A Fine Profession (The Chambermaid's Tales Part One) (4 page)

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I thought of myself as rather average. Not particularly tall. Brown hair one shade of mud; not shiny or multi-tonal like those models on the adverts. Blue eyes not unlike many other people's. I almost never really took time to look at myself. I just knew I could blend in if I wanted to and had an alright figure that I was completely unconscious of. My older brother and younger sister were both blonde and athletic, but I was shorter, curvier and dark, with girlish features that seemed out of place in a family of mostly Amazonian women and Barbarian men. I just knew I was different. I also knew the illnesses I'd had in youth made me distinct from the others. The childhood leukaemia had weakened me in more ways than one. Even though I overcame it, I had suffered pneumonia a few times since. I still easily caught bad colds and flu, and sometimes a headache for me felt like the weight of the world squashing my skull. My immune system resembled that of someone twice my age. My nervous system, in places, was shattered.

I had kept in touch w
ith only two people from school and had made no new friends since. The chambermaid thing had been a summer job at college that had stuck. The qualification in Leisure and Tourism I was undertaking fell by the wayside with a few bouts of illness and an uninspiring bunch of lecturers I hated.

I was
25 years old and still not at one with myself and yet a few seconds with Cody had been enough to make me realise I must have had something that he liked; a little, amiable quality that he had espied. I also realised I was less shy than I thought.

The unfulfilled dreams I suffered after that were terrible. It was more often than not, one parti
cular scenario…

Cody and I are kissing in that hotel room once more. Everything else evaporates and we become wrapped up in one another, blissfully unaware of the world.

He sits on
the edge of the bed and I mount his lap to straddle him. Our kissing becomes more adventurous. My hands move from his cheeks to rampantly running themselves around his head. He wraps his arms tightly behind my back to get a sense of my entirety. I move down to kiss his beckoning, gleaming throat; skin slick with a thin sheen of sweat but probably steam-cleaned after a gym session earlier.

He pulls on my buttocks, shunting me toward him so he ca
n bury his face against my shirt, cushioning himself in my chest. All we can hear is one another's breathing. He gasps as he hides between my boobs, whispering, “You've got very lovely breasts.” Something along those lines. I reveal a red, lacy bra. I smile out of one corner of my mouth and he immediately pulls the shirt he is wearing over his head.

He moans, as our torsos touch
. His body is absolutely gorgeous.

He stands up with me in his arms, and I wrap my legs about him. My heart is rapidly thumping, engorged, pounding in my chest. I am almost breathless.
We both know I am about to lose my virginity.

He positions me where he had just been sat. He kneels on the floor before me and reaches up to start kissing my cleavage. I want to sho
ut and scream. He feels so warm and vital against my body. He explores my throat and chest and I can't help but wrap my legs around his buttocks. Before I know it, his hand reaches between my legs, pressing against my crotch again.

I whimper, desperately, not certain of whether I should cry or pant.

He mashes my tissue through the material and I eye him desperately. When I feel as though my insides might split, he yanks my trousers down. He rips the material of my knickers away from my body, snapping the gusset in half. He lifts me further onto the bed and unbuckles his belt and zip. He lies against me and pops both breasts out of my bra, grunting at the sight of them. He kisses my nipples as he did my mouth, but gradually licks instead, then teases his teeth around the areola slowly. I see they are crimson-red and beg him for more, groaning at the way he tells me they fill his mouth. I caress his washboard stomach and chest and am mesmerised by how gifted with body hair he is.

He
settles between my legs and presses against me as he kisses my mouth. We shift in unison until we naturally meet, sinking against one another. I scream.

“
Charlotte,” he moans, trembling with desire.

I fold my naked self around him. I am in such ecstasy. I am on fire. I hunger and yearn for every thrust of his engorged phallus inside me. I clench my teeth as he fills me deeper, venturing to places undiscovered. I catch a glimpse of his disbelief. I see it in his eyes and know we connected. It makes it all the more miraculous. I lick under his top lip.

