The Duchess' Mother Ch. 05

"It's... small."

Mom stepped into the dingy little room and looked around. "It cost less than that abysmal wine," she replied. "I'd say we got what we paid for."

I swallowed. As much as I resented most everything about living in the palace, itwasstill a palace. The beds were clean. The alcohol tasted slightly less like shit. Being born and raised among nobility had clearly instilled some expectations, most of which I'd never even considered before seeing the peeling walls and mouldering ceiling of the Winnowing Widow's cellar. Besides a single bed, the room held only a nightstand, a trunk, a table with no chairs, and a door in the far corner. A mound of hardened wax from a fully-spent candle coated the nightstand's surface.

Was I was just a snob? My mother seemed unbothered, striding to the other door as if through her own bedroom. She lit up the second it swung open. Disappearing inside and pulling the door shut behind her, she exclaimed in a muffled voice, "They have a bath!"

"Really? Where do all the bathmaids stay?"

The door reopened. "Tell me you're joking," Mom said, standing with hands on hips.

"What, did you see a servant's quarters?"

She just looked at me, then broke into a fit of giggles before shutting herself inside again. "Most people bathe themselves, Addie!"

Oh. In hindsight that was obvious, but I'd always assumed everyone had to endure a gaggle of old women scrubbing their skin raw every other morning. Bathingmyselfactually sounded nice.

"Just give me a moment to clean up!" Mom called out.

"Oh, uh, sure." I collapsed onto the bed, coughing as a cloud of dust took to the air. "Take your time."

Once again, I found myself with all-too-much time alone with my thoughts. They were still addled and fuzzy and none stuck around for more than a few foggy-headed seconds--except one. The only one that mattered, really. As I lay on that grime-caked blanket sifting through a thousand questions, one screamed louder than all the rest: what in the fuck happens next? Mom was the one who took every step towards getting us in this room. I'd followed like a pet eager to obey without the first clue as to what was going on in her head. Were we...?

No, obviously not. That would be ridiculous. But the kiss felt different. Some of what my mother said still spun around in my head, painting pictures that made my heart stutter. 'I'm glad it's you,' she'd told me. My head had a habit of overthinking the simplest of things, but how could that not mean something? How could it not meaneverything?

Because she's your mother, Adrienne. Pull it together. Just because she was a touchy, intimate person didn't mean she wanted to fuck her daughter.

"She doesn't want you like that," I whispered to myself. Something so obvious shouldn't have hurt so much to admit and the fact that it did only worsened my nerves. "She doesn't. She doesn't."

But...

Why not, though? Was it really that obvious? We'd always been each others' best friend, always the first ear to listen and the first hand to help. She never made me feel anything less than adored. Was it so impossible that Mom might see me the same way I'd come to see her?

She didn't, of course, but shemight,and that was more than enough to feed my fire. It wasn't so ridiculous to think my mother might want to pin me down and take what she needed. It wasn't unthinkable that she might wonder how I look face-down, ass-up and begging. Or maybe Mom would rather tease? A kiss, a pinch, warm breath on my skin as she promises to treat me gently. She'd know what I wanted, though. She'd start slow, ease me in with tender kisses and soft words only to make me scream as she fucked me to tears.

A hand inched downward, slipping beneath my waistband.

Who was I kidding? There was nothing I wouldn't happily let Mom do, but what Itrulywanted was to be hers in whatever way she'd have me. I'd settle on never finishing again if it meant being free to please her every moment of every day. Fuck being a duchess; I didn't belong on a throne. I belonged with my mother, be it by her side, at her feet, or nestled comfortably between her thighs.

One finger, then another, sliding into folds already messy from the thought of her.

There'd always been an image of her I kept in my head: kind, compassionate, endlessly patient with my antics and graceful in the face of difficulty. But something was changing. That image was fracturing, memories mingling with scents and sounds I shouldn't know. The woman who'd drenched me in her arousal was the same who first helped me walk. The voice that taught me to read was the same I'd made grunt and groan in pleasure. Twenty-four years ago, the same pussy I lusted for brought me into the world. That alone might have snapped another girl out of her delusions, but every innocent memory involving mother and daughter brought me closer to climax.

My hand moved faster.

Mother, Mom, Mama, Lady Abigail Elhof, a lonely woman in need of affection--all the same to me. All aspects of someone I longed to be with. Someone I'd love without limit, trust without doubt, and serve without question. She could use me like a toy for all I--

"Having fun, darling?"

