A Gentlewoman's Quartet

But now…now, Ambrose’s fingers are so clever, so devilish. He plucks at my nipples, playing with them in a way that feels like he’s playing with my entire body and setting light to the most divine, unknown sensations. I wriggle shamelessly, scissoring my thighs in a lewd and passionate frenzy, wanting more, more, more. Anything to assuage the rapidly gathering inner tingling.

“You see, Mrs. Harewood, you are a sensual woman!” Ambrose’s voice is both cajoling and triumphant, and yet an intimate whisper, right in my ear. While he still plays with my breasts, Clarence moves again, toward the foot of the chaise.

My eyes fly open.

Whatever are they planning now?

“I’ll need your help now, Clarence, if you will?” Ambrose almost kisses me, his breath hot against my brow. “I’d like you to unfasten Mrs. Harewood’s drawers and stockings, and then ease them down as far as her knees.”

“Oh, no, please, Monsieur Chamfleur, please no!”

Oh the shame, to be exposed so…. Why does it excite me and make me want to wiggle and wriggle even harder?

“Calm yourself, sweet Mrs. Harewood, rest easy.” His lips brush my skin, just for a moment. “And please do call me ‘Ambrose,’ I beg of you. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Except myself, and a degree of lust and licentiousness I’ve only just this afternoon become aware of.

Clarence makes himself busy at my waist, and a moment later I feel cooler air whisper across my belly and my thighs even though the room is warm. His hand beneath my bare bottom, he lifts me, and then settles me back on the fine plush velvet upholstery. To feel it’s sumptuous texture against my naked skin is willfully decadent.

“Magnificent,” they exclaim, almost a chorus. Then Ambrose kisses my face, just once, in a kind of signal, and the two men change places.

Clarence, at my head now, is just as gentle and solicitous as his master was. I look up into his periwinkle-blue eyes, almost afraid to let my glance stray toward Ambrose and his intentions, and I see Clarence’s expression is both kind and impish. He cradles me with one arm, and lets his free hand drift to my breast and take up the delightful ministrations that Ambrose began. I groan with delight while he teases and tickles me, at the same time anticipating more, much, much more, down below.

I close my eyes. Not because I don’t want to look at their handsome, fervent faces, but because I’m not sure I can bear such intense wonders in the light.

My cries increase as I feel an ethereal, indefinable pressure slide unhurriedly across the skin of my belly. In a ferment now, I could swear it’s a feather that’s caressing me. A long, stiff, resilient feather whose soft tip glides first across one thigh, then with tantalizing slowness across the other. Having tormented me thus, it returns to the plane of my abdomen, floating like mist into the pit of my navel and circling there, making me squirm on the chaise.

“Quietly, quietly…” purrs a voice so softly that I’m not even sure whether it’s Clarence or Ambrose, and as I endure the feather, I’m all the time aware of skilled fingers still at work on my bosom. A multitude of nerve ends have woken from their slumbers, in both the zones my new friends are exploring, and in others, as yet unvisited.

Between my thighs, I’m intensely troubled. If that be the word. My feminine parts are wracked by simmering heat and agitation, a wicked, wicked craving to be touched and rubbed and played with. It’s so excruciating, I want to play with them myself.

I feel confused, my head whirling, lost but also strangely safe. These must be the sensations that I dimly imagined I was missing in my marriage bed. But they’re so powerful, so befuddling, yet so beautiful. My eyes fill with tears, but I’m not sad. No, never that.

Reaching for knowledge, I almost coo in response to my two paramours.

Who respond to my silent, formless prayers.

Clarence kisses me, his tongue pressing importunately into my mouth, searching, tasting. At almost the same moment, I heave up from the surface of the chaise in delicious shock.

A finger—a stiff, warm, clever finger—pushes inside me.

Ambrose breaches my hot body in a smooth, bold action, and as his finger enters me, his broad, flat thumb settles on the tiny sensitive bead at the apex of my womanhood. Instantaneously, delight seems to pierce me like a spear, touching not just the warm, sticky crevice of my sex, but also my breasts, my lips, my toes, my heart and my very soul.

The men move in. They overwhelm me. I’m exquisitely assaulted by questing fingers and warm tongues, and by the scents of my body and the clean odors of their linen and their flesh.

