Evelyn's Victorian Dilemma

"And then we shall grow old together and dote on many grandchildren."

Henry smiled.

"I should like to enjoy what is left of my youth before you have me infirm and bedridden."

I hugged his arm.

"I just like you virile."

I whispered before turning scarlet and giggling at my naughtiness in public.

And so it became the norm. By day, we enjoyed a holiday from home. A delight our modern age of travel afforded us. The wealth of industry and empire had brought our modern age the luxury of free time. Coastal towns such as Cromer had become resorts with the expansion of the railways. Alluring seaside places of entertainment that drew in crowds each summer.

Then each night of our time there, we made love. I say love for that was how I soon saw it. A physical manifestation of the emotions that existed between us. A joining of our bodies in an act of union between husband and wife.

I became more adventurous, no longer lying back as a victim. I became the initiator, an equal partner in an experimentation of positions. I found joy in all of them, whether it was beneath him or on top. I especially liked that my fruits bounced before his eyes as it embarrassed me just enough that my fire burned with even more ferocity.

I relished his attention and allowed him to arouse me in all ways possible. First with exploring hands that tickled and had me giggling like an excited child, and by the second week, even his mouth.

I'd been horrified at his suggestion of such a thing, but with constant assurance it would be as the touch of delicate fingers, I'd relented.

"It is known as tipping the velvet." He said.

Very poetic. And it was amazing.

"Oh. Yes."

His tongue on my privates was delightful beyond compare. A caress of my sensitive velvet by the tip of his flexible muscle that I wished would never end. A new and most delightful way to deliver my sting of pleasure.

"Oh god."

It came with a jolt that had me gripping his thick, dark hair in my fingers while soft thighs clamped his head tightly to my cunny.

"Uhh."

I gasped great lungfuls of life giving air as the euphoric wave passed through me.

"Was that a great pleasure?" He asked with a cheeky grin when I released my grip of him.

"You know it was my darling." I smirked at my deep, sinfully enjoyable feelings.

"However, I should not like to know the circumstances in which you became so skilled at such a thing."

I was not so ignorant as to think I was the first to experience his touch but I had no wish to hear of prostitutes and dubious women who cheated on husbands. I knew it happened and that it was how young, single men behaved, but what had gone before was in the past. He was my husband now and he had made his vows before god.

Of course, I found that I was soon expected to return the pleasure he had given me in a similar manner. His hand pressed my head closer and closer to his frightening steed.

I made the mistake of protesting. Opening my mouth to say no. The word never escaped. Instead my face was impaled on his sinew. I went wide eyed in shock.

"Mmmph."

That he did not force his length to my throat and choke me eased my terror and I became curious, exploring the invader with my tongue. That seemed to excite him and have his firm hold of my hair gently easing my head up and down.

He groaned softly with a pleasure I had not heard in his frantic shafting of my notch. I felt pleased that it was this new act with the softness of my lips on his staff that held him spellbound.

I settled into a rhythmic massage of his pole, finding the feel of my lips and quail-pipe caressing his steed excited him in the same way his mouth had taken me to heights of ecstasy. And it wasn't altogether unpleasant for me. Kind of exciting.

I increased my torment of him by fondling his ballocks. Strange, unfamiliar things that rolled between my fingers. They were not attractive in any way imaginable, but they held a fascination for me. I also began to relish the smoothness of his crown, a warm mushroom on my tongue.

And it was that curiosity that had me fail to notice the signs. I interpreted the hot throb of his crown and staff just too late and his warm seed flooded into my mouth. I baulked, but a firm hand held my head just long enough for him to empty his ballocks.

"Oh."

I sat in shock when I escaped him. His creamy warm gush covered my tongue and lips, escaping to slide down my chin. I tasted salt. A hint of the sea beyond our hotel window. With trepidation I let my tongue explore the contents of my mouth. It was warm, and slimy. A little saline.

Henry was laughing at me. Not in an evil way. More a humorous entertainment at my shock.

"It's horrid." I said, still unable to do anything other than hold his discharge in my mouth. I looked around for something to spit into.

"It's an acquired taste."

I could not contain the unpleasant mettle in my mouth any longer and without an immediate option, I swallowed it like a bad medicine.

