Work Text:
I am writing. The day has been long, and inspiration slow to reveal itself, but, at last, my pen moves across the page. The lamp has dimmed somewhat since I began, but it is bright enough still that I can make out my letters without squinting against the darkness.
I must finish tonight, though it is not a task I relish. Mr. Perkins has requested a short piece for use as a supplement to a previously-published manuscript, and I find that I am suited neither to the style nor the subject which he requires. Nevertheless, I cannot rely on the generosity or even the continued liberty of Mr. Hawtrey forever, and so I must court the business of other publishers. Perkins's publications are cheaply and poorly done. I find them distasteful, but I think perhaps there is an appropriateness in that. If nothing else, his press is prolific; I cannot afford to squander such a connection.
And so I write of connections of another sort, which hold my attention, if not my full interest. Or they do, at least, until I am interrupted by the suddenness of swearing from across the room.
'Bloody...!' Sue exclaims, and I look up to see that she has taken the tip of her finger into her mouth. I watch her suck at it, and think at once of snakes and venom, though the notion is an odd one and I am not certain why I settle upon it.
'It is too dark for this,' Sue complains finally. She has been at her needlework for whatever indeterminable length of time has passed since I began this evening's assignment. She is not exceedingly skilled at stitching—her hands are strong and her fingers nimble, though there is a certain delicacy lacking—but her capabilities far exceed my own, even when I am not fettered by gloves. Whatever sundry tasks she was set to at Lant Street prepared her well to employ sewing as a distraction from the monotony and stillness of life at Briar. But the chamber we now occupy—the one adjacent to my bedchamber—grows gloomier even with the moon's light streaming from the window, and she has jabbed her fingers several times already.
'You could retire,' I tell her. 'Really, Sue, I will be awhile yet.' It is true. I have managed to set the stage for the meeting of lovers and document their provocations, but I have not yet progressed to their coupling. The coupling is the raison d'être of the supplement, for men had complained of the original manuscript that it was unsatisfactory in its failure to depict the 'culmination of love.' It's subjects were acts that could only be classed as prefaces to intercourse, they said, and yet the anonymous author had treated them as if they were events unto themselves. My uncle was, in fact, one of the men who had found such things quite unacceptable, though I am loathe to think on that. I write what I am assigned, and remain indifferent.
'How much longer?' Sue asks. 'It's late. You need your rest.'
'I need for this to be finished,' I insist, and then let my voice soften. 'Go. I shall come to bed in awhile.'
Sue sighs. 'I'll wait. The bed is cold without you.' She reaches to adjust the lamp before curling back into the chair and settling again in her work.
In truth, I wish she would not wait. Sue lacks the patience of a scholar, a quality which I usually envy, but one which has nonetheless driven me to distraction many a time this night. She shifts perpetually in her chair, which creaks under even her slight weight, and she sighs often under her breath. On occasion, I hear the cracking of the joints in her hands. I prefer to write in solitude and quiet, especially when I am in the midst of inscribing debaucheries I think I should never let her read, and each small sound serves only as a constant and somewhat galling reminder that I am being surveilled and waited upon by an impatient observer.
I try to continue at my task, to regain the momentum I lost at Sue's exclamation, but it is only a few moments before I find myself again interrupted by her shifting.
'Come here,' I say, and my voice sounds stern and sudden in the quiet of the room. I regret my gruffness immediately, for I see the way it surprises Sue. But she rises and comes anyway.
'Get the chair by the window and bring it here,” I tell her. She does, and obeys when I direct her to position it in front of the desk.
“Maud--” she starts.
'Sit,' I say, and she closes her mouth. She sits, though her confusion is obvious. I am surprised at how alluring I find it, that she is caught unawares but conforms herself to my intentions nonetheless.
I wonder, did I have intentions in calling her over, beyond causing her to be still? I was not aware of them when I ordered her to me, but I think I did. And now something is sparked. Perhaps, I tell myself, it is to the benefit of the writing , which I fear is dull thus far from my lack of enthusiasm. Perhaps. And so, with not a little of the trepidation which accompanies venturing into a new and foreign territory, I press her further: 'Tuck your hands under your hips.'
