by Noelle Mack
Through the walls we heard the client enter, accompanied by the woman who would prepare him for the session. I looked at him through the transparent mirror on the wall. He gazed straight at me but of course saw only himself.
Good-looking and well-dressed, he seemed nervous. The woman with him took his clothes as he removed them, revealing a muscular body that made Anne's eyes sparkle. He was not unlike me, perhaps a year or two younger, but blond and blue-eyed. His attendant asked him to squat over a low bath, slapping his dangling cock in the water until it rose up, dripping. He seemed to enjoy it, but he had to struggle to keep his balance. Then she washed his cock and balls vigorously and rudely, using strong soap and a rough cloth.
He was already fully erect and his cock was enormous. The woman concentrated her attentions upon his buttocks next, scrubbing his pale skin until it glowed. Then she wrapped the washcloth around one finger and jammed it into his arsehole repeatedly.
The man flinched but sighed with pleasure.
"I assure you that he has asked for this," Anne whispered to me. "The rough scrubbing and strong soap make his buttocks more sensitive, and he will enjoy his whipping more.”
I shrugged. I did not share his sexual tastes, but I suspected that what I was about to see would intrigue me.
Anne dropped a kiss upon my hair, and went out the door of the hideaway. I settled down to see what would happen next, and poured myself a glass of whiskey. She would make an entrance in good time—right now the woman with the blond man led him to the English horse, a padded contraption rather like a ladder whose use Anne had explained to me.
The client's wrists and hands could be strapped to it; his cock and balls toyed with or punished through an opening in the front. The client's face was also provided with an opening, perhaps to view the erotic play of women or men or both, and the chin rested on a padded rail. The horse could be adjusted to different heights, depending on the man, or even bent in half, for those with a very strong appetite for humiliation.
Our man had chosen to be bent over. The woman who had bathed him fastened the straps around his ankles first and then his wrists, leaving his hands relatively free. He was able to move but not much. He seemed restless, but then being forced to wait was part of his pleasure.
At that moment Anne entered. The man's eyes lit up at the sight of her, but she looked at him with scorn. She walked slowly around him, letting him look his fill at her bare behind and jutting breasts. He would not be permitted to touch either, but she might rub both in his face if she felt like it. Her voice low, she requested a set of hempen ropes that had been set to one side, which the other woman handed to her.
"You have asked to be tied. Understand that I am not gentle.”
"I do not wish you to be gentle, mistress, " he said. "I want to be made to obey. Command me as you will.”
Anne went in back of him, spreading his legs by pressing her booted foot to his bare one and pushing it away from the other. The touch, the first she had granted him, made him grab the sides of the horse to steady himself. Knowing what he was about to get made him tremble.
She came around again and put her behind an inch away from his face.
"Please, mistress. Please push back, " he whispered.
Luxuriously and slowly, Anne ground her naked buttocks against his face. He pressed kisses upon her silky skin, again and again. Then she straightened and went about the interesting business of humiliating him further.
My love made a loop in one of the ropes and placed it around his balls. Slowly, letting him enjoy the rasp of the hemp, she drew it into a tight circle. His balls looked even bigger. She tugged at the rope, securing the ends to a ring on the wall behind him.
Then she went to the side of the horse to reach through the opening and grabbed his huge cock, looking calmly at his face. He strained and bucked, held in place by the ball-encircling rope knotted through the wall ring, trying to control himself and not ejaculate too soon.
Anne made the horse rock. His balls bulged. She gave him another good face-grinding that left him breathless with lust, before she turned to pull down his foreskin. With delicate malice, she pressed the fine edges of her fingernails into the throbbing head. The sensation thrilled him—the blond man moaned with delight.
She made a loop in another piece of rope and placed this just under the head, tying the two ends to either side of the horse so that his cock was precisely in the middle and immobilized. Then she picked up a bundle of slender twigs.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
"Yes, mistress, " he whispered.
She went in back of him once more, and gave him a whipping that could only be described as elegant. Many of her clients would return home to wives who knew nothing of the time they spent here, and the stripes they received could not be too harsh. The birching Anne administered was measured accordingly, and she reserved the most intense whipping for the part that showed the least: his balls.
His legs were spread to their utmost to show them properly. She had explained the importance of forcing a client like this to show his cock, balls, arse and arsehole to his mistress upon command and ask humbly for her mistreatment. The sensitive scrotum tightened and turned scarlet from her strokes.
He cried out with gratitude, begging for more, but Anne stopped. The woman who had prepared the man for his session left and came in with another prostitute, Perdita Wilkes, the house favorite because of her wonderfully round behind.
She stood in front of him in stockings and shoes, then bent forward until she could clasp her ankles. All I could see of her was legs and cunny. Perdita's hair tumbled over her shoes and her breasts were pressed against her thighs. Her best feature, her arse, was on full show. Anne came around to whip Perdita next, laying it on lightly but well.
The blond man watched intently, clutching the sides of the horse to steady himself again. He could not move forward or back between the cock ropes and the ball rope in the ring. The pleasure that his bondage gave him was obviously intense.
