by Becky Bell
'I've got a bottle of champagne in the fridge.'
'Great.' She wondered if Harriet was in attendance.
'No servants tonight,' Paula said, as if reading her mind. 'Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.'
'Thank you.'
Paula disappeared into the kitchen while Angela sat down. She was desperately trying to remember the speech she had prepared but it had all gone, knocked out of her head by the impact of Paula's personality and the power of the two paintings. She felt a little breathless and her heart was beating as fast as it had this morning, when she'd first heard Paula's voice.
'Here.' Paula came back with a bottle of champagne and two flute glasses. She put them on the coffee table, opened the bottle so expertly there was only the faintest of pops, and poured the wine. Then she flopped down on the sofa opposite Angela and drew her legs up underneath her. 'Cheers.'
'Cheers.'
Angela sipped the wine. It was very cold. 'So, are you settling in?' Small talk. In this situation, it was all Angela could think of to say.
'It's perfect. I really need two treatment rooms, you see. And it's very difficult in a block of flats, with men coming and going all the time. This is much more secluded.'
'I can imagine.'
'You were shocked, weren't you, Angela?'
Angela hesitated for a moment. This was the perfect moment to tell Paula that she didn't really want to discuss it. If only she could remember what she had meant to say. 'No. Yes.' She stopped and started again. 'Do you want the truth?' This is definitely not the way she'd wanted the conversation to go.
'If you want to tell me. There's no obligation.'
But Angela realised she wanted to tell her, very much. It would help her to work out what she felt. 'The truth is that I've never really been that interested in sex. I mean, I've had a few lovers, but they've never... It's never been really good for me. I had no idea that people could take it so seriously, could get so involved, could spend so much time and trouble...' she hesitated to say the word, '...and money on getting physical satisfaction. I suppose I thought everyone was a bit like me. That's what shocked me.'
'And?' Paula seemed to sense there was more. Her eyes were looking at Angela steadily.
'It also affected me in a way I didn't understand.' She had never intended this to come out, but she felt a bond with Paula that made it easy. 'Afterwards I was really... turned on. More turned on than I'd ever been.'
Paula smiled. 'You masturbated?' She asked it as casually as if she were asking whether Angela slept well.
'Yes.' Oddly, Angela did not blush. There was no point beating around the bush, now she had come this far. 'Yes, I did, and it was the most intense orgasm I'd ever had.'
'Well, that's good, isn't it?'
'But I don't understand why.'
'Is it that complicated? You just said it yourself. You have never paid that much attention to sex, have you? Like a lot of women, you've done it more because you felt you should, than because you really wanted to. Sex is a very complicated thing. It takes work. You have to find out a lot about yourself, about what you want and what you need, for it to really work. Casual sex is never going to be much fun. It needs to be calculated.'
'I can see that. But why did I get so turned on?'
'It could be one of two reasons. Perhaps it was just being thrust into a situation where sex was so blatant. Have you ever seen blue movies, or been to a real orgy?'
'No.'
'Well, then. Seeing two guys with juicy big dicks might just have turned you on. As simple as that.'
'And the other reason?'
'Maybe you're like me. Maybe the idea of being dominant excites you: maybe that's what you need. Actually, that was my ulterior motive for asking you here.'
'Why?'
'Because I sensed a little of what you were feeling and I wanted to put a proposition to you. You won't be offended?'
'Go on.'
'I've got one particular client who likes to have company. He likes to be watched. Specifically by a woman. Obviously, he pays for the privilege. You wouldn't have to do anything, just watch. It's only what you did a couple of weeks ago. He'd pay two hundred pounds.'
'Two hundred, just to stand there and watch?'
'Yes.'
Angela was thinking of the money. As a trainee at Slaughter and Roe, she was hardly making enough to pay for the rent on her dreary bedsit and her food. She had no money for new clothes, and found it a struggle to make ends meet at the end of each week.
'Are you serious?'
