by Various
Marshall understood my objections, but this promotion meant everything to him, and I couldn’t deny him his opportunity. And Bruges, despite all my reservations, turned out to be even more beautiful than the city I’d left behind. With its grand mediaeval buildings left untouched by war, it gave the appearance of being fossilised in time. Only the modern shop fronts and the traffic weaving its way through the narrow, pedestrian-choked streets that skirted the main square gave any clue to the fact it had entered the twenty-first century.
In the summer months, the place was thronged with tourists; low, flat-bottomed boats took them on tours of the city’s canals and they clustered in groups before the huge Belfry tower, eating chips slathered with mayonnaise and consulting vast fold-out maps. Now, in the grip of winter, its streets thickly covered with snow, Bruges had achieved a quiet grandeur, and I felt more at home here than I ever had.
Though perhaps, I reflected as I emerged from the butcher’s shop with my packages of steak and sausages, the fact Marshall and I were still relative strangers to the city had enabled us to put on a show for the man at our window. Back home, we’d have worried what the neighbours might think if they’d seen us fucking with our curtains open; here, we barely knew the people we lived alongside. And when I’d gazed out into the street as Marshall had thrust hard into me from behind, I’d seen only drawn drapes and shuttered frontages in the houses across the way.
We hadn’t had the opportunity to discuss what had happened; Marshall had left for a breakfast meeting while I was still sleeping off the night’s indulgences. But I knew that, when we had the time, we had much to talk about: the suggestions he’d made about letting another man fuck me had resonated in a way I’d never expected, and I needed to know whether this was idle fantasy on his part, or whether, given the right circumstances, we might experiment with such a scenario for real.
Back at home, I couldn’t resist firing off an email to him. You, me, the man at the window … Would you let it happen?
Marshall’s reply took so long to come back, I’d almost forgotten I’d sent the message. It said simply, Yes. We both want it, don’t we?
You don’t know how much, I thought, but in my heart I knew it wasn’t really going to happen. We wouldn’t see the guy again; whatever the reason he’d had for waiting beneath our window – and it could have been something as innocent as waiting for a taxi to pick him up – I couldn’t see him making a habit of it. We could just use the thought of him to spice up our lovemaking, and maybe find some other way to meet a man who’d be willing to join us for a threesome.
Except, four nights later, there he was again. Another band of snow had swept over the country, heavier and more sustained than the first, and even in a city where everywhere was in easy walking distance, people were choosing to stay indoors. All, it seemed, except a familiar figure who lurked within the circle of watery light cast by the streetlamp on the corner.
When I made to pull the curtains, intending to undress and go for a soak in the tub before bed, the movement alerted him to my presence. He looked up at me, and I thought I saw a smile flicker across his pale features. Heat flooded my belly as I remembered that same face watching me in the throes of uninhibited passion. I stepped away from the window, and called down to Marshall, ‘Hey, guess who’s back?’
‘Seriously?’ The excitement in his tone was evident even from a distance. ‘I’ll be up in a moment.’
Returning to the window, I pulled my sweater and T-shirt off and let the man get a good look at me as I stood there in my bra. I wanted to go further, baring myself entirely for him, but before I could start removing my jeans, Marshall was by my side.
‘Jesus, has that man got no central nervous system?’ he asked, staring down into the street. ‘It’s below freezing out there, and he’s just standing around like it’s the middle of summer.’
‘Maybe he’s keeping himself warm with thoughts of what he saw us doing the other night,’ I suggested. ‘And what he could see us doing again tonight.’
‘Does that mean you just want him to watch, or –?’ Marshall regarded me with a feral glint in his eye; stripping me, fucking me, devouring me with his gaze.
‘Do you think he’d join us if we asked?’
‘There’s only one way to find out.’ He pushed up the sash window, and stuck his head out into the frigid night air. ‘Hey, you down there. Parlez-vous Anglais? Spreekt u Engels?’ Marshall asked the question in both French and Flemish, just to be on the safe side. His ease with languages had played a large part in helping him land this job, though I couldn’t help hoping that if the man agreed to our crazy suggestion I wouldn’t need Marshall to act as an interpreter for us.
