A Pet's Rebellion Ch. 05

Miss Madock's cheeks rose a little as she smiled. "Yes, Your Grace. I could." Her fingertips swiped at her tightly bound hair, as if she wanted to loosen some of the locks. "I left him because I realized he didn't love me at all. He was using me to advance his opinion of himself. Not only that, but I believe he had wanted your husband to be jealous of him, somehow. Perhaps Duke Bransted wanted to compete with your husband. I can't say I understand it fully, but I imagine that your husband didn't have a care for this contest."

"Certainly," Danetta said, burying her hands under her folded cloak, "my sweet Erdgar is too occupied with being an adult to worry over what that man thinks of him. If there ever was a contest, my husband never noticed it."

Miss Madock's head tilted to one side, and her eyes narrowed. Her lovely green eyes turned into little slivers of emerald. "Are you going to send a letter to Duke Bransted? Are you going to give him my location?"

"Are you worried that he might come to you?"

Immediately, Miss Madock shook her head. "He won't come. I'm not a charity case anymore. I have my own business." Her arms folded, and she placed her fingers above her elbows. "I suppose I owe him some thanks for it, though. If he hadn't given me so much jewelry, I couldn't have sold so much of it, and I would've likely suffered in the streets for some time."

"Perhaps you should reflect on your feelings, Miss Madock," Danetta said as she rose from the stool, opening up her cloak and putting it around her shoulders. "In the meantime, I have some shopping to do."

And on the next morning, Danetta sent a brief letter to the Duke of Bransted. She imagined it wasn't her place to do so, but she couldn't bring herself to regret it.

***

He wouldn't come.

Laileen thought so, even as the days went on, as more work dulled her brain. The thought was still there.

He wouldn't come.

Even as her mind toyed with the idea, imagining what he would do if he walked through the front door of her building, Laileen believed that he wouldn't come.

Maybe he'd surprise her from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist, kissing the side of her throat? Maybe he'd pick her up and twirl her about the room as if she were a loved child?

Maybe he'd turn up his nose at her new life and call her an unworthy fool?

It didn't matter, though, because Laileen didn't think he'd come.

She was obsessing over the idea of Kristof not coming one bitter morning, hugging her bland cloak about herself, using a fire iron to stir up the heat in the fireplace that all her employees huddled close too, but not too close. It would be chilling for any one of them to burn their work.

If any of them did burn their work, Laileen admitted to herself that she'd yell at them, perhaps even demand that they pay for the damaged materials, but she wouldn't dismiss them. It was true that they were easily replaced. There were a nearly unlimited number of women young and old who needed money, and your average female had decent sewing skills at the age of five, because women were simply raised in such a culture.

Still, an employee had to do something rather horrible for Laileen to fire her.

Laileen put her fire iron away. Then she turned around.

And Kristof was right there.

She hadn't noticed him enter.

His arms were looped under an old coat with unfinished embroidery. Laileen knew that coat. She was nearly as intimate with it as she had been with Kristof's cock.

Laileen's eyes slid up from the coat, past the unusually plain looking cravat, and up to Kristof's face. It was almost as if his blood had left his skin, except for the spots around his eyes. His eyes were pink, puffy, and full of sorrow.

His lips twisted a little as his teeth scraped against each other. Then his lips pursed, reddening.

Then ... his lips softened, and he said, "Betty Hrin? The name doesn't suit such a beauty."

All she could think of to do was laugh, put the back of her lightly gloved hand close to her mouth and laugh. Her employees looked up at her for a moment, but they knew better than to stop working. When she was able to calm down, she dabbed at her eyes with the fingertips of her gloves. "Is that your only thought concerning me?"

His hair rustled about as he shook his head. He didn't seem to have a ribbon or band holding his hair back. "Would you mind ...?" He swallowed a knot of something. "Would you please let me have a moment?"

"A moment?" Laileen crossed her arms. Her skirt swished a teeny bit as she put more of her weight on one leg, pushing her hip out. "A moment could cost me money. A customer could walk in any minute."

The coat Kristof held seemed to tremble. "Then when? When may I come?"

