Chapter Two

Imelda

 

 

Born into one of England’s noble families, Imelda grew up wanting for nothing.

Even so, she was a rebellious youth. Her parents were old and set in their ways; they would never understand her generation. There was far too much excitement beyond the manor gates, and so many injustices just waiting to be protested.

Mother and Gran had both attended Newnham College in the days before Cambridge granted degrees to women; if becoming a hippie was an affront to her family, coming to Canada for University was an act of insurgence. But it was impossible to resist the appeal of land—any land—that put an ocean between herself and the dragon parents. She settled on Canada the Loyal over America the Beautiful out of a secret sense of allegiance to the Queen.

Having an eye for beautiful things without any discernible talent in creating them, Imelda majored in Art History at University. She dabbled in the studio arts of abstract expressionism and colour field paintings, which were all the rage in the sixties, but ultimately faced a common impediment: every artistic creation originated in her mind, not her heart. Never had she been in love, never had she been broken.

At University she met the scruffy Gavin Drinkwater, man of the people. Long hair and hippie ideals drew her in until she could scarcely imagine spending time apart. A devoted advocate of peace, love and sexual liberation, he was the kind of boy who would have mortified old mum. That was half his appeal.

Had Imelda known when she first met Drinkwater that he too was progeny of a wealthy English family, she wouldn’t have touched him with a bargepole. How ironic that two young people from the upper classes could move across the pond, dress like hippies, and still wind up together in the end.

Imelda and Gavin married on a whim at the barefoot outdoor wedding of flower-child friends. Was it a smart decision? Who’s to say? After all, they did share identical life philosophies. For them, free love was not merely a licence to licentiousness, it was an actual shift in consciousness.

The hippie movement allowed women to finally assert themselves as sexual beings without shame or embarrassment. Free love challenged the beliefs many held that women were merely men’s property. The free-loving hippies were out there saying, No way man! We women don’t belong to our husbands. We weren’t born to serve them and to devote our lives to making them happy. And never would Imelda find another man who believed so strongly in the feminist principles of free love as Gavin did.

Their untamed wedding night marked the perfect beginning to a free-loving marriage. The summer sky was mild. Stars above. Firelight. Song.

Longhaired guests danced about the pit of flames in orbits representing the planets of the solar system. Barefoot bohemians entranced by the deep moanings of the didgeridoo were overtaken by the beat of the tribal drum. The sounds of sacred instruments resonated deeply within them, arousing the energies of their base chakras. The intense vibrations tantalized not only the flesh, but the very essence of their beings on an atomic scale. The macrocosmic force of music impacted them at the microcosmic level of the flesh.

In the heat of fire and dance, shirts came off first, then jeans and long skirts. Stripping bare, some friends tossed their clothes into the roaring flames. When exhaustion set in, free spirits retired to the outer orbits where movement was slow and sensual. In the shadows of the cyclical fire dance, naked bodies writhed, some in pairs, some in heaps. In the frenzied environ of the fire dance, every configuration was groovy, man.

Spreading herself on a picnic table in the public park, Imelda presented her naked body as a feast for the guests. Let their souls derive nourishment from the light of this sacred being.

As she stared up into stars, men, women, those who identified with all genders, those who simply were, caressed her form en mass. Innumerable hands softened her stomach. Their touch, their warmth competed with the night breeze to soothe her skin.

She gasped as tongues ran the length of her sides, venerating her swollen breasts. A beautiful young woman with dandelions decorating her wavy orange hair licked and teased at one proud nipple, her bare tits pressing into Imelda’s side.

At her other breast, a dark man suckled, his black beard tickling her skin. When he caught her staring at his mouth, he pressed his pink lips to hers. Did they know each other? He was a friend of a friend, perhaps.

Imelda closed her eyes and kissed him deeply, not knowing precisely who he was. Her tongue writhed slowly against his, firm, and soft as warm satin. And then there were other lips, on her cheek, on her belly, on her feet even. Lips everywhere, all over her skin.

Two hands brushed the wispy hairs of her thighs, and Imelda opened her legs for them. Gavin’s hands. She knew without looking. The deep resonance of the didgeridoo opened a locked room in her core. The man who’d been kissing her fell away so Imelda could see her newlywed husband. He appeared engulfed in flames as the fire circle painted his naked flesh shades of orange and gold.

Female friends and friends of friends embraced every inch of Gavin’s body with adoring hands and luscious mouths. While gorgeous protesters and poets stroked Imelda’s feverish flesh, a tall woman ran her hands through Gavin’s hair, kissing his neck and his ear. Another girl rubbed his chest, licking him from elbow to shoulder. Their good friend Moonflower took his eager cock in her hand, stroking it in time with the beat of the tribal drum.

There was no hesitation in her touch; she’d done this before.

Imelda could feel her slick cunt begging to be fucked by her new husband. Gavin responded before she could say a word. Taking her thighs in his grip, he slid her toward him on the table. Dandelion girl followed, tonguing her belly button and combing her mess of pubic hair. Imelda raised her legs, throwing her ankles over Gavin’s shoulders.

