Obsession

by Cathryn Cooper

  Gareth moaned loudly. ‘Keep doing that. Keep playing with my balls like that. Good grief, squib. If I close my eyes, I could almost believe you were a woman.’

  Gareth adopted his own rhythm. At the same time as his hips jerked forwards, he clasped her head more tightly to him, his hand and fingers firm and warm.

  His warmth was in her throat, and as his balls slapped like soft sand paper against her chin, her delighted fingers folded and kneaded the looseness of his skin.

  Fill me, spill your essence into me! Such demands were only in her mind, and yet, just thinking them seemed to act upon the urgency of his thrusts, the rising of his semen up through its long, hot duct.

  Like warmed milk that tingles with nutmeg, the first spurt shot into the back of her throat. With less powerful pulses, the last few drops lay like slopped cream on her tongue. His fingers gripped her head as he jerked and spasmed until every throb had left his body. At last, his penis lay spent, but still hot and latently virile on her tongue.

  Without meeting his eyes or saying anything, he slid out of her and turned away.

  Strangely enough, she didn’t feel used. In an odd way, she felt powerful and knew this would happen again - at her whim as much as his.

  He still didn’t look at her as he spoke. ‘I’ll do nothing about your own needs, mind. I’ve no urge for men’s bodies. I like women. I’ve always liked women. You should too. Do you, young squib?’

  Katie thought of Phoebe. ‘Yes! Yes. I do.’

  Gareth pulled back the bedclothes on his own bed which was wider and had the benefit of the light from the window. It also had full headroom, high enough even for him.

  With a grin and a brief glance, he turned to her. ‘You sound very convinced about that. How many women have you had so far, young squib?’

  Katie waited until Gareth’s enjoyable and naked body had slid beneath the bedclothes before she answered.

  Again, Phoebe sprang to mind. So did her days at the finishing school in Switzerland, days spent in so-called social studies that had wider out of school curriculum than their tutors could ever have dreamed of ‘A couple.’

  Gareth chuckled as he pulled the bedding up over himself and snuggled down into the pillow. ‘I don’t believe you. I think you’re a right little liar, young squib.’

  ‘I need to be. I’ve got a lot of secrets to keep.’

  Seemingly as an afterthought, Gareth suddenly raised himself up on one elbow. ‘If you ever let slip what we’ve just done, young squib, I’ll beat your backside bloody raw and dip your willy in tar and feathers. Now don’t you forget that. Clear?’ His expression left her in no doubt that he meant what he said.

  ‘Clear.’

  He put out the gas light.

  Although her eyelids were aching to be shut, Katie waited until he’d rolled over and turned his back on her. Whilst she waited, she thought of Switzerland and furtive fumblings in narrow beds. Not all her trysts had been with girls. There had been one tutor who had thrilled her eyes and her body. It was from her that she had learned all there was to know about self and reciprocal masturbation.

  She was French, she remembered, and had eyes the colour of bitter chocolate, dark hair, small bones, and a willowy frame. When dressed, she was everyone’s ideal of the chic, sophisticated woman. . When undressed, she was Sappho incarnate.

  Sweet days, she thought to herself, and even sweeter nights.

  It was still a few minutes before she stripped to her shirt and slid into her own bed. Tomorrow, she would have to find time to go to the tea shop and get a message to Phoebe about bringing her some clothes. As yet, how she would do that, she didn’t quite know. All she did know was that Gareth had added a new dimension to her mission - one she was likely to enjoy. Her eyes closed and she was asleep soon after her head touched the pillow.

  In his own bed, Gareth rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. He didn’t feel ashamed of being sucked off by a nubile and very handsome boy, although it was something he’d never done before. But one mouth, he reasoned, was very much like another. It wasn’t that causing him to stare into darkness. What troubled him was that not only had the boy’s eyes, the high cheekbones and the soft red lips aroused him, just the smell and feel of him had provoked the same effect. That was why he’d kept his eyes closed and used only his hand to manipulate the boy’s head to aid his own pleasure. Somehow, he had not wanted to touch the boy anywhere else at all. To do that would have signified, perhaps, that he was something he was not - definitely not. Why, hadn’t he proved it enough times in the summer cornfields, the woods, or even in the hay loft with some farmhand’s daughter, or some wench from the kitchen?

