The Young Wife (27 page)

Her last words before we curled up and dozed off together were, ‘You can do that to me any time you like, David.'

No wonder I was in love with her.

Thirteen

The funeral was a very dismal affair, what with Vivian sobbing loudly at every line the priest spoke, and the hundred or so other assorted relatives hanging round for hours afterwards looking po-faced. The heavy rain didn't help, either. Even after it stopped, the drips continued, and there was no part of the churchyard which was free from the overhanging branches of trees, so that we all had to stand there while the cold water dropped on to our heads and necks.

Poor Leo. I doubt if that was how he thought it would all end. An international playboy struck down by a second massive stroke as he peered through his sister's windows. What he saw I can only guess at, and how he managed to get there, I shall never know. The lady who was supposed to be looking after him was hysterical with guilt. She kept repeating, over and over, that she should have stayed with him. Which was silly, really. How was she to know that he would suddenly find the strength to get out of bed? And as for making his way down the path to Vivian's place: well, that should have been nigh on impossible. Which makes me think that, all along, he had been pretending to be worse than he was. He must have decided to go and see Vivian, perhaps with the idea of telling her about me and the burglar. Or perhaps he wanted to let her know what Anne and I had done to him. I suppose that's another thing he took to the grave with him. A very sad affair all round.

The only bright cloud on an otherwise gloomy horizon was the fact that he died intestate, and therefore, I woke up on the morning after his death and found myself to be a very rich, very young widow. I had won, without having to fight very much at all. The house was mine, along with lots of land in Europe which I hadn't even seen yet, and the executor informed me, several weeks later, that I was now a millionaire. Several times over, in fact.

For a month or so after Leo's death, I was a complete hermit, as I had a lot of things to think through. I asked everyone to stay, including the witches, but only Antonia was willing to remain with me. Vivian took David off with her on a whirlwind tour of the world, and it seemed as if we wouldn't be seeing either of them for a while. I ended up moving into the guesthouse myself, and let the trio of Anne, Elizabeth, and Antonia take over the house. It was too big for me, and there was a ghost in every room. They protested a little when I moved out, but it was the sensible thing to do. Three's company, four is something else entirely.

I suppose the truth is that I was feeling guilty over the way I had treated Leo, even though he probably deserved it, and it was only through sheer luck that I hadn't been responsible for his death. That, and the fact that I would never have guessed what it was that would finally prove too much for him. We never told Vivian exactly where he was found. It wouldn't have done her any good to know, and David seems to be quite fond of her, so he insisted, and I didn't feel like arguing with him. How long I would have continued moping around the place is anybody's guess, but I was saved from my own contrariness by Anne, as always, and her indefatigable hedonism.

I awoke, one bright and cheery Sunday morning, to find an elegant envelope adorning the mat inside the front door of the guesthouse. I was intrigued for the first time in weeks, and I left it closed while I made myself morning coffee, the better to enjoy the sensation of interest. Inside, when I eventually opened it, I found Anne's elegant but barely legible scrawl inviting me to attend a ‘school reunion' at the big house that very afternoon. I was instructed by the letter to dress in costume, and not, under any circumstances, to turn up before three o'clock, at which time lessons would commence. It all sounded very exciting, and I was fairly sure it would be as perverse as anything I could dream up if Anne had been the instigator. I looked at my watch. Four hours to prepare myself.

I walked into the second bedroom, so lately occupied by Vivian, and went to the big, wooden trunk which contained the bulk of my clothes. I had used very little of the extensive range of outfits it contained, largely because I had nowhere I wished to go, and no one to take me there if I did. It was a strange way to live for a woman who was barely twenty years old, and richer than many people of twice that age. Added to the immodest impression I had of being more than averagely good-looking, and it was a criminal waste of good fortune. I could be anyone I wanted to be, and here I was being nobody at all. I kneeled by the trunk, deep in thought, for almost half an hour, until a bird flashing by the window startled me out of my reverie. I had been thinking about Leo, and the way the fairy tale had turned sour, yet now it looked as if there was to be a happy ending after all.

