Early winter, 1910.
As my buggy approached the rise of the road before descending into town, I paused to drink in the beauty of the winter's first snowfall. A closer look, however, made me chuckle, for the double swell of the hillsides ahead resembled a lush young buttocks, with the road a ribbon splitting its velvety cheeks. This placed the town of Redemption in the unenviable position of that body part associated with waste and foul wind-which made me laugh out loud. There was something rotten in Redemption, all right.
These people didn't consider themselves anal, of course-nor did they allow their thoughts to wander farther along that crevice, into the hotbed of sexual excitement. Heaven forbid anyone in this town of tidy white houses would succumb to temptation or adultery! Lord save us all if a wife should lust after her husband unless she wanted to conceive, for the Church had decreed this the only acceptable reason to engage in sex.
As is the case with most people and places, however, appearances can be deceiving. I realized long ago that this picturesque village maintained its saintly reputation more by turning the other cheek-and a blind eye-than by acknowledging its wayward behavior. Rumor had it the confessionals gathered dust, while the magistrate only heard cases about the Thou Shalt Nots of petty thievery and boundary disputes and community concerns. Never sex, nor the wayward, flirtatious behavior that would surely lead to it.
Which is why the Sisters of Samaria ran an orphanage populated mostly by children who only believed their parents were dead, along with the unfortunate few whose families had succumbed to disease or disaster. And in return for this saving of reputations-or perhaps not to ruin such a sweet deal-the citizens of Redemption gave the Sisters the respect and privacy their order required, and donated generously to support those babies they abandoned at the orphanage door. The three paragons who'd established this institution hadn't been seen since anyone could remember, but no one questioned their existence: the orphanage still served its purpose, and the convenience of this illicit situation had served everyone for generations-which was why it thrived.
Ah no, things were not what they seemed in that peaceful little burg below, nor in the wooded hills beyond Redemption. I should know: I grew up in that orphanage, and now served as the liaison between the Sisters who ran it and the town that provided them with innocent children. In my thirty-five years of residence there, however, I had not inquired about my own parents, nor did I ever intend to. Some questions are better left unasked, I had learned. Just as some mysteries are best left unexplained, and some pleasures left untasted.
"Easy, Dory," I crooned to my gray mare. "We don't want you to stumble and fall now."
She stepped carefully down the road, where icy patches hid beneath the snow. Her breath encircled her head like a frosted wreath as she pulled me along, and within minutes we'd arrived at the edge of town. Here, the grassy pastures gave way to humble storefronts of the greengrocer and the blacksmith, the newspaper and the mercantile. No saloons, of course. Just a street of shops sitting back along both sides, as though directing the visitor toward the majestic court house at its end.
Redemption's main distinction was being the seat of this western Pennsylvania county, so it was only fitting that the most notable architecture in town-except for the churches, of course-had been bestowed upon our house of law and local government. Fretwork festooned its cupola, freshened by snow that accented its sills and gables like the frosting on a gingerbread house. It was nearly five o'clock, and dusk was settling in, so Judge Harold Legg would be encouraging his plaintiff and defendant to their conclusions so he could go home to his dinner and his daughter Lucy. Just another day in a quaint little town about to be lulled into winter, where women baked cookies beside cozy hearths while their husbands napped over their newspapers.
This vision of domestic bliss made me draw in a breath to sigh-but then I held it. Was that a sob I heard? The sound of struggling in the alley between the courthouse and St. Mary's? The voice was clearly female, young and troubled, so I fastened my reins and hopped down from my buggy. No one else was around, and the tolling of the church's huge bell would soon drown out any evidence of her distress.
When I rounded the corner, however, it was I who fell victim: the young lady in question was indeed being stabbed, from behind, by the most prodigious cock I'd ever seen. Even as my feet retreated, my gaze locked on uplifted skirts and loosened bloomers exposing a plump, rounded backside, which quivered with each thrust of her young stud's member. In and out of her he drove, his pants dangling around his knees and his balls slap-slap-slapping against her wet flesh. They must've been mad with passion, to be going after it out here on a snowy day! Wisps of steam rose between them each time their bodies parted.
