Читать книгу Game - Justine Elyot - Страница 5

He makes me wait two weeks for the first envelope.

Two weeks of cajolery and attempted entrapment into spilling the sex beans – but Lloyd is not to be drawn. Even when I stopped wanking him, right on the teetering tip of orgasm, and told him I wanted to milk him for information before I milked him for anything else. Even when he entered the office to find me posing on top of the desk in corset, suspenders and stockings, promising great things in exchange for a clue. Even when I locked myself into a chastity device and told him that the key would only appear on receipt of certain intelligence.

None of it worked.

He finished himself off. He swept me off the desk and sent me away to dress, with a smack to my arse. He … well, he didn’t have to do anything about the last one. I got bored of it after about ten minutes.

So now, two weeks after the deal was made, I am none the wiser about my first challenge.

I am completing some induction training for a group of new kitchen staff when my PA, Kathleen, trots up to me and tells me that ‘Mr Ellison says there’s an important note for you in your pigeonhole’.

I dismiss her, fling a bundle of leaflets and whatnot at the newbies and almost run out of Conference Room One towards the staffroom.

In the internet age, the pigeonholes are only used now for payslips and birthday cards, but they still cover one wall with boxy wooden monotony.

A couple of chambermaids are taking a tea break. They watch me march up to my mailbox and take out an A4 manila envelope. It’s quite thick. Nothing is written on the front.

I nod at the maids and subdue my urge to rip the thing open there and then, taking it instead into the privacy of the office.

The office, this quiet and sane oasis amid the hotel’s perma-bustle, always calms me. After a year, it’s lost all the associations I used to have with the former manager, Chase, and the stupid fixation I had with him. Now it belongs to me and Lloyd. Especially since the day we christened the desk …

Sitting at it, I visualise us on top of it, me riding Lloyd energetically while the stationery tipped over and fell on the carpet. It makes me smile.

I am still smiling when I pick up the paperknife and make an elegant slit in the envelope. I tip it upside down on the desktop, watching its contents slide out.

One sheet of Luxe Noir writing paper, one vellum business card.

Dear Sophie

Don’t ever tell me I’m not good to you. I’ve designed this first challenge around two of your favourite pursuits. One, of course, is sex. The other is photography. I don’t know what’s in your dark room these days, but one day I hope you’ll do your fixing and developing in our shared place of residence.

A task with you behind the camera would be too easy, though. Where would be the challenge in that? No, what I’m asking you to do is swap places and become the model.

The lady whose business card you will find in here is a highly regarded photographer who specialises in human sexuality. Her ‘thing’ is to capture the face at the moment of orgasm. Nice, eh? I’ve booked you in for a session.

Call the number on the card when you get this letter and she’ll give you your appointment time, and directions to the studio.

I think you’ll agree that this is a gentle, easy opening challenge for you. Nothing to scare a seasoned campaigner. Best of luck – and, of course, the evidence will reach me in the form of the completed photo set.

I look forward to viewing it.

Love

Lloyd.

I put the note down, waiting for the sinking feeling to hit the pit of my stomach before inhaling.

Lloyd knows I hate having my photo taken.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? It’s not as if I’m shy. I’ve put out and opened up for so many men. I’ve worn outrageous outfits. I’ve demonstrated sex toys at live events. I’ve even danced in a peep-show booth. But there’s something about the camera that scares me. It captures you, holds you in a moment, forces you to see yourself the way you are seen by others. I find that scrutiny very difficult to take. It reminds me to be self-conscious, something I rarely am. I don’t need the reminder.

I have enough pictures of Lloyd to fill a gallery, but the only extant photographs of myself in the last two years are a head shot on the hotel website and a picture of my arse taken on his mobile phone.

He has set me up to fail.

‘Damn you, Ellison,’ I murmur, picking up the business card.

She is called Sasha Margetts. She has all the right letters after her name, but underneath it I read ‘Boudoir and Erotic’. Is this where wannabe porn starlets go for their portfolio shots? I wonder. Will she have me licking suggestively on a lollipop while I shake my airbrushed booty? Or will it all be dead tasteful with soft lighting and feathers covering the rude bits? Only one way to find out …

I reach for the phone at least a dozen times before finally going through with the call. I contemplate ringing Lloyd first and haranguing him for picking such an odious task, but that would only give him some kind of perverse satisfaction, so I don’t. I’m not going to fail this on the nursery slopes.

