'Are you going to see him again?' As usual, Arlene had managed to steal her thunder, but Julia was genuinely interested. Her friend was so talented and dedicated that she deserved to do well.
'Nothing was said, but yes, I expect we'll bump into each other in the course of our work. Stop looking at me like that. It was a fuck, that's all. It didn't mean anything to either of us.'
'That's dreadful.' Julia could feel all the conventional attitudes of her middle-class background rising in a tide. The shame of her recent abandonment made her want to find a convenient scapegoat.
Arlene laughed and tossed back her wild hair, green eyes sparkling with mischief. 'Julia, you're a hypocrite. D'you know that? Giving me grief when you're no better yourself. Come down off your high horse, lady. It's time you got to grips with reality.'
Julia could feel tears behind her eyes. She was worried about what Denise would have to say. She and Will hadn't exactly carried out orders. It was a relief to be home, the house enfolding her the moment she opened the front door. It was much as it had always been. From early childhood she remembered the brown and cream chevron tiles in the hall, the stained glass panels in the porch, the dark dado, so practical for hiding finger-marks, the plaster-work of the cornices, the central carved rose in every room holding fancy electric fittings. Her aunt had told her that once upon a time these had housed gas-lamps.
She knew she'd been extremely lucky to be left this place, which was worth a fortune on the current market, but would have much rather had her aunt alive. She couldn't remember her parents, only two when their flight to Italy met with disaster. There were no survivors. Great-aunt Mary had taken in the orphaned Julia. There had been no one else. She had been middle-aged then, Julia's father's aunt, but had done a splendid job of rearing her. Rather old-fashioned in outlook, she had been scrupulously just, loving, and ever kind, proud of this child entrusted to her. Julia missed her deeply, but blushed to think what she would have made of last night's episode.
'You'll do as you're told, Tina,' shouted the handsome, foreign-looking man wielding the whip. It cracked across her bare backside and she yelped. 'I expect absolute obedience, d'you hear?'
He brought it down again, making her spin, honey-blonde hair flying. She struggled against the bonds tethering her wrists to the hook securely screwed into a rafter. Her arms were drawn awkwardly above her head, her breasts lifted high and she scrabbled for a purchase on the floor, but her toes only just touched it. Not entirely naked, her silk blouse hung loose, nipples hard with excitement, raising it in two sharp points. She wore no skirt or panties, only a pair of smoky-grey stockings with lacy hold-up tops.
'I can't betray her,' she whimpered, tears coursing down her cheeks and dripping from her chin. 'She's given me a chance, helped me out when I was down on my luck.'
'And I employed you once, Tina, remember?' Blake said, watching her from where he sat on a nearby couch, legs apart to ease his erection. It excited him to see his partner, friend and sponsor chastising the girl. He did it with such finesse.
Everything Vincent Gabor touched turned to gold, each venture flourishing. They'd been drawn to one another like steel to magnet, Gabor appreciating the value of Marty's talent and prepared to invest in him. Not only that: they shared a similar need for sexual activities that went beyond the norm. Gabor's personality was that of a dominator. Both in business dealings and his personal life, he had to be the master.
This secluded basement in the foundations of his Highgate mansion was equipped with every device imaginable for the enhancement of pleasure gained through pain. Dimly lit, sumptuously furnished with deep couches and armchairs for an attentive audience, it contained a low stage, a whipping-post, a high bench, and another lower one from which chains dangled. A glass fronted cabinet held riding crops, bullwhips and rattan rods. Further along, hooks held leather clothing, hoods and masks. Gabor smilingly referred to this place as 'the playroom'.
'Don't listen to the silly bitch,' he said unpleasantly, and replaced the whip, selecting a black malacca cane instead. He rolled back his shirtsleeves, his sinewy arms bare to the elbows, took up the rod, made a few practise cuts through the air, then brought it down with a crack across Tina's backside.
She screamed and jerked as he hit her again, new welts forming to join the criss-cross stripes left by the whip. 'Oh stop, please, master!' she begged.
