What the Mistress Did

by Anya Delvay

  The sight of it makes me shudder with anticipation.

  Pulling me upright, he guides me toward the chair I was seated in before. Instead of making me sit, he pulls me around behind it and pushes me downward until I am bent at the hips, my hands gripping the back, cheek pillowed on my fingers. He tosses my skirts up, and my cunt pulses from the shock of cool air against my overheated flesh.

  “You are wet, Marianne.” His finger slides around the outer edge of my quim, and my legs weaken with lust, forcing me to brace them so they will not give way. “Look at how red and swollen your nub is. I can almost believe you have missed me as you say.”

  “I have.” I can only sigh the words, waiting for him to end this torture. “Oh, I have, so much.”

  The first stinging impact of his fingers against my quim makes me cry out in surprise and near ecstasy. With David, pain and pleasure are now so intricately intertwined, to feel one is to know the other, almost instantly.

  “Would that I could believe you, but you abandoned me so easily, even after all we had shared.”

  “I had to,” I cry, waiting for the next slap of his fingers, straining to meet it. “It was the only way.”

  “You were selfish, uncaring.” I wish I could see his face so as to know whether he looks as angry and betrayed as he sounds. “You think only of yourself.”

  “As do you.”

  The retaliation leaps from my lips before I can stop it. He responds with a growled curse and a sound, intense spanking.

  Centred on my quim but roaming to my arse and thighs, his punishment leaves me weak with need, my flesh hot, painfully throbbing and aroused. And then, suddenly, David stops and flicks my skirts down, covering my nakedness. Straightening, I am forced to clutch the chair for support, for just that simple motion, the act of closing my thighs as I stand, almost makes me spend.

  He walks away to rinse his hands in the bowl of water on my washstand. When he turns and I see his mocking smile, I realise he does not intend to give me the release I need.

  “When do you depart?”

  Somehow he has regained his control, and the sight of it almost makes me scream. Marshalling my poise, I reply, “Within the fortnight.”

  “I will return tomorrow. If our time is to be short, I will make the most of it.”

  Throwing the cloth he used to dry his hands onto the washstand, he strides past me to the door.

  “What will you tell Lady Harrington, my lord?”

  With his hand on the door, he pauses, looks back at me over his shoulder. The pain I glimpse on his face makes my heart clench with sympathetic agony. “She will not ask me where I have been or where I am going. It is not her way.”

  As the door closes behind him, I stagger to the bed, leaning against the post for balance. Lust tears at me, demanding satisfaction, and I close my eyes, wrap my arms around my waist.

  Cold, trembling fingers touch my shoulder and then my cheek.

  “My God, Lady Gillingham, my God.”

  Annabelle Dunscombe’s tremulous whisper breaks my passion-fogged reverie, and I open my eyes to find her, pale and shivering, beside me.

  “The brute, the beast!” She is close to tears and obviously so concerned for my well-being, she has forgotten her dislike. “What can I do to help? Tell me, please.”

  A picture of her comes into my mind. She is lying between my thighs, her mouth hovering above my aching cunt. I shake my head—almost moan—at the image.

  “There must be something—a cold compress, your vinaigrette? Anything at all, tell me.”

  Oh, how she tempts me, the sweetling. My entire body is afire, pulsing and quaking with need. That David should leave me this way only fans the still-boiling rage I feel. The look of sincere distress in her eyes, on her face, only makes me want to shock her further.

  “Go. Look in the drawer I showed you yesterday. There is a plume inside. Bring it to me.”

  All eagerness, Annabelle rushes to do my bidding, and I wait until she scurries back before I lean back against the bed and lift my skirts. The hectic flush on her cheeks recedes and then rushes back brighter than before. She opens her lips as though to speak, but no sound emerges, and the long feather in her hand begins to tremble.

  “Touch me.”

  My voice is rough with arousal, commanding in my need, but she steps back.

  “L…Lady G…Gillingham…” She falters, unable to complete the thought.

  “You said you wished to help. Was that a lie?”

