She had no way of knowing that the circumstances of his return would be far from what she expected.
Chapter Two
The Learjet banked in a long wide turn out to the east of London. Stephanie stared out of the window at the vast expanse of blue skies and pure white cloud for the last time as the plane began to descend and the windows were soon enveloped in thick, featureless grey. She could not suppress a shiver. After months of Italian sun on the island the prospect of the damp and cold of an autumnal London made her feel suddenly thoroughly chilled.
But despite the temperature difference she was looking forward to four or five days in the city. There would be lots to do, shops and restaurants and exploring the mysteries of Devlin's London house. The latter in particular was an interesting prospect, considering what she had found there on her last visit.
She had never quite got accustomed to travelling on the private Learjet. Its interior was roomy with four big leather armchairs, a large leather sofa and a bar at one end. There was a fully equipped shower room and a galley big enough to prepare most meals. It was definitely the way to travel.
With the English climate in mind she had used the shower room to change from the light linen suit she was wearing to a black wool skirt and a creamy cashmere sweater.
'We're coming into land, madam.' Susie, the Malaysian flight attendant on Devlin's private jet, had appeared from the forward cabin. As usual she was wearing a rough silk Kheong-Sam, high to the neck but split to the thigh, this one in a jade green that matched her eyes. Her jet-black hair was parted down the middle of her head and cut short, a style that perfectly suited her rather oval face. 'Do you wish for anything else?'
Stephanie had made it a little tradition to have a vodka martini whenever she travelled on the Lear. Susie made them very dry and very cold but one was quite enough today. 'No thanks, Susie.'
'Very well.'
Susie left the main cabin without a smile. Since Stephanie had been introduced to Devlin's ménage her relations with Susie had been frosty. On her first trip on the jet Stephanie had refused to accept Susie's prohibition against interfering with a human cargo the plane was carrying and ever since Stephanie had felt that Susie regarded her with disdain.
As the plane decelerated and sunk lower through the thick cloud the memory of that first trip was very distinct. Though the last six months had produced a series of bizarre and extraordinary events in her life, from her introduction to Devlin and the strange painting that hung in his bedroom, to being drugged and kidnapped by one of Devlin's business associates who had become obsessed with her, to her revenge on him with the help of the beautiful and black Jasmina, let alone all that had happened in the cellars at the castle with the guests, Stephanie remembered everything that had happened in graphic detail. She remembered the way Devlin had fingered and fucked her for the first time, with his banana-sized fingers and his monstrous and gnarled cock, while he stared at the painting that was dominated by a crimson vulva that seemed to be alive. She remembered Venetia and their first experience together, the first time she had been alone with a woman, and the way they had made love since with such passion. But here, on the plane, was the start of an even bigger adventure, her first hint of what lay ahead for her as it had flown her to the castle for the first time. She had wandered into the cargo hold in the rear cabin to find a masked man there, gagged and tied securely to the bulkhead wall.
She could not suppress a grin as she thought about it. Even then, she thought, before she knew anything about the cellars and the slaves, before she had more than scratched the surface of her sexuality, her first response to this bizarre spectacle had not been shock but lust, a surge of lust stronger than anything she'd experienced before.
The double clunk of the landing-gear being lowered snapped her out of her reverie. She checked that her seatbelt was securely fastened and looked down into her lap. The skirt of the black suit revealed an inch or two of slim thigh sheathed in sheer smoke-coloured nylon. Out of curiosity she pulled her skirt up further to reveal the black suspenders that held her stockings and her little black panties. She ran a finger down between her legs over the silky nylon of the panties. As she thought they would be, her reminiscences had made them distinctly damp.
Fifteen minutes later, with no customs or immigration formalities to complete, Stephanie was striding towards the black Mercedes coupé that waited by the Portakabin that served for an arrival hall at the private airfield. Venetia stood by the waiting car, her face breaking into a smile as Stephanie appeared.
It had been some weeks since Stephanie had seen Venetia. She was struck, as always, by her beauty. Venetia was tall, her long fair hair pinned tightly to the back of her head in a French pleat, her figure displayed to perfection by a tight red jersey dress that hugged her large, full breasts, clung to her waspy waist and was filled again by the long rich curves of her buttocks. Stephanie felt an immediate pulse of desire, a desire born of knowledge, knowledge of the way the contours of this magnificent body felt against her own, knowledge of Venetia's expertise in womanly love.
'Darling...' Stephanie said, kissing Venetia on both cheeks as she held her by the arms.
'You look wonderful,' Venetia said, stepping back to admire Stephanie.
'And so do you.'
'Do you want to drive?'
'No. You drive.' Stephanie liked to drive the big powerful car but she was not in the mood this afternoon.
Venetia opened the boot for the porter who had arrived with the luggage from the plane while Stephanie climbed into the passenger seat. The car was warm and it needed to be. The autumn weather had more than a hint of winter, especially to Stephanie's sun-warmed body.
They drove into London in near silence though not an uncomfortable one. The truth was that the silence was one of anticipation. Both women knew what was going to happen when they got to the house, or to be more accurate Stephanie knew and Venetia hoped.
