Could she fight 10 men? With what ally? Her hands had come up, but slowly, to cover his. Then she remembered Maria’s story of the night her body was destroyed. She lowered her hands to her sides.
“Look at me,” said Charles, and Hannah realized she had closed her eyes. She opened them, and Charles’s dark, beautiful eyes looked right into hers. “These are your breasts,” said Charles pedantically, and his hands molded them, squashed them, so the nipples pouted forward. “We call them your ‘titties” or ‘boobies’ and they are for the pleasure of the duke.”
The men around the room laughed.
Charles went on, “They jiggle for the duke’s pleasure, they are lifted for the duke’s pleasure…” His hands pushed her breasts upward. “They are separated, thus, for the duke’s pleasure…” and his hands pushed her breasts apart. “In fact, Hannah, they are not your titties at all, do you understand? They are the duke’s titties.”
Laughter, loud giggling, mocking sounds. “The duke has lovely titties, he does,” said Charles. Now, he released Hannah’s breasts, but his forefingers began to trace circles around her nipples. Hannah squirmed. It was a tender, titillating motion, round and round, that made her whole nipples swell. “And these titties get hard for the pleasure of the duke,” said Charles. Her nipples were puckering fiercely, betraying her. They all watched.
Finally, Charles ceased the terrible titillation. He slowly walked around behind her. Hannah braced herself for whatever would come. The strong hands seized the cheeks of her buttocks and, in spite of herself, she gasped and clenched them. She felt the outrageous, precise fingers part her and her legs began to tremble. She noticed the boys around the room were studying her face intently. To smile was unthinkable; she tried to show nothing.
The pedantic voice went on, “This is the duke’s arse, Hannah. It is one of the most heartbreakingly lovely arses I have seen.” The fingers squeezed, hard. “It delights the fingers to mold it. To lift it, spread it,” and his hands followed his words. “It is the arse of Venus, divinely heavy. But it is the duke’s arse, for the duke’s pleasure.”
They laughed, easily, good-naturedly. What kind of place was this?
“When you shit, you are borrowing the duke’s arsehole.”
The boys roared.
“I am sorry I must do this, Hannah,” said Charles, “but it is my duty.” One bold forefinger traveled down the cleft of Hannah’s buttocks. Her buttocks clenched fiercely, her hips pulled away. But the finger did not stop till it pressed on the bud of her anus. Then, it gently insisted, finally driving from Hannah a cry she had vowed not to make. “Oh, my dear God, please!”
She bent at the waist in anguish, her hands over her face, weeping. She had failed. “Show no modesty,” Maria had said.
“This is the duke’s arsehole,” said Charles, gently, probing her. “He will wish to see it, you know. Your arsehole could be seen by the princes and princesses of several countries, next summer, you know. Do you believe that?”
Finally, the outrageous finger withdrew, but Hannah still felt the burning. Charles said, “And the duke’s prick is much, much bigger than my finger, Hannah.
“Straighten yourself up, Hannah, you are displaying yourself most immodestly, back here. Are we priests to resist such temptation?”
With a sudden, ferocious blush, Hannah straightened.
“You know what’s next, don’t you, Hannah? Here…” he guided her over to the vast bed, and gently pushed her back; she let herself fall. A young man sat on either side of her. In sudden fear, Hannah tried to rise, but they gently restrained her.
“You are cooperating?” asked Charles. Hannah forced herself to lie back. But she pressed her thighs together, and that was not to be. The young man on either side of her took her knees and pulled them apart. “No,” whimpered Hannah. Now, it would come.
“Hannah,” said Charles, again. “Your eyes are shut. You cannot make things go away just by refusing to see them.”
When she opened them, Charles was standing between her forcibly parted thighs. Now, he began to stroke them, gently, persistently, with just his fingertips. His fingers moved high up, where the flesh was silky, sensitive, and quivering, now. “You are beautiful, Hannah,” he said. “Who would hurt you? You are beautiful here, Hannah.”
