We had been in Paris for a few days and become lovers. Angela was an amazingly exciting lover and I was on a distinct high when I got home. Cloudsley, my cat, was aloof and distant when I got back. Sir Cloudsley Shovell was one of my Dad’s heroes. He’d managed to sink an entire squadron of ships in 1707 off the Isles of Scilly and, as a result of his misfortune, the race to develop a timepiece that would assist navigators assumed huge importance. OK, so it’s a bit nerdy but the story has always captured my imagination. That, and the little known fact Dad revealed to me that there were literally hundreds of women at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805 for those interested) made me realise that the role of women in history has always been redacted to suit male self-opinion. Feminist rant concludes here but it does explain my love of clocks and watches.

Cloudsley and I spent an evening of cool togetherness, he sitting on the arm of my sofa, one foreleg dangling like a panther in a tree and seldom looking in my direction, I reading a book half-heartedly and thinking mostly of the time in bed with Angela. She was now planning her next exhibition. My job was to write the script for her to read out as models displayed her jewellery and clothing designs on the cat walk and she had said not to worry about getting in early the following morning. We had already selected two models. Tessa was a svelte and blonde, with beautiful bone structure and grace. Hermione was tall, slender like a willow and brunette, the perfect foil for Tessa, We needed a third and Angela reckoned a dark-skinned girl would set the other two off and hoped she might find one from those sent round for audition.

I slept like a baby that night and woke to give myself an early morning jill, one of those slow, half-awake orgasms that almost seem to be a dream until the last moments when my back arches and Cloudsley gets kicked off the bed when I thrash a little. He doesn’t seem to mind.

With a knee length cream linen dress and a warm smile on my lips I got to the office about eleven. I had coffee from the deli for Angela and myself and opened the office door. The smile disappeared at the sight that met me. There was Angela with the tallest Eurasian girl I had ever seen, surely 6’ 6” but that thought came later because I was somewhat taken aback to note that said Eurasian girl had her tongue down Angela’s throat. There was no embarrassment on either’s part when I coughed and they separated rather slowly and reluctantly. I put the coffees down and went to the cabinet where the centrepiece of the forthcoming exhibition was housed. I took it out and walked to the Eurasian girl and without asking fitted it around her neck, almost having to stand on tiptoe despite 3” heels. It was a magnificent piece of silver, shaped to lift her chin and mould around the curvature of her cleavage which, despite small breasts, was well defined. I stepped back and admired the look.

‘Well, you have your third model.’ I picked up my bag and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind me. I went home and sat, sobbing quietly with the cat sensitively sitting across my breasts. I hugged him and cursed Angela.

I realised I had not locked my front door when I heard its familiar creak and heels tapping on the wooden floor of my hall. I looked up and there was Angela.

‘Fuck off.’

‘I’ve told you before about being rude.’

She sat facing me and looked at me with a certain tenderness but no remorse that I could detect.

‘That,’ she said, ‘was Fanny.’

I laughed, despite myself. I believe that in North America the word ‘fanny’ often means arse but here in England it generally, in slang, means pussy.

‘I rather noticed.’

‘If you’re going to sulk I’ll get cross. Fanny is, as you rightly imagined, our third model, stunning isn’t she?’ I had no time to speak. ‘She is a raging dyke and a great fuck. I don’t love her and, yes, I was kissing her and, if you’d been later, would probably have fucked her and I’d have enjoyed it. There is a huge difference between a fuck and love. I have never promised to be exclusive and, well, who could resist her?’

She had said the ‘L’ word.

‘You never said you would NOT be exclusive.’

‘I didn’t think I needed to. God, Liz, we’re grown women and we love each other. That doesn’t mean we can’t have fun with others. Get a grip. We work in a business surrounded by beautiful women, what the hell do you think I’m going to do, be a nun all of a sudden? She’ll have a pop at you too if she gets half a chance and if you don’t let her you’re an ass.’ She stood. ‘Come back to the office, I need you.’

I closed my eyes as her heels clattered back across my hall floor and I heard the door close gently behind her.

At three that afternoon I went back to the office. She was at her desk and alone. She looked up, smiled, stood and came to me, kissed me firmly on the mouth – I did not resist. In fact I kissed her back. Her hand went between my legs and she cupped my pussy under my dress, her finger stroking me gently. I let her and our kiss deepened, her tongue entering me and claiming me.

‘I love you, you silly cow. Fanny is perfect for the show; she and the two others will cause a sensation. Le’s get to work.’

So I went back to work. Mixed emotions were raging through me and she was attentive but not overly so. She would listen while I read extracts of the speech I had written for her, suggesting alternative words and phrases but generally liking what I had produced.

‘You have cat hair on your left tit.’

‘You have lipstick on your right ear.’

‘It’s fashionable!’ but she wiped it off. ‘Come round to the flat tonight around eight?’ I nodded, closed down my laptop, grabbed my coat and went home again.

She was right, of course, we did love each other. It had not been said before but it was true. I wrestled with myself, cursing a middle class upbringing and conventional values.