The heat and the tension in my flesh soars to a sweet, unbearable pitch, building like a raw flame in my loins…and then, and then… I cry out into the kissing mouth of Clarence, when without warning, all that selfsame pressure seems to release in a great, wild rush and throb through my body in a wrenching wave so profound I almost swoon.

Goodness, what’s happened to me? Did I lose my senses?

Opening my eyes, I realize that I’m just lying here, on the chaise, my heart and my body all of a flutter. My breasts and belly are still naked and I’m cradled in Ambrose’s arms. My face is wet, and I realize I’ve been weeping.

Struggling to sit up, I look around and find that Clarence has discreetly slipped away.

“Were those the transports of delight that my friends have whispered of?” I ask Ambrose as I struggle to gather just a few of my scattered wits. The deficiencies of my marriage are now readily and distressingly apparent to me. Are all men as lacking in the sensual arts as my poor late husband was? “I confess that’s the first time I’ve experienced them.”

“They were indeed, my dear Mrs. Harewood.” Ambrose’s voice is quite grave as he moves away quickly, only to return with a little more Madeira for me. It’s cold now, but just as delicious, and very welcome. “And it pains me to hear that such an obviously sensual woman as yourself is only now discovering the joys of eroticism.”

I still feel a little stunned. I’m shocked and surprised by what I’m capable of. But in my heart, a seed of determination has been planted. Never again will I accept second best in this matter. Never again will I lie thwarted and unsatisfied while a gentleman uses me to service his own desires. If my next husband is ignorant of my needs, by heaven, I will show him what I require and insist he provides it!

The Madeira braces me. I square my shoulders and look into Ambrose’s intense brown eyes. My heart lifts at the look of awe and wonder there. It’s as if he saw my inner transformation.

“That…that was quite a revelation. But I sense there’s more to learn. Many additional tricks and techniques that I may employ to enhance my enjoyment of the bedroom.”

“Indeed, my dear, and bravo! It’s clear that you’re a quick study and a natural born sensualist. That perfect pleasure you just experienced is called an orgasm, and now you’re acquainted with it, I’m sure it’ll be the first of many.”

“I do hope so.” And that is the truth. My glowing body is already rousing anew, despite my recent pleasure. “I’m eager to experience it again. And to learn more.”

“Of course, my dear lady, of course. We usually suggest that further, shall we say, ‘therapies’ be explored on another day. When the client has had time to absorb the impact of her first experience and perhaps experiment a little herself. But in your case—” he pauses delicately “—in your case, I feel that you’re ready to move swiftly ahead, to the second stage.”

Second stage? Oh, my, what might that be?

A delicious rippling in the pit of my belly tells me my body is eager and willing to explore it.

Just as I’m about to speak, the door opens and Clarence returns with a bundle of silk and lace over his arm. When he shakes it out, and holds it up, it proves to be an exquisite peignoir of ivory Peau de Soie, adorned with Brussels lace and narrow satin ribbons. Ambrose hands me from the chaise longue and it seems the most natural thing in the world to divest myself of all my underclothes and slip happily into the delicate luxurious garment.

The awareness that I’m momentarily nude before both Ambrose and Clarence only excites me even further. In fact I’m almost disappointed when the silken robe is tied and my flesh is respectably covered again.

“Come this way,” says Ambrose, taking my hand, and leading me out of the room. Glancing backward, I see Clarence begin to tidy up and gather my clothing. Ahead lies I know not what, but I feel a little sad when the younger man doesn’t follow us.

We reach another room, which, when Ambrose escorts me within, proves to be a sumptuous if somewhat gaudily decorated bedroom, of the sort I would imagine a high class courtesan to inhabit. The bed is a huge, brass-railed four-poster, and the walls are decorated with a rich, silk wallpaper. Works of art hang here, too, as they did downstairs, but here the paintings and prints are bigger and undeniably lewd…and stimulating.

As Ambrose turns down the sheets and quilt, releasing a waft of delicious tuberose fragrance from the linen, another door to the chamber opens and a newcomer enters.

“Oh, my! You’re…”

It’s Yuri, the exquisite young man from the engraving.

He’s naked, alive and perfect, right down to every last inch of beautiful swarthy flesh and every vibrant dark curl on his head.

His male member is enormous and already on the rise.

