Act of Exposure (18 page)

Even as they
lifted her and one man slid beneath her, she did not open her eyes.
To open them would spoil her own dream, her own fantasy. No matter
that her fantasy was identical with what was happening to her, its
power lay in her imagination, and her imagination was the switch
that turned on her desire and her orgasm. Reality, the black and
whiteness of life, was nowhere near as exciting.

The man
beneath her gripped her breasts as his penis entered her.

She cried out
as she took him in, then mewed as the sudden intrusion was soothed
by the feel of the other man's hands running down her back, his
fingers gently trailing down her spine.

Now the warmth
of a body was behind her as well as beneath her.

Crisp pubic
curls kissed her behind as another penis divided her buttocks, the
moist head dripping with a slippery fluid that trickled over her
anus and dampened her inner thighs.

Strong hands
held her above one man. Strong hands also held her in place for the
man behind to push his way into her body.

'Let me,' she
heard a soft voice say, then felt cool fingers - female fingers -
plaster her anus with slippery cold cream.

All this for Stephen.
All this for
you, my love
.

Unfettered,
the truth of what she was doing had escaped. Yes, she was enjoying
it. Yes, she would do it again if she had the chance. But the truth
was that she would never have got round to it in the first place if
it hadn't been for Stephen, if she hadn't needed to do it for his
sake.

The most
sensitive part of her sex was pressed more firmly against the man
beneath her as she was entered from behind.

Her cry was
silenced by a kiss and was replaced by a low, squirming kind of
sound that said perhaps she liked it, and perhaps she didn't.

Full of men,
invaded by two ripe weapons, her breasts played with, pulled,
pushed and pummelled; for Stephen, and for herself.

Pressure built
up around her clitoris. In her body, there was friction in one
channel which was replicated by friction in the other. Both moved
in alternate time. As the front one thrust, the rear one withdrew.
As the rear one thrust, the front one ceased to thrust, but because
of the weight upon it, did not withdraw.

Beyond her
control, the fires of climax flamed higher. Surrounded by men,
invaded by men, and watched by a forgotten Fiona, her climax
gathered like a storm in her loins, then as the men stiffened and
climaxed within her, she yelped, yelled, and still without opening
her eyes, let the ultimate sensation wash over her.

Later, she
again asked Fiona if she would testify.

'Oh, yes,' she
replied, an awestruck wickedness in her eyes, and her mouth wet
with anticipation. 'But you will come and see me again, won't you?
You will come and see your darling Fiona. Yes?'

'Yes, Fiona.
Yes. I think I will.'

Beneath the
offices where barristers, solicitors, and articled clerks surveyed
volumes of law and dictated their conclusions onto pocket-sized
portable machines, were the dungeons. The dungeons were low and
long and held the archives going back to the first time a learned
counsel had ever crossed the threshold from the street above.

The dungeons
were a private world, a secret vault where only those seeking past
truths ever ventured.

At Abby's
suggestion, it had been arranged that Stephen hot foot it over from
the House of Commons just around the time everyone was leaving
chambers. Once everyone had left they would be left
undisturbed.

An army of
cleaners descended on the offices at around five forty-five, their
quick banter and heavy steps echoing along the narrow corridors
where the floor was not quite level and the walls were not quite
straight. Doors swayed open then slammed shut as they dusted and
cleaned. Metal bins were banged on the floor in an effort to
encourage discarded paperclips, spent pens, shredded affidavits and
half-eaten sandwiches to leave their sticky bottoms and relocate
into a black plastic bin liner.

The cleaning
women, most of whom were black and from Hackney, stuck rigidly to
the upper floors. They never ventured into the dungeons. They had
no need to. The paper there was sacrosanct. Indeed, not all of it
was typed. The very oldest were in long, feathery handwriting, the
words copious, the deeds purposely extended to cover several pages.
These had been written in the days when lawyers were paid per
folio.

By the time
Stephen arrived, the women had already dusted and cleaned around
Abby. Heavy footsteps sounded from the floor above.

