Bride of the Revolution Read online

  Charlotte mewed her appreciation and huddled her helpless and bound body closer to him. She shuddered through a long drawn-out orgasm and he held her until it had faded, letting her fluids spill over his fingers.

  ‘Sleep now,’ he told her, drawing the whip from her body and smoothing the fine red weal it left around her arms and breasts. ‘I shall be back before you know it.’

  His fifteen caped coat swirled about him as he left the small apartment and ran swiftly down the three flights of stairs towards the tall door.

  The narrow streets were crowded with the ragged figures of the peasants who had crowded into Paris since the revolution first began to simmer. They huddled over fires, held out grimy hands as he passed, hoping for a coin, a sou. He ran on. He was late and the grille behind which he must stand in the pit would be down.

  Minette had told him to be at the front of the pit and he would discover something of great advantage. An actress of no mean talent, Minette was even more invaluable to him in his work than Charlotte, whom he admitted to himself with a wry smile, was the best pickpocket in all of Paris. He took the heavy fob watch from his pocket, amazed that he still had it, and peered at it in the light of the sconces and the peasant fires. He was late! He hurried on, scarcely heeding the poverty around him.

  ‘It is time, Philipe!’ gasped Madame de Genlis, standing entranced before Grace.

  The girl, her beautiful face impassive, but still expressive, her eyes a lustrous and verdant green flecked with elusive gold turning them to warm hazel. They were almost luminescent with scarcely hidden pain. She stood very still before them, wearing only the sheerest of muslin. The slightest breeze moulded the fine material to her breasts, the dip of her waist, the swell of her belly, her whole lovely body. The gossamer was all but transparent, and when a breeze fluttered through Philipe’s quarters it made the illusion of nakedness complete.

  ‘Is she not glorious?’ Madame de Genlis was enraptured with her finished product.

  Philipe was slumped in his ornate chair, one slender leg draped over the arm, looking extremely sulky.

  ‘I think we have gone to a great deal of trouble for nothing,’ he said, giving Grace only the most cursory of glances.

  ‘But was she not delightful impaled through her bottom hole upon Zeus? Was she not admired by all the courtiers? Did they not love to touch her, see her tremble in her helplessness? Humiliate her with their spunk?’

  Madame de Genlis spun Grace round, admiring her proud stance, the pertness of her buttocks beneath the sheer material, the high-lift of her breasts in the graceful gown.

  With her head bowed Grace tried not to look at Philipe’s handsome features. She knew he could not wait to penetrate her, any more than she could wait to be penetrated if not by him, by someone who would relieve her of her hated maidenhead. Having tasted him and he having held her so close, she knew their need was mutual. And it was not only Philipe who had this effect on her! Madame de Genlis had awakened fires within her very depths and they would not be quenched except by a fountain of manly issue.

  ‘Wasted our time? How so, Philipe?’ asked madame. ‘Why do you say that? Grace is charming in every way. Sensual, graceful and ready.’ A plump ringed finger lifted her charge’s chin, and with dark smiling eyes she gazed with pride at her creation. Her other hand swooped down the curve of the girl’s body, admiring the swell of her breasts, the daintiness of her waist, the arch of her hips.

  Once again madame walked around Grace, adjusting the fluttering muslin, slipping her hands gently into the girl’s bodice, lifting the perfect breasts so that the unblemished hillocks peeped enticingly from the ruffle which bordered the low décolletage. As she did so she gazed into Grace’s eyes, smiling a smile of pure lust, but Grace, during the arduous training she endured under madame’s tutelage, had learned to be perfectly tranquil, calm, stoic, no matter what indignities she must endure.

  At that very moment she felt her breasts become firmer, fuller, her nipples harden and thrust against the muslin. They seemed to lift so that they were scarcely covered by the tiny ruffle. Worse, the caress, the subtle massage, had set her body on fire once more. Her belly felt molten, liquid. The plump mound at the apex of her thighs became puffed, seemed to open, to flutter, and she knew her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted and she was ready to be used by madame in any way she chose.

  ‘She is not pure, is she?’ said Philipe in his sulkiest manner. ‘She is sullied, violated and… how can she be pure when she was invaded by Zeus?’

