Mr Darcy looked amused. ‘No, Miss Bennet. They are my in-boat music system.’ He turned his smoky-grey eyes upon the musicians and barked, ‘Play!’
Hastily they picked up their instruments, and began at once the first notes of a jaunty air.
Elizabeth looked puzzled. ‘I am not familiar with this tune. Pray, what is it?’
‘It is by Mozart, part of his Horn Concerto.’
Elizabeth listened to the music in silence for some time, staring out over the sun-dappled water.
‘I must ask, also, Mr Darcy,’ she said eventually, ‘is this scene in Miss Austen’s book?’
‘No, it’s in the other one,’ said Mr Darcy with a wry smile. ‘Its purpose, I believe, is to further reveal what a capable, suave, all-knowing alpha male I am, and cast light upon your own helplessness and general ignorance about everything from sex to classical music.’
‘I see,’ replied Elizabeth gravely. ‘But what of my general clumsiness? It has not been illustrated for some chapters now. One might say it has become almost an afterthought.’
They both pondered in silence for several moments. ‘Do you think I should fall in?’ asked Elizabeth.
Mr Darcy frowned. ‘I do not favour the idea, Elizabeth. It is very dangerous. You may get injured.’
‘I would get very, very wet,’ said Elizabeth teasingly.
‘You would.’
‘And my gown would become completely see-through.’
Mr Darcy’s eyes glistened with lust. ‘Undoubtedly.’
He reached over and began untying her restraints. ‘Whatever am I going to do with you, Miss Bennet?’ he murmured. ‘Sweet, accident-prone Lizzy.’ And picking her up in his sexy arms, he heaved her over the side.
‘My God! Elizabeth!’ he cried in anguish, as the water closed over her head. Before she knew what was happening, his strong arms had grasped her about the waist. He had dived in after her! She felt a tug as he dragged her upwards, and they both surfaced, she spluttering, he grim-faced and angry.
‘What in damnation do you think you’re playing at?’ he cried, water dripping sexily off his copper curls. ‘These waters are dangerous, Lizzy!’
With an almighty shove, he pushed her back into the safety of the barge, and effortlessly pulled himself up after her. His face was furious, his eyes radiating pain and concern.
‘I thought I’d lost you!’ he growled. ‘You must promise me, you must never, never go near water again.’
Elizabeth squeezed water from her sodden gown. ‘What if I need a bath?’ she asked meekly.
‘Two inches of water only!’ Mr Darcy snapped. Oh boy, he was really riled now!
They sat in silence for the return journey, and Mr Darcy glowered sexily all the way. The water had, as planned, caused Elizabeth’s gown to lose its opacity, and Mr Darcy’s eyes never left her figure. As soon as they set foot upon the bank, Mr Darcy began to drag her up the lawn towards the house.
‘It’s time, Elizabeth,’ he said firmly.
‘Time for what, Mr Darcy?’
‘Your seeing-to. Come …’
Elizabeth hesitated just a little too long. Mr Darcy’s grey eyes grew steely and dark.
‘Are you being wilful? You are not intending to disobey me again, are you, Elizabeth?’
Jeez, he was intense. ‘No,’ Elizabeth replied in a small voice.
‘No, what?’
‘What?’
‘No, what?’
‘What?! What don’t I know?’
‘No, I mean, you’re supposed to say, “Sir”.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ Elizabeth replied, flustered. ‘Um, no, Sir.’
Mr Darcy appeared relieved. ‘That’s better. Now, follow me. It’s nookie time.’
Elizabeth lay on Mr Darcy’s bed, staring up at the kinky painting that adorned the ceiling. Her wrists were secured to the bedposts with lengths of satin ribbon, her ankles tied in the same way. Naked, helpless, she was Mr Darcy’s plaything, ready for him to toy with. Jeez, this was hot!
Mr Darcy appeared at the foot of the bed. His chest was naked, his muscles rippling in the candlelight. On his lower body he wore a pair of ripped riding breeches, and in his hands he brandished a basket of foodstuffs he’d gathered from the kitchen.
His expression was carnal, his eyes hooded and full of longing. Slowly, mesmerizingly slowly, he walked round the side of the bed, drinking in the sight of Elizabeth’s naked loveliness. Suddenly, his hand swung out and – splat! – he flung an overripe tomato at her breast. Elizabeth gave a little cry of surprise. The tomato juice dripped down over her nipple and onto the bedclothes, and at once she was lost, lost in a sea of sensation.
