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Restoration by
Penman
Not for Sale
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The
gently flickering flames projected a powerful silhouette of
the sleeping form of Samson onto the wall, as he lay in deep
sleep, the occasional spasm rippling along his well-muscled
body as he made his way through the vivid dreamworld to which
he had been transported at the end of a physically draining
day. Delilah
lifted her beautiful head slightly and re-entered the world of
reality from the pleasant light-headedness of
semi-consciousness in which she often lay. She raised one
eyelid slowly and glanced momentarily at the sleeping body
before lowering her head again onto the thick rug and drifting
back into the mists of half-sleep. Suddenly, both awoke with a
start and sat up, blinking. The door opened and a young woman
entered the dimly-lit room and called softly to them…..
"
Come on Sam, Lilah ….. time to eat …….!
The
two black labrador retrievers took little time to re-orientate
themselves before bounding to the open door, their tails half
living up to the proverbial role of wagging the dog, and
scampered off to the utility suite beyond the kitchen, any
sense of canine chivalry having given way to the more alluring
motivation of the hunger created by a long day out on the
moors, rushing through heather and bracken and down into the
valley and alongside the fast-flowing river.
Eleanor
glanced briefly at her husband, who looked up momentarily from
the work that was absorbing his attention, or so it appeared,
to witness this intrusion into his thoughts. A fleeting smile
crossed her lips and this left James unusually confused. The
intrusion had, indeed, disturbed his pattern of thoughts but,
whilst his conscious mind was, indeed, grappling with the
intricacies of business life, those thoughts were focused
almost entirely on this beautiful young woman who had, for
fourteen years, been the focus of love and attention shared
only with their 12-year old daughter, Sophia Louise. James sat
back for a moment, put his half-frame glasses down on the
mahogany desktop and leaned back in his chair. His expression
betrayed no sign of his confusion as a lingering smile lit his
very masculine features, sharpened by the subdued light of the
desk lamp and the flickering flames from the logs in the
fireplace. He watched as the dogs raced like Olympic athletes
out of his Study and looked up at Eleanor as she turned, once
again, firing the subtlest hint of a smile in his direction.
James was absolutely certain that he saw more than a hint of a
sparkle in her beautiful eyes, presently robbed of their pale
blue hue by the subdued lighting. The door closed and light
footsteps faded in the wake of the heavy paw echoes left by
the hungry dogs.
A
lightness began to seep like the rising dawn into James' mind,
a place that had endured an Arctic midwinter night over the
course of the several agonising months that had elapsed since
the darkness of tragedy had again struck the Penbury family.
That
long Arctic night had begun incongruously, some eighteen
months previously, on a day of dazzling mid-summer brightness,
as the small family group had gathered round a small,
beautifully-tended area in the graveyard at the ancient parish
church. The rector's voice reflected, with genuine pain, the
deep sense of grief that had swept through the entire
community as, six days previously, little Alastair Michael
Penbury had succumbed to the violence of virulent infection
that had transformed a bright, happy and energetic little boy
into a small area of pale pink on an aesthetically, if not
biologically, sterile white sheet amidst what appeared to an
untrained eye to be a disordered tangle of ventilation tubes,
intravenous lines and monitor wires. All in the space of four
hours. The familiar sincerely-intoned words of the ritualised
commitment of the greatly-loved boy to the love of his Maker
passed almost unheard over the numb hearts and minds of the
family gathered in that bright corner of the tranquil setting.
As the small party headed silently back across the graveyard,
past the pile of freshly-dug soil, the last vestiges of light
held in place by frozen numbness were obliterated by the
deepest darkness of night in the hearts of a quietly-sobbing
mother, an inconsolable sister and an adoring father, whose
composure was held intact solely by his military training and
self-discipline.
Life
had taken on a semblance of normality with remarkable
alacrity, but that veneer of normality was but the crust over
the white heat of volcanic anger that flowed in the magma of
grief and fury generated by the cruelty a situation created by
circumstances that even James' widely experienced friends in
the medical profession had been unable to explain, since there
was no evidence anywhere to show where little Alastair had
encountered his unseen assassins. Gradually, however, that
crust thickened and the devastation caused by the violent
eruption of unseen forces began to yield to the miracle of
healing processes in the minds of those who had borne the
grief. Life at
Pendene Manor had returned to what looked, to those who
visited, quite normal. Sophia Louise had exhibited a
resilience that would have amazed anyone who did not know her
parents, who had imparted some of their own resilience to her,
but who had also been careful not to over-react and smother
her. At a far corner of the lawn outside her father's study,
Sophia Louise and her mother had created a floral memorial to
Alastair Michael, around a birdbath visited by many of the
small creatures that had so fascinated him during his brief
life. Behind, at the edge of the woods, an oak sapling had
already taken hold and was starting to grow.
