From Top to Bottom Page 5

  The woman inside gasped, her silver pen falling from her hand. She was sitting at the monumental work desk, looking more than a touch disheveled. Her short hair stood on end, and she had stripped down to her green racerback tank top, her cardigan thrown in a pile on the floor. An ambiguous, but rather triumphant smile crossed Selma’s face as she studied her prey.

  “Where’s the ledger?” she inquired, knowing the answer to her question already.

  Edith blushed. Her hand came up to stroke her neck. “Eh,” she managed.

  “Still upstairs by the counter, I presume?” Selma stalked closer, basking in the tension that suddenly filled the room. “You haven’t been doing any accounting at all, have you?” She went up to stand behind her, putting her hands comfortably on Edith’s shoulders, leaning over her. “Oh my,” Selma tutted, reading a sentence here and there from the handwritten pages strewn across the table. “Someone’s been an awfully bad girl.”

  The muscles in Edith’s neck tensed as Selma increased the pressure on her shoulders. Selma tutted again, running her fingers up into Edith’s hair, pulling at the tangles. Edith winced and shuddered at the minute mixture of pleasure and pain, hands balled into fists in her lap. Selma smiled to herself, admiring her partner’s laudable potential for self-restraint. She knew Ed was stronger than her, maybe even twice as strong. In fact, her uncanny reserves of power had surprised and defeated scores of cocky opponents during her stint as a competitive armwrestler.

  Selma could still conjure up the frisson of clandestine arousal which had flooded her, sitting at the back of the audience, hearing the judge call out “Straps!” whenever sweaty palms slid apart before the match was over. As they bound Edith’s hand to that of some unwitting woman, Selma had nearly had to do the same to her own, knotting them into the scarf in her lap to refrain from touching herself. “Yes, you can borrow her for now,” she had muttered under her breath. “That ass is mine tonight.” Edith wrestled her opponent’s arm to the table with nonchalant ease, and Selma’s gut tightened with desire.

  “I had to write,” Edith mumbled, head lowered, shoulders hunched. “There was this call for submission.”

  Her voice trailed off and Selma pushed the recollection aside, focusing on the flesh-and-blood version of her lover. Yes, straps, she thought. And that candle the little vixen had seen fit to light in the heavy bronze candlestick on the mantelpiece. She, too, felt inspired by the muses tonight.

  “I see,” she replied, gathering up the offending pages of the manuscript and clearing the rough surface of the work desk. She pocketed Edith’s discarded glasses that were lying perilously close to the edge of the left-hand side. “A call for submission. Indeed. And did you ask for permission to flippantly neglect your duties and lock yourself in here for such frivolities?”

  Edith shook her head, fingers fidgeting with the edge of her provocative tank top.

  “Did you lie, on purpose, about what you were doing down here?”

  Edith shook her head again, more vigorously. She cleared her throat.

  “I… I did intend to do the books, too. They’re… They should be here somewhere. I just got side-tracked.”

  “Side-tracked.” Selma dipped into the bottom drawer of the desk, snatching up the long disused armwrestler’s straps. Edith’s eyes widened, then quickly narrowed. The tips of her ears took on a charming russet nuance.

  “I know just the remedy for that,” Selma continued, tying the straps to the big brass rings that hung from the short side of the desk. She glanced over her shoulder at Edith. “Undress, please.”

  Not stopping to see if she was being obeyed, she went to fetch her foldable music stand from over by the ruddy oak bookcase. Arranging it just in front of her set-up with the rings and straps, she put the reams of scribbled notes on it as though it were sheet music. Turning back, she found Edith standing compliantly by the table, her corduroy trousers and tank top neatly folded on the seat she had vacated.

  Her small, pert breasts were puckered from the sudden cool. A telling stain had formed at the front of her white cotton knickers. Selma raised her eyebrows. Edith slipped off the panties, her movements awkward with anticipation. Selma felt the yearning echoed in her own nether regions. She couldn’t resist walking up to her, pressing herself lightly against the sheepish nude from behind, kissing her neck, running her tongue behind her ear before she whispered into it, “You do look juicy. I’d have liked to have tasted that, had you not been such an insubordinate minx.”

