Mahia took a plain white handkerchief and dotted the perspiration off the now panting, almost crying, man’s forehead and then cleaned off his seed from his lap and his own hands.
“You are free to go,” Mahia told him, leaving the door to the cell open as he stepped out.
Mahia found Constable Sutia basking in the fading late-afternoon light, calmly working his way through a giant bowl of ripe figs. Surprised, Sutia sprang comically to his feet and wiped his sticky fingers on his wrinkled and ill-fitting uniform. “Subadar!” he exclaimed. “Did you get the man to confess?”
“I am sorry for your deputies, Constable,” Mahia said, folding his handkerchief neatly and putting it in his pocket, “for it seems they will need to continue their investigations: the man, it is very clear to me—beyond a doubt—is innocent.”
“But Subadar, he ran when questioned!”
“He ran from nothing but a moment of guilt over his reason for being in the marketplace, Constable. He is a simple man who only sought companionship. He believed that was the crime he was being sought for.”
“You are convinced of this?”
“I am, Constable.”
“Then that is assurance enough for me, Subadar. That is more than enough for me.”
After that, simple and hearty thanks were given from Sutia to Mahia and they began to part—with Sutia’s assurance that the prisoner would be given back his belongings and given a meal to apologize for his detainment.
Before leaving, Mahia gave Sutia the address of his older sister’s house, with the instructions to pass it along to the man they had suspected of the theft. “Tell him that it would be my honor to put him up for the night at my sister’s to make up for any discomfort I might have caused him.”
Sutia did so and Subadar Mahia went off toward town, walking into fading sunlight.
The Divan
N. T. Morley
Lady Jennifer Partridge would never have gone to her ex-lover’s house if she hadn’t known that he would seduce her. But seduction was the furthest thing from Gustav’s mind.
It was not a sense of nostalgia or any form of obligation that brought Lady Jennifer Partridge to the mansion that night. Jenna felt that she owed him nothing; in fact, if anything, he owed her. For seventeen months the young bride-to-be had carried on a torrid affair behind her fiancée’s back, only calling it quits on the night before her wedding when Gustav Braeburn, as he usually did, had tied her to the bed in his dungeon and fucked her quite soundly till she knew she would barely be able to walk down the aisle. Then, freed from his expertly-tied knots with the thing that he always used to release her—Gustav’s pearl-handled switchblade, imported at great price from the continent—she had dressed somberly, shared with Gustav a postcoital brandy in the parlor, and informed him that it was over between them.
“It’s all well and good to do what we’ve done when I’m engaged,” Jenna told him. “But I intend to turn over a new
leaf. From now on, I shan’t return your calls.”
“You’ll return them,” Gustav told her, lounging decadently on his favorite overstuffed armchair. “And you’ll be back for more of the same. The first time you don’t come when he fucks you, you’ll be here as fast as you can find a taxi.”
Gustav was wrong about that. In fact, it was twenty-four times on the nose that Lewis Partridge fucked his wife without making her come before she returned to her lover. She had kept count, in a little diary she kept in her night table. There, she recorded her every sexual adventure, misadventure, and fantasy—in French, a language Lewis did not speak. She wrote in secret and locked her diary with a tiny padlock. The only key rested between her breasts, tucked into a locket on a golden chain. The locket also held a picture of her husband. Through her entire courtship and into her marriage night, the locket had held a picture of Gustav—and knowing that, at any moment, Lewis might have asked to see inside it had always given Jenna an incalculable thrill. It was not until they returned from their honeymoon that Jenna had replaced the photograph with one of her husband. Gustav had seen the locket through their dalliance, and she had noticed his eyes resting on it as he’d kissed her demurely at the reception line. He knew that his photograph rested inside, but he knew nothing of the key.
