BLACKLACE1
by
Portia Da Costa, Emma Holly and Kristina Lloyd

Black Lace novels are sexual fantasies.  In real life, make sure you
practise safe sex.

This omnibus edition published 2000 By BCA By arrangement with Black
Lace

Copyright Portia Da Costa 1997 Copyright Emma Holly 1998 Copyright
Kristina Lloyd 1998 The rights of the authors of the works has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 All characters in this publication are
fictitious any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated
without the publisher's prior written consent in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser Typeset by Set Systems Ltd, Saffron Walden, Essex Printed
and

Bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham PLC, Chatham, Kent.

The Strong.

Portia Da Costa.

Contents.

1 The Man in the River.

2 One Fine Day.

3 The Man With No Name.

4 House Guest.

5 Doctor's Orders.

6 Cassis and Other Intoxications.

7 The Patient and his Treatment.

8 Progressive Therapy, 9 Classic Recollections, 10 Memento Mori,
Memento Vivere, 11 Another House Guest.

12 Creating a Stranger.

13 Secrets and Lies and Stars, 14 Tristan in Trouble, 15 Invitations,
16 Un Ballo in Maschera, 17 Saturn, and After.

18 Regeneration

Dedicated to Mystery Men, everywhere and every when Long may they
continue to enchant us!

Chapter One.  The Man in the River.

There was a storm coming.

Claudia Marwood looked up at the sky, and seeing only its high, blue
canopy pasted with a thin scattering of hazy gauze-like cloud, she
wondered why she found the lovely sight portentous.  It was a perfect
summer's day a classic yet something inside her sensed the distant
threat of thunder.  She couldn't hear or see it, yet she knew it was on
its way.

Idiot!

She paused in the scullery, eyeing her umbrella and the light cotton
jacket she sometimes wore in the garden on cooler days.  Don't be a
wimp!  she told herself firmly, taking only a broad straw sun hat with
a yellow ribbon before stepping out on to the terrazzo tiled patio at
the back of her house.  If it does rain, you'll get wet.  So what?  It
won't kill you!

As she crossed the lawn, adjusting the angle of her hat as she went,
she analysed her burst of small-scale bravado.  She felt wild, sort of,
and slightly daring.  It suddenly dawned on her that she was actually
very happy.

What a relief!  At last!  Striding out faster, almost skipping, she
enjoyed the spring of the immaculately cut turf beneath her sandal-clad
feet, then felt faintly dizzy for a second as she inhaled the rich
odours from her abundantly stocked flowerbeds.  The roses, the sweet
peas, the scented shrubs.

Good God, it was summer, she was as fit as a fiddle, she had no
commitments and there was nothing at all that she had to do!  The wood
pigeons were cooing while honey bees were hovering over the roses and
the pelargoniums, and she too shared their unquestioning contentment.

At the bottom of the garden a little lych gate led through into the
copse beyond, and the path beyond it led down towards the river.  As
Claudia passed through, she felt another rush of satisfaction.  This
was also her land and she could enjoy her stroll in perfect peace
without meeting other walkers.  This new feeling of hers had a delicate
quality to it, and she wanted to examine and analyse it, not have it
popped like a balloon before she could savour it.  She would be wanting
new people around her soon, she was sure of that, but for now she felt
more comfortable alone or with just her closer friends.

The copse on a summer's afternoon was a magical place to be alone.

The dappled shade was green and fresh and cool; alive, yet tranquil,
and dense with a brooding quality of expectancy.  It was the sort of
place one might imagine sprites and elves could be found, although it
was only the pigeons, the rustling leaves and the nearby river that
chattered to each other.

Not that it hadn't been a nice place for company too, she thought,
waiting for a pang of pain, then smiling when, thankfully, it didn't
come.  Only happy memories surfaced.  Herself and Gerald, on another
postprandial summer walk, both tipsy on good wine and feeling silly and
rather randy.  They had rolled in the undergrowth and actually fucked
here, beneath an old tree that stood to her right.  They had climaxed
noisily among the ants and twigs and mud.

We were good together, she thought, taken all round.  Her smile turned
wistful.  Of course, there had been rough patches the difference in
their ages and Gerald's devotion to business matters had meant that
frantic fucks in the bushes were quite infrequent but it was only the
cheerful times that were printed in her memory.  She imagined she could
see where the grass and the ferns had been squashed down and feel the
good earth beneath her back as she celebrated life with her lover, her
husband.

But it wouldn't be with Gerald the next time, would it?  Her dear old
husband was dead, and had been for eight months.  She would have a new
lover in the copse one of these days, though, when the time was
right.

And her husband's smiling shade would cheer them on.

Don't be weird, Claudia, she instructed herself, treading boldly
onward, and stepping over the occasional root or straggling creeper
that had strayed across the path.  In the relative quiet of the
woodland bower, she gradually became aware that the water sounds ahead
were changing.  The leisurely flow of the river was still a reassuring
susurration in the background, but there was a louder, more arrhythmic
splashing too the sound made by a human occupation of the water.  Where
the river bellied out, diverted by an island of rocks, there was a
wide, inviting pond, and from the sound of things, someone was bathing
there.

Claudia frowned.  It wasn't that she begrudged people access to the
land it wasn't clearly marked as private property or fenced off in any
way.  It was just that she felt protective of her hard-won little store
of equilibrium and her sudden and self-nurtured bud of happiness.

Despite her qualms, though, she moved on.  You're going to have to
break out some time, Mrs.  Marwood, she told herself, and it might as
well be now.  She could almost feel Gerald behind her, pushing her
forward.

But just as she was about to burst into the clearing and reveal
herself, a dose of sixth sense told her to hold back.  Slipping her hat
off, she held herself quite still, her breathing shallow, then risked
putting out a hand to draw aside the greenery and take a peek into the
open area beyond.

Sitting on a rock where she often sat herself to dangle her feet in the
pool, was a naked man, dangling his feet in the pool.  Tall and young
looking, he had a longish mop of curly mid-brown hair, and he was
gazing down intently into the stiller area of water around his
ankles.

Whatever he saw there had produced a frown on his face.

Once she had got over the initial shock of the young man's nudity,
Claudia allowed herself to breathe properly again and study his
appearance more closely.  He was very handsome, she quickly realised.

Quite beautiful, in an eccentric sort of way.  But there was something
wrong, something disturbing or distressing him.  He had obviously been
responsible for the splashing she had heard, because his pale skin was
gleaming with water, but now he was staring, in a fugue, at his own
reflection.  His angular but boyish face was certainly one Claudia
would have happily stared at for as long as he would allow, yet the
manner in which he was contemplating himself was in no way
narcissistic.  More than anything, he looked worried to death almost
afraid of his own attractive features.

And you've taken a beating too, haven't you, stranger?  thought
Claudia, noting that the young man's smooth, lightly muscled body
sported several spectacular bruises in the area of his ribs and
thighs.

As he put up a hand and brushed his soft, wild hair back off his brow,
she saw that there was also a nasty red graze on his temple.  When he
touched this gingerly and winced, she winced with him, but when, after
a pause, he rose slowly and gracefully to his feet, what she saw made
her forget all thoughts of pain.

Oh yes!  Oh yes, yes, yes!

Claudia felt a crazy urge to wolf-whistle, but kept the sound as a
silent tribute inside her mind.  Whoever this mysterious stranger was,
his body was familiar to her senses.  He had exactly the kind of
physique she had always preferred in a man.  Spare and lean, but strong
looking, with fine, straight limbs and a chest that was deep and nicely
defined but free of hair.  His swinging penis was substantial and
distinctly perky.  Claudia would have liked a better look at that
particular part of him, but he chose that moment to jump back down into
the water.

Under cover of the aquatic commotion, Claudia crept a little nearer and
sank into a more comfortable semi-crouch.  In spite of her concern
about the young man's injuries, her overwhelming feeling as she watched
him was excitement a delicious, clandestine devilment that sped through
her system like a fortifying wine.  He was so gorgeous, so appealing,
so unaware of her.  She felt as if she was stealing pleasure from his
winsome, youthful body.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself, woman, she chided, grinning hugely
and feeling even more recovered than she had done earlier.  She was a
widow, and getting a little too close to middle age for her own liking,
but the sight of this man, so innocently vulnerable yet so tempting,
filled the female core of her with a sudden jolt of yearning.

Who are you, mystery man?  she thought, feeling her own body come alive
beneath her cotton dress and minimal summer undies.  And what are you
doing here in my little bit of river?

After a few moments, what he was doing became quite evident.  As
Claudia watched from her hiding place, her heart hammering madly and
her fingertips tingling with the denial of not touching him, the young
man began a makeshift but strangely rigorous toilette.

First, he ducked his head, then rose again, rubbing at his tousled hair
and making the motions of shampooing it.  He washed his face carefully
too, running his fingertips over his jaw as if he were monitoring the
length of his stubble.  His regretful shrug indicated that he generally
preferred to be clean-shaven, but as there was clearly nothing he could
do about it, he began to dash water over his arms and back and
shoulders, again and again and again; so much so that Claudia wanted to
race back to the house and return with towels and shampoo and shower
gel, and all the fragrant, expensive grooming products that a man so
fastidious would clearly relish.  He even scrubbed frantically at his
teeth and his gums with the pad of his forefinger.

When he had attended to his upper body to his satisfaction, the young
man moved towards the bank into the shallower water, in order to wash
himself just as thoroughly below the waist.

Claudia held her breath again.  Believing himself alone, her cleanly
young god was completely uninhibited, and after working his way up over
his legs and thighs, he began massaging water freely over his buttocks
and genitals.  Claudia watched wide eyed as he meticulously scrutinised
and dowsed himself; then shared his wry but unexpectedly sunny smile
when the inevitable physical reaction to this occurred.

It took her all her time not to sigh, then gasp, as the stranger's wet
penis swelled into a long, stiff erection between his fingers.  As he
handled himself, his lean young face became more tranquil, losing the
expression of fear and worried sadness that had seemed to haunt it.  In
the midst of her own arousal a rush of wet heat between her legs that
was so sudden and so copious it shocked her Claudia realised that
caressing himself was as much a comfort to the young man as it was an
act of sex.  He seemed reassured by his body's own responses.

But that took nothing away from the eroticism of his performance.

As the stranger's eyes closed and his head tipped back, Claudia felt as
if a gate she had been pushing against had finally swung wide open. The
feelings that had been coming back gradually were suddenly
all-consuming.  Watching the flashing fingers of the young man in the
river, she gave herself permission to reach down and clutch her
groin.

She wanted to laugh.  She wanted to cry.  She wanted to lie back, throw
her legs apart and make herself come until she couldn't see straight.

But most of all she wanted to thank her mystic stranger.

That bud of happiness was now an open flower.

Chapter Two.  One Fine Day.

The storm had arrived.  At least, the thunder and lightning part was
here, and the cleansing downpour probably wasn't far behind it.

Not that Claudia was particularly worried.  Thunderstorms sometimes
troubled her, especially if they were violent and Wagnerian, but
tonight her mind was fully occupied, principally with the mysterious
naked stranger from the river.

She couldn't seem to shake the image of him.  It was a soft-focus movie
that played continuously in her head.  First he would stare at himself,
then he would wash, and finally he would masturbate.  She could still
hear his broken cry of triumph as his semen hit the water like strands
of white silk; she could still see him stagger, then collapse on to the
soft earth bank, his eyes closed and his pale chest heaving with the
sweet release of tension.

You should have climbed out from behind that bush and introduced
yourself, you fool, she told herself, rocking in the scented water of
her bath and thinking how much he would have enjoyed her creamy,
moisture-enriched soap and the tang of her aroma therapeutic bath
oil.

She tried to envision him in the bath with her (it was quite a big one,
and there was plenty of room for two), his hands moving on her body
this time, not his own.

Her own hand drifted towards her crotch, and she was about to part the
soft blonde mat of her pubic hair and touch herself again when an
especially loud peal of thunder stayed her fingers.

"OK ... Enough for now," she said, laughing softly and agreeing with
the heavenly moderator who had decreed, by the crashing of the
elements, that to masturbate to orgasm three times in the bath was
quite enough for the time being, thank you very much!  There would be
plenty of opportunity later, if she still felt that old, familiar
urge.

No chance of not feeling it, Claudia thought, rising out of the water
and reaching for a towel from the heated rail, if I can't stop thinking
about my randy stranger from the river.

She had restrained herself at the time, for fear of disturbing him.

She was a noisy lover, with a tendency to squeal when passion
overwhelmed her, and it had been such a long time since she had last
had an orgasm that she didn't think she could experience one in
silence.

After his own orgasm, the stranger had appeared to fall asleep where he
had dropped, his long body as still as the dead and his arms stretched
out in a vaguely cruciform attitude.  Claudia had watched him for a
little while, feeling a sense of relief when she saw his chest rising
slowly, then falling, as he breathed.

Who the devil were you, little boy lost?  Claudia asked now, fluffing
her short, streaked blonde hair, and thinking of the strange man's
turbulent brown curls.

Who are you?  She repeated the thought and wondered where the beautiful
sleeper was now.  It could well be that he was still close by.  She
hated the idea that he might be sleeping rough somewhere but if the
river was his bathroom then his bedroom ceiling was most likely the
open air.

And what are you?  She questioned him silently as she stood naked
before her mirror and smoothed a light nourishing cream into her
face.

Part of her attention was on her own body, her own 'too solid flesh'
which was just a tad more curvy than she would have preferred but
which, for a woman in her forties, still looked reassuringly girlish.

The other, larger part of her mind still pondered the enigma of the
stranger.

Yes, what was he?

A tramp, or a New Age traveller, perhaps?

But he looked too young, really, for the former, and much, much too
clean for the latter.  New Age caravans did travel through the village
sometimes, on the way to the ancient standing stones on the nearby
heath, but these were people in large numbers.  Her bathing stranger
had most definitely been a solo.

What if he was an escaped convict?  Or even a runaway mental patient?

Claudia shivered, even though the bathroom was warm and steamy.  She
wondered again if the man was still close by.

Screwing the top firmly on the moisturiser jar, she dismissed the more
menacing explanations.  Her mystery man had seemed confused, almost
disorientated in a way, but basically he had appeared to know what he
was doing.  And the clothes of his she had caught sight of a long, dark
jacket and pale-grey trousers airing over a bush and socks, shirt and
underwear drying on a stone in the sun didn't look like prison or
institution issue.  Unless, of course, they were stolen.

Thunder grumbled again, like giant boulders being tumbled in a gully,
and Claudia reached for her red silk kimono and slid into it.

Tonight, she had rejected her usual to welling dressing gown as frumpy
and boring, and the shimmering crimson robe a gift from a Far Eastern
business trip of Gerald's - was the appropriate choice for her
self-indulgent mood.  The silk was cool against her skin, yet stirring,
and as she went down the stairs to make her preparations for a evening
of sensual pampering, it swished and swirled like a living breeze
around her thighs.

Besides, he was much too nice to be a criminal, she pointed out to
herself, taking a bottle of white wine a good 1990 Auslese that she was
really looking forward to from the fridge.  Although he could be
disturbed, she appended, selecting one of her favourite Riedel
Sommelier wine glasses, and taking that and the dark, German bottle
into the sitting room.  It wasn't strictly normal to do one's bathing
in a river.

Anyway, it was all purely academic now, reasoned Claudia, as she poured
her wine, settled back on the sofa, and set her CD choice to play,
using the handset.  She would never see him again.  She would never
know what he looked like with his clothes on.

The ineffable strains of Madama Butterfly filled the room, just as the
first sweet sip of wine blessed her palate.  It was just as choice and
fruity as she had hoped it would be, and with its flavour came a
comforting rationalisation.  The young man from the river was most
probably nothing at all like the mysterious romantic presence she had
created for him, but she could still preserve him as such in her
fantasies.  She would put him to work for her until a real-life lover
came along.

Thunder rolled again, and he seemed to be with her, moving over her,
his body cool yet virile.  She put aside her glass so her hands could
be his.  She imagined him touching her neck, then her shoulder, then
her breast, his long fingers curving to mould her rounded contour,
sliding the bright stuff of her silk robe against her nipple.  The
little crest of flesh hardened immediately, and she seemed to hear his
chuckle of delight, even though she had no true idea what his laugh
might sound like.  Sliding apart her robe, she held herself how he
would hold her, circling her thumb in a slow and tender rhythm.

She wished that she had heard more of his voice, so she could imagine
him whispering endearments and little words of admiration.  In her
fantasy, of course, she was just right for him.

Moving her legs restlessly, she let her thighs slide apart, as if it
were he who had nudged them open, impatient to reach her hot and
honeyed centre.  He would caress her belly for a few moments, teasing
her, twirling strands of her pubic hair around his fingers; then he
would probe delicately between her labia and find her clitoris.

Drawing a deep breath, Claudia duplicated her phantom lover's action,
and at that same moment, thunder cracked across the sky and the fluid,
soprano voice of Butterfly launched superbly into the aria "Un Bel Di,
Vendremo'.

"One fine day..."

Claudia smiled as she swirled her finger, creating brilliant sensations
that rippled and danced through her belly.  The lyrics were about the
return of a lover the shallow, faithless Pinkerton - but to Claudia
they spoke more of an arrival.  Someone had arrived in her life today,
even if he was fated to be purely a shadow-player in her mind, an icon
of self-pleasure, a magic gift for her to cherish.

Sighing, she shifted her bottom on the sofa, feeling the delicious
excitement massing in her loins beneath her fingertip.  Soon.  Soon she
would allow herself to come again.

The thunder rolled and the sweet, operatic voice soared ... and
suddenly someone was hammering furiously and repeatedly at the front
door.

Her heart pounding nearly as hard as the unknown caller's fist, Claudia
snatched her fingers from her crotch and leapt to her feet, almost
knocking over her glass of wine in the process.

She glanced at the clock.  It was almost ten.  Who the hell was trying
to bash her door down at this time of night?  Snatching her robe
together and knotting the obi protectively, she darted out into the
hall and stood there shaking.

Thunder crashed again, and over the sound of a rising wind, the
thumping on her door panels redoubled.

She knew instinctively who it was out there.

This is insane, she thought, as she padded barefoot along the hall.

He could be dangerous.  Violent.  Homicidal.  These could be her last
moments of life.

Ignoring all this, she turned the handle and flung open the door.

And there, with his wild brown hair flying around his face in the wind,
his stunning blue eyes wide with fear, and wearing quite the most
bizarre and unexpected suit of clothing she could ever have imagined,
stood her fey, enchanted stranger from the river.

"Please!  Help me!"  he cried frantically, just as another peal of
thunder rent the heavens and lightning forked electric-blue and seemed
to reach for them.  Then, accompanied by his shriek of pure terror, his
eyes rolled upward in their sockets and he fainted.

Pitching forward, he crumpled like a length of cloth into her arms.

With no time to ask questions of him, or of herself, Claudia caught
him, and sank down, carried by his weight, to the hall floor.

Luckily, she managed to tuck her legs under her as she went, and ended
up half kneeling, half sitting on the doormat, with the stranger's head
cradled in her lap.

Well done, Claudia, she thought.  Nice catch.  Now what the hell are
you going to do with him?  She looked down into his familiar but
unknown face.

Up close, her wandering refugee looked slightly older than she had
earlier estimated.  Late twenties, she put him at, or perhaps thirty.

Younger than she was, but not by too much.

Too much for what?  the devil's advocate inside her countered, amazed
that she could still be having erotic thoughts about the poor man when
he was out cold.

And yet she was having them.  She couldn't control them.  His head,
crowned with its stormy halo of curls, was nestled closely against her
pubis, and she could feel his warm breath on her thigh through her
flimsy robe.

As well as her split-second ruminations about his age, Claudia also
realised that the stranger was even better looking up close.  His hair
was very soft, and his unconscious face was as serene as an
archangel's.  The right man at the wrong time, she thought wistfully,

her fingers hovering tentatively over his sculpted lips and the strong
line of his jaw.  Or, she appended, the wrong man at the right time,
which was just as bad.

But was a time ever right or wrong?

Giving in to temptation, she stroked his head, letting her fingers comb
lightly through his hair and brushing the love locks back from his brow
so she could assess the severity of his wound.  Almost immediately he
responded, stirring a little, scrunching up his face and groaning
faintly.

"It's all right.  It's all right," said Claudia, trying to calm him,
gripping his shoulders as he began to rise and struggle, "You're OK
You're safe.  Nobody's going to hurt you."

Shaking her off quite easily, the stranger sat up, his eyes still
closed as he gingerly felt his head.  When the lightning flashed again,
he let out a screech of fear and threw himself back into Claudia's
arms.

"Hey, hey, hey!"  she said soothingly, patting his back and smoothing
her fingers over the black velvet coat that he was wearing, "Don't
worry ... It's not that close," she lied.

"We're quite safe here."

The way he continued to shake told her he didn't quite believe her.

Despite her continued efforts to pacify the newcomer, Claudia felt far
from calm herself.  She was sitting here on her own doorstep, in the
beginnings of a rainstorm, with her silk kimono pulled half off her,
holding her new fantasy object tightly against her body.  He had spoken
a sum total of three words to her so far, but she already had his
trembling, slightly stubbled cheek pressed intimately against the bare
curve of her breast.

"Hush, it's all right," she said again, at a loss as to what to do
next.  There were things she wanted to do, like kiss him and touch him
and much, much more, but that was from her dreams, and what was
happening now was real.

Thunder pealed again, and the man in her arms cried, "No!  Oh No" and
tried to cover his ears with his hands, dragging Claudia's kimono
further off her in the process.  Rather ineffectually, she tried to
close the garment without pushing her panicked charge away.

"No!  No!"  he said, shaking his head as if the thunder was within his
skull and he was trying to eject it.  For a fleeting instant his parted
lips brushed her skin.

They couldn't stay where they were because the rain, cool and
refreshing as it was, had started to slice down quite heavily now.

So, still tugging at her kimono, Claudia engineered her way to her
feet, trying to help the stranger on to his at the same time.

"Come along.  Let's get inside, shall we?"  she suggested to him,
alarmed by the way he was swaying.  He stood for a moment, hands over
his ears and his eyes screwed tightly shut, then he seemed to pull
himself together, and nodded in silent agreement.  After pushing the
door shut behind them, Claudia was relieved to find that he followed
her lead along the hall into the sitting room.

Astoundingly, when they got there, "Un Bel Di" was still playing.  The
whole melodramatic performance on the doorstep could not have taken
more than a minute.

"Sit here," she said to her unusual refugee, pointing to the sofa, and
he crossed the room and sat down obediently.  Leaning back, he closed
his eyes and sighed wearily, his chest heaving as if he had just
completed a marathon.

Claudia just stared at him.

Who are you?  she wanted to demand, but he seemed in such a state of
shock and distress that it would be unkind to interrogate him
immediately.  Even so, she still almost asked him who he was dressed
as.

Down by the river, she had been so entranced by the naked man that she
had paid only cursory attention to his scattered clothing.  But now,
his strange outfit intrigued her.

What she had taken for a jacket was in fact a long Edwardian frock coat
in black crushed velvet, which he wore with grey trousers, a black and
grey striped brocade waistcoat and a wing-collared shirt that was
unfastened to show his chest.  Slung around his neck was a rather
mangled length of heavy grey silk which appeared to be the remains of a
cravat.  The whole ensemble was crumpled and dusty especially the shirt
and there were grass stains on the pale cloth of his trousers, but he
still projected an aura of forlorn elegance.  He couldn't be a New Age
traveller.  He looked more like an escapee from the Victoria and Albert
Museum, or a Tussaud's mannequin, touched by God and come to life.

Suddenly he sat up, then winced again as if the action had made his
head hurt.

"I'm so sorry," he muttered.

"I'm intruding ... I'd better go."  He made a halfhearted attempt to
stand, but started swaying precariously again, and flopped down.

Claudia hurried towards him and knelt down by his side.

"You've been hurt," she said, looking upward into his face.  He was
clearly very muddled, but still looked angelic.  She wished he would
open his eyes again, but he seemed to be drifting in and out of
consciousness.  She touched his arm.

"I'd better send for an ambulance or something ... You need
attention."

His eyes snapped open again.  They were a pale, clear, almost
glass-like blue, and when they fixed on her a pang of pleasure stirred
inside her.

"Please, don't go to any trouble.  I beg you!"  He covered her hand
with his other one, and the pang of pleasure became a flexing serpent
of desire, "I'll be all right ... I just need a moment's sit down. I'll
go soon ... I won't bother you any further."

Claudia gnawed her lip as he slumped back again, his eyelids fluttering
closed.  Medical scrutiny was surely what he needed, but in her heart
of hearts she really didn't want to ring for help.  She wanted him
alone, just with her, for a little while longer.  She wanted to look at
him and enjoy her precious living treat.

Liar!  said the voice of the coiling snake of lust.  You don't just
want to look.  You want to touch him!  You want to make love to him!

Take advantage of his beauty while he's vulnerable!

Stop this!  she told her own subversive emotions, even though she knew
that the lustful voice spoke truly.

"Can I get you anything?"  she asked quietly.  She glanced at the wine
bottle but realised alcohol was probably a bad choice right now.

"Some coffee?  A glass of water?  A cup of tea?"

The crystal-blue eyes snapped open again and became part of one of the
sweetest, most spine-melting smiles Claudia had ever seen.

"Tea would be wonderful," he said in heartfelt tones.

"I would love some ... Please."

"Coming up," said Claudia, rising somewhat shakily.

"Shall I turn the music off?"  she asked, as he seemed about to doze
off once more.

"Oh no," he murmured, opening his eyes again and looking up at her
appealingly.

"It's lovely.  One of my" He stopped short, frowning.

"I like it very much ... I'd love to hear "One Fine Day" again.  If you
don't mind, that is?"

Still mentally reeling from his smile, Claudia would have sung the aria
for him herself if she had possessed the voice for it, but settled for
re-selecting "Un Bel Di".  Feeling somewhat shell-shocked, she left him
listening and made her way to the kitchen.

This must be the most stupid thing you have ever done, she thought, as
the kettle was boiling and she was assembling the tea things.

You've invited an unknown man into your home at night, and even if he
isn't a murderer or a rapist, you've still left him completely alone in
a room full of valuable antiques and collectibles.  He might already
have made a run for it with the Moorcroft Pansy vase, or Gerald's
favourite tortoiseshell snuff box.  Or he might like modern things, and
have done a flit with the Bang and Olufsen CD player!

Don't be ridiculous, she told herself immediately.  She could still
clearly hear sad Butterfly's lament!

Placing chinaware, milk, sugar and a selection of biscuits on her best
silver tray, Claudia found herself suspended between reality and her
dreams.

She was preparing tea as if she had the vicar's wife waiting for her in
the sitting room, whereas in actual fact her guest was a man whose name
she didn't know and who she had never set eyes on before that
afternoon, when she had watched him cavort naked in the river and rub
his sensational penis until he climaxed.  She couldn't imagine a
situation more bizarre.

Yet when she returned to the sitting room, her guest was still with
her, as large as life, although he now appeared to have fallen asleep
again.  He had kicked off a very modern if scuffed and scraped pair of
loafers which didn't seem to be part of his fancy-dress outfit and was
curled up in a foetal position on the sofa, with his clasped hands
beneath his cheek like a dozing cherub's.

There must be an inverse relationship between vulnerability and
sexiness, thought Claudia, wanting to touch him so much that the tray
shook in her hands and the cups and spoons began to rattle violently.

The music was still playing in the background, but the clatter of the
crockery woke the sleeper.

"Oh dear," he said softly, straightening up and slipping his
black-socked feet back into his shoes, "I'm sorry.  I dozed off. Please
forgive me."

"It's all right," replied Claudia, setting out the tray, and suddenly
very conscious of the way her kimono was apt to float and reveal
portions of naked skin as she moved.  In addition the silk was so sheer
that her erect nipples stood out clearly.

"You ... You're obviously exhausted."

Taking refuge in the small rituals of a very English tea ceremony,
Claudia didn't know what else to say.  Could she come right out and ask
if he was a vagrant?  And if he wasn't one, how could she ask him what
he had been doing bathing in the river, without revealing the fact that
she had watched him there?  The poor soul wasn't offering any
information about himself, for the simple reason, she suspected, that
he was too shattered and too confused to realise that an explanation
might be called for.

She decided not to press the issue for now.

"Milk and sugar?"  she enquired.

Instead of the straightforward answer she was expecting, the stranger
appeared to have to think very hard about the way he took his tea.  He
clenched his fists against his thighs and stared intently at nothing
for a few seconds, then looked up at her, his handsome face stricken
with bewilderment.

"I don't know," he said finally, shaking his head and making his soft
curls bob and dance.

Claudia stared at him and felt the inklings of a disquieting
suspicion.

Could it really be that?  Could this lovely, befuddled young man be the
victim of something so fundamental and frightening?

"Try it just with milk and see," she said, pouring milk into the first
cup of tea and passing it to him.  As she watched him take a sip and
sigh with appreciation as if it were the first decent brew he had
tasted in a millennium, Claudia's mind went winging back over the years
to her childhood, and to an incident that had occurred during her first
attempts to learn to ride a horse.

She had been a natural rider but had become too cocksure one afternoon
and been bucked off, landing on her head.  Thankfully, she had
sustained no fractures and no permanent injury, but for a truly
terrifying fortnight she had not had the slightest inkling of who she
really was, and no memory of her life before the fall.  Luck had been
on her side, though, and after those two scary weeks she had woken up
one morning and just remembered it all again.

Drinking a little of her own tea, and watching the stranger cradle his
cup and stare into it as if some profound eternal verity was to be
found floating in the English Country House blend, she considered the
significance of the ugly graze that was partially hidden by his
dangling kiss curls.

Was her beautiful man from the river an amnesiac?

And if he was, what could she do to help him?

Help him?  Who are you kidding?  You want to rape him!

Feeling horrified by her own seditious urges, yet also revelling in
them, she stared at his long legs in his creased grey trousers.  His
thighs were strong and lithe; she had seen them.  And at their apex,
his sex was vital and tempting.

Oh God, this was all so sudden!  She had begun this day in perfect
ordinariness not feeling too bad about herself and her widowhood and
now she was an erotic predator on the prowl.  Almost.  And it was him
her pretty, confused stranger-boy in his weird, antiquated clothing who
had been the catalyst.  She hardly dare look up, because a sixth sense
told her that he was now looking back at her.

What the hell!  She met his eyes.  She had been right; he was
looking.

"You're very kind," he said, giving her a small but still exceptional
smile.

"This tea is marvelous.  Just what I needed.  I - I didn't realise how
much I liked it."  His brilliant eyes clouded, as if he were thinking
again.

"Are you OK?"  enquired Claudia, putting her cup down then rising and
moving towards him like a drawn moth seeking the danger of a flame.

"I can't help noticing you've grazed your head.  Do you have a
headache?"  She sat down beside him on the sofa, and before she could
stop herself, she was lifing his hair away from the mark on his
forehead.

It was his turn to rattle his cup in his saucer.

"Sorry," said Claudia, snatching back her hand.

"I didn't mean to startle you, but that graze looks nasty ... It must
hurt."

"It's fine, thank you," he said, putting down the cup and saucer, then
making as if to rise.

"You've been very kind," he said again, "but I shouldn't impose on that
kindness any further."

No!  You can't leave!  cried Claudia in silence, while in reality she
said, "It isn't an imposition at all."  He was halfway out of his seat
now, but she caught him by his velvet sleeve and pulled him down
again.

He obeyed her with a small, perplexed twitch of his beautifully
modelled lips.

"In fact," she went on, unwilling to let go even of just his coat,
'you're obviously very tired.  You should get some rest.."  Here we go!
Say it, Claudia, say it!  she thought.

"Why don't you stay here the night?  I have a guest room all made up.

You're very welcome to sleep there if you wish."

A succession of emotions crossed his face: fear, temptation, gratitude,
others less definable.

"I - I - he began, then closed his eyes again, rubbing his face with
his hand.

"If you're certain it's no trouble?  I would be very grateful.  I'm
just so tired."  And it was true; he looked totally exhausted.

"It's no trouble, I promise you," she said, her heart singing because
he had been so easily won over.  She rose, then reached down to take
his arm and lead him.

"Come on, I'll show you where the room is.  You look as if you could do
with getting your head down straight away."

"Thank you.  Thank you very much.  I think I could," he said, his voice
soft but strangely resonant.  He allowed himself to be led from the
room.

Claudia could hardly speak for excitement as she escorted her
unexpected house guest upstairs.  Cool it, she told herself.  He's worn
out.  This is just a Good Samaritan act.  Nothing else.  Nothing's
going to happen.

"Is there somewhere I can wash first, please?"  he asked, as Claudia
pushed open the door to the guest room, which was always ready for
occupation.  In the early days after Gerald's death, her closest woman
friend, Melody, had often stayed over to keep her company, and Claudia
had got into the habit of keeping the bed made up.

"Don't worry, this room has its own little bathroom."  She switched on
the light, and pointed to the room's other door.

"You'll find towels and soap and everything you need."  For some reason
she wasn't quite sure of sentimental attachment, she supposed she had
also put one or two of Gerald's toiletry items in the guest bathroom's
cupboard.

"And I'll bring you some of my husband's pyjamas and a robe."

"Won't he mind?"  enquired the stranger, sounding suddenly very focused
and a little alarmed.

"No ... I'm sure he wouldn't.  If he was here."  The guest looked even
more alarmed.

"I'm a widow.  My husband died eight months ago."  Her companion's jaw
had dropped now, and his face was a picture of empathic distress.

"But don't worry.  I'm over the worst," she went on, suddenly realising
that today of all days, that was unequivocally true.

"Time has a habit of making things get better."

The stranger still looked a little dismayed, but as Claudia made as if
to leave in search of the night attire, he darted forward, grabbed her
hand, then lifted it to his lips and soundly kissed it.

"Thank you," he said, then kissed her hand again before releasing it.

"You don't know what this means to me.  I don't know what I would have
done.  I "It's OK.  I'll get those pyjamas."

Claudia turned and almost ran from the room, suddenly afraid of the
dramatic response she had invoked in him.  He was very beautiful, but
if he was an amnesiac, he could be mentally unstable in other ways.

She wondered again what the hell it was she had started.

When she returned with a pair of Gerald's royal-blue cotton pyjamas,
plus a robe and some slippers, the bedroom was empty, but the frock
coat, trousers and shirt were folded neatly over a chair, with the
shoes set side by side underneath it.  There was the sound of running
water coming from the bathroom.

He's naked again, she thought, allowing herself the luxury of
remembering.  Naked in my house, such a beautiful young man.  Her heart
began to pound and she felt quite giddy.  The silk kimono felt like
fire against her skin, and she wanted to tear it off because its
minimal weight was stifling.  A great wave, something like fate or
inevitability, seemed to be rushing towards her.  Dropping the night
things, she ran out of the room, almost afraid of what was happening to
her body.

Strangely, her composure returned to her quite quickly.  She went
around the house, closing up and making ready for the night.  She went
to her own bathroom, cleaned her teeth, spent a penny and fluffed her
hair.  Then she found herself spraying on some perfume, looking
intently into her mirror, scrutinising herself for flaws or anything
that might Might what?  she demanded, turning her back on her
reflection and walking resolutely into the bedroom towards Gerald's
photograph.  Put a younger lover off an older woman?

Her husband's smile seemed knowing and encouraging.  As she put the
frame back on the dressing table, some trick of the light on the glass
made him appear to wink at her.

As she stepped out on to the landing, thunder rumbled.  It was in the
distance now, but still powerful and symbolic.

That settled it!  She had her token excuse, if she had ever really
needed one.  Her guest was storm-shy, and the lightning made him
frightened.

Chapter Three.  The Man with No Name.

He was awake, and sitting up in bed, actually watching the storm.  He
no longer seemed quite so afraid of it.

"Hello.  Is everything all right?"  Claudia asked him, peering
cautiously around the door when he had answered her knock.  She
gestured towards the sky outside, which obligingly lit up with a
distant bolt of lightning.

"Is the storm still bothering you?"

"Not so much any more, thank you."  He gave her a small shy version of
'the smile', which still made her quiver.

"I think both it and I have calmed down a bit now."

Knowing exactly how foolish she was being, because in his new, more
rational state he could well find her attentions embarrassing, Claudia
closed the door and walked across to the bed.  The stranger gave her an
unfathomable look as she approached, which almost made her turn and
run, but when she reached him he smoothed his hand across the coverlet
at his side.  Claudia took this as an invitation, and settled down
facing him, with her kimono arranged carefully over her thighs.  Too
great a display of flesh might alarm him.

You stupid bitch!  she told herself, as the stranger regarded her
levelly, and she felt her loins melt like honey on a stove.  He's young
and he's beautiful.  Even if he is some kind of runaway, or mentally
disturbed, why the hell would he want you?  And yet something in her
heart told her she was doing herself an injustice, and a gross one. Her
nascent self-confidence reminded her of her powers.

"You must be wondering what the hell is the matter with me," said her
companion softly.

"Beating your door down in the middle of the night Screaming and
fainting and cringing ... I hope I didn't frighten you too much?"

"No, not too much," answered Claudia, her pulse and hormones in
turmoil.  Gerald's pyjamas seemed to fit the young man perfectly, and
their rich blue was undoubtedly his colour.  It made his smooth, milky
skin almost luminescent in the lamplight, and turned his eyes into twin
chips of aquamarine.  Against the white pillows, his damp hair appeared
black.

"You're certainly a bit of a "happening" though," she said, clenching
every muscle in her body to control herself.  She wanted to lunge at
him; to kiss him and caress him.

"It's not every night that a handsome young man dressed as an Edwardian
love poet throws himself into my arms."

The stranger laughed; a simple act that affected Claudia profoundly.

She knew that at any second she was going to do something unthinkable,
like tearing off her kimono and throwing herself into his arms.  If he
would have her.

"I wish I could explain everything," he said, shrugging.

"The clothes, the screaming.  Everything.  But I can't."  He looked at
her seriously, his face a complicated montage of emotions.  She sensed
that he had been genuinely flattered by her reference to him as
'handsome', but that he was also still a little desperate and
confused.

"The thunder was just the last straw."  He sat up straight, then
reached out and grabbed her hand.

"I don't know what's happened to me It's ... It's all a huge blank ...
A blur."  His fingers were like steel around Claudia but even the pain
of his grip was exciting.

"I remember bits of yesterday, and today.  All mixed up ... But I can't
remember anything else!  Not a thing."  His eyes were shining now, and
his mouth working with the effort of holding back his distress.

"This must sound so stupid!  You won't believe me ... I don't even
remember my own name!"

"But I do believe you," said Claudia, twisting her hand out of his
grip, then reversing the process to take his hand in hers.

"The same thing once happened to me.  I fell off a horse, banged my
head, and I didn't know who I was for two weeks."  She paused, felt her
own body shaking, then looked down and realised that she was caressing
his hand with her thumb.

"But it all came back to me ... And I'm sure the same thing will happen
for you."

"I hope so," he said, suddenly sounding a little better.  He looked
down at her thumb, still moving against his skin.

"I would have liked to at least have been able to introduce myself."

Ah, the social niceties.  Her mind was red with lust, and she had
almost forgotten them.

"My name is Claudia Marwood."  She twisted their fingers into the
conventional grip of greeting, and her companion did the honours,
shaking her hand.

"And I'm -' He grinned and shrugged.

"The man with no name?"

He smiled again, then scrunched up his face, as if a physical effort
might prise free elusive knowledge.

"Is that from a film?"  Claudia nodded.

"Well, I've just remembered my first fact.  Thank you!"

Leaning forward, he suddenly touched his lips to hers.

It was like being hit by the lightning outside.  The fleeting contact
of his mouth was electric, and filled Claudia with such a wave of
passion that she couldn't breathe for a moment.

This is insane!  she thought.  She was making a complete idiot of
herself.

"I'd better go now and let you get some rest," she said, and made as if
to get up from the bed and run for it.

The hold on her hand turned to steel again.  A carefully gauged,
velvet-covered steel, but steel nevertheless.

"Stay."  His voice was husky, already changing.  Tiease!"

She should have asked why, but she knew why.  In the dim light, his
blue eyes were steely too, and alive with a message that was
unmistakable.

"Are you sure?"  she asked, then had to smile, knowing that under any
other circumstances this was a question the man would ask.

The stranger nodded, answering her smile with a beautiful and very male
one of his own.

"At the moment it's the one single thing in the whole world I am sure
of."

Claudia was imprisoned by him.  At the centre of their stillness, she
felt the balance of power tilting on its fulcrum; her lost boy had
found his way and taken command.

"Let me turn the light out," she said faintly.

"Must you?"  His voice was teasing now: deep and intense, but
flirtatious.

"Yes, I think I must," insisted Claudia, fighting not to go under
entirely.  She drew a deep breath when he released her, then she
reached out and flipped off the lamp.

"I can imagine you," he said, as she slipped off her robe, feeling glad
of the darkness to hide her confusion.  It was a long time since she
had bared her body for a man, and even longer since she had been naked
before a new lover rather than her husband.

The stranger lifted the covers, and shaking with nervousness and
longing in equal parts, Claudia slid into bed beside him.

"Don't be afraid," he said, and then she was in his arms, her bare skin
against the cotton of his pyjamas, her mouth sought by his for their
first true kiss.

Expecting boyish haste, she was astonished when he began to kiss her
quite slowly.  His lips were gentle and mobile against hers and the
pressure they exerted complex.  Without thinking, she opened her mouth
and his tongue darted forward, accepting her gift, searching and
finding her own tongue with its tip.  He tasted strongly of spearmint,
the toothpaste she had left for him, and she wondered why she had never
realised how such a common flavour could seem so exotic.

His hold on her was measured too, hands flexing just enough to keep her
against him; no grabbing, no groping, no force.  His body was warm and
firm through the cotton that covered it, his erection a hot brand
against her thigh.

Suddenly, his self-control seemed to rip away the years from her.  She
became the impatient adolescent, surging against him, anxious to
explore his body and touch and caress it.  She scrabbled at the buttons
of his pyjama jacket, trying to bare him.  She wanted to taste and
devour him.

"Hush!"  he whispered, reaching between them and taking both her hands
in his.

"There's no hurry ... I'm not going anywhere."  He gave her fingers a
little squeeze, then eased her on to her back and made her lie still,
her arms at her sides.

"You're very lovely, Claudia," he said, letting his long hand settle at
last on her breast.

"So soft and warm.  You make me feel so safe here."

His fingers cupped her curves, first one, then the other, as if he were
weighing and assessing her, the touch light and infuriatingly
playful.

Claudia longed for him to squeeze her; to be rough and forceful, to
take her breath away, to ravish her.  She shifted her thighs, trying to
rub herself against him.

The stranger laughed softly.

"I never realised I was so desirable.  Did you want me this much when
you were watching me by the river?"

Shocked to her marrow, Claudia began to struggle, but the stranger was
too quick for her, stopping her mouth with his lips and stilling her
body by the simple expedient of pressing his own down potently upon
it.

Somewhere miles away, the thunder rolled again.

He knows I watched him!  How could he know that?  Who is he?  thought
Claudia frantically.  She felt fear, and yet the fear excited her even
more.  Her body seemed to be burning underneath him and her nipples
were so engorged that they were hurting, chafed by his weight yet
sending sublime bolts of feeling to her groin.

The stranger could be a consummate trickster, she realised, the
confusion and amnesia just a smooth and very clever act.  And yet she
didn't care.  Her vulva was on fire for him, hot as hell and running
with silky fluid.  His thigh was between hers now, and his pyjama leg
was wet where it pressed against her crotch.  It was obvious that she
was so aroused she couldn't think straight.  He laughed again, the
sound vibrating in her mouth.

Claudia broke away.

"How did you know it was me?  Why didn't you call out?  Say
something?"

"I wasn't sure I was right," he said more quietly, almost penitently.

"It was just a feeling ... I didn't know there was anyone there."  He
sighed and grew still.

"Everything was so weird ... I could have been hallucinating ...
Imagining things."

The lost boy was back again, although against her leg, his penis was
still a man of iron's.

"I shouldn't have been spying on you," murmured Claudia, putting her
arms around him and feeling him shiver in response and move against
her.

"I should have made some noise or something ... Given you a chance to
cover yourself."

"I would probably have run a mile," he answered, his equilibrium,
momentarily lost, now returned.  He rocked slightly, caressing her with
his erection and sliding it closer to her sex.

"But I feel much better now.  More together.  More used to you."

It was Claudia's turn to chuckle.

"Yes, I think you can be of some use to me."  She reached down and
clasped him through the cotton pyjamas, feeling a rush of lust, and of
confidence, when he gasped.

The young man was bigger and harder than Gerald had ever been, although
her late husband had possessed a penis to be proud of.

Claudia quivered inside.  Her vagina fluttered as if to express its
hunger, demanding she get on with the entertainment she had promised
it.

How good could he be, this man who had stumbled into her life out of
the storm?  It was readily apparent to her that between the sheets, at
least, he was surprisingly sure of himself, and he had the natural
grace and the body of a good lover.  And he wasn't a callow boy,
despite his spaced-out behaviour when he had fallen into her arms.

She sensed again that he could well be older than he looked, and
excitingly experienced in the ways of physical love.

Time to find out.

Releasing his cock, she took his hand and drew it down between her
legs.  His face was against her neck now, and she felt him smile, slow
and knowingly, against her skin.  At her crotch, his long, rather
tapered fingers began delicately combing the soft hair over her
pudenda, parting it neatly, then pressing inward between the tender
lips it covered.

He touched her very lightly, hardly more than a brush stroke, on her
clitoris and Claudia cried out, the tiny organ was so sensitised.

She had known she wanted him, but she hadn't known how much.  The
almost ethereal contact had brought her heart-stoppingly close to
orgasm, and she lay there panting, astonished by her own reaction.

"More?"  enquired the stranger, against her throat.  Claudia heard the
familiar note of masculine arrogance in his voice, and she wanted to
laugh with delight at how complete and diverse his approach was.  He
seemed to move from foundling to super lover in almost an instant.

"Yes!  Much more!"  she said fiercely, then grabbed his head, digging
her fingers into his soft, tousled curls, and pulled his face down to
hers so he could kiss her while he fondled her sex.

Again, the delicate, drifting touch; again the response out of all
proportion.  His fingertip lingered longer this time; too long for
Claudia to be able to contain herself, if she had ever wanted to.

Climaxing, she cried out with joy against his gentle kissing lips and
felt her vagina beat and pulse like a racing heart.  He circled his
finger, making her orgasm extend like a long, exquisite note, or a
cadenza.  She cried out again, her body jerking as she clapped her hand
over his, and felt the minute flexing of his tendons as he cleverly
caressed her.

"You ... You she gasped, arching upward, riding the fabulous wave.

"Goddamn you!  Who the hell are you?"

"I don't know!  I really don't!"  The stranger laughed, looking down
into her face from just inches above it, his eyes like pale fire in the
darkness.

"And right this minute, I can't say I care!"

And as she climaxed once more, and even harder, he kissed her again.

Moments or what could have been hours later, Claudia moaned, "Enough! I
need a minute or I'll have a heart attack!"

Obligingly, the stranger withdrew his hand and let it rest upon the
sweat-sheened curve of her belly.  The touch seemed compassionate,
almost protective, the pads of his fingers resting on the operation
scar that was masked by her pubic hair.  In some other situation,
Claudia might have been anxious when he traced its lightly puckered
length, but she was still floating too much to care about anything.

Lifting her weighted eyelids, she looked up.

The stranger had flung back the covers and was lying on his side, half
propped up on one elbow, studying the movement of his hand upon her
flesh.  Her dark-adjusted eyes saw his serious expression, and the
long, gleaming line of his torso where he had unbuttoned the jacket of
his pyjamas.

"This must have hurt," he said, nodding to the little cicatrix.

"Yes it did, but not for a long time ... And I hardly think of it
now."

"I'm glad," he said, regarding her steadily again, his light-blue eyes
so vivid they almost frightened her.  Then, leaning down, he kissed the
little scar and the soft hair that tangled across it like a veil.

Claudia shuddered and he immediately straightened up again.

"Do you want me to...?"  He left the question hanging, but she knew his
meaning.

She did want him to, but she could also see the aroused state of his
body; his erection pressing hard against the blue cotton of his pyjama
bottoms.  It was his turn, she decided, reaching out to touch him.

"Let's save that and concentrate on this," she said, running her finger
over the hard length of his flesh beneath its thin, cotton covering.

"I'd be delighted to," he said impishly, unfastening the button and
letting his stiff cock spring free.

"Is it as impressive close up as it was from a distance?"  He hefted
himself playfully, as if offering his manhood to her as a choice objet
dart for her approval.

"Of course it is, you vain creature!"  she said, laughing and reaching
for him, using his penis to tug him very gently towards her.  He gave
her the marvelous smile, then squeezed his eyes shut, sighing.

"But do you know what to do with it?"

"That's one thing I can remember," he replied, deftly extricating
himself from her grip, then sliding over her again.

"It's coming back to me very clearly now."  He poised himself,
hovering, the glans of his cock just touching the entrance of her
vagina.

"Is this right?"

he enquired, pushing a little, the very tip of him finding its niche
with perfect ease.  He rocked his hips and a little more of him slid
inside her.  As he held himself above her, his face was like a pale,

beautiful mask in the darkness: his eyes unblinking, his lips parted,
his expression half fierce, half loving.  He looked like a god;

a demon lover; transcendental.

Frozen in the act of being possessed, Claudia felt a dizzying unreality
overtake her.

What if her adorable stranger were even more of a happening than she
realised?  An angel, an alien, a supernatural being sent to pleasure
and enchant her?  He had the looks for the part, and the mystique.

Even his weird clothes were romantic and otherworldly.

"Oh, please," she murmured half to herself, thrusting upward, grabbing
at him, wanting him even more for his strangeness.  He slipped in a
little further, his presence commanding and his girth a challenge to
the moist tightness of her channel.  His eyes were still wide open,
observing her face and reading the lineaments of her soul as he took
her.

"For God's sake, fuck me, whoever you are!"  she cried out, dying for
him to invade her.

"Gladly," he growled, as he completed his incursion.

There was no unreality about the stranger's penis inside her.  He was
all too real.  Claudia felt a sudden urge to cry again, as she had by
the river.  At last!  She had a man inside her.  Living, breathing, hot
and hard.  She didn't know his name, but her body seemed to have known
his for ever.  He fit into her so accurately he might have been made
for her; he felt more right for her than Gerald had ever done, although
her husband had never disappointed.

Deliciously impaled, she tried to move beneath her nameless lover, but
he held her still and tamed.  She scrabbled at him, wanting to hug him
tighter and explore him, but by some sleight of hand and body, some
physical trick she could not unravel, he quelled her struggles.

He pinned both her hands above her head, with only one of his, and used
his other hand, at the small of her back, to clasp her close to him.

"Hush," he murmured again, kissing her throat and then her shoulder.

"Be still.  Let our bodies get to know each other."

"But mine does know you!"  she wanted to shout, but somehow all she
could do was pant and gasp.  He was subduing her by just holding her
and being inside her.  His inaction was somehow vigorous and
all-enveloping.  He just had to be there; he didn't seem to need to
move.

"You're wonderful.  You're wonderful," he chanted softly, his voice
catching as if he too was feeling the happy urge to weep.  Claudia felt
his long eyelashes brush her cheek as he kissed her jawline, then her
ear.

And then he did begin to move, so slowly, so very slowly, allowing her
to feel the whole length of him sliding smoothly in and out of her. She
savoured the strange blend of friction and slickness that was his very
essence in motion against hers.

How could a young man exert such control over his own so obvious
desire?  She had expected haste, clumsiness, frantic thrusts and
fumbling; yet he was so deliberate, so in charge of both himself and of
her.  She realised she was starting to come again, her loins melting in
the age-old, unmistakable implosion.  Losing mastery of herself, she
thrashed in his hold, her body filled with a gorgeous, blinding
violence; yet he gentled her, stopping her shouts with his mouth and
bottling the fire inside her to increase it and enrich it.

But when she had reached a plateau, relaxing into a long, dreamy orgasm
that seemed warped and extended into a condition rather than an event,
the stranger seemed to step up another gear.  Flexing his supple body,
he began to thrust more authoritatively, pounding her with a delicious
force and fury.  His kisses became powerful and devouring.

"Oh God!"  he shouted, releasing her hands so he could slide both of
his beneath her to grab her buttocks and plunging into her as if he
were trying to become her.

Engulfed in passion, Claudia felt consciousness slide sideways and
fragment.  She was a swirling feather being carried on a torrent, a
dancer spinning down into infinity.  But just as velvet darkness
claimed her she felt the sensation of moisture on her face.  Tears. Not
hers, but the stranger's, warm and salty; the happy weeping of a sweet
soul in release.

"Oh Claudia!"  he cried, and came inside her.

The stranger woke in the darkness, and for the first time in hours or
days, or weeks?  - his predominant emotions weren't terror and a blank
sense of dislocation.  His first question wasn't an agonised "Who am

I?"

The question now, he realised, was "Who is she?"

He was lying in a wide, comfortable bed, swathed in fresh, clean sheets
that smelt of some flower-scented fabric softener, and wearing a pair
of equally clean but somewhat tangled cotton pyjamas.  Beside him lay a
woman, soundly sleeping.

And he had memories!  Recent ones, albeit, but recollections which
filled him with the much-needed emotion of contentment.

"Claudia," he said, under his breath, not wanting to wake her.

Yes, her name is Claudia.

He turned to his sleeping companion, and discovered she was
beautiful.

Dawn's light was filtering through the curtains and falling on a face
that was fine-featured and serene and hair that was short and streaked
several shades of blonde, its texture thick and shaggy and the cut
flatteringly feathered.

Sitting up very carefully, he looked down on her.  She had tiny lines
at the corners of her eyes, the imprint of laughter, and though she
wasn't a girl, she seemed exquisite and ageless.  The drawn down-sheet
revealed her lovely, rounded breasts.

We made love, he thought, wonderingly.  Then he smiled, feeling knowing
with satisfaction that the smile that played around the corners of her
lips was attributable to him.  He wanted to kiss her but it seemed a
crime to disturb her rest.  He wanted to make love to her, but he
wanted her to be awake and actively wanting him as he took her.  He
didn't want to steal pleasure like a child filching sweets.

The cosy room around him looked familiar only in the fact that it was
the one he had fallen asleep in.  This was Claudia's home, he knew
that.  He remembered arriving here last night; he remembered a storm,
and a horrific, half-blind panic that seemed more like an animal's
response to the elements than that of a reasoning human being.  He
remembered Claudia's warmth and kindness;

he remembered his instant and quite alarming desire for her.

But when he tried to picture what lay beyond the room and the house,
the fear and the sense of blankness closed back in around his mind.

There were only confused fragments available to him, and most of them
brought pain in their wake.

Only one recollection was pleasant.  He remembered being beside a river
and seeing sunlight on the flashing water.  With the picture of dancing
light came a curious sense of eroticism.  He felt a wild urge to laugh,
but clapped his hand to his mouth to contain it, not wanting to wake
his pretty Claudia from her slumber.  He smiled, though, remembering
what he had done and what he had felt beside that river.

It was strange how sex seemed so definite, so constant, so reassuring,
when everything else in his present, and in his past, was insubstantial
at best and effectively nonexistent at its worst.  When experiencing
pleasure and when giving it too, he acknowledged with a smile he had
substance, he was himself.  A man.  A person.  Even if he had no
inkling of who that person was.

He covered his face with his hands.  One thing he had learnt over the
last mangled and tangled expanse of hours was that when he pushed, when
he tried hard to remember, he always felt worse and excruciatingly
tired.  Weariness suddenly bore down on him again, and in this soft,
inviting bed, there seemed no reason left on earth to fight its grip.

He felt far less fearful of unconsciousness now, he realised, as he lay
down again and turned his head on the pillow to face the lover who was
also his literal saviour.

He might have no name, but at least he wasn't alone any more.

"Claudia," he whispered, then rejoined her in the consoling vale of
sleep.

Chapter Four.  House Guest.

It had taken Claudia all her time not to wake him as soon as she
woke.

When a shaft of morning sun falling across her face had roused her, she
had lain still for a few seconds, wondering if her senses were playing
tricks with her.  Then she pinched her own thigh, instead of that of
the angel who lay in bed beside her.

Her handsome young stranger her lover, she thought, rolling the
innocuous little word across her tongue had been sprawled across his
side of the bed, his hair all tousled and his smooth, pale face gently
smiling.  He had been fast asleep as he still was now, a little while
later but a perfect icon of innocent temptation.

Claudia had pinched herself again, to make sure that he was real, and
she still bore the dark bruise upon her thigh.

You were inside me last night, she said to him silently.  You touched
me.  You made love to me.  I adore you.

Oh dear, this is far too drastic and far too soon, she thought, as she
placed some clean clothing over the end of the bed for him.

Luckily, the newcomer was of a very similar build to her Gerald, and
though her late husband had been well into his fifties, he had
possessed the taste in casual clothes of a much younger man; not to
mention the good looks to carry them off.  As Claudia had not yet had
the heart to send anything of his to a charity shop, there was plenty
to choose from for the stranger.  She had picked out denims and a soft
white shirt for him, along with boxer shorts, clean socks and a pair of
deck shoes.

Steepling her fingers to stop herself reaching out and caressing him,
Claudia took another yearning, lingering look at her sleeping beauty.

His long, rather elegant face;

his soft, crazy hair; his sculpted lips.  Those lips had kissed her
with complete assurance last night, despite the fact that only a short
while earlier, those same lips had framed a cry of fear.

And she could still hear his heartfelt groan as he had climaxed.

Come away, you old lech, she told herself, gathering up the clothes the
stranger had arrived in, for laundering, then turning her back on the
very image of temptation.

She almost ran down the stairs, her tread light.  She didn't know how
much good a hectic session of lovemaking had done her amnesiac house
guest, but its benefits to herself were outstanding.

Her energy levels were even higher than they had been yesterday, and
when she had stood naked before her mirror, after her shower, she had
been convinced she could see a glow upon her skin.  There was a naughty
light in her brown eyes and a recurring smile upon her lips, and she
had the aura of a woman who had been well and very beautifully
fucked.

She was a walking cliche, but she certainly wasn't complaining.

You're mad, Claudia, she thought, stuffing the stranger's shirt, socks
and underwear into the washer and imagining them swirling around
intimately with her smalls while she raced back upstairs and swirled
intimately around their owner.

Yes, it was a kind of blissful madness, but given the chance to go back
to yesterday and change her choices, she wouldn't alter a thing.

Not one second of it.  Even if the stranger did turn out to be an actor
and a con-man which was still a possibility, her ever-cautious side
counselled, despite his air of total plausibility.  She was a rich
widow living alone, when all was said and done.  Perfect pickings for
someone young, clever and as gorgeous as he was.

Ignoring her qualms, and still reliving the marvels of last night,
Claudia made coffee then sat down at the kitchen table to enjoy it.

In a little while, she decided, she would take him some of the tea he
seemed to like so much and serve herself to accompany it, hopefully!

but for now she would allow the man his sleep.

Her coffee finished, she examined the velvet frock coat he had arrived
in, The coat was beautifully made, and bore the hand- stitched label
"Hawkes of Savile Row', which suggested it could be a genuinely
well-kept antique garment rather than an item of fancy dress.  It was
rather dusty, and looked at the moment as if it had been slept in for
several nights which it probably had been but with expert cleaning it
could be made as good as new.

As she smoothed her fingers over the lush nap of the velvet, she felt
something hard beneath the surface, near the hem.  Turning the coat
over, she discovered a small tear in the lining of its inner pocket,
and when she managed to work the hard object out through the hole, it
proved to be a watch.  A period fob watch to be precise;

a very choice one that appeared to be made of gold.  There was nothing
to identify the stranger in any of the other pockets, either of the
coat, the trousers or the waistcoat, which suggested he might well have
been robbed or mugged or something, but the hypothetical thieves had
clearly missed this hidden treasure.  It had become caught somehow, and
thus detached from its fob and chain.

Curiosity made Claudia flick it open, and she smiled when it proceeded
to play a tinkly but melodious "Blue Danube'.  Twisting it around, she
suddenly discovered that it was also engraved:

To my dear son Paul, on the occasion of his tiventy-first birthday.

Love, Dad.

Paul!  Her lover's name was Paul.

"Paul.  Oh, Paul" she whispered, wishing the timepiece was magic and
could whisk her back the requisite number of hours so she could sigh
"Paul..."  as her mysterious lover entered her.  So she could groan
"Paul' as he fondled her so beautifully that she climaxed repeatedly.

So she could cry "Paul!"  in exultation, when they came together.

A sudden "Cooee!"  and a rapping sound, made her almost drop the
watch.

She stuffed it swiftly into her jeans pocket as a familiar figure came
in through the opened kitchen door.

Melody Truebridge was the friend who, with loving kindness, had pulled
Claudia through the first lows of her early widowhood and was now
attempting to coax her back into revelling in life's joys.  It seemed
ironic that all Melody's attempts, no matter how well meaning, had
failed, and that last night Claudia had achieved that very goal by
other almost divinely granted means.

"Hey, what's this?"  demanded Melody, tripping towards Claudia and
plucking accusingly at the snug, cream T-shirt she was wearing with her
jeans.

"I thought we were going to get all dolled up and have a posh day out
shopping?"  As conspicuously well groomed as she always was.  Melody's
smooth, young face was fully made up, and her platinum-blonde hair was
carefully styled into a sleek, almost helmet-like, bob.  Her suit was
smart and tailored, and her heels high but chic.

Almost in uniform, thought Claudia sourly for a moment, wishing that
Richard, Melody's husband, would stop seeing his wife as a business
accessory for once.  He was highly critical if Melody wasn't always
turned out to within an inch of her life.

"Well?"  prompted Melody.

"I'm sorry.  I forgot," said Claudia, smiling sheepishly.  With her
ongoing disapproval of Melody's marriage, and her recent and far more
pleasurable preoccupations, it was obvious that she appeared
inattentive.

"Are you all right, Claudia?"  enquired Melody, her carefully made-up
eyes wide as she sat down at the kitchen table.

"Yes, I'm fine.  I've just had something on my mind," said Claudia
quickly, then looked down to see that she was still clutching the
velvet frock coat.

"Something sort of cropped up."

"What sort of something?"  enquired Melody, her expression
sharpening.

For all her gentleness and amiability, the younger woman was keen
witted and could see effortlessly through fibs.

"And what's this?"

she added, reaching out to stroke the fabric of the coat.

"It doesn't look at all like Gerry's kind of thing.  It looks more like
fancy dress."

Claudia was immediately in a quandary.  What could she say to Melody?

Could she tell her?  They had shared so much; she knew all the younger
woman's joys and troubles as intimately as she understood her own.

But Paul was such a drastic innovation in her life, and he suddenly
made her feel guilty, as if she had sidelined her trusted confidante in
favour of intimacy with a stranger she couldn't rely on.

"It belongs to to a friend."

"A man friend?"  Melody's pretty grey eyes were even wider now.

Claudia hesitated still.  She wanted so much to share this, but "It
is!

It is a man!"  said Melody triumphantly, grabbing Claudia's hand.

"You're blushing!  Come on!  Spill the beans!  You old dark horse!"

"Less of the "old", if you please," Claudia protested, realising she
was already bright pink in the face, blushing as furiously as if her
friend had come in and found her being made love to, by Paul, on the
kitchen table.

"You know what I mean ... Now, come on.  Give!"  insisted Melody,
forcing Claudia to look at her.

"When did you meet him?  I only saw you two days ago and you never said
anything then."

Again Claudia wondered what she could tell her friend.  Had she even
the right to tell her anything?  There were two in this midnight tango,
after all.

And yet she felt compelled to speak.  Melody wasn't just a casual
acquaintance, she was a trusted companion.  Her quiet, pacifying
presence had kept Claudia together when her whole world had been on the
point of crumbling.

"Well, this is going to sound a bit wild ... A lot wild, actually.

But believe me, it's all true."  She went on to describe, in
judiciously edited terms, me advent of the mysterious, outlandishly
clothed Paul into her life.  She did not detail his activities by the
riverside, trying to suggest he had merely been paddling in the
water;

and neither did she mention the fact that she had gone to his room last
night.  Melody's pencilled eyebrows went up, however, and her sceptical
expression revealed the fact that she didn't believe Claudia was
telling her everything.

"Well, I'd say you were completely mad," she told Claudia at last,
grinning and shaking her head, 'on several counts.  One being she
suddenly looked more serious what you've done is very, very
dangerous.

Inviting a potential mugger or rapist into your house, late at night.

And two she lightened up, her eyes twinkling if this Paul is bona fide,
and as scrumptious as you say he is, I can't understand why you haven't
laid a finger on him!  He sounds just what I had in mind for you when I
suggested you go out with Tristan."

"Don't be ridiculous.  I just put Paul up for the night!"  said Claudia
quickly.

"And you know I've got my doubts about Tristan."  Tristan Van Dissell
was or had been a business associate of Gerald's, and a handsome man a
good deal younger than Claudia.  Despite that.  Melody had proposed him
as a possible 'first date'; an entree back into the world of romance
and relationships.

"Minor quibbles, and never mind him for now," dismissed Melody, like an
advocate rejecting flimsy, circumstantial evidence.  She grabbed
Claudia's hand.

"Just look at you!  You're positively gleaming!  Nobody looks as smug
as you do just from playing the Good Samari- tan!"  She pulled Claudia
closer, studying her.

"You've had him, you sly old thing, haven't you?  Admit it!"

Still pink in the face, Claudia looked away.  She was just about to
frame some kind of answer when there was a flash of movement at the
periphery of her vision.  And as that flash gained a voice she spun
around on her chair to face him.

"Good morning," said Paul shyly from the kitchen doorway.  He was
immediately the focus of Melody's attention.

Seeing him again, her exquisite stranger-lover, Claudia felt
lightheaded.  Even in a pair of perfectly ordinary jeans and a plain
white shirt, he looked as exotic and as 'different' as he had in his
Edwardian finery.  And the fact that his curly, tousled hair was still
damp and roughed up from a recent to welling and that the borrowed
shirt was unfastened and hanging loose outside his jeans' waistband,
implied exactly the degree of familiarity with his hostess that Melody
had been trying to get Claudia to admit to.  He looked every inch a
kept man; there was no denying it.

Not that she wanted to deny it especially when he gave her a warm, comp
licit and strangely intricate smile which expressed both nervousness
and a quintessentially masculine bravado.  Pride made Claudia want to
sing, grab him and make love to him even if he was only after her for
her money!

She glanced from her lover to her friend.  Melody was staring at Paul
with undisguised sexual interest, and her pink-painted mouth had fallen
open.  Claudia was about to introduce them when the other woman took
the initiative.

"And good morning to you too," she replied, grinning.

"I'm Claudia's friend.  Melody, and she's been telling me all about
you."

Paul stepped forward into the room and shook the hand that Melody held
out.  All the while he smiled that shy but glorious smile that was
already becoming intoxicatingly familiar to Claudia and which now
seemed to have a sudden and quite stupefying effect on Melody too.

"I'm - he frowned for a second, clearly fighting to drag up at least
his name from his memory.

"Paul," supplied Claudia softly, rising from her seat and moving
towards him, fishing the watch from her pocket as she did so.  /!

think your name is Paul.  I found this caught inside the lining of your
coat."  When she reached him, she flipped open the case and put the
timepiece into his hand.  He smiled at the pretty little waltz it
played, then looked closer to read the inscription.

"Does it ring any bells?"  she asked, when he said nothing but just
stared at the words etched into the gold.

"I'm not sure," he said eventually, flicking the watch shut, then open
again, then shut, as if the action itself might trigger a memory.

"Paul ... Paul..."  he intoned slowly and thoughtfully.

"It doesn't feel wrong," he continued after a moment, 'but I couldn't
honestly say for certain that it's my name."

"I like it," said Claudia, realising she did, very much.

"It suits you."

"Yes, it's a nice name," agreed Melody, apparently shaking off her
fugue and finding her voice again.

"You look exactly how a Paul should look."

There was a brief but intense silence, and in it Claudia sensed Paul's
fragile confidence teetering.  He was still less than a day away from
his arrival in terror and confusion.

"How about a cup of tea, Paul?"  she said, pulling out a chair for
him.

As he sat down, she gave Melody a significant look.

"Well, is there anything you want from the shops, Claud?"  Melody
enquired, smoothly fielding the message.

"Perhaps I can drop those at the cleaners for you?"  She nodded towards
the frock coat, waistcoat and trousers, which were now draped across
another of the kitchen chairs.

"Taylor's are very good with special fabrics.  I could ask them to
deliver them when they're ready, if you like?"

A minute or two later, after some slight, inconsequential chat and a
drama-school array of looks laden heavily with meaning.  Melody was
gone, taking Paul's clothing with her to be cleaned.  In the hall, she
had restated her warnings.

"Be very, very careful!"  she had said, squeezing Claudia's hand.

"He looks heavenly but he might still be a dangerous lunatic."

"I'm sorry, was that difficult for you?"  Claudia asked when she
returned to the kitchen after showing Melody out.  Paul was still
sitting where she had left him, staring intently at the watch as "The
Blue Danube' played.

He looked up at her, and her heart seemed to turn over inside her.  He
was smiling, that special between- the-two-of-them smile that seemed
both knowing and blamelessly pure at the same time.  Claudia was bound
by it, completely captured.  She felt possessed by a great and
irresistible longing to reveal everything about herself to him, body
and soul, in one blinding cathartic instant.  She just couldn't believe
that he was anything but honest.

Blushing again, her eyes flicked to his still-naked chest, and she
found herself remembering the feel of it pressed against her breasts as
he bore down on her and his penis forged its way inside her.

"A little, but not as bad it would have been yesterday," he answered,
flipping the watch shut and placing it on the table.  Claudia blinked,
trying to remember what the question was she had asked.

"Your friend's nice.  She seems very concerned for you."

"She is," said Claudia shakily, turning away before she did something
rash, like begging him to make love to her again.

"I sometimes wonder how I would have coped without Mel when my husband
died.  She kept me going.  Kept me sane.  Took care of me."

"She's obviously got a kind heart," observed Paul, his voice pensive.

"Even though she is unhappy about something..."

"What makes you say that?"  Claudia turned to face him again, and saw
him rubbing his forefinger thoughtfully along his moulded lower lip.

It was a contemplative mannerism, but somehow profoundly erotic too.

"I don't know ... Maybe it's a "lost soul" thing?  Perhaps it takes one
to know one?"

Possibly, thought Claudia, wondering at his powers of perception.

"She's not exactly happy all the time," she told him, not wanting to
detail her dearest friend's marital difficulties to someone neither of
them really knew.

"I suppose you could say I take care of her a bit too..."

"I can't imagine anyone not wanting to take care of either of you,"
said Paul softly, rising from his seat and moving across to where she
was trying to fill the kettle for his tea, and not doing very well.

As it clattered against the tap, he took it from her, placed it on the
draining board, then slid his hands around her waist and hugged her to
him.

"And I thank you for doing the same for me," he whispered, kissing the
side of her neck, his lips gentle but potent with meaning.

Claudia felt as if her knees had turned to jelly.  She drooped back
into his hold, her breath suddenly coming in harsh, deep gasps.  All he
had to do was be close and touch her in the most innocent way and she
was as mad for him as a panting bitch on heat.

Not that his touch was entirely innocent.  Between her buttocks, she
could feel the knot of his genitals pressing against her through
several layers of fabric.  He was erect again, as hard and as fabulous
as he had been last night.  Unable to help herself, she pushed
backwards against him.

Feeling a little dazed, she looked up and saw their ghostly reflections
in the window over the sink.  Her own image was glassy eyed and
sluttish; her lips were parted and her nipples were two clear, telling
smudges beneath her light T-shirt and her thin cotton bra.  She
couldn't see Paul quite as distinctly.  His face was just a pale
impression, where it was inclined over her shoulder as he pressed his
lips to her throat, and his hair appeared as a wild, darker mass, a
tangle of serpents against the sleek blondness of her crop.  His long
eyelashes were two crescents, a pair of silky, black fans; his mouth a
flexing line as he kissed her.

"You give me this!"  he said, his teeth grazing her skin as he rubbed
his hard body against the cleft of her bottom.

"And I feel whole again.  I don't need to know my name when I'm with
you."

Claudia leapt in his arms when he slid his hand down and cupped her
crotch through her jeans.  It was like being wrapped around by an
electric fence; wherever he touched her, her body sizzled with
energy.

He laughed aloud as she shimmied against him, his chuckle intense and
wicked as he kneaded her mercilessly between her legs.

"You make everything so simple for me," he murmured, almost devouring
her neck as he rubbed and rubbed her.  The seam of her jeans was
pressed tight against her clitoris, and she knew that her demon lover
was aware of it.

"Oh Paul.  Oh Paul," she gasped, savouring his name as the lovely
tension grew between her legs.  He was stimulating her with his fingers
and massaging her bottom with his cock.  How close are you to orgasm?

she wondered dreamily, as her climactic spasms began to ripple, then
she cried out as their full force took her over.  Her vulva was jumping
and pulsing in his grip, and she knew he must be able to feel her
reaction through the denim.  He laughed again, as if confirming her
supposition.

"Paul!  Oh God, Paul, you bastard, you're adorable!"  she yelled.  She
seemed to come and come and come for several minutes.

As her eyes fluttered open and she regained the ability to support
herself, the first thing she saw was the kettle.

"What about your tea?"  she said faintly, trying to straighten up.

"In a little while," he said huskily, his voice sounding more
domineering and older than it had done at any time so far.  With a
little bump of his pelvis, he reminded Claudia of his erection, then
sliding his hands down to her hip bones, he held her still while he
ground his cock against her bottom.

"There's something I need right now far more than tea," he said, then
had the grace to laugh at his own statement of the extremely obvious.

Releasing her, his hands went to the button and the zip of Claudia's
jeans.

A whole slew of inconsequential thoughts whizzed through her mind as
Paul went to work on her denims.

He was going to have her jammed up against the sink.  What a cliche but
how exciting!

And what time was it?  Eight?  Nine?  Ten?  If it was the latter, she
should have had her breakfast by now and be doing the dishes before her
cleaning lady arrived.  Oh God, what if Mrs.  Tisdale walked straight
in, as she always did, and found her employer being shafted against the
sink by a total stranger?  Mrs.  Tisdale was a dear old soul, and like
Melody, she was always saying how worried she was for Claudia, being on
her own.  She would probably have rung the local police by the time
Paul was finished!

And neither one of them had had any breakfast!

Such mundane considerations were blown away by the impact of Paul's
fingers on her bare bottom.  Within seconds, he had loosened her jeans,
and now had both of his long, slender hands down inside them, and
inside her knickers too.  For a few moments, he just held her buttocks,
a hand gripping each lobe then he began to knead them and move them
very slowly.

Claudia sighed, gripping the edge of the sink and bracing herself
against it.  She was aroused all over again by Paul's caress.  He had
gripped her bottom last night, while he was making love to her, but
somehow now, in the presence of clothes and sinks and kettles, the
intimate fondling seemed far more lewd and daring.  She felt him
circling the twin mounds of her flesh, stretching the tender groove
between them, his little fingers rudely rubbing against her anus.

"You're so lovely, Claudia," he murmured in her ear, at the same time
gripping harder down below.

Claudia became too excited to keep still.  She twitched her thighs,
churned her hips, pushed against the hands that contained her, hoping
to edge one of them down to stroke her quim.  What would really be the
nicest thing, she thought, would be for him to slide one hand down the
front of her jeans, while still stroking her from the back with the
other.  She wanted to ask him to do that, but their relationship was
too unusual, too tenuous.  If she broke the spell, he might vanish like
a dream.

But a dream with special powers, it seemed.  Perhaps, she thought, as
his right hand deftly relocated to exactly the part of her body she had
wished it towards, the loss of his memory had created mind space for
other abilities?  He was either telepathic or just very, very clever.

She shifted her thighs faster as, within her panties, he touched her
clitoris.

"Again?"  he queried, then without waiting for an answer, he pressed
down gently on the swollen bud of flesh.

Claudia let out a high, yipping cry and climaxed with a force that was
just as piercing.  Throbbing with pleasure" she retained just enough
sensibility to keep her arms braced and prevent herself pitching
forward into the sink with its soapy water.  Otherwise, she was
helpless; her lover's puppet.

While she was still pulsating, still panting, still coming, she felt
him swiftly peel down her pants and jeans as far as her knees, then
with equal dexterity release his penis from his clothing.  She was
still in orgasm as he neatly slid inside her.

He wasn't gentle this time, and he wasn't slow.  As if fired by the
novelty and danger of their situation, he fucked her quickly and
powerfully.  You've read my mind again, thought Claudia, her vulva
beating.

Her mad, scary orgasm continued, soared anew, and her arms ached with
the effort of keeping upright.  She was bearing the weight and momentum
of both of them, because Paul was busy with her breasts and her
clitoris.  After a few minutes of commotion, he shouted incoherently,
his hands convulsing on her body while his penis leapt within it.

Claudia bit her lip as her own sensations doubled.

They should have ended up on the floor, but somehow a miracle recovery
prevailed.  They found themselves laughing like teenagers as they
scrabbled to right their clothing.

"I shall never be able to look at washing up in the same light
again!"

said Claudia, eyeing the soapsuds, whose silent deliquescence had
accompanied their congress.  The kettle stood abandoned on the draining
board, but as she reached for it, remembering the tea she had offered
an aeon ago, Paul took her hand and led her back to the kitchen
table.

Pulling out a seat for her, he made her sit down.

"Allow me," he said, returning to the sink and the kettle, and flashing
her his sweet, sunny smile over his shoulder.

"It's the least I can do under the circumstances."

Claudia watched him move around her kitchen as if he owned the place.

Pretty sure of yourself now, aren't you, young man?  she thought,
observing his neat, economical movements as he assembled the crockery
and made the tea with the assurance of one who prepared it every day of
his life.  The correct disposal and timing of leaves and boiling water
seemed to be something that had remained in his memory when both name
and identity had apparently gone A.W.O.L..  Melody's whispered warnings
returned to her.  Could his little-boy-lost act be just that?

A clever, almost award-winning performance?

She waited until he had poured them both some tea, and she had tasted
hers which was even better than the tea she made herself!  - before she
tackled him.

"So, Paul, what are we going to do with you?"

He gave her a very straight look, completely without guile.  It made
her blush as if she were the one under the spotlight of suspicion.

"I don't know," he said slowly, then unexpectedly he began fiddling
with his cup and his teaspoon.  The sudden return of his confusion put
Claudia off balance too.  He was so changeable; she didn't know where
she stood.

"I don't know where to start," he went on, 'or where to go.  I don't
even know where I am, really..."  He laid down the spoon, raised his
cup to his lips and took a sip.  A fleeting look of pleasure crossed
his face.

"Well, what do we know about you so far?"  said Claudia, setting down
her own cup and placing her hands palms down on the table.  She would
be firm, take a hold of this conversation.

"Your name is Paul, you're over twenty-one, and you like tea.  Madams
Butterfly and sex."

"Oh, it's a bit more than that," he returned, his pale eyes glinting.

"I enjoy most classical music, I think ... I adore tea, and I love to
make love.  It seems to be the only thing I can do, and that I know I'm
good at!"  The pendulum of his confidence had swung again.

Claudia tried to hold fast, to be objective, although her body's
instant response made that difficult.  Even so recently sated, it was
beginning to react again.

"As for where you are..."  She looked around her, which was easier than
looking at him, and made a vague gesture to encompass their
surroundings.

"This is my home.  Perry House, and it's situated at 162 Green Giles
Lane, Rosewell under Berfield, in Oxfordshire.  We're about sixty miles
from London, ten from Oxford, and the river you were paddling in
yesterday is the Little Her, which eventually flows down into the
Thames."

"And from whose bank you watched me," he reminded her, looking a little
arch.

"You were on my land, I'll have you know!"  she cut back at him.

"Trespassing.  I'd say I had every right to watch you."  She could feel
herself succumbing more and more to his presence with every second that
passed.  It was frightening, and she continued to struggle.

"Stop trying to distract me," she said evenly.

"Now ... Do you know when this is?  What the date is?"

He frowned, although he still seemed unchastened.

"I have no idea ... The middle of summer?"  he suggested.

She told him the date, and he shrugged.

"That seems to feel right."

"Is there anything else you do remember?  Anything specific?  An
event.

A name.  Anything."

Paul put down his cup, took a deep breath, and appeared to screw up
every mental faculty available to him.  Claudia felt a pang of remorse
for pushing him, and for her doubts.  The look of stress on his face
made her heart twist.

"I can only remember bits of things," he said at last, his voice rough
as if he were close to tears of frustration.  He began playing with the
corner of his shirt tail; first smoothing out the material, then
pleating it between his long and elegant fingers.

"Impressions.

Fragments ... I remember someone hitting me.  And kicking me."  He
dropped his shirt, and pressed his hand briefly to his side, where
Claudia knew there was an extensive and many-coloured bruise.

"I

remember a place with lots of people ... Cars in a car park.  Everyone
was staring at me.  Their eyes seemed huge ... Weird.  As if they were
out of focus."

"Was this recent?  Or do you think it's something from before whatever
happened to you happened?"  Claudia's concern deepened.  Paul was
visibly shaking now, and as she watched, he covered his face with his
hands.

"Recent.  I think."  The words were a little muffled.

"And I remember being in-in some kind of cafeteria.  I must have had
some change in my pocket.  I think I ate something ... Had some tea" He
dropped his hands and gave her a lopsided smile.

"Yes, I remember that clearly It was disgusting.  Then after that I
washed my face ... I was in a cloakroom.  I frightened myself to death,
looking in a mirror.  My face ... It didn't mean anything to me."

That meaningless face was anguished now, and feeling so sorry for him,
Claudia reached out and took his hand.  It felt rather cool.  The
jumbled and fragmentary tale went on:

"After that, I remember walking and walking.  Perhaps I stopped and
slept somewhere, I don't know ... The next thing I really remember is
being on the riverside, and from there on everything seems clearer.  I
bathed, and ..."  He looked straight at her, and managed a smile.

"When my things were dry, I put them on, curled up and went to sleep
again.  The next time I woke, it was getting dark, and I seemed to be
at the epic entre of a thunderstorm.  When I saw the lights of your
house, I just ran for them."

So it could have been anyone, thought Claudia, looking at the handsome
face and the beautiful body of the man who had literally fallen at her
feet, then risen and revitalised her.

By pure chance ... And yet she didn't believe that.  Fate, karma, luck,
whatever it was, had brought him to her at precisely the moment when
she needed him.

He was her catalyst; he had been meant to regenerate her sexuality.

"And the rest you know," he said simply, his hand stirring in hers.

Claudia felt her soul stirring too, as his long fingers curved around
hers, evoking other curvings and other enfoldings.  For two pins, she
would have drawn him to her again and encouraged him to do that thing
he did with such confidence.  But there were practical matters to
consider.

"Well, it occurs to me that there are two things we should do with you
now," she said, trying to sound at least focused, if not strictly
business-like.

"You obviously haven't eaten properly in some time, so first, I should
cook you a hearty but healthy breakfast.  The second is that I think
you should see a doctor.  And quickly.  You've obviously sustained a
head injury of some kind."  She glanced quickly at the abrasion on his
forehead, which still looked quite fearsome.  It was partially hidden
by his curly hair, but its potential danger could not be ignored.

"It might be serious."

Paul surveyed their linked hands.

"A doctor?"  He frowned, his brow rumpling as if the word was either
completely foreign to him, or had some special, perhaps ominous,
significance.

"I don't think I want to see a doctor.  At least not yet.  My head
doesn't hurt at all," he went on, reminding her of a stubborn child who
wouldn't let his skinned knee be cleaned up.

"Didn't you say that your memory came back of its own accord in a
fortnight?  Mine might do the same."

"And it might not," contradicted Claudia, faint suspicion uncoiling
once again.

"I don't want to be poked and prodded and questioned.  Treated like a
freak!"  he said with sudden vehemence, snatching away his hand.

Tt wouldn't be like that," said Claudia, thinking of her own GP, who
was an excellent clinician but a brisk, no- nonsense old fellow who got
straight to the point and asked many, many questions in a direct and
sometimes caustic manner.

Then, just as she began to consider the possibility of going to a
hospital Out-Patients Department, where treatment would be equally
brisk but far more impersonal, another option suddenly presented
itself.

She remembered a brief conversation at Gerald's funeral, and a pleasant
but rather odd phone call not long afterwards.

"I know I'm not your GP, but if you ever need someone to talk to,
please don't hesitate to call me.  Either at the cottage, or at my
London surgery.  Even if it's just for a chat... I might be able to
help."

And she might at that, thought Claudia, grabbing Paul's hand again and
making him look at her.

"Look.  There might be another way," she said earnestly, thinking
quickly as she spoke.

"I know someone ... She's a doctor, but she's a sort of friend too.  If
I give her a call, will you at least agree to meet her?  I can promise
you she won't treat you like a freak."

Chapter Five.  Doctor's Orders.

The trouble was, the physician could well turn out to be more of a
freak than her prospective patient, thought Claudia, smoothing down the
front of her soft, ochre-coloured cotton skirt as she hurried through
the hall after lunch.

There had always been a lot of loose talk about Beatrice Quine MD in
the village of Rosewell, and as she opened the front door, Claudia
found it easy to understand why people were so fond of speculating and
telling tall stories.

"Well, hello!  I always knew that you'd call on me one day but I never
expected you to look quite so well when you did," said the doctor,
giving Claudia a long, warm look, then sweeping confidently past her
into the hall.

"What can I do for you?  Tell me all about this handsome stranger of
yours."

Closing the door, Claudia suddenly found herself a good deal closer to
Doctor Quine than she had expected to be.  The other woman had stopped
short, turned around, and was now standing barely a couple of feet
away, smiling.  Before Claudia could catch her breath, she was being
kissed soundly on both cheeks, continental-style, and her nostrils were
awash with a dizzyingly exotic perfume.  After a second, and having
thoroughly greeted and disorientated!  - her hostess, the doctor stood
back, rocking on her heels, with a mischievous look of enquiry upon her
face.

The only conventional thing about Doctor Beatrice Quine's appearance
this fine afternoon was her old- fashioned and rather battered-looking
medical bag.  It was an ordinary item, very normal and quite
reassuring, while its owner was far from it.  The doctor was
extraordinary, and Claudia felt suddenly intimidated, but in a
strangely pleasant way.

Beatrice Quine was a woman of unusual beauty.  Probably about Claudia's
own age, or possibly a little older, the physician had chosen to eschew
the usual sober, suited style of a serious professional woman, and was
instead wearing a thin white vest and an eye- stopping pair of lilac
chamois-leather trousers.  Her narrow feet were exotically sandal led a
heavy, beaten silver slave bangle embraced her upper arm, and she wore
a massive and complex-looking watch- obviously a man's - around her
other wrist.  Her long, luxuriant, almost violently red hair was drawn
back in a single waist-skimming plait, and to say she made an impact
was to understate by light years.

"Please ... please come this way.  Doctor Quine," stammered Claudia,
feeling ridiculous for being so obviously and embarrassingly
awestruck.

After all, Bea- trice Quine was only another 'woman of a certain age',
like herself; just another female with all the same accoutrements and
hang ups.  Why then, did the handsome doctor make her tingle so?

"Oh please, it's Beatrice!"  said the doctor gaily, as Claudia escorted
her to the sitting room, still feeling completely thrown by her own,
involuntary responses.

This is so weird!  she thought.  Unbelievable.  The way I'm reacting is
the same way I did when I first set eyes on Paul.  What's happening to
me?  This is all completely crazy!

"What a divine room!"  exclaimed Beatrice, walking into the centre of
the sitting room, giving a little twirl and making her long plait swing
out in an arc behind her.

"You have so many lovely things," she went on, taking a seat on the
sofa without being asked.  It was clear the good doctor was used to
being accepted with open arms and intimate familiarity wherever she
went.

"I like them," said Claudia uncertainly, wondering whether to sit down
beside her self-possessed guest.  Beatrice appeared totally relaxed;

she had already put aside her bag and settled deep into the cushions,
crossing one chamois-clad leg over the other and draping her arms along
the back of the couch's upholstered back and Claudia was presumably
expected to sit next o her.

"So, this "patient" of ours.."  encouraged Beatrice Quine as Claudia
sat down gingerly.

"Where is he, by the way?  In bed?"

"Er, no," murmured Claudia, more thrown than ever by the doctor's
disturbingly unprofessional emphasis on that last word.  Beatrice's
brilliant eyes were twinkling rather significantly too.  It was as if
she already knew about all the events that had occurred since Paul's
arrival, including the encounters in his bed and in the kitchen.  And
yet Claudia was quite convinced she had revealed no inkling whatsoever
of anything untoward.

"No, he's taking a nap on the couch in the conservatory," she went on,
no longer able to meet her companion's soul-piercing green-eyed gaze.

"He seems to need a lot of rest and sleep..."  Had she blundered
again?

Seemed to imply something?  She sensed a further sharpening of the
doctor's interest.

"He's fine, though, when he's awake.  He doesn't seem at all out of it,
or disorientated ... Well, not now, at least.  He was rather shaken up
when he first arrived."

"Well, that's a good sign," replied Beatrice, her voice suddenly
business-like again.

"The need for sleep could be a result of trauma but then again, if you
say it's possible he's been wandering about the countryside for a few
days, it could just be simple exhaustion."  When Claudia risked a peek
at her, the doctor did indeed look quite serious, her fine brow
furrowed in concentration.

"You say he has a head wound?"

"Yes, a nasty graze, but there's no swelling or obvious bruising."

"Hmmm ... Things don't sound too serious, but you can never be sure.

The brain is a curious organ.  It can sustain what seems like a
horrific injury, and the patient can recover completely ... and yet a
slight knock can have serious repercussions Beatrice paused at
Claudia's look of horror.

"Don't worry!"  she said quickly, reaching out and laying her long,
beautiful, but very plainly manicured fingers on Claudia's bare arm.

"I'm sure that isn't the case here.  If there was a bad problem, it
would almost certainly have shown up by now."

Claudia felt confused and horrified with herself.  Paul could be in the
throes of a terminal brain seizure, right at this moment, and yet all
she could think of was the delicate touch of Beatrice Quine's
fingertips on her forearm.  The contact was like fire; a static
charge.

It was as special, in its own way, as the first time Paul had laid
hands on her the previous night.

"Are you all right?"  enquired Beatrice, cocking her head a little to
one side.

"I didn't mean to frighten you ... I'm sorry."

Claudia was not all right, but she nodded and smiled, very aware that
Beatrice's hand was still resting lightly upon her arm, fingers curved,
skin soft and excitingly warm.  She was also aware of the doctor's
increased closeness, and the proximity of her beautifully shaped
breasts, so perfectly displayed by the white vest and an obvious lack
of brassiere.

What would it be like to caress her, thought Claudia dreamily, as if
she were floating aloft on a cloud of Beatrice's spectacular perfume.

She raised her eyes, almost in slow motion, and found Beatrice
frowning.

"Are you sure you're OK, Claudia?"  the doctor asked.

"Oh, er ... Yes, thanks," stammered Claudia, wishing she could shake
off the mind-fuddling disruption of Beatrice's fingertips.

"I think I'm suffering from a little sleep deprivation myself.  It was
rather late by the time I got Paul settled last night ... and I was
worried about him."

"Of course you were said Beatrice, her tone a little questioning as she
finally withdrew her hand and reached for her black bag.

"But really, though, I think you should consider Paul a very fortunate
young man.  A less hospitable person might have turned him away, set
the dogs on him, called the police."  She rose and made an elegant
sweep around her with her free hand.

"Instead, he found you.  And you took him into your beautiful home and
made him welcome ... If I was lost in a storm, this is exactly the kind
of place I'd want to find shelter in."

A vision of Beatrice wet through, in a thin satin frock, fainting on
the doorstep, confused Claudia even further, and it was only with a
supreme effort of will that she didn't sway as she too stood up.

"You'd be very welcome," she said, without thinking, then blushed pink
when the doctor slyly grinned.

"Thank you.  That's very nice of you," Beatrice said softly.

"Now, may I see my patient?"

"Of course," replied Claudia, very aware that her voice was coming out
rather more huskily than she intended.

"I'll show you where he is."  She made an abrupt gesture, and walked
ahead, becoming angry with herself for her own reactions.  This was all
too stupid.  What on earth had got into her?

A perfect stranger, that's what!  she told herself ruefully as she led
the way to the conservatory.  Paul had not only 'got into' her in the
crudest and most primal sense of the expression, but he had entered her
life on other levels at the same time.  He had reactivated her
somehow;

completed a circuit which had already been close to forming.

He was the jolt that had set her senses back in motion.

And here he was.  With the greatest of care she pushed open the
conservatory door and held her own breath as Beatrice gasped behind
her.

"My God!  What an angel!"  the doctor breathed, resting her hand on
Claudia's shoulder as the two women surveyed the recumbent young man.

Like Claudia, Paul had showered and changed since their wild encounter
against the kitchen sink.  He now wore a pair of Gerald's chinos and a
plain but very full white lawn shirt, which for some reason he had left
open and unbuttoned again.  His long, slender feet were bare, too; his
toes pointing endearingly towards Claudia and Beatrice as he lay full
length, apparently sleeping, on a battered chaise longue placed beside
an opened window.  A more complete picture of enticement, Claudia could
not imagine.  She wanted to stroke his tousled hair, kiss his naked
chest, caress his cock.

"I can quite see why you took this one in, you lucky thing," Beatrice
continued, in a whisper.

"I do wish he'd turned up at my cottage."

There seemed to be no really adequate response to that wish, so walking
as quietly as she could in her soft- soled deck shoes, Claudia escorted
her appreciative companion to the side of the chaise and to the
handsome, almost unearthly young man who lay on it.  It felt like
sacrilege to interrupt his peaceful slumber.

"Paul," she whispered, leaning over him and squeezing his shoulder
cautiously.

"Paul, wake up!"

The blue, blue eyes snapped open, and the whole of his tranquil, almost
graven, face lit up at the sight of her.  He smiled his beautiful
smile, then before she could protest, he had reached up, curved a hand
around the nape of her neck and drawn her down so he could kiss her on
the lips.

For an instant, she stiffened, bunching her muscles ready to struggle
against him, then a heartbeat later, she relaxed and let him master
her, enjoying the whole-body thrill that came just from his kiss.  As
his tongue teased hers, she imagined Beatrice watching them, and felt
her pleasure flare up at the thought of it.  Let the sexy doctor see
that she wasn't the only mature woman in the village who indulged in
excesses of wicked sensuality.  Why should Beatrice Quine corner the
entire market in younger lovers?

When his free arm snaked around her back, and she felt herself almost
falling over on to him, Claudia decided reluctantly to rein in his
enthusiasm.

"Steady on she murmured into his ear, extricating herself.

"There's someone here to see you ... It's my friend, the doctor."

To her credit, Beatrice had not made a sound during Claudia's brief but
incendiary entanglement with Paul, and now her expression remained
quite neutral.  But when she stepped forward, her face became all
smiles.

"Beatrice Quine.  An MD for my sins ... Pleased to meet you," she said,
holding out her hand.

Total confusion passed like an eclipse across Paul's handsome features,
but with a surprising equilibrium, he quickly replaced it with a broad
smile of his own.  Rising lithely to his feet, he took the doctor's
outstretched fingers and squeezed them.

"Paul..."  Releasing Beatrice's hand, he shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, Paul "Something or other".  I can't remember the rest at the
moment."

"Oh, it'll come back soon, don't you worry," Beatrice said, her voice
sounding reassuringly confident and knowledgeable, although Claudia was
at a loss to know how the other woman could be so sure, even if she was
a physician.  Doctors were like that, though, she reflected.

And they got away with it because you wanted to believe them.

"Right then," Beatrice went on briskly, setting down her bag on the
nearby wrought-iron table, then snapping it open.

"Sit down, Paul... I'd like to take a look at you."

I'll bet you would!

The retort came to Claudia spontaneously, though to her relief, she
didn't come out and voice it.  Watching Paul instantly comply with the
doctor's orders, she felt a plume of confused emotion shoot through
her.  She felt dismissed and excluded.  Jealous.  To make things worse,
the sense of envy was unfocused.  She could just as easily be jealous
of Paul, as of Beatrice.

"I'll be in the kitchen, if you need anything," she said, forcing her
voice into a pleasant, amenable shape as she made her way to the
door.

"Thanks.  This shouldn't take too long," said Beatrice with an
acknowledging nod.  She was already seated and reaching into her bag
for her stethoscope.

As Claudia paused at the door, she met Paul's glance and saw a small,
strange smile on his face an expression that reflected her own curious
melange of feelings.  She saw guilt and excitement.  Male power, and
the fear of a lost and scared young man.  And suddenly she didn't feel
quite so jealous any more.  Whatever Beatrice did to him, whatever
liberties the sensuous and cavalier doctor took in the course of her
examination, there was an essence of Paul that would remain exclusively
Claudia's.

On reaching the haven of the kitchen, she had a sudden craving for a
bracing shot of brandy.  Her feelings and her reactions were so
unsettling.  Pouring herself some mineral water instead, and slipping
in ice cubes and lemon, she placed the glass on the kitchen table, then
sat down astride a reversed kitchen chair arms folded across its back,
her chin settled upon them and tried to centre herself by watching the
bubbles rise through the fluid.  It was a strange activity, but
observing the minute spheres of gas defying gravity had often brought
tranquillity in the past.

It didn't work today, however.  Instead, she saw daydreams in her San
Pelegrino.

The first was memory, not a flight of fancy.

Paul had made love to her over there, by the sink that now gleamed and
smelt so wholesomely of pine.  She could still feel a ghost of his
presence inside her, his fierce young penis thrusting and jerking
triumphantly.  In hindsight, she viewed their coupling like a scene
from a soap opera or a television movie.  Handsome youth shafts
prime-time woman among the pots and pans.  It was an old chestnut but
oh, how she had enjoyed it.

And you would do it again, right now, if he was here, wouldn't you?

she accused herself, very aware of the erotic tension in her body.

Leaning back a little, she touched her nipple through the fine cotton
of her camisole, feeling pleasure shoot through her and make her
gasp.

The little crest was as hard as the stone of a rare, exotic fruit.  She
could feel its tight puckered ness through the flimsy tan material.

She was wet too, she realised; nectarous and ready.  Rocking a little,
to and fro, on the hard, wooden seat, she experienced another delicious
spasm, this time in the humid niche between her legs.

"Oh!  Oh my God!"  she hissed, reaching down to slip her hand beneath
herself and press her palm against her crotch.

What was happening to her?  She had never been this fired up with
constant desire, even in her headiest early days with Gerald.  It was
as if Paul's body were calling to her even as she thought about him,
stirring her senses remotely, almost touching her.

And not just Paul's body.  She could see, no, almost feel, Beatrice
too.  Taste the vitality of her.  Feel herself as one with the other
woman's knowing, voluptuous nature.

Just what was the good doctor doing to Paul?  Claudia wondered.

Rationally, she knew that Beatrice would be conducting a perfectly
standard medical examination, but certain facets of her mind were
suggesting far different scenarios procedures more outlandish, and
perhaps forbidden.

She seemed to see Beatrice and Paul, but not in her sun-dappled
conservatory.  With her eyes focused on the rising, rippling bubbles,
she envisioned a stark white consulting room somewhere, its floor and
walls tiled and antiseptic.  Beatrice sat behind a futuristic desk of
glass and metal, and Paul sat before her in a rigidly moulded steel and
plastic chair.  Still clad in his white shirt and chinos he looked
nervous and exquisitely boyish, while the doctor's clothes had changed,
and her when was regal, yet impassive.

Obligingly, as if to improve Claudia's view, she rose from her seat,
then slid out from behind the desk.

Don't be silly, Claudia told herself, blinking at her own
imagination.

She wouldn't wear that for a consultation!

Beatrice the clinician had on a long, white coat, the universal garb of
all doctors, but beneath it, her dress was a form-fitting white silk
cheong-sam.  The soft luminescence of the lightly brocaded Eastern
fabric gave her an aura of both purity and worldliness; and while its
knee-length skirt was modest, the sensuous cling of the whole garment
was arresting and blatantly sexual, especially in combination with
sheer, seamed black stockings and a pair of elegant black calf-skin
high heels.  The effect of such discreet glamour was both undeniable
and electric, and within the dream, Paul's wild blue eyes were filled
with hunger.

Neither of the imaginary protagonists said a word, as was often the
case in such daydreams, but for Claudia's part, actual spoken language
was superfluous.  Standing before Paul, Beatrice leant forward, her
hands on his arms, and appeared to whisper something in his ear.  His
immediate response was to blush vividly and move uneasily in his chair,
and when Beatrice released him and leant back against her desk, he rose
to his feet, the movement cautious and shaky.  After a second's pause,
he began to remove his clothes.

First came the white shirt, which he dropped on the chair behind him,
then he kicked off his shoes and peeled off the socks he had worn
beneath them.  Claudia wondered momentarily where this footwear had
come from he wasn't wearing any now, in the real world then focused
steadfastly on the rest of his disrobing.

His cheeks still pink, Paul hesitated again, his long fingers toying
nervously with the narrow pig-skin belt that held up his chinos, but
with a slow grin, Beatrice nodded that he should proceed.

Paul's throat flushed crimson, but even so he obeyed the physician,
unbuckling his belt with only the slightest rumble, then stepping
gracefully out of his trousers and throwing them over the chair, with
his shirt.  He gave Beatrice one last supplicating look then, but she
nodded again, and hesitantly he slipped down his boxer shorts.

The condition of Paul's penis clearly betrayed his state of mind.  Its
tumescence showed how much the dazzling presence of Beatrice affected
him; but the fact that it was not fully erect yet clearly illustrated
his nerves, too, and his awe of the white-clad physician.

You aren't so shy with me, my lad, thought Claudia, momentarily
distancing herself from her own visual fantasy.  Did this indicate some
secret desire within her?  A need to be dominant with him?

She made a mental note to explore this new avenue later, but for the
moment, she was enjoying her young lover's strange scenario with
Beatrice.

The good doctor began her examination in the most innocuous and
unremarkable of ways by donning her stethoscope and listening intently
to her patient's heart and chest.  It was only Paul's complete
nakedness the set the procedures apart from pure routine.

Or so it seemed at first, because after a moment or two, Claudia
noticed how much Beatrice's fingertips were lingering as they skimmed
the young man's body.  She was testing the smoothness of his skin as
much as the regularity of his heartbeat; the resilience of his
musculature as much as the depth of his respiration.  It was only a
matter of time before his cock came under scrutiny.

And when it did, Paul let out a gasp of shock.  Still no words, just an
excited exhalation as his firm flesh leapt and stiffened.  In Claudia's
glass the tiny bubbles continued to rise.

Ah yes, I know what that feels like, she thought, as the image of

Beatrice, too, made a subtle sound of satis faction It was easy to
remember the sensation of that sprightly young rod throbbing softly in
her fingers; to feel its heat and the velvety texture of the skin that
en robed it.  Moaning soundlessly, Paul threw back his head and bared
his teeth, his fists clenching at his side as the woman clad in white
manipulated his penis.  Beatrice whispered in his ear again, and though
Claudia knew not what it was the doctor had said, she sensed it was
something tantalising and obscene because Paul trembled finely and
shook his tousled mop of curls.

Beatrice murmured again, giving Paul's cock a small, coaxing squeeze as
her lips moved inaudibly against his ear, and a second later his
handsome face twisted in what appeared to be both chagrin and
ecstasy.

"I can't!"  he seemed to say, although in her dream state, Claudia
still heard no structured utterance.

Beatrice appeared to be persistent in her encouragement, and after a
moment, she released her intimate hold, took Paul's right hand in hers,
then folded it securely around his penis.  Paul hesitated, then
reluctantly began to masturbate.

Claudia had seen this, of course, in real life, but even so, Paul's
self-pleasure was enchanting, and even more so for the phantom presence
of beautiful Beatrice.  Licking her raspberry-pink lips as she watched
him, the doctor took up a position behind her by now industrious
'patient' and stared down, over his shoulder, at his endeavours.  As
she was quite tall for a woman, and had her high heels to elevate her
even further, she could observe him easily without having to stretch.

Reaching around, with her slim white hands, she caressed his thighs.

It was like observing some exotic Latin dance, thought Claudia,
wondering where in the world she was getting such ideas from.  What she
had conjured up was the gyration of two bodies in perfect harmony; a
red-hot rumba, or a salsa that rudely mimicked perverted sex.  Paul
jerked his slim hips in time to the movement of his fingers and close
behind him Beatrice's pelvis matched his rhythm.  She was pounding her
silk-covered crotch against his buttocks.

Paul's lips moved soundlessly as he clearly approached his crisis, and
against his pale neck his tormentor still murmured and chivvied at
him.

Beatrice was smiling, her own face as contorted as Paul's was.  Claudia
wondered what pleasures the doctor was experiencing.  Her hard nipples
rubbing against Paul's muscular back?  Her mons pubis bouncing against
his bottom, producing an indirect but insistent stimulation?  Or was it
more a mental thrill than physical?  A rush of raw power induced by her
complete control of Paul a bodily delight that was rooted deep within
her psyche?

This is insane!  thought Claudia, still rocking, and still rubbing at
her own sex.  It's in my psyche, not Beatrice's.  It's me who's getting
off on controlling him and making him do things.

But why did she continue to see the visions?  The sight of Paul's naked
body jerking.  The sheen of sweat on his pale skin as Beatrice's hand
roved over his hips, his belly and his chest.  The agonised judder of
his pelvis as he reached his orgasm.  The deft, near-impossible way
that Beatrice enclosed his glans in her fingers at the very instant his
semen spurted from it.  The way she caught every drop of his essence,
and as his knees began to buckle, conveyed it to his lips and silently
commanded he consume it.

Help!  I'm going mad!  thought Claudia in a sudden panic, snatching her
hand away from between her legs and in her haste knocking over the
glass of water.

What a thing to think... You're perverted, old girl, she told herself
as she mopped up the spill, and placed the miraculously unbroken glass
in the sink.  You must have reached a funny age.

But as she made her way up the stairs to change out of her sodden skirt
and top she grinned to herself.  The idea of compelling Paul to taste
his own semen was unlike any erotic urge she had yet experienced, but
there was no denying the fact that it and similar acts of mild coercion
were a powerful turn-on.  If she hadn't upturned her water glass, she
had no doubt that she would have had an orgasm herself by now.  Either
from friction, or from pure fantasy excitement.

And I'm still excited, she acknowledged, as she stood in the bathroom,
peeling off the dripping skirt and preparing to slip into a fresh
outfit and a clean pair of knickers.  The briefs she removed were
stained dark where her body's nectar had flowed in response to her
reveries, the thin cotton stickily revealing.  She was just on the
point of touching her own fluid, and tasting herself as the dream-Paul
had been made to taste himself, when it suddenly occurred to her just
how long she must have been fantasising.  It felt like hours.

Beatrice will wonder what the hell I'm doing, she thought frantically,
scrubbing a towel over her naked body; not only to dry her skin from
her dowsing, but to mop up the spicy perspiration of her arousal.

Briefly, she debated having a shower, then imagined the doctor leaving
the conservatory in search of her, strolling curiously through the
house and discovering her up here sluicing off the betraying odour of
guilt.

Claudia rubbed even harder, wincing with delight as the textured
terrycloth abraded her puckered nipples and sent streaks of hot
sensation to her clitoris.  Without stopping to censure herself, or
even to think straight, she positioned the bunched towel between her
thighs and began a steady sawing motion.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," she moaned, as the wedge of cloth moved back
and forth, back and forth, between her labia.  The action was rough and
crude but exactly what she needed.  After a few seconds, she collapsed
in a blinding orgasm, the pummelled flesh of her well rubbed vulva
pulsating with pleasure.

And as she lay panting on the bathroom floor, she heard her name being
called.

Chapter Six.  Cassis and Other Intoxications.

You must think I'm being extraordinarily presumptuous," said Beatrice
cheerfully as Claudia finally entered the spacious but cosy sitting
room.  The doctor was holding a crystal co pita containing what was
obviously a generous measure of sherry, and once again, she was leaning
back, completely at home, on the brocade-covered sofa.

"I came in here looking for you, and happened to notice the decanter,"
she continued blithely, taking a sip of the deep caramel-coloured
liquid.

"And then I remembered how sensational Gerald's cellar always was..."

The beautiful physician gave Claudia a shamefaced grin.

"I'm sorry, I'm really far too forward, I know.  It will get me into
awful trouble one of these days."

"No problem.  I was going to ask you if you wanted a drink anyway,"
replied Claudia, crossing the room to where the decanters stood on
their silver tray.  She had been very nervous about facing up to
Beatrice again and possibly having to explain why she was now wearing
hot-pink culottes and T-shirt, instead of her other outfit but the
doctor's contrition seemed to provide a little psychological
leverage.

Claudia's confidence blossomed and she felt prepared to enjoy
herself,

but just as she poured herself some sherry and was about tojoin
Beatrice, a sudden jolt of shock and guilt assailed her.

"Paul!"  she cried, turning quickly and spilling a splash of sherry on
the tray.

"What about Paul?  How is he?  Where is he?"  She gulped a little of
her drink, then grateful for the fortification she moved quickly
towards the sofa.

"Don't worry.  He's fine," said Beatrice soothingly, putting her own
glass aside and taking Claudia's out of her shaking fingers.

"He's still a little sleepy, but I don't think there's anything serious
to worry about."

"Nothing serious!"  protested Claudia, feeling a different sort of
guilt.  She thought of the exertions she had more or less lured him
into and the encouragement she had given him.

"But he's obviously suffered a head wound ... And he's lost his memory,
for heaven's sake!  Isn't that serious enough?"

Beatrice considered her very steadily, and Claudia felt not only the
tightening in the physician's long, graceful fingers, but the calming
power in the other woman's lambent green eyes.

"I agree.  We can't dismiss either of those things," said the doctor
quietly, her beautiful face composed, 'but neither should we overreact
to them.  I've examined Paul as thoroughly as I can in the
circumstances, and to the best of my judgement, I can't see any
indications of a major problem."  Beatrice went on to detail some of
the tests she had performed, and while the procedures themselves
sounded somewhat superficial, Claudia had to admit that she felt
reassured.  She had no concrete knowledge of how good a clinician
Beatrice actually was, but somehow instinct told her the woman's skills
were exceptional.

"It's my belief that Paul's memory will return of its own accord, and
fairly quickly," Beatrice continued, 'but I certainly don't think we
ought to just leave it at that."  She paused, as if debating how to
proceed.

"Look, I'm on the board of a small private hospital, not far from
here.

I could book Paul in for a check-up ... There's a good neuro man I know
who owes me a favour."  She gave a small, cat-like smile, and for a
distracting moment Claudia wondered what that favour might be.

"I could get him to pop in and give Paul the once over.  The hospital
is small, but it's superbly equipped.  Their MRI scanner would give us
a much clearer idea if there's anything to be concerned about."

It sounded an ideal solution, but yet again, Claudia experienced a
muddled array of doubts.

For one, Paul had expressed such a reluctance to be examined in the
first place; he might refuse point blank to visit a hospital.  And the
reluctance in itself raised another possibility, one which Claudia
realised she kept conveniently pushing out of the way into a dark
corner of her consciousness.  Returning it to the light, however, she
was forced to face up to it.

Was Paul on the level?  Was his amnesia, and all that stemmed from it,
authentic?  Or was he just an extremely canny young man taking
advantage of a middle-aged woman who was vulnerable, and ripe for a
liaison?

I'm not middle aged!  she thought fiercely, extricating her hands from
Beatrice's and reaching down for her sherry.  Concentrating on the
glass, she lifted it to her lips, acutely conscious that the doctor was
observing her every move.

And what the fuck does it matter if he is a con-man or a gigolo?  she
demanded inwardly, savouring the bracing kick of the rich, almost
toasty-flavoured wine.  He hasn't hurt me, and goddammit, I can afford
him!

"Goodness, I'd give real money to scan what's going on in your brain
right now."

Jolted from her deliberations, Claudia looked up into Beatrice's green
eyes, which were alight with curiosity.

"What on earth were you thinking about?"  persisted the doctor, rising
swiftly in a flash of lilac and white, then returning to the sofa, with
the sherry decanter, almost before Claudia could frame an answer.

"First you looked worried, then you looked grim, then you looked
defiant."  The physician topped up both their glasses.

"Itmust be something to do with Paul ... Do tell me Placing the
decanter within easy reach, she took an encouraging swig of sherry,
then chuckled softly and knowingly.

"I know it's a cliche ... but you can trust me, I'm a doctor!"

Claudia found herself smirking at the other woman's audacity.  Her
doubts and confusion began to seem mercifully less weighty.

"You know you said that there was probably nothing serious wrong with
Paul," she began, still wondering how to frame the possibility that her
mysterious young lover might be using her.  It seemed very important
not to let Beatrice think her a gullible fool.  For a reason she was
still a little reluctant to put her finger on and name, she really
wanted the dashing doctor to admire her and to find her as impressive
and sexy and bewitching as she found Beatrice in return.

"Well, do you think it's possible that there's nothing wrong with him
at all?"  she went on.

"That he's pulling the wool over my eyes ... Taking advantage..."  She
paused again, looked around the splendidly appointed room with its many
well-loved treasures.

"After all, Gerald did leave me fairly well off.  And I'm alone.  And
Paul is ... well ... You've seen him, for heaven's sake!  He's quite
spectacular and he's obviously very intelligent."

Beatrice didn't respond for several moments.  Instead, she sank back a
little further into the upholstery, lifted her glass of sherry before
her and seemed to seek an answer, and perhaps tact, in the amber
fluid.

For a strange, illuminating instant, Claudia recalled looking into her
glass of mineral water, back in the kitchen, and seeking and finding
her own answers of a sort.  Then, in a vision within a vision, she saw
the white coat, the white cheong-sam and Beatrice's long, shapely legs
in fine black hosiery; and suddenly it seemed more important than ever
not to look a fool in her companion's eyes.

When she eventually replied, Beatrice's voice was soft and
challenging.

"Would it be such a disaster if he was perfectly well?"

She knows!  thought Claudia, feeling hot all of a sudden, but in a
strangely welcome way.  She knows exactly what I was thinking just now,
and she agrees with me!  A slow coil of unfolding desire stirred within
her, but she could not differentiate whether it was for Paul or for the
woman who sat beside her.  The most exciting thing was that she
couldn't even bring herself to worry which it was.

"Perhaps not," she said cautiously, watching Beatrice sip her sherry,
and feeling her heart race at the way the doctor's long, elegant throat
undulated sensuously.

"It would depend on whether he's just a trickster of some kind, or a
genuine criminal ... What do you think?

Be honest.  Has he really hurt himself, or is it all an act?  Is he
bona fide ... or is he ... is he bad7' It sounded melodramatic, but it
was difficult to phrase her thoughts again.

"Well, there's nothing faked about the graze on his head," said
Beatrice, still reclining.  She recrossed her long, chamois-clad legs,
and pointed a sandal led foot as if observing her pedicure.  Claudia
noticed that her toenails were painted fire red.

"I'm not the world's greatest judge of character sometimes," Beatrice
added, her mouth twisting wryly, 'but he seems sincere enough to me.

And anyway, I've got a bit of a fatal weakness for bad boys.  There's
far more scope with them than there is with the good ones."  She turned
and winked, then drank more sherry, with obvious relish.

Claudia laughed.  The longer she spent with Beatrice, the more she
liked her in more ways than one.

"I'll give him the benefit of the doubt then."

"I hope that's not all you're giving him the benefit of," said
Beatrice, giving Claudia a searching look from beneath her long, thick
eyelashes.

Claudia was on the point of saying, "I don't know what you mean', but
she realised it was redundant.  She did know what Beatrice was angling
towards, and she knew that the other woman knew she knew.  She gave the
doctor the most candid look she could, then said, "No, actually, it
isn't."

"Hah!  I thought so!"  cried Beatrice triumphantly.

"I suspected it when we spoke on the phone, and when I saw you
together, well, that passionate clinch rather gave things away, you
know.  I just knew you had to have had him."

Had him?  Claudia supposed that was roughly what had happened, although
it was difficult to define exactly who had had whom.  It felt like six
of one and half a dozen of the other.

"Well, as you say," she observed quietly, 'he is rather spectacular And
I suppose I'm just as susceptible as the next woman."  She made it her
turn to top up the sherry copitas, and was unsurprised when Beatrice
showed no sign of refusing.  She assumed the other woman had walked the
short distance through the village from her cottage.

"I wasn't interested for a long time after Gerald's death.

In fact, I wasn't sure if I ever would be again ... But I'm ready now,
and I know Gerald would be the last person to expect me to stay a
dried-up old widow for the rest of my days."

"You could never be dried up!"  proclaimed Beatrice cheerfully,
clicking her glass to Claudia's - and shifting a little closer on the
settee as she did so.

"Which is probably why Gerald adored you so ... He was a special man.

The sort of man who could appreciate a special woman."

"Thanks," muttered Claudia, confused again, not least by the very
tangible sense of a 'history' in the room.  Gerald had made no secret
of the adventurous sex life he had pursued prior to their marriage, and
it was perfectly clear that Beatrice had at some time been a part of
it.  What surprised Claudia was the lack of a sensation of jealousy at
the idea.  She felt almost elated that she should have so intimate a
link with Beatrice.  After all, hadn't she found it easy and so very
arousing to imagine the doctor erotically embroiled with Paul too?

"Is this the first time you've taken a younger lover?"

Beatrice's question was both matter of fact and teasing, and an arch,
worldly quirk of her finely etched eyebrows made Claudia start to laugh
again.

"I'm sorry, I'm such a horrifyingly nosy bitch," apologised the doctor
almost immediately, chuckling throatily herself.  It was a moment of
girlishness, of feminine bonding, but even so, Claudia couldn't
suppress a pang of lust at the way Beatrice's uninhibited laughter made
her brassiere-less breasts quiver beneath her vest.

You're a beautiful bitch too.  Doctor Quine, thought Claudia, still
slyly looking at the other woman's ripe, lush body.  It was amazing how
comfortable such feelings were quickly beginning to seem.

"It's all right, Beatrice," she said, running her finger around the rim
of her glass.

"I don't mind.  I suppose I started all this myself, really, in the
first place."

Beatrice didn't speak, but her sparkling green eyes begged
importunately for secrets.

"Yes, Paul is the first younger man I've been with," Claudia continued,
'but there haven't really been all that many of any age.  I was a bit
of a late starter, I suppose."

The too, would you believe it?"  Beatrice said with a smile.

"Although I've rather made up for lost time since..."

I'll bet you have!  thought Claudia, wishing she could be as blatantly
inquisitive as her companion.

"There's something uniquely satisfying about making love with someone
younger than yourself, isn't there?"  said Beatrice musingly, after a
few seconds.

"I can still remember my first.  Vividly."  Her voice was dreamy,
reminiscent and potently promising.  Claudia had the distinct
impression that her mind had been read yet again.

"You mean in that being older, you feel more in control?"  she queried,
admitting silently that in her case 'out of control' would have summed
her up better.  Despite his supposed weakness maybe even because of
it

Paul had effortlessly taken the upper hand on both occasions.

"In general terms, I'd say yes to that," replied Beatrice pensively,
'but for me it didn't quite happen that way.  More the reverse, really,
at the time ... Although it was what I wanted, so I suppose ultimately
I did call the shots."

Intrigued, mystified, Claudia said, "Tell me about it," without even
thinking.

"Her name was Cassis," said Beatrice, her oval face alight with
memories.

"Her name?"

Beatrice felt the familiar sexual fris son that she invariably
experienced when she shocked someone.  She had been leading up to the
subject of lesbianism quite subtly for her, she thought, and her finely
honed instincts about these matters told her that Claudia was almost a
point already.  But the final articulation always retained an impact.

"Oh yes, sorry ... I never thought," she said, shrugging lightly and
enjoying Claudia's wide-eyed expression.

"Cassis was a girl, of course.  I always forget that not everyone"

She let the explanation tail off delicately, then schooled her features
into a look of concern.

"I haven't upset you, have I?  Some people find the idea of same-sex
lovemaking repellent, I know."

"It's all right," said Claudia, taking a quick sip of her sherry.

Beatrice noticed that a flattering blush was creeping up the other
woman's throat and face.

"I don't have any prejudices.  Please ... Go on.  Cassis is such an
unusual name.  Is it real?"

Goody!  thought Beatrice exultantly.  The time was not yet quite ripe
to make an overt proposition to this delightful and so promising woman,
but at least the path ahead was far from stony.

"Oh, I don't think so," said Beatrice, thinking back to another
promising woman, albeit one of a quite different nature to the
warm-hearted Claudia.

"She was a punky sort of girl then, about nineteen or twenty, and she
tinted her hair a wild shade of black currant-purple.  She worked in a
bar, too, and her trademark drink was a truly wicked kir."

Almost immediately, Beatrice imagined she could taste the fruity power
of the liqueur creme de cassis, only to have it replaced by the heady
flavour of Cassis herself, and the pungent spiciness of her demanding
young quim.

"How did you meet?"

How had they met indeed?  Beatrice was tempted, for the sake of looking
better in Claudia's eyes, to glamorise the sequence of events, but in
the end, she decided to be honest.  Well, fairly honest.

"I saw her one evening when I slipped into her bar for a drink.  I'd
had a long, tiring day, making home visits to some fairly high-powered
and obnoxious patients, and I really needed to let my hair down and
unwind."

The patients had been mostly older women, blue- rinsed dowagers and
carping hypochondriacs, a thoroughly undesirable lot with whom she had
been obliged to be strictly professional and tactful.  When they were
all behind her, she had longed for the company of a very different kind
of woman, and made her way to her favourite dyke bar, with her spirits
and libido rapidly rising.

"She barely spoke to me that first time," she said, giving Claudia an
almost bashful little look.

"But I was smitten the moment I saw her I felt such a fool.  I was
thirty-five at the time; successful, prosperous, supposedly
assured-looking.  And there I was, virtually drooling over a scruffy
little nymphet who couldn't be bothered to give me the time of day.  I
was convinced that she thought I was pathetic."

And it had been that way for any number of weeks.  Beatrice recalled
going back to Bar Sappho time after time, trying to play it cool but
ending up gawping at Cassis as she flitted lightly and efficiently
around behind the bar like a starving dog at a particularly succulent
chunk of meat.  There had been the reward of an occasional cool
smile,

and a word or two as Beatricehad received her glass of kir, but these
had only served to make her hotter and hotter and hotter.

Then one day, there was a bit of an altercation," said Beatrice,
already thrilling to the memory of what the fracas had led to.

"Some men ... Yobbos.  Lager louts or whatever ... They came into the
bar, very, very drunk, and when they realised what kind of place it was
they became abusive.  I was just on the point of slipping quietly to
the payphone and calling the police when Cassis vaulted over the bar
and set about them."  She could still see that slim, elegant body, and
the way Cassis had launched herself gymnastically across the room.

"She was magnificent!  She threw them out, one and all.  Put the fear
of God into them, as if she'd been a Russian shot putter four times her
size ... But somewhere in the melee, she hurt herself.  Sprained her
wrist quite badly ... And it was her right wrist too.  Her
cocktail-mixing hand ... Somebody said, "Is there a doctor in the
house?", and suddenly I knew all my prayers were answered!"

She had found herself alone with Cassis in a tiny flat above the bar,
and the confined space had only made her more and more aware of the
girl's slim body, her firm, rounded breasts, and the delicious prize
that lay at the apex of those peerless, black fishnet-encased thighs.

"I could smell her sex," Beatrice heard herself blurt out, expatiating
graphic detail long before she had intended to.  Beside her, she was
vaguely aware of Claudia, open mouthed.  But it was too late to hold
back now.  The power of memory impelled her to storm onward.

"She didn't wear perfume, I realised, and I think it was deliberate.

She wanted women to be able to smell her arousal.  To want her."

Beatrice took a sip from her newly refilled co pita

"And I certainly did."

Cassis had been perfectly aware of that desire too, Beatrice
recalled.

The younger woman had revelled in it, and while at first she had been
grateful for Beatrice's medical expertise and her practical assistance,
she soon became more and more imperious.

"Get me a drink, Beatrice."

"Unfasten my boots, Bea- trice."

"Take me to the bathroom."

"Pull down my tights and knickers.  I need to piss"

Recalling Cassis's orders, Beatrice found it hard to believe her own
servility.  The almost-painful stimulation she had received from
subsuming her own will and performing the most menial and intimate
tasks for the porcelain-faced, gothic-haired young goddess.  She had
experienced a piercing quiver of feeling in her own sex when she had
passed soft toilet tissue between Cassis's labia to cleanse her.  She
had almost come herself when the girl had bade her, in a soft but
smokily implacable voice, to masturbate her to orgasm.

"Come on, Beatrice ... You're so clever.  So knowledgeable about the
workings of the human body.  Show me what a brilliant therapist you
are.  Get your lily-white hand down between my legs and bring me
off!"

"My God!"

Claudia's exclamation brought Beatrice back to the present with a
sudden jolt back to the present and a state of high arousal.  For a
moment, she was tempted to just lean across, press her lips to those of
the beautiful widow beside her, and forget the past.  She had a mad,
singing urge to expunge her memories of Cassis and reach down between
Claudia's smooth thighs instead.  She had a powerful feeling that the
welcome would be equally as humid.

But rare as it was, Beatrice admitted, her own good sense prevailed.

The perfect moment would be here quite soon, she was certain of that,
but it hadn't arrived quite yet.

"I was enslaved.  I couldn't help myself," she said, returning to her
narrative.

"I did exactly as she ordered.  And she was so wet.  As lush as a
hothouse peach ... She had the juiciest quim of any woman I've ever
touched."

Beatrice could virtually hear Claudia ask the question, even though the
other woman didn't speak.  How many women have you touched then?

She decided not to elucidate and continued with her tale of what had
happened in Cassis's poky bathroom.

"She sat on the toilet seat, and I had to kneel down beside her on the
linoleum-covered floor.  There was hardly any room, and I was wearing a
lightish skirt.  It was cold and uncomfortable, and the place was dirty
But I was so besotted, and so completely excited, that it was difficult
to breath."

It had been awkward to worship at the shrine of Cassis's womanhood, but
she had managed somehow twisting her arm and hand at an almost
impossible angle, and negotiating the limited access that a tangle of
pushed-down tights and panties had afforded her.

"More!  Harder!  That's it!  More!"  the dark, tyrannical waif had
ordered, pumping her hips and making Beatrice's task even harder.

Between the violent motion and the extreme slipperiness of Cassis's
abundantly lubricated flesh, it had been difficult to maintain pressure
and friction on the sweet spots: the girl's plump clitoris and her
tender vaginal opening.  Beatrice smiled to herself, remembering her
initial clumsiness and Cassis's colour fully expressed scorn and then
how quickly she had established a dextrous rhythm.  It wasn't for
nothing that she had at one time considered being a surgeon; she had
lightning hands, precision instruments of muscle and bone.

"She soon came," said Beatrice, her calm voice belying the furore she
felt within.  Between her vivid memories of Cassis and the warm,
fragrant presence of the rapt woman beside her, she felt charged with a
living field of hot desire.  Her breasts were tingling, and between her
legs, her silk G-string had ridden up into the sensitive niche between
her sex lips.  It would take little more than a wriggle or three to
make her climax.

Contain yourself, Bea, she told herself sternly.  It's still too
soon!

Much as she was aching to come, dying to ease the building tension, she
knew that if she did so there was no way she could hide it.  There were
women of her acquaintance who could have a monumental orgasm in a
public place without a facial muscle even twitching but Beatrice knew
she wasn't like that.  She was a groaner, an ecstatic thrasher, a born
exhibitionist.

And so she kept still and went on with the story.  It was tantalising
to wonder how close to coming Claudia was, though.

"One orgasm wasn't enough for that little madam," continued Beatrice,
aware that her voice had wavered slightly on that most significant
word.  But all those years ago, Cassis's voice had done more than
waver.  She had shouted as loud as Beatrice herself liked to do; she
had yelled, issued commands and cursed and blasphemed as her lean and
limber body jumped with rapture.

"Show me your hair, you gorgeous bitch," the dark girl had ordered, and
Beatrice trembled now at how exquisite obedience had been.  With a few
quick moves, she had released her cape of hair from its temporary
confinement in a chignon, aware of Cassis's juices on her fingers as
she did so.

In a few seconds there had been yet more of Cassis's essence on her
hair.  Pulling savagely on Beatrice's scalp, the younger woman had
grasped a thick, red tress in her uninjured left hand and jammed it
roughly against the vee of her own crotch.  With an uncouth sawing
action she had employed it to mop her vulva, dragging Beatrice's head
back and forth cruelly in the process.

"But why did you let her hurt you?  Surely you could have stopped
her?"

Claudia's quiet voice sounded new, almost unfamiliar somehow, and
Beatrice realised it was virtually the first time her companion had
spoken during the narrative.

"But I didn't want to stop her," said Beatrice, turning to look into
Claudia's puzzled brown eyes.

"And the fact that she was hurting me was part of the excitement.  A
big part of it."  It was clear that whatever sex games Gerald Marwood
had played with his spouse during their life together, the two had
never progressed as far as erotic sadomasochism.

"Admittedly, it's not usually my scalp I'd choose to be punished ...
but it did make an interesting variation."

"Oh, I see," said Claudia, fiddling with her sherry glass, a nervous,
half-excited, half-appalled smile playing around her lips.

But do you see, Claudia?  Beatrice wanted to say.  Can you imagine what
it's like to want someone you desire, someone you want enough to be
melting for, to punish you?  To chastise you, either frivolously or
with absolute severity, for some totally imaginary transgression?

Would you bare your lovely bottom for me and I know it must be a
wonderful one!  - and let me spank it?  Or beat you with something?  A
ruler?  A hairbrush?  A leather strap?

But maybe Claudia wasn't the one who would suffer?  Beatrice had a
momentary but heart-shaking vision of her new friend poised in the act
of bringing a long, thin switch down across the muscular buttocks of
the pale, mysterious Paul.

The picture was fleeting but it was almost Beatrice's undoing.  She bit
her lip and took a deep breath to resist her massing pleasure.

It was a relief, and serendipity, and also, perhaps, a bit of a
disappointment, when a sharp but melodious beeping from the vicinity of
her left wrist suddenly fractured the precarious moment.  The pre-set
alarm on her elaborate watch was demanding attention ... Claudia jumped
and almost spilt her sherry.  Being so absorbed in Beatrice's bizarre
tale of the domineering and odiferous Cassis and so eager to hear more,
an intersection of the real world, in the form of the doctor's watch
alarm, was a shock so keen she felt a physical wrench from it.

"Oh shit!  I'm so sorry!  I have to go now," cried Beatrice.  Quaffing
the last of her sherry, the doctor sprang to her feet and cast about
for her battered black bag.  When she spotted it, she hesitated for a
second, then gave Claudia a swift but passionate hug before retrieving
it.

"Look, I really am sorry about this, but I have to see someone
shortly.

And ... Well..  / She glanced down at her becoming but bohemian
outfit.

"I can't go dressed like this!"  As if galvanised, she strode towards
the door, and the hall, and the world beyond Claudia's sitting room,
and their magical cocoon of feminine intimacy.

Crestfallen and strangely bereft, even though Beatrice hadn't actually
left yet, Claudia followed in the doctor's wake and the trailing aura
of her strong and musky perfume.

At the front door, Beatrice said, "Don't worry too much about Paul.

If he has genuinely suffered amnesia, he's young and basically healthy,
and the odds are he'll make a full recovery before long."

She paused, giving Claudia a tigerish, conspiratorial grin, then
reaching out to gently stroke her face with fingers that felt
deliciously cool, yet inflammatory.

"And if there's nothing wrong with him ... Well then, he's even more
fit and healthy, and I urge you to make the most of him!  I'll be in
touch soon about the hospital tests.  Probably tomorrow ... If I
sweet-talk one or two people, there should be a window for him in the
next few days."  She trailed her hand down Claudia's throat and across
her shoulder, and then caressed the full length of her bare arm and
gave her hand a squeeze.

"Ciao, Claudia, it's been wonderful to meet you.  We'll get to know
each other a little better soon, I hope."

And with that Doctor Beatrice Quine was on her way, sailing down the
path, her Amazon-red plait bouncing against her back to the womanly
cadence of her confident, long-limbed walk.  As she closed the gate
behind her, she looked around, smiled once, then sped off down the lane
without another backward glance.

My God!  Two seductive strangers in the space of as many days.  What's
happening to me?  Claudia thought, staring towards the spot where
Beatrice had disappeared around the bend in Green Giles Lane.  The
changes that had begun yesterday afternoon, as she had set out on her
fateful walk towards the river, were still occurring and growing
progressively more radical; and whether she liked it or not, she was
putting out a whole new set of signals.

Her heart pounding, she turned and strode towards the conservatory.

And Paul.

Chapter Seven.  The Patient and his Treatment.

With a struggle, Paul managed to remain motionless.  He couldn't
imagine anything much worse than Claudia discovering that he had been
sneaking around spying on her.  It was an affront to both her kindness
and their intimacy.  But after having encountered Doctor Quine, a sense
of curiosity had overcome him.  He had just had to know what the two
women were like when they were alone together.

The examination had been over fairly quickly, and despite her outre
appearance, it seemed that Beatrice Quine was a serious and efficient
clinician, with a bedside manner that was both unimpeachably
professional and almost maternally reassuring.  Listening to her low,
milk-and-honey voice, and feeling the diagnostic touch of her long,
capable fingers, it had been almost possible to forget that she was
disturbingly lovely, and that her nipples were clearly visible through
her thin white vest.  Almost possible, but not quite.  The way he had
responded to her had made him feel hot and guilty, and more than that,
despicably traitorous.  Only a few hours ago he had been making love
with Claudia.

To take his mind off sex, Paul tried to anchor his attention to
Beatrice's assessment of his health, and to her suggestions.  The
prospect of tests, tests and mo retests was certainly cooling to the
ardour, the only compensation being that he would not have to face the
rig ours and the indignity of die National Health Service.  Strings
would be pulled for him, it seemed, which was marvelous, apart from the
fact that he wondered how on earth he could recompense the beneficent
Beatrice for pulling them.

He already owed such a huge debt of obligation to Claudia.

When the examination was over, he feigned fatigue to allow himself time
alone to mull over his predicament, but once Beatrice had left, he
found formulating a solution to be an uphill task.  His brain felt
fogged and intractable; the only subject he could focus clearly on was
sex.

He found himself remembering the sensation of pushing into Claudia's
welcoming body, that morning in the kitchen, then speculating whether
Beatrice would feel as tight and as delicious a fit for him.  What
would it be like to try first one woman, then the other?  Then have the
sumptuous pair of them on either side of him, in a wide, double bed?

Dear God, man, what's got into you, for pity's sake?  he demanded
silently of himself.  Why was the flesh all he could think of?  Was it
because his intellect was currently so sadly deficient?

What's going to happen if I never remember?  he thought, sitting up,
swinging down his legs on to the floor and observing ruefully that he
had an enormous erection.  I'll have to be a gigolo, he told himself
almost hysterically, letting his hand fall inevitably against his
crotch.  It seems as if that's all I'm going to be fit for!

Yet despite his qualms, there was comfort, once again, in his
arousal.

In a world of looming MRI scans, blank expanses where memory should be
and faces that were beautiful but completely unfamiliar, it was
consoling to touch a known quantity, his rigid manhood.  It seemed to
be one of the few of his physical and mental processes that hadn't been
compromised or changed.  Or become unsettling and strange to him.

Impatient with the sense of powerlessness that afflicted him when he
was apart from Claudia and suddenly, from Doctor Beatrice too he leapt
up and paced the conservatory on bare, noiseless feet.  His aching
groin troubled him, yet he felt restless and unable to simply lie back,
relax and stroke himself.  His clouded mind was filled with images of
the two women he knew were now together, presumably discussing him.  He
tried to juxtapose them: blonde Claudia with her fine-featured,
intriguingly quizzical face and her delicious shaggy-elf haircut; and
the dramatic, bravura Beatrice with her fire-red plait and her
square-on, challenging look.  Both were fabulous, and painfully
desirable to him, despite their differences, yet somehow he couldn't
put them both in the same frame together.

Each was enough to satiate him; in combination, it was an obvious case
of overload.

Yet he had to see them.  Together.

Every door and every floorboard seemed to creak as he made his way
towards where instinct told him the women would be, yet he knew this
was just as much his imagination as his fantasies were.  His feet were
bare, and he wasn't making any noise.  When he reached the sitting
room, the door there was a little ajar.  He could hear Beatrice talking
softly from within.

The doctor was felling a story, by the sound of it a yarn from her past
about someone she had been sexually involved with.  After a moment, it
became apparent that the someone had been a woman.

Yes!  thought Paul, exultation pouring through him like a wave as his
hopes and suspicions were vindicated.  As his shaking fingers slipped
to his crotch, he focused on Claudia.

His saviour was sitting still and rapt, a surprisingly chaste distance
from the more animated figure of her companion, the raconteuse.  Her
eyes were brilliant, and her expression shocked, but wondering.

She's not horrified, thought Paul, the revelation exciting him even
more.  She likes it, he thought, giving his genitals a subtle
squeeze.

The doctor's narrative was a hot one, completely explicit, with no
punch left un pulled Paul wondered for a moment whether she was
mythologising herself, spinning an exotic line to entrap the woman
beside her, yet for all the description's wildness he could well
believe it was a record of a true event.  He knew Beatrice no better
than he knew anybody else at the moment, but instinct told him she
lived her sex life on the edge.  It also told him that she was deeply
in lust with Claudia and planning to seduce her.

But not today, thought Paul, with some regret.  It was patently clear
that the beautiful doctor was restraining her impulses.

And what did her intended victim think?  Was she ready?  Did she
appreciate Beatrice's self-control, or was she impatient?

He noticed that Claudia was no longer wearing the soft, flattering tan
outfit she had been wearing earlier, and he pondered for a second why
that might be.  She was wearing a zingy pink T-shirt and culottes now,
and wishful thinking suggested it was because she and Beatrice had
already made love and fastidiousness had compelled her to shower and
change afterwards.  But scrambled as Paul's thought processes were, he
knew his hopes were an impossibility, because only a few minutes had
elapsed since the doctor had left the conservatory.

There would have been no time for the two women to strip and entangle,
kiss and fondle, sob and writhe and gloriously come.

Don't!  Do not do this!  he told himself desperately, then he gnawed
his lip as beneath his fingers his swollen cock tingled.  But the
damage had been done.  As Beatrice's husky voice described the rest of
her erotic encounter with the barmaid Cassis, it was another first
contact that Paul seemed to see.

The place was the bed upstairs, where he had slept and been pleasured
last night; the time was the future, hopefully soon; and the two
lovers, coupled and caressing, were Beatrice and Claudia.  They were
lips upon lips, breast to breast, pubis to pubis; their hands were
frantically roaming, their fingers exploring.  As he seemed to watch,
they fell apart, like the two halves of a tightly fitting shell, only
to recombine in a top-to-tail pattern, kissing each other's sex.  Their
bodies were jerking and convulsing with passion when suddenly something
beeped.

Paul almost staggered, the shock and the sense of dislocation were so
great.  Subconsciously, he realised the sound was that of an alarm
watch, but he didn't stop to either see or hear that confirmed.  By the
time it was turned off he was sprinting lightly but soundlessly to the
haven of the conservatory.

And here he was, a few minutes later, trying to present the impression
of a man deep in the sleep of the innocent, while the soft footsteps of
the benefactress he had so shamelessly spied on came closer and closer
and closer... Paul appeared to be asleep when Claudia stepped into the
sun-dappled conservatory.  He was lying in the same vulnerable, almost
foetal, position as she had found him last night when she had returned
from making tea.  His feet were bare, his hair was rumpled and his face
was seraphic.

He's faking it, thought Claudia, smiling to herself as she approached
the old chaise longue.  She didn't know how she knew, because her
beautiful stranger's face was perfectly tranquil; but the same possibly
imaginary gut feeling that kept niggling her about his amnesia, or lack
of it, now told her Paul was hiding something else from her.

Strangely enough, the idea of his duplicity was exciting.  It was as if
the game of sexual brinkmanship she had played with Beatrice had
inspired her.  There was a lot to be said for walking a fine line of
danger.

"I know you're awake," she said, standing over him, feeling
extraordinarily empowered.

Paul's eyes flashed open, and he unfurled his long limbs and sat up on
the chaise, automatically making room for Claudia to sit down beside
him.  He didn't say anything or offer any lame excuses; he just looked
at her warily, as if waiting for a judgement.

"So, how do you feel?"  she asked, enjoying his expression of slight
befuddlement when the question wasn't quite what he had expected.

"OK.  I think..."  He stared down at his bare toes, and wiggled them,
as if checking his motor skills.

"A bit apprehensive about these tests I have to have.  But I suppose
it's better to know the worst.  I could be sitting here with a time
bomb in my head.  Fine one minute and the next, "Zap!"  Cabbage
city."

He seemed genuinely worried.  There was fear in his face, and his body
was tense.  Despite her suspicions of a moment ago" Claudia placed her
hand on his arm and squeezed reassuringly.

"Well, Beatrice didn't seem to think so.  I'm sure the tests are just a
precaution."  She felt a tremor pass through his body, but couldn't
tell whether he was still fearful or her touch had affected him.  The
feel of his firm flesh through his shirt sleeve was certainly affecting
her.

"I was frightened when I lost my memory, but everything turned out all
right in the end.  I may not be Einstein She grinned encouragingly but
I'm certainly not a vegetable!"

"I bet you're delicious though," he said, turning slightly towards her
and looking up slyly through his thick, dark eyelashes.  He put his
free hand over hers on his arm.

Claudia's heart thumped wildly.  He had changed from consternation to
seduction in the blink of an eye.  She was in peril again and she found
it exhilarating.  Striving for cool, she returned his glance levelly.

"Do you remember anything yet?"  she asked, keeping her voice as
unruffled as she was able.

"Any flashes?

Any inkling of who you are?  What you do?  How old you are?"

Paul gave her his devastating smile in a clear call of 'touche'.  "Not
really," he said, his hand still curved possessively over hers, as if
he wasn't prepared to yield his ground entirely, 'and I have tried to
remember.  Honestly."

"I believe you," she said, extricating her hand, afraid that the fact
that it was she who was trembling now would undermine her.

"It must be more difficult for you than it was for me ... I was just a
child.

I had less to remember.  And children are content just to be.  They
don't consider themselves denned by what their occupation in life is.

They're not troubled by a need for "purpose" and "direction" and
suchlike."

"What's your purpose in life then?"  challenged Paul, his chin coming
up.

Bastard!  thought Claudia, forced to smile.  He was as sharp as a
blade.  His mental fog clearly didn't extend to his perception of human
nature.

"I'm not sure I have one just yet," she said honestly, experiencing a
curious lack of anguish over the statement.  A few days ago she had
been sunk in futility.

"But something will turn up soon.  I can feel it."

Sitting with this beautiful young man, in a sunlit conservatory,
surrounded by greenery and her carefully chosen flowers of blue and
white and yellow, Claudia suddenly felt herself to be at a fork in the
road.  Her urges were divided.

On one hand, she knew that they could spend the rest of the afternoon
in a warm, soul-searching conversation;

that she could share her worst fears and her most tremulous hopes with
him, and that he would understand and help her just as much as she
could, and would, help him.

But the other prong of the fork led to an entirely different form of
therapy, one she sensed would be just as effective and perhaps less
premature than a 'talking cure'.  She looked at Paul's long, narrow,

square-tipped fingers his sculpted mouth and the pale but powerful
musculature of his bare chest where it was revealed by his open
shirt.

She looked too at his groin, and saw a growing disturbance beneath the
creamy linen of his chinos.

Her direction was already chosen for her.  Reaching out, she slid her
hand into his curly brown hair, at the nape of his neck, and drew him
to her.

Paul's mouth yielded instantly, even though Claudia knew his lips were
strong and mobile and that he could probably kiss her into submission
with effortless facility.  Pressing her advantage, she slid her tongue
between his teeth and explored him as slowly as her own impatience
would let her.  His body remained inert, and his arms were still at his
sides, but he made a small surrendering grunt in the depths of his
throat.

Yes!  thought Claudia, kissing harder so hard her own jaw almost pained
her and pushing Paul back against the shabby old cushions.

She had never felt such a sense of control before in her life even when
she and Gerald had played their light-hearted little bed games, and
supposedly she had been 'dominating' him.  If only for the moment, this
was real power.  Paul might have any number of tricks up his sleeve,
and be nothing like the misplaced person he had led her to believe him
to be, but right now, right here, she knew in the very pit of her being
that he would do absolutely anything she commanded him to.  Hero or
villain, he was hers for the taking.

Pulling away, gasping, she put her mouth to his ear and murmured,
letting the fire that surged inside her do the talking.

"I'll give you a purpose, Paul.  A direction while you're waiting to
get your life back."  She kissed his neck, felt a pulse beating
crazily, and fought an urge to bite him like some born-again vampire.

Drawing back, she held his head in both her hands, then darted forward
again, looking intently into his face and almost laughing when his blue
eyes fought to focus.

There was no need to tell him what the purpose was, or ask him if he
wanted to pursue it.  The fact that his pupils were huge and black, and
his breathing fast and ragged, provided the answer.  She kissed him
again and his arms rose up around her.

Touch me, Paul," she told him, when they broke apart again, both
panting after a long and complicated engagement of lips and tongues.

"Make yourself useful to me before I change my mind."

"Gladly!"  he answered, with a low, male chuckle that made her insides
flip-flop deliciously.

"Oh so very gladly," he growled, tugging at her pink top and wrenching
it out of the waistband of her culottes.

His long, slim hands made perfect cradles for her aching breasts.

"Yes!"  she cried, articulating her triumph this time as he squeezed
her with exactly the degree of forcefulness her body hungered for.

Powerful fingers and thumbs rolled her nipples back and forth between
them, and for a second in between waves of sensation that threatened to
precipitate an early climax she entertained the notion that her lover
might be a sculptor, the way he used his hands.  Or even a baker, she
thought, laughing with delight as he enthusiastically kneaded her.

Arching her back, she thrust her bosom towards the treatment, feeling
him dip down and roughly kiss her shoulder as an answer.  Her laughter
turned to moans, expressions of a passion that alarmed her, as he
nudged aside the neck of her T-shirt, and applied his mouth to her bare
skin with an even greater vigour.

Paul clearly had no qualms at being compared to Nosferatu.  He nipped
at her throat, again and again, and the imprint of his strong white
teeth was sharp and thrilling.  As he bit her, he pulled her nipples,
and worked and squeezed her.

Claudia had never experienced such an uninhibited and dynamic sexual
mauling.  In return, feral with her own desire, she raked her nails
down his tense, hard back and tore his shirt.  Gerald's shirt, she
thought detatchedly, and as the fine cotton ripped she imagined her
husband's applause at the sheer abandon of her performance.

So close to orgasm already, the ferocious ache between her legs became
unbearable.

"Touch me, I said!"  she commanded, wrenching Paul's flexing right hand
from her breast and dragging it insistently down her body.

"I want it there!"  She jammed his fingers between her legs.

"Get on with it!  No messing about!"

Clutching her vulva firmly, Paul drew back a little way and gave her a
hard, almost angry look.  Then he laughed, his long face wild, his lips
reddened from kissing and biting her, and began to massage her, at
breast and crotch, while glaring, with unalloyed devilment, right into
her eyes.

Oh God, what have I done?  she thought, both helpless and ecstatic as
her body fired and she fought to hold his gaze.  She was in orgasm;

she was in terror; she was drowning in a sea of brilliant, burning
blue.  And inside her sex, her muscles clamped in jerks of pleasure.

"Fuck you, Paul!  Who the hell are you?"  she cried, still climaxing.

"I don' trucking know!"  he growled, releasing her genitals then
hugging her close to him.

"I don't fucking know," he repeated, almost sobbing, and rocking both
their bodies.

Claudia believed him for now.  It seemed the easiest thing to do while
slumped in his arms, with the most intimate parts of her body still
trembling exquisitely.

For a while they stayed quite motionless, although the air around them
seemed to vibrate in a stunned, shocked silence.  Paul was breathing
deeply against her, but she sensed a tautness in him, a vortex of
emotions he was having difficulty quelling.  For her own part, she felt
numbed, but in a state of wonderment.  Her own actions, and reactions,
had quite astounded her.  She felt shaken up, but also satisfied and
impressed.  As Paul's hand began to move gently on her back, she looked
over his shoulder, through the glass into the garden beyond.  A bird
swooped across the lawn, and a butterfly seemed to follow it.  In the
afternoon sunshine, the familiar scene had never looked lovelier.

Presently, the two of them pulled apart and studied each other
ruefully.

"I'm sorry "I'm sorry They both laughed as their apologies coincided.

Giving his thigh an encouraging pat, Claudia bade Paul say his piece
first.

"I'm sorry," he reiterated, shrugging his shoulders and sighing.

"I

was rough.  I got carried away ... I behaved like a pig."

"You behaved like a pig?"  Claudia looked at him, so sweet and
tempting, and felt the hunger that he had just sated so comprehensively
for her begin to stir again.  If anybody's behaviour was porcine, it
was hers.  It was only a few minutes since she had last had an orgasm,
and already she was longing to sample another.

"I

think it was me whose behaviour was piggish.  I was outrageous.  I've
never said anything like that before.  You must think I'm a harpy!"

"I think you're wonderful," said Paul, his features calm and
straightforward, his stunning eyes as pellucid as blue glass.

It wasn't the first time Claudia had heard herself described as
'wonderful', but only with Gerald had she ever felt it had been meant
honestly and truly.

Until now.

She could see no guile in Paul's clear gaze, no hint of flattery or
hyperbole.  For some reason he did think of her as wonderful.  And
feeling so good, about herself and her body, she tended to agree with
him.

So she simply said, "Thank you."

"My pleasure," said Paul, looking down at his own crotch, and
grinning.

He was hugely erect beneath the cream fabric of his trousers.

"Clearly," she said, answering his smile with one of her own.  He had
gratified her needs, but his own rumescence remained unattended.  It
would be her pleasure to rectify that shortfall.  Her smile broadened
as she laid her hand across his crotch.

Beneath the fine cloth he was firm and fine and lively, and when she
gently palpated him, his eyes closed as if the light pressure was too
much for him.  Claudia was very much aware of her perception of him as
an angel again.  His pale face glowed like an icon's and his softly
curling hair was reminiscent of a score of well-known religious
images.

Even his bare chest looked both sacred and profane.  What she felt for
him was so dangerous it scared her.

"Oh!"  he gasped, wriggling a little, and for a second Claudia was
alarmed that she might have brought matters to a premature
conclusion.

But his flesh stayed hard, and his smile remained intact.

"Please ... I want you," he whispered, his eyes flicking open as he
tried to sit up and reach for her.

"Hush!"

Releasing his penis for the time being, Claudia dashed away his hands,
then took him by the shoulders and inclined him towards her.

Without much dexterity, she unbuttoned the cuffs of his torn white
shirt, then slid it off down his arms and over his hands as if she were
undressing a little boy, but in a hurry.  It fell behind him, in a
crumpled mass, forgotten.

Paul's eyes widened when her hands went to his belt, but obeying her
unspoken orders, he did not attempt to assist her in undressing him.

He merely lifted his bottom when she said "Hup!"  and dragged his
trousers and his briefs down to his ankles.

Oh what a lovely, lovely thing, thought Claudia as they both surveyed
his cock.  It had bounced up vigorously on its release from his
clothing and now swayed slightly to and fro above his darkly furred
groin as if the weight of its reddened glans was almost too much for
it.  Claudia licked her lips, unconsciously preparing to fellate him
but the call of her voracious vagina was far too imperious.

Fumbling with her own buttons now, she tore off her culottes and peeled
off her knickers.

In the second before she took him, she smelt her own juices, and saw
the dark and sticky stains on her undergarment, then she was sinking
down, riding his rigidity, her heartfelt sigh descending and gusting as
her body lowered.

"Oh God!"

"Oh God!"

As their voices played echoes again, she laughed with happiness.

Paul laughed too, and the involuntary movement made his erection lift
inside her.  She felt completely filled, divinely impaled and almost
uncomfortable in the way his bigness stretched her.  Flexing her vagina
she watched him try and rend the upholstery.

"Oh God!"  he cried again, his pelvis bucking.

"You are wonderful!

Bloody wonderful... I - His teeth began to chatter as his body leapt
and hammered.

No, I'm not ... I'm a voracious harpy, you silly boy!  thought Claudia
in the last instant that thought was possible.  Then, utilising his
sturdy male hardness while it still existed, she almost bounced up and
down until she joined him in orgasm.  The position was strained and
difficult, with her folded legs at awkward angles, but in her world of
heat and pressure she barely noticed the creaks and protests in her
limbs.  There was only a burning, living light that scorched her inner
core with rapture and the writhing angel that struggled beneath her, in
her thrall.

It was a little while before she was able to unfurl her cramped legs
and lift herself off him.  Her knees complained a little, and she
experienced the sharp stab of a slight pull in one thigh muscle, but
apart from that she felt awash with vital energy.

"Dear Lord, just look at me!"  she muttered, catching her reflection in
the glass a few feet away.  Her hair was mussed, her face was glowing,
and she was naked from the waist down, with her freshly put-on T-shirt
marked and crumpled.  Looking down she saw a film of perspiration
across her thighs and her pale bare belly, and the tell-tale glint of
yet more moisture in her pubis.

What a fright, she thought, but somehow her own lewd and dishevelled
appearance gee-ed her up even more.  She felt fit, young and daring.

Beatrice Quine would be proud her!

More than proud, a subversive voice inside her announced.  She would
want you, Claudia.  With you looking like this, the good doctor would
fall down on her elegant knees and kiss the same damn place that Paul
has just shafted!

It was an outrageous idea, but the face in the glass smiled at the
thought of it.  Claudia put her hand to her mouth, which her muscular
encounter with Paul had bruised a little, and imagined Beatrice's lips
there, kissing her better.  She smiled some more.

A sound halfway between a groan and a contented sigh refocused her
attention.  Paul was slumped at an angle, just as she had left him,
like a beached merman who had been ravaged by a warrior princess.  His
shirt was a crushed rag beneath him, and his trousers and briefs were
still around his ankles; he looked as indecent as Claudia felt, but
equally as blissful.

No harm done, obviously, Claudia reflected, quashing the little twist
of suspicion that reared its head.  Should a man suffering from shock
and concussion really be able to perform as such a wonderful lover?

Who could say?

Who even cares!  the echo of Beatrice Quine proclaimed merrily, and
right now, with her quim still singing, Claudia agreed with her.

Paul moaned again, smiling in some sort of semi- somnolent daze, and
stretched slightly, wriggling his bottom against the chaise.  He had to
be aware of his rude state of display, Claudia was convinced of it, yet
he seemed to glory in showing her his penis.  Not that she minded
admiring the flaccid but still entrancing organ, recalling the feel of
it, full and rampant, deep inside her.  As if it had heard her, the
fleshly length stirred, like a sleepy, blushing serpent.

"Slut!"  Claudia muttered cheerfully, reaching for her knickers and
culottes.  She wasn't quite sure who she was talking to herself or her
beautiful, exhibitionist lover but that was another thing she was too
replete to bother about.

As she zipped up, then stepped back into her footwear, two disparate
bodily sensations impinged on her awareness.  She was ragingly thirsty
and she had a strong desire to urinate.  Giving the still drowsing Paul
a lingering last glance, she left the conservatory.

Her bladder satisfied, and refreshed by a quick wash, clean knickers
and a spritz of perfume, Claudia almost floated back down the stairs
towards the kitchen.  There was much to be said for the services of a
younger man even when one did most of the sexual work oneself!  and the
more she had of Paul, the younger and younger she felt.  Beatrice was
quite correct.  What did it matter if he was a gigolo?

He'll probably want tea, she thought, eyeing the china pot and cups set
out ready on the tray.  She was already lifting the kettle to fill it
when she realised that what she wanted herself was something far more
frosty.

"Well, nuts to you, Paul Whoever-you-are!"  she proclaimed defiantly,
and opened the refrigerator.

"Why should I indulge you every time?

Isn't it enough that you get my gorgeous body?"  Within a minute or two
she was putting the finishing touches to a tall jug of St.  Clement's,
dropping in ice and freshly sliced orange and lemon.

"I thought you might like a change from tea," she announced, nudging
open the house door and stepping into the conservatory.

But when she lifted her eyes from the tray, she nearly dropped it:

highball glasses, Waterford jug, the lot.  The patio doors to the
garden stood open in mute testament, and both the sleeping Paul and his
tangled clothing were gone.

Chapter Eight.  Progressive Therapy.

Blank panic flooded Claudia's system, coupled with a disappointment so
bitter she could barely absorb it.  She had known this might happen,
that he might fly the coop as suddenly as he had arrived in it, but
even so, the actuality of it cut her deeply.  She felt betrayed and
very angry; foolishly used.

And then rationality clicked in, bringing concern and some serious
guilt with it.

Even the most heinous of villains wouldn't go on the run in a torn
shirt and bare feet.  The pair of trainers Paul had been wearing
earlier were still lying abandoned, kicked on to their sides, beneath
the chaise, and if he had sought out other footwear she would have
heard him ascend the stairs.  Which meant that if he really was gone,
he must have suffered a relapse of some kind and wandered off, in a
fugue, lost and disorientated.  Setting down her tray with a dangerous
wallop, she shot out into the garden.

Her sense of relief, however, when she saw Paul at the far end of the
lawn, crouched down and studying the plants in her herbaceous border,
was so strong that she almost felt angry with herself.  It was
ridiculous to have become so attached to him, so soon, regardless of
how beautiful his body was and how marvellously he used it.  To become
obsessed was dangerous; she couldn't build her life around him.

