BUILDED ATTRACTION 2

It had been a long day. Every time Clare had arrived home since the building work had begun Gary had still been busying himself in the back, usually on his own, his two other workmates long gone. But tonight Clare was late and he too had gone. The house felt empty. She missed the banter they usually shared.

It was already seven thirty. She went upstairs to the bathroom at the front of the house, stripping off her black suit as she went. In the new bathroom she would have a separate shower cubicle with a powerful shower, but at the moment she had to make do with the shower attached to the mixer taps of the bath and a glass screen at the side of it to prevent the water splashing over the floor. She adjusted the temperature to lukewarm, pulled off the rest of her clothes and stood in the rather sluggish stream, allowing the water to wash over her.

As she closed her eyes and turned her face into the water she thought of Gary, his hard body covered with sweat. She wondered what it would feel like against her. She had had a variety of men in her life and some had been moderately fit, but she’d never had anyone like him, someone whose muscles looked as though they had been shaped in stone by a sculptor. She imagined wrapping her arms around him, hugging him, feeling his strength. The thought made her shudder.

She washed herself quickly, dried herself on a large white towel and cleaned her teeth. In her bedroom she chose a cream and pink patterned cotton dress with a V-neck and cool short sleeves. Though it had a full skirt it was split to well above the knee and showed a lot of her slender, shapel legs. Just as she finished her make-up the doorbell rang.

‘You're very punctual,’ she told David as she opened the front door. David was always very punctual. Punctiliously punctual. She couldn’t help wishing he wasn’t.

‘Sorry,’ he said, kissing her on both cheeks and looking shamefaced.

‘I’ve just got to get my bag,’ she said.

‘Place looks like a bomb’s hit it.’

'Worse to come yet.’

She grabbed her handbag, took out her keys, set the alarm and double-locked the front door. David’s burgundy-coloured Bentley was parked behind the builder’s skip. He opened the passenger door for her then got behind the wheel.

‘Sure you don’t want to change your mind about the venue?’

‘No,’ she said emphatically.

They dined without fuss, ordering only one course and a single bottle of red wine. Clare had the impression that her lack of appetite suited David perfectly. He was impatient for the meal to end.

She had met David Allston at one of KissCo’s parties held to launch some new product or other, but she had never discovered why he’d been invited. She guessed, since he was the sort of person constantly pictured in the gossip columns of Queen, Tatler, and even Vogue, KissCo’s public relations department had thought his presence might attract a photo opportunity in some such magazine, although on this occasion, at least, they had been disappointed.

David Allston was, in fact, Viscount Bonmouth, the eighth Viscount in a succession dating back to 1781. He looked the part. He was slim - even thin — with a beautifully tailored suit from the firm in Saville Row that had catered to his family for one hundred and fifty years, serving his father and his father’s father. His white cotton shirt was from a shirtmaker’s in Jermyn Street, who'd also served three generations of Alistons, and his hand-lasted shoes were from Loebbs. He had neatly cut brown hair and a fine, delicately boned face, with a narrow straight nose, and hollow, almost feminine cheekbones. His eyes were light green and oddly nondescript, shallow set and small though he did have the longest eyelashes Clare had ever seen.

His manner suggested his pedigree too. There was a poise about him and an innate elegance that meant no matter how he was sitting or standing he seemed to be perfectly in equilibrium. A little too perfectly sometimes, as his grace could be seen to border on the effeminate. His attitude was not haughty, however. He was not the sort of aristocrat who had seen everything and done everything and was bored with life. He was more like a clever and enquiring child, ready to take on new experiences. And, like a child, he could be very determined to get his own way.

‘So when does the big boss arrive?’ David asked, as Clare told him of Bridget Goldsmith's decision.

‘Two weeks.’

‘I’m sure it'll all be fine,’ he said. He had never shown much interest in her work or work in general. As far as Clare knew he didn’t do much more than see that the family ‘pile’ in Hertfordshire was kept in good order. He certainly hadn’t ever worked for a living and she imagined that it was hard for him to understand the exigencies of the daily grind.

‘Do you want coffee?’ he asked in a manner that suggested he hoped she would say no. He would have loved merely to have told her to get ready to leave but years of breeding had dictated that in social situations his own needs and desires should never be allowed to take precedence over those of anyone else, particularly those of a woman. From an early age, David had been indoctrinated that, according to the scheme of things, women existed to be cherished and adored, though, of course, they were not necessarily to be taken very seriously.

‘Not really,’ she said.

‘Me neither,’ he said, as if they were sharing a secret.

He summoned the waiter and paid the bill with alacrity, hustling her out of the restaurant and into the car as quickly as he dared. The drive to his house was accomplished largely in silence, Clare finding she was in no mood for small talk.

The Allston family’s London residence was in a Nash terrace in Regent’s Park; it was a corner house with large rectangular windows, curved side walls and a grandiose, stucco-fronted fagade with a portico. In square-sided wooden planters, pollarded, ball-shaped bay trees stood on each side of the black, panelled front door.

'Would you like a drink?’ David asked, as they walked through the large vestibule, where a huge crystal chandelier hung from a domed ceiling above a black-and-white chequered marble floor.

‘Yes. A brandy would be nice.’ She needed a brandy to fortify herself, the moment of truth approaching rapidly.

He led the way into the sitting room, where large oatmeal—coloured sofas were arranged around a large fireplace, its Prute currently occupied by an arrangement of dried flowers. Normally, she knew, drinks would be provided by the butler, who divided his time between the London and country houses, but on this occasion David went to a large, walnut cocktail cabinet and poured the bran himself, not wanting to summon the butler from the Stygian depths of the house.