'Perfectly. You could think of it as an experiment.'
'An experiment?'
'To test your reactions. This time, it won't be a shock.'
'All I have to do is watch.'
'And look pretty.' Paula leant forward and refilled their glasses. 'So what do you say?'
'I'll do it.'
'Good.' She picked up her glass and clinked it against the side of Angela's. 'Here's to new beginnings.'
'I'll drink to that.' Despite the decision she had just made, Angela felt remarkably composed. That was down to Paula, she knew. There was something about the woman that gave her the confidence to explore the sexual side of her nature, without feeling she was doing something she should be ashamed of. She found her eyes wandering back to the oil painting, focusing on the delicately painted mons, the dark stubble of short hair, and the suggestion of labia nestling between her thighs.
'So, shall we begin?' Paula said.
'What, now? He's coming now?'
'He's here. Upstairs in the treatment room.'
'My God,' Angela breathed, almost to herself.
'It doesn't matter if you want to change your mind. It's only the icing on the cake, as far as he's concerned.'
Angela was catching her breath. She'd thought Paula was talking about an event a few days in the future, not here and now. But she supposed it was actually better not to have time to dwell on what she was doing. 'No, no... just thought you meant in a couple of days.'
'You can wear that dress, but it would probably be more sexy if I lent you something a little more risqué. I've got to change, anyway.'
The idea of changing her clothes excited Angela. If she was going to be a whore, she thought, she might as well dress like one. 'I think I'd rather change,' she said.
'Good. Come on. We'll take the champagne upstairs and pick something for you.'
Angela was amazed at the work Paula had had done in the week since she had taken possession of the house. The fitted wardrobes in the large master bedroom at the front of the house had been ripped out and replaced with a completely new set, handmade units crafted in limewood. The bedroom had been painted in cream and carpeted with a thick oatmeal wool carpet.
'This is lovely,' Angela said.
There were two limewood chests of drawers standing under the window and Paula was rooting in one of them. 'The trouble is, you're not really my size. But this should fit.'
She took out a red garment and threw it on the bed. Angela picked it up. It was a body made from the softest kid leather.
'And these.' Paula opened another drawer and extracted a pair of black stockings.
'What about you?' Angela asked.
She went to the wardrobe and pulled out a shiny black PVC dress. It had full sleeves, a high neck but a very short skirt. 'This,' she said.
Without the slightest hesitation, Paula pulled off the tight white top and unhooked her bra. Angela stared at her big pendulous breasts. She had seen them before, in the painting, but she still found herself staring.
Paula unzipped the black skirt and pulled it off. She was wearing tights but no panties. She skimmed the tights down to her thighs, then sat on the bed and kicked off her shoes. She pulled the tights over her ankles.
'If you'd rather be private, there's a bathroom over there,' Paula said.
Angela realised she was still staring. 'No, it's all right,' she said, with a bravado she didn't feel. The sight of Paula's naked body had provoked the same so
rt of feelings as the oil painting, though she still wasn't exactly sure what they were.
Quickly, she unzipped her black dress and slipped it over her shoulders. She was wearing a black functional bra and matching panties under her tights. She unhooked the bra self-consciously and let it fall away. She saw Paula looking at her breasts. Though they were much smaller than Paula's, they were firm and very round and jutted out from her chest without sagging. Her nipples were comparatively small but were already puckered and hard.
'Nice tits,' Paula said.
Angela pulled off her tights and panties. The pubic hair on her mons was thick but very soft and downy.
She picked up the leather body and stepped into it. The legs were cut so high they revealed the creases of her pelvis. Though the bodice was too big, its plunging neckline could be adjusted by means of laces sewn into the front, and Angela managed to pull them tight enough to look as if it was a good fit.
'Looks great. He's in for a treat.'
Paula stood up. Without bothering with a bra, she put on the black PVC dress, while Angela pulled on the silky hold-up stockings. Their tops were decorated with lace.
