The Initiation of Phoebe Read online

  I’d asked Jake about her once. I think I asked, “What’s Mrs. Hendrick really like?” He paused thoughtfully and said, “She’s just like me, Ben.” I couldn’t make head or tail of that answer, but whenever I saw them together it bothered me a little. He often laid his hand on her shoulder, or even once on her plump behind. She was warmer with him, smiling, talkative, but kept up a cool front with me. I sensed she saw everything and made it her business to know everything, that she in fact saw herself as the mistress of Burling Abbey, strange and grotesque as that thought was.

  So that first evening, the day after we brought her home I hurried into the kitchen, expecting Phoebe to be there. Cook had laid my dinner down at my place as usual, and she sat with me silently, peeling potatoes for the next day’s lunch.

  After she told me, “She’s with Master Jake,” she must have seen my face change. As I ate, I was aware of listening for any tell-tale noises from upstairs, but the thick door prevented my hearing anything.

  “What’s he doing with her?” I asked finally. It sounded foolish; I knew it.

  “Well,” she said, not unkindly, “what do you think?”

  It was unanswerable, but I felt as if a cold stone of misery had descended into my stomach.

  “Never mind now, lad,” Cook said briskly. “She’s being well fed and everything. She’s being looked after.”

  I glanced up and saw a knowing smile flicker over her features as she said the last words. It was unsettling—and it infuriated me. I got up to leave, curtly said, “All right,” and that was that.

  As the darkness fell outside and the horses moved around in their stalls, a sound I usually found comforting, I thought about Phoebe, naked on a bed upstairs, and Jake’s insatiable lust as he slammed into her. I hoped she was feeling pleasure and not fear, but I couldn’t believe that any young woman new to a strange house would want to be shut up like that, away from everyone else, and kept under lock and key until he’d had his fill of her. It was selfish and cruel of Jake, I decided, but it was typical of him. He could get away with it and nobody who mattered knew about it, so it was fine.

  The first time Jake had taken me to bed was something I hardly ever thought back to now, because I didn’t feel like I was the same innocent 18-year-old that I’d been, and I’d grown to enjoy his caresses, as I said. We were staying at a strange inn the night that he hired me from my previous master. It was pouring rain outside and he asked me to share his bed with him. He’d got me quite drunk—I think we’d finished off a bottle of something together, and I wasn’t used to the hard stuff. I wasn’t used to being naked, either, in front of anyone. He took my shirt and breeches off lingeringly, touching my skin, and when he was naked as well, he leaned over me. I gasped when our skin touched. It was a shock, like a spark had lit between us. I won’t say that I didn’t enjoy it, but I kept feeling the strangeness of it that night, of having a grown man do these things to me. Once he’d touched me, held my rigid cock in his hand, I couldn’t go back, since it was obvious that I was responding to him and that I wouldn’t deny him what he wanted. But he never kissed me, that night or since, and somehow it was better that he never did. It felt cleaner.

  The next day as I mounted the small, hard driver’s seat on his carriage, what we call the dickey box, I could feel in my rear end the tingling soreness of the hours that he’d spent buggering me. Oddly, though—it was a good soreness and I felt happy that day, lit up with a secret kind of delight, and not ashamed. I just hoped Phoebe felt that, that it was an honest exchange of desires, though I supposed for a woman it would be different.

  That was the thing. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine that once she had felt the full extent of Jake’s passion that she would want anything more to do with me. And perhaps he too would no longer want me, now that he had a lovely young mistress. Why would he? I could never really understand it, anyway, that I would be appealing enough to satisfy a need for him. Well, obviously I hadn’t been enough, I thought gloomily, staring up at the whitewashed stone ceiling where cobwebs lurked. Yet in all those years I’d been with him, there’d never been a serious mistress. He’d never seemed to be in love with anyone. I had felt we’d become closer and more at ease with each other, if anything, but I’d never been deluded enough to think that I had much control. I’d never crossed him, and we’d never quarreled. But now, more and more, there was an anger surfacing in me.

  * * *

  The next evening, I went quietly in to the table. I had half a mind to wrap my dinner in something and take it back to the stables. I didn’t want to face Cook.

  My dinner was steaming on the plate and Phoebe wasn’t there. Cook smiled with pleasure as I came in. I heard her say something about making something special, and to my surprise she’d served pork chops, roast potatoes, and applesauce. I wondered if Jake was feeding it to Phoebe in bed. I ate greedily, but didn’t look up at her. I was annoyed that she seemed to be doing me favors and acting all friendly, when all I wanted was to see Phoebe again.

  “I did see Phoebe today,” Cook said suddenly, as if overhearing my thoughts.

  I glanced up. “What?”

  A smile was playing about her lips. “Master Jake’s having her fitted with a maid’s uniform, so I had to assist with measurements, being the only other woman here.”

  Her dark eyes danced merrily and she helped herself to the jug of beer on the table. I said nothing. I couldn’t help but imagine Cook ogling, even touching, Phoebe’s soft skin, perhaps even her beautiful bare bottom. I shifted in my seat. I was a pervert to think about it.

  “She looks quite lovely in it. A damn sight better than the last girl.”