Venetia's position in Devlin's life was ambiguous. She acted as his roving personal assistant and an expert in computers but, though she had her freedom, she was in the end like any of the other slaves in the castle. She had been caught embezzling from one of Devlin's companies, extracting a large sum of money by virtue of her skill with a computer. The risk of prosecution still hung over her head though now she had become so invaluable to him it was unlikely it would ever be invoked. Nevertheless her position was very different from Stephanie's. And Venetia knew perfectly well it was not her place to make assumptions about what Stephanie might want to do. Devlin had delegated his authority to Stephanie. And it was absolute. There were no exceptions or exclusions.
Venetia drove the big powerful car skilfully. Stephanie watched her long slim legs; the right moved quickly from accelerator to brake while the left remained passive, resting against the transmission tunnel. The skirt of the red dress was too short for Venetia to wear stockings so her legs were encased in tights, their nylon woven with Lycra to give their black colouring a slippery sheen, as though they were wet. Most of her thighs were on view, the skirt only veiling the two inches below the plane of her sex.
'You're a beautiful woman,' Stephanie said, almost to herself.
'So are you.' Venetia's eyes did not leave the road.
'I've missed your body.' It was true. Stephanie only realised how much now she was seeing Venetia again. There was an electricity between them, a tension that was entirely sexual. Stephanie's whole body seemed to be melting with desire. She could hardly control her feelings. And, she reminded herself, she had no need to. She put her hand on Venetia's thigh and squeezed it hard. Venetia moaned. Stephanie moved her hand down between her legs, up to where the nylon covered Venetia's sex. It felt damp. Venetia wore no knickers.
They had come off the motorway and the car was threading its way along suburban streets. At a traffic-light Venetia took the opportunity to steal a look at Stephanie. Their eyes met but neither smiled.
They arrived at the house, a large double-fronted Ge
orgian building, impeccably restored with a circular gravel drive behind a bank of mature cedar trees. It was just beginning to get dark as Venetia brought the car to a halt, its big tyres crunching on the gravel of the driveway.
Stephanie's hand was still resting between her legs. She made no attempt to get out of the car. For a moment the two women sat completely still. Stephanie thought she felt Venetia's labia pulse under her fingers.
'Come on,' Stephanie said, pulling her hand away reluctantly and opening the car door. She strode to the little columned portico where the front door was already being opened by one of the three servants who kept the house permanently available for visitors. He hurried to collect the luggage from the boot.
The heating in the house was on and it felt warm. Stephanie walked straight up to the main bedroom, Devlin's bedroom, the bedroom where the picture of the woman with the extraordinary crimson vulva hung, its colour so vivid it seemed to throb with life. At one time Devlin had only been able to get an erection if he were looking at the picture. Stephanie had changed all that. As her cases were brought into the adjoining dressing-room, Stephanie took a bottle of champagne from the fridge that was set in the wall, carefully concealed by painted panelling, and two crystal champagne flutes which immediately frosted with condensation on contact with the warm air.
Venetia stood in the doorway of the bedroom as Stephanie put the glasses down. She looked uncertain, as though not sure what was expected of her, despite Stephanie's advances in the car.
'Do you want me?' She would like to have put it more subtly but couldn't think of the words.
'Open this,' Stephanie said, handing her the bottle.
While Venetia unwrapped the foil and wound the cage off the cork Stephanie went over to the beautifully made chest of drawers that was the only item of furniture in the room beside the large bed, bedside tables and the black television mounted on the wall opposite the bed. The chest was made of yew inlaid with satinwood. Each of its seventy or so small drawers was fitted with an inset brass pull ring.
'Did you know about this?' Stephanie said, indicating the chest.
'Yes,' Venetia said as she eased the cork out of the bottle with hardly a sound. 'I arranged it.'
'Oh, I wondered who had. He could hardly have got his secretary to do it.'
'Do you know how it works?'
'I found out last time by trial and error.' Stephanie pulled out one of the drawers at random. It was arranged like a miniature filing cabinet with divisions marked with alphabetically arranged capital letters. The drawer she had opened was divided from SA to TR. Between each card division was a series of envelopes in heavy vellum. Each envelope contained a white index card on which was typed a name and a four-figure number; behind this card was a set of photographs. Stephanie picked out four envelopes, again at random. She threw the envelopes on the bed and picked up the champagne flute which Venetia had filled with wine.
'Cheers,' she said, sipping the Louis Roederer Cristal champagne. She sat on the edge of the bed and flicked open each of the envelopes in turn. Then she chose one and took out the white card and the top photograph. It was of a rather young blonde. The white card identified her as Patsy Francis. Stephanie flicked through the rest of the pictures, first the enlargements of her facial features, nose, eyes, ears, followed by a series of enlargements of her breasts and labia. After these were twelve photographs of her in various sexual positions. Stephanie moved to the second envelope. The white card was neatly typed with the name Katherine Connors who the photographs revealed to be a thirty-five-year-old woman with rather large features and sagging breasts. The third envelope contained Doreen Palmer, a woman whose face was so stunning she could easily have been a professional model and who had a slim willowy body to match. The last envelope was of a woman called Maureen Daniels. She was a black girl, no more than twenty, Stephanie guessed, with a rather podgy overweight body but a very high and proud bust.
