Authors: Jennifer Jane Pope
The documents were, in fact, something of a disappointment, largely because they were letters, mostly written in the same hand, an ornate script that had faded and blurred with the years. There were also assorted receipts, bills of sale, a letter from a dressmaker in Chichester - I made a note to check up and see what was at that address now - and a list that appeared to be an inventory of some kind, although it did not appear to relate to any of the current contents of the cottage.
'It might be worth seeing if we can find anyone who can do something with these letters,' Anne-Marie suggested, carefully unfolding yet another of them. She peered closely at the even lines of tiny script, but shook her head again. 'It's a shame they're so unreadable,' she said, 'but there are people who can do things with ultraviolet light and stuff.'
'I wonder who the writer was?' I mused. 'They all look far too old to have been written by dear old Amelia herself, so they must be something that was handed down to her.'
'Could be an entire family history in here, for all we know,' Anne-Marie said. 'It's just all too frustrating, isn't it? By the way,' she added, 'I was wondering whether you'd have any objection to an idea I had?' I looked up, my expression inviting her to continue.
'It's Andrea,' she said, seeing this. 'Did you see her face when she saw some of those old dresses? Only I wondered...'
'Whether I'd mind if she tried a few things on?'
'Well, me too, if that's all right,' she confessed. 'If there's anything in there that'll fit me, that is.'
'I don't mind at all,' I replied. 'Only I'm also feeling really tired.'
'Well then,' Anne-Marie suggested, 'why don't we choose some likely stuff, pack it all in one of the smaller trunks and then we can all go back to our place. You and Andy can have a nap, then we can all bathe, eat, change, whatever. We've got plenty in the freezer and there's a lot more room there. I can even phone in sick in the morning and we can make a long weekend of it.' She nodded at the papers.
'I might even know someone who can organise something with that little lot. I got to know her when she was using the library for some research work, but she's at the University of Sussex now and her specialty is domestic history - you know, what it was like to live in such-and-such a town at such-and-such a time? She's actually a professor now, but very sweet.'
I could imagine. If Anne-Marie met her at the library, it was odds-on that this lady professor had, like me, spent some little time parading around Anne-Marie's father's house in much the same state that I had been.
'Okay,' I agreed, stooping to tidy the nearer pile of paperwork. 'None of this lot is telling us anything as things stand, so if your friend can maybe help, let her have a go. I can afford to pay, as long as it's not silly money.'
'Leave the money bit to me, at least for the moment,' Anne-Marie replied, reassuringly. 'Helen is a dear and she gets access to all sorts of equipment at the university in the course of her work. She'll probably be only too grateful for the chance to get to grips with this lot anyway.'
25
.
Luckily, Anne-Marie's car had a large boot space, but even so the trunk we took only just fitted in and it, in turn, was filled almost to the point where the lid wouldn't close, so difficult was it to decide what to leave out of our joint selections of clothing. In the end, we travelled back with Andrea sharing the back seat with three voluminous gowns, including one of the really old ones, a Jacobean ball gown in deep red with gold and black trimmings.
Back at the house an hour later I lay in a deep bath, bubbles tickling my nose, soft music on the radio. Elsewhere in the house, Andrea had retired to her bedroom, presumably to catch up on some much needed sleep and Anne-Marie was down in the kitchen, preparing a meal for us to share later. It was very peaceful yet, on the inside, I was far from at peace with myself.
Quite when my disquiet started I could not be sure, but now, as I lay alone without outside influences or disturbances, it began to manifest itself strongly. What, I asked myself, did I think I was doing? How could I let myself be so easily manipulated, allow myself to be so quickly drawn into Anne-Marie's peculiar sex life? What the hell was wrong with me that I was finding myself so intrigued by Andy/Andrea and so excited at the prospect of being seduced by such a weird creature, for that I most certainly was?
I sat up in the bath, water and bubbles streaming from my breasts, reaching for one of the sponges that sat in the rack above the taps. Come to that, I asked myself, what were the three of us about to do? Our planned fancy dress masquerade was potentially dangerous, surely? Given what happened to me the last time I'd dressed in anything from one of those trunks were we not risking something similar happening to at least one of us and maybe all three?
But had anything really happened that last time? I still had no proof either way, reality or dream-hallucination. Yet something definitely happened, whether it was real or only imagined, for ever since, apart from the recurring dream images, something had been going on deeper within me, a longing stirred for something that was triggered by my experiences, whether they had taken place in eighteen thirty-nine or just somewhere in the darker recesses of my mind.
I stood up, reaching for a towel. There was something very bad in me, of that much I was certain, something really dark and sinister, either a genetic flaw or else...
Or else what? How to describe that feeling of wanting once more to be possessed, punished, ravished? I had been terrified as a prisoner of Hacklebury and company, but even then I responded eventually by surrendering completely to my most base instincts and then, when Anne-Marie put her slave chains on me, the feeling returned, though with less intensity it was true.
Did I really want to go back, to be made a helpless sex slave again, to be whipped, tied, humiliated? Was that what I wanted this coming evening, willing to accept whatever happened at the hands of Anne-Marie and Andrea as a substitute, yet perhaps hoping I would again find myself back in time as Angelina?
I had to do something, I knew. As I patted myself dry, staring down at the bald mound that had been my pubic hair, I knew I should simply go through to the bedroom, dress in my own everyday clothes and ask Anne-Marie to take me back to the cottage. I should make up some excuse, feign illness, fatigue, a headache, anything. There would be no need for any friction, or for any bad feeling between the three of us. I would simply go, promising to phone, or to meet up again in the library and then simply fade from their lives.
