Lust on the Line

by Noel Amos

  'Eh?' Lucian was bumbling along in Basil's wake as his uncle dashed into his study and flung open a corner cupboard.

  'Aha! Got it!' Basil pulled a camcorder from behind a pile of typescripts. He thumbed the On button which at once glowed red.

  'What's that got to do with it, uncle? Surely being a great publisher is all about finding unique and brilliant books that shape people's lives.'

  'No, it's not, Lucian.' Basil was halfway up the stairs now. At the top he turned to his nephew. 'Being a great publisher is about not looking a gift-horse in the mouth - even if you first have to shoot it in the balls. Just watch.'

  Desmond Handcock, Bishop of Burlap, dedicated churchman and lifelong celibate, woke in the arms of a hairy young poet. As the silver sunlight of a crisp New Year's day stole across the pillow Des opened his eyes and gazed at the pale and beautiful face lying next to his.

  'Good morning,' said Garnet O'Dread.

  'Oh my God,' said the bishop.

  'He moves in mysterious ways,' said the poet and kissed him.

  It was not in Desmond's power to resist and, anyway, it was a little late for resistance. So when Garnet stripped the bedclothes from the bishop's nude body and kissed his way down to the straining sceptre that rose trembling from the holy man's loins, well - Desmond would have died rather than forego these miraculous new earthly pleasures. Garnet swung his body round so that his own tumescent reassure was temptingly displayed, and then sucked the head of Desmond's cock deep into his throat.

  'Oh heavens,' breathed Desmond and slicked the poet's milk-white foreskin back over the ruby-red cap of his tool. So these were the rank and corrupting pleasures of the flesh. How dissolute, how terrible - how utterly intoxicating they were! As he closed his eyes and opened his mouth, Desmond resolved that from henceforth he would give redoubled sympathy to those sinners who sought solace for sexual transgressions.

  Lucian reflected that the two lovers weren't so much caught red-handed as scarlet-cocked. When he and Basil stepped into the room the pair of them were side by side in a graphic sixty-nine which admitted of no innocent explanation. And, as the bemused pair drew apart, Basil's camera captured in explicit detail two puce and glistening male organs sawing the air in thwarted desire.

  'Just a little fun, my dears,' said Basil as he zoomed in on Desmond's fingers ringing Garnet's leaping tool.

  The poet scrambled from the bed and made for the publisher, murder in his outraged face. But Basil was prepared for that and pushed Lucian into his path. The pair ended up on the floor in a tangle and Basil shot that too, making sure to capture the onlooking Bishop of Burlap as he sprawled on the bed, naked and horrified and divinely erect.

  Miranda and Lorna watched the video later at Miranda's flat. 'So that bugger Basil pulled it off after all,' said Lorna.

  'He did,' replied Miranda. 'And you can be sure that these two buggers will now vote for The Novelist's Wife. With Basil's own vote that means the Baxendale's in the bag.'

  Lorna peered closely at the television screen and the sight of the two men caught in flagrante. She giggled. 'You have to take your hat off to Basil, though I can't say I approve of his methods. Thank God I don't have to answer to him any more.'

  'Indeed. You do have to answer to me, however.'

  'Meaning?'

  'That if you take your hat off for Basil, you can take your knickers off for me. Right now.'

  'Yes, boss,' said a weary Lorna. Was there no end to the dedication required to get on in publishing?

  Postscript

  Chapter 46

  As Montgomery Hastings took his seat at the Baxendale prize-giving dinner, he said a silent prayer to the ghost of the mad old lady herself. Gwendoline Baxendale had left her vast fortune to the establishment of a prize for 'the year's most exceptional and unpretentious work of fiction'. It was worth a cool £50,000 pounds to the winner and a matching sum to the lucky publisher, dwarfing all similar awards. Naturally, it had been highjacked by the literary brigade - pretension, like beauty, being purely in the eye of the beholder. So the Baxendale was not only the richest but the most prestigious prize an author could win - and Monty wanted it. He wanted it more than health or happiness or sex. And more than his marriage.

