Fast And Loose

‘A bit of an exhibitionist, maybe?’

‘Maybe. It was such a big part of her life. I can’t believe she’d willingly end it like this.’

‘And did she have a Dom?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do we know about him?’

‘Not much. Refers to him as “J” and says he works in some kind of respected profession.’

‘Not a journalist, then?’ said Tom, with a twinkle. ‘I guess…doctor, lawyer…oh! University lecturer?’

‘They hooked up through some kind of private chat group, I think.’

‘OK, well, that’s what we’ll try to do, then.’

‘What? You have a plan?’

‘Follow in their footsteps,’ he said briskly. ‘Get on to some of these sites and make profiles and meet some other local kinksters. What? Don’t you think so?’

I was staring at him, I realised. I blinked and looked back at the screen.

‘You want to do this?’ I said, referring both to the investigation of Mia’s disappearance and to the continuation of our mutual interest in her kink.

‘Why not? We’re ideally placed, aren’t we? If anyone can find her, it’s us.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m not a detective,’ I said.

‘No, but I think we’d make a good team,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the attention to detail and I’ve got the understanding of people. You’re good at research and I’m good at persuasion. Come on. This could work.’

‘I don’t have the understanding of people?’

He laughed.

‘No, Foxy, you don’t. You never picked up on Tilda and Miles? Seriously?’

I bit my lip. Perhaps he was right. I tended to take people at face value and found it difficult to see anything beyond that. If you gave me something written down, though, I could read it every which way there was.

‘But you think we could work as a detective duo?’

‘Sure, why not?’ he said. ‘Holmes and Watson. Jeeves and Wooster.’

‘Jeeves and Wooster aren’t detectives.’

He clapped his hands. ‘Like I said! Attention to detail. Flanagan and Allen. Porgy and Bess. The Master and Margarita.’

‘Fast and loose,’ I said. ‘A bit like you.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Perfect. Fast and Loose. We can have a little brass plaque on your bedroom door. OK, then. Email me over that document, will you? I’d better get going.’

My dismay must have been palpable. He was going? Now?

Apparently so, judging by the purposeful way he embarked on the search for all his discarded garments.

‘Sorry, kid,’ he said. ‘I want to stay. But I’ve got a breakfast meeting and I can’t turn up in a top hat and cravat.’

‘I could set the alarm for…’

He shook his head, buttoning his shirt with fingers that must have smelled of me.

‘I’ve got stuff I need to look at first,’ he said. ‘Bit of business after pleasure. I’ll call you tomorrow, OK? In the meantime, come up with a fake profile for some of the kinky social networks. See if you can hook any professional types with a J initial.’

‘All right,’ I said, still feeling somewhat bleak at his sudden withdrawal. ‘Tomorrow, then.’

‘Tomorrow.’ He shrugged on his coat and grabbed the top hat and cravat. His kiss goodbye was sweet but too fleeting. ‘I promise.’

And away he went.

Chapter Four

‘Christ, Ella, you look knackered.’

‘Thanks.’

I gave Tilda a sweet smile and a middle finger. But she was right.

I should’ve slept like the dead, given the thorough workout Tom had put me through, but instead I had lain awake fretting about his sudden departure.

Had it been something I’d said? I’d pulled together every scrap of our interactions from the recesses of my memory to analyse them for possible offence, but nothing seemed to make sense. Had he really only stayed for the Mia mystery? Had that been his whole plan in coming back with me? The sex was incidental. The discovery of our mutual kink was interesting to him, but only in terms of the investigation. He should have known I wouldn’t let him down.

I should have known he would.

‘What’s the limp about?’ Tilda brought over a coffee from the machine and plumped herself down beside me.

She was Tom’s ex. She’d never mentioned it.

I found myself looking at her in a different light, picturing her with Tom.

‘Wrenched my ankle tottering about on high heels last night,’ I said. ‘Thought I’d sprained it, but it seems better this morning. Just a bit of a twist, probably.’

‘Oh, you went out? You didn’t tell me. Where did you go?’

‘Oh, just a bar. With my flatmates,’ I said, feeling sure my evasion hadn’t got past Tilda. She’d notice the colour that was heating my cheeks, for one thing.

‘Just A Bar. Yeah, one of my favourites. Cheap Street, isn’t it?’ she teased.

‘You know. My local. It wasn’t a big night out or anything.’

Change the subject, for God’s sake.