‘Hello, Sasha Margetts.’

‘Hi, my name’s Sophie Martin.’

‘Oh, yes, my afternoon booking! Is it still OK? Can you make it?’

‘I think so. Not sure of the exact time though – I didn’t make the booking myself.’

‘Oh no, that’s right. It was your agent, wasn’t it? Lloyd?’

I have to take a very deep breath. My agent? ‘S’right,’ I manage.

‘Well, I’ll be ready for you at two. Do you know where we are?’

‘Your card says Carrington Mews – I think that’s quite near here. Sloane Square tube station?’

‘Yes, that’s the closest. We’ll do the solo shots first.’

‘We’ll … solo shots?’ I struggle to make sense of this. Does she mean that there will be another model in some of the photographs?

‘Yes. You don’t need to bring anything, by the way. I’ve a full wardrobe of costumes and props and I’ll do make-up here. So, two o’clock then?’

‘Yeah. Great.’ I put the phone down, and then I can’t prevent myself calling Lloyd. ‘Lloyd!’

He chuckles down the phone at me. ‘You got it then?’

‘What the fuck does she mean? “We’ll do the solo shots first”? What does that mean? What else did you tell her to do?’

‘Wait and see.’

‘I think, as my agent, you should keep me in the loop.’

‘I think, as the orchestrator of the challenge, I should make this as hard for you as I can. Ah, why did I say that? “Hard for you.” I think I am. Thinking about what’s going to happen –’

‘Which is?’

‘As I said before –’

‘Oh, don’t bother.’ I hang up.

I look at the clock. Eleven fifteen. Am I going to do this?

Yes, I am. Failure is not an option.

I think about changing for the appointment, but in the end I turn up in the chichi Chelsea courtyard in the same charcoal-grey skirt suit I wore to work. At least Sasha Margetts will see that I am not some Botoxed bimbo but a bona fide businesswoman who doesn’t get messed around.

Though I suspect I might get messed up.

The door is answered by a smiling woman in her forties, casually but expensively dressed, giving every impression of a model-turned-photographer. In fact, I think I vaguely recognise her.

‘Yes, yes,’ she laughs, responding to my quizzical frown. ‘Sash Derby as was. That’s me.’

‘Oh God. It is you, isn’t it? I remember those perfume adverts you did.’

We climb a staircase, quoting in unison the corny line she had had to speak.

‘I know, dreadful, weren’t they?’ she says, ushering me into a vast white studio space, lined and surrounded with clothes racks and storage units. ‘I much prefer what I do now. No more pouting and trying to look mysterious. Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean …’

‘It’s fine. I’m not really a model. I’m a hotelier.’

‘Oh? But you want to break into the scene, your agent said.’ She stands over by a small sink unit and waves a kettle at me. ‘Tea? Coffee? Or sometimes my models need a tot of something stronger, just to dispel the nerves.’

‘He said that, did he? Oh, tea’s fine. White, no sugar.’

‘Isn’t it true?’

‘Oh, if he says it is, I’m sure it is.’ I’m skirting close to a fail, I think. I have to go with the flow. She has been given a story, and it’s my job to stick to it. ‘The hotel’s great, but I’m looking for something on the side. Where I can express myself.’

‘That’s terrific. That’s what we need to discuss. How do we best express you, your personality and your individuality, through the medium of my camera?’

Stumped, I look for inspiration amongst the portraits on the wall. Most are innocuous enough – beautiful girls in cashmere wraps or naked but for jewellery. Until you look at their faces. Rapt, caught in another world, another state of being. Their vulnerability is shocking and arousing.

‘Seems to me,’ I say, trying not to let my voice tremble, ‘that I won’t get much choice in that. One’s face does what it does at that crucial moment.’

‘Yes, you can’t fake it.’ Sash appears at my shoulder, inspecting her work along with me. ‘It’s a moment when you are nothing but yourself. The masks peeled off, the face metaphorically bare.’

