Teena: A House of Ill Repute (6 page)

'Erik?' I called his name quietly, for I had no way of knowing who else might be nearby. At the same time I fumbled with the pistol, drawing back the hammer until I heard a loud click. Whether pulling the trigger now would be enough, I had no way of knowing. My knowledge of old weapons was limited to what I'd seen and read in history books. All I did know was that, if this was the same pistol Indira/Andy had taken off the dead man back in the woods, at least it was some kind of flintlock, so there would be no need of a lighted fuse to discharge it.

'Erik?' I called again, this time a little more loudly, and began moving up alongside the horses. Suddenly, from out of the bushes to the right, he emerged, looming large and dark. I started and took a step back, raising the pistol towards him. 'Stop there!' I all but squeaked, and he seemed to freeze, motionless in the darkness. 'I've got the gun,' I warned, 'so no funny business.'

'Of the things this business is, funny is not one of them being,' I heard his lilting voice. 'And necessary the gun to be pointing at me it is not. Going off it may be, and then in Erik a large and messy hole there will be.'

'Exactly,' I agreed. 'So, like I said, no funny business. Now, where are we?' I sensed him relaxing in the darkness, but I was not about to follow suit.

'The road to Salisbury it is eventually leading,' he said, 'but another twenty miles still it will be. As I said before, the horses rest are needing for exhausted they be.'

'So, how long have we been stopped?'

He shrugged and waved his hands to either side. 'One half the hour, maybe more a little bit,' he replied. 'The horses needing the same again they will be, for driven them hard I have. Rest also we should now, for we must be going far on the morrow if Master Hacklebury and Miss Megan we wish to escape.'

'Huh, and what's with the
we
stuff? How do I know you aren't playing for time here in the hope that they catch up with us?'

'Not yet will they even know that gone we are,' he replied steadily. 'No one will miss her and soundly sleeping he will be until well after the dawn.'

'And how long until dawn?' I demanded, and saw his head tilt upwards as he scanned the sky above us.

'Maybe hours three more,' he said. 'Maybe a little less.'

'And how far have we come so far?'

'Perhaps miles twenty,' he replied, 'but in a straight line travelled we have not. Taking us in different directions have I been, as you told me I must.'

I nodded. It made sense to zigzag about rather than to stay on one straight road, and the condition of the track on which we now found ourselves suggested this was not a major highway. 'Where were you just then?' I demanded, switching tack myself. 'Just then, I mean, when I called to you.'

He gave a low, throaty chuckle. 'The call of nature was I answering,' he said, 'and urgent most was it, to be sure.'

'Oh,' I said, for from the way he had replied it was obvious he was telling the truth. 'So why didn't you just sneak off, or were you about to when I called, eh?'

He sighed. 'Telling you I was earlier that Erik is now your faithful servant,' he said. 'Much wrong have I done and sorry it is that I now am. Atonement for that will difficult be, but try I will. Miss Megan a bad woman is and Erik now knows that and will safe be keeping you from her if possible that is.'

'Oh,' I said again simply, disarmed, at least in the non-literal sense. 'So, you're on our side now, is that what you're saying?'

'On your side I am,' he confirmed. 'Erik staying with you will be and to a safe place to get you will be trying the damndest!'

'Oh,' I replied again. 'Right then, so be it. If the horses need another half hour, let's make use of the time to decide where we're going from here. Salisbury may be a bit too obvious, especially if it's the nearest large town, so what other choices do we have?' I raised my free hand to my head, letting my fingers slide across my smooth skull, suddenly remembering I had no hair in this time. 'We obviously need to find food, and probably water and feed for the horses,' I continued. 'I'm also going to have to do something about my head. I can't go wandering around looking like this, not unless I want to draw attention to us. I can probably make some sort of headscarf if I tear up one of... no, hang on. Did we bring other clothing with us in the end?'

'A trunk there is on the back,' Erik said. 'Dresses and other things are there inside it and shoes also.'

'Well, that's a start, at least,' I said with relief. 'Now, do we have a lamp somewhere? I want to take stock of whatever else we have. I remember I was intending to take money and any other valuables that were lying around, and I get the feeling we're going to need to make use of everything we've got, including, and especially, our brains!'

And what of Angelina? I turned back to the coach and Erik reached up beside the driver's seat to take down the lantern hanging there. It was obvious she had managed to take charge in my absence and that she had contrived to do as good a job of escaping as I could have hoped for, and this seemed curious to me, unless she had managed to remain in some way connected while I had control of her body and so was aware of what had been happening in her own 'absence'. If that was the case, I mused, in that way at least she had the advantage over me.

I opened the door and began pulling myself up. This adventure was difficult enough, I thought, without my having to play catch-up after every little episode. It would be much better if I could somehow stay back here in time until this little story had run its course, whether or not my own efforts and contribution were likely to change the ultimate outcome or not, but something told me that wasn't going to happen, at least not just yet.

I opened my eyes, and this time I was not at all surprised to find myself back in Anne-Marie's garage, standing as she had left me, with the leash from my collar hooked via the cord over the beam above my head. I sucked on the gag and managed to swallow with some difficulty, breathing in through my nose as deeply as the stringent corset permitted.

Inside my rubber costume I felt hot and clammy. Suddenly my fetish garb did not seem so exciting and I wanted to pull it all off and simply go and lie down for a while, but I knew there was no chance of that happening. Gagged as I was, there was no way I could convey my wishes to Anne-Marie and any physical show would only be interpreted wrongly.

