Lust Under Licence (33 page)

As Tom's eyes
became accustomed to the gloom he could make out the shapes around
him: rounded, curved, dressed to kill. Below the tables in front of
them he could see the gleam of slender legs and hear the slither of
nylon as thigh kissed thigh. Their scent was rich in his nostrils,
an expensive amalgam of designer perfume overlaying something more
earthy. He knew that particular scent well, the smell of women on
heat. These chic pampered females had turned out to see his most
intimate secrets laid bare and the prospect was turning them
on.

The Judge's
gavel rang loud in the confined space. She was a well-preserved
blonde of indeterminate years. Her features were soft and pretty
but her voice had a ring of Scottish steel.

'I formally
state that the proceedings in this court are empowered by the
self-regulatory body of the business community of the City of
London and, as such, are not subject to the common law of the land.
In other words, the prisoner may like to note, we play by the rules
that I choose to impose.'

'So it's a
complete farce,' said Tom with some vehemence. He hadn't meant to
say anything but the words had spilled out of their own accord.

'Shh, Tom,'
whispered a voice behind him. Petra. Thank God he had one ally.

The Judge was
glaring at him, her pale curving lips set in a thin line of
disapproval. 'One of the rules I impose, Mr Glass, is that the
accused says nothing unless he is asked a direct question. I am
quite capable of rendering you incapable of speech and I won't
hesitate to do so. I believe Ms Petra Rosewater has volunteered to
say something on your behalf at the appropriate time, is that
so?'

'Yes.'

'Yes,
madam
.'

'Yes,
madam.'

'Very well.
You'll get a turn at some point. Now let's get on with it.
Prosecutor Hawk.'

It was the first time Tom had set eyes on Gossamer Hawk and he
boggled at the statuesque blonde who now confronted him. Her tall,
curvaceous figure had been squeezed into a floor-length gown of
black velvet with a swirling cape and upturned collar. Her lips
were a slash of crimson, the same shade as her long, sharp
fingernails - one of which quivered an inch from his face as she
struck a pose worthy of the wicked queen in
Snow White
. If it hadn't been that
Gossamer was blonde the resemblance would have been remarkable,
thought Tom. Apart from the bosom, of course.

Gossamer's
cleavage was unmissable. Behind the curve of her outthrust arm, the
exposed swell of her two incredible breasts was framed in a
décolletage so extreme that it was a wonder her dress remained in
place. The magnificent alabaster globes pushed out against the
velvet, white on black, a mesmerising display of fleshy temptation.
Tom was stunned.

'Lecher!' she
screamed at him. 'Traducer of innocence! Immoral, shameless wrecker
of lives! I'm going to strip life bare and expose to the court the
detestable foundations of your worldly success - which is nothing
less than a barbarous assault on the female sex!'

Tom heard the
words but was hardly able to make sense of them such was the volume
and intensity with which they were delivered - and the incongruous
sight of those two shivering orbs thrust beneath his nose. The
creamy flesh danced before him and his eyes feasted on the hypnotic
display. Could it be that the skin tones of her left breast, just
at the point where black velvet cupped and enfolded, were shading
to pink? Was this the delectable rim of her areola peeking into
view?

'Madam,'
screamed Gossamer in theatrical outrage, 'observe the foul beast!
He's staring at my tits!'

Barely
suppressed sniggers came from the shadowy figures observing the
entertainment. Tom smiled.

Crash! came
the sound of the Judge's gavel, silencing levity.

'Sergeant!'
barked the Judge and Amy Tooth strode forward. Gone was the ghastly
Sex Police shell-suit. She wore a black PVC basque, fishnet
stockings and thigh-high leather boots. She grinned into Tom's face
and kicked him in the stomach as hard as she could.

There was a
collective intake of breath as Tom pitched forward onto the floor
and one high-pitched cry of anguish which, had Tom heard it, he
would have identified as coming from his sole supporter, Petra
Rosewater. But Tom was lost in private agony, doubled up on the
floor, the breath knocked clean out of his body, a whistling in his
ears and bile in his throat.

'Get him on
his feet,' ordered the Judge and Amy Tooth doused him with a bucket
of water. Assisted by Sergeant Gloria Just, she hauled him
upright.

