Princess Daisy

by Judith Krantz

  Topsy could only shake her head in denial.

  “Well, you must have had other things on your mind—I used to look at you at meals—just a peek, mind you.” Vanessa laughed and casually took one of Topsy’s hands in hers, gazing at it as calmly as if she were a fortuneteller. Suddenly she bent and kissed Topsy’s palm with a warm, open mouth, laughed, and released the hand as if nothing at all had happened. That had been all, but again and again, from that afternoon until now, Topsy’s mind had returned to the scene, wondering what might have happened next, and then telling herself that nothing, absolutely nothing could possibly have happened next—she was just being silly.

  “Ham,” she said, returning to the present, “let’s not fight, please. I’m nervous enough about the weekend without having a fight.”

  “Okay, honey—I don’t know what the whole thing’s about anyway, but so long as it makes you happy, that’s fine. And, if you want my opinion, those Valarians will be more than enough impressed by the Hemmings and the Stantons and the Dempseys and Patrick Shannon—and what’s her name, that princess, so will you, for Christ’s sake, just stop wandering around like you’re about to break that bowl? Sure, it’s insured, but I’d hate to try to collect!”

  On mid-Saturday morning all of Topsy Short’s house guests assembled at the stables. Topsy supervised the matching of horse to rider and only her lifetime of riding enabled her to fulfill this task with an outward show of calm. She was in the grip of an emotion she avoided examining, but she felt more ill-at-ease, more electrically anticipatory than she had in years. She was staying behind to keep Vanessa Valarian company since Vanessa had announced, at breakfast, with a laugh that was delighted with itself, that she had always been terrified of horses, even at school. She made the confession sound like an asset.

  Patrick Shannon was firmly in the saddle of a large black gelding, but he was too intent to take in much of the busy, cheerful scene around him. This was the first time he’d actually been on a horse in the company of riders other than his instructor. He was absorbed in remembering every detail of every lesson he’d taken, blocking out the distraction of the stomping and blowing of the other horses, the maddening way they persisted in getting in each other’s way. He tried to keep his lively mount to one side of the milling crowd of horses and riders, hoping that the brute wasn’t as nervous as he was, and wondering if it was true that the horse knew how he felt just from his touch on the reins.

  Young Cindy Short was mounted on a handsome pony, and Daisy had been allotted a grand chestnut mare who had fetched a healthy forty thousand dollars two years ago at the world famous Keeneland July auction of yearlings. After sharing Cindy’s breakfast and spending the early hours of the day with her in the stable, she and Cindy were fast friends. When she rode, Daisy dressed with severe correctness. She braided her hair tightly and then hid it under the regulation protective hat, covered in black velvet, that is to riders what a hardhat is to construction workers. She wore a snood into which she tucked the ends of her braids so that they wouldn’t catch on branches.

  Ham Short wanted to demonstrate his daughter’s equestrian achievements to his guests.

  “Cindy,” he called, “you go first and well follow.”

  Cindy, who was patient in her familiar role as a show-and-tell child, kicked her pony into a trot and then into a canter. Daisy, who wanted to observe her as she rode, waited until Cindy had had ample time to be admired and then followed the roly-poly figure. Daisy sat her thoroughbred with such beautiful calm that she made a noble and gallant sight in the crisp Virginia morning … in spite of the fact that Theseus followed closely behind the heels of her horse with his rolling half-drunken gait.

  As Patrick Shannon watched Daisy disappear over a slight rise he had a sudden perception of what riding could be. Whoever that is, he thought, she’s the real thing. All of his life spent in conquering new worlds had sharpened his eye to the look of those who do effortlessly what it is supremely difficult to do at all. He knew little about ballet but he could always tell a great dancer by the way the hair rose on the back of his neck at the sight of certain, apparently effortless gestures. Daisy’s slender, straight back, her perfectly relaxed shoulders and arms, the carelessly confident poise of her head as she rode away, filled him with admiration … and bitterness. He was acutely aware of the splendid economy of her movements, movements over which he’d spent the last month sweating and cursing and bleeding. To be able to command a horse, with an imperceptible pressure of the hands and knees and calves, so that the damn fool beast sprang forward, not at a walk, or a trot, or a slow canter, but at a fast canter and no nonsense about it … shit, you had to be born to it, he thought, it has to be given to you, handed over as just another of the accomplishments people like you are expected to master.

