Chapter 5
On the way back from visiting the pie man, Edward recalled what he’d wanted to say to Tabby.
“Listen,” he said, squinting at the setting sun as they dodged horse shite in the street while finding their way to the new lodgings. “I don’t have much, but since Tencendor…”
“Since you sold your horse to buy me,” she filled in.
“Yes. Since then, I have some coin. More than usual.”
Tabby nodded.
“You never had a sweetheart or someone who wanted to marry you?” he asked.
Her head jerked to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“You never had a beau? Someone who knew you were Tabitha?”
“No,” she said. “I have about as many friends as you do.”
Not many. Damn.
“It’s just that,” he said, stepping around a cart, “you don’t have to carry on with this scheme. Not if you don’t want to.”
“This scheme.”
“Becoming a courtesan. I can give you some money for you to get married so you can live happily. None of this playing lady nonsense or learning not to say ‘rogering’ business. You could be happy.”
“Could I?” she asked, her voice curiously even.
“Yes, I know plenty of happy wives! You’re even a virgin! Why, we could find you any number of suitable husbands in the market right now.”
“I bet you know plenty of happy wives, Dick Stone,” she said, grabbing him by the waistcoat. She was ferocious for a little thing, her grip firm and eyes flashing as she prepared to eviscerate him for something to which she’d taken offense. Damn and blast.
“I suppose I do…” he said, suddenly doubting the wisdom of his offer.
“Do you think I’d be a happy wife if my husband wondered why I was friends with the notorious seducer Dick Stone?”
“I fear not,” he said, his voice growing small as he tried to appease her.
Tabby released his waistcoat. “Come along then, I’ve a virginity to be rid of. This has gone on long enough. I’m tired of it offering options I don’t want.”
***
When Tabby marched into their lodgings instead of heading for a seedy neighborhood, he should have known that something was afoot.
After he set the lock, she began pulling off her clothes — his clothes — and casting them on the floor.
He followed behind her, picking up garments and trying to understand what she was about.
“Now, see here!” he shouted when she sent her shirtsleeves to the rug in a billow.
She turned around, letting him see her narrow, bare shoulders and the scrap of fabric over her breasts for the first time.
“I need to be rid of it,” she said. “Will you do it for me?”
He was so used to saying yes to her that the words almost escaped his lips before he realized what she was asking.
“What?”
“Will you, well, I suppose I’m not allowed to say roger,” she mused. “Will you fuck me?”
Edward stood in his — their — bedroom, his arms full of clothes, and tried to understand the request.
“I need you to take or break it, whatever you’ve gotta do to get me rid of this thing.”
“You want me to take your virginity?”
“Needs must,” she said with a shrug that shouldn’t have looked so alluring. She collapsed onto the bed, easily tugging off her too-big, borrowed boots. With a wry smile, she added, “Consider it repayment for selling the boots you gave me.”
“Don’t joke like that,” he said hoarsely. “We’re friends.”
“Joke that you should help me get rid of this thing or that I’m paying you back for selling your gift?” she asked, now sad. “The boots were a nice present. The nicest I ever got. And I sold them. I thought it would let us stay friends. My project. That’s why I sold ’em.”
She stood and worked at her falls, fingers struggling with the buttons.
“Shhh,” said Edward, drawing close but resisting the urge to wrap his arms around her.
Tabby was upset, her eyes a little wet and lips rosier than usual. When had that happened? When had her lips started to look so pretty?
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she whispered.
“I don’t,” he agreed.
She collapsed forward, her face planted somewhere near his breastbone. For Edward, it was like eating a good deal of bread after going hungry for some time; he felt full, almost upsettingly so after such a long stretch without.
He set his hand in her hair and stroked it.
“I’m not so stupid as to think that being a courtesan won’t hurt me sometimes.”
His hand tightened in her strands until she yelped. “Then do something else,” he begged. “Maybe you’re meant to get married and fall in love!”
Tabby looked up, regarding him with pity. “You think love is for people like me? You might as well tell me to wish for someone to bring me chocolate in bed each morning. If I woke up expecting that, the things I did eat would taste like ash. Don’t put your toff expectations on me, Dick Stone.”
“Toff expectations!” he cried. “You’re the one who has decided that I’m going to have a loveless marriage with a woman who hates you, all for making heirs for a marquessate that has brought me nothing but angst these past ten years, if not longer.”
