Her Humble Servants
J. Hepburn
“You are a needlessly complicating fool, Owen.”
“You will find that I am right, Ashton.”
“You are trying to run before we are even crawling!”
“And you are saying we should not plan to run because we have not walked!”
“Aiming is one thing, Owen, you do not even have a target!”
“Pshaw, my dear Ashton, pshaw.”
Owen Hyde Hunter, as the taller and more nervously energetic of the pair, reached the workshop’s immense doors first. He stepped smartly forward to open the postern door set into them, holding it for Ashton Charles Wallace with a florid bow.
“After you, my dear sir.”
“You are too kind, my good sir.” Ashton, one arm occupied with a large parcel, doffed his hat with the other. A close observer may have noticed that although both young men were dressed in the clothes of respectable young gentlemen, the tailoring lacked a little something, as did the style, and, to a very close eye, the integrity of the cloth. The fact the cloth was of surprisingly light weight but not fineness could be explained equally well by the needs of a furnace-like summer’s day in Brisbane as by the fabric’s lower cost.
When Owen closed the small door behind them, the clang it made echoed through the entire workshop.
The skeleton of a four-wheeled carriage sat in the middle of the vaulted space, lit by windows high on the building’s solid walls. Above this, a fan driven by a windmill on the roof attempted with minimal success to suck hot, stale air out of the building.
Ashton gestured at the carriage wildly. “Your ideas will be all very well for the second, or more likely third, prototype, but for right now...”
A figure rose from behind the chassis. “Hark, have my men found something else to argue about?”
Owen spread his arms in supplication. Ashton laughed in affected bitterness.
In almost perfect unison, they both said “This young man is a fool!”
The impatient, cocky strides of youth took them to the chassis and its halo of brass, steel and wooden shapes.
A young woman, about their age, stepped lightly through the ironmongery to reach them. She was dressed in solid but well worn riding boots, a leather apron over thick stockings, and a curious leather corset with a scandalous lack of any blouse or chemise worn over or under it, resulting in her arms, shoulders, and the upper slopes of her breasts becoming painted with grease, oil, and soot made inky by sweat. The deep burn mark extending up her corset’s right cup to the edge was not continued on her breast, suggesting she had access to more practical clothes if required. However the burn mark on her right forearm, still livid and fresh, suggested her opinion of ‘required’ may need some consideration. Her face was smeared with more grease, save two perfectly clean circles around her eyes - doubtless made by the goggles now hanging by their strap around her neck.
Holding her grease-smeared hands behind her, she leaned forwards as each young man in turn leaned in for a kiss on each cheek, deftly avoiding getting their jackets dirty but leaving greasy smears on faces already glistening with sweat.
Her apron turned out to be a full skirt, extending only just past her knees.
“Now, will you let me in upon your disagreement, or was it something so deep and mysterious my little woman’s brain could not hope to comprehend it?”
“Gillian, my Gillian,” Ashton began with a sigh.
“Storage!” Owen interrupted him explosively. “This lout seems to be happy with what has already been done, and is intent upon ignoring the possibilities of modulating power through storage!”
Gillian Canly Ledwich let them both see her roll her eyes before she moved away, towards a porcelain sink bolted to one wall. She began cleaning her exposed skin with a thick, greasy-looking substance scooped from a small tub, releasing aromas of eucalyptus oils, ethanol, turpentine and lanolin strong enough to stun the unprepared. “What is your latest brain-wave, my darling Owen?”
“Electricity!”
This bought a raised eyebrow from Gillian as she knocked the tap on with her elbow. “You are thinking of Monsieur Planté’s rechargeable batteries?”
“Exactly! We know how to make a generator which can produce a steady current, we know how to make...”
“A second-rate motor,” Ashton intruded sharply. “Face it, his batteries are still useless for any practical purposes, and the efficiency losses alone...”
“Would be a step in the right direction, instead of refusing to believe the future could look any different!”
Gillian raised her voice. “Gentlemen!”
They clamped their jaws shut.
Gillian very deliberately turned back to the sink to continue her washing. The men glared briefly at each other before haughtily turning on their heels. They removed their jackets, hanging them upon hooks on either side of a long work table. They removed their waistcoats without looking at each other, then their shirts, then their boots.
Gillian finished her face, imperfectly but adequately, in enough time to enjoy the sight of two young men with boxer’s physiques stripped to their drawers - undershirts being too much for any save the determinedly traditional in these sub-tropical climes - before those physiques were concealed inside canvas trousers and shirts.
The two men finally acknowledged each other’s presences once more as they pulled battered boots onto their feet. Gillian crossed to the table, drying her hands.
Both men drew in breath to speak.
“Gentlemen!”
The men, rebuked, released their breaths silently.
“We are agreed, are we not, that completion of the first prototype is of paramount importance?”
Both men nodded in agreement.
“And we are agreed, are we not, that experimentation is the very soul of progress?”
Both men once more nodded, although Ashton scowled as he did so.
“Owen?”
“I finished the governor yesterday. I need merely to test it.”
“Then what is your latest brainwave?”
“Aha! Efficiency and adjust-ability, dear Gillian, efficiency and adjust-ability!”
Ashton interjected. “Is it possible for you to stay with a mere one train of thought at a time?”
Gillian gave Ashton a look that made him subside.
Owen began wildly sketching in the air with his hands. “Even with this helical constant-flow boiler you designed, Gillian, we will need time for it to heat up, am I right? Time to light, time to develop a good flame, time to heat. Even the best coal or charcoal will take time...”
“Which is why we need liquid or gaseous fuels!”
“When you have solved the safety problems with your alcohol burners, Ashton, I will be happy to have them in any car I have a hand in designing!”
Gillian threw up her hands. “Enough! I have heard enough! You two will argue until you are both dead from exhaustion! Owen, you can draw up plans tomorrow, after, I stress after! You fit the governor, do I make myself clear?”
Owen deflated. He nodded grumpily.
“Thank you! Now, you were going to bring something for lunch. Have you at least managed to remember that during your constant bickering?”
Owen looked at Ashton. “My dear sir, we are being impugned!”
Ashton looked at Owen. “My good sir, our good intentions are being besmirched!”
Gillian allowed herself a smile of satisfaction. “Well, gentlemen?”
Ashton snatched up the parcel he had been carrying, presenting it with a bow as though it were a velvet cushion supporting a crown.
Gillian took it. “Then I place a moratorium on any and all debate of an engineering nature until we have restored our own energies.”
Owen retrieved two plates and three chipped glasses from one of the desk’s many drawers. Ashton seized one of the wheeled chairs by the work table, pushing it in front of him as they followed Gillian to where an upholstered bench seat retrieved from a damaged horse-drawn carriage sat to one side of the chassis.
Ashton held the chair courteously for Gillian, who sat with the satisfaction of a woman who does not have to worry about a bustle.
A pocket on the side of Gillian’s corset gave up a folding knife which cut the parcel’s string as easily as it would a single hair.
The parcel gave up half a load of bread, three apples, a thick sausage and a large bottle of beer closed with a wired cork. Ashton took the bottle, opening it with ease to pour into the glasses still held by Owen. Gillian’s knife made short work of cutting slices of bread and sausage.
Gillian kept one plate for herself, swapping the other for a glass of black beer.
The three toasted their shared enterprise solemnly, then their health - each in turn - then the success of their lunch, taking small sips each time.
“This colony,” Ashton said appreciatively, “has finally been able to brew a decent stout.”
Owen laughed, not cruelly but not kindly. “How would you know what a decent stout tasted like? We were the same age when we left mother England’s shores, and we could each still remember the taste of our mother’s milk!”
“My father can remember,” Ashton said with affected dignity. “This is from his supplies. He has pronounced it good. Do you pronounce it otherwise, sir?”
“I will take action if you begin arguing once more in my presence today,” Gillian remarked, as one would upon the weather, before taking a substantial bite of bread and sausage.
“I bow to your father’s prowess in the quality of stouts,” Owen conceded, changing tack as smoothly as a good racing yacht. “I do pronounce this good, and would like to know where we can procure more of it.”
Ashton jerked his head towards one wall of the workshop. “Peg-leg’s Rest. But not for the likes of you or I, the landlord only sells it to special customers.”
Owen froze, staring at his glass. “Ashton, my bosom companion, have you got us in trouble with your father? That is a place I would rather not be.”
“Don’t be such an old woman! He gave it to me with his blessing. Finding a good stout can apparently put a man in such a good mood he gives it away to his wastrel son.”