"Are you all right?"  she enquired lightly, as she got near to him,
determined not to show how alarmed she had been just a second ago.

"I'm fine ... Thanks," said Paul, straightening up and turning towards
her, his smile glowing yet almost boyishly bashful.

"Are you7' he added, the modesty gaining a subtle, impish edge.

"I think so."  She met his eyes and stood for a few seconds, hands on
hips, surveying him challengingly.  It wasn't antipathy she felt
towards him at that moment, and the vibes she received from him weren't
exactly defiant, but there was a kind of clash, and it was deliciously
exciting.

"I've made us a cool drink," she said, turning towards the
conservatory, conscious of him watching her closely.

"Not tea, I'm afraid.  I fancied a bit of a change."  As she led the
way inside, she could hear him following, his tread near silent as his
bare feet kissed the grass.

"That looks splendid," Paul said, as they stood over the tray bearing
the St.  Clement's jug, glasses and a couple of dishes of cocktail
nibbles she had added.  Lunch seemed an aeon ago, and she had suddenly
felt hungry.

"But could we drink it over there?"  he asked, nodding towards the
white-painted wrought-iron garden chairs and table, which stood at the
far end of the garden, on the other side of the path to where Paul had
been admiring the borders.  As if she had already answered him, he took
command of the laden tray.

"Of course," replied Claudia, obscurely irritated that Paul was
suddenly directing the situation again.  For someone taken in on
charity, he had a remarkable knack of getting his own way.

But when they were seated, and she was being mother with the iced and
fruity mixture, she had to admit that they were in the right place to
enjoy it.  The afternoon was well worn on by now, and though the sun
still shone, it was low and mellow, and the air was balmy.

"Delicious!"  said Paul, his eyes closing with pleasure as he sipped
his drink through one of the straws that Claudia had stuck whimsically
into their glasses.  They were striped and seemed to express her sudden
mood of out-of-time holiday.

She made no comment but watched him for a while as he took long, almost
greedy pulls of the St.  Clement's, and in between raised his long,
pale face towards the dying sun.  He looked more content, by far, than
a man in his overall situation had a right to, but despite the
implications, that made Claudia happy too.  She decided not to
question, for now.

"I saw a squirrel while you were inside," said Paul, after a little
while.  He put aside his glass, sat up and gestured towards one of the
beech trees at the end of the garden.

"It just ambled across the grass as if it owned the place, then
suddenly took off and scooted up that tree."

"Yes, we get a lot of them.  It's the proximity of the woods."

"We?"  queried Paul, his blue gaze focusing quickly on her face.

"Force of habit," said Claudia, putting down her glass, wondering
whether to top it up, but feeling just too lazy to bother.

"Do you think of him all the time?"  asked Paul, picking up his glass
again and fiddling with the straw.

"You must miss him."

"I don't ... and I do," she answered.

"That is, I don't think of him all the time.  Not any longer."  And
especially not now!  she thought.

"But I do still miss him.  We had a good life together.  He was a fair
bit older than me, but it didn't make any difference that counted.  If
you know what I mean?"  She slanted him a sideways glance, as she
reached forward and finally topped up her glass.

"Yes, I think I do," he said rather smoothly, holding out his own glass
to be refilled.

Cocky little bastard!  thought Claudia, although she still felt
compelled to laugh.  He thinks that's why I was so eager to sleep with
him because I was missing the reeular sex I had with Gerald.

Their eyes met and Claudia tipped her glass to him.

"And for your information.  Mister Mystery, I was not dying of
frustration until you arrived.  I haven't really needed ... needed
"it"!"

Paul raised his eyebrows, grinned, then took a sip of his drink, his
mobile lips pursed almost suggestively around the straw.

"Oh, so it's just me you did it for," he observed, after a long,
pensive drink, 'as a kind of progressive therapy for my amnesia."

"Cheeky tyke!"  she said, debating whether he deserved a glass of St.

Clement's down his front.  It really wasn't his fault, though.  She
knew her own leading remark had started this.

"I'm sorry," said Paul, putting down his glass and twisting in his
chair to look at her.

"I'm being flippant and stupid.  And really, neither of our situations
are anything to be flippant about."  His expression grew grave, and
with that, almost poetically beautiful.

Claudia felt her insides quiver.

"You must have been very lonely."

Though she wanted him, she sensed he was being serious, and she knew
exactly what he must be feeling.  His own loneliness was different, but
just as affecting as hers.

"It hasn't been so bad.  I've got friends."

"Like Melody and Beatrice?"  He gave her a look that was superficially
innocent and perfectly bland, yet in the blue depths of his eyes
something else stirred.

Claudia returned his look, then glanced quickly around her.  The
idyllic summer's afternoon scene appeared exactly the same, and the
heady garden scents were just as delightful as they had been a moment
ago, but she sensed another lightning change in the colour of the mood
between them.  The pendulum was swinging towards sex again, as it had
inevitably seemed to do in the less than twenty-four hours they had
been acquainted.

"Melody is the only one I'd really call a friend," she said wondering
where it was that their conversation might lead.

"I've known her years.  Since she was a girl.  We've become really
close."  She paused slightly, catching another flash of increased
interest in Paul's expression.

"But as for Beatrice, I hardly know her.  I only really spoke to her
for the first time at Gerald's funeral.  She was his friend, really,
not mine."

"Oh, I see."

Did he?  Claudia thought that quite probably he did.  She decided to be
provocative.  Two could play at his game, and she had a sudden, acute
inkling of where he had been leading with his specific mention of
Melody and Beatrice.  The demon!  It was as if he had read the very
thoughts she had been entertaining earlier when the sultry doctor had
first stepped over the threshold!

"What do you think of Beatrice then?"  she asked, trying to sound
diffident.

"I should imagine she has quite a bedside manner."

"She's very impressive," was Paul's evasive reply.

"What do you think of her?"

Claudia tried to frame an equally unrevealing response, but as she did
so, Paul took a drink from his glass, and from its cold surface a
droplet of condensation fell on to the smooth plain of his uncovered
chest.  Mesmerised, she watched the tiny spheroid begin to trickle
slowly downward, over his pale midriff in the direction of his
waistband.  In her imagination his clothing disappeared all of a
sudden, and the drop of water continued its progress, running down
across his belly until it reached his pubis.

"The same.  You've summed her up perfectly.  She is impressive."

"Is that all?"

"She's compassionate.  Knowledgeable.  Wonderful at her job, I
suspect."

Is that all?

He didn't say it again, but nevertheless Claudia seemed to hear the
words.

"She's beautiful.  Very sensual.  Very bold.  She's got a fabulous body
and she wants everyone to know it."  She saw the lights in Paul's eyes
leap and flare.

"She seems so young, but I know she's several years older than I am."

Paul laughed lightly.

"How old are you, anyway?"  he asked, with an admirable lack of the
usual embarrassing toing and froing that some men indulged in when
trying to discover a mature woman's age.

Claudia considered lying.  She had no idea how old Paul was himself,
but she estimated him to be a good ten years younger than she was, at
least.

"Forty-two," she said, after a pause.

"Really?"

He sounded genuine.  Was it a line?  she wondered.  She waited for him
to say words to the effect that she didn't look 42 but he didn't.

You're too clever for that, aren't you?  she thought, watching him
drink again, his mouth snug around the straw, his throat undulating.

Further protestation would have been too unsubtle.

"I'm surprised at you saying Beatrice isn't your friend," he said,
after his swallow.

"You looked as if you knew each other well.  As if you confided in each
other.  I could imagine you being very close indeed."

Claudia's nerves prickled.  He was at it again; implying, suggesting.

And how "I don't know what you're talking about," she rounded on him.

"You only saw us together for a few moments."  A vague memory came to
her as she spoke; something she realised she had either barely
registered, or perhaps even suppressed.  A moving shadow that she had
espied, out of the corner of her eye, as she had been seeing Beatrice
Quine to the door.

"It only takes a few moments," he said, as cool as could be.  There
might have been a tiny flash of discomfiture in his expression, but
Claudia had to admire his self- control.  He was clearly going to bluff
his way through any suggestions, spoken or otherwise, that he might
have eavesdropped on her conversation with Beatrice.  She decided to
call his bluff but not on the issue of being spied upon.

"Perhaps you're right," she said, picking up her own drink, drawing a
meaningless pattern on the side of the tall glass, then setting it down
again, untasted.

"I do feel close to Beatrice, in a way.  It's a sort of instant
thing.

An immediate attraction.  If she were a man, it would almost be love at
first sight."

There!  Try that!  Is that what you wanted?  she challenged him,
silently.

"Love?"  He whistled softly.

"As much as that?"

"Well, perhaps not quite "Affection?"

He was still playing.  Still sitting there, toying with her, tempting
her; both flirt and victim in one breathtaking package.  She watched
him put his glass down and regard her very evenly.  For an instant she
imagined him in an invisible pair of sunglasses.  His expression was
camouflaged somehow, as if there were a veil over his eyes' intense
blueness, not dimming them but rendering them unreadable.

Suddenly, Claudia wanted the game to be over.  It was less than an hour
since he had been inside her, when she had ridden him on the chaise in
the conservatory, but to her great astonishment she already wanted him
again.  And yet she didn't seem to possess the same momentum she had
then.  In a way she couldn't quite fathom, Paul had taken control of
their unspoken interactions.  It was up to him to call the shots this
time; it was up to him to either seduce or to command.

"I think the word that you're looking for is lust," she said, her voice
almost a whisper.  Hating herself for her own wimpishness, she hoped
she hadn't overstepped the mark.

"I hoped it might be."

When Paul stood up, unfolding his slender frame from the garden chair,
Claudia realised she had been holding her breath.  She drew in air,
with relief, as he reached out and took her hand.

"Tell me all about it," he said, drawing her up out of her own chair
and leading her quite quickly towards the door into the house.  Tell me
about this "instant thing" you have for Beatrice ..."

And so she did tell him.

As he almost dragged her up the stairs, his narrow fingers tight around
hers, she told him of the subversive thoughts that Beatrice's dark
nipples had inspired when she had first seen them through the doctor's
thin white vest.

They looked so firm ... so tempting," she said, as Paul pushed open the
door to the guest room to his room and drew her inside.

"Like little ripe fruits.  I wanted to suck them and bite them."

"Go on!  Tell me more!"  he urged, raising her arms above her head and
almost manhandling her out of her T-shirt.

"I wanted her to take all her clothes off, so I could see what she
looks like naked."  She giggled.

"And to see if her hair's natural, or whether she dyes it!"  She sighed
with pleasure as Paul gently caressed her own nipples, touching them as
delicately as if they were precious fruits too.

"I wanted to kiss her all over.  To smell her, and to lick her," she
went on, extemporising wildly and feeling both proud and shocked over
it, while Paul proceeded to relieve her of her footwear, her culottes
and her panties.  Standing back, he left her naked in the illuminating
glare of the still-bright early evening sun.

For a moment, Claudia wanted to hide herself.  This was much more of a
revelation than last night, or on either occasion today.  There was no
protecting darkness now, nor a partial clothing to alleviate her fears
and appease her modesty.  He could see all of her now: every curve;

every bump; every dent.  Every niggling physical feature she felt that
the years had been less than kind to;

all the imperfections his own perfection rendered prominent.

"Oh God!"  he cried rawly, dragging off his own clothes.  Tell me
more!"  he begged, throwing aside the bedding, then rambunctiously
tumbling her backward on to the mattress.

So she told him more.  She made up bawdy stories of a kind that would
never have occurred to her before, and recounted them to him as they
rolled and squirmed and rutted.

By the time they had finished, her mind was fuzzed, confused and
drifting.  But her flesh was replete, and her drowsing spirit was
drenched in bliss.

"The one thing that Beatrice can't provide you with," murmured Paul
sleepily, as Claudia stirred, and the back of her hand brushed against
his subsiding penis.

"True," said Claudia, amused that even he, her unique and illusive
stranger, was prone to the same phallocentric notions as the most
common of men.

"But I'm sure she could match a man in any other way.

She strikes me as a woman who knows all there is to know about sex and
eroticism."

"Yeah, that's the impression I got too," said Paul, his hand moving
slowly, almost soothingly, on Claudia's flank, in an action that was
more companionable than amatory.

"Why, did she make a pass at you?"

"No.  Sadly not," Paul replied, stretching his long body.  They were
both still uncovered, but the light had grown dim.  Claudia wished she
could see him a little better.

"It's probably unethical or something."

"Probably..."  Claudia sat up, turned to face him, and touched his
cheek to make him look straight at her.

"Would you have succumbed, though, if she had done?"  His long dark
lashes fluttered bashfully.

"It's all right," she continued, watching him blush.

"I won't say I wouldn't have been jealous.  But it's not as if you and
I have sworn eternal fidelity or anything, is it?"  She paused, as a
rather breath-catching concept occurred to her.

"You might actually be committing adultery by being with me, you
know.

What if you're married?"

"I suppose I could be," he observed, frowning, then turning his face to
kiss Claudia's palm, 'but if I do have a wife, I have absolutely no
recollection of her."  He kissed her again, and again, his lips moving
up to taste the inside of her wrist.

"About Beatrice," he said, causing Claudia to grin at the blatant
change of direction.

"All those things you just told me.  Did you mean them?  Would you
really have sex with her?  I'm not saying I wouldn't be jealous, if you
did..."  He looked up, smirking against the skin of her forearm.

"I'd just want you to promise you'd let me watch you!"

"Bastard!"  she chided, with genuine affection.

"You men are all the same where two women are concerned."

"Well, at least that's something about me that's normal," said Paul
cheerfully.  He kissed her right in the crook of her elbow, parting his
lips to lay his tongue against the vein there.

"You still haven't told me about you and Beatrice, though.  Whether you
really meant it, or whether it was just some sexy bullshit to turn me
on."

"It was both," she said, squirming slightly as he threatened to bite
her.

"Although for some inexplicable reason, I've never considered other
women sexually alluring until now.  It must be something you've
done."

She took him lightly by the hair, and made him meet her eyes again.

"I never fancied a woman until I met you."

Paul gave her a look of mock affront.

"You know what I mean," she said, drawing him to her and kissing his
lips.

"And what about Melody?"  he enquired, when they had separated and he
had pulled her companionably into his arms.

"Would you consider her as a lover?  It's obvious that she adores
you."

"I beg your pardon!"

The idea seemed preposterous; obscene almost.  Her feelings towards
Melody had never been anything other than purely affectionate and
supportive.  She had looked upon the younger woman almost as a
daughter, or a much younger sister.  The comfort they had given each
other had always been purely platonic.  It had never occurred to
Claudia that it could be anything else.

And yet... Ill Melody was beautiful: even now, forced as she had been
into a mould of her husband's making.  The hard, glossily groomed look
that he preferred for her was all wrong for the delicacy of her
features, for her youth and her dreaminess.  Claudia could remember
another Melody.

A lovely naiad-like girl with soft, dark hair that had a hint of a
wave, and a face that was exquisite without the need for any make-up.

There had been and still was a youthful vulnerability about Melody that
spoke strongly to Claudia, the grownup.

My God!  she thought suddenly, looking at Paul, who was still waiting
for an answer, his blue eyes huge and wicked with speculation.  It's
the same thing with him!  The same spark that attracts me.  The same
quality of helplessness combined with strength.  They could almost be
siblings, and I do want the pair of them ... I do!

"I'm right, aren't I?  You do want her," persisted Paul, moving against
her with an erection that was already renewed and lively.

Claudia turned away, momentarily nonplussed.  It was embarrassing,
almost terrifying, to be read so easily and yet it excited her.  It
also seemed strangely apposite.  Melody, too, had the same knack of
sometimes knowing what others were thinking or at least what Claudia
herself was thinking.

"In a way," she conceded, 'although it had never occurred to me until
this moment.  We've been friends and confidantes for years, despite the
age difference.  But there's never been any sexual attraction
before."

"Maybe you just didn't recognise it as such," said Paul, assuming an
air of sagacity that Claudia found extremely sexy.

"Although judging by the way she looks at you, she's known about it a
long time."

"How come you're suddenly such an expert on personal interactions and
relationships?"  demanded Claudia, reaching down to take him in hand.

Paul moaned softly and bumped his hips to push his flesh into her
grip.

"God knows!"  he said, through gritted teeth, still squirming.

"Instinct or something.  I seem to know all sorts of things, but not
any of the facts that would really be most use to me.  Like my name.

Who I am.  Where I come from."

Claudia made as if to pull back.  The moment might be spoilt now.

But Paul would not allow her to release him.  He folded his fingers
around hers and continued to rock.

"I'll tell you something else, too," he said, his face twisting and
contorting as his pleasure clearly mounted and his cock seemed to
expand inside her hand.

"Melody's unhappy ... Very unhappy.  And if you made love to her it
might distract her from her problems."

"How in the hell do you know that?"  Claudia demanded, still caressing
him, and at the same time wondering how on earth he could carry on an
analytical conversation about someone else!  - when he was being
stimulated and well on his way to orgasm.  Even she was having serious
trouble concentrating on both Paul's stiff penis and the unsatisfactory
nature of Melody's marriage.  Either one was worth the whole of her
attention.

"I just know!"  he gasped.

"I can tell... It's in her eyes."

Which was true, although how Paul had found time to observe this in
just a few minutes acquaintance was quite remarkable; almost uncanny.

The depth of his perception was amazing, especially for one in the
midst of such a trauma of his own.  There was so much to him, and every
moment revealed yet more.

But I can't go on like this right now, thought Claudia suddenly.  Her
body was screamingly alive and turned on.  She was wet and swollen, and
ready for her lover.  There would be other opportunities, later, to
discuss Melody.

"Can we talk about Mel later?"  she said softly, rolling on to her
back, releasing his penis, and using both her hands to urge and guide
him towards her.

"Yes ... Yes, of course," said Paul, his voice faltering a little as he
poised himself between her thighs.  She felt the silky head of his
manhood butt against her, homing in, with blind accuracy, as if it were
a key seeking a lock it had opened for years.

"Forgive me ... I'm with you now He swivelled his hips and pushed, and
'with' became 'in' in one long glide.

"This is the wrong time to be discussing another woman!"

"I'll forgive you," panted Claudia, wrapping her arms and legs around
him.

It was a long time before either of them spoke a word.

The trill of the telephone woke Claudia from her slumber, and it took
her several moments to remember exactly where she was.

Looking about her, she saw the familiar accoutrements of her sunlit
cream and oak bedroom, and wondered for a moment why on earth she
wasn't elsewhere.  It didn't seem natural, somehow, to be here, in her
own four poster, surrounded by pale lace and fine fabrics and the
accumulated collectibles of her marriage to Gerald.  A plainer milieu
was much more what she had expected specifically that of the guest
room, with its blue decor and far simpler furnishings.  And its neat
divan bed, currently inhabited by Paul.

The phone continued to protest, and cursing herself for not switching
on the answering machine, Claudia reached out for the bedside
extension, then muttered "Yes?"

"Hello?  Claudia?  It's Beatrice!"  the doctor said, her voice as
bright and crisp as the fine morning outside.

"I hope I didn't disturb anything," she went on, not laughing but
sounding as if she might like to.

"No.  Not at all.  It's just that I think I've slept in a bit," said
Claudia, sitting up and rubbing her face and then her hair with her
free hand.  Yes, what the devil time was it?  she wondered.  The sun
was already climbing high in the summer blue sky.

Beatrice made a resonant 'hmmm' sound which seemed to say "Pull the
other one!"  then continued, "Well,- it'll probably have done you a
power of good!"

"If you say so," replied Claudia, then, realising how ungracious she
sounded, she said, "Sorry, I think I'm still half doped ... Is there
some news about Paul's hospital appointment?"

"Yes!  Excellent news!"  said Beatrice.

"I've managed to get them to fit him in this afternoon if that suits
the two of you, of course."

"Oh yes, that'll be absolutely fine.  It's very kind of you to go to
all this trouble," Claudia said, all the time wishing and feeling
guilty about it that she and Paul could be left to their own devices
just a little bit longer.  It was only a matter of time before he
remembered, then left her.

"No trouble at all.  I'm happy to help," Beatrice assured her, and
Claudia had the feeling that the woman really meant it.  For all her
outrageousness and devilish sexual reputation.  Doctor Quine was
thoroughly caring and genuinely kind.

The appointment was for 2.30pm at the Ainsley Trust Private Hospital,
which Claudia had never visited but had heard various friends speak of
in highly glowing terms.  She had a general idea where it was and, with
Beatrice's instructions, had no doubt she could find it fairly
easily.

The doctor would meet the two of them, in reception, at 2.15.

"And tell Paul not to worry," she exhorted Claudia, her tone gentle and
reassuring.

"David Colville's brilliant.  He's the best man in his field, but I
doubt if he'll find anything ominous.  I'm convinced that it's just a
matter of time."

Time, thought Claudia, after Beatrice had rung off.  That little matter
of time.  How much of it I have ... There may not be much, so I'd
better not waste any.

But had she wasted last night, perhaps?  She and Paul hadn't slept
together, mainly because by the time they had finished making love,
bathed, then eaten a scratch meal together, both dressed in bathrobes,
it had become apparent that Paul was exhausted.  His eyes had appeared
heavy and slightly smudgy, and once or twice he had rather shamefacedly
smothered a yawn.  He had made no demur when she had shuffled him off
to bed, and no demand that she join him when he got there.  It had been
both a great relief and a bit of a disappointment.

But we could still have just slept together, she thought, checking the
time, then letting out a gasp of dismay.  If they were going to make
the appointment, they were going to have to get moving.

Deciding to get ready herself first, and then concentrate her efforts
on Paul, she quickly chose some clothing, then began a swift but
careful toilette, acutely conscious of the fact that she wanted to
impress Beatrice, as well as look her best and youngest!  - for her
lover.

She couldn't stop thinking that she should have spent the night with
him.  A warm body in her bed was something she had missed a lot since
Gerald's death.  For comfort.  For reassurance, when the occasional
nightmare woke her in panic.  Just for sheer, animal contentment.

But it wouldn't have stopped at that, would it?  she demanded, setting
down her comb, as she had been flicking her short, amenable hair into
its most flattering arrangement.  She studied her hands as if she had
never seen them before.  These hands were voracious and unstoppable
when placed in proximity with Paul's body, and if she had shared his
bed, she would have found herself touching him in the night.  She would
have woken him, made demands on him, coaxed him into satisfying her
when he sorely needed to sleep uninterrupted.

Better to have left well alone, she thought, squashing selfish regret
as she stood up, then studied her reflection in the Victorian
cheval-glass which had been one of Gerald's many lavish wedding
gifts.

Not bad!  she decided, liking the cream and navy button-through dress
she had put on after a good deal of thought.  It was sleeveless,
mid-calf length, and nominally modest, but the implied access of the
long line of square navy buttons seemed vaguely suggestive.  Not enough
to be tarty; just promising.  Strappy sandals not high but curvily
constructed only added to the provocative impression.

Idiot!  she told herself.  What are you expecting out of this?  You're
going to a hospital, chaperoning a sick friend who's having tests, not
to a discreet hotel for an apres- lunch liaison.

Even so, it boosted her confidence to look as if the liaison was an
option.  Smoothing down her skirt, she gave her image a rakish wink.

Chapter Nine.  Classic Recollections.

"What's the matter?"  asked Claudia anxiously as she turned around and
found that Paul had stopped dead.  He was rooted to the spot, staring
intently at the car which she had backed out of the garage, while
waiting for him with a look of half anguish, half hope upon his face.

"What is it, Paul?"  Claudia persisted, laying her hand on his arm when
he still didn't move.  There had to be something; something either very
wrong or perhaps even very right.  Gerald's lovely old classic Mark II
Jaguar often induced gasps of admiration, and even envy, but it had
never before struck anyone to silence.

"Paul!"  She gave him a little shake when she felt him start to
tremble.

"Tell me what it is!  You're scaring me!"

When he turned to her, his eyes were huge.

"I once had a car like this," he said, his voice just a breath as he
stepped forward, unconsciously shaking off her grip, and laid his
fingers on the Jag's smooth, steely paintwork.

He can't be faking this, thought Claudia, her heart twisting at the
strange, stricken look on her companion's face.  He was caught in an
intense inner struggle, as if the memories were being physically
wrenched from his grey matter.  He was fighting hard, and he had never
looked more beautiful.

"It was a wreck.  Almost a write-off ... But I'm sure it was this
model, and this colour."  He drew his hand across the car's bonnet as
if caressing it.

That's good.  You're remembering something.  It could be very
important," said Claudia, moving to stand beside him, next to the
driver's door.

"Does it bring back anything else?  By association?"

Paul drifted away again, still trailing his hand over the body work
then examining the leaping beast, the Jaguar insignia, with his
fingertips.  After a moment, he walked around to the passenger door,
then unfastened it, and bent to look inside the car.  When he climbed
inside, Claudia opened her own door, tossed her shoulder bag into the
back seat, and slid in beside him.  She wanted to prompt him afresh,
but knew the moment was highly delicate.  He was frowning again as he
scanned the walnut dashboard.

"Yes ... Yes, it does," he said belatedly, still studying the clocks,
the indicators and the radio.

"Sort of..."  He turned to her.

"But it's difficult.  Far away.  Sort of muddy."

"Don't force it," she said, touching him again, and realising it was
getting very difficult not to touch him.  They were so close, in the
car; it made her blood race.

"Be patient."  Oh yes, Claudia, do try!

She drew her hand back, almost as if she had burnt it.

"Look, if you feel a bit shaken up, we can cancel this.  I'm sure
Beatrice and this specialist or whatever will understand."

"No, it's all right," said Paul in reply, turning to her, his face
suddenly calm, almost beatific.

"I feel fine.  I think I'm beginning to remember a little more ... It's
It's sort of clearing up somehow."  He frowned again, but it was
rueful, even a little amused.

"But whatever it is, I don't think it's anything very recent.  It feels
more like a memory of a memory, if you know what I mean?"  He grinned
his perfect, angelic, boyish grin and Claudia grabbed the steering
wheel, rather quickly, to restrain herself.

"Yes, I suppose I do," she said, with no real notion of what she was
talking about- "Sort of..."  The enclosed, leather-scented space was
having a wild and alarming effect on her;

concentrating Paul's magic into an aura that packed the punch of a
rare, vintage brandy.  Was she deluded to think she could concentrate
on her driving?

"We'd better be off," she said briskly, when Paul seemed to be making
no move to fasten his seatbelt.  He was just sitting beside her,
glancing around the interior of the car, as if reorienting himself into
a bit of his past he could now remember.  He touched the dashboard, the
leather seat at his side, even the evocatively shaped gear lever, then
simply sat back, his attention obviously inward.

It would have been so much easier to concentrate and be objective about
the journey and the events ahead if he didn't look quite so wonderful,
reflected Claudia, feeling perplexed.  From the selection of Gerald's
clothing at his disposal, Paul seemed to have deliberately chosen the
outfit most stunning and most flattering to him: a loose,
creamy-coloured summer suit which her late husband had worn but once,
protesting that this was one purchase that really was too young for him
teamed with a white silk collarless shirt and a pair of beige leather
loafers.  With his wild hair, intense eyes and pale complexion, he
looked like some later-day, almost 'designer' messiah.  Claudia felt
ashamed of how weak and irresponsible his beauty made her; she wanted
to go to bed with him immediately and hang the hospital!

"Paul!"  she prompted, then took action when he looked at her rather
vaguely.  Reaching over, she tugged out the seatbelt and drew it across
him, her fingers shaking and making her rumble with the buckle.  Her
hands were far too near to his cream-clad groin for sense or comfort.

"Sorry," he said, as she started the car, and with a smoothness and
competence that astonished her, pulled out of the drive and into the
lane, heading north towards Oxford and its environs.

"I was miles away," he continued, still glancing around the interior of
the car.

"I think "Are you remembering more?"

"Yes.  But it's in very specific bits.  Mostly to do with this car ...
or my car ... and things that happened in connection with it."

Without asking, he flipped open the glove box, as if searching for
clues within it.  The folded maps it contained, however, were clearly
unrevealing.

"This car is beautifully kept," he said, then smiled wistfully as if
some fond memory had just come to him.

"The one I remember is, or was, a disgusting heap of scrap by
comparison."

"You probably had it when you were quite young, then.  When you were
hard up, perhaps?7 It seemed logical.

"I think so said Paul, closing his eyes and fingering his temple just
beneath the fast-healing graze.

Cruising the car along an open stretch of road now, with no traffic to
speak of in front of or behind them, Claudia allowed herself to picture
him younger.  Much younger than he was now, in his late teens, perhaps,
or early twenties.  Would he have looked even more handsome?

Or did the addition of just a few years add more distinction?  Either
way, she knew he would have been startling.

Against her will, she pictured the young Paul with a woman.  A girl.

She would be pretty and faultless and fresh; slim as a whip, yet sexy,
with a streaming mass of wild dark curls, in bed, she would strain
against Paul, her perfect body responding to his with all the life and
pure energy of her youth.  And he would thrust into her, yelling with
pleasure, putting her through hoop after hoop of strenuous copulation,
in the way that only the very young had the stamina for.

"Claudia!  You're going a bit fast!"

Paul's voice, not sharp, but audibly concerned, shattered the image of
thrashing limbs, and lithe, pumping bodies.  Experiencing a jolt of
visceral fear, Claudia concentrated hard and slowed the car.

"Sorry," she said, focusing on her task.

"I was trying to make good time.  I thought we could call somewhere
fora bite of lunch.  I know a nice place not too far from the
hospital.

I thought it might take your mind off the tests and whatever."

It had been a vague thought in the back of her mind, but now it seemed
eminently sensible.  A bite to eat, with some good coffee, perhaps?

Anything to keep the excesses of her imagination in check.

Paul made a thoughtful little sound, then said, "Yes.  Why not?  That's
a great idea."  He paused for a moment, and she saw him smooth his
fingers rather edgily along the side seam of his trousers.

"And you never know, we might meet someone who knows me."

And won't that be interesting?  said the subversive voice of Claudia's
lingering suspicions.  As time went by, she was becoming more and more
sure that everything he was telling her about himself was true, but up
until two days ago she had always been a cautious individual, and a
little residue of that wariness still remained.

They drove on for a little while in silence, Claudia applying as much
of her attention as she could to the road and the manipulation of the
powerful, classic car that she loved almost as much as Gerald had
done.

Paul was apparently deep in thought, or the retrieval of his errant
memories, with a frown on his brow, one arm across his midriff, and one
knuckle pressed pensively to his chin.

The quaintly named Mogander Arms was another classic ~ an old country
pub which, despite its growing and increasingly trendy reputation for
fine food, had still managed to retain a bit of the character that had
made it popular in the first place.  Pulling into the car park, Claudia
felt a rush of reassurance from the prospect of the pub's pleasant,
comforting ambience, and despite the alarms and upsets that were
attacking both her peace of mind and her libido she realised she was
quite ravenously hungry.  Having what amounted to a toy boy obviously
burned off a great number of calories!

"Let's sit here," she said, leading Paul to a table for two, in the
annexe to the rear of the main dining area.

There was a stiff breeze blowing outside, but here, in the shelter of
the building but close to the open french doors to the beer garden,
they had the best of both worlds:

open-air eating yet protection from the elements.

They both chose the same main dish a lightish concoction of pasta,
roast vegetables and a herb and creme fraiche sauce and voiced their
selection almost simultaneously, laughing in a way that freed the
tension which had slyly been building between them.  Claudia would have
liked to have ordered a bottle of wine she would have liked it very
much indeed but asked for mineral water for the pair of them instead.

She had to drive; Paul was due for hospital tests.

After two days of near madness, she forced her old, accustomed
sensibleness to prevail.  It was amazing how peculiar that now felt.

Glancing around the room, Claudia quickly became aware they were under
scrutiny.  A trio of young women at a nearby table twenty-somethings,
involved in a celebration of some kind were all darting what they
probably hoped were covert looks at her and Paul from time to time.  It
was obvious they were agog with speculation.

Take a good look, girls, she felt like saying as she sipped her water,
and tried hard not to let her watchers know she was aware of them. He's
glorious, isn't he?  she challenged them.  He's a god, he's young, and
he's mine!  Well, at least for the time being he is.

Paul was still deep in thought, his long face cool and rather grave.

Suddenly, he looked up and smiled, his blue eyes dancing.

"What is it?  What else have you remembered?"  demanded Claudia,
reaching across to touch his hand as she caught his excitement.

Paul twisted his fingers to catch hers, then raised his free hand and
covered his mouth for a moment, as if he had a secret that was
extremely naughty but which he longed to tell her.  She could almost
hear the indrawn breaths at the table nearby.

"Paul!  For heaven's sake, tell me!  Is it to do with the car?"

"Yes.  In a way..."  He uncovered his face but he was still grinning;

he looked elated, highly amused and almost disbelieving.

"But it's pretty wild.  I can hardly credit it myself, but somehow I
know that it's the absolute truth.  Don't ask me why."

"Paul!"

"You might be shocked."

"I'm warning you!"

"You might be disgusted."

"Let me be the judge of that.  Now talk!  Immediately!"

"OK," he said, lifting her hand to his lips, giving her knuckle a kiss,
then releasing her.  She could feel the eyes of the three girls almost
boring into her skin.

"But this is very weird.  It's like finding one short reel of a film. I
can remember this one ... sort of episode with total clarity.  But
nothing before it, and nothing after it.  Most peculiar."

Claudia held back from prompting him again, and waited, almost bursting
with curiosity, while he took a drink of mineral water.

Then he began to speak, his deep voice very soft and intimate.

"I went on holiday in the car.  With a friend.  It must have been quite
some time ago, because we were both fairly young.  And we were very
broke."  He hesitated, his blue eyes full of a faraway dreaminess.

"The Jag was so fragile it's a wonder it got us anywhere at all.  And
the cottage we stayed in was a hovel.  But it didn't matter ..."  The
dreamy look became fond and reminiscent.  It touched Claudia deeply
because it was the first time she had seen it: "We were just so
relieved to get out of the city, we were almost hysterical."

Questions seethed in Claudia's throat, desperate to spring forth from
her lips, but she held back, already excited, and more than a little
jealous.

"The weather was terrible, and the first night there was a raging
thunderstorm."  He flashed Claudia a quick significant smile, as if to
underline the continuing portentous nature of such sturm und drang in
his life.

"We were both scared to death, especially as someone in the local pub
had told us there was a homicidal poacher on the loose in the area at
night.  We'd started off in separate bedrooms.  There had never been
anything between us until then..  / Here it comes, thought Claudia,
wishing once again that she could have wine.

"But when the storm hit its peak, Vivian came creeping into my room,
and snuck into bed with me."

Claudia couldn't help herself.  There just had to be a "Vivienne',
didn't there?

"What was she like?  I suppose she was very pretty."

"More striking than pretty, I'd say," said Paul, his voice rather
indistinct.  When Claudia looked at him more closely, she could see he
was righting hard not to laugh.

"He was six foot four, his hair was already beginning to recede, and he
was the thinnest man I've ever seen.  But yes, you could say Vivian was
good looking."

"A man!"

"Yes, a man," said Paul, shrugging a little.

"Vivian, not Vivienne."

He enunciated each of the two names quite distinctly.  I did warn you
that you might be shocked."

Reaching for her water, and drinking almost without thought, Claudia
did a swift re calibration of the attitude she had been forming about
Paul and his past 'liaisons'.  Was she shocked?  Was she repelled?  Was
she even jealous now she knew Vivian was masculine?

The answers were: not really; not at all; a little but not quite as
much, somehow.

"Wow!"  she murmured, then tried to look unconcerned as the waitress
approached their table.

Paul appeared highly amused while their food was being served.  It was
apparent that the waitress, a buxom woman clearly the wrong side of 50,
but not at all bothered by it, had taken a shine to him, and something
of a performance was made with napkins, tongs and serving dishes, and
exhortations that he should fill his plate with a little more pasta.

Despite her impatience, Claudia couldn't help smiling too, and as the
waitress left, she flashed her a conspiratorial look.  Claudia felt
like saying, "Don't worry, my dear, I will!"

After the first few mouthfuls were consumed and pronounced excellent,
Claudia fixed Paul with a very firm look.

"Right.  You and Vivian.  Let's hear it!"  she said crisply, making a
firm little gesture with her fork.

Paul glanced quickly around him, but the three avid girls had just left
perhaps reluctantly?  - and there were no other diners sitting within
earshot.

"Where was I?"  he enquired urbanely, as if they had been discussing
the weather or some social inoccuity.

"You were in bed with your friend.  Stop prevaricating!"

"That's just what I told myself then," murmured Paul, conveying a small
chunk of pasta to his mouth and chewing it thoughtfully.

"I

knew what I wanted, and what he wanted even though I don't think either
of us had known it until that night but there's a big difference
between knowing and doing."

Claudia felt the urge to clomp her fork down on the table and reach
across and shake Paul into telling her what she now realised she was
almost frantic to hear.  And as if sensing her wishes, he went on
without further delay.

"All he had on was a thin, cotton shirt, and even though it was fairly
dark, I'd seen his cock as he got into bed.  I realised that he'd
probably wanted me to see him, and that's why he hadn't worn
underpants.  Anyway, the thunder crashed again just then, and one thing
led to another He paused and grinned until we were in each other's
arms, hugging each other.  And we both had the hard-on to end all
hard-ons."

Helpless, Claudia found herself seeing them.  Paul, as fabulous and as
vulnerable as he was now, but a little younger.  And the mysterious
Vivian she seemed to picture as an actor she had rather admired in
films and on television: a tall, louche and somewhat idiosyncratic
looking individual.  As Paul had described, he was extremely slender
and his black hair was slightly thinning.

She pictured their lean male limbs entwining, both of them a little
unsure of their caresses, even though their penises were urgently risen
and straining towards each other.  Would they kiss on the lips?

she wondered, then almost as if he had heard her, Paul answered that
question.

The weirdest thing, at first, was kissing a man on the mouth," he said,
running a finger across his lower lip as if he could still feel the
pressure of Vivian's mouth upon his.

"His tongue felt huge, like a marauding animal.  I wasn't sure I liked
it at first, but then I did, and I was kissing him back and pushing my
tongue into his mouth."  He steepled his fingers in front of him for a
moment, then picked up his fork again and immediately put it down.

"It felt more erotic, to be kissing him, in a way, than to feel him
wiggling his hips and rubbing his cock up against mine."

Claudia was entranced.  It was almost as if she were perched on the end
of the very bed with them, like some invisible, voyeuristic sprite,
enjoying their tentative pleasure with just the same fear and surprise
they were feeling.  She wanted to bombard him with questions, but both
his memory and the illusion were too fragile.

"He felt quite cold," said Paul, pushing his food around his plate,
hunger clearly forgotten in the face of other appetites.

"He must have been hovering on the landing for ages, screwing up enough
courage to come in.  It made me feel sort of tender towards him.  He
was more scared than I was.  Once I'd got started the whole thing felt
right to me.  I seemed to know just what to do."

The way you do with me, thought Claudia, feeling a moist and very
familiar intimate trembling.  The moment Paul had committed himself to
lovemaking, he seemed to find it easy to take over, to take control.

Bed, or its equivalent, was a natural habitat for him, and sex an
inborn accomplishment.  He was a wonder, a phenomenon She felt in awe
of him, and she blessed whatever force had brought him to her.

"I stroked his legs and his back, to get him warm first, then finally,
he seemed to get impatient and frenzied, and he begged me, almost like
a child, to touch his cock.  I got the impression that if we didn't
start then, he'd jump out of bed and run a mile."

Lost in recollection, he halted for a moment, rearranged his pasta a
little and sipped his water.  Claudia got the impression that he too
wished they were drinking wine or at least one of his beloved cups of
tea.

"It was weird to touch a penis that wasn't my own," he said finally,
'but not unpleasant."  He looked up at her, his eyes spirited and a
touch of colour brightening his high cheekbones.

"Oh no, not unpleasant at all."

"What was it like?"  asked Claudia, then almost instantaneously she
clapped her hand across her lips, profoundly alarmed that she had asked
such a question.  She felt her own cheeks flame far pinker than
Paul's.

"Like the rest of him," replied Paul, with a chuckle.

"Thin, but rather lengthy.  Easy to get your fingers around He held up
one hand, thumb and first finger an '0' - but needing one helluva long
stroke to get the best from it!"

Claudia spluttered and giggled and had to take a long drink of mineral
water to settle herself.

"You're wicked," she said, setting her glass down and shaking her
head.

There was a touch of bravado to him now that reminded her very vividly
of Beatrice; a kind of joy in life and sex that was outrageously
appealing.

"It was true though!"  he protested, taking a mouthful of pasta, then
making much of savouring it and dabbing his mouth with his napkin.

"I

can very clearly remember it making my wrist ache.  It was a good thing
for me that he came very quickly or I'm sure I would have ended up with
cramp."

"You poor thing," she said in mock sympathy.

"Yes!  Quite right.  There he was spurting his way to paradise ... and
I was left high and dry with a beast of an erection."  Paul told her
this in a conversational, almost casual voice, but with one brief,
flicking glance downward he belied the unconcern of his tone.

You're hard now, too, aren't you, you sexy bastard, she thought,
imagining that 'beast of an erection' and how it would be pushing his
pale trousers out of line.  A whole wealth of scenarios assailed her
mind scape but one in particular took a hold, to entertain her.

The old cliche, so familiar from racy novels and movies: man gets
hard-on; woman drops table napkin;

man nearly has apoplexy trying to look unperturbed and order dessert,
while woman manipulates his penis with her lips and tongue.

Oh yes!  thought Claudia, her mouth watering at the illusory flavour of
her lover's manhood and that of his fresh emission.  She had touched
his cock, handled it meticulously and lingeringly, and felt it lodged
deep inside her body, but so far she hadn't treated herself to sucking
it.  That was a delight that still lay ahead of her along with many
others, she happily expected.

"Oh dear, how terrible," she said drolly, feeling aroused by his
plight, both then and now.

"What did you do about it?"

"Well, first I waited until Vivian got his breath back.  I think the
enormity of what had happened had rather taken the wind out of his
sails.  But when he'd stopped sobbing and creating and telling me he
loved me, I sort of reminded him that the proceedings weren't quite
over."

"How?"

"By encouraging him to turn over, then massaging myself against his
bottom."

Between her thighs, Claudia felt the deep, raw pulse of acute desire.

Oh God, oh God, had Paul actually fucked Vivian?  The idea was so
intense, so compelling, so delicious and so powerful that she knew if
she clenched her vulva right now she would probably come like an
express train and cry out.  And she would still have to know what
happened.

"I didn't," said Paul quietly, and for one horrifying moment, Claudia
was convinced that she had asked her question out loud, in a public
dining area which though sparsely populated was not entirely empty of
fellow diners.  She felt her jaw drop, and her tongue cleave to the
roof of her mouth.

"What's the matter?"  Paul asked, his brow pleating as he stared at
her, obviously perplexed by her inability to speak.

"I -' she began, still mentally floundering.

"It's all right," he said reassuringly, 'you didn't actually ask me,
but I could see you were dying to."  He looked from right to left.

"Don't worry, our naughty little secrets are still safe."

"I don't know what you're talking about!"  she snapped.  How could he
really be so perceptive, with a mind that was temporarily maimed?

"But you do want to know, don't you?"

"Yes!  All right!  I do!  Tell me what happened!"  She had let him get
the upper hand again.

"Well, I know I didn't have him ..."  His voice petered out, and he
frowned slightly again.  Was the clarity of his recollection fading?

Or was this part of the act to make this blow-by-blow multi-dimensional
account of Vivian's surrender seem less suspicious coming from a
supposed amnesiac.

"We weren't ... you know ... "equipped" to go the whole hog.  It's
rather difficult, in some ways, to be both completely spontaneous and
also considerate."

"I suppose it is," observed Claudia, feeling a shiver of luscious
revulsion run up her back.  With difficulty, she quashed a tantalising
thread of conjecture.  Images of condoms and lubricants; wild, sweaty
sex; humping and groaning.  Strong stuff to contemplate when they were
supposed to be eating lunch.

"What we did was the nearest equivalent," said Paul, his expression,
Claudia thought, becoming deliberately coy.

"Which is?7 "I pressed my body against his back, and rocked my cock to
and fro between his thighs."  His lean face became serious and
contemplative.

"Which is just as good, in a way, if you're warm and close."

Yes, I think it might be at that, mused Claudia, wishing for that
warmth and closeness as she studied her barely touched food.  Oh, to be
there in that bed with Paul now, lying like spoons, his fine stiff
erection between her thighs.  She wouldn't mind at all that he wasn't
inside her just as long as he reached around and stroked her
clitoris.

The inner scene was gentle now, but still Claudia had lost her
appetite.  She didn't want her immaculately prepared pasta with its
clever, aromatic sauce; she wanted Paul, his marvelous body, and his
strong, young penis.  That apres-lunch tryst she had idly thought of
earlier became a sudden, almost painful temptation.  She wondered if
the Mogander Arms had a vacant room.  They could say that one of them
had been taken ill and needed to lie down.  It wasn't a million miles
away from the truth.

She imagined being with Paul in some big old- fashioned bed, all goose
down well-damed sheets and a saggy mattress.  First they would fuck
quickly and passionately, slaking the keen edge of their lust before
settling down to a long, summer's afternoon of leisurely lovemaking.

While he told her more tall tales of his young manly escapades with
Vivian, she would let him come not only between her thighs, but all
over her body, wheresoever took his fancy.  Across her belly, over her
breasts, on her throat and face.  She could almost see him kneeling
over her, his prick rampant in his hand as he worked it with quick,
deft strokes, then, crying out, anointed her ... One look at Paul's
face told her he was having the same dream, or one very like it.  His
smooth cheeks were flushed, and he too had hardly tasted his pasta.

Hisposture was awkward as if he were sitting with some discomfort.

"Paul.  I wonder if she began, seeing the familiar fire light in his
eyes, and him almost leap from his seat as if he had only been waiting
for the slightest word from her.  She smiled back at him, knowing she
didn't really have to say much more.

But as she reached behind her for her bag, hanging over her chair, her
watch's accusing dial caught her attention.

1.45.

It was already 1.45pm, and they still had several miles to drive before
they reached the hospital, and Beatrice.

"It would make us late, wouldn't it?"  said Paul softly, folding his
napkin and laying it methodically across his side plate.

Claudia fingered the strap of her watch for a moment, wishing she
hadn't put the damn thing on so they could have forgotten time and
taken that room without worrying.

"I'm afraid so," she said with a shrug, then swung her bag on to her
lap and reached inside to extract her credit card.

But as she drew out the powerful slip of plastic, she found herself
smiling.

"There'll be another time," she told her watching lover as she flexed
her Mastercard contemplatively, 'and another hotel.  I'll make it up to
you.  Don't worry, we'll have our stolen afternoon."

Chapter Ten.  Memento Mori, Memento Vivere.

"So, has he remembered anything else yet?"  asked Beatrice as they sat
in the obscenely luxurious visitors' waiting room of the Ainsley
Private Hospital.

I ought to tell her, thought Claudia, stifling a smile.  Someone like
Beatrice would really appreciate hearing about Paul and Vivian, and she
wouldn't think it at all abnormal either.  For a few seconds, Claudia
actually considered describing what Paul had recounted to her, but
almost as quickly she shelved the idea.  She had no right to spread
abroad his private recollections of his past.

"Just little bits and pieces," she said diplomatically.

"Incidental things.  Everyday likes and dislikes.  Nothing about his
identity or his life history."

"It'll come," said Beatrice reassuringly, her sensate nature clearly
reasserting itself as she took Claudia's hand.

"Don't you worry.  The small memories are a good sign.  It shows that
the actual mechanism of memory is functional."

Paul was currently undergoing his examination and tests.  The
consultant had asked Claudia a few informal questions herself prior to
whisking Paul off for the main part of the procedure, but it had been
clear, then, that her continued presence was not required.  Claudia had
not known whether to be unhappy or relieved by this.  She felt
responsible for Paul, and worried about him, but when all was said and
done, she wasn't his mother, his wife, his sister or any kind of close
relation.  Only she and he and Beatrice, and probably Melody!  - had
any knowledge of the degree of intimacy they were sharing.  To all
intents and purposes, she was barely even an acquaintance of Paul's;

just someone who had taken him in as an act of good citizenship.

"I hate to say this, but have you considered going to the police in
case there's a missing persons' report out about him?"

Beatrice's sudden question wasn't exactly unexpected.  The spectre of
her own self-centred behaviour kept rising up before Claudia and
accusing her.  Going to the police was the logical and screamingly
obvious thing to do, and yet she couldn't bring herself to do it.  And
as Paul himself hadn't mentioned the idea, and had been actively
reluctant to see even a doctor, there had been even less incentive to
do anything 'official'.  Beatrice had assured her that everything that
happened here at the Ainsley was so confidential it was as good as off
the record, but Claudia supposed that sooner or later Paul's presence
in her home would come to the attention of someone other than her
minute circle of friends.

"Yes," she said eventually, 'yes, I have thought about it.  Quite a lot
actually..."  She plucked at the cream fabric of her dress and then
smoothed it out again, feeling nervous in more ways than one.

"And I know I should, for his sake."  She looked up into Beatrice's
warm green eyes, seeking understanding, and feeling almost certain she
would find it.

"But not for a day or two yet.  I ... I - She had to admit the truth.

"I want to keep him to myself for a little while!

I feel so good while he's around.  I feel alive again.  I care for him
and I think I deserve him!"  She gave Beatrice a wry little smile,
encouraged by the look of total comprehension and affirmation on the
doctor's beautiful face.

"When he remembers who he is, he'll have a life to go back to.  And
there'll be a woman in that life a wife or a girlfriend and he won't
want me any more.  I want to hang on to him for bit, while I'm the only
female he's got to turn to!"

All at once she was enclosed in Beatrice's hugging arms, and the doctor
was rocking her, half to encourage her and half in what felt like
jubilation.

"Bravo!"  cried Beatrice, retreating a little but clasping Claudia by
the shoulders.  She looked excited and suddenly rather young.

"You know that's what I would do myself, don't you?  I wouldn't dream
of doing anything else."  She grinned devilishly, Claudia thought.

"I know a lot of people wouldn't consider it the right or even the
moral thing to do.  But I - she released Claudia, then struck herself
for emphasis think it's the only thing to do.  Not just for you, but
for Paul too.  He needs kindness right now, and nurturing, but he needs
an ego boost just as much."  She gave Claudia a sly, sideways look that
spoke volumes.

"Which is most definitely what you're giving him."  She leant closer
again, as if to speak confidentially, even though they were the only
two people in the room.

"With you he can feel like a man, rather than just a little lost boy
caught in a mire of bureaucracy!"

"If you say so," said Claudia, relieved in one way but disturbed in
another.  Being embraced by Beatrice stirred up another of the new
issues which the last couple of days had raised.  Even in her
marginally more sober 'working' garb a grey pinstripe trouser suit
overlaid by the traditional, and for Claudia, now very evocative white
coat the doctor was an arresting and subversively desirable figure. The
fact that she wore wire- rimmed spectacles and had her hair in a
serious but elaborately coiled style only seemed to add to the power of
her allure.  For a fleeting second, Claudia seemed to see compensations
presenting themselves; ways of alleviating her suffering when Paul
'remembered himself' and left.

"I do say so!"  reiterated Beatrice cheerfully, with at winkle in her
eyes.

"And that's my opinion as a physician and a woman."

Claudia wasn't sure what to say next, but the trilling of a phone
forestalled making the effort.  She felt a sudden chill of fear,
knowing it would be news of Paul's results.

"Yes?"  said Beatrice, on picking up the phone.

"I see.  OK, we'll be right with you."  The sound of the receiver being
clicked on to the cradle was discouragingly final.

Claudia was unable to speak now.  Deep foreboding gripped her, an
anxiety that made all their talk of sex as therapy seem flippant.

"Come on," said Beatrice gently, taking her by the hand again and
urging her up.

"David wants to see us."  She reached out and chafed Claudia's cheek.

"Don't look so tragic.  There won't be a thing to worry about!"

And, thank God, Beatrice had been right, by and large, thought Claudia
as she and Paul drove back towards Rose- well through the mellow peace
of the gathering summer evening.  All his tests and investigations
including the imaging of his brain by the MRI scanner had shown that
there was no discernible physical injury.

The only thing to worry about now was why, if all was well, he still
couldn't remember.

As he was quiet for the moment, and looking out of the window, Claudia
stole the swiftest of glances at him.

Well, if you are faking it, boy, you've done damn well to seem so
convincing all through this.  The consultant Colville - had clearly
taken Paul completely at face value, and presumably a man of his
experience and qualifications would have been able to spot a bogus
amnesiac with far more facility than she herself would.  Despite the
inconclusive results, it appeared that Paul's problem was perfectly
genuine, and Colville's prescription, just like Beatrice's, was 'give
it time'.  Another appointment had been made at the Ainsley for next
week, when further treatment would be reviewed, but for now, all they
could do was wait and see while Paul rested and took life easy.

It would be interesting, Claudia mused, unable to contain a smile, to
know whether the nice but very gentlemanly Mr.  Colville would consider
what had transpired between Paul and herself in the last less than 48
hours as 'taking life easy'.

But was all that activity now taking its toll?  she wondered, glancing
at Paul again and seeing a deeply thoughtful expression on his long,
pale face.

"Are you OK?"  she asked, after she had negotiated the roundabout and
they were heading towards the outskirts of the village.

"You're not worried about the results of the tests, are you?  Colville
said everything was tine.  It's only a matter of time before you start
remembering more and more."

"It's not the tests.  Not really," he replied.  Claudia had her eyes on
the road, but she sensed him turn to her.  She almost felt the heat of
his pulse-quickening smile.

"I was thinking about the things I have managed to remember ... Why on
earth should I be able to recall making love with Vivian, but nothing
else?"  He tapped his finger on the upholstery beside him.

"You don't think that means I'm gay, do you?"

Claudia wanted to chuckle, but refrained.  He sounded so earnest, but
this wasn't a laughing matter.

"Well, you can't be a ... how shall I say this?  You're obviously not a
"dedicated" homosexual, or you wouldn't want to make love to me, would
you?"  She paused, then went on, feeling risky.

"Unless, of course, you've discovered a way of faking it?"

"No.  No way," he said a little gruffly.

"What I feel for you is real.

The response is real.  How can you doubt that?"

Oh no, I've upset him!  thought Claudia, feeling a pang of
unhappiness.

"I don't doubt it," she said, intently.

"I'm sorry, I was just being stupid ... This is a very strange
situation we're in.

You must be very confused, and I can't help thinking I'm taking
advantage of you."

"Never!"  he cried, his voice filled with sudden passion.

"I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't found you.  I
owe you everything."  He laughed softly, and Claudia felt her
string-tight nerves relax.

"And I just can't believe my luck.  I'm sure not every amnesiac
down-and-out gets taken in by a woman who just happens to be
intelligent, beautiful and a fabulous lay into the bargain."

"Well, thank you," said Claudia, thrilled more than she cared to admit
by the epithet 'a fabulous lay'.  "But don't you think that rather puts
paid to any ideas that you might be purely gay?  If you can recognise
"a fabulous lay" when you lay one, you must have had at least some
experience of making love to women."

"That's true," he said thoughtfully.

"It's just that I can't remember any individual women.  I just have an
instinctive memory of the act, and the feelings, and the want and the
need for them ... but no specifics.  When I try to conjure up faces and
bodies, the only face and body I see are yours."

Moved now, Claudia concentrated on her driving.  She was a little
afraid of the young man who sat beside her.  He was remarkable and what
she felt for him might well be far too much, and a good deal too
soon.

As they approached the Rosewell cemetery, she had a sudden need for a
familiar, stabilising influence.

"Do you mind if we stop here?7 she asked, easing the Jag to a halt in
the small parking lay-by.

"I - I haven't dropped by for a while, and I think I need to."

"Do you need to be alone?"  said Paul as she made to get out of the
car.  He laid his hand very lightly on her arm.

"No ... No, I don't think so."  she said, "Actually, I'd like your
company.  We won't stay long.  I just want to "touch base", I suppose
you'd call it."

Paul simply nodded, and slid out of the car as she did.

You do understand, don't you, Gerry?  she queried silently as she
looked down at the simple inscription cut in the polished black
granite.  Gerald Christopher Marwood.  Beloved husband of Claudia. Rest
in peace.

I don't love you any less, she told him, then felt suddenly better,
seeming to see again the face and the smile she still so missed.

Gerald's encouraging, roguish erin that had appeared to her when she
had first made love to Paul.  A tiny cool breeze, the precursor of
night, made her shiver but inside she felt warm and reassured.

"Are you OK?"  asked Paul, from close beside her.  She sensed him
hesitate, then felt his strong arm slide around her.

"Fine," she said, leaning against him, making her body speak as much as
her voice.

"I think he'd approve of you.  He liked adventures.  He was faithful
while we were married, I'm certain of that, but he'd had some wild
times before we met.  He used to tell me about them sometimes she
paused, and gave Paul a slanting glance from beneath her lashes 'and
I'm almost sure he and Beatrice Quine were once an item."

"And now she's after you," said Paul.

"If you say so," observed Claudia, almost sure of what he had just said
too.

"I do," he proclaimed, full of male assurance.

"I've only seen you together relatively briefly, but it's patently
obvious she's desperately hot for you!"

"You're crazy!"  said Claudia, laughing.

"Nope, not crazy," he replied, smiling back at her.

"Temporarily a bit addled, yes.  But still fully in command of my
powers of perception.  Especially my powers of sexual perception."  He
pulled her closer, not yet allowing his genitals to press against her,
she noticed, yet still acquainting her somehow with his growing sense
of interest.

Should I really be feeling this here, of all places?  Claudia asked
herself, having to hold back from the urge to reach down and touch
him.

She experienced not guilt exactly, but a strong impression of
old-fashioned naughtiness something she also knew Gerald would have
heartily approved of.

"Shall we get home?"  she suggested, brushing against him with more
concentration, only to be rewarded by the kick of his waiting
erection.

"We could," he said, his voice low and silky, 'but if Gerald was in
favour of adventures, wouldn't he like you to have plenty of them?"

"Not here, surely?"  gasped Claudia, half outraged, half sorely
tempted.  She was aware of the strange, almost alchemic bond between
the presence of death and the sex urge, but she just couldn't bring
herself to indulge in some wild, teenage feat of sacrilege.  A part of
her wanted it, but the greater part knew that this was something she
really was too old for.  And anyway, even though the graveyard was
deserted now, it was still quite light and anyone might come by.

As if hearing her deliberations, Paul pointed to the far end of the
well-watered, emerald-turfed enclosure, where a kissing gate
interrupted the stone wall.

"Where does that lead to?"

"The fields, some woods, the river," she replied, feeling a hot, low
fris son of anticipation.

"The same river that passes by the bottom of your garden?"

"Yes.  The Little Her."

"Let's go for a walk," he said, grabbing her hand and urging her
along.

"It's a glorious evening.  It seems a shame to waste it."

"I thought you said you weren't crazy?"  said Claudia, laughing as they
negotiated the gate and found themselves on a narrow muddy path
beyond.

Both her strappy sandals and Paul's light shoes were instantly caked.

As a response, he pulled her behind a tree and kissed her, his hands
roaming lewdly over her body, even though they weren't quite out of
sight.  She tried to persist, but he only groped her harder.  When she
felt him popping open the lower buttons that held the front of her
dress together, she shook herself free and tried to close it again.

"Paul!  Please!  Someone'll see us!"

He ignored her, planted his lips on hers, and thrust his hand up her
disordered skirt with determination.  As his tongue possessed her mouth
he touched her panties, pushing the thin fabric of their gusset between
her labia.

Despite the threat of imminent discovery and the prospect of more
village tongues wagging about her than had ever flapped for Beatrice,
Claudia found herself responding to him instantly.  The soft membranes
he was caressing through the narrow slip of silk and cotton were
heavily engorged in the space of a heartbeat and beginning to drip.

And to make matters worse, she realised she needed to urinate.  The
knife-sharp jolt of confusing sensations made her jump and wriggle.

"Please don't!"  she begged, twisting her head to one side, but unable
to prevent him from fingering her.

"Why not?"  he enquired, then kissed her neck in the particularly wild
way he was good at.  Between her legs, he didn't miss a single beat.

"Be because we're still in plain sight.  And I need to pee!"  she
sobbed.

"Oh please, Paul!  Please stop!"

"Let's get out of sight then," he said, his voice not unkind, but
firm.

He cupped her vulva lightly and quickly, then withdrew his hand.

"This way," he urged, leading her further down the path towards the
woods, the fields and the river.

Down the merry road to muck and ruin, thought Claudia, half running, in
delicious discomfort, behind him.  The churned soil still clung in
lumps to her narrow, dainty sandals, but she didn't care one jot about
them, she realised.  She wasn't even bothered either, as she glanced
down, that the pale trouser bottoms of Gerald's stylish summer suit
were becoming just as plastered as Paul strode on, oblivious.

Skirting the woods, they struggled through a small break in a bramble
hedge Claudia felt protruding stragglers catching and tugging at her
dress then acrossa ditch and over a stile and into the corner of an
empty fallow field that bordered the Little Her.

"But Paul!"  Claudia hissed, as he pulled her to him once more, and
began to kiss her face and throat and feel her bottom.

"I want you," he said, almost as if he hadn't heard her.  His voice was
raw, intent, and a little unfeeling.  His very focus on his own desire
was irrationally stirring.  Against all her natural inclinations,
Claudia felt a strong urge to be just taken and used, her needs and her
uncomfortable state ignored.

It's me who's going crazy, she thought, grinding her pelvis against
Paul's even though it plagued her.

"I thought you needed to pee?"  he enquired, not letting hold of her
and still pressing her body against him.

"I think I need you more," she gasped, knowing it was true as she
relished perverse sensations.  Her swollen bladder only exacerbated her
mounting pleasure.

Paul didn't speak, but instead pushed her down to the rough, miry
ground, sinking awkwardly beside her as he did so.  Kneeling face to
face, they kissed again, messily in more ways than one, open mouths wet
against each other's faces as their light-coloured clothing, and
Claudia's bare shins, became quickly smeared with dirt.

You're wonderful!  she thought deliriously, as her lover pulled open
the top buttons of her dress, wrenched down her silk bra, and bared her
breasts so he could cup and stroke and fondle them.  After a moment,
she felt the gritty sensation of earth between her skin and his
fingers, then looked down and saw her rosy flesh smudged with streaks
of mud.

Somehow, the very presence of the dirt on her body was as exciting as
the caress that was applying it.

"Oh God!"  she cried, throwing back her head and arching her
shoulders.

She felt Paul's teeth nip the offered cord of her neck, then travel
down her chest and bosom, inflicting the tiniest of mock bites as they
did.  Mad as it seemed, the smeared dirt was as much a turn-on for him
as it was for her.

And still as they rocked and wrestled, her bladder tormented her, as if
crying out for a pressure that was both desired and feared.  Tuck me,
Paul," she moaned, as he sucked hard on the peak of her breast, and she
was driven to jam her own hand to her crotch.  Tuck me now," she
ordered, jerking her hips at the low infernal ache.

"Say please!"  he hissed, then worked his jaw to roll her nipple
between his teeth.

"Say please," he repeated, his voice low with wicked laughter, 'or I
won't do it and you'll have to do it yourself."

The idea of masturbating for him, here in the mud and grass, with both
her dress and her body filthy, was so piquant that she nearly had an
instant climax.  She imagined squatting, her knees apart, rubbing her
herself and letting loose her water simultaneously, and felt her body
throb in dangerous empathy.

"Say please," growled Paul, one hand still at her breast, while the
other he curved lightly round her throat.

"Please!  Oh please!"  she gasped.  Paul would never hurt her, that she
knew as sure as she could know anything about him, but the pantomime of
coercion was delicious.  In the furrow between her legs, her sex pulsed
involuntarily, and she felt a tiny trickle of urine dampen her pants.

"Oh please," she begged again, reaching down blindly, on automatic, to
clasp Paul's groin.

For a few seconds he allowed her to hold him, to knead him slightly,
then he shook her off and grabbed her hands in his.

"Turn around," he said, his voice abrupt yet strangely young-sounding,
as if he were a youth trying to be the man, with his girlfriend, for
the very first time.  He squeezed her fingers quick and hard, then
released them.

"Oh yes ... Oh yes ..."  breathed Claudia, recognising a request albeit
clumsy for exactly what she wanted.  Hitching up her dress, she
shuffled around to face away from Paul, still on her knees.  The
ungainly movements jolted her bladder and she whimpered.

"That's right," she heard him mutter, and as she pulled her dress even
further up, bunching it halfway up her back around her midriff, she
felt him dragging off her panties, just as heedlessly.  Hampered by her
own efforts, she almost went face down in the field, but Paul caught
her, slinging one arm around her waist, while he wrestled with her
knickers with his hand.

What the hell am I doing?  she thought for perhaps the twentieth time
since she had opened her door to the lost, bedraggled stranger.  I'm in
a field, with my backside in the air, waiting to be serviced.  And I
don't care!  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her pants flip away
towards the middle of the field, and she laughed in pure, hysterical
elation.

Beginning to laugh himself, Paul took hold of her buttocks and palpated
them energetically, circling the firm moons of flesh as if they were
dough and he was a master chef at work.

"Gorgeous!"  he said, bending over to kiss her back as his fingers and
thumbs dug in.  He was almost hurting her, but Claudia wanted more of
it.  She dished her back and pushed her bottom into his hands.

"You have a sensational arse, Mrs.  Marwood," he said softly, moving
forward to rub his still-clothed crotch against the object of
veneration.  Leaning still further forward, he murmured in her ear a
lewd suggestion then squeezed her even harder as if he were forcing her
to answer him.

"Oh Paul ... I don't know ... I don't know," panted Claudia, horrified,
yet yearning too.  She wanted what he suggested, she realised to her
astonishment, but not here, in all this mud and haste and
awkwardness.

"Not here."

"Somewhere else then?"  he queried, his voice like a breath of fire.

"Another time?  Back at the house.  Will you let me?"

"Yes!"

"You're an angel too, Mrs.  Marwood!"  he replied, the fire turned to
instant jubilation.  After a second, she felt his lips against her
anus.

"Take that on account."  He kissed her again, then drew back, his
breathing short and ragged.

"And in the meantime, I'm going to fuck you, here in this field, until
you howl!"  Claudia felt him retreat, and sensed him tackling the
obstacle of his clothes.

Until I wet myself, she thought, rotating her hips and feeling the
weight of liquid rock heavily against the root of her clitoris.  Can I
do this?  Can I take this?  she asked herself, shaking her pelvis
experimentally, then gasping at the harsh sensation that created.  A
trickle of urine snaked its way down her thigh.

What choice do I have?  she told herself, feeling almost smug at the
extremity of what she herself had invited.  From the corner of her eye,
she saw male clothing fly out into the field: first shoes, then
trousers and underwear, but nothing else.

What must we look like?  thought Claudia, laughing when Paul's penis
nudged her sex, as if knocking for entrance.  She was bare-bottomed,
her dress gaping, her bra awry, her breasts swinging free as she
crouched in the scrubby field waiting to be used; Paul was perfectly
well dressed above the waist, and lewd and naked below.  They were a
pair of rustic libertines in the grips of a mighty passion, the
sophisticated gloss of earlier in the day a thing of the past.

"What are you giggling at?"  Paul demanded, pushing firmly against the
entrance to her vagina.  He had tried to sound fierce, but Claudia
could hear him laughing again too.  Especially when her body yielded,
and he slid inside, curving over her.

"Minx!  What's so funny?  I'll give you something to laugh at!"

Claudia did laugh, but it was partly a shriek too.  Without wasting any
time, Paul launched himself into a series of short, shallow jabs,
which, though she sensed they were an attempt at consideration, only
made things worse for her full, beleaguered bladder.  Each one was a
shaft of silvered pleasure-pain; each one shot her nearer to her
climax.  She laughed louder as the sensations ramped and ramped.

"Right!  I'll show you, Mrs.  Marwood," cried Paul, kneeling up again
but not withdrawing.  She felt his left hand grip her hip so he could
get a better purchase, and his right go over, in and under.  With the
confidence of pure authority, he jiggled her clitoris.

"You bastard!"  she cried, her voice the very howl he had predicted,
just as an instant, jerking orgasm wracked her body like a wavefront,
and to her intense delight, she could no longer hold her water.

"You bastard," she cooed, as it gushed and dribbled from her, drenching
both Paul's hand and the muddy earth on which they knelt.

"Incredible," he whispered, massaging her with her own fluid, his body
shaping to her back.  His penis was still iron where it nestled deep
inside her, and his warm breath and his wayward curls were tickling his
neck.

"You beautiful, incredible woman..."  He seemed elated by the fact he
had made her piss.

Claudia felt beyond speech.  The power of her climax and the
exhilaration of such a complete release of tension had knocked the wind
out of her.  If Paul hadn't have been hugging her around the waist she
would have fallen flat on her face, and lain there gasping in the mud
beneath him.  It hardly seemed possible that she would ever be able to
come again, but as she thought that, her vagina rippled with promise.

"Oh yeah," murmured Paul, in response.

As if his voice had strengthened her, Claudia stirred from her damp,
glowing lethargy and swayed against him.  Bracing her spine, she pushed
herself backwards against him, spearing herself deliciously on the prow
of his rigidity.  Deep inside, behind her clitoris, she felt a pressure
on her G spot, and this time, with her bladder empty, it was only
bliss.  Without her own volition, her vagina clenched and she came
again.

This time she did pitch forward, on to her elbows, taking Paul along
for the ride, juddering inside her.  She didn't manage to make him
howl, but his ragged cry was happy.  His arms tightened around her body
as he climaxed.

"Jesus!  Aren't we a mess!"  exclaimed Claudia, a little while later.

In the pleasant haze of afterglow, they had rearranged themselves
somehow, and she was lying with her head on Paul's shoulder.  What she
could see, looking down their bodies, was a loose, abandoned tangle of
blushing flesh and light-coloured clothing, and it was difficult to
work out which was muddiest.

"I suppose we are," he said, his voice lazy and philosophical, "but
neither of us knew we were going to end up rolling about in a field
when we got dressed this morning, did we?"

True!"  said Claudia, sitting up and pulling half-heartedly at her
bodice and her skirt.

"In fact, I'd go so far as to say it was probably the last thing I
would have predicted."

"Seems a shame to cover it all up," observed Paul laconically, letting
his hand brush suggestively over her mud-smeared breast.

"Well, I wouldn't normally bother," replied Claudia, lifting the hand
away from her and giving it a quick kiss, 'but there are some people
who might be a teeny bit offended if I walked through the graveyard
like this.  Boring of them, I know, but there you are."

"I bet your husband wouldn't mind."

"No, I'm sure he wouldn't, but men of his breadth of imagination are
few and far between, especially in the country."  She turned around and
winked at Paul.

"Present company excepted, of course."

Paul inclined his head, gracefully accepting her compliment.

"Why don't we go home then?  That way we can do exactly what we like
without outraging anybody."  He leapt to his feet, seemingly unabashed
by the swing of his naked penis, then extended his hand and helped
Claudia up too.

After several minutes spent buttoning up and zipping up, and brushing
down and rubbing, they didn't look any less dirty but at least their
bodies were covered.

"If we meet anybody, we went for a walk.  I slipped down the river
bank.  You had to scramble down and help me up.  Right?"  said Claudia,
as they negotiated the kissing gate on their way back to the car.

"Or you could say I slipped and you helped me up," suggested Paul.

"I'm sure most people who know you wouldn't think you clumsy enough to
slip down a bank," he added gallantly.

"Maybe.  Maybe not," replied Claudia with a shrug and a grin, 'but if
we hurry, we might get to the car without being spotted."

Luck was with them; or perhaps, Claudia thought, it was the good
offices of Pan, or Dionysus, or some local god of sexy, rustic
revels.

Either way, they got to the car without incident, and drove home
unnoticed through the gathering pink-skyed twilight.  Every now and
again, one of them would chuckle and flash a look at the other's ruined
clothing.

It was only when they reached Perry House, and Claudia swung the car
into the driveway, that anything at all untoward occurred.

A small, red and rather feminine car sat on the gravel in front of the
house, and a light was already glowing in the sitting room.

"You've got a visitor," said Paul, and when Claudia glanced at him, she
saw that his pale face bore a look of slight alarm.

"We've got a visitor," said Claudia, touching his face and reassuring
him.

"That's Melody's car and I'm sure she'll be happy to see us both."

Chapter Eleven.  Another House Guest.  "

Have you left him?"  Claudia asked Melody as she topped up her friend's
tot of brandy.

"Well, yes, sort of," the young woman answered cautiously.

"The trouble is that he doesn't actually know it yet."

"Oh Melody!"

"I know!  I know!  I should have faced up to him, told him calmly and
all that, but I just couldn't... He's gone too far this time.  He's
done something I just can't forgive him for."

"Did he hurt you?"  Fury flared in Claudia's chest.  Oh no, he hadn't
started hitting her now, had he, as well as criticising her every
opinion and action?

"No!  Oh no, not that!"  replied Melody quickly, her pretty face
brightening.

"Nothing like that.  I can't do anything right for him, and he treats
me like an imbecile, but he's never hit me or anything."

She laid her dainty hand reassuringly on Claudia's arm.  It looked very
pale against the deep-piled, royal-blue to welling Her fingernails were
painted rose pink.

"He's a psychological thug, not a physical one."

"Even that's bad enough," commented Claudia, thinking how much Melody
must have loved her husband in the first place to have put up with so
much insensitivity and so many put-downs.  The young woman was frowning
now, though, and Claudia wondered what it was that Richard Truebridge
had done to her.

"What is it?"  she asked.

"What is it he's done?"

Melody sighed, and straightened the cuffs of her casual cotton top as
if she still had on one of her chic, yuppified suits.  It was strange
to see her in jeans tonight, and Claudia thought how well they suited
her fresh young figure.  What a shame Richard had forbidden her to wear
them.

"Look, I will tell you," the younger woman said earnestly, withdrawing
her hand and retrieving her brandy glass.

"But can we wait a little while?  It's unpleasant.  It'll spoil
things.

I feel so relieved to be here, I just want to revel in it for a bit."

"Good!  You revel ... There's no rush," said Claudia, smiling but
feeling agitated inside somehow.  It was strangely exciting to imagine
Melody relaxing and being herself at last, returning to the carefree
coltish juvenile she had been when they had first met, yet at the same
time retaining the mature form of a grown woman.

Melody abandoned her brandy again, and pushed her hand through her
hair, clearly worried again.

"If I was half the friend to you that you are to me, I would have gone
to a hotel."

So taken was Claudia by yet another change in Melody the loose,
natural, un-blow-dried condition of her hair that it took a second or
two to take in what the girl had said.

"What on earth do you mean, Mel?"  she demanded.

"I shouldn't be here, messing things up for you and Paul!"  Melody
exclaimed.

"You need to be alone together, not looking after me.  Both of you,
looking after me."

"That's bollocks, Mell" rejoined Claudia, and felt relieved when Melody
laughed too.

It was true that both she and Paul had rallied round when they had
entered the house and found Melody sitting tight-lipped and alone in
the sitting room.  Aware of the disgusting state of her dress, yet
reluctant to leave her friend in obvious distress, Claudia had felt
torn between compassion and embarrassment.  She had been about to
forget her foibles and sensibilities, and hope that Melody wouldn't
notice the earth and grass and even more suspect stains on her
clothing, when Paul had whispered discreetly in her ear.

"You get a quick shower.  I'll get Melody a cup of tea or a drink or
something."

"Would you?"  Claudia had murmured gratefully.

"That would be brilliant.  Give her a glass of brandy for now ... And
we'll all have a cup of tea together later."

Claudia's shower had been the quickest she had ever taken, despite the
fact that the mud seemed to have inveigled its way on to the most
unlikely portions of her skin.  From the look of her, it appeared as if
she and Paul had wallowed in the stuff like a brace of mating hippos
which wasn't all that far from the truth, if you discounted the
physical dimensions.

Her haste in showering had been due to genuine concern over Melody, and
much the same in relation to Paul.  He was fine in her own presence,
and he had clearly been comfortable enough at the hospital and with
Beatrice; but was it fair to leave two emotionally wounded individuals
who had previously spoken barely a dozen words to each other to make
Smalltalk in a highly charged atmosphere?

As it turned out, though, Paul and Melody were chatting away like
long-standing soulmates when she returned to the sitting room.  Paul
was describing the miracles of the MRI procedure, and Melody, with a
magnificently healthy person's academic but intense interest in all
things medical, was listening closely, her face rapt, yet looking more
contented.

When he had completed his account of his trials and tribulations or
lack of them at the hospital, Paul tactfully excused himself and left
the two women to talk.

"And you're not messing anything up for me, Mel/ Claudia continued,
reasoning with the younger woman.

"Not by any means."

"And that really is bollocks, Claud!"  replied Melody, grinning.

"It was obvious yesterday that there was something going on between you
And now?  Well ... What on earth had you been doing to get so muddy?"

Melody's fine grey eyes narrowed, suggesting that she would brook no
deception.

"And don't say just walking.  Nobody could get in that sort of state
simply on a nature ramble.  Not that they'd go rambling in the first
place dressed in those outfits."

"But it's true.  We did go for a walk.  I slipped on the river bank and
Paul had to save me."

"Claudia!"

"Oh, all right!"

"Well then?"

"We did go for a walk, in one of the river meadows, but somehow we
ended up doing other things too ... Celebrating the glories of nature
in a more hands-on sort of way.  The Song of the Earth and all that...
You know."

"Wow!"

Claudia half expected Melody to whistle, but instead the young woman
said, "I wish I'd've been there to see that."

"Really?"  observed Claudia, feeling thoroughly off- balance for a
second at the thought of Melody being there to watch herself and Paul
fucking.  The idea inspired a disturbing rush of lust.

Melody blushed, her fair skin colouring a delicate shade of peony.

"I

didn't mean that she stopped, seeming to ponder.

"No/ that's a lie.  I do mean it!  I can't imagine seeing anything more
seductive."

Her blush deepened, as if trying to make sense of conflicting urges and
emotions.  How well Claudia herself knew that feeling.

"I hope you don't mind me thinking that," she continued, frowning.

"I mean, if you find it offensive, I'll just shut up and we can forget
I ever said it."  In obvious confusion, she plucked at the arm of the
sofa, as if trying to pull out a non-existent loose thread.

Claudia sensed a pivotal moment looming; a great leap into something to
which Beatrice had already pointed the way.

Why did I never see this before?  she thought, looking at her dear
friend, whom she had known since Melody's girlhood.  They had always
been close, and more so recently, during times when they had both
needed comfort.  But that comfort had never transcended the realm of
what was considered to be normal and conventional.  At times it had
seemed almost a mother daughter relationship; at others, it had felt
like more sisterly attachment, despite their differing ages.

So why had their bond suddenly started changing?  What she felt when
she looked at Melody was like nothing she had experienced towards the
girl before.  Melody excited her now in the way that Beatrice had done,
only with an even stronger pull, which she supposed was due to their
shared history.

She realised that Melody was awaiting a response.

"No need to forget it, Mel/ she said.

"I don't think I'd mind being watched ... Well, at least not by you.  I
don't know what Paul would feel about it, but something tells me he
wouldn't mind at all."

Melody smiled, gnawed her shell-pink lower lip, and appeared to digest
these responses.

"I -' she began.

Go on!  Go on!  urged Claudia silently.  Melody was right on the brink
of her own great leap.

But the younger woman couldn't speak.  She seemed unable to articulate
the emotions that were vivid on her face.  You can feel it, though,
can't you?  thought Claudia, knowing that she was so absolutely right
that she could have staked her very life on the knowledge.

It was deadlock.  They were both facing the same experience for the
first time.  Someone would have to push.  Or pull.  One of them would
have to take the other's hand and lead her over the precipice.

"Mel/ Claudia said gently, reaching for her companion's hand and
bringing it to her lips to kiss.

"It's all right," she whispered, mouthing the lines of fate
whichcriss-crossed Melody's soft palm.

"I feel the same way.  Don't worry There's nothing at all wrong with
what's happening."

"No, I suppose there isn't..."  Melody's voice was a little shaky; in
fact, her whole body was shaking.  Claudia could feel the trembling
against her tongue as she kissed her again.

"Oh, thank God!  Thank God!"  cried Melody suddenly, and Claudia felt
the girl's hand brush her hair.  For a moment.  Melody's slim fingers
ruffled Claudia's short, softly shaggy tresses, then they changed their
tack, and cupped her jaw, making her lift her face so they could look
into one another's eyes.

Melody's own face was almost luminous.

"Oh God," she whispered, once again, 'you're so lovely, Claud.  I only
wish I knew what to do about it."

"I wish I did too," said Claudia fervently, 'but don't worry, I think
it's something we can make up as we go along."  Without further
hesitation, she kissed her friend passionately on the lips for the
first time ever.

It was like kissing a man, yet entirely different.  Tasting Melody's
soft lips and her sweet, faintly brandy-scented breath made Claudia
realise that there was a great distinction between the genders in the
way a mouth felt.  Melody's lips had a velvety, almost plush texture,
and what lay beyond them was deliciously yielding without being weak
and submissive.  She accepted the kiss, and for several moments, her
mouth was mild and passive beneath Claudia's.  Then, just as
instantaneously as the kiss had begun.  Melody seemed to wake from a
slumber and kiss Claudia back.  Her tongue felt like a small, living
dart; her lips became strong and demanding.

For as much as two minutes, they did not part; each exploring the
other's mouth with just her own mouth.  Finally, they almost fell
apart, both panting with exertion.

"I think I've wanted to do that for a very long time," said Claudia,

taking Melody's hand in hers again, then squeezing it.

"I didn't know that I wanted to do it, but the desire must've been
there, underneath, for ages."

"Same here," Melody said, rubbing a finger across her lips where
Claudia had kissed her as if there might be some tangible residue of
the ardent contact that had taken place there.  After a second or two,
she raised her hand before her face and studied her fingertips, still
searching, it seemed, for Claudia's spoor.

"I've had a crush on you as long as I've known you, didn't you
realise?"  she finished, sounding sure of herself yet still a little
befuddled by what they were both admitting.

"No, not really," said Claudia quietly, her fingers twisting at the tie
of her robe then, of their own volition it seemed, loosening it.

"I must be as thick as a brick."  The tie fell open, and with a slight
movement of her shoulders, she managed to edge open the front of the
robe, partially exposing her breasts to Melody's suddenly avid gaze "Or
just find it difficult to believe that someone could have a crush on
me."

Melody's slender fingers twitched, and Claudia imagined that they were
aching to reach out and touch what was on offer.  Her heart pounding,
Claudia took her friend's hand in hers, then drew it to her naked
breast and held it there.

"I - I had ... or should I say have, a crush on you because you're
intelligent and kind and generous."  Melody paused and gave the breast
within her fingers a gentle, almost tentative squeeze.

"And because you're beautiful.  The most beautiful woman I've ever
seen."

Claudia wanted to deny that last statement, say something
self-deprecating, but the feel of Melody's fingers against her skin was
addling her senses.  She tried to accept her dear friend's praise with
good grace but it was difficult.  In the end she settled for a
compromise.

"Thank you," she said simply, 'but don't you think I'm beginning to get
a little frayed around the edges?"

Still gently caressing.  Melody seemed to have her own inner debate,

but eventually she said, "OK, so you've go tone or two tiny lines, but
they're the good sort.  Signs of character and wisdom."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," murmured Claudia, aware of Melody's
hand with every last nerve cell in her body.  And some more than
others.

"If I was wearing knickers, I'd swear that you were using sweet words
to get into them."

Melody's flushed cheeks became even pinker, like a full-blooded rose.

"I think that, unconsciously, that's exactly what I am doing."

They kissed again, more slowly this time, and with circumspection.

Melody's hand slid down Claudia's body, making its way to as yet
unexplored territory.  Claudia felt her friend's fingertips brush
against the hair of her pubis, once, twice, skirting the very perimeter
of that sweetest and tender est of zones.

"What do I do next?"  whispered Melody, her lips exploring Claudia's
jawline while her still fingers seemed to wait for permission, or
direction, or both.

"Shall I stroke you?  Is that what you'd like?"

Claudia had never been with a woman, unless she counted yesterday's
very near miss with Beatrice.  Was there a particular way to proceed?

she thought, smiling inside.  A protocol over who does what to who, and
who gets it first?

"Yes, I would like that," she replied, striking out boldly for what she
knew she wanted, regardless of any accepted modus operandi.

Flipping her robe fully open, she parted her thighs, feeling thankful
that her regime of regular exercise was keeping the cellulite at bay.

It seemed even more important that she be as perfect as she could be
for Melody than it did for Paul somehow, which was irrational, as she
and the younger woman had seen each other in swimsuits and bikinis
often enough.  She hadn't worried one jot about Melody's judgement of
her body until now.

Very tentatively.  Melody began to explore further, moving down into
the intimate division.  Claudia couldn't help but moan as the girl's
middle finger settled neatly on her clitoris.

"Yes!  Oh Mel, that's just right!"  she croaked as Melody began to
describe a circling action, at first slow, then faster and faster and
faster.  The familiar sensations built up at a speed she would not have
thought possible, and within seconds she was clutching Melody's
shoulders and bouncing about with pleasure.  Pitching back her head,
she growled out loud as the orgasm took her and shook her.

"Thanks," she gasped, when she could think properly again.

"That was beautiful, Mel.  Just right.  It couldn't have been better if
I'd given you written instructions."  She laughed, and so did Melody.

There was a note of happy triumph in the younger woman's chuckle.

"Now it's your turn," Claudia told Melody, and was just about to make
some inroads into the clothing that she wore, when the sound of
clumping footsteps on the stairs, and an arpeggio of seriously tuneless
whistling interrupted her concentration.

ThenI Wouldn't you just know it!"  Claudia hissed, as Melody shot back
away from her on the sofa and she herself struggled frantically with
her robe.

"Well, at least he had the good manners to warn us," consoled Melody in
a low voice, as the strangely heavy and tardy footsteps could be heard
approaching via the all.

Well, yes, he did, thought Claudia, who had already taken good note of
Paul's light and athletic way of moving.  If he was making such a
racket as he approached them in the sitting room, there was no doubt
whatsoever that he meant to.  Which meant he was being uncannily
tactful and sensitive over allowing them time to finish their post
mortem analysis of Melody's marriage or he had somehow expected them to
be making love!

Claudia would have fretted slightly over this last supposition if she
hadn't had all such thoughts dashed from her mind when he finally
appeared in the doorway.

"That's better!"  he announced, rubbing his hand through his still-wet
hair.  He was dressed with perfect decorum in a pair of jeans and a
light-blue sweater, but he looked as stunning and angelic as when he
was naked.

"Would you like some brandy, Paul?"  Claudia asked, double checking, as
she got to her feet, that her robe was secured.  Paul's flickering eyes
told her he had noted the action, and his small grin seemed to suggest
he knew why she had made it, too.

"Yes," he said, hesitating, then going on.

"I would quite like some, but I'm still a bit dubious about the effects
of alcohol on my scrambled brain cells."

"What about a brandy and ginger?"  suggested Melody, looking a little
shy.

"Light on the brandy, heavy on the ginger ale.  I'm sure that won't do
you too much harm."

"Sounds great!"  said Paul, apparently happy with the compromise.

Claudia poured them all drinks, keeping the measures either small or
well diluted.  The atmosphere in the room was volatile enough without
anyone getting tipsy.

"So, how are you feeling now?"  asked Paul of Melody when they were all
seated again, he to the young woman's right, in an armchair, and
Claudia beside her, to her left, on the sofa.

Claudia was just about to point out what a strange thing that was to
ask, when they had already had a talk during her shower, when she
caught a flash of understanding pass between her two companions.  What
else had they discussed in her absence, other than his vague
remembrance of his mishap and his experience at the hospital?

Melody's tiny smile, and the very ghost of a nod, seemed to suggest an
entirely different agenda.  When the girl answered, her eyes bright and
warm, Claudia's suspicions were amplified even more.  She had visions
of Melody confessing her lesbian desires to Paul and asking for his
counsel.  And she had no doubt what his advice would be.  Go for it;

don't hold back; she's ready.

"A lot better," said Melody.

"Everything's becoming more clear to me now.  I'd say that I wish I'd
thought of making changes in my life much earlier, but there's no point
looking back."

She sat tall in her chair; her back straight, her carriage confident,
and her breasts pressed forward.  She raised her glass.

"Here's to the future, and trying new things, and getting what I want
out of life!"

"Hear, hear!"  said Claudia, feeling a little shaken but excited by
Melody's toast.

"Amen to that," added Paul softly, his eyes meeting Claudia's
momentarily.  It almost seemed she could swear it that he winked.

"I ought to make up another bedroom," she said, feeling very, very
nervous.

"Paul's in the one you usually use ..."  She was very aware that she
was stepping into a minefield of implication here.  Who slept where,
and with whom, was suddenly a very complex set of variables.

"I'll move out," proclaimed Paul immediately.

"After all, I don't have any belongings to move.  All I possess is what
I stood up in when I arrived.  And my jacket, waistcoat and trousers
are at the cleaners, and my unmentionables, I presume, are in the
wash."

Melody giggled, and Claudia enjoyed the happy, carefree sound.  Perhaps
things didn't have to be so complex after all.  Maybe they could just
make it up as they went along.

"I wouldn't dream of dislodging you, Paul," said the young woman,
giving him a creamy, flirtatious little smile, which was something else
Claudia hadn't seen in ages.  Til have the little yellow bedroom,
Claud.  All I need is some bed linen and I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"  said Claudia and Paul in unison, and then they were
all laughing as if the three of them had known each other for
decades.

"Quite!"  replied Melody eventually, then she paused, as if making a
decision.

"Claudia, there's something I need to do.  Tonight.  And I'll need some
help."  She tipped her head on one side, put up a hand, and pushed her
fingers through her pale-blonde locks.

"You'll probably think I'm being very silly and impatient and hasty,

but "She reached down into her tote bag which was on the floor beside
the sofa /- I need to do this as soon as possible."  She brought out a
box, which Claudia saw contained a well-known brand of hair tint, in a
deep shade of brown.

"This was all Richard's idea!"  She touched her hair again, then held
up the box of colorant with a flourish.

"This is the real me ... Or at least close enough until my natural
colour grows through.  I'll need a hand to make sure I get it on
evenly..."  She looked winningly at Claudia, her grey eyes large.

"Of course," said Claudia, feeling strangely elated at the thought,
'but we'd better start soon so it can be done and dried before
bedtime."  To her embarrassment, she felt herself blushing again ~ at
the exhilarating connotations of that last, normally innocuous word.

Paul stood up as she and Melody did.

"While you see to the transformation, perhaps I could prepare us all
some supper?"  he suggested.

Claudia turned to him, feeling a little taken aback.

"Do you know how to?"  She looked more closely at him, trying to detect
any hint that he might have wrong- footed himself, then felt guilty at
her lingering traces of doubt.

"Can you remember ever cooking before?"

Paul grinned, clearly unfazed.

"Not specifically, but I quite fancy having a go!"

Claudia realised her face must have registered momentary alarm.

"Don't worry!"  he said, laughing rather teasingly.

"I might not be firing on all cylinders at the moment, but I'm quite
confident I can open a packet of something frozen and master the finer
nuances of micro waving ... That is, if you don't mind something simple
and "convenience"?"

"Well, I'm starving," said Melody cheerfully.

"I'll eat anything!  A plate of toast, even, if it all seems too
complicated.  Just as long as I'm able to get rid of this!"  She
touched her blonde tresses again dismissively.

Claudia looked questioningly at Paul.  Could he really produce them a
meal?  She was intrigued, and found the idea vaguely sexy.

"Go ahead, then," she said, nodding to him.

"Who knows, you might even be a chef!"

He appeared to consider the notion.

"I quite fancy the idea, to be honest," he said thoughtfully, as they
all trooped out into the hall, and he headed for the kitchen.

At the top of the stairs, Claudia paused, then leant over the banister
and called out, "In case you need it, there's a fire extinguisher
hanging just under the fitted unit to the left of the cooker!"

She could just hear Paul laughing, and his exclamation.

"Cheeky witch!"

In Claudia's bathroom, she and Melody stood facing each other.

Claudia felt like a shy girl on her first day at school, and without
her make-up and her tailored clothes.  Melody almost looked like one.

"What do we do now?"  Claudia asked, looking at Melody and feeling
confusion blended into her desire.  Paul had inadvertently broken the
flow of events back there in the sitting room even though she suspected
it was the last thing he would have wanted to do and a little of her
sexual confidence had dissipated.  She knew she owed Melody an orgasm
now, but to pitch suddenly back into lovemaking seemed too
calculated.

"I don't know," replied Melody.  The young woman's face, Claudia
suspected, was a mirror of her own.  Melody obviously felt the sense of
dislocation too.

It's down to you, Claudia told herself.  You're supposed to be the
grown-up here.  Just take charge.

"Perhaps we should do your hair first," she said, giving Melody an
encouraging smile, 'then just see what happens."

Melody returned the smile, her eyes filled with relief and an affection
that was almost dazzling.

I just hope I can make you happy, Mel, thought Claudia as they set
about their task, but her misgivings about their relationship soon
faded in the face of her qualms about the radical change in Melody's
hair colour.

"Are you sure about this?"  she asked, blending a substance that looked
like treacle mixed with coal tar.  Even using her oldest towels swathed
around Melody'sshoulders, the stuff was bound to go everywhere, in
particular on her pale T-shirt and jeans.

"We could go into town tomorrow and let Perluigi do it.  He'll go mad
anyway when you next go for a cut."

"No ... Please ... Let's try," said Melody firmly.

"I want to change as soon as possible."

"Of course," said Claudia, recognising a reflection of her own
decisiveness a moment ago, 'but maybe you ought to strip to your bra
and pants, then you won't spoil your clothes."

Melody gave her a very level look and Claudia burst out laughing.

"No!  It's a legitimate request, I promise you!"  she exclaimed
righteously, all the time knowing how much she wanted her friend to
take her clothes off.

"Perhaps you should slip your clothes off too?"  suggested Melody
pertly, already unzipping her jeans.

"But this is all I have on!"  protested Claudia, even though the
thought of being nude for a second new lover in the space of days was
deeply thrilling and also deeply scary.

"It's a gorgeous robe.  You shouldn't spoil it."

"Then at least let me make a sarong out of one of these?"  Claudia
gestured to the heap of towels they had assembled for their mission.

Melody laughed, but shrugged and nodded towards the towels.

Affecting an insouciance she didn't feel, Claudia let the robe slide
off and reached for a towel, being careful not to appear to be in a
hurry.  She didn't look at Melody during the process, but sensed her
friend's grey eyes cruising her body with close attention.  She's seen
you in bikinis and in changing rooms, Claudia, she reminded herself.

There's not much difference.

But there was a difference; an immense, yawning chasm between those
situations and this one.  Neither one of them had looked at the other
before and lusted.  Which Claudia did, seeing Melody in a sweet bra and
pants set of ivory broderie anglais.  It took a huge effort to apply
herself to the tinting process.

After much laughing and splashing and lathering, and a constant battle
against blobs of colour on the bathroom fittings, they eventually found
themselves at the final rinsing stage.  Throughout the whole procedure,
it had been impossible not to touch each other accidentally, and for
Claudia each contact had been fiery.  Her whole body was in
pandemonium.  If she didn't embrace the younger woman soon, or be
embraced herself by Melody, she felt as if she was going to scream and
fly apart into pieces.

"Look," she said tightly, 'we're both covered in splashes and drips of
this gruesome brown lather.  Why don't we rinse the whole lot off in
the shower?"  She paused, caught Melody by her arm and put the entire
wealth of her feelings into a gentle squeeze.  Together," she finished,
very softly.

"And quickly," said Melody, biting her lip with nerves, yet clearly
impatient.  As she spoke, she put up a hand to catch a drip that was
running down the side of her neck towards her bosom.

It was now or never.  It had to be now.  Claudia was almost breathless
with impatience, but also aware that she owed a debt of pleasure to
Melody.  The girl had touched her exquisitely and brought her to orgasm
with a sapphic skill that could only be pure instinct, and now it was
her own turn to go boldly down that path.  And what was very strange
was, she suddenly knew it would be oh so easy.

Unwinding her towel, she drew her companion towards the shower.

Chapter Twelve.  Creating a Stranger.

Washing out the dye was like washing away another Melody.  And another
Claudia.

Or perhaps it was just the flushing of one particular set of
inhibitions; the same inhibitions that had already been de stabilised
by Beatrice.  The beautiful doctor had opened the floodgates but it was
Melody and Claudia who now stood in the passionate stream.

"Tip your head back and let me massage away the lather," instructed
Claudia, relieved to have something to concentrate on first.  Standing
behind Melody was perhaps a little easier, for the moment, as her high
young breasts and the dark triangle of her pubis were hidden.

Not that her back view didn't have its attractions: her delicate
shoulders; the in-and-out flare of her small waist and neatly defined
hips; the gorgeous ripe peach-shape of her bottom.  Claudia was tempted
to trace this girlish silhouette with her fingers instead of getting on
with the task they had appointed themselves, which was the eradication
of the surplus hair dye.  Constraining her urges, she set to work.

Using her fingers and thumbs, and a firm but gentle action, she helped
the water do its work in Melody's hair.  The runnels of brown colour
turned gradually lighter and lighter, turning from mahogany, through to
chestnut, to lightest tan.  After about five minutes of continuous
rinsing the flow ran clear.

"That's it."  She dropped her hands to Melody's shoulders and placed a
kiss on the back of her neck on the pretext of sniffing for the dye's
scent.

"All gone.  You can't even smell it any more..."  Her grip slid down
Melody's upper arms to the crook of her elbows, and as she was about to
move lower, the young woman made a soft sound of impatience.

Taking Claudia's hands in hers.  Melody placed them squarely on her own
breasts.

"You're so lovely, Mel/ said Claudia, reinforcing her voice to be heard
clearly in the torrent that tippled down over their two entwined
bodies.

"I've always thought that.  Even when I was unable to imagine doing
anything about it."  Circling her hips, she massaged the girl's
buttocks with her pubis.

Melody spoke more quietly but with a clarity that was still audible
above the shower.

"And I've always wanted you," she said, a little uncertain at first but
soon gathering momentum.

"I thought I was ill, or mad, to begin with.  Then I started to realise
it was OK for me to have such feelings, but I was still upset because I
didn't think you'd have them.  I was convinced you'd be disgusted if
you found out."

"Never that," said Claudia, flexing her fingers and glorying in the
pert resilience of the flesh she was caressing.  Her own breasts now
pressed close to the silky-wet expanse of Melody's back had resisted
time splendidly, but did not have quite the same up-thrust, youthful
arrogance.

"I might have been surprised, I admit, but I know I would soon have got
used to the idea."

"Oh God, why was I so silly?"  Melody berated herself.  Her dark head
drooped.

"I should have told you!  We could have been together sooner."

Claudia forbore to mention that she had been married, but Melody then
obviously recalled the fact herself.

"What on earth am I talking about?"  she demanded, her usually
harmonious voice cracking.

"You were married How could I have expected you to be unfaithful to
Gerald?  You loved him!"  She shook in Claudia's hold.

"And now I'm expecting you to be unfaithful to Paul, for me ... He said
it was all right, but he could just have been being nice, couldn't
he?"

Hah!  I thought so!  Claudia didn't exclaim out loud, but the
confirmation of her earlier suspicions was intoxicating.

"That must have been a fascinating conversation you shared while I was
taking my first shower," she observed, then leant around a little to
take the tender lobe of Melody's ear between her teeth.  She nibbled
very lightly and the younger woman gasped.

"I - I'm sorry, I never meant to talk about you that way ... It all
just came out.  I don't know what got into me.  Paul is so easy to talk
to.  He seemed to understand."

"Oh, he does," Claudia said, moving more strongly against Melody now,
feeling little spikes of sensation as she pressed her opened vulva
against the resistance of the girl's rounded, toned-up bottom cheek.

"He understands things I never would have dreamed of.  What he lacks in
memory, he more than makes up for in imagination."  She felt her
clitoris jump at the deliciousness of the friction and her own memories
of Paul, that were quite intact.

"He was the one who first put the idea of "us" - you and me, that is-in
my mind."

"But-' "Melody, Melody, Melody ... Don't worry," soothed Claudia,
trying to think of the girl in her arms rather than the tiny knot of
flesh between her own legs that quivered and pulsed.

"Since Paul arrived, I've opened up to a lot of new ideas.  New
horizons.  It sounds a bit hackneyed, I know, but I can see more ways
of being together than being with just one man.  Or woman She paused
because she had to.  An almost spontaneous orgasm flamed through her
sex and her belly, defying the moisture that teemed down all around
them.  She gasped and her knees buckled, but she didn't fall.  Even
through her pleasure, she felt Melody stiffen her spine and brace their
bodies.

"As I was saying she began, when she could speak once more, 'if you're
happy with this, I'm happy with it And I think Paul is too."  She
stopped talking and started laughing, because Melody was giggling
too.

"You're sensational, Claud, you know that, don't you?"  the younger
woman said through her mirth.

"I never realised it was possible to have an orgasm then resume a
conversation, just like that."  She seemed to think a moment, then
spoke again, sounding just a little chastened.

"I didn't realise it was possible to have an orgasm so easily ... I've
not had all that many with Richard."

"His fault, not yours, sweetheart," said Claudia automatically, not
knowing how she knew this, but knowing it all the same.  Intuition told
her that when things were right Melody would soar quickly to the
pinnacle.

And I'm going to make them right for you this very minute, my dearest,
she silently told the young woman who trembled against her.

With a murmur of pacification, she slid her hand down Melody's belly.

The hair Claudia encountered was soft and very fine in texture, and
felt quite different to her own pubic thatch.  It astonished her that
there could be such a variance, and she felt her imagination open up to
the diversity and possibilities of women.  It would be just as exciting
with each new one the basic sameness to herself in anatomy was just a
landscape that might include a wealth of idiosyncrasy.

What would Beatrice feel like down there?  Would her pubic mane be as
tempestuous and as red as the hair on her head?  Would it be abundant,
wispy, or even clipped?

But Beatrice wasn't here now, Claudia reminded herself, and Melody
was.

With another calming mutter, she ventured further, delving through the
soft, wet hair in search of treasure.

Melody whimpered and began to wriggle her bottom, and once again,
Claudia encountered her individuality.  The sylph-like young woman had
pudenda that were luscious and well developed.  Melody's clitoris was
bigger, Claudia realised, than her own, and the spongy inner lips were
longer and more plump.  Her slippery sex was a flower in bloom and it
lured the fingers to explore.

Using the sensitive pad of her middle finger, Claudia began to voyage
her lover's vulva; cruising Melody's labia, on and down to her vaginal
portal, her perineum and her anus, and back up again to the swollen
jewel at the heart of her pleasure.

But Melody was tense.  Claudia intuited that the young woman was
enjoying herself, feeling all the delightful sensations that she should
be doing, yet there was still a lingering obstacle in her psyche.

"What is it.  Met?"  she asked, letting her hand grow still.

"We can stop if you don't like this.  I don't want to force you or
upset you."

"You're not upsetting me," said Melody, her sigh just audible within
the downpour.

"It's not you ... It's me.  I like what you're doing.  I love it!"  She
placed her hand over Claudia's for emphasis.

"But don't feel you have to carry on if I'm a bit of a turn-off to
you."  Her voice faltered, and Claudia guessed she was crying, adding
salty tears to the water that sluiced her face.

She gave the younger woman a hug a hard bear hug while still
maintaining contact with her juicy, tempting quim.

"What are you talking about, sweetheart?"  she demanded.

"You don't turn me off, you turn me on!"  Trying her best to swivel her
hips in a matching rhythm to that of her fingers, she only prayed that
her words and actions conveyed her emotion.

"You excite me just as much as any man's ever done!"

"Really?  You're not just saying that?"

"Why should I?  We've always been honest with each other before.  Why
should I lie now?"

"I -1 don't know ..."  Melody was still unsure.  At least, her mind and
her voice were.  Her body was finding its own way.  Her hips were
beginning to weave in time to Claudia's.

"It's just something Richard said.  Something about me.  You know, me
"down there"."

That bastard!  Claudia wanted to screech.  She had an idea of the type
of thing that Richard Truebridge might have said;

the sort of insensitive, closed-minded remark that came from the mouth
of a man who liked to think he knew everything about sex, but really
knew nothing.  She would have liked to castigate him furiously for
hurting Melody on such an intimate level, but she refrained from
venting her anger in derogatory and most likely profane terms.  After
all, there was probably a part of Melody that still loved him.

"What did he say?"  she asked as gently as she could, still caressing
the very flesh at the centre of their discourse.

"That I was ... that I was too big.  Too coarse," said Melody, in a
series of breathy gasps.  Claudia's distraction was obviously working,
because the young woman didn't sound focused on her so-called problem
at all.

"You're gorgeous," said Claudia, meaning it.  The feel of Melody's sex
against her fingers was conjuring up all sorts of urges inside her.

Urges to do things; urges to have things done to her.  She wanted to
stroke and stroke and stroke the girl; to understand everything about
her intimate shape and texture.  Her ins and outs.  Her fluids.  Her
resilience.  Her responses.  She wanted to know what another woman's
orgasm felt like against her; to experience the minute, passionate
dance of Melody's lush membranes.  To feel that plump clitoris jump;

to hear Melody cry out with each pulse.

Always orally fixated, Claudia knew now that she would soon have to
lick her friend; to put her on the receiving end of all the delicious
procedures that she herself had always found so blissful.  The
nibbling; the flicking; the sucking.  The long, hard sucking that made
her legs kick, her belly lurch and her throat and vocal chords eject a
wild cry.

In a strange aside, she suddenly found something else to look forward
to.  The taste and texture of Paul in her mouth; his cock and its
silky, salty essence.

Later, slut, she told herself, laughing inside and relishing the
sumptuous banquet she had assembled, in her house for her own
delectation.  A feast of two lovers, two strangers;

one that she had found and one that, in a mystic way, she was almost
creating for herself.  She was transforming Melody from friend into
lover, just as surely as she had made a brunette out of a blonde.

/! love your quim.  Melody," she said, her flickering fingers
reinforcing her words.

"I don't have much to compare it with, but to me it feels like a
lovely, succulent flower.  Perfect to touch and fondle; to play with
and enjoy."  Using her whole body as a guide, she shifted Melody's
position so that the young woman's buttocks were against her thigh,
split around it to stretch her anus.  It was one of her own intense
pleasures to be soundly fingered while having her bottom stimulated
too.  She was absolutely certain it would work just as well for
Melody.

"And this," she said, pushing forward with her leg to increase the
pressure as she took hold of Melody's clitoris between her finger and
thumb, 'is just amazing.  Beautiful.  Like a pearl; a plump little
berry.  I can't leave it alone."  She rolled the tiny organ and Melody
half laughed, half groaned.

"Now we've started, I won't be able to give up, you know," she
continued, warming to her theme.

"Whenever we're together, I'll be wanting you ... I'll just be dying to
get my hand in your pants and play with your clit tie Melody chuckled,
then gulped.  Her pelvis started gyrating.  Claudia hung on.

"Just think," she said, pinching very lightly and feeling the flesh
against her finger pads flutter and beat.  Melody made an uncouth,
choking sound.

"We might be out shopping and I'll have to whisk you into a ladies
somewhere and masturbate you!  Because I can't stop thinking how hot
and wet and tempting you are between your legs.

It'll be the only thing on my mind.  Your quim.  All the time we're
looking at clothes, I'll be imagining how swollen you are ... How
puffed up your sex-lips are ... How hard your clitoris is ... What it
feels like;

what it does when I do thisV She squeezed, and Melody wailed, her vulva
pulsating.

How strange, thought Claudia, I never thought I would experience my own
orgasm from the outside.  Completely from the outside.  How wonderful,
too.  How fulfilling, yet also how frustrating.  Stimulating Melody had
had a reciprocal effect on her own body, invoking the need but not
providing resolution.  Her sex felt a mile wide, congested and
uncomfortable.

But she had to concentrate, for the moment, on her companion.  Melody
was half collapsing in her arms, gasping and muttering.  Claudia could
swear she heard the words /!  love you' muttered under Melody's breath,
but it was difficult to be sure in the pelting streams of water.

"Are you all right, Mel?"  enquired Claudia cautiously, still
supporting the younger woman, though feeling her try to stand up and
pull herself together.

Melody eased herself free, lifted her face to the flow of the shower
for a moment and sluiced back her transformed hair; then she turned
around, her face glistening and radiant.

"Oh Claud, I'm more than all right!"  she cried, throwing her arms
around Claudia and almost sending the pair of them sliding and
flying.

"I feel incredible, thanks to you.  I haven't come like that in
months!

Years!  Ever!  Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!"  Still lauding
her, she kissed Claudia on the lips.

It was a long kiss, a messy kiss, and it stoked the fires that were
already well raging in Claudia.  She wanted Melody; wanted her
desperately to do something that would release a growing pressure.

Her quim ached.  She was wetter than the shower could ever make her.

She would have to come, and come soon, or she would scream.

"I wonder if I'm a real lesbian, and I've never really been into men at
all, but just thought I was?"  mused Melody, breaking the kiss and
resting her dark head on Claudia's shoulder.

"I don't know, my sweet," said Claudia, tensing up with the need to
control herself.  Melody's feelings, and the moment, were still
friable.

"Can you still see yourself in bed with a man?  Can you imagine being
touched by a man and getting excited?"

I can, thought Claudia as Melody seemed to ponder these questions.  If
it were Paul here now I would want him just as much as I want you,
Mel.

She imagined bending over in the shower and being taken crudely from
behind, just as she had been taken, earlier in the day, in the
meadow.

But what if he wanted more?  Something different?  What if he insisted
on her making good her promise and allowing him to bugger her?

Claudia's whole body shook with the power of that vision, with a
sensation of yielding that seemed to melt the pit of her belly and make
her sex and her anus tingle.  God!  Oh, how she wanted that now!

Her whole being wanted Paul to be with her now, so she could bend
before him, holding apart her own buttocks so he could possess her
nether entrance.  Unable to control herself, she moaned into Melody's
slick, mahogany-dark hair.

Now it was Melody's turn to make solicitous enquiries.

"What is it, Claud?"  she murmured, cradling the back of Claudia's
head.

"Is something the matter?"

"No," said Claudia, gathering herself and pulling a little way away
from Melody so they could look into one another's eyes.

"Just thoughts ..."

"What thoughts?"  asked Melody, her grey eyes bright and wicked.

"Thoughts about me?"

Claudia's heart sank.  She thought again of her friend's lingering
emotional fragility.  How could she say she had been fantasising about
Paul?  But then again, lies and deception were bound to be more
damaging.

"When I told you to start thinking about men, I couldn't help myself.

I started thinking about them too.  Or should I say, I started thinking
about one man in particular."

Melody chuckled.

"I don't need a million guesses to work out which one," she said,

pulling Claudia closer again, 'and if it makes you feel any better ...
well ... I was thinking about the same one!"

"And did you find yourself wanting to make love with him?"  asked
Claudia slowly, sliding her wet belly against Melody's.  Would she feel
jealous, she wondered, if the answer was yes?

Melody seemed to have acquired the same mind- reading powers as the man
they were discussing, because she said, "Would it hurt you if I said I
did desire him?  I'd do anything rather than upset you, Claud, you know
that.  If you'd rather I didn't ... um ... want him, I'll put him
completely out of my mind, I promise you."

"You don't have to do that, you silly!"  said Claudia, without even
having to think.  She knew she could allow thoughts and fantasies of
her own into her heart and see images of Paul and Melody together quite
painlessly.  The only problem was they only increased her arousal a
state of tumescence that was already a plaguing torment.

"I want you to think about Paul!"  she said, smiling at Melody, and at
the same time pressing their two pubises closer.

"In fact, I want you to do far more than think about him."  She gave
her friend a slow, lascivious wink.

"With his libido the way it is, there'll be more than enough of him to
go around!  We could even go three in a bed if you want to.  I'm sure
our friend "The Stranger" won't mind."

'"The Stranger"?"

"That's a sort of secret pet name I've been using for him ... in my
thoughts," Claudia admitted, and in the next instant she darted forward
and kissed Melody hard.

"Are those the same thoughts you were having a few moments ago?"

asked Melody, gasping for breath as Claudia finally broke the kiss.

Claudia nodded.

"Phooargh!"  growled the younger woman.

"I've never done anything so wild before, but I can't imagine anything
more blissful than making love with you and with Paul It'd be just
perfection!"  She smothered Claudia's face and jawline with a dozen or
so inaccurate kisses.

"Well, then," said Claudia, cupping Melody's bottom and caressing it
roughly, 'we'll have to make sure that we all have the opportunity toer
try out that perfection, won't we?"

"I can hardly wait," crooned Melody, stroking Claudia's buttocks in
return.

"I don't know what's come over me, Claud," the younger woman went on,
her voice exultant but dreamy as she shimmied her faultless body
against the form that Claudia knew wasn't quite so immaculate.

"Before today, I used to think even just stuff like oral sex was a bit
daring.  And now look at me!"

"You're wonderful, Mel.  A sensualist just waiting to blossom."

Claudia was gasping with desire now; she couldn't think straight.  The
idea of release, of the explosive rush of orgasm, seemed to barrel
towards her through the aether like a comet.  She embraced her
beautiful friend, trying to communicate her need via their contiguous
wet skin.

"Mel," she went on huskily, 'about oral sex.  How do you feel about it
now?  Does it still seem daring?"  She put her hands on Melody's
shoulders, then bore down with an almost infinitesimal pressure.  At
the same time she let her eyes flick downward for an instant.

Revelation dawned immediately in Melody's eyes, and she laughed, low
and almost demonically.

"It still does seem daring," she said, and Claudia felt a quick kiss
pressed fervently to the hollow where her neck met her shoulder, 'but
somehow today "daring" is just what I need."

Then, with the utmost of grace.  Melody sank slowly to her knees.

"Am I imagining things, or can I smell chicken?"

Claudia dropped the towel she had been drying her hair with on to her
shoulders and sniffed the air in response to Melody's remark.

"You're right.  I can smell it too.  Paul must be getting ambitious and
cooking the pack of breasts and thighs I had in the fridge."

Melody giggled, and Claudia smiled fondly at such a sweet and carefree
sound.  It was good to hear and see her friend so happy, even if it was
a bit of a shock to look across at a brunette now.

"Chicken breasts and thighs," she pointed out, getting up and walking
across to where Melody was sitting, titivating her new, dark,
reddish-brown hair.

"This looks wonderful," she said, leaning over and dropping a kiss
among the glossy, vibrant waves, 'but it's been such a long time since
I saw you dark and wavy.  It's going to take a little while to get used
to the new you.  You're as much a stranger to me now as Paul is."  She
rubbed her cheek against the top of Melody's head, then let her hand
slide down her companion's shoulder and settle on her breast, squeezing
the soft orb very gently through the thin fabric of the burgundy
cheesecloth shirt she was wearing.

"Not too much of a stranger," said Melody, stretching into the caress
like a contented cat.

"No, not really," replied Claudia, experiencing a slight, aroused stir,
even though Melody had satisfied her beautifully only a little while
ago.  She could still feel the softness of those lovely shell-pink lips
as her friend had kissed her and nibbled her delicately between her
legs.

"It's just that... well... there's a whole new dimension to you now.

We're still friends, but it's like I've been given an extra bonus I'd
never expected to receive."  She rubbed Melody's nipple and felt it
become plump and erect again in a flash.

Melody laid down her comb, swivelled around on the stool, and reached
up to pull Claudia's mouth to hers, pushing with her tongue to obtain
immediate access.  They wrestled a moment, bodies and mouths, hands and
hair, then reluctantly, and with some amusement, Claudia pulled away.

"What about the dinner?"  she said, tapping Melody playfully on the
nose.

"Poor old Paul's been slaving overa hot stove while we've been up here
enjoying ourselves.  The least we can do is show up and eat what he's
cooked."

"I'd rather eat you," said Melody, running her tongue graphically over
her lips and making Claudia feel close to swooning with remembrance of
their frolics in the shower.  The younger woman had proved to be just
as adept at providing cunnilingus as she had been eager, some minutes
later, to receive it.  Both women had ended up waterlogged by the time
they had finally climbed shakily from the stall.

"Maybe later," said Claudia, in a casual attempt to placate her latest
lover.  She supposed she should be worrying about the possible
permutations which might now arise between the three of them: Melody,
Paul and herself.  But there seemed no way she could stir herself to be
concerned about the situation.  It was a lottery, really, from now
on.

A adventure of chance, companionship and carnality.  There were three
of them in the game and it was just a case of letting the cards fall
exactly how they may.  And she had a strong instinct that the others
would feel much the same as she did.

"Yes, maybe," said Melody mildly, as if confirming Claudia's
thoughts.

"I'm hungry anyway."  She grinned again, the mirth lighting up her
pretty face and making it exceptional.

"Really hungry, I mean.

And whatever Paul's doing to that chicken, it smells fabulous!"

"I agree!"  Claudia said, taking a last glimpse in the mirror to check
her look.

"Let's eat!"

"You look amazing!"  said Melody, her voice warm.

"There's no need to worry."

Claudia felt amazing, and though she sometimes thought she overrated
her own belief in the idea that she looked far younger than a
forty-something should, tonight she was convinced she could be
ageless.

Her hair, her eyes and her face all shone with fulfilment, and even her
body seemed to possess a sly, discreet lustre; a kind of glow that
enhanced what she was wearing.

"Do you think this is OK?"  she enquired, still needing a trace of
reassurance.  She smoothed down the cotton of her fuscia Capri pants to
make them sit a little better around her thighs, then twitched the hem
of her matching, sleeveless top.

"Ravishing!"  pronounced Melody.

"And I don't think I look too bad myself, either.  What do you
think?"

"You know what I think, you vain little madam!"  cried Claudia,
swinging around to grab Melody's bottom and give one cheek a little
squeeze.  The younger woman was wearing a pair of trim, denim cut-offs
with her cheesecloth shirt, and their tightness seemed to constantly
invite the hand.  Claudia wondered if they would invite Paul's hand
too.  If she couldn't get through the evening without goosing Melody
two or three times, she thought it unlikely that Paul would be able to
resist either.

"Come on," she said, taking Melody by the hand, 'let's get downstairs
and join Paul before I'm forced to rip your clothes of and whisk you
off to bed!"

"Dear God!"  exclaimed Paul, letting the pan he was holding drop down
on to the stove top with a clatter.  Luckily for him, nothing
spilled.

Claudia smiled, heartened that she didn't feel too jealous of the way
he was staring at Melody.  I had a big hand in this miracle, she told
herself silently.  The way he's admiring her is as much a vote of
praise for me as it is for her.

"What an amazing job you've done," he said, abandoning the stove and
moving towards them.  He took both their hands, and Claudia knew that
once again, her instincts had been right.

"You've worked wonders!"  He smiled at Melody, then at her.

"It's like seeing the same person, yet someone completely different."

He speaks as if he's known us both for years, thought Claudia in
wonder.  He has the authority, yet I don't know quite how or why.  I
just know that what he says sounds utterly right.

It puzzled her, but as she looked from one smooth, beautiful face to
another, she became aware of an even greater conundrum.  Now that

Melody had dark hair, she bore an uncanny resemblance to Paul.  It
wasn't a likeness in a grand sense his features were too masculine, and
hers too womanly but there was a nuance of the same intriguing mystery
about them both; a sexual allure that was as strong in some ways as it
was delicate and subtle in others.  And to have the two of them in her
house, both wanting to be with her, made her heart pound, her head spin
and her body tingle.

An embarras de rich esse she thought, looking from one to another and
wondering if they were aware themselves of their elusive similarity.

She saw Melody smile shyly at Paul, and something faint yet intriguing
flicker in his eyes, and she had a feeling that at least he had
recognised the strange affinity.  He returned Melody's smile, then
swung his face around and gave Claudia one just as warming.

"You seem to have a knack for this, Mrs.  Marwood/ he said softly,
giving her a kiss on the cheek while still holding Melody's hand.

"You're a transformer.  You've changed two of us for the better."  He
looked her in the eyes, asked a silent question, and she gave him her
silent answer.  Without a moment's hesitation, he kissed Melody gently
too.

Not one of them said anything for a second or two, but surprisingly,
the atmosphere didn't seem awkward.  Paul had effortlessly assessed the
situation and set the mood.

Claudia wondered what on earth was going to happen next, but perhaps
fortuitously, there came the spitting sound of grilling chicken from
the cooker.

"Agh!  Duty calls," said Paul, squeezing both their hands briefly but
fiercely, then turning his attention to his culinary endeavours.

"Perhaps you two ladies could organise the drinks while I finish up
here?"  he suggested from over his shoulder, while expertly prodding
and turning the meat.

Cheek!  thought Claudia.  Anyone would think you lived here, young
man!

"Certainly," she said crisply, suppressing her snort of amusement.

"I

think we'll bring up something a bit special from the wine cellar.

This does seem to be something of a unique occasion."

And then some, she added silently, leading Melody in the direction of
the cellar stairs.

Chapter Thirteen.  Secrets and Lies and Stars.

After a slight, abortive, erotic fumble and a lot of giggling, and
having selected a very good bottle of Australian Chardonnay, Claudia
and Melody returned to the kitchen.

"Wow, what a splendid table!"  the younger woman exclaimed, admiring
Paul's handiwork when they walked in.

Claudia had to agree.  He had set the long, deal table in the kitchen
with the everyday cutlery, but he had used a tablecloth and dressed up
the display with a pair of terra cotta-ware candlesticks, which Claudia
always liked to use to light cosy, evening meals in the kitchen.  The
napkins, which matched the cloth, he had folded into very passable
attempts at water lilies

"Well, on this evidence, you're either the maitre d'hotel at a very
superior restaurant, or you're an interior decorator," remarked
Claudia.

"Which do you think it is?"

"I'm still betting on chef," he replied lightly, 'but we'll soon see.

Would you like to sit down and I'll dish up the first course."

"Wow!  There's more than one?"  enquired Melody, sliding on to a
chair.

It seemed natural to Claudia that she and the younger woman should sit
facing each other, with Paul at the head of the table, presiding.

Their starters were a couple of crispy, aromatic crostini apiece, and
once again, Claudia was mightily impressed.  She recognised the
component ingredients as the most simple of items, culled from her own
well-stocked store cupboard, but somehow Paul had added a strangely
inspired touch to them.  Which was a miracle, really, because the fact
that he had prepared them at all beat most men she had ever known
hands-down.  She could see Melody looking just as shaken as she was by
their companion's unexpected skills.  It was unlikely that Richard
Truebridge even knew where the kitchen in his house was although now,
Claudia thought with some satisfaction, he would bloody well have to
find it!

Their next course was plain grilled chicken, but served with a salad
full of imagination and colour.  As well as the mixed leaves she had
expected, Claudia saw and tasted slivers of sun-dried tomato, herbs
harvested from the pots that stood on her windowsill and Parmiaggano
Reggiano shaved fresh from the block, not to mention the croutons he
must have made himself because she kept no such thing pre-prepared in
her pantry.

"Amazing!"  she said, forking up the last mouthful, then chewing it
with Sybaritic pleasure.

"Where on earth did you learn to cook like that?"  Suddenly, realising
what she had said, she apologised.

"Sorry, you probably don't know, do you?"  Lifting the bottle, she
topped up all their glasses, with the wine which might have been
created especially to complement the amalgamated flavours of the salad
and the chicken.

"I'm afraid not," said Paul, his brow crumpling for a moment, 'and I
have tried ... I hoped something would come to me as I worked, but
nothing did.  I can remember what to do instinctively, but I've no idea
how I acquired the knowledge in the first place."

"Don't worry about it," said Melody cheerily.

"The end result is scrumptious, and I'm sure the whys and where- fores
will come back to you before long.  I just know it!"

"Thank you," said Paul, smiling and reaching out to pat her hand.

"I

hope you're right."  He gave them an apologetic look.

"I'm afraid there isn't any dessert as such.  The culinary memory bank
seemed to crash where pudding was concerned."

"I don't think I could eat any anyway," said Claudia.

"You've done us proud, Paul.  I'm tempted to be selfish and hope your
memory doesn't come back too soon.  Then you can stay around here and
be my cook."

She felt a heat rising up her throat and cheeks that had nothing to do
with good food and wine.

"Among other things."

Melody chuckled, and Paul had the grace to blush a little too.

"What have we got ourselves into here?"  said Claudia, glancing from
one of them to the other, and feeling grateful for the gentle,
mellowing qualities of the wine.  She didn't feel tipsy at all, but the
delicious Chardonnay had nicely smoothed the awkward edges from the
situation.  Her predominant emotion was anticipation, not anxiety.

"Let's go out on to the patio and watch the stars a while," she said,
rising from her seat and taking her glass.  With the others following
suit, she was just about to lead the way out when she noticed that the
notepad she kept handy for jotting down kitchen reminders and the
titles of pieces of music that came on the radio while she was cooking
was lying open on the counter, and that the upper page was tilled with
a jumble of unfamiliar writing.  When she picked it up and started to
read, she was first touched, then very quickly, deeply puzzled.

At the top of the sheet was a list of cookery ingredients, obviously
the ones which Paul had used up, and which now needed replacing.  But
halfway down, the pencil seemed to do a hop and a skip, as if Paul had
been struck by some kind of revelation in mid-thought, and had grasped
the new concept and run with it before it escaped from his shattered
memory.

The only thing Claudia could liken the fast and almost
shorthand-looking squiggles to was the long-forgotten remnants of her
grammar school algebra studies.  And having been better at humanities
than at sciences, the fragments she could decipher meant nothing at all
in the world to her it was just a morass of letters and figures;

of add, plus and integer signs; of figures and letters squared, and to
various powers.  The whole thing had a decidedly unfinished look to it,
but Claudia couldn't be sure of that.  She would have better understood
a tablet of hieroglyphics.

Taul... What's this?"  She held out the pad to him.

"Brainstorm," he replied, looking uncomfortable.  His face was like a
shuttered room all of a sudden and she wasn't sure if he was scared or
resentful.

"Of what?"  she persisted, her own fears and doubts bobbing up to the
surface.  What was he up to?

"I don't know," he said, taking the pad from her and studying his own
work.

"It was like the cookery.  It just came to me, out of the blue, and it
seemed important to put it down before it went away again.  It beats me
what it is, but it felt natural to be writing it, and at the time, I
really felt as if I knew what I was doing.  But it's meaningless
now."

"Phew!"  said Melody, looking over Claudia's shoulder.

"You're obviously a very, very clever man ... at something."

Claudia forbore to comment.  She didn't want to think about the
possible ramifications of these arcane symbols, and for a moment she
felt resentment too.  She didn't want to be reminded of the essentially
temporary nature of Paul's presence in her home.

"Come on!"  she said briskly.

"Those stars are waiting."

The influence of the ancient heavens was pacific; and either they or
the wine or the youth and beauty of her two companions managed to
banish her misgivings in a very short space of time.  It was a clear
night, with only the thinnest of crescent moons, and the residual
scraps of a different scientific discipline came back to her as she
stared up into the velvety darkness at the scintillating pinpoints of
light.  They were all so far away, these astral phenomena which were as
huge and majestic as the noonday sun in reality, and in many many cases
far more so.  Yet another instance of something lovely, yet secretive
and mysterious.

Throwing back his head too, Paul raised his hand, fingers pale and
tapered as they seemed to reach for the distant stars.

"Ursa Major," he said, his voice very distinct and disturbingly
scholarly in the night's stillness.

"The best- known constellation."

Claudia peered at him and saw him narrow his eyes, as if zeroing in on
individual light sources, "And the stars are ... Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth,
Delta Ursa Majoris, Phecda, Merak, Dubhe ..."

"Paul," said Claudia, softly, 'where's all this coming from?"

"I know them.  I just know them," he said, sounding full of wonder,
'but I'm sure I didn't know them the other night."

|| "Your memory must be returning," said Melody.  Claudia sensed the
younger woman sliding her arm through Paul's free one, and almost
laughed at her own tiny plume of jealousy.  She couldn't take Paul's
other arm as he was pointing out more stars.

"You could be right," he said, after he had run through one or two more
constellations.

"Yes/ yes!  I must be!"  Melody was warming to her theme.

"First it was the recipes, then the complicated maths, and now the
names of the stars.  Your life's gradually coming back to you, I'm sure
of it!"

"It's certainly a good sign that you're beginning to remember things,"
said Claudia, keeping her voice more circumspect.

In the darkness, she sensed him look at her sharply, and could almost
hear his thought: You still don't absolutely believe me, do you?  He
lowered his arm, and she could feel his scrutiny intensify, as if he
were challenging her to cling to him as Melody was doing.  She
resisted.

"Yes, it is," he said levelly, 'but I think I've been lucky too, in
where I've ended up.  And with whom."

"I haven't done anything special," Claudia returned, feeling as she
spoke that she was merely being argumentative.  She had done something
special.  How many women, taking an amnesiac total stranger into their
house, would also take him into their bed?

Paul didn't reply, but as she risked a sly sideways glance at him,
light from the house revealed amusement in the dramatic, shadowed
planes of his face.  He continued in silence for a few moments, looking
back at her, then spoke again:

"I doubt if I would have regained as much of myself, as quickly as
this, if I had been shunted from police station to hospital to hostel
Or whatever it is that usually happens to people in my situation."

"If you'd gone to the police, they could well have traced your identity
by now," Claudia pointed out.

"True," said Paul, 'but then I would have been pitched back into my
life before I was ready for it.  I thought I explained that to you."

As if sensing a vortex of antagonism building up, Melody suddenly
pitched in.

"She's always like this, Paul.  She's the kindest, most giving person I
know, yet she has a pathological resistance to being properly thanked
for that kindness."

"Oh please," murmured Claudia, "I think I'm going to throw up."

Nevertheless, she felt gratified.

"Then perhaps she should be made to accept thanks," said Paul, his
voice suddenly alight with something that made the pit of Claudia's
belly quiver.  She had heard that silky, puckish tone before.

"She deserves a recompense for her services to us lost souls, doesn't
she, Melody?  I think that it's only right if we make sure she receives
it.

What do you think?"

What was he up to?

Claudia knew she hardly had to ask that question; her heart and her
loins already knew where he was heading.  But was Melody ready for
this?  Was she picking up on Paul's implications?

"I agree.  Oh, how I agree," purred Melody, sliding around so that she
and Paul were bracketing Claudia.  Of course she knows what he's up to,
thought Claudia, recalling Melody's exquisite empathy in sensing her
own fears and hopes.  The basic moral unworthiness of Richard
Truebridge was the younger woman's only blind spot.

Thank you, Claud," Melody whispered, pressing her lips to Claudia's
shoulder.  Thank you for taking me in too.  I would have been lost if I
hadn't been able to come to you."

Oh dear, thought Claudia, feeling Paul's mouth against her other
shoulder, the contact as coordinated as if he and Melody were in a
mind-meld.  As he kissed her, his long hands settled on her waist,
taking hold of her, then turning her to face Melody.

In the starlight, the younger woman was an enigma, unknown with her
dark and lovely hair.

"Claudia, Claudia, Claudia," she whispered, placing her gentle hands on
either side of Claudia's face and bringing it to her own to kiss her
properly.  As their mouths met, Claudia felt Paul's lips press down on
the nape of her neck.

"Oh please ..."  murmured Claudia when her mouth was freed.  She wasn't
sure she could cope.  Either one of these two, separately, had the
power to play havoc with her senses; there was no knowing what they
might achieve together.  She shuddered finely as Melody breathed
against her ear.

"Don't be afraid," the girl whispered, totally confident now, as if the
presence of Paul had braced her somehow.

"No, don't be scared," he said, his mouth very close to Claudia's other
ear.

"Let us take care of you this time.  Give something back for all you've
given to us."

"I don't want your gratitude!"  protested Claudia weakly, feeling every
fibre of her sex and body contradict her.  She did.  want it.  She
wanted it very much, because she was enraptured by the way they would
express it.

Then take pleasure simply because we want to give it!"  said Paul, more
forcefully this time.  He and Melody were creating their own
momentum,

and Claudia knew that she could not resist them, even if she had been
foolish enough to want to.

Too swept away to answer, Claudia replied by relaxing back against
him.

She felt his erection butt against her, seeking her heat through her
thin cotton trousers, but she knew that this interlude was not about
his satisfaction for now; or about Melody's, even though the girl's
sweet, hard nipples were rubbing Claudia's own as their two torsos
moved together in a slow, tender dance.

Graceful hands Paul's - slid forward over her thighs and set up a
tantalising rhythm of stroking, while a second pair inveigled their way
between his body and Claudia's, curving delicately to cup the rounds of
her buttocks.  No-one touched her crotch, but something told her this
was deliberate.  They were only at the very beginning of the process.

Her mouth was possessed.  Melody's lips becoming mobile and rapacious,
and at her back Paul swooped down and kissed her too, ravishing the
hollow of soft flesh where her neck met her shoulder with an enthusiasm
she vaguely realised would leave a mark.  She tried to object, but
Melody's tongue subdued hers and kept her silent.

Between them, they rocked her pelvis to and fro, using teamwork to keep
her moving and keep her wanting.  Claudia was desperate to participate,
to be as active and as assertive as they were being, but even so her
arms hung limply at her sides.  She felt out of control, yet at the
same time strangely dominant.  There was a part of her that seemed to
be floating above it all, surveying the scene and subliminally
directing the action.

You're what I want, you two, she thought, in a dream, visualising her
bare flesh being touched and feeling, in response, someone unfasten her
Capri pants.  As both pairs of hands had moved she did not know who it
was.  The same hands, or perhaps the other set, drew the cotton
trousers down to her knees, then peeled down her G-string to follow
them.  Then they sandwiched her between them once again, accentuating
her uncovered- ness with the feel of their still-clothed bodies.

Melody's slim but flexible hands took a firm hold on her nude
buttocks;

and at the same time Paul reached around and cupped her mons pubis. Her
mouth was still deliciously stopped my Melody's tongue.

Claudia opened her eyes.  Up close, she could see the highlights and
shadings of Melody's familiar yet unfamiliar face, and the lush dark
crescents of her lowered lashes.  But when she focused over the girl's
shoulder and looked upward, she could once more see the stars.  They
were further than she could comprehend, and so I unknown, yet no
stranger, in a way, than what was going on, down here, on terra
firma.

As Paul's fingers divided her labia, she almost choked.

The sensation of him stroking her was like coming home somehow.  He was
meant to handle her thus; his fingertip was where it should be, moving
in exactly the cadence that suited her.  And that Melody was kneading
her bottom at the same time only increased the finesse of the
experience.  After just a moment, she grunted savagely, her climax
intense.

"You two!"  she hissed lovingly, coming back to her senses and
realising they had been supporting her weight between them.

"Have you no respect for your elders?"  Shimmying herself free of their
hold, she reached down to pull up her G-string and her Capri pants,
then was thwarted when Melody sank to the ground, kissed the triangle
of Claudia's pubic hair, then rose again, putting the disarranged
clothing to rights as she did so.

"There, is that better, old thing?"  the younger woman said pertly,
fastening the last button.

Claudia narrowed her eyes and smirked.  Then, giving no warning, she
grabbed Melody and kissed her soundly on the mouth, this time making
the girl yield to her tongue.

"Old thing?"  she queried, pushing the gasping, bruised-mouthed Melody
away from her.

"I'm sorry," said the girl cheerfully, rubbing her fingers across her
lips, "I meant old in wisdom, not in spirit or beauty."

"I should think so," replied Claudia roundly, sensing the close
attention of Paul behind her.  She thought he might grab her again, so
she turned quickly towards him.

"Let's take this inside," she said, more as an order than a request.

"I want more of you."  She looked from one to the other, enchanted
again by the rare, intangible likeness between them.

"Both of you.  Come on!"  In control now, she smiled and walked away,
perfectly sure that they would follow without question.

In the hall, her facade of poise wavered a moment when the phone
trilled right beside her and made her jump.  She was just about to
reach for it, then changed her mind and let the answer phone click
in.

She was even more surprised by the smooth, light voice of one of her
late husband's business partners, Tristan Van Dissell, who had sexual
designs on her, if Melody was to be believed.

"Hello, Claudia, it's Triss.  I'll be surprised if you're not in, so if
you're call screening, please do pick up."

He sounded confident more confident than most people did on an answer
phone but at the heart of things, Claudia did detect a trace of
doubt;

an un surety in himself and his purpose.  She supposed that the events
of the last few days must have sensitised her somehow, because she was
certain she would never have picked up on such a subtle nuance a couple
of weeks ago.

"I've been meaning to ring you for some time, but I didn't want to rush
things," Tristan went on.

"There're some business things we need to discuss, and Richard has
deputised me to raise them, fortunately But I'd like it to be a social
thing for us too.  I thought a nice dinner somewhere, a few drinks, get
the business out of the way, then get to know each other a little
better.  I don't think it's too soon, do you?"  He paused and made a
small, cough-like sound that betrayed his nervousness.

"Anyway, Claudia, please think about it.  You know my number.  CiaoY'I
told you," said Melody, but something sour in her tone made Claudia
look at her friend more closely.

"Yes, you said he fancied me, but there's something else, isn't
there?"

Melody was biting her lips.  The worried runaway had replaced the
confident temptress who had performed beneath the stars.

"He and Richard are up to something," Melody said tightly.

"They're trying to cheat you somehow.  I heard them talking about it on
the phone ... I think the plan is for Tristan to sweet-talk you into
something, perhaps put you off the scent with a bit of romance.  And
things."

"Things?"  Claudia and Paul chorused.  She would have laughed but
Melody looked too serious.

T don't know the exact details," the younger woman went on, her
demeanour more and more uncomfortable by the second, 'and I do know
that Tristan does genuinely fancy you, but the two of them are cooking
up something between them."  Her head came up, and suddenly she looked
more steely.

"And I can prove it, I think.  Or at least someone who understands
maths and accounting can.  There were some disks and papers in
Richard's office, and I've made copies and brought them with me.  He
thinks I'm just a stupid bit of fluff without a thought in my head, but
he'll have another think coming if we can expose what he and Triss are
up to!"  She was defiant now, and some of her earlier, newborn persona
had returned.  Quite a lot of it, in fact.

"I

could kill him just for plotting to damage you, Claud," she said, her
beautiful face set in lines of determination and passion.  Claudia felt
her body stir and flare.

"Are you going to ring him?"  Paul asked neutrally, although Claudia,
on turning, saw something in his body language that suggested
tension.

Was he jealous of another man?  It certainly didn't bother him that she
might be involved with a member of her own sex, but even the remarkable
"Stranger' might be prone to the deeply ingrained caveman mentality
that haunted even the finest of men.

"Not tonight," she said, then reached out and laid her hands on both
his chest and Melody's sweet, firm breast.

"Let him cool his heels.  Let him wonder a bit.  We've got a more
important kind of business to attend to, remember?"

"Of course," said Paul, his thick lashes flashing downward for a
second.

Melody said nothing, but her flesh shook under Claudia's fingers.

"Come on!"  urged Claudia, again leading them towards the destination
they all yearned for her bedroom.  Tomorrow morning, we'll make a
plan.

We'll work together."

But it seemed, a few minutes later, that Paul and Melody were already
working together.  Having excused herself a moment to visit the
bathroom, Claudia returned to the bedroom and found the two of them
grinning comp licitly And when she advanced into the room, she saw Paul
nod as if giving Melody a signal.  In answer, the young woman
approached Claudia with a slight, enigmatic smile upon her face.

"What are you two up to?"  asked Claudia when Melody reached her and
slid her arms around her.  She wasn't really worried about what her two
lovers might do to her, but it seemed the proper form to at least
resist a little.

Melody didn't favour Claudia with a reply, but simply kissed her lewdly
and powerfully, using her tongue again as she had in the garden.

Somewhere in the background she heard Paul's murmur of approval.

With her mouth deliciously opened and Melody's hands once more on her
bottom, Claudia suddenly felt herself being half pushed and half pulled
backward, towards her own bed.  Paul was guiding and Melody was
propelling.  When the mattress hit the back of her knees, Claudia
flopped down.

"Take off your clothes, Claudia," instructed Paul quietly when Melody
had retreated a little way.

Something wild churned deep in Claudia's stomach.  She felt an
immediate rush of wetness to her sex and knew it was an instinctive
reaction to Paul's unforced and understated dominance.  In his own
milieu, whatever that was, she was certain he was a master, a powerful
force, a person of consequence and authority;

he might not know who or what that person was yet, but the primal cues
had been restored to his personality.  He was used to being looked up
to, and he expected it.

Not speaking, she reached behind her and unbuttoned her simple cotton
top, her throat and ears blushing the same hot colour as the fabric
when the flimsy bra she wore beneath it was revealed.  A wisp of
cherry-coloured lace and under wiring it virtually screamed out that
she had been expecting sex tonight.  It was rather tight, and when she
unclasped it, her breasts spilled out like two ripe fruits.

Standing just beside her.  Melody took the garment from her hands, and
without a word, reached across and stroked her nipples.

Claudia felt strung tight with intense erotic tension.  She hardly
dared look at her two companions but she was acutely aware that they
were watching every detail of every move she made.  Unfastening her
Capri pants, she first kicked off her sandals then slid the pants down,
uncovering the G-string that she had already lowered once that night, a
cherry-pink notion that matched the saucy bra.  She was very conscious,
as she slipped it off, that it was soaking.

"Lie back now," urged Paul, coming closer to her and leaning over her
as she complied.  His blue eyes flashed kingfisher with arousal.

"Put your arms back.  Hold the bed rail.  Now part your legs."

Claudia had a fair idea what was coming, especially when she felt
Melody reach under the pillow and then saw her pull out a handful of
silky scarves.  She recognised all her best ones, bought to tone with
her favourite formal outfits.

"I - I don't know about this," she said, sensing that they still
expected a token protest.

"Neither do we," said Melody, setting to with the scarves 'but for my
part, I'm having a great time making it up as I go along."

And what about you.  Stranger?  asked Claudia silently as her hands
were tied with an efficiency that suggested Melody had natural talents
they had both been unaware of.  Paul was still watching her steadily,
only his lambent eyes betraying the substance of his passion.

Had he indulged in games like this before?  Tied them up and taunted
them for their pleasure and his?  Something in his calm demeanour
suggested that such activity was familiar.

I'll get you back for this, she thought almost dreamily as her legs
were drawn further apart then secured, giving her no opportunity to
disguise the slickness of her vulva.  She felt as if a thousand pairs
of eyes were staring at the glossy juices that had gathered in and were
in danger of overflowing from her overheated furrow.  It seemed
difficult to credit that there were only two people in the room besides
herself.

Closing her eyes, she revelled in the sensation of being fastened.  It
gave her a strange kind of sovereignty, somehow.  It released her from
responsibility and the burden of keeping a rein on her own reactions.

Bound like this she was free to thrash and scream and howl.

As if she had voiced this thought aloud, Paul looked at her, his
beautiful eyes narrowed.  Taking swift, light steps, he crossed the
room to where Melody stood and whispered in her ear.  Her face lit up
with a grin of perfect devilment, and she glanced across at Claudia and
giggled.

"Oh, Paul, what a perfectly disgraceful idea.  I love it!"  she said,
still looking at Claudia, her eyes full of wicked promise.

"Well, jump to it then," said Paul briskly, running his hand down
Melody's smooth, bare thigh where it emerged from her nearly
rudimentary shorts.

"Delighted," she said, her dainty fingers instantly at work on the
shorts' zip.

Oh, what is she doing?  thought Claudia, in a panic of luscious
anticipation.  Several sublimely rude suggestions sprung to mind and
she didn't really know which one of them she longed for or feared the
most.

In the blink of an eye.  Melody's denim shorts were on the floor, and
she was stepping out of her black satin knickers with the long-legged
grace of a super model.  Leaving herself half naked, she handed the
panties to Paul.

"Perfect," he said succinctly, and from where she lay, Claudia could
see that Melody's underwear was just as lust-stained as hers had
been.

Watching him as he wadded the delicate garment into a little bundle, it
dawned on her exactly what he was going to use them for and though the
thought shocked her, she felt a fresh burst of desire that was close to
painful.

"Open up," he said, gently stroking her face with his free hand while
holding the fragrant knickers close to her mouth.

"Don't be frightened," he whispered in her ear.

"It's just part of the game.  If you really don't like it, I can take
them out."

How completely he understands me, thought Claudia, in awe of him as he
very carefully inserted Melody's panties in her mouth.  He knows I want
adventure but that it's new to me.

The taste of Melody's quim was salty, almost marine, yet still had a
strangely fresh and almost honeyed quality.  She was like a wine from a
premier vintage;

superbly complex and lingering on the tongue.  Her aroma stirred the
need in Claudia's own flesh.

Oh God, I want her, or I want him, so much!  she bewailed in silent
ecstasy.  And I can't tell them.  I can't instruct; I can't command.  I
must wait until they deign to grant me pleasure.

She began to stir in her bonds, the very fact of her confinement as
stimulating as an hour of intimate caressing.  Her sex throbbed and
dripped, and she could feel herself becoming hopelessly engorged and
uncomfortable.  She didn't want to move.  She didn't want to betray the
extreme degree of her need to her companions, but there seemed to be no
way of containing her energetic wigglings.

"Patience, my sweet Claudia, patience," murmured Paul, lying down
beside her and freeing his swollen cock from the fly of his jeans.

She almost fainted with frustrated lust when he pressed its fat, wet
tip against her thigh.

"You'll soon feel better," he said, rubbing his member to and fro on
the bare, sensitive surface of her skin.

His silky pre-come seemed to scald like liquid fire.

"Oh yes, my dearest," said Melody, moving in close herself then lifting
the hem of her floaty top and knotting it securely at her waist.  With
her lower body entirely naked, she settled against Claudia's flank, on
the opposite side to Paul, and for a moment did nothing else but suck
slowly and lasciviously on her own middle finger.

"Soon we'll all feel better," she continued, sliding the wetted digit
from between her lips then placing it with a blind yet delicate
accuracy into the lovely groove that nestled between her legs.

What about me?  Claudia longed to scream at them.  Paul was as good as
humping her thigh for his own selfish pleasure and Melody was
unashamedly masturbating.  And all the time, her own quim lay aching,
stretched and weeping.

Please!  What about me?  she raged silently, as first one then the
other of her lovers came to a climax.  What about me?  What about me!

What about me?

But as she closed her eyes and tossed her head, and her hips and thighs
jerked with frustration, she felt those same heartless lovers begin to
soothe her.  A hand caressed her breast and another stroked her belly,
and after a second a single finger found her clitoris ... Howling
inside her mind, Claudia had the first of a score of orgasms.

Chapter Fourteen Tristan in Trouble

"wonder if you can imagine how I spent last night?"  thought Claudia,
surveying her handsome young dinner companion.

Tristan Van Dissell was as alluring as Paul in his own way, she
supposed, but somehow she now preferred lovers with dark hair rather
than those who were blond like herself.  Studying Tristan's carefully
styled flaxen locks while he scrutinised the wine list as if his life
depended on it, she couldn't help but see Paul's wild, curly mane black
with sweat as he brought her yet again to orgasm.  Or Melody's hair
born-again brunette and in the sweetest of disorder as the girl
crouched between her thighs and licked her quim.

Oh, it had been a mad, bad night, and Claudia could still feel twinges
in her limbs where she had fought her bonds and an overwhelming might
of pleasure.  That either of her lovers, especially Melody, could be
capable of such high-art devilment had come as a shock to her, but she
had lea mt while tied to her bed, that it was foolish to prejudge
anyone when it came to the excesses of the flesh.

Even just thinking about what they had done to her almost made her
come.

"Are you enjoying yourself?"  asked Tristan brightly after ordering a
rare wine, she suspected, solely to impress her.

"I knew you'd like it here.  It's got a certain savoir faire, don't you
think?  I'm convinced it's a valuable addition to our holdings."

"Our holdings?"  queried Claudia.  She gave him a long, measured look
and thought how scared of her he seemed.  He was up to no good, even
though he didn't know she was aware of it, and his nerves were making
him babble and spoil his usual suavity.  She sensed that under normal
circumstances he would have been the epitome of cosmopolitan cool in
this setting which he himself had suggested; a Michelin-starred
restaurant attached to a major hotel.  It was an establishment in which
Gerald had often expressed interest.

"You know what I mean," he said, reaching over to place his hand over
hers.

"I'm so concerned about the continued success of Gerald's businesses,
and I feel so close to you, that I do tend to get a bit possessive."

"And does Richard also feel possessive?"  she said, becoming aware that
Tristan's palms were warm and that he was sweating slightly.  The poor
boy really was in trouble.

"Er ... yes, I think so," he faltered, fiddling with his wine glass.

"But not quite in the same way as me."  Pausing, he appeared to take a
metaphorical deep breath and regain his poise somewhat.  He favoured
Claudia with his wide, youthful smile.  /!  like to think my interest
is a little more personal than his."

"And he's married, of course," observed Claudia, narrowing her eyes at
him.  She wondered if Tristan would say anything about the absence of
Melody from the Truebridge marital home.  He must know of it, she
decided, as he and Richard would have had to coordinate their
efforts.

This sally seemed to nonplus Tristan again, and in the ensuing silence,
Claudia took a sip of the wine and considered the preceding 24 hours.

After the orgiastic extremes of their night together, she now trusted
both Paul and Melody completely.  And with her stranger, this trust
transcended even the possibility that he was not quite what he seemed
and that he might be concealing his identity.  A deep, almost primal
feeling told her that even if he had initially set out to deceive her,
he was now no longer bent on that course.  She was convinced he was
concerned about her welfare.

And not just her sexual welfare.  He seemed to be looking out for her
financial interests too.

You think you can hoodwink me with your slick moves, don't you,
Tristan?  she asked silently of the aspiring smooth operator who sat
before her.  You and Richard think that because I'm not exactly
Mastermind where money is concerned, you can hide whatever you please
in an over-complex balance sheet.

Well, think again!

Giving Tristan an amenable "I'm having a lovely time' smile to keep him
entirely in the dark, she thought back again to the discovery, this
morning, of the near-miraculous extent of Paul's remarkable facility
for figures.

"This is pretty difficult for me ... I think," her lover had said
pensively, studying the documents Melody had purloined from her
husband's office and the printouts they had just run off on Gerald's
now little-used computer.

"I have a feeling that financial calculations aren't actually my strong
point."

Nevertheless, while she and Melody had struggled with the data on the
computer screen, finding it virtually impossible to decipher, much less
spot any cleverly embedded anomalies, Paul had worked silently and at
furious speed, using only a notepad, a pencil and his brain.

From time to time during their labours, she had looked across at him,
fascinated by his complete absorption in what he was doing.  She had
never seen a face so calm and composed; in fact, he appeared more
serene while poring over her late husband's - and now her financial
status than he had at any time so far.  His face wore a relaxed, almost
post-orgasmic expression that she found utterly desirable.

Was he one of those men who did sums in his head to avoid coming too
soon?  she thought gleefully.  There was a certain piquancy in
imagining that fine mind operating on some high, arcane level while the
body that housed it squirmed and bucked in frantic sexual congress.

Just as she thought this, Paul looked up suddenly and smiled knowingly
at her.  Had he read her mind, as he often seemed to do?  It appeared
not.

"I've found something," he said, leafing back several pages through his
pad.

"In fact, I've found quite a few things."

"Here.  Here and here," he pointed out as he joined Claudia and Melody
at the computer screen, comparing what they saw there with what he had
uncovered.

Not that she had entirely understood what had been done, or how,
Claudia realised now, coming back to the present and the rather
apprehensive-looking Tristan.  But Paul had promised to document the
deceptions for her in a form that could be presented to an independent
financial auditor.  She had a powerful lever available to her now, if
she chose to employ it.  At the very least, the business reputations of
both Richard Truebridge and Tristan Van Dissell would be annihilated,
and if she pressed the matter, they could very well face serious
charges.

"About the proposed new acquisitions," began Tristan, making Claudia
smile with his earnestness.  How blissfully unaware he was of impending
doom or the hold she would soon have over him, should she decide to
give him the second chance that so tempted her.  Of the two of them,
Richard Truebridge was the venal one;

instinct told her Tristan was merely misguided.

"Let's not talk business tonight, Triss," she said, cutting him off
when he seemed about to launch into another complicated pitch for his
proposals.

"It's a long time since I've been out to dinner, and I want to enjoy
myself.  I want some fun!"  she declared.

"We both know that Gerald wouldn't have wanted me to become a dried-up
old widow on his account."

A bit blatant, Claudia, she told herself, relishing the flare of hope
in Tristan's hazel eyes.  But what the hell!  Melody's claims about
Tristan's interest in her were obviously quite true.  The fact that he
desired her was written very plainly in the light flush that lay across
his cheekbones.  And he was probably hard inside his underpants.  She
gave him a slow, silky smile at the thought of that.

"You're right, Claudia.  Of course you are," he replied, impressing her
with the return of his self-possession.

"What do you say we forget the wine and I order us champagne instead?

We could drink a toast, then, to fun ... and perhaps a non-business
relationship?"

"What say we forget the dinner altogether and see if this hotel has a
decent room going begging?"

Tristan's jaw dropped and he stared at her open mouthed, showing his
even white teeth to advantage.  He obviously hadn't expected her to be
two steps ahead of him.

"Well, a - actually," he began, his schoolboy stammer sounding
strangely appealing, "I did take the liberty of booking a suite for
us."  Brilliant colour flooded up towards his golden hairline.  Claudia
could almost taste the chagrin he felt at appearing so gauche before
her.

"Only so that we could talk in private, if we needed to," he insisted,
and she wondered whether he had really believed she might buy such a
tacky line.

She gave him an arch look, as if to say, "How quaint', then rose from
her seat, without warning, and picked up her evening bag.

For a moment, Tristan's eyes seemed to pop with horror.  Clearly, he
was afraid that he had slipped up and that she was affronted by his
assumption that she would want to go to bed with him.  Claudia extended
the torture by keeping her face perfectly straight, showing neither
warmth nor displeasure, and simply smoothing her skirt in a gesture
that gave no indication of whether she was leaving or staying.

Tristan stood up too.  He seemed about to say something, then changed
his mind.

Claudia laughed inside.  She had managed to regress him to his
childhood.  She held the pause just a little bit longer, then turned on
her heel, glancing over her shoulder at him.

"Well, if we're going to acquire this hotel, Tristan, it does seem a
good idea to check out the accommodation."  Without further
consultation she set out across the restaurant, sensing a satisfying
degree of interest from other diners principally the male ones.  She
had no doubt whatsoever that Tristan was following her, shadowing her
steps like a devoted but chastened puppy- in the lobby, too, Claudia's
female radar discreetly picked up admiring glances.  She was pleased to
get them as she had made a deliberate effort to dazzle tonight;

using every bit of her skill with clothes and style and make-up to
create an image that would take Tristan by surprise.

The little black dress.  What an understated description for a garment
that could make such an impact.  Claudia had paid more for her 'little
black' than many women would spend on clothes in a year, but the
superior cut and panache of it were well worth the ludicrous expense.

Tastefully snug on the bodice, its little cuff sleeves were just enough
off the shoulder to be seductive without being overt, and its slightly
flared skirt was flirtatious without being embarrassingly girlish. With
a perfectly gauged just-on-the-knee length, and worn with slender black
suede court shoes that were high, but not awkward, it made her look and
feel every inch an enchantress.  A neat, single-row diamond neck let a
gift from Gerald was the fine top note to her shimmer of allure.

And she had seen unequivocal evidence of the accuracy of her assessment
in Paul's eyes, which had been almost feral with desire when she had
left him.  She didn't think he was jealous as such at least, that was
what he had told her but she had no doubt he would have liked to fuck
her while she was wearing this dress.

Thinking of Paul, as she rode up in the mirror-lined lift with
Tristan,

forced her to indulge in a tiny smile of satisfaction The existence of
her stranger was only adding to Tristan's confusion.

She had deliberately invited Tristan in when he had arrived to collect
her, and just as deliberately she had made sure that Paul was
conspicuously in evidence during that time loafing on the settee,
barefoot and with a glass of wine to hand, listening to a Schubert
sonata as if he had lived in the house for years.  It had been obvious
then, and it still was now, that Tristan was almost bursting to know
who the unknown visitor in Claudia's home was, but to further
off-balance him she had given no explanations.  As they approached the
suite, she could almost hear his inner questions.

She also wondered if he suspected that Melody was staying with her
too.

It was certainly unlikely that Tristan was unaware that Richard
Truebridge's wife had left him, but Claudia felt it prudent that
Melody's whereabouts should remain a secret.  The girl had been
sequestered in her bedroom during Tristan's flying visit.

The suite was unsurprisingly sumptuous; almost cliched in its ambience
of provocation.  Although thoroughly relishing its unmistakably sultry
atmosphere, Claudia had to laugh at her companion being so obvious.

Tristan looked alarmed.

"Is something wrong?"  he said, pouring some of the champagne that had
just arrived for them and spilling a little of it on the polished
silver tray.

"Well, it's not exactly subtle, is it?"  Claudia received her glass
from him and took a swallow of the delicious dry wine with unalloyed
pleasure.

"If we were going to talk she emphasised the word heavily I would have
thought a suite with a conference room, or at least a sitting room,
would have been better."

Tristan gulped down his wine and moved quickly towards her.

"I think we both want to do far more than talk."  Trying to regain the
high ground, he slid his arms around her, but even still holding her
glass, she was able to lightly elude him.

Just like a spring lamb, old thing, she told herself, pouring a dash
more champagne into her glass and giving Tristan what she hoped was her
most enigmatic look.

Whatever facade of self-confidence Tristan had built up for himself now
began to crumble.  He looked unnerved, pink-faced and at a loss.

"What is it?"  he demanded.

"Is it him?  The guy with the scruffy hair?

The one with his feet up on your sofa, drinking Gerald's wine?"

"My wine," said Claudia softly.

"And Paul's presence in my house has no relevance to my presence
here."