Unlike the tedious nights to come, on that first night, their wedding night, all had been bliss. Jenna had indeed climaxed profoundly on her husband’s cock. For more than three years, since Lewis had first invited the eighteen-year-old heiress to a party on his yacht, she had anticipated the moment of first sex with her husband—not because she found him particularly attractive, but because she knew it would cement her life in the gentry, a life of leisure as the treasured wife of a nobleman. From the first, his sexual interest in her was plain, but when it
became clear—that first night, no less—that he was marriage-minded, she had resolved to delay her gratification in order to win his respect—and, she admitted only to herself, ignorance of her true nature. Their long courtship had involved nothing more than deep kisses and an occasional straying hand, always met with perfectly acted offense on Jenna’s part. The one feel she gave him was two weeks before their wedding, and she ensured even that bit of innocent stroking remained above the waist. Lewis Partridge had soaked the front of his pants with one hand molded on his fiancée’s left breast, and Jenna had pretended offense, a lie that Lewis believed with an urgency that astounded even Jenna. After she’d made him leave, she licked her hand, sticky with her fiancée’s seed, and immediately called Gustav, who did much more to her petite breasts than merely touch them.
But when it was time, Jenna’s eagerness to consummate her new contract combined with so many other factors to drive her into the heights of passion, making it difficult for her to play the part of the blushing bride. Oh, she managed, but only with great effort, forcing her hands not to roam over her new husband’s body, making them rest tangled in her bridal skirts as he plumbed her depths until Lewis—quite to Jenna’s surprise—suggested that he enter her from behind. She made him convince her, which he did with such tentative want that Jenna finally lost patience and put her ass in the air, abandoning her show of reluctance.
Jenna found herself intoxicated not only from the half dozen or so glasses of champagne she’d consumed, but from all the attention she’d received and, most importantly, the envelopes stuffed with money. Glorious in her lovely dress, the new Lady Jennifer Partridge had enjoyed herself quite vigorously, before she could even remove her dress and show off the lovely corset and garters—sans panties—she had worn through the entire reception, its tight embrace reminding her
of the many ways in which Gustav had restrained her over their seventeen months of illicit meetings. Lewis had thrilled to find his new wife shaved—a trait Gustav had always required of her—and if he had noticed that his lovely young bride was not a virgin, he did not mention it.
She would vividly remember that first orgasm Lewis gave her, as if it were to be her last. She remembered it not only because of its intensity, but because at the moment of her climax she was bent forward, ass in the air, knees spread wide—exactly the way she had been fucked by Gustav the previous night. She was gripping the headboard with her hands, and when she looked down at her wrists she saw that the diamond bracelets she wore—wedding gifts from her husband to provide her with “something new”—had slipped forward, their clasps askew, revealing the red marks that Gustav’s ropes had left on her wrists not eighteen hours before. It was that moment of pride and arousal at seeing the rope marks—and, perhaps, the thrill of knowing that at any moment Lewis might notice them, too—that drove Jenna to an unparalleled climax, one that brought the image into her mind, unbidden, of Gustav Braeburn, his face twisted in a cruel smile as he punished her bound and gagged body with his cock.
Jenna feigned virtue throughout her first weeks of marriage, thrilling at the ease with which she managed to make her first blow job, given only at Lewis’s insistence, seem awkward and inexpert. In fact, Lady Jennifer was an expert cocksucker, having been trained extensively by Gustav, who liked his head deep and rough before he blessed her with a mouthful of his seed. Jenna had already been orally skilled before she ever met Lewis or Gustav, having made several trips—in complicated disguises—to the waterfront, to thrill at learning the marital trade, both before and after Lewis proposed. It was there, from rough men who took her orally one after another, that
she learned what she liked and, more importantly, how much she liked and resolved to get it only when its achievement could not damage her social standing. She had done exactly that, and by the time Gustav had met her there—a wealthy man who also haunted the docks for his thrills—she was ready for him.
And now, after six months of marriage and twenty-four anorgasmic trysts with her husband, Jenna was ready for Gustav again.
“You’ve a new divan,” said Jenna, swirling brandy around her snifter as she entered the parlor of Gustav’s mansion. “Oriental, if I’m not mistaken.”
“I’m afraid it’s a copy, my dear,” said Gustav, his lips twisting in a smile as he toyed with the tie of his silk robe. It was just like Gustav to receive her as if he were ready for bed—but not for sleep. In fact, she had expected it, and it had not caused her discomfort. After all, she had seen him naked quite often enough, so the sight of him in a robe should cause no reaction.
