The Stallion (33 page)

It was obvious he did mind. He looked hurt, and, in the briefest of moments, the longing that throbbed so positively through her veins almost persuaded her to change her mind.

But she set her jaw, looked straight ahead and pressed on regardless, adamant that she would achieve what she set out to do. ‘I’m going to get a little fresh air.’ She hesitated, instinctively knowing that the look on his face would accuse her of lying. ‘I’ll see you later.’

His silence made her feel guilty, but she’d made up her mind. Nadine was not an honest ride and truthful bedfellow, and that annoyed her. There was something more to this brother and sister relationship than met the eye, and she was determined to find out exactly what it was.

Her hand covered the brass handle of the wide double doors that opened on the Beaumont apartments. She was at the other end to where she had entered with Nadine and Clarissa. She levered it down; softly, without even a click, it opened.

The windows were similar, big, high and stretching from crisp white ceiling to polished floor.

The walls were painted terracotta in dramatic contrast with the gilt-edged paintings that hung from the walls, the brocade Louis XIV furniture and the thick-piled Persian carpets that sat in independent squares over the floor.

Not meaning to linger, but being unable to resist, she eyed the paintings. Rubens-like females of pert bosom and pendulous stomach cavorted with men whose over-defined muscles were mismatched with seriously inconsequential cocks.

She licked her lips as she studied the paintings. There were others that were not quite so classic in style, although what they portrayed could not be regarded as purely contemporary. In these, orgies were taking place, goat-footed satyrs thrusting enormous penises into wide-open female gates.

Most of the women appeared submissive, even frightened of what was happening to them, yet still they yielded, unable to resist the lure of the obscene, the animal and the bizarre. One painting above all others forced her to stop dead in her tracks.

There was a chariot, not dissimilar to the one she had been harnessed to in the middle of the woods. Like her, a woman was harnessed to its shafts, satyrs driving her on with leering faces and the flick of many whips.

There was an ecstatic yearning on the woman’s features, as if she wanted to please, to do better than she already had.

Half-watching her, yet apparently enthralled with each other, was a couple. They looked alike. The eyes were the same, and they had the same leanness, the same grey eyes. Although they were fondling each other – the girl holding the man’s penis in her hand, and he appearing to have his finger stuck somewhere between her legs – Penny knew instinctively that these were brother and sister and they should definitely not be doing what they were doing.

Despite the high windows, the room was getting dimmer as a cloudy afternoon folded into twilight.

Penny, the heat of desire drifting slowly down her body, forced herself to walk on.

The door at the far end opened out onto a corridor. Only a
small
window of dark-blue glass let in a subdued and tinted light. A trio of wall lamps compensated for the lack of natural light, but, like the room she had left behind, the floor was covered by thick Persian and Chinese rugs.

Her feet made no sound, her heels sinking into the plush pile and rich colours of the carpets. At the faint click of what sounded like a door latch, she tried one of the doors beside her and found herself in a small room that had rows of seating like a theatre, but no screen. There was only a window; a vast sheet of glass that looked through into a room beyond it.

At first she ducked down when she saw Alistair and Nadine, until she realised that they could not see her. Engrossed in conversation, they were sat in a gangway between two rows of seats.

‘Tonight, then?’

Nadine stood up suddenly and draped her long hands over her narrow hips, her face questioning. Her brother got up and began to pace up and down, hands in his pockets. He appeared thoughtful and stared mostly at his shiny black loafers and the thick red carpet of the theatre floor.

‘Hmmm.’

‘Well?’ said Nadine with a hint of impatience.

‘Yes. As long as you’re sure.’

‘I’m sure.’

She saw Nadine smile, a brightness in her eyes that Penny had seen so often before, but never with quite the teeth-flashing smile she adopted now.

‘Tell me again,’ Alistair said eagerly. He reminded Penny of a small child who’s been told a story or a secret and wants to hear it all over again. Excitement caught in her belly. Somehow she knew that it was her they were talking about, that the time was ripe for her wager to be won, although winning it was no longer of such great importance.

