The Diamond Ring

by Primula Bond

  My role is simple, apparently. All I have to do is stand there, or lie there, and take it. They won’t tell me what ‘it’ is.

  I start to think that maybe, if I don’t open the curtain any wider, it won’t happen, but Chloe puts her arm round my waist and sweeps the curtain aside to point out the audience. The club is full now of beautiful, chattering, drinking, scantily clad women, although there’s also a handful of men lounging in a darkly lit booth on the opposite side of the room.

  ‘Oh, there’s the boss. She’s like the queen bee. And those guys with the bulging crotches are her drones.’

  I follow her pointing leopard paw. And see that I’ve walked straight into a trap.

  Because the queen bee enthroned on the velvet banquette, wearing a long sheath dress in red snakeskin, a red lace net over her face, looks exactly like Margot.

  ‘Chloe! Tell me I’m hallucinating. Is that Margot Levi? Because if it is I can’t be anywhere near her!’

  The lookalike hasn’t seen me yet. Or at least she hasn’t acknowledged I’m here. I may be wrong about who it is, but I still want to get out. I turn frantically to beg Chloe to help me. But Chloe’s speaking to the barman.

  This is no coincidence. It really is her. Margot sent those girls to entice me here with a story about taking photographs of her new club. I don’t blame them. I like them. And God knows, they need to know what – who – they’re dealing with. But now that I’ve been tricked into dancing with them, she’ll organise some serious degradation to alienate me from Gustav. This could be what Pierre meant. That she will toy with me and threaten me, hurt me over and over again until she’s driven me away.

  I could escape now. There must be some kind of fire exit. So why am I rooted to the spot? I stare at her, at her spiky body and shadowed face. Then I look at myself.

  I look pretty damn hot, actually. Just like my new friends said. I’m in character as a cygnet from Swan Lake. I can use this. I’m damn well going to work it.

  My legs are long and elegant in the white stockings. I fluff up my tutu, run my hands up the tempting inches of visible thigh to leave them showing. I flex my foot so that the stocking rides up and down. Then I run my hands up to the frilly knickers that the girls said looked so much sexier than going commando.

  I dig my fingers into my sweaty palms. My body stiffens. This is not fear flooding through me. It’s cold, hard resolve. She’s got me here. I’m in costume. I’m on my marks. She wants to use this to hurt me, or show Gustav I’m cheap and unworthy, but I won’t let her belittle me and I won’t give her the satisfaction of running away either. The girls have made me look hot. Really, really hot. How can this possibly work against me?

  The show’s about to start and the atmosphere in the club is quietening down in anticipation. The DJ is mouthing something at one of the dancers as they parade out from behind the curtain to take their places.

  Look over here, Margot. See my white painted face watching you. Masking my fear. Taking that fear away, at least for the next few minutes.

  Sure enough, she looks up. She lifts her sharp chin above the shaven head of one of the young men, whose mouth is wandering down her stomach while another lifts her red dress. She fixes me with those slanted eyes, glaring down her narrow beak, and she nods, as if giving the signal to drop the guillotine.

  The icy calm washes through me once more. It won’t be Serena Folkes who’s belittled tonight. The girls beckon to me, but I reach behind me and take out my phone. They make rude gestures. I put up one finger to ask them to wait.

  Making sure everyone can see me, can see that any plan to humiliate or blackmail me isn’t going to work, I hold the phone up. I take a photograph of Margot, and then I text Gustav’s number, attaching Margot’s picture and a selfie of me in the white costume and adding the name of the club. I want him to be here. Not just to protect me. I want him to see everything that happens when Margot is around.

  Then I’m ready to begin.

  The girls have brought a row of barstools up on to the podium and arranged them beside a metal shelf to represent a bar laid with a wine bottle and four glasses. They strike louche, masculine poses with their elbows on the shelf, flicking at the strange white belts they are all wearing. Chloe sits astride a stool with her legs spread, just like a man. All of them ogle me.

  The volume is jacked up. It’s some kind of tribal house music, the kind of repetitive, hypnotic beat that pumps inside so that your heart jumps against your bones. I strut across to the pretend bar, kick the ‘guys’ aside and down a glass of wine in one. It’s not pretend wine, though. It’s another glass of tequila and the room tips slightly.

