A Place Called Freedom (1995)

He stood there speechless. He knew he should mutter an apology and get out fast, but his feet seemed clamped to the floor.

She turned to him. Her face was troubled, and he wondered why. Unclothed, she seemed vulnerable, almost afraid.

At last he found his voice. “Oh, but you’re beautiful,” he whispered.

Her face changed, as if a question had been answered.

“Close the door,” she said.

He pushed the door behind him and crossed the room in three strides. A moment later she was in his arms. He crushed her naked body to him, feeling her soft breasts against his chest. He kissed her lips and her mouth opened to him immediately. His tongue found hers and he gloried in the wetness and hunger of her kiss. As he got hard she pulled his hips to her and rubbed herself against him.

He broke away, panting, afraid he would come right away. She tugged at his waistcoat and his shirt, trying to get beneath the clothes to his skin. He threw the waistcoat aside and pulled the shirt over his head. She bent her head and put her mouth to his nipple. Her lips closed over it in a kiss, then she licked it with the tip of her tongue, and finally she bit it lightly with her neat front teeth. The pain was exquisite and he gasped with pleasure.

“Now do it to me,” she said. She arched her back, offering her breast to his mouth. He lifted her breast in his hand and kissed the nipple. It was hard with desire. He savored the moment.

“Not so gently,” she whispered.

He sucked fiercely, then bit her as she had bitten him. He heard her sharp intake of breath. He was afraid of hurting her soft body but she said: “Harder, I want it to hurt,” and he bit down. “Yes,” she said, and she pulled his head to her so that his face squashed her breast.

He stopped because he was afraid he would draw blood. When he straightened up she bent to his waist, tugged on the string that held up his breeches, and pulled them down. His penis sprang free. She took it in both hands and rubbed it against her soft cheeks and kissed it. The pleasure was overwhelming and once again Mack broke away from her, not wanting it to end too soon.

He looked at the bed.

“Not there,” Lizzie said. “Here.” She lay back on the rug in front of the mirror.

He knelt between her legs, feasting his eyes.

“Now, quickly,” she said.

He lay on top of her, resting his weight on his elbows, and she guided him inside. He gazed at her lovely face. Her cheeks were flushed and her mouth was slightly open, showing moist lips and small teeth. Her eyes were wide, staring at him as he moved above her. “Mack,” she moaned. “Oh, Mack.” Her body moved with his and her fingers dug hard into the muscles of his back.

He kissed her and moved gently, but once again she wanted more. She took his lower lip between her teeth and bit down. He tasted blood. “Go faster!” she said frantically, and her desperation took him over and he moved faster, pushing inside her almost brutally, and she said: “Yes, like that!” She closed her eyes, giving herself up to the sensation, and then she cried out. He put his hand over her mouth to quiet her, and she bit his finger hard. She pulled his hips to hers as hard as she could and twisted beneath him, her cries muffled by his hand, her hips rising to his again and again until at last she stopped and sank back, exhausted.

He kissed her eyes and her nose and her chin, still moving gently inside her. When her breathing eased and she opened her eyes she said: “Look in the mirror.”

He looked up at the cheval glass and saw another Mack on top of another Lizzie, their bodies joined at the hip. He watched his penis move in and out of her body. “It looks nice,” she whispered.

He looked at her. How dark her eyes were, almost black. “Do you love me?” he said.

“Oh, Mack, how could you ask?” Tears came to her eyes. “Of course I do. I love you, I love you.”

And then, at last, he came.

When the first of the tobacco crop was at last ready for sale, Lennox took four hogsheads into Fredericksburg on a flatboat. Jay waited impatiently for him to come back. He was eager to know what price the tobacco would fetch.

He would not get cash for it: that was not the way the market worked. Lennox would take the tobacco to a public warehouse where the official inspector would issue a certificate saying it was “merchantable.” Such certificates, known as tobacco notes, were used as money throughout Virginia. In time the last holder of the note would redeem it by handing it to a ship’s captain in exchange for money or, more likely, goods imported from Britain. The captain would then take the note to the public warehouse and exchange it for tobacco.

Meanwhile Jay would use the note to pay his most pressing debts. The smithy had been quiet for a month because they had no iron to make tools and horseshoes.

Fortunately Lizzie had not noticed that they were broke. After the baby was born dead she had lived in a daze for three months. Then, when she caught him with Felia, she had become furiously silent.