The Locket

The following day Elizabeth had a hard time making eye contact with her aunt, the distance creating a disquieting silence between them. The unspoken sexual tension built as Elizabeth stole glances at her aunt, not wanting to succumb to her attraction, but unable to resist. Catherine could sense a subtle change in their relationship, wondering why there was distinct coldness to Elizabeth's demeanor. Elizabeth gave no clue as to her feelings, leaving Catherine confused at her niece's behavior. Of course no words were spoken between them to air out their feelings.

It was a cold, wintery day in mid-February. Elizabeth's studies at Georgetown were going well and Catherine and Elizabeth had settled into a comfortable routine, though with more emotional distance between them as Elizabeth struggled to resolve her feelings towards her aunt. Elizabeth came home first that day, the frigid wind off the Potomac knifing through her heavy winter clothes on the walk from school. She entered the two story townhouse, shedding her boots in the small foyer and rubbing her hands together to restore the circulation in them. The thought of a hot bath entered her mind, a thought she found quite agreeable. She went up the stairs and into her bedroom, shedding her winter clothes and stripping down to her undergarments. She went into the bathroom and drew a tub of hot water.

Elizabeth was luxuriating in the scalding hot water, the warmth cutting through the harshness of the winter weather and restoring a calmness in her. It was her private time, and those moments of privacy allowed her mind to wander outside the boundaries of her staid existence. She thought of Catherine, that fleeting glance of her partially undressed, sitting at her dressing table, pulling a hairbrush through her long, blonde hair, the image of her breasts, large and full, with pink hued nipples, reflecting in the dressing table mirror.

Elizabeth was aroused by the image, her hand inching between her legs, finding the slippery wetness between them. The thought was so sensual, so erotic, that her eyes closed and her fingers wandered freely, touching her sex, her breasts, and even her anus, exciting her in ways that men did not. Her hand started to move more quickly, rubbing her hardened nub as the pleasure of the friction told her that her release was near. It was then that the bathroom door opened. Elizabeth bolted upright in the tub, the water sloshing over the edge. It was Catherine.

But Elizabeth didn't know that Catherine had been standing there for several minutes, watching as her niece was masturbating in the tub.

Catherine had a meeting end early and was home before her usual time. The blustery cold weather had permeated her heavy wool coat and had chilled her to the bone on her walk home. She was clutching the lapels of her coat when she arrived at her townhouse. She walked up the half dozen steps to the porch, slipping off her gloves and feeling the biting wind on her hands. She fished the key out of her purse and unlocked the door, opening and watching a gust of arctic wind scatter papers that were sitting on the living room table. She hung her coat on its hook and trudged up the stairs to her room, thinking about feel of the hot water of a bath soothing her wind burned skin.

At the top of the stairs she first passed Elizabeth's room, noticing no one was in it. She went to her room, quickly ridding herself of her thick winter clothes down to her undergarments. She walked down the hall to the bathroom, then heard small splashes of water. The door was ajar, and in the filtered yellow light she could see the back of Elizabeth's head, her hair, carelessly put up in a bun that was a tangle of her raven colored strands. She was quietly humming as she washed herself with a washcloth, the towel making splashing noises in the water as she ran the cloth across the side of her breast and up her outstretched arm.

Catherine was entranced, watching her young niece, now a beautiful woman, washing herself in the claw-footed tub as she traced the washcloth across her smooth skin, the light reflecting off the thin film of water clinging to it. Catherine was now feeling powerful urges as well, the heat of them reddening her cheeks. She felt a ripple through her loins as she saw Elizabeth push her hand under the water. Even though Catherine's view was blocked by her niece's back, she pictured her niece's hand slipping between the folds of her sex, past her anus and then retracing its route upward. The thought of it made her lose her balance and hit the bathroom door, causing it to swing open to both the surprise of the aunt and her niece.

"I'm so sorry!" exclaimed Catherine, seeing her niece in the bathtub, but unable to tear her eyes from the young brunette. She made no movement to leave. Elizabeth turned to face her aunt, the locket now prominently displayed between her breasts. Catherine's eyes were fixed on the locket, and Elizabeth's youthful, firm breasts, and as if willed by another, stepped slowly forward to the edge of the tub.

Elizabeth was now looking up at her aunt, the hunger clearly reflected in her eyes, inviting her to come even closer. Catherine knelt next to the tub and reached for the locket, cupping her hand so the locket rested in her palm.

"It's so beautiful ... you're so beautiful ..." she murmured.

Elizabeth, still sexually aroused, took her beloved aunt's hand, allowing the locket to drop to its familiar place over her heart, and gently placed the hand over her breast. Their eyes met, and there was an unspoken assent to go further. Catherine cursed to herself for even thinking about touching her niece in such a forbidden manner, yet her baser instincts suppressed her ingrained morality as she kneaded the tender, soft flesh of her sister's issue. Elizabeth moaned, encouraging her aunt to go further. Elizabeth was young, and not yet well steeped in the consequences of their actions, wanting only to take her where her heart was leading her.