'You'd better
put him in irons, Sergeant,' said the Judge. 'I can see he's going
to be trouble.'

As the two
officers of the Sex Police shackled his feet to bolts in the floor
and his thin wet clothes clung to his shaking frame, Tom's spirits
sank to their lowest ebb. The court, as he had always suspected,
would offer him no justice. It had the power to strip him of his
company, his wealth, his future in business and send him out into
the world a ruined man. But first there was this public ordeal
which had only just begun - a piece of vengeful theatre whose drama
was his pain and shame and utter humiliation.

It was with numbness in his veins, as if he had been injected
with an emotional anaesthetic, that he listened to the Prosecutor's
opening statement. Her contention that his discovery, naked and
aroused, in the street by a departing audience of play-goers was
the culmination of years of depravity made no impact on him. Her
argument that his business morality should be measured by the
deficiencies of his personal life passed him by. So too her
declared intention to trace the threads of chauvinism and sexism
that had led him to base his success on the exploitation of women.
His entire sexual history, it seemed, was to be dragged out in
court and held up as evidence of his culpability.
So what?
thought
Tom.

But when the
principal witness for the prosecution entered the room, the
anaesthetic ceased to work.

Eve Biscuit
took her place in the spotlight, head bowed and refusing to meet
Tom's eye.

If Tom had
ever nurtured a hope of deliverance, it died at that moment.

Cassie led
Petra to a dark corner of a pub two streets from The Primrose
Court. The younger woman was shaking so much Cassie had to support
her round the waist.

'Put that
inside you,' she said, pressing a glass into Petra's hand. The
triple brandy disappeared in one swallow. 'That's all you're
having. You'll need your wits about you tomorrow.'

Petra stared
at her wide-eyed with torment. 'Is it always like that?' she said.
'Why didn't you warn me?'

Cassie did not
reply. There was no way to warn someone about a trial at The
Primrose Court.

Eve Biscuit
had given her testimony in a monotone, staring at the floor. She
looked up just once, when Tom said to her, 'Eve - how could
you?'

Her eyes
filled with tears and her soft swollen lips quivered.

'Gag him,'
said the Judge and Amy Tooth and Gloria Just advanced on him.

He'd fought
them then and reinforcements had arrived, beefy women with ham-like
thighs and melon-sized breasts jiggling in their PVC corsets. Petra
was aware that the members of the Corrections Committee around her
in the gloom were relishing the action. Tom pushed Sergeant Just
onto her back and ripped Amy Tooth's bodice so that one creamy
breast bounded free to shake and shiver in the harsh light as they
struggled. Then the big women arrived and pinned Tom's arms behind
his back, bending them up and twisting them so that at any moment
Petra expected to hear the crack of bone.

Amy forced a
rubber ball into Tom's mouth with relish and Gloria secured it with
a leather thong, lodging the bung deep in the angle of his jaw.

Petra found
herself on her feet. 'Madam, I protest!' she shouted. 'It's inhuman
to tie him up like that! He might suffocate.'

'Silence!'
snapped the Judge. 'Or I'll gag you too. It's Ms Rosewater, isn't
it?'

'Yes,
madam.'

'Obviously you
didn't pay attention to my opening remarks. This is not the Old
Bailey or even the local magistrates' court. The accused has no
rights here beyond those I choose to bestow on him. The same goes
for his representative, so I'd advise you to keep silent.'

'But—'

'Rest assured,
Ms Rosewater, if he turns blue I shall remove the gag. There is no
satisfaction, even to me, in trying a corpse. Now let's press
on.'

And so Petra
had been forced to watch in silence as the case was advanced
against her employer and mentor. Gossamer Hawk put her histrionics
to one side and proceeded methodically, with the aid of Eve
Biscuit's testimony and video evidence, to lay bare Tom's
duplicitous love life. Despite herself, Petra was fascinated. She
knew nothing about his teenage seduction of his brother's fiancée
or of his affair with his university professor's au pair which had
resulted in his tutor fleeing the country.

Dr Madeleine
Flint testified as to the nature of Tom's memory loss and confirmed
that Nurse Biscuit had been assigned night and day to his care -
with the express purpose of encouraging him to reveal his sexual
history in detail. Almost all of these conversations had been
captured on camera.