I found myself wishing that Leo had been more patient, kinder, more clever in his approach to me. In those early months of our courtship, I would have done anything for him, if he had only known how to ask. Now other men had taken what should have been his, and all he had been able to do was watch. I had engineered the seduction of his sister, his niece, and myself, and the fact that it had, for the most part, been a pleasant experience for the three of us was more the product of accident than design. I caught myself more than once thinking how odd and wonderful life was, if we could only let it be so. I was determined to rejoin the world, and face it this time with an open mind, instead of the narrow, naive instrument it had been before. If I owed Leo one thing above all others, it was that.

And so I delved into the deep recesses of the trunk, and dug out my old school uniform, which I had been loath to throw away. I had romanticised my time there, as I had romanticised much else.

A white blouse, and blue-grey skirt, both of which needed ironing, my striped, square-ended tie and a hairband in the old school colours, all came out of the trunk in their turn. I laid them out on the bed, and went to run myself a hot bath. I had let myself go a bit, these last few days, and my legs and armpits needed a shave, as an itchy bristle had appeared on those parts, unnoticed by me. My bottom and sex were still relatively smooth as they had been waxed, but I decided to include them in my preparations, as I felt like having a complete overhaul.

Mens sana in corpore sano,
as the old saying goes, and my mind, at last, was sound. It was like waking from a dream, to find the dawn refreshing, and full of promise.

I washed, slowly, and with great diligence. I stood in the warm, soapy water, and lathered my skin until I was a mass of sweet-smelling suds. I caught sight of myself in the mirror, and the strange, watchful girl I was smiled back at me, as the white froth ran down her ivory skin. I turned, and craned my head to look at myself. For ages, I turned, looking this way and that, studying my form. My long, muscular legs, my full, plump bottom, the lines and hollows of my shapely back. I soaped the heavy, slippery globes of my breasts, and ran the rough sponge under their fullness, into the creases that led into my armpits. I bent and soaked the sponge, then straightened and squeezed it so that the water ran down between the shining fruit. It coursed in two rivulets from the russet peaks of my stiff nipples, tickled its way down over the soft swell of my tummy, and finally lost itself in the narrow strip of hair above my pussy. I rubbed the sponge into the crack between my legs, and felt the slick lips sliding against each other. I ran it up the groove of my out-thrust bottom, and rubbed the crinkled bud until it glowed. I sat again into the warmth, and let the water lap against my bobbing breasts, then I soaped, and shaved my armpits with a razor, fresh from a new pack. I rinsed myself with the shower unit, and stepped out on to the thick mat beside the bath.

My wet toes curled into its warmth, and I sat down on it, weak and languorous from the heat. I lay back, and stretched myself, arms above my head, and long toes pointing out, until the muscles of my spine unknotted in a series of soft popping sounds. I relaxed, and let my muscles slacken gradually, until I was stretched fiat out, like a cat in the sun. My firm breasts rose and fell with the depth of my breathing; I watched them, with my chin tucked in, and marvelled at their youthful, springy roundness. I spread my legs a little and waited lazily as the water in my slit dried out. My hair was damp and curled around my head like strands of seaweed. I floated on the tide of summer.

I sat up, eventually, and fussed at the tangled curls above my groin. I plumped the fat outer lips, then ran a naughty finger down to my anus. It felt smooth, waxy and hairless, but I decided to wax it. I hoped it would receive some attention later, and wanted it to look its best. It was a slow process, starting at my ankles, and all the way up my long, muscular thighs, before I reached it. Yet it was a relatively painless process, too, and I felt no stinging as I rubbed cream into the places I had depilated. I pushed a little cream into my bottom, and it squeezed upon my finger in acceptance. It felt so tight, that I was unable to believe that men could get their penises into places as secretive and resistant as that. I wondered if the girls would try. I was sure they would, and the thought made me pleasantly queasy. I dried and perfumed myself, then walked naked to the bedroom. I wrapped a robe around myself, and ate a late brunch on the little lawn behind the stone-walled cottage. The birds sang, and fluttered about, oblivious to me. I did not envy them, for I was as free as they. The realisation was slowly sinking into me.

I was free.

