by Sarah Fisher
Sarah averted her eyes from the barman to hide her secret shame, and was mortified to spy an elderly gentleman studying them intently. His attention was on her legs, and where Casswell’s arm disappeared between their two bodies. She groaned quietly with despair.
‘We’re being watched,’ she whispered, reddening furiously.
Casswell’s expression did not falter. ‘I’ve already told you, Sarah, you may speak only when spoken to.’
Sarah tensed as his fingers idly stroked the contours of her sex. ‘But…’ her voice faded as she caught his eye and quickly looked down, hoping he would take it as a gesture of apology.
Casswell checked the gentleman for himself, and then moved closer still. ‘Why don’t we show our friend what it is he’s so desperate to see?’ he whispered, and before Sarah could protest he lifted her skirt. The exposure, though lasting no more than a split second, was total, and emblazoned upon Sarah’s mind; an image of her sex being displayed for the old lecher by Casswell’s fingers.
The gentleman smiled and lifted his glass in silent salute. Casswell acknowledged him with a nod, and then turned his attention back to his wine and his flustered companion.
Sarah could feel the old man’s eyes upon her. She could almost taste his expectation, and longed for the waiter to come and tell them their table was ready. She could hardly believe what was happening to her, and wondered again if it was all one bizarre dream.
The waiter appeared at Casswell’s shoulder, giving her some relief from her spinning thoughts. ‘Excuse me sir; table for two?’
Casswell nodded and took Sarah’s hand.
The meal was undeniably superb, and Sarah gradually felt the tension easing. They ate in the elegant dining room at a secluded table, and Doctor Rigel Casswell was the perfect companion.
He completely enchanted her. He made her laugh, telling her stories about life in the dusty by-ways of the museums where he had worked. But despite his immense charm, Sarah found herself expecting something unexpected to occur at any moment, which added an extra frisson to the relationship.
When the waiter finally cleared the table and brought dessert, Casswell refilled their glasses and lifted his in a toast. ‘To my Beatrice,’ he said, his eyes glittering with a subtle mixture of mischief and desire. Sarah found it impossible to hold his searching look, and lowered her eyes demurely.
Casswell leant closer and lifted her dainty chin with one finger. ‘Modesty becomes you, Sarah. But it is important that you understand your role at Casswell Hall completely. I expect you to be my companion and slave while you are there.’
Sarah’s colour deepened as Casswell continued. ‘You must understand the need for you to fulfil both roles. It is essential that you are not just attractive and compliant, but also intelligent, articulate, and well presented. I travel a great deal with my work. My colleagues and I are part of an eclectic but influential circle. Of course I will ensure you have the appropriate clothes, jewellery…’ His voice faded and Sarah looked up into his eyes.
He was completely focused on her, to the exclusion of everyone else in the busy restaurant. As he lifted his glass again she realised with a start that Casswell was assuming she would stay with him until he decided otherwise. It seemed he understood only too well the potency of the spell he had woven over her.
He lightly touched his glass to hers. ‘Here is to a long and very fruitful association,’ he said.
Sarah’s pulse quickened. She was only too aware that some dark part of her wanted nothing more than to remain under Casswell’s debauched tutelage.
After they had eaten they drove back to Casswell Hall in companionable silence. It seemed to Sarah that they now understood each other perfectly.
The daylight had already begun to fade, and in the glow of the late afternoon sun the old house showed its gothic heritage all the more clearly. Sarah shivered as the car drew up under its shadow. The desolate country building suddenly seemed a long way from the noisy bustle of the Boar’s Head restaurant.
As they crossed the unkempt driveway Casswell said, ‘I have invited one of my associates over for dinner tonight. I expect you to attend. Chang will help you get ready.’ His tone was clipped and formal. ‘You may continue with your work until then. I have matters to attend to on the estate.’
Sarah nodded and Casswell waved her inside. She hurried across the dilapidated hallway, glad to get back to the relative comfort and isolation of the study.
