Astoria Park

While this story begins in the present, it is set largely in the mid 19th century. It is set in Sydney and rural New South Wales during the reign of Queen Victoria where sex was, for men not much more than a release of sperm inside a woman, and for women, they were encouraged to 'lay back and think of England', sex was seldom a joy for them. Under the 'Chattel Laws' they were expected to be totally submissive. That there were exceptions to this is obvious, but these were not spoken of in public in polite society.

This narrative looks at what became to be known as the 'Squattocracy', those men who took up large landholdings and became very wealthy as a result of the toil of the farm labourers. This fortune enabled them to build large city houses where they mixed with the high society of the time.

When the action centres on the 'society' it will use the dialogue of that class and eschew such vernacular as 'cunt', 'pussy', 'fuck', 'cock' and 'dick'.

C.

* * *

Somewhere between a rural city and a hamlet is the small country town.

Some of these have delusions of grandeur, viewing themselves in a magnifying mirror, the reality of their existence somewhat blurred by their refusal to accept their status.

Some are acutely aware that the glory days, when they were the centre of some vital rural industry, were long gone, along with the young people who, witnessing the reality of the slow death of their families that coincided with the town, moved to the city where they found better opportunities, better lives.

Some were stars on the rise, a commodity in demand was driving them ever upwards, new life, new people, coursed through the veins and arteries of these towns bringing with them a renewed, infectious, vitality.

Astoria now had no delusions of grandeur, the magnifying mirror had broken when Astoria Park, the last of the original land holding of the founding Astor family was sold up by the bank, a bank that had no sense of history, driven instead by commercial reality.

There were no rising stars living in Astoria, the commodity that for so long had supported it had, because of climate change and an inability, or the unwillingness, of the farmers to change, to seek new farming strategies, slowly clogged the arteries, atrophied the muscles, of the district, the town.

Astoria the town grew from Astoria the village that grew from the need to supply the provisions to the growing workforce that drove Astoria Park towards its pre-eminent position in the rural scene.

Astoria Park, a property of some ten thousand acres that in its heyday had witnessed such things as the annual migration of shearing crews, come in a wave of rowdy behaviour to remove the fleece from the prize sheep for sale to the world, along with the harvest crews, and their powerful horse teams dragging the combine harvesters across the fields of gold, reaping the grain for the bread of the world.

Sir William Astor was a proud man who stood on the broad veranda of his homestead, his tweed jacket over moleskin trousers and beneath his broad brimmed hat that kept the harsh summer sun from his eyes and from the skin he brought with him from England, watching the labourers toiling to earn his wealth.

Beside him stood Lady Priscilla Astor, her broad brimmed artificial flower laden bonnet made useless by her floral printed parasol that shaded her floral printed ankle length dress. "It is a pity is it not, Willy, that young William isn't here to see this, it would make him so proud."

Young William Astor aged seventeen, was in Sydney attending his final year at boarding school along with other sons of rural gentry. The distance from family was accepted by these young scions of the country as an integral part of their future that consisted of boarding school followed by a sea voyage to the 'Old Country', England that is, where they would attend either Oxford or Cambridge to further their education, or become part of London debauchery, also to further their education. Either way they were expected to return to the family property with an education, and/or a wife acquired through family connections from a wealthy country family. What they were not supposed to bring home with them was a wife from the more disreputable sections of England, such as an actress or musical hall artiste, usually accompanied by a dose of 'Vicar's Dilemma', the inevitable consequence of mixing in that society.

Lady Priscilla did not mention in that observation their other two children who were also in boarding school in Sydney.

Elizabeth, at eighteen was the oldest of the three children. She was blessed with her mother's good looks and, along with the social graces acquired from her schooling, both from the Private School that she attended until last year, and her year at the Constance Armitage Academy, a finishing school for young ladies, that prepared her for her inclusion in the social elite of Sydney, was attracting the attention of young men, and was well on her way to a potentially suitable marriage.

