Chapter Eight
Marcus
Iwake to a hazy overcast and Lenora’s sweet, plump tits cradled in my palm. Her musky scent clings to my skin. To the air. An invisible fist tight around my cock.
It’s hard to be the strong one when I would fall to my knees just for a taste of her pussy.
I tease the swollen nub and feel it shrivel. The woman in my arms sighs. Her hips push back into the hard bulge of my erection.
Two nights of her in my bed.
Having her naked and willing in my arms is not helping me remember why I’m being so careful.
“Do you want to use my mouth?”
My throat closes around my sharp inhale and I nearly choke.
“What?”
Lenora turns over in my arm and peers up with sleepy eyes.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” She doesn’t let me misunderstand when she takes my cock through my sleeping pants. “I can suck you.”
“Fuck, Linny.”
But she’s already wiggling down my torso, lips grazing a path down my chest. Her fingers curl into my waistband.
“Or do you want to cum inside me?”
I’m dreaming.
This is an illusion…
But she’s looking up at me, waiting with those big, brown eyes.
“You’re a virgin,” I remind her … myself.
She nods even as she pulls me free.
“They’d hold me down and make me take the tip. They liked filling me.”
Not a dream, I realize with blinding euphoria when she takes my whole dick to her throat on the first plunge. The sweet heat of her mouth hugging me sends my head back with ecstasy.
Then she kills me with her deep, satisfied groan. The slurp as she sucks faster. She adds her fist and my eyes roll back.
“That’s it. That’s … don’t stop.”
Her tongue swirls over the head and she watches me when she slides down.
And I lose it.
“On your back.”
I barely give her a chance to obey when I shove her down. But she knows. Her hands are already under her knees, holding them open.
Holding her pussy open.
I rest my throbbing dick against that tiny hole. Ready to paint her lips with my cum.
She grips my shaft and stuffs the head in right as I release, flooding her virgin cunt with years of pent-up cum.
“Lenora, baby, no…”
But I’m wheezing and watching as she jerks every last drop.
“Is that not what you wanted?” she asks, watching my face with her ankles at her ears and her pussy leaking my seed.
James would be horrified.
I know it even as I pull out of his little girl’s flooded cunt and stare down at my handiwork.
“They did this to you?” I hear myself croak, mesmerized by the sight of something so pure so ruined.
I scoop an escaped glob and stuff it back inside her. Not going too far. The first knuckle. I hold it there.
Corking her.
Keeping her full.
“All day,” she whispers. “They’d each pick a hole for the day and see who filled me up more.”
I shouldn’t be listening to this.
She’s talking about my boys.
“Both holes?”
Lenora nods.
“They liked making me drip.”
“Did you like it?” I pull my finger free. “Did you like being used like a dump? Passed between them?”
Her fingers are in my hair, guiding my face the rest of the way down without hesitation.
“Yes.”
Her breathy groan is all I need when I dive in for my breakfast. I lick and suck, cleaning my mess like it might change what I did.
But it’s not guilt ringing between my ears. It’s her loud, greedy whines of my name as her slippery cunt gushes on my mouth.
Like a gentleman, I clean her. I take long, hungry swipes of her seizing channel before moving up her body to take her mouth. To shove my tongue down her throat and make her taste how good we are together.
It does dawn on me to ask how she was twenty-five and still a virgin when it’s clear they hadn’t been shy about things.
But that’s a question for when my cock isn’t ready for another round.
It doesn’t help that her breasts are so sweet and perky.
Perfect globes with bright pink nipples that make my brain fuzzy.
One kiss, I tell myself.
I bow my head and press a kiss to the rosy bud. It tightens beneath my mouth and I suck. Just once. I roll it beneath my tongue.
Lenora moans.
And I have to do the other one. Have to add a little teeth while teasing the first.
She’s wiggling and I have no choice but to make my way back down to kiss the wet lips begging for my attention. I have to spread her legs and show her what a good girl she is for me.
She’s whining and trembling by the time I’m satisfied I’ve been thorough.
I bathe her once I’m done. I carry her into the bathroom and stand with her against my chest under the warm spray.
She’s gone back to her quiet. To that place I can’t follow her. She lets me run soapy hands over every inch of exposed skin, lather the heavy weight of her hair without a word.
But the distance is in her eyes. It’s a fog that shrouds her from me and reality. It keeps her in a place I don’t know how to reach her.
