Tainted Love

by Louisa Trent

  The jewel tone was rich and flamboyant, an abrupt departure from what she had worn in recent years. The design was austere, yet so form fitting--with the exclusion of the bustle--that it was more than a little apparent that she was wearing nothing, at all, underneath. She would classify the style as seductive, but intrinsically lady-like.

  Tony walked around her. "You will do very well. That color goes well with your hair tone." His finger went to the side of his nose. "You will hold a rose and wear your hair down."

  "Surely you jest..."

  He looked up from under his bushy eyebrows. "An artist never jests about the props."

  As she removed the hairpins from her chignon, Tony said, "I hear you and Doyle are seeing each other socially."

  "I would hardly call it social." She combed her fingers through her hair, which fell to her hips when released.

  Tony took his position on his artist's stool behind the easel. "He spends time with a few of my models."

  Tony squeezed blobs of paint onto his palette. "He doesn't see any of them for long. I would say that variety is the key to his love life," he said, his neck craning out from behind the canvas.

  "Oh?" Lillian replied, feigning disinterest.

  As happenstance predicts such matters, she had first met Doyle at Tony Camaro's studio. For six months, the architect consulted with the artist on a large, out-of-state park project. Though now residing in Maine, many of Doyle's referrals still came from New York City.

  She had developed a crush on Doyle almost from the first. Subsequently, she always managed to be at Tony's studio, peeking through a crack in the door, when Doyle was scheduled to arrive.

  One day, Tony must have been running late, for he chatted with Doyle while he put the finishing touches on a nude, a bosomy brunette who was a favorite subject of the artist. As it turned out, she became a favorite of Doyle's too.

  After church one Sunday, she stumbled upon the same model, in all her naked voluptuousness, on her knees before Doyle at his in-home, architect office...

  *

  She let herself in without knocking.

  Doyle was facing Lillian as she gained entrance, his back to the fire, his arm slung languidly over the mantelpiece. The model's lush mouth, which Lily saw in profile, was devouring the shockingly huge contents of the architect's open trousers.

  Engaged in her occupation, the model was unaware that an eighteen year-old girl, still dressed in her best Sunday gown--a hopelessly childish sprigged cotton--watched from the doorway.

  Doyle knew. His dark brooding eyes followed her as she quietly made her way to his large desk.

  Never losing visual contact with him, Lillian raised her leg to the leather blotter, yanked her gown to the waist, tunneled her hand through the slit drawers, and found her clitoris. She proceeded to masturbate.

  His face dark and angry, Doyle groaned his climax into the model's mouth.

  Not to be outdone, Lily smothered her pleasure with a fist.

  Doyle wiped himself off with a handkerchief. Then helped the full-breasted model to rise. Placing a kiss in her palm he said, "Thank you, Renee. That was wonderful. Take the back door out, if you please; I expect a client at any moment."

  With a pout, the model picked up her clothing and left.

  "I cannot imagine what you see in her," Lily offered.

  "Her long, deep throat is what I see in her."

  "My throat is long..."

  "You have a beautiful throat. All of you is exquisite."

  "I wish to lose my virginity."

  "Take that up with your future husband, little one."

  "I can give you what that fat cow gives you. I can give you everything."

  "No, you cannot. Your pussy would never accommodate me."

  He presented her with his arm. "Come, you need to go home." He smiled down at her. "And, stop peeping in Tony's studio's door or I shall tell the artist that you are staring at the naked ladies... "

  *

  Lost to the remembrance, she hadn't paid attention to Tony. "Excuse me? What did you say?"

  "I said: my life models are all lovely. And Doyle is a man, darling. And unmarried. The rumors have it that he participates in group sexual activities, threesomes, foursomes, outright Roman orgies. "

  Tony lifted his brush to mark off his canvas. "Ordinarily, another man's sexual excesses would not concern me, but I shall not have you hurt again. Now, no more gossip. It's back to work for me."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Two nights later, Lily arrived for her next scheduled session with Tony. Having been forewarned that her former art teacher might be late arriving for her sitting, she was not at all taken aback to find the studio empty.