The transcript of Beatrice’s diary lay open on the desk beside the computer where she had left it. She picked it up without thinking and began to read, feeling instinctively that the past might offer her some kind of sanctuary.
Beatrice de Fleur was still out amongst the trees by the river, taking her master to the very edges of paradise:
…My naked breasts pressed tight against the cold leather of his waistcoat, my nipples brushing against the studded metal emblems of his house.
It seems no more than an instant before we both reached that ancient ground where all reason is lost and all that remains is pure pleasure. I cried out with delight as the first waves shuddered through me; waves of fire, waves of ice – while deep inside I could feel my lord’s erupting pleasure echoing my own.
And then, just as my lord pulled away, I saw someone hiding amongst the trees. It was not Orme. It was not Usher. It was another, and my heart leapt with terror as I recognised the spy…
Sarah turned the page, already drawn back into Beatrice’s intricate life and fears, and keen to know more.
…It was Michael, my mistress’s serving boy and the one who had been sent to bring me to my lordship. I think of him as a boy, but I suppose he is older than me, though small for his age, with a mass of white-blonde hair.
His face peering out from between the branches of the woodland was as unmoving as the trees themselves, but I could see the lust in his eyes, and those dark pupils that coolly drank in my unquestioning obedience and my master’s adultery. When he knew I had seen him, his face split into a devilish grin. I could see the triumph in his expression, and knew then that I was lost, and perhaps my master along with me.
I hesitated, unsure which course to take; should I tell my lord that we were found out? Before I could speak the decision was snatched away from me. Lord Usher called to my master through the trees, and as I looked towards the sound of his voice Michael disappeared from view, and I began to doubt that I had seen the boy at all. Perhaps it was not a human form I had seen spying on us, but a wood sprite? A satyr, or perhaps worse still, a wrath conjured up by my bad conscience?
My master set off across the grass and then smiled back over his shoulder towards me. ‘Go back to the castle, lady,’ he said. ‘I will see you later.’
Left alone amongst the whispering trees, my thoughts awash with passion and desire, I tidied my clothes and headed back towards the castle gate. The shadows were rapidly closing in, and it seemed that now they had done with me, the men had forgotten I existed. With every step back towards the castle wall I tried to convince myself that Michael had indeed been an apparition, a trick of the light.
As I reached the edge of the trees, deep in my own thoughts, Michael leapt into my path and made me jump with surprise and fear. This was no insubstantial sprite. He pressed his face close to mine, the grin still fixed steadfastly upon his face.
‘So,’ he teased, ‘it seems to me that the master has found himself a bold new filly to beat and ride. Did he break you to harness too?’ Before I could dodge him he snatched my arms.
I shook him off. ‘Unhand me, you stupid boy, or the next time the master raises his whip it will be to tan your hide,’ I snapped.
The boy laughed, unaffected by my words, but then I know Michael is no fool; he knows he has seen enough to ruin me and perhaps my master too. He pulled me close, sliding his hand up under my skirts.
‘Perhaps it would be best no
t to make an enemy of me, Bee. The mistress would, I am sure, be very interested to discover what it is that detains her husband all afternoon, and keeps her children’s teacher away from her duties for so long.’ He grinned, his hand working between my legs to cup the damp reaches of my sex. ‘And what an example that same good girl, fresh from the abbey, sets her little charges, coming to her duties all sweated up and pawing at the ground like a mare in heat. What do you think it would be worth to keep the news from her, Beatrice? A little of this perhaps?’ His finger eased into me.
I stared at him, quite unable to speak, quite unable to believe he would threaten me so terribly. Until now Michael had always struck me as strange boy, ungodly and unnatural in many ways, but not cruel or wicked. He is as pretty as any girl in the castle, and it is common knowledge amongst the servants that he is unnaturally drawn to men; burly knights and their like. So I wondered what on earth he might want from me.
I found out soon enough.
Before I could reply he forced me down to my hands and knees on the muddy path and dragged up my already filthy skirts around my waist.