"But who the hell is he?  He can't be someone you've met through
Gerald."  Tristan was moving towards her again, but he was still unsure
and hesitant.  A look of frustration began to form on his charming
face.

"No, Paul is a more recent friend.  Someone who I met a short while
ago, who needed somewhere to stay.  I've got plenty of room.  I took
him in.  End of story."

It was a preposterously lean explanation, but she had no intention of
elucidating.  She too was beginning to feel frustrated but not quite in
the same way as Tristan.

"But-' "If you don't stop prying into matters that don't concern you, I
shall leave immediately."  She made her voice sharp and peremptory,
even though she knew it was a gamble.  Tristan might not be quite as
besotted with her as Melody claimed.

But her gamble paid off.  Tristan dropped his head and looked
contrite.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It's none of my business."  Inside her boned bodice, Claudia felt her
nipples tingle and harden.

"No, it isn't," she said, schooling her voice very carefully, even
though her body was almost singing now and her quim was growing
moist.

"You and I have other business to transact, I believe?"  She regarded
him levelly, standing tall in her 'fuck me' shoes.  I'm a goddess, she
thought; in the full flush of my prime yet all-conquertngly young.

Tristan swallowed, his face and his body language exhibiting fear and
burgeoning excitement in equal measures At his groin there was a
clearly discernible bulge.

"But I thought "Thought what?"  she questioned, making it her turn to
close in on him.  Tristan, erect yet terrified, backed off.

"I don't know," he mumbled.

"I don't know."

"And I suppose you don't know exactly how Richard Truebridge is
planning to defraud me either?"

Still backing, Tristan flopped inelegantly on to the bed, his face a
stricken picture of guilt and hunger.  He opened his mouth, Claudia
presumed, to utter some sort of denial, then shut it again.  She sensed
that at heart he didn't want to cheat her and that he had never really
wanted to.  The truth was that Truebridge seemed to have a knack for
bamboozling people who should have known better than to have dealings
with him.

"It's impossible to deny," said Claudia more gently, sitting down
beside him.

"I have an analysis of the latest set of figures and projections."  She
reached out, touched his hot cheek, and drew her nails lightly down
it.

"I think we both know that we could stop the whole thing right now, and
let everyone off unscathed ..."  She caught his lower lip with her
little finger and pressed down.  A muscle flicked and spasmed beneath
his cheekbone.

"Or it could proceed further and the consequences will be dire."  Her
own threat pleased her as she perceived that it might work on many
levels.

"I'm sorry," said Tristan, his fingers clenching.  To Claudia's
amusement, she saw his cock twitch in his pants.  His imperilled state
only seemed to tire his lust more.  She was also impressed by his lack
of denial.

"What can I do to make it up to you?"  he went on, sounding more
composed now his deception was over.

"I'll do anything, if you'll only forgive me."  He stiffened his spine
and seemed to pull himself together even more.

"Look, let me work solely for you.  Just on a nominal salary.  Let me
prove that I can be of some use to you.

That I can be loyal."

"Oh, I don't think the salary has to be too nominal," she said, after a
long hiatus in which she had looked into his eyes as unwaveringly as
she could.

"But I do have other expectations of you, Triss."

"Anything!  Name them!"  He was smiling again, edging towards her.

Claudia put out her hand and pressed it against his chest, making him
keep his distance.  Her mental star rising, she continued to hold his
look.

"Do I need to?"  she said, lowering her lashes for just an instant.

To Tristan's credit, he seemed to understand her.  He stilled where he
sat, waiting quiescently for instructions.

"Unzip your trousers and get your penis out," Claudia instructed him
quietly.

"I'd like to see if this is going to be worth my while."

Eyes downcast, Tristan immediately unbuckled his narrow, lizard-skin
belt, then made short work of unfastening his trousers.  Easing open
the flies of both his trousers and boxer shorts, he exposed to her a
prodigiously hard erection.

Oh yes, this will serve me very well, mused Claudia, faintly surprised
by the dispassionate nature of her own thinking.  This was the penis
she would enjoy when Paul was gone, as go he surely would when his past
history was restored to him.  She would still need a man to satisfy the
fires the stranger had stirred in her; a man she found amenable and
attractive, who would be there for her not just because of his
obligations but also because he genuinely wanted her.

I'm not just a lesbian, thought Claudia, watching a drop of pre-come
form at the tip of Tristan's prick.  I have Melody, and perhaps
Beatrice too, to enjoy myself with, but they aren't everything I need,
I know that.

One of the things they couldn't provide her with was just inches from
her fingertips.  She could handle him now, if she wanted to; delight in
the toy which his perfidy had more or less rendered her possession. But
for the moment, she chose not to.  There were more devious ways to bind
him to her use.

"Masturbate for me, Tristan," she said, keeping her voice velvety.  He
was her creature now; there was no need to shout at him.

"Show me what you do when you're alone.  When you're thinking of a
woman you desire, but you can't be with her."  She laid her hand on his
thigh, near his bare penis and his own trembling hand, hoping he could
read her unspoken implication.  That dream woman of his had better damn
well be her!

Tristan looked at her, offering up one last plea for his self-respect,
but she shook her head ever so slightly.  He flexed his fingers then
laid them on his flesh.

Not quite the elegant savage that Paul is, thought Claudia, observing
Tristan's fist making short, energetic strokes.  She wondered if he was
trying to get it all over with as soon as possible in order to keep his
shaming to a minimum, and she made a small 'tsk'ing sound of
disapproval.

"You're not competing against anybody, Triss," she reminded him
coolly.

"Try and be a little more ... more "artistic", if you can."

Tristan ran his tongue around his lips, rather in the manner of a small
boy concentrating fiercely, and the rhythm of his rubbing became less
frantic.  Shuffling slightly on the bed, he adjusted the position of
his balls, presumably, then closed his eyes as if to make his efforts a
little more Zen.

"That's better," breathed Claudia, beginning to be enchanted by him.

She had always suspected that Tristan had possibilities.

"Lie back she urged him, pushing on his shoulders as he continued to
manipulate his manhood.

"That's it," she said, as he settled on his back.  His long slim legs,
in their marvelous tailoring, were still stretched out.

"Better!"  she praised him.

"Much better!"

He was handling himself far more delicately now, holding his glans
between finger and thumb and massaging more than pushing and pulling.

The precise movement highlighted his excellent dimensions.

"Much, much better," she said, wetting the tip of one finger and
touching the long, tense shaft.  Tristan gasped and bared his teeth but
didn't falter.

Well done!  she praised him silently, sliding her finger very lightly
up and down him, then letting it slip, down and under, to search out
his balls.  Again, Tristan drew breath and seemed about to protest, but
held the line, still circling his thumb around the tip of his penis.

Claudia cupped his testicles and he whispered, "Oh God!"

All this is mine to command now, thought Claudia, almost laughing aloud
at her own whimsy.  Through an error of judgement, Tristan had given
her the mastery of his genitals.  She found herself dreaming about
ordering him to wear some kind of harness on himself, and to have it on
always, to remind himself of his folly and just who it was to whom he
now owed total allegiance.

As she fingered his perineum, he bucked on the bed, his hand rising
with his cock as his hips jerked.  His penis looked very red, painfully
stiff and rampantly inflamed.  She sensed that at any second he was
likely to ejaculate.  Withdrawing her own hand, she spoke to him
firmly.

"Enough now.  Lie back.  Hands at your sides."

"But-' She quelled him with a quick, hard kiss, pressing her crotch to
his hip as she half twisted over him.  It was time for him to hold
steady while she raced ahead.  Withdrawing, she whispered, "Close your
eyes," and his long, surprisingly dark lashes flickered down.

Scooting just a little way away on the bed, Claudia lay back herself
and opened her legs beneath the pretty froth of her petticoats, which
were of net to give bounce to her mildly coquettish skirt.  Then,
moistening the same finger that had traversed the length of Tristan,
she reached down inside her panties and found her clitoris.

"What are you doing?"  croaked Tristan, sounding desperate.

"Hush!  Never you mind!"  replied Claudia, doing her best to keep her
voice even while she delicately flicked at the very nexus of her
pleasure.  Turning to the side, she saw an expression of extreme strain
and yearning excitement on Tristan's face, and it was that as much as
her fingers that made her come.

Clamping her jaw against her cries and closing her legs around her
hand, Claudia strove with every muscle not to react to the waves of
feeling.  She wanted, in every fibre, to thrash about and revel in
gorgeous sensations, but to do that would be to reveal too much to
Tristan.  Instead she contained the bliss within herself.

It took her what felt like an eternity to regain her equilibrium, and
even as she sat up she felt the aftershocks of climax.  The expression
on Tristan's face was yet more tense almost a look of agony and she had
an inkling he was fully aware of what had happened.  His cock was even
stiffer than before, if that were possible.

But this is only the beginning, my boy, she thought fondly as she slid
to her feet, beside the bed, and slipped her knickers off.

Over the next hour or so, she made sure that Tristan Van Dissell went
both to heaven and to hell.  While he struggled to stay immobile
without the assistance of the bonds she had enjoyed so much in her
dealings with Paul and Melody, Claudia utilised his fine male body
quite shamelessly.

"If you come before I want you to, Triss, I've a good mind to start
legal proceedings against you," she teased, squatting over him, his
penis lodged deep inside her.  A tear rolled down his cheek as her
inner muscles squeezed him.

But he did impress her.  In his own way, Tristan had excellent
qualifications as a lover.  He was strong, he was good looking, and he
took good care of his body; and though lacking the untamed mystique and
the obvious intelligence of her foundling Paul, now that he was
completely in her thrall, Tristan did everything that was humanly
possible in his efforts to placate her.  The degree of his sexual
self-mastery was prodigious, and despite her tormenting him, he managed
not to climax before her order which was a minor miracle, given the
ferocity with which she rode him.

And even when he was spent, he was more than willing with lips and
tongue, licking and sucking her to the pinnacle again and again.

Claudia could think of no purer way to express the natural superiority
of woman than to sit ecstatically upon the face of a sweet young man.

When she was ready to leave him, she had wrung him out like a well-worn
wash leather.  He lay on the bed, his legs akimbo, quite devoid of all
strength, while she outlined her final instructions practicalities that
seemed mundane after the madness they had just been sharing.

"If you can do all that for me, Triss ... well, we'll certainly have
dinner again."

His groan was muffled, an expression of fatigue, but she hadn't the
slightest doubt that he had heard and understood her.  On her behalf,
he would put a spanner in the works of Mr.  Richard Truebridge.

Claudia felt like laughing as she rode home in a taxi.  What could have
been a dreadful problem and a terrible insult to her late husband's
memory had been contained before it had even really begun.

And not only that, she had acquired yet another in a string of younger
lovers.

"You would be proud of me, Gerald, my love," she murmured, shuffling in
the seat of the taxi, trying to keep the thickness of her skirts
underneath her because when she had last seen her panties they had been
wrapped in a bundle round Tristan's rising penis.

And the sweetest icing on this scrumptious cake was the fact,
unbelievable as it seemed, that she felt not the slightest trace of
guilt on anyone's account.

She wondered if she would have felt like this when she had been married
to Gerald, but the situation had not arisen.  All her major internal
changes had taken place with the advent of Paul into her life.  He had
activated her, somehow; opened her up to events, possibilities and
people in a way in which she doubted he understood himself.

Yes, she thought, feeling a quiver of reborn desire in spite of all
that she had just put Tristan through.  Her beautiful stranger had a
great deal to answer for and she could only hope that when he was gone,
his power to change her would not go with him.

Chapter Fifteen

Invitations Beatrice Quine rang.  She wants you and Paul to go to a
fancy-dress party ... She thinks it might help him remember who he is
At first, Claudia couldn't think of a notion less likely to help Paul
regain his memory.  The high-spirited tra-la- la of a masquerade party
would be both tiring and confusing; the very last thing he needed
during recuperation.

But then again, had he not been in fancy dress when he had turned up on
her doorstep?  Maybe this shindig of Beatrice's would act as a
trigger?

Hurl him backward, past his trauma, to last time he had dressed up in
his Edwardian outfit?  It certainly didn't do to underestimate the
professional wisdom of Beatrice Quine, reflected Claudia with a
smile.

"Does she now?"  she said, observing Melody, who seemed to have waited
up for her, and who looked enchanting in a wrap of striped cream
satin.

"And what did Paul say about the idea?"

"Well, not much really."  Melody twisted a strand of her dark hair
between her fingers, her face a classic portrait of evasion.  Claudia
wondered what had been going on at the time of the phone call, and
discovered that just as she hadn't felt guilty about her own conduct
tonight neither did she feel jealous of anything that Paul and Melody
might have done.  After all, she had whispered to him, before she left,
"Be kind to Melody."

Deciding not to press the matter, she said, "Where is Paul now, by the
way?"

"He came over all sleepy all of a sudden," replied Melody, still
vague.

"He says that that's what tends to happen to him.  He went to bed about
an hour ago.  He couldn't keep his eyes open."  It was the silk robe's
turn to be pulled and twisted this time.

Claudia felt her heart turn over with compassion.  Melody had endured
too much with her pig of a husband to be consumed with guilt and
remorse now.  Especially when Claudia herself felt so blame-free.

"It's all right, you know," she said, gently touching her
friend-lover's face; "I don't mind in the slightest.  I was a bit of a
bad girl with Tristan, too.  So you've nothing to reproach yourself
for."

Melody's instant smile was brilliant with relief.  She let out a held
breath, and her sweet, rounded breasts shifted intriguingly beneath the
silk of her wrap.  Claudia almost sighed, feeling a renewed twist of
interest.  It was quite alarming to feel desire again so quickly;

it was less than an hour since she had been debauching herself with
Tristan.

"How bad?"  enquired Melody.

"Oh, absolutely terrible!  Abominable!"  Claudia answered with a
flourish.

"I'll tell you all about it while I get out of this lot she indicated
her soignee dress and her high heels and stockings and then you can
tell me what you did to Paul."

"Um ... What he did to me, really," said Melody, keeping her voice low
as she followed Claudia up the stairs.

Is she looking up my dress?  thought Claudia, when she reached the
landing.  It must be quite a sight with lacy stockings, narrow
suspenders and no knickers.

"Mmm ... Excellent," she murmured, turning to give Melody her most
conspiratorial grin.

Melody's face was rosy; it seemed likely that she had been looking.

Once in the bedroom, Claudia kicked off her high- heeled shoes.  They
had been surprisingly comfortable and had a certain power which had
done the trick with Tristan, but after several hours in them, she had
certainly had enough.  It was delicious to feel the carpet against her
toes, and to get the best of it she quickly shed her stockings,
noticing a sleazy-looking ladder in the process which made her smile.

Had Tristan spoilt her stocking with his teeth?  she wondered.  That
was something he might come to regret when next they met.

"Unzip me, would you, please?"  she asked, despite the fact that her
dress was quite easy to unfasten.  She was suddenly hungry to have
Melody's hands upon her.

Slowly, oh so slowly, the young woman slid down the zipper, then caught
the dress as it too slithered down, its lining coasting smoothly on the
black satin basque Claudia wore beneath it to create a sleek, svelte
line.  Before the frock reached her feet, Claudia felt soft lips
caressing her bare shoulder.

"You're so beautiful, Claud," Melody murmured, her breath hot.

"I've always thought so.  I just wonder why I didn't realise quite how
I felt it."

"Thank you," said Claudia, simply, enjoying the peachy contact of her
young lover's mouth.  When Melody withdrew, she stepped out of the
dress and let it be whisked away and laid across a chair.

The younger woman laughed.

"Oh Claud, where on earth are your pants?"

Claudia chuckled too.

"Wrapped around Tristan Van Dissell's dick the last time I saw them."

"You are bad, aren't you?"  said Melody with a happy sigh.

Claudia nodded, intensely aware of the nakedness of her pubis.  She
rather liked the piquancy of having half of her body covered and the
other part quite naked, but she was also conscious of the constriction
of the pretty little corset.

"Come on, girl, make yourself useful!  Unfasten this for me too," she
said briskly.

"I wish you'd keep it on.  You look so gorgeous in it!"

"Maybe I do," said Claudia with a shrug, 'but it's a bit much for my
undisciplined old body after all these hours."

"You have a perfect body," said Melody, obediently applying herself to
the hooks and eyes.  Claudia could almost feel her friend's gaze
burning her nude buttocks where they swelled from beneath the basque.

For a moment, desire almost made her dizzy, especially when Melody
manipulated the lower hooks and sank to her knees, her face just inches
from the globes of Claudia's bottom.  As the basque fell away.

Melody brushed her cheek against Claudia's nether one; the fleeting
gesture as much affectionate as sexual.

"And you smell of sex," Melody continued, rising to her feet again,
then sliding her hands around Claudia's waist and down across her
belly.

Claudia caught Melody's hands in her own.

"I do.  Very much so.  Which is why I need a wash or a shower before
this goes any further."

Melody made a small impatient sound which seemed to indicate she didn't
really care about that, but satisfying as her encounter with Tristan
had been, Claudia did care that she still had his odour and his aura
upon her.  Melody was too fresh to be tainted in that way.

"And first," said Claudia firmly, turning and touching her fingers to
her own face, and to her make-up which had endured surprisingly well,
"I need to get this lot off.  It's been a long time since I wore this
much warpaint, and it's beginning to feel a little like a mask."

"Let me help you," said Melody, skipping across to the dressing table
and returning with cleansing lotion, cotton wool and a box of
tissues.

Setting them out on the bed, she reached for Claudia's hand to draw her
down to sit on the counterpane.

"Don't I need a robe?"  suggested Claudia, about to comply.

"Are you cold?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Well then?"

"OK," said Claudia, brushing her fingers through her hair to push it
back from her face.

There was something extraordinarily intimate about having her face
cleansed and pampered by another person; a special, almost more than
sexual closeness that was only highlighted by her vulnerable, naked
state.  Melody's actions were super-light as she applied the lotion.

"You were going to tell me about Tristan," Melody reminded her friend,
her fingers making tiny circles along her jaw.

"Do you think you frightened him sufficiently?  I'd like to think that
all Richard's plans and schemes will be over now."

The sensation of being massaged, however chastely, was blissful, and
Claudia was tempted to purr rather than answer.

"Well, I don't know about frightening him," she said, rolling her
shoulders in appreciation, 'but I think it's highly unlikely that I'll
have any trouble from him on the financial front from now on."  She
smiled slowly, and Melody's fingers rode the muscles of her face.

"Or on any front, really."

"I told you he adored you," said Melody smugly, beginning to tissue the
creamy emulsion off Claudia's face.

"Well, I don't know how he felt before tonight," Claudia said, as the
tissue skimmed delicately over her skin, 'but I think it's pretty safe
to say he rather likes me now."

"So, what was it that you did that put him in his place?"  enquired
Melody, clearly all ears.

Claudia considered editing her account, then decided that Melody
deserved more.  Even though she had never spoken as freely and
explicitly in her life before except sometimes to Gerald Claudia
outlined her latest erotic adventure to her friend in detail.

"Dear God, you're amazing," said Melody when Claudia had finished.  The
girl was breathing heavily and the pupils of her eyes were dilated; if
she hadn't been aroused before, she certainly was now.  Claudia
couldn't imagine many sights more delicious.  Melody's hard nipples
were pressing through the pale silk of her wrap and she was shifting
uncomfortably where she sat on the counterpane.

But do I look any less of a wanton?  thought Claudia, looking down at
the stiffened peaks of her own breasts and the delicate sheen of
perspiration that lay like a lacquer across her skin.

"Now it's your turn," she said, shuffling back on to the bed and
getting comfortable against the pillows.  Tell me what happened with
you and Paul.  It's only fair."  She patted the mattress beside her and
Melody shed her robe and moved into the indicated space.

Then, with a sigh of surrender, the young woman began to speak.

"It was when I was on the phone to Beatrice," said Melody, wishing to
God she could stop trembling and tell her tale with all the
full-blooded spice that Claudia had just used.  Claudia had done
everything for her:

taken her in, restored her faith in herself, even shared her lover with
her the first one Claudia had taken since her widowhood.

Claudia deserved the very best; she deserved uncensored frankness.

"Well, I suppose you know how Beatrice Quine loves to chat and to draw
you out?"  She sensed Claudia nodding beside her.

"It turned into a long conversation.  She asked me all sorts of things
about myself and what's happened ... with Richard.  And I found her
very easy to talk to.  Very comforting.  Very much like you."

She dropped her hand timidly on to Claudia's thigh and was rewarded by
a small encouraging sound as she gently squeezed it.

"Anyway, the minutes were passing and passing, and I was leaning on the
wall beside the hall phone, absorbed in conversation, when suddenly he
was behind me and sliding his arms around me.  I felt his lips on the
back of my neck, then ... then his fingers cupping my breasts through
my top."

In a house where excitement had become a way of life, feeling Paul
making love to her while she was on the phone had been yet another
brick in a growing edifice of pleasure.  As Beatrice had enquired
solicitously about her future plans, Claudia's stranger had wreaked
havoc with Melody's senses.

Rolling up her T-shirt, he had completely exposed her braless breasts,
then sidled slyly around the front of her to see them, giving each
nipple a tiny flick to make them bounce.

"Er ... I'm sorry, I didn't catch that," she had said when his impish
little trick had made her half choke down the phone.

"Oh, yes.  I'm going to do that," she went on, replying to Beatrice's
enquiry over lawyers, and at the same time watching Paul dip down over
her and take the tip of one breast into his mouth.

The suction he created with his soft, mobile lips was a sensation she
could not keep control of.  As Beatrice rambled on companionably about
the importance of good legal representation.  Melody found herself
squirming against the wall, making matters worse and much, much better
by creating a drag on her own flesh with her movements.  Paul did not
bite her breast but he sucked harder as if determined to maintain
contact.  With one hand on her bottom and the other cupping the soft
orb of flesh that he was suckling, he would not allow any interruption
of his efforts.

"Oh please," murmured Melody, almost beside herself, then came sharply
back to her senses when Beatrice asked if she was unwell.

"No, I'm fine ... I'm fine!"  Melody insisted, parting her legs because
what was happening to her breasts was making her vulva swell and
throb.

"I was just saying ... um ... Yes, please give me the name of this
fellow you know.  I know Claudia has a good lawyer, but I'm not sure if
he's a specialist in divorce."

As Paul cupped both her breasts and pushed his warm and very faintly
stubbly face between them, it occurred to Melody that Beatrice Quine,
of all people Rosewell under Berfield's most disreputable woman of the
world must surely have an inkling by now that something was up.  Melody
knew she was panting, and that Beatrice, at the other end of the line,
must be able to hear it, but it was almost impossible to control her
own breathing.  The only thing to do was to find a polite way to ring
off so Paul could have his way entirely, but just then the doctor
seemed to find new conversation launching off on to a fresh but related
tack.

The bitch!  She knows!  thought Melody, wondering hysterically if just
the same thing would have happened if Claudia had answered the phone.

There had been a strange light in her friend's eyes when she had
mentioned the notorious and beautiful doctor.  What had gone on between
them when Beatrice had visited Paul?

"And is there anyone new in your life?"  the doctor asked, and Melody
almost shouted, because at the same moment Paul abandoned her breasts,
flipped up her skirt, then with a swift, shocking jerk, dragged at her
panties.

"I ... um ... I'm not sure ... Sort of," said Melody shakily, amazed at
herself because she was stepping out of her knickers like a docile
little girl being undressed by a benevolent old nanny.  Her eyes bulged
when she looked down and saw that Paul was tucking her soft, cotton
skirt in a bunch at her waist.

Beatrice expressed kindly scorn and Melody tried to elucidate without
naming Paul which was difficult given that the unmentionable one was on
his knees, licking and nibbling at the soft skin on the insides of her
thighs.

"It's a bit complicated," Melody said faintly, feeling the marauding
mouth move higher and higher.

"Enough said," Beatrice replied, her voice full of devilment and
empathy.  Melody's knees were shaking, but she still had sufficient of
her wits about her to be certain that the doctor was instinctively
aufait with her situation And not only that.  She had the distinct
impression that Beatrice had also guessed what was happening even as
they spoke.

But even so, the doctor still seemed in the mood to eossip, and
launched off enthusiastically on yet another topic.  Meanwhile, almost
giddy with anticipation and precursive spasms of sensation.  Melody
clung on to the phone and to the wall beside her for support.  Paul was
kissing the soft fluff at her groin now.

"You know, I'd really like to get to know more women in the village,"
said Beatrice breezily.

"I already feel very close to Claudia, but I would really like to be
your friend too.  Melody.  If you'd like that?"

"What?  Oh!  Oh yes," gasped Melody, feeling deft fingertips parting
her pubic bush and opening the sticky, engorged lips it protected.

"Oh, yes, Beatrice, I'd really like that," she went on, summoning every
last scrap of her self-possession as erotic oblivion began to threaten
from below.

"That's wonderful," exclaimed Beatrice.

Oh God, yes it is!  thought Melody frantically, as Paul flicked the tip
of her clitoris with his tongue.  She had never experienced a
pleasure-stroke quite as accurate;

not even her own fingers spoke the language of sex so well.

Unable to stay upright any longer.  Melody slid slowly and very
clumsily to the floor; yet, despite all the struggling and thrashing,
Paul somehow managed to stay with her.  It was as if he were attached
to her as a bizarre form of life support.

If he stops sucking, I'll stop breathing.  Melody thought, then giggled
helplessly as she sensed the approach of climax.  It was rolling
towards her now like a typhoon in the tropics, and when it hit, she
would not survive its impact.  At least not without giving away her
secret.

"Are you all right?"  There was sly humour in the gentle voice that
asked the question, but the inquisitor was no longer the one she had
been thinking about.  Melodyblinked away her dream of Paul's mouth, and
Beatrice on the phone, and surfaced, as if she had been sleeping, to
the face of Claudia.

"Melody?"  Claudia persisted, and even though there was concern on the
face of her friend.  Melody saw the unmistakable lineaments of desire
upon it too.

"Yes, I'm fine.  I feel great, thanks to Paul.  And to Beatrice, I
suppose she smiled shyly, then tentatively put her hand on Claudia's
waist and to you.  Mostly to you."  The warm skin beneath her fingers
flexed and trembled.

"Good," replied Claudia, matching her movement, then advancing on it by
pulling Melody's body to her.

"But you can tell me all about the rest of your phone call she pulled
more determinedly, and Melody was drawn on top of her' - later."

Much later, thought Melody, beginning to kiss.

Much later in fact, a number of days later Claudia had not managed to
persuade Melody to accompany her and Paul to Beatrice's party.  There
was very little else that she and Paul hadn't persuaded Melody to do
and indeed very little that Melody hadn't persuaded her and Paul to do
but on the subject of social ising the younger woman was adamant.

"There's nothing I can say that'll change her mind," Claudia told Paul
as she studied his refurbished "Edwardian' outfit, freshly cleaned and
pressed upon her bed.  She was supervising his preparations as well as
her own, just in case, like Melody, he too decided to wriggle out of
going to the party.  For while he recognised its value, his enthusiasm
was ambivalent.

"I'm beginning to wish I could change your mind," he said from where he
sat before the mirror, looking thoughtful.  He was trying to bring a
modicum of order to his freshly washed hair, and not doing too good a
job of it, even with the help of some ridiculously expensive designer
pomade that Claudia had bought for him the day before.

Claudia fingered an imaginary wrinkle in the grey satin cravat.

"If you're unhappy about the idea, I'll phone Beatrice and tell her
we're not coming.  She'll understand."  She glanced across at him and
watched him running his narrow fingers through his wild hair in an
attempt to tame it.  Any thought of hurting him made horror twist
inside her.

"Don't take any notice of me," he said, and giving a final primp to a
lovelock which hid the last traces of his graze, he turned to her and
gave her his magic smile.

"I'm just being a baby, Claud.  I want to remember, I really do, but
there's a selfish part of me that never wants any of it to come
back."

The smile warmed and the twist of worry became a tangle of desire.

"So I can stay here indefinitely with you."

Claudia dropped the cravat and almost ran to him.  She was unable to
speak; what he had just said represented a deep wish she had tried not
to articulate even to herself, for fear of wanting it too much.  But
she could not contain the way her body responded both to him, and to
the way, for the first time, he had called her "Claud' in a tone of
pure affection.

He looked so extraordinary tonight, and that was even before he had
donned his dashing costume.  While completing his toilette he had on a
particularly favourite robe of hers that had belonged to Gerald.  It
was the colour of Cabernet Sauvignon, long and luxurious, with a wide
quilted collar and a tasselled sash.  Her husband had always called it
his "Sherlock Holmes dressing gown', and worn by Paul it seemed to
impart to him a certain 'nutty young professor' charm that jived well
with his uncanny mathematical abilities.  The trouble with the lovely
robe at the moment was that it covered up the far lovelier flesh
beneath.

As she reached him, he swivelled on the stool to face her, and
instinctively she sank and knelt before him.

"Oh Paul," she managed to gasp, burying her face against the heavy,
silky fabric of the robe and breathing in the male fragrance of the
body it encased.  A car would be coming for them shortly to take them
to Beatrice's masked ball, but with all her heart, she suddenly wished
that time could freeze.

That Paul, with all his mystery and his arcane, locked-up knowledge,
could actually still the clock and keep them here, together, for
ever.

Looking up at him, she almost believed he could do it.  His eyes were
the burning blue of a summer's afternoon sky, yet everything about him,
save his lust, was unfathomable.

Without stopping to think, she parted the wings of the heavy robe and
uncovered him, discovering to her delight that he had not yet put on
any of his clothes; not even the designer briefs that she and Melody
had chosen for him on their self-indulgent shopping spree.  His long
penis was un contained and very lively.  It rose up from the nest of
hair at his groin, almost bouncing in its self- determined eagerness to
be touched.  Only this morning, she had watched Melody take this
fabulous organ into her mouth and suck it, and ever since then, Claudia
realised now, she had wanted to do the same.  At the moment, the pretty
young woman was busy cleaning Paul's mud-caked shoes which had somehow,
among everything else, been overlooked so now Claudia had a chance to
fulfill her wish.

Slowly, she moved her face towards him, then let the very tip of his
prick brush her cheek.  She felt a smear of moisture being drawn across
her skin and smiled inwardly, thinking that they were adding yet
another chore to the list to be completed before their departure.

Perhaps the expert Melody would help her re-do her makeup?

Paul made a low, almost growling sound in his throat and butted his
swollen glans towards her waiting, red- painted lips.  She parted them
just a little way, and used her mouth to effect a tiny, detailed
caress, rolling and sliding him against the edges of her teeth.

"Sweet Jesus, Claudia!"  he hissed, his hips lifting from the seat. She
felt him brace himself to get the best from her: one hand on the stool,
for purchase; the other at the nape of her neck to guide her actions.

And my hair now, too, she thought dreamily, as she worried his frenum
and his fingers gouged her scalp.  When his nails dug deeper, in
inadvertent cruelty, she jabbed her tongue against the very eye of his
penis.

"Oh God!  Oh my God!"  chuntered Paul as she plagued and played with
him, folding one hand around his shaft and searching out his balls with
the other.

Steady, boy, don't overcook it!  she thought, giving him, the lightest
of sucks, then licking him again, very delicately, across the
love-eye.

Even so, she let a finger find his anus.

Claudia could feel Paul shaking his head now; he was in extremis and
very close to coming.  And, though she heartily desired him, she felt a
strange urge to sacrifice her own pleasure on the altar of his.  It
would be a gift to him, her own frustration, her own discomfort,
throughout the evening ahead.  Every twinge and every spasm of her
needy, engorged vulva would remind her of the beauty of this moment.

Feeling like a holy sacrifice, she thrust her exploring finger into his
body.

Paul cried out a foul profanity as he orgasmed, but in a voice that
made it the sweetest of praises.  His whole pelvis jerked and rose as
his tribute spurted into her, then as he subsided, she felt his body
shake with sobs.  Letting his penis slip from her mouth, she hugged his
hips.

"It's all right, sweetheart," she murmured, her nostrils filled with
the pungent yet cleanly scent of fresh, young semen.

"It's all right," she said again, and he bent and curved over her,
cradling her face against his wilting cock and his flat belly.

It seemed to be Paul's turn to be unable to speak now, but the rough
fervour of his embrace said all he needed to.  Holding, and being held,
Claudia wanted nothing of parties, intrigues or revelations.

The moment itself was enough for her; even her desire seemed strangely
muted now.  Simple contact was her most pressing human need.

"Claudia," he murmured at length, and disentangling herself, she looked
up into his face.  He was a study in both repletion and confusion.

"I -1 want to do something ... Something for you," he said, his
demeanour unexpectedly bashful as he nodded vaguely in the direction of
her groin, her womanhood.

"There's no time, and no need," she answered gently.  Then she rose and
stood before him, knowing she was magnificent in the long, fitted
princess petticoat which was the underpinning for her own hastily
acquired costume an Edwardian dinner gown supplied by a connection of
Beatrice's.  The slip was pure white, and its hem, and deeply decollete
bodice, were both trimmed with a heady froth of lace.  It was so
lovely, she was almost tempted to attend the party without the dress
that went over it.  Only the sheerness of the fabric crepe-de-chi ne
prevented her.  As she was un corseted it revealed more than it
concealed.

"I'll have my moment later," she said, reaching up to fluff her hair.

"But I want to see you come," said Paul almost petulantly.  He rose,
seemingly oblivious of his open robe and his bobbing penis, and crushed
her to him.  Claudia tried to struggle but it was useless; his hands
were everywhere at once, goosing and grabbing her through the thin,
slippery stuff of her petticoat.  It was only a knock at the door that
curtailed his stimulating incursions.

"It's OK, Mel, come in!"  Claudia cried, whirling away from him.

But to Paul, she mimed a hasty, "The night is young!"

Chapter Sixteen Un Ballo in Maschera

Are you ready?"  enquired Claudia as the car slid to a standstill.

"As I'll ever be," answered Paul, his long face ghostly.  He peered out
of the tinted glass, the very picture of nerves and apprehension.

The insistent lover of just an hour ago had vanished.

"Don't worry," said Claudia as the chauffeur opened the door for her
and handed her out of the Bentley limousine that Beatrice had sent to
collect them.

"We don't have to stay for the duration.  And remember, it's masked,
anyway, so you'll always have something to hide behind if you need
to."

"You're right," said Paul as he stepped lightly out behind her.  As she
turned to him, he straightened his frock coat and tugged down his
waistcoat, an act which reminded her just ho\v flattering the ensemble
she had first seen him in was.  The dashing, beautifully cut black
velvet jacket had returned as good as new from the cleaners, and the
white wing collar of his shirt and his heavy silk cravat seemed to
frame a face that had come from another age.  He was even more the
Edwardian dandy than ever now, with at least a portion of his
selfpossession and identity restored.  And with any luck, tonight would
restore a little more to him.

"I'm being an idiot," he went on, self-deprecatingly.

"I should be thanking my lucky stars to be out on a perfect summer's
night like this' he gestured to the vault of the heavens which was just
beginning to darken to twilight azure '- with a woman as beautiful as
you."  Without warning he caught her to him and kissed the deep swell
of her cleavage where it was revealed by the plunge of her niched and
beaded bodice.  Claudia was so surprised that she dropped the evening
bag and fan that Beatrice had so thoughtfully supplied with the gown.

"You look fabulous," Paul growled almost soundlessly against her skin,
'and I want to make you come now more than ever!"

Claudia's knees went weak as his lips nuzzled the upper slope of one
breast.  Her daring lover had returned to her, banishing the nervous
amnesiac of a few moments ago, and she wanted to sing from both relief
and fresh desire.  Between her legs she felt a humid ache gather.

"Oh, way to go!"  cried an admiring voice from just behind her, and
when Paul lifted his face, Claudia quickly turned around.

A handsome young woman in some kind of cat-girl costume was coming down
the stairs to greet them; she wore an elaborate embroidered domino
mask, and a pair of fake feline ears nestled neatly in her short, black
curly hair.  She was accompanied, one step behind, by a tall, brawny
but intelligent-looking man dressed in a fusilier's uniform from the
Peninsular Wars.

"Hello, I'm Alexa, and I've been landed with greeting duties for the
moment."  From a velvet pouch that hung from her belt, she produced
what appeared to be a pocket computer organiser and flipped it open.

"May I take your names?  We don't want any gatecrashers, do we?"  Her
bodyguard looked on steadily, obviously providing the muscle to keep
out guests his partner vetoed.

Taking her fan and bag, which Paul had gracefully retrieved for her,
Claudia felt suddenly a little agitated.  She hadn't foreseen having to
supply a name for Paul.

"Of course," she said as smoothly as she was able, giving the cat-girl
a smile of mock confidence.

"I'm Claudia Marwood, and I was invited by Doctor Beatrice Quine.  And
this is my friend Paul."  In a minor panic she glanced around at him,
saw his minute shrug, then happened to noticed a stand of fine trees
that lined the long gravel led way up which they had just been
driven.

"Beech.  Paul Beech."  Paul grinned, and it was her turn to shrug.

"Ah yes, Claudia and Paul," said Alexa cheerily.

"Bea asked me to look out for you especially.  Please come this way."

She gestured towards the brightly lit interior of the house, and her
dour companion moved back to let them pass.

"No probs.  Drew," she said, giving him a nod.

Once inside an imposing hall, which had twin rows of tall marble
pillars and floor-to-ceiling mirrors on every wall, Alexa handed
Claudia and Paul masks from a large selection laid out on a polished
gate-legged table.  There seemed to be something to match every
possible costume; Claudia's was of white satin, trimmed with soft,
downy feathers, while Paul's was more austere in edge- stitched grey
velvet.

"Beatrice is about here somewhere.  You can't miss her," said Alexa as
more guests began appearing.

"She's Salome, and you know her ... You could say she's nearly wearing
a costume."

Claudia didn't really know Beatrice all that well, but she could
believe she would make an exceptional Salome.  As did the tall, dark
Drew, apparently.  He smiled knowingly as he directed them to the bar
and buffet.

"Well, here we are," said Claudia, taking the arm that Paul held
gallantly out for her after they had rearranged their hairstyles and
Claudia's delicate little coronet of flowers to accommodate the
masks.

"Does any of this make the bells start ringing?"

At a measured pace, they walked into a large salon where drinks and
food were being served in great and clearly very expensive abundance,
and as they did so Paul looked around intently.

"Not really ... Yet/ he said, a little frown puckering his forehead
above the mask.

"I can't say that I ever remember being at a fancy-dress party
before."

He turned to her and gave her a resigned look "But I still can't
remember a great deal about what I do when I'm not at fancy-dress
parties."

"It'll come," said Claudia, squeezing his arm.

Paul bent near to her and whispered, "And so will you, Mrs.  Marwood.

If I get half a chance."  His frown had vanished and his eyes were hot
and wicked.

"Really, Mr.  Beech!"  she said, tapping him with her fan and feigning
outrage.

"You do suggest the most disgraceful things sometimes."  With her own
eyes, she told him she could barely wait.

Although they knew no-one, it was surprisingly easy to circulate.

Masks were a great leveller; they made everyone a stranger to everyone
else.

"There must be dancing in another room," observed Claudia, as they both
sipped the light wine cup that was being served along with other, more
punch-packing beverages.

Paul cocked his head a little to one side and then nodded as he caught
the strains of what had sounded to Claudia like a big band.

"Well, whatever I can and can't do, I'm almost certain I'm no Fred
Astaire," he said with a little shrug.

"Oh, I don't know," replied Claudia, sipping her cup.

"You're light on your feet, and you're very graceful for a man."  She
moved a little closer.

"And we both know you've got a fabulous sense of rhythm."

"Now you're the one that's being disgraceful, Mrs.  Marwood," he
murmured archly, toasting her with his drink.

Claudia gave him her most old-fashioned look, although she guessed that
the mask somewhat ameliorated its effect.

"Shall we get something to eat?"  she suggested, nodding to the almost
Roman super-abundance of the buffet.

"Yes, that's an excellent idea," said Paul, abandoning his glass and
taking Claudia's from her.

"You need to build your strength up for what I'm going to do to you
later!"  Taking her elbow, he led her towards the food.

All the dishes on offer were superbly presented, and no doubt just as
delicious to the taste as they were pleasing to the eye, but after
Paul's last remark, Claudia's appetite had waned.  She had butterflies
in her midriff and a low pressure in her pelvis, and her hunger was
more for him than for caviar and canapes.  For appearance, though, she
sampled one or two delicacies.

While she ate very conscious of Paul at her side, eating as little as
she was she scanned the assembled party-goers with interest, with a
view to locating Beatrice.

There were many wonderful costumes: some breathtakingly elaborate and
obviously hired and some quite possibly home-made but put together with
impressive ingenuity and flair.  She saw Robin Hoods and rajahs, Native
Indian braves and astronauts, but to her relief she didn't see any
outfits that were quite like hers and Paul's.  Nibbling a quail's egg,
she turned to him to tell him so.

She got a shock to discover him watching her closely, his attention
firmly focused on her mouth.  Her appetite dying, she swallowed quickly
and put aside her plate.

"And what are you staring at?"  she demanded, although instinctively
she knew what was on his mind.  He was thinking of another purpose to
which she had recently put her lips.

"You were superb," he said in a low voice, then ditched his own plate,
took her hand, and began to lead her towards a set of open trench
windows, which accessed a long, wide patio.

"I've never had a blow job quite like it," he breathed in her ear as
they stepped out into the dying evening and the quieter ambience of the
gardens and a country park.  There were a few guests strolling around
on the patio, but far fewer than they had left feasting inside.

"Oh, so you remember having your prick sucked then?"  she enquired,
also sotto voce, feeling the same thrill in using coarse language as
she felt in hearing it from Paul's lips.

"Not specific instances," he purred, his hand settling on her hip as he
led her to a balustrade which overlooked some magnificent formal
topiary and beyond that, a maze, 'but I'll remember being in your
mouth, darling Claudia, until the day I die."  He squeezed her through
the light fabric of her gown and petticoat, the contact of his curving
fingers full of promise.

"In fact, I'm determined that it's going to be the last thing I think
about on my death bed."

"That's morbid," protested Claudia, trying to disguise the fact that
his wild claim had moved her.

"No, it's good sense actually.  I don't know whether I believe in the
hereafter, but at least my last thoughts will be heavenly."  His
pressing hand slid down and cupped her bottom; his fingertips slotting
neatly into the crease.

"Claudia, I want to watch your face while I give you an orgasm," he
said quietly and distinctly as he palpated her buttock, 'and I need to
see it soon or I swear I'll go quite mad."

Claudia's head began to swim with a delicious anticipation.  She wanted
him to see her climax, because she wanted him to make it happen.

Between her thighs, her vulva quivered, crying out to him.  A moan of
need and pleasure escaped her lips.

"Come on, let's go down there," he said huskily, giving her one last
rude squeeze, then half dragging her along the patio towards some
steps.  At the bottom of these was the first of a series of gravel
paths which wound their way through the strange menagerie of carved box
trees and led towards the entrance of the maze.

Within seconds they were crunching along the gravel, weaving in and out
of giant birds, heraldic beasts and abstract forms.  Paul was whisking
her along almost too fast to allow her to stumble, and though Claudia
hated to think what the gravel was doing to her satin-covered heels,
when it came down to it she didn't really care.  All that mattered was
the imperative of desire.

Ornate electric lamps lit the maze, to allow for the evening stroller,
but after a couple of turns, they found a stone bench in a secluded,
dark, dead end.  Paul's face was tight and intense as he struggled with
her skirts, and though his hands were shaking, he had the hem up at her
waist in seconds.

"Kneel on the bench," he commanded, his usually light tones sounding
deep and ragged.

"I want to see your bottom, Claudia.  I want to touch your sex.7
Dropping her bag and fan, Claudia caught the hem in her own hands, then
holding it in one she turned and climbed up on to the bench.

With just a pair of cotton drawers between her and Paul, she felt weak
and vulnerable.  And more than that, she suddenly remembered certain
promises and threats that had been exchanged out in a field.

An agreement which hadn't yet been honoured.

This was not the suitable place and time to perform such an act, she
reflected, waiting for Paul to pull down the voluminous underwear that
went with her period dress.  The circumstances could not have been less
appropriate.

And yet she wanted it.  She was a heroine from some dark romance of
yesteryear, waiting for her lord and master to have his wicked way with
her to exert his divine right to commit plunder, no matter how
demeaning and uncomfortable it would be.

"And you know what I want, don't you?"  she murmured, dropping her
voice when she heard the sound of other guests passing close but on a
different path in the maze.

"Of course," he mouthed against the back of her neck, his fingertip
brushing her anus through the fine, almost voile-like fabric of her
bloomers.

"So let's have these off, shall we?"  Claudia felt a thrill of fate and
yearning pass through her.  Paul's voice was low, pitched for her ears
only, but it was strong, with a note of real dominance.  He had gained
control of not only her but himself.  His hands were deft and sure as
they drew down her underwear.

"Dish your back.  Part your legs," he said, still quiet and mindful of
fellow revellers close by.

"I want to see everything you've got before I take you."

Hampered by her mass of underskirts and the baggy drawers around her
knees, Claudia nevertheless managed to obey him, shuffling her legs
apart and striking an awkward, inelegant pose.

"Gorgeous," he said, running his open hands over her thighs and her
buttocks, then pressing her downward a little.  Adjusting her position,
Claudia felt runs pop in her gossamer silk stockings.

"God, how I want you," he groaned, pressing his trousered crotch
against the slope of her thigh, as if to acquaint her with that which
she already knew, then drawing back and beginning to attack his
buttoned fly.  Claudia was torn by an urge to assist him with his
clothing, in the manner of a true handmaiden, but she knew she must
stay quite still and wait.

She didn't have to wait long.  Within seconds she felt his hand between
her thighs, testing her wetness and readiness.  His soft laugh only
confirmed what she suspected; that her quim was a well-spring of
desire, a font of moisture which only overflowed yet more on
agitation.

She was almost ashamed at the slickness of her vulva.

"This is good, my darling Mrs.  Marwood," he said, dabbling playfully
in her juices and inducing the most tantalising feelings.

"A little of this he took up a fingerful of the heavy viscous fluid and
drew it up over her perineum, heading towards but not quite reaching
his target' - will make things more comfortable for both of us."

You needn't be so matter of fact, you young pup, she thought,

experiencing indignation and elation both at once.  It didn't seem
possible that she could so adore this earthy, almost ruthless side of
Paul, but she did.  He made her want to grovel; gyrate her bottom;

invite him to bugger her.  The urge was so strong it overrode her
inhibitions.

"Get on with it then!"  she hissed, only just managing to resist the
temptation to use profanity.

"Don't just tease me with talk."  She thrust herself backward,
spreading her haunches even further, despite the encumbrance of all her
clothing.

"Of course, if you're not up to it..."  She let the challenge dangle,
while offering him everything.

"Bitch!"  he growled with affection, then laid his hands crudely on her
bottom, pulling the cheeks apart as if inspecting an animal.

"I'll show you who's up to it!"  His slender thumbs dug deep into her
buttocks.

"I was going to be nice to you, Mrs.  Marwood.  Really nice.  I was
going to play with you first, until you had an orgasm or two, but now I
think I'll just have this he slid one thumb inward and brushed it
lightly across her dilated anus straight away.  And to hell with the
niceties!"

"Fuck you!"  replied Claudia, but even as she spoke her sex began to
jerk in a hard, spontaneous orgasm.

"Oh God, you bastard, Paul!  Fuck you!"

"Oh no, tuck you, Claudia."

The words were little more than an urgent, thrilling whisper, yet
Claudia heard them with a weird echoing clarity.  Her senses seemed to
be functioning on a high, almost machine-like pitch while her loins
were aglow with pulsing pleasure.  He hadn't even taken her yet barely
even touched her and already she was a panting slave of bliss.

And then he was anointing her, smearing both her anus and his own
genitals with her copious lubrication and to her shocked delight his
own saliva.  The very primality of that action made her come again.

In the long, long moment before the onslaught began, her senses revved
up yet higher, became even more detached and took a portion of her
consciousness with them.  She saw Paul as all the other guests must see
him: a young but distinguished stranger in his beautiful antique
clothing.

The very epitome of sensitivity and genteel, Edwardian refinement, yet
given a touch of the exotic by his grey velvet mask.  He would look
ascetic; a stainless angel; untouchably pure.

If only they knew, she thought, then gasped and almost choked as the
head of his penis butted hungrily against her bottom.  She felt him
grip her cheeks again, stretch her, part her; then his glans was edging
inside her, firm and determined.

The sensations were both provoking and precarious, and Claudia closed
her mind to certain possible consequences and tried to concentrate on
the voluptuousness of the experience.  And all the time, she imagined
Paul as her unspoiled hero.  A heavenly, contemplative being who would
never even look at a woman with lust, much less sodomise her in the
rapidly gathering moonlight.

It seemed to take him an age to fully get into her, and she had a sense
that he was as new to the process as she was.  In a convoluted way,
then, he was as pure as she had imagined.  They were a pair of virgins
both engaged in a scary foray into a dark, dark land.

And yet, despite the perils, his intromission was tender.  Claudia had
never felt more close to him, to his mind, now as his penis breached
her bottom.  Though she didn't know his name, she knew him.  She knew
he was special; knew he was brilliant; knew he was not like any other
man she had ever encountered even the husband she had loved so much and
even now still missed.

Then, she was coming, and against all reason she saw the notepad in her
mind, and his elaborate figures ... Claudia wasn't sure if she cried
out herself, but she heard Paul moan softly as he bucked and slumped
against her.  Within her body, she felt his sated flesh subside.

"Oh, Claud, that was Oh, God, woman, it was beyond words," he said into
her ear after a few moments, still holding her close as he slid his
penis from her.

"You're a helluva lover, Mrs.  Marwood.  You were incredible."

"I'd say you were both pretty incredible," intoned a quiet but familiar
voice from close beside them.

"Dear God, Beatrice!"

"Doctor Quine!"

Beatrice Quine was grinning from ear to ear, and her avid eyes were
darting all over the place, taking in every last condemning detail.

As she stumbled off the bench, Claudia felt her stockings rip into
tatters, and she hauled at her drawers in the same ungainly movement.

Beside her Paul managed a little more grace in putting himself to
rights.

It was difficult to look their discoverer in the eye but Claudia was
aware she had to.  She saw Beatrice's features form a deeply admiring
expression.

"How long have you been here, Beatrice?"  she enquired, hoping that the
mask would obscure some of her blush.

"Couldn't you have coughed or something to give us warning?"

"What?  And miss probably the most erotic sight even at this party?"

replied Beatrice, quite unrepentant.  The doctor seemed to be showing
little sign of any kind of embarrassment or self-consciousness either,
which given her outfit made Claudia rather admire her in return.

Beatrice's Salome costume consisted of little more than a handful of
presumably seven relatively small chiffon veils in shades of tan and
amber that beautifully complemented the colour of her hair, which she
was presently wearing loose around her shoulders.  The brilliant
tresses covered more flesh than her veils did, and her mask was of
papier mache but painted and lacquered to look as if it had been beaten
out of gold.

"That's a stunning costume.  Doctor Quine," commented Paul with an
impressive degree of sangfroid.  Claudia resisted the urge to turn
round and give him a "What are you up to?"  look.

"Do you really think so?"  Beatrice twirled, showing them her bottom
for a second instead of her breasts and lush pubic triangle.  When she
faced them again, she gave Paul a roguish wink.

"Then why not show your appreciation of it in the same way you just did
to Claudia?"

Tm afraid I'm not quite ... er ... up to it at the moment.  Doctor
Quine," he said, sounding a little more subdued, and when Claudia did
turn round she saw his face was a touch pink where it showed beneath
the mask.

"Never mind," said Beatrice brightly.

"You deserve a bit of a break after a sterling performance like
that."

She paused, and Claudia wondered just how much detail the good doctor
had seen.

"A buggery amongst the shrubbery," Beatrice went on with a chuckle,
confirming Claudia's worst fears as she gestured to the high hedges all
around them.

Almost as if he had sensed her discomfiture, Paul's fingers suddenly
closed around hers and squeezed.  His mouth curved into a resigned
little smile.  Smiling back at him, Claudia instantly felt better and
stronger.

"Do you make a habit of this kind of thing, Beatrice?"  she enquired.

Her own smoothness impressed her;

doubly so, considering the precarious sensations that still roiled
through her nether parts.

"Do you have any more treats lined up?  Any more trysts you can spy on,
in other nooks?"  She flicked her hand towards the rest of the maze.

"Oh, I'm sure there are some ... Lots in fact," said Beatrice, with a
slow and rather teasing smile.

"But where we're going, there's no need to spy."  She made a gracious
little gesture of invitation.

"And where are we going?"  asked Claudia, not resisting the urge to
follow Beatrice, even though the doctor took a turn that logically
would lead deeper and deeper along the puzzle path.  Still holding her
hand, Paul in turn followed Claudia.

"To the party," said Beatrice over her shoulder, somewhat
cryptically.

"I thought we were already at the party," said Paul.

"Oh no, not the real one," continued the doctor, moving along swiftly
in her flat, leather slave sandals.

"All that's just for show, to be honest."  She waved dismissively to
the mass of guests, who were still milling in and around the beautiful
house consuming vast amounts of gourmet food and fine wines, chatting
about affairs they thought greatly important and dancing to a large and
accomplished show band.

"It amuses Sacha to have them there, completely deaf and blind and
oblivious to the night's main events."

"Who's Sacha?"  Beatrice had mentioned a 'friend' who had organised the
event but it was the first time she had named this unknown entity and
Claudia was immediately intrigued.

"Sacha D'Aronville," replied the doctor.  There was a tangible
excitement in the way she spoke the name.  The Comte D'Aronville, if
we're going to be formal."

"And are we to be?  Formal, that is?"  chipped in Paul.

Claudia could hear voices other than their own now, and the splashing
of water.  There was clearly a pool beyond the convoluted hedges.

"It depends on Sacha's mood," replied Beatrice, beginning to hurry, as
if she were impatient to reach her titled Frenchman.

"Things were decidedly informal when I left but he has a tendency to be
volatile.

Cold but volatile."  Claudia was even more fascinated than ever.

Just when the voices were getting so loud that it seemed impossible
that they were not already among them, Claudia and Paul followed
Beatrice round a complicated series of back-switching twists and found
themselves in what could only be described as a Shangri-la in the
centre of a forest.  Two pools one deep, one clearly just for wading
were separated by an ornate and explicitly erotic fountain in the form
of copulating nymphs and satyrs.

All around the pool people were copulating too.  Some of them were
engaged in other pursuits: a few that were frankly obscene, some very
likely painful, and others that were nothing short of mind-boggling.

Claudia gasped, but behind her Paul chuckled softly.

"It's a Roman orgy, Mrs.  Marwood," he said squeezing her hand again.

"What a shame we're not dressed for the appropriate era."

"It doesn't seem to matter," observed Claudia, noting both costumes and
the lack of them as they followed Beatrice right into the heart of the
Saturnalia, towards a classical villa-like structure which was clearly
a very deluxe type of pool house.  There was more food and drink set
out here, of an even higher degree of luxury than was being served at
the faux party.  A piece of delicate but intricate string music which
Claudia half recognised was playing quietly in the background, but on a
series of tables, a little way from the buffet, was an assembly of
items she was most definitely not familiar with.

Well, most of them were new to her, especially those fabricated from
leather, rubber and steel.

"Let me introduce you to our host," said Beatrice, sweeping them past
the fantasia of sex toys, instruments of punishment and peculiar,
uncomfortable clothing.

"Unless, of course, you'd like a drink or a chance to freshen up
first?"  She smirked knowingly.

The temptation of a bath, or at least a wash, after the rig ours of
being sodomised was almost irresistible to Claudia, but even so, she
was curious about Count Sacha.  She flashed a glance at Paul and he
nodded as if divining her decision.

"Well, I suggest a drink with our host first, then the freshening up,"
he suggested, lifting his eyebrows.

"But of course I'm at your disposal, Mrs.  Marwood."  His mouth curved
in a little grin that made Claudia quiver all over again.  For a
moment, she wished they were at home, in her bathroom, with a bottle of
chilled Chenin Blanc and a large loofah, but then she acknowledged
there would be time for that tomorrow.

She fixed her eyes on him.

"That sounds like an excellent idea," she said, suspecting that he
would enjoy her deliberate ambiguity.  She turned to Beatrice.

"We'd love to meet our host, and I for one could certainly do with a
glass of wine."

"Coming up," said Beatrice, snagging a couple of glasses from the tray
of a passing waiter.

"Try this.  I believe it's from one of Sacha's own vineyards."  It
didn't seem to affect her that the young man distributing drinks was
naked apart from his mask and a fearsome-looking assemblage of straps
that held his cock against his belly.  Perhaps the staff at Le Comte's
parties were always restrained?  It might be quite appropriate if the
rest of the guests were as forward as Beatrice Quine was.

This way," said the doctor, handing them each a glass of wine then
heading off again towards a nearby group of people.  Holding Paul's
free hand with one hand and her glass with the other, Claudia realised
that somewhere along the line she had lost contact with her evening bag
and fan.  It also dawned on her that she didn't care a fig.

"Our host," murmured Beatrice as they approached a tableau being played
out on a brocade couch beside the pool between a naked woman and a
distinguished older man.

It was immediately apparent who the Comte D'Aronville was portraying,
both from his costume eighteenth- century French and what he was
doing.

He was soundly spanking the hapless wench across his lap.  It seemed
that one Gallic aristocrat was bent on recreating the spirit of
another.  Donation Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade, was alive and
well and apparently living, for the moment, in Oxfordshire.

And Claudia discovered that, in spite of his stern and uncompromising
behaviour, she found Sacha D'Aronville instantly attractive.  He was
just her type his cool, masked face showed his strength and his lime
body looked commanding in dark breeches and satin waistcoat.  He wore
no powdered wig, as she might have expected, but instead his thick,
silver-white hair was brushed back in a faintly leonine style.

He's like Paul at his most collected and unworldly, Claudia thought, as
they drew close totally focused and almost completely apart from the
melee around him.  D'Aronville's concentration on the job and the girl
in hand reminded Claudia of her house guest as he had worked on his
calculations.  It was uncanny how such detachment could arouse.

But just as she had classified the Comte D'Aronville as distant, he
looked up from his task and gave her a measured but extremely inviting
smile.

"Madame Mar-wood," he said, showing his even white teeth while his hand
and arm continued their relentless labours.

"It is a great pleasure to meet you.  I would rise, but as you can see
there is much yet to be done with Alexa."  In lieu of a handshake, he
nodded his silvered head.

As far as she knew, Claudia had never met D'Aronville before, but she
assumed Beatrice had been the one to prime their host.

"Monsieur Ie Comte," she said as graciously as she was able, given the
distraction of the naked woman sprawled between them, 'may I present my
friend, Mr.  Paul Beech ... Who's staying with me for a while."

The two men greeted each other.  Their body language was mixed, as far
as Claudia could see.  D'Aronville seemed a little guarded although it
was difficult to know whether or not this was his normal manner.

Paul, on the other hand, was almost palpably defensive; almost as if he
had sensed her own interest in the distinguished Frenchman.  He was
also very obviously interested in and turned on by the squirming Alexa
and her bottom which was glowing like a cherry.

D'Aronville noticed this.

"Please, my friend, enjoy the show," he said amiably, not halting the
steady raining spanks.

"Perhaps you would like to take over when my arm tires?  A fresh hand
can sometimes make all the difference."

Difference to what?  thought Claudia, feeling a response to the girl's
plight within her own body.  She had thought Alexa beautiful and lively
when she had first met her, clothed in her cat costume, at the door,

but now, seeing her nude and with her buttocks punished and her quim
glistening, she found the dark-haired young woman to be a lure she
couldn't deny.

It was difficult to know which she wanted to be: Alexa or the person
chastising her.  Claudia felt a strong urge to hit the girl herself,
and yet equally it was the idea of having her own buttocks trounced
that filled her vulva with a heated rush of yearning.  She turned to
Paul suddenly wishing it were possible for them to flee the scene and
have him sling her across his knee and slap her bare bottom and
discovered that he too was potently affected by what he saw.  His pale,
narrow face was masked not only by grey velvet but by a look of purest
lust.  She could almost see his long fingers twitching to go to work.

How would she feel, she wondered, if her companion accepted
D^ronville's suggestion?  Would she let him spank Alexa?  Or would she
be bold, take her chances and live the life she now suspected her late
husband had given up for her sake?

Could she bare her own buttocks and offer them up to Paul's strong
hand?  FR1;Chapter Seventeen Saturn, and After Jn the end, at least her
chastisement had been a private affair and far less gruelling she
suspected than Alexa's.

Claudia stirred against Paul's shoulder and he took her hand in his.

They were gliding back towards home in the same luxury car that had
collected them, and as she looked back over the evening's events, she
was still astounded.

It had been an education watching Alexa being spanked, yet that
virtuoso performance had been just an introduction.  The beautiful
brunette had been only the first of the Comte D'Aronville's many
willing and multi-orgasmic victims.  And again and again, Claudia had
been tempted to join their ranks.

After watching Alexa et al receive the sweet benison of pleasure to
take away the sting of their 'medicine', Claudia and Paul had been
escorted away by Beatrice, as promised, to a place where they could
freshen up.

The villa within the maze was purely a recreational building, a
glorified summer house, but it certainly didn't suffer from a lack of
facilities.  In addition to a large changing and bathing area in which
a spirited extension to the festivities outside was taking place there
were a number of smaller, more intimate suites which were obviously
designed to accommodate a single couple.

It was into one of these that Beatrice had ushered them, before leaving
again almost immediately with a broad wink and the rejoinder, "Have
fun!  Or else!"

"Do you think that meant she might spank me?"  Paul had enquired,
shucking off his velvet frock coat and then running his hand over the
heap of thick towels that had been provided for their use.

"Quite likely," Claudia replied, picturing the image and finding it
much to her taste.  There didn't seem to be anything now that she could
do, have done to her or see that didn't have a sexual effect on her.

She wondered idly if there was an aphrodisiac in the drinks that were
being served here.  Deciding it was possible, even likely, she poured
them both a glass of wine from the bottle she had just found cooling in
an ice bucket.

"In fact, very likely," she amended, savouring what her palate told her
was a first-class SemillonChardonnay blend.

"Do you think you'd enjoy it?"

Tackling his cravat, Paul seemed to ponder the question.

"I think I might," he said cautiously, 'but if I were to be honest, I'd
say that to administer a little punishment would be my first urge." His
eyes glittered hot blue from behind the mask he still wore and made
Claudia remember an essential difference she had noticed between her
dear stranger and the elegant Comte D'Aronville.  The Frenchman's eyes
were blue too, but so pale that they almost looked like chips of ice.

Instinct told her they reflected a cold nature.  At least Paul had a
heart that was fundamentally warm and loving, despite the unsolved
mystery of his background.

The bath that they shared was one of the most welcome that Claudia had
ever taken.  After their deranged animal coupling in the maze, she had
felt grimy and decidedly 'used', even though there had been virtually
no evidence of it visible to an observer.  The scented foam in the
king-size marble tub was luxurious beyond measure, and with a soft
terry washcloth, Paul cleansed her every curve and hollow before lying
back, totally pliant, and letting her perform the same task for him.

And all that stroking, touching and exploring led, inevitably, to
lovemaking, a process as sweet and as utterly orthodox as what they had
done in the maze had been deviant.  Claudia couldn't and didn't want to
decide which of the two was more exciting but at least the straight sex
was a little gentler.  She didn't feel her age in the slightest these
days but not even the youngest and the fittest could go at it hammer
and tongs all the time.

Afterwards, lying on the deeply upholstered and lavishly cushioned day
bed, she drowsed in the nude while Paul got up and padded around.

Televison!"  he said suddenly, drawing her attention to a small set
which stood to one side on a bureau.

"I haven't seen TV since' he paused, frowned and pushed his hand
distractedly through his hair.

"It's a cliche but it's true.  I haven't seen television since I don't
know when."  Sitting down on the couch, he smiled winsomely over his
shoulder.

The idea of watching television programmes made Claudia shudder, and it
dawned on her why she hadn't bothered with the box herself for the last
few days.  Broadcasting involved news bulletins, and these might
contain items on missing persons.  You selfish old witch, she told
herself, feeling horrified by her own hidden agenda.  With a sensation
of fatalism, she watched as Paul switched on the set.

The programme that was showing puzzled her.  It seemed to be a drama
but there was no dialogue and no narration of any kind.  Not only that,
the studio lighting was extremely peculiar almost amateurish and the
content of the show was something she could not imagine that even the
most liberal-minded of channels would show.  And that included
satellite transmissions from the Continent.

In a room not unlike the one they were currently occupying themselves,
a naked man was lying on a bed, shackled at head and foot, while two
women prowled around him, carrying straps of leather.  From time to
time they lashed him across the bottom.

It took but a moment or two for the penny to drop, and as it did Paul
laughed aloud and looked around at Claudia.

"CCTV/ he said, waggling his eyebrows then returning his attention to
the screen.

"And isn't that our good friend Beatrice?"  he added, as one of the
women moved closer into the shot.

She was wearing what looked like a leather body suit now, with
strategic cut-outs at breast and crotch, but even in a black velvet
domino mask and with her magnificent hair drawn back severely into a
pleat, the forbidding figure in the scene was clearly Beatrice Quine.

And just as Claudia recognised her friend, the doctor looked up
directly towards the camera.

Was there a trace of a smile on that masked face?  The merest hint of a
nod, as if she knew she was being observed?

"Come here," said Paul, gesturing that Claudia should sit beside him on
the mattress.

"This looks as if it's going to be interesting."

Claudia wasn't sure how he or indeed anyone at this perverse gathering
would define 'interesting' - but suddenly she was a little afraid of
what she might see.  The fear wasn't that she might not like it; rather
that she might like it far too much.  Nevertheless, she settled before
the screen at Paul's side.

Studying the tableau more closely, Claudia concentrated on the man.

The monitor was transmitting the images in full colour, perhaps in too
much colour, because the stripes across his buttocks were a deep, sore
pink.  Beatrice and her unknown friend were be labouring him
relentlessly, and though he was hooded and gagged, he still made sounds
of anguish.

There was no way to tell who this sorry unfortunate was, purely by
observation, but some instinct told Claudia it was D'Aronville.  She
didn't know how she knew this, but the idea of that cold, proud
creature being humbled was particularly arousing and delicious.  Even
as she wished herself into the picture with Beatrice and the other
woman Alexa perhaps?  - Claudia felt a strong, hot response in the pit
of her belly.  Paul had satisfied her and yet she wanted more sex.

Kissing.

Caressing.  Fucking.  Anything.  She didn't care what.  Sliding her
hand up his thigh, she cupped his cock.

Losing interest in the television monitor, Paul gave her a level,
impassive look that would have been worthy of D'Aronville at his
haughtiest.

"You'll have to pay," he told her.  His voice was as mild and
emotionless as his face, but Claudia's arcane super- awareness lingered
with her.  She knew he was as madly turned on as she was without even
glancing at his crotch and she knew in which coin he wanted payment.

Can I?  she thought, observing his long, pale face and his possessed
blue eyes.  Can I give him what he wants?

Oh Claudia, did you ever have any real doubts?  she asked herself,
returning almost with shock to the present, and the car.  Paul was
adjusting his position slightly, for her greater comfort, and his
shoulder felt solid and muscular where she leant on it.  There was no
way he had brought his full strength to bear on her... The spanking he
had given her had been a somewhat measured affair, although it had hurt
her bottom mightily at the time.  But with every stinging, smarting
slap, she had been aware that what was happening was just a prelude a
spicy starter to a sweet and soothing main course to a long and
supremely exuberant copulation in which Claudia had ridden Paul to
climax while he clasped her pinkened bottom.  When it was over, they
had both admitted they had had enough.

"I wonder who was watching us?"  Paul mused aloud, and Claudia realised
he was reviewing the evening just as she had been doing.  To encourage
him, she threaded her fingers in his.

"Certainly not Beatrice.  Or our host, I suspect," he went on, bringing
her hand to his lips and kissing it briefly.

"Just think, Mrs.  Marwood, tonight we had some perfect stranger
watching us while we fucked."

"Or strangers," added Claudia, drawing their two meshed hands to her
own mouth and kissing Paul's knuckles.  That they had been watched was
a logical deduction; indeed, it had occurred to her subliminally at the
time.  She was even convinced she had tried harder to impress her
audience.

Just about to snuggle down into the seat and selfishly let Paul cradle
and support her, Claudia caught a glimpse of the passing view outside
the window.

Good Lord, they were already in Green Giles Lane!  She had felt so
relaxed during the journey, in spite of their bizarre evening, that she
had barely noticed the normal transit of time.  It was a telling
measure of how at ease she felt with Paul.

The big gates to Perry House were open and to her surprise an
unfamiliar dark-coloured car a sporty little Renault Megane coupe was
standing outside on the gravel, brilliantly illuminated in the glare of
the security floodlight.

"Who the devil's that?"  she muttered as she climbed out of the
limousine, leaning on Paul's arm as she negotiated her wayward
skirts.

Paul didn't answer her but she didn't really expect him to.

How could he?  He couldn't remember his own name, much less who owned
an unknown car.

When the chauffeur had taken his leave and accepted Claudia's thanks
for such a smooth drive, she returned her attention to the dark
Renault.

"Well, it certainly doesn't belong to anyone I know," she mused as they
moved towards the house.

"Unless Melody's taken it upon herself to buy a new car and have it
delivered this evening."

Paul was still silent.  Feeling the hairs on the back of her neck
prickle, Claudia turned to look at him.  He was staring at the Renault
with a raw expression of fear in his blue eyes.

"Paul?"

Still no answer.

"Paul?  Do you know this car?"  He swallowed as if his mouth were dry,
then seemed to come back to her from some far and difficult place.

"I don't know," he said, his voice a little gruff and slow.

"I - I

might..."  He walked ahead of her, then circled around the car,
studying it.

"I think it might be mine."

A dozen questions clamoured in Claudia's throat, but before she could
utter any of them the front door burst open and Melody came shooting
down the steps clutching a beige satin wrap around herself that she had
obviously flung on in haste and forgotten about.

"I wish you'd left a number or something," the young woman cried
without preamble.

"It's all been happening here.  There's been something on the telly
about Paul.  On the news ... And now this woman's arrived, demanding to
see him!"

Melody was clearly in something of a state but even so Claudia could
only think of Paul.  She hardly dared look at him but she made herself,
feeling her blood chill when she saw his thunderstruck face.

"Paul, what is it?"  she asked him, wanting to take his hand but
wondering how much longer she would have the right to.

"Is it the car?  Are you remembering something?"

His mouth moved slightly but no sound came out, and in that instant,
Claudia knew that he was finally reclaiming his past.  Or at least some
of it.

"Paul," she said again, putting her hand on his arm, which felt
unnaturally still beneath the velvet of his frock coat.

"Shall we go in and see this person who knows you?"

And still he stood like a statue, his face ivory in the harsh glare of
the floodlight.  Claudia felt a flare of alarm, fearing for an instant
that he had fallen into some kind of shock-induced trance, then she
breathed again when he shook his wild-haired head as if to bring order
to an excess of thoughts.

"Yes ... Yes, of course," he said, infinitely slowly, 'but give me a
minute ... I need a minute to think."  Shaking his head again but not
really acknowledging her, he walked across to one of the stone garden
benches and sat down hesitantly like an old, old man.

Tom between several actions yet knowing instinctively that all of them
were wrong, Claudia didn't move until Melody grabbed her and pulled her
a little way away.

"It was on the evening news about him," reiterated the younger woman,
glancing quickly at Paul, who sat on the stone bench as motionless as
if he himself were a carved extension of it.

"They showed a picture of him all done up in academic robes and a
mortar board ... Apparently he's one of the country's brainiest
scholars, a doctor of mathematics umpteen times over or something, and
he works at Cambridge University.  They even said he's a colleague of
Stephen Hawking!"

A genius.  A rare, rare man.  I knew it even before the calculations,
thought Claudia, staring at the still, hunched figure on the bench, the
noble brow, furrowed with deep thought, and the tousled hair of the
archetypal eccentric professor.  But he's so young, she thought.

So young to be so acclaimed, so special and so serious.

"What else did they say?"  she asked, idly noticing that both she and
Melody were shivering in the chilly night air.

"Not a lot.  Just that he was missing.  Last seen on the night of a big
college fancy-dress bash, and his wallet and other personal effects had
been found A notion of sudden, crystal significance occurred to
Claudia.

"What's his name then?"  she asked, almost afraid to hear it, as if it
would break his spell in some way.

"Paul Bowman," replied Melody, sounding rather taken with the name
despite its relative ordinariness.

"Doctor Paul Bowman!"  she went on, dressing the academic title with
something of a flourish.

"And this woman?"  Claudia asked dully, trying to face what she had
been preparing herself for but finding it excruciatingly difficult.

This would be a revelation far more affecting than his name.

"Who is she?  And how did she come to turn up here?  In Paul's car?"

Melody's lovely features assumed an expression of reluctance and
Claudia saw her friend's arms tense where she had them hugged around
herself for warmth.

"I ... um ... I think she's involved with him.

His girlfriend or something."  Melody scowled then and looked
unexpectedly vindictive.

"And it's all Richard's fault she's here.

And Tristan's.  Triss must have told Richard that you had a house guest
called Paul ... Maybe they were together, crying over spilt milk or
something, when the news came on.  Anyway, Richard must have got in
touch with the TV company or the police ... And they told this woman
who came here to get Paul."

"This woman?  Does she have a name?"  asked Claudia, making every
effort to keep her fears out of her voice.

"Felicity something or other.  But she won't say who she is or what
relation she is to Paul."  It was obvious that the fears had leaked out
anyway and that kindly Melody was working cautiously around them.

"What have you told her?"

"Well, I admitted that there was someone called Paul staying with you,
but I said it might not be her Paul..."

Her Paul.  Claudia stiffened her spine, quashing her desire to shout
and break things and say that life just wasn't fair because she had
only had her stranger to herself for such a little time.

"Did you mention his memory loss?"  she asked.

Melody looked distraught.

"Yes.  And she seemed to take a very dim view of you dragging him off
to a party when he's got amnesia.  I told her it was therapy but
somehow I don't think she sees it that way.  I wouldn't have told her
anything if I'd had my wits about me but it just slipped out when I was
trying to put her off the scent."

Bless Melody.  She understood the situation perfectly.

"Don't worry, Mel/ said Claudia, feeling impressed by the sound of her
own well-faked calm.  Inside she was raging illogically against the
inevitable.  This must be what Paul's been praying for really.  That
someone who knew him would turn up ... and take him back to his
life."

She smiled wanly.

"He isn't a lost kitten, love.  We can't keep him."

Melody gave her a "Why not?"  look and Claudia shrugged.  Her
disappointment and that of Melody too hung heavily between them in the
silence.

"I think we'd all better go inside now before we catch our deaths."

The risen gooseflesh on her arms matched that on Melody's.  Paul would
be warmer in his frock coat and trousers, she supposed, but when she
looked at him closely she could see he too was shivering.

I should be helping him, she thought, propelling herself across the
gravel towards the slim, deeply pensive figure on the bench.  If I care
at all I should welcome this; it's what's best for him.

"Paul, let's go in."  She touched his arm gently and her heart twisted
in her chest when he flinched.

"It's very cold."  She hesitated, then rushed on, wondering if she had
to be cruel to be kind.

"And you have to face up to things some time."  She wanted to ask him
what he remembered but somehow she just couldn't bring herself to do
it.

"Of course," he said, rising from the bench like an automaton yet
curiously retaining a great deal of his grace.

"Yes, you're right.  We must go in."

The word 'we' offered a shred of irrational hope but even so there was
no putting the dreaded moment off.  Claudia led the way into the house
and thence to the sitting room, with Paul at her heels and Melody in
their wake.

A dark-haired young woman sat on the sofa, flipping quickly through a
magazine with a rather agitated expression on her face, and in the
split second before the reader looked up, Claudia wondered why on earth
the visitor hadn't come out, with Melody, to greet them.  Was she
trying to gain some subtle upper hand?

"Hello.  I'm Claudia Marwood," said Claudia, gathering her nerve and
smiling the smile of the perfect hostess she certainly didn't feel
like.

The young woman, who was firm of eye, prim of mouth and wearing what
looked like immaculate Jaeger clothing from head to toe, sprang to her
feet but ignored the proffered greeting.

"Paul!  My dear!"  she cried, almost pushing Claudia aside in her haste
to get to Paul.

"How are you feeling, my love?  Do you know me?  This girl she gestured
vaguely to Melody in the background says you've lost your memory."  She
took his hand in hers and squeezed it earnestly as Claudia looked on,
feeling helpless.

Paul looked equally befuddled but once again Claudia saw knowledge and
recognition dawn in his eyes.

"Yes," he began hesitantly, "I did lose my memory ... but I think it's
beginning to come back now."  He turned to Claudia and gave her a look
so stricken she felt her heart turn over.

Oh, my poor stranger, thought Claudia, realising that she wasn't the
only one for whom a hard time lay ahead.  To reclaim the past would
mean a loss for Paul as well.

"My dearest Paul, do you know me?"  persisted the young woman, her
refined brow furrowing.

"Come along.  Sit down."  She guided him to Claudia's sofa and made him
sit.

"Could someone make him some tea?

I'm sure this has all been an awful shock for him."

"I'll get it," said Melody, and Claudia cast her a swift look of
gratitude.  She herself had to remain here, she decided, and get this
rather dismissive newcomer to acknowledge her in her own home!

"Paul!"  The young woman peered into Paul's face as if he were a
shell-shocked, blank-eyed war veteran.  To Claudia's horror, she
proceeded to snap her fingers.

"Paul, answer me!"

In the folds of her gown, Claudia clenched her fists, wanting to do far
more than click her fingers.

"Felicity?"  Paul said tentatively.

"You're Felicity, aren't you?"

"Oh, thank goodness!  You remember!"  The young woman sighed and her
smooth young face fell into lines of determination.

"Don't you worry, my dear, everything will be all right as soon as we
get out of here."  On her feet again, she took him by the shoulder.

That was enough.  Claudia took a step forward and spoke up.

"Perhaps Paul would like that cup of tea before he leaves?  I'm sure
Melody won't be a moment."

"And what would you know about what Paul likes?"  demanded the younger
woman, her eyes suddenly venomous as they fixed on Claudia.

"Who on earth are you, anyway?  And what could you possibly have been
thinking of, taking Paul out to a party when he's ill?"

Claudia drew herself up to her full height, taking comfort in the fact
that she was slightly the taller, and deriving a sense of strength from
her elegant gown and its beautiful resonances.

"As I told you before, I'm Claudia Marwood, and I offered Paul a place
to stay as he didn't seem to have anywhere."  She considered offering
her hand, but knowing now that it would be rejected, she saved herself
the embarrassment.

"I wonder if you could tell me who you are, please?"

The young woman's eyes narrowed and she gave a thin, triumphant
smile.

"I'm Felicity Neston," she said, and the smile broadened but didn't
become any more pleasant.

"And I'm Paul's fiancee."

Claudia couldn't look at Paul but she sensed his pained eyes close.

Chapter Eighteen Regeneration

Paul closing his eyes.  Why did she still keep reliving that slight
action, even now, several long weeks later?  What had he been shutting
out: was it her or was it the fact he had to lose her?

"I can't deny my whole life," he had said, in one of the few moments
that Felicity had not been clucking around him.

True, thought Claudia now, rubbing her eyes and temporarily abandoning
the spreadsheet that her ever-dutiful Tristan had prepared for her. And
I would never have expected you to, Paul Bowman Dr.  Paul Bowman so why
did the tautness of your face and something in the set of your
shoulders suggest that given half a chance you just might do it?  That
you might jettison your entire past history to stay with me?

It was silly, of course, to speculate on such notions, she told herself
as she tried to refocus on Tristan's beautifully presented and
perfectly accurate data.  Silly and unnecessary.  For heaven's sake,
she had no shortage of lovers now.  Younger ones, and one a little
older; and they were all either gratifyingly willing or possessed of
impressive sexual skills.  She had Tristan, she had her beloved Melody,
and she even had as she had always expected she would the outrageous
Beatrice.

But Melody and Beatrice were women, which was an entirely different
dynamic.  And diverting though Tris- tan's slavish devotion to her was
at times, and no matter how genuinely fond of her new PA she had
become, it wasn't the same.  Neither he nor Melody nor Beatrice could
fill the niche in her heart and mind that Paul had occupied that Paul
still did occupy.  It was a space peculiarly tailored to the
stranger.

"Leave me alone.  Doctor Bowman," she muttered, admitting defeat and
exiting from the spreadsheet program.

"You've got the lovely Felicity and I've all my friends and a brand new
life.  You were lovely but I really have moved on."

And in many ways, she had.  Gone was the lethargic dilettante Claudia
of her time of mourning and healing.  Since the advent and exit of
Paul, she had been a regenerated woman.  Even if she didn't exactly run
Gerald's business interests yet, she now had a strong hand in them,
especially since the dismissal of Richard Truebridge.  She found the
cut and thrust of buying and selling extraordinary sexy.  The figures
she had been looking at up until a moment ago, the projections for the
new hotel had fired her up and made her edgy, over warm and restless.

It was only a pity that Tristan was elsewhere, at a routine City
meeting, discharging his duties.  She would be seeing Melody later they
were doing some decorating and remodelling at the younger woman's new
cottage and Beatrice was working or at least that was what she had said
at her chic London practice.

"Dear God, I hope this isn't hot flushes starting," Claudia muttered,
leaving the study and the work behind.  Her simple cotton shirt was
suddenly sticking to her and her jeans, which had hugged her
pleasantly, felt an inch too tight.  She pushed a hand through her
short but shaggy fringe and found it damp.

Of course, the weather didn't help.  It was a muggy, oppressive day,
the hottest it had been for a week or so, even though the tide of
summer was beginning to turn.  The garden needs a shower as much as I
do, she thought, taking a bottle of San Pelegrino from the fridge, then
she realised that at least her lawn would probably be getting its
dowsing straight away.

There was a rumble of thunder and drops of rain began to batter the
path outside.

"Oh great!  A thunderstorm to remind me of him now!"  she growled, then
took a swig from the bottle of water and carried it through to the
sitting room, sans even a glass.

Flipping through her compact discs, she roundly rejected Madama
Butterfly and put on Faure's Requiem, hoping for spiritual solace.  At
least this was a recording she hadn't played during Paul's sojourn at
Perry House so she could hear it without the disturbance of poignant
memories.

At first the music seemed to have the desired effect and by the time
the "Sanctus' was playing she felt quite tranquil.  But as the ethereal
voices and the solo violin wove around each other, her sense of
detachment was shattered in a way that could not have been more
affecting.  Just as the first round of "Hosannas' pealed out, there was
an answering peal of knocks from her front door.

No!  Don't be stupid!  It's just coincidence, she told herself sternly,
rising from the sofa where she had been lying and making her way to
answer the summons.  If you had been listening to "One Fine Day', yes,
it might have been possible to believe you had conjured him up.  But
you're not.  You haven't.  And it isn't him.

But it was him.  And just as she opened the door, the very first flash
of lightning lit up the face she had told herself she did not need to
see again to be happy.

Doctor Paul Bowman was not dressed as she would have expected such an
august academic to be; not in the slightest.  No tweed jacket; no
leather elbow patches and cords; no mud-coloured pullover.  What was
almost as shocking as his arrival was the fact he was wearing the same
black frock coat he had turned up in in the first place!  Although it
looked a little different when teamed with jeans, lived-in running
shoes and a T-shirt bearing the face of Albert Einstein.

"I kind of took a fancy to it said Paul, brushing his fingers down his
velvet-covered sleeve but offering no particular greeting or
explanation for his presence.

Claudia said nothing; could say nothing.  She simply stepped back to
let him into her house.  Without further comment, he followed her into
the sitting room.

Once there, she turned away from him to retrieve the bottle of mineral
water from the floor, using the moment of respite to breathe and
breathe and breathe.  It was ridiculous but she was feeling
lightheaded.  When she faced him again, he gave her a small sheepish
smile and glanced quickly at the bottle she held in her hands.

Claudia followed the look.  /!  think we might need something a little
more bracing than this ... At least, I will."  She stepped over to her
tray of drinks, picked up the whisky decanter and waved it at him.

"Some of this?  Or is tea still your favourite tipple?"

"It's all right... Please.  I'd love some whisky," he said, swaying
from one foot to the other like a schoolboy awaiting retribution for
this behaviour

"Apparently mathematicians are quite partial to a drop of Scotch."

"Is that a fact?"  She drew forward two heavy glasses.

"Ice?  Water?

Soda?"

"Just as it comes, thanks," said Paul, the words sounding brittle and
depressingly forced.

Like two virgins at their first dance, they sat down again.  The
Salisbury Cathedral Boy Choristers sang on.

"So, how are you?  Have you got your memory back yet?"  said Claudia,
after inwardly rejecting a selection of desperate questions, frantic
pleas and declarations.

"Yes, almost completely now," he said, studying the amber fluid he was
swirling slowly in his glass.

"There're just a few bits and pieces, but more comes back to me with
every day that passes."

"And can you ... you know ... work again?  Can you do what you do?  Add
up huge numbers and all that?"  Paul pulled a face then took a huge sip
of whisky.

"Oh, I can do it all right, but I do still have some concentration
problems."  He looked away and seemed to be watching the flickering red
lights on the graphic equaliser.

Claudia drank a little of her own whisky.

"And is Felicity looking after you all right?"  Gritting her teeth, she
promised herself a gruelling run or double her usual exercises later.

Anything to punish herself for giving in to such a pathetic, jealous
impulse.  God alone knew what she would say or do next.  Tear her
clothes off and leap all over him, probably.  He certainly looked
beautiful enough for it.

His curly hair was even longer and wilder and his piercing eyes seemed
bluer than ever.

"Felicity and I parted when I remembered why I left the party, then
crashed her car, cracked my head and lost my memory."  Paul's voice was
more natural now, more relaxed, and had far more of the soft, melodious
inflection she had quickly become used to hearing when they had made
love together.

"And why was that?"

"Because she had chosen that particular evening to admit she'd had a
bit of a fling with someone while I was working all out on a paper."

"What a bitch!"  said Claudia, letting rip with the first thought that
popped into her mind.  How could that mealy-mouthed young madam
possibly prefer another man to Paul?  Didn't it occur to the girl that
a special man needed special allowances made for him?  Even as much as
temporary celibacy?  Then she began to laugh, thinking of Tristan, and
of Melody and Beatrice.

"What's so funny?"  enquired Paul.  He was frowning but she could see
he was dying to laugh along with her.

"Nothing really.  Certainly not you."  She fingered the crystal fluting
of her glass.

"No, I'm laughing at myself.  For being a hypocrite.

Here I am thinking evil thoughts about your Felicity, when in a lot of
ways I'm just as bad a bitch myself."

"She's not my Felicity any more," said Paul, allowing the grin he had
been suppressing to break loose.  His long face seemed to light up like
an angel's.

"And I like it when you're a bad bitch!"

"I'll consider that a compliment, shall I?"  Claudia peered at him over
the rim of her glass, took a last little sip, then put it down.

"Why are you here, Paul?  Do you want me to help you with your
concentration problems?"

"Something like that," he said, abandoning his own glass but not yet
making the move she was waiting for.

"I came here to either get you out of my system or get you back into my
life.  And it's entirely up to you which one it is."

"Isn't that a rather heavy responsibility to lay upon my old
shoulders.

Doctor Bowman?"  said Claudia, making fists on the sofa, beside her
thighs, to prevent herself from punching the air in triumph.

"Don't be stupid, Claudia!"  cried Paul, apparently reaching some kind
of limit.  He grabbed her by the shoulders and put his face right up to
hers.

"You're younger than Felicity's ever been in her life!"  Then before
she could comment, he was kissing her so hard she could barely
breathe.

"Is that one of these mathematical anomalies you spend your working
life pondering?"  she enquired breathlessly when he freed her mouth and
began kissing his way enthusiastically down her throat towards her
cleavage.  She could already feel him pulling at her shirt buttons.

"No!  It's the simple fucking truth!"  he said, glancing up fiercely
then tugging open her shirt while some of its buttons were still
fastened.  She deemed it fortunate that she wasn't wearing a bra
today;

otherwise she felt sure he would have half destroyed that too.

As he kissed her breast, she moaned at the lovely familiar sensation
the unique feel of his lips rolling and sucking on her nipple but even
while her loins surged reciprocally, her mind rose pure and clear,
above sensation.

"Paul!  There's something Oh, God!  Oh, God!"  She was coming ... So
soon ... Only the stranger could do that There's something I have to
say before .. / The waves of hot pleasure caught her breath and it was
difficult to speak, much less marshall her most cogent vocabulary.

"Dear God, you bastard, there's something you need to know!"

"And what might that be?"  Paul said, then extended his tongue to lick
her other aching nipple.

She was forced to grab him by the ears to make him look at her.

"All right!  I'm listening!"  he said, giving her his perfect,
beautiful, little-boy-lost-grin, and making it almost impossible for
her to concentrate.  Schooling all her willpower, though, Claudia
forced herself to think, and to further focus Paul's attention she drew
the panels of her shirt back together.

"Whatever it is you've got to tell me, I'll still want you," continued
Paul reasonably, his eyes fixed very pointedly on the insubstantial
protection that was her unfastened shirt.

"Couldn't we make love first, then have a discussion?"

Claudia was so tempted, especially when he inveigled one long finger
between her shirt flaps and began working it between her jeans and her
belly in search of her navel.  And it wasn't just that.  There was
something all too sincere and affecting in the way he used the term
'make love' - his inflection seemed to suggest literality.  Love, not
just sex.

"But what I have to say has a bearing on lovemaking," she said, knowing
that the slight waver in her voice betrayed she was weakening.  Paul's
fingertip had found her navel now and was slowly caressing her there.

"I don't doubt it."  The finger circled on, then made a sudden darting
foray upward.  With a clever flick of the wrist, he bared her breasts
again.

"Why don't we compromise?"  he suggested, cupping her breast once more,
the light grip feeling as if it had been carved by a master to fit her
contours.

"Why don't you tell me what I need to know while I'm making love to
you?"

"I don't know if that's a very good idea," said Claudia, already
fighting the urge to gasp, and to push her chest forward towards him.

"In my experience, your lovemaking is too distracting to permit
rational thought at the same time.  We don't all have the superior
brain capacity that you do."

He seemed to genuinely consider this notion.

"Your brain is fine," he said, in all apparent seriousness, while
peeling her shirt back down over her shoulders.

"I enjoy it just as much as your body, believe me."

"Oh yeah, as if we have long conversations about equations and integers
and whatever else it is you speciali se in."  She tried to sound flip
but somehow her breasts were brushing against the velvet of his jacket
and the delicate stroke of the soft-textured cloth was almost
unbearable.  And as well as that, she was getting tangled in her own
sleeves.

"If I was so clever, I wouldn't have let this happen!"  cried Paul,
ripping at her shirt cuffs and sending more buttons popping.

"A real genius would have had the simple savvy to unbutton your cuffs
first before trying to take your shirt off."

Claudia laughed, then kicked off her canvas slip-on shoes, getting rid
of another obstacle before Paul encountered it.  Seeing this, he began
to laugh too, but it didn't distract him from grabbing her breasts
again.

"Well then, what is it?"  he demanded, flicking her nipples with wicked
vigour, using his thumbs.

"All right then.  Here it is," answered Claudia through gritted teeth,
wanting to squirm and whimper.  There was only one way to even this
score.  Reaching for his jeans fly, without warning, she unzipped
him.

"You've split up with your fiancee, and obviously you're now looking to
start a relationship with me.  Is that right?"  she asked, fishing his
penis out of his briefs and taking a firm hold of it.

Paul drew a sharp breath, said "Yes!"  and nodded furiously.  To his
credit, his thumbs still moved in perfect rhythm.

"And there's no-one else?  No other girlfriend or admirer No
super-intelligent young calculus groupie waiting in the wings?"

"No!  Of course not!"  His look of outrage was somewhat undermined by
his long, broken moan of delight when she manipulated his glans between
her finger and thumb.

"I want you, Claudia.  There is no-one else!"  His hands faltered on
her breasts as she rolled his penis more strongly, then exerted
pressure just below its tip to calm any untimely rushes towards
orgasm.

"And that's the point, Paul," she said, holding both his cock and, she
suspected, his attention in a way that nothing else except his work
could.

"I want you, Paul.  But I can't be yours exclusively."  She paused,
considering the robust yet sensitive flesh between her fingertips.

"This will sound mixed up.  Irrational, maybe, but before I met you, I
might have been able to establish the sort of one-on-one relationship
that most people do.  And now I don't think I can."  Still fondling him
ever so lightly, she met his eyes, which were filled with lust,
pleasure and, to her joy, the beginnings of understanding.

"Meeting you changed me.  Revivified me.  I woke up somehow and I
realised that I need more now than I used to do.  I'm sorry if this
sounds like a no-win situation for you, but you set the spark to a very
big fire in me and I have no intention of putting it out."  He was
still with her, still understanding her, despite being so close to the
point of no return.  It clearly wasn't only in the realm of scholarship
that his mind was awesome.

"I'm fond of Melody.  Of Beatrice.  Of Tristan, even.  I have something
with each of them."  She looked away a moment, aching with desire for
him, and with the enormity of another realisation.

"Nothing to the degree I feel for you, I admit.  But I can't declare
any of them invalid in my life."

It all sounded like nonsense and even more so for being quoted at such
a time.  Leaving it to be absorbed, she set about giving Paul exactly
what he had come for.

Kissing the tip of his cock, she released him for a moment and quickly
peeled off her jeans and her panties in a bundle.  Then, bereft of all
clothes, she stood before him and took hold of his thighs, manhandling
him into the position she wanted.  When he was placed thus, his legs a
little splayed, his cock rising magnificent and starkly exposed at his
groin, creating a perfect contrast with the rest of his fully clothed
body, she climbed on top of him and sank down happily upon his flesh.

The power she experienced was astonishing; a match and an enhancement
to the contentment and sweet sensation she experienced at having him
inside her.  She felt strong because she was naked.  It was broad
daylight and she was a woman in her forties, and yet her bare body was
an instrument of subtle dominance.  And not so subtle a one, perhaps,
she thought, beginning to come and seeing the answering look of
awe-struck climax in the eyes of the beautiful, beloved man whose
vulnerability had somehow recreated her.

"I have to work, Claudia.  There are things I must achieve that are
important, for more than just my own satisfaction.  But other than
that, in every other area, whatever you want is what I want too," he
proclaimed quietly, much later, as she lay on him, sweating, sated and
quiescent, her mind prepared to accept whatever might happen.  She was
enriched for having loved him, even if he went away a second time.

Whatever you want.

The significance of the words finally filtered through and she sat up
to find him looking at her.  She questioned him, silently, with her
eyes.

"The times we had when I was here, without my memory, changed me
too."

He nodded his head, as if he were working out the theory, then smiled
as it obviously pleased him.

"I like your new world and I can cope with the ... the variations. Just
as long as you're here, at the hub of things, to be my centre."

Claudia felt her sense of well-being double, treble, quadruple...
"Well, that's the first time I've been called a "hub"," she murmured,

reaching down and taking him by the lapels of his elegant but now
rumpled frock coat.

"Should I feel flattered?"

"Yes!"  said Paul, rising up to her and pulling her against him;

against velvet, against denim, against the droopy, sad-eyed face of
brilliant Einstein.

"I want you to feel flattered.  I want you to feel happy.  Soundly
fucked.  Out of your head.  Exhausted."  He paused to kiss her, then
took her hands off him so he could shake himself free of the frock
coat.

"Now, Mrs.  Marwood, can I get undressed so we can make a start on all
that?"

"Gladly, Doctor Bowman.  I can hardly wait," she said, looking down
into his blue eyes as she lifted up her body to free him.

He was the stranger and she knew he would always surprise her.

Ala^ Emma Holly Contents.  1. The Former Mrs.  Robbyns 2. All Work and
No Play 3. Out of the Frying Pan 4. Intimate Notions 5. The Joys of
Submission 6. Cruel to be Kind 7. With Friends Like These 8. With a
Song in his Heart 9. Captain Blood 10.  Hell Hath No Fury 11.  A Turn
in the Road 12.  Birds of a Feather 13.  The Prodigal Returns 14. Mind,
Body and Soul 15.  Happily Ever After

Chapter One The Former Mrs.  Robbyns

On the night it began, I bounded up the stairs to my
two-hundred-year-old colonial town house in the heart of
Philadelphia.

The shiny green shutters gleamed against the brick as if winking in
welcome.  Despite the tree-lined seclusion of Society Hill/ the
cacophony of rush hour sang in my ears.  I loved this reminder of the
city's vitality.  My body hummed with its energy.  My heart pounded,
strong and free.  My skin tingled in the brisk autumn air and under it
all, like a fruit ripening for harvest, my cunt warmed at the thought
of the half- read erotic novel waiting by my bed.

Masturbation first, I thought, then dinner, then TV, then to bed with
my smutty book.

Back then nothing made me happier, or hornier, than a productive day at
work preferably a long one.  Not only did it prove that, at
thirty-three, I still had plenty of go in me, it proved I was as good a
breadwinner as Tom better, in fact, because I didn't have to be a
lawyer to doit.

"First thing we do, let's get rid of all the lawyers."  Kicking off my
Adidas, I tossed my keys on to the Queen Anne side table in the hall.

My hair clip followed.

With a sigh of relief, I dug my fingers through my sheep-thick curls
and massaged my scalp.  Heaven.  I flicked on the lights.  Apart from
its usual creaks and groans, the old house was quiet.  My lodgers must
be out cruising the bars on South Street.

A thrill ran through me as I imagined the picture they'd make: one
dark, one fair, both gorgeous and young, both fairly reeking with
erotic possibilities.  The connection between Sean and Joe was
palpable.  I could almost smell the sex on them, like animals in
heat.

Could some of that heat be for me, I wondered, or would they keep it
all to themselves?

Pondering that very question, I smoothed my black riding jacket over
the swell of my breasts.  I loved the way the black velvet hugged my
generous curves before nipping in at my waist.  Paired with a snug pair
of Levis, I knew the jacket bordered on obvious, but I wasn't one to
hide my figure not when I worked so hard to stay in fighting trim.

In any case, having two scrumptious young studs in the house tended to
make me clothes-conscious.  And body-conscious, I thought, peering up
the narrow spindle-banister stairs to make certain I was alone.

No shadows moved on the landing.  No Robert Cray Band growled
seductively through the hall.  I'd never heard Robert Cray before Sean
and Joe moved in, but once I had I was hooked.  That man really knew
how to sing about love.  I could have eaten him up just listening.

My sex melted like butter at the thought.  I loved giving head, which
probably kept my marriage together longer than anything else.

Seventeen year olds simply don't do that sort of thing well.

Smirking to myself, I took the stairs two at a time.

Maybe I'd slip into Joe's room and borrow the CD.  He wouldn't mind.

Despite Sean's attempts to make me and Joe, for that matter believe he
was one hundred per cent boy's boy-toy, I knew Joe was sweet on me.

Sean had an early accountancy class, so every morning Joe and I ate
breakfast alone.  Lately I'd been coming down in my embroidered silk
kimono.  How he blushed if I bumped his leg under the table or bent to
drag the frying pan out of the cabinet.

Of course, my derriere is one of my best features.  Power walking will
do that.

Anyway, most days Joe finished breakfast with a boner too big to let
him stand.  There he'd sit, a napkin draping his humped-up dick, a
prisoner of my erotic torment and his own shyness.  Sometimes I'd press
a goodbye kiss to his clean-shaven cheek for the sheer pleasure of
watching that napkin jump.

Joe made me enjoy being a woman again.

Reaching the landing, I saw he'd left his door open.  I caught a whiff
of soap and Aramis, the purest aphrodisiac I knew.  My palms tingled
with excitement.  I didn't intend to snoop, merely grab the music and
go.  Even so, my heart skipped at the prospect of having his private
space all to myself.  Who knew what I might stumble across?

As though it divined my thoughts, Joe's Phantom of the Opera poster
glowered as I sauntered to the CD player.  Robert Cray's Strong
Persuader lay on top of the stack.  Joe knew I liked the album, and
knew I might wander in if he played it.  I suspected he played it as
often as he dared.  I tossed the plastic case into the air, caught it
neatly, then stopped in my tracks.

Joe's jockstrap hung from his bedpost.  The white pouch sagged with the
memory of its burden.  I knew from our breakfast sessions that he was
well-hung.  Oh, yes, Joe was a six-foot, hard-as-a-board,
twenty-fhreeyear-old stud.

I fingered the sweat-dampened cotton.  The mouth of my sex gave a
little gasp and a trickle of warmth ran out.

This was too kinky.  What the hell, though.  Men liked women's
lingerie.  Why shouldn't I be aroused by a jockstrap?  I brought the
cotton to my nose and sniffed the combination of good clean sweat and
young man's musk.  Immediately, I felt an urge to keep the thing, to
sleep with it under my pillow or press it between my thighs while I
stroked myself to climax.

I told myself the urge was juvenile, not to mention thievish, but I
shoved the underwear in my pocket and ignored my twinge of guilt.

Worse, I continued my survey of his room.  I touched the military
crease at the bottom of his mattress, evidence of Joe's
self-disciplined nature.  It was a young man's bed, narrow, the sort a
man could carry from his parents' house because he couldn't afford to
buy something bigger.  That bed made me think of raging, unrequited
hormones, of jacking off with his big brother's Playboy, or waking up
to sticky sheets.

God, I was crazy to even consider messing around with someone that
young.

Annoyed with myself for more reasons than I could name, I turned to
gaze at my reflection in the small, square mirror on the back of his
door.  At five foot five, I could see myself from the neck up.

Trying to be both fair and honest, I faced a smooth- skinned woman with
wide blue eyes and a mop of unruly auburn curls.  My fitness walking,
in addition to keeping my curves where they belonged, lent me a
flattering outdoor blush.  My lips were generous, softly pink, and my
cheekbones owed a debt to some forgotten Scandinavian ancestor.  All in
all, my face appeared a good deal more open than I really was.  People
would never guess at my reserve from looking at me.  Only when I smiled
would the twinkle in my eyes lead anyone to suspect I harboured
secrets.

My lips curved upward.  In my opinion, that grin and the mischief in it
were my best features.  I shouldn't have let my sense of fun become a
stranger to me.  I'd been burnt by my divorce, it was true, but that
was no excuse for failing to take advantage of the opportunity Fate had
so kindly set in my path.  Joe was twenty-three, an adult.  If I had
any nerve at all, I'd let him know in no uncertain terms that I was
more than ready to play.

Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.  Losing my smile, I
sighed and shut Joe's door behind me.  The third floor called: my
bedroom, my big grown-up bed, my two hundred pages of masturbation
aid.

A sound halted me at the door to my room: a rhythmic rattle, like a
blind flapping against the window except the sound was too fast for
that, too fast and getting faster.

"Slow down," hissed a voice: Joe's voice.

"I think I heard someone."

Another voice groaned something coaxing.  The rattling slowed but did
not stop.

My hand flattened over my pounding heart.  Joe and Scan were fucking in
my room.  A wave of heat swept me from scalp to ankle instant, intense
arousal.  I didn't even have time to take offence.  Awash in cream, my
clit beat a frantic tattoo against the seam of my jeans.

My knees gave way.  My hand brushed the door.  The latch clicked.  The
door swung open an inch.  Wincing, I grabbed the frame for support.

I could see them through the gap in the door.  Oh, could I see them.

Both men were stark naked.  Joe was bent forward at the waist, his arms
propped straight on my foot board.  His legs were straddled wide;

every muscle in his thighs and calves stood out with tension.  There
was no mistaking what that tension was, either Sean was sodom ising
him.  The force of his thrusts made the bed rattle.  His tight pink
buttocks clenched as he forged in and out.

What a cute rump Sean had.  I'd been so distracted by Joe's crush on
me, I'd never noticed.  Now I longed to kiss it, to bite it.  My
knuckles whitened on the door.  With an effort, I forced myself to
remain still.

Sean was shorter than Joe, but he looked at home on top.  He caressed
Joe's hair-shadowed torso with a handful of yellow silk.  Its trailing
edge brushed Joe's up-thrust cock, which bobbed like a spring at the
contact.  Sean chuckled and repeated the tease.

Apparently, he enjoyed tormenting Joe as much as I did.

But what of it?  Sean wasn't my concern.  Joe was.  I turned my
attention to my favourite tormentee.

Sweat spiked Joe's straight dark hair.  His face red, he grimaced but
not, I thought, with pain.  As I watched, he arched his back and tipped
his buttocks higher.

Accepting the offer of access, Sean gripped his shoulders and levered
deeper.

"Gotta have it, don't you?  Can't hardly go a day without it.

Hell, if I did you every hour, you'd still want more."

"Fuck you," Joe responded, even as he pushed wholeheartedly into the
next thrust.

Sean laughed.  He nipped the apple of Joe's shoulder and rubbed his
cheek across the smooth olive skin.  The gesture made my insides turn
over.  I hadn't thought Sean capable of tenderness or that his
relationship with Joe was more than a power trip.

"Would she do this for you?"  he asked.

"Would she lay you over the end of my bed and bugger you till you
begged?"

She?  I wondered.  She as in me?

Joe choked out a laugh.

"That would take some doing, considering her equipment."

Sean laughed, too, and then I really felt like an intruder.

But it was my room!  Taking a quick breath for courage, I shoved the
door open.  The lovers froze, mid-stroke.

"Shit," said Sean.

"Oh, my God," said Joe.

Young Joe's face was a canvas for his emotions.  I read contrition in
the compression of his lips, embarrassment in his flaming cheeks.

"Kate.  We didn't expect you back so early."

"I guess not," I said.

At the dryness of my tone, he tried to disengage.  Sean wouldn't have
it.  His muscular arms formed a vice around Joe's waist.  With a short
grunt, he slung himself deeper.  Joe couldn't stifle a groan of
pleasure.

That groan was all the impetus I needed to step inside.

Joe's head came up.  His cognac-coloured eyes darkened.  That's when I
knew my lodgers were here, in my room, because the chance I might walk
in lent a thrill to the proceedings.  But I could live with that
considering the thrill they'd given me.

Hiding a smile, I shrugged out of my jacket and hung it over a chair.

One pocket bulged with Joe's stolen jockstrap.  What a bad girl I was,
and getting badder by the minute.  Beneath my apple-red turtleneck the
tips of my breasts felt cold, as if they'd been capped in steel.

Sean was the first to notice.  His thrusting stuttered to a halt.

"Well, well, well.  Looks like our landlady isn't miffed, after all."

He circled one finger around Joe's nipple, a tiny mirror of my own.

"Why don't you ask her if she wants to join us?"  Clearly, Sean
expected me to run from this challenge.

"Yes, why don't you?"  I said, my voice as sultry as I could make it.

Joe's gasp sounded loud in the hush of my attic bedroom.  His prick
bobbed up another inch and stayed there.  Had I ever seen anyone swing
so high?  I stepped closer.  The tip of his penis was shiny and full,
plum-red, plum-shaped.  I licked my lips.  Joe moaned.

Behind him, Sean eyed me like a snake eyes a mongoose.  He didn't pull
free, though.  Maybe he didn't realise I wanted him right where he
was.

I circled the locked pair, savouring the sheen of sweat and the ripple
of lean male muscle.  They made a pretty picture, what with Sean so
fair and Joe so dark.  Sean's buttocks tightened as though he could
feel my eyes on them.  Then I reached the other side.

No one could miss how my perusal had energised Joe.  His erection
grazed the skin beneath his navel.  I suspected it was painful.  It
looked good enough to eat.

He looked at me and bit his smooth lower lip.

"Do you do you want to join us?"

"That depends on your partner," I said.

"Were you serious about the invitation.  Scan?  Or testing whether I'd
bite?"

"Try it and I'll bite back."  He bared his teeth.

"And I do like women in case that's what you really want to know."

Smug, sexy bastard.  I'd deal with him later.  In fact, I was looking
forward to it.  For now, though, Joe and his beautiful boner were my
primary concern.

I gestured towards my shirt, capturing his eyes.  The soft cotton clung
to my tautened nipples.  He stared at the little nubs.

"Would you like me to take this off?"  I asked.

"W-would I?"  He shook his head to clear it.

"Of course I would."

Scan snorted.  I ignored him.  Grasping the hem in both hands, I pulled
the shirt over my head, then shook out my auburn curls.  Now I wore
nothing but jeans and a lacy black push-up bra.  Both men's eyes
widened, visibly impressed.

See, I mentally told my ex.  Some men appreciate what I've got to
offer.  Some men wouldn't trade me for a raft of flat-chested
teenagers.

Emboldened, I ran my hands up my sides and cupped my breasts.  I lifted
their weight the way a man might;

my nipples crested the edge of the lace.  A low cry broke in Joe's
throat.

"Amen," Sean seconded.  His gaze roved my chest as he used the bundled
silk to draw a slow figure-of-eight on Joe's belly.  I had the oddest
feeling he imagined he was touching me.

Curious, I tugged the yellow cloth from his hand.  When I shook it out,
it turned out to be a skimpy silk teddy.  It did not belong to me, but
someone had sprayed my Chanel No.  19 all over it.  I did not know what
to make of this, or of Joe's cringe of horror.

"Whose is this?"  I asked.

Joe's eyes flew open.

"I thought it was yours."

Sean cleared his throat.  He looked embarrassed.

"Um, that's what I told him.  I thought he'd - well, I didn't want him
to mess up your nice underwear.  I have sisters.  I know how women get
about that stuff."

I pressed my lips together against a laugh.

"Very considerate, Sean."

Joe frowned not a reaction I wanted to encourage, so I tossed the
lingerie aside and shimmied out of my jeans.  That got his attention,
especially when I dropped to my knees and scooted under his arms
between him and the foot board.  I considered his rigid penis.  It was
long as well as thick.  This was going to be a challenge, but a nice
one.  Knowing he watched, I circled my tongue suggestively round my
lips.

"Oh, God," Joe moaned.

Sean's hands were all that held him back, all that held himself firmly
lodged.  Both men were panting now, caught on the hook of my
suspense.

A sense of incredible power sang through my veins.  I let my breath
wash Joe's groin.  His hips bucked forward.

"Please, Kate, I can't stand it.  Please touch me."

I touched him.  I rubbed my face like a cat along the "V of his inner
thighs.  I kneaded his calves until the knots softened under my
palms.

I kissed the smooth thrust of his hip-bone.  I speared my fingers
through his lush pubic hair and then, when his breath was coming in
sobs and Sean's hands had clenched into white- knuckled fists, I opened
wide and took one drawn-up testicle into my mouth.

"Kate."  Joe stroked my curls with a trembling hand.

"Kate."

I knew then that, no matter how good Sean made him feel, no one existed
for Joe but me.  I mouthed my way around both sides of his sac, testing
his weight and fullness, smoothing the dark wire-silk hair with my
tongue.

"Ready?"  I asked, treating the root to one tiny, teasing lick.

Too breathless to answer, he yanked his other hand off the foot board
and buried it in my hair.  I'd almost licked my way to the head when
his fingers tightened and jerked me back.

"Wait," he said in a high, thin voice.

"I need a condom."

Sean cursed.  Obviously, he'd had enough delay.

"Don't be such a prude.  Just pull out before you come."

"But I'm dripping."

He was indeed.  Tiny droplets of pre orgasmic fluid seeped from the eye
of his prick.

"I'll take care of it I said, and did the honours with the stash I kept
in my bedside table.

When I took Joe's cock in my mouth again, he sighed, long and liquid.

I felt as if I were the kindest woman alive.  This time I swallowed all
I could reach, bearing down and up in a steady rhythm that had nothing
to do with teasing and everything to do with relief.  Sean began to
thrust in time to my sucking, bumping Joe forward.  Ever the gentleman,
Joe braced his legs to prevent being pushed too far down my throat.  He
couldn't know I loved the added pressure; loved the sensation of
witnessing and doing at the same time.

Too turned on to resist, I moved Sean's hands on to Joe's balls.  Sean
gave them a squeeze.

"Oh, yeah," he said.

"Buddy, you are primed."

That taken care of, I was free to see to my own pleasure.  I slid my
hand into my lacy panties.

Joe's cock abruptly changed angles in my mouth.  He was craning around
to see.  Had he watched a woman masturbate before?  The thought that he
might not have tightened the coil of heat in my belly.  Maybe he'd
enjoy seeing more.

I brought my hand back to the lacy waistband.

"Would you like me to take this off?"

"Yes."  He was so breathless I could barely hear him.

"Please."

I released him long enough to twist out of my panties, then slid two
fingers between the slippery petals of my sex.  Joe's tongue curled out
to wet his upper lip.  He swallowed.  I promised myself I'd let him
taste what he was hankering for before the night was out.

Then Sean broke the heated moment.

"Think we could hurry this up?  I can't hold out much longer."

"So come," Joe said.

"I want to come with you."

"So grit your teeth.  Ah, yes Joe hummed with delight as I bore down
towards his root.  The sound drove me wild.  I frigged myself faster
and spread my knees as far as I could so Joe could see.  He could hear,
too.  My fingers made a rapid, squelching sound in all that juice.

Joe's shaft thrummed its approval against my palate.  Under his velvety
skin, he was hard enough to hammer nails.  I tongued the sweet spot
beneath the head.  His knees threatened to buckle.

"Do that again," he said.

"Oh, yeah.  You're going to have to hold on.

Scan, because I intend to make this last."  His hands stilled on my
head.

"Unless you're tired?"

I laughed and sucked harder.  Years of practice had given me jaws of
steel.  I'd last as long as he could, which from the feel of things
wouldn't be much longer.  No one could get that stiff and not be close
to blasting off.

"Oh, man," Sean complained.

"Oh, yes," Joe praised.

Their reactions were too much for me.  I had to come.  With one hand
gripping Joe's knee for support, I rubbed my rosy bud faster, chasing
the pleasure.

Caught up in his own chase, Sean lost the last shreds of his control.

"Come on."  His belly slapped Joe's back as he went into overdrive.

"Do it, do it, I can't - I'm coming, damn you."

My fingers slid through my excitement.  I thrust the longest into my
wet, summery heat, felt the muscles flutter and clutch, felt the achy
sweetness spread.

But Joe beat us both.  His cock jerked an instant before Sean moaned
like a foghorn, an instant before my body spasmed in ecstasy.  Lost to
everything then, the orgasm shook me like a rag doll, jerking me from
the inside out until my legs collapsed and my head thunked against the
bed.

Joe immediately slipped from Sean's hold to kneel beside me.

"Kate.  Sweetheart."  He gathered me against his body.

"Did you hurt your head?"

"I'm all right."  I rubbed the sore spot, more dazed by his concern
than by the thump I'd taken.

"Poor thing," he murmured, rocking me.

Left without his partner, Sean stepped towards the window and turned
away.  The setting sun gilded the curve of his spine.  He raked his
short blonde hair back.  His shoulders sagged.  A little worry
tightened my throat.  What if he really cared for Joe?  Then a truly
horrible thought brought my hand flying to my mouth.

"Oh, God, Joe, I didn't bite you, did I?"

He kissed the top of my nose.

"No, sweetheart, you let go just in time."

With a flattering lack of effort, he scooped me off the floor and set
me on my king-sized bed.  Sleepy and warm, I let him remove my bra
which was the only clothing I had left.  His hands passed over my
breasts in gentle exploration, a strangely comforting gesture.  Then he
pulled the chenille coverlet up to my neck.

To my surprise, considering Sean's possessive streak, both men settled
on either side of me.  Sean snuggled against my back and sighed with
exhaustion.  I patted the arm he draped around my waist.

In all my fantasies, I'd never dreamed of seducing him.

Of course, I hadn't really seduced him tonight.  He'd just gone
along.

Well, more than gone along he'd enjoyed himself.  So why did I feel as
if I'd stolen something from him?  Why did I feel protective?  Most of
all, why did I wish we could do it again not just Joe and I, but the
three of us together?

Divorce rebound, I thought.  You figure if one man will prop up your
self-esteem, two should send it through the roof.  I didn't believe
that, though.  I'd caught a glimpse of the real Sean tonight, and it
had struck a chord.

We had more than our lust for Joe in common.

The question was, what did I intend to do about it?  Keep it light, I
thought.  Treat it like a game and no one will get hurt.

The object of our affections lifted the erotic novel I'dleft by my bed
a lifetime ago.

"Hm" he said.  One finger stroked the naked clinch on the cover.

"I'm sure you sleepyheads don't need it, but I think I'll read you a
bedtime story."

The sound of furious whispers woke me, that and the circling caress of
a hand on my hip: Joe's hand.  Already I recognised the long fingers,
the gentleness all out of proportion to his years.  Or perhaps his
gentleness depended on youth.  Perhaps life would roughen his soft
edges.

The thought disturbed me.  In fact, being disturbed disturbed me.

I feigned sleep, which was not an easy task.  Sean's naked front
spooned my naked back and his erection nuzzled the crease of my
buttocks.  Lust told me to squirm closer.  Curiosity told me to be
quiet and listen.  Curiosity won.

"What is your problem?"  Sean hissed.

"She's asleep."

"Don't worry.  She'll like it."  Sean's chest was damp with excitement,
his nipples pebbled and hot.  Whatever 'it' was, I suspected he'd like
it, too.

"But I've never done it before."

Sean reached over me to ruffle Joe's hair.

"It's not hard.  Hell of a lot easier than going down on a man."

"What if I can't find it and how do you know?"

"I had a life before I met you, you know.  Just because I like men
better doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good- looking woman."

"But I thought You never said This was getting too private for me.

"I'm awake," I said and laid my hand on Joe's belly.  His stomach
muscles jumped.

"Oh," he said, and, "Oh, man," when my fingers ventured lower.

Grasping the root of his erection, I pulled slowly until the flare of
his glans crossed my palm.  He caught my hand before I could stroke him
again.

"Behave yourself," he said.  He threw the covers off the three of us
and stared at me in the moonlight.  His hand trailed down the curve of
my side.

"You are so beautiful."

My skin heated under the compliment.  Had anyone said those words so
convincingly before?

The mattress creaked as he scooted lower on the bed.  I heard the
coverlet fall to the faded Turkish carpet;

heard the rush of Joe's breath.  Did those hastened exhalations signify
anxiety or arousal?  I prayed he wasn't doing something he didn't want
to do.  He kissed the tender skin beneath my navel, then rubbed his
face across my fleece.  Aside from the endearing gesture, which he
repeated, he didn't seem to know where to start.  My concern
intensified.

"Here," said Sean.  He lifted my upper thigh and arranged it over Joe's
shoulder.  The scent of male sweat and female musk perfumed the air.

Joe kissed one plump lip.

When he went no further, Sean said, "Watch."  His hand, callused from
the construction work he did every summer, slid down my belly.  He
combed through my curls to part my labia.

He did indeed know what he was doing.  His first and second finger slid
into the slick valley either side of my clitoris.  Up and down he
rubbed, the smooth pressure tugging skin and nerves and spreading my
gathering moisture until my whole sex felt oiled.  Finally he squeezed
the tender est morsel between two fingers.  The tip bulged towards
Joe's waiting mouth.

"See," Sean said with a hint of triumph.

"No trouble finding that."

"No trouble at all," Joe agreed, and his tongue curled out to lap the
delicate offering.

His touch spurred a delicious throb of sensation.  I fought not to
squirm.  Joe licked me again through Sean's tight fingers, more firmly
this time.  Oh, he had a good mouth, a natural-born, pussy-loving mouth
- soft, but not too soft, curious and flexible.  Every nerve jangling
contact called a sound from my throat.  Helpless to stop myself, I
clasped his silky head and pulled him closer.

"Let go Joe rasped.

I stiffened but, to my relief, he meant Sean.  Pushing his friend's
hand aside, Joe surrounded the apex of my sex with his mouth.  His lips
tugged my clit while his tongue massaged it.  I began to struggle, my
orgasm just out of reach.  He stroked the inside of my wrist with his
thumb.

"Hush," he said.

But I couldn't hush.  It felt so good.  I wanted to come so badly.  My
hips rocked into each suckling pull.  Scan pushed forward, helping me,
branding my backside with his cock.

Then Joe let go.

"Switch on the light," he said.

Surprisingly obedient, Sean yanked the chain on the Tiffany lamp.

Red-amber light bathed our tangled bodies.  Like neon, the glow
highlighted muscled arms and thighs, wide chests and soft breasts three
healthy animals rubbing against the boundaries of love.

Joe backed away to view his handiwork.  His thumbs spread me wide.  The
sight of my glistening sex seemed to mesmerise him.

"Don't stop now," I said, caught between laughter and frustration.

"Just a sec," he assured me.

His head came up at something Sean was doing behind my back.

"No, man.  You're too big.  You'll hurt her."

Well.  That made me turn.

Sean was twisting the top off a tube of lubricant.

"I wasn't going to," he said, all innocence.

"Besides, she's not that much smaller than you."

He looked to me for permission, hope kindling in his face.  Rather than
give in at once, I measured his cock with my eyes.  What he lacked in
length, he more than made up for in girth.  Sean cringed.  If he could
have made it smaller, I think he would have.

"He's too thick," Joe said.

"But not too long," Sean wheedled, then sighed.

"I suppose you're an arse virgin."

Tm afraid so," I admitted.

"Nothing bigger than a finger."

He looked so crestfallen, I assured him I wasn't saying never.  Sean
had made sacrifices tonight, and had been a sport about it.  He
deserved to be able to play his favourite game and who could say I
wouldn't enjoy it?  Joe obviously did.

"That's settled then."  Joe planted his hands on his hips.

"Fingers only."

"One or two?"  Sean teased.

Joe shook his head at him, but the corners of his mouth twitched.  He
settled back between my legs, not so nervous this time.

"Now."  He parted me again and licked me once to say hello.

"Where were we?"

Sean waited until I was squirming against Joe's mouth to begin his
probing entrance.  Despite my resolve, I couldn't help tensing.  My ex
had done little more than rub me there, and that only when he thought I
was taking too long to come.

"Relax."  Sean pressed the edge of his teeth into my nape.

"Easy now, easy."

Joe hummed the echo of this croon while Sean pushed two lubricated
fingers past the furled rosebud of my anus.  Goose bumps prickled along
my arms.  In his fingers slid, to the first knuckle, then the second.

When they hilted, he massaged me from the inside in slow, firm
strokes.

The surprising burst of pleasure made me groan.  He scissored his
fingers apart, widening me, no doubt preparing me for the day when he
would storm that fortress with his cock.  I groaned again.  His
unfamiliar intrusion woke a hidden set of nerves.  They lit up like
sparklers under his expert touch.  Suddenly Joe's suckling seemed not
too gentle, but almost too intense to bear.

"Good girl," Scan praised, his voice shaky with arousal.

His hips rocked mine forward, the demands of his sex too urgent to
ignore.

He shifted behind me and rearranged himself.  His shaft moved,
practically scalding the crease of my inner thigh.  With his free hand,
he pressed it up against my pussy.  The shape of him, the smoothness of
his skin, the frantic pulsing of his veins, called down a gush of
cream.

"Oh, yeah," he said, anointing himself with the thoroughness of a
connoisseur.

"Baby, you are hot."

Joe nuzzled lower, taking a taste for himself.  From the way Scan
whimpered, I knew he'd received a lick, too.

"I'll get to you," Joe promised him.

But first they got to me.

"Faster?"  Sean said, increasing the stretch of his fingers.

I could only gasp.

Joe took that as a 'yes' and increased his efforts.  In seconds, the
first climax hit me.  My neck arched, my legs stiffened.  Joe reached
up to squeeze my nipples between his fingers and a second drum-roll
shuddered through my sex.

Feeling it, he laughed and flicked my clit with his tongue in a
lightning-quick rhythm I thought Sean must have taught him.  Crying out
loudly enough to wake the neighbours, I ground my pussy into his face
and came again.

"Cool," said Joe, when I finally floated back to earth.

"Come here," I said with the ragged remains of my breath.

He slid up my body and we kissed, our first kiss hungry on his part,
languorous on mine.  He tasted of me and himself, a combination of
sharp and sweet.  To my surprise and pleasure, he kissed without
coyness or hesitation.  His tongue delved into my mouth as if he
couldn't get enough of me, as if he wanted to pass his fever for me
through the kiss.  It was catching, all right.  In minutes, I was ready
to take him.

Too overwhelmed to speak, I took his sex in my hand and guided him
towards my gate.

He stopped me with a tiny shake of his head.  For one awful moment, I
feared I'd mistaken the extent of his interest.  If he didn't want
vaginal sex, maybe he wasn't as bias I'd thought.

"No," he breathed a millimetre from my ear.

"When we're alone."

Our eyes locked, just for a second, but long enough to shock me with
the intensity of emotion that passed between us.  I couldn't define the
feeling.  Longing was part of it, and fear, and hope.  Hope was the
scariest, I think.

Sean stirred behind me, breaking the spell.  He reached for Joe, took
his cock from my grasp and smeared it with lubricant until it glistened
in the lamp light, cherry-wet, cherry-red.  I felt Joe's body
tremble.

His eyes lifted and searched mine.  Focused on his own goals, Sean
tugged until their shafts nestled side-by-side between my thighs.

"Press tightly," he said, and pushed my leg down with his hand.

The pressure jammed their pricks together.  Joe's slipped on my skin,
on Sean's skin.  Joe hesitated.  His lips moved with words I never
heard an apology, I believe.  Then they embraced each other around my
body, kissed each other wetly beside my ear, and buffeted me with the
fervour of their grease-slicked thrusts.  Sean gripped Joe's buttocks
so hard the indentations turned white.  Joe flattened my breasts with
his chest.  Their grunts and gasps aroused me all over again.  I could
have listened all night, but neither man was in a mood to dawdle.

Watching me take my pleasure had cranked them up.  Now they wanted
theirs, right away, and no monkey business.

They came simultaneously and so quietly I felt embarrassed for crying
out.

Sean rolled away from me first, then Joe.  Snuggling up to my favourite
pillow, Joe promptly fell asleep.

"Thanks," Sean mumbled from the other side of the bed.

"That was fun."  Then he was out, too.

Some things never change, I thought.  Still, there was a spring in my
step as I padded into the shower to wash off the night's adventure.

The water streamed over me, soothing my tired muscles.  My soapy hand
drifted between my legs.  I'd have one last firework before sleep.  As
my fingers pursued the little explosion, a single refrain beat through
my head: When we're alone.  When we're alone.

Chapter Two

All Work and No Play Jleft them sleeping the next morning.  I tried to
wake them, but a few grumpy mumbles were all I got for my trouble. Even
as I dressed, Sean squirmed over to Joe's side of the bed and wrapped
his hand around his cock.

If that didn't wake Joe, nothing would.

For the first time, I noticed Sean wasn't circumcised.  Still buttoning
my sheer silk blouse, I walked around the bed to get a closer look. His
relative slightness might have exaggerated the effect but goodness his
equipment was large.  The foreskin hugged his heart-shaped glans like a
smooth pink turtleneck.  I put one knee on the mattress and kissed the
little dimple at the base of his spine.  He stirred.  He smacked his
lips.  Encouraged, I tongued the honey-gold down that shadowed his
tailbone.

"Mm-mm," was all he said.

I peeked over his hip.  His penis had begun to wriggle against the
white sheet, filling from the bottom up.  The head poked out a smidgen
more.  I sighed.  I remembered how men got in the morning.  He and Joe
were sure to have a quickie when they finally woke.  I wished I had
time to stay and watch and help, of course!

Later, I promised, but it was hard to drag myself away, even if I was
late for work.

My resentment faded as soon as I hit the great outdoors.  The day was
beautiful: bright blue sky, flaming autumn leaves.  The walk from
Society Hill to South Street led through the city's best-kept
eighteenth-century buildings.  If that weren't satisfaction enough for
one morning, three male joggers turned to check the posterior fit of my
yellow Capri pants.  I congratulated myself for pairing them with the
matching crop jacket, and rewarded my best-looking admirer with a
wink.

He promptly tripped over his shoelaces.

During the ensuing 'are-you-all-right?"  exchange, he passed me his
card.  I appreciated the gesture, but wondered how compulsive you had
to be to carry business cards out jogging.  Plus, he wasn't built as
nicely as Sean or Joe.

Good grief, I thought.  One night of Rocky Road and I was spoilt for
plain vanilla.

I glanced at the card as I crossed Fifth Street.

"L.  Kingston Waters," it said.

"Estate Agent."  He might as well have been a used car salesman.  He
did have nice blue eyes, though bedroom eyes, with curly black lashes
starring the lids.

The door to my bookshop jingled as I pushed it open.  My heart warmed
at the sight of so many customers browsing the stacks.  Everyone told
me you can't sell romance in the city.  You've got to locate in the
suburbs to catch the bored housewives.  Luckily, I didn't listen.  One
year later.  Mostly Romance out-grossed the local chain and the popular
new age bookshop two doors down.  Our atmosphere accounted considerably
for our success.  We boasted oak panelling, moulded ceilings and comfy
chairs.  A jungle of greenery enhanced the scent of leather and
printer's ink.  We also served the best coffee in town.

Women came in giggling carloads from as far as Virginia.  Men shopped
for their wives or tried to pick up dates.  People couldn't find what
we had anywhere else, and once you took our back room into account, we
were well-nigh irresistible.

The back room was my special baby.  It housed acollection of erotica
from all over the world, a real treasure house of delights.  Customers
wrote thanking me for creating a safe space to buy and explore.  I was
happy to do it; I knew how they felt.

I pondered, as I'd begun to do lately, whether it was time to open a
second shop.

Flushed with my own success, I waved to Keith, the morning sales
assistant, declined his offer of coffee, and headed for the office I
shared with my partner Marianne.  Marianne was my sister-in-law
actually, my ex-sisterin-law, since my big brother had done a moonlight
flit.  For years she'd been my closest friend, the only friend who
stuck by me after my own divorce.  Living with Tom had brought out my
bitchy side.  He was the charmer, not me.  Consequently, our mutual
friends had no trouble believing his version of the facts.

To them I was the harpy wife, and he the long-suffering soul of
patience.

Sometimes I thought the only reason Marianne knew better was because
Tom had run off with her daughter.

At my tardy entrance, she looked up from the computer inventory.  She
arched one thin brow.

"Late night?"

I hummed evasively.  Marianne liked sharing her exploits, but I
preferred to keep mine private especially since I'd discouraged her
from making a play for my lodgers by swearing they were absolutely,
positively, one hundred per cent gay.

Now she spread her silver-tipped fingers across the surface of her
desk.  Marianne had gone Gothic lately:

white face, ink-black hair, skin-tight leather.  She carried it off
with elan, one of the few women who could without looking like death
warmed up.

At my continued silence, she pursed her lips her bee- stung, scarlet
lips.

"I suppose you don't want to hear about my encounter with Keith,
then."

In spite of myself, I was interested.

"Our Keith, from out front?

Marianne, he's barely eighteen."

"Nineteen," she corrected with a Cheshire cat grin, 'and very
hormonal."

My glance flashed around the room looking for signs of coitus semen
smears, lipstick on the wall.

"Not here, silly."  Her eyes sparkled.

"I bumped into him in Rittenhouse Square last night.  He was cycling; I
was strolling.  We stopped to chat.  It turns out, he's the one who's
been "borrowing" my nice Italian shoes."

Grabbing my chair, I rolled it to the front of her desk and sat.

"He's a transvestite?"

"No, no."  She waved her silver claws.

"Just a foot fetishist.  He says I've got the best arches he's ever
seen.  I never knew how inspiring that kind of admiration could be."

Her sooty lashes dipped with pleasure.

"You know the wall behind the big wading fountain in the park?"

I nodded.

"After I let him know his confession didn't disgust me, he parked his
bike there and set me on the seat.  He swung his leg over the bar,
facing me, and pulled off my shoes.  First he massaged my feet, ver-ry
slowly.  Oh, it was nice, especially since I could see how much he
enjoyed it.  His hands were shaking.  He could hardly sit still.  He
was wearing those stretchy biker's shorts."  She smiled creamily at
me.

"No jockstrap and hard as a rock in about six seconds.  I could see
everything every vein, every ridge.  He has the biggest balls I've ever
seen: each one a handful, you know?"

I didn't, but I could imagine.  I pressed down hard on the cushion of
my chair.  Why did I let Marianne do this to me?

"And then what?"

"Then he licked me.  Not just the toes, but everything heel, ankle, the
long bones on the top.  I never knew my feet had so many lovely nerves,
and every one connected to my pussy.  I tell you, I was ready to screw
the bike seat."

"Did he want to screw?"

"Do ducks quack?  Fortunately, I was wearing my favourite black
mini-skirt, the one with the studs up the side.  He pushed it up a bit
and whipped out his Swiss Army knife."  She laughed and tossed her
straight black hair /!  love a man who carries his own tools.  Anyway,
he sliced the crotch of my underwear and pushed real close so no one
could see what we were doing except kissing, of course.  He was a nice
kisser, too, lots of tongue action.  I pushed those lycra shorts down
until he sprang out and then I slid straight down on him.  It was nice,
Kate, hot and strong."  She fanned herself.

"Young men do get so desperate."

"Especially when they're acting out their fantasies," I said, thinking
of Sean and his tube of lubricant.

"Exactly.  He didn't take but a second to come.  I was disappointed,
until I realised he was just warming up.

"Please don't go," he said, when I was about to climb off.

"When someone gets me this hot, once is never enough."  As you might
imagine, I was happy to oblige.  The second time did last forever.  We
had to be careful, with all those people walking by.  We couldn't
thrust really hard just little shakes and rolls with that bike seat
digging into me the whole time.

Deliciously frustrating.  He had to grind his thumb over me before I
could come, but when I did, I thought the top of my head would fly
off.

Then we adjourned to my car."

"To your car?"  Marianne owned a classic Volkswagen Beetle.

"He wasn't going to make it all the way to my house.  I'm telling you,
Kate, the boy was pneumatic.  The back seat was cramped, but hey I'm
flexible.  He took me twice before I drove him back to campus.

He's a student at the University of Pennsylvania."  She tapped her nose
with one finger.

"I wonder if he knows your lodgers."

I sensed visions of orgies dancing through her head.  Alarm bells rang
in mine.  Despite my fondness for Marianne, I had no desire to share my
sex life with her, or my new playmates.

"Scan and Joe are postgraduate students," I said.

"Keith is only in his second year."

Marianne shrugged.

"Just a thought.  No need to get miffed."

Her indifference was feigned, of course.  If I gave her the least
encouragement, she'd have us all in bed within the hour though my
presence was probably optional.  I didn't know what she'd do if she
discovered I'd lived out her fantasy already.  Marianne had a
competitive streak as wide as the Ben Franklin Bridge.

I pulled my chair back to my walnut roll-top desk and started slitting
correspondence bills, authors' fliers, a postcard from my favourite
publisher's rep.  Sorting them like a robot, I thought:

Better make sure she doesn't find out.  Otherwise, I'll never hear the
end of it.

Sean wandered in at noon, carrying a bouquet of yellow
chrysanthemums.

I thanked God Marianne was out to lunch.

"For you," he said, then turned full circle to view the shop.

I watched him from behind the counter.  Joe had dropped by many times,
but never Scan.  Two college girls pinkened as his gaze passed over
them.  He didn't seem to notice, which worried me.  Was his attraction
to me a big exception for him?  If it was, our trio could break up
awfully quickly.  I wasn't sure how Joe would react to that.  Joe was
very loyal.  He might give me up, too, if he thought his friend wasn't
happy.

"This is nice," Scan said, his scrutiny complete.

"If I were a woman, I'd shop here."

"If you were a man looking to pick up girls, you might shop here, too,"
I said, then blushed for what I might have implied.

"Um, what are the flowers for?"

He grinned.

"What do you think?  They're a thank you from both of us and an
apology.  We meant to wake up early and, you know, fit one more in, but
I'm afraid neither of us is a morning person."

This must mean my standing breakfast date with Joe was more of a
tribute than I'd known.  Annoyed with my pleasure at the discovery for
hadn't I promised to keep things light?  - I reached under the counter
for a vase.

"They're beautiful.  Are you on your way to class or can you stay
awhile?"  My invitation brought him up short.  For a second, he looked
like a wallflower who couldn't believe he'd been asked to dance.  I
felt good for asking, if a little worried for feeling good.

"I can stay," he said.

"Good.  I'll show you around."

I gave him the grand tour: new books, used books, the coffee lounge on
the balcony.  We finished in the back room.  He headed straight for the
old-fashioned rolling ladder and climbed to the top.  The kid in me
took over.

"Hold on," I said, and shoved him the full length of the wall.

He whooped in delight.

"I love these things.  My mother was a librarian.  She never let me
play with them."

"She probably wasn't allowed to."

He nodded, his face shadowed with conflicting emotions.  How
complicated people are once you start to know them.  He rubbed the
bridge of his nose.

"Does that door lock?"  he asked.

"Yes, but-' Without waiting for me to finish, he clambered down and
latched it.

"A customer might want to get in," I said, but the determination in his
face weakened my resistance, and my knees.

He plastered his back to the door.

"Come here."

I closed the distance between us and waited.  His wavy gold hair
swooped over one eye.  Long in front and short in back, the style
suited his sullen, bad-boy looks.  Accountancy student or not.  Scan
had the face of a handsome day labourer.  With his rugged features, his
full, sensual lips and heavy-lidded eyes, he looked like a man who'd
drink too much on weekends, keep his wife popping out babies, and shout
obscenities during sporting events.

Apart from a fondness for obscenities, none of it was true.

"I haven't kissed you yet he said.

"He has, but I haven't."

I stroked the side of his face.  He wasn't more than an inch taller
than me.

"Don't kiss me because Joe has.  Kiss me because you want to, if you
want to."

"If I want to' He captured my hand and dragged it down his black
T-shirt.  His body felt warm too warm.  My fingers snagged on his
waistband, then settled over the impressive swell behind his buttoned
flies.  He covered my hand and pressed hard.  His erection barely
gave.

My pulse shifted into high gear.  Maybe Joe wasn't the only one who
wanted to get me alone.

"Now, does that feel like I don't want to kiss you?"

"If you're trying to prove something He cut me off with an impatient
tut.

"I don't have to prove anything.

I sleep with people I like, people who impress me.  I admit they're
usually men but, hell, sometimes lightning strikes in funny places."

He squeezed my hand over his cock again.

"I'm not arguing with of Willy here.  He knows what he likes and he
never lies."

"That's very flattering but "Be quiet," he said, and yanked my head to
his for a kiss.

His tongue pressed directly home, subduing mine with force and
expertise.  His hand clamped the back of my neck, steel-hard and
work-rough.  Something flowered in me at this treatment, something
secret and dark.  I struggled against the kiss for the sheer pleasure
of inspiring more displays of mastery.  His arm tightened on my
waist.

He lifted me, turned, and shoved me back against the door.  The weight
of his body trapped me in place, and the strength of his legs.  He
ground his hardness into my softness.  Wanting more, I slung one leg
high on his hip, clamped both hands on his adorable butt, and rocked
back.

"Like that, bitch?"  His teeth nipped my earlobe.  Though the name
shook me, I laughed at him.  His hazel eyes narrowed.

"I'll make you beg," he said.

"Yeah?"  I blew a stream of air through his fringe.

"You've got fifteen minutes to prove it.  Marianne will be back in
twenty and I'm not in the mood to share."

He flashed his teeth at that, half grin, half alpha wolf display.

Before I could wonder what he'd do next, he attacked my side zip and
yanked my snug yellow trousers to my ankles.

"Hands and knees," he said.  When I stubbornly shook my head, he
dragged me to the rolling ladder and manhandled me into the position he
wanted.  He was so powerful he didn't even have to hurt me to do it. He
simply moved me as he pleased and I wasn't strong enough to stop him.

Panting with excitement, I grabbed the second rung.  Joe couldn't
protect me now.  Sean would take me any way he wanted, as hard as he
wanted, as fast as he wanted.  He pushed my knees wider with the tip of
his construction boot.  My bottom felt chilled, exposed.  A drop of
sexual moisture ran down my inner thigh.  I knew he must be staring at
it.

Til give you one thing," he said.

"That is one prizewinning, wet-and-ready arse.  Too bad I haven't got
time to spank it."

"You and whose army?"

This time he laughed at me.  I heard buttons popping, foil tearing.  I
turned my head.  He'd shoved the flaps of his jeans down past his bare
hips he wore no underwear and was slathering lubricant up and down his
thinly sheathed prick.  His motions were quick, but not so quick he
couldn't enjoy them.

"Eyes front!"  The heel of his boot reinforced the whispered order,
pressing my buttocks hard enough to shock.

"Fifteen minutes," I reminded him, defiant to the last.

"Eleven.  And don't think you aren't mine already."

He dropped to his knees behind me, surrounding me in warmth like cocoa
on a cold day.  He didn't remove my short jacket or my blouse:

merely shoved my silky shirt-tails to my waist.  Considering I was
bared like a surgery patient, I couldn't believe how comfortable I
felt.

Customers trod the aisles mere feet away.  I heard the floorboards
creaking under their shoes.  A man I scarcely knew was about to
initiate me into a potentially painful sex act and I'd never felt safer
in my life.

/! must be losing my mind," I said.

"No, babe, you're about to find it."  Sean laced our fingers together
around the ladder rung.  He cupped my pussy from the front and rotated
my sex against my pubic bone.  If anything, the rough handling made me
wetter.  His fingers slid through my juices.

"Take a deep breath," he said.

"Remember how good this felt last night."

I willed myself to relax.  His hand left my sex to pull one cheek from
his target.  An unaccustomed draught cooled my flesh before his
cock-head probed me, slick and hot.  I arched my back and it pressed
inside.  His sudden exhalation burned my neck, but he didn't speak,
just grasped my hip and pushed again.

"Halfway there," he said and I thought, my God, half is plenty.  The
pressure was incredible not painful exactly, but alarming.  Was he
really going to fit?

He heaved once more, grunting this time, and this time my body engulfed
his root.  I felt his balls press up against my cheeks, felt the
prickle of his thatch.  Inside, my body twitched and flamed.  I thought
my bottom had grown a second heart, the pounding there was so
intense.

A moan rose in my throat.  If he moved, I'd come.

"Good?"  He chuckled as if he knew exactly what was happening to me.

"Feel like begging yet?"

I almost said 'no' but I remembered how few minutes remained.  Should I
beg?  I suspected he could hold out longer than I could.  If I begged
now, he might get me off a few times.  I knew my day would be miserable
if he didn't.

"Please beg, Kate."  His hips shimmied with urgency, bringing me closer
to the edge.

I bit my lip and tasted blood.

"How should I say it?"

'"Please" is good enough.  Just make it quick.  I'm dying back here."

"Please, then, Sean.  Please fuck me in the arse."

The hand that held mine tightened.  The other found my pussy again.  He
kneaded the soft, wet flesh as he slowly dragged back out of me.

Halfway out, he pushed, using his grip on my mound to anchor his
return.  My untried state prevented him from going far.  His chest
rumbled.  I sensed his impatience with my tightness, but also that he
loved it.  He throbbed inside me, pulses of fire that vibrated through
the barrier between my anus and sheath.  If Scan and Joe both filled
me, would they feel the passage of each other's shaft?  I came at the
thought, a long ripple that oscillated like liquid gold between back
and front.

"That's it.  Give it up," Sean said as the climax eased me.  He began
short-stroking in quick, eager drives.

"Ah, you're smooth as silk.  I wish I had all day for this."

I shuddered again, this orgasm a brief stab of pleasure, there and then
gone.  His thrusts lengthened.  He groaned and said: "God, this is
good."  Another climax broke at his praise, his deeper strokes touching
it off further inside me, making it hotter.  As soon as that one faded,
the hunger built again.  My pussy clenched, desperate for something to
hold.  I fumbled for his hand and urged two fingers inside my dripping
sheath.

"Oh, man."  His fingers stroked me inside, their movements agitated.

"Oh, man, I'm a goner.  Spread your legs wider.  I gotta get I'm gonna
shoot.  Oh, yeah, babe, that's it.  That's it."

His groin slammed my cheeks as if someone had kicked him from behind.

His prick stiffened even more.  I knew I had seconds to finish
milliseconds.  I mashed the heel of his palm over my bud and gyrated
hard.  My climax burst in a shower of hot, red darts.  My body
tightened, round his fingers, round his prick ... "Oh, sh-' he hissed
as his hips began to jerk.  He shook for a good while, a marathon
orgasm.

Afterwards, he held me longer than he had to, longer than I
understood.

I rubbed the side of my head against his face, trying to give him
whatever it was he needed.  His cock softened, slipping from me.

"Kate," he whispered.

"Pretty Kate.7 He bit my neck before he let go.  Leaving his mark, I
suppose.  Limbs shaking, I pulled up my trousers and sagged back
against the bookshelf.  Scan dropped down beside me.  He took one look
at me and stripped off his T-shirt.

"Here, wipe your face.  There's got to be a dry spot somewhere."

"Good thing I don't wear makeup."

"You don't need it," he said.

The unexpected compliment inspired a silence.  I wiped my face and
returned his sweaty shirt, which he dazedly pulled back on.  If I
looked anything like he did, we could have passed for train wreck
victims not only for our dishevelment, but for the expression on our
faces.  We'd surprised the hell out of each other.

"I didn't expect this to happen," I said.

He scrubbed his hair back from his face, making his biceps pop in
unison.  The neither."  He looked at his watch and grimaced at the
time.

"I'd better leave.  Your employees will wonder what's going on."

"Sean."  I paused to measure my words.

"We should go somewhere and talk.  We ... we kind of jumped into this
last night, too.  I want to make sure no one gets hurt."

He rubbed his palms down the front of his jeans.

"I know.  I didn't expect it to be so "Intense?"

He nodded, then looked away.

"There are some things you need to know about me and Joe, things you
might not understand."

I had no doubt of that.  By mutual accord, we struggled to our feet and
shook out our wrinkles.

Marianne walked in the street door just as we walked out.  Her cool
grey eyes took in our rosy cheeks and rumpled clothes, and branded me a
liar.  I'd pay later, I knew, but at the moment I didn't care.

"Two," I said and held up a victory sign, our private code for a long
lunch.

"Looks like you had two already," she called after us from the door.

That's how I knew she was angry.

We walked to a shabby, basement-level restaurant in Little Italy.

White fairy lights festooned the age-browned murals.  Plastic flowers
graced the tables.  Early or not, the place was suspiciously empty.  I
didn't understand why Sean had chosen it until the waiter came to take
our order.

"We'll have two double scoops of gelato, one lemon and' Sean squinted
at me as though reading my aura '- one raspberry."

For a young man, he was mighty dictatorial.  Unfortunately, raspberry
was my favourite, so I couldn't countermand him.

The rich, fruity treat made a perfect post-coital snack.  We traded
bites from each other's dishes like an old married couple.  The analogy
summoned a shiver of foreboding.  I knew I shouldn't be getting so
comfortable.

"I don't know where to start," he said.

"Why don't you tell me how you and Joe met?"

His smile said the memory was sweet.

"We had a class together last year Film Appreciation.  Joe didn't know
me from Adam but I noticed him straight away: that blue-black hair,
those eyes, that skin.  I wanted to lap him up the minute I saw him,
but he was off in his own little world.  I couldn't tell with him,
either.  Was he gay, straight, or somewhere in between?  All I knew was
he was sexy, as if God turned up the voltage when he made Joe."

I tucked another sugar-tart spoonful into my mouth and let it melt.

Sean rubbed his jaw.  His faint stubble was a shimmer of gold beneath
his skin.

"That day, the professor was screening Blue Velvet.  You know, the one
with Kyle MacLachlan and Isabella Rosellini?"

"I've seen it."

"Then you know it's pretty hot.  We had a break between reels, so I
went to the men's to take a leak.  Everyone else stayed to suck up to
the prof or so I thought.  I went in.  I saw an empty cubicle.  I had a
half- hard now, 'cause of the film, and was thinking: do I want to jack
off or would I rather wait?

"Cause if I do it now, I'll have to hurry and waiting can be good
unless you lose the edge altogether.

Then I heard it, a little noise in the next cubicle.  I know this
noise, of course.  I'm a master of the silent public wank myself.  I
don't know if you've heard it, but a fist makes a tiny shishing noise
as it pumps a cock, especially if you've got a little sweat and juice
to slick up the skin.  Fucking your hand has a rhythm, too, like sex,
only it's one person's rhythm instead of two.  You can slow down or
speed up whenever you like.  It's sexy as hell to listen to.  Plus, you
can learn a lot about a guy from the way he does himself."

Sean reached across the table and took my hand as though he knew the
precise instant my sex overflowed.  His thumb circled the sensitive cup
of my palm.

"This guy has done this before, I thought.  His strokes were real sure,
real steady.  He knew what he liked.  He wasn't in a hurry, but he
wasn't dilly-dallying, either.  And he was breathing through his mouth
so he wouldn't make much noise.

"By then, my half-hard was whole hard and then some.  I started to take
it out, thinking I'd give this guy some silent accompaniment and then I
thought: Sean, babe, why not introduce yourself?  Maybe you'll meet
someone you like.  At the very least, you'll get a good laugh.

So, as quietly as I could, I climbed on the seat and peeked over the
wall.  Imagine my surprise when I saw it was him, sexy old whisky
eyes.

He looked up, turned beet- red, then burst out laughing.

'"Hello there," I said, as suave as you can get when you're standing on
a toilet.

"Like some help with that?"  He thought about it a minute the longest
minute of my life then says, "Sure.  Come on over."

Well, I didn't need more encouragement than that.  I nipped inside and
knelt up facing him on the throne.  He still had his dick in his
hand.

He was still hard.  In fact, he was harder than he was a minute ago.

"What now?"  he asked.  My heart just about stopped.

"You've never done it with a guy?"  He said he'd thought about it lots
of times.

What about girls?  I needed to know.

"Once," he said and he made this face, as if it wasn't worth
mentioning.

"I could read his whole sexual history in that one word.  Good kid,
good girlfriend.  Probably met at church.  His hormones raged.  Hers
didn't.  She gave it a try 'cause she loves him but neither of them
knew more than Peg A fits Slot B. Naturally, the whole messy business
ended in disaster.  Nobody had fun.  Afterwards, they couldn't look
each other in the eye.  They broke up.  Good kid started wondering if
something was wrong with him.  He'd been daydreaming about guys
lately.

Maybe he was gay."

Sighing, Sean lifted my hand and kissed it.  He didn't seem to notice
my palm was sweating.

"Finding Joe was like a sugar addict getting his own sweet shop.

Horniest guy I'd ever met and a virtual cherry.

Never had a decent orgasm he hadn't given himself.  I felt like what
sit the real My Fair Lady guy."

"Pygmalion?"

"That's the one."  He shook his head and clasped my hand to his
chest.

"I decided to go down on him.  I knew he'd never had anyone do that and
I knew he'd love it.  I think I sucked him for ten seconds before he
flashed."

'"Hashed?"  I asked, my voice husky.  Despite the fact that homosexuals
are one of my kinks, the terminology was new to me.

The corners of Sean's mouth twitched.  He resumed his sensuous circling
of my palm.

"Take your shoe off and slide your foot over here.  Then I might tell
you."

I did as he asked.  He trapped my instep against his bulge by pressing
his thighs together.  He was big already, but he grew bigger when I
curled my toes.

"Bad girl," he said, but he didn't tell me to stop.

Instead, he continued his story.  '"Flash" means to give yourself away
as liking men too much.  Joe flashed because he came almost as soon as
I touched him too fast for me.  I wanted to drag things out.

Luckily, the whole thing excited him so much he didn't even go soft
before he stiffened up again.

"More?"  I asked.  I think he said something like, "Gee, would you?" as
if I wasn't delighted to do it.  After that round, he remembered me.

Some guys don't, you know.

Some guys think as long as they don't do anything back, they can't be
gay, as though being inconsiderate makes you straight.  Not Joe,
though.

"Would I like him to return the favour?  he asked.  Would I ever only I
wasn't about to trust of' Willy to a neophyte.

"Why don't you see if you like the rear door?"  I say.  Lord, he was so
afraid he'd hurt me, I was laughing by the time he finally got it in.

Then he put his hand on my cock, in that gentle way he has, like my
dick was something precious.  I melted then and there.  I vowed I'd
keep him, by hook or by crook."  He screwed up his face at this
admission.

"He really likes you," I said, reading his embarrassment.

"He wouldn't stay with you if he didn't want to."

"Maybe not."  Scan released my hand and clinked his spoon through the
melted yellow soup in his gelato dish.

"Thing is, the first time I saw him ogle a girl, I knew I was keeping
him from half his nature.

He wanted to try again.  I could see it in his face."

"I'm sure he wanted to try again because you restored his
confidence."

"But I let him know, in a hundred ways, that I'd be upset if he did
try."

"What of it?  Who wants their lover to sleep around?  You would have
been upset.  Joe chose not to upset you because he cares about you.

None of that seems wrong to me.  What I want to know is what changed
your mind?  Why did you make an exception for me?"

"Honestly?"

"Of course, honestly."

"At first, it was just because I knew I couldn't stop it.  He had it
bad for you from the start.  I mean, his appetite was always big, but
since we moved in with you I'd take him three, four times a day and
still hear him beating off before he went to bed.  Every time you
stopped to chat, to listen to that damn album or whatever, he'd be a
maniac afterwards.  He tried to hide what was making him so horny, but
I knew.  He started mumbling your name in his sleep.  Once he even
called out "Kate" when we were having sex."

"I'm sorry, Sean.  That must have hurt."

He waved my concern away.

"Not so much.  By then I was starting to get off on it.  He wanted you
so bad, and thought he'd never have you.  I loved watching him
sweat."

He stuck his spoon in his mouth and pulled it out upside down.

"Just like you do.  Anyway, I knew you had the hots for him, even if he
didn't.  I started to think:

what if I set it up for him?  What if I make myself part of it?  I've
been with girls before and with some of them, it was good.  And you
remind me of him.  You've got that glow like something's simmering
inside.  It isn't obvious, but someone with my radar can pick up on
it.

You like sex as much as Joe does."

I raised my eyebrows at that.

"I've never had it four or five times a day."

"Haven't you?"  He leant forward, his forearms flush with the Formica
tabletop.

"Not even doing it for yourself?"

That brought the colour to my face.  I had, of course not every day,
but plenty of days.  My ex, a twofer at the most, had never wrung it
all out of me.

"If you haven't, you could," he said in his know- everything way.

"Between Joe and me, you could certainly give it a try."

My heart played Fred Astaire for a couple of beats.  Sean was offering
me my fantasy on a platter except he wasn't a fantasy.  He was a real
person with real feelings.  I might promise to keep things light, but
one of us was bound to end up hurt.  Maybe all of us would.  Life had
taught me that lesson to the full.

I shifted on the seat, conscious of the heat between my legs.  This was
a once-in-a-lifetime chance.  Would I kick myself worse if I grabbed
it, or if I let it go?  Coward that I was, I threw the decision back to
Sean.

"Is that what you really want?  To start up a threesome?"

"You bet," he said, without a moment's hesitation.

"I can't hold on to Joe forever.  Might as well go out with a bang."

Chapter Three.  Out of the Frying Pan.  I returned to Mostly Romance at
a pace too ambling to jl qualify as exercise.  Sean's story had plumped
the folds of my sex.  The sensitive tissues chafed with my steps, but I
ignored the discomfort.

My thoughts required my full attention.

Sean seemed to assume he'd lose Joe, that Joe would choose me over
him.

Did he expect me to make Joe choose?  I thrust my hands in my pockets
and worried my lower lip.

"On your left," someone warned me from behind.  I looked back.  An
inexperienced rollerblader was headed straight for me.  I sidestepped
towards a shop window to avoid getting bumped.

The next fellow wasn't so lucky.

"Watch where you goin', man," said that dread locked individual.

The scolding rattled the skater so badly he wobbled into the path of
some Japanese tourists.  Skirting them by inches, he veered towards the
kerb.  A balding Italian man grabbed his waist, neatly rescuing him
from careering into traffic for which feat a young punkette with a
nose-ring yelled, "Good save!"

Yes, indeed, this place had all kinds.  Philadelphia might not always
act like the City of Brotherly Love, but the diversity of her
inhabitants gave her plenty of chances to practise.

I admired Philly's ability to encompass so much variety.  I admired it
in myself.  So why should I make Joe choose?  Why shouldn't all three
of us be happy?  My gloomier half said, "Because that sort of thing
never works."

As if on cue, Marianne stuck her head out the shop's entrance and
grabbed my lemon-yellow lapel.  She tugged me behind her to our
office.

As usual, she'd closed the mini-blinds; said too much sunshine gave her
a headache.  I opened the blinds halfway, pinched a brown frond off the
asparagus fern and turned to face her.  I expected a dressing-down, but
instead she bubbled over with news of a good-looking man in an Italian
suit who'd dropped by to ask me out.

I said I couldn't imagine who it might be.

"You couldn't forget him.  He's scrumptious.  Sexy eyes.  Gold Rolex.

He said his name was Larry."

I hung my jacket over the back of my old-fashioned swivel chair and
sat.

"I don't know anyone named Larry."

"Of course you do."  With the persistence of a bloodhound, Marianne
parked her leather-clad bottom on the corner of my desk.  Her miniskirt
rode up her sheer black stockings.  She wagged her pointy four-inch
heel.

"You met him this morning.  He gave you his card."

"Oh, that guy."  I opened my centre drawer and pawed through the
clutter for a piece of chewing gum.

"I don't know what you're so excited about.  He wasn't anything
special."

"Are you kidding?  He's totally beddable."

"Maybe the suit hid his love handles."

"The Italian suit," she clarified.

"The expensive Italian suit."

I popped the last stick of spearmint into my mouth.

"Tom wore nice Italian suits."

My partner snorted.

"Tom, may he rot in hell, is history.  It's time you got back in
circulation."

"I am in circulation.  Besides, I don't mink I want to start up with
anyone else right now.  My life is complicated enough."