‘That’s a strangely frightening thought.’

She puts her hand on my shoulder. I’m not tactile, outside the bedroom, and I flinch a little.

‘You’re not the first person to think so. Come on. Sit down and we’ll talk about your needs.’

I take my tea and perch on her white leather sofa. ‘Didn’t Lloyd give you any idea of what was wanted?’

She laughs. ‘Oh yes, he did. But I’m starting with you. You’re the girl in the picture. What are you getting out of this?’

A win. I’m getting to win.

‘I’m getting to represent myself as what I am.’

‘Which is?’

‘An insatiable whore.’

She is taken aback. For a moment, all she can do is stare at me.

‘Sorry not to put it more delicately,’ I say. ‘I suppose people generally say that they want to express their flowering sexuality or their empowering femininity or whatever. But I don’t dress it up. I’m not a flowery feminine sexually empowered blah-de-blah. I’m an insatiable whore. That’s what you’ll see. That’s what you’ll get.’

Sash sips at her tea.

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘You sound a little bit angry. Are you sure you want to do this?’

‘I’m only angry because people don’t like insatiable whores. Well, they do really, but they won’t admit it, so we get bad press. It’s not fair, is it?’

‘I suppose not. So, when we pick props you want something fairly full-on? Aggressively sexual, almost?’

‘Yeah.’ I think of Lloyd looking at the photos, knowing that I hate standing behind a camera. I want him to know how I feel about it. ‘Aggressively sexual. That hits my spot.’

‘That’s a powerful concept. We could build some strong images around it. You’re a woman in charge of your sexuality, using it freely, without guilt. Actually, I can really work with that.’ Sasha’s face lights up. ‘This could be a wonderful set. Come and pick some props.’

Sasha has every type of luxe fabric and body decoration imaginable. I run my fingers through marabou and faux fur and lace and ropes of pearls. In another box, she has her kinky stuff. It looks tempting, but I’m not going to be tied up or trussed for this shoot. I’m going to be free.

‘I don’t want props,’ I decide. ‘Maybe just that chair. Just me, in the buff, on a chair. Keep it simple, yeah?’

‘I think simplicity will be the key to this set. It’s all about you and your attitude. Are you ready? Do you want to take off your clothes now?’

I distract her while I strip off my business suit by talking about the make and model of her camera. I want her to know that I know my stuff. I want her to know what she is dealing with.

By the time I’m down to my black bra and knickers, we have covered image processors and the respective merits of manual and automatic focus adjustment.

‘Do you want some underwear shots first?’ she asks politely.

‘Nah.’ I look her in the eye as I unhook my bra then ease down my panties. I maintain a smile that I hope isn’t too forced. ‘Let’s start as we mean to go on.’

I fling up my arms to reveal everything, my breasts rising to optimum presentability as my hands stretch high.

‘OK, OK, keep this pose, legs wide, arms up, looking straight at me. Lovely, perfect, that’s great, Sophie.’

Light flashes, pow pow pow, while I face down the lens, my expression almost a scowl. Not a come hither, but a come and get it if you dare.

I move to the chair and sit, legs akimbo, imagining the photographs and how Lloyd will feel when he sees them. I glare, thrust out my chest, kick out my legs, cup my breasts, snarl, muss my hair, bend my knees and, finally, when Sash has melted away and become her camera, I put my hand flat on my crotch, between my pussy lips and throw back my head.

‘Are you ready for this, Sophie?’ Sash’s voice is gentle and breathy. I wonder briefly if this turns her on. Is this her perversion?

‘Ready to wank for the camera? Bring it on.’

She exhales, almost whistling, and lines herself up behind the viewfinder, hand on the button. Not the same button I have my hand on.

‘Tell me what gets you off, Sophie. What do you think about when you touch yourself?’

‘I think about how much I need it. How much I want a cock. How much I want to be bent over with something thick and hard pushing into me, pinning me down.’

‘Lovely. Go on.’ Pow pow pow. I draw languid circles around my clit.

‘I think of all the men I’ve had. Men and women. All the tongues that have licked me, all the arms that have held me down, all the come I’ve swallowed, all the cocks I’ve had in my cunt and my arse, so many, loads of them, loads of loads, all shot in me.’

