Elizabeth Coldwell (ed) Sex in London Tales of Pleasure and Perversity in the English Capital [MF] (pdf)

SEX IN LONDON

TALES OF PLEASURE AND PERVERSITY IN

THE ENGLISH CAPITAL

EDITED BY

ELIZABETH COLDWELL

ISBN 9781615087044

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

For information:

http://SizzlerEditions.com/HotFlash

Sizzler/HotFlash Collection

A Renaissance E Books publication

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

ELIZABETH COLDWELL

DOUBLE EXPOSURE

JAY LAWRENCE

FALLING DOWN

JAMES "GRIM" DESBOROUGH

HER MAJESTY'S BACK GARDEN

LUCY FELTHOUSE

ARTEFACTS

FRANCES JONES

SECURITY

BILLIEROSIE

THE WOMAN FROM ALDGATE WEST

NEIL JAMES HUDSON

DAY TRIP

VICTORIA POND

JACK THE BODICE RIPPER

WILLA EDWARDS

LOST PROPERTY

ELIZABETH COLDWELL

CITY BOYS

RACHEL CHARMAN

A HAPPY FINISH

LUKAS SCOTT

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

INTRODUCTION

London is truly one of the world's great cities, with its royal palaces, awe-inspiring

cathedrals and modern skyscrapers that draw the eye ever upward. Incredibly diverse
in its culture, it is the financial heart of Great Britain, and a home to artists and
musicians, wealth creators and men (and women) of power. And beneath its stiff
upper lip, passion sizzles. Everyone who lives, works and plays in London has a
bedtime story to tell, and this collection brings together stories that explore the sex
life of this amazing city.

The stories here feature everyone from city boys on a bender in a lapdancing club

to a light-fingered shoplifter who meets her match in a dominant Oxford Street
security guard. In Lucy Felthouse's Her Majesty's Back Garden a couple are
overcome with the urge to have sex in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, while Jay
Lawrence's Double Exposure features a female flasher displaying her charms in front
of the London Eye, among other places. A pair of very naughty soldiers have each
other standing at attention on Royal Wedding day in Lukas Scott's A Happy Finish,
and James "Grim" Desborough's Falling Down uses the mundane setting of a Tube
journey as the starting point for an erotic game of chase. Victoria Pond's Day Trip
looks at London from the point of view of a student visitor to the city, while Neil
James Hudson's The Woman From Aldgate West imagines a London lurking beneath
the surface of the one we know, where sex takes place in public beneath the noses of
unsuspecting passers-by.

So take a trip into the quirky, kinky city of London. Enjoy!
– Elizabeth Coldwell

DOUBLE EXPOSURE

JAY LAWRENCE

It started off as a joke, a bit of a lark. I spotted the small ad in the Etcetera column

of my local evening newspaper:

Wanted – Male Private Investigator with Digital Camera
I need a completely confidential private investigator with a digital camera. Will

pay fifty pounds upon completion of assignment. Need assignment done tomorrow.
This is a one day assignment. You must be available all day and have excellent
surveillance and self-concealment skills.

Please e-mail box number 747 ASAP!
Well, I'd always fancied a stint as a private dick. Just call me Philip Marlowe. The

ad specified a man and I could borrow the eye-spy gear. As requested, I sent off an
email, referring to myself as "Bob". I wondered how many responses the ad would
receive and if any, other than my own, would be genuine. The scenario seemed ripe
for parody. Why the last-minute rush? Was risk involved? A mere fifty quid for a
largely unspecified day's work that might involve being punched in the face by an
angry boyfriend or even knifed by a drugs pusher. My imagination worked overtime.
The ad-poster didn't want to involve the police – were they crooked themselves or
was it more of a civil "crime"? It had to be a jealous husband. Well, he must have
been waiting online, as a reply pinged back into my inbox within five minutes.

Bob – be at the Tate Modern north entrance at 9 a.m., SHARP. Stella.
Stella, was it? Well, well, well. A jealous wife instead of a jealous husband. Why

did she need a man – to infiltrate her husband's gentlemen's club? I fired off a few
inane questions but answer was there none. It was 9 a.m. at the Tate or not. I like a
woman who knows what she wants.

* * * *

I crossed the new Millennium Bridge over the murky Thames and strode towards

the rendezvous, the converted power station which now houses eclectic artwork in its
vast turbine hall. It was a weekday morning and not too busy, just a gaggle of bored-
looking school kids and the ubiquitous squad of Japanese tourists grinning through
their miniature camcorders. What did "Stella" look like? Was she young or old or in
between? Tall or short? Blond or brunette? My mind concocted a wish-list as the
minutes passed. Five past nine and she was a buxom redhead. Ten past nine and she
had morphed into a slender, raven-haired femme fatale. At almost a quarter past the

hour, a small figure in a long, gray raincoat approached the gallery entrance, making a
fine display of looking at the posters and generally acting nonchalant. Instinct told
me "Stella". Casually, she worked her way along the row of adverts for coming
attractions of the intellectual variety, her eyes flickering over the words but not taking
them in. When she reached me, she murmured, "Follow me and don't say a word.
Act as if we're not together 'til I give you a sign."

I thrust my hands in my coat pockets and whistled a brief air from My Fair Lady.

It seemed as good a response to give as any. Off went Stella at a brisk pace, the high,
narrow heels of her boots clicking rhythmically on the damp pavement. She took the
walkway that leads along the Thames embankment and I followed at a respectful
distance, watching the pleasing wriggle of her neat little hips beneath the tightly-
belted coat. She was a pretty girl, early twenties, with heavy, straight dark hair cut
into a short, thick bob. She had a square-ish jaw and a wide, scarlet-painted mouth.
And she was fit. I began to pant slightly as Stella disappeared into the distance, a
diminutive, determined figure marching on towards – what?

I fingered the borrowed digital camera in my coat pocket. It was perfect for the

task at hand, no bigger than a small pocket calculator. I stroked its rounded metal
contours as I watched Stella's pleasing behind vanish into the shadowy confines of an
underpass. To be truthful, I felt like stroking something else. I was getting quite hard
and required some relief. When I entered the passageway, I found that she stood,
casually leaning against the tiled wall, her raincoat unfastened.

"Get the camera out," she hissed, her eyes firmly fixed upon the tunnel entrance

behind me. I reached in my pocket and drew out the spy-cam. I raised one eyebrow
and smiled. She frowned. Espionage was a serious business. Suddenly, there were
voices behind us and footsteps, approaching the underpass. Stella fixed me with a
steely, commanding gaze.

"Now! Take this!"
Quick as a wink, the young woman whipped open her coat and gave me a flash of

what she had on underneath. Obediently, I pressed the button and felt my manhood
press against my fly. As two girls entered the passage, Stella moved away, like a bat
out of hell, swiftly wrapping the raincoat around her nubile body. She stalked off at
her former brisk pace, again leaving me in her dust. Outside, near the sturdy
Victorian arches of Blackfriars Bridge, a faint London drizzle was beginning to fall. I
replaced the camera in my pocket and turned up the collar of my coat. So, Stella was
a flasher. Well, well, well. An image of her exhibitionist's outfit was burned into my

brain as I followed the young woman, beginning to feel like a stalker and a pervert.
She was wearing black leather thigh-high boots and a cherry red latex mini-dress.
The dress seemed to be melted on to the surface of her firm, tight body. Its skirt was
so short that it barely covered her crotch. Was she wearing panties? I had a sneaking
suspicion that I would soon find out. My cock throbbed as I kept the girl in sight.
Her boobs were quite small and very round, like oranges. The nipples formed two
little dimples in the glossy fabric of the skimpy dress.

On we trotted, past the tall red-brick façade of the Oxo building, with its upscale

design galleries and restaurant in the tower, which, in a more practical age, was a
meat extract factory. Stella kept her gaze firmly fixed to the front, as if she knew
exactly where she was going. I wondered how many scenic miles she'd take me on
her Wednesday flash and whether we would pause for refreshment. I was musing
about lunchtime Guinness and shepherd's pie, when she suddenly took a turn to the
right and clip-clopped on to the wooden boards of a small pier used as a viewpoint.
This was a much more exposed venue than the underpass. My fingers closed on the
camera as she commanded me with her dark-lashed eyes. I presumed she was
scanning for onlookers but, funnily enough, I was ceasing to care. I pressed the
button as she opened her coat. I pressed it once, twice, three times, punctuating her
movements. She leaned against the iron rails of the pier, damp black hair beginning
to curl a little above her ears. Closing her eyes in ecstatic abandon, she thrust her
boobs forward, two perfect juicy mounds encased in tight, bright latex like a second
skin. They looked almost as if they had been sprayed with paint and were still wet.
As she arched her back, she parted her lips, which were as glossy as her naughty
outfit, revealing small, rather predatory-looking, even white teeth. Her nipples looked
as if they were poised to pop over the tight, elastic neckline of the outrageous dress. I
snapped buoyant cleavage and several inches of tantalizing thigh. The boots were
amazing. Stiletto-heeled, they were quite wide at the tops, reminding me of a
pantomime boy. Dick Whittington boots but sexy, oh so sexy. My cock threatened to
wear a hole in my underwear.

In the distance, someone whistled and, with little change in facial expression,

Stella smartly belted her coat and trotted off again, like a fox tipped off by the baying
of hounds. I heard the metal-tipped heels of her boots drum a hollow determined beat
on the boards of the pier, then she turned right to continue along the Thames
walkway. The rain was getting heavier and I saw her retrieve a tiny umbrella from
her bag. With one deft flick of the wrist, the brolly was up, a bright red splash on a

dull gray day. Of course, my own head was unprotected. I marched on in the young
woman's wake, wet about the ears and rigid in the crotch.

Eventually, we arrived at the stretch of the embankment favored by street

performers. Stella paused to watch a young woman who seemed to be coated in silver
paint, a living statue in a Victorian-style dress. Slowly, moving jerkily as if propelled
by a rusty mechanism, the street artist offered a paper flower. Stella tossed a pound
coin in the statue's basket and took the giant daisy with a hint of a smile. The statue
blew her an arthritic kiss. I lingered amongst the onlookers until she headed off
towards the enormous gleaming wheel of the London Eye. Was she hoping to flash
inside one of the see-through capsules that took people up for a fairground-style ride
to view the city from a pigeon's angle? I'd heard the queues were dreadful.

The queue was lengthy, especially for a drizzly winter morning when the view

from the Eye would surely be cloaked with cotton wool-like mist. I saw Stella turn to
the left, into an open air café. I'd rather have had a beer but it wasn't lunchtime yet.
Was she really going to sit down? Like a sleepwalker, I followed her wriggling
bottom through the maze of little tables. She selected one in a corner, near the
concrete-clad anchor point of one of the vast Eye's cables.

I made to join her and she muttered, "Not here. Sit at another table and watch."
"Mind if I have a coffee?"
The young woman fixed me with a brief, withering glance. It seemed a

cappuccino was out of the question. Like a good boy, I took position at a nearby
table. Stella's table wasn't protected by the tented roof of the café so she kept her
umbrella up, effectively screening her from those around. I sensed a photo
opportunity was nigh and fumbled for the Fuji.

With a conjuror's sleight of hand, the young woman stood up, flipped open her

coat, arched her back and, still holding the umbrella, popped out her tits. I swear they
bounced out like a pair of rubber balls. They didn't quite look real, but who was
caring? I snapped her as she pouted moodily, her red lips, red dress, red umbrella
startling as blood against the gray London day. Her boobs were very white, the
nipples full and dark by contrast. They pointed upwards, as did my cock.

Then Stella placed one kinky-booted foot on another chair, exposing an acre of

strong, slender thigh. I snapped the leather-clad leg from sharp, pointy heel to wide,
thigh-caressing top. Her dress rode up to her crotch and I snapped a glimpse of
shaven heaven, a perfect little pink pussy with just a touch of dark hair. She had a
small silver ring in one of her labia. Slyly, she caressed her clit, running the tip of her

tongue over the thick gloss of her scarlet lips. I snapped and came.

She knew what she'd done and smiled, her vixen's face looking quite smug. Before

I knew what was happening, she had tidied herself and was off again, leaving me in a
damp, sticky mess. An elderly woman glared as I trotted out of the café, limping
slightly as my trousers stuck to my swollen, sodden crotch. Now where was she?

The familiar silhouette of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament rose up in the

darkening sky. Stella's bright umbrella bobbed along the walkway towards
Westminster Bridge. She seemed to be gaining speed and I suddenly remembered the
fifty quid. Glancing back at me, she stopped by a tree and I watched her retrieve an
envelope from her bag and tuck it into a notch in the trunk. Thinking of sudden gusts
of wind and thieves, I broke into a jog. Stella reached the main road crossing the
bridge as I reached the tree. I clasped the envelope in my hot little hands as I watched
a big, red London bus come along. Calmly, Stella walked to a nearby bus stop, got on
the bus and turned to blow me a perfunctory kiss from its platform. And then she was
gone, southbound to who-knows-where. I opened the envelope. As I suspected, there
was no money, just a brief note in a bold, strong handwriting.

Enjoy the pictures.
S

FALLING DOWN

JAMES "GRIM" DESBOROUGH

Getting off work is always a relief but in London, in the summer, the prospect of a

relaxing evening competes violently with the horrors of facing the Tube. In the warm
months the trip down the escalator at the end of a work day is a descent into hell. It's
hot, sweaty, crowded. You're alone in a mob of selfish strangers, every one of them a
self-contained ball of resentment to their fellow travelers. The only people who talk
are tourists and beggars. Anything other than studiously ignoring them marks you as
one of the same ilk; an outsider.

Miracle of miracles, Jake had a seat. He sat, with rarely experienced relish,

flopping back in the faded livery of the Underground, drenched in sweat from the
heat, the rush, and the press of the mob. He grabbed hold of his tie and yanked it,
pulling it left and right, loosening it around his neck with savage annoyance. He
hated the fucking thing, choking him all day long; it was just worse in this season.

The train lurched and someone's great, wobbly ass smacked him across the face.

He frowned and leaned back tighter, straightening his back, pressing sharply into the
grubby seat, studiously ignoring the fact this fat, Jamaican woman practically sat on
his face. He looked down instead, watching his shoes as the same big, jiggling
woman trod on his toes and mumbled a thickly accented apology.

The whole carriage filled with the whine of the train's engine as it sped up and

everyone swayed and jostled, thrown together by chance, speed, the twists and turns
of the century-old tunnels. It stank of sweat and nervousness, rank and acrid, so many
people with their arms up holding on to the bars and handles, giving each other a face
full of armpit or an unwelcome grind.

Jake's mind idly ran to thoughts of the Japanese metro and wondered why

molestation was such a big deal there. He couldn't think of much that was less sexy
than the Underground. Crammed in with strangers in a stinking, grubby oven. It was
a kind of meditation to ignore everyone around, in your own space, a hard meditation
to pull off.

There was a hum against his leg, the familiar buzz of his smartphone going off. He

frowned a moment, wondering why it struck him as so surreal. As he fished it out he
realized what it was that was nagging at him. Phones never rang down here. No
signal. He hunched over the phone and frowned at it, grasping it one-handed and
stroking his hand through his beard, a day of stubble, the sweat clinging to his throat,

palming off the salty wetness on his suit.

There was a tiny little icon in the top left that he couldn't really remember. His

phone screen was a forest of apps, so many he couldn't remember half of the bloody
things. He seemed to spend more time deleting them than he did installing them these
days but there always seemed to be more, multiplying like the heads of a hydra.

His thumb dragged down the screen and opened it up. Whatever the hell it was

had pinged a Bluetooth connection somewhere nearby and found someone else with
the same app. He frowned, dredging his memory for where the program had come
from, but he couldn't remember for the life of him. It was called Hunter/Prey,
according to the little screen, and it was showing a grinning woman's face. She had
wicked eyes and a ring through her nose, but it didn't show much more. His eyes slid
over the rest, taking it all in and losing it immediately. His head shot up, looking
around, craning his neck for any sign of the person hiding in the phone.

Several people were hunched over their own phones, playing away on one game or

another, but he caught a hint of those wicked eyes looking at him through the swaying
mob of commuter zombies. She wasn't what he was expecting from the little screen
in front of him. She was about his size, curvy but strong looking. She had short hair,
tattoos, muscular arms under a tight white top. She didn't look like "prey", but that
was what the app said she was. It was some kind of hook-up app, wasn't it? This was
something more though, something a little more on edge than a hook-up.

A shiver of excitement ran through him as their eyes met and she gave a short,

sharp nod. The gesture was exaggerated so that there was no mistaking it for the
sway of the carriage; it stood out. Abrupt, erotic tension and something like panic
warred for dominance in Jake's gut. He turned away again to stare, furiously, at his
phone. He couldn't read it, couldn't focus, a nervous swallow and a glance up again;
the big bad punk girl was still there and she was definitely the same one on the phone.

The train came to a halt, everyone stumbling two steps to the left in concert, like

the worst dance troupe in the world. His gaze was drawn back to her and she gave
him a wink and a mocking air-kiss before she ducked out of the opening doors on to
the platform with the crowd. Before he really knew what he was doing he was on his
feet, sliding through the crowd with practiced ease. He took no small pleasure in
giving the huge Jamaican woman a sharp dig in the ribs with his elbow as he pushed
past, striving to be free.

The gap between the train and the platform seemed huge and he hesitated on the

edge, scuffed expensive shoes on the metal lip. Was he going to follow this through?

Indecision had him swaying on the edge of a literal precipice and she was already out
of sight, lost in the crowd and the twists of the tunnels.

"Mind the doors" came the robotic chime of the mystery woman inside the TFL

speakers. He had to make a choice. No delays.

A jump and his feet hit the platform, right in front of the London Bridge sign that

dominated the wall. The train moved away, bringing a welcome gust of cool air
through the platform for all too brief a moment. The sweat on him was as much
nerves as heat now as he began to jog, hurrying through the platform like one of those
asshole yuppies who couldn't just wait on the escalator.

Posters and public art, colored tiles, graffiti and chewing gum lumps strobed past

at speed. His suit jacket flapped open, streaming behind him in his haste to find the
girl from the phone. Where was she?

Every sense seemed on edge. There was something primal about this; everything

seemed keener, lighter, he could feel every bead of sweat on his back, every gust of
wind against his skin. There was still no sign of her, though.

His Oyster card slapped against the turnstile and he pushed through the paddles

before they opened all the way, diving up the steps and out into the cooler evening air.
Every single iota of the day's tiredness vanished in the evening air and the excitement
of the chase.

There was still no sign; he turned this way and that, head high, questing for her left

and right, stamping the pavement in frustration and cursing a loud "Fuck" that got a
reproachful tut from a passing woman who, against all odds and sense, was carrying a
huge umbrella.

The phone buzzed again and he snatched it out, almost dropping it in his eagerness,

fumbling with dirty, sweaty fingers. The app was alerting him, again. A map. GPS
tracking. He could see her image moving across the map, inching down the streets
nearby, showing him where she was.

A face-splitting grin clove his face in half and he took off at a jog, heads turning,

watching him as he sprinted, twisting through the early gathering of the evening
throng. There were flashes of other sensations as he pursued, but he was intent on the
phone at every step, upon his quarry.

The hot exhaust from a Tandoori restaurant.
The nearby rumble of a train.
A burst of raucous laughter from the open doors of a pub.
A whiff of chip-shop batter, frying for the evening's punters.

Fuck it, he didn't know where he was any more. Didn't know this part of town

worth a shit, GPS notwithstanding. This was back alleys and old brick housing blocks
now. Weeds and second-hand cars, piles of rubbish on street corners, rot and rats and
ruin.

There she was.
Jake dashed down the alley into the dim, sodium glare of the street light and

suddenly found his feet stumbling. He'd always wondered what a dog would do with
a car if it ever caught up to one and now he had a similar feeling, coming to a faltering
halt a few steps away from her.

"Uh..."
She stepped in, closer, and he could smell her. Fresh sweat and cigarette smoke, a

hint of something floral, perhaps an incense stick or the lingering smoke from a joint.
Those dark and wicked eyes burned into him, rooted him to the spot. She pressed a
chipped, painted fingertip to his lips, warm and strong, then grinned. "Nuh uh, you
have to catch me." Then she pressed those strong arms against his shoulders and
pushed.

He stumbled backward, slipped and fell on his ass on the tarmac, dazed as much by

her joyful, husky voice as the shove. There was a flash of anger as he landed heavily
and grazed his palms. She laughed at him, turned and ran in a thunder of heavy boots
and a flash of tartan skirt, leaving him picking himself up to pursue. His dander was
up.

It was less playful now. She'd done this in a calculated way to make him commit

to it, he reckoned. Angry enough to run her down and do it right. He ran now, full
tilt, body leaning forward, but everyone ignored the pair of them. Life in the big city
has its advantages; people mind their own business. The crowds got more sparse as
they moved further away from the shops and the pubs. Then he caught up to her
again in one of the dark places where nobody, nobody good, ever goes.

The amber light barely penetrates the shadows underneath the red brick arch. The

ghostly shapes of half-hidden shopping trolleys and a burnt-out car loom in his
imagination like skeletons or monsters, but all he can really see is her, back-stepping
beneath the bridge, those eyes vanishing into the dark.

This time he pursues. This time he doesn't stop to try to talk. He slams up against

her and shoves her back into the chain-link fence. It rattles, a wave of metallic sound
that builds in a crescendo and then dies away again like a wave. Vaguely, he hears
their phones bleep in concert, but it doesn't penetrate through his arousal. He cleaves

his body to hers, lets her feel just how fucking hard the chase has made him. She
laughs again, loud and playful, but there's more of an edge to it now, something
deeper, not mocking, but calling him on.

She wrestles him and his muscle finds some steel. He grasps her wrists, twists her

about. She's strong but he's still stronger – if only by a little. Her teeth gleam in the
dark as she grins, his sight adjusting, seeing curves, seeing the hint of tiny nipples
standing taut against the fabric of her top. Inch by hard-fought inch he shoves her
back, back against the curving wall of brick, against the crumbling posters, the
warning signs and the tags – the territorial pissing of the local gangs.

She shoves back with new strength and he almost stumbles until he sets his feet in

the rubble and dirt underfoot and pushes back harder, ruining the Italian leather,
crunching glass, but at this point he finds he doesn't give a fuck. He surprises himself,
hearing an animalistic snarl come out of his own mouth. That makes her eyes shine in
the dark. He feels her body suddenly loosen and, as it gives before him, he slams her
back into the wall.

She bites him on the shoulder and he doesn't care; he pushes her back again,

harder, and she gives that loud laugh again. He wonders if she's crazy. He wonders if
he's crazy, but he doesn't care any more. A twist, a pull, and he shoves her back
against the brick, her cheek against a photocopied poster for a band that broke up last
year, her tits crushed against the rough surface of brick and crumbling mortar. She
pushes back but all she finds are his hips, pressing. Even through four layers of fabric
she must feel his heat, his need.

She braces her hands against the wall and pushes back, hard; he pushes to meet her

and they shift back and forth together until her body gives way again. He slams her
back into the wall, knocking the wind from her with a loud "Oof".

She wants to fight? He can fight. He yanks the fucking corporate noose from

around his neck and forces it over her head, yanking it tight around her throat like a
leash and wrapping it around his fist. The silk strains, the stitches complain and pop
like firecrackers, but it holds and she stills. Suddenly he can feel her heat, burning
against his, calling him on.

He tears at his belt, his trousers, his briefs, and hauls his sweaty cock out into the

evening air. Even if he wasn't aroused that would be bliss, just to let it breathe. Hard
like this it's almost too much to stand, but he twists his fist in the tie and keeps control
as she arches back, crushing her breasts even tighter to the brick.

He slaps her thighs apart, surprising himself with his roughness. Her legs are

muscular, taut, her ass broad but tight. His hand grasps the soaking fabric of her
panties and yanks them down around her knees, hobbling her, getting a brief flash of
red, white, and blue. Then he shoves forward, up, under, inside her with one long,
savage stroke, rocking her on her booted feet, up and into the wall.

Her laugh becomes a gasp and her hands slap against the wall with a strange,

reverberating echo under the arches. Her top's yanked down over one shoulder now
as he presses, forces deeper, forward. She's so fucking wet it's almost too easy, barely
any friction at all as he pins her to the wall with his dick. From her bare, pale
shoulder a tattoo winks at him, some bomber girl pin-up from the 1940s, and he uses
it as a target to bite her back, making her purr and snap her teeth.