This admission was a mistake.  Marianne stood, clenched both hands in
her satiny black hair and pulled.

"I knew it.  You're having a rebound thing with those limp-wristed
lodgers.  Kate, Kate, Kate, can't you see there's no future in that?"

Determined to play it cool, I swung my feet on to the blotter and
crossed my ankles.

"Aren't you the one who's always saying "live for the moment"?"

"If only you would!"  Marianne plopped back on her own desk and tugged
her gold-braided bolero jacket over her tiny waist.

"At least give the man a call."

"If you like him so much, you give him a call."

"You're impossible."

"And you're so jealous you could spit."

She glared at this, but her anger faded to a pout a moment later.

"Maybe I am, but that doesn't mean sleeping with them isn't a stupid
idea."

"It wasn't stupid when you wanted to do it."

Since she couldn't think of a comeback for that, she sniffed haughtily
and swept out of the room muttering that I'd better not come crying to
her when my heart got trampled.

Her warning hit home.  I had a tendency to get serious about the men in
my life.  This fling with Sean and Joe was the closest I'd come to
breaking my habit of serial monogamy.  Already, I liked Sean far more
than was convenient, and Joe I squirmed lower in my chair.  Joe was so
yummy it was dangerous.

Joe was cooking when I returned home that evening.  I have a nice
kitchen with exposed brick walls, herbs hanging in bunches from the
beams, and lots of fancy pots.  I don't cook much, but I like the cosy
way it looks.

I liked the way Joe looked in it, too.  I stood in the doorway watching
him slice vegetables at the big butcher's-block island.  He wore
stone-washed jeans and was bare-chested.  A freshly ironed blue shirt
draped the back of a kitchen stool, which was where it belonged, in my
opinion.  Muscles flowed beneath his bare skin as he chopped.  Joe had
an awe-inspiring set of shoulders, very broad and very firm.  He didn't
work out much, though.  Twice a week, maybe, he joined Scan at the gym
or rode his bike along the river to Boathouse Row.  He was just one of
those lucky people who are born lean.

He was born tuneful, too, I thought, listening to him hum.  He had a
nice tenor, with the slightest hint of huskiness.  Unless I was
mistaken, the tune was Nat King Cole's "Rambling Rose'.  He'd been into
my CDs again.

"Hey there, Mr.  Capriccio."

He spun around as if I'd caught him jacking off.  Appropriately enough,
the top button of his jeans was undone, revealing a silky line of hair
that dived from his navel to his crotch.

"You're early," he said, doing up the button and grabbing his shirt off
the stool.

Before he could get more than a hand in the sleeve, I ran my palms from
the sine wed balls of his shoulders to his elbows.

"I'm not early.  I simply left on time today and don't dress on my
account.  I like ogling your hairy chest."

His blush enchanted me.

"I didn't want to ruin the shirt while I was cooking.  I've just
pressed it."

My hands reversed direction, skimming up his arms and down the centre
of his chest.  I spread my fingers across his board-flat abdomen.  His
warm, satiny skin twitched like a horse with a fly on it.  The
temperature of his groin jumped and, to my delight, his goods began to
swell.

"You pressed that shirt for me?"

"Uh huh."  His diaphragm jerked with a quick breath.

My hands wandered higher, over his ribs, on to his pecs.  His nipples
were small, no bigger than pennies.  The nub of erectile tissue in
their centres stood out sharply and a tinge of blood-pink excitement
painted their tips.  Joe lowered his head, watching my hands, watching
his body react.  My own nipples ached at the sight.  Feeling naughty, I
took the tiny beads between thumb and forefinger and pinched.

"Kate," he gasped, and backed me into the island.  Drawer handles
jabbed my thighs not that I cared.  His heavy erection dug into my
front, hard and getting harder.  His hips swivelled until the pressure
nearly lifted me off my feet.

"Lord, you make me crazy.  I've been thinking about you all day.  I
could hardly sit through class.  I kept getting hard, remembering the
things we did yesterday, and the things I want to do tonight."

"Such as?"

"Oh, man."  He grabbed my hips and kneaded.

"Don't get me started.  I want everything to be perfect, the food, the
wine, the dessert.  Scan is staying with friends tonight.  We have the
place to ourselves."

"I see.  And does everything have to happen in order food first, sex
last?"

Confusion creased his brow.

"I don't want you to think I'm just some horny kid.  I'm making salmon
with orange sauce, steamed artichoke hearts and' he consulted the open
cookbook'- Indonesian rice salad."

I slipped my hands down his back and under the waistband of his
jeans.

He wore them looser than Sean did.  I had room enough to take
possession of his downy hindquarters.  He went up on his toes as I
stroked them.  What a sensitive boy he was.

"That sounds delicious, Joe.  Is anything in the oven yet?"

"No, but-' I silenced him with a deep, open-mouthed kiss.  He tasted of
ginger and oranges.  He moaned, then filled my mouth with his tongue,
slow, forceful spearings that probed my palate, then my cheeks.  My
nails curled into his buttocks at his sudden switch to aggressor.  He
didn't even flinch, he was so focused on his explorations.

I fumbled for his zip.

"I think I need an hors d'oeuvre."

The sound of the tag ripping downward brought him to full alert.  His
long, strong fingers folded over my wrist.

"No, no, no.  I waited all day for this.  I can wait a few hours
longer."

"Can you?"  His prick sprang through the vent of his briefs.  How could
I have forgotten how impressive he was?  Veins stood out along the
stalk and a drop of clear fluid seeped from the slit that pierced his
glans.  I swiped it off with the pad of my middle finger.  At my touch,
the passage gaped like a tiny mouth.  A second drop squeezed through
the contraction, this one large enough to roll sinuously down the
head.

I licked my lips.  Hors d'oeuvre and then some.

"You look ready to go right now."

"I can wait," he insisted, though he was dancing on the spot.

I collected another drop and carried it to my lips.  Salty.

"Maybe I can't wait."

"Please," he said, eyes glued to my sucking mouth.

"I want to keep my edge."

I settled my cheek on the perspiring curve of his shoulder.

"From what Scan says, your edge doesn't take long to recover."

He grasped my arms and pushed back.

"When did you and Sean have a chance to discuss my "edge"?"

"When he brought the flowers."  An idiotic rush of embarrassment heated
my cheeks.  Obviously, Joe didn't know about our teteatete.

He touched the telltale colour with the back of his hand.

"You're blushing.  Did you and he Kate, did you and Sean make love?"

My embarrassment deepened.

"Not exactly.  We, um, we did what you wouldn't let him do last
night."

Joe slammed his fist into the cutting board.

"Shit.  I wanted to cop your cherry myself."

I had to laugh at that.

"And here I thought you were concerned for my well-being."

"I was!  I mean, that was part of it.  He's hung like a damn horse. Oh,
hell."  He pushed his hair back with both hands.

"I'm sorry.  Of course you and Sean have the right to do whatever you
like.  It wouldn't be fair for me to keep all the good stuff for
myself."

"Well."  I shimmied closer.

"I hope you don't think that's all the good stuff there is.  In any
case, I didn't think you wanted to cut Sean out."

"I don't."  His arms circled me and he rested his cheek on my hair.

"I

just want to have some time that's only for us, like tonight."

"That's fair."

"I guess I didn't think Sean would want to have you to himself."

I chuckled.

"I don't think Sean expected that, either."

"He didn't hurt you?"

"No-o."  I liquefied at the memory of him maneuvering me into position,
the way he'd shoved my knees apart with his boot, how thick he'd been
when he breached me.

"It was ... interesting.  He's very commanding."

Joe shivered in my arms and I realised he had his own memories.

"Yes," he said.

"Very.7 I assessed his distant expression.

"Next time would you like to watch?"

He shivered again.

"Next time I'd like to do.  Then maybe I'll want to watch,"

"Fair enough."

But first we had to get through dinner.

Oddly enough, one hunger sharpened the other.  Joe cooked well.  The
salmon melted in my mouth, the artichoke slid tenderly off the spine,
and the rice was nice and spicy not unlike me!  I spent a good portion
of the meal moaning over how delicious everything was.  Joe relished
that, in more ways than one.

When he stood to help me clear the dinner table, he had a hard time
straightening.  His erection, thick as Philly bratwurst, extended into
the left leg of his jeans.  Grimacing, he tried to tug the denim off
the bulbous head.

I hid a smile as I preceded him into the kitchen.

"You've got a choice."  I set the first few plates into the sink

"I can help you load the dishwasher, or I can get a head start on my
shower."

Joe latched on to me from behind and rubbed his erection down the
outside of my thigh.  Unbelievably, it stretched at the treatment.

"Boo-hoo," he pretended to cry.

"My balls are bluer than Frank Sinatra's eyes.  Why do you have to take
a shower?"

Now was probably not the time to mention I might be a little fragrant
from my morning encounter with Scan.

"Because women are funny that way?"

"All right," he said with flattering reluctance, 'but save some good
spots for me to wash.  I'll be up soon."

I started stripping on my way out, divesting myself of blouse, shoes
and trousers before I hit the threshold.  Once there, I turned and
posed for him.  Beneath my clothes I wore the yellow teddy Scan had
tried to pass off as mine.  Braless today, my nipples flirted with the
peek-a-boo lace, hard as gumdrops and twice as tempting, to go by Joe's
expression.

He shook his head at me.  His hand cupped his crotch as if to hold back
imminent explosion.

"I'll be up very soon.  In fact, if you don't hurry, I'll beat you
there."

Giggling as I hadn't in years, I scampered upstairs, so elated my feet
barely touched the treads.

True to his word, Joe didn't keep me waiting long.  The bathroom door
slammed open minutes later.  For a moment, he stood watching me through
the shower's rippled glass.  I could hear his heavy breathing over the
spray.  He must have run upstairs.  When he'd gazed his fill at my
blurred image, he shoved the door along its track.  Pushing my wet hair
from my eyes, I saw that he'd stripped, too.

I lost my breath.  There was something about having him here, standing
outside my shower, stark-naked and ready to rut.  My eyes raked him up
and down, taking in the well-shaped hairy legs, the narrow hips, the
perfect development of his torso.  His pecs were high and flat like a
young girl's.  He hadn't been kidding about having blue balls,
either.

Tinged with teal, his testicles had drawn up so high they kissed the
base of his cock.  While I stared, they jerked in their sac as if with
a life of their own.

"Well?"  he said, unable to read my awe.

"I think I'm going to faint."  I was only half joking.  Waves of heat
pulsed through my body and my head swam as if I'd stood up too fast.

"Please don't," he said, with a hint of a smile.  He tossed a handful
of condoms on to the sink.  They weren't my brand.  What a sweetie he
was.  Most guys would have exhausted my supply before they'd even
consider buying their own.  Joe's mother must have raised him right.

I watched him don one with a deep, proprietary pride.

"Now I'm ready for anything," he said, and swung his long bronzed legs
into the tub.

I opened my arms and he stepped into them.

"Oh, Joe."  I hugged him tightly, too tightly maybe, but he felt so
good, as if we'd been made to fit together.

"I can't believe you're really here.  I spent so many nights
fantasising about you."

He swayed me from side to side, his cock a thick, hot prong between our
bellies.

"Good.  I shouldn't be the only one losing sleep."

"You're not."  I sleeked his hair back from his forehead.

His eyes closed at my touch.  His hands drifted to my front and
squeezed my breasts.  I groaned at the moulding caress.

"Sweet," he said, circling the heavy globes.

"You've got the prettiest breasts I've ever seen.  They're nice and
full, but they hang just right."  He nuzzled the tiny curl in front of
my ear.

"I love your hair, too.  It's like caramel with the sun shining through
it."

"Anything else?"  I asked, basking in the compliments.

"Oh, yeah."  Sheeting water, his hands cruised down my sides and around
to the small of my back.

"Your butt is to die for."  He gave the hard, high cheeks a squeeze.

"No wonder Scan couldn't resist you.

And no man alive could look at your legs without wanting them wrapped
around his waist."

"No man alive, huh?"  I hid my smile against his left pectoral.

"Not if he were eighty and bedridden.  And then there are these little
beauties."

Leaning forward, he dragged his chest across my puckered nipples.  The
contact sent a twang directly to my sex.

"Perfect.  Like raspberry cream, sweet and sharp and smooth as
velvet."

Inspired by his own words, he bent to suckle me.  At the first
worshipful tug, the difference between my lovers was clear.  Sean
zeroed in on what he wanted, but Joe's appetite for touching knew no
bounds.  Every part of me enthralled him: the back of my knees, the
inside of my arms, the hollow at the base of my throat.  My navel had
to be laved and pinched to full erogenous life; my thigh had to be
nibbled; my fingers sucked.  Joe found his pleasure in pleasing.  He
imposed nothing.  He offered everything.

Now he knelt before me, his thumbs lightly stroking the petals of my
sex.  He pulled me gently apart.  I tensed.  I was so aroused I could
scarcely stand still.  He bent closer and bathed me with his warm,
gusting breath.  He licked me once with the flat of his tongue.

I couldn't contain a cry.  His head jerked up in alarm.

"What's the matter?"  he asked.

Too hungry to accept more foreplay, I held out my arms.

"I don't want to come until you're inside me and I will if you kiss me
there.

Please, Joe, take me now."

"Here?"  His eyes cut towards the bedroom.

I tugged his sinewy shoulders.

"Now.  Please."

His gaze heated at my plea and he shot to his feet.  As he backed me
against the tiles, water fountained off his shoulders, casting a halo
of steam around his head.  His big hands gripped my buttocks.  He
lifted, arms bulging, jaw set.  I swung my legs around his hips and
locked my ankles in the small of his back.  Secure now, I reached
between us, caught him beneath the head and played him between my
lips.

His cock juddered in my hand.  He slipped against me, around me.

I pressed him tight to my swollen bud.

"K-Kate.  God, I can feel you.  You're hard for me."

I squeezed the neck of his cock.

He cursed, a good curse, so I did it again.  His face turned as red as
his erection.  I heard his teeth grind with his effort to control
himself.  One hand released my buttock and rumbled between our
bodies.

Looking down, I saw him take a good hard grip on his balls and tug Then
I capped him.

"No," he moaned, but his hips undermined the protest by surging
forward.  He filled me in a single stroke.  His hand flew back to my
bottom, pulling me close as his cock flexed inside me.

"Oh, yes," I sighed.  I wound my arms behind his neck, my entire spine
stretching with pleasure.

He cried out at the subtle writhing motion.

"Don't move.  Do not move."  His legs shook with strain.  He was
panting.

"Am I too heavy?"

He laughed, then groaned when my vagina fluttered on his shaft.

"Honey, oh, honey, you're just right.  You're like heaven inside, so
warm and wet.  I can't believe how good this feels.  Just be still.  I
can't - I don't want to lose it.  Just give me a minute."

Stretching my neck to reach, I nipped his earlobe.

"Are you going to flash?"

He started at that, then chuckled.

"You and Scan must have had some talk.  I'm afraid I might flash, all
right.  I might come with the first thrust and give away how much I
like you."

"How awful."

He smiled into my eyes, his lashes starred with shower spray, his hair
plastered against his handsome young face.  His affection shone through
the perfection of his features.  His cheeks were pink with it, his
mouth tremulous.  His dark amber eyes crinkled at the corners,
teary-bright.

"I don't care what happens," I said, misting up myself.

"We'll have plenty of chances to make love."

That's why I want the first time to be right.  Because you're so damn
sweet.  Now hold still."

Pressing a quick kiss on my forehead, he shifted his grip so he could
curl his thumbs down the crease of my thighs.  He slid them forward
until they met at the top of my labia.  Gently, he caught my clitoris,
hood and all, between the pads.  My breath hitched at the direct
stimulation.  Gaining confidence, he pressed harder, then rotated the
love-slicked folds against the tender shaft.

"If I rub you like this, can you come just from that?"

"Three guesses," I said, already gulping for air.  I tried not to churn
my hips, but it was hard to restrain myself.  The ache went all the way
to my womb and the jutting rod that split my sex was exactly what I
needed to cure it.

"Oh, please, Joe, can I move a little?"

"Let me do it," he said.  Muttering a prayer for fortitude, he rocked
me in quick little surges.  The red came back to his face as soon as he
began.

"Geez/ he gasped.

"I think my balls are trying to crawl inside my body."

He couldn't tug them back this time.  His hands were busy with me.  I
lowered one arm to reach around his body.

"Careful."  His feet slapped the wet porcelain as he spread his legs
and braced himself.

Too naughty to resist, I curled my fingers into his crack and followed
it down.  He jumped when I tickled his perineum.

"Kate," he warned.

I bit his shoulder.

"Almost there."  His scrotum swung against my hand.

"How hard should I pull?"

"Hard," he said through gritted teeth, but I was afraid of injuring
him.

My experimental tug made him groan miserably and hitch me closer.  I

tried again.  This time, he groaned even louder.

"Are you trying to make me come faster?"

Abashed, I let go.

"Just finish yourself, honey," he said.

"Just take what you need.

I'll try to hold on."

Taking him at his word, I ground my pubis to his root, tightening
myself around him to gather in the sensations.  I added an inch to his
abbreviated thrusts, then two.  I knew this was straining his limits,
but, lord, it felt good to massage that killing itch.  His thumbs
circled faster, trying to keep me with him.  Sounds broke in his
throat, choked and harsh.  I looked down at his cock on my next
withdrawal.  The taut skin glistened with my juices, russet red.  I
knew he couldn't last much longer.

"Soon."  The wave rose inside me.

"Just a little oh, God."

My head snapped back as it broke.  Joe cried out, rocketing through my
spasms with a flurry of long hard thrusts.  He marked the end of each
stroke with my name.  Each repetition shot another spear of pleasure
through my loins Kate, Kate, Kate withdrawing to the brink and
hammering back like he meant to drive his cock to my heart.

Then he came.  His penis convulsed inside me as though milked by an
invisible hand, strong, dramatic contractions five, six, seven each
shaking his body from scalp to toe.  Finally, after the tenth hard
spasm, he sighed, a sigh of the most intense relief I'd ever heard.

"Kate," he murmured again, sagging against me until the tiles supported
both our weight.  He held me like that for a minute, then let me down
and undamped his fingers from my cheeks.  He'd gripped me so tightly my
nerves tingled from lack of circulation.

"Wow."  He shook the stiffness from his hands.

"That was good."

"Good enough to count as a flash?"

He wagged his finger at me.

"I'm all flashed out.  Miss Kate.  So you can worry about your own dam
self."

But how could I worry about betraying my passions when he treated me,
and them, with such tender loving care?

He carried me to my bed wrapped in a big yellow towel.

"You'll spoil me," I purred as he rubbed me dry.

He feathered the glossy triangle between my legs.

"Believe me, it's a luxury.  Sean never lets He stopped speaking,
either because he didn't want to bring Sean's name into 'our' time, or
because he didn't want to betray a confidence.  Rather than pry, I
rolled to my side and stroked his thigh as far as the edge of the towel
he'd tucked around his hips.  He shifted his knees apart.  Accepting
the wordless invitation, I slid my palm up the near-hairless skin of
his inner thigh.  My knuckles ioggled his weighty shaft, causing his
breath to hiss through his teeth.  He unwrapped the towel.

"Suck me until I'm hard again," he said.

"That is, if you wouldn't mind."

I smiled.

"Of course I wouldn't mind.  I love going down on you."

To prove it, I bowed over his lap, lifted the head on the cupped flat
of my tongue and tipped it into my mouth.  Heavy as he was, I had to
trap him in my lips to hold him steady.  Then I licked him, large
circles and small, pausing now and then to flick the tiny blind eye or
the sensitive array of folds on the underside of the head.

My efforts were not in vain.  In less than a minute he'd reached full
tumescence.  He put one hand on his shaft and urged himself an inch
farther into my mouth.

"A little more," he said.

"Please."

What red-blooded male only wanted a little more head?  But he'd learn
to ask for everything he wanted, once he discovered how happy I was to
give it.  I swallowed more of him, tonguing first beneath the flange,
then to the edge of his gripping fist.  Bit by bit, I coaxed his hand
away until I was bobbing slowly up and down his length.  My throat
relaxed as I found my groove.  My hands kneaded his thighs like a
pampered cat I thought as I had many times that I'd been born to do
this, born to feel this smooth, tropical flesh slipping between cheek
and tongue and palate.

Joe breathed deep and slow, obviously enjoying this, obviously trying
to stay loose.

"Oh, man, look at you."  He slid his hands down my back and kneaded the
muscles of my bottom, pulling my cheeks apart with each circling
squeeze.

"Oh, man, you are so gorgeous.  I love watching you suck me, the way
your whole body moves with it, the way your mouth hollows when you
pull, the way you make me wet from tonguing me so well.  It is so
fucking sexy."

His praise made me want to please him all the more.  I sank forward
till my nose brushed his crisp, black thatch.

"Oh, honey.  Oh, yeah.  Turn for me, sweetheart.  That's right.  I want
to do it for you, too."

Careful not to lose his mooring, he rearranged us on the bed until we
both lay on our sides.  He kissed my cunt so tenderly it made my neck
go limp.  He kissed me the way most men only kiss women's mouths, as
though the flesh there were beautiful and delicious infinitely
desirable, endlessly lovable.

I hummed my enjoyment into his erection, running my hand in long,
grateful strokes down his legs.  He hummed back and burrowed deeper.

His chin settled over my clit, rocking it hard.  The remnant of his
beard, faint from his recent shave, burned pleasantly over the hood.

I might be sore later but now the friction was just what I needed.  He
probed my sheath as deeply as he could with his tongue, spearing in and
out like a small, flexible penis.

It felt so good, I wanted to thank him somehow.

I thought of Sean.  With a shudder of anticipation, I dipped two
fingers into my juicy well.  Joe started in surprise, but quickly
resumed what he'd been doing until I pushed the lubricated digits
between his buttocks.  He grunted as they slid past the ring of muscle
guarding his gate, stiffened when they reached the first knuckle, and
moaned when the webbing struck home.  The smoothness of his passage
surprised me, and the tightness.  No wonder men liked this.  I wiggled
experimentally.

His cock leapt in my mouth and his anus clenched my fingers.  His
reaction excited me so much a gush of cream welled from my sex.

"Mm."  I pulled up my favourite lollipop until it slipped free with a
smack.

"Say, Joe, where would I find your prostate?"

His laugh sounded more like a cough but he did answer.

"Towards the front, right about where your fingertips are.  But, Kate,
wait a second before you go exploring.  You might get more than you
bargained for."

To my surprise, he reached down and repositioned his cock between the
meeting of my breasts.

"Hey," I protested.

"Forget it, Kate.  Try concentrating on one thing at a time."

He had a point there.

"Will I feel anything?"  I asked, probing the soft, silky walls.

"You might."  He squirmed under my manipulations.

"You might feel a firm swelling, about the size of a walnut."

"Oh!  There it is.  I feel it."

Joe felt it, too.  He moaned loudly, his body undulating against the
sheet, his cock stiffening between my breasts.

"Rub it, Kate.  Yes, right there.  A little harder.  Long strokes.

That's it.  Just like that."

Massaging the hidden gland was like doubling the voltage through a
wire.  Within seconds, he was panting and shaking.  His movements
ragged, he took me in his mouth again.  With one taut hand, he cupped
the side of my breast, pressing it against his rigid shaft to make a
cosy tunnel.  He must have wanted to thrust but he kept himself on a
brutally short rein, making do with tight jerks of his hips.

Everything followed the rhythm with which I rubbed his hot spot his
abbreviated thrusts, his sucking, his repeated gasps for air.  With
that kind of inspiration, I came long before he did, in a shower of
sparks that burst from the heart of my sex and spread out in delicious
rippling tingles, making my back bow and my toes curl.

"Again," he pleaded, bucking harder between my breasts.

"Come again, Kate."  But I was determined not to miss his fireworks.

They were worth waiting for, too.  A warning flush darkened his body a
second before he came and his anus clamped my fingers like a vice.  It
took all my strength to continue the massage, but it was worth it to
hear his rapturous groan, to feel his seed shooting hot and strong
along my belly.  He settled slowly, still twitching as I petted him
down.

"Man, you wrung me out," he said in a tone of amazement.

I wriggled around until we lay face-to-face.  His eyes were closed but
he pulled me into a sweaty embrace.

"I need a nap," he mumbled.

"Wake me in an hour."

An hour?  I thought.  Try eight.

In actuality, it was more like thirty minutes and he woke me.  The next
time was slow and sweet.  Sensing my exhaustion, he rocked me like a
baby in a cradle, keeping me on the brink for ages.  When I was ready
to weep with longing, he pushed us both over the edge in a deep,
muscle-wrenching climax.  I stayed awake long enough to sample the
brandy-soaked pears he'd finally remembered making, after which I sank
into a billow of pleasant dreams.

At 3 a.m."  a metallic rattle disrupted my slumber.  Heart pounding, I
bolted up in bed.  Someone was trying to force the lock on the front
door.

I flashed back to the months following my divorce when I was a woman
alone in a big city living in a creaky old house that, for all I knew,
was haunted by the ghost of my dear-departed lesbian aunt.  Mind you.

Aunt Sally loved me enough to bequeath me the house, but she was also
the sort to drop in uninvited, just to say 'hi'.  Frankly, I didn't
welcome a visit from the Other Side any more than I welcomed a visit
from a burglar.

A snore from Joe returned me to the present.  Thank God.

"Joe, wake up."  I shook his shoulder.

"Wake up!"

"Wha-?"  He lifted his head and rubbed his eyes.

"I think someone's trying to break into the house."

His head flopped back down.  Trob'ly Scan."

"Sean has a key."

Trob'ly drunk," he said, and closed his eyes again.

"Knew he wouldn't stay away all night."

To a panicked woman, who was only half-awake, this conclusion
represented too big a leap to reassure.  I grabbed the fireplace poker
I kept for just such an emergency.

Joe struggled up on his elbow.

"Don't bash him.  He's the best friend I've got."

I should have bought a dog, I thought, clumping down two flights of
stairs with the poker held before me like a sword.  A big, scary dog
with sharp teeth and a loud bark.  Something crashed in the vicinity of
the kitchen.  I froze.  Then I heard a curse that was, indeed,
familiar.

It was Sean.

I flicked on the light and found him trying to pick the pieces of a
broken glass off the linoleum.  He blinked owlishly in the sudden
glare.  I noticed that my yellow trousers, and Joe's jeans, lay in a
tangle by the refrigerator.  Sean must have tripped over them.

"Kate," he said, his eyes bloodshot, his sensual mouth slack.

"You're up."

This is what I got for starting an affair with a twenty
three-year-old.

No, with two twenty-three year-olds.  Sean swayed on his haunches.

"Couldn't stay," he said.

"Too many illegal substances.  I don't party like that any more."

This declaration would have gone down better if he weren't totally
sloshed.

"Come away from that glass."  I pulled him up by the arm.  One of his
palms was bleeding, a long thin cut, like boys used to swear by in the
old days.  He stumbled against me as I guided him to the sink.  I
opened the tap and held his hand under it.

"Ow/ he said, but I didn't see any glass.

"Can't drink like I used to.  Only had three beers okay, maybe four.

And look at me.  I'm a mess."

"That you are."

"Hate a sloppy drunk."  Unable to keep his footing, his elbow thunked
on to the counter.

"He won't love me any more."

Trying not to laugh at his theatricals, I wrapped a paper towel around
his palm and applied pressure.

"I'm sure Joe has seen you drunk before."

"No, not because of that.  Because I stole your cherry your arse
cherry," he enunciated, in case it wasn't clear.

"I knew he wanted it, but I stole it anyway.  In fact, I stole it
because he wanted it."

His face settled into mournful lines like the tragedy mask at a drama
club.

"Kate, sometimes I'm so bad I don't know what to do with myself."

When I smiled at him, tears stung my eyes.  I remembered being his age,
and remembered a few of the lousy, selfish things I'd done since
then.

"Everyone is bad sometimes, Sean.  That doesn't make it right, but it
doesn't make you a monster either."

Nodding, he sniffed hard and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.  His muscles
bulged with the motion.  Some tough guy and that black T-shirt had seen
better days.

"Whew."  I waved my hand in front of my nose.

"You smell like a brewery."

"Some stupid first-year shook up a beer can and sprayed me with it."

He pushed carefully off the counter and tested his balance.

"Better take a shower."

"Better let me help you," I said, easing his arm around my shoulders.

In fits and starts, we shuffled up the stairs to the second floor, to
the bathroom he and Joe shared.  The air smelled of shaving cream and
cologne Joe's Aramis, Sean's trendy Calvin Klein.  I propped him on the
toilet and turned on the spray.  Once it was going, I knelt down to
remove his shoes.

"You gonna wash my back, too?"

I didn't answer, but that didn't seem to matter to him.  The three, or
maybe four, beers had loosened his tongue.

"Nobody ever washed my back, not even my mom."

That tugged my heartstrings, too.  What a softie I was.

"You could have asked Joe."

He shook his head, that hound-dog look on his face again.

"Joe gave me so much.  I couldn't ask him to baby me, too."

I peeled off his socks.

"Sure you could.  But you would have had to give up your nice, dominant
position."

His glare told me I'd hit a bull's-eye.  His mouth opened on a
stutter.

Then he closed it and started again.

"You've got a sharp tongue, Mrs.  Robbyns."

"Ms Winthrop," I corrected, levelling him with the gimlet eye I used to
save for Tom.  Unlike my ex, Sean met it like a man.

"You think I wouldn't let Joe baby me 'cause I wanted to stay in
charge?"

"You tell me."

He rubbed his face with both hands.  When he let go, the mournful lines
were gone.  A sly smile had taken their place, one I found altogether
too charming.

"I'm letting you baby me."

I braced my hands on my knees and stood.

"That doesn't count.  You're not in love with me."

His grin faded.  He couldn't deny my words, or that he was in love with
Joe.  With a weary sigh, he stripped off his stinky T-shirt and tossed
it into the hall.

"Thanks, Kate," he said.  He appeared almost sober.

"I think I can take it from here."

Joe was sitting on the stairs when I emerged, his head in his hands,
his back bowed over his knees.  He'd pulled on a pair of briefs and
nothing else.  I sat next to him on the faded cabbage-rose carpet
runner.  He gathered my hand on to his knee.  My guess was Sean had
never said he loved him.

"You heard?"  I said.

"Yeah."

"You know, we can stop this any time you want before anyone gets
hurt."

"Do you want to stop?"  His eyes were brilliant in the low light from
the hall.

I shook my head.

"I don't think Sean wants to stop, either, Kate."

"But-' He silenced my protest with a petal-soft kiss.

"You have to be brave to have an adventure."

I snorted.

"Yeah, and you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, but I
don't want you or Sean to end up cracked."

He bussed the tip of my nose.

"I'm not a coward and neither is Sean or you."

I leant my head on his shoulder and thought that over.  Cowards don't
divorce their philandering husbands, or start their own businesses, or
form menages a trois.  Maybe I could handle this.  Maybe.

"We'll wait until he comes out," I said.

"He can spend the night with us."

Joe squeezed my shoulder in approval.

"That's a girl.  We'll make an adventuress out of you yet."

Chapter Four

Intimate Notions The next day was Saturday.  Mostly Romance didn't open
till noon.  A quickie to start the day would have suited me, but Sean
was too grumpy and Joe was too hungry.  The rumbling in his stomach
distracted me from my goal.

As a result, we all rolled out of bed together.

"Bagels, coffee, fruit," Sean said in his curt morning rasp.

"Be at the table in half an hour."

Fortunately, this meant he was preparing the meal.  I'd just finished
setting the kitchen table when the telephone rang.  More at home now
that he'd tupped the lady of the house, Joe grabbed the cordless
receiver.  He frowned at the voice on the other end.

"It's Larry," he said, and thrust the phone in my direction.

For a moment, I drew a blank.  Then I remembered.  L. Kingston
Something-or-other.

"Oh, damn.  Marianne must have given him my number.7 "Indeed, she did,"
said L. Kingston as I lifted the phone to my ear.

"She also gave me to understand you were available."

I noticed Larry had my ex's knack for turning any statement into an
accusation.  Switching hands, I tried tounhunch my shoulders.  Both
Sean and Joe had crossed their arms across their chests.  I didn't know
who made me angrier, this obnoxious estate agent or the two Stone Age
men who'd suddenly appeared in my kitchen.

"As it happens, Mr, um -' "Larry."

"Larry.  As it happens, Marianne mistook the situation.  I'm not
currently available.  Marianne, on the other hand, is and finds you
quite attractive, I might add."

"I'm not interested in Marianne."  He rolled her name off his tongue as
if it were something nasty.

"Look, you're not married, are you?"

How dare he?  He should be so lucky to find an uninhibited woman like
Marianne.

"Look, Larry/ I said, giving his name the same disparaging
intonation.

"My marital status has nothing to do with it."

I guess he realised he wouldn't endear himself to me by insulting my
friend, because at once he was full of apologies.

Thirty seconds into his back pedalling Sean grabbed the phone.

"Hey, dick-head, the lady's not interested."  And he slammed it down
with a flourish.

I stared at him, astonished by his gall.

Amusement tugged the corners of his mouth.

"Breakfast was getting cold.  Come on.  Sit, you two."

Against my better judgment, I sat.  I accepted the toasted bagel half
Sean handed me, but I wasn't forgetting what he'd done.

"You had no right to do that, Sean."

Completely unperturbed, he poured a glass of juice and pushed it to my
elbow.

"Why not?  You wanted to get rid of him, didn't you?"

"But you were rude."

"So were you."  He passed the honey-walnut cream cheese.

"I just got rid of him cleaner."

I couldn't deny that, though I wanted to.  Feeling vaguely in the
wrong, I knifed a smear of cream cheese across my bagel.

"Well, next time, let me handle it."

"So long as you do."

"You do not dictate who I see, Sean Halloran."

Joe inhaled sharply at that statement, but Sean didn't bat an eyelid.

"Baloney.  We all know this cosy arrangement goes to hell the minute
one of us decides to two- time the others."

"I agree," Joe piped in.  He reddened when I cocked one brow at him but
he didn't back down.  In fact, he seemed disappointed in me.

"You have to agree it's safer this way."

Chastened, I dropped my gaze to my plate.

"I didn't actually intend to sleep around."

"Then it's settled."  Sean flaunted his victory with a flash of
teeth.

"All for one and one for all."

I said nothing.  A knot of stubbornness tightened in my chest, the same
perverse love of resistance for resistance sake that had made me
struggle against him in the back room.  I wanted, no, hungered to
humble him.  He knew it, too.  His grin widened.

"You and whose army?"

he mouthed, throwing my words back at me.

"What?"  Joe asked, sensing the hidden currents.

I suspected Sean preferred them hidden, so I answered.

"I'm going to take him on, Joe.  I'm going to see him on his knees to
me."

"Who?"

The," Sean answered, still grinning.

Joe laughed until the steely set of my face stopped him.

"No, really, Kate."

"Yes, really."

"But why?"

"Because he needs it," I said, and exulted in the flinch Scan couldn't
quite hide.

'hi your dreams," he said.  He ate in silence after that, chewing
angrily and casting the occasional dark look from under his golden
lashes sometimes at me, sometimes at Joe no doubt trying to predict how
sides would form up for the coming battle.  That battle was
inevitable.

I'd upped the stakes with my challenge and, worse, my claim that he
secretly wanted to submit.  He'd have to devise a truly devious
response.  The prospect quivered like mercury through the folds of my
sex, icy-hot and dangerous.  Getting the best of him wouldn't be
easy.

I smiled to myself even as Joe tried to cover the tension with idle
chatter.  He needn't have bothered.  I knew I'd revel in Sean's revenge
as much as I'd revel in my own eventual victory.

The woman appeared near closing time.  I was working in the coffee bar
on the balcony so I had a perfect view of her show-stopping entrance.

Everywhere I looked, patrons male and female gaped at this living
goddess.

She had to be six feet tall.  A mouth-watering ivory suit draped her
hour-glass figure.  Its thin velvet lapels swooped over the ski slope
of her breast, and its mid- thigh-length skirt bared a pair of lean,
seemingly endless pins.  Her hair swung towards her chin in a 1920s
bob, mahogany-brown and patent-leather shiny.  Behind its teasing sway,
I caught a glimpse of full red lips and huge, long-lashed eyes.

She glided to a halt beside the Hot New Authors table and paused to
survey her temporary kingdom.  Intuition told me Scan had sent her, so
I was not surprised when her gaze climbed the second storey and locked
on mine.  My heart rolled over with a funny hiccup.  I didn't usually
react to women this way, but she was so beautiful it was like meeting a
famous fashion model outside the dry-cleaner's.  The shock sent my
normal barriers crumbling.

Along with everyone else, I watched her spectacular legs mount the
spiral stairs.

"Hello, there," she said when she finally reached me.  She leant across
the coffee bar.  Her silk blouse released a whiff of Chanel No.

19 - my scent.  Somehow, I didn't think the choice coincidental.

"I'd like a tall mochaccino, double whip," she said, her eyes never
leaving mine.  She had a slight Southern accent.  Her voice was rich
and sweet, not unlike the coffee she'd ordered.

"Not worried about insomnia?"  I teased, my hands admirably steady on
the machine.

The woman shrugged with an insouciance that requires either years of
practice or being born French.

"Whether I sleep or not, I'm always entertained.  Aren't you?"

"Things have been looking up lately."

Her painted lips curled at my admission.  She tapped her perfect red
nails against the black marble counter, then nodded at me.

"Those are lovely, dear.  By far the prettiest I've seen."

Out of reflex, I looked down at myself.  I wore a grey cashmere V-neck
and jeans, and no jewellery.  I couldn't imagine what she might be
complimenting, but she soon enlightened me.

"Your breasts, darling'.

They're nice and full, but they hang perfectly."

Her words unnerved me.  Besides the fact that they were uttered by a
woman, they seemed so familiar.

Now she tilted her head to one side.  Her shiny hair brushed her
shoulder.

"Now don't get agitated, dear.  I'm not here to pick you up though,
believe me, nothin' would please me more.  No, I'm just here to deliver
an invitation from a friend."

"A friend named Scan?"  I slid her foam-topped coffee across the
marble.

Her laugh tinkled like the proverbial silvery bells.  The bearded
gentleman at the corner table closed his eyes.

"Precisely," she said and, with a coyness worthy of a Hollywood screen
legend, withdrew a note from her cleavage.

She pressed the folded slip of paper, now warm and fragrant, into my
palm.  That's when I noticed the back of her hands were shaved.  My
eyes flew to hers and she laughed again, a throaty chuckle this time.

"That's right, darling'.  She's a he."

Her mission complete, she he tossed what I now recognised to be a very
expensive wig.  He wiggled his elegant manicure as he backed away.

"Don't you be late and have some fun for me, you hear?"  Boy, I
thought, when Scan planned a scene, he really pulled out all the
stops.

Curious, I unfolded the invitation.  I found a Pine Street address, a
fifteen-minute walk from my shop.

"Nine o' clock sharp," ordered his imperious scrawl.

"Be there or be square.  P.S. Tonight's safe-word is "Uncle"."

Apparently, whatever the little devil had planned required
safe-words.

Trust Sean to choose the one I'd choke before saying.

When I was a kid, crying "Uncle' during a game was the ultimate
expression of surrender.  But we'd see who'd surrender tonight.  I
slipped the note into my back pocket and took a fortifying sip of the
mocha cappuccino his gender-bending friend had failed to collect.

Insomnia, be damned.  I had a feeling I'd need all the fortification I
could get.

The address occupied the basement level of an attractive brownstone
house.  Intimate Notions said its discreet, hand-lettered sign.

The windows were dark and a closed sign hung in the door.  Nonetheless,
I was sure of my welcome.  I descended the four concrete steps and
peered through the glass.  A small blue light burnt in the back,
revealing nothing but shadows.  I felt both foolish and excited, which
was probably what Scan intended.

Determined not to quail before I'd crossed the starting line, I jammed
my thumb over the buzzer.  Before the grating echo faded, an invisible
someone opened the door.

"Come in," said the shadow, a diminutive female shadow.  She closed the
door behind me and pulled a filmy curtain over the glass.

"One moment," she said.  I heard high-heeled footsteps moving quickly
across a carpet, and then a teardrop chandelier filled the room with a
soft, sparkling glow.

Red struck my eyes: lush, venereal red.  It lacquered the walls of the
octagonal salon.  It upholstered the plump, satiny chairs.  It swirled
across the savage Chinese carpet, and swayed among the rails of
multicoloured silk confections that obviously formed the shop's
mainstay.  Camisoles and teddies hung from ribbon-padded hangers, along
with morning gowns and corsets and brassieres of every imaginable
style.

At the centre of the room a headless mannequin stood.  She wore a
matching bra and panty set with the nipples and crotch cut out.  I
choked back a laugh.  I'd always found that sort of get-up ridiculous,
a dirty old man joke; not something a woman would choose for herself.

Or so I thought.

"Dear me," clucked the woman who'd admitted me.

"I can see I've got my work cut out for me."

For the first time I turned to her.  My jaw dropped.  She was a little
doll, a spun-sugar, sweet-as-cherry doll, round where a woman ought to
be round, and slim where she ought to be slim.  Her bright blonde hair
framed her innocent face in thick, mar celled waves.  Her rosebud mouth
barely looked large enough to hold a spoon.  Celestial blue eyes
widened at my lengthening stare, but I couldn't restrain myself.

Again, I sensed deliberation in Sean's choice of accomplice.  What evil
genius had led him to pick the two women in all of Philadelphia who
would tickle my erotic fancy?  Or was I kidding myself about the
set-in- stone nature of my preference?  Was that the humbling message
Scan meant to convey?

To my relief, the delectable cream-puff wore ordinary business clothes
a black angora turtleneck over tapered beige trousers.

"Come," she said.

"I need to fit you."

At once, I pictured her fitting me, her soft white thigh pressed
between my own, her pink cheeks hollowed to suckle my nipples to aching
points.

Shuddering off the image, I followed her through the opulent,
overheated salon.  Gold accents glittered about the room.  They danced
on a floor-length mirror frame ding rococo gilt, on the chain from
which the chandelier hung, on the My hand flew to my throat as I
noticed a gold-plated phallus twirling from a wire above the entrance
to the changing room.  Feathery wings, also gold, extended from the
gleaming prick's sides the shop's guardian angel, I supposed.  My body
responded to the flying dildo with a rash-like prickle of heat.

Sean's accomplice turned her kittenish chin towards her shoulder and
winked at me.

"My name is Amy," she said.  She blew the phallus a kiss as she passed
beneath it.

Resisting an urge to do the same, I entered the changing room.  The
curving space was divided into separate cubicles, all doorless and all
mirrored.  Here, blue struck the dominant note, colouring the carpet,
the walls and the scroll-backed cafe chairs.  The ceiling was lacquered
a rich indigo and stars were spangled over it.  To my right loomed a
Chinese-style ebony and brass cabinet.  Amy turned to it and opened its
folding doors, exposing a multitude of tiny compartments.

"You can strip off now," she said, occupied with the contents of a
drawer.

Well, really, I thought.  But I did as she asked.

"The centre cubicle," she specified, when I would have chosen
another.

I could think of only one reason to choose this cubicle over the
others.  I studied the mirror.  Though the lighting was artful, a hint
of smoky indistinctness revealed its two-way nature.  Tiny hairs stood
in an icy wave along my arms.  Aside from that, however, I don't think
I betrayed my knowledge that others would watch me disrobe.

I undressed without any special grace, the same as if I were alone.  I
didn't bother to ask if I should remove my underwear because I knew I
should.  Once naked, I gazed at my reflection, outwardly dispassionate,
inwardly seething and not with anger.  I saw my body as a stranger
might: the mixture of lean and soft; the pleasing arrangement of my
bones; the arrow of hair that pointed to my secrets, a darker auburn
than my head but just as curly.  I saw that I was beautiful and that
others would desire me for no better reason than that.  The knowledge
did not displease me.  I would take them, or not, as the spirit moved
me.  I was the master of my flesh.

But not tonight.  Tonight I delegated responsibility for my pleasure to
more imaginative hands, the hands of the man who had to be behind the
mirror: Sean Patrick Halloran.  I felt no fear, merely anticipation and
a certain curiosity not only for what was to come, but for how it would
make me respond.

Amy handed me a corset-like contraption of burgundy silk and lace.

"Let's see how this fits," she said.  She stood behind me and slightly
to the side.  Her eyes were quiet on my naked body but something inside
her fizzed.  Her nipples distended her fuzzy sweater, and when she
steadied my elbow so I could step through the leg holes, her palm was
damp.

Taking me by the shoulders, she turned me to face the outer salon and
began to tighten the laces.  I closed my eyes at the unfamiliar
sensation.  As she pulled, the bodice gripped my torso like an elastic
bandage.  I could not begin to explain why this impersonal embrace
aroused me, but it did.  Maybe the lack of breathing room was making me
lightheaded.

"Suck in," she ordered, and gave the ties a final heave.

"Now be still.  Do not move."

She circled around to my front and resettled my breasts to sit more
comfortably in the lacy cups.  Her hands were hot but not wet.  I knew
she must have dried them on her trousers.  Once again, she turned me to
face the mirror as if I were a child.

"Open your eyes."

As soon as I did, I burst out laughing.  This contraption looked even
sillier on me than it had on the mannequin.  My nipples, and a good bit
of my breasts, bulged out from the cut-out cups like old-fashioned
bomber noses.  The laces cinched my waist to cartoon-like waspishness,
and my pubic hair showed through the crotch like a squirrel peeping
through a stage curtain.

"No, no, no," Amy scolded, her pretty face flushed.

"It is not funny.

You look beautiful."

Exotic dress-up was obviously her kink, and I had as good as mocked
it.

Ashamed, I wiped tears of laughter from my eyes and apologised.  I
could not, however, contain a few last snorts.

"I should beat you," she said, giving my arm a little slap.  That
quieted me, because I wondered whether she would and if I would like
it.

"Besides," she added.

"I'm not finished."

I hoped whatever remained wouldn't be so humorous.

All too soon I remembered the old saying: be careful what you wish
for.

Amy removed a small pot of body paint and a finger-wide brush from one
of the cabinet's mysterious drawers.  Sticking the end of the brush
between her teeth, she squinted at my reflection.

"Tits first, I think."

My nipples sprang to attention.  Amy smirked as though to say: now,
that's better.  She opened her paint pot.  Its contents matched the
burgundy silk I wore.  Her fingers were slim and dexterous as she
dipped the brush in, then scraped the excess against the rim.

I braced for the first touch of the sable wedge.  When it came, I had
to bite my lip to keep from crying out.  The tight fit of the corset
cups had trapped the blood within the peaks of my breasts, sensitising
the nerves.  The merest brush stimulated as strongly as a pinch.  Amy
bent closer.  Her hot, shallow breath dampened my skin.

Bit by bit, she dabbed me with the cold, wet paint.  As it dried, the
cosmetic warmed and tightened, making me feel she touched me even when
she didn't.

She saved my nipples for last and those she brushed back and forth
until uncontrollable whimpers broke in my throat.  I wondered if Sean
could hear as well as see through the mirror.  Was he touching
himself?

Was Joe with him?  Would they reach out and fondle each other's hard,
straining pricks, the way they must have done a thousand times
before?

I wished I could see them and yet the fact that I couldn't, and could
only imagine, had its own erotic power.

There," said Amy.  She stepped aside so I could admire her work.  Two
perfect raspberries."

A wisp of deja vu tickled my subconscious, just as it had when Sean's
transvestite friend complimented my breasts.  But Amy was waiting for a
response.

"I see what you're aiming for," I said, my voice so thick I had to
clear my throat.

"Unless you looked carefully you'd think I was fully covered."

She beamed at me.

"Exactly.  Now, turn around and bend over.  Yes, grab that chair and
lean your hands on it.  I need to do your back."

My 'back' required considerably more coverage, since nothing but a
snug-fitting thong covered my muscular bottom.  I melted under the
endless strokes.  Having my hair washed at the salon made me horny, no
matter if some fat hairy guy was doing it.  This was a hundred times
worse or better, I suppose.

"Mm," I sighed, and wriggled my bottom in Amy's direction.  Scan must
be getting an eyeful, in this position, all that concealed my sex was a
thin strip of silk: a thin, sodden strip of silk.

"Oh, Kate," said Amy, surprising me by using my name.

"Your butt is to die for."

A muffled protest penetrated the barrier of the mirror, followed by a
hollow slap, as if a hand had been clapped over someone's mouth.  I
added it up then.  The source of the compliments I'd been receiving
today was Joe.  Sean must have tricked him into talking about me.  I
could easily imagine the conversation.

"Kate's got nice tits," Sean would say, oh-so-casually.

"Oh, yeah," Joe would agree, happy to discuss his current object of
obsession.

"They're nice and full, but they hang just right and the nipples, mm,
they're like sweet, creamy raspberries."  On it would go until Scan had
an entire battery of compliments one of which Joe was bound to have
used in what should have been a private moment.

How upset Joe must be, thinking I'd think he'd betrayed an intimate
secret!

And what a nasty girl I was, because the thought of his entirely
unnecessary anguish made my sex grow moist and warm.

Amy distracted me from the delicious throb of guilt by sliding the
thong to the side and beginning to paint my cleft.  I flinched at the
cold touch on this more sensitive skin.

"Shh" she murmured.  She ran the brush from stem to stern in long,
hypnotising strokes.

"Just relax."

Without warning, she reversed the brush and inserted the first slim
inch past my sphincter.  Shocked, I went up on my toes, then sank back
to take it.  She turned the inch of polished wood in a knee-melting
circle, soothing an itch I hadn't known I'd had.

"Oh," I said, feeling my bowels flutter wildly.

"That's a beautiful little rosebud," she said, and I wondered if these,
too, were Joe's words.

"It's so tight and puckered.  It looks as if it wants a kiss."  She
sighed.

"Too bad I've painted it so nicely.  I wouldn't want to ruin it."

Go ahead, ruin it, I almost said, but I wasn't ready to go that far.

Removing the paint brush, she leant closer to blow me dry.  The warm
puffs stirred my pubic hair, heated my lips, and made my stiff little
button feel as if it had been set on the grill.

"Bend over a bit more," she said.  She stepped away from me and pulled
open another drawer in the magic cabinet.

"Now don't look up, Kate.

We mustn't spoil the surprise."

I heard a cap twist open; heard liquid glugging and then a cap no, two
caps being replaced.  She moved behind me again.  I felt something new
probe the pucker of my anus, something thick and firm that dripped oil
down my quivering furrow.  Whatever the something was a dildo, I
suspected it flexed as she pushed, then slid inside in one lubricious
rush.

My passage embraced the intrusion, squirming with rapture.  I marvelled
at how quickly one could develop a taste for these things.

Sean, of course, would not neglect such a detail.  Every part of me
must be tightened round the screw of desire, but especially the part
whose virginity he had claimed.

"There."  Amy patted the plugging end.

"Now you're dressed for success."

I laughed, but this time she didn't take offence, just stood me up and
turned me around to face the mirror.  I seemed a different woman, my
eyes starred with lust, my cheeks flushed and my limbs liquid and
loose, despite my constraining garments.

Amy grinned at me, reading the change as clearly as I did.  She pulled
two dressmaker's pins from her pocket, which she used to secure the
crotch flaps out of her way.  With an efficiency she hadn't shown
before, she camouflaged my curls with the burgundy paint.

"Tut, tut," she clucked as the brush approached my swollen labia.

"This area is much too wet to paint.  Guess I'll have to clean it
up."

Before I could move, she wriggled her tongue up and down my folds,
exploring the wet, quivering flesh as if she'd been waiting all evening
to do it.  A hopeless squeak caught in my throat.  As my hips pressed
helplessly closer, the dildo rocked inside me.  I realised then that it
was filled with oil, oil that sloshed back and forth with the effect of
a miniature water bed.  The combination felt incredible the hardness in
my bottom, the softness lapping my sex.  I couldn't imagine Amy's
activity was drying me, but I was wound up so tightly I welcomed any
prospect of relief.

"There," I moaned, as she teased the slippery hood with the very tip of
her tongue.

"Oh, please, a little harder."

For one heavenly moment, she obeyed.  Then, with as mall sigh of
regret, she pulled back.

"Sorry, Kate, but orders are orders."

If the mirror hadn't stood between me and Sean, I think I would have
strangled him.

"Sure," I said, my body shaking with frustration.

"I

understand."

"There's just one more thing you need."

"An orgasm?"  I suggested.

She pouted and shook her finger at me.  The 'one more thing' turned out
to be a blindfold.

"Oh, no," I said.

"I don't like having my eyes covered."

"Too bad."  She dangled the red velvet eye cover from her forefinger.

"Anyway, you know the safe-word.  If you're ready to give in, just say
it."

I glared at her pink-cheeked innocence.

"Well?"  she prodded.

"Fine," I said, without one iota of good sportsmanship.

"Do it and get it over with."

"Now remember' she stood up on tiptoe to tie it on '- taking this off
without permission is as good as saying "Uncle"."

To my dismay, the blindfold was very thick and very snug.  As soon as
she secured it, the world went black.  I gritted my teeth against a
wave of discomfort.  When I was eight, my big brother socked me in the
eye with a baseball, and not as he swore to our parents accidentally.

For weeks I wore a big cotton eye-patch and ever since I'd loathed any
impairment of my sight.  To me, being blindfolded was a reminder of
vulnerability, not to mention injustice.

But cry "Uncle' over a bad childhood memory?  Not Kate Winthrop.

I tried not to stumble as Amy guided me to the outer room.  I felt much
more naked with my eyes covered.  The air seemed colder, me room
larger.  A draught chilled the painted skin of my mound so I knew we
approached the street door.  I stopped in my tracks, panicked at the
thought of going outside.

"Be brave," said Amy.

"This part is difficult.  There's a cab waiting directly opposite.  I

want you to open the door, walk up the four steps and straight ahead.

When you bump into the cab, open the door and get inside."

I'd been shaking my head as she spoke but now I dug in my heels.

"No, I can't."

Amy stroked my arm, her hand warm and comforting.

"Remember, you can stop any time you want, Kate.  In fact, if you're
really scared, you should stop.  I don't think you're a coward, though,
do you?"

"I'll be arrested," I said through the nervous chattering of my
teeth.

"Nonsense.  It's pitch-dark out, the cab driver was specially hired,
and if anyone should see you, they'll think you're a pro on her way to
work.  No one will know how bare you really are."

I must be crazy, I thought, but I took a deep, steadying breath and
reached for the door.  I hit the knob on the second try.  I turned it
and pulled.  The cold air hit me like the slap of wet cotton.

I trust Scan, I told myself.  But if that cab wasn't there, he'd think
Lucrezia Borgia was a saint compared to me.  I hobbled forward, stubbed
my bare toe on the first step and lifted my foot.  The handrail bumped
my side and I used it to ascend the last three steps.

A car rolled by on Pine Street.  It honked.  A hysterical giggle rose
in my throat.  I must have looked a sight in my blindfold and tart's
get-up.  Please, God, let no cops drive by, I thought.

Hands waving through the air in front of me, I took one shuffle forward
on the pavement, then two, then three.  At six I bonked my knees on the
side of the cab and spent fifteen endless seconds searching for a door
handle.  Finally, I found it, yanked the door open and threw myself
inside.  My body shook so hard it looked as though I had nerve
damage.

The oil-filled dildo felt like a vibrator.

Well, okay, that part was nice.

"Hello," said the cabbie, as though he did this every day.  He had a
young voice.  Nigerian, I thought another of Sean's cronies, no
doubt.

"You will please wait for our other passengers."  I hoped there would
be other passengers.  I'd just remembered my handbag was sitting back
in that mid- night-blue changing room.

Minutes passed.  The cabbie slid a cassette into his tape deck.

Guitars twanged and wailed and Robert Cray began a gravelly croon.

That cheered me.  I was nodding my head to "Nothin' But A Woman' when
the doors opened on either side of me.  Two people entered Sean and Joe
by the smell of them.  Then the front door opened and someone else got
in.

What the?  Was Amy invited to the second act as well?

Damn Sean anyway.  I knew guys fantasised about women together, but
were we supposed to perform in front of them?  What if I couldn't?

Imagine how rotten that would make Amy feel.  For the first time that
evening, anger rose.  I'd get him for this.  I didn't know how, but I
would.

Without a word from anyone, the cab swung into motion.  Sean took my
hand and pressed it to the inside of his thigh.  Fine, I thought, let's
see if you're ready to rock and roll.  For good measure, I squeezed
Joe's thigh, too, and slid my hands up to cup their groins.

Joe was bulging, but Sean was a rock.  Sweat dampened the cloth that
strained across his prick.  His breath whistled when I scratched my
thumbnail down the arch.  A seam creaked in the breathy silence,
lending new meaning to the phrase 'too cocky by half.

Good, I thought.  The bigger he is, the harder he'll fall.

Chapter Five

The Joys of Submission My hand fumbled over a wrought-iron railing,
over chilly rosettes and swirls.  The design was familiar.  The cabbie
must have driven us home.

By this time, Joe's jacket draped my shoulders.  If Sean had let him, I
think he'd have carried me over the threshold, as well, but at least I
wasn't in danger of shocking the neighbours.  In my part of town, women
rarely ventured outside in red silk corsets with or without nipple
coverage.

"Who's got a key?"  I asked, my tension abating at the prospect of
reentering my safe, cosy nest.

No one answered.  To my amazement, the door creaked open.  So much for
safety.

"Well, hello," drawled a creamy Southern voice.  It belonged to the
she-male from the bookshop.

"I'm glad to see you survived your ordeal.  My name's Lulu, by the way,
but my friends call me Lou."

Bemused, I allowed her him to usher me into the hall.  This adventure
was getting crowded.  I supposed I should be grateful the cabbie hadn't
stayed.

Lulu, or Lou, pulled me into the sitting-room.  I heard the crackle of
a fire.  A pair of hands, I don't know whose, took Joe's jacket from
me.

Lulu whistled.

"You look scrumptious, darling'.  What Iwouldn't give for a pair of
tits like that as long as I could take 'em off at the end of the day I
laughed at the image this inspired.  A hand slapped my painted buttock
hard enough to sting.

"Ow/ I rubbed the sore spot.  The hand slapped me again.  This time I
identified Sean's callused palm.

Take it like a man he ordered.

I simpered as well as one could behind a blindfold.

"Why don't you show me how a man takes it?"

Amy giggled at that, a hint of insubordination I filed away for further
reference.

Scan was not amused.

"I see you want to do this the hard way."

"The harder the better, big boy."

He snorted as though he doubted my capacity to take what he could dish
out.  The air between us thickened.  I was breathing harder and I could
hear everyone else breathing harder, too.  The challenge I offered
turned everyone on.  How long would Scan take to master me?

Forever, I swore, but even then I knew he wouldn't.  He was too good a
mind-fucker to fail.  The crazy thing was, I was looking forward to
breaking.  To pit my will against his, no holds barred, and to know
that in the end I'd give him what we both wanted, made my hot little
snatch quiver like a rabbit.

"Hook her up," he said.

Two pairs of hands grabbed me under the arms.  Neither was Sean's, and
neither gripped me with authority, so I twisted until I broke free.  If
Sean wanted to 'hook me up', he'd have to do it himself.

The third time I escaped Sean grabbed me around the waist and wrestled
me to the carpet.  Then I really let loose, growling and kicking like a
madwoman.  The oil- filled anal plug flexed and sloshed inside me as we
rolled, goading me to twist even more.  I knew how strong he was, and
how quick.  I could do what I wanted without much chance of hurting
him.  It felt good to act out my aggressions, especially when I hooked
one foot behind his ankle and tripped him.

Once I had him down, I ground my sex over his groin so fast I stunned
him.  He actually pushed his cock at me, until he noticed he wasn't in
charge any more.

Then he flipped me off and trapped my wrists in the small of my back
with one hand.  He lifted me, still squirming, off my feet.  When I
tried to knee his balls, he yanked my arms back hard.

I must have winced because Joe begged him not to hurt me.

Sean blistered the air with his curse.

"I ought to beat you for even thinking it."

The threat inflamed me.  My blood zinged from our wrestling match and
the feel of his cock jabbing me through his clothes was far from
calming.  I wanted to spread my legs and take him, just tug down his
zip and impale myself through that ridiculous crotchless corset.  He
must have read my mind because he grunted, hitched me higher and headed
towards the fire.  Setting me down, he forced me to my knees on a
padded platform.  Blindfolded or not, I knew it wasn't part of my
original decor.

My nostrils flared.  Above the tang of communal arousal, I smelled
leather and beeswax.  I could well imagine what uses the leather might
be put to.

"Give me a hand," Scan said to the others.

They leapt to do his bidding.  This might have been my house, but
tonight Scan ruled.

His cohorts wrapped my wrists, waist, and lower thighs in fur-lined
manacles.  Clinking chains held the bindings taut and held me
spreadeagled on my knees.  The waist-belt hugged me from rib to hip.

The thigh manacles were almost as big, but the wrist-cuffs matched the
width of a woman's hand.  As much embrace as restraint, the get-up
inspired the same pleasure the corset had.  I could struggle as hard as
I wished with no fear of getting free.  I moaned when someone patted my
bottom.  At that point, I didn't care how loud I was or how many people
heard me.

I hoped enjoyment wouldn't be mistaken for submission, because I

couldn't hide what this did to me.  Ithrew my weight against the
chains, testing their comfort and strength.  The fur was soft, the
leather hard.  The metal clanked like Charles Dickens' Christmas
ghost.

It was good.

"Babe," Sean said, 'you were born for bondage."

The air moved as he bent closer.  To my surprise, he kissed me a
hungry, open-mouthed kiss, really eating at my mouth as if he couldn't
bear to leave one morsel un sucked As though that were a signal, the
watchers closed in on me.  Soft lips captured the peak of my breast.

Amy's, I thought, until I felt the slightest scrape of beard.  A zip
rasped.  A long, hard cock caressed the back of my thigh.  Hands teased
the hair that curled from my mound, fluffing and tugging, but never
touching skin.  Someone licked the crook of my elbow.  I shivered. That
had to be Amy.  The unfamiliar cock slid higher until its swollen knot
pressed the curve where my buttock met my thigh.  Its owner moaned and
clenched my hip.  A drop of pre- come wet my skin.  My pussy heated and
swelled.  My clit peeped out between my lips, catching the brush of a
small, light finger.  I twitched at the glancing contact and kissed
Sean harder, vowing I wouldn't plead not me but, boy, was I tempted.

All at once, my tormentors fell away.  Someone did up his trousers.  I
steadied my breathing as well as I could.

Sean's rough hand swept a curl from my forehead.

"Now say thank you, babe."

"Thank you, babe," I parroted.

This time my cheek received the open-handed slap.

"Say "Thank you, sir" or I won't remove that blindfold."

I hesitated, then decided getting the damn thing off would be worth
it.

"Thank you, sir."

He laughed.  For a moment, I thought he'd leave the blindfold on just
to tease me, but to my relief he removed it.

I blinked to clear my vision and again to clear my head.  My cosy
living room had been transformed into a bondage chapel.  Flowing black
velvet masked the windows, my antique furniture was shoved to the
walls, and white candles flickered on every surface that would hold
them.  If I'd known, I'd never have dared wrestle Sean to the floor.

Lou had thrown something into the fireplace to make the wood burn
blue.

The eerie light glinted off the stainless steel apparatus that held me
prisoner.

Have bondage frame, will travel, I thought.  I concluded the
contraption must belong to Lulu or Amy.  It certainly wasn't mine.  I'd
never tried anything this kinky though I might have fantasised once or
twice about tying down my ex.

A man I'd never seen before stepped into my field of vision.  He had
big brown eyes and an ash-brown crew cut a regular GI Joe in his khaki
T-shirt and camouflage trousers.  Shoeless, his bare feet paddled in
the carpet, long and thin.  Even by fire-light, I perceived a body so
honed he could have done fitness ads.  He had big shoulders, a narrow
waist, and precious little body hair.  His equipment filled his
trousers like an extra pair of socks.  Did that bulge contain the
towering love tool I'd felt rubbing up my thigh?

Whether it did or not, I must admit my jaw dropped in admiration.

"Like my toy?"  he drawled, gesturing to the rack.  His voice gave his
identity away.

"Lulu," I exclaimed.

"I mean, Lou."

"In the flesh."  He preened and I saw a shadow of the striking woman
who'd delivered Sean's invitation.

"Enough chatter," Sean said.

"Pull the rack to the centre of the room."

Both Amy and Lou jumped into action.  They unlocked the wheels and
turned me around until the fire warmed my front.  Then they locked it
down again.

"Lean forward and stick your butt out," Sean ordered.

"Further!  Joe, you and Amy steady her shoulders.  Lou, you're on
clean-up duty."

Clean-up duty involved removing Amy's paint job with a chamois cloth
soaked in oil.  Lou had nice hands, really nice.  Strong but slow, they
kept me at a fine pitch of arousal, lingering long enough to let me
know he didn't mind feeling up every bit of a woman there was.

Scan certainly had a flexible bunch of friends, up for anything.  I
squirmed as Lou's chamois-draped thumb made a thigh-quaking journey
around the inner folds of my labia.

"Sweet as honey," he murmured for my ears only.  His hip spooned
mine.

"You tell me the minute Sean removes the private property sign, 'cause
I sure would I like to dip my stick in that pot."

Suiting deed to word, he sneaked one finger out from under the cloth
and curled it into my dripping sheath, a quick, deep probe in and then
gone.

Sean didn't notice the pass, but Joe did.  His hand tightened on my
shoulder.  His lips thinned.  Was he jealous?  Anxious?  Or just hot?

All three, I hoped, too aroused for scruples.  Arching my back, I
thrust my buttocks higher.

Joe made a sound, both pained and hungry, and Amy reached over to cup
his crotch.

At once I wanted to tear her hand off at the wrist.  I hated her
touching him, but couldn't look away.  She palmed his arch, then
squeezed.  Joe shifted on his haunches.  His buttocks tightened,
lifting him into her hand.  I ground my molars together.  How could
he?

Then his dark-amber eyes met mine.  His lips moved.  I love you, I
thought he said.  Hot confusion burst in my chest.  Had he said it? Did
he mean it?  Did I want him to mean it?

I barely heard Sean order Amy to remove the paint that covered my
nipples.

Her first touch brought my attention back, however, as I'm sure Scan
wanted.  I had no experience with female lovers and her performance of
the intimate task unnerved me.  I didn't want her touch to excite me
but it did.  She didn't give me a chance to hide it, either.  Long
after the paint was gone, she played with my nipples, pulling and
twisting them.  After a while I was heaving in the chains, trying to
get more.  She knew exactly how hard to tweak me so the pain increased
the pleasure.  She knew when to stop, too.  Between her ministrations
and Lou's, I soon verged on coming.  She gasped to Sean that they'd
better call a halt.  My nails bit my palms, but I did not cry out.

"Right," said Scan.

"Now, we'll warm you up properly."

As if I weren't warm enough already!

The first spank came without warning, a loud smack across the meat of
my right buttock.

"Ow," I complained, in spite of myself.  Joe squeezed my shoulder in
commiseration, but this time he knew not to protest.

'"Ow"?"  Sean repeated.

"That earns you twenty more."

Ten came in a flurry, covering my buttocks with a delicate glow of
pain.  Left, right, up and down they smacked and then whack caught my
cheeks from beneath.  After that he slowed, letting me appreciate each
blow individually: the initial sting, the sharp sound, the jiggle of
the dildo as my flesh shook under the spanking.

I'm not sure when I began to enjoy it maybe from the start.  After the
first rain of smacks, the skin from my thighs to my waist radiated heat
and tingled with sensitivity.  My sex felt thick, juicy, and my arousal
endless.  I could go on like this forever, just slowly spiral upward
getting hotter and hotter until my hunger grew as sharp as coming.  I
know I stopped counting after ten and could have spat with annoyance
when Joe gasped that I'd had enough.

"She's pink," he panted, as though he'd been beaten, too.

"Give her a rest."

I moaned and wriggled my bottom in the air, pleading without actually
opening my mouth to say the words.

Sean knew better than to let me get away with that.

"What do you think, Katie?"  He settled one hand over my burning
flesh.

"Do you want me to stop?"

I whimpered, hardly believing that sound was coming from my throat.

"Do you?"  he whispered.

"No," I whispered back.

"No!"  He roared with laughter.

"Then we definitely should stop."

If I'd been free he wouldn't have wrestled out from under me then.  As
it was, I yanked at my bonds, |l writhing in anger.

"You know the word," he mocked.

"Say "Uncle" and I'll let you go."

"Damn you," I said.

"If you think you can master me with a two-minute spanking, you're
crazy."

"Wants more, does she?  Well, I'll give you more.  On one condition."

I bit my lip, not daring to ask.

"What condition?"  Amy whispered, almost melting into the floor at the
signs of my suffering.

Sean walked around the frame and kissed her.  That infuriated me, too,
though I couldn't keep my eyes off their working cheeks and tongues.

Wasn't I supposed to be the centre of attention?  And why did she have
to be so pretty, with her shiny blonde waves and her pert little
breasts heaving on her rib cage like a pair of tinned peaches?  Sean
covered one with his palm, squeezing it through her kitten-soft
sweater.  Joe watched the byplay as avidly as I did, his breathing
quick and shallow.  While one hand clutched my shoulder, the other
rubbed his cock and balls.  Too horny to resist, I guessed.

I despised them all; yet I wanted to screw them all.

"What condition?"  I demanded, making Sean's head snap around.

He wiped Amy's lipstick off with the back of his hand.

"On the condition that Joe takes the whip."

Joe ceased rubbing his goods.  He wagged his head from side to side.

"No way, man.  Not me.  You know I can't stand to hurt anyone."

Sean laughed, and not very nicely.

"Does she look like she's hurting?

Or does she look like she'll cream the floor with a little more
discipline?"

My heart sank at Joe's tortured expression.  He wasn't going to do it
and, damn it, I wanted him to.

"I can't," he said, his eyes pleading me to forgive him.

His skin glowed like old ivory in the candlelight.  I stared at his
graceful, restless hands, at his rising and falling chest, at the pulse
beating hard and quick in his throat.  He wanted to beat me so badly
that he could taste it.

"I can hardly bear to watch," he said, but his body denied the lie.  I
think he knew it, too, because his expression grew even more
miserable.

I looked away.

"C'mon, you do it, Sean/ Lou coaxed.  He gave Joe a sympathetic wink.

"You know you want to."

Scan glared, but I could see him waver.

I wanted to shake him.  A true master would have used this chance to
break Joe.  And why should Lou have a say?  Wasn't he a slave here,
too?  Even as my body tightened with frustration, my brain toyed with a
plan.  Sean's indecision opened a window of opportunity.  All I had to
do was figure out how to crawl through.

"Fine," said Sean, oblivious to the whir of my mental gears.

"I'll do it."

He extended his hand to Lou, obviously me keeper of the toys.

Grinning, Lou pranced over to the holdall he'd stowed on my camel-back
sofa.  Without wig, makeup, or heels.  Lulu appeared, as he tossed
paraphernalia from the bag a jockstrap, a padded bra, an assortment of
black velvet ties and, finally, a mahogany-handled, velvet-tongued
whip.

He slapped it neatly into Sean's waiting hand.

"Whip away, my master."

Despite my amusement, a trickle of cream ran down my thigh.

"Oh, man," said Joe.  Still kneeling in front of me, he caught the
trickle on his finger and carried it to his mouth.

Scan made us all jump by cracking the whip through the air.

The first lash stung like hell, as did the second.  I knew at once I
didn't like this as well as the spanking.  The whip wasn't as intimate,
and the glow it raised was less sensual.  By the fourth lash, I was
debating whether to cry "Uncle'.  It didn't hurt too badly, but it
wasn't much fun.

To my surprise, Joe stood before the whip could fall again.

"Sean."  He held out his hand.

"Your aim sucks.  Hand it over."

"What?"  Sean and I said at the same time.  What happened to my
protector, the man so soft-hearted he couldn't bear to watch?  Sean
wound the tail of the whip around his palm.

"What makes you think you can do any better?"

"I used to play flick the can with my Dad's bull whip."

"Your Dad's bull whip?"

Joe shrugged.

"We weren't allowed to use the deer rifles.  I always beat my brother,
and he was two years older than me."

Joe had a brother?  How could I not know that?  Why hadn't he mentioned
it?

The first crack of the whip startled the questions from my head.  This
time, I knew an expert held it.  The velvet licked my hip and tickled
my belly.  Again it descended, and again, never settling in the same
place twice.  It fell without hesitation, but in a pattern too subtle
to predict.  My body danced to its stinging syncopation.  I swayed in
my bonds and dreamt of a smoky jazz club me on the stage in a long,
slinky gown, tugging off a glove, easing a satin strap down one
shoulder.  They watched me, all of them.  Their lust beat at me through
the dark.

Dimly, I heard Joe sobbing for air, but the whip seemed separate from
his distress, as if it whipped me by itself.

My sense of yielding increased, of being able to sink deeper and deeper
into arousal.  Through slitted lids, I saw Lou stagger back into an
armchair.  He unzipped his khaki trousers and drew out a long
erection.

He punched one fist down it, then the other.  I cried out under the
whip for him and for the love of that long, rigid stalk.

My cry pushed Amy over the edge.  She yanked the black angora
turtleneck over her head, baring breasts every bit as soft and delicate
as I'd imagined.  Her upper body glowed in the glimmering light, and
she pulled and twisted her nipples just as she'd pulled and twisted
mine.  Lost in a private dream, her hips churned on nothing.

Her expression was so concentrated she might have been solving the
mysteries of the universe.  In my current state, nothing seemed more
natural than a crowd masturbating to the music of a whip whistling
towards my back watching me and being watched.  The lash curled between
my legs and hugged my pubis for one brief instant.  I shuddered with
pleasure.  Joe was so good at this.  He had no idea.

Overwhelmed with sensation, I sagged in my chains.

Immediately, Joe dropped the whip and ran around the frame.

"Are you all right, Kate?  Did I hurt you?"

His concern pulsed through me like living fire, but I couldn't
answer.

I could only moan with longing.  A Trappist monk wouldn't have mistaken
the sound for distress, but Joe crawled on to the platform and hugged
me.

"I'm sorry, Kate.  I'm sorry.  Please, please don't hate me."

"Kiss me," I said, slurring like a drunkard.

With a cry, he captured my mouth.  We kissed desperately, as if the
world were ending, as if we'd never make love again.  My body ached for
him to fill it.  I wanted to ram myself over him as brutally as I
could, and at the same time, I wanted to soothe every salty tear to be
kind, to be sweet, to wrench his heart with the pain of falling in
love.

To devastate us both.

"Enough," Sean said, a cold, cutting order.

Joe ignored him.  If anything, he clung tighter.  The whip sang down,
striking Joe's back.  Everything stopped at once our kiss, Lou and
Amy's masturbation.  Even the fire seemed to hush.  Joe stared at his
friend as though he'd lost his mind, but Scan stood firm.

"Back," he said, pointing with the doubled whip.

"Now."  Joe moved back, slowly, but he moved.

Sean replaced him before me, his belt at eye level.  He unfastened the
buckle, then pulled it from the loops so fast the leather hissed.  For
a heart-stopping moment, he swung the belt from side to side, then
tossed it to Lou.  The whip followed.  Such arrogance, I thought.  But
it was merited.  He didn't need those tools to master me, only the one
between his ears.

Knowing it would tease me, he dragged his hands up the bulge of his
balls and dick.  A wet spot at the midpoint of his zip proved how ready
he was.  I licked my lips.

At my telling gesture, Sean whipped open his trousers and released his
swollen cock.  It sprang out hard and full, bouncing once before
rebounding towards his belly.  His foreskin clung to the base of his
glans, as though the head was too swollen to allow full retreat.  My
sex contracted, wanting to test just how swollen he was.

Tat me."  He pushed his rod in my face.

"Nice and slow."

At that moment, getting someone else off was not my first priority, but
a woman like me is always game to take a taste, especially when the
cock du jour is such a fine, vigorous specimen.

My hair fell forward as I circled his glans with my tongue.  Sean's
knees locked.

"Easy," he said.  I hadn't licked him hard but he was primed to blow.

I licked again, even more softly, directly across the eye of his
cock.

His thighs flexed and released.  The prospect of a good long suck had
weakened his guard.  If I played my cards right, that guard might fall
altogether.

"Make it last?"  I asked.

"Oh, yeah," he growled.

"Make it last."

I leant closer to get at him.  The chains rattled.  Sean shuddered once
at the sound, and again as I licked my way slowly up his under-ridge.

I knew he'd lose it if I sucked him, so that's all I did: licked him up
and down and all around.  I kept my tongue soft and wet a comfort
lick.

Sean liked it so much he clasped his hands on either side of my head.

His guidance was firm but gentle.  Perhaps he feared a tighter grip
would lead me to intensify my efforts, which would bring him off sooner
than he wished.

Perhaps, too, he did feel some affection towards me.

As I lapped him with all the delicacy I could muster, his thumbs traced
the arc of my brows, smoothing them along the bone.  Soon his fingers
explored me as well, curving over my cheekbones and nose and jaw, as
though he loved the structure of my face.

Could I really plot revenge against a man who touched me so tenderly?

That's when it hit me.  Tenderness and domination were not inimical.

They fed off each other and strengthened each other.  If Sean had
succumbed to doubt, the way Joe had, he would have robbed me of a rare
pleasure.  His carefully restrained violence opened a side of my nature
I'd never suspected.

If I cared for Sean, could I do any less?

No, I thought.  No.

Confidence fountained up through my sex and belly.  My brain hummed
with clarifying energy.  I could do this.  I was chained but he was
putty in my hands.  His hips rolled forward.  I gave him the increase
in pressure he craved, but slowed until he sighed with every lick and
his ribs swelled with all the air he could draw.  The skin of his prick
tautened, strained to its limit.  He was fast reaching the point where
he'd think he'd die if he didn't come, where he had to, fucking had to
have it.

I ventured on to the crown again, teasing the rim of his crinkled
foreskin, giving it the tiniest nibble with the edge of my teeth.  His
pelvis jerked; he groaned.  I backed off and closed my mouth.  He took
himself in hand and pushed the head towards my suddenly inhospitable
lips.

"Suck it," he said in a voice like sandpaper.

"Open your mouth and suck it."  I opened my mouth all right just wide
enough to say "Uncle'.

Scan gripped my jaw.

"Don't fucking "Uncle" me now.  Suck it!"

Teeth clenched tight, I shook my head.

Lou burst out laughing.

"Oh, darling', she's got you now.  She doesn't have to do nothin' once
she cries "Uncle"."

"Shit, Kate, don't do this to me."  It was much more plea than order.

I cocked my head and contemplated his poor bobbing willy.

"I might suck you off, on one condition."

Sean crossed his arms.  He knew he wouldn't like it.

But Joe thought he would.

"What condition?"

"On the condition that Sean lets me tie him up."

"Forget it."  Sean's hands slashed the air.

"I don't care how blue my balls are.  The slave does not bind the
master."

But he didn't reckon on his fractious cohorts.

"Cluck, cluck," Lou mocked.

"What's the matter, Sean, not man enough to take it?"

"Yeah, Sean," Amy said, giving her breasts an impudent shimmy.

"Afraid to take what a woman dishes out?"

Then all three of Sean's handmaidens joined the fowl chorus.  His curse
was too blue to repeat, but as sure as chickens lay eggs, it held
surrender.  Yo-ho-ho, I thought, my arousal surging back in full
measure.  My turn.

Chapter Six Cruel to be Kind

The rack held no terror for Scan, so I couldn't tie him to that.

I tapped my lips in thought.  He stood rigid before the fire, his
erection jutting through his gaping flies.  Joe and Lou held his
arms.

He could have broken free, but that would have meant bruises all
around, which was not the point of this game at least, not the way Scan
played it.

"Amy," I said, 'why don't you undress him?"

I suspected he'd find her attentions as uncomfortable as I did.  Amy's
sexuality was so visual her scrutiny could make the comatose squirm.

Sean did bristle as she pushed his T-shirt up his ribs.  Still topless,
her back was a vision, ivory-pale and curved like a violin.

"Does that tickle?"  she asked in her sweet doll's voice.

Sean gritted his teeth.  Lou and Joe lifted his arms so that Amy could
remove the shirt.

"Oh, come see."  She waved me closer.

"His chest hair looks like gold in the fire-light."

I went to see.  His hair was fine and fair, and the steely hummocks of
his chest spoke of long hours at the gym.  My hands joined Amy's in
exploring his torso.  I skirted round one pee with my fingertips, then
meandered downI opened my mouth all right just wide enough to say
"Uncle'.

Sean gripped my jaw.

"Don't fucking "Uncle" me now.  Suck it!"

Teeth clenched tight, I shook my head.

Lou burst out laughing.

"Oh, darling', she's got you now.  She doesn't have to do nothin' once
she cries "Uncle"."

"Shit, Kate, don't do this to me."  It was much more plea than order.

I cocked my head and contemplated his poor bobbing willy.

"I might suck you off, on one condition."

Sean crossed his arms.  He knew he wouldn't like it.

But Joe thought he would.

"What condition?"

"On the condition that Sean lets me tie him up."

"Forget it."  Sean's hands slashed the air.

"I don't care how blue my balls are.  The slave does not bind the
master."

But he didn't reckon on his fractious cohorts.

"Cluck, cluck," Lou mocked.

"What's the matter, Sean, not man enough to take it?"

"Yeah, Sean," Amy said, giving her breasts an impudent shimmy.

"Afraid to take what a woman dishes out?"

Then all three of Sean's handmaidens joined the fowl chorus.  His curse
was too blue to repeat, but as sure as chickens lay eggs, it held
surrender.  Yo-ho-ho, I thought, my arousal surging back in full
measure.  My turn.

Chapter Six Cruel to be Kind

The rack held no terror for Sean, so I couldn't tie him to that.

I tapped my lips in thought.  He stood rigid before the fire, his
erection jutting through his gaping flies.  Joe and Lou held his
arms.

He could have broken free, but that would have meant bruises all
around, which was not the point of this game at least, not the way Scan
played it.

"Amy," I said, 'why don't you undress him?"

I suspected he'd find her attentions as uncomfortable as I did.  Amy's
sexuality was so visual her scrutiny could make the comatose squirm.

Sean did bristle as she pushed his T-shirt up his ribs.  Still topless,
her back was a vision, ivory-pale and curved like a violin.

"Does that tickle?"  she asked in her sweet doll's voice.

Scan gritted his teeth.  Lou and Joe lifted his arms so that Amy could
remove the shirt.

"Oh, come see."  She waved me closer.

"His chest hair looks like gold in the fire-light."

I went to see.  His hair was fine and fair, and the steely hummocks of
his chest spoke of long hours at the gym.  My hands joined Amy's in
exploring his torso.  I skirted round one pee with my fingertips, then
meandered down the valley of his breastbone.  Sean's tiny nipples
beaded in excitement.

Amy and I exchanged glances.

"One for each?"  she suggested, and we twined our arms around his
waist.

Sean moaned as we captured his nipples.  He pushed his chest towards
our mouths and tried to wrest free of Joe and Lou.  Neither allowed
escape, but Lou pressed behind me and ironed his cock into the small of
my back.  Joe did the same to Amy.  Bodies surrounded me Sean's hard
silk to my front, Amy's soft silk to my side, and the friction of
cock-filled cotton to my back.

"Hold on," I said, my voice ragged.

"Let's get his trousers off."

Amy took charge of that.  She bared one hip at a time, then dragged
jeans and briefs to his ankles, effectively hobbling him.  Crouched at
his feet, she sighed at the picture he made.

"Shoes, too?"  she asked reluctantly.

Amy did not like simple nudity, but I did.  I nodded.

When she'd stripped him off, we stepped back to admire him.  The men
held his arms out from his sides.  I'd seen weight-lifters without
Sean's definition, but he wasn't bulky.  The curves of his muscles
flowed smoothly along his limbs.  Of course, the best curve of all was
the up swung hook of his erection.

"You have a gorgeous body," I said.

"You make me want to pull you into my arms and samba."

To my amazement, Sean dropped his eyes.  Had no one gushed over him
before?  That would have to change.

It would wait, though, for now.  Rather than speak, I circled him.  My
eyes traced the high, taut swell of his buttocks, the vulnerable hunch
of his shoulder blades.  Lured closer, I dragged one finger down his
vertebrae to his cleft.  Gooseflesh broke out across his skin.  A
spring entered my step.  My limbs, so recently released from bondage,
swung strong and light.  Now was the time to plan, before my head grew
rudd led with lust.

What fear did Sean most need to overcome?

"Tell me something, Joe/ I said.  Joe blinked as if awakened from a
dream.

"When you and Sean make love, who's on top?"  Joe laughed.

"Oh, Sean's definitely a top."  A top.  The way he said it suggested a
code not only the person on top, but the person in control.  Hm.  A
pulse of interest flickered in my womb.  I remembered him saying Sean
never let him be tender.

I didn't want to ask my next question in front of our victim, so I
beckoned Joe to the sitting-room entrance.  We put our heads together
beneath the wide arch.

"When Sean climaxes, are you ever face-to-face?"  Joe tugged his
earlobe.

"To tell the truth, I couldn't tell you what he looks like when he
comes.  What he sounds like, yes, but..."  His voice slowed.  I think
he feels too naked at the, uh crucial moment.  He doesn't want anyone
getting too close."

"That's what I thought.7 I steepled my hands before my mouth.

Joe watched me for a moment before a beatific smile lit his eyes.

"I get it," he said.

"You intend to kill him with kindness."

I smiled back.

"Something like that.  But I need your help.  He's too proud to say
"Uncle".  I want you to watch him.  If you think I've gone too far, you
call a halt for him."

"I hope that's not all you want me to do."  I turned my head towards
the sitting-room.  Sean's golden brows shadowed his eyes, creased by
his stormy emotions.

"No," I said.

"I want you to do the things you've dreamt of doing, the kindnesses
he'd never accept.  But I think Lou and Amy will have to keep back.  I
don't want anything to ruin the sense of intimacy I'm trying to
create."

"I'll tell them."  Joe rubbed his freshly shaved jaw.

"They won't mind watching."  He said this as if he knew their
preferences well.  How many games had he played with them?  He smiled
at my suspicious expression.

"I'mguessing," he said.

"Don't you know what people enjoy almost as soon as you meet them?"

I didn't, as a matter of fact.  But if Joe did, no wonder Sean had kept
him under wraps.  I walked back to the others.

"We're going upstairs," I announced, 'to my bedroom."

Scan flinched at that.  Moving the game to my territory gave me the
upper hand.  Plus, it might seem irrational, but sex in a bed felt more
serious than sex on a sofa.  Fortunately, Sean couldn't protest against
a simple change of venue when I'd accepted a whipping.

Amy scooped Lou's holdall off the couch.

"I'll bring the toys," she chirped.

"I'll blow out the candles," said Lou.

Sean displayed no such cheer.  He trudged to my room like a prisoner
being led to his death.  His little death, I gloated as my new recruits
manoeuvred him on to my bed and stretched him out.

"Restraints?"  Amy suggested.  She snapped a black velvet strip in
front of her blossom-pink bosom.

"Be my guest," I said.

Naturally, she made a show of it, bending over and wriggling her burn
as she bound each wrist and ankle.  My bed sat in a heavy mahogany
frame with a tall headboard and a low foot board.  Pineapple-shaped
crests topped the four posts.  Amy looped the long black ties over
their spiky crowns, crisscrossing the cloth like a ballerina's laces.

When Sean was laid out in a handsome "X', she and Lou retired to the
dormer window seat.  She dropped her trousers before sitting, leaving
nothing but a tiny triangle of emerald satin to shield her from the
world.

"Nice," said Lou, and pulled off his khaki T-shirt.

Amy's pout stopped him from removing his baggy army trousers, though
she did allow him to unzip them and pull his cock through the vent of
his tight black briefs.  She wrapped her hand around the shaft, holding
but not stroking.  The sight of her delicate fingers on that long pole
sent a shiver up my sex.  Shivering a little himself, Lou hugged her
waist and cupped her mound through the green G-string.  They sat like a
pair over-sexed teenagers at a film, cheek-to-cheek and hand-to- sex,
waiting for the show to begin.

I hoped the show wouldn't disappoint them.

Joe and I consulted by the foot of the bed.  Sean stared daggers at us,
but his cock stood as eager as ever, a thick red stake angling back
towards his belly.

"What first?"  I asked.

Joe's fingers drifted over the swell of my nipples.

"Nothing too direct.  We don't want him to come straight off.  Maybe a
massage?"

Sean growled at that idea, but Amy popped up like a jack-in-the-box and
dug a bottle of oil from Lou's bag.  Joe caught it one-handed.  He
flipped the top up with his thumb and sniffed the subtle almond
fragrance.  He tipped the bottle towards me.

"Do you want the honours?"

"Oh, no, I think this is a four-handed job."

"Cripes."  Scan squirmed against the covers.

"Some dominatrix you make."

I smiled to myself.  Sean wasn't used to a top as devious as me.

"I

didn't give you permission to speak.  Perhaps we should gag that pretty
mouth."

"Fuck," said Sean, so I had to gag him.

He struggled as I tied it; he couldn't seem to help himself.  I guess
the gag threatened his control as strongly as the blindfold had
threatened mine.  Once he was gagged, there would be no more wisecracks
to obscure his reactions.  His body would speak for itself, loud and
clear.

"I think we should strip off," Joe said.

I hesitated, conscious of our audience, but he was right.  To create
the atmosphere I wanted, we had to be as vulnerable to Sean as he was
to us.  We removed our clothes as though no one but Sean was
watching.

The corset laces had left red marks on my belly.  Joe set the oil on
the mattress between Sean's legs so he could massage them, clucking and
kissing away the angry || weals.  A gasp from Amy told me she liked the
look of |t that.  Joe heard it, too.  His lips curled against my
navel.

Straightening, he tucked the oil between his thighs to warm it, which
reminded me my hands needed warming.

I ran my palms up his sides to the tufts beneath his arms, burrowing
through the musky tangle in search of skin.  He jumped when I found it,
then bent his neck to kiss me.  His tongue teased the silky inner
surface of my upper lip, then the lower, then slid sinuously along my
tongue.  A quick pull of his cheeks closed us both within the liquid
cave, licking, sucking, penetrating deeply before withdrawing.  I rose
up on tiptoe and mewled for more.  He gave it to me, covering my
breasts and compressing them in a slow, circling caress.  My nipples
budded between his fingers.

Our show proved too much for Sean.  Pained noises issued from behind
his gag.  I imagined how he must be feeling and moisture welled inside
me.  Joe's hands contracted, squeezing my rosy nipples out where his
friend could see them.  Sean thrashed against the sheets.  Excited by
his reaction, Joe's cock bobbed between our bellies, swaying like a
metronome.  I shuffled close enough to still it with my belly.  Joe
kissed me harder.

"Warm enough?"  he breathed against my lips.

I nodded, probably as starry-eyed as he.

We turned to Sean.  His legs scrabbled on the mattress as if he could
run from what was coming, but Amy's elegant knots prevented more than
an inch of play.

"Shh."  I grabbed his nearest foot and kneaded it.  Sean's back arched
off the bed.

"His feet are very sensitive," Joe confided.  He grinned at Sean's
muffled protest and poured a little slick of oil into my palm.

I knew why Sean wanted to keep his secret as soon as I rubbed the oil
into his instep.  Each stroke made him twist in his bonds until tendons
stood out along his joints.  Looking down at him, I felt a surge of
maternal affection.  He was so adorable in his resistance.  To me, at
least, his tough-guy facade was entirely transparent.  Inside was a
stubborn-jawed toddler insisting he always be in charge of himself.

Me do it.  Mommy.  Me.

Giving in to an impish impulse, I took hold of his big toe and wiggled
it back and forth.  This little piggy went to market," I crooned.

Sean's expression of outrage was priceless.  He was fighting so hard
not to enjoy this.  Too bad of' Willy gave him away by throbbing in
time to the nursery rhyme, virtually begging for more.

Happily, 'more' was my middle name.  I bent over the last little piggy
and tucked him into my mouth.  Sean roared his fury through the gag,
but when I swirled my tongue around the pad and sucked it, his entire
body went limp except for Willy, of course, who swelled and darkened
and wept shiny tears of joy.

What fun, I thought, delighted by his hypersensitivity.  We couldn't
massage his feet forever, though, not with so much lovely flesh to
explore.  Joe and I clambered on to the bed to work up his legs.  His
muscles were loose now, like clay beneath our oily hands.  Straddling
his knee, I pushed up and dragged down one heavy quad- ricep.  By
silent agreement, Joe and I skirted his genitals.  We sneaked a few
admiring looks at the twitching rod, but we didn't touch it or
ourselves.  Waiting was sauce for all our lust.

Sean's belly and chest occupied us for a good quarter of an hour.  His
moans faded to the occasional whimper of pleasure and his eyes had long
since closed.  For now, I allowed him this small escape.

His arms posed no challenge, such was his relaxation.  His hands,
however, required special attention.  The palms in particular were rich
in nerves.  Sean squirmed as we teased our thumbs across the sensitive
cup.  His eyelids fluttered.  Folding up like a Muslim at prayer, I
kissed the curled backs of his fingers.

"Wake up.  Sleeping Beauty.  Time for the main course."

His eyes opened slowly, dazed and dark with hugely expanded pupils.

His jaw worked on the gag.  I reached behind his neck for the knot.

"Let's take this off," I said.

The whites of his eyes betrayed alarm.  Good.  He knew the massage had
lulled him.  Now he feared what he might say in the heat of the
moment.

Once the cloth was free, he pressed his lips together.

I promised myself that would do him no good.

Joe crawled into the space between Scan and the headboard.  Crossing
his legs, he lifted Sean's head on to his lap, setting it off-centre to
allow room for his own erection.  He stroked Sean's hair and murmured
something sweet.  Joe had a perfect view of his face until Scan screwed
his eyes shut.

"Ah-ah-ah."  I straddled his waist and lightly slapped his cheeks.

"No hiding, handsome."

"Screw you," he said, the best comeback his trembling lips could
manage.

"I intend to," I said.

"Nice and slow and sweet.  And you know why?

Because I really want you to feel good, Sean.  I never expected to like
you so much but now that I do, I want to reach straight inside and
press our hearts together."

He clenched his jaw.  His hazel-green eyes glittered under a thin film
of tears.  Ruthless, I pressed the tender knife home.

"You're a good man, Sean Halloran.  Better than you know."

He blinked and a tear spilt over.  Joe bent to kiss it away.  Sean
flinched.

"You play rough," he said, his voice like gravel.

I played my fingers across his sensual mouth.

"Don't be silly.  I've barely started."  I tightened my thighs on his
waist.  Wary animal that he was, his torso shifted uneasily.  Poor
thing.  He had no idea what he was in for.

"Here are the rules," I said.

"You tell me what you want and I'll do my best to give it to you."

His mouth twisted.  I could see he thought this was a peculiar way to
dominate someone.

"Would you untie me?"  he asked.

"No.  Although, if you really need to get free, you know the
safe-word."  I ignored his huff of disgust.

"What I meant was you can tell me your preference faster, slower,
whatever."

"And you'll do it?"

"Probably."  I propped my hands on his pecs and shifted until my labia
hovered, plump and glossy, millimetres above his cock.  He was so hard
I'd have to pull the head away from his belly to take him, but he could
feel my heat now, and see the wet gleam of readiness when he tilted his
chin to his chest.

"Is this what you want, Sean?"  I parted my lips with two fingers,
spearing them to either side of my clitoris.  Engorged with blood, the
knot of flesh stood out full and red, twitching as the surrounding
muscles contracted and released.  Sean's mouth fell open.  The tip of
his tongue touched his front teeth.

"Or maybe you'd prefer something else?"

"No," he said quickly.

"I want my cock in your cunt."

Though the crude words were no stranger to his lips, they dissolved
into a heavy breath, as though too loaded to utter.  I was glad he
wanted to take me that way, but surprised he wanted it so much.

We'd never done it vaginally before.

But, hey, I liked first times.  Smiling, I lowered myself on to his up
swung shaft.  My flesh wrapped him, oiling his heat, sliding
voluptuously up and down his length.  His hips reared up, pressing
harder, adding his undulation to mine.

"Oh, yeah," he said.

"Oh, baby, get me wet."  He swallowed hard as my sheath released
another flood.

"Take me, Kate.  Take me now."

Before I could move, Joe restrained me by the shoulder.  His long,
smooth arm flashed to the bedside table's drawer and rummaged through
the contents.

"Aha."  He flicked a condom in Sean's face.

"Extra large, buddy.  She must have bought these with you in mind."

Sean's mouth quivered but he was too wired to joke back.  Intrigued by
their byplay, I gathered Sean's scrotum into my palms and rolled the
unstable weight across my finger bones.  Sean's thigh muscles jumped.

His eyes, however, never left Joe.

Carefully, Joe tore the wrapping and balanced the furled prophylactic
on the ends of his fingers.

"Want a drop of lube in the tip?"

"Yeah."  Sean shuddered.

I bent closer to watch Joe squeeze the lubricant in.

"What does that do?"

Joe grinned.

"Increases sensitivity.  Especially for those of us who come
accessorised."  He skinned Sean's foreskin back with his thumb,
demonstrating which accessory he meant.  Then he seated the condom over
his glans, squeezed the air out of the tip and rolled it down.

"There."  He patted Sean's juddering shaft.

"All dressed up and ready to roll."

Sean and I laughed at his expression of fraternal pride.  Sometimes Joe
was too cute for words.

Just then a soft, feminine cry split the air.  I didn't want to lose my
concentration, but I couldn't help looking back.  Neither could my
partners.  Lou had turned sideways on the window seat.  With one leg
crooked on the cushion, he held Amy by the waist and was lowering her
on to his lengthy prong.  The cry we'd heard must have been her
reaction to the first fraction of penetration.

"Don't mind me," she gasped, her face tightening as he eased her down
another inch.

"We're just getting comfortable."

Lou's hands looked spider long against her tiny waist.  His arm muscles
bulged.  My eyes widened.  I had to see her pubis meet his before I'd
believe she could take him.  The feat required a few angle adjustments,
plus some hand work, but they managed.  Lou's head fell back as she
hilted him.  His Adam's apple bobbed.

"Ah," said Amy, a happy sigh.  She wriggled closer and his hands
clapped round her buttocks to hold her still.  Awareness sizzled
through my nerves.  I knew they didn't intend to come until we did.

They're fine," Joe said, turning my attention back to Scan.

"And so are you," I purred to our victim.  I dragged my nails down his
chest hard enough to leave eight faint pink trails from collar bone to
hip.  The trails faded even as I captured his swollen cock and tugged
it to a more suitable angle.  Sean's breath hitched.

"Wait," he said.  Beads of sweat sparkled on his brow.  He hesitated
before explaining, probably deciding whether to trust me.

"Don't put me in yet.  Play the head around outside."

"I'm not sure what you mean," I said, even though I was.

"Shall I have Joe do it?"

He muttered something blasphemous.  It sounded like a 'yes' to me.

"I'd be happy to help," Joe said.

His hand skied down the slopes of Sean's chest, fingers spread until
they caught the base of his cock.  With his thumb he guided the shaft,
tipping it gently between my folds.  He had such beautiful hands:

long, brown fingers and strong, oblong palms.  Watching him handle Sean
gave me as big a thrill as the slow circling of that fat red knob.

Round and round Joe slid it, teasing it past my slippery clit, dipping
it into the whorl of my vagina.  Lush, wet noises rose from my sex.

Sean struggled to get a better view by using his bonds to lift his
upper body.  When he saw what I saw, he began to pant with
excitement.

A drop of sweat rolled down the side of Joe's face.

"Had enough yet?"

"Yeah," Sean rasped, and Joe pressed his crown inside my entrance.

Fire shot up my spine.  He was thick and full and unfamiliar.  That was
a potent thrill, spiced with the slightest edge of guilt.  The heat of
him scorched me; the width entranced.  I vowed I'd sample this treat
again.  Of course, I'd have to ensure Scan liked it enough to want
to.

With that in mind, I stretched my tender tissues around his bulk.  His
under-ridge was so pronounced, it rubbed me like a finger.  Sighing
with pleasure, I pressed down until Joe's forefinger and thumb were all
that kept me from the hairy root.

Joe would have let go, but I clasped his wrist.

"Stay.  Let him feel both of us."  Sean's cock pulsed in agreement.  I
leant forward across Joe's arm, close enough for my breasts to warm
Sean's chest.  His eyes locked with mine, quivering with strain.

"Fast or slow?"  I asked, not sure myself which answer I wanted to
hear.

He bit his lip in indecision.  I swivelled my hips once, a quick
half-stroke.

"Fast or slow, Sean?"

"Fast," he said.  His pelvis jerked upward.

"Fuck me hard, Kate."

I pressed up on my arms again, set my knees firmly for balance and
proceeded to work us both, quick hard thrusts that kept him well inside
me and slammed my jangling clit against the back of Joe's hand.  Joe
held him steady, so I rose higher and drove back faster.  I pulled up
to the flare, tightening inside and giving it a little tug.

Sean cried out.  His head thrashed in Joe's lap.  Sensation gathered in
my sex, centring on the velvet-wrapped steel inside.  Images of
everything I'd been through tonight bombarded me: the corset, the
spanking, sucking Sean to the point of coming.  My sex ached and
throbbed.  I wanted that release so badly, I forgot the reason I'd tied
him to the bed in the first place.

"Come on."  I slung myself up and down that sweet, hard rod, rising
higher and higher until the need to come was so urgent, it hurt.

"Come on, come on."

My back stiffened.  My sheath clutched his cock.  Still the climax
eluded me.  Then fingers pinched my clit Joe's fingers.  Fireworks
burst in the tiny shaft and roared upward.  I closed my mouth against a
scream, coming so hard my head flew back like a whiplash victim.

Shudders rippled through me, honey-wet, knife-sharp spasms of
rapture.

When I came to myself, Sean was still hard inside me and shaking with
thwarted lust.

"I'm so sorry."  I dropped a penitent kiss to his lips.

"I lost control."

Rather than complain, Sean jerked his mouth to mine.  The pressure of
his lips pulled me in for a deep, wet kiss.  He tugged on his bonds.

"Finish me," he said.

"Please, Kate.  I need it.  Please."  Again, he yanked at his ties,
harder this time.

"Uncle, damn it.  Uncle.  Let me go."

Joe freed his wrists in what had to be record time, but Sean was too
impatient to wait for him to loosen his ankles as well.  He sat up,
flung his arms around me, and squeezed me so tightly I lost my
breath.

He showered my face with kisses, nipping the tip of my nose, licking
the side of my cheek.  His hands slid down to cup my bottom.

"Make love to me, Kate.  Show me you want me.  Let me feel how much you
care."

My throat tightened.  Did he think I was lying before?  I clasped his
golden head to mine.

"I care, Sean.  I do."

He groaned as I moved on him, my body wet and soft, my eyes brimming.

But Joe's eyes sparkled with mischief.  He wrapped himself around Sean
so that his front supported Sean's back and his thighs bracketed
mine.

He stuck his finger in his mouth and wet it.  He winked at me.

His hand burrowed under Sean's buttocks.  Sean gasped as it found a
home.

"Just a little deeper," Joe said, twisting to get at him more easily.

Til be there in a tick."

I knew the moment he found his target because Sean whimpered and his
cock jerked inside me, twanging with eagerness.  I thought his next
instructions would be for Joe to 'rub harder, man' or 'push it in
good'.  But he surprised me.

He hugged me tighter.  His lips grazed my ear.

"Say you love me," he whispered.

My heart stopped.  Sean's must have, too.  He went board-stiff.

"I

didn't mean that.  It just came out."

I threw my head back on a laugh and sank down on him again.  I'd show
him no mercy now.  He knew it, too.  He sobbed for air, so close to
orgasm he couldn't bear to pull out.

"I didn't-' He met my thrust with his own, more determined to reach his
goal than to deny what he hadn't meant to say.

"I didn't - Oh, yes, like that.  Do that again.  Oh, sweetheart."

"And now you forget to call me "babe"," I teased, repeating the motion
he'd liked, a quick swivel down his rod.

Tuck."  He panted hard, double-thrusting through my twist.

"I'll call you sweetheart if I wan- Oh, God, I'm going to come."

With that he lost his powers of speech.  He wrenched my thighs apart,
then planted his hands behind his hips so he could pump deeper.  Our
bellies slapped together, sweaty and frantic.  His face contracted in
agony of suspense, mouthing some word he had no breath to speak.

Aching with sympathy, I pinched his nipples.  His breath whooshed
out.

His cock swelled.  Lips drawn back in a snarl, he heaved into me once,
twice, and then shattered.

"Y-yes," he groaned, finishing the stroke with a slam.

He spilt hard.  His cock twitched so strongly inside me I toppled over
the edge in a swell of heat, a climax as comforting as swan's down.

A duet of sighs told me Lou and Amy had timed their crises to match
Sean's.

When the last spasm faded, Joe helped me extricate myself from Scan,
who had collapsed limp and sighing on the bed.  Joe dispensed with his
condom and I tidied his flaccid penis with a warm face cloth A drowsy
smile softened Sean's rough-and-tumble features.  It seemed he liked
being babied, after all.  Spoilt brat, I thought fondly.  His ankles
were still bound and, too sated to worry about what he might have said,
he let his legs fall open like a frog's.  Joe untied the last two
velvet straps and threw half the coverlet over him.

Then he turned and offered me a courtly bow, no less graceful for his
nudity or his phenomenal erection.

"Mistress," he said in a tone of profound respect.  I laughed, but I
liked the sound of it.

"Yes, Joseph?"  He straightened and spread his arms, allowing his dusky
cock to make a mute request.

"Yes," I said, beaming my approval.

"I believe I did save a little room for you."

Dawn hadn't broken when I heard someone pounding on the front door.

Joe was out for the count, but Scan and I sat up.  We looked at each
other, both pushing hair out of our eyes.

"Lou wouldn't come back at this hour," he said.

"He's too polite.  And Amy couldn't knock that hard."

The pounding resumed and was joined by the buzzer.

"I better go see who it is."  My pulse skittered as I threw on my
dressing gown.  Had someone had an accident?  Was my ne'er-do-well
brother in trouble again?

Sean scrambled out of bed behind me.

"I'm coming with you."

He didn't wake Joe, but he did grab my favourite fireplace poker.

When we reached the second floor, we heard the words that accompanied
the pounding: "Police.  Open up."

My gaze shot to the living room.  Amy and Lou, bless them, had returned
everything to its former innocuous state.

With a deep breath to steady my nerves, I flipped the mortice lock.

Two uniformed officers waited outside the door, their hands on their
holsters, their stance wary.

"Hello, ma'am," said the nearest.

"We received a report of a racket here tonight."

My fingers tightened on the door.

"A racket?"

"Loud noises.  Shrieking."  He peered behind me and caught sight of
Sean and the poker.

"Want to put that down, sir?"

"Sorry."  He set it against the wall.

"We didn't know who could be pounding on the door this late."  The
officer grunted.  It was not an apology.

"Mind if we take a look around?"

I stood back as the policemen entered.  Between them, they took two
steps into the living room, three into the dining room, and one up the
stairs.  Thorough fellows, those Philly cops but I was glad for their
lackadaisical attitude tonight.

"You folks have a party here?"

"No-o," I said, with a reasonable facsimile of confusion.  I thanked
heaven Joe hadn't woken.  He couldn't lie to save his life.  I nodded
towards the VCR.  A copy of Silence of the Lambs sat on top Sean's
pick, of course.

"We were watching horror movies, but I can't imagine it was loud enough
to "Some people are more sensitive to noise than others," said the
second cop.  He was young and still fit.  He tugged his belt higher on
his trim waist.  I hoped Sean wasn't ogling him.

"You said "we"," he continued.

"You and your boyfriend the only ones here?"

"Uh, yeah," I said, startled to hear Sean referred to as my
boyfriend.

"And our lodger.  He's asleep now."

"Hm/ said the younger cop, but I could tell he wasn't suspicious.

"Must have been the TV then.  Next time watch that volume."

"Yes, sir," I said, and thanked them for coming round.

The door shut behind them.  Sean scratched his head.

"We weren't that loud, and you certainly didn't shriek."

"Maybe the neighbours He blew a breath out through his Ups.

"Your left-side neighbours are out of town, and old Mrs.  Perelli is so
deaf she'd sleep through a hurricane.  Believe me, I'd have found
somewhere else to play if that weren't the case."  Yawning, he sat on
the bottom stair and propped his shoulder on the banister.

"I think you've got an enemy, Kate."

The?"  I tightened the sash of my dressing gown.  My scalp prickled.

"Who cares what I do?"

He pinned me with a speculative stare.  Green flashed in his hazel eyes
a cold colour, very self-contained.

"Your ex, maybe."

"He's too busy planning his wedding to Marianne's teenage daughter.

Besides, there would be no way for him to know.  I don't blab about my
sex life, not even to my friends."

Scan cracked his knuckles.

"Neither do I, and neither would Lou or Amy.  They're old hands at this
scene.  They know better."

I sat next to him and sighed.

"Then who?"

"Someone who thought the cops would get here early enough to break up
our fun."

I chuckled at that.

"Whoever it was, they don't know Philly cops very well."

Yawning again, Sean heaved to his feet.

"We'll talk about it tomorrow.  Maybe Joe can think of an
explanation.

At any rate' he offered his hand to help me up '-we'll find the
spoilsport and squash him like a bug.  Scout's honour."

Scout's honour.  That must have been some troop.

Sean slid the brown sugar to Joe's side of the table.  With his speedy
metabolism, Joe didn't believe in eating porridge plain.

"What about your uncle?"  Sean asked.

"Can he find out who tipped off the police?"

Joe took a quick bite and swallowed.

"He doesn't work in this area, but I guess he could ask around."

"Your uncle is a cop?"  I offered him the raisin box.  First a brother,
now an uncle.  What else didn't I know about Joe?

Joe shook some raisins into his bowl.

"Thanks.  Good sex makes me hungry.  And, yes, my uncle is a cop a
detective."

I pondered the implications of his relative's career.

"How will you explain why you need to know who made a noise
complaint?"

"I'll tell him the truth, or most of it.  He'll understand."  Joe
grinned.

"Uncle Joey likes to wear women'sunderwear.  Strictly off-duty, you
understand.  He's happily married and has three kids.  I was named
after him."

My spoon halted halfway to my mouth.

"Your parents named you after the family cross-dresser?"

"They didn't know at the time.  He only told them two years ago.  Ever
since, my dad has blamed Uncle Joey for everything he thinks is wrong
with me."

Sean grimaced but Joe's smile shone with good humour.  When God handed
out bitterness, he must have skipped Joe.  His father's bigotry didn't
seem to bother him at all.

"Originals must run in the family," I said.

Joe urn-hummed around another mouthful.

"You bet.  My Grandma Rose was a fan dancer.  My mom's a pet therapist
and my dad is a conspiracy-theory junkie."  Joe put on a fierce father
face.  '"Trust me, son, the government knows more than it's telling."

"And then there's Al" Sean added.

"Al?"

Joe rolled his eyes.

"Al is my big brother.  He's a corporate lawyer.

He married a nice Catholic girl.  They have two normal kids, one normal
dog, and a house in | the suburbs.  It's all very bourgeois.  Of
course, in my family, that is eccentric."

"Does he know about?"  I glanced at Sean, wondering how to describe
their relationship.

"Oh, sure," said Joe.

"If I didn't tell my family, I'd have to worry about them finding
out.

Mom's cool with it, Dad flipped his lid, and Al leaves the room if
anyone mentions Sean.  He still loves me, though, so I try to be
patient with him."

Scan put his head in his hands and wagged it back and forth.

"What?"  Joe shovelled in another spoonful.

"Nothing.  I just wonder what planet you come from sometimes."

"What's wrong with telling my family things?  We're close."

"There's nothing wrong with it.  It's great.  But most guys would be
afraid to tell their parents they're sleeping with another man."

Joe shoved his empty bowl aside and slouched back, hands folded over
his flat belly.

"Your family knows."

"Yeah, but it took me four years to work up the nerve.  Even now I
haven't told them about Kate."

Joe crinkled his forehead.

"Neither have I. I wonder what that means."

I fluttered my lashes at the pair of them.

"It probably means I'm too special to share."

"You know," Joe said, 'you're probably right."

I glowed for a minute, flattered as anything, then started upright in
my chair.

"Larry," I said, hardly aware my brain had been working.

Sean set down his spoon.

"Larry?"

"The obnoxious estate agent.  The one you hung up on.  Maybe he was
skulking around last night to check out the competition."

"You might have something there."  He smacked his fist into his palm.

"If it is him, I hope he's not too hard to discourage."

I covered Sean's fist with my hand.

"Promise me you won't do anything crazy."

"Who me?"  He laughed.

"I never do anything crazy.  At least, not if I can get caught."

FR1;Chapter Seven With Friends Like These J'd forgotten all about my
supposed enemy by the tune I reached work.

Too many honeyed memories crowded out the worry.  I didn't even care
that I was an hour and a half late; my very joints felt oiled with
pleasure.

Regrettably, the scene that greeted me broke the mood.

I found Marianne berating Keith, our foot-fond assistant, for
mis-shelving some books.

"How many times do I have to tell you?  The big names go cover out."

"But I didn't know."  Keith's face was pink.  He gripped the sales
counter as though it were his only shield.  Perhaps it was.  He might
be six foot something and a competitive rower, but he was a nice boy,
the kind who would never hit a woman, no matter what.  Unfortunately
for him, Marianne looked ready to vault over the counter and claw him
leather miniskirt and all.

"How could you not know?"  she demanded, her voice loud enough to turn
customers' heads.

"Nora Roberts is one of the biggest names there is."

"Marianne," I said, using the tone I reserved for misbehaving children
and dogs.  It wasn't nice, but it worked.  She spun around to face me,
frustration written in every line of her pale, skilfully powdered
face.

"But he-' I pointed towards the office.

"In private, Marianne.  I'll join you in two minutes."  I turned to
Keith, who fiddled with the cash drawer.

Apparently, my intervention embarrassed him as much as Marianne's
attack.

"Probably just PMS/ he mumbled.

"I don't care if it's a brain tumour.  She has no right to snap your
head off.  You're our most reliable employee.  In fact, I plan to
promote you to day manager at the end of the month assuming the hours
fit your class schedule."

Keith stared at me in shock.  Then he smiled, revealing sparkling white
but crooked front teeth.  With his tousled brown hair and the
smattering of freckles across his nose, he resembled an overgrown
Mouseketeer.

"Are you kidding?  I'll make the hours fit.  Oh, Ms Winthrop, you won't
be sorry."

"I know I won't."  I patted his shoulder.  Had I ever been that
earnest?

When I entered our office, Marianne was crying over her keyboard,
noisy, racking sobs.  My anger faded.  Crouching by her chair, I rubbed
her slender forearm.

"Marianne, honey, what's wrong?"

She waved her arm with a jangle of sterling silver bracelets, too
overwrought to speak.  Her straight black hair curtained her face.

"Is my brother still arguing about the property settlement?  Or did
Brenda ask to borrow your wedding dress again?"

She shook her head and buried her nose in a tissue.

"It wasn't them.

It Oh, I don't want to talk about it."

"That's a first."  I pressed my palm to her forehead.

"Should I call a doctor?"

"Only if he's well-hung."

Reassured by her returning sense of humour, I pushed to my feet and
tugged her black velveteen sleeve.

"How about me treating you to lunch today?"  I wagged my brows.

"Le Bee-Fin?"  She sniffled and lifted her head.  I noticed she'd
barely mussed her make-up.

"We haven't got a reservation."

Normally, she would have had a point.  The exclusive restaurant had won
so many awards, two weeks was not too long to wait for a table.

Today, however, I had an ace up my sleeve.

"Remember that special order I filled for the maitre d', the Japanese
pillow books?  He'll find a corner for us.  We'll kill a bottle of wine
and you can tell Auntie Kate all about it."

"Nice wine?"

I grinned.  Marianne had a practical soul.

"I'll let you pick."

She adjusted her silver Hermes scarf.

"All right.  I'll get my coat."

"But it's only 10.30."

"So what?  I need a drink now, not at noon."

As soon as we arrived, the elegant French atmosphere put me at ease.

The same was not true of Marianne.  She fussed over a microscopic speck
on her fork, and a draught, and then one of the chandeliers was glaring
in her eye.  The waiter, who'd gone beyond the call of duty to seat us
well, satisfied every complaint with a bow and a smile.  I resolved to
leave him a generous tip and waited for Marianne to calm down.

The truth came out midway through the second bottle of Chateau
Smith-Haut Lafitte.

"You knew I wanted them and you slept with them anyway."

Trying not to choke on my trout almandine, I pressed my napkin to my
mouth.

"That's what was bothering you?  Come on, Marianne.  We're not
teenagers.  I'm not obliged to avoid everyone you might have a crush
on."

"But you lied to me."  She threw back an angry swallow of the pricey
wine.

"You told me they were gay."

"I was trying to save you some embarrassment."

"Hah!"

"Marianne, they showed no interest in you."

Her mouth formed a bitter, red moue.

"They never had a chance.  You kept them under lock and key."

That is not true."  Actually, it was sort of true, but I ignored the
niggle of guilt.  I leant forward and caught the calming scent of the
white carnations that filled our table's vase.  I lowered my voice.

"Joe was in and out of the shop for months before we started
anything.

Every time you saw him, you made a pass at him.  He didn't respond to
your overtures once.  Face it, Marianne, you were this close to making
a pest of yourself."

She toyed with her salmon mousse.

"You don't have to be nasty about it."

"But you don't listen when I'm nice."

She pouted.

"It's just You always get what you want."

I collapsed against my chair's medallion back.

"You can't really believe that.  Did I get what I wanted when my
husband ran off with your daughter?"

This was not a good topic to raise.  Marianne's eyes narrowed to
glittering grey slits.

"Maybe you did get what you wanted.  You certainly didn't fight very
hard to keep him."

"Christ, Marianne-' But I shut my mouth before I could say anything I'd
regret.

"Maybe we'd better postpone this conversation until we're both thinking
clearly."

"Fine."  She tossed her hair over her shoulder.

"I know when I've struck a nerve."

She made me so mad I ordered Triple Chocolate Torte for dessert, then
ate so fast I barely tasted it.  My sugar high crashed before the cab
dropped us back at the bookshop.

Cursing myself for being so self-destructive, I returned Keith's cheery
wave with half my heart.  Depression weighted my feet;

disillusion, my spirit.  I wasn't like Sean and Joe.  I didn't have so
many friends I could afford to write one off.

I thought of all the things Marianne had done for me since she'd
married my brother.  Too many times to count, she'd been my sole family
ally.  At sixteen, she was my role model, then my drinking buddy, and
now my business partner.  I knew she wasn't perfect, but neither was I.
How could I fail to admire a woman who embraced life so fearlessly?

Everything considered, her friendship had enriched me more than I could
measure.

On the other hand, if she blamed me for all her woes, what sort of
friendship did we have?

"Thanks for lunch," she said, dropping an airy kiss to my cheek.

"I

feel much better."

I almost told her I'd promoted Keith then, so she could finish the day
as crabby as I'd begun it.

The walk home worked off most of my anger and, I hoped, the chocolate
torte.

Despite the nip in the air, I arrived sweaty.  To my complete
befuddlement, a construction crew was tramping through my house.

"Hey!"  Joe bounded into the hall with a smile the size of Texas.

"You're home.  Scan and I have a surprise for you."

One of the big hairy guys grunted and tipped his fingers at me.  Two
others wrestled a board shrouded in bubble-wrap down the hall.

"I can't begin to guess," I said.

Joe rose up on his toes.

"It's a exercise room!  Or it could be.

Sean's Uncle Mike owns a demolition firm.  He salvaged this great
cherry-wood panelling from a condemned mansion.  And some fixtures,
too.  Victorian, I think."  He faltered at my uneasy expression.

"Don't worry, Kate.  It's quality goods.  You'll love it."

"It's not that."  I stepped back into the dining room to avoid another
pair of panel carriers.  Joe joined me.

"I'm just wondering how much this is going to cost me."

Joe looked hurt.

"Nothing.  It's a present from Sean and me.  His uncle's crew is
bringing the stuff over for free, and Sean and I will install it.  Sean
knows all about building codes and renovation, and you know I follow
orders well."

That made me smile.

"You're right.  It's a wonderful idea."

"It doesn't have to be a gym," he hastened to assure me.

"I just thought we could put a treadmill or something down there and
then you won't have to walk outside when it's icy."

"Very thoughtful."  I linked my arms behind his neck and tipped our
hips together.

"You don't mind us, you know, making ourselves at home?"

His honey-brown eyes shot spears to my heart.  I only wished this
nesting urge could last.

"I don't mind."  I brushed his lips with mine.

"Making yourself at home by renovating my basement is much better than
leaving the toilet seat up or throwing socks on the floor."

Joe smiled and rubbed our noses together.

"You throw socks on the floor more often than we do."

"True enough."  Happiness bubbled through my veins as we swayed by the
dining room table happiness, and a persistent prick of fear.

If my seventeen-year friendship with Marianne couldn't last, why did I
think our fragile menage would?

Partly because I love learning how things work, and partly out of
camaraderie, I joined the renovation effort.  From the start, I knew we
were constructing an implausibly swanky gym.  The cherry-wood panelling
put me in mind of an exclusive gentlemen's club, as did the acid etched
art nouveau lighting fixtures.  Once Sean cleaned and rewired them,
their quality shocked me.  I asked if he was certain his uncle knew
what he'd given away.

Sean set the wire cutters aside.

"If you're worried, send his wife a basket of books.  She loves that
Maeve Binchy woman."  He scratched his rock-hard belly through his
Tshirt.

"Course, my uncle will thank you if you include some goodies from the
back room.  Aunt Maire can roll when she's in the mood."

I frowned.

"A basket of books isn't worth all this."

"It is if Aunt Maire decides to treat my uncle to a hot weekend away
from the kids."

Well, I could see where Sean got his priorities.  He proved a finicky
task master over the next few months I believe Joe and I pleased him,
however.  We did as we were told and only argued over important things,
like meal breaks and sleep.  Sean had a tendency to obsess over
finishing a task.  Then Joe and I would join forces to seduce him.  We
christened our gym many times before it held a single weight.

After a while, I developed a Pavlovian response to the sound of hammer
hitting nail.  One clanging blow and my pussy was awash.

But the project changed us in deeper ways.  As we worked, we talked
about our childhoods, about our loves and hates, even our ambitions.

I didn't want to think too hard about my future because I suspected
they wouldn't be in it, but I liked hearing them dream.  Sean wanted to
start his own accountancy firm so he could work six months and play six
months.  Joe wanted to be the next Andrew Lloyd Webber.

"Only better," he qualified.

"No one should roll their eyes at my musicals."

The confession, and our failure to laugh at it, helped him overcome his
inhibitions.  He began to sing more around the house.  The traditional
shower-time warble was joined by cookery medleys and ironing arias.

Some nights he even sang us to sleep.  Fortunately, he had a beautiful
tenor, just husky enough to remind me of sexy things like whisky and
velvet or, better yet, postcoital hoarseness.

One day, I caught him singing in his room.  He still studied and kept
his clothes there, though by this time his cologne scented my room more
strongly than his own.  I watched him from the door.  He sat with his
broad shoulders bent over the second-hand desk, holding his hair off
his face with one hand.  He hummed each phrase a few times before
scribbling it in a stave-ruled notebook.  The pen didn't falter once.

I imagined real artists worked this way, with this furious
concentration.  I knew I held no part of his thoughts.  I knew he
inhabited a world entirely of his own making.  Nothing but sex or a
great book had ever caught me up so completely.  I envied him even as a
soft pulse of interest warmed my loins.

I wanted him, this private Joe, this independent Joe.  But I held back
and let the feeling simmer.

Finally, he pushed the notebook aside, ran both hands through his hair,
and stretched the kinks from his spine.  Unable to resist, I padded up
behind him and buried my fingers in his gleaming locks.  He jumped,
then sagged back to enjoy the scalp massage.

"How long were you standing there?"

"A few minutes.  I didn't want to interrupt."  I blew lightly in his
reddened ear.  He rewarded me with a shiver.

"I was just messing around," he said.

I counted the stack of notebooks that sat on the metal shelving above
his desk.  There were six altogether, and every one was as dog-eared as
the one he'd shoved aside.  If they all held musical scores, he'd been
'messing around' a long time.

Smiling, I slid my hands down the front of his crisp blue Oxford
shirt.

"You smell of starch," I said into the smooth cord of his neck.  His
pulse thudded under my lips.

"Just a little."  His voice was thready.

"I like to use it when I iron."

"I know."  I let my hands venture farther, down over his hipbones and
on to the hard, slim muscle of his thighs.  A knife-crease pleat
bisected the front of his tan slacks.

"I like the way you iron.  It makes me want to dishevel you."

His laugh escaped on a choked exhalation.  A hill was forming between
his legs, lifting the neatly pressed cotton.  As it rose, I measured it
with my thumbs, testing its resilience and size.  His legs fell open.

"Close the door," he said, and I knew he meant for this to be one of
'our' times.

We hadn't had one in more than a week and I needed it, too.  As
exciting as our threesomes were, my nature craved the one-on-one
intimacy Joe and I shared.  I had my sweater halfway off before the
door swung shut.

Joe turned his chair sideways.  He stared at my pink satin camisole, at
the beaded tips of my breasts, then attacked his collar button.

"We don't have long," he said.  He watched me push my narrow,
knee-length skirt down my legs.  He moistened his lips.

"Sean's due home in half an hour."

"Half an hour will do it for me."  I kicked my tights away and gestured
to my camisole.  On or off?  asked my silent mime.  We had our own
shorthand now.

"On," he said.  His chest muscles flexed as he wrenched out of his
shirt.

"But take the bra off, and the panties."

I did as he asked, then fought a smile when he tripped over his feet
trying to get his clothes off and watch me at the same time.

I bent to retrieve his trousers.

"You should fold these," I said, but before I could save his ironing
job, he scooped me off my feet and tossed me on to his neatly made
single bed.

"Don't waste time."  He plummeted on to me wearing briefs and socks and
nothing else.  He nuzzled my neck.

"Once is not going to be enough for me.  I miss having you to
myself."

His words liquefied inside me like sugar over a flame.  I squirmed down
until his hot, humid crotch met mine.  Cursing sweetly, he pressed me
into the mattress so hard the springs creaked.  His cotton-covered cock
delved between my swollen lips, its warmth catching, its firmness a
powerful inspiration.  Wanting more pressure, I gripped the sides of
the bed.

"Mm, Joe."  I heaved my body towards his, my face level with his
shoulder.

"This bed makes me feel like I'm seducing a teenager."

"Does it really?"  His hand slid up my silky camisole to capture one
breast.  He squeezed the nipple between finger and thumb.

"I hope you enjoy making love like a teenager, too, because all the
condoms are in your room."

I groaned in disappointment.

"I could run up quick."

"No way."  He underscored his refusal with a forward roll of his
hips.

"I want my full thirty minutes and not a second less."  Craning his
neck, he kissed his way across my collar bones feathery kisses
interspersed with delicate licks that made me shiver with delight.

"Shall I try to remember how it was?"

"How what was?"

"To be a teenager, to see a naked woman for the first time."

"That was so long ago, wasn't it?"  I mocked, even as I tangled my
hands in the thick, warm silk of his hair.

He hummed against my neck, a snippet of song.  The sound vibrated
through my nerves, tingling and pooling in the cache between my legs.

I hummed back and he laughed.  Then he lifted his head.  His face,
filled with humour a second ago, now held a look of tremulous
expectation.

My breath caught.  I always thought of Joe as vulnerable but this, this
was the vulnerability of an adolescent boy, racked by unfamiliar
desires, restrained by insecurity.

"Oh, my."  I fanned my cheeks, experiencing my own hormonal surge.

His bulging cotton briefs soaked up the sudden rush of moisture from my
sex.  The strength of my response embarrassed me.  I would have hidden
it, but we notched each other too intimately for that.  I tensed.

"No," he said, his breath puffing hot against my ear.  His shaft rocked
deep into my vulva and I soaked him again.  He kissed my cheek.

"When we're alone, we can play at any fantasy we want.  It should turn
us on."  He drew back and held my gaze.

"We both know what you would and would not do in real life."

I locked my ankles behind his hairy, sine wed thighs.

"Do we?"

"Yes," he said, and slipped into character as easily as woman donning
lipstick.  He fanned shaky fingers across my upper chest, catching the
spaghetti-thin straps, of my camisole on his pinkies.

"May I, Katherine?  May I look at your breasts?"

"Where are your parents?"  I whispered.

He went very still.  He must not have realised I wanted to play at
being the same age.

"They'll be gone all night.  We have all night, Katie."

"Then, yes," I said, my eyelids heavy with desire, my sex thrumming
against his.

"Look at anything you want."

He caught his lower lip between his teeth and eased the lacy bodice
down, baring my left breast, then my right.  Light as air, he stroked
the skin to either side of my nipples.  They stood prouder at the
touch, crinkling and flushing from areola to tip, so sensitive they
hurt.

"Oh, Katie."  His mouth hovered over a lengthening crest.

"You're so pretty.  May I kiss you here?"

My heart jolted as he took my nipple between his lips and teased it
with the tip of his tongue, a gentle flicker, like a snake testing the
air.  I slipped my arms around him and cupped his shoulders in my
hands, gentling the satiny skin that overlay his bunching muscles.  He
groaned against my breast and suckled harder, as if my reciprocation
truly meant the world to him.  His manner was so convincing his
breathless wonder, his hesitation that I sank into the fantasy like a
stone.

He would have been handsome at seventeen, a little skinnier, a little
less graceful; sex-crazed, I'm sure, but too considerate to ask the
girls he knew for what he wanted so badly.  I wished I'd been his first
time, his first girl.  I stroked his shoulder blades, dreaming of how
it might have been.

We'd start slowly, holding hands on twice-weekly dates, with maybe a
hug and a peck at the end of the night.  Months would pass before we'd
progress to petting above the waist with all our clothes on.  We'd live
for the sound of each other's heavy breathing, live for our stolen
moments alone.  Afterwards, we'd masturbate like fiends and practise
Frenching our pillows.  Soon we'd be master tongue kissers, exercising
our new skills under the stairwell at school, at the cinema, in the
back of Joe's car.  Or maybe Joe would forbid us the back seat.

He might consider having that much room too great a temptation.

Joe would worry about temptation.  Going all the way would have to be
my idea.  Despite his rampaging hormones, I'd have to lead him step by
step to this place, to the bed of his childhood, the bed where he'd had
his first wet dream dreaming of me perhaps.  Had he clenched this
pillow between his legs and pretended it was me?  Had he thrust and
groaned and left his hot young seed on the cotton that even now cradled
my head?

I moaned at the image and his body shifted, restless with lust.  His
sucking slowed.  I held my breath.  As though he feared I'd stop him,
his hand skimmed down my side to the crook of my knee.  He massaged the
tendon there, startling me with pleasure.  Then he reversed direction,
creeping up my thigh an inch at a time until he ruffled the curls that
fringed my lower lips.

I twitched in response but didn't tell him to stop.  Braver now, he
parted the curls and began to explore, his movements tentative but
thorough.  The tip of his finger slipped into my sheath.  He gasped
when it clutched him.

"Touch me," he said against my dampened breast.

"Please.  I'm dying to feel your hands on me.  I've been dreaming about
it since the first day of class.  You wore that tight navy crew neck
and the short plaid skirt with the pleats.  I got hard the minute you
smiled at me.  You wound one gold curl around your finger, kind of shy,
and I thought I'd melt.  When you took the chair in front of me, I
pretended I was under you, that you would slide right down on my
dick.

I remember you couldn't sit still and I wondered if you could feel me
staring at the muscles of your calves.  I wanted to crawl under your
chair and bite one.  Every time you squirmed I got stiffer, as if I
really were inside you.  It wouldn't go down, either.  I was hard all
through Calculus and you weren't even there.  I had to jack off in the
men's before gym or the guys would have seen.  I came so hard I
thought

I'dbust something."  His voice sank to a throaty rasp.

"I pretended you were doing it for me."

"Like this?"  I twisted my hand into his briefs so I could hold his
velvety length, and ran my hand down his cock the way a girl would a
little nervous, and more than a little curious.

His body jerked.

"Yes.  Oh, yes, slide it up and down.  Ring it tight.

I won't break.  Yeah, that feels nice.  Your hand is so soft.  Oh, God,
I can't believe we're really doing this."

His breath came rougher as he suckled me, moving now to my second
breast.  He pulled me further into his mouth, circling me with the tip
of his tongue, then laving me with the soft wet flat.  The throb in my
sex deepened to an ache.  I groaned.

"Tell me what you want, Katie.  Show me what makes you feel good."

"Here."  I captured his hand and guided his longest finger in a circle
round my clitoris.

"Rub me here.  Steady.  Yes, like that, but a little harder."

I whimpered deep in my throat as he caught the motion, my own motion,
pushing and pulling the soft hood along the tender shaft.  Having him
do it felt so good, I had to breathe hard to keep from coming.

"You're slippery," he said, hushed with awe.

"You're wet and hot and I can feel your skin quivering.  Does that mean
you want me?"

"Yes."  I pulled his head up for a deep, tonguey kiss.

"I want you."

He shuddered and his cock jumped in my hand.

"Say that again.  Say my name."

"I want you, Joey."

"Again," he demanded, then kissed me so hard I couldn't comply.  I
gasped for air when he finally released me.  We stared at each other.

He smiled, all boyish triumph and charm.

"I love you," he said.

My jaw dropped.  This time there was no mistaking the words.  He sealed
my gaping mouth with a kiss, this one a soft, swooning exploration.  I
found myself wanting to say it back: I love you, too, Joe.  I love
you.

The words knotted in my chest like a physical pain.  But how did I know
what he felt today would last?  Silenced by doubt, I held him tight,
one hand steadying the back of his neck, the other stroking his cock.

He gathered me closer, his body strong and sheltering, his caresses
gentle.  What had I done to deserve a lover as sweet as this?

Just say what you feel now, I told myself.  Let tomorrow be.  A moan
slid through my throat, warming it for the declaration.

But, "I'm taking off my briefs," he warned, before I could tumble over
the fence.

He wrestled them off and settled back with a heartfelt sigh.  His hips
lifted.  His hand fumbled between us, pushing the head of his cock down
between my legs.  It sprang up at once, caught against my pouting
folds.

"I won't put it in, I promise."  His buttocks clenched and hollowed as
he shafted my vulva.

"I'll just rub up and down like this.  Oh, God."

He gritted his teeth.

"Can you feel that, bare skin to bare skin?

That is so good.  I can feel everything.  Lord, I wish I could slide
inside you like this, with nothing between us.  I've never done it, but
with you Can you feel it?  Do you like it?"

I could only gasp and nod.  His fingers slipped between us, parting my
folds so that his long hot column slid directly over my clitoris.

I clutched his buttocks to hold him snug.

He laughed deep in his throat.

"You do like that.  I want you to come for me.  Can you, Katie?"

"Soon," I promised, hitching against him faster, harder.

He bent to kiss me, swallowing my cries of excitement.  His tongue
flickered and probed.  Sweat rolled down his neck.  My tension wound
higher.  My thighs tightened on his narrow hips, mashing our curls
together, ink and honey, until they rasped like static on silk.  I half
expected sparks to fly.

"Oh," I cried, gulping for air.

"Soon, soon.  Don't stop."  His strokes lengthened.  The broad flare of
his cock- head brushed my gate.  It dipped inside for an instant,
making me clench instinctively to draw him in.

"No," he gritted, sliding by more forcefully.

"I won't push it in.

Just Yes, do that again.  Suck at me with your cunt.  That feels so
You're so wet.  The sound it makes Oh, God, I'd kill to fuck you right
now."

He rubbed me faster, so fast the friction made its own heat.  His glans
flicked clit and sheath with every furious pass.  He had my hips in a
death grip.  His teeth were bared in a silent snarl.  The veins on his
neck stood out.  Lord, the sight of him made me hot.  The train was
coming.  I could hear it chuffing, feel its rumbling vibration down my
spine, through my womb.  My neck arched off the bed.  I wailed at the
unbearable tension.  My nails bit his heaving buttocks, and then my
climax broke in a long, shuddering wave that rattled me to the bone.

"Ah," I sighed, collapsing back against his prim navy coverlet.

"That was good."

Joe kissed my forehead with more energy than I expected.  His jaw was
shaking.  That's when I realised he'd held back his own climax.

"Don't move," he ordered, ignoring my whimper as he pulled away, taking
all the heat in the room with him.

He backed off the bed, then stood at the foot staring at me with hungry
gold eyes.  I stretched, arms over head, showing off my sex-flushed
curves, letting my thighs fall open.  His cock strained upward from its
thatch of black, shiny with my juices, dark with his blood.  I ran my
palms over and around my breasts, lifting them to his slitted gaze.  He
growled a warning.

"I've got to get inside you.  I'm running upstairs but I'll be right
back.  You keep everything warm for me."

"I will," I promised, and slid my hand between my legs.

The sight of me masturbating snagged him a foot from the door.  His
eyes widened, then grew stern.

"Thirty seconds," he said, and slipped out the door before I could
distract him again.  As soon as he left, I leapt out of bed.  I knew
just what I wanted to do for him, but I didn't have much time.  I
rummaged through three drawers before I found his navy crew neck.  The
sleeves were too long, but other than that it fit.  The wool scratched
my breasts as I squirmed back into my narrow navy skirt.  Neither
pleated nor plaid, it was nonetheless a reasonably good match for his
schoolgirl fantasy.

I had just enough time to smooth my hair and turn his sturdy ladder
back chair towards the door.  Joe skidded in from the hall.  He scowled
at his empty bed, then did a double take to find me dressed.

He still wore his socks.  God knows why, but he looked sexy as hell
with his clean white athletic socks, his long hairy legs, and a hard-on
fit to make a tart blanch.

"What are you doing?"  he asked.

Fighting an urge to giggle, I wound a curl around my ringer and smiled
from under my lashes.

"Oh," he said, recognising the image.  A surge of excitement crimsoned
his skin from flat, ridged stomach to sweat-beaded forehead.

"Oh, boy."

I nudged the chair an inch forward.  Joe shook himself and stepped
closer.  He sat slowly, his eyes wide, his breathing shallow, his cock
bobbing high.  He'd rolled a condom on already; he really didn't want
to waste time.  He smoothed his hands down his thighs.  I glanced
towards the door.

It was closed.  The mirror on its back caught my eye.  Though small, it
still held possibilities.  Humming one of Joe's melodies, I lifted it
off its hook and set it at a tilt on the floor.  I stepped backwards
until my legs bumped his knees.  Yes, we'd be able to see what we were
doing from the waist down, anyway.

A sharp inhalation told me Joe saw our reflection, too.

Without a word to break the spell, he gathered the hem of my skirt and
bared my sex.  I shifted my legs wider and reached back for the arm of
the chair.  He cupped my buttocks in his palms, both steadying me and
kneading the muscles with lascivious intent.  Smiling, I lowered myself
over him, stopping only once to adjust the angle of his penis.

Wet as I was, he slipped in like a charm, thick, meaty, and
fantastically hot.

His breath scalded my ear as I engulfed him.  He sucked the side of my
neck hard enough to leave a mark, then crooked his chin over my
shoulder to watch the image of our union.

His hands caressed my thighs, my belly, then centred on my mons.  He
pulled my labia back to expose the disappearance of his root into my
body.  The blade of my clit stood out sharply between his fingers and
the pink convolutions of my sex glistened with secretions, visibly
quivering as my body tried to pull him deeper.  He exhaled softly and
traced my stretched inner lips with one finger.  His scrotum
darkened.

"If I don't get deeper, I'll die," he said.

He jerked his legs to the edges of the chair, widening my thighs in the
process.  I arched my spine.  His cock slid a half-inch further.  We
both convulsed with a sharp throb of lust.

"Now," he whispered, thrusting his second arm under my borrowed
sweater.

"Move with me, sweetheart."

He banded his arm beneath my breasts and lifted me, grunting with
effort and longing before easing me back.  I gripped both chair arms to
help him, pushing up and sinking down.  We found our rhythm and
hastened it, all the while watching in the mirror the age-old in and
out, the hungry tensing of our thighs, the ecstatic curling of our
toes.

His angle of entry felt incredible.  Every stroke compressed some sweet
spot I hadn't known I had.  I began to groan with pleasure, which made
him shiver and swell.  His arm tightened on my ribs.  Almost before I
knew it, he bore my full weight.

"Oh, man, I'm close," he said.  I couldn't believe how strong he was.

Every motion was perfectly controlled and intense.  He hit that sweet
spot with the sleek, hot hammer of his cock until all that kept me from
shattering was force of will.

I cried out, feeling him stretch inside me, feeling his thighs go rigid
beneath my legs.

"Now," he groaned, shoving upward with all his might.

"Come, baby, please."  But I was already there.

We climaxed as one, a rich explosion of sensation.  Every time he
jerked, darts of fierce, sweet pleasure showered me from his cock, and
melted, and flowed like maple syrup through my veins.  My neck sagged,
my limbs went limp, and still he came.  Finally, nothing remained but
aftershocks, tiny spasms of sweetness like a ripe burst of fruit.

"Ah," he sighed, long and low.  He shifted me sideways and cradled
me.

"Now that was good."

I kissed his cheek.  His self-congratulatory smile had to be the most
adorable expression I'd ever seen.  How could I not love him?  Without
warning, tears burnt my eyes.

"Don't worry, Katycat."  He hugged my shoulders.

"I know you'll say the words when you're ready."

If he knew that, he knew a hell of a lot more than I did.  FR1;Chapter
Eight With a Song in his Heart Sean and I took to wandering around the
house humming Joe's favourite melodies.  Sean mangled them worse than I
did, but Joe was too flattered to care.

"You like that one?"  he'd say, shyly pleased.

"You don't think it's too obvious?"

"No, no," we'd assure him.

"It's just obvious enough."

Then he'd attack whichever songbird was closest, backing us into the
nearest wall for a big, wet kiss.  Needless to say, we learned to
listen carefully to his tunes.

One Sunday, contrary to habit, Joe tacked twenty minutes' worth of
carpet in complete silence.  Thanks to Sean's obsessive-compulsive
leadership, our exercise room was almost done.  The panelling was up,
and the new ceiling treatment.  We had a tumofthe-century wall-length
mirror complete with gilded frame and barre.  The barre was intended
for my use, in spite of the fact that I could barely spell plie.  In
the opposite corner, Sean had constructed an "L' of seating and storage
space.  Non-domestic that I was, I hired a seamstress to upholster its
cushions in muted rose and moss.  All that remained was to finish the
carpet, install the skirting board which I was sanding to fit and
rescue Sean's weight-lifting gear from his parents' basement.  I knew
he was looking forward to that.  He spoke of his bodybuilding equipment
with a warmth most men reserved for their first car.

"No more gym fees," he'd crow.

"You have no idea the return I could be getting on that money."

I didn't bother to ask.  Our soon-to-be graduate could wax poetic on
his first share purchase, too.  I'm not certain he realised I knew how
to invest my own money.  His advice wasn't bad, mind you, and he meant
well just as he did when he dropped to his knees behind Joe, gripped
his neck muscles and squeezed.

"Yo/ buddy.  You tired today?"

Joe's head swung around in surprise.

"What do you mean?"

"You weren't singing.  Did we wear you out last night?"

"I'm fine."  He shook Sean off and returned to tacking the thick maroon
carpet.

"I'm saving my voice."

"Saving it for what?"  I asked.

A blush stained the back of his neck.

"I've been composing some songs for a student musical.  I thought I'd
audition."

Sean set down the glue gun.

"What musical?"

Joe mumbled something I couldn't make out from my post at the sanding
bench.  But Sean could hear.  He sat back on his heels and smacked his
forehead.

"Captain Blood?  Don't tell me it's that vampire-pirate thing everyone
has been talking about."

"I'm afraid so."

Sean wrinkled his nose.

"I thought you didn't want people rolling their eyes at your stuff."

Joe rubbed his temple with the heel of his palm.

"The story isn't mine, just the songs."

Sean opened his mouth.

"I think that's great," I said, before he could put his foot in it
again.

"Is the audition tomorrow?"

Joe shot a wary glance at Sean and nodded.

"Well, I hope you get it.  I can't imagine anyone else doing your music
justice."

"Of course, they could," Joe said.

"I made sure the songs weren't too hard to sing.  I mean, not every
person with a good voice can read complicated music."

Sean pretended to strangle him.

"If they're that easy, maybe I should audition."

Joe twisted free and looked at him.  Sean couldn't sing his way out of
a paper bag.  Still, Joe was nothing if not polite.

"Um, well, sure you could."

Sean slapped his shoulder.

"Just kidding.  I'd rather watch you sing your heart out."

"The director might not cast me," he warned.

Sean dismissed that possibility with a soft fft.

"He'd have to be blind as well as deaf to pass you over."

"I agree," I said, and Joe gave us both a bashful kiss.

The call came through while I was up on the coffee balcony consulting
with a publisher's rep.  Four times a year the reps landed on Mostly
Romance's doorstep, slavering to sell me the next season's releases.

The process required many hours per salesperson, but I enjoyed it.

The high-stakes gamble of it got my blood going with the thrill of
haggling thrown in for good measure.  Plus, I loved seeing what my
favourite authors had in store for me.

Consequently, when Keith tapped the balcony with our ivory-topped cane
the magic phone wand, Marianne called it1 told him to take a message.

"It's Joe," he said, just loud enough for me to hear.

"It sounds important."

My heart stumbled.  Had something happened?  Was he hurt?  Barely
taking time to excuse myself to the rep, I rushed downstairs.

Normally, I take personal calls in my office, but at the moment that
was thirty steps too far.  Instead, I joined Keith behind the counter,
turned my back to the shop, and stoppered my second ear against a
mixture of Latin jazz and happy customer hubbub.

"Joe?"  I said, my palm sweating on the phone.

"Kate."  He sounded out of breath.

"How soon can you get off work?"

"I'm busy with a rep right now."  His groan of disappointment sank
straight to my gut.

"Why?  What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said, making me sag with relief.

"But I got the part and I-' His voice dropped a register.

"I really need to celebrate."

I clamped my thighs together against a sudden flare of heat.  I
pictured him in a phone booth on campus somewhere, his muscular
shoulder propped on the glass, his prick a painful swelling between his
legs.  He'd cup it in that way he had, squeezing the whole package
hard, as if he could contain his lust by pressure alone.

"Oh," I said.  Now I was breathless.

"Congratulations.  I wish I could get off but "I wish I could get you
off."

I swallowed and clutched the receiver tighter.

"I'm tied up for at least a couple of hours."

"I wish you were tied up," he responded, not missing a beat.

Heat flooded my face.  I covered one cheek with a trembling hand.

Beneath my grey cashmere dress, my nipples grew erect with embarrassing
zeal and he was just warming up.

"Tying you spreadeagled against the wall would be nice," he
continued.

"I would like to go down on you first, but I don't think I can wait.

I'll have to fuck you first, I think, real hard and fast, with long,
thick strokes that go deeper and deeper until I'm lifting you off your
feet every time I drive home.  I'll try to last as long as I can.  I'll
clench my fists and grind my teeth, but it won't do much good.  I'll
need it too bad, need you squirming hot and silky on my dick, need your
tongue in my mouth and your breasts in my hands.

You'll want to hold me, to grip the small of my back and keep me
close.

But it'll be impossible.  Your hands will be tied, and your ankles.

You'll feel how badly I need to come and you'll wonder:

will he last long enough to get me off?  But I might not, Kate, because
you'll feel so good and I'll have waited so long.  It'll go fast at the
end real pile-driver thrusts.  That knot will tighten at the base of my
cock, that ache in my balls that says, now, now, now.  I'll pull back
slowly, trying to hold on.

I'll stop with the head clasped inside your beautiful cunt.  You'll
feel me shaking.  You'll say, "Do it, Joe.  Do it."  So I'll ram back
as deeply as I can.  And then He paused.

"Then I'll come so hard, I'll fill you with jet after jet, shooting
straight for your womb, dribbling hot and thick down your thighs.  I'll
go down on you then, Katycat.  I'll suck your little clit like a
chocolate kiss.  I'll savour the way we taste together.  It's so good,
salty and musky, like eating sex.  Mm, I could suck you for hours.  But
I'll just wait until you start making those kitten cries in your
throat.  You know the ones: "Ah, ah, now, Joe, please."

His mimicry was uncanny.  I blushed harder.  As though he knew, he
chuckled wickedly.

"Then I'll give you everything you've been waiting for everything."

He paused to let the images soak in.  I heard him breathing hard on the
other end of the line.  Oh my God, I thought, what I wouldn't give to
have him inside me now.

"Kate?"  he said, shaking me from my thrall.

"I'll finish as quickly as I can," I said, my throat so tight I sounded
hoarse.  Evading Keith's knowing smile, I hunched closer to the
phone.

"Unfortunately, there's no way I'll be done in less than two hours. I'm
with a book rep and I simply can't delegate."

"Hell."  I pictured his hand falling away from his crotch.

"Sorry," I said, wanting to call him sweetie but constrained by Keith's
big ears.

"No, I'm the one who's sorry.  I know you've got a business to run.

It's just I've got a stiff the size of New Jersey and I wanted to share
it with you."

"I want that too, honey," I said, touched by his disappointment.

Keith stifled a snicker.  I glared at him.

"Look, I'll come straight home as soon as I'm done.  And I promise, I
promise I'll make it up to you."

"I'll hold you to that," he warned.

"Good," I said, and kissed the phone as discreetly as I could.

Keith's shoulders shook with amusement.

"If you laugh, I'll fire you."

He turned his palms out in surrender.

"No, no, Ms Winthrop.  I think it's sweet.  But maybe you should train
me to deal with the reps."  His grin bared his crooked front teeth.

"In case of emergency."

"Pipsqueak," I muttered, but my body sang with energy as I rushed back
upstairs.

A trail of blood-red rose petals led me from the hall to the basement
door.  Over its cut-glass knob a white scarf was looped a dashing silk
scarf.

I tossed it loosely around my neck and rubbed the delicate fringe
across my cheek.  The scent of Aramis clung to its flowing folds:

Joe's scent.  Muscles humming with anticipation, I started down the
stairs.

Halfway down, I found two sparkling goblets and a bottle of respectable
burgundy, its cork partially removed to allow the wine to breathe.

Tucking the booty under my arm, I descended the remaining treads.

"Joe?"  I said, reaching bottom.

"Here," he called softly, 'waiting for you."

I rounded the corner and laughed.  Joe was lounging like a pasha on our
new red exercise mat.  Naked except for a long black scarf the
companion to my own he sat with one leg bent up and one bent down, his
formidable jewels bared to the world.  The trail of red petals ended in
a puddle above his eager cock.  The true piece de resistance, however,
was his rakish black eye- patch.  Joe was definitely an original.  I'd
never known a man with the confidence to deck himself out so
exotically.

Too bad the mirror still wore its protective plastic coating, or I
would have enjoyed a back view, too.

"Well, hello," I said, quickening with arousal despite my amusement.

"The vampire-pirate, I presume?"  Joe lifted his hips in unmistakable
offering.  Petals fluttered to the floor.

"In the undead flesh."

"Tell me you're not wearing fangs," I said, though I doubted even that
could dull my desire.

He bared his teeth for me.

"The fangs only come out when I feel the hunger."

I cast a suspicious glance at his sex.

"You look hungry now.  Are you sure it's safe to approach?"

"As long as you bring the wine."  He waved me closer with two fingers,
the picture of an autocratic male.  I hesitated.  His arm lowered and
he stroked his cock with his strong, graceful hand.

"Come.  I grow impatient," His shaft lengthened at the treatment,
demonstrating just how impatient he could get.

The sight of its swarthy glory convinced me to obey.  I knelt beside
him.  on the mat, and set the bottle and glasses down.  Mesmerised, I
extended my hand towards his petal-bedecked thatch.

"Pretty."  I toyed with a single petal, a single glossy curl.  His
erection jerked.  He let go of his shaft, unable to bear even his own
touch now.  My gaze lifted to his and he smiled, his face shining so
brightly with love a flower of pure happiness blossomed in my chest.

"Joe," I whispered, touching his breastbone with one wistful finger.

He caught my hand to his lips and kissed the finger, and wrapped the
soft curl of his tongue around the pad.  My sex quivered with
longing.

I remembered his promise to suck me like a chocolate kiss.  Joe had
such a clever mouth.

"Do you still want a quickie?"  I asked, game for anything at that
point.

He released my finger and shook his head.  A lock of hair fell across
his silly, sexy eye-patch.

"Not yet.  For now I want to anticipate how much I'm going to enjoy the
quickie."

He sat up and rubbed the front of his body against my grey cashmere
dress.  His erection stood far above horizontal.  I could only imagine
how good the downy knit felt against its stretched, sensitive skin.

This is nice," he purred, turning his cheeks from side to side across
my breasts.

"Soft."

A draught tickled my buttocks.  He was gathering the dress up my
legs.

The feel of my lacy suspenders brought him up short.  I wore stockings
today, sheer white silk stockings.

"Kate," he said with a quiet laugh.

"Have I mentioned you wear the best underwear?"  Without waiting for a
response, he pulled the stretchy dress over my head, pausing only to
tug the white scarf back through the neck.  When the dress was gone, he
froze.  My under- things were all of snow-white lace: my French-cut
panties, my push-up bra, my suspender belt.

Like most men, Joe appreciated nice presentation.  Now he stared,
transfixed, and glided his hands down the nipped-in curve of my
waist.

"Perfect," he said.  With the considering pucker of an artist, he
arranged the ends of the scarf along my cleavage.

To my surprise, he turned away then and poured the wine, half a glass
each, after which he re corked the bottle and set it out of harm's
way.

"Just enough to relax you," he said.

I wondered why he thought I needed relaxing.

He waited to enlighten me until the crimson liquid slid down my
throat.

He smoothed his palms down the fall of my white scarf, then tugged the
ends of his black one.

"May I tie you up?"  he asked.

My brows rose.  He'd never expressed any interest in playing the
dominant before and his request threw me off balance.  I didn't want to
say 'yes', even though I knew if Sean were asking I'd have complied
without batting an eyelid.  Then again, Sean might not have asked.

"I'd rather not," I said carefully, unsure which aspect of the
situation unnerved me the most.

"It's okay for fantasy, but in real life I prefer holding you."  His
mouth curved in a gentle smile.

"That's all right.  I want you to feel comfortable."

His ready acceptance disappointed me and I couldn't explain that,
either.

"I'm sorry," I said, suddenly miserable.

"Shh."  He gathered me in his arms and kissed my hair.

"Whatever you want, sweetheart.  That's what I want."

But I'm not sure what I want, I almost said.

Dipping me back on the mat, he began to remove his eye-patch.  I caught
his hand.

His lips twitched.

"You like my disguise, eh?"

I nodded, feeling foolish.  He kissed my embarrassment away with sharp,
stinging kisses that travelled across my jaw and down my neck.  The
point of his tongue drew a cool trail down my carotid.

"I can smell your blood," he murmured in an Eastern European accent too
authentic to provoke laughter.

In truth, it excited me.  I squirmed under his weight and gripped his
back.  His lips tightened on my throat.  The suction of his cheeks drew
my vulnerable flesh between his teeth.

"I'm going to mark you," he warned, the words a dark rumble against my
skin.

"Everyone will know you're mine."

"I am yours," I said, my voice tinged with melancholy.

He pulled back to search my eyes.  I touched the stiff canvas eye-patch
and wondered, without quite knowing why, which of us was blinder.

"I am yours," I repeated.

He seemed to understand this was as close as I could get to saying, "I
love you."

His breath escaped in a low, longing sigh and his hips surged into the
cradle of my loins.  He pressed the suede- soft skin of his cock
between scallops of lace, its prominent veins a tantalising variation
in texture.  His eyes drifted shut, then opened, molten with hunger.

"Sweetheart."  His pelvis moved in slow, incendiary circles.

"I think I need that quickie now."

But rather than rush straight in, he unsnapped my suspenders one by
one, soothing each tiny welt with a butterfly kiss.

"Lift," he ordered, and slid my panties down my legs.  My stockinged
feet received their share of kisses, and my knees.  He kneaded my
thighs like a cat preparing to settle in, then deftly redid my
garters.

The lace now framed my naked sex, my lips pink with readiness, my clit
peeping through the swollen folds.  He pressed a single kiss into my
honey-brown fleece, right above the rosy target.

"Later," he promised, and shifted up to fit his cock to the mouth of my
vagina.  He rocked back and forth in tiny tormenting surges, not
entering, merely testing the snug resilience of my sexual muscles.

I lifted my knees.

"Please," I said, 'come inside."  But he continued to tease me, adding
an upward slide to the motion so that my clit entered into the torture
as well.

Frustrated, I hitched my legs higher still, lifting until my calves
curved over his hard, broad shoulders.  The position opened me so
thoroughly the head popped inside at the next slight push.

Joe's mouth "O'd at my unexpected flexibility.

Before he could regroup, I crossed my ankles behind his neck and
pulled, swallowing three quarters of his cock at a single stroke.

"Oh, man," Joe breathed.

He resettled himself to accommodate this change in posture, shifting
his elbows and catching my hands in his.  He laced our fingers
together, locking them tight.

Determined to press home my advantage, I contracted my leg muscles one
last time, forcing him the rest of the way inside.  He filled me
wonderfully, his cock thick and vital, his breathing harried.  I could
have stayed that way all night, but the warm, flickering depths of a
woman's sex is one place a man has trouble keeping still.

Joe grunted with impatience.

"If you don't ease up, I won't be able to move."

"Maybe I like you where you are."  Tiease," he said, his pout a
charming put-on.

"I've been waiting forever."

I couldn't resist him.  After all, I'd been waiting, too.