Pow pow pow. I breathe more deeply, dig more deeply, rubbing faster.

‘Are you really insatiable?’

‘God, yeah, ask anyone at the hotel. Ask Lloyd. He can do me four, five times a day but I’ll still try for more. Before we got together I used to pick up strangers, just because I wanted to. They used to offer me money, think I must be a prostitute. When they found out I was just a slut, they thought all their Christmases had come at once. They came back, and they brought their friends, and my life was one long, hot gang-bang, cock after cock after cock …’

‘But now Lloyd’s fucking you?’

‘Yeah, but he likes to watch too. He gets off on me being this horny bitch who needs it all the time. That’s why I’m here … I think … I can’t remember …’

‘Stop thinking. Just work yourself, get yourself there.’

‘He wants the world to know it. He wants everyone to know I’m a sex-mad whore with a cunt that’s open all hours. Everyone will see this, everyone will look at my face and see it … oh.’

That’s it. It’s done. I have been staring at the camera lens all the while, but now, after one stunned stretch of my eyes I have to screw them shut, have to hide from that implacable gaze while the impulses sweep and swoop through my nervous system and gush out through my clit.

‘Oh Sophie,’ whispers Sash, clicking her last and rushing over to take my hands and stroke them. ‘That was perfect. That was astonishing. Are you all right?’

‘Uh-huh. Gimme a minute.’

The doorbell rings.

‘Ah, that’ll be him.’

I stop lolling and sit bolt upright, thighs clamped shut, arms crossed over breasts. Him?

The solo shots are done, but there is more to come.

Sash slips away down the stairs. I hear her unbolt and open the door, but the voices are too faint to pick up. As the sound of feet hits the steps again, I grab a fur throw out of the prop box and wrap myself in it before the company arrives.

‘Oh, don’t cover up on my account.’

‘Lloyd!’

I give him my fiercest glare, but he is unruffled, threading his way past the tripod and camera towards me.

‘Who’s looking after the hotel?’

‘Kathleen’s fine for a couple of hours. There’s nothing exciting going on.’

‘Famous last words.’

He touches the side of my face, just above my temple, but I draw away, angry with him about all kinds of things, only some of which I can identify.

‘Chill,’ he says. ‘Smile. You’re on candid camera.’

‘A bit too bloody candid,’ I grumble.

‘I thought you’d be in your element.’

‘Do you want to see what we’ve got so far?’ invites Sophie, and he goes to join her as she fast-forwards through a few digital stills.

‘Come and see, Sophie,’ he says, but I don’t want to look at them. ‘Suit yourself,’ he mutters.

I watch him from the corner of my eye. His lips are curled up at one side, as if something amuses him, but his eyes are intensely focused, almost anxious. ‘I remember when you used to look at me like that,’ he says.

‘I was looking at you.’

‘Back when I worked in the cocktail bar. You always had this look. Kind of “I want you, but I hate that I want you, so I’ll pretend to myself that I don’t.” Remember?’

‘No. Because I didn’t want you. Not back then.’

‘Yes, you did.’

His flat assertion needles me, and makes me question myself. Is he right? Did I want him without knowing it? What were the implications of that? Were my thoughts not to be trusted?

Sash switches off the viewer and claps her hands, dispelling the tension. ‘So. Lloyd. You had some ideas for this section of the shoot, I believe.’

‘Yeah. Soph, come over here.’

He sounds conciliatory, a little exasperated. He sits on the sofa and pats the space beside him. I wonder if he wants me to fail or succeed. Which would be the better outcome for him?

I sit next to him, but not on the side he indicates. Instead, his discarded jacket lies between us, a no-man’s-land of light-grey pure wool.

‘What are you going to make me do?’

‘Oh goodness, I only photograph consenting subjects!’ exclaims Sasha. ‘There’s no forcing involved.’

Lloyd turns so his face isn’t visible to her and mouths the word ‘Fail’ with a raise of his eyebrows. I have to save this if I want to pass the test.

‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘Lloyd and I … we have this sparring kind of relationship. It’s just our idea of fun.’

‘I see,’ says Sash, but I doubt she really does.

