The Tea Maid
"You can undress now." the duke told the nervous hind, not once looking up from his papers.
Gerd's eyes widened and she felt how the fur on her rump stood up in shock. This had to be some kind of mistake. He must have been expecting his mistress, and not realised it was someone else.
"I'm... I'm only here to make tea, your grace," the hind stuttered, unable to keep her cloves from pattering nervously on the polished floor.
Still without looking up or even pausing his quill, the lion answered her gruffly. "Do you think miss Archer too incompetent to handle making a kettle of tea in addition to her regular duties?"
Something in the deep, rumbling voice shook the hind deeper than the outrage of his initial request had done. She grasped the sides of her skirt nervously, needing something to hold on to.
"N-no, your grace," she said. Only with a great effort of will did she managed to continue. "But you, you can't expect me to, to..." She faltered and looked down, too embarrassed to even hint at his request.
Lord Rockclaw put down the quill and, for the first since the hind had entered the room, glanced up from the letter he was writing. He looked at her with an expression of irritated impatience. "Miss Scothart, since you are new in my service I will take five minutes to explain our respective positions."
Hearing her name Gerd looked up and met the lion's gaze for the first time. The brute power in his eyes robbed her of breath and the timid spark of outrage that had been lit by his shameless demand wilted and died completely. The iron-furnace presence in those eyes even pushed away her fear: the spikes of panic that had begun to rise was blunted into a slow-churning knot deep in her stomach.
"I am the Duke of Westforest and sovereign of the twin-baronies Foltmar and Margate. I have a seat on the house of Lords, I am the speaker of the Traditionalist party and I have been appointed as Minister of the Mint. Further, I chair the cross-party committee for Internal Renewal, have an honorary doctorate at the University of Dogshem and am His Majesty's personal adviser on matters of finance and industry, in addition to numerous other offices and positions to which I have been appointed and entrusted. I am, in short, an almost infinitely busy man and my time is extremely valuable both to myself and, more importantly, to the nation and His Majesty."
"I have, like all men, certain appetites. Marriage is, for various reasons of politics, out of the question. Even was that not the case I can simply not afford the time required for a courtship, nor the subsequent attentions that would be due a wife. A mistress would demand almost as much of my time as a wife would and the existence of one, which would not remain secret for long, would be met with stern disapproval from his grace the Archbishop of Ewchester, a man whom I for reasons of state must keep amicable. Further, it is quite beneath my station to resort to common prostitutes. That, then, is _my_ position."
He paused and turned his ears towards the hind in a wordless question for comments. Gerd was still frozen under the weight of his gaze and didn't have the use of her voice. She couldn't even manage to look away. When she didn't respond the lion continued his speech.
"Now, miss Scothart. You are of the working class, the second oldest of six children; four harts, two hinds. Your father and older brother both work at the Rivercomb mills, tending the spinning machines. Your mother works as a maid in the household of Lord Strongarm. Your sister and younger brothers all attend the Rivercomb School for Workmen's children. You all live in an two room apartment that you rent from one Francis Hightail at the cost of one shilling eight pence a quarter."
"I own the controlling share of the Rivercomb Mills and its directors and foremen answers directly to me. Lord Strongarm owes me a substantial amount in a personal loan, which he has guaranteed against the Strongarm estate. I am also a personal friend of Monsieur Roancoat, the manager of accounts at the Bank of York. A bank to which mister Hightail, your landlord, is in considerable debt."
"That, miss Scothart, is _your_ position. Have I made it sufficiently clear to you?"
"Y-yes, your grace." Gerd's reply was a barely audible whisper, as much from the intensity of his gaze as from what he had said.
The duke let out a low rumble and nodded curtly, sending a shiver through his massive mane.
"Good. Then you should know just how much I can expect of you." he said and picked up the quill again, dipped it in the ink-pot and return to his letter. He glanced back up at her for the tiniest moment, then lowered his gaze again and continued on his writing.