The tie is a rein now. A choke chain. She's like a wild animal as he fucks her,

panting and gasping, laughing and pushing, shoving back to him as he mounts her
with greater and greater abandon. He drives every inch up into her, smashing her up
on to her toes and earning himself a "Fuck" in her husky tones.

Her hands rise, thumbs hook between the tie and her throat, keeping him from

cutting off her air completely as she thrusts her hips back. She's as eager to take it
now, as she was to make him run, to make him fight, to make him chase. Christ, her
ass is so fucking solid. He's slapping his hips against it nineteen to the dozen and it's
barely making a sound. He gives another growl of lust and her cunt tightens like a
pair of fists around him. Her forehead presses against the wall and she starts to pant
and gasp, a long thread of spittle dripping down from her lower lip. That husky voice
rises to a high-pitched yelp of pleasure as her body squeezes him again and again,
wringing his cock inside her.

Jake can't bear it any longer. The sodden, squeezing heat of her is driving him

insane. He bites down again on that tattoo, leaving a deep, crescent bruise on her
shoulder alongside the first, growling around a mouthful of shoulder flesh. He pulls
back from her, out of her, and the sudden cold against his cock, her slickness soaking
him, is enough to push him over the edge.

She groans a protest and he yanks the tie tight, cutting off her voice in this moment

of pleasure. For an instant he feels strong, commanding. Every iota of stress melts
away as he strains forward and comes, hard, splashing that taut, broad ass with
whiplashes of come, dripping and hot in the dark. Spent against her flesh, he grinds
his drooling cock against her flesh in bucking strokes. She matches his moan and he
can hear from the tone that she's grinning as she grinds her cheek into the wall and her
rounded bottom against his shaft, his scrapyard bitch.

His fist loosens from the tie and he stumbles back, dizzy, heady, blood thundering

in his ears as she just stands there, braced and bent, then reaches back and runs her
hand through their mingled slickness, spreading it across her skin.

He leaves the tie trailing down her back and turns away. He shoves his tingling,

too-sensitive cock back into his briefs, sealing away the smell of sex beneath the
fabric. He can't believe he did it. That they did it. A moment of panic as the gravity
of it sinks in. He starts to jog again, heading back towards the station, away from the
scene of the "crime". He's panicking now, heart beating harder than it did fucking
her. He picks up the pace, hoping nobody saw them, hoping it was a CCTV blind
spot. Hoping none of the gang kids that might have been around there are following
him.

He stumbles, breathless and sweaty. Dirtied from the tunnel. Scuffed, tieless, hair

a wild tangle. He reeks of sex. He imagines anyone and everyone can smell it on
him. That they know. That they're watching and judging and disapproving. He
shoves the Oyster against the gate and stumbles through, phone buzzing just as he
reaches the stairs. Dizzy, dreamlike, he fumbles it out again and opens the app; just
as he half falls down, three steps at a time.

It's an update to his profile.
She rated him four stars.

HER MAJESTY'S BACK GARDEN

LUCY FELTHOUSE

From the moment Gavin whispered the saucy suggestion into my ear, I couldn't get

it out of my mind. It was both highly inappropriate and incredibly risky, but that's
what made it so deliciously appealing.

I tried not to let my excitement show – the last thing I needed was for my body

language to appear skittish or suspicious. The number of CCTV cameras and security
guards around the palace meant I'd be thrown into the Tower of London in the blink
of an eye if they thought I was dodgy. OK, well maybe not the Tower, but whatever it
was that HRH Queen Elizabeth II's highly trained security personnel did to people
they believed to be a threat to the monarch's safety, and that of her property.

I was no threat to anyone, never mind the Queen. I happen to really like the Royal

Family – I wouldn't have paid to come on a visit to Her Majesty's official residence
otherwise, would I?

Based on Gavin's devious plan, the worst I might do is tread on a couple of plants,

or break a twig, or something.

For the remainder of our visit around Buckingham Palace, Gavin and I acted

normally, albeit with the occasional grope and salacious wink when no one was
looking.

By the time we arrived at the exit of the grand house, I was seriously horny. I took

Gavin's hand, dragged him past the tearoom and out into the gardens. We had to find
somewhere private – well, as private as you could get with thousands of visitors a day
passing through – and quick.

It had been Gavin's idea, so naturally he was as enthusiastic as me, but I don't think

he'd expected me to go for it in the first place. I slowed down after a couple of funny
looks from people alerted me to the fact that we were drawing attention to ourselves.
They probably thought we'd nicked a vase, or a painting. I had a vision of Her Maj
shouting "Ooorrrf with their heads!" and giggled.

"What?" Gavin said, taking control and pulling me towards a bench – one of the

many lining the path through the grounds. We sat down.

I told him what I'd been laughing at, and he laughed, too, before cutting off my

mirth by leaning in for a long, sensual kiss. It was deep, and delicious, and it sent
tingles through my body from head to toe. We broke apart only when we heard
someone coming towards us, and I gasped for breath as my heart raced. My

imagination and the anticipation had ensured that my pussy was damp, but the kiss,
and then the positively predatory look on Gavin's face, meant I was seriously slick. I
suspected that before long my juices would soak right through my underwear and I'd
end up with a wet patch on the crotch of my jeans.

"Come on," Gavin said, looking around, "everyone's gone." He stood, then reached

down and tugged me up by my elbow.

"W-where are we going?" I asked, my nerves threatening to show as he moved

quickly behind the bench we'd been sitting on and into the trees and bushes, pulling
me along with him.

"Somewhere nobody can see us, of course," he replied, releasing my arm and

leading us deeper into the gloom cast by the trees, "but remember, if anyone walks
past, they'll still be able to hear us, so you'll have to be quiet."

I nodded, which was stupid, as Gavin was in front and couldn't see my face. Then

he stopped suddenly, causing me to bump into him. I exclaimed, and he turned and
gave me an apologetic smile before saying quietly, "This is the place."

I looked around. There was plenty of cover on three sides of us, and on the fourth

was a very high wall – which I presumed was the perimeter wall for the estate. The
hustle and bustle of London lay just beyond. I continued to examine the area,
convinced there were security cameras hanging from every other branch, and snipers
on all the others. If there were, I couldn't see them, so I turned to Gavin and grinned,
my horniness overriding any misgivings.

"OK," I said, "let's do this!"
He responded by walking towards me, grabbing my hips, and backing me up to a

tree. I was trapped between rough bark and my husband's hard body. It was lush.
Then he kissed me again, and if I'd thought the snog on the bench was hot, that was
nothing. Gavin seemed to pour every ounce of passion and need he had into that kiss,
and I could do nothing but enjoy it. And that was just fine.

I reached around and grabbed Gavin's muscular ass cheeks, and pulled him even

more tightly to me. His eager erection pressed insistently into my stomach, and I had
to concentrate hard on not moaning with pleasure.

Gavin's tongue pushed against my lips, and I opened my mouth eagerly to admit it.

It slipped sensually against my own, twisting, tickling, and mock-fighting until I was
almost weak with lust. He shifted his hands from my hips and cupped my face, and
then proceeded to suck and nibble at my bottom lip until my pussy throbbed and my
clit ached, desperate for attention.

But it seemed that despite our precarious position, Gavin was in no rush to get full

on down and dirty. When I thought about exactly what our position was, thrills of
excitement ran through my body. It was crazy, yet incredibly arousing. What would
happen if we got caught? I had some vague information in my head about indecent
exposure which could lead to arrest. But this was a special circumstance – we were in
the Queen's back garden, for fuck's sake! Would that make the crime even graver?
Would we be dragged before the monarch herself to be given a punishment befitting
the offense?

The weird thing was, at that moment in time, I didn't really care. The sex

hormones rushing through my veins were obviously short-circuiting the part of my
brain that dealt with common sense and decency. And giving a shit. All I cared about
was getting off – and soon.

By the time Gavin released my bottom lip, it felt hugely swollen and sensitive, and

I seriously wanted him to give the same treatment to my clit. But it seemed it was not
to be – not yet, anyway. Instead, his mouth pressed gentle kisses and gave nibbles to
the skin of my throat as he worked his way down to my collarbone, and from there to
my cleavage.

Pushing my breasts together, he gazed upon the deep valley that he'd created

between them, then looked up at me with a devilish grin. "Nice tits, love."

I giggled, tangling my fingers in his dark hair. "Glad you think so, but this isn't the

time or place to get them out. Maybe later, eh?"

"Bugger later," he replied, grabbing the hem of my top and pulling it up, then

flipping down the cups of my bra, "I want to get my hands and mouth on these babies
right now."

My words of protest were stopped in their tracks as he palmed one tit and sucked

the tip of the other into his hot, wet mouth. I've always had the most sensitive boobs,
and Gavin knew it – relentlessly tasting and caressing my plump flesh until I had to
grit my teeth with the effort of staying silent. He swapped nipples, teasing one with
his mouth while his hand pinched and twisted the other. My jaw started to hurt, but I
didn't dare make a noise. I could hear people chattering and laughing as they walked
along the path just a few meters away, and it wouldn't take much to send a do-gooder
scurrying off to grass us up to one of the guards that patrolled the grounds.

Suddenly, Gavin moved his free hand between my legs and ground it against my

crotch. It was so quick and unexpected that my reaction slipped out before my brain
had time to catch up. "Ohhhh!"

We both froze, and Gavin snapped his head up to look at me, his eyes wide. "What

happened to staying quiet, Jill?" he whispered.

"Sorry," I murmured back. "You just took me by surprise, that's all. I don't think

anyone heard us, anyway."

We waited a good few seconds in silence, listening for the sound of approaching

footsteps or indignant voices. There was nothing. We waited a little longer, just to be
sure. Then, certain that my cock-up hadn't attracted any unwanted attention, Gavin
grinned at me and turned his attention back to my breasts.

Our brief intermission had done little to dampen my arousal, and I was quickly

gripping on to Gavin's hair for dear life as he continued to pleasure me. I squeezed
my eyes closed, leaned my head back against the tree and enjoyed.

This time I was more prepared for the touch between my legs, and I welcomed it

by shuffling my feet apart, giving him better access. Before long I was at fever pitch;
so horny and so desperate for orgasm that the need made me grumpy.

"Gavin," I ground out, without opening my eyes, "please will you make me come?

You're driving me fucking crazy here."

He pulled my flesh out of his mouth with a pop, and chuckled quietly. "Getting to

you, babe, is it? Well, I'll have to do something about that, won't I? Can't have my
wife going without, can I?"

"No," I replied instantly, "you can't."
With that, Gavin straightened up and pressed a kiss to my lips. I opened my eyes

and grinned as he undid the button and zipper of my jeans and pushed his hand into
the opening, slipped beneath my underwear – which was sodden – and finally touched
my pussy. I let my hands drop from his head and gripped his biceps, tightening my
hold as he began to finger me. Almost instantly, he arched his wrist – damn awkward
in the limited space he had in my jeans – and sought my G-spot. I sucked my bottom
lip into my mouth, literally biting back the "Ffffffuck!" I wanted to let out.

Teasing bastard that he is, he heightened my pleasure and equally my agony as he

maneuvered his thumb so it pressed against my clit. I moved my head forward,
pressing my mouth into the crook between his neck and shoulder and pulling the
material of his T-shirt between my teeth. If I couldn't shout and scream my pleasure,
I'd sure as hell bite it out of his top!

It was then, just as Gavin really went to work on my clit and G-spot

simultaneously, making me fling my arms around his back and hold on for dear life,
that I had my first climax in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. I bit harder into

Gavin's T-shirt as the blissful yet incredibly powerful tingles of pleasure spread
throughout my body. My cunt twitched and gripped my husband's thick fingers, and I
felt more juices run out of me to join the others already coating his hand and my
knickers. I sucked in breaths through my nostrils and slumped against him as I rode
out my orgasm.

I'd barely had time to recover when he gently pushed me back to lean against the

tree and reached down to undo his own jeans. He let them drop around his ankles,
and his boxer shorts quickly joined them. His cock bobbed slightly, ready and raring
to go, with a bead of pre-come at its tip. Before I had chance to reach out and stroke
his shaft, maybe bend to lick the salty liquid from its tip, he grabbed my hips and
turned me around to face the tree.

"Drop your jeans and knickers and bend over, baby."
I didn't need to be told twice. I did as I was told, and as soon as I was in position,

Gavin shuffled right up behind me, aimed his cock at my cunt and sunk it in. He was
soon balls-deep inside me and holding on to my fleshy hips for leverage, as I braced
myself against the tree.

This time, there was nothing available to stifle my moans, and I didn't dare use one

of my hands because if Gavin started fucking me hard, I'd probably end up head
butting the trunk. And that would never do. I just gritted my teeth again and hoped
that I'd be able to keep quiet.

After a couple of seconds where we both adjusted to the sensations below our

waists, Gavin began to rock his hips, fucking me slowly at first, then faster. I knew
he wouldn't go too fast because then the force of our bodies slapping together would
make too much noise. He continued at a brisk pace, and my eyes rolled back in my
head as his shaft rubbed against my G-spot, sending shivers running down my spine.

Despite the fact our fuck wasn't as fast and furious as normal, I knew the risky

situation had to be getting to Gavin, too, and that he wouldn't last too much longer.
The sight of my white ass wobbling with every movement was probably driving him
crazy, as well.

My suspicions were confirmed when he reached a hand around to play with my

clit. He leaned himself across my back so his lips were close to my ear, and
whispered, "I'm going to come any minute soon, babe."

I said nothing, just nodded my head frantically as he picked up his pace on the

swollen bud at the apex of my pussy. He pressed and rubbed and pinched it, and I felt
the resultant pressure building in my abdomen, behind a dam that would burst and

send me spiraling into bliss once more.

Gavin continued to fuck me with small, jerky movements, forcing him deep inside

my pussy, his glans butting against my cervix. I teetered on the very edge of another
climax, but my husband beat me to it. He gave one final thrust and stilled, the hand
that still gripped my hip tightening, his fingers digging into my skin in a delicious mix
of pleasure and pain. Then I felt his cock twitch and leap, and the warm come he
released inside me.

His ministrations on my clit had paused briefly as he came, but now he redoubled

his efforts, ensuring that my climax wasn't far behind. And it wasn't. The dam finally
burst, and I bit my lip, screaming the expletives I would normally use loudly inside
my head. I slumped against the tree, inadvertently allowing Gavin's cock to slip out
of my pussy. I knew there was no time to waste, so I shook my head to try and get rid
of my post-orgasm haze and bent to pull up my underwear and jeans. Once I was
done up, I put my bra and top back the way they were supposed to be, smoothed my
hair, and turned to face Gavin.

We beamed at one another, united in giddy happiness at the success of our illicit

fuck. He'd pulled himself together, too, and we moved in for a quick kiss before
holding hands and creeping back towards the path. Peering carefully between the
trees and bushes, we waited until the coast was clear before darting out and leaving
the premises as quickly as possible, laughing all the way to the Tube station, and
beyond. We could hardly believe we'd gotten away with it, and watched the news for
several days afterwards, half-expecting there to be some CCTV footage of two people
getting up to no good in Her Majesty's back garden, and asking for people to come
forward and identify us. Thankfully, nothing of the sort happened.

Several months later, my mind often wanders to that day, and that crazy encounter.

It's no wonder, really, because it was so deliciously naughty, and probably the hottest
sex of my life. That, and the fact I've got a constant reminder. I look down at my
swollen stomach, stroke a hand across it and smile.

We've just had the results back. It's a girl.
We're going to call her Elizabeth.
Whatever would Her Majesty think?

ARTEFACTS

FRANCES JONES

It was well after midnight when Jess slipped out one of the British Museum's side

doors and made her way to the car park on Bloomsbury Way. Double-decker night
buses cruised by like red whales. The staccato of her high-heeled walk, echoing in
the surreal London silence, made her self-conscious. As she entered the multi-story
car park, she held her briefcase tighter to her chest.

She stopped at the ticket machine and fished a tenner from her suit pocket.

Cursing herself for paying the exorbitant parking rates was a nightly ritual. Why do I
own a car? Why don't I take the Tube like any rational person? Especially when it's
such a short trip home to Kensington? She checked her watch: right. Because she
rarely left work before the Underground stopped running. She imagined the worm-
like train cars, asleep in their tunnels, and wished that her own transition from work to
somnolence could be so guaranteed.

Jess turned on her heels, spotting her beat-up blue Vauxhall hatchback in a

secluded corner of the garage.

"Right where I left you," she whispered.
Out of the corner of her eye, something glimmered. She turned to look and could

scarcely believe what she saw parked along the wall, haloed by the garage's yellow
sodium lights.

The sight of the long lines of the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, its curved fenders and

ink-black tires, made Jess' breath catch in her throat. It was just like each time she
lifted a new artifact from its nest of straw and held it to the light. She hastened
toward the car, heart beating fast, before she realized what she was doing.

Jess' hands hovered over the warm hood of the Ghost for nearly a minute before

touching her fingertips to the glossy silver paint. She ran one hand along the nose and
let her stockinged thigh rest against the generous curve of the fender. It had been
years since she'd seen a Silver Ghost, since that rogue member of the Indian
Parliament had tried to woo her into being his mistress. Neither the car – nor his
political placement, embarrassingly lavish apartments or fancy honorary degrees –
had been enough to lure Jess away from her work at the museum and into the life of a
full-time kept woman.

But this Ghost was different. Its crest was a kneeling woman – not the flying

woman seen on the cars sold to men. For the first time, Jess thought to look through

the windscreen to see who was inside. The darkness inside was total.

As the passenger-side door of the Silver Ghost opened, Jess' body flooded with

adrenaline. She held one hand against her chest as though it would still her pounding
heart.

"Get in," said a voice.
Though the action startled her, caution had never been Jess' cup of tea. Curiosity

blotted out any warnings against getting into cars with strangers. As though entering
a shrine, she set her briefcase down on the cement floor and stepped out of her shoes.
She got in and pulled the door shut behind her, noticing the confident thunk as it
closed.

As she slid on to the front seat, sleek leather stroked the backs of her thighs. The

feel of it made her flush from crown to cunt. Because the Ghost was lit from above, it
was still too dark to see inside the car. But she knew how it would look: the lavishly
upholstered front bench, the spacious and carpeted floor, the steering wheel mounted
on the end of its long stem.

"Who's there?" Jess asked.
Warm laughter came from the far side of the seat.
"Call me Tara." The woman spoke in a chocolaty voice punctuated by an upper-

class Bombay accent. It was inflected with British flavor, unlike the rougher middle-
class accents Jess had grown up with in the streets and masala-infused kitchens of
Southall.

"Do I know you, Tara?" Jess unclasped her hands and rested them on the seat.
Soft laughter again. "Probably not, Jessamyn. You've likely walked past my name

a thousand times, stamped on the wall inside the Museum, but I doubt you've ever
stopped to read it."

"You're one of the donors?"
"Yes," Tara said. "And, because of that, I know your work, a little. You're good."
"Thank you." As Jess' eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the Ghost, she could see

small glints of light coming from Tara's clothes. As the woman moved, she could
hear silk rustling on silk, and guessed that she might be wearing a sari woven with
metallic thread.

Jess tried to think of what to say next, but her talents rested in artifacts, not

conversation. Everything she imagined would sound tactless. So, you must be very
wealthy. Or, Have you been watching me for long?

She finally settled on, "Is this your Rolls Royce?"

"It is," Tara replied. "I purchased it from a lady sheikh after I made my first $10

million."

Jess coughed involuntarily. She'd handled artifacts worth that much, but couldn't

imagine referring to that amount of money so casually.

"What do you do, exactly?"
"I trade in rare architectural finds," Tara said. "The items that your kind think are

long-lost; they are my specialty."

"So you've donated more than money to the British Museum."
"Yes."
Curiosity surged through Jess again. "Which items?"
"Forgive me, but I can't tell you," Tara said. "My suppliers insist on strict

anonymity all the way up the chain."

Jess nodded. Plenty of the pieces in the Museum had come, seemingly, from

nowhere – slipped through mail-slots or couriered by generic-looking men in black
suits who never spoke.

Just as Jess began searching her memory for items Tara might have contributed,

the woman at her side shifted the conversation.

"Have you ever walked into the Temple of Ishtar in the Museum and imagined

what it would be like to be her?" Tara's smooth voice seemed to stroke the back of
Jess' neck. She put a hand over Jess', almost protectively.

"It's one of my favorite pieces, but I always thought that she wouldn't have liked

it," Tara continued, not waiting for Jess to reply. "She was a great warrior, queen of
the heavens. The time she spent indoors, or in the underworld, was full of strange
trials. Torture, even. I think she would have wanted a temple under the open sky.
That roof, and those walls, would have been like a prison."

Tara squeezed Jess' hand firmly, then traced her fingers under the sleeve of Jess'

suit jacket, drawing a bracelet of shivers around her wrist.

Jess unbuttoned her blazer and shrugged out of it. The air inside the Silver Ghost

was warm and close on her bare arms.

"My favorite piece right now is the Japanese tigress," Jess said. "The one carrying

her cub by the scruff of the neck. Her eyes are so fierce, but her child is perfectly safe
in her jaws."

"Like Kali," Tara purred, her hands tracing arcs on Jess' forearms. It briefly

occurred to Jess that she should be uncomfortable letting a stranger touch her in a car
park, no matter how nice the car. Instead, she felt secretly exotic, as though a hidden

flower were unfurling inside her. She sighed.

"Yes – like Kali." Jess stumbled across the name, which had been forbidden in her

house growing up. Her mother did not let the children dwell on the darker gods and
goddesses. "Before that, it was the cat mummies. I was never allowed to have a cat
for a pet, though I wanted one desperately. My landlord doesn't allow them now. But
the Egyptians, they loved their cats so much they wanted them to live forever."

"You are a cat fan," Tara murmured. "Good. Good."
Jess slid across the seat and leaned in to breathe Tara's scent. She smelled of

flowers, but underneath it Jess caught wisps of rich spices, warmed by the woman's
heat.

"Open your mouth," Tara said.
As Jess parted her lips, something solid nudged between them. She took it in, a

solid morsel that melted across her tongue. Flavors of chocolate came first, followed
by fresh roses and cinnamon. Tara pressed Jess' lips closed with two fingers. As the
flavor ebbed away, Jess looked across and saw the other woman's eyes flashing,
watching her. Her sight had grown accustomed to the darkness.

Tara reached behind Jess' head and pulled the pins from her hair, tossing it with her

fingers as it spilled across Jess' shoulders. She stroked Jess' jawline and throat, then
pressed a smooth palm against Jess' breastbone.

The heat of Tara's hand seemed to bore straight into her breasts, inflaming her

nipples.

"May I touch you?" Jess asked.
"A little, darling."
Jess brushed her fingertips against Tara's arm. It was rounded and smooth –

almost powdery, like the softness of fresh naan. She wanted to feel it between her
teeth, know it with her tongue, but she held back. Jess lifted Tara's heavy breasts
through the layers of silk, one and then the other.

Tara circled Jess' wrist with her fingers and pulled her hand away. "That's enough.

Let me."

Tara knelt on the carpeted floor and pulled Jess' hips to the edge of the seat. With

sure hands she tugged Jess' panties down, leaving her stockings and garters in place.
She tested Jess' slit with one finger, which came away slick and musky.

Tara returned to the seat and rustled in the darkness for a moment before laying her

hand, palm-side up, on the leather. Jess slid forward so that the woman's fingers were
directly under her clit. She rocked gently back and forth as Tara flicked her

fingertips, sending sparks up Jess' spine. Jess clutched the back of the seat with one
hand and let her head fall back, sighing into the darkness, eyes pressed shut.

Jess found herself remembering Tom, the first intern she'd hired after being named

one of the assistant curators at the British Museum. Together they were assigned the
after-hours shift, unpacking and cataloging new artifacts in the warehouse at the back
of the building. Until Tom, Jess had avoided all personal ties to her co-workers,
refusing even to take coffee with them after their shifts. Maybe it had been the frenzy
hidden in his dark eyes, or the way he could identify any new artefact – down to the
region, the mythology, the era, even the year – faster than she could.

One night, after the gallery lights had long since been dimmed and the security

guards had nodded off, she let him fuck her face-down in one of the long, straw-filled
crates that had carried a sarcophagus only twelve hours before. After drenching his
condom-slicked penis in her cunt, he had pressed himself against her puckered anus
and slid inside. With his free hand he had inserted something cold and heavy into her
throbbing pussy, thrusting both at once until they both shuddered with orgasm.

Jess had discovered that the object in her cunt was a miniature replica of

Cleopatra's Needle that had been found in a village excavation outside Cairo. Years
after, she still couldn't walk past its glass-encased pedestal in the Museum without
remembering that night – or the half-dozen paleolithic Venus statues Tom had stolen
before fleeing London.