  Chloe takes my arm and pulls me to stand between her legs. She looks me up and down, her face set in a hard, masculine leer. I glance out at the audience. If Margot wants to teach me some kind of lesson, she can think on. My lesbian cherry has already been popped.

  One of the other girls pours another tequila, and as I lean to sip it, my breasts swell heavily over the edge of the tight bra. I arrange myself so that the audience can see my every move, one white thigh crossing slowly over the other, my hand stroking leisurely down my throat. It’s hard to see through the dazzle of footlights at the edge of the stage, but I can feel those hungry female eyes burning. My fingertips brush my breast and because I’m so wrought up, this lightest of touches sends a bolt of excitement sizzling through me.

  I glance over at the mistress’s booth. I can just make out her eyes above the dazzle of lights, but her toy boy is obviously licking her now, because although she seems to be staring at me, there is the half-closed, blank expression of a woman being sucked off.

  I can’t remember where the entrance to the club is, so I won’t even know if, or when, Gustav arrives. Maybe that’s for the best.

  I turn my head so that now all I can see is Chloe. And as if someone else is directing me to follow orders, I take one breast, already squeezed halfway out of the tight bra top, and let the nipple pop out and harden in the air. Chloe’s eyes flash with surprise, and she turns her grin into a masculine leer of desire as she sees what I’m doing. One of the others comes closer to me and mirrors the action on my other breast, tweaking and rubbing the nipple, and a fist of excitement clenches inside me.

  Chloe gives a very faint nod at the two others and they retreat out of sight. She clinks her glass with mine and runs her finger over my wrist, sending a faint shiver of electricity up my arm.

  So this is how it feels to be a proper performer. This is Serena the show-off, getting wholeheartedly into character. I so hope Gustav gets here soon. I so hope he understands, when he sees Margot, that his role is to show her he’s mine and I don’t give a shit for her and her games. This is me, showing her what I’m made of. I glance over at the bar. If Gustav is here, surely that’s where he’ll head if Margot doesn’t somehow waylay him first?

  The barman isn’t serving anyone, however. He’s ogling me, polishing a huge balloon glass over and over as if he’s in a trance. Then he reaches up and turns a small metal handle, and a filmy muslin curtain drops down between the stage and the audience. The arc lights shift around and shine brightly from the back of the stage. We’re going to be shadow dancers.

  Chloe stands up, leaving the stool between us, and pulls me closer so that our faces are touching. She runs her lips over mine. I jerk away, but she pulls me closer and probes my mouth with her tongue, flicking it exaggeratedly so that the audience can see what our outlines are doing.

  I wonder where the others are. Is this going to be a real-life sex show, just the two of us? I let her kiss me. It’s not so unfamiliar. Emilia Robinson, sister of the Robinson stags, got me into a threesome with her Latina bridesmaid when I was supposed to be shooting a ‘bride preparing for her wedding day’ montage in her boudoir. The tequila-shooting barmaid kissed me like this when she seduced me at Pierre’s theatre.

  This behaviour is allowed. Gustav and I agreed long ago that pretty much anything goes, so long as he is there to w
atch, or he gets to see it on film. This is for his benefit, too, when he arrives.

  As Chloe kisses me, someone, presumably the barman, the tequila girl or the other two dancers, fixes the curtain in place so that it stretches taut to make our silhouettes ultra-clear.

  I am just a shadow now. I can do whatever I like, and no one will know me. No one except Margot and Gustav. I just have to trust that he’s here, and that he’s watching.

  There’s a sudden whoop of applause from the audience. I struggle to pull away from Chloe, but she has my face locked between her hands and she continues to kiss me, pulling me to lie across the stools.

  The music descends to a much sexier, deeper beat. Somehow more threatening, too. My nipples scrape across the bar seat as Chloe continues to pin me down, and as I smile up at her she whips a wispy scrap of chiffon round my wrists and ties my hands to the foot bar of the stool.