Which of his comestibles would come next? Her nerve endings tingled in expectation, and she let out a low moan.
‘Silence!’ Mr Darcy commanded. Flump! Flump! Two handfuls of jam sponge landed on her other breast. Whump! She jolted as a cabbage bounced off her pubic hair.
‘You are mine, Lizzy,’ Mr Darcy said in an expressionless voice. ‘Mine, to punish and humiliate.’ Splot! An egg exploded just below her navel.
Mr Darcy moved over to the dresser and picked up a pitcher of water. Edging back towards the bed, he hurled its contents into Elizabeth’s face. The shock of the water made her gasp. Holy twat, it was cold! Rivulets of water coursed through her hair and dripped onto the pillow beneath.
‘Oh baby, let me feel how wet you are!’ Mr Darcy murmured, running his hand through Elizabeth’s soaking mane. ‘Mmm, so wet, just for me …’
Elizabeth gave another moan. There was water up her nose and in her ears, but all she could feel was Mr Darcy’s probing fingers and the heat of those passionate eyes.
Mr Darcy’s hands strayed further down, down to Elizabeth’s aching breasts. Gently, sensuously, he rubbed jam and cake crumbs all over her skin.
‘Taste!’ he ordered, holding one of his long index fingers in front of her lips. Duly, she opened her mouth and sucked.
‘Is that good, Elizabeth?’
‘Mmmm …’ she murmured appreciatively. She loved sponge fingers.
Abruptly, Mr Darcy rose and stepped back. She could hear his breathing becoming more ragged as he reached down into his basket and pulled out an enormous, gnarled parsnip.
‘This is what naughty girls get,’ he rasped, holding the parsnip reverently in both hands.
With one swift movement, he tore the ribbons binding Elizabeth’s feet. Instinctively, she raised her legs up, out of harm’s way.
‘A nice try, Miss Bennet,’ Mr Darcy murmured. ‘But there is to be no escaping your punishment.’
His mouth set into a hard line, and his eyes darkened. Raising his arm, he brought the vegetable down firmly, painfully, on Elizabeth’s exposed behind.
‘Oww!’ she gasped. She had never been beaten with a vegetable before, and it was surprisingly painful.
Again and again, Mr Darcy thwacked his parsnip against Elizabeth’s behind, again and again, up and down. It seemed he would never stop. Faster and faster it rose and fell; Elizabeth’s flesh felt hot and raw.
‘Come on, Elizabeth, let go!’ Mr Darcy groaned, his parsnip vibrating with each urgent stroke, his eyes closed in ecstasy. With every effort of strength, Elizabeth wriggled free from the ribbons that bound her hands. This time, she would touch him, she determined. She would show him exactly what a loving embrace felt like. Her hands travelled down, further down, until they reached Mr Darcy’s breeches. Closing about his taut buttocks, she pulled his body firmly towards hers.
‘Oh, Elizabeth … Mind my plums!’ Mr Darcy cried out. There was a horrible squelching noise, and Elizabeth felt juice trickling between her fingers.
‘You’ve squashed my plums!’ Mr Darcy cried, disbelief etched upon his handsome features. ‘My special kinky-sex breeches are totally ruined now!’
Mortified, Elizabeth saw that two overripe plums, which Mr Darcy had been keeping in reserve in his back pockets, had been quite flattened by her eager hands.
Mr
Darcy was angry now, truly angry. ‘I told you, Elizabeth, never to touch me! Can you not follow that one simple rule?’
‘I am so sorry,’ she said meekly. ‘I am sure I can get the stains out of your breeches if you just allow me to try.’
Mr Darcy scowled. ‘Never mind my damn breeches. Jones will take care of them. The point is, why are you so wilful? Why can you not simply obey me, like a true submissive would?’
Elizabeth looked down. ‘I … I am beginning to doubt that I have what it takes to be a submissive,’ she said, not daring to look up into his blazing grey eyes. ‘I am not sure I enjoy being pelted with vegetables, or tied up, or whacked with newspapers. I want other things.’
‘Other things?’ Mr Darcy’s eyes widened in horror and alarm. ‘Do you mean icky, yucky stuff, like holding hands?’
‘And maybe kissing sometimes. And just hugging, without you attempting to feel me up at the same time.’
‘But this is the way I am, Elizabeth. I am not sure I can do those things. My time at Beaton …’ His voice trailed off, and he looked so young, so damaged, that Elizabeth felt her heart flood with tenderness. ‘I was never kissed, never hugged. I was flogged daily, and learnt to love it, as I’m sure you will too if you give it a chance.’
