The House of Etiquette - Lisoo Conversion

13

Within days, all pleasantness came undone. As the other girls predicted, there was a change in Jisoo when Soojoo was about, as if her mere presence stifled Jisoo's spirit. The house fell quiet, void of laughter. Lessons took on a more serious tone. A heavy air of gloom hung over everything Jisoo said and did, and there were no more trips to the lake. Worse still, she grew distant.

There was no prolonged eye contact, no shared smiles, and absolutely no precious touches— nor anything that could be construed as such. When Lisa reached for her hand, she withdrew. Was the measure of her devotion being tested? Or her patience?

Unable to sleep one night, Lisa rose and snuck down to the library. She intended to pick out a book and read until her sight blurred and consciousness petered out, but on her way back to bed, a light in the parlour stopped her. Book in hand, she changed course and found Jisoo reading by candlelight in her armchair beside the fireplace.

"May I join you?"

Jisoo hesitated before she looked up. "Of course." She dropped a hand toward Lisa's usual spot beside her. "Please."

They hadn't been alone since London— Jisoo had made sure of that— and Lisa's heart pounded as she crossed the room to sit at her feet. She felt like she was breaking some unwritten law, and violated it further when, several minutes later, she dared to speak.

"Does Miss Soojoo displease you?" She knew she had no business questioning their private affairs, but did so anyway.

"Whatever makes you ask such a thing?"

"There's a sadness in you when she's around. A coldness, too." Lisa lost all desire to read. "You aren't the same with me, and I fear that you're casting me adrift."

"It's a complicated business." Jisoo laid a hand on Lisa's shoulder. "Please don't let it trouble you, or think that I've grown dull on you." The hand stayed. "I am restrained with you only because I must be, and you must be patient. All will resume in due course."

All? What was 'all'? The occasional illicit rub in a London hotel? Chaste admiration from a distance? Stolen kisses in the house's private carriage? Lisa was confused. Until the sudden appearance of Soojoo, she thought they were embarking upon a romance. A dangerous romance with high stakes and much secrecy, but a romance nonetheless. In reality, she feared, it wasn't anything more than a fleeting amour: a sordid affair.

While continuing to read, Jisoo's hand wandered. She ran her fingers under Lisa's hair and tickled the nape of her neck, unwittingly stirring the teen into a passion.

"Oh, I cannot bear it!" Lisa tossed her book aside and swept her hands under Jisoo's skirts, throwing them up and crumpling them in her lap. "I love you, I love you, I love you!" She brought her lips to Jisoo's ankle, shin, knee, and above.

"Stop," Jisoo pled weakly, her heavy book tumbling from her grasp and hitting the floor with a clattering thud.

"I don't want to." Lisa kept kissing, professing her love at every interval until she reached the top of Jisoo's stockings. There, she faltered.

The red ribbon around Jisoo's garter was gone.

"I'm sorry." Jisoo saw her distress. "It has to be this way."

Lisa wasn't interested in hearing that. Her fervour dampened— but not entirely extinguished— by the disappointing discovery, she lowered her face into Jisoo's lap and burrowed her nose between the older woman's tightly-crossed thighs, drowning herself in the scent of her peachy skin and the natural perfume of her femininity.

"Let me kiss it just this once." She pushed Jisoo's skirts up higher, baring the blanket of blonde curls ornamenting her mound, her pearl— and everything below it— infuriatingly hidden from view. "Let me see how it weeps."

She drove forward, targeting that moss with her lips, and the tension in Jisoo's thighs dissipated. Her limbs loosened, allowing them to be pried apart, and she eased her hips forward, spreading her legs around Lisa's shoulders.

"Oh, dear God, forgive me." She buried her fingers in Lisa's hair and coaxed her toward the pink furrow. "Put your mouth to me, my love. I need it."

As Lisa's tongue found the seat of her pleasure and engulfed it, she bit her lower lip and smothered a moan. Lost to passion, she hooked one leg over Lisa's shoulder and raised her hips, straining to give the enthusiastic teen full access to her womanhood. In doing so, her head lolled against the chair back, facing the door.

The open door.

Where the maid was standing.

Thoroughly mortified, Jisoo shrieked and wrenched Lisa's head away from her loins. "Enough!" She lashed out and struck Lisa across the cheek with her open palm, the hit knocking her to the fireplace rug like a paper doll.

"Begging your pardon, Miss, but I came in when I heard a noise." The maid dipped her head. "Miss Soojoo is asking for you."

Jisoo straightened her skirts and rose, wiping tears from her eyes. "I must go to her."

"Don't!" Lisa lunged for her ankles, clutching a fistful of her skirts.

"I must." Jisoo brushed her hands away and strode from the room, leaving her in a sobbing heap upon the floor.

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A/N.   bit awkward. the maids are always peeping