at the centre of some cruel prank? The dark eyes met his, dancing with that familiar mischief, the lovely face lit by that gamine grin. And yet, what was different about her? His brain reeled, his senses powered by the waft of her perfume as she reached him at last and the luscious mouth closed in, the glistening lips pursed, to meet his... and at the very instant they touched, he knew.
Michael jerked back as though burned, and heard John’s husky and mocking voice proclaim, ‘Hi. Sorry I’m late, darling. Have you missed me?’
‘Fuck off!’ Swept by a surge of rage and shame he wrenched away, pushed aggressively against the press of bodies, and fled, the roars of laughter like flails across his back as, tears stinging his eyes, he headed for the distant door.
He managed to get into a tiny cubicle of a lavatory, and dabbed at his wet cheeks in its locked privacy. He was trembling with anger and humiliation, tortured by his sense of ridicule. And, strangest of all, he felt a deep sense of hurt, and betrayal, at the cruel prank played upon him by John. He was shocked by this, just as he was shocked by the secret acknowledgement that what had happened between them in Felicity’s bed gave them an intimacy as private as that of lovers.
He was in despair when he re-emerged into the heaving crowd, wanting only to escape so he could surrender to his loneliness and misery. But, to add to his suffering, Stella Priest collared him. She had been waiting for him and grabbed his arm, pressing her breasts against him so he could only stare at that superb cleavage all but spilling from her lacy red dress. ‘Come on, darling,’ she purred. ‘Don’t run off and hide. Don’t be so stuffy. That bastard cousin of hers had me fooled, too. Don’t let it get to you. Come and have another drink. It’s Christmas, for God’s sake. And she’s chucked both of us, hasn’t she? What the hell!’
Michael, feeling bemused and unable to resist, allowed himself to be dragged back to the epicentre of the party where John, looking so like Felicity, and so desirable in her clothing that Michael felt again that strange dreamlike sensation, was surrounded by a crowd of admiring figures. There were more raucous cheers at the sight of Stella and Michael. She was still clinging tightly to his arm, and he felt a sense of masochistic pleasure in yielding to this collective scorn, as though he’d passed beyond the point of caring - of masculine pride. He simply stood there, the butt of the laughter. His eyes met John’s, staring at him from behind their make-up, and he exchanged a look of complicity, of wounded understanding.
Now that he studied the slim figure in the short dress he could see there was something, an angularity, a ranginess that was not Felicity. And of course the chest was flatter, despite the wicked shading he’d cleverly drawn to give the faintest suggestion of a cleavage. Even so, the shapeliness of the legs in sheer stockings, the curvaceous hips, and the immaculately made-up beauty of the face, was far from the drag queen look he would have expected.
The long glossy hair dipped towards him, and the white teeth showed between painted lips. ‘Gave you a bit of a fright, did IT John said. ‘Don’t tell Feely. She’ll kill me if she finds out I’ve been using her stuff.’
On his other side, Stella kneaded his arm. ‘Admit it, Mike! He makes a fetching little cow, doesn’t he? I bet you wish you were gay, don’t you? And I’m beginning to wish I wasn’t!’ There was another chorus of laughter. She cupped her palm and stroked John’s smooth cheek, with just the gesture of affection she used to show to his cousin. ‘You really are a sadistic little bitch, you know, giving us both the hots like that. And you won’t be able to satisfy either one of us, will you?’
The laughter continued to burst like fireworks over Michael. Stella revelled in the attention all around her, while he stood stupidly, the fall guy for all her barbed comments and her increasingly savage mockery. John had quietly extricated himself, and was soon at the centre of a smaller, more select group. Michael continued to drink, the smile fixed on his face like a death’s head, scourged by the flails of Stella’s humour and contempt, yet showing no sign of flinching or hurt.
Much later, when the party at last showed signs of breaking up, except for a hardcore who looked as though they might well be there for Christmas morning, Michael followed Stella into the toilets at the end of the large room. There was a row of communal stalls, and a staggering female on the way out leered and raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. When the compartment door had closed on Stella, Michael found a bolt on the outer door and quickly secured it from within, ensuring their privacy.