Once I'd relaxed my grip, he set a single-minded pace.  Digging his
knees into the mat, he focused his energy on the motion of his lower
body.  Straight and hard, he plunged.  Firm and sure, he withdrew,
tugging slightly each time his glans caught my brink.  As we coupled,
he spread my arms wider and wider until his chest weighted mine and a
delicious pressure burnt in my thighs.

I guess his need for orgasm robbed him of his usual consideration.  I
didn't mind the discomfort, though.  He hadn't been thrusting a minute
before I was sighing at every stroke.  I hadn't thought anyone could
drive me so high so fast.

Slim as he was, he wasn't too heavy to bear, but he was bigger than me
and most of his weight was muscle.  With his ribs compressing mine, I
couldn't draw more than half a breath.  I hoped that was the reason my
head was spinning, but I suspected not.  The way his arms stretched
mine, the way he bore me into the mat made me feel overpowered trapped
even in a way no bondage aficionado's tricks could equal.

The subtle edge of panic went to my head faster than the burgundy.  I
both loved and feared the hold he had on me.  I knew I'd have to give
him up someday, but I no longer knew how I'd bear it.  Worst of all,
Joe had no idea what he was doing to me, hadn't accessed even half his
power to vanquish.

He could feel my response, though.  He could feel me clutch his
pistoning shaft with all my might and hear the growing wetness of our
meeting.  His rhythm accelerated.

"Ah, God, I needed this," he said, shaking sweaty hair out of his
face.

His cheek caressed my stockinged shin where it crooked his shoulder.

"I thought I'd go mad when I couldn't have you right away.

I can't stand to be without you, Kate.  I could take you a dozen times
a day and never have too much."

Tuck me then I said, desperate to drown myself in this libidinous sea,
desperate not to admit how dearly I wished his words were true.

Tuck me hard and don't slow down."

His gaze flew to mine, but he wasn't put off by my language.  His cock
shimmied inside me and his lungs expanded like a bellows.

"All right, then."  He re gripped my hands and drew a deep, bracing
breath.

"Hold on tight."

He pumped me smooth as silk, his way slicked by my lubricious
enthusiasm.  I bit my lip until I tasted blood, throwing myself over
the cliff of feeling, sucking him inward so strongly he needed all his
strength to withdraw.

"Jesus," he moaned, pulling harder.  Cursing with impatience, he shoved
the eye-patch off with his upper arm.

"Sorry, sweetheart.  I can't stand not seeing all of you.  You don't
know how fantastic you look."

I laughed and whispered.  Tuck me, Joe.  Fuck me."

His weight slammed into me, faster, faster, his intrusion increasingly
full, increasingly greedy.  His face contorted with need.  It was
sheened with perspiration, blotched with colour.

"Oh, no," he said, starting to shudder.

"Oh, Kate."

He gulped for air.  His hands gripped mine with bruising strength.  He
drove in one last time, the deepest, thickest yet, and spasmed at the
extremity of his down- stroke.  For a second, I revelled in the
strength of his convulsions, and then I, too, crashed through the
barrier.  He cried out when he felt me quiver, coaxing out my orgasm
with a swift churning motion of his pelvis until another climax, this
one even more forceful, barrelled over the first.

I'm not certain, but I think he came again, too.  His eyes snapped open
and his cock contracted in a second vigorous series of pulses.

He stayed that way, breathing hard against my neck, pressed tight
inside me, hipbone to hipbone, cock-head to womb, until his softening
penis precluded the intimacy.

"Incredible."  He rolled carefully aside and peeled off the condom.

"Thank you, Katie."

With the breath that remained to me, I assured him he was very
welcome.

Afterwards, I lay in Joe's arms, sweaty and sated.  I stared at the
plastic-blurred mirror, at the ghost-shapes inside, and thought about
Tom, my ex.  I hadn't done that in a long time, not really
remembered.

Tom was handsome and charming and the kind of liar who never believed
he'd done wrong.  I think he loved me.  I certainly wanted to believe
he did.  I had a dream I suppose everyone does of starting a better,
more loving family than the one I grew up in.

Tom wanted people to think he was good, wanted to think it of
himself.

To that end, he could be sweet as hell attentive, well-spoken.

So I let him bamboozle me.

He cheated on me a month after we were married.  I found out, of
course.  Tom wasn't good at subterfuge.  Maybe he didn't want to be.

Eventually, I confronted him in a big ugly scene with me screaming and
crying and him pleading how it didn't mean anything.  It just
happened.

"Weather just happens," I remember shrieking.

"But people choose to be unfaithful."

In the end, though, I didn't want to admit to my family and friends and
myself that, at the supposedly mature age of twenty-nine, I'd made the
biggest mistake of my life.  I didn't want to confess that I'd been a
shitty judge of character and my dream of happy home and hearth was
truly down the toilet.

So I forgave him.

But not completely.  Part of me sat back, folded its cynical arms, and
waited for him to knock the bottom out again.  He knocked it out all
right, more than once, but he never broke my heart like the first time
not even when he ran off with my seventeen-year-old niece.

He said my coldness killed our marriage.  He may have been right.  My
only regret was that I hadn't killed it sooner.  I wondered why I
hadn't.  Had I felt comfortable dancing that sick little dance with
Tom, knowing all his moves, knowing he'd always live down to my new low
image of men?  And what about now?  Was I over it?  More grown-up?

Sadder but wiser?  Or had I lost a precious seed of faith I ought to be
trying to recover?

"You're awfully quiet," Joe said, stroking my curls as if I were a
child.

I snuggled closer to his chest.  We'd have to get up soon and dress.

The basement wasn't as warm as the rest of the house.

"I love you," he said, and kissed the top of my head.

The weight of expectation compressed the chambers of my heart.  I knew
I should say it back.  I did love him.  I just couldn't open my
mouth.

Was I still waiting for the next blow to fall?  Did I intend to keep my
guard up forever?

T love you, too," I said, to prove I'd escaped my past.

Joe sucked in a breath and hugged me close.

"Kate," he whispered.

"Oh, Katie."

I'd made him happy.  But I didn't feel any better.  FR1;Chapter Nine
Captain Blood Our days took on a new rhythm once Joe became Captain
Blood.

Though he hadn't graduated yet.  Scan obtained a part- time accountancy
position at a law firm downtown.  He loathed the stuffy
my-cellphone'ssmallerthan-yours atmosphere, but performed his duties so
brilliantly no one dared take him to task for breezing in late in blue
jeans, no less.

Actually, brilliance alone could not protect him.  Brilliant people get
fired every day.  But Sean had an air that said only an idiot would
refuse to let him have his way.  He believed this in every fibre of his
being and, as a result, other people believed it, too.

It seemed Scan was top in every arena.

Faced with some new and expensive desires, Joe left his job at the
students' union to work for Sean's Uncle Mike, the demolition king.

The work was strenuous, but the pay enabled him to hire a vocal coach
and buy a second-hand piano which we installed in our already eclectic
gym.

Now that Joe had accompaniment, the extent of his talent grew clear.

The first time I heard him play Captain Blood's lush, humorous
overture, the first time I heard him sing the catchy tunes he'd dropped
into that beautiful net, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

This was no apprentice work.  This was the creation of a genuine artist
not as mature as he would be in ten years, or twenty, but far from
child's play.

When I stuttered out my amazement, he confessed bashfully that he'd
been a child prodigy.  Only his mother's insistence on a normal home
life had kept his Aunt Florence from dragging him on tour.

"Your mother was right," I said.

"You grew up modest and well adjusted.  Now, instead of being burnt out
and screwed up, you've got a brilliant career ahead of you."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"If I'm lucky."

"Luck!"  I shook his shoulder.

"Sweetie, talent like yours makes its own luck."

I could see he doubted my claim.  Pride swelled in my heart, and
resignation.  Joe might not know it yet but he was going places, big
places.  Captain Blood was just the start of it.

As for me, unlike my busy housemates, I had far too much time on my
hands.  Keith proved an efficient manager, eager to assume any
responsibility I'd allow him.  My overtime shrank to nothing, but now
there was no one to greet me at the end of the day.  Joe had rehearsals
and Sean worked evenings.

Only bed remained sacred.  Even if they stumbled home at midnight, the
men would climb the final flight to my room.  We were, however,
sleeping a lot more than we used to.

I began to think more seriously about opening a second shop.

Marianne, who did our books, said I couldn't afford to tie up our
capital, but I didn't see the good in letting it stagnate.  Our
financial position was sound.  We weren't in debt.  Interest rates were
low.  It seemed to me that now was an ideal time to expand.

Of course, feeling neglected by my lovers probably was a lousy reason
to do so.  The problem was I'd become spoilt.  I'd lost my knack for
entertaining myself, by myself.  Rather than recultivate my
self-sufficiency, I moped.  Scan and Joe may have been busy, but not
too busy to notice my gloom.

They spoke to me in kinder, gentler tones.  They made me breakfast and
let me read the paper first.  Eventually, shame for my behaviour jarred
me from my sulks.

"I'm going to enjoy whatever time I have left," I || announced one
night as we all lay in bed.

Snow fell outside the dormer window, like feather pillows bursting
beneath the street lamps.  In the pearly glow, my lovers struggled from
their half-slumber to blink at me.

"What are you talking about?"  Sean asked, his hair mashed to his head
by the pillow.

"You contracted a fatal disease or something?"

That's when I realised only I could read the writing on the wall.

Only I knew our days together were numbered.

Joe slung his arm across my belly.

"Don't worry, Kate.  We'll have more time for love-making once these
rehearsals are over."

"I could use some more action myself," Sean grumbled.  He squirmed
closer.  He liked sleeping in the nude.  His smoothly muscled chest
warmed my side and, when he hitched one hairy leg over mine, his cock
and balls warmed my hip.  Voicing his complaint seemed to have broken
his inertia.  His penis twitched, slowly but surely assuming its full
girth and vigour.

"Man, oh, man."  He insinuated his erection beneath the hem of my
T-shirt so he could rub it skin-to-skin.

"How tired are you, Kate?"

I grinned.

"Not that tired."

"Hey, Joe, toss me a condom," he said, but Joe was snoring and I had to
dig the prophylactic out myself.

That taken care of, Sean pushed me on to my side and entered me from
behind.  His cock slid into my sheath as if it were buttered, ecstasy
after days of doing without.  I arched back for more.  When he gave it
to me, I heaved a grateful sigh.

The, too," he said.

He slipped his arm around my front to caress my sex, then gripped the
headboard for leverage.  Soon his hips buffeted my backside.  Every
thrust pushed his warmth deeper, filling me with rich, animal
sensation.  I reached behind me to hold his flank.  His breath rushed
beside my ear, catching each time he struck home.  I loved the
simplicity of this act, the directness, the way his withdrawals grew
shorter as his climax approached as if he couldn't bear to leave his
snug, warm mooring.  Neither of us took long to come, but I still
couldn't believe Joe slept through the whole thing.

"I'm still hard," Sean griped, pulling reluctantly out.

"Pull the other leg, why don't you?"  I pushed him on to his back and
straddled him and saw he wasn't kidding.  He'd come long and hard, but
his cock jutted upward along my belly, nearly as thick as when we'd
started.  I stripped off my T-shirt and used it to blot the remains of
our exertions.  When I threw it aside, his hands went straight for my
breasts.  He kneaded their soft weight with a gentleness I found as
relaxing as it was arousing.  Happy as a cat, I rolled my head
luxuriously around my shoulders.

"One more as a nightcap?"  I suggested, stroking his arms.

He grimaced.

"Why not two?"

"Greedy."

"But I'm up now, and of' Willy here hasn't got lucky in days."

"Try a week, mister."

He wagged his head at the horror of it.

"The working world sucks."

"What if' I bent to lick the rim of his ear '-1 suck you instead?"

His shoulders hunched at the tickling caress.

"Later.  When I need inspiration."

"You find my humble skills inspiring?"

"Babe."  He chucked me under the chin.

"Your mouth is one of the seven wonders of the world."

I was still preening over the compliment when he lifted me on to him.

Joe woke sometime during our third bout, probably when Sean pulled me
out of bed and started rogering me over the squeaky foot board.

Joe rubbed sleepy eyes, then burrowed one arm beneath the covers.  I
followed its progress down his |S chest and between his legs.  The
sheets rustled.  His left leg fell to the side.  The hump that was his
hand began an unmistakable pumping motion.

Scan laughed in my ear.

"He must be half-asleep.  He never jacks off in front of people."  He
reached for the rumpled chenille coverlet.

"Don't wake him," I whispered.

"I want to watch."

But such passivity was foreign to Sean's nature.

"Yo, Sleeping Beauty."  He lofted the covers.

"Wake up and join us."

Joe screwed his eyes more tightly shut.  His hand faltered, then
resumed its steady masturbatory rhythm.  I guess he wanted that release
no matter who was watching.

"Too tired to get up," he mumbled.

"Besides, it's cold out there."

Not one to take 'no' for an answer, Sean reached around me, grabbed
Joe's ankles and pulled him bodily to the foot of the bed.

"Hey!"  Joe's eyes snapped open.

"I need my beauty sleep."

Sean dragged the scrunched-up covers below Joe's waist.  He wasn't
fully hard yet and his erection wilted in the snow-chilled air, sagging
back over the waist of his grey-plaid boxer shorts.

Joe groaned wretchedly.

"Now, look what you've done."

"Too bad, pillow head Sean smoothed my hair back from my face.

"Can you reach him?"

I gauged the height of the foot board and the distance to Joe's
softening groin.

"Only with my hands."

"On your knees then, Mr.  Capriccio."  He shook Joe's calf.

"No point wan king off when the mouth of the century can put you to
sleep with a smile on your face."

"Christ," said Joe, hardly a flattering response, but he did grab the
nearest post and heave himself upright.  Sean tugged his boxers further
down his hips.

Now that Joe was near enough to see what Scan and I were up to, his
flagging erection rose.  Encouraged, I cupped the weighty sac in my
palm, following its curve back until I could press the firmer pad of
his perineum.  His involuntary jerk of response sent a thrill through
my well-filled sex.

He touched my lips with his finger.

"Do you mind?"

Rather than waste time reassuring him, yet again, I bent forward and
kissed him where it counted.

Being somewhat fresher than Sean or I, he came before either of us,
then scrambled back under the covers to watch.  He wore a contemplative
look, his eyes quiet, his mouth softly curved.  It made me wonder what
he was thinking.  Was he happy that Sean was happy?  Was he memo rising
my response to Sean's personal repertoire of caresses?

Or was he reviewing Captain Blood's last rehearsal?

"I forgot to tell you," he said as Sean began his final ascent.

"My Uncle Joe the cop finally got back to me about the noise
complaint."

"Uh huh," said Sean, kneeing my legs apart so he could pump a little
deeper.  I doubted he had the faintest idea what Joe was talking
about.

He steadied my hip with one hand.

"Yeah, babe, that's it.

Tighten around me.  Man, you're good.  You feel like you got a fist in
there."

"What did he find out?"  I asked, though my concentration wasn't much
better than Sean's.  The outermost edge of an orgasm flirted around my
cunt, there and then not there, there and then, oh, yes, it was
definitely circling closer.  I tilted back to take more of Sean's
wonderfully fat rod.  My hand slipped over his where it cupped my mons,
urging him to work me harder.  Our gathered fingertips brushed the
place we joined.

"Sweet," he gasped.

I heard Joe's next words through a fog of gathering need.

"Well, the estate agent is out.  It wasn't a man.  Uncle Joey couldn't
get a name, but the switchboard operator said the caller was definitely
an older woman."  Joe scooted close again and braced my shoulders for
Sean's driving thrusts.

"I figure old Mrs.  Perelli must have had her hearing aid turned up
that night."

"Mrs.  Perelli.  Right."  Scan gritted his teeth, his frantic pumping
driving me to the brink.

"Right, right."  Coming hard, I bathed his cock in a hot flood of
cream.

"Right, right, right.  Ah, God."  He followed me with a groan of
complete sensual exhaustion.

For the first time in a week, we all slept satisfied.

Finally, the day of Captain Blood's opening performance arrived.

Nervous as Tennessee Williams' cat, Joe had invited and disinvited us a
dozen times during the previous week.

"You're going to hate it," he moaned over the breakfast table, his
hands shaking too badly to manage his bagel and coffee.

"We're not going to hate it," I said.  I spooned three teaspoons of
honey into his mug.  The honey was my attempt to reform Joe's sweet
tooth.  He permitted the interference, grudgingly, when I told him it
was better for his throat than sugar.

"You might hate it," he insisted.

"You can't be sure."

"How could we not be sure?"  Scan asked.  Knowing Joe's preferences
well, he spread a thick swathe of marmalade across a bagel half and
tucked it into his friend's frowning mouth.

"We've heard most of it already."

This was true.  In the past two weeks, a parade of panicked cast
members had snaked up and down my basement stairs, desperate for a few
hours of coaching from their lyricist-composer.  Joe agonised over the
responsibility.  He wasn't the musical director.  He was still learning
himself.  What if he steered his fellow actors wrong?  But the moment
they arrived, he was patient and calm.  The women, especially, gazed at
him as though he'd hung the moon.  Poor heartsick things.  All he cared
about was their grasp of the three Ps: posture, projection, and
phrasing.  Despite his worries, they improved under his tutelage.

Plus, he spent enough time shoring up their fragile egos for them all
to leave smiling.  If only he could have done the same for himself.

"Basket case' was not too strong a term for Joe's current state.

"We'll love it."  I rubbed the back of his clammy hand.

"Partly because it's wonderful and partly because we love you.  If you
want an unbiased opinion, you'll have to ask someone else."

He dropped his head into his hands.

"I can't do this.  I'm running away to join the circus."

Sean's palm slammed the table so hard my knife jumped to the floor.

His chair scraped loudly as he shoved it back.

"Enough snivelling."

He strode around the table to stand beside Joe's chair.  He put one
hand on its back, one on the table, and stuck his nose in Joe's face.

"I trained you better than this, boy.  Show a little spine."

Joe sighed.

"Not now.  Scan.  I'm not in the mood to play drill sergeant."

"Fuck if I care."  With an ease born of years of competitive wrestling,
Sean plucked Joe out of his chair and slammed him, face front, into the
refrigerator.

I gripped the table edge in shock, but I could see Joe wasn't hurt,
only angry.

"Hey," he said, trying to break free, an impossible task with his arms
bent up between his shoulder blades.

"I can tell I've been neglecting your discipline," Scan said in his
formal master's voice.

"You know that kind of whining demands a good swift kick in the
butt."

He planted his knee between Joe's cheeks as if to demonstrate where
he'd land it.

"Piss off," Joe said, his face plastered sideways against the freezer
door.

"I told you I'm not in the mood."

"Oh, really?"  Quick as a flash.  Scan had Joe's zip down and his cock
out.

Joe growled in protest, but with two expert strokes his penis stirred,
and in six Sean had him as hard as I'd ever seen him.

"Not in the mood, eh?"  Sean flicked the underside of the long flushed
shaft with his thumbnail.

"I think you're dying to bend over and take me."

Joe lost his cool at that.  Luckily for him, the labour he'd been
putting in for Sean's uncle had done his muscles some extra good.

Gathering himself with a grunt of effort, he not only turned himself
around but managed, inch by inch, to back Sean against the
refrigerator.

"No more," he said, panting but triumphant.  The space between them
shimmered with tension.  Joe's cock stood out from his charcoal wool
trousers like one of his pirate ship's guns.

"You fuck me face-to-face or not at all."

Sure of his allure, whatever his position, Sean tilted his
seam-splitting bulge until it tapped Joe's scrotum and set it
swinging.

"Oh, really?"  he cooed.

"Then you better make sure I enjoy it, big man."

Joe reddened.  A muscle ticked in his jaw.  The overwhelming scent of
testosterone had me squirming in my chair.  I'd grown wet the minute
Scan slammed his hand on the table, but now I was soaked.

Joe loomed over Sean, pressing closer.  Before he could twist away, Joe
covered his mouth and forced it open with the strength of his jaw.  The
instant their tongues clashed the two men melted, moaning and clutching
each other as if they hadn't kissed in years.

I almost left the room then, but Joe caught the motion from the corner
of his eye and waved me back to my chair.

Well, if he insists, I thought, hardly indifferent to the appeal of
watching especially when they were so into it.

Together, the heavy-breathing pair divested Scan and only Sean of his
clothes.  His powerful body gleamed under a coating of sweat.  Joe
wasted no time running his hands over every inch he could reach.  But
he soon ran out of patience.

Gripping his friend beneath the arms, he lifted Sean until their heads
were level.  Slowly, as if he couldn't believe he was allowing Joe to
take the upper hand, Sean swung his legs around Joe's waist and crossed
his ankles.  His hips canted forward, positioning himself to be
entered.  Rapt, I watched the pucker of his anus flicker within its
whorl of golden hair with eagerness, I suspected, though trepidation
might have played a part as well.  Joe was no bantamweight.

"Kate," Joe called, his voice reedy with strain.

I jumped to attention.  By now, I knew how Joe's mind worked.  I pawed
through Sean's discarded clothes for the necessary accoutrements,
finding what I wanted in the breast pocket of his plaid flannel
shirt.

Joe paled as I rolled the sheath over his juddering erection, then
whined through his teeth when I slathered KY Jelly down its length.  I
finished as quickly as I could.

"If you short-change me, I'll kill you," Sean threatened, recognising
Joe's I'm-about-to-die noises.

"Don't you worry," Joe gritted back.

"I'm going to take my time and enjoy this."

I wagged the lubricant in Sean's direction.

"Some for you?"  I suggested gaily, feeling like a game show hostess.

"Why not?"  Sean glanced down between their hard male bodies.  Their
cocks stood like crimson lances poised for battle.

"He's got a big piece of meat down there."

Not fooled by his nonchalance, I knelt beneath him on the linoleum and
squirted a generous dollop on to my fingers.

I took longer than I had to working it in.  Whatever Joe claimed, I
knew the heady novelty of playing top for once would preclude a long
engagement.  But if Scan were as primed as I intended him to be,
brevity wouldn't matter.

I reached deeper, two fingers, then three, searching out his secret joy
spot.  The dark smooth passage clamped tight as I hit the walnut-sized
swelling.  Sean's moan sounded as if it were yanked from his throat.

Gently, Imassaged the hidden gland, awed by the power of this masculine
mystery.

"Careful," Sean said, even as his body curved to intensify the pressure
I was exerting.

"Don't make me come."

I reckoned he was primed enough then.  I slid my fingers free with a
tiny squelching noise.  Both men quivered at the sound.  I dropped a
kiss on to Joe's shoulder and returned to my seat.

By that time, Sean required little coaxing to accept his burden.  Joe
nudged him once with the head of his cock, released a soft, wondering
sigh, and pressed sleekly inside.

They kissed again when he hilted, open-mouthed and greedy.  I felt that
old sense of invading their privacy, though I knew they wanted me
there.  My discomfort was not strong enough to make me leave,
however.

I loved watching the rhythm of their thrusts.  It was subtly different
from a man and a woman's - because they were equals in strength,
because different places wanted rubbing, and because they were hard and
hard rather than hard and soft.

After a certain point, Sean lost control of his reactions.  His eyes
slid shut, his hands opened and closed on Joe's back, and his head
lolled against the freezer door.  He looked utterly debauched, flushed
from head to toe and ravished with pleasure.

"Deep," he said.  The word came out slow as treacle.

"Fuck me a-all the way in."

Joe shifted his feet, adjusted Sean's fit, and shafted him deeper.

Even through his trousers, I saw his buttocks hollow with every
stroke.

"How much longer?"  he asked, his breath huffing between the words.

"Little longer," Sean said in that same dreamy voice.

"Ah, Joey, that's good.  You're so long.  You're killing me."

Joe laughed.

"Please die soon."  Though his face was red with effort, his eyes shone
with affection.

"I'll come the minute you do," Sean promised.  His head dropped back,
exposing his throat.

"I'm floating ... right on the edge."

Joe took him at his word and increased the pace.  He mouthed Sean's
strong white neck and clutched his buttocks until at last they both
cried out, a harsh, primitive sound, victory and surrender mixed as
one.

A shadow of their pleasure jolted through my sex sweet but
melancholy.

What they shared between them, I could never know.

I looked at the array of copper pots on the exposed brick wall, at the
bundle of thyme that hung from the beam above my head.  When I looked
back.  Scan had both feet on the floor and was stroking Joe's head the
way a man might stroke a fierce, beloved dog.  Joe bent his neck to
accept the caress, still mastered despite his recent adventure.

"Better now?"  Sean asked, his palm smoothing Joe's glossy blue-black
hair.

"Not so shaky?"

"Yes."  Joe clasped Sean's naked waist, leaning into him.

"Much better."

Sean looked past his shoulder to wink at me.

"You better go see to your sweetie, then.  She'll think you forgot all
about her."

Joe's head turned.  Concern creased his sweaty brow.

"Later," I said, reassuring him with a smile.  I didn't want to take
away from their moment, their memory.

Joe's furrows deepened.

"Are you sure?"

"You know what the cooks say, Joe.  Hunger is the best sauce."

Normally, I let Keith rule the roost on Fridays, but I knew I'd chew my
nails if I stayed home.  I decided to put in a half-day at Mostly
Romance.  Our new manager seemed disappointed to see me until I handed
him the company credit card and ordered him to Strawbridge & Clothier
to buy holiday decorations for the shop.

With both hands, Keith held out the shiny American Express card,

goggling as though it really were gold.  Then he dashed off before I
could change my mind or send him to Woolworth's instead.

Once he'd left, I parked myself behind our second cash register and
prepared to schmooze customers.  A few of my old faithfuls popped in to
chat and before I knew it, an hour had passed without my dwelling on
Joe more than a few hundred times.

Around ten, the man himself blew in on a gust of panic.  He headed
straight for me.

"Kate," he said in a confiding, breathless tone.

"Do you know where I left my lucky eye-patch?"

I handed my customer her books and hoped she wasn't listening too
closely.

"I wasn't aware you had an unlucky eye-patch."

He jittered with impatience.

"The one I brought home the day I got the part is the lucky one."

Of course it was.  I thought for a moment.

"You checked the gym?"

"I turned it upside down."

"What about the laundry room?"

He squinted in confusion.

"Remember last Tuesday?"  I prompted.

His expression cleared.

"Oh, yeah.  That was fun.  Thanks, Kate.  I'll run home and check."

He turned to go but I called him back.  I smiled at his worried, open
face, more aware of his youth than I had ever been before.

Then again, my thirty-five-year-old husband had sworn by a lucky purple
polo shirt.  He never played squash without it, even when it started
growing holes.  Maybe what people say is true: men are always boys.  I
laid my hand on the shoulder of Joe's worn bomber jacket.

"Joe," I said, judging his self-image too shaky right now for
'sweetie'.  "I hope you find your lucky eye-patch, but between you and
me, you carry all the luck you need inside you.  Your music is
wonderful.  Your singing is wonderful.  Everything is going to be
fine."

Joe hung his head.

"I know.  It's just a little extra insurance, to make me feel lucky."

I was about to tug him across the counter for a kiss when Marianne
strolled out from the back.  I guess hope does spring eternal, because
the sight of Joe perked her up at once.

"Hello, stranger," she said in her best smoke-and-sugar croon.

She wore navy for once, a body-skimming, cleavage- baring velveteen
dress.  Her hips swayed with her approach and her heels clacked like
gunshots on the hardwood floor.  Joe winced when she grasped his jacket
flaps and spread them apart to expose his nice charcoal suit.

"Don't you look professional?"  She tapped the knot of his tie with her
long red fingernail.

"Job interview?"

Joe shuffled backwards but Marianne followed without showing the least
awareness of rebuff.

"Um, no," he said.

"I've got my first performance tonight."

"Of course!  Your wonderful play."  She pressed her hands together in
front of her full red lips.

"How silly of me to forget."

I rolled my eyes at that.  I hadn't told her the date not because I
wanted to exclude her, though that might be a good idea, but because
every time I mentioned Joe or Sean she turned bitchy.

"Well, don't worry, Joey dear," she said now, leaning close enough to
whisk his jacket with her bootblack hair.

"I wouldn't miss your grand debut for the world."

"Great," Joe said weakly.  He took a more determined step back.

"See you there."

He didn't release his breath until she twitched her way back to the
office.  I noticed, however, that he was human enough to watch the
seductive roll of her behind.  He shook his head when she finally
disappeared.

"I know she's your friend, Kate, but yeesh - what a dragon."

"She's got a crush on you," I said, childishly pleased by his
disapproval.

"And who can blame her?"

That brought a smile to his face.  He pressed a wet, smacking kiss to
my nearest cheek.

"I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have a friend like you."

Me, too, I thought, watching him bounce back out the door.  Me, too.

I did not expect such a grand theatre.  A buckled wooden stage maybe,
or a student auditorium through which Joe's music would swirl like
cognac in a plastic cup.

Stepping out of the cab, I looked about me in wonder.  Beyond the
modern silhouette of the Annenberg Theatre, I saw the softer brick and
limestone of the older campus Ben Franklin's campus.  I hoped these
privileged academics would be kind to my sensitive young lover.  I had
my doubts when I read the posters hanging inside the fancy glass
displays.  They all trumpeted well-known Broadway shows, featuring
professional actors.

I turned to Sean with concern tightening my throat, a concern he didn't
seem to share.  A half-smile lit his handsome face.  From the way he
dressed at work, you'd never know he owned nice clothes, but tonight
he'd trotted out his finery.  He wore an up-to the-minute Gianfranco
Ferre suit, a red silk tie, polished shoes and wonder of wonders cuff
links.  With complete self- assurance, he cradled our opening night
bouquet.  The crinkling cellophane held three dozen red and white
roses.  I'd told him they symbolised desire and aspiration.

He liked that enough not to balk at the cost.  Of course, these days
neither of us had to stint.  Lawyers might be pond scum, but they paid
him well.

Sean punched my shoulder.

"You've never been to the Annenberg Theatre, have you?"

I shook my head.

"Never.  I had no idea.  Look at this crowd.  Some of those women are
wearing evening gowns!"

Thank heaven I'd let Sean bully me into wearing my emerald shantung
sheath.  I had feared I'd be overdressed, but now I saw as much silk as
denim.

Sean nodded towards a woman with her hair piled elegantly atop her
head.

"Most of the dressed-up women are professors.  Everyone on campus has
been talking about Captain Blood.  Our little Joe is about to make a
big splash."  His own words energised him.  He took me by the elbow and
tugged me in the direction of the entrance.

"Hurry up, Kate.  I want to find someone to take these flowers
backstage."

"My heels," I protested with a laugh for his eagerness.

He looked down at my feet and paused for one gratifying moment to
admire my ankles.  Then he sighed and proceeded at a more gentlemanly
pace.

"I don't know why you women wear those things.  They're an accident
waiting to happen."

I smiled to myself.  That brief, burning glance reminded me all too
clearly why I wore high heels now and then, at least.

The theatre was packed but, thanks to his position as composer and
star, Joe had wangled us spectacular, centre-front seats.  I could have
kicked my shoes into the orchestra pit though I doubted the musicians
would have appreciated the contribution.

A mix of old and young students, the orchestra went about their
business with an air of brisk competence.

"I know what I'm doing," said their studious expressions as they
arranged Joe's music on their stands.

I remembered how college could seem like the centre of the universe.

Their seriousness amused me, but I was glad for Joe's sake.  His score
would get a fair hearing with these sober players and this big,
acoustically sophisticated stage.

We hadn't been seated long when the lights flashed three times, then
dimmed.  Excitement rippled through me.  Sean fumbled for my hand.

People coughed in the darkness and rustled their programmes.  Sean's
fingers tightened on mine.  The conductor a shaggy, longhaired beanpole
in a dinner jacket lifted his arms.  I forgot to breathe until they
fell.

The orchestra launched into Joe's overture as if they had played it all
their lives.  I closed my eyes as the familiar strains washed over
me,

tart and sweet and intricate Up until now, I'd only heard this music on
a second-hand upright.  How different it sounded wound together with
the strings and the winds and the light poom-poom-poom of the
percussion.

I'll remember this, I promised myself, no matter who fluffs their lines
or trips over the stage curtain.  I'll remember this moment when
everything came together perfectly.

As it happened, no one fluffed their lines not so the audience could
tell, anyway.  They were too busy drying tears of laughter.

Captain Blood told the tale of a vampire-pirate and the delectable
young innocent who stowed away on his ship, tempting him to break his
vow to drink no virgin blood.  To my surprise, the play was hilarious,
a melodrama pushed firmly over the edge into farce.  The student actors
played it straight as stone but that only made the awful dialogue
funnier.

I hoped the writer didn't mind.  I suspected he hadn't meant to be so
comical.

The actors, on the other hand, knew exactly what reaction to expect Joe
especially.  I shouldn't have been surprised, considering the
role-playing he'd done for me, but the way he could milk a laugh with a
tiny bit of business amazed me.

He looked at home onstage.  He moved without self- consciousness.  He
spoke as if the words had come to him that very moment.

He had presence.

Whenever he appeared, he riveted all eyes to him and him alone.  The
curl of his lip got noticed, or a brief contraction of his fist.  The
other actors might not have existed.  When he sang, women leant forward
in their seats and pressed their hands to their throats.

"Good lord," murmured the diamond-spangled woman next to me.

"Rod Stewart meets Pavarotti."

"Hush," scolded her bosomy partner.

"I want to hear."

During the climactic scene, in which Captain Blood succumbs to his
darker nature and brings the heroine across, Joe stripped off his
pirate shirt and clasped the buxom ingenue to his breast.  As he bent
her tango-style over his arm, the muscles of his back rippled under the
stage lights.  A collective sigh issued from the female members of the
audience, and a few of the males, too.

More than a little susceptible himself.  Scan transferred my hand to
his inner thigh, near his knee.  His overcoat draped his lap,
sheltering a pocket of warmth.  My sex throbbed with longing.  I wanted
to measure his strong, swollen cock.  I wanted to squeeze it through
all that well-pressed wool while Joe seduced the girl onstage, while
the audience squirmed in its seats and wished that they, too, had
someone hot to hold.

Divining my desire, or perhaps just obeying his.  Scan nudged my hand
upward as Joe and the heroine plunged into a passionate duet.

"Don't make me take you," Joe begged in fine operatic style.

Sean moulded my hand to his gargantuan bulge.

"Make me yours forever," the heroine trilled back.

Oh, yes, I thought, and began massaging Sean's cock in time to the
music.  He pressed me closer, but not hard enough to make him come.

Though no one paid us any heed, we didn't want to get caught doing
something that might embarrass our pride and joy.

Up on stage, Joe sank his teeth into the heroine's neck and swore her
blood was sweet as honey and ripe as spring.  The longer he sang, the
harder Scan got.  The harder Sean got, the wetter I grew.  The heroine
warbled in orgasmic bliss, but down in the stalls I wondered how much
more I could take.

The song ended just as I was sure a single touch would bring me off.

Sean lifted my hand from him, his palm as damp as mine.  He pressed a
kiss on to the back of my knuckles and bent close enough to whisper in
my ear.

"I'm going to fuck you both silly when we get home."

I tossed my curls, feigning a coolness I did not feel.

"Promises, promises."

He bared his teeth at me.

"Count on it, babe."  My neighbour shushed us.  We behaved ourselves |
until the final curtain fell.

(As soon as Joe appeared, flowers rained on to the proscenium.  Some of
the ladies in the audience, professors included, stuck two fingers in
their mouths and whistled.  Joe took four curtain calls.  He could have
taken more but, after the fourth, he sternly refused to accept and
summoned the rest of the cast.

He handed all his flowers to the heroine.  She looked like a walking
bouquet.

I'd never been prouder of him.  He'd demonstrated a power and a
self-possession I hadn't known he had, and he was still the same sweet
Joe.

"You're crying," Sean accused, and handed me the handkerchief from the
breast pocket of his suit.  It was silk and had a monogram.  Now that
was friendship.

He grimaced when I dabbed my eyes and blew.

"Women," he said, but his voice was warm.  He gave my shoulders a
bracing hug.

"Come on.  Miss Watering Pot.  Let's see if we can shove our way
backstage.  I want to congratulate the star."

FR1;Chapter Ten Hell Hath No Fury Shove was the operative word for our
progress.  With Scan acting as forward, we forged through the narrow
corridor that led to the dressing rooms.

I spotted Marianne ahead of us in the crush.  She slunk along in the
same blue dress she'd worn to work, but a gleaming black chignon
confined her flowing hair.  A dangle of diamonds swayed from her ears,
and her neck looked positively swanlike.

Heads turned as she passed, not simply for her sake, but for her
escort's.

I caught a glimpse of his profile as they turned a corner .  He was
older than her usual, a good-looking man, though age had softened his
jaw and good living had roughened his skin.  I noted his high brow and
hawkish nose.  His silver hair was full and smoothly styled, like an ad
for male hair products.  He walked with his dark wool coat slung
casually over one shoulder.  Though Marianne held his arm, he did not
glance at her, but scanned the crowd with sharp, restless eyes.  He
looked like he owned the world or wanted to.

When they reached the student actors gathered outside Joe's dressing
room, a flurry of whispers broke out.

"I don't believe it," I heard one girl say.

"That's Desmond Gerrard."  I didn't recognise the name, or the man, but
that didn't mean anything.  I wouldn't have recognised Walter
Annenberg, either.  What I did recognise was that Marianne had pulled
off a dating coup and wanted to make sure everyone especially Joe knew
she had what it took.  I sighed to myself.  I wouldn't have cared if
Marianne had snagged Prince Charles for an escort.  Now, if she'd found
someone who made her happy for longer than a week, that would impress
me.

"That was a fine performance," Marianne's date was saying as Scan and I
squirmed into the crowded dressing room.

"Very impressive."

His voice was serious, professorial.  It seemed a bit of a put-on.  I
wondered if he spoke that way because he was a pompous jerk, or because
Joe was so much younger.

"Thanks," Joe said.  Still in costume, he sat before a grease-smudged
mirror.  Our bouquet of red and white roses brushed his shoulder,
filling the small room with its scent.  Pots of cold cream and crumpled
tissues lay scattered across the vanity table.  Beneath the remains of
his stage make-up, Joe's colour was high.  A chunky girl in flannel and
jeans was helping him remove the heavy foundation.  She clenched an
orange-smeared tissue in her fist.  Clearly, she resented the
interruption.  Another of his unwitting conquests, I presumed.  It
crossed my mind that no female under thirty should wear so much
eyeliner not that the girl would appreciate the suggestion.

Belatedly remembering his manners, Joe stood and extended his hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr.  Gerrard."

Desmond Gerrard gripped his palm.

"Please call me Desi."

"Desi," Joe complied, then cracked a huge grin.

"I know you must get tired of hearing this, but I'm a huge fan of your
work."

Desmond Gerrard ducked his head and scratched the smooth skin above his
crow's feet.  The gesture betrayed the shy teenager he must have been,
once upon a time, before he became such an important personage.  He
recovered quickly, squaring his shoulders and clearing his throat.

That makes two of us," he said.

"Marianne tells me you composed the score."

"That's right."  To his credit, Joe did not ask his idol if he liked
it.  In fact, before the man could volunteer a compliment, the sight of
Sean and me stole Joe's attention.  With a flattering lack of
hesitation, he pushed through the crowd and swept me into a
bone-crushing hug.

That he turned to me first made my heart soar with pleasure and my
conscience prick with guilt.

"Kate," he exclaimed, loudly kissing my cheek.

"I'm so glad you made it."

Grinning from ear to ear, Sean pounded his back.

I smoothed Joe's hair off his brow.

"It was wonderful.  You were wonderful."

He let out a throaty chortle that drew every eye in the room.

Overflowing with excitement, he dropped a kiss to my neck, then my
lips, then hugged me close again.  Inside his black pirate's trousers,
his sex had swelled to full tumescence.  The ridge pounded my hip
through the leather and I squirmed at the upsurge of lust this
produced.  The fact that I'd watched him seduce another woman for the
last two hours did nothing to quell my hunger.  I swivelled forward,
pressing my softness against his leg.  His erection pulsed more
forcefully.

"Bad girl," he whispered.

I squeezed his thigh between mine.

Tut-tut," he clucked and, before I could evade him, covered my mouth
with his.  His lips were soft, his jaw hard.  Its muscles worked as his
tongue breached me, thrusting deep to tease the sensitive nerves along
my palate.  He sucked my tongue on to the curve of his, a bold,
possessive pull that drew me fully into his mouth.

Someone wolf-whistled.  Blood flamed in my cheeks but I couldn't break
free.  Joe's arms wrapped me like steel flattening my breasts against
his half-bare chest.  Heat flooded my groin, inconvenient and
unstoppable.  His chest hair prickled my cleavage.  In a motion too
subtle to see I hoped!  - he dragged his pecs in tiny sideways jerks
across my nipples.  Oh, he made me ache.  Moisture welled between my
labia.  A trickle quivered on the verge, then spilt over.  I cursed my
lack of underwear.  With nothing to stop it, the trickle rolled down my
inner thigh, threatening to tell Joe's fellow cast members a good bit
more than they needed to know.  Joe flicked his tongue back into my
mouth.  My lungs began to ache.  When finally he released me, I was
gasping like an asthmatic.

I tugged my hem down as far as it would go.

He laughed again, enjoying his taste of power.  He slung one arm around
Sean's back and the other around my waist.

"Come meet Desmond Gerrard."  He spoke close to my ear, sotto voce.

"He's a Broadway producer."

I nodded, my face impassive even as dread knotted my stomach.  Did Joe
have to be discovered his first time out?  With an effort, I ordered
myself not to ruin the good impression he must have made.

"Desi," Joe said, pride shining in his handsome face.

"These are my good friends.  Scan Halloran and Kate Winthrop."

Desi shook Sean's hand a single manly jerk then turned to me.  I
steeled myself to hide my instinctive mistrust but the twinkle in his
eye disarmed me.  He pressed my hand between both of his, almost bowing
over it.

"You must be Marianne's sister-in-law," he said.

"She speaks of you often."

I wondered what Marianne had said to inspire that wolfish gleam.  Then
again, maybe I was better off not knowing.

"We're treating Joe to a celebratory steak," I said, though in fact
we'd planned nothing of the kind.

"Would you and Marianne care to join us?"

A tiny gasp from Marianne told me this was not the way she wanted the
evening to unfold.  A cosy circle involving her, Desi and Joe, was my
guess with her queening it over both of them.

"We'd be delighted," said her escort, without so much as a glance to
consult her.

"But you simply must let me treat."

"My cousin Frank has a steak joint across the river," Sean said.

"You like pool?"

Marianne responded to that suggestion with a ladylike sniff, but once
again Desi overrode her.

"I adore billiards," he declared, and I almost believed he meant it.

He certainly was charming.  I just hoped charm wasn't all there was to
him.  I'd hate to see Joe hurt by some smooth-talking New York power
broker.

Joe was too euphoric to worry.  He clapped his hands to get the
attention of the crowd.

"Okay, everybody out," he said.

"The star needs to change into street clothes."

He earned a few cat calls for that, and a few offers to help, but the
room cleared without much delay.

"Not you."  He caught Sean and me by the back of our collars.

"I have plans for you."

He propped a cracked vinyl chair beneath the doorknob.  Sean and I
smiled at each other.  Little Joe was ready to roll, and we were happy
to oblige.

Sean walked his fingers up the gap in Joe's pirate blouse.

"I hope you've got something quick in mind.  You don't want to keep
Mr.

Broadway waiting."

"I can't think about him now."  Joe shook his shoulders free of the
shirt and yanked his hands from the ruffled cuffs.  The white cloth
hung over his waistband, draping the snug black leather.  My mouth went
dry at the sight of his perfectly honed torso.  Dark hair circled his
coppery nipples, then dived into the enticing shadows beneath his
navel.  I'd never seen him look so male, so dangerous.

Our eyes connected.  Joe's colour deepened.  He mouthed, I want you.  A
shiver rolled down my spine and he smiled, very slowly.

"Come here," he said.  His fingers brushed my wrist before cuffing it
and reeling me to his side.  Greedy to touch him, I ran my hand up that
silky line of hair, across his ribs and on to his pee.  He jumped when
I pinched his nipple.

"Mm, Kate."  He buried his nose in my powdered decolletage.

"I'm so horny I could scream.  I kept thinking about the two of you
sitting in the audience, watching me, holding hands, teasing each
other."  Hunger rumbled in his throat.

"It's a wonder I remembered my lines."

As he'd done with the heroine, Joe dipped me over his arm.  The
position arched my back and offered my nipples to his mouth.  He
breathed on them through the emerald silk, then mouthed them lightly.

My eyelids drooped with pleasure.

The rattle of a belt buckle snapped me from my languor.  With his free
hand, Joe shoved Sean's trousers and briefs to his hips.  As he
continued to nuzzle my breasts, he ran his fingers over Sean's thick,
ruby crested erection like a man reading braille.

Sean propped his hands on his waist.

"I guess you are hungry."

"Starved," Joe said, and tugged him, cock first, towards the make-up
table.

Scan hopped up with a look of bemusement.  The table was high enough
that his feet swung inches from the floor.  Except for the vigour of
his erection, he would have looked child-like.  Sean grinned, his sense
of the ridiculous keen.

But Joe's intent wasn't humorous.

"Spread 'em he said, his voice rough and not from singing all night. He
turned me to face Sean, wrapped his arms around my waist, and pressed
his cheek next to mine.

"Wider, mister, and get those trousers down.  I want to see how much
you need what's coming to you."

Smiling faintly, Sean worked his trousers over his hips.  They fell to
his ankles and caught on his polished shoes.  He spread his muscular
legs.  His sac hung between his thighs, its heavy contents resting on
the Formica table top.  The surface must have chilled the delicate
skin, but he rolled his burn from side to side as though he liked the
sensation.

Joe pushed me between Sean's knees.

"Bend over he said.

I assumed he meant me to go down on Sean, but before I could do more
than touch the swollen knob with my tongue he gripped my hair and
pulled me back.

"That's mine," he said.

I looked back at him, surprised and intrigued.  Joe was really riding
high tonight.  He must have regretted his sharpness, though, because he
released my curls with a soft stroking motion.  His hands slid down my
back, then reversed to push my heavy silk dress over my bottom.

His hum of pleasure rewarded my fashion choice.  I wore his favourite
stockings, sheer beige silk with a sheen of gold.  My suspender belt
was satin, green to match the dress, and of course I wore no panties.

His fingertips slid over my curves, smoothing the straps along my
buttocks, then dipping gently into the well of moisture at the heart of
my sex.

"This is mine, too," he said, two fingers sinking deep.

His touch was heaven after all that waiting.  Swallowing a helpless
cry, I pushed back, working myself on his knuckles, drenching him with
cream.  Scan craned forward, eager to see.

"God," Joe said.

"You're sopping."

His hand left me.  Buttons popped; cellophane tore.  An instant later,
his cock-tip travelled the length of my crease, my cheeks spread wide
by his hands.  He dipped the crown in my moisture, coating it
generously.  It slid more slickly then, leaving a cool-hot trail
behind.  My sex pounded.

"Please," I said, angling myself to take him.

"I want you inside me.

I need you."

He corked the wet, waiting mouth, pressed the flare inside and
stopped.

"Don't tease me," I begged.

"We haven't got much time."  He didn't move.  His hands covered my
cheeks, massaging them in deep crease-parting circles.

"You are so fucking hot.  It would take a saint to wait."

"Don't wait, Joe," I pleaded.

"Push it all the way in.  Push it hard."

Scan wagged his feet to either side of me.

"If you won't give her what she wants, I will."

"Like hell," Joe growled.

Bracing his arms on the table, he surged inside.  That single push
nearly sheathed him.  Not satisfied with nearly, he bent over me,
grunting as he worked himself deeper.  The warm, drawn-up bulk of his
scrotum squashed the under curve of my cheeks.  I shifted my legs
wider.  He leant closer.  His chest was sweaty and hard.  It pushed my
upper body on to the table between Sean's legs until my arms draped his
gold-furred thighs and my forehead rested on his hip.  Sean's erection
grazed the muscle between my neck and shoulder, sinking down and then
bobbing off as the blood pumped intermittently through his shaft.  Heat
rolled off him in waves.

"Perfect," Joe praised, breathless from his struggle.  Reaching past my
shoulder, he petted the upper slope of Sean's cock, slowly, gently,
from lube-wet glans to thick, hairy root.

Sean's belly shivered.  Joe craned closer, his mouth hovering over the
head.  Scan sucked in a breath and held it.

Joe's tongue curled out.  With three leisurely strokes, he pushed
Sean's foreskin back over the ridge.  He drew back to inspect the
results.  He worked his jaw from side to side, loosening it, I
imagine.

His hips dragged back from mine until he almost slipped free.  Then he
took us both at once.

I felt Sean's twitch of response as intimately as my own.  Our muscles
tightened in tandem as my body swallowed Joe and Joe swallowed Scan.

We moaned in chorus and I gripped Sean's buttocks an instant before his
fingers clamped over my collar bones.

Luckily, Joe didn't take long to settle into a steady double rhythm.

"Oh, man, that's good," Sean said, his hold on my shoulders gentling,
becoming an unconscious massage.

"Mm-hm," I agreed.

Joe chuckled and the sound vibrated through the skin of my back.  He
was so close.  His hair brushed my cheek with every pass.  I could feel
his jaw stretch, hear him swallow.  The wet sucking noise he made as he
fella ted Sean was indescribably arousing.  I couldn't take my eyes off
his mouth.  It was bigger than mine.  His lips slid easily to the
golden curls that thatched Sean's pubis.  The pressure he exerted was
greater, too.  As he sucked, Sean's vein-girded skin stretched taut and
gleamed with saliva.  The sight entranced me to watch Joe's cheeks
hollow, to see his tongue lap the purpled glans or dig greedily into
the weeping hole, to hear Sean groan with pleasure I doubted any act of
voyeurism could crank me higher.

The fact that Joe's iron-hard prick was working me just as efficiently
made the show all the sweeter.  I couldn't hold back my pleasure.  He
drove in hard and I came with a deep, rolling shudder, milking Joe's
cock with my spasms.

"No, no, no," he said, pulling up to gasp for air, every muscle
tightening in his quest for control.

"Don't stop," Sean rasped.

"I'm almost there."

Sean's buttocks clenched hard, pushing his hips forward until his balls
nudged my cleavage.  He was so velvety warm there and so male-smelling
my hunger rose again.  I had to touch him, had to help.

Cursing Joe's weight, I worked one hand under my chest to knead the
tender sac.

Sean squirmed into my caress.

"Say, Kate, have I mentioned what a sweetheart you are?"

I rolled him between palm and knuckles.

"Not lately."

"Oh, man, hurry," he said to Joe.

"This whistle's about to blow."

"Do you know what she does to me when she comes?"  Joe said.

"I had to take a breather."  His eyes sparkled with laughter as his
lips ringed Sean's cock again.

Sean sighed blissfully, then shook one fist in the air.

"Once more into the fray!"  he cried, quoting Captain Blood's big fight
scene.

Joe chuckled around his bulging mouthful and I experienced a singular
burst of contentment champagne and sunshine, wobbling kittens, a book
by the fire, and a three-hanky film wrapped up in one.  We were
happy.

We were all happy.

"Once more, Kate," Sean laughed, ruffling my hair.  Tush that
cocksucker over the edge."

As soon as he said it, I knew I could come again.

Joe did, too.  His head bobbed determinedly and he kneed my legs
wider.

One hand slipped to my front, cupping and steadying my mons.

His hard, choppy drives told me he wasn't far from peaking himself.  I
arched my back and drew him deeper, reaching for the sweet culminating
pang.

Sean's laugh became a gasp.  His thighs trembled under my arms.  His
hand knotted in my hair.

"Geez," he said, twisting so hard tears sprang to my eyes.

"Geez."

Joe sucked harder and thrust harder.  His motions rocked my upper body
into the table, into Sean.  The mirror began to rattle.  The ache
between my legs intensified.  A wall rose in my throat.

But Sean stiffened first, and shuddered, and pushed us all over the
edge with his choked-back orgasmic cries.  When the last quiver faded,
he sagged over me, breathing hard.  To my surprise, he pressed a tender
kiss to the back of my head, then to Joe's.

"What a pair," he panted.

"You guys can take me out for this culture stuff any day."

Halloran's was a smoky neighbourhood restaurant with the sort of
ambience that takes generations to develop.  T-bones and beer ruled the
tables out front, billiards the back.  The scent of charred meat
perfumed the air.  My mouth watering, we followed the fragrance up a
set of stairs.  Black and white photos covered the age-browned walls,
with well-known actors and politicians arm-in- arm with the original
Mr.  Halloran.

"Isn't that a famous mobster?"  Desi asked, indicating the dear,
departed mayor.

"The man was a saint," Sean declared.  Joe and I laughed, but the man
in question was a saint to some Philadelphians.

Once we'd reached the main dining room, a handsome waiter in a boiled
white shirt and bow tie ushered us to a corner table.  Dim lighting
could not disguise the faded red carpet, but the tablecloths blazed
like snow.  Our beer arrived in huge frosted mugs.  The steak was
tender enough to cut with a fork.

That was sufficient to keep Sean and me happy.  The others talked
theatre while we devoured the carnivorous treat, blithely ignorant of
almost everyone they named.  No reference was made to Joe's ambitions
or what Desmond Gerrard might do to further them.  The few times
Marianne tried to steer the conversation in that direction, the men
ignored her.  Sulking, she ordered a second manhattan.  I didn't
worry.

I knew Joe and Desi were doing a man-thing; they'd get around to
business once they finished sniffing each other over.

We'd reached the coffee-dessert stage when Sean's cousin Frank dropped
by to say he'd reserved his two best pool tables for us.

"And when you getting' married anyway?"  the beefy restaurateur added,
his eyes sidling to me as he cuffed his cousin's head.  Scan had his
arm around the back of my chair, so I guess Frank assumed we were
together.  He looked happy about it too happy.  He shook a meaty finger
at me.

"Don't you let him squirm off your hook, Kate.

Hallorans have great-looking kids."

I assured him I'd keep that in mind.  Scan could set him straight about
our relationship later, assuming he wanted to.  I wasn't sure how 'out'
Sean was to his family.  He'd told his parents, yes, but the rest of
his relatives?  People like the Hallorans probably didn'tproduce too
many bisexual bachelors, or know what to make of them when they did. No
doubt, plain old gayness would have been easier for them to accept.

Joe had a funny look on his face as he watched this exchange.  I could
not read it.  It wasn't jealousy, but he was obviously entertaining
unfamiliar thoughts.

As I'd expected, Joe and Desi paired off for a round of billiards.

That left Scan and me coupled at the second table.  I'd played exactly
twice in my life and I was pitiful.  I sent three balls in a row
crashing over the edge.  Sean howled with laughter.  When Marianne
offered to take my place, I was more than willing to let her, but Sean
insisted I just needed a lesson from an expert.

"Relax, sweetheart," he said, surrounding my body from behind.

"Let a master show you how it's done."

For the next six shots, his hands covered mine on the stick,
half-guiding, half-caressing.  His hips spooned my hips; his knees
nudged my thighs; and every so often his breath, warm and
coffee-scented, stirred the curls at the back of my neck.  At first, I
thought the Casanova act might be for his cousin's benefit, but the
healthy erection that brushed my burn with every shot suggested
otherwise.

"Aim ze stick towards ze hole," he said, making me giggle at his awful
French accent and his double entendre, which he underscored by sticking
his tongue in my ear.

"Jesus," I heard Marianne mutter.

Fearing she'd make a scene and ruin Joe's night, I insisted she take a
turn.  Unlike me, Marianne knew which end of the cue was which.  Scan
still trounced her twice.  Losing did not improve her mood, or the fact
that whenever she was shooting Sean wrapped me in his arms and nuzzled
my neck.

Refusing to play any more, she ordered a third manhattan, a pack of
cigarettes, and lounged back against the billiard room's bar.  The ice
cubes tinkled in her glass as she tucked a Virginia Slim between her
full red lips.  She lit it deftly, then watched Joe and Desi amble and
joke their way around the table.  Each burst of laughter inspired a
frown.  Between puffs, her fingers drummed the elbow of the hand that
held her drink.

Despite the miasma of vice that clung to her person, she looked more
attractive than I could ever remember seeing her.  She was always
attractive, it was true, but tonight her eyes sparkled and her cheeks
glowed with angry colour.  Her high, apple-perfect breasts jiggled
within the clasp of her short blue dress.  Her nipples pointed straight
out like tiny electrified points.  Waiters ogled them.

Customers licked their lips.  Frankly, I didn't know where Desmond
Gerrard found the strength to ignore her, unless this was how he
maintained their balance of power.

Women like Marianne did not reward overt adulation.  Look at poor
Keith.  Marianne hadn't had a kind word to say to him since he'd kissed
her feet in Rittenhouse Square.

"Thanks for bringing Desi to the play," I said, hoping to jolly her out
of her funk.

"I know it means a lot to Joe to meet a big name so early in his
career."

"Right."  She blew a double stream of smoke through her nostrils.

Her acerbity made me wonder why she had brought Desi.  If she'd hoped
to earn Joe's undying gratitude, that ploy had failed.

"How did you and Desi meet?"  I asked, suddenly curious.

She gazed across the room at her escort.  Her eyes narrowed to
black-rimmed silver slits.  Desi sank a shot and shook his cue in a
little victory dance.  Marianne's upper lip curled derisively, as if
she knew all his shameful secrets but perhaps the sneer was the effect
of her dangling cigarette.

"We have complementary interests," she said, and beyond that I could
not draw her.

Hours later.  Scan, Joe and I lay sprawled before a crackling fire at
my townhouse.  Both men had discarded their jackets and ties, I'd
kicked off my torturous heels, and we all sipped the Courvoisier Sean
had bought to mark the occasion.  Combined with the beer I'd drunk at
dinner and the heat of the fire, the brandy had me nodding.

But I wasn't too sleepy to notice how quiet Joe had been since we left
the restaurant.  He hunkered before the fire, idly prodding a log with
the poker, his eyes hooded with private thoughts.

Sean rolled on to his back and balanced the balloon glass on his
breastbone.

"So," he said, when the latest shower of sparks died down.

"What did Mr.  Broadway have to say?"

Joe replaced the poker in its stand.

"He says I've got charisma."

"And?"  Sean prompted.

Joe bit his lower lip.  His chest expanded with a slow inhalation.

"He says he knows an agent in New York who'd be happy to represent
me."

"That's great."  I reached out to squeeze his knee.

Joe still looked glum.

"He says he'd represent me as an actor."  His nose wrinkled on the
word.

"He says my music isn't mature enough yet."

"Ah, what does he know?"  Sean said.

Joe shoved his hair back from his face.  Blue shadows smudged the
hollows beneath his eyes, and the fire-light picked out two faint lines
radiating from the corner of each lid.  The marks made my own eyes
wrinkle in sympathy.

"Desmond Gerrard knows a hell of a lot more than I do," he said,
sounding as tired as he looked.

"In the last ten years he hasn't produced one flop.  If he says my
music needs more seasoning, he's probably right."

I pushed myself upright and smoothed his tiny worry lines.  Joe leant
into the caress and closed his eyes.  I knew I loved him then, with all
my wary heart.  I also knew I had to help him find the courage to
pursue his dream.

"Would you really hate being an actor?"  I asked, treading carefully.

"Because it could be a good experience.  You'd learn more about the way
theatre works, and you'd meet people who might be useful later on.

Plus you'd be in New York.  If you're really serious, isn't that where
you need to be?"

"Yes."  His head sank on to my shoulder.

"But I don't want to leave you."

"Oh, baby."  Understanding his conflict all too well, I rubbed his back
in slow, reassuring passes.  I wished I could promise it would all work
out.

"You gotta go see this guy," Sean said, speaking for all of us.

"If you don't at least try, you'll never stop kicking yourself."

Joe moaned a soft protest into my neck, then pushed back and shook off
his melancholy.

"The agent might not even like me," he said more cheerfully.

But I sincerely doubted that would be the case.

I woke before dawn, a sure sign I'd overindulged the night before.

Rather than lie in bed staring at the ceiling, I decided to leave for
work early and get a jump on cleaning maybe even buy a batch of sticky
buns for my hardworking employees.  Christmas was coming and, in this
season of irate customers and overtime, a boss could never suck up too
much.

With the sun barely up, the shop's interior remained a collection of
wide, oblique shadows.  It creaked and groaned like an old house, and
smelled deliciously of coffee beans and ageing books.

Locking the street door behind me, I dumped my bag, coat, and the
platter of buns behind the front counter.  After a brief debate over
whether I should nab one right away, I headed for the closet where we
stored the vacuum.  I'd burn a few calories cleaning.  Then I'd
misbehave.

The sound of muffled voices, a man and a woman's, brought me up short
outside our office.

The female voice could only be Marianne's - and from the groans that
interspersed the conversation, she wasn't going over the books.

Damn, damn, damn.  I pinched my lower lip.  As I saw it I had three
choices: I could leave quietly; I could make a lot of noise and alert
them to my presence; or I could barge in and demand to know why
Marianne was using our office as a try sting place.

The final option tempted, but I wasn't up for a confrontation.

Besides, I'd transgressed once myself.  Memories of my back-room ball
game with Sean flooded back.  I remembered the way he'd manhandled me
over to the ladder, the way he'd filled me so snugly, the sounds he'd
made when he came.  Worst of all, we had our tryst during business
hours.

What if Marianne decided to throw that back in my face?

With that in mind, I opted for making noise.  They'd pull themselves
together as soon as I switched on the vacuum.  I began to tiptoe past
the door.  Just as I did, the man's voice rose in volume an
over-enunciated literature professor's voice.  No doubt about it,
Desmond Gerrard was in there with Marianne.

"I simply can't, darling."  He heaved a sigh of deep carnal
suffering.

"You're the best, the absolute best and it kills me to refuse you
anything, but the boy has real talent."

He groaned again, louder this time.  I cursed the interruption.  Was
Joe 'the boy' and, if so, what did Marianne want Desmond to do to
him?

I strained to hear her response.

"You know no one does it like I do," she purred.

"Too true, but Oh, yes, a tad tighter, darling.  Yes, that's perfect.

The thing is, the boy is extremely good.  You saw those women creaming
in their pants last night the men, too, truth be told.

Someone is bound to snap him up and make a big deal of him.  He's a
young Mel Gibson, a new Brad Pitt' His accolade ended on a sharp
yelp.

"You promised," Marianne said, low and dangerous.

I heard a loud, fleshy smack.

"No so hard," he complained.

She's spanking him, I thought, but even that revelation couldn't prise
my ear from the door.

"You've been very bad," said Marianne.  Another smack resounded through
the office, and another yelp.

"Going back on your word.  I ought to beat you bloody, little man."

"No, no," Desmond pleaded, his voice hoarse with excitement.

"I tell you, Joe Capriccio's going to be somebody.  If it gets out that
I lured him to New York on false pretences and then abandoned him, I'll
be ruined.  Even you can see that."

If they hadn't been so engrossed in their game, they would have heard
my gasp of outrage.

"So deny it," Marianne said, punctuating her advice with a sharp
wallop.

"It'll be your word against his.  Who's going to believe some wide-eyed
fairy from Philly?"

I'd heard enough.  I slammed the door open so hard, a picture fell off
the opposite wall.  Despite my fury, the tableau that met my eyes
temporarily shocked me speechless.

Desmond Gerrard was crouched doggy-style along the front of my desk,
naked but for an assortment of metal- studded leather straps.  What
looked like clothes line secured his right wrist to one desk leg and
his right ankle to the other.  He didn't look as good without his power
suit.  His butt sagged a little, and his belly.  Apart from the pink
spank marks on his bottom, he was fish- belly pale.  His erection,
however, had to be the largest I'd ever seen ten inches at least, and
thick to boot.

He shrieked in horror at my intrusion.  Kneeling up as well as he could
with two limbs restrained, he tried to shield his scarlet monster from
view.  Even as he pressed the shaft down between his legs, it twitched
violently and spilt a puddle of pre-come on to the floorboards.

Intellectually, he might hate getting caught with his pants down, but
physically, he was ready to explode with excitement.

My clit quivered with an inappropriate fris son of interest All I could
think was that nobody would make a mouthful of that humongous beast.

"Like what you see?"  Marianne drawled.

"Bet you'd like a crack at that swizzle stick."

I turned to her for the first time and did my second double take.  She
wore a form-fitting latex dress, black and very shiny, with a long zip
up the front, no sleeves, H and a hem that failed to fully cover her
fishnet-clad bottom cheeks.  Five-inch heels encased her long, elegant
feet and she gripped a ping-pong paddle in one hand.  She smacked it
periodically against her palm keeping it warm, I guessed.

As usual, she looked great hot as hell and completely in control.

Even though I hated what she'd tried to do to Joe, I couldn't help
admiring her balls.  She hadn't turned a hair at my unexpected
entrance.

Desi moaned, clearly inflamed by our battle of wills.  Fat beads of
sweat rolled into his cloud of silver chest hair.  He clutched the
shaft of his cock with his unbound hand, gripping it so hard his
knuckles paled.

Marianne glanced at him and scowled.

"Bad!"  She flicked him sharply across the chest with her paddle.  Desi
cried out as the blow stung the sensitive pinpoint at the centre of his
pectoral.

"Did I give you permission to touch yourself?"

"No, mistress."  Desi bowed his head.  He removed his hand from his
cock.  It sprang back against his belly.  Struck dumb with fascination,
I watched the huge phallus swell and contract with the pumping of his
heart.  Another trickle of fluid overflowed the winking eye.  I
expected him to come any second but though he shivered like a wet dog
he managed to stave off that last crucial loss of control.

"Well?"  said Marianne, returning her attention to me.

"I assume you overheard.  Are you going to scold me now or ogle my
slave?"  She struck her palm with the paddle again, her eyes lingering
coolly on my breasts.  It didn't take a genius to conclude she longed
to squash me under her five-inch heel as well.

I knew now why I'd always held back on forming an equal partnership
with Marianne despite her periodic requests to change our contract's
terms.  Tack up your desk," I said.

"I'll mail you a redundancy cheque."

She actually stomped her foot.

"You can't fire me.  I'm the last friend you've got."

"Excuse me?"  I willed the telltale colour from of my cheeks, but
Marianne saw it anyway.  She tapped the paddle against her chin.

"Well, really, Kate.  Who's come visiting since Tom ran out on you?

Oh, forgive me, I'm forgetting your buddies here at work your close,
personal employees.  Or do you want to count your little housemates as
friends?"  A mocking smile curved her scarlet lips.

Trust me, as soon as the next kinky adventure rolls around, they'll be
history.  They're nothing but a pair of cocksuckers."

I don't know what laughing devil whispered in my ear, but the riposte
came effortlessly.

"I'm a cocksucker myself," I said calmly.

"So I hardly count that an insult."

My choice of words seemed to rob Marianne of hers.  They also sent Desi
over the edge.

"Oh, no," he whimpered.  He jerked so hard at his bonds the end of my
desk lurched forward.

"I'm going to come, mistress.  I can't hold back."

"No!"  Marianne smacked his shoulder back and forth with her paddle.

"I forbid you to come!"

But his cock darkened defiantly, the veins bulging, the shaft pounding
like a rabbit's heart.  The tiny slit in the head fluttered, desperate
to eject its load.

"Agh, agh, agh/ he grunted, screwing his eyes shut.

A second later they opened and focused on mine, sharp as lasers.  I
couldn't look away.  Mistress, he mouthed, sending a dark thrill to my
core.  Then he blasted off.  His hips humped the air as streams of
semen shot from his cock like water from a pressure hose.  His seed
spattered the floor boards from his knees to the opposite desk.  I'd
never seen anything like it.

All the while, Marianne rained blows on his shoulders and back, damning
him to hell for coming without her permission Impervious to her fury,
Desmond held me prisoner with his hot, knowing stare.  My hands
shook;

my vagina fluttered and wept.  I knew what he was telling me: that
Marianne and I weren't so different, that I got off on this dom stuff,
too.

Tell me something I don't know, I thought.  But the knowledge ran a
little deeper now.  Now I'd have to consider what it meant.  I released
my tension with a long, slow breath.  /!  want you out before we open
for business today," I said once Marianne stopped swatting her
rebellious slave.

She shook her head at me, off balance, but trying to hide it.

"You'll be sorry, Kate."  1| "I already am," I said, and tossed an
empty book carton on to her desk.

The last thing I heard before I pulled the outer door shut was Marianne
yelling for Desi to lick his jism off the floor.

Still fuming and shaken, I strode down South Street, oblivious to my
favourite funky stores, to the early commuters and the bohemians out
walking their dogs;

In the seventeen years since she'd married my ne'er-do- well brother,
Marianne had never stared at me so coldly, as if she loathed me.  Then
again, maybe I hadn't been looking for it.  We'd been through so much
together.  We'd cried on each other's shoulders and toasted each
other's victories.  If Marianne got snappish, I reckoned she was just
being Marianne.  Friends put up with each other's moods, didn't they?

I hadn't known she resented me enough to strike at me through Joe.

Her plan, flimsy though it was, had the potential to both rob me of his
company and punish him for rejecting her two birds with one stone.

Except the plot had backfired.  At the last minute, her instrument of
revenge had developed cold feet.  Chances were, she'd blame me for
that, too.

Marianne never did get what she wanted.

Desmond Gerrard caught up to me four streets from the shop.  I spun
around to face him.

"What?"  I demanded, more interested in walking off my anger than in
anything he had to say.

"Please wait," he said, then leant on his knees and panted.  His breath
puffed white in the mid-December air.  He'd pulled his business clothes
over his slave getup, obviously in haste.  The studded leather choker
showed behind his half-buttoned collar.  This reminder of what I'd just
seen and felt unnerved me.

I wanted to leave, but my awareness of all he could do to harm Joe's
career stopped me.

"I know how that looked back there," he said, once he'd caught his
breath.

I waited.  He sighed, sounding more like a weary businessman than a
slave.

"I admit, my hobby means a great deal to me, but my professional
reputation isn't for sale.  Not even to a -' his fingers searched the
air for a word '- a paragon like Marianne."

Some paragon!  And some ethics.  He'd had no problem going along with
her plan before he saw Joe perform.  I ground my molars rather than say
this out loud, but my disapproval must have showed.  Desi tugged his
overcoat closed and buttoned it.  The slave collar disappeared.

His dignity had cracked, but not so deeply he couldn't pull it back
together.

"Your friend is genuinely talented," he said.

"I honestly believe I could help him get a solid start."

"Why should I trust you?"

His thumb jabbed his chest.

"I'm Desmond Gerrard.  My word is my bond."  My sceptical snort made
him wince.

"All right, my word isn't always my bond.  But I prefer it to be so,
and I feel badly about what I almost did.  I'd like to make amends."

"I'm not going to blab about this to anyone, if that's what you're
afraid of."  I shoved my hands into my pockets to hide my fists.

"I

don't care what you and Marianne do in private.  I just don't want Joe
hurt."

Desmond's eyes glittered.

"He's lucky to have a friend like you."

"Don't try to charm me," I snapped, my voice sharpened by my fear of
how easily he could do it.

Desmond chuckled.

"Heaven forbid.  Mistress Winthrop."

I glared at him.

He shrugged philosophically.

"Sorry, dear.  Wishful thinking.  But if you ever consider getting into
the scene ... No?  Well, can't blame a fellow for asking."  He reached
inside his coat to remove a business card.  He held it out until I took
it.

"Have Joe call me," he said, 'and if you're concerned about my
principles, feel free to tell him everything you discovered this
morning.  That way he can make an informed decision."

I flipped the card against my fingers, sensing a gamble in his words.

He was betting I'd keep mum because I wouldn't want Joe to doubt he'd
truly earned the admiration of a bigwig like Desmond Gerrard.

Damn thing was, the bastard was right.

"I'll think about it," I said.

He was smiling when I turned away.

Chapter Eleven A Turn in the Road

' T'll fill in for Marianne," Sean said.

"Wearing nothing but a pair of snug white briefs, he propped his
shoulder against the frame of the open bathroom door.  He appeared
completely serious.  When I failed to respond, he crossed his arms. His
biceps swelled.  Under the bright overhead light, the hair on his
forearms glinted like gold dust, a light gilding that also bisected the
muscular plane of his belly.  My gaze trailed to the contents of his
briefs, quiescent now but heavy.

This was not the best place to fix my attention if I wanted to gather
my wits.

Nor did it help that I was naked.  Fresh from the shower, I had one leg
propped on the toilet cover so I could rub cream into my leg.

Scan had seen me unclothed before.  To cover up would have insulted
him.  It shouldn't have made any difference that Joe was staying the
night in New York, that we were alone, or that Scan had just made an
offer so generous it took my breath away.

Conscious of his gaze but trying not to show it, I squirted a line of
moisturiser down my shin.

"You know," he said.

"You should think seriously about opening a second shop."

I looked at him sideways.  He fiddled with the end of the towel rail.

Did he feel it, too the sense of forbidden intimacy?  The only rule
we'd ever made was that none of us step outside the trio.  But if Scan
and I didn't feel guilty, why did Joe's absence make us edgy?  Why
didn't we jump on each other the way we would have if he were home?

"You've paid off the mortgage on this house, haven't you?"  he pressed,
ignoring the heightened tension.

"Yes."

"And the South Street property?"

"Almost.  But how did you know?"

He brushed the hand towel against its nap.

"I ran into your sales assistant, Keith, at the Campus India restaurant
last week.  We had a nice chat over our curry.  He's hoping you'll keep
him on full-time after he graduates, but I'm thinking a bright kid like
that ought to have a shop to run by himself."

I smiled at Sean's reference to Keith as a kid, but he hadn't finished
making pronouncements yet.

"Another thing your mail order business is getting too big for you to
handle.  You've either got to farm it out to a jobber or grow it big
enough to make it worth the hassle.  Buy ad space in a few women's
magazines or, better still, establish a presence on the Internet."

I tilted my head to the side.

"Congratulations, Scan, you've finally told me something that hadn't
already occurred to me."

He had the decency to flush.

"I guess I sounded cocky."

"A bit."

He grinned at the hem of the towel, then met my sardonic gaze.

"I am right," he said, 'and I'd be happy to prove it to you."

I shook my head and resumed creaming my leg.

"I can't ask you to help me.  Between working for the lawyers and
school, you've got enough on your plate."

"I can handle it," he said.  His eyes followed my hands down my calf.

"Once the accounts software is installed, the computer does most of the
work.  Anyway, I know Marianne's type.  She'll take ten hours to do
what ought to take one and then gripe about being too busy."

The moisturiser bottle let out a startled blat, as though impressed by
his insight.  Marianne used to complain about her workload all the
time.  Sean had met her twice in his life.  Why had he sniffed out her
tricks when I hadn't?

"Don't you trust me to do a good job?"  he said.  That brought my head
up.

"Of course I do."

"Then you don't want to owe me."  The words were flat, a bald statement
of fact.  He rubbed his thumb up the meeting of his ribs, the only
indication that I'd hurt his feelings.  My throat tightened.

He was right.  I didn't want to owe him.  To me, debts meant dependence
and dependence meant vulnerability.  I didn't want to owe anyone.

Never mind that was already too late to avoid.  Sean and Joe had given
me more than I could ever repay: they'd given me back my confidence.

So why don't you act like it?  I asked myself.  Unable to answer, I
switched legs and started on my second foot.  The position bared the
outer curves of my sex, now pink and clean and fragrant.  I wasn't
trying to be seductive, but before I could work past the ankle, Sean
plucked my foot off the lid and scooted on to the seat himself.  When
he set my sole on his hairy thigh, a carnal shock streaked towards my
sex.

"I'll take care of this," he said, and tugged the bottle of moisturiser
from my nerveless fingers.

He squeezed a cool line up the length of my leg and massaged it into my
skin with long, voluptuous strokes.  His cock stretched as he worked,
becoming a bold silhouette beneath his briefs.  It might have belonged
to a different person for all the attention he paid it.  He murmured a
compliment for my shaving job.  I guess he thought that ankle-to-groin
sweep was for his benefit and maybe it was.  I grimaced at the private
admission, but didn't pull away, not even when his lips brushed my
kneecap.  The ghost kiss set off sparks in my clit, making it swell and
pulse within its warm, plump trap.  His circling hands climbed my left
thigh.  One finger teased the edge of my towel-fluffed pubic hair.

I knew it wasn't an accident, especially when he wound a crisp auburn
curl around his pinkie and tugged my labia apart.  I couldn't hide what
he'd done to me, what the whole evening had done to me.  His middle
finger stroked my frilled inner lips, slipping easily along the
arousal-slicked channel.

"See what a good employee I'd be."  He cruised round the crucial delta
and tickled the other side.

"I'm so good at anticipating your needs."

"Well."  My voice came out an octave higher than normal.

"I'd appreciate your help but only until I can find someone
permanent."

"Hire someone to input data," he said.  With an abruptness that
startled, he set my foot on the floor and began rubbing moisturiser up
my belly.

"I can handle the rest in no time.  I'll even train the person."

His creamy palms slid over my breasts.  He splayed his fingers and
pressed my bosom back against my ribs.  My resistance weakened.  I
shifted my hands to his shoulders and inclined my body into the
delicious pressure.

"You really want to work with me?  Even though you know I can't pay
what the lawyers do?"

"Of course, I do.  Mostly Romance is a great shop.  You've got
satisfied customers, happy employees, and all the coffee they can
drink.  What more could a number- cruncher want?"

"A better salary?"  I suggested, but his estimation of my business
warmed me.  Marianne's crack about my 'close, personal employees' had
shaken me more than I cared to admit.

"I'm thinking of my future," he said.

"You'll make me a partner a hell of a lot sooner than the lawyers will,
and once Mostly Romance opens a few more branches, a partnership with
you will really be worth something."

I could feel my eyes bulge.  He must have known how presumptuous he
sounded because he wouldn't look at me.  Instead, he focused his
attention on the furled red tips of my breasts.  They shone with cream
as he plucked them.  I found the sight a bit distracting myself, so
much so that I could not formulate a diplomatic answer.  Sean had such
labourer's hands.  Their callused strength lent a piquancy to his
gentle manipulations.

T've been reading up," he continued, as calmly as if he were discussing
the weather.

"Romance is big business.  I wouldn't be surprised if MR Enterprises
went national one day."

Finally, I found my tongue.  '"MR Enterprises"?  Sean, aren't you
jumping the gun here?"

Satisfied with his handiwork, he dropped a kiss to one lengthened
nipple.  His golden lashes rose.  He was smirking.  I don't know why. I
was reasonably certain I hadn't accepted his proposal.

"I'm not jumping the gun," he said.

"I'm only jumping ahead of you.

But I know you, Kate.  You're too proud of what you've accomplished to
rest on your laurels and too smart."

"Now I understand why no one says "no" to you.  You're a bulldozer."

"I'm a Halloran," he corrected.

"Hallorans think big.  Now let's hit the hay.  Miss Kate.  I've got you
all to myself and I don't want to waste the opportunity."

He didn't waste it, either.  He took me vaginally first, a surprisingly
intense quickie to warm me up, he said.  Then he positioned me face
down with a pillow bolstering my hips and took me an ally If I'd ever
doubted, I knew then that this was his favourite way to fuck.  The way
he lingered over every thrust betrayed him, the way he caressed my
bottom and sighed and quaked and came like a man with a thousand volts
running through his cock.

"Thanks," he said when it was over and we lay spooned together in the
big bed.  He sounded more grateful than I thought he should.  I rubbed
the arm he'd draped around my waist.

"I like it that way, too, you know."  He nuzzled the back of my neck.

"Good.

"Cause I'd hate to think you weren't enjoying it as much as I was."

I smiled at this rare evidence of self-doubt.

"I'm not sure anyone could enjoy anal sex as much as you.  Scan.  But I
suspect I come close."

"Bitch," he said, and playfully nipped my shoulder.

We fell asleep without once mentioning Joe, or the turn in the road he
was even then poised to negotiate.

We didn't expect Joe until the next evening.

Without much effort.  Scan convinced me to play truant from work and we
spent the day alternately cooking and making love and napping.

Considering our priorities, we kept the blinds closed and our clothes
off.  After a lunch of crisp potato pancakes good energy food.  Scan
insisted he slung me over his shoulder, fireman style, and carried me
down the basement steps.

"Time to do the laundry," he sang out.  When I protested at being
dangled upside down that way, he gave my bottom a sharp smack.

Luckily, my stomach had recovered by the time he bent me over the front
of the rumbling dryer.

"Oh," I said, because the vibration zinged straight from my nipples to
my groin.

"Oh, yeah," Sean agreed.

His thumbs parted my cheeks, baring me to view and tickling the fine,
sensitive hairs around my anus.  The light touch made me shiver, made
the strong ring of muscle pucker and pull in.  Sean sucked in a breath
at my reaction.  Was he wondering how that contraction would feel
around his shaft?  He shuffled closer and bent his knees until his
erection nestled up against my mons.  I could tell how excited he
was.

The turgid flesh jerked with impatience, eager to find a home.

I reached back to pat his hip, but Scan didn't want that sort of
comfort.  As if he couldn't wait another minute, he nudged my vulva
with the full, round knob of his cock, then dipped inside.  He sank
deep, then withdrew and thrust again.  Despite this activity, I felt
arestlessness in him.  His knees jiggled behind mine.  His breath came
in fits and starts.

He wasn't paying attention to me yet.  This penetration, deep as it
was, was merely preparation.  When he'd wet the head and shaft
sufficiently, he shifted back to his true target.

"May I?"  he asked.  Longing thickened his voice.

His politeness surprised me.  But perhaps he thought two times in two
days was more than the average woman would welcome.  He needn't have
worried.  Even if I hadn't been game, seeing how turned on he got was
worth the price of admission so to speak.

"Please do," I urged, equally polite.

With a luxuriant sigh, he eased inside.  Yet again, I marvelled at the
intensity of sensation as he filled me overfilled me, rather.  His cock
stretched me to my limits, but agreeably so.  I wriggled my front
against the vibrating dryer and my backside against his velvety
groin.

He kissed my neck as my inner resistance melted and he slid inside that
last delightful inch.

"I love this," he crooned.  His fingers burrowed through the auburn
triangle between my legs, searching out my throbbing bud.

"You have the sweetest, tightest arse."

I didn't have the breath to respond because he'd found my hooded jewel
and was rubbing it back against my pubis with his thumb.  His cock
began to thrust slow, shallow strokes that seemed to multiply every
nerve transmission by a power of ten.

"Oh, God, Scan," I said.

"Keep doing that.  That's heaven."

"What about this?"  He eased two fingers into my vagina.  Bending them
slightly, his knuckles stroked the rear wall of my sheath.

"Is this good, too?"

I moaned my approval.  He increased the pressure.  His cock jerked
inside me and a light went on above my head.

"Can you feel that?"  I whispered.

"Are you stroking yourself, too?"

"Yes," he admitted, and we both shuddered.

"Go slowly,71 said.

"Go as slowly as you can "Yes/ he agreed, and then neither of us had
the power to communicate beyond groans and wriggles of ecstasy.

We were wrapped in each other, in our aching, lazy climb to climax.

We didn't hear the door open.  We didn't hear him call out.  We didn't
hear the footsteps on the stairs.  We didn't know Joe was home until he
opened the door and spoke.

"Hey, guys, doing laundry?  Oh' He caught his breath with a funny
gasp.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to I'll wait upstairs."

I tried to turn, but Sean's weight held me in place.  He spoke before I
could.

"Thanks, buddy," he said, his voice froggy with lust.

"Give us half an hour."

"Half an Oh, sure.  I'll just I'll see you later."

The door to the laundry room closed behind him.  This time, I did hear
his steps, faltering and heavy, as he trudged back upstairs.

"We should go up," I said, then groaned.  My body wanted to stay
exactly where it was, especially when Scan resumed his shallow,
maddening thrusts.

"We should find out what happened in New York."

He drew his tongue up my nape.

"It'll keep.  Anyway, he'll survive the boot being on the other foot
for once."

Did that mean Scan was jealous of Joe's closeness to me?  Or of my
closeness to Joe?

"I don't want to hurt him," I felt compelled to say.

He pushed forward again, steady, unhurried.  My traitorous body
quivered with pleasure.  I wanted to be here, with him.  I wanted his
tender, forceful presence in my bowels.  My buttocks arched higher,
seemingly by themselves.  Scan slipped deeper.  At the sound of his
ravenous groan, my sex rained honey on his fingers.  His soft laugh of
triumph burnt the shell of my ear.

"Trust me, Kate," he said.

"It's already too late not to hurt him."

Joe was polishing off the remains of our lunch when we emerged from the
basement twenty minutes later, hastily robed and sporting a glow no
amount of to welling off could dim.

He looked up from his plate, but not long enough to meet our eyes.

The amount of sour cream he'd heaped on the potato Jatkes made me
wince.

Sean headed straight for the fridge, removed a bottle of Evian water
and chugged half of it down.  If he'd spoken, he couldn't have said
more eloquently that fucking was thirsty work.

He offered me the bottle, but I refused with a tiny shake of my head.

Instead, I walked to Joe, kissed his cheek and laid my hand on his
back.  The knots of tension in his shoulders were impossible to miss.

"Welcome home," I said.

He answered me with a grunt and forked another bite of potato pancake
into his mouth.

Well, hell.  I steeled myself to face a long sulk.  I might feel guilty
but, in strict point of fact, I hadn't done anything wrong.  He wasn't
going to con me into feeling responsible for his bad mood the way my ex
used to do.  I let my hand fall from his back.

Joe caught it before I could step away.

"Sorry," he said, and now he did meet my eyes.

"You took me by surprise.  I was all excited to tell you what happened
and then He made a sheepish face.

"So what happened?"  Scan asked.  He leant back against the sink,
working on me second half of the Evian litre.

"I've got an agent."

"That's great," Scan said.

"We should celebrate."

"Are you sure he's on the level?"  I asked, wishing I'd told him the
whole truth about Marianne and Desmond Gerrard, rather than merely
warning him to be careful.

"Did you sign a contract?  Did you get referrals from his other
clients?"

Joe looked at me as if I were two years old and had just said a dirty
word.

"No, I haven't signed a contract yet.  I brought one home to read and

I'm going to have my brother the lawyer go over it.  I have a list of
clients to call this week, and for your information, this isn't the
only agent I met while I was there.  This is just the one I liked
best.

And yes' he forestalled my next question by poking his fork in my
direction '-he is a friend of Desmond Gerrard, whom I gather you don't
trust, though I don't know why.  That's okay, though, because from what
I can tell no one in show business is a hundred per cent
trustworthy."

"Oh."  I curled and uncurled my bare toes, feeling two inches tall.

"Well, as long as you're being careful."

"I am being careful," Joe said.

"I'm not some wide-eyed kid, you know."

"I know," I lied, because that was exactly how I saw him.

"So when are you gonna move?"  Sean asked.  His tone was casual, but he
was picking the label off the water bottle.

"I haven't decided."  Joe squeezed my cold hand.  He smiled at me as
though he knew a secret, and I wondered what in the world it could
be.

Joe picked me up after work the next day.

I wasn't expecting him, or the bouquet of baby pink roses he carried.

"Want to come for a walk?"  he asked.

"The weather is crazy today.

It's almost spring-like."

"Sounds great."  I forced a smile.  He was biting the skin beside his
thumbnail, a sure sign that he was nervous.  I supposed he intended to
break the news about moving to New York tonight, and was trying to
soften the blow with a romantic gesture.  I sniffed the tiny budded
flowers.  My stomach tightened like an overwound clock.

"I'll just throw these in water and grab my coat."

Neither of us was inclined to small talk.

We ambled in silence towards Independence Square, our hands in our
pockets, our shoes scuffing the herringbone brick of the old-fashioned
pavement.  The narrow streets, some of them cobbled, were an
historian's dream.

If not for the cars, it might have been George Washing- ton's time.

Fresh paint gleamed on the wooden shutters of the two-hundred-year-old
terraced townhouses.  The marble steps were swept, ivy climbed the rich
red brick, and small landscaped courtyards seduced both eye and
imagination.  I couldn't help wondering how many generations had set
their wrought-iron tables beneath those gnarled oaks, breakfasting on
scones or porridge or Pop Tarts.

I loved this city, and loved it best at times like this when the past
hovered a breath away from the present.  For all its energy.  New York
had nothing to match it.  In Philadelphia, you remembered how the
country began.  You remembered the hopes and dreams, and you ached a
little when they went awry.

I stifled a sigh.  The unseasonably warm air brushed like pussy willows
against my cheeks.  To our left, a shimmer of scarlet fire trembled on
the skyline, the dying embers of a breathtaking winter sunset.  The
twin art deco towers of Liberty Place glowed lime and gold and tropical
blue the best of new Philly looming over the best of old Philly.  Here
in the historic part of town, wreaths graced the doors of Library Hall
red-bowed reminders of Christmas.

I wondered if I were about to get my first, worst present.

When we reached the square, Joe hired a horse-drawn carriage.  He
helped me into the plush red seat like a fragile Victorian maiden.

"Just drive," he said, when the man began his tourist spiel.

His instruction increased the pressure on my nerves.  A quiet carriage
ride around the prettiest part of town should have been romantic, but I
knew it wasn't going to be.  My pulse raced as we clopped past the
clock and bell tower at Independence Hall.  A gaggle of schoolchildren
bounced in circles around their harried teacher.

"Thomas Jefferson was a wimp," one little boy declared, obviously
unimpressed by the story of how our constitution was signed.  Under
other circumstances, I would have laughed.  Now all I could manage was
a cough.  Joe didn't seem to notice.

"I don't know how to say this," he said.  He pressed his temples as
though they pained him, then turned sideways on the seat and pulled my
hands into his lap.  The evening was too warm for gloves.  His palms
were sweating.

"Kate."  He gripped me harder, apparently at a loss for words.

Dread trickled down my spine like icy rainwater.  I knew he had to go,
but I was going to miss him something awful.

He broke the silence with a shaky exhalation.

"Kate," he began again.

"Would you marry me?"

My mouth fell open.  I couldn't believe I'd heard him correctly.  I was
so shocked I did the absolute worst thing I could have done.

I laughed.

It wasn't a big laugh, but it succeeded in bringing a dull red flush to
the tips of his ears.

"Well," he said.

"Forgive me for suggesting something so ridiculous."

"No, no, no."  My hands fluttered to his shoulders, patting
uselessly.

"It's just you're so young."

"Not too young to fuck."

Our driver's head jerked but, to his credit, he didn't turn around.  I
smoothed the worn leather breast of Joe's bomber jacket.

"No.  Just too young to marry.  I'm not going to stand between you and
your future your future in New York."

He must have heard the sadness in my words and found it cause for
hope.

He caught my hands and tucked them inside his jacket.  His heart was
pounding at marathon speed.

"I don't have to move to New York.  I could commute.  I could!  It's
only an hour on the train.  I've got a cousin in the Bronx if I need to
stay over."  He stroked the back of my hands, his eyes pleading for the
mercy he fearedI'd withhold.

"I don't want to leave without a commitment between us."

My fingers tensed with my urge to comfort him.  Nervous sweat dampened
his freshly-ironed white shirt, donned for the occasion, I'm sure.  My
heart ached, but I knew I couldn't afford to be soft.

"What about Sean?"  I said.

"I'm not in love with Sean."

I rolled my eyes.

"Trust me, Joe, the kind of love that friends share, that you and Scan
share, lasts a hell of a lot longer than being in love.

"In love" is just infatuation."

His hands stiffened on mine.

"Don't tell me how I feel."

"Fine.  Maybe what you feel will last, but you're still too young."

The way his jaw clenched did not encourage me.  I forged ahead
anyway.

"Listen, honey, you went straight from your parents' house to college
to postgraduate school.  You don't know it, but you've barely started
to live.  You need to be on your own in the real world.  You need to
have a few adventures."

"Adventures."  Joe's eyes narrowed.  I hadn't known whisky-brown irises
could look so cold.

"You mean if I fuck a few dozen New Yorkers, I'll be old enough
then."

"It's got nothing to do with how many people you sleep with."  I
glanced at our driver.  If ears could swivel backwards, I'm certain his
would have done.  I lowered my voice.

"What's important is discovering what life is about.  What you're
about.  That takes time, and it's something you have to do for
yourself, by '-by myself."  He pushed my hands from his chest.

Bookbinder's Restaurant rolled by behind him, the giant lobster over
its entrance a comic counterpoint to our discussion.  Joe studied his
empty hands.

"I've never been good at being alone."

"All the more reason."  I swallowed against the lump in my throat.  I
wished I wasn't so positive I'd given him the right answer, the only
answer.  I cupped my hand beneath his downcast chin.

"I know you're nervous, but you're going to take the Big Apple by
storm."

"And then I'll come back."

My mouth softened with an almost-smile.

"I doubt you'll want to."

Joe looked up.  Tears shimmered in his eyes, but his gaze held
steady.

"You don't know me as well as you think."

I shook my head.  I didn't share my other fear, the one that shadowed
and deepened all my reasonable protests.  If Joe denied half his
sexuality, would he live to regret his choice?  I had no doubt he would
deny it, either; a man like Joe would honour his marriage vows.

Joe would not let the matter drop.  He waited until Scan fell asleep,
then hauled me out of bed and down the stairs to the sitting-room.

I plopped on to the sofa, my limbs heavy with interrupted sleep.  Joe
knelt in front of me and gripped my legs just above the knee.  Bleary
or not, I could scarcely bear to face his stubborn hope.

"Kate, I love you.  More than my family.  More than music.  I want to
spend my life with you.  That's why I want us to marry.  Not because
I'm afraid of being alone and I know you love me, too," he added, the
one statement I could not debate.

"I just can't do it," I said.

"It wouldn't be fair."

He growled, a sound of anger and frustration words could not express.

His head rolled back and forth across my knees.

"You're afraid," he accused, the words muffled by the leg of my paisley
silk pyjamas.

"You're afraid I'll turn out like your ex.  But he was an idiot.  I
know what I've found with you, and I'm smart enough to hang on to
it."

I said nothing.  The urge to succumb to his arguments was so strong I
dared not open my mouth.  Already, the pain of losing him was
physical.

My chest ached with stifled sobs and my throat felt raw.  I hugged my
waist to hold myself together.

He lifted his head.

"Would you marry Scan if he asked you?"

I started.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"He wouldn't ask me."  I resettled my arms, folding them beneath my
breasts.

"But if he did ask, would you marry him?"

"No," I snapped, but for one weird second I wasn't sure it was true.

Joe saw my hesitation.  The skin around his eyes tightened.

"No," I said more firmly.

"He needs too much control and too much freedom.  I couldn't live in a
way that would make him happy."

Joe's mouth twisted.

"But he's not too young."

"Sometimes I think Sean is older than I am," I said, without
considering how that would sound.

He blinked at me, absorbing the implied insult: that he wasn't too
young in years, he was too immature.

I squeezed his forearm.

"Being young is not a bad thing.  God willing, you'll never be as old
as Scan."

He turned his head to the cold, ash-strewn grate, getting older or at
least more haggard as I watched.

"I'm wasting my breath, aren't I?  You don't believe I really love
you.

You don't believe anything I feel is going to last.  No matter what I
say, you'll have an argument against it."

"I'm not doing this to hurt you," I said.  Even I could hear the plea
in my voice, but it did not move him.

"You could have fooled me," he said.

For six long months those words would haunt me.  You could have fooled
me.  FR1;Chapter Twelve Birds of a Feather When Joe jumped ship, I
thought Sean would, too.  I couldn't imagine he enjoyed my brooding
company.  We weren't having sex.  When he started sleeping in his own
bed, I assumed he was halfway out of the door.

But, apart from the switch to private sleeping quarters, he made no
move to leave.  Every morning he stumbled downstairs in time to pat my
bottom out through the door, and every evening he parked his bulging
briefcase beneath the Queen Anne side table in the hall.

The first thing I did when I came home from work was look for that
briefcase.  I couldn't relax until I saw it.  To tell the truth,
though, I almost wished the territorial marker would disappear so I
could get used to being alone again.

One Friday, weeks after Joe's departure, we sat in the living room
watching TV with me curled up on the couch and Sean on the floor, both
in sloppy track suits The evening news served in place of conversation
as we delved for our dinner from an assortment of take away cartons.

Sean had swung by Susanna Foo's in Chinatown on the way home.  He'd
brought me pheasant dumplings with shiitake mushroom sauce real Chinese
comfort food.  The chocolate-covered fortune cookies weren't bad,
either.

Feeding me was Sean's way of proving he cared.  I'd lost weight since
Joe left.  He'd gained it.  I left him grapefruit halves for
breakfast.

He brought me dumplings for dinner.  The perverse symmetry of it made
us both chuckle.

Feeling more content than I had in weeks, I tucked my feet into the
space between the sofa cushions.  Maybe we could survive as
housemates.

But Sean's next words blew that fantasy out of the water.

"I've been thinking of moving out," he said.  His gaze darted between
me and the TV.

"It's not that I don't like living with you.  I do.  In fact-' he
struggled a moment for words '-1 like you more than just about anyone I
know."

The dumplings had turned to lead in my stomach, but I smiled at his
backhanded compliment.

"Thank you, Sean.  I'm touched."  His head swung around to see if I was
being sarcastic.  A crease appeared between his straight, fair brows.

"I'm serious," I said.

"I am touched."

He set his carton on the coffee table and scooted around to face me.

"I won't leave you in the lurch.  My big sister Louise owns a security
firm.  I'll make sure she wires you up before I go.  Her employees will
keep an eye on you."

"But will they drop by for coffee when I'm lonely?"  I teased, not to
make him feel bad, but to let him know he was more than a guard dog to
me.

The implication seemed to confuse him.

"Do you want me to stay?"

I trailed my finger down the slope of his nose.

"No.  I know it's awkward for you to be here without Joe.  It's awkward
for both of us."

"But if you need me I covered his lips.

"I'll miss you, but I'll be all right."

"I like you, you know," he said, as though I might not have heard him
the first time.

"I know."

"Really, I mean it He shifted to his knees and caged my legs between
his arms, his whole body intent on asserting what must have seemed
outrageous to him.

"I really like you.  You and Joe are the best friends I've ever had."

His voice broke.

"I just can't believe it's over."

I put my hands on his shoulders and spoke as gently as I could.

"I'm sure Joe still wants to be friends with you.  As for us, our
friendship is only over if we want it to be."

He buried his face in my lap.

"I don't want it to be over, but people always promise to keep in
touch."

I bent closer, letting my warmth blend with his.  I stroked his
cotton-covered back down to his waistband and kissed the wavy hair at
the nape of his neck.  I wondered how many broken promises it had taken
to make Sean the man he was today.

"I try very hard to keep my word," I said, pulling my hands up again.

His shoulders hitched under my caress.  I thought he might be crying,
but he didn't make a sound.  When he swallowed, his Adam's apple
knocked my thigh.

"I called him an idiot," he said.  His hands clenched on either side of
me.

"I said he shouldn't cut you dead just because you wouldn't marry
him."

"Shh."  I kissed the rigid line of his vertebrae.

"Joe did what he felt he had to do, and I'm sure he'll forgive you for
expressing your honest opinion."

Sean snorted at that, but his tension did ease.

"You sound like a shrink, and I sound like a big, blubbering baby."  He
pushed back from me and wiped the moisture from his cheeks.  One side
of his mouth twitched.

"I don't know why, but pouring my troubles into your lap is making me
horny."  He drew his thumb down the onset of an erection, a small
hummock now, but growing.

"Are you up for something rough?"

The hungry glow in his eyes sent blood sluicing straight to my groin.

"Urn," I said, temporarily dumbfounded.  I knew he needed to
reestablish his tough guy stance, but how rough was rough and after two
celibate weeks, did I really care?

I pressed my thighs together and measured the trapped tango beat of
lust, the soft, wet pulse of tissues longing to be stretched.  Six
simple words and I was raring to go.  Are you up for something rough?

Those words implied he would take care of me his show, my pleasure.  I
needed that tonight.  My nipples tightened beneath the stretch lace of
my bra.  Sean licked his index finger and touched its tip to one aching
point.  Even through my clothes the contact felt like a shock from a
live wire.  I couldn't restrain a gasp.

He laughed.

"I'll take that as a "yes", Ms Winthrop."  He pulled me off the couch
and up to the second floor, to his room.

From the door I watched him rummage through his walk-in wardrobe,
muttering to himself until he found a dark grey suit bag.  He held its
hanger out to me.

I hesitated to be difficult, perhaps, but also because I didn't yet
know what I was getting into.  My gaze drifted to his crotch.  Beneath
the black tracksuit, he was fully hard, standing out a clean ninety
degrees from his belly.  He wasn't shy about it, either.  Even as I
stared, he shifted his free hand to his erection, cupping it back
against his body and giving it a hard, shaft-stretching pull.

Whatever that suit bag held, it really blew his horn.

He thrust the bag closer.

"Take these clothes to the bathroom and put them on.  Then come back
and knock on the door."

I couldn't resist his voice of authority, or the prospect of letting
his horn blow me.  I collected the hanger with two bent fingers and
swung the bag over my shoulder.

"No problem," I said.

"But do me a favour.  Don't start without me."

With a taunting leer, he treated his shaft to another tug.  He stopped
beneath the head and waved it at me through the cloth.

"Don't worry.

Miss Kitty.  I'm as hot to trot as you are."

That stung my pride a bit, but it was true.  My quimwas swimming and my
palms tingled with adrenalin.  I could hardly wait to have it off with
him.  I prayed his game would be a short one.

Knowing Sean, though, I expected he'd torture us both as long as he
could.

In the privacy of the bathroom, I unzipped the suit bag.  My eyes
rounded.  It held a Catholic schoolgirl's outfit: a prim white blouse,
a pleated navy skirt and twin set and short white socks with lacy
hems.

Everything, down to the utilitarian cotton bra, was my size.  He hadn't
bought these things for some nameless playmate.  He'd bought them for
me.

I didn't know whether to be flattered or amused.  In any case, I wasn't
too amused to dampen the virginal white panties as soon as I pulled
them on.

All dressed and buttoned and tucked, I knocked on his closed bedroom
door.  After a moment, during which papers rustled, he told me to come
in.  His voice sounded strange crisper than usual, but also kinder.

Come in, Kathryn, he'd said, the way a teacher would.

A tiny shiver chilled the back of my neck.  I opened the door.  Sean
sat behind his desk, flipping through a fat manila folder.  He'd made
good use of my absence.  Not only had he turned the desk away from the
wall, but a picture of a saint hung where his print of Edward Munch's
The Scream used to be.

"Close the door behind you," he said in that same soft- spoken
manner.

He rose slightly to scoot his chair back from the desk.

That's when I saw he was wearing a cassock and dog collar.  Though I
wasn't Catholic, the costume took me aback.  Scenes from The Thorn
Birds raced through my mind.

Sean made a very sexy priest.

He folded his hands on top of the open folder.  Frowning gently, he
shook his head at me.

"I've been receiving some disturbing reports about you, Kathryn, very
disturbing."

The words, the tone and manner in which they were spoken, had a strange
effect on me.  I put out a hand to catch the balance I'd unaccountably
lost.  I knew he'd attended boarding school, and without being told I
knew that, once upon a time, someone must have spoken to him just like
this.

I touched my soft navy twin set and studied the scuffs on my
trainers.

For a second I smelled blackboard chalk.  I knew just who I was
supposed to be: a misbehaving schoolgirl, a bit of a smart alee, but
far from fearless and normally a pet of the good father.  He was a
favourite of mine, too.  Despite my rebellious nature, I didn't like
disappointing him.

"How old are you now, Kathryn?"

I thought for a moment.

"Sixteen."

"Sixteen," he repeated.  Was it my imagination, or did his eyes linger
on my breasts?

"I'd expect such behaviour from an ordinary sixteen-year-old, but not
from a Saint Demeter's girl."

Sweat prickled between my shoulder blades at his sad reproof.  Oh, if
only I'd been good.  My mouth was dry.  I bobbed in a curtsey I'd only
seen on TV.  The pleated skirt tickled my knees.

"I'm sure I can explain.  Father."

"I don't see how.  Sister Mary Francis says you've been inciting the
other girls to lustful thoughts."

My good intentions dissolved.

"Sister Mary Francis is a jealous hag!"

My passionate outburst inspired a smile that threatened, but did not
destroy, the sober set of his mouth.  Regretting the slip perhaps, he
assumed a more lawyerly demeanor.

"Did you or did you not instruct both Ellen and Beth in onanistic
practices?"

I stared blankly at him.  He pursed his full, sensual lips.  Not for
the first time, I imagined how he'd kiss.  Ellen and Beth said he
wouldn't ever.  He was a good priest, not the sort who caused a scandal
and got sent to the back of beyond.  That might be true, but it didn't
explain the things I felt when he met my gaze in lectures, as if a
current were surging between our deepest parts.  In my daydreams, I
told him the secret things I wanted, things I'd never heard of anyone
wanting.  He always understood He was still young, he'd say.  It was
hard to give everything over to God.  In my fantasies, he was afraid to
touch me but once he started he couldn't stop.  He made me his secret
lover.  I wasn't certain what that involved, but I knew I wanted it.

"Kate?"  His frown deepened as if he sensed my sinful thoughts.

"Did you teach your friends to pleasure themselves?  Did you, in fact,
crawl into their beds after lights- out and put your hands on their
private parts?"

I hung my head.

"Yes, Father, but it was only to keep them from trying it with boys."

His palms smacked the surface of his desk.  My hand flew to my chest.

The anger that darkened his handsome features seemed entirely real.

"Do not compound your sin by quibbling," he shouted.

"And where on earth did you learn such a filthy habit, anyway?"

"From you.  Father," I said, without pausing to think.

He goggled at me.

"How dare you even suggest "But I saw you.  Remember the day I left my
hanky in your office, the one my nanna embroidered specially?  I went
back to get it, but I didn't know if you were there so I just opened
the door a crack.  You were standing by the window with the blinds
closed.  You had your cassock pulled up in front and your, your thing
was in your hand.  I couldn't believe how big and hard it was.  I
couldn't look away.  It seemed so strange and beautiful the way it
moved, the way the veins wound around it, all blue and strong."

I took one step closer to the desk.  He stared at me with a mixture of
fear and fascination, his mouth slack, his flush extending from
clerical collar to hairline.  He knew his future was on the line, and
only I knew I'd never, ever hurt him even if it meant abandoning all my
dreams.

"You rubbed it with my hanky," I said.

"You had my nanna's hanky in your hand and you rubbed it up and down
your thing.  The big knob at the end looked so red I thought it must
hurt, but you were humming the way I do when they serve chocolate for
dessert, so I thought you must like it."

"I did like it he whispered, a man in a dream.

"I thought so."  I leant on the edge of his blotter.  Sweat glistened
on his forehead and upper lip.  My nostrils flared.  Vocation or no, he
could not quell the most primitive evidence of his maleness.  I drank
his scent in quick, shallow breaths.  It dizzied me.  My voice
darkened.

"You'd been rubbing so long, I think you'd polished it," I said.

"The part on the top was shiny.  It looked so smooth, I wished I could
put it in my mouth and suck it.  Just as I was thinking that, you
moaned my name and started rubbing faster.  It made me feel all squirmy
inside.

"Kate," you said.

"Katie, Katie, Kate."  On the last "Kate" you made a face as if you
were going to scream, but nothing came out except down below, from the
tip of your thing, a spurt of, of seed came jetting out.  It made a
noise when it hit the blinds.  I guess you didn't want to make a mess
because you shoved my hanky over the end.  There must have been a lot,
though, because some dribbled on the floor.

"I wanted to touch the little puddle.  I'd never seen a man's seed
before.  I wondered what it felt like.  Was it creamy or sticky?  Was
it still warm, and how would it taste?  Things like that make me
curious.

I can't rest until I find out."

Sean gasped like a fish out of water, too breathless to respond.

A little weak-kneed myself, I sat on the corner of his desk and hugged
my waist.

"I got the idea to touch myself from you.  You liked it so much I
thought I would, too.  I guess you know a girl's thing is really
little, but it's between my legs right where yours is and it gets wet
and slippery when I play with it.  It feels good, but I've never felt
what you seemed to be feeling.  Beth was like I was, but Ellen was like
you.  Beth played with her breasts while I rubbed her thingie.  It made
these loud squishy noises.  She got so excited at the end we had to put
the pillow over her mouth so she wouldn't wake the others."  Scan
covered his face.

"I know priests aren't supposed to do it I continued.

"In fact, I know I'm not supposed to, either.  But since I've already
decided I'm going to, I may as well learn to do it right.  I hoped
you'd tell me what I'm doing wrong.  There isn't anyone else I trust
enough to ask."

Sean muttered something I couldn't hear.

"What?"I said.

He lifted his head.  His lips were pressed together, the flesh around
them pale.

"You're too curious for your own good."  His heavy-lidded gaze dropped
to my breasts, long enough for me to be certain about it.

"And too grown up for your age.  You tempt me just as you tempted Bern
and Ellen with your beauty and your spirit.  You make everyone you meet
long to possess you.  I understand why you enjoy it, Katie, but it's a
dangerous game."

"I didn't mean to hurt anyone.  Father.  I only wondered "Hush," he
said.

"But I love you.  Father.  I would never "Hush," he repeated.  He
showed no awareness that I'd just spilt my deepest secret.  He steepled
his hands before his mouth.  They were shaking.

I waited for him to collect himself.  After a few deep breaths, he
rolled his chair back until it hit the wall.  He smoothed the black
robe over his knees.  The gesture drew my attention to his tented
crotch.  A small damp spot told me he must be naked under the cloth.

My sex fluttered with longing.  Waiting for him to play out the drama
took all my self-control.  I almost wished he'd made this more of a
caricature.  I could feel the young priest's torment.  I wanted him as
much as if I truly were his backsliding pet.

"Come here," he said, in a low, quavering tone.

"I think you need correction."

"I do," I agreed and circled the desk to his side.

"Shall you beat it out of me.  Father?"

"Is that what you want, Katie?"

The look we exchanged was eerily intimate.  He seemed to see straight
into my soul, or my character's soul.  We recognised each other.  Our
desires were equally dark, our hopes equally tremulous.  We were birds
of a feather whether we liked it or not.

"I believe I need it," I said.

"I believe it would do me good."

What I really meant was: I know this is the only bridge you'll let me
cross to get close to you.

"Very well."  He searched my eyes a moment longer.

"Come here and bend over my lap."

He arranged me over his armless chair.  Both my hands and feet touched
the ground.  He braced his legs to keep the chair pressed firmly to the
wall.  His thighs were warm, his erection hot.  My shirt had ridden up
and the damp spot over his cock met the skin under my navel.  I allowed
my weight to settle closer.  A muscle twitched in his leg.  He touched
the hem of my pleated navy skirt.

As though reluctant to touch me, he lifted the skirt to my waist,
folding it neatly as he went.  He paused.

"You're almost too beautiful to spank."  The heat of his hand hovered
an inch above my buttock.

"It must be done, however, and nothing must shield you from the
blows."

His fingers slipped under the waistband of my panties and slowly,
slowly, he pulled them down my tingling curves.  He could not avoid
touching me then.  The back of his fingers slid over my haunches and,
after a moment, his thumbs joined them, gently following the crease
where my buttocks met my thighs.  I heard him groan as the panties
dropped to my ankles.

"Like dove's breasts," he murmured, his hand hovering again.  He
swallowed hard.

"Prepare yourself, Kate."

The blows began before I could, cracking upward on to the underside of
my buttocks brisk, quick smacks mat stung just enough to make me
squirm.

"Oh," I cried, wriggling forward until his erection prodded the curls
of my fleece.

"Oh, Father, it hurts."

"Be still," he ordered through gritted teeth, but he liked me where I
was.  He spanked me from the top now, lifting his hand high and driving
it down, jolting me into his cock with every blow.  The vibrations
rippled through me to him and through my sex as well.  My pussy felt
huge and swollen, swollen tight like ripe, juicy plum.

The blows were all the relief I had for my cravings.  I began to lift
myself in anticipation.

"Want more, do you?"  he said.  His next smack caught the division
between my cheeks, driving them apart and baring for one instant the
aperture of both our dark desires.

Again and again he spanked me this way, warming my crack until it
seemed to sizzle under his hand.  He panted with exertion.  Warm drops
of sweat flew from his skin to mine.  I wondered if his palm stung as
badly as my bottom.  Did he like the aftershocks as much as I did, the
way the memory-pain throbbed in tandem with my pulse?  He liked having
me at his mercy, of that I had no doubt.  His erection stretched
beneath my belly, solid as stone.  The noises he made grew distinctly
pre- orgasmic, the war between self-control and intense excitement
apparent in every grunt.

I wanted him inside me when he came; I wanted it so badly I could
hardly keep from begging.

"Lord have mercy," he gasped and with a suddenness that made my stomach
swoop lifted me up and around and sat me facing him on his lap.

The starched black cassock burnt my paddled buttocks, but I didn't
care.  The pain heightened every sensation, tightening in on itself and
then flaring out.  I'd long since soaked through my panties.  I'm
certain he felt the moisture because his hands tightened on my hips,
setting off a ricochet of pleasure-pain.  The kernel of flesh around
which all my ecstasy centred was so engorged it poked through my
swollen lips like the trigger of a gun.

"No," he said, when I tried to press closer.

"You'll make me spend, Katie."

"Spend inside me," I pleaded.

"I want to know what it's like.  I need to know.  You made me ache so I
can hardly bear it."

His face twisted.

"Damn you for liking this."

"I can't help it."  I mouthed the strong line of his jaw.  He sighed
and tilted his head towards the caress.  His lips brushed mine.

"I'm made that way.  Father.  Just like you.  My body needs things,
dark things, and you're the only one who'll give them to me."

He let himself smile, a wry, self-mocking smile.

"Hardly, little Kate.  You and I both know men will queue up in droves
to give you whatever you want."

I cut a glance from under my lashes.

"But who will help me now.

Father?  Who will love me the way you do?"

He had not meant for me to guess his feelings.  His expression
darkened.

"Very well."  He set me gently on the desk and spread my thighs as wide
as they could go.

"Let's see if I can show you what you've been missing."

He parted my lips with his thumbs, tracing me wet channel between inner
and outer.  His hastened respiration brushed my skin.  His golden hair
tickled my thighs.  His thumbs travelled higher, catching the soft hood
between their pads.  He smoothed it back to reveal the rosy jewel
within.

I tensed.  I did not like to be stimulated bare.  I was so sensitive
there.

But, "I'll be careful," he said and, with a greater delicacy than I
knew he possessed, he laved me ever so gently with the tip of his
tongue.

I couldn't hold back my cry of startled pleasure.  The sensation was so
sharp and hot and penetrating.  The dozenth flick of his tongue brought
me off, and the second dozenth tipped me over the edge again.

"Better?"  he asked as he helped me on to my feet again.

"Yes," I said, breathing hard and I was better, but not satisfied.

Before he could stop me, I bent down to grasp the hem of his cassock
and flung it all at once to his hips.  As I'd expected, he was wore
nothing under it.  The black cloth settled about his hips in feminine
abundance, but the treasure I'd revealed was supremely male.  Knotted
calves led to hard slim knees and bulging thighs, all of which shone
pale but vibrant against the dark backdrop of his robe.

The sight of his black socks and shoes made me smile, but his sex the
stout mauve shaft capped with a crown of shining burgundy that sight
struck a blow to my solar plexus.

His cock vibrated with the pressure of his need, swollen to the limits
of its skin.  His foreskin clung to the grossly flared rim, catching up
the rich, silky tears that flowed from the tiny cock-mouth.  I could
have wept myself at the taunting, potent image.

This was forbidden, I reminded myself, for the sheer thrill of the
word: forbidden by his vows, by my youth, and by the power disparity
between us.  Forbidden like the first apple and just as red and firm.

With the tip of my little finger, I traced the slippery moisture that
ringed his cock, gently pushing the taut covering back until it snapped
down of its own accord.  The good Father bit his lower lip so hard a
drop of blood appeared.

"Have you ever had a woman?"  I whispered, circling him now beneath the
rim.

"Never," he whispered back.

"But I've dreamt of it too many times to confess."

"Did you dream of me?"  Unable to wait any longer, I straddled his
lap.

His eyes drifted halfway shut.  Now bare thighs met bare, simmering
buttocks.  His hands settled uneasily on my hips, on top of my skirt.

"I dreamt of you," he admitted.  His thumbs ventured round to stroke my
belly where the skirt's smooth pleats were sewn together.

"I

spilt my seed on the sheets dreaming of you, and when I prayed in my
heart I prayed to dream of you again."  I grasped his hands and eased
them under the finely woven wool to my naked skin.  He sighed, his
fingers lighting and un-lighting like a wary bird.  When they settled
on my hips, I rolled the front of the skirt up over itself and tucked
it into the waistband.  He stared at what I'd uncovered and licked dry
lips.  Then I cocked my hips forward until my fleece tickled the
underside of his shaft.

"I cannot put it in you he warned, his voice gravel and smoke.

"You're a good girl.  I would not deprive your husband of his marital
flower."

I tossed my head and took hold of his root.

"My husband will take what he can get and say "thank you"."

He clucked his tongue.

"Such arrogance."

Unrepentant, I tugged the crown closer until it slipped between my
plump, wet lips.

"Ah-ah-ah," he scolded, and pried my hand from him.

"I don't trust you, little Katie.  You must take what I give you."

He steadied his under ridge with four curled fingers and pressed the
upper with his thumb.  Firmly in hand, he manoeuvred the head against
my clit and gave it three firm taps, each of which sent a shock of
feeling down the tiny stiffened shaft.  As easily as that, I wanted to
come again.

I whimpered when he eased away.

"You must promise to behave," he said, 'and if you make me believe you,
I'll slip just a bit inside you, so you can feel what it's like."

I promised, of course, and pretended not to see him roll the condom
on.

We both made small, hungry sounds when he pressed the head inside.

"How lovely," I marvelled, all wide-eyed wonder.

"It's like satin, so warm and full.  Does it feel as nice to you,
Father?  I wish I could make you feel as wonderful as I did when you
kissed me between my legs."  I petted the shaft where it entered my
body.  His penis bucked.

"Look how it moves under my hand.  I think it wants to shoot like it
did before.  See how red it's getting."

When he looked at the place where our bodies met, sweat popped out on
his brow.  He lifted my hand from him and ordered me not to touch him
there.  He said he wouldn't come and I mustn't try to make him.  Yes,
Father, I said and kissed a drop of perspiration from his temple.  He
said I mustn't squirm like that: it made him want to push, and he
couldn't push.  It wasn't safe.  Priest or not, he was still a man.  He
only had so much control.  Yes, Father, I said, but when his buttocks
clenched, driving him a fraction deeper, I couldn't help squirming a
bit.  He muttered a prayer and said maybe a little further would be all
right and then a little more and then he groaned and said he knew it
must hurt but couldn't I take all of him just for a moment?  Only just
a moment, because he'd never felt anything so heavenly and he promised
on his mother's sainted memory that he wouldn't spill inside me.

I wriggled on to him, girl-tight, woman-wet.  My lips kissed his
thatch.

"Mother of God," he swore, and caught me in a crushing embrace.

"Yes, that's - just a little more.  I'm almost in.  Just one more
push.

I promise I won't - Ah, ah, yes, that's all of it.  Bless you, Katie.

Bless you."  He shuddered from his belly out.  His cock swelled.  He
paled.

"Oh, dear God, help me not to "Come," I whispered.

He held my hips immobile, locking me tight to the cradle of his loins,
fighting the inevitable with a strangled moan.

"Come," I said.  I licked the spot where he'd bitten his lip.  He
gasped and I flicked the red wet tip past the edge of his teeth.

"Come with me.  I'm almost there.  A push or two is all it will take.

Don't you want to feel it around your thing?  Don't you want to feel
how a woman quivers when you show her a glimpse of heaven?"

"A glimpse of hell," he said, shaking all over with need.

"Heaven," I insisted.  I kicked my feet, forcing the chair to rock.

The spring squealed.

"I'll pull out," he warned.  I laughed and rocked again.

"Is this how you want it to end?  Rocking like a baby?  Or thrusting
like a man?"

His growl was unintelligible.  With our bodies still connected, he rose
and slammed me back on to the desk.  Papers fluttered to the floor.  I
winced as my head hit the edge.  He reached up to cradle it, exclaiming
in distress.

"I'm fine," I insisted.

"Take me.  Hurry."

"Have it your way then," he said.

"Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb."

He grabbed my thighs beneath the knee and pushed them back towards my
chest, bracing them with his shoulders.  The position opened me
completely to his first deep thrust.  He held himself inside me at the
utmost end of the downstroke, sweating and trembling.  The tendons in
his neck stood out.  I thought he'd explode then and there.  He must
have thought so, too, because he pulled back gingerly, gritting his
teeth, then drove in hard.  This time I felt the jolt through my
womb.

A warning tremor made my sheath dance around his shaft.

"Not yet," he growled, freezing again.

But I couldn't wait.  The need for release cramped deep in my sex, too
insistent for delay.  Vowing I'd make him come with me, I reached under
the cassock to grip his tight round buttocks.  I burrowed between his
cheeks until I found the dark sensitive pucker.  He jumped when I
touched it and moaned when I pinched it.

"Put it in," he ordered hoarsely.

"Shove your thumb inside me."

His sweat eased my way but it was a rough, partial insertion.  Just
what he wanted, apparently.  The responsive ring of muscle flexed and
clung as I rimmed him from the inside.  His hips writhed with pleasure,
then began to pump in earnest deep, long strokes that drove me quickly
to the edge of orgasm.

"Oh, Lord, Katie," he said, his voice jolted by the force of his
thrusts.  He spread my legs wider.

"I can't stop it.  I can't.  I've got to come.  Take me.  Jesus, take
me."

With that, we both caught a glimpse of the ultimate.  My heart
slowed.

A fist of pure hunger clenched and released between my legs.  Almost
almost Grunting with effort, he slung in to my utmost limit and,
finally, the body-wrenching spasm of sensation broke, jetting through
me hot and tight and then warm, wet, loose, like mulled wine through my
belly spicy, drunken pleasure.

I remember our mingled cries, harsh and sweet, and the strength of his
climactic pulses meeting mine.

I don't remember him lifting me off the desk and settling me on his
bed, but he must have.  He must have taken off our clothes, too,
because when I came to myself we were snuggled under the covers in our
birthday suits.  He had a queen-sized futon, perfect for the pair of us
perfect for him and Joe, as well, I supposed.  Limp as an overcooked
noodle, I didn't have the energy to mind the reminder.

"Are you back?"  he asked, pressing a kiss to my sweaty brow.

I hummed a mild affirmative.

He hugged me closer.

"When you do come back all the way, remind me to explain about topping
from below."

Pleasantly drowsy, I ran my hand down his ribs to his hip.  I was
always amazed by how narrow men's hips can be.  Scan had an inch-long
scar I'd never noticed before, right behind the bone.

"Is that some sort of S and M code?"  I asked, tracing the raised flesh
with my finger.

He moved my hand to his chest.  '"Topping from below" means the
supposedly submissive person takes control of the scene."

"Oh," I said, then digested what he meant.

"I'm sorry, Sean.  I thought I was following your lead."  I hid my face
in the valley of his chest.

"Guess I ran away with things."

His chuckle soothed my embarrassment, as did the hand that stroked my
hair.

"That's okay.  Your way was fun a little more intense than I'd planned,
but fun."

Since he seemed so jovial, I thought I'd push my luck.

"Sean-' I flattened my palm over his right nipple.

"I was wondering.

I know you attended boarding school.  Did you ever Did anyone try
anything like what we played out?"

A near-silent sigh lifted his rib cage.  There was a priest at school
who I wished would try.  Father Mike was his name.  I had a terrible
crush on him: my first.  He coached the soccer team.  He was a good
guy.  He took an interest in me even though I was a hell of a
smart-mouth back then, if you can imagine that."

I smiled and petted his chest.

"Father Mike was the youngest priest there.  He had a great body tall,
slim and a funny, friendly face.  Once in a while they'd let him handle
Sunday service.  I'd get an erection before the first hymn was done,
which made all that kneeling and rising a challenge."  He laughed
through his nose.

"Man, I had it bad for him.  That's how I knew I liked boys as much as
girls."

Or more, I thought, but I kept the comment to myself.

"Did he ever try anything?"

Sean shook his head.

"No.  But I think he knew.  I think he felt sorry for me.  My second
year, he threw me together with an older boy named Dave Woodbury.  A
real loser, I thought.  He was a maths genius, and gay as the day is
long.  He didn't even try to hide it.  Turned out he was one of the
coolest people at the school.  He knew who he was and didn't give a
damn what anyone thought.  He became my mentor for sex and
mathematics.

I lost every friend I had when I started hanging around with him, but
even then I knew he was the best thing that ever happened to me.  He
moved to Arizona after he graduated, though, and we lost touch."

"Was he into games?"

"Nah.  Dave was kind of conservative.  I got involved in that later.

Some of my friends at college were into it.  They'd drag me along to
some scene and all I'd think was: this is so lame.  I could do better
than this.  So one day I tried."

"And the rest is history?"

He laughed.

"What can I say?  I have a gift.  I have to admit, though, if the
person I'm mastering doesn'tinterest me, I get really bored, really
fast.  I like to deal with a bottom who's strong, who won't get fucked
up over it.  People can, you know.  They let it take over their
lives.

They use it as a way to avoid real interactions.  I steer clear of
people like that.  On the other hand, if I do find someone who
interests me between the ears, mastering them doesn't seem so important
like with you."

I looked up at him, surprised and flattered.  His eyes twinkled as he
tucked a stray curl behind my ear.  He seemed pleased to have taken me
off guard.

"I don't want you to bend to me," he said, 'even supposing I could make
you."

"What do you want?"

"Damned if I know."  The covers rustled as he tried to get
comfortable.

"No.  That's not true.  I know what I want.  I'm just afraid I won't
get it."

I hugged his ribs.

"What do you want?"

He stared unblinking at the ceiling.

"I want to be free, but I don't want to be alone."

"That's a tough one," I said, helpless to hide me rush of emotion in my
voice.

He knuckled the top of my head.

"Don't you worry about me.  Miss Kitty.  Some people never discover
what they want.  I'm one step ahead, this way."

Despite his words, he sounded sad.  I rubbed my cheek against his
shoulder.  He was a good person.  He deserved to live his dream.  I was
sorry I couldn't be the one to help him.

"I'm glad I know you," I said, my throat still too tight for comfort.

"I know," he said.

"So am I."

Two weeks later, Sean moved into one of the tower blocks on Rittenhouse
Square.  It was an exclusive place with lots of room, but he left his
weight-lifting equipment in my basement.  That's how I knew I'd see him
again.

He dropped by relatively often, sometimes to work out, and sometimes
for a more interesting form of exercise We probably had more sex than
some married people.  Despite this, we behaved more like friends than a
couple.  I never asked who else he was seeing and he never took
exception to my infrequent dates my very infrequent dates.

We also became business bedfellows.  A month passed before I was sure
in my mind, but I did make Scan my partner.  He walked out on the
lawyers the very next day, which scared me, though he expressed no
doubts whatsoever.  Together, we opened a second bookshop, this one
called Mostly Mystery.  Like Mostly Romance, it became as much meeting
place as shop, a space where people went to see and be seen.  Sean's
business savvy proved invaluable, along with his Halloran work ethic.

Both shops did so well I increased his power-profit share to 60/40 in
my favour, of course, but he didn't complain.

Then we went online.

Scan and I both bit our nails over that.  Would people buy from a
cyberspace genre bookshop?  Could we give it the same cosy feel we gave
our real-world sites?  Actually, the real question turned out to be:

could we keep up with all the orders?

One morning I woke up, rubbed my sleepy eyes, and realised I had nearly
half a million dollars in personal assets.  The idea floored me, along
with the fact that, if business continued as it was, I might be a
millionaire before I turned forty.

Philadelphia Magazine plastered me on their cover for an article on the
city's Top Ten Female Movers and Shakers.  There I stood, looking
dazed, as I wondered why they hadn't put the new mayor on the cover.

Sean said she wasn't as photogenic as me but, I don't know, I thought
she looked pretty good for a sixty-year-old.

A week after the article hit the newsstands, I caught a piece in the
City Paper on Marianne, or "Madame M' as she called herself now.  It
seemed she'd set herself up as a dom-cum-sex therapist and quickly
scaled the heights of the local S-and-M-for-hire community.  She
informed the reporter that she had a number of international clients as
well.

"The Japanese find bondage very therapeutic," she confided.

Trust Marianne to land on her feet.  I was glad her H current victims
considered the abuse she doled out a privilege, I even felt, strange as
it sounds, an urge to call and congratulate her on her career move.  I
quashed it, but it told me I was over my bitterness.

And then there was Joe.

For a while we heard nothing and I told myself: well, he's a struggling
actor, we're not likely to hear.  If he's lucky, he's off-off Broadway
and waiting at tables, and so much for Desmond Gerrard's high-powered
agent friend.

Then I saw him in a sweets commercial.  He played one rowdy teenager in
a crowd of rowdy teenagers.  He looked skinny, but it was definitely
him.  He even had a line.  Tastee-licious," he said with a
heart-stopping grin.  The ad ran every five minutes, it seemed, and my
pulse jumped every time.

"They have to pay him residuals whenever they run it."  Scan nodded
sagely.

"So we know he's not starving."

We also know he's in touch with you, I thought, giving him a sideways
glance.  Words like 'residuals' weren't part of Sean's normal
vocabulary.

I assumed Joe had sworn him to silence.  While I admired Sean's
loyalty, I resented it, too.  After all this time, I could have been
trusted with a lousy postcard.  I wasn't going to stalk Joe, for
goodness sake.  Our relationship was fun while it had lasted but now it
was over end of story.  What I felt was the concern any woman would
feel for a former lover, no more and no less.  If no one else made the
stars shake in my firmament the way Joe had, that was only because lady
tycoons didn't have much time for dating, or sex, except with Scan and
Scan didn't want to shake my stars.

The sweets commercial, apparently, was just the start of Joe's
brilliant career.  Over the next month, we watched him hawk soft
drinks, gardening implements, and a call screening service for the
local phone company.

Then he got the Big Break, a juicy part in a torrid night-time soap.

Manhattan Nights, they called it.  Before the show even was aired he
popped up on Good Morning America and Entertainment Tonight the newest,
hottest, flavour of the month.  The tabloids had him engaged to three
different actresses in a week.

Sean found the latest scandal sheet stuffed in the bin beneath my
kitchen sink.

"You'd be an idiot to believe that crap," he said.

I agreed, but crumpling the paper into a ball made me feel better.

We watched the first episode together.  Neither of us cooked if we
could help it, so Sean brought a goody hamper from his mother.  It held
roast chicken, mashed potatoes and a tiny green salad which Scan
ignored.  Mrs.  Halloran had let it be known she considered me prime
daughter-in-law material.  Sean insisted she was barking up the wrong
tree, but mothers will hope.

Eating her chicken seemed dishonest, under the circumstances, but it
smelled too good to resist.  Besides, I needed sustenance to face Joe's
national debut.

I sat up as the opening credits rolled.  Joe appeared first thing,
striding down a bustling New York street in a natty double-breasted
suit.  He'd gained back the weight he'd lost before the sweets
commercial.  His walk radiated health and strength and single-minded
purpose.

"Wow," I said.

"Yeah," said Scan.

"He looks good."

He acted well, too.

Joe played a chameleon-like stockbroker, the black sheep businessman in
a family of cops.  He was courting the daughter of a wealthy magazine
publisher the second patriarch of the saga.  Between the script and
Joe's natural acting ability, deciding whether his character was good
or bad was impossible.  Without a doubt he was dangerous, not to
mention sexy.

Sean hooted as the camera panned lovingly over Joetaking a phone call
in the shower.

"Do you think they could make him spend any more time with his shirt
off?"

I noticed he didn't look away.  Of course, neither did I. "This is
going to be a big hit," I predicted, impressed with the look of the
show, with the quality of the actors and the chemistry between them.

Sean leant back against my knees and pointed his fork at the screen.

"Big with a capital "B"."

He sounded happier about Joe's prospects than I did.  I guess he was
the bigger man.  But it was hard to be big when you'd been dropped like
a stone for doing what you knew was right.

"He'll come round," Scan assured me, reading my frown.

"People don't forget someone they're so crazy about."

Maybe not, I thought, watching Joe gaze soulfully at the publishing
magnate's daughter.  But they certainly could get distracted.

Manhattan Nights's record-breaking first season was just wrapping up
when one of the producers made the mistake of bragging publicly about
the astronomical sum he expected to earn by selling the show
worldwide.

Joe and four of the other central characters promptly refused to
re-sign unless their salaries were tripled.  To my surprise, Joe was
the reputed ringleader.  People Magazine said so, in the same issue
they splashed him on their cover as the Sexiest Man Alive.  Even seeing
the rumour in print, I didn't believe it until one of the quintet, an
older actor who hadn't worked in a while, broke ranks and signed a
contract for less.

"This doesn't alter my position in the least," a very self- contained
Joe told the roving reporter for Entertainment Tonight.

The reporter had collared Joe outside Cafe Tabac with a stunning
redhead clinging to his arm.  She wore filmy aqua chiffon.  He wore
jeans and a neatly pressed dress shirt.  I wondered who did his ironing
these days.  He and his partner seemed comfortable in the eye of the
camera, though Joe did refrain from batting his eyes.

After a brief, bosom-inclusive shot, the camera ignored Joe's date and
focused on the clean, resolute lines of his face.

"I, personally, will not agree to return for a second season until
these demands are met for every member of the group of five," he said,
'including Mr.  Sandoval."

"But Mr.  Sandoval has already signed a contract," the reporter pointed
out.

"What makes you think the producers will renegotiate on your say-so?"

Joe's mouth curved in an expression just short of a smile.

"Believe me," he said, 'the producers read more of my fan mail than I
do."

That one soundbite proved tasty enough to air on national news.  Each
time I heard it, I wondered at the change in Joe.

"Now that's chutzpah," Sean said admiringly, as we watched a dignified
anchorman stoop to report on the drama.

I plumped a pillow behind my back.

"Joe's agent must be having fits."

"Unless it's his agent's idea."

I wanted to believe that, but I couldn't.  Joe's confidence Joe's
cojones, some might say sat too easily to belong to anyone but him.

The whole affair knocked me back.  Despite the fact that Joe's balls
were no longer my concern, I didn't like seeing him change from the
sweet, unassuming boy I'd known.

"I guess he's Mr.  Big now," I said.

Sean patted my thigh.

"And you're Ms Big, Kate, so pull in your claws."

I knew I deserved that but I didn't like it any more than I liked the
sight of the slinky redhead whispering in Joe's ear.

Sean was too sharp to miss my scowl.

"Poor pussy," he mocked.

"Someone else is drinking from your bowl."  He cupped my
trouser-covered mound in his broad, callused hand.  He squeezed roughly
and laughed to find me wet.

"Why don't you take your frustration out on me, Miss Kitty?"

So I did.  We both felt better afterwards except I dreamt of Joe,
again.  In the dream, Joe and I faced off in the centre ring of a
circus, our audience invisible, our sole illumination provided by a
single spotlight.  Joe held a lion tamer's whip.  He cracked it over my
head, skirling it out like a snake as he drove me towards my cage.  I
snarled at him, but I couldn't get away; I couldn't even move except on
my hands and knees.  Closer and closer he backed me to the open door.

Faster and faster I crawled, my knees grinding painfully in the
sawdust.  The dream was so vivid I could smell the shavings and the
sweet-sharp scent of my own humiliation.

Joe's amber eyes caught fire as I gave way before him.  Blue glints
shone in his straight black hair and his lips were a stern red slash in
his handsome face.  I'd never seen him look so beautiful or so
heartless.

"How can you do this when I love you?"  I said, but he cared nothing
for the words.

"Get in the box," he ordered, swinging the long whip between the
words.

"You know you won't be happy until I've caged you."

I hated that dream.  I didn't believe it.  I didn't want anyone to cage
me ever.

But I couldn't deny I woke up wet every time I had it.

FR1;Chapter Thirteen The Prodigal Returns A huge bouquet arrived the
day we opened MR Enterprises' new administrative office.  Scan and I
had purchased a narrow, three-storey building in Philadelphia's Old
City neighbourhood.  The building was in dire need of renovation, but
the price was right and the view could not be beaten.  From the little
rooftop garden, we could see the gleaming white spire of Christ Church
and the slow brown roll of the Delaware River.  Inside, sunshine bathed
every corner.  At our request, the architect left the beams and pipes
exposed and knocked two skylights through the roof.  The infrastructure
we painted teal.  The skylights we filled with ferns.  Framed cover art
decorated the exposed brick walls, and the combined effect was lush and
fresh.

My admiration could not, however, unpack my boxes any faster.

Seizing on the arrival of the floral messenger as an excuse to wander
out, I leant over the second-level railing to watch our twenty-year-old
receptionist sign the delivery slip.  She turned to call across the
sun- dappled space.

"They're for you," she said.

Sean must have sent them, I thought as I clanked down the painted metal
stairs.  He was at the warehouse today for an efficiency meeting with
the company who handled our on-line orders.  He was good with the
managers, most of whom had worked their way up from the loading bay.

They admired a man who'd earned his living with his hands and could
still heave a crate with the best of them.

I smiled as I scampered down the last few steps.  The men at the
warehouse didn't know that these days Sean kept his calluses in shape
by heaving dumbbells, not crates.  Fortunately, what they didn't know
wouldn't hurt our service, including the fact that Sean could be
awfully sweet when he put his mind to it.  Imagine sending me flowers
for opening day.

At my approach, the receptionist clasped the fat hand- blown vase and
slid it towards the centre of her C- shaped counter.  The heavy iron
and glass told me mis was not a standard arrangement.

"Shall I carry them up, Ms Winthrop?"  asked the wide- eyed girl.

I laughed.

"They're bigger than you are, Cheryl.  No, I'll just read the card and
leave them here to impress the movers."

The profusion of roses was impressive.  Three dozen red and white
American Beauties spilt from the vase.  The air conditioning wasn't up
to scratch yet and their perfume overwhelmed the reception area.

The scent triggered a flash of deja vu, more the memory of an emotion
than an event.  Unaccountably, my pulse began to race.

"Here's the card," said Cheryl, extracting it from the mass of dark
green leaves.

I opened it with unsteady hands.

"Prepare yourself, Kate," it said.

']."

My mind blanked.  Then I recognised the handwriting.  My heart leapt
before I could stop it.  ']' for Joe.  Joe was sending me flowers?  Joe
was in town?  I touched the bold, swooping initial.  He probably was if
he'd written the card himself.

But what did he mean by 'prepare yourself?

Whatever happened to "How have you been?"  or "Congratulations' or
"Sorry for being such an uncommunicative toad!"?

I glared at the heavy cream-coloured paper.  I guessed earning a
hundred thousand per episode gave a person airs.

"Bad news?"  Cheryl asked, practically quaking in her teeny-tiny combat
boots.  She was an adorable slip of a thing, bright as a new penny, and
for some reason I scared the pants off her.

I patted her narrow shoulder.

"Just a note from an old friend.  But I remembered something I need to
do at the South Street shop.  Can you handle things while I'm gone?"

"Sure," she said, looking worried but staunch.

"You'll be fine."  I suppressed an urge to pinch her cheek.

"Shall I say "hi" to Keith for you while I'm there?"

She fiddled with the last of the three gold rings that pierced her
right eyebrow.

"Oh, well, if you think he'd want me to say "hi"."

I grinned.  She had no idea what her diminutive tootsies did to our
otherwise conservative shop manager.  Keith's freckles practically
melted the day he met Cheryl - and her perfect size twos.  Too bad he
didn't have the nerve to speak to her.

"I'm sure Keith would be delighted to know you were thinking of him," I
said, 'assuming you want to delight him.  He has a wild side, you
know."

"Does he?"  she breathed, sounding intrigued enough to justify my
matchmaking.

I left assured that she'd have better things to mull over than what
might go wrong in my absence because absent I was determined to be.

If Master "J' decided to follow his flowers into my office, he could
bloody well lord it over someone else.

'"Prepare yourself"," I fumed, not stopping to wonder why those words
sent me into a fury when they came from Joe and would have made me
chuckle if they'd come from Scan.

* * The normally quiet Cheryl was bubbling with news when I returned
that afternoon.

"You'll never believe who was here," she said, her elfin face as pink
as the proverbial English rose.

"Joseph Capriccio?"  I suggested, pretending to flip through my mail.

"Yes!"  she shrieked, then covered her mouth with both hands.  I
couldn't help smiling as she bounced on the | balls of her feet.

"I

can't believe you know him, Ms Winthrop.  That is, like, way totally
cool.  He is so hot on Manhattan Nights and even better looking in
person.  Did you know he had the same voice coach as me?  And he's
nice.  When he heard you were out, we just talked and talked."  | I
looked up from the mail.

"Talked about what?"  I asked, more sharply than I'd intended.

Cheryl's smile faltered.

"About you, mostly,- and MR Enterprises.  But I swear I didn't tell him
anything that isn't in our brochures.

Except' She drew a circle in the condensation from Joe's huge vase of
roses.

"Except?"  I prompted.

"Except I sort of let it slip that you didn't have a date tonight."

I sighed heavily, rolling my eyes behind closed lids.

"I'm sorry, Ms Winthrop.  He seemed kind of sweet on you and I know
it's none of my business but I got the impression that you and Mr.

Halloran aren't, like, joined at the hip.  Mr.  Capriccio was just so
nice and he smelled so good, the words popped out of my mouth."

She looked so miserable, I gave in to impulse and tweaked the tip of
her nose.

"It's okay.  You didn't know."

"He left you a present," she offered in a forlorn voice.  I carried it
up to your desk."

"Thank you," I said, and waited until she met my eye.

"Don't worry, sweetie.  I'm not mad at you.  This is something I have
to handle myself."

I refused to open the big, bowed box until everyone had left for the
night.  My office, like Sean's beside it, had no front wall.  We
planned to buy some Japanese screens to preserve our privacy without
blocking the great light but, until we did, our every move was gossip
fodder.

I was glad I waited.  The box contained a long sequined evening gown in
cobalt blue.  Heavy as hell, its back swooped so low I suspected it
would flirt with more than one sort of cleavage.  Beneath the dress lay
a neatly folded pile of accessories.  One by one, I discovered white
evening gloves, creamy suede Ferragamo shoes, silk stockings, a lacy
suspender belt, a minuscule G-string and no bra.

Under the pile of goodies lay a second message.  The fact that Joe knew
I'd dig far enough to find it infuriated me.  Six months without him
had not dimmed my passion for provocative lingerie.

"Eight o'clock.  Tonight.  Halloran's," said this equally curt note.

"Wear the dress."

Halloran's.  I fanned the envelope against my chin.  That was Sean's
cousin's place across the river, which meant Scan was an accessory to
whatever scheme Joe was cooking up.

Great, I thought.  They join forces and I lose the one person I could
complain to or ask for advice.

Was avoiding Joe childish?  Would I kick myself later if I didn't at
least hear what he had to say?  I had to admit I was curious, even if
his invitation did put my back up.

I stroked the sleek, fish-scale surface of the dress.  The blue sequins
winked at me and threw sparkles off the rough brick wall behind my
desk.

Heat curled through my centre as I pictured myself pulling on me long
white gloves and the panties and the stockings.  I could almost feel
the heavy gown draping my breasts and buttocks, the mermaid cling at
waist and ankle, the cool expanse of skin along my back.  I knew I'd
look like sex on the half-shell in that dress.

I also knew I'd look a fool if I traipsed into a steak joint like

Halloran's wearing it.  Joe was playing games with me.  I wasn't sure
why, but I damn well didn't have to play along.

To hell with dressing up, I decided.  Mr.  Big could take me as I was
or not at all.

When the cab dropped me off beneath Halloran's green awning on the dot
of eight, I found a closed for private party sign on the door.

The music and laughter drifting out the windows told me I wasn't the
only guest.

What now?  I thought.  I swung my linen jacket over my shoulder.  The
evening smouldered, though the sun was just a sliver of mango and lime
on the horizon.  My bra showed through the light crocheted top I wore,
but it was a nice bra, so who cared?

Throwing caution to the winds, I yanked open the unattended door and
headed up Halloran's stairs, loud jazz music buffeting me all the
way.

As soon as I reached the dining room I saw that I was, in fact,
severely underdressed.  Men in dinner jackets sat at every table,
accompanied by women who were poured into gowns much more elaborate
than the one I'd refused to wear.

I looked down in dismay.  I wasn't even wearing a skirt.  Hell, I had
my trainers on.  Heads turned towards me from the nearest tables.  My
face heated.

"May I help you?"  asked a man in a slightly worn dinner jacket
presumably a waiter.

"Yes."  I strove not to act like a gatecrasher.

"Joe Capriccio asked me to meet him here."

The waiter stared at me.  Did he think I was lying?  I lifted my chin
and stared straight back, determined to brazen this out.  The waiter's
expression cleared.

"Ah, yes, Ms Winthrop.  Follow me, please."

He led me to a table in the very centre of the room.  It held two place
settings.  More heads turned as I sat in the chair the waiter held for
me.

"Where's Joe?"  I asked, before he could slip away.

The waiter tucked his hands together like a ChineseMandarin.

"Regrettably, Mr.  Capriccio has been detained.  We expect him
shortly."

Somehow that did not surprise me.

"What about Sean Halloran?  Is he around?"

The waiter cocked his head.

"We're not expecting young Mr.  Halloran this evening."

"Fine," I said, close to grinding my teeth.

"Would you mind bringing me a drink while I wait then?"

The waiter gestured towards a bevy of satin gowns.

"We have an open bar tonight.  Please help yourself and, as I said,
we're expecting our host presently."

Of course you are, I thought.  I immediately weighed and discarded the
option of running the diamond gauntlet to the bar.  To make matters
worse, the jazz quartet took a break as if my arrival had been a
signal.  Resigning myself to a dry, painful wait, I looked around the
glittering crowd.  I recognised a councillor, a sax player, a local
record producer, and a respected African American author.  I didn't
know any of them to talk to, unfortunately, and no one talked to me
though I suspected some of them were talking about me.

Twenty minutes of standing out like a sore thumb changed my mind about
assailing the bar.  Forty minutes and two vodka tonics later, my
capacity for martyrdom was completely exhausted.

Joe wasn't the Joe I'd known if he could play a rotten trick like this,
luring me here only to stand me up.  He made sure I'd feel as
uncomfortable as possible while I waited, too.  But I had too much
self-respect to tolerate it any longer.  Besides, the liquor was making
me maudlin.  I'd be crying in my tonic before long, and God knew I
didn't want to give Joe that satisfaction.

Giving up, I threw my napkin beside my plate, donned my jacket, and
went in search of someone to call a cab.

I was trying to find a waiter among the sea of black jackets when I
heard a familiar voice.  Its rich, brandied tones sent heat prickling
across my scalp.

"There you are," it said.

I turned slowly, girding myself.  Despite the warning, the sight of my
former lover made my stomach do the foxtrot.  He was tucking a
wafer-thin cell phone inside his dinner jacket.  A slim gold watch
flashed at his wrist.  He seemed taller than I remembered, and
broader.

He'd put on the kind of flesh you get from working out, and his skin
always fine had the smooth, buffed look that comes from regular
facials.

The sheer force of his beauty intimidated me.  I could hardly believe
I'd once been intimate with such a creature.  Cheryl was right.  He was
better-looking in person.

He met my gaze calmly, seemingly unmoved by our reunion.  Of course, I
didn't look as if I'd just stepped off Mount Olympus or the pages of a
fashion magazine.

"Yes, here I am," I said, praying my face didn't betray the wild
palpitation of my heart, 'right where I've been for the last forty
minutes."

His face winced in apology.

"I am sorry, Kate.  The limo broke down and had to be towed.  It'll
take days to fix, according to the garage.

I caught a cab here as soon as I could."

The two vodkas combined with six months of hurt to make me lose all
self-control.

"Liar," I said.

"Kate."  His hands lifted, palm out, in the age-old gesture of
innocence.

"Liar," I repeated.  This time I smacked his chest and, when that
failed to satisfy, stomped on the toe of his thin Italian shoe.

"Ow/ he complained, jumping back.  He held me off with both hands.

"Jesus, Kate, get a grip on yourself."

The supreme rationality of his voice pulled me back from making a scene
even if I did doubt his veracity.  I wanted to doubt it, really,
because if he was telling the truth, I'd just made an even bigger fool
of myself.

"Look, Kate."  He pulled a folded yellow paper from his pocket.

"I've got the garage receipt to prove it."

I snatched it from his hand and read it.

"Well, it looks real," I grudged, and handed it back.

He laughed.

"Of course, it's real.  Now can we have a nice dinner and talk?"

Seeing I'd calmed down, he tucked my arm through his and led me back
into the dining room.  Before he could guide me to the Table of Doom,
however, I dug in my heels.

"No way.  I am not sitting centre stage in my trousers and trainers
while people stare at me as if I'm a circus freak."

He lifted one dark brow.  I expected him to tell me I should have worn
the dress he sent, but after a brief silence he switched direction and
escorted me through the crush towards a table in the back.  People
hailed him as we passed, slapping his shoulder, lifting their glasses
in salutation.  Two of the women winked.  I might have been invisible
for all the notice anyone took of me.

"Later," he said, when his guests tried to ask him questions.

"After everyone's had time to enjoy the food."

He held my chair for me, leaning so close a whiff of Aramis tickled my
nose, not to mention my hormones.  I felt his hand gather up my curls
for an instant before he withdrew, as if touching them was a temptation
he couldn't resist.  I tried to hide my shiver of response.

"Your hair is longer," he said.  He shrugged out of his jacket and
draped it over the back of his chair.

"I like it."

"It grew," I said brusquely, sensing danger in his flattery.  A waiter
whisked two covered silver platters to our table.  Amazing.  I'd waited
forty minutes and no one asked me if I wanted to eat.  Limo breakdown
or no, I suspected that wasn't an accident.

Joe ignored my prickly attitude.  He rolled his sleeves to his elbows
and tipped the lid off the first platter.  Clouds of fragrant steam
billowed out.  He sighed with pleasure.

That sigh I recognised.  Joe must have been sighing like that since the
very first time he blasted off.  Annoyed with the sharpness of my
memory, I flipped my napkin into my lap.

"Do you want to tell me what this is about?"

He set the lid aside, revealing medallions of veal and steamed
asparagus, both swimming in juice.  He slid a portion on to my plate.

My stomach growled.

"I'm thinking of establishing a recording studio," he said, serving
himself just as deftly.  I watched the tendons shift in his forearms
and the fine, dark hair that veiled them.

"This party is to take the local temperature, to find out who else
would use the studio, who'd back it, and who'll help me get a permit.

Now that my career is somewhat established, I plan to return to serious
composing."

"And you wanted me here because ...?"

"Kate."  His eyes sad, he covered my hand with his and caressed my
wrist with a flush-inducing sweep of his thumb.  I couldn't help
noticing what nicely manicured nails he had.

"I asked you to come because I haven't seen you in half a year.  I
thought it was time we made peace."

I tried to retrieve my hand but he wouldn't let go.  My thighs were
sweating.

"I didn't make war on you," I said.  I didn't want it to happen but my
eyes filled with tears.  Damn those vodkas, anyway.

"Kate," Joe said again.  He tugged my hand closer and turned the palm
for a soft, lingering kiss.

Unfortunately for my composure, he didn't stop with one kiss.  Over and
over, he pressed his warm, mobile lips to the sensitive skin,
travelling the length and breadth of my palm as if its print held not
just my future, but his.  Chills broke out in waves along my limbs.

My lungs stalled.  When he reached my wrist, he closed his eyes and ran
the tip of his tongue slowly, sinuously up and down my veins.  The
longing that tautened his face was so intense, I could have sworn it
wasn't feigned.

"I know you didn't make war on me," he said, his voice whisky rough.

"I'm the one who needs to make peace."

I didn't trust myself to speak; I didn't dare caress the smooth line of
his cheek, mere inches from my hand.  If he wanted to punish me for
rejecting him, if this was all a trick ... I curled my fingers back
towards my palm.

He set my hand down, on his thigh this time, and leant so close his
cinnamon-scented breath warmed my ear.  His lips whispered down my
hairline.

"I haven't slept with anyone for the last two months."

I shivered.

"Is that supposed to impress me?"  I said, though in truth it did. This
was Joe, after all, the fellow who could take it two, three times a day
and still be up for more.

Then the emotional half of my brain ticked the other way.  Why only two
months?  He'd been gone for six.

Joe spied my involuntary frown.  He chuckled, a sexy, confident sound,
then caught the back of my neck so I couldn't pull away.  The way he
massaged the knotted muscles made me forget I'd wanted to.

"For the first few months I did what you expected," he said in that
same intimate murmur, 'or what I thought you expected.  I slept around
- young and old, gorgeous and plain, women I liked, women I didn't
like, plus a few men for variety's sake."  His shoulders lifted and
dropped philosophically.

"Some of it was fun.  A lot of it was awkward.  None of it was the
same.  I didn't love any of them.  And I still loved you."

I pressed one fist to the sudden ache in my chest.  I reminded myself
how deeply he'd hurt me, and how changed he was from the boy I knew.

"If you loved me so much, why did you stay angry so long?"

He stroked my cheek the way I'd wanted to stroke his, following the
curves and hollows with the back of his fingers.

"I wasn't angry."  He smiled.

"Well, maybe at first I was.  Mostly I was humiliated.  That's why I
left the way I did and broke off all contact.  Call it the Heathcliff
Syndrome.  I couldn't come back until I'd made something of myself.

Problem was, back then I didn't know what that something was."

"And now you do?"

Fine lines crinkled around his eyes, brought to life by an infinitely
gentle smile.  His expression mesmerised.  I saw the old Joe in it, and
the new.  I couldn't decipher all the separate parts, not in my current
state of mind, but I knew the combination frightened me in some deep,
atavistic way.  I put my fork down, certain I'd never swallow the bite
it held.

Joe drew his fingertip down the valley beneath my nose, then continued
across my lips and over my chin.

"Now I know I don't have to make myself into anything at all.  Now I
know everything that really counted I had all along.  I just wasn't
smart enough to see it and neither were you."

I tensed at the sureness in his eyes.

"That sounds like quite a revelation."

His smile turned wicked, a thousand watts of devastating Capriccio
charm.  Even though I'd seen that trademark smirk a hundred times on
Manhattan Nights, I found I was not immune.

"Believe me, darling'," he drawled.

"The revelations are just beginning."

But there weren't any more revelations over dinner.  The quartet began
to play again, more softly this time, romantic saxophone pieces plus a
decent cover of an old Robert Cray tune, "Little Boy Big', I think.  I
hadn't listened to his music since Joe left.  Some of the guests
stepped on to the dance floor.  Joe and I had never danced together.

I wished that hadn't occurred to me, and that I really were relieved he
didn't ask me now.

With music greasing the wheels of nostalgia, Joe told me about his work
and asked about mine and made me laugh and kept my wine glass
consistently topped.  Now that he'd backed the pressure off, I warmed
to him.  I couldn't help it.  He wasn't the old Joe, but he was still a
man who knew me well and liked what he knew and obviously found me
attractive.  Of that I had no doubt.  The banked heat of his gaze
proved it, the way he used any excuse to touch me, the way he hung on
my every word.

He kept my palm cupped to his inner thigh, urging my little finger
against the solid swell of his cock.  I quickly perspired through his
trousers, or he did, but he didn't seem to care.  His seam-straining
erection never faltered, not for the whole hour-long conversation.  Nor
did he seem to mind that all I did was press the outer edge.  I was the
one squirming in my chair.

Anyone who saw us would have thought we were lovers.  By the time I
swallowed the last sip of coffee, I almost wished we were.

"I have to work the room now," he said, with seemingly genuine
regret.

He lifted my hot, damp hand from his lap and kissed my fingertips.

"I'm afraid it'll bore you.  Why don't I get my driver to take you
home?"

My driver.  What a funny thing to hear Joe say.  Not so long ago his
primary means of transportation had been a ten-speed bike.  He escorted
me down the stairs to the car park.  Even in my trainers, I wobbled a
bit.  I'd drunk more wine than I realised enough not to care very much,
or to remember why a shiny Cadillac limo should not be idling in front
of the awning.

Joe helped me into the passenger compartment and leant on the open
window.  We stared at each other.  The streets were quiet.  Halloran's
was the only place open here.  I looked at his lips and remembered how
soft and gentle and clever they were.

He muttered something under his breath.

"What?"  I asked.

"Lean out so I can kiss you," he said.

Amazingly, I did.

He clasped my face in his hands and brushed his nose against mine.

Our breath mingled, silent and warm.  His tongue touched one corner of
my mouth, then the other, then the centre.  He pushed lightly,
delicately penetrating the barrier of my lips until we both moaned low
in our throats.  Our mouths opened to each other, then closed,
commingled.  Oh, his reined-in hunger tasted so good, his heat, the
assurance he'd grown like a sleek new skin.  I ran my hands over his
shoulders, testing the hard, rounded muscle.  I wished I could rip his
shirt off and ravish him where he stood.

The kiss grew deeper and wetter.  Our tongues slid together like lovers
coupling, quivering with six months of unassuaged yearning.  My
emotions seethed like heated oil as my desire for him fought my need
for self- protection.  Was this kiss merely one of a long procession of
kisses, or did it mean what his half-choked moans implied it meant? Was
it special?  Did it make him sing from soul to sinew?

Ultimately, my sinews didn't care.  I clutched his shoulders.  My nails
pricked him through the starched cotton of his shirt.

At the tiny injury, he exhaled slowly, as if he'd set down a heavy
load.  He turned his head and kissed me harder until the back of my
head met my own shoulders.  His hand bracketed the arch of my throat.

He swept it lower, crossing my collar bones and dipping into the warm,
scented valley between my breasts.  He counted the ribs there with the
pad of his thumb, up and down, down and up, as though he dared not
stray from this track but could not force himself away.

