Southern Spirits

by Edie Bingham

  She had initially ignored their advances. It wasn’t as if she was in a position to complain; she was creeping into her forties now, back in the workplace after Steve had left her for his therapist’s secretary, for God’s sake, and her boss had given her a chance at this job. Was she going to get heavy if some VIPs got a little grabby? She’d planned on putting up with it, letting them have fun, and then escorting them to their berth to sleep off the rest of the night.

  What she didn’t plan on, though, was how she had started responding positively to them. But then why not? They were attractive: lean, fit, with infectious grins and, despite their youthfulness, well mannered. Also, it had been a long, long time since any hands but her own had touched her. And what woman wouldn’t be turned on by the thought of a man – and a woman! – nearly half her age, desiring her? And, judging from their actions, they did desire her.

  Zhen moved up the bed, drawing his cock closer.

  She breathed in his scent, guiding his shaft into her mouth. Her tongue licked the length of him, tasting him, salty maleness flooding her senses, sensations which doubled as she felt strings of tiny climaxes burst from her at Ling’s touch below her, especially as one finger had moved up to the entrance to her rear, playing with her there as well.

  She pulled back from Zhen’s cock and gasped, ‘Jesus!’ as Ling removed her fingers, replacing them with her tongue, suddenly darting into her wet sex with short, rapid bursts . . .

  . . . Tara jerked at the touch, laughing, glad the beds provided in the games carriages were big; as cosy as the berth beds were, sharing one with a couple would have been awkward at best.

  Even a couple as lovely and inviting as the Olivers, whom she’d grown to know better over the course of the evening. They were a friendly, attractive pair, who hadn’t let a recent run of financial bad luck dampen their joie de vivre. The three of them talked, laughed, kissed and petted each other for ages, before finding a spare bed in a ‘private’ room, where spectators could watch them from behind a trick mirror without disturbing them – and one with a hotspot, one that they could all share. This train was magnificent!

  But now they were back, aware once again, as Hannah moved behind her now, kneading Tara’s aching breasts and cupping her furry mound. Tara made her own groaning sounds, feeling her body move once again towards climax, wondering how long she could endure this.

  Not long, as it turned out, as Hannah pulled her off Ben, making the man moan; Tara could sense how close he’d been to his own zenith. But Tara, her senses ablaze, felt hypnotised, turning as Hannah was leaning back on a pillow, leaving Tara kneeling. Hannah parted her thighs, revealing a pussy of delicate flesh; Tara drank in her sweet and heady fragrance.

  As if from a distance, Tara could feel Ben behind her, lifting her up and parting her thighs. Warm fluid seeped from within, and she desperately craved attention. Ben kindly obliged; the lips of her sex swallowed the tips of his fingers as he reached between her thighs and stroked her pussy lips, dipping into her before seeking out her clit. His rhythm was slow at first, considerate, able to support himself without disturbing Tara and Hannah’s own love-making; she felt his erection press against her outer thigh, while his hands gripped her sides. But soon he was coaxing the rhythm into a lovely gallop.

  Tara let the thrusts draw her down, down Hannah’s body, until she buried her face between the woman’s thighs, lapping at the soaking folds of her moist pocket, finally delighting in the exquisite tastes. Hannah’s thighs reflexively closed against the sides of Tara’s head, her pussy wavering between taut reaction and supple submission to her bliss, ultimately becoming impotent to fight the exquisite sensations, the same sensations Tara herself felt.

  Fuck, girl, I could bend you over now and take you up the ass . . .

  The thought hit her like a pungent odour and, with a sudden feeling of being exposed and dirty, Tara looked up and over at the mirrored glass, knowing who was behind it, getting off on watching.

  ‘Tara?’

  Her attention returned to a concerned Hannah, looking down at her, wondering what had happened. The woman was more worried about Tara than about her own interrupted pleasure.