The young man then inserted himself so deeply, his lover's feet left the ground. Her ecstatic cry rang out between the brick buildings, punctuating his guttural groan as he pressed her against the courthouse wall. My muscles clenched in sympathy with the girl…my God, how deep must he be inside her? I had to curl my fingers into a fist to keep from finding out, for they were itching to slip inside a cleft that had grown so hot and wet, my drawers were sticking to my skin down there. I gripped the corner of the cold masonry, both to ease my fever and to keep from moaning and calling attention to myself.
Yet when the lovers froze, still joined by those several inches of piston that would've done a draft horse proud, I instinctively glanced up. Defiant eyes met mine, eyes as dark as midnight sin above nostrils that twitched as though sniffing out another hot conquest. The brazen intensity of his stare brought me back to reality: he was proud of himself, out here stuffing a muff where God and everyone else could catch him! He was daring me to cry out a fire-and-brimstone alarm-to warn the righteous of Redemption that iniquity was running amok right here on Main Street! Right here beside the church named for the Blessed Virgin!
But what I really wanted was to drop my drawers and offer myself to him, too. He would never guess that, of course, because my bulky raccoon coat and sealskin driving hat-and an incensed expression-camouflaged my secret needs. I'd spent my lifetime perfecting a stern, impenetrable facade, so this young swain had no idea what I was thinking when my gaze flickered back to his buried treasure. He took me for a slender, professorial male pushing thirty, not for the prowling tigress I really was.
"Billy…oh, Billy please don't stop," his lover pleaded.
What a cocky thing, this Billy with the stubbled jaw and dark, disheveled hair falling in waves around his face. Yet when his lady-friend tossed her blonde locks to coax him on, my jaw dropped. That was Lucy Legg he was screwing! Daughter of the magistrate who was due to stride between those double doors of the courthouse any minute!
Oh, they made a pretty pair, with his darker body pressed into her pink, quivering slit, but something smelled fishy and it wasn't Miss Lucy's drippings-although her fragrance, intensified by the chilly wind whispering in the alley, had already drifted my way. No, my gut reaction was that Lucy, the Magistrate's darling daughter, was using herself as bait to hook this amorous young man for an ulterior purpose. Something about her expression as she gazed toward the courthouse, waiting…the offhand way her fingertips brushed her stomach…told a story her young stud wouldn't understand unless someone spelled it out for him.
And as the bell of St. Mary's tolled once…twice…I decided that someone would be me! In a glance I'd guessed it: Lucy needed an alibi-a ticket out of this sinless, self-righteous town, and a reason to leave her daddy's house before he figured out her secret.
Three chimes…the bell sang its sonorous song, nearly drowning out rational thought as the building vibrated against my side. But when the doors opened for Judge Legg, scowling like an Old Testament patriarch in his powdered wig and flowing black robe, I regained my resolve.
"Billy!" I rasped, bolting forward. "Billy, you've got to run for it, son! The judge is coming-"
Four chimes…My hand closed around an upper arm like a rock, so solid it had no give whatsoever. "-and he'll crucify you if he catches-"
"Get the hell away from us, you-oh, Daddy! Daddy!" Lucy squealed, her voice rising like a siren. "Help me, someone! My God, I've been attacked by-"
To his credit, Billy backed away with a grunt, shrugging out of the arms that now tried to cling to him. "You lying little-"
"This way, Billy!" I coaxed as I trotted down the alley. "I've got a buggy-"
"Bitch!" he finished, his words following close on the clatter of my retreating feet.
The last peal of that bell didn't disguise the roar I recognized as Harold Legg's, and as I ducked right, into the alley behind the church, I could only hope the outraged magistrate was too involved with his daughter to be following us, or to head us off at my buggy. I turned again, glancing back. If I hadn't been in such a hurry, I would've laughed: Billy was hobbling at a trot, gripping his pants around his hips with his erection poking out of them.
I couldn't afford to get caught in such a caper, so with a fast glance around the front of St. Mary's, I sprinted toward my wagon. Thank God I caught the sound of escalating voices in the alley-the Judge chastising his daughter as she protested loudly in her own defense-but it was up to Billy to hustle himself to safety. I had grabbed the reins and was whistling to Dory when he vaulted onto the seat beside me. We wheeled around in a tight circle, and then the mare headed out of town at a rate that left my hammering heartbeat behind.
