Pandora's Hideaway Page 2

  “What magazines?”

  “Sid’s.”

  Albert laughed—if she guessed correctly—a little nervously. “Sid’s into all kinds of porn.”

  “You think bondage is porn?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I just don’t really understand all the leather and chains.”

  “Creepy, aren’t they?”

  “We could always try scarves?”

  “Humm, maybe, I was just curious if you’d do it.”

  He laughed, rolling over on Muriel’s cooling body, “I’d do anything you want. You know that?”

  Yes, she did.

  Chapter Two

  The long night in the fussy, pink, doll-covered room moved endlessly by, clock ticking slowly toward the morning hour. Mariel could hear the old-fashioned timepiece across the room, though she couldn’t see its face. How many hours past, how many left to go remained a mystery.

  Her thoughts were clouded, locked in the enigma of the massive summer house, the antiquated feeling that she was turning back years, that she’d wake up in another world with servants bustling about in long skirts and white, starched aprons—serving tea on silver platters. While her mind was ruminating on past scenes, her body ruminated on the eroticism that swirled about it, unbidden and strange. Hadn’t fucking Albert been enough to squelch her inner turmoil—a least until another day dawned? Apparently not.

  Her crotch was beating for something unknown, tearing itself apart with lust… sometimes seeking out reprehensible fantasies… Jack was in the room next door, breathing, sleeping, settled in until morning. She could hear him through the walls, but not with her ears, something else seemed to fixate on the fact of him in this house, and so very close to her while she was trying to sleep. Sleeping close to scoundrels seemed dangerous.

  As the clock ticked, she tossed inside the pink sheets fretfully.

  A turn of the knob, the creak of the old hinges, a gust of cool air… then Albert’s hand suddenly across her mouth, silencing her surprised squawk.

  “Shhhh… come with me,” he whispered, “but very quietly.”

  Silently moving through the dark, through the back corridors of the house, to a door, a staircase, and then another door one flight up, Mariel followed on tiptoe.

  “It’s the attic,” he whispered, as if that wasn’t obvious.

  “Albert, what are you doing?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Neither could I. But why are we here?”

  He didn’t answer, but moved through shadows illuminated by moonlight filtering through clouds, through the dusty windows and the blackness of the room.

  Lighting a candle, Albert held it high, dispelling the last of this room’s obscure aspect.

  “Look,” he pointed to a wall embedded with rusty eyebolts from which dangled frayed rope and deteriorating pieces of leather.

  “What’s that supposed to be?”

  He smiled, raised his eyebrows playfully and crept closer to the wall. “You got me thinking,” he said, “about the secrets in our summer attic.”

  “This?”

  “What do you think?” he said, as he fingered the end of the rope.

  “I haven’t a clue,” she shook her head, still too groggy to understand what her fiancé was trying to tell her.

  “Don’t you suppose it could be a rendezvous for kinky lovers—forerunners to the leather scene?”

  “Oh, Albert, I think you’re taking this too seriously. Is this what you wonder about when you can’t get to sleep?”

  “You inspired my thoughts, Mariel. You said you wanted to be bound with scarves. I know it seems as if I’m stretching, but there’s more.” Albert squatted down, fiddling with the boards beneath his feet, finally popping one free and pulling from inside a hidden compartment, a dust-covered tin box. “Just where we left them,” he smiled, as though he just unearthed buried treasure. He blew the dust away with his breath, then spoke in whispers as if the rest of the house could hear him if he spoke too loudly. “Jack and I found this when we were kids.” He opened the lid as Mariel moved closer. She’d shaken off even the hint of sleep, and her interest was as piqued as Albert’s seem to be. “Have you ever seen anything like these?” He handed her several old photographs. Sepia colored and ragged along their edges, the images rendered on paper were clear—and astounding. In the first, a voluptuous woman with long, blonde braids was bound to this very attic wall with ropes circling her wrists. She was looking back over her shoulder at the photographer, with a look of innocence and fear visible in her expression. Though she was dressed in white, what seemed to be a silk nightgown, the contours of her generous breasts, her rounded ass and her hefty succulent thighs were quite visible.

