A Fine Profession (The Chambermaid's Tales Part One) (31 page)

He sat on the corner of the bed and hung his head.

“I don't know what you have been used to before, but I am not your wife. I am Charlotte. I am not Lottie or the Chambermaid. Charlotte,” I repeated, screeching, “Charlotte!”

I began crying so loudly, something I'd never done before so openly.
He raced across and gathered me up, holding me tightly to him. He repeated his apologies over and over. I was shaking so violently with the strength it took to show my real feeling.

“
I'm in trouble, Charley. I'm sorry. I've been under a lot of stress. It came out all wrong. The fuck meant nothing. Truly. It was the other stuff. I was afraid of admitting it even to myself. The business is sinking.” The pain in his voice was evident.

He reached for my chin and kissed my mouth, absorbing my tears.
His kisses were always my undoing and our impassioned argument had raised our temperatures. I shifted his jacket off and unbuckled his belt and we fell back on the bed. I lifted my black silk cocktail dress up and lay on his body. We kissed slowly and tenderly and we found each other easily. He slid my straps down and kissed my shoulders, groaning, reasserting his love. He rolled on top and nuzzled my nose with his, eyes wide with surprise and longing.

“
I'm sorry, Charlotte,” he said, and I nodded, letting him make love to me.

Only the sinking of our
sex organs would take the pain way. But I just couldn't get the image of him with someone else out of my mind, no matter how much I knew he loved me. I couldn't bear the thought of it. It meant he desired someone else and followed through with it. I knew I was not much better. But, he always knew who and where and how. This was a convoluted mess I couldn't reconcile with anymore and I knew I would have to do something.

When he came inside me, the d
elight I usually experienced vanished and his gift was most unwelcome. He rolled off and held me to his body, tightly, kissing my mouth once more.

“
I want to be with you. Properly. Every day. Only you. Nobody else. I only do that job now for you. Please Noah, don't leave me. Don't… don't…” I choked, on my own breath, “don't keep leaving me weekend after weekend, leaving me feeling as though any one of them might be the last.”

He buried himself in my breast, moaning, hidin
g his face. He softly told me, “I'm not ready, Charley. I need more time. But I love you. You're the only one,” he said, stroking my arm.

I wanted to tell him that what he was doing to me was so very detrimental but I couldn't.
He didn't know about or understand the low self-esteem. I felt like telling him that as nearly a forty-year-old man he should be ready to settle down with the woman of his dreams and make the commitment any decent man would do without question. The very nature of my illness did not allow me to. I was terrified of his response. He was about to surprise me with a revelation, however.

“
I knew that night at the masked ball that I was terribly in love with you, and I have become even more so since then, Charley. You're everything. Nobody comes close. But I need time. In time, perhaps, things will happen naturally and we shall find our way together. I'm not going anywhere. Nor are you, are you?”

Oh Noah, my silly, ignorant, inexperienced little Noah, who had not been to the edge of death and back like I had.

“I don't want to go to another of those balls, Noah. I went to plenty before I met you. All that is meaningless, you know? Fun to watch but rarely fruitful to engage in. I'd much rather just have you.”

“
I know, but you are still growing into the woman you're meant to be. I want to let you be free, Charley. Please. My experience tells me to let you be free and have this time for you. You'll thank me one day.”

“
No, I won't Noah. I won't thank you. Take me home,” I demanded, and I began chasing around to gather my things together. “This is ruined now.”

“
Charlotte, come on,” he insisted. “It is my birthday.”

“
Nope. No. Fucking take me home.”

I
sat on the bed, arms and legs angrily crossed, and waited for him to get his stuff. When he caught my eye, he smiled. I scowled with non-conformity. He had just gotten me back in bed, somehow, despite his vile confession. I hated myself for giving in.

“
Take. Me. Home.” I reiterated.

“
Fine,” and he quickly got his bag together. He picked up the keys and we left without speaking.

He took the car through the dark country roads. He was tense at my silence.

“
Charlotte, I said I was sorry. What else can I do?”

I looked away. I had no answers for him. I had no words. I wanted things he evidently didn't.

“I am just a prick. I just want muff all the time, and you want cock. That's all it is.”

“
Keep telling yourself that,” I told him.

“
She speaks. Finally,” he said, relieved. “Charlotte,
we
will happen. We will.”

“
When, Noah? When? Because I haven't once been to your house. I haven't met a single of your real friends. I haven't a clue whether you're still married. I don't know a single thing about you, not really.”

“
Charley, you know I love you!” He thumped the wheel with his fists and the car jerked into the middle of the road. He quickly regained control.

“
I don't want to talk anymore. Just get me home safe.”

“
Fine.”

He was silent but I knew he was furious. He wanted to have it out. I wanted to shut down and forget.

When he spotted a lay-by, he pulled over and screeched to a halt. He got out of the vehicle and raced to my side, dragging me out before I had chance to say a word. He slammed the door shut and locked it. He started walking out into the woods with me in his arms.

“
Take me home,” I begged.

“
In a minute.”

He raced up a hill and we reached a plateau from which we could view the city in the distance and the countryside all around.

Breathless, he set me down and told me, “I spent a lot of time round here as a kid. I thought this might be still here. I used to think this was the top of the world. I used to think that while I was sat here, nothing could touch me. I would idle the days away reading and smoking under this tree.”

My lover was a fool, but a romantic one.

