Under a Stern Reign (6 page)

‘Why is it so pleasing for a man?' she asked again, modestly crossing her arms over her breasts.

‘It's a secret pleasure,' Elise told her cryptically. ‘Pleasures that can only be experienced and not explained.'

Elise moved and sat at the foot of the bed, resting back against one of the ornate posts. Genevieve continued to gaze in nervous awe at the naked beauty of her friend.

‘As a matter of fact, I forgot to tell you,' Elise went on conspiratorially. ‘Rodolfo and I shared the very same pleasure only recently. The night he was here.'

Genevieve's cheeks turned crimson. She instantly forgot about how cool she felt and how strange it was to be virtually naked before her friend. Casually, Elise stroked the dark curls of her own pubis. ‘I wouldn't worry your pretty little head about it too much, though,' she said. ‘As I kissed him he professed how taken he was with you. Your problem, though, will be that you will never be able to keep him,' Elise mocked with unnecessary cruelty. ‘There are too many temptations for him. Too many who know how to please him better. There is so much you must learn, poor naïve Genevieve.'

‘What must I learn?' the girl asked, propping herself on her elbows, acutely aware of her nakedness, and her friend's, and the strangeness of it. She swallowed nervously; there was something that felt good about it. She did not want to reach for her clothes. There was something so hungry in Elise's dark eyes, and it made her feel vulnerable.

She glanced furtively at Elise's idly moving hand, at the index finger tracing a circle at the top of the pink lips. Her other hand moved slowly over her ribcage, cupping her left breast, allowing the nipple to peep between massaging fingers. Then opening her eyes and observing Genevieve's confused expression, Elise laughed quietly.

‘Lie back,' she ordered, and Genevieve instinctively fell back against the pillows, and as she did she felt Elise's warm body rising over her again. ‘Pretend I'm Rodolfo,' she whispered, and then she leant down to kiss the befuddled girl.

Genevieve closed her eyes, the soft lips of her friend drifting over her face and throat. Her body pulsed with forbidden excitement, her heart ready to burst.

Elise cupped Genevieve's firm breasts, shuffled down a little, and took a nipple between her lips. Genevieve shivered, and instinctively pressed a hand to the back of Elise's head. Elise kissed the other budding breast, furtively watching her companion tremble under her lascivious attention from beneath lowered lashes. Then she moved again and her tongue passed over her flat tummy until it reached the soft nest of blonde curls she sought.

With her eyes tightly closed, Genevieve held her breath and felt her heart ready to explode. Her pussy was wet, she knew. Elise paused, and then licked lightly a few times, drawing a sob from her friend. Elise paused again, watching her responses, and then locating Genevieve's clitoris with her fingertips, she targeted it with her tongue. Another soft whimper and spasm drifted from Genevieve's breathless frame.

Elise raised her face, her chin and lips glistening. She had coaxed her young friend through her first small orgasm. It had been remarkably easy to achieve, and she did it with great care, aiming to whet the pretty blonde's appetite rather than dull it.

 

Count de Tranville lifted himself from Madame Coubette. He craved a glass of wine and pulled his breeches up from around his ankles.

Finding the skirt he had ripped from the woman, he noted that he had indeed torn it. She would be unable to wear it again without careful repair.

Her verbal attacks on Elise were not new, but they always annoyed him. From finding his charge involved with his pretty kitchen maid, he knew that a wild spirit lurked within the beautiful girl.

But how could Madame Coubette know of this? Women's intuition, he concluded. But could other people also sense Elise's dark nature? And what sort of gossip might his mistress be spreading? It was her insinuations that there was something between him and Elise that worried him most, however... and now between him and Genevieve, too. It was hard enough resisting the temptation of the two youthful beauties, without having to listen to intimations from the fiercely jealous woman. Anger mixed with disdain as he gazed down at her bare posterior. He would need to get a maid to fix her skirt before she went home.

