The Portrait on the Wall

Charlotte was closing on eighteen. Tomorrow would be her birthday when she would be eighteen. That day was mere minutes away. Charlotte was going to bed rather late. She had stayed up watching television. She stood, as she had so often stood since she was small, in front of the portrait, 'her picture', as she liked to think of it, and gazed at the person portrayed in oils by the artist so many years ago. It hung on the wall of her bedroom, overlooking her bed, in her aunt's house. She always, as far back as she could remember, came to her aunt's house in the country around her birthday in August.

It was a week-long visit her parents always made in the summer, and she loved the visit and looked forward to the annual journey. She was very fond of her aunt and her house. And who would not be? A grand Elizabethan mansion in Shropshire set in its own pretty grounds by a river. Places to walk, places to hide, places to paint, places for everything.

The portrait had not always hung in her room. It seemed to have been hung in many rooms in the house as if it had a will of its own, as if the lady in the picture decided where it would be hanging next. She first remembered it in the garden room, a room she had played in when little and had her toys. The picture had looked down on her from way up on the wall but she had noticed it, high above her then diminutive figure, a pretty lady with tall fair hair in a blue dress. Another year and she had seen it in the dining room placed on the wall opposite where she sat. When she saw it there, she had smiled, her white baby teeth shining in recognition of the lady in the blue dress.

When she was twelve the portrait had moved and had watched her comings and goings from the hall as she ran out to play. She had been pleased to see her picture again and made a point of waving to the blue lady every time she ran out or ran in all excited and dirty. She had asked her uncle about the portrait and why it was in different rooms. Her uncle had looked momentarily puzzled and asked which picture Charlotte was talking about and said her aunt sometimes liked to change things. He did not know much about the painting, the house had been in his wife's family rather than his own. Charlotte had asked her aunt about it but aunt had smiled and asked her whether she liked the painting? It was, she had explained, a portrait of a former mistress of the house.

It was two years later when it had appeared in her bedroom and, at that point, seemed to have ended its perambulations. Charlotte had been delighted to see her old friend in her room right at the end of her bed. She took more notice of the detail of the picture now. The lady was in a very old-fashioned blue dress of silk with a plunging neckline showing a great deal of cleavage. A daring amount of cleavage, thought Charlotte, any lower cut and you would have seen, well, what should be hidden. Her golden hair was mounded up high above her head. The lady was pretty, with a wide mouth showing just the hint of a smile, a knowing smile you might have called it, she had high cheekbones displayed with rouge and her blue eyes seemed to be looking at you - or at least that was how Charlotte saw the picture. In the background of the portrait was her aunt's house with its lawns and terraces sweeping down to the river and lake. You could see the island on the lake.

Lady Arabella Struthers was the subject, her aunt had told her on another visit. Charlotte had been sitting in her bedroom looking at the portrait when her aunt had come in to wish her a good night. It was good to have a name to go with the picture. Charlotte had then tried to find out about Lady Arabella. It seemed she had been quite a lady, at the hub of society in Shropshire in her time; her balls were eagerly anticipated and talked about for weeks afterwards. She was gifted and popular, but despite a succession of suitors she had never married. She seemed content to be the lady of the manor, centre of local society and to grow old gracefully, attended by various young women who came to be her companions.

Charlotte stood in front of the portrait. She had always loved that blue dress; she would love to have tried it on; indeed, to have one just like it. Charlotte was dark haired, but she did not think that would matter and it would suit her just as much as it did Lady Arabella. She began to undress, and her thoughts turned to her birthday party on the morrow. She glanced at the watch on her wrist. It was already midnight -- it was the morrow. Her birthday. Charlotte at eighteen! A coming of age.

Her blouse undone, she dropped it on a chair and reached behind her to undo the bra strap and release her breasts from their confinement. She sighed and put her hands over her breasts, moulding them in her hands. They were not much to look at, not much to feel, not like Lady Arabella's ample bosom. Charlotte's breasts would not fill the dress and, even forced upwards by the dress to show her cleavage to best advantage, would not put on much of a show. Charlotte thought about the incongruity of a fashion that so emphasised a woman's breasts, endeavouring to reveal as much cleavage as possible without actually showing the nipples. Perhaps, she thought, the more daring ladies did, as they moved, occasionally reveal the edge of a nipple, the brownness of an areole slipping into view. That would have excited the gentlemen.

