‘Indeed we have, Mrs Gail,’ the woman replied smugly, and Angela wondered when and where, appalled to think of the deception that had taken place behind her back.
‘And you, girl? Where do you fit in?’ Valerie demanded, pacing round Bertha on her high heels, her skirt floating open, showing her stockings and fork – naked of pubic hair, bare and smooth and infinitely alluring.
‘I’m Bertha Marten, Lady Angela’s maid,’ Bertha replied staunchly in her broad Somerset accent, facing her full square, a plain girl with a snub-nose and freckles and sandy hair. ‘I were her maid when Sir Barnaby were alive, and I’ll serve her for as long as she needs me.’
‘Will you, indeed?’ Valerie said, her eyebrows arching significantly. ‘Then you’ll need to follow my rules. I shall want you dressed more becomingly.’
She reached for a hand bell and its tinkle was answered directly by a young woman who appeared from a far door. She wore a starched white cap with streamers and a frilly apron. Her breasts were naked, the coral nipples peeping over the edge of an exceedingly tightly laced red satin corset. Her pink tulle skirt stuck out like a ballerina’s, very short and full, dipping and lifting as she walked, showing her plump arse cheeks and stomach, for she was entirely naked beneath it. Like Julian, she bore the marks of a recent whipping.
Bertha gasped and drew herself up, eyeing the girl with scorn. ‘You’ll never get me making an exhibition of myself like that,’ she said pithily.
‘That’s what Trisha said once, wasn’t it, slut?’ Valerie said, and implemented her words with a resounding slap on her maid’s backside. ‘If you don’t comply, Bertha, then I’m afraid you and Lady Angela have come to the parting of the ways,’ she continued calmly.
‘I won’t leave her,’ Bertha vowed, on the edge of tears.
‘There’s no question about it. Do as I say or get out. The choice is yours.’ Valerie turned away, peeled off her gloves, beckoned Julian to her, slid a hand into his breeches and started to play with his genitals.
‘It’s all right, Bertha. Go. I shall survive. I have no choice, but you do. Will you go home?’ Angela asked with a catch in her voice, putting her arms round the maid, who started to weep.
‘Yes, milady. I’ve enough for the fare back, but oh, I feel dreadful abandoning you like this,’ she sobbed, and Angela realised just how much she had depended on her stalwart presence. Soon there would be no one she could trust and rely on. She could not watch as Bertha, still crying, left the room. Now she was alone with the enemy, for this was how she thought of Aidan and his associates.
Valerie, still working on Julian’s swollen penis, gave a cold smile and said, ‘Let us get started. There is much to do to turn you into the mistress Aidan requires.’ Unable to control himself, Julian spurted into her hand. She slapped him sharply and wiped her fingers on his curly locks. ‘Disgusting little beast!’ she scolded. ‘Did I say you could come? I shall have to think of a suitable punishment. Meanwhile, flat on your face at my feet.’
He flung himself down, his attitude one of abject misery, yet there was an air of excitement about him that Angela could not fathom. Valerie stood above him and drove one of her spiked heels into his neck. He groaned, though more in pleasure than in pain, then with a final savage kick she left him and strolled towards Angela. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ she said soothingly, and trailed a finger against Angela’s cheek, down to her throat, parted the black jacket and touched the blouse beneath where her nipples protruded, so stiff with arousal that they lifted the soft material.
The caress of those experienced fingers, still fresh from Julian’s dew, caused a deep disturbance within Angela. To her dismay she could feel juices wetting her knickers and suddenly yearned to have Valerie fondle her intimately and perform those fascinating acts that Maude had described last night. Her erstwhile companion’s words had roused her and she’d been unable to sleep, tossing and turning, needing to pleasure herself but afraid to indulge lest Maude or Aidan found out.
Valerie left her and sashayed over to an elaborate cabinet, rich with marquetry and gold leaf. From it she drew a large album and laid it flat on the table, gesturing to Angela to join her. ‘Photography,’ she said, her eyes shone and her crimson lips smiled. ‘What a wonderful invention. And they are experimenting with moving pictures, too. Imagine it. One day we shall be able to see couples fucking over and over, whenever we like. All we shall need is the equipment to reproduce sexual scenes.’
