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The Grand Ball

Excerpt

Chapter One

Before today, the farthest distance Ester had traveled was her fall from her cozy room in the attic of an inn to the flea-infested room her mother had rented in Lant Street when her father was sentenced to Newgate.

Her innkeeper parents had taught Ester to change sheets and tend fires as soon as she could manage it. They’d been an honest, hardworking family, but her mother’s best efforts to persuade a solicitor to defend her father only got Mum pregnant with Ester’s half sibling. 

Ester had been seventeen and on the brink of marrying the blacksmith’s son. With such a blight on her, no man would look at her. She resigned herself to making her way as other fallen women did, the ones she’d seen visit the inn with men who weren’t their husbands. Her mother had always said those women lived off their “wits and charm,” leaving Ester with the impression that bosoms were called wits and the thatch between her thighs was her charm. 

Her mother hadn’t been wrong, Ester learned on her first visit to the solicitor’s office. Ester told him she was a virgin and a good girl, but her mother needed money for the baby he’d put in her. Ester had let the man stick his hand up her skirt and suck at her wits. Eventually she knelt to take his bludgeon in her mouth and swallowed when he finished. 

Despite the indignity, she hadn’t minded. It answered a lot of questions. Plus, the solicitor had given her enough money to keep the three of them for months. 

All was well until her mother died in childbirth, taking the babe with her. Ester used the last of their money to buy her father a better situation in the prison. He had a cough and wouldn’t last long, but at least he would be comfortable in his final days. 

With no prospects left, she gave her virginity to the solicitor. By then she had learned of something called a “sheathe.” He used one, then put her in a room above a greengrocer and used them often.

Ester was content and was even starting a flirtation with an undertaker’s son, in hopes of securing a marriage proposal, when the solicitor brought another man to see her. He said he couldn’t keep her any longer, but his friend here would do so. 

The other gentleman was younger, but still seemed old. Thirty-five to her twenty. He was titled and wealthy, though. He promised her a nice room in a better part of the city, so she let him tumble her to see how they got on. 

They got on very well. He was attentive and brought her astride him, then caressed her in such a way she discovered she could have the same experience as a man. 

That made her very happy! He put her in a room at a town house and came two or three times a week. She came at least twice that, welcoming him gleefully when he turned up. 

“You like to fuck, don’t you?” he said one evening as she washed his sheathe in the basin and left it to dry. 

“I like to fuck you,” she assured him, returning to the bed and kissing all over his chest. “Why? Does your wife not like it?”

“She likes to fuck, but not me.” He curled one arm behind his head. “I can’t stand her, but our parents have the marriage they wanted.” He used his other hand to toy between her thighs as she knelt beside him. “There’s a costume ball I attend without her. You might enjoy it. It’s in the country, invitation only. They’re always looking for enthusiastic young women to even out the numbers. They’ll pay you.” He slid one finger in and out of her at an idle pace, his touch making her squirm with renewed desire. “You’d have to let other men do this to you. Not all of them. Only the ones you like, but you have to fuck a few of them. Suck them off and let others watch. I’d very much like to watch other men fuck you.” 

“It sounds indecent.” 

“It excites you, though. I can tell by the way your pussy is melting and clinging to my fingers.” He wasn’t even playing his thumb against the place that made her moan, but she was dancing her hips, growing very randy and soaked at the wickedness of his suggestion.

“These balls are where I learned to frig a woman and make her come,” he continued. “You’ll find even the most depraved requests very satisfying.” 

“How much do they pay?” She could hardly speak she was edging so close to climax. 

He told her and the number undid her. Her peak arrived and she humped into his hand, moaning, “Yes. Take me to the ball.”

So here she was, arriving at an inn that was well-to-do. Her patron was staying at the manor house, as all the invited guests did. She was given a room and a light meal and instructions to nap off her travels. She woke when a box arrived with a note telling her when to expect the carriage. It said she should wear only her costume, no chemise or hose or other types of undergarments. 

