House of Bliss

by T T Thomas

  She slipped back into bed and turned to Felicity. They were both awake.

  In the dim, reflected light of the moon on the wardrobe mirror across the room, they looked into one another’s eyes, a wordless question between them. Felicity reached up to touch Sabrina’s face, but her hand lingered as she held that face instead. Sabrina tried not to breathe. With a slow movement, Felicity leaned in and kissed her.

  If she had been warm upon awakening, Sabrina was positively on fire now, but it wasn’t the fever of illness. Her insides quivered, each nerve ending on her skin responded to the touch. The tactile sensuality of Felicity’s fulsome lips compelled Sabrina to induce the woman to climb atop her as their kisses reached increasing intimacy.

  Slowly, Sabrina slid the woman’s nightshirt off her. Clad only in her knickers, Felicity’s bare skin inflamed Sabrina more. Their fingertips explored the mysteries of their bodies until Sabrina gently shifted Felicity onto to her back again. With a deliberation approaching reverence, the devotee bent over the disciple to remove her underthings.

  The room was dark save for the thin shaft of moonlight that now crossed the bottom of the bed. The two women saw only their own dark forms as touch, taste, and temperature replaced sight. A Braille of the body instructed them. As she moved atop Felicity, Sabrina felt the other woman shiver.

  “Are you cold?” she asked.

  Her fingers traced Felicity’s smile. “Quite the opposite, darling.”

  Hearing the endearment sent a rush of sensation the length of Sabrina’s body. She moved, slowly, atop Felicity until she felt her head being pulled in for more kisses. As mouths devoured mouths and tongues twisted in ever-increasing strokes of desire, Sabrina thought it must all be a drug dream. But she knew it wasn’t. She devoured each full, succulent breast Felicity held up to her as an offering. She embraced Felicity as the skin beneath her heated like kindling to her own. Felicity was murmuring things Sabrina couldn’t hear or couldn’t understand, but she knew the primal sounds of a vexed soul stirring within its prison.

  She whispered something to Felicity, to tease, to taunt, to elicit more truth.

  She suggested an antidote to the body intoxicate, a medicament for the souls’s climb to the summit.

  She heard the impatience, the urgency, and the uncommon demands of a stimulated woman seeking deliverance by some mysterious agency borne of muddled, mingled sounds and indecipherable words.

  She heard Felicity repeat herself until the response became clear.

  Having asked permission, she received a command.

  As she moved down Felicity’s body, the sound and taste of arousal were unmistakable, inflaming her own body to a distended delectation. Still, she held back, and she looked up to watch Felicity delirious with an unambiguous, aching hunger. She moved back up her body and rocked herself into the portal of Felicity’s passion.

  Sabrina stopped moving before claiming full entrance to the passageway of her destination. She wanted to feel someone needing her, wanting her, imploring her.

  She heard a voice telling her not to stop, she heard a voice saying, ‘please.’ When neither Sabrina nor her partner could endure another second of libidinous demurral, when the reprieve was at hand, she pushed inside the eager woman with an ever-increasing momentum. At the crest of her own mindless meridian, a second voice cried out with gasps of sated disbelief and relief.

  Ah…the welcome intrusion, the steady rhythm of stimulation, and the mutual waves of pleasure had awakened all the senses. Sabrina fell into the space between Felicity’s neck and shoulder sighing in agreement, as she listened to the purring sounds of woman content.

  After a while, Felicity told Sabrina that Jeremy would be coming to see her that evening, information Cath had delivered earlier.

  Sabrina sat up in bed and Felicity sat cross-legged beside her. “Our time together is ending,” Sabrina said.

  “Perhaps for a night or so,” Felicity said. Her voice was dreamy, drowsy and dulled with contentment.

  “Yes, but no more than that. If you please.”

  They held hands, closed eyes, and fell back on the pillows for a light slumber. At some point, Felicity rose, came around the other side and got on her knees to kiss Sabrina. “I must go,” she whispered. “Remember this,” she said as she leaned in for a kiss.

  Sabrina was breathless. “Legally, that should be forbidden,” she whispered.

  Felicity giggled. “It probably would be if anyone believed it.”

