Gin. A proper drink for scoundrels. Any liquid that could prevent the plague was a good one, and the fact it eased all of life's rough edges was a nice perk. A good glass of gin should be herbal, aromatic, and bitter, layered with all the wonderful things distilled into it. This glass, however, was mostly just bitter and smelled strongly of pine trees, and that was alright with Nancy. She finished pouring and set the heavy bottle onto the table with a thunk.
"Drink," she said simply.
"But it's just a question!"
"Drink", Nancy insisted. "That's how you play the game."
"I didn't agree to any game, we were just talking," Isabella said lightly with a tilt of her head. She caught Nancy's gaze, her own eyes large and guileless. Nance knew that look, and she wasn't falling for it.
"You want to ask a question, you need to drink." Her tone was flat and brooked no argument, but Nancy allowed herself a little grin.
Isabella looked side-long at her drink, her eyes narrowing. Nancy suspected she was growing suspicious of her question-dodging. Well, if she was going to have to talk about herself, she was going to get some entertainment out of it. This, however, was not the first time Isabella had played games with anyone from the Wells house, and she had learned to tread carefully. Her curiosity seemed to be giving her a bit of an itch, though, and she took a healthy swig of her glass.
"Now, answer my question. What's the rod for?"
Nancy patted the birch rod absently. It was currently resting across her lap, its familiar weight an ever-present comfort. In truth, its uses were many. Whipping culls, whipping harlots, whipping cunts and knob-heads alike. Nancy could part a crowd with one good swing, and it gave a vicious poke to anyone vexing her. It also made a fine walking stick when no one needed a flogging.
"It's for whipping people," Nancy said simply, trying to keep a straight face.
She could see the answer did not please Isabella, who blinked slowly in a manner that suggested she was going to throttle someone. Someone sitting across from her at this very table. Not that Nancy thought she could manage a good throttle. Her hands were rather soft-looking, and her fingers always curled delicately around anything she held. Indeed, as much as Isabella did not like gin, her fingertips didn't grasp her glass so much as simply caress it. Nancy thought perhaps her hands would be warm, as well.
Isabella was peering at her expectantly. "What do you mean whipping people? For punishment?"
"That's another question. You need to take another drink," Nancy said.
Exasperated, Isabella said, "Nevermind, I'll get back to that later. I suppose it's your turn."
Nancy thought for a moment. There were many curious things about Isabella that she wanted to ask about, though not all of them made for good drinking conversation. Nancy picked her words deliberately.
"Prostrate or recumbent?"
Isabella's blush was instant, and not at all diminished by the gloom of the dining room. They hadn't bothered to light a fire in the hearth, and drank instead by candlelight. Nancy was glad that all the girls were out tonight. It meant that she could have this sight all to herself. Isabella gaped at the question, attempting to form words several times, but not able.
"I-! What?"
"That's a question!"
"That doesn't count!"
"You can pass, but you have to drink again."
Isabella gave an exasperated sigh and downed the rest of her drink. When Nancy refilled it, she glared. Nancy was quite enjoying this game already.
Isabella smacked her lips in a not-unappreciative sort of way, still crinkling her nose at the resinous taste.
"That's horrid," she said, worrying her bottom lip as she considered her next question. "So," she said delicately. From the way her eyes wandered around the room, Nancy could tell she was picking her next words carefully. "Have you always been a… bully? Is that the right word? Bully. For the Wells family?" This time, she took her drink without prompting, and only grimaced a little as she swallowed. By the way her posture was beginning to slump, Nancy guessed she was starting to get drunk.
"Nah," Nance said off-handedly. "I started looking after the girls when Mags left the first time. I had my hand at being a bawd for some years before that, though, honestly, I was always 'round their place anyway. Should've moved in a long time ago. It might have saved me some trouble.
"So, you ran a brothel?"
Nancy grinned. She was grinning a lot. If anyone else had been around, she might have felt a fool, but there was nothing for it. The way Isabella leaned forward, shoulders rounded, dipping her chin when she was interested was quite endearing.
"Tut tut, your ladyship," she said. "It's my turn now."
Isabella gave a little laugh, light and breathy. The gin was doing its work.
Nancy took a shot of her gin, as the arbitrary rules she'd made up dictated, running her tongue over her teeth as she thought.
"Ya ever think you would willingly keep the company of harlots?"
Isabella tilted her head, her eyes flicking over Nancy before considering the ceiling intently.