He was far stronger than I had ever imagined, and held me tight so I could barely breath, much less escape, however much I struggled.
Smearing the juices from my sex deep into the secret recesses of my most unholy parts, he plunged a finger deep into my backside. The sensation took my breath away whilst my body screamed out in protest. As I began to sob he stuffed a rag into my mouth and pressed deeper still. It seems, much to my surprise, that the boy Michael is not the receiver of such masculine organs as are on offer, but the giver. Pressing down onto my back he pulled his finger out and drove his shaft deep, deep inside me; into those forbidden regions reserved only for unnatural and ungodly acts. His vigour made me shriek as he pushed himself deeper still. But, even though I was sick with revulsion, I dare not fight him in case he split my pretty little backside wide open.
He snorted and bucked above me, making me beg for clemency. The serving boy’s reply was no more than a devilish laugh. Perhaps I am right about him after all; perhaps he is a woodland sprite.
‘Scream all you like, my dear Beatrice,’ he gasped in my ear, his breath as hot as flame on my cheek. ‘No one is going to hear you. No one will come to your rescue. Your precious lord and master is already safely back in his apartments with his cousin Lord Usher and that dissolute bastard priest. We are all alone, you and I…’
Hot tears coursed down my face.
In the short time between Michael’s discovering me with my master, and the time I crouched before him in the mud, everything in my life had changed. I just pray that I have not lost everything in those few brief moments. Though repellent to me, I know too that I am beholden to that evil boy.
Around me in the woodland the shadows lengthened, or perhaps it was fear alone that made the world around me seem such a dark and unforgiving place. I have no idea how I got back to my chamber, nor where Michael went after his passion was spent. But in my heart I already know I have not seen or suffered the last of Michael and his obscene desires.
Chapter 8
When Sarah looked up, to her total surprise, the little study was in almost total darkness, the only light coming from the computer screen and the angle-poise lamp on the desk. Under Beatrice’s erotic enchantment time and even the dilapidated splendour of Casswell Hall had vanished into the background, taking with it memories of the youths in the barn and the meal at the Boar’s Head.
Outside, beyond the shadows of ruined terraces, the tumbles of foliage and the lake, the evening sky was cut with bands of intense scarlet and gold light; remnants of a dramatic sunset.
Sarah stretched. Closing Beatrice’s diary felt a little like waking from a vivid dream, so intense, so compelling, that the images lingered in the mind even after the sleeper’s eyes were open. It took Sarah several seconds to gather her bearings. When her head had cleared and she finally got to her feet, the door to the study opened, framing Casswell’s servant, Chang, in the gloom.
Sarah shivered; part of her had hoped it would be Casswell who came to collect her for dinner.
The small Oriental nodded towards the computer. ‘It is time to finish your work for today. Doctor Casswell is expecting you to join him for dinner this evening.’ He spoke in a precise manner. ‘He has asked me to help you prepare.’
‘I know.’ Sarah tried to smile. She already had her suspicions as to what may be expected of her at dinner, but what worried her more at that moment was what Chang might want beforehand while they were alone. She could still feel the presence of the anal dildo in her mind, if not in her body.
Chang indicated the door. ‘I have already drawn a bath for you.’
Sarah nodded and headed out into the hall. As she passed him, Chang smiled. The expression was so out of character that it looked almost uncanny on his normally impassive features, and did nothing to reassure her. For an instant she thought about Beatrice and her potential betrayer, Michael.
On the desk the transcript of the diary lay beside the computer. She could still feel Beatrice’s presence, her sense of violation and pain, and wondered fleetingly if Chang was cast in the same mould as the servant Michael. There was no way of telling.
For an instant Sarah wished she could step back into the past, back into a time where she was an unseen observer, and did not have to participate in the dark game that Casswell and Chang had invited her to join.
‘We don’t have much time,’ Chang said, beckoning to her, as if sensing Sarah’s hesitation. ‘The doctor’s guest will be arriving soon.’
