by Brown, Em
As Act II drew to a close, the footman delivered a note to Vale. He glanced at Harrietta, whose gaze had not drifted from the stage for a second, before opening the note. It was from the Countess D’Alessio, apparently in attendance as well. Act II ended with the character of the Countess fainting in distress.
“What superb performances!” Harrietta exclaimed. “What beautiful voices! It were an experience beyond what I could have imagined.”
“The arias in the final two acts are even more lovely,” Vale told her, then excused himself to pay a visit to an old friend and promised to bring back refreshments.
But he returned to an empty box. He asked the attendant where the Marchioness had gone.
“Her ladyship felt ill of a sudden and thought it best not to stay,” the man informed him. “She asked me to convey to your lordship that there would be no need to worry of her and to enjoy the rest of the performance.”
At first Vale thought that perhaps Harrietta had seen him with the Countess D’Alessio and become upset, but he felt the blood drain from his face when he realized the truth. Harrietta was headed to Madame Botreaux’s.
Chapter Five
“THERE IS A WOMAN WAITING for you in the last alcove,” Vale was informed by Lance upon his arrival at the Cavern.
Vale cursed. He had hurried from the opera as fast as he could, shedding his silken clothes for his customary attire at the Cavern: linen breeches, black boots, and his black and silver mask.
“Is she not the one—is she not your wife?” Lance asked, confused.
“We shall see the last of her here tonight,” Vale told him before striding down to the assembly floor and toward the alcove that he and Harrietta had occupied the night before.
She may have found her way here, but it was doubtful that she could have undressed in time. His own undressing had been no easy task. With her stays, corset, petticoats and stockings, she would have required more time and certainly could not have undressed on her own. And even were she to have contrived to remove the gown she had worn to the opera, red was an extremely rare color for clothing. It would be impossible for her to satisfy his third condition.
“Good evening, my lord,” Harrietta greeted.
Standing barefoot in the middle of the room, she was clothed entirely in red.
He stood stunned as he took in the odd garment, draped over her body like a toga from Roman days. He narrowed his eyes. It looked familiar.
“Is that—?” he asked, then quickly assumed the hoarse tone he had adopted previously to disguise his voice. “Is that a drapery?”
“You did not specify the material, only the color, my lord,” she answered.
She must have had help from someone. Her maid Sarah, perhaps? Vale clenched his jaw. Damnation. He had not expected to find himself here—and just as he was starting to enjoy the opera. He paced around her, trying to sort his thoughts. He had to put an end to this.
“You did not think I would come,” she observed, a small triumphant smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
“Do not speak unless spoken to,” he responded, irritated by his lack of preparation for this situation while impressed that she had managed to satisfy his three conditions. But she would see this was no place for her. She did not understand the world of the Cavern. He had but to show her a glimpse and she would want nothing more to do with it.
“Disrobe,” he commanded.
She hesitated.
“Failure to comply will merit you the crop.” He slapped the riding crop into his palm for effect.
Wordlessly, she looked about the curtain for the pins and unhooked as many as she could. The garment fell off her shoulders, exposing her breasts. She quickly covered them with her arms, but with his crop, he nudged her arms away. In the dim candlelight of their alcove, he saw the luster of her skin. He suppressed the urge to feel its silkiness.
“Continue,” he ordered.
Her hands rested on the pins about her waist. She paused.
“Do not keep me waiting, ma petite,” he warned her.
With a surge of resolve, she discarded the remaining pins. The whole of her garment fell to the floor, and all of her was laid bare. Her hips flared in womanly fashion, her arse was arched high, her thighs supple, and the patch of hair above her mons charming. Vale wondered if this was the first time she had stood naked before a man. If so, that man ought to have been her husband.
Her chest rose and fell with quick breaths. Her unease was palpable, and Vale made no effort to relieve it.
“Caress yourself,” he instructed.
Her voice waivered. “My lord?”
“Arouse your nipples.”
She hesitated.
“Now!”
Startled, she put her hands to her breasts and flicked her forefingers about her areolas until her nipples hardened into pebbled points. She stared down at herself as if astonished that her body would react in the way that it did.
I can help you discover more than you ever thought possible with your body, Vale said silently, then pushed the thought from his mind. He had a task to execute.
“Do you pleasure yourself?” he asked.
Her cheeks burned. “My lord?”
“If I am to repeat every word, our evening here together will not go well. Do you bring pleasure to your body?”
“Yes,” she mumbled.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“How?” He stepped nearer to her and said in a low voice over her shoulder into her ear. “How do you pleasure yourself?”
“I...I touch myself.”
“Where?”
“I reach between my legs,” she murmured reluctantly. The heat in her face was rising.
“Where between the legs, ma petite?”
“The pubis area.”
“Be more specific.”
She grimaced, then forced out the words. “There is a nub of flesh...”
“Ah, you mean the clitoris.”
She nodded.
“And what do you do to it?”
“I stroke it.”
“With what?”
“My fingers.”