Whilst
the wiring to various areas of their lives had been restored
with considerable success, there was still one area in which
that success had eluded them, despite their very best efforts,
for they had been unable to re-kindle the fire of Eleanor's
feminine love for her man. James loved her far too much -
and was far too wise -
to apply any pressure whatsoever to her and had been content
to enjoy the lovely warmth of her body in his arms as he had
held her in a purely consoling and loving manner before they
drifted off to sleep at night. They had taken a lengthy
holiday with Sophia Louise and a friend in a remote area of
Spain, in a beautiful colonial-style finca
in Andalucia. The healing properties of their uninterrupted
closeness, the relaxed atmosphere and an idyllically slow
day-to-day lifestyle under the autumn andaluz sun had worked
wonders for them and, by the time they returned, there was no
mistaking the fact that they had made considerable progress.
Still,
however, there remained this single barrier to complete
healing and, whilst it did not worry James, he had found his
thoughts beginning to drift towards arranging for a quiet word
with Dr. Hardcastle, their G.P., to see if anything could be
done for Eleanor, yet something had held him back and he had
resolved to wait a while longer before taking this idea any
further.
After
a few moments, James exercised his self-discipline, put his
spectacles back on and focused once again on the business
development plans that lay on the desk in front of him. On this
occasion, however, he found it quite impossible, since Eleanor
had ignited more than a spark of interest in him. It had not
been the smiles themselves, for the light sweetness of Eleanor's
kind laughter had almost returned to its natural quality and had
begun to suggest that the night was ending. No, what had caught
James' attention had been that sparkle he was certain he had
detected in her eyes, a characteristic he had only ever seen in
certain clearly-definable circumstances -
not that he regarded it in such clinical terms. He smiled to
himself and took his glasses off again. He looked around the
Study he had loved since he had been a small boy and in which he
had sat, listening to his Father reading to him or browsing
through the titles of the hundreds of leather-bound volumes, of
all sizes, that filled the mahogany bookshelves. He cast his eye
over the beautiful landscape painting, indiscernible in this
subdued light, above the dark half-panelling, set against the
soft tone of a subtle, non-patterned light ochre wallpaper and
dominating the right hand side of the room, above the cabinet.
James
leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck.
As he relaxed, James engaged his mind with Eleanor's thoughts, a
technique that he had learned early in their marriage and which,
both to his surprise and his delight, Eleanor had also acquired.
Outwardly, the scene was of complete tranquillity and would have
made a wonderful advertisement for a fine cigar or brandy, for
steaming soups or meat extract drinks, even for some wickedly
rich liqueur, yet in James' mind, the scene resembled the frenzy
of a busy Stock Exchange floor, littered with thoughts and
ideas.
In
the manner learned from his Father and from his military
training and experience, James suddenly focused on a single
thought and made an instantaneous decision. He folded his papers
and placed them inside their box, which he then slipped into the
side drawer in the desk. He switched off the desk lamp, rose
from his chair and headed for the door. It was a gamble,
definitely, but James knew he had to take it, not primarily for
his sake, but for his beloved Eleanor. He opened the door very
quietly and slipped out into the hallway, closing the Study door
behind him. Silently, he crept across the hall and mounted the
dark oak staircase that led up to the first floor. He walked
round the landing and into the master bedroom. Sophie would not
be back from Elizabeth's home until the following evening, so he
now had the time and the opportunity to do something positive.
He entered the bedroom silently, walked over to the wardrobe and
opened the door as quietly as he could.
