A Gentlewoman's Predicament Read online

  Whirling hot blood rushes to my face. “Examine me?” My senses teeter and tilt as the blood seems to rush to other places, too, making them agitated. The tips of my breasts, the pit of my belly, my secret recess.

  “Why, yes, of course.” Ambrose’s smile is gentle but his brown eyes are shining like dark stars.

  What is this place? Who is he? Who are they? I ask myself, aware that Clarence is hovering still, close by.

  “Don’t be shy, Sofia. You’re safe here. No need to worry.” Ambrose’s fingers have slid under the sleeve of my frock and are stroking, stroking. “Come on, my dear, let’s be off with all these heavy, constricting clothes.”

  So this is how it happens?

  He urges me to my feet, and it’s off with my bonnet, my jacket and my boots, followed swiftly by my bodice and my skirts and petticoats.

  Both Ambrose and Clarence handle my clothing with smooth efficiency, and I wonder vaguely just how many other nervous gentlewomen they’ve cleverly undressed in this warm room.

  Denuded down to my corset and bustle, I shudder and sway as if in a fever—especially when Ambrose slides his fingers down my throat and across my bosom and beneath the edge of the sternly laced garment.

  “Dear God, this is like armor! How can women possibly feel free and experience pleasure while trussed up on monstrosities like this? I suggest that when you get home, you fling it on the fire.”

  Before I can protest, he and Clarence attack the garment that offends him so. Bustle dispensed with, two pairs of extraordinarily deft male hands negotiate the corset’s hooks and lacing, and within the wink of an eye, Ambrose flings the entire construction across the room in disgust.

  “There, that’s better.”

  I gasp as his whole hand settles lightly on my breast, through my chemise. He cups the soft orb with a delicate touch, his fingers curving and caressing. I stand like a statue, shaking and confused in my just the chemise, my drawers and my stockings. The heat of the softly glowing fire is like a caress, too, warming me through my linen. A hot blush surges through my skin and through my veins. Between my legs, I feel a pulse, slow and liquid.

  “You’re very beautiful, my dear,” whispers Ambrose, hand still upon me, “but you’re a modest young woman and I know all this is new to you.” His mouth is so close to my cheek that I almost imagine he’s going to kiss me. But he doesn’t. “Perhaps you’d like to retain your undergarments for the moment, to spare your blushes?”

  Spare them? Too late for that. My entire body is in a state of conflagration. He’s barely touched me but I’m an inferno down below.

  “Come along, Mrs. Harewood. Let’s get you settled comfortably on the chaise.”

  Like the proverbial lamb to the slaughter, I let him lead me to the plush, upholstered couch and help me up onto it. As I settle into place, not knowing what to expect, I close my eyes. And as I prepare to meet my fate, Clarence’s skillful fingers ease the pins from my hair and fan it out across the cushions. All the while, Ambrose lightly strokes my hand.

  What am I doing here? Why am I allowing these two men that are scarcely even acquaintances make free with my clothing and my body? I must have lost my wits or the Madeira was drugged.

  But I know that’s not so. And I know this is what I’ve wanted for a long time. The thing I knew existed but was missing from my life.

  When my pulses have settled, and I’ve calmed a little, Ambrose releases my hand and gets straight down to business. Slowly, seductively, he strokes my cheek, then my chin, then my throat. A moment later, he’s at the tiny silk ribbons that fasten the front of my chemise, undoing them swiftly.

  Without speaking, he folds the soft fabric aside and exposes my pale body to his gaze, and to Clarence’s.

  When he touches me, really touches me, I cry out like a child, and instantly Clarence is at my head, stroking my hair like a skilled groom calming a skittish pony. He murmurs to me, “There, there…” while Ambrose handles my breasts, gently fondling and cupping and kneading.

  His actions are light, circumspect, almost respectful, but their effect is like nothing I’ve ever known. I squirm on the upholstery, my body excited, twisting and uneasy. When he increases the intensity of his caresses, I whimper helplessly. How can this be? How can such simple manipulations create such a cornucopia of delight. My late husband mauled my bosom, and I felt nothing then.