‘If you say so. I’d have said it was an all-nighter, though, judging by those rings around your eyes.’

‘I need this coffee, that’s for sure.’ I lifted it to my lips and cast around the office, desperate for an alternative topic of conversation. ‘Is Miles in yet?’

Tilda wheeled back her chair a fraction, giving me an uncomfortably keen look.

‘You weren’t out with him last night, were you?’

‘Miles? God! No!’

The man in question appeared in the doorway, pulling his hood off his face, looking as unshaven and dishevelled as ever.

‘Ladies,’ he said, in his sullen Mancunian accent. ‘Did you get one in for me, Til?’

‘You can get your own. It’s Ella who looks like she really needs one.’

‘Yeah?’

He sat down, yawning, on my other side and dumped his backpack under the desk before swivelling to stare at me.

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Oh, just thought she looked a bit tired, that’s all,’ said Tilda archly. ‘Like she needs a bit more sleep.’

She gave Miles a meaningful look which was lost on him, but which I at last understood. Tilda had been making these weird oblique remarks to Miles about me for weeks. And now I understood why – everybody knew that he fancied me.

It was nice to be in on the secret, even if I was the last to know.

‘Oh,’ said Miles. ‘Why’s that, then? Late one, was it?’

This seemed to satisfy Tilda that we hadn’t been secretly at it all night long, and she turned to her desk to log in.

‘Just a few drinks with my flatmates,’ I mumbled, following suit.

Miles grunted and lumbered off to the coffee machine.

Not my type, I thought, following him with my eyes. Too simian, and that stoop – why didn’t he walk tall? Like Tom. Mmm. Tom. Bleurgh.

My phone rang twice. An external ring. Unusual, especially for this time in the morning. Mum or Dad?

I picked it up.

‘Morning, Foxy.’

I nearly dropped the receiver.

‘Oh’ was all I found to say.

‘You can walk, then?’

‘Just about.’

He chuckled. ‘I mean, your ankle.’

‘Yes,’ I said, bending low to the desk to avoid being overheard. ‘That’s what I meant.’

‘Just wanted to make sure I hadn’t…incapacitated you…in any way.’

‘I thought you had a breakfast meeting.’

‘Yeah, done that. Stale croissants, bloody cheek. Anyway, speaking of bloody cheek…’

‘Were we?’

‘Mm, I’m thinking about cheeks now. And I don’t mean the ones on your face.’

Tom! It was on the tip of my tongue, but a throat-clearing from Tilda brought me to my senses. I would have to keep my words neutral or risk the third degree.

‘Though I’m not into drawing blood,’ he continued thoughtfully. ‘So literal bloody cheek isn’t quite what I have in mind. A nice bit of red flush, though…mmm.’

‘Did you call me for a reason?’ I muttered, beyond flustered.

‘Yes, I did,’ he said. ‘Did you set up that account on Safeword.com?’

‘Oh…not yet. I’ll do it later.’

I’d made a start but my brain had failed to co-operate, too preoccupied with Tom and his wily ways. I was in no mood to be penning kinky come-hithers to strangers after all that.

‘You’d better,’ he said, his voice like raw-edged silk. ‘Or you’ll know about it when I see you.’

Now this sounded promising.

‘Oh, will I?’ I said, trying to keep my tone light enough to deflect any attention from my neighbouring desks.

‘Yes, you will,’ he said. ‘And I’m getting a sense that you’re testing me. Do I have to prove that I mean business?’

I gulped. ‘Yes’ or ‘No’? Which was the right answer?

I couldn’t resist it. Despite the danger that surrounded me, I put my lips close to the mouthpiece and said, ‘Maybe you do.’

I could almost hear his smile at the other end.

‘Oh, dear, Foxy, you do have a habit of letting yourself in for it. OK then. As soon as you put the phone down, you’re going to go to the Ladies’ and do two things for me. One, pull the cups of your bra down and keep them that way for the rest of the day…you are wearing a bra, I take it?’

I gave a little yelp of indignant laughter. Mistake. Tilda was on the case right away, her neck tilted in my direction.

‘Of course,’ I hissed.

‘Just checking. I know what you’re like, Ms Cox, you rampant little animal. So, yeah, the bra is number one. Two, take off your knickers and put them in your bag for the rest of the day. You are…?’

I tutted and huffed. ‘Yes, again.’ I paused. ‘Oh, God.’

