Читать книгу Dressed to Impress - Elizabeth Coldwell - Страница 5

When Howard recounts the story of how he and Amy first got together, he tells people it began with New Year’s resolutions and ended in love. As with most unreliable narrators, there are a number of details he omits. But that’s where I come in.

Howard Venn was not the type of man likely to be cast in the role of romantic lead. Statisticians are generally under-represented in cinema and Howard’s footwear alone was enough to disqualify him. Pairing orthopaedic sandals with white socks, Howard carried himself with a punctilious bearing that said simply pedant. To most people, he looked like an ascetic. But then most people didn’t know that Howard had spent the last hour of this rainy Monday afternoon hunched over in the supply room on Level 3 of the Baker & Sons building, wanking over pictures of Amy that he wasn’t supposed to have.

Howard had not had much luck with women. He found it too intimidating to approach them out of the blue, without a formal introduction. Howard preferred structured environments. He had signed up to several adult education classes in the past few months, such as Still Life for Beginners, Part 1: Fruit and How to Get Your Game On (although he never ended up attending that one). He also enrolled in a salsa class for singles, rationalising that everyone would know why they were really there, thus forestalling the awkwardness and recriminations with which his attempts at seduction were usually met.

The consensus among the class was that Howard led well and always maintained a perfect frame, but would never set the world on fire. Howard had picked up on this, of course, and could only look on with a mixture of detachment and despair as one by one the students paired off. Brent – a fortysomething-ish man with a bad comb-over who was almost as wide as he was tall and could not get through a single song without sweating through the back of his cheap polyester shirt – seemed to fare particularly well. Howard was at a loss as to the source of Brent’s unusual magnetism. When he made discreet inquiries with his fellow students, they replied that Brent had personality, Brent was fun. No one had ever told Howard he was fun.

By the end of the course, Brent had succeeded with not one but two of the female students. Howard wondered how such an arrangement could possibly work. Having little experience in these matters, he could only assume it would operate as some sort of sexual time-share where each woman got precisely half of one week, and alternate weekends. Howard did not imagine this would be a particularly satisfying state of affairs for any woman. But then he could not imagine one woman, let alone two, being attracted to Brent, so clearly there was more than one part of the equation he hadn’t solved.

The upshot of all this was that Howard was the only man left standing alone at the end-of-class dance, in a red sequined shirt that caught the light like a disco ball, and a pair of trousers so tight he feared he’d caused himself permanent testicular damage.

Across town, Amy Jenssen was having a similarly disheartening evening. She had been harangued into a striptease class by her well-meaning friend Celine, who thought that it would improve Amy’s self-esteem. She had ignored Amy’s protestations that having to gyrate in front of floor-to-ceiling mirrors – next to women more lithe and coordinated than herself – in little more than a feather boa and underpants would likely be counter-productive. But Celine was determined, and so Amy gave in.

Tonight was the final night of class, when each student was to invite their significant other and perform for them a routine they had learned over the past month. Not having a significant other, Amy performed her lap dance to an empty chair.

Both Howard and Amy had resolved that this would be the year they found love, but at the six-month mark, things were not looking so good. Amy had been on one failed blind date after another and Howard had not fared much better. Neither, though, had considered an office romance. Sure, they had shared a brief kiss under the mistletoe at last year’s Christmas party, but the punch had been heavily spiked, and it was a kiss executed with more enthusiasm than skill, the clunky frames of Howard’s glasses colliding with Amy’s own in a graceless plastic pas de deux.

When Howard sees Amy in the photo and framing store the evening after the salsa dance ball, he hides behind a display case. It’s not that he dislikes her – quite the opposite, in fact. He still remembers their kiss with fondness (and bewilderment at his uncharacteristic boldness). But, after his demoralising evening, the last thing he wants to do is put himself out there. And Amy – who isn’t in the mood for company either – is concentrating intently on which photos to print at the self-service kiosk. She stares at the screen in indecision, and casts furtive glances over her shoulder before finally confirming her selection. When a shop assistant stops to ask if she needs any help, she blocks his view of the screen with her body. Howard watches in fascination as a pinkish blush creeps up her milky-white neck. When she hurriedly gathers up the photos and stuffs them into her bag, he can’t help but wonder what she has to hide. He won’t be wondering long.

In her haste, Amy hasn’t finalised her session properly. The machine has begun to print a duplicate set of photos and shows no signs of stopping. Howard knows it will charge Amy’s credit card with each frame it prints, and as there are no staff nearby he steps in, cancels the operation himself and collects the extra prints. Most of Amy’s photos are happy snaps, innocuous enough. But not all of them. The last three are experiments for Amy’s erotic self-portraiture class (another of Celine’s bright ideas).

