Strip Poker

by Lisa Lawrence

  Yeah, right.

  I knew he wanted to flirt, but he also gave me an opening. “Yeah, I hear the rumours.”

  “Oh, really? And what do you hear?”

  I laughed in his face and said, “I’m not some dried-up bitch who needs to pay for it. And I certainly wouldn’t pay you for it, Lionel.”

  “You’re out of line,” he snapped. “If you’re referring to who I think you are, she’s a lady. What went on between us was at the games, and she certainly doesn’t need to pay anybody for it.”

  This, I didn’t expect. And it put a whole new spin on things. He hadn’t even bragged about having Janet or made a denial. So much for my pegging him as the one behind it all. Unless this was the king of all bluffs. Okay, I thought, let’s probe a little deeper.

  “I hear she’s got a man.”

  Lionel found this hilarious. “Right! And you’re sharing him, honey!”

  I pretended to be surprised. “Oh, yeah? Sounds to me like he’s tired of her.”

  “He’ll never leave Janet, not in a hundred years.” He sounded quite certain about it. “No fooling, those two are connected. I saw that after she and I hooked up, how they’re so deep into each other. It doesn’t matter about any of their spats or weird vibes, that’s them.”

  “And so you’ll gracefully step aside for Neil?” I taunted.

  “I’m not that big-hearted,” he sneered. “It’s just anyone who gets in their way becomes a bit player in their little melodrama, and when the smoke clears, they go back to each other. Makes me wonder why they bother with the circuit, ’cause they’re kind of wasting everyone else’s time. Sooner or later, they’ll wake up. You can go chase after him if you like, and he won’t even think he’s playing you. He’ll believe what he feels for a while then drop you.”

  “Don’t like him much, do you?”

  Lionel picked up a pen, toyed with it a second and then tossed it aside. “He’s smug, that one.”

  “I could say the same thing about you.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t pretend to be a saint,” he argued. “You do what you like when it comes to him, and good luck with that. I think you ought to give me another chance.”

  “I am not having you come in my mouth again, Lionel.”

  “I’m sorry, Teresa, you were just too damn good. I didn’t get to do what I do well.”

  “You want to fuck me here? Right in your office? There are easier ways to get sacked, Lionel. And I don’t envisage you getting me off any better than you did last time.”

  “Tell you what,” he said. “We’ll use the cards.”

  I shook my head. “But I don’t need to play.”

  He studied me carefully. “You’re up to something. After something—”

  “Paranoid, too, I see—”

  “Whatever it is, you can come out and ask me, and it’ll stay in this room—if you win. If I win, we do it right here, right now, and I guarantee satisfaction.”

  The guy kills me, I thought. If I win, I get to ask—meaning he learns what I’m up to. If he wins, he fucks me. I was hard-pressed to see why I should gamble with him at all.

  “You’re still making offers, and I’m telling you not interested.”

  “Ah, but I’ll sweeten the pot,” he laughed. “You don’t come—and you got to be honest with me—I never make a play for you again at the tables. I’ll forfeit if it comes down to just the two of us, no lie. Keep in mind, when we sit down at a game, we don’t get to pick and choose unless we get a winning hand, and frankly, babes, you just ain’t that good—at cards.”

  I gave him an appraising look, letting him dangle for a while. I couldn’t fault his logic here, really. He could end up having me on my back, winning a rug burn at the very next game where I saw him, and honour would force me to oblige. Of course, if he were crap again here and now, I’d have only his word that his shame would make him keep his end of the bargain. Of course, he had surprised me several times today.

  “You’re on.”

  He opened a drawer of his desk, and pulled out a deck, grinning wolfishly again and pointing out, see, it’s brand new. Not even out of its plastic wrapping, no tricks. I said I’d shuffle. Silence between us as my hands made the little cards dance as they rearranged themselves, and then I melodramatically put down the deck like a gavel. He cut first.

  “Aces low? High card gets to name the fun?”

  “Sure.”

