Bancroft Hall, Dorsetshire, England. September 1902.

In the late afternoon of the second day after her arrival at Bancroft, the countess returned from a ride and found me in her sunlit bedroom tidying up, as befits a lady’s maid. I noticed she was moving stiffly and enquired as to the problem.

‘I almost fell off my horse in the woods on the far side of the lake,’ she answered, her slight German accent noticeable in the quiet room. ‘He stumbled and I have strained the bottom of my back. It is quite painful.’

‘Perhaps a warm bath might soothe it, my lady?’ I suggested.

‘A bath? Yes, perhaps. Very well, Mary, you may run me a bath,’ she replied.

I made another suggestion. ‘My previous mistress suffered from back pain and taught me how to use Swiss massage to alleviate it. After your bath I would be happy to treat your back if you like, my lady. It may help to ease the discomfort.’ She nodded slightly, suggesting she knew of such things, and then looked at me as if the implications were running through her mind. I met her eye and smiled innocently.

Finally, she nodded. ‘Very well, Mary Felix, do your worst.’

My heart beating faster, I went into the adjoining bathroom and turned on the taps, positioning the floor mat and pouring lavender salts into the water as it started to steam.

When the bath was ready, I walked back into the bedroom to find the countess wearing a beautiful pale blue silk dressing gown. Her riding dress and underclothes were draped on the chaise longue, so I assumed she was naked underneath. She was standing barefoot at the window looking out over the grounds. Her glorious deep red hair had loosened a little and lay in soft curls over her slim white neck, and the sunlight picked out the curves of her body under the fine fabric in a most delightful way. I had been told she was aged forty, but her extraordinary beauty showed no signs of fading.

She turned and smiled at me, her haughty authority lost for a moment. ‘Ready?’ she asked.

‘Yes, my lady. Would you like me to assist you in the bathroom?’

‘No.’

‘Then I will go and get the massage oil from my room and return directly.’

She nodded and walked into the bathroom, leaving the door open a foot or so. Seconds later I heard a rustle of silk as the gown fell away, followed by delicate splashing and a muted gasp of pleasure as the hot water engulfed her.

Climbing the stairs to my room on the top floor, my mind was fizzing with excitement. The thought of laying hands on the countess was intoxicating, and I resolved to please her to the best of my abilities. I was also very aware of how such sessions with Georgina sometimes ended, and, although I doubted that she would permit such liberties, the thought sent illicit thrills through my body.

‘I’m back, my lady,’ I said quietly as I returned with the dark brown bottle in my hand.

There was no reply from the bathroom. I put the bottle on the window ledge to warm in the sun and went to tidy the discarded clothes. Crossing to the wardrobe, I glanced towards the bathroom door. Through the gap I had a brief glimpse of the countess. She appeared to be dozing, her eyes closed and head leaning back on the rim of the bathtub, but my gaze was held by the sight of her delicious pink nipples protruding from the water. My head swam for a moment, then the vision was gone.

Aware of a sympathetic arousal in my own nipples, I removed a bath towel from the wardrobe and spread it out on the bed. As I did so, a gentle splashing signalled movement from next door. I crossed to the door and asked, ‘Have you finished, my lady?’

‘Yes, Mary. You may come in and dry me.’

I entered the room and picked up the towel from the rail. As I turned towards the bath, she stood up, the water cascading off her like falling diamonds in the late afternoon sunlight. Try as I might, I could not muffle a gasp. Truly, she was a goddess. Lustrous red hair framed her beautiful blue-eyed, fine-boned face, which was perfectly set off by her flawless alabaster-white body. High breasts showing the ripe fullness of a mature woman were matched perfectly with her slim waist and beautifully proportioned hips and legs. For a maid, my exclamation was inexcusable, but thankfully she seemed to treat it as a compliment.

‘We’ve no secrets now, Mary,’ she said in a low voice.

I did not trust myself to speak but gently towelled her dry, helped her into the dressing gown and then waited as she led the way into the bedroom.

I picked up the bottle of oil.

‘If you’d like to lie face down on the towel, my lady,’ I said. With her back to me, she silently shrugged off the gown. It slid down her back and crumpled around her feet. I went to pick it up, and when I looked again, she was on the towel, both arms folded upwards and crossed under her face, which was turned away from me. ‘I’ll start at the top of your back,’ I said quietly, standing next to the bed.

She said nothing. Indeed, over the events of the next twenty minutes she did not utter a word, but that is not to say she remained silent. Far from it.

Pouring the sun-warmed, rose-scented oil into my cupped palms, I set to work, massaging the base of her neck and shoulders. In the silence, I slowly worked down her spine, taking my time and feeling her tension ease. She gave a couple of quiet sighs and I saw her legs visibly relax and roll slightly further apart as she gave herself in to the soothing sensations.