"I'll have your head for this, Tripplehorn!" the magistrate's threat rang out.
"Better my head than something else," my passenger muttered, chuckling as he caught his breath. "The way everyone tells it, I'd be hard pressed for a brain if he went after my dick."
My eyes widened at his crude turn of phrase, yet something in me responded to it. "So you were…thinking, when you had it stuffed up inside Miss Legg? The way I saw it-"
"The way you saw it," he interrupted, abruptly turning my face toward his so I caught the full brunt of his reply, "I was giving Lucy every inch of what you wanted for yourself, you little faggot. Don't get any ideas about claiming any, just because you got me out of there. I don't owe you a thing! Got it?"
A scowl clouded his darkly-drawn features, leaving no doubt about his disdain. That was exactly as it should be, since I was probably fifteen years his senior and cut from a more responsible bolt of cloth-the antithesis of a guttersnipe like Billy Tripplehorn. But did my vocation or appearance really matter, when my heart cried out to be noticed? Or when my body responded to a heat that streaked like lightning too long denied? Just sitting this close to him was altering my thought patterns. Lowering me to his baser, more sensual level.
The turning of the new century had caused little more stir here in Redemption than the turning of the ten Novembers' pages in the decade since. To follow my love for the law-a calling considered too complex for the female mind-I'd learned to disguise myself so convincingly at the University that everyone in town recognized me as Alex Moore when I tended to orphanage affairs. I was paying dearly now for the male persona I'd created: inside me beat the heart of a horny woman in her prime, who hungered for what a young stud like Billy could fill her with. It took all my effort to hold his unwavering gaze, while driving Dory and trying to refocus my thoughts.
This rogue could believe what he wanted-and it was best for both of us that he did. But he would never, never know the fever his rutting had afflicted me with, nor would he suspect the scenes I would see in my mind's eye for weeks to come. My motive for snatching him out of harm's way was every bit as selfish as Lucy's plan for him, but I could cover my strategies just as my thick, knitted gloves concealed how tightly I gripped the reins. The sheer adventure of it thrilled me, the way the possibilities presented themselves…
Billy still smelled of sex, and his animal magnetism gripped me like skivvies too tight in the thigh. He held my gaze a full minute, until I feared he might see beneath my studiously stony expression. When he let me go, my face still burned where his fingers had been. My breath escaped in a flume of frosted air that sounded far too much like a lover's sigh. The buggy seat forced us to sit closely enough that our thighs brushed with the rhythm of Dory's agitated gait. And still that pecker poked out of his pants.
He was trouble. And I already wanted him like an addict longs for the poppy.
To keep from staring at it-why didn't he tuck it away, for God's sake?-I searched for a logical topic of conversation. Some way to explain why we were racing away from Redemption together, without really explaining anything.
"You'd best keep your high-handed attitude to yourself," I remarked gruffly. I gave him a moment to soak this in, swallowing so I could maintain the lower voice I used in public. "Might come a time when you find my services very appealing. How's Trevor these days? Still married to that hussy from Youngwood?"
"How do you know my brother?" he shot back. The hand he'd wrapped around his cock came to a halt with that reddish head peeking out between his thumb and forefinger.
"I handled his case when she had him jailed for dipping his pen in some other woman's ink well," I replied smugly. "Abandonment, she called it. He left her with three squalling brats to feed."
"Yeah, well they weren't all his, now were they?" Defiance made Billy's eyes shine like hard brown marbles. "And what business is that of yours?"
I shrugged, keeping my gaze on the road ahead so I wouldn't follow that finely chiseled hand along a shaft that seemed to grow longer and thicker with every stroke. How could he play with it that way and still carry on a rational conversation? "Just trying to save you from the same fate, son-"
"I'm not your son, nor anyone even vaguely related to you!"
"-because it was obvious to me Miss Legg is playing you for the same sort of fool," I continued. Damn him, he was starting to squirm with an impending orgasm-right there beside me on the buggy seat!-and I was having trouble sitting still myself. "She's pregnant, you know. Trying to make her daddy think you did it, so he'll force you to marry her and make it all clean and respectable."
"I don't think-"
"Then what do you call what you're doing with your, uh-head there?" I retorted rather hoarsely. "For a man who doesn't want my attentions, you're certainly polishing your pipe."
