Elizabeth 04: Late Summer (Part 1)

"Wouldn't you like to know just what happened, Agnes!" she replied with a laugh that made it all too clear our conversation was done. In all likelihood, what truly happened was likely rather less salacious than what I imagined; but where Elizabeth was concerned, all things were plausible!

What I do know is that both Frances and Keith thanked Elizabeth after the swim was over, for setting such a brave example. "I should never have known there were others out there so like myself!" Frances whispered to her on the bank while the others were still frolicking about in the water. "Tell me, how long did it take you to come to terms with being so very different?"

"Far too long," Elizabeth admitted. "But it has been ever so worth the pain to learn how beautiful so many people find women like us!"

"So I am now discovering," Frances agreed; and both women looked to see most of the others admiring them, Jonathan and Keith most of all. "Do you suppose it is something in this water that inspires the men of this town to have such wonderful taste, Elizabeth?" she quipped.

Elizabeth laughed. "I prefer to believe there are simply more men of impeccable taste than one is led to believe in this day and age! Believe me, Frances, they are everywhere. Should your relationship with Keith fail, I assure you there are many others who will adore you."

"How can I thank you?" Keith added shortly afterward, when the sun was sinking and they were all dressing for the walk home.

"Thank me for what?" Elizabeth asked, though she knew full well.

"Setting such a beautiful example!" Keith replied in a gushing tone. "If the truth be told, I have always hoped my Frances had a dense, lush ladygarden to admire and play with -- pardon my crudity, Elizabeth; but given our state of undress all afternoon I feel perhaps a bit too comfortable discussing such things with a lady -- and I had always been very much aware that it was likely a sort of insecurity that kept her hiding in her clothes no matter how emotionally intimate we became. Embarrassing to admit it never occurred to me that she had just the sort of intimate adornment I dreamed of and that was the cause of her insecurity! I can't imagine how I missed it, to tell you the truth."

"I can," Elizabeth said with a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You never knew what it was like to be a woman with such an unorthodox aspect to her body. Only then could you understand fully how embarrassing and discomfiting it can be, Keith."

"Right, thank you, that makes sense. In any event, Elizabeth, surely you see how you inspired her with your own comfort with your body. That is all for which I wish to thank you!"

"Keith, the pleasure was all mine, I assure you. And now it shall be yours and Frances' both, of that I am quite certain." A chaste hug followed, which I know to be chaste because Elizabeth, in the aftermath of my overzealous questioning, was very careful to explain as much.

Though it was also a beautiful day back in Westfordshire City, it was a far less cheerful one. Benjamin was due in town on the noon train, and I recalled Irene telling me at the baths the day before that she would be meeting him on her lunch break between classes. I, of course, was not welcome at the reunion, and could thus do nothing but bury myself in my work and hope an irate Benjamin would not appear in the office at any moment through the afternoon.

He did no such thing, of course, and the end of the day came as inevitably as always. I took the streetcar home through the busy evening, a watchful eye out for Irene or Benjamin or both, knowing by now the bad news had surely been delivered and desperately wishing there were something I could do. Naturally there was no sight of them, and I was very much left to my own devices that night in the lonely mansion. The memory of Irene that morning and the evening before stood me in very good stead, but there was a melancholy to it all the same as I masturbated my way to sleep that night.