After they had come, as it was called. 'I didn't, didn't want to!', Mary sobbed, though still there were no tears. I soothed her hair. We clung as skylarks cling in summer to a wall. 'You will have your money, honestly', I said. 'Don't want it, don't!' She wiped her lips again. I wondered at the volume he had spilled within, and knew her cry to be a false one by the tone of it. 'Come, Mary, don't be silly; yes, you do. Come to my room now-come indoors.
Oh, what a jape it was', I laughed. My laugh was tinsel, though. I had a warmth between my thighs and sensed that she too had. 'I shall be told off now', she snivelled as we walked away. 'You shall not be, Mary. I will say, if asked, that my dress was snagged against the hedge and that you helped me get it free. Tompkins will dare say naught to me', I said, referring to the housekeeper we then had.
'You don't have to give me anyfink', she whined. I wished her not to whine-wished her to walk upright, lips parted at the wonder of it as I thought I would myself have done. Mama was in the morning room and saw us enter, scolded Mary for her wrinkled dress, but I-explaining in a mumble that we had fallen down-took the girl upstairs and to my room. She stood there humbly while I closed the door, sought for my purse and handed her a coin. She would not take it till I pressed it to her palm. 'Master James will give you another, Mary; I will see to it'. 'Don't want it, Miss'. But even so, she clasped her hand around the shining piece. 'It is not for earning, Mary. Do not think of it as such, but for a pleasure spent, and yet another you may spend upon your own. Did it taste funny, nice?
Oh tell me, do'. 'Dunno, Miss'. There was crimson in her cheeks.
I sensed in her that girlish urge I often had myself to laugh and cry in the same moment. 'It was not horrid, really? Was it? No?'
'It tasted funny… well, not nasty, no. It's…' 'Go on, Mary, tell me, do. I often wanted… well… to do the same'.
'Tastes creamy, salty. There was ever such a lot!' She giggled suddenly, then choked and held her hand up to her mouth. She smiled, she bit her lower lip. I could not help but do the same and hugged her to me. Stiff at first, she then relented, let me hold her close. I felt her belly warm to mine, her thighs. 'I will get the other sovereign for you, Mary-give it you tonight'. 'All right, Miss, yes. I'll get a bonnet, a new dress, and hide the rest away, I will'.
'I bet it throbbed! Oh, Mary, did it throb?' Her eyes were bright, her lips were close to mine. I wanted much to kiss her, but instead I soothed her cheeks. Her breath was milky, pleasant, with a scent of sperm such as I had known upon the bed. She did not answer, dropped her eyes. Our noses touched and tickled. Hard her breasts felt up against my own. 'Would you do it again, Mary, if I asked you to?' 'Dunno, Miss'.
'Would you, Mary?'
'Might. I shouldn't, though-should I? You said… Oh, Miss, you said…' 'I said I'd thought of it. I have. I haven't done it, though, myself. I will do, though, I know I will. But not with Master James, of course. There-now we have a secret each. I will not tell, and nor will you'. 'Oh no, I never would, Miss, no. I darst not. They would turn me out. My Dad would be that angry with me that I don't know what. I never done it that way, Miss, before'. 'But you have done it, though? Oh, tell me… No, not now perhaps, or Mama will wonder at your absence and our solitude'. 'Yes. Better go, Miss'. Startled at our boldness, she released herself, ran out. I leaned against the door as Eveline did. I had kissed James upon the mouth-had put my tongue between his lips. His cock had jetted into Mary's while we did. My head a-spin, my quim a-throb, I eased my dress up, felt my bottom warm against the moulding of the door and touched my lovelips through the cotton's veil. Head buzzing, eyelids drooping, I began to rub, but then was startled into otherness. A loud knock sounded. Papa called my name.
CHAPTER 3
'It is Arnold', said Papa. I felt dismayed and disarrayed. 'Oh? Why then did not the maid come?', asked I and felt a thrill of wonderment and apprehension coursing through my veins at my impertinence. 'Mary is not to be found, the valet has injured his leg, and… Why do you ask?' 'I beg your pardon, Papa; I did not think'. I felt a guilt at what had passed and also had a sense of irritation to be disturbed at such a moment, dress up and my calves on view. 'Indeed? Have you a fever? You appear to me quite flushed'. His look absorbed me, and I had the strangest feeling that I saw him and yet saw him not. His eyes became transparent. Through them I could see again the merriment outside, against the wall, and wondered if it, too, were in his head, in my strange fancy, though he could not know. 'I was playing, father, and I just came up'. 'You are beyond such sport now, are you not?
