Bliss River Read online

  "Get out."

  She heard him through the foggy haze of escalating de­sire. "What?"

  "Get out. Just get out."

  "But—you ..." She shook herself. How could he move from pure naked lust to this righteous coldness in the space of minutes? Her fingers flexed, aching to touch him,

  he was that close, his penis so close she could touch him, she could convince him, seduce him, make him want what they both wanted, and make this night, in Valley terms, a success.

  "OUT..."

  There was no emotion in him. It was as if he were en­cased in ice, and she knew it was futile to try to entice him. Futile to try to reach him at all.

  She felt engulfed by futility. This man was different, and she had tried to coerce him by Valley rules and standards, and now any chance she might have had of enlisting his help was futile as well.

  She reached for her gown, the heat of humiliation wash­ing over her body. She had never been rejected before. Never. And she had always been able to persuade the most recalcitrant men to the Valley point of view.

  So why was this one different when all men were basi­cally the same?

  "He'll want details," she said abruptly. She was gowned, although she felt even more naked in the gown than she had without it. And she was at the door.

  He shrugged. "I don't care. Give him details."

  "Hell send me again tomorrow."

  "Will he indeed? What a thick obtuse man. What will you do?"

  As if she had a choice.

  "What will you do?" she retorted, and swung the door closed in his face.

  Chapter Three

  "Shhhh—I just heard her come in."

  "It's too early, my darling. She should not be back this early. I don't like this. I wasn't sure about that man ..."

  "She'll tell you all in the morning, my dear. Come, we're not nearly finished."

  "Why didn't he keep her there?"

  "Moreton, my dear, my pussycat is hungry for your cream. Forget about her and concentrate on me."

  "So easy to do, my darling. Uhhh—there ... I hope you felt that."

  "Ummm ... oh, oh—"

  "Exactly ... let me give you more ..."

  "Yes, yes—"

  "Can't get enough?"

  "Never..."

  "There, my darling ..."

  "Yes—yes..."

  "Just this, until morning ..."

  "Shhhhh—shhhhh ... till morning—"

  Hot. It was that heat that suffused the body and leached into the soul. The heat of righteousness, rejection, the knowledge that someone had judged her and found her wanting.

  And it was heat like cotton batting, surrounding her, ex­hausting her. She couldn't outrun it; it was a wall. It was a blanket smothering her. It was a thousand recriminations beating like native drums in her heart, her head, her mind.

  She was a pawn, and a fool. She'd always known that. But it had always been so much easier to give in to More-ton's rules than to fight them.

  Because he had always been perfectly willing for her to go.

  Just leave, he'd say. Take your things and go and see in­deed if you will be better off far away from our little Eden.

  Go—go without clothes, without money, without trans­portation, without protection. A woman alone in the jun­gle, in the veldt—Moreton would not make it easy, by any stretch of the imagination.

  What abject fool would want to leave, anyway? Not those whose every obscene fantasy was satisfied. Not those who could have the luxury of choice every single night of their lives, and not have to mind their morals. Not those who wanted to live like a pasha on pin money, and rut through a harem besides.

  Moreton was a master at divining the blackest desire in the soul of man and making it seem as if attaining it would be the equivalent of finding the Holy Grail.

  How had he done it? Did it matter?

  He had founded the swamp that was Bliss River Valley, and they had all waded in after him. And baptized the chil­dren as well.

  Oh God.. . and she was the worst sinner, racing from redemption to the quagmire, to lay naked on her bed, and resisting redemption yet again.

  They were all lemmings, all of them, and she had to get out of there, she had to, before she wholly lost her life.

  But even as she tossed and turned in her bed, she felt the rising tide of desire, and the legacy of Bliss River. Heat. Nakedness. Unslaked need.

  It was like a sickness in the blood, the desire pumping through her veins. She had been well and truly taught: If you are naked, you fuck. And you fuck whoever is avail­able whenever you want whenever he wants.

