by Anya Delvay
I remain silent.
Shrugging into his waistcoat and then his coat, watching me the entire time, he makes ready to leave. Where before his pain was laid out for me to see, now he has closed his emotions away, and I wonder if they, if he, will ever return.
Coming to stand at the side of the bed, he gazes down at me, stoic but intent, as though searching for something in my face. I grace him with another small smile, and he bends to kiss me, taking my mouth so hard I know my lips will be bruised. It is a final sounding of the horn, a call to arms, and I return measure for measure, twining my fingers into the club at his nape, thrusting my tongue against his.
When he straightens, we are both panting, exhausted and excited by our silent battle. Then he picks up his walking stick and stalks to the door, pausing with his hand on the latch.
“Tomorrow, Marianne.”
And it is a threat.
I lie back, closing my eyes, feeling the delicious soreness of my body, the awful pain in my heart. A little rustle of sound alerts me to Annabelle entering the room, but I do not—cannot—look. The need to keep separate, if only for a short time, is paramount to my being able to survive.
Cool fingers touch my thigh, startling me into opening my eyes. Annabelle stands beside me, where David was mere minutes ago, still naked, her eyes shadowed.
“Open for me.” Her voice is hushed but determined, and I notice the damp cloth in her hand. “Let me clean you up, dearest.”
For the second time this night, my heart shatters, and I can do nothing but comply. I shift to give her access, hanging my legs over the edge of the bed. Gently she wipes at my quim, urges my legs farther apart to go lower. I wince as the cool fabric abrades my arse, the water stinging the torn flesh.
“You are bleeding.” Her face is pale, and she sounds frightened.
“’Tis nothing.” I try to be reassuring. “It will heal quickly and is well worth the satisfaction.”
“Was it truly?” Her gaze meets mine for a moment before returning to the chore she has given herself.
“Yes,” I say, but it comes out a sigh, and she does not look convinced.
“Does it hurt awfully now?”
She sounds so young, so unsure, I feel a hundred years old. “No, only aches,” I reply, closing my eyes once more.
“I want to make it better,” she whispers and covers my quim with the tender heat of her mouth.
Chapter Twelve
Shock holds me rigid beneath the delicate, untutored onslaught.
Rising onto my elbows, I look down to where she is bent between my legs and find her looking back at me. There are questions in her eyes, but I have no answers, can only gasp her name as her lips close over my clitoris and gently suck.
If just moments before it had been suggested I could be aroused again this night, I would have laughed in disbelief. And yet, because it is Annabelle, because I could never have imagined this occurring at this time, heat blooms instantly between my thighs.
But I know my limits, and I reach down to touch her cheek, not wanting to disappoint.
“Darling.” My voice is husky but not only from my previous screams of passion. “Darling, you will not make me spend.”
A shadow crosses her eyes, and she lifts her head to frown. “Because I do not know how to please you.” It is a statement rather than a question. “I’m sorry.”
My chest aches at her obvious disheartenment, and I quickly assure her, “No, not at all. It feels delicious, but because I am tired and have already spent so many times tonight, I will not be able to do so again.”
Annabelle’s brow relaxes, and she touches a finger to my clitoris, which pulses in response to her tenderness. “I just want to alleviate your discomfort. Will it pain you, should I continue?”
Tears prickle my eyes. In her voice and countenance is a wealth of concern, a desire only to make things right for me. At this moment, staring into her grey-green eyes, I would do anything—allow anything—to make her content.
But the knowledge of the eventual frustration to come, as passion winds higher and higher without hope of culmination, stops me from succumbing.
Sitting up, I reach for her and lay my head on her shoulder. There is comfort in the gentleness of her embrace, the quietude surrounding us, despite the rough emotions battering my soul. Tenderly she strokes my hair and back, silent and soft, yet strong enough to assuage the beastly terror gripping me.
“Sometimes I hate him.” Annabelle’s words whisper through the air, dark and deep as night. “And other times I hate myself for loving him so very much.”
“The two things are so close as to be one,” I hear myself reply, feeling lost, unable to offer anything but platitudes. “Love and hate sometimes wear the same skin—hurt the same way.”
“I’m sorry.” Now her voice sounds choked, the words forced but no less sincere. “You were correct in saying I never thought of your pain when I demanded your help.” There is a sound, not a laugh nor a sob, but something in between, and beneath my cheek, she shudders. “I never truly considered mine or David’s either. What a mess I’ve made.”
If I had thought myself beyond further agony, ’twas only because I never considered she would touch my heart even more deeply than she already has. Her distress is more than I can bear.
Lifting my head, I kiss her, not softly or with the tenderness in my heart, but roughly, demanding her surrender. Annabelle gives it, opening her lips to my assault, holding me close to her shivering body.
I ravage her mouth, sucking her tongue, nipping at her lips.
Once more it is revenge that I seek.
The thought makes me pull back, and I close my eyes, fighting against this new wave of terror and disgust. A thought that just days ago would have filled me with pleasure, now reminds me my own destruction will be the final act should I continue on this course.
“Go now,” I tell her, turning my face away. “Go, before we are both hurt more than we already have been.”