  “Who was the last girl?” I asked curiously. I hadn’t remembered there being a maid in the house when I came five years ago.

  Cook shrugged. “Some common little slut from the village. Master Jake didn’t really like her that well. He sent her on her way.”

  I continued eating. Then I said in a low voice, “Did he sleep with her?”

  Cook gave me a strange look. “Don’t you know, Ben? He sleeps with all of us.”

  “With you?” I said finally. The beer was beginning to go to my head. I felt fuzzy. I heard the clock ticking loudly on the wall.

  Cook nodded proudly. “Oh, yes. Master Jake hadn’t been with a woman before me. I showed him everything.”

  “But this all was a long time ago, wasn’t it?” I said, trying not to sound too interested. It twisted my stomach to hear about her and Jake—I didn’t like the idea.

  Cook looked down at her hands, then sipped, then smiled.

  “Is that what you think?” she said.

  I got up suddenly, the wooden chair making an awful scraping sound on the hard tiled floor.

  I didn’t want to hear it, but of course she was bursting to tell me.

  “Master Jake came down today, after I helped with Phoebe upstairs. He bent me over the sink right there,” (she nodded to it), “pulled up my skirt and gave me a good long fucking. You know how his thing gets when he’s really excited, don’t you?”

  I gritted my teeth.

  “He was in his robe, with his thing jutting out like that. You know how big it gets, and purple. It was impossible to say no to him.”

  I was bright red—the wretched woman had a way of making it sound so nasty. She must think I spent a lot of time staring at his cock! “Why are you telling me this?” I asked. My voice had risen.

  “I didn’t want you to think that you and Phoebe are the only ones Master Jake ever has an eye for. That’s all.”

  Cook sounded so smugly calm as she sipped her drink; yet as I looked at her, her dress did look a little disheveled, her hair slightly looser than usual. Some strands fell around her face. She looked slightly younger, prettier, even softer, but I knew it was my own thwarted desire welling up. I felt an awful bitterness. Were they both trying to drive me mad?

  “I should go,” I snapped.

  To my surprise she came over to me. I was rooted to the s
pot, torn between embarrassment and curiosity. What would she do? She patted my cheek slightly. She was taller than me, too.

  “You must be dying for it, poor lad,” she murmured. “Don’t worry, you’ll get to put your cock back in Phoebe soon enough.”

  “Do you happen to know when?” I asked sarcastically. I could hardly get the words out, my breath was so short.

  It was hard to be near a woman, even her.

  She did something surprising then. She placed one hand on her bosom, unhooked something at the back of her dress with nimble speed, and to my shock, unveiled one of her bare breasts. It was a big globe of firm, milky flesh, with darker nipples than Phoebe’s. It was oddly beautiful, even with veins and little flaws.

  “Touch it,” she said.

  It was an order, and I did. I stroked my hand down her breast and cupped it. We both moaned, her breath warm on my face.

  I’m not going to fuck her, I thought to myself. Whatever happens, I must not fuck her.

  “Suck it, Ben,” she said. “Phoebe says you sucked her nipples. She told me that you had your way with her twice in the carriage, that being with you felt so nice.”

  As if hearing Phoebe’s sweet words gave me permission, I placed my lips around Cook’s nipple, and to my astonishment, it felt soothing. It felt good. And as I sucked, enjoying the warmth emanating from her and feeling myself getting hard, she gently found my cock inside my breeches, and with a few adept strokes, gave me release. I hardly knew what had happened.

  We both buttoned up hurriedly. I couldn’t look at her and she just smiled to herself, as if this was the most normal thing in the world to have done.

  Then she did a strange thing. She brought her hand, still glistening with my come, up to my lips. And I licked it clean. She didn’t even have to say anything.

  “You’re a good boy,” she murmured. This time she sounded sincere. Nice, almost.

  “Thanks,” I blurted out. And then I bolted. It was just too much. Hopefully tomorrow Phoebe would be there, and all would be put to rights. I knew I couldn’t take much more of this.

  THREE

  But Phoebe wasn’t downstairs.

  There was a light drizzle outside, that third evening, and a chill in the air. I scraped my muddy boots on the metal scraper just outside the door, then took them off in the hall, walking into the kitchen in thick socks. Cook wasn’t there either. I began sipping the bowl of beef broth Cook had left for me. I took a few mouthfuls of beer. I was actually rather relieved to be alone, not to have to make conversation with her. Especially now. Maybe she was actually ashamed, I thought. I was a little bit ashamed when I thought of it, her bare breast filling my mouth that way, but I was trying to forget it.

  I flexed my toes, sighing. Sometimes I longed for the comfort of a warm bed, and a body to share it with me. It seemed odd to me that I entered the house every day and never got any farther inside than this. It was a lonely job. I saw that now; only after having the experience in the carriage with Phoebe did I truly understand what it would be like to have a sweetheart. But she’d never be all mine—that was clear.

  Cook entered the kitchen smiling, her hair damp. She was wrapped in a thin silk gown, with some kind of Chinese embroidered pattern on it. The color was greeny-blue. I gazed at her open-mouthed for a moment, then remembered my manners and muttered a greeting.

