A Rational Arrangement, page 58
“Do lips feel good there too?” she asked. Nik had just shown her how to grasp the skin so as to stroke up and down on the shaft without sliding over it, and she was still practicing the technique, to his considerable distraction. She shifted down along his body as if intending to find out. Nikola gasped, half with pleasure and half laughing. She paused. “Is that a no?”
“That is…ahhh, Wisteria, you are the most wonderful woman alive…on the list of terribly inappropriate things I hoped to introduce you to – ah!” He arched his back as she licked her tongue over the head of his cock, gripping the sheets as he struggled for control. “I wasn’t planning on it tonight, though – ohh Paradise, no don’t stop, Wisteria—” he lost himself for a minute to sheer pleasure as she wrapped her mouth about the tip while her hand still stroked the shaft. It was less a matter of technique than that it was her doing it. After so many months of longing and fantasies, it was almost more than he could bear. He hauled her bodily up the length of his form and rolled her onto her back, kissing her.
“Too much?” she asked, when she could speak again, her hand wandering over his back.
He smiled, stroking her hair from her face. “After a fashion. I don’t want to climax just yet.”
She tilted her head. “What do you mean by ‘climax’?”
Nik blinked at her. “Er…” Then he grinned mischievously. “Let me see if I can show you.” He worked his way down her body, marveling again at the softness of her skin beneath his fingers. When he was between her legs, he slipped a finger inside her and dipped his head to stroke his tongue over her clitoris. She shivered in response, hips arching, legs curling around his shoulders, one hand reaching to burrow through his hair. He licked and suckled, slowly at first, then faster, pulsing first one and then two fingers inside her, matching the fevered instinctual rhythm of her own body, until she convulsed, lifting from the mattress with a full body shudder and then falling back limp, vagina fluttering around his fingers. He pillowed his head against her thigh as she relaxed beneath him.
A few moments later, she said, “Oh. That.”
Nik chuckled, shifting to snuggle up her side and embrace her. “Also better than when you do it yourself?”
“I was just thinking how annoying it is that I had to wait twenty-seven years to experience that. This makes a great many things much more intelligible now. Thank you, my lord.” She rolled onto her side to hug him back, wrapping a leg over his thighs and kissing him. “Although…is this sexual intercourse? Because, well, not that I ever got the clearest of answers on this question, but it’s not what I was expecting.” She squirmed, positioning herself so that his renewed erection pressed against her pussy in a way that suggested she’d had quite a good idea of what to expect. “And I don’t see why it would be all right for me to climax just yet if it wasn’t for you.”
“It’s all right because women, er, recover faster. And when I climax, my, um, member, goes limp and it takes some time before I can get an erection again.” Nik’s face reddened; it was hard even now to be frank. “All a woman has to do is remain slick, as far as the mechanics…ah…” Wisteria was demonstrating this property on him, tugging his hips closer with her leg and rocking so that the tip of his cock nearly penetrated despite the awkward position with the two of them on their sides. He cupped a hand around her rear and pulled, driving himself a little way inside with a groan. “Wisteria.”
She nuzzled at his throat. “Oh, may we do more of this, please?”
“Yes,” he growled, unable and unwilling to restrain himself under such encouragement. Nikola rolled her onto her back, kneeling between her legs, driving himself deep into her until he noticed the growing tension in her body. He eased back, but she locked one leg around his rear before he could withdraw completely. “Sorry, I should have been more gentle—”
Wisteria shook her head. “Don’t stop. It’s – please don’t stop.” Moving carefully now, he pushed into her again, biting the inside of his cheek to avoid giving into the euphoria of the experience, to avoid losing all control and pounding relentlessly. “Thank you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, pressing her face against his neck. “Oh thank you, that’s…indescribable…” She rocked against him, pulling him deeper inside. Nik fought to match her rhythm, holding himself in check against the building waves of pleasure, until the growing tide overwhelmed him and his world dissolved into ecstasy.
He returned to himself half-collapsed against Wisteria. She was still murmuring thanks in his ear, which was at once absurd and wonderful and entirely Wisteria. He kissed her to interrupt. “Thank you,” Nik told her, throwing his long hair over his shoulder to get it out of her face. “I love you, my beautiful lady wife.” He rolled onto his side, pulling her with him in a fierce embrace, feeling all the thrill of possession.
“I am so very happy, my lord.” She snuggled her face against his chest, curling one leg over his side to keep him near. “How did you learn all these marvelous things? Is it because you are a man? Will people answer when you ask instead of telling you it’s immodest even to think the question?”
He chuckled. “Perhaps. I don’t know. Adolescent boys will talk freely amongst themselves; I learnt a great deal of complete nonsense from my schoolmates. Some actual truth from…grown men, when I was older.” Justin. “And some from…er…women of negotiable virtue. And bits and pieces from my petitioners, in fact.”
“From your petitioners?”
“Yes. Most prefer to be cured or not without disclosing why they chose to petition, so discussions are rare. But sometimes, when I am re-examining those whom I could not immediately diagnose, they will volunteer specifics. There are some complaints that…well…eventually one realizes the reason I cannot diagnose them is because they are not disordered. I have seen far too many women shame-facedly confess to desiring or worse yet enjoying sexual intercourse. Sometimes I think the social order is crazier than any of my petitioners.”