From downstairs, he could faintly hear the distant sound
of Eleanor's busy activities in the kitchen. Quickly, James took
out a coat hanger and removed a pair of sharply-tailored slacks
and changed into them. He then took his shirt off and put on a
freshly laundered crisp, white short-sleeved shirt. He was not a
vain man, but he took a quick look at himself in the mirror
before turning to the bed and allowing his mind to roll back
across the years to that day when Eleanor had been waiting for
him there, bent across that same bedspread. James took hold of
his thoughts quickly and closed the cupboard door before
slipping silently out of the room and round the landing, then
down the stairs. He crept in complete silence across the hallway
and turned the handle of the study door. Slowly, he opened it
and pushed it open. He was not prepared for what greeted his
eyes as he did so,
Eleanor
was too smart to have missed what anyone else would never have
observed. James was stopped, momentarily, in his tracks. He took
a deep breath and walked on into the room, continuing -
for no obvious reason -
to do so in near silence. His outer coolness did not abandon him
completely, although Eleanor was only too aware of what lay
behind that exterior and she experienced a presence in her
abdomen that she had not felt for what seemed to be ages. It was
that feeling of butterflies that had once awoken her to
something of which she had never been aware.
James
was no fool either and, despite the apparent lack of obvious
sentiment in Eleanor's outward expression, he knew only too well
what she was thinking, since she could not conceal the
confirmation for which he had been praying so deeply. Her eyes
sparkled brightly.
Both
James and Eleanor maintained the charade with polished
expertise, yet both were deeply aware of powerful sensations
that were beginning to well up inside them. Sensations that were
familiar, yet different from those that had accompanied the
laying to rest of the spectre that had haunted Eleanor after the
terrifying episode with the juvenile 'joy-riders' and Sophia
Louise. James
closed the door and applied rigid self discipline to his mind as
he walked slowly over towards his desk. His eyes never left
Eleanor for a second, as she stood in a simple, pale blue cotton
dress with narrow shoulder straps and an elegantly tailored
waist, with a hemline that came half way down his wife's silky
pale brown thighs. Her simple sandals completed a picture of a
beautiful lack of fussiness that so completely characterised
this enchanting young woman.
James
never once betrayed openly the fact that he had been caught
completely off guard, yet he had not been able to conceal it
from Eleanor's sharp perceptiveness. He stopped and held out
both hands, which Eleanor approached and partially enfolded in
hers. Man and wife looked deeply into each other and drank
deeply of this refreshing elixir that would not have been out of
place in two young people on the verge of taking their
relationship beyond the point of no return. James' heart pounded
within, whilst Eleanor struggled to prevent her knees from
buckling under the gaze of her man. The turbulence within her
was not the anarchic confusion that had immediately preceded her
one and only experience under James' cane. This was powerful,
but totally controlled. Eleanor relished the manner in which her
body was being prepared, quite of its own accord, for the
restoration of a component in her life of which circumstances
had so cruelly robbed her. She became intensely aware of her
feminine identity and feelings, both in mind and body, as her
thoughts moved in two time zones, one focusing on her present
anticipation and the other already creating the images and
sensations of what was to come.
James
turned slightly and leaned back against the desk. His eyes were
locked onto Eleanor's gaze and she slowly released his hands,
walking slowly backwards and away from him. She stopped and
James looked, almost in disbelief at the depth of his feelings,
at the silhouette of his lovely Eleanor's body, just making out
the soft lines of her bra and knickers.
Eleanor
was on the point of saying "James….." and launching
into an explanation when an inner voice bid her hold her peace
at exactly the moment when James raised a finger to his lips and
uttered a short " Shhh….". He smiled very briefly.
Eleanor gazed adoringly at her husband, from head to toe,
experiencing even further weakening of her knees as she became
aware of the effect she had succeeded, almost effortlessly, in
creating within him. Yet it had not been effortless, since it
had taken great courage to take on this latest spectre, a
distant cousin of the former shadow, that had darkened her life
during the past months.
James
raised his left hand, turned it palm down, then crooked his
first finger and made a simple pirouette gesture, whilst
transferring his gaze from Eleanor to the arm of the
Chesterfield to her right-hand side. Eleanor's eyes flashed a
brief exchange of visual recognition before she turned. She
heard James approach her from behind and watched as he walked
past and picked up a large cushion from the sofa. He turned and
walked back behind Eleanor and round her, before placing the
cushion over the arm of the sofa. Eleanor turned her head to
glance at him and flickered a smile. Her sense of anticipation,
coupled with more than a hint of uncertainty, was building up a
great head of pressure within her. Strangely, the uncertainty,
even tinged with slight fear, heightened what she perceived as
deeply satisfying sensations as she moved across to her left and
laid her hips across the cushion on the sofa arm.
