Mistress Maroon

Chapter 1: The Manor on the Eastside aka The Whorehouse

The creaky little windows slapped shut with the wind, grunting and moaning like a birthing bitch in rain. The rainstorms watered in from the windows, peeping in like the town people - uninvited and nosey. She twisted and turned in her comfy little bed, and hated people as much as she hated rains. She had buried her long, golden curls between the sheets of silk. Her latest benefactor had gotten them all the way from Erskey. Erskey - the country of the fattest, and utterly suicide prone silkworms. They fed on the mulberry leaves till they could no longer wait for the death in their warm water baths, every eighth evening from when their feast ended. She let out a cry, her palm rose mid-air, as her soft little nose dug out of the sheets and she cursed. 'Bloody hell', she had tried sleeping for once without a man, and the heavens had decided to punish her for it.

And why won't they? She was made to be held by the strongest arms, like the petal of peonies when the wind dangles them; she was meant to be touched. She was to be deflowered, and let her fragrance drive crazy everything within a mile's radius. Her perfect tits, so visible under the spotless white gown her lover's would bring her every night. A new one every night! She would only wear the colored ones for her husband. But it was only once every month. She was a new bride to a new man, as soon as he left the manor. She would then wait to be picked by the strongest hand. Yes, it was necessary for him to be the strongest. Her delicate wrists could only be appreciated by something as stealth as a man in power; so drenched in the false glimmer of his gold coins that when he sees her, he for the first time believes there's God.

She was born rich, and beautiful, and it stayed like that forever. She sprawled herself over the mattresses of her ceremonial bed. The one where her husband had whispered in her ear, 'You're the bane of my existence', as soon as he married her. He had refrained from consummating the marriage. She didn't force him. She walked into the arms of any other man who would, for once, make her feel everything she didn't feel on that dreaded night. She never went on honeymoon. It was brought to her. Every four days for a week, and every month at that... A new man. Never the same, never twice. It was a wonder to the tight lipped maids of the manor, how she had managed to not get knocked up (they had refused to say baby trapped, in the honour of a women that fed them, their husbands and their babies). It was unlikely for a woman to do, all that she did within those closed walls and not get pregnant.

And then, it did happen. One fine evening, when her husband had returned unannounced and she was smearing her skin with the rose essence (her lover brought her night before), it did the trick. He came into her room like a mad dog without leash. 'Who are you sleeping with all these nights when I am not around?' He barked, and he barked like a rabid soul caught in the mask of man. He then trailed her to the bed. Pushed her onto the plush matress, and then loomed over her.

She was, for once, happy to be the reason of his disdain. This was the longest he had spoken to her in four months. It was so much better than his mono syllable torture. Like a simple woman, that she was, she would have believed her whole life that her husband wasn't ever taught words that were not 'yes' or 'no'. That's all he had ever said to her after that dreadful night. Of course those other words... She was keeping a count. She always kept count of things that were important to her. Maybe, that was exactly why she was dumbfounded when he asked her the question. She hadn't kept the count of how many more men had gone to bed with her. God forbid if there was something like the pleasure ledger! Only, it wasn't always pleasure. It wore her down. It deteriorated her bit by bit. Her soul seemed to get sucked out of her tight tits, every night and every time. She couldn't even complain.

'Would you let me know if I beg more?' He pleaded with her. He had been drinking for a while, but never to the extent to show he was, in fact, and could ever, get hurt by her. She was taught that you can only be killed by those you love. She never knew she was killing him. He never thought he should tell her she was. So, they decided to settle it her way. She, the peony, the goddess of Eros, the sizzling sexicon; wrapped her arms around him. He, the rabid dog, mad, wild, and bitter by the betrayal of his master (if he had any), sniffed her scent. He had inhaled her in like addicts smelled hash. He was a bit bitter in the start. 'Insatiable little cunt,' he told her, unwrapping her out of her red dress.

He fought with her corset. Pulling as many strings as he could, though not as many as she had pulled. It was an irony. For the first time in the history of mankind, he was furious because he hadn't done something sooner. He was not the type of man who would frown upon his mistakes. All but one, all but one...

Her eyes were Wells of all the tears she had never shredded in his name. She yearned for him, yes. But not in the same way as he yearned for her. When he had finally managed to get her all out of the last fabric that had wrapped around her, his lips had parted. No body knows if it was a silent prayer, or another curse, but his fingers had wandered off on their own accord. He slid them from the nook of her neck, all the way down to the generous mound of her breast. He teased the spot, yet fully dressed when she was a beautiful ensemble of pretty, sad, and promising - it was almost as if she was a poetry he had read for the first time. He loved the sight of it.

'All these days, and I never knew,' he had said so softly, she could have mistaken it for the air. She pulled him close. The first time it happened in their lives, and he, didn't hesitate. He let her. She had expertly removed his coat, his shirt, his best, his pants, and his underpants and then his walls. When they were naked enough to hold each other, and enter each other; they did. They did it most ardently. He moaned everytime she came closer, she spasmed everytime he rammed into her. It was a page out of some epic love story, where the blissful union was newly sprouting. It bloomed.

She was happy, for once, to be deflowered. She was no longer the peony. She was something else. She thought it was better that she was something else. Now she won't hate herself for it. For all that she did. She let him be inside her for the rest of the night. It hurt, but she didn't complain. He tried to be tender to her. But for a guy, who was always fighting in a war, or screaming at lazy labor at the port; his tender was different from hers. She loved him as he was. He tried to love her the way she did. Only that he hadn't cried like he had been meaning to.

He came undone in her warmth, eight times that night. The sheets were ragged, scratched, were digged to hide moans and then splayed with love juice. To a pimp, it would have been what a splendid lay for a night would look like, all worth the pay. It was a masterpiece. They had both survived that vulnerable night. It was a storm, but they whimpered, and huffed, and panted their way out of it. All in unison!

And then, there was tonight. She jumped out of the sheets, exhausted from being in her head the whole night. She pulled the windows closer; and then cursed. 'Men are dogs'. The walls squeaked outside her quarters. The gossips were all around the house. She had found out she was pregnant. The baby was to stay. She knew it was her husband's. Don't ask how, she just did... She was no longer the peony. She couldn't be the peony anymore. He had made her a fucking rose, and now she had thorns all around it.

And that's how, she came along. The heir to the Whorehouse, another unwilling rose with her thousand thorns, and the true Mistress Maroon. Equally beautiful, equally rich, and unequally scandalous!