‘A bit like the hair shirts the early mystics wore as a penance,’ she replied. She didn’t say why she was doing penance.
Harriet immediately contradicted her. ‘Don’t you believe it. She just likes to suffer. If it weren’t the bra, she’d have something else to pinch her in interesting places. Well, interesting to her, at any rate.’ She felt his cock stiffen at her words. ‘Interesting to you too? You really must come and watch sometime. You seem like one of our sort.’ Harriet didn’t say precisely what she meant by ‘our sort’. She thought it was clear enough.
And apparently it was. ‘I’d like that very much,’ the waiter said. ‘But I don’t know where you live, and I have to work for several more hours, at least until the lunchtime crowd eases.’ He sounded eager, in a strangled sort of way.
Victoria was red-faced with embarrassment again, and Harriet felt a foot touch hers in warning. She gave him her home address. ‘Come over after work. I can hold the main event until you get there. In the meantime,’ Harriet told him, ‘you can watch developments from a distance while we eat our salad. It should make an interesting spectacle now that you know what’s going on under the table.’ She gave his cock a final pat and dismissed him.
He walked away, doing his best to hide the erection with the tray. Harriet was reminded of Peter Sellers trying to sneak into the nudist camp hiding behind a guitar in
A Shot in the Dark.
She turned to Victoria. Indicating the cucumber, she asked, ‘What are you waiting for? You know what to do.’
Hesitantly, Victoria picked up the vegetable. She held it for a long moment, as if waiting for Harriet to change her mind and say it was all a joke. But Harriet didn’t say anything, and Victoria knew she was going to have to do as she was told. Her breasts rose and fell with her agitation, and she raised a hand as if to touch herself before she remembered they were in public. She lowered it hurriedly.
Harriet noticed the abortive gesture. ‘Did you just get erect inside your lovely spiky bra, then?’
Victoria nodded silently and took another deep breath. That must have caused another twinge in her breasts. She wore a distant expression, as if analysing this new sensation. Or enjoying it.
Harriet waited again. Victoria moved the cucumber down as unobtrusively as possible, on the side away from the rest of the diners. It disappeared under the table. Once more she looked at Harriet as if for a reprieve.
‘Raise your skirt slowly and spread your legs,’ Harriet told her, implacable as ever.
Victoria raised the hem of her skirt and placed the long green shaft between her thighs. She squirmed a bit on the seat, finding the right spot by touch but hampered by her embarrassment and the desire to reveal nothing to the others in the room. She felt as if she were standing on a spotlit stage with everyone staring at her.
Harriet looked around the room, but only the waiter was staring at them. ‘In with it, Vicky,’ she commanded. ‘We haven’t got all day. If it helps, think of it as making love on the Underground. That should excite you.’
The suggestion didn’t seem to help much. Victoria looked flustered again, and she was making little thrusts with the hand that was under the table. Eventually, her hand reappeared
sans concombre
and she twitched the hem of her skirt down again.
‘Now close your legs and open your mouth,’ Harriet told her rather inelegantly. ‘Let’s eat our lunch.’
Victoria, however, only picked at her food. It was an interesting study in the relative strengths of two primary drives, and the sex drive appeared to be winning.
They ate in silence for a while, Harriet watching Victoria and the waiter watching both of them. Then Harriet commanded Victoria to use her hand to stimulate herself. After only the briefest hesitation she did as she was told. Her hand disappeared beneath the table and the unmistakable signs of sexual arousal soon appeared in her face. Her reticence was in inverse proportion to her excitement. Or maybe her reticence was simply a necessary part of the excitement. Harriet knew that Victoria liked to be told what to do, as did most of her clients. Where would I be without the submissives of the world? she thought. Working for a living, she answered herself.
Victoria was concentrating so hard on what she was doing to herself that she had stopped eating. Harriet watched with interest as she began to breathe rapidly. ‘Tell me what you’re doing to yourself,’ Harriet said abruptly. ‘And do try to eat a bit. This is a restaurant, and people will notice if you leave your food. You don’t want to make a spectacle of yourself.’
Victoria was looking intent. Talking must have been rather low on her list of priorities, but at length she said, ‘I’m touching myself.’