She came out of the lavatory still smoothing down the skirt of her silk gown, affording him a generous view of her stockinged legs. Her eyes widened when she saw him, but that contemptuous smile appeared immediately. ‘I think you’ve got the wrong room, Mikey. This is the little girls’ loo. You’re not even in drag. Not like our chum. You’ve got no excuse.’
‘You’re a perverted bitch!’ he spat, the thick hatred welling up overpoweringly. A thrill passed through him at the first sign of fear that flickered in her eyes, though she swiftly hid it.
‘Jealous, are we?’ she mocked, moving to the washbasin and rinsing her hands. She watched him in the mirror. ‘Because I could give young Felicity a thrill she’d never even dreamed of! Because she didn’t go for your big manly dick any more? That it? You’re so fucking pathetic, macho man! Well, I’ve finished with her, sonny - you can have her back.’ She sneered. ‘You’d better watch her, though. Where’s she got to tonight, I wonder? She’s got a taste for things you can never give her, big boy. I hear there’s a dyke down at Burnopside who’s built like a brick shithouse and who our little Felicity can’t drop her pants quick enough for!’
She made to pass him, treating him to her coldest, most withering stare. ‘Excuse me. I’ve got rid of mine. I guess you’re still full of it.’
Michael gave a low snarl as she went to edge past him. He seized her golden hair and ran her across to the cubicle she had just vacated. His fingers dug maliciously into her scalp as he forced her down onto her knees. She screamed, but in the distant hubbub, no one heard. He thrust her head down into the toilet bowl, yanked at the handle, and doused her in the gushing water. ‘Felicity told me you once put her head down the bog,’ he said, his chest heaving with the exertion. ‘Seems to be quite effective for hysterical females!’
He let her up a little and Stella coughed and spluttered, her lovely hair darkened and flattened to her skull, and plastered in seaweed-like strands across her face. He thrust her down again, bending over her, one hand at the back of her head and the other pressing on her shoulder. ‘Keep still, and keep quiet!’ he hissed.
Gasping and crying she ceased struggling, her head pinned down in that white bowl. He let go of her, paused to see if there was any sign of resistance, and then scrabbled at the hem of her crumpled silk dress. He dragged it up over her lovely raised behind. His rough fingers clawed at her little white knickers, hauled them off her buttocks, and down her stockinged thighs.
She whimpered as she felt his rigid prick jab into the crease of her bottom and thrust against the tightness of her anus. Then his hand was round at her front, fondling her belly, her pubic bush, then lower, guiding the tip of his penis into her vaginal opening. He was surprised to feel the gripping welcome as he drove deeply home into her clinging sheath. He plunged hard, savouring the thrill of her buttocks squashing against his groin.
And though Michael fucked her aggressively, concerned only with his own hectic satisfaction, Stella savoured the throb of her invaded vagina, the novel sensation of her helplessness, and the thrill of being so deeply penetrated. And when she felt the copious eruption of his sperm, her own excitement swiftly drove her to the wild crescendo of total release.
Michael had little idea of how he came to be standing on the rug in front of the newly flickering fire in Felicity’s living room. Yet he was amazed at how sober and sharply alive he felt as he stared down at the fascinating form crouched at his feet. John had bent to light the fire. The short black cocktail dress had ridden up to the top of his thighs, and Michael gazed at the shapely limbs, so comprehensively revealed that he could see the dark patterned tops of the sheer stockings, and the flash of pale thigh beyond. That startlingly realistic hair framing the delicate angularity of the face, and the flawless fragility of the bare shoulder, really made it seem as though it was Felicity herself kneeling there before him.
John glanced up with a mischievous grin, interrupting Michael’s tipsy reverie. ‘You’re a hell of a lad when you’ve taken drink,’ he said with admiration. ‘Fancy pushing old Stella’s head down the bog!’ He laughed heartily.
Michael felt a surge of exultation and pride. True, he thought, with cruel pleasure. He was a lad! And how! And now Stella Pervy Priest knew just how much of a lad he was. He had expected an uproar, screams of rape and God knows what else, when he’d zipped up his trousers and left her lying there, crumpled on the toilet floor. But she’d come out minutes later, looking damp, true, but with make-up repaired and dignity intact. She said not a word to anyone about what had happened. In fact, she’d been quieter than she’d been all evening. Not that he’d hung around for very long after his amorous assault.