His lips were taut and strained but they found their way to mine. He snaked his arms around my shoulders and clung on to the material of my dress. I put my hands in his hair and stroked his tongue with mine in return.

“
I love you, Noah,” I cried, my face pinched with emotion. I hated him for what he had done but I still desperately sought his affection.

“
I really didn't mean to do it. I just got so drunk I forgot I was responsible for behaving myself. It was just stupid, Charley. I'm sorry.”

“
The thought of you even breathing the same air as another woman makes my skin crawl,” I said.

“
I know,” he told me tersely.

“
I can't share
you
Noah. I love you too much. I do. Why won't you believe that? I want to marry you. I want to live my life with you! You have no idea how much it means for me to say that. I decided after Alex, that was it for me. My love life was sewn up. Finished. I never knew love until you, Noah. I worship you. You know that.”

“
I know,” he coughed, kicking his foot into the dirt with self-disgust. He moved toward me and wrapped his hands around my wrists. He explained, “What it is, is that I have a need to control my world. I have a need to seek logic. But, this happened for no reason. Other than we met and could not stop meeting. Then, I discovered that everything I thought I had previously known to be true during my thirty-seven years on this planet was wrong. It was all wrong. You're the only thing worth anything,” he said.

“
Don't keep hurting me Noah. If this is it, tell me now. I can handle that. Please just make the decision. Be with me or not. Otherwise, this hurts too much… just too much.”

He pushed me against a tree. He held his hands spread at my waist. He teased my lips with his, looking into my eyes every time he pulled away.

“I only want a little more time,” he said. The sweetest of kisses cajoled me.

I was lost already. He was in a suit. By moonlight. With love casting his features in peacefulness once more.

“Aye, my love,” I said, as he got down on his knees and tugged up the hem of my skirt. He teased my knickers down and wrapped my leg around his shoulder; my heel digging in his back.

He la
pped at my pussy and I gasped. “Noah, oh. Don't leave me.”

I closed my eyes and pressed myself back into the tree trunk for stability. He took me right to the edge. He stopped and pulled the zip of my dress down,
before making me naked.

He asked me to get on the floor, in
the grass. It was cool but I was soon warmed. He lay on me and I pulled open his trousers. I guided him toward me and he teased his penis inside my opening. When he moved sharply, to make his way to my depths, I flooded with delight, grasping at his backside to push him all the way in.

“
My chest is cold,” I said.

He unbuttoned his shirt and pressed his bare chest to mine.

I looked into his eyes and saw his soul. It mirrored mine but we had each been changed individually by our own life challenges. I wrapped my legs and arms tightly around his body. He kissed my mouth and I gasped with wonder. He moved quickly and licked my throat with rampant massaging he knew I loved. He clamped his mouth around a nipple and made me want to climax. He knew.

He moved so that his face was right in front of mine. He pinned me down and moved rhythmically, shunting me just enough to make me ache for more but not enough to hurt me.

“Charlotte,” he moaned, and he fucked me so well. I had taught him and he had always risen to the challenge. He knew just how to excite me and where. When he knew I was so close, he slowed his tempo to French kiss me. I came with his mouth right on mine, my air filling his lungs.

“
Ah!” I screamed. “Ah! Noah. Oh. Ah.”

I was slow to reach my peak and he joined me toward the end, allowing his seed to flow into me in
relaxed, heated waves. He savoured every second, every moment, as did I.

He cried, he did. He buried
his head in my breast and cried. I knew not what for. The very excretions of his eyes gave me hope.

Yet secretly,
I wished the ground would swallow me up and halt the fate I was hurtling towards.

*              *              *

He sent me extravagant presents after that. Ridiculous bouquets at hotel reception that caught everyone's attention and piqued their jealousy. Always with a note like,
While I've still got the dosh to treat you, love Noah xxx

Oh fuck. I'd have much preferred a dildo posted through my letterbox with some of his cum at the tip, just to feel like I was getting enough of what I really wasn't.

There were lots more antique pieces of underwear and even some items of furniture he said he'd found for me at rock-bottom prices, probably the house-clearance of a colleague or some such like. When in Rome…

His gifts also extended to clothing and jewellery, none of which I really like
d but I wore to please him. He always insisted on ordering for me at dinner, sure he'd be able to introduce me to delights I had never sampled before. The gifts, trips away and dinners in various Nottinghamshire eateries were quite extensive and I soon didn't have anything else to do except work, prepare for his visits and take my bike rides.

A lot of the time, when he visited my rooms, I'd be waiting tied up on the bed. It had become difficult for me to gain pleasure so I knew we had to mix it up. I also started having him spank me with a paddle or the whip, whichever was to hand. I think I gained a lot more pleasure from it than him. I warned him that he would be left more traumatised than me, if he tried to push me to the edge, because then he would see exactly what I was capable of coping with. I warned him that sometimes my clients found this out to their detriment, and would walk away loving me more. He did indeed try to push my pain threshold to the hilt one time, drawing blood, and
he cried in my arms afterward; my stained sheets inviting his bitter tears and regret. He was very attentive for weeks after that and never once aggressive ever again, though I sometimes longed for that.

I didn't ask him about his business. I just knew when he was in a foul mood. Those were the times when he needed to be spanked and made to feel nullified. I delighted in thrashing him. It turned me on more than anything else
; to see that large, dominant man turn weak under my force for a change. Sometimes I did it while touching myself and he would end up so tormented, he'd masturbate alongside me.