  “N…no…but…”

  “Then touch me, gently, and it will be all the help I need.”

  I spread my legs wider, and her horrified gaze falls to my cunt. The heated flesh contracts, my excitement rising with each fraught moment, each of Annabelle’s hoarse gasps.

  “David was angry, wanted to leave me unsatisfied. Will you do the same when it was on your behalf I endured his attentions?”

  Myriad emotions cross her face, and just as I am sure she will refuse, Annabelle steps forward, the plume extended toward my cunt. It flutters across my inner thigh, and I do not hold back the whimper of delight rising in my throat. Her hand is shaking so badly she misses the mark, but I do not care. The fact that I have enticed her into this shocking intimacy is more than enough to take me back to the edge of release.

  My body arches to meet the flickering feather, and I shudder as the quills whisper over the entrance to my cunt, the stinging flesh of my thighs.

  “Higher,” I demand, watching rapt, reluctant fascination sharpen her features.

  She complies, knowing instinctively what I crave, homing in on my clitoris, waving the quill back and forth across the sensitive peak.

  “Yes,” I cry, “there, oh there.”

  I do not know if it is the sensation of the feather or the knowledge of corruption pervading the room that breaks me, but that lack of understanding does not temper my reaction. Crying out, trembling, my hips working as though she is fucking me rather than stimulating my quim with almost ghostly touches, I introduce the fledgling, firsthand, to the sight of a woman’s release.

  Chapter Seven

  “You were correct, Lady Gillingham.” Annabelle is looking everywhere but where I sit, naked, before the mirror. “My husband came to me last night, as you warned he would.”

  Jealousy strikes at my heart, but I push it away. She is, after all, his wife.

  “Men are strange beasts, my dear,” I reply, smoothing lotion into my arms and breasts. “He was feeling guilty and unsatisfied. Of course he would come to you.”

  “Unsatisfied?” Unthinkingly she spins toward me, and I meet and hold her gaze in the mirror. “How could he be unsatisfied after…?”

  Suddenly I feel old in the face of her innocence. How I long to steal some of her youth, to know all still lies ahead, rather than behind. The thought annoys me, and I carefully ply my fingers around my nipples, making them tighten as she watches.

  “He was trying to teach me a lesson, wanting to keep me unsatisfied until he returns. In so doing, he reignited his own lust, even though he had already spent in my mouth. He wanted to fuck me but did not.”

  Rosy colour rushes to her cheeks at my crudity, but, to give her credit, she does not turn away. “I see,” is all she says instead.

  I am forced to admire her courage, even though I would rather not find anything appealing about Annabelle Dunscombe. I was almost assured, after the events of the night before, that she would not return. Yet she has. Against all best sense and at great risk to her reputation. She was not to know I had sent Imogene a note advising her I had a fever and saying the doctor insisted no one enter the house until I was found not to be contagious. Usually my home is a-flow with people, for I like to keep company whenever I can. Should anyone find her here, the scandal would mean her ruination.

  “What do you think he will want tonight?”

  The question seems dragged from her throat, and the colour in her cheeks deepens. I shrug.

  “I would think it depend
s on how much time he has available. If the house is to reconvene, he may only have time for a few minutes of pleasure. However, since he knows I am to go away, and since he is still angry with me, he might decide to miss the next session.”

  “I do not understand him.” Now the spark in her eyes speaks of ire rather than any other emotion. “You behave honourably, and he is enraged.”

  Applying the lotion to my belly, I keep her gaze trapped with mine. “He had an image in his mind of what the future would be, and I shattered his expectations.” I raise my eyebrows and smile slightly. “Surely you can understand how that would sour his mood?”

  She has the grace to smile slightly, but I know she is not appeased. “That is all for the good, but what he desired was wrong. Harrington should not hold the loss of his ideal against you. It is himself he should castigate.”

  I shrug again, for in this matter there can be no resolution. Annabelle has formed an opinion based on the world as she perceives it, and any attempt I make to illuminate an alternate view will fall on deaf ears. I cannot resist the urge to needle her, though. “And should we castigate ourselves for what we are doing? Deceiving David to appease your needs?”

