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“Did you touch yourself after you left me last night?” She whispers in Gwen's ear, coming up behind the older girl pinning sheets to the lines out behind the kitchen gardens. It's taken her until nearly tea time to find her lover alone, in a place relatively secure from prying ears and eyes.
The idle hours have given her a lot of time consider her approach.
“Sybil!” Gwen hisses in a low, slightly shocked-sounding tone.
“I know you did.” Sybil catches Gwen's wrist as her fingers release the clothes pin, drags it back over the other girl's shoulder. She presses her nose to a hand made cold from damp cloth. “I can smell it.” Runs her tongue across the palm, sliding her lips over the top of Gwen's first and middle fingers. “I can taste it.”
Gwen yanks her hand away, “Not here!”
But she's laughing, leaning back against Sybil ever so slightly, the round swell of her bottom warm against the front of Sybil's thighs, even through the thick wool skirts between them.
“No?”
Sybil – knowing they are hidden from casual view by several lines of well-scrubbed linens – places her hands on Gwen's hips and pulls her closer, slides her palms up across Gwen's waist to cup her breasts. Gwen allows herself a gentle moan, deep in the back of her throat, head momentarily dropped back against Sybil's shoulder before she shoves away, bending to pull the next wet sheet from the basket at her feet.
“We could be seen.” Gwen's slightly breathless now, out of proportion to the touch, and Sybil knows her own instincts were accurate.
“So I'll take you somewhere we can't be seen.”
“We can't; I'll be missed.” The hunting party is due back in under an hour, tea will be served in the drawing room at half four.
“Oh, I doubt what I have in mind will take long.”
Gwen makes a small noise, halfway between a whimper and a laugh. Sybil waits.
“Meet me in fifteen minutes in the school room. Anna asked me turn down the bedding in the guest rooms on that wing before we're needed to prepare the table for supper.”
“Done.” And Sybil withdraws.
Gwen finds her some twenty minutes later, as promised, sitting on the window seat with the copy of Dodo's Daughter that Mary has been reading of late. Since she is flicking pages idly with the thumb of her left hand, Gwen things she is likely not paying much attention to the plot. Given the reason they are both here, Gwen can hardly blame her. Her own mind is hardly attending to the matter of coal scuttles and bedding at present. At least – not the kind of bedding Anna had in mind. Something about the graceful line of Sybil's neck as she bends over the open pages reminds Gwen of the self-portrait Sybil had executed ten months previously – all firm, black lines and suggestive, curving secrets. She shivers at the memory as Sybil looks up.
“You called for me, milady?” She licks her lips, swallows, feeling her skin prickle with rekindled desire.
Sybil closes the book without marking the page, leaves it on the cushion as she rises and crosses the room to where Gwen stands, coal bucket in hand.
She reaches down and unwinds Gwen's fingers from grip, sets it down beside them, returns to run her thumbs across the inside of Gwen's wrists in slow, speculative circles.
Gwen shivers, watching her.
“You touched yourself last night, after you left me.” It isn't a question, and Gwen can't read Sybil's body language. This is a topic of conversation neither of them have broached before, though she had always assumed – that is to say, their ability to meet each others' needs is limited at best, and Sybil's familiarity with the physical delights of intimacy led Gwen to assume that she – just as Gwen herself – well, yes. Much as she had last January in the linen cupboard down the hall from this particular room.
“Yes?” She squeaks, breathless, finding she has gone scarlet in the cheeks, can feel the flame licking under her skin.
Sybil leans into Gwen's physical space, pressing her body along the length of Gwen's own, and places her warm lips close to Gwen's ear. “Tell me.” She slips her fingers beneath Gwen's apron and presses the heel of her hand into the already- swelling flesh beneath Gwen's skirts. “Show me.”
Gwen isn't sure what she had been expecting – frantic kisses up against the drawing table? Sybil sliding hands up underneath her skirts? Whatever it was, she hasn't been anticipating this.
“I--” She feels bewildered, aroused but confused as to what, exactly, Sybil is asking of her.
