Kajirus of Gor Chapter Seventeen

 

“And over there you can just about see Priest’s Hill,” said Chelsea, as she pointed with a delicate white lace gloved hand towards a distant landmark. It seemed to me to be nothing more than a barren, wind blasted, promontory, presenting little more than bare rocks, as far as the eye could see, but Chelsea seemed to think I might be interested in it. “There are all manner of lurid legends relating to that place. So many so-called UFO sightings and wild stories of visitations, dating back hundreds of years. If you believe in that sort of thing, of course.”

 

Being a sensible and rational Englishman, I didn’t.

 

Chelsea Frick was dressed very differently the next day. Gone was the sophisticated makeup, and the alluring silk kimono. Now her face appeared freshly scrubbed, and she looked very much a young twenty one year old, without the makeup that added some years and maturity to her features. She was dressed demurely, in an old fashioned manner that you might associate with the frontier wives and daughters of an America long past, back when the union was transitioning from the dying embers of the Wild West to the modern twentieth century.

 

We were enjoying a lunch time picnic on a raised hillock in the shade of some old trees. A large tartan blanket was laid out on the grass and a couple of wicker hampers had ben unloaded with an array of formal plates, cutlery and cake stands. Everything was ridiculously formal, old-fashioned and prissy, even down to the delicate China bone cups with small handles for the tea. The only incongruous element was the sight of Hawkins, a rancher, who stood some distance away from us, his back to a tree, cradling a rifle in his hands, lowered in the safety position. He wore jeans, a flannel shirt, cowboy boots and a Stetson hat and he watched me with the eyes of a man who was expecting trouble. 

 

Chelsea had felt self-conscious this morning when I first saw her arrive for breakfast, in the shadow of her formidable Governess. The Frick daughter wore a white Delphine Edwardian blouse with a fitted bodice that made the fabric puff loosely from the chest. The blouse was simple cotton, and while the colour was plain, the design was anything but. It was stitched with a modestly high collar, full-length sleeves with dainty cuffs, and was embellished with inserted lace and applique near the collarbone, multiple layers of pin tucking, and lace inserts running down the sleeves. 

 

Most telling, I felt, was the sight of the closures on the blouse, which were all on the back. The garment closed with more than fifteen buttons and hooks all the way down to her waist, and might prove extremely difficult to fasten without a maid assisting with her dressing and undressing. 

 

With this blouse, Chelsea wore a narrow, tailored skirt, with a wide belt that nipped in her waist. The skirt was made of heavy wool, fastened below the bust with hooks, and extended to the ankles in a wide, circular hem. On her feet Chelsea wore a pair of mid-calf lace up boots with a two and a half inch heel, though the length of the skirt obscured much of the footwear. Her outfit, when outdoors, would be enhanced  by a pair of delicate white lace gloves, a wide brimmed hat, and a lacy parasol to shade her from the sun. 

 

And as I rose from the breakfast table to greet her, at a signal from her governess, she held the fabric of her skirt about her thighs and curtsied demurely in greeting.

 

Chelsea chose to make no reference to the clothes she now wore, though I could see she was embarrassed to be seen by me like this. She had been the picture of modern sophistication when I had met her at Saratoga. In contrast she now appeared to be a girl from a strict single sex boarding school in 1910. As she sat down at the breakfast table, and as her governess watched from the side of the room, she placed her hands demurely in her lap and smiled at me. “Good morning, Mr Martell. I trust you slept well?”

 

Mr Martell. Suddenly so formal. 

 

“Snug as a bug,” I remarked. The table was laid out with perfect attention to detail, all gleaming cutlery and perfectly positioned plates. Two maids in those stuffy starched uniforms with high collars and long hems, busied themselves about the room delivering silver trays of bacon, eggs, devilled kidneys, hash browns, steaming coffee, toast cut into triangles, with the crusts removed, chopped grape fruit, freshly baked rolls that smelled magnificent, with thick knobs of farm butter and more besides. I had asked for scrambled eggs and a tray of the most delicious looking scrambled eggs arrived close to my left elbow.

 

“Most of the food here this morning is produced on the ranch,” she remarked. “With the exception of the grapefruit.”