"The thought had never crossed my mind. I always thought I'd be the wife of a lord." Her tone dipped at the last word, and distaste tugged at the corner of her mouth. "When I was very small, it seemed like a lovely thought. Though, when I became older, it simply was the lesser of two evils." Isabella pulled a face, absently taking a drink of her gin.
"Ooh, it's my turn, then. So you ran a brothel, like Charlotte?"
Nancy tried very hard not to wince at the sound of the name. She thought she did very well, though the discomfort still twisted her up a bit inside. To settle it, she brushed a thumb over her birch. The bristles had a nice texture. It was almost soothing.
"Not as such. I had girls who took culls, but I provided… other services," Nancy said, deliberately providing as little information as possible.
Her ploy was not lost on Isabella, who simply said "drink".
Nancy obeyed. She kind of liked that authoritative tone. Despite herself, she was almost having fun.
Nance perked up suddenly as a question occurred to her. "When was the first time you kissed a woman?"
Isabella blushed prettily, casting her eyes down into her drink.
"Not going to skip again, are ya?" Nancy hoped not. She actually wanted to hear this answer. "It's not as fun if you don't play fair."
Isabella opened her mouth, lost her nerve, and dissolved into giggles. She crinkled her nose again, and Nance felt something stir in her chest. It was a foreign feeling, and she banished it with an absent sip of gin. When Isabella had herself under control, she started again.
"I was thirteen," she said. "It was the day before my birthday. My governess had a daughter at my age, and we were close." The delicate emphasis on the last word was not lost on Nance, though Isabella wasn't trying very hard to hide her meaning. Her open grin was back, and she couldn't look Nancy in the eye. "There was a huge garden behind the estate and we'd spend a lot of time there… and, well, it was very sweet and chaste, but anticlimactic. She did not feel the same way."
Nancy knew that feeling, the rejection. She decided not to acknowledge it at all.
"I don't believe that for a moment, you mynx. Anyone would have been smitten with you." It was probably just as Isabella said. Nance couldn't imagine Isabella as a romantically aggressive person. Though, the idea did have merit.
Isabella looked like she might have something to say about that, but was distracted by the realization that it was her turn. She took a sip of her gin.
"Right! So, if you didn't lay with men, what did you do?"
Nancy knew it would come around to this. She wasn't ashamed-an honest living was an honest living. She simply wasn't sure how to explain it. Either way, she supposed there wasn't any getting around the question any longer.
"I hurt men for pleasure."
Isabella blinked, watching her expectantly for a moment.
"Nancy."
"Isabella?"
"While I agree that that was a complete sentence, it did not make any sense."
Nancy chuckled.
"You hurt men for pleasure?" Isabella's eyes were wide open, searching. She looked so far out of her depth she didn't even know where to begin.
"You hurt men for pleasure?"
"That's a question, drink! You're terrible at this game," Nancy smirked.
Isabella rolled her eyes impatiently and took the tiniest sip of gin.
"Answer the question!" she demanded.
Nancy couldn't help the smug, shit-eating grin on her face when she said simply, "yes".
"Nancy!" Isabella pleaded, all pretense of patience long gone. She huffed, shoulders sagging as she cast around the room for the words to articulate her question. She made a face when the pans and ladles hung on the wall failed to provide answers. "But why would men pay for you to hurt them?"
Nancy shrugged. She had asked herself the same question many times over the course of her career.
"Lots of reasons. I suppose lots of men want to feel like someone else is in control for once. They're frail creatures on the inside, can't take the pressure of all the power they crave. Some like flirting with danger without actually being in danger. And maybe the rest just like the way it feels?" Nance took a sip of her gin, still pondering the question herself.
"They like the way it feels to be whipped?" Isabella was still quite incredulous, and hungry for answers.
"Drink, girl!" Nancy said smugly.
A look crossed Isabella's face at being called "girl". It wasn't displeased, but rather surprised that anyone could consider her just a "girl". She took a very measured sip, being already quite tipsy.
"I'm much too drunk to keep playing this game, but I need to know more." She leaned forward onto the table, just as much from curiosity as an unwillingness to keep holding herself up. Her breasts were spilling out of her stays as it was, and resting on the table only brought them more dangerously close to freedom. Nancy was usually more tactful, but the gin was making her bold and she stared openly.
Nancy licked her lips.
"Nancy!" Isabella interrupted her reverie. "Stop staring at my tits and tell me more!" Isabella tapped her mostly-empty glass on the table, splashing a bit of gin as she did so.