  But now…now, Ambrose’s fingers are so clever, so devilish. He plucks at my nipples, playing with them in a way that feels like he’s playing with my entire body and setting light to the most divine, unknown sensations. I wriggle shamelessly, scissoring my thighs in a lewd and passionate frenzy, wanting more, more, more. Anything to assuage the rapidly gathering inner tingling.

  “You see, Mrs. Harewood, you are a sensual woman!” Ambrose’s voice is both cajoling and triumphant, and yet an intimate whisper, right in my ear. While he still plays with my breasts, Clarence moves again, toward the foot of the chaise.

  My eyes fly open.

  Whatever are they planning now?

  “I’ll need your help now, Clarence, if you will?” Ambrose almost kisses me, his breath hot against my brow. “I’d like you to unfasten Mrs. Harewood’s drawers and stockings, and then ease them down as far as her knees.”

  “Oh, no, please, Monsieur Chamfleur, please no!”

  Oh the shame, to be exposed so…. Why does it excite me and make me want to wiggle and wriggle even harder?

  “Calm yourself, sweet Mrs. Harewood, rest easy.” His lips brush my skin, just for a moment. “And please do call me ‘Ambrose,’ I beg of you. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Except myself, and a degree of lust and licentiousness I’ve only just this afternoon become aware of.

  Clarence makes himself busy at my waist, and a moment later I feel cooler air whisper across my belly and my thighs even though the room is warm. His hand beneath my bare bottom, he lifts me, and then settles me back on the fine plush velvet upholstery. To feel it’s sumptuous texture against my naked skin is willfully decadent.

  “Magnificent,” they exclaim, almost a chorus. Then Ambrose kisses my face, just once, in a kind of signal, and the two men change places.

  Clarence, at my head now, is just as gentle and solicitous as his master was. I look up into his periwinkle-blue eyes, almost afraid to let my glance stray toward Ambrose and his intentions, and I see Clarence’s expression is both kind and impish. He cradles me with one arm, and lets his free hand drift to my breast and take up the delightful ministrations that Ambrose began. I groan with delight while he teases and tickles me, at the same time anticipating more, much, much more, down below.

  I close my eyes. Not because I don’t want to look at their handsome, fervent faces, but because I’m not sure I can bear such intense wonders in the light.

  My cries increase as I feel an ethereal, indefinable pressure slide unhurriedly across the skin of my belly. In a ferment now, I could swear it’s a feather that’s caressing me. A long, stiff, resilient feather whose soft tip glides first across one thigh, then with tantalizing slowness across the other. Having tormented me thus, it returns to the plane of my abdomen, floating like mist into the pit of my navel and circling there, making me squirm on the chaise.

  “Quietly, quietly…” purrs a voice so softly that I’m not even sure whether it’s Clarence or Ambrose, and as I endure the feather, I’m all the time aware of skilled fingers still at work on my bosom. A multitude of nerve ends have woken from their slumbers, in both the zones my new friends are exploring, and in others, as yet unvisited.

  Between my thighs, I’m intensely troubled. If that be the word. My feminine parts are wracked by simmering heat and agitation, a wicked, wicked craving to be touched and rubbed and played with. It’s so excruciating, I want to play with them myself.

  I feel confused, my head whirling, lost but also strangely safe. These must be the sensations that I dimly imagined I was missing in my marriage bed. But they’re so powerful, so befuddlin
g, yet so beautiful. My eyes fill with tears, but I’m not sad. No, never that.

  Reaching for knowledge, I almost coo in response to my two paramours.

  Who respond to my silent, formless prayers.

  Clarence kisses me, his tongue pressing importunately into my mouth, searching, tasting. At almost the same moment, I heave up from the surface of the chaise in delicious shock.

  A finger—a stiff, warm, clever finger—pushes inside me.

  Ambrose breaches my hot body in a smooth, bold action, and as his finger enters me, his broad, flat thumb settles on the tiny sensitive bead at the apex of my womanhood. Instantaneously, delight seems to pierce me like a spear, touching not just the warm, sticky crevice of my sex, but also my breasts, my lips, my toes, my heart and my very soul.

  The men move in. They overwhelm me. I’m exquisitely assaulted by questing fingers and warm tongues, and by the scents of my body and the clean odors of their linen and their flesh.