"I think it is a taste I do not wish to acquire." I said with my face screwed up in disgust.

"I shall never do that again."

It was not long before my initial wedding night fears were completely forgotten and copulation became a wonderful thing to me. Even the taking of his balsamic injection in my mouth became less arduous and I did like that it pleased him so. It would also have been rather ungrateful of me to refuse him when I so enjoyed that he lapped my nectar from deep in my flower. Each new thing he showed me became an adventure I relished to try.

There was one such thing I was most definitely not so sure I wished experience. That was his keen interest in my other hole. It began with a gentle probing with his finger. A strange sensation that was both a mild joy and a source of anxiety. I did not mind his fascination with my buttocks, but baulked each time he went near to my small roundmouth, fearful he would sodomise me.

At his third foray to that area he pressed hard enough to break my barrier.

"No."

I struggled to escape his invading finger and found myself pressed face down on the bed.

"Please. Stop. It's ungodly."

"Relax. You'll find it is not what you believe."

"It is for threepenny whores."

"It is a fun thing for ladies also."

I had no choice but accept his digit wiggling inside that forbidden area.

"Uhhh."

It elicited sensations I had not expected. Especially when coupled with the toying of my little man in a boat. My whole groin became a wriggling fire.

"Oh Lord."

Was there nothing that would not bring on the sweet delight of the little death?

After that I was less reticent about his apparent obsession. But all the while, I knew that the time would come when it wasn't his finger.

"Please. I'm frightened you may damage me on our last night of our blissful honeymoon."

I was balanced on my hands and knees, shaking with fear now that he had ventured his intention to me. I felt obliged as his wife as equally as I felt afraid of such a thing.

"This has been practiced since ancient times."

He dribbled olive oil he'd taken from the kitchens into my crack, easing it around my hole with his finger.

"By gal-boys and harlots."

"By learned men of ancient Greek and Rome."

"Oh god."

His hands wrapped around my thighs and I stared ahead as I felt the pressure of his steed at my roundmouth. I wriggled to escape him, inadvertently helping him to press his crown through my barrier.

"It hurts." I cried out at a sudden ring of burning pain at my rear.

"Please no."

Henry was a gentle as ever with this new adventure and waited for me to calm.

"Uhh."

The sting became something else. Not exactly pain free, but an exciting tingle that lifted my libido.

"Not so bad, is it?"

"Why do you wish to do such a th... uhh."

He pressed again, sliding deeper on the oil. Tears came to my eyes, but more of the strange pleasure arouse from deep within my buttocks. He made it a slow build up, stretching me and adding more oil until his steed began to slide with a graceful ease.

"Uhhh."

When he fucked my back avenue it was an unimaginable experience. A gentle pain that was also a great pleasure.

"Uh. Uh. Uh."

I was bounced back and forth on his white staff, swaying my globes where they hung beneath me like firm fruits hanging from a tree on a windy day.

I would not have thought it possible, but the flood of bliss was intense.

"Oh, god."

And it was followed quickly by another when Henry so smoothly and quickly switched to my oozing cunny.

"Uhhh."

I was sweating when released from his grip, I fell forward, laying prone on the bed as above me, Henry grunted. I felt his warm balsamic injection splash freely over the fleshy orbs of my buttocks.

"Good Lord." He gasped as he fell to my side breathing heavily.

"That was so amazing.

You have such peachy buttocks a man cannot resist."

I lay silent still processing how I felt about the violation. I was sure it would not be the only time he did this to me. And I could not be sure I wished it to be. I said a silent prayer for forgiveness.

The following day we travelled back to London. I sat in our carriage as Mrs Watson to my Mr Watson, comfortable in the knowledge that I was now a woman fully initiated in the ways of the matrimonial bedroom. All that remained was for me to become the lady of our home.

"I think I am going to enjoy marriage." I announced as we exited another tunnel and I looked out over fields.

"I will endeavour to ensure you do."

I turned my eyes to him, absorbing how handsome he looked in his waistcoat.

"And I will do my duties in and out of the bedroom with a great joy." I grinned.

"All of them?"

