sex in london

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.

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.