Chapter 1: Plan

Kitchen Girl and I tossed the contessa into the lake under a brilliant full moon precisely at the summer solstice, which that year was twenty-two minutes past midnight. It was our surprise addition to the contessa’s show, a fitting climax to the village’s midsummer orgy, and a suitable sacrifice to whatever god lived in the dark water of that supposedly bottomless lake.

It was also the lesson the contessa needed. If she survived. She must have wondered whether she would in those last seconds before the freezing water took her.

The lake sat there, quiet, dark, cold, unprepossessing on the overcast afternoon the contessa, Kitchen Girl, and I arrived to spend the summer in this village on the coast. The lake wasn’t very large. Barely more than a hundred meters to the far shore, probably three times that long as it lay in the old river valley, its lower end blocked by an ancient landslide. There seemed to be an air of brooding surrounding it.

The locals had a story about the lake, the way locals do everywhere about these things. No one knows how deep it is, they said. No one has ever been able to measure it. They didn’t claim it had a monster, there was no Nessie, although some villagers seemed a little uncertain about that last part. In these days of super-sensitive sonar gear I thought the bottomless lake story pretty unlikely, but they laughed when I said so.

“There are layers in the water, friend,” said Samuel, the proprietor of Dark Water, the second-best pub in the village a couple of miles away from the contessa’s summer cottage. I knew his name because it was prominent on the sign over the entrance to the pub.

I’d gone there alone about ten days after the three of us were more or less settled in our summer digs. Aside from the unusual and definitely second-best liver and onions served there, the pub seemed pretty ordinary—dark, wood-paneled walls, leaded windows. Glasses upside down in their racks framed the two sections of his bar. A dartboard on the far wall. There weren’t very many customers at this hour. Overall, Samuel’s establishment did not have anything particularly interesting to catch a visitor’s eye, but to hear Samuel talk he knew everything and everybody around. Perhaps he did. I noticed what looked like scuba gear in the corner behind the bar. Maybe he knew more about the lake than I thought.

“Which means every time they try to measure they get a different reading,” he added.

Samuel leaned across the bar and lowered his voice.

“Some people think there’s an underground connection to the sea.” He stepped back a little to watch my reaction to this bit of news.

“Are you kidding?” I didn’t bother to hide my skepticism. “The shore is only a mile or so away and the lake water is fresh. How does that work?”

“Ah, my friend. That’s just it. You can’t tell by looking at the surface of the water and you can’t feel it when you swim, but there’s a current down deep, an underground river, and it’s strong enough to keep the sea water out. It’s been tested.”

He looked at my empty glass and I nodded.

“So, how long you worked for the contessa?” he asked as he drew me another beer. “Is she really a contessa?”

I smiled, although it might have come across as more of a grimace than a smile. My back was still sore from the contessa’s work earlier that afternoon. She seemed to have gone a little beyond what I expected, a little beyond what the script called for.

“Going on a year or so now, give or take.” I shrugged and felt another stab when my shoulders moved. “She gave me a job when I really needed one, and I won’t forget that.”

It came out almost as a prayer even if I didn’t mean it to be one, exactly. I had yet to admit to myself, really deep down inside, what I liked about the contessa’s specialty and the games she played with Kitchen Girl and me. This job was more than just money.

“Who’s she related to? I mean, how is she a contessa?”

“Her cards say she’s a contessa, Samuel. That’s all I know.” I left it at that. It was the truth as far as it went, but I figured it was up to the contessa to tell her own story.

“I hear she rented the place for the whole summer. That right?”

“Right. Just the three of us. Me, the contessa, and her kitchen girl.”

Samuel stuck out his hand. “Glad to meet you. Everyone calls me Sam, by the way.”

“My pleasure, Sam. I’m Alejandro, but the contessa makes the rules in her household and she has a few quirks. She decided on Bertuccio for my staff name or work name or whatever you call it. I think maybe she’d read The Count of Monte Cristo or something. Except I’m her gardener and gofer, not her butler.”

Sam laughed.

“I’ve met people like her, Bertuccio, people with a few quirks, as you put it. Sooner or later they wise up. Sometimes they need a little help, if you know what I mean.”

To judge by the glint in his eye I think I knew exactly what he was talking about. I’d started to think about how to provide that help, and I’d seen signs Kitchen Girl might want to assist. We might have to work up a little unexpected variation to the plan to teach the contessa the lesson she needed.

“I’ve got to get back, Sam. See you later.”

Bottomless lake. Underground current. Connection to the sea. Sure, I thought to myself as I walked back to the cottage along the headland path. The sun was setting under the clouds and the flat afternoon light made the walls of the few farm cottages between the fields glow.

Bottomless lake.

I knew the lake water was fresh because the three of us, the contessa, Kitchen Girl, and I, began our vacation here the way the contessa had decided we would, with a swim in the lake at dawn. It was healthier to swim without suits, she said. She did not explain why a dip in this sad silent lake with its near-freezing water, with or without a swimsuit, contributed to one’s health, but as a wake-up it couldn’t be beat.

The contessa quickly decided the lake was too far from our vacation house for us to walk first thing in the morning, so she decided we’d swim in the surf. More challenging, she said. Better exercise. Below our cottage there was a sort of cove that offered some protection from the open water. Perfect, the contessa said, and so it was.

After a week or so of cold salt water first thing in the morning, despite the pain I began to change my tune. The steep walk down to the shore was exercise in itself. Once in the sea the shock was intense, yes, but the cold water woke up every single square inch of my skin. It burned and it tingled. It made my heart beat faster. More than that, it aroused. Not that I was in a position to do anything about that immediately when I observed my shriveled self after twenty minutes or so in the water. But after my rubdown with a nubby scratchy towel woke every single nerve ending up, I took notice.