Catherine, for all the want of a love of a woman, and the love of her niece, had no illusions about the illicit nature of their act, but even knowing that did not stop. It was everything she wanted and she would deny herself no more. The two women embraced, the water soaking Catherine's undergarments as Elizabeth's breasts pressed against her aunt. Catherine's hand traced along the curve in Elizabeth's body, plunging into the hot water as she caressed the lamb soft skin, and reaching that most satisfying point where the waist flares out to the hips and the soft, spongy flesh of the bottom. She squeezed it and then ever so softly moved to the front to touch Elizabeth's sex, still swollen from her own ministrations minutes before. Even under the water, the slick dew from her slit coated the nub of flesh. Elizabeth gasped and raised up in the tub at the startling sensation brought on by her aunt's fingertip.

For Catherine, as she caressed her niece as if in a dream, that dream was interrupted by a pang of conscience as she knew that the completion of such a scandalous act would forever change their two lives. As Elizabeth rose up from her aunt's intimate touch, the movement startled Catherine and caused her conscience to suddenly awaken, bringing to the fore her Christian upbringing. She moved away from her niece, lowering her head, backing out of the bathroom and pulling the door shut as she peered inside at Elizabeth, sitting up in the tub, deeply aroused and horribly confused.

Chapter Eight

The Locket

That evening did not end well for either woman. Elizabeth finished her bath, running to her room and shutting the door behind her. She lay awake in her bed all night, staring at the ceiling, trying to process what had happened. She knew now that she was hopelessly in love with her aunt but that the kind of love that they wanted to share was simply out of the question. She also for the first time felt unrelenting guilt, a guilt she could never unburden herself of by sharing it with another.

Catherine also lay in her bed with her eyes wide open. She couldn't believe that she had succumbed to her baser instincts and had violated the trust of her sister and her niece. Yet she was still aroused and damned the sticky wetness between her legs that betrayed her true desires. She was ordinarily highly self-confident, but here felt highly vulnerable by her show of her inner self to her niece, a person who desired the love of another woman. Catherine didn't know how she could face her young charge again.

Catherine and Elizabeth found living together was pure torture. It was hard for them to look at another, resurrecting the feelings of shame and lust. Within a few days Elizabeth couldn't take the strain of living with Catherine and announced that she would find herself a flat that was close to campus. She moved out the moment she found an apartment, gave Catherine her apartment key she knew Catherine would never use, and left with few words exchanged between them.

Each moment away from Elizabeth was agonizing to Catherine. Catherine's inner conflict between what she wanted and what society was telling her to do was tearing her apart. If she were to live in sin with Elizabeth she would be a pariah, a harlot, and a whore. The reputation of her niece would be ruined forever. Yet, every moment with Elizabeth was a cherished one, and Catherine resigned herself to a life of memory and pain. They did not speak to one another for the next month. The wound was too fresh.

With the onset of spring, Catherine attempted to resume a life of normalcy, although she knew she was simply fooling herself. She arrived home one day to find an envelope propped up against the door, her name written in Elizabeth's handwriting. She ripped open the envelope, feeling the worst was coming. In it was the gold chain and locket. With trembling hands she read the card. "I'm sorry it's over," is all that it said. The worst had arrived. Catherine's heart, already broken, shattered into a thousand pieces upon reading those stinging words.

Catherine dressed hastily, grabbing the key that Elizabeth had given her, and ran out of her townhouse, clutching the gold chain, to find Elizabeth's apartment. The ten minute journey left Catherine winded as she located the apartment building that she had never been to. She knocked feverishly on the door but to no avail. Frantic, her hand shaking, she inserted the key into the lock. She ran in to find Elizabeth, sitting on the bed, staring deeply at a bottle of sleeping pills. Her face was ashen, and she looked up in surprise to see her aunt standing in the door breathless, the light from the hallway illuminating her in the darkened bedroom. She started gently sobbing. Catherine rushed into the room to comfort her niece, sitting on the bed next to her, her arm cradling Elizabeth's sobbing head. Elizabeth's body heaved as she cried, her hair damp with perspiration.

"It will be all right, my love," Catherine said as she stroked Elizabeth's hair. "It will be all right."

Elizabeth's sobbing quieted and her body stilled. She turned her head so it was looking upward at Catherine, the tears puddling in her eyes. She blinked, and as her eyes focused on her concerned aunt, she whispered, "I couldn't ... I couldn't do it."

Catherine was quick to react. "Of course you couldn't."

Elizabeth said hoarsely, "The pain was too much... it ... it still is. I love you but I can't have you."

There was a long silence. Finally Catherine confessed, "I love you as well."

Everything that had been unsaid was now out in the open. They had both known for a long time that the love they felt was mutual, but neither ever had the courage to disregard the social mores that had kept them apart. It took Elizabeth walking to the edge and peering into a great dark abyss to make the two of them come to grips with their love for one another. Catherine had tasted the honey of forbidden fruit once before and spent her life since trying to, but failing, to erase the memory of her sinful actions. But now Elizabeth was completely vulnerable, completely exposed, and declaring her love for her aunt. Catherine felt she had no choice but to follow a path from which there was no return.