  What did take her aback was the studio's extreme orderliness.

  No soiled rags, no empty paint pots, no half-eaten food littered the desks and tables. One of the back windows had even been opened, allowing cool ocean breezes to fan across the room.

  A small round table, covered in white damask, had been installed in the room's center. An understated flower centerpiece graced the top.

  Tony and his love of props! Lily mused, running a finger over a velvety petal of a delphinium.

  The door opened, and an off-key whistle broke into her thoughts.

  Her fingers fell away from the blue delphinium petal. She looked up, smoothed her hands over her hips, while tossing her head. She had just washed her hair, and the unbound strands felt as slippery as the gold silk gown against her bare skin. "Where is Tony C?"

  "He has another engagement."

  Doyle sauntered across the studio floor. "I hope you have an appetite." He held up a whicker picnic basket. "I brought dinner."

  At the round table, he methodically began to unpack china and long-stemmed wine glasses.

  Her unrestrained breasts shifted, the long ends tightening automatically in Doyle's presence. Her body's response was no secret in the gold silk; the gown fit like a second skin, molding her bosom and bottom, accentuating the moistening delta between her legs.

  "I don't enjoy surprises, Doyle."

  "You will this one."

  She smoothed her hands slowly over her belly, to stop the butterflies, to stop the tingles, to stop the...

  Fear? Or excitement? Was there really a difference between the two, and did it even matter?

  No torn clothes for the architect tonight, she immediately noticed. Doyle wore a crisp white linen shirt, dark trousers and an embroidered waistcoat. His shoulders looked more massive than usual; his arms and limbs more heavily muscled. He had combed his hair, and it looked as neat as a little boy's hair; not one errant curl had been allowed to escape.

  "I told your grandmother not to expect you home 'til late," he offered.

  There was little use pointing out the presumptuousness of that statement; they both knew she would stay until he was done with her.

  "These are my mother's best dishes," he explained, holding up a plate. "We never use them anymore. Three hungry men and good china make for a dining disaster. They look nice though, don't you think?"

  "The dishes are lovely, but you didn't bring me here to discuss china patterns."

  "Any more fainting spells?"

  "No." She forced herself to take a calming breath. "You caught me, didn't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Thank you."

  He shrugged her gratitude aside. "Tell me about these blackouts. Are you ill?"

  "Only if chronic insomnia, occasional episodes of fainting, and a nasty smell smothering one all the time constitutes an illness."

  "Just mad, then?"

  "Always the diplomat..."

  "Are you seeing anyone in Boston for it? A doctor, I mean?"

  "The medical experts dismiss my symptoms as a female complaint. They give me a prescription for a sleeping agent, and then dismiss me. There is no cure for a guilty past, Doyle."

  "Ah, yes, guilt. Well, killing Frank isn't one of your transgressions. You were covered in blood that night. It was all o
ver your nightgown. On your hands. On your face. You scrambled over the cliff in an attempt to rescue your lover. A murderess does not imperil her life for her victim, Lily."

  "If not I, then who did kill Frank?"

  "The cottage is desolate. Isolated by woods in front and ocean in back. Your grandmother was away. No one would have wandered around your property that night during the worst storm in recorded Bar Harbor history. Unless..."

  "Unless what?"

  "Nothing," he said moodily.

  "Say it! John said it. Go ahead! Don't let something so hateful hover mid-air."

  "All right, I will say it! Unless Frank didn't go to the cottage alone that night. Unless, like John said, you agreed to a very specific sort of house party. Any woman capable of having two men in her bedchamber within hours of each other is capable of anything. Johnny heard ... stories about you and other men. He told me what he heard. The gossip is, you frequently participated in threesomes. That fucking more than one man at a time was nothing out of the ordinary for you. That, in fact, you preferred it because of the additional compensation you received from Frank for the activity."

  "And you believed the stories?"

