Union

England, 1930

Lillian permitted her brother-in-law an embrace and a kiss on the cheek. In his drunkenness, he lifted her an inch from the floor. One of her heels clanked to the wood.

"Welcome to the family, love. You let me know if my brother's not a perfect gentleman!" She wiggled her toes back into her shoes.

"Yes, thank you, Arnold."

They both looked at Thomas at the foot of the stairs, cigarette lilting from his lips, eyes on the floor. He scarcely looked up as the guests passed. A flutter of worry came to life in Lillian's stomach as she wondered what he was thinking. Or perhaps regretting.

"You have a good night, brother," Arnold muttered with a wink. His sister took his place.

"Still on for lunch Thursday?"

"Midland, one o'clock." Petra gave her an affectionate flutter and was swiftly out the door—off to another party, Lillian imagined. It was nearly two in the morning.

Lillian watched the remaining guests trickle out the front door with growing trepidation. The two had scarcely been alone since the engagement was announced, and things had proceeded swiftly since. There was no baby, although many assumed so. Just he, a once widowed, once divorced man and she, a nanny to his children. She remembered his words:

I'm not good on my own. I need someone.

Why that someone should have been her, she doubted she would ever understand.

Thomas squished out his cigarette on an ever-present ashtray.

"Shall we say goodnight?" he asked. His rough, rounding accent still sounded stranger to her American ears, yet relief flooded through her. She was tired in a way impulsive decisions made one tired.

They walked side-by-side up the grand staircase. She expected them to part, but he followed. Lillian's nerves bloomed with every step. She hardly knew this man. She stopped abruptly at her door and whirled around.

"Thomas—" Her voice had the same disciplinary edge she used with the children, but the expression on his face was neutral. Unsmiling.

"Did you have fun tonight?" he asked. The automatic answer dropped off her tongue,

"Of course." His brow arched slightly. "But perhaps it was a waste," she amended. A grand wedding such as theirs seemed absurd given the circumstances. A day dress, a stone church, and a bouquet of daisies would have sufficed.

"Might as well. What else will I spend my money on?" Three tarpaulined Bugattis sat untouched in the garage. She was no materialist, and could think of no answer.

Thomas's eyes moved over her face in a crawl. She felt, as she had many times before, that he could see her thoughts carved on the inside of her skull. His expression didn't change. Whatever he saw there failed to move him.

"I'll say goodnight."

A gentle hand on the side of her arm preceded a chaste kiss on the cheek. This, followed by a moment of hesitation, then a soft, wet warmth joined briefly with her lips. He pulled away before she could register enjoyment.

"Sleep well."

Lillian stared as he disappeared down the hall, a ripple of delayed anticipation melting through her.

*

Lillian refreshed herself in the

en suite

. Her golden skin looked yellow in the gas lights. She frowned at this, a finger following the half-moon groove beside her mouth. She was a year from thirty yet. Not quite a spinster, but neither a maid. Marriage was a practical question.

Estás feliz?

Her father's voice returned, unbidden. She imagined him in the corner in his paint-stained smock. His face was solemn. He'd cared for nothing more than her happiness.

"It was the right choice," she murmured. "He's a good man." In truth, she couldn't speak to the latter. She'd never asked how Thomas earned his money, and the housekeeper wouldn't speculate.In the end, she would want for nothing, though little did she want. Lillian had abandoned all romantic notions that day in the waning light of his office. He'd placed a plain box on the table and studied her over the rim of his glass, as if already certain of her answer. They hadn't spoken of love. Friendship, perhaps, was the most she could hope for. An intimacy like that of her parents: so comfortable in each other's presence as to become one over the span of years.

Lillian pulled back the duvet and settled in. The house was quiet now that the maids had gone to bed. Across the room, the fireplace spit and fizzled out. She sat up to see the shrinking glow of coals. The winter air stole the warmth from the room in short order, leaving a frisson of bumps on her skin. There was no space of contemplation between the possibility and its initiation. Lillian merely swung her legs out of bed and padded down the hall. She felt foreign to herself.

Three knocks. Then—

"Come."

She opened the door to a lowly-lit room. Thomas's tuxedo was draped over the armchair. He was in bed already, shirtless, the tattoo on his chest formless in the dark. Surprise passed over his face. He removed his reading glass. She hadn't known he used them.

"Am I disturbing you?" she said. Even her voice sounded like a stranger's. Thomas placed the book on his nightstand.

"Not at all." He waited, starring. Seeing through her again.

"The grate in my room went out," she explained. "The maids are tired." It was impossible to tell if he believed her, but he drew back the covers nevertheless. She crawled in beside him. When her heart had slowed, she asked,

"What are you reading?"

"Othello."

"I can't say I'm fond."

