It was a bout of paranoia, Stephanie decided, though what had caused it she couldn't imagine. She walked on, glancing back over her shoulder from time to time but never once caught anyone who could properly arouse her suspicions.
In Sloane Street she wandered into one or two shops and tried on various items: skirts, blouses, a suit. But whether it was because she could find nothing to her taste, or just not being in the mood for shopping, she bought nothing. She felt an odd sense of foreboding and whatever she did she couldn't shake it off. The entirely irrational prospect of being followed had raised a spectre in her mind that she had never been able completely to lay to rest. After all she had been drugged and kidnapped from the castle only months ago, held in a cellar, naked and cold, for days. Though she had managed to free herself and get her revenge on the perpetrator, the experience, not surprisingly, had left its mental scars on her. If it hadn't been for her own guile she could have been there still. The thought chilled her, and for a second she stood in front of a row of clothes and shivered.
'Are you all right, madam?' A rather matronly assistant asked, seeing the colour drain from Stephanie's face.
'I'm fine,' she replied. 'Thanks.'
She walked past the concerned woman, out of the shop and strode purposefully towards Montepeliano. What she needed was a drink and something to eat, then she would feel better.
And she did. Seated in the bustling Italian restaurant with a stiff vodka martini in front of her and her chauffeur seated outside in the car, she felt her confidence return. She damned Gianni, her kidnapper, and was able to smile to herself at the thought of what she had done to him by way of revenge.
She ate some grilled prawns and a green salad and drank most of the bottle of vintage Barolo, which didn't go with the fish at all but which she ordered because she wanted something warm and full-bodied.
It was the cold in the cellars in which she had been trapped that had left the deepest mark on her psyche and whenever she recalled the experience it took her some time to make herself feel warm again. A large double espresso helped too.
Feeling better, she got the Cadillac to take her to the top end of the Fulham Road where she had read of a clothes shop she particularly wanted to see. The chauffeur indicated where he would wait for her and she ventured into the highly decorated shop, its exterior hand-painted in a marble effect of black and green. The interior continued the same colour scheme, the centre of the shop very dark but the clothes arrayed on rails that were bathed in pools of light from overhead spots.
The clothes were certainly unusual but so outrageously expensive that, even on Devlin's budget, Stephanie blanched. It was not only the money. The styles were so outré it was difficult to imagine a single occasion she could wear them on. They were definitely not clothes that would turn Devlin, or any of Devlin's guests, on.
Disappointed, she wandered out and was thinking about going home when she noticed a small shop window opposite and a few doors down from the pretentiously marbled emporium. The absolutely plain but beautifully cut black dress in the window was in such contrast to the over-elaboration of the clothes she had just seen that Stephanie liked it immediately.
The old-fashioned bell above the door tinkled as Stephanie entered the shop. It was small with only two rows of clothes, one on each side of a narrow space. There was a small counter at the back and a curtain behind which was what Stephanie took to be the changing room. As she browsed through the first rail of clothes a woman appeared from behind the counter.
'Can I help you?' she said, smiling and coming round into the centre of the shop. She was an extraordinarily striking woman. Her hair was long and very blonde, her strong face beautifully balanced by high cheekbones and a long but slender nose. Her eyes, edged with eye-liner and shadow, the lashes thick with black mascara, were very large and very blue. Her mouth was big too, her fleshy lips in a shade of lipstick that could accurately be called jungle red. It matched the nail varnish painted on her long, manicured fingernails.
'I'd like to try on the dress in the window,' Stephanie said.
'Of course.' The woman went to the rack of clothes opposite and extracted a black dress. She held it up. 'This is your size, I should think.'
She took the dress and went to the curtain at the back of the shop. Stephanie followed her. The woman wore very high-heeled black court shoes and a black skirt that hugged the curves of her large but shapely buttocks. Above the skirt she wore a white silk blouse through which Stephanie could see the lace of a white teddy. Her long legs were sheathed in black nylon with a fully fashioned heel and seams running up the dead centre of her slim calves. Though her body was attractive it didn't quite match her face. There was something angular and a little awkward about it. Even her breasts, which were not large, appeared to jut out rather than flow from her chest.