  “Oh, my word,” Mariel gasped. Moving to the second snapshot, her eyes widened even more. In this one, the same woman was naked, facing forward, her breasts bound with ropes crisscrossing her torso, digging into her pasty, white flesh. Her legs were spread apart, and her arms were fastened to the wall above her. Eyes closed, head slightly cocked to the side, there seemed to be no fear in her expression, but a look of complete bliss. The third and last of the photographs was of a different woman, with much darker hair and a slimmer body—though she was still a voluptuous beauty with heavy breasts and wide hips, all fashioned into a lovely hourglass shape. She wore a boned corset that pinched her waist, and stockings attached to garters. And while her breasts were amply covered, her Venus mound, covered with a wild growth of dark hair, was completely exposed and oddly tethered to a rope. “My little mare,” was written across the bottom of the picture.

  “I think her genitals are pierced,” Albert said, shocking himself with the idea.

  “You’re kidding?” Mariel replied, as she squinted to see inside the hidden recesses of the woman’s body.

  “Look at the back of the picture,” he said.

  On the underside of the photograph, there was taped a thick silver ring the size of a half dollar.

  “You think she wore this through her cunt?”

  “Jack and I inspected the photograph with a magnifying glass. I’ll bet you’d see the same thing we did.”

  “Who are these women?”

  “I think they were my great grandfather’s mistresses. There’s also a letter.”

  “Oh?” She took it from his anxious, excited hand. “I don’t have my reading glasses,” she reminded him.

  He glanced down disappointed, “Then I’ll read it to you.”

  Her imagination was spinning, her body suddenly as aroused with sexual need as it had been when she arrived on the island.

  “It’s from ‘Colette’ to ‘My Handsome Conqueror.’ Dated July 23rd, 1904.” He looked up, snickering playfully, eyes dancing. Mariel couldn’t help but catch his enthusiasm.

  Dear Sir… I am most humbly yours, captured, owned and bound to you. It is by your grace that I live. I wear your marks, relishing the fire that brings them on, how they devastate me one minute and are treasured the next. I ache both in my heart and my body for our next occasion of bliss. I will kneel at your feet, kiss them lovingly, and then graciously make an offering of myself to you. Though I fear your designs for me, I promise to accept and obey your every command. And though I might falter in my visage, trust that I am roused by the swift administration of your corporeal duties to me. Your discipline is sound and well-earned. I dread it, that is true, but look forward to each demonstration of your stalwart purpose for it gives me boundless pleasure amidst the pain.

  Finally, Sir, this ring that tethers me to you, I treasure each hour, each minute that it weighs heavily on my body. I think achingly of the next time you leash me in my captivity and bring me before your good friends as your gift. My heart bleeds to be at your mercy again.

  Your loving and devoted slave, Colette.

  “Oh, my, what do you suppose she meant by all that?”

  “That she was happily my great grandfather’s sex slave.”

  “No!”

  “And why not? Don’t the pictures say as much?”

  “I can’t believe that any woman of her day would … it was such a prudish time… I mean.” Her face felt hot, her body roused. “Albert, why would you show me this now?”

  “Our conversation this afternoon made me think of the pictures. Jack and I must have been twelve and fourteen when we found them. We ogled over them for days that summer. Then forgot them ever since. We didn’t come to Gull Island the next summer. Mother took us to Spain. And by the time we returned, I guess our boyhood fantasies had more to keep them stimulated.”

  “Albert…” she droned.

  “You’re flushed.”

  “I don’t know what I think.”

  “I shouldn’t have brought you here? You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It is quite a titillating fantasy. But I have no desire to be bound to that dusty wall.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that. In fact, when I came up here tonight, I was looking for some old scarves in these trunks… and well, I saw the wall, the ropes and remembered the pictures.”