For answer, Gabor laid on four more, till her bottom was flushed and blotched with angry purple bruises. 'Why are you making so much fuss? I may have to gag you,' he grunted, a savage light in his peat-dark eyes. 'It's not your first beating, and I know you get off on it.' He thrust a hand between her legs, then withdrew, his fingers glistening with her dew, adding triumphantly, 'You see? You're already wet.'
He gave her a short respite, crossing to her other side, then sent the wicked length of cane singing through the air. It landed across her back with a sharp crack. She screamed again and tensed in her bonds, her mouth wide open in shock and agony. The strokes descended like a staircase of pain across her white buttocks. She gabbled for mercy between each one, before the next blow deprived her of breath. Her slender body, her tangled golden hair, the utter helplessness and humiliation of her bondage satisfied every dark fantasy secreted in the heartland of Gabor's psyche.
Blake could wait no longer, going over and twining himself round her suspended form. She moaned with agony and desire. He bent and buried his face in her scalding flesh, kissing her buttocks, his tongue flicking over the stripes. He sought her tight crease, prising it open, dipping inside and tonguing her furrow, lapping where the wiry hair fringed her sex-lips. She tasted of perfume and sweat and bodily emissions. Her moans became more urgent and she bore down, her pudenda pointing towards him. His tongue-tip flashed over her swollen clit, and then he closed his lips on it, dragging at the tiny button of plump flesh.
Gabor laughed, balancing on widespread legs, the cane held lightly in his strong, beautifully manicured fingers. 'You see how randy she is, my friend?' he asked harshly. 'She's your slave as much as mine.'
'Love me, Marty, love me,' she cried. 'You did so once, till you got tired of me.'
He rose, looking at her contemptuously as he said, 'Love you? Are you mad? You think I really loved a stupid tart like you?'
'Why are you so cruel?' she sighed, reproach in her tear-drenched eyes.
'You adore it when he's mean,' Gabor scoffed, and holding her with one arm, loosened the chains. She dropped to her feet, staggered and would have fallen had he not supported her. 'Now then, darling,' he murmured seductively, his hands fondling her breasts. 'You want Marty?'
'Yes.' She clung to him, hope lighting up her elfin features, a slim twenty-year-old with long pale hair and cornflower-blue eyes.
'You shall have him if you promise to do as he asks.'
She shuddered and heaved a deep sigh, shaking her head even as she capitulated. 'All right. But I don't want her to know I had anything to do with it.'
'You have the key?'
'Yes,' she muttered quietly.
'That's all we need. Give it to me and I'll have a copy made.'
He took her to the couch and bent her over one of the arms. Marty, unzipped, stood behind her, angling her so that her bottom was raised to meet his prick. He reached for her slit, spreading the copious juice over and around her anus, and then opening it with his fingers. She grunted, forced forward by the pressure, accepting the invasion. Blake wriggled his fingers inside her nether hole, and then replaced them with his stiff weapon, pushing hard till the muscles expanded to take him further. The feeling was exquisite, her sphincter closing round his shaft like a velvet glove. No virgin could have offered such delight. He drove a hand beneath her, finding her clit and massaging it as he propelled himself in and out, panting hard, feeling orgasm gathering in his groin.
He was so engrossed that he didn't register what Gabor was doing for a moment. But coming into contact with a world other than his own lust-crazed need for relief,
he was aware that he was in front of Tina, trousers open, his cock aimed at her mouth. He grabbed her by the hair, dragging her towards his crotch. It became a duel, with Tina wedged between the two protagonists. Who would come first? The settee shook with the force of their frantic, two-way coupling, Blake plunging into her tightness, his cock like a ramrod, his balls tight, and Gabor, his head back, the cords straining at his neck, receiving her worshipping attentions as she sucked his organ.
Blake felt her quiver, his finger sensitive to the throb of her clit as she came. This was enough to send him over the edge and he surrendered to a powerful climax, his semen spurting into the condom. At that moment Gabor exploded too, into Tina's mouth. He withdrew, wiped his cock in her hair and looked down at the still linked pair with evident satisfaction.