My voice sounds strange to me again, and perhaps to her as well, for her consternation deepens quite visibly. But, much to my pleasure, she does as I instruct.
'You're to sit, and be still,” I tell her, and then I return my eyes to my papers.
I make the attempt to appear as though I am reading what I have just written, but I am not. I have done nothing of this sort with Sue previously, and I all I can think on is the novelty of it, of the way I thrill to see her obey me so. My pulse beats loudly enough that I fear she will hear it and know this for what it is, but she does not. Or, at least, she does not appear to when I cast a sly glance through my eyelashes.
She notices my look, of course. She has always been observant. But, to her credit, she says nothing.
Finally, I begin to write again. I find that description is difficult for me—not description of acts, for I have any number of synonyms and cliches to employ to that end, but descriptions of the actors. The details of their appearance and mannerisms are, as I have gathered from my studies, an important measure of a story's quality.
'See here,' my uncle had once told a group of men who had gathered to hear me read. 'Note the careful and rather poetic description of the costume.'
And he had gestured for me to read, then, a passage from The Merry Order of St. Bridget: A chemise of fine lawn, trimmed with Valenciennes lace and insertion ; a soft white flannel petticoat worked round the bottom with silk; another of white cashmere, very fine, with a flounce round the bottom edged with sky-blue velvet. For the bodice I had one of my lady's embroidered ones, white; no stays or drawers, and nothing on my feed except blue morning slippers, with tiny white rosettes...
The book was not to my uncle's liking—too tedious, as lengthy accounts of flagellation must necessarily be, in his learned opinion—but he did appreciate its delicate attention to description. I fear I have not that gift, for I know nothing of fashion and possess the tendency of picturing only indistinct actors performing the wanton acts I prescribe. I have little in the way of artistic imagination, much to my regret.
But an idea occurs to me then, and I glance up from my paper. Sue's look when my eyes meet hers is so hopeful that something inside my seizes a bit with pity. It is insufficient to dissuade me, however. My gaze moves over her, over the angularity of her cheeks, over her lips, over the sharp bones of her shoulders, which show through the thin fabric of her nightdress where it parts at her neck. Finally, it moves lower.
'Maud--' Sue begins again, but, as before, I interrupt her.
'Take down your nightdress,' I say.
Her eyes widen, and her lips part in surprise. “You can't--”
'Sue,' I tell her, 'if you wish to keep my company while I am working, you must keep quiet. Do I make myself plain?'
I am as surprised as she is, I think, that I have spoken to her so, and I am met with the distinct sense of being at the edge of a sort of precipice. I fear what should happen were I to topple over, to push her too far. But I would swear that something shows in her eyes, and I can hear the catch of her breath even from the distance at which I am sitting. After a moment, she nods in agreement, and I feel nearly drunk with it, this new sense of power.
'Very good,' I tell her. 'Now bare your breasts.'
She is hesitant when she moves her hands up from under her hips, and moves slowly and carefully as if she fears provoking my displeasure further. Her hands find the laces on her dress and work at them quite systematically and precisely until they are undone. She pauses only a moment before she pushes the material over one shoulder, and then the other, until it slides down her arms and pools at her waist.
As soon as her arms are free of the fabric, she presses them close to her body, though whether she does it from the chill or her embarrassment, I cannot tell. Either way, I find it unsatisfactory.
'Place your hands back under your hips,' I tell her, and her face colors so pleasantly that as she does it that I am tempted to rise from my seat and lean across the desk to kiss her. But there will be time for that, I think, and I fight to conceal the smile that threatens to show itself on my lips. For now, I return to my writing.
***
She returned to her writing, and I tried to get my mind around the situation. I was used to Maud's moods, and even to the unusual ways in which her thoughts turned along axes I could neither anticipate nor follow. But this was something quite different. She had never instructed me so plainly, not even when had been employed as her maid. She had certainly never demanded of me what she demanded now, even in the course of our intimacies.
And I could not tell if this was an intimacy, for once what she desired of me had been accomplished, she paid me no attention. At least, she did not for the first several minutes. Or perhaps it was less than that, and it was only my sense of modesty and shame that made it feel like an eternity.