She held the curtain aside and hung the dress on a hook just inside the entrance. The changing room was not the usual cubicle size. It was more like a small room with a reupholstered Victorian chaise longue and a large full-length mirror on one wall. The ceiling had been tented with a rich red material which had also been used in panels on the walls. The thick carpeting was in a light pink.
'This is pretty,' Stephanie said.
'I always hated those little telephone-box changing rooms. Can't relax in those. If you need anything I'll be outside.'
The woman let the curtain drop and Stephanie unzipped the light grey jersey dress she was wearing and tried on the black. As she had suspected, it was sexy and flattering, its cinched waist emphasising her full breasts and the curves of her hips. She whirled in the mirror, then went out into the shop.
'Oh, that really suits you,' the woman said.
'I think so.' Stephanie looked at herself in the mirror at the front of the shop in natural daylight.
'What's this material?'
'Unusual, isn't it? Moiré taffeta.'
The material made patterns of shade in the clinging black.
'It's beautiful. I'll take it.'
'It's my own design.'
'Really?'
'Everything in here.'
'Well, congratulations. It's great.'
For the next hour Stephanie tried on almost everything in the shop and ended up buying three dresses and a yellow suit, all beautifully tailored and cut. She had looked at the lapels which all read: VIVIENNE ELSON. Vivienne Elson, Stephanie decided, was a clever woman. She was definitely going to make this shop a regular stop whenever she came to London.
Stephanie had watched Vivienne through the gap in the curtains as she'd changed into the various outfits. Vivienne had a pose and grace about her as she walked around the shop straightening clothes here, rearranging the flowers there, generally fussing over detail. There was something unusual about her and it was an unusualness that Stephanie found very attractive.
She supposed it was natural, considering the life she now led, but to Stephanie a sexual agenda always seemed to be very close to the surface. Even the chill she had experienced this morning had not apparently cooled it. Of course what had happened with Kanjii still burned in her body and mind vividly - if she cared to think about it she could still feel his spunk shooting into her - so, she supposed, it was not surprising that her response to this obviously very talented woman should be, at least in part, a sexual one.
'Could you help me?' she called. The zip on the last dress she had tried seemed to be stuck. Or was that just an excuse? She could have worked it free on her own.
'Of course.'
Vivienne pulled the curtain aside and entered the changing room.
'The zip...' Stephanie turned her back so Vivienne could see for herself.
Cool fingers freed the obstacle and pulled the tongue of the zip down into the small of Stephanie's back, making the zip sing.
Stephanie stepped out of the dress and replaced it on its hanger. 'I think you're very clever,' she said, then turned to face Vivienne. 'And very attractive.'
'Thank you,' Vivienne
said, blushing slightly. But she did not move. 'So are you.' She took the hanger from Stephanie and their hands touched. Immediately Stephanie kissed Vivienne on the cheek, feeling a sudden rush of excitement as she did so. Seducing women was not something she'd done often.
'What was that for?' Vivienne asked, her eyes looking at the rich contours of Stephanie's body, covered now only by a deep blue three-quarter cup bra, matching tanga panties and grey hold-up stockings whose welt was so high they practically grazed Stephanie's crotch.
Stephanie paused before she said, 'I find you very attractive.'
'You mean sexually?'
'Yes. And let's say I don't believe in repressing my feelings any more. I've learnt not to. If you find the idea unacceptable then we'll forget I ever said it.'
'Are you a lesbian?' Vivienne made the word sound like some sort of medical disorder.
Stephanie laughed. 'I like sex. I enjoy it. Men and women. As far as I'm concerned it all comes down to the same thing.'
'I like it too,' the woman said with a wistful tone that Stephanie didn't understand.
'What does that mean?' Stephanie asked.
'Nothing.'
Stephanie took a step forward, wrapped her arms around the white blouse and pulled Vivienne into a full-blooded kiss, pressing her tongue into her mouth. Vivienne did not resist. She kissed back tentatively at first and then more firmly, wrapping her arms around Stephanie in turn.