I'm obsessed with repeating his name. He whines. He touches his tongue against mine, while breathing hot, raspy breaths into my mouth. All I know is that my belly seems to be sucking on something and drawing it into me deeper and faster. It's hot and depraved. It is all suddenly over. He falls heavily against me and catches his breath.

Those fantastical images of a tryst with Cody swam through my subconscious mind on many an occasion. I would wake with a fright and with a stinging, hot sensation in my groin. I would always know I had suffered an intense wet dream, yet again. My internal yearnings were wreaking havoc on my external shell to remind me I was a human being of wants and desire. The vivid scenario always drove me to actual, unbridled pleasure and on waking, I would feel empty and numb, without any arms to comfort me in the wake of such sensations. The day I crossed paths with Cody, I realised I was a sexual being. His fleeting presence in my life made me realise there were things I was depriving myself of, but I knew it wasn't a simple case of just finding some bloke and settling down. Firstly I had to make big changes to my life to find someone I really wanted, not some wide boy with no idea what fidelity was.

That fated day, w
hen I arrived home after resigning from my chambermaid job, I went straight up to my bedroom, locked the door, and did not emerge for hours. I just lay there motionless. My mum brought up some soup at around 10pm, but after that, the next thing I knew was pain. I succumbed to pneumonia in the night and was rushed to hospital. I remained unconscious for the next three days. When I woke up, I did not speak for a month, such was the trauma of hospitalisation for me.

The thing about my encounter
with Cody was that, within a few hours, everything I had previously held true had been shaken down. Such a small, chance happening had changed me forever and there was no turning back. I knew I needed more from life. I had been avoiding it for too long. I knew just those few kisses with Cody were worth risking myself for. I dreamt about him constantly and something was awakened inside me that day. It was unfortunately just my luck that my first experience had to be with someone so insincere. That was all I had to go on. He made me feel shameful in a sense and, idiotic. I'd had my head turned so easily.

When I emerged from my illness in hospital, the doctors spoke to my mum and asked her whe
ther anyone in the house had been suffering flu. She said she couldn't remember any of us catching anything in months. Everyone in our house, except me, was unnaturally super-fit and healthy. But I remembered Cody. He may have been carrying some virus or something, unwittingly. Cody would not have known, however, how weak my immune system was and how something he could easily fight off could become so detrimental to me should it be wrought upon me at a time of vulnerability. I could not help feeling that he had wronged me in more ways than one, but I also blamed myself for kissing a footballer of all suitors. Where his mouth had been, I could not tell, nor would ever want to imagine.

Heath, having read about those events, was disbelieving. He had to interrupt her, despite knowing she might vehemently object to questioning. As far as she was concerned, she had written down everything she wanted to say. She thought herself a much more eloquent scribe than speaker.

“
Do you expect me to sympathise with all that?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“I don't expect anything,”
she drawled, teasing fingers through her hair.

She gestured at his nether region and he quickly crossed his legs.

“That is not the point,” he insisted.

She raised
her eyebrows, “No?”

She sucked her thumb and his face flushed.
He coughed and adjusted his seating position.

“Very funny.
Listen, Miss Lottie, or Charlotte, or whatever your name… you slotted that dream in for one reason alone!”

She fiddled with h
er nails indifferently.

“
Anger. Not becoming of a man. I know your sort. Judgemental, passionless, viciously inquisitive. A slave to martyrdom. Happy to be beleaguered. Blindsided by cynicism. You obviously begrudge the fact that my tale arouses you.”

“I…
” he trailed off, putting his hand to his mouth to stop himself. Words would betray him. This girl was clever for a chambermaid.

“
You wanted to know the story. Yet, there is much more to tell. Perhaps if we are to continue, you should go to the bathroom and avail yourself of what is certainly now causing you agony.”

“Why do you talk like that?
Like you
are
in some sort of novel? Why do you… have that air of superiority? That, I don't know, coolness.”