‘Is this helping, my lady? Shall I continue?’ I murmured as my hands worked on the base of her spine. Taking her silence as acquiescence, I started to gently knead her buttocks, working with quiet concentration and occasionally easing my fingers into the crack where a dribble of oil lingered. Her legs imperceptibly parted as I continued, so that more and more of her pretty secrets were revealed to me.

Greatly daring, I let some oil dribble down over her rosebud bum and directly onto her slit. Sliding my fingers down to collect it, I found she was wet with arousal. I heard the faintest of sighs.

‘Will you turn over, my lady?’ I whispered, my voice barely audible in the silent room.

She did so with no hesitation and lay there with her eyes closed, looking utterly glorious, one arm crooked behind her head and the other thrown out towards the middle of the bed. Her cunny was crowned with a neat russet-coloured tuft, her plump lips proud and bare below. I worked the oil through the hair, letting dribbles run downwards and gently rubbing them in. The oil was not really needed, as she was most luxuriously wet. Clearly intimacy with another woman was not something that held any fears for her, and I reflected, not for the first time, that ladies’ secret lives really are a closed book to most gentlemen.

Laying my right-hand palm on her tuft, I started to work the oil over her upstanding peanut-sized clitty with my thumb. She stirred and sighed, her legs parting wider. Slowly I increased the pressure, moving in a steady rotation, and she responded, her hips gently lifting and falling. As her sighs turned to moans and her legs slowly bent at the knee and raised, I firmly slid two fingers from my other hand into her. She gasped as I pressed upwards, feeling for that patch of slightly rougher skin that resides just an inch or two inside. A place of great wonder and pleasure to the initiated.

For a full five minutes I pleasured her with my fingers and thumb. Her groans became deeper and more urgent as her arousal grew. Looking up, I saw her throat and blue-veined breasts were flushed red and she was pulling on her nipples, twisting them between her fingers in a way that must have been deliciously painful.

Not long now. Feeling distinctly aroused myself, I drove her onwards until, with a single plaintive cry of surrender, she spent, her hips jerking upwards and her body held rigid as wave after wave of pleasure broke over her.

Slowly the shuddering spasms quietened until at last she relaxed with a low moan, panting for breath as though she had been running. I looked down on her as the after-tremors ran through her body and wished for all the world that she would ask me to lie naked beside her. But her eyes remained resolutely shut.

I gently drew the coverlet from the far side of the bed over her and moved away, thinking that I would leave her to sleep. But she stirred and opened her eyes.

‘Did you enjoy that, Mary? Did you like serving me?’ She looked at me with a lazy smile. A sheen of perspiration had dampened her face and a curl stuck to her forehead, but her look was direct and there was challenge in her voice.

‘Yes,’ I answered simply, meeting her eyes.

My affection must have been apparent, because both her expression and voice softened. ‘And you are very good at it too, I must say. Do you favour both men and women?’

‘I do, my lady.’

She nodded acceptance at this before continuing. ‘As do I. And now, as you have seen me at my most vulnerable, I think I would like to see you naked. In fact, I would like to watch you pleasure yourself, Mary. Remove your clothing and show me.’

‘You want to watch me spend, my lady?’ I whispered.

She smiled, a delicious combination of authority and desire in her eyes. ‘I do, yes. Do it now. On the chaise longue.’

As she sat up and gathered the coverlet around herself, I pulled the seat away from the wall and positioned it parallel to the bed, about six feet away. Standing next to it, I started to unbutton the front of my dark blue uniform dress, turning my back on her as the deep valley of my breasts became obvious. Mirroring her earlier actions with the dressing gown, I shrugged the dress off and let it fall to the floor. The warm weather made underclothes superfluous for servants, so I was left naked but for my neat black laced brogues.

I turned my head and caught a side view of myself framed in a long freestanding mirror. Even now, all those years later, I can still see that image in my mind, can still describe the girl I once was.

I have no time for false modesty. The reflection showed a strikingly beautiful green-eyed girl of medium height, with very pale olive-brown skin. Her hair was glossy and black, with a slight wave and cut unfashionably short, with a fringe and exposed neck. Her figure was curvy but perfectly proportioned, with full, firm breasts and large dark-brown nipples, rounded buttocks, and slim thighs and calves.

In the mirror I could see the narrow coloured band of a snake tattoo an inch wide running horizontally across my ribs at elbow height. The tail commenced just below my left nipple and then slipped under my armpit and across my back. Reappearing under my right arm, it prescribed a bold loop around my tummy button before ending deep on my belly. From its head a long, forked tongue flickered downwards, ending an inch or so above my clitty. For this reason, and because Georgina insisted on it, I shaved myself bare down there.

‘Well, well, Mary Felix, what do we have here? A tattoo?’ The countess’s question interrupted my reverie.

‘It is Shesha, my serpent, my lady,’ I said over my shoulder.

‘I see. Then you had better show the rest of Shesha to me.’ There was a delicious authority in her voice, and I shivered with arousal, slowly turning until I stood naked in front of her, one arm covering my breasts, my other hand over my groin.

