Love for Lunch

Locked in the larder with a lovely lady? When the lady's your beautiful wife, and you're the insatiable Mr. Bracegirdle, there can be only one course of action. Yum!

*****

Anthony Bracegirdle sighed and leaned back in his chair. He pulled off the half-spectacles he wore for close reading and brought up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. He'd been working on the household accounts since just after breakfast. It was something he always tried to do whenever he was at home, something Lizzie liked for him to do. He suspected it was her sweet way of trying to make him feel that she needed him, that she couldn't quite manage on her own without him. And he, in his own sweet way, went along with the pretense, chiding her gently for "frivolous" expenditures, feigning dismay over unfathomable ledger entries such as, " Traded to Mrs. Dinwiddy: 2 hens for what was left of her last years pickling. Also 1 s., 2 d for some lace. Or 2 s., 1 d.? I cannot recall."

In truth, Lizzie was a supremely capable woman. And although their circumstances were quite comfortable, and there was never any real need for economy, she took pride in being a thrifty housekeeper, in creating a wonderful home. The house was peaceful, well ordered and filled with the beautiful things she loved.

He looked around him now, at his small, comfortable study. There were several new items that had been added since he had last been at home. A spyglass with a casing of satinwood stood on a gleaming brass stand before the tall window, facing out to sea, and the mouth of the harbor where he could, if he wished, watch the ships come and go. A Chinese rug, wonderfully thick and soft, patterned in beautiful colours; deep blue and red and mellow green-gold. And his favourite, a tiny oil painting that fit perfectly into a space in the gallery of his secretary. It was a picture of a frigate under sail, astonishingly rendered in minute detail. Looking at it, he could almost feel the rush of the wind, hear the snap of the canvas, and taste the salt spray on his lips.

He smiled at himself, acknowledging the little pang of homesickness. He was not the only one, he knew. He'd had many a conversation with other men like him, about the irony of always yearning for "home". When he was at sea, he ached for Lizzie and his girls, at times so desperately he would swear to himself he would have done with this life, once and for all, that he would return to them, and settle, for good. But then, when he was at home, the day always seemed to come when he would watch the ships leaving the harbor and feel that same excitement, that wondrous yearning for the life that had captivated him since he was a boy of thirteen.

He was roused from his reverie by quite a different pang. A glance at his watch told him it was well past noon and no one had yet come to inquire as to when (or whether) he might like to take the midday meal. He was hungry! And where was everyone, anyway? He had seen the two eldest of his little girls, Becca and Nell, go off down the lane earlier. They took music and drawing lessons twice a week along with the daughters of their neighbor, Lady Samms, at her home.

Two-year-old Franny had been left in his care whilst Lizzie and Annie, the housekeeper, had been occupied with chores. She had fallen fast asleep, well over an hour ago, curled up under his desk along with her kitten, and he had carried them both upstairs to the nursery and tucked them into her little cot. He had marveled, as he always did, at the perfection of God's creation; the warm, sweet weight of the child in his arms; the sound of her breathing, deep and steady; the strength of her beating heart. To think that they had done this, Lizzie and he, had made such a creature as this out of nothing but love. He had stroked the white-blonde curls; kissed the tip of his finger and touched it tenderly to the sweet, slack, rosebud mouth. The little grey kitten yawned and stretched and snuggled back in to sleep some more, curled against the baby's round little tummy.  

The house was certainly quiet. Tony rubbed at his ample, grumbling belly. He closed his book, replaced his quill in its stand. He got up and went to the window. The morning mist had never cleared, and the fog obscured his view of the harbor. He could barely make out the masts and the stepped yards of the ships at anchor there.

He left the study and went out into the hall. From where he stood, at the base of the stair, it was possible to look all the way to the back of the house, to the big keeping room that served as kitchen, and truly, as the main living area for the family. Its enormous hearth was always warm, and its deep-silled leaded glass windows always let in plenty of light, even on the grayest of days.

