I turned off the tarmac and took the gravel path that led to a bridge over a stream and into a field of rocks and brown-tinged wild grasses that edged the marshy wood. Eventually I came upon a moss-covered, crumbling stone cemetery where various Dufferins with important-sounding titles were buried. Some were so old the etchings were faded. It was overgrown and unkempt. I skirted around a mosaic of leaves stained with gold, orange, red, and brown, and stood at the edge of it wondering what I was really doing there.
A simple, old gray marble stone under a yew tree caught my eye. I walked up to it.
Here lies my child,
Marian Ella Dufferin.
1821–1822
I will not rest until my heart
is cut out from my cold body and
interred inside her little chest of frigid bones.
It began to drizzle but I stood for a long time mesmerized by the gruesome request. I tried to imagine such a blind, unthinking love. My mother never loved us like that. I slid my hand along the cold marble. Tomorrow I decided I would come back and tidy up the grave, pull out the weeds.
My hair was soaked by the time I reached the castle. It was enshrouded in mist and I felt again the sense of eerie sadness. The stones had absorbed it and radiated it.
I went up to my room, dried my hair, changed into warm clothes, and went to the breakfast room. Mrs. Littlebell nodded to me. She seemed to have thawed toward me. When I slid a piece of bacon into a napkin she saw me, but quickly averted her eyes.
I hung around until Misty arrived. She smiled at me.
‘How are you this morning? I saw you up and about so early.’
‘Yeah, I went for a walk to the cemetery.’
She picked up a plate and helped herself to two sausages. ‘How morbid. Why?’
‘I was curious about the history of this place. And I saw a really interesting baby’s grave. Do you know anything about it?’
‘Well, that will be Countess Isabella Thorn Dufferin’s child. Supposedly her ghost is unable to rest in peace because she wanted her heart to be buried with her child and her husband refused to allow it.’ Misty turned her face toward the window. Great big drops of rain were running down the glass like fat slime. ‘God! Another fucking rainy day.’ She plonked down her plate, now also with two slices of toast, and sat. ‘What will you do today?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll explore the castle.’
‘Have fun… Just so long as you keep away from the Lady Anne tower.’
As I was leaving the breakfast room Mrs. Littlebell hurried toward me. She had a little package in her hand. She gave it to me.
‘This is his favorite—black pudding, made from pig’s blood.’
I took it from her gratefully. ‘Thank you.’
*****
That afternoon I found the grotto. I had never seen anything like it before and I was fascinated. A room made totally from thousands and thousands of shells pushed into soft cement. There were mermaids carved into the wall and an old man with a long beard. Was he Neptune? The old man of the sea? My mother had told me about him. When I was leaving it I came across Ceba. He stopped and stared at me. I put the bacon and the black pudding on the ground and walked away in the other direction. When I was about twenty yards away I saw him standing by the food looking at me.
‘I’m not scared of you. I’ll get you yet, Ceba,’ I said softly to myself.
*****
Then it was nine forty and I was sitting on my bed naked but for my dressing gown, swinging my foot and listening to the sound of my slipper hissing against the floor. I realized that I was impatient for her to come. I wanted to go to him.
Misty arrived at nine forty-five. There was a strange expression on her face.
‘What?’ I asked her.
‘Nothing,’ she said and smiled.
We walked together to the room. Inside the room she turned to me. ‘Kneel on the bed.’
I knelt on the bed and folded my legs underneath me.
‘I am not going to bind you today, only blindfold you.’ She picked up the blindfold and held it in front of my eyes. ‘You will not remove your blindfold for any reason whatsoever? Is that understood?’
‘Yes.’
She secured the covering firmly around my eyes.
‘Please remain in this position until he comes.’
‘I will,’ I said softly, but in fact, my heart was soaring. It was a small victory, but it was an important concession. I would not be chained like an animal.
I listened to her footsteps die away and waited until I heard his. Now that I was not so nervous I could hear that he was not alone. Ceba was with him—his nails clicked on the wooden floor. Guy opened the door and came in alone. I heard the weight of Ceba dropping to the ground.
