Meet Me in St. Louis Ch. 04

Petra and Burke met Lady Cynthia for a light lunch before the tour of New York's charms. It was plain enough to her that Petra had made a conquest, and that there was something much more than just sex between her and the American. Smiling to herself, she knew in her heart that she had probably just lost her companion; but as long as Petra was content, so was she.

It was time to come to grips with what she would be going to encounter in St Louis. Artemis, or Diana as Charlotte seemed to prefer being called (why go for the Roman rather than the Greek version of the goddess of love, Cynthia wondered?), had been the closest thing Aunt Emily had ever had to a child. She had to trust Emily's judgement. If what Cynthia had spent half the night reading was in any way accurate (and she had to assume it was) then Charlotte (as she had to learn to call her, "Diana" was her professional name) was a resourceful woman with a streak of ruthlessness when needed.

Charlotte's narrative answered the question of how a Club run by women could survive in a man's world, but not the question of whether it would survive. Detective Kelly, who had come to the Soulard House and tried to take it over, by violence, had found that women could indeed be deadlier than the male. The question of how she, herself, would interact with Charlotte would, she thought, be paramount. If they could not get on, then Cynthia would cut her losses and sell. The problem was 'then what?'

Back to England and suffocation?

The attractions of Central Park distracted her, and Cynthia relaxed and soaked up the sights. The tall buildings had given her a sense of claustrophobia - the Park dispelled that. She found herself curiously pleased that Petra and Burke were holding hands.

The cab took them to all the usual tourist spots, but Burke was a good guide, and the afternoon passed pleasantly enough.

"Cyn, can Fred have supper with us?" Petra asked, rather shyly.

"He can stay the night again if it pleases you both, but I would guess Franklin would want a full report from you first thing tomorrow?"

"He would, Ma'am, but I can go early and be in the office for nine. And, erm," and here, to her delight, the dear man blushed, "thank you for, well..."

"What, Fred, letting you have my companion?"

Cyn laughed, not least as the look on Fred's face showed that for a moment, he had fallen for it and thought she was angry with him. She smiled, and touched Petra's hands.

"In fact my darlings, as I have much to think on, I shall have supper in my room - why don't you two dine together?"

Their profuse thanks were enough for Cynthia.

As she dined alone, she could not help but ponder the future.

Cynthia may have lived a sheltered life, but she prided herself on her realism. She had been a way out of a constricted and confined life for Petra. America could be a land of opportunity for her. It did not matter where you came from, as it did back home, what mattered here was where you were going, and money!

What was true of Petra was so for her. Cynthia did not want a Fred Burke, and had no idea what sort of future relationships might be possible for her. She knew herself well enough to know that she craved comfort and love. If it were only possible for a woman to have a wife, she would like to have been one; she knew she had so much love to give. But Society was never going to allow that.

Then it hit her.

Was this why Aunt Emily had gifted her the Soulard House? The House was outside "Society," it existed on the margins, in those liminal spaces where women who needed other women could find them. Could Aunt Emily have meant for Cynthia to see this? Was this why she had insisted that Cynthia had to see the house for herself? For a woman with no taste for other women the choice would have been simple; turn up; see it; sell it. But for a woman who might share Emily's own tastes, the choice would be there - a real one.

The thought thrilled Cynthia. Oh bless her, bless Aunt Emily. She had slipped her niece a lifeline. There were options for her which would otherwise never have existed but for her Aunt. She felt a warm glow towards the half-remembered woman. Had she guessed? Or was she just well enough aware of her brother's ways to want to offer his youngest daughter a way out? Either way, Cynthia felt emboldened to take it. The problem was knowing what "it" was, which was where, she knew, she would need help. Which was, she reflected, at the noise which was now coming from next door, more than Petra and Fred needed.

The next few day passed in a whirl as the final preparations were made for the journey. Cynthia relished the afternoon meeting with Mr Franklin, which went even better than she had hoped. It was clear Fred Burke had prepared the ground well, inspired rather than exhausted by the night before.