She was disappointed in her breasts. They hardly filled her hands. With that thought her hands dropped to her waist, leaving her breasts, and she undid her jeans pulling them and her pants down her legs. She picked them from the floor and shook them out before folding them and placing them on the top of her blouse and bra. Charlotte turned, naked, to the portrait and pouted, perhaps Lady Arabella only had small breasts at her age. She wondered what she had been like, the lady in her picture, why had she not married? Had a Mr. Darcy, a Mr. Right, never come along? Had he indeed come along but been lost at sea on some great adventure; had he gone off with another woman and broken her heart or as, alas, happened in those days, had just died? Absently Charlotte's hand stroked down her tummy and across her springing black curls. She yawned, putting her hand to her mouth even though no one was there to see her.

"I do wish I had a dress like that, just to try on," she said aloud and turned away, her pretty dimpled pink bottom now facing the portrait and walked over to her bed turning off the electric light. It was a hot night; she decided not to put her nightie on and instead walked over to the window and opened another light. The windows were old, Elizabethan, and had small diamond panes of glass set in lead. Charlotte looked out across the lawns in the moonlight. It was very still.

Had someone been out on the lawn that person might well have seen naked Charlotte there at her window, leaning out, white breasts resting on the sill. A pretty sight. Old houses so photogenic. The more so with a pretty and naked girl there in the picture.

Charlotte got onto her bed, the bed that had always been in the room, an old double bed of dark polished oak, The night was hot, so she did not pull the covers or even a sheet up over herself. She turned out her bedside light, not bothering to read, and lay bathed in the moonlight that poured in through the window. It illuminated the portrait opposite, but the moonlight was not enough to give it any colour and it now seemed to be just in shades of black and white, her own body too, stretched out on the bed was in monochrome, white but for her dark bush and the tips of her nipples. She brushed her right nipple; did she feel like playing or should she sleep? She closed her eyes and thought about sex, what it would be like to have a man on top of her, a fine, handsome and tall man -- a Mr Darcy, indeed - seeking entrance. Her interest in sex stirred but not quite enough and before her fingers could begin their play she drifted into sleep.

The grandfather clock in the hall struck midnight. It was a little late. But it was old and not as accurate as Charlotte's digital wristwatch. It had kept the house's time for a very long while. Back to Lady Struthers time, if not before. It had no doubt been mended many times. It did perhaps need the present attention of a horologist.

Charlotte awoke with the feeling she was no longer alone, a soft light shone in the room not just moonlight but a yellow light, the light of candles. Puzzled but not worried, she turned to her right to see a figure seated in the armchair in the far corner of the room, moreover a figure she recognised, a figure anachronistically dressed in a flowing blue silk dress with fair hair piled high on her head: the lady from the picture.

"My warmest congratulations, Charlotte m'dear, on your eighteenth birthday," said the lady in an accent that seemed Shropshire, yet somehow different.

"I... well... thank you," said Charlotte quite astonished at the visitor. Was she dreaming? "Who... who are you? Why are you here -- in my room?"

"Why, I am Lady Arabella Struthers. Surely you knew that?" The lady seemed almost affronted at the suggestion Charlotte might not be aware of her and her name.

"But, but how?"

"Oh nothing, nothing you need to bother your pretty young head with one iota. I have been watching you, my dear Charlotte, watching since you were small and, my word, what a fine, delightful girl you have grown into. Stand up now from your bed, be smartish, and let me look at you."

The lady was accustomed to command and Charlotte, without thinking, got out of bed. As she did so she remembered her nakedness and her hands flew to cover her breasts and sex.

"You needn't be so modest with me girl. Why, are we not two women together? Though any man would be pleased to see such charms. Now stand straight, arms to your sides and turn slowly."

Charlotte did as she was bidden. She found it difficult to refuse Lady Arabella.

"Yes indeed, a fine-looking girl, as I have observed. What a pretty neck. Chin up, yes that is better. Deportment is the thing. A pity about those long black curls, though they do give you a certain charming wildness. Such smooth limbs, but you've let the sun catch them and turn them brown; they should be white like the snow or the swan's neck. Yes, like your flat stomach. Your bottom is most voluptuous, just perfect, I do hope you stay a good girl, it would not do for me to have to paddle those cheeks and redden them!" She laughed, a little light tinkling laugh, which lit up her face. Charlotte could only smile back.

