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Bertha has always loved to show off for him. To show off in general, in fact; sometimes at dinner parties, he can see her biting her tongue to stop herself interjecting into conversations about staffing problems with an excited boast that they've found four new excellent footmen since April, or answering other people's complaints about seafront property prices with the assertion that their place in Newport cost the absolute earth but wasn't it worth it, if you had the money?
It isn't malicious, he knows that. When you grow up as she did with nothing to put on display, nothing in the world that other people envy, it's only natural that you would relish it when those things come to you. One of the things he adores most about her is how genuinely delighted she still is with every new pair of shoes, every successful party, even now that they have so much. Fairy stories and morality plays tell them that everyone who spends their life in pursuit of more ends up jaded, bitter and unhappy. Ambition rots the soul and material gain means spiritual degradation. Bertha Russell proves those stories false every time she wakes up in her pretty pink bedroom and beams at the mere sight of her curtains.
But she also knows that showing off one's happiness isn't the done thing in New York City. Not among the social strata she's clinging to, anyway, so most of Bertha's desire to play show and tell relies entirely on him.
Every time she has a new dress made, she'll parade the finished article in front of him like a dress shop mannequin, only with a much brighter smile on her face. Usually she'll only take it off again when he half-threatens, half-promises to tear it off her and ruin it before she even gets a chance to wear it outside of her bedroom. When she hires her new French maid, she rattles off the woman's résumé excitedly to him, previous employers he's never heard of sounding like prayers or saints’ names in her mouth. Even something as small as new table napkins, she'll show him the embroidered R in the corner as proudly as if she'd done it herself.
So it makes perfect sense that she wants to show him her newest toy too.
The Metropolitan Opera House is impressive, certainly. But what's really capturing George's interest as his wife takes him through it is how radiantly happy she looks. With good reason- thanks to her, at least in part, George really believes that Manhattan society is going to be changed forever. And she knows it. She isn't walking through the backstage corridors, she's practically levitating.
“And it's all ours for today,” she announces as she leads him onto the stage, the smile on her face so bright the place hardly needs its oversized chandelier. “Mr Gilbert was bringing potential investors round this morning, so he dismissed the workmen and now he's taken them to Delmonico's.”
“You weren't invited?” He's immediately alert to the possibility of a social snub, immediately indignant on her behalf, but Bertha's smile doesn't dim.
“To dine alone with seven men? Even if I had been, would you have wanted me to go?” She's teasing him but with that look on her face, he can't bring himself to mind.
“So the rest of New York gets an official tour of this place and all I get is my wife?” He teases her right back, letting her tug him by the hand right to the edge so they can peer out into the darkened auditorium.
“You ought to count your blessings,” Bertha says with another glowing smile. “I know “this place” quite as well as Mr Gilbert and I don't chatter on half as much.”
“And you're far prettier.”
“I was taking that for granted,” she says coyly. As it often does, the urge to kiss her overtakes him and when he follows it, she cups his cheek fondly.
“Do you want to see our box?” She murmurs, as if she's suggesting something rather intimate. Who knows, perhaps she is.
He has to admit, even aside from the social standing and the ladder climbing, the longed-after box is impressive in and of itself. Red velvet, brass railings, a vantage point to see everything and be seen by everyone. He can almost understand why Bertha is practically squirming with happiness as she looks out onto the stage. But he (as cliché as it is) is more taken with the other view. The look on her face is worth all the money he's pumped into this place and more.
“And how many endless hours of screeching sopranos will I have to sit through in here?” He asks as he comes to wrap his arms around her waist from behind.
“Enough to convince people we aren't philistines.” Bertha leans back against him and he luxuriates in the scent of her neck. There's her perfume, floral and expensive, but underneath it he can still detect Bertha, sweet and familiar. A sweet and familiar lust is stirring in him too. He could ignore it, as he often has to; the amount of time he spends wanting his wife and the amount of time it's practical for him to have her are worlds apart. But then, why should he? There's nobody here to scandalise, and she looks so tempting in her pretty blue dress, that happy look on her face.
“But I am a philistine, sweetheart.” With his mouth on her neck, he can feel the vibration of her laugh.
“You can be one all you like, George, but you can't look like one.”
“So when you make me endure four hours of Verdi, I have to keep my eyes on the stage and not on my wife?” He's already looking forward to seeing whatever impressive dress she's planning on wearing to opening night. She's radiant no matter what she's dressed in, but George has a particular fondness for what he privately thinks of as his wife's battle armour. When she's dripping in diamonds and dressed to the nines, it gives her an extra sparkle of self-assuredness that makes him want to tear it all off again.
“Quite.” She twists round to kiss him, just a soft brush of her lips on his. Her hand goes to his hair, tenderness all over her face. “You can look at me all you like at home.”
“Not quite as much as I'd like,” he tells her. “I have to sleep sometimes. But if I find a way to go without, you can rest assured that all those extra hours will be solely spent looking at you.”
