Mary wandered round Regent's Park in a daze; it was enormous, so much space to explore after the enclosed streets and crowded shops of the centre of the great city. The Queen, Her Imperial Majesty, Queen Victoria, had opened the Park to the public only a few years earlier, and it had immediately become a popular place to stroll and to ride: young bucks dressed in the finest riding habits pranced by on highly-bred horses, their horses tails swishing, their hooves held high. To Mary, a country girl born and bred, the Park seemed odd; the countryside tamed and cosseted, the animals pets rather than work-mates.
But there was no denying the beauty of the gardens; the flowers were glorious, sensual arrangements of colour, the soft scents of the roses rising in the warmth of the summer.
She was a little lonely without Jack. Despite the problems they had having, she would have felt better having him with her. But he was busy with the stables, and he was uneasy about coming to the city, his gypsy blood instinctively disliking the idea of permanence.
Betsy had been quite content to stay at home with Jack; she was absorbed in minding the baby, his every need indulged by her. Mary also thought that Betsy wanted to spend a little time with Jack alone: as an orphan, Betsy had seemed to attach herself to those who treated her kindly. First Mary, then Jack was the object of her passion. At first, this hadn't threatened Mary in any way; she thought she had been secure in Jack's affections. Mary had thought that Betsy was a diversion for him, a companion and a helpmeet, but reasoned that he didn't feel for Betsy the all-consuming passion that he felt for Mary.
But now, things had changed; the interactions between them were unbalanced and moving. Jack knew about her other lovers, Thomas and Phillip, but that was in the past for Mary, so she thought. But she was no longer content with Jack-she needed more. She was self-aware enough to know that Jack couldn't satisfy her need for correction, her need to be ordered around and punished if she did wrong. This admission triggered something inside her, and even musing quietly in the Park about this, she felt her blood start to rise, and the familiar pulse in her sex begin to pound.
She sat at one of the fine wooden benches that adorned the pathways around the Park, pressing her thighs together to subdue her unruly desires. As her strong thigh muscles flexed, she felt a tremor run through her. She began to clench and unclench her thighs and realised that this had the effect of compressing her sex, the pressure stimulating her pleasure bud.
She looked around, and could see no one except a young woman wandering in the direction of the Zoological Gardens. Under her voluminous skirts, the movement of her thighs was hardly noticeable. She wanted so much to reach under her skirts and caress her sex, stroking until she reached that height of ecstasy that she desired. She pictured herself laying back, her skirts thrown up, exposing herself to the world. In her mind's eye, she had drawn a crowd: top society ladies and gentlemen were standing around her, their gazes fixed on her pink, hot flesh, watching as she slowly rubbed and flicked at her pleasure bud, watching her sink her fingers in side herself, searching for the juices that she knew would be flowing.
She knew that she was putting on a show for them, knew that she was performing and that all of them were desperate to take her. She knew that the men wanted to impale her with their hot and hard fleshy rods, and that the women wanted to kneel between her thighs and taste for themselves the salt-sweet scent of an aroused woman. She understood her own desires: she wanted to perform, to be watched being taken in any way, by any body.
The thought that her actions would arouse such feelings of sexual excitement in those watching was so erotic for her, and she began pressing her thighs together more vigorously, more quickly. She placed her clasped hands into her lap and surreptitiously she pressed down, forced her plump mound hard against her pubic bone. She repeated this several times, and knew that she was about to orgasm. She dreamt that the watching crowd drew closer, wanting to see the juices flow from her sex, to smell her arousal. She wanted someone to come forward and lick those juices away from her fleshy lips.
Her eyes opened, looking around to see that she wasn't disturbed. She noticed the same young woman, attired in fashionable dress, walking towards her, but this woman's attention was focussed on the Zoological Gardens. She imagined that it was this woman who finally came to her, begging to let her taste Mary's juices. The thought of a stranger subjugating herself in front of her caused her pleasure to peak, her orgasm flooding her pelvis, her legs suddenly weak. The effort of trying to keep quiet made her bite down on her lower lip, drawing blood which tinged her mouth with the taste of metallic iron.
She sighed deeply, and relaxed her hands. There were tiny half-crescents where her nails had dug deeply into her palms, the skin blanched white with pressure.
'Excuse me?' a voice cut across her half-dreaming state, and she looked up into a face that was almost the mirror of her own. It was the woman who had been making for the Zoological Gardens; her attentions had not been as firmly focussed as Mary had thought.
'Excuse me for disturbing you, but I do believe we are acquainted,' the woman came closer, and Mary saw her aristocratic face change as she took in Mary's appearance, and realised she was deigning to talk to a social inferior.
'You're Mary, aren't you? One of my father's staff. What on earth are you doing here?' the woman's voice was accusatory, and her intonations and upper class drawl were so like her fathers that Mary felt servile again, almost as though she was caught doing something wrong.
She recognised Victoria, but she had changed, she had grown from a girl to a woman in a few short months. There was something about her stance, her confidence that was different. The girl who had grown up in the House, just a few months younger than Mary, would never have worn such fashionable clothes, or have such a low cut bodice, or worn such tightly boned skirts that showed her impossibly tiny waist. She stood in front of Mary, her entire stance demanding to know what a servant was doing here, mixing with high society when she should have been working.
Mary jumped to her feet quickly, and just managed to stop herself from curtseying. She knew that she had every right to be here: the Park was a public place, and Mary was no longer a servant, but her body and mind responded automatically to the imperious tone. 'The Baron released me from duty, ma'am,' she said, her head bowed, and her hands clasping together nervously.