Jess inched forward on the seat, covering Tara's hand with her soaked cleft. Tara

curled her fingers and teased them inside Jess, first one, then two, then three. She
rocked her fingers in and out with no sense of urgency, which only made Jess clench
harder around her.

Their knees were touching, breath mingling. Jess reached out to touch Tara's face,

studying its shape blindly. Her cheeks were round, her jaw strong, her hair as soft as
the hair on expensive handmade dolls. Jess rubbed her thumb across Tara's lips hard
enough that she could feel the woman's lipstick smudging across her cheek.

Jess moved against the woman's hand, now deep inside her. She felt full; the walls

of her cunt stretched hard, a pain so immediate that it washed over her as waves of
bliss. Every hair, every cell was trained on that three-inch space where Tara's fist
swayed patiently back and forth.

She pressed her lips to Tara's cheek, then buried her face in the woman's shadowed

bosom. Tara pressed her teeth into the back of Jess' neck, gathering flesh into her
mouth and holding it firmly.

Jess stroked her own clit, forcing her climax to the surface. Her pussy clamped

against Tara's hand so hard she thought she might fracture it. In response, Tara's teeth
sunk into the nape of her neck, sharp enough to sting. Jess sung out with it, loud and
high, forgetting where she was. The sound of her voice was swallowed by the Ghost.

Tara withdrew her teeth, then her hand, as Jess relaxed against the leather bench.

Shy now, she tugged her skirt to her knees and smoothed it out, as though the motion
would return each of her nerve endings to its rightful place beneath her skin. She
turned to Tara, still shrouded in darkness, and asked whether she could repay the
favor.

"No, darling." Tara's voice was musical now, and very light. "Trust me, you

already have. You've allowed me something I've been wanting for a very long time.
It is enough."

A shiver crossed Jess' skin. She pulled her blazer back on.
"It's getting late," Tara said. "I'm sure you want to get home."
"Yes." Jess couldn't shake the vague sense of guilt she felt, and she knew thanking

the woman wasn't enough. She did it anyway.

Jess pushed the passenger-side door open and slid her feet into her shoes, still

waiting by the car. "Goodnight, Jessamyn," Tara said quietly as Jess lifted her
briefcase and waved.

On wobbly legs she walked away from the Silver Ghost as quickly as she could.

Slow rain fell outside, pattering against the concrete walls and trickling down the
drainpipes.

Jess unlocked her Vauxhall and tossed her briefcase into the passenger seat before

ducking inside. The door creaked as she pulled it closed, and the engine choked and
grumbled as she turned the key and stepped on the accelerator pedal. When she
looked in the rear-view mirror, the space where the Silver Ghost sat was empty.

"I guess it lives up to its name," she whispered to herself.
The windshield wipers shushed back and forth as Jess drove home. She slid the

Vauxhall into her parking space and padded up the stairs to her flat, carrying her
shoes in one hand and her briefcase in the other. Without bothering to turn on the
light, she went straight to her bedroom, undressed by the side of the bed, and slid
under the blankets.

It was late morning when she woke. A rare spear of sunlight shafted across Jess'

bedroom. Every part of her felt heavy, as though she'd been drugged. Jess stretched
and pressed her fingertips into her arms and legs to wake them. She rose and went to

the toilet, startled by a plunk as she bore down to piss.

Jess stood and looked into the bowl. Something shimmered at the bottom. She

reached in, her fingers closing around the object, very hard and strangely warm.
There, in her hand, rested a pale blue gem the shape and size of a hen's egg.

She quickly washed it under the tap and dried it with the cleanest towel she could

find. Jess returned to the bedroom to examine the jewel in the light. There was no
mistaking it: she had seen descriptions of this stone before, always in catalogs
published by collectors who offered mind-bending sums of money for it.

It was called the Babylon Diamond. It hadn't been seen in so many centuries,

experts had started saying it didn't exist, or that it had been destroyed. But here it
was, glittering in the palm of her hand.

She could already picture precisely where, in the Museum, she would display it.

SECURITY

BILLIEROSIE

Freddie didn't give the woman who had just sucked his cock time to put her shoes

back on her feet. He followed her at a short distance, grinning, as she stumbled. Her
hauteur had evaporated when Freddie had shoved his erection into her throat. He
watched her, as she stepped out on to foggy, chilly Regent Street in London town,
clutching her shoes to her breast. Freddie had no intention of standing outside for
long and getting cold, but he wanted to watch her as she scuttled disgracefully away.
Her image receded in the fog, as she headed south-west, towards Piccadilly Circus,
before taking a side street left, into Soho.

Freddie loved his job in security at the exclusive London department store, and he

loved the shoplifters who fed his depravity.

* * * *

They called her "the Shadow", the shoplifter who haunted the department stores of

the busy West End of London. That was the name that the security guards of Oxford
Street had given her, the most prolific shoplifter of the decade. She was invisible, so
it seemed, and her reputation had gained the status of mythical proportions. She was
completely savvy about security and security cameras. Only once had her face been
caught on film, and then it had only been a three-quarter profile. But Freddie felt that
he would know her anywhere. The small, thin head, the greasy, scraped-back hair,
the nondescript clothes.

She had never been caught.
Sometimes, the department stores she preyed upon had no idea that they had been

robbed until the end of the day's trading. An empty hanger in a changing room, a
conspicuous gap in a display of antique jewelry. Tearful sales assistants would try to
explain their negligence. Security had been tightened in all of the West End
department stores. But there was no catching the woman they called the Shadow.

* * * *

Freddie grinned down at the elegantly dressed lady kneeling between his big,

polished shoes. Her previously perfectly coiffed ash-blond hair was sticky with his
spunk. Spunk drooled from between her lips, mingling with the tears and snot that
messed up what had been a perfectly made-up face, glowing with expensive
cosmetics. Rivulets of brown mascara ran down her cheeks. Her pink lipstick was
smudged beyond the exquisitely drawn line of her lip, giving her a slutty appearance.

Freddie glanced down at his softening cock, at the ring of pink, pearlescent lipstick
that encircled what had been an impressive erection.

And what a spectacle it had been. Her upper-class lips stretched around his cock

as he fed it into her throat. His big hands gripping either side of her head as he fucked
her face. His fingertips digging into her scalp. Freddie knew he was hurting her. He
didn't care. The little gurgling, choking sounds that she had made had been a bonus.
He should have picked up his mobile phone and photographed the event: he would
next time.

She pushed her large tits back inside her brassière. Freddie had ordered her to

display them, before deciding whether to wank on them, or to use her mouth. He had
chosen her mouth. He wondered if she had ever deep-throated a guy before. The way
she gagged and spluttered as his large cock had violated her throat made him think
that it was her first time. Freddie loved it when that happened. A virgin throat. He
felt briefly tender towards her. But only briefly. Freddie pulled out in time to splatter
her tits, hair, and face as well. She buttoned up her cream silk blouse with trembling,
immaculately manicured fingers.

Had he needed to piss, he would have pissed on her as well. But he didn't, so he

wiped his cock on her hair, before zipping up.

Her humiliation was complete. He had used her mouth as a receptacle for his

spunk; with no more attention to her than if she had been a basin, or a bucket, for his
ejaculation. Serves her right, thought Freddie.

He wondered if shoplifting had been on her agenda when she'd left her home that

morning. Probably not. The attempted theft of the beautiful silk, Paisley scarf, the
exotic design for which Freddie's store was so famous, had the feel of an impulsive
action. She had simply draped it casually around her slender shoulders, thinking that
it would not be noticed. The vibrant, exotic purples and greens had been set off
perfectly by the elegant simplicity of her navy Chanel suit, and certainly, Freddie
wouldn't have realized the theft, had he not watched her do it.

He kicked her, growling at her to get up, and she yelped as he ordered her out of

his office. He was finished using her mouth and her hiccupping sobbing was
beginning to get on his nerves. Her shoes had fallen off in her eager scramble to get
to his thick cock. Once she had realized the opportunity of redemption was at hand,
there had been no stopping her and she had gobbled and slurped him into her mouth.

She had begged him not to call the police, pleading with him in her cut-glass

accent that she would do anything, anything at all. She was meeting her husband for a

luncheon appointment: she mustn't be late.

Her posh voice grated on his ears. And as if her upper-class, well-bred accent

hadn't been enough to irritate him, the fact that she'd called it "luncheon" infuriated
him. Posh bitch. Posh, sniveling bitch. But Freddie loved her pleading; it made his
cock harder than ever, and he had strung out her begging long enough for her to
approach hysteria.

Freddie imagined her, trembling and quivering through her luncheon appointment.

He hoped that her husband would appreciate the carefully aimed stains. When he had
first collared her, she had smelled expensive. Now he'd shot his load over her, she
smelled of expensive perfume, mingled with Freddie's spunk.

Yes, Freddie loved shoplifters. He wasn't fussy if they were male or female. If

anything, the men were more fun because they showed greater resistance to Freddie's
extreme version of redemption. But they always capitulated in the end. Never once
had a male shoplifter demanded that Freddie call the police to arrest him. Sucking on
Freddie's big cock was preferable to a night in the cells, and an appearance in court.
So Freddie's cock got a lot of male attention these days. But it was the humiliation
that Freddie loved most of all. To say that the men, especially, were totally out of
their comfort zone was an understatement of astronomical proportions. Freddie never
analyzed his predilection. Why would he bother?

It was always a bit of a disappointment to Freddie when he discovered that one of

his detainees was gay. He didn't think that a gay guy would find sucking cock much
of a challenge. He felt that the blowjob lacked a certain frisson. But a blowjob,
though, was still a blowjob.

Freddie's department store had been barely open for an hour and he had achieved

his first come of the day. It was a foggy autumn morning and nearing eleven o clock.
He turned his head right, towards Oxford Circus: the junction was busy, as it always
was, with taxis and buses. Cars were bumper to bumper. Horns blared and engines
revved, churning out clouds of oily smoke, adding to the sense of mystery of the
shifting, thick fog. The cold, inclement weather hadn't put many people off and
shoppers thronged on the crowded pavements, eager to escape the chill, eager to get
into Freddie's posh store.

But Freddie's mind was on the Shadow that morning. He'd heard, on his radio, that

a diamond solitaire ring had been stolen from a big department store in Oxford Street.
Stolen from under the sales assistant's nose. Security hadn't spotted anything, either.
The theft had the feel of the Shadow about it. And Freddie thought about the elusive

thief as he made his way up to the first floor and perused the exclusive women's wear
collection.

Freddie fantasized about what he would do to the Shadow, if he caught her.
Freddie's store was getting busy. Freddie's alert eyes would be busy, watching.

* * * *

Ellie had always been invisible. Even as a child at school, her teachers never

remembered her name. They rarely even noticed her at her little desk at the back of
the classroom. Ellie didn't mind; it was just how things were. And she learned how
to turn her invisibility to her advantage. She could get away with things.

On that foggy day in busy London town she dressed in keeping with her

invisibility. Today, she wore a gray mackintosh belted at the waist. She was a plain,
unremarkable woman; nothing marked her out as worthy of looking at.

Ellie preferred it when the weather was like this. The unexpected autumn chill had

brought the tourists into the stores, making her job easier.

Stealing the diamond solitaire ring had not been difficult for Ellie. She had

wandered into the jewelry department of the store at the Marble Arch end of Oxford
Street. Two Muslim women in their traditional dress had been looking at the jewels.
The precious stones glittered as the saleswoman displayed them against the lush
surface of black velvet. As usual, no one noticed Ellie, and with a subtle bit of
misdirection, and a little sleight of hand, the jewel was in her mackintosh pocket. She
continued to browse for a little while, suppressing the need to get home to her
boyfriend, Amos, and have sex.

The image of Amos' cock came into her mind. His beautiful erection, huge. The

previous night he had masturbated for her. She had marveled at his ejaculation; she
found the sight of Amos pumping and teasing his orgasm, his long, strong fingers
wrapped tight around his cock, incredibly erotic. But she was just a little sorry that he
was no longer hard enough to penetrate her.

The first time Ellie had seen Amos' cock, she had been smitten. The only cocks

she had seen had been when she was searching the web. No one had bothered to
show Ellie a cock before. She wasn't considered worthy. But the comparisons she
had from her lonely midnight surfing drew from her a wisdom that Amos' cock was
magnificent. It sprang tall and proud when he had released it from the confines of the
worn, frayed denim. His cock had incredible girth. It was like a carved statue, a work
of art, standing in its frame of curling brown hairs. It goes without saying that Ellie
had never tasted a cock before, but she instinctively knew what to do and she moaned

as she took him into her mouth. Amos had moaned as well.

She knew that it was a source of amazement to everyone who saw them that a hunk

like Amos should be with such an ordinary, plain little woman. These days she just
smiled. When they had first got together, a couple of years ago, the stares would
make her blush. She would feel inferior and tearful. But with Amos' hand caressing
the back of her head, she was as beautiful as the sexy women who stared so
judgmentally. Besides, she had what Amos really wanted, and what she doubted none
of those gorgeous women had. Ellie had smiled her secret as she watched a sultry,
dark-haired beauty, sway gracefully but painfully in her silly killer heels, her toes
probably deformed with corns, hard skin, and potential ugly bunions. Ellie had
perfect toes, a gracefully turned ankle and a sweetly arched instep. Ellie had the most
beautiful feet in the world and Amos, her fabulously divine Amos, was a foot
fetishist.

They had met at the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. Or rather, they had met

on the steps of the National Gallery. They had both, separately, been viewing an
exhibition of Northern European Romantic art of the nineteenth century. It had been
summer time and a heat wave was suffocating London town. Ellie was as covered as
much as was bearable in the stifling heat. She didn't want to burden the world with
the sight of her skinny frame. But on her feet she wore little strappy sandals, and a
plaited leather loop between her big toe and her second toe was rubbing a blister.

She had sat on the staircase outside the famous gallery, the lovely sweep of steps

leading down on to Trafalgar Square, and removed the offending shoe. She had felt
alarmed when the good-looking man had sat next to her. He wasn't just good-looking,
he was gorgeous, and he was too close for comfort. But his voice was seductive and
he was interesting and he had soon engaged her in conversation. He told her that he
was an art historian, and his name was Amos. His dark, straight hair was unkempt,
and chopped level with his jaw. His cheeks and chin were rough with stubble. He
looked at her with large hazel eyes. Ellie felt that he could see into her soul. He had
an air of academic vagueness that Ellie found endearing. They shook hands, politely.
For the first time in her life, Ellie had talked with a man without feeling that she was
being compared and judged.

So they had sat on the steps, overlooking Trafalgar Square. They gazed at the

flocks of pigeons, which the public were no longer allowed to feed. Ellie felt the
warmth of his left thigh, as he pressed against her right. A spasm in her womb jolted
through her like electricity, making her gasp as her body jerked. She'd had the same

violent response when she looked at the proud cocks on the web.

They watched the people splashing in the cooling water from the fountains. The

sunlight glinted, dazzling their screwed-up eyes. Amos had bought a can of cold
Pepsi from a machine and he shared it with her. Ellie liked the intimacy of drinking
from the same place where his lips had been. He wore a tight, pale, checked shirt,
with the sleeves rolled up. He'd opened it at the neck, and she could see that he had
golden hairs, creeping up from his chest. His strong forearms were tanned and
covered with sun-bleached hairs. His jeans stretched tight across his crotch, making
Ellie want to see what she knew was beneath. Her heart pounded against her ribs and
she tried to concentrate on his voice. She inhaled the fragrance of pheromone-laced
sweat; she felt dizzy.

A child perched on one of the four lions guarding the hero of the battle of

Trafalgar. The child was, no doubt, getting covered with pigeon excrement, and they
laughed, sharing the joke. From where the lions watched, the erect pillar thrust
skyward. And high, high above the square, there was the aloof, erect statue of
Admiral Lord Nelson on his column.

Amos noticed her blister and he held her foot as if it were the Holy Grail. He was

visibly upset at the sore, oozing place, which was beginning to bleed: the leather had
cut into the tender skin. His fingertips stroked her instep; a quiver trembled up her
spine. He had helped her to walk; she had laughed and told him it was totally
unnecessary, but Amos had insisted and took her to a pharmacy, to have the wound
dressed, then he'd taken her to a shoe store and bought her a pair of comfortable,
sensible sandals, with straps that wouldn't rub her feet.

That had been two years ago. Amos had confessed to her that he had noticed her

lovely feet as they had walked around the gallery and he had been unable to stop
himself from following her. They had shared two years of wild sexual adventures.
Amos was creative and always managed to feature Ellie's toes somewhere into their
lovemaking. He had photographed her feet from every possible angle, from her
arched instep to her finely turned ankle. He gave her a pedicure twice a week,
painting her delicate toenails a pearlescent pink. He was jealous of anyone else
touching her feet.

Amos didn't care for penetrative sex; sex for Amos was purely about women's feet.

Particularly, Ellie's feet.

Ellie put her hand in her deep pocket and her fingers played with the diamond

solitaire ring.

She giggled, a little. Thieving always brought with it an incredible high. She was

giddy on an adrenaline rush: she felt magnificent, powerful, and overwhelmingly,
deliriously happy.

But most of all she felt an urgent sexual arousal. Her inner thighs were sticky with

the juices that oozed from her cunt. Her womb spasmed, she needed to orgasm.
Stealing always had that earthy, rapacious, primal effect on her and the orgasms she
experienced after she stole were wild.

The higher the value of the item she had stolen, the higher her erotic arousal. She

could feel the sensation of her swollen, engorged labia slapping together as she made
her way through the busy, chilly thoroughfare of Oxford Street, towards Oxford
Circus.

The fog gave everything a gray, haunted feel. As she breathed in, the air felt cold

and damp in Ellie's lungs.

Autumn time had brought with it the sweet chestnuts, and Ellie stopped at a stall

where they were being roasted. The aroma of the chestnuts mixed with the charcoal
from the hot fire, permeated the air of Oxford Street, drawing her irresistibly in; she
had a weakness for the soft, savory nut. She burned her tongue trying to nibble them
fast. Then she burned her fingertips. The stallholder's fire gusted smoke so that you
weren't sure which was smoke and which was fog.

When she reached Bond Street, Ellie crossed over and cut through the little

cobbled side streets. Streets that only serious shoppers, cab drivers, and delivery men
knew about.

A minicab driver in a red Ford, which had seen better days, wound down his

window and spat.

Ellie wondered if the crude gesture had been intended for her, but she ignored him.
Ellie had one more store to visit on the way home to Soho.
She chose to enter the store through the Great Marlborough Street entrance, rather

than the main entrance from Regent Street. Great Marlborough Street had a
marvelous Tudor revival façade. She loved its quaint feeling of history, the black
beams set against the white walls, conveying an era long since gone. Even though she
knew that it was faux Elizabethan, it gave her a thrill of belonging. A sense of the
history of London town. She adored the eccentricity of the store, with its wood-
paneled rooms, giving the visitor the feeling that she was a guest in a wealthy person's
home.

She made a point of passing through the flower department, inhaling the fragrance

of fleshy orchids and lilies. Their erect stamens made her think again of Amos' cock.

She took the elevator up to the fourth floor, and wandered through the Oriental rug

rooms. She came up here each time she visited the historic store, for no other reason
than that she loved it. She tenderly stroked the rich surface of an exquisite purple and
red woven carpet that was probably very rare. She imagined the places that the carpet
had passed through on its journey to the West End of London, to the Regent Street
store.

The Khyber Pass, the Dasht-e Kavir desert and the bazaars of Peshawar. Ellie

knew the exotic names off by heart. She remembered a song her Grandmother used to
sing. Something about faraway places with strange-sounding names.

Ellie took the elevator down to the first floor.

* * * *

It was late in the afternoon when Freddie's eyes followed the unremarkable

woman, as she wandered casually around the designer dresses. It was her; it was the
Shadow, he was sure of it. His cock stirred and hardened. He saw her admiring a
mannequin, draped in a Jean Paul Gaultier confection of purple suede, gray velvet and
creamy lace. He caught the wistful look in her eyes. What could such a plain woman
be thinking? Did she think that Jean Paul could work his magic on her skinny body?
For a guy with such rigid, traditional tastes, Freddie had a lot of time for Jean Paul's
more outrageous designs.

Then he saw her do it. At least, he saw the beginnings of her routine. She took

two identical dresses off the rail. They would be two different sizes, of that he was
sure. An insurance, in case one of the assistants stopped her on the way to the
changing rooms. The woman would simply say that she wasn't sure of her size.
Freddie didn't see anyone stop her. The sales assistants were such lazy bitches on this
floor, Freddie thought. He was sure that they spent all day checking their black eye
make-up and frizzing out their multicolored hair.

Freddie waited, his eyes fixed on the long, pink velour curtain that separated the

sales floor from the changing rooms. He waited, and waited. About thirty minutes
passed. And then she reappeared. With one dress. Just one dress, when she had
taken two into the changing rooms. Frowning, she returned the dress to the rail.
Freddie didn't know how she had done it, but he was convinced she had stolen the
second dress. But how? She was carrying no bags: she had nowhere to hide such a
thing. And then Freddie realized. He could have kicked himself for his stupidity, but
he didn't. She was wearing the dress. She must have slipped off the security tag and

she was wearing the expensive, designer dress beneath the gray mackintosh.

Freddie followed her.
He followed her into the elevator. Going down. Freddie smiled at the irony, as he

stood next to the Shadow. Freddie was sweating out damp patches from his armpits.

She was cool, he had to give her that, even exchanging a few pleasantries with him

about the foggy weather. His security uniform hadn't fazed her. Freddie was
surprised that her voice was cultured, hinting at an education that Freddie hadn't had
access to. Freddie would show her exactly where her posh education had got her
when she kneeled before him.

There was a protocol for detaining shoplifters and Freddie followed it to the letter.

His mouth was dry and his heart boomed in his chest, but outwardly he was calm.

The Shadow left the store from the Regent Street exit. She took a right turn

towards Oxford Circus. He let her walk a few paces in that direction, before catching
up with her with long, swift strides. His big hand came down on her shoulder.

"Excuse me, madam," he said.
The Shadow spun around as she felt his grip and kicked him hard on his shin bone.

Freddie yelped. With the agility of a skinny Houdini, she slipped out of the gray
mackintosh and ran. Freddie was left holding the empty, flapping coat. He threw it
disparagingly to the ground. She ran, and Freddie followed, up to Oxford Circus, then
a right turn on to Oxford Street. The earlier fog was thickening, but he didn't lose
sight of her. A skinny, freakish woman, in a dress that was intended for a bright fairy.
Freddie prided himself on his fitness and was close behind when she turned sharply
into Poland Street and into the maze of streets, lanes, and alleys that was Soho. She
ran through Berwick Street Market, the cobbles littered with rotting fruit and
vegetables. The beat, the rhythm of Soho, was like passing through a time warp. The
noisy stall holders shouting out their wares, as their ancestors had done for centuries.
For a minute he thought he had lost her in the fog, then he caught sight of her again as
she raced past the sleazy sex shops. He followed, closing the gap, briefly registering a
display of colored dildos, huge and grotesque. The neon of the adult theatres flashed
red as she turned down a tiny alleyway and fell. Freddie was on her in a second.

He grabbed the velvet front of the stolen dress and hauled her up. The velvet

ripped, exposing her skinny tits. Her chest was concave, rather than convex. Her face
was an inch away from his, their lips almost brushing. They both panted for breath.
Then, remembering his intentions, Freddie pushed her down, down between his feet.
He unzipped himself and the Shadow was in no doubt about what he wanted. He took

out his cock and proudly displayed his erection.

The damp cobblestones dug into her knees as she ran her tongue over her dry lips.

Her shoe caught in the fragile lace and it ripped.

She stared at the erect cock before her. He pointed it at her, as if he expected her

to be overwhelmed.

Her giggle could have been down to nerves, except that it wasn't.
The erection that brushed her parted lips was minuscule, barely three or four

inches. Even during her nightly erotic adventures on the web, before Amos, she had
never seen such a skinny little thing. Such a weenie little willie! And the guy seemed
proud of it! She thought of Amos' magnificent member, waiting for her in their cozy
little flat, above the grocer's shop in nearby Wardour Street.

She pointed and the giggle turned into helpless laughter. She hiccupped her way

through hysterical mirth as her skinny body quaked.

Freddie's erection drooped sadly.
Ellie stood and walked away, Freddie didn't try to stop her.
The Shadow never stole again. She had made a solemn vow to Amos that if she

were ever caught, that would be an end to it.