John must have been watching Michael closely. Next thing he knew the androgynous beauty was guiding him out and into a taxi, and here they were, back in the privacy of Felicity’s flat, his mind and body a prey to all kinds of wild fancies as he stared down at the figure coiled at his feet.
‘Sit down... come on.’ The bare arms reached up, hands outstretched, and Michael found himself responding, folding beside him in the comforting glow and warmth. His judgement seemed curiously suspended. The dress, the perfume, the make-up, the too perfectly feminine beauty, made John seem like a different creature altogether, a recreation of the lovely girl Michael was hopelessly in love with. Then John reached up, and with a dramatic tug, pulled off the wig, and then kicked the dainty high heels from his stockinged feet with a groan of luxury.
‘That fucking thing was so hot,’ he said. ‘And how on earth girls go around all day in these things!’ He flung the shoes from him with a chuckle, and massaged his toes through the gauzy tips of the stockings. Bemused, Michael could see the distinct outline of the darkly painted toenails. ‘Undo me, please.’ He knelt up, his back to Michael, his slender neck bent as he bowed his head, and the sense of unreality washed once more over the taller figure. Michael reached with unsteady fingers to oblige - just as he did for Felicity. And that white neck and those exquisite shoulders excited him just as much.
The pale back came into view as the black material parted. There was a built in bodice to the dress which made a bra unnecessary, so that John’s back was entirely bare down to his hips, where the dress’s division ended. John stood, wriggled the garment down over his hips, and stepped out of it. Michael gazed up at the black French knickers, with the wide band of lace at the legs, and the dark self-supporting stockings. He felt his penis swelling mightily against his clothing. Hating himself but unable to prevent himself, he reached up and ran his palm over the smooth satin of John’s crotch. Within the shimmering black underwear the shape of John’s penis rose up, the outline of the helm quite clear, and the tight curve of his balls hugged by the soft material. Michael traced its length to the bulbous tip, then back, down that growing shaft to the root, where he could feel John’s springy pubic hair beneath the sexy material. He could feel the warm dampness, and smell the powerful odour of arousal.
John was still standing over him, smiling down, whispering hypnotic words of encouragement that Michael could barely hear. His legs were only a little apart. His thumbs flipped the elastic waist of the knickers down a little, and his prick emerged, hanging in a curve over the dipping edge of the black garment. It was not erect, but thick and pulsing, and the shining helm was exposed. A drop of fluid glistened at its tip. ‘Suck me off,’ John breathed, edging his hips forward a little in invitation.
Michael shuddered, but knelt up, and rubbed his forehead against John’s glans, feeling the slimy smear of the fluid on his brow. He buried his nose in the damp swell of the balls, still hidden in the tight nest of black silk, and breathed deeply. ‘I’m not queer,’ he groaned, feeling John’s quivering thighs against his cheeks.
‘There’s nothing queer about this, Mikey,’ John whispered. His fingers played affectionately with Michael’s ears, and he stroked the crisp blond hair. Michael felt the long false fingernails rasp against him. ‘Come on, lover,’ the voice crooned, in a seductive whisper. ‘Suck cock. You’ll love it.’
Michael felt he would come himself at any second. With a sense of drowning he drew back his head and let the dome of that warm column pulse against his eyelids. He rubbed his face against it before, with a delicious quiver of fear, he poked out his tongue and licked timidly, tasting for the first time the salty nectar of another man’s emission. Knowing there was no going back, he opened his lips wide and took the helm inside, working at it clumsily, feeling it swell to fill him.
He almost gagged as John pushed slowly forward, holding Michael’s head firmly, but careful not to scare the novice away by unleashing the unbelievable passion he really felt building in the pit of his stomach. Sensing Michael’s turmoil, John withdrew a little to allow him a moment to grapple with the emotions and sensations he knew would be spinning through his head and body. ‘Are you all right?’ he whispered, gazing down at his rigid cock - more rigid than he’d ever known it before - bridging the gap between his aching groin and those tightly pursed lips. His question was rewarded with a tentative nod, the innocence of which almost made him come there and then. ‘Okay,’ he breathed, and then carefully pressed his hips forward and watched that rigid cock disappear completely.