Angela knew about having her photograph taken. Sir Barnaby had this done after she’d dipped a curtsey to Queen Victoria, and there was a copy in a silver frame among her possessions. She was holding herself stiffly, obeying the photographer’s orders not to move. She looked very young and innocent, an angel in white wearing the family heirlooms, a diamond necklace, earrings and tiara which had now gone the way of all the Bayswater possessions.
It had never occurred to her that the camera could be used to capture other aspects of the human condition – that of couples in intimate acts – and photos of their genitals for all to see. This is what immediately struck her as Valerie started to flip over the pages. The album had thick leather covers and was ornately scrolled. It could have been a Bible or a book of innocent country views, but it contained nothing like this and Angela found it immensely disturbing.
Not so Valerie. ‘This collection was compiled in France,’ she announced, and turned the pages quickly, adding, ‘And I’m in it. Look. Of course I kept my face part-covered, using a pair of binoculars, you know, but anyone who is familiar with my pussy would recognise it immediately, though I’ve since had it depilated.’
It was her all right, lounging on a low, armless chair, naked from the waist down and hiding behind the opera glasses. Her legs were spread wide and her labial wings parted, fringed with golden fuzz, and her excited clitoris peeped forth, of larger than average size, as if she had been stimulating it.
‘How could you do that in front of a photographer?’ Angela gasped, but she was leaning closer, mesmerised by the shot that Valerie proudly showed her.
‘It’s easy, once you know how,’ she answered. ‘You just have to stay still, that’s all. I like being admired, and though the man behind the camera is a professional, more interested in angles and lighting than a woman’s minge or a gentleman’s erection, it makes me horny.’
‘It’s so rude!’ Angela protested, though unable to tear her eyes from the picture.
Valerie gurgled with laughter. ‘That’s why it is such fun! You’ll see. Aidan wants photos of you…’
‘I won’t pose like that. Never!’ Angela averred.
‘Not even like this?’ Valerie teased, and showed her another in which she was perched on the back of a sofa, skirts up, feet and ankles encased in black buttoned boots, her legs splayed and bent at the knee.
She was holding her sex lips open, and smiling down at a mature lover with fiercely twirled and waxed moustache, dressed in a red military jacket. He reclined below her, gazing up at her juicy cleft surmounted by her enlarged clitoris. His white breeches were rolled down to meet the tops of his shiny black boots and he was clasping his stiff cock.
‘It’s like a ramrod, isn’t it?’ Valerie mused, and scratched a fingernail over it. ‘He’s a goer, that one. Stiff as a pikestaff and off like a rocket. I still see him sometimes. Would you like to meet him? He’s one of Aidan’s cronies.’
Angela shuddered and went to move away. ‘No, I don’t want to meet him. Whatever next? How could I face someone when I’ve already seen a photo of his private parts.’
‘There’s not much private about it,’ Valerie chortled. ‘He can’t wait to flaunt his dick as publicly as possible. Renowned for it.’ She shut the album with a snap, clapped her hands at Julian and said, ‘Time to start. Add perfumed oil to the bath, Julian. Maude and Trisha, help Lady Angela to undress.’
‘What? Why? It’s not yet time for dinner, is it?’ Angela burst out, backing away.
‘I want to look at you and see wh
at must be done to enhance your beauty,’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘Then you shall have a lesson in discipline. Aidan instructed me to take whatever action I deemed necessary.’
Hemmed in by Maude, the hard-faced Viola and the brazen Trisha, Angela unbuttoned her jacket and laid it aside. Beneath it she wore a high-collared white lawn blouse with leg-of-mutton sleeves. Her skirt was swept to the back, and her hand-span waist emphasised by a wide belt. She stood there like a doll as Valerie turned her this way and that, admiring her figure.
‘I’m still in mourning for my father,’ Angela said, not knowing how else to respond to this scrutiny. ‘And shall be for a year.’
‘That’s not essential in the circles in which you will now move. No one will know who you are, and certainly not associate you with the aristocracy. You’ll simply be known as Angela. A pretty name, don’t you agree? That of an angel, but a fallen one in your case. Now no more hesitation. Off with the rest of your clothes.’
