Cressida's Dilemma (7 page)

They had come here to give themselves—to enjoy themselves beyond the realm of men. But did women really do this? Was this giving themselves up to pleasure? Without a man?

Cressida tried to recall when she had last experienced such uninhibited and carefree enjoyment. Too long ago to remember, beneath the covers of the marital bed in the warmth of her chamber as Justin’s hard body covered her own and his kisses and gentle caressing had stirred up within her the most wild and wonderful sensations.

Cressida had never been afraid of the act since her marriage night. She understood that in the dark silence, such behavior between a man and a woman was sanctioned by marriage. As a young bride, she’d tried not to cry out her pleasure. It had seemed wrong and sinful, but when she discovered that her pleasure pleased Justin, she’d relaxed, and those first few years of intimacy between herself and her adored husband were the most wonderful of her life.

Yes, for years she’d reveled in the glorious wantonness Justin had managed to stir up inside her and thrilled to the shattering climaxes that had preceded the peace and contentedness that always soothed her into sleep, Justin’s warm, loving breath on her neck.

No, it was just the consequences of the act that terrified her.

She drew in a shuddering breath, her body alive, nerve endings prickling the surface of her skin, a desperate, throbbing ache building between her legs as she remembered those halcyon days with Justin. If only she could return home tonight and offer up her body to his tender ministrations with no danger of the consequences. If only she could surrender herself to his sweet touch, enjoying to the full his expert exploration of her body as he whipped up within her the shattering sensations that stunned her with their intensity at night but which could shame her by day if she thought too much upon the fact that she, a matron with so many children, should long for bodily sensations so divorced from the realities of procreation.

She couldn’t talk of it with Justin. That was the dreadful, painful reality.

Now here she was watching two women enjoying a world full of love and beauty with no pain, no guilt, no terrible consequences. No conception, no pregnancy, no pain.

The women had not broken their kiss. Gently they swayed in time to the rhythm of the faint music, running their hands over each other’s face and body, caressing breasts and hips as if they were the most natural of gestures.

All at once the tempo changed. Alertness pulsed through Cressida as she recognized the sudden tense awareness of the women as they stepped apart, and she strained to see what was happening. The faint chanting rose to a crescendo then suddenly ceased, and from a dark corner of the room strode a man, splendidly built, she observed, as a faint light burnished his statuesque silhouette. Cressida drew in her breath in the shadows, surprised and a little ashamed at her own response to the muscled physique and confident bearing of someone seemingly so splendid. Her hands felt clammy and the back of her neck prickled, but she was thinking of Justin and how she would feel if it were he advancing toward her.

The awe and admiration of her companions was similar as the four drew together, arms linked as they gazed at this being who seemed to command such power.

The haze cleared a little, both in Cressida’s mind and in the room, though her head still swam with a sense of unreality. One of the women—Minna, she saw—broke away and disappeared into the shadows, returning to place three lighted candles on either side of what Cressida now saw was a large bed in the center of the room, adorned with carved wooden posts and sheets of crisp, white linen. The man stood behind this on a raised dais and he beckoned to the women.

“I have returned.” His voice was low and mellifluous, and as Cressida strained to see more, she recognized him as the man who’d frightened her in the corridor. Ariane’s husband.

“Yes… Come to us at last.” Ariane sounded breathless and her face was shining as she pushed back her flowing golden hair. She made her way toward him, climbing what Cressida assumed must be a set of stairs hidden behind the bed, and the stranger caught her to his muscled chest, sliding one hand up behind her neck, the other slowly caressing the contours of her body. With a soft groan, Ariane went slack, and he whisked her up into his arms and placed his mouth upon hers.

“I offer myself up to your pleasure,” whispered the red-haired siren, and she moved forward and up the stairs, kneeling to kiss his feet, her hands twining up the thick muscles of his legs.

Cressida remained rooted to the spot in shocked fascination. What was happening? The man was kissing Ariane while the other beauty was kissing his feet. No! Shock galvanized Cressida. This must be a dream. A lust-crazed dream for—Good God—the haze was clearing, and for the first time, Cressida saw that this man was completely naked, and that while he was kissing Ariane, Persephone was kissing his feet, his ankles, the backs of his knees.