“This is Yuri, Mrs. Harewood, and he’s here to pleasure you.” Ambrose leads me forward, toward this vision of idealized male pulchritude. “And to instruct you in ways that you may pleasure him, in order to increase a man’s enthusiasm and thus your enjoyment of the act.”

“Enchanted,” the young man says softly, taking my shaking hand and bringing it to his lips for a kiss. His mouth is warm and firm, and parts slightly against my skin to allow his tongue to delicately tease.

“I…um… It’s a pleasure to meet you, too,” I stammer, unable to stop myself glancing at his male organ, which seems to be rising and growing yet further, as we speak.

“I sincerely hope so, madame,” he whispers against my skin, his tongue flicking again in way that’s positively indecent. Especially as he’s at full and magnificent stand now.

“Here, let me help you,” says Ambrose from behind me, and he reaches over my shoulders and unfastens my silk robe. Immediately Yuri parts the garment and exposes me. A heartbeat later, Ambrose slides it off my shoulders and makes me bare.

I’m in a room, stark naked, with two men again.

Acutely aware of Ambrose behind me, I reach, on pure instinct, for Yuri. He makes a sound of delighted surprise when I coil my arms around him, but then getting into the spirit of things, he clasps me tightly, too, and presses his lips to mine.

His mouth tastes just as sweet and spicy as the Madeira, and as his tongue probes and explores, his mighty sex pushes at my belly.

Naked skin on naked skin. Lips. Tongues. Hands. A man’s hard staff against me.

All these things are right. All these things are good.

Even the intense scrutiny of a third party, another handsome man, seems to be part of my sensual destiny.

Yuri and I kiss for a long time, our hands running over each others backs and buttocks. I seem to have passed across some great Rubicon, and I know that the exact moment of my transformation was during the sublime pleasure that Ambrose visited upon me with his fingers. Even though I’m embracing one man, it’s this other that I’m still strangely linked to.

Eventually, my naked companion and I part, and I turn to find Ambrose’s eyes on me, burning like coals. Yet, when he extends his hand, and silently leads me to the bed, his decorum is perfect and controlled. He helps me onto the mattress, but his hands don’t linger upon my limbs or my torso, even though every last sense in me screams out that he wants to. He sincerely wants to…

Yuri takes his place in the bed at my side, his long, sun-kissed body gracefully elegant. He reaches for me, touching my breast, fingertips warm and sure. I surge toward him, and yet my attention isn’t entirely upon his actions. Ambrose is retreating behind me, moving toward the door…and that can’t be. That really cannot be!

I turn to him, holding out my hand, even while Yuri continues to idly fondle my teat. When I glance quickly at him, he’s smiling, his dark eyes aglitter.

Ambrose hesitates, just a second, then returns to the bed. He kicks off his boots, then climbs alongside us, still fully clothed, leaning on his elbow.

“I’ll watch for a while,” he says. His voice is quiet and calm, but I sense a thread of raw excitement.

Watching will do, then. At least for a while.

We exchange a complicit smile, then I return my attention to Yuri.

The younger man is exotic, tawny-skinned and earthy. His dark hair is a wild mass of curls and there is a simmering, animal quality about him. His lovemaking is eager and earthy, too, although I can tell he is accomplished, with many skills.

His hands rove my body, and I sink into the sensations, lolling back against the pillows like some Ottoman princess accepting the services of her swains. With one hand I slowly stroke Yuri’s warm flank, indolently encouraging him, while with the other, I seek, and find, Ambrose’s hand. Our fingers lace, and my heart turns over, touched by some strange, dark emotion.

Yuri kisses my cheek, my throat, my shoulder. Each with a soft intense contact and a stroke of his moist, nimble tongue. Then his mouth moves lower, drifting and sliding over the upper slopes of my bosom. I blush a little as my nipples harden even more, then smile inside at my own silliness. How far are we now beyond embarrassment? Beyond inhibition?

As Yuri takes one tight crest between his lips, I laugh out loud, knowing that shame is something I’ll never know again.

I wriggle against the clean, crisp linen, excitement surging through my flesh and settling, insistently, between my legs. I turn to Ambrose, and his eyes are aflame. As my lips part on a gasp of delight, he leans across and takes my mouth in a probing kiss.

Two men’s mouths for my enjoyment, what more could a woman ask?