"Fold
your arms behind your back, Eleanor", whispered James into
her right ear. She turned her head, smiled again, just
restrained herself from moving across to kiss him softly there
and then, and complied with James' instruction.
James
sat on the end of the sofa arm, facing back towards his desk,
then turned slightly to his right. He grasped Eleanor's wrists
painlessly but firmly in his right hand as the other moved to
her sacrum. He brushed very lightly over the soft blue fabric
and traced the inviting shape of her buttocks and upper thighs.
His hand lingered lovingly on the curves and pressed the fabric
down gently into her cleft. All the passion he had felt for
Eleanor at their first union flooded back, with interest, as his
desire for this delicate-looking, but strong girl surged through
him.
Eleanor
closed her eyes and a soft smile formed on her lips as she felt
the welcome visit of her man's hand to her raised bottom. She
knew full well what he was thinking and was aware, at the same
time, of his understanding of how this was affecting her. She
shifted her feet slightly and unconsciously pressed her bottom
against James' exploring hand. She sighed silently to herself
and felt a tear slip down her face. As the first smack landed on
her left buttock, she let out a very shallow gasp and held her
breath. The sting shocked and mesmerised her at the same time,
with its anticipated unexpectedness. The succession of smacks
that followed, spread randomly across her bottom, left both a
physical and a mental mark on her and she began slowly to yield
to the irresistible enticement of total submission to her
husband. His hand paused for a while to press soothingly against
her dress and massage her behind very gently.
Eleanor
became aware that there was no longer any restraint on her
wrists at all, yet she made no effort to move them, but began
slowly to roll her hips in response to the increasingly intense
smacks. For reasons she would have been hard put to explain, she
again lifted her bottom, as if inviting even firmer attention.
As if! There was no doubt about it. Eleanor was drifting,
floating off gradually to a place she had never visited before,
but one which was beginning to appear more and more enticing.
There
was a very brief pause in Eleanor's mental processes as she
became aware that her hem was being lifted back. She raised her
hips without any command and the garment slid up her body,
leaving a band of soft exposed skin between her soft cream
high-leg briefs and the inside of her dress.
James
stood back for a moment after he had lifted Eleanor's dress and
looked at her with a depth of desire he had never previously
experienced. Never, for a second, had his love for, and devotion
to, the woman who was the core of his life ebbed by so much as a
metaphorical millimetre. Quite the opposite, in fact, yet the
masculine desire for her feminine loveliness had almost become
alien to him. Not so now. His gaze caressed the beautiful shape
encased in the semi-transparent cream fabric before he resumed
his place on the edge of the sofa arm and set his skilful hand
to work again in raising the warmth in Eleanor's cheeks. Several
smacks of firm intensity delivered their message and set her
squirming. Not once, however, did either of her hands move to
interrupt his attention. James continued, interspersing the
smacks with the gentlest of massages to the skin of deepening
pink hue. James moulded his hand to the intoxicatingly desirable
shape of Eleanor's bottom and caressed her with a tenderness
that people without understanding would never have expected from
such a masculine character. He was acutely aware of the response
in the cheeks under his hand, also of the subtlest of movements
in her thighs, which parted very slightly as Eleanor flexed her
left leg. James ran his palm lightly down the back of her right
thigh, to the back of her knee, then slowly back up and onto her
right buttock, where a rapid succession of four sharp smacks
fell in a matter of seconds. The fabric was then massaged again
very gently before migrating to the left buttock, where the
soothing sensation continued.
Anyone
who did not know what was happening in Eleanor's mind might have
expected her to be brought sharply back to a full sense of
alertness by the four stinging smacks that spread across her
left buttock, but what actually happened was that she found
herself slipping even more deeply into a paradoxically
comforting world of sensations, filled with dominant colours of
love and trust, complemented by the delicate shades of
submissiveness and femininity. Suddenly, very much to her
surprise, Eleanor became aware of something else that had
happened and, almost with disbelief, she realised that a flame
had been re-kindled. The effect was enough to send her finally
into the place where she surrendered not only her body to her
husband, but also her mind to her body, releasing it to do what
it had yearned to do for so long.