Touch me, I thought, my nipples a stony pain, my blood thundering in my
ears.  The strength of my attraction to him dizzied me.

Then he broke away.

My only consolation was that he was breathing as hard as I was.

"Now."  He gave my cheek an little smack with the flat of his palm.

His eyes glittered coolly under the street- lamp.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?  Maybe next time you'll do what I tell you
to."

He couldn't have shocked me more if he'd slapped me senseless.  I
closed my gaping mouth with a snap.  In a flash I remembered the
supposedly broken-down limo, the very limo whose engine purred so
smoothly through the quiet night.

He'd lied about everything and I'd fallen for it.

"Don't hold your breath," I said.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned.

"Take the lady home," he instructed the impassive driver, 'and make
sure she gets safely inside."

Joe didn't even try to convince me to see him again.  My mind boiled
with fantasies of tossing huge, thorny bouquets in his face but I never
got the chance.

Every time I tried to talk to Sean about what Joe had done, he
remembered a meeting he was late for or a call he had to make.

I knew his defection was Joe's doing.  He was rubbing my nose in it,
demonstrating in no uncertain terms the power he exerted over the man
who in his absence had become my best friend.

The betrayal hurt so badly I spent days on the verge of tears.  How can
he do this, I'd ask myself, barely knowing whether 'he' was Sean or
Joe.  How can he be so cruel?

The fact that I was looking for an explanation bothered me.  Part of me
believed there must be a reason.  Part of me remembered the longing in
Joe's face when he kissed my palm, and that part believed even in the
teeth of the evidence that Joe still loved me.

I fought a primitive urge to call my mother and cry on her shoulder.

With her middle-class, homemaker's propriety, she'd be the last person
to understand.  She hadn't forgiven me yet for divorcing Tom.

On Friday I claimed boss's privilege and left half an hour early.  I
strode down Front Street towards Society Hill, dodging skateboarders
and grimacing at the couples taking in the balmy river view.

Ice cream, I thought.  I'd sweat for an hour on the stair climber then
drown my troubles in a big, fattening dish of double-chocolate chip,
and maybe I'd have a glass of wine on top of that!

I stomped two streets farther before I noticed the limousine crawling
behind me.  As soon as I did, I knew who sat behind the tinted glass.

The big black car stopped when I did.  Folding my arms beneath my
breasts, I faced my reflection.

The window rolled down like butter.

"Get in," said Joe.

"Go to hell," said I.He opened the door and stepped out, his length
unfolding with the grace of a ballroom dancer.  He buttoned his stylish
Armani jacket and smoothed it straight, in my head, I damned him for
looking so temptingly prosperous.

"Get in," he said, gesturing me ahead of him.

"I can see Byou want to give me a piece of your mind.  L-i there is the
only place I'm prepared to listen."

As incentives went, it was pretty thin.  Even so, I couldn't bring
myself to turn away.

"I don't trust you," I said.

The skin around his eyes tightened.  The response could have signalled
anger or hurt.  The stupid part of me chose hurt.

"Please," he said more humbly.

"Don't you want to know why I behaved the way I did?"

I did want to know why.  The stupid part of me thought he might tell
me.  I climbed inside the plush grey cave.  Joe slid in beside me.  The
automatic locks shot home as soon as he closed the door.  The sound
startled, but Joe distracted me by taking my hands in his and gazing
into my eyes.  His mood seemed very serious, like a doctor about to
break some bad news.

"I'm sorry to have to do this," he said.

"Do what?"  I asked at the very moment a pair of intricate velvet cuffs
slid over my wrists.  They tightened almost before I registered what
they were.

He covered my eyes next, then bound my ankles together.  I didn't fight
any of it.  He was stronger than I was, and I feared he'd enjoy
subduing me too much.

Let's see if he likes this game when only one person plays, I
thought.

I vowed he'd get no response from me:

not anger and not fear.

But those weren't the responses he really wanted just the ones I could
control.

Chapter Fourteen Mind, Body and Soul After a fifteen-minute drive, the
limo stopped.  Joe scooped me up and hustled me from the car to a lift,
a freight lift by the sound of it.

Since I was blindfolded, my ears were all I could go by.  Once inside,
he set me on my bound feet, steadying me when I would have teetered.

He said nothing, but I heard him breathing deep, deliberate breaths, in
through his nose and out through his mouth, like an athlete preparing
for a race.

A strange calm settled over me, as though I weren't really involved in
this drama.  So be it, I thought.  If Joe wants to alienate me for
good, so be it.  At least I'll stop pining for him.

But those thoughts flowed like ripples on the surface of a river.

Other feelings ran beneath them, too murky to acknowledge.  Despite my
outward passivity, my skin tingled with energy and I hovered on the
verge of arousal.  My womb was heavy, my awareness of every sensation
keen.  It's the blindfold, I told myself.  But I knew it wasn't.

As the lift rose, Joe wrapped a wide velvet collar around my neck.  I
brought my arms up wrists together, of course to touch it.  A long
leash led off from its front.

"Honestly," I huffed.

"You couldn't come up with something more original?"

Joe proved better at keeping silent than I. The lift clanked to a
halt.

He lifted me in his arms again and carried me down a long, quiet
corridor.  My neck ached from trying not to let my head rest on his
shoulder.  We must have made quite a picture he in his suit, I in my
black velvet bonds.  Someone gasped as we passed, but did not try to
stop us.

I could have cried out then, made it clear I was being held against my
will.  For a moment, the possibility excited me.  Adrenalin surged
through my veins.  But I did not act to save myself.

This was Joe's first victory.

"Good girl."  He nuzzled the baby-fine hair at my temple.

"Now you begin to understand."

I did struggle then, but silently, and it was too late anyway.

Ignoring my squirms, he shifted me to free one arm.  Seconds later, I
heard a door open.  He set me down inside and closed it.  My struggles
died.  I waited, bound hands clasped before my sex.  The door shut. The
bolt turned.  A silence fell.  I imagined I could feel the weight of
Joe's eyes as clearly as I felt the weight of the slave collar.

Watch me then, I thought, my skin twitching with awareness.  Watch me
and weep.

He circled me with slow, measured footfalls.  As he did, the leash
cinched under one breast and over the other.  A pulse beat in my
nipples, tapping my skin from the inside out.  Because I refused to
give way, the leather bit into my arm, crossed my back, and trussed my
other elbow to my side.

The circuit complete, he covered my breast with his hand, squeezed,
then smoothed a burning path up my neck and over my jaw until he
reached the blindfold.  His fingers brushed the edge, stroking both
velvet and skin from my cheekbone to the bridge of my nose.  The gentle
touch spurred a soft explosion in my groin.  Warm, creamy pleasure
spread outward from my core, up my belly and down my thighs.  I pressed
my lips together to still their trembling.

"You've been good so far," he said, his voice another caress, 'and I
know you don't like having your eyes covered.  Shall I reward you by
taking this off?"

He did not wait for my answer but eased the blindfold away.  I
blinked.

I knew this place.  We stood in a penthouse suite at The Four Seasons
hotel.

No other hotel commanded such a view.  The Swann fountain in Logan
Circles plashed beneath the veranda and in the distance, at the end of
a long grassy stretch of Benjamin Franklin Parkway, I spied the "Rocky'
stairs at the museum.  I'd put up a few business contacts here, ones I
wanted to impress.  I knew for a fact it cost two hundred a night, and
that was for a standard room.  Lord only knew how much mis suite
cost.

Probably enough to buy Joe a lot of privacy.

He knelt before me, untied my ankles, and pulled off my trainers.  I
don't know why, but I immediately felt more vulnerable.  As he rose, he
untangled the leash and wrapped the end around his wrist.

"Now you can walk like a proper slave."

I tried to laugh but it came out strained.  He spoke without melodrama
and with utter, unshakable confidence.  My mouth closed on my pitiful
attempt at mockery.  When he tugged the leash, I followed.

The plush navy carpet could not steady my shaky knees.  He led me past
a well-stocked bar, an alcove with a built-in library, a formal dining
room, and a bathroom big enough to host an orgy.  Then we entered the
bedroom.

The bed itself was huge.  Like the rest of the furniture, it was an
eighteenth-century American reproduction, carved of good quality
mahogany with shells and eagles forming the primary motifs.  Solid
head- and footboards framed either end.  It struck me as a particularly
serious bed.  I pictured Joe lying naked on the navy counterpane, his
cock dark and hard, his muscles drawn tight with anticipation.  I would
straddle his narrow hips, take him delicately in hand and lower
myself.

He would moan as I swallowed the crown.  He would My daydream broke.

Something gleamed on one of the pillows.  Something that shouldn't have
been there a pair of tailor's scissors.

What did Joe want with those?  What could Joe do with those?  Unless
he'd changed more than I believed a person could change, he didn't have
a physically violent bone in his body.  But the scissors were there,
cold and sharp, and they had to hold some threat.  Troubled, aroused,
and not wanting to be either, I forced my eyes away and found an image
of peace.

A large picture window, curved to follow the hotel's distinctive
U-shape, overlooked the sea of greenery around the courtyard cafe.

People would be gathered beneath those trees, enjoying the late summer
sun, drinking a tall cold one after work innocent pleasures.

I sighed at how inviting it sounded.  If things had been different, Joe
and I could have sat down there.  We could have held hands across the
table and gazed into each other's eyes.  Painful as it was to admit, I
wanted that stupid, bourgeois fantasy.  Except maybe, just maybe, I
wanted this, too.

"Pretty, isn't it?"  Joe said, then grabbed me and tossed me on to the
bed.

Before I could regain my balance, he pulled a tie from his pocket and
lashed my bound wrists to the eagle at the centre of the headboard.

"Hey!"  I said, but he was done almost before the word was out.

I'd never seen him so aggressive.  He dragged my legs apart, ignoring
the aborted jerks that signalled my desire to kick him where it
counted.  Long velvet straps dangled from opposite ends of the foot
board and to these he secured my ankles.  He laughed when I couldn't
resist a tug to verify their strength.

Feels good, doesn't it, Katie?  Feels good to meet your master."

"You wish I muttered, but the bindings were working their insidious
magic.

I was helpless now, entirely at his mercy.  Cool air drifted between my
spread legs, emphasising the heat of my groin.  Welling, swelling, it
lapped outward in thick, feverish waves.  I could not deny I wanted him
or that, in some secret corner of my soul, I wanted him to overpower
me.

He knew it, too, damn him.

"I'll take you to your limit," he promised, in a silky growl.

"I'll take everything you gave to Sean and more."

"Is that what this is about?  Besting Scan?"

He did not dignify my accusation with an answer.  Smiling like the Mona
Lisa, he stepped back and loosened his tie.  My pulse jumped in my
throat.  Our eyes connected and held.  His smile deepened as he slid
the knot down.  He threw the tie across the room.

I watched it hit the window, the huge, bare window.  Did he intend to
strip off without drawing the curtains?  What if those tower blocks
were close enough to see in?

"Don't."  Though he did not speak loudly, the order rang through the
stately room.  My gaze snapped back to his.

"Don't look away or it will go harder for you."

I wasn't sure I believed him, but I didn't really want to look away,
not when he removed his jacket and pulled his shirt-tails free.  The
stark white cloth quickly covered his erection.  Not that it
mattered.

The instant I saw the stupendous bulge, the image was engraved on my
retinas.  His left trouser leg had trapped the fat knob, pulling the
shaft off true.  Such a personal thing to know, which way a man liked
to hang his goods.

He undid a cuff link without breaking eye contact.

"As I recall," he said, 'you like to watch.  That was part of the
thrill, wasn't it?  Seeing Sean and me take it in the arse, seeing us
suck each other off or steal a little feel in the middle of fucking
you."

I squirmed on the satiny bedspread.  Why waste my breath denying it?

"Are you going to talk or take off your clothes?"  I said, my voice too
breathy to count as flippant.  His hands rose to his collar.  One
button popped free, then another.

Sheer black curls appeared at the base of the "V.  Button by button, he
widened the alluring gap, then reached inside to massage his flat male
nipples.  When his hands withdrew, tiny points lifted the smooth
Egyptian cotton.  I remembered how he tasted there, how he felt on my
palm.

His clever hands worked the last button free.

"I like to watch, too," he said.

I didn't know why he said that.  Tied up this way, I couldn't put on a
show.  He could, though, and did.  He cupped the shirt-tails between
his legs and rubbed himself through the added barrier, a roving,
thorough exploration that told me beyond a shadow of a doubt how much
he wanted touching.  He kneaded the imprisoned head, a circling pinch
between fingers and thumb.  I knew he loved that.  He used to love it
when I licked him there.  Was he thinking of that now?  I swallowed. He
was swelling even more.  His hip swivelled forward.  His voice turned
rough.

"I like watching the way you watch my hands," he said, 'the way a flush
crawls over your cheeks, the way your hips roll a little as though
you're imagining how I'll feel inside you.  You know I'll be big.  You
know you'll have to stretch to take me."

I opened my mouth to catch a clear breath.  He pushed the shirt-tails
behind his hips and bared his glory.  Its size distorted the fall of
his elegant slacks, pushing out the zip, creasing the crotch.

"I'm imagining it, too," he said.

"I remember how wet you'd get, how you'd drench me when I pushed inside
you.  I especially enjoyed the way you'd squeeze me with your cunt like
you wanted to trap me there all night, like you wanted to milk the life
out of me."  He leant over the foot board, sharing a secret.

"I hope you'll do that today, Kate."

Fat chance, I wanted to say, but all that came out was a pitiful
whimper.  My nice Christian Dior trousers were halfway to drenched
already.  They grew more so when he shrugged each shoulder free of his
shirt.  I'd always thought Joe had the perfect physique, but this was
That hair-covered wall of hard male muscle affected me so strongly, so
primitively, I felt embarrassed, almost disloyal to my memory of the
younger, smoother Joe.

Heavens, he was gorgeous a Greek statue in warm, living flesh.  I
wanted to touch him, to rub myself all over him like a cat marking its
owner.

My desire must have shone on my face.  He grinned and flexed for me.

His pecs flicked up and down.  He slapped the rippling six-pack at his
belly.

"What do you think, Kate?  A hundred thou a week pays for a lot of gym
time."

I could not respond.  My throat was too tight.  His hands fell to his
belt buckle.  The distinctive clank of it opening, the hiss of leather
through the belt loops, made me shiver.  Those sounds meant sex to
me:

meant the imminent approach of relief.  But not today.  Today, relief
was no sure thing.  I should have been enraged.  Instead, I lay
spellbound.

He undid the waist catch and drew down the zip, inch by rasping inch.

He paused, holding the edges together.  My body tensed from toe to
scalp.  Let go, I thought.  Let me see.  His fingers opened.  The
trousers slid to the floor in a sibilant, silk-lined rush.

He wore nothing beneath them, just himself, springing upward now from a
nest of shiny black curls.  He planted his hands on his hips and
widened his stance.  His balls swung free between his thighs, heavy and
full.  I couldn't laugh at his machismo.  He looked too good.  In any
case, he was laughing at me, silently, his eyes dancing with triumph.

Somewhere I found the strength to frown.

"Now, now," he said.

"Let's see if we can't make you more comfortable."

I discovered what the scissors were for then.  He cut the clothes off
my body, piece by piece, skimming my limbs with the back of the cold,
sharp blade.  To my shame, I hadn't the presence of mind to regret the
loss of my designer outfit.  I was too elated at the prospect of being
one step closer to intercourse.  With a flourish that suggested he knew
my expectations, Joe reserved the final snips for the sides of my
panties.  He pulled them I from beneath me as smoothly as he had the
rest, then sat beside me with one leg bent on the mattress.  The smooth
skin of his hip warmed my thigh, the hairy skin of his thigh, my
side.

He cupped the rise of my mound, surrounding it, squeezing it.  The tip
of his middle finger slipped into my pooling warmth, just grazing my
clit.  My hips surged off the bed, but as soon as I moved he
withdrew.

I couldn't bite back a groan.

"You want me a lot, don't you?"  He pulled his fingers lightly up my
meridian, bisecting my belly and breasts.

Silence was my only defence, a thin one, considering how badly I was
shaking.

His fingers ghosted back to my fleece.  They drew an outline around its
periphery, an arrow of lust.

"That's all right, sweetheart.  You don't have to answer.  Yet.  I'm
looking forward to torturing it out of you.  I know you need to give
yourself completely to a man, not the separate parts, but the whole:

mind, body and soul.  You want mastering, Kate.  You need it."

He didn't see me grinding my teeth because he turned to the bedside
table and opened the drawer.  Instead of the small foil packet I
expected, he removed a calligrapher's brush.

I stared at it, bemused.

"We're going to play a game now an ancient Chinese game, one I learned
from a Nepalese sex guru in New York.  No, don't laugh.  The Asian
world has made an art of sex.  They understand that sometimes even
foreplay is too purposeful.  Sometimes teasing is its own reward.

So close your eyes, Kate.  Imagine yourself naked in the sun on a warm
spring day.  You're lying on a blanket in a beautiful field of
flowers.

Hear the bees, Kate?  Feel the balmy, velvet breeze?"

I did hear them.  I did feel it.  My eyes flew open.

"You're hypnotising me."

"Shh/ He smoothed my lids shut with the flat of his palm.  The calming
singsong continued.

"No one can be hypnotised against their will.  In your heart you know
you're safe with me, and very relaxed, so relaxed that all your
awareness centres on the pleasant sensations in your body.  The sun is
warm.  Your body melts like honey under its rays.

That's right, sweetheart, breathe deeply.  Breathe in the scent of the
beautiful flowers."

"I love when you call me "sweetheart"," I said, stupid and stuporous,
drowsing under the spell of his words.  I could feel the hairs on my
arms prickle as his movements stirred the air.  I wanted him to touch
me, but between my languor and my bonds I couldn't budge an inch.

"Now a butterfly comes," he said.

"It's fluttering above you, looking for a place to light.  You're nice
and warm, Kate.  Butterflies like to be warm, but it wonders if you're
a safe place to rest."

My lips curved at the silly story.  Still, I could see the butterfly,
an iridescent, sapphire angel, hovering against the clear spring sky.

Something soft brushed the arch of one foot, then the other, then
skittered to my toes.  I knew it was the calligraphy brush but, in my
mind, shimmering blue wings fanned the air.  I gasped at the intensity
of the gossamer touch, at the trail of tingling nerves it left
behind.

The butterfly skimmed my ankle, my calf.  It lingered for a moment on
the warmth of my inner thigh.  My buttocks tightened with longing and
it took flight, alighting on the areola of one nipple.  The centre
erected at once, painfully.  I moaned and it fled to the other
breast.

"Oh, God," I whispered as it circled there, a caress as light as air,
but so potent it brought tears to my eyes.

The touch flittered to the sensitive skin beneath my upraised arm, then
darted back to my toes, my belly.  I never knew where it would land or
how long it would stay, and the anticipation aroused as much as the
moments of contact.

I heard Joe breathing hard and deep.  I smelled the musk of male
arousal.  He touched a point midway between my navel and pubis that
almost made me see stars.  Energy rushed out from my centre.  My back
arched off the bed.

"Ah," he whispered, 'we're getting closer to the wannest spot."

He drew the brush up my clitoris, a light, glancing stroke.  He
repeated it.  The sensation changed as the brush grew slick with dew.

I felt it more, needed it more.  The brush lapped me like a tiny
tongue.  My thighs trembled.  My head thrashed back and forth on the
pillow.  I tightened my inner muscles, trying to pull myself to climax
but the delicate stroking held me on the edge pushing me up but not
over.

"Please," I groaned, forgetting all my promises to myself.

"Please, Joe, I need to come."

"Do you?"  His lips tickled my earlobe, setting off a new set of
sparklers.  The brush continued its ethereal torture.

"I wonder if you need it enough to do me a favour."

"Anything," I said, and meant it.

"How you tempt me."

The wistful answer made my eyelids flutter open.

"Anything," I repeated.

His eyes darkened, pupils swallowing up the glowing gold.

"I don't want what you think I want not sexual favours, not a night of
fucking."

"What do you want?"  I sounded drugged.  I couldn't help it.  He'd
never stirred me this way before.  No one had.

The brush dipped for one aching moment into the well of my sex.

"I

want you to marry me."

My mouth dropped.  I tried to summon the outrage I thought I should
feel.

"You can't coerce a person into marrying you."

"Can't I?"  The brush flicked up my labia and circled my clit.

"No!  Oh, God' My breath caught as he increased the pressure by the
smallest, most excruciating margin.

"Even if you could make me say "yes", what's to keep me from going back
on my word later on?"

"But you try very hard to keep your word."  He said this slowly,
deliberately, as if the phrase held a secret meaning.

"You try very hard to keep your word."

At the second repetition, I remembered.  I'd made that exact claim to
Sean six months ago, when he hadn't believed I meant to stay friends.

It had been a private moment, the turning point in our relationship,
the day our real friendship began.

"Sean told you that?"  I couldn't hide my hurt.

Joe smiled with his eyes alone, gently, and with genuine compassion.

"He told me everything.  He knows what I'm here to do.  He wants me to
be happy.  He wants you to be happy."

"I can't make you choose."  The words were out before I knew it.

Abruptly, I knew I was taking this proposal seriously.

"Choose?"  His brow furrowed.

"I told you, I'm not in love with Sean or do you mean choose between
men and women?"

"I don't want you to look back twenty years from now and feel you've
missed out, that you denied half your sexuality."

With one finger, he teased a damp curl from my cheek.

"Everyone who marries chooses between the rest of the world and the
person they love.  Whatever I give up will be nothing compared to what
I gain."

His gaze narrowed, a golden laser to my soul.

"I want all of you, the light Kate and the dark Kate.  You gave me your
heart before.  Now I want the rest.  I want it for myself and I want it
for keeps.  I've had six months to think about this, long enough to be
sure I love you more than all those other choices."

This time he didn't ask if I'd marry Sean.  My answer would have been
the same that Scan wouldn't ask me.  But my feelings about the answer
were different.  Sean and I had been in each other's pockets for half a
year.  We'd been friends, partners and lovers.  We respected each
other, relied on each other.

Didn't Scan mind?  I wondered.  Not just losing Joe, but losing me?

Joe waited, following the conflict in my eyes.

"Everyone has to choose," he said quietly.

I wondered if he meant me this time.  But was it such a close race?  My
heart wanted Joe.  My heart said: this man will be true to you all his
days.  This man makes you want to surrender in a way no man ever has.

If a corner perhaps a substantial corner of my heart belonged to Sean,
then so be it.

"Yes," I said, and a bolt of pure gladness flashed through my being.

Joe released the breath he'd been holding.

"You'll marry me?"  The old Joe struggled in his face, fighting to
believe.

"Really?"

"Really."  I laughed, not believing I was doing this, giddy as a
schoolgirl on champagne.

"Yes!"  His fist punched the air as if his team had won the cup.

"Oh, but I have to get you out of this."  He reached for the
scissors.

"Not so fast."  I stopped him before he could cut me free.

"You have some unfinished business, Mr.  Capriccio."  I stared
meaningfully at the calligrapher's brush.

"Oh."  He looked at the delightful instrument of torture, then at my
glistening sex.

"No, I'm sorry, Kate.  You look too delicious.  The brush will have to
finish you another day."

He reached into the bedside table.  This time he brought out what I
expected, and something else as well:

a small black jeweller's box whose eye-popping contents sparkled with
the clarity of spring water.  Jesus.  That diamond had to be three
carats.  He slid the ring on to the third finger of my left hand, where
the gold immediately began to warm.

My first response was to coo the way any woman would at the sight of
such a rock.  I wished I could pull my hands free to admire it.  But
the ring made the engagement too real too real and too scary.  ']oe,
it's beautiful, but I can't accept it."

"Yes, you can."  He clambered between my outspread legs and bowed to
me, his muscular haunches rising, the curve of his spine like a reed
bending in the wind.

At once I forgot my protests.  It had been a long time since I'd felt
those silky locks between my thighs.  I moaned as his thumbs slid up
the petals of my sex, parting me for his kiss.

"Ah, Kate," he breathed.

"How could I have forgotten how beautiful you are, like a wet pink
seashell?"  He ran the tip of his tongue up my clit, lifting it gently,
his touch as subtle as the Chinese brush.

My hips strained towards his mouth.  My wrists tugged the ties that
bound them.

"Don't tease me, Joe."

He repeated the feather-light caress.

"Just a little longer."  He nuzzled closer and sighed.

"You don't know what it does to me to see you squirm.  It's been so
long."

"Two whole months."

"Six," he corrected, and rose to his knees.  His sex stood out from his
belly, dramatically thick and proud, every millimetre vibrating with
power.  He propped his hands on either side of me.

"It's been six months since anyone made me feel whole in bed.  I need
to take you, Kate."  He shifted and the tip of his cock probed my
curls.

"I need to take all of you."

"Then do," I said, 'and please hurry."

He grinned, still hovering on the brink of penetration.  He lifted the
scissors from the pillow beside my head.

"Shall I cut you free first?"

"Oh, yes.  Yes, please."

I wrapped him close as he sank inside with one long, humming, quivering
push.  My hands roamed his back, loving the furrow of his spine, the
fans of muscle at his sides.  His breath came in anguished pants.  He
coaxed my thighs wider with a gentle caress.  My calves squeezed him
home the final inch.  He closed his eyes in blind pleasure, then opened
them and kissed me softly on the lips.

Still and speechless, we throbbed together our hearts displaced to that
intimate juncture of yin and yang.

"You've got to move," I said, though I, too, loved the hanging pause.

"I can't bear it."

"Yes," he said, drawing back and sinking again.

"Yes."

There were no more words then, only sighs and moans and bodies slapping
together with ever increasing fervour.  The bed creaked.  Joe gripped
desperate fistfuls of the navy coverlet.  Oh, the noises he made, as
though I were stabbing him with that long, smooth spear.

Sweet pain.  Sweet union.  The miracle of body contained in body.

Could we ever get close enough?  We lunged in sync to double our
separate strength.  We groaned together.  We sobbed for air.

"Now," I said, soaring through the ache and wanting him with me.

"Now, now."

But he wouldn't let go.  His face twisted as my spasms gripped him.  He
drove through the juicy internal convulsions, blinking sweat from his
eyes.

"Again," he said, and he changed angles, pumping the sweet spot behind
my pubis.

"Let me feel you come again.

I guess he wanted proof of how much I loved him, how much my body loved
him.  Or maybe he needed to show himself master in mis, as well master
of himself.

"Joe," I began, but the plea was lost in a second rippling crescendo.

My spine arched off the bed.  My nails scored his back.  I didn't want
to hurt him, but I literally couldn't control myself.

"Good, Kate, good," he panted.  He rose up on his arms, locked his
elbows and quickened his thrusts.

I knew he couldn't continue this way.  A vein pulsed at his temple.

His lips drew back in a snarl.

"Joe, please," I begged.

"Please, love, come."

"One more," he gritted out.

"One more.  Ah, God."

Then he jolted inside me, coming, shaking, moaning so loudly the sound
alone drew the one more he craved from the depths of my sex.

We cried out in unison.  We clutched each other like sailors swept
overboard in a storm, dying the little death, taking our first step
into a new life.

My heart took a long time to settle back to normal.  As it slowed, I
looked inside myself, trying to determine what I felt light-headed,
mostly, or maybe just light, as though I'd set down a burden I'd been
carrying a long time, a solitary burden.

I touched the huge, marquis-cut diamond with my thumb.  Could I really
marry him?  Could I believe in happy endings the way I had as a
child?

Did I even know Joe any more?

He stirred beside me, turned his body towards mine.

"I want another favour from you, and I want this one without
coercion."

Well, what was one more?

"Name it," I said.

"I want you to promise you'll never make me do that again."

I looked him full in the face.  He was serious.

"You can't tell me you didn't enjoy yourself.  You came like a freight
train."

Annoyance thinned his sensitive mouth.

"You know I liked what we did today.  What I didn't like was hurting
you."

"Then why did you?"  I went up on my elbow.

"Because you did hurt me, you and Sean both."

His eyes filled.

"I know I walked a fine line, Kate, and I'm sorrier than you can
imagine.  But you had to know I could master you.  You were afraid to
give your body and heart to the same man.  So you let Sean master one
and me the other.  You kept yourself safe that way.

But safe isn't good enough any more."  He traced the tiny lashes
beneath my eyes.

"I had to prove my nature is as powerful as yours or Sean's.  I simply
choose to exercise my power differently.  We are equals, Kate.  We're
just different."

I stared him down for a minute but he didn't look

Chapter Fifteen

Happily Ever After Twaited for Sean to say something like, "I'm sorry I
JL didn't let you know what Joe was up to or, "I'll miss our Wednesday
night workouts."

Beyond offering the requisite congratulations, however, our decision
seemed not to affect him.  All through the wedding planning insanity,
he maintained a cheerful front.  He was helpful and sensible, an
unshakable voice of reason.

For instance, I'd married my ex at City Hall.  I didn't see why we
couldn't do that again and throw a big party afterwards.  Scan knew
better.  With boundless patience, he explained why Joe's family and Joe
himself would consider only a church wedding meaningful.

"Don't worry, though.  Joe's mother's cousin is an aide to some
archbishop.  You shouldn't have any trouble with the annulment."

I raked my hair back.

"That's like saying my first marriage never happened, which is a
lie."

Sean spread his hands.

"God works in mysterious ways, babe.  Who are you to complain if He
smooths your path?"

Not having been taught by Jesuits, I didn't know how to argue with
that.

"Grin and bear it," he advised, 'for Joe's sake.  If he seesFR1;Chapter
Fifteen Happily Ever After J waited for Scan to say something like,
"I'm sorry I didn't let you know what Joe was up to," or, "I'll miss
our Wednesday night workouts."

Beyond offering the requisite congratulations, however, our decision
seemed not to affect him.  All through the wedding planning insanity,
he maintained a cheerful front.  He was helpful and sensible, an
unshakable voice of reason.

For instance, I'd married my ex at City Hall.  I didn't see why we
couldn't do that again and throw a big party afterwards.  Scan knew
better.  With boundless patience, he explained why Joe's family and Joe
himself would consider only a church wedding meaningful.

"Don't worry, though.  Joe's mother's cousin is an aide to some
archbishop.  You shouldn't have any trouble with the annulment."

I raked my hair back.  That's like saying my first marriage never
happened, which is a lie."

Sean spread his hands.

"God works in mysterious ways, babe.  Who are you to complain if He
smooths your path?"

Not having been taught by Jesuits, I didn't know how to argue with
that.

"Grin and bear it," he advised, 'for Joe's sake.  If he sees you're
unhappy, you know he'll let you elope, and he'll be sorry for it
later."

No doubt this was true, but Sean's attitude unnerved me.

At one point, when it looked like my father wouldn't tear himself away
from a long-standing golf date.  Scan even volunteered to give me
away.

Tears blurred my vision.  I confessed that, in a way, I was his to
give; part of me would always belong to him.

"Which part?"  he asked with a cartoonish leer.  But he also gave me an
odd sideways glance, as though calculating how much truth my words held
and what advantage that truth might give him.

I told myself I was being paranoid, or thinking wishful.  I knew I'd
miss him.  Even if I didn't love him the way I loved Joe, with Scan I
could let my hair down.

One night, tired of playing United Nations negotiator to the future
in-laws and one or two beers beyond my limit I told Scan I wished we
could forget the wedding, just go back to the way things were in the
beginning.

We were sharing a corner table at the Irish Pub on Walnut, on a
weeknight, so it wasn't too jammed.  We had to watch where we went
these days.  Joe had a knack for throwing on a pair of horned-rimmed
spectacles and passing himself off as nobody, but sometimes even dark
Kent blew his cover.  Luckily, he didn't get mobbed.  His fans could,
however, occasionally make pests of themselves.  Tonight he was stuck
in a potential investor's meeting for the recording studio.  Since he
was now an hour late, Sean won the bend-your-ear sweepstake for my
horrible day.  Lucky Scan.

"Don't kid yourself, Kate," he said, giving his mug a thoughtful
twist.

"You're a nester and so is Joe.  You need to commit.  You need to
belong to someone."

"But I'll miss you," I grumbled.

Sean smiled into his beer.

"I'm glad to hear you say that."

Joe walked in then with a flurry of apologies and kisses so I never did
ask why Sean was glad.  The three of us went out the night before the
wedding no drinking, just dinner and dessert at the Osteria Romana, a
lovely, old-fashioned restaurant near the Italian market.  Its stucco
walls and sparkling white tile floors were a far cry from the dives we
used to frequent, but the veal saltimbocca was worth every penny.

Happily, none of us had to count pennies these days.

Joe and I finished with decaf and biscotti.  Scan ordered a scoop of
raspberry gelato.

I wondered if he remembered the first conversation we had over the icy
treat when he revealed how he and Joe met, and let me know he wasn't
averse to a three-way adventure.

If he did remember, he didn't mention it.  We shared other stories:

the Robert Cray CD Joe wore out trying to lure me into his room;

Keith's pitiful crush on Cheryl;

Marianne's new career; the look on my face when I found Sean's uncle's
sweaty crew tramping through my house with the makings of our gym.

Our gym.  The phrase made me drop my chin to my hand.  It had been
Sean's and my gym for the last six months.  He hadn't removed his
equipment yet.  Would he come to work out after tomorrow?  Would Joe
mind?  Was he secure enough to assume Sean and I would behave?  I
certainly intended to.  If anything, my experience with my ex had
increased the value I placed on marital fidelity.  I would never hurt
Joe that way.  I hoped he trusted me.  Still, I didn't dare ask my
questions aloud.

Sean burst out laughing, distracting me.

"Remember Captain Blood?"

"And his lucky eye-patch?"  I added, revelling in Joe's blush.

"I still have it," he confessed.  His eyes twinkled.

"I remember how it got lucky, too."

Sharing those stories felt like the last day of summer camp, full of
good memories, but wistful.  Though I looked forward to going home, so
to speak, I'd miss my playmates.

When the three of us started yawning over our plates, Sean and Joe
walked me back to Society Hill.

Sean stopped Joe short of the front steps by flattening his palm across
his chest.  Joe's brows shot towards his hairline.  The unspoken
challenge did not move Sean at all.

"Sorry, buddy.  You can't go in, not even for a good night kiss.  She's
got the dress laid out in the living room.  It'd be bad luck for you to
see it."

"Oh."  Joe took a hesitant step back and looked at me.

I shrugged.  I didn't know what Sean was up to, either.

Reading our expressions like a book, Sean staggered in mock dismay.

"I swear I'm not sneaking in for one last slap and tickle.  I want to
give Kate my wedding gift.  You know, the one we talked about."

The stiffness left Joe's stance.

"Oh.  Sure.  Sorry, I shouldn't have "Forget it."  Sean waved his
apology away.

"I kind of like being considered unscrupulous."

Despite Sean's promise to behave, my nerves tightened as he dug his
gift from the deluge that had recently overwhelmed my dining room.

He emerged with a shop-wrapped white and silver box.  Lilies of the
valley sprayed out from the bow.  Shirting from foot to foot, he
ruffled the silk flowers with his thumb.

"I was considering a bun warmer, but I thought you'd like this
better."

He thrust the box in my direction.

"Happy wedding, or whatever people say."

I set the box on the one clear corner of the table and prised off the
lid.  Inside was a dog-eared stack of letters bound in blue satin
ribbon.  I touched one loop of the crooked bow.  Sean must have tied
this one.  I skied my finger down to its central knot.  The envelopes,
all neatly slitted, held letters.  Sean's Rittenhouse Square address
was printed on the front in Joe's handwriting.

Curious but wary, I lifted them from the box.

"What are these?"

"Love letters."  Sean stepped closer.  Though we didn'ttouch, his body
heat warmed my back.

"They're addressed to me, but most of what's in them has to do with
you.  I hope you don't mind that I cut out the parts that were
private."

I shook my head in confusion.

"Joe was writing to you about me?"

"Yup.  About once a week.  He asked how you were, who were you dating,
what did I think of this dream he had about you, and could I please
send some of your favourite lavender soap because he couldn't find it
anywhere in New York."  Chuckling, he reached around me and tapped the
letters.

"He told me all the things he was too proud to share with you his
setbacks, his triumphs, the fantasies he invented to get off by when he
couldn't stand the thought of coaxing another stranger into bed.  Not
that there were so many."

I sensed Sean's grin without seeing it.

"All the fantasies starred you, of course.  They're pretty hot, so
don't read them when he's out of town."

"But why didn't he write me?"  I asked, letting out my last scrap of
unsoothed hurt.

"Aw, Kate."  Sean's hand settled to my shoulder.

"You don't know how many times I wanted to tell you he still loved
you.

But the idiot swore me to secrecy.  I'm not sure he was wrong,
either.

Do you really think you'd have ended up here if he hadn't backed off
for a while?"

I thought about that.  Maybe Joe did have to leave before I could see
him clearly.  I'd locked him so firmly into his niche: Sean's bottom,
my lovesick puppy.  The truth was he'd had power over us both all
along.  The scales were never as unequal as I'd assumed.  I just
couldn't admit it back then.  Like Joe said, I was afraid to let one
man have all of me.

"No," I said.

"I don't suppose we would have ended up here."

"That's a girl."  Scan slapped my back.  He turned towards the door.

"You're going?"  The words were out before I could think better of
them.  He rapped a playful drum roll on the frame.

"You bet, Madame Bride-to-be.  I need my beauty rest or no one's going
to believe I really am the best man."

He was whistling as he pulled the door shut behind him, and I wondered
what he had to be so happy about.

For all my hand-wringing, the wedding went swimmingly We were married
in the little church where Joe was baptised.  Happily, the priest did
not keel over when he saw my sequinned sapphire gown the same backless
gown Joe had demanded I wear to Halloran's.  The short veil was dyed to
match and I carried a bouquet of blue violets.

Personally, I loved the way I looked, despite the whispers it
inspired.

My father, who did forego his golf date, said he wouldn't have bothered
if he'd known it was going to be a costume ball.

On the brighter side, Sean's sister, the security expert, scored a coup
by sending the paparazzi on a wild goose chase to the Cathedral of
Saints Peter and Paul.  The only pictures me media were able to print
were the few Joe's publicist released.

Our pint-sized receptionist, Cheryl, sang a song Joe composed
especially for the ceremony.  I was biased, of course, but I thought it
was beautiful.  My mascara was down around my neck by the time the last
note trailed away.  That pleased Joe.  Every time I sniffled, he had to
hide his grin.

I caught my mother sniffling, too.  When she hugged me afterwards, she
conceded that this young fellow and I seemed to suit and maybe Tom and
I simply weren't meant to be.

That alone was worth the price of admission.

Joe and I stood side by side at the head of the receiving queue.

Every so often, we'd turn to each other and exchange loopy grins.  I
noticed Cheryl and Keith had sat together, not come together but sat
together.  This sign of romantic progress pleased me.  Everyone should
do this, I thought as I thanked the people filing out from the pews.

Their well wishes might have been the profoundest poetry, so strongly
did they move me.  I hadn't known I'd feel so happy, hadn't dared
hope.

This is going to work, I thought, brimming with joy.  We will live
happily ever after.

Then Sean reached the front of the queue.

I opened my arms without a word.

Hands lighting on my waist, he pressed the traditional bridal kiss to
my lips or so it must have seemed.  Only I felt the nip of teeth on my
lower lip, only I tasted the lightning-quick flicker of his tongue, and
only I knew that the subtle clasp and release of his hands on my hips
mimicked the age-old rhythm of coitus.

His boldness made me want to laugh.  Long live the bad boy.

When he released me, his eyes gleamed with mischief.  I couldn't help
smiling back.  As one, we threw ourselves into a bone-cracking
embrace.

TO miss you," I said against his ear.

He chuckled.

"Don't count on it, babe."  His hand slid down to my bottom and
squeezed me through the slick, cool sequins.

Then he pushed me back and held me at arm's length.

"Remember I'll never hurt you," he said.

A strange thing to say ... until I saw the kiss he gave the groom.

Rising slightly on his toes, he slanted his full, sensual mouth over
Joe's startled one.  It was a tongueless kiss, but devastating light as
air, subtle as silk.  My own lips tingled at the sight.  I knew how
soft those Ups could be, and how hard the hands that slid down Joe's
tail-coated back.  Sean urged their bodies close enough to touch from
lip to ankle.  He'd been half-hard when he hugged me, and now his cock
stood out flagpole stiff.  Shorter than Joe, the tip caught him just
below the crotch.  The moment the extra pressure registered, Joe's
knuckles whitened on Sean's arms.  I could almost read his thoughts.

Should he push him away and risk hurting his feelings?  Or trust him to
stop before he caused a scene?

His indecision cost him.  In a few short seconds, his best man's kiss
took a predictable toll.  Joe's cock jerked upward, lifting the smooth
black cloth of his trousers.  Not one to miss an advantage.  Scan
sidled their legs together.  Their erections brushed.

Joe flinched.  His hips swayed forward, then back, as he fought the
seductive pull.

When the people queued up behind Sean began to murmur, Joe gathered his
strength and broke free.

The entire exchange lasted less than half a minute.

As shameless as ever, Sean winked at Joe and tipped an invisible hat at
me.

"See you after the honeymoon," he said.

Joe shook a scolding finger.  Despite his grin, I knew Sean had shaken
him not so much by kissing him, as by making him react so forcefully.

Colour stained his cheeks and a vein pulsed double-time above his crisp
white collar points.

I stared sharply at Sean, without effect.  Still smirking like the cat
that stole the cream, he stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged.

"What goes around comes around," he said.

Then I understood.

Once upon a time, Sean had used me to hang on to Joe.  Now he would use
Joe to hang on to me.  Joe would not, could not tolerate my
seduction.

But perhaps he would tolerate his own.  If he saw that his love for
Sean sparked no fear in my heart.  If he saw that I, too, missed our
precarious balance of three.  And I knew Joe missed it.

That rocket in his pocket wouldn't lie, not on our wedding day.

When Sean finally turned to go, the bounce in his step did not surprise
me.

"Hm."  Joe slung his arm around my shoulder and leant conspiratorially
close.

"Why do I feel as if we should invite him on the honeymoon?"

His words delighted me.

"Don't be so sure he won't pop up," I teased.

Joe squinted at me, shocked-fafher-style.

"You two make a very naughty pair."

"Yes, we do."  I reached under his tail coat to pat his cheek.

"Impossibly naughty."

Joe licked the curl of my ear.

"I suppose I'll have to show you and Scan who's boss."

The prospect sent a carnal shiver through my sex.  I couldn't imagine
how Joe would master both of us.

"Well."  I gave my veil a saucy flip.

"You have my permission to try."

Darker Th^ lo^ Kri^tina Lioycf FR1;Chapter One Clarissa Longleigh stood
by the window, her nervous fingers toying with the crimson drapes.  The
dipping sun had at last touched the tallest mast at Chelsea Wharf, and
to the east Battersea Bridge was busy with a flow of hansom cabs and
carriages.  The afternoon was almost over.

A paddle steamer gliding downriver sent clouds of drifting smoke into
the azure sky.  Silvery water cascaded from its churning wheel, and
fishing boats, dwarfed by the ship's great bulk, bobbed gently in its
rippling wake.  How slow it was, thought Clarissa.  As slow as time
spent waiting.  If the weeks leading up to her marriage were as long as
the hours had been today, then summer would be interminable.

She sighed restlessly, her thoughts surging ahead.  Would Lord
Alexander Marldon be everything she wanted him to be?

"Sophisticated and handsome," her father had said.

"Dark," Alicia had said, and that pleased Clarissa greatly.  A fair man
was not to her taste.

She prayed she would meet with his approval.  The prospect of returning
to the Sussex countryside at the close of the season filled her with
the dread of boredom.  Clarissa had no desire to spend her nineteenth
year stitching dull little samplers, marking time while her father
sought another worthy suitor.  She wanted to be wed in the autumn, as
proposed.  She wanted to be the wife of the sixth Earl of Marldon and
live at Lockstone Hall on his grand Wiltshire estate.

Tonight at supper, under the disapproving gaze of her father, she would
dazzle Lord Alee.  She would wear the daring blue silks which her new
stepmother, Alicia, had insisted upon.  Her ebony hair would be curled
and piled high, and she would be elegant, witty and charming.  How
could the earl be anything other than impressed?

Perhaps, in a summer of dancing, he would feel compelled to lure her
into things more intimate than polite conversation.  Away from
suspicious eyes, he would embrace her passionately and press lingering
kisses to her lips.

Clarissa frowned, and flicked at a golden tassel hanging from the
curtain-tie.  It was unlikely to be quite so easy.  Her father and
stepmother were soon to embark on their honeymoon tour and, in their
stead, Hester Carr was to act as guardian and chaperone.  A maiden
aunt, seldom without her good Bible, was not rich with promise.

A clatter at the door broke into her reverie.  Kitty Preedy, struggling
with a tall, copper pitcher of steaming water, shuffled into the
bedroom.  Her elfin face was flushed with exertion.

"Lord ha' mercy," she muttered.

"I'm not cut out for this."

Clarissa smiled, her rich-blue eyes softly sympathetic.  The
Longleighs' town house had been closed since the death of Clarissa's
mother, some fifteen years ago.  While it was pleasantly situated and
of a good size, the facilities were somewhat lacking, and the family
were having to wash in primitive hip baths.

Kitty placed the jug by the half-filled wooden tub and swept a thin
forearm across her damp brow.

"Lordy, I hope you won't be after smelling sweet every day, miss," she
gasped, kneeling on the fireside rug and readjusting her mob cap.

Several limp strands of corn-coloured hair fell free and she tucked
them behind her ears.  With a grunt, she poured water into the bath,
muttering oaths as a cloud of steam enveloped her.

Kitty Pretty Kitty, they called her was one of the few servants from
Sebdon Hall who had accompanied the family to London.  Back home she
was a mere scullery maid but here, at Alicia's insistence, she'd been
promoted to housemaid.  It was rather odd to see her in a neat black
frock and crisp white pinafore instead of shabby hand-me-downs.

She looked almost presentable.

"So how does London suit you.  Kitty?"  enquired Clarissa.

"I don't know much about London, miss," the maid sighed, sitting back
on her heels.

"I haven't seen anything but muck and dust for days.

Haven't even had a chance to find myself a fancy man yet."

"If I know you.  Kitty," replied Clarissa, "I dare say that will happen
within a short enough while."

"Not at this rate, it won't," she countered.

"I'm fair run off my feet, I am.  If the master doesn't get some more
help in sharpish, I'm going to be as badly off as you.  Who'd have
thought it, eh?  Me and you, both twiddling our buttons until harvest
time."

"Kitty!"  reprimanded Clarissa, putting on a frown.

"If you continue to speak in such a manner I shall be obliged to take
that soap and water to your mouth."

Kitty grinned.

"Does all this London air come with graces in it, then?"  she teased.

"I ought to go and take a few breaths for it's fairly turned your head,
miss."

"Someone might hear, that's all," cautioned Clarissa in a low voice.

She was glad to have Kitty in town.  In recent months they'd struck up
an odd sort of friendship.  It was thanks to the young maid that
Clarissa, one shy September morning, had learnt all about the mysteries
of love.  She now knew exactly what to expect on her wedding night.

To her shame the prospect, though somewhat daunting, filled her with a
hungry ache.

Whenever she dwelt on it, as she often did, the place between her
thighs grew heated and damp.  But it hadn't taken Kitty to tell her
that, even without a man, there were ways to calm those feelings.  She
knew that it was sinful shamefully, wickedly sinful.  A lady of
breeding, her governess often said, is fortunate in that she does not
suffer from nor submit to the demands of vulgar, bodily appetites, as
men and animals do.

But Clarissa suffered.  And the cravings of her body were such that, in
moments of privacy, she was prepared to forfeit her status as a lady of
breeding.  She was becoming quite an expert at pleasuring herself.

"I don't think you need worry overmuch about your chores," she said,
guiding the conversation back to safer ground.

"More staff are to arrive later in the week so your burden should be
eased."

"It isn't my burden that wants easing, miss," replied Kitty, getting to
her feet and shaking out her skirts.

"It's this darn ache in my cunny."

Clarissa shot her a disapproving glance but it was a weak effort and
Kitty paid her no heed.

"Anyway," she continued, crossing to join Clarissa by the window.

"If these new folk are anything like your French miss, I don't much
fancy my chances.  Looks like she's got a broom handle up her
fundament, that one."

Clarissa gave a tiny gleeful laugh.  Alicia had taken it upon herself
to appoint Clarissa, now she was of age, a lady's maid.  Pascale Rieux
had arrived only yesterday and Kitty was quite right: the young woman
certainly didn't have the friendliest of airs.

"Well I never," breathed Kitty, pressing her nose to the glass.

"Your old man's turning into a dandy little lapdog."

Clarissa followed the housemaid's gaze to the wide pavement of Cheyne
Walk below.  Fine silks and linens strolled in the shadow of elm trees
and there, standing beside a dray horse and cart, was the stout figure
of her father, his brow creased in dismay.

"If that's what love does to you," murmured Kitty, "I don't think I'll
be wanting much."

Eager to take a closer look, Clarissa jerked up the sash.  Kitty
wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"That river's in need of a few rose petals," she complained, backing
away.

"Think I'd rather be fetching up more hot water."

Clarissa knelt to lean over the sill.  Her father a powerful shipping
magnate, was generally regarded as a strong-willed, authoritative man,
with a touch of the tyrant about him.  But, since Alicia had entered
his life he'd changed almost beyond recognition.

Alicia sparkled.  She was a flame of red hair and a swish of beautiful
gowns.  It was she who had persuaded Charles to reopen his town house,
saying Clarissa really ought to be introduced to London society.  On
their arrival she'd declared, "The only zvay to improve this place is
by burning half the contents."

"Absolutely not," Charles had replied.

"A preposterous notion."  And yet here he was, gazing on mutely as men
in shirtsleeves removed the offending pieces of furniture.  It was a
delight to behold.

"Qu'est-ce que vous faites?"  came a demanding voice.

"C'est une odeur infemak.  Tish!  Femiez la fenetre mademoiselle.

ImmCdiatement!"

Clarissa bridled.  Pascale Rieux had yet to learn her station.

"You close it," she replied, maintaining a dignified calm and rising to
her feet.

"And I'll thank you to remember you are in England, Pascale.  We speak
English here."

Pascale, without replying, busied herself at the washstand.  When Kitty
staggered in with another pitcher of water she turned on the housemaid
with flashing dark eyes.

"Et toi; she snapped, clapping her hands to chivvy the puzzled girl
along.

"Vitel Vitel Etfermez la fenetre!"

Kitty pouted.

"What's she saying, miss?"

"She is saying," sighed Pascale, 'to please hurry up and to please
close the window."

"But without the "please"," added Clarissa tartly, sliding the window
shut with a vigorous heave.

Kitty set down the jug and, making a face at Pascale's back, left the
room with the merest of curtseys.  The French maid planted herself on
the plush-seated chair by the dressing table.  For a few moments she
closed her eyes and drew long, deep breaths.

Clarissa gazed at her, intrigued by the faint quivering of the young
woman's nostrils.  What a curious creature she was, she thought, and
how strangely beautiful.  Her face was delicately boned, yet she had a
strong Roman nose with the slightest sideways bend to it.  On anyone
else, that nose would have been monstrous, yet on Pascale it was
perfect.

"Mademoiselle, forgive me," she said at length, looking at Clarissa
with an unwavering gaze.

"I do not wish to be rude.  It is simply that I want you to be very
beautiful for tonight.  And this house, it is it is chaotique.  It
makes me too furious.  Forgive me."

"Please," corrected Clarissa sternly.

"Forgive me, please."

Astonishment flickered on Pascale's face.  Then she smiled faintly.

"Ah yes," she said.

"Please."

Kitty huffed in frustration and crept away from the bedroom door.  So
much for the good telling-off she'd been hoping to hear.

She stomped down the stairs, her jaw clenched, her brows drawn in a
sharp frown.  Oh, if she were highbred, she'd give the French bit a
damn good hiding.  That would sort her out.  Kitty grinned, an even
better idea occurring to her.  What Pascale needed was a good firm
prick inside her.  That would turn up the corners on that tight little
mouth of hers.

Then again, if there were any lusty young men going spare.  Kitty was
going to be first in the queue.  Fingers were nice enough and they did
the trick, but there was nothing like a proper thrusting to get a girl
all hot and dizzy.

As she stepped on to the tiled floor of the hall, there was a loud
rapping at the front door.  She ignored it.  That wasn't her job.  Then
a holler from below stairs told her it was.  She swore volubly.

Housemaid, parlour maid cook's skivvy and, now, the cursed butler.

She should have stayed at home.  Slopping out suds was a lark compared
to this.

She opened the heavy oak door to find a top-hatted cabman standing
before her.  Kitty smiled coquettishly and looked at him from beneath
lowered eyelashes.  Well, he was under thirty years, she thought.  But
the man, unmoved, merely handed her an envelope, stating it was for
Charles Longleigh, Esquire.  Then he bid her a curt good day and made
his way down the steps.

Kitty sighed and closed the door.  These Londoners weren't up to
bantering the way country folk were.  She stared at the envelope, not
quite knowing what to do with it.  Then she remembered: letters went on
the hall table.

She turned smartly, smug to think how quickly she was learning.  But it
had gone.  The table had gone.  Kitty scowled at the empty space.

The new missis must have had it carted off, along with everything else
she didn't much care for.  What a waste of good polishing.

There was a shout from the basement stairs.  Cook, her fat cheeks
bulging, emerged from the doorway at the far end of the corridor.

"Kitty Preedy," she yelled, wagging her finger.

"If I find you shirking once more, I'll have your guts for garters. Get
down here.

There's work to be done."

Kitty groaned and pushed the letter into the deep pockets of her
skirt.

When she had a spare moment she'd breathe.  Then she'd give the master
his letter.

Dusk had yet to fall but in Clarissa's bedroom the long, crimson
curtains were already drawn.  The waning sunlight filtered through them
as a soft red hue.  It turned the oak dado into mahogany and the gilt
picture frames into rose-gold.

In the grate a small fire burnt.  It had been lit not for heat, but for
the curling irons.  Clarissa sat before it in the hip bath, feeling
deliciously languid.  Her long legs, crooked over the front of the tub,
gleamed like amber in the flickering light.  Her head lolled against
the sloping back.  Her eyes were closed.

Pascale had a magical touch.  She didn't just cleanse.  She massaged
and soothed, her touch both firm and gentle.  While she worked, she
murmured soft compliments and hummed lazy melodies.  Any friction
between them had now melted away.  They shared a calming lassitude,
undercut with the tension of anticipation.

Pascale, kneeling by the tub, dipped the sponge into the soapy,
attar-scented water.  With a slow, sensuous movement she swept it up,
through the valley of Clarissa's breasts and briefly over the full,
high mounds.  She rubbed it across her shoulders and the flat of her
chest, squeezing lightly.

Rainbow-glinting foam slithered down Clarissa's body, back into the
water which frothed about her waist.  Pascale lifted a wet arm and ran
the sponge along it, twisting and turning so as not to miss an inch.

Then the sponge slid over to Clarissa's breasts and lingered, just a
little longer than it had done before.

"Such a beautiful bosom," said Pascale in a husky whisper.

"So firm and young."

Clarissa felt a slight awkwardness tighten her body.  But Pascale had
now moved her attention to one of Clarissa's hands.  She was sponging
between her fingers, admiring the pearly sheen of her almond-shaped
nails.  Clarissa relaxed again, chastising herself for being so
bashful.  When the sponge returned to her breasts and circled over the
yielding white globes, she ignored the niggling self-consciousness.

She would have to grow accustomed to this style of bathing, and Pascale
was merely being thorough.

"Your betrothed is a handsome man, no?"  asked Pas- cale quietly.

"And young also?"

"I'm told he is very handsome," murmured Clarissa.

"Though I believe some years older than myself."

"Ah, an older man is good," replied Pascale.

"A virgin bride does not want a virgin groom.  No.  She wants a man
with experience.  Your husband will give you much pleasure, I think."

As she spoke, her thumb grazed lightly over one nipple, then the
other.

The sensitive crests tingled and puckered.  Clarissa felt a flutter of
nervous excitement at both the reminder of her wedding night and
Pascale's illicit touch.  For a brief moment she considered expressing
her disapproval.  But the touch had been too fleeting and the sensation
too pleasant for it to matter.

Pascale, gently holding an ankle, raised Clarissa's right leg.  She
sponged back and forth, soaping the slender length of her calf and
thigh.  Clarissa wondered how it would feel to have a man's caress.

When her husband made love to her, would his hands glide along her
flesh like this?  Would he be slow and attentive or would he just take
her quickly, the way Kitty said so many men did?

Pascale slid the sponge down Clarissa's leg, beneath the water, and
pressed it between her thighs.  Clarissa shifted in discomfort but the
maid pressed more firmly and began rubbing at her intimate parts.

"I'll do that, thank you, Pascale," she said thickly, trying to ignore
the heat swelling in her groin.

Pascale made no move to obey.  She tightened her grip on Clarissa's
ankle and kneaded the sponge against her soft folds.

"Do not be shy, mademoiselle," she purred.

"I can show you many things.  From me you can learn something of what
your husband will do.  It is not good for a bride to be too naif.

The husband, he will grow bored."

The sponge bobbed to the foamy surface.  Pascale's diving fingers
sought out Clarissa's sex, swiftly parting her lips.  Clarissa yelped
and wriggled, sending water sloshing over the edge of the tub.

"No," she urged breathlessly.

"Stop it at once."

With a power that belied her petite frame, Pascale held on to
Clarissa's writhing ankle.  With a calm smile she turned aside,
blinking rapidly, as the water splashed her face and clothes.  Her
persistent fingers glided along Clarissa's slippery cleft.

"The lady should learn," she said, above Clarissa's protests, 'that a
husband does not always hear the word "no".  This is a good lesson,
mademoiselle.  Very good."  Her questing fingers probed at the narrow
entrance of Clarissa's vagina.

Clarissa squealed and, with a violent jerk, wrenched her leg free.

Pascale recoiled, a hand cupped to her cheek where she'd received a
glancing blow.

Tish, mademoiselle," she said, without a trace of anger.

"Such a fuss."

"Pass me that towel at once," ordered Clarissa.

"And in future keep your hands to yourself."

Pascale shrugged.

"I meant no harm, mademoiselle.  I thought my touch was giving you much
pleasure.  Forgive me.  Please."

Ignoring her, Clarissa took a jug of clear water and stood to rinse the
soap from her body.  Her sex pulsed with light sensation and she could
not deny that a part of her had wanted to surrender to Pascale's
invasive caress.

"I'll dry myself," she snapped, stepping out of the tub and wresting
the towel from the maid's extended arms.

Pascale raised her brows in an ironic arch.

"And will mademoiselle also dress herself and arrange her own hair?"

she enquired pleasantly.

Clarissa, cursing under her breath, briskly rubbed herself dry.  She
could hardly do without Pascale's help, especially tonight.  But the
girl wasn't getting away with such insubordination.

Perhaps Alicia should deal with it later.  She was the one who had
appointed the bossy little wretch.

Dropping the towel to the floor, Clarissa snatched up her chemise from
the bed.  It was a delicate garment, of white China silk threaded with
pale-blue ribbons.  She jerked it over her head and punched at the
armholes.

"Please, mademoiselle," whined Pascale.

"You will tear your beautiful new clothes.  And do not frown so.  You
will make an ugly line there.

Think only that I made a silly mistake.  In France, a maid helps her
lady with many things.  Perhaps here it is different.  Come, say it is
forgotten and let me lace you."

Clarissa, somewhat reluctantly, acquiesced.  She feared Pascale's touch
and the tiny spark of need it had aroused.  But the maid, insisting on
doing everything, set about her task without a hint of suggestion in
voice, eyes or hands.  With a firm action, she unrolled silken
stockings along Clarissa's outstretched legs then secured silver-grey
garters at her thighs.  She was reassuringly strong in lacing up the
stays, and nimble-fingered in pinning the heavy petticoats so they
trailed just so.  Perhaps, conceded Clarissa, Alicia had been right to
appoint the Frenchwoman.

Almost two hours later, Clarissa, dressed in her finest and groomed to
perfection, was quite certain her stepmother had been right.  Her
gleaming black hair was pinned into a high chignon and woven through
with ribbons of ice blue.  Wispy tendrils curled about her face.  Her
indigo gown, fashionably smooth in front, sheathed the dips and curves
of her body.  At the back, a mass of elaborate draperies fell to the
ground in a train of lace- edged flounces.  The neckline, low and
square, hinted at the merest shadow of her cleavage.

"Magnifique," trilled Pascale, her face glowing with satisfaction

"Your betrothed will demand an earlier wedding when he sees you
tonight."

"Thank you, Pascale.  That will be all," said Clarissa coolly.

"I

shall ring if I need you."

Clarissa crossed to the window and opened a chink in the curtains.

She would not descend until Lord Alexander arrived.  Then she would
sweep into the room and he would rise to greet her, a smile of
admiration and desire lighting up his handsome face.

She watched the carriages rumbling along the cobbled road of the
Embankment below.  Each one sent her hopes soaring and plunging.  He
was late, perhaps only ten minutes, but nevertheless he was late.

While society might consider that fashionable, Clarissa couldn't help
thinking it was just a little rude.

She brushed her cheek against the velvet curtains, imagining the touch
was that of Lord Alexander, a gentle caress.  Her lips skimmed the soft
fabric in a breath-light kiss.

"Please, my love," she whispered, 'don't be too fashionable."

In the flock-papered drawing room the gaslights purred gently in their
sconces.  Alicia Longleigh, in silks of caramel and gold, sat in a
deep-buttoned armchair.  Her head was bowed over an open book and her
smile was serene.  Standing before the marble chimney piece was Charles
Longleigh, thickset and bewhiskered, his thumbs stuck in his waistcoat
pockets.  Occasionally he rocked forward on to the balls of his feet,
pulled out his watch, or cleared his throat.

On the mantel shelf the ormolu clock ticked with loud impatience.

The kitchen window was open wide.  The heat from the range and smells
of roasted meats drifted upwards into the yellowing gas-lit street.

Kitty and cook sat at the enormous pine table, each cradling a glass of
sherry.  Scullery maids weren't allowed sherry but Kitty wasn't a
scullery maid any more.  She was a housemaid and she was the best
housemaid that ever there was.  All day she'd been rushing round,
fetching this, cleaning that, polishing the other, and not once had she
complained.

She'd helped lay out all the crystal, the hams and the jellies.  And
she'd done marvels in fancying up the dining table with flowers and
candelabras.  It looked a treat upstairs and, like cook said, they'd
earned themselves a drink.

The sherry, rich and syrupy, warmed her insides like nothing else.

The first glass had slipped down so quickly she'd had to ask for a
second.  Cook had looked a little doubtful, then she'd said, "Ah,
bugger it," and poured some more.  Kitty was beginning to feel all soft
and giddy.

Cook wasn't in much of a mood for talking though.  Her face was one big
scowl, but Kitty didn't mind.  She was happy enough just sitting there,
dreaming about her farmhand, Tom.  He had a lovely prick and a good
hard thrust in his body.  And he was a dab-hand at finding sneaky
places to do a bit of sweethearting.  Kitty's thoughts drifted until
suddenly she cocked her head to one side and frowned at the tureen.

"Why hasn't that soup gone up yet?"  she asked.

"Aren't they hungry upstairs?"

"It ain't gone up yet," said cook, straightening her back defiantly,
'because his lordship ain't bloomin' well arrived.  Hasn't even sent
word on to say as he'll be late.  No manners ain't rich folk.  No
bloomin' manners."

"Oh," said Kitty, draining the last of her sherry.  It was to be hoped
the meat didn't get all dried up.  Then her blood turned to ice and a
great mallet thumped in her guts.

"Oh, lord," she breathed, fumbling in her pocket.  She rose unsteadily
to her feet and pulled out the crumpled letter.

"Oh, lord ha' mercy."

* * There was an almighty shout.  Clarissa's stomach lurched.  She
hurried to the bedroom door and, picking up her skirts, hastened down
the stairs.  It was almost an hour past the time appointed by Lord
Marldon and her father hadn't made such a noise in months.  Something
had gone dreadfully wrong.

At the drawing-room door she caught a warning glance from Alicia and
came to an abrupt halt.  Her father, oblivious to her presence, was
towering over Kitty, his face red with fury.

"You great scatterbrained loon," he raged, waving a piece of paper
inches from the young girl's face.

"You jumped-up little scarecrow.  I knew you'd never make a
housemaid.

I bloody knew it."

Kitty, her eyes cast to the ground, sniffed convulsively.

"Your brains are in your drawers," continued Charles.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you about letters?  They're meant to be
read.

You put them on the hall table, where I can see them.  Do you
understand?  Do you?

On the hall table."

Kitty wiped her forearm across her nose and looked up at him, her lower
lip trembling.

"But, sir," she wailed, 'we haven't got one any more."  Her voice
trailed off into great heaving sobs.

"She's quite right, Charles," said Alicia placidly, stroking damp
strands of hair from Kitty's tear-streaked face.

Charles glowered at his wife.

"And whose fault is that?"  he bellowed.

Alicia sighed and placed a consoling arm around Kitty's shoulders.

"What's done is done," she said.

"Now go and clean yourself up.

Kitty, then tell cook we shall have dinner presently.  And chew some
fresh mint while you're at it."

Kitty bobbed a quick curtsey and scuttled away, avoiding Clarissa's
eyes as she passed her in the doorway.

"Clarissa dear," said Alicia.

"I'm afraid Lord Marldonhas been delayed.  He won't be coming down
until the end of the month."

Clarissa stood motionless, a wave of desolation sweeping over her.  The
end of the month?  But that was weeks away.  Oh, the wait would be
intolerable.  She dug her fingernails into the palms of her clenched
hands, determined not to cry.

"Oh?"  she said softly, the word catching in her throat.

Her father jerked his head round and opened his mouth to speak.  But
the words were un forthcoming and he simply stared at her, his eyes
wide with astonishment.

"What the ...?"  he began.

"Charles," said Alicia in a cautionary tone.

"Keep calm.  She's a woman now.  Remember?"

"A woman?"  he spluttered.

"God damn it, I can see that.  The barefaced monkey's got her wares out
in a fine old display.  A woman?  I do not want my daughter to be a
woman.  I want her to be, for God's sake, a lady.  Do you hear?"

Alicia laid a gentle hand on his arm and he shook it off with a snort
of disgust.

"This isn't the Haymarket, my girl," he bellowed at Clarissa.

"This is your father's house.  Get upstairs.  Get something decent
on.

I'll not dine with a harlot."

Clarissa flew, unshed tears blurring her vision.  Her father railed
after her.  She was a strumpet and a fool.  Those clothes were for men
with no imaginations, didn't she know that?  And Marldon, damn him, he
had imagination enough for a score of men.

Reaching the calm of her bedroom, Clarissa slammed the door shut and
leant against it, breathing rapidly.  Oh, her father's insults were
cruel and ill-timed.  How could he have said such dreadful things when
already she felt perfectly terrible?  The end of the month?  It was
only the first week of June.  She kicked her heel against the wood.

She hoped Lord Alee, whenever he chose to arrive, would be more
appreciative of fashion.  She'd spent hours being primped and preened
and it was all for nothing.  She couldn't even wear the gown for
supper.

Clarissa turned the key in the lock, dashed away a tear and took
several deep, steady breaths.  If she could not dress as she pleased,
then she would not go down for supper at all.  It was a beautiful
gown.

Both Alicia and Pascale had said so.  And it was her colour because her
eyes, Alicia said, were all cornflowers and violets at midnight, and
the blue silk enhanced their depths.  It wasn't tawdry in the least,
and only the most puritanical mind would deem it indecent.  Besides,
modish women wore things far more revealing.  In Regent Street, they
paraded in dresses so snug there barely seemed space for
underclothes.

She crossed to the cheval mirror.  She would be as daring, once her
father had gone.  She would wear the dress again, and she would order
dozens more in the same cut.

Passing her hands lightly over her body, Clarissa considered her figure
in the glass.  According to Alicia, she had a shape well suited to the
new style of gown.  Her shoulders were wide and her curves graceful,
rather than generous.

"Statuesque," the dressmaker had said.

Her chin tipped up stubbornly.  What did her father know?  She un
looped several tiny buttons of the bodice, baring the lace trim of her
stays.  Then she pushed the shoulders of her chemise and gown against
her arms and carefully adjusted her breasts.  When a hint of rosy
nipple was peeping above the lace and her pale flesh was spilling over
her corset, she was satisfied.

There, that was more befitting to the insults her father had hurled at
her.  A little paint and she could turn professional.  She would sneak
out of the house when the moon was up and join the molls in the
glittering heart of London.  Turning, she slid her gaze sideways and
offered her reflection a coy smile.

"One gold sovereign, sir," she breathed.

"And you can do with me what you will."

A wanton thrill shivered through her and she scooped her breasts free
from their final restraints.  Unbidden, the memory of Pascale's
trespassing fingers flashed in her mind.  The insolent maid had sparked
a tingling in her loins with her sly and forceful touches.  A moment's
irritation tweaked at her before she pushed the thought away.

Closing her eyes, she stretched back her head and smoothed a hand from
her slender neck down to her jutting breasts.  She palmed the taut,
high orbs.  The caress was Lord Alec's.  He was kissing her, whispering
that she was beautiful, so ready for loving.  Fingers teased her
nipples, rousing them to hard, prickling peaks.  Her sex glowed
exquisitely, answering the sensations with a gentle throb.  He would
surely die of wanting her, he was saying, and, oh, their wedding night
was an eternity away.

"Then take me now, my lord," she murmured.

"No one need ever know."

Clarissa slipped off her drawers.  She moved the mirror, tilting it to
reflect the chintz-hung bed, and lay down.  The soft mattress dipped
beneath her weight, and she dropped one foot to the floor.  Raising her
other knee she drew back her skirts, surrounding her open thighs in a
foaming nest of white guipure lace and indigo ruffles.

The image of her secret place was enchanting.  Against her evening
finery, it was all the more naked.  Fringed with black curls, it was a
dusky flower, pouting brazenly and gleaming at its crimson heart.  She
traced her hand down her bended leg, gliding from silken stocking to
silken skin.  It could be, she thought, that her husband could not
control his passions.  He had thrown her on to the bed, too impatient
to allow her the time to disrobe.

She twined her fingers in the crisp dark hair of her mons and sighed
heavily.  Oh, why hadn't he come tonight?  She should be chatting
amiably to him now and he should be smiling at her with his deep-brown
eyes.  His eyes would be brown, she decided.  And so would his hair.

Her head dropped back on to the pillows and she trailed her fingertips
over the contours of her breasts.  Her other hand dipped to the swollen
petals of her lips and eased them apart.  She stroked along the hot,
satiny crevice then pressed at the scrap of tender flesh above.  A
gentle moan escaped her lips as sensation, rich and fierce, flared in
her groin.  Beneath her rolling fingertip the hard little bead swelled
to erection and pulsed insistently.

Downstairs the dinner gong clanged dully.  Clarissa tensed.  Would
someone come for her when she didn't appear?  She listened for the
sound of footsteps, her finger gently rocking.  But no, there was
nothing.

Lifting her hips, she drew moisture from her split dewy crease and
swirled it over the inflamed knot of her clitoris.  With a quick, light
friction, her fingers rubbed.  Her breathing shortened to tiny gasps
and the air sweetened, heavy with the scent of her need.  A quivering
anticipation coiled within her.

Arching her back, she drove a finger into her tight heated passage.

In just a few months it would be a man she felt there, strong and
hungry.  She thrust urgently back and forth, her thumb nudging at her
pleasure bud.  He would slide wet kisses over her eager, naked body.

He would take her to heights such as this.

Clarissa stifled a cry as the delicious tension surged and unleashed
itself.  Her body jerked, the ripples of her crisis spilling through
her.  Then, all too quickly, they ebbed away.  She slumped against the
bed, her breasts rising and falling with her shallow breath.  An
enfeebling glow soothed her body and her mouth curved in a warm, gentle
smile.

For some time she lay in abandoned repose, until a soft tap at the door
roused her.  Alicia called her name.  Clarissa straightened her clothes
and repositioned the mirror.

"I must have fallen asleep," she mumbled, turning the key.  Her
stepmother swept in, trailing wafts of lavender perfume.

"I thought you might be hungry," she declared, setting down a salver on
the bedside table.

"Take no notice of your father, my dear.  He's a fool sometimes.  As is
Lord Marldon for not showing.  But take heart.

You can have just as much fun heavens, probably more without him.

Cousin Lucy is quite looking forward to seeing you.  She said she'd be
delighted to introduce you to London."

"But Cousin Lucy's a scandal," exclaimed Clarissa.

"Father would never agree to it."

Alicia tapped the side of her nose.

"Your father need never know," she said.

"We'll be gone soon enough and then you can do as you wish."

Clarissa gazed at her stepmother in awe.  How was it that she could
never allow a problem, no matter how big or small, to exist for more
than a moment?  Then she frowned.

"You've forgotten something," she said wearily.

"Aunt Hester.  She's hardly Lucy's greatest admirer."

Alicia smiled mysteriously.

"Leave it to me.  You may find there's more to Aunt Hester than meets
the eye."

Chapter Two

Beneath the flaring gas jets of the Haymarket, theatregoers spilt onto
the pavement.  Top hats and jewelled chignons bobbed above sombre suits
and shimmering gowns.  Arm in arm, elegant couples made their way
between the columns of the portico to step into awaiting carriages.

Others strolled away in a sea of frothing silks, up to Piccadilly or
down to Pall Mall.

Lucy Singleton, recognising a handsome face, smiled with downcast eyes
then quickly resumed the conversation with her tawny-haired
companion.

"And what is more," she breezed, "I hear she is to attend Octavia's
ball."

Sir Julian Ackroyd glanced back at the crowd.

"Who is?"  he asked vaguely.

"Why, Miss Eulalie Crane, the American heiress!"  Lucy tapped his chest
with her closed fan.

"I see your attention is wandering, Julian.  Can your Parisian whores
truly be so memorable?"

"Not at all," he replied equably.

"I was simply wondering who the young swell was.  The one who deserved
such an alluring smile."

"Ah, him!"  Lucy adjusted her boa and pulled her black velvet mantle
over her arm.  For a brief moment she thought he might be jealous but
then she remembered this was Sir Julian.  He was never anything other
than mildly curious.

"Nothing of present interest," she said.

"I'm afraid he's now wed.

Like you, dear Julian.  But, unlike you, he's a tiresomely faithful
husband."

"I see.  Then that explains the frosty glare you received from his lady
friend."

"Did I?  Oh, how I should like to reassure her.

"He is truly devoted to you, Mrs.  Wife," I would say.

"Why, the last time he bed me was on the eve of your nuptials.  After
that, nothing!"

"What?"  exclaimed Julian in mock horror.

"Not even a stolen kiss?  I can barely believe it."

"Well, maybe just a small farewell between the ceremony and the
honeymoon.  It was of no consequence."

"Then I'm sure she'd be much assured.  A husband able to resist the
charm of Mrs.  Singleton shows true fidelity indeed."

"Precisely!  And is not Mrs.  Singleton quite irresistible tonight?"

Lucy knew she was.  With a cluster of blonde ringlets hanging from her
flower-entwined topknot, and dressed in her new gown of lilac taffeta,
she had caught many an admiring eye.  And her daringly low decolletage
had not gone unnoticed by Julian.

In the privacy of their box, he'd spent a great deal of Act Three
printing kisses on her bare shoulders and neck.  In Act Four his hands
had strayed beneath her skirts as far as her thighs, and by Act Five
his fingers had played deliciously within the crotch of her silk
drawers.  She hoped no opera glasses had been trained on her face at
the time.

"Quite irresistible," agreed Sir Julian, drawing to a halt and turning
to face her.  Beneath the lurid glare of a street lantern he looked
down at her, his china-blue eyes narrow with desire, and pressed her
hand to his lips.

"Then am to have my cadeau from your bawdy jaunt?"  asked Lucy.

"I fear the suspense will kill me before long.  Won't you give me just
a tiny clue?"

"Very well.  I have it about my person."

"Goodness!  Do you wish me to search you?"  she gasped, trailing her
hand down the front of his cape.

"Here in the street?  That would be most indecent of me."  A passing
drunk jostled her and she seized the opportunity to press herself to
Julian's strong, broad body.  She clung to him, gazing up with
sparkling green eyes.

"Decency has never been a strong point of yours," he said, offering her
his arm.

"I'll have another clue, if you please."

They strolled further along the Haymarket.  Beyond the windows of the
gin palaces, coffee rooms and oyster shops, chandeliers sparkled in
enormous rococo mirrors.  Revellers from the smoke-filled
establishments stumbled out on to the street and, above their din,
flower-sellers and sundry hawkers touted their wares.  Sir Julian and
Lucy, moving closer together, threaded their way through the bustling
crowd.

"It is long and sturdy," he said after a moment's thought.

"Pah!"  she scoffed.

"I've had that before."

"It has the potential for affording you exquisite delights."

"So, you have brought me nothing but your cock?  Daubed in all the
flavours of France, I shouldn't wonder."

"Au contraire, ma cherie."  He leant close to whisper in her ear.

"My cock has a taste for only the finest English honey-pot."

"Why, you lie so beautifully."  She smiled.

"Then what do you have for me?"

"What I have, my darling, is something so delightful that you shall
have to wait for it."

Lucy mused on the various options.  In the past.  Sir Julian had
presented her with deliciously lewd books, French chocolates and
liqueurs, underclothes from the finest Parisian fashion houses and,
best of all, a magnificent kid-leather dildo.

"That," he'd said, 'is for the times when I cannot be there to satisfy
you."

She had laughed at those words.  Many times she'd made it clear to him
that, when he could not be there, she had no shortage of lovers to
pleasure her.  While Lucy was not averse to lying, her claim was now
sadly less accurate than it had been some months ago.  At present she
had only one other beau, Gabriel Ardenzi, and he'd been somewhat
inattentive of late.  She would have to find another handsome man, or
continue with her teasing half-truths, if she were to keep Sir Julian
on his toes.  After all, if he could not devote himself to her, then
she was certainly not prepared to devote herself to him.

"Oh, I have news of great import," she cried excitedly, suddenly
recalling the help Alicia had asked of her.

"Remember me talking of Clarissa?"

"Your prim little cousin," replied Julian, encouraging her with a
raised eyebrow.

"Well, she's in London and she's to be wed.  And you'll never believe
who to."  Lucy paused, eager to create dramatic effect.

"To Lord Marldon.  Isn't it perfectly dreadful?"

Sir Julian whistled between his teeth.

"Well, well.  I never thought I'd hear those words.  Marldon getting
wed, eh?  Still, I'd heard his coffers were rather low.  I assume the
dowry is quite substantial."

"Oh, but of course," said Lucy gravely.

"And, in return, Clarissa becomes a countess.  Apparently her father is
as proud as punch."

"An excellent match, as they say," said Julian.

"And dear papa?  Is he also delighted at the prospect of gaining a
son-in-law whose tastes are ... how shall I phrase it, a little
rare?"

"Pah!"  said Lucy in a sharp, cross breath.

"I doubt he's given much thought to that.  Why, the lovelorn fool
merely wants Clarissa off his hands, and quickly.  Wouldn't you with a
wife like Alicia, eager to mete out punishment at your slightest
wrongdoing?  A woman always ready to "Not my taste, I'm afraid,"
interrupted Sir Julian, squeezing her hand and smiling suggestively.

"You of all people should know that."

Lucy, for once unable to summon up a breezy, flirtatious quip, sighed
despondently.  For a moment she fell silent, her thoughts turning
bitterly to her own ill- treatment at the hands of Charles Longleigh.

He was a selfish browbeater and, worse still, he was a hypocrite.

Here was a man who, having once denounced her for all manner of
indecencies, was about to marry off his own daughter to the most
notorious debauchee in London.  Was he completely shameless?  Devoid of
the merest scrap of conscience?

Why, a woman of the loosest morals would be hard- pressed to keep pace
with Lord Marldon, and poor Clarissa was but a sweet young virgin.

And, according to Alicia, she was utterly blind to her father's
scheming ways.  She had not the faintest notion of what lay ahead of
her.

As they turned into Piccadilly Lucy's spirits rose.

"But all is not lost," she exclaimed, taking a couple of sideways
skips.

"Alicia has hit upon a most wonderful plan.  She thinks it prudent to
try and make Clarissa somewhat more amenable to Marldon's demands.  And
guess who's been charged with the task of, shall we say, introducing
her to a little of what's to come?"

Julian laughed and shook his head.

"You haven't, have you?  What on earth for?  Marldon's hardly going to
reject the girl, is he?  He needs the money.  I would have thought he'd
take her if she were riddled with the pox and as coarse as a sailor's
drab."

"Well unfortunately she isn't," replied Lucy, hooking her arm over
Julian's.

"So she won't have the luxury of being cast aside or locked in a broom
cupboard.  No, apparently and more's the pity the poor girl's grown
into quite a beauty.  Alicia, dear Alicia, simply hopes to ease
Clarissa's suffering, reduce the trauma of the conjugal bed."

"How very benevolent," said Julian, smiling.

"So, my little Jezebel, what is the plan?"

"Ah," said Lucy enigmatically.

"First you must show me my gift.

Perhaps then I may consider telling you."

"I shall hail a cab at once," he replied, fingers clicking in the
air.

At Chester Square the hansom drew to a halt.  To Lucy's relief, the
stucco terraces looked sleepy and the streets were quiet.

Nevertheless, she kept her head bowed as Sir Julian reached up to hand
the cabman his fare.

Belgravia could be such a gossipy neighbourhood and her reputation was
in no need of scandalised embellishments.  She'd enlivened quite enough
afternoon teas when she'd failed to complete her year of mourning.  But
Lucy knew that dear old Robert, God rest his soul, would not have
wanted it any other way.  Black, quite frankly, didn't suit her, at
least not head-to-toe black.  Far better, she thought, to pursue all
the rich pleasures to which Robert had introduced her.  It was a much
more sincere and personal tribute to his memory.

Lucy unlocked the door and was satisfied to find the house in hushed
semi-darkness.  Her servants had long since lea mt when to be discreet
and when to tend to her.  There was no one standing by to take their
cloaks and nothing but an oil lamp awaiting her return.  Lucy clasped
its heavy gilt base and crept up two flights of stairs, forging a path
through the gloom with the lamp's bleary incandescence.

In the bedroom, shadows leapt and Julian's stretched silhouette
momentarily reared up to the high coved ceiling.  Either side of the
fireplace mirror, gaslights burnt within frosted half-cups, suffusing
the room with a honeyed glow and gilding the brass bedstead.  Lucystood
the oil lamp on a pier table and turned its wick low.

Oh, how inviting that bed looks, she thought.  But she knew she would
have to wait.  If Julian had a gift, then she was in no position to
make demands.

"And so?"  she said, draping her mantle across the ottoman.

"Am to receive my present now?"

Julian, setting down his beaver hat, ignored her.  The silence
lengthened as, without hurry, he removed his gloves, his bow tie, and
finally the high, starched collar of his shirt.

"Indulge my prurience," he said, seating himself in a velvet-cut
armchair.  Slowly he folded one leg over the other and laid his walking
cane across his lap.

"Tell me, in lurid detail, how you intend to educate this country
cousin of yours."  He smoothed a finger over his pencil- fine
moustache, calmly awaiting her reply.

Lucy stood by the dressing table, her mouth curving in a challenging
smile.  She recognised Julian's disdainful manner as the prelude to a
game in which she could do no right.  He would conjure up whatever
misdemeanours he could and then, oh how deliciously, she would be
punished for them.  Her stomach fluttered with apprehension and her
groin thrilled with lust.

"I shall reveal nothing until I receive my present," she said,
deliberately antagonistic.

"Do you think you deserve it?"  asked Julian, his stern blue eyes
raking her body.

"I wonder, how did you conduct yourself during my absence?"

Lucy opened her mouth to speak but Julian stopped her with a raised
hand.

"No.  Let me guess.  Impeccably?"  he asked in a voice heavy with
sarcasm.

"Or perhaps imperfectly?  But no.  Only a generous soul could say such
a thing.  Come here."

He indicated with a tap of his ebony cane where she should stand.

Wordlessly, Lucy complied.

"Or ..."  Julian pointed the jewelled tip of his walkingstick at the
tiers of lace hanging below Lucy's ruched overskirt.

"Immorally?"  He lifted her petticoats.  Her shoes were lilac satin, a
matching rosette adorning each square toe.  Her openwork stockings were
of the palest blue.

"Such dainty feet," he mused.

"I should dearly like to know how many times they've been up in the air
of late."  He touched the cane to an ankle then trailed the slender
staff along the inside of her calf, lifting the weight of the
fabrics.

Lucy shuddered as, with agonising slowness, he reached the frilled knee
of her drawers.

"For I am quite sure," he continued, raising her layers higher and
higher, 'this is not the only stick you have felt in recent days."

The cane slid over her silk-clad legs then lightly nudged at the
juncture of her thighs.  Arousal, warm and dewy, moistened her sex, and
her labia twitched with gathering hunger.

"How many cocks have you had in here?"  he asked, pressing the ebony
shaft into the split of her drawers.  He slotted its cold, hard length
into the damp cleft of her pouting vulva and moved it back and forth.

Lucy, murmuring pleasure, widened her stance.

"Ah, but still hungry I see.  How many?"  Julian tapped the cane
against her.

"How many?"  he repeated fiercely.

"Why, you do me an injustice," replied Lucy, adopting the air of one
offended.

"Or do you pay me a compliment?  You've been away only nine days."

"Tell me about Clarissa."

Lucy shrugged.

"I haven't seen her for some three years, though I'm told she's a
beauty.  A beauty, of course, whose naivety is unlikely to appeal to
Marldon."

"And?"  urged Julian.

"Your role in solving this slight problem is?"

"Is divulged when I receive my cadeau?"  she said imperiously.

Julian teased her pulsing sex with a soft, skimming caress of the
cane.

"Has Gabriel had you during my absence?"  he enquired, his face devoid
of all expression.

"But of course," said Lucy airily, wondering if perhaps this time she
might provoke him to jealousy.

"Then your cadeau, my sweet, is between your legs."

Lucy could not understand him.  Did he mean to chastise her with a
common walking cane?  Surely not.  He knew her passions were roused by
only the finest implements.  Then maybe he was jealous actually
jealous!  And he was to torment her by offering a mere stick with which
to satisfy her needs.

"Are ... are you to deny me?"  she asked.

"What do you feel here?"  He pushed the tip into the vent of silk and
rubbed it over her tender flesh.

"Concentrate.  What do you feel?"

Lucy felt the smooth glassy end rubbing against her folds and nudging
at her engorged clitoris.  She felt her plump lips separating, and then
the object gliding along her slick, wet crease.  She felt it hard and
round, poised at the aching mouth of her openness.  It felt as if it
would slide into her far too easily and she said as much.

"Like this?"  he suggested.  Swiftly, he drove the cane into her moist
depths.

Lucy gasped.  Though the shaft was slim the head pushing before it was
large and bulbous.  Julian moved the rod in small rotations, stirring
it against the walls of her vagina, teasing her with its strange,
shifting pressures.  Glorious tremors rushed within her and her desire
liquefied with heavy slowness.

"Does it feel like a cock?"  asked Julian.

"A little," she replied hoarsely.

"A little cock you mean?  Perhaps like Gabriel's?"

Lucy smiled inwardly.

"Not at all," she breathed.

"Gabriel has a most handsome cock."  He was jealous, she thought
exultantly.  Measurements had never concerned him before.

"Of course," he said smoothly.

"How foolish of me to think you would accept anything less.  Then does
it feel like a cane, an ordinary cane?"

"I've never "Close your eyes," he clipped.  He withdrew the ebony rod
and Lucy's skirts rustled to the ground.

"Kneel before me."

Lucy, her eyes shut, her sex burning, allowed herself to be manoeuvred
into place.  She felt his open thighs snug against her arms and heard
him fumbling with the buttons of his fly.  Then his hand cupped her
head, bringing her mouth down to touch something rounded and smooth.

It was the cane, salt-sweet and hot from her own body.  At Julian's
command she sucked her wetness from the hard knob and explored its
contours with her tongue.

"And now this," he said, clutching a handful of her curls.  He guided
her into a new position.

This time the touch was familiar: it was the satin- smooth head of
Julian's stiffened prick.  With an eager mouth, Lucy sheathed his warm
length, closing her lips firmly about the thick root.  His coarse hair
brushed against her nose as she nuzzled deeply, breathing in his musky
closeness.  Heeding Julian's words, she sucked back and forth, then
played her fluttering tongue over the lines and folds of his swollen
glans.  Ah, now she understood.

Julian tugged at her hair, forcing her to pull back.  Before her eyes
was his tumescent flesh, potent and glistening.  Next to him was the
cane, its purple glass tip moulded and scored to represent the unfurled
head of a phallus.

"Why, it's stupendous," breathed Lucy.

"What a delicious idea."

"And even better," said Julian, unscrewing the tip, 'is this."  From a
hollowed-out shaft slid a short ebony handle followed by six thin
leather thongs.

"An exquisite3 little martinet," he said, curling his fingers to the
sculpted I haft.

"As yet, unused."

Lucy cooed in delight.  She watched him draw the strands lovingly
across his palm, her skin tingling with anticipation.  Oh yes, this was
a fine instrument indeed.  Sir Julian had chosen well.

She reached out to touch the whip but was sharply rebuked.  This might
be a gift for her, said Julian, but he was the one bestowing it.  He
draped the thongs over one of her shoulders then trailed them behind
her neck.  Lucy shivered.  The leather swept lightly across her skin,
its soft caress a mockery of the pain it could inflict.  Ah, she would
have no hesitation in baring her flesh to its stinging kisses.

"Take off your frippery," ordered Julian.

Lucy obeyed.  Layers of silk and taffeta pooled to the ground.  She
unclasped her stays, cast them aside, then slipped off her beribboned
chemise.  Standing in her drawers, stockings and shoes, she paused and
fixed Julian with a lascivious smile.  She cupped her hands to her
breasts and kneaded the heavy, or bed flesh.  She scuffed her thumbs
over her nipples, bringing the coral tips to tight points of
pleasure.

Her body thrilled to her indulgent touches and she murmured with
unabashed arousal.

Julian, the trace of a sneer on his lips, drew the thongs of the
martinet through his loosely curled fist.  When the ends disappeared
beneath his fingers, he opened his palm, lashed the air softly, and
once more trailed the leather through his large hand.

With teasing slowness, Lucy untied the string of her drawers then let
the silk slide down her legs.  She ran her hands over the lush contours
of her body, lingering at the point where her neat waist flared out to
the swell of her hips.  Then, turning to offer Julian a view of her
plump rear, she stroked the peach-smooth cheeks of her buttocks.

She was about to remove her garters when Julian demanded that she
stop.

He didn't want her naked; he wanted her as she was but with her stays
against her skin.  Lucy smiled obligingly and picked up the garment,
panelled in peacock-blue and emerald satin.

Sucking in her breath she managed, after some fumbling, to refasten its
hourglass boning around her own softer curves.

As she paraded and twirled she stole glances at her reflection in the
pier glass.  In the half-light the curls of her pubis had the lustre of
spun gold, and her ample buttocks jutted below her corset like two
pearly moons.  She looked well, and she knew that beneath Sir Julian's
cool exterior there was a man churning with lust.

"How obedient you are," he said, rising from his chair and striding
towards her.

"I can see you are eager for your cadeau."  He pushed a foot between
her ankles, nudging her legs apart.

"Do you wish to know the reason why I am to punish you so severely?"

"Yes," she said boldly, excitement clutching at her heart.

Julian pressed a firm hand to her hot, pounding sex.

"There are three reasons," he said with dispassionate calm.

"One, because you refuse to share your bawdy plans concerning some dear
virgin cousin."  As he spoke he slipped his index finger into her humid
passage.

"Two," he continued, pushing in a second broad finger, 'because you're
screwing an artist whose prick, so you tell me, is most handsome."

The mention of Gabriel, again with that possible note of envy, caused
Lucy to smile with secret delight.  Was he actually growing fond of
her?  Enough to be covetous of her body?

"And three?"  she breathed.

Julian merely smirked.  Slowly, he drove his fingers into her, again
and again.  The pad of his thumb rocked her clitoris, intensifying its
rich, aching pulse.  There was no sound, save for Lucy's light gasps
and the soft clack, clack of her molten sex.

"And three ..."  he said at length.

He removed his fingers and played them teasingly across her distended
outer lips.  He stroked her with a maddeningly light touch, as if he
were handling gossamer.  It was unbearable.  When he pressed his
fingers into the wet seam of her folds, Lucy whimpered with
gratitude.

Pleasure coursed through her entire body before sinking to engulf her
fiery loins.  It throbbed there, a percussive heavy beat.  She waited,
her heart drumming wildly, for the announcement of her third
unforgivable sin.

"Because you conduct yourself like a whore," said Julian at last.  He
pushed once, hard.  His three compacted fingers slammed into her.

Lucy groaned, her sex stretched around the awkward girth of his
penetration.  He shoved again, his knuckles banging into her soft,
hungry flesh.  When he next spoke he punctuated his words with a
thrusting hand.

"And I want you over the table your cunny wide for me.  And I'm going
to whip you twice for every sin."

In one swift movement, Julian caught hold of Lucy's wrists and,
twisting her sharply, clasped them behind her back.  He pushed her
towards the writing desk, mocking her when she stumbled, and leant her
body across the green leather surface.  The busk of her corset dug
viciously into her belly, and she shifted herself in search of greater
comfort.

"Don't dare to move," he said severely, sliding open a desk drawer a
drawer he knew contained no writing equipment.  He withdrew several
lengths of silken cord and murmured, "Perfect."

Sir Julian stretched Lucy's arms either side of the table and secured
each wrist to a finely carved leg.  She lay there, moaning faintly, as
he repeated the bondage on her wide-spread ankles.  The indignity and
vulnerability of such a position thrilled her.  She felt deliciously
open, brazenly wet, and completely at the mercy of Sir Julian.

She listened to the sound of him moving about the room, undressing
without haste.  When he returned to stand behind her she instinctively
clenched her buttocks.  But he did not touch her.  He laughed.

"Hasn't your Italian artist taught you the first rule?"  he scorned.

"One must prepare a canvas before painting it."

He spanned his fingers to her legs and edged slowly upwards, his thumbs
trailing over her damp inner thighs.  He massaged whorls over her skin,
nudging inwards but never quite touching her seething sex.

Then, moving to the swell of her rump, he caressed and pummelled the
pliable twin globes.

"So pale and succulent," he murmured.

"So ripe."

He nipped her twice and Lucy jerked with the sharp pain.  Then his
touch grew gentle, lulling her into relaxation.  He blew cool air over
her skin and gently parted her rounded cheeks.  He breathed soft lines
along her open crevice, lingering over her tightly pinched hole.

Following the lines of his breath, his tongue trailed moistly along her
deep furrow.  His moustache rasped lightly, and he lapped at her
wrinkled centre.

Lucy tensed, wondering if he would invade her most secret orifice.

The thought inflamed her and, squirming against her restraints, she
pushed herself towards him.

Abruptly Julian pulled away.

"You expect to take your pleasures?"  he scoffed.

"As and when you wish?  Remember, Lucy, I am the one who gives.  You
are the one who receives."

He fell into silence.  The room grew heavy with tension.  Lucy could
not feel him, see him nor hear him.  She stiffened, knowing the sweet
onslaught was imminent.

"Two for every sin," he said sternly.

"On each side of your luscious arse."

Lucy turned her head, pressing her cheek to the table.  From the corner
of her eye she saw him raise his arm.  The leather strands flicked
back.  She braced herself.  With a soft swish the whip arced down and
cracked loudly across one plump buttock.  Lucy yelped, stripes of pain
searing into her flesh.

Julian waited, allowing the smarting impact to subside.  Then again he
whirled the martinet back and the second lash fell, as cruel and swift
as the first.  The fanned-out thongs moulded to her curves and the
sting, hot and sharp, rushed back to the surface.

Lucy whimpered as the pain transformed itself into smouldering
pleasure.  Then a third and a fourth lash.  The scorching impact bit
into the glow suffusing one half of her bottom.  Two more deft strokes
and a deeper radiance uncoiled to meld with the intensity burning in
her sex.

Julian paused.

"Oh, what a fine artist I am," he said.

"One virgin canvas, the other streaked with blushes."

He moved away from the periphery of her vision, his hand rubbing the
cool area of her other cheek.  Then another six lashes rained down on
that untouched side.  Each one rekindled the sting of the previous
stripe, building up a savage heat until her two mounds were a symmetry
of crimson fire.  Then he stopped.

Lucy lay still, listening to Julian's ragged breath.  When she felt his
hands again, they were no longer those of a chastiser but those of a
tender lover soothing her raw, prickling flesh.  Her blazing skin,
alive with sensitivity, took his caresses deeper.  Flames of desire
licked around her womb and her juices ran freely.  She shifted her
hips, striving to press her simmering clitoris to a surface.  But her
tethered ankles would not allow for it.

"Please," she begged, raising her pelvis high.

"Take me."

Julian grunted a short, scornful laugh and laid the length of his
prick, heavy and insistent, against the split of her arse.

"For one who prides herself so on shocking her noble peers," he teased,
beginning to slide back and forth, 'your language is remarkably coy.

Will you say what you mean, Mrs.  Singleton?"

Tuck me," she said, through clenched teeth.

"Please, oh, Ju - oh fuck me."

The thick head of his phallus dropped and hovered momentarily at her
wetly gaping entrance.

"Such a pretty request," he breathed huskily.

Then, with a vigorous lunge, he buried himself to the hilt.  She cried
out, the force of him shunting her forward.  At once he pulled her to
him and held her steady.

Lucy clenched her muscles to his swollen prick, and he drove into her,
his thrusts long and hard.  His flat belly pounded against her sore
buttocks, and his hand.  reached around, seeking her clitoris.

With a quick, fretting finger, he chased the urgency beating in the
tight little bud.  On the edge of extremity, Lucy uttered a staccato of
shrill, breathy bleats.  The hot spasms gripped and she wailed as their
fierce, trembling energy consumed her.  A growl echoed in the wake of
her cry and Julian's orgasm pumped into the final throes of her own.

Her tormented body sagged with blissful relief.  Julian held his
position, caressing her inside with a soft rhythm while gently stroking
her tender rump.  All his movements were perfectly in tune with the
warm tranquillity bathing her senses.

"Julian," she murmured when her breathing had steadied.

"I adore your cadeaux."

"And I adore handing them to you, my sweet."  He began unlacing her
stays, adding to her sense of lazy release.

"Though, if you recall, generosity alone was not my motive.  You are
now obliged to divulge your plans for cousin Clarissa?"  He withdrew
from her and set about untying the cords at her ankles.

Lucy murmured a languorous half-groan.  She'd forgotten their earlier
bargain, and in truth she didn't really have much of a plan.  Alicia
had merely expressed a hope that Clarissa, given the right
encouragement, would yield to a little pre-marital dalliance.

After running various names through her mind, Lucy had concluded that

Gabriel Ardenzi was probably the best option.  If Clarissa didn't mind
a man who wore his hair too long and who had a tendency, to say the
least, j to be capricious, then maybe she would succumb to his
seductions.  Persuading Gabriel to agree to it, however, would not be
an easy task.  A country virgin was hardly his usual choice of lover.

Tray tell," encouraged Julian, helping her to her feet.

Lucy unclasped her loosened corset, stepped out of her shoes, and
rubbed at her reddened wrists.

"Is there no end to your lecherous curiosity?"  she asked, standing on
tiptoe to press a kiss to his lips.

"You should know better than to ask," he said, smiling fondly and
tangling his fingers in her dishevelled curls.

Lucy sighed and padded across the room to sit on the edge of the bed.

"The strength of it is this," she said, rolling down her stockings.

"I'm to find her a beau, and quickly, before Marldon arrives.  I
thought perhaps Gabriel would be suitable."  She looked at Julian
provocatively and said deliberately, "After all, there are few women
able to resist his dark good-looks.  And he is a most skilful lover."

Julian raised his eyebrows, affecting surprise.

"I didn't realise that you were willing to share your bedfellows.  I'd
be more than happy to assist."

"You are a married man," said Lucy, with only half- feigned severity.

"I already share you."

"Such a pity," he teased, joining her and playfully biting her neck.

"And besides," continued Lucy, "I've been prevailed upon to take merely
the edge off her innocence, not corrupt her completely.  That
prerogative belongs strictly to Lord Marldon."

Chapter Three

Clarissa, steeling herself for disappointment, pushed tentatively at
the door of the breakfast room.  Please, Aunt Hester, she willed, don't
be sitting there.

Since Charles and Alicia's departure.  Aunt Hester, with her pinched,
sour face, had presided over the household with a fearsome
impassivity.

She'd insisted on taking Clarissa to some dull afternoon teas and some
even duller soirees, and summer had seemed to hold all the promise of a
wet Wednesday.  But yesterday Aunt Hester had taken to her bed,
complaining of a dreadful fatigue.  This morning she'd failed to appear
for breakfast and Clarissa's hopes were rising.

In the breakfast room.  Kitty was leaning across the table, sweeping a
cloth over its oak surface.

"What on earth are you wearing?"  exclaimed Clarissa, catching a flash
of red beneath Kitty's crisp black uniform.

The housemaid grinned and hitched up her skirts, proudly displaying a
pair of scarlet stockings.

"Dandy, aren't they?"  She beamed.

"Real silk.  Missis gave them me afore she went away.  To say sorry for
the saucing I got.  Didn't you get anything?"

"I got Aunt Hester," replied Clarissa grimly.  Then she hissed, "Has
she been seen yet?"

"Lor, has she!"  cried Kitty.

"Came down to breakfast in her nightgown and wrapper, she did.  And she
was all of a moony flutter.  I've never seen the like."

Kitty pulled up a chair and sat before the table, her chin resting on
steepled fingertips.  Cocking her head to one side, she batted her
eyelashes at Clarissa and smiled.

"Could I harf another hegg, please, Hellis," she mimicked.  Then she
shrieked with glee and slammed her hands on the polished surface.

Clarissa laughed, protesting it was untrue.

"On my mother's grave," insisted Kitty, crossing herself.

"And you have to say he's a bit of a looker, isn't he?  Bit oily for my
tastes, mind, but all the same he's a looker."

Sebastian Ellis was their new footman, another of Alicia's
appointments.  Undoubtedly he was handsome, as a footman ought to be,
but the idea of Aunt Hester falling for his charms was absurd.  Still,
if he kept her occupied then Clarissa wasn't going to complain.

"So where is she now?"  she enquired.

Kitty, her lips pursed, shook her head in sardonic pity.

"Dreadful fatigued, miss," she replied.

"Dreadful fatigued."

Clarissa's thoughts raced.  There were new gowns to collect from the
dressmakers, gowns that Aunt Hester would be sure to frown upon.  Then
perhaps later she could pay a call on cousin Lucy.  Without Lord
Marldon there was no one to introduce her to London society.  And
Alicia had said Lucy knew everyone there was to know and went to all
the very best parties.

"If she gets out of bed," continued Kitty, noting Clarissa's
expression, 'then I'll give her a mighty kick on the ankles."

"Thank you.  Kitty," she said.

"That would be much appreciated."

Gabriel Ardenzi could never decide if taking a house in the suburbs
of

Chelsea had been a superb idea or a terrible one.  Away from the city
smog, the air was good and clear.

But on days like today the sunlight glancing off that damned river was
infuriatingly harsh.  He'd spent far too long this morning fiddling
with oiled paper, stretching it across the windows in a bid to diffuse
the glare.

He should have chosen the north-facing room instead.  But no, he
reminded himself, it was too small for a studio; it would have felt
like a prison cell.  At least here he could rack his unfinished
canvasses against the walls and remind himself of things he'd rather be
painting.

He stepped back from his easel and looked dully at the incomplete
portrait.  A society miss gazed back at him with bland eyes and a vapid
smile.  A good enough likeness, he thought bitterly.  He tossed his
brush on to a table cluttered with mixing bowls, phials and bundles of
charcoal, and, yawning widely, wiped his hands on a rag.

Christ, he'd been at work less than two hours and already he was
bored.

Commissioned portraits were the bane of his life and summer invariably
brought a glut of them.

He wandered about the room in a desultory fashion before throwing
himself full-length on to a damask chaise longue.  He raised his
unseeing eyes to the ceiling and sighed heavily.  What he needed was a
wealthy patron, some old duke with money to burn and an interest in
decent art.  And that, he decided, was as likely as England's dear
Queen casting off her widow's weeds and dancing down the Mall.

Hell, he would have to start working harder.  He'd already lost two
lucrative commissions this summer.  Some accused him of idleness, but
it wasn't that.  Or if it was, he mused, it was brought about by his
talent and imagination, two things utterly wasted on the commercial
market.  He tugged at the string which kept his chestnut locks from
falling about his shoulders and shook free the loose curls.

Pushing himself up from the chaise, he crossed to where the oiled paper
closed him off from the outside world.

Impatiently he tore down several sheets, squinting as brilliant
sunlight flooded the room behind him.

He opened the tall casement window and stepped out on to the
wrought-iron balcony.  For a moment the blare of a ship's horn cut
through the clangs and shouts from the wharf.  Gabriel leant his bare
forearms on the warm metal railings and noticed, with a nagging sense
of guilt, his exposed skin.  He was bronzed, a sure sign he was
spending too few hours at his easel and too many here, gazing idly at
the bustle of the Embankment.

No, he decided, it wasn't a patron he needed, but someone truly
inspirational to paint, someone like the new girl on Cheyne Walk.

Yes, that would bring the passion back to his art.  If ever there was
an Attic beauty, then it was her.  She was fit to adorn a Grecian
coin.

Oh, how his fancy would roam with a woman such as her sitting for
him.

All the other stuff, the oils and watercolours that kept the roof over
his head, would be a breeze.  Fuelled by the love of just one painting,
he could be ruthlessly industrious with the others.  He would rise
early, work until twilight rendered it impossible, and There she was
again, hair black and glossy as a pool of Indian ink.  Damn it, who was
she?  Turn this way, willed Gabriel.  Look at me.  But she didn't.  She
glided down the steps to an awaiting brougham, its door held open by a
footman in silver-blue livery.  Then, with the merest lift of her
skirts and a dip of her head, she stepped into the carriage and out of
view.

Gabriel sighed.  He ought to make some discreet enquiries and find out
who she was.  Perhaps she could be persuaded to sit for him.  He would
paint her as what?  Helen of Troy?  Or Cleopatra on a barge like a
burnished throne, surrounded by purples and gold.  No, he would paint
her as herself.  But it wouldn't be a stiff smiling portrait for the
drawing room.  It would be a work utterly free of society's
trappings.

There would be no pins in her hair or her gown.  Herdark locks would
tumble freely about her shoulders and she would be simply attired, in a
length of gossamer- fine chiffon.  He envisaged the wispy fabric draped
about her reclining body, offering filmy glimpses of her nudity
beneath.  He would use pastels to capture the subtle nuances of shade,
to hint at a shell-pink nipple and at the darkness cloaking her sex.

A surge of arousal clutched at his loins and in his mind he stripped
his model of her chiffon folds.  He imagined running his hands over her
smooth creamy flesh and kissing her full, rose lips.  His cock lifted
with a rushing pulse of blood and thickened to hardness.  What colour
were her eyes?  he wondered.  How would she look when ecstasy seized
her?

For several minutes he stood there, the sun warming his skin, lulling
him into fantasies both lustful and romantic.  Then a smart rap at the
studio door broke violently into his thoughts.

"Hell's teeth," he spat, stalking angrily into the room.  Hadn't he
told his staff often enough never, ever to interrupt him in such a
manner?  Not when he was working.  Christ, that could have been a
streak of cobalt across some peach-toned cheek.

The door swung open and Lucy, smiling widely, breezed into the studio,
pompadour heels clacking on the oak wood floor.

"Good morning," she said buoyantly.

"I trust I find you well.

Delightful weather, is it not?"

Gabriel's exasperated valet appeared in the doorway, spilling profuse
apologies and flashing angry looks at Lucy.  Dismissing his servant
with a flick of the hand, Gabriel rounded on her.

"What the devil do you think you're playing at?"  he exclaimed.

"No one, but no one, interrupts me when I'm working."

"Oh, such charming hospitality," she rebuked gaily, peering into the
chimney-piece mirror.

"Such impeccable manners."  She brushed an invisible speck from the tip
of her nose and adjusted her frivolous little hat.

"Anyway, you weren't working.  You rarely are, Gabriel.  And don't even
attempt to deny it.

I saw you from the street.  Besides, the reason for my visit is a
matter of some urgency."

Gabriel exhaled sharply, his anger waning to mere irritation.  For Lucy
the slightest thing became a matter of some urgency if it so happened
to be uppermost in her mind.  She was either acting upon a whim, he
thought, or she was scheming.  The suspicion formed in his mind that it
was more likely to be the latter.

"I'm inviting you to dinner," she continued, turning to him brightly.

"Along with the de Laceys, James Cargill, his two ravishing sisters.

Captain Dennett and perhaps "Why, Lucy?"  he asked coolly.

"You've never invited me to dine before.  Would I be correct in
assuming you intend me to neighbour someone at the table?  Surely not
yourself?  No, a ridiculous notion.

Perhaps then some whey-faced miss, new in town and in need of a guiding
hand."

The flicker of annoyance on Lucy's face suggested he was quite close to
the mark.

"How quick you are," she said, a note of petulance in her voice.

"It's actually a dear cousin of mine.  She's uncommonly handsome.  Why,
everyone says so, and very respectable too.  It would make quite a
change for you, Gabriel."

Gabriel laughed derisively.

"Respectable?  I take that to mean a simpering little virgin.  Out of
the question, I'm afraid.  I work hard enough for my pleasures as it
is."  He gestured contemptuously towards his easel.

"Do you really think I could be bothered to do the same in my leisure
hours?"

Lucy sidled over to him and ran the flat of a hand down his loose
cambric shirt.  She gazed beseechingly into his brown eyes as her
fingers trailed further down his body.

"Come to dinner," she implored, cupping his groin and rubbing gently.

"Please."

Gabriel's phallus, only recently stirred by his thoughts of the
raven-haired girl, responded quickly to her touch.  His shaft twitched
and swelled and he pressed himself against Lucy's palm.  She murmured
her approval of his burgeoning erection and Gabriel, noting the gleeful
spark in her eyes, smiled to himself.  No doubt she was working on her
principle that a man's mind is ruled by his prick.

Well, if she wanted to play that game, he was happy to oblige.  The
pleasures Lucy afforded him were often welcome.

"I would need an awful lot of persuasion," he said in a low, suggestive
tone.

"Would you indeed," she purred, raising her mouth to his.

Their tongues entwined and she pressed her yielding bosom to his lean,
muscular chest.  Rubbing herself against him, she planted a series of
flirtatious kisses on his neck.

"Do you have an engagement Tuesday next?"  she enquired.

"If not, then I could arrange dinner."  She moulded the broadcloth of
his trousers to the hard, straining ridge and stroked along its
length.

"Try a little harder, Lucy," he mocked.

"It's going to take a deal more than your fingers playing about my
crotch to persuade me."

"Oh, but I intend more," murmured Lucy.  She dropped to her knees and
nuzzled against his imprisoned cock.

"Much more."  Her delicate fingers worked on his fly then pushed beyond
to unbutton his drawers.

"Let me pleasure you, Gabriel.  In return, I ask no favours, only a
promise from you to dine at my house.  Soon."

Gabriel was silent, relishing the coolness of the hand which slipped
into the vent of his garments.  Lucy released him, her small fingers
curling around the veined column of his prick.  The smooth, silky skin
moved beneath her caress and her breath wafted, soft and warm, over the
rosy head.  A droplet of clear liquid seeped from the tiny eye and hung
there, glistening.

His stiffened penis jerked eagerly, seeking out the promise offered by
Lucy's parted lips.  Gently, she licked away the shimmering bead of his
desire.  She teased the glossy acorn tip, skimming its wrinkled collar
and fretting the fine membrane beneath.  Then the warm, moist cavern of
her mouth enveloped him.

Gabriel moaned faintly.  His glans nudged deep as, with steady luxury,
her lips moved wetly along his engorged staff.  Her tongue lashed and
an exploring hand reached into his loosened clothes.  She ham mocked
the tight, wrinkled purse of his balls and stroked the pad of flesh
behind with teasing fingers.

A rush of sensation filled Gabriel's cock and he closed his eyes.

Unbidden, an image came into his mind of the Embankment girl kneeling
before him.  For a brief moment the fluttering lips, sucking him closer
to his peak, were hers.  Tension quivered in his thighs and a guttural
rasp sounded in his throat.

At once, Lucy withdrew.  She made a tourniquet with her fingers and
thumb, and squeezed back his climax.

"Damn it," cursed Gabriel through gritted teeth.  His thoughts had
wandered, allowing him to forget the truth of his situation.  He wasn't
being pleasured at all; he was being bargained with.

"Well?"  asked Lucy sweetly.

"Do I hear you accepting the invitation?"

Gabriel gave no answer.  His cock throbbed with insistent pressure and
he craved fulfilment, but he was loath to yield so easily.  If Lucy was
so desirous of his company, then she would have to work a little harder
to secure it.

"It's only dinner," she chided, looking up at him with big, pleading
eyes.

"And perhaps a touch of light flirtation.  Nothing you're unaccustomed
to."

"I'm unaccustomed to virgins," he retorted, but his voice lacked the
determined note of earlier.

"So," began Lucy, her tongue flicking over the flushed head of his
penis, 'you are to refuse my kind offer?"  She circled her fingers
about his thick root.

"Such a pity," she murmured.

"Such a beautiful young woman, with so much to learn."

Then, once again, the liquid heat of her mouth engulfed him.  With a
practised caress, she sucked him quickly back to the border of his
crisis.  Gabriel felt his semen rising, clamouring to be unleashed.

Then he felt the shock of cool, empty air on his straining length.

"Curse you," he hissed, clutching at Lucy's thick golden curls.  His
penis, painfully hard with thwarted desire, butted at the closure of
her lips.  He would have his satisfaction.

"Dinner would be delightful," he snapped, then he was driving urgently
into her pliant, open mouth.  He crushed her head into his loins, his
hips pumping furiously.

He gasped as the liquor of his release coursed along his shaft and,
with a triumphant snarl, he spent his pleasure.  His seed jetted over
Lucy's searching tongue and she drank deeply.

Gabriel sighed in a long breath and placed his massaging hands on her
shoulders.

"If you could teach your cousin such tricks," he said, 'then perhaps
this business would hold a little more appeal."

Lucy drew back and smiled.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll be a much better tutor," she replied.

"Dinner," he said firmly.

"That was my promise.  Nothing more."

Lucy shrugged and rose to her feet.

"There really isn't much more," she said, brushing at her skirt.

"But, once you meet her, I'm quite certain you'll want more.  A lot
more."

Gabriel grunted his doubtfulness and buttoned up his flies.

"There is one small thing though," continued Lucy, her voice hesitant
and unsure.

"If you should take it upon yourself to try and woo her, please tread
carefully.  It'sreally her mind rather than her legs I want you to
open.  Well, not quite, but' She paused and looked at him, guilty and
awkward.

With a measured gaze, Gabriel watched her toying with her wedding
ring.

"I'm intrigued," he said flatly.

"You, a woman quite adept at lies and deception, are plainly hiding
something.  What is it?"

Lucy inhaled deeply.

"Well," she began, clasping her hands before her, 'my cousin is shortly
to be married and-' "And she must go virgin to the altar?"  he
interrupted.

"I see no problem there, particularly since I've agreed only to
dinner.

Who's the lucky groom?  Anyone we know?"

Lucy cleared her throat and smiled weakly.

"Lord Marldon," she said.

Incredulous, Gabriel stared at her.  But, before he could utter a
sound, Lucy silenced him with an outpouring of desperate persuasion.

"But it need not be a problem.  Marldon has yet to arrive.  Why, he
won't visit London for several weeks.  No one will know of it, I give
you my word.  You could "You expect me," said Gabriel crisply, 'to
attend your dinner?  With a view to romancing Marldon's bride-to- be?

You must take me for a fool, Lucy."  He walked away and tugged on the
bell-rope.

"Would you care for some tea?  It might help restore your sanity."

"Please listen, Gabriel," she protested.

"Absolutely not," he said curtly.

"Not dinner, not dominoes.  Not anything."

"But you made a promise," she whined, plaintively wringing her hands.

"And I've just broken it," he replied.

"Rather that than my neck."

Lucy's drawing room was furnished with an abundance of little tables,
tasselled footstools and trailing ferns.  Nearly every surface was
draped in sumptuous, glowing fabrics and the walls, papered in delicate
fl orals were covered with paintings and photographs.  There were far
too many to count.

Clarissa knew; she'd tried.

She sat on the plumply stuffed chesterfield, her hands folded demurely
in her lap.  Mrs.  Singleton wouldn't be long, the maid had said.  And
she'd expressly asked that, if a Miss Longleigh were ever to call,
refreshments should be served until her return.  Unless of course. Miss
Longleigh had a pressing engagement.

Clarissa had no such thing.  Oh, Lady So-and-So was holding an at-home,
and Mrs.  Barchester was receiving guests between the hours of two and
four, but neither prospect appealed.  Clarissa would far rather sit
alone, waiting for Lucy.

She was a little perturbed about meeting her cousin.  It had been some
three years since they'd last met, and that was at Mr.  Singleton's
funeral.  Since then Lucy was rumoured to have been out with several
different men, yet had married none of them.  Her husband had left her
well provided for and she'd once said, according to Aunt Gwendoline,
that she had no need of a man except in her bedroom.  That had been the
final straw for Charles Longleigh and he'd declared that, under no
circumstances, was Clarissa to associate with such a low- tongued
light-skirt.

But Clarissa couldn't help but think what a delight it would be to talk
to someone closer to her own age.  She wondered if cousin Lucy was
acquainted with Lord Alee.  She knew but little of the man chosen for
her.  She'd been patient, expecting their meeting to be imminent.

But now it wasn't and her curiosity was piqued.  She couldn't bear the
thought of spending the next few weeks knowing only that the Earl of
Marldon was dark, handsome and somewhat sophisticated.

There was a chattering commotion in the hall.  Clarissa's stomach
flared and danced with nervous expectancy.  Would her cousin have
changed much?  she wondered Would she really be pleased to find her
sitting on the sofa?

The door flung open and Lucy, a froth of tulle and lace perched atop
her corkscrew curls, bustled into the room.  Exclaiming her delight,
she wove a hasty path through the furniture, pursued by the soft
whisperings of her magenta gown.  Clarissa rose to greet her.

"Gracious heavens," sparkled Lucy, clasping both Clarissa's hands.

"Alicia said you'd grown into quite a beauty but she neglected to say
how beautiful."  She stepped back to run admiring eyes from Clarissa's
dark tresses to the flounced hem of her muslin day-gown.

"Ha, dearest cousin, such looks will get you into trouble some day, of
that I'm sure.  How are you finding London?  And dear Aunt Hester? Why,
I hear Marldon's been somewhat tardy in presenting himself.  Men! Do
sit down, Clarry.  Tell me everything.  I'll ring for some tea.  No,
no.

Some Madeira, don't you think?  This calls for a little celebration."

Clarissa nodded mute compliance, unnoticed by her cousin, who was
already making her way to the door.  Ignoring the bell-ropes, Lucy
called out for wine and cakes.  She hastened back into the room,
unpinning her hat and chattering gaily about all the places Clarissa
ought to go, the people she ought to meet.  Really, London was the most
marvelous place to be in summer.  And, if Lord Marldon couldn't be in
town, then Clarissa ought to jolly well have some fun until he deigned
to grace her with his presence.  There was absolutely no point in
moping around, waiting for his lordship, was there?

Clarissa was grateful when the wine arrived and cousin Lucy paused for
breath.  It gave her the chance to respond to the stream of questions,
and the two of them giggled over Hester's dreadful fatigue and the
changes Alicia was wreaking on Mr.  Longleigh.  Then Clarissa,
nervously fingering the stern of her diamond-glinting goblet, asked,
"Have you ever met the Earl of Marldon?"

"Mmm/ mumbled Lucy, licking cake crumbs from her fingers.

"But it was some time ago, and I confess to having paid him scant
attention.  He's very handsome, of course.  But, cousin, allow me to
offer my advice.

Do not think on him overmuch.  Why, if you do, you'll be quite frantic
with impatience before the month is out.  Find something to distract
you, perhaps a young beau to while away the time.  After all' "Lucy!"

reproached Clarissa, making no attempt to conceal her disapproval.

"How could you say such a thing?"

"Oh, what's the harm in a few secret kisses?"  she said, shrugging.

She poured out more of the rich, golden wine, despite Clarissa's
insistence that one glass was perfectly adequate.

"London's quite different to the country, you know," she continued
blithely.

"Why, it's only the nobodies, poor fools, who are faithful here.

Discretion is the only virtue.  Ha, and some don't even bother with
that.  Anyway, how will you know if you truly desire Marldon when
there's been no one else to compare him to?  Why, sweet innocence, I'll
bet you've never even kissed a man, have you?"

Clarissa shook her head, desperately wishing she had.  She suddenly
felt herself to be the dullest, most prudish person that ever drew
breath.  Lucy Singleton knew all about life and men, whereas she knew
nothing.  No doubt her cousin regarded her as scarce more than a
child.

"But I -1 do know ..."  faltered Clarissa.  She was eager to befriend
Lucy and desperate to prove she wasn't a mere innocent, a poor foolish
nobody.  With a surge of determined courage she spoke, her words
tumbling over each other in her haste to finish.

"I know about it.  I mean, about men and women.  I know in bed.  I know
about that."  She felt two hot patches colouring her cheeks but was
gratified by Lucy's smile of approval.

"Well, you do surprise me, Clarry," she replied.

"Anddo these things you know of appeal to you?  Are you eager to
experience them?"

The heat still burnt in Clarissa's face but she was resolute.

"Yes," she said, her eyes fixed on Lucy's, a smile of daring playing
about her lips.

"I am."

Lucy clapped her hands together in delight.

"Ha!"  she shrieked.

"How perfectly wonderful.  Cousin, I think perhaps you're ready to meet
some friends of mine.  Are you engaged the evening after next?"

Clarissa was not.

"Then we shall go to a ball," announced Lucy.

"Octavia Hamilton's ball.  It's to be a very fine affair, I promise
you."

"And who," enquired Clarissa, 'is Octavia Hamilton?"

"She's an actress," replied Lucy with a wicked grin.

Clarissa felt herself warming to Lucy's irreverence and disregard for
decency.  To say someone in society was an actress was as good as
saying she was a harlot.

"An actress!"  she cried with exaggerated shock.

"Goodness, my father would be horrified."

Emerald shards twinkled in Lucy's eyes.

"And your father," she said, 'is by now probably in Biarritz.  Besides,
Octavia is a very good friend of Alicia's.  Why, didn't you know?  The
two of them used to tread the boards together."

Octavia Hamilton lived in Berkeley Square, in a house of some
consequence.  The ballroom was a wedding cake of lofty pillars and
gilded stucco swirls, with garlands of flowers draping the walls.

From a low stage fringed with palms, musicians in hussar costume played
gallops, waltzes and polkas.  On the dance floor, twirling jewels and
gold-studded shirt-fronts glittered in the blaze of chandeliers.

Gabriel, languidly self-assured in white tie and tails, leant against a
towering Doric column.  Society events usually bored him and
invitations he received were, more often that not, answered with his
regrets.  He would far rather spend an evening at Solferino's or the
Six Bells.  At least you got decent conversation there.  But an
invitation from Octavia, profligate and scandalously wealthy, had
proved more tempting than most.

As he'd hoped, the action was lively and there was drink aplenty.

Footmen in powdered wigs, their calves bulging through white stockings,
circulated with skilfully balanced trays of refreshments.

Gabriel beckoned one over and took a flute of champagne from.  his
salver.

"Who's that?"  hissed Lord Farringdon, reaching for a glass.

Gabriel followed his nod to beyond the dance floor.

"Well, well," he said, recognising the mass of blonde ringlets.

"If it isn't Mistress Singleton.  How surprising to see her amongst
such dissolute "No, you fool," interrupted Farringdon.

"The one with her."

"One of her beaus, I shouldn't doubt," said Gabriel, looking in
curiously beyond the whirling crowds.

Impatiently, Lord Farringdon took his elbow, jogging his champagne a
little, and nudged a path through the chattering clusters of people.

"Feast your eyes on that," he urged.

Gabriel saw her.  It was the girl from the Embankment, in diamonds and
mulberry satins, and, oh, she was exquisite.  Her gown was cut low, its
sleeves scarce more than rosebuds and ribbons.  Above the lace edge,
her creamy white bosom crested in a gentle curve.  Her hair, piled in a
heap of tumbling coils, gleamed like jet.  And her face was sheer
perfection.

He had to capture her.

"Hold this, Algie," he said, thrusting his drink into Farringdon's
hand.  He patted his coat and rummaged through a couple of pockets
before drawing out a pencil and a slip of card, bordered with gold. His
invitation that would suffice.  Gabriel turned it to the blank side and
laid it against his companion's back.

"Keep still," he hissed.

"Lean forward."  Lord Farringdon grudgingly obliged, allowing Gabriel
to sketch soft, fluid lines on to the card.  From time to time he
glanced up at his unsuspecting model and glowered when anyone
threatened to step too close.  Moments later, the drawing was complete,
or as complete as his patience would allow.

Clarissa was embarrassed.  Lucy's London was dazzling and fast, a far
cry from Aunt Hester's.  She'd fended off countless admiring comments,
both murmured and bold, and had refused far more dances than she'd
accepted.  Yet still her feet, in new brocade slippers, ached.  Her
mind was spinning with names and faces, none of which seemed to match
up, but she was quite sure she hadn't been introduced to this man.

She would have remembered someone who looked so outre and wore such a
splendid gardenia in his buttonhole.  So why, then, was he demanding a
waltz?  It flew in the face of all protocol.

"Manners, Gabriel," reproached Lucy, coming to her rescue.

"Allow me to introduce you: Gabriel Clarissa.  Now go and dance."

Clarissa, hesitantly placing her fingertips on Gabriel's outstretched
arm, allowed herself to be escorted on to the dance floor.  The paucity
of their introduction alarmed her a little.  At a glance you could see
this man wasn't ordinary.  He was clean-shaven with dark, wavy hair
caught in a ponytail.  Unruly strands hung about his cheekbones and
there was an angelic clarity in his finely boned face.

She found his rakish air oddly arresting, thrilling even; and beyond
that, something deeper tugged at her, stirring her heart to excitement
and making her glow warmly within.

The violins played Strauss, and Gabriel led the steps with strong, easy
grace.  His hand, pressing against the small of Clarissa's back, was
firm, on the threshold of drawing her body close to his.  Although he
chatted lightly, when he looked at her, his brandy-rich eyes lingered
with mesmeric intensity.

"You have a rare beauty," he said quietly, guiding her into a spin.

Clarissa had heard such things before, but nonetheless she missed the
beat of the music and her footsteps faltered slightly.  Gabriel
stumbled with her and laughed.

"You ought to learn to dance," he teased.

"Then you would be truly perfect."

His attentions left Clarissa tongue-tied, and the depth of his gaze
kindled a flame of longing, confused and illicit, within her.  She
found herself guiltily wishing her husband would be a man such as
this.

He was witty and charming, and she fancied his eyes concealed a
restless, hungry passion.  She thought perhaps it would be wise to
reveal that her hand was promised to an earl.  But something stopped
her.  She didn't want to risk losing him so soon to another dancing
partner.

And besides, she reassured herself, his words were mere flattery,
harmless society banter.  How foolish to appear to be taking them
seriously.

She wondered if she was being disloyal to Lord Marl- don by thinking of
this man in such a way.  She convinced herself it could not be so,
particularly since Lord Marldon was as yet unknown to her.  And
thoughts alone could not be an act of betrayal.

The music reached its crescendo and Gabriel whisked her into a final,
breathtaking spin.  As Clarissa sank into a curtsey, he bowed low over
her head and whispered, "Would you care to stroll in the garden?  I
think fireworks are about to commence."

For a moment Clarissa thought he'd read her desire.  But his meaning
was literal, safe.  By the French windows a chattering crowd was
gathering and spilling out on to the patio.  Clarissa was relieved to
join them.

After the heat of the ballroom, the evening air cooled her burning
cheeks.  The leafy garden, decorated with statues and urns, was strung
with Chinese lanterns.  Their coloured lights swayed in the breeze and
glittered like gems in the fountain's shimmering jets.  A sudden whoosh
heralded the first firework.  The onlookers squealed then cooed as star
bursts of red, green and silver shattered the night sky.

"Come," said Gabriel, his gloved fingertips pulling gently on her
own.

"There are things far more brilliant away from here."

Clarissa, driven by a reckless hunger, followed as he squeezed a path
through the enraptured crowd and skirted along the shadows.  She knew
it was wrong.  Aunt Hester would be mortified; her father quite
unforgiving.  But then, wouldn't cousin Lucy be perfectly delighted?  A
forbidden dalliance, she'd said, was quite accepted in society.

Indeed a woman with but one man would be deemed quite undesirable by
the fashionable set.

A belt of trees stretched along one part of the garden, and there
Gabriel slipped between two slender trunks, encouraging her to
follow.

After a moment's doubt, she did so.  A leafy colonnade stretched ahead,
its darkness coloured by the pastel hue of lanterns.

Statues, eerie and stern, frozen in their near nudity, loomed from the
foliage.

"A little further," he urged.

The distant strains of the orchestra drifted on the night air and
fireworks popped gently overhead.  The noise of the people grew low and
muffled.  Clarissa's blood pounded with fear and excitement.  She
wanted him, had expected him, to kiss her at once, and yet he seemed
intent on taking her deeper into the garden.  Perhaps, she thought, he
believed her to be one of those disreputable ladies who, in the
seclusion of a few trees, would offer up her body.  Panic speared
her.

"Mr.  Ardenzi," she began.

"I have to ... I'm not what "Hush," he said.

"I know."

He drew her aside into a pergola thickly entwined with greenery and
honeysuckle.  The delicate blossoms filled the air with their rich
spicy fragrance, and the entrance, lit by a single lantern, glowed with
a ruddy mist.  Gabriel stripped off his gloves, let them fall, then
lifted Clarissa's chin with one slim finger.

"I want to paint you," he whispered.

"Will you promise to sit for me soon?"

Relief and disappointment thudded in Clarissa's stomach.  How handsome
he was, she thought, with his dark hair haloed by a ruby haze and his
skin bathed in warmth.  But was that all he wanted?  For her to be his
model?

"I don't always ask for consent," he said when he received no reply.

Clarissa squinted at the gold-edged card he offered and, with a start
of recognition, saw herself sketched in pencil.  Heavens, how composed
and dignified she looked.  She felt sure, at that moment, her face was
far from such.

"And the same goes for kisses," he said, embracing her swiftly.

"Though I see consent in your eyes."

His mouth bore down on hers and a rush of pleasure weakened Clarissa's
every limb.  She clung to him, responding hungrily to the questing of
his velvet tongue.  His hands moved on her back, smoothing over the
silk of her gown and up to the naked skin.  Her flesh thrilled to the
light touch of his fingertips.  Then, gently, he cupped her buttocks,
drawing her hips towards him.  She felt a little fearful but she did
not resist.

Through the layers of her petticoats she could feel the hardness of his
arousal.  It pressed insistently, just above the swell of her pubis.  A
dart of pleasure pierced her and an aching sweetness pulsed low in her
body.  Tremulous moans echoed in her throat and then, to her shame, she
realised she was rocking her pelvis, grinding herself against his
swollen lust.

Struggling to quell her passions, she pulled away from him, breathless
and wanting.  Her deep-blue eyes, full of needy frustration, looked
into his.

"No more," she pleaded in a whisper that shook, "I beg of you."

Gabriel stroked her face, his expression one of bemused confusion.

"A

few moments ago," he said, smiling faintly, "I was with a woman I
assumed to be an innocent.  Such a kiss tells me otherwise."

The night was warm but Clarissa's skin prickled as if it were winter.

"No," she protested.

"Your assumption was quite true.  Please, ask no more of me."

Gabriel's playfully arched brows suggested he'd heard such coquettish
games before.

"Then why, innocent, do your lips speak so fiercely of lust and
hunger?"  He lowered his head and pressed tender kisses to her neck.

"And, even more difficult to explain," he continued, his tone
mischievously challenging, 'why do you associate with one such as Lucy
Singleton?  She's hardly famed for the respecta He halted, took a step
back, and stared at Clarissa.  The amusement drained from his eyes and
his jaw sagged with the shock of realisation.

"Christ, no," he breathed, drawing out the words.

"You're not... You're Lucy's cousin, aren't you?"

Clarissa nodded, confused and fearful.

Gabriel, his fists clenched, his eyes closed, raised his head
skyward.

"Dear God," he murmured.

"Dear God, why?"

In the ballroom, Lucy stood with a small, chattering group.

"And do you know," gushed Lady Neville, fanning herself rapidly, 'the
wretched woman was actually received at court?"

"And she was carrying Bertie's child?"  exclaimed Augusta Pritchard,
jubilant with horror.

"Oh, the temerity of it."

"Quite shameful," added Lucy, feigning interest.

She was vexed that Julian had not shown a spark of jealousy when

Gabriel, handsome and brusque, had appeared.  But then, she reasoned,
he'd little cause to.  It was perfectly apparent that Gabriel's
interest was in her cousin alone.

While that was all perfectly delightful, and Lucy had hoped for nothing
less, it left her with but one lover, one married lover.

Another beau was needed, someone whose attentions would make Julian
more appreciative of her desirability.

She scanned the milling crowds, half-heartedly searching for someone
suitable, and caught sight of Octavia Hamilton, tall and auburn-hatred,
gliding towards her.  Her brows were knit in a worried frown.

"Lucy darling," she boomed, snapping on a smile as she edged her way
into the group.

"Do let me introduce you to Lady Tranter."  Taking hold of Lucy's
elbow, she steered her away from the gossip, the smile dropping from
her face.  She glanced over her shoulder.

"I think your charming cousin may have a slight problem," she said in a
low voice.

"Whatever is the matter?"  demanded Lucy, a little irritably.  She
could only think that Clarissa had done something foolish.  Perhaps
she'd swooned over Gabriel's intensity, or cried out for help when his
hands had grown too hungry.

"Quite unexpected, I assure you," said Octavia, pressing her splayed
fingers above the swell of her bosom.

"But it's Lord Marldon.  I'm afraid he's just arrived."

Chapter Four

Lord Alexander Marldon was known more by his reputation than his
face.

Yet people, some cross, some curious, still edged aside as the tall
figure forged a path through the crowds.

Lucy, although she hadn't seen him for some years, recognised the earl
at once.  His hair, swept back from his strong angular features, was as
thick as ever and, save for a few greying streaks about the temple,
just as black.  His dark, half-lidded eyes held the same cruel glint,
and the arrogant sneer had not faded from his lips.  Along the right
side of his face ran a thin scar, a silver line following his jaw and
dipping an inch or so into his neck.  Any other man would have worn a
beard.  But Marldon didn't; he had only neatly clipped sideburns.  He
knew the power of that mark.

Octavia crackled open her fan and slipped away with a murmured
excuse.

Marldon moved towards Lucy, his stride confident, his gaze
purposeful.

"Mrs.  Singleton," he said in a voice that was menacingly soft.  He
took her gloved hand in his and touched a kiss to her fingertips, his
eyes never once straying from hers.

"I believe we are soon to be related.

Your cousin, isn't it?"

Lucy flashed him a smile, the brilliance of which belied her
disquiet.

"It appears so she replied calmly.

"And I'm told she expects you at the end of the month.  Your presence,
my lord, is untimely."

Lucy struggled to keep her attention fixed on Marl- don.  She was
desperate to survey the room in search of Clarissa, and her thoughts
raced to find a way of keeping the two apart.

"Business brings me here, Mrs.  Singleton," said Marl- don.

"Nothing more.  I'm not one for the niceties of courtship, as you may
imagine.

I have no intention of presenting myself quite yet."  His eyes flicked
briefly over the mass of heads, then returned to Lucy.  He regarded her
with a steady challenge.

"Although, if Miss Long- leigh were here tonight, perhaps a glimpse
would whet my appetite.  Is she present?"

"Of course not," blurted Lucy, immediately regretting the zeal of her
reply.

"The company she keeps is far more respectable."

"Oh?"  said Marldon, arching his brows.  It was only one word but it
was imbued with mocking disbelief.

Panic fluttered in Lucy's stomach.  Did he know that Clarissa was a
guest?  And, if he did, was he here for that reason?  She trusted him
not one iota.  It was only a little after midnight, but it was
imperative that her cousin return home.  She could not bear to think
that the two of them might meet, not when Clarissa seemed to have
embarked upon an intrigue with Gabriel.  It would ruin Alicia's plan of
lulling her gently into an acceptance of the earl's depravity.

Relief flooded over her as Julian approached and clapped Marldon on the
shoulder.  The two men exchanged greetings and shook hands warmly.

"And how is your dear lady wife?"  asked Lord Marl- don.

"Locked up somewhere in Oxfordshire for the season?"

"Her health troubles her," answered Sir Julian, giving a smile which
did not reach his eyes.

"Still?"  said Marldon.

"How unfortunate.  I've yet to meet anyone who's seen Lady Ackroyd fit
and well.  In fact, I've yet to meet anyone who's seen Lady Ackroyd.  A
curious state of affairs, don't you agree?"

"My wife doesn't much care for London," replied Julian tetchily.  Then
he brightened a little and added, "Baccarat, my lord?  There's a
promising game about to begin upstairs.  Perhaps your luck will be
better this time round."

Marldon gave a scornful laugh.

"The devil take you, Ackroyd.  Yes, revenge would be very sweet."  Then
he turned to Lucy.

"Do you gamble, Mrs.  Singleton?  Ladies tend not to but well, I don't
suppose your presence would raise many eyebrows."

Lucy bristled at the veiled insult then caught a sly, urging nod from
Julian.  For a moment she was confused, then comprehension dawned.  Ha,
what a sweetheart he was.  Julian's invitation to cards was a
diversion, an attempt to lure Marldon away from the ballroom.  Her
heart lifted.

She took a deep breath and smiled.

"Yes, my lord.  I most certainly do gamble."

The balloon-shaped lamps in the games room were shrouded in a fog of
blue smoke.  The place was a babel of noise.  Amidst rumbling chatter,
shouts and laughter, balls rattled on roulette wheels and bagatelle
boards clattered incessantly.  Men, some in shirtsleeves and
waistcoats, were hunched over tables, intent on poker, baccarat or
piquet.

It was unusual to find a place so shamelessly boorish in a house with
such pretensions to grandeur.  But, thought Alee, it was perfectly
apposite to Octavia Hamilton She knew how to keep men happy it was her
trade and that skill had taken her from gutter to glitter.

Remarkably the woman hadn't lost a shred of vulgarity on her way up.

Quite a feat.

He rocked his chair back and yawned.  His contemptuous eyes surveyed
the unruly stacks of coins either side of the long table.  The stakes
were tediously low and the men, excepting Julian Ackroyd, lacklustre
players.  He stretched to take a decanter of whisky from the
chiffonier, poured himself a measure, then drank it at a draught.

Lucy, sitting opposite, glanced anxiously from him to Julian.  He
smiled inwardly, gratified to have unnerved her.  Loyalty was not a
concept he set much store by and it was amusing to see her so
protective of a cousin.  He wondered, with idle curiosity, how far she
would go in her bid to keep him entertained.  The woman was renowned
for her free and easy ways.  It would be interesting to see if she
could take her pleasures without that spirited air which dogged her
social persona.  More interesting, at least, than playing baccarat with
buffoons.

With a smirk.  Sir Julian scooped up his winnings and flicked the used
cards into the wastebasket.

"I find the banker's lucky streak somewhat dull," said Lord Marldon,
addressing Julian at the head of the table.

"Perhaps you'd be prepared to change your coinage.  Mrs.  Singleton
would prove a more enticing wager than a handful of sovereigns, don't
you think?"  As he spoke he surreptitiously levelled his cane beneath
the table and touched its jewelled head to Lucy's belly.

Lucy inhaled sharply and silence fell upon the table.  Lord Trimmingham
screwed a monocle to his eye and the assembled company turned their
gazes to her.  She stared at Marldon in astonishment, her mouth agape,
her bare shoulders lifting with her quick angry breaths.

Marldon's lips twisted in a half-smile and he lowered the cane a few
inches until it nudged into the juncture of her thighs.

Animosity flickered in Lucy's sharp, green eyes before, with hasty
determination, she softened her expression.  She smiled evenly and gave
a defiant toss of her curls.

"Very well," she said, nodding at Julian's winnings.

"I do not see a man about to lose."

Clarissa stood on the patio listening to a heavily powdered woman
prattle about the latest beauty to find herself in the Prince of Wales'
bed.

Gossip and flirtation, it seemed, were fashionable society's two modes
of communication.  At that moment Clarissa didn't much care for
either.

Foolishly, she'd fancied that Gabriel was different.  But, shortly
after the kiss they'd shared, a kiss which even now lingered on her
lips and glowed in her sex, he had made his excuses and left.  He
would, he'd said leave his card 'sometime' and perhaps, if she were
willing to sit for him, they could agree upon her fee 'sometime'.

Clarissa struggled for an explanation.  He had appeared so genuine,
interested in her, and as desiring as she had been.  Did being Lucy's
cousin mean she was to be shunned by certain people?  No one else
seemed to mind overmuch, so why should he?  Perhaps she could not kiss
properly.  But no, her body and the way he'd responded said
otherwise.

She could only conclude that he was the same as all the other men, all
those who'd pressed her to sit on the stairs awhile, come look at the
stars, dance one more time.  He was a cad, a rakehell seeking quick
pleasures and nothing more.

Clarissa wanted to go home, but finding Lucy had proved impossible.

She asked the powdered woman to please excuse her though she need not
have bothered and drifted away from the gaiety in search of quieter,
darker parts.  She would be alone.  She would bide her time until their
carriage returned; and she would not think on Gabriel.

She wandered over to the far side of the house, each calm curtained
window taking her further from the party.  There were a few stragglers
on the lawns, couples tempted by the privacy night afforded.  Two or
three steps around the corner of the house was an arched wrought-iron
gate and, beyond it, the gloom of an alleyway.  Clarissa clanged the
latch.  Nobody stirred.  Lifting her trailing skirts, she moved
cautiously, edging past a hand-cart and a pyramid of barrels, glancing
at black windows.  The music and noise of the party was faint,
blissfully faint.

She wondered what Gabriel was doing.  Was he over there, swirling about
the glittering dance floor?  Or had he lured someone else, a woman more
prepared to give, into the seclusion of the pergola?

Perhaps, she reflected^ it was well that he bid her goodnight when he
did' Nothing could ever come of it, and in future she would be more
guarded in her imaginings.

Ahead, yellow light from the house cut a wedge through the darkness.

She would rest there, enjoy the stillness, before returning to seek out
Lucy.  No one would bother her, and she would pretend she'd had a
wonderful time.

At the tall window, Clarissa cast an idle glance through the slightly
parted drapes.  She froze.  The gap in the curtains showed a slice of a
book-lined library and there, seated in a stiff-backed chair, was Lucy,
her naked breasts exhibited above her emerald gown.  Her hands were
clasped behind her head, exaggerating the thrust of her bosom, and her
face was clouded with anger.  But her eyes were uncertain, fearful. She
spoke words that, through the glass, were silent to Clarissa.

A man stepped into view and Clarissa bit her lip.  It was not Julian.

He was taller; his hair was black.  With a slow, stealthy gait, he
moved to stand behind Lucy, his mouth set in a thin, bitter smile.

His face was powerful, square-jawed, but the skin sagged ever so
slightly.  Ten years ago he would have been handsome and ten years from
now his features would doubtless be slack with dissipation.

Looking down, he addressed Lucy's head, again in words Clarissa could
not hear.  Lucy dropped her arms to her side.  Clarissa glanced
guiltily over her shoulder before returning her gaze to the dumb show
They would not see her standing there.  To them, from their lighted
room, she would be as the night.

The man reached over Lucy's shoulders and laid the length of his thumbs
above each plump breast.  A diamond glinted on his left hand.

His mouth murmured silently as his thumbs slid down the twin, pale
slopes to the lift of her beaded nipples.  There, he flicked away from
the tight crests before repeating the action a lingering glide, a
flick, another glide, flick.

Clarissa stood there mesmerised, of no place, of no time.  The lack of
sound glazed the scene with unreality.  The two people were phantasms,
moving in a hushed aqueous world.  Floating from far away, came the
merry jangle of a polka.  It clashed discordantly with the unfolding
tableau, enhancing its strangeness.

She watched avidly as the man cupped Lucy's milk- white bosom and
squeezed the flesh into a deep cleavage.  He kneaded, massaged, and
teased rotations over her erect peaks.  There was scorn in his
expression and a cold indifference to his caress.  But, despite that,
Lucy responded.  Her eyes dropped shut, her shoulders sagged and she
mouthed a gasp.  The sight tugged at Clarissa's loins.

She saw cousin Lucy cry out as her raspberry-pert nipples were crushed
between thumb and forefinger.  The man twisted and tugged with
efficient brutality, ignoring Lucy's obvious pain.  His cruelty shocked
Clarissa, but more shocking still was the rush of tingling heat which
invaded her sex.

She wondered how it would feel to be touched and treated so harshly.

Her pulse quickened.  Clarissa knew she ought to look away, but she
could not.  Something held her there, something more than
fascination.

It unfurled from deep within her, a sombre desire, winding eerie
tendrils about her body.

The man stepped back from Lucy and regarded her reddened nipples with
mild satisfaction.  He stalked circles about her, his mouth moving
occasionally.  There was tension in his legs and buttocks, a suggestion
of hard muscularity beneath his black evening trousers.  His shirt was
collarless, its sleeves rolled back, and under white cotton the broad
power of his shoulders and the strong jut of blades were clear.

Clarissa blanched when he leant to touch Lucy's knees.  She saw, for
the first time, the violence of a slash mark scarring his face.  A
shiver crawled across her skin and set the downy hairs at the nape of
her neck prickling.

He eased Lucy's knees apart and his hands slid quickly along her
thighs, bunching up her green and white silks.  He smiled, spoke, then
reached one arm into the midst of frothing lace.  Lucy's back arched
and her mouth gaped desire.  The man, his face close to Lucy's, his
lips speaking nothing, caressed her.  His elbow moved in lazy nudges.

Clarissa swallowed hard, trying to ignore the fluttering in her sex.

Lucy was shaking her head, whether in protest or refusal Clarissa did
not know.  But, whatever her meaning, it was belied by her writhing
body and the passion contorting her face.  Then Lucy was suddenly
nodding her head and her lips shaped "Yes, yes'.  The man, his arm
still softly jogging back and forth, laughed at her.  His white teeth
flashed; his shoulders shook and the bump in his throat quivered and
bobbed.

There was a metallic clank at the gate.  Clarissa started.  Her head
jerked to the dark end of the passageway then back to the scene
within.

In the library, a flash of military scarlet moved across her view.  Her
blood surged.  How many people were in the room?  She turned again.  At
the far end of the alleyway were shadows and muted giggles.

She looked back at the window.  The man in uniform was standing astride
Lucy's lap, his fingers fumbling over his swollen crotch.  The dark,

scarred man was behind her, pushing her head down.  Clarissa gasped,
her heart thudding.  The shadows and giggles were approaching.  She
stole a last glance.  The man's hips were pumping and his stiff, fiery
penis was thrusting into Lucy's mouth.

She stepped away from the window and coughed.  There was a squeal and a
hushing.  With her head lowered, her face burning, Clarissa scuttled
past a pair of patent-leather lace-ups and a frilled, dragging hemline,
then out through the gate.

Oh, cousin Lucy was a disgrace.  How could she allow the man to do such
things to her when there were eyes watching?  It was humiliating,
degrading.  Clarissa leant against the wall of the house, gulping the
night air.  A pulse, surly and insistent, beat in her loins, and the
image of the man laughing at Lucy was branded in her mind.

Something, something she had a strange budding sense of, had held Lucy
there, imprisoned by that man's contempt.  What it was exactly,
Clarissa did not know.  But she knew she feared it.

"Miss Longleigh," came a deep female voice.

"What on earth are you doing here in the dark?  Your companions have
been hunting high and low for you."

Octavia moved towards her, slow and Junoesque.  Clarissa greeted her
with a feeble smile.

"I needed air," she said quietly.

The woman looked at her for a silent moment, her face full of
sympathy.

"Your cousin had to leave some time ago," she said.

"Dreadful bloody headache, I'm afraid.  Poor thing.  Too much
champagne."  She brushed a long dark curl away from Clarissa's
shoulder.

"Perhaps you should do the same.  You don't look at all well.  I could
arrange a carriage."

Clarissa nodded meekly.

"Yes," she whispered.

"I think that would be wise."

Kitty dawdled into Clarissa's bedroom.  With a sigh she set down her
bucket and, hands on hips, flexed her ^inc.  At least she wouldn't have
to do Hester's room today, not with the old maid still abed.  And long
may ^e stay there, she thought, ambling over to the cheval glass.

Kitty hitched up her skirts and shuffled half-circles before the
mirror.  Yes, the scarlet stockings from Mrs.  I-ongleigh were well
worth getting into trouble for.  She ^ally ought to save them for
Sundays but they were so difficult to resist.  She wished it could be
Sunday for ^er, except without church.

Better still, she'd be rich.  She'd have petticoats of lace, a gown of
poppy-red silk and a matching ostrich feather in her hair.  And the men
who chased her wouldn't be lowly farmhands; they'd be proper gentlemen
who'd buy her diamonds and furs.

Her eyes scoured the room, searching for inspiration to perfect her
vision of grandeur.  Draped over a chair back was a gown of slate-grey
silk.  Kitty couldn't help but take a closer look.  She fingered it
lightly, delighting in the smooth fragility of the material.  That hem
needed laundering though, she thought, an impish grin playing on her
Ups.

The silk crackled as gingerly she lifted up the dress and held it
against her body.  The yoke was richly braided and ribbons streamed
from the skirt.  It was better than anything she possessed.  Kitty
swayed gently.  Then, with a twirl and a swish, she was sweeping across
we room, gliding in the arms of an imaginary suitor at Ac finest
imaginary ball.  There was a blur of dark grey as she whisked past the
mirror and Kitty felt a pang of '"egret that it wasn't poppy red.  She
wondered if the young miss had any colours more to her taste.

At the bedroom door.  Kitty paused and listened.  Silence.  No one
would know if she took a peek at Clarissa's gowns.  Throwing the grey
silks on to the bed, she crept to the sturdy oak wardrobe.  The hinges
^ueaked slightly.  A rainbow of lustrous fabrics opened ^ Amidst all
the colours there were soft reds, deep reds corals and crimsons, but
nothing quite so bright as poppy red.

Nonetheless, those reds weren't grey.

Hurriedly, Kitty slipped out of her uniform.  Well, she reckoned, there
was no point in just wondering.  With Clarissa in town.  Aunt Hester
fatigued, and the servants all busy below stairs, she may as well find
out.  Standing in her flannel petticoat and shift, she mulled over the
problem of whether to try on the rust with black buttons or the dark
pink with an enormous bow on its skirt.

A noise from beyond the bedroom door wiped the dilemma clean from her
mind.  Her stomach lurched; her heart thundered.  There were quick,
light footsteps on the stairs, growing louder, nearer.  Oh, if someone
caught her she'd be well and truly done for.

In two swift steps she snatched up her bucket, her discarded clothes,
and bundled them into the wardrobe.  Then she stepped in herself,
crushing the hanging gowns into a space, and crouched low.  Her fingers
curled around the door in a bid to pull it shut, but a stubborn strip
of light remained.

She heard a muted giggle and cursed silently when she saw Pascale, dark
eyes flicking shiftily, slink into the room.  What was she up to, the
haughty little piece?  The Frenchwoman smiled furtively and whispered
at the door.  Then the new footman sidled in, shrugging off his blue
and silver frock coat as he did so.

Pascale closed the door softly and leant against it, her head back, her
bosom thrust provocatively forth.  At once Ellis embraced her.

They scattered feverish kisses over necks and faces, murmuring of love
and lust.  Their hands, urgent and searching, roved over each other's
contours, tugging frantically at clothes.

From the semi-darkness.  Kitty peered through the gap, transfixed by
disbelief.  So Pascale wasn't such a starchy piece after all.  And,
lordy, she was a quick worker, getting her claws into the poor fellow
like that.  He hadn't been here a week.  Hardly daring to breathe,

Kitty watched with bewildered attention.  Ellis massaged and squeezed
his lover's breasts while Pascale, gasping and groaning, fumbled with
the buttons on his breeches.  Her head lolled from side to side then
gently she moved him away.  The footman's cock, erect and uncapped,
sprang from his flies.

Kitty moistened her lips, feeling a stab of hot need.  That was a
strong, randy stalk, she thought bitterly.  Given the chance, she
wouldn't say no.  With slow stealth, she moved the heel of her hand to
her groin, and pressed at the rumpled fabric.  Her face screwed into a
resentful pout when Pascale, with a flurry of white lace, hitched up
her skirts.  Her stockings, like her high-heeled boots, were black,
gloriously, wickedly black.  Scarlet, decided Kitty, was not the best
colour.

Pascale clasped the footman about the neck and, with a nimble leap,
circled her legs about his hips.  He pinned her to the door, his knees
bent, and fumbled beneath her petticoats.  Then with a jerk of his
pelvis, he thrust upwards.

The woman grunted as Ellis began pounding vigorously, his plush-clad
buttocks tensing and flexing.  She scrabbled with the buttons of her
dress and lifted free her nipple-hard breasts.  Muttering in French,
she caressed herself with wide-spread fingers and pummelling hands.

Kitty chewed her lower lip.  Her sex was swollen and wet, throbbingly
hot.  Inching back her petticoat, she opened the split crotch of her
drawers and eased two fingers into her juicy warm orifice.  Slowly at
first, then with an urgency to match Ellis's, she pistoned back and
forth, fighting desperately against the impulse to gasp.

The sight of the impatient, grinding lovers urged on her lust.  She
fretted the nub of her clitoris and deftly brought herself to a small
but satisfactory climax.  As she peaked, she allowed herself a soft
whimper, safe in the knowledge that the rising clamour of Pascale's
passion would drown it.

Oh, how she envied that woman.  Ellis, with his slicked-back hair and
fancy clothes, wasn't exactly her cup of tea.

But he'd got a fine thrust on him and a lovely looking prick, and those
things mattered.  It wasn't fair.  For Kitty, the Longleigh town house
was as good as a nunnery.

She scowled as Pascale, with a thin reedy whine, spent her pleasure.

Ellis thundered on then, moments later, snatched himself away.  His
creamy seed spurted to the ground in diminishing arcs.  He smiled and
with a buckled shoe rubbed the viscid white puddle into the carpet.

Kitty clenched her fists.  How dare he, the grease- haired dandy?

Didn't he realise that some poor skivvy had to take care of this
place?

She'd make damn sure she took some hot suds to that patch later on.  He
wasn't going to leave his mark like that, not in Miss Clarissa's
bedroom.

Pascale slid down the door and sat, her legs wide, her knees bent.

"Ah, Sebastian, it is so good you are here at last," she breathed.

"For those many days when you did not come, I missed you terribly.  It
was an agony to me."

Kitty strained to listen.  So these two had known each other before
they arrived.  Well, they'd certainly kept that one quiet, the sly old
devils.

"God, I hated it too," returned Ellis.

"But, as I said, blame his lordship.  He was the one who detained
me."

"Hmmm," said Pascale.

"Then your agony, ah, it was nothing compared with mine."

"Console yourself," replied Ellis, buttoning his breeches and smoothing
back his dark oiled hair.

"My agony's about to get much worse in this place."

"Ah, oui, mon pauvre petit.  This Hester is no beauty," said Pascale,
pushing her breasts back into her corset.

"Do you think it will be possible?  Because, if you cannot keep her
diverted, my task will be so very difficult.  I cannot do it if she is
watching all the time."

"I'll make it possible, my love," he said, grinning.

"Anyway, I suspect that, deep down, the old spinster has the makings of
a whore.  Once I've fucked away the cobwebs there'll be no stopping
her, more's the pity.  Tell me about yours.  Will she make a suitable
wife?"

Tough," scoffed Pascale.

"Clarissa has much distance to travel.  She is too stubborn, too too
independent.  She will need to be broken first.  But... Her mouth
turned down and she shrugged heavily.

"It can be done.  I think the girl, she is like this Hester.  She has
the makings of a whore."

Ellis grinned and reached out his hand.

"Then perhaps Alicia's money will be the easiest we've ever earned."

Pascale clasped his hand and allowed herself to be pulled to her
feet.

"I doubt that," she said, buttoning her gown to the neck.

"Very much, I doubt that."

Kitty remained in the wardrobe long after they'd gone.  She wanted to
follow them to see what they did next but she didn't quite have the
pluck.  It didn't make sense at all.  The new footman was after bedding
Aunt Hester?  What to goodness for?  And the French bit talking about
Miss Clarissa in that way.  They were trouble those two, that was for
sure.

Kitty was going to keep a sharp eye on them.  And, right now, she was
going to give the carpet a dam good soaping.

Another ball, and another evening of wasted emotion.  But at least the
host had the decency to keep the bedrooms unlocked.  Misspent lust was
a welcome addition to the grim pleasures Gabriel sought.

He slammed into the woman beneath him, driving with a passion that was
not for her.  Pulsing wet flesh massaged his cock, and the legs hooked
to his back were tight and strong.  Constance Yates, groaning and
squealing, bucked eagerly to meet his thrusts.  Gabriel kept his eyes
resolutely shut.  Whenever he opened them he saw a face frantic with
excitement, and eyes that were light brown.  He wanted other eyes, eyes
that were soulful, eyes that were bluer and more precious than lapis
lazuli.  But Clarissa could not be his.

