Through a glass darkly

Author's Note: This story builds on characters and places introduced in my previous stories but may still be read on its own. The whole sequence of stories is:

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Through A Glass Darkly.

Original commissions by some of the world's most renowned glass blowers.

September 20th – October 18th, 2010.

Glass: The product of techniques and technology that span the ages. There has always been a special fascination for the alchemy that turns fire into ice. This exhibition brings together examples of the highest art and finest craftsmanship by the world's most renowned glass blowers. Their creations, all part of the Kruppa Collection, are at once beautiful and useful.

As proof of this utility, Eric Kruppa has created a series of illustrative images of 'The Family Crystal', as he affectionately describes the Kruppa Collection.

* * * * *

"Good evening, Francis." Eric shook Francis Deerborne effusively by the hand as if they were old friends, long parted. They were not. Francis Deerborne has had cause to curse the day he first set eyes on Eric Kruppa, two years ago at Christabelle Deerborne's graduation. Eric, for his part, is well aware of the antipathy Francis holds for him.

"Good Evening Mr Kruppa." Francis could never bring himself to be politely informal towards anyone he loathed as much as Eric. Not that Francis did loathe anyone else quite as much as he loathed Eric. Even Helen, his arch tormentor, was less culpable in Deerborne's eyes, since he quite wrongly assumed that Eric was the architect of her games.

"It's so good of you to spare the time to visit us." Eric laid it on thick, enjoying Deerborne's discomfiture.

"I didn't realize I had a choice." Deerborne lowered his tone to exclude all but Eric. "Your whore made it clear I should attend."

"Not my whore, Francis." Eric said, rather less confidentially, laughter in his voice, "You're the one paying her to-"

"Enough!" Deerborne shouted Eric down then, realizing he was making a scene and so would hardly get out of here unnoticed, "Why am I here?"

"Why? Because Helen invited you. Ahh, there she is." Eric couldn't resist twisting the knife just once more in the moments it took Helen to navigate through the sparse crowd. "By the way, how is Christabelle? I haven't heard from her for ages. Do you know if she liked the Pralines I sent her for her birthday?" Eric watched Francis' face. There seemed to be a struggle between the blood that was draining from his complexion and the blood that was rising up his neck in fury. "I know they're your favourites but I wasn't sure that Christabelle-"

"Darling! You came!" Helen squeezed between the two men, kissing Deerborne with open-mouthed enthusiasm. At least, that was why her mouth was open: His was open because he'd been about to blast Eric for his effrontery. Helen always had excellent timing. "Come and see Eric's new pictures of me. I shall expect you to bid for at least one of them." She deftly steered the shell-shocked Deerborne away into the opening-night throng.

Eric watched the poor fellow go and wondered just how far Helen would push him before he snapped. Deerborne was, from one perspective, one of the chosen few: He, however, wouldn't see it that way. It was a perfect example, thought Eric, of the old adage 'be careful what you wish for'. When Helen gave up whoring, she didn't entirely give up. Deerborne was one of a handful of regular clients she kept for their entertainment value. In his case, the entertainment came from a little gentle blackmail.

It was all Helen's elaborate revenge upon Christabelle Deerborne, A.K.A. Prissy Chrissy, That self-righteous bitch or Daddy's chocolate fantasy, who'd done everything possible to make life difficult for Helen and B when they were all in college together.

Tonight was about being seen together publicly, which would just annoy the hell out of Christabelle: Francis would have a lot of explaining to do when his daughter heard who he'd been spending time with.

* * * * *

"Why do you do this?" Francis finally found his voice, or at least a quieter version of it.

"Because I enjoy flaunting myself." Helen chose to assume he was talking about the graphic image of her vagina partly hiding an enormous piece of Lalique glassware, the iridescent length of which appeared to stick right out of the picture, almost in 3D. There was no escaping the fact that Eric was very competent with a camera, but beautiful as the pornographic image was, that wasn't what Francis had been asking about.

"I meant..." he practically hissed, "Why do you do this to me?"

