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  I take a breath and Mary interrupts. Typical. I don’t think she’s ever let me talk for that long before without interrupting. ‘What are you wearing?’

  ‘What, in the story?’

  ‘Of course in the story, you’re not wearing anything right now, are you?’

  ‘No, sure, well, OK, um, I was wearing my underpants, probably. I wouldn’t have been wearing anything in bed, but I would have put my pants on when I went into the kitchen. You know, for hygiene.’

  There’s a pause. A little gap. I’m about to fill it when Mary says, ‘This story is weird.’ And her voice sounds slightly different, a little stilted. ‘It’s weird to hear a story where you are … you know.’

  I do know. I know exactly what she means. ‘What? Walking around?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Yeah. I know what you mean. That is a little weird.’ And I don’t say any more than that. I don’t ask her if she would prefer a story where I couldn’t walk. If that would turn her on more. If she can only get off on a story about me if I’m helpless. I don’t ask her those questions because I don’t ask myself those questions. I don’t need to know about that kind of stuff any more.

  ‘Mmm, underpants. Very nice,’ Mary purrs in my ear, veering back on-topic.

  ‘They probably weren’t very nice under –’ I attempt, foolishly.

  Mary cuts me off. We both know she doesn’t want this story spoiled with a description of my unpleasant student underpants in the name of objective reality. ‘Just tell it,’ she whispers, insistently, a hard hissing demand. She’s getting impatient. Good. I like that. I get goose pimples.

  ‘I answered the door and there was this woman standing there. I recognised her, just. She was my mum’s friend from her bridge class. She was a nice-looking woman. Old. Older than my mum. But she was smart and petite, with a tightly pressed skirt over a tightly pressed arse. A neat shiny bob. She looked done. Smart. I liked it.’

  ‘She sounds kind of domineering. Bobbed hair is a dead giveaway,’ Mary says with a smirk, patting her own sleek do. ‘What did she do for a job?’

  Now that was something I was hoping Mary wouldn’t ask and so I wouldn’t have to tell. It’s so not relevant, but I so know what she’s going to think. I turn my head away, because I can’t bear to see the smug look of triumph on her face when I tell her. I can’t bear to see her realise that everything she’s ever said about me was right. Every suspicion she’s ever had. Every inkling about my sexuality. It’s all about to be proved correct. Irrefutably. By something that really was nothing to do with what happened. ‘She was in the police.’

  ‘A policewoman!’

  ‘Police officer, yes. It’s not awfully relevant to the story, no matter what you might think. And I don’t know what her rank was or anything, so don’t even ask. And no, she wasn’t wearing her uniform. I don’t think she was one of the uniformed ones.’

  ‘God, it’s all nurses and policewomen with you,’ Mary says softly. I don’t say anything, but she’s giggling so I guess that’s OK. ‘All right,’ Mary says after a few moments of stifled mirth, ‘I’m saying nothing. Nothing else.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t even going to mention it, because her being a policewoman had absolutely nothing to do with what happened next. I never thought about it. I swear. It didn’t, and doesn’t, do anything for me.’

  She doesn’t believe me. And I know that, although she doesn’t pursue it this time, it will be stored away in that marvellously depraved brain of hers, just waiting for the right moment. ‘OK, OK, maybe that wasn’t important. But her age was.’

  ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘Well, you made a big point of telling me she was older, older than your mum. Which means you must think that fact would turn me on, which means it must have turned you on. Oh, admit it. I mean, I know you must have been attracted to her. Obviously you were, otherwise I don’t think much of this story. And I reckon you were hot for her because of her older-woman wiggle. All that knowledge, all that power. Did she educate you, when you were nothing but an innocent, if buffed-up, little twenty-two-year-old?’ Mary purrs the last sentence, making the word ‘educate’, in particular, sound exceedingly nasty.

  I laugh, and then say, ‘Look, can I just tell the story?’ I don’t leave her any room to answer, but continue. ‘So, I opened the door, and I was in just my underpants. This made me kind of vulnerable – which maybe I did find kind of sexy – but I also had some power because, well, look, there is no nice, no modest, way of putting this, I knew I looked fucking incredible. It wasn’t even my fault I looked so good, it was just bloody good timing on her part. My hair was at that in-between-cuts stage where it just looked right without me even trying. It had been quite hot so I had a bit of colour. You know I’m not big on the whole bronzed-Adonis look, but I was working on a rather nice delicately-biscuit-coloured-Adonis look. It worked. I was looking good. And I was practically naked in front of Celia on a midweek afternoon.

