After Hours: Black Lace Classics Read online

  ‘Haven’t you been reading the articles in the press, Venny? Cybersex is hot, right now. The ultimate safe sex. Fantasy and flirtation. All in the head.’

  Venny chewed that over. Anything involving computers sounded dull as hell to her. They were tools to do jobs with: nothing more, nothing less. ‘All good sex starts in the head,’ she pointed out. She’d read it somewhere and, what’s more, it was true.

  ‘Yeah, but it progresses to the body, doesn’t it? And how can it, when one person is in, for instance, Scotland, and the other’s in Tahiti or some Godforsaken hole?’ Bill tutted and stirred the pot a bit. ‘All these women getting hysterical about their partners getting involved with people online! That’s cybersex, Venny.’

  Fascinating, thought Venny, not without irony. ‘They could meet,’ she suggested offhandedly.

  ‘And find each other repulsive?’

  ‘Well, it’s a possibility.’

  ‘God, it’s hot. Aren’t you hot?’

  ‘A bit, yes.’ Venny laughed. ‘You want me to go topless, too?’

  ‘I’d like that.’ Bill’s face was suddenly earnest. He switched off the hob and turned towards her. He glanced down. ‘You see how much I would like it?’

  Venny’s gooseberry-green eyes dipped down to the front of his apron. Below the tightness of the apron’s waist-ties, his cock was forming a small tent. Her eyes flicked back up and met his.

  ‘Well, why not?’ Heartbeat accelerating, Venny unfastened the single button on her jacket and slipped the well-cut garment from her shoulders. She draped it over a nearby stool. The black body was still decorous, even demure. ‘How about that?’ she teased with a smile.

  ‘More,’ said Bill, his eyes taking on a glaze of lust.

  Raising her eyebrows at him, Venny slipped her fingers under the body’s spaghetti straps and eased them down over her arms. Shaking out her loosely curling blonde hair in a provocative movement, she pushed her thumbs into the top of the clingy fabric and in one smooth movement pushed the body down around her waist.

  ‘Enough?’ she asked, then flinched a little as thunder roared overhead and the storm edged closer.

  ‘Nowhere near,’ said Bill thickly. At least she had his full attention now.

  ‘OK.’ Venny tossed back one hank of hair, then the other; but, as she did so, she covered each breast with the palm of a hand. Now her hands covered them instead of her hair, and her eyes were teasing.

  ‘God, Venny,’ he growled, and touched a hand to his urgent, aching penis.

  ‘Goodness, such impatience,’ she purred, and let her hands fall to her sides.

  Bill stared at her breasts like a man spotting a waterhole mirage in a desert. She had always suspected he was a breast man, and she didn’t know what that said about him, but she suspected it meant he was a bit too macho for her taste, perhaps a tad less than super-intelligent.

  Well, that was OK. It really was. Tonight, it was just fine, and she let him look, and felt pretty excited herself just by doing that simple thing. But when it seemed he might stand there all night just looking, Venny felt that perhaps it was time to move things on. She stepped towards him, intending to kiss and caress him, when suddenly Bill moved, and they collided a bit hectically, Venny unable to stifle a giggle. Bill frowned sharply at her levity before clamping his big hands over her breasts with a grip like a Sumo.

  Yep, a breast man, she thought, flinching with discomfort. And he was certainly a big man, looming over her, his cock prodding at her stomach. She felt moisture seeping through down there, just above the waistline of her skirt, a tiny hint of pre-come which stirred an answering excitement in her. But Bill was busy kneading her breasts like dough.

  Unsubtle technique, she thought, and then, with a conscious decision to stop thinking, she let herself get into it, absorbing the sensation of this man, these big capable hands pushing and pulling at the very sensitive flesh of her breasts. Now he was grabbing a nipple between finger and thumb, and his head was going down.

  Oh! That was nice. Venny put her arms around his neck and leaned into his mouth as he suckled her. His mouth was very hot and very wet and her nipple seemed directly connected to her sex by sizzling nerve-endings. Unconsciously her head went back and her hips tilted forwards, and the urgent prod of his cock was as stiff as steel now, while her cunt seemed to liquefy in anticipation.