  Which was why by his side sat his very personal assistant, the angel of his muse and the woman who had promised him the Baxendale - Harriet Pugh. She looked splendid, with pearls shining in her ears and lying in a glistening rope above the deep decolletage of her bosom. She caught his glance and, under the tablecloth, gave him a reassuring squeeze.

  'Why, Monty,' she whispered, 'you've got a hard-on. How can you think of sex at a moment like this?'

  'I can't help it,' he replied. 'If I win, I know I'm going to come in my pants.'

  'You'll win, Monty, don't worry. Perhaps I can start the celebrations early.' And she slipped her fingers into his fly.

  Monty savoured the sensation of her frotting fingers on his tool, allowing his gaze to wander round the vast gathering in the Costermongers Hall. The dinner itself was a naff affair - hastily served chicken in wallpaper sauce followed by jam tart - but the company was luminous. All the big fishes among publishing houses were represented and many of the minnows too. Because there was no official shortlist for the prize - as opposed to the many unofficial ones promoted by the book chains - everybody thought they had a chance. And now, before disappointment set in, was the time to make the most of the occasion. Conversation was at fever pitch and the Chardonnay was disappearing like best bitter at a stag night.

  As Monty surveyed the throng, smiling at the great and the good and the downright wicked, he thought he caught sight of a familiar dark-haired figure on the far side of the room. He stared but people were on their feet, table-hopping and rushing to the loo before the big announcement, obscuring his view. When his sight-line cleared the woman had gone. He must have been seeing things. This was the last place his wife was likely to be.

  Thump! came the sound of a gavel and conversation died. There was a scramble for seats. The chairman of the Baxendale Prize committee, Basil Swan, was on his feet.

  Twenty minutes into Basil's speech - the old trouper being in no hurry to relinquish the stage - he dropped his bombshell. Authors and agents, publishers and press turned to one another baffled and bemused.

  'Who?'

  'What's it called?'

  'Never bloody heard of it!'

  'Karen Hastings? Hey, Monty - any relation?'

  At the podium the radiant figure of the winner clutched her cheque to her adorable breast and in a clear voice bubbling with emotion told the world how disbelieving, thrilled and grateful she was.

  'I'd like to thank my agent, Marilyn Savage, and my editor, Lucian Swan, and all the wonderful people at The Whimsical Press without whom—'

  At a table in the far corner, a cork popped and champagne sprayed into the air. A beaming Miranda Lynch could be seen shaking the hand of a floppy-haired young man while their colleagues whooped and embraced and generally luvvied it up to the acute displeasure of everyone else present.

  'But most of all...' Karen's speech rolled on in the usual fashion. Up to this point most people had hardly taken in a word, though her serene face and elegant carriage had already made a lasting impression. '...I'd like to thank my husband, Montgomery Hastings, without whom, I assure you, my book would never have been written.'

  Monty was on his feet, swaying, his mouth open but his voice - like his wits - had temporarily deserted him. All eyes were on him as his body began to jerk like a man on the end of a massive electric shock. His eyeballs swivelled up in his sockets and his features crumpled as if his face had been filleted. In slow motion, it seemed, he keeled over and lay unconscious on his back. Only his twitching penis, sticking out of his trousers like a brandished flag, indicated that there was still life within.

  Pandemonium erupted. Sympathetic hands rushed to cover Monty's loins and to search for other vital signs. Karen was borne from the stage on the shoulders of
excited Whimsical Pressers. Journalists reached for their mobile phones and the general throng reached for their glasses. The hubbub was intense. At this moment the side doors to the hall burst open and an assortment of bright young things, shepherded by Lorna Prentice, began to distribute piles of books amongst the tables.

  'I say, this is it - The Novelist's Wife by Karen Hastings.'

  'Christ, it's that porno book they're serialising in the Badger!'

  'It's got "Baxendale Prize winner" printed on the cover. That's quick off the mark.'

  'Fix! It's a bloody fix!'

  'It's not a fix,' cried Miranda Lynch, triumph blazing in her storm-grey eyes. 'I gambled. I bound some books like this because I was convinced we'd pull it off - and I was right. That's why I'm a winner and you lot are also-rans!'