  Patrick Shannon never allowed himself to compare his grim and lonely childhood with the lives of the people who lived in the world in which he was now such a potent force, but every once in a while, taken unaware, in a situation he hadn’t yet conquered, he would become briefly, but stunningly, conscious of early deprivation; relive in a flash the late and difficult transition from the gauche boy who entered prep school on a scholarship to the man he was today. The others—his friends at St. Anthony’s, at Tulane, at Harvard—most of them had had it good, so good—and it showed—perhaps not to them, but to him because he wasn’t one of them and never would be.

  The ease of it, he said to himself, the momentary bitterness fading, that’s the secret. As he ordered himself to relax, Ham Short walked his horse over to Patrick’s.

  “Do you mind if we don’t try to keep up with the others?” Ham asked. “I ride Western—kinda like a rocking chair—never had time to learn English—a bunch of nonsense if you ask me.” Patrick looked down at his host, incredibly attired in cowboy boots and chaps, slumped in a Western saddle on a comfortable looking cow pony.

  “Whatever you say,” he answered. Ham Short wondered why Shannon was looking so stunned. Didn’t a man have a right to ride any way he chose, for Christ’s sake?

  Vanessa Valarian and Topsy walked back to the house in silence, broken only by Vanessa’s vague comments on the weather, the location of the house, the landscape; comments which Topsy barely heard. As they walked up the driveway, Vanessa grasped Topsy by the wrist.

  “Show me the house,” she demanded in the low, ardent voice that was her chief beauty. She was supple as a piece of silk, so lean and slender that her husband’s dresses never looked as right on a professional model as they did on her. She had made the most of looks which depended on absolutely white skin contrasting with the blackness of her hair, which she wore in a pageboy style with straight bangs right down to her eyebrows. This unfashionable Prince Valiant hair style, “signature hair” as a fashion magazine called it, was only one of the marks of personal style which made her unmistakable. Others were the wide, angular jaw, the heavily made-up, almost Oriental eyes, the bright red lipstick on her wide mouth, the big, unabashed grin she wore in every photograph ever published of her. She had curiously beautiful hands, long and slim, as supple and strong as if she were a sculptress or a pianist, yet her nails were always cut short and she wore no rings on those elegant fingers. Vanessa never compromised or changed her looks. She wore her long nose as if it were the mark of royal birth. For this mild, Virginia morning she had chosen a thin, far-from-simple dress of black cashmere, huge gold earrings and eight David Webb bracelets, a costume she had picked deliberately for its incongruence, the way it jarred with her surroundings; an effect she enjoyed creating.

  Topsy flutteringly led the way through several excessively fine rooms in which the Hepplewhite hunting boards, the Sheraton barrel chairs and the Sully portraits had been assembled for just such a display. She found herself forgetting which period pieces of furniture belonged to, fumbling over the simplest names, actually trembling at the entrance to each room, not because she had any doubt of its correctness, but because she was so intensely conscious of
Vanessa’s elegant, dark presence at her side, never touching her, but never as far away as people normally kept from each other. She felt as jittery as she had before her first dance.

  “It’s enchanting,” Vanessa pronounced, “and it suits you … it makes New York look terribly raw. But now, my young Topsy, don’t you think it’s time to show me the upstairs? I’m curious to see your bedroom—the reception rooms of a house are never as revealing as the private rooms, don’t you think? Or am I being too nosy? It’s just that I’ve already seen so many marvels that I’m quite ill with envy. Next time that you come to visit us in the city—and I hope it’ll be soon—you’ll understand.”

  Topsy caught her breath in leaping joy. Magic words—a promise, a visit!

  In Topsy’s bedroom Vanessa sat down on the edge of the wide canopied four poster that Topsy had prevailed on her unwilling decorator to swathe in three hundred yards of peach silk.

  “And is this the letto matrimoniale?” asked Vanessa, indicating the four poster with a languid wave.

  “Letto … oh … I see. No, Ham sleeps in his own room. He likes to work late and start telephoning early.”

  “And does he come to visit his wife in her bed, or does she go to his?” Vanessa continued, imperturbably.

