In The Library Ch. 16

I have crossed the broad ocean and I am now in a new country. I have left the country of my birth and the country where I grew to become a man, and I have left the country where the woman named Catherine reared me as her own son. But she was not my mother and I am now in my mother's country. For my mother is Alexandra Cain and I am Alex Cain, but I do not know my mother.

I am alone in this country and I know no one. I travel alone, and no one knows me. That is good, because there are things I must discover before I confront her, this Alexandra who abandoned me as a babe. But I do not know how I shall approach her, for I have learned that she was young, younger than I am now, when she birthed me. And I suspect that she was afraid then, very afraid, and perhaps that fear is with her still. Or perhaps it is not. But I am not a cruel man, or do not think that I am, so perhaps I shall forgive her. Or perhaps I will not.

I am in the city of her birth, for I have learned much of her family from the letters I found in Catherine's house and in newspapers and journals since, and I know where she lives. I know much of this Alexandra. She is rich, for one thing, very rich, for her father has died and and he was a very wealthy man, and she is the only daughter. And I too am rich, very rich, for her father has died and he was Catherine's brother, and her estate was split between me and her brother. And the damned cat. The cat still lives, so Catherine's house in England is maintained. But no matter, Catherine's wealth has come now to me, so where there is blood there is money, it seems.

She has not married, this Alexandra, so we have the same name. We are both Cains, and we are both blood.

I am in a small tavern, waiting for her maid, Odette. I have decided that I shall approach this woman my mother through the other woman, the faithful maid. I shall see how faithful the maid is, this Odette. This Odette - and the strange, strangled voice of the old man in the library echoed: "Dette 'oved me... Lexanda 'oved you." I could not forget the passion in his voice and in his gestures and in his strange eyes, and he had kept a twenty year old photograph in a precious box, and the locket that I now wear around my neck. The locket with the tiny image of me as a babe, and the tiny feathers.

Odette does not know me and I shall be a stranger to her. Ah, there she is. She is a tall, and still a striking woman, well built and moves very nicely. But look, her hair is grey and short, and look there, a blaze of white down the side of her head, a shock of white. Her face is soulful and lost, but I do not think that I care about her loss. She at least had the strange man in her life for something of a year, but I was a babe then and cannot remember my mother.

"Good woman, do you care for a game of 'gammon, to while away some hours and to keep a stranger in this town some company?" I approached her gently, and gestured at the board and dice and the black and white rounds, there on the table.

She looked forthrightly at me, with a strong gaze, "yes I shall, sir, although I do not know you, but I know strangeness." A curious reply, but no matter. Her voice was soft and low, and there was tiny lilt of my home county in her accent, so even after all these years she has kept a trace of that time. Important to her, then?

We sat at the table and fluttered the dice, and the click of the rounds on the board kept pace with our idle conversation. I was circuitous and circumspect and trusted that her knowledge of accents and place in England would be limited, and she would not pick the disguise in my voice. The bar-keep brought us some wine and bread, and we supped. The fire crackled and snapped, and the warmth was soothing. And as I spoke with her, I became beguiled with this Odette. Even though she was twice my age she held an earthiness about herself that I found enticing. I suppose she had something of Lucy and Molly about her, or perhaps it was just the servant girl in her, still there in this ripe woman.

I became more flirtatious, and she returned my look with that confident gaze of hers. " Young sir, do I sense that I please you? I did not expect that. I am no longer young, sir, and would think you might like some younger lass." She is testing me, I think, and I think I like that confidence in her.

"I think, my lady, that you do please me."

"Oh please sir, I am no lady, I am just a serving woman. My mistress, Miss Cain, she is the lady." So, she might be willing to reveal more. But tonight I think that I am not interested in the mistress, but I do think that I am interested in the wench. But she is ahead of me in her interest, for under the table I feel the touch of a boot, the tip of a boot, against my leg. She is forthright then, and as confident as her gaze. Perhaps she thinks her superior years give her some advantage over me. And I do confess that, while the ripe young bodies of Lucy and Molly and little Jenny were sweet and dainty, fresh and enticing, the older body of this tall, strong woman represents more experience and a sexual awareness that the younger girls were too innocent to possess. Perhaps that is it, perhaps I no longer desire innocence, but might now prefer worldliness, now that my world has been shattered.