  'Congratulations, Karen.'

  'Thanks, Lucian. I can't believe it.'

  'It's true. You've won the Baxendale. Aren't you glad now you came to the dinner?'

  'Thanks for making me.'

  'Have you heard about Monty? They've taken him to hospital.'

  'What!'

  'He collapsed after the announcement.'

  'Oh no!'

  'I'm told it's just a precaution.'

  'God, Lucian, it's all my fault!'

  Amid the chaos and excitement, one mind was icily calm, one heart beat with measured coolness. At the moment of the announcement Harriet Pugh had become instantly sober. Her emotions were such that they extended beyond rage and betrayal to - revenge. She abandoned the pathetic relic of her unconscious employer, other hands would see to him. She had different matters to attend to.

  She found Basil Swan surrounded by a fawning group of his peers, middle-aged suits the lot of them. She displayed herself boldly before him and received, as she knew she would, the most syrupy of his smiles.

  'Harriet, how delightful to see you!'

  'Come with me, Basil. We must talk.'

  'As you can see, I'm a little tied up and—'

  'Now, please. I'll make it worth your while.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  She leaned in close to display to advantage the lush expanse of her cleavage. 'I'm talking about what I want to do to your cock, Basil'

  She led him into a telephone booth off the lobby. It was a tight squeeze but she knew he wouldn't mind that.

  She unzipped him in a flash.

  'My dear! What are you doing?' As if he didn't know.

  'I've got to hold it, Basil,' his cock was in her hand, brutish and eager, 'while I ask you something.'

  'Yes?'

  'Why did you do it?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Go back on your word.'

  'I'm sorry?'

  'You remember our night together?'

  'Of course, my darling. I searched for you afterwards. You don't know how I've pined for you—' His hand was full of tit, groping through her thin dress.

  'Then you'll remember I let you fuck me in the mouth—'

  'Mmm, yes.'

  'And in the cunt—'

  'Ooh, you were tight and juicy.'

  'And up my bum—'

  'Divine! It was fabulous!'

  'On the understanding that you gave the Baxendale to Monty Hastings.'

  'What?'

  'You promised.'

  'I never did, my darling.'

  'But that's all we talked about, fucking and Refulgent Ennui.

  'Now, look here, Harriet, I think you've got the wrong end of the stick.'

  'No, I haven't, Basil. I had the right end then and I've got it now.'

  'Ouch - what are you doing?'

  'You shafted me so I'm going to shaft you.'

  'Ow! Ow! Let go!'

  'I'm going to send you where poor Monty's gone. To hospital.'

  'But when he wakes up he'll still have something to shaft with.'

  'AAH!'

  Chapter 47

  'God, Percy, I didn't know you knew how to - ooh - massage like this.'

  There were many things his wife didn't know about him, Percy reflected as he sat astride Felicity's hips and manipulated the flesh along the ridge of her spine. Chief among them was his knowledge of her affair with Brendan, the late-lamented inspiration to Percy's creative genius. He had been gone a week. The holiday season now being upon the land, Brendan and the honey-loined Carol-Anne had abandoned their winter career as house-helps to the Carmichaels in favour of the summer on a Greek island. They were sorely missed.

  'How's this, Flick?' Percy turned his attention to his wife's neck.

  'That's lovely,' she said and groaned a kind of you've-got-me-going noise that Percy knew well. Unfortunately his recent familiarity with it had been of a vicarious nature - while watching Brendan finger his wife's glowing flesh through the bedroom keyhole. This evening, Percy had decided, he was going to experience all of Felicity's sounds of sensual satisfaction firsthand.

  Following the festive evening on which Percy had witnessed Brendan taking Felicity on her hands and knees, he had confronted the Irishman.

  'I just got carried away,' said Brendan. 'Your missus is a powerfully attractive woman.'

  'It's OK, Brendan. I mean, I'm not angry or anything. I'm grateful.'

  'You are?'

  'I thought Felicity had given up sex for good. At least I now know she's still got an appetite for it - even if I'm not on the menu.'

  'Hey, Perce, don't get upset.'

