The Red Velvet Horse (Siren Publishing Allure)

by Iona Blair

  However, as the story unfolded, and April moved the reading lamp closer, screwing up her eyes to better see the faded handwriting, Hannah would prove her wrong.

  With the earnings from Sophie’s, I am able to retain my lodgings at Raisa’s, buy new clothes, and still put a few coins aside. So that these ill-gotten wages will soon buy my way out of this shame that dogs me every waking minute.

  This heartfelt revelation was followed by a gap of several months. During which time Hannah had, true to her word, moved to a respectable boarding house overlooking the beach in English Bay.

  It is an idyllic spring in British Columbia, and everywhere I look, there are bright yellow broom flowers, trees swollen with cherry blossoms, and scented magnolias.

  My new lodgings are run by a Mrs. Muirhead, who although a staunch Presbyterian, is nevertheless of a fairly cheerful disposition.

  But alas, this most agreeable existence cannot last as my small financial resource is rapidly dwindling. And it is, therefore, with the utmost reluctance that I must seek employment.

  I manage to secure the position of seamstress at a small tailoring establishment on Granville Street. The hours are long, but not as lengthy as if I was a maid.

  The shop caters to a select group of privileged Vancouverites and is owned by a Mr. William Rudge, a craggy-faced gentleman, who has a perpetual drip hanging from the tip of his long beaked nose.

  And so, life settles into a predictable pattern of work, home, and church with very little time left over for recreation. Although when the weather is fine, I pack a picnic basket and go to the seashore, which after all, is only a few yards away.

  At present, I travel to work by tramcar, but plan to buy a bicycle once my financial situation permits the expenditure. For this is such a popular mode of transport in the city that six-foot-wide cycle-paths run between the gutters and wooden sidewalks on many of the busier streets.

  Spice had jumped up on April’s lap while she was reading and competed with the papers for attention. “I love you best,” she assured him. She had now reached a point in the document so scarred with age, it was virtually unreadable. “Time to call it a night,” she said.

  But then her interest was captured by the next entry:

  Midsummer’s Day 1898––I continue to form a strong attraction to the conductor on the Robson Street tramcar. Feeling at once disappointed if he is not on the tram, and relieved as well. He is tall and dark-haired, no more than three and twenty with the most compelling green eyes. It is not only his good looks, which entrance me, but his extreme pleasantness of manner as well.

  * * * *

  “I want to get a better sense of the world Hannah knew.” April glanced around the Green Man Bistro, packed with the lunchtime crowd. “The type of house she lived in, the clothes she wore, and how Vancouver looked then.”

  “The City Archives would be the best place to start,” Holt advised. “The shop won’t be busy this afternoon, it’s only Monday. Why don’t you go over there now?”

  Old maps of Vancouver lined the walls, and April scrutinized them for a while before moving onto sepia-tinted photographs of city streets whose only resemblance to the present were their names.

  Men looking very formal in suits, ties and trilbies, walked beside long-skirted women wearing high-necked blouses, opulent hats, and carrying parasols.

  So this is how Hannah would have been dressed, April mused. She thumbed her way through a stack of prints until she reached one of a tramcar at the intersection of Georgia and Granville Streets. There was a conductor standing on the running board on the open-sided car to collect fares. He looked very smart in a navy-blue uniform and peaked cap.

  * * * *

  His name is Tom. I heard the driver call him that as we rounded the corner of Robson and Burrard Streets, almost knocking over a careless cyclist who veered right onto the tracks.

  And oh, how I hugged this new knowledge to my fluttering breast with the utmost satisfaction, as images of those sparkling green eyes and thick dark hair cavorted across my mind’s eye.

  Tom…Tom…my own darling Tom…

  Then I ruminated on how a name at once so ordinary, could suddenly be transformed into pure magic.

  A lapse of several months followed this blissful observation. April wondered if the relevant pages had been lost, or if Hannah had simply not put pen to paper again until the following July.