'I don't think my shoes are going to fit you,' Paula said. She had taken a pair of black PVC thigh-boots from one of the wardrobes. They had spiky high heels and a long zip down the inside. The top of the thigh-boots reached almost to the hem of the dress.
'I can wear my own,' Angela said. Her shoes were hardly the height of the heels she had seen Paula wearing, but they were black and smart and had a narrow tapering heel.
'Zip them up for me, would you, sweetie?' Paula said, putting one foot up on the bed.
Angela found the tongue of the zip. As she pulled it all the way up to Paula's thigh, she found herself staring at the other woman's sex, her thick, rubbery labia clearly visible under a thin fuzz of short black pubic hair. She thought they were glistening, as if they were wet.
'Right,' Paula said as soon as the second boot was zipped up. 'You're sure you don't want to change your mind?'
That was not the only thing Angela was not sure about. The sight of Paula's sex had made her feel hot and uncomfortable. She was intensely aware of her own sex, perhaps because the narrow leather gusset of the body was cutting into it so deeply.
'I'm fine,' she lied.
Paula led the way out into the hall and along to the room at the back of the house. The door had been repainted a bright red. Paula opened it and ushered Angela inside.
The room had been cleaned and smelt vaguely of disinfectant, but had not been redecorated. All the equipment Angela had seen before was still there, though the metal cage had been removed. The large cupboard from the Wimbledon flat and the small double bed had been added. The mattress was covered with a black sheet. Lengths of white rope hung from its metal legs.
Standing in the middle of the room was a well-built, fit-looking man, with nicely developed leg and arm muscles and a flat abdomen. He was naked, apart from a tight fitting black rubber G-string that covered his genitals. The front of this garment was already distended by his erection, the rubber stretched into a long cylindrical shape. His body was covered with a mat of fine dark hair, the hair on his chest being particularly thick.
Angela could not see his face. His head had been crammed into a tight-fitting rubber helmet, which had holes for his mouth and his eyes but not his ears or his nose. The rubber was so tight, it clung to the contours of his cheekbones and his jaw. His arms were bound behind his back by means of the leather cuffs Angela had seen before, but there were also cuffs around his arms just above his elbows, making him pull his shoulders back and thrust his chest out. There were cuffs on his ankles, too, which were joined by a short thick metal chain.
'On your knees,' Paula said, her voice now stern and unemotional.
Without the use of his aims to help balance him, the man thumped to his knees. Since they had entered the room, the man had barely looked at Paula, his attention riveted on Angela. With only his eyes and mouth showing, it was difficult to read any real expression, but she had the feeling he was registering astonishment. She also had an even stranger sensation. Despite his face being swathed in rubber, she had the feeling she recognised him: though from where and when she hadn't the faintest idea.
'Get on with it, then,' Paula said tetchily.
The man immediately leant forward and began to lick the toes of Paula's PVC boots, with broad strokes of his tongue, like he was licking an ice-cream.
'That's enough,' she said, after three or four minutes. She walked over to the cupboard that had been moved from her flat in Wimbledon and opened it. She took out an orange-coloured ball, the centre of which was pierced with a leather strap.
'Up,' she said.
The man had remained with his head down, his forehead touching the floor. He straightened up. Again, his eyes came to rest on Angela's face.
'I think he likes you,' Paula said. She took the gag and crammed it into his mouth, strapping it so tightly that the leather strap cut into his cheeks. The ball was big and forced his mouth open around it. 'I don't want to disturb my new neighbours with your screams, now do I?'
He shook his head earnestly.
'Over here.' She took hold of him by the arm and guided him over to the ironing board-like structure that stuck out from the wall. 'Sit up on the edge of it,' she instructed.
The man tried. With his arms so tightly tied behind his back, it was difficult to wriggle himself on to the edge of the structure; but at the second attempt he managed it. Immediately Paula pushed him back, then wound the thick leather strap around his waist, buckling it tightly, so his head nearly touched the wall at one end of the board and his buttocks were perched on the outer edge at the other. With his arms crushed under his back, his whole body was bowed upwards.