I shuffled a little on my seat at the clenching of my buttocks and looked down coyly.

"Even that, on occasion.

If you are good to me."

I felt myself redden. Thankful that it did not make me appear too wanton to his eyes.

Henry just smiled sweetly and looked out to the passing countryside.

"We shall be in London soon.

Sadly I shall need to return to work on Monday."

"It is a shame we could not have stayed longer. However, I am now ready to learn all the other things I must know if I am to be a good wife to you."

That amused him.

"You need only wait at home for me, reading or embroidering. I do not see what else you need to know."

"Running a house.

And servants." I said.

"I have never had servants that live in the house with me. We had only a maid for cleaning who visited for a few hours each day.

I should not know how to direct them."

"It is not that different. Except that they are available at any time."

The fields fell from my sight to be replaced my housing and the tall chimneys of industry. Thick smoke rose into the sky to become artificial clouds. London was the centre of the world. A capital city for a quarter of all the peoples on earth. So very different to Cromer. And my life was going to be very different to the one I'd had in the little countryside parish. I relished the challenge of being a wife.

THREE

His home, our home, was a grand townhouse in a London crescent. I felt lowly in such an elegant house with so many rooms.

There was a cook and a scullery maid for the kitchen. A handyman who kept the gardens and looked after the house. And Rose, a young girl who cleaned, lit the fires in the mornings come winter and served our meals.

Henry was polite to them and they seemed to like him as their master. I could only hope I would equally be accepted and liked.

"Treat them respectfully." Henry had said, as if I would do otherwise

"But remember they are not your friends."

He poured a whiskey and sat with me in the drawing room. A splendid, colourful space with high ceilings and views into the garden. It was my favourite of all the rooms, although the bedroom held its own, special attractions. That was a private space where my lessons in Cromer were enthusiastically put to good use.

We took meals in the formal dinning room. A new experience for me. Our home had not had the luxury of such a room. In the small cottage of my childhood we had eaten in the kitchen or at tables used for other purposes during the day.

I considered my background as somewhat middle-class, but far from the grandeur of the life ahead of me.

The servants quarters were below the house. A mundane kitchen along a small corridor from the servants staircase. There was a pantry and storeroom along with small private rooms for the servants. It was part of my tour on arriving, but not somewhere I would frequent.

"It's amazing."

I said excitedly.

"It was my father's home." Henry informed me.

"I grew up here in the care of a Governess. Mother and Father were in the Colonial Office and were away for much of my childhood.

She was like a mother to me and taught me so much."

And so my glorious life of wedded bliss began. By day, I was the lady of the house although with little to do other than read or approve menu's for the coming week.

In the evenings I was the dutiful wife and at night, a lover. I could not imagine anything that might disrupt my bliss.

I received the news in the post only weeks after my wedding. A letter from my mother that insisted I do not worry. That alone made me worry.

"Do you know what ails him?" Henry asked with evident concern.

"Mother does not say. Only that father cannot work and money is tight."

"Then you must go to him."

"But my place is here."

"Nonsense.

I will arrange a carriage in the morning to take you. And if money is a problem, then I'll make arrangements for a sum to be sent monthly that they can live on."

I gasped at his generosity.

"I cannot ask you to do that."

"You didn't.

I will not see the mother or sisters of my sweet wife destitute. Now go and find the truth of what ails your father. If it is a doctor he needs, I can arrange that as well.

Send me a telegram as soon as you have news."

Travel by carriage into the counties was two hours. Three with a stop to rest the horses. I left early, before breakfast and arrived not long after mid morning.

My youngest sister, Clara greeted me at the gate.

"Evelyn. We did not expect to see you."

"How are you Clara?

I came as soon as mother informed me of father. Is he here?"

"Yes. And ..."

"Evelyn."

I looked up to see mother and Joyce in the doorway.

"I told you not to concern yourself." She said.

"Mother. You cannot tell me father is ill and not expect me to worry.

Now where is he? I wish to see him."

Father was in his favourite armchair. He did not look so different. A big man. Tall and muscular from his work. A proud man who even in his sickness refused to be bowed.

"It is just a shortness of breath." He said making light of the seriousness I could see in his eyes.