  ‘But only through the bottom hole,’ said madame huskily, patting Grace’s buttocks. ‘The female opening is still whole, pure as driven snow.’ She cupped her fingers over the perfectly formed sex pouch and held them there, stroking very gently through the gossamer muslin. Grace could feel an immediate flood of her fluids and could not help swaying her body back and forth against her mistress’s fingers, aching for fulfilment. Her nubbin forced its way through the soft velvet of her sex folds, itching to be rubbed by madame’s knowing fingers. Grace could feel Philipe’s pale eyes linger over her body and she could swear that the look burned into her very innards, seeking out every blemish, every imperfection. She dipped her head, hiding her face, hiding the fire of her blushes. No matter that he found her contemptible, he wanted her above all things.

  He had been so excited as he hurried behind madame along the corridor to the statue. She remembered his harsh breathing, his moist lips, the fullness of his loincloth. How could he be so hypocritical?

  Grace felt languid in the wake of madame’s sensual attentions. Her body felt heavy beneath the sheer and fluttering muslin. She leaned against her mistress, wanting sexual fulfilment above all things.

  ‘And where is my brother?’ murmured Philipe, in a voice which was almost a whine. He glared at Grace as though the disappearance of his brother was her fault.

  La de Genlis shrugged in her most Gallic manner and gestured that Grace should stand alone. She pirouetted in her own plain white gown, fashioned to mark her as a leader of the Republic with a sash of red white and blue slung loosely over her shoulder and falling over her splendid bosom. ‘Be quiet, Philipe. He has gone into hiding, of course. But we have nothing to fear.’

  Grace stood very still. It made her fearful, this talk of the Republic, the terrors of the revolution. Having become used to the comfort of the palaces, for all the tortures she had endured to become what Madame de Genlis wanted, she did not wish to have to return to her old ways, scavenging for food and never knowing where she would sleep at night.

  ‘You may have nothing to fear,’ said Philipe sharply, ‘but there is no guarantee that the same could be said of me or my brother, the king.’

  ‘Perhaps the Black Rose will save you,’ said madame with a low chuckle.

  ‘The Black Rose?’ Philipe sneered. ‘There are some who say he is nothing but a pirate using the revolution to further his own ends. His own fortune. He works both ends against the middle, that one!’

  Again, Madame de Genlis shrugged and pulled Grace to her, making unnecessary adjustments to the jet-black corkscrew curls that framed her perfect face. Grace could smell the scent of roses that madame used to hide the odour of her body. It might be fashionable to look like a peasant but the voluptuous woman did not like to smell like one.

  ‘We are going to be late,’ said madame.

  ‘I do not wish to go to the theatre,’ said Philipe. ‘The crowds make me nervous.

  ‘Do not be a baby, Philipe!’ scoffed madame, swirling a coat of dark superfine about Grace’s shoulders. It made her shudder, the very softness of the luxurious cloth. It brushed her upper arms like a caress and, like any caress since madame’s training, it set her belly a-quiver, set it running like a warm stream. ‘The peasants cannot hurt you. They are kept behind a grille.’

  ‘But we are late!’ Philipe straddled his legs wide, both hooked
over the arms of the chair, and he rubbed the growing bulge between his thighs, eyeing Grace lustfully. ‘Can we not stay here and play with Grace? You still have not allowed me—’

  ‘Allowed you? Have you forgotten how you tricked me out of my chamber?’ Madame pulled the billowing cloak closer around Grace’s body, but slipped her fingers beneath it to caress the roundness of her belly.

  ‘You only allowed me to lick her cunt,’ he sulked.

  Madame stroked a finger down the perfection of Grace’s cheek. ‘Had I not returned when I did you would have used her fully!’ Again she slipped her hand beneath the cloak and lifted the gossamer skirt. Her fingers twisted the ring she found there. ‘Push, my darling. Push down.’

  ‘You see?’ hissed Philipe. You play and tweak all you like but deny me. And you promised.’