They toasted a father who could still be so generous after agreeing to invest in his wastrel son’s future as a private engineer.
Gillian settled back in her chair, stretching her legs in front of her. Her leather corset was cut high on her hips and her bosom both, letting her bend her waist but not her back. It was covered, on the front and both sides, with pockets, hooks and fasteners. Her thick gloves were hung on the left hip, an assortment of spanners from the right.
Both men unabashedly let their gazes slide from her ankles up to her neck as she leaned back in the chair.
She smirked at them.”Oh, la, you two could turn a poor girl’s head.”
***
“It’s the perfect solution! We...”
Gillian gently pushed a finger against Owen’s lips before he could hit his full verbal stride. He deflated.
She gently removed her finger, leaving a thicker smear of grease adding to the slight sheen already present. “You do remember the last time you had an idea, and I asked you...”
“To write it down first so I knew what I was talking about,” Owen completed. He sighed. “I’m sorry, Gillian. If we started now...”
She raised a warning finger. “Owen, you are a genius, your idea for a condenser will make this car viable for a land as parched as this, but Ashton is right about you needing to focus.”
Owen slumped. He was sitting on one of the workshop chairs so he could more comfortably install his prototype governor in the car’s engine. Then he sighed as he wiped sweat off his brow with his already damp sleeve. “You’re right, Gillian. But how can I concentrate on any old mundane thing when...”
“By writing it down,” she interrupted him firmly. “Tomorrow.”
“You are, as always, right, and I am grateful.” Over his shirt, Owen wore a leather waistcoat similar in fashion to Gillian’s corset, with pockets and straps covering the front. It bore a large burn low on the left side.
“Of course I am. Without me, you two would spend half your time arguing and the rest of the time, eating and sleeping.”
Owen had the honesty and grace to nod ruefully. “To say nothing of your skill at fabrication. I swear, half mine and Ashton’s designs only work because you help make them.”
Gillian, standing before him, leaned forwards. “And do I hear your thanks?”
Owen leaned towards her to slide his lips over hers. “Frequently,” he murmured.
“Is that right?”
He kissed her more firmly, their lips parting as they pressed hungrily against each other.
Gillian reached out with her spare hand to seize the back of his head, pulling him against her mouth.
She didn’t let him go until he made an exaggerated choking sound.
“That’s better,” she murmured when there was enough space between them for him to breathe. “You didn’t kiss me properly when you arrived.”
“I was wearing my good clothes.”
“Ah, yes, I remember.”
He rubbed his thumb gently over her cheek, feeling traces of grease without using enough pressure to smear over her skin. “You smell of grease,” he said.
“You smell of man.”
She pulled him back into an aggressive kiss, catching him off guard, then released him entirely. “I need more than kissing.”
A grin split his face as she undid the straps holding her skirt closed. He leaned backwards to undo his fly buttons, then had to struggle a little more with the buttons on his drawers as Gillian, naked from her hips to the tops of her stockings, clicked her tongue impatiently.
His cock, when it finally emerged, was half erect and growing rapidly. Gillian reached down to seize it, purring deep in her throat as she stepped forward over the chair.
He slid his hands up her legs, from her linen stockings to the brief stretch of bare skin above them, before tickling his fingers up to her quim, making her shiver.
Gillian deftly flicked open one of the pouches on his waistcoat, pulling out a small package of waxed paper. The paper revealed a condom. Bending down, she kissed him again as she deftly clothed his cock without needing to look or fumble. With her corset keeping her back straight, that meant having to push her hips back, away from his hands. Snarling with impatience, she gave his sheathed cock a few quick tugs to make sure it was hard enough, then stepped forward as she lifted the fingers of her other hand up to her mouth.
He stopped her. “Let me.” He licked the index and middle fingers of his right hand, making sure they glistened with moisture before he inserted them slowly into her as she gasped, her legs quivering briefly.
He worked his fingers inside her, moving them around, twisting his hand, as she bit her bottom lip.
“In my professional opinion, you’re well lubricated.”
“Then get your fingers out so you can get your thomas in!”
She reached between them to spread herself with one hand and guide him with the other as she lowered herself onto him.
He braced her with both hands firmly around her waist, taking her weight with little strain.
They groaned in unison as she sank down around him. His body shuddered more while her voice quavered more.
Her hand, briefly forgotten, slipped out from between them only when it risked between squashed by her thigh against his. As his arms wrapped around her, hers lifted to drape over his shoulders.
His leather waistcoat, covered with pockets and hooks, pressed against her likewise covered corset. They both moaned with frustration at feeling how many layers separated their naked skin.
“Should have undressed,” he muttered into her shoulder.
“It would take too long to get me in and out of a corset,” she said, then wriggled her hips. “And tell me I’m not squeezing you more while I’m wearing it.”
His reply was not intelligible as words.
She tried to lift herself up with her legs, but the chair rattled forwards on its castors as she misjudged the angle.
“Ballocks!” She snarled. “Keep us still!”
He managed to kick them backwards, towards the car, but every time she pushed down, he had to coordinate.
“Surely we’ve tried this before,” he gasped.
“I can’t remember it, if we have. Push us backwards.”
The chair ran into the side of the car. As it did so Gillian managed to grab hold of part of the engine to keep them in place.
Something on her corset caught on his waistcoat, locking them together.
“Oh, this is ridiculous!” He exploded.
“Shut up and kiss me,” she hissed, pulling his head back until she could get their mouths together.
She began rocking her hips back and forth as much as she could as his hands impotently squeezed her waist, barely even denting the thick leather of her corset.
He managed to breath through his nose this time, inhaling deeply, smelling the mingled scents of castor oil, grease, forged metal and her. The smell made his cock, securely and tightly lodged inside her, throb a little more.
She breathed in the clean, slightly spicy, salty scent of him, her nose numbed to the engineering scents but eager for the smell of one of her men. She kept one hand on the engine to anchor them, the other tangled in his short hair as she held his head bent sharply backwards.
He tried to thrust up into her, making her bounce slightly. When she gasped in encouragement, he continued, more energetically, his face growing flushed from the exertion. She timed the rocking of her hips to increase the length of his stroke.
It did not take long for them to be panting more from arousal than from effort, Owen’s body beginning to drive his hips to more energetic thrusting despite complaints from his lungs.
Gillian broke their contorted kiss, rolling her head back past the vertical as she pulled his head against her breasts where they were thrust above her corset.
His arms tightened around her, pulling them harder together, as his thrusts became so hard he was forced to grunt explosively on each one, the sound muffled against her bulging flesh.
His grunting suddenly escalated in pace and volume, reaching a crescendo just as she felt his entire body rear up, quiver, then jerk several times.
When Gillian felt his arms relax, she tenderly brushed hair off his sweaty forehead before trying to stand up.
A sudden tug bought her movement to a premature halt.
She looked down between them, then laughed softly. “Ballocks, I forgot about that.”
***
“Here’s the problem,” Owen said.
After separating and restoring their clothing, Gillian had found a space to sit on the edge of the chassis. Owen was leaning forwards on his chair, his elbows resting on his knees.
“You know I don’t think steam engines can respond quickly enough. They’re also wasteful. Too much steam gets vented, even in my condenser systems. We need some way to store the power they produce, so we can use it more efficiently.”
Gillian listened patiently. She disagreed, but saying “no” had never helped friends make breakthroughs.
“I like your double boiler system, one for quick heating and one for storage, but it’s only a short-term solution. It’s not a fix. We all know Ashton’s solution of a giant flywheel with double gearing wouldn’t work, it would be impracticably heavy.”
Gillian raised an eyebrow, but stayed silent. They all knew Ashton’s suggestion had been sarcastic.
“You suggested compressed air. I like it, but you know and I know it wouldn’t work well enough. But now Planté has rechargeable electric cells!”
He began to sketch shapes in the air in front of him.
“Look! Small steam engine - quick to heat, quick to respond, high speed but low torque, runs a small electrical generator. Generator runs directly into a battery of Planté cells. Battery drives an electric motor. They’re small! I’ve seen the specifications of some of the electric cars demonstrated in Europe! They’re the future!” He jabbed a finger at Gillian for emphasis. She ignored it.
“Steam engines can make continuous power from coal, charcoal, coalite, alcohol, whale oil, anything! Batteries can absorb their output, electric motors to drive the wheels! You can run the steam engine, turn it off, run it again... You can drive off without waiting for it to heat! You can even run an igniter off the batteries!”