Isobel was fifteen, cursed with her father's stature and coarse features, was an intelligent young girl who had realised at that early age that she had little chance of a suitable marriage and had chosen to concentrate on her education. She had always taken an interest in the property and its management, something that pleased her father who held little hope for the property under his son.

While Elizabeth was the belle of the Debutante's Ball that coincided with the annual Agricultural Society Show held over Easter each year, Isobel was content to hover in the background. Not for her the superficiality of her sister's friends, their frivolous chatter about nothing more serious than the latest modes to be found in the society dressmaker's stores, and who was interested in whom.

What Isobel didn't realise was, that beneath this veneer of sophistication, emotions of a more basic nature flowed. Elizabeth's first real exposure to this occurred after a lavish dinner party held at the home of one of her friends at Vaucluse, the city base of many wealthy 'Pitt Street farmers', those who spent more time in the city than on their property.

The men had adjourned to the smoking room to discuss affairs of state and the latest commodity news from England, over Cuban cigars and brandy. The ladies were in the salon discussing over tea and petit fours such esoteric topics as the latest needle point patterns, rumours of dalliances within their circle and the latest society news to arrive by mail ship from England.

The young gentlemen were gathered in the games room playing billiards and various card games and while no sizable amounts were wagered on the outcome of these games, they were taken very seriously indeed. In undertones around the room, notes were compared on the availability and desirability of the young ladies gathered in another part of the house. The name of Elizabeth Astor was prominent in these discussions.

In the bedroom of the young lady of the house, Isabella Hamilton, 'Bella' to her friends, the discussions centred entirely on boys, in particular one Hamish Macgregor, rumoured to be the heir to a Scottish dynasty that had survived the clan wars and the short-lived and bloody Stuart attempts to regain the throne of England. The general consensus was that he was a handsome and desirable young man and that the young lady who enticed him into her arms was lucky indeed.

"I wonder if he wears anything under that kilt of his?" Lucy Standish asked rhetorically.

"It is rumoured that Scottish gentlemen wear nothing under their kilts." Bella responded. "There is but one way to find out."

"And who is to find out?" The answer was a universal flood of volunteers.

"I wonder what it will look like?" Lucy asked.

"Have you never seen a man's thing?"

"No."

"Did you ever wonder why, when they served up those saveloys at boarding school they had to be cut into pieces? Well one of the girls in the form above us told me that the girls used to smuggle them into their rooms with them because they were very much like a man's thing."

"What did they do with them?"

"Let me show you." Bella opened the draw of her dressing table and removed an object wrapped in paper. She removed the paper and held up for the girls to see, a red skinned cooked sausage about six inches long and an inch and a half in diameter. She raised her skirts, untied the waist of her knee length underpants and pulled them down to her feet. Stepping out of them, she sat on the edge of her bed and parted her legs, revealing her vagina. Taking the sausage she slowly, with her eyes closed and mouth slightly open, and pushed it into her until only an inch projected from between her lips.

She then began to move it in and out, mewing as she did so, until, with an intake of breath, her hips shook for several seconds and she stopped. Her eyes opened and she was once more aware that she had an audience for what was, until this night, been a private experience. "The beauty of this is that when you have finished you eat the evidence."

"What does it feel like?" Elizabeth asked on behalf of the other girls.

"I cannot describe the feeling, it is like nothing on Earth, it is like, Heaven. Would you like to try it?"

"Ooh yes please."

"Don't rush me, it so happens that I have enough for all of you, if you want to try it."

Elizabeth was the first to take one. She did as Bella had done, raised her skirts and lowered her undergarments. Spreading her legs she slowly pressed the sausage into her vagina, but she felt a resistance that was painful. "I can't get it in, it hurts too much."

"It does the first time, but it passes quickly, just push a little harder."

Elizabeth did as instructed, her eyes closed tightly and whimpering in pain, she applied more pressure. With a rush and a moment of intense pain, it pushed through her maidenhead and was inside her. She stopped for a while until the pain had subsided, and then she began to push the sausage, now stained with the blood of her loss of virginity, in and out of her vagina. The more she did it, the less the pain and the greater the pleasure. She felt a tingling through her body that began between her legs and spread throughout her entire body until she lost control of her movements, her body convulsed and she felt something wet flow from her. "Oooh, my God, that was wonderful. I wonder if it is like this when a man puts his thing inside you?"