“Show me,” Sybil repeats, nipping the cartilage of her ear. “I want to know what it's like, after you leave me, know what it is you do to bring yourself pleasure when I can't be there to do it for you. I want to be able to lie in bed and think of you thinking of me – and touch myself – bring myself to climax – thinking of you shaking in ecstasy.”
It's become increasingly evident to Gwen that in bedding Sybil she has unwittingly roused an unruly and lustful creature from sleep, one which will only become more restive and dangerous the longer it remains in captivity.
Really, she needs to apply herself with redoubled diligence to those type-writing exercises, and write to her cousin Milly in Manchester to inquire about the proper means by which to secure a position. This simply cannot continue indefinitely without their luck bending, breaking.
It's only a matter of time, she thinks helplessly, before O'Brien sees an ill-timed glance or – Heaven forfend! – decides to lurk around just the wrong corner and exposes all.
Sybil interrupts this desperate attempt at rational thought by running her tongue around the grooves of Gwen's ear, pulling the lobe between her lips and sucking with a rhythm reminiscent of the one she uses on other, more sensitive portions. Gwen gasps, grips Sybil's forearms to keep her knees from giving way.
“Not here, Sybil! Oh heavens, just--” She presses her forehead into Sybil's shoulder, takes a shuddering breath. Sybil's hands hold her, pinioning her front and back at the small of her back and the low, roiling center of her belly.
Privacy. Touching. Arousal. She has an idea. Grabbing Sybil's hand, she pulls them to the door, quickly scans the hallway in both directions for unwanted witnesses, and ducks to the left and around the corner to the linen cupboard she'd taken refuge in all those months ago. She pulls them into the dark and latches the door behind them. There's barely room for the two of them, standing, but then neither of them wants a tremendous amount of space.
Sybil lets out a little laugh of surprise into the dark. “Gwen?”
She can feel Gwen's heart beating under her hands, where they have come to rest on the swell of Gwen's breasts, beneath her dress. She can feel Gwen's breath, warm on her cheek.
“We won't be interrupted here,” Gwen says in a whisper. “There's nowt in this cupboard they'll be needing today.”
There's a pause, as they both consider the darkness, the enclosed space of their hiding place. Sybil pushes Gwen back with her hands, feels her back up against the recessed shelving at the back of the tiny room. There's a slight scuffle as Gwen's boots slide across the wood.
“Mmm,” She considers. Yes, this has possibilities. She runs her hands down Gwen's bodice, feeling the textures of the cloth and, beneath the cloth, the contours of Gwen's breasts, the gentle curve of her waist and hips and belly. She grips a handful of skirt in each hand and pulls Gwen in for a kiss.
“I came here, once, last winter, when I was cleaning the schoolroom,” Gwen begins talking in a rather breathless whisper as soon as their lips part. At first Sybil things she's merely continuing her assurances that the cupboard is unused. Then: “I—I—I touched myself here. You—I'd—there was the drawing, I found the drawing, and—”
The drawing. Sybil feels her blood run cold with discovery and then hot with unanticipated lust. Gwen had seen the drawing. She doesn't have to ask which one, and while she's actually considered the possibility of giving the self-portrait to Gwen as a Christmas gift, she had never imagined the older girl had already seen it. The thought of it makes her dizzy.
She takes a careful, measured breath, then another, as the images blossom in her mind's eye: Gwen, biting her lips in an effort to silence the whimpering, wordless noises she makes as she nears the end. Gwen, legs shaking as she struggles to keep herself upright, fingers circling frantically against the exposed flesh of--
“Show me,” She instructs. “Please, Gwen, I--”
Gwen takes a shuddering breath against Sybil's cheek, lowers her forehead to Sybil's shoulder. They're quiet, for few moments. Sybil can feel the blood pounding through her veins, ringing in her ears.