The Shadow's mackintosh had been handed in to Freddie's store. A diamond

solitaire ring had been found in one of the pockets. Freddie's actions earned him a
commendation from his employers, and a substantial reward from the store who had
never thought to see their diamond again.

Freddie appeared on television. They asked him to go on Question Time. He had

more friends on Facebook than anyone he knew. People followed him on Twitter.
He was famous. A big security company approached him and offered him a
prestigious position in a crime prevention capacity.

He accepted. He was earning more money than he'd ever dreamed of.
Freddie made an appointment to see a cosmetic surgeon. He had heard that the

surgery for penile enlargement was overwhelmingly successful.

The Shadow's mirth echoed in his head.

THE WOMAN FROM ALDGATE WEST

NEIL JAMES HUDSON

The first time I saw Alexandra, she was in the back of the taxi ahead of me. It was

only a week or two after the bombings and I was still a little afraid to go back to using
the Tube, even though taxis were a little more expensive. I enjoyed having the space
of the cab to myself, though, and had had a few too many drinks to get myself home.
It was a warm summer night, but the streets were brightly lit artificially – it was
strange to think of the starry sky above, made invisible by our own sky of streetlights.

We moved out into the right-hand lane, and for a minute or two we drove

alongside Alexandra's taxi. Like mine, it was a standard London black cab, the
passengers shut off from the driver by a glass wall. But it was the passengers who
attracted my attention. He was dressed in a black suit, as if to cover his own identity
with a corporate one. His head was lying back, and it was hard to tell if he was
awake.

Sat on his lap, facing him, was a young woman with long, black hair, and perhaps

a little too much Gothic make-up. Her T-shirt was pulled up over her breasts, which
were bouncing as she moved rhythmically up and down on her associate. The look on
her face told me that she was about to have an orgasm.

I watched, spellbound. There was something beautiful about her that didn't seem

to emanate from her looks: it was, rather, an attitude. I felt that this was someone who
would make you feel better just for sitting next to her, and as I stared at her naked
breasts I felt a passion that wasn't explained merely by lust.

She closed her eyes, leaned back, and stopped moving. I hoped that my driver

wasn't too distracted, but he didn't seem to have noticed. I supposed that you don't
notice so much when you're concentrating on driving. It was a minute or so before
she opened her eyes, and then, to my shock, turned to face me and met my gaze. I
was embarrassed, but for some reason I couldn't turn away. Perhaps the fact that we
were in separate cars made me feel safe.

She smiled, leaned over towards me, and kissed the window, leaving an oval of

lipstick on the glass.

Our car slowed down a little, for reasons that I couldn't fathom from my position in

the back, but we soon caught up with the other car. I looked again. The suit was
sitting up, gazing thoughtfully out of the window. He looked away immediately when

he accidentally caught my gaze. But there was no one else in the car with him. I
wondered if I was looking at the wrong vehicle, until I noticed again the lipstick kiss
on the window, which had been left for me. By someone who wasn't there.

* * * *

I told this story to a few friends, and quickly discovered that they preferred it if I

didn't mention her disappearance, and kept it as a titillating story of the sights you see
around the city. And in my private thoughts, the version of the story I told to myself
at nights, I'd usually transplant her into my cab.

I went back to taking the Tube. I knew that my fear of it was irrational, and it was

easier on the wallet. I could have done without the other passengers, though: I had to
get to Victoria, and spent the entire journey wishing the other passengers away.
Tourists were a particular hate, not because of themselves but because of their
luggage, which was generally bigger than themselves, and the stress that they brought
to the train. It was a simple matter to get on at one stop and get off at another, but
their worries and panic seemed to affect me. I was bothered by a particularly
annoying family for much of my first journey back underground, in which a father
spent five stops apparently blaming his children for the fact that they were going to
miss their stop, which was highly unlikely but didn't stop him from constantly
checking the map above his head and anxiously shushing whenever an announcement
came over the intercom.

I found myself fantasizing about the woman I'd seen in the taxi. I imagined that

she was in front of me now, kneeling with her head between my legs, her mouth
around my cock. I was embarrassed to be getting so turned on in public, but no one
seemed to notice. In my mind's eye, I saw her face in front of me. I could picture it
perfectly: green eyes surrounded by black eye shadow and eyeliner, lips painted
purple that slid up and down my shaft. I could see her looking up at me, and saw that
smile again. I moved my hand down, wanting to touch her breasts, but of course there
was nothing there.

The family left the train at Liverpool Street, and I relaxed. For some reason I had

some awareness that the woman in my mind left the train at the next stop: perhaps
part of my brain was trying to get me to calm down before someone noticed. One
way or another, my fantasy was over, and as we set off again I wondered why I had
been so suddenly overcome with lust for someone I had only seen once.

It wasn't until another a family got on at Aldgate that I was brought fully back to

reality. Abruptly I checked the map myself, not comprehending. I had taken this

route hundreds of times since I started work in the city: Aldgate was the next stop
after Liverpool Street.

I turned around at the window, seeing my reflection in the window as the black

unlit walls sped past outside. Next to my face, I saw an oval of purple lipstick, stuck
on the glass like a "No Smoking" sticker.

* * * *

For the next few days, I watched my other passengers closely, safe in the

knowledge that they would ignore me completely. I found that I could look at them
with impunity, never challenged about my brashness. And I could pay close attention
to the walls outside. There was nothing between Liverpool Street and Aldgate: no
disused station, no platform to step on to. All there was was darkness.

It was a week later that I was walking from the station towards my place of work, a

tourist shop in Victoria Street. If I followed the road to its end I would arrive at the
Houses of Parliament, and I often liked to pretend that this was where I was going,
that I was someone important about to make a difference to the world.

It was then that I saw her on the other side of the road, both hands leaning on the

safety railings, staring at me.

At first I looked away, but then I felt that I had a choice. I could carry on to the

shop, arrive on time, and make today exactly the same as every other day: or I could
cross the road, and probably start the day getting my face slapped.

The traffic was at a standstill. I crossed.
I realized that I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to say. "Er, excuse me...," I

began. "I was wondering if I know you..."

To my surprise she leaned over and kissed me full on the mouth. It occurred to me

that she was probably mad, and yet I had the strange feeling that we'd kissed before.

"I knew you'd come," she said.
"I don't understand," I said.
"I've been calling you for weeks now. I knew you'd noticed."
"I saw you..." I swallowed. "Once. In a taxi."
Her hand was resting gently on my arm. I had a sharp memory of my fantasy in

the Tube carriage. "You've seen me many more times than that," she said. "But you
never noticed."

"I think I would have noticed." She was certainly the most striking person in the

street at the moment."

"How many people have you passed since you left your flat?"

"I don't know. Hundreds."
"Thousands, more like. Describe one of them."
I was baffled, but I tried to answer her question. "Well, there was a man next to

me on the Tube..."

"A man? Is that the best you can do?"
I wasn't sure what she was getting at, and started to feel as if she were attacking

me.

"Almost all of London is invisible to you at the best of times. And what about the

homeless? Did you notice anyone in a doorway? Did you see that gang of drunks
having an argument, or did you look the other way?"

"I did notice them," I said defensively.
"Relax, I'm not having a go at you. You did everything in your power not to notice

them, but you noticed you weren't noticing. They're not like the rest of us. Put some
effort into it, and you can always see them. But there's a part of London you never
see."

"Where's that?" It occurred to me that I was going to be late for work.
"Aldgate West."
"But there's no such place. There's only Aldgate, and Aldgate East – " But then I

remembered the Tube journey the other day.

"You don't see it. Nobody sees it. They don't see it on a map, they don't see those

of us who live there. We've faded from view completely. You don't notice that you
don't notice us. We've become so unnoticeable that I can share a taxi with someone,
even sit on his cock, and he doesn't even know it's happening. Which is why I was so
interested when you noticed me."

"You're not invisible," I said.
"I didn't say I was. Look." From her jacket pocket, she brought out an A-Z. She

opened it in the middle, to a page that was obviously well used.

Aldgate West was a small area, centered around the tube station. There were a few

roads marked – Kingsmead Street, Monksford Way – but no extra detail. I frowned.
It seemed to fit in with the area I knew, but I had never seen this before.

"A fake map," I said.
"Really? Let's ask some of these lovely people. Excuse me?" For a couple of

minutes she put up a show of holding the map out to the passing tourists, workers, and
shoppers. Every one passed as if she wasn't there. "You have a go," she said to me
eventually.

"OK," I said, and took the map off her. I approached a young woman with braided

hair, whom I assumed to be a student. "Excuse me," I said, showing her the map.
She brushed past me as if I wasn't there. I tried a few more people. It made me cross:
even for London, this was rude.

"They won't answer you," she said. "You faded from the other world, and joined

ours."

She was bad news, I decided. It was time to head back to reality. I gave her the

book back. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm late. Perhaps we should meet up sometime?"

"I'll be here," she said, as I headed back to the tourist shop.

* * * *

I ran the shop on my own, the owners being too tight to pay for an assistant, even

though it was the height of the tourist season. A number of people came in, holding
up the ridiculous tat that we sold: T-shirts with the usual slogans; models of Big Ben;
anything with a Union Jack as if it was London's flag rather than Britain's. People
took photographs of the shop. But I soon realized that no one was buying anything.
And it became clear why not.

"There's no one here," people would say, over and over.
No matter how many people I approached, no matter how many times I asked "can

I help you?" and "are you ready to pay?", people would eventually put the items down
and leave. At one point I tried to physically prevent a group of Japanese tourists from
leaving, but they simply surged around me, baffled expressions on their faces.

An hour later, I went back to talk to Alexandra.

* * * *

"None of us know why it happens," she said, taking my hand and leading me back

towards the station. "Some of us just feel a bit overwhelmed by the city. There are so
many millions here, each in their own worlds. London should be plural, not singular.
We spend almost all of our lives being ignored, and sometimes it seems to push us a
little further down. And then we discover Aldgate West, and we can't go back any
more."

"So no one can see you," I said. "Whatever you do."
We descended to the station. She climbed over the turnstiles, but neither the

commuters nor the staff seemed to take any notice. She beckoned me, and I climbed
over myself.

"No need for money," she said. I could hardly hear her above the noise, the chatter

of travelers, the clatter of their feet, and the screeching and rattling of the trains

themselves, not to mention the occasionally audible announcements that came over
the Tannoys.

"Come on," she said, leading me on to the platform where people were escaping

from a train, while another crowd of people waited impatiently to take their places.

To my astonishment, Alexandra lifted her T-shirt above her breasts. She was

wearing a black bra beneath, but no one stopped to look. While we waited for the
carriage to empty, she lifted my hand to cup her breasts.

"But... We can't do it here..." I said, then she dragged me into the carriage and

found us a double seat. As soon as we were sat down, she pushed her mouth against
mine passionately, and I tasted her tongue.

"No one can see us," she said. "No one's seen you all day. Here."
She pulled my hand to her breast again, and I slid beneath her bra to feel the flesh

beneath. Her own hand had fallen to my cock, which was growing hard despite the
crowded surroundings.

The doors closed and the train began to pull off. I pulled her bra down and

exposed her breasts, feeling her nipples and gently squeezing.

"That's nice," she said. "I love doing it like this."
Around us people swayed and shuffled with the train's movement, oblivious to

what we were doing on the seat. I looked at the window and saw Alexandra's breasts
reflected in the window. I bent down and took her nipple in my mouth, tonguing it
and gently biting.

In the meantime she unzipped my trousers and felt for my cock, bringing it out and

squeezing it with hand. I was fully exposed when the train arrived at Moorgate, and
there was another exchange of passengers.

"Stand up," she said. "Let someone else have the seat."
We stood and awkwardly shuffled past a large couple who didn't seem to notice us

at all, let alone the fact that Alexandra had her breasts out and was holding my cock. I
leant against a pole, the same one that a businessman was holding on to while
studying a book. Alexandra knelt in front of me, and placed her mouth around my
cock.

Again, I had the feeling that this wasn't the first time this had happened to me. I

looked down at her, and saw her looking at me, smiling as best she could while she
sucked me.

"Have you done this before?" I said. "And I didn't notice?"
She took my cock from her mouth, nodded at me, then sucked me again.

When we stopped at Barbican we were in everyone's way, but they just didn't

notice, clambering over Alexandra's legs and squeezing past. I was unbelievably
turned on. What was happening was momentous, and I began to think of what my
new life would be like. There was no need to dream of riches: the city was ours. The
people were playthings, the streets were our playground. And what was I giving up?
As Alexandra had said, we were ignored most of the time anyway.

"I want to fuck you," I said, as loudly as I could. Our fellow travelers continued to

be absorbed in their books, newspapers, music, and just staring out of the windows.
"I want to fuck you in this carriage."

Alexandra stood up and pressed against me. I felt beneath her skirt, beneath her

legs. I could feel her knickers, damp already, and slid my hand inside. I could feel
her moist, hot cunt and kissed her as I pushed two fingers inside her. She gasped, and
held my cock again.

"You can fuck me anywhere you like," she said. "Houses of Parliament?

Trafalgar Square? I had someone in the Queen's bed once."

I wasn't sure if she was joking. "What did she say?"
"She wasn't there, stupid." She took her hand off my cock and slid it between her

legs, pressing on her clit while I continued to fuck her with my fingers.

When we got to King's Cross, I turned her around and leaned her against one of the

seats. A small group of city workers in suits came on, but couldn't get past us, and
stood hunched together at the end of the carriage, without knowing why. I lifted her
skirt again, parted her legs, and pushed my cock inside her.

"Oh, yes," she said, as soon as I was in. The train moved off again, and I began to

fuck her in time with the rhythms of the carriage. "Oh, that's so good," she said.
"Don't stop."

I was, of course, getting a huge thrill from fucking so publicly (albeit to a public

that was oblivious to our actions) but in fact most of my pleasure was coming from
Alexandra herself. Not only did I find her attractive, but we seemed to be highly
compatible sexually. Sometimes I have found myself inside women, and before long
we had both been forced to accept that it just wasn't working. But with Alexandra, it
was working. Her own moans turned into screams, and I felt pleasure welling up in
my cock. A middle-aged woman came and sat in the seat in front of us, and sat
reading a romantic novel while Alexandra came noisily and repeatedly.

I came myself just before High Street Kensington, gasping out loud, holding on to

her waist and nearly falling over as we passed over a bumpy part of the track. It was

all I could do to stay inside her as I felt my come passing from my cock into her own
body.

We stayed in position for a minute or two, and I began to feel guilty for blocking

the aisle. Finally, Alexandra said, "Come on. I've got more to tell you."

Before she stood up, she kissed the woman in the seat on the cheek, leaving the

ghost of a lipstick mark. A faint smile passed over the woman's face, although it
faded as she found herself unable to work out why it was there.

* * * *

"It's not all about games," she said as she led me above ground. I didn't know

Kensington so well, but she was leading me towards the Gardens, and I began to
wonder what we could do on the Albert Memorial.

"Shame," I said. "I could do you again right here." I felt drunk, as if this was all a

dream that I never had to wake up from, and although I'd come properly I was already
beginning to harden again.

"Wait a minute, lover," she said, and it occurred to me again that we seemed to

have a past I just wasn't aware of. "We're all like this when we first break through.
All we can see is the fun, the sex: getting one over all the people who just shafted us.
But then we have to think about what to do with this power."

"You could change the world," I said.
"Easily. We can move things around without anyone noticing. We can do what

we want. We can move people if we have to. We can get rid of people, even
conceive new ones. We can move money, very easily. We've got a lot of money, and
we've got it where it counts.

"We've got plans for the world now. There are things we want to happen, things

we want to know, and we've got everything we need to get what we want."

I suddenly realized that I was seeing a very different side to her. "And no one

knows you're doing it."

She looked at me sadly. "You owe your lives to us. Many times over. Do you

remember the demonstrations over the Iraq War?"

"I was there," I said.
"Do you remember the bomb?"
I was puzzled again. "What bomb?"
"It didn't happen. It took a lot of work. My job was easiest: I gave someone a

blowjob without his knowing. He felt better after that, and stayed home. I don't think
the other three were so lucky: I was kept out of the rest of the operation."

"And that guy in the taxi?"
She shrugged. "That was just a bit of fun. They can still consent, you know. If

you touch someone and they don't want it, they turn away, try to put you off. They
don't know they're doing it, but it still happens on a subconscious level. If they
respond, you can take it as a yes."

"And what about me?"
She stopped, looking around. There were families picnicking all around us, and a

warm breeze fluttered through the grass. I could never understand how London had
so much green space as well as everything else: I could almost believe we were in a
village somewhere.

"It gets so lonely," she said. "There are so few of us. I've bumped into you a

couple of times. I got to like you. You didn't turn away from me. I've loved our
Tube journeys home. You're always so uptight when you get on: once I've made you
come, you're so much more relaxed. Maybe I'm flattering myself, but I think you
need me. Didn't you wonder why you were so attracted to me? It's because part of
you knows we're already together."

She began to undress in front of me. I was getting to the point where I no longer

noticed the people around us, just as they didn't notice us. Alexandra threw her
clothes carelessly on to the ground, then lay down on her back, looking up at me.
"I'm sick of being ignored," she said. "I want you to be with me."

I looked down at her. It was the first time I'd seen her naked, but I knew on a

deeper level that I already knew the whole of her body. I knelt between her legs and
kissed her pussy. She wasn't quite ready this time, but I knew I could get her going. I
filled my mouth with saliva to moisten my tongue, and began to lick her clit, stroking
her labia as I did so. She began to make soft sighs, and I began taste more of her own
flavors. People were walking all around us and at one point a jogger simply strode
over us, but neither of us allowed it to put us off.

But as I began to bring her to another orgasm, I thought over what she had told me.

There were millions of people in the city, and it should have surprised none of them
that there was a group of people controlling their every move. What they didn't know
was how closely they were following them, how intimate they were being with their
lives.

Beneath me, Alexandra writhed and moaned, and finally clamped her legs hard

around my head as she came. I wondered how many other acts of sex were taking
place around us. There were millions of people in this city: hundreds of thousands of

them must have been fucking.

"Come inside me," said my lover.
I threw off my own clothes. I wasn't concerned if any of them blew away in the

breeze: I would soon be able to pick up some new ones. I climbed on top of
Alexandra, and once again we joined together, as she looked up at the sky and I stared
at the grass, and I kissed her, trying to bring to memory any of the times that we'd had
in the past.

And as we made love amongst the tourists, the workers on lunch breaks, the

students, and the pigeons, amongst the din from the main road and the airplanes above
us, I slowly became completely absorbed in Alexandra, and forgot about the city.

* * * *

We climbed over the turnstiles again and got a train to Aldgate West. This time we

just sat on the seats like everyone else, but I took the opportunity to get a good look at
my fellow passengers. Normally I did everything I could not to catch their eyes,
treated them as if they were items of furniture. Today I wanted to know who they
were; try to read their life stories from the lines in their faces. I wanted to use my
condition to follow them home, learn about their lives.

Alexandra knew there was something wrong, but it was a few stops before she said

anything. "What is it?" she said, knowing what was coming.

"I don't want this power," I said.
"You don't have to have it," she said. "I just want you to be with me. You don't

have to work for us."

"But..." I said. "I couldn't do it. Knowing."
"We protect you," she said. "We're not an invasion force. We all came from the

same place. Think of us as your guardian angels."

She was trying to talk me into it, but I noticed she was already talking of "us" and

"you".

"Angels? How do we know you won't become devils? No one should have this

power. Alexandra, I don't have to come with you. You could come with me."

"We don't go back," she said sadly.
"But you could, couldn't you? If you care that much for me, come back to the real

London. They'll manage without you."

"You don't know what we're achieving," she said. "And you don't have to do

anything you don't want to. Just be a companion to me."

I remembered our lovemaking in a compartment like this one, and thought of all

the times I didn't remember.

The carriage slid to a stop. Aldgate West. Nobody moved.
"This is your stop," I said.
Slowly, Alexandra got to her feet, and stood by the door. "Come with me," she

said.

"Come with me," I said.
"Please."
"Please."
Sadly, as if she had always known this would happen, Alexandra stepped on to the

station platform. The door shut, and we made our way towards Liverpool Street.

* * * *

There is no Aldgate West. I've looked on the map, and it isn't there. I've walked

around that area of London, and there isn't a small district of invisibles controlling our
lives. The Tube speeds from Victoria to Aldgate. It doesn't stop between them, and
there isn't anywhere it could stop.

I went back to the souvenir shop. I found that I seemed to fade back into life. At

first people still didn't notice me, but slowly they began to pay a little more attention,
and finally, after a day or so, I was able to take my place in reality. Selling My
Mother Went to London T-shirts to people to give to children who would never wear
them.

So things are back to normal, and life seems very dull indeed. By the end of the

day, I feel so frustrated at the emptiness, the soullessness, the sheer triviality and
rudeness of everyday life. By the time I get on the Tube to go home, I feel as if I'm
ready to punch someone.

But the journey itself always seems to relax me, and by the time we get past

Liverpool Street, I always feel as if I'm worth something after all.

And sometimes I can see a mark on the window, almost as if it's the kind of

smudge made by lipstick.

And I think that maybe one day, I will get off at Aldgate West.

DAY TRIP

VICTORIA POND

We arrived in the city late, of course. Virgin trains are notorious for being late. It

doesn't matter if yours is the first trip of the day. In that case, your train will still be
scattered cars across a track at departure time.

We knew that before we'd bought our tickets. Just like we'd known Eve would

spend part of the trip in confused fear of the fist-fight always just about to break out
among the FC fans pounding Stella at the front of our car.

Still, Virgin ran a great deal. So Eve, Samira, and I bought our tickets for the

Oxford to London run. What did it matter if we missed an hour or two of daylight?
We were just in the city for a day trip.

We found our way to the main areas, roaring with passengers and children and

espresso machines that foamed milk for the business crowd. Eve and Samira were
astounded by the exposed rafters and artistic-architectural beams and supports that
criss-crossed the ceilings and stand in for walls. Their eyes traveled from top to
bottom, coming down from those metallic patterns, to the classical columns
supporting them, 'til they could finally reach my eyes again.

Samira, the New Yorker, remarked, "Reminds me a bit of Port Authority."
Eve, another American, didn't pretend such indifference. "It's beautiful," she said,

all sincerity. But not stunning enough that she lost her focus. "Where's the exit?"

While they'd been staring up, I'd been watching them. They'd moved as they'd

admired, so not acting like the blasted tourists that were always underfoot. Aside
from the rubbernecking, they'd been acceptable Londoners, wearing muted colors and
following the flow toward the timetables.

Would I be so adaptable in a truly foreign city? I liked to think so. I liked to think

that if I could go from Aberystwyth to London, then London to Oxford, which I'd
behave so local-normal everywhere I might go. But these two made it seem
effortless. My fellow grad students always seemed to have their lives so much more
together than I did.

I gestured to a particular exit. "That way," I said.
And then we were three-abreast, sometimes two with one leading, on our way to

the street. I looked down at the speckled ivory floors, remarkably clean for the
amount of foot traffic as they experienced. How had I ended up with such worldly
and complete friends? Did they realize I was a fraudulent Oxonian, a Welsh country

girl who just pretended?

Oh, they heard my real accent more than anyone else ever did. It was hard to hold

on to the Oxford accent at university when you spoke with Americans, whose accents
were so different that they didn't matter at all. Eve and Samira loved my Welsh tones,
stronger when we'd been at the bars and the pubs, but they couldn't possibly
understand what that really meant. Couldn't know how hard I worked to form
different vowels, drop different consonants, when in certain company.

Ask me to High Table, and I'll fool the Provost.
So we walked the streets. Eve admired all the old cathedrals – designed by

Christopher Wren, right? – and saw nothing of the crowds or the concrete gray
beneath our feet. Her eyes played over spires and brilliant, painted windows whose
arches defied ancient geometry.

Samira was of no mind to be charmed, preferring to spend her day in shopping.

After all, wasn't that what people came to London for?

I fought through crowds for them, dragging them on to empty side streets where

the everyday noise of cars and children faded away. The emptiness provided a chance
to breathe the oil-filled air, light on particulates that day, and admire the perfect
straight lines of the gray sidewalk pavers, the black metalwork railings on a set of
stairs, the white-painted mullions in a shop window.

This was new London, Samira's sort of place. We lounged on those stairs for a

moment, discussing a leather jacket we could see in the shop window and which none
of us could afford.