Gently the man placed Ariane upon the mattress before him, rising in tandem with Persephone, locked in a swaying embrace as she twined her arms about his neck, nuzzling his earlobe while Ariane began her own slow progress of pleasuring her husband from his feet upward.

Cressida glanced at the door. She should not be here, witnessing such a sight. The fog in her brain was clearing, highlighting the wrongness of being in the midst of a scene of such a sexual nature.

She took a step beyond her hiding place, turning at Ariane’s gasp, and gasping herself to see that this magnificent creature, wearing not a stitch of clothing, was no longer like the several sculptures of naked men with which she was familiar.

No, while Ariane swept her hands all over him in a manner beyond Cressida’s imaginings, her expert tongue flicking against the backs of his knees, his body was behaving in a way which Cressida had never observed with her own eyes, though she’d been aware of the changes in her own husband during the prelude to their coupling.

Shocked and fascinated, she stared at his swollen member, which had seemingly a life of its own as Persephone kissed his mouth and Ariane rose to her knees, kissing higher…

And higher…

The pleasure haze dissipated further. Cressida could not move, fascinated and horrified in equal measure as she watched Ariane gently cup the pouches beneath her husband’s rampant manhood.

No, she’d never seen a man naked. Not in eight years of marriage. She’d been gently pleasured in Justin’s warm, secure embrace, but always in darkness. She’d never seen her husband clad in less than his nightshirt or banyan.

The pupils of the magnificent creature in the middle of the bed dilated, and he threw back his head as Ariane, with calculated care, put her mouth to his engorged member and slowly circled it with her tongue.

So apparent was his rapture that Cressida felt her own body pulse with sensation, despite her shock.

She put her hands to her face to cover her gasp.

No one seemed to register her. All eyes were on the scene in the center of the bed—eyes greedy, lascivious, wanting…

Cressida cast her gaze around the dim room, her terror growing. This was not a sight for a gently reared woman like herself. She had to escape.

In the gloom, she thought she recognized the door through which she’d come and stumbled toward it, turning as the man groaned his pleasure.

A final glance at his glazed eyes made plain that he was enslaved by this extraordinary act.

Cressida turned the doorknob and staggered into the corridor, gasping for air. She had spied on a naked man in the throes of passion when she had had no right to. What had she done? Her recent fascination now seemed nothing more than wicked prurience.

She was going to be ill, she knew it. Panting, sweating, she sought desperately for the privy, which, to her relief, was pointed out to her by a motherly looking woman dressed in cerulean silk.

When Cressida returned weakly to the passage a few minutes later, her savior was waiting for her, a look of sympathetic concern upon her face.

“My dear, let me take you somewhere private where you can compose yourself.”

The kindness of the woman’s expression, and her thoughtfulness—so different from what she’d expected to find in a place like this—made Cressida want to burst into tears.

With a grateful nod, she allowed herself to be led into a small, private sitting room at the back of the house, where she was gently pushed down onto an Egyptian sofa. When she looked up, the woman was proffering a handkerchief dipped in Cressida’s favorite lavender water.

“My dear, I think you are out of your depth,” murmured the woman as Cressida cooled her forehead and dabbed the corners of her trembling mouth. “Shall I order a carriage to take you home?”

Go home?
Cressida shook her head. How could she go home in this state? She was shaking like a leaf, her mind roiling with images of the naked man she’d just seen and the ecstasy he’d clearly experienced at the hands of… What was Ariane? A woman of the night? Yet she claimed she was this man’s wife. Did that mean that what they shared was sanctioned by the church? Surely not? Ariane had said she was ‘just like her’. Like Cressida, hinting they both were married women sharing a private sadness. No, Cressida had nothing in common with Ariane, and the sooner she was out of this place the better.

“I think you need to take a few deep breaths,” said the woman. “It will make you feel much better.” Her smile took years off her age, her twinkling brown eyes suggesting a surprising depth of insight and intelligence for a woman who lived in such a depraved setting as this.