  Tara smiled in reassurance and returned to the woman’s sex, regretting letting herself be distracted by the asshole behind the glass. She set up an internal mantra to block out the external thoughts and feelings around her, and continued to kiss and lick the woman until she grew wild, the cries from her mouth inarticulate pleas and demands, her fingernails digging into the sides of Tara’s head. Suddenly Hannah stiffened, her muscles contracting sharply against Tara’s face, indeed her whole body shaking with release. Before she even realised it, Tara’s own climax from Ben’s touch followed, and her throttled cry was muffled into the sex of her new lover, as wave after wave of pleasure swept through her body, making her dig her nails into Hannah’s soft hot thighs.

  The women reclined together, Ben with them, his own erection waiting, but he seemed content to take his time.

  Come on, babe, give us more of that brown sugar . . .

  Tara frowned, unable to block the thoughts from her mind. She kissed Hannah, letting her taste her own sex. ‘I need to use the toilet. You two don’t mind carrying on?’

  Their disappointment was evident, but they remained good-natured, Ben replying, ‘Only if you promise to find us again before this weekend’s out.’

  Tara grinned. ‘I promise.’ She kissed him too, before rising and dressing, leaving them alone to continue for the benefit of their unseen audience.

  Her post-climax warmth was fading quickly as she made her way out into the corridor, hoping to avoid the author of her distraction.

  And failing. ‘Hey, nice show.’ Donnie leant against a corridor wall and smiled at her. ‘How’s about a private session?’

  From an early age, Tara had the gifts: second sight, prophetic dreams, clairvoyance. For a long while, they had been curses, when she could perceive things she’d rather not have: what some supposed friends really thought of her, her mother’s secrets and her father’s scandals, casual bigoted and cruel thoughts from seemingly the most saintly. She had ventured into adulthood, gradually accepting what she possessed, and seeking a place where she felt at home. Here, she felt that way. It was paradise.

  Only this man made her feel like he was the serpent in it. And the train’s innate energies were amplifying her own perceptions. Thoughts and images flooded her now from him, drenching her earlier satisfaction and leaving her feeling mortified. ‘Who’s April?’

  He blinked. ‘Huh? No one. I don’t know anyone named April.’

  ‘Is she onboard?’

  ‘No. I mean, who?’

  Then the truth hit Tara like a punch, and she glared with sudden disgust. ‘You stupid prick. You’ve no idea what you’ve done.’

  Before he could respond to her cryptic condemnation, Faye stepped into view, barely glancing at Tara before fixing on Donnie, taking him by the arm. ‘Come on.’

  Tara said nothing as the pair disappeared, glad to see the back of both of them. They deserved each other.

  Without ceremony, Faye guided him into an unoccupied alcove, one with a waist-high padded platform like a doctor’s examining couch and one she knew had no microphones or cameras. She pushed him back against the platform and dropped to her knees, the swelling in his baggy linen trousers prominent but not indicative of a full erection. Her hands reached up along his sides, before moving to his belt and zipper, undoing them. She drew out his penis: long and thick and dark, with a flaring head glistening with moisture.

  ‘Told ya you shouldn’t have sent me away,’ he swaggered.

  ‘Shut up.’ She drew in first his odour, musky and salty, and then parted her lips and drew in the rest of him. He made a sound of intense approval above her as she ran her tongue along the rim of the head, tasting him.

  She kept it up for a while, but then pulled back and looked up at him in the deep pink light in the alcove, knowing she now had his full atten
tion. ‘I’ve been thinking . . . this train needs new management. How’d you like to run it with me?’

  8

  Mickey gripped Val tightly by the hips as he drove into her. ‘Him? That’s Frenchie, some big Cajun slab of beef from deep in the bayou. Not much upstairs, but strong. Why? You know him?’

  ‘No,’ Val lied, adjusting the pillow beneath her as her husband fucked her from above. Her family charm dropped to the right side of her neck. Outside their berth window, the retreating Louisiana wilderness was a blur of speed and darkness broken by the odd flash of light as the train passed a house near the tracks. ‘Risky, isn’t it? Hiring someone you hardly know, and he’s not even Italian.’

  ‘Riskier recruiting in Chicago; the Feds know us up there. Besides, he knows Spanish, and I want someone who does when I deal with those cacasodo Cubans again.’