'Can you close the shop?' Stephanie said when their mouths parted.
'Now?'
'It's nearly five.'
'Look, I think there's something I should tell you...'
'Just lock the door.'
Stephanie sat on the chaise longue, putting one foot up on the seat and leaving the other on the floor so her legs were apart and the flat plane of her sex, covered by the tight-fitting blue panties, was exposed. Her thick pubic hair under the material made her crotch look as though it had been padded.
Vivienne hesitated, then walked into the shop. She returned seconds later and this time, with no hesitation, knelt on the thick carpet in front of Stephanie's open legs. She bent her head and kissed the knee of the leg that rested on the floor, then worked her mouth up the stocking to the welt that held it in place. It was as though she had made a decision and wanted to carry it through quickly before she could think to change her mind.
Her mouth slipped onto the open crotch of Stephanie's panties, sucking on them, sucking through them to Stephanie's sex. Her mouth felt incredibly hot. Stephanie moaned. Again with no hesitation, Vivienne's fingers delved under the leg of the panties until they were pressed into Stephanie's labia, and then, straight up with no impediment, into her cunt.
'Is that what you wanted?' Vivienne asked as though proud she had proved something to herself. Her voice was much lower in tone.
'Yes...'
Stephanie had got what she wanted again. She had aroused Vivienne's interest. She had no idea if Vivienne had ever done this with a woman before and didn't want to ask. Of course, she should never have started this. It was crazy. The last thing in the world she needed was another sexual experience, not after Venetia and Kanjii and everything else. What was wrong with her? Was it like a drug, the more she got the more she wanted? Or was it just that her sexual temperature was so high at the moment it was simply irresistible?
She should have apologised to the woman, told her it was a mistake and gone home. Or arranged to meet at another time when she was next in London. But though that was what she should have done, it was not what she had any intention of doing.
Instead Stephanie wriggled herself down onto the two thick fingers that probed her cunt, feeling herself juicing around them.
'Is this what you wanted?' Vivienne repeated, pushing a third finger up alongside the other two while her other hand went into the high-cut leg of the panties and searched Stephanie's pubic thatch until she found her clitoris.
'Yes...' Stephanie moaned.
With no delicacy or finesse, the tip of Vivienne's finger started to wank the clit from side to side, vigorously pressing down on it at the same time.
'And this...'
The finger worked harder in time to the thrusts of the others in Stephanie's cunt. Stephanie wanted to reach out and hold her back, stop her being so fierce, but at the same time she was enjoying - if enjoyment was the right word - the lack of subtlety. There was something basic about what Vivienne was doing to her, like someone who had not done something before or at least had not practised it for a long time. Either way the energy was exciting and Stephanie didn't want to spoil her enthusiasm.
Besides, it was only seconds before Stephanie lost the ability to do anything consciously. For some reason she suddenly smelled the strange aroma from Kanjii's black box and it kicked her body into a higher gear, making her juice copiously, opening her body like a flower, allowing Vivienne's fingers deeper on their inward thrust.
Vivienne could feel her response. Remorselessly she wanked at the hard knot of her clit while her fingers imitated the action of a cock. It had been a long time since she'd done this. She shouldn't have been doing it now. She should have ignored this woman's provocation and done nothing. But she couldn't. There was something about her, something too profound to ignore. It was beginning to hurt her, as she knew it would, and hurt her a lot, but she was determined she would finish what she had began.
Stephanie felt her body climbing to the brink. She looked at the woman kneeling between her legs, a stranger, a stranger minutes before, now doing the most intimate things to her. It was a power she seemed to have, a directness and honesty. It would never have occurred to her before but now it was a trait people responded to. It was power.
Her nerves sung, the different chords came together and became one harmony, her body vibrating in unison and pitching her over into the black abyss where there was only absolute pleasure.
Vivienne sensed that the climax had passed. She pulled away gently, but remained on her knees. She looked awkward and embarrassed.
'I'm sorry. I didn't... I mean it was too hard to...' she said, not finding the right words to express her confused feelings.
'Shh...' Stephanie said.
'I just haven't...'
