#menage #lgbtq #eroticromance #bondage #discipline #dominance #submission #victorian #boston #beaconhill #london #crossdressing #literature #Shakespeare
During the day, Miranda Cahill works diligently on her doctoral thesis. At night, she has sex with strangers.
Public coupling, multiple partners, age play, spankings, bondage, lesbian lust—each salacious adventure exposes new dimensions of her depravity. Her secret life explodes when she realizes her masked partner at a kink club and the charismatic colleague courting her are in fact the same man.
Dickens scholar Mark Anderson seems like an affable, uncomplicated Midwesterner, but he has hidden depths, myriad talents, and an unlimited appetite for erotic variety. With Mark as her guide, Miranda comes to accept the intricacy of her own desires, as well as to trust her heart.
Reader Advisory: This novel is an erotic romance featuring a committed relationship and culminating in a wedding. Nevertheless, the main characters participate in a wide range of taboo sexual activities, both together and separately.
PG-Rated
Excerpt (Victorian)
June
12, 1886
I
scarcely know how to commence this account of my adventures and my
sins. Indeed, I do not fully understand why I feel compelled to
commit these things to writing. Clearly, my purpose is not to review
and relive these experiences in the future, for in twenty minutes’
time these sentences will be invisible even to me. Perhaps in the
years ahead, I will trail my fingers across the empty parchment,
colored like flesh, and the memories will come alive without the
words, coaxed from the pages by my touch like flames bursting from
cold embers.
I
have a secret life, another self, and that secret has become a burden
that I clutch to myself, and yet would be relieved of. So, like the
Japanese who write their deepest desires on slips of rice paper and
then burn them, I write of secret joys and yearnings, and send that
writing into oblivion.
Let
me begin again. My name is Beatrice. The world sees me as poised,
prosperous, respectable, wife of one of Boston’s leading merchants
and industrialists, mother of two sweet children, lady of a fine
brick house on fashionable Mount Vernon Street, with Viennese crystal
chandeliers, Chinese porcelain, French velvet draperies, and Italian
marble fireplaces. I devote myself to the education of my dear Daniel
and Louisa, the management of my household, works of charity,
cultural afternoons. In sum, the many and sundry details of
maintaining oneself in proper society.
Though
I have borne two children, I am still considered beautiful. Indeed,
with my golden locks, fair skin, sapphire eyes and rosy lips, I am
often compared to an angel. How little they know, those who so
describe me. For in truth, I am depraved, wanton, and lecherous, so
lost that I do not even regret my fall.
My
husband is a kind, intelligent, and honorable man, for whom I have
the deepest regard and affection. He treats me with the utmost
consideration and respect; he rarely comes to my bed and when he
does, he is profuse with apologies for his unfortunate lust. Alas, he
hardly knows or understands me. I understand him to a much greater
extent, enough to know that I must lie still and silent under him,
not move or cry out as his manhood dances inside me. Everyone knows
that for proper women, the rites of the flesh are a trial that must
be endured; men are subject to carnal weakness, and women’s lot is
to be the passive receptacle of their spending. This is what my
husband believes. Knowing he believes this takes the fire from the
moment, and makes it easier for me to play my frigid, compliant role.
I
know better, though.
Today,
I walked in Louisburg Square with Daniel, Louisa, and their nurse.
The weather was glorious, sky of limpid blue sown with fluffy clouds,
new leaves dancing in the breeze. My parasol raised against the sun,
I did not see him until he was almost upon us.
He
was of medium height, sumptuously attired, as fair-haired and
blue-eyed as I. His mouth had a fullness that I liked, the look of
someone who savors the sweet things in life, and a readiness to
smile. As he swept off his hat and bowed, I noticed his hands, with
long delicate fingers clad in beige kid gloves.
“Good
afternoon, Madame,” he said courteously. “I trust that you and
your children are enjoying this fine weather.”
Meanwhile,
his eyes were sending me a different, more intimate message, which
would have been lost on someone who was not sensitized to such
things. There were no words in this message, only images, emotions,
sensation, a quickening of breath, a heat, a tightening.
I
am perpetually amazed at how we recognize each other, those of us who
live beyond the pale of propriety. Is it some primal scent that we
exude? Some subtle clue in posture or expression? Could it in fact be
some spiritual connection, a mingling of thoughts in the ether? The
mechanism is obscure to me, but I know the phenomenon only too well.
I have sat in a concert hall with two hundred elegantly dressed,
respectable members of proper society and found my eyes drawn to a
single face in the balcony, a set of eyes that knew me, saw through
my finery to the hungry flesh beneath.
“Good
afternoon, Sir,” I said, my voice low and modest. “It is indeed
fine, especially for so early in the season.”
“Of
course, that may indicate that it will become hot sooner than usual.”
The gentleman’s eyes sparkled with humor at his little private
joke. Hot indeed, I thought to myself, adjusting my expression to
signal some slight disapproval.
“I
do not believe that I have the pleasure of your acquaintance, Sir,”
I said.
“Forgive
me for my lack of courtesy.” He reached into his waistcoat,
withdrew a card and wrote something upon it. “Here is my card.”
“Thank
you.” I examined the card. It was not, in fact, a visiting card,
but a blank upon which he had inscribed the following few words:
Ten
O’clock this evening
No.
__ Beacon Street
With
respect and hope,
Charles
Burnside
His
name was unknown to me. Clearly he must be one of the many visitors
to our prosperous city. I gave him my most luminous smile. “Perhaps
we will meet again, Sir.”
“I
do hope so, Madame. Adieu for now.”