Vale took in a deep breath. It felt warm in the Cavern tonight. He pulled over a bench and set it before her. The bench was unlike any other, so thin one had to straddle it. The back was simply a cross upon which one’s arms could be affixed.
“Demonstrate. You may sit if you wish.”
Her eyes widened beneath her mask, but she made her way to the bench and sat down upon it gingerly as if it might come to life and bite her in the arse.
“You are a quick study,” he said approvingly when she made no protest.
Leaning his back against the wall, he folded his arms and waited. She shifted about restlessly but eventually parted her thighs. Vale glimpsed the supple folds of her pussy and watched intently as she slid a finger down toward her clitoris. She stroked herself there a few times, then looked up at him as if finished.
“Can you make yourself spend?” he inquired.
“I think not...it is a most private act, my lord.”
“Try.”
She looked about herself helplessly, though what she expected to find to assist her in the sparse alcove he could not guess. Again her finger slid down, and she stroked herself some more.
“Spread your legs wider.”
He could sense her humiliation and felt a pang of regret, but he had to persist. She had to leave in fear or disgust if she were to never return.
She obeyed and even leaned against the back of the bench. He gazed at the whiteness of her thighs. They were among his favorite parts of the female body. A quick flick of the crop against the inner thigh usually drew a gasp from the subject. Its proximity to that ultimate prize of womanhood made it rich with possibility.
He waited patiently—longer than he had waited for anyone, but he could tell Harrietta was no nearer to spending. He wanted her to spend, wanted her to enjoy her body. There had been women who coul
d practically bring about their orgasms with thoughts alone, and here he was with a novice who might as well have been reading her catechisms for all that she was accomplishing at the moment. He yearned to help her, and not just because he was reminded that she was Harold’s sister.
“Desist,” he told her before removing from the wall a collar and leash.
“What is that for?” she asked.
“Did I ask that you speak?”
Standing before her, he attempted to clasp the collar about her neck, but she shied away.
“I will not wear such a thing,” she declared.
“You are trying my patience, ma petite.”
“For what purpose would I wear a collar and leash?”
“Here in the Cavern, you will abide by my dictates. If you cannot, you are free to leave. You always have that choice.”
She knit her brows. He waited, hopeful that she would choose to leave. But she did not. She straightened herself and lifted her chin to allow him access to her neck, almost defying him to put the collar about her. No matter, Vale thought to himself. He was about to test the limits of her tolerance and propriety.
“Come with me,” he said.
HARRIETTA FINGERED the collar with reservation. What had she placed herself into? She found some consolation in remembering that Charlotte had been a frequent visitor to the Cavern and had said no one came to any harm despite appearances. Especially in masterful hands. And the man in black and silver was supposed to be among the most masterful. She followed him into the general assembly area.
This was even more humiliating than fondling herself in front of him, Harrietta decided, being led about on a leash as if she were a bitch. She wondered that she had chosen to be here with this man when she could have been listening to the beautiful strains of Mozart with her husband. She had been enjoying her time with Vale. He had entertained all her questions during the carriage ride and before the performance began, explaining points of interest and the history behind the theatre. As curious as she was about the ways of the Cavern, its appeal had diminished in her time with Vale.
Until she had seen her husband in the box of the Countess D’Alessio.
During the intermission, Lady Falconet had stopped by to mention a little soirée she was hosting.
“I should very much like to extend you an invitation,” Alexandra had said. “You strike me as quite a kindred spirit, and I do pride myself on my judgment of people. I can tell by your milieu that you are someone with whom I wish to become better acquainted. I fear, however, that Dunnesford may not approve.”
She scanned the amphitheatre with her quizzing glass. “Ah, there he is with the Countess D—”
Alexandra paled and quickly switched the direction of her gaze. “There is some history, alas, betwixt your husband and my brother. But I do not see that that should thwart a friendship between the two of us.”
But it was too late. Harrietta had seen the box of the Countess D’Alessio and Vale was indeed present there. The Countess was a beautiful woman with raven hair, large sparkling eyes, and an enviable figure. It should come as no surprise that Vale would have such a mistress. Harrietta was no comparison, and it was at that moment she decided she would return to the Cavern. She had already put in place her plans with the aid of Charlotte’s maid, who apparently knew all about her mistress’ proclivities and escapades. Charlotte’s carriage had been waiting on Drury Lane with the draperies she had pilfered from one of the unused bedrooms, and with a heady triumph she had arrived at Madame Botreaux’s with minutes to spare.
“You asked the purpose of the collar,” he said. “It is to show that you are my submissive, and I your master. No one else is allowed to approach you lest I grant them permission. You belong to me.”
She stared at him, her heart hammering as his words sunk in. She was his submissive? His property? Was that meant to be appealing? Charlotte had thought so. Harrietta understood it from a corporal sense. The man was a striking specimen of the male species. His tight breeches molded to his buttocks and thighs. He looked like one of the nudes that Charlotte liked to paint. But a master—or, rather, her master? She was unsure she could tolerate that, for she believed not any man deserved complete dominance over a woman, not even a husband over his wife.
