The days that followed were filled with manic energy.
Our father informed us that he had received a reprieve that allowed him to wait for the arrival of the Saint Mary while repaying the more pressing loans.
This gave us the impression that we could live life as we had been accustomed to, while knowing this could cease at any moment.
As my father spent the next few days locked in his study writing letters, checking ledgers, and managing his affairs as best as he could, the rest of the family seemed determined to enjoy themselves.
But we were like drunk. The amusement seemed desperate and hollow, and, while we repeated those customary actions of the past, nothing seemed normal.
While my father had assured us that all was well, it was impossible for us to forget the worries of the previous days. We were like a man who had fallen gravely ill, and who, after being cured, can't get accustomed to life once more, having accepted he would soon die.
I believed my brothers were roaming our properties acting as the great landlords they once hoped they could be. They probably wanted to reap the benefits of this position, and I knew very well they wouldn't be contented until they had laid with every single girl living on our land.
Mother kept busy making plans for new decorations of the house, instructing the servants, going through her many dresses, finding them old and out of fashion, and then writing to the best dressmakers of France for sketches of their new creations. She also spoke insistently of the parties she would organise, all the guests she would want to see.
I appeared to be the one without a design of how to spend the time while we awaited the news of the arrival of that ship our future depended on, but I too felt prey to that sentiment that had spread within my family. I read, and I took walks. I amused myself with games of patience or by sketching, but, in this manic state, I could not focus on anything. Instead, I was seeking a greater amusement than the one I happened to be engaged in, without ever quieting this great animation.
Often, I conversed with Margot in the salon, or walking through the park, arm in arm, as if she was a distinguished guest and not my maid. To this, nobody objected: in the present state we were all in, nobody found reason to reproach us.
A few days after my parents had returned, Margot and I were engaged in one of those amiable conversations. We were sitting in a little and cozy room I was very partial to.
Through the window we enjoyed a beautiful view of the rear of our property: first, the large park, shaded by the centenary oak and chestnut trees; then, a little farther, the vast plane, broken into fields, small woods, ponds, and divided by lanes and narrow streams.
As we were speaking, I became distracted by a figure that was walking at a brisk pace through the park, which, after coming closer to the window to get a better view, I recognised to be my mother.
I became suddenly animated with the curiosity of finding out where she was going, and I told Margot that I much desired to follow her.
Margot agreed to this design, and, sniggering like naughty children, we walked out.
It took us a while to catch up with my mother, and I feared many times we had lost her, but, following in the direction she was going, we soon reached Father Briac's little cottage.
'Your mother wants to say the rosary,' Margot said.
I told her that it wasn't a reading of the rosary I had witnessed when I caught my mother and the priest in the church.
She was much surprised by this and said we should probably go back home.
But such was my excitation and my thirst for distraction during that period, that I begged her to follow me.
We arrived at the little cottage, which was a small construction protected from view by tall hedges. Behind it, was a well-tended orchard, full of fruit-bearing trees, vegetables of all sorts, herbs and vines. Our priest loved seclusion and avoided the company of his fellow men. He had arranged his affairs so that he could live a pleasant existence without the need to purchase his next meal at the market.
Dragging Margot by the hand, I arrived at the cottage and eagerly walked around it to find the room where my mother and Father Briac were.
As they were in the drawing room, which had large windows, my friend and I had a good view of the scene.
Father Briac was standing in the middle of the room, while my mother was sitting on a chair near the table.
'My dear,' my mother was saying, 'my husband's business is nearly ruined. He has lost everything. Even the house we live in and the land we walk on doesn't belong to us anymore.'
The priest was looking at her intently, frowning.
She continued:
'That's why we had to arrange for our former business partners to meet us in a discreet hotel in Nantes, where we could lay out the facts and seek help. Those vultures were only too happy to see us in such trouble and wouldn't entertain any proposal, so that, in the end, we auctioned the only thing we had left.'
Here, the priest, who had been listening staring at the empty hearth, turned to her sharply.
'Me,' my mother explained.
Then, she narrated the story of the auction Margot had already related to me.
Father Briac didn't interrupt her, but listened carefully as my mother told him how the two gentlemen had paid for her company, and how they had been pleased.
'One liked my feet so that he licked them over and over. The other I sucked. When they both were aroused sufficiently, I took the first in my pussy and the second in my asshole.'
Then, she looked at him suggestively and asked him:
'Aren't I a dirty girl? Shouldn't I be punished, darling?'
But the priest asked:
'So, tell me: this loan you obtained, how long will it last?'
'The Saint Mary will soon arrive,' my mother said, now rising to her feet and coming closer to the priest.
'What if it doesn't?' he asked coolly.
'It will. I am sure it will,' she said.
I felt great pity for my mother. I saw plain as day that Father Briac saw the danger of losing his position, as I was certain he had heard of how my tutor had been dismissed. Should the Saint Mary be lost, my family would lose our house and the property. The new owners, once the property could eventually be sold, might not require the services of a vicar, and the priest was now eminently worried about his future. All the while, my mother indicated her need to be consoled out of her own distress, but he wouldn't oblige.