  We are suffering through the most blistering of heat waves. Temperatures soar well into the nineties, and the seaside is crammed so thick with bathers that one can scarcely see a grain of sand.

  April handled the fragile pages gingerly, careful not to disturb Spice who was purring happily on her lap.

  Life for Hannah appeared to be running smoothly. She still lived at the same lodgings run by Mrs. Muirhead. And she mentioned her employment in the tailor’s shop briefly, alluding to it as being long and tedious but not too over taxing.

  No wonder she looked forward to the ride home from work on a tramcar with a handsome conductor, April decided.

  But what had happened to her budding attraction with the charming Tom, she wondered? And then after several pages of script that detailed Hannah’s dreary existence in a weary, yet accepting way, she found the answer. It seemed that Tom had been moved to another route, leaving her “Quite bereft with sadness and a profound disappointment.”

  So perhaps that was why she had stopped writing for so long? Too depressed to continue with the telling of her sorry saga that consisted of only work and sleep. Except that is, for a church service on Sunday mornings.

  And it was there, in the small Methodist Chapel on Bidwell Street, that she had met Ned Beasley, a dapper little widower with bright eyes and a ready smile.

  Mr. Beasley is most friendly and chats with me every Sunday on the sidewalk in front of the church, Hannah reported with some enthusiasm. He has invited me for dinner next Friday. A few months later, Ned proposed.

  I am torn two ways. On the one hand, I don’t know how much longer I can work in the tailor’s shop. My eyes grow painful and my back and fingers near to breaking. And all for a mere pittance that hardly holds me together. Yet marriage to Mr. Beasley I do not relish. For while he is a pleasant enough gentleman, and certainly secure financially being a wine merchant and successful at that trade, I feel no attraction towards him, either physically or mentally.

  So Hannah would have to choose, April brooded, between working twelve hours a day, six days a week in a tailor’s shop, or a loveless marriage of convenience to the uninspiring Ned.

  She wavered from one polarity to the other. First deciding that marriage was the sensible course of action for herself, then just as quickly veering away from this carnal sanctuary and determining to remain in the tailor’s shop, or perhaps seeking more suitable employment elsewhere.

  But then fate stepped in and gave her a shove.

  Mr. William Rudge, my employer, has recently taken his nephew into the business, a spindly unpleasant youth with stringy hair and a leering expression. First of all his attentions were restricted to bold stares and some fumblings at his trousers, but now have progressed to crude remarks and rubbing against me whenever the opportunity arises.

  “Let me see your cunt, darlin,” he whispered lewdly. Trapping me in the storeroom where he grabbed at my skirt and tore a petticoat.

  I managed to extricate myself before the encounter could go any farther. But, this foul person is doubtless intent on having his way with me by force, if I do not yield to his most unwelcome advances willingly…which I would never do.

  I cannot complain to Mr. Rudge, for he is unlikely to take my word over his nephew’s. And would most likely dismiss me for mischief making, without a reference, into the bargain.

  There is nothing for it but to accept the proposal of marriage from Ned Beasley, and I will give him my answer after Sunday morning service.

  “You won’t regret it, Hannah, I can promise you that,” he told me with great delight and swung me
high in the air in celebration.

  Yet, as the arrangements for our upcoming wedding progress, I cannot help but feel a certain uneasiness in his presence. He is such a restless man with his sudden quick jerky movements and overly bright eyes.

  Now into this already volatile mix, kismet was about to toss another salvo. For just as Hannah was preparing to leave the tailor’s shop and wed Ned Beasley, she boards a tramcar and there is Tom.

  You cannot imagine my great joy as I once again feasted my eyes on his beautiful countenance. “I’ve missed you,” I exclaimed quite forgetting all decorum, and he too appeared quite beside himself with pleasure at this most unexpected and quite thrilling re-acquaintanceship.

  The tram’s bell clanged and passengers jostled against us impatiently as they boarded, but our eyes were riveted on each other and our surroundings of no consequence.