My eyes snapped open, seeing the bathroom door open again and Mom in a robe leaning against it with a smile. I yelped, floundered to pull a blanket over myself, then caught my breath. "Wereallyneed to start knocking."

"You want me to knock on my wayoutof the bathroom?" my mother asked.

"Well... No, but-- Can you stop staring at me like that?"

She looked to either side as if I could be talking to anyone else. "Oh, me?"

"Who else would I be--hic-- talking about?" I pressed a palm to my chest as heartburn flared. "Godsdammit. I thought the hiccuping might--hic-- Fuck!"

Mom crawled onto the bed, pinching my cheek and wrapping her arm around me. "Aw, my sweet baby still can't handle her drink, huh?"

Part of me wanted to argue. A much bigger, louder part wanted to shut up and let her coddle me, so that's what I did. I snuggled up close as can be and rested my head on her chest, letting the steady rhythm of her heart bring a modicum of order to the chaos inside me. My mother smelled lovely. Her hair was shiny and clean, a black so deep it looked almost purple. She combed through my hair, left kisses on my head, and held me still while the room spun around us.

I'd never been good with alcohol, fine, but what in the fuck was in that wine?

Eventually, Mom chuckled softly. I looked up at her. She said, "We used to do this, too, remember?"

"Getting shitfaced?"

"Staying in taverns."

I sat up a bit. "When?"

"When you were younger. That's how our little outings in the city usually ended. You'd beg me to take you to just one more place, one more place, one more place... Before we knew it it'd be midnight and your little legs would be on the verge of giving out." Mom stroked my cheek with the back of her hand, seemingly searching for something behind my eyes. "You never wanted to walk all the way back, so we'd stay in places like this. Or, not likethis, exactly. Not a chance in all the Hells I would have brought you here."

I did remember. Vaguely. But although it seemed to make her happy, it left me feeling anything but. I said, "Hey, Mom?"

"Mhmm?"

"Do you often think about when I was younger?"

She chewed the inside of her lip. "Sometimes. Not like I used to. It's harder now that--" Pausing, her hands fidgeted, fingers idly kneading themselves. "Now that you're older."

Was that a hint of sadness? Nostalgia, maybe, though tinged with... regret? Doubt? Or, most probably, I was far too fucked up to be reading her mind. Best give up on trying to be insightful for now. Especially when it was so, so easy to let my guard slip with her. Mom was a stable buoy in the sea surrounding us, reliable, keeping me from drifting away entirely.

A buoy I wanted to strip naked and worship until morning.

She gingerly tugged my earlobe, saying, "So..."

"So what?"

"Did you finish?"

I frowned. When she gave me an impish look, I cried, "Mom!"

"What?"

"You can't just ask things like that!

My mother scoffed and rolled her eyes. "You're allowed to but I'm not?"

"It's different. I-- It's different!"

She cocked her head. "Is it?" Mom asked, nose scrunching.

"It's different because--hic-- because... I-I... I don't remember what I was saying."

She smiled, turning my face with a finger and delivering a soft, warm kiss to my lips. "That's okay, love."

I blinked. "Was that still part of the lesson?"

"Hush now." Another kiss, lingering longer and ending just before I needed air. "Mama's got you."

Well, if she insisted. A second wave of nausea was on its way, anyway. I swallowed and allowed my body to relax, melting in her damp, sweet-swelling embrace. Whatever we'd been talking about, she was probably right anyway. Mama was always right.

I cleared my throat. "I didn't. Finish, I mean."

"Oh! Would you like to?" She covered her eyes. "I won't look."

"Uh... I'll take care of that later. Thanks."

Mom peeked at me between her fingers, then let the hand fall onto my knee, saying, "Tomorrow will probably be busy, you know. You'll have catching up to do. Are you sure?"

Far from it. The ache in my abandoned nethers pulsed, pleading with me to finish what I'd started. But with herright there?What we did before had been a necessity; masturbating now would just be because I wanted to. She waited decades, so I could wait a day. Of course I could wait a day.

The ache worsened. A day was a long time, though, wasn't it? Tomorrow might be busy, but notthatbusy. I could squeeze in a moment to myself between our visit to the Altar and Hawley's inevitable scolding. That left just one night. I could wait one night.

Another pulse sent shivers up my spine. A night was a long time, too.