The entrance to the keeping room was through a heavy plank door and down a short flight of steps. The plank door was partly open, and as he approached, he could hear his wife on the other side, humming to herself. Smiling, he put a hand to the door, pushing it open just a little more.

She didn't see him. She stood at the big, scrubbed pine table, wearing a white pin front apron over her blue and white striped frock, her pale, corn-coloured hair tucked up under a starched cap. She was up to her elbows in something very floury, mixing something with her hands in a big, brown, earthenware bowl. As he watched, she took her hands out of the bowl, and rubbed them together, removing the excess dough from her fingers. Then, putting her head back and sticking out her little pink tongue, she licked a blob of dough from her thumb. She made such a delicate gesture of it that he thought, in that moment, it was quite the prettiest thing he had ever seen.

Then, wiping her hands on a wet rag, she turned and walked to the far end of the kitchen and through another door, into the larder.

Watching her go, Tony took note of her pretty shape; the trim little waist, the generous swell of her hips that swayed temptingly even as she walked so purposefully, unaware of his eyes upon her.

He chuckled to himself. "Look at you, old man," he thought. "In the middle of the day!"

Annie was nowhere to be seen. The baby was sleeping; the girls were out. He was sore tempted.

He opened the door, went down the steps and crossing the flagstone floor, followed his wife into the larder.

This was a generously sized room, a half-cellar of sorts, dug into the bank of the little rise upon which the house sat. Used to store foodstuffs, it kept a consistent temperature; always quite cool in summer, and in the winter, the milk and butter never froze. The walls were of lime washed stone, and lined with sturdy wooden shelves, floor to ceiling. There was a large, marble topped worktable pushed up against the back wall. Dried herbs and ropes of onions and a slab of bacon hung from the beams. The shelves were filled with interesting looking crocks and sacks and jars, and there were barrels of flour and dried peas and beans. There were casks of cider and beer and dusty bottles of wine.

He opened the door to see his wife standing on her tiptoes atop a three-legged milking stool that in turn was set atop the worktable. She was trying to reach the very top shelf, which was well above her head. She had hiked up her skirts, tucking them in at the waist in order to climb unencumbered, affording him a delicious view of her smooth, shapely calves. Her stockings were rolled down a little, revealing a sliver of tasty biscuit-coloured skin between them and the hem of her skirts. He did not know if he was more distracted by this, or by the fact that the legs of the milking stool appeared to be uneven, and it was wobbling dangerously as she stood precariously on her toes.

 Without making a sound he reached behind him and fumbled for the latch hook, letting it drop silently through its eyelet.

"Lizzie," he said at last.

She was startled by the sound of his voice and started to turn.

"Oh!" the milking stool wobbled and she grabbed the edge of the shelf to steady herself, " Tony! You startled me!" She looked behind him. "What have you done with Franny?"

"Asleep," He answered her. He started towards her, his arms outstretched. " Luvvy, come down from there before you fall!'

"I'm trying to find the last crock of apples," she said turning back to the shelf. " I am quite sure this is where I hid them. I was trying to keep them out of Annie's reach, to save them for you. I'm making you a nice dumpling, darling."

Apple dumpling was his very favorite pudding. The thought of Lizzie's marvelous dumplings, the tender pastry, the sweet succulent filling infused with just the right amounts of cinnamon and nutmeg and clove, made his mouth water.

"Well, please do be careful," he said. "Here, let me hold this stool for you. Its not very steady." He took hold of the seat of the stool to prevent its wobbling.

One hand should be quite sufficient for this task, he thought to himself. What, then, should he do with the other whilst its mate was so employed?

"Anthony," her voice admonished him as his intrepid index finger founds its way under the top of her stocking and tickled at the enticing little dimple at the back of her knee.

"Dear?" he inquired innocently.

"What are you about?"