Without another word Sarah turned and followed him upstairs into the shadowy reaches of the old house. It appeared that Chang had already prepared everything for her. The bedroom was warm, a fire crackling in the hearth, while through the open bathroom door she could see the steaming tub of water and a pile of thick towels on a chair beside the basin.
‘Now, quickly take your clothes off,’ Chang instructed. ‘It doesn’t do to keep the doctor waiting.’
Sarah hesitated for a moment, and then slipped her jacket off and unbuttoned her blouse, terribly aware of her exposure as she dropped them onto the floor under Chang’s unblinking stare. As she slipped her skirt off she realised she still smelt faintly of the youths in the barn. Her encounter with the two young hitchhikers seemed a lifetime ago now.
As she turned to undo her suspender belt Sarah caught sight of her reflection in the full-length mirror that dominated the bedroom. The image made her freeze for a second or two, and then she turned to drink in the details of her near nakedness. The mirror’s cool eye ensnared her as it had the night before. It was like looking at a highly charged erotic print that bore very little relation to the image she had of herself. At Casswell Hall Sarah was fast becoming another person.
As the magic caught hold she posed for her own pleasure, totally unconcerned and unaware of Chang’s dark eyes on her. Her skin had a delicate translucent glow. Her pert breasts looked exquisite in the soft lamplight, the nipples already gathered into tight dark rosebuds. Below the swell of her breasts and ribs her body narrowed dramatically into a slim waist, and below that her rounded hips, rich plains and curves, were emphasised by the black suspender belt. Sheer black stockings and the suspenders framed her naked sex.
The picture, caught in the soft lamplight, made her heartbeat quicken; Casswell, Beatrice, and Chang had transformed her into a sensual masterpiece.
She gasped as Chang moved silently behind her and ran a fingertip over her shoulder. ‘We can do much better than this,’ he said hypnotically. ‘Let me get you ready.’
Sarah stiffened; it was as though he’d been reading her thoughts. He held her mesmerised gaze in the mirror while he reached around her, and his small but strong hands cupped her breasts, and then moved down to her waist and hips. It was as if he was showing her nakedness off, displaying it for the mirror’s anonym
ous stare.
‘I have found, Miss Morgan, that the slave who understands their appeal fares far better in the long run,’ he said, enigmatically. He pressed closer, moving his face slowly along the sweeping contours of her neck and shoulders. His lips and nose were just a fraction of an inch above her flesh, as if he was savouring her essence.
‘You smell,’ he suddenly said flatly, flashing an accusatory glare at her via the unrelenting mirror. ‘Men… sweat… semen. What whorish things did you do this afternoon?’
Sarah shuddered and looked away, reddening furiously. Oh, what shame she felt. She wished the floor would swallow her up.
Chang laughed, the sound making her flesh creep.
‘Who was it?’ he persisted, idly circling one of her shamefully erect nipples with a fingertip. ‘Someone staying at the hotel, perhaps? Or did Doctor Casswell pick them up on the road? He does like to test his converts’ obedience at an early stage.’
Sarah swung round to face her tormentor. ‘I think I’d like to have my bath now,’ she said, with more defiance than she really felt.
‘Well, of course,’ Chang snorted with mock deference. ‘Whatever my lady wants.’
With some reluctance she accepted his offered hand and allowed him to lead her into the bathroom.
The capacious claw-foot bath was generously filled with soothingly perfumed water. It was with relief that Sarah climbed in and let the water embrace her, relishing its gentle caress on her tender skin and aching muscles.
Until the soft water enveloped her she hadn’t realised just how fatigued she was. She sank down into the fragrant bubbles and closed her eyes. Her mind drifted for a few minutes, and then she was snatched back to reality as a firm hand skirted across her shoulders. She opened her eyes, and there was Chang, stripped to the waist and preparing to soap her inert body.
In spite of herself Sarah sighed with pleasure. He seemed to understand where the pain was without her saying a single word. It was utter luxury. Chang leant closer. ‘I will wash your hair now, and then I am going to blindfold you.’