Game

‘I thought you’d be in your element.’

‘Do you want to see what we’ve got so far?’ invites Sophie, and he goes to join her as she fast-forwards through a few digital stills.

‘Come and see, Sophie,’ he says, but I don’t want to look at them. ‘Suit yourself,’ he mutters.

I watch him from the corner of my eye. His lips are curled up at one side, as if something amuses him, but his eyes are intensely focused, almost anxious. ‘I remember when you used to look at me like that,’ he says.

‘I was looking at you.’

‘Back when I worked in the cocktail bar. You always had this look. Kind of “I want you, but I hate that I want you, so I’ll pretend to myself that I don’t.” Remember?’

‘No. Because I didn’t want you. Not back then.’

‘Yes, you did.’

His flat assertion needles me, and makes me question myself. Is he right? Did I want him without knowing it? What were the implications of that? Were my thoughts not to be trusted?

Sash switches off the viewer and claps her hands, dispelling the tension. ‘So. Lloyd. You had some ideas for this section of the shoot, I believe.’

‘Yeah. Soph, come over here.’

He sounds conciliatory, a little exasperated. He sits on the sofa and pats the space beside him. I wonder if he wants me to fail or succeed. Which would be the better outcome for him?

I sit next to him, but not on the side he indicates. Instead, his discarded jacket lies between us, a no-man’s-land of light-grey pure wool.

‘What are you going to make me do?’

‘Oh goodness, I only photograph consenting subjects!’ exclaims Sasha. ‘There’s no forcing involved.’

Lloyd turns so his face isn’t visible to her and mouths the word ‘Fail’ with a raise of his eyebrows. I have to save this if I want to pass the test.

‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘Lloyd and I … we have this sparring kind of relationship. It’s just our idea of fun.’

‘I see,’ says Sash, but I doubt she really does.

‘We like to push each other’s boundaries,’ he adds. ‘Challenge each other. That’s what this is all about, really.’

‘A challenge?’

‘Exploring limits,’ he says. ‘Isn’t it, Soph?’

‘Something like that.’

‘So, I told Sasha we could do some action shots.’

‘By action you mean …?’

‘Sex.’

‘Porn?’

‘No!’ trills Sasha. ‘I don’t do porn. I do erotic and boudoir. These will be sensual, non-explicit shots of your faces and upper bodies during the act of love.’

I nearly vomit. The act of love. With his customary presence of mind, Lloyd speaks hastily over my incipient snort.

‘Of course, we understand that. Sophie’s being cheeky.’ He gives my wrist a little tap. ‘Bad Sophie.’

The bastard has me hot again. Fuck him. How dare he?

I move a little closer to him, rumpling the jacket. He reaches an arm behind me, pressing a fingertip to the nape of my neck, a small but devastating connection. I start to believe that I can do this. My breathing deepens.

‘So, I can fold out the couch for you to use,’ suggests Sash. ‘Or I can put cushions on the floor, or in the cupboard I have a sex chair, even a swing …’

‘A swing! Ooh, exciting! Can I see?’

‘I was going to say I don’t really recommend the swing. I have to be seriously on top of my game to get good shots from it. It’s just so … swingy.’

‘Well, the sex chair then? Lloyd?’

‘Yeah, sex chair sounds interesting.’

‘OK, I’ll get it out. Can I get you two a drink while I set it up?’

‘No,’ says Lloyd. ‘We’ll just get warmed up.’

And, without warning, he tilts my head and swoops down to claim my lips. God knows what happens to his jacket, but we crush it between us, too caught up in arms and legs to care about its pristine creaselessness.

‘So,’ he questions me, between thrusts of tongue, ‘did you come just now? For the camera?’

‘Shut up. You know I did.’

‘I wondered if you would.’ Tongue goes back in, tongue draws back out. ‘But you’re so flushed. I love it when you’re flushed.’ More kissing. ‘I can’t wait to see the pictures.’

‘Who says I’ll show them to you?’

‘Oh, they’ll come to me first. I’m paying for them.’ His leg wedges itself over mine, trapping me underneath it.

‘I hate to think how much they’ll cost.’

‘Hmm, well, yeah, so do I.’ He kisses me again, the longest, dirtiest snog so far. ‘But I’m thinking of it as an investment.’

‘Oh my!’ Sash interrupts us from the centre of the floor. ‘Please come and do that for my camera. You have such chemistry.’