So, I let her find her way back. I rinse her and myself and swaddle her in a towel. Her gown is a wrinkled puddle of white across my carpet, but I leave her damp and barely clad on my bed, and hurry to her room for a dress.
Mrs. Pym — I assume — has straightened the mess from the previous night. Everything has been replaced or repaired, practically brand new. Like it never happened. Even the antique vanity with its oval mirror and fine, pink trim is exactly how it has been since before Lenora came to live with us.
It baffles me how, but I’ve learned to never question the older woman.
The closet opens to miles of gray, yards of burgundy and whole sections of black. Not a pink amongst them. Or green. I almost miss the tiny cluster of white gowns hidden at the back.
I select something at random. A black dress with a corset top and full sleeves. I recall seeing Lenora in this a time or two and always enjoyed how the lacing cinches between her breasts like a gift waiting for me to unwrap … with my teeth.
Amongst it all, not a single pair of shoes. I try to think if she keeps them in a different location, but ultimately, I gather the dress — only the dress — and return to my room.
Lenora is where I left her, bundled in a thick, white towel, flat on her back, staring up into the mirrors overhead. She doesn’t move when I approach. Doesn’t say a word when I drag the towel free and carefully dress her.
“Marcus?”
It’s been so quiet for so long, I jump at the murmur of my name.
“Oui, mon p’tit?”
She sighs, face still tilted to the ceiling. “When can we start?”
I don’t feign ignorance to the question, the implication behind it.
“When we have a plan.” I take her hands and pull her upright, so I have the full focus of her eyes. “This can’t be rash or reckless. We can’t have the police at our door.”
She’s waiting for me to continue, like she doesn’t understand how that is an issue. And I get it. I understand that need to destroy everything just to make the pain stop.
“If I get arrested, you will be left alone,” I tell her. “We need to be strategic.”
“You’re right,” she says at long last.
I lean in and kiss the spot between her brows.
“Good. Come. Breakfast and then I have a surprise for you.”
Mrs. Pym has already left the tray laden with fresh fruits and a bowl of oatmeal on my desk. I waste no time pulling Lenora into my lap and dragging the tray over.
“There’s only one bowl,” she states.
“I’m not hungry. No, you eat,” I scold when her eyebrows furrow.
Her lips purse, but she obediently does as she’s told. I watch her finish every bite before nudging her to her feet and capturing her fingers.
Usher House was built with something in mind that, over time, got forgotten. It started as a manor, simple with clean lines and a direct purpose to showcase the Usher fortune.
Every new generation expanded on it. Built layers to leave behind a part of themselves.
My contribution was Lenora. Her grace and beauty. Her green thumb that filled the halls and rooms with life and color. Even in the winter, she managed to bring to life armloads of neatly trimmed flowers from the greenhouse.
Without them, we pass the dreary corridor from my office to the family chapel that extends from the house.
An addition crafted from boards cut from trees grown in the family cemetery where my wife and children rest. Where my brother and his wife rest. My parents.
Their parents. Every Usher since the beginning.
Someday, where Lenora and I will call home.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“To see your surprise.”
It took time to pull off. A lot of greased palms and favors. That’s the thing about money. It’s never how much a thing costs, but who is willing to corrupt their morals for it. Everyone has a price, something they want, a problem only you and your resources can fix for them.
Being an Usher isn’t simply being a name. It’s being power.
And it’s the fruits of that power that sit waiting before the eyes of God, a holy sacrament.
Worn carpet and the faint hint of rot guide our feet through miles of forgotten passages.
Silence follows, a faithful dog at our heels.
I can’t remember a time when this side of the estate was disturbed.
I never cared for religion. Neither did my parents.
Perhaps, it’s been that long since these halls have seen life.
Lenora stays at my side, small and curious. Her hand is nestled in mine, so trusting.
I know we are close by the disturbance of dust on the floor. The open doors of the chapel beckoning us in.
It’s here I hold my breath. I let Lenora slip past over the threshold.
Bare feet leaving carpet for wood untouched by care in too long.
Dirt and debris litter the way, cling to the undersides of the four benches in two straight lines facing the altar.
The polished cross carved by hand by a great grandfather I never met.
The symbolism of hard work and God every Usher must strive to balance.
I believe I have.
My gift is an example of that.
God and power.
“Are those…?”
Lenora sprints the final five feet to the hand carved boxes. The gleaming wood with gold trim and secure fastens. Both raised on stone dais, lifted before the Holy symbol of divinity.
My boys.
Home.
Where they belong.
Even if it’s merely the vessels that once contained them.