After the Dreams (Caroline's Company)

by Wetherby, Caroline Jane

  ‘They’re good girls, and they really very considerate, and want to take care of you, but they can get a bit carried away sometimes!’

  Cassie nodded again. She remembered the gentle Sylvie of last night, but was still attracted by the flaunting provocative creature on the croquet court.

  ‘Now I’d better get dressed properly if I’m going to be as elegant as you!’

  Caroline went to her chest of drawers, and fetched out some dark stockings. She sat on her dressing stool, and started to pull one up her magnificently moulded and defined right leg.

  ‘I must get some more exercise time next week,’ she remarked. ‘Have you been thinking more about your exercise plan?’

  ‘Jo and Sylvie have given me some new ideas, and so has all the research you started me on. Sadie’s pole dancing lessons seem ... interesting as well.’

  ‘Yes – that’s a good idea. We do have a pole in the gym, but now Sadie’s going to be here more often perhaps we should set it up better. One of Sadie’s friends is coming down from London soon, so she might be able to help you as well, and it’s excellent exercise especially for someone as slim and agile as you are!’

  Caroline stood up and slipped off the thong she had been wearing. Cassie thought that she was pretty slim and agile looking herself with her smooth strong and shapely body clad only in the grip-top stockings.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s not only Sylvie and Sadie who are exhibitionists in this house. But I like people, including myself, to look good with clothes or without.’

  ‘But you’re ... magnificent.’

  Caroline smiled, and tossed her hair behind her in a gesture similar to one Sadie had used earlier. She came forward to Cassie, and again pulled the girls hands against her breasts.

  ‘We just have to arrange it so you can be confident naked as well.’

  Again she put her tongue between Cassie’s lips, and kissed the girl softly. She also pulled Cassie’s right hand away from her left breast, and took it down to her smooth pubic mound. Cassie’s fingers found the warm slippery flesh of her vulva.

  ‘Very good my lovely girl,’ Caroline whispered in Cassie’s ear.

  ‘I’m glad that Sylvie has been teaching you properly.’

  She pulled away, keeping the hands in contact with her for just a moment longer.

  ‘Now I really must get dressed.’

  She pulled a soft silky pair of lacy briefs from a drawer and slipped them on, and went to the long fitted wardrobe with its mirror doors, and pulled out first a long grey dress not unlike Cassie’s, which she discarded, and then what looked like a set of smoky grey silk rags.

  ‘This may be suitably relaxed for this evening.’

  Caroline laid the garment on the floor, and stepped into it carefully. As she pulled it up round herself the rags turned into an elaborate trouser suit pulled into the ankles, with flares of silk loosely flowing down the legs, fitted at the waist, and with a halter top leaving her splendid back bare.

  She put her feet into a pair of wedge heeled mules, rather like those Cassie was wearing, and moved in front of the mirror, with the silk floating round her, showing flashes of her stockinged legs. At her dressing table she quickly but surely lined her eyes in dark grey, applied a grey and silver eyeshadow, and used a transparent gloss on her lips. She fitted silver stars with a pearl in the centre to her ears, and put a thin sliver chain round her neck. It supported a single small pearl that hung down and called attention to the curve of her breasts, clearly displayed by the silken halter.

  ‘What do you think?’ Caroline asked.

  ‘Beautiful. It looks a bit... well... magical.’

  ‘Good, I’m glad you like it. It may get colder later though, so we might need these.’ She took two grey silk wraps from the wardrobe, and passed one to Cassie.

  She flipped the other round her own shoulders, and held it up in front of her face just below her eyes. Cassie thought that she looked even more like a goddess of the evening, her dark eyes flashing over the silk. Caroline giggled, and dropped the veil.

  ‘Will we do, do you think?’

  ‘I think so. You do dress beautifully Caroline.’

  ‘As do you my love. I know I keep telling you, but you have a natural sense of style. We just need to make sure we both have enough wardrobe space! Shall we go down? Those two blonde floozies should have found some supper by now.’

  They walked across the wide landing to the head of the staircase.

