Talisman Ch. 5: Victoria Grace Tilden

Winthrop looked over her knuckles as he kissed her hand. "Never as lovely a day without your presence, Victoria."

At Winthrop's obvious drunken flirtation, Victoria rolled her eyes. "Well, my my… A generous compliment, I am certain. And may I get an introduction to your handsome friend?"

Still standing, the man from Sydney bowed at the waist and held out his hand. "Stephen Melville of Sydney, Australia, Miss Tilden. I'm afraid, Sir Ceril has made you out to be the most gracious being since our late queen. Funny that, it's not like him to be so unreserved with his compliments."

Victoria took the man's hand and smiled at his comment. Winthrop pulled out a chair for her and she sat down, crossing one knee slowly over the other.

"Where is that man of yours? I haven't seen him since breakfast and I've got news." Winthrop gestured to the barman and took his seat beside her.

"Oh, well, he's feeling a bit tired and is upstairs in his room taking a nap, I believe."

"Taking naps? At his age? Ridiculous notion. I'm at least twice his age and don't relish naps." Winthrop took another ale from the barman's tray and began to sip.

Victoria smiled and waited for a proper moment. "Perhaps you haven't spent your morning entertaining a young woman's wishes, Sir Ceril?"

Beer shot out his nose and foam clear across the table as Winthrop reacted to Victoria's statement. He yelled and stood up, coughing - beer foam clinging to the ends of his mustache and ale running over his chin. Mr. Melville stood and began clapping Winthrop on the back. "A little go down the wrong pipe, Sir Ceril? Are you okay?"

"Yes, yes, fine," he wheezed. A side glance at the smirk on Victoria's face told him all he needed to know.

He pointed at her. "She did that on purpose. Almost skewered me on that razor sharp wit of hers. Ha ha! I feel doubly sorry for our friend Michael Berringer now. Perhaps I'll send some lilies along to his chambers. Ha!"

Victoria leaned up to Winthrop and kissed a little of the foam away. "I think I like you better like this, Sir Ceril. Another round perhaps?"

Winthrop chuckled and laughed heartily. "Oh my, we'd best get to the gates, Melville. What did we work out about our wager?"

Melville looked dourly. "Three-to-one, Sir Winthrop."

"Where are you going?" Victoria smiled at the two gentlemen.

"The camel races." Winthrop pulled out his pocket watch to check the time. "Starts in a quarter-hour, dear. Care to join us?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Melville smiled along with Winthrop and pulled out Victoria's chair as she stood.

Winthrop signed for the check and they all ventured out the front door towards the grandstands in the distance.

After they settled among the excited gathering crowd, Winthrop and Melville decided to place their bets before the first posting. Winthrop bade the younger man lead and turned as he left. "Care for anything, Victoria?"

Seated at the front, Victoria called after him. "You're too kind to ask, Sir Ceril. Thank you all the same."

She was enjoying the hot sunshine, basking in it, reveling in the feel. Back in London right now, it was raining, dismal and cold. Here, it was always warm as if the whole country was trying to embrace you. A light breeze had blown in from the direction of the pyramids and she felt very relaxed. She tilted her face towards the sun and shut her eyes, letting her body feel and stretching her senses out to the experience around her.

A shadow passed across her face. "Miss Tilden?"

Opening her eyes, she saw Tony, the crew manager for the Michael's dig. "Yes, Tony?"

Tony bowed. "Please, Miss Tilden. Mr. Berringer wold like to speak with you back at the hotel."

"Right now? I'm surprised he's awake." Victoria didn't really want to leave, but perhaps Michael needed her.

"Yes, I've just left him in his room."

She looked around at the crowd for sight of Winthrop or Mr. Melville, but didn't see them.

She turned to one of the servants. "Would you please tell my companions, I was called away?

The Egyptian bowed. "Yes, miss."

Irritated, she rose from her chair, addressing Tony. "Oh, all right. Please lead the way then."

Tony nodded, turned and cut a path through other guests arriving. In moments, they reached the side of the hotel and Tony approached the side entrance of the nearest wing.

"Wouldn't it be faster through the lobby entrance?" Victoria was four paces behind Tony.

"No, Miss. This way, please." He entered the side door and held it for her. The short entrance hall was only fifty feet long before it ran into the main hallway of the western wing, but with no outside windows, the hall was quite dark. The door closed behind her and she could barely see.