  As Bill’s mouth worked, so his hips began to move against hers. His lips sucked at her erect nipple, and his hips pushed. His whole mouth took the nipple in, and his hips retreated. Over to the other nipple now, and his teeth nipped her quite sharply so that she cried out in a crazy mingling of pain and pleasure. His hips pushed forwards. His tongue paddled over her nipple, crushing her with a weight of delight, making her legs go weak, and then his hips went back, but she placed her hands on the silky skin of his big buttocks and drew them back again to her, urgently.

  In a trance of passion, Venny was aware of Bill’s hands working at the apron’s ties. When he tossed the apron aside, his cock, suddenly unrestrained, sprang up between them as if spring-loaded. Almost shyly Bill placed his hands on his hips and looked down at his swelling penis, and now it was her turn to look.

  And wow, it was impressive. Bill’s cock was directly in proportion to the rest of him. It was big, red and thick. A rug of black pubic hair framed it like velvet flung beneath a prodigious coral carving. And his balls were heavy, hanging so temptingly between his furred thighs. Venny reached out a tentative hand and touched them, making them swing lightly. Bill groaned and grabbed her hand, keeping it there. She squeezed them obligingly, feeling them start to lift and harden.

  ‘You like it?’ gasped Bill. He was still pushing his hips forwards almost automatically, and Venny was treated to the sight of his glans rhythmically pushing out beyond his foreskin like a child playing peek-a-boo. He put a hand to his cock but quickly removed it. He was too aroused to take much more stimulation, she saw.

  ‘It’s … gorgeous,’ Venny murmured, and felt that mad desire to laugh surface again. She stifled it, knowing he’d be terribly hurt if she let the fast-building guffaw escape. ‘Really, it’s wonderful,’ she affirmed, frowning with the effort of suppressing her mirth.

  What was wrong with her? Here he was, a perfectly presentable man desperate to have sex with her, and she was finding it very hard to let go, to get into it. Dani’s right, she thought miserably. I am a control freak, and I even want to control this, and the fact that I can’t is making me nervous.

  She just hoped Bill handled his bread dough a little more carefully than he handled a girl’s tits, that was all. She also hoped that he didn’t demand she admire his baguettes on Monday, because she’d crack up.

  But then she remembered the other thing she had to do tonight, and realised that would not be a problem. Relax, she told herself. It feels good, doesn’t it?

  And it did. It felt a little treacherous too, which didn’t please her or make her particularly proud of herself, but pleasure was pleasure and business was business.

  And now Bill had pushed a hand up under her skirt, and with a gasp of surprise she felt him nudge her legs apart. She wasn’t wearing tights: it was too hot for that. Her eyes stared into his as he gripped the fabric of the body at her crotch, and pulled. She felt the fasteners pop apart one by one.

  Grinning triumphantly, Bill pushed her legs open further with a rough movement of his hand, moistening his fingers against her with a fumbling movement. But she didn’t dislike his ham-fistedness now. Sticky with heat and desire, Venny found herself panting lightly as Bill quickly freed the fastenings on her skirt. He managed it pretty easily, too; well, this was a man who could shell eggs with one hand. Surely a skirt couldn’t be beyond him.

  Bill eagerly pushed both skirt and body down to the floor in one swift movement and suddenly Venny was standing there stark naked except for her shoes.

  Maybe it was her surroundings that were putting her off, Venny thought as he looked her over like a dog with a new
bone to chew on. A nice soft bed wouldn’t come amiss right now. But this was what she should do more of. Acting on impulse. Taking risks. It was probably good for her karma or some damned thing.

  Now she just wished he’d get on with it, but Bill was staring at her crotch in fascination. He put out a big trembling hand and brushed it up over her little pelt of toffee-coloured pubic hair. Venny flinched and felt the sweet, hot surge of lust taking hold of her again. Her clit swelled within its silky wet folds, seeking caresses. Her stomach fluttered madly. Her nipples were outrageously hard.

  ‘Do you shave this?’ Bill asked hoarsely, having to lick his lips first so that he could speak.

  Venny shook her head. ‘It’s called a Mohican,’ she said faintly. ‘The beautician waxes it so that it leaves just a strip of hair about an inch wide,’ she explained helpfully. It had been agony to have done, and she wasn’t going to bother having it done a second time. Pube-waxing could go in the same bin as extensions and body piercing, as far as she was concerned.