He handed her the drink. She was standing by the window, looking out at Regent’s Park.

‘Cheers,’ he said.

‘Nothing for you?’

‘No. Not in the mood.’

An air of expectancy hung between them like autumn fog. He was watching her every movement, lke a dog waiting for its master to get up and take it for a walk. She knew exactly what he wanted her to do to initiate the complicated ritual that had developed between them. Some nights she would tease him, delay the inevitable, make him wait. But tonight she was too tired for that. She swigged down half the brandy, which she discovered she didn’t really want, and put the glass down on a French, Hepplewhite-design, mahogany card table.

‘Would you excuse me for a few minutes, darling,’ she said, trying to keep the weariness out of her voice.

The look of relief on his face was obvious. ‘Of course.’

‘I won't be long.’

As she turned to walk towards the door he caught her hand and pressed it to his cheek. ‘You’re very special,’ he said, kissing her fingers.

As she walked up the grand, sweeping staircase and along the corridor to his bedroom, she wondered if it were true. Was she special? How many other women had agreed to participate in David’s demands for stylised, ritualistic sex? Perhaps countesses, baronesses and duchesses were used to such things. Or perhaps not. It was entirely possible that she was the first woman who had indulged David's fantasies in this way.

She pushed open the bedroom door, knowing exactly what she would find. There, on the large double bed, the counterpane and bedding already removed, were two beautifully wrapped boxes, one large and rectangular, the other small and square, one on top of the other. Both were wrapped in bright gold foil with gold ribbon.

Clare closed the bedroom door firmly. It had to be closed. She walked over to the bed. Tossing the smaller box aside she sat on the white linen undersheet and ripped the ribbons off the large box. She delved into the layers of white tissue paper. Her hands lighted on something soft and silky. She held it up, the tissue paper falling away. It was a pink body, beautifully and expensively made in the finest silk, with lace insets over the bosom and at the hips. There was a matching pink suspender belt in the box too, and a pair of very sheer, white stockings. There was also a white lace garter. And the letter of course, right at the bottom of the box.

She got to her feet and stripped off her dress, panties and bra, then clipped the suspender belt around her waist. She slipped into the body. The silk was so soft and sensual she felt a flush of sexual pleasure. Her nipples puckered instantly. She glanced into the mirror on the opposite wall. It was a perfect fit. David had a list of all her measurements. The pink suited her dark colouring and the tightness of the garment showed off her figure. She had a good figure, her breasts firm and round and high, her waist narrow, her hips generous but not flabby. The lace over her breasts was transparent and she could see her quite large, rose-red nipples under it. The legs of the body were cut high and its crotch was thin, not quite covering the whole curved plane between her legs but leaving the flesh on either side of her labia clearly visible. Her pubic hair was black and, though not particularly thick, formed a definite dark shadow under the pink silk.

Sitting on the bed she took the stockings out of their cellophane packet and rolled them, one by one, up her slender legs. The suspenders were too long and each had to be adjusted until they held the stockings taut. She spread the elasticated garter between her fingers ard inserted her left foot into it, drawing it up her legs until it banded her thigh just below the white welt of the stocking.

At least, she thought, this was underwear she would be able to wear outside the bedroom. So often the boxes David had left on the foot of the bed had contained more outrageous items —cupless bras and crotchless panties, tiny, incredibly tight, red-satin waspies with long ruched suspenders, or patent leather high-heels that had forced her foot up almost vertically. They were all the stuff of his highly developed fantasies, leaving her body dec cheap whore.

Smoothing the sheer, white stockings up over her legs, satisfying herself that they were wrinkle free, Clare picked the letter out of the box. As usual it was a single sheet of heavy cream vellum, with deckle-edges, folded in half. She spread the paper out. It was covered in neat, italic script. There were no mistakes, no deletions, no insertions. She knew that David had worked on it for a couple of days, before copying it out like some ancient illuminator of biblical texts. It was a script — her script - the distilled essence of his latest sexual imaginings. He would never have dared to ask her, face to face, to do the things the letter contained; she was sure of that. This was the way he had evolved of giving his fantasies full reign.

She read the page twice. Half of her — or was it more than half? — wished he would simply charge into the bedroom, throw her on the bed and take her without ceremony. The other half enjoyed the ritual dressing and preparation, and the peculiar sense of anticipation it gave her. She was not quite sure what inspired her excitement. Perhaps it was merely the fact that all this was so outré? Or was it the power, the element of control, the fact that David had cast her in the dominant role, master of his sexual pleasure? She had never played these sorts of games before and would certainly never have imagined that they would excite her. But, to her surprise, if she were honest with herself, she found they did. Which is why, she supposed, she had not only gone on seeing David Allston but had allowed the games to become increasingly more elaborate.

She heard David's footsteps climbing the stairs. The ten minutes were up. She knew he would have been counting the seconds. Quickly she swept the wrapping paper on to the floor and dimmed the lights to a pleasant glow. She placed the smaller, still unwrapped, box on the bedside table, then sat down on the edge of the bed again. As always she was quite surprised to find her pulse was racing.

He knocked on the door three times.

‘Come,’ she said.

The door opened. He was naked. His clothes would be neatly stacked on one of the sofas downstairs, his shoes lined up side by side, his shirt folded as though for a suitcase, even his socks rolled into coiled balls.

‘Sh...’ she murmured. ‘Don’t make a sound.’ He closed the door behind him with infinite care, then turned towards her, his enis already beginning to stiffen. ‘We have to be very quiet. No one must catch you in here with me. You know that, don’t you?’ It was the first line of the script. It invariably started in the same way.

‘Yes,’ he whispered. He stood with his back to the door, his eyes roaming her body.