Notebooks of the Young Wife (24 page)

‘Right lad, in future, before you do any reading, make sure you’ve got the right glasses on, okay?’

‘Yes, boss. Sorry, boss.’ I was still holding the cane I’d brought back upstairs and proceeded to lay on six stingers that had the downy cheeks bouncing. When I lifted him up he was beautifully hard and I couldn’t resist planting a kiss on the end of it. Then I made him sit on his stripes while I straddled him and lowered myself so his cock slid wetly into my sopping cunt. Oh what bliss! I drew it out for as long as I could, pulling back until I could just see the glans between my thighs, then sinking the whole length in again, exquisitely. But all too soon the rather cherubic face contorted and the climax was on us in a welter of juices.

Eventually I eased myself painfully off Dominic’s lap and retrieved my discarded trousers. The episode played out, it was back to the routine business of the department.

Tamsin cried off the next weekend, so I set out for the country on a slow Saturday morning train. At the station I made a beeline for the taxi with a rather winsome young man behind the wheel. When he learned where I was bound he looked at me with new interest, and as we drove eventually managed to ask if Ardingley End lived up to the stories that circulated about it. Rather than get him to say exactly what he meant, I took the chance to drop enough dark hints of deviant doings to feed the gossipmongers for weeks. Not purely out of mischief, for it was obvious to anyone that a tableau in the manner of the Notebooks would require more able male bodies than could be provided in-house. So once I’d satisfied myself there was some substance to the claims of being ‘well up for it’ by my driver that included at least two of his mates, I took a contact number and promised to be in touch before long. A rehearsal would establish quickly enough their abilities to rise to the occasion on demand.

He sped away grinning immoderately, and shouldering my bag I headed up the stairs. In the study the daughters were sitting side by side with their noses stuck into the newly arrived transcripts.

‘Awesome,’ said Bel, after a glance to register my arrival.

‘Totally,’ agreed Lou. ‘Way back when and she is core. Caps. But, Dr Greene, we are looking at a problem. Those guys—’

‘Guys, wow.’

‘Footmen, she calls them. More like
dick
men. Ready with what takes a girl’s fancy.’

‘Even girl-lovin’ girls can have fun playin’ with one.’

‘Sure can, Bel. But two birthday girls, now, what they need is two of them. One each. So they can fuck.’

‘Yeah, Lou, fuck. Out in the open. Daddy can watch if he likes but he can’t stop them. Not these two, because they’ll not be minors any longer.’

‘The magic age, Bel. But where are we gonna get our dick-bearers?’

Leaving aside the intriguing notion that one’s twenty-first should be marked by having public sex under the eye of a parent, I reassured the double-act that the matter was in hand and would be dealt with promptly. It seemed the Master had seen his copy, but I’d have to wait until he got back from a tour of the woods to discuss it. My query, though, reminded Lou of his recent visit to me and I thought it as well to confess to the caning if not the rest of the ‘English practice’.

‘Show us,’ she demanded. It was true I’d not only seen their marks but seen them being made, so I decided it would be churlish to refuse. They gathered round to inspect ‘Daddy’s stripes’ and made commiserating noises about the number of them and how vivid they still were. Duty done, I zipped back up and left the girls to their eighteenth-century studies with the sudden thought of another problem that had not yet been broached. We could probably draft in local cocks to fill one gap, but there was the scribe herself: no bystander but a lynchpin of the show. The question was, where were we to find our
uxor studiosa
? Little did I realise then that an answer would be found very close to hand.

I was too late to have a sociable lunch, and Cook bade me help myself to some bread and cheese and glass of beer that was left in the big jug. She was stood over a mixing bowl, formidable arms floured to the elbows, and explained that the Master was getting a real English steak and kidney pudding for his dinner.

‘Very particular, he is, to sample traditional recipes. Not that I know much about that; I just make what I always made, you understand. But it seems to suit.’ She was plainly content with the early days of the new regime, and as I ate I wondered aloud about the man’s reluctance to be identified.

‘Well, I heard tell that the lawyer weren’t happy about making do with “Mister X”, though he granted there were nothing illegal about it. Anyways, the house has already got a lad without a name, so what’s new? In fact we could follow their lead and all go by what we do, though it’s true we’d have a bit of trouble telling apart the maids.’

Her comments reminded me that I’d not yet seen the boy anywhere, but I was rather hoping he’d come looking for me before the day was out. So instead, when I finished chatting with Mrs Beaton I set out to find Ama and see how she was faring under the changed circumstances. There was nothing doing in the yard, so I went straight up the stairs and peered into the hallway. When there was still no sign of life I carried on into the small kitchen to leave a note.

I was scratching my head about the message to leave in the space below a shopping list when I realised the outside door had clicked shut. About to call out, I was stopped by a low mutter of voices followed by the sound of steps into the living room. There was no line of sight to where I stood at the counter, and there was a kind of urgency to the interchange that made me disinclined to intrude. Leaning forward, I saw the door they’d gone through was almost shut. It was time to make a swift exit, but the hall was quite dim and I risked what was intended to be a quick peek into the room. But what I saw through the crack brought me up short.

They were facing each other, profiles sharp against the white wall behind: the black mechanic and the master of the house. Tall as she was, he was half a head taller and she looked up at him intently. Behind his back I could see he held a tight coil of black leather. Then Ama stripped off her T-shirt and in a single languid movement draped herself over the cushioned surface of the restraining machine beside them. He flicked his wrist and a yard and a half of dark snake slithered across the boards; when he flicked it again the thing rose up and fell, soft as a kiss, across the far shoulder. Above the heavy denim of the work jeans the naked back looked shockingly vulnerable and I waited, heart in mouth, for the weapon to strike. But it was not to be, not then. He began to speak quietly, and I watched mesmerised as he traced line by line with the forked leather tip where each lash was going to land. If...

