The Business of Pleasure

Published by Accent Press Ltd – 2010

Paperback ISBN 9781907016424
eBook ISBN 9781907761249

Copyright © Justine Elyot 2010

The right of Justine Elyot to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Xcite Books, Suite 11769, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY

Cover design by Zipline Creative

To Carl, Tricia, Sandra and Amy, who have been with me on this trip from the start. Warmest thanks to all who have offered advice, support and positivity on the way.

A
T THE FAR END
of the hotel lobby was a mirrored wall, and Charlotte watched herself and her two companions as they checked in at Reception, seeing what the staff and guests must be seeing. She tried it through their eyes – two sharp-suited older men and a rumpled girl, flushed and sticky and grimy from the train and cab rides that had brought her here. What conclusions could be drawn?

Surely only the right one. The reflection of the senior man – she still did not know their names, though they knew hers – bent to sign something on the desk. The receptionist beamed brightly and glanced at her, curious.
She knew
. Charlotte sought some comfort in the junior man’s eyes and found it; there was kindness as well as command and tension in those wells of blue.

‘Enjoy your stay,’ the receptionist said, and to Charlotte the words seemed to drip with arch knowingness. The senior man took the keycard from her.

‘I’m sure we will,’ he said.

In the mirror, Charlotte saw the senior man turn to her and, without any form of by-your-leave, place a hand on her bottom, nudging her forward towards the lifts. At the same time, the other man slung his arm low around her waist, and that was how the trio approached the mirror, their images growing larger and more distinct with every step; the girl with the sheer blouse and rucked skirt flanked by the immaculate men.

She could see the faces of the passers-by, see the questions and assumptions behind the eyebrows and forehead creases.

And so, it seemed, could her companions.

‘They all know what you’re here for,’ said the senior man, once the lift doors had swallowed them, spiriting them away from the safety of the open space. His hand was already under her skirt, taking possession of the knicker-free expanse beneath. ‘Don’t they, Bryant?’

‘Oh yes.’ Bryant – a name! – had his lips against her neck, then the tip of his tongue traced an upwards path to the hollow beneath her ear. ‘Pretty obvious, I’d say. You’re here to get fucked.’

‘And not just by one man, you greedy little slut.’ The senior man’s hand shadowed her clitoris, his palm flat between her thighs. ‘They know you’re opening your legs for both of us, maybe one at a time, maybe both together.’

‘Oh, yes, they know all about you, Charlotte.’ Bryant undid the top button of her blouse and slipped a hand inside.

The lift bell chimed and the doors slid open.

‘Please excuse us,’ murmured the senior man to the startled but interested-looking pair of guests waiting on the landing, then Charlotte was escorted, semi-dressed, with a different man’s hand on each bare bum cheek, up the corridor to the room.

‘She will need cleaning up,’ said the senior man dispassionately, throwing off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves. ‘Bryant, why don’t you bathe her? I’ll get things set up in here.’

Bryant took Charlotte’s hand and led her through to the marble ensuite, drawing her into him and kissing her gently but thoroughly once the door was closed and the taps running.

‘I know we said you weren’t to speak unless spoken to,’ he said, deftly unbuttoning the rest of her limp and crumpled silk blouse and letting it float down to the tiles. ‘But when you’re in here with me, the rule is suspended. If there’s anything you’d like to ask, just say the word.’

‘What’s his name?’ whispered Charlotte, still not sure she should be framing the unbidden question. ‘Do you know him?’

Bryant chuckled, spinning Charlotte around to unzip her skirt. ‘Yes, I know him. His name is Collins. But you can call him Master. And don’t forget it.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t intend to. I wouldn’t want to cross him.’ Charlotte grinned shyly at Bryant, bending down to peel her sticky, heat-drenched hold-ups down her legs. Ah, the relief of bare skin in an air-conditioned room … though the steam was starting to build up as the giant tub filled with fragrant bubbles.

‘He isn’t as frightening as he seems,’ whispered Bryant. ‘But don’t let him know I told you that. You asked for a distant, cold man and he can play the role to a T.’

Charlotte let Bryant unclip her bra and leaned against him for a while, feeling his crisp white shirt on her back, letting him cup and caress her breasts while they waited for the bath to be ready. ‘What did you ask for?’ she asked.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The Number. What did you ask for when you contacted them? When you filled in the form, did you do it together? Did you both ask for a submissive female to take to a hotel and fuck? Or did the number hook you up with each other as well as with me?’