With his mouth full Michael was fighting to breathe, his face enveloped by humid flesh, soft silk and springy pubes. He reached up with both hands and pressed against John’s lightly muscled stomach, but was secretly swamped with disappointment as John withdrew completely. As the prize was snatched away from him Michael lapped at it desperately, rubbing his sweating face against its potent length, sucking and licking.
Then the fingers clutching at his blond hair tightened convulsively, lifting his face and holding it still. ‘Jesus!’ John cried, and Michael thrilled with revulsion and excitement. He kept his eyes tightly closed, the prospect of witnessing his own debasement still too much to accept, and discharged into his own underwear as John’s thick seed spilled over his cheeks and open mouth, and all over his upturned, worshipping face.
‘Oh, please - no,’ Felicity whimpered helplessly. ‘Please don’t...’ She was stretched out on the low table in the library, with many pairs of hands pressing her down lightly, yet enough to make any resistance useless. Not that she had the strength or the will to put up a fight, however token. Then why was she weeping as she felt the last scraps of clothing drawn from her body, the cups of her bra plucked away, the wispy briefs slid and rolled down off her hips and over her limbs, to leave her naked, spread-eagled on the hard surface?
Were the tears because she was, at last, being made to acknowledge the ultimate surrender of all her pretences, the rules of so-called decency and decorum she had professed to in her young life? She had known all along that one day the enchanted company and lifestyle she had embraced so eagerly at Burnopside would lead to this orgiastic moment of truth. And now she realised that the very shame of it, the thought of those eyes fixed on her helpless nakedness - not only his lordship, who after all was already a familiar lover, but the lecherous Sir Hugh, and Admiral Fitzgibbon, and that beaky old senior judge with his scrawny turtle neck and salacious eyes - thrilled her to the core, and added to the sexuality flowing through her at the touches of the lovely girls who had made her their prisoner.
Mouths, hands, and fingers assailed her everywhere; her arms and legs, her throat, her breasts and belly, her thighs, and her feet. The fact that Magda was not one of her assailants but merely looking on with fond approval added to her incredible excitement.
She was near her crisis when, with cruel abruptness, all those caressing hands and tongues were withdrawn. The restraining holds vanished and she sat up, the tears streaming, unable to keep her shivering limbs still in her desperate need. ‘Please,’ she whispered brokenly, staring about at all those merciless eyes. Her gaze sought that of the commanding figure in the wonderful long gown of deep green.
‘I’ll take her up, your lordship,’ Magda said, and Lord B nodded. Sobbing pitifully now, the naked figure slipped off the low table. ‘We’ll use the Green Room,’ Magda announced, then crooked her finger at Felicity. ‘Come on, sugar.’
Felicity glanced around, all the old inhibitions of modesty sweeping back at the awareness of her nudity before all these people. ‘You won’t need any clothes,’ Magda added, with her deep, sensual chuckle. Head down, Felicity walked quickly over to her, terribly conscious of every staring eye.
Outside the library the tears increased. Magda held her by the hand and led her up the wide sweep of the staircase and along a discreetly lit, thickly carpeted landing. ‘What’s going to happen?’ Felicity asked.
In the impressive Green Room Magda nodded towards the four-poster bed, with its heavy drapes gathered in bunches about the pillars. ‘On you get, sweetheart.’ Felicity’s head was spinning. Was it simply going to end with her and Magda making love in these august surroundings? Was her public ordeal over already? She had not expected to be let off so lightly, and Magda’s next move suggested she was right in her caution.
‘Spread yourself on your back, honey,’ she ordered. ‘Arms and legs out wide. That’s it.’
A blush invaded Felicity’s face at the exposed vulnerability of her position. Tasselled velvet cords hung from each post, and Magda used them to secure Felicity’s wrists and ankles, pinning her spread-eagled.
‘What’s going to happen?’ she pleaded, afraid again now.