  Val understood. In the year they had been married, she had made many rail journeys between Louisiana and Illinois, sometimes with Mickey, other times with one or more of his men. Never alone. And always carrying money from Chicago, either to launder through their clubs in New Orleans, or to transfer to Cuba to help keep the government casino-friendly. But there was trouble brewing from revolutionaries in the hills, though Val doubted if that bearded mumbler Castro and his bunch of hairy rebels would get far.

  She stroked his face, while squeezing his shaft with her pussy. ‘I don’t like the look of him.’

  Mickey grunted, quickening his pace. ‘I didn’t hire Frenchie for you to like, but to keep an eye on you and our investments in my absence. Keep that in mind.’

  ‘Yes, Mickey.’ She let him go faster, kept her grip on him to increase the friction, while her mind drifted back to twenty minutes before, before they’d gone to bed for a quick fuck, when some of Mickey’s men – including his latest recruit – came to the berth to check in with him. She could still see the heavy-framed figure standing respectfully in the rear, clad in an ill-fitting new pinstriped suit, the square jaw and aquiline nose and short-cropped chocolate hair. Their eyes had met, for only a moment.

  You stupid bastard.

  She willed Mickey to finish up and to shut up. Not that he did. ‘The Fratellis’ anniversary party is this weekend. Think we can improve relations this time?’

  Val didn’t answer, having given up arguing about that as well. The Mob wives hadn’t exactly accepted her into their collective bosom, seeing her as some unsophisticated Southern rube, though Mickey’s standing within the organisation precluded them from saying so aloud, to her face. She found herself less hypocritical, however, more than once berating the beehive-haired bitches for their obsession with Tupperware parties and self-denial about their husbands’ jobs and girlfriends on the side.

  Of course, it was little better when she visited New Orleans. Her father remained the same, but her old friends now looked on her as a traitor, a whore who literally climbed into bed with outsiders.

  She’d never felt so isolated.

  So Val rode at his pace, made all the right sounds that pleased him, until he finished.

  After a while, he regained his senses, rose and began cleaning himself up and dressing. ‘Gonna go meet up with the boys.’

  She nodded, pulling the sheets up around her. ‘Whatever.’

  He wasn’t long out the door when she was moving her hands under the sheets, lightly stroking her breasts, letting the nipples stir and pucker and her skin tingle, even as she squeezed her thighs together, grinding against the mattress as if fighting an intruder. She had to do a lot of this lately too, Mickey having grown too busy to put much effort into fucking. She watched her body move beneath the sheets, catching glimpses of herself as she lifted a knee and raised the covers, seeing her soft light skin and dark delta . . .

  There was a knock at the door and she cursed, the spell broken. She rose and slipped into one of Mickey’s shirts, half-buttoning it, expecting the porter or maid . . .

  ‘Hello, ma chère.’

  Enrique, large as life. Larger; he seemed to fill up the doorway.

  Immediately she reached out and pulled him inside, slamming the door, the emotion she’d had pent up inside her since seeing him unleashed. ‘What the fuck are you doing here, you asshole?’

  He blinked at her unexpected use of profanity and then recovered. ‘It’s Frenchie now. Their idea.’ He shrugged, smiling.

  ‘It’s not funny! If he finds out who you were – are –’

  ‘How? I wasn’t around on previous visits, and I had my friends give me a good story.’ He drew closer, giving her that smile that made her ache more than once. ‘What, did you think I’d take “no” for an answer? Just leave you –’

  ‘Leave me what? Protecting my father’s life, our business? Didn’t those letters I sent explain clearly enough for you? Is that why you’re doing this? Some stupid romantic gesture? The soldier boy come back to kill the bad guy and rescue the damsel? What then? Have you thought any of this through?’

  Enrique’s expression sobered now. ‘I promised I’d look after you. Everyone said you were fine. I didn’t believe them.’

  Val was torn between holding him tight and never letting him go, and throwing him off the train in order to protect him. She settled for: ‘You should have listened to everybody. I am fine. Mickey doesn’t hurt me. He treats me OK.’

  His face hardened at her words, and his eyes moved past her to the bed and its crumpled sheets. ‘I’ll bet he does.’