‘Where? How?’ Harriet asked. ‘Be specific. Didn’t they teach you about the importance of narrative detail in your literature and writing classes?’
‘My cunt, then! Outside. The inside’s full of cucumber so I can’t get at it.’
‘Indeed? And however did you get a cucumber into such an unusual place?’
Victoria didn’t make the obvious answer. ‘And I’m going to come in a moment, unless you let me stop,’ she said with an edge of helpless desperation in her voice. ‘Right here in public,’ she added. Her voice shook and her face was flushed. Every time she drew in a deep ragged breath she wriggled her shoulders and breasts, no doubt feeling the little needles sewn into her bra.
‘Well, there isn’t any harm in that so long as you can be ladylike about it. If you shout about it, the rest will be wanting some too. But tell me,’ Harriet asked disingenuously, ‘does it really feel all that good? I don’t have much experience with kinky sex and masochism.’
‘You know damn well how it feels,’ Victoria hissed as she bent forward in her seat. Her breasts touched the edge of the table, and she gasped at the contact. Her plea to be allowed to stop was less than sincere.
‘You can stop now, Victoria,’ Harriet ordered her quietly.
Victoria paid her no attention.
Sternly, Harriet said, ‘Stop. Now.’ She touched Victoria’s foot under the table with her shoe to emphasise the point.
‘But I’m almost there!’ Victoria wailed.
‘I can see that for myself, thank you very much. That’s why I want you to stop. Both hands on the table, please.’
Reluctantly Victoria brought her hands into view and sat up straight in her chair. She looked quite appealing in her dishevelled state. Her hair had begun to cling damply to her cheeks and forehead and her clothing had been ever so slightly disarranged by her exertions. But the real giveaway was her breathing. Her breasts were rising and falling quite alarmingly as she struggled to catch her breath without being obvious about it. She looked distractedly around the room, as if she were seeing it for the first time. When she saw the waiter looking at her she went red in the face once more and looked quickly away.
‘Now, Vicky,’ Harriet remonstrated, ‘that’s no way to treat someone I’ve invited round for an afternoon’s frolic. You really must try to remember your manners. Smile at him.’
Victoria’s expression resembled a grimace rather than a smile, but Harriet let it go.
‘Eat your food,’ Harriet told her as she raised a forkful of salad to her mouth. She watched as Victoria followed suit with a hand that shook slightly. After a few minutes Harriet leant over the table and told Victoria, ‘Now, I want to see you eat and masturbate at the same time. If you do well I might even let you finish yourself off, but be careful not to be too obvious. One must preserve a certain decorum in public.’ She settled back to watch.
Victoria’s hand moved swiftly under the table. She was careful to keep eating with her free hand, but she soon looked like someone with her attention elsewhere. Her breath grew ragged and once or twice her shoulders quivered, but it was plain that she was trying to restrain the more public manifestations of her arousal. It was equally plain that she was aroused by the public nature of the occasion. The conversation suffered a lapse, and Harriet had to remind herself to eat and try to act natural. If she found the act difficult, Victoria must have found it well-nigh impossible. She whimpered softly, losing control.
Harriet wished she could see what Victoria was doing to herself, but it wouldn’t do to look under the table. ‘Tell me what you’re doing,’ she ordered – the next best thing, and maybe it would be good discipline for Victoria.
‘I’m rubbing my clitoris,’ Victoria said, ‘if you must know.’
‘I must,’ Harriet replied. ‘Do go on.’
‘With what? Rubbing, or talking about it?’
‘Both, please. I’m sitting over here bored rigid while you’re having all the fun. I’d like you to share it with me.’ Harriet’s tone held an edge of steel.
Victoria opened her mouth as if to speak but instead let out a tiny strangled scream. Harriet, looking at her red face, had no doubt that she had had an orgasm. Then she promptly went on to have another. Her free hand now gripped the edge of the table as if to save herself from falling, and her breasts were heaving as she drew in great sawing breaths. As she imagined what the little needles in Victoria’s bra were doing to her breasts, Harriet found her own breath coming a bit faster too. Across the room the waiter was watching the tableau, and several of the diners were looking their way, obviously wondering what the fuss was all about. Victoria was past caring about that. She was too deeply immersed in what was happening between her legs.
