For the next several nights, Maggie went to sleep, praying that the would dream of Philippe again, but nothing happened. There were three journals left, and she wondered if there was a connection between reading a journal and her sexual dreams. If so, that meant that she’d only have three more dreams like that, ever. She was torn between her desire to learn more about Philippe and her need to prolong the experience as much as she could.
Kevin had a new boyfriend, so they weren’t talking very often. However, Selena was calling her fairly regularly. With each phone call, it became harder for Maggie to keep her secret, especially as Selena kept pressuring her to go out and flirt, dance, and meet men.
“You know I don’t do the bar scene,” Maggie answered. “And before you even suggest it, I’m not interested in doing online dating. It’s a little too modern for me.”
“Chica, you deserve a summer fling. You know you’ll bury yourself under a mountain of student papers to grade, and spend hours preparing your lectures. Classic first year professor. You don’t want to look around and realize you’ve been there a year and you’ve been alone the whole time, do you?”
“Not all of us have graduate students to abuse,” Maggie responded.
“Well, duh, you’re a baby prof, not a tenured prof with three books under her belt, and a cabinet full of completely indexed and cross referenced lectures, are you? Mmmmm, Will had a great ass. I loved watching him file. But the point is that being a baby prof doesn’t mean you can’t make time to get out there,” Selena smiled into the phone, remembering the grad student who had spent a full year typing, indexing, and cross referencing her lectures in hopes that he might get his hands on her tits. He had, but not until two years after he’d graduated and moved onto a doctoral program in another state. They’d met up at a conference and drinks had turned into dinner and then finally steamy sex on her hotel room’s balcony.
“Maybe
I don’t want to get out there, Lena
“You wanna get out some where else? Take a round trip train to the Clit Club, perhaps?” Selena teased
“ Lena
“What? It’s something every girl should try once. Or four times, but who’s counting?”
“ Lena
“Fine. But honey, just cause the men in your life haven’t deserved you doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there who does.”
“Maybe,” Maggie said a little wistfully, contemplating that her Mr. Right could’ve been born years ago.
“There’s no maybe about it. But it’s not like he’s going to show up in that house of yours, so you need to open the damn door, and get your ass out into the real world,” Selena said.
The conversation drifted from there to recent movies, but Selena’s comment about how men don’t just appear in your house stayed with her. Philippe had shown up in dreams of hers when she was feeling heightened emotions. Perhaps he was just her conscience’s way of getting her to pay attention? At any rate, she wanted to finish her project and she only had a few more weeks before she had to start planning for her classes. Her boss said they needed to find one more professor before he could distribute courses, and what she’d get would entirely depend on how experienced the final new professor was, so she didn’t need to feel guilt over her project.
She
managed to ignore the journals for a week, before succumbing to the next
one. Again, it was dated several years
after the last one. Philippe was now 30,
and thinking seriously about marriage.
His parents were now both dead, and his one remaining sibling, a sister
had married several years ago and already had three children. His business was more than thriving, thanks
to the invention of the cotton gin, and New Orleans America
His concern was that he was “new” money. His father had been the first to prosper, and while he’d grown up in a certain society, he understood that the uppermost reaches of Creole society were closed to him. If he wanted to grow his business past it’s current success, he needed entrée, and a wife would provide him with that.
Over the course of several months, he was able to find a girl that suited him. She was an orphan, living with her aunt and uncle, her parents having perished from influenza. Her family name was good, but since she had no dowry, and marrying her provided no social or business gains, she’d had little success finding a husband. Which was where he came in.
He found his new young wife beautiful, well mannered, and charming, if bland. Philippe wrote that had he not had a mistress already, a wife like this would have caused him to seek one out. A wife, after all, was for cementing alliances and birthing heirs. A mistress was for erotic games. And who, he wrote, could imagine an erotic marriage with a wife? He did hope, however, that they would grow to love each other.
As Maggie read of this, she felt stirrings of pity and jealousy. The pity was for both Philippe, and his wife, Julianna. It would be the equivalent to her marrying Channing. Yes, it would make her family happy, but what about her? She had no burning passions for Channing, and she could have empathy for why he’d want to look outside his marriage for comfort.
Later in the year, he mentioned that Julianna was pregnant, and his hopes for a son. Only weeks later, though, he noted that it was “a sad day, for we have lost our child to be.” Julianna, he wrote, was in seclusion, and Maggie wondered if it was from the physical pain or the emotional. Never having been pregnant, of course, she didn’t know what it was like to lose a child, but she imagined it must be horrible.
That night, when she fell asleep, her dreams were different than they’d been in the past.
She dreamt she was Julianna, which was not unexpected, but rather than an encounter with Philippe, she was sitting in a formal living room with another woman about her age, Philippe’s sister.
Felicity was round with child, and she rubbed her stomach possessively as she spoke. “Julianna, you must move on. You lost a child. The only thing to do now is to try again. It’s common to lose a pregnancy or two. God decides, not you. You must go to Philippe and begin again.”
