Right.
OK.
I have been, in equal measure, looking forward to posting this and absolutely scared to death about it. This is a big thing for me. Smut ahoy. M rated. No really. No REALLY really! And I desperately, deeply, from the pit of my creative soul, hope that it meets all of your hopes and dreams.
...
The sun was beating down hard, a stark contrast to the rainstorm of their first day. English springtime had gifted them with a day stolen from early summer. Anna was grateful for the shade provided by her straw hat, protecting her eyes from the glare.
She sat on the small bench outside the post office, waiting for John to return. She hoped he would be able to book a call to London while they were here. It was so much easier to have these discussions and make their plans when they had time to relax and be together. Their spare time at Downton was so rare as to be discounted, as they were often so tired and worn out once those days arrived that they were fit for nothing serious.
The bell clinked as the door opened and Anna turned to see John smiling at her.
He looked so much better dressed for the country, in a casual brown suit, with no waistcoat and a handkerchief knotted around his neck in lieu of a tie. His face had colour in it, and the dark shadows of exhaustion and strain under his eyes had faded away.
"All booked," he said, retrieving his wife's hand and tucking it into his arm, a beaming smile beautifying his face. "For Friday morning."
"Oh thank goodness. I was so afraid we'd have to wait until we got home. Which calls did you book?"
"Two. One to the bank, one to the letting agent who is taking care of the house. They will be able to let us know how things stand. And," he rummaged inside his coat, "I got us this." He waved a copy of The Yorkshire Post. "The post office woman said this was the place to check listings for properties for sale."
His thoughtfulness and foresight was rewarded with a warm and loving kiss.
"So, shall we go?"
Gathering up their basket and folded blanket, they set off for the bus stop to catch the local service out into the surrounding area.
…
The perfect picnic spot was just as Bill had described to John. A sheltered knook, away from the road, down towards one of the little streams. Surrounded by weeping willows, they were quite screened from view and unlikely to encounter any passers by.
Spreading out the blanket, Anna knelt down and began to unpack the basket. A thermos of tea, a small bottle of milk and two mugs and a wide array of delicious farm made picnic food.
"Mrs Patmore will be jealous if we let on how well we have been looked after," John sank his teeth into a delicious wedge of pork pie.
Anna nodded, brushing the crumbs of her cheese and pickle sandwich from her lips. "I suggest we don't tell her. Just to be on the safe side."
"We should learn how to make some of this ourselves. Unless you'd rather we hire a cook?"
"I'm not much of a cook myself," Anna admitted. "I can manage stew, and simple things like sausages. But I can't imagine making my own pies and cakes and what not."
"I used to be good at pastry," John admitted. "Thought I must admit, I feel it would be bad luck to make any of it after Vera's little schemes. I was used to peeling vegetables. Especially potatoes. But you'd expect that growing up in an Irish household."
"Perhaps we should look for a cook. For the sake of our guests. Do you think Daisy might take the job?"
"I think she's saving up to bring a stake here, to join Bill."
"Shame. It would have been nice to work with a friend."
"We'll make new friends."
Anna beamed. It was so good to hear John say such things. She knew he could be quite content in his own world, with just her for company, but she knew she would miss the more social elements of a big house like Downton Abbey if they moved on.
When they moved on. Things were in motion now.
John finished the last of his chocolate cake and lay back on the blanket, his hat tipped over his eyes.
"Don't you dare go to sleep, you..." Anna prodded him, making him jump. "We get few enough dates, I'm not letting you sleep through one."
Tilting his hat to look up at her, John gave her a wicked grin. "And how are you planning to keep me awake?"
"With salacious conversation for starters..."
Intrigued, John rolled over, propped up on one elbow. "That sounds interesting..."
"Well I've been thinking," said Anna, nibbling at one corner of her lip, suddenly shy, but aware that she had started this conversation. "This holiday... it's been the first time we've found out much about each other in terms of what we like... intimate, like."
John's eyes narrowed in pleasure as his grin widened. This was exactly the sort of conversation that would keep him wide awake.
"Go on..."
"And so I was thinking... whether there was anything else you wanted to try. Something that you'd thought of, and maybe not wanted to say about. While I was... well, while I was ill."
John's heart thumped in his chest. There was many things he longed to try with his wife. As a young man in London, and then in the army in the company of some rather randy soldiers with a penchant for drink, he'd heard of many things which caught his attention and fired his imagination. But he wasn't at all sure that Anna would be interested in them.
Not least because he was afraid to upset her. To do something which would unsettle her, lead to one of her attacks of nerves, or set her back in her recovery.