"Tony, would you mind leading the way? Tony?"

"Yes, Miss Tilden. Follow me, please." As he passed her, she could smell the trailing draft of French perfume that he wore. She followed carefully, watching the floor where she stepped.

"Tony, do you mind a question?"

Tony turned in the main hallway. "No, Miss, please."

"That perfume that you wear. It is French, is it not?"

"Yes, Miss Tilden. Does it offend you?"

"No, it doesn't. In fact, it has quite a pleasant scent. But it is one I would expect to find on a woman, not a man such as you. It creates a mystery."

Tony reached the first staircase and started up. "Do you enjoy mysteries, Miss Tilden?"

She smiled, lifted her skirt and started up the stairs behind Tony.

"I suppose I enjoy them as much as the next girl, but it does seem a bit odd, don't you think?" She reached the landing, turned left into the hall and saw Tony at an open doorway.

Tony gestured inside. "Here we are, Miss Tilden."

She smiled as she passed him, but the smile soon left her features as she recognized her own room. "What is going on? Why is Mr. Berringer in my room?"

The door closed and a hand clamped over her mouth. Another grabbed her waist and pulled her back against a powerful man. "I think you enjoy mysteries, Miss Tilden. I think you like dark places."

Victoria struggled to get out of Tony's grasp. "Don't fight me, Miss Tilden. I have wanted to have a woman like you for many years. A proper British woman with proper upbringing and now that I know what you like, I know I will have you." He pushed his hand down between her legs and pressed deeply. Pushing away from the invading hand, her bottom pressed into his hips and there she felt his hard penis encased within his trousers, rubbing against her. With both hands, she pushed at the hand over her mouth until it slid over her arm.

"Don't… Don't do this. Mr. Berringer…!"

"Your Mr. Berringer is asleep, Miss Tilden, safely in his room. Tell me, why does he sleep so soundly in the middle of the afternoon?"

"I… I don't know. What do you mean?"

"Perhaps it was your trip to the market this morning?" He kissed the side of her face.

"No!" She lunged and caught him with an elbow in the side of his face. He let go of one arm and she spun away, right into the flat of his other hand, slapping the side of her face hard. She went down in a heap on the floor.

She quickly sat up on her elbows, still reeling from the stars tingling in front of her eyes.

Tony stood over her, pointing. "I saw you, you whore! I saw you and your lover take that young woman in the market."

Victoria tried to get away from him, pushing and sliding along the floor, looking for a way out.

He advanced and reached for his belt. "But I know what you like. And I'm going to give it to you." He pulled open the breech of his trousers and the buttons on his shirt. Black hair covered his belly, and beneath it, he revealed his natural body odor that no perfume could cover. His underdrawers tented fiercely, hiding his erection. He fumbled quickly with his buttons and pulled his stiff penis out into the open. He placed a fist around it and pointed its eye at her. "Come, whore. Here's what you want. Feast on my cock, Miss Tilden. Get it hard for that sloppy pussy of yours."

Shocked and panicked, Victoria's eyes looked at it, sticking from its nest of black hair and a warmth came over her. A keen, brilliant heat spread from around her neck and down her body, radiating from between her breasts.

She stopped sliding backwards on the floor and her frightened face relaxed to a wry smile.

Tony stopped his advance, surprised by the look on her face.

"It looks very good, Mr. Perridopolis, very good indeed. And your smell…" Victoria closed her eyes and breathed deeply, raising her breasts towards him. "A very sexual scent indeed, nothing like that prissy perfume smell."

Tony's face was a mass of confusion. His bushy eyebrows danced under the wrinkled forehead. His eyes looked around as though someone was going to jump him. What was going on with this bitch? Why isn't she afraid? His cock started to wilt in his hand.

"Oh, don't lose that erection, Tony. Here, let me help." Victoria sat up and unbuttoned her blouse. She quickly pulled it down over her shoulders, revealing the tops of her breasts, bulging from the corset holding them. Tony's eyes took them in and his breathing quickened to match the pounding of his heart.

She raised her hands to her breasts and caressed them. "Does this help, Tony? Do my breasts excite you? Here." She loosened the front lacing and pulled her breasts free, spilling over the top of the corset. Her nipples were red and stiff. She took them between her fingers and twisted.