Lailen turned her head away, pretending to be rather interested in a window. She waited a few seconds, hoping that her unexpected guest would hold his breath, hoping he would feel the seconds as if they were the slowest drops of water to ever be engorged and then fall from their weight. Then she spoke. "Tonight. After the sun has set."

Kristof nodded to her. He didn't smile, not exactly, but Laileen thought she saw a wrinkle of hope in the pink around his eyes. Then he held out the coat, as if he wanted Laileen to take it. Laileen did take it, her eyes tracing the colorful, unfinished lines she had carefully made.

"When I found this, I must admit," and here Kristof's voice lowered as he leaned in closer to her, "I nearly died from the heartache."

She couldn't resist the impulse. She let her lips peck Kristof's cheek. Before he could react, Laileen said, "You aren't allowed to express your torment right now. Wait until tonight."

When Laileen saw him grin, a hot sense of satisfaction bloomed between her thighs. Kristof bowed to her, and then he turned around, walking to the exit. His hair really didn't have anything keeping it in place.

Laileen spent the rest of the day thinking of him. She nearly pricked her fingers on more than one occasion. The coat was kept upstairs, still unfinished, and she wondered if it would ever be finished. When a customer put in an order for a cloak, Laileen barely spoke to her. While she was able to write down the order, smile, and nod, she couldn't put words together properly.

When all of her employees had left, and the sun had started to lower, Laileen went upstairs to her living area. It wasn't anything special. It was all one room's worth of things. There was a tiny fireplace and cooking area, a little bed off in a corner of the room that had Kristof's coat spread out onto it, a table, a few stools, and not much else. Hidden in the floor, though, under a few removable floorboards, there was a secret compartment. Inside, there was a locked box, and in the locked box, there were a few expensive pieces of jewelry. Laileen had sold off most of the jewelry and used the funds for her business. There was one piece, though, that she could never consider selling.

Once Laileen was confident that her fire was large enough, she picked up an oil lamp and went downstairs. The air was darkening. She flipped the hood of her cloak over her head and went to the exit/entrance of the building. Laileen set her lamp onto a table near a window, which was beside the door, and she waited.

She watched men light street lamps with tall sticks bearing flames. She watched groups of people hurry on to their homes. She watched a few carriages roll on by.

Then, once the world was blanketed under the shadow of night, Laileen found herself smiling, because a carriage stopped near her door, and a man stepped out of it. He walked to her door and knocked politely. Laileen unlocked the door and opened it. She smelled deliciously green cologne as the man's shoes clicked onto the wooden floor, as he greeted her with civil words, as she felt his optimistic smile instead of actually seeing it.

Laileen made sure the door was closed and locked again; she picked up her lamp. Then she led her guest upstairs and to her living area. She lit a few sconces, saying gently, "Would you like to sit down?" She was reminded of the time when the duchess had followed her to this place, but she soon chased the idea away. She wanted to focus on Kristof.

The stool he chose creaked as his backside pressed onto it. His face almost seemed to glow as he grinned.

Laileen put her lamp on her table and then she put her fists above her skirt, letting her elbows stick out under her cloak, giving her form an odd shape. Her eyes narrowed, but she wasn't frowning. She told Kristof, "You've run away from your place. I might as well fold you back into it."

Unhooking his cane from his waistcoat's button, Kristof said, "Certainly. I'd expect nothing less." He gripped the shaft of his cane, putting it against the outer part of his thigh, opening up his black cloak.

"Concerning His Grace, the Duke Adurant," Laileen began, ignoring the hint of surprise that came over Kristof's eyes, "according to his wife, it's likely that he barely thinks of you, not because he considers you to be beneath him, not because he believes he's bested you at something, but only because your affairs are none of his concern."

He started up at her. There was something similar to a cringe in his face, but it faded away, his features ironing themselves into smoothness.

Laileen moved her hands to a spot against her belly. "I imagine you know of this place because of the Duchess Adurant. She was the one to give you my address. Her husband didn't communicate with you in any way, did he?" At Kristof's shaking head, Laileen said, "That's it, then. That's all you need to understand of him. As for what I think of you, well, I'm a different case."