"Just making certain you don't fall, My Sweetness," he replied. Looking up, he observed that her bottom was wiggling in a most appealing manner as she reached and stretched and moved things about on the high shelf, searching for the apples.

His naughty fingers just seemed to have a mind of their own, and he simply couldn't help the fact that they had a mind to walk themselves up the back of her thigh, seeking a path to higher, more rarefied climes.

"Anthony!" she squealed, “That tickles! Behave yourself! I'll be down in a moment! Ah! I've found them…"

Oh, he didn't mean to, it was the fingers, really, all on their own, wanting to go all the way up there and have just a tiny taste of that plump, yielding, delectable mound of flesh.

"Tony!" she shrieked, reaching down and slapping at his hand under her skirts, and at the same moment losing her balance and lurching wildly. The milking stool rocked and toppled and down she came with a clattering and a banging and a smashing of glass on the flags.

He caught her--and the apples of course—neatly in his arms.

"Oh!" Lizzie fumed, "Now look what you've done!"

"I have saved the dumpling, I should think," he replied, beaming, and altogether quite satisfied with himself.

"Oh, but look! Mrs. Dinwiddy's pickled plums!" Lizzie wailed. "Oh, what a mess!"

"Mm. Plums," Tony said, smiling down into the front of her frock.

Lizzie cradled the crock of apples in her arms. She tried to twist and reach to set them down on the table, but couldn't quite.

"Put me down, Tony." she said impatiently.

"Oh, I shall," he replied, making no move to do so. She looked into his face and gave him a shy smile that made his heart do a little flip.

"Darling," she said in a sweet, soft voice, "I'm too heavy. You'll hurt yourself."

"Nonsense, my dear," he said, "You are a mere will 'o' the wisp. A sprite. A sylph, a…"

She giggled, "Stop! Silly! Now put me down!"

"I do intend to," he said turning and looking about the room, "I am just determining the likeliest spot. I think this will do." He moved towards the worktable, and propping one knee against it, he was able to support her with one arm, while with the other he reached out and swept the tabletop clear of milking stool, cooking implements, and other assorted detritus, making an enormous racket.

"Ma'am?" Annie's voice called from the kitchen, "What was that?"

"It’s fine, Annie!" Lizzie called over Tony's shoulder, “I've just dropped a jar of plums! Never mind!"

There was no reply, and after a moment, they heard a door slam, as if Annie had gone back out to the garden.

Lizzie looked up at her husband with those changeable green-grey-blue eyes of hers, shadowed by thick, pale lashes "Now, sir," she said smokily. "Put me down."

Wordlessly he eased her down so that she sat on the edge of the table. He took the crock from her and set it on the floor.

"Its should be safe there, " he said. "I wouldn't want anything to happen to my dumpling."

"Poor darling," she cooed," You must be famished. I had quite forgotten the time."

"I do have quite an appetite," he replied. He stood before her, his thighs touching her knees. He leaned forward, placing his hands on the table on either side of her body, "And I think you know," he murmured, moving ever closer, " How much I do love a nice plump…sweet…dumpling." His lips were nearly on hers.

She turned her head quickly and moved as if to get down from the table, "Well, then, I must get right back to my baking!" she teased.

"Uh uh uh!" He caught her about the waist. " No you don't, madam. It so happens that I have a little something here that needs baking."

"Have you now?"

"I have. It should be ready for the oven in just a bit. At the moment, it is still on the rise."

Her arms slid around his neck, pulling him close. Her breath was sweet. She smelled of butter and spice. "Then we have a little time to stir the coals," she whispered," You want to have a nice, hot oven."

His big arms closed around her. He felt the yielding squish of her soft, bountiful bosom against his burly chest as he pressed her close. Her face was raised to his, and she opened her lips for the strong, muscular probe of his tongue. He inhaled her scent greedily, and he took her mouth ravenously, feeling her hands raking through his hair, hearing her breath coming swift and unevenly as she succumbed to him in an instant, feeding his craving.

