Valerie’s boredom had evaporated, renewed lust spurred on by Viola’s participation. The maid had hooked her skirts up and placed one leg on the bed, knee bent as she displayed black woollen stockings, fancy garters and a crotch devoid of covering. Valerie could smell her strong, oceanic odour that wafted out from between her slit that was hidden by a thick coating of bushy hair. It was not the first time they had shared intimacies. Many a night when neither of them was otherwise engaged in sexual congress and needed satisfaction Viola had entered her mistress’s bed, both of them enjoying the experience immensely and privately wondering why they bothered with men. Women knew so well how to pleasure one another, finding the clitoris with ease and giving it just the right treatment.
Now, exchanging glances, they knew they could spend an exciting half-hour toying with Julian and, if he didn’t come up to scratch, share orgasms together. No problems, no heartbreak and frustration, just perfect enjoyment. What could be simpler?
Viola was just about to join the couple on the bed when the door crashed open and Aidan swept in like an avenging angel. ‘What the hell…?’ he shouted.
‘What the hell indeed!’ Valerie blazed back, shifting the boy from her and sitting up, dragging her silk kimono around her nudity. ‘How dare you come bursting into my bedroom without a by-your-leave?’
‘Dare? To me?’ he returned, looming over her, big and menacing. Her blood turned to ice in her veins but she continued to defy him.
‘You know me, Aidan. Dare me and I’ll do it! This is my house, my room, my privacy. Now get out!’
At that he laughed loudly and unpleasantly, while Viola slunk away and Julian slid from the mattress, gathered up his scattered clothing and headed for the adjoining bathroom. Valerie was really angry now. Aidan was so dictatorial, thinking he had every right to interrupt her love life and order her about. He stopped laughing, sat on the bed and dragged her facedown across his knee.
‘I didn’t give you permission to roger young Julian,’ he began, and his face was set in stern lines. ‘His mother is a particular friend of mine and I’m sure she wouldn’t approve.’
‘On the contrary; she asked me to initiate him,’ Valerie muttered, half smothered by the coverlet, her body stretched over Aidan’s lap, her skin, nerves, loins and mind anticipating his first stinging blow.
‘Did she indeed. Well, it’s time I had words with her,’ he growled. ‘She’s an attractive woman, and I admire them slightly older. They are so goddamn grateful for a man’s interest. Can’t wait to be his slave.’
‘You’re a bastard, aren’t you?’ Valerie hissed, and although she knew full well his intention to give her a painful half-hour, her desire began to climb steeply, her sexual organs heating explosively.
‘Of course, and you adore me for it,’ he replied blandly, and she turned her head with difficulty and stared up at his right hand. This is what he would use to punish her and her heart was pounding so hard that it felt as if it had lodged in her throat.
He dipped between her buttock cheeks and she felt his fingers penetrating her fissure. ‘Oh, Aidan,’ she whimpered, despising herself for her weakness where he was concerned, yet revelling in her decadence.
His fingers plunged deeper, hurting her delicate membranes. He withdrew, raised them to his nostrils and sniffed. ‘You reek of him,’ he said. ‘Your minge is full of his spunk. Dirty bitch!’ His hand landed ruthlessly on the rounded globes of her rump. ‘What are you? Say it!’
‘I’m a dirty bitch,’ she repeated, every word sending shivers down her spine and into her groin.
He was between her legs again and she sank willingly into his caresses and slaps. She felt the shape of his cock behind his fly buttons, the length of it reaching to his navel. She longed to see it, to touch and suck it, but knew her role. As a submissive she must wait for him to give the commands, accepting everything and keeping her own passion in check.
She wondered briefly what he was doing in London, but then he was a maverick, a law unto himself. There was a prospective bride somewhere in the offing, and lands, estates and a generous addition to his coffers. This meant nothing to her. They were not even fond of one another, simply partners with tainted tastes, enjoying the darker side of perversion, seeking unbridled sensations.
