Chapter
One
| The lamps
were lit, their initial gaseous hissing fading into the background babble
of talk. The Frobisher household was animated, after-dinner talk between
gentlemen loud and merry. The ladies, full of talk of Royal escapades
whose gossip had just recently reached them, had retired to Lady Frobisher’s
newly decorated drawing room. Cigars sent plumes of smoke upward towards the dining room chandeliers as the gentlemen settled to an hour’s delightful and free conversation about horses, vintage port and Madeira, money, and the business side of London. ‘You seem to be morose, Godfrey – unhappy. A newly married man usually has the bloom of satisfaction about him. Is anything wrong?’ Godfrey returned the steadfast gaze of his father, Lord Frobisher. Here, in the house where he had grown up, it was not easy to confess: to admit to his generous and caring parents that all was not well in his newly established home in South London. ‘You don’t even reply to my inquiry! Is everything all right at home with your young wife, my son?’ ‘Of course it is, father.’ Godfrey attempted a smile, his eyes facing the chandelier, the wall sconces, the ancient painting of a hunting scene over the sideboard: anywhere except address his father’s penetrating gaze. ‘We have settled in well, and Geraldine is in the best of spirits. She receives her sisters and cousin for tea, has started a delightful new embroidery, and is even reading a new play that is the talk of the town.’ Old Frobisher grunted. ‘And other matters?’ ‘Well – the gardener is nothing to write home about, I’m afraid, but that’s easily fixed. And the housekeeper is nothing short of excellent.’ ‘Good, son, good. Now – how are you and Geraldine er… getting along?’ Godfrey looked at his shoes. Then at his father’s shoes. Than at the Aubusson carpet that graced the well appointed dining room. Old Frobisher uttered another grunt and turned away. Turning back abruptly, he raised eloquent eyebrows at his son. Godfrey knew almost exactly what his father was about to say. ‘It’s all very well to have a household that runs smoothly, Godfrey. And it’s also good to have launched a career in the law that will put you in good standing. But it is vital to er… to savour a rapport with your wife that is more than just cordial, you know.’ There: the delicate subject was breached. Godfrey’s embarrassment was total. ‘She… I suppose… We…’ ‘You must be firm – insistent, son. Women are slow to understand the more intimate demands of marriage. But when they come round –’ a meaningful smile showed the older man’s straight teeth, his thin lips apart for an instant. Godfrey returned the smile ruefully. ‘Yes, father.’ There was no more said on the subject, but Godfrey’s mind was reeling with the disappointment and dismay that had accompanied him since his wedding night. Oh – his wedding night! He could not bear to even think of the disaster. Geraldine was beautiful, even seductive: a young woman whose allure had almost guaranteed his intimate life would be a celebration of what they both felt for each other. They were in love. He had waited for his wedding night for months, anticipating the consummation of their love with such vividness, such expectation, that it was hard to contain his lust. For a respectable period of courtship and engagement, they had occasional solitary moments – snatched from a social whirl of parties and dances – when they could hurriedly kiss, embrace and fondle each other longingly. He had caressed her neck and felt the hints of her shape through layers of clothing, which he knew would one day fall away to allow him access. His longing and desire were fuelled by the knowledge Geraldine too seemed eager to participate in the lovemaking that was an ingredient of marriage they looked forward to. The wedding night was one that found them exhausted from the festivities of the day. Geraldine quickly repaired to her rooms with Madge, her personal maid. Godfrey had one small glass of port downstairs then hurried to his rooms. Changing into a loose smoking jacket and loosening his tie, he knocked on his new wife’s door and entered without a sound. She was sitting demurely on a lady’s chair, in a negligee of white lace and marabou. Through it, he could see for the first time that she was truly a beautiful woman. Her skin glowed, and if she moved her arms and hands that modestly shielded her body, he would find out the true delights of intimacy. Godfrey kneeled by her side and they kissed deeply for the very first time. Their mouths sought each other and innocence started to bloom into knowledge of lips, tongue and the corrugated roofs of mouths. The sensation was moving and rousing. They sought more. Godfrey was not absolutely sure what his