  And that need was not mitigated by her abject failure with the stranger. She had only to prowl the grid-like streets of the Valley village to find a willing penis. Or go out to a country house party where the sole purpose was to find and fuck as many partners as possible, all day long, all night long.

  No, the need was something that had been escalating for some time now, as she came into womanhood. It was like a rushing wave, catching her when she least expected it, crashing over her now, when she was regretting how she had handled the stranger, how she had rebelliously lived this bizarre and craven life.

  Her body stretched and liquefied, heating up of its own volition, and apart from anything she desired intellectu­ally. Even in the close stifling heated air, she felt the molten swirl of desire pulling her down.

  Why hadn't he just taken her? What kind of man re­fused a woman's most intimate offering?

  He would never help her. Never. He'd spend the month or two here that he contracted for, and he would teach them to ride and swat little balls across a big field, and in the end, he would leave and nothing would change.

  Or ... was it that her body was not acceptable to him, and someone else might be?

  There was a thought that dashed all desire.

  It wasn't possible. She was too experienced. Too beauti­ful. Knew too well just what to do.

  Or thought she did.

  But this time, the seduction of her hands had not worked. This time, her nipples had not whipped a man into a frenzy of wanting her. This time ...

  Whose hands, then? Whose nipples?

  She sat up abruptly and cupped her breasts. There was no one who had nipples like these, hard, jutting, promi­nent, provocative. Easily excited. Nipples that loved the touch, the tongue of a man.

  And still he resisted.

  She could not get it out of her mind. He didn't want her. Even though he'd been aroused and his penis had been stiff as a pole, he did not take her.

  That engorged penis—oh yes—inside her throbbing body right now—that would be heaven ... in a place where such things were fully and completely permissible ...

  She wanted it... she wanted it—

  That was the thing she couldn't outrun: that she wanted it, that she'd been so completely inculcated that nothing mattered at this moment but someone jamming his penis deep inside her and sating her billowing need.

  Her swelling body shimmered with it; her nipples ached to be touched, to be sucked. And the wet between her legs— she fantasized a thick long penis probing and pounding and just exploding inside her.

  Just that... just that—

  Why, why hadn't he fucked her?

  She turned on her belly and succumbed to the heat.

  "How long have we been together now?" Moreton asked the next morning, as he and Olivia lay in bed, covered only by sheets and sweat. "Since just after Georgie's birth, by my count."

  "That could be so, and I wonder that Lydia hasn't caught on yet."

  "She knows nothing about us, my darling. You know that. She plays by the rules in any event. I made sure of that, and she is still completely engulfed with gratitude that I got her away from Bakhtoum—even after all these years."

  "That's a good thing. And yet, you are uneasy about something, and I'don't think it's Georgie."

  "It's indeed Georgie, and the early hour she returned. And it's also the reaction of the
stranger as we came to promenade last night. And it's the letter from Henry ask­ing for the divorce ..."

  "Oh, that..."

  "And—" Moreton let go of that point quickly, " it's how tired I am of spoon-feeding these babies their rules and rights of community when everything is so perfectly obvious."

  "And so, the serpent," Olivia murmured. "My Geor-gie."

  "Things have to change. We grow older, less vital; there's no one to take our place. Occasionally even I yearn for a more sedate life back in England."

  "Where you would fuck the parlor maid every morning just for a diversion," Olivia said.

  "Only if she feather-dusted the furniture in the nude."

  "Don't be ridiculous, Moreton. What could be better than this? And it's of your design."

  "Well, it was nothing more than the fantasy of a second son in his twentieth year to soak himself in sex," Moreton muttered. "Never mind. Forget I said that. What will you tell him about the divorce?"

  "I will. I've wanted to for years."

  "But if you do," Moreton said carefully, "you might lose everything."

  "Georgie's grown. What more?"

  "Aling, should he die."