I grunted in frustration and shifted my weight again. How long had I been 'out'? Probably only a few seconds, no more than a minute or two at most if previous experiences were anything to go by, and I had only been standing here for a matter of minutes prior to that. I groaned. By the time Anne-Marie had attended to Andy and herself, I would have had a long wait. I moved again and this time the dildo shifted and I felt it pressing against my clit. A shiver passed up and down my spine and I screwed up my eyes in an attempt to resist the inevitable, but I knew that even if I managed to hold myself in control at first, there was no way I could remain standing stock still for much longer. The extreme height of my heels made that sort of discipline impossible, and the moment I adjusted my stance again the rubber phallus would be about its work once more, this time with a swollen nub to work against, unless I was much mistaken.

Damn Anne-Marie
, I thought fiercely. She knew me better than I knew myself and this seemingly careless desertion of me had been well thought out. I was willing to bet she was not exactly hurrying herself back in the house, and that she was banking on returning eventually to find me already a quivering wreck.

The pressures on my stomach and breasts seemed to increase as I stood contemplating my plight, and my entire body appeared to be undergoing a heightening in sensitivity. The dildo was growing inside me, too. No, I knew that was only my imagination, but knowing it didn't make the sensation go away. I could hear my heart beating loudly inside my chest; the steady pounding echoing inside my rubber covered skull and the sound of my rapid, shallow breathing grew louder with every minute that passed.

I swayed suddenly and had to take a hasty step in order to regain my balance. The inevitable happened and the shockwave surged through me again, this time stronger and more prolonged. I pressed my legs together, which was a big mistake. Despite the gag, my squeal echoed around the garage and I knew my first orgasm was only moments away.

It was impossible, terrible, an awful indictment of what I was becoming, and I was helpless to do anything about it. I wanted to cry, to scream, to beat myself for my weakness, but all I could do was stand there swaying like a dumb rubber doll, and surrender in abandoned solitude to my basest instincts and cravings.

My first visit to Arundel had been with my parents as a child of maybe nine or ten, and my second was as part of a school trip five or six years after that, when I would have been fourteen or fifteen. My third visit was three to four years later again, or one hundred and thirty years earlier, depending upon the way you want to look at it.

At first I did not recognise the sleepy little West Sussex town, for although the streets have changed relatively little in more than a century, the castle back in eighteen thirty-nine looked smaller, less impressive and not at all like the castle that stands there today. And then I remembered what we had been told during our school visit, that the Norfolk family effected a huge renovation on the edifice later in the eighteenth century, as did many of their landowning Victorian contemporaries, who altered, or even built from scratch, huge monuments to their wealth, power and egos.

As the coach swayed slowly down the hill towards the town centre, I let the door blind fall back into place and looked across to the opposite seat at the sleeping form of Indira.
Ye gods
, but that girl seemed to spend all her time sleeping and could drop off, it seemed, in the most awkward positions. I wondered if Andy had come back again this time, or whether I would once again be confronted by the voluptuous body's rightful tenant. During my earlier brief visit, the girl had woken up just long enough for me to understand she was indeed Indira and not my twentieth century lover. It had been a bitter disappointment, for with Andy around I felt much less vulnerable, or perhaps just a lot less on my own. Either way, I hoped it would be Andy inside her this time around.

I felt the coach slowing further, and then it finally came to a stop. I waited, feeling the slight lurch as Erik - at least I assumed it was Erik - jumped down from the driver's seat up front, and listened as his heavy boots scrunched on the ground. A moment later he opened the door and stood looking up at me.

'We are arrived,' he announced simply. 'There an hour or so before darkness still is, but an inn we should find without delaying further.' It was good advice, for the air outside was already icy and I knew the temperature would drop even more once night fell.

'Have you seen anywhere we might stay?' I asked, drawing my cape closer about my shoulders. Instinctively I reached up, and smiled as my fingers touched the soft fabric of a bonnet. Probably not quite in fashion by eighteen thirty-nine, I mused, but at least it would cover my hairlessness. Angelina must have continued with my plan in that regard, and I smiled again as I found myself wondering idly if she had any idea how she had come to be bald, or whether it had come as a shock to her when she returned to her body during the escape bid. Whatever the truth, she appeared to have been coping well in my absence, and I found myself forming a newfound respect for the little lady, who was obviously a lot tougher on the inside than she appeared on the outside.

'Three inns there are where staying the night I think we may be,' Erik said. 'Others there may also be, further along road, but the sign over there is saying that rooms there are.' He gestured across to the far side of the street, and I saw the hand painted notice propped against the wall of an inn, beneath a hanging sign that proclaimed the establishment was called the
Swan
.

'You had better go over and ask,' I instructed, and picked up the cloth bag that was on the seat at my side. 'I presume we have some money left?'

Erik looked at me oddly.

I quickly tried to make a joke of it. 'Just like a woman to get confused with cash,' I said, and felt hopefully inside the bag. To my relief, my fingers closed over a soft leather satchel, the weight and feel of which told me it contained several coins. 'You go ahead and see if they have two rooms,' I continued. 'They may find it a bit funny if a woman marches in on them unannounced.' As I've mentioned before, they had some odd notions back in eighteen thirty-nine. A woman's place was generally regarded as being in the home and, if she travelled from it, there was expected to be a man around, not merely to act as her protector, but to make all the arrangements and conduct any business, including the booking of rooms and meals.

As Erik trudged stiffly across the road - it must have been murder even on his muscles, for the weather seemed to have taken a sudden change for the worse and sitting up top the carriage in this cold autumn wind for hours at a time would have been no picnic - I drew out the money bag, pulled at the drawstring and emptied the contents into my lap. My eyebrows rose and I couldn't resist a grin of satisfaction as I saw the silver and gold glinting among the coppers. I picked out a few coins at random and held them up for a closer examination. They were unfamiliar to me, of course, but I soon identified guineas, shillings and florins - that's two shillings in old money - and a quick tot up revealed the coins amounted to nearly twenty pounds, a small fortune in those days.