Nadine was swaying slightly on the high heels of her black patent boots, her matching skirt barely covering the tight orbs of her snow-white bottom. She sighed as if impatient at having to repeat herself.

‘Completely submissive, completely in my control. She’s almost ready for you. After tonight, she’ll be completely pliable. There’s nothing she won’t do.’

‘You’re sure? Are you sure it’s not
you
that’s hooked, rather than her?’

Nadine looked childishly petulant, and a pink flush coloured her usually pale cheeks. That made Penny smile. Even if Nadine did not accept it as fact, Penny knew it. And strangely enough, so also, it seemed, did Alistair.

‘Of course I’m sure! You’ll find out.’

‘Good.’ Alistair smiled and, as he did so, Nadine moved toward him like a child about to get a reward for being a good little girl.

‘Are you pleased with me, Aly, darling?’ Nadine asked in an oddly coquettish way.

Alistair’s white teeth flashed, and suddenly Penny could see just how alike they really were; just how much one depended upon the other.

Penny remembered the couple in the painting, both standing to one side and watching the woman who had been harnessed to the chariot and the hoard of satyrs, clinging on behind, their overlarge cocks waving like baseball bats behind her.

‘Beautiful stallion,’ she heard Nadine mew. Then she laughed, throwing her head back and wrapping her arms around herself, though her eyes stayed fixed upon her brother’s face. ‘Ariadne was right. She’ll do you fine. Miss Bennet will get one stallion more than she’s bargained for! After that, it’s on to the next one, my dear brother. There’s always another one, isn’t there?’

‘At last,’ breathed Alistair.

And Penny felt his excitement was tangible, but wondered again what had stayed this scenario up until now.

‘Once you’ve finished with her, we’ll let her go. There’s always another one waiting for your money and more than willing to accommodate your other asset. I know she’s been here less than a year, but she’s indulged more keenly than anyone else we’ve had. It is long enough!’ she finished crisply.

Nadine had said what she’d said with smiles. Her brother’s response was less enthusiastic. There was a look in his eyes that did not match that of his sister. It was as though his plans were somewhat different from hers.

‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘I suppose so. Though, somehow, I don’t think a few months here will be enough for Miss Bennet. She’s a natural at what she does, my dear sister; it’s like there’s something deep inside driving her on.’

‘She’ll have to accept it.’ Nadine returned.

Alistair raised his eyebrows and gazed at his sister in a calm, even forbidding way. ‘She might not.’

‘So what?’ Nadine shrugged her shoulders and lit up a cheroot. ‘There’s nothing she can do about it.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Alistair with a smile that made Penny’s lips long for his kiss and her loins for his body. ‘We’ll see.’

So, it was true! Once Alistair had taken her, she would be out of here. But that was stupid, she told herself, absolutely stupid. How could she ever get to the top in her sport unless she had achieved some stability? But that wasn’t really the reason she wanted to stay here. Other desires had been unleashed, and Beaumont Place was where she wanted to use them; and Gregory, Alistair, even Nadine, were those she wanted to use them on.

Ariadne had got her into this, and perhaps it would be Ariadne who would get her out of it.

Penny left them there with their mutual looks and their mutual plans. Suddenly, she had plans of her own.

Flushed, she slunk back into the thickly carpeted corridor that would take her back to the more public apartments in Beaumont Place.

Had she really only been here a few months? It seemed longer, as though this were a place she had known and wanted all her life. She knew beyond doubt that she didn’t want to leave, and in her mind the jumbled outlines of ad-libbed plans began to tumble into some sort of order.

She wanted to stay here. She was happy, but in order to stay here, she would have to do something drastic, and she would need help to carry out her plan. First she would phone Ariadne just to get things straight. Once she had all the facts, then she would act.

The phone rang a dozen times before Ariadne answered. She sounded breathless and Penny had the distinct feeling that her gorgeous blonde friend was not alone.

‘It’s me. Penny Bennet.’

‘Penny?’ If Ariadne was a friend, she certainly didn’t sound it at the moment, thought Penny. But what the hell! She pressed on.

‘It’s about our wager. And it’s about Alistair.’

Ariadne hesitated before she spoke. ‘How are you getting on?’

