Elizabeth 02: Revenge

Tamara -- the only one wearing any clothes -- felt positively naked of a sudden. But she was not to be defeated so easily. "Well," she declared, turning to Irene, "Whatever you and Benjamin may have done in your bed or your sofa the other night, it would appear it did not mean a great deal to him. You have seen as well as I how he and Elizabeth have been admiring one another."

"I have seen that, and because I know and love them both, I understand why," Irene said. "That you do not speaks a great deal."

"She is quite right," Benjamin said. "Oh, I assure you, I do find Elizabeth mesmerizingly beautiful; but her heart belongs to Jonathan and mine to Irene. No, we were admiring one another in solidarity rather than in love."

"Solidarity over what?" Tamara snapped. "Being hairy as a couple of gorillas?"

"Exactly," Elizabeth said with a victorious smile. "We both know how it feels to live with people like you, Tamara. And it is indeed refreshing to meet someone who understands so well."

"What do you mean someone like me?" Tamara's eyes were alive with rage. "Elizabeth, all I ever did to you was try to let you know you had a problem that you needed to address. Had you addressed it, I assure you I would have mentioned it no more."

"Tamara," Jonathan spoke up for the first time. "It is no use for you to lie like that. Elizabeth has told both Irene and myself all about the nightmares you inflicted upon her."

"And if your 'help' was anything like what I endured in my younger days," Benjamin continued, "It probably entailed driving her to all matter of things that only made matters worse and made her more uncomfortable."

"Exactly right," Elizabeth confirmed. "I say, Benjamin, did you ever order Horsham's Hair Removal Oil from the back page of your student magazine?"

"'Smooth as a baby's backside in seven days,'" Benjamin recited the advertisement from memory. "And instead, it burned my skin and made the hair stand out straight without falling off."

"Yes, and do you know what Tamara had to say when that happened to me?" Elizabeth replied. "She asked if I was growing a cock all of a sudden!"

"And meanwhile, I was being accused of my own cock disappearing in the woods down there," Benjamin recalled. "'Mow the grass already and find the tree,' the boys told me."

"I tried that too," Elizabeth said, "and did such a poor job of it that Tamara offered to have her father teach me to shave."

"I wonder, Elizabeth, just how well Tamara knows about her father's shaving abilities?" Benjamin said with a laugh. By now he was holding Irene's hand openly while Jonathan had his arm slung affectionately over Elizabeth's leg.

"I must confess, though, Tamara made me strong," Elizabeth said. "If I hadn't been forced to confront my insecurities so abruptly, well, I can't imagine I would be so comfortable in company such as this. And I'd hate to have missed out on it!"

"I agree completely," Benjamin said. "But here's an interesting question: just how is it that we each ended up with this pair of hair-deprived cousins, anyway?"

"Must be something in their blood, I suppose," said Elizabeth, who had been wondering the same. "Or maybe opposites really do attract." At this, Jonathan and Irene looked directly at one another for the first time since their embrace back in the bedroom, and laughed together. Elizabeth continued, "We certainly were lucky to find them, though, weren't we?"

"And they us," Benjamin added. With that he turned and kissed Irene gently and deeply, and she slid her arms tightly around him. Elizabeth followed suit with Jonathan.

That, at long last, pushed Tamara to her limit. "Disgusting, the lot of you!" she screeched. "I have had all I can endure!" She pushed herself up out of the tub and stood on the tile floor, her underwear dripping everywhere. "I shall take the next train back to Westfordshire City and then I should hope not to see any of you there again!"

"Enjoy the trip!" Elizabeth said with an ear-to-ear grin.

"Yes, the key is on the bed," Benjamin added.

"The key to what?" Tamara seethed, now patting herself dry with a towel from the rack. She was still wearing her sopping underclothes, and was trying to wring them dry as well -- undressing in this company was beyond question for her, just as Elizabeth had hoped it would be.

"The key to the locker at the train station in Westfordshire where you'll find your suitcase," Benjamin explained. "We left it there for you."