He stared at Gillian, his face the anguished mask of one seeking validation, then froze in shock as he recognised on her face the startled expression of someone who has, despite all their trepidations, encountered a good idea.
“You like it,” he whispered, a trace of awe in his voice.
She made as if to speak, hesitated, cleared her throat, thought for a second, hesitated again, then frowned.
Owen almost forbore to breathe.
“Can we test the capacity of the batteries?” She asked at last.
Owen blinked in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Can we test their capacity? Can we know when they are almost full, or uselessly almost empty? Electricity does work like that, does it not? Could we have a... a dip stick for a battery?”
Owen opened and closed his mouth several times, then seemed to crumple upon himself.
Gillian leaned forwards to pat him on the shoulder. “What am I about to say to you, my darling Owen?”
“When you find the problem, you have found the first step to a solution,” he said automatically.
She patted his shoulder again, stood up, then bent to kiss his hair. “Run your tests.”
Owen glumly pulled himself back in front of the engine as Gillian walked quietly away to leave him in peace.
***
Half an hour later, Gillian, unable to concentrate, decided to play tea lady. Owen, stoking the boiler, took a mug gratefully.
Ashton was still ensconced in the drafting room - a long, thin space occupying the far end of the workshop. It had been intended as an office, so its wall had a large window into the workshop. As a drafting room, the window let through more noise than was desirable.
The three desks, facing the window, were adjustable in height and angle by means of small crank handles. By accident of history and habit not design, Gillian used the first, Ashton the middle, Owen the last.
Ashton was calculating how to cut a series of gears with the help of a slide rule, a well-thumbed book of tables, and a waste basket.
He shot Gillian an amused look as she strode towards him, before his gaze settled gratefully on the tea.
One of Gillian’s eyebrows lifted when she glimpsed his expression. “Pray tell, Mr Wallace, what has you so amused?”
“I could not possibly make any comment in front of a lady, Ms Ledwich.”
Gillian stopped in shock, too far away for Ashton to reach his mug of tea. “A lady! Mr Wallace, you should have told me we had visitors! I’m not properly dressed!”
“I see nothing whatsoever amiss about your dress, Ms Ledwich,” Ashton said gallantly.
“Because, Mr Wallace, you are a man who is merely in training to be a gentleman. I will die for lack of female company.” She passed him his mug.
Ashton made an expansive gesture with his right hand, twirling his pencil like an orchestral conductor his baton. “Should you see fit to bring another woman into our small circle, neither I nor, I am sure, my colleague Mr Hunter, will offer the slightest objection.” He drank with every sign of enthusiasm before putting the mug on the windowsill, his desk being angled too far from the horizontal.
“I may object should I be forced to share either of my gentlemen with any new dollymop, no matter how talented she is with her hands.”
“Oh! Do you admit I am a gentleman, or have you been hiding someone from me?”
Gillian showed her teeth in what might have been a smile. “The only man I am hiding anything from is my father. Gears, Mr Wallace?”
“I am trying to devise a continuously variable gearbox that would let a flywheel work, since Owen’s flights of fancies made me suggest the blasted thing in the first place.”
Gillian laughed. “Let me know if you meet with any success! Weren’t you going to insulate the second boiler?”
Ashton’s gaze flicked briefly towards the window, through which the chassis, and indeed Owen on his chair, was clearly visible. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”
Gillian raised an eyebrow. “You could have joined us.”
Ashton coloured slightly. “Please! A gentleman, I am told, does not intrude.”
“A gentleman might if he had a standing invitation.”
Ashton coughed. “I could not cut in upon a friend’s dance.”
“Very droll.” Gillian casually put her own mug on the windowsill.
With a sudden jerk, she pulled Ashton’s chair away from the table, spinning it so she could drop neatly onto his lap, side-saddle.
Ashton’s attempt at seriousness cracked. Through his grin, he asked, “I’m not complaining, mind, but what do I have to thank for this sudden burst of passion?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“Ms Ledwich, this is the age of reason!”
Gillian conceded the point. “You left me all alone in the workshop all morning, leaving me worrying about what two such handsome young men could possibly get up to out there, surrounded by pretty young girls in their summer dresses.”
Ashton hooted with laughter. “Pretty young girls? We are in the factory district of Brisbane, not the parks of Melbourne! The prettiest woman outside those doors is older than my mother and selling tea from a cart. The prettiest women inside are all hiding from the sun and are far too sensible to let the likes of us get close enough to say hello!”
“The correct answer, Mr Wallace, was ‘the prettiest woman inside was waiting for us back at the workshop.’”
“Ah, now, that is an empirical question that requires much more extensive investigation before I could possibly commit to an answer.”
“Think very carefully, Mr Wallace.”
“Although, I believe I could use my limited available information to say, as a rough answer, that I would not be able to find a prettier woman than you in all of Brisbane.”
“A ‘rough answer’?”
“I will have to refine it with more work. I may need to collect more information.”
“For someone so skilled with metal, you can be astonishingly bad with women, Ashton my darling.”
“What could possibly connect those two skills? Find me an engineer who can talk like a politician and I, madam, will find you a perpetual motion machine!”
“Begin work, Mr Wallace! I have been trying to make two such men, and hope for success some time this century.”
“You must introduce me to these men some time.”
Gillian made a sound indicative of exasperation before seizing his head with both hands, twisting as far as her corset would allow, then pushed her mouth forcefully against his.
He returned her kiss with enthusiasm.
When they separated, a little while later, Gillian was struck by a sudden, gnawing wonder.
“Ashton, my Ashton,” she said. “I never dreamed I would find two men so confident in themselves they wouldn’t mind me having the both of them, but where did I find two men so confident I could kiss them with the taste of the other still on my lips?”
Ashton coloured instantly. “I assure you, I can only taste your lips.”
“Were you watching us?”
Ashon’s cheeks became a redder shade of pink. “Certainly not!”
“Then how do you know you can only taste me, if you don’t know what I was doing with Owen?”
Red became crimson. “I can taste you, and only you!”
“How do you know?”
“Well, I know what you taste like...”
“How do you I know I don’t sometimes kiss you with Owen’s spend still on my tongue?”
“I, I, I don’t, I mean...”
“How do you know what Owen tastes like, to separate my taste from his!”
“I don’t! It was a deduction!”
Gillian seized his lapels. “Liar! You’re hiding something from me! Out with it!”
“No! I’m not hiding anything! Truly!”
“Liar!”
She thumped her fist against his leather waistcoat as she bounced on his lap for emphasis.
The chair, a light contraption comfortable for one occupant who did not wish to relax, lost its hold upon balance.
They crashed to the ground beside each other, between the desks and the wall, Gillian spilling off his lap. She recovered first, throwing herself atop his body to keep him pinned down.
“Well? How do you know what Owen tastes like?”
“Ouch,” Ashton ventured, feeling the back of his head gingerly.
“Don’t try to distract me! I bruised my hip, do you hear me complaining? Tell me how you know what Owen tastes like!”
“I don’t, I swear!”
“You lie! You’re blushing like a furnace!”
“This is hardly a topic to not make me blush!”
“Pshaw, sir! How do you know?”
“I only meant I couldn’t taste anything other than you! I assure you, I had no interest in private matters between you!”
“Why not?”
Ashton stared at her in evident surprise. “They were private?”
“Aren’t you interested?”
Ashton’s fading colour re-intensified.
“Surely you’re not embarrassed about what we were doing while you were not disturbing us?”
She wriggled her hips atop his. “I know at least part of you is interested.”
Ashton tried to sink through the bricks underneath him, with conspicuous lack of success.
Gillian, clearly enjoying herself, pressed on. “If you two decided to explore your obvious attraction for each other, I would be begging to hear every precise detail.”
Heat radiated from Ashton’s face.
Gillian froze in mid peroration, staring at him in surprise. “I was right! I thought I was joking, but I was right! You are hiding something from me!”
“No!”
Gillian seized his ears. “What are you hiding from me?!”
“Ouch! I assure you...”
“If my two men have rolled in the hay with each other, I demand to know about it!”
“We haven’t!”
“You were both scholarship boys to a strict boarding school, once. Do not think for one moment I do not believe the salacious rumours told about boarding schools!”
Ashton, remembering he had hands of his own, used one to push an accusatory pointing finger between their faces. “You were in the same position as us, at your ‘finishing school’! Do you expect me to deny all those rumours?”
