Country Pleasures (4 page)

‘I can't do it, because he didn't turn nasty, and anyway, it would confirm what they are all saying about me: that I just slept my way to a good story.'

Sally grew silent for a moment. Janie kicked her.

‘Can't have you turning into Goody Two-Shoes! So what was it that kept you in Blue Beard's castle?'

‘Simple. Presents. The sight of a designer box tied with ribbon always brings me to my senses. Suddenly he was just another older man, flattering me into bed. Putty in my hands, or so I reckoned. I thought it was time to explore upstairs, but Mastov chased after me to stop me peering into the other rooms.'

‘Why? What was he hiding? White slave girls locked up in there, shackled in chains?'

Sally laughed and kicked her leg over the arm of the sofa. ‘I could ask you the same thing. What's hidden in the master's chamber upstairs, I'd like to know?
Perhaps you have someone tied to the bed, who you're not going to share? The master himself?'

‘I wish,' murmured Janie. ‘The bed's certainly big enough, but, no. Sorry, no shackled men, no vibrators, nothing upstairs except a white cotton duvet and some very prim pyjamas.'

‘Oh, I almost forgot,' shrieked Sally, suddenly animated again. ‘Talking of games, we could dress up!'

‘What are you on about now?'

‘The present in the box I was telling you about; the gift from Mastov. It was a long white negligee, with spaghetti straps and made of semi-transparent chiffon, so thin you could thread it through a needle. I've brought it with me.'

‘So did you put it on?'

‘Yes. He took me into this room, which was totally dominated by a huge Chinese opium bed, all dragons in black and gold lacquer twining round each other. And then he grabbed me from behind and bit my neck. I'm not talking adolescent love bites, either. Look.'

Sally pulled down the collar of Ben's big jumper. There were two little red points in her neck, just below her ear. Janie looked on in astonishment.

‘Hmm, so the story's changed from Little Red Riding Hood to Dracula.'

‘I didn't mind, because it was a really sexy kind of vicious pain. Like electric shocks shooting through me. And what was even better was that, at the same time, he was wedging a rock-hard erection into my buttocks.'

Janie jumped as some last minute thunder, trailing behind the crowd, gave a dying growl over the cottage.

Sally laughed at her as the rain renewed its attack. ‘This is perfect story-telling weather,' she said. ‘And Mastov is just like Dracula. His room was cold, too. I
was starting to shiver. So what does he do? Starts taking my clothes off.'

‘Makes sense,' remarked Janie, sarcastically.

‘I was ready for the famous probing tongue, I can tell you. I wanted it to start with the licking he'd promised me. My clothes were off, goose bumps on the skin, nipples out like corks … but he just said he wanted to look.'

‘After all that?' Janie sat up in her chair, unable to disguise her disappointment.

‘I was furious, I can tell you,' continued Sally. ‘I hadn't come all that way just to be gawped at.'

‘Maybe men of his age can't get it up or something.'

‘Well, I nearly bottled it then and there, but then he held out the negligee and told me to put it on. I decided to give it one last go. Apart from anything else, I needed warming up. I went into the bathroom and I could see in the mirror that there was already this mark on my neck, and it spooked me.'

‘I'm not surprised,' Janie agreed. ‘You do hear of real-life vampires who live off human blood.'

‘But a business tycoon in modern day London? I told myself not to be stupid and dropped the negligee on over my head. In fact, you should try it on, Janie. You'd look gorgeous in it. It's long, and see-through.'

‘But he gave it to you.'

‘It would suit you far better. It was too long for me, anyway, but I have to say, draped in all that white silk, I did look like a vestal virgin. Just suitable fodder for a vampire.'

‘Like you could pass for a virgin!'

‘Enticing thought, though, eh? A bit like you being offered up as a sacrifice to your two Indian chiefs.'

The two women stretched in their chairs, glancing round the cosy room. They felt totally cut off from
civilisation, with only their gathering fantasies for company.

Sally was eager to continue with her story. ‘When I came out of the bathroom, there was music playing, so I decided to dance. I was going to sock it to him. I was going to pretend I was stepping out on stage, like in one of those those dance shows we used to do at the holiday clubs, do you remember?'

‘How could I forget? I was the one wandering round the audience, trying to sell programmes and ignoring the sniggers.'