  With that, she left, and took Sabrina’s headache and all vestiges of opium sickness with her.

  Sabrina looked around at the mound of sheets and pillows at the bottom of the bed. She daydreamed about the pleasures of mussing the bed and the woman who helped her do it.

  After Cath ran her bath, Sabrina soaked in the white porcelain bathtub full of warm water. Her muscles relaxed but her energies peaked in contradiction—she was at once understandably enervated and magically invigorated. Her lungs expanded before she released buoyant sighs of relief.

  It had been everything she needed and wanted, and nothing she didn’t.

  No matter what she did, Sabrina could not stop her thoughts of Felicity. Over the next couple days, Sabrina was booked solid with fittings and only saw her new paramour in passing. But the looks they exchanged foretold of more pleasures to come. Today, she cut her workday short, but finding the house empty of everyone but Walters, she decided to rest her eyes a while.

  Felicity was grateful the house was quiet when she returned from doing errands. She had needed a new hairbrush, a jar of body lotion and a few other personal items. Knowing Sophia was somewhere with Cath, she planned a short nap. Felicity paused at the top of the stairs, noticing Sabrina’s door was not fully closed. She entered her own room and changed into something more comfortable—a pair of harem pants and camisole. Maybe rest for a while. She looked at her bed and changed her mind.

  She tiptoed toward Sabrina’s door, and when she opened it wide enough to see the sleeping woman, she made a decision. She locked the door behind her. She slipped out of the easy clothing she had put on and tiptoed to the bed.

  Once under the light sheet Sabrina had pulled over herself, Felicity felt the cool, smooth skin beside her. She put her arm around Sabrina and cupped her breasts. She circled a nipple with her fingers and heard Sabrina groan and open her eyes.

  “I thought I was dreaming,” Sabrina whispered.

  “And you dream of me?”

  Sabrina made sounds of pleasure as Felicity crawled atop her. They kissed repeatedly until Sabrina began to move beneath her. She slid down Sabrina’s body, stopping to caress breasts with her mouth, skin with her hands and inner thighs with her tongue.

  Sabrina tried to pull her up, but Felicity murmured ‘no’ and probed with her tongue until she felt a wave of heat on Sabrina’s skin. She slipped her fingers inside Sabrina until she met resistance, a resistance that fanned her own flames of desire but failed to inform her awareness.

  Her passions then ignited fully when she pushed past the maidenhead and breached Sabrina’s virginal chamber. It happened so fast, the resistance gave way like brume in a breeze. Sabrina gasped with a moment of pain, and Felicity nearly lost consciousness with surprise.

  She assumed Sabrina was experienced in a full range of amorous arts, but apparently her experience had not included the first pierce of love’s arrow. Nothing in their prior assignation had given Felicity a hint.

  Felicity heard Sabrina’s small, subdued sounds of pleasure intensify to a deep primal growl as her body responded to the magnetic pull of her own passion. With a shared fever pitch of bewitched euphoria between them, Sabrina convulsed in a thunderhead torrent of release, an irresistible inducement for Felicity’s gush of exquisite synchronicity.

  Afterwards, Felicity moved up Sabrina’s body and soothed her overheated lover with soft unintelligible sounds and tender, light kisses about the face and head. Finally, Sabrina’s breath and heart rate seemed to return to normal.
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  “I, I didn’t know,” Felicity said. “I should have known—are you well with it?”

  Sabrina’s voice was soft as new rain. “Yes, I am, and how could you have known?”

  “I guess I thought, I thought with your experience—I didn’t think at all,” she decided. “I hope I didn’t trespass or do anything that would upset you.”

  Sabrina looked at her. “You haven’t upset me at all,” she whispered. “But you have ruined me rather memorably.”

  Slipping off to the side of Sabrina and clinging close to her body, Felicity sighed. “Ah, well then, I must make it up to you.”

  Sabrina turned on her side and placed a hand on the back of Felicity’s head and pulled her in close. “Yes, you must,” she whispered, “and submit to the beast you have unleashed within my soul.”

  “Your soul? I could have sworn it was another location.”

