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“You know, you might benefit from trying to get there on your own.” Penelope whispers at tea a few days later, her cheeks blushing bright red before she meets Francesca’s eyes and clears her throat. “That is to say, you could always try to… reach your pinnacle… without your husband first. And then once you are successful, perhaps you could, er, teach your husband.”
Francesca frowns, “How could I possibly do it on my own?”
Penelope sighs and for a moment Francesca fears this conversation will end with more ambiguous metaphors she cannot seem to work out the meaning of and she will once again be left clueless. The thing she is learning to appreciate about Penelope, however, is that no matter how uncomfortable the conversation might make her, she does not abandon Francesca to her ignorance.
“With your hands,” she says gently. She makes a small demonstrative movement with her fingers in the air and Francesca’s eyes widen. She can’t mean -
“It’s really quite lovely.” Penelope’s voice takes on a dreamy quality and she smiles softly at her tea. “It’s quite… different than when Col-” Here, they both wince. “I mean, a man touches you. It’s… softer… but also more deliberate?If that makes sense?”
It really does not, but she is starting to grow accustomed to that feeling of being adrift at sea while everyone she knows seems to have an innate understanding of this mysterious world.
Such an act has never even occurred to her and the realization annoys her. Was she meant to have been doing this all along? At what point was she supposed to have learned this? She thought she had done all the right things in the right order. She had found a kind man, a beautiful man, who did not just love her but understood her. Something she knows is very rare indeed. And yet, somewhere along the way she has missed a step.
Or, she thinks with dread, possibly several.
At her contemplative silence, Penelope continues. “It’s not always easy to reach the pinnacle, but you will know when you are close because everything will feel as if you are both dying and alive in the most magical way and you will not wish it to ever stop.”
Francesca shivers at the very idea of it and Penelope hides her smirk behind a sip of tea.
XxX
John is hardly the sort to plan an evening away from his wife on his own, and when he tells her the next day that he has plans with her brothers and Will Mondrich, she suspects Penelope has something to do with it.
Penelope has always been very kind to her. Even when they were small, and Eloise inevitably grew tired of her younger sibling and kicked her out of her bedroom so she and Penelope could discuss more important matters, Penelope always promised to finish their games later. And she always made a point to keep her word. So, Francesca is not worried that her newest sister has betrayed her confidence in any way, but she would be willing to put down money that it had been Penelope’s suggestion for a gentlemen’s evening.
She asks her maid to help her retire early for the evening, feigning a headache so the younger woman will take the rest of the night for herself. After, she wanders around the bedchamber in her dressing gown, extinguishing each of the candles so that the room is lit only by the street lamps outside. Satisfied, she slips under the duvet and pulls the heavy velvet covering up to her chin.
She is nervous. More so than even her wedding night because then she’d had John, and she had trusted him to know what to do. What she hadn’t felt in anticipation, she was content she had made up for with curiosity.
It did feel nice with John. His warm lips against hers and his hands stroking over the silk of her gown and then the weight of him between her thighs. The wetness after that she did not exactly love, but she understood meant children, so she accepted it. It was all mostly very pleasant.
And yet nothing like Penelope had described.
“Everything will feel as if you are both dying and alive in the most magical way…”
Penelope was clever and talented with words, but she did not use hyperbole lightly. That was another thing she liked about her, in fact. So, when she said it felt like dying, Francesca was inclined to believe her. And yet, she certainly had not experienced anything that felt like dying. Ever.
She does quite like the fluttery sensations she gets in her belly whenever John’s fingers sweep over her breasts though. It always makes her want something she does not fully understand, but she supposes that is as good a place to start as any.
Her hand slips under the duvet and she traces the lace neckline of her gown, feels the delicate material scratch gently against her skin. It tickles and she sighs. She does it again, but this time she lets her fingers draw a butterfly-light circle over the silk, lets it catch on the rosebud peak of her nipple. She hums softly in the back of her throat and closes her eyes as she sinks deeper into the feather mattress, her palm sliding over her breast the way John likes to do it.
The fluttery feeling she is expecting thrums dimly between her thighs. When John touches her it is slight, tender. He is always so careful with her, so patient. He makes her feel precious. Adored.
But, perhaps, he is a little too cautious.
Penelope had suggested spontaneity and Francesca had thought she meant the timing of it, the place it began, but maybe she meant the pacing as well. The unexpectedness.