Your activities henceforth should be otherwise. Give thought to it, my dear, for Arnold has a serious intent-I do believe he has. Indeed, he has spoken of intentions, privately to me, of which I find approval.
Are you of the same mind-to wed?' I turned my back on him. Dismay showed in my eyes. Arnold was four years older than myself. His father was a merchant, though so rich that Society forgave him that. His mother was a little vulgar, so I thought- his sisters strange.
'Papa, he has not-' 'Not what?' Approaching me as he then did, I hunched my shoulders and I blushed. It seemed an oddity to say what I then needed to. Mama I might have said it to, but not Papa.
'He has not even kissed me yet'. So tightly and with such embarrassment the words came that my throat was as a tube from which one squeezes water, urging out the drops. 'Not kissed, not kissed? Such is not to be taken as a token or a promise. Many people kiss whose thoughts are at the same time of another-hence there then is little value to it, or they may have but a passing fancy for the moment, upon which-having savoured the lips they sought-they find the least fulfilment therein. Arnold will inherit much. The only son, you know'. 'I know that, yes, Papa'. I did not turn, I would not turn. I hated what he said, or had no liking for it at the least.
'I am to be sold, then? Am I to be sold?' My bitterness surprised me, yet I could not help but say. James had leaned against the wall. The maid had succoured, sucked, him. There was freedom there. Against the wall, against the sunlit wall. Mary would not be immured in marriage just for that. 'It is the way of things that women are given in marriage, Emily'. 'Is it?' My ire was up, and such as I had never known before. I, meek in Papa's presence always, was a rebel now. I had my cause. The swallows flew against the tall blue sky all summer long and never landed. Never had I seen one need to rest upon a bough. I wished, I wished, to be as them-to fly, to fly. 'I have often kissed you, Emily. 'Tis but a token- not a promise never to be broken'. His voice was softer. I did not receive the strictures, reprimand, I had expected. Face to face we stood, I turning, twirled, by guiding hands and brought to face, nose tickled by his black cravat, my hair a little rumpled and no powder on my cheeks. 'It is not the same', I mumbled, knowing not how I should put my arms, my hands. I let them fall, held them against my skirt. 'You must be guided by your elders, Emily. Mark this kiss-it shall be no more, no less, than others are'. So saying, he lifted up my chin. Uncomprehending (I could not do otherwise) I allowed his lips to fall, full fall, upon my own, O lightly at the first but then they pressed, merged, moistened, mouths became as one mouth yet were two. I felt a dizziness and clutched his arms. His chest absorbed the firmly jellied pressure of my breasts. My shoulders were enfolded-the whole length of my slim body pressed to his; his thighs were tree-trunks to my own. Hands shaped my back and pondered at my bottom's bulb, tasting the twin globes that they found beneath my dress. One minute, two perhaps, we breathed, thus breathed, upon each other's tongue, and there was wilderness and wildness in my mind, a hollow sounding as of songs I never heard before. Weak were my knees, my bottom plumlike poised upon his palms. 'In such a moment…' Thickly did he speak, lips parting slowly from my own, and turned away, hands trembling faintly on the windowsill, I felt as a lone tree where once a forest stood. 'You should brush your hair', he said, his back to me. Awkwardly moving then, he turned towards my door, touched at the handle and then hesitated, I feeling as one who had somehow vaguely sinned, and he the victim. 'Brush my hair, Papa, yes'. If I continued to look at him he would not leave, I thought, and knew not why I thought. In such small fragments of time it is as if something tangible, a cord, a chain, secures both speakers and is stretched almost to tautness, but not quite. 'And you will speak with Arnold, speak with him?' 'If you so wish, Papa, I shall'. The words, for no reason I could think of, brought a sigh from him. If I were naked now, I wished to say, madness possessing me-the bizarre turn that my mind had often taken since my greater youth. Do the thoughts of all turn in such labyrinths where dreams and devils lurk, competing, each with tickets in their hands for entertainments one should never see? 'I wish…' He spoke, he sighed again, was gone, the impress of my bottom on his palms, the weight still tingling on his fingertips. Yet if I thought that… Did I think it then, or was the moment like to an old dress that one discovers and recovers, furbishes anew with other buttons, other ribbons, lace replaced? Arnold awaited me-the tall, the spare. I had seen James' stiff prick and thought of Arnold's as a thin and withered one, a stalk that drooped and never showed its pride, his testicles all shrunken underneath. Fear of the sun, the open light.