  ‘Caroline, there is something I need to tell you about.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I mentioned it to Jo last night, and she said I should tell you.’

  ‘Then you should. Let’s walk out onto the terrace, now the rain has gone.’

  ‘That would be fine. I’m not sure what you can do about it, but Jo said to tell you.’

  ‘Then I’m sure that you should.’

  ‘Thank you Caroline. I am enjoying this party. I hope... hope that I’m not being a nuisance.’

  ‘Nuisance? – of course not. You live here now. I, we, are all delighted that you want to join in with us.’

  ‘It’s ever so much fun.’ Cassie remembered everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours.

  Caroline smiled at the girl.

  ‘You are very, very welcome; as I hope you know.’

  ‘I do, and thank you.’

  As they went down the stairs, and across the hall, there were sounds of activity from the kitchen and a clatter of something being dropped, followed by a loud expostulation from Sadie. ‘She really hasn’t inherited her mother’s domestic skills,’ Caroline remarked with a laugh. ‘Not that she doesn’t have plenty of others.’

  They went out through the deserted drawing room. ‘I’m glad that Fred laid in the fire before he went home.’ There were logs and kindling prepared in the broad fireplace. ‘We can light it later if it gets chilly.’

  They stepped out onto the terrace, and the westering sun covered them with golden light. Beyond the calm pewter of the lake there were still some clouds over the hills, and they were painted in layers of purple and gold. After the rain the air felt washed and clean. The smell of the wet lawn and garden came up to them, and a thrush sang, clear and untroubled in the gentle evening.

  Caroline walked across the stone that still held some of its afternoon warmth, took a deep breath, and stood quietly at the balustrade. Then she turned and took Cassie’s hand. ‘We are fortunate aren’t we?’

  Cassie could only nod in reply. They stood in silence for a few minutes.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It’s about my cousin Lucy, Lucinda is her proper name but she’s always called Lucy. She’s a second or third cousin really, but we were quite close when we were growing up. She had just finished her degree in London when Mum got ill, and she helped a lot especially when Dad...’

  Cassie stopped. The summer evening, the freshness after the rain, her new life with her new friends was suddenly no more than a veil over the blackness of that terrible time. The sun was shadowed, the clouds over the hills looked ominous again, and even the thrush had stopped singing.

  Caroline took the girl’s hand in her own and stood with her, looking out over the garden. There was a sharp tapping sound as the thrush beat open a snail. She waited quietly, seeming by her very presence to counter the apparent gloom and the suddenly dark clouds. Cassie, even in the short time she had been here, knew that she could rely on her strength and her kindness.

  ‘The last time she came to see us, she said that she had been offered a job in West Africa, for a two year contract. It would be good experience, and paid very well and would help her pay off her student loan. She said she would delay going out if we wanted her to help us more with Mum, but of course Dad and I wouldn’t hear of it.

  So she flew out, and for the first few months there were lots of texts and emails, then they just stopped. We didn’t know what to do. She had left us details of the company she was working for, but when we emailed
them we didn’t get any reply. Then Mum died and Dad...’

  She stopped again, choking with her tears. Caroline took her in her arms, gently holding her until the sobbing subsided.

  The sun had nearly set; the evening star shone out over the lake. The pearls that Caroline wore seemed to shine more strongly in the dusk.

  ‘Then we had better find Lucy, hadn’t we?’

  *****************************

  They stood together in the silence; after a while a gentle music came from the house. A soft piano accompanied a clarinet in a rather fey melody.

  ‘Debussy!’ said Cassie, coming back into the present.

  ‘Jo and Sadie; they often play together when they’re both here. Sadie plays a good Jazz saxophone as well.’

  They stayed and listened for a few more minutes. It was a perfect evening music. Cassie turned to look out to the stars twinkling above the mist over the lake. The stone balustrade was still warm and felt comfortable under her hand. She looked at Caroline, and took her hand again. The velvety notes of the clarinet fell away, and there was a moment of silence. Then there came a burst of applause from inside the house.