Then: “Here,” Gwen whispers, almost shyly. She catches Sybil by the arms and shuffles them around so that it is Sybil, now, whose back is to the interior of the cupboard and Gwen who stands with her shoulders against the wood panels of the door. Their eyes are growing used to the dim, dim light seeping in between the door and the door frame, and Sybil can just make out the white blotches of Sybil's mop cap and apron. The movement of limbs, the slight glint of an eye.
She can see the movement as Gwen gathers her skirts and fumbles beneath them for a moment – what? Oh, yes, of course – she's undoing the ties of her drawers, pushing the fabric down to her boots, stepping out of the white cloth and kicking it out of the way.
Now, under her skirts, she is naked. Sybil feels her own opening give way in an unexpected rush of warmth and moisture. Her fingers itch to touch, but she asked to be shown and Gwen seems, after initial reluctance, to be willing. So Sybil is loathe to break the spell by dropping to her knees and burying her face in Gwen's damp curls, gripping Gwen's hips and sucking and sucking at her damp flesh until Gwen's thighs begin shaking around her ears and she's forced to give up breathing or break her hold.
There, in the closet, Gwen lifts her left leg and braces her foot against the shelf that presses into the back of Sybil's knees. There's a whisper of fabric as she reaches down and sweeps her skirts up her thighs, baring her calves to the knees. “Here--” She reaches forward and grasps Sybil's right wrist, presses her hand down onto the exposed flesh of the crooked left knee, “--feel. I'll show you.”
Oh, she will be allowed to touch this time.
“I always want you to touch me,” Gwen whispers, as if in that moment she's able to read Sybil's mind.
Sybil slides her palm up Gwen's thigh, first the outside, cool in the air of the unheated space, then over the curve of her pelvic girdle and down to the soft, velvety flesh of her inner thigh and oh, sweet Jesus, Gwen is already so wet that in the light she would be glistening.
It's Sybil's turn to whimper involuntarily.
Gwen uses her left hand to still Sybil's where it rests, on her inner thigh, and slides her right hand up and under the folds of her skirts, splays her hand across her own curls, sliding downward and inward. Sybil can feel Gwen's legs flexing, adjusting, as her hips tilt to find the best angle.
“Talk to me.” Sybil commands – requests – pleads.
“It was the first time I ever touched myself and thought of you,” Gwen says, low and ragged. For a minute Sybil thinks she's talking about the previous night and is confused – surely—? – and then she remembers Gwen's confession about the self- portrait, about the cupboard, about – “Oh.” She whispers, her hand against Gwen's thigh gripping tight, pressing Gwen's knee out, spreading her wide. The scent of Gwen's arousal rises between them.
“I thought – I wanted you so much, but I didn't dare hope – and then the drawing – I thought – I imagined you had left it for me, that perhaps – I wanted to know what you were thinking of when you touched yourself like that –”
“You,” Sybil responds, fiercely, “Even before I knew what it was that I wanted, it was you.”
Gwen moans. Sybil leans toward her, pressing her forehead into the door beside Gwen's head, bracing her left hand just above Gwen's right shoulder to help Gwen support her weight, stay upright.
“I've got you,” she whispers, “I've got you. Show me. Show me.” Gwen's left hand has shot out to brace herself against the shelf to her left and Sybil's right hand is now cupped around the fingers that Gwen is rubbing in inexorable circles, dragging the wet and swollen flesh, pinching, scratching, pressing down with the heel of her hand, the tendons in her neck and the muscles in her jaw tightening with every rotation.
Gwen's hand is so slick with her own wetness that Sybil can slick her fingers up and down across the back of Gwen's knuckles as she moves and then – in a single, fluid motion that surprises them both, Sybil slides off the back of Gwen's hand and buries herself three fingers deep inside of Gwen's opening.
It's immeasurably, incontestably, better this way, Gwen thinks – to the extent that her brain is capable of coherent thoughts, between the burning ache in her legs and the needy pain in her groin, the full pressure of Sybil inside her, and the exquisite pressure of her own fingers working to dismantle every last thread of self-control she possesses. In all ways better
Not that she had ever harbored doubts about that.
