by S F Hopkins
‘Oh, wow,’ murmured John.
‘You like my little sleep suit?’ she whispered throatily.
‘It’s exquisite. You’re exquisite.’
‘Thank you, my love.’
She took a glass from his hand. ‘Shall we sit? I think you’ll find this sofa comfy for two.’
When he was seated, she curled up on his knee. ‘You drink your champagne,’ she murmured. ‘Let me do this.’
Between sips of kir, Fran kissed him. On the forehead, the cheeks, the lips, the throat. Gently at first and then with increasing fervour. When John raised his hand to her breast, she brushed it away. ‘Sometimes even alpha males have to wait.’
She put down her empty glass and slipped to the floor, kneeling before him. Her hands went to his pants. She loosened the button and clip at the waist, then gently drew the zipper down. His uncoiling power was visible inside his shorts. ‘Oh, my,’ she sighed. ‘Apollo didn’t leave you lacking in any department, did he? Was your mother ravished by a swan?’ She drew him out, held him in her warm hand. Her lips brushed against his tip in the lightest of kisses. He groaned.
‘Not enjoying this, my cherub?’
‘It’s wonderful.’
Taking her time, she drew him slowly into her mouth. First the tip, then the shaft. Her lips held him; her tongue swirled, exciting a myriad nerve endings to the point – way beyond the point – of total exaltation. He had been loved in this manner before, but never quite this skilfully, never with quite this joyous delight. He stirred, placing his hands on her head. ‘Darling, please…’
She withdrew her mouth but went on holding the firm shaft. ‘Please?’
‘Let me be inside you?’
She laughed, a low snicker of pleasure and anticipation. ‘All in due course, my darling.’ Her head dipped again and her tongue resumed its delicious work. There was nothing for it. He laid his head back, relaxed, let it happen.
When it was over she licked him clean, like a cat washing its fur. She raised her face, a look of bliss on her slightly pink features. ‘You like?’
He was sunk in erotic reverie. ‘Oh, my darling. Oh, I like.’
She stood. ‘I have to go into the bathroom. Won’t be long.’
When she emerged, he took her place. He noticed that the bidet was damp, a fluffy towel dropped across it. He smiled.
Fran was waiting for him in the bedroom, face down on the bed. It was a big bed, a bed wide enough for more than two, a bed made for loving. The covers had been drawn back and thrown onto the floor. He sat beside her, his hand going to the wonderful soft rise of her bottom. She moaned in encouragement. His hands moved upwards. One by one, from the lowest up to the highest, he undid the buttons of her virginal white chemise. When it lay completely open and he pushed the two sides apart she helped him get them off her arms, but when he went to turn her over, she resisted. Playing? Or was there something else she wanted first?
He placed his hands at the waistband of the white panties. Fran’s moan this time was of greater intensity. He peeled the tight-fitting garment down, over the beautiful fleshy globes, bringing them half way down her thighs. His hands played over the in-curving crevice with its secret, forbidden centre. No mistaking the urgency of her signals now. He pulled the panties down. All the way. Off. Her legs moved slightly apart. From where he sat behind her, her aroused sex was clearly visible.
He kissed her behind one knee. He kissed her behind the other knee. Her foot drummed lightly against the bed. As his lips moved slowly upwards, trailing kisses up her thigh, the drumming increased in intensity. He placed his hands lightly on her cheeks, pressing them gently apart. Her words were muffled by the pillow in which she had buried her face. John smiled. ‘What was that, my love?’
She raised her head for just a second and stabbed a finger towards the bedside table to her left. ‘Jelly. Top drawer.’
‘All in due course, my darling,’ he replied, playing her own words back to her. His face hovered inches over her squirming bottom, breathing in the scent of arousal. His fingers moved tenderly up the space between her cheeks.
‘Please, John,’ she urged. ‘The jelly. Please.’
He smacked her playfully on the bottom. ‘Are you doing this? Or am I?’
