Bitter Oath (New Atlantis)(18)

‘I am wearing short stays, as a matter of fact. What has that to do with my vapours?’ Liv looked down the front of her empire line gown, at her tightly cinched breasts, from her bent position.

‘It limits your lung capacity. You can’t breathe deeply. When something makes you anxious, you try to get more oxygen for fight or flight, and you can’t. ‘

‘Oxygen? Flight or fight? Jane, please, I am struggling with all this. Can you speak more plainly?’

Jane drew her to her feet, and began to lift Liv’s morning dress up over her head. Then she systematically began to remove the layers of her undergarments until she reached the stays.

‘Good god woman, how do you breathe at all!’ With quick, efficient fingers, Jane began to unlace the stays that bound her breasts tight, and immediately Liv felt relief. She drew in several deep breathes and sighed.

Then, while she was recovering, Jane continued to divest her of clothing, until she stood naked, her hands covering breasts and the triangle of curls at her nether region. Before she could become too embarrassed, Jane dropped the silky fabric over her head and showed her how the catches at the shoulders worked. Then she held out the strange, stretchy cloth, and showed her the holes for her legs. While Jane watched silently, she stepped into the garment and pulled it up, stretching it over her nether region to her waist.

‘Those are called undershorts. Men and women wear them. One size fits all. If a woman is particularly large breasted, or she is engaging in sports, she might wear a version of those stays you had on. But they are made from the same stretchy material as the shorts, and they just hold the breasts in place, they don’t cut off lung capacity. You’re smallish, so I think we can dispense with a bra. How does it feel?’

Liv looked down her body. The gown was not so different to what she had been wearing, it was drawn in under the breast and fell to below her knees in flattering folds. Although incredibly thin, the fabric was not transparent, so her modesty was retained. And, if she puckered the fabric just so across her chest, the outline of her nipples was hidden.

‘Now for your hair. Sit.’ Jane could be quite bossy Liv had noticed. But she did as she was told, wordlessly. In moments, Jane had her hair free, and she had gone to the bathroom for a brush. She ran the brush through her waist long curls and smiled.

‘This is so pretty. You’re a real honey blonde. Pity the curls will have to go when you start getting out. Fashion dictates that your hair must be straight. You can braid it down your back, if you like, but mostly women wear it loose. Mine is curly like yours, and Julio hates me straightening it. He likes to wind the tendrils around his fingers in bed.’

This was more information than Liv needed, and she blushed at the image of the golden princess before her, and the dark prince she had seen on her arrival, lying together, him playing with a piece of that bright, coppery hair. It was too intimate an image, and she turned her thoughts away.

‘Slip off those slippers. We go barefoot inside and wear sandals, again unisex – ummm males and females wear the same sandals – outside. If you get cold, there’s a stola of a slightly thicker weave you can throw around your shoulders. But I’ve never used one in the three years I’ve been here.’

Liv stood up, and looked down at herself. It felt indecent to have her ankles and calves on display in this manner. And to go bare foot seemed even worse. But she couldn’t deny the pleasure walking on the soft rug with her bare feet gave her. She wriggled her toes into the deep pile.

‘Come look,’ Jane ordered, leading her to the door that led to the bathroom. Once inside, the light illuminated the mirrored image of her. She looked beautiful! Not as beautiful as the young woman at her side, but far more beautiful than she had looked in her morning dress of pale blue water-silk, her hair worked tightly into ringlets in an attempt to soften the lines of her long face.

The glossy waves of hair, which now covered her shoulders, looked lovely, and seemed to frame her face perfectly, without artifice. She looked soft and feminine, in a way she could not remember ever looking before.

‘Rene is going to be gaga when he sees you. Julio will finally get what I’ve been trying to tell him in the last few months.’

‘What is that?’

‘That Rene has eyes for nobody but you.’





CHAPTER TEN





When the women entered the living room, Julio and Rene both looked up. Rene felt a queer shudder in his chest, and the quick glance Julio sent his way, alerted him to the fact that he had uttered a soft gasp. He didn’t care. Just looking at the vision coming towards him was all that mattered.