Stephanie slipped down beside her on to the soft carpet, putting her arm around Vivienne's shoulder. 'Now it's my turn,' she said, caressing her arm.
'No,' the woman said in alarm.
'Why not?' Stephanie said, moving her hand to Vivienne's breast. Strangely it felt cold.
'You can't.'
'I can.'
Stephanie kissed her on the mouth. At first Vivienne resisted. But she was weak. She allowed Stephanie to push her back onto the floor until she was lying on her back with Stephanie beside her. She allowed Stephanie's tongue between her lips, though even then she was mouthing the words 'no, no, no,' as Stephanie's hand unzipped her skirt at the side and delved beneath the waistband. But Vivienne did not make any attempt to stop her: she had accepted the inevitable.
Stephanie's hand felt a suspender belt holding up the seamed stockings but there was something else under the white teddy. It was a pantie girdle, a very tight pantie girdle. She wormed her hand under the teddy and on to the elasticated girdle, down to Vivienne's crotch, at which point Vivienne broke the kiss.
'I tried to tell you,' she said as she felt Stephanie's fingers feeling around the shape and weight of her cock and balls, heavily strapped up under the unyielding crotch of the pantie girdle but obvious nevertheless.
'You're a man?'
'Yes. I'm sorry. I should never have...'
'Then fuck me,' Stephanie said simply.
'What?' Vivienne looked astonished. She had expected distaste and disdain, but not this reaction.
'You heard.' Stephanie was looking down into Vivienne's big, heavily made-up eyes, and feeling tantalised by what she saw. The idea that this beautiful woman, as feminine and lovely as any she'd seen, also had a cock was exciting, wonderfully exciting.
Vivienne could see she was serious that she meant what she said.
'Give me a minute.'
She got to her feet, walked through the curtain and out into the small office that was tucked behind the shop counter.
Stephanie watched her through the gap in the curtains. She pulled off her blouse and the skirt. A tight white bra held spongy, flesh-coloured artificial tits in place under the white teddy. Vivienne unhooked the crotch of the teddy and pulled the heavy pantie girdle down her hips. Quickly she unstrapped the cock from the tiny belts that held it down. It erected immediately, pushing up inside the lace of the teddy, framed by the long fingers of the white suspender belt.
Vivienne's hands were trembling. She adjusted her hair in a little mirror on the office wall and adjusted her stockings. The crotch of the teddy hung down between her legs like a tail. She debated taking the teddy off altogether but the bra that held her tits in place was so ugly on its own. Taking a deep breath, she walked back into the changing room.
Stephanie had taken off the deep blue panties. She was fingering her labia through the thick pubic hair, feeling her own excitement. She wanted to be fucked by the strange vision that stood in front of her.
'You've made me very hot, Vivienne.'
'No one's ever seen me like this.'
'You're beautiful. You're a beautiful woman with a cock. It's the best of both worlds. All the softness and femininity of a woman, all the hardness of a man.' It was true. In an odd way the cock seemed not to belong to Vivienne. It was a thing apart, an afterthought, an appendage.
'Shall I keep the teddy on? It looks strange undone like this.'
'Just come down here and fuck me, Vivienne,' Stephanie said, emphasising her name.
Vivienne knelt in front of Stephanie, the cock still entangled in the white lace. The fluid it had produced made a wet mark on the front of the teddy. Stephanie pulled the material away and circled the phallus with her hand.
'Fuck me,' she said.
Vivienne slid down on top of her. The cock slipped between her legs and up into her labia, as nylon stockings rasped together at the top of their thighs. Stephanie bucked her hips to position it at the opening of her sex and immediately skewered herself down on it. Vivienne moaned. The cock felt big and hard and hot. Stephanie wanted it badly. The whole image of this 'woman' had turned her on. Her hands caressed Vivienne's thighs deliberately feeling the welts of the stockings and the long white suspenders. She brought her hand up to Vivienne's chest to squeeze at her bra. The strange rubbery filling underneath felt sticky and gelatinous but Vivienne moaned as though Stephanie had squeezed a real breast.
Stephanie's Trial Page 8