Jenna gave him a tight smile that was half frown, and both knew what it meant. This, along with Gustav’s low social standing, was why she would never have married him, why he was fit only for the kind of illicit tryst that had satisfied her for a time, before her marriage. “You’re quite right, however, it’s ancient Chinese in style. It’s a copy of a piece that sat in the emperor’s palace, with a few modern touches. I dare say it’s worth more than the original.”
“I doubt that,” said Jenna with an unmistakable sneer.
“Oh, it’s worth very much to me,” said Gustav. “Try it out.”
“All right,” said Jenna, seating herself on the divan. It was quite comfortable. She wore a long red dress with a rather daring slit up the middle, well past her knees. She was wearing
nothing underneath, a further risk that she took in coming to Gustav’s place. The knowledge of it intoxicated her. Still, it would not do to show her hand too early, and Jenna crossed her legs quite daintily as she reclined into the soft cushions.
“Hardly a decent copy,” said Jenna. “I’m sure the emperor did not have polyurethane foam.”
“Nor did he have titanium,” said Gustav, taking a seat in his overstuffed armchair. “But we’ll discuss that later. Get comfortable, Lady Partridge. You’ve been comfortable here many times before, haven’t you? Take off your shoes.”
The suggestion was given almost like a command, and Jenna’s instincts took over. She obeyed, kicking off her high-heeled pumps and relaxing into the divan. She reddened as she realized the ease with which she’d followed Gustav’s suggestion—but if he had planned to tease her about it, he thought better. Instead, he spoke softly to her, the rumble of his voice as seductive as she remembered it from the first time it had graced her ears, from far above her as she knelt on the docks, his sailor’s pants opened and his cock in her mouth. “So, Jen, I hear the esteemed Lord Partridge is on a business trip in Germany. When the cat’s away, the mouse will play?”
“I’m known as Lady Jennifer, now, and you’d do well to remember it.” This was not strictly true; Lewis, her friends, and her family still called her “Jenna”—and only Gustav had ever called her “Jen.” “And,” she continued, “I’m hardly here to play.
You
called me, remember? What was so important that you simply
had
to discuss it with me?” She laughed, derisive. “You can’t be pregnant.”
“Nor can you,” said Gustav. “I understand he barely fucks you.”
“There’s more to marriage than fucking,” said Jenna. “But then, I wouldn’t expect you to know that. Besides, Lewis fucks me just fine. He’s quite a tender lover. You wouldn’t understand that, either.”
“No,” said Gustav. “I wouldn’t. And that’s why you agreed to see me, isn’t it?”
Jenna felt her pulse pounding, the heat starting in earnest between her thighs. She had shaved in anticipation of this meeting, and every movement she made drew her freshly shorn lips against each other, sending a tingle through her body. She had been wet since the moment she’d shimmied into her slinky dress, a dress she had never worn for Lewis—what would be the point? But now the hunger started in earnest, and she could feel her clitoris swelling in a way it hadn’t since her first night with Lewis, the tiny bud’s fullness nestled snugly between the smooth lips of her sex.
“Not at all. I agreed to see you out of pity. You seem quite hung up on me. You haven’t accepted that I’m married.”
“Oh, I’ve accepted it,” said Gustav. “If anything, it makes you more desirable. And if there’s any pity to be had, it belongs to you, my dear.”
“You’re as callous as you are arrogant,” said Jenna, the growing hardness of her nipples bringing a hint of discomfort as they began to show through the thin fabric of her dress.
“How’s your drink?” smiled Gustav. “Ready for a refill?”
“Almost,” she said, swirling the remaining finger of brandy as her hand rested on the divan’s comfortable arm.
“Good,” said Gustav, and it all happened at once.
Had she been watching her ex-lover more closely, Jenna Partridge would have seen his hand creeping skillfully beneath the arm of his own chair. It had been toying with something there for several long minutes. She would not have chosen that moment to relax into the softness of the divan, stretching and letting her legs come apart, spreading them slightly as if in seductive invitation. Her eyes were blinded by hunger, but in the instant before he pushed one of three barely-hidden buttons, she did begin to understand what was to happen to her.