by Bianca Bloom
And so I manufactured a handsome man with a handsome home. That was all I really knew of him, for in the dream his biography remained hazy. I could not have said whether he was truly rich or the butler of the household, whether he was naturally lustful or only seized by some sort of strange fit.
But what I did know was that he was just taller than I was, with broad shoulders and a perfectly naked body. And that we were in some sort of small room in the home, one with very fine golden wallpaper and many artifacts on display. None of that mattered, of course, because he was concentrating only on my body, and on using it as a sheath for his enlarged weapon.
When I woke up, I was breathless. Surely my mind had been poisoned by the man I met the night before, and I was now to be tortured by lustful demons. In a hurry, I dressed and left the small inn, refusing offers of breakfast. If I were to meet someone who might stand a chance of getting me out of my predicament, I would have to do it in a far more public place. Perhaps then I could leave the wanton pleasures of Bath and go home.
For I did wish to be at home. A tear came into my eye when I thought of my mother, my daughter, and all of the money that we must have been losing by not having me at my post in our shop. I needed to remedy that as soon as possible, and then surely the emptiness that had crept into my bosom would be resolved. After all, I reasoned, Luke Barlow had only recently come back to throw everything off-kilter. If it took me a week or two to get my life back in its regular orbit, I could not be faulted for that.
Of course, I would not leave off attempting to build Rome in a day. After all, I did not really need to build Rome, just to obtain something salacious from an idiot man. And I knew from experience that this enterprise should not take very long.
In fact, the first opportunity presented itself to me almost immediately. I was able to gain admittance to a tearoom, where I spotted a man sitting alone, fiddling with his jacket while looking out the window.
“Excuse me,” I said, taking the seat next to his. “Were we not introduced last year? I’m Mrs. Allen, and I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”
The gentleman was corpulent and bald, but he was young, and the way he leered at my morning dress convinced me that he was not the type to stand on ceremony. “Very pleased to see you, Mrs. Allen. I’m Jack Donaldson.”
“It is a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Donaldson,” I said neatly, preparing for the kill. Should I tell him where he was staying, or fall back on the line about needing help with securing an inn? I might look suspicious, as I had only a small bag with me. True, I had used that excuse the night before, but only with a man who must have had few doubts about my aims.
“You as well,” he said. “I don’t much like breakfast in the rooms I have taken. The tea is too strong, and the jam not sweet enough. When you’re used to country cooking, it doesn’t sit well with a man, let me tell you.”
I couldn’t quite see how sweet jam was supposed to be a manly preference. If anything, I would have assumed that this was a rather feminine choice. Still, I nodded as if I knew very well what it was to live in the country, even though my one experience of country life was those short weeks at Woodshire. Indeed, those weeks had been much too full of activity for me to remember just how the jam had tasted. Every morning I was attempting to recover either from a night of escaping a lecherous old man or a night of contemplating my newfound adoration for a very young, and ultimately faithless, Mr. Barlow.
“Well,” I said brightly, “When I am in the country I always love a long walk in the morning.”
Some moments passed before the young man surmised my meaning. “Oh,” he said, “It can be dangerous in the city, Mrs. Allen. Perhaps you might want some company on your walk? For a lady like you, I imagine an escort could prevent all sorts of troubles.”
And he gave me a smile that very plainly said he would like nothing more than to be the cause of many troubles. But before either of us were able to elaborate, Mr. Donaldson began to stutter. “Why, you remember my wife! Here is — here she is now,” he said, his eyes growing wide and alarmed as a woman in a hat that was nearly as lovely as mine approached our table.
The woman who came over was both young and beautiful, which surprised me. I surmised that she must have been from a relatively poor family, and was therefore unlikely to be taken in by my antics. One of the tragedies of being a woman without a fortune of her own was that one had to spend countless hours pretending to enjoy the company of dull men. When another woman did so, I saw through it at once, and I suspected that the red-haired beauty who had just approached had similarly clear vision.
“Your husband was just advising me on the amusements of Bath,” I told her. “My husband and I have come to visit friends, but he does not wish to stay long because he fears that the city shall be dull.”
“Perhaps you might advise him to purchase a cup of tea for you, then,” said the young woman, not entirely taken in by my attitude.
However, it was far too late for me to alter my manner. “Certainly,” I told her. “It is the best thing in the world to enjoy a cup of tea with one’s spouse. I am sure there is no pleasure more enviable, and yet it is the most comfortable amusement in the world.”
When I left, she looked only confused, which was more or less my aim. I tried to remind myself that having a stupid, philandering husband like that slobbering on one of my pillows night after night would be its own punishment. Surely, it was much worse than having to make one’s own way in the world. And I believed it, at least to some degree. And yet I recognized that my own situation was by far the worst. I did not have a constant husband, and yet I still had to spend my days trying to find a lover in Bath. Moreover, I had to find someone stupid enough to write revealing letters to me. That man would have been an excellent choice, and yet his wife was sure to keep him on a shorter leash.