Nancy felt a warmth in her face that had nothing to do with the drink. She was blushing this time. She didn't think she still could.
"This is very irregular, your ladyship," she said to distract herself from the sensation. "I'm not sure I know what to do with you in this state."
Isabella, quite done with Nancy's dodging, stood from the table. By Saint Cock, she was tall. And beautiful. Somewhere in the back of her brain, Nancy thought it a shame Isabella never took to disciplining men.
Isabella came around the table slowly, hips swaying, her eyes never leaving Nancy. She sat down on the bench next to her, so close that their thighs brushed. No, not brushed, pressed.
"I'm going to continue to invade your space if you don't tell me more about the whipping." Her tone was even, but the rising and falling of her chest said that Isabella was not so calm.
Nancy's own breath felt thin in her chest.
"Why? Interested?" She kept her tone light, a jest. But she dared to hope.
Isabella did not break her gaze. "That was two questions," she said evenly. Not having a witty retort, Nancy took a long swig of her drink and felt some of it drip out of one corner of her mouth. Isabella finally looked away, her eyes following the drip of gin down where Nancy felt it come to rest at the top of her stays.
"Are you going to whip me?" Isabella's voice was impossibly low, half a whisper. When her eyes came back up to meet Nancy's, she licked her lips.
Nancy's belly did an excited sort of flip.
"No," she said. "No. Sweet, tender thing like you? I'd use my own hand for you."
Isabella's cheeks flushed in a way that had nothing to do with the gin. Her eyes wandered around the room. She was still pressed so close.
"Will it hurt?" she asked when her gaze came back to rest on Nancy.
"Might sting ya."
"What if I don't like it?"
"Then we stop. That's the most important part-you can always stop."
There was a very long pause in which Nancy tried to get control of her innards. The fluttering had spread up to her chest. Nancy thought some gin would help, but she didn't want to move. She didn't want to breathe. She didn't want to do anything that might break this moment.
"And what if I like it?"
There it was. The question she had been longing to hear.
She sat back a bit to look Isabella up and down, appreciating the graceful lines of her body. "Well, my lady," Nancy said with a soft touch to her voice. "It is my specialty."
Isabella shut her eyes, the subtlest shiver coming over her. The quirk of her lips when she opened them again was positively devilish. She stood once more, extracting her long legs from the bench.
"Indulge me?"
"Yes," Nancy hissed. That was a question that required no thought at all. "Of course." Nancy licked her lips. "But you have to make me one promise." She stood, putting aside her birch.
"Hmm?" Isabella's eyes were shaded, her expression quite distant. Seemed she was already thinking about it.
"If you don't like it, you will tell me to stop. You'll not try to continue on some cock-eyed notion of stoicism." The buzzing inside of Nancy stopped. This bit was important.
When she didn't respond, Nancy reached out to grab her wrist, firm but not aggressive. She needed to make sure she was heard.
"I promise," Isabella said, and her smile was warm and genuine.
Satisfied, Nancy directed her to turn around and brace one hand on the mantle. "Lift your skirt," she commanded. Quietly, directly, but not hard. A soft touch for this one, she thought.
Isabella did as she was bid, looking back over her shoulder to watch Nancy with half-hooded eyes. Nancy was very aware of how those blue eyes were watching her, dark with lust and intrigue. As Isabella slid her skirt up, she revealed her stocking and garter.
Nancy hissed a deep breath as she appreciated the curve of that calf and the sudden appearance of a pale thigh, and then the swell of her arse. It was a very nice arse, she thought. Nancy was going to enjoy this very much.
She made a show of taking her gloves off, tossing them onto the mantle. Nancy pulled that pretty little garter and let it go with a satisfying snap, just enough for a surprise, looking for any sign that Isabella might change her mind.
Isabella smirked over her shoulder. Her breathing was still even and she showed no hesitation.
Nancy put one hand on Isabella's hip and the other reached down to caress as far down Isabella's leg as she could reach, spreading her fingers wide to grasp as much of her as possible. Slowly, she drew her hand up, reveling in every smooth, warm curve. A soft sigh was her reward, and Nancy felt emboldened. Nancy's hand found Isabella's rear, raising gooseflesh as it went, and causing an ever so subtle twitch of the hips beneath her palm. She let her hand slide further up to appreciate the curve of Isabella's hips, so often hidden by her wide skirts. Her fingers dipped forward toward the juncture of thigh and hip, hinting at her desire to venture to yet more inviting valleys.