The first of this triptych is a picture of Amy dressed as a harem girl, in a costume that to most people wouldn’t be terribly risqué. But it is to Howard, accustomed as he is to seeing Amy in her regulation business shirt-and-skirt combo. He examines the image in detail, trying to determine if Amy has underwear on beneath her filmy blue trousers, and, if so, what colour.

In the second picture, Amy wears a lacy black skirt and a tight beige sweater that plunges into a deep vee between her ample breasts. She’s lying atop a heavy oak desk and her shapely legs are stretched up into the air at a right angle to her body. Howard’s gaze travels along the long line of her pins, past her lacy stocking-tops and over her neatly crossed ankles. When he sees her shiny black Mary Janes with their stiletto heels, his cock jumps in his trousers. It jumps even higher when he sees the way Amy’s back is arched, her head hanging just a little over the edge of the desk, her brown eyes staring directly at him through her spectacles, the epitome of the naughty librarian, every bibliophile’s pin-up girl. There’s a sign on the desk saying ‘Shhh’, and Amy has a finger pressed up to her crimson-painted mouth.

The last photo is the most revealing. It shows Amy facing the camera, legs spread wide as she sits astride a wooden chair. All she’s wearing is a satiny red bra, a black underbust corset and frilly red panties. Her tiny waist is whittled down to practically nothing by the bones of the corset, her already generous breasts and hips and ass now the obscenely exaggerated curves of fertility statues. Her feet are bare, which Howard finds hopelessly erotic. He wants to drop to his knees and suck on her pretty pink toes.

He finds himself now in a rather awkward position. For one thing, he has an erection. And he doesn’t know what to do with the photos. He can’t leave them there for some stranger to find, but he can’t give them to Amy at the office either, for reasons that are obvious. So he carries the photos with him when he goes to the framing counter to pick up his Still Life achievement certificate, then heads back to his empty apartment.

The next day Howard brings the photos with him to work. To leave them at home would be an admission that he intends to keep them, and he knows that would be wrong. He puts the innocent photos into his filing cabinet, but dares not leave the others there. Those he carries on his person at all times. He promises himself he’ll return the whole set to Amy today. All he has to do is wait until he knows she’ll be away from her desk, and leave them in her drawer. She gets the photos back, he gets to remain anonymous. Simple. Except that the pictures are so bewitching he can’t bear to part with them, even though they’re burning in a hole in the pocket of his jacket and the longer he keeps them the guiltier he feels.

But guilty isn’t all Howard feels. Whenever he closes his eyes, he sees Amy. He can’t concentrate on his work; he sends the wrong reports to his clients; he is afraid to stand up because he is hard, again. To his growing consternation, Howard realises there is only one way to deal with this sort of problem.

Carrying a file in front of him for cover, he heads down the long hallway to the supply room at the end of his floor. Checking carefully to make sure no one sees him, he unlocks the door with his master key and flicks on the light. An anaemic glow illuminates the steel shelves lining the walls. There is a single chair in the room, used by the clerks when they do stocktaking, but other than that the room is bare. It’s perfect for Howard’s purposes. He shuts and locks the door behind him, then takes the photos of Amy out of his pocket and lines them up, reverentially, on one of the shelves closest to the light. His belt makes a clanking sound when his trousers hit the floor.

Howard likes to draw out his pleasure, so he strokes himself through his white Y-fronts to start off with, tracing the outline of his cock under the fabric. The cotton feels good against his skin, and he uses the material to increase the friction on his shaft. Only when he feels ready to burst does he free his cock. A clear drop of pre-come rests on the tip: Howard rubs the pad of his index finger over it. He licks his palm to make it wet, wraps it around his shaft and jerks off gently, staring all the while at Amy’s photographs. Would she like watching this? he wonders. Would she like the way he’s now gripping his shaft with both hands? The way he’s leaning back and pumping his hips up and down, thrusting his cock up into the ever-tightening grip of his own two fists?

His gaze flits between the three photos. He can’t say which one he prefers, but the one where Amy’s finger rests against her red red lips captivates him right now. He snatches it off the shelf, holding it up close to his face.

‘Amy,’ he moans, imagining that sweet mouth on him, her long strawberry blonde hair brushing over his thighs, ‘oh, Amy, yeah, suck me.’

Howard is about to come – his balls are drawn up tight to his body, his thighs clenching rhythmically. He takes his hand off his cock for a moment to pull up his singlet. He hadn’t thought to bring tissues with him and he’s too focused on the impending explosion of his orgasm to remember that the reason it’s called a supply room is because it stores supplies. Like tissues.

It is at this moment that a key sounds in the lock and the door swings open to reveal the object of his fantasies, in the flesh. But Howard is too far gone to stop.

‘I’m sorry,’ he gasps, as he ejaculates over his rippling stomach, ‘so, so sorry.’

