The year 1660 saw to a great many changes for England. The year also sees the growth of the love and intimacy so recently sparked between the two adoptive sisters, Alice and Annabel Rendall. As history is made, auditions are beginning. Both on and off the stage, the sisters’ love for one another will be both shown and put to the test.
And finally a new publication is out. With this one I went back to the historic tale of romance and forbidden love shared between sisters in Soulflame, taking the story's timeline forward to the stage. It's been interesting since this time period is a lot more rich than my original intent for it showed. Time to raid wikipedia again and go into a history lesson for this feature.
Now, as my initial research brought up the return of Charles II to the throne and the first female actresses on stage, 1660 saw the beginning of the Restoration Period as a whole. About 200 years prior to the Regency period, and 200 years after Medieval period. So I can't really put it under either of those History>Era book categories, and there isn't one for 17th century Restoration, which is really annoying.
Why? Because while short, spanning 50 years of British restoration, it's very culturally rich. Just the allowance of women on the stage in England alone, never mind the restoration of the performing arts which were outlawed and shunned under Cromwell's Commonwealth Puritan rule, was a pretty big deal in terms of equality and cultural acceptance back then. "Unfortunately", in an age where life expectancy was much lower - which I touched on in the first volume - Cromwell died after only a few years, and his son was found incompetent and removed. After some years of chaos and scuffing feet, Charles II was returned to England and the rest is history that lacks a categorised era for fiction.
It's ironic though since the era also saw Restoration comedy notorious for sexual explicitness, which Charles II encouraged. So we have the beginnings of sexualising performances for entertainment, but it goes further. Aphra Behn was one of the first writers of Amatory fiction, which would "predate and predict" the invention of the novel. It was also an early form of romantic and erotic fiction written by and for women, which struck me as a big deal. The sort of thing we enjoy now had roots in those years, and I've just stumbled onto the fact midway through writing in the era. Better yet is how it's suggested that even back then, as many men as women enjoyed it. Over three hundred and fifty years and so little has changed in that regard, no matter how people chose to label things.
But enough on the era, the focus is the sisters themselves, set in that antiquated culture and time of growth. The love, tension, interactions and some of the scenes I've been able to work into this volume have been wonderful, but I'll let the excerpt speak for itself, to those ends.
* * * *
“It is beneath you to… to do such a thing, beneath us
both.” Alice sputtered, sniffing loudly and scowling at the gentle laughter it
caused her sister to give.
“Many would say it is beneath me to love my sister so, but
we make our own choices and abide by them. Perhaps it is, but stuffy lonesome
men that lose their purse-strings as surely as their sensibility at the
slightest show of skin will never become a stronger force than the emotions we
share, sister.” Annabel almost whispered. A gentle, hushing tone that saw her hand
press and splay over Alice’s chest where her heart hammered almost painfully.
It was calming, yet warming in its own way, and perhaps she
was right. Perhaps, Alice accepted, if men were so easy to give away their royalty,
who was she to deny them folly? It would not cause her to feel anything more of
them than the objects themselves. The thought seemed wrong, indecent, but then,
Alice realised – she stood naked, hugging her sister for intimate support.
Thoughts of moral rightness were perhaps beyond them, and so she laughed in
kind, nodding a touch.
“Perhaps you are right, sister. It is not a simple thing to
abide, but we have taken this one step into a realm our mothers knew nothing
of. Perhaps it will work out, playing upon men’s fancies.” She admitted,
shrugging her brows and squeezing tighter on her sister’s smooth back. The feel
of her sister’s body pressed against her was a thing she would never tire of.
“That is more like it. Now come, we need clothed.” Annabel
pointed out, smiling and moving a hand to spank her sister’s bare ass cheek. That
made her jump and scurry ahead to the tall cabinet door where their normal
clothing had been stored. Almost a small room of its own rights, it would be
capable of holding much more than it did, as some performance costumes were
much bigger than a simple dress.
