assume I have nothing going for me but my rank?” Arthur asked.
Lord Nigel turned to him. “No offense, lad, but you’re just a boy. What else would she want you for?”
Regan spoke up for him. “He’s not a cruel, possessive controlling old fart, for starters.”
“And I do have a fresh young cock,” Arthur added, as Lord Nigel’s eyes went wide.
“It’s true, Nige,” Regan said, straight-faced. “It’s really quite massive.”
Arthur held out his hand to her. “Shall we dance, my lady?”
“You won’t trip over your cock, will you?”
“I make no promises, so watch your step.”
They set their drinks down as the music swelled. They returned to the dance floor, leaving Lord Nigel Somers sputtering like a car that had just run out of petrol.
Once they were in step, Regan started to laugh. “Did we really say all that out loud to the husband of the biggest gossip in London?”
“We did. Wonder how long before I’ll be hearing from my family about that.”
“The speed of posh gossip is faster than the speed of light.”
She appeared to be right. Arthur saw, as they spun around the floor, that more eyes were on them than even before, that what they’d said to Nigel had been overheard and was now being passed around.
“Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut?” Regan said. “Standing up to these people is more trouble than it’s worth.”
“I like your mouth open,” Arthur said, dropping a kiss onto her lips.
She looked up at him, startled, then laughed.
“What are you laughing at?” he asked.
“At you, at me, at the mad, mad world. That’s all. Can you believe that the waltz used to be considered the height of scandalous dancing? The couple held each other in their arms like lovers. The man’s foot could disappear under his partner’s gown. His knee sometimes slipped between her thighs… Claudel’s sculpture was the last time the waltz caused a scandal. Until tonight.”
“We’re only dancing. Not very scandalous.”
“I can make it scandalous,” she said. “Do you want to hear about when and how I lost my virginity?”
“Right now?”
“I was eighteen years and needed money for art school. I’d been accepted, but the scholarship wouldn’t cover rent in London or supplies. So I came to The Pearl and found the madam, asked her how much I could get for my virginity if I sold it.”
“Regan, if you tell me—”
“You’ll get hard on the dance floor. That’s the plan.”
As they spun around the room, she spun the story, so clearly that he could envision it as if it were happening before him…
The client’s name was Giles Russell. He’d played rugby in his youth and inherited a fortune from his father and now owned his own team. Built like a rugby player gone to seed. He’d been handsome twenty years earlier and still had the charm.
Giles rented the Diamond Suite at The Pearl and Regan was summoned to his room around nine. The madam had dressed her in a little white frock, white lace-trimmed ankle socks and Mary Jane shoes. Giles laughed when he saw her at the door. He didn’t care about virgins. He just preferred it in the raw and didn’t want to catch anything. The dress was overkill but that was fine by him. She looked sweet enough to eat, he said. So he did.
“Right on the rug,” Regan said. “He ate me like a starving man at a feast. Dress up to my neck, face in my cunt. I could feel his tongue in my stomach, I swear.”
“Regan.”
“I was so nervous that I think I came from pure adrenaline, but I did come. Hard. He had these thick fat fingers,” she said. “I still think about those thick fingers sometimes.”
After she came, he picked her up off the rug and took her into the bedroom, stripped her naked—except for her little white lace-edged socks—and laid her out on the big white bed. He stuck his fingers in her and declared her still too tight. Didn’t want to tear her, or he’d only get one turn on her before she’d tap out.
“One turn, he called it.” Regan’s eyes glinted. “He really was a wicked man.”
He’d brought all these lovely weighted metal balls, about the size of large marbles, and he used them to open Regan’s vagina. She remembered him putting her over his lap and spanking her good and hard until her bottom was burning and red as fire. He worked one large metal ball into her, then another. She felt them nestling into the hollow in