The Descent

The first sight of the house's occupant took Lena by surprise. Tall and stooped, the man peering down at them reminded her of a stork or a heron. Someone who's bones were so thin and light that it must have cost him some effort to prevent his limbs collapsing into an untidy heap at their feet. He was in middle age, thinning hair receding at his temples, and dressed formally, as if for an engagement with the ambassador.

The sight of his two visitors left him momentarily confused. He looked at them warily as Yvette tumbled out an explanation for Lena's presence, something, she assured him, would not involve any extra expenditure on his part.

He seemed to consider for a moment, then gave the slightest of nods, stood back and held open the door for them to enter. They followed the man who Lena had already begun to think of as The Stork along a narrow corridor and into a poorly lit study lined with books. At the centre of the room in front of a tall window which looked out onto a garden was a library table on which was spread a plaid blanket. An upturned wooden crate stood at one end forming a kind of step.

The Stork considered them both and then offered Yvette a thin, gloved hand. Lena had not noticed the gloves. They were of a dun calf leather, and tight as a second skin. Taking his gloved hand she allowed herself to be guided up onto the wooden crate where he turned her and invited her to sit. She remained perched on the edge of the table while he looked at her coolly as if she was a specimen from some human menagerie he might yet choose to purchase as a pet. He traced the line of the bruise on Yvette's cheek, then brushed the taut fabric covering her breasts, before pausing, grunting in approval and finally addressing her directly.

'Lie back', he said.

Yvette did as she was asked, tipping herself backwards, her small feet still in contact with the wooden crate. Then the Stork lifted the hem of her dress and carefully turned it back revealing the top of Yvette's stockings and the red garters which supported them. Again he hesitated running his fingertips over a weal left by the boy's cane. Then, with the lightest of touches, he took her knees and guided them open so that now he was looking at the mound between Yvette's legs encased in black silk.

Seemingly content with what he saw, the Stork turned aside and from a drawer took out some rimless glasses and a pair of black dressmaker's scissors. At the sight of their heavy metal blades Lena's resolve failed her. She would have cried out but an almost imperceptible shake of Yvette's head held her back.

Peering through his thick glasses, the Stork was now stooping to his task, slipping the scissors along Yvette's thigh and under the taut silk of her drawers. With a single stroke of the blade the fabric parted. He repeated the operation on Yvette's other thigh and suddenly the garment fell away exposing her completely.

Turning to Lena he indicated the washstand behind him.

"If you would oblige me," he said. And when she hesitated added "Quickly, now."

Lena took a section of sea-sponge she found floating in the soapy water and returned to where Yvette lay exposed on the table.

"Be sure to be through", he said.

She worked carefully and as gently as she could. First soaping and then drying her friend's exposed sex. When she had finished, the Stork waved her aside and took her place.

He moved closer until his face was inches away from Yvette's still-bruised lips, as if inspecting her work. Seemingly satisfied he peeled first one glove and then the other from his hands exposing a skin of shocking whiteness. And then with his long fingers he began to explore.

Taking his time, he conducted a detailed examination, like doctor or - the thought sent a chill along Lena's spine - an anatomist, intent on uncovering some hidden secret of her womanhood. He felt the texture of her lips, rolling the thin membrane between his fingertips, peeling back her layers until he found what he was looking for. Then holding her clitoris between finger and thumb he slid the long thin middle finger of his other hand into her. And when that was accomplished, withdrew, added a second finger, and then a third

Lena had stopped breathing. The man was motionless, waiting with three fingers deep inside Yvette as if listening for some movement of the blood. And then suddenly he was turning away to the washstand where he began fastidiously to clean his hands. As he dried them he nodded to Lena.

'You", was all he said.

As they exchanged places Lena thought for a moment she saw a flash of regret flicker over her friend's face. But she had no time to decide. Panic was starting to rise in her chest. Just as her friend had done, she ascended the box and lay back on the plaid blanket, felt the fabric of her dress depart, followed by the lightest of touches on her knees. She could easily have resisted the pressure but unaccountably the very lightness of The Stork's fingers seemed impossible to resist and she found herself obediently obeying his mute direction. A moment later she felt the cold metal of the dressmaker's scissors and heard their closing rasp, once, twice - and knew then that The Stork had effortlessly achieved the access he desired.

This time it was Yvette's turn with the sea-sponge and towel. When she had done Lena closed her eyes and waited.