But I think I think too much on it. "Madame, and I shall call you that, because your rank is more than that of a mere girl. I think you might be a confidante of a proud woman, and I think you have your own wisdom too, that I would share." I would leave a thread for her to unravel to Alexandra, if she chooses, and I flatter her, too.

"Hush sir, you exaggerate, I am just an honest working woman." But again the tip of her boot told another story. I reached my hand under the table, and placed it upon her firm thigh. Above the table, she did not react, but threw another dice and took another sip of her wine. But beneath the table her thigh moved towards mine, and her other hand pulled up the cloth of her skirt, and her fingers brushed mine. Above the table I threw the dice and moved pieces on the board. And beneath the table my fingers caught the edge of the cloth she had pulled high, and I pulled it higher, and traced my fingers inside the flesh of her thigh and then higher still, up her leg.

Above the table, then, we were just a young man and an older woman making a conversation and playing a game of backgammon. And if anybody cared, that is all they would see, for we both kept up the pretence of it, and the act. But beneath the table, my hand was creeping higher to the top of her thigh until her leg was spread wide for my touch, and my fingers began to run along a rippled crease of skin and her soft lips, and the ends of my fingers began to tangle in her hair. I idly traced my fingers back and forth along the edges of her sex and then ran one deeper into a slight slickness.

Above the table, Odette's eyes opened wider just a fraction and sparkled and once again her confidence impressed me. "I think, young sir," and her voice was low, "I think, sir, that our game is done at this table, and you should escort me to the door, for I am a respectable woman and you, sir, must be very tired after your long days of travel. It would be best if we were seen to go our separate ways." But beneath the table she snapped her thighs together and trapped my fingers there, and her eyes confirmed the message of her capture of me. "Sir, I trust you will sleep well, and I suggest you leave your boots by your door, and they can be collected by the lad in the morning to polish them." So that is how she will know my room, I am impressed with her quick thinking.

We rose from the table and made our way to the front door of the tavern. I bowed to her and took her gloved hand and kissed it, as a respectable man would respect an older woman of his acquaintance, and she played along with the act. "Goodnight, good sir, and I trust you shall sleep well this night." And she walked away up the road. She was tall and splendid in her walking, her hips swayed.

I turned back inside the tavern and made my way to the rooms I had hired at the back of the inn, and left my boots at the doorway there. Inside the room I made up the fire and pulled back the quilt on the bed, and then sat in the chair by the fire, my bare feet warming there.

Some time later there was a soft knock and the door opened a fraction, and the tip of a boot nudged it further open. Odette stood there, in her tall haughty way, the blaze of white a strange marking in her greyed hair. She was a confident woman, comfortable in her body, comfortable with her age. A little daunting even - I wondered if I was truly able to match her wiser ways. "Good evening, sir, and I trust that it shall be. It has been some time since a strong young man has favoured me and I will do my best not to disappoint." It was not clear exactly who was leading this seduction, although I was starting to think that it was not me.

Odette came to me and sat upon my lap. She was forthright, and I sensed that she knew what she wanted in a man, and with her strong, generous body I think any man would have been pleased to know her. She set about knowing me, by caressing my cheek and the line of short beard there, and with her soft lips she kissed me. Her breath was smokey from the wine, a tart taste on her lips. Her tongue nestled between my lips and probed into my mouth like a tiny finger, and she pulled on my tongue with her lips, sucking it to her own mouth. She sucked upon my lower lip like some sweet fruit and I tasted her lush lips. I ran my hands through her short hair and traced my fingers down the white blaze. As I did so she arched her head back and softly sighed, and her eyes were half lidded and nearly closed, as if she were drugged.

