Lord Edward Ashwater arrived home on the twenty-second of December, and quickly began acquainting himself with those developments that had befallen his household in his absence. The morning after, Jessica found herself ushered outside in the company of the tall, dark, quiet patriarch in order to show him the changes she had made to the gardens and explain what could be expected in spring.
Lord Ashwater himself said very little throughout the entire affair, instead simply gazing down over his large handlebar moustache at either Jessica or whatever she was showing him. His only two interjections were “What a capital idea. Yes, the very thing.” in a thoughtful tone in response to her demonstrating the space carved out for a vegetable allotment; and “Well, that all seems in order. Carry on, Hocking.” when the tour was finished, at which point he went back inside.
Christmas day arrived, and with it the revelation, new at least to Jessica, that the Ashwaters’ had a child- a daughter by the name of Imelda from whom a letter, saved for the day from its arrival a week ago, brought festive greetings from a nursing corps in the antipodes. When she mentioned as much in the kitchen afterwards, Mrs Breadworth, of all people, piped up and said that “oh yes, and there was a son at one point as well, wasn’t there Mr Rathbone?”. She didn’t elaborate, and Jessica decided not to press the subject given something about the old woman’s tone and Mr Rathbone’s solemn nod suggested the boy in question was either late of this parish, or no longer welcome in it.
In service, Christmas day was a workday like any other, and aside from some noticeably more pleasant conduct from Breadworth and Rathbone, and even Grace the scullery maid, there wasn’t much to differentiate it for Jessica, working as she did mostly out of doors, away from the evidence of the day’s non-standard indoor agenda. She busied herself with some weeding down the bottom end of the garden, considering that the Ashwaters might wish to sit by the french window to look outside in the afternoon, and it would be better if she weren’t in sight.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully, except for a moment in the evening when, coming inside to put away her hat and coat, Jessica almost ran straight into the stony chest of Lord Ashwater, who looked down at her, towering as he did at least a head and a half taller, and simply said, with an almost inscrutable tone and expression. “You have tomorrow afternoon off, don’t you, Hocking? With the other servants?”
“Y-yes, Sir.” She stammered, trying to stand up straight.
“Very well. Could I ask to see you in my office please, in the morning? I’ll have my wife send your box through there so you can receive it at the same time. There’s a small matter I wish to discuss.”
Jessica gulped. “Of course, Sir. How early would you like me?”
“Seven thirty please, Hocking. Military discipline has made me an early riser but there will be other business to attend to before then, so an hour’s delay should give me time to be ready for you.”
“Very good, Sir. I’ll be there.” Jessica’s heart raced. What could his lordship want? And on boxing day, of all days? She supposed he couldn’t very well keep her the whole morning without inconveniencing himself, so she wasn’t likely to be late for any of her plans for the half-day off, but she felt herself shivering anxiously as her mind conjured more and more unlikely scenarios as to what her employer wished to speak about.
This incited anxiety prompted a fitful, uncomfortable sleep, of sufficient turbulence that when she awoke Jessica half-panicked that she might have overslept the appointment. Indeed, she woke later than she had planned to, and only just finished her lower face shave before it was time to put her clothes on and go to Lord Ashwater’s office. Her moustache, though put to shame by his Lordship’s, by this point formed a thick bristly orange mass on her top lip, and she had determined that Frank had been right that there was something about the whole ensemble that carried with it an almost timeless young adulthood- older than her now but seemingly more permanent than her body and soul would ever stay. She had decided whilst liking it was probably a step too far, for the purposes of her strange new career she approved- it gave her enough age to imply capability, but enough youth to imply vigour. Or so she hoped, anyway.
Attracting a glare from a passing Mrs Breadworth for running on the carpets, Jessica made her way briskly across the landings to Lord Ashwater’s study, taking care to slow down before she got too close, lest her uncouth jog on the wooden floor be heard from within. She steeled herself, smoothed down her work clothes, and knocked on the door.
“Enter.” Came the bark from within. Jessica turned the handle and entered the room.
