The Red Collection (8 page)

Propelled by his strong arm, the door swings smoothly open, and as he steps back to let me pass, I swear he winks at me. A second later, his face is a picture of innocence.

Oh, but my Cicero is a prime specimen!

My tall dark companion is the perfect body servant. He has the face of an angel, he keeps himself in supreme condition and he knows what I want before I know it myself. Hiding a smile, I congratulate myself for having selected him. It helps, of course, when one’s mother is the Matriarch of all the Islands, and one always gets first pick of the annual crop up from the farms.

My heavy-figured satin skirts swish around my thighs and bottom as I sweep into the room, and I imagine Cicero, behind me, dreaming of what’s beneath them. He’s
as
familiar with my nether regions as he is with his own, even if it’s not really his place to lust after them without my permission. His daily duties include washing every part of me, anointing my body with oils and perfumes and then dressing me from the skin outwards. And as he’s a man, my sex must be ever in his thoughts even if tradition decrees it’s not supposed to be …

The Entertainment Room appears small and intimate, the walls hung with rich tapestries, the lighting warm, the air perfumed with aphrodisiac spices. On the ceiling there’s a painted fresco of muscular males toiling naked in a field, their sweating flesh so realistic that one can almost feel the heat of it. Several of my fellow mistresses are already here, lounging on their couches, their body servants just inches away and, as ever, I wonder just who it was who originally decreed that entertainments like this are to be part of public domain. I’ve asked my mother more than once, and she says she doesn’t know either. But it’s tradition, and the Matriarchy is big on tradition.

Cicero helps me on to my velvet-upholstered couch, and then decorously arranges my many-layered skirts across my knees and ankles. I say decorously, but in the process he manages to touch me several times, his fingers hot but gentle on my bare skin. With each contact a surge of delicious power arrows upwards and sets a light between my thighs.

Carefully schooling my rising excitement, I affect the same mask of boredom and ennui as the other mistresses. And that’s another thing. When did it become the fashion, then the custom, to find coupling with a strong and well-set-up male tedious? I know it’s a tradition, but to me it seems a delightful one. Is there something wrong with me that I still look forward to a tumble?

But just look at them …

Mistress Layla and her Liam.

Mistress Tanya and her Timon.

Mistress Rosa and her Ryan.

They all look weary and as if they were being seriously inconvenienced. Anyone would think this was a council meeting about the trading figures for meat or metals or wheat, and yet for me the sexual tension makes my loins tingle. As I attempt to settle myself more comfortably, Cicero readjusts my skirts. Other mistresses continue to file in and take their places, and all the while he’s caressing my skin with slow light touches.

The last of our number to arrive is Mistress Jenna and her body servant James and, leaning towards him, I sigh for Cicero’s ears only. He makes a show of fussing with my hem and gives my calf a delicate squeeze of reassurance.

Hopefully their performance today will be better than usual. I don’t hold out much hope, but perhaps we’ll all be pleasantly surprised by some original thinking.

Jenna is beautiful, tall and blonde and willowy, imperiously dramatic in a royal-blue gown – but of all of us she has the least enthusiasm for these proceedings. Her James has an excellent body and very fine genitalia, but I always feel that his mistress never really shows him off to his best advantage. Their performances lack ‘spark’ and originality somehow, even though the sight of any kind of sexual congress always stirs me.

‘Good evening, Cerise, how are you?’ Jenna’s voice is brittle as she catches my eye. Have I revealed my low opinion of her in my expression? Or perhaps she detects my wish that either she, or someone else, would show some daring?

‘I’m very well, thank you, my friend,’ I reply, giving her a
bright
smile, ‘and looking forward to your pleasure. James is looking in particularly fine fettle today.’

‘Which he is, as ever.’ Her tone is curt and defensive and she gives me a narrow look, her eyes flicking enviously to Cicero at my side. My man is the acknowledged prize amongst the body servants in our assembly. ‘Your Cicero is looking well too. Has he put on a little weight?’

Aha, trying to belittle my beloved stallion!

‘Why, yes indeed he has. He’s been following a new exercise routine, a most rigorous one. Designed to increase muscle mass and stamina.’

She makes a harrumphing noise. Score a point to me.

‘Attend me,’ she snaps to James, who hurries forwards.