‘What?’

‘Do I have to?’

‘Yes, you have to. I’ll be waiting for you in the lobby at six, to make sure.’

Now this was a thrilling thought, as if I wasn’t thrilled enough.

‘Will you?’

‘You bet. What are you wearing?’

I gave Tilda a swift side-eye. I wasn’t sure I could answer this without arousing suspicion.

‘What do you mean?’ I hedged.

‘Skirt? Trousers?’

‘The former.’

‘I was hoping you would be! Excellent. Go on, then. And don’t forget. Six o’clock in the lobby for your underwear check.’ He made a couple of smoochy noises and rang off.

Tilda was definitely about to ask me who was on the phone. I had to get out of here.

‘Just going to the powder room,’ I said casually, slinging my bag over my shoulder and hobbling off. The powder room was our private reference to the ladies’ toilets – we found it funny because they were so ungenteel and usually in a horrible state.

They weren’t too bad this morning – the earliness of the hour meant that they were still at least clean, though their dingy tiling and rotten old sinks didn’t exactly cheer the eye.

I wasn’t here to rate them for aesthetic appeal, though. I was here to obey Tom’s orders and show myself for the scarlet woman I was.

I locked myself into the furthest cubicle and ran my hands over my outfit. Officewear wasn’t my natural style, but when I dressed for work I used it as an opportunity to channel my inner Mad Men cast-member. I kept things classic and curve-enhancing. Thank God it was November and my white shirt was made of cotton heavy enough to keep any overtly erect nipples at least half-concealed. My little summer cap-sleeved blouses would have been a different proposition.

I unbuttoned quickly and pulled the lace elastane cups of my bra down over my breasts. My nipples, thanks to the phone call, were in a state of high excitement. I wondered if there was anything I could do to flatten them before going back into the office. The shirt might be heavy, but a couple of dimples were still a strong possibility. Then I remembered my emergency cardigan. Thank God! I could button it over my shirt to keep things a little more modest.

Thus reassured, I fastened my shirt. As it closed over my unfettered breasts, the thick cotton pressed against my nipples, teasing and chafing them. They felt stiff and a little sore, and their peaks were definitely visible. I’d be feeling them every time I moved my arms, every time I pushed back my shoulders or flexed my spine.

‘You bastard,’ I whispered, thinking of Tom and how he would examine me later for signs of my obedience.

The thought made me dizzy and I had to sink on to the toilet lid, trying to block out the images of the previous night that twined around me, laughing at me with his smile and his wicked blue eyes.

Now the knickers. This would be more difficult. My pencil skirt was form-fitting and I wore tights underneath it, since I hadn’t been expecting anything of a sexual nature to happen at work.

I stepped out of my shoes and rucked the skirt carefully up to my waist, making sure not to damage the silky lining. Then I removed my tights, even more carefully because they were a fine denier and given to snagging at the slightest provocation. I laid them in my shoes and sat back down to wiggle out of the knickers.

These ones weren’t ‘special’ but they were still nice enough – white stretch lace boyshorts, to match my bra. If Tom asked to see them, I had nothing to be ashamed of.

Wait – what was I thinking? I was taking off my knickers and bra at work for the purposes of sexual titillation. Wasn’t that something to be ashamed of?

Only in the most exciting way imaginable.

I smiled at myself, my heart skittering along, listening for any signs of creaking doors or footsteps in the corridor beyond. Once I had removed the knickers and stuffed them in my bag, I picked up my tights again.

It seemed weird and wrong to put them back on. Surely the idea of having no knickers on was the sense of being bare and uncovered at an inappropriate time, in an inappropriate place. The tights would be cheating. But I could hardly leave them off without drawing attention to myself.

I put my feet in and eased them up to my knees. I really didn’t want to pull them all the way up. For a start, the idea of the unbreathable nylon right up against my privates didn’t appeal. Could I get away with having them just at mid-thigh? Would it create an unsightly bunch under my tight skirt? And would I be able to walk properly?

I tested the proposition. I needed to spend some considerable time arranging things so that my silhouette remained smooth enough inside my pencil skirt to seem normal, but eventually I was able to come out of the cubicle and take a look in the bathroom mirrors to make sure I wasn’t deluding myself.

I wasn’t. It looked fine. But it felt very, very strange. My walk was constrained to a kind of Marilyn Monroe-esque wiggle. It was just as well my job didn’t require a lot of striding and leaping around.

