The de Winter's Tale

The scorn with which those flinty green eyes looked down her beautiful nose at him was worthy of a scene from the aristocratic romances of one of Carl's fellow writers on the erotic writing site. She even tossed her head, although she closed the door behind her with a firmness short of a slam.

"Jesus H. Fucking Christ!" Camille stormed across the bedroom, jerking the buttons open on her sharp grey jacket. She stood in the middle of the room, her hands on her curving hips, and glowered hotly. Filthy profane language spilled from her perfectly pouting mouth. "For fuck's sake."

"Aww, Cami-knickers," Jeff laughed, wheeling himself across the room towards her. "Don't get yourself in a twist." He was wearing only a dressing-gown, his thin hair tousled and his eyes sleepy from his afternoon nap.

"That fucking boy," she raged.

"Poor kid," Jeff laughed. "Did you give him the straight feedback like I suggested? I wish you would've let me read his story!" He went into a fit of giggles.

"My God, you're joking!" She exclaimed in fury. "It was filth. Sexist tosh. He described my breasts as twin peaks of pleasure!" Jeff could barely contain his mirth at this revelation. "Shut up, you fucking bastard," Camille fumed.

"What do you want me to do?" Jeff laughed. "Get out of my wheelchair and horsewhip the kid on the steps of our swimming pool?"

"How am I going to be able to swim now?" Camille grumbled. "With his lecherous little eyes on my body."

"I expect he'll sneak away early, pretending there's been a family emergency," her husband said consolingly. "It's a pity," he added. "I thought he was serious about writing. He actually talked to me about the Dara Cruft stories -- the books, not the gaming series."

"I think we should tell Mike Jones only to give women students the summer job," Camille said.

"You mean like Lisabet, who accused you of homophobia when you wouldn't sleep with her?"

"Fuck it," Camille said sulkily. She bit angrily at her perfectly pouting lower lip. A green glare darted about the room in search of something -- or someone -- on whom to vent her frustration. "Aren't you jealous at all?" She demanded.

Jeff laughed again, lolling back in his wheelchair. The folds of the dressing-gown fell about a weak chest. Stubble made his thin face with the rheumy eyes look even more disreputable and seedy than usual. However his pain-killers had kicked in and a good afternoon rest was always refreshing for him. He was energised too by the unexpected entertainment of the rumpus over Carl's dreadful faux pas. This was more amusement than he had got out of any of the other writing students he and Camille had hosted, who often tried to avoid his acutely intelligent wife and get him to read their desperate scribbles.

"Some muscle-bound college stud wants to fuck my gorgeous wife but she'd rather have me?" He asked. "No, I find it a turnon."

She looked apprehensively at him lounging in the wheelchair. There was a glint in his eye.

"Stop it, Jeff, I'm not in the mood," she said.

"Oh yeah?" he replied. "C'mon darlin'," he added in a bad Cockney accent. "Show us yer knickers."

"Oh my God, not that one," she said, snorting with laughter. She had begun to blush. She suddenly stood in an extraordinary gawky pose for a senior university lecturer: her feet in their chic high heeled shoes at angles, her slender ankles twisted, one hip up and her arms awkwardly crossed over her magnificent breasts in the soft silk blouse.

"C'mon Cami-knickers," he said. "Show me the goods."

"Oh Jesus!" she moaned, already backing towards the bed. "Not now. I ought to email Mike about that silly boy."

"Fuck Mike," he said, wheeling after her as she stumbled backwards on her high heels. The edge of the bed caught the backs of her shapely calves and she suddenly sat down, her knees splaying apart in an involuntary jerk.

That assertive tone of voice, the keen gleam in his eye. She was panting lightly already and he had not even started.

"Awww baby," he crooned. "You're trembling. Come on, my cute whoor. You know you want to."

"Oh my God," she tried to laugh it off. "Jeff, please!"

"Your filthy little secret is safe with me," he sniggered. "Your über feminist colleagues need never know that you like to be demeaningly called 'baby' and to show me your cunt."

"Oh oh!" she cried in an anguish of embarrassed desire. He had wheeled over and had placed his hands on her legs above the knees. Exercised by the use of his wheelchair, his grip was exceptionally strong. Even if she wanted to resist, she knew he was physically capable of forcing her legs apart. But resistance was futile. It was all too evident from her panting breath and the flush brightening her porcelain pale skin, how turned on she was.