39
The morning already seemed to be wasted, and I did not want to waste the afternoon as well. I could not afford both to ignore the object of my visit to Bath and to make myself so mad with boredom that I would be sure to injure someone. If I could find the gentleman I had met the night before, then at least I might turn the afternoon into something amusing, rather than a series of humiliations. It was as if the city itself were designed to vex me, and I searched in vain for the address of the cathedral. Last night, motivated by guilt and intrigue, I had been able to find it. If I found it again and asked for the same room, might I find the man there, waiting for me?
Somehow I doubted this, but he seemed my best chance. Though my mind whispered that I could actually find a different man, perhaps one more willing to provide me with evidence of infidelity, my whole enterprise might be much more successful. Something stopped me from doing this. Whether it was the very strong impulse I had to go back and be with the man that my body longed to taste again, or whether it was simply because I did not want to bear the humiliation of being used by a different stranger, I could not say.
Though I did not know it as I wandered the streets under my wide hat, someone was searching for me even more closely. And by the time he found me, I was so disheartened by my rudimentary grasp of Bath geography so as to be quite susceptible.
“Please,” said the voice. “Can I help you?”
And when I looked up, I saw none other than the face of Luke Barlow.
I said “How do you do,” curtseying absently. My mouth did not seem ready to open and form any more words.
Fortunately, the gentleman was equally confused. “Miss Quint — Mrs. Bar — well,” he said, trying to settle on a name for the woman who had once been his wife. “Alice. I have taken rooms two streets over. Might I offer you some refreshment?”
I had half a mind to run, but then I would risk drawing more attention to the interaction. And I realized that I was both hungry and parched, having already spent many minutes wandering about in search of relief from my own torment.
And so, as if in a dream, I took the man’s arm, and we passed two blocks in absolut
e silence. It was not until we had entered his home, and had tea set down before us, that I was able to speak to the man. With the quiet girl who had brought our tea now out of the room, we were quite alone.
I had so many things to say to him that, at first, I was silent. But, as usual, I was the one with more of a backbone. I had not been brought up in a house where I could enjoy the luxury of silence, or run off every time I was faced with a sticky situation. So I forced myself to look at the man and shove the words up through my mouth.
“How did you find me?” I asked him, taking a sip of tea so that I appeared calm.
He frowned. “Well, after I saw you at the opera, it was not difficult.”
“You saw me at the opera? How does that translate into finding me here?”
My voice sounded so harsh that it was almost foreign to me, and Mr. Barlow was cautious as he answered.
“I asked some of the people around me who your companion was, knowing that they would also say something of you. I went to the shop the next day, but you were not in.”
I thought back to the spectacle. Though many of my clients hardly deigned to greet me when I was in such an opulent setting, they probably did tend to know me by sight.
“You should not have been able to find out my whereabouts simply from the shop,” I said. “I told mama not to tell people what I was doing.”
“You may forgive her for that. I made some comments, saying that I would look you up when I was next in Lancaster, and she revealed that you were here. After all, she did not know me.”
I scoffed, suddenly forgetting my nerves and speaking as a wronged daughter. “Well, how should she? It’s not as if you ever gave me a miniature. Nor a lock of hair, even.”
This seemed to pain him so much that I laughed. “But why worry about all those trifles? Tell me why you came here. You wish to annul our marriage, I suppose, and needed to find some evidence that I had not been faithful.”
At this, he winced. “No. I could annul it if I wished, of course, because the vicar had his mother-in-law write out all of those things, and she did not give the right spelling of your name.”
I snorted. “I wonder if it was because he displeased her in his own marriage. Then again, there are many who would say the same of you, calling me ‘that woman,’ and I suppose they would have the right to do so.”
“Please, Alice,” he said. “I did not come to hear such things.”
“Nor to get what you need for an annulment, apparently,” I said, watching him and trying to decide whether I believed his story. It was not so unlikely that the vicar’s wife’s mother had butchered my name, and that Luke Barlow would be able to have our union annulled quietly. But why had he not done so before acquiring a new fiancee, and why had he come to Bath when some of the most fashionable families were already returned to town?
I asked him. “Why did you come here, then?” I asked him.
“Because I could not find you,” he said. “And now I finally have.”
He reached to take my hand, and we sat staring at each other like a pair of romantic figurines.
40
But we were not little porcelain figures, we were humans, complete with all the weaknesses of the flesh. As soon as Luke drew me up and to him, and began to embrace me, I remembered that.
When we passed through the hall and up the staircase, it was empty. But even if it had not been, I could not have imagined caring. Both of us hurried through the door into Luke’s bedroom, and as soon as we were there we began our embraces again.
There was hardly a trace in him of the boy who had once been a combination of shyness and a coltish, clumsy demeanor. He took me off my feet, then laid me down on the bed and held my head and waist tight as he kissed me, his hands much more powerful than I had remembered.
