Bellway Ch. 01: Thieves in the Woods

Author's Note: All characters are adults, which in this context means they are at least twenty-one years of age.

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My Beloved Emily,

It is not even one day since we parted and already I am impatient for our next meeting. There is so much to tell, and I daren't trust the truth to ink and paper. What horror if this missive should go astray! The thought of my words being read by any eyes other than your own - why I'm sure I would die!

But I would die not to tell you, and straight away. You will call me a fool for daring to write what I should scarcely dare to whisper. I must, though, for to hold it in would surely do me greater injury than mere damage to my reputation.

Oh Emily! Charlotte has of course sworn me to secrecy - and the coachman too. Our hands on the Bible - what melodrama - though naturally I had my fingers crossed, since we are sworn sisters, you and I, and can have no secrets from each other. Besides, for all her protestations and wailing, something Charlotte does very well indeed, I have discovered, I believe her real shame is that she enjoyed the event that I shall recount below.

I must pity her. Poor Charlotte had never known the touch of a man, and she is almost thirty! And she is not of your persuasion, desiring only the company of women. No, I have often seen her sigh wistfully after a handsome man. It's a cruel life we women live, free only until marriage and doomed without, while men, it seems, do whatever they may.

Forgive me, Emily. Even now, determined to reveal all, I hesitate. How am I supposed to tell you that your younger sister, only a few weeks into her adult life, who when she waved to you from the carriage window this morning was a virgin maid, is no longer such?

Do you remember - at the ball, last Tuesday - Sir William warned us there were thieves in the woods near Everham? We laughed and said what an adventure it would be to be stopped by them, not of course that we wished or suspected it could ever happen. Well alas Emily, it did.

Imagine our shock when we heard the pistols fire. I confess I screamed, and Charlotte went white as a sheet. Two masked men, there were, on horseback, shouting at the coachman to stop, and of course he did. One man whipped the door of the carriage open, and in a gruff voice demanded our money and jewellery.

Never have I been spoken to in such a manner! Nor threatened so at gunpoint. I should have been terrified - certainly my heart was racing - but such a thrill went through me I am at a loss to explain. I can only blame, I think, the motion of the carriage, for you know how it makes me tense.

And his eyes... His mask did nothing to hide his sudden passion for me. For a moment he seemed as speechless as I, but then he laughed and shouted for his fellow and soon we were caught between them, no hope of escape, and a certainty that something terrible would happen.

Charlotte and I looked at each other. I saw in her eyes an echo of my own nervousness, but I saw there too excitement - yes! - for was this not a real adventure? Not merely a passage in a book or an idle dream?

Do you remember the day we discovered Father in the stable with Lizzie? You said it was disgusting and I agreed of course, but I've often found myself wondering about it, why she seemed to be struggling both to escape and be caught. That is how I myself felt, as my masked assailant pressed himself against me, his hands rough against my silk and stays.

"Unhand me, sir," I cried. "I'm a maid!" But my protestation earned me only laughter and a brutal kiss. His breath stank of apple and onion, and his beard of mud and sweat, and it so distracted me that his hand was between my thighs before I realised it. "Stop!" I begged him, though my legs parted as if with a will of their own.

Oh, the touch of his fingers! How is it possible for something to be so wrong yet feel so right? I knew I should be screaming for help, but the only sound I uttered was a whimper of pleasure. This stranger had his dirty finger where no man should be, and against everything I have ever been taught I needed him to continue.

On the seat opposite, Charlotte's eyes were closed in ecstasy. Her breasts had been bared and her nipples now teased and suckled. At the sight of this, my last resistance crumbled. I'm not proud of it, to be so quickly reduced to such harlotry, but such a wondrous sensation was induced by those exploring fingers that my rational mind was quite overwhelmed.

Even so, I was not prepared for the sight that greeted me when he stood and shoved down his breeches. There can be nothing quite so ugly and indeed fearful as a man's - well, dare I say it, his cock. I know no better word for it.

I had no wish for it to be anywhere near me, though I must admit to finding it a fascinating object, never having seen one up close before, and certainly never one standing so proud. For a moment I thought I might be spared its attention, for Charlotte was on her knees, just as Lizzie was that day, her skirts bundled up around her as she was speared from behind with savage passion. There simply wasn't space for me to do likewise.

But instead I was tugged outside and ordered to bend over, so that soon I had my skirts thrown up over my back, exposing my most intimate region to the whole world! To my masked assailant, at least, but also in full view of the coachman who was bound and gagged. He had the decency to close his eyes during what followed, but I am sure I spied him peeking.

As you can imagine, I was quite humiliated. I was also more than a little distracted by Charlotte who was moaning and wailing right in front of me. I jumped with shock and squealed as a finger pushed into me, and she laughed briefly at the expression on my face.

There was no evading that finger, though I tried. It pushed in, and eased out, and again, and again I was struck by how wrong and right could be indistinguishable. Instead of squirming away from the invading finger, I was soon seeking it out, moving my hips to meet it and take it deeper into me, to brush it against that oh-so-sweet nubbin of pleasure at the entrance.

And then it was gone, leaving only disappointment in its wake, but I soon felt a new presence, a determined pressure, something far thicker than a finger, attempting the impossible. "Stop, sir!" I cried. "It is too big!"

But this only encouraged him to push harder, and to my astonishment it slipped into me, stretching me to the point I must surely burst. And he was not yet done! He worked himself deeper and deeper into me, each thrust a fresh astonishment, a new unsuspected emptiness within me being filled.

I just stood there, bent over, quite incapable of thought, as he settled into a rhythm, gentle at first until I grew accustomed to him, but his thrusts became swifter and gradually deeper too, until his full length was skewering me, and the smack of his flesh against mine was loud and regular.

An unfamiliar pressure built within me, a pervasive tingling that was not unpleasant and was made both better and worse by the cock thrusting into me. I knew only that I needed more, until the intensity was such I wanted to scream.

Suddenly he seemed to thicken even more, and he held me tight against him, unmoving, his cock stretching me painfully for a moment before pulsing powerfully within me. It was enough to push me over the precipice into an ecstasy of wild convulsions. I would have fallen to the ground had he not been holding onto me, but as it was we stayed coupled until the last tremors passed.

The thieves left us then, having stolen nothing but our maidenhoods, but what unimaginable pleasure there had been in that. Charlotte and I were in quite a daze for the remainder of the journey, barely speaking but sharing secret smiles of guilty pleasure.

By the time we reached Lady Grey's, I'm glad to say, we had both recovered our equanimity and were able to act as proper ladies should. The only evidence of our ravishment was soon washed away by a very welcome warm bath.

Emily, my beloved sister, I hope you are not too shocked by our adventure, nor too dismayed by our deplorable morals. I beg you please to be happy that we are both safe and well now.

All of my heart always,

S.