  “Why … ah …”

  “Oh, Topsy, what a darling you are … you’re blushing again, the way you did in New York. Oh, I know, when people tell you that, it only makes you blush more—but I couldn’t resist Sit here … I can’t talk to you when you’re a mile away.” Vanessa patted the coverlet, until Topsy, almost unwillingly, sat down next to her. Vanessa took her hand and circled Topsy’s palm with one of her talented, Gothic fingers. “I wondered if you were going to invite us … after what happened in New York I was worried that you might be afraid of me … no? I’m glad … so glad. I’ve been thinking of you everyday … thinking that we could so easily become very, very close friends … would that please you, young Topsy?” Idly she licked the tip of her forefinger and with a rapid movement touched the wet finger gently to the center of Topsy’s outstretched palm. When Topsy gasped at the unmistakably explicit signal but didn’t draw back, she raised the hand to her lips and took one of Topsy’s fingers in her mouth, sucking on it gently from the base of the finger to the tip of the nail. Topsy moaned. “You like that—don’t you? Remember the first time I kissed your hand—remember how surprised you were? And do you still remember what I told you—that I’d had my eye on you years ago?”

  Mutely Topsy nodded.

  As strong and fast as a man, Vanessa put one arm around Topsy’s waist while she bent and brushed her neck with a feathery kiss, just above her collar bone. “Darling, I won’t do anything to you that you don’t like … don’t be afraid of me … you’re not, are you? Good.” Swiftly, on stocking feet, Vanessa locked the bedroom door and returned to the bed where Topsy half sat, half lay back with eyes wide and wild with reluctant temptation. “How adorable you are—you still have your shoes on.” Vanessa gave her low laugh. “Let’s get rid of your shoes, at least …” She bent and took off Topsy’s shoes. “Close your eyes,” Vanessa whispered, “and let me be good to you—you need someone to be good to you, don’t you, young one—someone who just wants to make you feel all the things you’ve always dreamed of feeling but haven’t really ever felt … oh, yes, I thought so … I could tell just by looking at you that you were ready for me.” As she spoke she deftly unbuttoned Topsy’s blouse and released the hook which held her brassiere together in the front. Topsy had magnificent, soft round breasts, with prominent brown nipples, surprisingly dark on her white, abundant flesh. “Oh, but you’re beautiful! You’re superb … I knew you would be,” Vanessa whispered, lightly tracing the outline of Topsy’s half open mouth with one dark red fingertip. She glanced carefully at her prey, not wanting to do anything too suddenly. With her warm, agile fingers she traced a line from the girl’s throat down under and around each heavy breast, creating a circle of exquisite lightning, but holding herself back from the nipples that she could see were becoming tight and hard. A voluptuary of the most accomplished kind, she was infinitely willing to wait for her pleasures and nothing excited her as much as the initiation of a woman she knew had never experienced the excruciating pleasure she could give her.

  “Topsy, this is all for you … I don’t want anything … you don’t have to move an inch … just lie back and let me look at you …” As she unbuttoned the waistband of the woman’s skirt and slipped it off in a gentle movement, she sucked again on Topsy’s fingers, taking two of them in her wide mouth and fluttering them with her practiced tongue. Topsy shuddered, unable to believe that she was becoming so excited by nothing more than being touched on her breasts and on her fingers. She relaxed when Vanessa told her that nothing was expected of her … she wouldn’t have known what to do. Now Vanessa surrounded each nipple with five adept, caressing, gentle fingers which delicately teased them up into two hard points. Only when Topsy began to sigh, unable to remain silent, did Vanessa finally fasten her mouth on one nipple with luxurious leisure, flicking the point of her tongue over first one hot, hard nubbin and then the other. She spent long, long minutes without ever leaving those wide, brown nipples, pulling on them, bathing them with swift strokes of her entire tongue, until they were stimulated to a point just below pain. Only then did she stretch down her arms and take off the rest of Topsy’s clothes.