There was a packet of cigarettes on the windowsill in the kitchen, and I tried one again for the first time since I was fourteen. It made me remember school, and the only naughty things that I had done while I was there. I was a good girl, then. I let the smoke curl lazily out of my open lips, and watched it swirl away into the blue sky. Insects buzzed around me, and I was perfectly content in my solitude. I parted my legs, and the robe opened to let the sun beat on to my thighs. I leaned back, and let my legs fall apart, so that my pussy was bare to the hot sun. I felt the light enter me, and the warmth worked magically into my stomach. At length, after another cigarette, I stood, and went in to dress. It was quarter to two.

I unwrapped a new pair of hold-up stockings, light blue, with lacy banding at their tops. I slipped them on over my smooth, rounded calves, and pulled them so that they were taut around the plumpest parts of my pale thighs. I wondered if I should wear any knickers, and decided to compromise by slipping on a lacy thong that let my springy cheeks shudder nakedly when I moved. It was a glorious feeling, and I stayed like that as I ironed fresh creases into my blouse, and crisped the pleats of my skirt. Then I slipped into the crisp, cotton blouse and buttoned it up, so that it floated lightly about my bare ribs and breasts. The darknesses of my nipples showed faintly through the peaks of material that caught over them and, when I pushed the flapping wings of the blouse into the tight waistband of my short, pleated skirt, the firm, round globes of my tits strained aggressively against the crisp cotton.

I flipped my collars up, and knotted the nylon tie around my neck, then buttoned the peaks down so that the collar ringed, crisp and fiat, around my slim neck. All that was left was the choice of shoes and, though I had a pair of black brogues, I didn't want to wear them, no matter how realistic it would be. Instead, I chose a pair of ridiculously high heels that made my feet arch almost uncomfortably against their insoles. I walked, unsteadily at first, to the full-length mirror in the master bedroom. My hair spoiled the overall effect, as it hung around my forehead and shoulders in untidy curls. I brushed the last wet tangles out of it, as I swayed admiringly before the mirror. My legs were forced to tense in a graceful, undulating line, by the heels that tipped my centre of balance forwards. They made me have to stick my bottom out a bit, and arch my back to straighten my posture. The pleated skirt fell into the deep cleft of my uptilted behind, and the first inch of bare flesh above my stockings showed plain and plumply at my rear. The naughtiest of naughty girls.

I made a strong cup of coffee, with lots of sugar and milk, and went outside to relax before I strolled up to the big house. I sat in the shade of the eaves, and soaked in the hazy, green of an English summer's afternoon. If life had ever been better, I could not remember the time.

Five to three. Time for me to go, so I stood, and put the empty coffee-cup in through the open, kitchen window. I took the hairband out of my blouse's pocket, and deftly twisted my hair into a long ponytail. It skipped against my shoulders as I walked, up the gravelled path to the white-fronted house that had been my late abode. It seemed different then, from the outside in the light, and I felt only joy as I walked up to the door and rang the bell. I waited, hands clasped girlishly behind my backside, until the form of another person showed through the patterned glass at the sides of the door. I was surprised to see Antonia, dressed similarly to me, and even more surprised when she smiled a genuinely pleased smile.

‘You're right on time. Come in,' she said, with her white teeth flashing gaily in the neat, golden face. ‘They are all waiting for you.'

I wondered idly who ‘they' were, as I stepped past her into my own hall. It was just the same as when I left, but now I saw only the dust mites swirling in the sunlight, and the bobbing of Antonia's pleated skirt. She waved me through to the dining room, and I stepped through the door to the large room with the sensation that a crowd of people was gathered inside. I was not wrong, though they weren't gathered together but, rather, spread out and seated at their own desks. There was Anne, at the top of the class, beside Elizabeth, and Kay, looking especially delicious in her knee-socks, and tiny skirt. I was astonished to see Roland sitting meekly beside her, and even more surprised to see David and Vivian, looking sheepish and pleased at the back. Then I turned towards the newly hung blackboard, and I nearly fainted with déjà-vu. For standing at the front of the class was Mr Webb, looking very stern, though rather nervous, in his gown. Anne turned to me, smiling, and I guessed at once that this was her idea. She pointed to Webb, and then at Elizabeth, and I knew immediately how it had come about.