Anne's fine arse tensed and her jutting breasts bounced with each swish of the birch upon Perdita's quivering behind. I looked at the face of the man strapped to the horse, who was watching both of them with tears in his eyes. He was seconds away from climax. Anne signaled the first woman to birch his arse once more.
She picked up a second bundle and did so, with more vigor than Anne was using on Perdita, whipping fast and well. His muscles bulged as his arms and legs moved involuntarily in the restraints. Perdita straightened and came to kneel in front of him, wrapping her lips around the head of his bound cock and waiting only a moment more.
Screaming with pleasure, birched to orgasm, he came in great spurts that shook his body. Perdita sucked neatly, not missing a drop, aided by the tight bondage that prevented him from gagging her with wild thrusts.
Anne smiled and patted the blond man's face, wiping his tears of ecstasy away. Her voice was soothing, but I could not quite hear the words. Her manner toward him was entirely professional and I felt no jealousy... only arousal. To be bound and whipped was not my pleasure, yet I found that watching it was incredibly stimulating.
Her conduct toward her client was dominating, true, but not unkind. His submissiveness, his admiration of her, had echoes of my own feelings for her at a much younger age. His intense pleasure and explosive release was glorious to watch. Bound and thoroughly birched, he no doubt was thinking back to the woman, whoever she was, who had first excited him in this way.
Anne had given him precisely what he wanted.
But punishment of this sort was not all that my love provided in the way of entertainment. Nor did she care to work that hard. The more ingenious women devised scenarios of their own, and the loyal clientele kept coming back for more. Other women flocked in to get their share of the work: Belle Symonds, an experienced procuress, Emma Dighton, the former mistress of a great duke, and the female known only as Mrs. Peek, whose ripped clothes earned her a small fortune. B
ut they were outdone by a new girl who had lately joined the house. She charged the highest price of all.
I had no opportunity to see her in action—her chamber had no closet in which to hide or an adjacent room. Anne told me only that her name was Kitty, and would not otherwise satisfy my curiosity about the newcomer.
But one day, after we had withdrawn to our own chamber and I had satisfied her six ways from Sunday with my cock, my mouth, and my hands, she at last permitted me to visit Kitty, whose last client for today had left.
With some trepidation—was Anne testing my love for her?—I agreed to, if she would accompany me. I was curious as to what sort of reception I would get. Prior to Kitty's arrival, I had been readily accepted by the other women as Anne's fancy-man, to use their phrase. They knew almost nothing about me besides my first name and they asked no questions. Like Anne, they seldom left the house, and that was true of Kitty as well.
Relaxed from our lovemaking and perhaps a bit giddy, we abandoned our treetop chamber and went down the stairs. She made the introductions, not bothered by the girl's near nudity. Even in her house, the most expensive establishment of its kind in London, the women were not always dressed. It was not the sort of business that required it.
I nodded politely and entered the room, turning around when I heard Anne say good-bye. She went down the stairs with quick steps.
Her silent message was clear: I trust you.
Looking again at Kitty, I marveled at her beauty. Her hair was jet black, cut like a boy's but with a jagged edge. Her eyes were an odd shade of green and tilted at the corners, with a soft expression. It was no wonder that she had been nicknamed Kitty—she looked very much like a cat.
"Hello.” The one word had as soft a quality as her unusual eyes. I tried not to stare. Her bare breasts were high and her hips were narrow. Yet when she had moved to welcome us to her room I had noted an alluring and very feminine curve to her buttocks. She wore very little: black silk mitts that covered her hands but not her fingers and black half-boots, and a tiny triangle of strapped silk to cover her quim. It only made her look more naked.
There was a half-bath in the corner where she must have just bathed herself. I caught no musky whiff of sex about her person. Unconcernedly, she walked to her bed and sat down. I chose a chair near it. What was I to do? She smiled at me and I smiled back.
"I suppose Mistress Anne brought you to my room to tempt you, " she said matter-of-factly.
My mouth opened and closed again. There was no safe response I could make to that remark. But what if Kitty were right? It was a test I would have to pass, for I loved Anne. I thought of the blond man struggling against the restraints he had requested and wished irrationally that I could be bound to the chair I sat in if I indeed was being tested.
Kitty opened her legs. The black silk triangle was tested too and it failed to cover her. One edge of it slipped inside her cunny. The wanton girl pulled on the thin straps until all of the black silk was folded within her folds.
She rose from the bed and used the little thing to masturbate. It must have been soaked with her sweet juice, but I dared not touch her and find out. The mitts on her hands drew my eyes to the slender fingers and what they were exploring. She held and stroked her clitoris, reaching an orgasm quite quickly that did not seem feigned.
Ignoring me for the moment, she sauntered over to her vanity table. There was a diamond clip upon it, small but pretty, a present from a wealthy client perhaps. She opened it and put it into her hair, as if she had forgotten all about the cunny she had just stimulated to climax and the man who had watched her do it.
I took the opportunity to look at her beautiful arse. Then I noticed she was watching me in the mirror and felt like a fool. I moved my gaze to her face, detecting for the first time a glittering instability in her eyes. Her youth and her air of innocence had deceived me at first.