  The girl’s eyes were still closed, Vanessa noted as she rapidly took off her own clothes. Good, it was easier that way … the first time. She cradled Topsy’s head in one slender, strong arm and with the other reached down and ran her fingers as lightly as possible, so that their touch was barely perceptible, yet maddeningly arousing, over the delicate swell of her, down to just above the chestnut tangle of thick pubic hair. When Topsy made no indication of protest, Vanessa moved, with the grace she was famous for, and straddled the woman’s body, one knee on either side of Topsy’s full hips. She sat back on her heels and devoted herself to gliding her fingertips down Topsy’s beautiful white thighs and calves all the way to the tip of her rosy toes and then back again, avoiding the pubic curls with absolute discipline. She saw Topsy’s hands come to life; one of them reached down and captured one of hers and pulled it toward the mound of Venus that the girl was lifting up toward her. Vanessa freed her hand and whispered, “No, no, you can’t have it yet … you’re not ready …” and she began to caress the soft skin inside of Topsy’s thighs, her fingers reaching higher and higher until they were fluttering just at the rim of the pubic tangle. Topsy moaned imploringly and opened her legs. Vanessa saw the slick glisten of wetness on the offered lips. Her own vulva was so heavy and congested that she could scarcely restrain herself from grinding it into the girl, but she held back, crouching low to blow gently on Topsy’s thick hairs, parting the curls with her breath, until she could see the girl’s swollen clitoris. Then she reached out again with her tongue and, making it into a point, darted and darted it again and again at the tiny organ, sometimes sucking it with her whole mouth, sometimes just licking it with a light, flickering touch.

  “Fuck me, for God’s sake—fuck me!” Topsy muttered, unable to endure any more.

  Vanessa knit the three middle fingers of her right hand together, and worked them several inches up between those eager lips. Topsy strained upward frantically, and Vanessa, kneeling, bent again and took the girl’s vulva entirely into her hot, avid, wide mouth, sucking rhythmically on the clitoris at the same time that she slid her three fingers firmly in and out of Topsy’s vagina, sometimes only an inch or two up, sometimes as far as they could go. Topsy was aware only of the most intense delight; the fingers in her vagina produced a hardness and knobbiness of stimulation that a smooth penis never had, and the sucking, oh, the teasing sucking, was like nothing she had ever believed possible. She felt herself pausing on the edge of orgasm, pausing, pausing and then coming into Vanessa’s mouth with a bursting rush and a widening pool of spasms which made her scream in
incredulous abandon.

  While she was still throbbing and jerking her hips forward, Vanessa threw herself on the other woman, kissing her for the first time on her dry, open mouth, pressing her own vulva, lightly covered with dark hair, into Topsy’s curly mound, cupping Topsy’s full, round bottom in both her hands and rubbing, relentlessly, until she came quickly into the masterful orgasm she had been holding back for so long.

  Minutes, many minutes passed before Topsy sat up, dizzy but still aware of the passage of time. “They’ll be back for lunch in ten minutes … and Ham’ll be calling for me. What must I look like?”

  “You look glorious,” Vanessa said, slithering quickly into her clothes. “Do you have a garter belt and stockings around somewhere?”

  “I bought them once … for Ham … but they didn’t work any great wonders. Why?”

  “Would you wear them, for me? Without panties? All day long, all evening, all day tomorrow? So I can look at you and think of just how I could be touching you under your clothes … so you can look at me and see me thinking?”

  “Oh!”

  “Will your?”

  “Yes, God, yes!”

  As the members of the Shorts’ house party gathered for drinks before lunch, Robin Valarian approached his wife and put his arm around her.

  “Did you have a good ride, my angel?” she asked him, tilting up her proud nose and widening her Oriental eyes.

  “Marvelous—it’s really a shame you’ve become afraid of horses, my poor pet. You used to ride so well. And you, was the hunting good?”

  “Superb, quite simply superb.”

  “I hoped it would be. I almost envy you.”

  Daisy lunched with Cindy and her sisters in their playroom and then spent the afternoon sketching the little girl on her pony. The younger girls, who were seven and five, equestrians both, watched respectfully for a while and finally, bored, wandered off. After she’d worked until Cindy would pose no longer, Daisy indulged in the great gift the weekends with the Horse People could provide: a solitary ride accompanied only by Theseus. These hours alone, galloping, free, abandoned, mindlessly happy, as if she moved in a wind of vernal delight, were a luxury she could never have afforded otherwise, and she’d become adept at snatching them when she could, without taking time she could have used for work. Reluctantly, in the last afternoon light, she trotted back to the stables and went to her room to bathe and dress for dinner.