"Dammit," I muttered. "Fine, close your eyes."

Mom grinned, made a show of stretching her arms and legs, crossing her ankles, and leaning back with both eyes shut. "Do whatever you need to do."

Easier said than done. I sat staring at my hand for nearly a minute before remembering how to use it, then another before actually moving it an inch. Just one. Then another, another, guiding it lower and lower while my head tried to piece together what was even happening. I'd have to be quiet. And not move too much. Mom knew what I was doing, but she didn't have to get every detail. Besides, what mother wanted to hear her daughter's pussy being worked? A polite girl would keep things subdued.

My impatiently waiting sex had other plans. As soon as a finger brushed the hood of my clit, any hope of self-restraint died. Something about feeling a full cunt while she sat only a foot away reduced me to a bitch in heat, panting and mewling as I tended to my needs. At first I kept my eyes on the ceiling. Then they drifted down and I realized how horribly I'd been denying myself.

She drove me wild. The way Mom lay there, eyelids shut and a devilish smirk curling her lips, robe hanging open just enough to catch a peek of one dark, pebbled areola--fucking Hells, what I'd have given for the courage to tear it open and see every perfect inch of her skin. To run hands down my mother's hips, to lick from belly to sternum before suckling from her breast and drowning my worries in a mouthful of milky comfort. But she gave me so little to work with. Only a glimpse of chest, a suggestion of thighs, and a pair of pale, delicate feet.

Well... Theywerenice feet. Before the last few days I'd barely paid them any mind, but godsdamn if they weren't a pleasure to look at. Though my lustful gaze crept over Mom's entire body, it always wound up fixated on those thoughtfully pedicured and polished toes, now a bright, sunny yellow that begged to be appreciated. If she ever took another lover, that lucky bastard had damn well better treat them with the care they deserved.

I stole a glance at her face. Surely she wouldn't mind?

A bit closer, that was all. In a blink I found myself on both knees at the foot of the bed, riding my fingers and staring down at the loveliest feet I'd ever laid eyes on. Pristine, flawless, as if the woman traversed our palace on nothing but a palanquin hauled by servants.

Keep it together, Adrienne. Keep it together...

But holy Hells, there was nothing I wanted less than to 'keep it together'. I wanted to fall apart, to let every inhibition vanish and to hand the reins over to instinct alone--the instinct to devote my entire self to someone else. Someone who loved and cared for me. Someone who worked tirelessly to keep my world intact. Someone who never got a moment to herself or a chance to relax and be pampered and adored, who deserved the sort of reverence usually reserved for divinity.

Her leg shifted, ankle stretching and toes pressing against the top of her other foot. Such a casual gesture, yet it snipped the last thread of my dwindling will. There wasn't a single desire left in my inebriated mind except to please.

In another blink I lay curled up, her foot held in my fingertips like the precious work of art that it was. Heel first, a tender kiss. Another, another, slowly following her arch up to the tips of those adorable toes, where each got a moment of my full, undivided attention. I kissed, licked and sucked until they all glistened with sloppy affection. Then up, along instep and bridge. Up, around the ankle. Up to calf and shin and down again, returning to lap at her soles and to shower my mother in all the love I'd been trying to push below the surface since last night.

My head was usually a mess of questions. What if this, what about that, will she, will I... Not now. As my languid tongue explored her feet, it was remarkably quiet up there. Only a single question occurred to me at all: how had I made it twenty-four years before finding this comfortable a use for my mouth? Talking never did me any good. Eating and breathing often felt like regrettable necessities. The two kisses I'd had were wonderful, but both left me a mental wreck. This was uncomplicated; I knew what to do and how to do it.

"Ah, ahem. Addie?"

"Mmm... Mhmm?" I looked up with my mouth still full. At the sight of Mom's half-bewildered, half-amused expression, it suddenly feltmuchmore complicated. Jerking back, I clumsily tried to dry off my slobber and eke out an apology at the same time. "Shit, I-- I don't know why I did that. I'm sorry! Fucking Hells, I'm so, so sorry, this never should have--"

"Addie--"

"Gods-fucking-dammit, what's wrong with me?" I gave up trying to clean my mess and covered her feet with the blanket, then stumbled off the bed with my face in my hands. "I wasn't thinking, y-you have to believe me, I just--"

"Adrienne!"