He removes his clothes, which naturally aren’t many. First he kicks off his boots, and then he unbuckles his trousers. A second later, he’s stepping out of them, nude, but for his collar of servitude.

His penis rears up eagerly, ready to perform, and I eye it critically, ever the connoisseur.

He’s big, but not as big as my Cicero. Not one of the body servants around this circle possesses either his length or his girth. But that doesn’t prevent me appreciating the charms of other males. Especially when that male takes his meat in his fist and begins to work it to a sturdier, stiffer erection with considerable enthusiasm. Perhaps we’re going to see something special after all?

‘Hurry up! Don’t take all day!’ instructs Jenna, leaning back on her couch, making no effort to hide the fact that she wants this to be over quickly. What a spoilsport! Me, I’d much rather see an extended performance. Something that’s wild and energetic and sweaty. Something that’s intricate, luscious and unusual. For a moment, I take my eyes from the
couple
before me and glance at the real man who’s standing so close to me that his leather-clad thigh is actually pressed tight against my bare ankle where my gown has slid aside. He’s dutifully staring at his polished boot toes as decorum decrees, but as if he’s sensed my scrutiny, he turns, ever so slightly, and catches my eye.

There’s the faintest superior smile upon his sculpted lips.

You devil! I think.

The rules of our society say that it’s not his place to judge a mistress or even her servant, but Cicero is ever the uncommon one, and not just in the physical perfection of his body. Only he and I know how much he breaks the mould.

His erection brought to full stand, James reaches reverently for his lady’s gown and folds it neatly out of the way. Beneath it, her loins are clad in an elaborate undergarment of ruched lace and silk and Jenna tuts and sighs, rolling her eyes in exasperation as her man removes it. His movements are deft enough, but she finds fault all the same. When her underwear is removed and set aside, she appears, to my eyes, completely unaroused – despite the presence of a fully erect male member barely inches away from her niche.

Indolently, Jenna nods, and James moves obediently to help her into position – adjusting her hips, parting her thighs and then slipping his hand between them.

He rubs. He fondles. He fiddles. And yet still she seems disinterested.

‘Use the lotion,’ she instructs, sighing again and taking a long swig from the glass of wine at her side.

I glance again at Cicero, and there’s still that little smirk playing around his generous red lips. He never has to use the lotion on me.

‘May I pour you some wine, mistress?’ he asks softly, as a
distractionary
tactic. It wouldn’t do for my fellow mistresses to get wind of his secret insubordination.

Or would it?

A tantalising idea forms in my mind. Something so outrageous that it whips through my imagination like a forest fire, so vivid that I fancy Cicero himself might be able to see it. As he pours a measure of ruby wine into my goblet and hands it to me, his great head cocks on one side a little, and his brown eyes twinkle. Out of sight of the other mistresses, an expression of pure devilment and wonder flashes across his handsome features.

Do we dare, he seems to say, and in answer I nod. The wine suddenly tastes twice as sweet as I sip and scheme.

Meanwhile back at Jenna and James, the blond man is coating his fingers with the rich scented herb-laden lotion, preparing to anoint her diffident flesh with it. Huffing and puffing, she hitches her bottom along the couch, every action exhibiting impatience and boredom.

Oh, poor Jenna, I think suddenly, feeling pity.

To give James credit, he applies himself with unstinting diligence. Gently massaging, circling, flicking. Jenna’s lips tighten as if she’s actually resisting the sensations he’s seeking to induce, but I can barely keep my pelvis still, imagining I’m being fondled in her place.

I lounge back further on my couch, tweaking and fluffing at my skirts as a cover for the fact that I’m pressing my calf against Cicero’s magnificent leather-clad haunches. Through narrowed eyes, I study his hands, clasped loosely behind his back, and imagine those fabulous fingers playing my sex.

He’s a virtuoso with those divine digits of his, instinctively seeking out the most responsive and fugitive of sensitivity zones. Pressure. Speed. Angle. He employs subtle variations
of
all, divinely orchestrated. Even while James perseveres with his unresponsive mistress, my own sex quickens and trembles, just at the thought of the same caress at Cicero’s hand.

I glance around at the other mistresses. A little interest is beginning to stir in some of them, I can tell. Which makes me wonder whether I’m quite so different after all? Who knows what goes in the secret privacy of all their residences?

