The Cherry Orchard Read online

  And, crowning glory, on her lap, in a beribboned red and white candy-striped box from the best bonboniere in Bond Street, was a casket of Matinee Selection, lush pastes and marzipans shaped to resemble luscious cherries hand-tinted in blush pinks and chrome yellows and soaked in kirsch and maraschino; fat sugarplum damsons in the darkest purples and indigos, liqueur-steeped and sweeter than butterfly wings and summer wine. Grandmamma always said that chocolates were vulgar and suited only to middle class taste, and that the true confectioner’s art lay solely in nuts and pastes. And so, even from their earliest days, she had always brought them candied fruits fat as waxy gems; brightly colored boxes of San Toy selection from nights at Daly’s; and Arabian almonds coated in brittle sugar shells and tinted in the palest pastel pinks or robin’s-egg blues.

  And tonight the rush from the alcohol in the bonbons going straight to her head, and her little heart, delirious with happiness, is pitter-pattering like a pecking-chicken-toy by the time the house lights finally go down and the gas jets in the huge brass spotlights flare to an icy blue hiss and illuminate the sedately rising red velvet curtain and the great Russian dacha set that waits beyond.

  The program in her hand has stated that tonight’s play is to be a comedy, but that inadequate word conveys nothing of the great depth of feeling that this intricate work will present. And Magda watches, breathless, with tears in her bright blue eyes as she shares the agony of Madame Ranevskaya and her family as their estate and entire way of life slips through their blasé fingers like warm sand on a summer day at the beach; yet, when the final curtain falls on the poor stooped figure of Firs, the faithful old butler, abandoned by the family and entombed to die in the now derelict château, her whole body shakes with unconcealed rage at the cold-blooded callousness of her own privileged class.

  “Did you like the play, my dear?” her grandmother asks as they emerge, gasping and out of breath, into the tinderbox aroma of the rain-washed London streets, hansom cabs and taxis vying for their trade in the hiss of gaslight, and Magda grasps the older woman’s wrists and whispers, “It has changed my life,” little realizing how prophetic this statement will be.

  And thus the interminable Season and that long hot summer drags on, with London society blissfully unaware that the First Great Pestilence will soon sweep across Europe and decimate almost the whole of her population in a matter of weeks.

  Party membership is also on the up, with shipyard workers striking in the streets and the great Stepney docks lying idle, rusted hulks with rotting cargos becalmed up and down the hot, foetid waters of the sluggish Thames.

  Magda, meanwhile, has also joined The Party—secretly, of course—and she is sending most of her generous allowance to help boost their scanty funds, though she has not yet adopted the austere mode of dress favored by some of her contemporaries, and she still glitters with the lightning-white fire of diamonds when she accompanies her Grandmamma to the Opera—but she is a quieter, more earnest girl than that tipsy young Deb so affected by a Chekhov play in what already seems like another life.

  And tonight is the night of her own cotillion and she stands resplendent in the Savoy ballroom before the cream of London society in a shimmering pearl sheath dress that clings to her slender body like skin, a tall and athletic girl with hair the color of wild primroses, bobbed and razor-fringed, naked save for the million sparkling tears that shield her modesty from the hungry wolf-eyes of the salivating young men who compete fiercely for the honor of possessing her in their pre-booked suites in quiet hours of the early morning. Though, in truth, she had already lost that particular flower to her best friend, the Honorable Cynthia Negus, amidst the pungent scent of salt-sea breezes and coconutty yellow furze on a Brighton cliff-top many months previous.

  Tonight, though, the girls are in the mood for adventure and, once the speeches have been made, the dance-card obligations fulfilled and the waxy white corsages worn and wilted, they gather up a herd of young bucks and escape, speeding out along the nearly-deserted Strand and off towards the black hiss of the river in Freddie Heathcote-Willoughby’s bright red roadster, laughing as the warm breeze rushes through their hair like lovers’ fingers. They’ve already explored all the intricate petals of each other’s cunts, sucked on engorged sugar-pink nipples like hard-jelly jube-jubes and thrilled to the rhythms of their own bodies as they lay gasping like iridescent fish in the blood-pumping afterglow of orgasms; and now they’re ready for cock. In fact, a whole carload of it, half a gallon of the most valuable semen in London all pent up in one tiny vehicle and eager to be spilled for their pleasure.

