Mon, February 06 2012
| TITLE: | Clove Bud |
|---|---|
| AUTHOR: | Polly Anne Morris |
| CATEGORY/TYPE: | AltUniverse, Romance |
| RATING/WARNINGS: | NC-17, Adult-Het |
| MAIN CHARACTERS: | Phileas\Rebecca |
| DESCRIPTION: | More naughtiness from the Foggs . . . |
| STATUS: | Complete |
| AUTHOR'S NOTE: | Alternate Universe - married Phileas and Rebecca. Adventures in Food with Phileas and Rebecca! In the tradition of Newlyweds Behaving Badly (don't read it too close to Thanksgiving) here is a repost of material originally published in Susan M. Garrett's Spicy Airship Stories. I hope you like it. It's a sort of kind of The Tale of the Very Large Bathtub sequel, with ducklings. |
It was a brilliant winter's afternoon when Rebecca Fogg rode over the south crest and caught sight of the manor house of Shillingworth Magna. Two o'clock, and the sun shone blindingly off the pristine white snow that covered the ground in all directions; sound carried clearly in the winter air, and she could hear the glad shouts of children that she recognized as hers. Out playing in the snow, behind the house, perhaps, their father very likely with them, for Phileas Fogg was as unnatural a father as anyone ever could have imagined him - fond, and without pride or the least bit of concern about who might notice that he was utterly enchanted by his children and determined to enjoy their childhood to the fullest while it lasted.
Smiling in wry meditation on the past Rebecca urged her horse down the hillside toward the stables. Phileas' own father had had a different attitude toward life; she knew that Boniface had loved his children, but he'd all too successfully protected himself against any stray betrayal of that fact, and the relationship had not proved out well for any of them.
Sir Boniface Holderness Fogg was dead, of course. Sometimes Rebecca liked to imagine that his ghost made quiet forays through the halls of Shillingworth Magna, half-glimpsed out of the corner of her eye, a sad old man watching Phileas with their children and drinking in the sight of his son rejoicing in the love of grandchildren that Sir Boniface had never met or possibly perhaps never even imagined.
Phileas' brother did not haunt at Shillingworth, however, if his spirit haunted anywhere at all - and Rebecca doubted that it did. Erasmus had been the younger brother, true, but there'd been ways in which he'd been much more complete and settled a personality than Phileas. Erasmus had made his choice and died, in order to ensure a chance for Phileas; whom Erasmus loved, as dearly as ever any man had loved his brother. If there were unresolved issues and aching griefs in Erasmus Fogg's afterlife none of them had come to her attention.
They greeted her with glad surprise, at the stables, because she wasn't expected until much later on tonight. She'd come direct from the station on horseback, eager to be home. Now that she was a diplomat's wife her secret missions were fewer and farther in between; sometimes she almost missed her days of carefree agency, but she was so impatient to get back to her husband every time that she didn't have much time to spend in brooding about it. And besides - she reminded herself, walking up the snowy ways toward the house - her days of carefree agency had been mostly spent in worrying at or worrying about Phileas anyway, so it wasn't as if so much in her life had changed, not really.
Calling her maid Chaffins to her Rebecca went direct up to her room to undress. Chaffins had her bath drawn and ready for her within twenty minutes of her arrival home; she was efficient, Chaffins was, and had been in Rebecca's service now for nearly eight years. Three years longer than Rebecca's children were old. In all that time Rebecca had never regretted having taken the chance with Chaffins, who repaid her confidence in countless ways.
Now Sondra helped her bathe the dirt and stress of her mission away: offering a fresh cake of pressed almond-scented soap, a spotless towel, a basin of wonderfully warm water for Rebecca to clean her hands and wash her face, so that she could hold her children and kiss them without passing on an accidental taint of blood or fire. Chaffins dressed Rebecca for a nap in a warmed flannel gown, massaged her aching feet to take the grief of the road from her, and - easing Rebecca's now-happily-tingling feet into soft marabou-trimmed slippers - followed Rebecca across the hall into Phileas' room to lay her down across Phileas' bed and spread a quilt to cover her, stirring up the fire, leaving her alone to nap without a word and taking up the key - the special key, the private key, the one with the gilt tassel on a chain, the one that said to all of the house staff that Master and Missus Fogg were not to be disturbed - on her way out.