‘Use the cucumber, Victoria,’ Harriet ordered. Victoria looked up and Harriet could see her glazed eyes. She wondered if her words had got through, but then Victoria abruptly shifted her hand and Harriet guessed she was manipulating the cucumber inside herself. Victoria’s mouth was open slightly and she moaned softly as she worked at her next orgasm. She was still holding on to the edge of the table, and the waiter was looking intent. Harriet imagined he was thinking about later: if Victoria was doing herself in public with such enthusiasm, what might she do in private? Harriet started wondering about the waiter. He looked sexy, and she found herself making plans involving him and herself. She realised again that she hadn’t had nearly enough sex lately. Tom had whetted her appetite – but it would be nice to be able to let him know that she wasn’t depending on him alone. It might help to keep him in his place.
But Victoria was the immediate concern. She was having trouble keeping her condition to herself, and Harriet noticed that more people were looking at them. Victoria enjoyed that sort of thing, but it could easily get out of hand and get them noticed by the wrong people – the police, for instance. There was probably a law against what Victoria was doing – the Public Orgasm Act, 1847, or the Misuse of Vegetables Act, 1883. Harriet had to reassert control.
‘You can stop now, Vicky.’
Victoria didn’t hear her, or was enjoying things too much to be reined in so easily. Harriet kicked her sharply to get her attention and repeated the order. ‘Hands on the table – both of them!’ Victoria heard the edge in her voice and reluctantly brought her hands together on the table. She was breathing heavily and it took some time for her eyes to focus on her surroundings. ‘That’s better,’ Harriet said approvingly. ‘You’ve got to save something up for later. We’ve got lots of time for more fun this afternoon. I’m going to call for the bill in a moment, so you need to retrieve the cucumber now.’
Victoria obediently reached under the table and came up with the vegetable after a short struggle. She laid it beside her plate. After a moment she covered it with her napkin.
‘Was it all the way in?’ Harriet asked curiously.
‘Yes, but I tried to be ladylike about it. I didn’t want everyone to know what I was doing.’
‘You didn’t seem to mind about that earlier on,’ Harriet reminded her. Victoria didn’t reply. Harriet beckoned the waiter over and asked for the bill. She noticed that he was having trouble concealing his erection again. So he was both interested and observant, not to mention randy.
Before she paid the bill, Harriet scribbled her address on the back of it and reminded him to visit later. ‘And you might want to take the cucumber back and use it for some other lucky customer. Waste not, want not. But be sure to rinse it thoroughly.’
To Victoria she said, ‘Come to the ladies room with me.’
Victoria knew better than to argue. She got up and followed Harriet to the toilets. Once inside Harriet crowded Victoria into a cubicle and wedged herself in behind her.
Victoria was worried. ‘What if someone sees us both in here?’
Harriet’s retort was less than sympathetic. ‘They’ll just think we’re having lesbian sex. If you’re so worried about what Mrs Grundy might think, stand on the toilet so there’s only one pair of feet to be seen. And do be quiet.’ As she spoke Harriet rummaged through her handbag, obviously in search of something. It turned out to be a dildo. From the expression on Victoria’s face she could tell that she considered it to be rather a large one. But she seemed more interested than afraid.
‘Lift your skirt, Victoria,’ Harriet ordered her.
Victoria obediently raised the tweed skirt to her hips. ‘Are you going to do me here?’ she asked with a slight quaver in her voice.
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? But I have something else in mind. Spread your legs just a bit more. Ah. That’s it.’ Harriet thrust the dildo slowly into Victoria’s sex. When it was fully home, she told Victoria to clamp down on it, so that it stayed in place when she let go. Once more Harriet dug into her handbag. This time she came out with a brief panty girdle. She helped Victoria to step into it, and then worked it up her legs and into place. It fitted her tightly. Her suspenders emerged from the leg openings and reached down to her stocking tops in a most erotic manner.
‘That will keep things in their proper place,’ she told Victoria. ‘It wouldn’t do to have that great thing fall out into the street for everyone to see. Modesty above all things. This way, it will be our own little secret. You do like secrets, don’t you?’