Venetia stood watching nervously as Stephanie searched through the envelopes. She was not sure what Stephanie's attitude was to all this. Devlin had ordered her to arrange all the envelopes, get all the enlargements developed and see that the cameras that took the pictures were maintained, though she had had nothing to do with installing them. They had been installed long before she had joined Devlin's household. Some of the photographs went back years. Others were more recent although none had been taken, as far as she knew, since Stephanie had arrived on the scene. Some were women Devlin had had here in the house. Some were slaves from the castle. Still others had been guests at the castle. Not all the photographs involved Devlin; there were couples - carefully cross-indexed - who had stayed at the house or castle, heterosexual and, rarely, homosexual women. All had been photographed - without their knowledge - for Devlin's entertainment and perverse pleasure. Before Stephanie had arrived Devlin had, Venetia knew, spent hours alone in this room, which she had heard Stephanie call his wanking pit.
'Her,' Stephanie said. On the top right-hand corner of the envelope were the letters CD followed by the numbers 640. It was Doreen Palmer. 'Put her on,' Stephanie ordered as she stood up and unzipped the black wool skirt. She let it fall to the floor and then pulled the cream sweater over her head. The black satin bra pushed her breasts together and up into a full cleavage. The tiny matching black satin panties were no more than a frilly triangle of material covering the base of her navel at the front, and a similarly small triangular area at the back. The suspender belt, a wide band of material with very narrow suspenders, was black satin too.
Venetia pulled out the drawer of the right-hand bedside table where the controls for the system were housed. Stephanie had found all this for herself on the last visit to the house. As she unpinned her long black hair and brushed it out Venetia punched the code into the sophisticated computer and the CD-ROM player it controlled. The television flicked to life.
'Take your things off,' Stephanie ordered, her voice not at all friendly. For the moment the tenderness she had felt for Venetia in the car had gone and she was content to treat Venetia as she would any of the female slaves at the castle. She enjoyed Venetia's uncertainty; it amused her. She was playing the mistress again, and it was a role that gave her more than a frisson of pleasure.
Without a word Venetia pulled the red jersey over her head. She wore a white underwired bra and the shiny black tights. She reached behind her back and unclipped the bra, leaning forward to shuck herself out of it, then straightening up again, her breasts quivering at their freedom. Stephanie was always amazed at her breasts. Though each was the size of a large round melon, almost three quarters of a sphere, they seemed to be suspended on her chest as if by some invisible support. Her nipples actually pointed upwards, so high and firm was her bust.
Under the tights Stephanie could see the outline of her sex, her sparse, wispy pubic hair hiding nothing. As she pulled the tights down over her long legs Stephanie watched the heaviness of her breasts bouncing against each other. She remembered now how they had felt pressed against her own, their nipples hard as stone... She stopped that train of thought. First things first.
Propping herself up comfortably on the left of the bed with the pillows against the wall, she faced the television.
'So let's see what Doreen got up to.' She nodded for the naked Venetia to press the controls.
The screen of the television jumped to life. At first it was only the picture of a bedroom, but not this bedroom. Nor was it anywhere in the castle. The room was sparsely furnished, a bed and not much else.
'Where is this?' Stephanie asked, indicating for Venetia to sit next to her on the bed, on the right where she could still reach the controls.
'It's a flat in Belgravia. Devlin sold it just before he met you.'
A naked man entered the shot. Stephanie had assumed she was going to see Devlin performing with the stunning Ms Palmer but this man had dark olive skin with curly black hair, a thick black moustache and pubic hair to match. His penis was large but flaccid and circumcis
ed; his chest and body, apart from the fleece around his cock, were completely hairless. Though he had a big belly the muscles on his arms and legs were well developed. He sat on the foot of the bed, obviously watching someone out of camera range.
Doreen Palmer walked into the picture. She was just as beautiful as her photographs suggested. Her naked back was perfectly contoured with her scapulae distinctly outlined and her pert, tight but small arse rising abruptly from her long slim thighs. As she knelt in front of the olive-skinned man and looked up into his deep brown eyes she seemed, by contrast, incredibly fair of complexion, her skin almost white, her blonde hair adding to the impression.
'I want to please you,' she said in a rather light but pleasant voice.
'I fuck you.' His accent was Arabic, Stephanie thought.
'No,' the woman said, shaking her head but not smiling, 'that's not want you want is it?'
'I want.'
'Don't you understand? I said I'll do anything. Don't be shy darling. Anything...'
'I fuck you,' he repeated.
'Darling,' she said like a mother clucking at a small child. 'Leave it to me...'
It was quite obvious from their attitude that neither party was aware that they were being filmed. Doreen dropped her head into the Arab's lap and began to suck his cock into her mouth. She sucked it to erection, which took only a few seconds, then raised her head until all but the glans was out of her mouth. She immediately plunged down on it again, so far down that Stephanie could see her cheeks bulge. After three or four strokes the man caught her head in his hands.
Stephanie's Trial Page 3