A Charmed Life Ch. 06

The sailors fed and clothed her and the captain made accommodations for her in his quarters. They ferried her south to the Solomon Islands where she was given passage on a cargo ship to New Caledonia. She completely forgot about her tail and was consumed with concern for her father and sorrow for her lost island friends.

When she arrived in New Caledonia she discovered she was the only known survivor of her ship and also of the explosion of Krakatoa. Left orphaned, she was placed in the custody of the convent to finish her schooling.

Sex was not a viable topic of discussion with the nuns. Her special tail was definitely something they would not understand and so Fantine kept that to herself.

At the age of eighteen she was released from the care of the convent and she took up employment in the house of the governor as a maid. They were kind to her and treated her very well. After eight years in their home, she met an elderly plantation owner who became very enamored with her and took her as his mistress.

He provided for her a comfortable home adjacent to his property and came to see her every other day. He was not a vigorous or even satisfying lover but he was easy to please and very grateful for Fantine's attention.

By this time, Fantine had learned great restraint in the use of her jharum. She avoided the temptation to please herself or even muse the possibilities of her secret appendage and it had dwelt silently deep within her for twelve years. Her gentleman lover's sexual fumbling had, however, awoken new curiosities in her if not as an accompaniment to his technique, at least as a substitute. She began exploring self-arousal in her lover's absence and re-acquainted herself with her long forgotten tail.

To her joy, she discovered its talents and abilities. She stroked and petted her wonderful toy and derived immense pleasure in its use. Inevitably, she employed it in the lovemaking of her gentleman benefactor. She dared not introduce him to it directly, but she found a way to engage him while he was inside her. It added to her enjoyment of their act. It also sped his release and sent him on his way. Of course, she captured his emission, some of it anyway. It gave her a soothing relief somewhere deep inside.

Months passed, and one morning while taking her bath, Fantine noticed something about her form. Her body had toned up, her limbs had regained some of the suppleness of her youth, her skin seemed firmer and more resilient. She remembered how with a man's semen her tail had helped her heal but she did not know until that moment it could rejuvenate her. When she looked at herself in a full-length mirror it confirmed her discovery. To her dismay, it was apparent she could stay young, in fact, live indefinitely.

Fantine welcomed this new gift but knew immediately that she had to use it wisely. She controlled her urge to ingest more of her lover's emission and she avoided the temptation to push her regressing age any further than could be reasonably believed. She continued in her often boring but comfortable existence as a rich man's plaything.

Seven years after taking her as his mistress, her wealthy plantation owner died, leaving Fantine her house and a third of his holdings. This made Fantine rich beyond her dreams. She had learned much in the company of her lover and shrewdly parlayed her plantation holdings in to a promising shipping company. The company grew as did her assets and by the turn of the century, Fantine had wealth and power that insulated her from almost all of her worldly concerns.

She returned to Europe where she established herself among the leisure set. Business barons and royalty became her crowd and her money allowed her freedom like few had ever known. She knew her longevity would draw unwanted attention so she kept on the move.

She held on to her fortune by willing her assets to a solitary, young niece, faking her own death, and then assuming the identity of the young niece she had created. It was a tricky endeavor but she was very cunning and bold. She had kept up this process until post World War II when she sold off her interest in the shipping company and bought three adjacent islands in the South Pacific. On one of them, the same one she was rescued by Penina, she built a quaint, comfortable home, on ground higher than any wave could reach.

It was previously, in Venice, during the summer of 1935 that she took a lover who was mad for her kiss and one day talked in great detail of another woman whose kiss had the same narcotic effect on him. Her hunt for a young, English art scholar named Elizabeth began there.