  “Hello, Ben. I just wanted to make sure you had everything you needed.”

  “Oh yes, Mrs. Hendrick,” I said nervously.

  She tittered. “Call me Florence. Or Flo. Whatever you like. I call you Ben, don’t I?”

  “You do,” I answered.

  She stood near me, then reached over and ruffled my hair. The casual gesture didn’t seem that innocent. I blushed, and drank down a deep gulp of beer. She didn’t move, and I found myself leaning back in my chair and resting against her warm, solid bulk.

  “That’s a good boy, Ben,” she murmured. She must be a witch, I thought; this wasn’t what I had intended to do at all. And yet I did feel more relaxed.

  “You seem tired, Ben,” she said. “Would you like to come rest in my room for a little while before you go back out to the stables?”

  I sighed. “I shouldn’t,” I said, uncomfortably.

  “There’s no shoulds here, Ben,” she said.

  No shoulds. I realized that she was as strong-willed and shameless as Jake. She didn’t have any rules, so why should I? But I’d no defenses against her. She was a woman, I was lonely; I’d already caressed her and let her caress me. I wasn’t religious and if I really thought about it, I didn’t think it was a terrible sin, fornication. I mean, there were worse. But I felt ashamed of my weakness. I thought I should be better, stronger than this.

  “I’ll give you a bit of fun in private; you won’t regret it,” she whispered, her heavy breasts rubbing against the back of my neck. It gave me the shivers. She was like a big cat in heat.

  “What about Mr. Tootle?” I said loudly. I suppose I thought it might shock her to her senses. She laughed and her eyes flashed.

  “Do you really think it’s any of Mr. Tootle’s concern who I let into my bed?”

  I sat up, pulling away from her.

  “Well, what if he felt the same way? Wouldn’t you be angry if he had other… women?”

  As I said it, I realized how prudish I sounded.

  “No,” Cook said bluntly. “I think every man should fuck as many women as he likes. And every woman should have the same freedom. And for your information, Ben, Tootle knows that Jake rogers me sometimes. And he enjoys thinking about it.”

  Tootle did always seem very obsequious when Jake was around.

  “How strange,” I said, just for something to say. I thought perhaps she would turn away from me in scorn then, but I’d underestimated her. Later I was to understand that sometimes a woman’s need to get fucked is just as strong as a man’s desire to fuck a woman—or another man.

  She placed her hand heavily on my forearm. The hairs on my arm tingled.

  “Go out through that door and turn left if you want to join me. My room’s the first on the right. I’ll give you five minutes to make up your mind.”

  She left through the door that I knew led into the house.

  I watched her go, full buttocks swaying slightly in that thin blue gown, and imagined what it would be like to put my hands on her naked bottom. It would have nothing to do with what I felt for Phoebe. It would be lust, pure and simple.

  I wanted to do it.

  * * *

  I knocked hesitantly, entering when I heard her voice. My head was all in a whirl. The room was dim, with a firelight glow. Cook was propped up on the bed on some pillows, still in her robe. It was a simple little room, but cozy. I glanced up and noticed a picture on the wall, but didn’t have time to focus on it. From the minute I came in, Cook was directing the show.

  Smiling and rising, she had me lie down where she had been sitting. As if it was an everyday occurrence, she knelt by the bed, unbuttoning my corduroys. Quite casually, my cock slipped into her warm mouth. I groaned and closed my eyes.

  I hoped it would just be one this act between us—fellatio, they called it. I watched Cook’s naked torso move as she sucked me; she had bared her back, but not her buttocks. I put my hands gently on her bare back. She moaned, and my cock went rock hard.

  “Do you like the picture I put up on the wall, Ben?” Cook asked, resting for a moment.

  I glanced up distractedly. I nearly gasped. On the wall opposite me was an engraving of a man taking a voluptuous naked woman from behind. The woman was posed in a chair, leaning forward slightly, and the man’s long, straight cock stuck through the rungs of the chair. The sight of his cock and balls next to her large bottom had a peculiar effect on me.

  “I got it in France, when I worked there as a young woman,” Cook explained, rising and allowing her gown to fall to her feet. Quite naked now, smiling that odd little smile, she draped herself over the bed.

  I stumbl
ed up. Standing at bed level, watching as she moved her buttocks toward me so that the tip of my cock was touching them, I still couldn’t believe that this was going to happen. That I was going to do this. In Jake’s house.

  And then I realized what was wrong. I had never fucked a woman without Jake watching. It was almost like I didn’t know what to do without him there.

  “The man in the picture reminds me of Master Jake,” Cook said sleepily, still with that smiling tone in her voice.

  “Has Jake fucked you in here?” I whispered.

  “So many times,” she said softly back. “He always does it from behind, doggie-style.”

  Doggie-style! What a word. I put my hands on her soft, round buttocks, marveling at them. I still felt like a shy young boy rather than a man. But I suddenly saw it—I saw why Jake still wanted to fuck her.

  “He says my bottom shakes when he does it,” Cook said. “Just stick it in, lad, don’t worry about what anyone will think. No one’s going to care.”