One Week in the Private House (13 page)

All thoughts of investigating the Private House had, for the moment, fled; her mind was occupied with the sensations of Asmita's snub little nose nestling into the cleft between her arse-cheeks, and Asmita's tongue darting in and out of her lower mouth. Lucy shivered, and ran her hands up her stomach to cup the hard mounds of her tits. She tossed her head, and suddenly caught sight of the naked man sitting in the corner. His eyes were bright and owlish behind his spectacles, and his hands were gripping his vertical member. Lucy frowned, but Asmita's tongue had parted her inner lips, and Lucy suddenly didn't care who was watching. She rolled her arse and then leant forward to press her clitoris against Asmita's pearly lower teeth. The Asian girl produced a muffled moan.

'What's that, Asmita my sweet?' Lucy said, her fingers rolling the girl's large, dark aureoles from side to side. 'You'd like me to squeeze your nipples? Of course I will. Harder than that? Oh yes, with pleasure, my darling .. • Just don't stop licking . . . Yes . . . Just there ... I think I'm going to come . . .'

When Lucy opened her eyes, the man had gone. Reluctantly, she lifted herself from Asmita's face. She knelt beside the table and started to undo the strap around the girl's shoulders, all the time tenderly licking her salty juice from the smiling features she so dearly loved, i'd like to ride your face all day,' she whispered, 'but then you'd never be able to answer any questions. This is the strangest health club I've ever been to. You must tell me what's going on here, my little brown darling.'

Asmita raised her freed arms and hugged Lucy, flattening the blonde's soft breasts against her own smaller cones. 'I can't tell you anything about the Private House, Lucy. Really I can't. But I will tell you one small secret. I'll whisper it: there is someone else here who is perhaps on your side.'

'What do you mean? Who?'

'Another guest. She arrived this morning. Like you, she seems, I don't know, a bit different from the usual guests. And she's asking a lot of questions.'

Lucy's thoughts whirled. Who could this be? Another police officer? Was there an official investigation going on? Was that why the Chief Inspector had tried to persuade her not to come here? Or was this a private detective? Whoever she was, this woman might be an ally. 'What's her name, Asmita dearest?'

'I don't know. But you'll like her. She's very pretty! Maybe I shouldn't have told you.'

'Never fear, my little dark angel. She couldn't replace you. But what does she look like?'

'She's very slim, with dark eyes and dark curly hair. She looks like a sort of petite gypsy. About your age, I suppose. You'll be able to spot her. She's the only new guest who's arrived today.'

'Thank you, Asmita. You're wonderful. Will you get into trouble for telling me about her?'

The Asian girl glanced from side to side, as if there might be eavesdroppers behind the furniture. 'Oh no,' she said, 'I don't think so.' And she gave a secretive smile.

The oak-panelled corridors were almost deserted. Jem glanced through the few open doorways, and occasionally disturbed servants at their chores: folding linen, polishing furniture, carrying trays of drinks. Each maid bobbed a curtsey, and each manservant bowed. Seems I'm a VIP, Jem said to herself; and then she saw a face she recognised.

The previous evening, at the banquet, Jem had noticed a hawk-nosed, patrician-looking gentleman sitting a few seats distant from her at the high table. Then he had been wearing the frockcoat and lace cuffs of a Restoration dandy, and with an aloof manner he had required several of the waiters and waitresses to service his rampant desires; now he wore nothing but a dirty apron, and he kept his gaze downcast as Jem strode towards him. He cringed as Jem halted in front of him, and he answered her questions in a quiet and respectful voice.

'Yes, Ma'am, I was at table with you last night. Yesterday a nobleman, today a servant. That's how it is in the Private House. How are the mighty fallen, one might say. And who am I to question the Master's whim?'

'What did you do to incur the Master's displeasure?' Jem asked, realising as she did so that she was beginning to ape the archaic language that the servants, in particular, seemed to use.

'Nothing, Ma'am, of which I am aware. But I had enjoyed the privileges of a guest for many months. Perhaps it was time for a change.'