‘Yes, I speak English,’ the man called back, his words whipped away by the whirling wind.
‘We’ve seen you watching,’ Marshall said. ‘And we wondered – would you like to come up and join us?’
I expected him to shake his head and thank us for the offer, telling us he had somewhere to be, someone to collect him. Instead, his face widened in a grin and he nodded eagerly.
As Marshall went to let him in, I suffered a pang of trepidation. We might just be about to do the most reckless thing we’d ever done in our lives. We had no clue who this man was, after all; he could have a knife buried in the pockets of that overcoat. But, somehow, nothing about him gave the impression he was dangerous.
By the time the two men entered the room, I had stripped off my jeans and was lying on the bed.
‘Sara, this is Pieter,’ Marshall said. ‘Pieter, my wife is all yours.’ It was the only invitation he needed. With almost indecent haste, he shucked off his overcoat, and the layers of formal clothing beneath it – waistcoat and shirt and tight-fitting dark trousers. His underwear looked like old-fashioned long combinations, but I suspected they were thermals; I’d seen something very similar in one of the department stores on Steenstraat.
Whatever, they were off before I had time to seriously consider their provenance, revealing a half-hard cock, long and as pale as the rest of him, rising from an unkempt bush of dark hair.
As Marshall undressed in more leisurely fashion, Pieter and I rolled together on the bed, touching and caressing. His skin was icy cold, and I wondered just how long he’d been standing outside before I’d noticed him. When he kissed me, his lips were no warmer, but already I was lost in the feeling of a strange mouth, strange hands; the sensations of being with a man other than my husband after so many years.
Marshall joined us on the bed, and, between the two of them, they removed my bra and thong and urged me up on to all fours. Kneeling before me, Pieter presented his cock to my lips; even if we hadn’t spoken a word of the same language, I’d have known from his posture he wanted me to suck. Happy to comply, I wrapped my fingers round the shaft and slurped my tongue over the head with slow, loving licks. His skin had an odd scent, like mothballs, coupled with the powerfully musky aroma of aroused male. It only served to turn me on further.
Behind me, Marshall’s fingers brushed along my pouting cunt, finding me wet and inviting. I heard him shuffling behind me, the bedsprings creaking as he shifted position, then his cock slid into me in one smooth motion. No teasing this time, no making me beg for my pleasure; with my mouth crammed full of Pieter’s cool, salty meat I couldn’t have done much more than mumble anyway. Like me, Marshall was too excited to string this out; he started thrusting at once, hips jerking, the motion pushing me so far on to Pieter’s dick it was almost buried in my throat.
How sweet, the feeling of taking a man at both ends, and how much more fulfilling than I could ever have expected. It took a few moments to find a rhythm that suited all three of us, but soon we were moving like some well-greased machine, Marshall in the hot cavern of my pussy, Pieter pushing between my lips, both of them striving to make their pleasure last as long as possible.
Pieter’s hands were on my tits, squeezing so hard I swore his fingers would leave bruises, while Marshall had reached beneath
me so he could tweak my clit. Juice ran down my thighs; if rough, demanding treatment at the hands of my husband was thrilling, having a second man join in elevated the sensation to places I had never thought to go.
‘You like this?’ Marshall asked. I could only nod, mouth still fully engaged in the act of sucking off Pieter. The young Belgian muttered something in his native tongue; from the tortured tone of his words, I sensed he was warning me he was about to come. I didn’t pause in my tongue-work, and my reward was a mouthful of spunk that had passed my taste buds before I got more than a suggestion of its bitter flavour.
The ecstasy etched on Pieter’s face, combined with my vigorous swallowing noises, must have been the trigger for Marshall’s climax. Pieter’s spent cock slipped from my lips as my husband pulled me hard on to his groin, holding me tight as he shot his come as deep inside me as he could. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ he groaned, stroking my hair.
