by Louisa Trent
I disagreed. I was born to love this man, even if it was only for one night. Could I not indulge myself just once before becoming the next Susan B. Anthony, only in ballet slippers?
He refused to budge. So all pretend modesty, I dropped my gaze. “How is this? You could pay me for it.”
“Absurd.”
“Not a large amount,” I wheedled. “A token amount. Just enough for me to call you my first paying customer.”
“Stay on as my hostess. I will gladly pay you for all duties assigned to that function. No whoring involved. ”
“Do you mean it? Are you saying that position is still available to me, sir? After seeing the terrible person I am, I thought surely you would renege on the offer. ”
“I never renege.”
What was wrong with me?
Of course, he had not reneged. Of course, he meant it, every word. He would never go back on an offer once given. I would never fantasize over just anyone. This man had character, integrity…the good sense to wish to keep me around.
Nor would he interfere if I decided to go off all willy-nilly and consort with Gil. He would allow me to make my own decision, even those he thought a mistake. That was what women’s suffrage was all about, was it not, the freedom to make one’s own mistakes?
He pushed me out the door of the WC, and we were back inside the dining room again. He kept me close, within touching distance – for all that his hands were balled up tightly into fists at his sides.
Balling his hands into fists – I did that to him a lot. That and those head shakes of his.
Not lacking for assertiveness, I moved nearer. Because of the sarong, the arm I purposefully brushed against him was bare.
I handily changed my tune. “This opportunity means so much to me, sir. Here you have every reason to be vindictive after all the trouble I have caused you, and you are being nothing but kind. And Gil? I need to tell him I am withdrawing my ill-conceived invitation…”
“Nothing doing. Let me handle Gil. I am only sorry all this happened your first night here.”
First night, meaning one of many nights to come? Meaning, he expected me to stay? Could a dozen long-stemmed red roses be far behind?
My rescuer had seen me at my very worst, in the deepest pit of despair at the dancehall, lying and cussing out the leader of a gang in an ally, soliciting him and another man while drunk. When I was naked and in a bath tub, he’d had his hands all over me and he had neither played loose with me nor run away in fright at the spectacle I must have presented. Rather, he reiterated his offer for me to work as his hostess inside his gambling den.
After waiting my whole life to have someone love me for myself, warts and all, I had found him tonight.
He was not getting away from me now. I intended to make the best of a bad situation, the same strategy I had used since childhood. And if at any time he decided to use me as a carnal outlet, I intended to let him.
Crumbs, yes. I would accept crumbs of affection from him and consider myself blessed. Life had handed me less. Much less.
Time to make Susan B. Anthony proud of me. Time to own up to my blame in all this. “I alone am responsible for that debacle, sir. I was the one to summon Gil into the dining room.”
“A misunderstanding. The Green Fairy confused your thoughts.”
“I am – if not stone sober – of reasonably sound mind, sir, and I know what I want.”
I had set my cap for my rescuer. He did not stand a chance.
“We have us a deal, sir. You are looking at your new hostess.”
And your future love slave, I mused, keeping that piece of information to myself.
With me almost naked and he fully clothed, he reached out a hand to me.
We shook on it. And quite energetically too, so much so, my full breasts bobbed beneath the towel sarong despite their firmness.
A fact my new employer was quick to notice and slow to lift his gaze away from. Forgot to, I supposed, like the hand he forgot to return to his side following our handshake.
“Now to take you upstairs to your new quarters, Miss Jones. Your room is next door to mine. Safer for you that way. There is a connecting door in between should you require my assistance at any time, day or night.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He gestured to a door, way in the back of the room. “A private stairway to the floor where my private apartments are located.”
My mouth twisting, I regarded my attire. “I should dress.”
“No need,” he said softly. “You will only have to disrobe again once we arrive. You can wear something of mine to bed, a nightshirt. Of course, the hem of any garment of mine will drag on the floor and most likely trip you up in the night should you get up to use the facilities located in my room. As we will share the same WC, the door between our rooms will remain open. Of course, all this is entirely up to you. Whatever your decision, no one will dare bother you.”
He bothered me, especially when he took back his hand. But only for an instant, before replacing his palm at the small of my back, where my rounded buttocks began to swell. Their fullness did not seem objectionable to him…
“After you, Emma,” he said softly, and flicked off the dining room light.
I proceeded to the closed door, which he opened, an abrupt action which caused me to back up against him.
“Sorry, sir,” I murmured over my shoulder, resting there against him while I caught my reed-thin breath.
“No apology necessary. But are you all right?” he asked, his hand now resting possessively on my hip, his long and thick fingers extending diagonally across my flat belly. “The Green Fairy is no doubt still running riot in your system causing your dizziness.”
“Exactly, sir,” I said, my respiration gone shallow. Unusual in someone as a fit as myself to have shortness of breath. And, yet, here I was, struggling to fill my lungs with air.
“You are still in the throes of tonight’s upheaval, Emma. Your firing, the alley…”
I took a chance and said the word. “Love, sir, and for the first time.”