  Caroline took both of Cassie’s hands in hers. ‘You must be hungry; the rest of us had tea and cake while you were entertaining us with your amazing croquet.’

  The girl nodded.

  At that moment, the gong sounded from the hall, and Sylvie appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a long cheongsam, with her hair put behind her head; a sophisticated contrast to the fluffy blonde kitten of the croquet match.

  She put her hands together and bowed low. ‘Supper is served.’

  ‘Very good Sylvie, and what have we got for supper?’

  ‘Well there’s soup, and the bread baked this morning, and I made up a stir-fry using some of the beef from yesterday, once I’d stopped Sadie from dropping things that is; and there’s cheese and fruit, and a new sorbet that Belle made before she went home. It’s all laid out in the dining room, but we thought people could eat where they liked.’

  ‘Good, we’ll be in a moment.’

  Sylvie put her hands together bowed again, and retreated backwards into the house. Her graceful Chinoiserie style was somewhat disrupted when she tripped over her long silk skirt, and some rather basic English words could be heard on the terrace.

  Caroline and Cassie laughed.

  ‘Do you mind eating with all the others, or shall we find somewhere by ourselves?’

  Cassie shook her head. ‘I’ll be fine now thank you; and I am a bit hungry.’

  ‘Let’s go in. I suspected that Sadie had been banished from the kitchen. That’s why she was playing her clarinet. But she does play well, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, very beautifully. She must practice a lot. People here seem full of surprises.’

  ‘Including yourself young lady.’ Caroline kissed her gently on the forehead’

  They went through the hall into the dining room, their grey silk floating around them, revealing glimpses of smooth skin, and with magical glints of silver and pearl.

  John and Philip stood up as they entered. Philip took Cassie’s hand and kissed it gently. ‘You look like the evening star Cassandra; and here is our Goddess of Stars and Light and Storms and everything else round here!’ He kissed Caroline’s hand as well. ’Did you summon the thunder especially to provide a dramatic end to the afternoon Caroline?’

  ‘Even if I could Philip, you would take the prize for drama, you and Poppy, for your performance this morning!’ She took a glass of champagne from John, who was acting as butler. ‘To Poppy and Philip,’ she said. Everybody responded.

  ‘And to Cassie and Janet’, proposed Philip, ‘Victors of the croquet lawn’, and again there was a response from everyone.

  ‘And what about us,’ asked Sadie? ‘We had to work hard to provide entertainment!’

  ‘Attempted distraction and subversion you mean’ returned John. ’Not in the spirit of croquet at all! It was fun to watch though.’ He raised a glass to his wife.

  ‘Never mind,’ Caroline pointed at Sadie and Sylvie; ’You two will get your reward when Cassie puts her secret plan into action.’

  ‘We’ll get her to tell us though,’ Sylvie said in an undertone.

  ‘You will tell us won’t you Cassie?’

  Cassie smiled an ostentatiously satisfied little smile. ‘No,’ she took a sip of champagne. ‘It’s secret!’

  Jo was impressed by how far Cassie’s confidence had built in only a few days. ’But before those two get their just desserts, please could we start with the soup. I’m hungry.’

  *****************************

  When they had all finished eating, Cassie volunteered to help Sylvie and Sadie with the clearing up. They did keep trying to get from her the secret of what their punishment was to be; but they were light-hearted and not serious. Apart from a certain amount of giggling, and chasing round the kitchen table to the accompaniment of a vigorous (and sometimes rather arrythmical) piano duet coming from the music room, nothing untoward occurred and nothing was broken. This, according to Sylvie, was something of a record with Sadie in the kitchen. Sadie had stuck out her tongue at this comment, and gone off to pack up her clarinet.

  Once the musical entertainment (and Cassie was rather surprised to find that it was provided by Poppy and Janet) had finished, and after speculation by everybody else as to who had won the duet, they gathered in the big drawing room. The fire had been lit, although the big doors still stood open. A breath of evening air mingled with the gentle perfume of the apple logs burning on the grate. At supper they had discussed watching a detective mystery later in the evening; with a suitable prize for the first to work out who the murderer was. Janet claimed that John was very good at doing this. They couldn’t agree on the prize though, and any potential winner would probably have risked being murdered themselves!