The grimace on that stubbled face set my insides afire. Under cover of my heavy coat, I began to clench my cunt muscles while pressing my slit as hard as I could against the wooden seat. The pearly drop of pre-cum that gathered at his tip and then dropped off had me licking my lips before I could catch myself.
Billy let out an edgy breath. "I was ready to come when you grabbed me, dammit," he protested, still gripping his cock in his undulating fist. "Once I get this hard, I can't relax until I unload."
"So," I remarked, grinding myself discreetly against the seat, "if the matter comes up, so to speak, we can assure Judge Legg you did not knock up his darling daughter? Lucy's looking for an alibi, Tripplehorn. The way she sees it, if she marries a fine-looking fellow like yourself, she'll be the envy of all her friends, her baby'll have a name, and she'll be set forever. It's how women think."
It was how this woman was thinking, too, dammit, but at the moment I'd have settled for just the pleasure of gripping that prodigious prick and being the one to make it shoot like a cannon…to feel it tighten to iron-pipe hardness and then fire off a shiny-white wad with spasm after spasm. And then to rub the remains of his cum around that sensitive head, which was growing purple with his need now. Perhaps out of sheer gratitude, he would yank down my pants to reward me for releasing him- But that wouldn't do, of course. I could no longer maintain the facade Alex Moore had worked so hard to perfect, if Billy found out I was really an Alexandrea. He'd shoot off his mouth-the main danger of such cocky types in their twenties-and my legal practice would go down the drain, along with my integrity where dealing with the orphanage was concerned.
So I forced myself to sit still, to ignore the burning, twitching, tingling sensations that had turned my twat into an itch that desperately needed scratching. Damn that Billy! And damn my own desperation, my inability to ignore the sight of him thrusting into a conniving Lucy Legg. I was too high-minded for my own good; had too much to lose, to be mixing myself up with this rutting mutt who followed in the footsteps of all the Tripplehorn men.
"You're full of shit, Mister-"
"And you're full of jism, Billy," I rasped. Before my left hand knew what my right hand was doing, it took the reins while I reached over to grasp him. From within my thick glove, I felt the throbbing of his pulse in that vein along his underside. Up and down I pumped, tentatively at first-for I'd rarely had such an opportunity, except in my wildest dreams-until Billy's broad shoulders strained and his eyes squeezed shut. He sucked air as I pumped him harder, my own need raging as those first squirts shot out.
"Jesus-I-" He could barely speak, he was so caught up in his impending climax. To keep from slipping, he pulled my body against his, and then he cut loose. His strangled cries echoed through the dusky countryside while the rocking of his hips set the seat to squeaking with a highly suggestive rhythm.
Again and again he shot, straining and writhing within the grip of my gloved fingers as flumes of crystal-colored semen arched over the buggy's front. The heat between us magnified until I thought I'd melt from the sight of it-from the magnificence of the member that pumped its stuff like a rigid fire hose hooked up to a well. God, how I wished he was pumping it into me! I stiffened against the inner shimmies of my own climax, hoping my heavy coat hid the way my body was responding to his release. When he was finally emptied, he let out a delicious sigh, panting like the randy pup he was.
Then he came back to the present moment, to the fact that we were ascending a wooded hillside and leaving Redemption far behind us in the light of the rising moon. He scooted away, and I took the reins in both hands. For a moment there was only the matched, secretive beat of our breathing while we tried to ignore what had just happened. Being younger, and accustomed to this sort of thing, Billy recovered first.
"So where are you taking me?" he demanded, his swagger returning now that his need was met. "I could've gotten away in time, you know. Old Harry Legg could never catch me-nor could Lucy entrap me the way you say."
"Precisely why I'm taking you out of sight. So Miss Lucy will have to find another victim before the old ladies start remarking about her belly."
"So where-"
"The orphanage is just ahead," I said, nodding at the rambling brick structure set among skeletal trees that shone with new snow. "Nobody will come looking for you at the house just beyond, where the Sisters of Samaria live. A perfect cover, don't you agree?"
Billy knitted his dark brows to form one long, forbidding ridge along his forehead. "The Sisters of Samaria?" he jeered. "Why-they're nothing but a bunch of church ladies! Why do you think I'd stay with them, for chrissakes?"