There was no help for it. Angela undid the mother-of-pearl buttons all the way down the front of her blouse and Trisha eased it from her shoulders and arms. She could feel the blush spreading up from her neck and into her cheeks. Julian was present. Though young he was still male and she had never undressed in front of a man before.
‘Can’t I go behind there?’ she asked, pointing to a lacquered Japanese screen with delicate panels painted with scenes of Mount Fuji and pagodas and little figures crossing bridges over water where golden carp lazed.
‘No,’ Valerie answered crisply, and Angela could almost feel the snap of the short-handled leather whip she had picked up and was now running through her fingers.
Maude came to assist Trisha. She had already removed her hat and coat, and it was as if she had mentally rolled up her sleeves ready for action. Angela made up her mind: she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of having to forcibly strip her. She would do it herself.
‘I don’t need help,’ she said tersely.
‘You will with the lacing of your corset,’ Valerie reminded, as she stood there smiling and swishing the whip playfully.
This was true; most stays fastened at the back. Angela felt the cool air raising the fine down on her bare arms and shoulders. Her nipples crimped, and she untied the ribbons of her chemise and lifted it over her head. The corset remained, made of cream cotton, an unyielding garment reinforced with whalebone. Some said it was designed to make ladies aware of their frailty and help them maintain self-control, whilst others looked upon it as a necessary adjunct to high fashion. Angela had never thought about it before, accepting it as part of her underclothing. Yet staring at Valerie’s waist-clinching basque, she could see that such restriction had a certain allure.
‘Let me help you,’ Valerie said, standing just behind her.
Angela felt her deftly ravelling the lacing. The corset began to open. She could breathe deeply once more, filling her lungs with air. Valerie freed her entirely and she was left wearing the thinnest of camisoles. She massaged her ribs and stretched her arms, relishing the freedom. Her bustle consisted of a horsehair pad attached to a petticoat and Valerie loosened the strings. It fell to the floor and Angela stepped out of it. She was trembling in her drawers and skimpy top, folding her arm over her breasts and covering her crotch with her free hand.
‘This has gone far enough,’ she mumbled, though there was nothing but admiration in the eyes feasting upon her.
‘Not yet,’ Valerie rejoined, and lifted Angela’s resisting arm aside and took the pointed nipples between her fingers, tweaking them through the silk. ‘Such perfection,’ she sighed. ‘Aidan was a fool not to marry you, but that’s his business. He may be the one to deflower you but I shall enjoy your bounty before taking you to his party tonight.’
‘Tonight? So soon… I didn’t realise… imagined I should be here for several days…’ Angela gasped, pleasure shooting from her breasts to her clitoris even as she panicked.
‘Oh you will, darling, for there is much for you to learn,’ Valerie said, her eyes smoky as if she understood Angela’s need, her hand going down to enter the slit in the cambric knickers and cup the damp, heated mound.
‘Ah… oh, yes… yes…’ Angela breathed, and wished that she and Valerie could be swallowed up and transported to some secret spot where she, the novice, could be satisfied by those knowledgeable fingers.
‘Later,’ Valerie promised, her voice a seductive murmur in Angela’s ear, her tongue circling the rim and adding to the desire raging in her pupil’s loins. ‘You’ve felt the kiss of Aidan’s crop? I know you have, for he has told me, and you still bear faint bruises.’
‘That’s true, I’m ashamed to say,’ Angela confessed, pressing against that invasive finger.
‘It is a good thing that you experience shame, for the pleasure is doubled if one feels that one is being punished for sin.’
‘He took me to his dungeon at Compton Hall.’
‘And?’
‘Tied me to the crosspiece.’
‘Ah, you were privileged.’
‘You know the place?’ Angela was beyond caring, her single goal that of reaching completion.
‘I have been a guest there, and his London house is even more finely equipped, as you will soon discover.’ Valerie withdrew her caress and Angela gasped in disappointment and tried to finish herself off, rubbing her cleft, but prevented from reaching climax by Valerie. ‘You must save it for tonight. I want you as hot as a fiddler’s bitch. Time to prepare. Come along, Maude and Viola. Let’s do it.’