Dark-haired Moonflower gripped the base of Gavin’s proud cock as he penetrated his bride. Imelda enjoyed envisioning herself that way: as a cosmic bride, marrying not only a man, but his ideals. They were yin and yang. They were part of each other.

Gavin the slow, firm lover filled her unequivocally. When he took hold of Imelda’s hips, pulling her closer to his thrusting pelvis, dandelion girl shifted back up to her breast. There, the woman suckled with heartfelt sensitivity, as only a flower child could. Their friend Enrique suckled the other tit with all the tenderness of a lion. The contrast of soft and hard, tender and forceful, drove Imelda wild. She grasped at the table, forcing her hips harder against her husband’s thrusting cock, wanting to feel it pounding inside herself.

Moonflower reached down to stroke Imelda’s clit, which stood proudly erect to greet the coming years of free-loving marriage. Soft fingers slid across her small bud while her husband’s cock entered her below. Gavin’s hands grasped hard at her thighs, his thrusts driving deep, deep, deep in Imelda’s cunt.

She tied her feet like twine around his neck. She forced herself, threw herself against him. The hands—whose hands? Everybody’s hands—stroking her skin, the mouths sucking her tits, sent waves of pleasure coursing through body.

Pressing her fingers against the picnic table, she raised her hips to Moonflower’s hand. Her pussy clasped her husband’s orgasmic cock until she felt that sensation she knew so well. She felt light and free, like every atom in her body was tingling with love, which she wished back out into the universe.

Their orgiastic heap trembled with the vibrations of the tribal drum and didgeridoo.

The roots of her marriage were planted that night. What greater gift could their friends give Imelda and Gavin on their wedding day? They were married...what a trip! Just a boring old married couple having boring old married people sex…

 

* * * *

 

After a mere two weeks of wedded bliss, Gavin’s father died unexpectedly.

Overnight, Gavin’s shock of dirty brown hair turned white. It was an omen, he figured. Time to grow up. Get a haircut and get a real job.

In fact, a real job was thrust upon Drinkwater. Despite an embarrassment of clever daughters, his father willed the flourishing Drinkwater Real Estate Development Company to his only son. A figurehead without a degree, Gavin ran the company on his own terms, which meant remaining in Canada rather than returning to England. The pressure was frightful. His cold mother was convinced he would drive the patriarch’s company into the ground.

In fact, it was the Drinkwater family’s lack of confidence that provided Gavin the drive he needed to run a successful company in the Great White North. There could be no greater motivation to victory than his family’s belief he was doomed to failure.

With veiled dejection, Imelda resigned herself to life in the shadow of a great man. It was hardly the sort of existence she imaged for herself upon leaving England, but her mother always said she could never escape the confines of the cradle.

To her delight, an opportunity soon arose to represent the Drinkwater Company as patron of the arts. For Imelda, it was the perfect position, allowing her to support a community so dear to her heart. Her first initiative was to sponsor one student per year whose artistic abilities were considerable, but whose financial situation would not otherwise allow him or her to study.

In the year of the program’s inception, Imelda received over seven hundred applications. After much deliberation, a young sculptor named Joaquin Delmar was awarded the grant. Being herself an immigrant to the country, Imelda had a predilection for short-listing newcomers to Canada. A saviour of sorts, she convinced herself she was their only hope for achieving greatness in the artistic world. Who else would look out for those young talents if not she?

Seven years into the program, Imelda had grown into her role beautifully. She was a responsible patron, a keen fundraiser and an expert interviewer, making an office of their musty home library. The room spoke for her, threatening anybody who dared doubt a woman’s ability to lead a successful enterprise.

Interview season was her favourite time of year, as it allowed her to meet the rising stars of the artistic community while also wielding power over them. When the first of her short-listed applicants entered the library one summer morning, Imelda knew right away her life was about to change.

“You are…?” Imelda asked, her head buried in a filing cabinet. Where had she put this girl’s application? She ought never skip her morning tea.

“Ondine Choquette,” replied a French voice like angel bells. “I am very pleased to meet you, Madame Drinkwater.”

Imelda looked up from the filing cabinet. When she caught sight of the young woman with an accent delicate as a butterfly wing, her heart stopped. The girl’s small features leant her the appearance of fairy, something too precious for this world. Imelda held her breath for fear this dreamy sylph would vanish into the stale library air.

The willowy girl stood with perfect posture, the mark of a true ballerina. Her long hair might have been dark brown or black—it was difficult to say in the low morning light of the library—and she wore it twisted into a tight bun. Ondine’s most seductive feature was her pouting red lips, which matched her painted nails, but what struck Imelda to the core were her emerald green eyes. They gleamed with flecks brown and gold. In the dim lighting, those eyes glowed with feline mystery.