He had known she was pretty. He’d called her beautiful when he saw her again that morning at Foxmoor Manor. But that was not true beauty: hair bound and tortured into unnatural ringlets, body covered and bound by yards of thick fabric that hid ever line and curve of its lush shape.

No, this was beauty – white gown revealing the outline of her body, thick mantle of honey-gold hair surrounding her lovely face with natural curls, cheeks flushed pink, big brown eyes shining. She took his breath away.

‘Querida, have you been playing Pygmalion? Who is this vision of loveliness?’ Julio said with a smug grin, looking backward and forward between Rene and Liv.

‘All I did was make it possible for her to breathe. The rest is courtesy of New Atlantis and nature.’

Rene walked across the room, and took Liv’s hands. He had changed into a tunic himself, and felt better for it. He’d even clippered his hair short, leaving the shock of hair at the front long, so that it could fall forward over his forehead. He and Julio had the same raven black hair, the same height and build, but he was darker skinned with blue eyes, while Julio’s skin was more olive and his eyes were brown. But dressed identically as they were, they could have passed as brothers.

‘I can see your legs,’ Liv whispered, with a blush.

‘Do you like them?’ he asked with a grin.

She blinked a few times in astonishment at such a question, and then nodded her head shyly.

‘Good. What about my hair? We all wear it this way. I’m not sure…’

‘I like it. Very different, but I like it,’ she broke in quickly, looking down at the floor.

‘Good. You look incredible. It was sacrilege to cover these delicious curves with all that fabric.’

‘Hey Frenchie, the woman’s embarrassed enough, quit the discussion of her figure. I see you guys have got the table set. Where’d you find the table cloth? Have we got a table cloth?’ Jane looked at Julio.

‘No, we haven’t. Do you want one? I ordered in this one this morning when it was decided Liv was staying here for a while. I thought it would make it feel a little bit more like home,’ Julio said, with pride at his own ingenuity.

The tablecloth in question was made of the same fabric as their clothing and was white, of course. The silverware looked attractive set out on it. They had even put bread and butter plates and wine glasses out, too. A vase of flowers formed the centrepiece and two long, white candles sat on either side of it. Serviettes were folded at each place setting.

The lights were dimmed. In the background, the soft orchestral melodies of Brahms played on the entertainment system, as the wild rain and thunderstorm played out beyond the huge window. Rene led Liv to the table, and held her chair while she sat. Julio, deciding not to be outdone, did the same for Jane, who giggled.

‘That’s the first time he’s ever done that,’ she said as an aside to Liv. ‘This equality of the sexes does lose us some things. I rather like being treated like a lady.’

‘Querida, if you stopped acting like a tomboy, I might treat you like a lady more often,’ Julio said, as he poured chilled, white wine into her glass.

‘I do ballet as well as martial arts. That’s hardly the activity of a tom boy.’

‘You don’t mark your body with bruises doing ballet.’

‘Oh, for goodness sake! So Luke got in a lucky kick. It will be gone by tomorrow. Stop fussing.’

Liv looked across at Rene, and grimaced slightly at the banter between the other couple.

‘They’re always like this. You get used to it,’ he told her loud enough for the other two to hear.

That made them all laugh.

‘Do you know, Liv, when I first met Julio I could barely put two words together, I was so shy. And he used to interrogate me, as if I was sitting for an exam or something.’

‘My little mouse,’ Julio said with a sad, affectionate smile. ‘All those awful cigarettes I had to buy so I could spend a few minutes a day in your company, with that witch, Maude, looking on.’

Jane blushed prettily, and looked momentarily shy. It seemed so out of character for the girl he had come to know in the last year, that Rene was entranced. ‘Jane a mouse? I cannot imagine it.’

Jane blushed deeper, and her eyes became filled with pain. ‘Hasn’t anyone ever told you that this princess body isn’t me?’ She let her elegant hands flow down her body to indicate the body she was referring to.