Chaffins had told Passepartout, and Passepartout had come and told Phileas. Rebecca had come home, and meant to have a nap. He wanted to have a word with her, to hear how her mission had gone, to assure himself that she was all right; no sincere conviction in the world that she was twice the agent he had ever been could ever quite set his concerns to rest, and he hated it every time she had to go.
But he was determined not to grieve his pretty little ducklings, his twins, or communicate any such concern to them. It was only a month now before there would be baskets to be distributed on the vicar's rounds: and after a short game of snow-ball in the yard he had settled into the nursery with the children to make pomander balls, studding orange after orange with clove buds and rolling them in powdered spices to be set away to season for three weeks. He was all over oil from the orange's rinds, and powdered allspice, and bits of broken clove-buds; and came down the stairs from the nursery, once the children had been settled with their tea, to seek out his wife and see how the world had treated her. But he needed to wash at least his hands before he went across to Rebecca's room. His fingers were sticky with orange-juice. No matter how careful Nurse had been with her bodkin, making little slits in the orange-rinds, some of the cloves had gone through into the flesh of the oranges and made a mess of everything. It was a pleasant mess, fragrant with sweet citrus, and Phileas rolled the stem-end of the odd broken clove-bud in his mouth as he came down the hall toward his room to wash his hands and put his smock away.
What he saw at the door to his bedroom gave him pause. There was a little table in the hallway just to one side of his bedroom door; and resting on a silver tray, there was a key, one with a large gilt tassel pendant from a golden chain. Well. Rebecca was not across the hall in her own room. Rebecca was inside, in his bed, having her nap and waiting for him, and - more than that - Rebecca intended that they have a conversation of a sort not to be interrupted for any reason -
Picking up the key Phileas raised it to eye-level, turning it to and fro to admire it, biting down across the stem-end of a clove-bud in his mouth absent-mindedly. Tasseled key. How nice. He looped the key across the doorknob - so that Passepartout, whoever else needed to, would know - and went in to his bedroom to speak to Rebecca.
It was warm and quiet inside. Chaffins had drawn the drapes for her mistress. Rebecca wasn't snoring, which she sometimes did when she was very tired indeed; but if she'd been asleep it was good practice learned of years of conjugal life to give her plenty of time to think about waking up, so he didn't say anything. He went quietly to the wash-stand by the bathroom door and peeled himself out of his work-smock, pushing his turned-back cuffs an inch or so further up his forearms, washing his hands. Drying them on the clean white linen towel Passepartout had set there for his use, breathing in the fragrance of the almond soap-cake mingling with the scent of the cloves in his mouth and the oil of oranges on the sleeves of his discarded smock.
Then in his vest and shirtsleeves Phileas crossed the room to his bed, loosening his collar, to lay down beside Rebecca, and talk to his wife.
She woke when she heard the click of the door-latch, and took a moment to orient herself. No stays; she was undressed. Flannel? Flannel, but it was wintertime. The bed was familiar and the fragrance of the room was comforting as well, it smelled like - Phileas. The bed smelled like Phileas. That was who was coming into the room, her husband, lean and dark in the dim light, gliding quietly across the room toward his wash-stand, and if she listened very very carefully she could believe she heard the sound of the key draped over the door-knob outside the room knocking against the wood as it swung on its tasseled chain.
Oh, yes.
Exactly.
She watched him come across the carpet for the bed, a perfume of sweet spices and fresh soap coming with him. She was so relaxed that she didn't bother shifting when he sat down on the bed; he pulled his feet clear of his house-pumps, lifted his long legs up onto the bed's surface, and turned to lie on his side facing her, reaching out his right hand, turning the quilt back from her face tenderly. "Rebecca. I hope you're awake, please don't smite me."
She could have snorted in derision, but that would have taken energy and she was so warm and sleepy and relaxed. She lifted her own hand, very lazily, instead, to touch her finger-tips to the side of his face in order to suggest that he come kiss her. Which he did, very properly too, but when he lowered his face to hers and she drank in the warm breath of his body, the sharp spicy bite of something in his mouth startled her awake all in an instant.
What was that?
Cloves?
He put his tongue out to taste her mouth past her parted lips, and there was something in his mouth that electrified her. Cloves. Cloves on the tip of his exploring tongue; cloves in the liquor of his mouth, cloves on his breath, oh, it was almost too much heat for her to bear and all at once, she had not expected this.
"What have you been doing? Phileas?"