 

“It looks and smells delicious. May I?”

 

“Of course.” Chelsea sat stiffly upright, as she had no doubt been schooled to do when she was young. Talking of which, I couldn’t get over how young she looked. Felicity had told me she was thirty two, and I had thought at Saratoga that she looked perhaps twenty six, but that was with sophisticated makeup. Now seated here, with freshly scrubbed skin, she looked incredibly young. A college age girl, perhaps,. Whatever her skin care regime was, it certainly worked wonders, but it was disconcerting to see her now looking like she had only left high school a couple of years ago.

 

“I thought we might go out riding today, Mr Martell?” A maid to her side poured a cup of coffee and placed an egg and some bacon on her plate. Two delicious plump sausages were artfully aligned with the bacon.

 

“I’ve never ridden before,” I admitted.

 

“Oh, we’ll make sure you have a good horse. And we’ll go slow. We can picnic on one of the hillocks.”

 

“Sure, why not.” I casually regarded the stiff, strict figure of the governess who stood rigidly to attention in her tweed skirt suit, close to the door. Her eyes seemed to watch Chelsea’s every motion. 

 

Her name was Mrs Mowbray, and she had turned up unexpectedly yesterday, as Chelsea had welcomed me to the ranch.

 

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“Chelsea Savannah Frick!” The sharp harridan voice had interrupted us suddenly, in mid-conversation, from the doorway that led back into the main hall. “What IS the meaning of THIS!”

 

I think we both turned in our seats at the same time, and I saw an elderly woman standing in the entrance with a face that looked like she was sucking on a wasp. She wore a harsh tweed skirt suit, tightly buttoned over a prissy ivory coloured pussy-bow blouse, and shiny black, block-heeled court shoes. Her greying hair was scraped back from her face and wound into a tight bun. My initial impression was of a spinster school headmistress of a strict girls’ boarding school from the 1940s.

 

“Granny,” cried Chelsea, “I thought you were in Boston?!” 

 

“No doubt you did,” she said in a brittle voice that could scratch glass. “No doubt you thought while the cat’s away, the mice can play.” She strode into the reception room like Rosa Klebb in the James Bond film, From Russia with Love. And then her eyes darted in my direction and there was no love lost in her expression as she looked me up and down. “You have a man here? You actually deign to receive a man to the house, and you are dressed like THAT?!”

 

I watched as Chelsea turned pale and shrank back into her sofa. She was dressed, of course, in that luxurious silk kimono, tightly belted with a sash belt at the waist, that reached down to her ankles. It had long sleeves that ballooned considerably around her wrists. 

 

“Granny, I…”

 

“Don’t granny me, child. Look at you! Look at the state of you!” Her eyes turned into dark, menacing slits. “You will go to your room NOW. And you will stay there, Miss Chelsea Savannah Frick, until I say otherwise. And when I say you can come back down, you will present yourself as a young Lady should present herself, not as some…” her top lip turned into a sneer, “oriental whore waiting for clients in a brothel!”  

 

I sat there, frankly astonished, as Chelsea quickly rose from her seat and hurried away, but not before this granny reached out and caught her by her left wrist, turning her around. She then produced a white handkerchief from a side pocket and, wetting it with some spit from her mouth, began to dab and wipe some of the makeup from Chelsea’s face. “Is this eyeshadow? Are you wearing eyeshadow, Chelsea Savannah Frick?!”

 

Chelsea looked mortified. She twisted a bit in the woman’s grasp, but acquiesced when the woman suddenly spanked her bottom hard. “Stand STILL, girl!” Chelsea squirmed but held still as the old woman continued to wipe away as much makeup as she could with brutal strokes of the moist handkerchief. “Lipstick!” she said, loudly. “Red lipstick, Chelsea Savannah Frick?! You can wear lipstick when you learn to grow up and find yourself a companion! Just look at the state of you!”

 

I was frankly speechless. Just what the fuck…

 

“Now, you know what to do, child, before you leave a room.”

 

Child? Chelsea was thirty two years old. But as I watched, Chelsea took a couple of steps back, pinched the loose fabric of her kimono at the thighs and, lifting it ever so slightly, performed an old fashioned curtsey to this granny, and then to me.