His hands moved up her back, to her neck, and tugged at the lace on her cap. It slid off, and he pushed his fingers into her hair, loosening the pins, letting it tumble down over his hands and arms in a riot of white gold. His lips marked a path down the white column of her throat, pausing to lap at the sweet musky hollow, working his way towards his reward: those luscious mounds of cream tipped with raspberry pink that he knew and loved so well and slavered to taste.

He dipped a greedy hand into the front of her gown, gleeful as a small boy given the freedom of a jar of sweets. Gently he worked to free his dainty prizes from their confines of fabric and stays, and with a happy groan, fell upon the exposed confections, taking his delectation with insatiable lips and tongue.  

"Oh!" Lizzie gasped, her head falling back. She clutched at him, burying her white knuckled fingers in his soft honey-coloured curls as he lapped and sucked at her breasts, raising the tender nipples to sharp, tingling points. He was bearing her down, pushing her back onto the cool marble slab of the tabletop. She let herself sink. His hands were moving down, raising the hem of her skirts.

"Oh, you are such a hungry man," she murmured, as he slid along the length of her body. She giggled as he disappeared under her skirts.

"I'm starving!" came his muffled voice," I'm going to eat you alive! I'm going to swallow you whole! Um! Um! Umm!"

It was heated and dark under Lizzie's skirts, and thick with the intoxicating scent of her. Tony licked his lips as he moved between her rounded thighs. His big hands found the patch of fragrant, silky fur, and with his thumbs he parted the outer lips, so soft, and puffy, like little yeast rolls.

He wanted to laugh out loud when he heard her cry out joyfully as he tucked in to his repast. As he nibbled and nosed and tasted, he thought of those exotic fruits, the pomegranates that were brought aboard ship in the ports of Smyrna and Oran. When split open, they revealed a core of succulent, jewel-like pulp, ruby red and bittersweet.

He plunged his tongue into her hot, moist core, swirling it round the sides as he would his finger in a bowl of cake batter, wanting to lick up every last trace of sweetness. She moaned and thrashed and her bottom was lifting off the table. He gripped the tops of her thighs where they bent at the hip, and held her down. She whimpered and strained against him as he gave her good dozen or more well-applied lashings of his avaricious tongue before he ducked back out from under.

She lay heaving on the table, her skirts thrown up onto her belly, her legs propped up. Somehow she'd lost one shoe, and the little stockinged toes of that foot clung to the edge of the table. Her face was flush and pink, her cornsilk hair strewn all around her. Tony bent over her, his blue eyes sparkling, his own face pink from the heat of his recent endeavor, his smiling mouth smeared with her sticky syrup.

"What say you then, madam?" he asked in a husky, breathless voice. " Is the oven to temperature yet?"

"Is the loaf fully risen?" she panted in reply.

"Aye," he twinkled, "I think you will find it a high, fine, loaf."

"Do put it in, then, sir," she said, biting her lip fetchingly as she reached for his buttons," Only take care it does not burn."

"Never," he said, looking down, watching her skillful little fingers open the flap of his trousers, reaching inside. His cock burgeoned at her touch. God, he was hard! He marveled at his own length and thickness, stared in fascination at the ticking vein that snaked and throbbed along its engorged stretch.

"This," he said, placing himself between her eager thighs, "Must be a magic oven.  No matter how long I leave it in for, it never fails to come out done to a turn."

Damn! It was sweet to sink himself into her, like sinking his teeth into a ripe, juicy pear, that same sensation of firm resistance, and ultimate yielding, that bursting, that flood of mouthwatering ecstasy, that flowed up over his loins and traveled up his spine, snapping his head back and making him want to howl his pleasure.

He had done his work well. He knew his wife, and she was perfectly primed. He could set off her crisis at will, and now that he was inside her he knew that he would not last long, but he would wait till the last possible moment to send her.