Quickly, Paula secured the second strap at the top of the board around the man's neck, then grabbed one of the white nylon ropes threaded through the pulley arrangement on the wall on the left side of the board, unclipping the cuff that was attached to it. She unsnapped the chain that joined the cuffs at the man's ankles and clipped the snap hook on the end of the rope into the D-ring on the left-hand cuff. She repeated the process on the right-hand side.
Angela watched all this with fascination, half of her mind still wrapped up in the question of where on earth she had seen this man before. With only his eyes and his mouth for clues, she didn't think she was ever going to work it out.
Paula went to the left-hand pulley and began to wind the rope through it. The rope was threaded through a ring set in the ceiling well to the left of the board so that, as the rope shortened, the man's ankle was pulled backward over his body and splayed out to one side. Only when his whole leg was doubled back and stretched out did Paula secure the rope to a cleat on the wall. Again, she moved to the right and repeated the process on the right-hand side.
Angela stared at the result. The man's buttocks had been raised and his thighs stretched apart, leaving his genitals, tightly covered in black rubber, completely exposed.
'Do you want the nipple clips?' Paula asked.
The man shook his head vigorously.
'Pity, because you're going to have them.'
There was a new addition to the equipment hanging from the ceiling on Angela's first visit: either that, or she had not noticed the slim metal bar that hung a few feet above the wooden board. It was no thicker than a cigarette and attached to each end of it were two thin chains. At the end of each chain was an odd-looking oval metal clip.
Paula reached up to the bar and pulled it down to the man's chest. Instead of being suspended on an adjustable pulley, it seemed to be hanging from a thick rope of rubberised elastic. Paula pulled one of the clips over to the man's left nipple. Angela watched as she opened the spring-loaded clip, centred it over his nipple, then allowed the serrated jaws to sink into the tender flesh. He moaned through the gag. He moaned again as the clip buried itself into his right nipple.
'This is the best bit,'
Paula said, looking up at Angela. She released the metal bar. The elastic pulled it upward, sharply jerking at the clips. The man's whole body shuddered. The tension in the elastic caused the clips to sink deeper into his flesh, pulling his nipples up from his chest. Angela saw him trying to arch his back off the board to relieve some of the pressure, but he was tied down too tightly to make any real difference. His erection was spasming so violently against the rubber that she wondered if he'd come.
The man writhed against his bonds and moaned loudly.
'And now we come to the whip,' Paula said.
The man shook his head again and tried to form the word, 'Please.'
As callously as everything else she had done, Paula took hold of the rubber G-string and pulled it off the man's cock and over to one side. It snapped back against his thigh, making him moan again. His erection was huge, though his foreskin still covered his glans. Paula took hold of it and pulled it back roughly, exposing his pink smooth glans.
Angela stared at his cock. It seemed astounding that he would pay Paula to inflict such pain and suffering on him: but there was no doubt, from the state of his erection, that he found it unbelievably arousing.
But he wasn't the only one.
Angela could see a real excitement in Paula's eyes, a flame that danced with increased vitality as she found new ways to torture him. What's more, she could not deny that watching all this, seeing the way his body writhed and wriggled and shuddered in his bonds, had affected her just as deeply. There, in front of her eyes, was the symbol of his masculinity: but it was a masculinity that had been reduced to a single component which was totally at Paula's - and, she supposed, her - mercy. For a reason she did not understand, it was his powerlessness, his absolute submission to their will, that excited her most. She wondered what it would be like to slide herself down on to that long adamantine cock. It was her turn to shudder.
Paula had walked to the cupboard. She came back with a short whip. It had a braided handle and literally hundreds of long lashes made of what might have been elephant hair. She showed it to the man.
'No,' he cried, though the word was muffled by the gag.