Julianna stared at the floor. “I feel as though I’ve failed, Felicity.”
“You have. But next time, God willing, you will succeed.” Felicity stated bluntly. “I myself have lost two pregnancies, but I have the three older boys and this little one soon. You will see, Julianna, that being a mother is what makes us complete. Which is why you must try to overcome your failure.”
Julianna blinked back tears, and her raw envy of her sister in law, and the ease with which she seemed to breed. “You’re right, of course.”
“Besides, if you don’t, he’ll just keep going to that mistress of his in the city. You don’t want her fat with his child before you are, do you?” Felicity’s cool eyes assessed Julianna, and it seemed that she found Julianna lacking.
Julianna felt stung. She knew that most men kept a mistress as a matter of course, but polite women ignored it. How could her sister in law speak of such a thing? She blushed and bent her head back to her husband’s shirt, which she was mending.
“Think about what I’ve said, Julianna. Stop hiding from your husband. No man wants a barren wife, so if you are to prove that you’re fruitful, you’ll get with child again as soon as you can.” She heaved herself off the settee and walked slowly towards her rooms. “I’m going to nap. Please have one of the maids wake me in time to dress for dinner.”
“Of course, sister. Enjoy your rest.”
Julianna sat there, sewing and worrying. As the needle went in and out, her thoughts ran circles, but kept returning to the idea that his mistress could become pregnant with his child before she did. What would happen to her if it did? In that moment, she hated her husband’s harlot with a red hot fury. Her rival, in all things, gotten not because it was custom, but perhaps because Philippe found her lacking? She had no idea how long he’d had a mistress, or anything about her. And she could never ask, because it wasn’t a wife’s place to.
Julianna wept as she sewed. For her lost child. For the life she’d expected. For her parents. For herself. She’d never felt so lonely in all her life, and the worst part was that until she had a child, she would never feel anything but.
Maggie woke with tears on her cheeks, in the middle of the night.
When she fell back asleep, Philippe was there.
She was Julianna again, laying in a large bed. Philippe kissed her cheeks, and softly on her lips. She murmured her assent, and he rolled atop her. Philippe was a heavy weight on her, and she was uncomfortable when he untied the neckline of her nightgown and lowered it to expose her breasts. She wanted nothing more than to reach up and cover herself, but her husband had told her that he enjoyed doing this to her, so she would bear it.
His tongue licked at her as if he were a dog, and she lay there waiting for him to get on with things so that he would finish. She never knew what to say when he asked her to tell him what she found enjoyable. Sex was something you did to create children, and it was wrong to like it so much. So she’d been told when she reached the correct age to know such things, and so she believed with all her heart.
Philippe pulled the gown off her, leaving her naked. She spread her legs, hoping he would enter her and finish. Julianna was shocked, instead, when he continued kissing her body, moving down her stomach to her thighs. She gasped when he used his fingers to part her most sinful place and actually put his tongue to it. Her husband seemed to take it as a gasp of pleasure, for he lapped at it, obviously expecting more of a reaction.
“Philippe, stop,” she said urgently.
He again mistook her reaction and began licking more urgently. Julianna was horrified at the heat that built up in her low belly and make her hips move. She was no whore, and she would not act like this. She forced her body to still, but the heat overtook her and she shuddered.
She was horrified when he then climbed atop her and tried to kiss her, his tongue pressing against her mouth. His cock entered her and she felt only relief. He would soon finish and leave her alone. Julianna was shocked when she found herself idly wondering if he did this sort of thing with his mistress. She supposed the slut would pretend to like it-after all, that’s why he paid her, wasn’t it?
When Philippe shuddered and lay still on top of her, she closed her eyes and waited, counting the moments until he would leave and return to his own bed.
Somehow she was not at all surprised when what she heard was the front door closing, and the sound of his carriage being harnessed. From her bed to whore’s because she wasn’t woman enough to please him, to give him a child, or to do anything besides introduce him to wealthy important men.
Julianna’s hands went to her abdomen and she prayed with all her heart to conceive a child.
Maggie came slowly awake, feeling cheated. She looked forward to her dreams of Philippe for their sexual release. Why had she dreamed such bad sex? It was even worse than the sex she’d always had with Channing!
She looked around the room and muttered “At least I could’ve enjoyed the orgasm, you know.” Not that she expected an answer. She’d talked to herself for years, ever since she’d realized she would be an only child, and that her nannies weren’t really all that interested in the musing of a six year old.
The final two journals still held surprises, and she looked forward to reading them, but not with the same urgency or twinges of pleasure she’d had before that night. Julianna may have lost a child, but she, Maggie, had just lost out on good sex.
If this was the way of things, maybe she’d have to take Selena’s suggestions into serious consideration. Or at least seriously contemplate buying a vibrator.

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