Rest break over, we continued walking. Samira might have believed that London

is for shopping, or Eve that it's for buildings older than her homeland, but I knew that
London is for walking. We trekked out of that newer London, paved over for ease of
car suspensions and tourists, and into older places. Places where cobblestones gently
arch to keep a street safe and un-muddied.

Of course, neither of them had trouble with cobblestones, not even Eve in her

impractical stiletto heels. They'd been walking cobbles just as old back at university
this morning. I hadn't thought about it when we'd walked our mile to the train station
at Gloucester Green, but that place seemed far away now. They acted more American
when in London, it seemed.

We ducked into empty fancy dress shops with interesting, affordable pieces. The

bored shopgirls either didn't notice or didn't care when we left empty-handed. Eve
wouldn't let me take just one or two little things on our way out, even though the

overly pierced staff couldn't possibly have known.

The day turned chillier as we walked farther. We all twined college scarves around

our necks – blue and purple and white stripes proclaiming our allegiance, our
privilege. Samira huddled into her wool jacket, and Eve pulled a pair of black gloves
from her handbag. The gloves outclassed most of the things we'd seen during the day,
a lined leather warmth with scalloped edges and decorative ties on the back of the
wrist.

"I got them for twelve bucks at Target," she said when she saw me admiring them.

"You want 'em?" She tugged one off before I demurred.

Though maybe I should have accepted the gift, or at least a loan. Because Eve

wore a long raincoat with undoubtedly warming pockets, and I'd not brought anything
to battle the evening's cold other than my scarf. The scarf was more of a habit than a
precaution against weather at that point. What Oxford student didn't travel with a
college scarf?

We all kept our eyes on the ground now, hunched against wind and trying not to

slip on cobbles. But we couldn't bring ourselves to admit that it was time to turn
back, to leave the possibilities and magic and crowds and historic-to-Eve buildings.
To return to the humdrum normalcy of student life.

The chill became too much for me, and I ducked into a Tube station. My friends

followed, assuming I had a plan, and I made vague pointing motions at the station
maps. "We'll go east down to Holborn." I took great delight in practicing my Oxford
accent on the station name. Hou-byn.

"To where now?" Samira traced a questing finger in the air, looking up and down

the red line.

I pointed, and Eve laughed. "Hoe-bin?" she tried to replicate my pronunciation,

but the word came out with American vowels, as well it should have. It was charming
that she tried, but didn't try so hard as to insult a true English speaker. Eve could fit in
anywhere with her quaint enthusiasm and willingness to give things a go. Could I?

Of course, Holborn station was closed for maintenance when we got there. I kept

the three of us in the humid and overwarm box for a while longer, ricket-racketing
along the tracks, shoulder to shoulder in our seats and politely ignoring the coughing
man across the way. I pointed out an ad along the top of the car for some book or
another, mostly to distract Eve, when we passed through St. Paul's. No more
cathedrals! Not even at night.

Eventually, I felt warm enough to face the night, and I didn't want to get too far out

of central London lest the trains stop running before we wanted to head back. So we
disembarked at Bank, no funny pronunciations there, and started walking back in the
direction we'd already been.

I don't know how long we'd been out in the lamp glow and near-quiet, now that the

city was winding down, when my eyes landed on the tip of one of those triangular
buildings. The nose's white stone set it apart from the dark brick to either side, and
the dark wooden doors with their round-topped panels promised historical glee for
Eve.

And, fuck it, I was hungry.
"Let's go here," I said, already crossing the street to get there. The lights made it

unmistakably open for business.

Stone cast monks, looking very Middle Ages, lined the sides of the doorways, and

I had a moment to think that maybe this wasn't a good idea. But it was too late. We'd
passed from the outer pools of spotlight to the inner darkness. Even at night, it took a
moment for my eyes to adjust.

Samira was quicker. She led me and Eve back and back and back. We crossed

hard floors, wood by the sound of my clacking shoes, then reached carpet. The
carpeted area was brighter, and I could see the red material with its gold accents. It
reminded me of our college library with its luxe old fashioned-ness.

We took a table, dark wood with red-backed chairs, and Eve was immediately lost

in staring at the ceilings which apparently had amazing friezes and awesome copper
tiles. So she said. I let it all wash over me. The dark inviting anonymity of the pub,
the old-fashioned refurbishments of the décor, the conversation which had somehow
turned to places they'd both been in the States. I might've heard the phrase real live
reproduction of an authentic Native American village. Or I might not.

The two were happily ensconced in familiar-esque surroundings and deep into a

topic I had no way of joining, so I excused myself to visit the bar. They barely
noticed when I left.

What did that say about the depths of our friendship, formed at Freshers' Week,

only months ago?

Away from the restaurant-like setting, everything got louder. The carpets no

longer muffled conversations of older folks and tourists. No, the hardwoods
amplified every rustling whisper of a cigarette being rolled or a coaster being tapped
on the marbled bar top.

The downlights still gave off that mood lighting, but the bar felt darker. As though

the marble and bartender were spotlighted, and everything else faded to black around
the edges. In fact, I wasn't sure where the room ended and the night began.

The bartender, all in black and standing beneath a chalkboard sign with specials I

didn't read, pulled me a Guinness and blackcurrant, and I leaned my elbows against
the marble, staring down into the beige foam that hid my drink.

Someone took the ashwood stool beside me. "Porter on draft, please," she said in a

flat, London accent that wouldn't have been out of place in a podcast reader for the
FT.

I looked up at the sound. She was a blond, yellow and frizzy enough to be out of a

bottle, but soft enough in the light to be real. Her pinked cheeks set off a crooked
nose and wide mouth, smiling more than most non-Americans I knew. She wore the
ubiquitous black business jacket, letting it make her shoulders a little firmer than they
probably really were. I'd guess she was in her mid-twenties, maybe a student at UCL.

I watched her accept her pint with pale fingers, fascinated by the sparkle from her

rings in the bright light in front of the beer pulls. I must have watched too long.

"I'm terribly sorry," she said, "but is this your chair?" She began to get up, to go off

to some other place, and I realized I didn't want to stand here alone, staring into my
drink.

"No, no," I hastened to reassure her. "Please, feel free." With her here, I could

people watch. If she left, I'd have to decide whether to return to my friends with their
perfect lives and conversation that made me wonder if I'd ever be grown up. Not that
I'd ever accuse them of flaunting their ease with the world. They probably thought I
was just as put together, more so since I was playing local guide.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Because I can just..." She didn't finish the sentence,

gesturing instead with her free hand to one of the blacked-out corners, which might
have contained a table.

"No, please," I politely replied. I noticed she wore an ivory button-down beneath

that black jacket, which made her perhaps a tad more professional than I'd originally
thought. But then I noticed the bag at her feet. It was a good size, and a finely
blended gray and black. It was also covered in badges for various bands and sporting
any number of sayings. In fact, "Is that a Cribs badge?"

She smiled broadly with unashamedly slanted teeth that served only to make her

seem more real. And more in my league than those worldly, perfect orthodontics
waiting for me at the table only a whole room away. "I was at a release party for In
the Belly of the Brazen Bull."

We quickly fell into a discussion of music and bars across London and one that I'd

been to in France. Our accents became more and more flatly citified as we
conversationally roved from one back alley music shop to the next. I was leaning on
the bar with only one elbow now, turned perpendicular to face my companion who
mirrored the angle.

Her blue eyes sparkled with the light as much as her rings did, and she grasped my

left hand with her right, cold-chapped skin sliding and catching. "I do believe we're in
the way here." A small crowd had formed behind us, men and women in fashionable
attire attempting to order a round or two.

I let her lead me by the hand into the shadows, further from that table in the other

room. We progressed into dark and wood, blackened cast figures on the walls
looming their smiling approval of drinks and revelry. The papery cracks of her palm
and the catching strength of her hot-banded fingers scraped ticklish sensations
through my hand and wrist, up my arm, and then further, 'til I'd swear I could feel her
striated skin against my ribs.

We sat side by side at the table she'd found, my pant-clad thigh against her skirted

one. I was saying something about a bar and event space on Cowley Road back in
Oxford when my leg against hers felt even hotter. She'd put one of those sparkled
hands on my limb.

I stopped speaking, frozen, unexpected. Warmed.
Our eyes met, then her blue-ringed pupils came impossibly closer 'til that wide

mouth touched my own. I closed my eyes at the simple touch. Warm and here and
real, and I tried to stay in the moment, not to let my worries about the world and my
place in it take over. Her lips scraped like her hand did, chapped from near-winter,
but that only made the sensation sweeter when her lips moved against mine. Like an
old door that catches before opening into the loveliest room, dappled with summer
morning sunlight.

She started to draw back, but I gripped her hand on my leg, and she took that as a

sign that all was right. That no apologies were necessary. That another kiss might be
welcomed.

I hadn't opened my eyes yet when her lips touched mine again, then opened, hot

and demanding that I reciprocate. I bloomed under her advance, giving her
possession of my palate and running my tongue over those slanty teeth. I inhaled her
cheap Tresemmé shampoo, tasted the dark barley on her breath.

My ears rang; knocking all sounds into an aural kaleidoscope, 'til all I knew was

the woman in front of me. My hand moved up her arm to catch at her shoulder,
slightly padded as I'd thought, and I leaned forward slightly, my ribs opening to press
our breasts together even though from the back I'd merely seem to be an interested
conversationalist.

Her slender fingers toyed with the hem of my sweater, teasing the skin under it.

"Is this all right?" she asked.

I gave her a little moan and clutched her shoulder more tightly in answer, hoping

her mouth might return if I kept mine open, waiting, wanting.

She gripped my waist with both hands now and pulled me deeper into the shadows,

away from the bar's light. I heard her thunk to a rest against the stone wall. Then
those tentative fingers turned more sure, slipping wholly under my sweater, briefly
cold against my overheated skin.

She trailed scratching, fiery lines over my back, my ribs, then under my bra to the

side of my breast. I gasped, and she caught the sound in her mouth, pressing more
fully against me, demanding complete surrender. But I was no young virgin to be
seduced by the experienced partner in a bar.

I got hold of myself and demanded my right to touch. I moved my head to the

side, sinking gentle teeth into the delicate skin of her throat. Her breath skipped and
stuttered every time my tongue flicked against her salty-sweet paleness, and she
clenched a surprised hand against my back.

Then she laughed, breathy, moving the hair at my ear. "Terribly sorry." Whether

she was apologizing for the clenching or for giving me a chance to reciprocate, the
false remorse in her voice was clear enough.

She repositioned us, and my body moved to her slightest command all while one of

her fingers shocked me into slight convulsions with every flick over its captive nipple.
When she was satisfied with our positions, I was astride one of her nylon-encased
legs, her skirt drawn up so far I didn't know where it went.

I'd forgotten completely about quid pro quo, one of my forearms turning scratchy

red against the stone wall, the other loosely around her waist. "Shhh," she attempted
to gentle me, but I had no mind left to control. I was a mass of sensation, largely
centered around that tormented nipple, just the one, which she continued to flick,
flick, flick.

I throbbed for her, and she knew it. My bra forced my breast up on that side,

causing an extra fullness that my oh-so-sensitive nipple tried to reproduce, and I
couldn't help myself from rubbing against her slippery leg between my own.

"Shh," she whispered again. "I've got you."
She moved my arm at her waist until I had a knuckle at the V of her legs, a knuckle

that felt scraped raw to the nerves when it touched hot nylon. She stopped the
wonderful-terrible flicking and pressed tormenting circles to the nub underneath my
shirt.

I couldn't contain the loud moan, and she recaptured my mouth, keeping me as

quiet as she could with tongue and teeth. Her leg between mine began to move, up
and down, side to side, and she pulled me hard against it with the forgotten arm at my
back.

She tamped down my quiet cries with the workings of her mouth, and I shivered

and shuddered as she controlled me, as she made me ride her leg and withstand her
teasing nipple play. Purely by accident, my own hands opened and closed and moved
in whatever directions she took the rest of my body.

I heard her gasping breaths and knew that whatever my hands were doing, however

they were pressing, they pleased her as well. Or perhaps it was only my surrender.
The feel of her slight loss of control, panted against my lips, turned me on even more.

I couldn't help pushing harder into her hands on my chest, then bucking into her

leg. My hips pushed forward and I couldn't even bring them back to rub myself
against her any more, pulling back was impossible. She had to do it for me, rubbing
back and forth 'til my mouth opened impossibly wide, and all of me opened and
contracted around her, and I came.

I shivered and convulsed in little pulses as I rested in the aftermath against her

oddly strong, lithe body. Her hand emerged from under my shirt, though she didn't
put my bra in place, and her fingers tangled with mine on the nylon between her legs.
I watched her blown eyes as she drew circles with our joined hands, waiting to see the
ultimate softness.

We shuddered against each other, sated and thrilled at once. I readjusted my bra

cup, and she straightened up from her slouch against the wall. She petted my back for
a moment, then extricated her leg from mine and tugged her skirt back down.

"Did you say you were here with friends?" she asked.
I couldn't tell what answer she wanted me to give. "I should probably get back to

them," I said.

We stood on shaking legs. She pressed one last open-mouthed kiss to my

unresisting lips before we both reemerged into the lighted area of the bar. "Let me
buy you another drink," she said.

In moments, I returned to Eve and Samira, now on the subject of deco architecture.

I had a new Guinness and blackcurrant in one hand, and a calling card in the other.
I'd see my new lover again in a few weeks. She was thinking of making a trip into
Oxford. Maybe we'd even take our clothes off this time.

JACK THE BODICE RIPPER

WILLA EDWARDS

Ana's heel caught on the rough cobblestone as she raced down the alley. She

fought for breath, her chest constricted in her tight corset. Her skirts swished around
her feet, threatening to trip her. Her hair tangled down her back, whipping her face as
she ran, completely disheveled from the careful curls she'd pinned it in. She shivered
as the damp London air caressed her cheeks, nose, and throat.

The click of another set of footsteps on the stones followed her into the alley,

beating out the same pounding rhythm of her heart. Somewhere in the distance the
river Thames bubbled away, blocking out the city sounds beyond the narrow corridor.

"There's no reason to run, Ana." His thick Berkshire accent filled the alley,

reverberating off the stones. She tried to ignore how the sound soothed down her
skin, like warm honey, and settled in her stomach with a flutter.

She sped up, racing further down the alley. Her eyes searched for any place to

hide or barrier to protect herself, to stop the man following her so persistently. But
the space was vacant besides the brick wall looming before her, preventing her
escape. There was nowhere she'd be able to hide from the man, no protection to be
sought. Once he caught her, she'd be his, to do with as he pleased, regardless of her
protests. Her stomach somersaulted at the idea, not entirely scared or displeased. But
that couldn't be true. She couldn't want to be his captive.

Glancing over her shoulder, she gauged how far he was behind her. The clomp of

his footsteps pinpointed his exact location with ease. The fog curled around his
silhouette, giving her only the outline of his body, overcoat, and top hat. His
shoulders were broad, his hips lean. His square jaw clenched. His gaze fixed
forward, toward his prey. Her.

She turned back around and her heart sank, her entire body shaking as the end to

the alley loomed, all too close. Slowing, she braced her hands against the rough
bricks blocking her escape. The stones were cold and slimy against her fingers. Her
heart pounded, but she couldn't give up. She needed to find a way out of this alley, a
way to safety.

Digging her fingers into the mortar between the stones, Ana tried to leverage

herself up and climb the wall. If she could get over it, to the other side, she'd be free.
Free of this man, and of any other confusing traitorous urges currently curling within
her.

She scrambled furiously, trying to inch her way up the wall as the steps behind her

moved closer, pounding faster. Every muscle in her body shook as she kicked the
toes of her boots into the crevices between bricks. She only got half a foot off the
ground before the man's steps ended and his hand wrapped around her waist, pulling
her down to the street.

He swirled her around, pressing her against the uneven wall. "Where are you

going, Ana?" He pressed his body into hers, pushing her flat against the stones.

Lightheaded, she fought for each breath against the tight grip of her corset and the

weight of his body. But it was his eyes that kept her pinned. So dark and
commanding, they stared down into her as if he could see deep within her, to a center
even she didn't understand. Her muscles quivered, her stomach knotted, her body
pressed up against his. And a traitorous tingle started between her legs that she tried
hard to ignore. She looked up into his eyes, and he smiled, as if he knew. He knew
what her body was doing, that she hated it, and reveled in it even more for her
confusion.

But she refused to show such weakness. Throwing her shoulders back and

straightening her spine the best she could against the brick wall, she turned to her
captor, and looked him directly in his tantalizing eyes. She wouldn't let him
intimidate her, no matter how her body reacted beneath his stare.

"What do you want from me, sir?" Her voice was more breathy than she intended,

most likely due to the small amount of oxygen she could actually get into her lungs
beneath the corset.

"You know what I want." He stepped closer, pressing his hard body into hers. She

stifled a shocked squeal at his weight pressing her down. Wetness dripped between
her legs, urging her to slam her legs together to block out the sensation, but she hated
to give him any sign of the betraying reaction.

"Please don't hurt me," she whispered, dropping her eyes to the uneven stones

beneath her feet. Her skirts rimmed with soot from the dirty streets circled her ankles,
but her soiled clothing was the least of her concerns.

"Of course not, my dear." He caressed her cheek, pushing the tangled strands of

blond hair back from her face. "I have something much better planned for you."

She swallowed, her stomach dropping to her knees even as her quim convulsed.

"I'm not that type of girl, sir." She looked up, captured by his eyes. In the moonlight
they were black, deep and dark as the urges in her soul. His stare was overwhelming,
possessive, just like she dreamed he'd be.

He stepped a bit closer, moving his body further into hers. The hard bulge between

his legs pressed into her stomach, sending her nerves on high alert. "Is that true?"

Ana focused on breathing as the weight of his body pressed against hers. His dark

eyes watched her. His smell, woodsy and musky like a warrior from battle, so
different from the other cologne-covered gentlemen she met. The aroma called to
another part of her, deep down, that wanted this, to be held, to be captured, to be
taken.

"Should I prove that false for you?"
Before she was even aware what he was doing, he grabbed her skirts, kicking up

all her petticoats so that the cold air kissed her thighs. His warm palm slid along her
calf, as the sound of her heartbeat echoed in her ears. His hot hand caressed the edge
of her stocking, and along the garter holding them up, to the juncture between.

His touch was intoxicating, sinking her into a trance. Her head fell back against

wall, her skin tingling beneath his touch. No one had ever touched her this way, not
like she was a precious delicate flower but like a woman who needed and wanted
more.

When he gripped her mons in his hand, the heat searing through her womb, she

woke up. "No," she screamed, throwing her hands out, pushing at his shoulders, but
he only smiled at her. He clutched her wrists in his large grip, holding them above
her head and pressing her hands against the rough bricks.

She squirmed against the wall as he touched her, sweeping his finger along the

seam of her lower lips. He nuzzled into her hair, loving and sweet regardless of her
struggles, while his fingers continued to tickle against her pussy. The quivers radiated
out from his touch to sizzle across her skin. It felt good to be touched so, to be
fondled and caressed in such an intimate way, even if she knew it was wrong.

"Mmm, I think this wetness proves something else entirely, love." He whispered

into her ear, his hot breath stroking her skin and raising her temperature another
degree.

She looked up at him, two dark and dangerous pools staring down at her.

Undeniable. Her knees weakened at the look. From the new closeness of their
positions, she could see the stubble growing on his chin and cheeks, and her fingers
curled, wanting to rub through the prickly hairs along his jaw.

"It doesn't prove anything, sir." Even she could hear the catch in her voice and the

low, husky quality. His eyes flew to her face, a smirk on his lips. He'd heard it, too,
and now he knew just how easy it would be to convince her of more. She should be

upset that he knew the truth, but as his fingers continued to caress her, all she could
feel was anticipation and need.

"Oh, it proves something all right. Whether you're willing to admit it not, sweet

girl." His fingers continued to caress her, probing her quim. She struggled against
him, kicking her legs and bucking her hips, doing anything she could to push him
away, but all it did was give him further access to her private areas.

One thick finger pushed inside her, and all the air escaped from her lungs, the

pleasure ricocheting through her, sprinkling through her blood. He pulled the finger
out and thrust it back in, showing her a slow, deliberate rhythm that had her panting
and biting her lip to keep from begging for more.

"You can try and fight it, sweet, but you know it's true. You're enjoying yourself.

You want this, as much as I do."

Ana shook her head, even as she fought the moan clawing up her throat. She

wasn't the type of woman who wanted to be tracked down and taken. She was a good
girl, a proper lady. But there was no denying that his fingers in her cunt felt good.
His stroke overwhelming and amazing. He touched her in a way no one else ever had.
But she couldn't give into the enticement he offered, no matter how much she might
want to.

She continued to fight against him, floundering and bucking across the bricks. But

he kept up his steady movements, pumping his fingers in and out of her. Without ever
realizing she started to move with him, against him, for him. Her body shifted,
finding all the little ways his touch could feel better, all the ways his fingers could
caress just the right spot to have her wanting to scream to the sky and her thighs grip
him tighter.

He only laughed, sucking on her neck, lightly biting the place where her pulse

pounded feverishly. "Do you want to keep denying, love?" He licked up the column
of her neck as he thrust another finger deep inside her. "Or are you going to admit
you enjoy this?" He sucked her earlobe into her mouth, nibbling on the edge.

This time she couldn't hold back the scream any longer; it ripped through her,

echoing out of her straight to the sky.

"That's more like it." He licked his lips, and her insides melted. She wanted those

lips on her, now.

She'd been kissed before, by boys; sweet, innocent kisses on the cheek and the lips.

But something told her this man wouldn't kiss like that. His kisses would be wild and
feral and out of control. Everything he did affected her more than any other a

hundredfold. She could only imagine what his kiss would do to her.

His mouth descended on hers, his tongue pushing into her mouth without

invitation. She accepted it, without choice. She tried to catch her breath, but with
each movement he only pushed into her farther, taking more. He licked the insides of
her cheeks and along the line of her teeth, twirling his own tongue with hers. His
teeth nipped at her lips as he pushed her back into the wall. Her head tapped against a
protruding brick. But she didn't care. Nothing mattered beyond the overwhelming
sensation of his mouth on hers, the conquering feel of his tongue claiming her mouth
while his hands held her bound.

He pulled back and she made a little sound of protest before realizing it. He

laughed. "Don't worry. I'm far from done with you." He looked up at her, his eyes
dark and demanding, his tone unchallenging. She didn't even try to argue, or deny.
There was no point. He'd take what he wanted regardless of her protests, and she
couldn't do anything to stop him. Even worse, she didn't know if she wanted to. "I
won't leave you wanting, love. I've got a lot more in store for you." The smile on his
face made her stomach drop and her heart race.

He clasped the top of her corset, ripping it apart to expose her breasts to the cold

night air. Instantly her nipples pebbled. He leaned down, capturing one nipple in his
mouth, sucking deeply. She moaned, the sound ripping from her. She focused on
breathing, as he continued to licked and bite at her breasts. He nuzzled the gentle
mounds with his nose, licking the bottom curve until it was slippery and wet from his
mouth, before finding his way back to her nipple.

Her back arched, thrusting her chest closer into his mouth. Her body acted on its

own, regardless of what she thought or knew she should do. She didn't have any more
fight in her, not against the pleasure he was giving her, not any more.

"Oh, God," she cried. And he laughed.
"I'd rather hear you say Jack, if you're taking requests." He chuckled against her

chest, before nuzzling her breasts and sucking another nipple into his mouth.

Great, she'd been captured by Jack the nipper.
"Oh," she screamed again and he bit harder, clamping her breast within his jaw

until she screamed his name, over and over again, "Jack, Jack, Jack," as he suckled
her.

Jack groaned against her nipple. He rubbed himself against her hips, the hard

bulge of his cock pressed against her, scalding her where it touched. The heat rose up
in her, settling in the pit of her stomach and sizzling through her womb.

He mumbled her name, his fingers fumbling between them to unfasten his pants.

He bumped against her in the process of removing his shorts, each touch sending a
new thrill through her. Any thoughts of how this wasn't meant to be, or shouldn't be,
vanished with the dewy fog in the alley. Here they were in their own world, away
from the pressure of right and wrong, only absorbed in the need and sensation of the
moment, in the pleasure they could bring each other.

He hiked her skirts up, tangling them around her waist to expose her legs and

bottom. The chill air licked at her rump and thighs, and wafted along the sensitive
flesh between. But it was only for a short moment, and then Jack was there again.
His hard body pushed against her, pressing into all the delicate places until she had to
gasp for breath. He hitched her thighs around his hips, cradling his cock between her
sensitive lower lips. He gripped her wrists a fraction tighter, not enough to give her
pain but more than enough to remind her she was bound, and she wouldn't be freed
any time soon.

