Although there was no sign outside to advertise it, the place was called 'Intime.' It was tucked away in a quiet street. The street was tree lined with Georgian style lamposts which cast a yellow light on the damp pavement. There was no traffic and few footfalls. My taxi stopped outside. I paid the cabby and stepped out into the cool evening air and hesitated momentarily. I looked at the glossy black front door with the large brass number 6 placed high upon it and almost lost my nerve; almost, but not quite.

Friday evening – two weeks earlier

Like most people I have a telephone at home but most people call my mobile. Not many even know my number and so it is always a slight surprise when it rings. I had just got home from work, about 8:30, and the ‘phone was ringing as I opened my front door. I dropped my bag on the kitchen worktop and picked up.

‘Hello?’

‘Listen, you don’t know me but I think you used to be Tilly Marston’s girlfriend, Lisa? My name is Lauren Sage; does that name ring any bells?’

Tilly and I had been together for seven years until she was offered a job in New York and decided with my agreement to take it. She was formidably intelligent and ambitious and I had known she’d resent me forever if I had stopped her. She had asked me to go with her but I knew in the depths of me that she didn’t want me to really. I’d have cramped her so I’d said no, cried for a month and let her wings spread. That was four years ago. My beautiful Tilly; the mention of her name stopped me dead. Was there, I wondered, some dreadful news about her?

‘Er, yes, is Tilly alright; has something happened to her?’

I had not heard a word from her for at least two years. Of course we had promised to keep in touch and we did for a while, but her emails had become fewer and fewer and ultimately stopped.

‘Yes, she’s fine.’ I drew breath again. ‘Do you remember hearing my name?’

“What? Well, no to be honest. Oh, wait,’ I must have sounded a complete idiot. ‘Yes, yes I do remember vaguely.’

‘Good. Listen, Tilly works for the same company as me and we were talking a couple of days back and she said I should call you. She said we’d get along and since I’ve just arrived from New York to stay here for a while she thought we’d have fun.’

Bloody typical: she can’t even be bothered now to call me herself. As I thought that I heard my mobile make the noise it makes when a text message comes in and as I held the ‘phone I opened the message.

It read, ‘You’ll like her – go for it. See – I do still think of you J ’

‘Look, I’m sorry but it’s all a bit confusing. I haven’t heard from Tilly for ages and here I am getting a text from her at the same moment as you call. Could you call back later, I need to get my head round this.’

I put the ‘phone down without waiting for her reply. I poured myself a rather large gin and tonic, shook my hair loose, kicked off my shoes and sat at the kitchen table. I gathered my thoughts and replied to Tilly’s text. ‘Why now?’

Tilly had been the first great love of my life. Perhaps, she still was. Her response was unnervingly quick and I felt, oddly, as if she were watching me.

‘Lauren is very senior, very rich, very bright, very us. I’m not setting you up. I just know you’ll like her. Before you ask – yes, I am in a relationship and happy. I stopped writing out of, well, love.’

‘And fuck you,’ I thought.

I took my gin up the bathroom and ran a hot, steamy tub, slid into it and cried, the first time for probably three years. I heard the ‘phone ringing downstairs but didn’t answer it. I got out when the water was going cold. I slipped on a dressing gown and went back to the kitchen. Another text.

‘Answer her – dopey.’

She’d often called me that. I poured myself a smaller gin and tonic and almost spilled it when the ‘phone rang again. I stared at it for a few rings then answered it.

‘Hello.’

‘Hi, it’s Lauren again.’

‘Sorry about ringing off like that,’ why did I care?

‘No, no, I understand, it must have been a bit of a shock. I didn’t handle it real well, did I?’

Where does that accent originate? It’s not my idea of New York. More Clarice Starling.

‘Tilly said I should look you up and that she’d let you know – I didn’t realise that she hadn’t done so. All I wanted to say was that if you fancy a drink one evening I’d like it.’

So how the hell did Tilly know I hadn’t got a new lover? What makes her so arrogant to think I’ll act as a guide or whatever for her pal? I may have been obedient when we were together, but now? Only one thing to do.

‘Okay.’

Saturday evening

‘I’m staying here until I get a flat.’

‘Here’ was the Grant Hotel. It was one of the best in Bloomsbury, near the British Museum and way out of my price range. We were sitting in the bar, two large glasses part filled with wine, hers red, mine white. She was quite stunning, tall with shoulder length blonde hair, more gold than blond really. Her eyes were a deep blue. Her nose was too long, so were her legs. Well actually they were perfect with fine ankles and good shoes. The dress an understated pale blue silk number with tiny straps and her tits moved as she spoke suggesting that, like mine, they were unfettered if bigger.