Magda sat beside her on the edge of the high bed and, reaching down, wiped her wet cheeks carefully, then let her large hand cup in a loving caress that lovely face. ‘You agreed that you’d be mine, baby, didn’t you?’ Magda reasoned gently. ‘That you belong to me. You said so. You swore you’d do anything for me - didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Felicity murmured, pouting like a reluctant child. ‘Didn’t you mean it?’
‘Yes.’ Again came that small whisper of confession.
‘Because if you didn’t, tell me now and I’ll let you go. I mean it. You can have a ride back to London and there’ll be no hard feelings - no recriminations... okay?’
‘Nuh - no!’ Felicity blurted desperately. A sob shook her breasts, which were lifted and flattened against her ribcage by her position. The peaked nipples quivered. ‘It’s just - I’m scared, Magda. You - you won’t hurt me, will you?’ She thought of the whippings this fascinating woman had delivered; the agony of them, so different from the squirming spankings of their love play. They had not been many, these more serious chastisements, but they still frightened Felicity. Not least because of her own ambivalent feelings towards them; that shameful masochistic frisson of pleasure they gave her, the thought of surrender, and the burning proof of her love for this wonderful creature. And she thought too of that strange episode in the wood, and those three quite vicious cuts Lord B had given her with the riding-crop; so vicious that even though they’d been delivered through the thickness of her breeches and underwear, the angry red lines had marked her bottom for days afterwards.
When she was away from Burnopside, away from his lordship and her beloved Magda, this new side of her character unsettled her immensely. What was it that made her go to them so willingly, to embrace pain - real pain - in her desire to be loved by them? Would she become addicted to pain the way people became addicted to drink or drugs? Is that what they wanted of her, with their tests and talks of obedience, and dictatorial use of her body?
‘Whatever happens, happens because we love you,’ the compelling voice went on. ‘You believe that, don’t you?’
Felicity registered the ‘we’, not ‘I’. Who was that ‘we’?
Magda and Lord Burnopside?
Magda and the girls?
Everyone in this enchanted world?
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I believe you.’
‘Good.’ Magda knelt, the rustling silk of her gown spreading about her. Her long black hair swept against her shoulders as her head dipped, her face came close, and they kissed, a long slow kiss of passion, until Felicity was writhing instinctively, straining against the bonds. Magda’s warm hand nestled between Felicity’s sprawled thighs, cupped the mound with its soft fleece, pressed on the throbbing wetness, then moved away, and Felicity’s body shook in another sob of hunger and frustration.
‘Sorry, my love. I know you’re ready to blow your top, but I’ve got to keep you on the boil. That’s part of the test.’ She kissed the parted lips again, more gently and briefly this time, before withdrawing a little. ‘Don’t worry. Your time will come, as they say.’ Again, the rich rumble of laughter.
Felicity felt her head being raised. A black velvet eye mask was slipped over her head and adjusted, sealing her in all-embracing darkness. Her heart thudded. She murmured in protest, and felt the springs dip and rise as Magda climbed off the bed.
‘Be good,’ the voice whispered, fading towards the door. ‘I know you will be.’ There was one last chuckle, and then Felicity heard a soft click as the door closed.
‘Magda!’ she called sharply, but she knew she was alone.
She lay there, tied on her back, limbs stretched apart, staring up into the impenetrable blackness. She had never felt more helpless, Or more vulnerable. She was deeply afraid. But she could not ignore it; she was fiercely roused. Her whole body, every fibre of her, quivered for satisfaction. She felt the tug of the velvet cords as she tried instinctively to draw in her limbs, to close her legs, to bring her hands down to touch the centre of her need, the maddening pulse of sexual hunger at her loins. God, this was cruel! She ached with the need to caress herself, to bring the relief her screaming nerves demanded. She began to sob, her body tom by convulsive shudders of grief.
It was a long while before the fit passed. She realised she was cold, despite the heating from the old and inefficient radiators in the room. The cords didn’t chafe as long as she lay still. Would they leave her there all night?
Her mind drifted.
She tried to conjure up the faces of those downstairs. She tried to recall previous Christmases.
This was undoubtedly the strangest Christmas Eve she had spent in her entire life; tied naked and blindfolded on a bed in a lord’s castle. It was the hot stuff of a teenager’s fantasies. Except that no one was there to make her fantasies come true.