role and deportment should lead him to. Friends, older cousins and even his father had intimated the sexual nature of marriage, but he would have to let his demanding body lead, because this was his first time, and without any glimmer of doubt Geraldine’s too. His hand wandered, and he heard her satisfied sigh as he touched her neck, combed the hair at the back of her head with his splayed fingers. The maid had let down her tresses, and brown waves of fragrant hair poured down her back. He buried his face in it an inhaled deeply. Ah: this was his wife. Here they were at last, alone together. His hand touched her neck again, and slipped under the edge of the marabou negligee, over hot skin: her shoulder, upper arm, side. Leaning back a little, Godfrey dared to peek, to take a look at his wife’s breasts. He gasped with pleasure. Geraldine’s breasts were perfect. Not that he had any sort of reasonable comparison to make. All he had seen in his youth and adolescence were risqué pictures in sepia: grey of mounds of flesh in bad light. In bawdy vaudeville shows he had occasionally frequented with friends, he had glimpsed the tops of breasts, and the rare peek of a nipple, swiftly and titillatingly flashed past revealing necklines on women of vague repute. Now, he stared and took in the beauty of his wife’s form, stroking away the fabric of her only garment, in order to fully understand the rounded shape of her bosom. He cupped her right breast, and her skin suddenly flushed, the pink wonder that was the nipple gathered and rose, erect and pouting. ‘Oh – Geraldine!’ He kissed the smooth skin, ran his lips over the wide expanse of flesh and sighed aloud with delight. ‘Shouldn’t we… Godfrey, my love. Should we not move to… Is this proper?’ They were alone. He was discovering the sexual side of the woman he had wooed for thirteen whole months. Did it matter what was proper or not, when they were alone? ‘Let me touch you.’ ‘On… In bed. Let’s get under the covers. That’s proper.’ She seemed to have received instruction – or at least an indication on how to comport herself in the nuptial bedroom – so Godfrey followed her lead, taking her hand. With her other hand, she gathered her negligee together tightly, a small frown on her young brow. She was obviously nervous: he had to take his time. Mentally, Godfrey tempered his passion, but his body betrayed him, and his tumescence got in the way as he rid himself of all but his long shirt. It was not a nightshirt, but it hardly mattered. Tomorrow, they would be better at this. Tomorrow night, he would come to her in his nightshirt, which he would rid himself of in a trice. He watched Geraldine slide under the covers on one side of the bed, and did the same opposite. Their faces level, kissing started again, at once: a passionate clash of lips and tongues, hesitant at first then more confident. ‘Oh, Geraldine!’ Godfrey’s hands were once more upon her neck, shoulders and sides, parting the fabric and hampered by the weight of the bedcovers, which he flung back. ‘Let me look at you… let me touch you.’ His lips kissed her cheek, chin and earlobe. His wife sighed. Once more, the hot skin of her full breast was cupped in his hand, and he looked in awe at her nipple, which seemed hard and erect. Just as hard and erect as that part of him that was insistently pressing against shirt and blankets. Still unclear about how to proceed, about how to reach a place where he could satisfy this hunger, he stroked the breast he held with his other hand, like a tiny kitten in his palm. Again, Geraldine sighed. It was too tempting. In a trice, his mouth was there, and the scent of her skin was in his nostrils, overpoweringly seductive. He took her nipple in his mouth and oh, found its taste and texture, its hardness and silkiness all in one sudden sensation. Godfrey sucked, softly and lovingly. ‘Is it proper, Godfrey?’ He was deaf to his new wife’s question, his tongue, mouth and heart: his entire body pounding with desire so strong it made him deaf and giddy. He sucked, long and deep, but the breast and nipple were pulled away, tucked out of sight under lace, marabou and new bed linen. ‘I want you, my darling. Do you remember how we longed to do this?’ ‘Yes.’ The uncertain word hung on the air. His hands came round again, unstoppable. This time it stroked a long thigh through the lace. The curiosity, the eagerness was brimming inside him. The wonder of a woman’s body, with its secret places: the places so soft and cave-like, so mysterious, so unlike his own sinewy muscled body. He wanted to trace with his fingers: trace a path to the centre of all that was feminine, and discover once and for all where he was to place his member. Discover the place where he was to pierce, penetrate, enter and place his seed. Where was her core, her centre? He had dreamt of this: he had fantasised and pondered on what he was to do on his wedding night: and all nights thereafter. Was it as wonderful as the men at the club seemed to insinuate? They chuckled and hinted, but no clear words were ever said. He knew he was to place his penis inside his wife: he knew a lot about horses, and had seen them rut in pure abandon, knowing it would one day be his turn, and he would mount his woman with the same passionate fervour. ‘Do you remember how we longed to make love?’ ‘Yes,’ she hissed, and allowed him once more to chase fabric and lace from her breasts, allowed him the enchantment of her open mouth to kiss. Godfrey sat up and removed all trace of garment from his wife’s bosom, groaning with desire when he could see the complete picture of her lying there, flushed from exhaustion and the hesitancy of sexual newness. She was panting with trepidation, something they had warned him about. She would be hesitant, then she would embrace him with acceptance. So he looked, stroked and finally embraced, and their bodies came together under the blankets. The kiss was a long one: one Geraldine seemed unwilling to break. Was it because she was afraid it would leave him room to do more? ‘Please, Godfrey. Please – this is enough for now.’ ‘Enough?’ ‘I am so tired.’ ‘Are you afraid? I don’t think I would willingly hurt you, my love.’ ‘I am so afraid of… I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know.’ Godfrey understood. Gently, he took his wife’s hand and stroked it, then very slowly moved it down to where her legs met, her soft thighs held together. ‘That is you,’ he whispered. His wife said nothing. Her breathing was audible in the room. Then his hand took hers close to his tight and robust member, its heat and hardness a lusty presence in the bed. He placed her hand on his penis. ‘And this is me, my darling.’ There was a small stifled scream. Geraldine shrank back as far as she could on the high wide bed. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her brow furled with anxiety. ‘Oh! Oh! I think this is enough for now.’ Godfrey smiled and leaned forward persuasively. He embraced Geraldine and once more fondled her bare breasts. “Oh, my lovely. I want you so. It won’t hurt.’ ‘I really do not know… What will you do?’ Godfrey was speechless. “Did your mother not um… instruct you? Look – you have seen the horses… kittens? Um…’ It was very difficult. Pressingly, his erection demanded more, yet his wife could not seem to understand what was expected of her. ‘Geraldine – what did your mother say about our wedding night?’ She smiled shyly. ‘That you would want to caress me, and look at my form. That you would be all hands and mouth.’ ‘Hands and mouth?’ ‘We did that. We… you and I. Our mouths.’ Her breath came in gasps. ‘There is more to it, my love. There is more to making love than deep kisses.’ ‘You touched me… here.’ Her hand covered her loosely clothed breasts. ‘There is more than that again.’ She shook her head. Her eyes widened in disbelief. ‘You would not mislead me, Godfrey. You say you love me.’ The predicament was completely baffling. Godfrey found himself in a position where he had to gently take his wife’s hands and pacify her. Tears started to come, and with them, a declaration from his body that it understood what would happen that night. Nothing. Tumescence faded into a mere shadow of itself, and his penis lay limp and useless on his thigh, covered modestly in many folds of shirt and coverlet. It was thus for a number of nights. Godfrey could not tell his father. He could tell no one at all that he did not know a way to persuade his wife that lovemaking was an integral part of the intimacy of marriage. He had not consummated his vows. He had not pierced, penetrated or entered his wife, nor shot his seed home inside her. There was shame associated with the inability to coax or seduce a wife, he knew. He knew very well that his colleagues, his friends: all the members at his club must have found a way around their wives’ modesty. They must have discovered a means by which to open up their women to their overtures. How was it done? Kisses? He had tried innumerable ways of kissing Geraldine. Caresses? He had stroked her arms, her neck, her breasts. Words? Falling short of begging, he had whispered all sorts of delights and romantic lyrics in her ears. She trembled and delighted in most of them, then froze when he even suggested he visit her in the night. He would enter her room full of fear of repulsion, and receive it not in insults or abuse, but by the soft, sweet refusals of her body, which did not warm to him. Her body did not open up, as it was supposed to, when faced with warm overtures. It did not surrender and moisten. It did not welcome him in any way. Fear and rebuttal filled that bedchamber, and he did not know what to do. How could Godfrey tell Lord Frobisher, his rich and powerful father, who had sired not only him but also five female siblings, that he had no idea how to consummate his marriage?