Of course, I was not the same girl who had once wondered how exactly she was supposed to get a young gentleman out of his clothes in order for any marriage consummation to occur. My fingers found their way straight to Luke’s fall, and after he pushed up my gown and pushed open my legs,he was inside me straightaway.
Still, I was not jaded enough to hold back a gasp of pleasure, and Luke grunted in return, rutting as though we were pressed for time.
I was so enraptured with the act, which felt better with him than it had with Mr. Wharton, that I pushed my husband back before he could die. Instead of pleasing myself and his organ separately, I was now well aware that both elements were possible at once.
And so I lay on my stomach, on top of my hand, while Luke pounded himself into my body from behind. It took a moment for him to learn the positioning, and I concluded with surprise that he may have been chaste since he had known me. More likely, he had only been to women with very specific requirements.
Still, no amount of inexperience could stop him, and he soon began to cry out so loudly that I wondered whether his neighbors would hear. His servants would certainly hear, that much was certain, I reminded myself as I, too, began to cry out.
Luke slowed himself, breathing frantically, pushing a hand over my mouth in a hasty attempt to keep us both quiet.
For me, it did not work. I desired more movement, not less, and with him still inside of me bounced up and down to achieve it.
I got exactly what I wanted, and quickly I bit into Luke’s fingers as I fairly screamed with pleasure, my body pinching around his prick so easily that he moaned, shoving himself into me and filling me with heat.
We stayed that way, his arms clenched around me, his prick continuing to tense and release, my body relaxing into the feather bed. Though my stays pinched in that position, and Luke’s arm must have ached, we simply could not move away from each other.
When we finally did, our juices spilled onto the bed, and I looked at them and laughed with pleasure.
There was no need for me to be terribly worried. If worst came to worst, I had an elderly acquaintance who would advise me on herbal preparations. Such a person was indispensable for every “widow” who liked to have a bit of the fun that was traditionally only permitted to married women. In truth, I longed for another child, but I had promised myself that for the sake of my daughter’s reputation I would content myself with only her.
Soon, though, those practical considerations were once again the farthest possible thing from my mind. For the man who had once been baffled by every single one of my garments was able to get me not only out of my dress, but out of my stays and my shift.
I did him the same favor, and surveyed his body with admiration verging on alarm. If anything, the years had been kind to his body. With darker skin and a bit more hair, he looked like a boy whose manhood had come as a surprise to everyone, including himself.
We hardly knew what to do with each other, and I ended up sitting in his lap, kissing him as if I were about to face execution.
It was almost too easy for the two of us to migrate from that particular position to one that was even more gratifying. I wrapped my legs around his back and lowered myself onto his prick so that we both groaned. For a moment, I was content just to sit there, letting him grab at my hair, kissing my face and neck with so much passion I wondered whether he would be able to last long enough for me to take my own pleasure.
We began to rock back and forth. The bed seemed sturdy enough, but I doubted that the walls could possibly mask our cries of pleasure. With each unexpected sensation I smiled, and when Luke clutched at my bosom and buried his face into it I was so delighted that I laughed, the sound echoing in the nearly empty room. He laughed and kissed each breast harder, making them sensitive, ticklish, and eager for more caresses.
There was no excuse for me then. The first rush of delight was over, and our new lovemaking was slower and even more decadent. I had been given a chance to object, a chance to dress, a chance to speak to my husband about every single thing that he continued to owe me.
But I could not bear to, because interrupting the sweet nectar of our rocking for even a moment would not have been toler
able to me.
Indeed, I thought that I might try again when Luke pushed me so that I was flat on my back, my legs spread as wide as I could force them, his prick still hard and heaving within me.
Pushing my legs together so that he could hardly move his prick at all, I endeavored to slow his progress. But his eyes nearly crossed at this, and he began to bounce on me, holding my wrists down and moving with such agility that the bed began to shake and his moans became decidedly inelegant.
I closed my eyes, praying that this frenzy would continue, even as I knew that I ought to call everything off, particularly as I had already risked another child just minutes earlier.
Then Luke buried his hands in my hair and moaned “Alice,” and I fairly squealed with pleasure, the delight of the bedroom overcoming me as if it were completely new. My name seemed to be an aphrodisiac for the poor man, because he sounded strangled as he grunted it again. “Alice.”
With his end, he ground himself against me so frantically that the tight sensations threw me into a fit of my own and I wailed, helpless against the rush of passion that was driving his teeth into my neck, my fingernails into his flushed and warm skin.
41
We fairly caved into each other after that, and for some moments we only breathed. I was well aware that this was a strange state — for some years I’d grown used to men who wanted me out right away. In fact, I myself usually wished to make a quick exit.
With Luke, all of that was different. His skin on mine was so potent, so sweet, that I felt we might well never leave the bed.
It was only after one of my arms, which had been slipped between us in a rather painful position, began to lose feeling that we moved apart. And even then, we did not move far.