  "My dear Moreton. Were you even serious about a country house yearning? You? You'd turn Aling into a brothel in a twinkling. Besides, it's so deeply in debt, it isn't worth having. I'd rather pounds sterling frankly than a decaying country house."

  "A brothel is not a bad idea—to pay off the debt. You could be its mistress. Hire the girls. Fuck the clients. And put money in your pocket to boot. It's Bliss River on a paying basis. Do think about it, Olivia. It may profit you not to leap into the bucket on this."

  "You may have a point," Olivia said. "Indeed, I think you do have a point, if only you would position it where I can feel it."

  "How much would you charge for a morning fuck?" Moreton asked playfully, as he mounted her and stuffed himself into her.

  Her breath caught. "Ahhhh—now I begin to see ..."

  It was another bright, scorching, sticky day, the relent­less sun pouring down on the playing field like molten glass.

  Down at the far end, four of the eight players crowded against each other, swiping at the ball and jostling horses for position. Spectators crowded around the perimeter, umbrellas bobbing to keep off the sun, Georgiana and her mother at midfield, watching as Moreton wheeled his horse, broke loose, swacked the ball, and took off down the field with Charles Elliott shouting instructions in pur­suit.

  "He'll kill himself, Moreton will," Olivia muttered. "What a god-awful sport—grown men killing themselves over a stupid ball."

  A moment later, Moreton swung the ball through the goal posts and everyone cheered.

  "Oh, that was good," Georgie said, clapping. "He probably cheated. Mr. Elliott doesn't look too pleased."

  "Indeed." One of the onlookers turned at Georgie's comment. "He was to have veered off and given Smythe the ball. Not a cheerful team player, our Moreton."

  "I see," Georgie murmured, as the two teams lined up again at the half mark and waited for the referee to roll the ball.

  Immediately Moreton went off after it, as if it were his toy.

  "Doesn't like ceding power," Olivia said. "But then, who does? Come walk with me, Georgie, and tell me how last night went."

  Now what? Her instinct was to lie. But what if Olivia wanted details? She could do details.

  "It went well," she said heavily.

  "Yes, he looks like he would be excellent in bed. Those thighs—have you been watching the way they grip the horse? And those hands ..."

  "Yes," Georgie whispered.

  "And yet you were home surprisingly early. Or could you not sustain his interest?"

  Georgie stiffened. Her mother never pulled punches, but there was something in Olivia's tone that was off-putting, as if Olivia were suggesting she could have serviced him better.

  "Believe me, Mr. Elliott was well and truly aroused. He is a man of magnificent proportions, Mother, which only a younger woman could truly have the stretch and the honey to accommodate." She had an excess of both—and still he had turned her down.

  Would he have turned down Olivia?

  "And yet—you were home early."

  And now, the most injudicious lie of all, one that would hold Olivia for all of an hour before she checked it out. "It

  is Mr. Elliott's custom to sleep alone, and it isn't for me to gainsay what a guest might wish."

  "Hmph," Olivia snorted, by which Georgie inferred she would have. "So you will fuck him again tonight."

  "It is what he most desires."

  "Good. Moreton was worried."

  "There is nothing to worry about. He is just like every other man—he enjoys forbidden fruit and he adores the knowledge that there is no snake in Eden,"

  Her lies would come back to haunt her, Georgie was ab­solutely certain of it. Her mother had already spoken to Moreton, probably she had said something lewd to Charles Elliott, and the end result would be her lies would catch up to her.

  But, as the day waned, and the polo players gathered for a classroom session and dinner subsequent to that, neither Moreton nor her mother came to accuse her, and Georgie debated going to Charles's bungalow again.

  It would be expected of her. Especially after what she had told Olivia. Moreton would expect another report. Another assurance.

  It would be humiliating, because Charles would turn her immediately away. But it would give her another shot at seducing him. Another chance to fondle his penis and try to coax it between her legs.