‘We like to push each other’s boundaries,’ he adds. ‘Challenge each other. That’s what this is all about, really.’

‘A challenge?’

‘Exploring limits,’ he says. ‘Isn’t it, Soph?’

‘Something like that.’

‘So, I told Sasha we could do some action shots.’

‘By action you mean …?’

‘Sex.’

‘Porn?’

‘No!’ trills Sasha. ‘I don’t do porn. I do erotic and boudoir. These will be sensual, non-explicit shots of your faces and upper bodies during the act of love.’

I nearly vomit. The act of love. With his customary presence of mind, Lloyd speaks hastily over my incipient snort.

‘Of course, we understand that. Sophie’s being cheeky.’ He gives my wrist a little tap. ‘Bad Sophie.’

The bastard has me hot again. Fuck him. How dare he?

I move a little closer to him, rumpling the jacket. He reaches an arm behind me, pressing a fingertip to the nape of my neck, a small but devastating connection. I start to believe that I can do this. My breathing deepens.

‘So, I can fold out the couch for you to use,’ suggests Sash. ‘Or I can put cushions on the floor, or in the cupboard I have a sex chair, even a swing …’

‘A swing! Ooh, exciting! Can I see?’

‘I was going to say I don’t really recommend the swing. I have to be seriously on top of my game to get good shots from it. It’s just so … swingy.’

‘Well, the sex chair then? Lloyd?’

‘Yeah, sex chair sounds interesting.’

‘OK, I’ll get it out. Can I get you two a drink while I set it up?’

‘No,’ says Lloyd. ‘We’ll just get warmed up.’

And, without warning, he tilts my head and swoops down to claim my lips. God knows what happens to his jacket, but we crush it between us, too caught up in arms and legs to care about its pristine creaselessness.

‘So,’ he questions me, between thrusts of tongue, ‘did you come just now? For the camera?’

‘Shut up. You know I did.’

‘I wondered if you would.’ Tongue goes back in, tongue draws back out. ‘But you’re so flushed. I love it when you’re flushed.’ More kissing. ‘I can’t wait to see the pictures.’

‘Who says I’ll show them to you?’

‘Oh, they’ll come to me first. I’m paying for them.’ His leg wedges itself over mine, trapping me underneath it.

‘I hate to think how much they’ll cost.’

‘Hmm, well, yeah, so do I.’ He kisses me again, the longest, dirtiest snog so far. ‘But I’m thinking of it as an investment.’

‘Oh my!’ Sash interrupts us from the centre of the floor. ‘Please come and do that for my camera. You have such chemistry.’

I cast a bleary look over to the chair she has assembled. It’s not what I imagined. For some reason I thought it would be a dungeon fixture with cuffs and stuff – in fact, it is a simple padded S-shape in expensive-looking zebra print leather. It’s almost more a bed than a chair, good and wide and full of possibilities.

‘So this is a sex chair?’ Lloyd rises to his feet, freeing me from my limb bondage.

‘There are various designs,’ says Sash.

‘I know. I haven’t seen this type before though. It looks so comfortable.’

She laughs, patting the padded upholstery. ‘It is. Come and see for yourself.’

She flits back to her camera, preparing for the highlight of the set. ‘So then, Lloyd. Time for your striptease. Now, you’re a male model, you need to bust out the moves.’

He mock-snarls at me and does that whip-cracking belt buckle thing that makes my knees weak. It lands on the floor in a curl of shiny leather, reminding me of all the times I’ve been struck with it.

Once the socks and tie are disposed of, he deals with the trousers, stepping out of them elegantly, then removing his pants so that he stands in only his long white work shirt, open at the collar, linked at the cuffs.

The inevitable fiddling with cuff links leads to the moment of revelation – the slow unbuttoning of the shirt, opening up on to a pale freckled chest, a stomach flatter than it used to be (must be all the sex) and then finally powerful thighs framing a cock in full-blooded erection.

It astonishes me that I used be indifferent to Lloyd. As he shrugs the shirt over his shoulders, I want nothing more than to pull him on top of me and shag him into the fifth dimension. It’s not about his looks. It’s about the looks he gives me. Nothing sends an arrow of devastating lust straight to my sex as fast as one crinkle of a Lloyd eye, one curl of a Lloyd lip.