  And Lady Cynthia knows of a cinema beyond the south bank. You know the kind of place we mean. Perhaps you’ve even been to one. Certainly not one of the grand cathedrals of Leicester Square with their smartly uniformed usherettes and a great orchestra humming with haunting melodies; or the friendly palaces of Upper Tooting where you first laughed at stone-faced Buster Keaton or melted under Valentino’s blistering gaze. No, this particular stereopticon lurks in a shady side street in Thornton Heath and boasts of no neon-lit stucco frontage or plush red velvet curtains, and its continuous performance of scratchy “imported” movies boasts of no melody save the whir of the projector and the soft moans of the patrons as they watch their unfolding erotic dreams with unabated longing.

  Freddie pays for all their admission and adds a generous tip to the tired fat woman in the tiny booth by the door to ensure discretion, and then, like Alice and her rabbit burrow, they all tumble headlong into the velvet darkness within, both girls surrounded by eager young men as they take their seats and look up at the flickering images of Wonderland on the screen before them.

  And it’s all flesh. Naked young hopefuls from the outer fringes of the brave new Hollywoodland, pretty little things with sweet faces and stars in their big blue eyes, striking “artistic” poses on a sunset Venice Beach as the warm red wind caresses their bodies, their little breasts quivering and their nipples rubbery; then heavier older women who have already walked the mean streets and who see the film industry as the softer option, laconic in their own large-breasted nudity, rotund bellies lying unashamedly welcomingly below soft portly tits; thick hairy pussies lurking sleek and contented like fat tom cats between their milk-white thighs.

  And Magda can feel the boy beside her stiffen—feel his body stance stiffen, that is, though that other thing is almost guaranteed to be stiffening too—and a thrill runs through her as she takes his hand and immediately connects to his racing pulse, getting caught up in his virulently contagious excitement as they watch the voluptuaries cavorting before them.

  Then another film clunks clumsily onto the screen. Somehow opulent in its blurry sepia tone after the stark monochrome of the previous epic. But this particular burlesque is harder core and no mere girly parade. Hell, it even makes a crude attempt at a storyline.

  Three girls stroll on a beach on a hot summer day, and two quickly strip off and splash in the water while the third watches, fully dressed. Then we see the mermaids laughing and beckoning to their friend to join them, but she demurely shakes her head, no, but, instead of respecting her wishes, the naked nymphs run brazenly back up the shale, buxom bottoms like white full moons, and lay hands on her, pulling the clothes from her body and quickly denuding her.

  And these are no coy starlets or sweet Mary Pickford look-alikes, but strong-limbed working girls, fresh-faced farmer’s daughters just off the bus from Ohio or Indiana, with heavy breasts and thick hair under their armpits. And yet Magda feels her own pussy turn to water as she watches the stocky girl (who so resembles one of her mother’s kitchen maids back in their country house) have the clothing ripped from her body; groans aloud as her bra falls to the ground and her huge white tits tumble out, the nipples walnut brown and already hard, her fat cunt covered with thick blonde hair and unapologetically bestial.

  “Bet you’d like to do that to me,” she whispers mischievously into the ear
of the boy beside her, her hand already on his thigh and traveling upward, heady from champagne and astounded at her own boldness as she fumbles with buttons and reaches for the thing that she has fantasized about for so long.

  “Rather!” he agrees, his eager hand burrowing up her skirt in return, but she pushes him off.

  “No, not yet,” she breathes and wrestles with the cool cotton of his underwear, her nimble fingers quickly finding thick hair and hot flesh. “I just want to feel you while we watch …”

  And, with her dainty little hand wrapped tightly around his huge thick shaft, he nods agreement, powerless to resist.

