Dara Read online

  Anonymous

  Dara

  PART ONE. JOURNEY TO CHICAGO

  Reflected in the ornate gilt mirror were all the intimate details of my body. Trying to be objective I searched the reflection from top to bottom for blemishes and to see if the passing years had brought about any changes. In my youth, when my breasts were no larger than two halved lemons, there was no concern in my mind for flaws in my developing body. Running wild over the hills and mountains of the Isle of Man I was only conscious of boundless energy and a strange restlessness each time I viewed my growing breasts and the black hairs that were beginning to cover the vent between my legs.

  Now that I was approaching my twenty-second birthday I wanted the mirror to assure me that my body was just as desirable to men as it had been during the past seven years. Tonight of all nights I had to be at my best as Bertie and I would be together for the last time. Bertie, known throughout the land as His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, who would soon be married to Alexandra, the beautiful princess from Denmark.

  Although we had been lovers for nearly two years, the Prince decided our affair must end because, as he put it in his rather husky voice and rolling his R's as he did when he was most serious, 'A married man must be more circumspect than a single man and, besides, if ever our affair became public knowledge, my mother and the British People would be extremely displeased. Considering that I will be a married man with a particularly beautiful young bride they would think that there could be no possible excuse for infidelity.'

  He paused for a moment and then with a smile, 'Alex has a mischievous, gentle, childlike innocence about her that I find absolutely fascinating. I have quite lost my heart to her and would despise myself if I betrayed the trust she places in me.' He looked thoughtful for a moment or two and I tactfully kept my silence, waiting for what he might say next.

  Coming out of his reverie he looked up and gave me a warm fond smile. He put his hands on my shoulders. 'My darling Dara, I will never forget you. There will always be a corner of my heart especially reserved for you and if ever you need my help and support, don't hesitate to call roe. You were my first love; indeed you taught me how to love, naturally and spontaneously. Mainly because of what I learnt from you, I will be an understanding, gentle husband with my beautiful Alexandra.'

  Looking into the mirror once more I could see that the passing years had been kind to me. The breasts were, of course, larger than in my youth but not overblown or drooping. No baby had ever suckled at those nipples and they remained fresh pink and tilted slightly upwards. My belly gently curved outwards with its small navel which gave me a sly little wink when I pulled in the muscles. Pleasingly plump but firm thighs framed the small patch of curly black hairs that discreetly hid the vent. The vent, often referred to by one of my lovers as 'the cavity of enchantment'. Though there was nothing enchanting about the grunts and groans he made when he entered its pink interior. Yes, I was well pleased with the survey of my image in the mirror.

  Five years ago I had boarded the steamship 'Packet' lying alongside the jetty in Douglas Harbour. Little did I know on that early spring day in 1858 that I would never return to my island home or that I would, after many adventures, become the mistress to the future King of England. I was bound for the port of Liverpool from where I would sail across the mighty ocean seas to America.

  Relatives who had emigrated some years previously to settle in Cleveland, Ohio, had written home paying tribute to the boundless opportunities and wonders of America. Their descriptions of the new land fired my imagination and strengthened my determination to face the hazards of the journey to this far off country. With the optimism of youth, sustained by my experience of men of all classes, and my resilience and zest for life, I faced the journeying alone without any qualms. To bolster my confidence still more I had tucked into the stocking of my right leg a ten inch dagger, razor sharp on both edges.

  I had my first man shortly after my fifteenth birthday. John Bruce didn't seduce me: I made all the running. He was the farmer I worked for who had an ailing wife who very rarely got out of her bed. I was obsessively in love with him to a degree that bordered on madness. Just under six feet, thirty years of good food and hard work on the land had given him a broad muscular body. His labourers respected him for his upright character and strong religious principles. They knew that if they fell upon hard times they could always turn to him for charity.