Along the way, Annabel scooped up her underwear again and
flushed a soft shade of red for what she had done all the same. As soon as the
broad dresser door was open, however, a sharp knock came at the door. A servant
going about their duties was calling, of course. Yet, there was no way to reasonably
explain themselves as was. A pang of dread and panic skittered through the room,
and within a flash, Alice was being ushered into the closet with her sister
close behind.
“Anna, what on earth are you doing?! Could we not just send
the bloody servant away from entering?” Alice squeaked as the door was gently
pulled shut behind her, a hand going over Alice’s mouth to quiet her.
“Shh! This will just have to do, now. Hold your peace,
sister.” Annabel whispered, holding the hand in place until Alice reluctantly nodded
agreement. Squeezed together like this, the sisters were closer than close. It
was an intimate sort of squeezing and crowding that Alice could not complain
about, for all the lingering fear of being found out loomed over them. The
serving girl from before had entered the room, as suspected. She was seeing to cleaning
up and folding the dresses over the backs of chairs in the sisters’ wake.
“Hm, well, mayhap they will be back soon. With such a
scandalous performance it’s any wonder they need air and time alone, honestly.”
The girl murmured, laughing softly to herself as she worked. It made Annabel
smile quietly and need to hold back a chuckle of her own as she silently kissed
her sister’s lips. Alice’s eyes had been fixed on the crack of light in the
wardrobe door’s frame, watching the girl beyond, but her sister’s attention
brought her back around.
While it was hard to see, there was certainly a wicked
glint in Annabel’s eyes Alice was not sure she enjoyed the sight of. Annabel’s
hands were beginning to stroke, rub and roll at her breasts in a tender,
kneading manner, but Alice could neither raise protest nor speak of pleasure
from here. All she was given to do was to bite her lip and glower at her sister
intimidatingly as Annabel shook her head and smiled as cutely as was likely
possible.
When the lancing pinches of her nipples struck Alice’s
chest, she even needed to bring a hand over her mouth to keep herself silent,
the other prodding and shaking her sister’s shoulder. What in blazes was she thinking? Whatever it was, she was not
stopping it, either!
Quite to the contrary, pulling Alice’s hand away from her
face, Annabel pressed in for another silent kiss before slipping past to
whisper gently in Alice’s ear, simple and clear to her but quiet enough to not
resound beyond her ruffled hair.
“I love you, my dearest sister.” Annabel declared.
“As I love you, but what in hel-aah!” Alice replied,
squeaking and strangling a little gasp as her sister tweaked and twisted her
nipple again, chiming a soft, throaty giggle in the back of her throat as she
hushed.
“Hush or she will hear you.” Annabel explained, as though
she was not already vividly aware of that danger. Their lips met again,
pressing softly without suckling the usual loud passion, and Annabel moved. Downward she slid, carefully and
quietly shifting her body as her hands moved from Alice’s breasts in what she
thought was a show of mercy. It had been, until they hooked upon the sides of
her underwear, instead. Pulling them down, Annabel stroked at her slender legs
along the way. Alice practically wanted to scream, but only stared in
incredulous disbelief at what her sister was doing. Was she not supposed to be
the more refined and upstanding of them?!
When the garment had reached her feet, Annabel tapped at
her sister’s ankle to be raised, and Alice did not want to find out what
denying her would cause. Swiftly, that last vestige of privacy and comfort was
gone, and her sister’s hands were sliding back up her legs. It sent a thrill
through her, a very good thrill, but
one laced with the fear of discovery all the same.
Beyond the simple wooden door stood the servant girl, and
Alice wished nothing more than for her to cease with her frivolous tasks and
continue on to another room so she may relax into the warmth and slick dampness
brooding in her nethers. Annabel, it seemed, was not going to wait.
The first kiss saw the hand back in front of Alice’s mouth
as she purely glared down at her sister. She could see the outline of the
woman, nuzzling and pressing at her most intimate spot with her lips to tug and
squeeze it between their soft embrace. Alice almost felt like buckling on the
spot from the intimate kiss, but her legs stood and shook rigidly. This was
ridiculous, beyond obscene! Yet oh, how it was making her head spin with
arousal.
Soulflame II: The Stage
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