A bawdy house in the French Quarter, NOLA, early fall, 1781.
Benjamin Tallmadge didn’t recall seeking her out, as often as he paid a great deal of attention to details… he’d never lain with a dasher or academician, he never intended to.
Until now…
Perfume and soft sighs filled the air and though he couldn’t recall her name or how they met he couldn’t say no… not when her lips like sugar and wine pressed against his, twinged with desperation and sadness, a sadness he isn’t sure he yet understands.
Softly her perfumed form pressed into his, and he snagged his fingers through her hair.
But just briefly, some sense overcomes him. He broke her kiss, gently, pulling away with a quivering breath.
“Where are we?” Ben asked, the voice seeming to scrape against the walls of the room.
His head was spinning, her, whoever she was… above him, seeming both eerily familiar and yet, not.
“I want you,” Audrey moaned, seeming to half weep the words.
“Please,” the dark-haired dasher pleaded, pressing closer to him if such a thing was possible.
Audrey could tear this man apart if she wanted. But there’s something about him, something she wished to learn, to feel, to know and know truly.
But she wasn’t concerned about that quite yet.
Finally, Ben can’t take it anymore. He flipped Audrey down on the rumpled sweat-soaked sheets and ever so slowly, hiking up her chemise began to take her, not to cause harm, mind you, he would never do that to any woman.
But in a manner he could control, the Madam seems most… unusual. He could feel her tiny frame pressing against him.
Feeling now it seemed too much and too deeply simultaneously. He curled a hesitant hand through her hair, cursing softly.
His father will be ashamed of him, that much he realized. But he does not want to run from this now. That’d be most cowardly.
He was intoxicated by her.
“Oh, oh! Oh, God!” Audrey seemed to whimper, a hand in the sheets.
Benjamin drove desperately into her, into her heat, she seemed, uncommonly warm, even for a moment such as this, and even for a woman in a profession such as hers.
Audrey shifts her hips slightly but doesn’t move from under him. She merely seemed to yank him closer.
Breathless kisses and gradually it seemed the heat and noise in the room seemed to grow ever louder.
“Don’t stop!” Audrey practically screamed.
I won’t, Ben thought, I swear, I won’t!
Finally, he can feel it, the desperation to go, but he hadn’t an earnest clue what to do.
Reaching down, he touched what polite circles would call a lady’s ‘button.’ Rocking his hips into her, trying to slow, trying to hold off, still holding her ever so carefully, though, pinned to the bed.
“Please,” Ben gasped, lips still trailing Audrey’s.
“Just like that,” she reassured, pulling him into another desperate kiss.
“I want you,” she added, seeming to whimper.
That alone is enough to send Ben over and finally, their lips parted.
As they seemed to collapse beside one another in the mess of sweat-strewn sheets.
Head spinning, drowsy, drunk on her perfume, her voice, her body. He hadn’t fully realized what had just happened between them.
Audrey merely whines softly, catching her breath.
Ben asked, gently, “Where are we?” this time seeming slightly more certain of himself.
“Shh, ma chér,” Audrey returned with a voice like a harp, but evidently, French.
“If I told you precisely where we were, darling, I am not sure you’d believe me, that, or such as you are, you’d flee in scandal, despite having a whore in your bed.”