She met my eye, her face expressionless, and said, ‘Put your hands by your sides.’

I obeyed, leaving my body fully exposed to her gaze. She inhaled deeply and looked for a long moment before breaking the silence in a quiet voice.

‘You were not put on this earth to labour in the fields, were you, Mary?’

‘I don’t think I was, my lady, no.’

‘And Shesha is a consequence of your previous employment, perhaps?’

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘And the shaving?’ She gestured at my groin.

‘The same. A habit I got into.’

She nodded at this, then pointed to the chaise longue. ‘Proceed.’

I eased lengthways onto the chaise longue and leant back onto the armrest, then slowly raised my right leg against the back cushion and slid my left leg away from the seat. With my legs apart, my naked cunny was fully displayed to the countess, and she leaned forward, smiling.

Giving involuntary gasps of pleasure, I pulled and stroked my fat nipples until they stood fully three-quarters of an inch proud of my breasts. The countess licked her lips and for a wonderful moment I thought she would leave the bed and join me, but no. Although I noticed the coverlet fall away, leaving her own white breasts in full view. My hand traced a gentle pattern over my curved belly before I reached down with my fingers and stroked my slit. The countess inhaled deeply as my large clitty was revealed to her, standing as proud and tall as my nipples.

‘This is my palace guard, my lady,’ I whispered as I gently rubbed it. ‘A soldier wearing a bearskin hat, an old friend used to say.’

‘Indeed so.’ The countess seemed incapable of further speech at that moment.

Head back and legs spread, I let my hand go to work in earnest. Before long, my hips began to rise and fall as waves of pleasure started to build. I watched the countess watching me and wondered if she would start to touch herself, but she did not.

For some minutes there was silence in the room apart from my involuntary and increasing loud moans of pleasure. Then she spoke.

‘What are you thinking about, Mary?’

‘I’m thinking about watching you spend, my lady,’ I whispered, for it was the honest truth.

She smiled knowingly. ‘Would you like me to do that to you? Touch you until you come?’

‘Oh yes. Yes, I would.’

‘Perhaps even suck your pretty palace guard into my mouth?’

‘Oh, my lady, yes,’ I gasped breathlessly. My hand was moving fast now, my hips thrusting and open. I closed my eyes and waited for the wave to break.

‘STOP. Stop it, Mary. Put both your hands behind your head.’ Her powerful voice cut across my pleasure. Stunned, I jerked my eyes open and stared at her.

‘Stop?’

‘Yes. Stop pleasuring yourself and put your hands behind your head. Leave your legs spread.’

Moaning in frustration, I withdrew my fingers and did as she had instructed. I met her eyes pleadingly, but her expression was imperious. For a long ten seconds neither of us spoke, then she quietly said, ‘You may resume.’

I reached down and continued, but she again interrupted at the last moment, denying me and staring in silence, a cruelly lascivious smile on her face.

‘Please, my lady …’ I begged.

She eyed me speculatively before answering. ‘Very well. You have my permission to spend this time. Look at me while you are doing it. Do not close your eyes.’

‘Thank you, my lady.’ My climax followed almost immediately as the countess leaned forward and drank in the sight of me in the throes of the greatest pleasure, hips thrusting powerfully upwards. As the peak passed and the sensations slowly faded, she slid out of the bed and stood naked and unashamed in front of me, supremely confident of her own power and beauty.

I smiled up at her, passive and compliant, my breath still heavy. ‘Thank you, my lady,’ I whispered.

Her expression was serious as she looked down and spoke. ‘Do you wish to be my maid permanently, Mary?’

‘Yes, more than anything.’

She nodded and then spoke again. ‘There are three things I require from a maid. Honesty, discretion and complete obedience. Do you accept my terms? Think well, Mary, because to transgress is to invite punishment and pain.’

But I did not need to think, indeed, could not. Such was my captivation that, in that moment, the prospect of serving the countess every day made my head swim with wild excitement, and I answered without hesitation. ‘I accept your terms, my lady. I will be your maid.’

‘Very well. From now on, your pleasure is mine to give. And mine alone. You will not spend, save with my permission. Absolutely not. Do you understand?’ She smiled at me with a bewitching combination of tenderness and authority.

‘I understand,’ I replied. In that moment I would have gladly kissed her feet, had she asked.

‘Then you are my creature now, Mary, and we shall face the world together.’ With that, she knelt up on the chaise longue and slid forward until her cunny was inches from my face. She looked down at me and said quietly, ‘Your first task is to pleasure your new mistress with your tongue.’

‘Thank you, my lady.’ With a willing sigh of acquiescence, I cupped her soft buttocks in my hands and gently pulled her onto my mouth.

Much later, as I walked down the corridor after leaving the countess’s room, two things occurred to me. Firstly, that Sir Hector and Captain Ransome would be delighted, as I had been successful in my mission to become the countess’s permanent lady’s maid.

And secondly, that in so doing, I had also been most expertly seduced.