If I'd given him the real reason most folks never left the Samaritans' antiquated mansion, grown over with ivy and the underbrush of unsavory rumor, Billy wouldn't have believed it anyway. He was too caught up in himself, too convinced he was invincible, to accept the stark naked truth. So, since it was a story I couldn't tell him outright…a story that now made me realize I might not have done either of us any favors by bringing him here…
"Perhaps you'll see things differently when you meet these old girls," I replied breezily, pulling the buggy to a halt in the covered carriage port at the side of the house. "They'll adore you, Billy, so behave yourself, all right? Accept their hospitality until we can think of a better way to dodge Judge Legg. It won't kill you."
Or at least I hoped it wouldn't. A lamp came on in the parlor, its pale illumination passing like a spirit through the large window nearest us. The three sisters would soon make their evening's appearance, so the household would be coming to life now…in a way the casual visitor would never suspect. I swallowed hard, reminding myself to remain in Alex Moore's character-thinking ahead to the consequences I hadn't considered when I'd plucked my prize from that alley in town.
Just once, I wanted to entertain a man like a normal woman-or even sneak him into my room like the young, excited girl I'd never gotten to be-without the difficulty of revealing my disguise. And without these ladies of the night laying claim to him.
But the longer I hesitated out here in the entryway, the more curiosity-or suspicions-I'd arouse. The Sisters had heard the buggy, and they knew without even watching out the window that I wasn't alone. I would simply have to find a polite way to leave Billy Tripplehorn in the parlor making small talk while I changed my clothes-my entire appearance and personality-and then emerge from my room before the ladies who'd raised me could move in on him with their predatory, flirtatious ways.
Bitches. It was a deal with the Devil they'd made me sign, when I was too young and frightened to know better. It was my only chance for the education, the profession, I yearned for, even if it meant I'd attached myself to the three of them and their demonic ways with invisible bonds: I would keep their secret and they would keep mine, for such love makes the world go 'round, doesn't it? Such love indeed, although it was spawned on the dark side of the moon.
"Come in and warm yourself, Billy," I said as I turned the doorknob. "They'll have the fire crackling to keep themselves comfortable, so I'll warn you not to peel off your clothes, young man! They may be old, but they're not blind. Even a handsome young stud like yourself would have trouble satisfying the three of them."
Tripplehorn's face creased with a cocky smile, unleashing a male beauty that made my blood sing in my veins again. An unfortunate thought, that.
"I've already shot it off, remember? But maybe-if the right offer comes out of the right withered lips-I could rise to the occasion between the scripture lesson and singing the hymn," he teased. "A night to remember for us all, I'm sure."
"Something to tell your friends about," I assured him with all the male bravado I could muster. Meanwhile, the promise-the potential-of those words made my slit clench with the possibilities of Billy's spending the night here. But I had to play my cards very, very carefully. "Shall we go in? They're waiting."
The parlor's warmth felt at once welcome and overwhelming, as though we were being brought in out of the cold to warm ourselves at Hell's hearth. Justin and Jeremy, the twin house boys, were tidying this room with its blood-red walls, knowing they'd pay dearly if our three queens were displeased with its appearance when they emerged to spend the evening there. I noted Billy's scowl as he took in the pale blond twins, who wore only exotic silk sarongs of a Byzantine print, which glimmered with the gold threads woven into them. Just then the French maid, Cerise, entered with her silver tray of goblets, wine, and cheeses held strategically beneath her bosom, so her cleavage appeared as rounded and lush as a pair of oversized peaches on the tray.
"Ah, good evening, Monsieur Alex! And you have brought us a guest, oui?" she chirped in her lilting French. Her gaze followed the planes of Billy's face to linger on his muscular body and then the bulge in his pants-to which my companion responded like a stallion downwind of a mare in heat.
"Yes, Mr. Tripplehorn will be staying for a day or two, until we can make other arrangements for him," I replied. "He'll be-"
"Most welcome to stay as long as he likes," a low, suggestive voice cut in.
"And he may sleep anywhere he chooses-as long as I get my turn," came another sultry suggestion from the direction of the hall.