Gerd tried to reply, but could only manage a weak and shaky whimper. She reached behind her back and undid the bow on her apron, fumbling because her hands were shaking. When she pulled the apron over her head her vision blurred and she had to blink hard to stem back tears. Her hands seeming to act by themselves she folded her apron up in a tidy bundle and placed it on the floor. A deep shiver ran through her then; some after-effect of the lion's gaze or maybe his voice.
Gerd realised her breathing had become shallow, panicked gasps and she had to force herself to breathe more deeply. She swallowed nervously, her throat dry, and reached behind her back again to start undoing the buttons on her dress. She found the topmost button but couldn't make her fingers work to push it open. She made a a high-pitched, helpless whimper and looked up at the lion, her dark eyes wide and pleading.
"Please, your grace, don't..." she began to say in a thin voice, but broke off when the duke looked up from his paperwork and fixed her with a steady gaze. His eyes were calm and patient, but the gaze still sent a strong jolt through the trembling hind. Her fingers unfroze and she opened the top-most button clumsily. She let out an involuntary, scared bark but under the lion's unwavering gaze she was left with no other option but to open the next button, and then the next, and the next, until the entire row of buttons along the back of her dress had been undone.
She puled fitfully, but undid the buttons on her cuffs and shrugged her dress down from her shoulders. She paused then and pleaded wordlessly for clemency. The duke's amber eyes didn't falter for a moment. Shutting her eyes tightly, Gerd slowly lowered her dress to the floor and stepped out of it.
Her hands had started shaking again and she fumbled badly with the lacing in the waist of her pantaloons. She got it untied at last and holding the pantaloons up with one hand and awkwardly pulled her cheap cotton chemise up the other. She got it up to her shoulders but a sudden shiver passed through her body and she had to stop.
Her eyes still closed tightly, Gerd tried to imagine that she was just standing in small the bedroom she shared with her sister, just undressing for bed as usual, but the image of the duke's amber eyes kept intruding.
The lion cleared his throat. Gerd let out a frightened sob and wrenched the chemise over her head with with a desperate jerk, dropping it on the floor. Moving with the same panicked abruptness she hunched down and undid the laces that tied her pantaloons above the knees. She cried helplessly as she worked on the laces, the heavy tears soaking into her cheek-fur and matting it down.
She pulled the pantaloons down to her ankles and, hurriedly before she lost her impetus, stood up straight, her eyes fixed on the floor in front of her. Her chest was shuddering with frightened, shallow sobs and she was lightheaded from fear and too hurried breathing. She felt intensely aware of her nakedness and horribly vulnerable. A wrenching shame was only held at bay by a dark fear for herself and for her family and running as a red thread through it all was the awareness of the duke's steady gaze weighing on her body.
Gerd was too nervous to stand still but wasn't able to speak or make herself look up at the duke for direction, so she bent down and searched, half blind with tears, for her clothes. When she found them she folded them carefully and clutched the small bundle defensively in front of her chest up. She hesitated in the crouch for as long as she could, but eventually had no other option but to stand back up.
She could still feel the duke's gaze on her, and still couldn't make herself meet it. Instead she stared fixedly at the edge of his desk, watching his hands in her peripheral vision. After a long moment, he moved to dip the quill in the ink pot, and Gerd could almost physically feel the weight of his gaze shifting from her nakedness to to the stacks of paper on the desk.
"Sit down, miss Scothart." He used the quill to gesture towards a straight backed chair that stood against the side of the room, a little distance from his desk. "You may put your clothes under the chair."
"Th-thank you, your grace." Gerd choked out without looking up and walked unsteadily over to the chair. Her legs felt as if they were barely supporting her weight. She sat down and slowly packed the small bundle of her clothes away beneath the chair. She kept her legs pressed tightly together and placed her hands in her lap in a vain attempt to hide herself but it only served to make her feel even more vulnerable and naked. She started to cry again, unable to stop the tears and only partially able to mute her sobs .