‘Too well. I get the impression I’m about to win our wager.’

‘Already? My!’ said Ariadne in a breathless rush. ‘You certainly are a quick worker. Then the stallion is yours, darling.’

‘Yes, I know that. But then again, he was from the start, wasn’t he?’

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

‘You know, then?’ said Ariadne at last, her voice no more than a hushed whisper.

‘That the stallion doesn’t belong to you. That it belongs to Alistair.’

‘How did you know?’ asked Ariadne with surprise.

‘I just guessed.’

Penny
had
only guessed. If Ariadne had been as bright as she was beautiful, she would have realised that Penny had led her into declaring the truth of the matter. But Ariadne wasn’t bright and had fallen easily into the trap. Besides that, Penny was convinced that, though her mouth was speaking into the phone, other things were happening to other parts of Ariadne’s body.

‘It’s like an aphrodisiac, you know,’ Ariadne went on, her words suddenly fast and furious. ‘He’s a powerful man. He’s got a lot of influence, a lot of energy. Nadine directs it, gets him to store it up in those cute rubber pants she makes him wear.’

‘Yes,’ returned Penny somewhat sharply. ‘Really’, and ‘You’re kidding’, were the words on her tongue, but the quick, one word retort was enough to hide her ignorance of what Ariadne had just exposed to her.

‘That’s why she wears those big earrings; you know, those black-jet crucifixes and things – there’s a key behind them that unlocks his pants. He can’t get to his delicious cock without her say so. His drive’s all stored up, like a dam on a river; then when it lets go . . . Wow! Imagine if it got out. I wonder what his business associates would say if they knew,’ Ariadne went on mindlessly. ‘I bet he’d want to drop dead if anything got out about it.’

‘No doubt,’ Penny said slowly as the pros and cons of the situation ping-ponged around in her mind. ‘No doubt he’d be mortified if anyone found out.’

‘Devastated!’ Ariadne exclaimed in a desperate hush.

Penny had known Ariadne long enough to surmise that some luscious hunk was licking or pushing his rod into her welcoming pussy at that very moment. Also from experience, she could imagine that Ariadne was dying to drop the phone from her mouth and stifle the words in her throat with something far more palatable.

Again, Penny pounced before Ariadne could think straight.

‘He didn’t ask you to stay?’

‘No. I would have liked to, but he doesn’t favour that. Anyway, I don’t think Nadine’s too keen on anyone being near her brother on a permanent basis – except perhaps herself. And besides, he made it worth my while. I’ve got my own stud farm now.’

‘Mares and stallions?’

Ariadne gasped as though a thick member had found its mark in one or other of her most delectable orifices. Obviously, thought Penny, not her mouth. Ariadne laughed breathlessly into the telephone.

‘Just me,’ she cooed with undisguised pleasure, ‘and a selection of fine . . . young . . . stallions . . . ’

It seemed to Penny as though the telephone had slipped from her friend’s grasp. An angry buzzing sounded against her ear.

But she had no more questions except in her head. So Alistair wore a pair of rubber pants. The picture that presented both intrigued and aroused her in the same instant. And Nadine controlled him by using those pants, storing up his sexual energy like an electricity generator does the power from the National Grid. Ariadne knew about it. Others probably did, too. But their silence had been bought, and they, unlike her, had been willing to accept whatever was offered to them. They hadn’t found somewhere they wanted to stay like she had,
where
her desires and her need for security could complement each other.

Obviously, she had to do something about it. But what? The pants, Nadine . . . then the fact – the very obvious fact – came to her that the international business community would withdraw the respect they had for Alistair if they found out about his odd home life and his peculiar underwear.

The seeds of a plan started to germinate in her head. Even without her yearning to maintain stability for her equestrian career, she would still have to do this. She’d have no yearning for pastures other than those at Beaumont Place.

Ariadne had not wished to stay here; not as much as she did anyway. Ariadne had accepted her lot; Penny would not.

Beaumont Place had brought her the kind of security and pleasure she had only dreamt of in the past. Although their use of her might have appeared to other eyes as cruel or abusive, through the pleasures and pains she had endured, she had encountered status and affection.