There
was a delicious but totally unnecessary sense of shamelessness
as she felt her thighs parting, virtually of their own accord,
prompting an exquisite brushing sensation up the inside of her
right thigh. She held her breath and listened to her heart
pounding as the hand crept with tantalising slowness to the top
of her thigh. Then, almost by surprise, Eleanor realised that a
firm, strong and loving hand was folded over the narrow strip of
fabric between her legs, brushing very slightly backwards and
forwards. It seemed an unbearably long time before the welcome
sting of the next set of six smacks electrified her buttocks,
preceding the return of the hand to its deeply-desired task of
building up the fire that was beginning to make her feminine
nature glow as deeply as her buttocks. She felt her hips
grinding against the cushion and was aware of how James must
realise the state she had reached as his hand folded over the
narrow strip of cotton. It was the next and final set of six
resounding smacks that led Eleanor onto the plateau of a level
of experience totally alien to her, but one which she knew,
instinctively, had been calling to her for ages. Her mind was
already floating in a pink mist of sub-ecstasy as she vaguely
realised that there were two hands under her waistband. In a
reflex action, she lifted her hips again and felt the soft
garment slip over her buttocks and down her thighs to her
ankles, then over her feet.
Carelessly
and in an atmosphere of unfamiliar wantonness, Eleanor moved her
feet apart and her arms forward, stretching them and resting
them on the far end of the sofa. She felt James' hand briefly
over her soft down. Eleanor closed her eyes and allowed herself
to float freely in this newly-discovered place, full of
previously unknown interpretations of familiar sensations. There
was a semi-robotic quality in the manner in which she responded
to James' grasp of her hand and to the way in which he lifted
her slowly to her feet and guided her unsteadily to the long
deep white rug directly in front of the fire, close to Samson
and Delilah's favourite resting place. She looked up into James' eyes and felt him lock right into
her innermost nature. It would have been terrifying had it been
anyone but James. She felt her hands move forward to undo the
buttons of his shirt, very slowly, teasing each button
reluctantly out of its comfortable eye in the fabric. James
finished removing the shirt whilst Eleanor's attention moved
down to his belt, which she unbuckled with remarkable dexterity
for one who was in a state of what could be described as
suspended animation. She unbuttoned the waist and slowly lowered
the zip, taking a sharp, ecstatic breath as she felt the
confirmation of her achievements through the fabric cage
restraining her husband's desire.
James
eased his slacks down and stepped out of them before throwing
them onto the sofa. He gazed with tautly-controlled passion at
Eleanor and slowly guided her to the rug, placing her gently
onto her back and flexing her shapely limbs. As he sank to his
floor, he rested his hands on Eleanor's knees. He needed to
apply no pressure whatsoever to them as they parted in
anticipation of his move. Slowly, James leaned forward, applying
light, soft kisses to the exquisitely tender skin on the inside
of Eleanor's thighs in turn. As he finally reached his
destination, both he and Eleanor let out a soft moan as he
encompassed her intimately with his lips.
Eleanor
let out a gasp and was about to shriek when she awoke in
response to a cold wet sensation right in the middle of her
right buttock. She sat up quickly and stared at the four dark
eyes that were looking curiously down at her. Samson and Delilah
wagged their tails hesitantly, unsure of the situation, before
moving alongside Eleanor to their rug and flopping down in front
of the slowly cooling logs on the fire. Eleanor turned and
looked at the sleeping form of James, a picture of relaxed,
fulfilled masculinity. She rose and took a large travelling rug
from the top of the stool behind the sofa and returned to James.
Carefully, she stretched the rug out and crawled underneath it,
alongside her husband, flexing her leg and resting it over his
left thigh. She arched her head back slightly and saw those four
dark eyes gazing at her from between two pairs of totally black
paws. Delilah blinked and Eleanor was absolutely certain it was
a wink. After a few moments, four canine and four human eyelids
were firmly closed and four minds drifted off into a world
untainted by reality, there to live out their fantasies,
healthily and totally unfettered.
The
large log, resting on two smaller logs at either end, finally
gave in to the workings of the fire and split quietly into two
pieces, scattering small fragments harmlessly into the ash and
prompting a brief flare up of the flames. Gradually, these
subsided and an air of total tranquillity and contentment filled
the Study as the benign ghosts of past generations smiled upon
the prospect of a further addition to the next generation of the
Penbury family.
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