"Well, if you are sure, Lady Cynthia?"

"Oh I am Mr Franklin. Mr Burke has been such a help, a credit to you and your firm, and if you could lend him to us for a month it would help. I shall, of course, pay handsomely,"

"Don't you worry yourself Lady Cynthia, it's our pleasure to help."

"Well I am sure he can seek your advice when I come to decide to sell up."

The smile that crossed Franklin's face at her words, told Cynthia that Fred Burke had been telling the truth. Well, more fool Franklin if he was giving her his services for free.

"That, my darling, was a masterful portrayal of the innocent young damsel almost in distress," Petra giggled over afternoon tea.

"Well," Cynthia giggled back, "Fred will no doubt have you out of "datdress!"

Petra blushed at the play on words.

"You don't mind, do you, darling?"

"Not at all, darling. You seem to be as smitten with him as he is with you."

"Well, I am rather. He is a good man, Cyn, and he will be a help."

"I am sure of both, darling."

The Pullman the following day was as well-appointed as they could have wished, which, Lady Cynthia reflected, was just as well as it would take them a day to get to their destination.

Decorum demanded that whilst the ladies shared a cabin, Fred had his own elsewhere, which gave Cynthia and Petra some time that evening after supper.

Back in their compartment Cynthia looked at Petra.

"Do you still want to; I mean with me?"

As Petra kissed her, Cynthia took that to be her answer, so she turned her attention to how to make love in a confined space where people were passing by and could hear.

Sensing her lover's mood, Cynthia told her to lift her arms, and as she did so, she helped her out of her dress, taking the chance to unhook her bra as she did so. Pushing Petra back onto the sleeping couch, Cyn once more marvelled at her perfect breasts, the nipples slightly turned up as they hardened. Her lips sucked at the left one as she positioned Petra where she wanted her.

Imagining herself as one of the "escorts" at the Soulard House, Cynthia abandoned all thoughts except that she wanted to please her client.

Kneeling between Petra's warm thighs, she could smell her arousal and pushed her tummy against the wetness resulting from it. Her mouth was perfectly placed to give pleasure to Petra's breasts. She thrilled at how hard her nipples were, sliding her hands under her bottom and gripping it.

Petra was lost in the erotic haze, giving herself up to her lover's every desire. Shamelessly, she pressed her pussy against Cynthia's tummy, wanting more, but leaving that to her to decide.

Sensing Petra's desire for penetration, and guessing its cause, Cynthia moved her right hand to between her thighs. As her fingers tried to find their way in, she could feel that Petra was looser than a few days earlier; Fred had clearly opened her up.

Cynthia took advantage, sliding two fingers in, sideways, so her thumb could rub around Petra's swollen bud. The moan she got from Petra as her fingers penetrated her, encouraged Cynthia, who moved her fingers deeper, faster, and harder, brushing Petra's clit on each penetration. She bit Petra's nipple, which set her lover shaking. Sensing the moment was upon them, she bit the other nipple and then fingered her harder, adding a third one.

"I can't..." Petra began to say, but Cynthia, using her left hand, stuffed her panties in Petra's mouth to muffle what was to come. What came was Petra - and how. Her whole body convulsed, and had it not been for her gag, they would not only have heard her in the next compartment, they might have heard her in the dining car, which was four carriages in front.

Only when Petra stopped shaking did Cyn removed the gag.

"Oh! My!! Cyn, what was that?"

"Something you needed; I hope?"

"You were wonderful darling."

Cynthia raised her face from her lover's breasts and smiled.

"I think my Petra likes being taken."

Petra blushed.

"Could you tell he had taken me?"

"I could, darling, and that's fine, as long as there are no remnants. But does he know about us?"

"There won't be, Cyn, and no, no he doesn't. Should I tell him?"

"No, not unless he asks. What we do is between us."

"Can I confess?"

"Of course darling Petra."