For the next hour or so, nothing was said between them. Gerd had stopped crying after a while, although her breath still caught in her throat sometimes and was turned into a strangled sob. Lord Rockclaw kept working diligently on his correspondence, the quiet scratching of his quill against the paper only interrupted when he paused to ink the quill or begin on a new sheet of paper. Every once in a he would glance up briefly from his writings and let his gaze linger on the naked hind for a small while, in the manner a man might appreciate a favourite and well-known piece of art. Each time, an involuntary shiver would pass down along Gerd's flanks and she would hold her breath until he looked away from her again. The controlled but blunt and unashamed appetite that flickered in those amber eyes whenever he looked at her left no doubts and was an inescapable reminder of Gerd's position and nakedness.
"Miss Scothart."
When Lord Rockclaw suddenly addressed her, Gerd couldn't hold back a startled bark and she crossed her arms reflexively across her chest. Her ears flickered in dismay as she realised that this had bared her shamelessly, but putting her hands back in her lap would only draw attention to the fact. "Yes, your grace?" she said, finally finding her tongue.
"Put on a kettle of Assam, if you'll be so kind."
For a few moments Gerd couldn't comprehend his words as they were too far removed from what she had been dreading to hear. Even when she had laboriously deciphered their meaning, she didn't dare believe them. With one ear comically raised in alarm and the other laid back in relief, Gerd stared back at the lion in confusion. "Your grace?"
"Tea, miss Scothart." the duke said curtly, "Of _course_ I am expecting you to perform in your official capacity as a tea maid as well. That should hardly need to be explained to you."
"Yes, your grace. I'm sorry, your grace." Gerd hurried out of her chair and made as graceful a courtesy as she could manage naked. She scurried over to the corner with the cast-iron stove, painfully aware that her tail was raised in alarm and gave the duke a shameless view of her posterior, but she was too flustered to consciously suppress the reflex.
The familiar routine of preparing tea gave her something to focus on and helped her relax a little so that when she loaded everything onto the silver tray a few minutes later, she was able to carry it over to the duke's desk without her hands shaking. It was harder to keep them steady when she moved around to his left to serve the tea, having to stand so close that the naked fur on her flank almost brushed against his shoulder. The duke didn't glance up from his paperwork once.
For a tense and awkward moment Gerd stood there silently holding the tray, waiting for him to notice her presence. When he didn't, Gerd hesitantly spoke, her voice breaking. "Your te-- Your tea, your grace."
"Hmm? Oh, yes. Thank you. Just place it on the desk."
"Yes, your grace." Gerd said hoarsely, something thick at the back of her throat. She leaned forward awkwardly to put the tray down on a spot free of papers, trying not to rub her hip against the Duke's elbow. Without warning, Lord Rockclaw put his hand on the her stomach, startling Gerd and almost making her lose her grip on the tray. She put it down fumblingly and with a loud clatter so that hot tea sploshed over the sides of the tea pot. Luckily only onto the tray.
"Careful, miss Scothart." the lion said sternly, a touch of irritation in his voice.
Gerd didn't manage to form a response beyond a weak whimper. The touch of his hand against her bare stomach, only inches from her unprotected cooch, had left her unable to speak for the moment. What had been a smouldering apprehension churning slowly around in her stomach now flamed up into a heart-racing panic as the lion leisurely stroked his hand through the dust-grey fur on her stomach. When he moved his hand up to her chest and brushed it over the small bumps of her teats where they lay hidden under her fur, Gerd had to grab hold of the back of his chair to hold herself upright.
"Do calm down, miss Scothart," Lord Rockclaw said as he brushed his hand along the hind's slender neck, "I intend only to copulate with not, you to consume you."
"Yes, your grace." Gerd replied in a weak whisper. In truth the duke's words hadn't served much to calm her down. The way he so matter of factly had spoken about copulating with her had only twisted that nervous knot in her stomach tighter.
The duke trailed a single finger lightly along the side of Gerd's ear, then pulled hid hand away and leaned forward in his chair to pour himself a cup of the tea she had made.
"Good. That will be all for now, miss Scothart. You may sit back down."
"Yes, your grace. Thank you, your grace." Gerd said with a whimper. She didn't even try to curtsy but fled at once back to her chair. Her legs shook badly as she sat down on it. She could almost feel the weight of his hand against her stomach still and her teats were still nettled from his touch.