“Oh.” Wisteria twirled a few of his chest hairs around one of her fingers. “I always thought there was something wrong with me for feeling lust. It never occurred to me to petition for it, though…it’s such a trivial thing in comparison with real troubles.”
Nik bent to kiss her fiercely. “There is nothing wrong or unnatural about desire, in either a man or a woman. There is certainly nothing wrong with you. You are entirely right and just as the gentlewoman I married ought to be.”
She twined her fingers through his hair to cradle his head as she returned the kiss. “I love you.” She paused. “So…does that mean we may do that again? Please?” She wriggled the length of her nude body against his in a fashion so tantalizing that he felt his prick stir to action again.
Nik laughed in pure delight, cupping a hand to her rear to pull her against him. “I am yours to command, my lady wife.”
Nikola and Wisteria had been married for three months, and Wisteria had never been happier.
Life at Fireholt was not perfect. Wisteria had all sorts of plans and ideas, not only for the mining operation but for running the household and for handling Nikola’s petitioners. Especially for addressing Nikola’s petitioners. Wisteria had been shocked when she found out that Nikola did no accounting for the gifts he received. The entirety of his process consisted of sending one of his people to market any gifts he wasn’t keeping, and placing all proceeds into the household account alongside rents and any other income for that period. “It’s not as if it’s a business,” he told her when she asked. “I’m not charging them a fee for services. I’ll take a pebble from the street as soon as a diamond; it’s all the same to the Savior.”
“Yes, but how do you know how much you are taking in? How can you budget for the future if you’re not tracking your income? How do you know what the trends are?”
“What difference does it make? I’m going to do the same thing whether it’s profitable or not.”
“But, goodness, Nikola, your people could be embezzling from you and you’d have no way to know.”
“Wisteria! My people would never steal!”
Eventually, she persuaded him to humor her desire for information. She hired an accountant and set up a system where all gifts were recorded upon receipt, whether in marks or goods or services, and the sale price of any that were sold. They also tracked which petitioner presented which gift and how long Nikola had spent with the petitioner.
They hired additional retainers to help manage the petitioners, including a foreign woman with experience as an asylum nurse in Natol. Nikola’s fame had grown since the abduction, and more petitioners who had had no luck with other mind-healers were making the trek to see him. Wisteria had convinced Nikola to have the new nurse interview petitioners whom Nikola could not diagnose immediately, on the theory that perhaps knowing the problem might help in diagnosis and referral. After he’d told her that people petitioned for relief from normal, functional drives, Wisteria thought it ridiculous not to screen for that sort of thing. She wanted to interfere more; there was so much that didn’t make sense or was inefficient in the process. The gifts were so arbitrary, correlating not at all to the severity of problem nor to the time Nikola spent curing it, and only weakly to the petitioner’s own wealth. When they travelled, if word got out, Nikola would be mobbed at their destination by people who were unable to travel themselves. Mundane treatment for those he could not cure was all but nonexistent; the reason they’d hired a Natolese nurse was that asylums in Newlant were nightmarish places no better than prisons.
But Nikola was adamant in his opposition to any change that involved charging petitioners. He was more than happy to be guided by her in all other matters of business, but it was not possible to induce him to look on answering petitions as a business. Never mind that it had income like one, or expenses like one, or consumers like one, or that his time and Blessing was of irreplaceable value. It was a sacred duty. He would accept gifts because that was part of the Code, but the Code was the beginning and the end of it for him. Wisteria intended to improve the process further as a charitable endeavor, but she did want their household on solid financial footing first.
As a result, most of her efforts were put towards improvements in Fireholt and directing the mining activities. Byron was a frequent guest, as Vasilver Trading was their partner in the venture. It would be years before the mine itself returned any profits, but it was already doing good things for the local economy.
But all of this meant change – a great deal of change – and humans in particular were not enamored of change. More than a few of the locals were full of ill-will for her, as the instigator of all these alterations in their locality. They resented the new developments, the construction activity, and complained about it driving away game in the hunting preserve. While they’d made an effort to minimize the latter and 90% of the preserve was untouched, the increasing population and activity did have a negative impact on the local fauna.
It was also widely believed that Wisteria Striker did not return her husband’s obvious regard, a complete untruth that nonetheless held sway even among many of the household staff. She did not smile, she did not laugh: it followed naturally that she could not love. The staff she’d brought with her – her lady’s maid, her secretary, and one of the greatcats who’d asked to join her, Sally – knew better, more or less, but those who’d always worked for Nikola resented her. Wisteria had no idea what to do about this, other than wait for them to figure out that reality did not match their imagined version of her. It did not help her cause that she still was not pregnant. Not for lack of trying, on her part or Nikola’s. But it’s only been three months. Much too soon to start worrying.
They had done some entertaining – of Byron, of course, and Lysandra Warwick and her family had also come for a week, and regular invitations exchanged among the neighborhood gentility. But the most unusual of her new social acquaintances were the greatcats.