She didn’t know whether she had actually slept, but suddenly she was jerked to full awareness, straining her ears. There had been a noise. The door opening? She thought she could sense someone’s presence. ‘Magda?’ she whispered. ‘Is that you? Who’s there?’ She waited, there was a creak, she thought she could hear a soft rustle, like cloth moving. ‘Who’s there?’ she called again, beginning to panic. ‘Who are you?’
She whimpered as a cold hand grabbed suddenly at her breast, crushing, squeezing, the thumb brushing against the tender nipple. A man, surely? Another clammy hand seized her other breast, equally brutally, and she gasped in shock as much as pain. Then a naked body was on her, covering her, and a searching slobbering mouth sealed hers, smothering the scream in her throat. A hand scrabbled at her belly, prised open her labia, a finger prodded into her, to the wet sheath of her vagina. Other fingers opened her and brushed across her clitoris. They rubbed until she involuntarily lifted her hips, gasping under the smothering weight and kiss.
‘Who is this?’ she wept impotently when she could again speak. She felt the tears soaking into the velvet of the mask. ‘Please,’ she sobbed, quieter now, wilting under the onslaught. She could feel an erection resting on her belly, and then the stranger’s hips lifting as he clumsily sought to enter her. ‘Untie me,’ she begged. ‘It’ll be easier...’
She cried out at the sharp penetration, the sudden plunge deep into her clinging sheath. She groaned shamefully, knowing she was already roused to her former excitement.
She fought instinctively to raise her legs, to wrap them around the lunging figure on top of her. She knew she was coming, arched her back, and screamed aloud, her cry dying to a long wail as the orgasm raged through her.
Felicity woke, swimming up from the depths of a sensual dream, jerked to full consciousness by the awareness that her wrists were still secured, her arms sprawled out above her head. She moved, felt the unrestricted freedom of her legs, and remembered the relief of someone untying her ankles, allowing her to draw up her knees, lift her thighs, and encompass the rutting body between them. She was aware of the heavy warmth of the duvet which someone - Magda? - had tucked securely around her after the ordeal, and after someone had wiped her sensitive sex with a cool antiseptic tissue.
How many had fucked her? She was still not sure. Five? Six? She wasn’t even certain whether it had been the second or the third who had released her ankles, when she begged him to do so, explaining how uncomfortable it was for her. Once her legs were free it had been much easier. In fact it shamed her to remember how excitement had overtaken her once more when one of her invisible assailants, the fourth perhaps, had spent a long time kissing her helpless frame; her breasts, her stomach, her knees, until he reached the puffy lips of her sex, sticky with the discharges previously pumped into her.
The wicked tongue had teased until she was again straining at her bonds, her body arched, sobbing for release that came, eventually, in the shape of another gliding cock. Even that was a connoisseur’s performance. Not exceptionally long but wickedly skilful, it moved in such a way that drew the maximum of sensation from her heaving form, withdrawing until she could feel the very tip between her vaginal lips and she whimpered with the fear that she would lose it altogether, only for the bliss of that steady drive to fill her once again.
The man came even as her own climax was dying its shuddering death. After that she wasn’t sure whether it was another one or two that used her. She felt little, and they were soon done. She seemed to lie alone for hours in a trancelike state, feeling strangely proud and somehow vindicated. She had passed the test, of that she was certain, and she lay in an exhausted stupor.
She tried to decide if and when his lordship had fucked her, and was mortified to find she didn’t know. Was he the first? She shivered as she wondered if one of her partners had been the venerable judge, the ancient turtle. She couldn’t recall any particularly horrendous contact. Surely she would have known such a withered frame? She felt the heat of embarrassment as she mentally relived each bout, thought about the penises that had been driven into her. She could not really differentiate between them.
With such bizarre reflections occupying her thoughts she drifted eventually to sleep, still tied, still blindfolded, in that strange and silent room.
When the mask was removed the light stabbed into her eyes so mercilessly she could not open them for several seconds. When she could, there was her beloved Magda, and the room was bathed in the brightness of electric light. Through the still drawn curtains a dull daylight seeped. Magda at last untied her wrists, and Felicity whimpered as the blood flowed back into her cramped muscles.