Better with four hands instead of just two, better with Sybil's teeth grazing her collarbone, leaving pink, bruised crescents in the flesh of her shoulders, better with Sybil's fingers inside her, sliding up and around and over, twisting, pushy and demanding, coaxing and generous.
She feels as if her insides are expanding, as if she must spread her legs wider and wider and ever wider until she can take the whole universe inside – and then with a final flickering turn of her fingers, the wave of pleasure-pain overtakes her and she shoves herself up and back against the door, its boards creaking alarmingly. She bites back the unseemly moan that rises from the base of her diaphragm up through her lungs and threatens to shake itself out of her throat at a volume loud enough to bring the whole household at a run. She realizes, dimly, that her right foot has risen off the floor as her left knee straightens and pushes her up, up, arching away and then into Sybil, who is there solid and steady to catch and hold her and lower her back to earth, whose thigh is there, solid and supporting, to rest her weight on as she sinks back down, gulping in air and boneless, with all the strength wrung out of every muscle.
Dimly, she can feel Sybil brushing the damp strands of hair from her face, rubbing small circles against the nape of her neck, whispering soothing nothings against her hair: “Shh – I'm here – you're alright – I've got you – shh – shh – ”
She lets Sybil hold her, pinned against the door, as she teaches herself how to breath again, and listens to the sound of her heartbeat, mingled with the rhythm of Sybil's breath, Sybil's heart. It's always over too soon, this part. Once the haze of desire has coalesced and then dissipated they are left with the creeping, cold reality that – as much as they might long for, plan for, it to be otherwise – they never have enough time.
“You asked—” Gwen tests her voice in a whisper, licks her lips and tries again, mouthing the words against Sybil's ear. “You asked if I touched myself last night.”
Sybil ghosts a laugh into her collarbone. “I did, yes.”
Gwen closes her eyes, even in the dark, against the terrifying vulnerability that this moment costs her. Somehow she feels more naked in this confession than she has felt when actually naked in Sybil's presence.
“You wanted me to tell you how I touched myself.”
There's a pause. “Only—only if you want to,” Sybil's voice has lost the tone of command.
“Ah-mm.” Gwen makes a noise, uncertain herself what it means, precisely, though it is an assent of some kind.
She gathers her thoughts. Then: “I wanted you, last night. Ached for you.” She drew a breath. “When I come away from you, like that, when we haven't had the time to – I, I want to touch myself but there's rarely the time, and then – and then when I do I can't – I want –” This isn't coming out at all like she can hear it in her own head.
She begins again, her voice no longer a whisper, but low. Even she can hear the weariness in her own voice. “It feels good, Sybil. It always feels good. It's felt good my whole life. But that's only part of it.” Pause. “I'm so tired of hiding, tired of being patient. I have to go to my room and wait until Anna falls asleep, and then I – it's over so fast. Without you, there are no hands on my breasts, no mouth on my nipples, no tongue between my thighs, no fingers inside me. Sybil, I positively ache to have you inside me.” She feels a weak little laugh in her chest, “Why do you think it was all over with such speed when you slipped your fingers inside me? And then – after. It's so – cold – and lonely. I'm lying there in my bed and I know you're here, right here in this same house, and I can't get to you. And it's – I'm so tired of it.
Sybil has gone still, and silent. Gwen can feel her muscles gathering tension – would make soothing gestures if her limbs weren't still utterly boneless from pleasure. Things had come out more harshly than she had anticipated. Perhaps she had overstepped –
“You're – tired of us?” Sybil's voice is small, self-contained. Careful. Gwen can almost hear the stiff upper lip.
“Oh, God, no love –” She buries her face in Sybil's shoulder, grips her fiercely – or as fiercely as her recovering muscles will allow – and shakes her gently, trying to knock sense into her. “Love, of course not. It's this I'm tired of. The secrecy. The – the – the fear of being found out. The never having enough time. The never being able to fall asleep at the end of the night and wake up together the following morning. One or the other of us always on our guard. The creeping terror of O'Brien or Thomas around every corner.”