Gerd had to sit on her hands to keep from fidgeting, the knotted nervousness gnawing at every nerve in her body. She tried to keep her eyes fixed on the face of the large grandfather clock across the room but although she didn't want to, she kept glancing back at the duke. He seemed entirely unperturbed, drinking his tea and doing his paperwork as if he was barely aware of Gerd sitting there completely naked only a few yards away and as if he had not just minutes ago said that he was going to, to -- How could he concentrate on his letters?!
After an eternity that had lasted almost half an hour, Lord Rockclaw finished his second cup of tea and put the porcelain cup back on the tray. He finished the last lines on the letter he was writing, signed it and carefully blotted the ink before he folded the letter sharply in half and put it to the side. He looked up and met Gerd's gaze.
Gerd shivered and looked away. The same intense concentration that the duke until a moment ago had applied to his paperwork was now trained on the hind. There was no way Gerd could meet that gaze.
"Open your thighs."
Gerd stared fixedly at the wall besides her as she slowly spread her thighs a few inches apart. Her knees shook and it took all the strength she had to keep them apart. Gerd didn't need to look to know where the lion was fixing his eyes. She could almost feel his gaze as a physical sensation; an uncomfortable, warm weight centred on her cooch. She puled fearfully, biting her lip.
"Come here." His voice was surprisingly mild.
Gerd couldn't make herself get up, she couldn't even close her legs again. Her gaze still fixed at the wall, she pulled her hands from underneath her thighs and put them on her knees. That was as much as she managed. To go over there, to have him touch her again. The thought was enough to make her tremble.
"Come _here_, miss Scothart." He barely raised his voice and the edge of anger in his tone was slight, but even so it jolted Gerd sharply, breaking her paralysis. She hurried to her feet with a frightened outcry and for a heartbeat she stood poised for flight, the large doors to the outer office imploringly close. She trembled and looked back at the lion and found herself locked by his demanding gaze. Her right foot moved a few inches towards him, almost on its own. Another small step and another, inches longer. Suddenly she found herself standing next to him, not sure how she had crossed the wide gulf of several yards of floor.
The duke reached up and brushed the inside of her knee. It was just a light touch, but it still sent a deep shudder through Gerd and made all the fur on the inside of her legs stand up. When he traced his fingers slowly up the inside of her thigh, Gerd's knees buckled under her and she grabbed the back of his chair again to keep herself steady.
"No, don't," she said weakly and shook her head, but he didn't stop. His fingers kept going further and further up her thigh. Gerd's heard was racing madly. When his hand reached its destination and brushed against the fur-less skin on her cooch Gerd uttered an involuntary, shaky bark and shut her eyes tightly. The duke ignored her trembling objection and ran his fingers leisurely along her outer lips with a casualness that was almost as shocking to the hind as the touch itself.
Gerd pressed her face tightly into her shoulder, trying to find some kind of refuge from the lewd touch. He was kneading now, down there. She tried to hold still, to suffer the shame with a semblance of quiet dignity, but she couldn't stop from squirming and shifting her weight from foot to foot. His fingers were so unbelievably warm. How could they be that hot? The heat was spreading deep into her stomach. They couldn't be that warm. They would have singed her if they were been that warm. ... Oh God. God, no. It wasn't his fingers that were hot, it was she. Where he touched her, she was burning.
No, God. It couldn't be her. She couldn't. She couldn't be wanton. She'd never been wanton. She was chaste. She had always been. She said her prayers every night. She went to confession every week and always did her penance. She had only touched herself in an impure manner once, and then she had been guilty about it for weeks afterwards. She couldn't be wanton. She couldn't be lascivious. Wasn't. Couldn't be.
She bit into the fur on her shoulder but couldn't stop herself panting; short, warm whuffs of air in time with the lion's rhythmic kneading.