  He eventually fell into a dream-filled sleep, but even his dreams disturbed him. He could see the boy he’d nicknamed squib, could see his eyes, his red mouth, but he could also see his body. But in his dream, the boy had pert breasts, a narrow waist and, although he still had the rounded bottom of a boy, he had the flared hips of a girl. Where the boy’s manhood should be, there was nothing more than a triangle of dark, silky hair that smelt of woman and troubled him greatly.

  Gareth was up and away before she was in the morning, but he had given her a good shake before going.

  ‘Come on, young squib. Thee and I have got work to do. Be down in that stable yard sharpish, or I’ll beat your backside.’

  She did get down in the stable yard on time. Gareth, appearing to be unaffected and unrepentant about what had gone on the evening before, was already there. ‘This way,’ he said, jerking his head towards the yawning archway that led through to the stables. He barely glanced at her. Somehow, she preferred that.

  Before taking her through to the kennels, he talked to her about the horses. There was love in his voice for the great beasts that were now only used for hunting, but he spoke of older days when they’d pulled the coaches of the master of Thompson Towers, ‘Before them shuddering Bentleys, Bugattis and other such stuff came about,’ he said, and spat audibly into the straw.

  As he talked about horses, about cars and about dogs, he never looked at her once. It was almost, she thought, as though he were denying her existence and that anything whatsoever had happened between them. All he wanted her to be was hard-working and discreet. Well she would be, but she would also plot her course towards Carew.

  ‘Does Mister Thompson come down here to inspect his dogs?’ she asked.

  ‘Sometimes. He will today. The ladies might be with him too.’

  ‘Will I have time to get some clothes and things?’ she asked. ‘I only came here with what I’m stood up in, and by tonight I shall smell something rotten.’ Gareth did manage to look at her now, and once he’d looked, he seemed to find it hard not to. But it was .amiable - without judgement and without disdain. ‘Better had. Better let your folks know too. You do have folks, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course I do. I have an aunt. Aunt Phoebe will be very pleased for me. Very pleased indeed.’

  She imagined Phoebe’s face when she found out she’d been designated an aunt. What a scream!

  ‘I can go when I like, can I?’

  Now she brought the full force of her dark grey eyes to thunder at Gareth’s conscience. ‘I’ll be back before supper-time. I will be back in time for bed. I promise you that.’

  Gareth winced and she thought she saw his face colour, but then she’d meant it to. If it did, it was short-lived. He grinned and winked wickedly.

  ‘I bet you will.’

  An urge to touch him came over her, an urge to run her fingers through his untidy cuds, and tell him that she had enjoyed it as much as he had. In fact, she wanted to say, I enjoy it as much as any woman would. But because of her circumstances she could not say that, so she stayed her hand but kept up the pressure.

  ‘Do I need to ask anyone else?’ Her voice was all innocence, all
sweetness, her eyes round and liquid.

  Quickly, as though he were tossing troubling midges from his hair, Gareth shook his head.

  ‘No. I’ll cover for you. Give it a couple of hours, then get going. Get on with that harness whilst you’re at it.’

  Katie wanted to stay until Carew had been down to the stables and the kennels that were housed in the red-brick building behind. Would he be down before she went? He was. He saw her, and smiled warmly.

  ‘Oliver. And how are you today?’

  Katie touched her cap, but did not pull it off.

  ‘I’m well, sir. And yourself?’ She smiled her brightest and looked him full in the face.

  ‘Very well, Oliver. Very well indeed.’

  He coughed nervously and clasped his hands behind his back. Katie, half guessing what he would say, bent back to her work which at this moment in time consisted of cleaning saddles, bridles and other bits of horse harness.