So much for a houseful of church ladies. Billy's jaw dropped, as any man's would, when he beheld the two women apprising him from the parlor's arched entry: the taller, more angular minx fixed her gaze on him and slithered forward, her fitted sheath of burgundy silk whispering all manner of improper innuendo. Her stiletto cigarette holder rode gracefully between her long, pallid fingers, and when she stopped mere inches away from him, Tripplehorn didn't notice the drift of ash that landed on his boot. He was too enthralled, drinking in her straw-blonde hair, pulled back at the nape, and a flawless porcelain face with its exotic lift around the eyes and cheekbones.
"Perfidia, I've brought Billy Tripplehorn here to stay for a-"
"Triple horns? How nice he's got one for each of us," her approaching companion crooned. "My, my but the evening suddenly seems much more exciting than we anticipated! And how nice to see you again, Mr. Moore," she added as an afterthought. "Perfect timing, too. We were just preparing to…have a little bite of something."
Billy now gawked at a more lushly-proportioned woman, whose full breasts met in a teasing crease, lovingly cupped and offered up in a tight-fitting black gown trimmed in lace-an ensemble that elevated her raven hair and a complexion the color of moonglow to an ethereal beauty seldom seen on this earth. Coyly she allowed her scarlet shawl to slither down her bare shoulders, her crimson lips parting in a smile of blatant invitation.
"And this is Pandora," I said, sensing the situation was rapidly passing out of control. The sexual tension in the room could've been cut with the butter knife on Cerise's tray-or with the blade young Tripplehorn now brandished inside his pants.
"And-and what is it you ladies do here?" he stammered. "I had always assumed-that is, most folks think-the Sisters of Samaria operate the orphanage."
"And indeed we do, as our contribution to society and the unfortunate children who need our help," Perfidia replied. She drew deeply from her cigarette holder, resembling an exotic dragon when she exhaled its cloying, sweet smoke through her nose. "As another part of our mission, however, we provide training for those who've strayed down the wrong path-lessons of service and submission to a higher cause. Jeremy and Justin are prime examples of what can be accomplished through discipline."
"In other words," Pandora continued, stepping forward to get a profile view of Billy's backside-and his erection, "we save bad boys."
"Oh, my God! Save that one for me!" came a cry from the stairway.
And as though Billy didn't already have enough distractions, the trip-trapping of dainty heels echoed in the hall and then the intoxicating essence of silken sexual insanity preceded her into the room: she was younger than the other two, with her henna hair wound into a loose knot at her crown and a large red rose fastened at her ear. With each step, her pert breasts shimmied beneath a revealing, sequined pink gown held up by feathered straps that might slip down at any moment. All girlish charm and knowing coquetry, this one was, her blue eyes a-sparkle in a face as radiant as a debutante's.
"And this is Pink," I breathed, knowing neither Billy nor I had a chance of pursuing any further strategies concerning Lucy Legg-if he even recalled who she was by now.
"That would be Miss Pink to you," she twittered, sticking out her hand to be kissed. Thank God she'd already fed: her rosy glow told me she would be merely circling and sniffing at our boy tonight, rather than pouncing outright in that manners-be-damned way she had. "I'm a woman of…many appetites, my sweet, and I can see you're a man who'd enjoy satisfying my…deepest needs. We Sisters of Samaria have devoted our very lives to providing food for the hungry, and clothes for the naked-"
"Not that you usually wear any!" Perfidia hissed.
"Well!" I interrupted with forced cheerfulness, "if Mr. Tripplehorn's to have a fresh bed tonight, I'd best let Andrea know. I'll have her show you to your room immediately."
Not that my implied warning would have any effect: the Three P's-Perfidia, Pandora and Pink, that is-were slowly circling my young guest as though it took all their effort not to lick their lips with obvious intent. I gave Billy a businesslike nod such as Alex Moore would, and then strode out of the parlor with its rising tides and temperatures to gather my thoughts; to make myself as alluring a female as I could before those three sultry vultures could snatch him away from me.
Dammit, all I'd ever wanted was a man of my own. Someone to love-or even a man who'd make me a slave to his desires-without those three bitches horning in on him! I surely deserved that, after all I'd done for these so-called Samaritans!
Yet as I entered my upstairs room and threw open my armoire, I had the sad, sinking suspicion I'd made a major mistake bringing Billy here. He didn't stand a chance against those ladies.
And neither did I.