"There, not so alarmed now, are we? Good. It's your birthday and I think I heard a wish? You want to try on my dress, this dress?"

Charlotte blushed, "I have always loved your pretty dress." She looked at it now, not just the part she could see in the painting but in its entirety, it was even finer than she had imagined. As the design intended, her eyes were drawn to the deep cleavage formed by the up thrust of Lady Arabella's breasts. How Charlotte admired that.

"Then you shall!" Lady Arabella was on her feet and undoing clasps and loops until she stepped out of the garment, so it lay as heaps of blue silk upon the floor. Her chemise followed and the sudden nakedness of the older woman almost shocked Charlotte. She had forgotten that the brassiere was not invented until 1913 and, again, knickers around 1800. All the lady was wearing were silk, not nylon of course, stockings held up by garters. Blue silken ribbons tied with bows. Charlotte gazed at the older woman spellbound. Lady Arabella, whether Charlotte's bottom deserved the term or not, was truly voluptuous. Full of the fleshy curves so beloved of her period in time. Her breasts were large but, despite not having benefited from the close embrace of a brassiere throughout her fifty or more years, were still firm with very little droop. Her nipples were large but her areolae small, most convenient for the fashion of the portrait. Large areolae would have required a higher bust, else, which might have been the fashion, a titillating pigmentation might have been shown. Below her round, and voluptuously prominent stomach, a riot of golden curls sat between ample thighs and hid her sex.

"You like? What you observe pleases?" enquired Lady Arabella. Was that what you might call a knowing smile, wondered Charlotte. "Not at all bad, though I say it meself, for a woman of my years. Come let us see how comely this dress makes you."

Until that point Charlotte had not known what to think, was she simply dreaming? Maybe she was. Was Lady Arabella a ghost, an insubstantial haunting of her old house? Though hardly an unpleasant or frightening ghost. The touch of Lady Arabella's hand to her shoulder drew a gasp from Charlotte. Not a mere apparition nor an icy caress but a hand as warm as Charlotte's own.

The dress was placed over Charlotte, and it fell about her in waves of rustling silk. Lady Arabella began the process of redoing bows and ties before sweeping her round. Her eyes fell to Charlotte's bust and she shook her head.

"We need to do something about those."

The dress was removed. Lady Arabella stood in front of Charlotte looking at her chest.

Charlotte said, "I do wish they were larger, they are so small."

"What we need to do is..."

Before Charlotte could register any protest Lady Arabella had placed the palms of her hands on the outer edges of Charlotte's rather small breasts and pushed them in and up thereby creating an almost respectable cleavage. Her hands on Charlotte's breasts were warm.

"Pleasant little bubbies, nothing to be ashamed of at your age, they will grow, fear you not. What we need is a strip of material."

"I, er, I have a silk scarf."

Charlotte turned to her chest of drawers and as she did, so she moved her chest against the clasping hands, they seemed reluctant to let go.

"Yes, a piece of silk, get it, please." Charlotte was released.

Lady Arabella wound the scarf tightly around Charlotte's chest catching only the bottom half of her breasts, the scarf was then tied tightly at her back before she pushed and pulled Charlotte's small breasts into position, Her hand slipped into Charlotte's cleavage inside the silk and pulled each breast in turn upwards and inwards increasing their prominence and the valley between them. Charlotte looked down; she now had a cleavage and an expanse of breast showing above the scarf, her nipples half appearing above the silk.

"But my nipples show?"

Lady Arabella tweaked one, pulling the soft pink nipple, and laughed, "So sweet. But they will not peak in the dress and nor will the silk."

Once more the dress was lifted over Charlotte's head but this time, as Lady Arabella adjusted it, the bust looked much more appropriate, much more how the dress's designer had intended it to appear.

"Look at yourself in the glass."

Charlotte looked at herself in the mirror, turning this way and that admiring herself, admiring how good she looked in the pretty blue dress she had always so wanted to wear. It looked so wonderful in the candlelight. Was she dreaming?

The dress rustled as she walked around the room. A promenade. How she wished she could walk down a candlelit corridor wearing it and out into a crowded and brilliant ballroom for all to see. Young men and old admiring her, young men wanting her hand for a dance. Approving eyes from the women, a comprehensive appraisal.