  Edith leant back against her, her breathing jagged. “Please,” she said hoarsely, her muscles taut with reining in her growing excitement.

  “But you haven’t really earned that, have you?”

  “I’ll make amends,” Edith begged. “Whatever you want. I’ll stay up and crunch numbers all night.”

  “Maybe you will,” Selma murmured, her hands appraising her lover’s arse, squeezing the firm orbs like putty. “But in my experience, you respond swiftest to physical education.”

  Edith was all but gagging for it.

  “Bend over the desk, honey. I’ve cleared it for you.”

  As Edith followed her instructions, Selma tightened the straps around her wrists, pausing briefly to admire the tableau she had created. Edith was standing on tip-toes to reach across the length of the table, her trim torso pushing into the wood, her arms fastened securely, cheek resting on the surface. There was a nice stretch to her legs and buttocks, the slightest of quivers to that tight, sinewy flesh giving away the strain that was already building up.

  “No, no,” said Selma, catching her lover’s chin and raising her head from the wooden surface, nimbly producing Edith’s reading spectacles from her skirt pocket and sliding them on her. She fiddled the temple tips in place behind her ears, stroking some stray hairs from Ed’s sweetly perspiring face. “I want you to see what you have done as I deliver your punishment. In fact, I’d like you to read it out for me. Can you see from here?”

  She noticed a gratifying hint of panic in the offender’s eyes. Edith licked her dry lips, stalling for time.

  “It’s a very rough draft,” she objected weakly.

  “Oh good,” Selma cooed, fetching the burning candle she had spied, taking care to protect the flame. “I like it rough.”

  “What are you—”

  “Never you mind. Read.” Selma went to stand at her side, knitting the fingers of her free hand into Edith’s hair once more, holding her head up so she was forced to look straight ahead at the text in front of her. She held the candle poised, just above the top of her beautifully exposed spine.

  “It was a dark and stormy night,” Edith intoned, “in the year of our Lord, 1830.”

  Selma tilted the candle ever so slightly, letting a drop of hot candle wax fall onto the top vertebra of Edith’s spinal cord.

  “Oh.” Ed’s sharp intake of breath revealed a pleasing confusion of titillation and tenderness. “That stung.”

  “Mhm,” Selma agreed, fascinated by how rapidly the grease set again, creating a white, uneven blob over Edith’s freckled skin. “This is just a little foretaste, my dear. What is really going to sting is when I rip it off you, pulling at all those sweet, babyish fuzzy hairs of yours. Now read. That was a rather grotesque first sentence, by the way. I hope we’ll get into the good stuff soon.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Selma noticed that Edith paled a little at the critique. She knew very well her companion-in-life was touchy about her writing, and she had never insisted on being shown a first draft. She had to tread carefully. But damn it, she also knew the potential for that hurt to transcend into a deliciously passionate lovemaking session. Edith relished a good critique. Almost, if not quite, as much as a harsh fuck. Suddenly hot in her clothes, Selma undid the top buttons of her blouse, purposely swaying the candle so that random drops of wax mottled the sprawled-out body on the desk.

  “Read.”

  Edith read. Selma listened dreamily, all the while creating her own little pattern of
pain with each bead of grease falling over that tender spine.

  “Miss Selima would be back from the dance in a matter of moments, and her bedroom was in a right state. Edna went hot and cold with the rising panic, ineffectually gathering up gowns and fitting them onto hangers with trembling fingers, the silky fabric slipping from her grip more often than not.”

  Selma twisted her fingers in Edith’s hair. Her head rose up a little further, the tendons in her neck bulging.

  “Did they have hangers in those days?”

  “I… I would have thought.” Edith looked flustered. Arched into a perverse half-cobra pose like this, her breasts swayed tantalizingly, just centimeters from the table top. Selma fought the urge to throw the candle away and start squeezing them like a madwoman.

  “Do your research,” she chided, dropping another fat dollop of grease at the high end of Edith’s lumbar spine. Edith made that wonderful throaty noise again. “I like the names.”

  “Edna’s fear was palpable,” Edith continued, her confidence growing. “Her mistress took a wicked delight in reporting any transgressions among the servants to her father, who summarily enforced his reprimands by way of a cane. He was a cruel old ogre, a remnant of an age gone by.”