Before she even realizes she means to do it, Francesca cups her breast and squeezes, the small moan escaping from her unbidden. Warmth alights in her chest and the most delicious sensation takes up space between her thighs.
It’s not that she has not known arousal before.. She understands the biological responses her body has when she lays with her husband. It is just that she had not realized, until she sat next to Penelope, hair a glorious mess, giggling, dress askew, all rosy-cheeked and absolutely glowing, that she did not know what desire is.
Of course, she had never looked at herself in a mirror after their lovemaking, but she was positive she had never looked as radiant as Penelope had that afternoon at Gunters.
Penelope had always been beautiful. Or at least, Francesca had always found her interesting to look at even before she grew out of the awkward adolescent stage when one’s body parts hadn’t seemed to align themselves correctly yet. When they were children, Francesca had loved combing Penelope’s hair, watching the silky strands gleam like embers in the afternoon sun. And for years, she had longed for the freckles that scattered across Penelope’s nose like a constellation.
But there is something achingly beautiful about her friend now, and yes, it is happiness, but…
Also, desire.
Francesca wants to know what desire feels like. Yearning. She wants to know what it feels like to be wrecked by it so utterly that nothing else matters.
Her free hand drifts down her body, silk gathering around her hips.
She imagines the look on Penelope’s face at tea the day before. How embarrassment had softened into something else entirely as she had explained what Francesca should do.
Did desire not require two people? Was it truly possible to reach one’s pinnacle alone?
Her fingers map gooseflesh up her inner thigh and her breath halts as she nears the apex, waiting. Waiting.
Seconds tick by and she thinks about Penelope who is brave enough to move away from the walls, whose hair smells like flowers, whose smile now feels like the first sunny day of spring. If Penelope can become desire, so can Francesca.
The hand on her breast stills and the hand on her thigh moves. The fluttery feeling becomes a swoop and the breath leaves her lungs in a singular, surprised, oh.
In all her musings, she had not thought to consider how wet she would already be when her fingers finally slid between her folds. She is melted and burning there and she had not even known it possible.
She strokes the length of her sex, marveling. Are all women thus? Is this what Penelope feels in her secret palace? She hadn’t said it specifically, no, but Francesca thinks she must and it makes something quiver inside her.
One finger dances over the nub at the top and her whole body arches up, seeking more.
He’s touched her there before, her husband. Soft little whispers of touches that felt good, yes, yes, of course. But not like this. Nothing like this.
This is… well, Penelope had called it a death and that’s not what this is. Not yet. This is every key on a pianoforte tuned perfectly, every melody she’s ever learned unfurling inside her. She is the work of art she’s spent nearly two decades practicing.
An image of John’s cousin Michaela springs fully formed in her mind and she shoves it aside violently before she can wonder if she, too, feels this hot between her thighs.
The duvet is stifling her and she shoves it aside, her hand settling back on her breast, squeezing, her thumb sweeping over the little peak in not-so-gentle circles that leave her reeling.
There is a climb. She understands that now. The pinnacle. Penelope tried to explain it but Francesca could never have known what she meant. Not without learning it for herself.
There is also an emptiness, surprising and deep between her legs. She finds her entrance, dips into it, one long finger searching. It is instinctual. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for, but she knows if her body can accept John it can accept more of her. She pulls her finger out, adds a second, slips them back inside her.
Her legs tremble.
She repeats the motion, feels her palm bump against that little pearl at the apex of her thighs and –
Oh, gods.
Desire does not need two people.
It’s the last coherent thought she manages as her body begins to effervesce, light suffusing through her bloodstream, every sensation becoming more acute.
“It’s not always easy to reach the pinnacle, but you will know when you are close because everything will feel as if you are both dying and alive in the most magical way and you will not wish it to ever stop.”
Yes, she is close. She must be. She must be because this cannot go on forever, she simply cannot endure it if it does, but Penelope was right. Penelope was right about everything.
And then she is right there, so suddenly on the sharpest edge she’s ever known, her body stretched impossibly taut, every muscle quivering with the effort of keeping her from falling.
But instead she flings herself off the god damned pinnacle and soars.
Later, much later, when she finally sinks back into herself, chest heaving with the need for air and her body still convulsing with pleasure, she begins to laugh. The kind of hysterical, giddy release she hasn’t known since she was a child. Clamping her hand over her mouth, she curls up on her side, shoulders still shaking with mirth. She knows she would look crazy if anyone were around to see her, but she doesn’t care.
She is Penelope undone in a carriage. She is radiant.