Madame Coubette was still an attractive woman, but she was becoming an increasing irritant. The sensuous woman who had enchanted him a year before was fading, and a frightful shrew was replacing her.

Of course he might enjoy other women in Portugal, or wherever, but what did it have to do with her? He mentally admonished himself for allowing the married whore to feel she could be something akin to his wife. It was not wise. Should he have invited her on the trip with him? Probably not. No, definitely not, he decided. In fact, it was probably time to get rid of her.

Madame Coubette stirred and stood up, somewhat unsteadily. ‘Put this on and then go up to Elise's room and find something to wear so I can get it repaired,' he suggested, passing her the damaged skirt. ‘It is too damaged to go home in. Tell Elise you had an accident of some kind. I'm sure she'll find you something of hers to wear, and I can then get someone to mend it.'

‘I can't come to Portugal, you know that, don't you?' she said firmly, putting on and fastening the skirt. ‘And if you do go, we probably won't see each other again.'

‘I'll be back,' he said determinedly. ‘Once this madness is over, I will return.'

‘Don't make idle promises. You'll never keep them.'

‘We're living in terrible times. Times that call for sacrifices of one kind or another. I've asked you to come with me. I will already be sacrificing my home and country because I have no choice. You have a choice and it's best that you consider it well.'

‘I have given you over a year of my life. You have given me nothing in return and now you take leave of me as if I were?'

‘Just consider my predicament and consider my offer,' the count interrupted, losing his patience.

‘No,' his mistress hissed back, surprising him with her vehemence, ‘you consider my offer. You will stay here in France and there will be no more mention of leaving. If you go there will be trouble. I'll get you arrested before you leave.'

 

Genevieve still tingled all over. Though feeling shy, she felt a warm delight in her near nakedness. She felt so vulnerable and yet so free, too. She wanted Elise to touch her again, to repeat what she had just done.

But Elise was now beside the bed, holding the curtain cords. ‘Stand up,' she ordered. ‘It's time for your next lesson.'

Without thinking Genevieve obeyed again, a feeling of lightness permeating her body. Elise made her turn her back, stroked the girl's long blonde hair, and then pulled her arms behind her.

‘Lovers play games, Genevieve,' she whispered. ‘And a man's game is essentially that of power.'

Genevieve trembled a little, feeling the thick cord being wound and knotted tightly around her wrists. What was her friend up to now?

‘Wuh-what are you doing?' she asked.

‘As I said, it is time for your next lesson. A lesson in power and control.' Elise lifted the second cord. ‘Now open your mouth,' she ordered.

Partly in fear, partly in fascination, Genevieve complied and felt the cord passing over her lips and lodging between her teeth. Elise tied it behind her head, forming a gag. ‘Now get on your knees,' she commanded, pushing her to the floor.

Genevieve did as she was told, but Elise pushed her further so that her head sank forward and rested on the soft bed. She fidgeted apprehensively, a sudden panic gripping her, aware of her exposure and complete vulnerability.

‘Relax,' Elise murmured, her hand following the delicious shape of Genevieve's bottom. ‘Now, power is a man's favourite thing, and learning to submit to the whims of others is part of the lesson you must learn. Men love whores and slaves, and you must learn to become a whore and a slave if you want to win their affections.'

The hand withdrew, and then suddenly slapped Genevieve sharply on her buttocks. She swallowed the shriek of shock and pain that tried to force itself through the gag. Heat surged through her bottom as if she'd been scalded.

‘What a man's pleasures are might not always be understandable to you, but learning to enjoy them is the challenge,' Elise said, stroking Genevieve's bottom again, but just as the kneeling girl felt the pain subsiding a second swipe fizzed through the air, the slap landing on her right buttock. It scorched more than the first, sending a raging heat over the surface of her skin and resonating deeply.