  ‘So poor old PC Celia didn’t stand a damn chance. I mean, I can’t even explain it, but the mutual attraction sparks were flying so fast we were already at the stage where we knew what was happening between us but we were both acting as if we didn’t know we were going to have sex. We’d seen pornos; we knew this was like something from a porno. And we both knew we were acting like we didn’t know.

  ‘I offered her some tea, which neither of us really wanted, and I got as far as putting the kettle on. When I turned my back to her, she reached out and touched my bare shoulder. And then, well, I don’t really know how it happened exactly, it felt like she turned me around and kissed me. But that might be my own embroidery. Maybe I turned around myself and kissed her. Anyway, I turned to face her and we started to kiss.

  ‘Her kisses were different from any I’d ever had before. She was more in control. She held my head so tight I couldn’t pull away even if I wanted to. She kissed me like she owned me. And she kissed me until she wanted it to stop.’

  ‘And you liked it,’ Mary says, squirming against me.

  ‘And I liked it. I really liked it. And she liked it too. She was really into it. She said stuff like “God, you’re so beautiful.” I remember that distinctly, she purred it while she touched one of my pecs, really gently. Who could blame her for enjoying it? She probably didn’t have many opportunities to get off with buffed-up twenty-two-year-olds, even if I do say so myself.

  ‘We went upstairs. Her idea, but I would have suggested it if she hadn’t. I took her into my bedroom. You know the room in my mum’s house that has her sewing machine in it now? Well, that used to be my bedroom growing up. It only had a single bed, and I guess if I were more ballsy I’d have gone and fucked her on my mum’s bed, but, well, I’m not, and I didn’t.

  ‘In my bedroom she pushed me down on the bed, climbed on top of me and started kissing me straightaway, pinning me down on the mattress. I was so hard, so quick. In fact, I was scared I was going to come right away. I didn’t, but she seemed to have guessed, because she pulled away from my mouth and said, “Maybe you ought to do something to turn me on. I need to go some to catch up with you, baby.” Her voice was so dirty, by the way. In fact it was a bit like yours. She made everything sound so rude!

  ‘She made me stand up and lay down on the bed herself, then pulled her skirt up and her knickers down. I almost didn’t know where to look. I was almost shy, faced with the pretty curls of her pubic hair and her expectant expression that said it all.

  ‘I am very ashamed to say that at that point in my life I had never given a woman oral sex. Like I said, I wasn’t that much of a stud at uni. I just had the one girlfriend and we were kind of conventional, boring even, in our sexual preferences. We’d tried blow jobs and I’d liked them, but my girlfriend just freaked at the idea of me reciprocating. So that was that. I didn’t see any reason to press the point.

  ‘But that afternoon with Celia, I learnt a few things. She showed me just where to press my tongue against her. Where to be firmer, where t
o be softer. How to listen to her breathing and read how far she was from her peak. She spent hours educating me, as you would say. And I don’t know how many times she came, but it was definitely more than once. And when I eventually got to fuck her, she came again.

  ‘What Celia taught me that afternoon became the basis of what I did with all the women I pulled at the university when I started working there. It gave me real extra confidence, you know, because I knew I could give them an earth-shattering time in bed. And I did. I might have been all shag-and-run bad boy, but the shag I gave them was always fucking amazing. If they came so hard they started to hyperventilate and cry, that was my benchmark, that was when I’d be satisfied.’

  I stop talking and sigh. I wonder what Mary is going to make of what I’ve just told her. Which ended up being far more revealing about the person I used to be – the one I like to keep hidden from Mary – than I ever intended.

  But I don’t need to worry. Mary is more than happy. Something that is confirmed when she rolls over on top of me and slides herself on to my cock, which is very ready for her after reliving my glorious hours with Celia.

  Mary is so wet. I guess she liked my story. She puts her mouth to my ear. ‘This policewoman who made you service her – did she handcuff you while you did it at all?’

  ‘What?’ I say, and I’m about to say no, when I realise what the correct (if inaccurate) answer is. I remember what my goal was when this conversation started, and say, ‘yes.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Mary, she handcuffed me and made me go down on her for hours. I wanted to stop. I could hardly breathe, but I had no choice. And anyway she told me that if I didn’t do what she wanted she’d take me down the station and interrogate me there …’

  That’s all it takes. Mary is coming. I’m coming. And deep down, somewhere a little voice is pointing out that Mary seems to be perfectly capable of getting off on a version of me that isn’t disabled at all.

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  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9780753538074

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  First published in 2006 by

  Black Lace

  Thames Wharf Studios

  Rainville Road

  London W6 9HA

  Copyright © Mathilde Madden 2006

  The right of Mathilde Madden to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  ISBN 0 352 34070 3

  ISBN 9 780352 340702

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.