"I think... my dear... it's better if you tell me whether you had anything in mind, yourself."
"I don't know..." Anna's face blushed crimson. "I feel … so uneducated about all this."
"Why?"
"Well … take the other day. In the bath."
John's colour rose around the neck of his shirt even thinking about that experience.
"It were wonderful. Really... really wonderful. I love how you make me feel. But... you seem to know more about my body than I do. I've no idea what makes me feel nice or not, what to suggest. What to try. I didn't know I could feel like that, just from a touch."
"All of this is about learning together, Anna."
"I know. I know. But sometimes I feel like you've got a head start on me. And that must play on your imagination more than mine. And everything you do feels so nice... it makes me wonder what else you think of."
Despite his efforts to remain calm, John's imagination ran riot. Stories he had heard of wild women, and women driven wild, and all the things they could do together...But would his suggestion upset her?
"John?"
Anna's cheeks were scarlet with nerves and embarrassment. Bless her, she was being so brave. He owed her the same courtesy and honesty.
"There are one or two things. Things I've never done before, but heard about, found interesting. But... I fear to mention them."
"Why?"
"Because … taken in the wrong way, they could upset you."
"How?"
John thought rapidly and chose his words with extreme care. It was so important that he got his phrasing and explanation right here. Otherwise he risked ruining what was turning into a very pleasant day.
"I have heard that when... that when a woman can't see what her husband is doing to her, if her eyes are covered, it can increase her pleasure. Make the feelings more intense for her. And the same vice versa."
Already Anna's face was closing over, memories of another night where she could not see and was not in control rising up like ghosts in the mist.
"But we don't have to do that, if you don't want to. I don't want to make you feel unsafe."
Anna turned aside for a moment, before looking back, her eyes clear.
"If we did that..."
Oh my God.
"...would I be able to hear you? Would you talk to me, tell me it was you, before you did anything?"
"Of course..."
"You promise?"
"Yes, with all my heart."
"What else did you have in mind?"
God this woman was so brave. So open minded. How could he have found such a willing partner? In everything they did together.
"Anna, you know how sometimes, waiting for something and the act of wanting it and not being able to have it can make the realisation even better?"
"Yes...?"
"And... you know how, when we're together, when I'm... giving you pleasure, you want to touch me, and sometimes you distract me when you do?"
Anna smiled shyly.
"It's not my fault John, I can't keep my hands off you."
"I know. It's just … what if I were to make you keep your hands off me? Make you wait to touch me. If your hands were bound...not too tightly, just... enough to hold them still?"
Anna's eyes widened and her breath turned sharper.
"I don't know..."
That's not a No.
"Like I said, we don't have to..."
"No … I think I would like to try that."
John's legs turned weak, he was mightily relieved to be lying flat.
"Really?"
Anna smiled, nervous, but so obviously aroused that his throat turned dry.
"Yes... I think so."
"Well... when?"
"Now?"
Oh Christ.
"Come here..."
John held out his arms for her to come and settle beside him on the rug, his heart pounding in his chest. Was this really happening? Was he about to wake up?
"There's no rush Anna... slow and steady remember?"
"I know..."
"And the minute you say the word 'Stop', I will."
Leaning over her, John's lips met hers, gentle at first, but so eagerly welcomed that the embrace soon turned passionate. Anna's fingers curled into the front of his shirt as his arms bound her close to him.
Trailing kisses down to her neck, left tantalizingly bare by her up-swept hair, John murmured against her skin.
"Which shall we try?"
"My eyes...?"
"Alright..."
Loosening the large neckerchief, John folded it, placing it around Anna's eyes as though they were about to play blind man's buff. Laying her down on the ground, he spoke softly into her ear.
"How do you feel?"
"Alright... I think..."
Gently, John stroked one hand over the curve of her breast, down across her stomach.
"What about when I do this?"
"That's nice..."
His fingertips played around her hips.
"Perhaps I haven't mentioned this before, Mrs Bates, but you have a beautiful figure..."
Anna gasped slightly as his fingers trailed back up over her ribcage to trace along the neckline of her dress.
"So beautiful... that even when we're at work, when you're in your uniform, and we're busy about our tasks, that I can't stop thinking of you, of running my hands over you, like this..."
John lightly drew his fingertips down over the sides of her body, feeling Anna shiver beneath his touch.
"Did you always think about me?"
"Always..."
"Even when we first met...?"
Being blindfolded had made Anna brave; brave enough to ask all the questions that had played on her mind for years. Her inhibitions were falling away. John's hands shook with excitement.