Constance reached her orgasm with a long screech.  Her vagina
contracted hungrily but it was not enough to milk the pleasure from
him.  Gabriel powered into her rich slippery depths, ramming himself
high.  Angry resentment fuelled his search for release, spurring him on
to rough urgency.  The woman whimpered.  Whether it was in pleasure or
protest, Gabriel did not know.  Nor did he care.  The woman had come to
him full of greedy lust and he was determined to claim satisfaction,
just as she had claimed hers.

"Grip me harder," he hissed, and Constance clamped her sex muscles to
him.  The tightness drew him closer to his peak.  He thrust with bitter
determination, his arse lunging furiously, until his hot seed raced
along his shaft.  He cursed hoarsely, taking relief rather than
pleasure from the moment.

Within seconds, he pulled out of her and flung himself on to his
back.

He was grateful that Constance never bothered with sweet talk or made
any attempt to pet.  She was, at least, honest in her desires.

She wanted Gabriel for his prick, nothing more, and that was fine by
him.

"You exhaust me," she said.

"I'm thirsty.  I need a drink."

"Then go and get one," muttered Gabriel.

"You go for me," she wheedled.

"It'll take me an eternity to get dressed.  Go on, Gabriel.  Be a
treasure.  Pop down for a glass of champagne."

Gabriel grunted dismissively.  Clarissa was somewhere downstairs, and
tonight he didn't know if he could trust himself.  His plan to make her
hate him was proving difficult to follow.  The logic of it worked
against itself.  Whenever he knew Clarissa would be attending a
function, Gabriel made sure he was also there, just so he could spurn
her.  But the more he saw her, the more he wanted her, and the harder
it was to be cold.  Yet he had to do it, for both their sakes.

Gabriel had no desire to make an enemy of Lord Marldon, but it was not
fear which kept him from Clarissa.  He suspected he could love her, and
her him.  The pain of parting, weeks or maybe months from now, would be
unbearable.  It was easier to stop things before they started.  And,
with Clarissa's feelings uppermost in his mind, Gabriel thought the
kindest way to do that was not with open explanations but with
cruelty.

"Champagne," he repeated, jerking on his shirt.

"I shall return with two glasses.  But only if you promise me a dance
later."

Constance gave a short bray of laughter.

"A dance?"  she exclaimed, affectedly fluffing at her ash-blonde
curls.

"Gracious me, I didn't realise you cared."

"Oh, I do," said Gabriel, thinking of Clarissa.

"I do."

Clarissa thought she had hardened her heart to Gabriel.  Every time
she'd seen him flaunting his latest conquest, every time he'd cut her
dead with his eyes, her protective shell had grown stronger.  She dwelt
on his rejection of her and did not avert her eyes when he paraded and
flirted with the other woman.  It was a painful process, like
cauterising a wound.  Better that, she thought, than have a weeping
sore.

But now she craved for a word, a look, a touch.  Earlier, she'd caught
him observing her and his eyes had held such tender yearning that she
could no longer believe he didn't care.  In that brief moment all her
de fences had crumbled.

She hovered by the doorway of the music salon, within view of the broad
staircase.  Men, elegant and gloved, milled about, sipping wine and
chatting.  But none of them was Gabriel.  He had disappeared up the
stairs some time since, the blonde on his arm a blonde, thought
Clarissa, which had not been achieved without a frisette or two and a
good deal of gold powder.  It had hurt her deeply to see them ascend,
laughing and touching just a little too much.  No doubt they were
seeking out one of the many bedrooms rumoured to be on offer.  Clarissa
wished she could be as brazen and daring.  Perhaps then Gabriel would
look upon her more favourably.  Or, better still, she would not ache so
profoundly for him.  She would be a woman who pursued pleasures with
casual lightness and did not suffer from the heart's demands.

She spotted him and her stomach leapt excitedly.  He was at the head of
the crowded stairs, tall and slender, hair curling at his shoulders so
different from all the others.

Clarissa stepped back and, screened by people, she watched him make his
way down, relieved to see he was now alone.  His eyes swooped over
faces, acknowledging some with a nod and a tight-lipped smile.  As he
neared the bottom, Clarissa nudged a path towards him.  She was calm
and bold, knowing only that she had to speak with him.  Gabriel's
roaming eyes met with hers, and immediately he looked away.

Clarissa surged forward, ignoring the muttered complaints, and grabbed
at his wrist.

"Why do you treat me so?"  she pleaded in a hushed voice.

Gabriel swung round, vexation twisting his face.  He stared at her with
haughty disapproval before tugging away his arm and moving on.

Clarissa followed him along the corridor and, when the crowds began to
thin out, she clutched his wrist again.

"Why?"  she asked.

"Just tell me why."

Gabriel shook off her hand.  There was a dishevelled air about him,
more so than usual.  His clothes were not as crisp as they had been
earlier, and his chestnut curls were a little tangled.  Clarissa felt a
hot stab of jealousy, and hoped she might delay his return to the
blonde.

"I find it better not to court women when they're about to be wed," he
replied stiffly.

"The intrigue invariably proves quite tiresome.  With you, it would be
more tiresome than most."

Tiease, Gabriel," she began, unsure of what to say.  Surely she did not
deserve such opprobrium for withholding the fact of her marriage.

Yet, what could she ask of him?  He was perfectly correct.  Within
three months she would be wed.

"Can't we at least be civil?"  she asked weakly.

"Civil?"  he scoffed.

"You want civility?  Oh, charming little party, isn't it.  Miss
Longleigh?  Are you enjoying your London debut?  I do hope so.  When
are the banns being read?  I would dearly like to attend.  Have you
found yourself a gallant for the evening?  You'll want to keep up with
the kissing practice if you're to satisfy your "Stop it!  Stop it!"

she shouted, emotion stinging her eyes.

"And perhaps there's more you should practise," he continued over her
protests, his tone increasingly caustic.

"Have you found anyone willing to probe beneath your petticoats.  Miss
Longleigh?  You ought to loosen up before you tie the knot.  You hardly
seem a ready piece to be sharing a bed with that... that heartless old
roue."

"No," she whispered, shaking her head.

"No.  Lord Maridon is a worthy man.  My father has chosen him."  A tear
rolled down her cheek and she gulped a stifled sob.

The angry lines disappeared from Gabriel's brow and the scornful twist
to his mouth vanished.  He looked at her softly and she thought she
discerned a glint of moisture in his caramel eyes.

"You're too trusting, little one," he said in a low, sympathetic
voice.

"Far too trusting."  He stroked away her tear with a gentle caress,
watching her with compassion and desire.  His gaze flickered longingly
over her face and he bent towards her, his lips parted in readiness for
a kiss.

Clarissa's mouth lifted; her heart drummed wildly.  This was what she
wanted.  She didn't care who saw.  But Gabriel drew back.  He smiled, a
nasty narrow smile.  His eyes burned.

"Grow up, Clarissa," he spat, with a lashing venom.

"You'll need to."

Chapter Five

Zt was Hyde Park, an hour or so after noon.  The season was well under
way, the weather was glorious, and it appeared all of London was out to
see and be seen.

On the far banks of the Serpentine, the Bayswater crowds lazed under
trees or took skiffs out on to the weedy waters.  London's fashionable,
however, stayed clear of that area.  Their gleaming horses and
lacquered carriages jangled around the gravel drives.  On lawns and
walkways, ladies in pastel silks strolled, twirling their parasols and
smiling serenely as flurries of top hats greeted them.

Clarissa, in a black habit cut like a glove, cantered along the dusty
tanbark of Rotten Row.  Her face was flushed and radiant, but her heart
was lead.

Lucy had counselled her to ignore Gabriel's taunts.  Lord Marldon was
not the man he'd said, of course he wasn't.  Pah, Gabriel was a
twenty-six-year-old bachelor and probably jealous.  And he was an
artist, a typical artist fickle, moody, selfish and impossibly
passionate.  In short, he was perfectly hopeless.  She must forget him
and find herself another beau.

But Clarissa could not forget him and she did not want another beau.

At the very least, she wanted an explanation At the most, she wanted
what?  Would half a summer of secret meetings and stolen caresses be
enough?  She doubted it, but it was the best she might hope for.

As she rode along the burnt-orange strip, the young swells lounging
elegantly over the railings followed her with approving eyes.

Clarissa did not care for them; she hated their attentions.

"Whoa there.  Brandy," she said, reining in her hack as she approached
Hyde Park Corner.  There faultlessly tailored horsewomen gathered.

They chatted in little groups or wheeled around their horses for
another turn.

She stroked the chestnut mare's sleek neck and spotted Lucy, her golden
ringlets spilling out beneath the veil of her dainty tricorn.

Trotting over, Clarissa smiled politely at the faces that had become
familiar in recent weeks.

"There's a gentleman in a red carriage," she said, drawing up her horse
near to Lucy's.

"At the far end.  His footman has requested that we speak with him.

Please come.  He mentioned your name."

"Did you notice the crest?"  asked Lucy suspiciously.

"I'm afraid not.  I wasn't close enough."

Lucy touched her crop to the gelding's flank and Clarissa followed
suit.  Hooves softly thudding, they cantered a mile or so until they
reached a part of the row where the bordering trees thinned out.  In
the shade of an oak stood a pair of dappled greys harnessed to a
deep-claret barouche.  Its small hood, unusually drawn for such fine
weather, cast darkness over the occupant.  On the box a coachman in a
gold-banded top hat, his whip angled high, stared blankly at their
approach.

Lucy reined in alongside the carriage.  From the gloom of the seat, a
man leant forward and propped an arm on the carriage door.  A diamond
flashed on his hand.  It was Lucy's secret lover, the man in the
library.

Clarissa's head span with guilty recollection and her pulse surged to a
rapid beat.  The man surveyed Lucywith a cool interest and smiled
knowingly.  Remembered arousal coursed through Clarissa's body arousal
which, though it warmed her loins, chilled her blood and froze her
heart.

Lucy lowered an extended hand.

"Lord Marldon," she said in a hostile voice.

Clarissa felt the colour drain from her face, leaving her cheeks cold
and ashen.  Her stomach clenched on itself and swirled with a heavy
sickness.  Her senses reeled.  This could not be her husband.  It was
impossible.

"Won't you introduce us?"  said the man, disdainfully pointing his chin
towards Clarissa.

"She has the makings of an excellent horsewoman.  Sits too low
though."

His eyes were beads of jet, watching her from hooded lids.  His gaze
was coolly assessing, predatory.  Clarissa felt that stare as fingers
of ether, slithering between her silks and her skin.  Though her mind
urged her to look away, she could not.

Lucy pulled her horse back a couple of steps, obliging Clarissa to move
closer.  She recalled now Alicia's single word: dark.  And yes, in
appearance he was.  But the darkness went beyond that.  It was in his
eyes as a malevolent glint and on his Ups as a cold, cruel smile.

And it was doubtless the architect of the drawn cynicism which etched
his face.

Gabriel had spoken the truth.

She held out her hand, hoping her black kid gloves would conceal the
tremors within.

"Alexander van Ghent, the Earl of Marldon," said Lucy stiffly.

"Allow me to present Miss Annabel Stanton."

Clarissa felt faint with relief.  For the moment she was safe, her
identity unknown.  She was not the woman he would take as his bride.

Sooner or later he would discover who she was.  But for now that did
not matter.

Lord Marldon smiled thinly and took her tentatively proffered hand.

He looked up at her while his lips lingered on her fingertips.

Clarissa cast her eyes to the ground and heard her own soft voice
saying, "Delighted to make your acquaintance, my lord."

Then suddenly, somehow, the buttons on the underside of her glove were
undone.  A sharp breath caught in her throat and she felt the cool
lightness of his touch.  The shock of the intrusion paralysed her, and
her hand would not move from his.  It stayed there, allowing him to
stroke ticklish rotations on the thin, veined skin of her wrist.

She swallowed hard.  As he rubbed gently, a growing sense of doom crept
upon her, a stealthy realisation that this man would be, not her
husband, but her master and tormentor.  While the thought filled her
with dread, an || unfathomable desire, deep and fierce, twisted like a
knife within her.

She moved to snatch away her hand but the earl was quick.  His grip
tightened, his mouth slid down, and his teeth closed around the very
tip of her gloved middle finger.  He nipped once then released her.

Clarissa clutched her hand protectively to her body, gazing at him in
stunned disbelief.

Lord Marldon leant back and laughed.

"Delighted to meet you.  Miss ...?"  Beneath his raised, questioning
brows, his dark eyes mocked her.

"Stanton," interjected Lucy.

"Miss Annabel Stanton.  Now, if you'll excuse us, my lord, we have a
pressing engagement."  She touched her whip to her horse and wheeled it
away from the carriage.

"Such a pity," said Marldon, with the merest lift of his hat.

"I do hope we meet again.  Miss ... Stanton."  He tapped his cane on
the carriage floor.  The coachman cracked his reins and the barouche
rolled away, its red wheels sending up tiny clouds of dust.

Clarissa was motionless.  She saw her future closing in like a box.

She felt dreadfully afraid, and amidst that fear was a deep seam of
hurt.  She had been betrayed by her father, by Lucy, by all those who
had withheld their knowledge of Lord Marldon.

Lucy trotted over to her.

"Sorry," she said with a light apologetic shrug.

"Nobody thought it fair to warn you."

Clarissa looked away, her eyes brimming with tears.  Nobody, she
thought bitterly, except Gabriel.

Clarissa rapped the brass knocker with furious impatience.  She'd left
her horse in the mews and, without bothering to change, had hurried
directly to Gabriel's address.  Everything was clear to her now.  At
least she hoped it was; otherwise she was about to make a terrible fool
of herself.

The door opened and the valet informed her that Mr.  Ardenzi was, alas,
not at home to visitors.  Clarissa had no inclination to bargain with
him, nor to leave her card.  She edged briskly past and, from the hall,
shouted out Gabriel's name.  The valet swore under his breath and
closed the door.

Gabriel, looking bewildered and annoyed, appeared at the top of the
stairs.  His loose white shirt was collar- less, open at the neck, and
his glossy brown hair fell in ragged curls about his shoulders.  A tide
of desire swelled within Clarissa and her heart spurred her on.

She flew to him.

"I know," she gasped, throwing her arms about him.

"I understand."

She shook Gabriel's stiff, unyielding body.

"It's not that I'm to marry.  It's that I'm to marry him, isn't it?

Isn't it?"

In a rambling explanation, she told him everything, from other people's
reticence to the scenes she'd witnessed at the ball.  As she spoke,
Gabriel's strong arms encircled her.  He held her tightly, nuzzling
into her neck, murmuring solace, regrets and passions in her ear.

Clarissa's mouth, half-speaking, half-kissing, fluttered over his chest
and throat.  She tasted the saltiness of his warm, silken skin and
smelt the closeness of his masculinity.  When she fell silent her body
was trembling.

"I've never known a woman so honest," said Gabriel softly.  He pressed
his lips to her brow.

"You've broken all the rules, Clarissa.  Don't you know you're supposed
to lure me into your arms by smiling coyly and seeming unobtainable?"

"We have not time for that," she breathed, her lips lifting in search
of a kiss.

His mouth descended on hers and their tongues snaked together in
questing hunger.  Clarissa's hands roved over his back, her fingers
thrilling to the heat of him beneath fine cotton.  She felt the tension
in his strong, lithe body and quivers of sharp, sweet lust tumbled
through her.  She wanted him.  She didn't care about the future.

"Gabriel," she said shyly.

"Will you ... will you teach me things?"

There was a flicker of consternation in his amber- brown eyes.

"No," he said firmly.

"I will not teach you things.  I want to be your lover, Clarissa, not
your mentor.  But I will show you things.  That is if you wish me
to."

Clarissa looked at him hesitantly.  She did not know how strong was the
promise that tied her to Lord Marldon.  Once, she would not have
believed her hand could be offered to a man such as he.  But now she
saw things differently.  Her father had acted with blatant disregard
for her feelings.  Could he have made a commitment from which she could
not escape?

"Your maidenhead will be safe," said Gabriel, noting her reluctance.

"God forbid that you should ever marry Marldon, but we would do well to
tread cautiously until the matter is resolved."  He held out his hand
to her.

"Come.  Once I told you not to be so trusting.  Now I urge you to
trust."

Nervous, excited, her fingers hooked in his, Clarissa followed Gabriel
up to the second floor.  She was not sure if she could trust him to
keep her honour; she knew she could not trust herself.  But she would
take the risk.

Gabriel showed her into a room of bottle-green walls, its oak floor
covered with a square of Turkish carpet.  The brass bed seemed to
dominate the space, not because it was big or unusual, but because it
was a bed.  Clarissa's heart would not calm.

He stood before her, clasping both her hands.  He gazed down with a
hungry intensity.

"So many times I've dreamt of you," he whispered.

"I've dreamt of your flesh against mine, of my lips on your skin.

I've dreamt of your face, trying to picture how you would look when I
make you come.  But I never imagined it like this.  I never once dreamt
that you would offer yourself so, that you would ask me to give you
pleasure."

"Nor I," murmured Clarissa.

"It was ... It is bold of me.  Though I fear my courage fails me
now."

Gabriel took her in a soothing embrace and kissed her for a long,
tender time.  Then he passed his fingertips over her face.

"Don't let modesty be a barrier between us," he said.

"I will not do anything you do not wish me to.  You have my word on
that."  He toyed with the white ruffles at her neck.

"But I scarce know what I want," she replied in a timorous voice.

"All I know is ... is I want you."

Gabriel unpinned her hat and set it down.

"That could be difficult when you are dressed for riding," he smiled,
brushing back errant strands of hair.

Then his slim, elegant fingers began working down the buttons of her
pelisse.

He lingered over undressing her.  With every discarded layer, he rained
soft kisses over the newly bared skin and murmured his delight.  He
drew swirls over her arms, tickling the smooth white underside with the
lightest of touches.  His tongue lapped at the hollow of her throat and
licked along the lines of her collarbone.  Cloths of black and white
whispered to the ground.

Clarissa stood trembling.  His slow movements were reassuring,
exciting.  His gentleness sensitised her flesh and her nerves leapt
beneath each trailing caress, each moist imprint of his lips.

Gabriel knelt before her, murmuring promises and words of desire.  He
stroked her silk-stockinged legs, moving cleanly upwards from her
finely boned ankles to the slender line of her calves.  The
deep-frilled hem of her chemise lifted and he reached beneath to untie
her ribboned garters.  His fingers strayed to the naked flesh above and
he drifted languid circles there, teasing with an encroaching
proximity.

She shivered to feel him so close.  Moisture warmed the cleft of her
sex, filling her out, making her lips pout need fully But he did not
touch; nor did he look.  Instead he wrinkled down her stockings,
divesting her of everything save for her flimsy, laced shift.  Then he
guided her to the bed and bid her wait for him.  She was grateful.

She did not want to be fully disrobed before he was.

Eager, yet a little afraid, she knelt there while he stripped off his
clothes.  Every revelation of his body intensified her longing.  As he
moved, his muscles rippled beneath honey-dark skin.  A streak of
sparse, deep- brown hair ran from his navel to merge with the cluster
of thick curls at his groin.  His cock jutted forth, sturdy and
vital.

A dart of lust pierced her.  Abandoning modesty, she gazed at the
column of flesh.  The skin was tightened to a porcelain sheen and
beneath was a tracery of blue veins, some thin and delicate, some
strong and pulsing.  The or bed crown glistened with the purple-red
rawness of a peeled plum, and the whole thing was so unashamedly male
arrogant almost in its bold, upright thrust.  She found the sight
fiercely exquisite.

The bed creaked as Gabriel moved to kneel opposite her.  Coaxing her to
raise her arms, he lifted her chemise over her head.  He drew a sharp
breath.  His eyes, drowsy with lust, wandered over her pale, graceful
contours and rested on the damask-rose tips of her bosom.

"God, but you're heavenly," he said, his voice catching huskily.  Then
his hands followed the tracks of his gaze.  He swept meandering, easy
movements over her body, tracing the dip of her waist and the swell of
her hips.  He palmed her high, satin-skinned breasts and skimmed her
nipples.  They sprang to erection, tingling.

Clarissa moaned lightly.  Her stiffened peaks were cones of sensation,
spilling shards of pleasure into her glowing sex.  A heavy, sweet
yearning coiled inside her and somewhere, buried within the growing
wetness of her folds, a pulse beat hungrily.

With a timid gesture she reached out to him.  His body was firm and his
skin was waxy-smooth, so smooth that Clarissa's touch could not rest on
it.  Growing in confidence, she mirrored Gabriel's sinuous
explorations.  She snaked her hands over the slab of his chest down to
his flat, ridged abdomen.  She stroked the angularity of his lean hips
and the tautness of his flanks and buttocks.  Then a spark of daring
impelled her to touch his engorged penis.  She rubbed lightly and it
bobbed in searching little jerks.

Gabriel pushed his pelvis towards her.

"Hold me," he breathed.

Clarissa curled her fingers around the warm shaft and nudged her fist
up and down.  The feel of marble- hardness under skin, velvet skin
which moved when she did, delighted her.  She glided along his
stiffness, relishing the straining potency.  Then she brought her other
hand to cup the plushy weight of his balls.  They tightened and drew up
hungrily.  Gabriel hissed and pulled back.

"When I refused to be your tutor," he said, "I failed to realise you
had no need of one.  Let me take you to ecstasy, Clarissa.  But please,
just for now, do not touch me so."

His head dipped to her taut, full breasts and his hand eased into the
humid juncture of her thighs.  Simultaneously, his lips closed about
one nipple and a finger pressed into the deepest crease of her vulva.

Clarissa gasped at the sudden ferocity of the double pleasures.  On her
rigid pink crests, his tongue lashed and his teeth grazed lightly;

between her legs, the length of his finger moved along her slippery
crevice.

Clarissa was an hourglass of desire.  She whimpered faintly, barely
able to hold herself upright.  He circled at the opening to her vagina,
stirring just within its fleshy red throat, then drew back to tease the
fierce little knot of her clitoris.  Her arousal flared to greater
heights, making her weak with hot, rushing pleasure.

"Lie back," he whispered, leaning his free hand to her shoulder.

Clarissa sank supine on to the bed, her knees raised and parted for
him.  Gabriel lowered himself over her, his mouth moving and sucking on
her neck, nibbling at her earlobe.  She pressed tremulously upwards,
and the touch of their bodies, warm and damp in the afternoon heat,
suffused her with longing.  Their limbs entwined before Gabriel drew
back.  Poised above her, he moved down her flesh in kisses.

He laid his hands to her thighs, spreading her still wider, and gazed
upon the crinkled petals of her sex.  Clarissa felt herself opening to
him, like a rosebud in sunshine.  Her back arched and she lifted her
loins, hungry for more tangible attentions.  Gabriel shifted and
dropped within the space of her legs.

His breath was warm there, then his tongue, hot and wet, swept up the
valley of her labia to press on her clitoris.  She uttered gentle moans
of bliss as he rocked licking rotations about the tiny throbbing
bump.

His mouth opened over the length of her split lips and pulsed rich
suckling kisses.  His saliva mingled with her seeping juices.  It
streamed through her tender grooves, bathing her folds in sliding heat
until she lost all sense of her body there.  She felt only a union that
was frictionless, almost fleshless.  And she felt too the feverish rise
of her impending orgasm.

Her hands clutched at the counterpane and her head rolled from side to
side.  Gabriel brought a finger to his liquid caress and slowly slipped
it into her snug, succu86 lent passage.  He thrust gently back and
forth, stroking her inner walls, and she writhed against him.  It
seemed like for ever that he kept her there, hovering on the shivering
brink of ecstasy.  The prolonged intensity was almost more than she
could endure.  Then his mouth closed over her clitoris, and with a
quick eager tongue he pushed her beyond the edge.

Clarissa tangled her fingers in his hair, crying out as she came.

Tremors soared and clutched, before crashing into a flood of delirious
pleasure.  She clasped his head to her loins, her body racked by
convulsions.  When the shuddering violence melted to a gentler throb,
she released her hold on him and fell limply into the softness of the
bed.

She lay there languishing in a dazed afterglow, her shallow breath
gradually calming.  Gabriel crawled up the bed and leant over her.  His
chin and parted lips were glazed with her secretions and his face had
paled.  His eyes spoke of lust, but more than that, of pain.  He
trailed a soothing hand over her creamy-white breasts and shook his
head.

"Dear God," he breathed, gazing at her.

"You've surpassed my every dream, Clarissa.  And now I fear you'll
leave me with nightmares.  How will I ever keep my promise?"

Clarissa reached out to slide lazy hands over his shoulders.

"Then maybe you shouldn't," she ventured.

"No," he said quietly.

"A woman of your standing needs her honour intact.  Whether you marry
Marldon or some other, the loss of your virginity would ruin you."

Despondency darkened her mood.  She wished her father would hurry back
from the Continent.  She could tell him she disapproved of his choice,
that she cared for another.  Her face brightened with hope.

"But, maybe we could' Gabriel silenced her with a kiss.  She tasted
herself on his lips musky and salty with a hint of sweetness.

"Don't even think it he said.

"I'm a humble painter and you're an heiress."  He lay beside her, his
head propped on one elbow, and smiled playfully.

"Your fortune would be most welcome to me, of course.  But, alas, there
are others with more to offer for it than

I."

Clarissa sighed heavily.  She tried to convince herself that her father
would understand, but in her heart of hearts she knew he would not.

"Then what do we have?"  she asked.

"We have this," he murmured, drifting a finger down her belly.

"We have the moment.  And we shall have more moments, because that's
all life is.  Moment after moment.  But we shall seize them, Clarissa,
use each one as if it were our last.  We shall make them into
everything."

He smiled roguishly.

"And we also have an erection, my angel, desperate for your touch."  He
guided her hand to his groin.

"Quid pro quo7' Clarissa took his phallus in a gentle clasp.

"Quid pro quo," she agreed softly.

Madame Jane's did not open until eight o'clock.  It was late afternoon
and a group of whores were putting their final touches to some new
performance.

They were in one of the salons, deep within the bowels of the
building.

The room had few windows and those that existed were screened with
heavy green drapes, ruched and tasselled with gold.

Lavish gilding and scrollwork was in abundance.  It edged panels on the
cream walls, swirled thickly around long mirrors, and twisted the lines
of every chair and couch.  Louis Quinze:

vulgar but very popular.

A gallery lined with private booths ran along two sides of the room.

Lord Marldon, in his office at one of the furthermost corners, stood at
the small window, looking down on the rehearsal.  The show was called,
apparently, A Tale of Love in which Venus rises from the Sea and meets
the Nymphs.

"Venus', swathed in flimsy lengths of blue and green, stood within the
curve of a papier-mache shell, affecting a pose.  One hip was thrust
out, one hand was laid to her breast, and her languishing gaze was set
low.  Her wheat-coloured hair streamed down her back to her waist.

Fluttering about her were the 'nymphs';

chiffon of brown and yellow hues wafted as they moved.  A man in a
frock coat sat watching sternly, his arm resting on a table.  Another
was seated before the pianoforte, his back to the tableau vivant,
playing a lugubrious air by Liszt.

Slender fingers reached out to Venus and the fabric began falling away,
a wisp of sapphire, a wisp of jade.  The woman was majestic,
motionless, as the veils slipped from her.  Her nudity emerged
gradually, strong sensuous curves and flawlessly pale skin.  When she
was naked, she stepped out of the cloths frothing at her feet and moved
forward.  Venus had risen and she was shaved.

Her pubis was a bare swell divided by a carmine split, and the nipples
of her full, handsome breasts were wantonly rouged.  The nymphs,
half-crouched, slid a multitude of hands up and down her gleaming white
thighs.  Venus threw back her head and began gently rotating her
hips.

She swept a caress up over the small pout of her belly then circled
fingers around the globes of her bosom.  She fondled the dark crimson
tips, teasing them to puckered crests.

Below, a hand edged up towards the pendulous lips of her vulva.  Venus
widened her stance, allowing fingers to move within the plump flesh.

She shivered and ground her loins with rising urgency.  Her mouth
parted and her face slackened with arousal that was clearly not
assumed.  The pleasuring nymph crammed her fingers into the cavern of
the woman's vagina.  With a jerking arm she thrust upwards, again and
again.  The pianist crashed dramatic low notes and Venus writhed, her
breasts lifting with deep, heaving sighs.

"What price are we selling Moselle?"  asked Marldon without turning.

"Twelve shillings a bottle," came Madame Jane's quick reply.

Beneath, Venus was running delicately about the room, stretched like a
cross with a nymph supporting each arm.  They moved with light-footed
grace, whisking the naked woman before an imaginary audience.  Ripples
of diaphanous chiffon trailed after them, and the music fluttered,
shrill and fast.

"And champagne?"  he enquired.

"The same, my lord."

Venus was brought to a halt before the chair occupied by the watching
man.  She swayed provocatively before him and planted one foot on to
the table.  Her sex was open to the man's gaze.  She fondled her
breasts in a licentious display before her hand drifted down to her
parted thighs.  She slithered two fingers along the glistening scarlet
furrow then dipped them into her gaping passage.  She drove into
herself, her speed increasing.  Her pumping fingers shimmered with her
secretions and she panted wildly.

"Put it up to fifteen," said Marldon, striding over to his desk.

"Profits are down."

Madame Jane huffed and her plump cheeks flushed with indignation.

"They'll never buy it," she protested.

"It's expensive enough as it stands."

Marldon threw her a sharp glance and at once she acquiesced.  He drew
his leather armchair up to the table and ran a meditative eye over the
open ledger.  He flicked back the lid of a silver box and took out a
slim cigar, clipped it and set it to his lips.

"Well?"  said Jane with undisguised testiness.

"What do you think of our new show?"

Marldon lit a match to his cigar.  The tip glowed red as he inhaled.

"Medici will be turning in his grave," he said, releasing a cloud of
smoke.

"Bah," she snapped.

"One day they will perform something and you will declare it superb."

He turned a page of the ledger.  That I very much doubt," he said, idly
scanning the figures.

"Leave us now, Jane.  And close the curtains."

"Non," said Pascale, stepping from the gloom.

"My lord, I cannot stay long.  It is impossible.  I am on an errand to
buy ribbons.  I will be missed."

Marldon looked at her contemptuously.

"With the curtains open," he began, "I can see the chandelier stern.

It is annoying me.  Do not flatter yourself.  Miss Rieux.  I tired of
your charms long since.  You grunt too much."

Pascale scowled at him as Jane set a taper to the gas brackets, drew
the curtains and left.

"Well?"  said Marldon, resting his cigar in an onyx ashtray and leaning
back in his chair.

"I'm waiting."  A thin plume of smoke wreathed upwards into the
dimness.

Pascale moved to stand before the desk, her hands clasped at her
waist.

"Miss Longleigh is in love, my lord," she declared.

"I heard her say it to the maid.  And it is as I suspected with the
artist."  She looked at him, smirking with pride.

Lord Marldon leant forward and steepled two fingers below his chin.  A
sweep of hair fell across his brow.  In the haze of smoky gaslight it
hung there, a raven's wing, shimmering blue-black.  His dark eyes
narrowed with malicious intent and a calculating smile played on his
lips.

"So the girl's in love, is she?"  he said.

"How quaint."

He fell into a contemplative silence.  His head nodded gently and his
fingers rubbed over the strong bump of his throat.  Pascale, save for a
slight wringing of her hands, stood perfectly still.

"And tonight?"  he asked, reaching for his cigar.

"Where does she go?"

"Tonight, my lord, she will go dancing at Cremorne."

"Delightful," said Marldon.

"I think I shall take my bride early."

* * It was a velvet-black night but Cremorne Pleasure Gardens were
ablaze with light.

It was as if the stars had tumbled from the heavens to nestle in the
scattered trees.  The open-air dance floor, encircled with ornate
ironwork arches, was as elegant as a birdcage.  And those who danced
there, thought Gabriel, were exotic birds.  Trapped.

He muttered something to his companions about trying his luck in the
shooting galleries and sloped away.  They'd detained him too long and
Clarissa would be growing impatient.  Discretion was not easy but it
was vital.  Society gossip spread like wildfire, and when Lord Marldon
was your adversary it was folly to take too many risks.  But, away from
the crowds, under the canopy of darkness, they could be alone
together.

Gabriel wound his way past candlelit supper booths, marquees,
marionette theatres and freak shows.  Above the noise of orchestras, of
soft applause, of the music of a hurdy-gurdy, and laughter, voices
called out: "Step this way!  Step this way!"

"Sherry Cobblers at sixpence!"

"Buy my sweet cherries!"

Further beyond, away from the hubbub, were the more sedate areas of
ferneries and groves.  The arbours and leafy avenues would be in deep
shadow and there they could embrace in the thick protection of the
trees and the night.  Gabriel quickened his step.

It was costing him all his willpower to keep Clarissa's honour.  Her
beauty, and the passion with which she took her pleasures, aroused him
beyond belief.  They'd shared only a few intimate moments, but the last
time he'd allowed his prick to hover, nudging, at the entrance to her
sweet, hot vagina.  She'd pleaded with him to take her.  And, so
easily, he could have done.  It would have been a split second's
thought, just one deep thrust.  But, somehow, he'd restrained
himself.

Clarissa could relieve him in other ways.  Sometimes she used
pleasuring hands; at other times her wet, mobile mouth.  Her tongue
would flutter delicately about his shaft and her firm sucking lips
would drive him to blissful heights.  It was not the ultimate
fulfilment they both craved, but for now it had to suffice.  They must
wait until her father returned and then, perhaps, maybe, there was the
remotest of possibilities that their union would be sanctified.

Gabriel was far less hopeful than Clarissa but he would not give her
up.  If necessary they could flee the country together and live in
poverty.

Quick breaths and light footsteps hurried towards him.  An urgent hand
grabbed his wrist and he swung around.

"What have you done to Clarissa?"  demanded Lucy.

Gabriel shook himself free and stared at her in confused aggravation.

"I've done nothing to Clarissa.  What on earth do you mean?  Has
something happened?  Christ, is she hurt?"

Lucy glared at him.

"No, you fool.  But I have suspicions which make me uncomfortable. I've
seen the way you two look at each other.  I asked you to seduce her a
little, prepare her for Marldon, and I fear you have taken things
further.  I sincerely hope the pair of you are not falling in love.

Things could get awfully complicated.  And I, for one, would not wish
to endure the wrath of Lord Marldon."

"In love?"  scoffed Gabriel.

"Don't be ridiculous, Lucy.  Since when have I been a man to fall in
love?"

"You do it all the time, Gabriel," she said waspishly.

"You fall in love with a melody, a flower, with ... with raindrops in a
spider's web.  And then you fall out of love.  Where is she?  Do you
have a tryst in the avenues?"

"She's gone home," he said, thinking quickly.

"She was tired."  Lucy was the last person in the world he wanted to
discover the truth.  She didn't exactly gossip: she simply shared
secrets.  As did many other people.  And he did not relish the idea of
his secret being shared with the Earl of Marldon.

Lucy eyed him distrustfully.

"Then where are you going Why, it looked to me as if you were making
for the trees."

"And yourself?"  he teased.

"Out here all alone, Lucy?  There must surely be someone awaiting
you.

Why else would you leave the delights of the dance floor?"

Lucy smiled brightly and her chin tilted in defiant pride.

"Lieutenant Gresham," she said.

"He's quite a gentleman, actually."

"You have the principles of Messalina," Gabriel replied with
disapproval only half-feigned.

"Still trying to make Sir Julian jealous?"

Lucy pouted.

"Well?  Where are you going if it's not to meet Clarissa?"

"Mrs.  Singleton," he said.

"Excuse my indelicacy, but I'm merely going to take a piss."

Lucy flounced away.  As if taking Clarissa under her wing wasn't
already enough trouble!  She had devoted herself to ensuring the girl
was kept apart from Marldon.  And now it looked as if she might have to
do the same where Gabriel was concerned.

She drifted across the lawns towards the crowds and found a group of
friends to chatter with a while.  Lieutenant Gresham would have to
wait; she was in no mood for him now.  Gabriel and Clarissa were in
love, she was sure of it, and the whole thing was becoming too much of
a responsibility.

She had utterly debased herself at Octavia's ball, just to prevent
Clarissa from meeting the earl.  Marldon had humiliated and shamed
her.

He had forced her into innumerable acts with the watching men, so
obscene that even Julian had looked disgusted at some points.  And this
was the thanks she got.  If she did not care so much for her cousin and
Alicia she would wipe them clean from her mind and leave Clarissa an
innocent at the mercy of a monster.

"Ah, here comes Sir Julian now," piped up Miss Thorpe.

"Didn't I say he was looking for you?"

Lucy excused herself and went to meet him, wanting his company more
than anyone else's.  The two of them strolled among the flowerbeds:

tranquil parterres and crunching pathways lit softly by gas lanterns.

Julian listened patiently to her grievances.  When she had finished she
felt a great deal better.

"Forget about them," said Sir Julian.

"I can see only one good thing to have come of this affair so far, and
that is that it's made you cross.  And, when you're cross, your breasts
heave and quiver so deliciously."

Lucy paused by a cascade of rocks and ferns, and turned to him with a
seductive smile.

"Why, I don't think you've heard a word of what I've been saying," she
chided.

"Oh, but I have," he replied.  His eyes, made deep blue by the shadows,
twinkled mischievously.  He dropped his gaze and stared deliberately at
the bulging shelf of her bosom.

"I have a remarkable ability to concentrate on two things at once,
Mrs.

Singleton.  However, it was not listening to your complaints which has
made my cock so hard."

Excitement arrowed to Lucy's groin.  She loved it when she aroused him
with the slightest thing.

"Then perhaps a stroll in the avenues would ease the swelling," she
ventured.

"Of that I'm sure," said Julian.

"But I would far rather have you sprawled naked before me, groaning
with abandon.  I fear a few dark bushes would not grant me such a
privilege."

"Then I shall take you home," she cooed.  She felt a pang of regret
that she was wasting an opportunity to pique him with tales of the
lieutenant.  But, she decided, she could always invent something if she
felt so inclined.  Her lust was for Julian now, and Julian alone.

And, besides, she ought to make the most of him while he was in
London.

His ailing wife could summon him at any moment.

"And Clarissa?"  asked Sir Julian, wearily dutiful.

"Oh, she's already left," said Lucy.

"There's no need to wait."

"Delightful," he replied, raising his forearm.

"Then home it is."

"On one condition," breathed Lucy, wrapping her arm around his and
sidling close.

"Which is that on the way there, in the back of the hansom, you will
allow me to suck your prick."

"I shall ask the cabman to drive very slowly," replied Sir Julian.

Clarissa was lost.

"The sixth avenue," Gabriel had said.  But it depended on where you
started counting and what you defined as an avenue.  She'd ventured
part way down a rough track and a broad walkway, but to no avail.  And
she had seen no sign of him either.

"Five minutes," he'd said.  But much more time than that had elapsed.

She looked towards the distant panorama of lights and scanned the
shadowy figures wandering about the trimmed lawns.  There was nobody
familiar moving in this direction.  She would wait a while longer, then
she would go in search of him.  But she would wait further down one of
the avenues.  Loitering on the edge of the trees was doing little for
her dignity.

To the right a gloomy pathway, flanked with bushes and overhung with
leafy branches, faded to a menacing blackness.  Berating herself for
being nervous, she took a few stealthy steps into the darkness.

Underfoot was well-trodden grass with patches of hardened earth.  She
moved cautiously, reluctant to alert any hiding lovers to her
presence.

At the third tree she paused.  She would count to sixty then tiptoe
back to see if Gabriel were approaching.

As she reached twenty-nine a rustle in the foliage startled her.  She
held her breath, listening.  But there was nothing.  It was a bird, or
perhaps a courting couple.  Thirty, thirty-one Clarissa!"  came an
urgent voice.

Her heart lifted.  He was here.  Gabriel was here.

"Where are you?"  she hissed, looking about her and advancing towards
the sound.

"This way he whispered from bushes deeper along the track.

Clarissa giggled and moved swiftly.  So he'd found a place that was
truly secluded.  She halted where she thought the source of his voice
was.

"Gabriel?"  she said in a soft, eager tone.

There was a loud crackling and quick springing footsteps behind her.

Before she could turn, his hand closed over her eyes.  Her pulse
jumped.

"Stop it," she laughed.

"Stop playing games."

But the hand pressed more firmly, drawing her back.  Then something
thumped across her belly.  Clarissa doubled over, winded, her breath
gone.  Panic seized her;

her mind raged.  The ground spun and she saw two pairs of feet, a flash
of Oxford brogues, a flash of sturdy boots.  This was not Gabriel.  She
was going to die.

She wheezed, struggling for air.  A hand clamped the lower part of her
face then something was forced between her teeth.  It was fabric, thick
and dry, filling her mouth and stretching her lips into a rictus of
muffled protest.  She caught a glimpse of a grizzled beard before a
blindfold plunged her into a black void.  It was too tight.

Hazy purple spots dilated in the darkness.  She jerked and writhed as
an iron grip hooked back her elbows, pinning them inflexibly.

"Keep still, bitch," someone growled in her ear.

The man smelt of horses and tobacco, and his stale, sour breath was hot
on her face.  His coarse whiskers scoured her cheek and she squirmed to
be free of him, squealing dully into her gag hardly able to breathe.  A
punishing hand caught her wrist; her arm twisted and searing agony tore
through one shoulder.  It was useless, useless.  Her body heaved with
muted dry sobs.  She was too young.  She did not deserve it.  She
prayed only that her end would be painless.

"You're going on a little trip.  Miss Longleigh," sneered a second
voice.

"Your presence has been requested.  And, if you want my advice, don't
bother struggling.  You'll need your energy to do that later."

Chapter Six

Clarissa's heels clattered across a hard floor tiled, she thought:

it had that clean sound, that slippery feel.  Behind her a door creaked
and closed with the dull thump of heavy wood.  She heard the grating
rasp of bolts being drawn and the stuttering clicks of keys in locks.

Feminine footsteps clipped away.  Every noise rose high and came back
to her as a harsh echo.

She knew she was still in London, although she did not know which
part.

The carriage she'd been bundled into had driven along the King's Road
it was the only route out of Cremome - and her sense of direction told
her she was now somewhere north of that.  But where exactly and more to
the point, why?  - she did not know.

"Welcome to Asham House," said the voice to her right.

Clarissa's heart lurched.  Asham House, Asham House.  The name danced
and swirled in her brain, repeating itself senselessly in the turmoil
of her panic.  It was Lord Marldon's town residence.  He knew who she
was.  He had sent for her.  She was in Piccadilly, in his mansion.

It was confirmation of what she feared the most.  A rush of terror made
her writhe violently against her captors She made urgent noises of
protest but the gag kept the sound trapped within her mouth.

Hollow, condescending laughter greeted her futile struggles.

"Hold still, bitch," came the other gravelly voice.  Then a cold,
metallic edge rested against her neck.

"Or I'll slice you from ear to ear."

It was a knife; she had a knife at her throat.  An overwhelming urge to
swallow tormented her.  The more she thought about it, the more her
cheeks seemed to fill with saliva.  Desperately she fought against the
impulse, fearing even to breathe lest the movement should cause the
blade to pierce her skin.

"This will be your home for some time," continued the clearer voice.

"Although I doubt you'll be allowed to treat it as such."

No, Clarissa told herself.  He could not keep her here against her
will.  She would be missed.  She had not kept her assignation with
Gabriel and, even now, he would be combing the Pleasure Gardens in
search of her.

The knife moved away from her throat and she swallowed; there was no
moisture.  Viciously strong fingers forced her arms behind her back.

Others looped twine about her wrists and tugged a series of knots, each
pull of the rope making the rough bondage cut deeper into her flesh.

Her body wriggled: a gesture of resistance.  She knew it was
hopeless.

Then someone fumbled with the blindfold and whipped it from her eyes.

"If you behave, my lady, we might do the same to your mouth."

Clarissa blinked rapidly.  She was in a lofty white entrance hall and,
although the lights in the girandoles burnt low, the room came as a
glare after her enforced darkness.  Enormous, heavily framed paintings
adorned the walls, and a grandfather clock said it was a quarter past
midnight.  Before her a broad marble staircase with a gilt and glass
balustrade swept up to a columned gallery.  Above was a second gallery
and higher still was a domed ceiling patterned with golden-edged
honeycombs.

Clarissa craned her neck, expecting to see Marldon sneering down from
one of the balconies.  But he was not there.

"Brinley Jefferson," said the man to her right.

"Lord Alee Marldon's loyal valet.  I expect we'll be seeing quite a lot
of each other.

Forgive me if I don't kiss your hand."

Clarissa whirled her head around to the man.  He was a willowy creature
with a crop of short dark curls, and strange green-grey eyes.  She
glared at him, her heated look conveying the anger her bound mouth
could not.  He merely smiled, his lips thin and sensual, and nodded
towards her other abductor.

"Jake Grimshaw, stable master said Brinley./!  hope he hasn't been too
rough with you."

Jake Grimshaw leered at her.  A brown-toothed smile gaped within his
mass of grizzled whiskers and a lecherous snigger gurgled deep in his
throat.  He stretched his callused hand to Clarissa's face.  She shrank
back on the instant.

"Easy, Jake," warned the valet, stopping the other man's hand with his
own.

"When we remove this gag, Miss Longleigh, if you so much as squeak it
goes back on.  And I won't be quite so gallant in controlling Jake's
eagerness.  He likes a pretty girl, don't you, Jake?"

The burly stable master grunted agreement and the valet untied the knot
at the nape of her neck.  Clarissa drew deep, free breaths and ran her
tongue around the inside of her dry mouth.  She did not cry out, nor
did she rail against those who had brought her there.  She merely
whispered, when she could, a hoarse 'thank you'.

But it was not the men's threats which made her compliant, for their
danger, although it was real, was also crude.  It was her dread of Lord
Marldon which stilled her.  She felt the subtlety of his menace as an
aura within the house, oppressive and all-pervading.  Her heart
thundering, she allowed herself to be escorted up the shallow slabs of
the staircase.  She feared Marldon might be covertly watching her,
trying to gauge her reaction, and her face was as stone.  The men led
her from the gallery landing down a long red corridor lined with
portraits and Chinese urns, then into an anteroom hung with striped
yellow silks.  Before double doors of oak and studded leather, they
stopped.

"You ought to look your best for Lord Alee, don't you think?"  said
Brinley with a sneer.

In one swift movement, he grasped the low neckline of her gown and
jerked the purple silks from her shoulders.  The fabric tore a little
and he jammed the lacy froth around her arms, trapping them at her
sides.  She gave a shocked gasp and the valet, laughing quietly, shoved
a hand into her underclothes.  His cold thin fingers spanned the swell
of her right breast, then he heaved out the pale globe.

A burning anger pounded through her veins.  Breathless with outrage,
she backed away, stumbling against the great bulk of the stable master
His brawny forearms circled her waist, squashing the air from her.  She
shouted and kicked but her struggles had no impact.

With the same cruel enjoyment, Brinley dug his fingers beneath her
chemise and scooped free the fullness of her other breast.

She could scarce believe what was happening.

Jake released her and Brinley stepped back.  His covetous gaze hovered
on her soft white orbs, swooping over their curves, darting from nipple
to nipple.

"How dare you?"  fumed Clarissa, petulantly stamping her foot.

The valet grinned, his eyes flicking from her juddering bosom to her
face.

"Orders are orders," he said with an ironic lift of his brows.

"You wouldn't want us to defy his lordship, would you now?"

Clarissa tried to stem the tide of her fury.  He had ordered this,
actually ordered his servants to expose her.  Well, if he was
determined to humiliate her, then she could be equally determined not
to respond.  She assumed an air of glassy composure, and looked
steadily at the valet.  Lord Marldon would not get the better of her.

She would meet him defiantly, not cowering in shame and terror.

"Lovely," growled Jake.  His clawed heavy hand reached for her bared
mounds, and Brinley at once slapped it away.

"She's not yours to touch," he admonished.

"Just a lil' squeeze," argued the man gruffly, batting away Brinley's
arm.

"They're so dam lovely."

With a lunge, his coarse stubby fingers fastened on to one breast.  He
pummelled vigorously, chuckling mildly, clutching and tugging as if he
were trying to wrest the flesh from her.

Clarissa screamed, her cool veneer forgotten.

Brinley barged into the stable master hulking frame and the brute
lurched back, his arm flopping to his side.

"Damnation," hissed the valet.

"I've seen dogs with more finesse.  Now look what you've done, you
cursed oaf."

"Bitch made me," mumbled Jake, looking contritely at the ground.

Clarissa's white flesh was streaked with red.  Sapphire chips blazed in
her eyes and her face was dark with rage.

"You'll answer for this, Grimshaw," said Brinley, turning the gilded
ring of the door handle.

"I'm taking none of the blame."

He ushered Clarissa forward.  Her boiling blood simmered down, swamped
by fear as she stepped into an immense salon, softly lit and stretching
either side of the entrance.  Three vast chandeliers swept a line down
the room, cascading crystal, dripping beads of ice blue.

Clarissa scanned sharply from left to right, hunting for Lord
Marldon.

She could see no one, yet she felt the presence of many.  The salon was
irregular, full of places to hide.  There were no walls as such, but
rows of archways, divided by gilded pilasters, and decorated in rich
mosaics of turquoise and gold.  Above a frieze inscribed with Arabic
lettering, the ceiling too was set with tiny tiles, forming geometric
patterns which glinted in the light.  Tall, fringed palms stood here
and there, and divans and ottomans, upholstered in figured crimson
silk, were scattered about the room alongside fragile lacquered
tables.

Everything was exotic and palatial, and the furniture seemed almost to
languish.

Brinley guided her deeper into the salon.  The thick red and gold
carpet, as soft as a bed of moss, soaked up the sound of their
footsteps.  Candles flickered in ornate sconces, each one a mirror of
her own fluttering pulse.

Then, slowly, figures stepped into view.  They emerged from the arches'
shadows or rose from couches which had until now concealed them.  There
were women, clearly naked beneath gauzy wrappers and peignoirs, and men
in livery, lounge suits and high- buttoned frock coats.  They drifted
silently towards her, snaking among the furniture and smiling
lasciviously.

Clarissa could not quell her embarrassment.  She coloured hotly, the
flush creeping up from her bared breasts to stain her face.

Frightened, she edged backward and felt the valet rest a gentle,
stilling hand against her back.  His touch was not coercive; it was
merely a reminder that she was utterly powerless, and it worked on her
all the more forcefully for that.  She gave a little whimper of defeat,
and was rendered motionless, mesmerised, petrified.

The valet dropped away, leaving her in isolation as the people perhaps
twenty or so formed a wide, uneven circle about her.  They ogled her
with unabashed lechery.  She caught the eye of a swarthy fellow with a
great drooping moustache.  He smiled and licked his lips, his tongue
slow and salacious.  A brunette in transparent green rolled her hips
suggestively.  Their hungry stares burned into Clarissa's naked bosom,
infecting her with a flare of sensuality.  The response of her body
appalled her.  It was sordid, wicked, beyond comprehension.  Dropping
her eyelids, she stared at a fleur-de-lys on the carpet, willing the
moment to pass.

There was a stirring within the group.  For as long as she could,
Clarissa ignored it.  But the compulsion to look was overwhelming.

Lord Marldon strode forward.  His face was stem, devoid of the sneer
she remembered him having, and beneath his shock of sable hair his
ebony eyes were fierce.  Candle flames from above cast shadows on his
harsh, cynical features, and his scar, after the rectangle of one side
burn was silvery white.  It lay across his strong, solid jaw, gleaming
like a tiny sliver of moonlight.

He moved towards her with intimidating indolence.  His arms, corded
with muscle, were bared to the elbow and his shirt gaped to reveal a
triangle of his hard chest.

An image of Lucy, sitting in the library, meekly accepting the
invasions of his fingers, jumped into her mind.  Desire crawled over
her skin, leaving goose bumps in its wake.  Her heart hammering against
her ribs, she glared at the earl's approach.  Ready insults swam to the
fore of her mind but, as he drew near, his sloe-black eyes rendered her
mute with fear and awe.  She bowed her head, her lashes sweeping
down.

Marldon stood before her, held light fingertips beneath her chin and
lifted it.  He stepped back and surveyed her, his face impassive, his
gaze roaming at leisure, taking in every inch of her.  He stared at her
exhibited breasts.  A frown of disapproval creased between his dark
brows.  Clarissa was stock-still, her chin just as he had positioned
it, fixed in a brave thrust.

He reached out to touch the under swell of one taut, high globe.  Her
skin tingled beneath his cool fingers and a fris son of arousal coursed
through her body.  It was the breast the stable master had sullied, and
its striations, though fading, were still visible.

Marldon lifted its weight Gently, he bounced the fullness of her mound
in a cupped hand, regarding it with a contemplative expression.  A gasp
caught in Clarissa's throat.  Then, tenderly, he set the flesh back.

He looked beyond her shoulder.

"Grimshaw," he said blandly.

"Come here."

A murmuring ripple spread through the onlookers and Jake, his head hung
low, shuffled into the centre of the circle.

Lord Alee curved his hand to Clarissa's flushed breast and addressed
the stable master with dead eyes.  Before the hushed crowd, he kneaded
her soft orb with a gentle caress.  He teased her roseate nipple and it
crinkled to a throbbing point of pleasure.

Clarissa could not stifle a light moan.  She drew soft, shaky breaths,
for a moment losing sense of her audience.  Marldon smiled faintly.

Silently, bitterly, she cursed him.

"I doubt the lady appreciated you mauling her," he said to Grimshaw,
his thumb scuffing over her hardened nipple.

"Yet note how her flesh rises to a more practised touch.  Did the sight
prove just too tempting, Jake?  Does it tempt you still?"

Jake's anxious eyes darted from his master's face to Clarissa's jutting
bosom, and his spittle-flecked lips sagged with appetite.

Marldon fixed him with a cold expression and spread his hand over
Clarissa's other breast.  With undulating squeezes, he slowly rotated
the yielding globe.  Her nipple tensed beneath his massaging palm.

Then his stroking fingers played over the stiffening crest, enticing it
to full erection.

A violent need inflamed Clarissa's body, a need that was somehow
fiercer for the watching eyes and Marldon's arrogant dispassion.  Her
cheeks glowed with shame and rage, but she did not move; she did not
speak.  He would only crush an outburst with mockery.

"You must learn, Jake," he began serenely, 'that Clarissa is mine, and
mine alone.  Permission must be granted before other hands can touch.

And I did not grant you such permission, did I?"

Before Clarissa could protest, Marldon startled her with a swift
movement.

He stepped away and, with a swoop of his arm, swiped the back of his
hand across the stable master face.  It might have been just the blow
of a master chastising his servant.  But it was not, for Marldon wore a
diamond ring on his middle finger.

The crowd chorused a hiss of indrawn breath as Grimshaw recoiled with a
guttural cry.  Recovering his balance, the man gingerly patted his
cheekbone then stared in dismay at the viscid red mess coating his
fingers.  An inch or so below his eye a raw gash pouted with swelling
blood.  Clarissa winced.

"Get out of here," said Marldon levelly, examining his left hand and
rubbing at the gemstone.

The wounded man lumbered away.  Lord Marldon turned to Clarissa.

"I cannot abide insubordination," he said.

"Allow me to apologise for his trespass."

"I am not your chattel," she returned sharply, her revulsion spurring
her to boldness.

"No?"  replied Alee with quizzically arched brows.

"Forgive me, but I believed we were to be married soon.  I planned on a
honeymoon in Venice before we take up residence in Wiltshire.  What do
you think, Clarissa?  Personally, I'm rather fond of Venice and I
thought it might suit your romantic sensibilities.  I toyed with the
idea of Paris but, really, the city isn't what it used to be."

"My father will never permit a marriage when he hears of this," she
said, her voice low and angry.

Lord Marldon gave a short, hoarse laugh.

"Oh, how spirited women rouse me," he said, trailing a finger over her
breasts.

He drew her close in a tight embrace, bearing down on her mouth.  He
forced a sultry, probing kiss into her mouth Clarissa tensed her
muscles in rigid defence but every thrust and lash of his tongue
conspired against her.  She felt the insistent power of his body, so
hard against hers, and a devastating lust melted her.  She smelt his
masculinity, sharp and tangy beneath warm, woody cologne, and she
inhaled deeply, a voluptuous throb surging through her veins.  When he
broke away, she was as limp as new death in his arms.

"Do you need to sit?7 he enquired briskly.

Clarissa shook her head, staggering a little as he released her.

"Good," he replied.

"Then meet some of my household:

the upper servants."  With a matador's flourish, Marldon gestured part
way round the ring of spectators.

"Think of them as friends, Clarissa.  I would introduce them
personally, but I'm afraid Jake has set my patience at rather a low
ebb.  Excuse my discourtesy, please.

But, in the days to come, we shall have plenty of time for the humdrum
of formalities."

Clarissa's eyes swooped over the greedy faces in cursory
acknowledgement.

"You cannot keep me here," she said quietly, still enfeebled by the
kiss.

"What is it you want?  Is it money?  Do you intend holding me to
ransom?"

Marldon laughed.

"I confess, money has its attractions, Clarissa.  In fact that was the
first, most tempting thing about you.  Would you believe my funds are
so low I was actually considering selling this place?  That is, until
your father came along with his very generous offer.  What was it
now?

Twelve thousand a year until his death?  Yes, I think so.  And then,
after that, let me see, his estate in Sussex, his properties, his
holdings in Pacific Steam, his fortune, and ... something else ... Oh,
yes, how forgetful of me: his daughter.  She would be thrown into the
bargain too."

Clarissa jerked her wrists against the ropes in a storm of fury.

"Then you have lost it all with this," she replied through clenched
teeth.  Marldon stroked over her brow and down one scarlet- hued
cheek.

"Oh, I think not he said.

"You see, the second most tempting thing was you, Clarissa.  I received
quite an enchanting photograph.  You were wearing pearls.  Do you
recall it?"

"Then may it satisfy you as a keepsake," she snapped, turning sharply
from his touch.

"As a reminder of the woman who refused to be your bride."

"You will capitulate," he stated confidently.  He held her chin,
compelling her to look into his narrowed, black eyes, and leant
close.

"I see desires in your body, so deep that you do not even dream of
them.  I will open up those delights to you, Clarissa.  I will explore
every shadowy recess of your appetite.  I will awaken lusts so base
that you would rather die than share them with another."

"No," she said faintly.

"And awakened lusts," he continued, 'no matter how shameful, can sleep
only in nightmares secret nightmares which will haunt you, plague you
and corrode the very depths of your soul.  You will find the prospect
of a life without me intolerable.  I predict a willing bride."

Clarissa shivered.

"No.  It is not so.  It will not be so."  Her words fell away into a
whisper.

Marldon slid an arm beneath her bound wrists and pulled her to him.

She bent backward in a show of rejection and he seized the opportunity,
bending to cover a rigid nipple with his warm, hungering mouth.  His
teeth pressed and scraped on the roughened cone, and his hellish tongue
lapped and teased.  He moved slowly from breast to breast, lavishing
kisses over the soft, satin curves, and all the while a thumb rubbed
steadily in the small of Clarissa's back.

A murmuring groan escaped her lips, needful and despairing.  She felt
hot sensation tumble through her, and the creases of her sex filled
with wanton appetite.  Her moisture gathered inexorably, a swelling
silkiness bathing her vulva in rich fluidity, easing her folds to
openness.  Her body had betrayed her.  She closed her eyes, blotting
out the audience, blotting out him.  She tried to think of dull things,
of whist parties and Sundays, but her mind could not hold them.  So she
concentrated on Marldon, listing every reason she had for despising
him.  But reason deserted her, vanquished by lust.  The only thing she
knew was the fierce, demanding ache which engulfed her.  Gasps echoed
in her throat and her breath grew ragged.  A flicker stirred between
her thighs, growing to a pulse, then stronger still to a frantic
throb.

Lord Marldon moulded a grasping hand to the curve of her buttocks.  He
caressed her through layers of silk, drawing her loins closer to his.

Clarissa felt his desire, a stem hard rod, digging into her belly.

She imagined that imprisoned shaft of flesh violating her maidenhead
and a bittersweet intensity tugged deep within her.  Gabriel had valued
her honour but Marldon would place no store by it.  In the haze of her
arousal, Clarissa was thankful for her bondage.  If he should attempt
to ravish her, she would be unable to fend him off.

"Hardly a good start," murmured Lord Marldon, smudging kisses over her
neck, 'considering you're supposed to be resisting me."

Clarissa moaned weakly.  His hand roved over her breasts.  His lips
brushed against her ear.

"Are you wet?"  he asked softly.  The closeness of his mouth blurred
his voice to a low intimate tone, thick with warped sensuality and so
darkly threatening.  The sound speared Clarissa's groin with a
shameless clutch of longing.

"Are you?"  he repeated.

"Shall we find out, Clarissa?"

Marldon stepped away from her and clicked his fingers.

"Marcus, James, get rid of her drawers."

Clarissa shrieked as a couple of strong, slender youths stepped
forward, flexing their fingers and smiling eagerly.

"No," she begged, her eyes wildly beseeching.

"Not here.  I entreat you.  Let us be alone, my lord.  Then you can
have me, I swear.  But, please, not here."

Lord Marldon could not contain a faint gleeful smile.

"You must accustom yourself to it he said.

"I'm afraid the prospect of coupling beneath the bedclothes fails to
excite me."

Clarissa writhed, continuing to plead, as the two men hooked their arms
in hers.  She hated Marldon with a savage, burning passion.  He could
not do this to her, not before so many eyes; he could not.

The men, battling against her protests, dragged her to an ottoman and
forced her to lie back on the padded red silk, an expanse almost as
wide as a bed.  Hands clamped her kicking feet to the ground while
others rummaged beneath her petticoats, fumbling with the waist-cord of
her drawers.  Her tied hands pressed a lump into her back, and she
twisted and flapped like a dying fish.  More than anything she wanted
to conceal her seeping moisture.  Marldon would doubtless torment her
with it, brandish it like a trophy.

One of the youths dragged down her drawers and, with the noise of
shredding silk, ripped them from her legs.  Then there were hands on
her ankles and shoulders, pinning her jerking body.

Lord Alee toed the heap of white fabric contemptuously.

"While I'm not averse to taking my pleasure from a woman who kicks and
screams," he said, "I'd rather you stop this charade of reluctance.  Or
I'll be obliged to spread your ankles and bind them.  A moment's work,
granted, but all the same rather tiresome, don't you think?  And so
degrading when one has an audience."

Clarissa held her muscles tight, pushing against the restraining hands,
until the sense of his words filtered into her mind.  If she resisted
him with force, no matter how hopeless, it would be met with force. Her
body sagged in defeat and the two men released her at Marldon's
bidding.  Then she would resist him with passivity.

Lord Marldon flung up her skirts, baring her ivory- Ill pale thighs and
the stark black curls of her mons.  She could not help but clamp her
legs together.  She lay there, staring up at the ceiling's blue and
gold tiles, striving to find a steadiness of breath.  The eyes on her
vulnerable half-nudity seemed to increase with every beat of her
frightened heart.

The earl moved around her, a panther waiting to pounce.  He stood by
her feet, put his hands to her knees and stretched her wide.  She felt
his rapacious gaze feasting on her vulva, split, glistening and ripe
with desire.  He slid up her tensed thighs and brushed lightly over the
tremulous pouch of her labia, tickling the fronds of hair.  Then, with
his fingertips, he opened her plump rosy lips.  He held them apart like
a shining red butterfly, assessing the view.  The heel of each hand
rested in the hollows of her splayed inner thighs.

Clarissa was rigidly immobile.

Marldon's finger slicked through her ready fissure and teased at the
entrance to her warm opening.

"Delicious," he breathed.

She made a noise of anguished pleasure, feeling the tension thaw.  Her
thighs lolled open.  Her hips strained to rise but she would not let
them.  She smothered every groan as his subtle, tricksy fingers
explored her tender flesh.  He nudged her pouting clitoris and, with
insidious slowness, began revolving the pad of his thumb over the tiny
bead, tempting her to succumb, to relinquish control.

Clarissa whimpered and her hot, pulsing loins lifted, pursuing his
clever ministrations.  Marldon laughed quietly and dipped a pale, lean
finger into her narrow opening, finding her succulence, her
eagerness.

"I see the artist has left me your virginity," he said with calm
detachment.

"How generous.  Remind me to thank him sometime."

He began to drive in and out, taking strokes that were long and
indulgent.  He stirred and tickled deeply, then trailed back, finding
the sensitive pad of her inner wall.

He lingered there, rubbing and teasing.  Clarissa cried out, her sex
pounding, her head tossing wildly on the silk.  Marldon's thrusts grew
faster and faster.  She was lost, abandoned to pleasure.

"Good," drawled Marldon, watching her keenly.

"Good, Clarissa.  Give in to it."

The ropes about her wrists chafed as she drove herself into his hand,
her feeble curses lost in her urgent gasps.  She craved wider, deeper
penetration.  She wanted him, yearned for him with an all-consuming
hunger.

His finger plunged on with infernal sweetness while his thumb pressed
and rolled her clitoris.  Her groin tightened in a soaring flurry of
bliss, and she wailed, her body hurtling towards its peak.

He slid out of her vagina and ploughed upwards, through her aching wet
seam to the simmering knot of her pleasure bud.  He smeared her creamy
juices there and stimulated the engorged tissue, fretting it with quick
shifting pressures.  Clarissa felt her crisis rush, and immediately his
caress slowed.  He held her there, tarrying on the threshold,
tormenting her with nudges that were never enough, never enough to send
her spiralling into ecstasy.

Then he pulled away.

Clarissa gave a howl of disappointment.

"No," she cried.

"No."  She wriggled frantically, struggling to right herself in
senseless pursuit of him.

"You cannot deny me so.  Please, my lord, I'll do anything."

Her tethered hands unbalanced her and she tumbled from the ottoman,
falling to her knees as if in supplication.

"Anything?"  he enquired derisively.

"Do you mean to say I have the future Countess of Marldon at my
feet?"

Clarissa stayed as she was, hunched forward, shoulders heaving.  Her
dark hair hung in a tangled curtain of curls and pins, shielding her
face.

"No," she managed to sob.

"You do not."

Then she tossed her head back and looked up atMarldon, breathless and
wild, her face glowing with passion.

"Perfect," he said.

"That's exactly how I want you."

With a start of recognition Clarissa recalled her surroundings.

The circle of spectators had broken up.  They were strewn about the
salon, draped on couches or sprawled across divans.  Some watched her
avidly, while others partook of their own lewd pleasures.  Some did
both.  A woman with clothing crumpled high toyed with the wet pink
folds between her spread legs.  She grinned obscenely at Clarissa.

Another lay bent over a huge malachite table, her body jolting with the
lunges of the rangy creature behind her.  Subdued gasps whispered on
the air.

Clarissa averted her gaze.

"Take me away from here," she pleaded softly, hoping her voice would
not carry to any ears but his.

"Away?"  he scoffed.

"But, Clarissa, I fear you are not quite ready for me."

Clarissa whimpered.  She could not fight both herself and him.

"My lord, I am," she said humbly.

The earl gave a wry smile.  He pulled an object from his pocket, a
handle of tortoiseshell, and flicked it open.  It was a shaving
blade.

He turned it ponderously, finding angles where its sharp steel edge
caught glancing stars of candlelight.

"You misunderstand me," he said, moving to stand behind her.

Dryness choked Clarissa's throat and she swallowed hard, her heart
drumming furiously.  Was her surrender insufficient?  Did he intend
forcing her into wickedness and depravity?  Relief sank into her when
she realised he was merely cutting the ropes from her.  He had seen the
truth of her desire; he knew she would not retaliate.  Perhaps now he
would take her elsewhere.

"Truly, I do not doubt your willingness to offer me your body," he said
smoothly.

"I expected nothing less.  But it does not follow, Clarissa, that you
are now ready.  You must understand, I require more than a mere orifice
for my pleasure."

He signalled across the room.  The valet sauntered over, a leering curl
on his thin lips, and stood before Clarissa.  His crotch, level with
her face, bulged against pearl-grey trousers.  Clarissa turned away,
rubbing at her sore, reddened wrists.

"No, no," said Marldon, lowering himself to one knee.  He squeezed a
hand to Clarissa's jaw and twisted her head, forcing her to confront
the valet's swollen groin.

"At your service, my lord," said Brinley, opening the buttons of his
fly.

Clarissa squealed in horror and Marldon's grip tightened.  The valet
reached into the vent of fabric and withdrew his penis.  Stiff and
unfurled, it jerked from his clasp and its thick purplish head brushed
over Clarissa's lips.  She pulled back, pressing her lips together and
murmuring fervent protests in her throat.

"I cannot abide an untutored mouth on my cock," said Marldon.

"Yet this is a skill you must acquire for me.  Shall we see how quickly
you learn, Clarissa?  There are, let's see, thirteen men in this room
excluding myself, of course.  Do you think that will be sufficient
practice?  Or will I be rousing the grooms and boot boys at dawn?"

His merciless fingers dug into her face, but Clarissa fought the pain
and kept her mouth resolutely shut.

"Stubborn, eh?"  he said.

"There are two ways to do this."  He sank his teeth into her neck, a
long, hard bite, until she yelped in pain.

"Force," he declared, 'is one.  And that was but a kiss when compared
to other methods I could use.  Persuasion is the second."

His hand fluffed her skirts wide and stole beneath them to find her
moist, pulsing flesh.  Her need for him flared.  She moaned repeatedly
while his slender fingers worked, teasing out the urgency he had not
satisfied.

"Which one do you prefer?"  he whispered gently, his caress slipping
down to massage a thigh.

Clarissa did not reply.

Marldon's teeth grazed over the stinging skin on her neck, then pinched
hard and strong.  He churned a ringer within the humid well of her
vagina.

"Which one?"  he repeated, scuffing her clitoris before removing both
the pleasure and the pain.

Clarissa closed her eyes.

"The latter," she said in a tired, beaten voice.

"I thought as much," he said crisply.

"Now take him."

She parted her lips a fraction and the valet's cock at once pushed
beyond them.  His stout, quivering stem filled her mouth and began
slowly to drive back and forth.  Lord Marldon's fingers slithered along
the furrow of Clarissa's aching sex.  He murmured instructions in her
ear: flutter your tongue about his shaft, Clarissa, lash at the tip,
breathe now, yes, and suck, make your lips firm, clasp him, good, now
sheathe him, take him deep, Clarissa, relax.

His finger rimmed the entrance to her molten tunnel then he penetrated
her, thrusting into her slippery hunger.

"Keep time," he said, and he plunged upward with a quickening rhythm.

Clarissa took the valet's prick deep and fast, willing Lord Alee to
match her tempo.  Brinley grunted like a beast, ramming vigorously.

His cock's head banged ceaselessly against her throat, and she
struggled for ease of breath.  But she was so near to her peak, so
frantically near, that she could not draw back from him.  Marldon's
finger, driving relentlessly, urged her ever closer.  Then with a long
rumbling groan the valet climaxed.  His loins tensed and shuddered and
the bitter liquid jetted over Clarissa's tongue.

Marldon shoved his finger.

"Swallow," he snapped, and she did.

He stopped his stimulation of her and the valet snatched his phallus
from her mouth.

Clarissa coughed and dashed her hand across her lips.

"Well?"  enquired Lord Marldon, wiping his hand on Clarissa's skirt.

"How was she?"

Clarissa trembled with ill-disguised rage, hot tears welling in her
eyes.

"Hmm," said Brinley with a sneer in his voice.

"Satisfactory, my lord."

"Then send Rupert over," replied Lord Marldon.

"Satisfactory isn't quite to my taste."

It was too much.  Clarissa turned on him with a cry of anguish,
battering her fists furiously against his solid chest.  She hated him,
she hated him from the depths of her being.  He was a wretch, a
despicable, heartless fiend.  May Satan take him and may he burn in
hell.

Marldon laughed wildly, deflecting her flailing blows.  Then he caught
her wrists in a harsh grip and, with a twist, pinned her to the
ground.

Her skirts frothed about her knees.  He lay over her, supporting
himself on arms which held hers down.  His thick black hair hung about
his face as he gazed at her, breathing quickly, his jet eyes flashing
with pleasure.

"Hell could be closer than you think, Clarissa," he taunted.

"But, when the flames lick, I won't be alone."

She cursed him virulently, writhing and bucking in a bid to unbalance
him.

"Good," he said.  He lowered his tumescent groin to press between her
thighs and rubbed himself hard against her thrashing body.

"It seems you're a natural.  Go on, thrust up to me again.  What?

Tiring so soon?"

Clarissa fell slack beneath him, sobbing in frustration.

"What is it that offends you so?"  he enquired.

"Are you particular about the cocks you taste?  Do you prefer those
attached to gypsy artists?  Perhaps you do.  Because something tells me
this mouth isn't as chaste as I'dimagined."  He lunged to press a
forceful kiss to her lips.

"You took to Brinley like an old whore.  What would your lover say to
that?"

Clarissa's mind reeled to imagine Gabriel seeing her like this.

"Why do you torture me in this manner?"  she cried, choking back her
tears.

Lord Marldon affected surprise.

"Because I enjoy it he said.

"Hadn't you realised?"  His hips dropped and once more he ground the
powerful ridge of his trapped cock into her parted thighs.

"What would soothe you?  Is it me?  Do you want me inside you?"

"No," lied Clarissa.

"Are you sure?"  he teased, still sliding his erection into her bunched
silks.

Clarissa felt her petticoat, sodden with arousal, clinging to her
pounding sex.  She wanted him and she loathed him.  But with so many
people about watching now, delighted by the fuss she could admit to
only one emotion.  She turned her head aside and clamped her teeth on
to the flesh of his forearm, a bite so long and vicious that her jaw
trembled.

With a hiss, Marldon wrenched his arm away.  Crimson beads of blood
oozed through the punctured skin, and she tasted its copperiness in her
mouth.

"Termagant," he snarled, rising swiftly to his feet.

He tugged roughly at Clarissa's arm and she scrambled to stand up, her
heart thudding in terror.

"You set my temper on edge.  Miss Longleigh," he breathed, his eyes
flinty, his lips tight.

"May I recommend that you tread more cautiously in future."

He stalked away from her.

"Get rid of her, Brinley," he said, flicking his hand towards the
door.

"I'm not in much of a mood for rape."

Alee watched as the squirming girl was escorted out.

She was proving harder to break than he'd anticipated.  Most women
would have crumbled and begged for mercy by now.  Oh, she'd been close,
very close.  Yet, in the end, she'd still managed to hold out.

It could only be a good sign.

He rubbed at his throbbing forearm, idly smearing the warm blood over
his pale skin.  Yes, there was no pleasure in dominating women who
yielded too quickly.  While eagerness and surrender had their place, it
was not at the beginning.  Marldon liked to see eyes full of rancour,
not assent.  Clarissa's determination was perfect.

He caught the gaze of one of the housemaids observing him with sly
expectancy.

"What the hell are you looking at?"  he growled.

"If you've nothing better to do, then get out of here."

The woman shrugged indifferently and wandered away.  Doubtless she
thought he'd have use of her now Clarissa had gone.  Another time he
might have done.  But why bother with sluts when there was a supremely
beautiful and deliciously stubborn virgin on offer?

What a joy it had been to see Clarissa's elegance fracturing.  Her
frenzied attack, her dishevelled hair and unfettered emotion oh, the
girl had no idea how that roused him.  There was nothing more exquisite
than abasing someone of refinement, someone who valued their dignity.

They had so much further to fall.

It had taken him a great deal of self-control to dismiss her like
that.

Her sex was weeping for him and his cock was ferociously hard.

But it would be far better when they were alone.  Spectators worked
well enough to humiliate her, but she seemed almost to be growing used
to them.  And she was too bold.

A little intimacy was required to bring the fear back into her eyes.

Absently, Lord Marldon snuffed a candle flame between thumb and
forefinger.  He'd given the maid ten minutes to disrobe her.  He
glanced at the clock and smiled.  She would be almost ready.

FR1;Chapter Seven I 'he room selected for Clarissa was on the second JL
floor, with windows that did not open and a door with bolts on its
corridor-side.

Old Spanish leather lined the walls, and the furnishings were of oak
and ebony.  The heavily carved tester bed, curtained in fiery-red
damask, was softly lit by the feeble white glow of an oil lamp.  On the
embroidered coverlet lay Clarissa, naked, half in shadow.  Her loose
hair fanned midnight-black waves on the lace pillow.  Her hand moved
between her spread thighs, driving into that sweet little slit.

Near-ecstasy racked her face.

Opposite her was a tiny hole bored into the wall, a mere speck in the
worn leather hangings.

Alee stood in the long passageway, a hand holding back a heavy
tapestry, an eye pressed to the aperture.  The girl's rounded breasts
were tipped with hard beads of lust.  He smiled to see her massaging
them with an urgently roving caress.  She was greedy for fulfilment,
beyond the subtleties of a light, teasing touch.

Her mouth fell open and she raised her hips, unwittingly offering more
of herself to his stolen observations.  Her splayed vulva gleamed like
the pulp of a split juicy fig, and a slender finger slipped rapidly
into the tight, scarlet hole of her vagina.

Lord Marldon moistened his lips.  True virgins, women who were
untouched and reluctant, held no appeal.  But a virgin roused to
heights of grasping appetite was a rare and splendid treat.  Her
untried sex, once he'd torn its resistance, would be deliciously snug
around his prick, sheathing him with wet, clinging heat.  And she'd
respond to him with the zeal of a debauchee.

But he would allow her to climax first.  His desire was already too
strong, and he did not want the girl's orgasm to push him to quick
release.  He wanted to prolong the pleasure he would take inside her,
savour every moment.  And she would still be eager.  A single
masturbatory peak was hardly going to slake her thirst for him.  He had
roused her to a passion which required far more than that.

Clarissa's body lifted and she leant her head back on the pillow,
stretching the pale slender line of her neck.  Her fingers worked
furiously until she cried out, her hips pumping, her thighs
trembling.

Then she slumped into the bed, breathing fast, her lush peony lips
parted in blissful ease.

Marldon watched, grinning with satisfaction.  He could not have hoped
for a better bride.  Not only was she beautiful, particularly when
aroused, but she had a deep seam of wantonness that was begging to be
tapped.  While a frigid widow who left him alone might have been
easier, this was going to be much more fun.

Clarissa sat up sharply, her lips curving in a smile of sly resolve.

Her eyes flashed about the room, then she sprang to her feet and began
tugging open drawers, overturning the silks within, pulling them out in
rippling streams.  She seemed not to notice or care that the contents
were her own.

Alee frowned in confusion.  What the hell was she up to?

She snatched up a silver-backed hairbrush from the dressing table and
circled her fingers around the slim handle.  She eyed it thoughtfully,
before tossing it on to a heap of petticoats.

She grabbed a hand mirror and repeated the process before standing
still, hands on hips, gazing about the room.  Then her mouth twisted
with devious pleasure.  She rushed to the fireplace, stepped over the
brass fender and clasped one of the mantel shelf candelabras.  From its
centre she pulled a stout, unlit candle.

Her fist gripped its thick length and her shoulders dropped with a huff
of relief.  She widened her stance and cupped her other hand between
her legs.

Damn it!  The artful minx was about to deprive him.  She was going to
take her own virginity.

Clarissa screamed as the door banged open.  Lord Marl- don was on her
like a cat, wrenching the stick of wax from her hand and bearing her
back on to the bed.

"My compliments on the delightful show," he snarled.

"However, I'm afraid at this point I must intervene."

Clarissa thrashed beneath him, horrified to think that he had somehow
watched her.  I will not give you my maidenhead," she cried
breathlessly.

"Who said anything about giving?"  replied Marldon with a scornful
laugh.  He pinned her down and pressed a fierce kiss to her un
responding lips.

"Come now, Clarissa," he said.

"Enough of the prim-little-miss act.  It fails to convince and it's
beginning to grate."

He edged up her body and knelt heavily on her spread arms, rendering
her defenceless.  She squealed in pain, the weight of him crushing into
her delicate tendons.  In one swift movement.  Alee pulled his shirt
over his head and let it fall.  His chest was pale and taut, polished
ivory tapering from wide shoulders to a trim waist.  His hips were
narrow, and beneath his black broadcloth trousers his groin bulged
demandingly.

Leaning back.  Lord Marldon sought out Clarissa's sex.

He watched her, scrutinising, while his skilful fingers probed, teasing
folds that were soaked with desire.

His unremitting tyranny thrilled her, and the receding throbs of her
climax blazed to his touch.  Her hot flesh drew his caress deeper and
the last vestige of defiance ebbed from Clarissa's body.  Her eyelids
dropped.  She moaned gently.  Her loins rose in small, questing
nudges.

Marldon smiled and shifted his knees from her arms, straddling her
breasts.

"Undo my trousers, Clarissa," he said in a gentle command.

"Release me.  Explore the tool which will deflower you."

Clarissa's compliant fingers drifted nervously over his crotch.  His
prodigious length lay angled across his belly, a hard unyielding
line.

She craved to see him, to handle him, and yet she feared him greatly.

Marldon urged her on with an impatient jerk of his hips.  She rumbled
with the buttons.  His erection sprang free of his garments, proud,
virile and dauntingly large.  The flaring glans shone like a huge
amethyst, and the veins entwined about his shaft looked ready to
burst.

Hot excitement shivered through Clarissa and she reached out to clasp
him.

"I trust you find it preferable to a candle," he said.

Clarissa nodded dumbly.  His warm, stiff potency pulsed fiercely within
her fist.  She moved firmly along the sturdy length, wanting to please
Lord Marldon; then he would please her.

"Your changed attitude is most encouraging," he said, his hand still
playing between her parted legs.

"I may propose marriage before the night is out."

"Then I will refuse," she whispered.

A clear bead of fluid trembled at the slitted end of his phallus.  She
ached for the first taste of him and, with brazen hunger, she stretched
to lick the droplet away.  Her tongue tingled with his saltiness and
she lingered there, lapping at the contours of his stout, glistening
tip.

"Control yourself," he hissed sharply.  He stood, crossed to the door
and locked it.

"Privacy seems to appeal," he said, pocketing the key.

"So, for the moment, I shall guarantee it."

He stripped off his remaining clothes and moved towards the bed.  A
ladder of muscle ran from his chest to his stomach, his thighs flexed
with strength, and his cock reared massively from a nest of rich, black
curls.  He leant over her, light slithering from his broad shoulders,
and his hot mouth suckled on her breasts.  Her nipples ached with shame
and need.

Clarissa pressed upward in an arc of giving, her body crescent-like.

Marldon threw back his head and gave a long laugh of conquest.

But it didn't matter; she didn't care because he was scooping her to
him and, with disarming speed, he had flipped her on to her front.

Clarissa, crouched on all fours, scrunched the coverlet in her fist,
tensely awaiting the rip of his penetration.

He held her buttocks apart and slicked moisture from the valley within
her labia up to the puckered indent of her anus.  She whimpered
plaintively.  This was not what she wanted; she did not want delay.

His finger nuzzled at the crinkled rose, and pressed damply against
it.

Clarissa flinched at the intimacy, her breath heavy and desiring.

"That virginity will be the next to go," he said huskily.

Then, to her relief, she felt the or bed head of his cock nuzzle within
her pounding sex-lips.  She moaned impatiently, so eager and open for
him, so wet.  Taking a vigorous lunge, Marldon pushed into her.  His
stern iron prick breached the closure of her flesh and Clarissa cried
out, a note of pain lost in a wall of pleasure as he plundered her
tight, eager tunnel.  His rigidity crammed into her, filling her
utterly, stretching her wide.

He moved in deep half-thrusts, nudging repeatedly at the neck of her
womb.  Keeping the whole of his cock inside her, he ground his loins,

circling his thick shaft against her slipperiness.  Clarissa sobbed,
snatching gasps of ecstasy.

"Ah, you like that, don't you?"  he breathed.

"Tell me, Clarissa.  Tell me you like it."

His pelvis continued to roll and she wailed without restraint.

Marldon drew slowly back and gave one hard slam.  His phallus butted
deep, and the power of it spread through her like the quivers of a
gong.

"Tell me," he urged.

"Tell me you like it."

Lodged high, he gave little shoves, prodding at the core of her.

"Yes," cried Clarissa.

"Yes, I like it.  Yes."

She felt his withdrawal and instinctively she gripped him, moulding her
muscled passage to the density of his prick.

Marldon forced a gasp into a quick laugh.

"Good," he said throatily.

"Hold me tight, Clarissa.  Don't let me go."  As he spoke he drew
further back.

Clarissa squeezed him hard, relishing the suck of resistance.  The bulb
of his glans lingered within the entrance of her vagina.  She was
pliant and awash with juices, receptive to his next leisurely glide.

Then she was clenching him feverishly, her sex clamped around his
retreating staff.  She moaned with new delights and pushed back,
meeting the next hungry surge of his cock.

Marldon grasped her hips, moving her to his rhythm, driving into her
depths with steady luxury.  Her glossy wet walls tensed and slackened,
a fluttering intuitive caress.  She shoved against him, banging her
buttocks into his flat firm belly, urging him to a quickness, as quick
as the pulse which hammered in her blood.

She heard him trap a groan in his throat.  He dug his fingers into her
haunches and his stroke shortened; his tempo rose.  The weight of his
balls swung into her vulva, sending shudders to her clitoris.  Her
pleasure mounted; her crisis swelled.

Marldon slowed.  He tunnelled a ringer down the deep cleft of her
buttocks and began stirring pressure over the ring of her anus.

Clarissa moaned with black excitement, feeling the tight portal relax
beneath the insistence of his massage.

"No/ she whispered lamely.

"No."

"You've abused the word far too much," said Alee.

"It no longer has any meaning, Clarissa."

His questing digit invaded, sliding to the knuckle, boring deeply into
her dark secret passage.  She cried out helplessly as he drove it back
and forth, slowly at first then with increasing speed until his finger
matched, thrust for thrust, the rhythm of his hard, pounding cock.

Clarissa heaved and squirmed, gasping in mortified enjoyment.  Hot
intensity flooded her loins and belly, and Marldon's flesh, plunging
remorselessly into both openings, blurred all boundaries of
sensation.

She could scarce distinguish one hole from the other.  Her body seemed
to be melting into a tumult of sweet, burning confusion.

She drew frantic breaths.  Her gathering rapture shortened, converging
on a deep, whirling centre.  Then the tension lashed its release.  She
wailed, soaring on a heady plateau, before the moment shattered and
precious, tumbling waves devoured her.

Marldon gave her no quarter.  He drew his finger from her anus and
reached around to claw at her breasts.  He pressed and squeezed their
hanging softness, his cock powering into her with brutal ferocity.

His body slapped harshly against her fleshy cheeks.  His hands clutched
in an animalistic frenzy.  Then he uttered a roar of gratification,
held a long jerking thrust inside her, and released the scorched seed
of his pleasure.

"Christ," he said, slipping out of her.

"I'm glad your father does not know you intimately.  If he did, he
would not have offered such a generous dowry."

The cold, crude remark stung like a whip.  Clarissa snatched a pillow
to her nudity and twisted around to face him, her eyes narrowed with
contempt.

"You foul man," she blazed.

"You foul, repugnant man."  Marldon's brows flicked in a quick arch,
and he feigned mild surprise.

"You didn't seem to mind too much," he jibed.

Clarissa's shameful conscience overwhelmed her.  How could she have
surrendered to him?  No, it was worse than surrender.  She had
responded to him with greedy, unconcealed lust; she had delighted in
his every action.  She hated him bitterly for making her succumb to his
base, heartless appetite.

"This means nothing," she said vehemently.

"You forced me to it.  And even if you do it again and again I will
never, ever be your wife.

You could put a pistol to my head and still I would say no.  The moment
I contact my father, he will withdraw his promise."

"I think it might be a little late for that," said Alee.  He moved away
from the bed and rummaged in the heap of his discarded clothes.

"I have the dowry contract here if you'd care to see it," he said,
producing a sheet of folded paper.

"Look at these signatures.  They are far more valuable, albeit less
charming, than your angry words."

Clarissa looked at the swirl of her father's name and the scratch of
Lord Marldon's.

"My father cannot, would not have done this," she gasped.

"There is no reason to it."

"You think too highly of him, Clarissa," he replied dispassionately.

"He's really no different from all the other parvenus in society:

desperate to introduce a little nobility into the family, to add a
touch of refinement to his vulgar wealth.  Businessman first; father
second."

Clarissa shook her head.  She knew it made sense and yet she could not
comprehend it.  She had not thought her father a man to pursue those
ends so ruthlessly.  The truth hurt more than anything: he had signed
her away.

"I shall refuse to go along with it," she said defiantly.

"Then he'll disinherit you."

Clarissa turned her head aside.

"I don't care," she said sulkily.

"I'm afraid I can't quite see you as a seamstress," he mocked.

"Nor a governess.  Of course, you could try whoring.  But even your
appetite wouldn't be enough to keep you in the pretty frocks you're
accustomed to."

"Then why am I here?"  she asked, still without looking at him.

"If it's all so cut and dried, why not just meet me at the altar?"

"I thought I'd try my hand at the preliminaries of courtship," he
said.

"An old-fashioned notion, I know.  But I thought it only polite."

Kitty could swear something strange was going on.  She hadn't seen hide
nor hair of Clarissa since she'd gone off to the Pleasure Gardens the
evening before.  And that Frenchwoman was definitely up to something.

Pascale had declared that mademoiselle was too tired for breakfast that
morning.  That didn't concern Kitty overmuch and, when she'd crept up
the stairs to tap gently on the bedroom door, it was only because she'd
hoped to find Clarissa there, drowsing in a happy haze.

Kitty was always eager to hear her stories of dancing and romancing.

But no one had answered and Kitty, a little concerned, had peeked into
the room.  Clarissa's bed had not been slept in.

She'd said nothing, though she'd thought it mighty funny.  But funnier
still was that when she'd returned to clean the room later than usual
because 'mademoiselle' kept on sleeping the bedsheets were all rumpled
and the pillows all bashed at.  Had Clarissa done that?  Or Pascale?

And then, according to Pascale, Miss Clarissa had gone off to spend a
few days with her cousin who was unwell.  Well, Kitty hadn't heard her
leave.

After some thought, she could only conclude that the young miss had
cooked up a plan to spend secret time with her new lover.  Perhaps that
was what Alicia paid Ellis and the Frenchwoman for.  He kept Aunt

Hester diverted while she covered for whatever Clarissa was doing But
it didn't seem right, and the whole thing nagged at Kitty.

She couldn't put it from her mind and she'd been skulking about all
morning, trying to catch the footman and Pascale off guard.

She stood now on the landing, hidden from view, listening intently to
the conversation at the front door.  It was Mr.  Gabriel Ardenzi,
Clarissa's sweetheart, and Ellis was giving him some cock-and-bull
story about Clarissa being poorly.  Kitty had done well to be
vigilant.

"As I say, sir," said the footman stiffly, 'such things are not at my
discretion.  And I assure you the matter is not serious.  Miss
Longleigh merely needs to rest awhile.  If you wish to leave a message
it will be conveyed to her."

"Half a crown, then," came the other voice.

Kitty was eager to steal a glance.  She peered cautiously over the
balcony and looked at the dark slender figure leaning against the door
jamb.  Lord, he was lovely.

"Sir," said Ellis.

"It embarrasses me to have to make my meaning clearer: I am above
bribery."

"Five shillings," persisted Mr.  Ardenzi, jangling the money in his
cupped palm.

"The honour of those I serve means more to me than a pocketful of
coins," replied Ellis pompously.

And there goes another lie, thought Kitty.  What the devil was going on
here?

Gabriel thanked the footman and, promising to return on the morrow, bid
him a sharp 'good day'.  As Ellis closed the door.  Kitty made her
presence known.

"I thought she was staying with Mrs.  Singleton," she said, making her
way down the stairs.

Ellis turned quickly, unable to conceal a spark of annoyance in his
eyes.

"She is," he retorted.

"But, if I told him that, he'd never be away from the place.  Miss
Longleigh's reputation could be ruined by the attentions of such a
raffish character."

"He looked all right to me," said Kitty defensively.  Ellis smiled and
moved to block her way.

"So the Latin type appeals to you, does it?  Tell me, what else do you
like in a man, pretty Kitty?"

"I like good manners," she snapped, trying to edge past him.

"Hush, hush," he said softly, mirroring her sideways shuffles.

"I

only want to talk to you.  We hardly know each other, do we?"  He
rested his hands on her shoulders.

"That doesn't seem right to me, not when we're in the same house and
there's so little work for us to do "Speak for yourself," she replied,
vigorously shrugging off his hands.

"Oh, Kitty.  Wouldn't you like to spend some time with me?"  he cooed,
stroking a ringer down her cheek.

"I find you a remarkably attractive woman.  Ever since "Get out of my
way," she said.  She heaved a shoulder against his chest and pushed
past him.

Ellis stood back and sighed longingly.

"You're too cruel, dear Kitty.

Too cruel."

She walked briskly along the hallway, feeling his foxy eyes on her
back.  The smarmy popinjay was trying to win her over, do an Aunt
Hester on her so she wouldn't be any trouble.  Well, he had another
think coming if he thought she'd fall for that one.

Down in the kitchen, cook was sweating and swearing over the range, and
Pascale was bustling around, complaining that someone had stolen her
tea allowance.  The under-footman, buffing up the silver and crystal,
was quietly glowering at her.  No one liked Pascale.  She was a nasty
piece of work; thought she was too good for everyone else.

Serve her right if her tea had been niched.

"Is Miss Carr having lunch in bed or at the table like normal folk?"

enquired Kitty.

"At the table," growled cook.

"So hop to it."

Kitty busied herself in the laundry room, finding cloths and napkins.

Aunt Hester was getting stranger by the day.  Everyone knew the footman
was popping in and out of her bed, and the old maid seemed determined
to spend as much time there as possible.  Whenever she emerged to eat
or to take a glass of port with the housekeeper her eyes were glazed
with bliss.  Kitty was convinced she'd taken to laudanum.  Ellis
couldn't be that good.

A clatter of the door knocker sounded through the house.  Kitty grabbed
a half-filled laundry basket and, mumbling that she'd forgotten some
sheets, darted up the stairs.  It was Mr.  Ardenzi again.

Kitty sauntered down the passage, singing a music-hall tune.  Ellis
flicked his head around and glanced at her, his face full of nerves.

Kitty grinned.

Gabriel handed an envelope to the footman.

"For Miss Longleigh," he said crisply.

"Thank you, sir," replied Ellis, putting his fist to a little cough.

"I'm sure it will be much appreciated."

Kitty approached them.

"I'm going up there now, Mr.  Ellis," she said, smiling brightly.  Til
give it her if you like.  She could do with a little something to cheer
her up, poor mite.  Nothing but a nasty wheeze for company.  If you ask
me, it's this London air.  Gets right inside "Thank you.  Kitty,"
snapped Ellis.

"But there really is no need."  He put the letter in his top pocket.

"I'll make sure Miss Longleigh receives it."

"Suit yourself," she said.

"Just trying to save your legs."

My dearest Clarissa, It pains me deeply to hear you are unwell, almost
as much as it pains me to be apart from you.  Yet it consoles me too,
for when you did not come to me at Cremome I had only demons in my mind
to answer my question, "Why?"  The blackest and the loudest demon of
all said you no longer loved me.  My sweet flower, my precious jewel, I
could bear anything but that.  Please, I implore you, send word to
say

131 Clarissa's vision blurred.  A tear, then another, splashed on to
the paper, spreading words into fragile inky spiders.  She turned away
and fixed her gaze on one of the rows of calf-bound books, trying to
focus.  The guilt and shame she'd felt on waking yesterday were nothing
compared to this.

"Would you like me to read it to you?"  asked Lord Marldon, reaching
across the vast library table to take the letter.

"No," she whispered.  She'd betrayed Gabriel; she'd defiled their love
with her squalid carnality.

"Are you sure?"  he asked.

"It's really quite a touching piece."

"No," she repeated in a voice just as soft and small.

For a day and a night she had not seen Lord Marldon.  He had left her
alone, with nothing but bitter thoughts and regrets for company.  In
those bleak, lonely hours she had berated herself for yielding to her
desires.  But now, more desperately than ever, she berated herself for
having them.  She found Lord Alee dangerously compelling.  She could
not help wanting him; she could not stop anticipating the cruelties he
might impose on her.  And, even with Gabriel's words of love spinning
in her mind, she knew she would yield again.

Marldon placed an inkstand by her hand and laid a sheet of paper before
her.  He pushed her loose, wavy hair over one shoulder and curled a
hand to the back of her neck, massaging gently.

"The pen, Clarissa," he said.

She shivered at his touch and dipped the nib into the inkwell.  It was
another surrender to him, but surrender was not the worst of it.  She
might, somehow, be able to resist his lewd demands, but what good would
it do?  The desire would still exist; a dark part of her being that
separated her from Gabriel, not physically but emotionally.

Finding the self-control to fight both herself and Marldon could never
be enough.

"My dear Gabriel," Alee began, dictating slowly.

Thank you so much for troubling to write.  I'm afraid I am rather weak
at present and I fear visitors would only tire me."

Clarissa saw the words forming on the page, flowing meaninglessly from
the nib.  The doctor has advised complete bedrest ... you must refrain
from calling ... time to reflect... a little overhasty... "In declaring
my devotion to you continued Marldon.

"It was a moment's infatuation, a foolish caprice which must be for '
"No," said Clarissa.

"I cannot say that.  I will not.  And, besides, he will not believe
it."

Lord Marldon leant over her.  The stripe of a neatly clipped side burn
grated on her cheek.  She smelt his closeness, masculinity blended with
woody cologne, and it roused her.  She held her breath as slowly he
slid a hand beneath her silks and spread his fingers around a naked
breast.  He palmed the soft flesh.

"But, Clarissa," he whispered with sardonic tenderness, 'it's the
truest part of the letter."

His touch set smouldering a need, a need shadowed with black
remembrance of her first night at Asham.  She shuddered
imperceptibly.

It was Gabriel she loved.  It was he who had captured her heart.  Yet
Lord Marldon had captured something else and, with him standing so
close, caressing her that way, it seemed a stronger thing.

"And don't you think," he continued, nuzzling into her neck, 'it would
be unkind to offer him false hope?  You must realise you have no future
with him.  Your father, for one thing, would never permit marriage. But
that is not reason enough.  No, no.  The reason, Clarissa, is that you
have extraordinary desires.  Most men would not understand them, let
alone be capable of satisfying them.  I can do both."  His voice was
gentle, comforting.  He held out his hand.

"Come, let me show you.  You can write to the gypsy later."

Clarissa did not reply but she placed her hand in his.  Her shameful
heart quickened.  Lord Marldon led her along a wide corridor, its walls
hung with great Gobelin tapestries and ancestral portraits.  He stopped
occasionally to point out the significance of various people.

This was the first viscount, and that was Lady Buckley who sired eleven
children.  Ah, here was one.  She became Duchess of Westminster at the
age of fifteen.

His words, thought Clarissa, were not intended to provoke awe.  They
were merely another part of her education, a display of his conviction
that she would soon be his wife.  She must learn about the family she
was marrying into, just as she must learn how to enjoy his
depravities.

Well, he was wrong.  She would never consent to be his bride, no matter
what settlement her father had arranged.  It was about the only thing
she was certain of.

Before a vast oil painting of a young man with a flamboyant ruffle at
his throat, Marldon paused.

"And this is the fourth earl," he said.

"If it weren't for him, Asham House would not be as you see it today.

He's responsible for much of the decoration, his tribute to a whore
from Cadiz.  A magnanimous gesture, don't you think?"

"He's your grandfather," stated Clarissa flatly, not wanting to appear
impressed.

"That's debatable," Alee replied, guiding her away.

"But she was quite certainly my grandmother."

Clarissa looked at him, shocked by the admission of impurity in his
family.

"What does it matter?"  He shrugged, catching her expression.

"After all, it was bastardy which brought us to the peerage.  I'd have
the blood of Charles the Second in me if it had not continued."

"So instead you have the blood of a bastard," said Clarissa acidly.

"How fitting."

Marldon laughed loudly.  The sound soared in the great entrance hall
and hovered on the air, enveloping the clack of their footsteps.

Shafts of dusty sunlight slanted across the room on to the tiled
floor.

The immense double doors were bolted and padlocked.

"How well we're getting to know each other," he said as they ascended
the broad curving staircase.

"Perhaps one day I shall pay homage to you in the manner of my
cuckolded forefather.  If I still desire you in, say, four months, I
might think about replacing the curtains in the drawing room."

Clarissa did not rise to the insult in the way she might have done
previously.

"And if you still desire me in five months?"  she said with challenging
aplomb.

"I won't," he replied matter-of-factly.

"All women have their limits, even you.  We'll go to your room, shall
we?  It's a little more conventional."

The moment they were in Clarissa's bedroom.  Lord Marldon began deftly
un looping the tiny buttons which ran down her back.  He turned her
this way and that, swiftly removing layers and talking of Disraeli and
some bill the House had overturned.  She did not understand him.

He showed no desire; he did not tease.

"Get on the bed," he said when she was naked.

Clarissa sat on the edge, nervously watching as he stripped off his
clothes.  His brusque efficiency confused and alarmed her.  He fell on
her, pushing her back and spreading her legs wide.  His erection butted
at her vulva.

"Please, I'm not ready," she implored.

Lord Marldon spat on his hand and rubbed it briskly against her sex.

"Better?"  he snarled.

His stiffened penis found her entrance and he shoved hard, to the
hilt.

Clarissa moaned in protest as he began thrusting rapidly, his head
raised, his eyes fixed grimly on the head of the bed.  His manner, so
disinterested and remote, made her feel worthless and small.  He took
her as if it were a chore.  Why didn't he indulge her with his cruel
seductions?  Why didn't he show how she excited him?

She begged him to desist, yet even as she did so she felt her body
thrill to the heavy plunges of his great, swollen cock.  Its thick
solidity, driving urgently into her depths, stimulated her within.

She clutched her sex on his pounding shaft, gasping with rising
pleasure.  The pit of her belly pulsed and throbbed, and she tilted her
hips, hungry to take his thrusts.

"Be still," he snapped.  Then a moment later he withdrew, leaving
Clarissa breathless and wanting.  He had not climaxed.

"Are you satisfied?"  he asked, sitting back against the mass of
pillows.

"No?  Nor I, but a lesser man might have been."

Clarissa pressed a hand to his pale, muscular chest, and stroked
quickly downward, imploring him to continue.  He spurned her, flinging
away her touch, and she shrank away in bewilderment and fear.

"And that is what you would get from the marriage bed," he went on, a
note of irritation in his voice.

"Though in such a situation you'd be wise not to respond quite so
ardently.  A husband will take a mistress if he wants those sorts of
antics.  He expects his wife to show, at worst, modesty; at best,
revulsion.  Do you think you're suited to the role, Clarissa?"  He
turned to her with a mocking smile.

She shook her head.  She knew Gabriel was not such a man.  But at that
moment her thoughts were more concerned with Lord Alee.  She ached for
him; she wanted him to give her delight as he had done before.  Yet she
dared not admit to it.  He would only use it to prove how right he
was.

"Then you're fortunate in that you will have me as a husband," he
said.

"I can show you pleasures far superior."

"You mean perversions," said Clarissa sullenly, casting her eyes
down.

"They're hardly a basis for marriage."

"Ah, but that is where you are wrong," he replied.

He touched his fingertips to her cheek, turning her gently to meet his
gaze.  She looked at him steadily.  His lips were set in an arrogant
half-sneer, and his black, inky eyes glittered with callous joy.  She
saw in that expression how sure he was of his hold over her, of his
ability to master her, body and soul.  His confidence was
unshakeable.

It incensed her; it crushed her; and it thrilled her.

"You see, in your innocence you think love the greater force," he said
softly.

"And, true enough, it binds many couples.  Although there are plenty
who do not even have that.  But as man and wife, Clarissa, you and I
will be bound by something so much darker than love, so much
stronger."

He moved her hand to his groin and held it against the warm sac of his
balls.  She massaged the pouch, delighting in the tight weight rolling
within the shifting skin.  Her fingers explored, stroking lightly and
running along the bridge to his anus.

"Suck me, Clarissa," he rasped.

"Brinley was rather complimentary about your mouth.  Show me what you
can do."

She flinched inwardly at the reminder and pitched him a hurt look.

There was a moment's reluctance in her eyes, only a moment's, but it
was enough.  Marldon lunged forward and tangled a fist in her hair,
tugging her towards him.  She yelped, her body twisting, as she
struggled on to all fours.  He pulled her head between his bent, open
legs and held it there, inches from his formidable, jutting member.

Gnarled veins pulsed beneath the skin and she smelt his musky
sexuality.  The hungry power, so densely packed in his rigid organ,
made her sex flush with longing.

"Come now," he said with a touch of asperity.

"I'm not asking for much.  I merely expect you to get rid of what
you've roused.  It threatens my plans for you."

Clutching her dark tresses, he forced her down.  Sheparted her lips to
take him, and his taut, hard cock surged fiercely into her mouth.  He
clasped her firmly and thrust his loins upward, pounding relentlessly
as if he were coupling with her.  Clarissa's throat contracted.  Tears
burnt her eyes.  She clawed at his thighs, fearing he would choke
her.

Yet still, there was some part of her which relished his brutality.

Marldon stopped and raised her head.

"Don't try my patience again," he said.

"I can usually control my lust, but seldom my temper.  Now do to me as
you wish.  But make sure I come in your mouth."

Clarissa licked teasingly along his shaft, from hair- collared base to
smooth, swollen tip.  She explored his glans, lashing around the
circlet of retracted skin and probing the tiny opening.  Her fingers
stole in to caress his testicles, and she sank her mouth to the thick
root of his phallus.  She drew back slowly, indulging in the feel of
him: the throbbing heat, the unyielding virility.  She kept her lips
tight to his girth, and her agile tongue moved ceaselessly.

Marldon glided into her caress with restrained lifts of his pelvis.

"A little faster," he urged.

"Go with me."

Clarissa complied.  She took him in sweeping gulps, matching the
gathering rhythm of his jerking hips.  Her arousal soared in response
to his urgency, and she felt her labia thicken with honeyed humidity.

"Yes," he hissed.  His cock plunged quicker and deeper.

She kept pace, sucking and swallowing, firm and deep.  She heard him
groan, a husky sound of bliss, and it pierced her groin with stabbing
fire.  His balls tightened beneath her fingers and his prick throbbed
to a sudden hard swell.  He drove furiously and, with a grating shout,
spent his release.

His cock twitched and pulsed, and his semen flooded over her tongue in
hot, tearing spurts.  Its pungency burnt in her throat.  She drank
deeply and Marldon gave a low sigh of contentment.

For a long time he did not move or speak, and neither did she.  She
kept him in her mouth, lapping idly at his decreasing solidity.

"I expect you'll be wanting your pleasure now."  His words were cold
and functional but his tone was gentle.  He curled tendrils in her hair
with lazy, distracted fingers.

"Come here," he murmured.

His eyes smiled drowsily into hers and he played his hands lightly over
her contours, skimming her nipples and hip bones.  This was a new mood
for Clarissa, one she liked.  Her body tingled with eagerness and she
was glad she had pleased him.

She widened her thighs and tilted her hips to him.

Lord Marldon huffed a quick laugh.

"Patience, patience, child," he whispered.

"I want to take my time over you.  We have an evening and a night ahead
of us.  I want to indulge your desires."

Clarissa flexed her spine in anticipation of luxury.  She reached out
to him and slid her hand over his chest in slow, sinuous motions.  His
gaze roved over her pale curves.

"You're delectable," he said quietly.

"Ah, what times we shall have together."

He smoothed a finger over her lips and she sucked softly on it.  Her
hand travelled up to his face and stroked over his features.  She
traced the slope of his nose, over the slightly raised bridge, down its
straightness.  She swept along his cheekbones and drifted to the line
of his scar, wondering, wondering.  Her finger followed the silvery
ridge almost parallel to his jaw, then dipped down to his neck.

"How did you get such a mark?"  she enquired, her voice scarce more
than a breath.

Marldon smiled.  A sparkle of glee replaced the tenderness in his
eyes.

"From a woman, would you believe?"  he said.

"A lover.  She slashed me while I was sleeping."

Clarissa drew back her hand and looked at him aghast.

"She didn't try it again," he added, rising from the bed.  He picked up
his shirt and began to dress.

"Where are you going?"  pleaded Clarissa.  He had promised her
pleasure.  He could not leave.

"I'm taking you somewhere special," he said, stepping into his
trousers.

Clarissa leant to gather her shift from the floor but Marldon lightly
kicked it away.

"Don't bother," he said.

"You'll only have to take it all off again."

"I can't go anywhere like this," she hissed, crossing her arms over her
breasts.

"It's only the servants," he scoffed.

"And they've already seen most of it."

"No," said Clarissa, pulling the coverlet to hide her body.

"Don't let them watch us.  I don't like it."

"You do," he replied, shrugging on his waistcoat.

"But don't let that concern you.  Tonight, Clarissa, they will not be
watching."  FR1;Chapter Eight /^'larissa hesitated in the doorway,
fingers linked over v-her groin, and gazed upon the small room before
her.

It was a windowless octagon, its ebony-panelled walls inlaid with tall
plate mirrors.  Sconces, carved into naked figures, held purple wax
lights in outstretched arms, and a patchwork of dead animals, sleek and
black, covered the floor.  The only item of furniture was a low couch,
its frame scrolled silver, its upholstery midnight satin.

Lord Marldon put a hand to the small of her back.  A shiver started
there and chilled through her body.

"Go on," he said, easing her forward.

"There's much to admire."

Her bare feet padded soundlessly across the silky carpeting.  The room
ran to infinity in the depths of the mirrors, and so did Clarissa.

She saw her every movement, her nervously darting eyes, her fruitless
attempts to turn from her reflection.  Somewhere in the distance she
was a tiny thing, a fluttering insect trapped in a confusion of candle
flames.

Marldon closed the door.  In the glass Clarissa saw the ebony panel
beside it.  She whirled to look, hoping it was an illusion, a trick of
the light.  It was not.  Hanging from the wall at six points were
sturdy leather plaits attached to broad leather cuffs.  They dangled
limply, the lower two trailing across the floor, patiently awaiting
their next captive.

Clarissa drew a sharp breath and cursed herself silently.  She should
have known better.  When Marldon said he would indulge her desires, he
meant the desires he read in her, not the desires she knew.

She turned to him, full of trepidation.

"What do you intend?"  she whispered.

Alee began folding back his shirtsleeves and smiled.  in the mirrors, a
hundred cruel faces gave a hundred cold smiles.

"You have too much control," he replied evenly.

"No, let me correct that.  Too much self-control.  At times it deserts
you, but that is nothing special.  It happens to us all.  Ecstasy and
desire are great equalisers.  Everyone is overwhelmed; everyone is
debased to mere carnality."

He paced the room, hands clasped behind his back, addressing an
imaginary audience.

"You see, I do not wish to have a woman who governs herself.  When I
see such a person, I want to strip her of that protective shield.  I
want to remove everything mankind has toiled to develop, the things we
believe elevate us above the animals: dignity, self-possession, the
revered intellect, the sacred soul.  I want to reduce her, degrade her
to nothing but flesh and appetite.  Strange, isn't it, the way some
things appeal?"

He turned to Clarissa.

"Sit there," he said.  He nodded to a mirror which ran from ceiling to
floor.

Clarissa knelt before it, her guarded eyes following his reflection.

"On your arse, miss," he ordered.

"And open your legs."

Clarissa acquiesced.  Her compliance dismayed her but rather this, she
thought, than be shackled.  Marldon crossed and knelt behind her.  His
hands moved around to cup and fondle her breasts.

"Look at yourself," he urged.

Reluctantly, she did so.  The subdued orangey light tinted her pale
skin, and her crinkling nipples peeped through Alec's caressing
fingers.  Her sex, so flagrantly exposed, seemed to glare back at her,
commanding attention.  It nestled within her parted white thighs, a
deep-pink lily fringed with fine black curls.  It pouted
lasciviously.

It flaunted its wetness.

"Now touch yourself," he whispered.

Clarissa shook her head.

"No, I cannot," she breathed.

"Not when you are watching."

"Yes, you can," he said in a soft, cajoling tone.

"I've watched you before.  Remember?"

"But then I did not know it," replied Clarissa, bitterly resentful.

"Touch yourself," he repeated.

"Keep your eyes where they are and spread your sex for me."  He rolled
her nipples between thumb and forefinger, teasing her arousal,
challenging her to disobey.

"Or I'll bring in one of the servants to do it," he added.

Clarissa flashed an alarmed glance at his reflection but Alee did not
see.  His gaze was fixed on her secret place.  She dared not refuse
him, for without doubt he would summon a servant.  Drawing a deep
breath of courage, Clarissa touched timid fingers to her moist, tender
flesh and splayed her labia for him.  She saw flattened glossy lips,
smooth and crimson, and the dark hungry shadow of her vagina.

The lewdness of the image she offered dismayed and enthralled her.

"Push your fingers inside yourself," he said.

"Touch your clitoris.

Make yourself come."

"I cannot," she insisted.

"I won't be able to ... to come."

"Try," he snapped, massaging her breasts with a sudden harshness.

Clarissa whimpered in objection then inserted a finger into her humid
passage.  Awkward and embarrassed, she began driving slowly.  Marldon
watched her avidly in the glass, a vague smile playing on his lips.

With lazy enjoyment his hands caressed her pale orbs, scuffing their
rigid tips.  Clarissa's lust swelled with heavy heat.

Tentatively she slid in a second finger and moved her thumb to her
engorged and needful clitoris.  It tingled lightly in response.  She
teased and fretted the sensitive tissue, but could not push her arousal
any further.  Desperate to fulfill Alec's vile command, she tried
imagining herself elsewhere, alone.  But it did not work.  Her
discomfiture held her pleasure in check.

Lord Marldon shook his head disparagingly and gave a reproachful tut.

"What's the problem, Clarissa?"  he enquired.

"You were eager for satisfaction not long since.  Is it because I'm
watching, or because you are?"

She looked at him askance.

"I don't know," she said ruefully.

"Both."

"You must learn to let go," he replied.

"Perhaps a third party will help you find a little distance from
yourself."  He rose to his feet.

"No," implored Clarissa, twisting round to him in a panic.

"Don't let anyone watch.  It's hateful.  I'll try harder, I promise."

The earl turned a boss on one of the mirrored walls and it opened
partially, revealing shadows of a closet.

"An inanimate third party," he said, shutting the door.

He returned and knelt at her buttocks, an object in his hand.

Reaching his arms around her, he weighed the thing in upturned palms.

It was a column of stout, phallic ivory, sleekly carved with a rounded
end.  It gleamed in the half-light, obscene and threatening.

Clarissa uttered a faint squeak of horror.

Lord Marldon gripped the tool at its root and stroked its smooth blunt
crown across the upper curves of her bosom.

"You will use this," he said, brushing a taut nipple with the cold
ivory shaft.  He swept it up to her throat then slowly trailed it down,
nosing its tip through the valley of her breasts and over her belly.

Clarissa shivered as the phallus, stem and hard, lingered at the curls
of her pubis.  Her sex flushed with desire and a thick, hungering beat
blossomed there, urging her to take the foul object, to push it high
into her aching depths.  Marldon drew the dildo back up her body then
clenched it upright in his fist.

"Go on,7 he said.

"Use it."

Spots of colour burnt in Clarissa's cheeks and she took the fake cock
with a petulant snatch.  Lord Marldon moved away.  He sat beneath a
mirror, watching, waiting, smiling.

Clarissa held her breath and nudged the hard domed head at the
flagrantly wide portal of her sex.  Her body yearned for the crude
invasion and she could not suppress a gentle moan.  Her lust guided
her.  Swiftly, she dropped back to lie on the floor, spreading her bent
legs.  The soft carpet caressed her skin, silk slipping on silk.

Her hips lifted and she eased the dildo into her hot, receptive well,
taking the full measure of its strong, solid length.  Its inflexible
girth stretched her and she groaned wantonly, feeling her moisture
slide over the cool, polished bar.  She drew the tool back then pushed
high, again and again, delighting in the thrust of unyielding
rigidity.

"Yes," hissed Marldon.

"Yes."

She no longer cared that he watched.  Her fast-rising arousal flamed
and throbbed, taking precedence over modesty.  She pounded on, driving
herself to climax, cramming in the phallus with fast hard shoves.  The
curved tip bumped deep, exquisitely brutal.  She clamped her muscles
around the cock's rigidity.  She arched her spine, her loins heaving as
she pistoned shamelessly.

A long, keening sound broke from her lips.  Her orgasm peaked, spilt
over, and blissful tremors coursed through every part of her body.

She was motionless for a while, gaining her breath, then she curled on
her side and hid her face in her arms.  The dildo slipped from her.

The room was silent.  Clarissa's self-loathing grew ever stronger as
the stillness lengthened.  Then Marldon began a slow hand clap

"Encore," he said flatly.

"Encore."

Clarissa drew herself into a tighter ball, embittered and ashamed.

She should not allow him to push her to such extremes nor to treat her
with such contempt.  Yet Marldon's cold dominance made her powerless.

It vanquished her because it thrilled her.  She wished it were
otherwise.

"I can still see you," said Alee, nudging a cold shoe into her
buttock.

She unfurled herself and sat in a huddle, glaring up at him with
defiant eyes.

"I despise you," she hissed.

"I expected nothing less," he said, smiling.

"Now stand up."

Clarissa rose.  Her lower lip trembled but she fought back the tears.

She would not give him an opportunity for further amusement.  Marldon
took both her hands gently, then with a sudden twist he was clutching
her wrists and bearing her backward to the wall to the wall affixed
with straps and shackles.  Her toes crushed under his quick footsteps
and she yelped, hopping to avoid further pain.  He slammed her against
the ebony panel, and pressed his powerful body to hers.

His clothes felt rough against her skin and his cock was a hard bulky
mass, digging into her belly.

He lifted one of her arms and deftly wrapped a leather cuff round her
wrist, pulling the buckles tight.  With quick skill he pinned up her
other arm and fastened the second thick strap, grinding his erection
into her as he worked.  Clarissa barely had space to struggle.

"There is no need for this," she gasped, squirming uselessly against
him.

"Oh, there is," said Alee, dropping to his knees.  He leant heavily
against her right leg and secured a fetter about her ankle.  Then he
did the same to her left ankle and stepped back, breathless, to look at
her in the opposite mirror.  The candles poured their light on to
Clarissa's naked body, and she was a star of flesh.  She could move her
limbs, a few inches this way, a few inches that.  But she could not
make the body staring back at her any less exposed.  A thick tress of
her dark hair hung over one breast.  Marldon, still watching in the
glass, swept the loose curls behind her shoulder.

"That's better," he murmured.

"Are you comfortable, Clarissa?"

"Oh, perfectly so," she said dryly.

"Good," he drawled.

"Because I have some business to attend to.

You're going to be there a while."

Clarissa cursed.  The leather restraints creaked as she tugged.  His
devilry was impossible to match.  Every time she predicted his next
move, he outwitted her.

"You cannot go," she cried.

"You cannot leave me like this."

But her protests were heedless.  Lord Marldon had gone.

Alee strode briskly down the corridor.  His lust pounded fiercely in
his trapped prick, demanding relief.

The girl roused him too much.  Her beseeching, fearful eyes brought the
blood pumping to his cock.  And those tormented writhings as she'd
thrust with the dildo had made him savagely hard.  Everything about her
delighted him: her splendid body, her fights to quell her passion, and
the beauty of her when she succumbed.  Ah, they were exquisite
things.

They were also novelties and within a short enough time they would
fade.  He would tire of her, as he tired of all women.

But, for now, that disenchanted future seemed far away.  His appetite
for Clarissa was strong and sharp.

If it were not for his plans he would have taken her in the Octagon
Room, but that would have spoilt things.  She would have enjoyed it.

He ran his hand along the balustrade and turned to descend the
stairs.

He caught sight of a dark-haired maid below.

"Charlotte!"  he called out.

"Don't move."

He jogged down to the first-floor gallery.  The girl stood motionless
near the head of the marble staircase, holding a tray of silver tea
things, eyeing him warily.  He approached rapidly and her worried gaze
flicked to his swollen crotch.  She backed away.

"Who's taking tea?"  he demanded.

"Brinley, my lord," replied Charlotte, still retreating along the
gallery.

"In the blue drawing room."

"Damned boy's getting ideas above his station," said Alee, catching the
young maid's arm.

She squealed.  The tray crashed to the floor, shattering china and
splashing pools of tea and cream.  Lord Marl- don pushed the girl back
against a marble column, clutching a fistful of her thick, brunette
curls.

"That will be docked from your wages," he snapped.

He took a moment to savour the fear in Charlotte's face, then he
twisted her around, forcing her upper body to lean over the balcony's
glass rail.  The spreading tea trickled past the gilded balusters, over
the edge.  It dripped on to the tiled floor of the hall beneath.

Marldon flung up the maid's skirts and with a violent wrench tugged at
her drawers and let them fall to her ankles.  Her arse was taut and
white, as deliciously skinny as a young boy's.

"No," protested Charlotte.

"Not here."

"It's what I pay you for, isn't it?"  he snarled, quickly opening the
buttons of his flies.

"Are you handing in your notice, girl?"

Marldon released his pulsing erection and widened the maid's legs with
a swift kick of his foot.

"No, my lord," she conceded in a breathy voice.

Her pink folds hung lasciviously below the split of her buttocks.

Without delay, Marldon levelled his thick, angry glans at her yawning
entrance and drove himself hard, penetrating her hot, fleshy depths.

She was wet; she wanted it.  Or she'd just had it from Brinley.  Lord
Marldon thrust furiously, indifferent to her pleasure, hungry for his
own.  Her tightness clung to his surging cock and he plunged deep, his
belly banging against her little quivering arse.

Charlotte's shrill cries, punctuated by Alec's husky grunts, soared to
the domed ceiling.  Their noises echoed back and an orgy of sounds
filled the air.  The maid grasped the rail with her small hands, her
knuckles gleaming like the crystal.  Her slender cheeks lifted and
rocked with Marldon's merciless slamming.  His strokes were heavy,
increasingly fast.  His fingers were fastened to her hips like claws.

The pressure of his impending climax swelled in his phallus.  He
thundered on, chasing fulfilment.

The maid beat a hand against the banister, shaking her mane of glossy
curls.  Her cries shortened to frenzied gasps then she released a long,
bitter wall.  Her vagina spasmed wet ripples around his shaft, milking
the hot lust from him.  Lord Marldon thrust deep, growled, and came.

His shoulders heaved with his recovering breaths.  He slipped out of
the maid and tidied his prick away.

Charlotte was motionless, her buttocks still bared.  Alee eyed the
white flesh, reddened at the sides with the imprints of his fingers.

The girl mewled pathetically.  Marldon raised a hand and swung it down
to crack across one cheek.

Charlotte yelped and cursed him openly.

"That's for spilling the tea," he said in a dull tone.

"Get it cleared up at once."

"For God's sake, Gabriel, will you please sit down?"  snapped Lucy,
clattering her teacup in its saucer.

"I can't think with you pacing about in that manner.  It's driving me
to distraction."

Gabriel stalked over to an armchair, perched himself on the edge and
glowered at her and Julian.  /!  fail to see why we can't involve the
police," he said, slicing a hand through the air in exasperation.

"I don't give a damn if they raid his whorehouse and shut the place
down.  I don't give a damn if they lock him up and throw away the
key.

I don't - I just want Clarissa, safe and well.  It's perfectly,
perfectly simple."  He threw himself back into the armchair and exhaled
impatiently.

Lucy twirled her wedding ring.  A few weeks ago, she would have
relished this friction between the two men.  But now it was plain to
see Gabriel no longer had eyes for her, and the situation was far
graver.

"My dear fellow," said Julian, calmly pouring tea.

"The closure of Madame Jane's would be another nail in London's
coffin.

There's hardly a place left which dares flout the licensing laws so un
stintingly and with such panache."

Lucy gave him a scathing look.

"Sir Julian is being either incredibly selfish or utterly facetious,"
she said in a brittle tone.

"Or quite possibly both."

"Quite possibly."  He smiled and took a genteel sip of tea.

"But at least we've moved on.  Mr.  Ardenzi is, I assume, no longer
contemplating murder."

Gabriel fixed him with a black, angry stare.

"I think he might be," mumbled Kitty.

Sir Julian laughed.

"Forgive me if I'm being infuriating.  But surely you see the sense of
my argument.  Alee Marldon is a clever man.  He has friends in high
places and he has influence.  How else could Madame Jane's have
survived?  Every brothel in Panton Street, barring his, has either
closed or operates illegally.  Heavens, we could send a cartload of
constables to Asham House and he'd probably be on first-name terms with
the lot of them.  He'd offer them some bawdy delights, then they'd
dance off into the night as merry as sand boys

Gabriel stood quickly.  The little housemaid, sitting awkward and
tense, followed his every movement with big anxious eyes.  He combed
his fingers through his hair and began striding between the two
fireside armchairs.  Lucy fought the urge to upbraid him.

"I'm afraid Julian's correct," she said sympathetically, hoping to
defuse the tension.

"We have to catch Marldon unawares, play him at his own game.  And,
however we do that, I for one would dearly like to see him squirm and
suffer."

She had not forgiven Marldon for the night at Octavia's ball.  She'd
insisted to Julian that she'd done it solely to prevent Lord Alexander
from meeting Clarissa, but the truth of it was otherwise.

He had aroused her greatly.  He had built her appetite to such a fever
that she had readily demeaned herself to quench her lust.  He was
remarkably adept, and she detested him for it.  She could only hope
that cousin Clarissa had substantially more willpower than she herself
did.

"Any bright ideas then?"  asked Gabriel, thrusting his hands deep in
his pockets.

Silence fell upon the room.  A carriage rumbled by in the square
below.

The hall clock chimed half the hour.

Lucy stood up and turned to the Longleighs' housemaid.  It was thanks
to her that they'd lea mt of Clarissa's whereabouts.  She'd rushed to
Gabriel's house within moments of overhearing the servants' gossip.

The girl was obviously loyal to her mistress.

"Do you enjoy your work.  Kitty?"  enquired Lucy affably.

Gabriel groaned and sat heavily in the armchair, his head in his
hands.

Kitty shrugged.

"It's all right, ma'am," she said.

"I get Sunday afternoons off and once a month I have a Wednesday. Don't
much care for Mondays though, as then it's laundry day."

Lucy smiled.

"Would you like to spend long mornings in bed, wear elegant clothes and
drink chilled champagne in the evenings?"

Julian rose to join Lucy and stroked a hand down her spine.  He looked
intently at the pretty, young maid, his smile broadening.

"Course I would," replied Kitty, her lower lip pouting.

"Who wouldn't?"

Lucy swung around to Gabriel, her face bright with enthusiasm.  She was
about to speak when she stopped herself and looked at him
thoughtfully.

"I have two plans," she announced at length.

"Both of which Marldon will never guess at.  Both of which involve
Octavia Hamilton."

Gabriel sank back into his seat and released a heavy sigh.

"Lucy," he said wearily, 'you have my undivided attention."

The Octagon Room was hot and airless.  Clarissa's arms tingled with
lack of blood, and a dull ache weighed on every part of her.

The image of her body, spread and helplessly bound, would not leave her
mind.  Even when she closed her eyes and blocked out the mirror
opposite, she could see herself.  And the creamy-white phallus lay on
the black floor, grotesque, mocking.

Clarissa did not know how long she had been there.  There was no
natural light to judge the hours by, no clocks, no sounds of the
house.

One candle had died and now another was guttering.  Its dancing flame
flickered light and shadows over the pale curves of her flesh.

The room seemed to shudder.

Clarissa's emotions had run from anger to frustration and now to
listless despair.  She was thirsty and tired.  Whenever she thought of
sitting down, a sob of wanting rose in her throat.  If only she knew
when Alee would return, then it might be more bearable.  Would it be
shortly, tomorrow, or a week from now?  Perhaps he intended to starve
her into submission.  He would propose marriage when she was
irrational, delirious with hunger.  And, she thought sourly, he would
do it on bended knee.

A long, heavy breath drifted from her dry lips.  She tried to sink her
body lower, allowing the cuffs to take her weight, but the strain on
her arms was too much.  She tried grasping the leather plaits which
joined her to the wall and slumping down.  A few seconds was all she
could manage.

If she had the strength, she would hate Marldon.  And she would hate
that duplicitous French maid, Pascale.  How well they had organised her
disappearance, bothering even to send on some clothes before her
arrival.  And, back in Chelsea, a carefully woven tissue of lies veiled
her absence.

She recalled Gabriel's letter and her heart lifted a touch.  Marldon
could not keep her bound for long: she had a reply to finish writing.

He would surely not take the risk of arousing Gabriel's suspicions.

To her left, the door swung slowly open.  Fresher, cooler air wafted
into the room and the spluttering candle at last petered out.

Clarissa turned, hope and fear mingling in her stomach.  A woman
entered, a woman she vaguely recognised, with a cascade of rich-brown
curls.  She wore a maid's plain blue linen, and in her hands she
carried a glass pitcher, brimful of water.  The amber half-light glowed
in its transparency, and beads of dew misted the surface.

Clarissa moistened her lips.

The young woman looked at her with sullen indifference.

"Tired?"  she asked.

"Thirsty?  Hungry?"

Clarissa nodded.

"Could I please have a drink?"  she said softly.

The maid smiled, her jade eyes sparkling.

"That makes my task easier," she replied.

She lifted the jug to Clarissa's mouth, tipping it slightly.  The
liquid washed over Clarissa's parched throat and chilled an exquisite
path to her stomach.  It trickled from her lips as she drank, spilling
sweet, icy droplets on to her breasts.  She gulped her fill and
murmured satisfaction, murmurs which grew more urgent when the pitcher
was not withdrawn.  She moved her head back and the glass rim
followed,

pressing to her lips.  She locked her throat.  Water streamed over her
chin, coursed down her neck, and splashed on to her body.

The young woman pulled the vessel away and sighed.

"Enough," gasped Clarissa through coughs and splutters.

"Thank you.

Enough."

The maid paused, watching her recover.  When Clarissa's breath was
steady she raised the jug once more.

"His lordship's request," said the girl, regarding her with an
unwavering gaze.

"You're to drink it all."

Clarissa swallowed some of the liquid in shock then pursed her lips,
resisting.  She could not understand why Marldon would want such a
thing.

"Damnation," hissed the young woman, lowering the pitcher.

"I thought you were thirsty.  Brinley!"

The door opened and Marldon's weaselly valet came into the room.  His
smoky-green eyes raked Clarissa's helpless, naked body.

"Being difficult is she.  Charlotte?"  he said gleefully, shrugging off
his frock coat and dropping it to the ground.  He tugged the tie from
his neck and began hastily unfastening his shirt studs.

Panic swam in Clarissa's mind.  He was going to threaten her.  He was
going to violate her if she disobeyed.  Her shackled legs felt suddenly
more open than ever.

"No," she pleaded.

"Let me drink."

Charlotte immediately tilted the jug to Clarissa's lips.  She drank
urgently, fighting the instinct to choke it from her mouth.  The water
was hard to swallow.  It flowed ceaselessly into her, bloating her
belly to leaden heaviness.  When she'd drained the contents, the young
maid stepped back and smiled contentedly.

"His lordship invariably gets his own way," she said, setting down the
empty jug.

"So I hear," said Brinley, flashing the girl a knavish grin.

He was naked now, his lean buttocks reflecting endlessly in one of the
mirrors.  His prick, clasped in his fist, was stiff and upright.  Its
gleaming purple tip swelled above his fingers, and he fixed Clarissa
with bright, taunting eyes.  Slowly, he moved his hand up and down the
turgid stem.

Clarissa whined in soft complaint and turned away, remembering her
first night when she'd sucked the valet's penis.  The memory revolted
her, and terror ran quick and cold in her veins.  Had Alee ordered him
to do worse things to her?  Was he going to ravish her?  She jerked on
her manacles in panic and fury, and felt the volume of water sloshing
inside her.  She wished she could close her legs.

"Miss Longleigh," said Brinley lightly, moving into the range of her
vision.

"I see you've been enjoying yourself."

He stooped to pick up the ivory phallus and held it to his nose, his
nostrils flaring as he inhaled deeply.  A hot flush swept from
Clarissa's bosom to her face.  She felt as if he and the whole world
had witnessed her earlier disgrace.  Oh, why had Marldon ordered this
torment, for doubtless he had?

"Whatever he's told you to do," she said angrily, 'will you do it
quickly and leave me be."

Brinley laughed and exchanged conspiratorial glances with Charlotte.

"Very well," he said.  His wide, thin-lipped mouth twisted in a satyric
smile.

"To be honest, I'm more than ready."

He crossed to the young maid and began unfastening the blue buttons of
her dress.  Clarissa released a soft breath, her dread and horror
easing.  Perhaps she was not to be subjected to the insolent fellow's
phallus.  She was alarmed to think her expectations were worse than
Lord Alexander's plans.

Charlotte assisted the valet, eagerly casting off linens and silks.

Her body was slender, her breasts small and pert with pinched
cherry-red nipples.  The couple embraced, sharing fervent kisses and
dashing hands over each other's flesh.  Their passionate, carefree
nudity heightened Clarissa's sense of shame and vulnerability.  She
felt so distanced from them, somehow more naked, sickeningly exposed.

When the two broke apart and turned to her, those feelings rushed to an
acute pitch of horror.

Brinley stood behind Charlotte, palming the scant globes of her breasts
and gazing over her shoulder.  They both looked so alike, slim-hipped
and pale, with elegantly boned faces and dark-brown curls.

But worse than that was the similarity of their expressions.

Charlotte watched her just as Brinley did: sensual wet lips curving in
an avaricious smirk, grey-green eyes leering, shining with appetite.

Clarissa's heart pounded.  She made a gasp of fear and wriggled against
her bondage.  The movement was uncomfortable, reminding her of the
liquid weighing in her belly.

"Told you she had good tits," said Brinley, studying her.

He edged forward, his hands still on the maid's breasts, ushering her
closer to Clarissa.  When the girl was just inches away, the valet
scooped her white half- globes high.  Charlotte leant in a little,
allowing Brinley to touch her rigid nipples to Clarissa's.  Lightly, he
brushed them back and forth.

A sob caught in Clarissa's throat.  She twisted her head aside,
avoiding the maid's lustful face, and blinked back the threat of
tears.

She could feel the heat of the girl's breath on her cheek and smell the
cleanness of her hair.  Occasionally their hips and bellies nudged
together and Charlotte's pubic curls tickled her own.

Brinley continued moving his lover's breasts, scuffing their hard peaks
across Clarissa's rose-pink flesh.  The persistent strokes sensitised
and teased, and she felt her nipples puckering to aroused points.  It
embarrassed and shamed her.

Charlotte murmured delight and slid her hands down Clarissa's
contours,

moving from the dip of her waist to the smoothness of hips and
flanks.

Stepping back, she bent to take a nipple in her warm, wet mouth.  Her
streaming brown tresses swept softly against Clarissa's skin, and her
tongue lashed, her lips suckled.  Clarissa moaned.  Her body tingled in
response, little tremors of pleasure radiating from her sweetly aching
tips.  Heat stirred in her sex, and her wide-spread legs began shaking
gently.  Her hips rocked of their own accord.

"Alee said she'd like it," breathed Brinley.

"Come on, Lottie.  Let me join you."

"No," whispered Clarissa, shutting her eyes and resting her head
against the wood.  It was a perfunctory protest, born out of feeble
embarrassment, not rejection.

The valet's lips closed over her other nipple, bathing it in heat.  A
long groan rumbled faintly in Clarissa's throat.  Hands snaked over her
creamy, satin curves and she relaxed into the spreading bliss.

Immediately, she tensed, aware of the fullness in her bladder.  She
hoped no one would lean against her belly.

But their caresses stayed gentle, luxurious, and arousal began to pulse
at her groin.  Charlotte licked a slow, wet path down her bloated
stomach and drifted kisses over her hips, her thighs.  She knelt on all
fours and nuzzled her head between Clarissa's parted legs.  Her mouth,
damp and soft, pressed there.  A flash of sensation speared Clarissa's
loins and she gasped in shock and excitement.  It was not right that
another woman should touch her so, yet that very thought seemed to
increase her excitement.

Charlotte's tongue slipped into her folds and squirmed along the sleek,
hungry groove.  With a moist, warm caress, she tantalised the engorged
flesh, nibbling and sucking.

Clarissa writhed in torment.  She chafed to give herself up entirely to
the pleasure, yet she was not free to do so.  The pressure of the water
she'd consumed was too much; it forestalled her ease.

Brinley dropped away from her.  Clarissa watched in the opposite mirror
as he stooped over Charlotte, stroking along her back then kneading her
slender rear.

"Oh, Lottie, Lottie," he said in a voice full of longing.

"I need to fuck you.  I really need to."

The half-crouched maid edged her shins wider, opening herself, and the
valet dropped to his knees behind her.  His fingers toyed briefly
between her thighs and she mumbled her pleasure into Clarissa's hot,
slippery sex.  Then he shuffled close, his prick poised at Charlotte's
entrance and, with a jerk, slammed into her.

In the glass, Clarissa saw the reflection of his buttocks, tensing with
each strong, eager lunge.  The image of their coupling, raw and
bestial, added a spark to her own pleasure.  She turned her gaze away,
fighting the nearness of her crisis.  Her body pleaded for her to
relinquish control, yet she dared not do so for fear her bladder would
empty.  No doubt her suffering was intended.  Lord Marldon had
commanded that she drink so much.

With greedy enthusiasm, the maid lapped at Clarissa's inflamed vulva.

Brinley drove rapidly into her, grunting in time to his thrusts, his
eyes set on Clarissa.  He watched her keenly, judging her reactions,
his face contorted with ecstasy and exertion.

"God," he gasped.

"I'd like to have you on your knees.  I'd like to be hammering into
you.  Miss Longleigh.  I can't wait until Marldon tires of you.  We'll
have you then, no limits, and God, what a day it will be."

Clarissa's curses were lost in the clamour of her agonising desire.

Brinley laughed at her torment between hoarse, gulping breaths.  His
hips pumped hungrily and he scratched red weals along Charlotte's back,
spitting obscenities.

In the mirror, his sinewy haunches flexed.  His noises grew to a
frenzy, and his urgency increased Clarissa's own.  She felt herself on
the verge of an orgasm she could not, dared not have.

There was a movement at her side.  She turned to see Lord Marldon slip
quietly into the room and close the door.  He wore a long dressing robe
of black silk and clearly there was little else beneath it.  His long
muscular legs flashed through the front split as he moved.  He leant
against the wall, his arms folded, and ran a connoisseur's gaze over
the scene.  His head nodded, approvingly, and he smiled at Clarissa.

A surge of self-consciousness dampened her need.  For once, she
appreciated his cold scrutiny: it made the task of curbing her lust
easier.

Brinley glanced at his master.  He screwed his eyes shut and pounded
fiercely.  Alee crossed the room and draped himself along the low
couch.  He rested his arm high on the silver frame and, with one foot
on the satin, the other on the floor, affected a pose of languid
nonchalance.

"Get on with it, man," he said.

"Or finish her off in the kitchens."

His weary tone belied his obvious arousal.  The silk over his crotch
twitched and lifted with the swelling of his erection.

The valet gave an exultant shout and buried himself deep inside the
young maid.  She wailed into Clarissa's throbbing wet flesh before
pulling away, breathless and shuddering.

"Now scram," said Marldon evenly, as the two drew apart.

Charlotte looked up at him with a challenging smirk and crawled towards
her heap of clothes.  Lord Alee leapt up and grabbed at the crumpled
garments.  Flinging open the door, he hurled them outside.

"And do it quickly," he snapped, kicking at strewn bits of fabric.

Charlotte protested and snatched up her remaining clothes while Brinley
hurriedly collected his.  From the corridor, the maid hurled angry
abuse at him.

"And tell your sister to shut up this instant," said Alee, slamming the
door on the departing valet.

"Sister?"  echoed Clarissa in shock.

"You mean-' She broke off abruptly, replaying the word in her head.  It
made sense; the two were so alike.

"Didn't you know?"  asked Marldon, crossing to stand before her.

"I

thought it was obvious.  In fact, their incestuous love was the reason
I took them on.  No one else in the land would touch them.  Personally,
I find it quite endearing.  And they are, of course, eternally indebted
to me.  A most useful thing in a servant.  Did they treat you well,
Clarissa?"

Marldon slipped a hand between her thighs, and dabbled his fingers in
her seeping wetness.  Clarissa writhed, squirming to fight her arousal
and the urge to relax her bladder.

"Ah, I see they did," he murmured.

He slicked along the glossy seam then probed into the eager cavern of
her vagina.

"Please," she entreated, 'unfasten me.  Allow me my freedom."

Marldon moved his hand up and pressed it to her liquid-swollen belly.

"Why?"  he enquired with a knowing smile.

Clarissa gritted her teeth and squeezed her inner muscles tight.  The
near-bursting pain was excruciating.  It made her eyes water, her
stomach burn.  Lord Marldon stepped back and untied the cord at his
waist.  The black silk slithered, like a cat in the night, from his
hard alabaster body.  His cock, enormously stiffened, surged from his
dark bush of hair, its tip blood-violet.

"I'll release you in a while," he said, running his hands over her
flesh.

"Once I've taken my pleasure inside you."

"No," said Clarissa.

"Do not, my lord.  I need ... I have to' "To piss?"  ventured Alee,
arching his dark brows.

"Yes," she snapped.  Clarissa could not understand why he wished her to
suffer in such a distasteful manner.

"How long do you think you can hold on for?"  he said, pressing his
body to hers.

He bent his knees, nudging the fleshy knob of his prick at her pouting
sex.  With slow control, he pushed his tumid phallus into her.

The bulbous crown forged a steady path, widening her to take his
stout,

solid shaft, until he was sheathed to the hilt in her loins.  He
grinned at her.

"How long?"  he repeated, with a quick upward shove.

Clarissa groaned.  His rock-hard stiffness filled her, accentuating the
pressure and the need for relief.  She contracted her sex muscles,
gripping him in a bid to quell the demands of her full, aching
bladder.

"Not long," she said.

"Please don't do this.  It hurts.  I need to go."

"Your modesty is most amusing," he replied.

"Particularly considering that, but a few hours since, you were so
shameless and wanton.  Surely if you can masturbate before me,
Clarissa, you can piss before me."

He began to thrust, taking long measured strokes, his prick inflaming
both her bladder and her lust.  The glass across from them showed the
power of his body.  Muscles rippled across his shoulder blades, and his
thighs tensed in firm curves.  His working buttocks hollowed to shadows
as his hips tilted up to her and his cock plunged high.

Clarissa's outspread limbs were white on black, a broken lily plastered
on mud.  She was helpless.  She could not even push against him, so
delicate was the tension which kept her from urinating.  She cried out
incoherently and Marldon drove on, hard and furious.  His scattering
hands brushed over her flesh.  He crushed and twisted her nipples; he
slipped his fingers between their joined bodies and frigged her
clitoris.  He bit into her shoulders and neck.

Every fibre of her being screamed for release.  But she knew the zenith
of her pleasure meant also the depths of shame.  She felt she was on a
tightrope: her dignity was her balancing pole and beneath was an abyss,
so tempting and terrifying.

"Lose control," urged Marldon.

"Give yourself to me, Clarissa.

Surrender to your needs."

Tears of rage spilled down her cheeks.  Lord Marldon slammed into
her.

He grasped her buttocks with ruthless delight and pulled her soft
mounds apart.  Clarissawhimpered for mercy as he ran a finger between
the wide gap of her cheeks and found the creased aperture of her
anus.

He pressed there, threatening to invade.

"Let your body be master," he whispered.

For a moment, Clarissa clung on to the torturous brink of her climax.

Then she gave a long, despairing wall.  Her muscles could not hold.

Her vagina loosened and she was slippery, easy about his powering
phallus.  Convulsions seized her body and relief gushed from her in a
fast warm torrent.  In the mirror she caught sight of her pale golden
liquid.  It wreathed down Marldon's jerking legs; it streamed and
splashed from their union and pattered loudly on to the floor.

The humiliation of it hardly concerned her.  The double release was
bliss beyond compare.  Marldon gasped harshly and plunged deep into
her.  He snarled, baring his teeth, snapping wildly at the air.

Clarissa's belly deflated with slow-sinking ease and the clenching
tremors of her sex continued, transporting her on a wave of dizzying
euphoria.  With a bestial roar, Marldon reached his peak.  His buttocks
shivered as his jets of need spurted inside her, hot and fierce.

Clarissa's crisis fell away around his, plunging her into the heaviness
of fading delight.  Her stomach glowed with dispelled pain and her
water trickled thinly, dying away until it was nothing but drips.  She
rested her head against Alec's shoulder, gasping for breath, feeling
his penis slackening within her.

For a long while, Marldon said nothing.  In the silence, with their
bodies still linked, Clarissa experienced a doomed sense of oneness
with him.  He had provoked her into abasing herself then had shared in
it so utterly, without a trace of disgust or scorn, that she felt
grateful to him, strangely beholden.

Lord Marldon withdrew from her.

"I can see my style of courtship enchants you," he said, picking up his
robe.

"Your cries of joy are wedding bells to my ears."

FR1;Chapter Nine Heavy curtains screened out the street lanterns and
the candles were few.  On the sideboard stood a range of bottles
containing vile-coloured liquids, together with numerous clay bowls
heaped with lurid powders.

A purple cloth covered the round table and opposite sat Dr.  Irfan
Paya, hunched within his hooded robes.  A long greying beard poked from
his shadowy face, and from his neck, strung on a thick silver chain,
dangled a long twisted piece of metal.

Octavia's palm was upturned in his slender bejewelled fingers.

"There have been many men in your life," said the doctor after an
interminable silence.

Octavia snorted.

"I don't need a soothsayer to tell me that," she said, her bass voice
resonant.

"It's common bloody knowledge."

The doctor raised a hand for silence, and resumed his contemplation of
her palm.

"Many have pleased you; many have charmed you."  The doctor inhaled
deeply, his head raised, his eyes closed.  His skin was like tanned
leather, dark and lined, and his eyebrows were thick and grey.

"I see a man watching you he continued.

"And you are ... Diamonds .  Wearing nothing but diamonds.  Laid across
a long table.  He is a royal man, not a king.  He is waiting.  One day
he will be king."  The doctor dropped his head abruptly and drew a
long, shuddering breath.

Octavia paled.  She had told, at most, three people of that episode in
her life.  Or was it four?  Gallantry with the Prince of Wales was not
something one discussed.  A courtesan who gained a reputation for
gossiping would not be welcomed again in high circles.

"Only one man has truly satisfied you," murmured the strange doctor.

"I see a scar on his face.  He wanted you to submit to him."

"And I did not," said Octavia vehemently, snatching her hand away.

"No, no.  You did not.  You did not."

Octavia was beginning to think this was not the enjoyment Lucy had
promised.  Memories, painful ones, were best left alone.  They belonged
to the past, not the present.  And Octavia was a different person now
from the eager chit Marldon had first taken in hand.

He had taught her a great deal, much of it unwittingly.  Dominating
others and turning them into snivelling, pleading wrecks was something
she'd lea mt purely by following his example.  It had proved a
lucrative skill, but less satisfying than learning how to conceal
hatred.  Smiling indifference was something Marldon could not endure.

It left him with nothing to feed off and Octavia had, where he was
concerned, become superbly, charmingly cool.

She was, after all, an actress.

Such a talent served her well in society: nobody knew the real
Octavia;

nobody knew about her innermost desire or how she took her pleasures,
unless of course they were participating.  She hoped the doctor
couldn't read too deeply.

"Are those your medicines, Dr.  Paya?"  she enquired brusquely, nodding
to the sideboard.

"A most interesting selection."

"You do not need medicine," he replied.

"Although there are some who would disagree.  They see it as diseased,
an unnatural act.

Abhorrent."

"No," exclaimed Octavia, jumping to her feet.

"No more."  The chair thumped to the ground behind her.  She spun on
her heels and headed for the door.  If this got out it could ruin her
career.

"Octavia, stop," came a soft, urgent voice.

She drew up short and turned slowly, disbelievingly, to the man.  He
pushed back his hood, unhooked the beard from his ears, and smiled
apologetically.

"Mr.  Ardenzi," she whispered.

"You ... you contemptible swine."

"I know," he replied.

"I'm sorry.  Please, Tavi, let me explain."

Octavia returned and picked up the chair, her shocked gaze never
leaving his painted face.

"Who told you?"  she breathed.  She sat down as though she were old and
fragile, and gently patted her bright auburn hair into place.

"How much do you want?"

Gabriel shook his head.

"Some of it was gossip, some of it was guesswork."

"And my ... my unnatural acts?"  she said, her fingers fluttering with
the jewelled choker at her neck.

"A hunch."  He shrugged.

"Something about the way you looked at Lucy before.  But, if you
recall, I didn't really say anything, Octavia.  My words could have
meant any number of things to any number of people.

Although your reaction did much to confirm my suspicions."

Octavia sighed and looked into the gloom.  She had a name to keep as a
sophisticated, man-hungry harlot.  At the age of forty-four, she could
not command the fees she once did.  If her burgeoning taste for women
became known, it could consign her to the scrap heap.

"We need your help," said Gabriel abruptly.

"We need better make-up, theatrical stuff.  And we need some dirt on
Lord Marldon.  Intimate things."

She jerked her head to him, her eyes narrowed with mistrust and
anger.

"Is this bribery?"  she snapped.

"No," he replied.

"I pledge you my word, I'll say nothing of what I know.  I simply need
to get into Asham House."

"In heaven's name, what for?"  asked Octavia.

Gabriel called Lucy in from the adjoining drawing room and together
they explained.

"The grasping cur," muttered Octavia when the two of them had
finished.

"And your cousin, such a charming thing.  I dread to think what he Oh,
so sorry, Gabriel.  So sorry.  Of course I'll help you, though I
suggest the good doctor gain himself a reputation before attempting a
visit to Asham.  Marldon's curious about this sort of thing, but mainly
because he likes to spot a charlatan.  You'll have to be good, my boy,
damn good."

"It doesn't matter if he thinks Gabriel's a fraud," said Lucy.

"As long as he doesn't think he's Gabriel.  And there's a second part
to our plan.  That is, if you'll help us."  She crossed to the door.

"Miss Preedy.  Do come in."

Miss Preedy, her fair hair curled, pinned, and woven with tiny flowers,
glided into the room.  She wore a gown of brilliant red, and a
sumptuously laced train dragged on the floor behind her.  She held her
head high and she smiled at the three of them.

Gabriel looked at her in astonishment and whistled.

"Hell's teeth.

Kitty," he said.

"And I thought my disguise was good."

Kitty beamed a wider smile.

"Dandy, isn't it?"

Lucy coughed disapprovingly.

"Tavi," she said.

"Do you think, with your contacts, you might manage to secure Kitty a
position at Madame Jane's?"

Octavia's critical eyes wandered over the young girl, assessing her
from head to toe.

"I can try," she said, nodding thoughtfully.

"Yes, if it means Marldon getting his just desserts, I can try my
bloody hardest."

Clarissa stood at her bedroom window, gazing beyond Piccadilly to Green
Park.  Its calm, rolling expanse seemed a world apart from this one. It
was close, but not close enough for her to attract anyone's
attention;

and in everything else it was far, far away.

The people who strolled there were everyday people, taking the air and
going about their business.  Their normality made Clarissa feel her
imprisonment and the strangeness of her lusts all the more acutely.

Those elegant swells knew nothing of her plight; they did not have
desires as sick and hungry as hers.  It was inconceivable.

She felt utterly, irrevocably changed.  And she did not know if Marldon
had created her corrupt appetites or merely discovered them.

But she was quite sure they would be forever with her.  Some day she
would walk among those people below, but never again would she be of
them.  Inside she could count herself as nothing but a fairground
freak.

She turned away from the view and sat on the bed, her knees bunched to
her chest.  The early-July sunshine cut two pale slants across the
room, and a fat bluebottle buzzed intermittently against one of the
windows.  They don't open, you fool, she thought bitterly.  But, if
they did, would she shout for help?  If she could leave, would she?

Clarissa dared not think about it.  She preferred not having the
choice.

She flicked back the cover of a book beside her and shut it without a
glance at the title.  She was in no mood for reading.  She was in no
mood for anything.

Asham House was a place of extremes, and on days such as this it
defeated her.  For thirty-two and three- quarter hours, she had seen
nothing of the earl.  He had ordered her out of his bed, just as she
was falling asleep in his arms.  It was a cruelty she should have
expected.  But after a night when he had taken her to peak upon peak,
indulging her in pleasures that were pure and untainted, his command
had been all the more callous.  But then, she supposed, that was the
point.

His moments of tenderness were never what they seemed.  Invariably,
just when she feared she might be warming to him, he would undercut his
apparent humanity.  He would leave her wanting when he had promised
delights; he would reveal onlookers when she'd thought they'd been
alone; he would be understanding, caring, and then he'd laugh at her
for taking his words at face value.

Clarissa preferred it when he was unremittingly, openly cruel.  It made
him easier to hate.

But, even though she hated him, she loved being his.  One time, with
Jake watching, he had coupled with her in the stables, the straw
prickling her arse.  Clarissa had gloried in it.  She'd flaunted her
lust and her soft open thighs, because the stable master could not
touch her.

She wished Alee would come to her now.  She pined for him, pined for
his dangerous attentions, and her body ached constantly with desire.

Yet in this room she feared tending to her needs.  Many times she'd
covered the spy-hole; many times it had been uncovered.  And she knew
not how many more there were.  Only in the dead of night dared she
pleasure herself, and it was always quietly, stealthily, her hand
nudging beneath the bedclothes.  The satisfaction she gained from it
was weak and impoverished.

The bolt grated at the door.  She turned, trying to urge herself to
pessimism, and started as her former lady's maid bustled into the
room.

Tascale!"  she exclaimed.

"What are you doing here?"

The Frenchwoman appeared ready for work, an apron over her gown, her
dark hair drawn back into a bun, emphasising that large, strange nose
of hers.

Pascale arched her brows.

"You need someone to help with your toilette, do you not?"  she replied
imperiously.

"His lordship says the other woman cannot dress hair.

Tish!  I see it is very true."  She squeamishly lifted a long black
tress from where it trailed over Clarissa's shoulder.

Clarissa gave a vexed flick of her head and slapped away the maid's
hand.

"My hair will fall out before I accept your help," she hissed.

"You're a nasty, deceitful little piece of work.  Miss Rieux.  Get out
of my sight."

"I take my orders from Lord Marldon," replied Pascale grandly, tossing
some silks on to the bed.

"Not from you.  You are to wear that."

"When my stepmother hears of this' began Clarissa, colouring with
anger.

']e men fiche," said the maid, shrugging.

"My loyalties are with the earl.  His pay is so much better.  Alicia,
oh she also paid well, but that is because my job was to be
difficult.

She wanted me to seduce you.  Faugh!  I prefer to work for his
lordship.  He does not ask such things of me."

She smiled triumphantly at Clarissa's shocked, bewildered expression.

"To seduce me?"  echoed Clarissa.

"Alicia asked that?  You are being ridiculous, Pascale.  Utterly
ridiculous."

"C'est vrai, mademoiselle," she replied calmly.

"Mrs.  Long- leigh, she wanted you to be a more suitable bride, not so
closed, not so naif.

Tish!  I believe it was for your sake, but Lord Marldon, he liked the
idea also.  Et moi?  I found it very fatiguing."

With a rustle of silk, Pascale swished away to the dressing table.

Clarissa stared after her, turning over in her mind incidents from the
past.  There was the time the woman had touched her in the bath, times
when she'd been suggestive, others when she'd been lewd.  And oh, how
encouraging she'd been when Clarissa had spoken of Gabriel, promising
to conceal her whereabouts should she wish to spend the night with
him.

Could it really be that it had all been at Alicia's request?

Clarissa suddenly questioned the sincerity of everyone she knew, and
she looked back on her stay in Londonwith fresh eyes.  Lucy had been so
eager for her to find a beau.  Had she been part of her stepmother's
plan?  And Gabriel?  Had he simply been trying to make her ready for
Lord Marldon?  She felt foolish and used.  With a heavy heart she
realised other people wanted to control her life.  She was surrounded
by puppeteers who made her dance to their string-pulling.  And she'd
thought them friends.

But no.  It was inconceivable that Gabriel could be anything but
true;

he had not been working to mould her into something Marldon would
approve of.  His love was real, perhaps the only real thing she had.

But that was surely over now.  Some day he would learn how she'd
betrayed him, and never again would he look at her with those soft,
yearning eyes.  She put the thought from her mind.  It was better not
to think of him; it could only bring her sorrow.

Pascale turned to her.

"Will you please put on the gown," she said, gesturing to the silks.

It was hardly a gown, thought Clarissa, lifting it from the bed.  It
was little more than two wisps of fabric, stitched at the side.

"What for?"  she asked sulkily.

"His lordship requests your presence," said the maid.

"Do you wish me to help you dress?"

"No, I do not," replied Clarissa firmly.

The prospect of seeing Alee again made her stomach churn excitedly.

She walked over to the chest of drawers and pulled out a chemise.

Won," said Pascale.

"This gown, it does not require underclothes."

"But it's far too thin," protested Clarissa.

"It will show everything."

Yet, even as she spoke, she knew that was the intention.  The idea of
greeting Marldon in such flimsy drapes covertly thrilled her.  She
slipped off her wrapper, baring her naked body, and dropped the gown
over her head.

The shot silk rippled down, shimmering purple and deep blue.

