Change Partners

by Cathryn Cooper

  Jamie trembled. ‘Oh, yes, mistress. Whatever you want, mistress.’

  His mind did somersaults and his penis grew larger.

  Having one woman dominate him was wonderful. Having two would be out of this world!

  As he pulled into the car park at the country club, he saw Crystal getting out of her low-slung red sports. She tossed her hair when she saw him and smiled.

  ‘Hi, Jamie. Carry my bags for me?’

  His penis, which was already hard on account of his lewd thoughts, got harder. It might sound like a question to anyone listening, but he knew an order when it was given.

  Crystal’s sports bag was down at her feet and, as Jamie bent down to pick it up, Crystal brought her foot to bear on his hand.

  ‘Kiss my foot,’ she said softly. ‘Go on. There’s no one around.’

  Jamie tensed, then did exactly as ordered.

  Two mistresses, said a voice in his head, and a mix of blood and hot sensations ran throughout his body.

  Crystal flashed her chill blue eyes at him. ‘Now, tell me what you are doing here without your wife.’

  Jamie licked the dryness of his lips. ‘I’m meeting Michael and Thomas. We’re using the gym today.’

  ‘And Mariana? Where is she?’

  ‘Gone to see Alex.’

  ‘A lover?’ Crystal raised her eyebrows.

  Was that contempt Jamie read there, or did she know something he didn’t.

  ‘Of course not. Alex is my father. She gets on well with him.’

  ‘Of course she does. Of course. Mariana would be more likely to have a lover called Alexandra than Alexander, wouldn’t she?’

  Jamie swallowed. Wrinkles of confusion spread around his eyes as his brow creased thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  It surprised her when he turned his back on her and marched off, but he just couldn’t help it. His pale face was turning pink with confusion. Mariana liked what they did together. His kind of sex suited her. Girls had always interested her. He was aware of that. But girls were no substitute for the real thing.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he heard Crystal call after him.

  We all have our favourite girlfriends.’

  ‘I’m not worried about bloody girlfriends,’ Jamie muttered to himself as he pushed open the door of the men’s changing room. And he wasn’t.

  Unknowingly, Crystal had sown a suspicion in his rind.

  For the first time he wondered just how well his wife got on with his father.

  Chapter 16

  Michael was his usual cocky self in the changing room. He was boasting about how he’d lifted three hundred and fifty pounds on the arm-curling machine.

  ‘Really,’ Thomas said. He didn’t look in Michael’s direction and certainly didn’t sound convinced. All of them had heard Michael talking this sort of stuff before, and today Thomas had found him out.

  Without appearing to, Thomas had watched Michael closely. Michael, of course, had not known he was being scrutinised so did not realise that Thomas had him sussed.

  Thomas had always been suspicious that once Michael came to the end of a workout on any machine, he made a habit of pressing the plus button to add on a few pounds. The weight then read far more than he had actually lifted so that the next guy to use the equipment was suitably impressed. It looked good and suited his image. As yet Thomas had not accused Michael of being a liar.

  Although Jamie was joining in with the conversation, his comments seemed a bit stilted, as though he had something else on his mind.

  The fact that Jamie always had a rather red bottom had not been lost on Thomas. I wonder if Mariana’s been a bit heavy-handed of late, he thought to himself as he caught a glimpse of Jamie’s backside before his shorts hid it from view.

  He did not dwell on the fact. He averted his eyes and left his mind open to what was going on around him.

  ‘Ever had an older woman?’ Michael was saying. ‘Ever had a younger one?’ Jamie added.

  ‘Taboo,’ said Thomas and wagged his finger disapprovingly.

  ‘Not in some of the spots I’ve been to,’ confided Jamie. ‘Never mind the youngsters, an older woman can teach you a helluva lot,’ argued Michael who was obviously unwilling to let the conversation shift away from his own personal experiences.

  Thomas glanced sidelong as Michael ran his fingers through his thickly curling hair at the same time as he admired his reflection in the mirror.

  ‘A lot of what, Michael?’ he asked.

  Michael jerked his head and patted the underside of his chin with the flat of his hand in a vain effort to keep a double chin at bay. He was smirking with satisfaction that the conversation would now go his way. He smiled knowingly.

  ‘The right moves, the right sensations. An older woman knows which spot to pick, which move to make. They’re great. I well recommend them. Now take Vanessa. She was the widow of a guy who used to own a company I dealt with; sixty if a day, but gorgeous with it. She had a look in her eye that told me I was in with the chance of giving her more than the company’s standard attention.’

  Michael whistled long and low. ‘What a tasty woman she was! High-powered business suits and a shrewd mind didn’t hide the fact that she still had a hot body and a lusty libido. I knew from the first that she was aching to have me. Wow!’

  ‘Get on with it, Michael. We haven’t got all day.’ Michael looked at Thomas with a hint of surprise. In his experience, Thomas didn’t have an impatient or tactless bone in his body. It peeved him to think that he might have been wrong, so he directed the next part of his story towards Jamie who was sat quietly, eyes shut.