Her stillness is complete, and I wait, refusing to look at her, acknowledge her in any further way. When she moves, her hands resuming their gentle caress of my shoulders and face, I am torn asunder.
“Is it inevitable,” she asks, “that we cause each other more pain? Or could we perhaps heal the hurts inflicted?”
I can only shake my head and murmur, “I do not know.”
The press of her palm to my cheek forces me to look at her, and in the depths of her gaze lies knowledge and acceptance more potent than any wine. It is the look of a woman, complete and sure, and I can hardly believe the power it imparts.
“Help me to dress,” is all she says, although I see and feel an underlying dialog, like whispers in a shadowed room. “We will discuss all tomorrow, when you are rested.”
Taking my hand, Annabelle helps me rise, and together we slowly move behind the screen. I set a taper to candles, wanting to see, to let light into the moment. In silence she waits, watches, and I feel the slip of her gaze over my skin like the brush of feathers or a lash.
I have been dressed and undressed by others all my life. It is the way of my world—that others are tasked with keeping me clean, making me ready, making me the creature I become before leaving the sanctuary of my home. Dressing is a sport, often played out before an audience of supposedly adoring swains. On occasion, when the undressing falls to a lover, it can be the source of great pleasure.
Never before have I dressed another woman, and never could have realized my veiling of Annabelle’s flesh beneath layers of clothing would be more intimate than undressing her.
We do not speak as we slowly reverse the process so swiftly achieved before. Silk slides over silken skin as I kneel and roll the hose up her legs, carefully tie her garters, adjusting them so they lie perfectly above her knees. The contrast between the creamy flesh of her thigh and the blue of the ribband draws my eye, and I trace the line of demarcation before rising to reach for her shift.
As I dress her, each piece of
clothing is given the same careful treatment, tweaked and smoothed into position, and I fall into a cocoon of concentration that becomes prayer-like. With fabric and padding, I create the staid and honourable Countess of Harrington. But beneath the layers is just Annabelle, and while the outer creation is familiar, the woman underneath is not.
It is in her gaze, the way she moves beneath my hands, in the gentle, knowing touches she bestows as she turns and holds for my attention. In them I recognise rebirth, the emergence of a new person, and it frightens me as much as it enthralls.
Here, I think, is what David sought when he married her. Even at our first, fateful meeting, I saw it too—the potential of power, which is now fully actualized. Annabelle has become a force beyond anything I could have imagined, and I try to stop myself from wondering where it will take her, take them.
The pain and pleasure of these moments, of the silent communion between us, swings between unbearable and sublime. In her service, I find my own power, devastation and a strange sense of peace.
Only her gown remains, and as I reach for it, Annabelle halts me with a touch on my arm. I shiver, not knowing why, caught in a trance engendered by her gaze, the stroke of her fingers.
“Why do you love David?”
Searching her face, I find only curiosity, a sincere question.
It is not hard to answer, for I have asked myself this many times over the past days.
“He is the only man I know who does not just speak but also listens to me—seeks not only his own way but bows sometimes to mine.” Shifting behind her, I assist her into her gown and then circle back around to fasten the front. “I never knew that was important until I knew him.”
Annabelle nods slowly, and I wonder what next she will ask. Again I am struck by the difference in her. I dress her so carefully one would think her a child and me the parental figure, but the analogy no longer fits.
“Why did you not marry him?”
My fingers fumble with the hooks on her bodice, but I keep my voice steady when I reply, “I always knew he would seek a younger woman to marry. One who would give him the children he needs. There was never a thought I would suit.”
Annabelle lifts my chin, forcing me to once more meet her gaze. There is no pity in her eyes, although a kind of softness lights the grey-green depths.
“Or did you tell yourself that so often you could not believe there might be a future between you?”
There is no escaping the pain, and I gasp. It is all I can do not to double over with my agony, but somehow I stand straight and answer honestly, for there is no room for lies between us now.
“Not only told myself but told him too, so he would never feel the need to leave me, fearing I expected too much.”
Again she nods, but her hands grip my forearms as though offering support.
“You should have expected more—fought for it.” I search for condemnation in her tone but find none. “I think—” Her voice wavers then, and I wonder if she is holding me up or I her. “I think he would have surprised you.”
We are propping each other up, I realise, and it takes all my strength to hold fast, not to run away.
“Do not hate him, Annabelle.” I need to say this, although I don’t know why. Nothing is clear anymore. “And do not hate me.”
She pulls me close, and we stand silently together, giving and receiving all we have to offer, one to the other.
“I cannot,” she whispers, “although I know I should.”
“He is a good man, will make you the best of husbands, once you can both be free with each other.”
There is no interpreting the sound she makes, but I feel the shiver that travels through her frame, and all I can do is hold her tighter, take it into myself as though to alleviate her pain.
Although I know not how to manage my own.
After Annabelle leaves, I do not sleep. Everything in my life is changed, altered so that now I can only view the future through the murky lens of the present, and the way going forward is dark.