‘Ah … well … I’m not sure I can tell you.’ Bryant was hesitant and his fingers pinched at her nipples a little more tightly than was comfortable. ‘We aren’t meant to talk about the Number.’

He let her go and turned off the taps, contemplating the tower of fluffy bubbles on the water’s surface.

‘If I let you into a secret, Charlotte, do you promise not to tell?’

Charlotte, standing naked on the bathmat, nodded.

‘We are the number. Collins and I. We set it up. It’s one of our businesses. But we have never actually used the service until today.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. Truth be told, we have been waiting a long time for a girl like you to come along.’ Bryant smiled. ‘And now you’re here. Come on. You must be feeling a bit seedy after your long journey. Let’s clean you up.’

Charlotte felt the accumulated dirt and dust loosen and lift in the water’s warm embrace. She leaned back and sighed, letting the perfumed suds envelop her body, taking away the traces of the journey’s exertions. Not that those exertions had been all bad, by any means. All the same, her skin needed priming for more, much more. She needed to be clean and fresh, a blank slate to be chalked full of the perverse demands of her two mysterious lovers.

Bryant’s talented fingers pinned up her hair and massaged her neck and shoulders while she luxuriated in the bubbles, using the time to reflect on what had passed and preview what might be to come. Her reflection in the washstand mirror opposite portrayed dewy cheeks and shining eyes, a taut kind of excitement radiating out to the corners of the room.

‘Not so dirty now?’ murmured Bryant in her ear, his hands sliding down the slippery slope of her collarbone to find her breasts, just below the water’s surface.

‘Perhaps not in body,’ replied Charlotte, smirking at the double entendre.

‘You’ll need to bathe again before you leave,’ he reminded her. ‘Because, believe me, Charlotte, every inch of your gorgeous body is going to be used long and hard tonight. So don’t use up all the hot water, will you?’

He stood up behind her, causing the water to splash and foam around her, and reached for a towel.

‘Chop chop. We don’t have all night, do we?’

Charlotte stepped into the warm embrace of the thick towel, feeling its gentle friction against her hard, wet nipples and dripping thighs. She allowed Bryant to wrap it around her and then begin to pat it and rub it vigorously against her skin.

‘Arms up,’ he commanded brusquely, drying her armpits, then moving down to the vulnerable teardrops of her breasts, dabbing their underside with the velvety pile, then instructing that she part her legs so he could attend to the dampness within.

When all the soapy wetness was absorbed and Charlotte’s skin tingled with vitality and anticipation, Bryant escorted her, one hand on a shoulder, over to the mirror and had her watch while he took a complimentary bottle of baby oil from the cabinet and tipped some into his palm.

‘Let’s get you ready, shall we?’ he suggested lightly. Charlotte immediately felt her loins flood and her stomach flutter. Ready. The words were subtle, almost innocent, and yet so utterly thrilling; their nuance melting her so that she was a distillation of pure submissive desire.

She saw herself tense and then her shoulders sagged when he began to apply the oil to them. Her head dropped and she half-closed her eyes, placing her entire self in his hands, feeling them descend along and beside the curve of her spine, then back up to her arms, enveloping them, rubbing briskly downward until she was slippery-slick. The bottle was tipped again and then there was a firm but gentle circling of her stomach, a covering of her hips and a blissful, delicious application to her breasts, lengthier and more thorough than ever. Charlotte dared to open her eyes a little wider and groaned at the sight in the mirror opposite – the elegant, signet-ringed hands, fingers splayed across her sheeny mounds, bright red nipples peeking between them. Bryant was looking down, captivated by his work, like a craftsman caught up in the joy of creation.

‘Oh, these are lovely,’ he crooned, ‘but I mustn’t get carried away.’

The bottle was tipped again, and the treatment extended to Charlotte’s legs and feet; she had to tilt forward and grasp the washbasin while Bryant knelt behind her, cupping her calves and gliding upwards, up for the grand finale, up for the bells and whistles and rounds of wild applause, was he there yet? Oh yes. Her inner thighs were thickly coated and now he was oiling her bum, buffing each cheek until it shone and even greasing the length of her crack, from tip to root, now at her perineum, making her sway and grip the basin all the harder.

‘Oh God,’ she whimpered involuntarily as the baby oil was splashed between her sex lips and daubed across her light triangle of fleece. Bryant’s fingers lingered all too briefly at the pleasure portal before withdrawing. He pulled her back by her shoulders and directed her towards the mirror, silently indicating that she should take a moment of self-examination before events moved on.