She had been here before, of course- on that fateful occasion that Lady Ashwater had had the room unlocked for one of their dreadful trysts- but it was different in the harsh winter morning light. The window panes were edged with snow. The mahogany bookcases, bureau and furniture were more vibrant, less dark. Lord Ashwater had spread out a swathe of white and yellow papers on the desk before him whose function Jessica couldn’t even imagine, and they gave the room a less hostile demeanour somehow.
“Sit down, Hocking.” Lord Ashwater said commandingly, without looking up.
Jessica jumped, realising she had been standing gormlessly by, and quickly arranged herself in one of the chairs against the wall. She waited patiently for his Lordship to continue the conversation, but the man’s eyes never left the desk, nor did his furrowed brow and twitching moustache signal any present end to his fascination.
Eventually, she plucked up courage to speak. “You wanted to see me, Sir?”
“Yes Hocking, I did.” Lord Ashwater’s head snapped upward to make eye contact and he deftly swept the papers on the desk into a single pile which he straightened once and laid flat. “Do you know why you’re here?”
“I’m certain I don’t, Sir.”
“Very well then, I will enlighten you. You see-” Lord Ashwater frowned again, as he had at the papers, his brow furrowing and the edges of his moustache lifting upward. Jessica thought she really didn’t like being frowned at that way. “-I was rather impressed with your work on the garden. Quite proficient, without too much complicated extravagance, and all in what must surely be only a few months, is that right?”
“Yes Sir, I’ve only been here a few months.”
“Yes, well.” Lord Ashwater pursed his lips. “All that said, Hocking, I’m afraid I have some bad news. Word of your… let’s call it your little secret, has made it to my ears.”
Jessica froze solid. Her hands gripped against the seat of the chair and blood rushed to her ears so forcefully she found it a little difficult to even hear what his Lordship said next.
“Please understand…” he continued “I don’t hold you tremendously responsible. It’s clear to any man with half a brain that my wife is the real ringleader here. I’m sure it will come as no surprise that you are by no means the first she’s done this to, but rather the latest in quite a line.”
Jessica’s eyes widened in shock. “Um, it does rather come as a surprise, My Lord, if I have leave to say!” She protested. “Never have I encountered anybody besides her Ladyship who you’d have credited even with thinking of this sort of perversity!”
“Then I’m afraid, Hocking, you are perhaps a little too naive to the ways of the world.” Lord Ashwater intoned. “Cases like these are altogether very common indeed in the households of the gentry. Why, I know of at least a dozen men of some importance whose wives have committed very similar indiscretions.”
Jessica felt like she was going mad. What on earth was his Lordship talking about? Could it be true? That the resplendent town houses of England were awash, even so soon after the originals had marched to war, with newly minted morose young men with dark secrets of the kind she had been rendered, each of them helplessly wriggling beneath the thumb of the lady of the house? It seemed absolute lunacy even to consider.
“Unfortunately, Hocking.” Lord Ashwater continued. “Much as at this point it seems simpler just to ignore the whole thing, I do, to some extent, have a reputation to consider, and so to that end I’m afraid I am going to have to let you go.”
The pounding between Jessica’s ears threatened to engulf her head as her panic came to a boil. There was a clatter as she leaped out of her chair that rather obfuscated her cry of protest, but her meaning was nevertheless obviously clearly conveyed, to look at Lord Ashwater’s face.
“Sir!” She cried, the words welling forth even as all her servant’s instincts screamed at her to shut up. “I really must protest!”
“Must you.” One of Lord Ashwater’s thick sharp eyebrows raised. “Then protest. I am listening.”
“I… I… I need this job, your Lordship!” Jessica babbled. “The salary it was… well it was more than I could have dreamed. My mother, Sir, she was near destitute, and my takings from here… why they might well have saved her life, Sir. Her and my sisters. I’ve had to endure so much here in pursuit of that thirty pounds, and I did it all because I knew this was my one chance… and now Sir, begging your pardon of course, because I do understand your position, but it just feels like with you coming back and taking exception that I’m being punished for daring to have taken it at all.”
“Yes, that is quite unfortunate.” Lord Ashwater affected a tone of great sympathy. “That was why I wanted to delay this little meeting until today, Hocking, so you wouldn’t be deprived of your box. Don’t let me forget about that, by the way, it’s been rather… augmented. With some additional things for your trouble, you see. But look here, you must understand- it really won’t do for me to be seen to tolerate this kind of… perversity, as you call it, under my own roof. An example must be made, and it would tragically be far more of a fuss for me to make an example of Eleanor than it would of you, much as she deserves it. So that’s the way it is, I’m afraid.”