The women were silent. Catherine continued to stroke Elizabeth's hair as the soft yellow tinged light from the hallway made it shimmer. There was a contentment that neither of them had felt before. Words weren't needed as the touch and the warmth of a loved one comforted them. Minutes went by as they reflected on how their lives might now proceed, but not dwelling on the unpleasantness that would surface with deeper thought. They only thought was about their love, now about to be fulfilled.

The feelings of contentment soon were overcome with stronger, more powerful emotions. As Catherine held a woman in the full blossom of youth, a woman she nurtured from birth as one of her own, who was now the object of her passions. To watch as her niece assumed the charms of a beautiful young woman, with feelings of carnal desire, was sheer heaven and hell at the same time for the older woman. Now Catherine felt an upwelling of suppressed desires rush through her, washing away years of guilt, as her nipples swelled and her nether lips moistened. It was an urge too powerful for her to resist. Her hand moved to her niece's cheek, feeling the perfection of a youthful complexion as the touch elicited a soft sigh from Elizabeth's pursed lips.

Elizabeth let her head fall back further into Catherine's lap and into the folds of her long skirt. Now Catherine could see the magnificent neck, fully exposed, its long slender length calling for her to lean forward and brush her lips against it, to feel it quiver. Elizabeth's eyes closed, surrendering to the sweet bliss of the loving touch of her aunt. Elizabeth felt her aunt's soft lips trace lower, to push the lacey fabric of her bodice, exposing the pure white flesh of nirvana. Elizabeth's back arched, pushing her breast against her aunt's lips as she started kissing the tender flesh. Elizabeth was awakened from a long slumber, the fire now burning brightly as she moaned as a woman should when in the throes of true passion. Her body reacted instinctively, her legs slightly parting as her womanly juices started trickling down her thighs, as Catherine's fingers went under the band of her knickers and found her sex.

Although neither woman had made love to another of her sex, they worked in concert as Catherine parted the plump petals, finding the wellspring that beckoned. Her fingers undulated as they worked the pulsating flesh, the slickness making Catherine swoon with pleasure at finding and caressing Elizabeth's maidenhood. Elizabeth's hips thrust upward, Catherine's fingers breaking the virginal barrier and allowing them to plunge deep inside her, making her body rigid as bolts of pleasure raced through her body.

"Ohhhhhh ... " Elizabeth let out as her first orgasm ripped through her soul. She never knew the feeling of the real pleasures of the flesh, and to do so with someone so forbidden, so unthinkable, so unreachable, tied her forever with her new lover.

Catherine could not wait any longer. Watching and making this beautiful, loving creature that was everything she saw as precious, she unconsciously moved her free hand between her legs, parting the thicket of wet, dark hair and massaging her swollen nub. Her eyes pressed closed as she flinched with each pleasurable stroke. But Catherine wanted more as she once again tasted sin.

Elizabeth's brush with the bottle of pills now forgotten, she watched as her aunt continued to plunge glistening fingers into both of them, their faces contorted with pleasure. Elizabeth now felt urgent, lustful ambitions, and with the spark of youth, now lunged forward ripping down the bodice of Catherine's dress, hungrily sucking on the pink hued hardened nipples she had fantasied about. Elizabeth kissed on top of and then under Catherine's breasts as Catherine whimpered with pleasure. Catherine continued to work herself with her fingers, but was interrupted by the hand of the younger woman, lifting hers away, Elizabeth's mouth now wanting to sample from the source of the heady, intoxicating aromas emanating from between Catherine's legs.

In her haste, Catherine neglected to don undergarments before she raced to Elizabeth's apartment. Elizabeth bunched the stiff taffeta of her aunt's dress to see a mass of matted dark brown curling hair and swollen reddened lips. As if an unseen force animated her movements, her head went forward, first tentatively against Catherine's sex as Elizabeth tasted the nectar of forbidden fruit. Catherine's passion blazed as her sex was touched for the first time by the mouth of another. Her head soared into the clouds as her niece's tongue excited every nerve ending in her clitoris, the pleasure causing her to babble incoherently.

"My love, my love ... ohhhh" she gasped as she experienced a sexual fulfillment that Kenneth was never able to give her. As the ripples of pleasure subsided she raised Elizabeth's head to her own, seeing the contentment and satisfaction on her face. The two of them smiled, then shared a long and loving kiss. As they pulled apart Elizabeth said the words that Catherine longed to hear.

"I'll never leave you again."

Epilogue

As a rising star in the State Department, Elizabeth was out on yet another date with one of Washington's most eligible bachelors. As she entered the most exclusive of restaurants in the nation's capital the head of every eligible male turned to gaze upon her beauty, mentally penciling her into their dance card. Elizabeth was now used to all of the attention, letting it slide off of her shiny raven colored tresses like water off a duck's back. Little did they know it was all for show. No man had ever gotten past the first date and no man ever would.

A small smile curled up on her face as she was squired into a private dining room in the rear of the restaurant, knowing that in a few hours she would return to a hot bath and the arms of her beloved Aunt Catherine.