  He glanced briefly at Gareth before he spoke.

  ‘We must get together some time, then you can tell me more about your redoubtable grandfather.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She answered like a servant and acted like a servant, head bent, eyes downcast and hands still busy, except for when she touched her cap.

  ‘Good.’ Again he coughed nervously. ‘And I trust my uncle and aunt have given you no trouble?’

  Faintly smiling, Katie shook her head. ‘No. None at all. I rode that little storm alright, though, with a name like Oliver Tempest, I should be able to shouldn’t I?’

  He laughed and she laughed with him. In that one moment, they crossed their stations in life and she felt him moving closer to her. He paused before saying anything further. Katie concentrated on the leather harness Gareth had told her to clean but, every so often, her cloud grey eyes looked up at Carew from beneath the peak of her cap.

  Carew took a deep breath and smiled back each time she glanced at him. It was as though he were breathing in the scent of the leather, the saddle soap, or perhaps even her body.

  Lashes skimming her cheekbones, she smiled down at the leather, then, her task complete, she got up and purposefully bent down to pick the harness and the saddle soap up from off the bale of straw. The round perfection of her behind, trousers tight to her skin, was but inches from Carew’s groin.

  She fancied he made an effort to step back, but something stopped him from doing so. Perhaps, she thought, he’s thinking of that Parsee woman, her bottom so big and so round as one penis after another pierced her smallest hole.

  It was difficult not to laugh or comment, difficult to maintain concentration. So she parried such reactions and took her time picking up the bits and pieces festooned across the straw bale. Carew would have the benefit of gazing on her behind, catching his breath, and worrying about his own sexual preferences. The story she had told him and the ones she still had to tell were designed to excite, to test, to confuse. What he said to her next convinced her that her plan was working.

  ‘I’m really looking forward to you telling me about your grandfather.’ He said it suddenly and quickly, and also when Gareth had sauntered off to put one of the cleaned saddles away. ‘The question’s been haunting me. You left me in mid-air, you know. I just have to know what happened.’

  Sidelong, she looked at his eyes, then his trousers. So far nothing, but soon, she told herself, very soon, his member would stir in response to her tale.

  ‘Whenever you like, sir.’

  ‘Then I’ll walk the dogs with you,’ Carew said suddenly. ‘And as we walk, you can tell me how your grandfather escaped his tormentors.’

  Katie wiped her grimy hands over her face before she smiled at him. Dirt helped her hide her basic face structure, though so far no one had associated her features with the female rather than the male gender.

  Anyway, she could hardly believe her luck. Here was the man she had sought to master playing right into her hands. And all because she recited a lie as easily as she did the truth.

  Phoebe would be at the tea shop in an hour or two and she really did need to see her. But she had to make the most of any chance to be alone with Carew. With each opportunity, she would seek to ensnare his mind and his body. This was one of those opportunities and she could not afford to miss it.

  She reached for the leather leashes among the bridles and saddles that were her task to clean. ‘I have the leashes here, sir. Shall I tell Gareth there’s no need for him to come with me?’ Her tone was innocent. Even the way she opened her eyes wide and gazed up at him could be termed innocent - if there were not intent behind such a look.

  Carew could not have failed to have been moved by her eyes. But he kept his cool. Admirable, she thought to herself.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice calm but a hint of curiosity in his eyes. ‘Do that.’

  Stretching her arms above her head as though her shoulders were stiff, she strode past the stalls where chestnut, grey and dark brown quarters were whisked at by half-cropped tails. How lean her back must look as she stretched, and how round and enticing her behind and the strutting youthfulness of her legs as she struggled to take the piles of leather to the stables.

  Imagine, she thought, what he is feeling. Imagine the disbelief in his eyes, the twitching of fingers reflecting a hidden need to touch the firm flesh.

