24. Pillow talk, part the first

Helena lay quietly for a while, her head on my chest, after Charlotte went back to her own room. I understood that she might need time with her thoughts, so I didn't feel the need to interrupt.

Finally, she drew a deep breath, "I am done," she said. "I am finished."

"How so?" I asked, stroking her hair.

"I am finally debauched. Exchanging my son's spend by kissing my daughter, with an open mouth, no less, it is hard to see how low a woman can sink, after that. Especially after I came in here ranting about our incestuous behaviours, to be seduced into such an act afterwards, I must be at the very bottom of the pit."

Despite her words, she did not sound like a woman who was at the bottom of a pit of despair, in fact, if I had been asked, I would have said that she sounded rather pleased with herself.

I said so.

There were a few moments of silence, then Helena chuckled.

"Damn! You know me too well William."

She turned so that now she was facing me. "Damn you!" She laughed, as she pushed at my chest.

"I never knew your mother," she said, which I knew, "And that makes me sad, because it must have been from her that you got that silver tongue of yours. You probably got your quick wits there as well."

"I learned how to love from you, mother," I told her, filling my voice with sincere gravity.

"And that is precisely what I am talking about," she laughed.

Helena pressed herself against me, "Talking to Mrs Dodgson, made me very sad, and more than a little angry too. I think that is why I came in here ranting.

"It's true, this - us, you and the girls - does concern me, but, if I am honest, I think you have the right of it, about what you're doing for your sisters. And I suppose I did consent to you 'teaching' them. What Emily's brother did to her is awful and nothing at all like you and I."

"Was it not you that sent Charlotte here?" I asked, which earned me a well-deserved loud slap on the breast. "Dodgson was a brute, what he did to his sister is inexcusable, and I suspect that he is answering for his actions now, before He who judges us all. He was lazy in his crimes and he was even the engineer of his own demise. Emily is the wronged party in all of this, and she is to be applauded from the way she comports herself with dignity and pride. As I promised you yesterday, mother, she and her daughters shall want for nothing. I shall settle a pension on them, find some employment for her, and a dwelling - for life if needs be."

Helena kissed me, "You are a good man, William." Her eyes shone when she looked at me, and it filled my heart with joy. So much so that I could not speak.

"Now," she said, "If you are sufficiently recharged ..."

Helena's words tailed off but the desire in her eyes was clear, so we spent the next hour or so fucking. She demanded that I show her as many ways as I could, and I obliged. At one point I made my mother jump by kissing her bum-hole and licking all around it. She squealed in surprise and delight, and I spent the next few minutes frigging her with my fingers, while she presented her arse to my tongue. Finally, I slid a well-lubricated finger inside her.

Again, Helena's squeal of surprise soon turned to one of passion, as I moved my finger in and out of her tight orifice.

"Oh God, William! Is there no part of my body that you will not ravage?" She asked, with her eyes closed as waves of passion flushed through her.

"Your nipples are sacred," I told her.

"Damn you!" She laughed, "They need your attention as much as any other part of me! You have me in such a mess, I don't know whether I am coming or going."

"Then it is time that you were cumming, mother," I told her, and putting her onto her knees, commenced to fuck her.

The woman that enjoyed this dog-style fuck was not the woman I first took to bed a few short weeks ago. It was as if Helena's passions had been unlocked, certainly she was more uninhibited. Now she growled at me, grasped at the sheets, thrust her hips back to meet my thrusts. I noted that she called upon the Almighty less now, as well.

When we both came, we collapsed into a tangled mess, both of us, too tired at last to do anything other than draw the sheets up over ourselves and sleep.

I found myself shaken awake an hour or so later, with Helena stood beside the bed.

"You were shouting," she said concerned, "Not words, just a cry."

She had a tot of rum in her hand, "Drink this."

As I sipped the rum, she looked at the scar on my side. "It's that, is it not?"

I nodded and explained the elements of the dream to her. The French dragoon and his sword. "My arm was numbed and I could not raise it to protect myself. He went to skewer me, but one of my soldiers stepped up and over me, deflecting the blow at the last moment and it scored my ribs instead."

"And the cry out?" Helena asked.

"In the dream the soldier does not appear and the dragoon stabs down and I am helpless to prevent it."

Helena sat beside me on the bed, drawing me to her and making soothing noises.

"I have heard you whimper in your sleep before, but said nothing." She told me, sliding back under the covers. "I was about to go back to my room, but I shall sleep here tonight."

Helena was warm and solicitous, and for a moment I was her brave boy again. And for a moment, it was good. But then I took a hold of myself, it was months ago, and a thousand miles away.

It's just a dream William, just a bloody dream, I chided myself. I straightened myself up in the bed, and folded Helena in my arms, and like that, we slept until dawn, when Barclay's knock-knock, pause, knock-knock announced his tactful arrival.