'Their feet
are like thunder, and they blow through this place like a
hurricane,' said Abby with a glance at the ceiling which throbbed
beneath their onslaught.

It was good to
nestle in his arms a while, sweet to push her nose and her lips
against the warm comfort of Stephen's neck.

His lips
kissed her ear. He tensed. 'What have you found out?'

She took his
hand. 'Follow me, and I'll tell you.'

A square bolt,
once shiny brass, now black with time, was slid back across the
door. Just inside, Abby's long fingers felt and found a bank of
light switches. She only switched on one.

Shadows fell
from high shelves, dusty boxes, files, and green steel cabinets.
Beyond the circle of light, the room cast its personal shadow.

Abby locked
the door behind her and leant her back against it to make doubly
sure it was properly closed.

She reached up
to Stephen, touched his cheek, which felt as only a man's cheek
could: a mix of soft and bristle. Her thumb caressed the corner of
his mouth. In immediate response, his lips parted. She willed both
her mouth and her eyes to smile at him.

'I'm so glad
to see you.'

He hesitated
to say anything. Trepidation silenced all the things he was
feeling, all the things he wanted to say. Not for himself was he
fearing to hear what she had found out, but for her. Would it hurt
her to tell him the very intimate things she had undergone for his
sake? Stephen was not by nature a jealous man. He didn't want her
to feel shame on his behalf. He gloried in knowing that other men
coveted her, that other men would die with envy if they knew the
things they did together. He would also enjoy imagining what she
did in the arms of another man, and what he would do to her.

She started by
telling him about Fiona.

'I hear,' she
said with a quirky grin on her lips, 'that you rolled with her in
the hay at some country gathering. Douglas told me about it. He
watched you. Did you know that?'

This, Stephen
decided, was his chance to put her at her ease, to ensure that she
would tell him of her adventures without withholding a single
detail.

He cupped her
cheek, let his fingers take in the silky softness of her skin;
relished the effect it had on him.

'Yes,' he said
and held her close, his hands spreading across her back, feeling
her firmness, her softness, the running contour of her spine. 'I
had Fiona in the stable, and I knew that Douglas was watching. So
did Fiona.'

Abby had not
asked Fiona if she had felt she was being watched. The thought that
they had aroused her. The image of straw crackling and rustling
beneath the passion of naked bodies sent hot currents through her.
Her fingers traced fragile lines over the nape of Stephen's neck as
she looked up into his eyes. Her eyes, she knew, must be sparkling,
so hot was the desire that rushed through her.

'Tell me about
it.' There was a low, swishing sound to her words as though they
were impatient to be off her tongue. 'Tell me.'

'I'm going
to,' he said, for he knew he had to; for her, and for him.

'Even before
we left the house, Fiona was begging me to do it to her. We'd been
stood talking beside a white marble mantelpiece. In between
lascivious talking, we sipped our drinks, eyed each other, and sent
obvious signals with our eyes, our lips.

'Her body was
close to mine. I could feel the smooth hardness of her thigh
against my leg. She wore a very short skirt. It was white and
floaty. Her jacket had jagged patterns all over it in purple and
red. She held her drink in her left hand. The back of her right
hand rested against my crotch. Every so often, she moved her
fingers. My cock moved with them. I wanted to moan. She knew what
she was doing to me, but would not move from where we were until I
had promised to screw her in the stable. Douglas, she told me,
would be watching. He would like watching, she said. Douglas always
liked watching.

'So, as you
know, I went with her to the stables.' He paused, kissed her. His
touch, his smell made her feel warm all over. He began unbuttoning
her blouse. She slid out of it and groaned as he took her bare
breasts in his hands. His lips lingered around her cheek. As he
resumed his story, each word he spoke, each breath he took
tantalized.

'Once in the
stable we took off our clothes. I played with her breasts, pinched
her nipples, and then I kissed her.'

As he spoke,
he enacted everything he said. Abby moaned, then squealed before
his lips silenced her.

'I sucked on
her nipples,' he went on, then bent his head and did the same to
her.