  Soon, with the help of the next episode of her erotic tale, he would sense the tingling of her stirring sex which at present she envisaged clasped tight against his groin.• As the pictures she provoked came to life in his mind, his member would rise and his flesh, and even his face would grow hot because the instigator of such reactions was a fresh-faced young boy. How confused she would have him feel, a man who enjoyed and used women, teased by the golden tongue and dramatic eyes of someone he believed to be a boy. What a torment!

  She’d seen Gareth go into the hay barn earlier before Carew had arrived, but he wasn’t there now. The saddle room was equally empty and a fresh breeze blew in from the paddock and a field of golden wheat and red poppies beyond. There was a knot of trees and hedgerow between the paddock and the field. That was where Gareth was, and at his side was someone in a pale lemon dress and she was laughing.

  That, she decided, was where they would walk the dogs.

  She went out of the stable and back to where Carew was knelt beside his happy dogs.

  ‘Gareth’s not around at the moment, sir. But I have left him a message.’ Her manner was more servile than it had been, her eyes downcast and her hands busy gathering up the dog leashes.

  ‘Never mind. We’ll manage.’

  It was by the lilac trees that bordered the white rails of the paddock that Katie let go the leashes of the two dogs she was holding.

  Without questioning her reasons for picking that particular spot, Carew did the same.

  Katie raised her hand and shielded her eyes against the sun which dipped only occasionally behind banks of fluffy white clouds. The dogs ran where she thought they’d run, their black bottoms disappearing as they flattened themselves in the grass and wriggled under the fence.

  ‘Damn!’ shouted Carew. ‘They’ll be in the river and over the weir if we don’t get to them quickly.’

  Carew, suddenly the man and the master, strode forward. One hand on the top rail of the fence, he leapt over it with all the agility of Nijinsky.

  ‘I’m sorry about that, sir. But we’ll get to them. I know we will!’ Katie held onto her cap as she shouted. In her mind, she was wondering just how it was that when gundogs were let off the leash they always headed for the nearest water. It was predictable and, today, very useful to her purpose.

  They did get to the dogs and managed to stop them from jumping like skittish schoolboys into the river.

  To get back to the kennel and stable blocks, they had to climb the bank up from the river and walk back through t
he field of wheat and red poppies.

  Carew grabbed the leashes from her and tied them round a tree. Then he turned his back and returned to the river bank.

  His back was facing her and he appeared to be fumbling around at the front of his trousers. As he showered his relief in the river, Katie sat on her haunches and considered the tightness of his clenched buttocks. It was not, she decided, particularly attractive. In fact, there was something uniquely protective about it. Was there some kind of message in that?

  ‘Now,’ he said to her, buttoning his flies before they both gathered the dog leashes into their hands, ‘tell me how your grandfather escaped from the Thuggee.’

  ‘Well,’ began Katie as she drew on all the fantasies at her command, ‘it was like this. They - my grandfather and the princess - saw more sacrifices over the next couple of days, and not just of women. They also saw men and beautiful young boys sacrificed too.’

  She glanced up at Carew. He nodded grimly and his eyes met hers.

  ‘Did they do the same to the men as they did to the women?’

  Relishing his response and rising to her metier, she nodded. ‘Yes. Especially the younger men - the adolescents with firm, brown bottoms and pretty mouths. They too were sodomised and forced to perform fellatio on their captors. The only mercy they did show was to the prettier boys who they wanted to make last longer so that they could enjoy them more. To make their members slide more easily and the boys experience less pain and resistance on penetration, they inserted clarified butter into their little holes, and spread it round the outside too. But that was their only act of mercy. Once they were filled with their captors libations, they got their throats slit the same as the others.’

  Carew stopped in his tracks and shook his head. ‘Incredible. I’d heard about them from friends in the army. I never knew they could be quite so dreadful but, then again, I’ve never had anyone to tell me about them in such a melodramatic manner. It certainly brings it all to life.’

  Katie smiled. ‘I’m glad you appreciate it, sir. Shall I go on?’