"I was imagining that I was a client in the House, and you were dealing with me as you wanted."

Cynthia's laugh startled her.

"What's so funny?"

"The fact I was thinking the same thing. We may have some fun in St Louis, after all."

"What are you thinking, darling?"

As they cuddled after Petra's orgasm, Cynthia ran through her thinking.

"Much depends on this Caroline, Artemis/Diana or whatever name she uses professionally."

"How so?"

"She may resent my inheriting what she had every right to expect to have been hers. If you have had a chance to read the narrative Franklin gave us, you will see that she is a resourceful woman."

"I saw that," Petra blushed. "What was all that about her turning her snooty mother-in-law into her "pig?"

"Too much by far for me, darling, but it shows you she plays to win. If we want to keep the house, we shall need her help; but it won't come free. However, if it does not come, then I have the ultimate weapon - I shall sell."

"And what about Franklin?"

"Well, while he thinks Fred is able to manipulate you, and you me, he is actually our ally if Diana decides to fight us. If she will play along with us, I suspect she will be a valuable ally."

Unknown to Lady Cynthia, Caroline/Diana was having a similar conversation with her maid and lover, Amanda.

"Do you know anything about this English broad, Miss?"

"Just about nothing," Mandy. "But if Emily left her the whole caboodle, she had her reasons."

"But what it she just wants to sell up and take the money and run?"

"Then we're all screwed, but not in the good way."

Charlotte missed Emily, and she missed Margaret too. Although one of the other women, Grace, had wanted to totally degrade her former Mistress, Charlotte had refused to do so. In her "Diana" mode, as Mistress, she enjoyed humiliating her mother-in-law, who had been a total bitch and had tried to cheat her, but Diana was also Charlotte, and never confused the domme with the woman she was. She had known Margaret had needed to be treated the way she had treated her. But she also knew it was dangerous to bring resentments from real life into the erotic sphere. It was knowing this about her that had made Emily trust Charlotte. In her words: "that girl has a head on her shoulders, and is far more than a very pretty face."

The night after the funerals, Charlotte had taken Mandy to bed. She had been slow to see in the young woman a sexual partner. One of the things which made Charlotte so good as "Diana," was that she had a genuine concern for her "girls."

The mistake men like Detective Kelly made was one natural to such men. They saw women as objects, holes to be used, to ejaculate into, to satisfy their basic instincts. This was not how Charlotte saw "her girls."

Grace's truculence came from her never having had any say in anything about her life before she came to Emily's. Her friend, Deborah's compliance originated in the same place. They were two sides of the coin in terms of how Society treated women, especially women of a lower class. Offered a wider horizon and choice, Grace wanted to take out her anger on those more privileged; it made her a good domme with some women - as long as she kept it in check and channelled it into sexual activity designed to humiliate. Deborah, offered the same as Grace, was simply happy to be able to choose to please other women; it made her a good submissive.

Emily's Escorts gave such women a chance to rise above their origin. It gave women from Margaret and her own background a chance to be sexually free in a way that they did not feel was on offer with men. This, Emily had known and passed on to Charlotte. This was her legacy. As Charlotte had told the girls at the House meeting, she did not believe Emily had passed this on to a woman who would destroy the legacy.

Amanda was young, old enough for sex, but still, in Charlotte's eyes a maid and not a lover - until that night when the young woman had confessed her love for her Mistress.

Shivering with pleasure at the memory, Charlotte recalled how Amanda's firm young flesh had resisted her probing, and then how her body had yielded to the pressure and responded with deep moans that Charlotte swallowed as they kissed.

Amanda had become her protégé, coaxed by her fingers and lips into learning the joy one woman can give to another,

Amanda had been a virgin, offering Charlotte that treasure as a mark of how she felt. For all her experience at directing others in sex play, and all her time as an observer, Charlotte herself was no veteran of the bed chamber, and the first time she had been penetrated was that night, much to Mandy's amazement, as she had assumed that a married woman would not be a virgin

It was this double loss of virginity that had created the alchemy of that night. Used to dominating as Diana, Amanda had simply loved her as Charlotte. In the way only young love could, Mandy had given in to the desire to do everything she could to please her Mistress, and in the process, had become something infinitely more precious - her lover.