She dropped her eyes to his, and the serious look on his face. The dark,

demanding expression that chilled her to the bone and weakened her knees in the
same breath. More liquid flooded her thighs, her body growing more desperate for all
he had in store for her by the second.

"This is what every woman wants." He stared her directly in the eye as he pushed

himself deep inside her in one thrust. She screamed, moaned, and shook against him.
His thick cock filled her, overwhelming her. He groaned right along with her, gritting
his teeth to keep from moving too soon.

But there was no too soon. She wanted him, all of him, the vicious thrust and

demanding rhythm he'd already promised. And she wanted it now.

She bucked beneath him, tightening her thighs around his hips. She cried and

whined, like an animal, desperate for all he could give. When he finally moved she
wanted to scream to the heavens in thanks. Yet when he slammed back into her, all
her breath vanished and she couldn't have screamed for anything, even her own life.

He set up a dizzying rhythm, pounding against her body over and over until she

was sure she'd have bruises on her back in the shape of the bricks, but she didn't care.
She pushed back against him, moving with him. Though the stones were rough
against her skin, she felt no pain. The pleasure he inflicted upon her blocked out
everything else.

"Jack," she cried as she felt the peak coming, the overwhelming precipice laid out

before her. But he only laughed, and thrust into her harder, and deeper.

"Do you like that?" he asked, though there was no point. He'd have to be in

another county to not know how much she was enjoying herself. Definitely not
throbbing deep inside her, on the edge of his own release.

"Do you still think you're not made for this?" His voice was deep and guttural,

calling to that place deep inside her that demanded to be conquered.

She shook her head. She couldn't deny the truth, not any more, not in this raw, true

state. She wanted this. She wanted to be captured, to be taken and conquered, to be
fucked every way he could dream of. She wanted him to force her. She always had,
in the dark dreams she never told anyone about and now she'd never be complete
without it again.

But her nod wasn't enough for him, and she knew it wouldn't be.
He gripped her tighter, pounding into her faster, harder. The release loomed before

her, but he wouldn't allow her to fall into it. He pushed her arms further up the wall
until the joints in her shoulders groaned, aching from the extension, and making her
feel even more contained.

"Yes, I want this," she screamed, using all the space her lungs could get within the

tight corset. "Yes, I want you. I want to be fucked. I was made for you."

"That's it." He groaned, a wicked smile on his lips.
He slammed into her, deep and hard, thrusting into her at such a rate her head spun.

Her thighs tightened around him for support as her entire world went fuzzy. He
leaned down, sucking on the space where her shoulder and neck met. Then he
slammed into her hard and deep, while also biting down on the sensitive skin in the
same moment, and everything tilted.

She screamed, the sounds echoing through her from the tips of her toes out through

the top of her head. Everything within her burned and sizzled, every sensation
overwhelming and electrifying, too much and perfect in the same moment.

He shook beneath her as well, his body quivering as he continued to thrust into her,

his harsh breath sweeping across her sensitized skin.

"Let go," she whispered, though she couldn't be sure why he needed her

permission. He hadn't requested it for anything else he'd done to her.

But with her words, he finally welcomed his release. He groaned and screamed

along with her. His cock jerked inside her, as he poured his seed deep within. And
then he slumped down, bracing his head between her breasts. He released her hands
without ceremony, and wrapped his arms around her body and cradled her against his
chest.

It took a moment for Ana to realize her arms were released, let alone move any of

her exhausted muscles. Her hands tingled from the increase of blood flow, as she
dropped them to Jack. She almost moaned again at the ability to touch him. It was
amazing how much she'd missed him, the feel of his skin and hair beneath her fingers,
while they'd thrust together.

Her fingers combed through his hair, loving the touch of his soft tresses against her

skin, and the continued connection between them. She slid her other hand down his
back, starved for the feel of him.

"Is that what you had in mind?" He turned against her, staring up at her with the

largest grin she'd ever seen. "Did I make all your fantasies come true?"

"Yes, honey." She smiled at him, her chest tight with emotion. She leaned down,

placing her lips against his, a quick, sweet brush that meant much more than she could
ever express in words. "This was a perfect date night."

The light in his eyes grew as she answered his question, while simultaneously

stroking his ego. With other men it might bother her to give them a pat on the back
like that, but with Jack it was more like giving praise to a little kid. He beamed at her,
his smile large. After every compliment he became even more interested in earning
another one, which she could never find a way to complain about. There really was
no one else quite like him.

"Good. I'd hate to think you'd been tempting me all month for nothing."
She giggled and wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her,

sighing his name as she kissed him. God, she loved this man. It might have been the
British accent that reeled her in to begin with, but it was a hell of a lot more now. It
was his gentleness as much as his wicked imagination, and his graceful, open heart
that was willing to give her any dream her heart desired, from a beautiful baby girl to
a naughty game of Jack the Ripper. There was no one quite like Jack. And she
thanked God for him every day.

"Thank you," she whispered in his ear. To think at one time she'd worried about

telling the man in her life her secret fantasies, or been too scared to confess how she
wanted to be hunted down and fucked by Jack the Ripper. That she wanted to be held
down and pounded hard in a public alley way. But her Jack had proven all her
apprehension wrong. He not only was willing to play into her fantasies. He loved it.

Jack looked up at her with a huge smile on his face, making her insides curl. A

smile she knew he'd be flashing her for a month, each time they were close in the
kitchen or slid into the hard, upholstered seats of the Tube next to each other. A smile

she loved putting on his face.

She used to think getting married would mean a boring sex life, with no adventure

or excitement. Just quiet fucking in the middle of the night when the baby was asleep.
She'd never been happier to be wrong in her life.

"You know I'd do anything for you, love." He grabbed her thigh, keeping her close

to him, and their bodies connected as he reached up to plant a knee-weakening kiss on
her lips. She gripped him hard, pulling him in close, showing him just exactly how
much she appreciated everything he did for her, every fantasy he accepted, ever quirk
he loved.

A vibration started in his pocket, shaking her thigh and restarting the tingles in her

pussy. Even after a rip-roaring good roll, she still wanted more of this man.

"Blast!" Jack screamed towards the sky as he pulled back from the kiss. Reaching

into his pocket, he pulled out his cellphone, thumbed the screen and pressed the phone
to his ear. "Hello, Mum."

She couldn't help but giggle, as Jack spoke to his mother, his dick still buried deep

inside her. Too tempted to deny herself, she played with him, squeezing her internal
muscles around him, as he nodded to something his mother said. He glared at her, a
pained expression on his face, and she stifled back a laugh, still unable to suppress the
urge to tease him some more.

Leaning forward, she placed her mouth against the base of his throat. Opening her

teeth, she bit into the skin. A moan rumbled from her chest, her pussy clutching at the
feel of his flesh in her mouth, the salt of his skin along her tongue.

She looked up at him, his jaw held tense, fighting back the reaction he didn't want

his mother to hear. He gripped her tighter, his arms around her back like two steel
bands. A shiver ran through his whole body as he choked back the urge to react, to
show her once again just who she was playing with.

"All right, we'll be home right away."
Repressing another moan, she released him, hoping his mother didn't hear the

pained, husky tone of his voice. She didn't like what she'd just heard. She wasn't
ready to go home. She wanted more time, she wanted more play. She wanted more
Jack.

Jack hung up the phone, placing it back in his pocket. She stared up at him, her

eyebrow raised in question as he wrapped his hand around her thigh and pulled her
body away from his. His cock slipped from her, leaving her empty and cold in the
chill city air. He pushed her skirts down her hips, shaking them slightly so they

looked inconspicuous around her legs. "Looks like we'll have to end this date night
early, love."

Quickly he fixed his own clothes, pushing himself back into his pants and zipping

them up, readjusting his shirt so it covered the red welt where her teeth had dug into
his flesh. Jack turned back to her, sighing slightly and running his hand down her
cheekbone in a sweet gesture that always made her stomach flip-flop. Even after five
years he could still make her stomach quiver like he had the first time they met.
"Mum needs us to come home. Isabella has a fever."

"Oh, poor baby." Ana's needs evaporated like smoke on the water at the mention of

her baby being sick. Everything came second to her. At three, Isabella was still too
young to really understand being sick, but she understood feeling bad. And she
definitely understood wanting her mom when she felt awful, and knowing she wasn't
there.

As much as she hated it, Ana needed to get home now. Play could wait.
Jack shucked the jacket from around his arms, slipping it over her shoulders to

cover the gap in her corset he had carelessly created, without a complaint from her,
during their tryst. "Don't worry," he whispered in her ear, fastening the top button just
below her chin, making sure every inch of her skin was covered. His fingers were
gentle as he straightened the jacket around her, just as he was with their daughter.

"Mum said she's asleep. We'll get home before she even has time to miss you." He

looked down at her, his eyes understanding. He always understood her, sometimes
better than she understood herself.

He opened his arms and she went into them immediately. His woodsy smell

surrounded her. Comforting and calming. He was everything she'd ever wanted,
everything she'd ever needed. "I love you so much. You've made my every fantasy
come true." She snuggled closer into him. His chin nudged at her scalp where he
rested his head against her crown. "You are my every fantasy."

"I love you too," he whispered, a little more choked up than he'd ever admit.
He kissed her softly, sweetly, his lips pressing against hers, his hand caressing the

lower back. She wrapped her fingers in his shirt, holding him close. This was the
man she loved. The man she'd planned to spend the rest of her life with. The father
of her child, and every fantasy she'd ever had.

Jack wrapped his arm around shoulders, pulling her close as they walked towards

the mouth of the alley.

"Maybe next month, we can play James Bond for date night?" His husky breath

whispered across her ear, the sensation sending shivers down her body. He looked
down at her, a wicked smile on his lips. "You can play Holly Goodhead."

She rolled her eyes. "Maybe I'd play Pussy Galore. Maybe. But Holly Goodhead,

I don't think so."

He laughed along with her, kissing the top of her head. Then he pulled her a

fraction closer, squeezing her shoulders in a way that made her inside liquefy. "You
know I don't need you to be anyone but you, love."

She smiled up at him. He really did think she was spectacular the way she was.

That was why she loved him so completely.

"Maybe Holly Goodhead wouldn't be so bad." She ducked her head, curling into

him. She'd do anything for him. Anything he wanted. Anything he needed. He was
the only man who had ever done the same for her. The only man who ever loved her
for her, and only her.

He laughed as they stepped out into the street, cuddled together against the chilly

London night.

LOST PROPERTY

ELIZABETH COLDWELL

Don't ask me why I picked out that particular case. I didn't know then, and I still

don't know now. Nothing about it made it stand out from the rest; nothing awoke
some sixth sense in me, alerting me to the goodies that lay within. It was just an old-
fashioned brown leather suitcase with heavy, reinforced edges, left behind on the
Bank branch of the Northern Line. We'd logged it in, waited for someone to claim it
and, when no one made any effort to do so, put it to one side, to be either auctioned
off or thrown away when the three months for which we were legally obliged to hold
it were up. Which is when Mike offered me... But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

I've been working in Transport for London's lost property office at Baker Street for

just under a year now, and I don't think I'll ever get used to the things some people
manage to leave behind on their travels. I've seen literally everything handed in from
umbrellas to cricket bats, sets of false teeth to an urn full of ashes, all having been
forgotten by some harried Tube passenger or other. Though the weirdest thing that's
ever passed through the office in my time here has to be the complete human skeleton
that found itself sitting on the last train to the Elephant and Castle one Friday night.
Mike reckons that's actually one of the ways you can legally dispose of such a thing,
though he's got a theory on everything, and almost every single one of them is total
bull.

We do our best to reunite passengers with their missing possessions. If there are

contact details in a bag or a wallet, we'll be proactive and get in touch with the owner
if they haven't rung us already. Because the calls are endless; some days I answer the
phone the moment I step through the office door, and don't stop till it's time to leave,
taking down details of lost laptops and forgotten football kit, abandoned spectacles
and shopping bags dropped in the rush to get off a train before the doors close. Some
items have monetary value, while others are purely sentimental, but we want to get all
of them back where they belong if we possibly can.

But the things that don't get claimed – or, like the foot-long dildo found tucked

down the side of a seat on the Piccadilly Line, still in the discreet brown paper
packaging from a Soho sex shop, the things people are too embarrassed to claim –
languish on the shelves here for three months. After that time, we're legally obliged
to either sell them at auction, or dispose of them if they're not in saleable condition.
Some of the money we raise goes to a designated charity, the rest to paying for the

upkeep of the lost property department and the cost of employing the three dozen or
so full-time staff who keep this place running.

When I walked into the office the Friday morning of my birthday, I wasn't entirely

surprised to see a big, pink envelope waiting for me, nor that it was being clutched by
a three foot high Mickey Mouse doll that had been handed in as lost a couple of
weeks earlier. If we'd still had the skeleton, no doubt that would have been part of my
desk decorations, too.

As ritual dictated, I'd popped into my local baker's shop on the way to the station,

and picked up a Victoria sponge, sandwiched with buttercream and decorated with
pink and white icing. While I was slicing it up to offer to the rest of the staff to eat
with their morning cuppa, Mike wandered over.

"How's it going, birthday boy?"
He plucked a slice of cake from the plate I'd placed it on – like so much else in the

office, oddments of crockery were always easy to come by – and took a bite.

"Yeah, fine thanks, Mike." He liked to think of himself as my mentor, teaching me

everything he'd learned about the dark arts of managing lost property, but we got on
well enough that we socialized outside of work, too.

"Well, I have got a very special present for you. Come with me." He led me away

from my desk, past shelves stacked high with all the detritus that would never find a
home; lone rollerblades, bent-framed spectacles and a child's teddy bear that bore the
mark of a muddy footprint on its blue plush belly. The further I wandered into this
forlorn Aladdin's cave, the more I wondered just what Mike had planned for me.
Were the rest of the department going to spring out, cracking open party poppers and
yelling "Surprise"? Would there be a busty stripper waiting to sing me Happy
Birthday, dressed in the ivory silk ball gown that usually hung on a coat hanger
behind Jenny the temp's desk?

At last, he came to a halt before a rack of unclaimed suitcases and carry-on bags,

bearing no clue as to the identity of their owners, and all of which had proved
impossible to open. Either we didn't have the time or inclination to try and work out
the combination to the number lock – though you'd be surprised how many times you
simply have to turn the dials to 000 to make the catches pop open – or the owner had
padlocked it securely shut and we didn't have the key.

"See those cases, Bradley?" Mike asked. When I nodded, still without a clue

where this was heading, he said, "Pick one, and it's yours."

"I'm sorry?"

"It's a tradition we have here," he told me. "If it's your birthday, you get to choose

one of the cases that have been here for three months, and whatever's inside it, you get
to keep. Just think what some people carry around in their luggage. Jewelry, iPods,
expensive aftershave..."

Dirty underwear, I added mentally. "Is management OK with this?"
Mike shrugged. "We figure what they don't know won't hurt them. I mean, it's not

like we're really doing anything wrong. Most of this stuff will probably just get
thrown out anyway. Not many people want to buy a strange, locked case from an
auction house." He popped the last of his cake into his mouth, and licked buttercream
from his fingers before continuing. "Good cake, by the way. Well, we had a bloke
used to work here, Reg. Nice old lad, even if he was a West Ham fan – " Mike was a
rabid Arsenal supporter, and the wall behind his desk was plastered with pictures of
his heroes, his own personal shrine to his team. "Anyway, we gave him the choice of
any case he wanted when he retired, and he was like you, not really sure he ought to
take anything. In the end, he chose this battered old attaché case, just to be polite, and
when he got it home and prized it open, there was five thousand pounds in there, no
word of a lie. Well, there was no address in there, so he handed the money in to the
police. Of course, no one claimed it, so six months later it was his. Spent it on a
round the world cruise and sent us all a postcard from Australia."

I wasn't sure I believed a word of Mike's story, but I knew I wasn't going to be

allowed to go back to my desk empty handed. And somehow, it seemed really
important to him that I made the right choice. The way he was looking at me, I felt
like Indiana Jones gazing on a selection of exquisite jeweled chalices and trying to
pick the Holy Grail out from among them all. Maybe that's what influenced my
choice, because from what I remembered of that film, the true Grail had turned out to
be the least prepossessing item of the lot. Or maybe I was thinking that if Reg really
had stumbled on a case full of cash then lightning could strike twice, as I reached out
and wrapped my fingers round the handle of the old brown leather suitcase on the top
of the pile. Like I said, I still really don't know why I picked it.

Mike shrugged, as if he'd have chosen the aluminum flight case directly beneath it,

that might have contained anything from a set of tools to a stash of cocaine. "Happy
birthday, mate."

"Thanks," I said. "If there's money in it, the beers are on me."
When I got back to my desk, I shoved the case underneath it, pretty much

forgetting it was there till the end of the day. After work, I went for a few pints with

Mike and a couple of the other guys from the department in a pub just across the road
from Baker Street station. Management were pretty strict about us drinking on the
job, but I didn't have to be back in the office again until Monday, so I reckoned I
could let my hair down for once.

On the Tube journey back home, I clutched the suitcase as I leaned against the

steel-and-glass partition at the side of the door, looking round at my fellow passengers
and wondering how quite so many of them could be so heedless of their possessions.
Ever since I'd started working in lost property, I'd taken better care than ever of my
own things, but as a middle-aged woman sat down, placing her furled umbrella on the
seat by her side, I wondered whether she'd remember to take it with her when she left
the train, or whether I'd find it sitting in one of the boxes in the office come Monday
morning.

Alcohol was still swirling round my system when I let myself into my flat. I

wasn't drunk, just pleasantly loose, so I made myself a cup of tea, planning on
watching a bit of TV before I went to bed. But the case sat in the middle of the living
room floor where I'd left it, seeming to demand my attention. The more I stared at it,
the more I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep till I found out what was inside.

Looking at the twin locks that held the case shut, I knew the only way I'd get into

the thing was by removing them altogether. Finding the bag of tools I used for DIY
repairs around the flat, I retrieved a screwdriver and set about patiently unscrewing
the locks. It took a while, but that case wasn't going anywhere and neither was I.

At last, I had the suitcase open. I sat back on my haunches and took a breath

before opening it up, wondering whether I'd just been wasting my time. When I
flipped back the lid, I'm pretty sure my mouth hung open as I gaped at the contents
revealed inside. No cash or glittering diamonds, but no dirty clothes, either. Instead,
I reached in and pulled out the most exquisitely made corset, in black and gold
brocade. I didn't know much about these things, but I reckoned this one had to be
custom made, given the quality of the stitching and the stiff yet flexible boning. As I
held it up for closer examination, I imagined it hugging the body of some mysterious
woman, laces pulled in tight to give her the tiniest of waists. My cock twitched in my
underwear at the thought.

Laying the corset aside, I delved into what was rapidly turning into the equivalent

of a particularly kinky bran tub. Now I held a pair of cuffs: not the cheap metal
handcuffs you get in joke shops, adorned with bright pink fluff and designed to be
slung from the belt of some hen party reveler. No, these were made of thick, supple

leather, and softly padded so they'd be comfortable to wear for extended periods of
time.

When I pulled out the next item, it baffled me for a moment. A length of metal

about two feet long, it had matching cuffs to the ones I'd already examined, one at
each end. They seemed designed to move along the metal bar, and at last I realized
they could be used to spread someone's arms or legs a set distance apart, tethering
them in place so they couldn't move. Thinking about all the implications of being put
in such a position had my cock pushing hard at the zipper of my trousers, desperate to
be free.

Finally, I took a plain wooden ping pong paddle from the bottom of the case.

Somehow, I didn't think it had ever been used to play a game of ping pong in its life.

Setting the paddle down, I freed my cock, which was almost at bursting point now.

Closing my eyes and picturing that paddle coming down on a pert, bare ass, I stroked
up and down my length, all the way from the base to the domed tip and back. Every
stroke was accompanied by a soft, urgent grunt as I gave in to the base lust my
bondage and discipline fantasy had aroused in me. I couldn't see the face of the
woman being beaten, but I pictured her as soft and helpless and so very, very into
what was being done to her. The kind of woman who'd own a suitcase packed full of
items designed to restrain and correct, the kind who thrived on being told she was
bad. Lost in my own world, I let my hand speed up, in shorter, jerkier movements
that concentrated on the head of my cock, just as I pictured that paddle coming down
faster, turning the woman's white skin a deep, fiery crimson. I came with a groan,
spunk spilling out over my fingers.

Only when it was all over and I lay on the floor, head swimming with the sheer

giddy pleasure of such a much-needed come, did I think to look and see whether there
might be any indication as to the owner of this perverse collection of gear. I didn't
honestly expect there to be, but when I looked into the case, I noticed a plain postcard
lying against the brown plaid lining. Fishing it out, I discovered written on it a name,
Saffron Meadows, along with a central London address. No phone number. Turning
the card over and over in my hand, visions of corset-clad beauties dancing in my
mind, I came to a decision. Tomorrow I would take a trip into town and see if I
couldn't return Ms. Meadows' possessions.

* * * *

The address on the card took me to a street just off Hatton Garden, the center of

London's diamond trade. In the week, the area bustled with people buying and selling

jewels and precious metals, or who worked in the offices above the ground-floor
shops. But on a Saturday morning it was all but deserted, shop fronts securely
shuttered and pavements silent. The only sign of life was an idling truck, from the
back of which a dozen of the hire cycles that had quickly become known as "Boris
bikes", after the incumbent mayor who'd instigated the rental scheme, were being
unloaded and placed in their street-side storage racks. The young black man slotting
the bikes rapidly and efficiently into place, oversized headphones clamped to his ears,
didn't even notice me as I passed.

I took a right turn, on to a street where half the buildings were shrouded in

scaffolding and brick dust from the renovation work taking place hung in the air. The
kind of street you could walk past a hundred times and never really notice it was
there.

As I scanned the row of door bells for Number 13, searching for the one with

Saffron Meadows' name alongside it, I felt a little foolish. What if it wasn't there?
What if I'd come on some kind of wild goose chase, driven by my kinky fantasies
about the owner of the case? But there it was – MEADOWS, printed out in raised
lettering on a Dymo Tape strip. I pressed the buzzer, and waited.

"Yes?" came a distant voice, oddly amplified by the intercom.
"Is that Saffron Meadows?" I asked.
"It is."
"Well, I'm from lost property at Transport for London. We've found something

belonging to you and I've come to return it."

There was a moment's pause, then she spoke again. "Very good. I'm on the

second floor. Come up."

A buzzer sounded, followed by a distinct click, and I pushed the black-painted

front door open. I found myself in a narrow, carpeted hallway that smelled of
artificially floral air freshener. A pile of post stood on a small, oval table, mostly
fliers and junk mail, the usual debris that gets pushed through London letterboxes
every morning.

I hefted the battered suitcase up two flights of creaking stairs, to where a door

stood faintly ajar, as though waiting my arrival.

"Come in!" that same voice called in answer to my tentative knock. Away from

the intercom speaker, it had a husky quality I hadn't noticed 'til now.

Pushing the door fully open, I entered her flat. Where the communal area I'd

walked through had been shabby, in need of a lick of paint, Saffron Meadows' home

could have graced the pages of an interior design magazine. My feet sunk into the
thick pile carpet with every step. Floor-to-ceiling velvet drapes hung at the window,
and the sofa, made of soft, cream leather, was so big I couldn't help wondering how
she'd got it up the stairs and through the front door. A vase of lilies stood in the grate
of a wrought iron fireplace that was clearly no longer used, and the scent of incense
hung in the air. In this luxurious private space, I felt strangely on edge, still
wondering if I'd done the right thing in coming here.

Ms. Meadows was every bit as exotic as her home. Her hair, dyed jet-black, had

been styled in a chin-length bob that framed her heart-shaped face. Lipstick turned
her full mouth into a blood-red pout against porcelain skin. Her curves were evident
even in the simple white blouse and washed-out blue jeans she wore. Way more
classy and alluring than the women I dated, I had to concede. My cock stirred, as I
remembered the corset in the case I held, and I couldn't help wondering what sort of
undergarments she might be wearing today.

She rose from her seat on the sofa, and walked over to greet me. Her eyes lit up as

they lighted on her case.

"Thank you so much, Mr. – ?"
"Bradley Watson," I told her, as she took the case from my grip.
Caressing the worn leather with her fingertips, she said, "You know, I really didn't

think I'd ever see this again."

"Well, we try our best to reunite passengers with their possessions, though they

don't always make it that easy for us."

