Venny fished pen and paper out of her briefcase on the front seat, and they got down to details. When they had each written down their name and address, they exchanged scraps of paper. Micky looked at hers.
It was her. He’d gone to this same address for the interview – not to the restaurant because there had been refurbishments going on. That was what she’d told him. Venetia Halliday. She’d been sleek and perfect that day, very much in control. Right now, she looked shattered. He wondered why. Maybe just the shock of the shunt, but he didn’t think so.
‘Look,’ he began hurriedly, about to ask her to lunch, dinner, bed, or possibly all three.
‘Gotta go,’ she said, and turned away and got into her car.
‘Right,’ he said faintly as she pulled out into the traffic and roared off into the distance. ‘Nice meeting you,’ he said to the empty air. But then he looked down at the scrap of paper, looked at the address, and started to smile.
Chapter Four
I’m not at all sure about this,’ said Venny dubiously on Tuesday night as she eyed her reflection in the dressing-table mirror in Dani’s bedroom. What stared back at her was a houri, a slave of Dracula whose function it was to drain his victims just to the point where they were too weak to escape his clutches.
Venny thought that, looking like this, no man with a single red blood cell in his veins would even want to escape her. Dani had laboured long and hard to get them both looking good for tonight’s flatwarming next door, and it seemed to Venny that her friend had completely overdone it.
‘I mean,’ she said, and bit her crimson-painted lower lip, ‘bare breasts? Dani, I look like something from a slave market. We both do.’
‘Look, the breasts have to be bare,’ said Dani patiently, and her reflection came to join Venny’s own in the mirror. ‘That’s the whole point of being a houri, being irresistible to men.’
Venny shook her head, although her eyes stayed glued to the mirror. Dani had raided her wardrobe and used gold belts to cross over the edges of each of their breasts; the effect was that of an old-fashioned cross-your-heart bra – without the fabric. The breasts were pushed up and out. Venny found it hard to look anywhere but at her own naked, jutting tits, but she managed to drag her eyes lower to look at the fake purple amethyst stuck in her navel, then her bare hips, then the briefest of lilac thongs covered by harem pants of transparent purple chiffon. Her toenails were painted gold to match her fingernails, and flat skimpy gold sandals encased her feet. She looked up. Her eyes were heavily made up so that they looked darker than usual and positively smouldered back at her. Her hair had been piled up on top of her head, and was coiled with gold chains, dripping with pearls, studded with jewels. Dani’s costume was predominantly red in colour rather than purple but, apart from that, the effect was identical.
‘Well, from that point of view these costumes should be a success,’ said Venny a touch sourly. ‘There won’t be a man in the room without an erection when we stroll in there.’
‘Precisely,’ said Dani with satisfaction, her eyes narrowing to catlike slits as she smiled at Venny in the mirror. ‘I don’t know about you, but I want to get seriously laid tonight. And just thinking of all those stiff cocks is getting me horny.’
‘Well, you’ve got Jamie. He’s coming too, isn’t he?’
‘Did I say I wanted to get laid by Jamie tonight?’
‘Look, Dani, when he sees you in that costume he’s going to hump you on the spot, I promise you.’ Venny sighed and tried to look seductively back at herself. She lifted her arms up over her head and wiggled her hips in a suggestive manner. She still looked dubious, but she felt quite excited. She was thinking of walking into a crowded room and all the men turning to look at her swaying naked tits. For once she was glad she was quite substantial in that department. And the belts made her lush feminine curves look lusher still.
‘You’ve got such stupendous titties,’ said Dani enviously, staring at them. ‘They’re heavy, but perky. And I like your nipples, that lovely coral colour and they’re big, aren’t they? Mine are like little cherries on a white fairy cake. Here, let me.’
Dani took up a toffee-coloured lip pencil from the dressing table and applied a line around Venny’s left nipple. Biting her tongue between her teeth in concentration, she then did the right-hand one. Then she filled them in lightly, taking care over it.
‘There,’ she said, drawing back to admire her handiwork. ‘That makes them show up even better. Oh, look, they’ve stood up. Did I excite you then, Venny?’ Smiling, Dani put the pencil down. ‘I know a trick that’ll make them pucker up even better than that,’ she said, and leaned forwards and, to Venny’s surprise, kissed one erect nipple. Then her lips lingered on the nub, and her little tongue darted out to stroke it.