The door closed.
Slowly, I leaned forward until my bum was in the air and my nose touched the sheet. I inhaled the fragrance of citrus. I turned my face and laid on my cheek. I heard him come forward and stop in front of me. For a few seconds he did nothing, and the muscles of my sex contracted with anticipation. Then the mattress behind me gave way to his weight and I felt warm, strong hands grab my hips. His palms were so big they almost went all the way around my girth.
Without warning he swiped his tongue along my exposed slit with a long, lingering stroke. A small sound of pure pleasure escaped me. My thighs began to quiver as wet heat gathered between my legs.
He lifted his head.
‘You have a beautiful pussy.’
I frowned. Pussy must be slang. I had never even considered the idea that my sex could be beautiful. Surely everybody’s was the same.
As if he had heard my thoughts he elaborated. ‘Pink and fleshy and pouting like a spoilt child… And so fucking wet. You have a pussy that begs to be fucked,’ he said and inserted a finger into my sex and then two. He was stretching me again.
I swallowed with the sensations his stroking was producing inside my body.
‘Look at you. You’re dripping all over my hand. There is only one thing about you I don’t like.’
I said nothing.
‘Ask me what.’
‘What?’ I whispered.
‘I don’t like it that you are silent. Today when you come I want you to scream loudly and hard. I want you to wake the dead with your screams. Can you do that?’
He didn’t know that I had been reared in silence. I nodded.
‘A yes would have been better.’
‘Yes.’
He reached to my nape and gathered my hair in a bundle. With a gentle but firm grip he twirled it in his fist as if it was the finest silk that was running through his hands… And pulled. That way he brought me back to my knees and arched my body backwards. I felt him move, and sensed that his chest was massive, brawny, and full of muscles as it flashed around me before his lips covered the tip of my breast. I bit my lip as my nipple hardened inside the warm wet cave of his mouth. He removed the cave.
‘Don’t just bite your lip—moan, gasp, whimper, or say my name,’ he said softly.
I swallowed.
He sucked my nipple, hard. And this time I let myself go. I made a small sound that was totally foreign to me. Almost like an animal sound. When he left my nipple he pulled his head back and I felt his eyes on the tip as it hardened even more, as if it was yearning for the return of its warm cave. I pushed my chest out toward him.
‘My impatient one,’ he murmured softly and ran his palm over the over-sensitized tip.
My neck lengthened. My juices ran down my legs. ‘Ahhh…’
‘That’s better,’ he encouraged and ran his tongue along my exposed neck. By now I was aching for satisfaction. Aching to be filled by him. Still holding onto my hair he ran the four fingers of his other hand along my throbbing crack as I shivered with pleasure. It was too much and yet not enough. I stiffened with need. He brought those slick fingers to my lips and smeared my own juices on them.
‘Open,’ he instructed.
I open
ed my mouth and he slipped his fingers in.
‘Suck.’
I closed my lips around his fingers and sucked them. They tasted funny—not disagreeable but different from anything else I had ever tasted.
‘You’ve never tasted yourself, have you?’
I shook my head.
He came really close to my ear. ‘Do you like the taste?’
I blushed and he laughed.
‘I love the way you taste,’ he said, and disentangling his hold on my hair he pushed me back on the pillow. He spread my legs until they were wide open and kissed me gently right in the center of my pussy. For a second I was shocked by the gentle kiss. I felt my heart soar recklessly. This was not sex. This was something more. Then I felt him freeze suddenly.
‘You have a very, very beautiful pussy, but what I really want is not cuddles and softness—’ he said and using his thumb and fingers parted my soaking wet folds, ‘is this.’ He thrust into me so suddenly and with such unexpected force and brutality that the breath was knocked out of my lungs. ‘And this.’
I gasped for my next breath and clawed the sheet.
‘I’m never going to fall for your innocent, butter-wouldn’t-melt mouth or your greedy little pussy.’ He plunged in again. Very hard.