The bottom fell out of Jessica’s world. She felt herself falling, listlessly tumbling as fear and despair rattled all around. And as is sometimes the case with such sensations, her stocky frame filled up with so much terror and anxiety that it overflowed and calcified, and suddenly she found herself carefree, adrenaline coursing through her, unable to bring herself to consider the consequences of anything she might say or do beyond the rabid pursuit of what she wanted, and what was fair, and what she wasn’t going to let go of now.
“Your Lordship. Sir.” She said in a gruff, confrontational tone that almost didn’t feel like her own voice. “Pardon me, unthinkably uncouth as it surely is, for daring to threaten a man in his own home. I rather hope this will serve to illustrate my desperation in this matter. But as it is, Sir, if I am released from your employ, soiled as I am by your wife’s wicked acts, I shall never be able to find work again. Who would take me, after what she’s done? No Sir, whether I like it or not, to put food on my family’s table I would have to make that satanic pact one makes when one goes to the papers, Sir. And then the whole sordid business will come out anyway. Which I rather think is quite what you don’t want, Sir.”
Lord Ashwater leaned backwards, his eyes bulging at the impudent ultimatum. His hand gripped the ornate mahogany armrest of his chair and he clenched his teeth in between his next words.
“Don’t ever speak to me like that again, Hocking.” He growled. “I’ll overlook it, just this once, since it’s clear this unfortunate state of affairs has upset you, perhaps out of your wits, but I shall not stand to be spoken to in that manner by a mere servant. And certainly, I wouldn’t stand to let you accomplish that little scheme. Do you not consider I have friends and allies in the newspaper industry? Stories like this are sordid gossip that sells reasonably well, but are of a kind that is nevertheless often reported and nothing the public have not seen before. I have enough favours I could call in to suppress your tales, and to make sure you are condemned as an imbecilic fantasist and a liar. It would be difficult, and use considerable resources, but I could do it, Hocking. Don’t test me.”
“Sir!” Jessica felt herself stand to her full height. She wanted to run and hide but rooted as she was to the spot she instead felt her instincts tense her muscles, draw herself larger and desperately attack. “Forgive me, Sir, but this is absolutely preposterous. When has a case like mine ever been reported in the London press? Or any city’s press, for that matter? When have the public ever heard such a thing? If anything, the difficulty I would find would be in getting them to believe the ludicrous indignities your wife forced upon me in the first place!”
“Are you mad, Hocking?” Lord Ashwater drew up to his own height, eyebrows quivering with rage. “Are you so utterly deranged that you think it would prove novel and shocking for the salacious London press to learn that a gardener has been rogering my wife?!”
Jessica’s eyes widened and there was a long silence as she and Lord Ashwater stared at one another.
“Is… is that what we were talking about, Sir?” Jessica asked sheepishly.
“Well of course it is, Hocking.” Lord Ashwater retorted, his voice adopting the sing-song tone of one exhausted by profoundly frustrating conversation. “What, has my wife visited some other perversity onto you in your short time here that you somehow mistook for what I should surely mean by your little secret?” He raised his eyebrow again and looked a challenge at Jessica.
Jessica didn’t say anything. And didn’t move. But her eyes betrayed her as she broke the stare and looked away.
Lord Ashwater’s demeanour slackened, his eyes widened and he slowly sat down.
“Tell me everything.” He said quietly.
“I don’t think you’d believe it, Sir.” Jessica murmured. “I barely believe it myself, most days.”
“I have a right to know what has occurred under my own roof.” The older man said in a reserved tone. “And in such cases as these, I value the truth above all else. Tell me, Hocking, what my wife has done to you. And do whatever is necessary to make me understand. I shall make sure it does not leave this room, and for these purposes you are excused the normal proprieties if they would be a burden to my illumination.”
“I fear I shall have to hold you to that.” Jessica said, unfastening her suspenders as if in a dream, the hands moving to her waistband feeling not her own. “Do prepare yourself for a shock, Sir.”