  In contrast to his clean, well ordered farmhouse, the poor crofter's cottage where I lived was more like a pigsty than a home. It couldn't be otherwise. My widowed mother and her six children ate and slept in this one roomed hovel. During the winter months, with the door firmly shut to keep out the freezing cold wind, the stench was suffocating, for in addition to the children huddled around the peat fire there were hens roosting in the rafters overhead, ducks waddling across the earthen floor, and a young calf tethered to the foot of the bed. It was worse when my father was alive. He was a loud-mouthed braggard and a bully who treated us all, including my mother, most cruelly and spent most of his time at home on our one and only bed in a drunken stupor.

  Although I had the constant company of my brothers and sisters I was a lonely child, detached from all that was going on around me, escaping into a world of my own imagination where John Bruce was my hero and my lover.

  All my passionate feelings for him, which I had nursed secretly for years, came to a head on the night of the 'Mheillea', a harvest festival supper held in the school house adjoining St Luke's, the lonely little church on the ridge of the Royal Way, a track the Viking Kings had used in ancient times. I had been chosen that night to be the queen of the harvest festival. Crowned with a wreath of corn and roses, I graciously received with some ceremony, theBabban Ny Mheillaor Harvest Baby which was the last sheaf of corn of the harvest dressed in a baby's christening gown. As the queen, I was honoured to lead off the dancing and jigging with John Bruce as my partner. I was delirious with delight as he held me firmly in his arms in the dance and excited beyond measure at the closeness of his body to mine. He obviously found me attractive, I could see that by the way he was looking at me.

  Later that evening he left the school hall for a breath of fresh air and a quiet smoke of his pipe. I'd seen his departure and left by another door at the rear to run pell-mell into his arms as he leaned against the meadow stone wall. Reaching up I got my arms around his neck and clung to him, drawing my whole body into his and kissed him with all my pent up passion. It took him a moment or two to realize who was kissing him so passionately on his full lips.

  'Dara,' he protested, trying to push me off. 'You are too young for this sort of behaviour,' but I hung on to his neck, determined to give my virginity to the man I loved, and no-one else.

  Squirming and rubbing up against him, and pushing my belly hard against his crotch, I sensed him yielding to my embrace and when his large, masculine hands came up under my skirt and cupped the bare cheeks of my bottom I knew that he would take what was offered to him so passionately. He was breathing heavily. To give him further encouragement I pressed myself even harder against him and wiggled my hips. He let out a long groan, it was almost like a cry for help.

  Lifting me over the wall on to the grassy field he made haste to follow. I flung myself at him smothering him with kisses. He made a feeble attempt to push me away when I began to loosen the cod buttons of his breeches, but all the resistance faded when his cock, pulsing hard with hot blood, sprang out as I undid him. It stood out proudly when I got my soft, long fingers around it. My hands, as if by instinct, gently explored and caressed all his private parts. Getting a firm grip on his cock, I steered its head between my eager lips and into my mouth. In an effort to try to pull away from me he slipped and fell backwards on to the damp grass beneath us but I was not to
be denied and quickly got astride him. Breathing very deeply, he raised me up a little and guided the head of his cock into me. When it penetrated right up into my giny and filled it to full capacity I had to suppress a cry of pain that was about to escape from my lips. As the flesh of my giny yielded and gave way to the thrust of the fullness of his cock I shuffled my buttocks and spread my thighs to get into a more comfortable position. Rather like a hen settling on a nest of eggs.

  I had just got myself settled, and being without experience in these matters was wondering what I should do next, when he got his strong fingers painfully pressed deep into the soft flesh of the cheeks of my bottom and pulled me hard up against him and then began to see-saw me backwards and forwards. Suddenly he let out a cry of such intense feeling that I feared that I had hurt him in some way.

  Are you all right, Mr. Bruce?' I asked anxiously as he lay back panting for air. Getting no reply, I became more concerned, 'Did I hurt you?' I enquired in a whisper and tried to get to my feet but he pulled me hard down on to him and brought his knees up against my back. I sensed then that I had not hurt him and that he had not cried out in pain but because of the intensity of his pleasure.