‘Oh,’ said Venny in pleasure and surprise. Dani’s tongue was hot, wet, and remarkably stimulating, sending a luscious message of arousal straight down from Venny’s breasts to her cunt. Watching their reflection, Venny puzzled over this sudden and unexpected development. Was Dani coming on to her? Dani had never appeared to be anything other than totally hetero, but Venny supposed that in these enlightened times anything was possible. And there was no denying that her natural reserve was a little diminished by this surprise treat. She watched Dani’s dark jewelled head moving against her pale skin, pushing at the heavy globes of her tits, and felt that adventurous tongue probing at her most sensitive parts.
If Dani was coming on to her, Venny suddenly knew that she would welcome it. But then, all too soon, Dani drew back.
‘There. They look better now.’ Dani gazed admiringly at Venny’s heaving chest. Venny glanced down. Her nipples were completely erect now, swollen and grown darker from Dani’s ministrations. They felt moist from Dani’s enthusiastic tonguing, and doubly sensitised because of it.
‘They feel better too,’ said Venny, trying to keep her voice as level and casual as Dani’s was. The thong between her legs felt damp. She wanted Dani’s mouth back at her breast, right now. But there was something else to consider. If Dani was trying to move their relationship onto a more sexual plane, maybe – and she hated herself for thinking this at such a time, but she was a businesswoman first and foremost – she could make use of that.
‘Dani,’ she said.
‘Hm?’ Dani was still admiring her breasts, dark head cocked on one side.
‘I need a loan. Quite a big one actually. Is there any chance?’
Dani looked momentarily surprised, then she drew back, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. ‘Good old Venny, always the cool one. No, babe. Sorry and all that, but I’m stretched myself at the moment. And even if I weren’t, face it. It would be a disaster. Trust me on this. I’ve loaned money to friends in the past, and it’s always finished the friendship, killed it stone dead.’
Venny nodded, swallowing her disappointment. Of course Dani was right. She knew that. But the situation was a little desperate. She’d managed to get some kitchen staff organised at least, but money was awfully tight, and she still had no chef.
The doorbell rang.
‘Saved by the bell,’ they chorused, and then laughed.
‘That’ll be Jamie,’ said Dani. ‘Come on, let’s open the door to him together, give him a thrill.’
They went through to the hall, and Dani carefully positioned Venny beside her as she opened the door. Jamie stood there in full Bram Stoker regalia. Like the Dracula in Coppola’s film, he wore the stylish Victorian three-piece grey suit, the grey top hat and cane, the long dark wig and teensy blue sunglasses, which were pushed down his nose.
‘Wow, you look great,’ said Dani, and wiggled her tits at him. She put an arm around Venny’s naked waist and eyed Jamie challengingly. ‘Don’t you think we look great too? We’re Dracula’s sexual slaves, his houris. Your houris, Jamie. We’ll do whatever you want. Just name it.’
Jamie managed to pull his eyes away from their exposed breasts long enough to look down at the front of his trou
sers, where the effect they were having on him was obvious.
‘A blow job?’ he suggested hopefully.
‘Sorry, we haven’t time right now.’ Taking Venny with her, Dani stepped out into the corridor, gently pushing Jamie back at the same time. The lift was clanking up and down busily and there were other people out here now, ghouls and lawyers in straitjackets and black-caped vampires. Several of them stared with interest at the two women and their revealing costumes.
‘And why do they call them blow jobs?’ wondered Dani aloud, crossing the hall to ring the doorbell of the opposite flat. ‘You don’t ever blow down a penis, do you? You suck. They ought to be called suck jobs.’
‘A suck would do,’ said Jamie as his eyes lingered on Venny’s nipples.
Dani gave him a teasing glance and gave his tumescent cock a friendly squeeze. ‘Venny’s already had one. I sucked her nipples to make them stand up. Don’t they look terrific?’
‘They do,’ said Jamie, transfixed.