Bella looked at her with a smile on her face but said nothing.

Some of the other girls took a sausage and tried it out, while others declared the practice to be rude and unhygienic and that there was something wrong with doing 'that'.

At around eleven o'clock a maid came to the room and announced that the party was breaking up and that people were leaving. "Can you stay the night?" Bella asked Elizabeth.

"I'll have to ask my Aunt and Uncle, but I don't see why not." They both walked downstairs to where the guests were clustered around, saying their 'good-byes' to their hosts. "Aunt Meg, Bella has invited me to stay the night, can I please?"

"Why certainly, if it is no bother to the Hamiltons."

"I'll ask them shall I?" Elizabeth didn't wait for permission, she and Bella asked her mother who accompanied them back to Aunt Meg and confirmed that it would not be a problem and arranging for Elizabeth to be returned home the next day in their carriage.

Elizabeth and Bella sat on the huge feather bed dressed only in camisoles, chatting about the events of the evening and how Elizabeth was, technically, no longer a virgin although she was yet to feel a man between her legs.

"I have a surprise for you, wait here." She walked to the door and opened it quietly before slipping out of the room. She returned a couple of minutes later with her twenty-one year old brother Roderick and his friend Simon. "Tonight Simon and I are going to 'do it' and I thought that you and Roderick might like to do the same."

"I don't know about this, it doesn't seem right."

"It's no less right than shoving a sausage up your vagina. Come on, I promised Roderick."

Roderick came over and sat next to Elizabeth. He took her hand in his and bent to kiss her fingertips. "You are incredibly lovely, do you know that?"

Elizabeth blushed and turned her head away. He took her face in his hands and turned it back to face him. "I shouldn't say this, but I find you much more attractive than Bella."

"But she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, how can you say that I'm more beautiful?"

"Because my dear girl, you are, take it from an expert." He bent to her and kissed her, at first gently then with increasing passion.

"Oh." Elizabeth was flustered. She looked to Bella for help but was confronted with the sight of her friend lying on the bed with Simon's hand between her legs and a finger plunging in and out of her vagina. Bella's hips were rising and falling in time with the thrusts.

Roderick's hand slid down the front of her camisole and cupped her breast. Elizabeth grabbed his wrist and was just about to remove his hand when his fingers brushed across her nipple and all thought of resistance left her, she held his wrist but made no move to force the withdrawal of his hand. Emboldened he slipped the straps over her shoulders and pulled the camisole down to her waist. "You have such perfect breasts." He bent and kissed her nipple. She placed her hands behind his head and held his mouth to her, his tongue began to circle the hardened point as his hand reached between her legs, feeling the moistness.

Roderick knew then that she was his and, while he wouldn't have the pleasure of taking her virginity, that honour having gone to a sausage, he would be the first man to savour the promised pleasure. His finger entered her vagina and he began his assault on her, sliding his finger in and out of her while he caressed her clitoris.

Elizabeth's legs parted further as she fought a battle in her mind between denying him and giving in to the feelings that radiated from the touch of his hand. After a brief struggle his hand won and she gave in to him, allowing him to kneel between her legs and replace his finger with his swollen penis. At first there was some resistance, his penis was larger than the sausage. "Relax and it will be easier my love."

Did he love her, or was he just saying this so that he could have her? It mattered not to her now as she felt her body relax and accept him into her. As he moved in her she felt once more the sensations that she had experienced with the sausage and her hips began to jerk as a wave of pleasure overcame her. Just as she thought, she hoped, that it wouldn't stop, he pulled his penis from her and, with a grunt he squirted a flood of warm sticky semen onto her stomach. Elizabeth felt, in that instant, somehow deprived, as if the act wasn't complete.

