Hearts and Diamonds (32 page)

‘Very good, Annie. I’ll make a scholar of you yet.’

‘That you won’t. Who wants a whore what’s read the classics anyway?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ he said, his lips twitching into a smile. Annie always had this uniquely cheering effect upon him for some reason, though what kind of a man this made him he didn’t dare explore. She’d made her living on her back since she was fifteen and now, at twenty-two, she was quite an old hand at the game, yet somehow she refreshed him.

‘Would you think better of me if I could quote yards of Latin while I rode your cock horse?’

‘Hush, Annie,’ he tutted, regarding his slate with resigned despair. It was clear she was not in the mood for concentration.

‘Besides, I’ve usually got my mouth full when you’re around,’ she continued cheerfully.

‘Now, I won’t hear this,’ he said sternly, jabbing a finger at the primer. ‘Eyes down, Annie, or I shall have to take measures.’

‘Ooh, “take measures”? Like in them stories you write? I’d far rather you read me one of those. Go on, Jem. It’s too hot for this, and I didn’t get much in the way of sleep last night and me head’s all stuffed with rags. Tell me one of your stories.’

He ran a hand through luxuriant dark hair, exasperated at how easy it was for her to tempt him off his virtuous path. Truly, the road to hell was paved with good intentions, and he drew ever closer to the fiery void. But she was right. It was too hot and the buzzing of a fly against the grimy window played his nerves like a fiddle.

Besides, he needed a final read through of that latest story before he dispatched it. Annie made a splendid captive audience, always hanging on his every word. Perhaps she could be captive in more than one sense, if he bound her wrists to the bedstead . . . but no. Much as she pestered him for his latest chapters, she had never shown the slightest sign of sharing his darker proclivities. She was a girl of simple tastes, at heart.

‘Oh, all right,’ he said, closing up the ranks of upper and lower case letters with a thump. ‘But tomorrow we must study in earnest, Annie, and I will accept no excuses. Do you mind me?’

‘Of course, sir,’ she said, the sweet little word of deference stirring him more than he cared to admit.

‘Good. Well, then. Go and sit on the bed and I shall bring it to you.’

She scampered up, her gaudy skirts swishing, and climbed up on to the high bed that took up the greater part of the room, plumping up pillows behind her.

James opened a desk drawer and took out a sheaf of papers, all covered in his tightly packed script, tied with a scarlet ribbon.

‘Is it the one about the dairymaid who went to the bad?’ asked Annie, unlacing her much-patched boots and throwing them off the end of the bed. ‘That’s my favourite. Poor girl, though.’

‘My clients pay a premium for exquisite distress,’ said James, taking his place beside her. ‘This unfortunate dairy-maid has kept me in shirt linen and port wine for upwards of a year now. Speaking of port wine, would you care for a drop?’

‘Oh . . . maybe afterwards. Come, I want to know what will happen to her. Had she not just been tied to a fence post and whipped by four swells on a spree in the country?’

‘Indeed she had.’ James released the papers from their ribbon and held them before his face.

Annie laid her head on his shoulder, settling into his chest with a comfortable sigh. He had to put one arm around her so as to have the freedom of its movement.

He cleared his throat and began to read.

‘
A high-set sun illuminated the meadows and hedgerows, its rays roving over the breathing and the inanimate alike. It bathed cow and sheep, parsley and nettle in its golden warmth, but today, could it but know it, there was a fascinating addition to the bucolic serenity—’

‘Never mind that, what about Emma?’ said Annie.

‘Don’t interrupt, or you may find that you share her fate.’

She wriggled delightedly against him and James wondered, not for the first time, why his idle threats excited her so.

‘
How pitiless that post-noon heat felt to Emma as she tried in vain to extinguish the fire that raged at her rear. Those fellows, all four of whom still stood about her, leering and laughing at her fate, had plied the whip with a most diabolical will and her poor little round bum was all welted and throbbing, as if stung by a swarm of bees.
’

‘Poor creature,’ murmured Annie, but James chose to ignore her this time.