With a sharp tug, she grabbed hold of her trousers and underwear in a single grip and pulled them downwards, revealing the state of her sex to her employer’s eyes as Lord Ashwater recoiled in startled surprise, his hand flying to his eyes reflexively before he pulled it away and dared to peer at what Jessica had revealed.
“Good Lord.” He said with an air of horrified revulsion. “What on earth happened to you, man? Some kind of mutilation?”
“No, Sir.” Jessica said with barely eked patience. “I was born with that, and it’s quite normal, or so I’m told. It’s rather the rest of me your wife has taken to altering.”
Lord Ashwater looked Jessica up and down in confusion, his eyes travelling from her neatly trimmed vulva up to her smart, similarly trimmed moustache. He finally spoke. “I see. So in the absence of a naive young man to take to her bedroom in the incoming crop of servants…”
“...She elected to make one out of me, Sir, yes, exactly.” Jessica breathed, pulling her trousers up again. At her employer’s prompt, she launched into an explanation of the whole horrid business; Lady Ashwater’s domineering conduct, Doctor Casement and his needles, the encounter in the glass house and her Ladyship’s subsequent salacious appetite. She mentioned cursorily how Frank and the others had helped her, but decided to leave names out of it unless Lord Ashwater asked, which he did not. Finally, she finished, and looked nervously toward her employer, trying nervously to gauge his reaction.
“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Hocking.” Lord Ashwater pursed his lips. “And I am so very very sorry. I assure you that I now quite understand she has gone too far this time.” He straightened his back and looked at Jessica almost deferentially. “But gone she has. You have me at a disadvantage here, Miss Hocking, as I cannot erase the past. What, then, do you want from me?”
Jessica felt an odd, frightening sense of revulsion at the title she hadn’t heard in so very long.
“Well, first of all, Sir, if I might ask you not to call me Miss?” She murmured apologetically. “It’s just… well as you say I’m the shape I am now, and it doesn’t feel quite right Sir. Feels a little disrespectful to it to claim that word, looking as I do just at the moment. I know it’ll be odd, Sir, being as it’s your wife’s handiwork that’s made me like this, and knowing as you do the distress it causes me, but perhaps it’s best for me to stay Mister Samson Hocking just for the time being? Just to avoid confusion, Sir, I don’t really want my old name and forms of address and such tied up in this shameful business if I can help it.”
“I think I understand.” Lord Ashwater said gently. “As much as I can do, anyway. Yes, if that is what you please, Mister Hocking, I shall address you as such. Now, in the broader picture; how can we go some way to remedy this wrong? What do you want from me?”
Jessica’s heart caught in her throat. This was it. She had Lord Ashwater himself over a barrel, seemingly poised to write her a blank cheque to make this whole horrid business go away. She could be free. Free to escape, with his Lordship’s money and silence, far away from his wife’s horrid clutches.
And yet… the concept frightened her. It would take time for Doctor Casement’s injections to wear off, and in the interim she would become… someone not quite Samson, and not quite Jessica, but recognisable as both. She wouldn’t be able to show her face at home… and if she rented a room, it would have to be one upmarket enough that nobody who knew her or her mother would see her. Altogether it was possible that she might have to eat into quite a bit of any relief her employer could render her before it ever crossed her mother’s palm.
But… if she could just hold on here a while longer… surely now if Lord Ashwater knew, it would be different. He couldn’t be there all the time, but his wife would almost certainly back off if he brought the matter up… Jessica took a deep breath.
“I want to keep my job, Sir.” She said purposefully. “At the same salary, or more if you’d offer it. And I think it’s best for now if I stay as Samson to do it.” She stammered a little. “...and I want a safety razor, Sir. I’ve been using Frank the boots’ but that’s not fair on him and they’re just dear enough that I’d feel it Sir, so while I have your ear I’ll ask for that.”
Lord Ashwater steepled his fingers and stared into space, right through Jessica. She shifted nervously as her employer considered, waiting in silence for what felt like aeons. Finally, he looked up.