Most times he worked her flesh without thought to her soul or emotions and she was every bit as selfish, using him to ease that never-ending ache in her epicentre.
Now, stretched across his firm thighs, she wondered what form her punishment would take. His naked palm, calloused from handling the reins? The thrasher with its dozen deerskin thongs? The flat, flexible paddle? She owned the last mentioned toys, but he had not asked for them. Flesh on flesh then, his hand striking her bottom. This was quite her favourite means of chastisement, the contact almost as close as intercourse. Heady stuff, and it was this more than her upside-down position that was making her dizzy.
He struck without warning, making her jolt. Her posterior burned from the harshness of his first blow. Tears filled her eyes. Then his hand was stroking her blotched skin gently and she relaxed. A foolish move.
He struck again and she almost lost control of her bladder, drops of urine escaping to dampen his trousers before she gained control. He seemed unaware, or if he was, took pleasure in it. She did not know what to expect next. When he hit her it was with full force, her body jerking, her skin on fire, but then he would change, massaging her injured bottom and making her believe her ordeal was over, even though she longed for it to continue.
She had entered that strange, trancelike stage that always preceded orgasm when she was being treated like this. She had expected him to continue spanking her, then finger her clit until she came, after which he would take his own pleasure, either in her vagina or her fundament.
But her complacency was brought to an abrupt halt when he withdrew a small implement from his jacket pocket. It was spoon-shaped, a springy wooden object covered in leather. The effect was startling, though she knew it of old. The paddle snapped and stung and she longed for Aidan to stop and lay his hand on her reddened flesh between blows, but he was in an awkward mood, refusing respite. The tears flowed freely, dripping from her chin.
‘Oh, don’t,’ she implored. ‘No more, master.’
‘I’m the one who calls the tune,’ he grunted, and the paddle whacked her again. ‘You want me to stop?’
‘N-no…’ she stammered, but couldn’t believe she was saying it.
‘Good. You need a lesson in humility, Valerie. I’ve noticed with displeasure that you’ve been getting above yourself lately. I have a task for you. One you will carry out to the letter.’
He flicked her again and she shrank against his thighs. ‘A task? Anything, master.’
‘I shall tell you about it later. Meanwhile, discipline, my dear Valerie. You need discipline.’
‘Ah, yes… I do, I do,’ and she wriggled, seeking the paddle, his palm, anything that would bring her closer to climax.
‘You like to be mastered because you’re a randy slut who needs to be kept in line,’ he hissed, and spanked her harder with the flat of the paddle. ‘I’m bringing you a pupil. She is Lady Angela Bayswater.’
The name rang a bell and even in her semi-hypnotised state of painful pleasure, she had wit enough to ask, ‘Isn’t she your betrothed?’
He smacked her so hard that she bucked against his thighs frantically. ‘She was, but the marriage is off. Her father died recently and he was declared bankrupt. Everything has gone; the house, the lands and Angela’s dowry.’
‘So much for true love,’ Valerie observed cynically and earned herself another vicious spank. Twisting against him she tried to fling herself to the floor, but he was strong and kept her in position with one hand at the nape of her neck. With the other he continued to rain blows on her crimson, bruised buttocks.
‘I don’t believe in love,’ he growled. ‘She shall be my mistress, my submissive. She has no one else, is quite alone in the world. I
shall bring her here after lunch and you will train her. She’s proud and defiant, but I’d see her brought low and humble and begging me to be her protector.’
Valerie was hardly listening; her mind absorbed his words but her body was a thing apart as he spanked her to higher and higher peaks of sensation. Her skin welcomed the pain and her guilt needed the humiliation, and her sex needed the stimulation.
He flung her onto the bed, forced her legs apart and found her clit poised on the edge of coming. He rubbed it mercilessly and sprawled across her, his released cock plunging into her.
‘Oh yes… yes!’ she squealed, coming just before he did, her inner muscles clamping round his cock as he, too, reached his apogee.