Slowly, he wooed and calmed her. She was desperate to believe him. But something inside her cried, “Oh, Hannah! Be careful!” When she had stopped shaking, Charles reached out and covered her pubis with his hand. His grip possessed it, owned it. He said, “I am sorry to tell you this, Hannah, but this is the duke’s pussy.” He squeezed her mound. “Is that what you call it? It is the duke’s cunt. When the duke wants it, he will have it. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Hannah whispered. Her eyes were open, gazing at him. Her belly squirmed. Was it fear? Pleasure? Both?
He said, “If you had any idea how beautiful you are, Hannah, you would be more frightened, I think.” Again, she felt the traitorous pleasure.
Charles’s finger strayed downward, caressing the lips there. Hannah could not believe it was happening, but she was excited. The finger traveled up the other side, the other lip, possessing every centimeter.
Charles said, “Until they brought you here, this was Hannah’s cunt. Now it is the duke’s cunt. It is royal pussy.”
The fingers by imperceptible degrees stole into the silken flesh, slicked with Hannah’s wetness. Her hips began to move, a little. Charles smiled into her eyes, as though he knew, knew everything. The invading finger halted, but it pressed a single spot. He asked, “Do you know what this is, Hannah? I venture that you don’t.”
There was laughter. She blushed furiously. “I must have an answer,” said Charles. His finger made agonizingly slow, exquisite progress around the spot.
Hannah stared up at him, saying nothing, giving him nothing. “What do you want?” she asked. She could not concentrate; what Charles was doing made her feel she was losing her mind. Her whole belly felt hot and now she caught the odor of herself. Still Charles looked at her and still the finger moved.
“What is this?” asked Charles again. “You don’t know, do you?”
“No,” Hannah gasped. “I don’t know. Oh, I don’t know! Stop!”
The skin of her belly twitched and her hips began to grind. She squirmed on the bed, her breasts rose and fell rapidly. She was transported and terrified. She closed her eyes. She simply did not care anymore. She wanted to feel, not to talk. All her courage had been unavailing because her body had betrayed her. She was wanton. She was sinning.
She began to weep, overwhelmed by the confusion, gripped by the rising, surging, scalding feelings between her legs. “I can’t,” she sobbed. “Oh, I can’t.” Now, her hips moved without restraint, heaving. She writhed on the bed, and sobbed with her writhing.
Suddenly, Charles stopped, withdrew his hand. It was as though Hannah had been soaring, without weight, higher and higher, toward some golden orb, and the soaring brought all the pleasure and promise of release. Just when she might reach the golden orb, so that nothing, ever, would matter, the finger departed and she plummeted in bitter, cold disappointment, falling back forever from the sweet prize.
Charles said, “You will survive, here, Hannah. You are one of us. Welcome to the duke’s troupe.” The hands that held Hannah’s thighs released them. They were leaving, all of them, silently, like a jury that had pronounced its verdict. Someone tossed the key back to her. It struck Hannah’s leg and fell to the floor. The door shut and she was alone.
Slowly, she rolled onto her side, drawing up her knees. She wrapped her arms around them, hugging herself. Then she shut her eyes and wept uncontrollably, with such a confusion of feelings that she did not know what she mourned.
And then she slept, naked, alone.
She dreamed that she lay back gazing up at a naked man. He was a tall, dark, impossibly beautiful man. He kept leaping above her, and each time he leaped, she saw that thing, his sex, go flying upward—huge, dark, and utterly supple. It mesmerized her. And each time he came down, his feet landed on either side of her naked, supine body, and the flailing, mesmerizing thing would come down toward her. It was wonderful; if only it would strike her! Each time it came down, she wanted to seize it, pull it to herself, but she never did. Still, it was wonderful, to crave, to feel the rising pleasure.
Then, at last, it hit her, the dark, sensual thing brushed across her belly. It was thrilling! It left a scar of pleasure on her flesh. But then she became terrified, because, every time it brushed across her, it left a white scar. It lashed her again and again, now across the breasts, the stomach, the very delta of her belly. She felt no pain only pleasure, but she would be scarred, her flesh lashed away by the thing.
“Stop!” she cried. “Stop him, please!” But the watchers, men and women, would not help her. The swinging, lashing sex went on whipping her body. When would it start to hurt, when would the agony come?