“
Please Mister Heath, please ask yourself what it is you actually know about me? Please reconsider that question. For if you answer it truthfully, you know nothing. You really do not. And here I am, trying to enlighten you. You must suspend your disbelief if we are to continue.”

“
But I have the right to my own opinion,” he insisted, with what she knew was definitely a rhetorical, self-conflicted utterance.

“
Of course,” she insisted, a sweet smile painting her lips. “You will not be disappointed.”

She had displayed a flash of her true self, he knew. Now, that got him.
His trousers were an evil constriction then.

“
I will relieve myself and we shall continue,” he conceded.

“Wise that you do,
it will become much worse for you otherwise. There is much yet.”

He stood up out of his chair, really not caring any longer whether she saw his raging, throbbing erection in his pants or not. He subconsciously wanted her to check out what was standing to attention in his nether region, at full pace, and rather prominent. However, she did not glance. Not even a little. She stared at the floor, arms and legs folded, not smiling or seeming to display any thought. He painfully exited the room and dashed down the corridor toward the bathroo
m he had spotted on his way in.

She could not help but overhear his grunts and growls and his hand slapping up and down his cock as he got rid of whatever pent-up frus
tration he had been harbouring for some time. She was tempted to creep out into the corridor and down the hall to catch sight of the scene, but something stopped her.

Returning a little while later, he re-seated himself in the studded leather armchair and failed to wipe away a sheepish grin. She lifted her lids to absorb his noticeably flush cheeks and smirked.

“Thanks,
I actually really needed that. I didn't realise quite how much.”

A weight seemed to have been lifted, a demon expunged and his former anxiousness eradicated.
He was not ashamed in the slightest. He needed it. She knew just as well.

“
Do you want to continue reading?” she asked.

“
Yes, but I do have more questions…”

“
I know my storytelling is not conventional, but it's how the events remain seated in my mind, you know? All your questions will be sated by the end, I assure you.”

“
I can see that. But, if you don't mind, might you tell me a little something about your upbringing?”

“
Are these interruptions to continue, Heath, really?” she demanded, impatiently.

He grinned and couldn't help but find amusement in her irritation.
It was as if by referring to him as
Heath
that she saw him as some sort of servant. He liked it, however, secretly, he did.

“
Yes, I may yet be unable to keep my tongue. It is impossible for me to promise anything. I am a creature of straightforward contemplation, of facts and calculations, as you earlier pointed out. I may question further yet,” he told her.

“
Well, Heath, Epworth… her hometown Epworth… Charlotte's life there…” She seemed to find it difficult to take herself back to that time and place.

“
Don't you see yourself as she anymore?”

He had already decided he should have brought a psychologist along with him.

“One more interjection like that and I won't stay. I warn you. I really must insist you simply submit yourself from now on, okay?”

He nodded and thought,
Am I already getting The Service or what? I feel like she's totally working me over here.

“
Epworth, it is a small village-type place, with gastro pubs and rich, historical monuments, with good schools and the odd celebrity. With clean streets and unique character houses. Rough and ready farmers frequent the inns with rolls of notes to burn, while students pretend to be trendy by attempting to mingle in. For me it was a place of safety and quietude. It was my solace, but also my prison. I don't often like to consider the memories of my time there.”

He murmured
something but checked himself, realising she was serious about his interference in the way this would play out.

“So, I need not have taken on this work for financial gain. My father is landed enough. No. That is not why I do this. And, anyway, my roots are of no consequence to the story I have to tell you now.”

She poured more
whiskey, and looked down at her lap.

“
There is more than one man in this tale. The first, you now know about. The second is… was… my best friend. We have a third and fourth, too…” she said wearily. “The reason I became
Miss Lottie
will also become clear. Surely, you must realise, something catastrophic must have happened for me to transform from that naive, virginal 25-year-old to this?”

Another rhetoric. He didn't have the energy to query.
He recommenced reading her tale.