A/N: I was trying to write a fluffy fic and this came out. I don't even know... (though reviews are appreciated, as always!)
The cry seems to come from so deep within her, she doesn't quite know where it starts. The strangled sound pains her as much as what she is trying to squeeze out. It's been constricted within her as her body has been by her corsets and she shakily fumbles at the buttons of her dress, practically tears it off, clicks open the busk of her corset, pulls her chemise over her head, unties the ribbon of her knickers, kicks of her shoes, but cannot go on, she falls on her knees in front of her bed, her arms resting there, her head in her hands and she shakes, her sobs scrape through her throat and it aches, but not as much as what she had been trying to hold in, not what she has been trying to deny herself.
She shivers in the cold, the attic rooms have no fires, she keeps warm by taking up a brick she has put in the AGA and then wraps an old newspaper around, followed by an old towel. It warms her feet, but never her heart and today she just can't take it anymore.
She has made it through years and years of service, she has made it through war, through restoration, through health scares and the death of young people who cannot be missed and she has nothing left to give.
Her cries are stifled by her blankets as she lets it all pour out, her thighs tremble under the strain - she is not longer used to sitting on her knees - and she crawls onto the bed, the covers warm in her back, the night air cool on her front and she wraps her arms around herself as her tears slide off her face and moisten her pillow. She turns to face the wall, still crying, but silently now. The urgency is gone, the sharpest pain has been replaced by a familiar dull ache.
She runs her hands over her upper arms, softly kneading her flesh, rubbing her palms against the base of her throat, her fingers running over her collarbone, clavicle, down her breastbone, careful not to move over her breasts that are suddenly aching for her touch. She squeezes her hips, presses her hands on her belly, not yet feeling the graying hair that is no longer full and curling, deftly going past it.
She is setting her body on edge, ready to give it its comfort, the release she craves after her crying, the letting go. The only thing she can do that will surely keep her from thinking, worrying, laying awake all night, staring at the ceiling. She pushes her thighs together, creating friction by moving only the tiniest bit and she can feel how she is getting wet, her folds slipping past each other.
She runs the pads of her fingers over her waist, up her ribcage and plucks at her nipples, pinches them into pebbles, then soothes them, massaging her breasts, still firm and heavy in her hands. Her hips are already grinding into the mattress, impatient for what is coming.
She is no longer cold.
Her hands find their way to her labia, softly stroking, distributing the moisture. She lets one finger glide inside, then two, pushes herself into her own hand as the other fondles her breast. She is building, building, pushing in, retracting, again, again and she is writhing on the narrow bed, her bedclothes wrinkling under her. She normally stays almost still while she pleasures herself, a routine release, but with her emotions so close to the surface, she cannot keep her body from moving while she tries her hardest to still her moaning and panting.
She is so close, she removes her hand from her breast, starts putting pressure on her clit, moving it in the tiniest of circles, then moving the soft pads of her fore- and middle fingers up and down, to and fro and she wants to come so badly, she is trembling and she tries to think of things that would get her over the edge.
But not him.
Not today.
Tears well up in her eyes as she thinks about how he is always the one she turns to in her fantasies. She always wonders what it would be like to be pushed against the wall in the wine cellar, her skirts yanked up high, his hand on her through the slit of her knickers. She often wonders what it would be like to have him bend her over the Servants' Hall table and take her from behind.
She wonders what it would be like in a double bed with floral bedding and the rice coming out of her dress and her hair and him hovering over her and kissing her again and again, telling her he loves her.
She lazily keeps rubbing herself, keeping so close, so close, her other hand roaming around her, trying to gather the blanket to cover herself against the cold, when there is a knock on the door and his voice calling her "Elsie? Are you alright?", is rumbling through to her, striking her unexpectedly. She shatters, her back arching, her ankles digging into the bed and she doesn't notice how he has opened the door and has seen her come,
on top of her bedding,
wearing nothing but her stockings,
with his name on her lips.