Shame—what a strange thing. I had undressed in her presence—and that of Mrs. Sucksby, and Dainty—many times. I had changed before her as her maid, and I had been naked before her many times since I ceased to be that. But then my nakedness was always a transitory state, or, in the latter case, a mutual one. It did not entail, as it did now, my sitting still and quiet, wantonly exposed to her gaze and her whims even as she remained in every sense reserved from mine.
And she did, finally, subject me to her gaze. She looked up from her writing, and rested the tip of her pen against her mouth. I could not see it, but I was certain that her tongue was black by this point. The thought of it—and the unwholesome associations ink stains had come to summon for me over the months since our reunion—made me shiver. When her gaze drifted unabashedly to my chest and observed, I imagined, the effect her attentions and the cold had had on me, I could not help but flush and curl in on myself, just slightly.
It was enough to displease her. 'Posture,' she reminded me, and I had to force myself to press my shoulders back and sit straight in the chair. I swore I saw her lips curl, but she did not smile. She only kept her gaze steady and murmured a few words I could not decipher, as if she were debating with herself.
'Rose-tinged, I think,' she said finally, and, at once, it occurred to me what she was doing. I opened my mouth to protest, but she did smile then, rather wickedly, and it robbed me of my words. She was using me, as one would use a model. She was recording me on her paper, in her imagined debaucheries! I wanted to be indignant. Perhaps I managed it a bit. But then she fixed me with a look, like a challenge, and I found all I could do was sit and let a familiar heaviness settle in my belly.
I think that something in my face betrayed me, for she smirked as she returned once more to her work.
I was uncertain of what to do. Was the role she had assigned me completed, then? I dared not make a move to find out. Again, the wait was interminable. Long minutes passed with no sound but the occasional crackling of the fire, and the soft tapping of her pen against the ink pot. I became very conscious of the numb sensation in my fingers, and the effort to remain still became a taxing one indeed.
Then came another sound, familiar but foreign and abrupt-seeming amidst the heaviness of the silence: footsteps in the hallway. Perhaps it was William Inker, or perhaps his wife. It hardly mattered. I was seized with a sudden panic. Servants knocked, but often in a perfunctory way, as they expected to be granted permission to enter. I thought on what would happen if someone were to open the door, to discover us—Maud writing her filths and me displayed naked in front of her.
I looked at Maud with wide eyes, willing her to acknowledge what was happening, but the only sign that she had heard the footsteps was a brief pause of her pen. Then she continued on as though nothing were amiss, as if the possibility of our being found out had not occurred to her.
Finally, after many more long moments, she looked up at me again. 'You may move your hands now, and replace your nightdress on your shoulders.'
I practically gasped, I think, with the relief of it, and my hands worked hastily at the strings binding the gown. I thought I could not be covered quickly enough, though I was strangely conscious of the brush of fabric against my breasts as I secured it over them.
When I was finished, I looked at Maud expectantly, but she merely stared back at me, silent, with a look that suggested her mind was working at something. She dipped her pen into the well again and frowned.
'Up to your waist now, I think,' she said, and I was certain that my jaw dropped.
'You can't mean it!' I hissed, for I was still trying to keep my voice down lest one of the Inkers lingered.
'Should I not have meant it, I think I should not have said it,' she replied, her tone unreadable. 'Now raise your dress to your waist.'
There was a long pause in which neither of us moved even a fraction. I could not hear her breaths, nor feel my own.
Then, I was more surprised than she was, I think, when I moved to obey. I don't know why I did. I scarcely realized I my own intention until the hem of the dress was in my hand. At that point, it seemed nothing short of inevitable that I should do as she wished me. And so I raised the dress very slowly, wondering all the time at how strange and heady it felt to expose myself to her so deliberately.
I paused again when I reached the tops of my thighs, and looked up at her. She only held my gaze\, as she had before, and I realized she did not intend to encourage me or release me from my imposition. Quite involuntarily, I exhaled so sharply that it seemed to echo in the largeness of the room. Then, before I could lose my nerve, I raised my hips enough that I could pull the fabric up and over them.