  In the event, they all talked quietly in the firelight.

  Cassie went out to the terrace to look at the stars. Jo went to follow her, but Caroline pulled her back. They stood for a moment framed in the doorway, looking at the slender grey figure half visible against night sky. Aphrodite the cat, waving her long tail, joined the girl, who stooped down with a small cry of delight, picked the cat up, and rubbed her cheek on the soft black fur.

  ‘She’s doing very well,’ Caroline whispered to Jo.

  ‘And she will do even better, you know she will.’

  The blonde woman and the dark kissed each other briefly.

  When Cassie came back inside, Janet made space the sofa between her and John and pulled Cassie between them.

  ‘You look very cold,’ Janet whispered. ‘You shouldn’t have gone outside again, especially after you were in the water for so long this afternoon.’

  ‘At least she went in to the water wanting to swim. Other people wanted to make more of a splash!’ John was protected from his wife’s physical response by Cassie’s presence between them. He asked quietly ‘Did you tell Caroline about Lucy?’ Cassie nodded.

  ‘I have to spend some time in Africa when I make my next overseas trip. I might be able to help. I’ll let Caroline know when I’m going.’

  ‘That’s kind of you. But really...’

  ‘I’m only too happy to help. We know you’ve had a difficult time, and of course we’ll help if we can, won’t we Janet?’

  ‘Of course we will,’ Janet pulled Cassie closer to her; ’and if you can play croquet like that we might be able to take on Caroline next time I come.’

  ‘You might be too busy to play croquet next time you come,’ her husband responded in a slightly mischievous tone.

  Janet cuddled into Cassie and, for once, stayed silent.

  *****************************

  When Cassie awoke next morning, there was a blonde head on the pillows to each side of her. There was an arm over her chest and another over her tummy. When she stretched out there were contented little sighs from both sides of her. What woke her though, wa
s a tickle of feline whiskers on her face. Aphrodite mewed softly at her, and jumped down from the bed.

  Cassie gradually remembered the previous evening. After the two married couples had left, Caroline and Jo had been standing in front of the fire. Caroline had smiled at Cassie, and made a little complicated sign to Sylvie. Sylvie had gone to her mistress, kissed her hands, untied the silken halter of her suit, and helped the wisps of silk clear of her body (and the fire!). Sadie had performed a similar service for Jo. Cassie had thought she should leave at that point, and made her way quietly upstairs.

  She had sat down on her dressing stool and was taking off her earrings when there was a quiet tap on the door, and Sylvie and Sadie slipped into the room.

  ‘Everybody else has got somebody, so we didn’t want you to be lonely; but if you want to be by yourself, we’ll quite understand. And don’t worry about Sadie’s ... little abnormality. I’ll keep her under control and we won’t embarrass you.’ To prevent Sadie making any reply she had kissed her briefly, and then kissed Cassie much more languorously. ‘You do look lovely in that grey you know. Is that Caroline’s necklace?’ She had helped Cassie off with her jewellery, and after a little pause that could have been awkward, had just slipped out of her cheongsam (she wore nothing underneath) shaken her hair free, and pulled both Cassie and Sadie onto the bed with her.

  Cassie could remember a great confusion of arms and legs and lips and breasts. She could remember being mounted by Sylvie while Sadie rubbed her breasts over chest and her mouth. After they had collapsed all together, Sylvie had asked in a gently murmur if she would mind if Cassie would mind if she, Sylvie, took care of Sadie as well. She slipped Sadie out of her thong (which out of concern for Cassie, Sadie had been wearing up to that point) and enjoyed herself with the second ‘abnormality.’ All the time she kept one hand on Cassie and kept placing Cassie’s hands on her and Sadie’s breasts.

  The second climax involved all three of them, and after that they subsided into a magical warm time of kissing and cuddling; broken only when Sadie slipped out the bathroom. When she came back she had her thong on again.