We talked. She didn’t enquire about Tilly and me and I didn’t enquire about Tilly. She wasn’t the name that couldn’t be mentioned; in fact we’d got that out of the way early on. We just talked; about her job, my job, her family and mine (none). Her ‘daddy’ is something big in the NYSE and I privately laughed, imagining a large statue. Her ‘ma’ was long gone and her three sisters were respectively and in order of age, a lawyer, a cardiac surgeon and an actress. The last had not pleased ‘daddy’ at all but he was over it now. Lauren herself was something corporate, like Tilly. She ran stuff, managed things, fired people and generally ruled the world. Tilly was like that; she had ruled me. She was the brightest star in the firmament and I could not imagine the two of them getting on. Two alpha lionesses seldom become friends.

I had decided to go comfortable. I don’t usually wear trousers but I have a pair in dark blue silk that are the only pair I’ve ever had that I really like and so, with a white silk blouse and black flats and my chestnut hair loose I had made an effort but not set out to show myself as available, if you get my drift?

The truth is she was wonderful company. She was feminine with an edge. She had a wonderful sense of humour, laughed at herself, understood irony and was utterly self-confident. She was tactile too. Her hand would stroke my arm to emphasis a point or she’d touch me, on my knee or my shoulder or, once, my face, when I was speaking.

Wednesday evening

I called Lauren. When we had parted on Saturday evening she had said, ‘Call me.’ The kiss had been perfunctory, more than air, less than mouths.

‘I wondered if you’d like to come over for supper?’

‘Love to – Friday okay?’

‘Perfect.’

‘8:00 pm?’

‘8:00 pm.’

‘Great, see you then.’ End of call. Christ, I thought, it’s Tilly come back to haunt me.

Friday



‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ It was nearly nine. ‘I got stuck with a group of asshole accountants and couldn’t get them to stop boring me to death. Had to come straight from the office, hence the battledress. Could I get a vodka and tonic?’

Years of cooking for Tilly had made me aware of the corporate life’s vicissitudes and so I’d done something that would keep if she were late. Good job, too. She was wearing a dark blue business skirt suit with heels, stockings and cream blouse. Very nice. I’d done the ‘I’m not a housewife’ thing and worn a knee length red shirt-waister. I poured her drink and she sat taking a long draught of it gratefully while I sorted out the meal. She had lost the jacket and I could see she was wearing a bra this time – presumably accountant assholes don’t get to see her nipples. I had, at least I had noted their presence under that dress.

We’d kissed when she arrived. I’d almost extended my hand to her but she just leaned forward and planted a well formed mouth on mine. There was nothing predatory about her, she just seemed super confident that I would neither mind nor object. I didn’t.

I’d set the table so we’d be facing each other but when my back was turned she re-arranged it so we’d be sitting with her on the long side of the table and I on the short side to her left.

‘Hope you don’t mind me organising – I cant help myself sometimes.’

I dished up the meal and sat at my allotted place thinking how she seemed to take ownership of each situation she found herself in. Now, there’s a word, ‘ownership.’ Why did that make me shiver?

She poured wine, she talked, she listened and she touched.

‘She said you were good.’

I looked up from between her legs. She’d kissed me properly when we drinking brandy in my sitting room. She hadn’t worked up to it slowly; she’d slipped her arm across my shoulders, pulled me to her and plundered my mouth. I’d been wanting her to for about two hours and I guess she knew. I did not resist. I opened my mouth as soon as her lips touched mine and she had lingered, her tongue deep in my mouth, stroking, almost fucking me there. Her tongue seemed large, strong and insistent. She led me, put my hand where she wanted it, put hers where she chose, undressed me, exposed me. Her blouse was open, her skirt on the floor beside my dress, her stockings still clipped but her knickers were nowhere to be seen. At some point during the sublimely arousing experience she had literally pushed me down between her legs and I had felt the grip of her fingers in my hair as I lavished attention on her. I licked, kissed, sucked, fingered and generally did all I could to get her to the point where she clearly needed and urgently needed to be. She climaxed with a lifting of her hips and a grunting that became a whimper then a roar. It was magnificent; like an athlete.

I looked up from between her legs. “Who did?’