I whimpered.
‘The only thing you can ever be is my blindfolded bitch.’
He slammed into me with such force that the bedsprings screeched, my head lifted completely off the pillow, and my entire body slid away in a rush. ‘And this is what you will get every day. A good hard fuck in the orifice of my choosing.’
The words were ugly, and I suddenly knew why he had frozen after the gentle kiss. He had remembered that he must not be kind to me, I was just a piece of meat. I should have been hurt or at the very least insulted, but I was too strangely excited by the hot, hard flesh buried deep inside me to care. No matter how much he wanted not to care, there was something between us. It was thick and strong and undeniable.
Shamelessly, I pushed my hips toward him. I didn’t want it to stop And it didn’t. Again and again I was filled with his cock and fucked until… Ah… My body began to flood with delicious sensation. I felt my eyes roll back in my head with waves of ecstasy, and this time I didn’t hold back—the sound that came out of my mouth was his name.
I screamed his name.
Chapter 15
It was raining the next day so I played the piano in the morning and afterwards I spent the day in the library. It was unheated so it was cold and musty smelling but I kind of enjoyed being surrounded by thousands of books. Ever since we were young my mother had instilled a great love for books in us. I dusted off old tomes. Some of them were full of mildew and silverfish. But I found a book I liked—The God of Small Things by Arundati Roy. I took it down and went to read it in the saloon. Misty was there.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hi,’ she said and smiled tightly.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. Just work problems. Anyway, you are requested to join Guy for dinner tonight in the dining room. Dinner will be served at eight p.m., but please go earlier so you don’t keep him waiting.’
I stared at her with surprise. ‘Guy wants me to have dinner with him?’
‘Yes. As usual Mr. Fellowes will serve. Do you know where the dining room is?’
‘Yes, I’ve been in it.’
‘Good.’ And she smiled again, but uneasily.
*****
I dressed in a black shirt, a pair of black trousers, and the sensible black shoes. Then I brushed my hair until it shone. I looked in the mirror. I looked pale and colorless. I bit my lip to redden it and pinched my cheeks. Then I went down the stairs. The flowers in the huge vase had been changed. The whole place was lifted with the fragrance of lilies. The grandfather clock said that it was seven forty-five. Mr. Fellowes was already there, dressed in his customary gravedigger suit. He nodded formally toward me. His eyes were purposely blank but I felt the curiosity in his gaze.
‘Come in, Lena,’ he said. I walked into the red room with the long table that could seat sixteen. It had been set for two. There were logs burning in the fireplace.
Mr. Fellowes pointed toward the chair that was beside the head of the table. ‘That is your place.’
I walked to it and sat on the leather chair. Then I looked up at Mr. Fellowes and said, ‘Will you teach me how to use all these utensils? I have never used anything but a fork and knife.’
Something flashed in Mr. Fellowes’ eyes that he quickly suppressed. He came around and stood beside me. Gravely and patiently he taught me about soup spoons, butter knives, side plates, working in from the outside, bread never being cut with a knife, the best place for the napkin being in your lap, and the four o’clock position that knives and forks must be placed in on the plate to signify that one is finished eating.
He coughed politely and looked at his watch.
‘Nearly eight?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Isn’t this so strange, Mr. Fellowes?’
He frowned and stiffened. ‘You’ll never find a kinder man than your master,’ he said.
I stared at him, surprised by the loyalty and passion in his voice.
‘Thank you, Mr. Fellowes.’
‘Not at all,’ he replied formally, and stepped back to wait by the sideboard. I felt nervous energy coil in my belly. I clasped my hands in my lap and took a deep breath. A few minutes later I heard steps and the clicking of Ceba’s nails on the stone tiles.
The door opened and he stood in the doorway. I had guessed that he was big, but he was taller and broader than I had imagined. That raw prowling energy rushed ahead of him and touched me like a finger. Misty’s words flashed into my mind—a masked man projects mystery and ancient allure.