Simon had also emptied himself on Bella's belly and she was wiping his semen from it. Seeing that her brother had finished she picked up a flannel from beside her bed and tossed it to Roderick, who gently wiped Elizabeth. "You must stay with us more often, my Sweet."

"I must, mustn't I?" She replied, in a dream.

Roderick and Simon left them and went to their own rooms. Bella sat next to Elizabeth. "You liked that, didn't you?"

"Yes, he was very nice."

"Would you like to do it again?"

"Yes I would."

"Then we will have to arrange for you to stay here with us more often."

"That would be nice, I would like that."

"Simon was very good as well. I have known him for some time, he and Roderick are good friends and I have wondered what it would be like to do it with him, so I arranged for Roderick to invite him to dine with us this evening and to bring him to me when all of the others had gone. I'm glad I did. I am also glad that I asked you to stay, I didn't want Roderick to miss out."

"You love your brother don't you?"

"More than you would know. I would do anything for him."

Wills and his friends in the dorm were drunk. One of his friends had been working as an Altar Boy in the school chapel and had purloined a bottle of sacramental wine and the three of them were drunk. This wasn't the first time that they'd been drunk, in fact it was a regular occurrence. When each of the boys returned home for the holidays they would try to get as much alcohol as they could. Over the past six months they had consumed several bottles of scotch some gin and rum as well as the sacramental wine from the church.

"I say Thompson, this wine is most unusual, what is on the label, 'Chateau Piss de Chat', you'd think the priests would have better taste than this."

"The priests wouldn't touch this stuff, they don't even sip the communion wine, you should see the wine cellar that they've got, all good French wines. You can bet that they don't serve that up in the church."

"Oh, oh." Chilcott put his hand over his mouth and made a mad dash for the toilets. In the distance they could hear him vomiting.

"It would appear that something didn't agree with him." Wills said and they both began to laugh. The noise brought one of the Masters into the dorm room.

"What is going on here?"

"Chilcott isn't feeling too well, Sir."

Mister Cullinan was the House Master and ruled with a rod of iron. As soon as he smelt the contents of the toilet pan the boys knew that they were in serious trouble. "I'll see all of you in my study in the morning before chapel.

It was a sad and sorry group that stood before the House Master the next day. "What do you boys have to say for yourselves?"

"What do you mean Sir?" Thompson had been elected the group spokesman.

"What I mean is that you boys have been drinking. Where did you get the alcohol?"

"What alcohol?"

"The alcohol that you were drinking last night?"

"We found what we thought was red cordial in the kitchen so we took it, how were we to know that the kitchen staff had alcohol?" That's good, Thompson thought, shift the blame to the kitchen staff.

"You want me to believe that you cannot tell the difference between red cordial and sacramental wine? Do you honestly believe that I wouldn't check the stocks of wine in the church to see if any was missing? Do you think that I would allow you snotty little twerps to shift the blame to an innocent party? You must take me for an idiot! Each of you will receive six strokes of the cane and your parents will be notified. Now off to chapel, and I hope that while you are there you will contemplate the seriousness of your crimes, and ponder on your fate, because as soon as chapel is over and before you go to your first class your punishment will begin. Dismissed!"

As was usual in such situations the lads were elevated to heroes among the other students, and they took advantage of their new found fame to increase their access to alcohol. Their drinking club gained new members and the amount of alcohol available, and consumed, increased to the point that something had to go wrong, and that something turned out to be a mole in the ranks.

Simpkin's father was a publican. He had begun to notice that an increasing amount of spirits was disappearing from his pub. "Which one of you has been helping hisself to the gin?"

"Wot you mean, Sir?"

"Wot I mean is that there is gin missing from the shelves and I ain't seen any drunk rats a' lying around the cellar, so I puts two and two together and I think that someone is thieving it, and you lot are the likeliest culprits. Wot say ye?"

"Wot we say Sir, is that none of us is thieving from you. But Fred here saw young Thomas down here the other day. We can't say for sure as he took nought, but it did seem odd like that 'e be 'ere."

Simpkin's Senior kept a close watch on his son and his worst fears were soon realised. "Wot you got in yon bag?"