  “What are you going to do with them?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose they ought to go back right where I found them.”

  Mariel gazed down at the three photographs, then shoved them back into Albert’s hand. “So, did you find the scarves?”

  “Hummm….” he didn’t say, but smiled and stuffed the pictures and the letter back in the box, returning it to its hiding place beneath the floorboards. Moving to a stack of old hatboxes, he opened one, pulling out several wide ribbons of silk—purple, gold and blue. “These should do.”

  “You’re really going to tie me up?”

  “Only if you want to be?”

  She stared at his face, then at the ribbons and the wall, and around the room, then back at her fiancé’s face. “Yes,” she said. “I think I would… but I want to do it here.”

  “Not in my bed?”

  “Yes, here. Not on the wall, but…” she looked around. “There.” She pointed to a small bed covered in old quilts.

  There was something perfect about submerging herself in things of the past—an extension of her fantasies—and though being bound was only a vague thought inside the many that took residence in her consciousness, she moved into the moment with deliberate ease.

  Albert removed the first dusty quilt from the stack, and then the second, finding the third fresh, even though it smelled of mothballs and old lady’s perfume. Lying down, Mariel raised her arms above her head and spread her legs wide, waiting for her nervous fiancé to begin.

  “Do you want me naked?” she asked.

  “No. I like seeing the outline of your body underneath your nightgown—like the picture.” His grin was sweet and devious and perfectly innocent of the dark, deeper realm in which Muriel’s mind had taken flight. Poking through the fabric, her firm nipples announced her arousal, in case he doubted the fact, which he did not. If Mariel had not been so much inside her own thoughts, she might have giggled seeing the distinctive outline of her fiancé’s expanding penis knock against the front of his loose pajamas. Instead, she licked her lips at the thought of his cock pressing between her lips for entrance in her mouth.

  Albert’s poor fingers could hardly accomplish the act of binding his lover, as he clumsily wound the lengths of silk ribbon around her wrists and looked for some place on the simple cot to tie her down—finally deciding that the legs of the cot were the only available place. After several attempts adjusting the length of the bonds, he finally had her immobilized. By then, he was sweating profusely, as some unearthly sensation seemed to overtake his sense of reason.

  Like a soft and delicate flower, Mariel lay wilting before him, helpless, defenseless, under his power. His mind reeled through the remainder of the scenario, realizing that he had no idea what to do with her now that she was at his mercy. At his mercy … that was Colette’s fantasy, was it Muriel’s, too?

  “My darling, how does that feel?” he asked.

  She turned her head toward him, opened her eyes and smiled, “Very wonderful.” There was no fear in her expression, but a serious questioning look, as if to ask what comes next?

  He had no clue, and his instincts told him nothing of her need.

  “Kiss me,” she finally said, drawing him into her, without arms or body, but with passion alone.

  He leaned in awkwardly, giving her his lips. When she closed her eyes, he finally sat down on the bed and began to run his hands over her body, about her breasts, down her torso, and finally between her thighs. She writhed silently beneath the massage, squirming fretfully, wanting something, but couldn’t understand what that something was. When he finally pulled her nightgown up to have her flesh bare, she seemed to explode, jerking with a sudden and unexpected orgasmic wave cresting in seconds. Instinct finally grabbing him by the cock, Albert pulled down his pajamas and climbed on between Muriel’s legs, planting his erection in her tight, coming space, setting off another spasming wave of climaxes in her that brought him to a quick end.

  He collapsed on her and finally rolled away, toward the attic rafters at their side.

  “I’m sorry,” he gasped.

  “Sorry about what?”

  “I don’t know… it just… I should have…”

  “Shussh,” she softly whispered, “and untie me.”

  “Of course.” He scrambled quickly to undo the ribbons, rubbed her wrists where the silk had dug into her flesh and left its mark. “Was it all right?” he wondered aloud.

  “It was fine, darling. I think I’ll sleep now.”