Perhaps Jenna is the only one of us who finds coupling a bore?

And even she is beginning to stir now, thanks to the industrious James. Her narrow hips are shifting now, hitching to and fro on her couch.

‘Mount me, you fool!’ she cries suddenly. ‘I’m ready now!’

So am I, I murmur in silence, aiming my words at the back of Cicero’s strong, dark head.

James obeys. And we all gasp when he takes her firmly by the hips and pulls her into position. Precious little deference now, and only the most cursory mumbled words to ask permission. He almost shoves her on to his penis, and thrusts in hard.

Well done, lad! I want to shout. Well done!

Jenna’s eyes fly wide open, staring, but for once she doesn’t protest.

As James thrusts, and his pale buttocks clench and tense, all eyes around the circle are on those flexing muscles. I bite my lips as Cicero secretly takes advantage. His warm hand is higher on my leg now, under cover of my many layers of flounced and silken skirts. The tips of his fingers are fire against my skin.

As James labours on, and Jenna slowly and almost painfully rises to meet him, my own sex gathers and moistens,
excitement
fizzing. I press myself against the slow, hot pressure of Cicero’s fingertips, surreptitiously adjusting my position to coax him further.

If only it was our turn. If only we could flee the Chamber, be alone … and be ourselves.

Eventually a high, clear and strangely abandoned cry signals Jenna’s crisis and, despite my excitement, I feel a sense of relief for James. He has despatched his duties, and is now free to relax and take his own pleasure. Jenna kicks him away from her, and he retreats, his moist and reddened member swinging before him. He snatches a cloth from the adjoining console, retreats behind the couch and ejaculates into it.

Cicero catches my eye. His broad handsome face is troubled, and I understand how he feels for his fellow servant’s lack of dignity.

That will never happen to you, I tell him without speaking. I will never demean you that way, no matter what the others think or whatever rules and tradition decree. Anything that happens to you will be your choice. I don’t know how, but I know he hears my silent pledge.

If Jenna were not so arrogant, I would say she looked shamefaced now, and she snaps and fusses as James attends to her, cleaning her crotch and straightening her clothing. She glances around, looking for someone else to begin a coupling and take the limelight.

I smile at Cicero, and he smiles back.

Let’s play, he seems to say. Let’s really show them.

With great deliberation, he nudges my elbow and what’s left of my wine spills on my dress.

‘Oh, Cicero, what have you done?’ I cry. ‘It’s not like you to be so careless or so clumsy.’

‘Forgive me, mistress,’ he murmurs, falling to his knees, his dark head bent as he takes one of the cloths on our console to blot my clothing.

In a show of fussing worthy of Jenna herself, I primp and prink at my gown, tutting over the damp fabric. ‘This is one of my favourite gowns, Cicero,’ I say, mock stern. Well, at least he and I know the sternness is feigned. The others around the circle don’t seem to see anything amiss, other than a mistress who has been let down by her man.

‘I’m sorry, mistress,’ he intones solemnly, head still bent. I wonder if the rest of the mistresses can detect the minute shaking of his shoulders which indicates that he’s fighting to suppress his laughter. ‘Please let me atone for my clumsiness. Please punish me, if it pleases you. I am at your disposal.’

A gasp goes up around the circle. Nobody admits to corporal punishment, but there are always whispers. Whispers of spankings and beatings – and the dark pleasure that overtakes the mistresses who inflict them.

‘I think I may have to take you in hand, Cicero. You’ve been lax in your attentions, and you’ve displeased me,’ I lie. This man has never ever disappointed or displeased me. I doubt if he could let me down if he tried.

‘If it is your will, mistress,’ he murmurs, bowing lower, pressing his noble brow against the carpet.

‘It is my will,’ I reply. ‘Get up. Strip off your clothes. And give me your belt.’

Light and elegant, despite his great height and his massive muscles, Cicero rises. Within moments, he’s naked … and so magnificent it makes my heart ache. His body looks as if it’s cast from bronze and polished with silk; the plains of his chest and belly are ridged with sculpted muscle. His penis, though not erect yet, is a heavy swelling promise. Lowering
his
head reverently again, he hands me his thick leather belt.