The audible hiss was her cue. Nancy swatted that exposed swell of flesh. It was a controlled movement, calculated to create sensation but not pain. A soft gasp was followed by the slightest exhalation. A good sign. Nancy swatted again, harder this time.
"Hmph!"
Nancy paused, hand poised, waiting for any resistance.
When none came, she again laid her hand upon Isabella's ass, harder still. As she layered one strike upon another, increasing the strength, Nancy felt her own face begin to flush. The sound of her ministrations was crisp and satisfying, and the steady motion of it plucked at something deep in her core.
Everything about Isabella's posture spoke of desire. Her hips rolled back in tiny little circles, her shoulders flexed backwards and her sighs became gasps. When those gasps turned into a sharp, sweet cry Nancy stopped. Her palm was cupping the reddened flesh. It was warm, flushed, and Nancy's own palm was beginning to sting.
"Please," came Isabella's voice, small and strained.
"Please, what?"
"Please," she begged again.
"Say it," Nancy husked. Where Isabella's voice was breathy and sweet, Nancy's own dug deep into a growl.
"Don't stop. I don't want you to stop yet."
Her confession was rewarded with another swift strike, much harder this time. Isabella yelped, a mix of surprise and pain, followed by a moan of ecstasy as the sting subsided into pleasure as Nancy knew it would.
"Again," Isabella commanded, her voice tight with want. Nancy obeyed.
And then again.
And again.
Each strike rang out, echoed by Isabella's pleasure, her eyes screwed shut against the pain. She clawed at the brick, pressing her hips back until she was flush against Nancy. Her shoulders were rigid, her breaths coming hard. Nance pressed against her back, the sounds of her pleasure raising Nancy's blood.
"Isabella," she mumbled, grasping fingertips digging into fabric and flesh alike.
"Nancy," Isabella hissed. Her voice was unlike anything Nancy had ever heard her utter before. It was low and guttural. Animal. Isabella twisted around in Nancy's grip, her own hands grasping at Nancy's clothes, claw-like. "Kiss me," she pleaded, a note of desperation in her voice.
Nancy could not help but want to obey. The sounds she was making were ecstasy, and her writhing and whimpering was almost enough to make her crack. Nancy pulled Isabella down with a hand at the back of her neck. Her other hand drew Isabella's hips tight to her own. When the heat of her body pressed against Nancy, through fabric and leather and years of conditioning to ignore these things, Nancy growled in the back of her throat.
Isabella drew away enough for her mouth to find Nancy's ear. Her breath was hot and wet, her voice a low exhalation, as she commanded, "Put your fingers inside of me now!" When Nancy thrust herself inside of her, Isabella cried out and clutched all the more desperately. She drove her fingers deeper, over and over, the force of her own hips behind them. The wild bucking was not unfamiliar, but an old instinct, one she had distance herself from. As her own blood ran hot in her veins, she could feel the years of restraint burning away. What was left behind was a savage creature, her animal need rising from the pit of her stomach to rumble from her mouth in a wordless groan of pleasure.
Isabella had one hand wound tight into the hair at the back of Nancy's neck. It hurt, she didn't want it to stop. Nancy let her head tip forward, to rest on Isabella's heaving chest. Her animal moans were turning into exclamations as she neared her release.
When she finally came, it was a crashing, feral orgasm, all clawing and writhing. Her back arched to press her hips down hard, getting every eager inch of Nancy into herself as she could. Nancy held her tight, stroking through her release until the beast became the lady once again, and the quaking became a tremble and Isabella whispered for her to stop.
The house was quiet, save for their labored breathing. As the fog of lust cleared, Nancy imagined she could see clearer than ever. In the dim red light of the candles, Isabella's body stood out in the gloom. She was all long lines, heaving in and out as her breath came back under her control. Her eyes, once hooded and shaded, were wide and deepest blue. She gulped, quieting her breathing, the smooth column of her throat flexing with the effort.
Nancy released her hips, setting her gently back against the mantle, still transfixed by the graceful lines of her.
"Can I touch you," Isabella ventured.
"Not this time, love."
A look that Nancy could not decipher crossed Isabella's face. It was not disappointment, but perhaps kin to it. But Isabella nodded all the same.
"Next time, then." She said quietly. "But you must remind me to undo my stays so that I might actually be able to breathe."
Nancy considered her words for a moment.
"Nah, the lack of air makes it better." She smirked as Isabella swatted her playfully. "So, next time, hm?"