'Ohhh, don't
stop!'

He did stop,
but only to resume his tale and allow his hands to wander.

'I ran my
hands down her back and over her behind - like this.'

Abby sighed
with pleasure, closed her eyes and gripped his arms. Pleasure was
burning her, singeing her pubic hair, setting her inner organs
dancing, hardening her nipples so much she thought they would
explode.

Stephen
relished the feel of her bottom wriggling against his hands. He
enjoyed the firmness of her flesh, the luscious shape of each
separate orb, the tensing of her muscles each time his fingers ran
between them.

Supposedly, he
was recounting his sexual encounter with Fiona, and yet she was
only a slide rule. She was certainly not the true measure of the
woman in his mind and in his hands.

'Then I pulled
her skirt up,' he went on, his fingers moving vigorously over the
blackness of Abby's skirt until he held it somewhere around her
waist. Because Abby never wore knickers, there was only nakedness
from stocking tops to waist.

The blackness
of suspenders running across her white flesh to her stockings made
her appear more wanton, more exposed than if she had been
stark-naked.

There was a
sound of footsteps in the passage outside. This was followed by a
dull thud. Then more footsteps walking away.

The two lovers
took no notice. They had far more important things on their minds
then nosey cleaners.

He undid her
skirt, and once it was removed, he enjoyed the silky softness of
her exposed flesh. As his fingers explored her naked behind, her
hips - gently at first - began to grind against him. There was now
nothing between him and her except her stockings and garter
belt.

'I liked her
behind.' His hands pressed her buttocks so that she ground more
tightly against him. 'It was big, fleshy and bounced when she rode
me.'

'She rode you?
Tell me about it.'

There was no
real need for him to tell her all about it. She already knew the
details from Douglas. All the same, she wanted to hear it from
him.

'Yes.'

She sighed as
he slid his hand between her legs and his fingers pleasured her
inner lips. Beneath his finger, her close-hid bud hardened and
responded. 'I got on her,' he continued in a hushed voice, 'and she
got on me.'

He kissed her
again. She ran her hand down to the front of his trousers and undid
his zip.

'I came on
her, and she came on me.' By the time he said this, his penis was
already in Abby's hand, hot, hard, and desperate for attention.

'Tell me
more.' Her demand was almost lost on the quickness of her breath.
Her breasts, her belly were pressed tight against him.

His thumb
stroked her chin as he sought her lips. She wanted to drown in the
exquisite sensuality of him; wanted to forget about the law, about
the trouble he was in, and never wanted to go back to the Red Devil
Club ever again.

When his lips
left her, his eyes did not. He shook his head slowly and
smiled.

'No, my
darling. Now it is your turn. Tell me what happened today.'

Surprisingly,
she had no hesitation in talking about what had gone on at Fiona's
place. With almost fastidious attention to detail, she told him of
the two young men Fiona was in the habit of hiring. She told him of
how first one, then the other had pleasured her. She told him of
how both of them had taken her at the same time, of the size of
their weapons, the hardness of their bodies, and the sweet smell of
masculinity they left hanging like a shroud over her skin. She had
died for them, loved them, submitted to them, and had done
everything they wanted her to do.

'Do it to me,'
he gasped, his fingers tangling in her hair and pressing
demandingly against the back of her head. 'Please. Do it to
me.'

Once his eyes
were closed and he was moaning at the thought of what she had done,
she dropped to her knees, and almost naked before him, she took his
penis in her mouth, licked it, sucked it and stroked it. And then,
when he was crying out with the utmost pleasure, she took his balls
tightly in one hand, and sucked his penis into her throat.

In the
barrel-roofed vaults where the legal history of a nation was
stored, Stephen cried out as his semen spurted free and gushed into
Abby's throat.

Afterwards,
they talked about what other questions needed to be asked, and who
else would step forward and categorically state that Stephen's
desire for the opposite sex was so obvious that he could only have
been there to interview a witness. They needed the testimonies of
other women with whom he had enjoyed brief liaisons, to put his
sexual preferences beyond question.