With a bigger intake of breath, she held my face strongly in her two hands and was fiercer, hungrier for my mouth. My fingers touching the white blaze seemed to have triggered some emotion in her, and I recalled the photograph I had seen in the library. Her hair then was a long tumble, a long mane of fair hair, with thick waves. It was a tinted black and white photograph, but showed her hair clearly. Her hair was long then, and all of one colour, fair it seemed. But long, and a rich mane any girl would have been proud of. But she has cut it short since, and I would not have thought her age would have greyed it so. But grey it was, and short, and the streak of white along its length.

Odette's fingers rose to my shirt and its row of buttons, and with her clever fingers she began to undo each button, while her other hand caressed the back of my head and my neck, fingers combing through my hair, her hand pulling me to her insistent kiss. Her hand reached inside my opened shirt and her short finger nails pulled upon my nipples and they tightened to fine points, and a thread pulled upon the nerve straight down to my cock, which twitched and began to fill and lengthen. She could feel it under her thigh, and with a slight twist and rub she acknowledged it there. "Sir likes that, my fingers upon his breast." It was a statement, not a question.

And in response my fingers too found a row of buttons and loosened each pearled circle, one by one, until her blouse was two folds of cloth, and her full breasts were held in another wrap of cloth about her neck and across her back, with a twist of cloth at the front, her two breasts full and heavy, swathed in cloth. The cloth was not tight, and my hand cupped in under one fold and held her breast, warm and a satisfying weight in my palm. My finger and thumb found the end of her hardening nipple, and again she sighed as I pulled upon her teat and held the weight of her full tit. "Ah, sir, I like your fingers upon my breast." Again, it was a statement, not a question.

My hand moved around her side to her back, and loosened the tie in the cloth there, so that I could pull away the wrap of cloth, and she twisted her body so that the full, proud swell of her bared breasts was before my eyes and her ripe flesh in my hands. She was full and magnificent, her breasts still high even with her age, but with a fullness that my three younger girls did not possess. Here was a ripeness and a firmness, heavy with her age but lovely, and I bent my head in worship to her nipples and sucked upon them and twisted her tight nips into my mouth. And I gave a gentle nip with my teeth around the suck of her nipple,and her flesh was tight and sweet and full. The crease between her globes was tangy with her sweat, a slight bead of scent there. And I palmed the weight of her breasts in my hands, and then pressed them hard against her chest, their fullness hot and hard with nipples tight and long.

Her fingers toyed with the locket about my neck, but she did not ask about it. She ran just one finger along the length of the chain and around the hanging pendant against my chest, and then her finger traced lower, down to my belly, and lower, down to the barrier of my belt. And my fingers too traced the weight of her belly, a nicely mounded fullness around her navel, her skin pale yet traced with the finest fair down, faint and blonde. I cupped the flesh of her belly, and it was a soft comforting place for my hand, for it was womanly and soft and full. "Oh, dear sir, your hands are firm but gentle, you caress my skin like a precious thing."

"It is your turn to hush now, sweet woman, for you are alive and aknowing of yourself, and you have a ripe beauty and a womanly grace that you know well in yourself, and I am most respectful of it. You are mature and beautiful but I am young and shallow, and would drown in you." I was not just flattering her, for her worldly beauty was something I had not yet learned to properly appreciate, but her age gave her wisdom about a man and a woman that I could not yet know, and she was teaching me, this proud woman.

And our lips caressed again and our tongues thrust at each other, and her hands were upon my chest and my hands were upon the soft sides of her body and cupping the weight of her breasts and my palm against the roundness of her belly was warm, and her fingernails scratched upon my flesh. She was leaning her body against mine now, reclining against me and her body was turned so I had full access to her splendid breasts and full nipples, and my hand wandered down to the base of her belly. I teased apart the folds of cloth about her waist and loosened her skirt, and my hand wandered to the tight place between her thighs. "Ah sir, you find the centre of me," and again it was a statement and an encouragement.