  The heat and the tension in my flesh soars to a sweet, unbearable pitch, building like a raw flame in my loins…and then, and then… I cry out into the kissing mouth of Clarence, when without warning, all that selfsame pressure seems to release in a great, wild rush and throb through my body in a wrenching wave so profound I almost swoon.

  Goodness, what’s happened to me? Did I lose my senses?

  Opening my eyes, I realize that I’m just lying here, on the chaise, my heart and my body all of a flutter. My breasts and belly are still naked and I’m cradled in Ambrose’s arms. My face is wet, and I realize I’ve been weeping.

  Struggling to sit up, I look around and find that Clarence has discreetly slipped away.

  “Were those the transports of delight that my friends have whispered of?” I ask Ambrose as I struggle to gather just a few of my scattered wits. The deficiencies of my marriage are now readily and distressingly apparent to me. Are all men as lacking in the sensual arts as my poor late husband was? “I confess that’s the first time I’ve experienced them.”

  “They were indeed, my dear Mrs. Harewood.” Ambrose’s voice is quite grave as he moves away quickly, only to return with a little more Madeira for me. It’s cold now, but just as delicious, and very welcome. “And it pains me to hear that such an obviously sensual woman as yourself is only now discovering the joys of eroticism.”

  I still feel a little stunned. I’m shocked and surprised by what I’m capable of. But in my heart, a seed of determination has been planted. Never again will I accept second best in this matter. Never again will I lie thwarted and unsatisfied while a gentleman uses me to service his own desires. If my next husband is ignorant of my needs, by heaven, I will show him what I require and insist he provides it!

  The Madeira braces me. I square my shoulders and look into Ambrose’s intense brown eyes. My heart lifts at the look of awe and wonder there. It’s as if he saw my inner transformation.

  “That…that was quite a revelation. But I sense there’s more to learn. Many additional tricks and techniques that I may employ to enhance my enjoyment of the bedroom.”

  “Indeed, my dear, and bravo! It’s clear that you’re a quick study and a natural born sensualist. That perfect pleasure you just experienced is called an orgasm, and now you’re acquainted with it, I’m sure it’ll be the first of many.”

  “I do hope so.” And that is the truth. My glowing body is already rousing anew, despite my recent pleasure. “I’m eager to experience it again. And to learn more.”

  “Of course, my dear lady, of course. We usually suggest that further, shall we say, ‘therapies’ be explored on another day. When the client has had time to absorb the impact of her first experience and perhaps experiment a little herself. But in your case—” he pauses delicately “—in your case, I feel that you’re ready to move swiftly ahead, to the second stage.”

  Second stage? Oh, my, what might that be?

  A delicious rippling in the pit of my belly tells me my body is eager and willing to explore it.

  Just as I’m about to speak, the door opens and Clarence returns with a bundle of silk and lace over his arm. When he shakes it out, and holds it up, it proves to be an exquisite peignoir of ivory Peau de Soie, adorned with Brussels lace and narrow satin ribbons. Ambrose hands me from the chaise longue and it seems the most natural thing in the world to divest myself of all my underclothes and slip happily into the delicate luxurious garment.

  The awareness that I’m momentarily nude before both Ambrose and Clarence only excites me even further. In fact I’m almost disappointed when the silken robe is tied and my flesh is respectably covered again.

  “Come this way,” says Ambrose, taking my hand, and leading me out of the room. Glancing backward, I see Clarence begin to tidy up and gather my clothing. Ahead lies I know not what, but I feel a little sad when the younger man doesn’t follow us.

  We reach another room, which, when Ambrose escorts me within, proves to be a sumptuous if somewhat gaudily decorated bedroom, of the sort I would imagine a high class courtesan to inhabit. The bed is a huge, brass-railed four-poster, and the walls are decorated with a rich, silk wallpaper. Works of art hang here, too, as they did downstairs, but here the paintings and prints are bigger and undeniably lewd…and stimulating.

  As Ambrose turns down the sheets and quilt, releasing a waft of delicious tuberose fragrance from the linen, another door to the chamber opens and a newcomer enters.

  “Oh, my! You’re…”

  It’s Yuri, the exquisite young man from the engraving.