  Spreading his hands around my thighs he moved me gently into a rhythm that opened my knees wider as he strove to push his cock further up me. It made me happy that I had been a satisfactory lover and in a feeling of exhilaration I wiggled and undulated in keeping with the upward thrusts of his hips. I felt proud and innocently delighted when, once again burying his strong fingers into my buttocks, he drew my giny tight up against him as a long deep groan shuddered through his body.

  After a few minutes his breathing became more even and struggling out from underneath me he got to his feet and leaned against the stone wall. It wasn't long before I joined him to kiss him with all the ardour a young girl has for her first love. His cock was still hanging out of his open breeches so I got my hand around it and pulled gently until it got big and hard. It brought new vigour back into his loins and with almost brute force he turned me to face the wall and pushed my back down so that I had to cling to the protruding stones to stop myself falling.

  Lifting up my skirt he forced his cock deep inside me. It filled my giny so suddenly that it squeezed the breath out of me. The soft curves of my bottom fitted snugly into his strong thighs. Leaning over my back he got his hands under my blouse and around my small firm breasts and then humped me with strong powerful strokes until he was finished with me. He lay slumped over me for some time and then suddenly crying out in anguish, he threw me to one side.

  Buttoning up his trousers he said in a hoarse, low voice, 'May God forgive me… and you, for the terrible sin we have committed.'

  I had no understanding of his remorse and protested emotionally, 'We have committed no sin. I love you with all my heart.'

  He stood there in silence with his head hanging down from drooped shoulders.

  'Please. Oh, please don't turn away from me,' I cried out with passion trembling in my voice, 'I live only for you. Nothing else matters.'

  Without a word he scrambled over the wall and strode back to the school hall. Puzzled and confused by this frightening change in his mood I lay on the grass and hammered the ground with a clenched fist in a fit of angry vexation. Many times since then I have been left bewildered at the various reactions men have after a woman has pleasured them.

  During the weeks that followed I pursued John Bruce unmercifully and, taking full advantage of the rare moments when we were alone together, clammered for his kisses and the intimacy of being crushed within his strong arms. He gave me no encouragement and looked upon me as a pestering nuisance.

  On one occasion when he was supervising the milking in the byres I ran up to him and flung my arms around his neck. His forbearance snapped, and he spat out in irritation, 'Get off me, you rotten daughter of Satan. Keep your mind on your work,' he shouted and took me by the arm and dragged me back to the cow I had been milking.

  I reached for the cow's udder and as I pulled hard on the tit, quickly turned it so that a stream of warm milk shot upwards, straight between his eyes.

  He got so angry that there and then he threw me off the farm telling me never to return, but his conscience must have pricked him for the next day he used his influence to get me a job as a chamber maid at one of the largest and best hotels in Douglas.

  Rejected and scorned by the man I loved, I resolved to get even by making as many men as possible submit to my female charms. Such is the Perversity of a young passionate girl scorned by her lover. Within a few days I had seduced the proprietor of the hotel, and, soon after, his bank manager, who dined every lunchtime at the hotel, insisting each time that I sat astride them as they lay on the bed. I wanted to be on top of all men and was determined that I would sit astride them rather than be spread-eagled beneath them. To have them submitting gratefully to the power of my sexual attractions gave me great satisfaction and to see them begging for my favours and snivelling and sulking when I refused them. Sometimes they were like puppy dogs panting for any tit-bits of favours I cared to grant them. I got my gratification out of seeing their red faces beneath me, distorted in an agony of passion, while I, cold-bloodedly, had nothing but contempt for them.

  It wasn't long before the wife of the hotel owner got wind of the shenanigans going on between her husband and myself and, giving me a minute's notice, she ordered me off the premises. In all haste I presented myself at the bank and asked a toffee-nosed clerk if I could have a moment with Mr. Scott, the manager.

  'Only if you have an appointment,' he said, adding, 'which I doubt very much.' He then looked down at his ledger as if I didn't exist.

  'You,' I said haughtily as I prodded him with my finger. 'You tell Mr. Scott that Miss Tully wishes to speak to him at once and if you don't I will march into his office and tell him myself. Now look sharp, I haven't got all day to wait on the likes of you!'