But I would not give in. All the same, I could see why she charged the most. It was not so much what she could do, but rather who she was: an unknowable girl with a dangerous edge.
Kitty stopped what she was doing and flung herself back upon the bed. The sight of her in boots, and the white legs she kicked so freely was giving me a hellish erection.
"Would you like to see what I do for my clients?" she asked.
"Why not?" I hoped my voice was calm. Inwardly I was not. I would look a far bigger fool if I had to hang on to the chair to keep from touching her.
She walked away from me and brought over a tray that had been placed upon the table. I had noticed it as I came in, assuming she'd had tea brought up for her refreshment. But there was only cream in a small jug and a flowered saucer, rimmed with white.
This she set upon the floor a little distance away from me, pouring the cream into the saucer. She kneeled before it, then bent over to lap the cream with her tongue. The pose spread her buttocks open and I could see... well, what one sees there. Her flesh seemed very new indeed, tight and untried.
She took her time about drinking her cream, but she eventually sat up.
"Very pretty, " I said. "Do your clients like to watch that?"
"Very much. I had a tail made, a long one, of fur. The short end of it is leather. That goes in my arsehole. Some men like to put it in for me as I lick up my cream.” She rose from the floor, stroking her bare skin in a self-satisfied way. "And I will show you what else they like."
She went back to the vanity table and sat upon it, staring at herself in the mirror. She began to play with her high breasts, fondling herself gently. It was her look of absorption that was so erotic—it was very like happening upon a girl in the first throes of awakening sensuality, alone in bed perhaps. A girl who had no idea that anyone watched her.
My cock ached painfully. She rose and put one knee upon the vanity stool, then picked up a slender glass bottle. It held perfume but she did not spray herself with the fringed bulb attached for this purpose. No, she merely flicked the fringe at her cunny, smiling down at the hidden flesh she stimulated in such a feminine way.
Then she squeezed the bulb. A puff of sweet-smelling mist wetted the inside of her thigh and the perfume trickled down her skin. "Some men like me to hold their head between my thighs, " she whispered. "Very tightly. So they can hardly breathe. Then Mistress Anne tickles their arses for them. She is very good at it.”
Was she expecting me to agree? It was not known that Anne had permitted me to watch the blond man be tickled, as Kitty put it. And I had not known that Anne and Kitty worked together. But perhaps the girl was lying. Her artless demeanor made it more likely than not.
I thought of Lord Caringdel, whose degenerate tastes were notorious, and his procurer, the infamous Bowles. His lordship would love a girl as strange as Kitty. No doubt she would love him back, for the right amount of money. And then there was Lord Aspinall, who was worse than Caringdel and Bowles put together... He had probably tried to suffocate himself between her thighs already.
She walked idly back toward the bed, untying the straps that held the black silk triangle in place. Then she sat down and spread her legs again. She put her finger against her cunny and tried to put it in.
"I am a virgin," she said. "If I pressed very hard, my finger would go in, but that bit of skin commands the highest price of all."
How she had retained it this long was a mystery. Her manner was hard, for all the youthful freshness of her face and body. I heard Anne come in behind me and was grateful that my erection had waned. A shift in my seated position and there would be no evidence that my time with Kitty had aroused me at all.
Kitty sprang up and ran to Anne, kissing her full on the lips. "He does love you. He would not touch me."
Anne only nodded at the girl, evading her embrace. She looked at me, a wry smile teasing the corners of her mouth. "Edward, come away. I want to talk to you."
I rose and made a half-bow to Kitty, vowing to myself to avoid her in the future. She stared at me and again I saw her eyes glit
ter. She was a very strange girl indeed.
When we were alone, I told Anne that she would do well to be rid of Kitty and why. My dear love cast a level look at me. "I agree that she is half-crazy but she is safe enough with me. But she will not last long, I suspect. She takes opium. In fact, she cannot go without it for more than a few hours."
"Fie, Anne. You must make her stop—she will teach the other girls to use it."
"She already has. Some of them need it. I will not deny them the dreams it induces, or the sleep."
I could not hide my concern, but I said no more.
"She has already been turned out of another house for it, but I will not, Edward. A far worse fate would befall her."
"You are not her mother."
Anne stared at me unflinchingly. "Her mother sold her to me."
"In Christ's name, how could you enter into such a transaction?"
"As I said, there are worse fates." Her voice had an icy edge. "I have not told you everything about my life after we parted, or you would know what they were.”
"Anne...”
"Unmarried women must take care of themselves as best they can.” Her tone was unemotional but her words held a bitter truth. "I must look after her and the others as long as I am able.”
I gentled my voice. "You should not, Anne. Close your doors and come away with me.”
She shook her head. "No. Never. I would ruin you if I did such a thing.”
That night we slept back to back, not in each other's arms. And the next day she told me to leave.
Six
I did not think my peremptory dismissal was permanent. Perhaps it was best that I was forced to return to my routine. My frequent absences had concerned my housekeeper and Mrs. Mayhew's maternal fretting was something I wished to avoid.
I had been gone too often and too long, it seemed. Xavi had been so bold as to send letters to our house. For a courier, she had apparently used the ladies' maid, the English girl. Decimus's description sufficed for me to remember her.