 

When Chelsea had at last disappeared, I reached for the table and picked up my beer.

 

“I’m Roland, by the way,” I said, for want of anything better to say. “Roland Martell.”

 

“Are you now,” said the old woman. 

 

“I don’t know what that was about, but I’m getting the distinct impression I shouldn’t be here. If that’s the case…”

 

“You are a gentleman friend of the young Lady?”

 

“Uh, well…”

 

“Are you courting her?”

 

“No, look, there’s obviously some sort of misunderstanding. Chelsea invited me up here for the weekend, but I’m beginning to think maybe I should just head back to New York. I don’t want to cause trouble.”

 

And then she smiled, and frankly the expression did not suit her face. She looked more natural with the sucking a wasp expression.

 

“I’ll have a maid take you to a guest room, Mr Martell. The Fricks do not turn away a…” she smiled again, showing some rotten looking teeth, “guest.”

 

“Perhaps I should speak to Chelsea…”

 

“You will see young Chelsea Savannah Frick at breakfast,” declared the granny. “When she remembers to comport herself in a dignified fashion, as befitting a young Frick Lady.”

 

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The Frick ranch has a riding stable half a mile away from the main house. We were driven there in a car after breakfast by a man whom Chelsea simply called Reynolds. Like the other cow pokes, he offered complete deference to her, calling her ma’am, tipping his hat as she approached, but showed nothing more than quiet resentment as I said hello.

 

Chelsea selected and rode a beautiful looking chestnut mare, and she rode it side saddle.

 

For women, sitting aside on a horse dates back to antiquity. For the main part, men rode horses while women were merely passengers, sitting behind the men, either holding the man around the waist or sitting on a small padded seat or pillion. This was partly due to their long, heavy skirts; it was simply impractical to ride astride, dressed that way. Also riding side-saddle was seen to preserve the ladies’ modesty.

 

A charming concept. 

 

The idea of it being indecent for a lady to ride astride can be traced back to 1382, when Princess Anne of Bohemia rode side-saddle across Europe on her way to marry King Richard II. Riding side-saddle was seen as a way to protect her virginity. Soon it was considered vulgar for any woman to ride astride, and by the late Middle Ages, it had become obvious that for ladies to ride a horse, a saddle would have to be specially designed to allow the woman to control the horse but still maintain a proper level of decency.

 

I watched as Chelsea mounted her mare, sitting astride, with her right hip back to allow the shoulders to fall into line. Her right leg was placed on the front of the saddle, with her left leg bent and resting on the saddle and the foot in the slipper stirrup. She looked prim and proper and still incredibly young. Was she really thirty-two? I was beginning to have my doubts.

 

One of the ranch hands, who happened to be an expert with horses, guided me up onto my own horse, which as promised seemed reasonably well behaved and might possibly not have any secret intentions to kill me. Chelsea giggled as she saw my obvious discomfort at being raised so far from the ground with only a set of reins to stabilise myself. 

 

“You’re an Englishman and you don’t know how to ride?”

 

“Again, I’m not landed gentry,” I explained. “Give me a motorbike and I can show off, but this is a horse.” 

 

A ranch hand called Hawkins rode behind us, slightly to my side, in case I had trouble with my horse. Attached to his saddle was a long holster with a rifle fitted inside. The number of guns on this ranch was really quite alarming. 

 

“So,” I said, after we were a few miles out and away from the house. “Your granny…”

 

“She’s not really my granny, but we call her that.”

“Oh?”

 

“She was my governess when I was a young girl. It’s common place in the great North American families. We have a very formal upbringing out here. I honestly thought she was at the house in Boston. I would never have invited you here if I’d known she was going to turn up.” Chelsea demonstrated an ease in mastering her mare. I had always assumed that riding side saddle might be difficult, but on the evidence of her riding, apparently not. “I can only assume someone at the house telephoned her. She must have booked a flight to Billings and returned at breakneck speed. I’m not really supposed to be alone with men.”

 

“Really? Look, if you don’t mind me asking, how old…”

 

“I’m thirty two, Roland.” She clipped her spurs and increased our pace slightly, which began to worry me.

 

“You really don’t look it. If you looked even a bit younger you’d probably be illegal.”