As his fingers moved gently along the parting of her alabaster flesh, prying it yet further apart, his tongue snaked out and found the tightly puckered rosebud. Her moan now was almost a scream; her fists clenched; her thighs slid wider and wider. He licked the inside of one soft cheek. He licked the other. ‘Oh, please,’ she panted. ‘Oh, please.’
He reached out, slid open the drawer, fished out the little blue tube that lay there. Fran grabbed a pillow, raised herself and pushed it under her hips. He unscrewed the cap, squeezed a little jelly onto his finger tip, spread it at the heart of her bottom. His cock, so recently pleasured, was once more ramrod stiff. When he pressed his finger into the tight little rosebud she pushed backwards, welcoming his finger as it slid deep within her. With his other hand he rolled her, more forcefully this time, onto her back without allowing his finger to be dislodged.
‘What…?’ she murmured.
His finger moving gently in her bottom, his mouth came down to kiss the insides of her thighs.
‘Oh, God,’ she burst out. ‘Oh, my God!’
His mouth moved on to the coral pink lips. First his lips in the gentlest of kisses. Then his tongue – on the lips; along the folds; on the clitoris itself peeping so proudly from its little hood of flesh. And still his finger gently probed – beneath; behind.
Her hands were buried in his curly hair, her bucking hips beyond her control. With all the art he had learned in a decade of physical love, he brought her to the brink and took her over. At the climax it was as though he rode a wild yearling mare, using all his knowledge and all his strength to break her to his will. She came in screams and cries of utter abandon.
John removed his finger and sat back on his haunches. Fran’s eyes were tightly closed. After a seeming eternity, they opened. She blinked up at him. ‘Oh, John. Oh, you…I have never…oh, John.’
He smiled. ‘More champagne?’
‘Later.’
‘Later?’
‘John Pagan, if you don’t put that wonderful thing inside me and do me now, I’ll never speak to you again.’
And so he did.
They never did have that coffee. The champagne drunk, they fell asleep in each other’s arms. When the early morning sun woke John, Fran’s face was inches from his, her eyes gazing at him as though they could never get enough.
He smiled. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello, my darling.’
‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Too long. One shouldn’t sleep when the bed has you in it.’
When he kissed her she rolled onto her back, pulling him so that he followed. She stared up into his face. ‘You were magnificent. You are magnificent.’
‘I’m glad. But I have to go to the bathroom.’
‘Oh. I thought maybe you were pleased to see me.’
‘I am, my treasure. That will still be there when I come back.’
After doing what he had to do, he sat on the bidet and refreshed himself. One should always be considerate towards a lover. However temporary the love may be. When he returned to the bedroom, Fran was holding two glasses of orange juice. She handed one to him, then sat on the bed and patted the place beside her.
‘Hold me,’ she said.
Wrapped in his arms, she pressed close against him, her cheek against his. He tried to draw back to kiss her but she held him tight. ‘No. I don’t want you to see my face when I say this.’
He nuzzled her throat. ‘Here, then.’
Her face invisible to him, she spoke in a low voice. ‘Last night.’
‘Yes?’
‘When you did…that thing…’
‘That thing?’ he teased.
‘With your finger.’
‘Oh. That thing.’
‘It
was wonderful.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘There are other things, though.’
‘Other things?’
‘That you can do with a bottom. With my bottom.’
‘Oh. Yes.’
‘You don’t like that?’
‘I don’t know, darling. I’ve never done it.’
‘It can be nice. More than nice.’
‘Yes?’
‘You’re reluctant.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Tell me why?’
Now he sat back, forcing her to release him so that he could look at her face. She hung her head, letting the long hair conceal as much as it could. She looked down, her face pink.
‘It means subjection, Fran.’
‘No, it…’
‘It does. Men do that to women because they can. Because they’re stronger.’
‘No…’
‘Yes. Men do it to women they’ve paid for. Rapists do it. It says, “You’re mine. I own you.” I don’t want to own you. I want us to be…’ He broke off, unsure of the word he wanted. “Lovers” certainly wasn’t it, because he knew and she knew that, long term, that was not what he wanted. “I want us to be equals” would have been more like it, but it sounded so weak, New Man, wimpish. John wasn’t a New Man and didn’t want to pretend otherwise.