She asked the question a little breathlessly, once she had been thoroughly and conjugally kissed, lacing her wrists behind his head around the back of his neck to keep him close. He grinned at her, and shifted his body closer, to lie near to her side. She lifted the quilt to share it with him. A good wife took thought to guard her husband from the cold, and though the room was warm - as bedrooms in the country in the winter went - there was no sense taking any chances.
"It's the pomander-balls for the winter-baskets, Rebecca, your ducklings have been helping Nurse and their Uncle Passepartout. Except that your Lady-duck is a little too creative in her approach for master Drake, who would prefer precision in all things, and sometimes I look at him and see Erasmus, and I want to weep."
Well, then, you should avoid your mirror, husband, Rebecca thought. It was not only Erasmus among Foggs who sought for order to yield security in an uncertain world, but it was not something she should say to Phileas whom she loved while his emotion ran so close to the surface, so she smiled happily up into his clove-scented face and wriggled against him, instead. "I see." He settled his shoulders beneath the quilt with a moderate wriggling gesture of his own, and looked at her, a questioning expression on his face. "The fragrance of those cloves, though, Phileas, a little over-powering. I must say. It sets a person all a-tingle." She reached for his mouth as she said so, and the question on her husband's face smoothed over into a serene and happy sort of conviction that he knew what the answer to whatever his question might have been was, and rather liked it.
She remembered what the priest had said during the days before she and Phileas had been married; the joining together of flesh and blood and material estates, the making of one flesh, one blood, and one material estate from two, although she had continued to enjoy full legal powers as regarded her own inheritance and Phileas had made it clear that he expected her to retain control of property in her own right. Traumatized, perhaps, by that one incident some years ago, but even before then he had been strangely set on making sure that she could not be set adrift without resources; and shared his material wealth with her with scrupulous fairness and justice every day of their married life. So it was just his usual behavior to share what assets he had brought with him into the bedroom with her now, and make sure that she got her own little bit of bruised clove-bud to sharpen her breath and make her mouth tingle; though the taste of Phileas' mouth could do that for her under normal circumstances, clove buds or no clove buds. It was the way in which he conducted his affairs. She took the clove-bud from the tip of his tongue onto her tongue, and Phileas kissed her lips on his way out and grinned at her, turning his attention to the buttons on her gown.
She lay back on the bed with her arms around him, feeling him at work, smiling at the ceiling, comforted in the familiar pleasure of Phileas undressing her, lying on his bed. But she had a clove bud in her mouth, that sharpened her senses; it made her sharp herself, it seemed, and she became disturbed at the unfairness of a situation in which her husband made himself free of her garment while he was still so unreasonably dressed himself. This wouldn't do. No, she would not accept it, there was a time and a place for everything after all and she had a clove bud in her mouth now that heated her blood and made her forward to the chase.
She tickled the skin at his open collar, twining her fingers in his chest-fur to make him start; it distracted him, and she could get the buttons of his vest undone, and commence on the shirt beneath while he rescued his watch on its watch-fob from falling clear of his vest-pocket, and set it in a tray on the bed-side table. The action took him stretching and turning and reaching to accomplish, and she knew how to take advantage of a target of opportunity; so that she had him uncovered to the waist before he had a chance to turn back to his campaign against her own gown's buttons. The vest would be creased, perhaps, but Passepartout would not hold it against her; she sometimes thought that Phileas' valet more appreciated such physical tokens of spousal intimacy than not, as conforming to his notions of propriety. And indicating a sweetness in his master's temper to be enjoyed over the next little while, as well, so she did not feel guilty about the creases to be anticipated in Phileas' vest, and as far as his shirt went, well, it was the common fate of gentlemen's shirts to be laundered, after all.
She loved the furriness of Phileas' chest; the plain unambiguous masculine signal of a sexually mature male so carefully concealed beneath all of those layers of clothing for her private appreciation and no one else's. If there was a gray hair there, from place to place, she was not saying anything about where she had found such evidence on her own body, and if Phileas knew what was good for him he would not mention any such thing either. Leaning over him as he lay on his back - temporarily surrendered to superior force of arms - Rebecca chewed at the clove bud in her mouth, thoughtfully, tasting the thick jelly within the stem against her tongue; and lowered her head deliberately, to stroke Phileas' nipple with essence of clove, and see how he might take the warming of it.