  ‘So anyway, Jamie, I was saying. This gal had white hair that a bottle blond would be real jealous of. Her eyes were a deep, dark brown. So were her eyebrows. She had a good figure and a husky voice, and when she asked me to come to her house for dinner, I knew for sure that I was to be the main course.’

  Michael waited until someone nodded before he continued. It was Jamie who obliged.

  ‘Anyway, there we were, the food and wine inside us and the evening getting mellow. I remember her name was Vanessa. Van... ess... a!’ He pulled the name apart slowly as if he would be more easily believed that way. He went on talking.

  ‘I also remember that she was wearing a plain black dress with a low neckline. She had three strings of pearls around her neck, pearl earrings, a gold and pearl bracelet on one wrist and a gold Rolex on the other.

  ‘I heard her stockings whisper like they do when a woman rubs one leg against the other. It made me want to have my hands between them.

  ‘Anyway, she’s flashing me messages over the top of her wineglass, and I’m sweating buckets and dying for her to make a move.’

  He would have gone on, but Thomas interrupted him. ‘Why didn’t you make the first move? As old-fashioned as it might sound, women still prefer a man to take the initiative. ‘

  Michael jerked his head abruptly and glared at him. ‘I couldn’t do that! This was an important business client. What if I’d read the signals all wrong? Bang goes the business and bang goes my bonus. Oh no. I couldn’t afford to do that.’

  Thomas raised his eyebrows in a mocking ‘so what’ sort of way. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I told you. I waited.’ Michael laughed conceitedly. ‘And then she did it. She couldn’t wait any longer, so she did it.’ He shook his head as he laughed again - longer and louder this time.

  ‘Boy, did she do it. She got up from that table, took me by the hand, and led me out into a conservatory that was full of gym equipment and buckets of plants.

  ‘‘‘I’ve always wanted to really exercise,” she said, and I knew exactly what she meant. Exactly! She pressed herself against me and put her hand against my trousers. As she kissed me I could hear my zip bei
ng undone and felt her fingers rolling my cock out from my pants. She began to pull on it as though it was some kind of elastic. Wow, ‘ but it was mind-blowing!

  ‘Anyway, that was the signal I’d been waiting for. I unzipped her dress and slid it off her shoulders. She was wearing black lace beneath it and she smelt of expensive perfume and a musky female kind of smell.

  ‘‘‘I’ll do anything for you at all, my dear boy,” she said to me. “Anything!”

  ‘Well, being a hot-blooded stud, I wasn’t going to let this chance pass me by.

  ‘I held her face in my hand and felt the softness of her hair. I kissed her lips. I remember that her lipstick was not only the colour of peaches, it tasted of them too.

  ‘As I pulled my lips from hers, I gripped her head more tightly and pushed her gently but firmly towards the floor. She didn’t protest. Wow!’ Michael threw back his head and laughed. ‘Quite the contrary. She sounded as if she hadn’t seen anything like it for years and, when it was at last between her lips, she sucked on it as though she were starving.

  ‘It didn’t take long I can tell you. Her mouth was like a vacuum cleaner, sucking for all it was worth. I came and she swallowed.

  ‘I can tell you, I certainly went there a few more times.’

  ‘So the old bird could suck you off?’ muttered Thomas.

  Michael glared. His glare turned to a nervous laugh. It was a moment before he spoke.

  ‘Why not? She was good at it. Besides, we didn’t always do that. Sometimes I gave it to her over one of the gym machines or she would hang on one of them completely naked whilst I kissed her all over then put it into her. Of course, I didn’t go on using the gym. Only for six months or so. She remarried later on.’

  ‘You mean she dumped you?’ This time there was no doubting the mockery in Thomas’s voice.

  Michael reddened. ‘No she did not! Not really.’ He coloured up a bit more. ‘I was already courting Josie. I couldn’t go on seeing her.’

  ‘So who was the guy she married?’ asked Jamie. He didn’t sound particularly interested, but he was glancing nervously from Michael to Thomas. He sensed tension between them. Had Michael noticed it?

  Jamie’s urge for him to continue was enough for Michael. He turned his blazing eyes away from Thomas and shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Just some zombie she met on holiday.’

  ‘You mean that not only was he younger than you, he was also black.’

  Michael’s towel flew to the floor. ‘No that wasn’t what I meant! What the bloody hell is eating you, Thomas?’

  ‘Nothing that a few home truths won’t cure!’ Thomas got to his feet. His voice was low but strident.

  Jamie got between them. ‘Now, now, lads. Calm down!’ He slapped a palm on each chest to hold them apart.

  They were both glaring at each other. It was unspoken, but all three of them knew why.

  Chapter 17

  When he was at last alone, Michael flushed as he remembered what had really happened between him and Vanessa. Even now the truth about the scenario in the conservatory was painful to bring to mind.

  How could he tell his friends, his very macho friends, that Vanessa was nothing like he had expected. Even now he shuddered to think of the raw truth of that night.

  The dark huskiness of her voice had been ever more enticing than her looks.

  When they first met they had talked mostly about him, which suited Michael fine.

  It was almost as an afterthought that he had asked about her husband and why she had married a man some twenty or so years older than she was.

  He remembered how she had fidgeted in her chair.