  Her unexpected hairdo turned him on. Venny could see that. His breathing grew harsh just looking at it, and his cock twitched hungrily. Bill’s hand reached out and stroked down over her stomach, teasing the skin there into wild tremors of excitement.

  ‘Wow, that’s sexy,’ he murmured, and moved in close to her, one beefy hand reclaiming a breast with a wince-making grip while the other went lower to push his full, aching penis down and into the little runway the moist lips of her cunt provided for just that purpose.

  ‘Do you like that, Venny?’ Bill rubbed himself back and forth against her, each time slipping deeper, each time pushing harder.

  God, I don’t think I’m ready for this, Venny thought in panic. Relax, she told herself sternly. Get into it. ‘Yes, I like it,’ she murmured, kissing the salty-tasting skin of his shoulder. His skin was smooth with heavy ill-defined muscles moving beneath it. Suddenly, she felt about as likeable as Lady Macbeth. She was using him.

  Yes, but wasn’t he using her too?

  And anyway it was too late to pull back. Far too late. Bill’s mad pushing was taking an upward turn, and she felt the big stiff head of his cock nudging at her opening, felt his hands going under her buttocks, lifting her, while his legs pushed between her thighs, opening her up even wider.

  Venny found herself sitting on the steel counter. She nearly yelped when her bottom struck the cold metal, and nearly yelped again when his thigh caught hers against the metal in a neat little crushing movement that caused her a brief but intense flash of pain. But there was pleasure too, and she fell back onto her elbows across the wide counter and gazed up at him, hearing her own panting breaths mingling with his.

  Bill was staring fixedly at her heavy, lolling, naked breasts as he fumbled the head of his penis into her. Goodness, it was thick. But her own juices were flowing fast and hard now, and he slipped his big cock into her with remarkable ease, pushing it right up into her in one smooth movement that wrenched a cry from her.

  ‘All right?’ he panted hopefully. ‘Not too big?’ He was half-smiling, half-grimacing with the effort of not coming off in two seconds flat, she could see that. He was a nice man. Considerate.

  Venny shook her head and lay back, idly toying with her clit. Maybe if she just closed her eyes he’d get on with it, get it over with. She closed her eyes. And oh, yes, it felt good. He was chugging away at her now, pushing, pushing, pushing, and every hard thrust he made took his cock deep into her, touching her where she was most sensitive, most responsive. She felt her orgasm begin to tweak at her as she relaxed into the feel of Bill’s energetic fucking, and she thought, yes, this is great, and then he came.

  He just came.

  He came with a lot of noise too. He grunted and groaned and Venny opened her eyes in disbelief to see his face screwed up as if in pain. The bastard was coming already! Forced back onto both elbows, Venny desperately tried to move against his emptying cock, tried to maintain her own stimulation, but she knew it was a losing battle. And why hadn’t he touched her? Wasn’t every modern man supposed to know that you were supposed to touch a woman to get her ready to orgasm, not just shove your cock in and hope for the best?

  ‘Sorry,’ Bill muttered, and leaned forwards with his shaft still buried up to the hilt in her and started lapping with his tongue at her nipple in a half-hearted sort of way. Venny felt anger building instead of desire. To think she had even felt guilty about doing this.

  ‘We make good partners,’ he slurred against her breast, interrupting her line of thought. ‘Don’t you think we do, Venny? We could be good partners both in and out of bed, what do you say?’ And he gazed at her with puppyish appeal, while his cock wilted inside her.

  Venny closed her eyes again. The anger was very strong now. Partners! Unwittingly, Bill had hit on the one thing guaranteed to enrage her. She pushed against his shoulders and he drew back in surprise, groping for a hank of kitchen roll as his penis came free. Venny hopped down from the counter, and while he was busy drying off she yanked her skirt on and, not bothering with the body, pulled on her jacket and buttoned it securely. Her body hummed like a strummed guitar, and her legs felt as secure beneath her as unset jelly.

  ‘That was good, huh?’ Bill asked, dropping the used tissue into the pedal bin. ‘So what do you think, Venny?’