“What you are about to witness,” his lordship continued, “will do much to determine if you are suitable for Madame Botreaux’s.”
He walked over to another alcove where a woman was on her knees and hands, her head bent over the boot of a man. She lapped his boot like a grateful dog.
“You frown,” his lordship noted of the distaste in Harrietta’s countenance, “but everyone here chooses to be here of his or her own free will. Not a one is forced into submission.”
Harrietta glanced at his lordship. Would he make her lick his boot? Somehow she didn’t think he would. She could not explain why, but she sensed a generosity of spirit in him.
They walked to the next alcove where one man was chained to a post in front of him. He had on a strange contraption of steel about his cock. A masked woman wearing only a corset and shoes wielded a flogger upon him.
“Thank you, mistress,” the chained man said after the woman had struck at his crotch.
That must have been hellishly painful, Harrietta thought to herself, remembering the time that she and Harold were playing cricket and the ball had been hit straight into his groin. Harrietta shivered for the man being flogged, yet her body was growing warm.
As if reading her mind, his lordship said in a low voice near her ear, “Pain and pleasure can often be one.”
She had fantasized about the possibility but was unsure whether she could handle it. Was it only for deviants or could she, too, experience pleasure from such things?
“Would his lordship care to sample my submissive?” the mistress asked upon seeing them.
The small gasp that escaped from Harrietta seemed to determine the mind for her ‘lord.’ He walked over to accept the flogger from the mistress. The flogger landed on the bound man with a sharp sound that split the air. The submissive groaned in agony.
“Thank you, master,” the man said between clenched teeth.
The mistress came to stand next to Harrietta.
“No one brandishes a flogger or crop as well as your master,” the woman said, then ran her tongue along her lower lip as she watched the flogger land on the brawny buttocks of her submissive.
Harrietta watched in astonishment as her ‘lord’ reached in front of the submissive to grab the man by his scrotum. The submissive roared as his balls were twisted and squeezed. More astonishing was the pulsing she felt between her legs. She wished the lighting were better, but she could tell from the silhouettes that both men had splendid bodies. The nakedness of one and the near nudity of the other, their bodies so close together, was more provocative than she could have imagined.
Her ‘lord’ administered the flogger without relinquishing his grip on the other man’s sac. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but Harrietta thought the bulge between her ‘lord’s legs had grown.
“Beg him to take you,” the mistress commanded.
“Take me, I beg of you, take me,” the submissive croaked, pulling a little at his chains.
Her ‘lord’ unbuttoned his breeches and a long thick cock sprung out. He spit into his palm, rubbed it along his shaft and pushed himself into the arse before him. The submissive wailed at being impaled upon her ‘lord’s cock. His mistress strode over, grabbed him by the jaw, and pushed her tongue into his mouth. Harrietta watched the three bodies writhing, feeling her own body flushing from head to toe, content in her role of voyeur yet wishing she could be a party to their bacchanal somehow.
The submissive groaned into his mistress’s mouth as she continued to lap at him. His legs shook and his body began jerking between the post and the equally hard body behind him. He bellowed as he spent. When the twitching of his body had subsided, her ‘lord’ pulled away from him, his cock still hard. He pul
led up his breeches and directed his gaze at Harrietta. Her flush intensified under his stare, wondering if he had other plans for that formidable erection of his.
“I hope you will pay us another visit,” the mistress purred to his lordship as she ran a hand down his bare chest. She stared at his crotch and licked her lips once more. “I should be happy to be of service to you.”
His lordship smiled but made no comment. Instead he motioned for Harrietta to approach. They walked back towards their own alcove, past an area where a woman had a cock buried in her mouth while her cunt was being serviced by another woman.
“Have you ever tasted or been tasted by another woman?” his lordship asked her.
She felt prickles on her skin. “No.”
He touched the riding crop to her leg.
“No, my lord,” she added hastily.
“Ever wonder what it would be like?”
“I...I read a passage once in Fanny Hill.”
“You read Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure?” he asked in disbelief.
“I came upon a copy my brother had hidden in his room.”
“How would you feel if I asked you to lick the cunnie of another woman?”
The flush filled her cheeks and went down her neck.
“I know not—my lord.”
“Then we must find an answer for you.”
He led her back to their alcove and bade her sit on the bench once more.
“Pleasure yourself,” he commanded.
Wordlessly, she leaned back, spread her legs, and began to finger her clitoris. The area about her quim was already warm, and it was not long before she provoked that gnawing tingling sensation both pleasant and frustrating. She looked at his lordship, but she could read no expression upon his face, could not tell if he approved or disapproved. And yet his intense gaze was...titillating. She felt wanton, defiant, and free. She would never have thought it possible to be so bold as to masturbate in front of someone—a stranger, no less.
And her climax came. Upon that hard narrow bench, her body quivered. She closed her eyes and allowed the glorious feelings to wave over her body. When she felt her body settling back into a normal state with a contented sigh, she opened her eyes and waited for his lordship’s response.