  “Not here!”

  “Of course not here,” she answered, rising from the cot. “Let’s just go to bed. I’m sure all that pink lace and ruffles won’t bother me now.”

  ***

  “And don’t you look fine and fit this morning?” Jack passed Mariel in the hallway, as she returned to her room from the bath.

  “Yes, I’m just fine.”

  “I’d think you’d still be sleeping, what with your marauding all night long.”

  “What?” she blushed, even though he could have no basis for the claim he made.

  “You think I didn’t hear your shenanigans in the attic with Albert?” he smiled deviously.

  “How could you?”

  “This is my home, too, Miss Mariel, and sometimes I walk the corridors when I can’t sleep at night. Her stared around at the hallway walls, musing. “Perhaps it is the house that inspires sleeplessness.”

  Mariel blushed understanding that the brother may well have witnessed at least the sounds if not the sight of her bound in the attic. “I really need to get dressed,” she tried brushing past him.

  “Certainly. Maybe sometime I’ll show you what Albert didn’t.”

  Her back was to him, and for an instant, she hesitated. Then, without turning around, she hurriedly returned to her room and closed the door firmly behind her.

  ***

  “Ah, I didn’t scare you away,” Albert whispered in her ear at the breakfast table.

  “Of course, not,” she whispered back. They were alone, but hardly out of earshot of the rest of the household who were still in the process of getting to the dining table for the morning meal. Meanwhile, Jenny, their maid, was serving platters of bacon, eggs and toast, and pouring steaming mugs of fresh roasted coffee. “But I think Jack might have heard us,” she added.

  “How do you now that?” he looked surprised.

  “He told me. Told me he couldn’t sleep and was roaming the halls.”

  “Ah, that’s like him. I’m sorry, Mariel.”

  “Actually, I don’t think it bothered him at all.”

  Albert was going to ask why, except that Henry and Jonquil Reynolds had moved into the room and were taking their seats.

  “Great morning,” Henry announced, his large, florid face was as robust as usual. Mariel couldn’t figure out how either of his boys came to be so handsome, though she imagined that the pudgy Jonquil was quite the sexy charmer in her day. “Thought we’d do some fishing, Albert. We have some business matters to discuss as well.”

  “I planned to spend the day with Mariel,” the son respectfully answered. “After all, she came all this way.”

  “Ach, let her fend for herself for a few hours,” Henry cut him off, “Jonquil would be more than happy to give her a tour of our homestead. You’ll do fine, won’t you, Miss Fitzgerald?”

  “Of course, Sir. Though I wish you wouldn’t call me Miss Fitzgerald.”

  “Habit, girl.” She was a secretary working for the firm of Reynolds Actuarial. “You’ll stay here. I promise to bring you fellow back by lunchtime. Then you’ll have all day.”

  “That would be fine.” Why it would be fine, she wasn’t sure. But no one argued with Henry Reynolds.

  During the night a light dusting of snow had covered the ground, though it was melting fast as the sun rose to warm the day. Albert and his father took off for the fishing boat, dressed warmly in winter coats and mufflers.

  Mariel was glad to stay inside. She even submitted to the tour Henry promised her. Her future mother-in-law happily led her through every room and secret passageway of the old house—save the attic. But she hardly needed a tour there and would have likely blushed her way into some confession, if they had taken those steps to the third floor.

  The pair did explore the cellar. Jonquil had lots of old stories about bootlegged whiskey in the 20s, and the time that one of the children had run the house as a brothel. “It was just for a night—but the scallywag got his due. His daddy collared him and trashed him soundly in the woodshed.”

  “There’s a woodshed?”

  “Yes, just outside the back door. Used for all the right reasons, Henry’s grandfather used to say. And he meant it. To this day, I believe there’s an old razor strop hanging by the door.” She chuckled.

  They had just made the trek back up the stairs and were in the kitchen, peeking out the back window on what had once been an outhouse and nearby the infamous woodshed.