He suddenly pulled his hand away from her cooch and rested it on the armrest of his chair. Relief and despair flooded through Gerd. He was going back to his work again. He would send her back to her chair, let her sit silently while he worked on his correspondence. Maybe this was all he would ever do. Maybe he wasn't able to ... do more. That happened some men, Gerd knew. Maybe the duke wanted her like this not for the shame, but for the appearance of shame. Maybe he just didn't want his workers and his peers to know he was ... unable. Yes, maybe he --
Gerd's heart skipped several beats when the duke rose from his chair. If he had been imposing before, now that he towered above her he seemed practically monstrous. He indicated the sofa across the room with a brief nod. Gerd shook her head pleadingly, her eyes tearing over again. The duke shook his head in return and reached out and took hold of the hind's ears, carefully gathering both of them together in one hand. Holding her like that he lead her to the sofa and pushed her gently down on it.
Gerd puled pitifully but didn't resist when he took hold of her by the hip and adjusted her position on the sofa or when he pushed her legs apart. When he straightened up and began to fumble with his breeches, Gerd pressed her face tightly into the back of the sofa so she wouldn't see. She cried silently into the upholstery as she waited while he undressed, lying with her legs spread obscenely and her cooch on full display; nervous, scared, shamed and terrified.
It didn't hurt as much as she had thought it would. The duke was large, but not impatient. Gerd only screamed twice, as much from fear as from the pain. Her whimpers were mostly muted by the upholstery.
Afterwards, the duke pulled up his breeches and returned to his desk, going back to his work. Gerd remained on the sofa, curled up in a loose ball without the will to move. Several emotions drifted sluggishly through her, but none of them got a firm hold through the numbness she was feeling. Wrenching shame, relief it was done with, dread of her next confession, the throbbing physical pain, a cloying feeling of being filthy, remnants of that shameful heat, even a faint glimmer of pride that she had gotten through it. Mostly she just felt drained.
"Miss Scothart."
Gerd's ear flickered briefly at the mention of her name, but the duke had to repeat himself several times before she registered it. She lifted her head and look unfocusedly back at him.
"There is a wash-basin in the closet." he told her, his voice almost gentle. The hind looked back at him blankly for a few heartbeats, her mind too exhausted to make the connection. He cleared his throat and somewhat awkwardly added "you'll probably want to wash."
Understanding dawned in her eyes and she nodded weakly. "Thank you, your grace," she managed, her voice hardly even a whisper. She uncurled from the sofa and walked slowly over to the closet. Small steps didn't make the pain between her legs flare up as much.
She found the wash-basin and set about cleaning herself, her movements wooden and automatic. Thankfully, the light inside the closet was poor and she didn't have to notice how the water in the basin became pink as she washed herself. She couldn't find a towel so she squeezed the water out of her fur as best she could with her fingers, leaving it matted down and heavy and cold with water.
She went back into the office and sat down on her chair, pressing her legs together and putting her hands in her lap. It was more for warmth than for modesty. Modesty was useless now. He had seen everything. Touched everything. Gerd bit her lip hard and forced back the tears that threatened. Tears were useless now too.
After a while the duke glanced up from his paperwork and glanced over at Gerd. His gaze was as appreciative as it had been earlier, but there was also a hint of concern in it. He cleared his throat and hemmed a little before speaking.
"I don't think I'll require your services for the rest of the day, Miss Scothart. Why don't you use the time to familiarise yourself with the manor and get settled in?"
Gerd didn't believe she'd heard him right at first, but after a moment she hurried to her feet and bobbed an automatic curtsy.
"Yes, your Grace. Thank you, your grace." She get her clothes from under the chair and them on hurriedly, both because it was a relief to not have to go naked any longer and because she was scared the duke might change his mind. She finished by tying the bow of her apron behind her back and buttoned up the sleeves on her dress. She glanced at the duke to make certain she could leave. He had already gone back to his paperwork so she hurried towards the doors, barely able to keep from running for them.
"Miss Scothart."
The lion's words stopped Gerd just as she was about to open the door. She turned around without letting go of the doorknob, the whites showing in her eyes. The duke was studying a letter, scanning the page even as he spoke.
"Seven o'clock tomorrow morning, miss Scothart. Be precise."
Gerd tried to reply, but the sudden jolt of panic had blocked her throat. She made a clumsy curtsy with one hand still behind her back, gripping the doorknob. The lion didn't glance up from his letter once as the hind hurriedly opened the door and fled his office.
[The above story has been released into the public domain.]