"Visibilising the pudenda is a perfectly legitimate means of overcoming the shame which is encoded in the very name of female sex organs," she said in between panting breaths.

"Yes yes," he murmured. "Very good, my dear." His hands were sliding up the prickly nylon on her legs. "I look forward to your paper on the topic with ... ah! considerable anticipation." He smacked his lips as he said this and she couldn't help laughing back to the laugh in his eyes.

His hands had arrived at the tops of her legs. He felt the bands across them, the straps of the suspenders. "Stockings," he murmured. "You know me too well, my dear." He made a filthy snigger and felt her thighs quiver as she writhed under his hands.

The power of it would make the feelings surge about his body; the power to reduce this distinguished proud beauty to quivering jelly with his wordplay and the touch of his fingers. She was panting heavily. Her magnificent full bosom was heaving in the soft silk of her blouse.

Now that her jacket was unbuttoned, he could clearly see the tracery of white lace bra that cupped her pale tits through the transparent fine white silk. He imagined the dark nipples springing out on her white breasts, those few fine dark hairs growing in the circle of her areolae.

When was it he had discovered her exhibitionist streak? She was shy, it took time for her to admit even to herself that she loved to be looked at. The lightest critical comment about a see-through blouse could make her budding arousal shrivel, shamed tears come to her beautiful eyes. If he gave his approval, though, she would allow herself the pleasure of those milky mild teasing displays of leg or cleavage.

He licked his lips with a grin. Only for him, and to their mutual excitement, she had begun to go much further than the tease of a see-through blouse.

"Pull up your skirt," he commanded in a voice hoarse with lust. He loved to see the eagerness with which she scrambled to obey. Her usual elegant poise shattered, she jerked clumsily at her grey skirt, heaving her hips up to get the skirt right up around her waist in her desperation to show him her cunt.

"Ahhhh! Cami-knickers," he gloated, fingering the lace-edged silk shorties which clad her bottom. He put his fingers easily straight into the wide legholes to her pussy. She jerked up, her green eyes going wide, and cried out with the shocking sensation of pleasure. He laughed triumphantly again.

She was already wet for him, her juices soaking the gusset of her shorty cami-knickers. He played his fingers in the slick soft warm pool formed by her vulva, flicking occasionally at her clitoris -- too infrequently for her to start to cum. Every time, she would let slip an involuntary gasp of pleasure. He laughed softly.

"Pull them off," he commanded. He liked to make her do it, to see her trembling fingers awkwardly jerking the silk and lace from her own body on his orders. He watched greedily as she exposed herself to his gaze. There was a string of cunt juice already glistening in her trimmed dark bush of pubic hair. She heaved up to get the knickers over her buttocks and he saw a flash of her dark female hole and the plum of her arsehole between the cracks of her butt cheeks. Her long legs were scrabbling about to kick the knickers away, now throwing wide. She was whimpering. She was so keen for him that she put her hands to her cunt lips herself, spreading them, opening up to him the view straight into her pink glistening vulva.

He was panting himself now. There was nothing in his groin, of course, no feeling. Even little blue pills would not help there. But who cared for the crude power of the penis when he could have this delicate set of exquisitely controlled pleasures. The sight, the smell, even the sucking sound as his finger pulled in and out of her cunt. He chose when and whether she could come off, fingering her clit, her cunt, refining his touch in tune with her moans, her pleading.

"C'mon, you fucking slut!" He shouted suddenly. Her cunt muscles clamped on his fingers as she rose in indignant ecstasy at this disgraceful sexy insult. He thrust two fingers of one hand to her rhythm, gently rolling at her clit with a fingertip of the other hand.

She gave a final quivering heave. He himself was shaking and lightly beaded with sweat. He stooped and laid his lips to her cunt lips, to taste his triumph. She moaned at the caress of his tongue.

He used his powerful arms to pull himself up onto the bed and over her. He lay in her embrace, pressed his sticky lips to her kiss. He as much as she was exhausted with pleasure. They lay in a heap of tired limbs, covered by his body and his dressing gown. She still had her skirt rucked up around her waist.