Sybil has pulled her close into a full-body hug. “We'll find a way.”
Gwen draws a shaky breathe, “I do try to believe that. Faith is not always an easy thing.”
Distantly come the echoes of the grandfather clock in the front hall, chiming the hour: one, two, three, four – Gwen lets out a frustrated laugh, “Oh, hellfire. I need to go – they'll be needing me and I've four rooms still to tend to.”
Sybil makes a small noise of agreement, though neither of them move. This, too, has become a familiar refrain in all their stolen moments – the inertia that overtakes them before the necessary moment of parting.
Sybil dips her head, tilts Gwen's mouth toward her own and presses firm kisses there, lips and teeth capturing Gwen's lower lip, sucking it in and holding it thoughtfully, tracing its fullness with her tongue. She hums in a satisfied way.
“Mmm?” Gwen can't ask in so many words, with her mouth otherwise occupied, so settles for an unmistakably interrogative sound.
“I just thought of something.” Gwen feels the smile curling against her own mouth, hears the slightly secretive tone in Sybil's voice. “You'll see. It's just – I thought of something I wanted to do. For you.” Gwen knows better than to press her luck. With a sigh, she lowers her leg and toes around in the dim light for her discarded knickers. Sybil catches on and squats, locating the undergarment and helping Gwen slip back into them, managing to slide the cloth up Gwen's legs and help her ties the drawstrings in a way that is at once tender and impersonal – they both know that this particular interlude can last no longer, and that neither of them is served by pretending otherwise.
With one last quick, fierce kiss, Sybil reaches behind Gwen and turns the doorknob: “Go; I'll follow in a minute or two so that no one sees us together.”
Late that night, after dinner has been laid, served, and cleaned away; after warming pans have been distributed and fires tended; after all Lady Crawley and Mary, Edith, Sybil, and half a dozen female guests have all been given their evening toilet and her services are no longer needed, Gwen makes her way in a fog of exhaustion to the room she shares with Anna.
Anna is at the mirror when Gwen opens the door, combing her long blond hair down from its daytime knot and braiding it for the night. The two women discuss the success of the supper, the tasks that await them in the morning. While Gwen undresses and pulls on her nightshift, Anna unfolds her thick wool shawl and wraps it around her shoulders, picking up the slim volume of poetry she's been reading (Gwen suspects a gift from John Bates).
Thankfully, Anna is absorbed in her reading to such a degree that she doesn't notice the piece of paper that flutters loose from Gwen's own shawl when she takes it down from the wooden peg at the foot of her bed. A thin needling terror runs through Gwen as she bends to pick up the folded sheet: they've finally been discovered. O'Brien will attempt blackmail – and Gwen never be able to keep her quiet, not after the incident with the type-writer, and the way the staff came to her support. Since then O'Brien has just been waiting for an opportunity to destroy her.
Her heart is racing as she unfolds the cream sheet, thick – too thick to be notepaper.
It's a sheet of Sybil's drawing paper, folded neatly and precisely in thirds so as to protect another, smaller rectangle of paper inside.
She knows, even before her eyes can take it in completely, what she holds in her hands and an altogether different kind of shiver runs through her body.
The inner leaf of drawing paper contains a miniature version of the self-portrait Sybil had drawn and Gwen had found, only this time the figure on the window seat has been joined by another form, half kneeling, half lying beside the first. Her hair is loose around her face and across her shoulders, her head bowed so that her forehead rests against Sybil's left temple. One arm supports her weight as she leans into the curve of Sybil's contemplative form, and the other – her left – is threaded through Sybil's crooked knee so that their hands meet between Sybil's thighs, a scribble of dark curls spilling shamelessly between and around their fingers.
With a (laughable?) nod towards discretion, Sybil has refrained from signing the piece – but anyone looking at the image would be able to tell immediately whom the subjects were meant to be.
Gwen lifts the image carefully out its wrapping and sees that Sybil has scrawled a note across the inside of the larger page:
“It will always and forever be better this way.”