She seemed about to say something, but was distracted by the whistle of a kettle

coming from the kitchen.

"You will stay for a cup of tea, won't you, Mr. Watson?"
"Call me Bradley, please. And yeah, that would be great." I'd vaguely been

thinking of wandering along High Holborn and on to Oxford Street for a spot of
window shopping, but the invitation to spend a little longer in Saffron's company
wasn't one I could turn down. As she passed me on the way to the kitchen, I caught a
whiff of her perfume, musky and expensive-smelling. It made me yearn to lean closer
to her voluptuous body, so I could breathe it in deeper.

Instead, I perched on the sofa, waiting as she fussed in the kitchen. I heard the

rattling of cutlery, and cupboard doors opening and shutting. On the coffee table in
front of the sofa was a copy of Tatler that Saffron had been leafing through, almost as
though she'd been waiting for me to arrive, even though she could have had no idea I

was on my way. I glanced briefly at the photos of socialites and fashion models, more
used to reading lads' mags and the sports pages of the daily red-tops.

When she returned, she carried a tray containing two bone china cups and a silver

teapot, along with a matching milk jug and sugar bowl. The tea was the proper leaf
stuff, that had to be strained when she poured it, and she splashed a little milk into
mine before adding a slice of lemon to her own. I couldn't remember the last time I'd
had a cuppa that hadn't come from a tea bag.

"Biscuit?" She gestured to a plateful of shortbread rounds. I took one and bit into

it, relishing the buttery taste. They looked home made, but somehow Saffron
Meadows didn't strike me as the domestic goddess type.

We made small talk, discussing that favorite topic of Londoners – how awful the

weather had been recently. But it seemed Saffron had something else on her mind, if
the rising undercurrent of tension, so thick I could almost poke my finger through it,
was anything to go by.

She set down her cup and regarded me from underneath her straight, heavy fringe.

"Don't you think it was careless of me, Bradley?"

"I'm sorry?" I said, fighting the urge to reach for another biscuit. I'd had three

already.

"Leaving my case on the Tube like that."
I shrugged. "It happens all the time. If it didn't, I wouldn't have a job."
She thought about my comment for a moment. "I suppose so, but just look at all

the trouble I've put you to, making you trail all the way over here on your day off." I
was about to reply that it was nothing, that I'd had no serious plans for the day, but
she continued, "You know, I really think I ought to be punished for what I've done."

It took a moment for the penny to drop. I'd spent the previous night, and the

journey over to Hatton Garden, thinking about all the instruments of discipline in
Saffron's case, and the many ways they could be put to use, but now here she was,
asking to be disciplined and I didn't quite know how to react.

"You see," she went on, her tone huskier than ever, her breasts rising and falling

beneath her blouse, the outline of a lace bra just visible beneath the crisp white cotton,
"I've been such a bad girl..."

Those words woke something in me. I'd never had a girlfriend who'd even hinted

at the possibility of being spanked, and though I sometimes fantasized about just such
a scenario, I'd resigned myself to the fact I never would. I reckoned Saffron knew the
risk she was taking; I could easily get up and leave. But I'd had to open the case to

find her address, and in doing so I'd seen all her dirty, kinky secrets laid bare. That
had compelled me to hunt her out, to find out what kind of woman got off on playing
with such pervy toys, and I wasn't going to walk away before I found out the answer
to that.

"Yes, you have been bad," I replied, rising from my seat, "and bad girls get their

bottoms spanked."

The way she wriggled against the cushions told me I'd said exactly the right thing.

I didn't quite know how to progress, but I knew the sofa, so soft and comfortable you
sank right into it, wasn't exactly the right place to carry out a spanking. I fetched a
sturdy, wooden-backed chair that stood by the wall, and set it down in the middle of
the room. Then I patted my lap in what I hoped was a suitably authoritative fashion.

"Come here," I ordered her. She didn't sulk, didn't pout, just trotted over and

draped herself obediently over my knees. I caught that intoxicating scent of hers
again, the musk mingled with something more intimately feminine. Whatever
underwear she had on under those stylish cut jeans, I was guessing it was damp.

Without quite intending it, I'd positioned myself so that if Saffron looked up, that

case of hers would be right in her eyeline, reminding her of exactly what she'd done to
earn herself this spanking. But she wasn't looking up, not while my fingers fumbled
with the zipper of her jeans so I could haul the garment down and reveal her peachy
little ass, covered only by a pair of whisper-thin white silk panties. Classy underwear,
but not the type to offer much in the way of protection when I started slapping her ass,
and I'm sure she knew it.

For a moment, I simply caressed those pale, smooth globes, reveling in their

softness. Saffron whimpered, sensing this was just the calm before the storm. In a
moment, the stroking would stop and the spanking would start.

"Do you have anything to say to me before we begin?" I asked, settling into my

role as stern but loving punisher.

"No, sir."
With that, I brought my hand down on her right cheek, fascinated by the way it

flattened slightly under the impact. Saffron let out a hissing breath, but that was all
the spank drew in reaction from her. I thought I'd hit her pretty forcefully for a
beginner, but she was an expert in this game, and she needed more.

I cracked my palm against her other cheek, harder this time. Again hardly a flicker

from her. That did it. I started laying the blows on with all the power I possessed,
smacking each ass cheek in turn, over and over. The skin beneath those flimsy white

panties turned a darker pink with each slap, its pale perfection now blotched and
tender looking.

She writhed against me, the movements stimulating a cock that had been at full

hardness pretty much since the moment she'd told me she needed to be punished. Her
cries were anguished, but there was pleasure mixed with the pain, I could tell. The
crotch of her panties was sodden, and when I ran a finger over it, drawn by her
gushing wetness, she humped her ass back at me, wanting to feel that finger slip
inside her.

But I hadn't finished with her ass yet. When I started to yank her panties down off

her bottom, she made only a token attempt to protest. "No, please don't strip me.
Don't spank my poor, bare ass," she begged, but this was all a game now, and we both
knew it. Off came her underwear, tugged down round her knees, and her blushing
behind was fully exposed, ready to be crimsoned even further by my cruel palm.

Much as I wanted to keep on spanking her, I only managed another half-dozen

swats before the urge to be buried in that wet, pouting cunt of hers became too much.
Unzipping my fly, I brought my cock out of my jeans. Saffron didn't object as I
hauled her up so she straddled my lap, facing me. Tears shone in her eyes, but they
were coupled with a lust that matched my own. Taking hold of my dick, she rose up,
and when she sunk down again, I found myself buried almost without effort in her
hot, clutching cunt.

Rocking on my length, Saffron brought me right to the edge of climax. I slipped a

finger between her lips, to find her slippery clit and rub it in wild circles. That extra
stimulation was all she needed. Throwing her head back, exposing the white expanse
of her throat, she cried out in pleasure. My own orgasm followed almost instantly,
her muscles squeezing me like wickedly gripping fingers. I lost my load in
spectacular fashion, buried all the way in Saffron's hot, liquid depths.

"Thank you," she said as she climbed off me. "I needed that." I didn't know

whether she meant the spanking, the sex, or both. "And I've learned my lesson. I
won't leave my case behind again."

Only as I was making my way down the stairs, back out on to the quiet street, did I

realize she'd never actually got round to opening the case. Much as I'd loved hand-
spanking her ass, I couldn't help regretting the fact I hadn't had the opportunity to use
that ping pong paddle on her.

* * * *

A little over three weeks later, I walked into the office to see a very familiar brown

leather suitcase, with suspiciously new-looking locks in place of the ones I'd had to
take apart. It stood with some other items that had been brought in from the Barking
depot, either handed in by a passenger or discovered when a train was being cleaned
overnight. Luckily, it was Mike's day off, so I didn't have to explain how the case I'd
taken away on my birthday had found its way back here, or quite what returning it to
its rightful owner had entailed.

Its reappearance was no accident, of course; Saffron Meadows had left it behind on

her travels quite deliberately, hoping that, in due course, I would take it back to her,
and give her the punishment she deserved for being quite so careless as to lose it
again. And that was exactly what I intended to do. My cock a rigid bar in my
uniform trousers, I shoved the case under my desk and started counting the hours 'til I
could return it to its rightful, deliciously repentant owner...

CITY BOYS

RACHEL CHARMAN

"Good evening, madam. May I take your coat?" says the effete Mediterranean boy

hovering inside the door. Inside the club it is tastefully dim, the lush red carpets
absorbing the throbbing music in the bar and the thrumming bustle of Friday night
London above. We are underground, deep beneath the West End on a dirty city boys'
night out.

I slide off my overcoat and hand it to the boy with a quiet thank you. I have

learned, in my six months at the investment house Badenoch and Bramley, how to
talk to obsequious staff who fall over themselves to accommodate me in hotels,
restaurants, and bars. Don't thank gushingly and loudly, making your middle-class
guilt too obvious, and don't remain haughtily silent, showing yourself to be new
money.

The rules are especially important if you are a woman in the overwhelmingly

masculine world of financiers. I've proven myself with the numbers and I've cut
plenty of throats, but that's only half of the game. It's the braying and bounding
around London with the boys that gets you anywhere in this business, and that's why
I'm at Trevelyan's, the city's most secretive and exclusive gentleman's club.

I straighten up my suit, feeling its sharp, strong lines tidying up my messy female

curves. It's Savile Row; classic navy with bold white pinstripes, complete with
waistcoat, crisp white shirt, red tie the color of debt, and pointed black patent shoes.
In these clothes I feel invincible, which is a good job, seeing as "the chaps", as they
call themselves, are making a career out of testing me.

"All right, Hardy?" Crofton is jabbing me with his elbow. I look at him: 6"2',

blond, booming, the red flush of champagne on his chiseled cheeks and generations of
privilege in his very bone structure. An Eton and Cambridge man, I've heard him in
the boss's office bitching about me, "the little dyke from the LSE".

"I'm just grand, Bonny," I say, joining in with the public school surname thing

these men inexplicably do.

"Been to this one before?" he says as we move towards the door to the bar.
"Can't say I have, old son, not this one," I say, allowing him to infer I have been to

any lap dancing club before. I haven't. In the not-so-distant past, their very existence
had made me more than a little uncomfortable.

Crofton slams a huge hand on my shoulder. "You'll love it, you old lezzer!" he

booms, grinning like a wolf. This, I kid myself, is acceptance, as we enter the bar. If
it's not, I'll play the bastards at their own game and head straight up that ladder from
under their noses.

We step into the bar, five of us in all. Crofton and I are taking a few valuable

clients out on a corporate jolly. The evening had started with some semblance of
respectability with dinner at the Savoy, followed by copious brandies. The clients, a
trio of claret-nosed old money men with wives in the Home Counties, had clamored
for more. So 1 a.m. sees us in this upmarket flesh bar, Crofton brandishing the
company credit card like a cutlass.

The bar is as tasteful as such a place can be. To my left is the bar itself, backed by

vast mirrors with blue lamps throwing wide circles of light over the staff. In front of
me are plush white sofas and low tables where the clientele lounge, waiting for the
next dance on stage to start. The stage is to my right, illuminated by red stage lamps,
the glossy black floor scratched by a thousand stiletto heels and pierced by a few
chrome poles.

Crofton leads our merry pack to a pair of sofas around a table. A waitress in a

black vest and hot pants sidles over, smile rigid and intense.

"Gentlemen, can I bring you some drinks?" she says bouncily over the buzzing

electro-pop.

"We'll have two bottles of Dom Pérignon, sweetheart," says Crofton. He flourishes

the Amex with ceremony and adds, "and run a tab on this, would you?"

"Certainly sir," says the girl, making to pluck it from his fingers. He refuses to let

go, engaging in a mock tug-o-war with the card and then relenting, wagging his finger
at her. The clients chortle, slapping their portly thighs. The girl laughs a brittle laugh
and sashays to the bar.

"How about that, Hardy? The filly thinks you're a gentleman!" says one of the

clients, who, despite his underlying distaste for my sexual preference, finds it
impossible to avoid squeezing my knee like a pervert uncle.

"If you're a gentleman, then so am I," I say, smiling and fluttering my lashes.

Unsure of how to take that one, the client roars with laughter to be on the safe side
and jabs his neighbor in the ribs to repeat our little rapport.

His friend, however, isn't listening because the next show is starting. They start

howling like wild dogs as three girls take the stage, dressed in what could generously
be called bikinis. They take to their poles, faces set with simulated lust as they begin
to writhe to the grimy techno booming from the speakers.

I'm still undecided as to whether this whole display arouses or disgusts me when

the girl with the champagne arrives. I'm piously sitting there wondering how many of
these girls are actually medical students or eastern European trafficked slaves, when
one of the dancers catches me in her heavy-lidded gaze as she caresses that pole with
her entire body, and I'm fooled by it all again. She looked at me, my brain thrills,
nobody's looked at me like that in years!

I struggle with it all as I sip my drink, with one half of my head telling me to hate

it, grit my teeth, and get through it, and the other telling me to gawk idiotically at the
sliding skin and flashing eyes before me. Despite myself I feel my temperature rising.
I desperately want to remove my blazer but that will make it more obvious that I'm
female, and having passed as male once, I'm loath to reveal myself as a woman.
Somehow this veneer of maleness makes it easier to watch these girls dancing for me.

I manage to relax a little as the dance goes on by laughing internally at the idiots

surrounding me. The clients look exactly like small children watching TV; open-
mouthed, wide-eyed, and utterly rapt. Meanwhile, Crofton is whooping various
obscenities at the stage that sound ridiculous in his cut-glass vowels, and making
efforts to conceal an already sizeable erection. His coyness seems absurd to me.
Hadn't we all come here to get off? Clearly, I don't know the rules.

Still, having relaxed a little, there is something other than my lame little conscience

that is bothering me about these girls. What is it? I gaze at the girl in the middle,
secretly admiring her gracefully lewd dance and the blond locks that fall over her
eyes, and tell myself to calm down. What could possibly be so bad about...?

I know her.
Oh, holy-Christ-on-a-bicycle, I know her!
Suddenly it's flooding back to me. I know her from school, for God's sake, and I

dimly remember that I had wanted her then, over a decade ago, although she had
never looked like this in those days. Then she had been spikily boyish and amusingly
cynical, but quiet, shy, and unassuming. Then again, I couldn't really talk, having
transformed from a gobby teenage freedom fighter into a corporate stooge in the same
period.

Once the initial shock is over an equally hideous thought strikes me: does she

recognize me, too? I've changed a lot since then but so has she and I can see her 16-
year-old self, clear as day, glaring out at me as she snaps and winds her hips.
Moments ago she had caught my eye and pouted. Had she known?

Gripped by panic, I jump out of my seat but keep my eyes on the ground, fearing

another look might rumble me. I bash past Crofton's knees.

"Sorry old man," I burble.
"Call of nature, eh?" he yells. "You girls just can't hold it in!"
Resisting the urge to brain him I force a laugh and launch myself towards the

ladies' toilets, where I stand in front of a mirror, gripping the sink, and try to gauge
how much I have changed since high school. It is a pointless task. I realize the safest
thing to do is to make myself scarce until the end of the dance, avoiding her
inevitable, excruciating nudity, and then reappear as if nothing is out of the ordinary.
I try to imagine what Crofton would do in my position, and realize he would fucking
love it.

I mess around flicking my hair and straightening my tie until I hear the roar of

wolf-whistles and cheering – men unleashed – that signals the end of the dance. I
wash my hands, pass a cool, damp palm over my flushed face, and return to the bar.

Crofton and the clients are shouting and laughing at each other, swilling the

bubbly. "Ah, here's Hardy!" Crofton shouts as I take my seat.

"A bit too much for you, was it?" leers one of the clients. They cackle over my

weak reply.

"I tell you, lads, the little blond in the middle is an absolute bloody cracker," says

another client, "I wouldn't mind dipping my wick in that!"

I want to smash his face in at this, before I realize the hypocrisy of it. Hadn't I just

been thinking the same thing? Hadn't I looked at her, before I knew it was she, and
found my mind flooded with images of her winding her way around me the way she
did that pole?

The banter continues, and I laugh along. I tip three glasses of champagne down

my neck, consumed by thirst, and feel a little better. Things are improving when
suddenly the men all look over my shoulder and snigger. I turn, and see her. She's
back in her bikini now, with a little glittery scrap of fabric around her waist, and she's
headed right at us.

She puts a hand on the back of the sofa behind my shoulders, and says brightly,

"Evening, gents! Anyone care for a private dance?"

I keep my eyes firmly on my drink, the hand behind me burning into my back like

a hot coal. She knows, she knows! The men wind each other up for a while, before
Crofton says, "Well, how about it, boys? How about a little coming-of-age present
for young Hardy?"

I look up and they are hideous, groaning and clamoring for my humiliation. I

know in a flash this was all planned out while I was hiding in the toilets. I look up at
her. There isn't a flicker of recognition. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Perhaps it's not her at
all. Or perhaps I'm so changed, got up like a nasty little banker boy, that she can't see
me. Perhaps she even thinks I'm male. From somewhere inside me a voice yells,
"Well, thanks, chaps! What a lovely gesture!" and to their surprise, delight, or
perhaps disappointment, I'm up and following the girl to the doorway at the far end of
the bar. I don't look back in case I crack. The woman has taken my hand in an
incongruously innocent gesture, and I trail behind her like the idiot I feel I am.

We go through the door at the end of the bar, past one of the huge, black-suited,

bald security men who loiter in the corners of the place. I follow her down the
comfortingly dim corridor, counting each of her high-heeled steps. She comes to a
door, one of several, spins a sign on the front to read "do not disturb" as if this were
some sort of normal hotel situation, and leads me in.

Inside is a box room, the walls a dark reddish-brown. There is a sofa with a few

cushions scattered across it; leather, luxurious, and wipe clean, I realize with a
shudder. Then again, it is a lot better than I had feared. I've read about clubs where
they rack up the men who've paid for private dances, cheek-by-jowl, in a row of
paper-thin booths. I thank God I'm at the very top end of the market, and then I
suppose if I weren't in this profession, I wouldn't be visiting lap dancing clubs
anyway.

Or would I? There is a nasty sneaking realization that, mingled with the

embarrassment and confusion, there is also a thin crackle of intense excitement
running though me. The darkened, tiny room, her closeness, and my authority as a
paid-for customer, all combine into a power trip of arousal that is kicking me in the
back. This, I think to myself, is what it must feel like to be Crofton.

She closes the door and I look around, spotting the subtle security camera winking

from a corner on the ceiling, and remember the quiet, burly men we passed on the
way in. Only a total idiot would try anything funny here, which comforts me,
although I quickly figure that some of them still do. She turns to me. Again, there is
no flash of recognition in her face.

"Why don't you have a seat?" she says. I do as I am told. I think about telling her

I'd rather not go through with it, and asking her if I could just order a drink and wait
here in secret, but I sit there, dumbly. I can't do it because I want it all too much, as I
watch her slowly make her way over to my perch.

She flicks on some music on a stereo discreetly placed in an alcove in the wall. It's

some sleazy saxophone number, which would be funny if it didn't highlight the classic
grime of the situation we're in. I want to hide my face from her but I can't look away.
Her freckles. I remember those; I remember secretly admiring them as I sat behind
her in a dusty classroom, imagining being at leisure to kiss them all. Those on her
face are covered by a fine dust of makeup, but her green-gray eyes are unmistakable.
She is as lovely as she ever had been.

"You haven't been here before, have you?" she says. She gazes into my eyes as

she begins to twitch her hips from side to side. I hadn't realized it would be like this.
I had thought she would plonk into my lap and grind, staring at the wall behind me,
but her eyes fixed on mine, her tiny, lazy dance, her voice; all these things are
designed to trick me into believing she wants me. I can't bear it. I cross and uncross
my legs and shake my head. Then she smiles at me, a dark little burst like a star
imploding, and I'm undone.

She steps across the room and slides into my lap, somehow never missing a beat of

her dance. I gasp silently at the feel of her skin, so soft it reminds me of a warm,
gentle sea, through the rough wool of my suit. She is still holding my eyes in that
terrifying, tantalizing way. I half raise my hands to her, instinctively, and catch the
glimmer of my cufflinks and watch, before she shakes her head. Of course. No
touching. For her own safety and propriety, I imagine, but laying back on the sofa,
my hands at my side whilst she pulses in my lap, makes me feel like a king. My
hands are trembling. She catches this and smirks. She reaches behind her and
unclasps the bikini top, and in a second her breasts are bare and tortuously close to my
mouth. I think I whimper.

All the while she is dancing, her hips side-to-side, her spine rolling and arching,

and she stretches her arms above her head to show me the leonine muscle and
delicious fat of her chest, arms, and stomach. Her hands flutter rhythmically to my
shoulders and I jerk at the barely discernible touch.

"You City types are all the same," she murmurs, smirking that one-sided smile I

suddenly remember so well. "So wound up."

"We are?" I stammer.
"Well, seeing as it's your first time, let's see if we can help you relax," she says,

and with the infinite control and grace of a trained dancer, she hooks her feet around
my shins and parts my knees, slowly but unmistakably. I feel the solid, streamlined
power in her calves and thighs before she returns her feet to the floor.

"Is that more comfortable?" she mews.

"Yes." I am hoarse now, my splayed legs making me feel exposed and vulnerable.

Reflexively I try not to gaze at her breasts, full, round and (I imagine) wonderfully
smooth, and then realize I am supposed to.

With the subtlest but most deliberate of movements she shifts her weight so her

cunt is pressed to mine. I see a tiny creasing around her eyes: pleasure. It is as clear
as it is unexpected. Is this what they always do? Has Crofton slipped her an extra
£100 in cash? Or are those sultry eyes telling me the truth?

I have seconds to consider this before she resumes her dance, and with it comes a

sweet friction between us. It shocks and amazes me. I want to moan out loud but I
bite my lip. I remember the camera and almost congratulate her; from where it hangs
behind her she is simply dancing as normal, but I can see her parted lips and feel her
quickening breath. I resist the urge to move with her, and relish my lordly, languid
position.

Despite our rising pleasure, there is a distracting coldness about her. If there was

no camera and I rose to kiss her, she would bat me away with a sneer anyway. It's
this disdain, I realize, that is getting her off, and it is driving my heart faster, too.

"Look at you," she purrs, adding an extra beat to her dancing hips that makes me

shudder, "you're so easy. You like this, don't you, City Boy?"

I can only nod. She laughs a hard laugh and passes a hand through her hair, down

her neck and then circling one breast. I see her shoulders shudder and long for that
hand to be mine. It is her right hand. The camera hangs in the corner to her left.

"Would the 'gentleman'," she says with a wink, "like something special?" and

before I have a chance to stop her she has undone my fly, her fingers brushing the
fabric of my underwear.

"Relax," she says scornfully. I can't relax. My back is rigid and my stomach

muscles are painfully tense. Her fingers find my skin. My insides delight at the hot
touch and I groan.

"Shut up," she says, but her voice catches as she presses herself hard against the

sharp bone of her wrist. Still she dances, her free hand fluttering around us, her hips
circling in no particular pattern than that following the exquisite pressure we strive
for.

It is all too much. Her fingers follow the dance, daintily circling and sliding, and I

buck involuntarily to meet her touch. She frowns and I force myself to relax. My
breath is squeezing from my chest. Our eyes are locked. There is no warmth to her
look, but there is lust, and the ultimate aphrodisiac: power. Now, I realize, it is all

hers, not mine. I can do nothing, because if I move, she will stop, and I can't bear
that. I am a puppet on the tips of her fingers.

"Come for me, City Boy," she says, "show me how much you like it."
I can't, yet. I want to stay in this delirious state forever, and part of me wants to

deny her the control of my body. Her breathing is rapid now and she rocks on the
back of the hand that touches me. "You will," she says, licking her lips and making
me ache to kiss them, "they always do."

She leans forward, just a fraction, and drives her hand inside me. I cry out now,

not caring about the camera or the security men or anything else. I feel a rush of
gratitude and relief and tension all twisted up together. She leans further into her
stroke, her fingers separating and swirling, her hair brushing my forehead.

"Go on," she says, with an urgency that I first mistake for impatience, but I then

see is ecstasy. She screws her eyes shut and her body jolts her hand deeper into me as
she comes, and my body rushes and gives in. My insides lock around her hand as my
eyes roll back in my head. I feel I am made of molten gold, burning, glowing, and
liquid. I raise my hands to crush her to me and remember that I mustn't, clutching my
hair instead.