Elizabeth shook her head. She was unsure what to think. Was she capable of saving this sexy aristo with the smouldering grey eyes and fucked-up personality? Or was he just an irredeemable perv, beyond anyone’s reach?
‘Please just tell me one thing,’ she said, wiping tomato juice off her breasts. ‘What is it with you and food?’
Mr Darcy sat on the edge of the bed, seemingly oblivious now to the plum juice that dripped from his breeches. ‘You’ve probably wondered why there are no portraits of me as a youth at Pemberley,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s because, when I was a child, I was a great big fatso.’
Elizabeth was shocked. Mr Darcy – obese? But he was so freakin’ hot! How was it possible?
‘Quite simply, I was greedy, Elizabeth. Just as now I am greedy for female flesh, during my schooldays I was greedy for cream cakes and steamed puddings. I wobbled when I walked. The other boys at Beaton called me “Fatzwilliam”.’
‘Then how …?’ Elizabeth was thinking about Mr Darcy’s washboard abs and taut buttocks.
‘Lady Catherine took me in hand. She made the school put me on a strict diet, and I worked out,’ he explained. ‘So now, I enjoy my food vicariously. Do you understand?’
‘I think so.’
‘When I see you with a bacon sandwich or a hotdog, it brings me pleasure. Seeing you eat is almost as good as eating myself.’
Elizabeth could have wept. Poor Mr Darcy. Lost, fat little boy, forced to look on in the dinner hall as the other boys tucked into capons and roast mutton and rice pudding, while he partook of thin gruel. And going to bed hungry, always hungry …
‘When did you last see your doctor, Elizabeth?’ Mr Darcy enquired later that morning, when Elizabeth had cleaned herself up. It had taken a good while as Mr Darcy had given strict new instructions that she was to be issued with only two tablespoons of washing water per day.
‘Oh, many months ago,’ she replied. ‘I am blessed with robust good health.’
‘Then I insist upon you seeing my physician, Dr Knowe.’
‘How so? I am not feeling at all unwell. Quite the opposite, in fact.’ Elizabeth’s lips quirked up into a smile. Holy hell, now she was doing it too!
Mr Darcy’s lips quirked up right back at her in amusement. ‘Oh, Lizzy – my beautiful, sweet girl – how is it that you know so little of your own body? Dr Knowe is a specialist in the inner workings of women. We must take the necessary precautions to ensure that our unions do not have any unwanted results.’
‘You are talking of … a child?’ Elizabeth was deeply shocked. Carried away by Mr Darcy’s lusts and her own desires, she had not stopped to think of such a terrible consequence.
‘Granted, it’s unlikely,’ her Gaydar cut in. ‘He hasn’t even penetrated you yet.’
‘Well, yes, pregnancy is one consideration,’ Mr Darcy replied, ‘but mostly I want to make sure I don’t give you the clap. As you know, I have frequented many bawdy houses in my time, and on one occasion, after a visit to Dirty Delilah, I did have this nasty-looking rash …’
‘Pray, do not speak of it,’ said Elizabeth curtly. She could not bear to think of Mr Darcy in the arms of any woman other than herself, let alone a fifty-year-old lady of the night with a clichéd name and poor personal hygiene.
‘It is a matter that we must address,’ Mr Darcy said gently, taking her hand in his and looking deep into her eyes – searching, probing, like a speculum opening up a pathway to her soul. ‘Dr Knowe will be here at noon. Please be ready for him.’
Elizabeth dropped her eyes. Damn, she was even more clumsy than usual when she was flustered. She hastily picked them up.
‘I will do it for you, Fitzwilliam,’ she said quietly, ‘although I do not wish my most intimate parts to be seen by any man other than yourself.’
‘Do not worry, Dr Knowe is an elderly man, and his sight is not what it was,’ Mr Darcy explained. ‘You will find him to be most tactful and discreet.’
Noon arrived, and Dr Knowe was duly greeted by Mr Darcy. He was indeed a man in the latter stages of life – about three score years and ten, Elizabeth guessed – and walked with a stoop. His manner was sprightly, however, and his wit lively, and he and Mr Darcy exchanged many pleasantries while Elizabeth waited patiently to be introduced.
‘How’s the old John Thomas?’ asked Dr Knowe, swinging his medical bag in the direction of Mr Darcy’s breeches and accidentally whacking him in the goolies. Mr Darcy doubled up and gasped for breath.