I cast a bleary look over to the chair she has assembled. It’s not what I imagined. For some reason I thought it would be a dungeon fixture with cuffs and stuff – in fact, it is a simple padded S-shape in expensive-looking zebra print leather. It’s almost more a bed than a chair, good and wide and full of possibilities.

‘So this is a sex chair?’ Lloyd rises to his feet, freeing me from my limb bondage.

‘There are various designs,’ says Sash.

‘I know. I haven’t seen this type before though. It looks so comfortable.’

She laughs, patting the padded upholstery. ‘It is. Come and see for yourself.’

She flits back to her camera, preparing for the highlight of the set. ‘So then, Lloyd. Time for your striptease. Now, you’re a male model, you need to bust out the moves.’

He mock-snarls at me and does that whip-cracking belt buckle thing that makes my knees weak. It lands on the floor in a curl of shiny leather, reminding me of all the times I’ve been struck with it.

Once the socks and tie are disposed of, he deals with the trousers, stepping out of them elegantly, then removing his pants so that he stands in only his long white work shirt, open at the collar, linked at the cuffs.

The inevitable fiddling with cuff links leads to the moment of revelation – the slow unbuttoning of the shirt, opening up on to a pale freckled chest, a stomach flatter than it used to be (must be all the sex) and then finally powerful thighs framing a cock in full-blooded erection.

It astonishes me that I used be indifferent to Lloyd. As he shrugs the shirt over his shoulders, I want nothing more than to pull him on top of me and shag him into the fifth dimension. It’s not about his looks. It’s about the looks he gives me. Nothing sends an arrow of devastating lust straight to my sex as fast as one crinkle of a Lloyd eye, one curl of a Lloyd lip.

The familiar alarms ring and buzz in my body. A man stands before me and he means to have me and there ain’t nothin’ I can do about it.

He waves a hand at the chair. ‘Shall we?’

I bend over it. ‘How do we do this? What’s the best way?’

He sits himself in the shallow bend of the S and clasps his hands together behind his head, letting his legs rise up and then drop down over the seductive leather curves.

‘This feels good to me,’ he says. ‘Hop on.’

His lazy, entitled posturing inflames me, as he knows it will. I leap on and straddle him, giving the side of his head a playful slap.

‘So very fucking romantic, aren’t you?’ I chide. ‘Hop on. Charming.’

‘Sorry, should I have invited you to step aboard the lurve ride?’

I kick my legs, which dangle either side of the chair, causing me to jolt and rock a little on his pelvis. He yelps and grabs my hips, stilling me.

‘Play nicely now. Best behaviour for the lady.’

The tips of our noses touch. I pretend to bite him, snapping my teeth together. He forces a kiss, which I pretend to struggle against, enjoying as ever the combative nature of our relationship.

I emerge from the kiss panting and grinding my hips, violent joy coursing through my blood.

‘Are you going to behave yourself?’ he whispers. ‘Hmm?’ He gives my bottom a light smack.

‘Never,’ I reply.

His smile is broad and white. ‘Say cheese.’

‘I’ll give you cheese.’

‘Thanks. Got any crackers?’

‘You’re bloody crackers.’

He catches me again, lips on lips, his hand cupping my bottom, pulling me towards him. His cock butts my thigh. I reach down for it, curling fingers around its fat width. Soon it will be inside me. Do I have to wait long? I move it so that its tip sits between my labia, up and down, gathering juice, round and round my engorging clit.

He grabs my wrist and lifts my hand off his cock. ‘Not so fast,’ he whispers. ‘Let’s take our time. Let’s build up slowly.’

‘But you’re already …’

‘I know. I don’t care. Nice and slow. No rush.’ He buries his face in my neck and kisses hard. I hold on to the back of his head, run a hand down his shoulder blades, feeling the muscles flex and move under the skin. His hands toy with my breasts, circling my nipples with practised fingers. His hard cock eases up and down my thigh. I try to crouch on to it, but he holds me above it, keeping me in a state of suspended readiness.

Flashes of light behind my eyes remind me that there is photography going on, but I am away from that world now, deep inside my other self.

‘You’re gorgeous, Sophie, you’re so fucking gorgeous. You make me want you all the time. Oh God.’

He takes a long time licking one nipple then the other. I gyrate my pelvis, my mouth wide open, eyes glazed, loving the feel of his arms propping me up. One of his hands strays down my side, over the bump of my hip, then it flashes across a thigh and finds the target.

He releases my nipple from his mouth.

‘You’re wet,’ he says.