"Francis, Sweety, the answer's the same. Because I enjoy flaunting myself. Not just those bits of me," She waved at the pictures on the wall. "But my entire life. Tonight, here, I'm enjoying flaunting my relationship with an older man. I've told you so much about myself because I enjoy flaunting those most private parts of my life and because I know you'll keep my secrets. You will keep my secrets, won't you Francis?" She moved close, looking into his eyes as she asked. Helen's beauty struck him like a slap, like so often before. It was the reason he always ended up right back at, whenever he started asking himself why he let her torment him so.

"No." His natural instinct for defiance and boardroom conflict kicked in.

"No? But I thought we were friends." Helen contrived to look hurt.

"Friends?" Francis almost laughed. "You're just a whore I picked up in Boston, who's extorting money from me because I love my daughter too much to have her good name dragged down into the mud with mine."

"Right, wrong and wrong. I'm a whore but I'm extorting nothing: You always get what you pay for, Francis. As for loving your daughter too much: That's why you picked up this Boston whore in the first place, wasn't it... Pappy?" Helen's voice was syrup and silk but her words winded Francis Deerborne, knocking the defiance out of him. Helen saw it happen and smiled reassuringly. "That's better. I don't like it when we fight. Kiss and make up?" Ever in control, Helen didn't give Francis time to demure. Her lips briefly met his then, as swiftly, found his ear. "Recognise that?" Her fingers, cool on his cheek, turned his face to the left and a pedestal upon which a perfectly lifelike lead crystal penis, complete with intricately textured scrotum, was mounted on a gold plated and baroquely engraved chastity belt.

"I remember." Francis barely breathed. The colour drained from his face as he recalled his first, his only, his very intimate encounter with that... that thing.

"It's a pity none of these are for sale. You could buy it for us." Helen ignored the fact that it was actually one of her sex toys - a Christmas present from Eric - so she could have it whenever she wanted.

"I'd smash it to pieces." Francis hissed in rage and shame. He remembered too well how he'd encountered that... thing.

* * * * *

Six Months Earlier...

"I have a surprise for you tonight." Helen was riding the elevator to Francis Deerborne's apartment with him. They'd been out to dinner and she'd been absolutely charming all evening. She could be so beguiling when she wanted to be. There were times he could almost believe she cared about him. Then there were the other times, when she would sweetly explain what she wanted from him in return for her sexual favours and her continued silence.

"A Surprise?" He was never sure whether to be excited of terrified by Helen's surprises.

"A nice surprise." She reassured him, leaning on him while she took off her shoes and got four inches shorter. "You'll enjoy it, Pappy." Helen started to get into character. Francis Deerborne had never fucked 'Helen': With him, she was always 'Christabelle'.

"All the video recordings you made of me?" He dared to hope that she was bored of torturing him.

"Silly! We both know you love it that I'm in control of our relationship, Pappy. See?" Helen grabbed the front of his pants, feeling his cock stir in her hand and taking it as irrefutable proof of his desire for her.

"I'm not your Pappy! This is not a relationship! You're a whore I paid to do things no decent girl would do!" He often tried to hurt her like that. It didn't work.

"I love it when you talk like that." Helen smiled openly. She'd been calling herself a whore for years. "And I'm sure Christabelle would have done all those things if Eric had asked her to." That stung him back. Christabelle had had the most enormous crush on Eric during her freshman year. He'd spurned her in favour of Helen and B, and that's where the vendetta between the girls had started. It probably wasn't true that Christabelle would have done for Eric the things Helen did for Francis, but the image it conjured up made him go pale. In Francis' fantasies, it was always himself on the receiving end of Christabelle's affections.

The elevator disgorged them and Francis silently opened the door to his apartment. He was sulking, which wasn't new. Helen thought he must have been such a whiny, spoilt brat as a child.

"Unzip me please." Helen turned her back on him in the lobby. Sulking or not, Francis couldn't deny his desire for Helen.

She knew that when he was in this sort of mood, she'd get his best performance too. He'd fuck her really hard. Hard, angry sex that left her tender and sometimes bruised, but totally satisfied. She'd done it deliberately, winding him up about his daughter so he'd take it out on her in bed. That's what she wanted from him tonight.

Her dress slipped down her body leaving her standing in front of Francis in briefs and a pair of hold-ups.

"Well?" Helen said as Francis eye's betrayed him. He could never resist her once she was naked. "Are you going to fuck me like Christabelle or like the whore I am?" Again she was goading him into that specialized rage that made him so... hard.