“Given the magnitude of my wife’s transgressions against you, Hocking.” He began, choosing his words slowly and carefully. “Your requests are reasonable. Some might even say modest. A safety razor is an easily acquired trifle, certainly. But your job…” He frowned. “I think you deserve it, and I want to give it to you. But if I do so, I would be shouldering, given the controversial nature of what my wife has done to you, quite an incredible amount of risk. To my dignity, my reputation, my position in the war office and maybe even my title and property.”
Jessica looked expectantly at her employer as he stepped around the desk and leaned against it.
“I could still destroy you, Hocking.” He mused. “It would be expensive, but I could have you disappear, or your words discredited as lunatic ravings. I don’t wish to. I think that would be unjust, all told. But for me to choose the righteous path, and to shoulder this risk for you… there’s something I want you to do for me.”
Jessica sighed. “And what would that be, Sir?”
Lord Ashwater stood up, fumbled in his pocket for a moment for his keys, then walked over to the door to the hall and locked it with a click.
“When you were with my wife, Hocking, did she care to comment on why her eye wanders so?”
“You put me in an unfair position, Sir.” Jessica protested with a frown. “I couldn’t say.”
“That’s kind of you, Hocking, but the question was rather rhetorical. No doubt at some point she expressed some belief that mine wandered similarly, leading to what one might call a lack of interest in congress with her.”
“She might have said something of the sort, Sir. In truth I don’t remember, and I shouldn’t care to dwell on such things.”
“Hmph. Well, if she did, she wouldn’t have been entirely incorrect, I’m afraid to say. Though perhaps not in the way she suspects.”
“Sir?” Jessica was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.
“The war office, Hocking, is absolutely crawling with young boys. That is, I say boys; adult men, in the most technical sense, but usually in their first season as such. Waifish and beautiful; signed up to do their duty but too perfect, occasionally too sickly to send to the front line, so enlisted to fetch and carry and transcribe and translate for all of us old men doing the big picture work.” Lord Ashwater stared longingly into space. “It’s the kind of environment where if one has a particular thing wrong with oneself it really does become quite apparent what it is very quickly. But I have contented myself to look and not touch. Even if any of them were receptive to my attentions, buggery with another man is… not the kind of act I am prepared to risk my career for.”
Jessica’s heart sank. Again? What was the Ashwaters’ problem? She sincerely hoped she wouldn’t ever see Imelda return from Australia. Heaven knows what sexual needs the girl would immediately begin burdening Jessica with.
“But similar conduct with somebody the law does not consider a man is, I suppose, a risk worth taking, Sir?” She asked, withered.
“You are catching on, Hocking.” Lord Ashwater complimented. “Those are my terms. What do you say?”
“How many times, Sir?” Jessica felt a hundred years old; tired and resigned to the fate before her but still haggling the details out of habit. “I admit had rather hoped you finding out about this would signal the end of my obligation to your wife.”
“Just the once, Hocking.” Lord Ashwater said firmly. “I know what an imposition this is. And yes, I will see what I can do about Eleanor.”
“I think I could probably manage just the once, Sir.”
“Good boy.” Lord Ashwater smiled. Jessica shivered. Good boy? Why did that feel so… well, she didn’t want to think about how it felt. Lord Ashwater stepped over to her, closing effortlessly into her personal space. Jessica felt one of his hands on her waist as she was twisted around by the gentle but firm touch of the other at her shoulder to look up into the older man’s face.
“Sir?”
“Just to make sure we understand one another, Samson.” Lord Ashwater said with a smile. “My wife’s handiwork is, its inappropriate application notwithstanding, spectacular. You are every inch one of the handsome young men I try to suppress my dreams about. And that is what I would like you to be.” He moved his left hand from Jessica’s waist to cradle her jaw, his thumb abutting her moustache. “Let’s let secrets be secrets, just for the moment, shall we?”
Jessica swallowed. What his lordship was asking for she’d never even dared consider. Could she? Could she abandon her conceptions, commit fully to being Samson, think of herself that way? Even for an hour or so it seemed a frightening threshold to cross. But he had said this would be just the once…
“Yes Sir.” he said. “Just for the moment. Although, I fear you must nevertheless be careful- I don’t know if I’ve had enough injections of Doctor Casement’s masculine humour yet to render me completely infertile, and a bastard pregnancy would be most horrifying and spoil the effect rather.”