‘
As if it were not enough that the quartet’s insolent eyes roamed at will over her naked body, Emma feared that any moment a cart from one of the neighbouring farms would pass by, its wheels throwing up a cloud of dust, while the men on the box would see her bare, whipped bottom and, should they choose to alter the angle of view, her breasts squashed against the post to boot. Worst of all, the ringleader of that devilish coterie had made her spread her thighs apart, so that he could flick the tip of his whip lazily over the soft flesh located within, thus opening her tender little cunny to the gaze of whomever chose to feast upon the sight. And such a passer-by would see the swollen lips and the fat red bud that nestled inside, all downed with Emma’s pale, sparse hairs. They would also see that little portal, once so tightly guarded, now the happy resting place of many an eager cockstand while Emma lay on her back or her belly, welcoming all to her glistening quim.
’

‘Heavens, Jem, how does it all come to you? It’s too rich for me. I never thought my ears was delicate, but you make me blush.’

‘Should I stop reading?’

‘Oh no, go on, do.’

‘
No matter how she strained against her thick rope bonds, she could not alter her shameful position, nor could her hands, tied high above her head, reach down to shield or soothe the agonies of her posterior.

“Sirs,” she begged, “I have paid the price for my wanton behaviour at the inn last night, and heavy toll you have exacted from my poor sore bottom. Won’t you please release me now and I will thank each of you on my knees, with my mouth.”

“Why, that’s a fine offer, naughty maid,” spoke the chief of the swells. “But we have another means of showing your gratitude in mind. For when a man helps a maid understand how she has erred by applying merited chastisement, he has surely earned the right to take such payment from her as he desires.”’

‘What client is this?’ asked Annie. ‘Who reads this story?’

‘I have no idea,’ said James truthfully. ‘My uncle makes all the arrangements, by correspondence. It could be anybody.’

‘You don’t know their names?’

‘I know nothing about them. I picture a lonely, wealthy old gentleman alone at a bureau, for some reason, but it could be anybody. I write what I myself would care to read and, by some stroke of fortune, it appeals to people I shall never know nor meet.’

‘But it ain’t made you rich, or you wouldn’t be living here.’

‘No,’ he said, with a tight smile. ‘It will never make me rich. But it pays my bills while I am writing my other material.’

‘Oh yes. Your novel. You’ll remember me when you’re as famous as Mr Dickens, won’t you?’

‘Is that sarcasm I detect?’

‘No, indeed! I believe you will be famous one day. But I hope you won’t put me in none of your books.’

‘I might put you in this one. Then perhaps I will have the means to whip you into silence.’

Her mouth formed an ‘O’ and she sucked in a breath, her cheeks flaring red.

‘Carry on, I’m sure,’ she said.

‘“Oh, Sir, I wonder what you can mean,” the fearful dairy girl said. For never before had her offer to bathe a manhood in the luxurious warmth of her mouth and tongue been rejected. Many dozens of pricks had she sucked in her dissolute life, and many gallons of their creamy issue had she swallowed, licking her lips with satisfaction of a task well completed.
’

‘Stop there.’ Annie’s voice was a whisper.

‘Is it not to your taste?’

‘It’s dreadful hot in here. Help me loosen these stays.’

‘Annie . . .’

James knew what his neighbour was about when she knelt before him, thrusting out that plump white bosom of hers, but he tugged at the thinning lace all the same with a world-weary air.

‘I reckon that Emma doesn’t have the lips for it,’ said Annie, holding James’ gaze with bold intent. ‘Those black-guards would’ve been queuing up to get in my mouth. Don’t you reckon?’

She puckered her generous lips and James, having pulled the sides of her bodice apart to free some of that tight-bound flesh, patted her cheek.

‘Really, Annie, I don’t expect payment for teaching you. There is no need.’

‘It wouldn’t be payment, Jem. It’d be for friendship. For comfort.’

‘Comfort,’ echoed James, looking down at the delicious slopes of her cleavage.

‘You know I’ve always liked you.’

‘And I you, Annie, very much, but don’t you tire of it?’

‘Tire of . . . well, in the ordinary way. But this ain’t the ordinary way, not when it’s you and me.’

She dared a little dart up and a peck on the lips.

He grabbed her by the elbow and held her face close to his.

‘You’re too good to me, Annie,’ he said. Their mouths brushed, tasting closeness, a salt-sweet flavour.

‘I want to be good to you, lovey,’ she whispered. ‘I want you.’

