Note: this chapter, like the following chapter 13, is rated "M or Mature". (Therefore, I had to change the rating oft he novel into „M" also.) To say I'm not used to writing mildly erotic is an understatement. But Gone with the Wind is a romance novel, and my version of fanfiction is centered on the passion of Rhett, Duncan, and Scarlett, which means physical attraction, and therefore, ... a little "M" rating! If this might be disturbing to some, you can read chapter 14 directly without it interfering with the understanding of the story.
March 27, 1875, 10 p.m., Atlanta, Peachtree Street
Scarlett was lying in bed. Prissy had helped her remove her beautiful dress and corset.
She was thinking about the last events of the evening.
Ashley had been ecstatic about the acting and staging of Romeo and Juliet. She was more reserved. She had to admit to herself that she was very unsympathetic to this story. Two teenagers loved each other, enduring the wrath of the other's family until death. It was too romantic for her.
"Really, I'm sick of romance! "Scarlett thought to herself.
And to close the evening, Ashley had again renewed her proposal of marriage. Gently, digging her dimples, Scarlett had refused his proposal.
Ashley had lowered his head sadly. But she was sure he would come back for more, because after so many years, he was finally allowing himself to lust after Clayton's former county belle. "He must be sure that some day he will succeed in convincing me. Poor Ashley! »
"Oh! Ashley! My beautiful knight in shining armor! I finally got to fulfill my little girl dream of you asking me to marry you. And I'm not interested in that at all anymore! »
Comfortably tucked under the sheets in her bed that was too big for her alone, Scarlett sighed: "Ah! Ashley! It's too late, Ashley! I don't feel like it anymore. And yet, I loved you. It's true, I loved you! No matter what I said to Rhett the night Melly died. »
But just as Rhett's love for her had worn thin until it dried up, her mad passion for Ashley had long since turned into a warm tenderness.
"I admit that his gentle eyes on me, no longer even hiding his ardour, do me good. What better way to regain self-confidence than to feel lovingly desired! »
Because Scarlett needed to regain her confidence. Rhett had done so much to her when he left ! His cruelty had ravaged her. He had brought her down, mocked her weakness, her physical deterioration. So, to feel Ashley's feverish gaze admiring the curves of her body, it was quite pleasant. But it was not enough for her.
Even tonight, as they sat in the balcony of the great amphitheater, Ashley's arm had brushed against her more than once. His voice had taken on a deep, soft tone. And then he had been emboldened to brush his lips over the inside of her wrist with fervor.
Scarlett had not reacted, not with a snub, not with an invitation to continue. She had pretended that nothing had happened. But she had secretly enjoyed the attention. It had been so long since a man had touched her skin!
"But, admittedly, I didn't feel butterflies in my stomach, like I did with Rhett. " she added spitefully.
Rhett! The only man who had managed to wake up her body. And yet... not really during their years of marriage! True, since Rough and Ready, his kisses had always transported her to unknown shores. Then, until Bonnie was born, their sexual intercourse had been pleasurable. It was such a change from the marital duty she'd had to endure with her two previous husbands.
Yes, Rhett had awakened her body. That famous night in 1871. How frightened she'd been when he'd carried her furiously up the stairs-to the dark limbo. She'd felt Rhett's body tremble. She'd been scared that night, and almost feared for her life when that drunken man had thrown her down on her bed unceremoniously and clung to her, ripping her nightgown off with his strong hands.
He had released her from his grip for a few moments, the time it took for him to nervously undress to find himself completely naked. Then he had slumped on top of her. His avid breath made her nauseous. She had protested. In vain. Anyway, he was so drunk he wouldn't have been able to hear her, if he'd wanted to. His weight was crushing her.
The delicate husband Rhett usually was, has always been careful to take the pressure off her at that specific moment of their intimacy. He treated her so gently in bed, as if he was afraid of hurting her, as if she would break and evaporate.
But, that night, he paid no attention to such considerations. Unable to move, she suffocated under this mass of muscle. For the first time, she was terrified by this ferocious animal that had taken her husband's place.
His unshaven cheek was scratching her skin. As he held her firmly under him, he moaned. He was muttering bits of meaningless phrases. At least, at that moment, she had concluded that they were meaningless. When, in the morning, she thought back on what he had said, she would wonder if they were in fact declarations of love. But, for now, Rhett kept his arms firmly at her sides so she wouldn't move.
And then he undertook the little torture of running his burning lips over her bare body. He kissed her, he licked every inch of her skin. When she'd felt his mouth nibble the tip of her breast, she'd taken offense and begged, "No, Rhett, please! »
He had replied violently, "You are mine, Scarlett! Tonight there will be no escape. Only you and me. You are mine!"
His mouth had resumed its journey. Scarlett's skin tingled. Rhett continued his inexorable descent toward his goal. "Oh!" She couldn't help but exclaim as Rhett's tongue greedily licked the birth of her lower abdomen. At that very moment, everything shifted. Her pelvis contracted with desire. An unknown sensation radiated every pore of her skin, until it made her toes contract. "Is this pleasure?" Naively, Scarlett thought furtively of a Christmas present she had just unwrapped.
Then she released her hands from Rhett's grip, and caressed the jet hair that brushed her crotch. He groaned under the caress. "Oh Scarlett, I love you, my sweet! »
She didn't want him to move. She held his head still so Rhett's fleshy lips could continue to caress her where no man had - even her husband, too inhibited by the woman he loved to dare a rebuff from the cruel Scarlett if he ever dared.