  He lifted his half of the deck to show me the queen of diamonds. He was already laughing as he passed the cards, and when I flipped over a seven of clubs, he confessed, “I do like camisoles.”

  “Okay, okay…”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to back out?”

  “Did I say that?”

  I stood up and unzipped my skirt, letting it fall to the floor, and then I slipped out of my panties. Bare legs and my wedge of fur facing him under the hem of my short suit jacket. I shrugged off the blazer and went over to the small round conference table he had in the corner, opening my legs for him in a lewd pose of come ’n’ get it. Then I suddenly started.

  “Hold it.”

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  I pointed to the tiny webcam sitting on top of his computer monitor. “You better tell me that thing is off.”

  I didn’t bother to cover up. If it were on, it didn’t matter because I’d rip his computer apart in a moment.

  “What? No! No, of course, it’s not on!” He looked at me in disbelief. “Look at the screen. Program’s not even running. You see any minimized icons?”

  “Humour me,” I told him. “Shut down.”

  He did. I was leaning over his desk, still half naked, my breasts hanging down. He gave me an admiring look and said, “Now. Can I collect?”

  I backed up and leaned once more against the conference table.

  As he came around from behind his desk, he loosened his tie and undid his top button, unbuckled his belt with his erection pushing out the fabric of his dress pants. It was strange, like there was an angry compatibility between us, a one-upmanship going on as opposed to the perfect chemistry of Neil and me. I was already brushing my hand underneath his shirt and reaching into his boxers as his hands groped my tits through the silk of the camisole, lowering the thin shoulder straps. The way he massaged my breasts…Well, at least he could do something right.

  It was me who put him inside, tugging on his cock a little, brushing the head of it up against my vaginal lips to increase my wetness, and then he slid effortlessly inside me. He wasn’t very long, but he made up for this with the thickness of his girth, his dick like a hard muscle that punished me even as it teased. Half sitting on the wooden lip of the table, I lifted my knees to try to hook my ankles around the back of his legs. I felt his hands sliding down to grip my ass cheeks, and then he lifted me off the table, impatient to lower me down.

  The cheap broadloom carpet did nothing to save my back from the hardness of the floor, but I didn’t mind. For a moment, we fumbled and wrestled, not at cross-purposes, but competitively, trying to drive each other wild. My fingers played with his balls and then guided his cock in, and I cried out as he managed to penetrate me deeper, my knees lifting, teeth sinking into his chest. He whispered with an almost touching degree of respect, “Can I kiss you?” In answer, I gripped his face and sloshed my tongue eagerly into his mouth. All at once his penis seemed to grow twice its size and become an iron bar inside me.

  I whimpered in irritable protest, fearing once again, I’d get cheated. But he was holding his own, fucking me almost with a vengeance, his palms pushing against the floor to ground himself. Pumping me hard in slaps of flesh. I didn’t realize I was starting to gasp louder, ignoring the soft thud of footsteps from the office hallway beyond. He whispered once, “Teresa,” and I buried my face in his shoulder.

  As wet as I was, my pussy began to grip him more tightly, holding him in with a shuddering, hungry sucking to keep that hard pole inside me. He reared up with a grunt and pulled out just eno
ugh so that his finger could come down to tease my clit, and then I lost it. I felt the cords of my neck straining, beads of fresh sweat on my forehead as my orgasm engulfed all of my being. Uncontrollable shudders. When I fluttered my eyes open, I saw how he shivered, doing all he could to hold back the tide ready to burst.

  “I want to…I want to come. Can I…?”

  Asking permission. Actually asking permission, even though he knew I had had my turn. Maybe he was just an immature asshole in public. I gave his chin a merciful caress and said, “Give it to me. And if you can get me to the top again when you shoot, you can chase me in any poker game.”