'Very good,' Maud told me as I settled back into the seat. I felt my flush spread to my chest, though whether it was the result of embarrassment or something else entirely, I could not say.
'Now,' she said as she returned her attention to her papers, 'part your thighs.'
Was there to be no end to my indignities? For a brief moment, I felt a surge of resentment for her, and for myself for my willingness to concede to her demands. Moreover still, I resented the effect her demand had on me; her words seemed to sink into me so heavily that my teeth closed around my lip, and the heavy feeling in my belly plummeted so suddenly that I could barely stifle a moan.
She did not look up immediately, but continued her scrawling, and I did not move. I felt frozen by some combination of my own shame and the strange intimacy that accompanied the situation. But it was only a moment before she lifted her head again, and fixed me with the look that had become familiar to me in the course of that evening. And then, slowly, haltingly, I began to move my knees apart.
'Sue,' she said, her voice hard. It was a warning; she could see that I was dawdling and would not brook my hesitation. So, again, I did as she instructed. I parted my thighs and shifted my hips forward, exposing myself fully to her inspection.
I heard the way her breath caught at the sight of me, and my face colored anew, so intensely that I could feel the heat of it radiating. I wanted to close my legs, to cover myself in some way. But, ultimately, I supposed, I could deny neither my longing for her nor my desire to indulge her in her pleasures. And so I stayed as I was, and watched her as she watched me.
***
She is spread before me.
I think that it should not affect me as it does. Her nakedness was not foreign to me even before we became lovers, though, of course, her form has grown more familiar over the past months. I have traced it with my eyes, my fingers, my mouth, and while my capacity for imagining details is deficient, not so my capacity for the memory of them. It takes nearly no effort me to summon the image of her. Indeed, I often find that it comes to me quite unbidden.
This, however, is something new. I have never made such demands of her before, though I admit that I have thought on them often enough. The suddenness with which I found myself acting out things that had previously existed only as cruel and secret impulses took me by surprise, but perhaps not so much as did Sue's lack of resistance to my commands. She had obeyed me almost without question. I find, as I have on occasion before, that the ease with which she capitulates to me is almost enough to frighten.
But I am not frightened now, only enthralled. The soft light of the lamp is a flattering one, and Sue, who is always beautiful, seems to me almost to glow in it. She looks angelic, I think before I can catch myself, and I cannot quite contain my smirk. If the light reflecting off her skin makes her appear celestial, it also reveals that she is not entirely unaffected by earthly passions.
At my smirk, Sue makes a small sound like a protest, and the rather attractive flush that has settled on her cheeks deepens and spreads to her chest. The muscles in her thighs tense, so great is her desire to shield herself from my gaze. Yet, ultimately, she resists the temptation. She keeps herself open to my observation, and only looks at me as if to await my next direction.
It proves too much. My intent was to continue my writing, and to subject her to the minor cruelty of another interminable, shameful wait. Circumstances have shaped me into one who relishes enacting such sufferings. Still, I often find I have neither the heart nor the will to make Sue endure them—not to any great degree, anyway—and that is the case now. I cannot bear the thought of delaying any longer.
I have made my way around the desk almost before I am aware of it, and it is only a moment before my mouth is upon hers. She gasps at the forcefulness with which we meet, and I find that I relish the sound nearly as much as I relish the feel of her lips. Alas, however, I am too enflamed to keep my patience with unnecessary flirtations and preparations. I drop to my knees, pulling at the thin material of her nightdress.
The time is takes to free her from its confines is nothing short of maddening, for she has tied it well and my hands remain uncoordinated at such tasks. But, at last, I manage. I kiss and nip at her neck, her breasts, her belly, until finally I am settled between her thighs.
'Raise your knees,” I tell her, though again my voice is strained and strange-sounding in the emptiness of the room.
The moan she fails to stifle as she moves to obey me further encourages me. Were I in a more composed state, I think I should dwell on how unflattering I must appear in my impatience—in my clumsiness—as I urge her thighs over my shoulders. But I am past that now. I can think only of my desire to please her, and my urgency to feel her arch and squirm and buck under the attentions of my mouth.