  Chloe does her Bond girl shimmy, raising her arms in triumph like a boxer, and the audience cheers and whoops to see me tied so elegantly yet firmly. Then one of the other dancers grabs Chloe away from me in a show of possessiveness, and as we are dragged apart I see why the audience are yelping with such delight. The newcomer has a huge white phallus strapped to the belt around her waist. It’s protruding like a huge hard-on from her groin and bouncing eagerly. It must look shockingly sensational against the curtain.

  This other dancer runs her hands over Chloe’s breasts, holds them up and pinches her nipples into sharp points to poke through the flimsy net-like fabric of her leopard-print body. Then she rips it neatly at the waist so that it slithers like a second skin down her legs, leaving her bottom and pussy totally bare.

  Chloe starts to smile as the other dancer gropes and fondles her, and then other hands start touching me. The third girl must be behind me now because my tutu is flipping up to my waist. A white dildo slides down my face. It waggles comically to show me what I’m in for, and the audience wave their arms in the air and dance about with delight.

  The other girl presses up behind Chloe and with her fingers she parts her to reveal a sudden redness. I wonder if they’ve run lipstick up the crack to make the colour show so vividly and, if so, why, when the audience can only see us in monochrome? A finger disappears inside Chloe and I start rubbing myself against the stool in response.

  The girl behind me mirrors the action of her mate, so that her fingers are on me, too, fingering me, fluttering and tickling round to explore my softness, making me wriggle, making my body clench with desire, and then suddenly her fingers are inside me, stirring up new, impatient tremors.

  Is Gustav here yet? What’s he seeing? What’s he thinking? Is this gamble going to pay off? Or is it going to go horribly wrong? Has Margot grabbed hold of him? Is he going to be turned on or is he going to castigate me, when we get home later, for shaming myself, and him?

  The little tremors start to knit together more urgently now, tangling with this new anxiety, and the result is a sticky wetness that makes me fidget between my legs. My nipples brush against the leather seat, then my breasts are squashed down as my bottom tilts more visibly in the air.

  I glance at Chloe, and my stomach gives a lustful twist. She is being bent over in the same way as I am. Our faces are close up. Close enough to kiss. The other dancers keep us in place as they grasp their big thick dildos with their free hands. I can’t see what my assailant is doing, but the dancer behind Chloe is stroking her dildo lovingly over Chloe’s bottom before making it pump and jump like the real thing.

  As I gape at the enormous phallus about to plunge into her, my own warmth is pulled open. A hard, long shaft nudges between my buttocks. I grip the stool as it circles blindly under me, searching for my centre. It brushes over my clitoris, and when the contact makes me jerk backwards, it deliberately repeats the action for the benefit of the eyes watching us. The surface of the shaft seems to be slightly ridged, so that there’s a kind of catching sensation each time it touches or scratches me. The slightest contact sings just that bit longer.

  God. This is good. Doing it in front of a crowd feels shameful and dirty, but so good. Remember to keep it exaggerated and stylised. Remember that I’m just an outline.

  A tiny voice is trying to insinuate that I still have time to behave decently and stop this. But the other, stronger voice, aimed at Margot Levi and any challenge she cares to throw at me, refuses to give in or stop anything.

  And you, if you’re here. Watch me, Gustav. Watch how dirty I can be. I can be so much dirtier than her, any day of the week. She can’t touch us.

  As if it can hear me, the phallus rubs harder against my body, whipping up the warmth as it edges closer. I tip myself up invitingly, but still it’s determined to tease.

  Chloe’s invader is more brutal than mine. A hectic flush suffuses her cheeks as she is suddenly thrown forwards. Her mouth brushes mine as the dildo slams into her.

  Even though the music is deafening you can still sense the excitement that rips through the audience now, swaying like a cornfield then jumping impatiently as they watch the show.

  I force my focus inwards, concentrate on moving sensuously. I tip my bottom higher in the air, arch my throat so everyone can see the invitation. I push at the dancer behind me to invite her to go ahead and do it to me, and she manipulates her dildo to follow my movements, the blunt head of it still hovering millimetres away from my centre.

  ‘Look at you. You’re loving this,’ Chloe yells into my ear as our faces push towards each other again. ‘You lowdown little ho.’