I did a few catwalk turns, admiring my swaying hips and enjoying the illicit feel of my bare thighs brushing together. The silky lining of my skirt caressed my bottom as I walked. My nipples throbbed, teased by cotton. I had been aware all morning of a residual tingle down below from Tom’s treatment of me, but now it was rudely at the forefront of my consciousness.

He intended me to remember what had been done to me, and to think of what was still to come. He wanted it to be on my mind all day.

I half-shut my eyes and ground my hips at my reflection.

Could I get away with a quick and furtive orgasm in one of the cubicles? I was sorely tempted…

The door of the office creaked and I leapt guiltily towards the sinks and turned on the tap at full blast so it sprayed my shirt.

‘Damn!’ I shouted, as Tilda swung into the room.

‘El, are you OK?’ she asked.

‘I was, until this fucking tap decided I needed a shower,’ I moaned, flapping my hands.

‘Go and stand under the dryer,’ she suggested, laughing at my unwarranted wrath. ‘Are you sure you’re OK? You’re not feeling ill, are you?’

‘No, I’m fine. Had to change my tights, that’s all. Got a ladder.’

‘OK. That’s good. Miles was getting worried about you.’ I caught sight of her raised eyebrows in the mirror. How could I not have seen this? Now Tom had mentioned it, the clues were everywhere.

‘Well, he shouldn’t,’ I said gruffly. ‘I’m all right, Til. You can go. I’ll be out in a minute.’

She didn’t leave. She stood there, chewing her lip and playing with her bracelet.

‘Just, while we’re alone in here,’ she said, once the dryer had ceased its deafening roar. ‘I did wonder whether you and Miles…last night…?’

I turned around, doing my best to arrange my face into shocked surprise.

‘Me and Miles? Are you kidding? No. Not my type. At all.’

‘Really? He’s not bad-looking. And quite sweet, when he wants to be.’

‘Don’t match-make, Til. It’s not going to happen.’

‘Oh, come on, Ella. I’m not suggesting you order the wedding flowers. But you could do with a bit of fun. You’re not still pining after Crowley, are you?’

Oh, God. The Name had come up. I hadn’t been expecting it, and it was like a blow to the below-the-belt area.

‘Pining? I’ve never pined in my entire life,’ I said, a bit too hotly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I just don’t need a friend with benefits, that’s all. I’m fine as I am.’

‘All right, no need to bite my head off, dear. It’s just that I’ve seen a lot of women waste a lot of emotional energy on Crowley, and I don’t want you to be one of them. He ain’t worth it.’

‘It was one night, six weeks ago, Til,’ I said, but inside I was quivering and my blood was rushing to my skin so fast I thought it might burst through my pores at any moment. ‘I think I’m over it now.’

‘Good,’ she said decisively. ‘So, are you coming back? Your email alert pinged eight times while you’ve been in here.’

‘Shit, really? Eight? What’s happening? Is there some kind of big news story going on?’

‘Nah, just traffic stuff, I think. Come on.’

Sitting back down at my desk, I almost moaned with arousal as my bare bottom slid against the cold, sleek lining of my skirt. My thighs were immediately damp. This was going to be a challenging day.

At lunchtime I took a corner table in our favourite coffee shop with Tilda and determined to tackle the subject of her relationship with Tom. It had been on my mind all morning, and I needed to know the worst.

The seats in the coffee shop were moulded plastic, and they made my knickerless state all the more unavoidable as I slid and slipped around on the shiny orange surface, scared to cross my legs.

‘So, you seem really down on Tom Crowley,’ I said, as casually as I could, tearing open my sandwich package. ‘Is it just from observation, or is it personal?’

Her eyes flashed up at me and she paused in the action of raising a cup of soup to her lips.

‘Who’ve you been talking to?’ she said.

‘Nobody. Just…from what you were saying in the loos earlier.’

‘Hm, well, I stand by that.’ She paused, taking a sip of tomato and basil. ‘He’s a menace to womankind.’

‘But was he a menace to you?’

She sighed, put down the mug, looked all around the café as if assessing the best escape route, then turned back to me.

‘I don’t like to talk about it,’ she said. ‘But yes. I’ve been there. And I wish I hadn’t. All right?’