"Good - good God, Rebecca - "
It was an encouraging response. She'd startled him. She had a portion of clove-jelly reserved in her mouth to warm the other nipple, as well, and she needed to lay her trap-lines down as quickly as possible, because Phileas was an intelligent man and if he reasoned things through to their logical conclusion she would be in for more stimulation than she thought she could accommodate just now. So Rebecca tickled at his nipples with her mouth, so that the itch and heat of the clove-jelly would not become difficult for him, and while she did she worried at his trousers to open them up and take into her hand one of the very nicest pieces of property that Phileas had brought into their marriage, one of her most favorite of the assets that she had acquired from him when they had made contract between them. Phileas' cock. Phileas took her by the shoulders and lifted her away from him, bodily, so that he could meet her eyes and shake his head at her - "Rebecca, no, you can't be thinking, how have I offended?" - but it would do him no good. She only smiled, and tweaked the hair across his breast to remind him that his nipples tingled with oil of cloves, and Phileas fell back against the bed-covers with his head thrown back against the bolster helplessly, acknowledging defeat. It was her right, by sacred oath; his body was her body, and she could do what she liked with it, within the bounds of holy matrimony.
She knew that he had nothing to worry about. She would not test the oily jelly from the stem of a masticated clove-bud against the head of his erect penis, not as long as she couldn't imagine how any such experiment repeated on her own body would yield anything but more discomfort than pleasure. She had no intention of inflicting any such discomfort on either her husband or their mutual friend, she was too fond of him for that; and yet the clove buds were his fault, and it didn't harm a man to suffer a few moments' apprehension, it could only increase his enjoyment as he realized that there was nothing to fear. And everything to anticipate.
She kissed his shaking chest all down his front, snuffling for his fragrance that she loved. He was as stiff as ever he got by the time she got to him, fully erect, the head of his penis glistening; Rebecca scouted about in her mouth with her tongue for one final anxious moment - no, really, a clove bud would be too much, surely - and when she was secure that she was safe she kissed him, hungrily, with all of the pent-up appetite she had been keeping to one side for the days that she had been away from him.
The sounds he made. Really, they were not those of a gentleman, but of a beast in rut rather; and she liked them very much for that, and smiled to herself happily, and swallowed him down whole to the very back of her throat. It wasn't easy, and it was not in and of itself intrinsically pleasant when considered abstractly, but it made her husband quiver so dramatically that she loved to suckle him for the pleasure that it gave him. And the power that she had over his body, when she held him in her mouth, absolute mastery over his flesh that was hers by right; though there was one thing that she liked even better, and that he liked too -
She nursed him to the edge, tasting the evidence of his increasing urgency as his cock wept its single tear of petition.
"Rebecca, please," he gasped, softly, touching his trembling fingers to the side of her head. She knew which "please" it was. It was different from the "Rebecca, pl-please" that came with the delicate whisper of a touch against the back of her head; that latter one was the "Please, Rebecca, you are killing me, let me die here and now" sort of a "please," and she was usually very content to listen to it and let herself be moved to be charitable. But this "Rebecca, please" was the one that was "If I cannot taste the pleasure of your body right this minute I will not be able to call myself a man" sort of a sound. And because she was a dutiful wife, and kindly intentioned, she was willing to bow her head to his wishes in this matter: not the least because she wanted him in the same place herself.
So she let him go, though she could not quite resist the temptation to caress him long and slow with her lips and her tongue as she raised her head away from him, knowing how that would torment her poor husband, knowing how difficult it made it for him to keep to his purpose. Knowing that he would be revenged on her, but in a way they both enjoyed; and - with her gown open from neck to hem - holding out her arms for him, seeking for him with her body, welcoming him to his proper place as he moved her knees to one side and the other and took her buttocks in the palms of his hands, to sheathe himself in her.
Then stopped, though she knew that his body ached, though she knew that the passion raged in his body to have her for his own; stopped, and Phileas put his mouth to hers very carefully, very slowly, and kissed her tenderly. To let her know. Yes, that he wanted her, very badly, and right now: but loved her above all and for ever, even while his body burned for her, even while his cock all but came of its own accord, so that tenderness in his heart ruled him no matter what the challenges of the flesh; and there was the taste of cloves in Phileas' mouth, warm and tingling, sweeter than she ever could imagine.