I cut my rambling short, but still couldn't look at her. Not after that. I only managed another quiet, bashful apology. "Sorry..."

"Look at me, darling," Mom whispered. My hand slid down only enough to show me a glimpse of a face somehow not twisted with disgust. She said, "You've done nothing wrong, Adrienne."

I looked at her in disbelief.

My mother drew her legs back, wrapped both arms around her knees and smiled. "I did say 'whatever you need', I suppose. Just surprised, that's all. Since when do you have a thing for feet?"

"I don't have athingfor feet," I replied indignantly, scowling. "Yours just looked so..."

She smirked and gently pulled the blanket aside. Stretching her legs back out, Mom wiggled her toes, saying, "Delectable?"

"Great, you made it weird."

"Imade it weird?" She snorted and shrugged. "My mistake. Please, don't let me interrupt."

I watched as she settled in with eyes closed again. That couldn't possibly mean what I thought it meant, right? I asked, "You're joking, aren't you?"

"Always the doubter. From now on, let's just assume I'm not, okay?"

"So, you want me to keep going?"

"I want you to take care of yourself," Mom said, eyelids drifting lazily apart. "Whatever that entails."

The same question almost tumbled out once more, but I choked it back. She wasn't joking. Somehow, someway, my mother was actually asking me to continue worshipping her feet. I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. "You are so fucking drunk right now."

"Pot, kettle, something something. Are you going to hurry up and come or not?"

A familiar heat sparked and radiated out from my core, striking like lightning in the wake of that single sentence and shattering the tension I'd forgotten had even been building. My devotion to her had been so complete, so absolute that any concern for my own pleasure had vanished, but now came rushing back in a flood of sensation so overwhelming it buckled my knees. I collapsed in a heap on the floor.

"Addie!"

My mother sounded a million miles distant. Maybe she was; I felt like I'd been jettisoned straight into the firmament. But gradually, my senses descended back to earth. Scent first, the smell of sex and wine. Then touch--the chill of the cold stone beneath me. The faint taste of blood in my mouth, then the muffled sound of the tavern upstairs. Finally, sight. I rolled onto my back and blinked. As vision cleared, my eyes fixated on Mom's fretful face staring down over the edge of the bed.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

I groaned, trying to heave myself upright but finding my limbs were clumsy as a newborn foal's. Twice I attempted to stand and twice I crumpled back into a panting, sweaty mess. Still, alright was an understatement. Nothing had felt so good since that first time in my mother's lap.

She rested her chin in her hands. "The girl just cannot stop tripping over herself, can she?"

"Didn't... trip..." I mumbled breathlessly.

"Oh?" Mom cocked a brow. A few seconds of silence told more than words could have dreamed. "Oh.Oh!"she cried, a beam spreading ear to ear before she threw herself back onto the bed and out of view, cackling like a madwoman.

She thought that was funny? My own mother thought that finishing me off with nothing more than her voice was-- Shit. Funny or not, her laugh was still irresistibly contagious; it had helped get me into this mess and definitely wouldn't be getting me out. I'd almost managed to climb back onto the bed but giggled my way right back down, tingling, aching, and quaking from head to toe in the aftershock of orgasm.

Mom poked her head over the foot of the bed again, smiling as she held out a hand. She said, "My Addie has quite the hair-trigger!"

"Only when you're around, I promise."

"Careful, now. Some claims are just begging to be tested."

I took her hand and finally rose to shaky legs. "Twice isn't enough?"

"It's something," she mused, guiding me to sit beside her, "but hardly scientific."

I snorted. "I'll be sure to log myactivitiesfor you."

"Good. I expect a comprehensive an-- analys... What's the--"

"Analysis?"

"Mm, mhmm." My mother tousled my hair. "That. I expect one of those on my desk by morning."

"Desk? You don't--" A hiccup tickled my diaphragm, but never came. I swallowed. "You don't even have a desk."

She nodded a little sadly. "Just leave it on my bed, I suppose."

"Okay okay, but what if--hear me out--what if we get home and you're so tired you just fall into bed and roll around wrapped up in all the blankets and everything gets all messy and jumbled and then, um... then we can't find the, uh..." I trailed off, squinting and frowning as I rubbed my forehead. "What were we talking about?"

Mom just stared blankly. "Something about a desk?"

"Hm. Do you ever feel like there's an itty bitty little goblin in your head swallowing up all your thoughts before you can think them?"