A great deal, I realize, as perverse visions of bodies in combination fill my mind. Sumptuously lewd images parade through my imagination, magnifying my already intensely aroused condition.

A hand slides between my legs, and paddles delightfully in my feminine furrow, playing with the tiny responsive bud there. I groan around Ambrose’s tongue, not even knowing whether it’s his finger or Yuri’s that’s touching me.

I thrash. I whimper. I clasp at both men, grabbing at clothed and naked flesh. I am in a frenzy of desire.

I want more, more, more.

The two men seem to be able to communicate by some kind of mental telepathy. They work as an infernal arousing team.

Yuri smothers my breasts in a last veil of kisses, then backs and turns away for a moment. I watch in fascination as he rolls a device of fine rubber over his magnificent manhood, then Ambrose takes me by the shoulders, and moves me onto my side. I’m in such a state of voluptuous excitement that I allow myself to be handled, loving the dominance of my duo of lovers.

I am between them now, facing Ambrose, and with Yuri’s sleek, nude form molded to my back. Purring like a cat, I rub myself against him, all the while gazing into Ambrose’s dark eyes.

I am completely relaxed, yet in a state of high, delirious excitement. Behind me, Yuri adjusts his position, and his warm, hard member brushes the backs of my thighs, exquisitely tempting. Ambrose touches my face, his fingers infinitely tender.

The two men take possession of me, manipulate me. My hips are tilted, my thighs parted from behind, and as Ambrose holds me steady, Yuri thrusts into my slick womanhood, slowly and surely.

I am filled, sublimely filled, in a position that the late Mr. Harewood never attempted, and in a situation I would never have credited possible.

Two men. Two delicious men. Both for me.

I’m not yet bold enough to look Ambrose in the eye as Yuri ploughs me, but I bury my face in his shoulder, breathing in the fragrance of his linen and his warm, male body beneath it. He drops a kiss on my brow, and murmurs something so low I can’t make it out, although perhaps Yuri can? But the tone of his voice is soothing and loving.

As is his finger as it moves deftly between my thighs.

We rock in a syncopated action, as perfectly coordinated as an expensive Swiss clock. Ambrose strokes me exquisitely throughout, taking my breath away, and I feel him hard—hard as sin—beneath his clothes.

Ambrose whispers encouragement. Yuri grunts and sighs with a deliciously animal enthusiasm. I moan like a madwoman, relishing my own freedom and my liberty from inhibition.

When my crisis comes, I claw at Ambrose while I push back against Yuri to receive him yet deeper.

My mind reels like a joyous waltz. I soar again. I adore these men both, but the sweet courtesy and tenderness of Ambrose wins my heart. The emotion is irrational, and sudden, but I truly feel it.

And as I descend, knowing I will rise again soon, I reach for the buttons of his trousers and fumble them open. Diving into his combinations, I draw out his swollen shaft. Yuri is still hard at work in my channel, so I simply caress Ambrose with my fingers, as he caresses me.

We writhe again, we three, a squirming mythical beast of hands, fingers, arms, torsos and happily glowing genitals. I drift into such a stupor of sublime sensation that I barely know where one of us ends and the next one begins.

We are one voice, one body, even one heart.

And as one, we all cry out as we achieve sweet resolution, Yuri pumping enthusiastically inside me while Ambrose spills his seed upon my belly.

I am awash. I am debauched. I am in heaven.

For many minutes, we lie too stunned to speak or move, but as I recover my faculties I’m not so naive as to believe that such an occurrence as this is regular. I sense that it was different. Unusual. That Ambrose Chamfleur does not often take part in such frolics, or at least to such a degree.

When I look into his eyes I see them filled with wondrous happiness.

My heart fills with joy, too.

As Ambrose leans in to kiss me, I am vaguely aware of Yuri sliding from the bed behind me and padding from the room, his job well done.

“So, Mrs. Harewood, do you feel that you are fully acquainted with sexual rapture now?” Ambrose enquires when we are alone, reaching to sweep my tangled hair away from my cheeks so he may see my expression clearly. I, in turn, feast my eyes on the noble contours of his suddenly dear face.

“Fully. Although I suspect that there are many shades of bliss yet to be discovered, Ambrose.”