"Iago's a bad man."

"Othello himself disappoints me. To be manipulated into murdering his wife...he must not have really loved her." She caught sight of Thomas's expression and realized her mistake at once.

"You've never read it," she sighed. She covered her face in embarrassment. It was easier to speak to him with her eyes closed. He was less intimidating that way.

"No." The word felt light, almost amused. Lillian had never heard him laugh. It was near enough that she looked at him again, but he was facing forward. A few seconds ticked by.

"Did you come here tonight to talk about Shakespeare?" He cut through her façade—and therefore her courage—with a single sentence. Lillian plucked nervously at the blanket, feeling his eyes on her. Not hungry, but watchful, as if waiting for her to say or do something to indicate what came next.

"Let's start slowly, then," he finally said. "What do you like?"

"I beg your pardon?" His expression was one of tempered disbelief, and perhaps a little humor. He was laughing at her. She plucked more furiously. "I don't have much experience with men."

"Neither do I." Certainly humor. She relaxed her fingers.

"I had a fumble when I was eighteen. He lasted not thirty seconds, and then proceeded to ruin my dress." Thomas gave his head a small shake.

"Poor man."

"Maybe you should start," she muttered.

"I'm easy. Four-inch heels and a good pair of tits." Lillian felt a spark of shock at the word. He wasn't trying to be vulgar. It was his way. Or perhaps it was a deliberate effort to change the tone of the conversation. She could never tell.

"I'll go put my shoes back on," she answered dryly.

"No need. You fulfill the second requirement." Lillian swallowed and felt her heart rate pick up again.

"I didn't know that about myself."

"I wonder what else you don't know." She felt his breath blow hotly against her face. He'd shifted slightly toward her, enough for her to notice a protuberance beneath the sheet.

"You'll have to forgive me," he said. "You see, from where I'm sitting, I can see down your shift."

"Is it all so very straightforward for you?" She blushed through several shades of pink.

"Sometimes. It helps when I have something to think about. Like the other day on the couch, when your dress rode halfway up your thighs."

"You noticed?"

"That's a very special memory to me." She imagined him in a darkened room, bringing himself to orgasm while he thought of her. Her head spun.

"Would you like another one?" The role of his bicep carved out the dark. She brushed it with her fingertips, then brought her hand down between his legs and tentatively grazed the tenting pull of his underwear. It was firm as wood.

"Does it hurt?"

"It does."

Thomas's face disappeared into the side of her neck. He worked a soft patch of skin repeatedly with the tip of his tongue. A lick of heat lashed through her when he pushed a hand into the full roundness of her breast. She wanted to be enjoyed, as well as to enjoy.

"Do you like the way I feel?" The words were soft, but he heard them nonetheless. Thomas pulled back far enough to hold her eyes and gave her nipple a firm, sharp twist. Her panties dampened obscenely.

"Gently," she whispered.

Thomas rolled the tender flesh between his fingertips. Quiet shivers started in her thighs, swelling to tremors when he replaced his hand with the moist cavern of his mouth. Lillian slipped a hand down his pants and fondled inexpertly as she grappled with a sudden, monstrous desire. He began to thrust into her palm. An aching throb issued from below. Lillian shimmied out of her underthings and held her legs wide.

"Please, Tommy," she rasped. All formality had fallen away. This was as primal as the feel of water down her throat. He slipped a hard heat inside her body and a tongue inside her mouth. Her limbs snapped closed around him, crushing him in her passion as he rocked against her. The weight of his body coaxed a great something slowly to the surface. His breath grew uneven in her ear.

"Ugh,

fuck

me!" she cried. She had never spoken so filthily in her life. She was infantile, helpless in her demand to be fed. Each thrust sent her jerking as he collided repeatedly with a delicious place of pleasure. Railed. Banged. Well and thoroughly fucked. Lillian pulled him deeper still, felt his balls press firmly against her. There was nothing more to be had. She was full of him. She owned this cock. She could have swallowed him whole.

"Where do you want me to cum?" Thomas's voice was pressured, shaking.

"Here!" Barely was the word out of her mouth than pleasure spasmed the smoothness of his face and he throbbed out a sticky sap inside her. A single, unintended grunt sounded in her ear—

Lillian's joy spurt in every direction like a piggybank shaken over a bed. Her shuddering thighs held him in place as she convulsed with delighted sobs. It was like feeling all her happiness at once. She shattered with it.

Sometime later, Thomas's arms loosened and unfurled. In a few moments, the smell of cigarette smoke teased the black of Lillian's throat. She stared at the underside of the canopy, blinking into peace. Finger tips brushed the side of her face.

"This will work," Thomas assured. She wasn't sure if he was speaking to himself or to her.

"It will," she echoed.