And then, it hit her squarely on her sex, her cunt—the name was odd, but somehow she knew that was what it was called—the whipping sex hit her across the cunt, and the pleasure was unbearable. She didn’t care about the scars. The pleasure kept rising in its intensity; she wanted it to keep striking her cunt. A little higher, a little harder—yes, there! But the maddening whip would not hit her hard enough, often enough. She thrust her hips to meet it, but it denied her need.
“Hit me!” she cried. “Hit my cunt! I can’t…not yet…hit it!”
But the wonderful, jumping jack naked man seemed not to notice her, to hear her. He bounded unawares, higher and higher, oblivious to her need for the lashing whip to strike her.
She felt a terrible disappointment. “Oh! I am not good enough even to be whipped in the cunt!” And the dream ended.
Sun from the high windows touched her legs and moved up her body. When it shone in her face, her eyes opened. Her body felt full, almost swollen, and her skin, especially on her breasts and belly, felt sensitive, stimulated even by the soft coverlet. She closed her eyes and passed a hand over her body, touching each place Charles had touched, but brushing, not probing. As she did, it all came back.
Charles had owned every part of her, her woman’s body, her emotions. And yet, here was that body, intact, rested, full of an odd energy—an impulse to run or climb. Hannah sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Beautiful”—it had a new meaning, now, after what Charles had said and done.
At the big marble basin she looked up into the mirror. Her breasts were pale and heavy, a little creased from pressure of the wrinkled coverlet. Her bush looked flatter, mussed by sleeping on it. All the unthinkable things that Charles had said came back to her and she flushed. How had it ended? As he touched her, at the end, she had squirmed her buttocks against the bed, opened her mouth, made a soft cry. But perhaps they had not heard. Men never had seen her body before, now many had seen every private part of it. She had not died of shame. But now, this morning, she would see them—how soon? Would she be naked? Leaping, breasts jouncing, for all to see?
She bent her head; she smelled, smelled of last night. Smells were nothing new; sometimes it seemed everything in the cottage smelled bad. Except for rubbing herself with a piece of towel, she bathed once a week. It was hard work, shuffling buckets from the well, heating the water on the stove, filling the tub. Now that the boys were a little older, they could help—not full buckets, but they had a bucket, a kettle, and a big pan. They carried the water faster than she could heat it. The wooden tub leaked; it needed more tar in the seams. A father would do that, but there was no father.
She always bathed first, in the clean water, then washed the little ones. Usually, she made the children go outside while she stripped and bathed. Not always, though; the way they studied her, naked, was oddly satisfying. It made obvious she was changing into a woman. Her mum never cared if Hannah watched her bathe, so Hannah could match her changing body against her mum’s. Her mum’s titties were much bigger than Hannah’s, hanging down; dressed, her mum had a deep cleavage. And more hair to cover her pussy.
She heard a knock, sharp and commanding, and called, “Wait! No!” She had meant to wash, deal with the smell, but now she glanced around for clothes. The door swung open and Cara stood there. Obviously, she had a key to the rooms. As she entered, her expression was stolid, uninterested in Hannah’s nakedness. “Come,” she said. “It’s time.” Hannah quickly went to the clothes still on the floor where she had let them drop. Apparently, Cara was not surprised to see them thrown there. But she said, “no,” and came over to snatch them up. She tucked them all, like rags, under her arm, then opened the closet on the racks and racks of clothing. She plucked garments from their hangers or from shelves. “These, today. Now.”
Hannah took them. The same as yesterday, the loose white blouse—soft cotton, so expensive—and something like white bloomers, loose but with less bulk. Still, she did not move to dress, glancing up at Cara. Cara said, “That is all. Hurry.”
When Hannah had dressed, stepped into her sandals, she felt aware of her breasts, hips, and buttocks against the thin cloth. It almost stimulated her; how could she wear this all day? No woman, ever, anywhere, she imagined, would appear this way in public. But then, she might
not
wear them all day—and wish that she could. She had spent her short life bound, strapped, and layered, covering and concealing herself. The blouse, open around the neck, revealed her shoulders, upper back, chest. But soon she might be naked. She shrugged, and, when Cara turned and walked out the door, she followed.