The décor of the adjoining bathroom was as decadent as the rest of the apartment. Obviously Valerie’s husband doted on her and gave her free rein with his bank account. Following the Eastern theme the walls were lined with Islamic tiles and the large oblong bath was sunk into the centre of the polished marble floor. Candles blazed on glass shelves, reflected over and over in mirrors, and there was the strong scent of flowers standing in large urns or scattered on the water. The atmosphere was that of a sultan’s harem.
‘Sit down, my lady,’ said Trisha, obviously familiar with the routine.
Angela occupied a small carved stool and the maid knelt and took off her shoes and rolled down her stockings, then, ‘And the rest,’ ordered Valerie.
Julian was leaning over, swishing the water as he added scented oils, but Angela was no longer conscious of him. It was as if Valerie had injected a potion into her veins, a powerful aphrodisiac that made her oblivious to everything except satisfying her lust. If she pleased Valerie, then perhaps she might take pity on her and relieve her frustration.
Angela unpinned her hair and tossed it round her shoulders, then slipped off the fragile camisole and dropped her knickers. With a boldness that was no longer a façade she stood before Valerie, hands clasped on top of her head, one knee relaxed, defying her to fault the grace of her pose or the symmetry of her body.
Valerie had no inhibitions, wriggling out of her basque and skirt, and Angela stared, entranced, as the lovely form emerged. Trisha crouched at her feet and removed her high-heeled boots, and then barefoot Valerie padded across to the tub and descended by way of a narrow step, till the water crept up her thighs and immersed her. She lay back like a wanton mermaid, her hair floating round her, nipples poking above the water.
‘Join me,’ she ordered, holding out a dripping hand to Angela. ‘Don’t you just love all these modern inventions… electricity, and hot water on tap… it’s brilliant. Not so readily available in the country. I was disappointed in Compton Hall, so old-fashioned. I told Aidan that he must have the place updated, and he said he would as soon as he married you, his bride with a large dowry. But that never came to pass, did it? And now you are dependent on his whims and fancies… his slave, as it were.’
‘I’m nobody’s slave,’ Angela countered defiantly, but edged towards the bath.
‘Of course not,’ Valerie said with a quirky smile. ‘It’s sometimes impossible to tell who is th
e slave and who the dominator. We play games all the time. Even in our ordinary lives.’ She held up a hand, stopping Angela from slipping down into the water. ‘Wait, let me look at you. What a luxuriant bush you have. I’m wondering whether or no to have Julian shave it. Presumably Aidan has already looked his fill of it. Maybe he would prefer your mound to be smooth as silk. He enjoys mine,’ and her hand crept down to her groin, fingering her satiny mons.
‘I don’t want to be shaved,’ Angela returned smartly, and lowered herself under the warm, deliciously perfumed water. ‘Goodness, I’ve never even considered it.’
‘You will find you’ll be doing many things you’ve never dreamed of,’ Valerie continued. ‘We will leave it for the moment and see what Aidan says. Julian, wash me,’ she commanded.
He crouched at the rim of the bath, but this did not suit Valerie. She reached up and pulled him in. His lithe body glistened with water, his hair streaming and his pantaloons clinging like paste to every angle and bulge. Valerie had him take up a large sponge, soap it generously and apply it to her body. She stood up, almost purring as the sponge dribbled and foamed and covered her with lather. Julian turned her, attending to her back, his hand disappearing into the valley between her buttocks. She opened her legs so that he might attend to the rosebud moue of her anus, her perineum and the plump labial lips. She threw back her head, long hair streaming as the sponge rubbed against her nodule.
‘Do it!’ she hissed, and Julian squeezed and moulded, wetted and sponged the seat of her pleasure until she suddenly jerked, stiffened and clung to him with her hands on his shoulders.
Angela watched and ached and shook off Maude when she attempted to wash her. ‘I can do it myself,’ she grated, and longed to seize Julian by the scruff of the neck, pull him down on her and have him deflower her with his large prick. Instead she washed herself very thoroughly, including her hair.
Valerie and Julian had already retired to the bedroom by the time Angela finished her ablutions, left the bath and was swathed in a large towel by Trisha. She wound another, turban-wise, round her head and, wondering what was to happened next, was escorted into Valerie’s inner sanctum where she entertained her favourite lovers of either sex, and plotted her deepest mischief.
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