  The anger and fear boiled over at him, and Val swung up and slapped him across the face. She winced in pain but determined to repeat it, until he grabbed both her hands and pinned them behind her, pulling her up against him. Her blood boiling, she struggled in his grip, feeling the air in the berth touch her rear as her shirt rucked up. She felt overwhelmed by his closeness, the heat of his body and his male scent. So close again, so familiar, a reassuring presence in her life once more.

  This was insane. She had to have Mickey fire him or reassign him. Anything to save his life – both their lives.

  He held her tightly with one arm, the hand of the other reaching up and touching her face, drawing her tousled hair back, his fingers tracing along her ears. ‘I’ve missed you, Val,’ he whispered in that husky, captivating way of his. Then he leant in and tongued and nipped the rim of her ear. Val moaned, her nipples aching as she felt the warmth and quickness of his breath, and the solid flesh pressing against her thigh through his trousers, as solid as the rest of him after two years in the army.

  His mouth was soft, though, working its way across her cheek to the corner of her lips. She relished the gentle, seductive warmth and manner, then opened her mouth to his, her tongue a hot arrow winging its way to meet his.

  Val began melting from his kisses, feeling stimulated in a way that Mickey had stopped doing for her. Her lips ached and her pussy ached more – but this remained a very, very dangerous gambit. ‘N– No, we can’t.’

  Val turned in place to escape him. But Enrique gripped her again, this time from behind, one arm gripping her beneath her hot needy breasts, the other hand unbuttoning her shirt enough to reach inside and cup one breast, his thumb brushing against the tip. Val jerked, feeling her pussy thicken and heat up, thrumming in sweet response. She whispered a prayer of help to Mamselle Belagrís, for strength . . . ‘N– No,’ she moaned weakly.

  He slipped his hand out, as if genuinely listening to her.

  And brought it down between her legs, jolting her . . .

  . . . awake, Cat blinking in the strong morning light streaming in through the slats on the berth window; the train had stopped, as per schedule. She was resting her head in the hollow of Nathan’s arm, her breath caressing his skin, her eyes seeing the outline move underneath the cotton sheet. Cat made a soft sound to herself as she recalled the events of last night. Dios, that was such a luscious fuck! To feel Nathan succumbing to her suggestions, his body against hers, tasting him . . . And when his hand dived down between her legs as he held her from behind . . .
>
  No, that was the dream! Damn! What the fuck were those about anyway? Damn Wheeler and his mystical bullshit . . .

  She pushed it out of her mind for a while, gently lifted the sheet and moved it aside to look at their naked bodies. His cock was soft and curved in its flaccid state until the russet head, collared by dark-tipped foreskin, rested against one ball, almost hidden beneath black curly hair. Its musk was strong, and it looked so peaceful, sleeping like its master.

  But not for long . . . She reached down and playfully stroked the head. There was a twitch, one that repeated as she repeated, running the tip of her thumb around the head, again and again. Cat felt the shaft pulse in response, though Nathan himself didn’t stir.

  Bolstered by the reaction, Cat softly engulfed the thickening shaft in her hand, feeling his pubic curls as she slowly drew the sheath of skin up and down, feeling it grow harder. She smiled mischievously to herself.

  Nathan stirred, and she released him, drew the sheet back over them, pretending to have just awakened herself. He stared groggily at her. ‘Wha– What are you doing?’

  ‘Me? Nothing. Just felt something stabbing me in the side, thought you might have brought your gun to bed.’

  He seemed to waken more now, blushed crimson as he slid out from under the sheet and turned away from her, searching and finding his boxers. ‘Sorry, I don’t know what I was doing.’

  ‘I do. I was cold last night, you agreed to lie beside me. Share your warmth, as any good partner would do.’ She regarded the lean, smooth line of his back and buttocks, smiling as he deliberately kept his back to her, his erection still obvious. ‘Remember?’

  He glanced behind him. ‘Yeah. Yeah, that was it. Hope you . . . slept well.’

  She smiled. ‘Oh, si. And I had this wonderful dream.’ Cat moved in place, twisting around to lie on her belly with her head at the foot of the bed. ‘It was so erotic. I was drunk, and in trouble, and this cowboy took care of me, kissing me, undressing me, being so tender, so giving and satisfying.’