I hadn’t meant it to be like this with Anthony. I’d been trying to fly under the dating radar, looking to pick-up a man for a few hours of mindless, no-strings-attached sex. I had been determined to have sex like some men do – a physical act without any emotional entanglement. My mind had been filled with a veritable smorgasbord of sex acts that I’d wanted to run through – four months with a guy who can’t find a woman’s clitoris, even when she coats it with sherbet and shines a torch on it under the bedclothes can do that to a woman. It was Steve’s fault - a man whose penis went into hiding at the sight of an approaching orifice. It liked my hands but it’s not much fun for a girl when a cock goes soft as soon as it passes her lips – either set of lips.

The relationship had been good, but a 24-year-old woman has needs and the lack of sex had left me feeling empty and despite the obvious love, I gradually filled with an unsettling loneliness. It wasn’t enough; he wasn’t enough. The stirrings of discontent had been focused by my brother’s wedding. I was never going to be as happy as Greg and Sophie – unless I broke up with Steve and set-out afresh.

I dumped ‘soft’ Steve on a Friday night, and filled with relief and renewed hope, I set out on Saturday – looking for a wham-bam kind of night. I had hoped to dip my toe into the dating whirlpool and snag myself an entirely unsuitable man who would fuck my brains out and then conveniently forget to call.

Anthony wasn’t that man. Anthony was a keeper. “He’s gorgeous,” I said to Ewa, my ridiculously-hot Polish workmate as Anthony strolled to the bar. He ordered his drink and scanned the room as the barmaid pulled his bitter. And he looked straight at me and caught me staring. He smiled, and like a rabbit welcoming the brightness of the on-coming headlights, I smiled back.

“Oh my God!” Ewa hissed, as Anthony collected his drink and came over. Two months later and it still felt like my pleasure circuits had be hotwired into a nuclear reactor. I’d never been attracted to anyone the way I had been attracted to Anthony. He turned me on with his every word – even that first night, when he’d gone home and then called me, saying that he wished he’d invited himself back to mine. It was perfect. I respected the gentleman in him for not trying to instantly shag me – and for having been unfailingly polite all night… but I loved that he happily and openly talked to me about the lust he felt for me – admitting to the nights alone in his bed, tossing and turning, frustrated, lonely, desperately hoping to meet a girl ‘like me’.

“Tossing?” I said, teasing him.

“Well, sometimes a man has to…”

“Now? Are you tossing off now, listening to the sound of my voice?”

“Yes,” he said, making my pussy clench around my fingers.

“I’m naked, you know.” I wasn’t confident enough to tell him the truth of what I’d been doing. “My hand is on my belly. Why don’t you tell me what to do?” The dirty words made me feel a bit giddy. I’d expected Anthony to be wary but he groaned and jumped straight in.

“I’m already playing, quite close to coming,” he admitted, and it was my turn to gasp. “Push your hand down between your legs and circle your clitoris.” With that single instruction, Anthony gave me more pleasure than Steve had ever given me. I did exactly what he told me to do - although it meant extracting my sticky fingers from deep inside my pussy.

I let out a little gasp of delight. “OK,” I whimpered. It was naughty and it felt really, really good.

“Good girl,” he said softly. “Those are my fingers rubbing your hot little pussy.” To hear him use the word ‘pussy’ that way… he somehow took ownership of it, which was indescribably sexy. I felt exhilarated as my body filled with an urgent need to have an orgasm – but unlike Steve, I had no doubt whatsoever that Anthony was capable of making me come, even though I only had his voice and his words.

“Your hand is on my cock,” he said, tension cracking his voice. “Fuck! That feels good. You’re gripping it so tightly, tugging your fist up and down – slow but hard, just the way I like it. Argh, fuck. I’m not going to last long if you keep doing it like that.” I felt a swell of pride, even though I wasn’t doing anything… but without realizing, my fingers were following his instructions, working hard and slow and the pleasure was building between my thighs.

My eyes were tightly closed as I listened to the sound of Anthony’s breathing. He was masturbating with me. I’d never had phone sex before and it had crept up on me so quickly that I was already doing it before I realized it was happening. We were masturbating together. What should I do? Tell him what I was thinking? “Your cock inside me,” I whispered, hesitantly.