She flinched at his first touch, but it was a passing moment and soon she had quite given herself up to what was happening between her parted legs. The Stork's hands were cold from the water where he had washed but there was a softness in his touch she found unnerving, braced as she was for the violation of his hand, the bruising of her flesh, the destructive work of his fingers. What came instead left her dizzy and confused. There was no trace of clumsiness in The Stork's touch. His fingers, as they explored her, were delicate and precise in their movements. This strange man, had a skill so unexpected that she soon found herself moving to meet them. She blushed as she felt the moisture begin to flow from her.

As they explored, his hands seemed not just to find but to create new folds and corners in her flesh. Lena found herself unable to say quite what was happening. She could no longer separate the different sensations his long fingers were drawing out of her. She felt something almost touch her womb, she imagined a salamander, smooth skinned and slippery with moisture. His skilful fingers dipped into the sensitised whorl of her anus, appearing to meet other fingers somewhere inside her, felt through a fleshy curtain. With infinite patience he explored the folds of her swollen lips. Her clitoris gained shape under his ministrations acquiring length and a form that rose to a steep crest. Inch by inch he was uncovering her to herself. Now she knew why the shadow had passed across Yvette's face as he stood back from her. The Stork was like a master musician whose instrument was a woman's body. How or where he had learned such skill it was impossible to say.

Lena looked down to where he was working only to find him staring at her intently, watching her, waiting for the moment he knew would come. And then in a move which would leave her forever lost, forever searching for the intensity of which she found her body capable, he dipped his head and began to drink.

The world was all sensation. There were no boundaries, no distinction between his body and hers, the fingers of his long white hands, that had opened the most secret folds of her, his questing tongue that seemed to pass the beyond the barrier of her skin into some cellular zone at her very core. She rode the successive waves, completely undone, until there was nothing left, as if all sense of herself had entirely dissolved and run out into some vast sunlit plain.

She barely felt it as she was turned over and the cuffs applied to her wrists and ankles so that when she opened her eyes and found herself legs spread face down on the rug, a cushion under her that raised her bottom into the air the need to question what was happening to her did not even arise. When her breathing had returned to normal and her head begun to clear she found herself unable to move. Her wrists and ankles were secured to brackets fixed to the side of the table. Her cheek lay against the soft surface of the rug. It came to her then that there was no decision she could take that would affect her situation. She was entirely helpless. What was to be done to her was beyond her control and in this very helplessness she experienced a sense of freedom she could not have imagined. All choices fell away. There was only now, and this table and what was to come.

Unseen by her The Stork had released a long thin penis from the confines of his clothes which he proceeded to rest on the soft cushion of her upturned cheeks. And then moving slowly he began to guide the head along the slick groove between the slopes of soft flesh. The sensation in her still hypnotised state was a new species of delight that Lena had no choice but to give her self up to. She felt the warmth and soft firmness of him stroke the most sensitive areas of her flesh, still alive with the shimmer and afterglow of her coming. At first there was only the silky glide of its head, like a familiar but unknown creature in search of home.

But slowly the creature becoming more insistent and began to probe for an opening, before retreating and repeating its slow glide in the channel that was becoming ever slicker with his juices. Probe and slide, probe and slide, the movement was mesmeric. Lena felt something open in her, a release entirely new, as The Stork's cock found the refuge it was seeking, slipping past the barrier that had sought to exclude it, the ring of muscle that protected the sacred space beyond, and in a moment she found herself entirely filled, complete. So it was that the first virginity that Lena lost was not the common sort, but something more rare and particular, sought out and claimed by the flesh of an epicure. The Stork's cock moved deep in her, hollowing her out, and bringing in its wake a second climax that left her adrift on the fringes of consciousness, so that she barely felt his final release and slow withdrawal.

Later she was unable to recall the journey home. She had no sooner returned to her room than Yvette was hurrying away. As she took her leave she pressed five francs into Lena's hand.

"You earned them", she said, and was gone.

She needed to sleep. But there was something important here she must hold on to. Something that was threatening to slip away as she became slowly attuned to the familiar surroundings

When the boy in the room had begun his assault she had fought back. To have taken her he would need to have physically overpowered her and forced from her what she was unwilling to give. Yes, that was it. The confrontation had drawn from her a strength she did not know she possessed. Yet she had been no match for the lightest of pressure from the Stork as he opened her legs. His strength had no part to play in her surrender. How had he understood what the boy had not? That what he would take from her, she was only too ready to give?

And with that Lena fell precipitously into a welcome sleep..