‘You’re Captain fucking Obvious,’ I hiss into his ear.

‘Any more of your lip and I won’t fuck you. How about that?’

‘Don’t you dare.’

‘I know you wouldn’t like that. Because you really are so … very … wet.’ He dabbles his fingers in the juices then pushes them into my mouth, making me taste myself. ‘There’s a lot more where that came from. Why are you so wet, Sophie?’

He removes his fingers, allowing me to speak.

‘Want it,’ I say, jerking my pelvis forwards, bending his cock to my will.

‘Want what?’

‘Your cock.’

‘Where?’

‘In here.’ I catch him in my slit. If only it could snap shut like a Venus flytrap, keep him there to devour at my leisure. I rock back and forth, rubbing his tip, preparing to push down on it.

‘How much do you want it?’

‘So much, so much.’

‘What would you do for it?’

‘Anything.’

‘I’ll get that in writing.’

‘Just put it in, for fuck’s sake. Just fuck me. Now.’

He kisses me, chuckling into my mouth, dark and low. ‘If you insist. Act of Love commencing in three … two … one …’

He cups the undermost innermost part of my buttocks and pulls them wide, opening me up to him, then slides in slowly. I try to pack him all in at once, greedy for his stretching, spreading girth, but he holds me in check, making sure I feel each maddening inch as it glides past my barriers.

The sex chair’s great advantage is the way it aligns Lloyd’s pelvic bone with my clitoris. All I have to do is circle my hips with minimal effort and I can have all the multiple orgasms I want. I narrow my eyes and grin at Lloyd, who seems to have clocked on to my evil plan.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ he murmurs, lifting my hips and urging me forwards, making me thrust. Better still, the two sensations combine, working my pussy into a fomentation of colliding pleasures.

‘Ohh,’ I sigh, almost overwhelmed. ‘This is good. Really good. Let’s get one.’

Lloyd has gone to a realm beyond speech, at last, and I work on the perfect rhythm, ending each forward thrust with a little circular rub of my clit against him, building myself up so sweetly.

Even better, I realise that a very slight adjustment of my feet so that they rise a little from the floor nudges Lloyd’s cock right up to my G-spot. I anchor myself to his shoulders and push, push, push, three fast strokes bringing me to an orgasm that starts in my toes and engulfs my whole body like wildfire.

‘Oh yes.’ He finds his voice to mutter into my hair. ‘That’s what you need, darling, lots of that, more of that, yeah.’

While I am still bathing in the radiant waves of my climax, he flips me over and takes control of the coupling, powering into me while my eyes try to focus on his face above, blinking and rolling back, never quite coming back down until he reaches his own fierce conclusion. I have to keep my eyes open because his face when he comes is something I can never get enough of. If I could get a picture of it … oh.

The camera flashes. He shakes his head, still in that heart-warming welter of post-orgasmic confusion, and stares at me. He looks so helpless, so stunned. What just happened? his eyes seem to ask. Where am I?

I reach up to cradle him, bringing his head down to my chest. I shut my eyes and hold him, stroking his slick damp hair, feeling my heart bump into his cheek.

A line from a song by Marc Almond slips into my head. Tenderness is a weakness … Is it?

I’m so comfortable, so at peace here on this strange piece of furniture that I could almost fall asleep.

But small scuffling movements from the corner remind me that we are not alone, and presumably this strikes Lloyd at the same time. He lifts his head, kisses me and looks over at Sasha. I look too, but she is obscured by the camera, discreetly ‘not here’.

He looks back down at me. ‘Amazing,’ he says.

‘As ever,’ I say.

‘Thanks.’

‘I think I had a hand in it too!’

‘More than a hand.’ He smiles and looks back at Sasha. ‘So was that OK?’

‘Oh, don’t ask me,’ she says with a self-conscious giggle. ‘I think that’s between the two of you. But the camera loved it.’

‘That’s great,’ he says.

‘Do you want to go through to the shower? I’ll put the kettle on.’ She scuttles off to the sink, turning her back on us.

Lloyd rears up and pulls out of me. He runs a hand through his hair, shutting his eyes for a moment, re-orientating. ‘Shower, then.’ He picks up his clothes, frowns at the terrible state of his jacket and gives me an encouraging nod. ‘Oh dear,’ he says, clicking his tongue. ‘Can’t you stand? Poor afflicted thing.’

‘Shut up. Of course I can stand.’ I swing my legs over the side and give a fair impression of Bambi’s first few upright seconds. Lloyd swoops forwards and helps me. ‘So gallant, proper Sir Walter Raleigh, aren’t you?’