  There was that childish whine again, thought Grace, irritated for all her training in submission and pliancy. She kept her thoughts to herself. But for all his faults her experiences with Philipe were only sensual interludes of delightful shame. She enjoyed the humiliation of being at Philipe’s feet, kissing and petting his cock, feeling the flood of his juices spilling over her body, just as she enjoyed the feel of his tongue probing between her flesh lips.

  ‘This is her first appearance in public,’ reminded madame, ‘and I wish to see the reactions she creates. I wish to see how the crowds react to her sweet innocence, her graceful demeanour, her chains.’ She turned to Grace and lifted the fine gossamer of her gown, baring the pouting pad of her cunt. ‘Are you wet, my sweet? Are you ready?’

  Grace thrust forward, rubbing the soft velvet of her cunt against madame’s fingers, feeling the delicious and now familiar heaviness in the loins.

  ‘Of course you are!’ Madame withdrew her fingers and put them to her lips, sucking them, tasting Grace’s musk, savouring it hungrily and smiling at her charge’s blushes.

  ‘The grille may be closed,’ said Philipe. He sunk deeper into the chair. ‘We are so late and I, for one, do not wish to be mauled by the rabble.’

  ‘They would not dare,’ said madame in her most positive tone, and she chivvied Grace before her, letting her gown fall and leaving the girl in a frustrating state of readiness. Her full cloak was wrapped about her, hiding all the parts which had taken so long to prepare.

  ‘Come, Philipe,’ coaxed madame. ‘The play is a comedy and we can all do with something to cheer us up.’

  Grace, the hood of her cloak worn low over her face and her hands clasped tightly in front of her, walked with graceful steps as she had been taught. She had grown quite used to the manacles at her slender wrists and the hobbling irons about her slim ankles and she managed to walk smoothly, without a hint of a shuffle.

  ‘I do not wish to go, madame,’ grumbled Philipe as they walked across the courtyard to the waiting carriage. The other playgoers, other members of Philipe’s court, had departed long since, anxious to be safely behind the grille before it was locked for their safety.

  Beneath the billowing cloak of blue superfine, beneath the muslin gown, Grace’s body was weighted with other shackles and chains. They were made especially to madame’s specifications. The chains were light and fine, fashioned by a jeweller, rather than the blacksmith who could only think of heavy and clumsy loops.

  ‘I order you, Philipe!’ said madame, pushing the grumbling Duc d’Orleans. ‘I wish us both to be present when Grace is seen in public for the first time. I wish you to pay special attention to her, while I shall watch the reactions of the men in the audience.’

  Philipe, at last, began to sound more cheerful. ‘I can play with her in public?’ He clapped his hands and fairly skipped into the carriage.

  ‘Within reason,’ agreed madame.

  This revelation had a profound effect on Grace. There were certain parts of her body that were pierced with gold loops that were, in turn, clasped by tiny padlocks. As she stepped, very gracefully considering the numerous impediments, into the carriage, the gold loops which pierced her inner labia caressed the plumper outer lips. It made her sigh. The jewels kept her in a continual state of heightened sexuality.

  ‘What do you mean…? said Philipe, slumping in the corner of the carriage, looking sulkier and more disagreeable than ever. ‘Within reason? My cock is aching to thrust into her. We have a private box. I could quite easily fuck her on the floor and no one would be any the wiser.’

  Grace sat very straight in the deeply upholstered seats. It was necessary to sit in a certain way, because otherwise the loops, the little chains and the padlocks nipped her tender flesh.

  Madame de Genlis shook her head, wagged her finger at Philipe and then, with finger and thumb, parted the cloak and, very slowly, lifted the muslin. ‘I knew you had forgotten, you naughty fellow. You may only play with her upper parts, and then very gently.’

  Philipe gaped at Grace, revealed as she was. Another rule laid down by madame was that she must always sit with her thighs parted, ready to be displayed to anyone her owners chose.

  ‘Is it not a delicious sight?’ Madame de Genlis stroked Grace’s sex parts with the very tip of an index finger, tracing the plump outer lips with their mist of blue-black curls and the delicately parted inner lips with the gold loops keeping the parts safe from intruders. Proud and erect, peeping and extruded from its little hood, was Grace’s clitoris and, when madame touched the very peak of this, Grace could not help but jerk.