'Does everyone change places, then, from time to time?'

'Everyone except the Master, Ma'am. I used to be the Chief Systems Engineer; I installed the new .stock control and accounting software at the control complex.' A note of pride had crept into his voice.

'The buildings on the far side of the airstrip? The warehouses and offices?'

'Exactly so, Ma'am. Forgive me for speaking of
such
things in the House. And now - now I'm in charge of polishing the silverware-.' A worried frown creased his forehead. have no complaint, Ma'am; I mean no disrespect.'

'Don't worry, chum. I get more of a buzz from software than silverware myself. But you mean I could get you into trouble, talking to you about this stuff?'

The man scanned the ceiling beams with his deep-set eyes. 'Not here, Ma'am: I know the location of all the microphones that were on the system when I did some work on the Security computer, and the nearest is in yonder candelabrum. I don't think any more have been planted since then. So unless you intend to report me to Security .. .'

'Not right now.'

'Thank you, Ma'am. It has already been a trying morning. Several of my former rivals, having been informed of my diminished state, have already summoned me to their rooms and have exacted their particular forms of revenge.' He turned away from Jem. His naked back was streaked with lash-marks; his buttocks were fiery red; and a thick metal shaft, held in place by three tight chains, protruded from between his arse-cheeks.

He turned back and gave Jem a twisted smile. 'My services have already been called on several times this morning, Ma'am, but if there is anything I can do for you ...' He gestured towards the front of his apron, which was beginning to rise upward. 'As you can see, it is difficult to resist the charms of so beautiful a Mistress.'

'What's your name, chum?'

'Sebastian, Ma'am.'

i like you, Sebastian. Let's talk again - if you can show me another place with a microphone deficiency.'

'I'll be happy to oblige. Ma'am. Might I suggest . . .'

'Suggest away, Sebastian.'

The servant's voice dropped to a murmur. 'I suggest, Jem of the sea-blue eyes, that we'd have fun fucking each other senseless even if we weren't in this crazy establishment, but,' he resumed his deferential tone, 'on a more practical note, if you want to see the estate you'll need a vehicle. The Master's fleet is parked in the north courtyard, between the west wing and the old castle wall. Through the door on the right at the end of the corridor, Ma'am.'

'Why, thank you, Sebastian - for both of those lovely suggestions.' Jem stretched up to place a kiss on his nose, and marched off to find a' car.

It was only when she reached the courtyard that Jem began to appreciate the size and antiquity of the Private House. The cobbled yard was as wide as a football pitch, but nonetheless gloomy because buildings surrounded it on three sides. Jem zipped up her leather jacket. Behind her the west wing of the House rose in a confusion of galleries and gables that indicated the many styles and stages of building that the House had undergone over the centuries; from the westernmost corner of the edifice a high brick wall encrusted with outbuildings stretched away for about a hundred metres. To Jem's right the courtyard narrowed almost to a point; but where the apex of the angle should have been there was instead a section of curved wall with a heavy door set into it. Looking up, Jem saw that the curved wall was a small part of the massive circumference of the Round Tower.

She gazed in awe at the huge cylinder of stone. It dominated the courtyard; it was twice as tall as the rooftops of the west wing of the House. It was the biggest castle tower Jem had ever seen.

Half-way up the sheer column she saw mullioned windows like the one in her bedchamber. My room is on the other side, she thought, but it must be on the same level as those windows, because from my room I can see southwards across the rooftops of the House. How many floors are there below mine? The Great Hall takes up most of one level, immediately below mine; then what? A ground floor, maybe a crypt, too? And above my floor: another two storeys, and then the battlements? I guess that's Headman's private quarters. He sure lives in one hell of a phallic symbol!

Opposite Jem, more sheds and single-storey structures clung to a decrepit wall that ran westwards from the Round Tower and ended, about fifty metres away, at a smaller, ruined tower. Jem realised that she was looking at part of the curtain wall of a medieval fortress.