"Shut up!" He slapped her face hard enough to sting: Not hard enough to mark her for more than a few minutes. This too was part of the role-playing. Helen burst into tears and fled into the bedroom: Christabelle's old bedroom that is.

As she lay on the bed, sobbing, surrounded by his daughter's cuddly toys, making sure her bottom was towards the door. The underwear she had on was much more conservative than any Helen actually owned. She'd stolen them from one of the drawers in this room on a previous occasion. She wondered how Francis would react if he knew his whore was wearing Christabelle's own briefs? Francis knocked and came into the room.

"Christabelle?" He whispered, crossing to the bed and sitting down next to Helen's backside, gently laying one hand on her hip. "I'm sorry Christabelle... Forgive me?" He stroked her bottom, feeling the warmth through the fabric of her gusset.

"I'm sorry too, Pappy." Helen rolled over onto her back, took his dislodged hand and pressed it between her legs, hard against her satin covered labia. "I know I shouldn't have let Eric touch me here." She goaded Francis again with mental images of his daughter giving herself to Eric.

Francis' fingers pressed the fabric between her lips roughly. "No. You shouldn't." He fumbled with his zipper, pulling his now rampant cock out of his pants and pumping it with his free hand.

"Fuck me, Pappy... Fuck me so hard I'll never want anyone else to fuck me." Helen pleaded. She loved her work and, in a very specialized way, was a superb actress. She gasped as Francis Deerborne seized the crotch of her underwear and dragged it down her legs. She lifted them so he could pull her briefs right off, then lifted them further, grabbing her own calves as she got her knees up either side of her breasts offering Francis an uncompromising view of her pussy and her ass.

"Whore!" He practically grunted as he flung himself forward, impaling her on his cock. He thrust deep and hard with no finesse whatsoever, taking out all his frustration and anger on her insides. Helen gasped and moaned as he tried to rend her pussy with his rage.

"Yes... Pappy's little whore." She used this description of herself often to goad him into fucking her hard. It had worked on Parry and it worked on Francis. And Helen loved being a whore, so it worked on her too.

Francis never lasted long when he was in this mood. Helen squeezed her vaginal walls tightly around his cock, making herself as tight as possible and felt her own pleasure building too slowly: Francis would come too soon for her. And just as she thought that, Francis grunted and, jerking and twitching inside her, came. His hot seed flooded around his cock and oozed out of Helen's pussy as he dragged himself off her.

"Thank You Pappy." Helen looked up at Francis, still fully dressed, with his softening penis dribbling semen onto the front of his pants. He looked a lot less angry now. It was amazing how a good orgasm could take all the fight out of a man.

"Why do you do that?" He was panting for breath now, pulling off his tie.

"Wind you up? Because you fuck better when you're mad at me." Helen sat up to help undo Francis' shirt buttons. She could feel his semen oozing out of her pussy onto Christabelle's bed. That meant it was time to put Francis back on his leash, metaphorically speaking. She stood up, unfastened his pants and helped him out of his clothes. When he was naked, she pushed him so he fell back onto the bed, his limp, sticky cock resting across his thigh. He wasn't in bad shape for a fifty-five year old man.

Putting each foot up onto his crotch in turn, Helen peeled off her stockings, tickling Francis' balls with her toes the while.

"Wrists." She commanded, moving to the head of the bed. Francis knew better than to resist or argue. He mutely raised his hands over his head and crossed his wrists so that Helen could bind them together with a stocking. When his hands were securely anchored to the headboard, Helen climbed onto the bed, standing over him, balancing carefully. "Look at the mess you made, Pappy." She held her sticky lips open. A blob of pearly semen dripped onto Francis' face.

"I'll clean it up." He said, obediently. Like so many men who wield power in the boardroom, he enjoyed it when someone else wielded the power in the bedroom.

"Thank you, Pappy." Helen squatted down until her wet crotch pressed over Francis' mouth and she could feel his tongue poking into her pussy. This was where she expected payback for him coming so soon. "And when you've made me come, I'll give you your surprise." She held onto the headboard for balance and moved her hips, grinding her crotch onto Francis Deerborne's face while he licked and sucked on her pussy, swallowing occasionally as his mouth filled with saliva, pussy juice and his own seed.