For a moment afterwards we are still. I have no idea what to do next. I am sure

now what just happened was not and could not have been paid for, nor was it the
norm. Something spontaneous and forbidden has taken place. At the same time, I am
equally certain asking her out for a coffee isn't entirely appropriate, either. She hadn't
fucked me because she likes me; she did it because she doesn't, and perhaps because
she dislikes me more for being a woman in this God-awful place.

She withdraws from me and springs from my lap as if it's business as usual, but

there's something about her, perhaps disappointment or embarrassment, I don't know.
I tidy myself up and get up to leave as she retrieves her skirt-wrap. As I reach the
door I feel an almost comical urge to shake her hand. She sees me dither. She
glances at the camera, sees we are standing level with it and so out of its range, and
seems to feel sorry for me. She kisses my cheek lightly and I feel worse.

"You haven't changed a bit," she says, a gentle irony in her voice. I start, and

splutter. She places a hand on my arm to silence me, and looks sad, and a little
wistful. Perhaps she had wanted me, all those years ago, after all. Perhaps she is
disappointed it finally happened like this.

"Take care, Jo," she says, and then she opens the door, and is gone.

A HAPPY FINISH

LUKAS SCOTT

Harry got behind the wheel, sighing as he sat down, and feeling the bus drop a

little underneath him. He sat for a moment, before pulling the door to and ensconcing
himself in the driver's cab of his double-decker. He laid his hands on the big, broad
driving wheel and felt around the circle, stroking it and reassuring her (always her, the
beauty, the motors were always her) before clicking his key in the ignition to warm
her up. A healthy cough from her before her engine began humming and purring in
that way he'd become accustomed to. They were like an old married couple now, and
Harry knew she needed some mechanical foreplay first thing of a morning before
facing the working day ahead. A few minutes ticking over and she'd be right as rain.
Rain. He looked up through the front window to check. No sign of it today. It was
not going to rain today, of all days. It would be a perfect day. He unfurled his copy
of the Sun, feeling the cabin shudder and vibrate into action.

Every day was a perfect day for Harry when he was driving. It was all he'd

dreamed of. His father had been on the buses, and as a kid for a treat he'd be allowed
to sit in the cab and hold the outsized steering wheel in his small hands. He'd stretch
over the wheel, turning it one way and then the next, accompanied by engine noises of
his own making – the "brrrm-brrrm" that made his lips vibrate and spittle to spray in
an excited flight of fantasy as The Bus Driver. His dad would cheer him on,
describing his route through Central London, although Harry knew it off by heart
from the many rides he'd accompanied his dad on. It was the same route he himself
drove now. It had been sort of bequeathed by the bus station when his Dad had
finished on the buses, when he picked up his free pass to ride all of the buses
whenever he fancied – but as a passenger, not a driver. Harry knew whenever his
father got on a bus now, there was always a pang of disappointment that he'd be on
the deck and not in the cab. But he always insisted on sitting close to the driver – just
in case. "You never know when they might need me to take over, son."

That's the thing about the Big Red London Double Decker Bus. It's an icon. Or

what was it they called it these days? A brand, that's right, it was a brand. You didn't
just get on and off it like you did in the old days. You couldn't just run and hop on,
grabbing the pole on the back and jumping on board as it started off. It was all about
the passenger experience these days – customer satisfaction, all that malarkey. At the
end of the day, it was still a Big Red Double Decker Bus, Harry still enjoyed driving

it, and tourists still recognized it as the Best of British. He often had his photo taken
standing next to it. He'd had many a conversation with enthusiasts from round the
world. "They're classic," he was told. "Known throughout the world." The good old
British bus.

It's not all that Britain was known for, as today would prove. There was the bus,

there was football, there was chips, and there was the Queen. And though today
wasn't strictly about the Queen, it was a Right Royal Day. He didn't need the Sun
headline to remind him that today the next generation of royalty was getting wed, and
even though the country had been given the day off to celebrate, Harry had
volunteered to work. He wanted to do His Bit for Queen and Country. What would
the day be without buses? No matter that so many roads were closed off. The buses
would always run. Unless there was snow. Or a bomb.

He read on. Most of the coverage of the Royal Wedding was little more than

gossip or tittle-tattle. Rumors about the bride's brother, guesses about what the
wedding dress would look like, the various controversies over who would and
wouldn't be invited. There was a detailed outline of the day. Harry saw that he'd at
least be able to make the TV highlights in the evening. Tea would be ready by then,
so he could sit down with some lamb chops and watch it all in comfort. He might
break open a can of bitter from the fridge. He'd read that most people were drinking
champagne. That wasn't his drink – all fizz and gas and tasting of musty grapes.
Harry would have a good old British bitter and toast the Happy Couple.

It was all so different from his wedding. Near enough twenty years ago, a rushed

job due to Ruby getting in the family way. No fanfare, and they barely managed a
reception after – a few sausage rolls and pickled onions was all it amounted to. A
honeymoon in Wales, where it had never stopped raining. There had been sex,
though. Lots and lots and lots of sex. His mates had bought him a video – supposed
to be "educational", or at least that's how he had persuaded Ruby to watch it. Before
that, he'd only thought of cowboy and cowgirl in Westerns. It had been a happy
revelation to find out that Ruby could be quite a rodeo cowgirl – and it had fast
become one of their favorites. He wondered what had become of that video, and
whether it was ever released on DVD. There was probably a sequel now, or even a
computer game version. He might suggest it to Ruby after the lamb chops and the
beer. For old time's sake. It was, after all, a National Occasion. And it'd been a
while now. No less love, he philosophized, just a little less action.

The engine was warming up nicely now, so he started folding up the paper and

putting it to one side. He adjusted the flags around the cab – he always made sure the
Union flag was the right way up, getting irritated by those he'd seen flying the wrong
way round. If you're going to all that trouble to show you're British, you could at least
do it right. Harry envied the Americans. It was easier to see when their flag was the
right way up.

Harry moved the bus out of the terminus and began the journey into town. There

were so many traffic restrictions today, he'd decided to rely on his satnav rather than
his own encyclopedic knowledge of London's streets. It was an upmarket version,
which provided him with details of all the latest congestion points, accident hot spots,
speed cameras, and travel news. Plus, he'd programmed in a rather sexy American
woman's voiceover. He didn't mind hearing he'd taken a "wrong turning" when it was
spoken in her silky tones, and he often had a shiver of excitement when she told him
he had "reached his destination". She reminded him of the classic porn films he used
to rent from Craig's ice cream van a few years ago. For a fiver you could get a couple
of videos in a paper bag for a week. He'd had to keep those ones away from Ruby
though... It was more of a private showing. Craig had lost the ice cream van in the
latest recession, before he'd gone off to open a bar for ex-pats in Spain.

The bus wound its way through London. People came, people went. Lots of

cooing over the bunting and flags in the bus, polite but enthusiastic exchanges about
the Wedding and people's expectations. Plenty of tourists with their cameras and
camcorders, agog at the pomp and ceremony. Streets closed off for the parties, all
manner of costumes, wigs, masks, and accessories celebrating the occasion.
Whenever they saw his bus, he'd get whistles, clapping, horns tooting or sirens
blaring. There was a jovial madness in the air, Harry concluded. Like someone had
put something in the water. Or maybe it was just down to having an extra day's
holiday.

There were thousands on the street. Dancing, singing, laughing. All that

excitement, anticipation, euphoria. It was as close to a carnival as the British could
get. Underneath the red, white and blue, the reverence and respectful royalism,
somewhere there was a darker libidinous energy, just beneath the surface. Harry was
only just aware of it as his bus throbbed and hummed, making its way through the
tightly packed crowds hugging and kissing, dancing and chanting. It was all so very
polite – but the exited energy and simmering sexiness couldn't be ignored. There was
a power in the crowd. Not just jubilant, or celebratory or even patriotic. A sensuous
and infective energy that increased with every contact. Collective titillation.

Which was more than could be said for a group of protesting zombies passing the

bus now. Anti-royalists, clearly. Probably on their way to Soho, though Harry.
There'd been all that trouble recently in a pub there, where a couple of guys had been
kissing. He wasn't sure what to think of all that. He didn't really see what all the fuss
was about. In Soho, of all places. London was pretty cosmopolitan these days, and
there would have been times him and Ruby would have been looked down on with
her pregnant before they'd tied the knot. There were some in her family who did,
upsetting Ruby something terrible on her wedding day. He'd told her not to worry
what other people thought. It had been their day, it was their business.

There was a huge cheer outside the bus as he pulled up at the next stop. Harry

cheerfully waved, thinking it must have been a welcome for him, and realized there
was another reason for the enthusiastic outburst. A couple of soldiers from the
Queen's Regiment had just strolled up, resplendent in their formal regalia, bearskin
hats underneath their arms as they arrived. Two tall, attractive lads with an erect
bearing, smartly dressed in the traditional pillar-box red tunic and black trousers.
Harry was pleased to note they were immaculately turned out, clothes newly and
precisely pressed, with shoes so polished you could see your reflection in them. The
crowd parted lightly to let the two soldiers get on the bus, and Harry obligingly
opened the doors.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Harry cheerfully greeted them.
"Morning," the two men replied as they boarded the bus.
"Quite a day for you – you not marching or something?"
"We're just finishing, mate," the first replied, flashing a grin. "Off to enjoy the rest

of the day now!" His friend cheered and punched his shoulder as they shared a joke
together.

"And he's due to propose himself," the second said. "He wanted to do it in

uniform, so he's been given a special dispensation to lark around in it."

"The girlfriend won't stop banging on about this wedding. I reckon I've finally got

the hint! And I may as well do it in style, eh?"

Harry smiled. The young soldier was certainly looking stylish. "Congratulations,"

he said.

"Commiserations more like," his friend joked. "Can't imagine Andy with a ring on

his finger. What you gonna do when you get an offer now?"

"You're jealous 'cos you don't get the offers, Jimbo!" He grabbed his friend's face

and directed it straight at Harry. "Look at that ugly mug. What sort of girl would fall

for that, eh?"

"I'm getting plenty, mate, you don't have to worry about me. And for the record,

plenty of girls like this ugly mug. And lots more besides. This soldier sees plenty of
action." James and Andy both roared at the innuendo.

Harry didn't doubt it. They were both good-looking guys. Andy was well over six

foot, square jawed, with dark brown eyes and cropped brown hair. James was
similarly tall, a little leaner than his friend, with a fair complexion, bright blue,
sparkling eyes and blond hair. Harry couldn't help but feel that if there were going to
be poster boys for the regiment, these two would be it. He could imagine Andy's
girlfriend having the same model good looks as today's bride, and concluded that both
lads would pick and choose their partners. Soldiers tended to beat bus drivers in the
dating stakes.

As the two stood clapping each other on the back, a muted buzzing sound started

sounding rhythmically. Harry looked around quizzically as Andy burst out laughing.

"Mobile's going off in my pocket, mate! I swear I get a hard-on every time it

vibrates."

"Don't take much to set you off," James quipped. "You're a right coiled spring."
"It ain't as if I'm not getting it regular enough, either! Had a bang before duty this

morning!"

"Well, if you ain't able to provide for her physical needs, there's some of us that'll

be willing to step in for you..."

Andy dug his hand into his trousers and pulled out the phone, still buzzing. Harry

noticed that the soldier hadn't been joking about the hard-on – even after the phone
had been removed, there was a substantial bulge in his trouser crotch.

"I'll be home in a while, babe," he cooed into the phone. "Did you see me on telly?

Yeah, the one in the bearskin!"

He put the phone away and turned to his mate. "She reckons she could see which

one I was."

"Yeah," said James, "the ugly one in the bearskin."
"I ain't ugly." Andy feigned offence.
"Nah, I'd do you." James laughed.
"You'd do me? I knew you were..."
"I could give you a hard-on..."
"You reckon, mate? You ain't my type..."
James and Andy stood grinning at each other. James discreetly fumbled in his own

tunic and after a moment the recognizable vibrating sound started again. Andy
reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

"Speed dial, mate," James joked. "Bet you got a hard-on again, though, didn't

you?"

Andy looked down at his crotch. "Little soldier's standing to attention, bruv." He

jokingly grabbed his mate's hand. "Cop a feel, why don't you?"

James fleetingly blushed as his hand brushed against his colleague's semi-erection.

They both laughed it off, although Harry detected a frisson between them. He found
his mind wandering, questioning how much intimate contact a couple of soldiers like
them would have had. They'd change together. Shower together? Share rooms
together? Sex in the same room, with the same woman even, together? Harry hadn't
been in the army, but he reckoned there wouldn't be much privacy. A band of
brothers – or an army of lovers? A couple of strapping young lads like that, they must
be curious about what they looked like under the uniform. How they'd match up to
each other...

"Likin' the decorations, mate," James said to Harry, indicating the bunting and

flags. "Good to see you getting in the spirit!"

"All part of the service, lads. Queen and country and all that."
"Enjoy the rest of the day, then. C'mon, Andy, let's see if we can blag the back

seat."

The now familiar vibrating sound started again. James laughed. "Why don't you

stick it up your ass and get a proper thrill...?"

"Don't think I ain't thought of it, mate," joked Andy. "I'll leave that trick to the

footy players..."

They both roared with laughter and carried up the stairs to the top deck. Harry

watched them go and rested his hand on the gearstick. He felt the shape of it, and was
reminded of the outline of Andy's crotch, and James's hand momentarily resting there.
He felt the rounded tip in his hand, letting his fingers grasp its circumference. He was
surprised at the thrill he felt holding it, as the bus engine throbbed and the gearstick
moved of its own accord in his palms. So many years driving and he'd never felt this
thrill, never even considered the eroticism of it he now felt in his hand. A stirring in
his trousers matched the stirring of the gear shaft, and Harry became aware of even
the throbbing engine turning him on. Sometimes, it was true, he could admit it now to
himself, he'd had a spontaneous erection as he drove, easily explained away by the
movement of the vehicle and the reassuring vibration of the engine. He'd heard other

drivers joke about it, would notice younger guys covering their crotches to hide
unwanted and unexpected hard-ons. He was part excited, part frightened, that he'd
felt this way since James and Andy had come on board. If he tried, he could still
catch the woody musk of their aftershave or cologne. A warm, masculine, entrancing
scent that reminded him of youth, vigor and – sensuousness. He absently wondered if
the bus vibrating was turning the two soldiers on, causing their cocks to unfurl and
come to life...

Harry shook his head, suddenly realizing what he was thinking. Perhaps it was the

excitement of the wedding. Perhaps it was because Ruby and he hadn't conjugated
their own relationship for what he felt was far too long. Perhaps it was just a warm
day, or he was unusually horny. Or perhaps Andy and James had unlocked something
deep within him that he'd resisted for so, so long...

He moved the bus on, through the thronging London streets. Every now and then,

both in the upstairs mirror, and the monitor for the upstairs closed-circuit television
camera he kept his eye on James and Andy, now lounging on the back seat. Even
downstairs he could hear their raucous and playful laughter, their booming voices like
those of secret but excited lovers in a motel room down the hall. He found himself
hearing snatches of jokes, snippets of conversations about girlfriends, about work,
about the football, the wedding, shared mates back at the barracks. Little by little, and
only on occasion, he entered into their world and learned of their lives. He was
getting to overhear too much, and yet not enough. The more he heard from and about
them, the more he wanted to know about them. Harry didn't even notice when it was
that all of his other passengers had left, and it was just him and the two lads left on the
bus.

He noticed what was happening on the CCTV camera, but didn't quite believe it.

Happened to glance at the monitor, then noticed there were only the two soldiers
upstairs. What were they doing? He looked more closely at the camera image
disbelievingly. He could see that Andy and James were sitting very close together,
with Andy throwing his head back, laughing. James, however, appeared to be moving
his hand up and down in the guy's crotch. Unbelievable as it seemed to Harry, he was
masturbating his friend – right there on the bus! And hadn't they both indicated they
were absolutely straight? The girlfriends, the machismo! What could have possessed
them...?

He remembered their boarding of the bus. He remembered the joking banter about

mobile phones setting off a hard-on. He remembered his own response to the throb

and vibration of the bus. Maybe that was just enough. Maybe the thrill of the day,
the last hoorah of Andy's bachelor abandon before settling down and proposing, had
erupted in an outbreak of desire.

He shouldn't be watching this. He shouldn't be fascinated, excited – turned on by

this. But the truth was that he was. It was daring, it was outrageous, it was shocking
even – and so very, very horny. He could see the guys fooling around, playing with
their hard cocks, undisturbed. Harry became aware of the effect on him, as he
glanced furtively at the camera monitor. His own cock was beginning to harden and
he could feel his dick swelling in his crotch. He adjusted himself with one hand, and
decided he'd have to do something to relieve himself. This had never happened
before to him. He'd never stopped the bus for a sly wank, had never seen guys
exposing and playing with themselves on his bus, had never been turned on by the
sight of a couple of big, strong lads tossing each other off. But, he figured, just
because it hadn't happened before didn't mean it couldn't happen now...

Harry found a quiet road and indicated to pull in. As he did so, he could see Andy

look around, a sudden jerk alerting him to something unusual in the bus's journey.
After a while, and as James continued his ministrations, Andy looked straight at the
camera, then grinned cockily and gave the camera a big, bold thumbs up. He sat back
into the seat, and started to push James's head down into his crotch. Harry was now
witnessing one soldier sucking his mate's hard-on. Right there, on his bus!

Harry unzipped himself. He fished his own erect cock out, frantically pulling it out

of his trousers to masturbate. He checked up and down the street – nothing at the
moment except Union flags blowing in the wind. He grabbed his hard knob in his
right hand, watching the guys upstairs continuing to play. He might have imagined it,
but it seemed the bus itself was rocking with their play and his own masturbation.
The shaking and his own rubbing intensified, as Harry felt his cock continue to throb
and stiffen. He watched as the soldiers also began to speed up, to the point where
they gave up pretending this was secret and he could hear Andy moaning out loud.

"Don't stop mate, I'm gonna start coming ... Feel my balls for me and wank me

off. Fuck it, she don't know how to toss me off like this ... Don't fucking stop,
mate..."

Hearing him talk like that was too much for Harry – he felt his cock twitch and jerk

in his hand, and then he was shooting his own spunk over the steering wheel, a jet of
semen even hitting the windscreen in front of him. Several powerful thrusts were
accompanied by Andy's hoarse groans as he also came upstairs. As Harry's own

ejaculation came to an end, he realized the mess he'd made, the amount of semen he'd
shot off, and looked around for something to wipe the mess away. Not finding
anything else to hand, Harry pulled down the flag bunting decorating his cabin, and
used it to wipe up the thick, white jizz he'd sprayed everywhere. He watched as his
own fluids melted into the red, white, and blue, not sure if what he was feeling was
pride or shame.

As he cleared himself, and the cab, up, Harry became aware of the peal of bells and

the sound of cheering. The Wedding must be well underway. The crowds were
shouting with joy, and for a moment Harry felt they'd been cheering for him, for Andy
and James, and their secret tryst on this right royal occasion. A nation coming
together – literally. He composed himself, tucking his old fella back into his trousers.
Upstairs, he could see Andy and James doing the same, tidying up their uniforms.

He moved the bus on, and as they eventually approached the end of their journey,

James and Andy sheepishly came downstairs as their bus stop came in sight. They
cheekily pressed the bus bell, saluting Harry as he slowed the bus down.

"Hope the proposal goes well, lads," Harry said as they stepped off the bus.
"Sure it will, mate. Who wouldn't wanna a piece of me, eh? Damned fine catch I

am! Guess we'll be seeing you at the Olympics next year? Another big occasion for
us," Andy cheerfully replied.

"It's in the diary, guys. See you there!" Harry nodded and winked.
"Laters then, mate – don't do anything we wouldn't do, eh?"
The two soldiers ran off the bus and up the street. Harry waved them off as he

closed the door, and his bus continued forward through the streets of London, as the
crowd began their cheering again. London Olympics, 2012. Harry was already
anticipating it. He'd be going for gold.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Miss Jay Lawrence is an expatriate Scot who currently hangs out near Vancouver,

Canada. She is the author of over twenty erotic novels and many short stories which
have appeared in publications on both sides of the Atlantic. In the interest of
research, Jay has experienced much of what she writes about and has lived to tell the
tale! Truth, she's discovered, is often stranger than fiction...

* * * *

James "Grim" Desborough is a game designer, writer, self-publisher, freelancer,

rakish fop, gentleman bastard, bon vivant, gourmet, sybarite, neo-pessimist
philosopher, devout atheist, professional clown, amateur subversive and parasite by
choice. Ten times more charming than that "Arnold" from Green Acres.

* * * *

Lucy Felthouse (http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk) is a graduate of the University of

Derby, where she studied Creative Writing. During her first year, she was dared to
write an erotic story – so she did. It went down a storm and she's never looked back.
Lucy has had stories published by Cleis Press, Constable and Robinson, Decadent
Publishing, Evernight Publishing, House of Erotica, Noble Romance, Ravenous
Romance, Resplendence Publishing, Sweetmeats Press and Xcite Books. She is also
the editor of Uniform Behaviour, Seducing the Myth, Smut by the Sea and Smut in the
City.

* * * *

Frances Jones was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her short

fiction straddles the line between fantasy and reality, from the wild trysts between two
competing journalists in Backstory to the earthy, erotic creature her narrator
encounters in The Wood. Jones' stories, borne by experience and imagination, are
inspired by everyday people and their not-so-everyday fantasies. For more, visit
www.frances-jones.com.

* * * *

People fascinate billierosie. What makes them tick; what are their secrets and lies.

The effete guy in the bank, the blond lady shopping in the supermarket, the elderly
lady living in a care home. What stories could they tell? Perhaps erotic stories of sex,
intrigue and fetish? And fetish is high on billierosie's agenda. The strange, haunting
stuff that informs our darkest desires. It could be fur or feathers. Shoes, silk
stockings, or toes. An amputee's stump. If we made a list it would go on for ever.

billierosie has been writing erotica for about two years and has been published by
Oysters and Chocolate and Sizzler. She has a collection of short, erotic stories, Fetish
Worship, available as a download at Sizzler and Amazon and a novella, Memoirs of a
Sex Slave, available from Sizzler. billierosie lives in a pretty village in England. She
doesn't fit with village life; certainly not the Women's Institute. billierosie loves the
theatre, Art, film, books and all things eccentric. billierosie plans to have fun and stay
young, writing pornography. billierosie can be found at her blog,
www.billierosie.blogspot.com

* * * *

Neil James Hudson currently lives in the middle of the North Yorkshire moors, but

is a frequent visitor to London as more things seem to happen there. He has had a
number of stories published by Circlet Press as well as a host of other zines and
websites, and finds the hardest thing about writing is trying to keep his cat off the
keyboard. He can be tracked online at http://neilhudson.livejournal.
com and www.facebook.com/neil.hudson.96.

* * * *

Victoria Pond writes erotica and erotica reviews from her Seattle home. She lives

with a husband and a cat, sings with a Celtic bar band, and is working on a
Steampunk Regency novella. Her link to England comes from her university days,
which may prompt the reader to wonder how much truth she's recounted in this
anthology.

* * * *

Willa Edwards has dreamed of being a writer since she was four years old. When

she picked up her first romance novel at 15 she knew she'd found her place, and she
never looked back. She now lives in New York, where she works with numbers at her
Evil Day Job and spends her nights writing red-hot tales of erotic romance. When
she's not at her computer, you can usually find her curled up in bed with her two furry
babies, her nose pressed to her e-reader. Find out more about her current projects at
her website, www.willaedwards.com.

* * * *

Elizabeth Coldwell lives and writes in London. She was the editor of the UK

edition of Forum for over 15 years. She has had stories published in anthologies from
Cleis Press, Xcite Books, Black Lace, Mischief, Ravenous Romance and Circlet Press
among others, and she has two collections of short stories, Take Your Slave to Work
Day and Abducted at the Altar available from Sizzler Editions. She can be found at

100

The (Really) Naughty Corner, http://elizabethcoldwell.wordpress.com, and has left
nothing more interesting than a pair of gloves on a Tube train...

* * * *

Rachel Charman is a journalist and author from Essex, England. She has

previously been published in Cleis Press' Best Lesbian Erotica 2011 and 2013, and
Xcite Books' Ultimate Uniforms. Get in touch on Ray_Charman@hotmail.com.

* * * *

Lukas Scott spent several years living, working, sleeping, fighting and making love

in London and is now an infrequent visitor. He's the author of several short stories as
well as novels Legion of Lust and Hot on the Trail. He can be followed, defriended or
avoided on Facebook (www.facebook.com/#!/lukas.
scott.9) or twitter (@sisfridge), where you can also make suggestions to him.

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