She stood before the mirror.  The garment was cut low at the neck, with
no sleeves to speak of, just thin straps over the shoulders.  It was
not wasted or gored.  Yet it was cut in such a way that it clung to
every curve and dip.  Her dusky nipples were clear beneath the delicate
fabric and her pubic hair pushed a crinkled patch in the smooth fall of
the garment.

"Ah, it is quite beautiful," purred Pascale.

"Now we must do something with your hair.  His lordship is expecting a
guest, so it will be something elegant and grand."

"I cannot wear this in company," exclaimed Clarissa.

"It's indecent.

And it's the middle of the afternoon."

"Tish!  Of course you can," replied the maid.

"And, if it is of help, you will not be received until later in the
evening."

"Then why are you attending me now?"  demanded Clarissa.

"So that I can wait and wonder?  So I can agonise about what lies in
store for me?"

The Frenchwoman smiled and shepherded her to the dressing table.

"Bien entendu, mademoiselle," she murmured, taking a brush to
Clarissa's hair.

"No other reason."

Clarissa gave a low, weary breath, all thoughts of defying Pascale now
gone.  She hoped the maid would curl and dress her hair as she used
to.

Clarissa wanted to look her finest for Lord Marldon, though she wished
more than anything that the two of them could be alone.

"And our guest?"  she asked forlornly.

"Am to know about that?"

Pascale leant low over her shoulder and met her eyes in the glass.

"It is a foreign doctor," she said.

"With strange mysterious powers.

He is going to read into the hearts of both yourself and his
lordship."

"Well, at least one of us should prove a challenge to him," muttered
Clarissa.

In the soft glow of evening sunlight, Gabriel's carriage rolled along
Knightsbridge, past the trees of Hyde Park.  His heartbeat quickened as
they neared Piccadilly.  He thought little of what might befall him
should he be discovered; his drumming pulse was for Clarissa.

It seemed an eternity had passed since he had last set eyes on her, but
in truth it was no more than thirteen days.  And, for most of those
days, Gabriel had been perfecting his disguise, allowing his reputation
to swell on the tide of London gossip.  An audience with Lord Marldon
had not been difficult to secure.  Dr.  Irfan was greatly in demand,
and Gabriel half-fancied that as a fraudulent soothsayer he could earn
a pretty decent living.  Superstitious nonsense was much in vogue.

But he knew Marldon did not subscribe to the current fashion.  His
invitation, he suspected, had come about because the earl wanted to
outwit him.  He wanted an opinion on the latest society
little-tattle;

then he could show those who'd fallen for the ruse what deluded fools
they were.

But Gabriel did not care.  As long as he had the chance to be near
Clarissa, nothing else mattered.  How he yearned to look into those
deep-blue eyes, eyes that were sometimes slumberous, sometimes
brilliant.  He was desperate to know if she was well, to ascertain how
Marldon was treating her.

Lucy's suggestion that Clarissa might be residing there of her own free
will was ludicrous.  The letter she'd written him, although it was in
her hand, had not been composed by her.  Those words in which she'd
retracted her feelings for him had been lies, as patently obvious as
the lie that she was ailing in Chelsea.  Marldon had forced her to pen
such things, just as he was forcing her to stay at Asham.  And the
vicious old libertine was no doubt forcing her into deeds as black as
his heart.  Gabriel looked out of the window as the carriage passed
Hyde Park Corner.  The sun's last rays gilded the bronze statue atop
Wellington Arch, and then they were rattling past the grand mansions of
Piccadilly.  Asham was unique among them.  High, bleak walls surrounded
it, and only a glimpse of the house could be seen through its vast iron
gates.

He checked the garnet clasps of his brocaded robe, pulled the hood over
his head, and patted his beard.  The disguise was good.  Thanks to
Octavia's skilful application of stage paint, even those he knew well
had failed to recognise him.  It was perfect, right down to his hands,
which were aged with lumps and lines.  He hoped Clarissa would see
through it, that his presence would reassure her that help was close
by.

Gabriel had been advised not to attempt anything foolhardy.  Or he
could, said Octavia, end up badly wounded, in a prison cell, or quite
simply dead.  Stick to the plan, she'd said.  Find an opportunity to
slip away;

take a look about Asham; discover how guarded it is, where the doors
are, which windows might be forced;

then bloody well get out.  The rest would come later, when Kitty had
found a place at the brothel and wormed her way into Marldon's
favour.

There was a busy trading of places between the man's whores and his
servants, and with someone on the inside they were more likely to
secure an easy release for Clarissa.  Don't put him on the alert,
Gabriel.

But Gabriel was impatient.  He fancied that somehow, tonight, he might
manage to leave with Clarissa.

The wrought-iron gates of Asham House opened.  Gabriel hunched his
shoulders as the horse clopped slowly across the forecourt to the wide
red-brick building.  The row of mullioned windows on the ground floor
looked in upon rooms of glittering splendour.  The carriage came to a
halt and Gabriel's heart grew nervous as his coachman opened the door
and folded down the steps.

"I'll get a hansom back," he whispered, not wanting to have his servant
mingling with members of Marldon's staff.  He was a trustworthy fellow
but slips of the tongue happened and Gabriel did not want to take the
risk.

At the head of the stone steps, the oak door swung back.  Gabriel made
heavy labour of being handed down from his carriage, leaning on his
coachman as he shuffled up to Asham's imposing entrance with its great
portico and glittering white hall.

He handed his card to Marldon's butler and he was no longer Gabriel.

He was Dr.  Irfan Paya of Constantinople, Soothsayer to the Sultan. And
he was inside Asham House.

The blue drawing room was in near-darkness.

"My dear," said Marldon, rising to greet Clarissa as she entered.

"How ravishing you look tonight."

He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to it.  After so long an absence,
merely seeing him was enough to stir her desire.  The touch of his lips
was a taper to her hunger.  Lustful anticipation flared within her and
she resented him for showing no inclination to pursue it.

"The gloom is for Dr.  Paya," he hissed.

"Apparently it helps his concentration."

Taking Clarissa's arm, he led her to a small table and offered her a
seat opposite the cloaked, huddled figure.  Lord Marldon stood behind
her and rested his hands on her bare shoulders.

"Doctor," he said, massaging her neck lightly.

"Permit me to introduce Miss Longleigh.  What, pray, can you tell us of
our future?

Can you say if we are well matched, for we are quite set upon
marriage?"

The man muttered from within his voluminous hood and stretched out his
hand, gesturing for Clarissa's.

She repressed a sigh of impatience and did as requested.  She could not
understand this game; she did not know where it was leading.  What
did

Alee care whether they were matched or not?  And, more to the point why
bother with this mumbo-jumbo?  Alee was surely too cold and rational to
believe in it.

Dr.  Paya lightly took her fingers in his, uncurling them to display
her palm.  His ageing hands were fine and elegant.  His touch was
gentle, familiar.  Clarissa's heart lurched.  It could not be.  No, it
could not.

The man spoke, something about loss, but she did not hear his words.

She listened only to his voice.  He held it croakily in his throat and
faintly accented it, but beneath there was that soft resonance she
knew.  The doctor kept his head low, allowing the hood to conceal his
face.  Flee, she wanted to say, flee at once.  And her hand shook.

He raised his head for a moment.  She recognised nothing but the eyes,
eyes the colour of brandy in fire-light, eyes which flashed a warning
intensity.  Gabriel clasped her hand a little more firmly, stilling her
tremors.  She felt a surge of tender passion, so painfully recalled, so
mockingly strong, that her limbs grew weak.  She fought for control,
praying no one would ask her to speak.

She stared at her hand, her quivering fingertips held by his.  The
pretence of strangeness, of a touch which was nothing compared to what
they'd once had, was desperately poignant to her.  This was the man she
had first given her body to; this was the man she had loved did love.

Gabriel rambled on, weaving nonsense with seeming perception.  There
were many truths he could have spoken of, both profound and light, but
to her relief he said few of them.  He did not take the risk of
appearing too clever.  He was no better or worse than any other man
touting himself as a seer.

Guilt overwhelmed her.  She did not deserve that he should put himself
at risk.  She could have fought harder against Marldon; she could have
clung to her love for Gabriel, and thought of him endlessly.  But she
had not.  It was easier to yield, and more bearable when emotions were
blocked out.

"And I see ... ah, a need for ease Gabriel was saying in slow, throaty
tones.

"A body hungering for something, for simple pleasures."

"Balderdash," said Maridon sedately.

"My betrothed cares little for such vapid pursuits.  She has an
appetite only for bitter and sour.

Sweetness, alas, she cannot taste."  He slid his hands from her
shoulders, down into her iridescent gown.  His fingers squeezed her
soft, naked breasts.

He knew.  Of course he did.  Why else was she dressed like this?  Why
else was he standing there, touching her so possessively?  It was to
torment Gabriel.  She tried to catch her lover's eye, to caution him of
the danger, but he would not look at her.  She could not begin to think
what his plan was, and she feared for him.  Surely he realised this
place was like a fortress.

"You see how she allows me to touch her.  Doctor?"  continued
Maridon.

"Even before one as eminent as yourself?  She does not flinch from it
because it arouses her greatly.  She thinks of your lust.  Doctor.  She
knows you want her, as any man would, and she is proud.  She is proud
of her power, and proud to have given herself to me.  Because only I
can truly satisfy her.  Isn't that so Clarissa?"

He teased her nipples and they sprang erect.  She swallowed hard,
wishing she could deny him and shake off his hands.  But she did not
for, while Maridon was flaunting his dominance, Gabriel was surely
safe.  But it crushed her heart to think he must be suffering so.

"My lord," she said, affecting calm, "I fail to understand why you have
invited this gentleman here when you yourself read me with such
confidence."

"A mere diversion," he answered pleasantly.

"I thought perhaps you would appreciate some entertainment other than
my body.  After all, you've had it so often, Clarissa.  Aren't you
tiring of it yet?"  He palmed her breasts and kissed her neck, his
teeth scraping, his sideburns scouring.

"No, I am not she said, offering a truth she hoped would tempt him.

"However, I tire of this gentleman.  My lord, I have not seen you for
almost two days."

Marldon gave a harsh laugh.

"I wonder if it is within the doctor's powers to divine how often you
masturbated during that interval."

Clarissa felt the heat rise in her face.

"My lord, send him away, I beg of you."

"How I enjoy it when you beg," he replied, releasing her breasts.

"It's rare that I show mercy, but for once I think I shall oblige
you."

He crossed to tug on the velvet-tasselled bell-pull.  Clarissa kicked
Gabriel lightly under the table.  He raised his head and looked at her
with eyes full of pain and anger.

"Go!"  she mouthed urgently and he gave a sharp nod, acknowledging the
danger.  When the butler entered, Gabriel left the room, stooped and
shuffling like an old man.

Clarissa watched Marldon anxiously, wondering if he knew she had seen
through the disguise.  It would be better, she thought, to feign
innocence.  There was a remote possibility that Marldon did not know
the doctor's true identity, and she did not want to enlighten him.

"How touching that you missed me," he said, bidding her rise from the
chair.

"Thank God I'm not a fool or I might take that for a sign of
fondness.

Lift your dress, Clarissa.  Show me exactly where you missed me."

Obediently, she fucked up the purple-blue fabric and held it bunched
about her waist.  Her mind raced, wondering if Gabriel had made a safe
exit.  Perhaps there were others within the walls of Asham ready to
help him overpower the servants.  They might return within moments and
rescue her.

She widened her legs for the hand Alee slipped between her thighs.

His skilled fingers wandered, tantalising her sex and sensitising her
clitoris.  She groaned faintly, feeling her wetness gather.  She hated
him for tormenting Gabriel, yet she could not stern her desire for
him.

She tried telling herself she was sparing the man she loved by offering
herself so wantonly, and so soon after his departure.  It was a way to
deflect Marldon's attention.

But her conscience did not ease.  She knew that, even when Gabriel had
been sitting there, Marldon's touch had aroused her.

"Take it off," said Marldon, and Clarissa swept the loose silks over
her head.

"I shall have more such gowns made up for you.  Perhaps one slashed at
front and back, then I can reach for you at any time.

Would that please you, Clarissa?"

Not caring, she murmured that it would.  Her sex ached to feel him and
she rolled her hips desirously.  Lord Marldon unbuttoned himself.

"Forgive me if I sit for this one," he said, drawing the chair.

"I've expended more energy than you the last couple of days."

The remark stung, reminding her that she was not as much of his life as
he was of hers.  She did not wish to know where he had been, or muse on
what depravities he might have indulged in.  She hoped he would not
insist on telling her.

Alee pulled her to stand astride his lap.  His stiff prick stood from
his open trousers, ruddy at its head.  Clarissa lowered herself on to
it, moaning soft bliss as her vagina slid wetly down.  She sank herself
to his root.  Her pliant flesh enveloped his thickness and his glans
pushed high.  She breathed quickly and stayed there, immobile,
relishing how his solid virility filled her so entirely.

"Ah, how greedy you are," Marldon whispered.

He closed his mouth over a hard nipple, sucking and nibbling.

Clarissa arched her spine, rocking on his penis.  With every roll
forward, her inflamed pleasure bud pressed through his crisp curls to
rub against his body.  She raised herself high, sucking with her sex
muscles, then dropped back on to his cock.  Her urgency swelled and she
grasped the chair and bucked with a driving hunger.

Her breasts bobbed from Marldon's mouth.  His strong hands spanned her
waist, encouraging her movements, and he watched the eager bounce of
her bosom with delight.  Clarissa gave a shrill cry as she reached her
crisis.

"Don't stop," he said.

"Prove how you've missed me, Clarissa.  Work to make me come.  Sweat
for it."

Clarissa lifted herself, her thighs trembling with the effort.  Her
vagina glowed with the dying pulse of her pleasure, and she felt his
cock-tip butting at the core of her.  Again and again, she sank deep,
impaling herself on the hard, hot pole of his prick.  Marldon's lust
was hard to release.  He held himself back until she thought her legs
would fail her.  She panted and pleaded, feeling the sweet, rising tide
of her second peak.

"Yes," urged Marldon.

"Ride me hard, Clarissa."

He thrust urgently beneath her, clutching her waist, controlling her
balance.  With increasing speed he plunged upward, slamming her body
down to meet his furious, jolting strokes.  His lips stretched, baring
his white teeth, then with a long throaty growl he spent his
fulfilment.  The searing heat of his orgasm pushed Clarissa to her
limit.  Wrenching ecstasy burst open and her climax shuddered around
the last squeezes of his cock.  Then she sagged against his chest as
the throbbing force drained away, her breath coming in quick gasps.

"It seems our soothsayer was correct," said Marldon.

"Your body has been yearning for simple pleasures.  How insightful of
him.  Perhaps I shall invite him back sometime."

Gabriel moved down the marble stairway with slow, faltering steps.

The need to maintain the charade was frustrating beyond measure.  All
he wanted to do was get out of Asham House as quickly as possible
before anyone questioned him.  Clarissa's wanting had proved timely,
confirming what he feared: the earl was suspicious of him.  And that
little show, with Clarissa barely dressed and Marldon handling her so
intimately, had most likely been for his benefit.  Gabriel's blood
seethed at the memory of it.  The man was a cruel tyrant, a Caligula
who deserved a lingering death.  It had taken Gabriel every ounce of
control he had not to throttle the despicable fiend there and then.

But that would have meant certain exposure.  At least he had made a
start.  He now knew that a fighter plan was required, one which took
into account Asham's lurking employees, its maze of corridors and
securely locked doors.  If Lucy and Julian could not come up with
anything decent then to hell with them.  He would summon the police to
Asham and he'd damn well accompany them to make sure there was no foul
play.  Marldon would get his comeuppance somehow, and it had to be
sooner rather than later.  Every minute Clarissa was under his roof was
a minute too long.

At the foot of the steps stood the waiting butler, staring into
nothing.  Gabriel eyed him with concealed suspicion, knowing he was not
safe unfit he was on the pavements of Piccadilly, perhaps further.  He
shuffled over the final marble slab and stepped delicately on to the
tiled hall floor.  The butler strode stiffly towards the door and
rested a hand on one of the bolts.

When Gabriel reached the centre of the hall, the man drew back the
shaft with unnecessary sharpness.  The bolt rasped loudly.  Quick
footsteps followed.  Gabriel twisted his head round, catching a glimpse
of a rushing figure before an arm was hooked violently about his
neck.

He uttered a strangled cry and jabbed his elbow fiercely into his
assailant's stomach.  The grip on his neck slackened.  Gabriel swung
free of it, sweeping back his hood.

The thin fellow was bent double, then he raised his head, green eyes
flaring, and made ready to lunge again.  Gabriel landed a tightly
balled fist into his face.  Blood trickled from the creature's nose and
he staggered back, groaning.

His cloak whirling, Gabriel spun around to see two more men fast
approaching.

"You cheating blackguards," he snarled, and cracked a solid upward
punch beneath the jaw of one.  He turned to thump the other but a
clenched hand, broad and strong, struck him on the temple.  Dizziness
rocked him for a second.  Then he hit the brawny fellow square in his
brick-hard stomach.  The man grunted, barely affected, then addressed
Gabriel with a tobacco-stained grin.

From behind, something thudded against Gabriel's skull.  The room
twisted, the colours blurred, then everything went black.  FR1;Chapter
Ten Lord Marldon had barely left Clarissa's side all day.  She did not
trust him.  He watched her with a furtive smile and there was a gleeful
ness in his manner which made her taut with apprehension.  And now they
were eating in the state dining room instead of the usual, smaller
one.

They sat either end of the long table, a line of candelabras and fruit
pyramids stretching between them.  Silver dishes, decanters and flagons
gleamed strangely against the dark wainscoting.

"Are we expecting company?"  she had asked on seeing the display.  And
Marldon had replied with an enigmatic 'maybe'.  But only two places
were set.

Clarissa feared his behaviour had some connection with Gabriel.

Seeing him yesterday had raised her hopes:

her friends knew of her whereabouts and were attempting to help her.

Yet, at the same time, despondency weighed on her heart.  In the face
of Marldon's cunning, they could surely accomplish little.  She toyed
with the food before her, too anxious to swallow a morsel.

"Perhaps dessert will tempt your appetite," said Marl- don, signalling
for the footmen to clear away the main course.

"You are preoccupied, Clarissa.  Are you wondering whether finally to
accept my offer of marriage?  Perhaps I should ask for your hand once
more, just to test the air."

Clarissa said nothing as the liveried servants, Beckett and Simms,
removed plates and cutlery.  The question is beginning to bore me she
replied eventually.

"Now there is something I have not tried," said Alee with a
contemplative gaze.

"Boring a woman into submission.  Still, I don't suppose I would be
successful at it.  That's the trouble with charisma: it narrows a man's
options."

Simms, oval-faced and balding, brought a decanter of wine to the table
and made to pour it into Clarissa's glass.  She put out her hand to
stop him.

"Have some," insisted Marldon firmly.

"It's a Muscadet.  Its sweetness will be a perfect complement to the
next dish."

Clarissa shot him a worried glance.  There was an edge to his voice;

his words sounded ominous.  Marldon smiled as his glass was filled,
then raised a toast.  Clarissa did not join him.

"To sweetness," he said, and drank.

Clarissa watched him, her body tense with grim expectation.  What
pestilent thoughts were going on in that mind?  What was he
anticipating?

A movement at the far end of the room caught her attention.  She looked
beyond Alee to see the double doors open wide.  Brinley and Jake
entered and between them, hands behind his back, arms locked in theirs,
was Gabriel.

"No," gasped Clarissa, leaping to her feet.

She rushed to him, emotion robbing her of breath.  A purple-black
bruise, shiny at its centre, marked one of his cheeks and, though he
did not struggle, his strong, beautiful face was shadowed with fury.

She drew up short when she saw the blade glinting at his throat.

"No," she whispered.

She threw a fearful, pleading glance at the knife- wielding valet.

Brinley's left eye was blackened and he grinned, vengeful and smug.

She turned to Gabriel.  Herheart flared with pity and love, and
culpability pulled a sombre knot in her stomach.  She had brought him
to this.

Her hand trembling, she reached out to his wound.  Her fingertips
hovered above it before she brushed a touch over his lips.

"They hurt you," she said quietly.  She gazed at him for a long time,
seeing tenderness beyond the anger in his rich-brown eyes.  Hot tears
smarted in her own and she turned to Marldon slowly but feverish with
rage.

He had positioned his chair so as to observe her better.  He rolled the
stem of his glass between thumb and fingers, and his lips were curved
in a triumphant smile.

"Release him," she said, her voice low and quivering.

"Release him, or I swear I will not be responsible for my actions."

"Ah, the passion of young love," said Marldon lightly.

Clarissa screamed, incensed, and ran to hurl herself at him.  The
impact of her body almost unbalanced him and his glass crashed to the
wooden floor.  She slapped and battered at his chest, tugged at his
clothes, clawed wildly at his face.  She shrieked curses at him.  She
clutched great fistfuls of his hair, pulled him low and shook his head
savagely, wanting to tear it from his neck.

Then harsh fingers gripped her arms and the footmen wrestled her
away.

She kicked and squirmed in their grasp, still screeching abuse at
Marldon.

The earl crossed to her, his eyes barbarous, his hair dishevelled.

With swift force, he cracked a hard stinging slap across one cheek.

Clarissa choked a heaving cry, then fell silent, stunned.

"You bastard," spat Gabriel.

"She was hysterical," barked Marldon.

"And she's my business."

There were threads on his frock coat where a button should have been,

and part of his high starched collar was undone.  It poked above his
skewed tie at a gawky angle.  With the calm of one attempting to regain
his dignity, Marldon swept his thick sable hair into place and adjusted
his clothing.

"Release her," he snapped, and the two footmen at once stepped back.

Marldon walked to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of claret.

His face was flushed and scored with red lines, and his mouth was
pinched and wrathful.

"You spilt my drink," he said to Clarissa.

"Mop it up."

She stared at him, too shocked and breathless to respond.  Her mind
seemed to float in a tranquil space, vaguely aware of some far-off
violence.  She felt serene, dazed, and she could not recall what Alee
had just said.  Then a suppressed groan of agony penetrated her
trance.

She twisted around to see Gabriel half-bent and writhing, his face
contorted in pain.  His wrists, she saw now, were manacled, and his
captors were forcing his arms high behind his back.

"I'll do it," she whispered to Marldon.

"What is it?  I'll do it."

Alee signed for Brinley and Jake to cease their cruelty then repeated
his command: "Mop it up."

Clarissa turned to address Simms.

"Could I please have a cloth?"  she asked meekly.

"No, you cannot," said Marldon sternly.

"Soak it up with your drawers."

A tiny whimper escaped her lips and she closed her eyes in wretched
despair.

"Do not," shouted Gabriel.

"Clarissa, do not allow him to abuse you so.  I will bear anything for
you, any amount of pain."

"That's as may be," said Lord Marldon.

"Although you will not be as quick to say it when your throat is
slit.

And, if I am merciful and merely slash your face until the skin hangs
from it in ribbons, then I perceive great disappointment.  Clarissa is
not, I can assure you, averse to a scar or two.  But a patchwork of
them would be unlikely to appeal."

"It's nothing, Gabriel," she said imploringly.

"Please, don't make it worse for me."

Alec's threats of murder were hollow, she was sure of it.  Oh, he was
doubtless capable of it, but he was far too wise to do it.  Yet she
feared he would have no compunction about inflicting pain.  While
Gabriel might be able to bear the suffering, she could not.

She reached beneath her petticoats, bending double in a bid to conceal
herself.  With useless, shaking fingers, she worried at her strings. It
seemed an age before the knots came undone, then her drawers rippled
down and crumpled about each ankle like white silken shackles.

"Must the servants watch?"  she asked timorously.

Marldon teased her with a frowning, meditative expression.

"Let me think," he began.

"I don't suppose we require the footmen.  No, I'm not quite ready for
port to be served.  However, I'm afraid Brinley and Grimshaw must
stay.

Your lover needs their support."

When Beckett and Simms had left, Clarissa reluctantly stepped free of
her undergarment.  She knelt like a drudge before the splashes of wine,
folding her skirts to make a pad for her knees.  Bunching the drawers
in her hand, she pushed at the spillage, nudging back splinters of
glass.  Emotion scorched her eyes, and her face was hot with shame.

This indeed was a new form of humiliation.

"And here," said Marldon, tapping his foot.

She placed her hand carefully on the floor, wary of the broken glass,
and stretched to reach.  She was powerless to defy him.  Gabriel's
presence was a weapon in his hands, and only Alec's imagination limited
her abasement.  Such a limit did not cheer her.  She rubbed feebly at
the wine, demoralised into true servitude.

Marldon moved behind her and she felt, to her horror, his hand on her
skirts.  In a sharp movement, he flung back every layer, exposing the
pale ovals of her buttocks.  Jake grunted in the background.

Clarissa gritted her teeth, fighting back the tears.  She must not show
her distress, for Gabriel would be certain to try defending her.

And Marldon's brutish servants would not hesitate to punish him for
it.

"Oh dear, how clumsy of me," said Alee, tilting his glass and pouring a
stream of red wine to the floor.

Droplets splashed on to her face and she dashed a forearm across her
cheek, catching back a sob of desolation.  On hands and knees, she
shuffled to wipe up the liquid.  Marldon deliberately spilt some more
wine.  Clarissa crawled after it.  Her movements, she knew, were
designed to make her bared mounds more visible to Gabriel.  The
presence of Brinley and Jake hardly concerned her: they had seen her
degraded before.  But for Gabriel to see her like this was
mortifying.

"A tempting sight, is it not, Mr.  Ardenzi?"  said Marl- don, moving
behind her.

"Although, of course, not one entirely new to you."

He stooped beside her and moulded a cool hand to the curve of her
buttocks.  Gently, he stroked its rounded flesh.  Then he brushed his
fingers over the dusky folds of her vulva, up and down, light and
teasing.  Her treacherous sex-lips tingled in response.  She screwed
her eyes tight, trying to will away the sensation, and swept her sodden
drawers in blind arcs over the parquetry.

"I've finished," she said in a quiet shaken voice.

"No you haven't," countered Alee, withdrawing his caress.

She heard liquid splash.  Forcing open her eyes, she mopped up the dark
wine.  Then another little splash landed, and another.  She could not
outdo him; it was futile to try.  She made a charade of lingering over
the spillage and Marldon returned his hand to the lush, swelling pouch
of her loins.

He tantalised her there, drawing out her wetness with an experienced,

knowing touch.  She rubbed mechanically at the floor, repressing every
groan that fought for release.

"You're a devil, Marldon," came Gabriel's low, angry voice.

"So I'm told," he replied impassively.

"In fact, I believe Clarissa is of the same opinion.  However, it does
not appear to concern her overmuch.  Truth to tell, I believe it rather
excites her.  Watch.

Listen."

In the silence, Marldon pushed two hard fingers deep into her moist,
warm canal.  He probed thoroughly, stirring her juices to faint wet
sounds.  Clarissa uttered inarticulate noises, half-protest,
half-pleasure.  It was unbearable that he should make a performance of
her arousal, yet she could not quell her body's lust; and she dared not
resist, for Gabriel's sake.  She heard Grim- shaw's gurgling, lecherous
breath and felt nauseous with revulsion and self-loathing.

"Jake, you're a pig," said Marldon.

"Shut up or you'll feel my hand again."

The stable master uttered a final throaty grunt and fell quiet.

Marldon slicked Clarissa's milky warmth down to her clitoris and
rubbed, angling his touch this way and that, varying his pressures,
until she moaned wildly, pleading for more.  He knew exactly how and
where to caress her.  It was a knowledge he had gained from her, from
her abject failure to resist him.  He massaged and stimulated every hot
tender part, taking her close to her peak but never granting it.

Her sex wept tears of fire.

"Mr.  Ardenzi, I must thank you for leaving me both virginities," said
Marldon.

"I'm so grateful."

His finger drifted back and drew her secretions up to the dark,
wrinkled mouth of her anus.  He rubbed hard little circles there,
pushing against the tightly closed orifice.  Clarissa groaned
uncontrollably, delirious with vulgar, forbidden wanting.

"Shall I take the second, Clarissa?"  he asked.

"You can, of course, say no.  Gabriel will not be harmed and I shall
abide by your request."

Clarissa did not reply.  For a long time she had ached to feel him
there, and now her need for him was like a fever in her veins.

"You see," continued Marldon, "I do not wish your lover to think I do
everything by force.  He would gain quite a false impression of our
relationship."

His teasing finger persisted, nudging repeatedly at her anus, tempting
her with a foretaste of penetration.  She whimpered, needful and
breathless, and pressed back against his touch, seeking his
intrusion.

She uttered no words of refusal.

Marldon helped her to her feet and, smiling, guided her to the table.

He leant the upper half of her trembling body across it and raised her
skirts.  The linen cloth was cool against her cheek and she gazed down
its white expanse to the foot of the table.  She edged her feet apart,
brazenly offering herself to Alee.

A groan from Jake, rumbling like thunder, broke the quiet.  She could
sense them all watching her: the servants eager, and between them
Gabriel, revolted and dismayed.  But at that moment she was awash with
reckless excitement.  Her demands were so strong that his disapproval
and her shame could not temper them.  All she cared for was the
depraved violation Marldon offered.  Modesty no longer had a part to
play.

She felt him behind her, close.  Her heart pounded and her body
waited.

She saw him reach across to lift the lid from the butter dish and scoop
up fingerfu'is of it.  Then he slipped his hand into the cleft of her
buttocks and smeared the grease there.  Its initial coldness
disappeared as he rubbed it in, concentrating on her resistant hole.

She felt her pinched entrance yielding, loosening to his steady,
slippery massage.  He drove a finger inside her, then another,
lubricating her richly within.  She moaned wantonly.  She felt wide
open for him, so relaxed, so ready.

"Methinks the lady doth not protest enough," taunted Marldon.

He parted her cheeks and the air briefly chilled her buttery crevice.

She felt his bared prick, heavy and threateningly erect, rest deep in
the split.  It slid down and the domed head of his phallus butted at
the tender rose.  He pushed and his cock, with steady force, breached
the oiled ring of muscles.  Searing pain burnt there for an instant and
she cried out.  Then with exquisite ease the massive whole of his shaft
was sliding greasily into her, plundering her dark, velvet depths.  He
drove gently until her narrow virginity was utterly, unspeakably packed
full of flesh.

Marldon lodged himself there, pausing as he released a long, contented
sigh.  The warmth of his tightened balls rested against her soft vulva,
and his strong, solid bulk, stretching her apart, was crammed into her
most intimate passage.  The pleasure was fierce, black and sordid.  He
drew back, as languorously as he'd entered her, and began slowly to
thrust.  Ah, how he filled her.  Knives of heat sliced into the
immensity of his assault, and each stroke he took was harder, faster
than the last.

Clarissa groaned, her elation mounting, intensifying wildly.  She
clutched the table edge, her buttocks surging back, greedy for every
lunge of his brutal prick.

"You should have asked for this sooner," breathed Marldon.

"I failed to see how impatient you were."

He slammed to a quickening rhythm, kneading and pummelling her
satin-smooth haunches.  The heavy, hanging purse of his balls knocked
against her labia, sending tremors through her swollen lips, making her
clitoris thrill hotly.  Alee grunted, short, urgent grunts.

"Touch yourself," he rasped.

Clarissa flinched at the request.  To be seen receiving pleasure was
one thing; to be seen wanting it, chasing it, was far worse.

"You do it," she pleaded.

"No," he replied huskily.

His refusal was absolute, and her sex, teased then forsaken, craved a
touch.  She dipped her fingers in the wetness of her creases, plunging
and agitating.  She tantalised herself, delaying a climax she could
take if she wished to.  But she wanted to prolong the pleasure, to stay
on the maddeningly sweet plane of nearness.

Marldon growled, ramming himself into her again and again.  She reached
her hand back and his taut, pulsing balls brushed over it as he plunged
mercilessly on.  He snarled and gasped, pounding so eagerly she thought
her body would split.  Her ravaged virginity blazed like a furnace, and
she wailed in agonised bliss.  His furiously swollen cock, thundering
into her tightness, seemed almost to reach her spine.

Her whole body was suffused with hot, throbbing ecstasy.  The tension
was at its height.  She could take no more.

Three rubs on her pleasure bud were enough to release her.  She came,
abandoned and sobbing.  Paroxysms of delight clutched fiercely at her
centre and sensation soared, lifting her to rapture.  Marldon had been
waiting.  He gave several violent thrusts and, on a raucous cry, buried
himself deep in her slick, stretched tunnel.  His cock shuddered
wildly, emptying its burning liquor into the trembling crash of her
orgasm.

When his spurts ebbed away, he released a low, heavy groan of
satisfaction.  His hands ran idle strokes over her fleshy rear.  The
sudden silence was immense.

Clarissa drew shallow breaths, feeling his size diminishing in her
sore, tainted passage.  Her consciousness, no longer marred by lustful
fumes, grew sharp.  Her surroundings, her audience, returned to her
perception.  Remorse filtered into her mind and she felt sickened to
the core of her being, hating herself for sharing Marl- don's depravity
so willingly.

He slipped out of her.

"Delightful, isn't she?"  he said.

Clarissa ruffled back her skirts with flicking, apologetic hands, and
sluggishly raised her exhausted body.  Alee brought her a chair and she
sat, her head bowed, unable to look at Gabriel.  She wished he would
speak.  She wanted to hear his words of contempt and disgust.  She
wanted him to castigate her, to ease her conscience by punishing her
with the abuse she deserved.  But he said nothing, and her shame
intensified.

Marldon strode over to the three men and Clarissa looked up, anxious,
curious.  Jake's mouth sagged open, lewd and wet, and Brinley gave her
a salacious grin.  Their hunger was evident in their bulging
crotches.

So was Gabriel's.  She noted it with both relief and guilt.  She wanted
to catch his eye, to exchange a glance of understanding, but he kept
his gaze resolutely fixed on the ground.

Only when Alee stood before him did Gabriel raise his head.  The two
men were virtually the same height, Marldon a little broader.  They
looked each other full in the face, Marldon gloating, Gabriel glaring
defiantly.

"As you can see," began Marldon, 'your knight-in shining-armour attempt
is wasted on Clarissa.  She takes to captivity with relish.  It gives
her the freedom to indulge her baser appetites, and to Clarissa that is
paramount.  However, your visit has not been entirely without its
reward.  The entertainment, I discern, you found quite enjoyable."

He cupped a hand to Gabriel's swollen groin.

"Very enjoyable," he said, rubbing.

Gabriel glowered at him, his shoulders lifted, and his chin tilted
up.

Then he spat directly into Marldon's face.  For a moment, Marldon was
perfectly still.  Then he took a backward step, pulled a silk
handkerchief from his trouser pocket and calmly wiped away the sliding
foam.  His features were clouded with rage.

"You will pay for that," he said, slow and controlled.

"You will truly pay for that."

Octavia, in a wrapper of apricot chiffon, lay across Lucy's bed,

propped on one elbow.  Her vivid auburn locks were half-pinned and a
few loose waves streamed over one shoulder.

"So when do we start worrying?"  she asked, reaching for a grape.

Lucy, seated at the dressing table, cast her a shy glance in the
mirror.

"I'm worrying now," she said with a nervous smile.

"Darling," said Octavia, her voice rich and chocolaty.

"You know perfectly well that I was referring to Gabriel."

Lucy shrugged and made a fuss of powdering her nose.

"Tomorrow, I suppose," she replied.

"He did promise to call today.  But you know Gabriel: he gets
distracted by something or changes his mind.  I'm sure it all went
quite, quite smoothly."

"I do hope so," said Octavia, rising from the bed.

"And I do hope you're right about that little housemaid too.  I have
deep reservations about securing her a position with Jane.  It's not
any old bloody knocking shop, you know.  The girls there have a certain
refinement."

She stood behind Lucy and scrunched handfuls of blonde ringlets,
fingertips rubbing lightly at her scalp.  Lucy shivered nervously.

"Julian's teaching her to waltz," she said.

"Kitty's been slipping out at night and they've been practising.  And
she doesn't curse quite as much.  Not when she's concentrating
anyway."

"Well, it's a start," replied Octavia absently.

"Are you sure you want to wait for him, Lucy?"

She ran her fingers beneath the frilled edge of Lucy's chemise, moving
from one shoulder to the other.  Lucy's heart fluttered.  She felt
terribly ashamed to be exploiting her friend's desire in this way, even
though Octavia professed not to care.  Lucy's tastes were for men and
men alone, and this was engineered solely to snap Julian out of his
complacency.  Her affairs and flirtations so far had affected him not
in the slightest, and Lucy was tired of his confidence in her hunger
for him, tired of being taken for granted.  And she hated the fact of
his marriage.  Yet she could not let him go.

His wit delighted her and her appetite for the games he played was
insatiable.  He could be both wicked master and tender lover.  But what
she loved most was that his taste for subjugating her was not borne out
of a corroded soul as it was with Lord Marldon.  Julian knew how to
play.  The earl, as she'd discovered, did not.

She met Octavia's gaze in the mirror.  The older woman had promised to
pleasure her in such a way that Sir Julian would soon stop believing he
was indispensable.  Lucy was less convinced, and now the moment had
arrived she was starting to regret having been persuaded into it.

Ready words of doubt formed on her lips, but Octavia was looking at her
with such yearning that she was crushed to silence.  A sudden thrill
coursed through her body and she shuddered, excited and fearful.

"No," she said quietly.

"Let's not wait for him."  It was less insulting to Octavia this way,
she thought, and she did not want to appear hesitant when Julian
finally arrived.

"You'll love it," whispered Octavia.

"You'll love it."

She slid her hands either side of Lucy's back, smoothing down the thin
ivory fabric, dipping into her waist and swooping over the flare of her
hips.  Leaning forward, she ran her hands along Lucy's thighs and
nuzzled beyond her rich fall of curls to kiss her neck.  Her breath was
soft and warm, her touch slow and lingering.  Her hands moved back,
wrinkling up the chemise on Lucy's legs, then skimmed over the slight
rise of her belly to press beneath her breasts.  She ran a finger below
each under swell gently pushing silk into the creases where her rounded
flesh hung.

Lucy drew a tremulous breath.  Her body tingled to Octavia's easy,
soothing caress.  She closed her eyes, feeling hands cup the weight of
her bosom, thumbs scuff across her nipples.  A whimper caught in her
throat and her full orbs took all the sparkling sensation to their
tips.  Beneath the silk her crests hardened, erect and lustful.  The
pleasure was unexpected, but it was sweet and strong.

She looked at Octavia in the glass.

"Have you always preferred women?"  she asked coyly.

Octavia gave a kind smile.

"No," she said.

"I've always liked both.

I've never understood desiring just muscles or just curves.  I'm
attracted to people first, bodies second."  She kissed Lucy behind her
ear.

"It just happens that of late the nicer, more interesting people in my
life have been women."

Lucy unfastened the top two buttons of her chemise, a tentative
offering of her eagerness.  Octavia encouraged her with eyes that were
needy yet understanding.  Lucy continued to open her shift, still a
little timid.

"Why do you keep so quiet about it?"  Lucy asked.

Octavia eased the silk from Lucy's shoulders, exposing her white,
coral-peaked mounds.

"Because it's better that way," she replied, brushing back Lucy's
hair.

"Considering the line of business I'm in.  Some men are funny about
it:

they feel threatened or revolted.  And there are others completely
enchanted by the idea.  Both are bloody tiresome."

She nibbled Lucy's earlobe and massaged her bared flesh.  Arousal
trickled through Lucy, and she moaned faintly.

"You have beautiful breasts," murmured Octavia.

"Come, stand up."

Slowly, Lucy stood.  She faced her friend, looking steadily into her
hazel eyes, aware of each breath she took.  With deft, soft fingers,
Octavia slipped the half- open chemise down Lucy's body.  The silk
whispered to the ground.

"Ah, how luscious and white," purred Octavia.

Her gaze roved over Lucy's nakedness as she unfastened the gold ribbons
of her own wrapper and let the chiffon fall from her shoulders.

Octavia's pale skin was smooth and lustrous, her body superbly firm and
buxom.  The peaks of her ample bosom were tight points, surrounded by
great rosy circles.  She stepped to Lucy, and drew her close.  Their
breasts squashed together, soft and yielding, and their nipples
chafed.

Octavia touched her lips to Lucy's, and fluttered a brief kiss.  Drops
of lust spilt into Lucy's groin and stayed there, quivering.  She had
thought about their bodies together, but for some reason she had not
thought about kisses.  Its intimacy roused her and she answered with a
hungering mouth and caressing hands.  She swept over the woman's back,
palmed her fleshy buttocks, and stroked the scoop of her waist.

The feel of silky, supple flesh delighted her and she swayed her hips
languorously, pressing her pubis to Octavia's.  A warmth drummed in her
sex, heavy and rich.

The door creaked and Lucy jumped.  Sir Julian entered, stopping
abruptly as he saw them.

"What, the devil-' he exclaimed, staring hard, his mouth agape.

Lucy looked at him.  She had expected, hoped for such a reaction when
she'd arranged this.  But now it seemed misplaced and foolish.

"Go away, Julian," she murmured, and she meant it.

"Let him stay if he desires to," countered Octavia, giving her a
gentle, unseen pinch.

"We can be alone at other times if you wish.

Three is often interesting."

Lucy was disappointed.  She did not want to compete or be competed
for.

She did not want to prove anything.  All she wanted was to explore
these new sensations and other ways of pleasuring.  But she relented,
knowing the opportunity would be wasted if she let it pass.

"Would you like to stay?"  she asked, her voice betraying her lack of
enthusiasm.

"I seem to recall you invited me," said Julian flatly.

"Did you change your plans or is this part of them?"

Lucy shrugged and received another nip from Octa- via.  Putting on a
brilliant smile, she sauntered over to him and laid her hand to his
crotch.  His prick was swelling and the pulsing maleness of it charged
her with a fierce need.

"We got a little distracted," Lucy said, gazing seductively into his
steely blue eyes.

"Why, what else is a girl to do when her lover is over half an hour
late?"

She rubbed at his burgeoning erection and kissed him deeply, relishing
the scouring bristles of his moustache against her upper lip.  Octavia
came to join her, helping Julian off with his frock coat.

"Indeed," he said, whipping undone his tie.

"I must remember to be late more often."

He undressed quickly, and his cock jutted from his light-brown curls,
deliciously stiff.  Lucy fell to her knees and took his tumid length in
one lavish mouthful.  Octa- via sank behind her and slipped a hand into
the parting of her legs.  Her busy fingers quested in the hot, juicy
folds, dipping into Lucy's rich well and nudging at the bead of her
clitoris.  Her touch was glorious.

Lucy moaned her delight around Julian's rigid shaft, drawing back and
forth with keen strength and an agile tongue.  He gasped at her zeal,
and pulled away from her.

"You'll make me spend, my sweet," he cautioned.

He knelt before her, his mouth seeking her breasts.  He suckled on a
tight, crinkled cone, and his hands roved over her flesh.  Lucy exhaled
deeply, wallowing in the luxury of two skilled eager lovers.

It was sheer heaven to have them tending to her most sensitive parts.

Her sex burned to Octavia's expert caress, her moisture running
quickly, and her nipples throbbed as Sir Julian moved from breast to
breast, bestowing his wet attentions upon her.

Octavia bore her gently back to the floor, and Lucy lay supine, moaning
softly.  She parted her legs, her hips tipping for someone's, anyone's,
ministrations.  Julian's fingers slipped briefly within the soaked
petals of her vulva, finding her readiness.  But Octavia urged him out
of the way.  She knelt over Lucy and lowered her head to the juncture
of her thighs.  Her mouth was wide open, hot and wet, as she engulfed
Lucy's folds in a voracious sucking kiss.  Her tongue slipped through
Lucy's plump lips, its tip gliding along her deep juicy valley.  Then
she lashed and nibbled at the knot of her pleasure bud, teasing back
its hood to seek the hard pearl within.

Lucy whimpered and writhed.  Octavia's sumptuously heavy bosom rested
on her belly and her legs were astride her face.  Russet hair cloaked
her mons, and her sex, split before Lucy's gaze, was pouting ripely,
shimmering with dew.  She found the sight deliciously indecent and
fiercely exciting.  With a rush of appetite she clutched Octavia's
hips, urging her open thighs down to her mouth.  She sipped at the
other woman's rich, briny nectar.  She explored the succulent pleats of
her flesh, exquisitely tender and moist, and revelled in the
intoxicating scent of her musk.

Octavia mumbled throatily and Julian released a quick groan of
disbelief and wanting.  Lucy, aware that for the moment he was
excluded, was thrilled.  She knew how erect he was, how impatient he
must be to take her.  Let him wait, she thought, reaching to fondle
Octavia's generous breasts and toy with their great puckered tips.

This was bliss beyond compare, made all the sweeter by Sir Julian's
thwarted desire.

The two women squirmed and moaned with rising pleasure.  Softness
pressed on softness, and Octavia guided them, rolling over, shifting
positions.  They lavished kisses on mouths and nipples; they rubbed
their mounds together, meshing golden hair with amber; they delayed
their orgasms and luxuriated in the newness of each other's body.

Julian stole an occasional caress, or snatched a fleeting kiss.  But
Octavia was possessive and alert, at once claiming any flesh he
covered.

Eventually he huffed in frustration.

"Are you going to let me in?"  he asked sharply.

"Or would you prefer it if I took my leave now?"  Octavia looked at
Lucy with questioningly raised brows.  Lucy smiled at Julian and ran a
slow gaze down his broad torso to his towering prick, deliberately
critical and ponderous.  He was rearing potently, his glans em purpled
and glistening in the half-light.  Her vagina ached to be filled by the
driving strength of him, but she was guarded enough not to reveal it.

"Don't be churlish," she said, gentle and placating.

"Stay.  I'm sure you can play a part.  Just try a little harder."

With that she edged back to the bed and levered herself on to it,
spreading her bent legs wide.  Julian scrambled to be with her, and
caught her upper body to his.  His demanding mouth met hers, fiercely
taking all the kisses he'd been denied.  His fingers sought her wetness
and he plunged three of them, over and over, into her hot swollen
opening.  Lucy gasped frantically.  She drove herself into his hard
thrusts, grinding her pubis to the heel of his hand.

"Ah, that's what you like, isn't it?"  he snarled, ramming his crushed
fingers deep.

"A foretaste of fucking.  You cannot fool me.  Luce.  A woman could
never satisfy such a greedy orifice."

"But there are other pleasures," insisted Octavia, squirming into their
embrace.

"Pleasures the three of us can find."

Her lips closed over one of Lucy's nipples and her hand reached to
clasp Julian's cock.  She pumped his rigid shaft while sucking and
tonguing Lucy's crests.

Lucy thrashed beneath them, rubbing against a hard body, a soft one.

Her caresses moved everywhere, finding muscles and fleshy contours,
stiffness and moisture.  In the tangle of limbs she did not know whose
mouth touched this place, whose fingers touched that, nor did she
care.

It was sublime to have such an abundance of skin and heat, to receive
so much attention.

Julian knelt between her splayed thighs, cradling her buttocks, and
heaved her loins towards his.  The stout knob of his phallus brushed
and teased her inflamed labia.  He delayed entering her, making her beg
and cry for him.  Her hips arched, searching for him, shaking in
anticipation.  But still he lingered.

Octavia straddled her belly, blocking her view of Sir Julian.  She
edged up, smearing her wetness over Lucy's undulating body until her
pulpy, scarlet sex was pressed to Lucy mouth.  Lucy lashed and probed
with her tongue, burrowing into the heat of the pliable folds, tasting
the woman's juices.

She felt the head of Julian's cock poised at her hot openness, and she
gasped urgently, her sounds muffled by Octavia's smothering flesh.  Her
need for him was torment, pushing her to the very edge of endurance.

Then with a brisk force, he penetrated her, shoving his gorgeous thick
shaft to its limit.  Her slick orifice cleaved to his warm sturdy rod,
and she whined her joy, drawing Octavia closer in the fever of her
excitement.

Julian slammed and jabbed with furious lust.  His fingertips dug into
her buttocks and he jerked her body to meet each powerful lunge.

Octavia's breath came short and fast, as Lucy nibbled eagerly on her
clitoris.  Then the woman climaxed with a series of husky moans, and
her mouth and hands were suddenly everywhere, kissing and kneading
Lucy's creamy white curves.

"God, you're divine," mumbled Octavia, her warm lips fluttering over
Lucy's lifting bosom.

Lucy panted, her near-orgasm starting to clutch at her groin.  Her
clitoris seethed; her vagina throbbed, slipping and gripping around
Julian's cock.  She pounded to match him, stroke for stroke, until
extremity claimed her.  She wailed as an eddy of pulses exploded and
gushed, but Julian allowed her no respite.  He snorted and gasped,
driving himself on to his ultimate fulfilment.

With a hoarse shout, he tore himself free of her.  His release jetted
in pearly arcs, splashing hotly on to Lucy's belly and breasts.

Octavia gave a long, sonorous breath and lovingly massaged the silky
fluid into Lucy's skin.  Lucy murmured contentedly, her body sinking
into the relaxation of her calmed orgasm.

Octavia smiled at Julian's softening penis.

"Well, that's you finished," she said, without malice.  She nuzzled up
to Lucy and rubbed the swell of her pubis against Lucy's plump thigh.

"If you insist," replied Julian, easing himself back on to the
pillows.

Lucy turned away from him, twining her legs about Octavia's.  They
exchanged warm, languid kisses and gentle, snaking caresses.  They
tantalised each other, teasing and sucking, stirring up arousal where
it tingled still.

"Perhaps I should put up at my club tonight," said Julian, a note of
irritation in his voice.

"I doubt this bed will afford me much sleep."

He did not move, and Lucy did not answer, too involved in Octavia's
flesh even to enjoy his vexation.

"Or perhaps I should ring for some refreshments," he continued,
pettishly seeking to be noticed.

"A cognac would be much appreciated."

"Then get dressed and ring from the drawing room," mumbled Lucy,
worrying he might call up a servant just for spite.

Julian grumbled to himself and moved from the bed to retrieve his
clothes.  From the corner of her eye, Lucy watched him.  His face was
devoid of its collected ease, and instead his brows were pinched in a
frown, his lips compressed in a tight line.  She felt a moment's
pleasure, recognising that she had managed to ruffle him, but the
satisfaction was not as brilliant as she'd anticipated.

"How the mighty are fallen," said Octavia as he left the room.

"You'll soon have him eating out of your palm, darling.  Or your
lap."

"Mmm/ replied Lucy, taking a rigid nipple between her teeth.  She
grated lightly on its hard, roughened texture, then drew away, tense.

An urgent hammering of the door knocker resounded through the house.

"Bit late, isn't it?"  said Octavia, a quiver of concern passing over
her face.

"You don't suppose' "Gabriel," said Lucy.

"Oh, fudge, it must be Gabriel.  And, at this hour, his news can only
be dreadful."

In a panic, she set about covering herself, pulling on a petticoat and
hunting for her shift.  Low voices reached her from the hall and she
grasped Octavia's wrapper, hurrying into it as she stole out on to the
landing to listen.  She heard the front door close, then footsteps more
than one pair on the first flight of stairs.  She fumbled with the
ribbons, struggling to make the wispy garment a little less indecent.

"Kitty!"  she exclaimed, seeing the flaxen-haired girl rounding the
foot of the steps with Julian.

"What in heaven's name are you doing here?"

"It seems Gabriel hasn't returned home," answered Julian.

"Which means the situation is worse than we thought.  Or better, but I
doubt that."

"You can't bring her up here," hissed Lucy, crossing her hands to
conceal her bosom, visible beneath the sheer fabric.

"You can't bring her into the bedroom."

"Of course I can," he returned.

"We have things to discuss.  I think Kitty will need to gain a place at
Madame Jane's with some urgency.

So she's going to have to accustom herself to sights far more depraved
than our half-clothed aftermath."

Lucy swung round as the bedroom door creaked open behind her.

"Bloody right she is," declared Octavia.  She stood there,
magnificently calm, utterly naked.

"Lord ha' mercy," said Kitty in a low breath, gawping at Octavia's
large breasts.

"Do come in.  Miss Preedy," said Octavia.

"I feel you have an awful lot to learn."

Chapter Eleven

Marldon's servants were not as other servants.  They took their orders
but they also took their pleasures, as blatantly and crudely as their
master.

Throughout the night, their laughter and groans of lust had echoed
around the basement's sleeping quarters.  The sounds had drifted into
Gabriel's ugly dreams, dreams in which the valet, the steward, footmen
and grooms had queued up to couple with a willing Clarissa;

dreams in which she had jeered when it was his turn to take her;

dreams in which Marldon lay dying, a dagger sticking from the place
where his heart should be.

Gabriel paced restlessly.  The room seemed to grow smaller with each
passing moment, but at least it was quiet now.  Escape seemed nigh on
impossible.  The window was a mere slot of glass, high on one of the
walls.  The door was securely locked from the outside and whenever a
servant entered, to bring food or issue an order, they were always
backed up by the gruff stable- master.  Gabriel's prospects seemed
bleak.

He stepped up on to a chair beneath the window and peered out of the
oblong pane, as he had done a thousand times since being cooped up in
the spartan little room.  Level with his eyes, the stableyard stretched
out to the cheerless red-brick wall en girdling Asham House.  A youth
jogged alongside a horse, trotting it about in wide circles.  Sunlight
glinted on the animal's hooves and, though Gabriel could not see the
sky, he knew it was of the fiercest, cruel lest blue.

The brightness of the afternoon mocked him: his hurt did not darken the
world, nor did his agony shape brooding clouds.  It was all crammed
into his heart and mind, and no one but he suffered for it.

Clarissa did not love him.  Any fool could see that.  He did not need
the servants to tell him that last night, when she'd submitted so
utterly to Marldon, was not a rare occasion.  She had not done it to
save Gabriel from harm; she had not done it under duress.  She had done
it willingly, hungrily, without a thought for his pain.  Marldon was
the man she wanted, not he.

The key turned in the lock and Gabriel stepped wearily down.  A woman
entered the room and, as ever, Grimshaw stood in the doorway, his
thuggish bulk blocking the potential exit.  It was Charlotte, the
curly- haired maid who had brought him shirts and trousers yesterday,
garments which Lord Marldon apparently no longer required.

"Perhaps," she'd said, 'he'll give you Clarissa too, once he's cast her
off."

Gabriel had balked at wearing the earl's clothes but thought it
marginally preferable to wearing the robes he'd arrived in.  He hardly
cared that the costume was now ridiculous.  He simply did not want to
be dressed in a reminder of his deceived heart and hopes.

"Feeling creative?"  asked Charlotte, fixing him with her mocking
jade-grey eyes.

Gabriel sat on the narrow bed and leant against the wall.

"Not particularly," he replied.

The woman tossed an assortment of equipment on to the mattress:

pencils, pens, inks, charcoal sticks and pastels.

"Well, you'd better try getting in the mood," she said.

"His lordship wants some sketches doing."  Gabriel rummaged idly
through the materials.

"Landscapes?"  he enquired sardonically.

Charlotte smiled.

"Of Clarissa."

"Ah, nudes," said Gabriel, nodding with mock sagacity.

"My favourite art form.  How perceptive of Lord Alexander."

Despite himself, the thought of seeing Clarissa made him ache with
wanting.  It could only be a bitter pleasure, one designed to torment
him, but logic could not quell his yearning to be near her.  And there
was, he told himself, a chance that she might give him a word or a look
to show her feelings for him were still as strong.  He knew it was a
false hope, but nevertheless he clung to it, allowing deception to
overrule his judgement.  He would not refuse Marldon's request.

"Paper would be helpful," he said.

"Upstairs," said Charlotte.

"Select what you need and we'll go.

Handcuffs, Jake."

"They're not necessary," sighed Gabriel, rising from the bed.

But they paid him no heed and he was taken, hands bound, up to the
first floor.

There, without knocking.  Charlotte quietly opened the door to a
drawing room of blue and silver.  Clarissa, playing Chopin at the
pianoforte, did not see them.  Her body swayed gently and her elegant
fingers rippled over the keys, filling the room with a melancholy
sound.  Lord Marldon was seated in a fireside armchair, his legs
crossed, one foot bobbing gently in the air.  He smiled serenely,
raised his hand for their silence, then resumed his meditative
demeanour.

It was, thought Gabriel, a parody of domestic contentment.  For a few
moments Clarissa played on until something made her aware of the
intrusion.  She turned slightly; the notes faltered, then she hastened
to her feet.

"Gabriel," she said, in a whisper so full of longing that it tore
through his heart.

He had been mistaken.  She truly did care for him.

"Clarissa," he responded softly.  Could he convey how he loved and
needed her with a single word?

She ran a few eager steps towards the small group.  Then she checked
herself, snapping her head round to Marldon.  Her face darkened and her
eyes grew narrow, darting suspicious, uncertain glances from one man to
the other.

"What is it?"  she demanded of Lord Marldon.

"What do you mean by this?  What is it you hoped I would do?"

Lord Marldon rose from his chair and strolled over to her, smiling
coldly.  The scar on his strong, cruel jawbone shimmered like the
silver track of a slug, and everything about him spoke of cruelty and
cynicism.  He looked like a man who, having tried and tired of every
known perversion, was now intent on devising his own.

"Ah, how guarded you've become," he said.

"Whatever happened to those simple, open passions, Clarissa?  Once you
would have thrown yourself at his feet, begged for his forgiveness just
as you have begged for my mercy."

Clarissa was motionless, her expression stony as Marl- don pinched the
end of a curl hanging by her ear.  He pulled it down, stretching it to
tight straightness.  Her head tilted a little and the merest grimace of
discomfort twitched on her face.  Then he released his grip and the
hair sprang up to a shining ebony tendril.

"Your self-control spoils my fun," said Alee mildly.

"Alas, alack, such a pity.  Won't you at least humour me by pleading
for your lover's forgiveness?"

Gabriel drew quivering breaths, his anger rising hotly.

"There's nothing to forgive, damn you," he said fiercely.

"No?"  returned Marldon with inflated surprise.

"Most men would be a little put out at the sight of their sweetheart
being buggered, and loving every minute of it.  But not you?  Ah yes, I
recall it well now.

You found the sight quite pleasing, didn't you, Mr.  Ardenzi?"

Gabriel wriggled in frustration, his handcuffs clanking.

"You bastard," he snarled.

It shamed and enraged him that he had no defence.  When he'd witnessed
Clarissa being taken so intimately, his lust had proved stronger than
his censure.  He had tried closing his eyes to the scene, but the
sounds of her pleasure had still inflamed him, and the compulsion to
watch had been overwhelming.  His arousal, however, had not detracted
from his hatred of Marldon.  Nothing could do that.

"Leave him," implored Clarissa as the earl stalked over to Gabriel.

"If you must torment someone, my lord, then torment me."

She followed him like a whipped dog, tugging on the sleeve of his frock
coat.  Jake sniggered.

"But you enjoy it too much," retorted Marldon, pulling his arm from her
clutches.

"Besides, I'd rather torment you both."

Gabriel breathed deeply, attempting to calm himself.  He recalled
Octavia's advice: a cat would not toy with a mouse if it lay still;

seeming indifference was the best defence against Lord Marldon.  He
forced his lips into an agreeable smile.

"Then, please, try your damnedest," he said with a charm he did not
feel.

Marldon returned the smile and looked at him keenly, his eyes black as
pitch.

"Perhaps later," he said eventually.

"But for now, Mr.  Ardenzi, will you cooperate with my request for some
sketches of Clarissa?  I can, of course, force you to draw, although I
doubt I could force you to produce your best.  However, I would so
appreciate it if you tried.

I'd like a record of Clarissa before it's too late, before she turns
into an irredeemable slut."

Clarissa cursed him.

"My pleasure," replied Gabriel with assumed urbanity.

"How else am to earn my keep?  I fear the handcuffs might present a
problem, though.  And I do not work with an audience."  With a nod he
indicated the servants flanking him.

"Ah, the sensibilities of an artist," said Marldon.

"I find Clarissa thrives in company.  However, as you wish."

He bid Charlotte release the manacles then dismissed her, and ordered
Grimshaw to remain outside the door.  Gabriel rubbed at his wrists and
flexed his fingers.

"Hardly the best preparation," he said affably, settling into his role
as the earl's match.

"Would you mind if I took a look around the room, my lord?  I need to
judge the lighting."

"Be my guest," said Marldon, following him with watchful eyes.

Gabriel took his time, relishing his slight increase in power.  He
wondered if the man genuinely did want some sketches or if this was
solely to induce heartache.  But either way it mattered little.  He
could spend time with Clarissa, and that counted more than anything.

He strolled past the tall mullioned windows which looked down on
Piccadilly.  A few carriages rumbled along the wide, cobbled road,
gleaming in the brilliant afternoon, and beyond were the verdant
treetops of Green Park.  The sky was of the deepest azure, and the sun
was a blaze of gold, high and blinding.  Gabriel eased a shutter to,
lessening some of the glare, and gazed contemplatively about the
room.

Clarissa regarded him with a confused, cautious expression.  He smiled
openly at her.

"When you're ready," urged Marldon tetchily.

"Mr.  Ardenzi, will you help your model undress?  I don't wish to
interfere overmuch."

"No," murmured Clarissa.

"No, I won't have it."

Marldon sighed.

"What?  Do you want me to threaten his life again, Clarissa?  Or is it
that you would rather I helped you?"

Clarissa pressed her lips together, and threw Gabriel a troubled
glance.  He was on the point of reassuring her that it did not
matter,

that it was a trifling thing, when she spoke.

"Yes," she whispered, guiltily lowering her eyelashes.

"I would rather it were you, my lord."

The request pierced Gabriel to the quick.  Was she ignoring his
feelings or trying to spare them?  He felt a surge of hostility towards
her: she could have at least granted him those few moments of
closeness.  The pleasure of touching her skin would have far outweighed
the anguish it was meant to provoke.  Perhaps, he thought, she could
not bear the pain of him being near.  Either that, or Marldon had the
preference.

Gabriel pulled out the pencils from his pocket and took up the paper
and board set out for him on a small table.  If she wanted Marldon to
help her disrobe, then so be it.  He was certainly not going to watch
them.  He sat on a brocaded couch, an ankle resting on the opposite
knee, and laid the board on his lap.  With a casual air he began
sketching various pieces of furniture: a rococo console table, a
jardiniere holding a great potted palm, a chair with ball-and-claw
feet.

He hummed as he worked, only once stealing a glimpse of Clarissa and
Marldon.  And, when he did, he regretted it deeply.  He saw the earl
slipping her chemise from her shoulders, his hands sliding down her
bare arms, his lips pressing kisses to the nape of her neck.  And, in
the same moment, he saw Clarissa close her eyes luxuriously.

Jealousy, sour and vicious, twisted his guts, mocking his nonchalant
facade.  Oh, how quickly she surrendered to the man; how she cherished
his dominance and his polluted sensuality.  This was not the woman
Gabriel had fallen in love with.

"Where in the room would you have her positioned?"  asked Marldon.

Gabriel raised his head from his determined sketching.  Clarissa was
naked, her hair unpinned.  A thick black lock streamed over one
shoulder and hung in a soft curl, half-concealing the breast below.  A
shell-pink nipple poked shyly through the lush curtain, and she
appealed to him with eyes that were imploring, apologetic.  Her
expression sent tender emotions flaring high, and his phallus pulsed at
the sight of her pale, beautiful nudity.  But he girded his heart with
stoicism and coolly surveyed her up and down.

"Very nice," he said in a neutral tone.

"Anywhere over there, please.

Away from the windows."

Gabriel saw a disconcerted shadow cross Marldon's face.  It was the
briefest loss of poise, but it rallied his spirits.  Octavia had been
right: the man disliked the taste of his own medicine.

Lord Marldon arranged Clarissa on a blue damask chaise.  She was a rag
doll in his hands, her compliant limbs flopping this way, spreading
that.  When he had finished she was lying full length, her head on the
armrest, one foot on the floor, one on the upholstery.

"What I would like, Gabriel," began Marldon, 'is for you to capture the
expression on her face when she's in ecstasy."

The earl drove his fingers into the crimson-throated entrance between
her thighs.  Clarissa gasped quietly.  She squirmed on the couch,
uttering small objections, but her legs widened and she tilted her
hips, pursuing his invasion.

"Ecstasy is a fleeting thing," asserted Gabriel.

"And it seldom stays still.  The task will be somewhat difficult."

Lord Marldon pushed in and out of her pouting orifice, slow and
teasing, his thumb rolling on her clitoris.  Clarissa's eyelids dropped
shut and she gave in to his caress.  Her breath grew short and she
moaned shamelessly.

"Then you'll have to watch her come, again and again," said Marldon
softly.

"Commit it to memory, Gabriel, then set it down on paper."

Gabriel felt his face flush with a surge of loathing, but he was
resolute, convinced he could better Marldon - as long as he could
control his emotions.  He inhaled deeply and quietly.

"Very well he replied.

"I think the times I've spent with Clarissa will give me a head
start."

Lord Marldon slid him an uncertain glance then smiled benignly,
returning his eyes to Clarissa.  He probed rhythmically in her open,
dewy sex, answering her groans with murmured words of approval.  As his
glazed fingers worked he studied her face, his own rapt and adoring.

But it was delight, not in her enjoyment, but in her subjection which
gave him such a look.

Gabriel's resentment swelled apace with his arousal.  Clarissa's
abandonment, her writhing body and her sounds of bliss stirred his
prick to hardness.  And it was at her that he began to direct his
anger.  This was the Clarissa he had seen yesterday, the one with the
restraint of a whore and the constancy of a weathervane.  Those
victimised looks she'd cast him had meant nothing: they were as hollow
as her declarations of love.

And while he detested Marldon with a violent passion, Gabriel decided
that he was not the one to denounce.  Clarissa was the one who had
claimed devotion and spoken of forever, not Lord Alexander.  She was
the one who now betrayed him.  She was the faithless slut.

He watched, inflamed with fury and lust, as Marldon thrust into her
greedy wet flesh.  She ground herself against his hand, gasping
frantically, body shivering, eyes closed, lips parted.  Gabriel had
seen such an expression before, but then it had been at the touch of
his fingers.  Now she was blind to his presence.  The girl did not care
who gave her pleasure, or who observed it.  As long as she got her
fill, she was happy.  Any man would do, any cock.

Marldon brought her, panting and thrashing, to the edge of her
crisis.

Then he stepped away from the couch and turned to Gabriel, holding his
gaze.

"She's all yours," he said disdainfully.

"Do what you will with her.

I recommend her arse, but it's entirely your choice."  Clarissa gave a
cry of alarm and pushed herself on to one elbow.  She looked
beseechingly at Marldon, her face a confusion of disbelief and
desperate, lascivious need.  Then she turned to Gabriel, and her
countenance did not change.

Gabriel had been right: she could transfer the object of her desires
within the blink of an eyelid.  And now she'd been denied, she wanted
his prick inside her his prick because it was the only one on offer.

Well, he would give her what she wanted.  He was rock hard and more
than ready for it.

He shoved aside his drawing board and got to his feet, tearing off his
shirt.  He strode over to her, unbuttoning as he approached.

"No, Gabriel," she gasped, cowering in the corner of the chaise, her
hands raised as if to ward him off.

"Don't be like this.  Don't give him the satisfaction."

Gabriel scoffed, stripping till he was naked.

"I think it's you who wants satisfaction," he rasped.

He scooped her upper body to his, and kissed her harshly, his tongue
thrashing hot and quick.  She whimpered in his arms and when he urged
her off the couch she sank with him to the floor.  Her hands swept
eager caresses over his back and her mouth searched for his.  But
Gabriel did not care for such pretences of fondness.  The brazen doxy
was only trying to appease her guilt.

He pressed his hands to her inner thighs, forcing her wide.  Her sex,
red and slick, gaped for penetration.  He lay over her and, on a
violently swift lunge, slammed his cock deep into her.  He began
driving furiously, thumping his prick high, venting his anger in an
onslaught of thrusting madness.  Her slippery wet heat hugged his
shaft.  She moaned deliriously, protesting one moment, begging the
next.  He brooked her no mercy.  She liked cruelty; she liked to be
mastered.

Her body shunted back along the carpet, jolting with the force of his
stiff, plunging phallus.  Gabriel clutched her firm breasts and kneaded
urgently, his fingers tweaking and twisting her tightly pinched
nipples.  Clarissa wailed and wrapped her legs about his waist,
encircling him, her vagina thirsty for every thick swollen inch.  She
ground herself against him, her loins pumping upward, her actions
belying her gasps of complaint.

"Shut up," barked Gabriel.

"Stop pretending you don't want it.  Bitch.

You grasping, greedy slut."

She looked up at him, her half-closed eyes full of pleading and hurt.

Amid moans of hunger, she uttered words intended to soothe and calm.

She tangled her fingers in his hair, pulling his mouth to hers.

Gabriel snatched his head away.  He felt her lips brush against his
neck, soft, gentle, moist.  He did not want those touches from her; he
did not want her deception.

He fucked her hard, driven more by rage than desire.  He rammed his
prick to its root, and clawed at her tits, abused and cursed her.  He
blocked out every care he'd ever had.

She loved it.  The hot little bitch loved it.  A ruthless fuck was all
she wanted, and that's all she would get from him.  No more love, no
more tenderness.

As he powered into her, she gasped frantically, her fingernails raking
his back.  She peaked, her head tossing, her humid sex trembling around
his solid pounding length.  Gabriel gritted his teeth, driving
wildly.

His climax would not build and he begrudged Clarissa bitterly for
taking hers.

"Lift her on to your prick," came Lord Marldon's voice.

Gabriel glanced up and saw the earl striding over to them.  He was
naked, his phallus hugely erect and forbidding.

"I want to share her with you," he continued.

"I want to take her arse while you're taking her more romantic
orifice."

Gabriel's blood ran cold.  The idea of having another man so intimately
near filled him with horror and revulsion.

"Damn you, no he growled, feeling suddenly possessive.

Marldon was at his side in an instant.  He grabbed Gabriel's curling
locks and twisted them, forcing back his head.  Gabriel, his spine
arched, held still, his penis pressing deep inside Clarissa.

"My faithful stable master is just outside the door," sneered Marldon,
bringing his face close to Gabriel's.

"Jake Grimshaw - not a pretty fellow, I'll grant is desperate to get
his hands on Clarissa.  Would you enjoy watching him fuck her?  Seeing
his great oafish arse pumping between her spread thighs?  Seeing him
slaver and grunt over her soft white body?"

Clarissa screamed.  Lord Marldon clamped his free hand to her mouth,
stifling her cries.

"Well, Gabriel?"  he enquired smoothly.

"What's it to be?"

Gabriel gave a jerk of his head, wrenching his hair from Marldon's
fist.  Clarissa looked up at him, mumbling urgently behind Marldon's
fingers, her blue eyes wide with terror.  Gabriel glared at her, making
her wait for his answer, wanting her to suffer.  She deserved Grimshaw,
he thought spitefully.  But he could not do it to her; he could not do
it to himself.

He acceded to Marldon's request with a curse and a quick movement,
holding Clarissa tight and rolling over so she was sitting astride his
cock.  Clarissa protested, whining thinly, but she did not struggle.

"Ah yes," breathed Marldon.

"It's what she's wanted for a long time;

the two of us inside her."

He spat on his fingers and moved to kneel in the gap of Gabriel's bent,
open legs.  Clarissa whimpered her excitement as Marldon worked his
spittle into the crack of her buttocks.  His touch brushed once or
twice against Gabriel's balls.  Gabriel tensed, fighting to quell his
abhorrence: he did not want to appear cowed by the earl's
perversions.

But Clarissa, oblivious to his ordeal, moaned gently and began rocking
back and forth.  Gabriel's resentment flared and he gave a snort of
derisive laughter.

"Isn't one enough for you?"  he jeered.

Clarissa dipped her head, holding herself immobile.  Her hair hung in
black waves over her bosom.  Gabriel jerked his pelvis upwards,
bouncing her passive body with each thrust.  She looked down at him,
her wet lips parted salaciously, her indigo eyes, full of amethyst
shards, searching for his sympathy.  Gabriel had none to offer.

"Yes," urged Gabriel.

"She's a sordid little whore.  Give it to her hard."

Lord Marldon laughed with unrestrained delight, and Gabriel felt a
moment's acute embarrassment.

"So you think you can give the commands, do you?"  teased the earl.

"How charming."

He tipped Clarissa's upper body until she was leaning over Gabriel, her
weight supported on her arms.  His thighs pressed against Gabriel's as
he edged forward, then with a blissful sigh Lord Marldon entered her.

Gabriel felt it.  He felt Marldon's thick, turgid shaft rising in-her
greedy little arse.  It pushed against the silky flesh separating them,
moving against his own organ, rubbing upward as it forayed into
Clarissa's darkest depths.  The pressure of the internal caress was
unexpectedly gratifying.

Marldon held himself deep and shifted position, moving back until his
arse was flat against Gabriel's, his legs either side of his torso.

Clarissa groaned, sitting upright, impaled on two swollen hungry
cocks.

"Work for us, Clarissa," ordered Marldon.

"Show us how much you care."

Clarissa released a tortured cry and tilted her racked gaze to the
ceiling.  Her sex muscles rippled around Gabriel's erection and he
grunted sour enjoyment.  Tentatively, she rose from the dual
penetration then sank down, groaning as their hard, rigid columns bored
into each orifice.  Increasingly passionate, she rode their engorged
pricks, her pert breasts jiggling with her body's lift and fall.  She
gasped and sobbed, wanton lust contorting her face.

Taster," urged Marldon.

"Squeeze us hard."

And she obeyed.  Gabriel felt the tight clench of her inner muscles as
she moved on their solid, fleshy staffs, rising and sinking with
frenzied need.  The two men set up a conspiratorial rhythm, both of
them thrusting up to meet Clarissa's hot, swallowing holes.  Marldon's
balls, warm and tense, crushed against Gabriel's.  Gabriel did not
care.  He cared only that Clarissa would look back on this with
overwhelming shame.

With a surging anger, he rammed himself high into her, driving faster
and faster, setting the pace for Marl- don.  His loins throbbed, his
prick ached, and yet still his climax eluded him.  Clarissa's
tear-stained face, though it rewarded his vengeful fury, was doing
little for his lust.

The earl cursed, growled, then matched a fierce lunge to a snarl of
fulfilment.  His phallus pulsed against Gabriel's, then moments later
he slipped out of Clarissa's rear.  She was all Gabriel's again.

Gabriel clutched her buttocks to his thighs and, with a twist of his
body, jerked her on to her back.  She gasped beneath him, and he
clamped his eyes shut, plunging into her with animal passion.

"Watch her," commanded Marldon.

"Watch her as she comes.  Commit that expression to mind then you can
set it down on paper."

Gabriel paid him no heed.  He knew well enough what she looked like.

He slammed relentlessly, and the pressure in his cock burnt as it
strained and quivered.  Then at last he claimed his satisfaction,
groaning as the hot release tore through his groin and into Clarissa.

She cried out, joining him in dissolution, before he collapsed on top
of her, exhausted and emotionally numbed.

Clarissa sniffled against his shoulder.  Her body trembled and she
coiled a strand of his hair about her finger.  Her lips moved on his
neck, kissing and sobbing.  She whispered in his ear, Gabriel, oh
Gabriel.  Misery and loss echoed in her soft tremulous voice.  She was
vanquished, devoid of hope, but Gabriel felt none of the victor's
triumph he'd anticipated.  Her gentle intimacy kindled a flame in his
heart, and he felt a sudden upsurge of compassionate, debilitating
love, so raw that his eyes prickled with emotion.

He pulled away from her and snatched up his crumpled shirt.  He dressed
in haste, his gaze steadfastly averted.  He knew Clarissa was still
lying there, naked, tearful, threateningly pathetic, but not once did
he look at her.  When she called his name on a plaintive, breathless
howl, he did not turn, because he did not hear it.  He heard only a
whore's solicitation.

He would not let his feelings hold sway; they would destroy him.  And
she was not worth it.

Marldon stood between two windows, leaning against the blue wall, his
arms folded across his body.  He smiled vaguely, watching the boy tug
on his clothes.

Clarissa might be fooled by that stem exterior, those attempts at
nonchalance and cruelty, but Marldon was not.  Oh, Gabriel had been
good at first, unsettling even, but the poor sop couldn't sustain it.

He loved the girl too much.  Marldon was grateful.  The artist, in his
futile bid to gain the upper hand, had deprived his lover of all
hope.

After this, Clarissa and her dowry would truly be his.  Alec's only
regret was that Gabriel hadn't suffered more overtly.  It would have
been most entertaining to see the young pair tormented by each other's
shame.  Still, there was time.

Marldon crossed to Clarissa, who was curled on the floor, snivelling.

"Are you ready to pose?"  he enquired, offering her his hand.  For a
while she did not move, then sullenly she accepted his help and rose to
her feet.

"Let him go she murmured, cupping her hands behind her neck to shield
her breasts with her arms.

"But I want some pictures," replied Alee.  And he did.  He wanted the
lovers to sit in concentrated silence, to drink in each other's beauty
knowing it was not theirs only yards away but far out of reach.

He wanted thoughts of broken love and lost futures to eat away at their
innocent young hearts.  And most of all he wanted Gabriel to continue
spurning Clarissa with his indifferent facade.  The sooner she realised
she had lost the boy's passion, the sooner she would accept the
alternative: life as Marldon's countess and plaything.

"Mr.  Ardenzi," said Marldon.

"I trust you are also ready.  Because, if you aren't, then I shall not
hesitate to force you.  Rape is the threat that appeals to me the most,
and I see you as a man who treasures his anal virginity.  Am I
correct?"

Clarissa made a choked noise of shock and fear.

Gabriel shrugged, attempting aloofness.

"Exactly how many drawings of the girl do you require?"  he asked
indifferently.

Marldon smiled.  Ah, yes, Clarissa was definitely his.

Kitty had been working at Madame Jane's for over a week.  It was a
dandy place, full of sparkling lights and deep-red silk, and a stone's
throw either way to the Haymarket or Leicester Square.  The customers
were well-to-do fellows: lords and society types.  Most of them were
all right and easily pleased, although there were one or two Kitty
didn't much care for.  But she'd scrubbed enough floors in her time to
know that you didn't have to concentrate on a job to do it.

She sat now in a wooded alcove of The Royal, one of the Haymarket's
better cafes.  Decent girls didn't go into Barren's or The Blue Post,
and Kitty, for all her sins, was still a decent girl.  As was Laura,

her companion.  Theydidn't spend their afternoons prowling the streets
and arcades in search of lusty gallants.  They worked late into the
night, and that was plenty.  The days were for sleeping, eating and
shopping in Regent Street.

"Let us have a wee peek, then," said Laura, nudging at the large brown
parcel on the table between them.

Kitty smiled and, moving aside their glasses of negus, untied the
string and folded back a little of the wrapping.

"There," she said proudly, ripping at tissue paper to display a
triangle of her new gown.

The sunlight, softened by the frosted windows of the bar, gleamed on
the watered silk.  It was gin-bottle green, and quite the loveliest
thing Kitty had ever owned.  Lucy and Octavia had started her up with a
fine enough wardrobe, but this she'd bought with her own money and it
was all the more special for that.

"Ah, that's a lovely cloth," cooed Laura in her lilting Irish voice.

"Will you be wearing it tonight?"

Kitty said she would, if the creases fell out, and if Laura wore
scarlet.  Laura had thick sandy curls and a sprinkling of freckles,
almost the same colour as her hair, and a tiny upturned nose.  She was
one of the prettiest girls at the night house and together they made a
dazzling pair.  Parading about the dance hall in green and red, they'd
be sure to catch many a gentleman's eye.

"Very well then, scarlet it is," said Laura.  She took a few healthy
sips of her negus then set down an empty glass.

"We ought to be getting back soon.  Drink up."

It was their turn to go out that evening, which meant lots of preening
and an early start.  Sometimes they just stayed at Jane's, entertaining
whoever came in; other nights they wandered around the West End,
visiting casinos and dancing saloons, luring back those who had money
to burn and lust to spend.

Kitty drained her glass and tidied up the wrapping of her new gown.

Outside, the low sun was bright after The Royal's wooded darkness.

The two women sauntered along the busy Haymarket, Kitty holding her
cumbersome parcel in a tight embrace.  A gang of grimy-faced street
urchins danced around them, offering to help the lady with her
parcel.

Laura shooed them away, scattering a few farthings on the ground when
they persisted.

"I shouldn't be much surprised if Lord Marldon pays us a wee visit
soon," said Laura.

"Let us hope it is tonight or another when we're about on the town."

"Oh?"  replied Kitty.

"Why's that then?"  She trusted Laura but was under strict instructions
not to tell a soul her reason for working at Madame Jane's.  She did
her best to appear conversational and casual.

"Because I can't be doing with the man," declared Laura, raising her
voice above a swell in the clatter of cabs and shouts of
costermongers.

"Ah, a nasty piece of work, that he is.  He swans in, checking this,
changing that, and he looks at a girl so hard it sometimes makes your
blood curdle.  And he surely puts Jane's back up.

I tell you, the last time he came, he "No," interrupted Kitty.

"I mean, why do you think he'll be visiting us?"

They reached the corner where, as usual, a crowd of men gathered around
the local trickster, jostling to get a view of whatever was set out on
his box.  Kitty and Laura skirted past them, ignoring one or two jeers,
and turned into Panton Street.

"The season's coming to an end," answered Laura as the noise faded
behind them.

"He always pays us a visit before disappearing to the country. Business
isn't nearly so good in the autumn, you know.  For the moneyed ones,
they all go off hunting.  But at least his lordship doesn't pester us,
and you have to be thankful for small mercies."

Kitty felt a pang of alarm.  She hadn't banked on Marldon going away.

Was he planning to take Clarissa with him?

"They reckon he's to be wed," continued Laura.  Though, myself, I
cannot see it.  One look's enough for anyone to see the fellow's a
wicked old pervert.  Who'd say "\ do" to that?  Not me, that's for
sure."

"The bride might not have a choice," suggested Kitty, trying to tease
out more information.

"He might have some sort of power over her."

Laura gave a little laugh.

"God love you.  You mean he might have got her in the family way? Well,
even so, if it were me, I'd sooner suckle a bastard then marry one.

Wouldn't you now?"

"That's not what I meant," mumbled Kitty, unsure of what she did
mean.

Clarissa's friends had never agreed on whether she was a willing guest
at Asham House or a prisoner.  Octavia had said it was easy to rescue
someone if their body had been captured but, if their mind had been
captured, then it was much more difficult.  It was all rather odd to
Kitty.  But, now that Mr.  Ardenzi had gone missing, she was sure
something was badly wrong.

She was growing impatient with this half-baked plan, and the others
didn't seem to be doing much in the way of finding out more
information.  She wished Charles and Alicia Longleigh would return, but
that wouldn't be for another month or so.  They'd know how to sort it
all out.

She hoped they wouldn't mind that she'd left her old job.

The two women reached the small side door of Madame Jane's.

Downstairs, on the large glass windows, green and gold lettering spelt
out, so Laura had said, "Wines, Beers and Spirits'.  Officially it was
The Balmoral and it looked, for all the world, like any other cafe. You
could just drink and sup there if you wished.  But if you had the right
face and enough money, then you could go on up to the real Madame
Jane's with its glittering dance hall, its bawdy shows, private gallery
and booths.

Laura unlocked the door and led the way along the dim corridor.  As
they climbed the flights of stairs.  Kittywondered whether she ought to
confide in her new friend.  Laura knew the clients and the other girls
better.  Perhaps she could find something out.

"So/ she began tentatively, 'is it true that this Marldon ... Well,
it's just I heard he sometimes took girls from here to be his
servants.

Is it true?"

"Ay," replied Laura.

"But you needn't worry yourself.  It's only the truly bad ones, and
only if they want to.  There was a wee lass by the name of Charlotte
and she went away with him, oh about a year ago now.  And before that
there was Eleanor, I think her name was, Eleanor Gracely.  Now she was
a scandal, I tell you.  In love with her brother, so they said.  Or was
that Charlotte?  Jesus, I can never remember."

Laura gabbled on.  Kitty scarcely heard a thing.  She felt relieved
that she wasn't likely to be whisked away and made to be a servant once
more.  But she felt dreadfully worried too.  Poor Miss Clarissa.

How were they meant to get help to her now?

Kitty and Laura entered the lodging part of the building on the upper
floor.  In the low-ceilinged drawing room, a few of the girls sat
around, reading, mending clothes, chatting idly.  Madame Jane, seated
in her great leather armchair, looked up from her book as the two of
them strolled in.  She raised her pince-nez to her eyes, and gazed
intently at Kitty.

"Come here, would you?"  she said, her voice kind rather than
commanding.

Kitty set down her bulky parcel and crossed to stand before her.

"You've been in service, haven't you, Katherine?"  said Jane.

Kitty nodded.  Jane insisted, for the sake of dignity and distance,
that everyone in the brothel used their full name.  It still sounded
strange to Kitty's ears.

"Housemaid," she replied.  Then she added, "Upper," although it wasn't
true.

"Then you won't have any trouble carrying trays of drinks and
responding when someone clicks their fingers?"  said Jane.

Kitty eyed her a little warily, half-fearing she was about to be
fired.

Or, worse still, that Lord Marldon was after employing her.

Had he heard she was truly bad?  She shook her head, frowning.

"Good," declared Jane.

"Marldon's been here today.  He wanted to check you over but I said
you'd be fine.  He trusts me."

A couple of the girls sniggered.  It was an open secret that Madame
Jane cooked the books and creamed off some of the earl's profits.

They were all grateful, for they benefited as much as she.

"He wants a few girls to go to Asham," continued Jane.

"He's having a bit of a party.  You too, Laura."

Laura threw herself on to a couch and groaned.

"I'm not dancing," she said firmly.

"I'm absolutely not dancing, no matter what he's paying."

"No need," said Jane with a sympathetic smile.

"The dancers are organised.  You'll just have to wait on and entertain
his guests."

Kitty gnawed at her lip.  This was more than she'd ever hoped for:

just a party; no clearing grates and beating dust from carpets.  But
the prospect frightened her.  The responsibility was immense.  She'd
have to send word to Lucy.  And she would definitely have to confide in
Laura.

"When is it?"  enquired Kitty, her voice coming as a nervous squeak.

"The night after next," stated Jane.

"And I recommend you don't wear such a scared rabbit expression when
you're up there.  His lordship might take a fancy to you."

There was more knowing laughter.

"Well, Jane," said Laura with a resigned sigh.

"What's the devil celebrating this time?"

"His betrothal," replied the madam, returning her attention to the book
on her lap.

"Apparently some woman by the name of Longleigh has agreed to marry
him.  Damn fool whoever she is."

Chapter Twelve

Clarissa had moved bedrooms.  This one, with its silk hangings, gilt
flourishes and painted ceiling, was, according to Lord Marldon, more
befitting to a countess.  And it led directly on to his room.

At least, thought Clarissa wryly, she would not have as far to walk
when he cast her from his side in the dark hours.

"Voila," declared Pascale.  She tossed the shaving blade into the bowl
of soapy water and sat back on her heels.

"Regardez, mademoiselle."

Lord Alee sat, elbows on the chair-arms, fingertips pressed together,
watching Clarissa with a remote smile.  He looked, not at her nudity
and her newly bared mons, but at her face.

Even now, she could scarce believe he was to be her husband.  But she
could see no other choice.  The loss of her virginity was enough to
ensure no decent man would ever touch her; and she had lost far more
than that.  She had lost Gabriel.  She had seen it in his eyes, so hard
and contemptuous; felt it in every deep, bitter thrust he had taken
inside her.  She had lost him, and because of that she had lost what
little will she had left to fight.

"Take a look," said Marldon, nodding to the mirror.

Obediently, Clarissa padded over to the cheval glass and hesitantly
eyed her reflection.  Gone were the dark curls cloaking her sex, and
instead was a moon-pale mound, split by a high line.  Her torso seemed
strangely elongated, its unbroken whiteness drawing attention to the
lascivious lips of her vulva.

"C'est magnificjue," sang Pascale proudly.

"It's obscene," countered Clarissa, her mouth turning in a sullen
pout.

And it was.  Yet the image, so wickedly unabashed, caught at those
black delights within her.

"Then it suits you," said Alee, standing.

He walked to her and touched a finger either side of her sex.  His face
impassive, he stroked along the smooth pouch of her labia, stirring an
eager pulse in her heart and her loins.  She wished her body did not
thrill so to his detached mastery, yet it did.  She craved his cruelty,
courted his humiliations, and for that she hated herself almost as much
as she hated him.

She moaned faintly as his slender fingers played within her folds,
teasing and questing, rocking her clitoris.  He did it because Pascale
watched, to stimulate that excitement which flourished from her
shame.

There could be no other man but he who would understand her base
desires.  He cherished and nourished them; he satisfied them.  Gabriel
could never do that.  When he had shared in her abasement, he had seen
the pleasure she'd struggled to quell, and he had loathed her for it.

She was lucky to have Marldon.

He caressed the shaven swell of her pubis, his fingertips tracing
gentle scrolls over the satin-soft skin.

"Very nice," he whispered, his lips moving to her neck.

Clarissa stretched away from him.  Marldon laughed and drew back.

"How pleasing," he murmured.

"You can still manage those moments of reluctance.  I'd thought you
beyond such charming affectations."  He raised her hand and printed a
soft kiss there.

"Until later," he said, and with that he left the room.

She watched him depart, hoping for a parting glance.  But he gave none,
and the door clicked shut.

A slut and a whore Gabriel had said, and he was right.

If further proof were needed, it was there in the sketches he'd made of
her.  In every line of those drawings, she saw herself as Marldon must
see her, as Gabriel must see her: shameless, abandoned, prisoner to an
appetite that was corrupt and voracious.

She reached for her chiffon peignoir.

"Mais non," said Pascale, wafting away the flimsy gown.

"We have not finished with your body, mademoiselle.  It is in need of
some colour, nest-ce pas?"

Clarissa made no demur.  She would appear before Alec's guests as he
wanted her to appear.  There was no longer any point in resisting.  She
just hoped that in the crowd tonight there would be no faces from the
life which had once been hers.  She could cope, just, with the
avaricious stares of Marldon's servants; but attention from those she'd
met on the London circuit she did not think she could bear.

At least Gabriel would not be there to watch.  He had been released;

he was no longer useful to her betrothed.

Pascale, blue silks swishing, brought a pot of rouge from the dressing
table and scooped a small amount on to one finger.  She hummed gently
as she smeared the waxy cream into Clarissa's nipples.

"Do you remember that little housemaid of yours?"  asked Pascale with a
conversational air.

"The troublesome one Kitty Preedy?"

"Of course I do," replied Clarissa, a note of resentment in her
voice.

Did the Frenchwoman really think she would forget her friends so
easily?

"Bon.  She has left her position in your household," stated Pascale,

kneeling and taking more of the red stuff on to her finger.

Delicately she began to rub it over Clarissa's labia.  Clarissa
flinched slightly, hating the efficient intimacy of the maid's touch.

"I don't blame her," said Clarissa.

"It seems Ellis is master of the house, and you, when you are there,
mistress."

Tish, it is so," replied Pascale with feigned regret.

"We have offended also the housekeeper, the butler, the laundry maid
the ... ah, I forget them all.  But Aunt Hester, it is us she likes and
so the others, they go.  We stay."

"Kitty must have been difficult to get rid of," said Clarissa
sardonically.

"I fancy she does not shock or scare easily."

"We had good fortune," answered Pascale, dabbling her fingertips in the
water and wiping them on the skirt of her apron.

"She had to return to care for her family.  Her mother is dead."

She looked up at Clarissa, smiling, her dark eyes sparkling with
gleeful expectation.  She wanted to hurt her, to see her saddened by
Kitty's loss, appalled by the callous delight she took in it.

Clarissa turned away from the woman's scrutiny.  She could not satisfy
Pascale's malice: Kitty's mother was already dead.  The young maid had
lied, for whatever reason.  Clarissa shrugged it off, silently wished
Kitty luck for the future, and said nothing to Pascale.

The Frenchwoman rose to her feet and lifted Clarissa's chin.

"Mademoiselle, do not look so melancholy," she whined, reading
Clarissa's aloof gaze as gravity.  Her mouth curved in a mocking
smile.

"You have much to be happy about: a party in your honour, a wedding in
the autumn, a husband who "Oh, shut up," snapped Clarissa, with a
little flare of temper.

"Leave me alone."

She had barely thought about the wedding ceremony and the reminder was
unwelcome.  How proud her father would be as he escorted her down the
aisle, and how sickened he would be if he knew of the sordid pleasures
she and Marldon shared.

"Leave me alone," she repeated fiercely, seeing Pascale had made no
move to obey.

"I must dress you and arrange your hair," replied the maid, defiant and
smug.

"Do it later," ordered Clarissa, snatching up her peignoir.

"We have ample time before the guests arrive."

"Later, I will be gone," smiled Pascale.

"I do not wish to remain here to be used by his lordship's friends.  I
am above that.  Tonight, I have leave to visit Sebastian.  Ah, mon
amour."  She coaxed the thin dressing gown from Clarissa's hand.

"I shall give Aunt Hester your very good wishes, non?"

"How kind," replied Clarissa tartly.

"And while you're there, perhaps you could travel a few doors down and
give my very good wishes to Mr.  Ardenzi."

"Ah, the artist," said Pascale airily, bundling up the chiffon.

"Such a pity his lordship permitted him to go.  Charlotte, she was so,
so disappointed.  She said to me he was very good, a very good fuck. So
hard and rough, she said.  And always he was so angry and passionate.

Myself, I did not try him.  Quel dommage\ Perhaps, as you say, I must
call on him when I go to Chelsea."

Sudden tears scorched Clarissa's eyes.  Had Gabriel really been with
that brassy little whore?  With that incestuous piece who would not
know a hairpin if she saw one?  She thought of them coupling, of him
tangling his fingers in the girl's abundant curls, kissing her,
thrusting.

"How dare you speak of him in such a way," she fumed.

Pascale gave her a steady, challenging smirk.  Without thought,
Clarissa landed the flat of her hand across the impudent maid's
cheek.

Pascale, recovering quickly from the slap, fixed Clarissa with the same
infuriating gaze.

"Bon," she said.

"It is what his lordship requested: a little fire in you.  He grows
bored of your compliance.  You have become too easy, mademoiselle.  It
is not to his taste.  Alors, shall we dress?"

Carriages had been arriving all afternoon.  Gabriel had listened to
them clattering across the forecourt, most of them passing by his high,
narrow window then on, he assumed, to the stables or the kitchens.

So it was true: she had accepted his hand in marriage.  And tonight was
to be their betrothal party the one the servants had teased him about,
the one where Clarissa would submit to every degradation.

Well, long may she suffer for it.  She deserved to be Marldon's wife.

Gabriel stalked over to the door, fists balled, and battered furiously
on the wood.

"Let me out," he raged.

"You bastards.  Let me out."

Sometimes, his anger, his hurt, his frustrations reached such a pitch
he thought his body would explode, or the room blast apart.  The more
his emotion swelled, the more the walls seemed to close in on him,
until he felt he would choke from want of air.

His hammering on the door was rewarded.  Footsteps clicked and tramped
down the corridor.

"What is it?"  came a voice.

"What's the fuss this time?"

It was the randy little bitch.  Charlotte.  Apart from pacing this room
and an occasional handcuffed walk outside, fucking her was the only
exercise he got.

"My prick's hard," he lied, pressing his ear to the wood.  He heard
only mutterings.

"Jake with you?"  he enquired.

"Of course," said Charlotte, and there was a grunt of affirmation.

Gabriel huffed impatiently.  He wished he were a boxer instead of an
artist.  He would fight his way out, flooring all those who stood in
his path.  But Jake was a gorilla and there could be few men capable of
overpowering him.  The key turned, the bolt grated, and the door
opened, just enough for Charlotte to sidle in before it was banged shut
and locked again.  The woman, brunette hair tumbling wantonly about her
shoulders, put a hand to his crotch.

"It's not hard," she said, smiling.

"Then make it," returned Gabriel.

"I'm bored.  Why don't you give me some books to read or something?"

"Haven't been told to," she shrugged, efficiently flicking open the
buttons at his groin.  Her thin fingers reached in to weigh his
phallus.  She teased and rolled, capping and uncapping him until he was
pulsingly erect.

"Anyway, you're leaving tomorrow.  This could be our last encounter."

"How tragic," replied Gabriel, propelling her backward to the wall and
leaning against her body.  His stiffened cock jerked against her skirt,
pushing between her spread thighs.

"Then let us make it memorable."

He tucked his fingers into the neckline of her bodice and, with a
backward step, tore open the muslin.  Charlotte gave a shocked,
delighted laugh and he scooped her breasts free of her corset.  He
squeezed the taut half- globes, bending to bite and suck on the firm
pale flesh.

"Yes," she gasped.

"Yes.  Harder."

"You want it harder?"  spat Gabriel.  He grasped a fistful of her lush
brown curls and tugged her head to one side.  The girl liked it to
hurt, and he was just in the mood for obliging her.

"Yes," she said challengingly.

"Be rough."

Gabriel clawed at her skirts, hitching up her petticoats until they
were bunched about her waist.  His rigid cock nudged beyond the slit of
her drawers to find the deeper slit of her sex, then he drove himself
into her hungry, easy passage.  He slid himself up and down, his strong
legs powering his fast, high thrusts.

Charlotte wailed and groaned.  Her vagina rippled about his shaft.  She
was just like Clarissa, always wanting it, always ready.  He hammered
into her, jerking her up against the wall, making her insolent little
tits bounce and shudder.  He crushed her nipples and pounded her
breasts, leaving red marks and promises of bruises.  He bit her neck,
gnawed her lips.  He pulled her hair and dug fingers into her sinewy
upper arms.

Without waiting for her, Gabriel climaxed.  It was honest; it was
satisfying.  There was no emotion wasted between them, and if she
wanted to come then she could do it herself.  Neither of them engaged
in this to please the other.  It was utterly selfish and blissfully
simple.

He quickly withdrew and, moving away, covered himself.  Charlotte swore
and her hand delved beneath her skirts to quest within the crotch of
her drawers.  With a frantic action, she rubbed and plunged, panting
and moaning.

Gabriel turned from her and stepped up on to the chair beneath the
window.  He peered through the oblong of glass, scanning the meagre
view.  Nothing but evening sunlight on the stretch of gravel.

He sighed restlessly.  So tomorrow, at last, he would be out of here.

He would put it all behind him, forget Marldon, forget Clarissa.  They
were not even worth his vengeance.  He listened to Charlotte's wall of
fulfilment then stepped down from the chair.

"Why can't I leave now?"  he demanded.

"Am I expected to attend tonight's celebrations?  Did my invitation get
lost?"

Charlotte shrugged.

"Don't ask me," she said, disconsolately arranging her torn bodice.

"As far as I know, Clarissa thinks you're gone.  I don't see the point
of you staying."

"Let me go then," he ventured, knowing it was a futile proposition.

Charlotte laughed.

"More than my life's worth," she said.

"Anyway, perhaps his lordship wants you as security, to threaten you if
Clarissa refuses him something."

She rapped on the door for Jake to release her.

"I can't imagine that," replied Gabriel.

"No," murmured Charlotte as a gap widened for her.

"Neither can I."

The leather-padded doors swung open at the footman's knock.  Clarissa,
her heart pounding, gazed down the length of the shadowy room.

It was heavy and churchly, panelled in dark wood with richly carved
archways and niches.  Hazy spots of light seemed to come from a hundred
different points:

there were octagonal lanterns, flaming torcheres, candles everywhere,
and from the ceiling hung a gloomy, medieval-style gasolier.  On
couches of silk and faded damask, on vast cushions of embroidery and
tapestry, lounged people in twos and threes.

All eyes were on Clarissa as she took a few hesitant steps forward.

The violins melted away.  Whispers rushed.  Then a fascinated calm
stilled the chamber.

At the far end, raised on a dais, was Lord Marldon.  He was sprawled
indolently across a couch a great couch draped in tiger skins and he
looked like an Eastern prince.  His chest was bare beneath a jewelled
waistcoat; his legs were swathed in dark silk pantaloons, and he wore
no shoes.

A pair of twisted iron cres sets full of dancing fire, lit the small
stage, dappling him in coppery light.  He smiled and motioned for
Clarissa to enter.

She could not move.  She was to be honoured as the future Countess of
Marldon, yet she looked like a whore from some exotic, bygone age.

Her black hair was heaped in an elaborate mass of curls, of red scarves
and golden ribbons.  Her lips and cheeks were rouged; and in her ears
she wore great gold loops, almost as large as the bangles at her
wrists.

A vermilion corselet, laced tightly at the back, was cut low to display
the whole of her bosom.  Her nipples, artificially reddened, were
brazen and lewd.  Her long, flowing skirt was gossamer fine:

ivory and gold threads interwoven with nothing.  Through it, her
shaved, rouged sex could clearly be seen.  She had no secrets from this
crowd.

Lord Marldon rose sinuously from his couch.  Silently, he sauntered
towards her, smiling.  His glinting waistcoat showed a broad, pale
stripe of his torso, and his pantaloons, slung low on his hips, exposed
almost the whole of his muscled stomach.  He lifted her fingertips to
his lips.  Her bangles clanked down her forearm.

"My betrothed," announced Marldon, holding Clarissa's hand aloft and
stepping aside.

There was a whistle, followed by an outbreak of cheering, laughter and
riotous applause.  People stood to welcome her.

Clarissa flushed, wanting to throw herself into Alec's embrace, to beg
for his protection, but she did not.  She had resolved to be compliant
throughout, knowing how he wanted fire.  It was a small gesture of
defiance, but one she thought would serve her well tonight.  She would
not give Marldon the chance to flaunt how he could defeat her, not
before these ogling guests.

Clarissa held her head high as Lord Alee escorted her across the
room.

The musicians began to play again, a low swooping tune.  Censers burnt,
puffing up cloudlets, and the air was languid with scents of jasmine
and musk.  As they meandered through the crowds, Marldon paused
occasionally to introduce various people: the Marquis de Chouard,
Viscount Quigley, a Prussian count with eyes so lecherous that his name
did not register.  Clarissa nodded graciously to them all.

Most were men.  The two or three female guests were noticeable for
their velvet half-masks, and the other women were servants, both
familiar and unknown.  They circulated with trays of drinks, dressed as
fashionable ladies save for their too-low necklines and too-painted
faces.

Three shallow steps led up to the dais.

"How envied I am," said Alee, reclining on the couch.

"In you I have a wife, a whore and a lifetime's prosperity."

Maridon stretched out his arm and Clarissa placed her hand in his.

"And I?"  she enquired, joining him on the fur coverings.

"What do I gain?"

"Satisfaction of your lust," he answered, drawing her to lie alongside
him.

"What more do you require?  I cannot guarantee how long you will have
that, Clarissa, although for the moment you delight me.

You've sustained my interest remarkably well."  He stroked the nape of
her neck, a feather-soft touch, then teased down a tendril from her
ornate coiffure.

"I never knew courtship could be so enjoyable."

Clarissa nuzzled closer, trying to conceal herself, and also wanting
him.  The guests paid them scant attention, more involved now in other
things.  On a heap of cushions a serving girl in canary yellow,
spread-legged and smiling, was inching back her skirts, tantalising the
men around her with more and more blue stocking.  Her onlookers urged
her on with quickening hand claps their shouts and ribald laughter
soaring above the music.  Yet still Clarissa felt vulnerable.

"Seeking to hide your charms?"  taunted Maridon.  He reached between
their bodies to handle her naked breasts.

"A fit of modesty.  How endearing."

Clarissa rubbed against him and toyed with his hair.  The jewels of his
waistcoat pressed against her skin, cold and hard.

"My lord, please tell me what will happen tonight," she said.

"What is it you expect of me?"

"Patience, child," he said.

"Of all the things I've taught you there have been few virtues.  But
patience is one I thought you might have acquired."

He sat, urging Clarissa to do the same, and signalled to a serving maid
who stood waiting by the dais.  She ascended the steps bearing a salver
holding two golden goblets.  Maridon passed one to Clarissa, took the
second for himself and clinked the rims together.  To us he said,
taking a large draught.

Clarissa sipped delicately at the red wine.  It was spicy, with a
bitter undertone, and a little thicker than wine.  She grimaced
slightly.

"What are you waiting for?"  said Marldon to the maid, who had not
moved.

"Serve this to my guests."

The sandy-haired girl bobbed a curtsey and made to leave.  As she did
so, she stumbled heavily and fell sprawling on to the couch, her body
slamming against Clarissa's.  Clarissa squealed as the goblet flew from
her hand and the viscous red liquid spilt over her skirt and on to the
tigers king

"I'm so sorry, ma'am.  I'm so sorry.  Forgive me, I beg you," appealed
the maid vociferously.  She pushed herself up, flapping uselessly at
the upset wine.

Lord Marldon shoved away the girl's hand.

"What's your name?"  he demanded crisply.

"Laura, milord," announced the maid, quickly recovering her aplomb.

"Ah, yes," he said, nodding with vague recognition.

"Well, Laura, I imagine Lady Marldon needs another drink.  Make sure it
isn't you who brings it.  In fact, make sure I don't set eyes on you
again tonight, you clumsy half wit Begone."

The maid curtsied and scurried away.

"I'm wet," said Clarissa, plucking at her sodden skirt.

"I want to get out of these clothes."

Marldon laughed.

"You'll get out of them when I say so.  Lady Marldon, and not
before."

"I am not yet Lady Marldon," she said stiffly.

Marldon shrugged indifferently.

"It doesn't hurt to practise."

He drained his wine just as another serving girl, carrying a single
goblet, stepped up to the dais.  Clarissa's heart missed a beat.

It was Kitty.  It was Kitty with fashionably styled hair, a gown of
green silk, and peri dots dangling from he rears But, for all the
finery, Clarissa recognised her at once.  That pretty little face was
unmistakable.

Kitty shot her a cautionary glance.  Clarissa accepted the goblet Alee
handed her, betraying no hint of consternation.  She hardly dared hope
that Kitty might be able to help her, but hope she did.  Merely seeing
the young maid was enough to make her feel less isolated, less
doomed.

Try to drink it this time," said Alee.

Clarissa, resisting the urge to follow Kitty's movements, sipped.  It
was not the same concoction.  There was no spiciness, no bitterness,
and it flowed as easily as wine.  It was wine.  Clarissa's hopes surged
higher still.  The difference could not be accidental; Kitty was up to
something.  Unable to think what that might be, Clarissa drank quickly
to hide the evidence, commenting on the liquor's strange taste. Marldon
smiled his satisfaction.

"You'll find its aftertaste even stranger," he said.

"Now, shall we relax a while?"

He raised his arm and clicked his fingers, two loud snaps.  The music
ceased.  People muttered eagerly and shifted positions, turning their
gazes to a stage set against one wall, curtained with deep-red
velvet.

"A little entertainment," he said quietly, pulling Clarissa near.

Her stained skirt, clammy and cold, slithered against one thigh.

The music began, a mournful tune, and the red drapes parted.  On stage
a woman wrapped in sheer lengths of blue and green stood within a great
half-shell.  Crouched at her feet was a ring of slender chiffon-clad
girls, immobile.  One by one they began to move, earthy coloured wisps
fluttering about them, hinting at graceful nudity.

"Ah, God, Botticelli," muttered Lord Alee.

"I've seen this one, the fools.  And I doubt it's improved.  Suck me,

Clarissa."  He placed her hand on his groin.  He was fiercely erect,
and the sudden, unexpected hardness of him sent a thrill through her
body.

She slipped a hand into the vent of his baggy silk trousers, releasing
him, and clasped her fingers about his stiff, veined shaft.

Its vitality throbbed quick and warm within her fist.  Marl- don sighed
and wriggled into a position of luxurious ease, his head lolling back
on to the plump cushions.

Clarissa looked warily about the room, grateful to see that all
attention was fixed on the titillating show.  The dancers were
stripping diaphanous scarves from the woman in the shell, and piece by
piece her pale contours were emerging.  Clarissa watched, intrigued, as
a bearded spectator stepped up on to the stage.  To whoops and cheers,
he clasped a slinky, olive-skinned girl about the waist and wrestled
her away from the performance.

"A delay of pleasure can be very tantalising," said Marldon above the
noisy applause.

"But at the moment it is most irksome.  Suck me."

He put a hand to the back of Clarissa's neck and pulled her down to his
rearing phallus.  She trailed the tip of her tongue over his plum-hued
glans, following the ridge of retracted skin and lapping wetly at his
smooth, shining knob.

"I want sucking, not a light dusting," he said urgently.

"Make me come, and make it fast."

Clarissa complied, closing her mouth over his great, pulsing length.

With her lips circled tightly, she drew along his swollen cock, taking
him in generous, far-reaching gulps.

"Ah yes," breathed Marldon.

"You'll refuse me nothing tonight."

He pumped his hips, driving himself deep into her wet caress.  Groans
rumbled in his throat, then, with a rasp of pleasure, he peaked.  He
clutched her head to his loins, and she drank his hot pungency, licking
away every last trace of flavour.  Marldon murmured contentedly,
stroking Clarissa's half-bared, silky back.

"One of your many wifely duties," he said in a gentle tone.

"And how well you perform it."

His prick was still erect in Clarissa's mouth.  She withdrew, eyeing
his powerful, upstanding organ.  It showed no signs of slackening.  She
looked at him suspiciously and he caught the glance.

"The drink," he said by way of an explanation.

"My lust will not be assuaged tonight, Clarissa.  And nor will
yours."

The drink.  The spiciness.  Clarissa's mind whirled.  He was still
erect because of the drink.  An aphrodisiac then.  But she had not
drunk it.

"Don't you feel your appetite swelling?"  he asked.

"Don't you feel yourself on the verge of a hunger that knows no
bounds?"

Clarissa hugged up close to his body, squashing her bosom into his
warm, hard chest.  She kissed his neck, his face, the satin streak of
his scar.  She nibbled his earlobe.

"Yes," she murmured over and over.

"Yes."  And she laid his hand to her breast, moaning breathy pleasure
when he palmed her yielding flesh.

Her heart thundered with hope, a hope dulled by unease.  Alee was
shrewd.  Was he luring Kitty into a trap just as he had lured
Gabriel?

"Soon," continued Marldon, 'you will be so desperate and needful that,
when I lead you on to that stage, you will writhe and plead for a man's
cock.  My guests will queue up to satisfy you, Clarissa.  One by one,
they will give you what you beg for, and still you won't be sated,
still you will be crying for more."

He caressed her white mounds, pinching her rouged nipples, and Clarissa
turned a whimper of alarm into an inflated groan of arousal.

"Kiss my breasts," she whispered.

"Put your hands between my thighs, my lord.  Make me come.  I want you
so much.7 "All alone, Brinley?"  said Kitty in her best suggestive
voice.

She sashayed into the kitchen and set down a tray of dirty glasses.

The curly-headed valet, sitting there slouched over the enormous oak
table, raised a listless glance.

"It hardly seems fair," she persisted.

"Not when everyone else is having so much fun."  She moved round to
him, placed a daintily shod foot on to the bench and stepped up to
perch herself on the table.

She took his hand and rested it in her lap.

"Why you?"  she murmured sympathetically.

Brinley eased himself to sit upright and stroked along her thigh with a
firm caress.  He regarded her attentively, his mouth twisting in a wily
smirk.

"Because he trusts me," he said.

"You're from Jane's, aren't you?

Haven't seen you before."  His smudgy green eyes twinkled.

Brinley, she had discerned, was there to keep watch over the basement
because Gabriel was somewhere nearby.  Most of the other men had gone
into town, drinking and whoring, and the few that remained were there
to usher in guests, or guard the doors.  Escape was not going to be
easy, and it would be quite a task to find a way in for Lucy and Sir
Julian.  She'd managed the side gate for them, but so far that was
it.

Kitty was determined though, and Brinley at any rate would be a piece
of cake.

"New girl," she breathed, lying sideways along the table.

"Still full of enthusiasm."  She drew one leg into her body, and pulled
back her skirts a touch, offering him a tempting glimpse of black
embroidered stockings.

The valet grinned and his hand strayed to a slender ankle, sliding
slowly upward.  Then why aren't you with the party, servicing Marldon's
guests?"  he enquired.

Kitty gave a weary sigh.

"Oh, his lordship has chosen me to serve him his drinks.  It's very
frustrating, very dull.  Especially since we were all asked not to wear
drawers.  I had hopes of doing something more exciting than waiting
on."

Brinley's hand travelled quickly along her leg to find the warm,
pouting flesh between her thighs.

"You're a little floozy, aren't you?"  he said, smiling broadly.

Without preamble he pushed two fingers into her vagina, quickening
moisture that already flowed.  Kitty's lust had been bubbling under for
some time, sparked by the debauchery she'd witnessed upstairs.

She'd seen her friends writhing on cushions, being tended to by
competitive men; muscled arses, bared and pumping; bawdy stage shows
and hungry, leering eyes.

It was shockingly bad, worse than she'd expected, but it was all very
thrilling.  She was quite glad that seducing Brinley was necessary to
her plan.

She moaned an enthusiastic response to the valet's probing fingers.

He stood hurriedly, the bench scraping on the tiled floor, and slipped
his other hand into her low decolletage.  He caressed her small pert
breasts, tweaking her puckered nipples.

Kitty trailed her fingers over his crotch, feeling the small bulge of
keys nestling below the larger bulge of his prick.  Perfect.

"Hurry," she urged, swivelling round so her legs were either side of
his body.

"Someone might come down."

She ruffled up her skirts, baring her glossy pink sex, and Brinley
hastened to unbutton himself.

"On the table," implored Kitty, edging back across the dull,
knife-marked wood.

"I've never done it on a table."

Brinley scrambled to join her, his cock poking through his open
flies.

Kitty lay on the great oak surface, frogging her legs wide, and with a
big, hungry lunge Brinleypenetrated her.  Grunting away, he drove
himself into her soft and juicy channel.  Arousal swarmed deliciously
in Kitty's groin.  She circled her legs about his hips, rising to meet
him, frantic to yield to the pleasure.  But she could not allow herself
that luxury.  At any rate, not just yet.

Her hands flailed beneath her buttocks, searching for the valet's
trouser pocket.  Her fingertips skimmed over the bump where the keys
lay, but she could not reach inside.  Brinley thrust on, oblivious to
her intentions.  His pounding length drove deep and fast, urging her to
a distracted passion.  Kitty moaned eagerly, her orgasm gathering
force, her rational senses drifting away.

But no, she had to do this for Clarissa, for Gabriel.  She held on to
that thought and managed, bit by bit, first to unhook the valet's
braces, next to loosen his trousers so they sagged about his knees.

Finally, in a moment of great heroism.  Kitty feigned her crisis.  She
wailed, long and loud, dropping her legs from him in an assumed excess
of passion.  His penis slipped from her, and she continued to howl, the
sound covering the clink of metal when her fingers closed around the
keys.

"I'm ever so sorry," she pleaded.

"I lost control."

But Brinley's prick was already nudging at her entrance, ready to take
her once more.

"I thought you were a professional," he muttered, slamming his cock
deep.

"Oh, but you're so good," cooed Kitty.

"I could probably spend again.

Soon."

Brinley powered into her, taking quick, hectic strokes.  Kitty clenched
her sex muscles to his strong solid shaft, indulging in the heavenly
feel of him with an uncluttered mind.  Her near-orgasm pulsed and
swelled, lifting her desire to its dizzy peak.  She cried out as the
force of it seized her.

"Greedy little devil," gasped Brinley, unable to suppress a boastful
grin.

His breath came fast; his thrusts were hot and hard.  Then a grunt
turned into a growl and he snatched his cock free.  Kitty felt his warm
liquid splash on to her thighs and while he knelt over her, panting
satisfaction, she secreted his keys into the beaded reticule fastened
at her waist.

Thirsty work," she said, smiling up at him.

"I reckon you and I deserve a drop of something."

She tensed as the valet yanked up his trousers, fearing he might notice
the missing bunch of keys.

/! hardly ever come twice," she went on, eager to keep his attention.

"You've got a good thrust on you.  I like that in a man."

Brinley visibly swelled with pride, his chest puffing out like a wood
pigeon's in mating season.  Oh, men could be so disappointingly easy,
thought Kitty.

"You sly little wench," said Brinley, eyeing her fixedly.

"I've spotted your game."

Kitty's knees went soft.

"Oh?"  she replied in a tiny squeak.  This was it; she was done for.

She was going to be slapped in a cell, tortured and raped.

"You're just after a drink, aren't you?"  he said.

"You're only saying I was good.  You don't mean it."

"Oh, but I do, I do," protested Kitty, her relief giving her words
great enthusiasm.  She trailed a finger down his torso.

"I just thought it'd be nice for us to have a bit of wine or
something.

Then I'll have to go upstairs for a while, but I could come back later
if you like."  She gave him a coquettish look.

Brinley beamed.

"Go on then," he said, nodding to the dresser.

"Pour us some Burgundy."

"Hark at the gentleman," chided Kitty, wiping his seed from her thighs
with her petticoat.

She sauntered across the room, hips swaying, looking back at him with
alluring smiles.  He was riveted.  At the dresser, she gently placed
her reticule on the pine surface.  While her right hand moved glasses
and bottles, her left opened the beaded pouch and withdrew one of the
four phials.  She glugged wine into two goblets, chattering gaily, then
eased the tiny cork stopper from the small glass tube.  Into Brinley's
drink, she tipped a generous measure of chloral.  She hummed, swirling
the liquid, waiting for the crystals to dissolve.  Within minutes, he
would be sleeping like a baby.  She returned to him, goblet in either
hand.

"I propose a toast," she said.  To us, and to a night of endless
passion."

In the silvery, moonlit darkness, Lucy and Sir Julian crept around the
rear of Asham House.  It was eerily calm, the only sound that of their
footsteps crunching lightly on gravel, and the muted rattle of
carriages from Piccadilly.

"This is utterly impossible," complained Lucy under her breath.

Julian, several yards ahead, beckoned her over to him.

"Look," he whispered, pointing down to a small window.

"I'll bet we can get in there."  Then, with a stoop and a swinging
leap, he jumped softly down into the alleyway which ran alongside the
basement.

"I can't get down there," hissed Lucy.

"I'll go and find some steps."

"No, you won't," replied Julian, quiet but insistent.

He reached up his hands to her.  With a huff of irritation, Lucy sat on
the cold ground, legs dangling over the wall, and levered herself into
Julian's awaiting arms.  He staggered a little as he caught her, then
when her feet touched the floor he clasped her tightly, reassuring and
strong.

"Perfect," he said, pressing a congratulatory kiss to her lips.

"It would have been perfect if Kitty had opened a door for us,7 she
retorted, her voice low.

"Indeed," he replied, stroking back a blonde curl that had escaped its
pin.

"But that hasn't happened.  Lucy, my sweet, you are quite delicious
tonight."

They were both dressed in their evening finery: Lucyin taffeta of aqua
blue, sapphires and diamonds at her neck.  They had hoped to sneak into
Asham, then merge inconspicuously with the guests.  So much for that.

If things continued in this vein, by the time they reached the party if
they ever did they would be battered, bruised and outstandingly
dishevelled.

"I should have worn a sack," answered Lucy, her skirt hissing softly as
she swiped at the creases.

"And still you would be beautiful," murmured Julian, gazing at her with
intense blue eyes.

Lucy regarded him steadily, curious and more than a little
suspicious.

He had changed.  Ever since the episode with Octavia, he'd been far
more earnest and attentive, less urbane and flippant.

"Hmm," she said cagily.

"Shall we attempt to find Clarissa, or stay here exchanging
flatteries?"

Sir Julian smiled.  The sash window was open a few inches at the
bottom, and he hooked his fingers under the wood, heaving it up.  It
scraped loudly in the silence, and they both held their breath,
waiting.  But there were no answering sounds.

"You first," whispered Julian.

"I'll keep watch."

Lucy clambered over the ledge, pulling her trailing skirts around her,
and jumped neatly into the room.  Its corners were shadowy, the only
light coming from the moon.  Its op aline tints fell upon washtubs,
mangles and presses.  Lucy scowled and wove through the clutter to try
the door.  Julian landed quietly from the windowsill.

"We appear to be locked in a laundry room," she said in a sharp
whisper.

"Lucy," he said softly.

"Will you marry me?"

She swung around, glaring.  He was on bended knee.

"We are locked in a godforsaken laundry room," she snapped.

"This is no time for japes."

"I'm serious," he persisted.

"Marry me.  Luce.  I adore you."

Lucy, prickling with exasperation, could barely speak.

"I seem to recall you have other commitments ^he said eventually.

"Like a wife in Oxfordshire."

"Forgive me replied Sir Julian.  He dropped his other knee and clasped
his hands together as if praying.

"It was a lie.  I invented her."

Lucy stared at him, dumbstruck.

"It started some years ago he continued apologetically.

"There were so many husband-hunting females around and I ... Damn it, I
just wanted protection.  Forgive me.  Luce.  Please."

"Ha/ she said, incredulous and piqued.

"You m^an you wanted to play the philanderer without offering a thing
in return?"

"Something like that," mumbled Sir Julian.

"And now what?"  she demanded, struggling to keep her voice low.

"Time's moving on?  Tired of being a bachelor?  Worried you might be
out of the market in a few years?"

"No," he answered firmly.

"I've found the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.  Say
yes."

Lucy's heart leapt.  It was everything she wanted:

Julian's love, his undivided attention, his ceaseless ability to
pleasure her and, to top it all, he was offering her respectability.

"Well," said Julian, raising one knee again.

"Will you do me the honour?"

Lucy looked at him, her face showing no sign of her joy, only lingering
disbelief.

"I'll think about it," she said sniffily.

"Now, how do vye get out of here?"

Clarissa writhed on the couch, murmuring eager delight.

Between her thighs Lord Marldon's expert fingers moved, slow and
arousing.  His caresses and whispered words cocooned her.  She felt
alone with him, oblivious to the crowd.  She had drunk none of the
spiked wit^e, but her natural lusts transported her.  For the moment,
with Alee once again taking her close to a peak, Clarissa's hunger
blocked out everything.

"Aren't you ready yet?"  he asked softly, his breath tickling her
neck.

Clarissa made a beseeching moan.

"No," she replied in a weak voice.

"Don't make me do it.  Take me here if you must, my lord, but nothing
else, please."

"But I do not want to take you here," he countered.

"I want to observe you on stage, legs spread, offering yourself to my
guests.

Offering, that is, Clarissa.  I'm not of a mind to force you.  Not yet
anyway.  Far more satisfying to see you debased of your own volition.

Well?"

He pressed his thumb against her clitoris, a sweetly fierce pressure,
and chafed harder.  His fingers played within her wet opening, stroking
the fleshy sensitivity of her inner walls.  Clarissa's orgasm beckoned,
and she cried aloud, teetering on the brink.  Then Marldon's fingers
stopped.

"Well?"  he asked.

"Are you any nearer to agreeing?"

Clarissa was, desperately so, but she shook her head.  If she had not
seen Kitty earlier, she might have submitted to him.  She might have
gone on to the stage and pursued her satisfaction, no matter how
shaming it was.  But the housemaid was here for a reason, and Clarissa,
for once, clung to thoughts of the future, not the present.

"This stubbornness is most surprising," said Alee, eyeing her
sharply.

"I fear you have not drunk enough, Clarissa.  And I thought you would
require but a sip."

He gestured to Kitty, who stood a few feet from their dais, awaiting
orders.  People in various states of undress were scattered about the
sombre room.  They sprawled, squirmed and jerked, limbs entangled,
inhibitions gone.

"Bring the wine," ordered Marldon.

Kitty approached with her salver, appearing tense and nervous.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you," said Alee to the maid, 'that two drinks
should be presented side by side, not one in front of the other?

Still, if you're one of Jane's girls I suppose your expertise lies
elsewhere."

He took the nearest goblet and handed it to Clarissa.  Kitty's
shoulders sagged with a released breath, and she smiled slightly.

Clarissa assumed the maid was still controlling the drinks.  She
half-wished it were not so.  She did not know how much longer she could
refuse Marldon without arousing his suspicion.  If only she knew what
Kitty's intentions were.  Perhaps she was keeping back the aphrodisiacs
to protect Clarissa's modesty.  Poor innocent.

Lord Marldon took the second goblet.

"Follow my lead, Clarissa."  He drained the goblet, flicked out the
dregs, then set it back on Kitty's tray.

"Not very becoming to a lady, I grant you-' he smiled '-but that's of
little concern to you.  Now drink."

Kitty gave Clarissa a covert, reassuring nod.  She sipped once,
twice.

"Drink," repeated Marldon.

"Then I'll escort you on to the stage.  And I vow, after every man has
had you, you'll still be ... be begging for mmm ... begging..."  His
voice faded away, and he looked at Clarissa strangely, his eyes
narrowing, squinting, his head swaying back and forth.

"Begging for me," he resumed, his voice thick and slurred.

His lips parted, as slow as a tortoise, and he uttered something
incomprehensible.  Then his eyelids drooped, lifted heavily again, and
shut as his head lolled sideways.  He slumped on to the couch, mouth
ajar, motionless.

"Come on," urged Kitty, tugging Clarissa to her feet.

A figure hurried on to the dais.  It was the clumsy maid, Laura.  She
hastily draped herself over Marldon and fluffed her skirts high.

Clarissa and Kitty moved calmly down the steps, attracting no one's
attention.  Clarissa stole a backward glance to see Laura squirming
against Marldon's inert body, her fingers twisting in his hair.

"I haven't killed him," whispered Kitty, guiding her to the nearest
door.

"I couldn't get enough chloral.  Sorry."

Chapter Thirteen

TV itty her hand fastened about Clarissa's wrist, led the JLVway along
dimly lit corridors.

"Please, tell me where we're going," implored Clarissa, struggling to
keep pace with the young maid.

"Why can't I simply leave?"

"Because the doors are guarded and you look a mess," replied Kitty
sternly.

"And because we're going to see Gabriel."

"But he's gone," wailed Clarissa, frustrated and close to tears.

"No, he hasn't," snapped Kitty.

"Now come on, before someone spots us."

Clarissa pulled up short, refusing to budge.  She struggled to wrench
her arm from the maid's fierce grip, but Kitty's hold on her was
implacable.

"I cannot," said Clarissa.

"He hates me."

"Of course he doesn't," retorted the maid.  She looked hard at
Clarissa, her young elfin face alarmingly severe.

"I've done a lot to get you this far, miss.  So stop acting like a
spoilt child and do as I say."

Clarissa gave a whimper of defeat and hurried after Kitty, scurrying
past door upon door.  Occasional gaslights broke into the gloom with
halos of feeble yellow lambency Finally Kitty stopped and tapped on a
bolted door.

"Gabriel?"  she hissed.

"It's Kitty."

"Kitty!"  came the soft response, a voice full of hope and relief, so
familiar, and yet hauntingly strange.

Clarissa's blood pounded as Kitty slammed back the bolt and jangled
keys.  Six did not fit the lock six agonising attempts in which
Clarissa both willed the door to open and willed it to remain shut.

Her mind spun with a confusion of memories, of distant tender pleasures
eclipsed by vivid depravities.  And she did not know which she
preferred.  She crossed her arms over her bared, rouged breasts,
wishing she were not dressed so lewdly, wishing her skirt was not
wine-stained like a slattern's.

The seventh key slid into the lock and turned.  The door swung back and
Gabriel, his eyes bright as topaz, stepped forward.  He looked wild and
unkempt, his jaw darkened with stubble, his chestnut hair curling in an
unruly tangle.  And still he was heart-stoppingly beautiful.  The
eagerness faded from his face the moment he recognised Clarissa, and he
froze.

Despair plummeted into her stomach and she bowed her head, bitterly
ashamed.

"What's she doing here?"  he demanded.

"She's supposed to be celebrating.  Betrothal party, isn't it?"

Kitty exhaled a sharp, angry breath.

"You two need to sort things out," she said impatiently.

"And you're not leaving Asham until you do.  Get along that corridor.

If you make one whisper of protest, I shall scream the place down and
then you'll both be back where you started.  Go on.  Move."

Clarissa and Gabriel exchanged glances of assent.  Heeding Kitty's
orders, they walked down the corridor, sullen and shy.  They did not
speak, and they touched only once, an accidental brush of arms as they
turned a corner .  Both of them pretended not to have noticed.

Kitty marched behind them, snapping out directions, guiding them
through passageways.  At length they came to a corridor with walls
tiled in majolica, a large oak door at its far end.

"Where are you taking us.  Kitty?"  enquired Clarissa in a small timid
voice.

"Somewhere you'll be safe for a bit," she replied.

"Somewhere you can wash that muck off your body and talk."

At the door she fiddled with keys while Clarissa and Gabriel stood by,
impassive and accepting.

"Marldon was hoping to bring his guests down here," said the maid,
inserting the correct key.

"But I don't think he'll be in a fit state to suggest it."

She opened the door, and a great waft of steam billowed into the
passageway.  She nudged them both forward.

"You might get a bit warm with your togs on," said Kitty, giving a
parting grin.

The door closed on them; the lock clicked and Kitty's footsteps
clattered down the corridor, fading to silence.

They were in an antechamber, surrounded by marble, enveloped in mist.

It was hot.  Clarissa felt her face dampening and a droplet of moisture
trickled a cool path down her back.  She opened her mouth to speak, but
Gabriel turned abruptly and stalked towards an archway hung with green
silken drapes.  His movements were quick and angry.

Clarissa rushed forward, catching him around the waist, and uttered his
name in a cracked, pleading cry.  He stood rigid and she pressed her
cheek to his warm, solid chest, whispering apologies.  Then, suddenly
shocked, she stepped back and glared at him.

"You smell of another woman," she said accusingly.

"I?"  exclaimed Gabriel, his eyes wide with astonishment.

"You dare to reproach me?"

Clarissa shook her head vehemently, at once realising the folly of her
words.  She began to protest but Gabriel ignored her and, with a
vicious swipe, drew back the green curtains.  He stood gazing, gave a
short, bitter laugh, then jogged down a small flight of steps,
Clarissa, motionless in the archway, stared after him.

Few things surprised her about Asham now, but she had known nothing of
this extravagance.  A large room of pale marble walls and columns
stretched below her.  Candle flames, diffused in the mist, glowed high
and low like blurred amber stars.  Along the sides ran ledges of
marble, carved at intervals into deep basins.  At the centre was a
pool, a rectangle of pale-green stillness, watched over by Grecian
statues.

Gabriel jerked his shirt over his head, casting it to the ground as he
strode swiftly into the room.  He paused to tug off his remaining
clothes then ran gently towards the pool, diving with tense, elegant
strength.  His lithe sinewy body seemed to hang in the air, quivering,
before he arrowed into the clean, calm surface.  He moved in the
water's depths, his outline fractured and shimmering beneath spreading
ripples.

Clarissa gnawed at her bottom lip, not knowing how to placate him or
make amends.  Perhaps it was futile even to try.  She could not explain
why she lusted after a man she loathed; she could not explain the
pleasures and agonies she'd found in her shame.

Kitty had been wrong to bring them here.  She should have secured
Gabriel's release and left Clarissa where she belonged, with Marldon.

She watched Gabriel emerge from underwater.  He shook his head
vigorously, sprinkling a shower of diamonds, then pushed his shiny, wet
hair from his face.  Without acknowledging her, he began to swim, his
arms nicking in a powerful crawl, a white froth splashing in his
wake.

Clarissa slipped off her shoes and padded down into the room.  The
marble was cool and a little slippery underfoot.  Small pewter bowls
lay here and there, and deep single shelves, containing bottles and
towels, were cut high in the walls.  Clarissa crossed to one of the
broad ledges and sat there beside a sturdy marble basin, hands folded
over her lap, prim and tense.

Still Gabriel swam.

She sighed and turned on the basin tap, dabbling her fingers in the
warm running water.  She set the plug in its hole and cupped her hands
beneath the flow.  She splashed her face and rubbed at her rouged lips
and cheeks.  She filled a pewter bowl and tipped it at her neck, the
water streaming down her body like a liquid silk caress.  She squeezed
and pulled at her nipples, trying to rid them of their stubborn red
pigment, and still Gabriel swam.

Clarissa blinked hard, fighting back tears.  She had lost him, and now
she had to endure the torment of waiting until Kitty freed them.

Doubtless the maid expected them to mend their differences with a few
kisses and a simple act of sex.  But Clarissa knew their differences
were too great.  Her body found its heights in her depths, and Gabriel
could not give her that.

She clawed at her hair, tugging out combs and snatching at ribbons.  If
nothing else, she could cleanse herself of this whorish garb.  Her
ebony locks came out of the coiffure in untidy, pin-tangled clumps.

The bangles clanked at her wrists and she twisted them off and pulled
at her earrings.  Golden loops scattered at her feet, glinting in the
wetness which glossed the marble floor.  Then the splashing stopped.

She looked up to see Gabriel, his hands on the edge of the pool, the
anger gone from his face.  He heaved himself from the water, his
bronzed arms flexing, and walked towards her.  The thin mist made him
nebulous;

he moved as in a slow dream.  Droplets fell from his long, dark hair
and trickled down his graceful body, sliding over his abdomen like
beads of quicksilver.  They glinted in the curls at his groin where his
penis nestled quietly.

"Ah, God," he said as he reached her.

Then, without another word, he began gently to remove pins from her
disordered, straggling tresses.  Clarissa trembled, and her heart
swelled with guilt.  How could he be like this when she had betrayed
him so completely?

She did not know what to do.  Would sorry be enough?  Would an embrace
be misconstrued, taken as lust instead of feeling?  She sat, meek and
still.

When her hair was freed, Gabriel dipped the pewter dish into the
overflowing basin and scooped up water.  He poured it over her
jet-black waves, scooping and pouring until her locks were saturated,
and her diaphanous skirt was sticking wetly to her thighs.

"I need to wash before we leave," she mumbled, her hand wafting
awkwardly at her breasts.

"This rouge.  I need to wash."

Gabriel reached for soap and began rolling it to a lather.  Clarissa
flinched back.  She could not let him touch her, not there.  It was an
invitation to more, and she feared his tenderness.

"I don't want sex with you," she said flatly.

"It wouldn't work."

Gabriel was still for a long moment, the only sound that of water
trickling into the basin and spilling over its brim.  Then, softly:

"What do you want from me, Clarissa?  I'll do anything to please you,
to have you back.  Just tell me."

She stifled a sob.  His forgiveness and humility were devastatingly
painful to her.

"Why?"  she pleaded.

"I do not deserve this."

Gabriel gave a half-smile, attempting playfulness.

"I know," he replied.

Then he knelt at her feet and reached up to wind a spiral in her
soaked, squeaky hair.  He traced a finger over her brow, as if to
smooth away the frown, and gazed at her.  In the deep-orange half-light
his honeyed skin glowed.  Shadows played over the angelic perfection of
his features and darkened the sweet hollow of his throat His eyes were
sleepy velvet, full of brooding sadness and desire.

"But I've tried to hate you and I can't," he said quietly.

"I can only love."

Clarissa stared into her lap.

"Even after all you've seen me do?"  she said, her voice breathy with
disbelief.

"Even when you know of the .. the deplorable things which give me
pleasure?"

"It's only your body," he whispered.

"And your body isn't you.  I'd love you if you were a disembodied soul,
Clarissa."  He pushed her hair back over her shoulders and lightly
stroked along her jaw.

"But I am quite fond of the packaging," he smiled, tilting her chin
then skimming a touch over her lips.

She returned the smile, just, and took his fingertip in a tiny,
nibbling kiss.

"Let me wash you," he breathed.

Clarissa stiffened.  She wanted his intimacy yet the prospect of being
unfulfilled terrified her.  It would be confirmation of her
unassailable taste for debauchery, for Marldon, and she did not think
she could bear such a truth.

"Take the risk," he said, reading her reluctance.

"Or you'll never know."

With tensed shoulders Clarissa swivelled to one side, allowing him to
unlace her corselet.  He eased it from her then unfastened the cord of
her skirt.  But she did not stand and he did not ask her to.  She was
not ready for him to see her shaved mons and her rouged sex.

Gabriel was lingering and cautious, soaping her fingers, her arms, her
neck.  His slippery, massaging touch lulled her into near-relaxation
and her skin glowed with a languid sensitivity.

He washed her feet, rubbing suds between her toes and over the arches
of her insteps.  He trickled water over her, rinsing away the lather.

Foam swilled on to the floor and swirled rainbow bubbles about her
discarded pins and bangles.  For a long time he avoided her breasts,
until it began to feel unnatural.

But then he touched her there, and she murmured encouragement.  He
kneaded her full yielding mounds, his soapiness gliding fluidly over
lily-white skin.  Firm yet gentle, he stroked his thumbs over her soft
nipples, pressing lather into the rouged peaks.  They tingled lightly
in answer and, when he streamed crystal water over the contours of her
bosom, her tips were crinkled cones, as naturally pink as rosebuds.

"Sacrilege to hide such a perfect colour," he said, sweeping his
fingertips over her flesh and scuffing her tightened crests.

Clarissa made small noises of enjoyment.  Her body thrilled to the
forgotten pleasure of delay, of delay that was designed not to torment
but to indulge her in blissful luxury and heartfelt attention.  She
felt heat gathering in her sex, and a precious humidity bedewed her
cleft.  It was so very different, and for once her insides did not have
that knot of tension.  She knew that, unlike Marldon, he would not
depart on a whim and leave her wanting.

She cupped her hand to his neck and, a little shy, drew him to her
breasts.  He kissed her taut, pale globes, his mouth warm against the
wetness of her skin, his stubble rasping lightly.  He lapped at her
erect nipples, the tip of his tongue circling moistly over the dusky
tips.  He plucked at them with grazing teeth and Clarissa gave a gasp
of intense delight.  He nibbled and bit, his hands suddenly urgent,
roaming over her thighs, her waist, her bosom, squeezing hard.

The flare of roughness excited her.  She knew he could be as forceful
as he was tender, but she had only ever seen that force when he'd
ravished her with Marldon.  Then, anger had fuelled his passion, but
the thought that love could be a spur quickened her blood.  A flutter
of lust stirred in her groin and her pleasure bud began to beat like a
tiny warm heart.  She slid her hands over the smooth wet slab of his
back, dropping down to kneel with him on the soapy floor.  His phallus
was hard and upright, standing proudly from its cluster of dark, crisp
curls.

Shivering inwardly, Clarissa trailed a finger along his inner thigh and
hamrnocked the plush pouch of his balls.  She rolled the tautness
within, and a soft sound of hunger caught in Gabriel's throat.

Gently, she stroked the underside of his swollen prick.  Beneath
stretched silken skin his shaft pulsed, so solid and potent.  Clarissa
began to ache.

She gazed at him, offering her willingness with a steady look.  A
candle flame shone in the black depths of his pupils, a tiny diamond in
each limpid brown eye.  Then he clutched her to him, his mouth and
fingers moving in her wet hair.  She pressed her cheek to his strong,
sleek chest, listening to the thud of his eagerness within.  For a time
they were as the statues around them, just holding, until Clarissa
looked up, wanting him now, offering him her parted lips.

And they shared a hungering kiss, a kiss that erased cruel memories and
revived a past of love and gleefully secret pleasures taken in
Gabriel's brass bed.  They embraced, damp skin slipping and sticking,
and Gabriel peeled down Clarissa's flimsy, sodden skirt.  She wriggled
uncomfortably as he removed it.  Quickly she knelt again, pushing her
fists between her legs to conceal her shorn mound of Venus.

"It'll grow," she said, her cheeks colouring slightly.

He eased away her arms and gently widened her thighs, gazing down.

"It's beautiful," he murmured, his voice snagging with desire.

"It shows your sex."

His words sparked a sudden surge of arousal in her loins.  A flickering
warmth swirled low in her body and hung there as a fierce, rhythmic
throb.  It was not obscene; it was beautiful, beautiful.  The word
echoed in her mind and relief overwhelmed her.

She passed Gabriel the soap.

"The rouge might not taste very nice," she said with a coy smile.  How
heavenly it was to ask for something and know her needs would not be
mocked.

Gabriel lathered his hands and cupped her blushing vulva.  He rubbed
the slipperiness into her crimson petals, his fingers gliding within
her crevices and pulling gently on her labia, teasing out the
redness.

He stroked her hairless mons, his soapy caress sliding back and forth,
from her pliant folds to the satin swell of her pubis.  It was more
intimate than any intended pleasuring, and somehow all the more
rousing.  Perhaps she did not need restraints and degradations to
satisfy her.  Perhaps love and purity could be enough.

She moaned blissfully at his sweet, slithering attentions, wanting more
of him with every beat of her heart.  He rimmed the entrance to her
vagina, a fingertip circling round and round, tarrying on the mouth of
her openness.  He slicked soap over her clitoris, loading the
smouldering pearl with creaminess, and he teased her there.  The little
bead moved beneath his touch, light, fluid, deliciously easy, driving
her to a needful agony.

She lowered herself to the floor and lay supine on the wet marble, her
legs stretched wide for him.  Her hips heaved and she groaned, yearning
to feel him within her.  His fingers sunk into her aching emptiness,
pushing forward and stroking back, slow, strong and exquisitely
indolent.  His thumb nudged at her flaring pleasure point and his other
hand reached to fill the pewter bowl with water.  Slowly he trickled
the clear, warm liquid over her folds, fingers and wetness mingling,
bathing the whole of her sex in rapturous sensation.

Clarissa uttered soft repeated cries.  The onset of her crisis,
sumptuously thick, swam deep in her loins, rolling to an ever tighter
coil.  His head dipped between her thighs and he possessed her with his
mouth, nibbling and sucking.  He plunged his tongue into her ready
opening, trailed it over her lips and burrowed into every crease He
sought her clitoris, nudged back its hood, and lapped at the inflamed,
peeping bud.

It was enough, too much.  Clarissa's orgasm soared, an intensity
shivering open, consuming her utterly.  She cried hoarsely, hanging on
a euphoric peak, before tumbling into the fall of shattering ecstasy,
of a thousand melting pulsations.

Gabriel kissed her inner thighs then edged up to lie beside her.  He
trembled almost as much as she, and he studied her face, his brown eyes
searching and intense.  Clarissa lay silent, the spreading afterglow of
her peak soothing away the shudders from her limbs.

"Say you won't ever leave me," he whispered.

"Even if you don't mean it, just say it.  Make this moment perfect."

"I won't leave you," she replied quietly, holding his gaze.

"I

promise that with all my heart."

He kissed her, his lips rich and sweet with the taste of her sex.  His
jutting phallus pressed insistently against one thigh, and she let her
hand drift over his body, teasing him with soft sinuous strokes.

She drew back a little to admire his strong, spare physique.  His chest
was a wedge of muscularity, smooth and firm, with nipples like bronze
halfpennies.  She traced curves there, sliding down to his ridged
abdomen and sweeping over his hard, slender hips.  His cock reared from
his thatch of dark hair, throbbing with virility, straining for her
touch.

But she lingered as he had done, moving around his body, massaging his
tight, lean buttocks and swooping her hands over the polished,
beautiful plane of his back.  Her wet hair trailed on his skin as she
kissed his shoulder blades, the nape of his neck, the insides of his
elbows, his wrists.  She blew gentle breath over his prick.

A droplet of fluid formed there, as clear and smooth as a cabochon
moonstone.  She licked it away and Gabriel groaned, tormented and
needy.  He rubbed his fingers into her scalp and his pelvis lifted in a
tiny, questing jerk.  She moulded her lips to the flushed crown of his
knob and suckled there, her tongue teasing around the collaring
foreskin.  Slowly she moved down his warm shaft, taking him deeper into
her mouth with open, pulsing kisses.

Gabriel gave a guttural cry, and he pressed at her shoulders, urging
her away.

"I cannot bear it," he rasped.

"Stop."  His breath was shallow and he gazed up at her, his eyes
burning beneath lust-heavy lids.

"I

remember when you would suck me to my crisis because your maidenhead
was sacred.  Please, do not continue for I fear you might do the
same.

And I want you."

He brought her down into his arms, and rolled her on to her back.  She
spread her thighs, her sex gaping in moist invitation.

"I'm yours," she whispered.

"Take me."

As she spoke she felt him penetrating her.  The domed head of his cock
was easing past her entrance, pushing into her yielding depths with a
slow, steady force.  He stifled his urgency, and when he had buried
himself to the hilt he was motionless, the thick flesh of his prick
lodged solidly within her.

Clarissa released a low feverish groan.  Her groin tingled and she
squeezed her vagina around his hard girth, clutching at his embedded
stiffness with rippling inner muscles.  She looked up at him and saw
his mouth open in a silent inhalation of pleasure.  His eyes fixed on
hers, Gabriel began to move, driving gentle bumps against the neck of
her womb, his pelvis lunging tensely, rocking into hers.

She moaned and gasped, and gradually his withdrawals became longer, his
glans teasing at the warm rim of her sex before gliding once more into
her sheathing heat.  Each stroke was exquisitely controlled, powerfully
stem.  She lifted her loins, her wetness slipping up to meet his
slow-shunting cock.  It was as if they were caught in quicksands of
bliss, their shared, heavy movements drawing them deeper into a realm
of delight, prolonged and unbearably sweet.

In a surge of mutual lust, they ground against each other, their rhythm
accelerating with their eagerness.  Gabriel slammed himself harder and
harder, his chestnut curls nicking about his face.  The hair at his
groin scoured her naked mons, and his pubis nudged at her clitoris,
quickening it to a wild, demanding beat.  His passion thrilled her.

Hot sensation lapped at her core, taking her to a second climax.  She
peaked, and Gabriel dropped his mouth to hers.  He drank in her cries
of joy with fierce liquid kisses.  His muscled chest, humid with sweat,
rubbed against her softness, and his swollen phallus thrust on,
pounding into her quivering sex.

She felt the pulsations of his cock, his kisses groaning against her
neck, kisses with teeth.  And as he climaxed he called her name, his
voice a splintered, dry sob.

"God, I love you so much," he whispered.

He gathered her to him and they rolled to lie chest to chest,
Clarissa's thigh over his.  The strength of his penis slowly ebbed
away.  Their breathing grew steadier and their lips moved constantly,
kissing, murmuring endearments, and sometimes just touching.

"I want to leave now," said Clarissa.

"I want us to be far away from here."

"So do I," replied Gabriel.

"But we seem to be in Kitty's hands, my angel.  And until she opens
that door I want to fill every moment with pleasure."

He stroked her throat, trailed his fingers down her breastbone then
swooped a caress below the under swell of her bosom.

"Tonight's your betrothal party after all," he said, printing kisses to
her shoulders.

"We should honour that commitment, celebrate it anew."

Clarissa looked at him, frowning, then buried her face in his mane of
dark hair.

"Oh, Gabriel," she said.

"My father '"Hush, hush," he whispered, holding her tightly.

"We'll run away, live elsewhere.  I can support you with my
painting."

"Yes," she breathed, looking at him steadily.

"Anything."

"Then, for now, this is our night," he said, stroking damply curling
tresses from her face.

"I hope you don't mind the paucity of guests."

It was dark.  The gas lanterns of Chelsea Embankment cast split
reflections of light on to the Thames' inky surface.  A carriage, its
side-lamps burning, rumbled along Cheyne Walk and drew up outside the
quiet Longleigh household.

Without waiting to be handed down, Alicia Longleigh gathered in her
skirts and stepped out on to the pavement.  She breathed deeply, the
chill night air refreshing her senses.  It was an appalling time to
arrive, and the unlit windows proved their passage had been quicker
than their letter's.  She'd predicted as much and, if Charles' bed was
not made, his room unaired, then he could blame no one but himself.

She tiptoed up the stone steps and fitted the key into the lock.

Charles, escorted by the coachman, limped after her.  In the gloomy
hallway, Alicia fumbled for a tinderbox and lit the oil lamp, turning
the wick high.  Its white luminosity glowed on dusty wood.  She wiped a
finger on the oak table, frowning at the gleaming stripe she left.

Lantern in hand, Alicia bustled from room to room, her anger rising at
the sight of evident neglect.  The carpets had not been shaken, burnt
coal was scattered in the hearths, and nothing shone, in the dining
room there were unwashed plates stacked on the sideboard and the table
had not been cleared of an unfinished meal.

Had everybody died?  Their return was not expected but that was no
excuse for such filth.  She stormed up the stairs.  This could not wait
until the morning.  Whatthe devil was Hester Carr thinking of to allow
this disgrace?  If the old maid could not manage affairs then why
hadn't Clarissa taken charge?  At the spinster's door, she quietly
turned the handle, and glided into the room.

Alicia gasped as the pearly haze of the oil lantern fell upon the
bed.

There were three people there: Hester Carr, the footman and Clarissa's
lady's maid, limbs tangled, all breathing the rhythm of deep, contented
sleep.

No sound came when Alicia first tried to speak, then she cried out in a
high-pitched rage: "What the hell is going on here?  Wake up!  Wake up
at once!"

The figures stirred and groaned.  She set down her lamp and impatiently
shook Miss Carr.  The woman's eyes slowly opened and she frowned in
confusion.  Then she smiled, her thin, pendulous cheeks lifting.

"Oh, you're home," she murmured, patting her long greying hair and
looking at Alicia with a beatific vagueness.

"Gracious heavens," snapped Alicia.

"You've taken to laudanum again.

Pascale!  Ellis!  Explain yourselves."

The Frenchwoman came to her senses with a start and struggled to pull a
twisted bedsheet over her nudity.  Ellis cursed.

"I asked you to keep her occupied," hissed Alicia, close to his face.

"I did not ask that you allow the house to fall down while you were
doing so."

From the hallway downstairs Charles called out self- pityingly.

"Get dressed," ordered Alicia.

"Then make our room decent while I divert his attention."

The two servants sullenly pulled on their clothes and Alicia shouted
down to Charles, reassuring him she would be there in a flea's
breath.

"Where is Clarissa?"  she demanded of the threesome.

"I cannot believe she would live in such a pigsty."

Pascale smiled, infuriatingly triumphant.

"I did my job so well that she could not wait for her wedding night.

She has gone to live with Lord Marldon."

Alicia looked at her doubtfully.  She could not quite believe it, but
then the Longleighs seemed to have a taste for strangeness.  And
Clarissa's absence would go some way to explaining the chaos.

"Hmm/ she said.

"Well at least some good seems to have come from this shambles.  Now
start acting like servants."

And after that I shall fire you, she thought, swishing out of the
room.

Dawn was just breaking, and Green Park was an expanse of spectral
violet light.  Hand in hand, Clarissa and Gabriel ran across the dewy
grey lawns.

No one had seen them go, no one but Kitty.  She had found clothes for
Clarissa, guided them through scenes of calcified dissipation and past
slumped, drunken servants.  Lord Marldon, she'd said, was still out
cold, and Lucy and Julian were slumbering happily in a laundry room. It
seemed Clarissa's friends had not turned traitor as she'd once
thought.

They had tried; they were true to her.

As the two lovers neared Constitution Hill, they slowed, breathless.

Clarissa glanced back across the soft, shadowed landscape.  In the
phosphorescent gloom everything was still and sombre, and Clarissa felt
as if they were the first people to walk the earth.  She looked at
Asham: just a bit of brick peeping above the trees.

"Don't," said Gabriel, touching her cheek and turning her gaze to
his.

The half-tones of daybreak gave him an unreal air, making his face
paler, his hair and eyes darker.  He seemed an essence rather than a
physical thing, a beautiful essence.

Clarissa shook her head.

"I just wanted to see how small it was."  Gabriel held her close and
printed a kiss on her forehead.

The things you did there .. / he began.  The things you said were
deplorable / "Please," she interrupted.

"I want to forget everything."

"No," said Gabriel firmly.

"It's wrong to deny what you enjoy.  I want you complete, Clarissa.  I
don't want you to hide your desires from me, however terrible you think
they are.  Because love can make all things beautiful, even
obscenities.  And, when trust is involved, they can only be better."

He swiftly grasped one wrist and twisted her around, bending her arm
behind her back.

"Do you trust me, Clarissa?  Do you?"

Clarissa squealed in pain and surprise.

"Yes," she laughed.

"Yes."

Gabriel sank his teeth into her neck and urged her forward, shoving.

She stumbled and protested, unnerved yet excited by his sudden
brutality.  He pushed her up against a vast elm, pressing heavily
behind her so her breasts were crushed against the trunk.  The rough
bark grated against her cheek, and scraped at her arms.

"I want you now," he hissed, ruffling up her skirts in a flurry of
white lace.

He held her layers high with his body, the bulge of his cock digging
into her buttocks.  She wriggled and cried, begging him to stop.

Someone might walk by;

they could be seen; they ought to go home.  But Gabriel paid her no
heed.

He snatched at her drawers, tugging until they dropped to her ankles.

Cool air wafted against her bared cheeks and breathed into the folds of
her naked sex.  It was thrilling to be so exposed, and the risk of
being discovered aroused her greatly.  She struggled, for decency's
sake, and for the added pleasure of having him conquer her.

He pinned her to the trunk with his slender strength, his hands
swooping down to clutch her inner thighs.  His fingers dug into her
flesh and, with remorseless insistence, he spread her legs wide.  She
felt the head of his prick nudge at her swelling lips, and then he
drove himself savagely into her tingling passage.

Clarissa groaned.  His thick rigidity, so quick and fierce, filled her
completely.  Her body lifted with the surge of his penetration, and her
breasts slammed into the tree bark.  Again and again he thrust,
plunging furiously.  His pounding hips made her soft buttocks bounce,
and then she felt a wet fingertip, very wet, sliding down the cleft of
her cheeks.

Clarissa wailed, knowing what he was about to do, relishing it.  He
sought the rosy pit of her anus then drove his moistened digit deep
into her narrow tunnel.  As his engorged cock thundered into her, he
worked his finger in her darker hole, pumping eagerly.

"You like that, don't you?"  he hissed.

"Don't you?"

"God, yes," she breathed.

She felt a rush of pride, of delight in her wantonness.  The tide of
her orgasm billowed and she moaned frantically, crying aloud when
ecstasy possessed her.  Gabriel chased her crisis, driving fast, and
caught it with a deep shuddering thrust.  He gave a roar of
exhilaration then fell panting against her body.

His ragged breath puffed against her neck and he covered her skin in
tiny, exhausted kisses.

Above them, the canopy of leaves rustled in a soft breeze, and
birdsong, shrill and urgent, shivered across the park's tranquillity.

"Was I right?"  murmured Gabriel.

"Are trust and dominance better bedfellows than cruelty and
dominance?"

"Yes," whispered Clarissa.

"Yes, they are."

And she was truly overjoyed to trust and be trusted, and more than
anything to love and be loved.  She had almost forgotten the power of
such things.

As the sun rose, they walked through London, touching all the time,

pausing to kiss, to look, to whisper feelings and desires.  They
skirted Belgravia and dawdled towards Chelsea.  They would call at
Clarissa's first, collect clothes, boast silently to Pascale, then
spend time at Gabriel's, making plans.

Bit by bit, the pale morning light shrank the long, soft shadows, and
the streets came alive.  Carts laden with market produce, and omnibuses
without passengers clattered over the cobbles; curtains opened at
small, top- floor windows; one or two people passed by.

They reached Chelsea Embankment, and the sun was a ball of hazy gold,
low in the sky.  Barges and wherries moved sluggishly on the water, and
the wharves were clanging into being.

"I think something's wrong," said Gabriel as they neared Clarissa's
house.

At the foot of the steps was a heap of trunks, bandboxes, portmanteaux,
and travelling bags.  A rugged fellow was loading them on top of an
awaiting carriage.  Pascale, glowering, descended the steps, slapped a
hatbox on the pile, then stomped back up to the house.

Cautiously, the young couple advanced.  When Alicia appeared in the
doorway, red hair aflame, Clarissa flew to her, forgiving her
everything in an instant.

She clasped her stepmother in an urgent embrace: What was happening?

Was Father all right?  Why had they returned early?  Something was
terribly wrong, wasn't it?

"Gout," said Alicia, giving Clarissa's hands a reassuring squeeze.

"Charles merely has gout.  He eats too much.  Hardly enough to warrant
shortening our holiday, but I could not bear his endless complaints.

And may I ask what you're doing at this hour?"

Before Clarissa could reply, Pascale edged past with another box,
followed by a scowling Ellis.  The two servants glared at Clarissa but
said nothing.

"You need a new lady's maid," said Alicia, pitching a scornful look as
Pascale made her way back into the house.

"Well, Clarissa?  Why, pray, are you wandering the streets at dawn?"

Clarissa cast a glance down to the street, smiling shyly.  Gabriel was
hovering there, half-hiding behind the pillar of the gate.  She
beckoned him discreetly and he approached, squeezing past the
luggage.

Alicia regarded him intently.

"Are you in love, Clarissa?"  she asked in a conspiratorial hiss.

Clarissa nodded earnestly, trying to stress with her eyes that it was a
secret.  She took Gabriel's warm hand as he reached them.  Alicia shook
her head, perched herself on the wall, then stared out at the river.

The silence was long.  The sun was rising.  Shadows might have moved.

At length, Alicia turned.

"I didn't think it could be true," she said softly.

"About Marldon.  I'm afraid Pas- cale's been talking rather loudly.

Your father's slept through it all, thank God."  She indicated Gabriel
and smiled.

"Well?"

Clarissa mumbled over introductions, then the two lovers, at times
awkward and halting, at others clamouring to share sentences, gave a
confused, half-truthful tale of Marldon, Asham House, cruelties and
dowry contracts.

"Please," said Alicia, raising her hands.

"Spare me further details."

"Oh, Alicia," breathed Clarissa.

"We were going to hide from you, run away.  We want to marry but Father
He'll never ever agree to it."

Alicia stood.

"Don't worry about him," she replied confidently.

"I shall have a word in his ear."

She brushed a strand of hair from Clarissa's furrowed brow, gazing
kindly at them both.

"Charles Longleigh," she continued, "despite his stubbornness, has a
very obedient streak.  He'll yield."

Gabriel laughed quietly, drew Clarissa close and nuzzled into her
neck.

"Much like his daughter," he whispered, and she shivered with desire.