It's often the silence that says more than anything. Sandra Rollason was the mistress of the unspoken, tall, elegant and extremely wealthy. She had invited me to an interview. I am a journalist and I had been commissioned to do a series of interviews of wealthy businesswomen for her magazine. I’d suggested that she might herself be a subject and, to my surprise she'd agreed when her editor had mooted the idea. Her office was spare, nothing to tell you about her, no pictures, no artwork, nothing.

Her desk was large, like a billiard table, almost empty, not even a phone. There was one small vase of fresh flowers and when I commented on it she said dismissively that her secretary placed them there for the interview. She was cold, not giving much to me, try though I may.

I had done a lot of preparatory work and had uncovered that she had had a relationship with a female MP sometime in the past.

‘I don’t discuss my private life.’

I nodded ‘But I am sure readers want to know about the woman behind the job.’

‘Why? Isn’t it good enough for them to know how I got it, how I do it?’

I thought about this. ‘No. There is little public interest in the mechanics of your work, they want to understand you.’ I tried a different tack. ‘What were you good at in school?’

‘Everything.’

Christ, it’s like getting blood from a stone!

When I had arrived at her offices, her secretary had shown me into the inner sanctum. Sandra had been seated and did not stand to greet me. The secretary had invited me to sit in front of the desk but I had chosen a chair beside a low table to one side. There were two chairs there but Sandra did not join me. I was offered tea and accepted. None came for Sandra who sat silently, looking at me through her designer glasses. She wore a pale blue blouse with long sleeves, spare jewellery including a plain silver necklet. Her hair, short and blonde was beautifully cut, her nails polished in pale blue to match her blouse.

‘How did you get to the top so quickly?’ She was still only forty-five years old.

Sandra raised an eyebrow, ‘I fucked my way to the top.’

I laughed, ‘No, I was being serious.’

‘So was I.’

‘So, tell me about it.’

She sighed. ‘I was born with a number of advantages: rich parents, good brain, good body and ambition. Men will always promote a woman who is prepared to go that little bit further. So I did.’

‘I assumed you were a lesbian.’

‘I am, but that doesn’t stop me. We do what we have to to succeed.’

I thought that I could never do that but didn’t say so. At least she was talking now. ‘I don’t think you want me to write that.’

She thought about this for a while, a long while. Then she seemed to reach a decision.

‘I will leave it to you to print what you think is acceptable. My father was a man who detested weakness. When I was young he never let me win a game, would always beat me until I could beat him. He wasn’t unkind, just never contemplated giving in. My mother didn’t understand but I did. I understood completely. He made me compete with him for everything. And he always told me to use every advantage I had.'

'I started as a junior reporter on a local paper. I didn’t want or need to go to University so I had a head start over all the young graduates. I did fuck anyone who wanted me to and who could help me. The latter was the only important thing, not their sex or age.'

'When I came to this magazine, I came as a features editor. The editor was a woman of fifty-five. She was stupid, passed it. Her boss, the owner, was forty-five, a single woman and we became lovers, very quickly. The editor was fired and I got her job. Now I am the Editor in Chief of four publications, soon to be five. Don’t print that bit, it’s a secret.’

Suddenly she stood and I may have gasped because she was much taller than pictures of her suggest. She was wearing a knee length pencil skirt and her legs were perfect, all the way down to fine ankles and beautifully shod feet. She came and sat opposite me, crossing her legs elegantly.

‘You’re freelance, correct?’ I nodded.

‘Are you good?’ I nodded again. ‘How much do you earn?’

‘I thought I was the interviewer.’

‘How much?’

‘About forty a year.’

She laughed. ‘Well, either you’re not that good or you don’t have ambition. But I had you checked out too. You used to live with a lawyer, Susan Stein. She died. She left you money, enough to buy your flat. People say you’re good, that you deliver and that you’ve done more than a few features like this. You did a spell in Iraq.’ I nodded. ‘That was just after Stein died. Did you hope to join her?’

I stood, picked up my recorder and put it in my bag and turned to leave.

‘That was how I felt when my Dad died.’ I turned around again. ‘Turn your recorder on again.’ I did so but remained standing. 'If you really want to know about me, stay for dinner. We can have it up in my flat.’

Her flat was legendary, allegedly a huge penthouse above the magazine’s offices. Few were allowed to go there. I agreed and she stood and led me through the outer office to a lift in the corner which opened as she pressed the call bell. We stepped inside and it whispered quickly to the uppermost floor where the door opened onto a wide enclosed terrace. Her heels clicked on terracotta tiles as we made our way to her door. It was not locked.

The penthouse was as large as legend had it to be.

Without asking she went to a cabinet and poured two large glasses of champagne, turned and handed me one.

‘Behold the fruit of ability, beauty and a lack of scruples.’ She smiled and sipped her champagne. You have beauty and ability,' she raised an eyebrow. The question was, did I have scruples? 'Bring the wine.’

She turned away from me and I picked up the ice bucket and followed her across deep carpet to a vast bedroom in which the bed, itself huge, was rendered small. She turned to face me, put her glass down and unbuttoned her blouse. I recognised her bra and knew it cost more than my entire outfit. She had a smile like a cat. A big cat, it was hungry, predatory. She took my glass from my hand then the bucket and placed both on a table close to the bed. Then she put her hands on my shoulders.

‘I thought you said dinner.’

‘Let’s think of this as an aperitif?’

She kissed me then, hard and uncompromising. My body responded despite my feelings. Her tongue invaded my mouth, conquered it. Her hands deftly undid my own blouse and pulled it out of my long skirt. I was naked beneath the blouse and her hands assaulted my breasts, hard, demanding. She squeezed my nipples between those pale blue nails until I gasped into her mouth, then she squeezed them harder. Her free hand pressed to my pussy through my skirt, her finger pressing right on my crease, probing, feeling the shape of me. All the while her tongue continued its drive into my mouth. Her hand raised my skirt and cupped me between my legs. She stood back and undressed. She wore no stockings, just those delicate and expensive panties which hid nothing. Her blonde triangle showed clearly, so did a small spot of moisture. I dropped my skirt and she smiled that smile again.

When I was naked she came to me, sliding her hand behind my neck and grasping my long hair. She pulled me to the bed and almost threw me onto it. Suddenly her mouth was on my pussy, her tongue probing me, her teeth biting my lips while her hands roamed freely over my body, over my breasts and down over my legs. It was not lovemaking, it was taking. She took, driving her tongue into me, pulling my flesh, opening my buttocks, stroking between them. She turned me over and lifted my hips until my arse was in the air and my face pressed to the pillow. She buried her face between my legs and continued her assault. Then without warning she turned me over again and clambered to straddle my mouth, pulling those panties away in one firm yank, then settled onto my mouth. I extended my tongue but needn’t really have bothered because she rode my nose and mouth and chin until she bellowed a sort of animal roar and orgasmed, a flood of her juices coating me.

Sandra got off the bed and went to wardrobe. She donned a long, silk robe and threw a similar one onto the bed beside me.

‘Dinner, I think.’