He watched her face. Her eyes were closed, her head turned to the side. A single strand of blonde hair lay across her open mouth. She made soft little noises in her throat as he pumped her. She squeezed his forearms with her pretty little hands. He played a little game, thrusting once and stopping, watching her breasts bounce and settle, then shoving himself in, again, to watch them bob once more with the motion.

"Lizzie," he panted as he drove himself deep into her, "God, you feel so damned…good! Do you want me?"

"Yes, Tony!" She opened her eyes, deep green now with passion, and she whispered hoarsely," I want you! I want you do it hard! Fuck me, Tony! Make me scream!"

He threw back his head and laughed. The wicked vulgarity coming from his sweet, perfect wife's lips made him even harder, drove him mad. He was as hard as granite, as long as a saber, thick as a hawser! He felt like a god as he rammed himself into her again and again, gaining power and momentum with every massive thrust.

The force of his frenzied activity was causing the sturdy table to creak and its back edge to bang against the wall. Neither of them noticed that the subsequent vibration was causing a row of glass jars on the shelf above Lizzie's head to walk themselves incrementally forward, getting closer and closer to the edge.

Tony felt that familiar shiver at the base of his spine, that inexorable tingle that told him his quest was near its end. He drove himself forward, not holding back, striving for the fullest culmination, an explosion of maximum power.

Lizzie's eyes flew open again as she felt him place his broad, flat thumb upon her swollen clit. In rhythm with the motion of his surging hips he rolled it round and round.

"Anthony!" she gasped."Oh, dear God!" She felt herself shatter, saw herself fly apart into tiny fragments, little sparklets of red and orange light, propelled into the vast infinity of a blessed and dark blue night---!

"Yes!" he followed her with a jubilant cry, and he grabbed her, his hands sinking into the softness of flesh that covered her sharp pelvic bones. He could not stop pummeling her as he came. He felt like he had the kick of an eighteen pounder, belching his hot shot, watching the waters boil as he sank ball after ball into the rising, falling depths.

"Tony!"

"Yes!" he breathed again.

"Tony, the jars!"

He looked up and reacted in a split second, ducking and throwing his body over Lizzie, covering both their heads with his sheltering arms as the shelf full of canning jars rained down on them, bouncing and rolling off the table, crashing and splintering on the flagstones.

"Ma'am!" Annie's voice was frantic on the other side of the door and she was rattling the handle, trying to gain entrance. Tony was grateful he had thought to throw the latch before.

"Ma'am! What's happened! I can't open the door!"

"Its all right, Annie!" Lizzie called in a voice breathless with exertion," I've moved some of the barrels to clean behind them and I've blocked the door!"

Tony smiled and nodded his head approvingly, crediting his wife for the cool lie.

"What was that crash?" Annie yelled. "What're ye doin' in there?"

"I'm just so clumsy today, Annie! I'm afraid I've dropped another jar!" She suppressed a giggle and pressed a finger to Tony's mouth, lest he should start.

"Franny is having a nap, Annie," Lizzie went on, "Would you be good and have a look in on her? I'll just finish cleaning up this mess and be out soon."

"Yes, ma'am."

Lizzie looked at her husband, grinning at her like a fool. She took his face in her hands.

"You are going to clean this up, sir," she said sternly.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied.

                                                           *****

Half an hour later, the larder swept and sorted, their persons tucked and buttoned and smoothed, Lizzie and Tony emerged to find the entire family, including Annie, seated around the big pine table before the hearth, the three little tow-headed girls pin neat in their cotton frocks, cups of milk in their hands, a plate of cakes in front of them.

"Papa!" squealed the middle one, Nellie, leaving her place and skipping over to him. " Whatever have you been doing?"

"Well," he said, bending down to scoop the child into his arms," I've just been helping Mummy to make a dumpling for lunch!"

The End


Return to Tasteful Tales Main Page