I try to imagine looking into the eyes of Mr. Trentham, or Lord Lotherton, or the earl of Davy whilst experiencing this glorious lassitude, and I find I cannot picture them. They are nothing to me. Just ciphers. Only this man—and his delightful companions—have any reality for me.

I can see that my previous plans will have to change.

1888

She draws me aside at the Ladies’ Sewing Circle. Young Lucy Montgomery. Mrs. Montgomery, as of a few months ago.

Her eyes are strained. Her face is pinched. Experience tells me that all is not well in the bed of her new husband. Mr. Montgomery is older, so much older, and her family’s choice for her.

I remember when I felt as she does. Disillusioned. Disappointed. Yearning for a certain magic that I was convinced existed but had not yet experienced.

Not until I met a man named Ambrose, who has some revolutionary ideas about how ladies should learn about matters of the bedroom.

As she haltingly describes her dilemma, I find myself drifting back to that first time, just after I’d behaved like a wanton libertine, and discovered my true erotic nature in the arms of Ambrose and Yuri and Clarence.

Afterward, alone, he tended me with all the delicacy and scrupulousness of a perfectly trained lady’s maid. Washing his jism off my body with a soft muslin cloth dipped in rose-scented water, talking to me in quiet tones, and all the while smiling as he described to me all outrageous delights and glories that lay ahead of me in the world of sensuality.

Alas, with such heated descriptions, and such intimate handling, it wasn’t long before my dear Ambrose was spending his dear, precious essence all over me again, although this time we both naked, his clothes being off.

In the peaceful aftermath, I outlined my plan, and though nervous at first, I warmed to my theme. And so did he.

A process that led delightfully to yet more spending.

“Er…um…Lady Arabella said that you might be able to advise me…offer a consultation and perhaps some…therapy?” She twists her handkerchief in her fingers, mangling the poor scrap of lace near to destruction. “Obviously, on a professional basis, of course…. She said you were a…a consultant.”

“Of course, my dear. I’ll be happy to help.” I still her hands with mine, then reach into my reticule for my card case. “Why not come to this address at around three p.m. tomorrow? I’m sure that my associates and I can provide you with all the answers—and the therapy—that you need.”

“Associates?” She looks doubtful.

“Don’t be concerned. They’re the most trusted of professionals. You’ll be safe in their hands.”

She smiles. Her spirits seem to be lifting already and her eyes are brighter.

“Thank you so much. I’ll be there.” She almost seems about to kiss me in gratitude. “Bless you, Madame Chamfleur. I knew I could rely on you.”

As she turns away, and begins to discuss cross-stitch with another of our number, I glance down at the top card in my little case.

Mme. Sofia Chamfleur, Intimate Advice to the Gentlewoman, it proclaims in a very handsome copperplate script, followed by an address in Hampstead, and the words Consultations By Appointment.

I smile, happy anew every time I think of my plan, the way I invested some of my fortune, and the delicious arrangements I made. Beneath my skirts, my body warms as if readying itself for the attentions of my beloved Ambrose.

You see, I did decide to marry, after all.

A Gentlewoman’s Ravishment

Portia Da Costa

The Ladies’ Sewing Circle

Book Two

“I’d love to be abducted and ravished by some handsome brigand or pirate…”

When the women of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle share their private fantasies, some are shocked by Mrs. Prudence Enderby’s secret desire. But Prudence cannot image life without such exotic daydreams—especially since they arouse her husband, too!

Yet Prudence never imagined she would actually be whisked off the street by a mysterious masked man who has his wicked way with her in a carriage. Taking her back to a boudoir appointed for pleasure, he continues to bring every one of her fantasies to life. But nothing could be more surprising than when Prudence finally learns who is behind this gentlewoman’s ravishment…

Contents

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1888…

“Personally, I’d love to be abducted and ravished by some handsome brigand or pirate…swept away into a story from the One Thousand Nights and One Night, and subjected to desperate passion in a seraglio or the lair of some ruthless, brawny rogue!”

“Goodness me, Mrs. Enderby! Where in heaven’s name do you get such ideas? Why ever would you want something like that to happen to you?”

“I don’t know that I do want it to actually happen, Mrs. Brigstock,” I reply, wickedness stirring in me as I stab another ill-formed, meandering stitch into what passes for my embroidery. “But imagining it excites me… That and the idea of being debauched and pleasured by more than one man at once, with perhaps a whole crew of them looking on.”