His shoulders seemed to rise under his cloak, as if his posture was improving.

Laileen put her fingers under the seat of a stool close to her. She dragged it near Kristof, and then she sat down on it. The bottoms of her boots scraped against the floor as she crossed her ankles. "If you want to keep my opinion of you high, you shouldn't be charitable with me simply to boast about it. You should be charitable with me simply because you care for me." She paused. The tip of her nose, which she didn't hate anywhere near as much as she once did, wrinkled up. She sunk her top teeth into the flesh below her lower lip. Then she released the lip and exhaled. "Do you care for me?"

His answer was prompt, but also husky. "I do."

A jolt of warmth trickled down from her heart to her thighs, and Laileen took a few little breaths. She got back to her feet, although her legs were suddenly weaker. She managed, though, and walked over to a certain spot, saying, "I care for you too, Kristof. I do." She knelt slowly, pressing her skirt under her knees. Then she moved aside the removable floorboards, and she pulled the box of jewelry out from its hiding place. "And I believe you weren't lying just now. If you didn't care for me, you wouldn't be here." She took a key from a pocket under her skirt, and then she unlocked her jewelry box. Her fingers pushed aside a few pieces, and then she found the ring, the ring she never wanted to sell. It had Kristof's hair weaved and pressed under a layer of crystal.

She closed and locked the box, hid it under the floorboards, and then she walked back to her seat, slipping the large ring onto one of her middle fingers and putting her key back into her pocket. Her green eyes were full of budding tears and fondness as she gazed down at the ring. "I'm willing to sell this dress shop and return to you, but we must try to learn more about each other. We must take in our faults and our charms. We must remember that we are people, and not sculptures to place on a table and fuss over at a dinner party."

The thin noise of Kristof tapping his cane against the floor nearly startled her. Laileen looked up at his eyes, his sad, regretful eyes. He said to her, "There's something I must ask. Were you with child when you left?"

What a thing to ask!

Laileen's face cooled down as she shook her head. "I wasn't, and if I thought I was, I would have stayed regardless of my anger."

Kristof nodded, his fingers curling even tighter around his cane. "I was concerned, terrified, even. I thought that you might have to raise a child all alone and with limited finances, or perhaps you'd take a nearly poisonous medicine to rid yourself of the pregnancy. Both possibilities had me in agony." His tongue flew across his lips. "I'm not entirely foolish, though, even if my recent actions suggest otherwise. I'd have understood why you would ... end a pregnancy ... but I'd still have been devastated to know that a child of mine was taken away without even a moment of counsel with me." "None of that matters," Laileen insisted. "I'm not pregnant, and I never was."

He gave her a tiny smile. "Have I endured enough of the righteous scolding?"

Laileen rolled her eyes. "If you keep me, you'll have a scolding every other day."

"I'll have to do something worth a scolding every other day, then."

Laileen stood up again. She couldn't stand it anymore. She needed to touch him. Her face and arms went to his lap as she knelt down before him. She didn't cry. She didn't moan. All she did was nuzzle his thighs and crotch. Laileen felt his fingers swirl and dance around her hairstyle. There were a few sharp tugs as he gripped a loose lock. She giggled and gently slapped his hand away.

She reached for the lacing of his breeches as she moved her head up, licking her lips and making a gentle, humming sound in her throat. The strings made rough whispering noises against the fabric. Then she plucked at Kristof's drawers, already smelling the sweat and musk through the garment. She heard Kristof's heavy exhale, felt his body move with the breath.

His penis was soft when her fingers found it, encircled it, teased it with a firm caress. Then she sucked the head into her mouth, inhaling the heady, almost sour aroma of masculinity. Her ring felt tighter on her middle finger, but she ignored it.

"Ah! Laileen!"

She didn't ignore that. In fact, Laileen had to repress a smile; she had work to do. While her fingers closed together, forming a tunnel for the shaft to enjoy, her tongue laved at the soft little hole on the head, the skin of her cheeks turning inward. That was when he started pushing himself up into her mouth, whining, keening, at her mercy.