‘Tilly.’ She cupped my chin. ‘She has not handed you on to me so don’t go getting all indignant. She just said, sometime we’d been wagging the chin, that you were good and, boy, she spoke the truth.’

Why was I not indignant? I should have been. I wasn’t though.

She pushed me quite gently away and stood, then she reached out her hand and helped me to stand. I stood before her, quite naked and she kissed me again then led me to my bedroom. Once there, Lauren shrugged off her blouse.

‘Sit.’

I sat on the bed. She walked around my room, opening drawers and wardrobe, examining, invading my space. I didn’t mind. She found my vibrator and the small collection of other things that Tilly had either bought for me or told me to buy. They were all in my bedside table drawer, handy for when I needed them. She found a long silk scarf and she rolled it around her hand then came to me and placed it around my eyes. As she blindfolded me so she kissed me – firmly but not urgently. I felt her sit beside me. Her face was close to me and I could feel her breath then she whispered into my ear.

‘Does that feel good?’

I nodded because it did feel good.

‘Say it.’

‘It feels good, Lauren.’

‘Lie down.’

She lifted my knees and then I felt her between my legs, her hair caressing my thighs and then her tongue slithered slowly and firmly over my pussy. I was already aroused from my session between her legs and this served only to raise my excitement. I arched my back slightly and she told me to lie still. Her tongue slowly moved over me, little pressure, no urgency as if she were tasting me. I felt the tip of her nose nestling between lips that were swelling and opening. I reached to touch her hair.

‘Keep your hands by your sides.’

The exploration continued. Her tongue slithered down to my dark star and I knew it was a test; did I like it, did I allow it? Then I realised that the word ‘allow’ was not right – I should have said ‘accept.’ There was no doubt that she and Tilly had a lot in common. Her tongue probed my rear, not entering but pressing and licking around it then returned slowly up to my clit. This continued for a lifetime.

I arched my back and she growled, ‘Lie still dammit – how many times do you need to be told? Move again and I swear I’ll leave.’

Have you ever tried to remain perfectly still when someone is bringing you to ecstasy? Most lovers want to feel your arousal, sense their success but not, it seemed, Lauren.

I tried, God knows I tried but there came a moment when my will lost and I let loose a groan of orgasmic pleasure, my back reared off the bed and my thighs clamped her head. I came and came again or maybe it was just one long one.

As I recovered I apologised, fearful she’d leave but I heard her smile.

‘Not bad. We have time to improve on that.’

She removed the blindfold and crawled up over me to kiss my mouth, then she rolled to lie beside me.

‘Okay, as I see it, it goes like this. We’re body lovers now and we might become mind lovers, who the hell can tell? But you’re too long without discipline.’

She turned her head towards me – I was already looking at her.

‘Let me make this clear, it has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with Tilly. This is us. If you want to see me again,’

I went to speak but she literally clamped her hand over my mouth.

‘If you want to see me again ‘phone me tomorrow morning at 10 and say, “I want to see you, Lauren.” If you say anything else, even hello or how are you it’s over, understand?’

She removed her hand.

‘I understand.’

‘I’m leaving now, I have a car waiting. Stay here for at least ten minutes.’

I watched as she dressed. She smiled down at me.

‘It’ll hurt you know.’

I nodded.

‘Say it.’

‘I know it will hurt.’

And she was gone. I lay there, not entirely out of obedience but partly because my body was exhausted and my mind working hard to get itself around all that had happened. In fact I lay there for more than ten minutes. I slept.

Saturday

10:00 am. I called her number and she picked up almost immediately.

‘I want to see you, Lauren.’

‘Good morning,’ her voice was full of warmth. ‘Sleep well? I’m viewing apartments this afternoon, care to come?’ She did not wait for an answer. ‘Meet me at the Grant at 1:30, we can grab a sandwich and go from there.’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘Of course you will. Wear something I’ll like and no, but no underwear.’

She rang off and, to my shame, my hand went between my legs and brought me to a less than satisfying climax. It was not, after all, her hand.

A little before 1:30 I arrived at the Grant and sat in the lobby. She came down a little while later and she looked gorgeous, her golden hair tied back, a pair of tight leather trousers over heeled boots and a cream linen jacket over a pale blue blouse. Like Tilly, she did the whirlwind, barely time to draw breath as she dragged me from hotel to estate agent and agent to flat and flat to flat. At each apartment she took detailed notes, asked copious questions, snorted at the agent’s weasel words.