'That's settled then,' he said, rearranging his trousers. 'When do you want it done, Marty?'
'As soon as possible,' Blake said, withdrawing, disposing of the rubber and buttoning his chinos.
May had begun cold and wet. There had even been blizzards in the north of England. It looked fair set to be disastrous for the sale of spring and summer clothing.
'I don't know how much longer I can carry on,' Arlene said to Julia before they set off to their respective places of employment a few days later.
'I'm sure you'll get lucky soon,' Julia assured her, looking as charmingly innocent as ever, despite the revelations in Cornwall.
'I certainly hope so,' Arlene replied, hefting up her bag and making sure it was closed, preparing herself for the jostle of the underground, where one had to be doubly careful against pick-pockets.
The new century had brought neither safety nor peace. Everyone seemed so greedy, vicious and amoral, all the old standards fading fast. Arlene could cope with this, just about; a feisty girl with a caustic tongue and lots of attitude, but it was hard to always be on the alert. No one could be trusted, even in her beloved clothing business.
She let herself into her cluttered workshop above a Pakistani store. The air was faintly spiced with delicious odours from below; curry pastes, lentils, and a hundred and one eastern ingredients. Music formed a continual background - flutes, tambour, the sitar - sounds to which her ear had become so accustomed that she barely registered them.
She had other things on her mind, seriously worried. The bills were piling up. She was owed money for made-to-measure garments, but saw little hope of payment from some of them. How could she get heavy with a recent bride whose gown she had made, when the pregnant girl had been left at the altar? Her groom's wife turned up at the church and he was being sued for bigamy. There were other cases, too, where despite her bravado, she couldn't bring herself to make demands.
Her stock hadn't sold, hanging fire in the small dress shops she supplied on sale or return. The big boutiques were unaffected by the vagaries of the weather, their customers buying for holidays abroad. The top designers, and this included Blake, had nothing to fret about, their clothes bought for the United States, following their prestigious shows.
The smouldering embers of ambition flared and she swore to be up there with him one day soon, maybe even bigger and better than he was. She was certain he'd recognised her. There had been an interest there not entirely sexual. She recalled spotting him among the judges when she entered some of her designs to be paraded down the catwalk at a recent charity function. She gained a prize - a Certificate of Merit when she would rather have had a cheque. Had she made an impression on him then? She supposed she must have done, unless it was his habit to pick up women and shag them in broom cupboards.
For some reason she couldn't fathom, his cavalier treatment continued to rile her and she paced her domain like a caged lioness, glancing impatiently at the cotton jersey and synthetics that constituted the bulk of her run-of-the-mill orders.
She grabbed up the length of green devoré and held it against her body, studying the effect in the mirror fixed to one wall. She tingled, the fine hairs rising on her limbs, her pussy aching with want. Few things made her more horny than an unsullied bolt of fabric. It rivalled the smell, feel and taste of men. True to his word, Sam Watney had sent her samples, and she had ordered several metres of the green, keeping her fingers crossed that her credit card would cope. He had phoned her repeatedly, until she programmed the answer machine to pick him up. The parcel duly arrived, and the phone calls dwindled in frequency. She hoped he'd got the message, the thought of his flabby hands and slack lips making her feel sick.
The texture of the velvet sent a frisson of excitement through her fingers, up her arms, along her shoulders and into her nipples. Echoing thrills shot down to her sex, setting a warm pulse beating. She focused on the embryonic garment she imagined creating, and promised to indulge herself, partly for the sheer, voluptuous pleasure of it, and partly to keep her mind off the daily grind. The devoré called for something space age and intensely sexy. Pictures drifted across her brain - a show of her own where important buyers, movie stars, royalty and the doyens of magazines devoted to the industry who, with a few well-chosen words, could make or break reputations, would see her collection.
It was very quiet in the workroom. Her assistant had rung in sick. Alone and undisturbed, Arlene stripped off her denim skirt and white T-shirt. Braless, she quickly removed her panties and posed for her own enjoyment. The devoré cascaded over her body and slithered down her legs, gathering in a verdant puddle at her feet. Her trainers looked all wrong, so she unlaced them and stepped into a pair of court shoes dug out from under the table. This was better, the heels adding to the length of leg seen through the semi-transparent material.