“No. Gratitude. For removing you from a difficult situation,” he argued. “Gratitude differs from love.”
In the dark stairway, it was easier to express myself. He could not see my face here. I could not see his. We were anonymous to one another. “When you had your fingers inside me, sir, I wished you not to stop.”
“Never mistake a need for carnal relief for love”.
“There can be no mistake. I know what I feel.”
“Start up the treads now.”
His response told me nothing, promised me nothing. I could not even classify his statement as undefined or evasive. He had quite openly changed the subject.
I suppose he thought me impetuous, too young to know my own mind. I had just met him, after all, known him less than twenty-four hours. In that respect, my declaration of love must appear as an avowal made by an immature miss.
What he could not know was this: After being on my own all of my life, I was years older than a date on the calendar. And so I had spoken my mind, said what I knew in my heart of hearts to be true. Why hide either my body or my emotions from him?
I preceded him up the stairs, his palm resting on the small of my back. The tenement was old, the stairway winding and steep, perhaps hazardous in the dark, but athletic and strong and surefooted, I required no assistance.
I would never dream of telling him so. Still, his considerate guidance touched me. He treated me like lady, for all that I was not. No well-bred lady of virtue would ever be so transparent in her lust. That was, if ever a well-bred lady ever felt lust.
Lust was dirty. Messy. Spontaneous. Impolite. And usually done without the benefit of a bonnet and gloves. I could not picture an unmarried lady would ever find herself in those circumstances, what with a chaperone in tow.
Reluctant to see this evening end, I became tearful once more when he delivered me to the room connected to his master suite. His leave-taking brought back all my
former feelings of restlessness. I felt past forlorn into bereft.
I had no pride with him, and so I pleaded, “Unless my love burdens or discomforts you in some way, please stay with me. Sleep with me. Do as you would with me. Use me freely. Fiercely. You can still walk away come morn. Nothing you do to me tonight or will do to me in the future binds you to me.”
I could almost hear his resolve weaken. My pathetic speech must have gotten to him for he whispered in the dark, “As a matter of principle, I shan’t come into you. But there is more than one route to release.”
Release? What release?
From my anger, presumably.
Whatever he thought to do to me sounded lamentably cold and lonely, but beggars cannot be choosers. And if this release he spoke of succeeded in his tarrying with me a bit longer, I was game regardless.
I went willingly when he nudged me towards the four-posters. There he removed my towel, done without one finger ever touching my skin.
If this hands-off policy of his was a sign of things to come, whatever this ‘release’ was, it sounded unpromising.
I missed the rough texture of his calluses on my flesh, and the silky bed linens under me did not make up for that loss. And that set me to wondering how someone who owned and managed a gambling den came by such work-worn hands?
Gardening?
No. Not these calluses.
Then I recalled the tremendous stack of cut wood by the corner of the townhouse and the axe leaning against the fieldstone foundation. I had yet to familiarize myself with the whole of the building but each room I had seen thus far contained a working fireplace.
And then I had it. The solution. He must chop the wood for all those fireplaces, hours of exhausting labor. None of that would take a physical toll on a man his size, but the state of his hands would certainly give the chores away.
He left me uncovered. The bed dipped as he took a seat beside me, then spread my knees. Wide. Wider still. Just like downstairs, there was no request for permission. Why would there be? I had shown myself to be shameless. And by my own deceitful say-so, he thought me experienced. Not a whore, but not an innocent either.
“Lean back against the pillows,” he said.
He expected me to pose for him?
As a dancer, I had ample experience in striking an attitude and holding it for the enjoyment of my fans. And if that was what was required of me, I could do so here for my audience of one.
“Is this what you mean, sir?” I asked, positioning myself to his specifications. “Is this how you wish me?”
“Not quite.”
Was that censure I heard in his voice?
Not encouragement, certainly. Did he think I was holding out on him, saving the little that remained of my modesty?
I was not!
“How?” I pleaded. “Sir, tell me how!”
“Open up,” he coolly instructed me. “Between your legs should be as visible to me as your thoughts. No secrets.”
I was the sole performer at the dancehall who refused to make an exhibitionistic display of herself when on stage and yet here I was doing exactly that now.
No. Worse.
Yet, licking my lips, I stretched myself wide.
“Much improved. Now place your arms above your head, braced against the headboard. Bend up your knees too.”
His were not suggestions. These were outright demands.
Taking his new dominance as progress in the right direction, I gleefully did as ordered and bent my gartered knees. Not one to be outdone, I took it a step farther and hiked my bottom off the bed.
He had not removed my crimson garters and black stockings downstairs, and I was glad of it now. Though the hose covered very little skin, I felt less vulnerable wearing them. While still nude, I retained an air of mystery.
Erotic mystery, I mused with a saucy smile. Though hardly a pose a virginal bride would assume on her wedding night – naughty me – I liked the effect.
And I began to suspect it was not only me who appreciated it. I began to suspect Mr. Simmons did as well. Why else would a focused man such as himself make such an oversight…unless he had deliberately neglected in having me remove them. For some reason unknown to me, he liked how I looked in them, liked me being nude save for the black hose and shiny red garters. The sight stimulated him. Carnally.
