The Lily Pin and the Train to Denver

Mrs. Kingston must have been the tallest woman that Mrs. Bee had ever seen. Mrs. Bee never thought about her own height. She had come to a halt at fourteen, when Miss Everly, standing with her heels firmly on the tiles, pronounced no deviation from the previous year. Her mark was carved just a little deeper, and left there, at a mysterious fraction somewhat between 5' and 5' 1". Mrs. Kingston, Mrs. Bee estimated, was at least as tall as Mrs. Bee's husband, but the final judgment would have to come when she could compare them.

"I'm six foot one inch tall," Mrs. Kingston declared, squaring her shoulders against any possible rumor. Mrs. Bee was meant to be affronted by this accusation of curiosity, but she found very quickly that she didn't have it in her.

"Ah," she found herself saying, nodding a little, as her mother might if told a terrible secret. "I'm happy that you eased my mind so quickly. I don't often notice the height of others." Mrs. Kingston smiled after a flirtation with incredulousness, and asked Mrs. Bee if she would join her for coffee in the lounge car.

"How long have you been married?" Mrs. Bee asked, arranging one heel behind the other and accidentally kicking the front one out. Mrs. Kingston, with the opposite problem, rotated her knees outside of the table.

"Two years," Mrs. Kingston said, and took a sip of her coffee. She'd burnt the roof of her mouth each time she had one. She hid this particular scorching behind a small grimace that Mrs. Bee interpreted as marriage criticism.

"Any children?" Mrs. Bee asked, more out of habit than interest.

"No," Mrs. Kingston answered quickly, and bounced her spoon on the edge of the saucer until it settled, hooked onto the lip.

"No luck?" said Mrs. Bee. The word "luck" rose and fell in one syllable, a statement or question, depending on what Mrs. Kingston wanted. Mrs. Bee was good at conversation, often found herself the repository of many secrets and asked the right questions in just the right ways to receive them. She'd lost interest in people's secrets recently, found them all banal and depressing, but her conversation went that way regardless. It was the only way that she knew to talk.

"Not quite," said Mrs. Kingston.

The tee sound at the end of Mrs. Kingston's "quite" hung in the air, moved on the momentum of the rest of the train. Mrs. Bee waited for it to disappear, then saw the two days ahead of her, her husband in one euphemistically named car or another, the landscape, some of interest, most not, chugging past, and Mrs. Bee herself, stirring another cup of coffee, wondering when it would be appropriate to request a brandy instead. She decided, and made her approach.

"How do you mean?" she asked, and looked at Mrs. Kingston's face for the first time. Mrs. Kingston, she found, was a handsome woman, not pretty, but distinguished, high in the cheekbone if dark in the eye. She had a curious, but intriguing, hairpin, in the shape of a lily that seemed to draw a line to her jaw. Mrs. Kingston settled her knees again, this time at a distance from the table so that they might stop banging into it.

"Now, Mrs. Kingston," Mrs. Bee continued, her face now quite young, leaning over the brown of the coffee, "I live in Wisconsin. I live in a large home looking over Lake Michigan. It's airy in the summer, cozy in the winter, and I've more than enough company in my circle of friends to keep me there until death."

Mrs. Kingston smiled and took another sip of the cup of brimstone.

"This is my first and last trip to the west. I'm only on this train for my sister-in-law's wedding and I won't do it again. You live in...."

"Portland."

"And I swear now to never run into you there. You may talk to me now, or never tell anyone anything."

Mrs. Kingston massaged the freshly irritated burn at the roof of her mouth with the flattened edge of her tongue. She looked at Mrs. Bee, her small, thin hands, the choker at her neck. Mrs. Bee's body was much like her own on a smaller scale, as if she were looking at a funhouse mirror. She wanted to tell her this, but didn't.

"I hate coffee," Mrs. Kingston said, and placed the coffee to the right of its saucer. She stared at it again and moved it again, all the way to the window, where pollen from the fresh daisy in the vase would surely fall in it.

"What time is it?" Mrs. Bee asked.

"Time for two brandies," Mrs. Kingston said.

"Excellent girl," said Mrs. Bee.

The brandies came, cornfields and crossings flew past, the daisy shook pollen into Mrs. Kingston's coffee cup and the two women's feet were on the floor, leaning into one another over their snifters. Within twenty miles, Mrs. Bee and Mrs. Kingston were aware of the other's bedroom troubles, Mr. Kingston's lack of experience, Mr. Bee's fast dwindling interest. They made several statements of indignation, resignation and pointed misinformation before they made a pact.

In the name of science and the propagation of the species, the two women had each one an assignment. They stood up, gave each other a kiss on the cheek, a warm one, and set off to change for supper.

Mrs. Bee, on Mrs. Kingston's orders, placed an ordinary fountain pen in her purse, taking care that the cap was screwed on tightly. Under her corset and above her stockings, she went bare for the first time since she was a newborn. Fear gathered in her chest, felling dust bunnies and pulverizing gallstones. She could always back out, but she thought for a moment of how she would feel if Mrs. Kingston did the same, and made a new determination to face her risk.