  He turned to her, his cock at half-mast, and his eyes widened in surprise to find that she was already dressed.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I think, Bill,’ said Venny icily. ‘I think you’re fired.’

  Chapter Two

  When Venny got home to her Camden flat it was raining heavily. Lucky she’d brought the car today. Not that the flat was very far from the restaurant, but she didn’t really like schlepping around London at night, and particularly not in the middle of a summer storm.

  And this was some summer storm. Lightning strobed and needle-sharp flashes speared the sky, then thunder rolled into the vacuum behind the lightning strikes and blasted her ears like exploding mortar shells. The pavements were black and slick as patent leather, rain pummelling against them so hard that the heavy droplets bounced back into the air. Really, the weather matched her mood.

  She parked the car in her precious permit-holders-only space and went inside. The next-door flat in the converted Victorian warehouse where she lived was no longer tagged with its sold sign. Well, these were good flats; they sold fast. They had loads of historical ambience, with the lock being right beside them. Barge owners had stored their cargoes of timber, coal and wood in these buildings, and now after a long time rotting as derelict hulks they were in full use again and the property developers were having a ball. And the warehouses were not only being renovated as flats. There were shops too, and craft studios, and live jazz and rock nearby, and the market for bargains. The canal permeated the place, wafting freshets of soft moisture and strong diesel into the air all around it. Trees, their shadowy branches dancing in the breeze, crowded on its banks like suicides about to jump.

  Now why had she thought of suicides? Venny wondered. Bill was tougher than that. People moved in and out of jobs all the time, in and out of short contracts, in and out of appointments that had seemed rock-solid secure, for that matter. Like Bill Thompson’s before she fired him.

  He hadn’t taken it very well.

  In fact he had taken it spectacularly badly, and inevitably there had been the painful post mortem. Was it something he’d said or done? No. Was it his cooking? Well, yes. He wanted to cook just Italian, nothing else, while she favoured serving a more broad-based fusion-food line. And he didn’t even cook good Italian. And there was his attitude, of course, although she didn’t want to get into that, and flinging accusations at this point was unlikely to prove helpful, didn’t he think so?

  Bill clearly didn’t agree.

  Bill had gone right ahead and flung a few accusations.

  Like, he couldn’t believe what a cold ball-breaking bitch she was.

  Like, she had used him tonight and th
en given him the finger.

  All true. Venny had to admit that. He had shouted and, even worse, he had stood there without a stitch on while carrying out his harangue, his deflated cock bobbing away in counterpoint to his angry words, which just made him look ridiculous. Venny was sure she had had more embarrassing encounters, but she was damned if she could remember when.

  On Monday she would have to phone the employment agency and dig herself out of the shit. She wasn’t a chef. Microwaving ready meals taxed her culinary expertise to the limit. Her ignorance of food production was total. She didn’t know whether the Barnsley black sausage was superior to the French boudin noir. She didn’t care about bento boxes or nuoc mam. Opening a cereal packet was, frankly, an effort. As for the rest of the staff, they were just servers and choppers; none of them had the knowledge needed to command kitchens.

  So this was the picture. She had bookings for covers she could not provide. She had an unbearable sexual itch. And she was going to have to crawl to her bank manager for a bigger loan.

  But the only way was up, right?

  Over the noise of the receding storm and Shania Twain blasting out on the stereo, Dani heard Venny come crashing into the flat. Dani was in the high-ceilinged kitchen. It had exposed brick walls and a big half-moon window underneath which cutting-edge fittings had been grafted on. She was working, but she was having fun too. Dani was dedicated to having fun. That, and country and western.

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ she said to the empty room, and turned Shania down.

  She opened the door a crack and peered out at Venny through hanks of choppily cut dark hair. Where Venny had hung back from body piercing, Dani had embraced it with almost missionary zeal. There was a ring through her eyebrow, twin studs on her neat little nose, a row of silver skull-and-crossbone death’s-heads parading up the lobes of both dainty ears, and Venny knew that her nipples, her navel and even her labia, under their little coat of dark fur, had all been pierced. All this, and a penchant for cowgirl boots and fringed buckskin jackets, marked Dani down as eccentric in Venny’s eyes. But they suited each other, like the odd couple. The sober and the wild, thought Venny sourly. The daring and the dull.