  "You have given me no reason to doubt them. Just look at how you behaved before my brother. You are a woman of few inhibitions."

  No! She was a woman completely in love, overcome by love, so in love that she was willing to do anything, make any sacrifice, not to jeopardize the loved-one's happiness.

  Her voice broke. "In regards to the bedchamber, the more the merrier I always say."

  "Good to know," he said darkly.

  His brooding tone caused a knot to clench in her midsection. She barely kept the nausea in check. Is that what Doyle really thought of her? That she would be so contemptuous, so despicable, as to entertain Frank and his friends?

  Well, damn him to hell! Let him think what he would. Perhaps, she would even live up to his lowly expectations!

  "I don't mean to be unkind, Lily. But I think, as you do, that Frank's death was no accident. He was pushed, and whoever did it, was strong. Damn strong. For me, that push would have been easy. Which is why everyone in town thinks I did it. So, my dear, because it is my family name that hangs in the balance, you must pardon my willingness to look in dark and ugly places for the truth!"

  "We cannot continue to talk if you become angry," she said nervously.

  "Angry! Why would I not be angry? That maggot was in your bedchamber only hours after I left your bed, myself, and for all I know, he had an associate or two with him. Under the circumstances, my anger is more than justified; it is normal!"

  "I am afraid I would know nothing at all about normalcy," she said, her breath catching in her throat.

  He stalked to her. "You didn't stand by me! You ran away rather than tell the truth! Because it was too humiliating to admit what Frank got you involved in, you never came home! I have paid dearly for your embarrassment, dearly for your betrayal. My anger is justified. I have damned well earned it."

  She would not cower. She wrenched her shoulders into a straight line. "I had to leave Bar Harbor. I had no other choice."

  "Had to is not an explanation."

  "Perhaps not, but it's my explanation."

  "No one forced us apart. You did that to us," he seethed.

  Lillian told herself that Doyle would never hurt her, but how well had she ever really known him?

  But despite her fear, when he stroked the wildness of her hair, and his lips descended, she met him halfway, arching into his body, accepting his passion, his hardness, the brutal substance of his desire. The flame had ignited, and there was no escape.

  It was Doyle who pulled back to say, "Have a glass of wine first. A drink will help you to relax."

  He loosened the wine cork; the pop sounded like a gunshot and she jumped.

  "Relax," he said, pouring her glass to the top.

  She lifted her filled glass to his.

  "Let's toast the truth," he said, his glass clinking hers.

  She drained the burgundy contents in one gulp.

  "I want you relaxed, but sober," he warned.

  "Oh, I think you just want me," she said flirtatiously. "I hope not to disappoint." She poured again.

  The second glass went straight to her head.

  Holding the fingers of her left hand before her lips to hold in a giggle that refused to stay put, she filled her glass a third time.

  Doyle returned his glass to the table with an ominous thud.

  Her tongue felt heavy, fuzzy...bitter. "Finished drinking to the truth, Doyle?"

  "Yes."

  Was the room spinning?

  A red droplet of wine sloshed over the rim of her glass, falling onto the white, damask tablecloth. She stared at what she had done, at that bright red stain seeping into the white cloth.

  Frank's blood. Her white nightgown. A night that changed her life forever.

  A sob rose in her throat. "I am so very, very sorry."

  Doyle frowned at her. "Are you, Lily?"

  "Yes," she said and went to him. "Let me show you how very sorry I am."

  "You never simply walk, Lily, do you? You glide, every step fluid and graceful. Your sensuality is refined. Never blatant. Never obvious. It's unconscious, unpracticed, and so much a part of your personality that innocent activities like walking, breathing--moving across a room--take on a carnal significance when you do them."

  Doyle laughed without mirth. "Some women are born to be seductive. Born to enchant. Some women are born to weave magic around a man. It's taken me ten years to come to terms with that truth. Ten years to accept the truth that when you touch a delphinium, when you delicately finger the blossoms, like magic, those flower buds drip like a strand of blue pearls from your fingertips. I am envious of that red rose decorating your hair, jealous of the gold silk caressing your white skin. I was a fool for thinking to make you my wife before we fucked."