Mrs. Kingston, on Mrs. Bee's orders, changed her clothes with a large handkerchief stuffed into her mouth. She blamed the brandy for the warmth in the base of her body, a poorly placed piece of track for her wayward knees. Saliva soaked the cloth, as Mrs. Bee had said it would, and her jaw got tired, as Mrs. Bee said it would, but she smiled at herself in the mirror, thought that the blush in her cheeks became her. Mrs. Kingston, like Mrs. Bee, had sworn off underpants for the next three days, as good as a blood oath between them.

The Bees and the Kingstons took supper at different times, Mr. Kingston's man, a friend of his father's man and as green as Mr. Kingston himself, slow to make the reservations. Mrs. Kingston supped early and was glad of it, feeling that she'd lose her nerve if she had to wait long. Mr. Kingston made his best stab at conversation, found himself pouring forth, his wife smiling and blushing at everything he said. He'd never seen her like this, so pretty and attentive, so fascinated with his drudgeries. He fell more in love with her instantly, hoped that he could find the courage to ask her to be with him that night. When they stood, her height, only an inch above his, mattered not at all to him for the first time. He squeezed her hand and took their dessert back to the room, two éclairs and two glasses with a small decanter of port.

The Bees supped lightly, Mrs. Bee suggesting that it was the heavy meals that were keeping her husband up at night. He reacted as she'd hoped, humored her, found her in the mood for attention, and gave it to her dutifully. She could feel the loose material, soft, if you went with the grain, across her mound. It pulled at the hair there and brushed it, lovingly, caressed it straight and let it bounce into curls again. She felt quite exposed there, no sensible covering, the air and all free of obstacles to her intimacy. Her toe snapped off of the floor again at the weight of her crossed ankle and it went to her husband's ankle. She left it there until he blushed, snapping an escargots fork to the linen. She did not relent, as her upbringing, fully in control of her muscles most days, would oblige her to. She rubbed his ankle in the thin sole of her dress slippers until he grew accustomed to it, then hooked his heel, looking for all the world as if she were engrossed in her sorbet, the predessert for cleansing the pallet, and pulled his foot to the inside of her thighs.

In the room, Mr. Kingston's face and neck were red from the port and the way Mrs. Kingston looked in her dress. He imagined her in the corset and wondered that they'd been married three years and he'd never seen it. He mused that he might have the bravery to stumble upon her once, at her vanity in the morning or disrobing at night. He smiled, noting that he'd had the decanter in hand for at least a minute without attempting a pour when Mrs. Kingston's hand curled around his fingers, replaced the stopper inside of it, set it down and knelt before him.

The train changed tracks, a steady rhythm to distract him before his trousers were unbuttoned at the fly and the waist and dropped, a thud here at the final selection of tracks, a whistle, his underclothes dismantled, the train speeding up, the touch of his wife's lips, here in the light, a warm, soft sensation, there in his cock, and the friction of tight silk. His cock stole all of the blood from his body. He watched her, both eyebrows raised, watched his wife engulf him. Then he swallowed, face slack, and gripped the washbasin at his back. The train gently swayed, but he rumbled, and spilt his seed into his wife's throat. He winced that she must be repulsed, but a final sucking kiss on the end of his cock contradicted him. Mrs. Kingston stood up and poured the port with a shaking hand.

As the train switched tracks, Mr. Bee took his ankle back and scowled, half meaning it, at his wife. She let some sorbet drip on the side of her mouth from the spoon and licked it in.

"Mrs. Bee," said Mr. Bee, "are you having some trouble with your liquids tonight?"

"I've an idea of how to manage them, Mr. Bee, but you shall have to lend me a bit of license to do so."

Mr. Bee's head cocked a bit and he opened his mouth to speak for a moment. "You sluttish woman," he mouthed, his after-dinner coffee cup blocking intrusive eyes.

Mrs. Bee looked shocked for a moment, and stirred her sorbet until the frozen parts had melted with the solids.

Mr. Bee mocked leading his wife down the hallway after dinner, his hand on the back of her arm, but she'd gone in another direction from their berth, swinging through car after car until she'd found one locked. At this, she pulled her fountain pen out. Mrs. Kingston had taken note that all of the "locks" on the train were opened by the porters using the backside of fountain pens, and had made this part of her dare. She pushed the fountain pen into the lock and slid the door open, the first luggage car. Mr. Bee waited for the door to shut behind him, tested it for fastness, and lifted his wife's skirts above her waist.

"You are a sluttish little bitch, aren't you, Mrs. Bee?"

He searched the room, a lit match before him, until he found a spare coal shovel, flat and black from soot. He returned to his wife, bent her over a large crate, handed her the box of matches and told her to keep one lit until he was finished. Mrs. Bee lit one. She received a slap on the bottom for her troubles. There were three more, each of more stinging intensity, until the flame came down to her fingers. Her husband waited and blew it out. She lit another. It distracted her from the pain. There was another spank.