  'I tell you, I'm not. But I am curious. Tell me, have you had her before?'

  And so it had all come out. The truth about Flick's back treatment, the hank-panky of the previous summer, the threesome with Henry...

  'Good God, she let you put it up her arse?'

  'Actually, she let Henry. But since then I've had her up the bum lots. She really likes it.'

  These words were on Percy's mind as he mumbled something about needing access to the base of Felicity's spine. He tugged her skirt off and stripped her tights and knickers down her legs. She did not protest. As he slid a pillow beneath her hips, raising her big white buttocks off the bed, she squirmed her loins into the softness below.

  Percy pressed down on the small of her back as he had seen Brendan do. Brendan had given him lessons in massage. They had even practised together on the taut and resilient flesh of Carol-Anne.

  'Oh that's good,' moaned Felicity, wriggling her bottom, the brown nest of her pussy now openly on display between her lower cheeks. What mysteries women were, Percy thought as he drank in the sight. This was his wife's cunt, which had borne him three children, yet it was as if he were seeing it for the first time. His hands slid lower and pulled apart the trembling rounds of her buttocks. He pushed a finger between the long pink frill of her labia and it was at once sucked in to the second joint. He inserted another finger.

  He'd missed Carol-Anne badly this past week. Not that they were soulmates but even when they weren't engaged in furthering their carnal relations her golden presence in the house had thrilled him. Already, however, he was falling under the spell of her replacement as a nanny - a willowy drop-out who lived locally. Vicky had discovered he wrote erotic novels, surprising him as he opened a set of page proofs from Blue Desire. 'If you need a woman's opinion,' she'd said, 'try me. I'm very broad-minded.' And she'd looked at him boldly with her big brown almond-shaped eyes.

  Percy pulled his fingers from Felicity's sticky quim and replaced them with his cock. She was so wet his big tool glided all the way in as if greased.

  'Oh Percy!' she murmured, her loins gripping him in a handshake of welcome.

  He slipped his fingers beneath her satin-smooth hip and stole across her belly to her bush. The nub of her clit was swollen and firm. He rubbed it the way he used to do in days gone by and she came, her big soft arse shaking beneath him.

  He waited till she had recovered before he spoke.

  'Tell me, Flick, what do you think we should do with that empty room upstairs?'

  'Good Lord, Percy, must we talk about it
now?'

  'Not if you don't want to, darling.' Percy grasped her hips and began to shuttle his cock in and out of her vagina in a slow rhythm. 'But now Brendan and Carol-Anne have gone, I wonder if we shouldn't let it out to a student or someone.'

  'I hadn't thought about it. Mmm, this is nice, isn't it?'

  'Oh yes. I've missed you, Felicity. You and your wonderful bottom.'

  Percy spread her cheeks with his thumbs to see better as the white pole of his penis plundered her dark-fringed pussy mouth. Above it, in the heart of her secret furrow, the star of her anus pouted in invitation. Brendan had been up there. And Henry. Percy jabbed deep into her cunt and she groaned in response.

  'Do you remember Martin, Rick? The Robinsons' lad.'

  The Robinsons had lived across the road until two years previously, then they'd moved to Leeds.

  'Of course I remember Martin.'

  'He used to have a crush on you.'

  'Silly boy.'

  He'd been seventeen two summers back and ever-present around the Carmichaels' house. Felicity had been breastfeeding Crispin at the time.

  'I met him in the High Street last week,' continued Percy, circling her rosehole with his finger. 'He can't stand Leeds. He's doing Information Technology at the college.'

  Felicity looked at him over her shoulder. Her hair was wild - her cheek was flushed. 'So you want him to live upstairs?'

  'He hates his digs. He'd be much happier here.' Percy pushed the finger into the tight knot of her rear.

  'I wouldn't mind,' said Felicity, her eyes sparkling and her bottom undulating to his assault. 'What about you?'

  'You're used to having a handsome young man around the place - I don't want you pining after Brendan.'

  'That's very thoughtful of you, darling. Oh!' Percy suddenly withdrew his cock from her quim and moved his slippery red glans to the dimpled fissure just above it.