“Absolutely not, you may believe all of them.”
Ashton’s face adopted a heady mixture of emotions, chief among them shock, disbelief and a wild surge of salacious interest.
Gillian’s face, on the other hand, became wistful with memory. “There were already solid couples by the second year. Few of us did not take the opportunity to at least investigate the possibilities. It would have been foolish not to.”
Ashton was staring at her with a mouth open from surprise and base desires.
Gillian, half lost in memory, rubbed her hips against his again, forcing from him a strangled gasp.
“Did you investigate many possibilities?” He managed.
“Of course! I had to know for sure. We are living in a new world made potent by science, and science tells us to confirm our results!”
Gillian pointed her own accusatory finger at Ashton. “Science also tells us to be persistent in our questions and to not be sidetracked by in-consequentialities, Mr Wallace! I have been honest with you, it is about time you were honest with me! It is gross hypocrisy to entertain shameless thoughts about myself with another woman, but be horrified by suggestions of you with another man, so out with it!”
“I cannot tell you!”
“Aha, a confession!” Without needing to look, Gillian slipped a small parcel from a pocket high on Ashton’s vest. She held it in front of his eyes. “Tell me, and you may get to use this.”
“Madam, that is blackmail!”
“Sir, it is bribery. It is also a threat, extending far into the future.”
Ashton’s scarlet face managed to blanch.
“We promised to have no secrets between us three,” Gillian said with determination. “You two have been keeping one from me.” Her eyes narrowed. “It was you two, was it not?”
Ashton avoided her eyes, until Gillian used both ears to pull his head back towards her.
“It was you two, was it not?”
Ashton laughed with a sarcastic note in his voice. “I do not know what your experience was like in your boarding school, full of young women, but young men do not suffer that sort of deviance. There were boys known to be mandrakes, and boys suspected to be mandrakes. They did not last long. They were bullied until they were removed from the school for being ‘unsuitable’.”
Gillian refused to feel repentant. “That’s a terrible thing to deny. You missed out on so much.”
Ashton avoided this obvious bait. “All Owen and I were interested in was girls. We were among the first to find out how to scale the walls, therefore the first to explore the pubs, get thrown out of pubs, and get our faces slapped by girls within two minutes of meeting them. Neither of us were very good at talking to women back then.”
“My sweet Ashton, you were not very good at talking to women when I met you.”
“See how much we learned in three years?”
“I know full well you learned a great many things in three years, so you must have learned at least enough to progress beyond being slapped.”
Ashton grinned, suddenly more confident. “We didn’t learn how to talk, we learned who to talk to.”
Gillian arched an eyebrow.
“Escapees from your school.”
Gillian burst into laughter. “I should have guessed! Girls from the streets the likes of us escaped to would know all about the likes of you! Girls from my school wouldn’t know any better!”
She gave Ashton a shrewd look. “So who taught you how to kiss?”
“Maxie.”
“And Owen?”
“Also Maxie. Her friend Lenne was too nervous, at first. Maxie started on Owen, while I couldn’t convince Lenne to touch me until Maxie jumped onto my lap saying she would ‘show us both how it was done’. Lenne nearly pulled her off, but I had the basic idea, by then.”
Gillian’s brow furrowed for a brief moment before clearing. “I remember them!” She slapped Ashton sharply. “I remember when they came back, half giggling and half terrified they were pregnant!” She thought for a brief moment. “I think that was when the rest of us learned about condoms.”
“Nobody had told us about condoms!” Ashton objected.
“That is no excuse! Who did teach you?”
“We...” Ashton’s cheeks flushed as he tried to avoid her eyes again.
Gillian seized his ears again. “Tell me!”
“We thought we were hunting,” he said wretchedly. “We turned out to be prey. It was two women who were older than us, perhaps about thirty, who decided we would be fun. It wasn’t hard to convince us, we were so keen we would have said yes to anyone who was half as attractive, and they looked like goddesses to us.”
“Not hard,” Gillian said archly.
Ashton flushed again. “If you don’t wish to hear this story...”
“Think very carefully about whether you want to keep this from me.”
“If you will keep interrupting...”
“You just need to keep talking.”
“A gentleman does not interrupt a lady.”
“That is a flagrant lie and you know it, Mr Wallace.” She slapped his shoulder sharply. “Stop trying to distract me!”
Ashton sighed. “We met them outside a hotel we were trying to sneak into. They needed all of two minutes to convince us to go with them. We got into what we thought was a cab, but they didn’t need to give directions. They drew the curtains.”
“Their names?”
“I have no idea,” Ashton said frankly. “They told us to call them Cristina and Angela.”
“I see.”
“Angela sat on my lap,” Ashton continued, “Cristina sat on Owen. They taught us a lot more about kissing during that short drive than anyone else ever had.”
“’Anyone else’ meaning?”
Ashton squirmed, embarrassed again. “Maxie, Lenne, and, um, Phoebe and Molly.”
Gillian contented herself with a smug chuckle.
Ashton attempted to ignore this. “When the cab stopped, they blindfolded us before leading us out. I remember praying we would never be recognised by the cab driver again. I heard him laugh.”
“Cab nothing, it was their coach.”
“We worked that out later, thank you!” Ashton sighed. “That house was like a palace inside. We didn’t know whether to stare at the furniture, or at the women. They gave us the best brandy I had tasted then or have ever tasted since, then Angela took me to a bedroom. Cristina had Owen on the rug in the drawing room, he told me later.”
Gillian looked slightly disappointed at this revelation they had been in different rooms.
Ashton looked wistful. “She had me for three hours, at the end of which she had taught me even more than she had about kissing, while I could barely walk. They blindfolded us again, then put us back in the carriage, which threw us out outside the school. It was the closest we had ever come to being caught breaking in or out.”
“There is more to this story,” Gillian said with narrowed eyes.
“Yes, there is.” Ashton seemed to be lost in remembrance for a minute. He was bought back to himself abruptly when Gillian, who had been feeling his swelling cock, pressed her hips against his trousers.
She picked up the wrapped condom from where she had dropped it next to his head, then sat up.
She was bought up sharply with a clink of hook against hook. “Oh, confound it!”
Ashton burst out laughing, offering little help as Gillian unhooked them. When she could finally sit up, she managed to unfasten then unwrap her skirt before sliding backwards along his legs to access his fly. “Keep talking.”
Ashton, grinning now, resumed his narrative with more enthusiasm. “The last thing they told us was to meet them at the same place, at the same time, the next week. We could not believe our luck. We exchanged our stories on the ride back, and kept swapping notes through the week, whenever we were able to.”
Gillian opened Ashton’s drawers, liberating his cock from where it had lodged under the bottom edge of his waistcoat.
Ashton tried to settle himself more comfortably on the ground, with little success. “We were, of course, early for our rendezvous the next week, and could barely contain ourselves while we waited.”
Memory, and Gillian’s confident fingers, made Ashton’s cock throb slightly. She tugged his trousers and drawers a little further down, to give her access to his testicles.
“They turned up in their carriage, picked us up, then Cristina sat on my lap, and Angela sat on Owen.”
Gillian made an approving sound, her gaze fixed on Ashton’s face as her fingers toyed with his privates.
“This time, Cristina had me on the rug while Angela took Owen off to her bedroom. Cristina was... assertive.”
Gillian smirked as she felt Ashton’s cock react to the memory. Ashton was too lost in memory to notice.
“Angela had demanded I fuck her. She said ‘fuck’, it was the first time I had ever heard a woman even say the word. She spent three hours telling me what to do to her. Cristina told me to ‘take it like a woman’.”
Gillian, sitting dominantly astride Ashton, barely suppressed a laugh.
“She didn’t even let me touch her unless she wanted me to. I had to call her Sir, and say thank you every time she ordered me to do something. I was too terrified to enjoy myself, but too eager to try and stop her. She made me do most of what Angela taught me, but Angela made me do all the work. Cristina used me like a toy.”
Gillian slid the condom over Ashton’s cock.
Ashton broke off, looking down expectantly. Gillian held up an admonitory finger. “Keep talking.”
Ashton sighed, lowering his head back to the floor. “We were sent back to the school again, with orders to meet the next week.”
Gillian felt Ashton’s cock wilt a little in anticipation of the next part of the story. She countered that with her fingertips on its tip.
“This time, when we got into the cab, they were sitting on the same bench. Angela told us to sit together.”
Gillian’s face bore a hungry expression. She lifted up onto her knees, shuffling forward along Ashton’s body.