Pussy clamped around my husband’s cock, I came so hard I almost passed out. By the time I’d recovered my senses, our new friend and all his clothes were gone. He’d performed such a swift exit, it was almost as though he’d never been there in the first place.
* * *
We never saw Pieter again. He’d given us no way of contacting him, and the way he’d left without a word, when we’d have happily encouraged him to stay for a further round of fucking and sucking, made us wonder whether he regretted the whole thing.
Then came the night we attended a drinks party at the home of Marshall’s CEO. I found myself talking to the man’s wife, a fragile-looking, French-speaking brunette, and when I happened to mention that we were in the company’s house on Koningstraat, she said, ‘Ah, oui! You know, there’s a very interesting story about an incident which took place outside that house.’
‘Really?’ I asked, wondering where this conversation was heading.
‘Yes. Many years ago, a young man was killed there, knocked down by a horse-drawn carriage. It was all very tragic, as he was waiting on the corner for his true love to join him at the time. She had to creep out to see him in secret, you see, as her parents did not approve of him. Well, a fierce blizzard was raging, and the driver of the carriage never saw him till it was too late. They say on certain snowy nights you can still see him, looking up to his true love’s window as he waits in his lonely vigil.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t believe it myself, of course, but maybe you are one who thinks there are such things as ghosts.’
‘Maybe,’ I said as I beckoned the waiter to bring me a drink I was suddenly in urgent need of, the pale, lost face of a handsome young man swimming before my eyes.
The Girl in the Stable
Scarlet Rush
Suddenly she is there, visible in my periphery. It makes me jump because she seems literally to have come out of nowhere. She is in the stall next to mine, sitting legs apart upon a bale, leaning back against the large pile of loose hay gathered to feed all the horses after the hunt. Her eyes are closed and she remains oblivious to my presence. How she hasn’t heard me here is inconceivable, what with the whinnying of my Jackie-Boy and the heaviness of his hooves on the stable yard cobbles. Momentarily I thought she must be hurt, from the gasps and little groans she was making, and the way she clutched at herself. But the hand is down inside the clothes, and I can see the telltale movements beneath, see the circles she is making there and the insistent rhythm.
I’m shocked, not just at being confronted by the act but at her being so brazen about it. How could she possibly imagine it would be safe to do it here? I’m sure my cheeks are bright red – although hers, hers are so pale, her skin almost white. Of course, I understand sometimes the need can get the better of you, especially if you have been riding. Even a woman of my position can sometimes be driven to distraction by it. Often a quick trot out on old Jackie-Boy is the only answer. There are precious few other ways to stop such urges. Lord knows she would find it hard enough to get hitched – there are so few eligible young men around these parts now. To do it here, though, as if she were in a world of her own.
I should sneak back out but I am mesmerised. I get excitable enough every time I’ve been riding but it’s not just that. It’s her, everything about her. The gasps and sighs come faster now. I see the involuntary jerks of her legs as they come apart and then close up again, as if she is desperately trying not to lose herself in her naughty actions. For all this rudeness she looks so innocent, so wonderful. I can feel the building excitement coming from her, like a force entering my own body. I feel the twinges down there, almost, God forbid, almost making me want to share her joy.
Her free hand comes to the waistband and for one moment I think it is going to slide inside her clothes too. What are those clothes? Drab grey bottoms in some kind of loose cloth, a flannelette of some kind, with a similarly plain top to match. I’ve never seen the like of them before, not even on the village girls. They are grubby and stuck with straw, and tucked into muddy rubber wellingtons. They can’t detract from her beauty, though. Her face, lost in longing as she is, still looks somehow angelic. Then suddenly the eyes are open and upon me, the most gorgeous crystal-blue eyes, wide open in panic as she realises she has been caught in the act. Her hand whips out from inside her bottoms and slides under her thigh, trying to hide her guilt.
‘What are you doing here?’ she blurts, as if it were me that had appeared from out of the blue.