‘Speak up, Darcy,’ Dr Knowe entreated. ‘I am old, as you well know, and my hearing is not as acute as it was in my youth.’
‘It is in fine form, Doctor,’ Mr Darcy panted, ‘but it is to this young lady, Miss Bennet, that I wish you to minister on this occasion, not myself.’
Dr Knowe whirled about hither and thither and finally caught sight of Elizabeth.
‘Good heavens, Madam, I thought you were the grandfather clock!’ he exclaimed. ‘A young lady, eh?’ he continued. ‘Then in that case, we must find somewhere more private for our little examination.’ He opened the door of a nearby cabinet. ‘If you will just step this way, Miss Bennet.’
‘Hmmm, I’m getting a bad feeling about this,’ Elizabeth’s Subconscious interjected.
‘Forgive me, Doctor, but that is an armoire,’ Mr Darcy pointed out.
‘Good heavens, Darcy, you are right!’
‘Perhaps,’ Mr Darcy suggested, ‘I might show you to Elizabeth’s bedchamber? No one will disturb you there. Apart from Taylor, who is stationed in Miss Bennet’s laundry basket.’
Elizabeth gasped. ‘Taylor has been spying on me? Why, pray, have you asked him to do such a thing?’
Mr Darcy took Elizabeth’s face in his hands, tenderly. ‘To keep you safe,’ he murmured. ‘You might trip over a discarded ribbon. Or be knocked over by a pillow feather. I couldn’t bear that to happen to you, Lizzy. You. Are. So. Precious. To. Me.’
‘Are. We. Ready. To. Proceed?’ asked Dr Knowe, who clearly had little time for such displays of affection.
Mr Darcy released Elizabeth and stepped back. ‘Please, take good care of her, Doctor,’ he entreated. His eyes were smouldering like barbecue coals. ‘She belongs to me.’
‘You can be assured that I will do my utmost in that regard. By the way, Darcy, when I’ve finished, do you want me to give you a little something for that eye infection?’
‘No, thank you, Doctor. I like my eyes to smoulder. It makes me look sexy.’
The Elizabeth who emerged after an hour’s probing, prodding and poking looked even more pale and wide-eyed than usual. While Doctor Knowe was packing away his instruments and conversing with Mr Darcy, she lay on a chaise longue in the parlour and tried to recover her previous good spirits.
Entering into a kinky-sex pact seemingly entailed a wide and constantly changing range of humiliations and discomforts, chief among them the good Doctor ‘endeavouring to locate her womb’ in completely the wrong alleyway. She winced at the memory.
Suddenly, she found herself longing to be back at Longbourn. She wondered what Jane was doing at that very moment – picking rosemary in the garden, perhaps? Or darning her best gown? Kitty would be daydreaming, Mary would be at her pianoforte, and Lydia and Mama, no doubt, would be comparing tongue piercings. At the thought of home, Elizabeth’s eyes filled with hot tears. What was she doing here, as Fitzwilliam Darcy’s sex slave? Discontentedly, she turned over onto her stomach and buried her head in a plump, pale pink cushion.
‘Why, Miss Bennet, that is quite an arresting sight!’ Mr Darcy’s voice came as if out of nowhere, his husky tones heavy with desire and anticipation.
Elizabeth lifted her head. Mr Darcy was standing over her, his grey eyes dancing with amusement. She frowned. ‘What, pray, is an arresting sight?’
Mr Darcy merely smirked. Elizabeth followed his gaze down to the cushion beneath her head and realized, with a frisson of embarrassment, that it was shaped exactly like a giant pair of buttocks.
Hastily, she sat up. Why must everything at Pemberley be lewd, and wanton? Why could Mr Darcy not simply have cushion-shaped cushions, like every other gentleman?
‘Oh, Elizabeth,’ Mr Darcy murmured. ‘Whatever are we to do? You have inflamed my desires all over again.’ He reached down and caressed her cheek. ‘You make me want to put on a CD of Gregorian chants and run a furry glove all over you.’
‘Please, Mr Darcy,’ Elizabeth entreated. ‘May we not do something else this afternoon? I am greatly in need of rest.’ A furry glove was the last thing she needed; she was still reeling from the parsnip-whacking.
Mr Darcy’s eyes flashed in anger. His hands balled into fists at his sides. Then, just as suddenly, he seemed to relax again. Holy psychopath, he was so changeable!
‘Very well,’ he declared in a cool voice. ‘We shall save the furry glove for another day. Now, come …’ He held out his hand.
Fifty Shades of Mr Darcy: A Parody Page 12