At home we swam every morning in the contessa’s pool. No swimsuits. It was a sensual and arousing experience. To put it bluntly, swimming made Kitchen Girl as horny as it made me. Here, the cold water had the same effect. Back home, more than once we’d satisfied our mutual desires after a hard swim. Now, after a week swimming in the cold water, I thought I saw signs Kitchen Girl was as interested in resuming our post-swim routine as I was.

Surprise sex, along with certain other habits I’d learned after I joined the household, seemed to be the contessa’s favorite way to indulge. I knew Kitchen Girl shared her view, up to a point.

The contessa’s no-clothing rule applied to our walk from the cottage down to the little sand and rock beach and back, as well as our time in the water. On the morning of the day I’d made my first visit to Samuel’s pub, I’d been right behind Kitchen Girl as she climbed the path up from the shore to the cottage. I watched her tight butt flex as she climbed. After a quick toweling down at the shore I’d begun to revive. Perhaps too conveniently, I decided Kitchen Girl wanted what I wanted.

We’d reached the cottage and I followed my instinct. Surprise. I grabbed Kitchen Girl from behind. She squealed. She fought me. Her wet hair slapped my face as she turned from side to side. She struggled but it was no use. I felt pretty strong. I am strong. Kitchen Girl is tiny. Her twists excited me. I was erect and ready and I was going to have her. Her skin was electric, goosebumps and all, and despite a quick toweling earlier, same as me, she was still wet, very wet and not only from the sea. I turned her to face me. Her eyes opened wide and locked on mine, and I saw fury and desire in them.

I lifted her and shoved her up against the wall of the cottage and spread her and entered her in a single stroke. I didn’t wait, didn’t ask, didn’t say anything. It was a straight gallop start to finish, and the only things to suggest she wasn’t entirely upset were the way her mouth fastened itself to mine as soon as I began to fuck her and how tight her legs wrapped around my butt as I held her cheeks and ploughed her like my life depended on it.

Even in my grip and with her legs around me she managed to turn from side to side. She bit the side of my neck as I came. I bit her back. Her nipple, the one I’d been sucking. Hard. She screamed and came herself, I could tell from the sudden heat around my cock. Kitchen Girl wanted this. I knew it and she knew it.

The contessa stood just inside the back door to the kitchen, silent, and watched the whole thing. When we calmed I let Kitchen Girl down easily. She sank to the floor, legs akimbo, her face flushed and her chest reddened. I kissed her cheek, a gentle kiss. I left her splayed where she was and stood up, my softened cock wet with her juices and my own. I sketched a salute to the contessa and walked out the door to the little garden studio where I slept and its outdoor shower.

I felt the contessa’s eyes on me every step of the way. I’d pay for the kiss and my gentleness with Kitchen Girl later but I didn’t care. I could take anything the contessa dished out. I was exercised, I was physically satisfied, and if nothing else I felt alive and ready for anything. I’d do it all again whenever I could. I was also starving and I hoped Kitchen Girl would get started on breakfast fast.

Like I’d told Samuel in the pub, officially I was gardener for the contessa, which meant really I got stuck with anything she wanted me to do, from actually planting something or watering it or weeding a flower bed to driving her on errands when Kitchen Girl wasn’t available.

I’d met the contessa under somewhat straitened circumstances about a year ago. That’s a fancy way of saying I was broke.

“If you want a job come see me tomorrow at noon.”

The woman I came to know as the contessa stuck a cigarette in an absurdly long holder that might have been a castoff from the prop room of a defunct touring theatre company, and turned to walk out of the lecture hall.

“Wait.” She paused but didn’t turn around. “What kind of work?”

“Noon sharp,” she said, and continued out the door to the street.

I must have looked as bad off as I was. My stipend for the research project I’d spent the previous three years on had been cancelled. I’d failed to make satisfactory progress on my dissertation, and I cringed when I remembered the last conversation I’d had with my faculty advisor.

“I’m afraid I have bad news for you, Alejandro,” Professor Jameson had said, not unkindly. “Your stipend won’t be renewed, and I’ve been asked to inform you the university will require you to withdraw at the end of Summer Quarter. We have a long relationship with the University of —, however, and we expect you to deliver the lectures you agreed to present over the summer.”

Crap, I thought to myself, I’m screwed. Part of me knew this was coming. I’d lost interest in the project over a year ago but laziness kept me going. Still, I’d been hoping it wouldn’t come to this.

“You know, there are other things to do in this world, Alejandro. What you’ve been working on isn’t everything. Finish the lectures this summer and get on with your life.”

Accordingly, I’d found myself down to my one remaining dime in the contessa’s city that summer after my last presentation, the one she attended. I never found out exactly how she knew my situation but I suspect she had some connection, through my advisor or someone in the field, with the university I’d called home for so long.

It didn’t matter. I needed work and she’d offered me a job. I showed up at noon the following day at a house that seemed to stretch out forever on either side of the front door and a garden that looked enormous from the street. The contessa received me in the back sunroom. Beside her was a petite female the contessa introduced as Kitchen Girl. Her nickname was a misnomer, I quickly learned. An accomplished cook and aspiring chef, Kitchen Girl had her own kitchen girl to act as sous chef and do the scut work. She’d been with the contessa for at least five or ten years by then. Given her apparent age I wondered if she’d started working while still a child.

“I understand this was your last lecture here, Alejandro. Is that right?”