"Yes, yes, I think it suits you as much as it does me. You should really wear silk stockings under the dress for when your pretty calves show but, even standing here naked, I can feel how warm it is tonight. Do you know what I desire? Will you come with me, Charlotte?"

"Of course, Lady Arabella, what do you wish?"

"I desire to swim in the lake, the pool down at the river."

"But it's dark and what should we wear?"

"Wear? Why nothing of course, any clothes would get wet. And as for it being dark, why there is moonlight. You will come? Just girls together."

Charlotte did not think of refusing, indeed was not sure she could, even if she had wished to decline; it would be exciting to take a midnight dip and to go naked! The idea strangely pleasing, exciting even, like doing something not actually wrong but a bit naughty. She watched as Lady Arabella untied the garters and rolled the silk stockings down her thighs. The garters left a mark, a ring around each thigh where they had clasped the soft flesh. It almost looked like the garters were still there. Charlotte rather wished they still were. Indeed, wished she too had silk garters. Why not swim wearing just silk garters tied with bows?

Lady Arabella once more lifted the dress from her and undid the silk band beneath. Charlotte's breasts. Freed from restraint, they slipped back to their usual shape and size.

"Oh, dear Charlotte, there they go, they are so very sweet, you know. So sweet I could lick them like honeyed cakes," again the tinkling laugh and she took Charlotte's hand, "Come," and the woman opened the door onto the dark landing.

Two pairs of bare feet descended the dark oak staircase. Charlotte could feel the shininess of the polish with her toes. It felt odd to be descending those stairs and walking around her aunt's house in the dead of night, even more so with no clothes on and even stranger to be hand in hand with another naked woman, a beautiful naked woman from an oil painting!

They padded across the marble chequerboard of the hall, the stone cool beneath bare feet, and opened the door. Outside it was all as quiet as in the house and as still. Still hand in hand, their feet went down the cold stone steps and out across the gravel, a bit uncomfortable on bare feet, and onto the lawn. The springy grass felt good on Charlotte's feet, she was not cold. The sweet-smelling air was warm and dry. She looked up at the stars in the inky black sky and at the bright moon. Charlotte glanced at the moon shadow cast by her figure and quickly checked that Lady Arabella too cast a shadow; she did indeed, yet that proved nothing. If she was dreaming, well anything, could occur or indeed be! She felt Lady Arabella squeeze her hand.

"Oh, the scents of the night, come let's run."

Charlotte ran hand in hand with Lady Arabella. It was lovely to feel so free of clothes, to feel the soft grass beneath her feet and the unconstrained motion of her breasts as she ran. She glanced sideways and saw the much more impressive motion of Lady Arabella's breasts bouncing as she too ran. Charlotte thought they looked magnificent.

The pair stopped at the stone steps leading down from the lawn to the riverbank and its pool, Charlotte turned to look back at the house all dark in the moon's shadow compared to the lightness of the moonlit lawn.

"Oh, this is too wonderful," said Lady Arabella as she pulled Charlotte to her and hugged her. Charlotte felt the softness of the woman's breasts mould themselves to her own as she was squeezed in Lady Arabella's arms.

Lady Arabella released her. "Isn't this exciting, you do look so pretty in the moonlight, I shall have to kiss you."

It was not so much a request as a statement and Charlotte felt the soft brush of Lady Arabella's lips, not as she had expected on her cheek, but on her own lips.

"Come girl down to the pool." Hand and hand they descended the steps to the grass bank that lead into the pool. The river flowed through a large pool, though to say it was a lake would possibly overstate its size, which an early owner of the house had formed as a feature. At this, the lawn end, it had stone edging allowing rowing boats to moor and easy access down steps for swimming. Charlotte had swum here many times under the watchful eye of parents or aunt.

Together they sat on the stone edge dangling their legs in the cool water. Cool but not cold. The summer had been hot and had warmed the water of the pool. The river flowed sluggishly through it at this time of the year, not enough to cool the waters. The water on their legs was refreshing after the hotness of the night air. It was not deep by the edge perhaps two foot, so Charlotte simply pushed with her hands off her bottom and stood in the water. Behind she felt Lady Arabella's hand on her bottom, moulding a cheek in her hand, the hand pushed.