She was still sitting with her full, handsome weight on my lap, and the throb of me was against her thigh. My hands found some loops of cloth in the folds of her skirt, and I tugged them apart, and the skirt fell away from her long thighs and she was displayed in a full, wide spread of her long legs, stockings rolled high on her strong thighs, dark curled hair a triangle at the top of those limbs. And about her hips and haunches were a series of parallel scars on her flesh, five parallel scars on each side of her body, each about two or three inches long. The scars were thin and fine and straight, and she had been cut deep at some time in her life. They were not new, and were a part of her. I touched my fingers to them and traced the ends of my fingers to them, and the scars matched the line of my fingers. And as I touched them Odette gasped, and her hand reached to her hair and touched the white blaze there, and I saw that her eyes glistened and were bright and wet, yet faraway. Some sharp clawed hand or creature had made these scars upon her and had marked her.

My touch was gentle upon her skin, and I did not know whether to ask a question or to remain silent, for the scars were a part of her and marked her, and the white blaze in her hair was also a mark upon her.

"Odette, what manner of man or beast or woman made these marks upon you?" I had to ask, and the notion of a beast was in my mind because no human hand could be so quick and sharp and clean, but I could not imagine what creature might do this.

"Dear sir, you are kind and gentle to ask, and your touch is delicate upon my flesh and it is a caress, but I cannot compare your caress to the thing who marked me, but I cannot say who made these fine scars upon me. It is not a believable thing yet I cannot forget him." And once again her hand went to the blaze of white in her greyed hair, her short hair. And I knew then that she had sacrificed her precious long hair, and had suffered some terrible, but some ever longed for thing, and she had never forgotten. And I could not compare to this thing that happened to her once, and that was why she was confident and proud, for she knew that no man could ever compare to some long ago love that made her strong and proud. For she knew her own flesh, and it had been loved beyond compare.

And I was humbled before her and her strong memory, and the powerful thing that had loved her and she had loved it in return. And the torn throated voice of the of man in the library, that man who had been beautiful once, that torn broken voice came back to me, "Dette 'oved me." And I thought then, that I knew who her past love was, but I could make no sense of it because I could make no sense of him. And I could not say to her that I knew of this man, because that would reveal I knew of her past, and that would reveal me.

Even though I was humbled and could not compare to her unforgotten love, Odette was nude before me and I had to worship her beautiful presence and in so doing honour her with my lust. It might be a clumsy thing but it was what I had, and she at least should have it, even if it did not compare. So I bade her fall back on the bed, and knelt between those long thighs , black stockings with a blacker band at the top of them lightly compressing the flesh of her thigh, and her skin was soft and smooth, and the dark cleft of her sex was plump and full, long lips edging above the line of fine dark hair, lazily curled and spreading just a little down the inner part of her thighs, a tiny bit of hair there.

And the delta of hair spreading up the base of her belly was fine and lightly curled and there was a thin line of soft down running up the centre of the plumpness that was the bottom of her long torso. And she was full and luxurious and her cunt was before my eyes, and I traced my fingers up between her lips and Odette gasped with the press of my fingers into her. I pressed on with my fingers and they teased and touched apart the red cleft of her soft sex and her clitoris rose like a small red pearl, and I trailed up a loop of her wetness around her high centre and again she sighed.

"Put your tongue to me, you beautiful young man, put your tongue to me, lick into me and fuck into my cunt with your long fingers." Odette urged and demanded me, and her urging was my desire and I wanted her then, but wanted more than my tongue and fingers in her hot heat. She was wide before me and open, and her cunt was inviting and her full breasts enticed me too, for my hands loved their weight, and her red lipped mouth had been a treat for my lips once already and would be again. And I wanted to prove to this proud woman that she might command me and compare, but it would be on my terms, and more than all else at this time I wanted to fuck into her.

So I stood above her and stood tall to show her my youth, and I peeled down my pants and my prick sprang high and hard against my belly for I was a young man and it rose hard and full against my gut. And her eyes opened a little wider at the sight of me, and a slow glaze came over them and then her eyelids drooped and there was a slight smile came to her mouth. And I think that Odette compared me, and I was worthy of that matching, or my young prick was at least a rod to compare to his, in her memory, if not I.