  Just the thought of it made her wet with yearning. It was a fever seeping into her bones, making her languid, supple, weak with desire.

  She could never survive like this outside the Valley.

  This was the tether; this was the thing Moreton knew that the others did not: Once you chose Eden, you were lost to the outside world.

  How could she face Charles Elliott again?

  "It's time," Olivia called up to her.

  "I know." She had dressed as she was expected to dress—in something easily removable and visually entic­ing. Her nipples were already tight with anticipation and straining against the gauzy material of her gown. But she was shaking- It was one thing to think about approaching Charles Elliott, quite another to be on the verge of risking still further mortification.

  "I envy you your breasts," Olivia said, as she came down from her room.

  Georgie let out her pent-up breath. Nothing about Charles or her spur-of-the-moment lies. Now to distract her mother. "Where's Moreton?"

  "On the promenade. Apparently hours of riding and whacking each other with sticks did not dull anybody's anticipation for the night's fucking,"

  "Even you?" Georgie murmured under her breath. "How nice for them. I'm off then."

  "How nice for you," Olivia said. "I do envy you, you know."

  "Don't—"

  "Of course not. You should go ..."

  Olivia was watching too, as she crossed the broad av­enue that bisected the village. Watching as she passed the rows of bungalows on either side of the street, each with a deep veranda, and each screened from its neighbor by trees and fencing.

  All Moreton's vision, lapped in luxury, open to every­one, convenient to all.

  Night sounds accompanied her—animal and human. No restraint here, everything sexual for common consumption.

  But Charles's bungalow was dark. She felt a stab of hope that he might have made some other choice for the evening. That the lights were out because he was in bed right now fucking someone else.

  No. The thought of that made her even more crazy, be­cause she had felt the size and the heft of his penis. Because she had wanted it. Because be had said no. And by rights, he should say no to everyone.

  It was clear to her in any event that Olivia was suspi­cious. She probably had her binoculars out already, fol­lowing Georgie's every move.

  Dear God, why had she lied like that, why had she let herself in for
another painful half hour with this unobtain­able man?

  Because you've never been rejected by any man you set out to seduce? Because just holding that rock of a penis al­most made you convulse? Because you want him to fuck you and you'll do anything to make him?

  She felt the fever rising again just imagining what it would take to make Charles Elliott break. What it would take to make him lose all restraint, all control. The thought was so arousing, she almost couldn't bear it.

  She had to go to him naked. Not that that had been any inducement. But surely, she had a better chance of getting inside his bungalow if she were naked.

  She tore off her gown and tossed it in the shrubs, and then boldly knocked on his door.

  And now ., - and now—

  A light flashed in the window. The door swung open, and his voice came at her, disembodied as a ghost: "Get in­side. God, you have no shame."

  She sauntered over the threshold and into the light, which was set on a low table just by the door. So he could see her, all of her.

  He stood just beyond it, a broad-shouldered shadow of the night, radiating hostile disapproval.

  She felt her body shudder; he was fully dressed, except that his shirt was unbuttoned, which meant he might just have been lying down, resting. Probably there was no other woman here.

  Good. Maybe. She couldn't lose her nerve now, even with that damning, discouraging look in his eyes. She took a deep breath. "But, Charles, this is Eden, where everyone is equal and no one needs to be ashamed of anything he feels or wants. I'm just here to give you what you want." "We settled that last night. You know nothing of a man's wants. Especially mine." Liar. God's hell, he was a liar. The queen knew too well his wants and needs.

  He ripped off his shirt and tossed it at her. "Put it on." She let it fall softly to the floor. What will it take? There was not a glimmer of interest in his opaque gaze as he looked at her. Through her. Even after his rousing response to her hands last night. It was her nudity that wasn't seduc­tive to him.

  Rather, he stood with his arms akimbo, with the light playing over the tight musculature of his shoulders and belly, and waited for her to do his will. What will it take?