He did not collapse on her when he had finished, simply rolled to one side and left the bed.
She lay with her eyes closed, but when she finally raised her lids it was so see him sitting in a chair, smoking and staring at her.
‘You’ll do as I say,’ he observed, taking another pull at the cigar, the grey-blue smoke drifting upwards to the ornamental ceiling.
‘Of course,’ she answered lazily, feeling limp and fulfilled despite her aching buttocks and the remembrance of his punishment.
‘I’m determined to break her,’ he went on, and reaching over to the occasional table, squashed out the stub in a soapstone ashtray.
Valerie stretched like a sun-warmed cat and asked, ‘Why this one, in particular?’ He scowled and she wondered. Was he perhaps disappointed that he had lost his bride? She hardly thought this likely. Aidan was one of the least sentimental men she knew. Nothing seemed to move him.
He stood up and shrugged, then reached for his coat. ‘She’s beautiful and will prove an interesting experiment, hotter than she realises, covering her urges with a ladylike gentility. I want her to stay here with you and be introduced to all the byways of passion. Do you understand?’
‘Perfectly, Aidan,’ she cooed, so content that she could have lain there all day.
‘Don’t disappoint me,’ he warned, looming over her. ‘You know that I don’t take kindly to disappointment.’
‘Leave her to me. I’ll soon have Lady Angela pliable and bendy, willing to pleasure you in every way possible,’ she promised, but to her surprise even this did not seem to please him.
‘Don’t break her spirit,’ he ordered. ‘I like the fire that burns in her. It excites me, challenges me, and makes me swear to be the only one to tame her.’
Chapter 4
Angela was no stranger to London. There was a family mansion near Hyde Park, but this had now gone, along with everything else. It was there that she stayed when her father was called on parliamentary business. There she had shopped and been groomed by a fussy, elderly aristocratic lady whose job it was to prepare young girls for their ‘coming out’. She had attended concerts in the Albert Hall, passionate about music and, gifted in this direction, had played and sung at soirées, and visited the theatres, too. Another life, it seemed, another existence entirely. She had been carefree then, beholden to none save her father.
She huddled in a corner of the Driscol coach, with Maude on one side, Bertha on the other (privileged, as she was but a humble maid), and Aidan opposite her. The traffic was thick and progress slow. She wished it would take forever, reluctant to be introduced to Valerie Gail. True to his word Aidan had not interfered with her last night, though Maude took her to task, spoke freely about sexual matters and instructed her as to what would be expected of her. Her meals were served in her room, the same one in which she had stayed as his guest during the dreadful days after her father’s passing. Bertha was there; a solid, comforting link with her recent past. She said nothing, it was not her place to pass comment, but Angela was grateful for her silent sympathy.
The train journey had been uneventful. They travelled first-class, and Maude had been seated with them. Keeping up the pretence that she was a respectable young lady, it would have been unthinkable for Angela to occupy a railway carriage alone with a man.
It was all so much nonsense, she thought angrily, staring out of the window as they left the station, seeing the dirty London scene with its mish-mash of people and jumble of vehicles, brewers’ drays, coal-carts, cabs and horse-drawn omnibuses and private equipage. The sky was overcast, hazy with chimney smoke, and the air rank with the conglomeration of smells from tanneries and factories, abattoirs and gasworks.
They reached his mansion by hansom cab. There she was given little chance to recover from the train journey, bundled into Aidan’s coach and off to call on Valerie Gail. He was in a mocking, sarcastic mood, ordering that she should leave her baggage and not bother about taking anything with her. Valerie would provide for her wants. Maude was to go too, so was Bertha who had been ordered to make herself useful. Angela had bad feelings about all this. It did not bode well.
