The Inferior

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Master & Servant

The smooth, unblemished brown skin of her buttocks hovered above his face as she crouched over him, her own face –when he could tear his eyes away to look at it- a mixture of high excitement and cruelty at having reduced him to such a position. Then, suddenly, she began to lower herself; hands pulling apart her cheeks to expose her anus that he may better see what was intent upon engulfing him. Already the smell was indescribable and he wanted to move, but couldn’t, her arse settling on his face until his nose found itself inserted deep inside her and…

“I am making tea,” Anya Jalav told him for the second time; the tyrant of Bernard Lambert’s slumbers standing before him in her now customary heels and hose as he sat on the sofa hosting the most recent of the dreams in which she was involved and, now, imagery of a more conscious manifestation.

“Sorry?” he asked, looking up at her; a lingering image of her lowering arse still filling his thoughts. A tiny germ of knowingness in her expression he hadn’t noticed before making him instantly suspicious; as if she knew what was going on and felt contempt for him. Though, given how mediocre he found her -in all but domestic matters, anyway- it was an impression he shrugged off immediately as totally implausible.

“Tea, Master,” she repeated. “I am about to make some. Cake too.”

The mundane nature of her statement prompted self-mockery for his worries in her regard. She was, after all, no more than a highly efficient young servant, grateful for the opportunity he had provided her to escape the deprivations of her background and live in England.

Nothing more sinister.

Any, off-the-wall, thoughts he was having in regard of her, he considered, had more to do with the recent changes in his circumstances and the way his subconscious reacted to them than the girl herself. The opposite side of the bed he had rarely known unoccupied throughout his fourscore and more years, playing its own part, he was certain, in his risible preoccupation with such a person.

That the same reasoning power could apply to his servant -and he might not be the only one grappling with an idée fix- not a possibility that occurred to him.

“Just tea will be fine,” he assured her as he considered his still trim figure and made silent assurances of his own in respect of both his dreams and the nature of them.

Adding after a few beats:

“I’ll take it in the living-room.”

Nodding politely, she had turned on her heel to leave.

“Oh, and Anya?” he began in a stern tone; asserting his position; despite the competition provided by the back of her hosed legs as they made for the door. The arrogance that had seen the collapse of his marriage –as well as an inability to accept advice which might just have kept his writing career on track- goading him to take a higher ground with his retainer in the here-and-now he found impossible to reach in his dreams.

Turning, she regarded him quizzically; horse-like features and large brown eyes made even more prominent by the black hair she had swept from her face and tied at the back:

“Yes, Master?”

Eyes rising from her legs, he hesitated as his attention was transfixed yet again.

This time it was her tight, knee-length, grey skirt; doing its best to provide decency to a provocatively protruding mound; that caught his eye. His tongue snaking from his mouth at the sight in an abortive attempt to moisten lips made dry by a sudden image of that same appendage as it gently lapped at the folds of her labia. Oral worship becoming more and more frenzied as he knelt before her and…

Screwing his eyes tight to banish the image, he feigned a yawn to disguise his excitement and hoped she had noticed nothing untoward; professing unspoken gratitude when he opened them and realised that was indeed the case; berating himself for endowing the girl with a perception and intelligence alien to both her mindset and position in life.

“Do try to remember what I told you, Anya,” he reminded her; bolstered by his own condescension; voice harsher than her crime merited.

An expression of confusion crossed her features.

His hand indicated the interior and its contents, sweeping over them by way of a rebuke, as if she were unaware of her exact location.

“My study?” he reminded her.

For a few seconds she feigned incomprehension, then; light apparently dawning:

“Apologies, Master. I was concerned when you cried out and forgot your instruction. It will not happen again.”

“Please see that it doesn’t,” he told her with a benign smile as she nodded and turned for the door.

The Lord of the Manor had conferred absolution - despite the fact he was having trouble facing the recipient of his forgiveness after the events of his dream. It being, he accepted, a mild, though unjust, taking to task of his young Indian servant. Though seeing it at the same time as a necessary taking to task that restored equilibrium and order to his new world and was, therefore, justified.

As she closed the door behind her and her footsteps receded towards the kitchen; he rose from the sofa and stretched; reassured and grateful to be back in the here and now; even if he had to admit the fact this was the latest of a number of similar dreams he had experienced during the past week or so –his young housekeeper taking centre-stage in each– was less reassuring.

And yet, he reminded himself, after the study was his and his alone once more -and putting aside the disturbing content of his dreams- he was, for the first time in a good while, feeling more than a sniff of much needed optimism.

At forty-eight he was still a vibrant and handsome man - an opinion actually held by people other than him; even if they did stop some way short of endorsing his, somewhat tiresome, belief in his own superiority. Along with his air of assurance, a youthful complexion and a full head of hair camouflaged his years and went a long way to explaining his success with the opposite s*x down the decades.

Though, and despite his aforementioned: “Superiority”; even he had to admit the well, in that respect, had run dry since his relocation to Cornwall.

Still, there were other compensations.

The presence of that same housekeeper, so troubling to his subconscious; along with the absence of the trifling responsibilities of domesticity and marriage –despite his ex-wife’s efficiency in such matters- but one of them. The small voice at the back of his head -warning him it was not healthy to devolve too much responsibility for one’s life, trivial or not, to a young stranger from a different country with different beliefs, customs, and background- mostly ignored.

“Just the same, though,” he told himself out loud, picturing a certain room, in a certain Bayswater hotel; “perhaps a call to Gianni and a trip to London is in order.”

A prospect receiving a positive nod.

“Yes,” he told himself, head continuing to affirm his intention. “That would do the trick very nicely. Just the tonic to put this ridiculous situation into perspective.”