The familiar alarms ring and buzz in my body. A man stands before me and he means to have me and there ain’t nothin’ I can do about it.

He waves a hand at the chair. ‘Shall we?’

I bend over it. ‘How do we do this? What’s the best way?’

He sits himself in the shallow bend of the S and clasps his hands together behind his head, letting his legs rise up and then drop down over the seductive leather curves.

‘This feels good to me,’ he says. ‘Hop on.’

His lazy, entitled posturing inflames me, as he knows it will. I leap on and straddle him, giving the side of his head a playful slap.

‘So very fucking romantic, aren’t you?’ I chide. ‘Hop on. Charming.’

‘Sorry, should I have invited you to step aboard the lurve ride?’

I kick my legs, which dangle either side of the chair, causing me to jolt and rock a little on his pelvis. He yelps and grabs my hips, stilling me.

‘Play nicely now. Best behaviour for the lady.’

The tips of our noses touch. I pretend to bite him, snapping my teeth together. He forces a kiss, which I pretend to struggle against, enjoying as ever the combative nature of our relationship.

I emerge from the kiss panting and grinding my hips, violent joy coursing through my blood.

‘Are you going to behave yourself?’ he whispers. ‘Hmm?’ He gives my bottom a light smack.

‘Never,’ I reply.

His smile is broad and white. ‘Say cheese.’

‘I’ll give you cheese.’

‘Thanks. Got any crackers?’

‘You’re bloody crackers.’

He catches me again, lips on lips, his hand cupping my bottom, pulling me towards him. His cock butts my thigh. I reach down for it, curling fingers around its fat width. Soon it will be inside me. Do I have to wait long? I move it so that its tip sits between my labia, up and down, gathering juice, round and round my engorging clit.

He grabs my wrist and lifts my hand off his cock. ‘Not so fast,’ he whispers. ‘Let’s take our time. Let’s build up slowly.’

‘But you’re already …’

‘I know. I don’t care. Nice and slow. No rush.’ He buries his face in my neck and kisses hard. I hold on to the back of his head, run a hand down his shoulder blades, feeling the muscles flex and move under the skin. His hands toy with my breasts, circling my nipples with practised fingers. His hard cock eases up and down my thigh. I try to crouch on to it, but he holds me above it, keeping me in a state of suspended readiness.

Flashes of light behind my eyes remind me that there is photography going on, but I am away from that world now, deep inside my other self.

‘You’re gorgeous, Sophie, you’re so fucking gorgeous. You make me want you all the time. Oh God.’

He takes a long time licking one nipple then the other. I gyrate my pelvis, my mouth wide open, eyes glazed, loving the feel of his arms propping me up. One of his hands strays down my side, over the bump of my hip, then it flashes across a thigh and finds the target.

He releases my nipple from his mouth.

‘You’re wet,’ he says.

‘You’re Captain fucking Obvious,’ I hiss into his ear.

‘Any more of your lip and I won’t fuck you. How about that?’

‘Don’t you dare.’

‘I know you wouldn’t like that. Because you really are so … very … wet.’ He dabbles his fingers in the juices then pushes them into my mouth, making me taste myself. ‘There’s a lot more where that came from. Why are you so wet, Sophie?’

He removes his fingers, allowing me to speak.

‘Want it,’ I say, jerking my pelvis forwards, bending his cock to my will.

‘Want what?’

‘Your cock.’

‘Where?’

‘In here.’ I catch him in my slit. If only it could snap shut like a Venus flytrap, keep him there to devour at my leisure. I rock back and forth, rubbing his tip, preparing to push down on it.

‘How much do you want it?’

‘So much, so much.’

‘What would you do for it?’

‘Anything.’

‘I’ll get that in writing.’

‘Just put it in, for fuck’s sake. Just fuck me. Now.’

He kisses me, chuckling into my mouth, dark and low. ‘If you insist. Act of Love commencing in three … two … one …’

He cups the undermost innermost part of my buttocks and pulls them wide, opening me up to him, then slides in slowly. I try to pack him all in at once, greedy for his stretching, spreading girth, but he holds me in check, making sure I feel each maddening inch as it glides past my barriers.