The scene changed, still crowded, but they were entering the West End where the thoroughfares were broader, the pedestrians smartly dressed, the shops magnificent emporiums, and crossing-sweepers keeping the streets clear of horse manure. Soon they reached the River Thames and the beautiful Regency architecture of Chelsea. Obviously Aidan was a frequent visitor for his coachman drew up the team outside one particularly impressive house. Its pillared frontage faced on to a square in the middle of which was a fenced-in area of neatly mown grass and bushes and trees, for the use of the residents only.
A footman appeared at the top of a flight of shallow stone steps. He was dressed in a black uniform and came down to open the carriage door. Aidan made no attempt to get out.
‘You will stay here, Angela, while Valerie prepares you. Don’t cause trouble, or it will be reported to me,’ he said, and he leaned across and she flinched as he placed his lips on her cheek.
Marshalling her courage she rested her fingertips on the footman’s arm as she alighted, and was conducted up the steps and under the shell-shaped portico. She was aware that Maude and Bertha were behind her, each carrying a piece of hand luggage. They had not been prevented from bringing their own belongings, it seemed. Then why her? What was so special about her grooming that it necessitated a complete transformation?
‘Mrs Gail expects you in her private apartment,’ the footman said, a fine figure of a man, very conscious of the importance of his position. He stared into the middle distance, just above Angela’s head. ‘Please come this way.’
Though wary as a cornered animal, Angela was impressed by the terracotta and white tiled floor of a large hall complete with Greek statues on plinths and landscape paintings in immense gilt frames. Light flooded from a cupola, the stained glass scintillating with red and blue and green and gold designs. The graceful staircase curved upward and Angela mounted it in the footman’s wake, her gloved hand on the ironwork balustrade. Reaching the top she passed along corridors with many closed doors, and long windows that gave impressive views of the garden that surrounded the house. She glimpsed stables and outbuildings and caught the flash of a greenhouse roof. This was in London’s very heart, and yet it had all the attributes of a gracious home, as had her father’s city property, to say nothing of Lairdland.
Tears stung Angela’s eyes, but she did not break down, too proud to let anyone see her misery. She waited quietly as the footman paused and tapped at a double cedar wood door. It was opened at once and Angela blinked, unable to believe what she was seeing.
A young man stood there, naked to the waist. Small gold hoops pierced his nipples and he wore a spiked collar around his neck from which chains stretched, attached to the rings. His baggy, oriental pantaloons should have preserved his modesty, but they were open in front, displaying a large cock that sprang from a nest of brown curls. As he turned Angela saw his backside was also bare, and that a whip had embroidered crimson welts on his skin.
She didn’t know where to look, though he seemed not in the least concerned, bowing and smiling and saying, ‘Welcome, Lady Angela. My mistress awaits you.’
‘Bring her at once, Jul
ian!’ commanded an imperious voice, and Angela and her companions were ushered inside.
Such a room! Stunning, fantastic and bizarre, like something out of The Arabian Night’s Entertainment.
Exotic artefacts were in vogue, inspired by India and Japan and China. Liberty’s famous store produced fabric and clothing and furniture. Angela was familiar with all this, yet Valerie’s boudoir was beyond her wildest imaginings. The air was aromatic with incense smouldering in metal holders shaped like writhing serpents. The hangings were of silk, the cushions and bolsters too, and the occasional tables were of beaten brass, the lamps miniature temples complete with minarets. Music wailed in the background, the weird sound of pipes and tambours reproduced on a gramophone with a large trumpet-shaped horn.
But the most striking feature of all was the woman who reclined on a divan in an alcove. She rose, a beautiful creature in her early thirties, her glorious legs shamelessly displayed through a diaphanous skirt, her breasts squeezed high by a tightly-laced black leather basque designed to divide and separate each large globe. She had flaxen hair that tumbled about her shoulders and halfway down her back. Her arms were covered to above the elbow by close-fitting gloves fastened with minute pearl buttons, and this had the effect of making one even more conscious of the parts of her that were exposed.
‘I’m Valerie,’ she said, gliding forward. ‘And you, I suppose, are Lady Angela. Good afternoon, Maude. We have met before.’
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