From the kitchen corner, Sasha snorts. ‘Are you two always like this?’ she asks, without turning around.

I pick up my neatly folded clothes and hug them to my chest. ‘Always.’

In the shower, Lloyd directs the water over my breasts and my sticky thighs.

‘You didn’t fail then,’ he says, sounding disappointed.

‘Did you think I would?’

‘I need to up my game.’

The jets spray on to my breasts, tingling my nipples. Lloyd cups the underside of my breasts, holding them in place while he keeps the shower head no more than an inch above them.

‘What’s next?’ I ask, flexing my toes, splashing them in the lovely warm water. ‘Sex while parachuting from a plane? In a canoe going over a waterfall? In space?’

He puts the shower head back in its cradle, takes the bottle of gel cleanser, squirts it into his hand, lathers it up around my breasts and stomach and shoulders.

‘Yeah,’ he says, with an enigmatic look. ‘You keep thinking along those lines, Soph.’

‘What do you mean?’

He smothers me with bubbling foam and pulls me against him so our chests slip and slide together. Water rains into our mouths while we kiss, leaking into the cracks of lips, dripping off our noses, clogging up our eyelashes.

He turns me around and washes my back and bottom, very thoroughly, far more thoroughly than is quite necessary.

‘I mean what I mean,’ he says, letting the suds slip down the crack of my arse, parting the cheeks, massaging the slightly stinging soap inside.

‘As Confucius would say. What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It’s supposed to mean what it’s supposed to mean.’

I try to slap him, but it isn’t easy when you’re facing the wrong way and he has his hands on your bum. I manage an awkward collision of elbow (mine) and hip (his) and reap my inevitable reward.

‘Ouch!’ I always forget that a smack on a wet bottom is worth about three on a dry one.

‘Impatient,’ he reproves, keeping me close and tight with an arm around my ribs. Something semi-hard pushes into my right buttock, distracting me from the newly laid sting. ‘All will be revealed in time.’

I lean my head back on his shoulder, looking up while he looks down.

‘You know, I really hate you, Lloyd.’

He nuzzles his nose against my cheek and kisses the space beneath my ear.

‘Mmm, I know you do. That’s why you’re always so wet for me.’

‘That’s because I’m in the shower.’

‘Not all the other times. All the dozens of scores of hundreds of other times. All those times you’ve begged me, on your wide-open knees …’

‘That’s because I’m trying to kill you with sex. I’ll do it one day.’

‘Mmm, best assassination technique ever.’

His hands are low now, fingers moving down with the trickles of water, flowing and meeting at the delta of my sex. He holds me by my cunt and bites down into the softness of my neck.

I give in to it. My body knows no other way. I spread my feet further apart, granting him full access to my lips and clit and vagina, all so recently used by him.

The water provides an extra element of friction when he starts the slow up-down rubbing of my clit with the side of his hand. It almost feels rough, refractory, needing extra force, which he gives.

Because I am facing away from him, I can see the way his arm crosses my body, watch the sinews move beneath the skin, slide my gaze down to his wrist, see the point where the fingers bend and disappear beneath me. Watching the intricate interplay of those muscles, knowing but not seeing what they are working on, is powerfully aphrodisiac. I can see what he is doing, and I can feel what he is doing at the same time.

But then he changes tack, puts his hands on my thighs and slides down behind me until he is on his knees. A tongue joins the lapping water at my pussy, a strong push brings it between my lips. I pivot at the hips and press my palms flat against the wall, holding myself up, keeping myself in position for more of this oral delight.

It’s as if he drinks the warm water away, lapping it up, replacing it with his own luscious licking, cleaning me to make me dirty.

I drip into his mouth, rotating my hips, beginning to moan. He holds me fast, flicks that tongue faster, flicking the engorged bead of my clit over and over. My palms begin to slide. I fear I might fall, but he claps his hands on my hips, keeping me upright.

In the cage frame of his arms, my body slumps. My core burns and blooms, ribbons of sensation unfurling inside me, gushing out to join the combined waters of his tongue and the hot water pipe. I become a fountain.

My splashing self slips down to the tiled shower basin. I want to lie there while the droplets cover and bathe me. But Lloyd has other ideas.

Still on his knees, he clears his throat and looks forlornly down at his erection.