Amy is dumbstruck. There is a lot for her to take in. First, that Howard has those pictures of her, which she never thought to show to anyone. Second, that everything she thought she knew about him was wrong. And third, that even if she can’t see all of him because of the shadow she’s casting, Howard is hot. Amy doesn’t know how she never saw that before, never saw beyond the spreadsheets and the sandals.

Cheeks burning with shame, Howard pulls up his trousers and stumbles past her without a word. Amy knows she should feel outraged, but all she feels is aroused. Oh, and flattered. She has never considered herself beautiful, with her too-big nose and her slightly lopsided smile. When she picks up her photos and looks at them again, really looks at them, she sees how wrong she is. She may not be perfect, but that doesn’t mean she’s not beautiful. For the rest of the day Amy walks around as if she’s high.

Howard is not in the next day, though, or the day after that, or for the rest of the week. Amy begins to worry that he’s not coming back. She asks around, but no one has heard from him. So she bribes the temp in Human Resources – more boobs than brains – and gets Howard’s private email address. She has to let him know that everything is OK, that even if she is puzzled about how he got the photos, she isn’t angry with him. And she knows just how to prove it.

When Amy gets home that night, she takes three more self-portraits, each in a different style – one stereotypically ‘sexy’, one classy and the other explicit – because she doesn’t know what Howard would like best. That remote shutter gadget she thought she’d never use is certainly coming in handy. After a quick shot of whisky for courage, she sends Howard an email, attaching the three original photos that he has already seen, and the new ones she’s just taken.

To: Howard Venn

From: Amy Jenssen

Subject: Photos

Attachments: Amy.zip

Here’s the complete set. If you like what you see, meet me at Pirelli’s for dinner tomorrow night at 8pm.

We missed you this week.

Amy

Howard has spent the last four days in his apartment, too ashamed to go to work, trawling the internet for advice on appropriate wording for an apology card. He sees Amy’s email immediately, and his stomach lurches. He’s sure the attachment will be a copy of the complaint Amy plans on lodging with management. Not that he blames her. He is thoroughly disgusted with himself.

He has to read the message three times before its meaning sinks in. She won’t be making a complaint. She missed him. She actually wants to see him again. With a shaky hand, Howard downloads the photos. He is of course intimately acquainted with the first three, but not with the others. Exhibit 4: Amy, straddling a chair, biting her lip seductively, dressed like a schoolgirl in a plaid skirt and white cotton shirt tied up to expose her midriff. Exhibit 5: Amy, drink in hand, blowing a kiss to the camera, in a semi-transparent chiffon peignoir that hints at the bounty beneath.

And finally there is Exhibit 6: Amy, wearing only her birthday suit, bent forward over the desk, looking back over her shoulder into the camera and winking. Howard makes a strangled sound. He can see right between her plump thighs to the blonde-furred crease in between. The lips of her sex look swollen, and he knows she was aroused when she took the photo. It is only with supreme effort, and some differential calculus, that Howard manages to get his libido under control. He’s saving himself for Amy.

When he arrives at the restaurant, Amy hardly recognises him. His usually tousled hair is swept back; he wears a suit and expensive Italian shoes. He searches the room for her anxiously, and when their eyes meet a broad smile transforms his usually serious face. She stands to greet him and his eyes widen at the way her red dress clings to the flare of her hips.

‘Hi, Howard, I’m really glad you came.’ Amy winces at her double entendre. ‘Um, I mean, I’m so happy you’re here. You look great.’

‘Thanks, my brother gave me some advice on what to wear.’ Howard blushes. ‘I don’t go out much.’

Once the waiter is out of earshot, he starts to apologise. ‘Amy, I’m so sorry about everything, I –’

‘It’s OK, Howard.’

‘No, you have to let me explain,’ he insists, and the next words come out in one long rush of a sentence. ‘I saw you at the print shop that night, but I was too shy to say hello, and then the assistant interrupted you and you got flustered and you forgot to stop the machine and it just kept on printing. It had already printed those photos before I stopped it, and I couldn’t just leave them there. And then, last Monday when you …’ Howard finally pauses, not for breath, but because what can he possibly say that would make things all right?

‘It’s fine, honestly –’

‘It’s so not, what I did was wrong, it was –’

‘Howard,’ Amy interrupts, ‘I said it’s fine. I’m grateful it was you who found them, not some random weirdo. So stop apologising. And … about that other thing … well, it’s my right to be upset or not. And I’m not.’

She slides a hand up Howard’s thigh.

‘Now, let’s start our date for real.’

To Howard’s delight, Amy continues to make physical contact with him throughout the evening, playfully slapping his arm when he makes an unexpected joke, letting her hand linger on his when she passes him the bread basket. He insists on paying, even though Amy demurs. He is old-fashioned, he admits. But it’s the least he can do, under the circumstances.