Everyone in the corridor was now staring at her naked, aroused tits. Venny felt colour flood up over her throat and into her cheeks and a little shiver of excitement went through her. Her cunt throbbed briefly and she was suddenly glad that Dani had talked her into this. Her own behaviour seemed to her outrageous, but it also felt like the hottest, sexiest thing she had ever done. Instead of hiding her female bounty as she had earlier felt inclined to do, she thrust the big globes out and let them all look. Including the tall angular man dressed all in white who had just stepped out of the lift in company with two asylum guards in square helmets. Heartbeat accelerating, Venny recognised him, his spiked dark hair, his blue, blue eyes that were burning like cold fire as they stared at her tits.
The door to the flat was thrown open at Dani’s ring, and they all surged inside. The woman who opened the door had very long red hair, a face full of freckles, grey eyes. She wore a somewhat tremulous smile above a standard victim-virgin outfit – a white silk gown cut low over very large breasts. Venny felt momentarily outclassed as they all surged inside, avidly looking around, air-kissing their hostess, showering her with bottles of wine and bouquets of cut flowers.
‘Wow,’ whispered Dani in her ear, ‘who is that?’
Without waiting for any sort of a reply, Dani shot away across the room to meet the man who was slouched upon a copy of Dali’s famous red lips couch. Venny looked around eagerly at the rest of the furnishings. The flat was different from theirs in that the sitting room led straight off the front door without a hallway in between. All the colours in here were vivid and primary, and there was the whiff of new pine flooring and paint.
In this riotous mix of colours the man in black, slouched as if exhausted by sexual excess, stood out like a beacon. And Venny had to admit that Dani’s interest was more than justified.
‘Hello, I’m Flora,’ said the redhead as she air-kissed Venny. She glanced over her shoulder and her mouth twisted in a mixture of amusement and irritation. ‘And that’s Caspar, my husband. Busy doing nothing, as usual. Do help yourself to a drink.’
Venny thought that Caspar didn’t have to do a thing to justify his existence. Caspar was simply the most elegant and languid man she had ever seen. His dark curls fell to his shoulders in a lush tangle. His face was beautifully defined and faintly familiar, the face of a tortured angel. His dark eyes were set very deep beneath lowering black brows, his mouth was a perfect kissable bow. His skin was pale, and not from makeup. Caspar looked drained and poetic. Caspar was dynamite.
‘Spotted my brother, I see,’ said the man in white with the spiked hairdo and the impish blue eyes.
‘Hm?’ Venny half-turned in surprise to find that the crowd upon which she was being swept towards the drinks table included him. He was standing very close, and his eyes were gazing as if mesmerised at her naked breasts. Venny felt her heartbeat pick up alarmingly. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, deliberately cool. ‘Wrecked any good cars lately?’
He smiled. He had the most wonderful smile. Irritated by the observation, Venny looked back at Caspar, who seemed to be reviving slightly now that he had a luscious dark-haired houri leaning over him so solicitously.
‘Only yours,’ said the guy in white. ‘My name’s Micky Quinn, do you remember? And you’re Venetia Halliday.’
Venny winced. ‘Venny,’ she corrected, her eyes avoiding his as she secured a glass of bubbly. ‘So Caspar …’ she pondered.
‘He’s my brother. Caspar Quinn. Younger than me by two years.’ He nodded to the redhead, who was circulating among the sudden throng of guests with an almost manic gaiety. ‘That’s my sister-in-law, Flora.’
‘They don’t look very happy,’ observed Venny. She turned and looked at Micky, and although he was drinking champagne he was still looking at her breasts. She turned away again, feeling hot colour engulf her cheeks. Damn Dani and her wild ideas. She should at least have worn a shrug or slung her cosy old pashmina around her shoulders. She felt so exposed.
‘They lived together for four years in perfect happiness,’ said Micky with more than a trace of irony. ‘Then one mad New Year’s they decided to get spliced, and they’ve been miserable ever since. And incidentally, that bloke in the pale grey suit and the dark wig is looking very hacked off at your friend.’
‘Oh, that’s Dani,’ supplied Venny, draining her glass and anxiously reaching for another before draining that too. ‘And the man in grey’s Jamie, who has it rather fixed in his narrow Glaswegian brain that Dani’s his own personal property.’
