A s****l Odyssey

Chapter One At first, it had been just an idea, or rather a series of ideas, miniature narratives. Lucy didn’t think of them as fantasies; they were things that hadn’t happened yet, but which might happen one day, might happen very easily if she let them. Just once, a long time ago, when she was only nineteen, such a thing had happened for real. She’d been on holiday with a friend, somewhere in France, and they’d gone in a hotel for a drink, a rather posh hotel, and at the bar they’d got talking to a gentleman, an older man, forty years old at least. After he had bought them several drinks he offered to take them for a drive in his car, which he said was parked just outside. But the friend wouldn’t go. So Lucy, much to her friend’s disapproval, went alone. She knew what the man wanted to do, and she had had enough drinks that she was curious to see where these kinds of things led. Predictably enough, it led to s*x, quite straightforward, uncomplicated s*x on the back seat of his large, comfortable car. The s*x itself was not especially exciting, in fact rather routine, it seemed to Lucy, although at that time she had hardly had enough of it to know what was routine and what was not. But the idea of it excited her – the anonymity, the lack of any emotional involvement, even the slight element of risk (which her friend had insisted on spelling out to her before walking off in a huff), all these things gave it spice. In the ten years since that evening, her ideas had become slightly more elaborate, but essentially the structure was always the same. A man, almost invariably an older man, a setting redolent of sophistication, an atmosphere charged with s****l possibilities. An encounter – no names, no promises to meet again, no strings – and what became clearer, as the idea developed, was that the man should do exactly as he pleased. The word that always came to her mind was that he used her. Took what he wanted, and then was gone. Sometimes what these men wanted was rather – well, what word could she use to describe it? Perverted? Deviant? Kinky? Whatever. She thought sometimes about what the relationship was between these little scenarios and the relationships in her actual life, both the s****l ones and those that derived from her work. As the age of thirty approached, she realised that she was becoming successful. Her years of hard legal study and the grind of apprentice work were now paying off. Her services were in demand, her court appearances more frequent. Her work was respected. She was treated as a serious person, even deferred to by many. She was very far from being a person whom others could take advantage of; whom others could use. Though not overly given to intense self-analysis, she was aware that her inner s****l life, the ‘ideas’ she kept having, did not match with other’s perception of her. There was nothing about this, which troubled her; she simply observed that it was so. How men behaved to her in her s****l imagination was quite different from how they behaved in real life. And the apparent lack of it extended to her s****l activities too, what there was of them. She would sometimes remark to friends in a light-hearted manner that she hadn’t much time for a s*x life these days, and to an extent that was true. Certainly she could not have found time to play the dating game as energetically as Rebecca or Joanna, the two friends she saw most regularly. Not that she lacked for offers. Men she encountered, knowing she was single, would invite her out, but she rarely accepted. Yes, she was busy, but it was more than that. She found, almost invariably, that such encounters disappointed. It wasn’t that the men weren’t pleasant or attractive or interesting. If she had s*x with them, it was often enjoyable enough, in its way. But it never had the spice of her imaginary encounters. There was no risk. The men, who took her out for dinner, or to the theatre, seemed so safe. There was nothing remotely deviant about them. And far from showing any signs of using her, they were assiduously attentive to her needs; or what they thought were her needs. Did you come, they would ask solicitously, and if she should indicate not, they would attempt to satisfy her unless, as she often did, she told them it was fine, not to worry. Lying there while they went to work, well-intentioned as they were, had not much appeal. And then one evening it happened. She wasn’t conscious of any changes in her feelings, of something that had predisposed her, not only to acquiesce in what happened, but even to seek it out. It wasn’t as though she said to herself, I’ll be thirty any day now, it’s time to make these things happen. But nor was it a sudden, on the spur of the moment thing. It certainly was not, as had been the case all those years ago, that her actions were fuelled by alcohol. She’d had a couple of glasses of wine, but she was used to that. Perhaps it was in part the fact that she was in a different town, not London but a large city in the north, a city where no one knew her, except those who had employed her for her legal services, and they, after taking her for a very good dinner, had all gone home. So there she was, having a small nightcap in the hotel bar when she became aware of a man looking at her. He was, like the man of all those years ago, in his forties, or perhaps older, fifty maybe. He was well-dressed, in a charcoal-grey suit, well-cut, with a rather florid but clearly expensive tie, possibly by Gucchi, she thought. He had a strong face, not exactly handsome, but with character. His hair was going grey. That much she registered, but subconsciously she must have perceived a lot more. There was something about him that was different from the men who wanted to take her out. His expression seemed amused, not mocking but challenging, as if to say, I think I know what sort of girl you are, and that’s the sort of girl I like so don’t pretend. He was sitting further down the bar. He made a motion to her, pointing at her now empty glass with one finger while raising an eyebrow, inviting her to have another. She hadn’t intended to, but on an