Kissing Bertha is always extraordinary. Kissing Bertha when she's shimmering with joy and pride like this is addictive. His mouth moves to her cheek, then her jaw, then that sensitive place behind her ear that has her making the most delicious sounds he's ever heard if he kisses it right…
“George,” she says warningly, but she's still stroking his hair. And far from being discouraged, the sound of her voice pitched low like that only makes him want her more.
“Mm?” His mouth is on her neck now, kissing the smooth, warm skin of her throat.
“Do you really think I'm going to let you make love to me in the middle of the Metropolitan?” Bertha sounds amused. Or she would to someone less intimately acquainted with every possible inflection of her voice. Someone like that might be able to hear the slightly raspy edge to her words and know exactly what it means.
“Oh, I had no intention of making love to you.” Looking up, he meets her gaze. He wants to watch her reaction to what he says next. “I do, however, think you're going to let me fuck you in the middle of the Metropolitan.”
Well, he's glad he was watching. He'd have heard her sharp intake of breath if he'd still had his face buried in her neck, maybe even felt it, but he'd have missed the way her lips part, the slightest flutter of her eyelashes, the hint of pink that comes to her cheeks.
“You do?” The tip of her tongue brushes over her bottom lip and George almost groans aloud. “And what would give you that impression, George?”
He traces one fingertip over her collarbone, moving just a little closer so she can feel what she's done to him, just by being Bertha.
“The way your pulse is fluttering,” he tells her in a low, sure voice. “I can feel it right here, sweetheart. And I can see how dark your pretty eyes are getting. They turn an entirely different shade of blue when you want me to ravish you, did you know that?”
She did know, of course, because he rhapsodises about it regularly. But Bertha loves it when he talks her through how much he wants her; seduces her, one might say, although she's really never needed much seducing.
“It's the middle of the day,” she says with another shaky breath as he runs his finger over the neckline of her dress. “There could be stray workmen or… George… or other patrons-”
“You said that we're the only people in here,” he murmurs as he starts to stroke her silk-covered breasts. “And even if we weren't… you're the reason any of this is coming to fruition, my darling. If you want to part your pretty thighs for me in every box from orchestra to balcony, you've earned the right.”
He was leaning in to kiss her anyway, but she surges forward, her hands tangling in his hair, so fierce in her response to him that it's not long before he's breathless.
“God, we shouldn't,” Bertha tells him, running her nails up the back of his neck and making him groan. “It's one thing at home, not caring if the servants hear…”
She kisses him again, pulling at his hair. Rather self-contradictory, but George can't say he minds.
“Everyone in New York already knows what we are to each other,” he reminds her, caressing the small of her back. She's so indecently gorgeous like this, wanting and flushed and his, looking up at him like she can't get close enough. George knows the feeling. “They've seen the way I look at you. They must know what we do the second the door shuts after one of your marvellous parties.”
“The way I look at you, you mean.” The way she's looking at him right now, as she threads her hands through his hair again and again, and if she wants him to stop, she's really not going about it the right way. Does she even know she's pushing her body against him, getting him harder than he already is, or is it just unthinking instinct after all this time?
“Let's call it a draw, shall we?” Stealing another kiss, he can't keep the smile off his face. “They envy us either way. They'll never have what we have.”
Full of want- need, really- he whirls her round, prompting a girlish laugh nobody else would ever be allowed to hear. He presses her up against the rail, his mouth going to her ear, only her godforsaken bustle stopping his aching cock from rubbing against the perfect softness he knows so well.
“And they'd never have been able to achieve what you've done here,” he murmurs, stroking her hips. “Look at it, Bertha. All this opulence, magnificence, entirely your doing.”
“I think Mr Gilbert and Mr Cady might have something to say about your use of the word entirely,” she teases him, leaning back and exposing her perfect neck. How could he not kiss it?
“You heard me,” he growls into her soft skin. “This is happening because of you.”
Her exquisite little moan could be because of the pressure of his mouth on her throat, but George knows it could also be because of what he said. His wife is one of the most confident people he's ever met, but she always responds to his praise and reassurance like she's starving for it.
“You're going to change this city forever,” he tells her. His fingers bunch in her skirts as he licks at the place where her pulse is jumping in her neck.
“You already have.” Bertha's voice when she wants him, low and just a little ragged, is the most powerful aphrodisiac a man could have. And it wasn't as if he'd needed one. George starts to pull her skirts up, slowly, giving her time to stop him if she really doesn't want this.
She doesn't stop him.
“Another draw, then.” He nips at the tender flesh of her creamy throat, making a disapproving noise when she tries to turn around. “No, my darling. I want you to look at all this. Think about what you've done and how magnificent you are.”
Even though he's moved back a little to get at her skirts, he can still feel the trembling of her body.
“And what will you be thinking about?”
“I think about how magnificent you are every time I'm inside you,” he tells her truthfully. “Why not this time?”