Cressida covered her face and rocked as images of beautiful maidens kissing each other and magnificently muscled men with rampant members chased around her brain.

Her remembered excitement and the dampness at the juncture of her legs made her whimper with guilt.

What had she done? What would Justin think if he knew she’d witnessed such a tableau and…that she’d been excited by it? He’d never look at her the same way. Never touch her…

Enough presence of mind remained for Cressida to understand the irony of such a fear. The way she was conducting herself in this marriage, Justin never
was
going to touch her.

She had to take matters into her own hands.
But how?
“I think, my dear, you did not understand what it meant for you to come to such a place.”Cressida opened her eyes and found she was staring directly at a pair of once-elegant dancing slippers beneath a cerulean skirt.Taking in the faded elegance of the woman’s dress, the gray in her jet-black hair and the sympathy of her expression, she questioned her original assumption of this woman’s calling. After all, Cressida was here, in this house, and
she
wasn’t a…

A what? Her heart seemed to thud to her feet and she looked down.

After what she’d participated in, she didn’t know what she was. She put her hands to her mouth to stifle her wail as she raised her eyes once more to the woman’s kind face.

“Who are you—?” she began before halting at the rudeness of such blunt questioning.

“A friend of Mrs. Plumb’s—you may call me Miss Mariah—and this is my drawing room, where you are welcome to remain for as long as you need to.” The woman rose and came toward her, placing a gentle hand upon Cressida’s shoulder. The sensation that swept over Cressida was completely different to her reaction to Mrs. Plumb. Everything about this woman was motherly. Unthreatening.

“Now, perhaps a little medicinal brandy?” Miss Mariah suggested, moving to a small table by a bookshelf. “You’re shaking like a leaf, and it’ll be an aid to unburdening yourself of your troubles, if nothing else. You would not be in this house with such a look in your eyes if you were free of fear or troubles.”

“Thank you,” Cressida managed through chattering teeth as she accepted a glass. Miss Mariah was right. She was out of her depth, amongst a sophisticated, worldly,
depraved
crowd—with whom she had nothing in common. In this cheaply decorated house of ill repute, witty conversation and good music were enjoyed and physical attractions acted upon through discreet assignations.

Oh, dear Lord. A fresh tremor of guilt shook her as she was revisited by the sensations that had gripped her when she’d watched the four lovely women. Envy. Envy that they could enjoy gentle loving without fear of the repercussions. But worse was her reaction when she’d watched Ariane pleasure the man on the bed. She’d been speared with excitement and, yes, lust as she’d gazed upon the scene and registered the pleasure with which he received Ariane’s ministrations.

Was it possible such things happened in the intimacy of the marital bedroom, too? Justin had never indicated in all their private moments together that there was anything missing in their relations. That there might be more and different acts of pleasure beyond the enjoyable, predictable buildup of sensation she felt prior to his plunging into her.

Planting his seed and leaving her with the consequences.She gasped.
Where had such a wicked, disloyal thought come from?
Her companion touched her cheek and, dazed, Cressida looked up into her compassionate eyes.“Guilt will not help.” Miss Mariah’s look was knowing. “When a woman like you comes to this house, she usually has a good reason.”Cressida thought of all the other people who’d come to this house.People driven here by their lustful, depraved impulses to find release in sinful pleasures of the flesh. Driven here through…With devastating clarity, truth limned the conclusion of her observation.
Driven here through desperation, when the domestic arena failed to satisfy.

She gasped on a sob.

Was it any surprise Justin had felt the need to stray? What pleasures did his wife offer him since she had denied him her body? She’d even stopped being affectionate except in the company of the children, too afraid her overtures may lead to the bedroom.

Cressida was dimly conscious of the clink of glass before a second measure of brandy was placed into her hands. “Would you like to tell me about it?” the woman asked. “Are you looking for someone?”

How quickly the tears flowed. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, Cressida cursed her frail nerves. The past few months seemed to see her lurch from one emotional episode to another.