"See how my nipples are hard at the sight of your stiff thing? A penis ready for loving gets me so excited, Tony. I'm wet already. Now, let me see. Where shall you take me? On the bed? No, that's too ordinary. Over the chair at my vanity? That's not bad… Not bad. My behind in the air. You could take me that way, couldn't you, Tony? You would like that, wouldn't you?"

Tony looked at the luscious breasts before him and watched Victoria's fingers pleasure herself, but he looked confused as if he didn't know what to do. This shouldn't be happening. She should scream. She should run. She should beg. She should fight. His erection got softer and softer.

Victoria got up on her knees and reached for Tony's cock. "Give it to me, Tony. I'll suck it and get it really hard, then you can stick it in me and love me like a woman needs."

Tony backed away. The look on his face said this woman was obviously mad. He was afraid. What might she do? She may bite me. "No, get away… You crazy bitch! Don't touch me." Tony backed up, closing his pants, putting his cock away. Keeping his eyes on Victoria, he reached frantically behind him, searching for the door.

Victoria advanced, reaching for his penis. Her fingers grabbing at his clothes. "No, please… Bring it back out. You can have me, Tony. I won't tell anyone you lost your erection. I promise! Please Tony?"

Groping behind him, Tony finally found the doorknob, flung open the door and escaped into the hall.

Victoria stood there for a moment quietly as her door bounced once against the frame and Tony's thundering footsteps raced away down the hall in a steady thump, thump, thump that got quieter the faster it ran. She reached out and pulled the door shut, then she couldn't contain herself any longer. She turned with her back to the door, smiling uncontrollably and laughed. She laughed so hard, she fell against the door and slid to the floor, slapping the floorboards around her. She felt amazing. She felt in control. She felt powerful.

She walked to the window and threw the curtain aside, looking out at the sand flowing to the horizon. Grinning, she breathed deeply once, then twice…then voices in conversation caused her to look down. Two women passed just below her window, taking animatedly to one another. Suddenly, Victoria realized her breasts were still on display. She quickly hid behind the curtain, then slowly peeked out, watching the two women walk by. They had not seen her. She leaned back against the wall behind her and sighed. What was happening to me? What if someone had seen? What if…she thought of Tony again and the warmth spread through her, calming her, strengthening her. The bastard! He wanted to… Well, never again. She straightened, laced her corset and brushed her hair in the mirror, still smiling with the memory of Tony's fear.

The next morning, they left for the dig on the far side of the pyramids in the distance. They left early by camel, before the sun made it too intolerable for travel. They reached the dig by noon. Michael took Victoria to see the latest progress and show her a wall they'd uncovered weeks before.

The crew was fairly large for endeavors of this kind. Winthrop's company employed sixty local Egyptian men; all fed, housed and paid through her fiancé's efforts. Their encampment was on the eastern side of the dig. Twenty-five tents arranged in a large circle surrounded the storage tent and mess tent while servants from the hotel waited on the ten tents of Winthrop's exploration team - food brought in daily by camel.

The site was fairly large. They believed it was located on the edge of a larger burial site where king's households and their religious leader's were interred, supposedly along with treasures to help them in the afterlife. Victoria didn't like the idea of profiting from the deaths of others, but the very idea of exploring the culture of this ancient society by studying the relics to be found here, excited her to her very core.

The diggers had recently uncovered a wall at the base of a rocky hill. There, still clearly cut, Michael pointed out the hieroglyphics that they needed deciphered. With any luck, their message would help them begin to understand exactly what they had found. Her fiancé bid her adieu and spent the rest of the day supervising Tony and the laborers. Victoria spent the afternoon copying down the ancient text in her notebook, drawing each of the carvings as carefully as she could. She made notes on the edge of the page as to what decorations surrounded the writings and which way the wall was facing, due east in this case.

She took the pages and pinned them to the mosquito netting covering her cot. Hands on hips, she stood back and looked at the transcriptions. She deciphered the hieroglyphics to read, "Odat serves the one true god, Ra, as his master. Upon this he entrusts the temple of the family by the ____ mountain of the Fall."

Victoria pushed the sweat and hair off her face and looked at the symbols again. She's never seen the narrow box that preceded the mountain symbol before. What mountain? What was its name? The Fall might mean the day of the equinox, but whose family and who was Odat? She sat down at the table and wrote out all her questions, guessed a few times at the meaning of the narrow box, but nothing made any more sense than the others did. She'd have to look for the symbol in her copy of Peltrie's unpublished text back at the hotel.