I nodded to my reflection in the mirror and wound a dry towel about myself. Yes, that was the easiest, safest way to deal with the situation. Forget about all this, forget about the past: Angelina, Amelia, Hacklebury, Meg, Erik. Go back. Go back to school, finish my studies, take my exams and then see about university.
Yes, go back. Forget about it. Go back.
Go back.
Go...
'I've laid out some things for you on the bed.' Anne-Marie's voice penetrated the door and my thoughts, bringing me up with a guilty start. Why did I feel guilty? Why
should
I feel guilty? 'I haven't bothered with those silk stockings,' she continued, quite matter-of-fact. 'They're very nice, but they look and feel a bit fragile, so I've put a pair of mine out for you instead. Only nylon, of course.' She laughed and then I heard her retreating footsteps.
Go back. Go... go back.
I went through to the bedroom and stood staring down at the garments that had been made ready for me; the corset, older in style than the one I wore before, the boning designed to push the breasts up in front, from what I could see, the silken drawers, the frilly garters and the fresh, modern stockings as Anne-Marie had said, plus long gloves, wrist buttoning for a tight fit and finally a pair of ankle boots with that delicately curved French heel.
Clutching the towel close still, I turned and looked around, searching for where Anne-Marie had left the dress, eager to see what choice she'd made, but there was nothing in view and I doubted whether she would have placed anything inside the closets.
'I see,' I said to the empty room, but I wasn't really surprised. Modern day or antiquity, I was still supposed to be Teenie slave girl for Anne-Marie, it appeared. The only thing that
did
surprise me, at least a little, was that my chains weren't also laid out ready for me to don myself.
I dropped the towel on the end of the bed and scooped up the corset, turning it round and examining it closely. It was white, with red lacy trimmings and piping and intended to fasten at the front, a row of small hooks running from top to bottom, tiny metal things, but made to withstand a lot of force in their day and probably still as strong as when they were made. As I had thought on first seeing the garment, there was no scalloped or reinforced cupping for my boobs, just artfully formed boning that would lift my bust high, producing that strange effect often to be seen in portraits from the Regency era and through into the very early days of Victoria.
I began fastening the hooks, working slowly, and saw that the shape of the corset was quite deceptive, the waist a good deal smaller than it appeared at first, even though it did not have that same 'stove pipe' form so popular in later years. I sucked in my stomach, not at all sure that I would fit into the thing at all, aware yet again of how much smaller our ancestors must have been.
'Not bad, Teenie.' Anne-Marie's appreciative comment made me jump, for I had not heard the door open behind me. I spun round, my hand instinctively going down to cover my denuded sex, even though I knew she had more than seen it already. Seeing my reaction, she smiled broadly.
'Still my shy little slave,' she chuckled. I almost bridled at the 'little', but in her platform shoes and with me still barefoot, she was actually taller than me at that moment and there was that something about her that made me feel so much smaller and almost defenceless whenever she was near.
'Let's see if we can lace that any tighter,' she said, moving around the side of me. I stared at her in disbelief.
'Are you kidding?' I gasped. 'This is like a vice already. I know it might not look as tight as that cincher thing of yours, but believe me, it is.'
'There's still a couple of inches at the back,' was her only comment. 'Let me have a go at it, there's a good girl.' And I just stood there and let her do it, her knee in the small of my back, gasping and grunting, red in the face, as slowly but surely she reduced that gap from two inches to one, from one inch to a half and then, as I was on the point of fainting, finally made both edges meet.
'That's fabulous!' she exclaimed, stepping back and turning me around bodily so that she could look me over from all angles. 'Oh wow! What a shape! And just look at the way your titties sit up so prettily!' I peered down at my poor crushed breasts, very prominently displayed, the top hem of the corset barely covering my nipples.
The stockings were long and I wondered whether they'd hold up with the garters. No wonder the suspender strap had eventually proved so popular and then, eventually, though many years after nineteen seventy-five, the stay-up stocking. However, Anne-Marie tied each frilled strip tightly in turn and the stocking tops, reaching almost to the tops of my thighs as they did, sat over the fleshier part of my upper leg, affording some sort of traction between skin and stocking, at least for the moment.
'I should think the fact that they're twentieth century should keep you safe,' Anne-Marie chuckled, standing up and patting my bare behind affectionately.
'Eh?' I looked at her blankly, not understanding. She pointed down to my legs.
'The stockings,' she said, by way of explanation. 'The rest of this stuff is from the last century, same as the outfit you put on before, but the stockings are brand new - they should help make sure you don't get whisked back to eighteen thirty whatever it was again.'
'Oh,' I nodded. There was a sort of logic in what she said, but it seemed silly even talking about such things now. There was also another possibility, but that was just as nonsensical, though I did think it was worth mentioning it.
'What about this?' I asked, fingering the ever-present locket. 'What if it's this and the clothes have nothing to do with it whatsoever?'
Anne-Marie paused, considering this, and then shook her head. 'Take it off if you want,' she said. 'I can put it somewhere safe till you go home, but I reckon it was all something to do with the clothes. Some sort of autosuggestion, maybe - I'm no expert - but in any case I was only really joking about the stockings. You were on your own that last time, remember, and now you've got Andrea and me with you.'
'True,' I said, lifting one leg to the silken drawers she was now holding up to me. 'Plus this is a newer house by a long way.'
'Hasn't got the atmosphere your little cottage has,' she agreed. I held her shoulder to steady myself and finished stepping into the drawers, which she drew up around my thighs, adjusting them at the waist and then tightening the drawstring ribbon so that they sat snugly. 'So pretty, and so practical in their own way,' she sighed, her fingers exploring the ribbon tied opening at my crotch. Even though she made no contact with my flesh there, I barely suppressed a shudder of anticipation.
What the hell was wrong with me? Why? Why stay? Why do this?