I wanted to be what she wanted but it isn’t easy to shrug off twenty years of indoctrination. I had a stiff gin, called a cab and changed into a pair of tight, black leather trousers and a white silk blouse, tidied my hair and face and grabbing a few things in case I stayed the night went to the front door. I remembered Cloudsley and hastily went back to the kitchen and set a large amount of food down for him. He slithered between my ankles as I did so.

‘Right, Admiral, see you tomorrow. Don’t look at me like that. I know I’m stupid but I’m in love. If you hadn’t had your nuts cut off you’d know what it’s like.’

I closed and locked the door behind me and the cab drove me to her flat. The entryphone buzzed and I took the lift to her floor, the twelfth. The door of her flat was opena dn a smell of something garlicky emanated from within. I went in, closed her front door and walked through to the kitchen. A glass of red wine was waiting for me on the side and she turned from her hob to smile at me.

‘Love the trousers! I must pay you too much.’

She was wearing a pair of dark jeans and a pale blue cotton button down, sleeves rolled up. Her hair was deliciously awry, her eyes sparkling. She lifted a glass to her lips and smiled at me over the rim.

‘I hope you’ve got a nightdress in that bag?’

I got no chance to answer. She rattled of ideas for the show, served the meal like a whirlwind and ate ravenously, talking with her mouth full and waving her fork to conduct her sentences. Food consumed she led me by the hand to her bedroom and unbuttoned my blouse. She did that thing of hers where she looks down at my breasts as if seeing them for the first time, as a cosmetic surgeon might examine them, casting them to memory. Then she bent her neck and took my right nipple between her lips and sucked it, her hands running over my arse. I laid a hand in her ash blonde hair and caressed her.

‘You might have said.’

She made no reply, no apology, no explanation. She’d said all she was going to, so take it or leave it.

She unzipped my trousers. I was naked underneath and that seemed to get her a bit fired up because she pushed the pants down and dropped to her knees as she did so, placing her mouth firmly on my mound and planting delicate kisses around my trimmed hair. Her fingers ran over the flesh of my buttocks and thighs and her tongue danced between my lips. My trousers came off with my shoes and I fell ungracefully back onto her bed, legs spread and knees lifted. She feasted on me, her tongue entering me, opening my, lifting my folds and exposing my clitoris which she sucked as her finger slid inside me and curled, causing me to lift my hips and moan softly in pleasure.

Still dressed she flipped me over and lifted my arse high and her mouth returned to lick first my pussy and then, deliciously, my arse. She poked her tongue into me while my own hand reached between my legs and stroked between my lips, curling as her’s had into me. What had started delicately and slowly became frenzied. Her clothes disappeared over the side of the bed and I found my head between her thighs, my tongue lapping at her as a cat licks a bowl, curling, pulling her viscous juices into my mouth, savouring her.

Then we were pussy to pussy, her hands on my shoulders – a position I had discovered she favoured. Our eyes were locked on each other and our hips moved in symmetry. She pushed, circled, leant in to kiss me hungrily, made soft mewing noises until she arched her neck back and emitted a long, gurgling howl of ecstasy as her orgasm rose, rose then burst. Mine did not follow immediately but I succumbed to it when she pushed me onto my back, pressed her tongue to my clit and slipped a finger in my pussy and my arse at the same moment which did something a bit special because I heard someone screaming, ‘oh god, fuck me!’ and the world went black.

‘Hmm, you went off a bit there didn’t you?’

I was lying with my back to her, my head on her breast and could but agree. She stroked my hair, one arm around me, under my breasts.

‘Did you bring a nightdress?’

Slowly I got out of bed and went back to the kitchen to retrieve my bag. I took out the same black nightdress that I had worn as her ‘whore’ in Paris and slipped it on. I could still feel the slick wet t the top of my thighs. Was it love or pure, unalloyed lust that I felt for her? One look at her in the bed, her short hair shining in the half-light, her eyes open and her mouth slightly so as well and I answered my own question. It was both! She half sat and leant back against the headboard.

‘You only have the one?’

I smiled, ‘I have several but this has memories.’

‘Mmm, yes, get in here, whore, I want you again.’

The following morning we travelled together to work in a cab and I was once more wearing the leather trousers and the white blouse. I had completely forgotten underwear and she said that I could borrow a pair of hers but she’d rather know I was naked underneath so I was.

I got back to work at my desk and, around eleven, she told me she was going out for a while, she had to see a silversmith. ‘Hold the fort.’

At one, the door of the office opened and there stood Fanny. She was wearing a pair of high waisted, pleat front trousers in pale camel and a pale blue silk shirt. Her hair was cut short, slightly androgynous and her dark, almond eyes, glinted.

I stood up. I was ready for a confrontation with her but she walked casually to me, took my hand and kissed me on the mouth. Her free hand went to my arse and stroked me. She was pressing her finger at my bum, enjoying the thin leather and making a clear statement of intent then she broke the kiss. I was a little breathless.

‘If Angie’s out, I’ll have to make do with you.’ She grinned as she said it and I almost slapped her face but something in her voice spoke of apology, unsaid but I felt it. ‘Don’t worry, girl. Angie’s a dream but she’s yours, she told me. But, hey, we can all have fun, no?’

‘What the fuck,’ I thought and kissed her then made her some coffee and watched as she slowly unbuttoned her blouse.