  “Can you meet me at the Rose Tea-room tomorrow at eight?” he asked me at last. I nodded my assent with the greatest of pleasure.

  The possibility of my husband-to-be, Mr. Beasley, suddenly deciding to visit on the same evening, was one that I dared not even contemplate. For more and more I was feeling like a trapped bird being lowered in a cage down a mineshaft.

  Poor Hannah, April thought, taking a long sip at her cooling coffee. She’s been working like a slave for years, and cannot even take a couple of hours off to have tea with a man she adores, without being thrown into a quagmire of worry and stress.

  If these were the good old days, then thank heavens for the new “bad” ones.

  The gas lights in the wall brackets flare, sending a ghostly glow around the tea room where I sat opposite Tom. Scarcely able to take my eyes from his face, or believe that this was not but a wild dream.

  No words were necessary as I sipped absentmindedly at my tea and let the full magic of the moment wash over me like a friendly wave.

  “Same time next week?” There was a caress in his voice as I boarded a tram at the corner.

  I nodded, my breasts tingling as if overfull with milk. When he kissed me lightly on the cheek, a thrill shot through my slippery cunny like a bolt of lightning hitting a rod.

  But this moment of ultimate bliss was not to last. For as I hurried up the pathway to my lodgings, glancing nervously at my fob watch as I did so––for I had stayed longer with Tom than I should have done––I noticed that the entire lower floor of Mrs. Muirhead’s boarding house was ablaze with light. And that Ned Beasley’s horse and buggy were standing near the entrance to the stables.

  “Where on earth have you been girl, we’ve been worried sick about you,” my landlady exclaimed. The Scottish burr was more prominent than usual in her disapproving tone.

  “I’m sorry, I was kept later than expected,” I stammered awkwardly, hating having to resort to lies and subterfuge.

  I made to escape to my room, but before I had a chance to move Ned Beasley appeared in the doorway with a face as dark as thunder.

  It seemed that he had gone to my place of employment, in order to escort me safely home. Of course, it had all been locked up.

  “You must have just missed me,” I lied, avoiding his accusing eyes. My face felt unnaturally tight and flushed.

  Although that seemed to placate him somewhat, there remained a certain tension and suspicion for many days following this incident; making it impossible for me to risk seeing Tom again. This sorry state of affairs fairly cut me to the quick.

  * * * *

  The distinctive call of a chickadee––fee-beee, fee-beee––carried plaintively through the open window.

  April took a long sip from a glass of lime juice, and settled herself down on the couch. The tattered pages of Hannah’s manuscript lay close at hand.

  The wedding plans are going full steam ahead, with the reception to be held in Mrs. Muirhead’s parlor. I have chosen a green suit for the ceremony with a matching hat. But my heart lies heavy in my chest.

  I have deliberately avoided seeing Tom again, for I fear one more glance at his beloved face and I would be lost, and quite unable to marry Ned Beasley. This marriage, although a loveless one––at least on my part––offers a greater security for my future.

  Chapter Two

  Ned Beasley lives in a turreted granite mansion in Shaughnessy, which requires a small army of servants to run. Chief amongst them is a brittle-faced housekeeper named Mrs. Ribton, who clearly resents my intrusion into her neatly ordered domain.

  But, it is in Mr. Beasley’s bed, where I must pay my way like any whore in a brothel that the real misery lies.

  For he has turned out to be a cruel rutting little turkey cock, this diminutive wine merchant husband of mine, with an insatiable sexual appetite for the bizarre and kinky.

  Not finding him attractive in the physical sense, or in any other way save his prosperity, I must endure for the sake of security and the dignity and respect afforded a married woman as compared to that of a spinster.

  “I’m going to ream you up the bum, it’s a tighter fit than your cunt,” he told me lasciviously, and this on our wedding night. “Mr. Cock-a-leekie here will give your bowels a good nudge, so you won’t need any Epsom Salts.”