She stared at the side of his head. These kids with their veneration of their own fleetingly divine physiques would never understand. She did not long for sex; she longed for sex with him.

This man with the laugh in his eyes and the wicked sense of wordplay, her life's companion. She trusted him absolutely. He controlled her sexuality as finely as she controlled his crude spurts of creative writing.

They were the same age, had met as divinely beautiful college kids, had grown together: working side by side to raise their two children, to maintain her academic career while she utilised her fine critical skills to hone his flair for telling stories. A cruel fate left him looking so much older, her so much younger so that people assumed she was his trophy wife, insulting his intelligence as much as hers.

"I'm sorry, Jeff," she whispered. "Thank you, thank you."

He had never been able to explain to her the pleasures of scrutinising her body with his eyes, his fingers, his tongue. She was unable to prevent herself apologising, in her shame at how wanton she thought her innocent little displays were. She thought he did it just to pleasure her, to bring her off. No matter how many times he told her, she could not believe he wanted to look at the cunt she was ashamed of. After all the many feminist lectures on women's bodies she had heard -- and had given herself. Of course if they talked, she denied it. But every time he jockeyed her into showing him her body, as she lay afterwards in his arms, she apologised.

~o~0~o~

It was the worst fucking job in the world.

Carl sat with his head in his hands and burnt with shame. He was too ashamed to cry. He had been sitting like this for what felt like hours, trying to get motivated enough to think up a family emergency that meant he could leave. Immediately. Without ever having to look in that fucking Ice Queen's frigid green eyes again.

The worst of it was that she had taken his writing seriously. She had gone through it line by line, pointing out the lame imagery, the feeble background scenario, the weak grammatical mistakes. The 'utter disregard for any distinction between comma and semi-colon'. Two fucking paragraphs she had written about how his story played into outdated gender dynamics and racially dubious stereotypes. He would never write again.

Why did she bother? Just to pussy-whip him in punishment for jerking off to the thought of those beautiful boobs, the twin peaks of pleasure? Tears came to his eyes. OK, fair enough that she resented how her intellectual talent always got obscured by the way her body made men's minds go to mush, but was that a good enough reason for kicking his story in the balls?

Did he have a talent for characterisation? It was true, he had always had this capacity to get what people were thinking, how they viewed the world and why. Fuck use was that, if you wanted to hit the big time with your writing? Talk to him about a 'difficult working environment', trying to pay his way through college and just looking for a decent way to earn enough for a fucking swimming pool and a woman who might mean more than a fuck.

Why the fuck should a jerk like Jeff Somers get all that. He was in a wheelchair, he couldn't appreciate the half of it. Could he? He must be bombed out of his mind on either pain or painkillers most of the time.

To have a pool built like that, just so he could watch his fit fucking wife go up and down and do a few stupid exercises with his physio. Did he enjoy the feel of the lapping waters about his weedy chest like Carl enjoyed parting them with his strong arms? Carl tilted his head as he thought this, and frowned.

Did Somers, could Somers enjoy that statuesque beauty? Or did the two of them suit each other because she was just an Ice Queen who could freeze all your hopes with a couple of acid words, and he was only capable of enjoying looking at her. Although Carl had to admit, she was worth fucking looking at. She dressed like she knew it, in her heart, however hard she pretended she only cared about her mind. What was it like to look at that body that was so worth looking at, when the person inside it only admitted their beauty in secret?

Camille cast a cautious glance down the slope of the lawn in the cool early morning light. It was a chilly day with rain at its back. She had no objection to swimming in the rain -- you were already wet so, whatever. She just wanted to get her swim over before young Hotspur -- as Jeff had inevitably christened him -- came panting along to annoy her.

There was a light on in the room over the garage, outlining the window as a yellow square in the dull grey morning. She wondered if he had done a runner in the night, leaving the light on in his haste.

After her swim, she went back for breakfast. She lazily opened her email while eating a bowl of fruit and yoghurt. To her great surprise, there was an email from Carl, with an attachment.

Jeff wheeled himself into the usually light sunny dining room, yawning and scratching. He was still in his pyjamas and unshaven. It was grey and cold outside. Rain was softly blowing on the window panes.

Camille sat in the grey light by the windows at the foot of the dining table, still in her swimsuit and a towelling robe. She was hunched over her laptop. A bowl of barely touched fruit and yoghurt was pushed away to the side of it.