She almost wept and came right there and then, but it was not what she wanted for him. So she returned the gentle salute he gave her: and then wiggled her hips, to remind him what he was about. He didn't need very much reminding. He made another one of her favorite sounds, when she wiggled around his cock inside her body, the one that was something like the stuttering roar of a fire-jet burning too quickly for its fuel source to keep up; and strove against her with impressive vigor and uttermost conviction to rock her to the core of her being and set fire to her there till they both burned.
As completely as she owned him when she caressed his penis with her mouth, he ruled her as completely and perhaps a little more when he made love to her. There was something about Phileas that she desired more than anything or anyone she had ever known in her life, something about her husband's body against which she was completely helpless in the best imaginable ways, something about him that she wanted so shamelessly that she could never have enough of his affection. Of his love. Of his cock in her body, and the striving with and against him toward mutual goals, and the smell of the sweat of his body as he abandoned himself to her body with an absolute humility that destroyed her time and again -
She felt the heat of Phileas' spend within her, and now as time and time again before it was the last bearable sensation. It destroyed her. She felt his spend, she knew his bliss, she cradled his seed to her womb within her and cried aloud of ecstatic delight to have his pleasure and her pleasure in him. She had brought him to his ruin once again, and of all the things that were sweet in their life one of the things that she could never get enough of was the sweet breath of his exhausted, half-open mouth when he was spent, and the beauty of his peacefully exhausted face, and the resounding echoes of the pleasure that he gave her gradually quieting away as they lay together on the bed holding each other.
He carried the edge of the discarded quilt back over them both, though he was still more somewhat clothed than she was, and pulled the bunched-up night-dress away from underneath her, tucking the quilt around her from behind. Keeping her warm. Holding her close. She could almost never get enough of kissing him, after they had completed intimacies; and touched her pursed lips to his mouth almost childishly, demanding, but doing so quietly and with humility.
Phileas tangled himself around her thoroughly to cover her, and kissed her with great care and thoroughness. He still tasted of cloves. She found what was left of the stem-end of the clove bud he had passed to her, hiding beneath her tongue where she had tucked it away to be sure that it wouldn't hurt him when she had him in her mouth. She bit the last fragment in two, and passed the half of it to him on the tip of her tongue, for him to take back again.
He chewed it up with grave consideration, and swallowed.
"You make a man afraid, Rebecca," he said. "I shall have to ask Nurse to clean up very carefully. And pretend that I'm afraid that one of the ducklings might bite down on a clove-bud, and burn their mouths, by accident."
Rebecca smiled. She couldn't help it. "Very wise, I'm sure, Phileas." The heat was almost all gone, from the spice; she breathed it from his mouth appreciatively. "I'm sure that Nurse won't think twice about it. She knows you like to worry so, about them."
"And have I told you yet this minute that I love you?" Phileas asked, tenderly, and kissed her. Rebecca only smiled again, and put her head down on his naked chest, and rested herself there with her husband in her arms. No, he hadn't, though if the truth were to be told he really didn't need to do so, because he left so little room for ambiguity. And it would do him no good. She knew the secret of the clove bud now. A good field-agent never let a useful weapon get too far out of reach, because one never knew when one might want exactly that, one never knew when one might need it.
After a while she stirred. "Do ring for Chaffins, Phileas," she suggested. "It must be nearly supper-time. Surely." She had to wash, now, again; and she had to dress. She was hungry. She'd been expected home at supper-time; she had to put herself to rights, and go and greet her children, who might have begun to become anxious to see her, by now.
He fastened his crumpled trousers and buttoned up his shirt, and picked her up wrapped in the quilt, and carried her across the hall to her own room; ringing for Chaffins on his way, and setting the key, the special key, their favorite key, back in its place where it lived on the wall inside her bedroom, by the door, to be there when she wanted it.
And Rebecca knew where the spices were kept in the kitchen, and where the keys were to be found, and besides which Chaffins would bring her a steaming cup of hot mulled cider the next time she asked, with two or three whole clove buds softening in the drink. Yes. Chaffins was efficient. And Phileas would have a nice surprise.
Later.
To go with the other surprise that Rebecca would have for him, if she had counted the days aright before this one. She'd had particular reasons for wanting to get home. Phileas loved his ducklings very much; it would be a shame if so much paternal affection had never more than twins to bear the weight of it. If the children wondered why a sibling should be named after a spice -
She would tell them to go and ask their father, Rebecca decided.
Chaffins was at the door with hot water in which to wash and a cup of strengthening tea, and Rebecca put such beguiling fantasies aside for the time being and commenced to dress for dinner.
----