**‘Congratulations, my dear!’ ‘Well done, both of you!’ ‘Now look at this delightful baby!’ ‘Now, now – are there any cousins coming?’ Good wishes poured in from all around. Dorothy Clare, Godfrey Frobisher’s sister, was delivered of a healthy son, and the whole family buzzed with excitement and happiness. Gathered at the Frobisher country home in the foothills, relatives and friends crowded in with wishes and gifts. ‘Your sister, since she married George Bellows, only months after your own marriage, Godfrey, is blooming with health and happiness.’ The pointed remark coming from Lord Frobisher’s lips did not fail to make its mark. Godfrey was not only dismayed by his sister and brother-in-law producing a grandchild for his ambitious father, but was still mystified and appalled by his own inability to shake off or solve his eternal problem. ‘I have a nephew,’ he said blankly. ‘Indeed you do!’ Lord Frobisher looked around. ‘But you want a son. Our new king, long may he reign, has a number of little ones to grace the Royal household and the name of England. Surely you can do no less.’ ‘A son.’ Godfrey’s voice was still dull and blank. ‘Geraldine looks well, if a bit pasty. Come on, son – surely you and your pretty wife have…’ ‘Father!’ ‘Listen to me, young man. I am – and your mother too – we are starting to wonder. Come into the conservatory. We can speak plainly there.’ Godfrey did not want to go into the conservatory with his father. The conversation would only humiliate him further. Every night, his confusion and dismay would wash in, and he did not want to be plagued by them in the middle of a joyous family celebration, where he could toast on champagne and forget a little of his misery and sexual frustration. He walked slowly, reluctantly, and was waylaid by Catherine, the youngest of his sisters. ‘Isn’t little Baby Robert a bundle of joy?’ she asked. ‘Indeed,’ he smiled. ‘Will you have babies soon, Godfrey?’ Her eyebrows rose suggestively. Surely his little sister, hardly nineteen years of age, did not know more about having babies than his own dear wife? Disbelief clouded Godfrey’s face and he looked disapprovingly into his sister’s eyes. ‘Oh,’ she blushed. ‘Was that improper? I’m sorry.’ The word improper did it. It was so often used in his house that Godfrey exploded in something very close to anger. His hand rested on a new table his mother had bought to match the new furniture that had lately filled the old family home. Gone were the frills and fripperies that had graced the house in Queen Victoria’s reign. Now, a new solid kind of practicality and brightness had blown in: an elegant kind of novelty that made a lot of people wonder about what the world was coming to. But Godfrey was not worried about furnishings. His hand leaned on the table, and the effort to stifle the loud rage that threatened to leave his lips made him redden in the face. Breeding and education did it: he calmed himself and slowly and deliberately told Catherine it was none of her business whether he wanted a family or not, and that it was most unseemly for a younger sister to question his deeds and doings. ‘Oh Godfrey – I do apologise.’ Then she giggled. ‘But you are so old fashioned. Everyone is more open these days, you know.’ ‘No – I do not know, nor do I want to!’ he exploded. He turned on his heel and tried to escape, only to be beckoned from the door of the conservatory by his father. Was he never to escape this? Was he never going to solve his predicament and come and meet his family without having to evade questions, evade prying eyes? When was he going to become a normal man, who could sleep with his wife, have normal dealings with her: carry on a wholesome married life that included a sexual relationship? It would not only pacify his family, but ultimately gratify his own pressing needs. ** Bare breasts, a camisole rolled down to wilfully and
titillatingly expose flesh: it was arousing and devastatingly wicked.
The woman turned one way and then the other, provocatively, batting
her eyelids seductively, turning and turning her body so the men could
see her from every side. She patted the rolled satin at her waist, and
tilted herself so her bosom fell forward, dangling proud of her chest.
The movement made her blush prettily, and her breasts blushed too, nipples
rising marvellously until they were stiff and hard, dark pink and inviting. |