  She has his cock right out now and tears her eyes away from the three naked graces on screen to sneak a peep, his member huge and standing out in front of him like a thick branch from a gnarled old tree, the soft chamois leather of his foreskin warm in her hand as she slides it up and down like the tiny plain-covered books she and Cynthia have pored-over in bed have advised, marveling at feel of him, his unyielding hardness and animal heat.

  On screen the girls have started to kiss and touch each other and she knows that it’s arousing him to boiling point, watching while she runs her hand slowly up and down his shaft, not rushing it or milk-machining him like some cold English Rose impatient to get to the money shot and drop the hard, beautiful thing she is holding like a hot coal; but, instead, she delights in torturing him as she drags his hood right down and denudes his slippery wet head to run a fingernail around the rim before resuming her steady up-and-down rhythm again.

  “So, tell me, which of their furry little pussies do you like the best?” she giggles impishly into his ear, ogling all the cunts on the screen while squeezing his rock-hard dick mercilessly, and he mutters something incomprehensible as his whole body stiffens and then arches upwards and he comes like a volcano, all his hot white jism shooting out of him in spurt after snowy-white spurt, drenching her hand and his own pulsating cock, soaking his underwear and ruining his tuxedo.

  “Now,” she whispers, licking the salt off her fingers and delighting in the taste of him. “Now, you can squeeze my pretty little kitty and make me come …”

  Later, they lie together on the big bed in Lady Cynthia’s hotel suite, the men dispensed with and the hot night quiet. The odd snatch of conversation from watchmen on the becalmed freighters on the river floats across the rooftops and laps softly at the open French windows, and the net curtains ripple like a blush with the scant breeze; but the velvet darkness is so still that they don’t quite dare to speak in anything louder than whispers.

  “Men,” Magda laments, almost imperceptibly. “Their cocks are so beautiful and yet they’re such idiots …” She is almost naked. The pearl dress that fifteen seamstresses labored over night and day lies in an untidy heap on the floor and she stretches her long limbs along the satin sheets of the huge bed, a flimsy pair of Parisian silk French knickers, so sheer that they show even her pale bush, and her beloved amber beads are all that separate her from total depravity.

  “And what do you know of cocks, friend of mine?” Cynthia teases, taking Magda’s long thin fingers in hers and pressing them to her full, lush lips, still stained a dark damson red though her lipstick has long since worn away. “Oh dear, what’s this I taste? Something salty and very sexy … My, my, has somebody been a naughty girl?”

  “No naughtier than you,” Magda replies, licking first one and then the other of her friend’s tiny hands. “My god, Cynthia. You taste of cum on both hands. What did you do?”

  “Nothing you didn’t,” Cynthia laughs, pulling Magda up level with her and planting a tiny kiss on her face. “Just with two of them at once …”

  “And did they make you come too?” Magda pouts, desperate to return the kiss but resisting hard, her soft blue eyes fiery with jealousy.

  “No,” Cynthia reassures her, laughing. “Not that they didn’t try, but they just ended up more or less holding hands over my pussy. How about yours, any luck?”

  And Magda laughs and remembers the boy’s clumsy caress of her big prominent pudenda and the fingers that ventured in and out of her hot, wet slit without quite touching her clit. “Not a chance, I’m ravenous …”

  “Me too,” the Honorable Cynthia agrees, kissing her again. “Want to see what’s on the menu?” Like Magda’s, her dress lies abandoned on the snowy polar-bearskin rug and she lies on the bed in a tiny chemise and nude-colored silk stockings with garters like tiny rosebuds. No evidence of a bra or panties.

  And Magda returns the kiss this time as the two of them slowly melt into each other’s arms, and she feels her nipples become as hard as the cinema boy’s cock as Cynthia runs her fingers over them.

  “Strip me,” Magda moans when they finally break for air and Cynthia laughs.

  “You’re only wearing your …”

  “I know, pull them down. No, not like that, jerk them off roughly like a boy would!”

  “Like this?”