It was unsettling to see Tilda like this. In the couple of months I’d known her, she’d always struck me as strong and feisty, nobody’s fool. But a haunted look had come into her dark eyes and she seemed to lose some of her twenty eight years years.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. He really hurt you?’

She looked down for a second, then back up again, full Tilda service resumed.

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘He was a dick, but I don’t let it get to me. It was three years ago, anyway.’

I bit into my sandwich. Ugh. Too much basil. Why did basil need to be in a sandwich at all?

‘I know he has a reputation,’ I said. ‘Did he cheat on you?’

‘I don’t even know,’ she said. ‘I just got tired of waiting for him. Sitting in bars on my own, texting him to ask where he was, getting nowhere. It happened once too often and that was that. I don’t sit around waiting for men. Not even that man. I’ve got my own life to lead, you know?’

‘So he’s unreliable, basically?’

‘Very.’ She laughed her warm, raucous laugh, but there was some pain in it. ‘The poster boy for unreliability and lack of commitment. That’s Tom Crowley.’

‘Maybe he was working? I mean, I guess chasing down stories can get in the way of your personal life.’

‘Why are you so keen to defend him?’ Her eyes narrowed.

‘I’m not. I’m just trying to make you feel better about it. Like, you know, it probably wasn’t personal. It probably wasn’t you.’

‘Yeah, that’s what he said. He really liked me, he wished things could be different, blah blah blah. But he was never going to change. And it was never going to work out. And I deserve better. So…’

I returned her smile, though mine was a bit twitchier.

I was sitting here with my bra tucked under my rack and my tights at half mast for a man who probably wasn’t worth it. Bleak visions passed behind my eyes of future hours spent waiting for calls that would never come.

‘So that was that, then,’ I said breezily, deciding in that instant that things between Tom and me would remain strictly sex only. No moping and mooning, no romantic expectations, just a bit of mutual exploration. I’d told Tilda earlier that I didn’t want a friend with benefits, but perhaps that was how I’d have to view Tom, if I intended to stay sane.

‘You’re up to date on the Tom story,’ said Tilda. ‘And ever since then, he’s been in skirt-chase overdrive. As you know.’

I looked down at my own skirt. Would he be chasing it later?

‘You aren’t still hung up on him, are you?’ she asked, leaning closer and speaking confidentially.

‘I told you. No. Do they have the carrot cake today?’

She fell for my diversionary tactic, and the rest of the lunch break passed without further reference to Mr Crowley.

I wasn’t usually a clock-watcher but all afternoon my eye slipped repeatedly to the lower righthand corner of my screen, watching the minutes mount slowly, oh, so slowly, towards the golden hour of six o’clock.

If he was going to be waiting for me in the lobby, how was I going to hide our liaison from Tilda? A guilty part of me thought that I should just be upfront with her about it, but I couldn’t be bothered with the inevitable eye-rolling disappointment, not to mention the lecture, my honesty would provoke.

In the event, it worked out quite well. Tilda was held up in conversation by the editor, on his way back into the office after some kind of big corporate sponsorship meeting in town, and slightly drunk, so I was able to sneak away on the dot of six.

In the lift, I fidgeted and jiggled around with my underwear, making sure it was exactly as prescribed. The flutter in my stomach competed against my better judgement, which was trying to tell me he wouldn’t be there. He was unreliable. Tilda had painted me the picture. I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

All the same, I fussed with my hair and makeup and rotated my ankle before leaving the lift. Happily, my limp was almost completely gone and I was able to walk out into the lobby with a confident stride.

Tom was leaning over the reception desk, chatting to the woman on duty, showing her something on his phone. The sight of him sent a plume of excitement up from the pit of my stomach, frothing out to every extremity.

He was here after all!

His eyes flicked away from the receptionist and towards me, setting off his irresistible smile.

‘On the dot, Miss Cox,’ he said. ‘Precise as always.’

‘I like to be punctual,’ I said, the words spilling from my mouth unfiltered. Could the receptionist see my nipples through my shirt? We had to get out of here.

He seemed to understand this, straightening up and bidding a polite goodbye to the receptionist.

I followed him to the doors.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked in a whisper.

‘Never mind,’ he murmured, taking my hand as we hurried down the steps to the street.

Rather than head left for the car park or right for the city centre, he pulled me into the narrow alleyway that stood between the newspaper offices and the conveniently situated pub next door. It was full of empty kegs and crates, and very little light squeezed into the space, which could just about fit Tom and me side by side.