Stammering incomprehensible words, Rhett had ventured lower, even to the point of kissing her brown hair.
"More! Rhett more! " she shouted.
Their shakings had become mixed. He was no longer sure whether it was really he who was agitated with frantic tremors, or whether it was his wife's body that was responding passionately.
As he inserted his tongue in her, an unknown sensation overwhelmed her, like a torrent of pleasure that took everything with it.
It was Scarlett now who initiated the caresses, who soliloquized unintelligible words with passion.
"Rhett! Please, please! I want, I want! " What did she want? She didn't even know, except that she was going to die of desire.
Then the experienced lover finally heard her call. He raised his head, looked at her, amazed by her face transfigured by desire, and quickly climbed to her height. He kissed her passionately. While their tongues intertwined, she felt the pressure of the erection of her lover who hardened even more at the entrance of her sex. And then finally, brutally, with rage, with the violence of his passion, he penetrated.
Rhett took hold of her body completely. He wanted to swallow her, for their skins to burn into one indivisible entity.
His wife cried out in satisfaction at finally being full of him. Frantically, Rhett began his back and forth until she couldn't take it anymore, until he was at the end of his restraint, until they both exploded with pleasure.
Scarlett hallucinated that everything around her was turning white, that a kaleidoscope was showing her a myriad of sparkling diamonds. When she felt as if she were about to be swallowed into the abyss, a gush of pleasure overcame her. She moaned, "Rhett, I love you! I love you!" Like a litany, she couldn't stop.
Hearing the woman he had adored for so long speak those magical words, at that very moment, Rhett roared with pain-like power, "Scarlett!" and flooded her with his seed.
They stayed like that without moving for some time. She was finally happy to feel him inside her. Her husband's body was still shaking. "Let's not move! "He hoped. "Stay in you for eternity! »
Slowly, she was coming back to earth. Her breathing was returning to its normal rhythm.
Finally, he withdrew from her. She felt a void, a lack. "Rhett!" she whined.
Immediately, he hugged her fiercely, ran kisses over her face, and finally buried his nose in Scarlett's hair.
Methodically, he covered his head with the long silky locks of the young woman, until her black hair was transformed into a shroud that would isolate him, imprison him, forever.
He selected the longest lock and wrapped it around his neck, intoxicated by its heady scent - a drug he'd been addicted to for so long, that he'd missed so much, that he'd longed to be able to breathe it in once more.
He would have liked to stay hidden under that helmet of darkness all his life. "This is my home! »
Scarlett was moved immeasurably by his tender gestures, the way the unflappable Rhett hid under her hair, like a child hides under his mother's skirts.
It was certainly not the first time her husband had lost himself in the caresses of her hair. He who, every evening from the first day of their marriage until Bonnie was born, had taken conscientious care to free her from the bun that constrained her during the day. He removed the hairpins one by one and systematically placed them in a crystal cup. Then he untangled her locks until he brushed them a hundred times, as his wife had been maniacally doing for years.
When he had the satisfaction of hearing the spikes of hair crackle, he placed a thousand kisses on them.
In bed, after making love, he would only fall asleep after wrapping his neck with her longest braid, until he choked on it.
On the night of that mad passion, Scarlett had found that familiar gesture again. The first time he'd grabbed one of her curls and wrapped it around his own neck, she'd been amused. She'd thought it looked like a fetish. The frivolous Rhett, fetishist! Soon she'd gotten used to it. She had understood that it was a gesture of tenderness after lovemaking, a privileged moment of serenity when it was no longer time for arguments or sarcasm, but for communion and sweetness.
She began to enjoy this unique interlude, as intimate to her as penetration. Which is why, when Scarlett decided to kick Rhett out of her bed, she almost immediately regretted not being able to experience that special magical moment.
Alone in bed on March 27, Scarlett continued to reminisce nostalgically about the night of love in 1871 that had followed Ashley's birthday.
Rhett taught her so much until the early morning. He introduced her to her own body, guided her hand under his to roam and quiver under his touch. It was totally incongruous, but after three marriages and three children, Scarlett had never until now sought pleasure for herself. She owed it to the strict, castrating upbringing Ellen had instilled in her three young teenage daughters so that they would conceive of their bodies only for a reproductive function and for their husband's exclusive pleasure. Rhett the lover was moved that his wife was still so innocent. He regretted very much that he had not had the audacity to teach her these pleasures.
Then, shyly, he asked her if she would touch him. It was certainly not a question of forcing her. And, at the slightest frown, he would have turned back. At first, she was afraid to brush against this secret part of the man, and then, she became emboldened. At the slightest caress she lavished on him, Rhett moaned her name.
That evening of Marcht 27th 1875, at the evocation of that ancient night of drunkenness, Scarlett made her hand travel to her intimacy. And she came.
Her body now calmed, her intellect took over, and she turned ashamed of her weakness. Her body had betrayed her.
"How? After the humiliation you put me through, your sarcasm, your abandonment, I would still include you in my fantasies? »
She rebelled, "Oh, no! To hell with Captain Butler! I don't need you anymore! "she convinced herself. "The pleasure I found that night I know I can live it again with someone else. I am ready now to welcome other arms than yours! »
Disclaimers : I do not own the story and the characters of Gone with the Wind which belong to Margaret Mitchell. I created the "world" of Duncan Vayton and Blanche Bonsart.