“So we’re both bound to be miserable, I suppose,” she said.
“Seems so.”
“I’m happy I got a pie today.”
“Life really is better with a full belly.”
Tabby reached her arms around his waist and looked up at him, her eyes guileless and expression sad. “So you won’t do it? I might be less unhappy as a courtesan.”
Edward sighed. He’d fucked countless women in the past without a care. Why was he acting like a ninny about ridding his closest friend of her maidenhead? She wasn’t wrong; a cruel man could make the first time such a harrowing experience that she might never enjoy the act again.
Her cheek pressed against the part of him hurting most. He still needed to see that physician about a physic for his guts. At this rate, he’d die before his cursed father.
Extricating himself from her arms, he went to the cupboard containing his few belongings and withdrew a package. From inside, he fished something out — a curious sort of wiggly thing.
“What’s that? Does it taste good?” she asked.
He laughed despite his misgivings about the whole affair. “French letter,” he said, holding the pliable but dry sheath up. “Made of sheep’s intestine, so it might taste good, but you’d be better off spending your coin on proper food because these are dear.”
He poured some water from the pitcher into the basin and dropped the letter in.
“Then why are you ruining it!”
“Needs to get wet,” he said. “Which gives you time to prepare yourself.”
“Prepare…”
“If you don’t want…the act to hurt, you need to get your bits properly wet,” he said.
Her eyes darted to the pitcher.
“Your body will make itself slick,” he said. “If you’re excited by…the act. Or something. If you want…something.”
Tabby’s eyes moved from side to side, trying to understand what he was imparting.
“You need to rub your fucking cunny!” he fairly exploded when she didn’t comprehend a damn thing he was trying to say.
“Oh!”
“And you need to attend to this yourself. Clients might be thoughtful, but some of them will have not a thought for your safety or pleasure. Most of them. You must get your bits…”
“Wet,” she said, the word never sounding so enticing.
He nodded yes and waited.
“I suppose I must, um…” she said, untucking the strip of fabric that had covered her breasts. She unwound it, her disguise unraveling faster than his sanity.
Finally, her small breasts were free, but Edward studied the floor after realizing that her nipples were visible.
“I’ll need these off, I guess,” she muttered, pushing her smalls to the floor.
Edward — never a coward in the bedroom — scurried behind the battered screen that had come with the place.
“What do I do now? Why did you go?” she called.
Hell and damnation. He crouched behind the screen, wishing he could become impossibly tiny and run into every clock and pocket watch on the street to stop time and prevent this travesty from happening.
“I touched it, and I don’t think I’m wet,” she said.
Gesù. Edward’s head thumped, and he tried to make sense of what he needed to do. A man couldn’t expire from gently relieving a young woman of her hymen, could he?
“You need to touch it. Nicely. Remember the book?” he called from where he crouched.
“Ah, like the man in plate seventeen does?”
Edward covered his mouth with his hand. Had she been studying those pornographic plates?
“I don’t think that’s right,” she said.
He let out a tiny cry. “Stroke it like a cat. You need to…pet your kitty.”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh.”
Since time had most certainly not stopped and delaying would only put off his doom, Edward removed his clothes with care. At least one person in this house needed to respect good tailoring!
He was down to his smalls when he heard the faintest little breaths and cries from the direction of the bed.
“Oh. Oh.”
He squeezed his fattened cock, his body responding as it always did to a woman in need. He prayed he wouldn’t go soft when he rounded the corner and saw that the lady pleasuring herself was his dearest friend.
It was when he heard the sounds of something moving over wet flesh that he gave in to the inevitable and pushed off his smalls, fully committing to this ridiculous scheme.
He didn’t even look at Tabby, not wanting to get distracted from doing things properly, and walked right over to the basin, where he fished out the plumped letter. After a few pats dry, some coaxing, and a neatly tied bow, he sheathed his cock.
“Oh, that’s what it looks like,” she said, her eyes fixed on his solid member jutting out for reasons that had nothing to do specifically with her.
Edward approached the bed, his cock in hand and the letter held securely.
“I thought you’d seen cocks in action before.”
“But not your cock.”
“Shall I introduce you to it?” he asked with a smile.
Tabby, irreverent, curious cat that she was, merely grinned and placed two wet fingers on his cockhead for a pet before returning to her languid labors. She was lounging like a satisfied feline, her back arched and legs parted so she might prepare her body for him.