David and Annabelle have stripped every defence from me, rendering me vulnerable to a type of anguish I never knew existed. Doubt piles upon regret, hate upon love, fear upon elation, until I feel myself drowning beneath the combined weight. I can concentrate on no one thought—only sit before the fire and be pulled hither and yon by emotions both too strong and too nebulous to allow true contemplation. All I know is the need to run, to hide, and it drives me to a decision.
I will leave earlier than originally planned.
To stay will only make everything worse.
It is dawn when I accept this is the correct course to take, and falling into bed, I try to get some rest. But my dreams are wreathed in fog and peopled with masked figures that, when I try to identify them, run away.
Annabelle pauses at the door to my room that evening, and I know she is wondering why I am completely dressed, rather than unclothed as per usual. Even I am not sure why each time I thought about disrobing in preparation for her and David’s visit I couldn’t bring myself to do so. Perhaps I am already too naked and seek even this small modicum of shelter.
“Come,” I say, gesturing toward the dressing room. “Let us make ready.”
The look she gives me seems an attempt to gauge my mood, or perhaps my intent, but I reveal nothing of my plan. Once more I am firmly in control—of her, and of myself—all emotion locked away. This is the only way to move forward without losing what little of my sanity remains.
I have time to do no more than remove her wig when a knock sounds on my bedroom door, and I excuse myself to answer. Closing the door, I read the note my maid presented, and my hands tremble. Leaning against the wall, I try to marshal my thoughts once more, find the equilibrium that has deserted me upon perusing its contents.
Eventually I go back into the dressing room and come to a halt. Annabelle is almost completely bare—as I walk in, she releases her grip on her stays to stand clad only in her shift.
“David will not be visiting tonight.” I take a deep breath, but it does nothing to quell the rough beating of my heart. Were my thoughts the night before, when I wondered if he would return, presentiment? The fear that I will never see him again makes me weak. “I am afraid you have come here for no reason.”
She tilts her head, eyelids fluttering down for a moment and then lifting, so I am trapped in the clarity of her gaze. “No reason?” A hint of a smile touches her lips, and the hem of her chemise rises, slowly dragged upwards by her hands. “There is still much you can show me, teach me, Marianne. Will you not take the opportunity given?”
Then she is naked and walking toward me, each dainty step executed with precision and determination.
I know what she wants, and my heart rebels. In her eyes, I am a substitute for her husband, and this night a chance to rehearse what it would be like to be the focus of his true attentions. With me she can experience pain and pleasure without fear—and decide whether she wants it from David or not. But I am not David, and I cannot be his surrogate. I can only be myself. And despite the terror eating at my heart, that self—weak, wanton and luxuriating in the pale perfection of Annabelle’s form—wants her desperately.
My fear melts away, taking my defences with it and I stand, quiescent, as she begins my disrobing.
This is once more a woman I have never seen. Her hands are steady, determined, as she divests me of my clothing. Unhesitatingly, she strips me bare, physically and emotionally, with strokes of her hands and soft kisses interspersed with sharp nips of her teeth.
As she lifts my shift over my head, I awaken, as though from the muddled fragment of a dream, and realise I am shaking.
I must take control from her if I am to have any chance of surviving the night intact. Pulling away, I grasp her cheeks in a none-too-gentle grip, forcing her to face me.
“Be warned—if you stay, I will not be gentle.”
Her eyes gleam with unholy fire, and she smiles.
“I do not need your gentle
ness.”
“Good,” I reply, punctuating the word with a hard, demanding kiss. She has awoken the demon inside me, and I can only hope Annabelle is prepared for the consequences.
Chapter Thirteen
Gripping Annabelle’s arm, I pull her into the bedroom.
“Lie there”—I point to the bed—“and spread your legs.”
Walking away without waiting to see if she obeys, I hear the rustle of linens and know she is doing as told. From the drawer, I choose a dildo and straps, silk ties, the grease pot, flogger, and turn to display them for her. Annabelle’s eyes widen; colour rushes to her cheeks. I raise my eyebrows.
“Do you still wish to stay?”
In reply she bends her knees, laying them flat on the bed, revealing the pink, wet quim.
“Yes.”
There is no hesitation in her voice, only command and desire, and I gasp, stunned by the urgency of my own lust. Climbing on the bed to kneel between her legs, I realise the confluence of our desire makes me acolyte and master both.
Parting her outer lips so everything lies open, vulnerable to me, I say, “I know you have wondered about this from the first night, when you watched David spank my cunt. Let me show you.”
I do not begin immediately but simply watch as her cunt begins to quiver, to get wetter beneath my scrutiny, stretching her anxiety and need until each breath is a low gasp and her thighs tremble.
By the time my hand falls upon her flesh, administering a series of rapid slaps, she is straining up to meet it. Annabelle gives a muffled shriek, her head falling back, but doesn’t pull away as I deliver another volley. Indeed her legs lift and she grasps them, holding herself open to the next, harder, blows.
Pausing, I survey my handiwork. Her clitoris is engorged, the outer lips puffy and slick, while the entrance to her cunt contracts rhythmically. Annabelle shudders, gasping my name, her arse shifting in the universal language for “more”.