There’s a knock on the door. James sits up, slips into his kimono. I lie on the bed. I’m conserving my strength. We’ve fucked twice already this evening. James bought me a new copy of the Kama Sutra and we flipped through it together over a glass of wine, then tried out the Dancing Position – him standing, me with my legs wrapped around his waist and my arms around his neck. We were backed up against the wall to start with, and I thrust against him as he drove himself into me. Then he moved slowly away from the wall and we graduated into the Crab, with me arched over and back, supporting myself on the floor with my hands as well as my legs while he, with slightly bent legs, continued to pump in and out, one hand supporting my buttocks, the other on my breast. When he moved his hand to my well-exposed clit, I came like a train, massively turned on by the way my body was on display to him.
I hear his voice as he comes back across the living room towards the spiral staircase, at the top of which I lie, on the bed, like a regent awaiting her subjects. I know these people so well, and yet I know, by now, that whenever we get together there are surprises and discoveries in store. Last time we made a daisy chain, which is as sweet as it sounds – each of us going down on each other simultaneously in a circle. Then the guys watched for a while as Celine and I made out, first dry fucking, rubbing our vulvas together, then, lubed up, fisting each other. Afterwards we all had some champagne before starting again.
It came as a shock to me to find out that Celine has a boyfriend, is basically hetero. She’d become a sort of gay idol to me, an idealised version of myself had I chosen to take that route. I was surprised when James told me the truth about her: that she, like me, was an aspiring writer who had lived with Anne as her assistant, and for a time, like me, been Anne’s alter ego – the self who would do things that Anne no longer could.
I was shocked, but after that wore off, I actually found it funny, and through James I got in touch with Celine and we went out for a drink and had a good laugh about it all. Although she’s given up on her literary ambitions in favour of photography, she followed my fortunes with interest and was glad to meet up and hear all about both my experiences following the publication of the blog-based book and my novel itself. She told me that she’d never felt used by Anne, that she’d accepted everything she did as payment for the world of experience that Anne opened up for her. There’d been no animosity when she’d left, of her own accord, to pursue her photographic studies, and she’d been happy to step in again when Anne contacted her.
Then Celine’s boyfriend turned up to pick her up from the Notting Hill pub where we had met. They were going to see a film – or that was the plan. But when I set eyes on him, a thrill went through me as I recognised the toy boy with whom Anne had set me up after that first time with James. The boy Venus I’d thought I’d never see again.
The boy’s name is Ed and, though he can’t be mine, Celine has shown her worth as a friend and occasional lover by sharing him with me, from time to time, when the mood takes her. And the mood took her that night, when instead of going to the cinema the three of us took a cab back to their flat in Ladbroke Grove, had a few beers, and then, by the glow of candelight, reintroduced our ardent, adventurous bodies to one another, in a multitude of glorious ways.
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9780753520550
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This book is a work of fiction.
In real life, make sure you practise safe, sane and consensual sex.
Published by Black Lace 2009
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Copyright © Carrie Williams 2009
Carrie Williams has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by
Black Lace
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ISBN 9780352345141
The Apprentice Page 23