  He was doing slow, aching thrusts to try to keep his control, and then he kissed my breast as a gentleman might kiss a girl’s hand. He knew enough not to just start pumping away for his own selfish pleasure but began to play with my tits again, and I think he got the message. As he sucked a nipple and began to thrust harder, I felt another swell of his cock inside me, and I didn’t care at all about disguising my own pleasure. I shut my eyes tight, floating above the floor again while his strong hand cradled me under my ass, and he just drilled me. He was enormous when he shot. My left arm felt back muscles rippling like waves as he shook with his own pleasure, and his expression was stripped of all his bravado, a face vulnerable and pleading: Teresa.

  Damn perverse, the two of us actually holding each other, as if our rutting on the floor could be anything compared to making love with feelings, a rite of affection that deserved afterglow. He didn’t say anything stupid, no comment on my orgasm, thank God. Spent, we lay together, strangers again, neither of us knowing what to make of it but glad it had happened. He would never know that as I shuffled the deck, I had slipped in my own marked card to pick it out when it was my turn (hey, I never said I knew how to play poker, but I had a brother heavily into magic tricks when he was ten). He wouldn’t have a clue that I had brought along not only a low card, but a king as well, in case I felt differently.

  Yes, I did figure he would pull a stunt like this.

  But he was far more successful than I had expected.

  “You know something,” he said softly. “This has been all you. That was incredible because you are incredible—”

  “You have tissues, Lionel?” I asked absently.

  “Teresa—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Thank you. For the compliment.”

  “Teresa,” he started again, and I thought: Don’t get maudlin on me now. I waited, and he handed me a bunch of tissues from a box on his desk. I cleaned myself as best I could, knowing there must be a ladies’ room somewhere, and I quickly dressed.

  “Look, a bet’s a bet, but no kidding around, if you’ve got something on your mind, let’s have it,” he went on. “You want to ask me something?”

  “You’ve answered it,” I said. I waved to him as I turned and did a thief’s exit out the door.

  Let him wonder.

  I walked out of there trying to add up what I’d learned besides the fact that Lionel could scratch an itch when he put his back into it.

  His responses to everything I threw at him seemed unaffected and genuine. I gave him a chance to knock Janet, and he didn’t take it, quite the reverse. Neil might not be his favourite person, but I didn’t get the impression that he thought his rival was behind the letter threat. That was interesting to me, especially since Janet was aware that Lionel had been threatened as well.

  But so far as anyone knew, Lionel didn’t know about Janet’s letter.

  In his ignorance, Lionel would assume his enemy was concerned solely with him. If he could objectively rule out Neil, a guy he resented, maybe I had to widen my net. Trouble was, I had plenty of suspects but no leads.

  Wednesday evening. 116 Pall Mall, the Institute of Directors. The Nash Room on the second floor. Big gilt-framed portraits and chandeliers, black people in black-tie formal wear. Helena had arranged to get me on the guest list at the British Black Entrepreneur Association Awards, where Janet Marshall was to be a presenter.

  I thought it a good idea to check out Janet in her own milieu. It was a long shot that anyone here tonight could betray themselves as a new suspect or give me a fresh insight, since I was dead certain it had to be one of the poker players. But I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to tag along. The more I learned about Janet, the more I might learn about our blackmailer. Straw clutching? Sure. But what else did I have? And I wasn’t about to put the whole membership of the Labour caucus on my suspect list.

  It was refreshing tonight to get a break from Teresa Knight, Senior Adviser in Scientific Appraisal at Aslan Biosciences, and be regular Teresa Knight, Miss sometimes activist and full-time troublemaker. I waved to the occasional smiling faces I knew from visits to the Africa Centre in Covent Garden or to the School of Oriental and African Studies. I could blend into this crowd with no one questioning why I was here. Good champagne, okay canapés. Janet kissed cheeks and shook hands, working this crowd like she was running again for her old Brixton seat. And who knows? Maybe her presentation tonight would help her chances with Pretoria. The British Black Entrepreneur Association was a young group, and sure, the Black Enterprise Awards are better known, but there were powerful people rubbing shoulders here tonight who could always bend a few ears in Whitehall, around Bank tube station or even Downing Street.