  There had been a knowing look in her eyes that had unnerved him. Her red-lipped mouth had smiled and the red silk suit she was wearing had lisped in a very satisfactory way as she crossed and recrossed her black-stockinged legs.

  ‘You could say I regarded him as a father figure,’ she drawled. ‘He was a man I looked up to.’

  Before he started going to dinner at her home, he used to visit her at the office. He was usually waved straight in.

  Only on one particular occasion was he kept waiting in the outside office.

  As he sat there patiently, wondering just how far things might go with her today and when exactly she would• proposition him, he was aware of sniggers and knowing glances coming from behind computer terminals and filing cabinets.

  Because he had been sitting long enough, and also because he hated being laughed at, Michael got up and, started walking up and down in a rather purposeful manner.

  He smiled at the receptionist and, hands in pockets, he shuffled up to her desk.

  ‘Been working here long?’ he asked.

  She glanced up at him. Her smile had been almost nonexistent. ‘Long enough.’

  A compact answer.

  Michael would not be put off. Persistence was what got results, he told himself and, if he was to get on in this job, it was persistence that would do it for him.

  ‘She’s a great woman, isn’t she? Mrs Van der Boor, I mean. Incredible for her age.’

  The woman’s mouth dropped open. At that moment the door to Vanessa’s office had opened and she came out with a dark-skinned young man who had beautifully aquiline features and an earring in one plump lobe.

  Michael had the distinct impression that if they had not been interrupted, the receptionist would have burst out laughing, though he was not sure why.

  It was only later, in the conservatory, that he found out the truth.

  Everything had happened just as he had told his friends.

  Vanessa had fallen to her knees, her eyes wide as she had taken in the superb erection she pulled out of his pants.

  She had indeed kissed his penis, licked it long and lovingly as though its taste was nothing less than heavenly. Everything, exactly as he had outlined, had truly happened. He had received a most magnificent service from those bright red lips which had left a thick ring around this climaxing flesh. In no time at all he had recovered and was ready to explore Vanessa’s body.

  Despite her age and the fact that she was a favoured client of his company, he would have done so.

  Vanessa did indeed lie back over some piece of gym equipment and Michael had fondled her breasts. They didn’t feel like any other breasts he had ever touched. He put that down to her being older than any of the women he had previously had sex with.

  It was only when she had rolled her skirt up that the dreadful truth became clear. ‘Vanessa’ was in fact Vince who had not only never been married but who was also a transvestite.

  Michael immediately broke out in a cold sweat.

  Horrified by his discovery, he had stood and stared. At the same time as he stared, his penis retreated into his pants.

  His response was immediate. Loyalty to the company and personal ambition were suddenly of no consequence. No matter the valued client status, Michael had fled from the place. So speedy had been his exit, that it wasn’t until he was two miles away and about to fill the car up with fuel that he realised his flies were still undone.

  Not that it mattered. There was no sign of that firm length he was so justly proud of. In fact, it took a fair while to recover its previous virility. For days after, he had been in a state of celibate shock.

  How could he have been so stupid? How could he have been so enthused with lust that he had failed to notice any sign that Vanessa was not what she purported to be.

  During those days of shock, he made excuses at work for no longer handling her account. A replacement was easily found. ‘Hers’ was a good account.

  Besides rearranging his working life, Michael also rearranged the story in his mind. There was no way he was ever going to tell the absolute truth about it. It was an episode in his life that deserved to be fictionalised, with him as the
macho stud and Vanessa as the older woman who craved his body.

  But not all of it was a lie. The bit about her marrying the other guy was strangely true. Apparently he was a traffic warden who had given Vanessa, or rather Vince, a parking ticket one day. In return, she had given him a lot more than a thirty pound fine to tear the ticket into confetti.

  Her traffic warden had obviously been impressed by her/his performance. He had also been unconcerned that her credentials were not entirely bona fide.

  Love had indeed found a way. They married in the Netherlands. Amsterdam, Michael thought to himself, is a pretty strange place.

  Spurred on by the shock of his encounter with Vanessa, he had asked Josie to marry him. A wife, he decided, was an unassailable excuse to any woman who might want too much from him.

  Josie had said yes very quickly. He had wondered at the time why she had responded so fast. It was almost as though she wanted to get it over with without having to think about it, as if she were trying to blot something else from her mind.

  So they had married and from the start Josie had been a very understanding wife, and he had been a very supportive husband.

  He had been quite willing to help her financially while she got her career as an artist off the ground.

  She in turn had seemed quite willing to turn a blind eye to his sexual adventures, and sexual adventures is all they were - until he had met Crystal.

  Soon he would have to come clean, though he would have preferred Josie to want a divorce. That way he could get out on more favourable terms. So he stalled, dithered, and fantasised about Crystal till all hours of the night and early morning. Even at work, he could not get her out of his mind.

  Michael’s office was in a superb complex of old weathered stone buildings that had once been a collection of cow barns. Even now he could look across open fields to the housing estate beyond.

  Grass and yellow flowers - probably dandelions waved in the breeze across the empty fields. The scene helped relieve his stress when the work load was overpowering or his need to daydream about Crystal was too great.