  He sat there aghast that I dared to speak to him in this manner and he gaped at me open-mouthed.

  'Well?' I demanded. 'Are you going to get yourself off that stool and tell him, or should I do it myself?'

  As if in a daze he stumbled to the manager's office and returned looking very subdued and told me very respectfully that Mr. Scott would see me at once.

  Scotty, for that was how I often addressed him when I bounced up and down on him as he lay beneath me, patted me on the hand when I related what had happened at the hotel.

  'Leave this to me, dear,' he said. 'When they bought the hotel they had to raise a very large loan from this bank. I can demand the return of that money anytime I wish to do so.'

  He rose from his chair and putting on his overcoat said, 'I'll go along now and have a quiet talk with them. Make yourself comfortable in my chair and wait here until I get back. In the meantime I will instruct my clerk to bring you a pot of tea and some biscuits.'

  It did my heart good to see the clerk bowing and scraping as he placed the tea and biscuits before me.

  'I hope the tea will be to your liking. Just ring the bell on the side table if you require more,' he said as he backed out of the door, leaving me alone with my anxious thoughts as to what the outcome was likely to be after the day's events.

  I didn't have any need to worry, for within the half hour Scotty was back to tell me that the job at the hotel was mine for as long as I wanted and that there would be no further talk of dismissal. I gave the dear old boy a hearty kiss and cuddle and returned to the hotel where I was given a polite but cold welcome by Madame. She told me that in future I would no longer be required to sleep in the servants' quarters on the top floor, as one of the guest rooms had been set aside for me.

  Sizing up my new situation, I took liberties and worked when I felt like it and remained in bed till midday if I had had a strenuous night with one of the gentleman guests.

  They were a mixed bunch of all ages and sizes: tall, short, fat and thin; retired service officers, civil and military; business men and dilett
antes. They only had one thing in common: an eye for a pretty girl who was willing to be bedded. But it was I who bedded them, not they me. I picked and chose as I pleased and was always on top when they were in my bed. They either submitted to it that way or got nothing.

  There was no hint for money or gifts on my part; nevertheless many of them discreetly left a gold sovereign or two under the pillow or returned later that day with a gift of jewellery. There were an equal number who took what I was giving freely without even a 'thank you' and came back a few days later begging for more of the same treatment. The hotel also prospered from my activities, for many of the male guests, single and even those with families, changed their plans when they made my acquaintance, stayed not just for a few days, but for a few weeks. The owners of the hotel eventually came to look upon me as a valuable asset they could ill-afford to lose.

  With all this activity I would, undoubtedly, have become pregnant if it hadn't been for the good offices of the cook who, when she heard shortly after my arrival at the hotel of my affair with the proprietor, called me down to the kitchen for an intimate talk. Being a good Christian woman, she first tried to persuade me to give up my wanton ways and be a good girl in the future. Failing in this task, she then warned me of the terrible consequences that would follow the birth of a bastard child which she said was bound to happen if I continued to bed down with men.

  After seeing she was getting nowhere on that tack she threw her hands above her exclaiming, 'Mercy, child, if nothing I can say will change your ways then get yourself along to Ma Bustin, the midwife in Fort Street, and for God's sake listen to her and take her advice for she is well versed in the knowledge of how a girl can be bedded without having a baby.'

  After giving the matter some thought, common sense prevailed. Upon enquiring in Fort Street of Ma Bustin's abode, I was directed to a basement room in one of the hovels which composed the street at that time. Descending the rickety wooden steps to the basement I knocked repeatedly on the door without receiving any reply. Angry at wasting my time on a fruitless errand, I kicked at the door and, to my astonishment, it flew open. I stepped cautiously inside and, as my eyes became accustomed to the darkened interior, I saw a wizened old woman lying on a makeshift bed holding to her bosom half a bottle of gin. Ma Bustin I presumed. My deliberate coughing had no effect on her slumbers, so I picked up an empty pan and brought it down on the wooden table with a loud bang which immediately brought the old woman to her senses. She set up such a fearful squawking that it was a wonder the neighbours didn't come rushing to her aid.