  Selma blew out the candle. She needed some of it left.

  “A cane, hmm? You need to flesh that out. You’re doing too much telling, not enough showing. Here…”, she added generously, reaching into the bottom drawer to fetch a broad, black belt. “I’ll help you get in the mood.”

  She delivered two quick cracks across Edith’s exposed behind, making her all but scramble up the table. She pulled, automatically, on the straps. Some stray pearls of candle wax loosened and fell from her side.

  “Bad girl, you’re ruining my artwork here. Stand still, will you?” Selma stroked the hot arse, changing the tone of Edith’s moan from pain to rapture again. She pushed into the table, her behind lifting a little to give Selma a full view of her shimmering labial lips, fat and swollen with need. Selma’s insides wrenched. She was reeling on her feet. Steadying herself against the corner of the desk with her left hand, she grabbed the belt to dole out a series of pathetically feeble blows with her right. The sheer number had the desired effect, though. Edith grunted, broke into a sweat, but, as she was told, stood still.

  “Ed…” Selma muttered, letting the belt thud to the floor as her fingers feathered and fanned over that red-and-white derrière again. “For fuck’s sake, read.”

  She stroked and slapped playfully with soft palms as she tried to listen to the turn of events. Predictably, her lady-in-waiting’s willful oversight awoke the supreme miss Selima’s ire. But to Edna’s consternation, the lady did not ring for her father. Instead…

  ‘Lie on the bed,’ Miss Selima ordered imperiously. Edna felt an unnerving flutter in her constricted chest. True, it would not be the first time she lay among her mistress’s sheets, but that was a secret pleasure, hid, in part, even from herself. She had certainly never dreamt of doing such a thing with Selima present in the room.

  ‘Lie on the bed,’ Selima purred. ‘Or I will call for my father.’

  Edna hastened over to the large four-poster behemoth, filled to the brim with the softest linen. A queer but exquisite sensation rippled through her, as so often when she was ordered about by her fair superior. She hurriedly removed her coarse boots and lay on top of the duvet, hands clasped on her stomach.

  ‘You are lying as though you are awaiting your lover,’ Selima noted, amused. ‘Do you often receive brutes in my bed?’

  Edna felt the blood rush to her cheeks. ‘No, Miss. Indeed not, Miss.’

  ‘No?’ Selima spun her hand in an elegant circle in the air, motioning for the maid to lie on her belly. ‘I would have imagined you servant girls had all had your cherry picked and plundered before you reached the age of thirteen. Are you sincerely telling me you still have your maidenhead intact?’

  Edna lay silent against her mistress’s eiderdown pillows. She was not sure how to respond. What would upset the capricious woman the least?

  ‘Tell me the truth, little Edna,’ Selima offered, her tone soft and conciliatory, honey to heal the bee’s sting. Even as she uttered the words, Edna could feel something pulling at her left foot. She turned around to see her mistress tying one of her silk shawls around her ankle, fastening it to the wooden post. Her heartbeat raced.

  ‘I am a virgin,’ she replied, praying that the truth would set her free. Selima tied up the other ankle, then went on to treat her wrists the same. Edna tugged surreptitiously at her bonds. They wouldn’t budge. She was well and truly trapped. Selima came up to the head of the bed, so that she could look the servant girl in the eyes. A cruel smile played on her lips as she brandished one of her father’s canes, pilfered from his study for this singular opportunity.

  ‘Well, well, are you now? I am afraid I shan’t believe you until I have the proof of it on my own fair hands.’

  Selma ran her hand up Edith’s back, interrupting the mesmerizing voice with hundreds of tiny stings as fat blobs of candle wax came loose. Edith’s body shook, she panted and bucked against the table. Selma fell over her, grinding her own throbbing want against her, her hands going under to pull at Edith’s breasts.

  “Ah,” Edith went into the half-cobra again, of her own accord. Selma squeezed and stroked, pushing her excited limbs against the woman she had strapped to the desk. Ed nuzzled her behind into her, as well as she could, her own need leaking down her thighs. Selma reached for the abandoned candle stump, teasing it just inside Edith’s ravenous vulva, the nubbly ends scraping the delicate walls.