The box contained a cloak and a mask with a cat’s eye shape. Beneath it was a gown in marmalade-colored velvet with white trim. There was also a device she’d never seen, a silk-wrapped sponge with a string that she was instructed to soak in the accompanying solution and insert to prevent pregnancy. How ingenious! She bathed and fitted it before she tried on the gown. 

The gown was far more of a surprise than the sponge. The high-waisted bodice was little more than a pair of cap sleeves and a shallow pair of cups for her breasts that barely shielded her nipples. The skirt was sewn as though it had been constructed backward, with the seam in the front, except there was no seam. It overlapped a tiny bit where it attached beneath the bustline, but the width of her hips caused the slit to open, revealing her legs to the middle of her thighs. When she walked, it fell open to expose all the way to her patch. 

Doubt inched into her. This inn was much like the one she’d been raised in. She had expected to grow up and marry a working man and live a respectable life like her parents, not go to a salacious ball wearing an outrageous costume that invited anyone and everyone to see her intimate flesh. To touch her and defile her.

Yet even as she considered strangers fondling her so blatantly, tendrils of curiosity tickled at her pussy. When she put on the mask, she felt emboldened. She threw the cloak over the dress and went down to await the carriage. 

“You’re one of us,” a young woman said, beckoning her toward the carriage that was arriving. She was with two other women who wore cat masks. 

“A pussy girl,” another explained with a playful hiss and a claw of her hand in the air. 

“Have you done this before?” Ester asked as the carriage crunched rocks beneath its wheels.

“We all have,” the third said. “I don’t even do it for the money anymore. Pace yourself,” she cautioned and the three women erupted into gales of laughter. 

Ester wasn’t sure what that meant. “How many guests will be there?”

“Ooh, forty or fifty? It’s hard to keep track. Some of the very rich have private parties within the party, if you know what I mean.” 

Ester didn’t, but one of the girls eagerly enlightened her. 

“I did one of those last time. He was a foreign gent. Barely spoke English. It took me forever to get that he wanted me to tie him to the leg of the bed and whip his arse with the riding crop, even his balls! Then I had to rub liniment on the welts and hand him off. He pushed a gold crown up my cunt after. Seemed quite happy. I was!”

Ester swallowed nervously, wondering what she’d got herself into.

They arrived, and as they stood in the receiving line, she saw people wearing costumes, milling through the lower floors. Most wore animal-themed disguises, but there were some highwaymen and jesters. One woman wore a painted Venetian mask with only a corset that lifted her breasts, but left them mostly exposed. The cage of a short crinoline rocked like a skeletal bell around her naked hips as she walked. 

Ester arrived to meet the hosts, two men wearing simple cloth masks. The first was tall and strapping, with exposed arms and shoulders that belonged on a blacksmith. He wore only a waistcoat decorated with the shield of a lion over buckskins. Ester wondered if it was a family emblem or a clue to his identity, but with his wild dark-blond mane flowing freely around his face, perhaps a lion was merely his nature. 

His friend was slighter and not as tall, a dandy with lace cuffs beneath a dark blue waistcoat over inexpressibles that were so tight, his todger and bollocks were clear as day. He had a heart-shaped mole on his cheek and greeted each person with warmth and kisses. 

“Welcome, you beautiful pussy darlings. Oh, this little minx again. Can’t get enough of us, can you? And is this a new pussy in our midst?” The dandy took Ester’s hand and twirled her so her skirt fluttered open. 

She had been expecting her lover to greet her, but she didn’t see him. Instead, she was being singled out and, even though it was with admiration, her stomach knotted with self-conscious nerves, especially as she felt the brush of air tickling the curls on her mound. 

A few people looked and she felt their interest. Spirits were high and everyone seemed good-natured, but she was daunted. Where was her lover? How long would she be here? What would happen before she could leave?  

The lion gave her an appreciative nod. “Come see us later. Tell us how you’re enjoying yourself.”

She nodded, finding a smile of false confidence before following the rest of the pussy girls.