‘She’s obviously not,’ said Micky.
‘Tell him that,’ suggested Venny truculently.
‘I saw you come out of the bank yesterday,’ said Micky. ‘Hope you’re not having problems.’
Venny turned on him with a look that could have shattered stone. ‘I certainly am not,’ she lied.
‘Good,’ he said, and watched her reach for another drink and swill it back. ‘You really ought to eat something with that,’ he said. ‘Or you’re going to be totally pissed in an hour’s time, I promise you.’
Giving him a withering glance, Venny snatched up another glass and drained the contents. ‘And what the hell have you come as?’ she demanded. ‘I think I ought to point out that Dracula never wore white in any of the movies.’
Micky shook his head and stretched out an arm to the buffet table. ‘I haven’t come as a vampire. I’m a virgin.’
Venny almost swallowed her tongue in shock as she stared at the roguish blue eyes twinkling away at her frontage. ‘I hate to break it to you, but you’re not convincing anybody.’
‘Well, it’s just a costume,’ said Micky, her sarcasm zinging off his hide like grapeshot off a rhino. ‘I thought it was a neat twist.’
It was, but Venny was not about to say so.
‘And you’re supposed to be what?’ he prompted curiously, eyeing her up and down.
‘A houri,’ said Venny frostily, not feeling very houri-like right at that moment. In fact she felt most unusually temperamental, for her. Spitting mad, in fact. It seemed to be the effect he had on her.
Micky managed to grab a paper plate and get several bite-sized morsels onto it. He eyed them dubiously. ‘A what? Did you say a whore?’ he asked absently, prodding at the food.
‘I said a houri,’ spat Venny. ‘Dracula’s slaves, you know. Who kept his victims drained just to the point where they couldn’t escape.’
‘Drained?’ Micky’s attention was suddenly fully on her. ‘In what way drained, exactly?’
‘Of blood,’ said Venny.
‘Ah. Shame.’ And the laughing challenge in his eyes as they sparred with hers was blatantly obvious. He bit into one of the mini pizzas, chewed and said: ‘Holy shit, they’re trying to poison the lot of us.’
Venny smirked as she watched him swallow the offending article with a grimace.
‘Something of a foodie, are we?’ she goaded. ‘Bit of a gob snob?’
Micky put the plate down hurriedly. ‘I do know a bit a
bout food,’ he shrugged.
‘Like what?’
Micky told her.
Several minutes later Venny said: ‘OK, stop.’
‘Sorry.’ Micky smiled. ‘I’m a chef.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Venny’s green eyes narrowed. Hadn’t she interviewed someone who looked rather like this for the job at the restaurant? The name was certainly familiar, and the looks too. In fact she had fantasised about those looks more than once over the past few weeks.
‘Excuse me,’ she said finally. ‘Didn’t I interview you for a job?’
‘You remembered!’ Micky gave a delighted smile. ‘At last,’ he added, snidely. ‘And you gave it to someone else.’
Yeah, she thought. Bloody Bill Thompson. But while Bill had been a pain, she looked at this laughing-eyed hunk in front of her and acknowledged that life with this man working for her would make the time spent with Bill seem like a family outing. She had correctly identified him as trouble at the interview, and so far she had seen nothing to make her change her mind. No, she wanted a quiet life.
But she needed a chef.
‘I’m still available, you know,’ Micky said, watching her face instead of her chest, for a change.
She looked at him, half-opened her mouth to say something irreversibly stupid, recovered herself and managed to say instead: ‘Well, I hope you find something soon. Hey, it’s been nice, but I’d better mingle.’
And she dashed off into the crowd.
She managed to avoid him after that, busied herself eating and drinking and dancing. She had to admit she felt slightly slewed, but that was good. It gave her the nerve to carry on with this outrageous costume without resorting to borrowing a bra off Flora – which wouldn’t fit her anyway, she had to admit. During that sexy old Dean Martin marimba track she got locked in a clinch with Jamie but, despite her rivetingly bouncing tits, she felt that his attention was elsewhere – even though his erection was pressing against her belly. Later, she met up with Dani, even managing to prise her away from Caspar for a bit of a chat.
After Hours: Black Lace Classics Page 5