Her response to the question in his voice was to push herself up and go over to the wall. There she thumbed down jeans and pants and offered the man a bare rump. This time he took the stock of the whip, parted the buttocks with it and thrust it between her legs. At once she arched her back and rode on it, back and forth, and the moaning that came from her throat made me suddenly flush in shame at what I was doing. Wrenching myself away I heard him pronounce, ‘You must take all. The alternative is nothing. You understand?’

Ama’s answer, ‘All, oh
all
,’ was a shuddering gasp that seemed to follow me fleeing down the steps. All: the whip, the house,
him
.

Safely out of the yard I slowed down and took a detour along the edge of the pasture beyond the vegetable garden to gather my thoughts. Its form was unconventional, to say the least, but there seemed little doubt that what I’d spied was a proposal of marriage. And it had been accepted: in the heat of the moment, but if I knew my Ama, no less surely for that. The new Master of Ardingley End was to be joined by a new Mistress.

In the evening I tracked down the man himself to the den at the back of the library, where he was busy unpacking a special delivery of books. Able to begin filling the shelves our acquisition had emptied, he was amenable to sampling the bottle of Talisker I presented, even to forgoing ice in favour of a little cool water from the adjoining pantry. After I spent some time admiring a copy of
The Wandering Whore
from 1660, and a
Manon la Fouëtteuse
from two centuries later with finely rendered ink-drawings, I poured out a second generous tot. He sniffed it and rolled a good sip around on the tongue.

‘Distinctive,’ was all he offered, apparently without irony, though I wondered at one used to bourbon taking so quickly to the sharp smoky taste of the Skye malt. ‘Now, Dr Greene,’ he said, pulling the transcripts towards him, ‘about this tableau. What would you say if I put the whole matter in your hands?’ I must have looked startled, for he went on to explain. ‘What I would like is to reproduce as closely as we can what the young lady sets out. I believe the description allows that, since she spares us none of the, ah, details.’

‘She is nothing if not explicit.’ I smiled, nodding.

‘I have not yet compared our resources here with the cast used in the original, but it strikes me we are likely lacking suitable men.’

‘Indeed sir, that’s right, and I have already taken the liberty of finding a contact among the local lads. I’d be prepared to screen them personally to see if they, er, come up to scratch.’ The euphemistic speech seemed to be catching. ‘It occurs to me too that we are missing the young wife who not only recorded the event but played a major rôle in it.’

‘Well, Dr Greene, that is one base I do have covered. Trust me, by the time we shall have a performer licensed for the very part.’ He took a drink and so did I. It was all I was going to get out of him at that point. However, I hadn’t quite done probing.

‘Fine, sir, I’ll pencil in a young woman, as yet unspecified. Though there is one more thing. She plays, as it were, second fiddle, second to the head of the house. The original event, as I understand it, was intended to be a setting for the patriarchal seed to find a symbolic receptacle; to be transferred before the eyes of the whole company, to—’

‘I have read the material.’ He cut in as I was warming to my theme of the spouting semen as an object of veneration, justified I felt by the use of the word ‘sacrament’ in the text.

‘Excuse me, sir, I am merely trying to be clear about this. Am I right in assuming that you do intend to display the organ for all to see, and to, to...’ I faltered and let the sentence peter out. His gaze was fixed on the top of the desk and the well-worn features turned a curious shade of puce. There was a silence, then he downed the contents of his glass.

‘Dr Greene,’ he said heavily, ‘the apparatus will do what is required of it when the time comes. Now, if you would oblige me with another splash of your special whisky, I would like an opinion on a few more of these volumes.’ It was good of him not to remind me that I knew at first hand how the ‘apparatus’ functioned – not that it was something I could quickly forget. Perhaps he was averse to sexual talk as opposed to writing, or perhaps it was talking in those terms to me that was the problem. In any case, I was happy to pour out more drink and look at more dirty books of a certain age. The forthcoming wedding had been confirmed in all but name, and I could also look forward – if with impatience – to feasting my eyes on the monster of an erection that had violated my innards.

In the meantime, though, there were other potential erections on my mind, and after a while I left the Master to the last dram, pleading the need to make a phone call. It was a mobile number the driver had given me, and he answered it almost at once. From the buzz in the background I deduced a pub and got straight to the point.

‘It’s Dr Greene here, at The End. Do you recall our conversation in the car earlier today?’

‘Um yes, I do.’ He sounded a little startled.

‘Well, how would you feel about coming over tomorrow afternoon? For a kind of screen test, shall we say? And any other keen young men would be welcome.’ I heard sounds of a hurried consultation, punctuated by some decidedly sceptical snorts.

‘Sure. It could be just me or it could be three of us. Depending on whether I can get these dickbrains to believe me.’ There was audience laughter at his remark, though it had a nervous edge to it. I thought it likely we should get our quota.

‘Well, you can tell them they’d better keep the dicks tucked away in the interim. We want specimens in prime condition. See you at half-past two, okay?’

After lunch the following afternoon, a small reception committee gathered in the library. The young men Molly showed in to the panelled room looked somewhat abashed, I daresay with reason, for they faced us across a long table on which had been placed the instruments for the occasion. They consisted of only three items: Edith’s cane, my paddle and a strap that belonged to Cook, none of them formidable in itself. But to novices in their use it must have been a daunting array, and not made less so by the maid’s asking if they would each please remove their trousers. While that was done I explained that the show for which we were auditioning involved some preliminary corporal punishment followed by oodles of scrumptious sex. As a first step they were requested to stand where they were while the young ladies made an assessment of the relevant parts. I added that, of course, anyone who wanted out was free to go at any time.