  And I certainly didn’t. What’s more, I found it painful to even sit down so sore was my back passage and tender innards afterwards.

  Then it was my mouth that Mr. Cock-a-leekie jiggered next. Plunging in so deep that I gagged and coughed while a great wad of sticky cum was forced down my throat…

  Still, it’s better than working twelve hours a day in Mr. Rudge’s tailor shop, I told myself resignedly. Yet even as I spoke the placating words aloud, knew the price I paid for security and respectability was too bitter a harvest to bear.

  * * * *

  “Poor Hannah,” April murmured, shuddering at the thought of the odious Ned Beasley and his brutal Mr.Cock-a-leekie. The poor girl was well and truly trapped. There was no recourse to easy divorce in her time. The abominable indignities her husband forced upon her person, were something that simply could not be spoken of.

  However, even if they were, they would probably be regarded––if they were believed at all––as his marital “rights.” While during the frightful scandal that would be sure to follow, Hannah would be bitterly reviled for betraying the sanctity of the marriage bed for public consumption.

  * * * *

  The nights in Mr. Beasley’s bed grow harder to endure. He has bought clamps, which he affixes to my nipples, and another similar device that attaches to my clit. Then he spanks me with a belt.

  Bent almost double over a chair, I bite down on my lower lip until I taste blood. While, all the while, the cruel cut of the strap scourges my soft flesh until it hangs in tatters.

  Unable to stand the pain any longer I scream out in terrified agony. “Stop…please stop…you’re killing me.”

  This only serves to enrage Ned Beasley even further.

  “Shush, woman, do you want to waken the whole house?” he scolds angrily, stuffing a handkerchief into my mouth and never missing a stroke of the harsh bottom spanking he is administering with such relish.

  Afterwards he enters my back passage most roughly, and quite wild with excitement, rogers me until he reaches the zenith of his passion.

  I have to somehow escape from this sadistic brute of a husband before he kills me, or I go hopelessly insane.

  * * * *

  “Roger me Holt,” April moaned invitingly. She got down on all fours and wiggled her behind in the air. When he readily obliged, moving into her cunt quickly with long rigid thrusts she added, as if in afterthought. “In my back passage…”

  It was a hushed Sunday evening, and they were playing together on April’s bed. Spice looked on in solemn disapproval.

  Hannah’s description of the brutal anal sex forced upon her by her fiend of a husband had appalled April. It had also excited the kinky side of her nature, and she had resolved to try this great taboo at the earliest opportunity.

  “So you want to be sodomi
zed?” Holt’s breath felt hot against her neck and shoulders. When she nodded, he greased her anus with Vaseline and explored her twitching little bum hole with his finger.

  “Oh God that feels good…” she moaned, ripples of hot desire searing through her, making her hungry for more.

  He eased his cock into her slowly, overcoming the resisting sphincter muscle and gradually building to a well-paced tempo that sent her into paroxysms of desire.

  “Oh it’s wonderful…please don’t stop…” she groaned, as he played with her nipples and then ran his hand down over her quivering belly to her very wet cunt.

  She tried to hold back on the huge gushing crescendo that was building deep within her womb, to savor the exquisite ecstasy of this moment as long as possible. But the sheer force of her passion overrode all attempts at control.

  “Just go with it sweetheart…let it come…” Holt murmured huskily, and together they skyrocketed to a great thunderbolt of an orgasm that seemed to go on … and on…

  “Sheesh, that was a whopper…” April lay in a delicious state of post-coital contentment. “Remind me to be sodomized more often.”

  She could smell the musky masculine scent of him, rising from his sweating pores and tangling in his chest hair. She breathed it in appreciatively with tightly closed eyes, savoring every moment of this pricelessly erotic interlude.

  * * * *

  Through the sulfurous mist of a gloomy Christmas Eve, the old turreted house stood eerily aloof from its neighbors. The only acknowledgement of the season, a string of blue fairy lights that clung to the ivy on its granite walls.