“Oh fuck, yes. I’d love that. I can feel the velvet crush of your pussy wrapping around my cock.” I could hear rhythmic slapping in the background and instinctively matched the speed of my fingers to it. It was a wonderful pace and we sighed simultaneously with what had become mutual pleasure; and there was a connection - that thing which is either there or it isn’t. I felt myself melting inside.

“I want to come with you,” I groaned, and the pleasure spiked at the dirtiness of my words.

Anthony was a stranger to me. I’d never even seen the body of this man, yet I was about to share this most intimate of moments with him.

“OK,” he said. “Tell me when.” I rubbed frantically, imagining Anthony doing the same, imagining him in the bed with me, watching as I masturbated – not just watching, fucking me. I groaned long and loud at the thought of Anthony driving his cock into me. There was an explosion of frantic grunts and groans from the phone. Anthony had heard my noises and mistaken them for my orgasm. He was coming. I listened to the thunderous roar of sexual pleasure and tried to picture his cock spurting. My legs closed around my hand and my aching pussy clenched.

My orgasm started deep inside – a tight point of light and heat exploding out into every point of my body; simultaneous pleasure and delightful, breathless agony crushing me from within. My back arched and my head flung back. The phone was forgotten, Anthony was forgotten as the sexual ecstasy tried to escape in a series of pulses. It had been way too long since I had lost control like that.

Anthony was still breathing heavily when I recovered the phone from under my back. “Hello?” I asked.

“Is it me you’re looking for?” he responded. I laughed.

“'Cause I wonder where you are,” I sang.

“And I wonder what you do,” Anthony sang back.

“Are you somewhere feeling lonely, or is someone loving you?” we sang in harmony to each other.

“Tell me how to win your heart,” he sang.

“For I haven't got a clue,” I sang back.

“But let me start by saying…” he said, but stopped.

“I love you,” I finished, feeling my heart surge with the excitement of uttering those three words. It felt dangerously right – I wanted to be able to say those words for real. But they were empty vessels.

A thick knot of emotion grabbed my chest and throat and tears welled in my eyes. There was a pause as I tried to cry without making a sound. I’d dug a hole and didn’t know how to get out of it. I’d just said, ‘I love you’ to a man before a first date. How does a girl recover from that? I didn’t know how.

The pause extended.

The last thing that I’d been expecting to end it was for Anthony to echo the words back to me.

“I love you,” he said. He didn’t sing the words; he just said them to me, as though trying them out for size. There was a long pause, filled with hope and tears. “Anyway,” he said. “It’s getting late.” Shaking, I twisted to look at my clock – it was 3 AM.

“Yeah, I suppose we should…” I said, reluctantly. I was wishing that he’d just ask for my address and catch a taxi. I wanted to be in his arms.

“I’ll phone,” he said.

“You’d bloody better,” I said, laughing through the snot, unable to sniff or blow without being utterly disgusting. I looked disgusting, but that didn’t matter.

I would have been devastated if Anthony hadn’t phoned… but he did and everything about Anthony was as perfect as I could have imagined – except for one small problem – his cat, Benny. Or as I liked to call him: Benny, the bastard. Benny was introduced to me as an expensive Persian Blue and it was immediately apparent that he and Anthony were inseparable in their little flat.

I don’t mind cats and it’s sweet to see a man who is so capable of love and affection. But I love my stockings – as does Anthony – but so did that bloody cat. I was lying across the sofa with my feet resting on Anthony's lap. I was still in my work clothes, as it was too far to pop home and we hadn’t got to the point of me leaving anything more than a toothbrush at Anthony’s. Plus it was fun to see the faces of my work colleagues when I dressed differently - on the days that I went straight to Anthony’s, I walked the knife-edge between ‘sexy’ and ‘professional office worker’.

The underwear was the key, I'd found. And wearing pretty, expensive underwear had an effect on me, my work colleagues, Anthony and Benny.