My feet were killing me when, at five, she made an offer on one of the flats. I expressed concern that she was being impetuous but she brushed that aside with a gesture of her hand.

‘Come on babe, time we had a drink. Did you cum after you called me? Of course you did.’

Her arm over my shoulders we stepped out into the street and she hailed a cab immediately. Was the whole world at her command? We stopped at the Grant and as we passed reception she ordered a bottle of Champagne to be sent up to her room.

‘And make sure it’s cold, sister, or you’re fired.’ Her smile told the receptionist it was a joke.

Lauren’s heels clattered across the tiled floor to the lifts and I followed. In the lift, as soon as the door closed she reached out and lifted my skirt.

‘Good girl.’

The lift sighed to a stop and she let my skirt fall and turned to lead me down the corridor to her room. She pushed the key card into the slot and led me into her room which was large and with views over the surrounding rooftops. She took off her linen jacket and threw it to me.

‘Hang that, Lisa, I need to piss real bad.’ She disappeared into the bathroom and I dutifully hung her jacket in the wardrobe and found myself touching her clothes all of which were beautiful and hideously expensive.

When I turned around I found her standing, looking at me. A knock at the door reminded her that the wine was coming and she pointed to the door.

'Get that.’

I did, of course. I let the waiter in, Lauren signed the bill and he left, pleased with a generous tip.

She pointed to the open wardrobe. ‘Like what you see?’

I nodded dumbly. ‘Take your skirt off.’

I turned my skirt so I could undo the zip and lowered it, stepped out of it and placed it on a chair. I stood in a blouse and stockings feeling a little nervous.

‘Pour the bubbles, babe, I’m looking for something I want to see you in.’

She rooted through the content of her wardrobe as I opened the champagne and poured her a glass. She turned and smiled.

‘Get yourself one as well, you’ve earned it.’

She was holding a leather skirt, long and deep red. She brought it to me and stood behind me. It wasn’t until it was on that I realised it had no back, stopping at my hips.

Her hair brushed my face as she said, ‘I bought this for you. I had to guess your size but it seems okay, no?’

I laughed. ‘It’s not really suitable for a stroll in the park.’

‘That wasn’t quite what I had in mind.’

Still standing behind me she ran her hands over my breasts, across my stomach, down the front of the skirt and around to stroke my exposed buttocks. Her hand slipped between my legs and a finger stroked me. Her mouth was close, so close to my ear.

‘Next Saturday we’re going to a club. It’s called ‘Intime.’ We will meet there. You will come from your own place in a cab and when the door is opened you will say to the woman who meets you that you are Miss Lauren’s whore. If you say anything else she will not let you in. She will take your coat and if you are not wearing this skirt she will give your coat back and ask you to leave. Now, open the small box beside the wine cooler.’

I walked across to the wine cooler and picked up a black leather box, about six inches square. I opened it. It was lined with maroon velvet and, nestling in the velvet, was a steel plug with a jeweled base.

‘Have you ever worn one of those?’

The truth was that Tilly loved to fill me that way and I had often worn one. I said that, yes, I had.

‘It will be in place on Saturday. Now take off the skirt, put your old one back on and sit.’

The room was warm but my nipples were hard as dried peas under my silk blouse. She passed me my wine glass then sat facing me. Her eyes wandered over me, examining me. We drank our wine and I wondered where this evening was heading. It was by now seven o’clock.

‘Do you need to eat?’

‘I’m fine thank you, Lauren.’

‘Come and stand beside my chair.’

I stood and moved to stand beside her. She put her hand on my stomach and pushed me, guiding me to the precise position she wanted. Her hand fell away and we looked into each other’s eyes.

‘Are you going to be obedient?’

‘Yes, Lauren.’

‘Why?’

The question startled me and answers swirled in my head; because I enjoy being obedient, because I want you to want me, because I need to be, you need me to be.

‘Because it is what we both need.’ She smiled. ‘You said I have been too long without discipline and you are right. You need someone who will accept your discipline.’

She smiled again. Her hand touched my knee and then slid slowly up my thigh, under my skirt. Her eyes never left mine and I found it hard to hold her gaze. Her fingernails scratched lightly over my skin until she stopped, her finger barely touching my lips. It moved, breathtakingly slowly, over them and I quivered, hardly able to stop myself from pressing down onto it. My nipples ached, my mouth opened involuntarily. Her pressure increased a little, her finger stroking along my crease and making me swell under her touch.