  Yes, Janet was willing to stop going to the poker games for a while, cut back on a few public appearances as Helena and I advised. But the blackmailer wanted her to retire, and she said she’d be damned if she would completely turn tail and run.

  As for me, socially, I was doing all right. I got hit on five times, caught up with a couple of old acquaintances and was learning nothing for the case until Anthony Boulet floated over to my circle.

  Janet had introduced me to him earlier. Anthony Boulet was short, shorter than me actually, with a caramel complexion and a stocky build, and though I knew he must be in his forties, he could pass for thirty-five. The thin spectacles on his face put up a barrier of reflections in front of his eyes, so that it was harder to read his expressions. He was warm with Janet, distant with others. The affection and camaraderie between those two was clear to see, especially when Janet hung on his arm and fell into patois for their private in-jokes. Anthony scanned the crowd like he was her own Secret Service bodyguard or something.

  “Are you going to go talk to Owolabi tonight?” he asked. The question sounded like discreet advice.

  “Lord, no,” she declared. “The man knows how to hold on to a grudge, and he just won’t let it lie.”

  “Janet, he’s got clout. This is the time to mend fences.”

  “Anthony, it’s going to look really bad if I go toadying around. Either they want me for the job, warts and all, or they don’t.”

  I had eavesdropped for another moment and then moved on. What they always said seemed to be true, that Anthony Boulet was Janet’s conscience of restraint, slipping in political tips and occasionally helping her get out of traps. Janet was always macro-agenda, passionate about what she wanted changed, and Anthony went and did the homework on the fine print. You’d think a brilliant guy like that would want a political career of his own, but he was happy to sublimate his ambitions for her success.

  I think someone asked him about this for one of those short page-12 newspaper features, and he answered, “In the time that I’ve worked for Janet, my kids went to school and grew up, and no tabloid ever snapped pictures of them outside our front door. No one asked me fool questions about who I was sleeping with or what friends I keep. Hey, everyone else can have the spotlight.”

  A solicitor, his office wasn’t far from the Middle Temple in EC4, but he was really known as Janet Marshall’s second shadow and right-hand man. Until recently, that is, since he’d gone back to private practice. He had done wonders helping her shape policy initiatives at the Commission for Racial Equality. And Janet had managed to find him a place close to her at the Beeb, where he cleaned house over administrative pra
ctices. Now that Janet’s career was taking her full circle back to her roots in international affairs, there wasn’t really a place for him. He’d had a good run. And it was my understanding he was doing all right with a whole list of corporate clients.

  And now Anthony Boulet hovered nearby, waiting to catch my attention.

  “I wonder if we could have a private word,” he said in a low voice.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  He steered me gently by the elbow away from a huddle of conversation. “I wanted to know if you’d made any progress.”

  “Progress?”

  “Janet told me about the note,” he explained, looking grave. “Whoever sent it is a real slime. She doesn’t deserve any of this. Look at the good the woman has accomplished! When I think of what she might be able to do if she gets this position, it turns my stomach to think those tabloid jackals may get their teeth into her. Say the word, and I’ll help any way I can.”

  I was totally bewildered. Granted, I wasn’t playing biotech science girl tonight, but neither did I want someone putting a fedora on my head with a card tucked into its band that said PRIVATE DETECTIVE. All I could do was roll with it.

  “I appreciate the offer,” I said smoothly, “but I’m only here to get the lay of the land, political-wise.” As opposed to getting a lay my other nights on the job.

  He grimaced, but I still couldn’t read his eyes through the shiny specs. “You don’t think someone from this crowd?”

  “I don’t know. The person wants Janet to ‘retire.’ Who stands to gain if she does? Maybe it’s not a personal grudge, maybe it’s a political motive.”

  “Hey, let me tell you something…” His voice had an edge now, not pissed, but irritable. I must have struck a nerve. “I think I’ve got a line on most of the political motivations of the folks in here, and sure, Janet has her enemies. That’s politics. But this note had to come from a whack job.