“I suppose that's the difference between us.” Bertha's little sigh of pleasure as she speaks is better than any music that will ever be performed on the stage below them. “When you're inside me, I can't think at all.”
God, she's perfect. And when he finally manages to get her skirts up and out of the way and she positions herself just right for him, the sight of her wet and ready for him is enough to make his mind stop working for a moment. It's his body that's in charge now, his body that has him clumsily holding all that damnable fabric up with one hand and hastily taking his belt off with the other, his body that's overcome by the urge to take what's his.
It's undignified and uncontrolled and it's the best idea he's had in months. Bertha seems to agree; her moan when he pushes inside her could be heard from the pit to the gods.
“I'm going to have to do this all the time,” he groans. “You won't- god- you won't be able to get through a full performance without me pulling you onto my prick.”
“We make a far better show anyhow.” Her fingers curl around the brass bar in front of her as she arches her back. George wants to turn her knuckles white, overwhelm her with pleasure until she's holding on for dear life.
“You do. The way my friends look at you sometimes… and that's with all your clothes on.”
“And you think every unsatisfied wife in a cold bed isn't dreaming about Mr George Russell's face between their thighs?” He thinks she's trying to sound disdainful but she's already nearly breathless. So is he; the pace he started at, the way he's pounding into her, he won't be able to keep this up for long. She feels too good.
“No,” George tells her. “Most of those women don't even know it's possible to come screaming with your legs wrapped around your husband's head.”
“Poor things,” Bertha crows, sounding as unsympathetic as it's possible for a person to be.
“You don't know how lucky you are,” he groans,
“Oh, but I do.” Her voice is breathy and as much as he loves the view, he wishes he could see her face, lust in her dark eyes and the flush of her cheeks. Then again, it might finish him off entirely. “God, George, if I'd never felt your tongue…”
The moan that rips from him is wild even to his own ears, and that itself provokes an even louder gasp of pleasure from his wife. Better than any symphony. Better than anything, Bertha's voice and Bertha's body and Bertha's cunt, better than anything at all.
She slips a hand between her legs and thank God she does because he couldn't stop what he's doing to save his life, couldn't let go of her hips, couldn't stop driving into the exquisite heat of her. Can't stop fucking his perfect, powerful wife as she looks out at the grandeur she's fought tooth and nail for, her body shaking with pleasure that could be coming from his cock or could be from all this, and was she this wet when he pushed into her for him or the Metropolitan and really, does he care? Hard to when she's clenching around him, moaning like that, moaning that she loves him-
Oh, God.
It takes him a moment or two to actually let go of her when he's spent, to remember that they're two separate beings instead of one. It's easier when they're at home where she can curl up in his arms as soon as he's slipped out of her, still naked and glorious. Not like here, where Bertha is rearranging her skirts and he has to refasten his trousers, resigning himself to being uncomfortable until he can go home and change.
“I can't believe I let you do that,” she murmurs, her smile wide and satisfied.
“Let me is putting it mildly, I think.” His own smile can't be any less broad, and it certainly feels more smug. “You do realise that when you bring another man in here on opening night, all you'll be able to think about is this?”
Bertha's sated smile turns just a little sly. They both know he isn't really jealous of her fixation on the Duke, but she's always liked any hint of his possessiveness.
“And when I make you sit through- what was it you said? Four hours of Verdi, all you'll be able to think about is this.” She makes a pleased little moue and leans in to whisper in his ear. “At least nobody can tell when I'm aroused, George.”
“I can,” he points out.
“That won't help you when you have to sit there with a cushion on your lap for half an hour before you can walk to the carriage.” She's laughing at him and it's so irresistible he pulls her into another kiss.
“I really am proud of you,” he tells her, cupping her cheek. “What you've done here is an immense achievement.”
“It's not as if I was the one laying the bricks,” she says, but she looks pleased. “And I couldn't have done any of it without you.”
“Oh, I don't know,” George grins at her. “I think you touching yourself in here without me would have still been a pretty good show, darling.”
Bertha swats him playfully on the arm, unable to keep the smile from her lips.
‘Your mind runs entirely on one track, George Russell.”
“Not at all. I'm quite capable of thinking about you on display with your hand between your thighs and applauding your impact on New York society at the same time, my love.” He wraps his arm around her waist. “And admiring my own skill at managing to fuck you until your legs shook without dislodging a single hair pin, for that matter.”
She rolls her eyes fondly at him, but she's lucky that he didn't. It means that they can stroll back out into the foyer hand in hand looking as if they've merely been exploring, the only hint of their activities a pink flush in Bertha's cheeks. A flush that he sees often over the next few months, almost every time someone mentions the Metropolitan in front of the pair of them.
Which, as might be expected, is practically every day. So much so that people have started telling Bertha how well she looks, that the opera war must be agreeing with her. George will almost be sorry when it's over.
Or at least, he would be, if he didn't know he'd be getting a key to that box on opening night...