His hair plastered to his scalp, his eyelashes brimming with water-sparkles, his face clean and shining, he looks too completely fucking adorable. I can’t resist him. I haul myself to my knees facing him and take his testicles in my hands, testing them for firmness and fullness. Lloyd has seemingly endless supplies of testosterone, as his cock testifies.

I suck him gently at first, then with increasing urgency, pinching the base of his shaft, squeezing his balls, getting my lips down lower and lower until he is deep in my throat. My cheeks are wet when his thick load of cream shoots into my mouth, but the shower isn’t the only reason for that. There’s a saline element to the damp patches, a stickiness.

When I lie back in his arms, letting the water engulf us both, I hope he hasn’t noticed, but the way he traces a finger beneath the lower lid of both my eyes suggests he has.

Chapter Three

‘Someday my prints will come,’ I sing, checking through the mail while Lloyd pores over a spreadsheet at the desk. ‘But not today.’

He glances over. ‘No sign of the photos? She said it would be a couple of weeks.’

‘It’s been a couple of weeks.’

‘Yeah, fourteen days exactly. Cut her some slack. She probably wants to hang on to them a bit longer for her own personal use.’

‘Ugh, shut up. I don’t want them used as masturbation aids. Unless it’s by me.’ I open a big A4 envelope. ‘Cool, Fashion Forward wants to do a shoot in the restaurant and a couple of the penthouse suites. They’ve sent a contract.’

‘Uh-huh. What’s that one?’

He points to a less glamorous envelope, a thin brown one tossed aside to be dealt with once the post with posh watermarks has been opened.

‘Dunno, looks like … it isn’t stamped.’ I look sharply up at Lloyd. His face answers my question, a little bit tense, a little bit excited.

He feigns absorption in his spreadsheet, but I can tell he’s watching me from the corner of his eye. I slide a fingernail under the loosely gummed flap, watching him back.

A compliment slip flutters out, one of the hotel’s own.

On it, in Lloyd’s handwriting:

Whip me, hurt me, any way you want me

As long as you want me, it’s all right.

I hold it out to him. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’

‘I booked one of the dungeons at Fetish Fantasy.’

‘We’ve done that before. More than once.’

‘Not this way. As the note implies, I don’t want to be in charge this time.’

‘You never are in charge.’

‘I don’t want to play at being in charge this time,’ he amends. ‘I want you to get your kinky boots on and practise flexing that whip hand.’ He leans forwards in his chair, his pupils skittering from side to side, his lips wet. ‘I want you to hurt me.’

He sounds like he means it. But …

‘When have you ever been interested in pain?’

‘I’m not. I’m dreading it, actually. I’m hoping you’ll be more into the mental domination stuff.’

‘I’m not really into any domination stuff,’ I point out. ‘I’ve only ever been on the receiving end.’

‘Well, that’s what makes it a challenge, isn’t it? It’s new, it’s exciting, you get to wear loads of fucking sexy gear … you don’t look convinced.’

I blink at him, trying to imagine what his face looks in pain. I don’t want to imagine it, though. I really don’t.

‘Come on, Soph. You’d have killed for the chance to do me some serious damage not so long ago. Now’s your chance to let it all out. Show me the red-in-tooth-and-claw Sophie, the take-no-prisoners Sophie, the woman who’s always one hundred per cent in control.’

‘That’s why I like submission,’ I grumble. ‘It’s a holiday from all that.’

‘Well, have a busman’s holiday then. Or am I sensing the delicate aroma of …’ He sniffs the air. ‘Failure.’

‘Fuck off. It’ll be easy enough. Just … I don’t know. Nothing. It’s fine. Let’s do it.’

Lloyd claps his hands with apparent delight. ‘Can’t wait for you to walk all over me in your spike-heeled thigh-high boots,’ he claims.

‘I’m not sure I believe you. But neither can I.’

‘Great. I’ve booked it for midnight. They suggest you get there half an hour beforehand to pick out your costume and select your instruments of torture and terror. I’ll see you there.’

He launches himself out of the chair, kisses me passionately until I almost fall over, then waltzes off to take his lunch break.

I sit myself down in the chair he has vacated and stare at the computer screen, a sea of meaningless figures in rectangular boxes.

It strikes me now as more than a little odd that I’ve never done anything like this before. Call myself a hussy … Yet somehow I’ve always managed to signal my desire to submit rather than dominate before the action has reached its crisis. Nobody has ever asked me to hurt them, though one man once wanted me to tie him up and tease him. That was easy enough, though, just a bit of fun.