  He’s naked, alive and perfect, right down to every last inch of beautiful swarthy flesh and every vibrant dark curl on his head.

  His male member is enormous and already on the rise.

  “This is Yuri, Mrs. Harewood, and he’s here to pleasure you.” Ambrose leads me forward, toward this vision of idealized male pulchritude. “And to instruct you in ways that you may pleasure him, in order to increase a man’s enthusiasm and thus your enjoyment of the act.”

  “Enchanted,” the young man says softly, taking my shaking hand and bringing it to his lips for a kiss. His mouth is warm and firm, and parts slightly against my skin to allow his tongue to delicately tease.

  “I…um… It’s a pleasure to meet you, too,” I stammer, unable to stop myself glancing at his male organ, which seems to be rising and growing yet further, as we speak.

  “I sincerely hope so, madame,” he whispers against my skin, his tongue flicking again in way that’s positively indecent. Especially as he’s at full and magnificent stand now.

  “Here, let me help you,” says Ambrose from behind me, and he reaches over my shoulders and unfastens my silk robe. Immediately Yuri parts the garment and exposes me. A heartbeat later, Ambrose slides it off my shoulders and makes me bare.

  I’m in a room, stark naked, with two men again.

  Acutely aware of Ambrose behind me, I reach, on pure instinct, for Yuri. He makes a sound of delighted surprise when I coil my arms around him, but then getting into the spirit of things, he clasps me tightly, too, and presses his lips to mine.

  His mouth tastes just as sweet and spicy as the Madeira, and as his tongue probes and explores, his mighty sex pushes at my belly.

  Naked skin on naked skin. Lips. Tongues. Hands. A man’s hard staff against me.

  All these things are right. All these things are good.

  Even the intense scrutiny of a third party, another handsome man, seems to be part of my sensual destiny.

  Yuri and I kiss for a long time, our hands running over each others backs and buttocks. I seem to have passed across some great Rubicon, and I know that the exact moment of my transformation was during the sublime pleasure that Ambrose visited upon me with his fingers. Even though I’m embracing one man, it’s this other that I’m still strangely linked to.

  Eventually, my naked companion and I part, and I turn to find Ambrose’s eyes on me, burning like coals. Yet, when he extends his hand, and silently leads me to the bed, his decorum is pe
rfect and controlled. He helps me onto the mattress, but his hands don’t linger upon my limbs or my torso, even though every last sense in me screams out that he wants to. He sincerely wants to…

  Yuri takes his place in the bed at my side, his long, sun-kissed body gracefully elegant. He reaches for me, touching my breast, fingertips warm and sure. I surge toward him, and yet my attention isn’t entirely upon his actions. Ambrose is retreating behind me, moving toward the door…and that can’t be. That really cannot be!

  I turn to him, holding out my hand, even while Yuri continues to idly fondle my teat. When I glance quickly at him, he’s smiling, his dark eyes aglitter.

  Ambrose hesitates, just a second, then returns to the bed. He kicks off his boots, then climbs alongside us, still fully clothed, leaning on his elbow.

  “I’ll watch for a while,” he says. His voice is quiet and calm, but I sense a thread of raw excitement.

  Watching will do, then. At least for a while.

  We exchange a complicit smile, then I return my attention to Yuri.

  The younger man is exotic, tawny-skinned and earthy. His dark hair is a wild mass of curls and there is a simmering, animal quality about him. His lovemaking is eager and earthy, too, although I can tell he is accomplished, with many skills.

  His hands rove my body, and I sink into the sensations, lolling back against the pillows like some Ottoman princess accepting the services of her swains. With one hand I slowly stroke Yuri’s warm flank, indolently encouraging him, while with the other, I seek, and find, Ambrose’s hand. Our fingers lace, and my heart turns over, touched by some strange, dark emotion.

  Yuri kisses my cheek, my throat, my shoulder. Each with a soft intense contact and a stroke of his moist, nimble tongue. Then his mouth moves lower, drifting and sliding over the upper slopes of my bosom. I blush a little as my nipples harden even more, then smile inside at my own silliness. How far are we now beyond embarrassment? Beyond inhibition?

  As Yuri takes one tight crest between his lips, I laugh out loud, knowing that shame is something I’ll never know again.