impulse, proceeding from who knows exactly where, she nodded. The barman poured for her. She expected the man to come closer, to occupy the vacant seat next to her. Instead, he patted the seat next to him. Men didn’t do that sort of thing to her very often. Was she giving off some different vibrations this time, or was he just a different sort of man? She hesitated for a moment. If she went to him, would it commit her? Not irrevocably, perhaps, but it was a step in a certain direction. The shy virgin path would definitely be blocked off. She got down from her stool and slowly walked down the bar. She sat up on the stool next to him and carefully pulled her skirt down over her knee, just in case he should think he was home and dry. Looking back the next day, she realised she had already made her decision, but she intended to make him work for it. There was a touch of arrogance about him that appealed to her, but it was more fun if he didn’t think she was just a push-over. They chatted a little. She told him her name was Isolde. It was a name she had used once or twice before, when she didn’t want to be identified. In her mind the name was associated with knights and chivalry; she was the aristocratic bride of Ivanhoe, or Galahad, or someone. The man said his name was Pierre; his mother had been French, he explained. He said he was a businessman; she said she was a fashion buyer for a London store. He looked her up and down. She’d always been very careful about her clothes. What she wore was important to her; it affected how people saw her, and she wanted to control what they saw. Evidently Pierre approved of her navy-blue woollen dress, tight across the bust but fuller below the waist, the hemline fashionably just below the knee. After a while he said it was a warm night and would she care to stroll outside. It was an obvious ploy but she didn’t mind that. They walked in the gardens of the hotel, which stretched down to the river. They stopped and he put his hand up to her, stroking the back of her neck, then squeezing it gently. It was one of those things that always worked with her, though men hardly ever tried it. She turned towards him and without coyness kissed him on the mouth. His lips were warm and dry, then he opened them and slid his tongue into her mouth. It slithered around inside like a lascivious eel, poking into nooks and crannies. One hand remained on the back of her neck, caressing. Another went round her back, resting just above her bottom, slowly circling. He’s good, she thought. He knows what he’s doing. His movements were controlled, unambiguous but not crude. She found herself pressing up against him and could feel his c**k bulging. ‘Shall we go in?’ she whispered. They went up in the lift. She was on the floor above him. When they stopped at his floor he offered to come up with her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Your room.’ Afterwards she wanted to be able to leave as soon as she wished, not have the problem of throwing him out. She wouldn’t let him put the light on, but the curtains were open and there was a strong light from the moon. He sat on the bed and she stood in front of him. She took off her dress and then her stockings and her suspenders and her bra. The knickers could wait just a while longer. ‘What do you want?’ she said. She wanted him to tell her. She wanted him to take it, whatever it was. He stood up and put his hand on the back of her neck again, this time pushing her gently down onto her knees. He unzipped his trousers and took out his c**k. It was big and hard. He was uncircumcised and she saw him pull back the foreskin to expose the purple tip. He pushed her face forward towards him and she took him in her mouth. She hadn’t sucked a lot of c***s. Instead, men seemed always to want to go down on her, give her what they thought she liked. But she had thought about how it was best done, and she’d learned from what experience she had had. One thing she’d found was that men varied in how they liked it, some wanting it hard and fast, others preferring a slow sensual approach. Pierre liked the latter, holding her now by the hair at the back of her neck and slowing her down when she went too quickly. He fed her his c**k right to the back of her throat, up to the hilt so that she nearly choked, but she didn’t mind. She liked to feel her mouth full of c**k, liked to feel he wanted it all in her. She wondered if that was going to be all he wanted, whether it would be his preference to come in her mouth, or perhaps on her face. She didn’t mind either, in fact she liked it, enjoyed the sight and smell and feel of the semen spurting from the c**k, hitting the back of her throat or landing on her face, her nose, her cheeks, her mouth, dripping down her chin. Use my face if you like, she thought. But then he pulled his c**k away, putting his hands under her arms and raising her to her feet. ‘On the bed,’ he said. ‘On all fours.’ She knelt on the edge of the bed, her bottom towards him. ‘Pull your knickers down,’ he said, and she did. He took her, thrusting his c**k straight into her without any ceremony. His c**k was perhaps a shade thicker than average, and she liked that. Not that she cared over-much about size, but it felt good inside her as it penetrated deep then withdrew only to push in hard again. She heard herself grunting as he f****d her, not very ladylike sounds perhaps, but she was beyond that now. ‘Oh god,’ she heard herself say, ‘f**k me, f**k me.’ And he did, vigorously, even roughly. She was pleased by how long he kept it going, such a long deep f*****g that by the end her cunt felt slightly bruised, but in a good way, the way of feeling really taken, and had, and used. Just before he came he did something no man had done before, pushing his thumb into her ass, so that she was plugged in both orifices. He came with a groan and she felt his c**k kicking and bucking inside her. She knew he’d used a condom, so she just imagined his semen splashing into her, and when he withdrew there was no satisfying dribble of sticky white fluid from her cunt. But she was wet, very wet, and that was enough.