The ruined tower marked the end of the courtyard: beyond it a tarmac track humped over a small bridge and ran parallel to the tall brick wall, forking into two roads as it ran out of the wall's shadow and into the sunshine.

Well, I'd like to know what goes on within the old castle walls, Jem thought; but I'll save it for later. For now, let's go cruising in one of these buggies.

The courtyard was a museum of ancient motor vehicles. Jem finally chose a little black roadster with wire wheels and a soft top: an MG TC, looking only a little less immaculate than when it had been first driven in 1946. Jem turned the ignition key, pulled out the choke and twisted the starter; to her surprise, the engine caught first time, and with a grin she hauled on the wooden steering wheel and pointed the long bonnet towards the sunlight at the end of the courtyard.

Now this is what I call motoring, Jem yelled into the wind as the little car bounced over the bridge that crossed a sluggish stream; the roar of the engine, the breeze in my hair, and the cool roughness of well-used leather upholstery pressing against my bare bottom.

The car sped out into summer sunshine, and Jem braked and turned left at the fork in the road. To her left, the high brick wall continued southwards; she guessed that it enclosed the formal gardens she had seen from her window. Between the wall and the road a wilderness garden sloped down to a distant shimmering lake. To Jem's right was dense woodland.

Within seconds Jem had reached another fork in the road. The MG screeched to a stop. The left-hand track zig-zagged downhill, southwards to the far side of the lake and the meadows beyond it; the right-hand track went westwards, into the woods, along the ridge that overlooked the low-lying farmlands, and towards two isolated towers. Jem spent a few minutes trying to memorise the lay-out of the panorama, and marvelling at the extent of Headman's estate; then she turned right.

With no plan in mind other than to look around Headman's domain, Jem drove towards the first building she saw: she glimpsed chimneys through the tree-tops, and swung the car up the gravelled track that ran between the trees. 
^A

In a clearing in the woods, the track widened into a square courtyard enclosed on three sides by brick buildings. Jem parked the MG between an Austin Seven and a lime-green coach from the 1950s.

The two side buildings were long and low, with regularly, spaced sash windows; they were connected by a larger, two storey structure in the same style but with three open doorways in the facade and a belfry on the roof. The buildings reminded Jem of something, an old-fashioned hospital, perhaps, but when she walked towards the central structure she saw the signs engraved on the stone lintels of the doorways, and she knew where she was. Above the central doorway was the word
STAFF.
; the two smaller doorways were labelled
BO YS
and
GIRLS.
Back to schooldays, Jem thought as she skipped up the steps and into the staff entrance.

Floor polish and chalk dust. I didn't even attend a school like this, Jem thought; those smells must be part of the collective unconscious. She crossed the lobby, pushed open the double doors, and peered into a long corridor. Polished parquet, cream-painted walls, dust motes in the sunlight, indistinct and distinct voices, a bluebottle buzzing at one of the windows - it was a perfect replica of a small grammar school. She turned back and noticed the brass plaque on the other door that led from the lobby:
NO ADMITTANCE. STAFF ONLY.
Jem hated to be told where not to go. She opened the door.

At
the
top
of a flight of stairs Jem opened another door and found herself in a room full of recording
equipment. A
young man in Security leathers was staring at an array of video screens.
As
Jem's heels clicked on the
floorboards he
swivelled his chair
to
face her. His hands were
clenched
round a massive erection.

'What the blazes are you doing up here?' he hissed. 'This is a restricted - Oh. I'm sorry. You're, um - You're the Master's . . .'

He was a pretty, dark-haired young man, with a slim body and full red lips. Jem walked up to him and held
out
her hand. 'Call me Jem,' she said. 'Whatever you're
watch
ing, it must be pretty good.'

The man took his right hand from the tip of his penis, hesitated, grinned, and offered it to Jem. 'I'm Dave,' he said, his left hand blatantly caressing his hard shaft as Jem shook his right and then raised it to her lips. 'There's only one lesson today, in Room Six. I'm taping it.'