Magda picked her up and carried her through to the adjoining bathroom, stood her in the tub, and turned on the shower. The soothing flow of hot water comforted and caressed. Magda had slipped off her robe. She was wearing the black embossed cache-sexe, which she didn’t remove as she stood behind Felicity. Felicity could feel the tiny scratch of the metal on its leather as Magda enfolded her in her arms, the large hands slipping round and cradling her breasts in their tender hold.
Felicity revelled in her own surrender, standing inertly while her mistress soaped every curve of her weary body, before lifting her out and drying her. Then Magda sat her on the bidet and allowed the bubbling stream of tepid water to play around the tender lips of her sex, soothing further. Finally, she wrapped her in a long white towelling robe and carried her along to her own room, where she laid her in the bed and curled up beside her, holding her in her arms until Felicity drifted off towards another, more contented sleep.
‘Did I pass?’ she murmured dreamily, quivering with joy at the lips that lightly kissed the hollow of her neck.
‘With flying colours, my angel,’ the deep voice breathed, its warmth yet another treasured caress.
The stabbing pain in Michael’s head was his first acknowledgement of yet another night of drunken abandon. He opened his eyes to see John standing there, holding a tray with a mug of coffee, a glass of orange juice, and some toast on it. He was wearing Felicity’s flowered silk robe. Michael vividly recalled her in it, how it showed her body with misty enchantment through its sheer darkness. Now it hung negligently open on John’s slim frame, revealing his nakedness. Michael’s gaze was drawn to the neat dark triangle of hair and the small prick hanging beneath. A consuming shame speared through him at the memory of its throbbing potency, the texture and taste of it in his mouth, and the thick issue that had anointed his face and hair.
His jaw clenched. He wished he could hide, and wished the whole of the previous evening had not happened. He had a childish urge to crawl under the bedclothes and pretend he wasn’t there.
‘Happy Christmas,’ John said cheerfully, moving to the side of the bed. ‘Here you are, rejoin us in the land of the living.’
Largely because he could think of nothing else to do, Michael struggled up on his elbows, took the proffered glass, and muttered a shamefaced reply to the seasonal greeting. He drank the juice greedily, and sighed with pleasure at its coldness. He was surprised to find that, apart from his throbbing temples, he did not feel too bad, but then remembered how comprehensively he had vomited - after... after...
In the early hours of the morning, after a steaming shower, Michael had stood for long seconds in Felicity’s bedroom, staring vacantly at the bed. Then a great weariness overcame him. What did it matter now? He was a queer, a poof, a queen - he broke off the litany of self-abuse, climbed into bed, and listened to the sound of John’s ablutions.
With his usual matter of fact manner, John came in some minutes later, climbed in beside him, and switched off the lamp. Michael lay with his back to him, and once more he felt that smooth form fit around him, adapting to his curves. He felt the small prick nestle against his buttocks.
He swallowed hard and fought the sudden urge to weep again. ‘I don’t - I’m not a bugger—!’
‘Neither am I,’ John had interrupted. ‘Not tonight, anyway.’ The warmth of spearmint-scented breath tickled Michael’s ear as John chuckled softly. Michael felt the fumbling hand reach round and delicately pick up his limp penis, which stirred at once to the still-alien touch. ‘But it’s your turn for a bit of fun. That was wonderful back’ there. You don’t mind if I toss you off as a little thank you, do you?’
His hand was already moving, gently, rhythmically, and Michael’s traitorous prick stiffened. Mortified, he made a strangled sound, then whispered, ‘I can’t... I haven’t - got anything.’
John chuckled again. ‘You don’t need a condom for this, you know. You won’t catch anything off me.’
‘No, the mess, I mean—’ Michael stammered, and John tutted patiently.
‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll wash the sheets tomorrow.
Now lie back and think of Santa.’
That afternoon, after an excellent Christmas lunch cooked by John, and many more drinks, they were both drunk again. ‘Let’s have a fancy dress party!’ John exclaimed, and pulled Michael by the arm through to the bedroom. He flung open Felicity’s drawers and wardrobe, and selected a variety of articles, from the flimsiest of G-string briefs, to the slinky bodies, the camisole vests and cotton panties, and the plethora of tights and embroidered stockings.