“Touch yourself. Between the legs,” he added. “There at the top. The small scrap of flesh. Press it.”
I fiddled about until I knew without a doubt I had found the right spot, then inquired, as sassy as can be, “Here, sir?”
“Yes,” he needlessly confirmed.
Excellent! His voice was hoarser than before.
Both his tone and my stroking had me squirming in short order.
“The slit is saturated with your juices,” he advised me.
This, I understood without him having to tell me. Though, his telling added something to it and the result was immediate.
The gravity of his announcement set me to bucking, my hips leaving the bed altogether and launching upward toward the ceiling in a most unladylike fashion. Then again, I was no lady. No lady born would ever display herself like this before a man she had only just met. Only a few hours in his company, he could rightly be called a stranger to me.
To no other stranger but him would I present myself so obscenely.
I purposefully drew his attention. “Sir, something is happening. Something that has never happened to me before,” I groaned, my hands tightening into fists, which I then hammered into the mattress, no cares of consequence, no fretting over what any of this said about me.
The bed where I had splayed myself was suddenly dark no more. He had deliberately cast the light directly on me, spotlighting me, while he remained in the shadows, unseen.
Unfair!
“Christ, the length of your nipples,” he said. Then, his voice suddenly gruff, he added, “Stop holding back. Go on. Let go.”
Hold back what? Let go of what?
I only understood his meaning when a harsh scream rose up within me and a release of tension unlike any I ever could have imagined or described turned every taut muscle in my body to mush.
Replete, I collapsed like a limp rag back onto the mattress, all of me wantonly sprawled.
He left the shadows and approached the bed, rested his hand lightly atop my bare belly, his fingers stretching downward until they were entwined in the black curls covering my mons.
“Again,” he told me.
“I cannot,” I said exhausted and begging off for the first time ever with him.
“Yes, you can. You are capable of having multiple orgasms. I can tell.”
I turned my blushing face into the pillow, away from the sound of his stern lecture.
“Furthermore – where is my sir? Remember – you work for me now. Familiarity between us, Emma, is cause for your dismissal. ”
Surely, he jested.
“But, sir…we just…or rather, I just…”
What had I just?
Orgasm! That was the word he had used to describe that transforming event. I had just orgasmed. And that changed things. Did it not?
Not from his perspective, evidently. After that, he thought we would still remain no more intimate than employer and employee.
I was naked and spread wide, and that was just the start of my exposure. My nipples were achingly erect. I was soaking wet, and not from a spring rain. A light was directed at me. That light revealed my loss of control, and everything else. What was that if not familiarity?
Then I knew. It was a two-sided familiarity he would not allow. So long as I alone lost control, he had no objections.
“No more, sir,” I choked out. “Not like this.” Not as long this imbalance of familiarity remained between us.
“Telling me no, Emma, ends our play. That is the rule. As is calling me sir at all times.”
At that ultimatum, I began to negotiate, “Please, not that. Anything but that. What can I do to persuade
you to continue?”
I wanted him so…
He thought for a moment. A long moment.
Finally, he must have made up his mind for he said sternly. “If in your pride, you cannot bring yourself to tell me yes, then you must show me your willingness to proceed. I never force a woman. The sir, however, is non-negotiable. Up all fours, faced away.”
Had he just said ‘pride’ ? As in conceit?
He had a strange idea about what constituted both of those.
Vanity but a distant memory, I scrambled to do his bidding, getting up onto hands and knees, faced away. Then I looked back over my shoulder at him beseechingly. “Like this, sir. Like this? Is this how you wish me? You have only tell me if it is not…”
“Push your bottom out over the edge of the bed.”
Once again, I raced to do as told, wiggling to the very edge of the mattress, where I titter-tottered, about to fall on the floor should I do so much as sneeze.
“Like this, sir?” I asked him again, and rounded up into a tight ball, stuck my bottom out even further over the side.
He grunted in what sounded like satisfaction, before saying, “Eyes straight ahead.”
I turned back and faced the opposite wall, my gaze directed at nothing, certainly not at him, not after his reprimand. And so I heard, rather than saw, him approach the bed where I had situated myself, the lower part of me – from the waist down – awkwardly suspended mid-air.
An easy target, my bottom received a sound whack from his hand.
I sucked in my breath at the sting left behind. He swatted my arse again and again, until my eyelids lowered, my mouth slackened, my breasts hurt, between my legs wept, and I was crying out, “Yes, yes, yes!”
Saying nothing about my submission, he rolled me all akimbo like a bug onto my back. Of course, he must have noticed the change in me. The stark lamplight would have revealed my horrible arousal, my absolute loss of independence and dignity. He controlled me now. Every aspect, he controlled.
“No shame in liking it, Emma. What was used on you before for discipline?”
“Everything,” I mumbled, shielding my eyes with my bent arms.
“No covering your face, Emma. You have no call for either shame or embarrassment here.”