She wore a red scarf over the high collar of her white knit top. If anything about this girl conveyed absolute French-ness, it was her woolly red and white checked skirt. One so rarely encountered a woman so well put-together in this country. Ondine was a treasure. Anyone who beheld her would know it.

She stood still, motionless and unsmiling in a way that seemed overwhelmingly sad. With gaze downcast, she stared at the empty chair in front of her.

“How discourteous of me!” Imelda’s brain finally kicked into gear. “Please, Ms Choquette, do have a seat.” She still found it difficult to breathe.

Ondine sat at the very edge of the leather armchair, as though she were afraid it might swallow her up. After brushing her skirt flat against her thighs, she folded her hands in her lap. Imelda’s mind laid in tatters at the grace of her every movement, the impish prettiness of her face, and the athleticism of her body.

“Thank you for considering me for your patronage,” the girl began, pressing the nails of her index fingers into the pads of her thumbs. “I am so happy when I receive your call. I have not danced since I came to this country almost one year ago. My husband is a student, you see. He and I have not the money to pay for my ballet lessons and I am simply not myself when I am not dancing. I need to dance to be a whole person. Without the ballet, I am missing a piece of me.”

When Imelda offered no reply but a puppy dog stare, Ondine went on, “I am sorry. My English is not so good.”

“Not at all! It’s lovely.” Imelda remained entranced by the girl’s silken accent. Every word she pronounced danced like water droplets on Imelda’s skin.

What was she supposed to ask? There was a list of questions somewhere...

“I see from your application you began your studies in France, under the direction of Madame Beaudoin of the Paris ballet corps. It surprises me greatly that you would give up lessons under one of the most famous ballet mistresses in the world. How did you come to that decision?” Imelda spoke adeptly, but she was holding by a thread the last vestiges of her professionalism.

The demure ballerina blushed. “It is not a very interesting story.”

Leaning forward against the library desk, Imelda folded her arms beneath her breasts to showcase her ample cleavage. This was the fundamental move in her flirtation arsenal. She always wore low-cut blouses and subtly squeezed her generously proportioned tits as she spoke with a person of interest. It worked every time. Ondine’s eyes wandered down her décolletage and fixated on her cleavage.

“I would like to hear it, interesting or not,” Imelda said with a smile. What torture to be alone in a room with the loveliest woman she’d ever laid eyes on and treat this like any other interview. “Did you have some sort of dispute with Madame Beaudoin?”

The ballerina looked quizzically at Imelda, as if the thought had never occurred to her. “Oh, no, it was nothing to do with that. I came here, to Canada, because of my husband. Non, I mean we came here because of me.” Ondine’s words flitted about like a caged bird. “We came because my father told me I must, that it would be best for us to leave France, et alors that is what we did. We were married and we came here.”

Imelda could hardly bear to see the beautiful girl so flustered. Though Ondine had an ageless quality about her, the application stated she was twenty-one. Rather old for an ingénue but, like a goddess, her beauty was timeless.

What attracted Imelda most was not merely her beauty, though. Imelda had encountered many beautiful people in her time. There was something different about Ondine, about the way the girl made her feel. Imelda was generally a confident person, but in this woman’s presence she felt an eager nervousness, at once giddy and wild, swooning and insecure. It occurred to Imelda that she might, for the first time in her life, be falling in love.

In the hippie days, she thought she was tail over teakettle in love with Gavin Drinkwater, but time has a clarifying effect. Certainly they were the best of friends and made a happy home for their darling son Gavin Junior, but was there not more to love? More than the ardent, almost obsessive amity and physical affection they felt for each other? Imelda was determined to find out.

Love in its purest state felt no jealousy. She and Gavin understood that. Because they cared for and respected one another so completely, they we were able to carry on their various affairs without a trace of acrimony. Gavin would never have dreamt of claiming any right to ownership over Imelda simply because she was his marriage partner.

As a couple, they never let go of those free-loving days. It was the only hippie philosophy they retained after entering the business world. But being in love was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be fireworks. Where were Imelda’s fireworks? This young woman with the body of an angel and the eyes of a vixen looked like she might know.

“I’m rather bored with this musty old library,” Imelda said for Ondine’s sake. Like a pale rose, she appeared ill at ease without a good dosage of sunlight. “It’s a beautiful day. Why not take our interview into the garden?”

With a relieved sigh and half a smile, the girl agreed she would much rather be outdoors than in.

Leaving the paperwork in the library, Imelda escorted her to a secluded nook at the far edge of the garden. As she took a seat at the small wrought iron table underneath the willow tree, Ondine bit her lip, allowing the soft flesh to escape little by little from between her upper and lower teeth. What delicious torment to look but not touch the sylph, to watch her lick those full red lips and not kiss them.

“When you’re ready, why not start from the beginning?” Imelda proposed. “I should like to find out everything I possibly can about you.”

Ondine nodded, offering a weak smile. With one deep breath, she began the intricate tale of why she left France.