Her body glistened back at her. ‘I am ready,’ it said. ‘I am prepared.’ And the signs were all there, from the stiff little nipples to the flush at her throat, none of which could be hidden by the plentiful coat of baby oil.

‘I think you’ll do,’ smiled Bryant. ‘Do you feel ready?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ she said, turning her neck to shoot a small smile back at him. ‘I think you both know how to make an occasion memorable.’

Bryant chucked her beneath the chin, his knuckle lingering, caressing. ‘Oh, you can count on that. But don’t forget, once we are out of the bathroom, we go back to the rules you set us. You do exactly as you are told and you don’t speak unless spoken to. That’s unless you want to earn yourself a punishment, and something tells me you wouldn’t be completely averse …’

Charlotte giggled, then mentally composed herself. This was her chance, perhaps the last chance, to live out her favourite fantasy. She was not going to ruin it by trying to humanise her co-participants. From now on, Bryant was Sir again.

‘Let’s go,’ whispered Bryant, and he took her by the elbow and led her to the door, while Charlotte imagined herself as an auctioned slave about to be presented to her purchaser.

In the bedroom, Collins – or Master, as she must remember to call him – was sitting cross-legged in an armchair, reading the
Daily Telegraph
.

‘Ah,’ he said, looking up, sliding his spectacles down his nose and staring hard at her. Charlotte was tempted to cover her pubic triangle with her hands, but something told her that would be inadvisable. ‘She is clean, is she?’

‘Completely,’ replied Bryant.

‘And you have prepared her to my specification?’

‘Come and see for yourself.’

‘Yes, I think I shall.’ Collins put down the newspaper and sauntered over, eating Charlotte with his eyes from head to toe. She felt like curling into a ball, shielding herself from the bright steel of his gaze, yet the fierceness of it compelled her and she remained straight-backed, though her head hung and her fists clenched. ‘Exactly as we discussed,’ he opined, circling her slowly. ‘Oiled and ready. Nipples hard.’ His hand hovered around them, without ever quite touching. ‘I can feel the heat between her legs from here.’ His hand wafted in front of her snatch, almost touching, almost, so close, but … He retracted it sharply, opting instead to mould his palm against the lower right side of her face and draw her eyes upward into his. ‘Look at me, girl.’

Charlotte almost couldn’t, but she was mindful of her vow of obedience, so she blinked a little then focused on the man who held her under his control.

‘We need to be clear on a few things,’ he said. ‘Before we start. We know what you like, Charlotte, but we want to hear it from you. Tell us what you like.’

‘Oh.’ Charlotte was confounded, reluctant to comply with Collins’s order. ‘I wrote it all down … sent it to you …’

‘Yes, I know that,’ said Collins, the ostensible patience of his tone laced with menace. ‘I am asking you to tell us. We want to hear the words, spoken out loud, by you.’

Charlotte bit her lip and tried to turn her head away, to plead with the seemingly more supportive Bryant, but Collins’s grip was inescapable.

‘Don’t make us wait, girl. You have already earned a punishment earlier on, remember. I would be only too happy to add to it.’

Charlotte had, in fact, forgotten that she had been promised chastisement for speaking out of turn on the train journey. Words began to stumble from her lips, slowly at first, then picking up pace.

‘I want to be controlled … mastered,’ she whispered. ‘I want to be told what to do, and given no option but compliance.’ She stopped, trying to remember what else had been in her statement. ‘I want to be examined, probed, fingered, tongued. I want to suck my masters’ cocks for them, and I want to be taken in every orifice, even simultaneously if that can be arranged. I want to be treated like property, and if I do not perform to my masters’ satisfaction, I want to be punished.’

‘Word perfect,’ noted Collins, smiling into Charlotte’s fiery blush. ‘So let’s go over that again, shall we? You like to be handled? Perhaps like a slave being examined at auction?’

‘Yes!’ Charlotte started at the accuracy of his surmise.

‘Oh dear, Charlotte. That’s “Yes, Master”. Another addition to the tally, I’m afraid. You like to suck cock, I presume?’

‘Yes, Master.’ Charlotte was annoyed at herself for making such a basic mistake.

‘You long to be used in every possible position, I presume.’

‘I do, Master.’

‘And you dream of a good, hard buggering?’