Ashton’s face bore the expression of a man who knows he is about to suffer embarrassment only because the compensations will be worth it.
“Cristina told us to kiss each other.”
Gillian moved over Ashton’s cock, pushing down teasingly slowly.
The breath caught in Ashton’s throat for an instant.
“Keep going,” Gillian purred.
“They must have taught us well,” Ashton said, a trifle unsteadily. “Neither of us thought to disagree. We were so drunk with expectation we thought it would be a lark.”
“So that’s how you do it,” Gillian murmured. Ashton tried to ignore what she said, but was unable to ignore the way she was beginning to slowly fuck herself upon him. There was no doubting she was doing it for her benefit, but Ashton could not complain about that.
“Owen asked me which of us should be the lady. I offered to. Cristina told us we both were. We tried to kiss as if we were girls, but it was a total failure.” Again, Ashton ignored Gillian’s snort of fond derision. “Cristina told us to kiss like men kissing a woman. We had to stop laughing first.”
Ashton was managing to settle into telling the story while Gillian was pleasuring herself upon him. Gillian was having no trouble listening while doing so.
“Our second attempt was more successful.”
“Did you find it exciting?” Gillian asked, a touch of glee in her voice. “Lie to me and I shall know it.”
“Putting on a show for them was exciting,” Ashton hedged.
“Not what I asked, little boy.”
Ashton gasped as Gillian clenched about him.
“It was something new,” he admitted when he got his breath back.
Gillian moved one hand behind her.
“It was forbidden. Yes! I admit it! It was exciting!”
Gillian, smiling smugly, released his testicles.
“They blindfolded us again, took us inside, then told us both to undress in the drawing room while they watched.”
“This is a sight you have so far denied me,” Gillian said, meaningfully.
“It was a sight we denied ourselves!” Ashton protested. “I couldn’t look at Owen. He assures me he couldn’t look at me. Cristina told us to kiss again. We couldn’t. If I hadn’t been naked, I might have run.”
“That would have been much more embarrassing,” Gillian murmured, still slowly rising and falling over Ashton.
Ashton avoided the comment. “Angela stepped behind me, taking my thomas in one hand. Cristina did the same to Owen. They pushed us together.”
“I should be making notes,” said Gillian, her head full of the picture Ashton was describing.
“We kissed again. That was exciting.”
Gillian’s cheeks were beginning to colour as her playful fucking became earnest.
Ashton looked as shame-faced as a man can while deep inside an excited woman. “We did not notice that the women had released us, until they ordered us to stop.”
Gillian moaned in approval, her hands clenching onto Ashton’s shoulder as she worked her hips more firmly atop him.
“They ordered us ahead of them to Angela’s bedroom, then onto her bed. Then Cristina said they would not undress until we had made each other spend.”
Gillian shuddered. Ashton, watching her face, could scarcely believe his own actions as he gave her mortifying detail after mortifying detail to feed her lust.
“I felt as if I were dreaming. Owen later said he had never been so drunk while clear-headed. We were so eager for the women we found ourselves eager for each other.”
Gillian gasped.
“I wrapped my hand around his thomas as he straddled me, seizing mine.”
Gillian groaned, her hips moving faster. Ashton was finding it difficult to continue speaking.
Ashton, staring at Gillian’s face, had completely lost all sense of shame. “Owen kissed me with as much passion as I’ve seen him kissing you. I kissed him in kind. I heard Cristina asking Angela which one of us would spend first.”
Gillian was making fast, short sounds, her face straining on the edge of her own release.
“They were watching us closely.” Ashton had to pause to gather enough breath, and concentration, for a second phrase. “But we spent so closely together they could not ... AH!”
Ashton, who had not failed to learn the rhythms of Gillian’s body in their months together, managed to time his climax perfectly with hers.
Gillian leaned heavily on Ashton’s chest with both hands as they both strove to regain even breathing.
“Then?” She gasped.
Ashton could not stop a triumphant smile as he continued, “Then Cristina pushed Owen off me, to lick his spend off my skin. Angela cleaned Owen, before both ladies undressed.”
Gillian leaned back, still sitting heavily upon and around Ashton, to peel some errant strands of hair from her face. “Is that all?” She prompted.
Ashton sighed. He knew when to be gracious in defeat. “They directed us in more play.”
“Sodomy?” Gillian asked, with increased prurient interest.
“No!” Ashton said, with sufficient relief that Gillian, to her disappointment, was compelled to believe him.
“Not even with them?”
Ashton laughed, ruefully. “I can not imagine such as them accepting sodomy, but I can imagine them committing it upon others, by proxy or wooden tool.”
“You might be surprised,” Gillian murmured, the trace of a smile flickering about her lips. “I do not take it merely for your enjoyment. Did you meet them again?”
Ashton, looking briefly sad, shook his head. “No, they sent us away with no word, which we did not realise until we were back at the school. No, I think we disappointed them by not being more eager. They gave us a series of tests, of which we passed two and failed the third.”
“You tried to return to them,” Gillian said with shrewd certainty.
“Oh, we tried! We were as desperate as opium smokers, for a month. We hunted about where we met them, without success, but have not seen either of them to this day.”
“And you did not take your frustration out upon each other?”
Ashton managed a self-satisfied grin, while pinned flat on his back on deeply uncomfortable brick flooring. “We had no frustration. We found ourselves company each time we left the school.”
“Oh, the boys had grown up!”
“It seemed we had been lacking in confidence, not in verbal skill.”
Gillian sighed. “A belief that is sadly common among men.”
“You did not find us too lacking,” Ashton said with affronted dignity.
“I saw through you to your potential, my darling.”
Gillian tried to raise herself off his still proud member, then had to try again, with the aid of her hands, when her legs refused to cooperate.
She flopped gracefully to the floor next to Ashton, restoring her bloomers as he began, with a grunt of effort to raise his head far enough to see, to restore his drawers and trousers.
Gillian gave him a speculative look. Ashton knew he was not yet free and clear even before she spoke.
“I recall this began when you objected to the thought of kissing Owen upon...”
“We did not!” Ashton interjected. “I think Angela and even Cristina knew that might have been a step too far. I suspect that is where we failed.”
Gillian clucked her tongue in disappointment, then pushed herself to her knees.
Ashton seized her hand. “You cannot tell Owen what I have told you”
Gillian raised an imperiously enquiring eyebrow.
“We swore never to discuss it, or mention it, again.”
Gillian leaned forward, slightly, as if to emphasise what she was about to say. “You went looking for them. You wanted to go back.”
Ashton turned white. “Well, we did, but...”
“You are telling me you never, after that day...”
“We spent all our energy on women!”
“On, in and upon, most likely. Never kissed? Never woke up from a guilty dream?” Her eyes, quick and sure, registered the quick flicker of an expression passing over his face. “Aha!”
“Please, Gillian!”
Gillian tugged her hand out of his, then used both of hers to smooth down her bloomers. “I told you we had no secrets. But I will try and convince Owen to confess without confronting him.” She paused, to consider. “Unless I think of something more entertaining.”
With a groan of despair, Ashton let his head fall back to the ground. “Ouch!”
With a sigh known to women everywhere, Gillian pulled Ashton towards her, to cradle his sore head in her lap. “Oh, my thoughtless fool.”
***
Ashton returned to his calculations, throwing himself into them to take his mind off a mixture of guilt and terror.
Gillian, feeling an immense sense of smugness and satisfaction, left Owen alone to his testing as she began cutting slats of wood to shape for the boiler Ashton had been planning to insulate.
Hours later, Owen looked up from his work, satisfied he could find nothing more to adjust or criticise, to find Gillian tidying up from hers.
He squinted at the light coming through the workshop’s windows. “Gillian, my love, what say you?”
“I say we should consider the possibilities offered by the nearest pie van.”
“I was thinking the Cog and Piston.”
“It is only Thursday.”
Owen gave the deep sigh of a man whose taste exceeds his budget. “Of course.”
“I shall go upon an errand. I have not left these walls all day. Is your boiler still full?”
Owen pushed a large metal bucket underneath the car. “I shall be out soon.” He opened a valve, blowing down the boiler with a ferocious gout of roaring steam.
Gillian went to inform Ashton of their plans.
At the side of the workshop, beside the drafting room, a door lead through the massive stone walls into a house that would have been a much greater contrast in comfort and warmth if it bore the marks of occupation, not merely habitation.