My mother seemed blind to this. She looked at him with great tenderness, unwilling to relent:
'My darling, didn't you hear? I have been a whore. I allowed to be fucked in every hole, and I declare I enjoyed it. When those two gentlemen were finished, I sucked my husband off, and I even pleased my maid.'
Eventually, Father Briac, with an impatient air, said:
'Very well. If you came for your punishment, I command you to lift your dress and show me those organs with which you have sinned so greatly.'
My mother seemed very pleased by these words and, bending over, lifted her skirt to reveal her buttocks.
'Here, darling. Here is that place,' she said.
In this position, she couldn't see the priest's face (and for this I am glad), but I could easily study his countenance.
Father Briac gave her such a look of boredom and of disgust, and it was plain to me that he did not return those tender feelings that she felt for him.
Hanging on a hook in the wall, was a bundle of herbs left for drying. He grabbed them and began caressing my mother on her ass.
'Oh, what is this new method you are using?' she asked.
Without answering, he whipped her with those twigs.
'Ah!' she cried, now understanding his design.
He whipped her again, not saying a word.
'Darling, you prick me so!' she exclaimed.
But he didn't relent. He whipped her until her skin turned a bright shade of red, and many scratches appeared on its surface.
My mother was now trembling but didn't move from this position.
'Have I enraged you so?' she asked him.
'You wanted to be punished?' he asked coldly. 'Here is your punishment.'
I doubted whether this cruel treatment was for having done what was necessary to protect her family, or if it was for having put the priest's pleasant existence at risk.
Now, the priest produced his tool.
Under the clear light of day, I could better assess its, and I was frightened by its size. Not only was the priest's dick very long, but it was also thicker that I believed possible.
He now spat on his cock for lubrication and began penetrating my mother in the anus.
'Oh, my darling! You have never asked me to do this…' she complained.
But the priest was not relenting. In fact, I believe that he was determined to mistreat her and to take his revenge on her. I also believed that he found the acting of causing her pain very stimulating.
He kept pushing in, ignoring her protestations.
'Why are you doing this to me?' she demanded, and, seeing that he was not answering her, and scared by his anger, she added: 'I understand I've been very bad… ow!... and I need to… ah!... be punished… Yes, yes: I'll let you do what pleases you... Ah!... Please be gentle!'
He now had a horrible grin on his face, as he stared at his dick entering that tight opening and at the bright red skin of my mother's ass.
She was holding her butt cheeks with her hands, trying to spread them a little and aid the passage, but her whimpering warned me that nothing was truly helping.
Finally, the priest gave one last push, and he was all in.
'It's so big. I can feel it all inside me,' she said.
He then began to move in and out. He grunted like some wild animal as he did so.
My mother was now rubbing her clit to pleasure herself, so that, after some time, her noises were no longer cries of agony, but moans of immense extasy.
'I cannot believe your big cock is inside my ass!' she said.
I glanced at Margot who returned my gaze, and I saw in her the same amazement I could feel at what we were seeing.
As I returned my attention back to the scene, I now saw that Father Briac, probably displeased that my mother was enjoying herself, began slapping her ass vigorously.
'Ah!' she cried. 'You're so cruel with me!'
He was now so enraged with her that the mere action of hitting her bottom with his hand and forcing his portentous organ into her ass were no longer sufficient to him, he now placed one hand on her mouth so that she could no longer protest.
She kept rubbing herself furiously, so that her moans could still be heard.
The more she was showing pleasure, the harder he was fucking her.
Finally, she came, and he, at the same time, gave a loud cry:
'Ahhh! You bitch, I'll fill your ass!'
Then, he unsheathed his dick from that tight hilt.
Those ass cheeks, that used to be milky white, were now wounded, and white semen flowed from the anus, which had been so stretched that it couldn't yet close and couldn't contain the come that had been poured inside.
The priest contemplated the scene with satisfaction.
My mother knelt down and hugged him at his knees:
'Darling, I thank you for your punishment. I now beg you for your forgiveness.'
'Get dressed,' he replied. 'I have much to think about.'
'If I have done anything to displease you…' she said with a piteous voice which broke my heart.
He was now getting dressed.
'If you don't mind,' he said, 'I would like to be alone now. You got what you came here for, didn't you?'
With that, he left the room without a kind word or a kiss for her.
My mother, much disconcerted, dropped her skirt and, her head bent, sat on a chair and cried.
I felt much pity for her. I could see that my mother was not happy. I had believed that the life she led in public was the result of necessity, but I had hoped that she could derive some joy from whatever activity she could pursue with Father Briac in secret. But I now saw that this man had little feelings for her, and that he demonstrated love only when there was a safe employment in return. This discovery filled me with great sadness, and I wondered if that was the life that awaited me too.
I now turned to Margot, and I saw she was similarly affected for her eyes were filled with tears.
We then decided to leave, so that she wouldn't see us when she departed that place.