Wisteria had been surprised to learn that Fel Fireholt – Anthser, as he’d asked her to call him – was one of Nikola’s friends rather than an employee, and independently wealthy. Despite the latter, Anthser stayed at Fireholt, in the newly-remodeled felishome. He shared it with Sally and another greatcat employee Wisteria had hired to pull the new carriage, and with two friends of his: Feli Southing and a second who varied from month to month.
She’d never had a greatcat friend before: all the ones she had known had been employees for Vasilver or some human acquaintance, and as such never encountered in a social setting. She was fond of both Anthser and Feli Southing as company. The greatcats did not seem to have the same inscrutable prohibitions on various topics that her own kind possessed, and were far more willing to state and accept things at face value.
Anthser was using his personal wealth to have a bowracing course constructed, and Wisteria had been inspired to ask her husband to teach her how to bowrace. Nikola had been surprised by her request – she supposed the sport was unladylike – but had been willing enough. It turned out Feli Southing also had an interest in the sport, and so the four of them would go out a couple of times a week to practice. Nikola would ride Southing while Wisteria rode Anthser, with the two experienced bowracers both providing advice to the newcomers. Wisteria was not yet up to firing a bow from a moving greatcat, and her aim from a stationary one left a great deal to be desired. Still, clinging to the back of a racing greatcat was an exhilarating experience.
Stimulating as these diversions were, they’d not yet hosted any large gatherings, nothing like a house party. Wisteria wanted to throw one for Nikola’s naming-day: invite a dozen of his friends for two weeks and have entertainments every day. Such events were quite normal among the wealthy: her parents had held any number of them, sometimes during the Ascension season itself for friends who didn’t have residences in town, more often at other times of year when entertainments and company were scarcer. Wisteria knew Nikola enjoyed such occasions: he spoke fondly of ones he’d attended in the past, especially when Lord Comfrey had hosted. But the constraints of Fireholt’s budget had kept him from hosting much in that line himself. However, Wisteria’s marriage portion and her considerable portfolio of investments meant that they had ample disposable income. Money was not a constraint.
Unfortunately, Wisteria found the prospect rather terrifying. Social gatherings were not her strength, most of the locals were indifferent to her at best, and she feared such an effort on her part would be a disaster. She was in a quandary on what to do about it: she did not want to burden Nikola with planning his own naming-day celebration or dealing with her worries, and she didn’t want to avoid doing something that he ought to like just because she was intimidated by it. She’d been maintaining a regular correspondence with Lord Comfrey since the marriage and had solicited his advice on the subject. He’d replied with a lengthy letter stuffed with useful insights, tidbits, and ideas. It was so helpful that she asked – begged, in truth – Lord Comfrey to visit them so she might call on him for further assistance in the planning. He had accepted the invitation, and thus was engaged to stay with them for a week at the end of summer.
The thrill that went through Wisteria when she read his acceptance made it hard for her to convince herself that her invitation had been motivated only by the desire for his advice. She knew that she missed his company, and knew Nikola would glad to see him, perhaps even moreso than she. But she also knew that her love for Lord Comfrey was nothing like platonic. Even though her relationship with Nikola was everything she had ever hoped for, in many ways far better than she had ever imagined marriage could be, she still had daydreams and fantasies about Lord Comfrey.
I am his closest friend’s wife now. He has quite properly lost all interest in me. All I need do is behave as a mature woman and not make any improper advances on him while he’s under my roof. This is not too much to expect of myself.
Nonetheless, she could not escape the sense that this was a terrible idea.
Long before Justin had set out for Fireholt, he knew this was a terrible idea.
He could not have refused Mrs. Striker’s plea, innocent of any desire beyond a wish to please her husband. Well, he could, and refusal would have been the sensible, prudent course. What did he think he was doing, agreeing to spend a week in the countryside with his former lover and the sole woman he’d ever wanted to marry, with no distractions from yearning and envy? Was a more certain recipe for disaster even imaginable?
But he missed them both too much to choose any sane course. Daily life felt empty of purpose or savor; he lived for the occasional letter from Wisteria – Mrs. Striker – or Nikola. Striker had never been a great correspondent – neither was Justin, for that matter – but his wife wrote every few days. Every letter closed with “Nikola sends his love”. Some sleepless nights, he would lie in bed reading and re-reading those innocent, expected words, and then the rest of the letter, daydreaming that he was there with them. Pretending that it would be enough just to see her, to hear his voice, that friendly companionship could suffice.
It would be better than nothing.
Thus his carriage was rolling with scarcely a bump over the newly-paved lane, carrying himself, his valet, and his secretary to Fireholt. Justin was full of apprehension at the final approach, but he exerted himself to force his features into a semblance of his usual confidence as the carriage drew to a halt before the house. Nikola had turned out his entire staff to welcome him – a staff that had doubled since his last visit. The whole of Fireholt looked better than he’d ever seen it: lawn weeded as well as clipped, the manor freshly painted, chipped flagstones replaced, no detritus in sight, not even fallen fruit or twigs. Even the signs of the pipeline construction that would bring gas to the neighborhood were unobtrusive.