"You..." Tamara somehow looked even more outraged than before. "What am I to wear back on the train?!"

"Exactly what you wore here," Irene said. "Surely your dress is still in there."

"And these undergarments?!" Tamara shrieked. "They're soaked! I should be cold and miserable all the way back there, and maybe even catch cold!"

"That's odd," Elizabeth said. "I do not recall you showing such concern back when I was reduced to wearing my underwear in the bath to avoid more nasty comments from you about my body. Indeed, you used to take great pleasure in reminding me how desperately uncomfortable that must have been for me in class afterwards. And as you now see, Tamara, you were right."

Tamara stood before them all for another moment in her damp underclothes, waiting for one of them to take pity on her. When none did, she at last retreated to Benjamin's room before they could see the tears of rage welling in her eyes. Quietly the four friends waited out the sounds of Tamara pulling her dress back on, gathering up the key and her purse, and slamming the door behind her. Then it was cheers and hugs all around, and they all enjoyed a good soak until well past a time when they trusted the shuttle bus had made its return trip to the train station.

After the bath, Benjamin rang the bellhop for their suitcases, which he had instructed to keep downstairs to prevent Tamara from carrying any of them off; and they all dressed for an afternoon promenade and an early dinner. Irene enjoyed the thrill of dressing together with Benjamin at a leisurely pace, this time allowing him the honor of buttoning up her dress in back. Before he could get his pants on, though, Irene tackled him on the bed for a quick and intense round. "I hope we don't keep Elizabeth and Jonathan waiting," he warned as he lay back and acquiesced in her skirts pooling around him and her pussy enveloping him.

"If I know them, they are up to the same!" Irene rejoined as she clamped down on him and began to rock back and forth.

She was right: in their room, Jonathan and Elizabeth immediately fell together onto their bed without even a word about getting dressed. Enjoying the natural light, they made fast use of the bed, thrilling to the bright blue sky just outside the window as she rode him to two orgasms followed closely by one of his own. As they lay together in a brief afterglow before getting dressed, Jonathan said, "I hope we don't keep Irene and Benjamin waiting too long."

"I am sure they can find a way to alleviate their boredom, darling," Elizabeth said, and they both dissolved into peals of laughter.

There was no need for explanations as the two couples arrived in the lobby within minutes of one another; and though none felt any need to hide anything, nor was anything acknowledged. Dressed warmly for the lakeside, they all enjoyed a leisurely stroll all along its perimeter, talking of dinner and the remainder of the weekend and the future, with no word on Tamara. All were somewhat fearful at first that she might be lingering about the grounds with a threat of retribution (which would have been empty, since Benjamin had been careful to leave her name off the reservation). But there was no indication that she remained, and therefore no need to discuss the war that had just been won.

So the mystery was to linger as to just what had become of Tamara. It would be resolved soon enough, as word inevitably got around through the baths and the pubs that poor Tamara had been in some sort of accident in the country. Something about being thrown from a horse into a stream, and having no option but to return on the train in her wet clothes, and being rather ill upon her return. Nothing a day in the infirmary could not set right, of course; but apparently the mishap had been distasteful enough for Tamara to change her mind about moving to Westfordshire City at all, and by the end of the week she had packed her bags and left on a morning train. Elizabeth and Irene would learn of all this from Eunice at the baths late the following week, replete with sincere apologies that their new friend's presence had been so fleeting. Those apologies, of course, were gracefully accepted, and the matter was not spoken of again.

But all of that was of little consequence on that crisp but blissful Saturday afternoon by the lake. A long walk, a delightful dinner, followed by wine and dancing in the ground-floor ballroom where they all took turns with lover, friend and stranger alike, and a night that found little sleep but lots of joy in their respective fifth-floor rooms -- that was what mattered for the moment to Elizabeth, Jonathan, Irene and Benjamin. Love and friendship reigned; gloating over the spoils of war could wait.