Francis pleasure at having a mouthful of pussy was tainted by the just unreachable Holy Grail of Helen's ass. She deliberately kept it just beyond the reach of his tongue, knowing how frustrating that must be for him. And knowing how frustrated he was only hastened Helen's climax.

"Oh God, Pappy...your... tongue feels...sooo...oooh..."Helen started to climax, grinding her pussy hard against Francis' mouth, feeling his tongue pushing right into her. "Oh...Yes, Pappy!... Yes!... Oooh oh... Yess!" She rubbed her clit against his nose, losing herself in the moment as her orgasm wrung out her glands and short-circuited her nervous system, leaving her trembling and glistening with perspiration as she eased herself sideways and flopped down beside Francis, her legs spread languidly, one right across his chest, so that he could see her puffy, sticky labia. His face looked as slick and wet as her crotch felt.

"Christabelle?" Francis wanted her to be his 'daughter' awhile longer.

"Yes Pappy?"

"Do you have any chocolates tonight?" This was his kinkiest vice and the one that gave Helen the most leverage over him. Francis Deerborne got off on pushing Belgian chocolates up Helen's bottom then having her squat over his face and 'feed' them to him. Helen often wondered what he actually got out of the fantasy of having his daughter shit in his mouth, but there was no denying that he got something out of it because it invariably made him hard, no matter how much exercise his penis had already had.

"Not tonight. Pappy... But I do have a surprise for you." Helen stood unsteadily. "Turn over." She helped Francis roll onto his front, hands still bound to the headboard, then stuffed a couple of pillows under him to raise his hips and give his second hard-on some room. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere." Helen left him tied.

"Where are you going?" There was pleading in his voice. He was probably wondering if he was going to be left there for the maids to find in the morning. Helen had done that to him once in a hotel in Boston that he would never show his face in again.

"To fetch your surprise." Helen was out of the bedroom now. Francis listened for clues in vain. She was only gone a couple of minutes but it seemed much longer to him.

"What the..." His eyes widened in alarm when he saw what she was wearing: A glass dildo poked out from her crotch, attached to a golden harness. It waved in front of her as she walked towards him.

"Shhh." Helen put a hand over his mouth to silence him. "One more word..." she spoke in her sweetest bedroom voice, "and no lube." She took her hand away. Francis was pale faced and absolutely silent. "Legs apart." She climbed onto the bed and eased his legs wide, kneeling between them.

Francis tensed as cold lubricant trickled onto his anus, but his cock twitched excitedly.

"Relax." Helen massaged the lubricant around his ass hole, feeling how tense he was when she tried to push a finger into him. "Good Pappy." Her finger slid in easily enough as he relaxed. It wasn't the first time she'd done this to him. He was used to her finger being up there, but the dildo was going to be a new experience for him.

Helen pulled out her finger and quickly positioned the glass toy, pushing hard against Francis' anus.

"Owww!" he yelled. It was extremely painful.

"I told you to relax." Helen kept up the pressure until he took her advice, took a deep breath and really did relax. The pain stopped and the glass slid several inches into his rectum. "Ask me nicely." Helen coaxed.

"P-Please, Christabelle..." Francis often had to beg for his 'daughter's' services. It was all part of his humiliation and degradation trip.

"Yes?"

"Please fuck me." He spat out the words. As a reward, he felt Helen reach under him to grip his hard cock and start to stroke it to the same rhythm she set with her hips, pushing the dildo right into him.

"Isn't it nice, Pappy?"

"Yes." He didn't sound convincing.

"It's just like when you push your big thing into my tight bottom." Helen fucked the bound man even harder, pulling harder on his cock at the same time. "Say my name."

"Christabelle... Oh....Ohhhh..." With little warning, Francis tensed up around the dildo and his cock jerked in Helen's grip as he ejaculated.

"Messy Pappy." Helen tutted, easing out the glass dildo and letting go of Francis' cock, allowing him to relax. He'd barely lasted a minute.

She left him alone again while she went to the bathroom to clean the dildo and put it back in her holdall. On a whim, she showered and dressed before going back to untie him.

"Goodnight Francis." Helen kissed him briefly as soon as she'd untied his hands then left without a backward glance. He was always angry with himself afterwards and she didn't care to be on the receiving end of his displaced self-loathing again tonight.