  “Oh yes, just like that. Now squeeze my pussy like you’ve never touched one before …”

  “Oh, gosh, I say, old girl,” Cynthia mimics. “You’re all furry, I didn’t know girls had hair down there!”

  “Silly boy, not all girls have it,” Magda replies, joining the game and rubbing herself frantically on her friend’s hand. “Only the special ones who turn into animals in the dead of night and come to eat you up …”

  “Then it’s just about time that we both did some eating,” Cynthia whispers in her own voice, pulling her slip off over her head and slithering down Magda’s naked body like a pole dancer. She’s a little smaller that Magda but her breasts are considerably larger, with dark brown nipples and huge areolas the size of half-crowns, a tight waist and short shapely legs. But it’s her cute little cunt that has caught your eye, isn’t it, with its downy neatly-trimmed bush a beautiful golden brown with a little fleck of white blonde up the center, and fleshy pink petals peeping like shy maids from her deep, deep slit.

  And normally they kiss and tease for hours before they finally let tongues and fingers finish the job, but tonight they’ve been kept on the boil for too long and all they crave is fulfillment.

  “Don’t kiss me, finger fuck me, hard and clumsy like a man would do!” Cynthia commands, pushing deep into Magda’s crevice as she speaks and brushing against her stiff clit in passing.

  “Like this?”

  “Yes, that’s good. But hard. Harder. Rub my clitty with your thumb …”

  “Oh god, Cynthia, I’m desperate to come. Do it properly …”

  “No, rub yourself up against my fingers like I’m doing to you!”

  “I think I’ll wet myself if I try to come like this …”

  “Promises, promises …”

  “Oh fuck … I think I’m coming anyway … oh yes, I’m coming. I’m coming, I’m coming …”

  “Me too, don’t stop, oh fuck, fuck, fuck, I love you more than anyone in the world. Even being a man you thrill my clit so beautifully …”

  And normally they lie in each other’s arms, luxuriating in the afterglow, their bodies awash with sensations, skin gently tingling, eyelids gradually getting heavier as sleep eventually overcomes them; but tonight Magda experiences a new restlessness, an itch that demands to be scratched and won’t acknowledge satiation.

  Cynthia is boneless, like a rubber doll that can be bent to any shape, and Magda clambers on top of her and starts to rub her cunt up and down the cool flesh of her friend’s opal-white thigh, not gently, but like a she-wolf in heat, desperate for relief.

  “I need to be fucked,” she pleads urgently, bending down to plant hard kisses on Cynthia’s long swan neck, biting with frustration and leaving lover’s marks, her crotch still bumping and grinding below. “I love you with all my heart, Cynthia, but I do so wish you had a cock …”

  And Cynthia laughs a sad, bittersweet laugh and pushes her friend gently
off and rises, a naked fairy thing in the silver moonlight, and goes to find her bags amidst the heaps of discarded clothing on their hotel room floor.

  Magda watches her keenly and groans aloud as Cynthia bends down. “What are you doing, lover? Aside from showing me your delicious little white ass, that is …”

  “Getting you a cock,” Cynthia replies enigmatically, taking something wrapped in an anonymous black velvet bag from her suitcase. “I knew this day would eventually come and so I asked the Toy Maker of Paris if he could help, and he hasn’t let me down. Look …”

  And Cynthia turns and stands before her, pale and naked in the moonlight, except that she isn’t the old Cynthia any more. She is still as beautiful, still as alabaster white, still the same fine-looking tits with their huge brown nipples like coconut mushroom stalks, still the same sexy legs and creamy thighs. But there, there where Magda’s eyes naturally rivet, there where Cynthia’s foxy little bush should be neatly nestled, sits a big, fat sleepy cock, thick and heavy and thinking about getting hard. Not a man’s cock but Cynthia’s cock, hot and horny, and getting itself ready to give Magda the fucking she’s always been dreaming about. Here, now, tonight …

  “Cynthia, what have you done?” Magda asks in a breathless whisper, eyes riveted to the big semi-flaccid organ, her breathing rapid and labored like Red Riding Hood finding a Wolf in her Grandma’s bed.