Television
monitors on the tables before the Corrections Committee now relayed
the tender moments of pillow talk between Tom and Eve. Petra was
appalled but she watched and listened all the same.

Most of all,
though, Petra watched Tom. He had his back to her, with his arms
pinioned behind him - Gloria Just had tied his forearms together
for good measure - and his feet were shackled to the floor some
eighteen inches apart. The thin cotton clothing had dried on his
body and was moulded to his back. It clung to the hard contours of
his thighs and buttocks like a second skin. His head was held high
and was looking upwards, beyond the lights that beat down on him,
off into the vaulting darkness.

Petra followed
his gaze and saw to her surprise that there was a gallery above
their heads. It was packed with female spectators. They hung over
the balcony, their eyes glued to the proceedings below. The trial
of Tom Glass was the most popular spectacle in town.

The afternoon
drew to a close. So dramatic had been the testimony, so prurient
the detail of one man's love life, the day seemed to have been
transmitted in fast-forward time. Petra listened as Gossamer Hawk
probed with relish Tom's takeover of Euphoria Records.

'So you see,
madam, that by offering Chas Cross the nubile body of a teenage
girl - whose mother and father, incidentally, he had separately
exploited and betrayed - the prisoner Glass was able to take
control of a leading record company of the day. If I may, madam, I
would like to request an adjournment until tomorrow. Then I shall
embark on Thomas Glass's abuse of his new position to
systematically defraud Shani and the Shagbags of their royalty
income and of the copyright to their own songs.'

'Very well,
Prosecutor,' said the Judge, 'I think we've all had enough
excitement for one day. Sergeant Tooth, you can take the prisoner
down.' She paused and looked meaningfully at Tom. 'And when I say
"take him down" I mean it in every sense.'

For a moment
Petra did not understand but as Amy Tooth unbolted Tom's foot, he
turned towards her and she gasped. Outlined in his prison pyjamas
was a monumental erection, every bulge and ridge in his straining
tool clearly visible under the harsh lights.

Then, up in
the gallery, Petra noticed a small dark woman with a long nose.
Between the railings of the balcony she could see that the woman's
thighs were spread and her skirt was hitched up to her waist,
exposing a nude and hairy pussy which she was blatantly fingering.
The woman next to her, a large brunette with soft curly hair, was
offering the same display, her sex fully on show, the labia long
and wet as she played with them. Petra was shocked that these women
had come here for such a purpose - to flaunt their nudity and to
masturbate in front of Tom. Perhaps to excite him so much that he
would lose control and be punished.

Amy Tooth
swung her hand and cracked Tom across the cheek as hard as she
could. Gloria Just kicked him violently on the knee and he pitched
forward onto his face. The pair of them flipped him over onto his
back and Amy yanked the pyjamas down to his knees. His big cock was
thrust weeping into the light, the foreskin peeled back to reveal a
gleaming head purple with blood and frustration. Amy lifted a slim
jackbooted foot and held it poised for a moment over the twitching
bar of flesh that jutted from Tom's loins. Then she ground it
down.

Gouts of spunk
shot from his shaft, spattering over the floor and glistening on
the black leather boots of the harpies of the Sex Police.

Around the
room, the spectating, masturbating women sighed in unison.

Fiona looked
at Tom's supper tray and said, 'You ought to eat more than that,
you know. You've got to keep your strength up.'

Tom gazed
right through her as if he hadn't heard a word - which was true
enough. Since Amy Tooth had walked all over him with her jackboots,
a ringing noise had been reverberating through his head like a fire
alarm.

With a tut-tut
of contempt, Fiona removed the tray and stalked off, leaving her
bruised and bedraggled prisoner to the solitude of his bare
cell.

Tom shook his
head from side to side, as if trying to dislodge water from his
ears, but the noise rang on. He closed his eyes and the sound
whistled through his entire body like a great wind, blowing with it
memories of the day's events. The humiliation of his ordeal in The
Primrose Court burned within him. It was not so much the beating,
the exposure of his body or the shame of his final incontinence
that hurt. Even the betrayal by Eve Biscuit was something he knew,
in time, he could harden himself to.