Anthony ran his hands up and down my stockinged legs. They were on his lap. I liked my legs lying across his lap; I liked the feel of his hardening cock as he stroked me but it was also the safest place for my feet. I'd learnt that it wasn't safe to dangle them. Benny had a habit of launching himself from under the sofa and sinking his claws into my stockings and my feet. That was a big part of what made him ‘a little bastard’. It hurt and it was expensive… and I didn’t like to take my stockings off until after I’d got into the bedroom, otherwise, what was the point of wearing them? None - there was no point wearing them all day and then not letting my boyfriend see them.

Benny was a house cat - well, a flat-cat. In a way, I felt sorry for him, being trapped in the flat all the time. He should have been out hunting or shagging or whatever cats do while they’re out and about. The thing was, Benny knew exactly what he was doing and wouldn't dare misbehave too much under his master's eyes. It was off-putting to see him prowling on the kitchen worktop. He knew he shouldn’t be there and didn’t do it when Anthony was cooking - it was a mark of open defiance that he did it when I was preparing food. Anthony was top cat, Benny was second in command and I was a lowly she-cat, to be bullied and tormented.

And when Anthony and I were trying to get romantic, I’d often find a pair of green eyes glinting at me, barely blinking in the semi-darkness. I could have coped with that. Just – although it was like having a disapproving parent lurking around the place.

What I couldn’t cope with was being ambushed – especially when I had to pop to the loo in the night. Anthony said he was only playing, but his claws were out and being scratched isn’t fun! Staying-over was becoming an expensive and painful experience – and was starting to impact on my relationship with Anthony.

As I stretched across Anthony’s legs, Benny jumped up and I felt his claws, not extended but menacing all the same. Even his feet were rough, catching, threatening to snag and tear... another bloody set of stockings? I could feel myself coming to the boil.

The television had been burbling but I hadn't been watching. I'd been relaxing, balancing a glass of Chardonnay on my stomach, letting it heave up and down with each breath. Benny had broken the tranquillity of the moment.

"Come-on,” I said to Anthony, “let's go to bed."

"I'm not sleepy," he whined.

"No, neither am I," I replied, uncoiling my legs and fluttering my eyelashes seductively.

“Oh, right!” Anthony said, smiling as he flicked the television off. I watched as Anthony went through the routine of sorting everything out – including setting the litter tray for Benny.

As Anthony went to bed, I grabbed the bottle of Chardonnay from the fridge… and I noticed the fresh litter tray that he had carefully laid-out for Benny. To this day I can’t imagine how I got the idea and gumption to do what I did. Perhaps I’d watched one too many wildlife programs. I’d wanted to put Benny in his place and tried making sudden noises and generally shooing him around – but I was often met with hisses, teeth and claws. This tactic was different, of an entirely bigger scale.

Seconds after I’d had the thought, I acted upon it - an opportunistic assault that the cat could fully understand. It was brilliant. A smile broke-out as I hitched-up my skirt and pulled my knickers to one side and squatted over the tray. Benny stood in absolute horror and watched as I let rip with my stream of piss. The tray wasn’t designed to cope with the contents of a woman’s bladder and before long, the contents of the tray were swimming – all the absorbent bits floating in my waste fluids.

I stood-up, wriggled my underwear back into place and adjusted my skirt. “Enjoy, you little bastard!” I said, as I returned to the sanctuary of the bedroom. Thankfully, Benny was always locked-out of the bedroom.

Anthony and I had another delicious romp and I’d forgotten all about what I’d done by the morning. It wasn’t until Anthony returned with a cup-of-tea that the consequences of my revenge were revealed.

“Sorry I was so long. I think there’s something wrong with the cat.”

“Really?” I was trying desperately not to smirk.

“Yeah – he’s shit all over the kitchen floor and his litter tray is literally swimming. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’m sure he’s fine. Perhaps he’s just trying to show you how much he loves and adores you,” I said, sipping my tea.

The thing is, Benny is much better with me now. Perhaps I’ve successfully marked my territory in a language he understands. Whatever it is, the scratching has stopped, and he stays on the floor, preferring to rub himself lovingly around my ankles.

Perhaps he knows what’ll happen to his litter tray if he misbehaves.