All the while she watched my eyes, even when her other hand lifted her glass to her lips. Her finger stroked me harder and I felt myself opening and so did she for her finger curled up into me and delved inside and now her thumb made contact with my clitoris and I almost buckled. Her finger slithered out and I felt a sense of loss until it slipped to my rear and stroked around that until I moaned with pleasure. She told me to be quiet and her finger ran back to my pussy and stroked it more firmly before re-entering me and stroking deeper. She stopped moving her hand and just sat there with her finger inside me.

‘When was the last time you were caned?’

‘On Tilly’s birthday, four years ago.’

‘Why were you caned?’

‘It was her birthday treat to herself.’

‘Do you miss it?’

I am no masochist but I had accepted Tilly’s cane many times, sometimes for her pleasure, sometimes for discipline. Why does a grown woman allow it? I was never forced, never coerced. She would tell me to fetch the bamboo and I would. She’d tell me to bend over the chair and I did.

‘Answer me.’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Explain.’

And so I did. I explained that I had loved Tilly, understood her needs and her desires and that accepting her cane was a part of my love for her. She nodded, apparently satisfied. Her finger curled inside me and sent a shock of unexpected pleasure through me and then it stopped moving.

‘If I told you to fetch the cane now, would you?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?

‘Because I haven’t learned to love you yet.’

Lauren laughed. ‘So you stand there with my finger in your cunt and you let me tell you to come to the club with a ridiculous skirt on and a plug in your ass but you need to love me before you’ll let me cane you. Complicated little whore, aren’t you?’

She was telling me. I had never felt so many conflicting emotions. She was right, I was letting her finger me, order me, control me. I felt shame and arousal, embarrassment and weakness and huge desire. Her finger slipped slowly out of me and I felt that sense of loss, of deprivation again.

‘Turn around.’

I turned and her hand slithered up the back of my leg. I could feel my own moisture on her fingertip. That finger delved between my buttocks and pressed.

‘Take off your blouse.’

I unbuttoned it and removed it, letting it fall to the floor. My nipples were shockingly engorged. Her hand left my body and she stood, moving to stand behind me. Her hands covered my breasts and she kissed my neck as she squeezed my nipples, gently at first and then with increasing pressure. She whispered in my ear as my head rolled back onto her shoulder.

‘You’re going to go to the bedroom, undress except for your stockings and your going to kneel on the bed. When I come in you will put your head down onto the bed and you’re going to ask me to hurt you.’

I went into the bedroom and stood for a few moments, wrestling with myself. Then I took off my skirt and shoes and knelt on the bed, facing the door. It seemed forever until she came into the room. She stood in the doorway, her hand between her legs and waited, her eyebrow lifted in a question. I lowered my face to the bed.

‘Please hurt me Lauren.’

Slowly she unbuckled the belt of her black leather trousers and pulled it from the belt loops around her waist. She laid it across the palm of her left hand and slowly pulled it across the palm until it fell, then she repeated the motion.

She walked slowly across the bedroom and I lost sight of her.

‘Say it again but only if you mean it.’

‘Please, Lauren, hurt me.’

I heard the belt swish through the air and it slammed into the bed beside me. She left it there and came to look into my eyes.

‘Soon enough, little one, soon enough. For now, I think we both need to fuck.’

I watched as she undressed, removing her blouse slowly until her breasts were exposed. She undid her boots and took them off then slid those tight trousers down her long, long legs. She was wearing silk panties, almost transparent and she took them off slowly and held them to me face.

‘You got Lauren all wet babe, you’re a good girl and good girls get looked after.’

Her hips swayed deliciously as she walked to her suitcase and pulled out a strap on. Facing me again, she slowly strapped it to herself, inserting a small internal dildo into herself. The outward facing dildo wasn’t huge or grotesque, nor was it a replica of a penis, but almost a series of balls of gradually increasing sizes, pale blue in colour. The bed dipped as she knelt behind me. I felt her hands on my buttocks and then the touch of the tip of her dildo at my gate. She pressed gently and entered my moist canal, pushing deeper and deeper until I could feel her hips touching the backs of my legs. Then she began to sway. Her rhythm increased and we were both ready, both on the edge. I could not resist pushing back against her and she stroked my hips in encouragement. All the while she kept repeating, ‘good girl,’ like a mantra.

My orgasm was fast and followed seconds later by her own.

She lay beside me and folded me in her arms, our faces close.

‘If I told you to fetch it now?’

‘I would.’

Next episode - 'Intime'