He thanks her for a lovely evening and sees her to a cab. He makes no assumptions that Amy will sleep with him. But Amy is feeling bold. She knows what she wants; it is within her reach; she wants Howard. When he opens the door for her, she whispers in his ear ‘Come with me, I want to show you my studio,’ then pulls him into the cab with her.

It’s only a short trip to her house, where Amy removes her glasses and pours them some wine, and Howard follows her into her study.

‘This is it,’ Amy says. ‘Look familiar?’

Howard’s throat goes dry. He definitely remembers the desk, although, when he saw it, Amy’s delectable body was draped over it.

Here goes nothing, she thinks, unzipping her dress and letting it fall to the ground with a hush.

Howard also recognises the lingerie Amy is wearing. His collar suddenly seems too tight. When she strips out of her stockings, her corset, her bra and her panties, all the air seems to leave the room.

‘Amy, you’re –’

‘Yes?’

‘– so lovely.’

She spins, slowly, showing off her peach of an ass. When she bends forward over the desk and looks back at Howard, the expression on his face is pure unadulterated lust.

Howard approaches lovemaking as he approaches most things in his life, with the precision required to achieve the most desirable outcome. His trembling hands move over Amy’s body slowly, calculating the degree of her response to each touch, assigning each a value weighted in proportion to her pleasure.

But when Amy shimmies her hips in desperation and pleads, ‘Howard, lick me, please, put your tongue in me,’ she undermines any goal of orderly erotic progression and forces him to act on instinct instead. Gone are the carefully measured caresses of before. He falls on her with an intensity both thrilling and frightening. The man Amy thought she knew is gone. This man, behind her, who traps her against the desk, who growls when she tries to turn around, is some other person entirely.

Howard’s hand presses down on the small of her back, and she feels his long tongue snaking into the hot wet core of her, his nose pressing against her anus, his fingers worrying at her clit. She comes on his face before he’s even taken his coat off.

When the aftershocks have died away, he helps her to her feet.

‘Wow, Howard, just, wow.’

Amy starts to undress him now, a reverse striptease of coat, tie, cufflinks, shirt. He keeps his eyes open when she kisses him, as if he’s scared she’ll disappear. That just makes Amy hotter. When she pulls his belt free and pushes his trousers and pants down, though, she is taken aback.

‘Sweet fucking Christ, Howard! That’s not a cock, that’s a club!’

Amy is too shocked to watch her language. She knew it was big – she had seen his member in the half-light of the storage room, before he had turned away from her – but she didn’t know it was this big. Nothing had quite prepared her for the sight of that magnificent thing, emerging fierce and flushed and swollen from the dark blond thatch of his pubic hair.

Howard looks embarrassed.

‘It’s OK,’ he says, ‘we don’t have to, you know, go all the way.’

‘Uh, excuse me? Of course we’re going all the way.’ Amy strokes the prominent ridge running up the centre of his penis with her fingernail then binds the shaft with her hand. She starts pumping it up and down in short, fast strokes.

‘But I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘You won’t hurt me. Believe me, after what you just did to me, I’m more than ready to take you.’

She sits on the desk and opens her legs wide.

‘So come get me.’

Howard advances, but doesn’t try to enter her yet. First he examines her, pinching and pulling and probing at her sex until he’s satisfied that she is indeed wet enough. Amy whimpers and squirms when his thumb circles roughly over her clit.

‘Don’t move,’ he growls, as he spreads apart the delicate pink frills of her cunt and pinches her bud. ‘I’m not done yet.’

And with that he wrings another shattering climax from her.

He enters her while she is still coming, and with each spasm her clenching sex sucks his cock higher inside her, until he is buried deep in her, right up to the root. He cries out as her nails rake his back. She feels so good to him, so right, he doesn’t know how long he’s going to last. He’s afraid he’ll shame himself by coming too quickly, so he pulls out. It will buy him the precious seconds he needs to regain his composure.

Amy looks furious, until Howard orders her on top of him. Then she smiles like a Cheshire cat and pushes him onto his back and climbs aboard, circling the head of his cock teasingly before slamming down onto him. She arches her back to let him hit her depths, then tilts her pelvis forward and tenses her inner thighs.

‘Fuck, Amy,’ Howard groans, ‘you’re so tight.’

She fucks him fast, then slow, then fast again, refusing to let him get accustomed to her rhythm. It is maddening and she knows it. But she also knows when it is time to stop teasing and start an undulating slide up and down his cock that will wrench a release from him whether he wants to come or not. In the haze of his pleasure, Howard thinks he can hear a shutter clicking, and he shouts himself hoarse as Amy rides him, ruthless, to the end.