  “And for making an amusing comment about my unsophisticated prior personal experience, you must pay twice.”

  A timid knock on the door took them by surprise. Sabrina lifted her finger to her lips and the two of them lay perfectly still until departing footsteps allowed them to breathe easy again.

  “I wonder what she heard?” Felicity asked.

  “Not much. Those doors are thick and Cath is hard of hearing. Not deaf but enough to ensure our privacy I would guess.”

  “Shall I dress and go downstairs first? I suspect the baby needs looking after while Cath prepares dinner.”

  “A raincheck then?”

  Felicity laughed. “Darling, I wouldn’t miss it for all the downpours in England.”

  Chapter 18

  Jeremy came through the foyer with a loud exertion of energy as he carried a heavy box into the library.

  “Has to be fabric,” he huffed. “When are they going to learn to drop this stuff around back at the studio?”

  Sabrina looked up and smiled. She was in one of the wingback chairs, enveloped in a gorgeous green silk robe that reached all the way to her comfortably slippered feet.

  “Your scent is divine,” Jeremy said. “And you appear to have come directly here from Lourdes after a miracle cure.”

  “Lust expressed fully is serenity achieved,” she said.

  He stopped and looked at her. “Oh, my incurious friend, I am seeing far more than sated lust on your face. I’m surprised you’ve not investigated more, but, well, self reflection was never your strong suit, eh? I understand. Why face the devil’s details when a quick summary will do.”

  She made a face, but there was a twinkle in her eyes as she indulged his soliloquy.

  He continued. “I am seeing the dawn of a new day, the breath of a well-birthed soul, the celebratory rosy hue in the gloaming sky at the culmination of a spectacular night. Serenity is surely the least of it.”

  Sabrina’s smile widened as he spoke. “Ordinarily, Jeremy, I prefer my private activities to remain so, but in this case, because you are so enthusiastically ridiculous, I’ll tell you. You’re quite right. I’ve had an epiphany.” Her dry tone made him grin.

  Jeremy gave her a look. “I suppose we fellows call it something different.”

  She laughed. “That too, if you must know. But seriously, I’m gone, finished, done in, a prisoner of love. I have, in these short past 48 hours, rearranged my life to be one of affirmation and clean living.”

  He threw himself on the chesterfield. “I did worry that you’d get carried away,” he teased.

  “Will you stay for dinner? It’ll be the three of us.”

  “Of course. I didn’t expect you to be up for entertaining, but since you are, I’d be delighted.”

  “I wasn’t up for it,” she conceded, “until I redefined it.” They grinned in conspiratorial silence as Felicity entered the room.

  “Hello, Jeremy. I hope everyone’s hungry,” she said by way of greeting, “because I do believe Cath’s outdone herself.”

  Sabrina groaned and Jeremy’s face fell.

  “What?” Felicity asked.

  They rose and Sabrina linked arms with them both. “Every time Cath outdoes herself, it’s a fair distant, nearly unrecognizable, representation of the original,” Sabrina said. “Shhhh. We’ll eat every bite.”

  Cath and Walters stood erect at the opposite end of the long table. “And what is our pleasure this evening, Cath?” Sabrina allowed Jeremy to pull out Felicity’s chair first.

  “It’s meant to be lamb and chicken vindaloo,” Cath said proudly. “I’ve adjusted the Indian recipe a bit for our English tastes.”

  Sabrina and Jeremy furtively glanced at one another, eyes wide, mouths set in a pursing mode indicting dread. One way or another, this dinner would not end well.

  “Did you know,” Felicity said, lifting her water glass, “that vindaloo began as a Portuguese dish? They called it carne de vinha d’alhos. Brought to India in the Seventeenth century, mangled pronunciation and all.”

  “I had no idea,” he said. “The things one learns over dinner.” He obviously liked Sabrina’s new paramour.

  “My sister Bel,” she said, “was a governess for several years, and it was something she learned. Annabel was always coming up with fascinating bits and pieces.”

  Sabrina turned as white as the Wedgwood. “Annabel?”

  “Well, that’s her full name. Most people call her Bel. But her proper name is Annabel.”

