Dreams Unfulfilled

It’s a sort of pity that moves Lucille, when she lingers by Edith’s bed that night. Usually, Lucille would only confirm that the new wife was asleep – as subject to a sleeping draught as to poison – and she would leave. But there’s something about Edith, sleeping all alone in that big bed, no husband to keep her warm.

Perhaps it’s because Lucille didn’t choose her herself.

Lucille goes to sit on the edge of the bed, and she lays the back of her hand against Edith’s head, that lustrous hair. There’s something rather excessive about it, when you see it unbound.

Edith doesn’t stir. For all the chill of the house, when Lucille draws her hand down along the curve of Edith’s cheek, her skin is hot. Perhaps her illness is already setting in. Or perhaps it’s something else.

Lucille turns her palm to Edith’s skin; she brushes her thumb against her bottom lip.

‘Thomas,’ Edith murmurs, without waking. And isn’t that the most pathetic thing Lucille has ever heard? The new wife, carried across the threshold but remaining undeflowered. The poor thing will never know her husband’s touch.

She might, perhaps, know Lucille’s.

Lucille lets her hand drift lower, lingers her fingers along the neckline of Edith’s nightgown. Edith shifts in her sleep, her head turning away from Lucille, the line of her neck extending.

Lucille pulls back the bedclothes, and she slides herself over on top of Edith, straddling her. When Lucille grinds her hips down, Edith’s rise to meet her.

Poor, poor Edith. She’s been yearning for something, hasn’t she? All the long way across the ocean, waiting for her husband to fuck her. And he never will.

Lucille puts her hands over Edith’s breasts, and she squeezes. Watches Edith’s eyelids flicker. Having a pleasant dream, Lucille supposes. Perhaps she would like Thomas to be rough with her. Lusty. Ah, but hasn’t Lucille always been the rough one in their family?

Lucille lifts her body so that she can gather Edith’s nightgown up, until it pools over Edith’s thighs, high enough that Lucille can put her hand between Edith’s legs, to grasp her fingers in Edith’s curls. Edith cants against her. When Lucille pushes her fingers deeper, she finds Edith slippery and wet.

That brings a smile to Lucille’s face. She lowers her mouth, briefly, to kiss Edith’s neck. At the same time, she works her fingers against her, coaxing her body further.

Really, she should like to suck on Edith’s skin until the blood vessels burst; she should like to bite and scratch her. But then what would Thomas think, should he see the marks? And what would Edith think – that her husband is a brute who would assault her in the night and leave her untouched in the day? So Lucille keeps her darker impulses to herself. She makes circles of Edith’s nub, and thrusts her fingers inside her. Would Thomas make such a good job of it himself? Even sleeping, Edith’s cheeks have gained a new colour, as if Lucille is putting the life back into her, rather than taking it. Giving her something she’ll never get otherwise.

If Lucille rubs her own cunt against Edith’s leg, it’s beside the point. Lucille really isn’t thinking of herself at all. Only of Edith, and what debauched dreams she might have, and the things that Thomas will never know of her.

Lucille thinks almost that Edith might wake, when Lucille brings her to completion. And what would the new bride think of herself then?

But Lucille is too good with the teas she makes, for Edith to wake for such petty thing as an orgasm.

And Lucille stops. She removes herself from atop Edith. For a moment, she considers her work – the colour in Edith’s cheeks, the neckline of her nightgown all mussed and unpretty. Lucille adjusts the nightgown, and pulls the hem of it back down, until Edith is neat and demure again. Except that Lucille knows now that Edith will not be shy or modest, given the chance. Her body – her spirit – is altogether too eager.

Lucille pulls the bedclothes back over her, tucks her in. Presses a kiss to her forehead.

She pities Edith the less, now that she’s taken something from her. Or given it to her. Who is Lucille to say which it is?

She leaves Edith then, to her sweet dreams. Lucille knows she won’t be granted them much longer.