 

She laughed at that. “It’s why I wear so much makeup, but granny forbids it at the ranch. She’s very strict about such things. In New York, of course, I can get away with it. Except when she makes a supervision visit, but these days she always gives notice. I am thirty-two, after all.”

 

“Like I said, you really don’t look it. You must have problems getting served at a bar?”

 

“That’s the least of my worries.” We rode on through a pleasant meadow and then back onto the vast range of grazing land. “Two years ago I was at a bachelorette party for a school friend, Clarissa Browning, who was getting married. We all got dressed up in our old school uniforms - that was the theme. And yes, my high school was the sort of place that had uniforms.”

“Still common place in the UK.”

 

“Not so much over here. Anyway, I stopped off on the way, because I needed to pick up a card. I got pulled aside by a police officer in the card shop who thought I was playing truant from school. Honestly. Apparently my uniform design was very similar to one of the local boarding schools. My driving licence was in my clutch bag, in the glove compartment of my car, so I couldn’t prove my age.”

 

“What happened.” I smiled, finding the situation amusing.

 

“He drove me all the way to the boarding school. I had to sit in an office, fuming, while they checked the pupil register. It took an hour.”

 

“Marvellous.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Lucky you didn’t get detention.”

 

“I didn’t mind looking this young when I was twenty three, but now it’s getting tiresome. Very tiresome.”

 

“Enjoy it while you can. Age will creep up on you when you least expect it.”

 

“Or not,” she said, wistfully.

 

“It’s as inevitable as death and taxes.”

 

“Not quite. Shall we kick up the pace a little, Mr Martell? Sort the men from the boys, hmm? Let’s see which one you are.” And then she spurred her horse on into a soft trot and enjoyed the sight of my alarmed face as I tried to hold on to the reins. 

 

“Please don’t do that again.” I said when we eventually paced back to a regular walk. 

 

“Tch. Seems you’re not a horse riding man.” She enjoyed her moment of triumph. 

 

“Early days.” 

 

Chelsea idled her horse and this was the cue for Hawkins to ride up and bring my horse to a stop, too. As Hawkins then rode his horse away, I leaned forward on my saddle and asked Chelsea, “just why am I here? I’m getting a lot of mixed signals.”

“Oh?” She regarded me again. 

 

“Your granny thinks we might be courting.”

 

This triggered an amused expression on Chelsea’s face. “Granny doesn’t understand me. No one understands me. I’ll be glad to get away from all of this.”

 

“You have plans?”

 

“Oh, yes, I have plans, all right. I’m going far away. Sometime soon. Once I have the means. It won’t be easy.”

 

“Good for you. Look, Chelsea, I’m sorry and please don’t take this the wrong way, but getting back to what I said earlier; why am I here? We’re not going to have a relationship. It’s not going to happen.”

 

“Oh?” she smiled as she motioned her mare back into a slow walk. As if on cue, my own horse obeyed her signal and began to follow, regardless of my wishes.

 

“Its nothing personal. You’re a beautiful girl, but the whole thing with me and Felicity… I’m not really over it yet.”

 

Something seemed to amuse her. “We’ll never be together then? That’s what you’re saying?”

 

“Is that what this is about? Is this some sort of… I don’t know, date? Is that how you do things in Montana?”

 

She laughed again. “Dinner will be served at eight, tonight. Did you bring a suit?”

 

“Uh, yeah, I did.”

 

“We dress formally for dinner. And we have guests tonight.”

 

“Guests?”

 

“Dexter Bannon and Felicity Emery.”

 

Foot in mouth time. She wasn’t interested in me. She was simply trying to get me and Felicity back together and like a complete fuckwit, I just went and insulted her. Go, me. “Chelsea… I am so sorry. I am an idiot. I shouldn’t even be allowed to speak, sometimes. I totally misread this.”

 

“Oh?” She turned again, in her side saddle, with an amused smile.

 

“I appreciate what you’re doing. Really I do.”

 

“There’s something you should know before dinner, Mr Martell.”

 

“What?”

“This morning, Dexter Bannon proposed to Miss Felicity Emery, and she said yes. I thought it would be really nice for us all to celebrate over a lovely dinner.”