‘Ever the faithful friend, Janie. But it was a laugh, wasn't it? Me and the Kicker Girls? I should have kept on my career as a dancer, rather than ending up a failed stockbroker.'

‘Knicker Girls, more like. Now then, no self-pity allowed around here. Tell me, what sort of music did Mastov put on?'

‘It was like … hang on, let's see if Ben's got something similar in his collection here.'

Sally shuffled off the sofa and crawled across to the CD player. She flicked through the selection and put on some dance jazz with a wailing saxophone accompanied by a low, hypnotic bass beat.

They listened for a moment, nodding their heads in rhythm, then Sally jumped to her feet. ‘Imagine this jumper is a long, white negligee,' she said, and Janie laughed.

‘And I'll be Mastov.' Janie stood up as well, and leaned moodily against the fireplace.

Sally stretched the jumper down, which in any case reached down to her knees. She kicked her legs out like a pony and then started to pace up and down the carpet in her socks, glaring into the mirror.

‘You look furious, not sexy,' Janie pointed out.

‘I
was
furious!'

Sally tilted her chin so that the glare became seductive rather than sulky, then shook her hair round her face.

‘Your hair's gone all frizzy in this damp air,' Janie remarked, unable to prevent herself chortling.

‘Unlike your smooth mane, lucky cow,' said Sally. ‘You look like a thoroughbred that's been groomed for a race, even when you've just got out of bed!'

They both ran their hands through their hair. It was true – the moisture in the air was making Sally's frizz up, while Janie's fell straight down her back in two glossy plaits.

‘Now, pay attention,' Sally said, letting the music direct her. She closed her eyes and rotated her neck so that it looked like her head would spin full circle.

Janie recognised the movement. She'd forgotten just how supple Sally was, and silently agreed that it was a shame her friend hadn't made it as a dancer. Sally was a born performer.

‘This is one of the routines we didn't get to perform in public.' Sally's hands edged up her thighs, wrinkling the jumper up towards her hips. ‘Imagine this is the white slip, pulling up slowly from my ankles to reveal my legs, and then my thighs,' she crooned.

Sally paused, hooked her fingers into the jumper, stepping her feet apart and then together, and then she dropped the hem to let her fingers run over her ribcage. She fluttered her eyes at Janie, and then into the mirror, covering her face in a pretence of coyness. Her hands wandered down her neck and over her shoulders, to trace the outline of her small tits where they pushed against the thick jumper. She ran her hands down between them, squeezed them briefly together, then flickered on over her stomach and down
to her crotch, clutching her mound hard for a moment. She closed her eyes and let her mouth snap open as if in surprise, then slid her hands along her legs and pushed her thighs and knees open and closed.

The music grew louder and Janie's hip bumped against the chimney breast in time to the rhythm. Sally accelerated her knee movements, bending and straightening them, and sliding her legs further and further apart each time.

‘It felt different, doing it in front of him,' she gasped, testing her muscles before edging towards the splits. ‘I was turning myself on with the movement, and wearing that dress made it all the more exciting. Dancing never made me feel like that before. My hands kept creeping round to play with myself. They wouldn't leave it alone. I guess I wanted him to keep looking.'

Sally demonstrated, pausing halfway down in the splits and cupping the secret slit between her thighs in both hands as if she was balancing herself off the ground, before springing upright again.

Janie's face was hot, but still she wanted Sally to go on dancing.

Sally bent herself at the waist as if touching her toes. Her fingers pulled at the hem of the jumper again and crept under it, exploring the inside of her thighs. She straightened, and her fingers climbed higher, lifting the jumper up to her waist. She pushed her pelvis towards the mantelpiece again, one hand bunching the knitted wool over her flat stomach, the other hand sweeping down her body towards her triangle of golden hair.

‘I don't remember you doing a stripper routine with the Kicker Girls,' Janie remarked, but Sally was not to be distracted. She continued to sweep her hands over her body.

‘We made up several routines, but our dance teacher
never knew about it,' she said, panting slightly with either exertion or excitement. ‘This was one of my favourites, one I choreographed for the troupe.'

‘And what did Mastov make of it?' asked Janie with a grin.

‘I couldn't make out any response. So I revved up the action.'