And, indeed, she does just that. Her hips give a familiar jump at the first touch of my lips, and her hands wind tightly in my hair, holding me close. If I had thrilled in the way she had capitulated to me, I thrill perhaps even more greatly in capitulating, in this manner, to her wishes. I wrap my arms around her thighs and part my lips, and I lap until I feel that I am drunk with her.
Or I do, until her fingers against my scalp tug me away from her so suddenly that I am nearly thrown off balance. My unthinking instinct is to protest, but she shushes me with her fingers at my lips before I can say anything. And it is then that I hear what has disturbed her so: the sound of footsteps has returned. One of the Inkers has not seen fit to retire yet, or perhaps has been unable, and so moves about the hallways.
Sue's eyes are wide with fear. 'We cannot--' she starts to say, and I know her meaning before she begins.
But it is too late for that. In a flash, I have risen and placed a hand over her mouth; the other, I move back between her legs. I hesitate, only for a moment, and slide my fingers tentatively along length. I mean it as a question, and I take the moan I feel against the hand that stifles her sounds as an answer.
'Ssh,' I tell her, even as I begin to press my fingers into her. They go easily, for she is more than wet enough, and I relish the feel of her stretching around me.
I give her only a moment to adjust before I begin my exertions in earnest. I have grown stronger since I have taken to assuming many of the tasks that I had previously reserved for servants, and I am grateful for it now. I have become something of an expert in matters of Sue's pleasures, and I am quite aware that tonight's encounter could reach its conclusion hastily indeed. But I wish to draw it out, to enjoy her for as long as I may. And so I brace my knee against the seat of the chair and put my hips behind my thrusts, but do not otherwise touch her.
It is not long, however, before she grows impatient with it. Her lips move against my palm, and though the sound is muffled, the pleading way she looks at me makes her meaning unmistakable. And, again, her beauty and my affections make it impossible that I should do anything but concede. I move the joint of my thumb against her. It is awkward, and provides little more than pressure, but it is enough.
She bucks and shudders around me, and not even her teeth sinking into the fleshy part of my hand succeed in muffling her sharp cry.
I still my arm after a moment but do not withdraw from her, because I wish to miss not a single echo of her shivering (I think, sometimes, that I should never be finished with her). Nor do I move my hand from her mouth immediately, for I find that both the residual sting of her teeth and the heat of her exhalations on my skin spur an aching in me so strong that it is nearly paralyzing.
When I do, finally, part from her, she breaks into a lazy smile that makes my heart seize. For a moment, I forget about the keenness of my desire, and in its place feel only the purest form of affection. I step back and let my eyes move over her form. She looks exhausted, and thoroughly debauched, and I feel more than a small stab of pride at her state.
I have never been comfortable with sentiment, but I find as I withdraw my fingers that I cannot resist leaning down to place an affectionate kiss on her forehead.
'You should retire,' I whisper, and she smiles so sweetly and with so much satisfaction that I move automatically to cup her cheek. I hesitate when it occurs to me that hand is still damp with her pleasures, but she surprises me by catching my fingers in her mouth, and moving her lips and tongue over them. I watch her work at them for a long moment, and my own lip find its way between my teeth.
But I am disciplined by nature, and must finish my assignment, so I pull free after a moment. 'Ah, ah,' I tell her as she smiles at me with mischief in her eyes. 'To bed with you.'
She is grown too sedate to protest, so she merely rises, kisses me again, and starts for the door.
'Wait,' I say abruptly, for some other pleasing wickedness has occurred to me. 'Your nightdress. Give it to me.'
The demand is enough to liven her again, and her eyes widen. 'Maud!' she exclaims. 'Our chamber is across the hall, and the Inkers--'
'You will just have to move swiftly, then, will you not?' I tell her, and hold my hand out for her dress.
After a moment of glaring, she untangles herself from it, slides it over her head, and gives it to me.
'Good night,' I tell her. 'I'll be to bed shortly.'
She glares at me again before making her way to the door, peaking past it for a long moment, and then slipping hastily into the darkness of the hallway. I hear her footsteps as they make their way swiftly to our room, and I smile, satisfied with myself.
I toss the dress aside, then, and return to my writing.