To his horror, Jeff saw that she was crying.

"What's happened?" he demanded. "What's the matter?"

She looked up and tried to smile through her tears. "It's nothing," she hurried to reassure him. "It's just Carl's story. He didn't make an excuse to go. He started writing seriously instead."

"Really?" Jeff said. "Can I read it?"

"Um ... no," she said, closing her laptop and wiping the tears off her face with the back of her hand. "It's a bit ... rough still. Maybe later, darling."

"Oh ... OK," he said carelessly. He of course never bothered to read the high falutin' crap her students churned out. He liked a good bit of porn to relax to, on video for preference. He liked to watch ... things, much more than to read about other things. "What's it about."

"It's about ... a man who has everything," she said. "Who loses it all ... in a way, but finds true love."

Jesus! What fucking bullshit.

"The man gives so much to those around him," Camille continued, a misty look in her lovely tear-diamonded green eyes.

"Pass the butter," Jeff said, helping himself happily to a hot golden crumpet out of a pile wrapped in a white linen napkin. He loved the melted butter on his tongue, even if his loss of muscular control meant it sometimes spilled over his chin. The feel of the oily melted butter in his early morning bristles was pleasurable too. He had always been an intensely sensual person, living in the sensations of the moment.

Camille got up and stood beside him holding the butter out, to his surprise. She put her hand on his shoulder and when the butter dripped off the crisp crumpet down his chin, she ran her finger over his chin and then put it in his mouth. He sucked on it in astonished pleasure. She giggled instead of looking anxiously to make sure one of the staff wasn't about to break in and catch her being affectionate with her own husband.

~o~0~o~

Carl put the pile of heavy books on his desk and sat down to check the dull titles with a grimace. Tort Law, for Chrissake. The summer had been hard enough work, crafting his writing under Camille's gimlet school ma'am eye, but this year was going to be a killer. She made him sign up for Latin lessons on top of all the law lectures, told him if he wanted to cut it at the top, he should graft it at the bottom and be grateful for the opportunity.

He turned his head at the tap on his open door and smiled.

The willowy tall blonde smiled warmly back at him, her grey eyes dipping shyly. His eyes lingered on her long shapely legs, well displayed for his admiration since she wore a mini skirt.

"Did you have a good break?" She asked, putting one leg slightly forward. "You weren't on Facebook much."

How much she gave away in that simple acknowledgement. She had noticed. She had looked out for his posts, maybe even checked his home page. He could not help a shy tender smile of his own. He bent his head away to hide it.

"It was hard work," he said. "I didn't have much time for FB. I saw you had a good time -- on your uncle's yacht."

"Oh yeah," she said. "Uncle Freddie and Aunt Vee say I can crew for them any time," her eyes lit up with excitement.

He smiled again, for he understood that passion of hers for the wild ocean wind blowing her blonde hair about, the struggle with the sails on the high seas.

"You switched subjects," there was a hurt question in her voice. She came into the room and stood by him at the desk, her puzzled eyes looking at the pile of heavy dull law books.

"Creative writing isn't a sure source of income," he answered her. "I like it, but I can always write in my spare time."

"Oh ... money," she said, curling her fine lip dismissively.

He understood that too, the disregard for money that is born of always having some. He hoped she would never understand what it felt like not to have it. He meant to make sure she didn't.

"What's this?" she said curiously. She picked up a book lying at the back of his desk: a first edition copy of the first Dara Cruft story. "Did Jeff Somers give this to you?" she asked in mounting excitement.

"No," he said. "His wife did. Dr. de Winter."

"Oh my God!" she said enthusiastically. "Dr. de Winter is so cool! I mean ... so bae. I signed up to all her classes this year. Don't you want to carry on working with her?" The book opened in her hand to the flyleaf, where in fine script was written: Nothing you have to learn now, my young padawan.

"I guess I'll just put my head down to law," he said, twinkling his eyes at her. "Does that make me not 'bae'?"

"Oh, y'know," she laughed. "You will always be bae." Her cheeks had flushed. He felt so thrilled he felt embarrassed.

"Hey, let's go for a swim," he said, getting hurriedly up.

"Oh sure! That would be bae," she laughed, dipping her grey eyes in her flushed shy smile.