"You are a filthy, sluttish woman."

Another spank.

"Your backside is black and filthy now, like you."

Another spank. The second match burned down to her fingers, but her husband did not blow it out. It burned her instead.

"Light another."

She dropped the second, watching the dull red as it fell to the floor, and lit another. Mr. Bee pulled her arm behind her back so her hand, the match in the air, lay over her waist, illuminating her small, smooth body, all filthy like an ill-behaved child. He unbuttoned his trousers, bent his knees, though her legs dangled above the floor, and screwed her, fucked her. He watched this match too go out at her fingertips and watched the red coal fall on her skin. She trembled and clenched his cock inside her. He pumped his seed inside of her, clenched so hard as he was, as the coal on the match went out on her skin, and smelled the smoke.

The women met for luncheon the next day, as they had planned, and shared their stories, watching the satisfying shock and blush rise in the other's face. Though they felt sure that much of what they said couldn't be heard by others above the clacks and clicks of the wheels on the tracks and the crashing of plates, Mrs. Kingston asked a porter for a pencil and stationery so that they might pass it in notes.

"It tasted awfully strange," wrote Mrs. Kingston. "I thought it would be sweet, but there was an odd taste, some bitter chemical."

Mrs. Bee nodded and shrugged. She wrote, "Yes, that's what Mr. Bee tastes of too, but I don't find it off-putting, really."

Mrs. Kingston read this and shrugged as well. She wrote, "What did Mr. Bee call you?"

Mrs. Bee wrote it down and passed it on. Mrs. Kingston hid a laugh behind her hand and clasped Mrs. Bee's hand. The two of them sat and laughed for a few moments, and Mrs. Bee's hand curled up to enclose the other. "I'm glad we've met," she said.

"I'm very pleased myself. I don't normally talk to strange women on trains."

"I'm not strange anymore, am I, Mrs. Kingston?" said Mrs. Bee, warmly.

"No," said Mrs. Kingston, "you're a...." Mrs. Kingston folded the paper and pointed at what Mr. Bee had called her the previous evening.

The two women finished their luncheon, Mrs. Kingston asking that it be put on Mr. Kingston's bill, and they walked arm in arm through the train, silently, and comfortably so, until Mrs. Bee mentioned that this was their last day on the train. Mr. Bee and herself would be alighting in Denver. Mrs. Kingston drew Mrs. Bee's arm in tighter and kissed her on the cheek, then briefly on the mouth. The two women stood for a moment and contemplated this, then Mrs. Bee drew Mrs. Kingston down along the hallway a car more.

"This is our compartment," Mrs. Bee said, and opened the door, "though I daresay Mr. Bee won't be back from his card game for quite some time. Would you care to come in?"

Mrs. Kingston didn't answer, but leaned into Mrs. Bee's mouth again. She kissed swiftly and deeply, catching Mrs. Bee in a wave of heat, before she could find her senses and open her door. Upon its closure, with the two women inside, Mrs. Bee pulled her bunk down and placed Mrs. Kingston at its edge. She sat. Mrs. Bee leaned and Kissed Mrs. Kingston for a few more minutes, affection and sadness within it, and broke it off to speak.

"You have reminded me of spontaneity and fearlessness. I have one more lesson, this one for you to pass to your husband. Lift your skirts for me?"

Mrs. Bee and Mrs. Kingston marveled at her legs revealing themselves, the flesh of them, the curves and the organic intimacy. Mrs. Bee parted Mrs. Kingston's legs, dropped her hand between them and found the place, the secret one.

Mrs. Bee had found this place when her mother's maidservant, under orders to punish her for the slight of showing for supper ten minutes late, had bent her over her knee. She cried as the maidservant paddled her with the back of a mirror and her mother, satisfied with listening to the sounds of the slaps, left the room. The maid pulled her skirts up higher, her underpants down lower, for the girl was seventeen at the time, and rubbed the younger Mrs. Bee with her thumb in the secret place, all the while paddling away at her backside. Mrs. Bee was married and moved out within six months, but she never forgot the secret place, nor the kind maidservant, who would never have spanked her without orders to do so.

Mrs. Bee put her thumb on Mrs. Kingston's secret place and kissed her gently. She found it warm and then wet, and soon enough found Mrs. Kingston's breathing heavy, her mouth distracted. "There," Mrs. Bee said, and pushed some fingers inside as she rubbed. "There now." Mrs. Kingston's face came to rapture, then exhaustion, her body in convulsions before she grew still.

"Teach that to your husband," said Mrs. Bee, "and I will remember you."

Mrs. Kingston took a few moments, unable to form words for crying, laughter and shock. Instead, she stood, removed the jeweled hairpin, the one in the shape of a lily, and put it in the hair of her funhouse mirror self, exactly as it was on her.

"Let your husband find you when her returns tonight, doing what you just did to me," Mrs. Kingston said.

"Mr. Kingston should take you from behind tonight," Mrs. Bee said.

The two women regarded each other, nodded and parted.