By nightfall, she was exhausted and wanted nothing more than a hot bath. Unfortunately, the hotel was at least a half-day ride and the wash basin in the tent she shared with Sarah would have to do.

She returned to the tent, filled the wash basin and removed her dusty camp blouse to wash. She removed her boots and pushed her heavy skirt off her hips.

"Hello, Miss Tilden. Do you need any assistance?" Aziza greeted her tired countenance. The upstairs maid had been retained as one of the servants from the hotel.

"Yes, please, Aziza. Good of you to come. Help me again with this confounded undergarment of mine."

Aziza, still dressed in the maid's uniform of the hotel, entered the tent and walked across the rug-covered dirt floor to help. "Yes, Miss Tilden."

"Yes, I still can't really reach them."

Aziza moved behind her, held up Victoria's hair off her neck and untied the top of the corset's lacings. She pulled them free, continuing down her back until the garment sagged away from her.

Victoria stood up straight, stretching with her hands on hips. "Oh my God, I can breathe again. Why we women wear such things is beyond me, Aziza."

"It must be brutally hot, Miss Tilden. And all for… Oh, Miss Tilden, what a beautiful pendant."

Victoria looked down and saw the medallion lying in the cleft between her breasts. "It is beautiful, isn't it? Some kind of Indian jewelry. Michael, I mean Mr. Berringer, gave it to me when I arrived."

Aziza stared at the white ivory and gold chain, not looking away for a moment. Victoria let her eyes roam the young woman, the press of her breasts against her starched blouse, the flare of her hips under the long skirt, her long neck leading up to the beauty of her exotic face. Her long hair was worn up and she looked a bit thin for a woman, but pretty none-the-less.

Victoria took a step closer to Aziza. "You can examine it, if you wish, Aziza."

She raised her hand, then quickly lowered it. "No, it's too fine, Miss Tilden."

Victoria caught Aziza's hand, brought it to the medallion and smiled. "No, please, Aziza. I insist."

Aziza returned the smile and gently fished the medallion off Victoria's bosom. At the soft touch of her fingers, Victoria felt warmth spread through her body just like ripples on a pond. She breathed deeply and sighed.

Aziza stared at the pendant, turning it over to look carefully at the engravings there. She ran her fingers along the gold necklace. "It's very lovely, Miss Tilden."

Victoria pulled at the corset, forcing it down off her hips and over her knickers. It finally gave way and she could pull it off. "Whew! Everyday, the same thing. What I wouldn't give…" She caught Aziza's gaze watching her breasts as they swayed against her body.

"Aziza, do you suppose I could have a better look at that undergarment you showed me the other day?"

Aziza's hand went to her breasts. "Of course, Miss Tilden, but I…"

"I won't mind, not this time."

"Sorry, mademoiselle. I don't wish to offend."

Victoria reached out and gently touched the cheek of the young Egyptian. "How could you? Like you said, we're both woman."

Aziza smiled. Her hands came up to her neck and began unbuttoning her collar, then the front of her blouse.

Victoria watched as she undressed - as each button as it popped undone. "Here, Aziza, allow me, please."

She grabbed the next button just above Aziza's breasts and popped it through. A blue satin garment came into view as the blouse front parted. Victoria continued all the way down to her waist, pulled the tail of the blouse out from her skirt, then pushed it off her shoulders. Aziza's breasts were not large like Victoria's, but then, she was a thin woman - tall and thin.

A flash came to Victoria and she turned towards the hieroglyphs posted on her netting.

"Is something amiss, mademoiselle?" Aziza was concerned.

"No, not al all, girl. Just a moment." Victoria reassured her with a touch to her shoulder.

She read the inscription to herself, looking at the unresolved symbol once again. Of course, the narrow box represented something thin, a tall thin peak or a volcanic pike perhaps. She had the last piece of the puzzle for Michael.

She smiled and looked back to Aziza. "You've just helped me solve a riddle, Aziza."

The young maid's nipples poked at the material of her silky garment. "I don't know how I've helped, mademoiselle, but I'm glad I could help you."

Victoria backed away, examining the young woman's body.

"Turn around, please." Aziza started to turn. "No, very slowly please, like a dance." Aziza turned ever so slowly in place. The garment had two straps over the shoulder and one band about her torso, contained by buttons in the back.

Victoria held out her hand. "Remove it, Aziza. I would like to see how it assists your figure."