  ‘Think Margot would approve? Come on, girlfriend, don’t look so surprised. You must have known your boss and I were connected, otherwise why would she ask you to entice me here? But maybe you didn’t know she’s my fiancé’s ex-wife?’

  My new friend doesn’t insult me by coming on all innocent – which might be because, far from being belittled, I’m stealing the show. Instead she grins conspiratorially.

  ‘OK. Busted. She made out you were intimately acquainted. But I don’t know why she asked us to bring you here. Some grudge you guys have? But I’d say she’s made a big mistake. It’s backfiring, because you make her look washed-up.’ Chloe flicks her tongue over my lips. ‘You could be the permanent star of this show if you wanted!’

  And then she’s pulled back and temporarily lost to me. I watch her bucking back and forth across the hard little stool, her small tits bunching and swinging over the edge of the seat as her friend rogers her with the dildo. Her mouth opens wider, her blue eyes unblinking, as she gets right into it. The dancer behind pulls her weapon back and pushes it in, hard. High, keening cries escape from Chloe as she’s penetrated.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ I yell to the dancer behind me. ‘Go for it!’

  The chiffon ties stop me twisting round. I can’t even glance over my shoulder. In any case, there’s no response, other than more pushing and pulling. The dildo is creating sensations which go so far and no further. The head has yet to enter me. For some reason my dancer is fixated on rubbing it back and forth to set my clit burning. Maybe she isn’t so experienced, or maybe she’s waiting until Chloe’s been thoroughly seen to, but I crave the spotlight now, because the more tentative she is, the more determined I am to show the audience, and Margot, who is tonight’s diva.

  I bring all my acting skills together to mime my frustration. I stamp my legs apart and together again, and gyrate my butt, and the audience are clapping along in time with my gyrations, but the girl behind me is strong, because every time I rise too far she pushes me back down across the stool and then, as if to punish me for showing off, the dildo is whipped away, catching my clit in one last tease. It leaves me sore and throbbing, and aching for it to come back.

  I struggle and kick with fury, but I’m kicking thin air. Watching Chloe being aroused by that brutal thing has made me greedy, but my dancer and my dildo have gone.

  Oh no, they haven’t. Here they are again. Chloe’s eyes, just about to close as if she was on the poi
nt of coming, widen at the person behind me, then she winks at me before she is thrust violently forwards to keep her in line.

  I’m grabbed by the hips, and there it is again, oh, heaven, warmed now by its contact with my body and edging into place, and then when my dancer pulls me back against her groin, the dildo pushes right up inside me. It’s big, and hard, but maybe because it’s so deep it’s lost the unbending brutality and that ridged feeling. It has a lifelike feel, throbbing and pulsing, and as the delicious sensations expand inside me my legs turn to jelly.

  Chloe’s assailant rears back with her white weapon, the length of it nearly out altogether, and then she thrusts it back in. Both girls seem to be focused far more on me and my dancer than on each other. Their eyes keep flickering to the person behind me and sly grins split their faces. Natural to make me the star turn, I guess. It’s probably part of the act, since I’m the newcomer. The little ingénue in her white fairy costume, dragged on stage all protesting and innocent, yet let’s all witness the animal awakening.

  ‘Gotta keep up!’ gasps Chloe as we rock towards each other.

  ‘Just watch me!’ I flash back.

  But now Chloe loses herself again. As her friend and the music dictate their rhythm, Chloe starts to come.

  And I’m thrown forwards once again. The metal feet of my stool scrape across the floor as my legs are spread wider. My forehead knocks against Chloe’s bare shoulder. I can sense rather than hear her groaning as I race to catch up with her, but I’m dependent on the girl behind me and this curious dildo, which is so lifelike and so responsive that instead of being rigid its super-sized length has swollen to fit me.

  Wild, fierce lust climbs through me, jagged and sharp, goading me in this wild display. As the shaft speeds up inside me, replicating the thrusts of a real man, I cry out like Chloe did, letting the moans shiver through the music. My hands scrabble to keep a hold of my madly rocking stool and I don’t care if Chloe’s acting or not. We are both, for our own purposes and the crowd’s, coming brilliantly together and my dildo even seems able to simulate its own bursting climax.