  Annabelle looks away, hands fluttering slightly before she brings them, and herself, under control. “I believe this is necessary.”

  “Do you?” I rise to place one foot upon the stool, stroking the aromatic cream along my thigh and down my leg. “Necessary for whom?”

  “For us all,” comes her swift reply, and she turns to face me once more, a determined glint in her eyes. “I need to be able to satisfy my husband. He needs to teach me how to do so. If he would not do it directly, then an alternate way had to be found.”

  Silence falls between us as I finish with my left leg and switch my attention to the right. The scent of roses enfolds me—an aroma I associate with David and our time together. There were nights I knew he did not intend to visit me, when social obligations—a ball or rout—would keep us apart. On those occasions, I would wear this lotion and make sure to pass near him, let him catch a hint of my presence. More than once this led to thrilling, clandestine encounters, when we found ourselves fucking in an abandoned drawing room or shadowy corner of a garden, the risk of being seen heightening our ecstasy.

  Just the memories alone fill me with bubbles of desire that rise and burst, spreading their heat through my blood—much as this present situation does. I hadn’t realised how much I thrived on danger, until this moment.

  Annabelle’s skirts flutter, and I glance up to find her hands fisted in the fabric, her gaze fixed between my legs. My uplifted leg presents a good view of my clitoris, for I have shorn the surrounding curls even closer, and she is clearly fascinated.

  I am not at all unmoved by her interest. The hot splashes of arousal grow until my entire body tightens and throbs. My self-ministrations with the lotion are complete, but I remain where I am, lightly stroking my fingertips over the flesh of my inner thigh. Annabelle seems unaware of how rough her breathing has become, how red her face, but I see, and the throbbing, especially in my nipples and quim, accelerates.

  Is she picturing what she did to me the night before—wondering what it would be like to experience what I had? Does she even realise what it is she is doing, feeling?

  Our previous conversation comes back to me, and I allow my foot to slip off the stool, rising to my full height. Annabelle gasps, her gaze rising swiftly to my face. Whatever she sees there makes her gasp again, and I know it takes every ounce of her control to hold her ground as I step closer to her.

  “And what of me?” I ask when I am directly in front of her—so close that one more step would force us to touch.

  “What…I…”

  Confusion overlays her embarrassment, forcing her to stutter. I do not smile, or allow any gentleness to enter my voice.

  “What need does this situation fulfill for me?” Raising my hand, I slide the fingers across the sharp, clean line of her collar bone. “You have said what benefit you and David receive from our situation. What do I get from it, except the reopening of a wound that had begun to heal?”

  She makes no answer. I doubt she has the ability to speak. I feel her tremble beneath my touch, heat rising from her as from a furnace. The tip of her tongue slips out from between her lips to moisten them, and when she swallows, it is with visible effort.

  The striking of the clock breaks the spell, making us both start with surprise. I am a-swirl with emotions and desires too numerous to catalogue and take great satisfaction in knowing it can only be worse for her.

  “It is time for you to go behind the screen.” I keep my voice low, stroking her throat lightly, absorbing the shivers coursing through her body. “He will be here very soon.”

  Like an automaton, she walks to the screen positioned between my boudoir and the room beyond. Made of wood, intricately carved in the Turkish style, it allows her to sit in the darkness of my dressing room and see whatever may occur between her husband and me.

  As she is about to slip behind it, she pauses and, without looking at me, whispers, “I pray he is gentle with you tonight.”

  And I cannot help laughing as she disappears from view and I don a light robe, festooned with roses and ribbons.

  I hold no such hope.

  In all honestly, I wish the opposite, for every moment of pain will be sweeter knowing of the little voyeur hiding in the darkness beyond.

  “I have little time.”

  David looks harried, unlike his usual unruffled self, and the anger I had seen the night before appears hardly abated. In fact, it seems more focused and intense.

  “I am sorry to hear that.”