'Brunettes suit green,' she heard Blake say, and she frowned, annoyed by the way the memory of him made her clit throb.
Her hand wandered down to her dark pubes and traced over the slit between them. Her pulse raced and she shifted position, opening her legs slightly, braced on those elegant, impractical heels. Her labial lips were swollen with need. She eased her finger up and down, lifting the fabric so that she didn't stain it with her juice. Pleasure welled in her loins, fanning out in her womb. She fingered her nipples with her other hand, loving the way they lifted the velvet as they peaked. Slowly, she pushed it aside, baring breasts and pubis, caressing the soft hairy lips and petting her protruding clit-head.
She eased back the tiny fleshy cowl that guarded the ultra-sensitive tip and wetted it with the dew welling from her vulva, working round it, watching herself in the mirror, wanting the feeling to last. It was too good, however, the urge for completion too strong. She couldn't help massaging it firmly.
She gasped, moaned, twisted her head from side to side, fingers plucking at her nipples, first one then the other, as her middle digit moved in swift arousal of her clitoris. She closed her eyes, bright light blazing against the blackness of her lids, a roaring in her ears as her climax welled over. It lifted her to glory and she was totally into it, part hidden by a screen that separated her from the long cutting table, the sewing machines, the rails of garments and shelves filled with materials.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when a man stepped into sight, wolf-whistling quietly as he admired her. 'Eugene!' she gasped. 'You scared the hell out of me!'
'Sorry, baby, but wow, that's classy!' he exclaimed, his eyes filled with that bubbling sense of humour which made him so good to be with him - Eugene Cooper, their link was a strictly professional one, to date.
'My treat to myself,' she replied, a spasm of renewed heat warming her pussy when she realised he had been watching her masturbating. She glanced down and saw the thick bough of his cock straining against his stonewashed jeans. It was exciting to know he'd been getting a hard-on seeing her playing with herself.
'Sure, and why not?' he agreed, and came closer, staring over her shoulder at their mutual reflection.
He was tall and broad, spending his free time at the gym. Dark-eyed and dark-haired, his genes where not entirely British, despite his cockney accent. He wasn't exactly handsom
e, but had striking features, white teeth and an infectious grin. A market trader, he had recently approached her with an offer to sell any of her leftover clothes. He had a van and an 'in' to most of the major London markets. From the start he'd made no bones about the fact that he wanted to screw her, and now she felt herself being borne along on an unstoppable tide of lust.
She looked into his mirror-image eyes and said, 'I'd better get dressed. I'm supposed to be finishing a job,' but she made no move to leave him.
Instead, she pressed back and brushed her hips against his muscled belly. His response was an automatic lift of the pelvis, bringing the solid bar of his prick in line with her bottom crease. She wriggled and his arms clamped round her waist, pulling her closer, one hand snaking over her shoulder to cup a breast.
She sighed, watching them in the mirror, like a voyeur getting kicks from seeing a couple fornicating.
'Yummy,' he returned, and nipped her ear.
Shards of ice trickled down her spine and she could feel further moisture pooling at her opening, already wet from orgasm. Eugene's cock felt absolutely huge as it tried to force its way through his jeans. Most promising, and she'd not hungered for sex with such urgency since her encounter with Blake.
'You're different,' Eugene murmured into her hair. 'What's happened? You've never given me the come-on before. It must be that fabric. You look wicked in it.'
'Maybe,' she murmured, drawing in a sharp breath as his broad thumb revolved on her nipple.
'Did something happen at the Cloth Show?' he asked, looking at her in the glass as he pulled the velvet tight over the cone-shaped teat and flicked it mercilessly.
'Nothing important,' she said, and arched her spine, lifting her ribs to thrust her breasts against that stabbing pleasure.
'You must tell me all about it later. But just for now there are things I want to do to you,' he said, and spun her round till her nipples were pressed to his chest.
In Too Deep Page 5