  Jeremy looked up at Sabrina under his eyelids as Cath and Walters brought in the two terrines of vindaloo.

  “What’s her surname?” Sabrina asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “Why, North, same as mine,” Felicity said, eyeing the crock of food Cath uncovered. “Well, that’s her maiden name. She was married, once, but I believe she’s going back to our family name. I’m glad. I don’t fancy the name Glyver, anyway. Ohhh! Thank you, Cath, that smells divine.”

  Felicity breathed in the scents of the savory concoction before continuing. “Bel told me she knows you—well, somewhat anyway—your father handled her divorce. I meant to mention that, but then you became ill, and then…we were busy, and well, do you remember her?”

  A look of horror crossed Sabrina’s face and might have stayed there throughout dinner had not Jeremy nudged her under the table. Even Cath froze as she ladled the dinner onto Felicity’s plate. She looked to Sabrina but seeing her pallor returned to the serving.

  “Annabel? Of course I do. Lovely woman,” Sabrina managed. “But I thought your name was Felicity West?”

  Realizing what she had done, Felicity froze. But recovered quickly. “That’s what I’ve been meaning to explain,” she said. “I’m sure Annabel wouldn’t mind, at this point. She felt terrible that she disappeared from all her friends…that divorce thing was terribly hard on her. We decided I’d have a different last name, well, unofficially. I’m really a ‘North.’ She said you had mutual friends at a point but lost track of one another. But now…especially now, we can all be friends.”

  Would Sabrina have to claim illness and leave the table? Calling upon every resource, she remained. Looking anew into the eyes of the sister of her first lover, Annabel, she began to see the family likeness. They had the same sensuous mouth, the same nose, the same shape of eyes. She closed her eyes in disbelief.

  She hadn’t put it together before now, but looking at Felicity, she couldn’t imagine how she had missed it. She saw that Cath’s reaction was similar. Ah, the Glyver files. Now it made sense. But was Felicity in her house because of the Glyver connection or was that a complete coincidence? How could something that specific occur so fortuitously ?

  Her heart sank as she sat there in the sickening fear—no, certainty—that this would change everything. Her own storm-filled eyes fixated on Felicity’s sparkling eyes and gay expressions. What if it had nothing to do with love? Felicity didn’t act like someone who knew the full nature of her sister’s friendship with Sabrina. But when she found out?

  Sabrina stared at the food on her plate. She had more questions th
an answers but the single certitude, that Annabel and Felicity were sisters, left her with a decided disinclination to eat.

  Jeremy tasted his vindaloo. “God!—save the King,” he blurted out. “Could this get any hotter?”

  After a dinner she feared would never end, Sabrina pleaded headache. She excused herself from the after-dinner ritual of coffee and brandy in the library, and Jeremy was quick to suggest she rest her eyes a while.

  While Felicity went upstairs to check on the baby, Sabrina and Jeremy stood in the foyer.

  “It’s not the same headache, is it?” he said.

  Sabrina shook her head. “No, it’s pure anxiety,” she whispered. “I have to go think about things. Entertain Felicity, will you?”

  “Of course. Maybe I’ll learn something. Her arrival could not have been the random accident we thought.”

  Sabrina agreed. “I know. At least I think I know.”

  He headed for the library and Sabrina headed upstairs. She met Felicity halfway. As the two women approached one another, Felicity touched Sabrina’s arm. “Are you going to be unwell?”

  “It’s a regular headache,” she answered. “I’ll lie in the dark for a while and probably join you in a while.”

  Felicity looked to the bottom of the stairs and seeing no one, leaned in to kiss Sabrina’s cheek. “Please feel better, darling.”

  Once in her darkened room, Sabrina felt worse. She sat up against the pillows on her bed and hugged herself to ward off the onslaught of negative thoughts.

  As the moonlight crossed her bed, like it did every night, as it had the nights she and Felicity made love, bile rose in her throat accompanied by a sense of dread. Was Felicity here merely to get information out of Sabrina’s father’s files? Where was Annabel, and how could Felicity be here now if not by Annabel’s direction? And Annabel…My God. This cannot be happening. But it was, and she needed to understand how and why.