His mask, made out of some malleable material, was skin-colored, and left exposed only his hair—raven black, rakishly long, carelessly styled, and curling at his collar; his mouth, his lips, lush and beautiful; and…his eyes.
I felt as if I had been kicked in the gut!
My heart was thumping so hard I heard the blood roaring in my ears. Unable to tear my eyes away I gazed at him in a trance-like state. It was not the color—which was the most dazzlingly beautiful molten gold, beyond anything I’d ever seen before—but the fierce, almost animal-like intensity of them. So intoxicating they made my head swim. At that moment I would have willingly surrendered anything he wanted. Both my body and my mind felt as if they were under a spell, no longer in my control. As aroused and helpless as one of Count Dracula’s victims!
For those few breathless seconds, we were no longer in the red-walled great dining room of the castle, but somewhere else, somewhere magical. There was no one else there except us. No Mr. Fellowes, no Ceba, or Misty.
Only me and the slowly roving, devouring, hypnotic eyes of a masked and powerful stranger poring over me. I felt overwhelmed. It seemed incredible that while I was blindfolded this tall and magnetic man had done sinfully delicious things to my naked body.
Then his lips moved. ‘Good evening,’ he drawled, his tone velvety and full of dark promise.
I shivered. His voice always stirred something inside me. Images of us coupling. A strange desire to be taken in forbidden ways.
My lips parted as the breath rushed out of me. ‘Hello.’ My voice sounded high and small.
Mr. Fellowes left the room unobtrusively, and Guy came forward, pulled his chair out and sat. Ceba settled himself with a grunt by Guy’s chair.
My eyes were drawn to his throat—darkly sensual against the white of his open shirt. He was wearing a black dinner jacket, but when he lifted his hands and put them on the table I noticed that he was wearing a black glove on his left hand. My gaze strayed to his right hand. It lay large and manly on the surface of the table. I remembered well the shape and the imprint it left on my body.
‘I heard you at the piano today. You play very well,’ he remarked.
Surprised by the
compliment, I looked up and found him watching me intently. Unable to hold his gaze I dropped my eyes to his lips, and that was worse because I suddenly remembered when he had kissed me between my spread legs. Heat flooded into my cheeks. Oh God! What an obvious fool I was.
‘Thank you,’ I choked finally.
‘Where did you learn to play?’
My hand fluttered nervously up to my throat. ‘My mother taught all of us to play.’
‘I thought your family were very poor.’
I dragged my gaze back to him. ‘We were, but my mother was once the daughter of a very rich man. She lived in a fine house in Moscow and taught music and English. The piano was a relic of those times.’
‘What happened then?’
‘She married my father,’ I said simply.
Mr. Fellowes returned carrying a tray. ‘Cream of asparagus and mint,’ he announced with a flourish and placed a bowl of thick green liquid with a cream swirl on its surface in front of me.
‘Thank you,’ I murmured, and watched him go around and place another bowl in front of Guy. Dipping the spoon into the smooth hot liquid I brought it to my lips. I had never tasted asparagus before. It was delicate and delicious.
I picked up the bread roll on my side plate, broke a small piece and buttered it.
‘Tell me about your father.’
‘My father was a hunter. He hunted elk, chinchillas, hares. Anything really. Once he shot a brown bear.’ My voice was flat and dead.
‘What kind of man was he?’
I put down my piece of bread and stared into my soup. ‘What is it that you want to know about my father?’
‘I want to know your history. I want to know how you came to be on the dark net waiting for a buyer.’
I bit my lip to stop it from trembling with the sudden hatred I felt for my father. ‘After my mother married my father something happened. Something bad and they had to leave Moscow in a hurry. The only thing of value they took with them was my mother’s piano. They moved to a tiny village adopting false names. And that is where we were all born, at the edge of a forest. Never meeting people, never going to school or on holidays, never having friends come around. And every year my father sold one of us because he believed it was his right to do so. After all, he had fed and sheltered and cared for us. Eventually, it became my turn.’ I glanced up at him.
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