  “Oh God,” Edith whimpered, trying to push back over it, but Selma held a steady hand over her tailbone, her own breath coming in heavy, uneven gusts.

  “This is delicious,” Selma said, running the candle along Edith’s labia, pushing at the lowermost end of her back until she lay flat and limp against the desk, babbling softly with held-back ecstasy. “I do feel like vicariously ravaging a virgin tonight. You have included that bit, haven’t you?”

  Edith nodded weakly.

  “Good, good. I’d hate for you to have to make it up on the fly. Like that time in Greece, remember? So easily distracted.” Without warning, Selma pushed the candle deep and fully into her. Edith cried out.

  “Such a naughty girl,” Selma tsked, spreading Edith’s legs still wider apart. “Here you are, ignobly strapped to your desk, reading out your smut while I do my best to teach you a lesson about duties and obligations, and what happens? You end up begging me for it, don’t you? Getting turned on by your own purple passages? What do you say?”

  “Please,” Edith groaned, shaking from the strain of keeping her balance with her legs spread at a forty-five degree angle.

  “Please what?” Selma insisted, keeping the candle quite still in Edith’s softly contracting cunt. She dug her nails into the tender flesh of her groin to keep her from coming too soon.

  “Please fuck me, please. I’m dying here.”

  “Not so fast, Lady Lazarus. All right, I will, since you ask nicely. And you will read me that enticing last page. Tell me how Selima plucks that ripe little peach of hers. Might give me ideas.”

  Slowly, inexorably, Selma began sliding the candle stump in and out of Edith. She was careful not to touch any other part of her, keeping the rhythm to a mere snail’s pace. Tears of frustration glinted at the corners of Edith’s eyes as she propped herself up again to be able to decipher her own handwriting.

  The sensitive skin of Edna’s bottom had turned a strawberry shade of pink from Selima’s ministrations with the cane. She was splayed out, tied to the bedposts with her mistress’s silk, weeping bitterly. Even her private parts wept. There was a strange humming glow at the pit of her stomach for which she could not account. She did not feel ill, exactly, she felt…

  She felt her lady’s hands stroking her sore bum, pushing her dress up further along her back and plunging between her legs to catch the moist
ness of her secret place.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Selima lisped, a strange note of tenderness to her voice. ‘What is this now?’

  ‘I…’ Edna was at a loss for words. She blushed deeply, and yet some animal instinct, one she had only indulged once or twice before, alone, in this very bed, made her press against the hand fondling her.

  ‘Hmm.’ Selima pushed back, up, until Edna found herself positioned on her hands and knees. ‘I think we are done with your correction for tonight. Now for my prize…’

  Incredulous, Edna watched through her arms as the lady placed herself between her naked thighs. There was nothing she could do to stop the sticky liquid from dripping down upon that regal face. Selima caught some stray drops of it on her cheek with her finger, then put the finger in her mouth.

  ‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘This will be a treat.’

  She bent her head backwards to look up at Edna. Their eyes met. Selima smiled. A cryptic, lop-sided expression.

  ‘You could have cried out, Edna. This is not the Middle Ages. Someone would have come.’

  The words, the earnest gaze, jolted the servant-girl. They were thick with meaning, laced with an odd message about her rights, free choice, and love. She was tied up, her behind still aching from the corporal punishment, yet she had never felt so liberated. If she did cry out, if she did bring rescuers to the door, Selima would be shamed for life. Perhaps even sent away to some mental asylum, where a delicate constitution like hers could not last long. This was the power proffered to her. Her mistress’s very life prostrated before her.

  Edna shook her head.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ she whispered.

  Selima nodded.

  ‘I am going to deflower you now, sweet servant of mine. You can watch, if you like.’

  “Oh fuuuuuck…” Edith’s voice broke as the tip of Selma’s tongue flicked her clit.

  “Geez,” Selma murmured derisively from her crouching position between the poor writer’s violently trembling legs, back snug up against the hardwood side of the desk. “Did I interrupt? I do apologize. Only all this reading you’re doing, brilliantly, may I add, is getting me so hot and bothered. I really don’t think I can listen to another sentence without eating you out. You don’t mind, do you? A short break?”