Tears welled in her eyes. She pulled at the cord in vain, but along with the pain, she realised, came the pleasurable throbbing Elise's tongue had only just partially abated. Her pussy was tingling again, warming and dampening. The pain in her buttocks mingled with it, inflaming it like a fan. She spread her knees discreetly wider, preparing to receive the next slap.

A zing resounded with the slap of a taut palm against the lower curve of her buttocks, making her writhe once more. The scalding sensation spread further. Something was welling up inside amid the pain and humiliation.

Elise noted the surreptitious movement of the lovely girl's knees, and sniggered. ‘So, now the mare is hungry to be fucked,' she goaded. ‘But not yet.'

Taking Genevieve by the shoulders she lifted her so that she was once more upright on her knees. She loosened the gag so that it slipped down around her neck and stepped before the girl. Her cool hands cupped Genevieve's flushed face, and she sat on the warm spot just vacated by the kneeling girl. ‘That was the second part of today's lesson,' she told her plaything. ‘And now for the third.'

Elise brushed aside the blonde fringe from Genevieve's damp brow, and the kneeling girl gazed at Elise's taut stomach and the dark triangle of curls nestled between her parted thighs. The sitting girl rubbed the glistening lips hiding there, and without a word she slowly parted them, her fingertips locating her clitoris.

‘You have now seen the toy men have between their legs,' she said huskily, her free hand stroking Genevieve's hair. ‘This is ours, and it needs to be kissed and adored. Kiss it for me, my dear Genevieve.'

Genevieve looked up into her friend's eyes, and then down to the moist, beckoning pussy before her. She closed her eyes and moved her face tentatively to the moist lips. Nervously she ran her tongue over the damp and fragrant flesh, but instantly felt her face being pressed deeper, urged by the hands of her friend. She felt wetness spreading over her lips, nose, and cheeks. Elise moaned. ‘That's it,' she encouraged dreamily. ‘That's it.' She took Genevieve's head in her hands and guided her mouth over her clitoris. With fingers urgently entwined in Genevieve's hair she bared her pleasure button to the girl with the other hand. Genevieve tongued it obediently, conscious now of the extent of the pleasure Elise was experiencing...

A noise suddenly startled them both. Genevieve tried to withdraw, to see what was happening, but a fierce swat and intense pain erupted on her bottom once more and she yelped loudly. Tears blurred her vision. Elise had not moved, but shock was etched on her face.

‘I told you so!' Madame Coubette gloated.

‘Silence!' the count thundered, his glazed eyes giving him the countenance of a madman. ‘This is not Elise's doing,' he growled at his mistress in defence of his stepdaughter, with a display of bullish conviction he didn't actually believe. ‘It can't be.' He glared at Genevieve. ‘What on earth are you doing to my stepdaughter? Both of you will be punished tomorrow morning,' he went on to Elise before poor Genevieve could even think of a response, let alone impart one, ‘giving you time between now and then to dwell on your disgraceful behaviour. Bring her at ten o'clock sharp. You know where!'

Elise stood and hastily untied the cord around Genevieve's wrists. He watched them for a moment, and then left with Madame Coubette in his trail, who looked back at Elise and smiled...

 

 

 

Genevieve's legs were trembling as she followed Elise into the library. She had never been in there before. It was the count's preserve and out of bounds. Her eyes flitted over the book-lined walls of the austere room, alighting on a portrait hanging over the large fireplace of a beautiful dark-haired woman.

The fire was lit, and the count paced to and fro before it, his hands behind his back. To the left of the fireplace was his writing desk and chair, and to the right was a leather armchair.

Elise seemed very composed, surprising Genevieve. Perhaps there was nothing much to fear, after all.

The count turned to face them, and Elise stopped just in front of him. She stood proudly, mirroring his stance, her hands behind her back, her shoulders set proudly. Genevieve took her place beside her, and on the armchair she noticed a leather riding-crop with a loop at the tip.

The count wore no wig, and she observed his short greying hair and brown eyes, seeking some trace of compassion. But there was none to be found, his stare cold with determination.