  ‘Oh, Grace!’ exclaimed madame. ‘That is not how you’ve been trained to behave, and well you know it!’

  The hooded head bowed in shame that she had shown any reaction to the touch of that very sensitive part.

  ‘She’s excited!’ said Philipe. ‘May I feel the seep of her juices, her heat? Just the tiniest feel?’

  Madame slapped his approaching hand away. ‘How dare you? You know she must be kept on the very edge of orgasm, giving her lovely face that special glow until the right man comes along.’

  ‘But I am the right man!’ argued Philipe. ‘You acquired her for me… and you.’

  Madame shook her head sadly. ‘That may have been my intention,’ she said, ‘but the world is changing. Soon we shall not be the monied and privileged class and we must take riches wherever we may.’ She lowered Grace’s skirt and closed her cloak as if shutting away the most valuable jewel in the world.

  ‘You’re going to sell her!’ Philipe was aghast. ‘You cannot! She’s my plaything.’ He glared at madame, who stared him down. ‘Our play thing,’ he corrected after a moment’s hesitation. ‘And what do you mean that we may not be the monied class? We shall still have our riches, our palaces.’

  Once more madame shook her head sadly. ‘Who knows?’

  The carriage drew up outside the theatre. Several urchins fought to open the door. Philipe shrank back away from the rabble he hated so much, but the driver and the footmen drove the urchins away with whips and clubs and Grace, Madame de Genlis, and Philipe, stepped from the carriage unhindered.

  A young man, ragged like the urchins, stepped forward from the crowd, his filthy hand waving to Grace. ‘It is me!’ he called. ‘Pierre, your half-brother. Grace? Look at me!’

  Grace’s eyes, the green glinting in the flickering lights of the torches held in sconces on the stone walls, darted towards the voice. Her soft lips trembled in the ghost of a smile. She began to lift her hands in greeting and the glint of gold, the manacles about her wrists, were seen in the dim yellow oil lamps.

  ‘What have they done to you?’ Pierre’s pinched and filthy face looked horrified, and Grace wanted to feel the warmth and love of familiar arms about her.

  ‘Walk on!’ hissed madame. ‘He is no one. You do not know him. You have no need to know him.’ The voice whispered urgently in her ear and hands pushed her firmly ahead.

  ‘But it was…’ Grace became, for the first time, more aware of
her total imprisonment, her slavery, and she wanted to run back, embrace Pierre, take up her old life, poor though it was.

  Obediently she walked on, head bowed, hiding her face in the hood of her cloak. She was once again the humble slave, owned by a mistress who kept her in luxurious chains; imprisoned by her sensuality.

  ‘I shall not forget that you spurned me,’ she heard from the crowd. ‘I shall not forget how you treated your half-brother.’

  Grace turned her head, looking into the crowd, but she could not see Pierre. The reminder of her old life made her sad and she felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness.

  ‘Forget him, ma cherie,’ coaxed madame. ‘Have I not given you a better and more luxurious life? Do you not enjoy my petting of your most private places?’ The woman put her hand gently under the cloak and Grace felt the shiver of sensual awareness as the knowing fingers brushed the imprisoned folds of her sex. She laid her head upon madame’s shoulder and allowed herself to be helped into the ornate building.

  The theatre was crowded and the ushers were about to close the grilles which divided the court from the populace.

  ‘Wait!’ Madame de Genlis called out in her imperious voice. ‘Wait, for the Duc d’Orleans and his party.’

  The ushers gave grudging bows as madame swept through, followed by Grace and Philipe. Immediately the grilles were closed with a great clanging of iron, and the murmurs of discontent from the crowds grew in volume.

  Grace was placed at the very front of the box, in full view of the actors on the stage, the court and the populace. Madame took care to adjust the décolletage so that the pale smooth mounds of the girl’s breasts were shown to best advantage. She made another minor adjustment that caused heightened colour to bloom prettily on the pale cheeks. The adjustment caused Grace’s breasts to swell the more so, for the labial rings and padlocks were not the only piercing she had to endure; gold rings pierced her nipples, keeping them erect at all times.