By the time Owen had carefully carried a bucket of near-boiling water through the drawing room to the back of the house and into the substantial laundry, Ashton had enthusiastically helped Gillian out of her corset, skirt, boots and stockings.
Owen, to his credit, did not threaten to drop or upset the bucket at the sight.
A large copper tub and a bucket half full of cold water had been placed in the middle of the room. The house had a bathroom, but repairing the plumbing had not been ranked highly on their list of necessary jobs and, being upstairs, it was further to carry the bucket.
Owen, still wearing his thick gloves, poured some hot water into the cold.
“It’s a shame this tub is so small it can only accommodate one of us at a time,” Gillian said brightly as she stepped in. Ashton paled. Owen, who had spent long enough with Ashton to become intimate with his moods, noticed but said nothing.
Ashton rallied enough to pitch in as Gillian, standing in a pose befitting an Egyptian queen, suffered herself to be washed by her men. This may have taken longer than was strictly necessary, but the thoroughness of her cleanliness at the end could not be disputed.
Owen began undressing as Gillian pulled Ashton upstairs to help her into more commonplace, respectable clothes that could pass unnoticed through the streets.
Once Gillian left, Ashton returned to the bathroom to find Owen clean and the water still hot.
Men who had gone through boarding schools together had no modesty in each other’s company, no matter what else their history together. Ashton undressed as Owen began drying himself.
Men who have spent so much time as boon companions do not miss when something is amiss.
Owen began dressing thoughtfully, wondering how or if he should broach the subject.
Ashton cracked first. “Blazes take it! Owen, I told Gillian about Angela and Cristina.”
Owen, intent upon his fly buttons, very carefully closed them before responding.
Ashton’s face assured him the breach of sacred trust had not been taken lightly.
“I trust you too much to jump to conclusions, dear boy.”
“She caught me by surprise, then she started teasing me... Look, I just didn’t manage to hide it. All she had a wild guess, and then she read my face.”
“Women can do that. How on earth did she surprise you?”
“She kissed me. Then she said how grateful she was we weren’t jealous of each other...”
“Wouldn’t risk it,” Owen murmured.
“Then she started wondering why I didn’t object to kissing her when she had just been with you, and, well...”
“Ah. Of course. Understandable. Understandable question, of course. Difficult.”
“Then she started going on about how, us being such good friends...”
“So.”
“Yes!”
“But you did tell her.”
“Owen, I had no choice! She...”
“Ah. Sanctions were invoked.”
“Yes!”
“My dear chap, I completely understand.”
“Owen, you’re a prince.”
“I’d like to think I’m better than some measly prince, Ashton.”
“Quite right, my apologies. You have far more honour than that.”
Owen waved this away. “Think nothing of it.” He paused to think for a second. “I have to ask, when you told her, did she...”
“She enjoyed hearing about it”
“When you say...”
“Absolutely.”
Owen nodded respectfully. “Well, there is that.”
“I couldn’t say no.”
“No man could.”
Owen settled his feet into his slippers.
“There is one thing, though,” Ashton said with blatantly contrived casualness.
“What’s that, old boy?”
“I did let her know that the school had been, well...”
“Strict attitudes to that sort of thing.”
“Exactly! The thing is, she was rather more forthcoming with me.”
“You don’t mean!”
“Repeatedly! It must have been every man’s dream of a Turkish harem, in there!”
“The devil you say!”
Both men shared a moment of quiet reflection that painted upon their faces looks of wistful delight.
Owen emerged first. “I say, you don’t think she might have been putting it on a bit thick?”
Ashton looked shocked. “She was very insistent upon not keeping secrets. She was making threats over it. Pass me a towel, would you?”
Owen nodded slowly as the cloth changed hands. “I do sincerely hope we can take her at her word in this matter, then.”
Both men sighed, their faces wistfully dreamy.
Finally, Owen said, quietly, “You know what this means.”
Ashton nodded.
There was a longer period of silence.
The looks between them became calculating.
Owen sighed. “We’ve both come a long way.”
“Not the same people at all.”
“Not the same beliefs at all.”
Ashton nodded again as he reached for his drawers.
Owen took a deep breath.
Ashton nodded again.
“Of course, we can’t just...” Owen began.
“Of course not.”
***
By the time Gillian returned, a covered basket in her arms emitting steam and mouth-watering smells, the men were, to her great disappointment but not surprise, dressed and sitting in separate chairs in the drawing room.
The thought of convincing both men to join her in bed had kept her distracted for her entire time out of the house. Even if they took it in turns with her but stayed each to his own side, it would be a start. Even the thought of that was making it difficult to walk normally.
Dinner, in the furnished but otherwise quite unused kitchen, passed pleasantly, but too slowly for Gillian.
She tried several times to steer conversation to the status of their living arrangements, now they were beginning to settle into the house, but somehow every time she tried, they ended up at furniture, necessary repairs, or possible modifications.
By the time Owen and Ashton leapt to their feet to argue over who would clear the table, Gillian was nearly grinding her teeth with frustration. She was ordered back to the drawing room to rest while they washed up.
She checked the curtains and lamps in a futile attempt to use up energy.
By the time she heard them leaving the kitchen, she was ready to order them to sit together on the couch and kiss, just to see what would happen.
She stood facing the door, torn between sitting like a queen and standing like an icily outraged headmistress.
She had just decided upon sitting, and was about to throw herself backwards into the chair, when the door opened.
She froze in shock, mouth hanging open, when they marched through the door with stern faces but not a stitch of clothing between them.
“Gillian Canly Ledwich, we need to have a word with you,” Owen said. “Sit down.”
Gillian found herself, for possibly the first time in their company, completely tongue-tied. She looked wildly between them, torn between the fact she was staring at a dreamed-of desire, and the fact it was not going to plan.
“Sit down!” Owen said, more sharply.
Gillian folded at the knees, landing on the edge of her chair.
“Gillian, we are very disappointed,” Ashton said severely.
Gillian felt herself briefly back once more in the Headmistress’ office. The fact she was being addressed by two naked men in a clear state of sexual excitement, induced emotions that completely destroyed her ability to think clearly.
“You have been keeping things from us,” Owen said, a trace of disappointed sadness in his voice.
“Things that forced us to keep things from you,” Ashton added, his voice sharp.
Gillian’s mouth dropped open. Her wits began to rally.
“It seems you could have avoided us all a great deal of soul-searching and secrecy by being honest when we were setting the terms for this relationship,” Owen said.
Gillian nearly exploded like a boiler’s release valve. “How dare you accuse me...”
“Silence!” Ashton said, in a tone so unexpected that Gillian’s mouth closed of its own accord.
“My dear friend Ashton told me about your conversation,” Owen said, now sharp.
“It was the honourable thing to do,” Ashton said.
“I was frankly appalled to discover after all this time that you had been keeping such a desire private from us!” Exasperation slid easily into Owen’s voice.
“We can understand,” Ashton said, with enough sympathy in his voice to unbalance Gillian anew. “In most circles it would be a disgusting thing to ask of a man. I am afraid you put me in such a shocking position I responded the only way I felt I could.”
“However, you have failed to consider the position you put us in by only now revealing this, and doing so in such a way,” Owen said kindly.
The contrast between them, their changing moods, their nudity, the fact they were criticising her in this way while standing side by side with every evidence of sexual eagerness: Gillian found it impossible to grasp onto any point of stability.
“For us to ever suggest such a thing: We couldn’t risk it,” Ashton said. “Without any idea of how you might react, we felt we had to go any lengths necessary to keep such a thing secret.”
Gillian stared at them, her mouth dropping open. “You are not telling me...”
“I won’t ask again!” Owen said sharply.
Gillian visibly shrank back in upon herself.
Owen’s face softened into kindness. “We can understand why you maintained your silence, we really can, but you have to consider the burden this placed upon us! You! You, the central point in this triangle - I apologise for the mangled metaphor - you were in a position to raise the question, or even mention a rumour, to try to gauge our reactions, to test the waters, as it were.”
Ashton was shaking his head sadly, his eyes fixed on Gillian, who did not know whether to burst into tears or laughter.
“To say nothing,” Owen continued, “of the way you have kept from us the lurid details of your own time among your fellow young ladies! Stories that could have kept us all entertained for weeks on end!”
“To think of the nights we could have had, with such fuel to stoke our passions!” Ashton said, a note of glee creeping unbidden into his voice.
This was too much for Gillian. Unable to choose between laughing and crying, she tried to do both at once.