‘Christ, you’ll ruin them!’ John sniggered happily, watching a transformed Michael as he struggled with a bra which would not fit his broad chest, and a pair of navy blue tights which he hauled on somehow, over a pair of her red lacy knickers. John was wearing a shiny satin body-shaper of a delicate pearl shade, when they went back into the fire-lit living room. They sprawled on the rug, with freshly charged glasses of brandy.
Michael’s prick was hard. It stuck out, stretching the thin material of the knickers and the tights. He stared across at John, whose own genitals could scarcely be seen under the hugging grip of the high cut garment.
‘You know, you look bloody sexy,’ Michael said solemnly, and John flashed him a come hither look, and pursed his lips in a kiss.
‘Why, thank you, kind sir.’
‘You - you did last night,’ Michael went on, clumsily. ‘I really thought you were Felicity. You look good - in her gear.’
John smiled. ‘So did you, in a different way.’ He stared pointedly at the shape of Michael’s bulging prick. He knelt, then crawled over, lying in front of him on his stomach, his narrow feet waving in the air. ‘Let’s have a peep, shall we?’ With a hooked forefinger, he pulled at the elastic of the tights and the red knickers, and succeeded in dragging them down a little at the front. The engorged head of the penis leapt into view, red and gleaming. ‘Hello...’ he purred in mock surprise, ‘what’s all this then?’ and, leaning closer, he took it gently between thumb and forefinger and kissed the weeping tip. He flicked out his tongue, tasting the slimy liquid at the slit. ‘Yummy...’ he grinned. He pulled a large cushion off the sofa and pushed Michael back onto it.
The taller figure made no attempt to stop John as he eased the tights and knickers down, carefully drawing the clinging articles off the long legs and feet. Then he parted Michael’s legs and knelt between them. He massaged the tight scrotum that hung between Michael’s thighs and gently pumped the impressive erection that spear up from his groin. Still a little concerned about pushing Michael too far too quickly, John squeezed an experimental fingertip between his firm buttocks and pushed gently against the tight opening that hid there, and noted that the only reaction he drew from the form stretched before him was a sharp intake of breath. Thus encouraged, his head dipped, his mouth opened, and he greedily swallowed the throbbing prick entrapped in his fist. As the tight anus opened just a fraction for his gently persistent finger, he savoured the promise of what he now knew was to come.
Michael gasped and his belly lifted as the sucking warmth enveloped him and the fingertip prodded between his buttocks. He felt his desire surging. He tried to hold on, savouring the pleasure, but soon he cried out, shuddering, as he ejaculated fiercely. All the while John’s mouth stayed clamped over the spewing length, his throat working, suckling sounds filling the room as he swallowed the thick fluid.
When they had both calmed a little John rose and moved away, leaving Michael, his face hidden in the crook of an arm, his body, rosy and desirable in the firelight, shaking with his quiet sobs.
The water ran in the bathroom.
John came back, naked, and knelt beside the still supine figure. ‘Now, best bit of all, Mikey,’ he whispered gently. He pulled the arm away. Michael’s face was blotchy, his eyes and cheeks smeared with tears. He gazed up helplessly, and then John was moving, turning him over, and Michael shivered at the cool touch of the fingers delving deep into the taut cleft of his behind and the iciness of the perfumed cream John smeared there. The knowing fingers probed, and found the hidden bud of Michael’s anus.
‘No... no...’ Michael whispered, appalled, yet allowing John to turn him, his bottom thrust up in the air, his forearms folded on the soft cushion. ‘Please,’ Michael begged. ‘I’ve never done this. I’ve never wanted to do this. I swear it. Please don’t...’ He was weeping, and shaking. John knelt behind him, between his trembling thighs. Michael could feel his own limp prick, still seeping after his recent discharge. It felt tiny, shrivelled, inside its shroud of foreskin. The dome of John’s eagerly erect penis nudged and rubbed up and down Michael’s lubricated valley.
‘You’ll just love it, darling boy,’ John breathed, his lips kissing at the back of the bowed neck. His hands dipped, and guided his rearing penis to the virginal tightness waiting to be pierced.