Now she did let him see her face. ‘But that’s the point, John,’ she said. ‘Some women might want to be owned.’
He kissed her gently on the lips. ‘I’m sorry.’
She detached herself and lay down. ‘Well, if you don’t want to, you don’t want to. We’re not going to let that lovely stiffy go to waste, though. Are we?’
They did not.
The show would take place tomorrow. All the arrangements were made. It is easy to imagine last minute preparations and panics, but there were none. House of Pharaoh under Alice was not a last minute panic sort of place. The arrangements were in hand; the models chosen and briefed; the security as tight as befitted a city that had learned how to deal with bombs and terrorist alerts; the press briefings mailed; the invitations out; the limousines booked; the photographers vetted and their passes issued; the seating plan in place. As to the party afterwards, that was in the hands of the best private caterers in London and the food and wine selection had been carefully approved by David and Alice together.
Of course there was a stream of calls from people who could not understand why an invitation had failed to arrive, but David and Marissa could deal with those. Tactfully or not, as the case (and the level of the supplicant’s importunity) required.
When it was over, Alice would go to dinner with Merrill and Tony and meet the man – this mysterious friend of Tony’s – who Merrill hoped would excite her interest. If Alice were honest she did not believe that anything wonderful in that direction would happen – but at least she would be able to let her hair down and enjoy herself. To relax, ahead of the appalling weekend she tried hard not to let herself think about.
And yet, how could she not? Hanging in her closet were the dreadful peach and black basque and miniscule panties. In still, quiet moments, her mother’s voice came back to haunt her. “…unless you and he have spent a weekend together, as man and wife, with all that entails…” And her own reply. “I will do what I have to do. I will let that man do what he wants to do.”
Did she hesitate, even now? She did not let it show. Were there tears? If so, David and Marissa were never allowed to see them. Alice had made up her mind. This once, to save her mother. And then, never again. Whatever mess her mother’s insanity got her into after this, she would have to find her own way out.
The working day ended. She climbed into a cab, went home and took the phone off the hook. She had heard no more from Martin Planer. The half-expected gloating phone calls had not come. She did not want to receive one this evening.
Dinner was a simple pasta dish with walnut bread. Water; no wine. She made coffee and took it onto the terrace. Far below, the busy Thames plied its ceaseless trade. Laughter carried from a balcony outside one of the apartments below. Alice smiled to know that people were happy so close by.
Would the weekend be so dreadful? Yes, it would. She had no idea how John had spent the ten years since their break-up, how many women he had enjoyed, but she knew how many men had found their way into her bed. None.
They had tried. Oh, how they had tried. And some of them had attracted her. Sometimes, saying “No” had been hard.
She knew that her friends, and especially Merrill, had wondered why she had stuck so severely to celibacy. She knew, or at least suspected, that some who were not friends nodded and whispered behind her back. “Closet lesbian.” “Can’t admit to herself what she really is.”
But the fact was that she did know what she really was. Women didn’t do it for her and she had disengaged as gently and as tactfully from those who had put her to the test as she had the men. So what was she? She was a woman who had known a love so great that, if she couldn’t have him, she didn’t really want anyone else. Not enough to let him get that close. Not enough to take off her clothes and embrace his naked body.
Did she believe, in her heart of hearts, that she would ever have John back in her life? Of course not. Did she believe that John clung to her memory as fiercely and as chastely as she did to his? Men weren’t like that. He would have had lots of women and she bore no grudge, did not hold it against him. He was a man and she was a woman and they were different. The difference had once been a matter of great joy to her. If she were honest, it still was.
She drained her coffee, poured a glass of water, showered and went early to bed. It would be a big day tomorrow.