  I make my voice soft, welcoming, but earn only a sharp look and a flick of his wrist as he replies, “Take off your robe.”

  Untying the knot at my waist, I let the offending garment slide slowly down my arms. “As you wish.”

  He surveys my body, circling me with measured steps. The touch of his gaze sears like a brand on my skin, like a lash against my flesh, and I tremble. He strives to remain distant, unmoved, but cannot conceal the bulge in his breeches, the roughness of his breathing.

  Bending, he picks up the silk sash from amongst the froth of my robe and winds the end around the fingers of his right hand. The concentration on his face sharpens to a knife edge. For the first time in a very long time, I cannot tell what he is thinking.

  “I have to be back in the house shortly. The debate regarding the colonial tax bill must continue tonight.”

  “A shame,” I say in return, desire now little licks of flame across my body. “I should have liked for you to be with me longer.”

  The smile that creases his face holds little humour. “I doubt that very much.” He lifts his hand and trails the silken tie across my breasts. “I don’t know that I could be held accountable for my actions were I able to remain for more than a half an hour.”

  A shudder travels through my entire body at the combined harshness of his words and the smooth slip of fabric. With a flick of his wrist, David snaps the end of the sash against my nipple like a little whip. The shock of it, the sweet sting, makes me moan.

  Again and again he teases me—first with the slide of silk and then with the tiny whisper of pain on my breasts and belly. My eyes close as I absorb the pleasure, and I sway, buffeted by arousal and anticipation. Stepping to the side, David runs the sash between my legs, holds it before and behind my body.

  “Look at me, Marianne.”

  It is not a request, but a command.

  Turning my head, I open my eyes and drown in the blue anger of his stare.

  “If I could, tonight I would make you beg for release until you had no more breath left with which to do so.” He pulls slowly upward on the sash, banding it over my quim. “I would beat you for what you have done and for what you are doing.”

  Fear pushes ice through my veins. Has he discovered what Annabelle and I are about? There is no way to disguise the tremor in
my voice as I repeat, “What I am doing?”

  “Going away. Leaving London.” The sash tightens to a rope, sliding between the lips of my cunt, bringing me up on my toes. “How can you do that to me? How could you throw away all that we have together?”

  “You did that when you married,” I cry and am rewarded with the harsh slide of the wet fabric over my clitoris and arsehole. “Why do you not seek the comfort of your wife’s arms and leave me be?”

  Harder yet he tugs, and I am forced to reach out and hold on to his chest to stop from falling. Beneath my hand, his heart pounds, adding to my excitement. Leaning forward, he places his lips close to my ear and whispers, “Do you think of us together and imagine what we are doing as you pleasure yourself?”

  An image of Annabelle lying beneath me as I bring her to completion flashes into my mind, and I laugh. “I am too busy thinking of my new lover to worry about such things.”

  David grunts as though punched and releases one end of the sash to brutally draw the length of it through the lips of my quim.

  I scream—pain and pleasure combining to throw me into an orgasm so intense I crumple to my knees. Half fainting, I am dimly aware of him raising me to my feet, guiding me to move. When the fog of my release dissipates, I realise he has positioned me with my back to the bedpost—the same one I had used to secure him on that last, frantic night. Tying my wrists above my head, he steps back and begins to open his falls with trembling hands.

  His face is contorted, each exhalation a harsh rush, bordering on a moan. Finally his breeches sag, and his cock springs free. I shudder with delight at the sight of its hard thickness. The pulses between my legs, aftermath of my spending, cease to fade and instead begin to rush once more.

  Positioned as we are, I know Annabelle can see everything, and the knowledge makes me arch and display myself all the more. David’s breath hitches, and without another word, he is upon me.

  Reaching down, he lifts one of my legs with his arm, taking me up onto the toes of my other foot, opening my cunt to his first, desperate thrust. Holding me immobile between his body and the hardness of the bedpost, he fills me deliciously and then begins a slow, hard rhythm. The satin of his suit heats between us while the gold embroidery and buttons scrape against my skin. His scent inundates my nostrils, and tears fill my eyes.