The sensitive flesh of her lips and the interior of her mouth felt the blood rush in her lover's erection. The organ hardened, stretching in her. She only sucked harder in response, stroking him. She tried to put a little more of the length inside her mouth, and she used her free hand to dig under the layers of fabric and carefully massage his testicles.

She felt the affectionate press of his hand on her nape, and she heard him mumble out, "By the gods."

Up and down, that was the path her head took, slurping at him, swallowing down his scents. She was drooling, but she knew that was fine, perhaps even preferred.

Up and down ...

Squeezing his hairy testicles only hard enough to put a bit more pleasure in him ...

Laileen felt oddly comforted.

She really had missed him.

"Yes! Yes!" Kristof dug his fingers into her hair, nearly tearing her hairstyle apart. He gave out a low growl, and then a wail, and then hot liquid was shooting up into her mouth, each spurt emphasized by a short, rough utterance.

***

Sometimes, Kristof hand fed Laileen, like she was really a pet, but he often did so in private. So, she allowed him this curious little delight. When her belly was warm and full, he'd pat her there, and rub her, and kiss her, and tell her he was happy to fill her up.

Other times, he'd wrap lovely fabrics over her hair, as if he wanted to make a turban, and he'd pin jewels to the peculiar creation. Then he'd smile at her, running his fingertips over her cheeks, his thumbs over her chin.

On some occasions, he'd play a game where he'd roll a die, and depending on the outcome, he'd choose a body part of hers to kiss.

In a lustful sense, their relationship wasn't bad.

Soon, though, Laileen learned that on a companionship sense, a daily routine sense, a sense of ordinary experience, the relationship wasn't bad there either.

They did eventually marry, and the Adurants and Masens, were among the guests. Laileen was already pregnant, but it was early enough that it wouldn't be obvious. The child turned out to be a boy. She let Kristof choose the name. He decided on Oskar.

Laileen was fond of the baby, as she should have been, but she was always repressing her nearly overwhelming feelings of love whenever she saw Kristof holding the child so carefully, so gently, and with an expression of wonder, as if he couldn't believe he had a child. "He's me," he often said. "He's a tiny version of me!" In a way, Oskar could have been called that. He had his father's hair, and his eyes, and his playful little mouth.

Laileen eventually learned that the Duchess Adurant had also been pregnant when Laileen was married. She had given birth to a third son, who was similar to his brothers, dark hair and gray eyes. Roland was that boy's name. Laileen often wrote to the blonde duchess, seeking out motherly advice. The Duchess Adurant was a very patient instructor. She would give pages and pages of material to read. The two women even started to use a given name basis.

One day, Laileen was about to remove a soiled cloth diaper from her healthy little Oskar, the nanny waiting nearby to help her dispose of it, when she heard the newest maid sneeze and sort. She had been dusting the furniture, and so, Laileen didn't think much of it.

The following morning, she happened to notice that particular maid was still sniffing and coughing as if she couldn't get any more air into her nose, and then she started breathing with her mouth. Laileen personally asked her if she needed any special tea, licorice, garlic, or even some spiced hot chocolate.

The maid, her name was Bruna, she only curtsied and said, "I appreciate your kind offers, Mistress, I honestly do, but I'm always in this state. There's no need to fret over someone as common as me."

Slowly, Laileen sensed over the next few months that her staff was becoming ... well ... happier overall. They were never abused. In fact, they were all paid well. However ... Laileen couldn't help but notice how buoyant everyone's gait became, how often they smiled, how generally pleased they were.

Laileen wanted to believe Bruna did something, because this all happened after she was hired, but she couldn't imagine how Bruna could accomplish this vague task.

But maybe, it wasn't her place to wonder about it.

Maybe it was better to simply soak herself in happiness.

***

The End

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Author's Note: I do plan on continuing this series, but I want to take a break from it and gather up more ideas of what to do with it. Meanwhile, I might write other things. If you have any suggestions, criticisms, or anything else, please leave a comment. I love comments. Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate it.

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