"Don't worry my precious one, things will work out?" Charlotte told Amanda, her hands stroking her long blonde locks. "We have each other."

Mandy smiled.

"Do you really want me, Charlotte? You are Diana, Artemis the huntress, you could have any woman you want."

It was, had Amanda but known it, just this that made her so precious to Charlotte, There was not an ounce of guile in the young woman. She wore her heart on her sleeve.

"With you, Mandy, I am just Charlotte, a woman needing love and offering it."

"I can't believe it Mistress, YOU want ME!"

Charlotte's words, the look in her eyes, her body language, all sent out to an acute observer, certain signals. For all her tender years, there was no observer more acute than Amanda when it came to her lover's needs.

Undressing Charlotte, Amanda lingered behind her as she pulled her panties to her ankles. Charlotte, so used to the pressures of being in control of everything, did that she had done that night, she gave way to Mandy, knowing she was in the safest and most loving of hands.

Guiding her Mistress to the dresser, helping her step out of her panties, Mandy parted her legs as she leaned forward, the curves of her ass made even more apparent by her pose. Then, parting Charlotte's legs, she ran her tongue down the length of her ass crack. She wanted to worship Charlotte, no part of her was off limits, unless she placed it there; she did not strop Mandy's tongue, in fact, she gave off a deep moan when her dark star was touched by it.

Mandy knew that what she was doing was "dirty," it would have resulted in a thrashing from her father had he ever found out, but in her heart, her love for Charlotte told her that it was something her lover wanted; Amanda's job, no, her deepest desire and pleasure, was to give Charlotte all she needed.

Her right hand moved into Charlotte's trimmed bush, finding the nub at the apex of her pussy, which made her thrust her ass back, harder. Knowing the effect she was having emboldened Mandy. With no thought of asking, she took what she knew her lover needed to give her but lacked the words with which to do so. It was this wordless connection which, like some radio wave aligned their frequencies, that made their loving what it was.

Had there been an observer she would have seen the maid with her tongue pressing into her Mistress's ass and her hand pressing her treasure; it was a dominant Mistress with a submissive Maid. Appearances could not have been more misleading.

The wordlessness might have led a more sceptical observer to the conclusion that the Maid was in charge, subjecting her Mistress to anal and vaginal penetration to cement her domination over a submissive older woman. Though not as misleading as the other assumption, it would have been almost equally wrong.

Yes, Charlotte craved what Mandy was doing to her; but not because she was submissive to her. Mandy had sensed the craving and was giving her woman what she needed, not because she was dominant, but because she loved her. That was why Charlotte was letting it happen. Well, that and the immense pleasure it was giving her.

That Mandy's tongue was exploring forbidden territory was, of itself, a cause of arousal. But who knew that the nerve endings there could, with the right stimulus, send such strong signals to her core? Charlotte now did. So did Mandy, who rubbed her pearl as she penetrated Charlotte's pussy with her fingers.

Charlotte was lost, utterly taken up by the pleasure Amanda was giving her. She pressed her ass back, willing Mandy's tube-like tongue to take her as deep as she could: the press of her face against her ass cheeks; the feel of that tongue; the fingers inside her; their pressing and twisting and probing; the thumb grazing her clit. She wanted to pinch her nipples, but knew she could not balance if she did that. But she so wanted to.

At that thought she gave way to the forces building within her. Pushing right back she screamed her lover's name and came, and came, and came.

As Amanda heard her name being repeated like a mantra, as she tasted her lover's juices, she knew one big thing - whatever the morrow would bring, all would be well, and all manner of things would be well. As long as Charlotte loved and wanted her, the world was good.