The sex chair’s great advantage is the way it aligns Lloyd’s pelvic bone with my clitoris. All I have to do is circle my hips with minimal effort and I can have all the multiple orgasms I want. I narrow my eyes and grin at Lloyd, who seems to have clocked on to my evil plan.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ he murmurs, lifting my hips and urging me forwards, making me thrust. Better still, the two sensations combine, working my pussy into a fomentation of colliding pleasures.

‘Ohh,’ I sigh, almost overwhelmed. ‘This is good. Really good. Let’s get one.’

Lloyd has gone to a realm beyond speech, at last, and I work on the perfect rhythm, ending each forward thrust with a little circular rub of my clit against him, building myself up so sweetly.

Even better, I realise that a very slight adjustment of my feet so that they rise a little from the floor nudges Lloyd’s cock right up to my G-spot. I anchor myself to his shoulders and push, push, push, three fast strokes bringing me to an orgasm that starts in my toes and engulfs my whole body like wildfire.

‘Oh yes.’ He finds his voice to mutter into my hair. ‘That’s what you need, darling, lots of that, more of that, yeah.’

While I am still bathing in the radiant waves of my climax, he flips me over and takes control of the coupling, powering into me while my eyes try to focus on his face above, blinking and rolling back, never quite coming back down until he reaches his own fierce conclusion. I have to keep my eyes open because his face when he comes is something I can never get enough of. If I could get a picture of it … oh.

The camera flashes. He shakes his head, still in that heart-warming welter of post-orgasmic confusion, and stares at me. He looks so helpless, so stunned. What just happened? his eyes seem to ask. Where am I?

I reach up to cradle him, bringing his head down to my chest. I shut my eyes and hold him, stroking his slick damp hair, feeling my heart bump into his cheek.

A line from a song by Marc Almond slips into my head. Tenderness is a weakness … Is it?

I’m so comfortable, so at peace here on this strange piece of furniture that I could almost fall asleep.

But small scuffling movements from the corner remind me that we are not alone, and presumably this strikes Lloyd at the same time. He lifts his head, kisses me and looks over at Sasha. I look too, but she is obscured by the camera, discreetly ‘not here’.

He looks back down at me. ‘Amazing,’ he says.

‘As ever,’ I say.

‘Thanks.’

‘I think I had a hand in it too!’

‘More than a hand.’ He smiles and looks back at Sasha. ‘So was that OK?’

‘Oh, don’t ask me,’ she says with a self-conscious giggle. ‘I think that’s between the two of you. But the camera loved it.’

‘That’s great,’ he says.

‘Do you want to go through to the shower? I’ll put the kettle on.’ She scuttles off to the sink, turning her back on us.

Lloyd rears up and pulls out of me. He runs a hand through his hair, shutting his eyes for a moment, re-orientating. ‘Shower, then.’ He picks up his clothes, frowns at the terrible state of his jacket and gives me an encouraging nod. ‘Oh dear,’ he says, clicking his tongue. ‘Can’t you stand? Poor afflicted thing.’

‘Shut up. Of course I can stand.’ I swing my legs over the side and give a fair impression of Bambi’s first few upright seconds. Lloyd swoops forwards and helps me. ‘So gallant, proper Sir Walter Raleigh, aren’t you?’

From the kitchen corner, Sasha snorts. ‘Are you two always like this?’ she asks, without turning around.

I pick up my neatly folded clothes and hug them to my chest. ‘Always.’

In the shower, Lloyd directs the water over my breasts and my sticky thighs.

‘You didn’t fail then,’ he says, sounding disappointed.

‘Did you think I would?’

‘I need to up my game.’

The jets spray on to my breasts, tingling my nipples. Lloyd cups the underside of my breasts, holding them in place while he keeps the shower head no more than an inch above them.

‘What’s next?’ I ask, flexing my toes, splashing them in the lovely warm water. ‘Sex while parachuting from a plane? In a canoe going over a waterfall? In space?’

He puts the shower head back in its cradle, takes the bottle of gel cleanser, squirts it into his hand, lathers it up around my breasts and stomach and shoulders.