Sally swivelled her hips round and around, clenching her bottom and thrusting herself forwards in a violently sexy move. Her fingers splayed across her crotch as if parting the sex lips to show him what was inside, and Janie remembered the dark pink slit which everyone had seen at the café last week. Then Sally whipped her hand away and dropped the hem, but still she managed to look as if she was on fire. Her eyes were blazing, and she had the fixed grin of a can-can dancer on her face. She twirled in crazy circles away from Janie towards the sofa and bent over it, falling onto her elbows and presenting her buttocks to her friend.

‘You see monkeys do that, don't you?' mused Janie, as she flopped back onto her chair and stuffed the cushion between her legs again. ‘In mating rituals, they show each other their bottoms.'

‘Thanks for lowering the tone, Janie. But you can't put me off my stroke now. As the audience, you're there to encourage me.'

Still offering her bum to the world, Sally hitched the jumper back up her legs and swayed slowly from side to side, in time with the sensuous music. She was well into it now; she looked as if she could easily forget that Janie was even there. She lay on her front and moved both hands back between her legs to play up and down the crack of her raised butt, parting the cheeks as she wriggled provocatively.

‘Your dance teacher would have had kittens if she'd seen this!' yelped Janie, fiddling with the cushion.

‘Yeah. I should have showed her,' Sally answered breathlessly, bent double and eyeing Janie from between her legs. ‘The Kicker Girls never got the chance to perform really suggestive stripper routines. I was chucked out of the troupe for being too short and dumpy, if you remember, but I know I was the sexiest dancer. Dancing is so exhilarating. I'd forgotten. We'll do some dancing, Janie, if this weather goes on.'

‘You know I can't dance for toffee. That's why I was the one selling ice-creams. But, come on, what did Mastov make of your stripper routine?'

‘Not a flicker. You're supposed to be standing by the wall, by the way, if you're being him, not wriggling about. Do you want to go to the loo? Oh well, sit down and shag the cushion if you must. But I reckoned I needed to go one step further, and in any case,' said Sally, returning to her story, ‘I don't think I could have stopped myself even if I'd wanted to. There I was – remember this sofa is the bed – spread open with my fanny in the air, and it was reaction time! So I got to work with the old finger.'

‘Sally, stop –'

‘You asked me to tell you, so I'm telling you.'

‘Yeah, but do you have to give it to me with both barrels?'

Sally rolled her eyes and, for a moment, Janie thought there was going to be a hissy fit.

‘Of course I do. You asked me what happened, and I can't tell you without giving you every gory detail. Anyway, I'm enjoying it. I'm getting all revved up telling you. It's exactly how it was and, believe me, you ain't heard nothing yet. Do you really want me to stop?'

‘Well …'

‘And what do you suggest we talk about if I do stop? The coming harvest? Muck-spreading?'

Janie shook her head. ‘You and I can always find something to talk about, and I don't know anything about muck-spreading. No, Sal. I'm just being –'

‘A prude? You spend too many weekends down here, planting out your cabbages or whatever you do, and not enough time trawling the hot spots of London with me. In any case, I have to get this off my chest now I've started, even if you don't want to hear it.'

Janie tossed a bag of crisps at her friend. The bag landed on the small of her back, which was still bent over. The kitchen door creaked, and she heard one of the flower baskets banging outside, but she didn't dare say anything. She
was
being a prude.

‘Go on, Sally. I like having you here. Go on.'

‘I don't want to shock my little milkmaid,' Sally ridiculed. ‘OK, remember, I was making it up as I was going along. I started with the friction, like this, like you see in those movies, and I just kept on going. It was like I was alone in my little game, my hips kept swaying to the music and my finger, all my fingers, kept … exploring, so that he could see what I was doing.'

‘So did you get your reaction?'

‘Did I? The man's into slapping and bondage, as it turns out – both things I've never tried before. I'm bent forwards, like this, my nose in the bed, my fingers all over the place, totally engrossed in my game, when suddenly he's crept up behind me and, before I can open my mouth, he's slapped my rump. It stung, and was hot, and then, like the bite, it was a nice pain, sizzling through me. Mastov started stroking the spot but I wanted him to do it again; I wanted the shock of
the slap itself, and the lovely afterglow you get. It was weird; I'd always scoffed at people who like spanking.'