"And what is the cause?"

"It is nothing. It will pass."

"He has cancer of the lung."

Mother cut in before he could avoid my questions again. I knew what that meant for him and inside I was devastated. But I held my composure and responded with hope.

"There will be medicines. And failing that, surgery." My voice cracked.

"No." He said putting his hand on mine.

"The doctors have done all they can do."

Tears welled in my eyes.

"You must stop that now. God has not taken me yet. Indeed the doctors say I may live several more years. It is only that I will become weaker over that time. But you will see plenty more of me yet.

I sat with him for a while before retreating to speak with mother about worries I did not want to concern him with.

"And what of money?" I asked.

"We lived well on your father's wage. It will be harder now but we have a little put aside."

I could see worry etched in her face. What had been only the first hints of crows feet around her eyes seemed much deeper than before. As was the grey in her hair. My father's illness was aging her before her time.

"Mother. Do not lie to me."

She looked at Chloe and Joyce.

"Go to your rooms please..."

"No. Stay here.

They are old enough that they should know the truth, as I wish to know it. It is their future as well."

Mother looked deflated. Weakened by her struggle and by my strength.

"Marriage has made you headstrong young lady."

"Perhaps. But if it is what is needed then it is what I shall be."

She looked at my sisters again. They sat quietly. Young ladies not so far from courtship and eventual marriage themselves. Chloe was only two years younger than myself, and Joyce one more. They were not so ignorant as mother should have liked them to be.

"Very well."

She sat up straight and searched for an inner strength. It was hard for a proud woman to admit her difficulties.

"Our funds are limited. All our savings are for your sister's weddings. And without a wage from your father I do not know how we will keep a roof over our heads."

Cancer was a cruel disease. One with no cure. It stripped people of their livelihoods before taking them to the grave. Many ended their lives in debtors prisons or the workhouse. I was determined this would not happen to any member of my family.

"Arrangements will be made to send you a sum of money each month." I said firmly.

"I only ask that you do not touch that which is promised to Chloe and Joyce. They deserve to have a wedding such as I did."

"We do not mind if it is to help father." Chloe spoke up.

"Nonsense. You also deserve the happiness I have."

"I cannot ask that of you." Mother responded.

"You have your life to live now. We will mange."

"I will not hear of it.

Henry has already agreed. I do not know how much it will be yet. But it will be enough to get you by."

I stayed overnight, sharing a bed with Chloe as we had done when we were younger. It felt nice to have her cuddle up to me. A soft, warm body to keep the night chill away.

We retired together while Joyce helped mother secure the house and went to her own room.

"How is marriage?" Chloe asked me.

"It is very pleasant.

Everything I had hoped."

She was seventeen. Not so young that it wouldn't be her turn very soon.

"I already have a suitor." She added with reddening cheeks.

"I hope he is a good and kind man."

"He is. You know of him.

It's Charles."

"Charles Wright?"

"Yes."

She nodded enthusiastically, evidently happy with having caught his eye.

"He has a job at the mill and is saving to rent us a small cottage."

I did indeed know him. He had once shown interest in myself, though we had never courted.

"He is young and handsome. And not much older than you."

"He's twenty."

She said it as though he was of a great age and I laughed.

"I am pleased for you."

"So tell me. While Joyce isn't here, for she is too young to talk of such matters.

What's it like? To lay with a man?" Is it as magical as some say? Or ... does it hurt, as others say?"

I did not know who they were. I had never known anyone describe it as magical. Only talk of blood and of pain when deflowered. I had suffered neither and now thought hearsay an unreliable source of knowledge.

"It is ... something I will tell you about before your wedding night."

Evelyn." She protested.

"It is not to be feared. But it is also not something you should pursue out of wedlock and I fear telling you may encourage that. I will tell you all you need to know before you marry.

If that, I promise."

I had wished so much that I had known. Now faced with a sister on the cusp of womanhood, I understood why such things were kept from us. I could not be sure that had I known of the delights copulation offered that I would have been able to save myself for marriage so easily.

No. It was better that a little fear remained until it was time.

Chloe shuffled up tight and put her arms around me as I reached to extinguish the candle with the snuffer.