I blink and stutter, suddenly feeling culpable, although I have every right to come and go from the stables that have been in my family for generations.
‘I didn’t see you when I came in,’ I manage, which is true at least.
‘I thought everyone was gone on the hunt,’ she gabbles, her voice still high and marked with embarrassment. ‘Why aren’t you out on the hunt?’
I’ve heard nothing about a hunt going on today. She clearly doesn’t know who I am and I have no animosity at the way she is demanding answers from me, given her situation. I feel mean having caught her like this. I should leave her to cope with her shame alone, tell her that I will say no more about it, but she is strangely compelling and I cannot make myself go. Instead I give her a smile of reassurance and I move next door to her stall. I am about to sit on the bale opposite hers but I see the alarm on her face. She is studying my clothes, up and down, as if she has never set eyes upon modern fashion before. I don’t know where she is from but it must be her own private bubble. I remain on my feet in the doorway for the moment, not wanting to get too close and spook her.
‘I am just back from Birmingham,’ I say, to answer her question, ‘I’m a volunteer QA at the hospital in Selly Oak, trying to give a little help to all our heroes. Those poor chaps – some of them have ghastly injuries, you know. It takes years to rehabilitate them. You know what a QA is?’
Her panic seems to have lessened now but she is still on edge, looking at me through narrowed eyes as if she has yet to work out her bearings.
‘Military nurses,’ she says quietly, almost suspiciously. ‘My sister is a QA up in Birmingham too. I was going to train to be one but then I had my accident.’
I break out in a big smile, delighted at this connection between us.
‘Is she really? I wonder if I know her,’ I say excitedly. ‘My eldest sister is also a QA – a proper trained one, not a volunteer like me. She was one of the first to get posted abroad. She got sent out to Basra – have you heard of Basra? From there she was shipped out to Afghanistan, of all places. I can’t remember the last time I saw her.’
My voice tails off with the memory and with the distraction of her pulling out hay strands from her hair behind her. She has the fairest hair, and so long too – I hadn’t noticed this before. It seems odd to see such long tresses when so many of us girls wear it short these days. I’m sure the way she pulls at it isn’t designed to be provocative but still it gets my belly fluttering. She has an ethereal quality that you don’t see so much any more, not in my circles anyway. I put it down to the fact that she is a country girl
, although her accent suggests otherwise. With the city providing so much work for women nowadays it is rare to find any of them coming out to these country estates. However, she has a distinctive cockney twang, although with vowel sounds and intonations I am unfamiliar with, almost affected. It’s as if she is trying to hide her city accent but is way off the mark. She is a very mysterious young lady, one I want to know more of.
‘What is your name?’ I ask.
‘Ellie,’ she says.
My grin broadens.
‘What a coincidence!’ I say. ‘I’m an Ellie too. Well, you might know me as Lady Eleanor. I’m sure you must have heard them mention me?’
She looks blank and stares at the floor again, mumbling something about not being sure. I’m in no mood to blame her. She looks such a sweet thing and it seems ages since I was last at home, and she must be new or I would have noticed her before. I guess it isn’t easy sitting here exchanging pleasantries with your master’s daughter, especially when you’ve just been caught in such a compromising position. She is pretty though; that near-white skin and pale-pink lips; those eyes! It’s not usual to fraternise with the staff but she looks all on edge and vulnerable and for the moment I don’t feel any compulsion to leave her.
‘Do you not go out on the hunt?’ I ask, wanting to continue our conversation. She shakes her head, looking up at me through her fringe.
‘Not since my accident,’ she says. ‘Sir John lets me walk out on Charlie but that’s all I’m allowed.’
She tilts her chin to indicate the horse in the stall behind. Odd, I wasn’t aware Daddy had a horse called Charlie. I know his grandfather did – also Sir John – because I’ve walked down the stairs past the portrait of him and his favourite mount a million times. The horse in the stall to her rear has a similar shining chestnut coat to the one in the picture too. I feel my stomach quivering again. There is definitely something odd about all of this, but I can’t put my finger on it.