Sleep came quickly, but not untroubled by dreams. They were not happy dreams. She was in bed, trussed up in underwear designed for the pleasure of a man and not a woman. What woman would choose to wear stockings in bed? Or hook them with taut suspenders to a shameless corset? In a darkened room, a man whose face she could not see handled her like a piece of meat. His hands tugged here and there, bringing into the open her breasts, her navel, her…
She woke, if indeed she had ever slept, with a start. This would not do. Tomorrow was a huge day and she must be at her best. That meant sleep.
She pulled on a thin robe and padded to the kitchen. Merrill raved about chamomile tea in these cases and so did others, but for Alice it tasted like a child’s chemistry set. Alice was a hot chocolate woman. In her store cupboards were a large can of Chocolat Charbonnel and five jars of Charbonnel & Walker’s unctuous chocolate truffle sauce which she had bought when she learned it was to be discontinued and she would not be able to buy more. Those, though, were for ordinary occasions. Sometimes, only the real thing will do.
Alice knew the chocolatiers and coffee shops of Paris (and Lisbon, and Vienna) the way some people know their local supermarket. She had drunk the bittersweet delight served in La Charlotte de l’Isle, the stiff and perfumed offerings on the Rue d’Assas and the wonderful hot chocolate of the Café Mozart in Vienna. Breakfast in Dulcinea, dipping freshly baked melindros into thick, dark chocolate, could draw her back to Barcelona on the smell alone. Café Brasileira in Lisbon was
worth it just to sit outside beneath the golden sun umbrellas.
But the place she loved most was Angelina on the Rue de Rivoli. It was tired, it was worn, the ageing waiting staff made you wonder that they could stay on their feet at all. There were too many people saying, “Oh, it’s not like Cadbury’s hot chocolate,” or Hershey’s, and “Why don’t they put sugar in their pastries?” The tables were too close together. All of those things were true. And yet. When you had drunk Angelina’s hot chocolate, you had drunk the very best.
And they sold it in little packs, to take away and make up at home.
That is what Alice did for herself now. She drank it standing on the terrace. London was quieter now, but not silent. Like New York, like Paris, London was never completely at rest. She had heard Bombay described as
“the city that never sleeps.” To Alice’s mind, there were other cities that also fitted that bill.
Smoke drifted from a lower balcony in the still, warm night air. Alice drained her coffee, put the mug in the dishwasher and returned to her bedroom. One thing remained before she could sleep. That one thing was in a drawer beside her bed.
The Bully Boy was long, thick and looked like what it was meant to look like. Alice had realized a long time ago that being celibate could not mean being unfulfilled. She and John had been lovers too long for that. A healthy woman had needs that must be met if she was to remain a healthy woman. The Bully Boy met them without fail. It was in many ways a perfect partner. When she did not need or want it, which was most of the time, it never complained. When she did, it was ready instantly. There were never nights when she wanted to sleep and the Bully Boy didn’t, or when the Bully Boy wanted to sleep and she didn’t. It had no ego, never needed reassurance about its hardness or performance, never complained when you went out without it and stayed away till four in the morning and you never had to cook for it. Dress in a raggy old T-shirt, a negligée of voluptuous expensiveness or nothing at all – the Bully Boy would deliver, no matter what.
Alice put on a full length satin peignoir edged with lace. She placed the Bully Boy close to hand and got into bed. She lay on her back, looking into the dark, waiting for her night visitor.
Minutes passed. Her tummy began to tingle as she sensed him in the room with her. He was approaching the foot of the bed. He was John. He was always John.
The duvet was drawn gently down. With infinite tenderness, the satin and lace confection was drawn up her legs, over her thighs, onto her stomach. Out of her night visitor’s way. Her knees bent. Her thighs parted.
The night visitor entered her.
Afterwards, Alice slept like a baby.
Chapter 17
Show day. The excitement at House of Pharaoh was intense, and even more so among the invited audience than for the staff. Watching David and Marissa moving so efficiently through the crowd, seeing the enthusiasm with which their work was received, warming to the satisfaction Marco Antonetti showed in his work, Alice felt pride in the team she had built. Show days never went without a hitch. This one did.