Surely, thought James, it would take a man of stone to resist a pretty girl’s offer to slide her pink, wet lips down the length of his shaft and suck it to completion. And he was no man of stone.

He made no move to stop her when her fingers began tugging his chemise from his waistband, nor when she unbuttoned his braces.

‘That Emma should come to me,’ she said under her breath. ‘I could show her how to keep her lips always soft with beeswax.’

‘Beeswax?’ said James, tickling her behind her ear with his forefinger.

Annie had his trousers and undergarments around his knees now.

All he had to do was lie back and . . .

‘Feel the softness,’ she breathed.

He did. He felt the softness, as she kissed him from tip to root and then with her saucy tongue bathed his heavy sacs.

‘Oh, you’re too good,’ he muttered when the wet ring of her lips sealed itself around his girth.

He shut his eyes, slowly feeding every inch of his erection into her, imagining it as something medicinal that would benefit her health. It was what she needed, a good mouthful, a swallow of cream to keep her warm for the rest of the day.

He opened one eye and watched her head of brassy ringlets bob up and down. The curls were falling loose after the exertions of the night before and needed re-twisting into papers before she put on her working clothes again. James liked the effect, though; the metaphor of it. He was like one of those ringlets, once so coiled and taut, now snaking down into perfect laxity. Where would it end? Where would his life go, now that it was all in a day’s work to write obscene literature and get himself sucked off by his best friend, the whore next door?

He put his hands to her head, positioning her so that he could watch her hard at work, see that scandalously painted mouth staining his cock red with whatever bizarre compound of beetroot juice and berry she had put on her lips before coming to his room.

Lord, but she was a good little cocksucker, getting his blood up to just the exquisite degree he liked before he plunged into that final rush. And here was his crisis, high up above him, way down beneath him, meeting in the middle and roaring out of him.

He took a fistful of ringlets and emptied himself into her, feeling his strength drain out of him in short bursts until he was fatally sapped, wasted by pleasure again.

Spent, he watched her take his cock from her mouth and swallow ostentatiously. Then she lay down on her back, stretching like a cat, and looked up at him, licking her lips.

‘Yum yum,’ she said.

She reached up and grazed his whiskers with her knuckles.

‘Was that good?’

He bent to kiss the mouth that tasted of him.

‘You know it, minx,’ he said.

He felt for the hem of her skirts, all mud-spattered and stained from the street, and began to raise them, knowing in advance that she would not be wearing drawers underneath.

‘What you got in mind, my bad boy?’ she asked, eyes like mischievous saucers.

‘Less of the boy, if you please. I’m five years your senior.’

‘Old enough to know better then.’

‘Old enough to know.’

He placed his fingers on her exposed thigh. How soft the flesh, giving the illusion of spotlessness, a virginal air that would deceive the worst of roués. He bent his head and kissed the marble-like skin, his lips drifting up and further up.

‘Oh, Jem,’ she whispered, leaning back, throwing her arms above her head.

Last night’s men.

A loud rapping on the door broke and swept away the vague disgust that had made its unwelcome presence felt via his nostrils.

‘Christ,’ he hissed, kneeling up and shaking his head at a crestfallen Annie. ‘Who is there?’ he called.

‘It’s me, James.’

His uncle – his employer, landlord and instigator of his Faustian pact.

‘What do you want?’

‘I have a visitor for you.’

‘Oh?’

James tugged down Annie’s skirts and hauled her off the bed, sending her back to the desk with a pat on her rump.

Standing by the door, fastening his clothes back into a state of decency, he said, ‘I don’t expect anybody.’

‘I dare say, but please let us in.’

James opened the door halfway and peered out on to the gloomy landing. He almost didn’t see his uncle’s companion, so perfectly did her black attire blend with the lightless surroundings.

‘A lady,’ he said, nonplussed. ‘Please come in.’

‘I see you already have company,’ sniffed his uncle.

‘Annie, you may leave now. Put the book away until next time.’ He smiled weakly at his guests. ‘I am teaching her,’ he said.

‘No doubt,’ said his uncle.

James’ eyes fell, rather injudiciously, to his crotch, just at the very moment his uncle’s did. The younger man coloured and looked away, watching Annie skip from the room with a wink.