My first few strokes are tentative, uncertain, not because I don’t know how to do this, but because I’m almost afraid to let him see. ‘I’m scared,’ I admit, as he continues to torment me with the pressure of those thick fingers. He experimentally adds a third, and I almost implode, such is the pleasure.
‘Don’t be,’ he says, and there it is again, that tenderness. ‘It’s just you and me, Ellie. No one else has to know.’
He coaxes me into it so easily. I touch myself again, more pressure this time, more friction, closing my eyes at the first glimpse of my climax. ‘I can’t do this,’ I tell him desperately, as I touch myself and he works me. ‘I can’t.’
Warm breath caresses my breast. His tongue finds my nipple, the hard, sensitive tip.
And he shows me that I can.
I’m still not calm when we leave the office together, turn onto the street and start to walk into town, neither of us mentioning what we’ve just done. We talk about the weather and the ginger cat that runs across the pavement, and what happened in the episode of Game of Thrones that was on telly last night. It turns out he’s quite an expert on Game of Thrones. He’s read all the books.
‘That’s the problem with porn.’ He says it like it’s a perfectly normal thing. ‘No decent plot. What people want is Game of Thrones with real fucking.’
I imagine Game of Thrones with real fucking. ‘Yeah,’ I say faintly. ‘That would work.’
Tom stops outside the fancy delicatessen on Market Street, the one that does the most amazing sandwiches, but doesn’t go in. I stop, too. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘I really like that I can say things like this to you, and you’re not appalled. You’re not shocked, or disgusted. I feel like I could tell you anything and you would understand.’
Tell me, I think. Tell me all your filthy little secrets. I want to know what’s going on inside his head, how someone who always seemed so in control of himself could be such a mass of contradictions.
I push open the door to the delicatessen and go inside. The smell of coffee and hot, fresh bread hits me instantly, pummelling my already overworked senses. Today has been so weird that I barely know which way is up, and it’s getting weirder by the minute. Because sitting at the table opposite ours is the couple I didn’t photograph yesterday. I catch her eye completely by accident, and look away as fast as I can, but that lands my gaze on the blackboard above the counter, the one that lists all the specials, and I don’t want to look there.OK, so Tom already deals with my horrendously messy book keeping, but I can put that down to artistic tendencies. I don’t want him to know that the menu scares me just as much.
That just leaves me with Tom. Otherwise I’m gawking at the wall, and if I do that, there’s always the possibility of gaze slippage. I do what I have to do. I look straight at him.
‘Did you see anything you wanted on the board?’ he asks, and the words nail me to my chair.
‘I…er…it’s hard to know.’
‘Would it be wrong if I ordered for you? I’ve always wanted to order for a woman.’
I almost do a double take, but I say it’s fine. Of course I say it’s fine, although my inner feminist has a total tantrum. I take a packet of sugar from the little china pot in the middle of the table and fiddle with it as he joins the queue at the counter. I hold my breath, wondering what on earth he’s going to choose. He doesn’t have the faintest clue what I like. It could be something really awful, like beetroot or, god forbid, egg.
He comes back with a meatball sub.
‘I could kiss you,’ I say, as he pushes the plate towards me.
His head jerks up, and his gaze locks on mine. The only thing I can tell from his expression is that I’ve said something very, very wrong. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ he says.
My heart almost stops beating. My mouth tastes suddenly horrid. Of course it’s not a good idea. Kissing is too intimate, too close. It has nothing to do with what we’re doing. But now I’ve opened the idea up in my head, I can’t get away from it. I stare at his mouth, and I think how it felt on my breast, and I start to melt on my chair.
‘Thing is,’ he whispers, ‘I’ve got an erection.’
‘Oh.’
He blushes. Oh god, he’s blushing. ‘If I kiss you I’ll really need to fuck you, and I’ve got to be back at work in twenty minutes.’
The waitress comes over with our coffees. She sets them down then gives Tom a curious look that lingers a touch too long. Something occurs to me then, something that I’d not bothered to think about until today. I mean, he isn’t stereotypically good looking. He’s quite tall, but what with the constant big-brain-heavy-head stooping thing, he makes himself look shorter. And then there are the awful clothes. Everything is dorky and nondescript and beige, like he went into Marks and Spencer’s and bought exactly what was on the mannequin. And his hair. Combed back and tidy. No one wears their hair like that. No one.
But the bad posture can’t hide those hands. The clothes can’t hide the thick neck. The hair can’t hide the fact that everything about him screams I’m a dirty fuck. And clearly, I am not the only female on the planet to have noticed. I’m trying to get my head around this realisation, trying not to melt so much that I leave a wet patch on my chair, when I sense movement next to our table.
‘Hello,’ Tom says.
‘Hello,’ says the voice, familiar and strained and female. ‘How are you?’
‘Very well. Are you all set for our appointment on Thursday?’
‘Paul assures me he’s kept all the invoices this time.’
‘Excellent. There’s nothing more frustrating than a lost invoice.’
These two know each other? That explains the friendly greeting at the studio yesterday. Tom’s hand finds mine under the table, pulls it towards him and places it firmly between his legs. I choke down my mouthful of sandwich.
‘Hello,’ she says to me.
‘Hi,’ I manage, still not looking directly at her. This woman has seen a photo of Tom’s cock.OK, so he’s seen photos he shouldn’t have too, but in this particular scenario, she’s ahead, points-wise. Or maybe I am. He is hot and hard against my palm. ‘How is everything?’ I ask, my enthusiasm completely over the top.
‘Fine,’ she says, far too brightly. Her eyes are huge, rimmed with lashings of black eyeliner. She’s wearing a smart black suit, the same kind that Amber wears to work at the estate agent’s. In fact, now I’m looking more closely, she’s wearing the same badge on her lapel.
‘Look, I hope this isn’t out of order,’ she says, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, ‘but I was wondering if I could have a word with you. In private.’
‘Absolutely!’ What did I say that for? Why didn’t I make some excuse? Whatever it is that she wants to say, it can’t be good. I try to remove my hand from Tom’s crotch without making it obvious that that’s where it is, get up from the table and follow her outside.
She pounces on me instantly. ‘I want to know who that woman was in the photo we saw yesterday.’
Wow. Shit. Wow. ‘I…er…’
‘I wouldn’t ask,’ she continues, her voice dry and squeaky, ‘but I’m sure Paul knows the woman. He won’t tell me who she is. That has to mean that he’s fucked her at some point. Probably fucked her quite a lot, actually, knowing him.’
I start some waffle about client confidentiality, though it seems a bit late for that now, and I am clearly going to be awarded hypocrite of the century. She folds her arms, tosses her perfectly straight hair over her shoulders. Then she gives me a wobbly