Roaring Twenties...

With no historical grounding in the subject the 1920s has always captured my imagination as a time of elegance and decadence...

I woke to the sound of music playing somewhere in the distance. The rhythmic jazz beat was accompanied by the chink of glasses and soft laughter. Opening my eyes I was momentarily disorientated by my unfamiliar surroundings and the alcohol fizzing through my system. The party was still, from the sound of it, in full swing downstairs and had begun to spill outside into the terraced garden. All the bright young things, the sons and daughters of the wealthy and titled, had been invited to the party. It was hosted by a friend of a friend who owned the elegant mansion which boasted a prolific number of bedrooms. It was in one of those that I found myself.

The room was stiflingly hot. The windows, though flung wide open, made little impact on the humidity of the summer night. They did however help to illuminate the otherwise darkened room allowing my languid gaze to study the scene around me. Two glasses lay carelessly discarded on the floor, any left-over champagne already soaked into the texture of the carpet. Our clothing was haphazardly draped across several pieces of antique furniture. My lips curved in pleasure at the remembrance.

The sheets clung to my heated body and I hooked my leg over the silk, luxuriating in the brief coolness which caressed my skin. I felt flushed and damp, my hair curled in disarray about my head, and any make-up had long since been smudged away. I wondered idly how long we had been lying there for and whether we had yet been missed. The drink was flowing freely meaning that most of the guests, including ourselves, were suitably inebriated.

The hand of my lover trailed distractingly up my thigh. I turned to face him admiring his handsome profile. His eyes were closed but his hand unerringly found me. I bit my lip against a sigh and then he was biting it for me. The shape of his ring left a hard imprint upon my skin and I flinched against it. Reason asserted itself above the overwhelming surge of sensation.

“Stop.” I murmured against the crush of his lips. He groaned; his hands fisted tightly in my hair.

“Don’t do this to me Freddie.”

“We’ve already taken a huge risk. Someone is bound to comment on our absence.” Firmly pushing him away from me I rolled off the bed. He sat up, watching me snatch a stocking from the arm of the gramophone and then slip it over my leg, amusement and appreciation dancing in his warm gaze. Pulling the dress over my head I heard several beads hit and bounce off the floor. It was a familiar routine from all our previous assignations.

“Until next time.” His words were as much a threat as a promise.

“See you later darling.” I blew him a kiss from the doorway. There was no need to ask when; he would send a note.

As I padded bare foot through a corridor of mirrors, my impractical shoes dangling from my fingers, I realised that I was lost. Earlier I had been too engrossed in untangling his necktie to note which staircases and corridors we had stumbled down.

After feeling like I had walked around in hopeless circles for long enough I stopped, leaning woozily against a gilded banister. It was then that I observed the body lying spread-eagled at the bottom of the stairs. At first I was amused by the antics of those whose faculties were more impaired than my own, but with dawning horror I noticed that her neck was tilted at a horrible angle and her eyes were fixed unblinking towards me.

The shock of my discovery combined with the alcohol I had consumed and I retched over the expensive rug.

“Freddie!”

I heard my name exclaimed loudly as my knees buckled. My vision wavered as black spots exploded in front of my eyes. His arms caught me as I fell, but I didn’t feel their comfort or safety. Instead my last fevered thought was – why had his wife come here?