Caring but not guilt-stricken, the men waited for her to stop.
“You swine!” She managed to get out, “you pair of cussed swine!”
Neither man looked at all repentant as she lost control of her voice again.
“That was cruel!” She finally managed to say.
“In discussion with my colleague,” Ashton said, “we consider it was justified.”
Gillian shook again, but more with laughter than with tears this time. She managed to fumble a handkerchief out of her sleeve.
“You lied to me!” Gillian said the next time she had breath.
“Not a bit of it!”
“You told me you two had never...”
“Not since that night,” Owen said smoothly.
Gillian stared at him, then broke down laughing again. The distinction between laughing and crying had ceased to be relevant - the one had caused the other. “You buggers!”
“No, not at all, actually,” Ashton said smoothly.
“You may not have taken it,” she shot back, beginning to recover her wits, “but you have certainly been giving it! Just as I was thinking I knew why you liked that so much, you... Oh, you swine, the pair of you!”
She scrubbed at her face.
“The least you could do,” she said pointedly, “is tell me truly - never?”
They both shook their heads. “Never,” Owen said.
“Why not? Damnation, why not, you’re both gorgeous!”
They both shrugged. “I told you we were not short of partners,” Ashton said. “Maybe if we had been, we might have been curious, but we were not. We left that house willing to look each other in the eye. We only dared to discuss it when we knew our secrecy was absolute.”
“But we did discuss it,” Owen said quietly. “We could not dare to so much as think about it openly at the school, but ... well, perhaps the reason why not is that nobody has asked us for the opportunity.”
Gillian sat on the edge of her chair, staring at her two lovers as she roundly cursed herself for a fool, a timid girl and an idiot.
She blew her nose - the final task that handkerchief would be able to perform - then took a deep, steadying breath.
“I may be prepared,” she said, her voice a little unsteady, “to take what I have just received as fair penance for not being even more, gentlemen, I stress ‘more’, forthright than I have been.” She took another calming breath. “I am sorry. I could have said many months ago that the thought of seeing you both as you are now has kept me warm on cold nights, and given me release on lonely days.”
Cocks which had begun wilting for want for attention began swelling again.
It was on the tip of Owen’s tongue to say they were happy to know they had been of service, but he desisted.
“Yes, Devil take you both, I would like to have you both in my bed, on every opportunity that presents itself, starting right now!” She pointed a shaking finger at them. “So I think the least you could do is let me finally see you two kiss!”
Owen looked at Ashton. Ashton looked at Owen. “Well, the lady has commanded,” Owen murmured.
To Gillian, the two naked men looked like marble statues, their chests naturally hairless, their legs as smoothly shaved as hers in response to the climate, leaving only that upon their groins. She could see muscles shift under skin as bodies built by enforced athletic pursuits at school then honed by hard manual labour in a workshop turned towards each other. She may have given voice to an exclamation found in instincts but not dictionaries.
“Now, how was it? Kiss like you’re men kissing a woman?” Ashton murmured.
Gillian might have noticed a little more hesitation from Ashton than from Owen, but she was hardly paying attention to that. She was trying not to scream at them to get on with it.
Lips met. Ashton’s eyes were shut. Owen’s, merely hooded. Hands moved to the other’s waist as they kissed firmly, defiantly, proudly.
Gillian, her cheeks flushed and her breathing rapid, released a small gasp from between parted lips. She remembered the feeling of both men kissing her like that and the simultaneous memories made her dizzy.
The men drew back slightly.
“I say, sir, you do kiss well,” Ashton said, his voice betraying a shaky laugh but his body up to his eyes clearly excited.
“Not as well as you, sir,” Owen murmured.
Owen put his arms around Ashton. Ashton put his arms around Owen. They both seized the other by the back of the head as they pressed their bodies together.
Gillian could scarcely stay upright. Every cell in her body seemed to be screaming to be between them. She squeezed her hands between her thighs.
Her gaze roamed over the two men, desperate to see everything at once. As it dropped down their bodies, she saw their cocks pressed firmly between them.
She made a sound normally only heard in the deepest throes of ecstasy.
Both men heard, drawing apart by mutual agreement. Cheeks flushed and eyes wide, they turned their heads to look at her.
To Gillian, their combined gaze was a like a blowtorch that nearly made her spend there and then.
“Stand up,” Owen commanded.
She tried, but her legs would not work.
They pulled her to her feet. She managed to stay standing as, with the speed and skill of experienced lovers, they stripped her naked.
They steered her towards the stairs. Staring and swaying as one mesmerised, she staggered ahead of them until they steered her into her bedroom, the only one already fully furnished, tidy, and containing a full-size bed.
She collapsed onto the bed more than she lay upon it, somehow managing to turn onto her back.
As graceful as cats and without saying a word, the men moved onto the bed on hands and knees, stalking forwards until they loomed over her, arms, shoulders and legs pressing against each other unheeded.
She looked up at them, helpless under her own lust, whimpering softly.
They could not kiss her mouth simultaneously, so they lowered their heads to her breasts first.
Gillian gave voice to a helpless “Oh!” even before their mouths touched her.
She had not thought her nipples could be any harder, but they proved her wrong.
Owen had always had a smoother, more predictable touch, progressing through licking, sucking, then light biting, paying attention to the nipple itself to find the most effective way to slowly drive Gillian wild, making her feel joyfully submissive as she was driven to orgasm.
Ashton had always been a little more restrained before sex, then more aggressive during it, taunting Gillian’s flesh with unexpected touches, his teeth biting her nipple too sharply, his hands and mouth behaving in a dominant way to make her feel helpless as her orgasm was wrung from her.
To have both at once was threatening to destroy her sanity, her breasts each recognising the individual touch upon them but her body responding to both simultaneously.
She spread her knees apart, feeling them press into the bodies on either side of her.
Two hands dropped onto her thighs. Her hips lifted off the bed in response.
The hands slid up towards Gillian’s aching centre as she continued to twitch helplessly. They arrived there at the same time, touched, hesitated briefly, then smoothly split, one going down to the bottom of her already damp lips, the other rising to the top. She had no idea which was which until she felt Owen’s subtle, progressive touch upon her clitoris and Ashton’s firm, authoritative penetration inside her.
Gillian opened her mouth to scream in ecstasy, screaming that did not stop until she spent with a convulsion that lifted her bodily off the bed.
As she lay gasping on the edges of delirium, she barely registered Owen saying “You first, dear chap.”
She was not able to see Ashton about to object before he realised that this was no time for affected modesty or self-effacing humility.
The firm mattress shifted only slightly as Owen moved away and Ashton, his mouth finally leaving Gillian’s breast, her nipple aching with a form of exquisite soreness, settled between her wide-spread legs.
She moaned in happiness, expecting already to feel Ashton’s cock penetrating her.
It was a pity she was not quite able to watch as Owen, waving away Ashton’s hand, bent to slide a condom onto Ashton’s cock, first making sure to thoroughly check it for firmness.
Gillian’s head briefly cleared enough, as she realised she was still unfilled, to see Ashton, as he knelt between her legs, seize Owen for another firm kiss, Owen’s hand holding Ashton’s pectoral muscle as he would a breast. Her head spun again, but the image was so vivid she was absolutely certain she would never forget it.
Then Ashton leaned forwards over her, both hands supporting him, as Owen helpfully guided him inside.
Gillian’s legs rose to wrap around Ashton’s waist, holding him so strongly he had to restrain a gasp of pain before he set to fucking her so hard she would not be able to maintain the grip.
Ashton held himself off the bed until Gillian, her arms as forged in the workshop as were his, pulled him down upon her, crushing her breasts between them.
He kissed her, pressing her head back into the mattress with as much fierceness as if he were still sparring with Owen.
Gillian’s grip around his waist did not loosen as the slapping of his hips against hers rose in volume.
Owen, finding himself briefly surplus to requirements, spontaneously slapped Ashton sharply on one buttock at the peak of a withdrawal.
Ashton’s startled buck in response produced from Gillian a squeal that escaped even the seal of their mouths.
Owen grinned then tried it again, on the other buttock. Ashton roared like a bull to match Gillian’s escalating squeals of delight.
Ashton’s hips were moving too fast for Owen to establish a solid rhythm upon every thrust, so he timed it for every second. Then, a wolfish grin upon his lips, he began timing it unevenly, to every third, then second, then fourth, then third, then rapidly on successive thrusts, Ashton not sparing the air for bellowing but grunting explosively, the sinews standing out around his neck.