“No need to worry about that, Samson.” Lord Ashwater tousled his hair. “I said you were a handsome young man, and I’m going to fuck you like one.”
What the hell does that mean? Sam wondered, concerned for a moment before one of Lord Ashwater’s smooth but calloused hands deftly unclipped one of his suspenders. Samson felt himself turned as the slack loop descended his arm, and brought into a hot, musky kiss from the older man. He put a hand to the other suspender tentatively, and at an awkward nod from his Lordship, pulled it also down his shoulder, loosening his trousers.
“I’ve always wanted to ravish a boy in his work shirt.” Lord Ashwater breathed in pleasure. “And given you have a perfectly good reason not to take yours off, Samson, I’m not about to pass up the opportunity.” He guided Sam the step or two over to the desk. “Now bend over, lad.”
Sam found himself firmly pressed over onto the desk, his bare rear now exposed and his view filled with nothing but the contents of Lord Ashwater’s bookshelves. He heard the varied sounds of buttons unfastening and a belt loosening, as well as a clatter on the floor. Lord Ashwater made an odd noise that Sam took a moment to recognise as spitting loudly and for ten seconds or so there was only silence. Then those large, rough hands were at his hips again. Sam suddenly realised what I’m going to fuck you like a man meant, and opened his mouth in a panic to protest, but then he felt the tell-tale sensation of something pressing at his sphincter, and before he could react, Lord Ashwater slid into him.
Sam saw stars as his poor hole strained to take in all of Lord Ashwater’s size. Tears formed unbidden at the corners of his eyes as he gritted his teeth against the pain, gripping the edge of the desk to steady himself and allow the older man to begin thrusting in and out. The sensation had a little to recommend it- the rubbing feeling was even a little pleasurable- but… fuck! It hurt! He took a little solace from the fact that the pain didn’t seem to be increasing so very much, and hoped that Lady Ashwater’s tales of her husband’s short fuse were accurate.
It seemed, however, that his Lordship’s stamina was quite improved when in what was obviously his element. Sam tried to keep his voice down, suppressing his grunts and groans as his boss pounded away at his virgin arsehole; but it was difficult to keep entirely quiet, especially when his expulsions seemed only to excite the other man.
“Yes, just like that.” Lord Ashwater crooned as he slammed against Sam’s round bottom. “Moan for me, boy.”
Sam gasped as the pounding got faster, losing his grip on the desk, which dug painfully into his hip bones. At the very least, now he was rolled forward and back in a reasonably steady rhythm, the thick cock in his rear making him feel almost like some kind of tight glove or sock. He held on for some time, riding the desk like a battered raft, but after a few minutes the pain at his hips became unignorable.
“Sir, please-” he grunted.
“Not long now, Samson! Hold on lad!” Lord Ashwater barked.
“Nngh.” Sam gritted his teeth and tried to regain hold of the mahogany in front of him. The view of the bookshelves was wobbling, pulsating and framed with a dark halo that Sam could only attribute to tunnel vision from the pain. He tried to arch his back into the thrusting, and indeed Lord Ashwater took the opportunity to grab him by the face and hook fingers into his mouth, but this state of affairs lasted only a few minutes more before the latter grunted and Sam felt his insides flooded with warm, sticky come.
Lord Ashwater pulled out, an experience that produced in Sam’s esteem a profoundly weird and unsettling sensation, and began to clean himself up with a handkerchief and a bottle of rubbing alcohol, the providence of which Sam could only guess at.
“Thank you, Samson.” The older man said. “That was very nice. You will be kept on, for the moment, and I’ll see what I can do about Eleanor. Don’t forget your box now! Oh, and, why don’t you take the rest of the morning off as well? You could probably do with a wash, and it’s not like there’s any gardening this time of year that won’t wait, is it?”
As Jessica exited the study, box in hand, and the door closed behind her, the compulsion to inhabit the part of Sam subsided. And yet, she thought, as she made her way back to her room to break out the basin, returning to thinking of herself as Jessica seemed no longer to carry the same familiarity or desirability it once had had, only a vaguely comforting sense of simplicity, tacit permission not to think too hard about such things.
She had to admit it unsettled her a little.