"Oh love, I thought about you all the time... I tried not to, tried not to do you the disservice of being taken for misused by my imagination... but there were times when I couldn't help it..."
"What did you imagine?"
"I imagined getting you alone somewhere, hidden from view..." his hands drew up over her body to the front of her pretty green dress, to the inviting little buttons which fastened it all the way down the front.
"...then slowly, kissing you..." John stole a quick kiss from her lips, just enough to tease her "and taking you in my arms... unbuttoning your dress, that lovely demure little maid's uniform you used to wear..."
Slowly, with trembling fingers, John began to unbutton Anna's dress. She gasped as his fingers stroked across the front of her breasts, over the silky little chemise she wore beneath it.
No corset. Had she planned for something like this? Even the thought of it make John burn with desire.
"I thought of how wonderful it would be, to be able to kiss you, not just your lips, but all over your body..."
Gently, John littered hot, gentle kisses around the neckline of her chemise, teasing down beneath the material with his tongue to find her nipples. Anna mewed with pleasure, twisting under his touch. Her hands reached for him.
"Ah no, my sweetheart..." With the greatest care and gentleness, he captured her hands. "Not this time, remember?"
"Then you must bind them John, I can't keep myself away from you..."
Reaching into his pocket, John brought out his discarded tie. Pinning Anna's hands above her head, her tied her wrists together, not too tight, but firmly, lifting her head a little to rest on her wrist.
"You just lay back..." a wicked finger traced down from her breast to her hips, further down to her thighs and her long legs, exposed beneath the short silky skirt. "...and enjoy everything I plan to do to you."
Anna moaned softly as his hand came into contact with her exposed legs.
"What else did you think of?"
"Oh Anna... I burned for you..."
His hands grew stronger, sliding up her thighs beneath her chemise towards her hips and waist. Her hips bucked slightly under his touch as she bit her lip to keep from crying out.
"I longed for you... thought that I would never be able to touch you, but I couldn't stop thinking about you..."
His fingertips tugged gently at the waistband of her underwear, easing it down over her hips, along her legs, off at her ankles. Sliding back up, his hands cupped around her waist to her bare bottom, stroking against her skin. Anna wriggled with pleasure under his touch.
"Go on..."
John's imagination flared, taking him back to those days of rigidly imposed self denial, setting free all of his long suppressed thoughts and imaginings.
"I wondered how it would feel, to hold you... to stroke your skin... feel the warmth of you next to me. When you held my hand, my fingers burned for you. The first time I almost kissed you, your scent was intoxicating. I had to know how you tasted..."
Bending his head down between her legs, John ran his tongue up the inside of Anna's thigh.
She cried out before he reached halfway.
"Oh...!"
"I was sure you would be delicious," he said softly, teasing kisses and little nips against the soft flesh of her inner thighs, gently parting her legs to see the core of her.
"And now I can find out..."
Sliding his tongue against the little bud of nerves, John felt Anna writhe beneath his touch, heard the inarticulate cries fall from her lips. This was heavenly, to have her under his hands, beneath his lips and tongue, helpless with pleasure and at the mercy of his touch. Stroking his tongue against her with long slow licks, he felt Anna strain against him, heard her call out to him...
"Oh John, oh yes, yes..."
She stiffened, went rigid with pleasure, then slack under his hands. Gently, he pulled back, stroking his hands down over her hips. Looking up at her, he was transfixed by her beauty, her parted lips, the tousled hair, the rise and fall of her chest under her hard breathing.
"Did you like that, my darling...?"
"Oh yes..."
"Do you want more?"
"More?"
Wrestling loose his trousers, John pushed them and his underwear down to his knees. He leaned over his wife, settling between her legs, teasing against the entrance to her sex.
Anna gasped.
"More like this?"
"Oh yes, yes.."
As slowly as he could bear, John slid into his wife, feeling her body writhe beneath him. He leaned closer to her, treasuring the feel of her against him as he whispered, hot and heavy into her ear.
"I wanted you, with every fibre of my being, of my soul... I wanted you like this, as my lover, my wife, as part of my soul... Oh Anna... I want you, just as much now as then..."
His voice failed him, the aching in his throat and longing for release unbearable.
Anna cried out, her legs curling around his, her head thrown back, voice freed from inhibition.
In a crescendo of passion, that reached their heights of pleasure together. Panting, aching with delicious pleasure, John reached down with one hand to removed her blindfold. Her eyes met his, blinking, wide and beautiful.
"Oh God... John... that was incredible..."
"I know, my darling. I know."