Gillian, made sensitive by her first orgasm, achieved her second first. Ashton, no stranger to the sounds of Gillian in the midst of ecstasy and not unmoved by them, followed shortly after. Owen, by luck as much as timing, struck Ashton a ringing blow upon his already crimson buttock at precisely the right moment.
Ashton tried to rear up, bodily lifting Gillian off the bed with him for a brief instant before crashing down upon her.
The two clung together as their breathing slowed, Ashton’s face buried in the mattress and Gillian’s locked in a blasphemous version of an angel’s ecstasy upon seeing God.
Owen, unfulfilled but with a true friend and lover’s lack of jealousy, idly stroked the back of Ashton’s leg, feeling a joyous sense of wonder that the touch was nearly as exciting as was the touch of Gillian’s naked skin.
Gillian’s limbs relaxed with a convulsive shudder, falling limply to the bed. Ashton groaned, trying to stir.
Gillian’s hand, nearest Owen, blindly sought for him. He took it off the bed to tenderly kiss the palm. It clasped about his face, pulling him towards her, into a kiss that was a little uncoordinated on Gillian’s part but not lacking in passion.
Ashton courteously, but a little weakly, rolled to the side, remembering at the last moment to keep a firm hold on his condom as he slid out of Gillian.
Gillian seemed to regain energy with an unnatural speed, her kiss becoming more confident, her other arm rising to seek out Owen’s groin.
Owen lost a brief internal battle against breaking the kiss long enough to say “Are you sure, my lady? If you feel that recent exertions have been too much...”
His response was an animal growl, a kiss delivered with heightened strength, and a grip upon his cock that made his body try, for a second, to fold around it.
Ashton, sitting up on the second attempt, fetched a wrapped condom from the pile Owen had left upon the bedside cabinet.
He began unwrapping it, but Gillian, clearer of head now, waved him to stop.
She pushed Owen away from her, onto his back, then slid down the bed.
“Ashton, kiss him,” she commanded as she moved to kneel between Owen’s legs, one hand securely around his testicles.
Ashton complied with more willingness than he had before, holding Owen’s head down with one hand across his forehead so he could control their kiss.
Owen reached for Ashton, wanting to feel his skin, as he felt the first touch of Gillian’s breath upon his cock.
He tried to respond to Ashton’s aggressive kiss in kind, but when he felt Gillian’s lips close upon the head of his cock he groaned and submitted to being kissed, his hand falling back to the bed from Ashton’s waist.
Ashton smiled fiercely against Owen’s mouth, feeling a flush of triumph that made his recently sated cock stir again.
Gillian, sparing some of her attention from giving pleasure to Owen, saw this. She smiled even with Owen’s cock sliding to the back of her throat.
Gillian was an enthusiastic student of pleasure, and as attentive to the responses of her partners as either Owen or Ashton, so she had soon pushed Owen into a mental state not far from where she had herself been with both men attending to her nipples.
Whether Ashton contributed to this was not certain, but it was certain that Ashton took advantage of it, taunting Owen’s mouth with his as Owen gasped for air and another kiss, sliding his hand possessively over Owen’s chest to knead each breast in turn as he would a woman’s.
When Ashton’s fingers first toyed with, then sharply pinched and tugged, one of Owen’s nipples, Gillian felt Owen’s cock pulse inside her mouth.
She drew back, a determined look in her eye.
Ashton, a grin upon his face, offered her a wrapped condom.
“Get behind me,” Gillian ordered as she took it. “I said I want both of you, and both of you I shall have.”
Ashton’s eyes widened before he scrambled eagerly to obey. Owen blinked in stupefaction as he tried to comprehend what he had just heard, but he recognised the feeling of a condom being put upon him.
“Wait!” Gillian ordered, when Ashton was abreast of her. One hand not leaving Owen’s cock, she lifted herself until she could move to Ashton, quickly giving his cock the same oral treatment until it was glistening with saliva.
Gillian crawled up Owen’s body for a deep kiss of her own, which he gave with returning agency and enthusiasm.
When she raised her hips, Ashton reached between them, lifting Owen’s cock into place. Gillian sheathed herself upon Owen with a deeply heartfelt groan from him and a long moan from her. She wriggled until she felt she could not take him any further inside, by virtue of her limits and his hips.
“Ashton!” She said, a little breathless, as she folded her knees up beside Owen’s torso.
Normally firm and assertive, Ashton knew when and how to be gentle.
He eased himself inside her arse carefully, giving Gillian time to adjust.
With much gasping, groaning, the occasional encouraging imprecation from her, and a hiss of breath from him, he worked his way until he was ballocks-deep between her buttocks.
To Owen, buried deep within Gillian but with no movement beyond the shifting of her hips and involuntary clenching of her inner muscles, the wait was exquisite torture. He occupied himself by licking sweat off her chin and insinuating his hands between them so he could cup both her breasts, beginning to squeeze them firmly every time she squeezed him.
Ashton felt the quivers of Gillian’s body as she sought to restrain her impulse to thrust back painfully upon him, but Owen could also see, from his position, the whites of Gillian’s eyes as they rolled back in her head. It was only by exerting the greatest exercise of will that Owen prevented himself from beginning to fuck Gillian soundly.
When both men were hilted inside her, Gillian managed to draw breath enough to focus.
“On reflection,” she said in a quavering voice, “I am not sure how this is going to work.”
“Lift up a little,” Owen said. “Let us move.”
Gillian, whose intent had been to be in command, relinquished it with a whimper, her head sinking to Owen’s shoulder, biting into the muscle there by habit more than intent.
Owen, looking over her shoulder, locked gazes with Ashton. They began slowly moving, fucking Gillian with patient, perfectly synchronised care without taking their eyes off each other.
Gillian made a pleading sound mostly smothered by the meat of Owen’s shoulder but loud enough for both men to hear. They responded. She gasped with joy.
Ashton’s fingers curled tightly into her hips. Owen’s curled into her breasts, squeezing not too tightly but enough to add to the delirious feeling of being given pleasure too great to deny.
Neither man noticed when they stopped attending to her because they were focussed on each other. Gillian certainly did not notice that she was merely between them, the object of their fucking but not their attention.
Neither man could bear to blink unless the other also did, and neither man would look away. Owen, with the weight of Gillian pressing upon him, could see Ashton’s naked, sweat-coated chest. Ashton could see little of Owen but knew himself to be kneeling triumphantly on top.
They stared fixedly at each other, fucking hard enough for Gillian to be making helplessly ecstatic noises but no harder, as they each imagined themselves to be fucking the other.
Gillian, helpless between them, neither knew nor cared about their fixation as she approached another orgasm. Ashton, who had already spent once and felt himself more sensitive because of it, and Owen, who felt his testicles tight with frustration, were at least as close as she.
Gillian came first, releasing her teeth from Owen’s shoulder so she could properly give vent to an appropriately loud scream.
The men, who had entered an almost fugue state as they mentally warred with each other to not be the first, were pushed almost immediately to their own climaxes, arching their necks as they roared in concert.
***
They lay across a bed barely large enough to accommodate them, both men sprawled on their backs, Gillian on her side with arm and leg thrown over Owen, sweat cooling upon all of them.
“I,” Gillian announced, sleepily, “am sore all over my body, and very satisfied about it.”
Ashton grunted in recognition. Owen, feeling it incumbent upon himself to say something since Gillian’s face was next to his, managed a more articulate grunt.
Gillian, moved by a sudden surge of love, lifted her body far enough to kiss Owen on the cheek. She fell back with a wince and a rueful “Ouch,” as Owen turned his head towards the kiss too late.
Ashton, hearing this if not watching it, chuckled.
Gillian tried to turn over to kiss Ashton, but stopped halfway, lying on her back with a rueful moan of pain that made Ashton, chastened, begin to apologise.
“Apologise for nothing!” Gillian ordered. “I will heal, but I am overjoyed to say the memories will linger. And do not doubt we will be doing that again!”
“I am your humble servant,” Owen managed.
Ashton chuckled, a leer in his voice. Gillian, showing remarkable aim as she reached up without looking, tweaked one of his nipples sharply, producing a yelp of surprise.
“We shall make each of us servants,” she said meaningfully. “That did not proceed according to my plan. I was fully intending to take control, not have it taken completely from me. Don’t think I’m complaining, but don’t think I will not demand the opposite.”
This time, they spoke in unison. “We are your humble servants.”