‘Yeah,’ he says, with an enigmatic look. ‘You keep thinking along those lines, Soph.’

‘What do you mean?’

He smothers me with bubbling foam and pulls me against him so our chests slip and slide together. Water rains into our mouths while we kiss, leaking into the cracks of lips, dripping off our noses, clogging up our eyelashes.

He turns me around and washes my back and bottom, very thoroughly, far more thoroughly than is quite necessary.

‘I mean what I mean,’ he says, letting the suds slip down the crack of my arse, parting the cheeks, massaging the slightly stinging soap inside.

‘As Confucius would say. What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It’s supposed to mean what it’s supposed to mean.’

I try to slap him, but it isn’t easy when you’re facing the wrong way and he has his hands on your bum. I manage an awkward collision of elbow (mine) and hip (his) and reap my inevitable reward.

‘Ouch!’ I always forget that a smack on a wet bottom is worth about three on a dry one.

‘Impatient,’ he reproves, keeping me close and tight with an arm around my ribs. Something semi-hard pushes into my right buttock, distracting me from the newly laid sting. ‘All will be revealed in time.’

I lean my head back on his shoulder, looking up while he looks down.

‘You know, I really hate you, Lloyd.’

He nuzzles his nose against my cheek and kisses the space beneath my ear.

‘Mmm, I know you do. That’s why you’re always so wet for me.’

‘That’s because I’m in the shower.’

‘Not all the other times. All the dozens of scores of hundreds of other times. All those times you’ve begged me, on your wide-open knees …’

‘That’s because I’m trying to kill you with sex. I’ll do it one day.’

‘Mmm, best assassination technique ever.’

His hands are low now, fingers moving down with the trickles of water, flowing and meeting at the delta of my sex. He holds me by my cunt and bites down into the softness of my neck.

I give in to it. My body knows no other way. I spread my feet further apart, granting him full access to my lips and clit and vagina, all so recently used by him.

The water provides an extra element of friction when he starts the slow up-down rubbing of my clit with the side of his hand. It almost feels rough, refractory, needing extra force, which he gives.

Because I am facing away from him, I can see the way his arm crosses my body, watch the sinews move beneath the skin, slide my gaze down to his wrist, see the point where the fingers bend and disappear beneath me. Watching the intricate interplay of those muscles, knowing but not seeing what they are working on, is powerfully aphrodisiac. I can see what he is doing, and I can feel what he is doing at the same time.

But then he changes tack, puts his hands on my thighs and slides down behind me until he is on his knees. A tongue joins the lapping water at my pussy, a strong push brings it between my lips. I pivot at the hips and press my palms flat against the wall, holding myself up, keeping myself in position for more of this oral delight.

It’s as if he drinks the warm water away, lapping it up, replacing it with his own luscious licking, cleaning me to make me dirty.

I drip into his mouth, rotating my hips, beginning to moan. He holds me fast, flicks that tongue faster, flicking the engorged bead of my clit over and over. My palms begin to slide. I fear I might fall, but he claps his hands on my hips, keeping me upright.

In the cage frame of his arms, my body slumps. My core burns and blooms, ribbons of sensation unfurling inside me, gushing out to join the combined waters of his tongue and the hot water pipe. I become a fountain.

My splashing self slips down to the tiled shower basin. I want to lie there while the droplets cover and bathe me. But Lloyd has other ideas.

Still on his knees, he clears his throat and looks forlornly down at his erection.

His hair plastered to his scalp, his eyelashes brimming with water-sparkles, his face clean and shining, he looks too completely fucking adorable. I can’t resist him. I haul myself to my knees facing him and take his testicles in my hands, testing them for firmness and fullness. Lloyd has seemingly endless supplies of testosterone, as his cock testifies.

I suck him gently at first, then with increasing urgency, pinching the base of his shaft, squeezing his balls, getting my lips down lower and lower until he is deep in my throat. My cheeks are wet when his thick load of cream shoots into my mouth, but the shower isn’t the only reason for that. There’s a saline element to the damp patches, a stickiness.

When I lie back in his arms, letting the water engulf us both, I hope he hasn’t noticed, but the way he traces a finger beneath the lower lid of both my eyes suggests he has.