  "We argued," she said in a small voice. "You insisted we wait; I insisted we not. We were both so angry. I said so many hateful things to you..."

  "I took you to bed, held you in my arms, we kissed, we touched, but we did nothing more. I told you I loved you, dammit! I promised you ... no, I vowed," he stressed, "that I would wait for you, even if it took a lifetime. And then, within an hour of my promise, you went to bed with Frank Johnson. My place hadn't even had a chance to grow cold."

  What was there left to say?

  Nothing. Unless she spoke the truth.

  "I am so sorry," she repeated, falling back on conventional manners.

  "Do you actually think an apology covers what you did?"

  He grabbed her arm, and her hip nicked the table. A dish fell to the floor and broke. Doyle spared the china not a second look as he propelled her to the wall.

  "I dreamt about my parents after their deaths," he raged. "I would wake up in a terror of cold sweat and pray the dreams would stop. And then after you left, I started to dream about you. The difference was: this time, I prayed the dreams would continue on, and never end. Dreams, Lily! Insubstantial dreams. That was all I had left of you. I tried fucking you in my dreams, tried driving up into you in my sleep, tried pounding you into the mattress every night, but you always fragmented like the cock tease you are."

  She stumbled.

  Doyle caught her before she fell.

  She touched his cheek. "I cannot undo the past."

  He shook off her fingers. "You betrayed me with Frank, and who knows how many other men, yet I cannot walk away from you."

  She sagged against the wall. He covered her breast; his fingers closed around the already distended nipple while his other hand drew up on her gold silk gown.

  The gown, despite its unforgiving tightness, didn't rip. But there was no assault here, no sound of tearing silk ricocheting off the studio walls and echoing between them; the only sound audible to her ears was that of her heavy, though not labored, breathing.

  Doyle was an efficient man. Soon, her gown
was hiked waist-high. He held her hands over her head with one hand, pushed his free hand between her legs, claiming her core with a digit, a deep penetration of her vagina.

  "I shall have you," he seethed. "And when I am done, the man who comes after me will smell my come in every pore of your luscious and deceitful body."

  Doyle opened his mouth over hers and thrust his tongue to her throat. She waited for the panic to start, for the awful gasping for breath to begin.

  It didn't happen.

  There was only a surprising hunger as she absorbed the taste of his tongue, the possession of his mouth; tiny shivers of wanton need coursed through her.

  As she sagged against the wall of Tony's studio, she started to pray. Not in fear, but in thanksgiving. In gratitude, not in obligation, she widened her legs for him, opening herself to him.

  She was mournful. Penitent. But she was no longer ashamed. When two digits slid in and out of her, her slick vagina making wet sounds, an unrestrained and unspeakable impatience filled her. And when he whispered, "Your slit is spilling over with your honey," she knew it to be true. Her body had always known its master; her master was Doyle. There was no way to escape his hold on her.

  He fingered her clitoris and she screamed in agony, that small nub of flesh exquisitely sensitive to his touch. She was coming, coming from the pain of loving him.

  "Please," she begged. Arching her pelvis so that she might better feel the hurtful rub of his finger against her clitoris, she pleaded, shamelessly, "Come into me. Not alone this time. Please?"

  "No."

  How much longer must she wait to be joined to this man?

  "Oh, God," she groaned, as he withheld himself from her. "Do not torture me this way. I need you so!"

  "You will get what you need when you can tell me you no longer crave Frank."

  Crave Frank?

  Lillian almost retched at that blasphemy.

  Frank Johnson was a vicious animal and she had hated him!

  If she told Doyle the truth, he wouldn't think these horrible things of her.

  But the truth had never been hers to give.

  Nor would she beg for mercy. Her pride would allow for none of that. Doyle thought her a prostitute. A deceitful whore. A lying slut. A promiscuous harlot who had given her body to many men. His ready acceptance of the bad opinion of others hurt...