When he withdrew, he kept his arms round her, his wet cock cooling against her belly. 'You’re OK,’ he murmured, his face radiant. 'You’re not so bad youself.’ With a smile, Karen moved so that his softening prick slipped away from her. She bent and retrieved her panties, stepping into them and then smoothed down her creased skirt. He tucked his penis away and zipped up. ‘I’d like to see you again,’ he said, with a disarming grin. 'I'm not looking for commitment,’ she warned, pushed her fingers upwards through her hair, fluffing it out. ‘And I’m not offering it.' He mounted the Harley. ‘Can I give you a lift anywhere?’ ‘I was on my way to Dower House.’ She got up behind him. ‘One of Lord Burnet’s women?’ She could not read his expression through the visor. ‘No. I’m working in the Blackwood library.’ ‘Good.’ ‘D’you know him?’ Karen fastened the chin strap of her helmet. ‘Yep. My dad owns Cassey’s Garage and we service his cars.’ ‘And the women? D’you know them, too?’ He nodd

Flinging open the door of the walk-in wardrobe, she scanned the rows of clothes. Which should it be? This was, after all, an important occasion. She pulled out a green crushed-velvet number from an exclusive fashion house, a wickedly expensive extravaganza, consisting of a long-sleeved bodice with a plunging cleavage. This fastened at the back with tiny ball buttons and had a slinky ankle-length skirt which opened to her stocking tops on one side. Karen wriggled into it and surveyed herself critically. It was daring but suitable for a dinner party at a baronial hall - though from Tayte’s hints, she gathered this bash was hardly likely to be a formal affair. She felt good in the dress, and the colour was just right for her. After moisturising her face and adding a touch of blusher, she brushed her lashes with greenish mascara, added moss eye shadow, then carefully outlined her mouth with carmine. She switched on the hair drier and bent her head, letting her hair fall forward as she s

The eastern sky was tawny red banded with grey, then came an expanse of lemon-yellow light, and above it pure clarity with here and there a small cloud tipped with gold floating like an island in a fairy sea. Mist hung at the base of the heavily wooded hills, curving in and out of the gullies, pre-saging another fine day, and bird calls fluted from the tree tops as Karen walked out into the garden. The storm had passed: the fecund earth was washed clean and the crystal air felt like chilled wine. Karen stood for a moment, breathing deeply, absorbing the sounds and scents, taking the dawn into herself. The grass beneath the trees sparkled with diamond dew, wetting her bare feet. She curled her toes downwards, rejoicing in this contact with the chthonian realms beneath that green carpet. The grasses were coarse and she could almost feel the tremor of their fibres. She closed her eyes, cleared her mind, raised her arms and began the slow, meditative moves of T’ai Chi by which she could

Armina wore a skin-tight body suit in black plastic. Jo was dressed in a gymslip over a white blouse with bare thighs, navy-blue knickers, grey knee socks and her hair in two pigtails. Karen shook out her own costume. It consisted of a short white tutu with a boned bodice and slender straps — no panties — and flat ballet pumps crisscrossed with ribbon round the ankles. A birch lay to hand. Raquel, all powerful, approached the man, asking, ‘And have you been a good boy today?’ ‘Yes, Mistress, I have,’ he whispered, and looked across at Spike, adding, ‘I want to see his prick.’ ‘I don’t know if you can. I'll have to ask him. Spike, can this gentleman look at your plonker?’ Undaunted, Spike unsnapped his shorts and his semi-hard cock bounded out, the ring glinting in the foreskin. Sinclair smiled salaciously at Armina, and Karen, who had been positioned at the man’s head, birch at the ready, became impatient with this perverted game, wanting Spike to herself somewhere private. ‘Let

Last summer her parents had visited Turkey and brought her back a present. There had never seemed an appropriate moment to wear it, until now. The jellaba was long, dyed in the vibrant hues of the desert at sunrise. Made of hand-spun wild silk, it was bordered with gold embroidery and seed pearls. The wide, loose sleeves were ornamented, and the deep slash between her breasts fastened with loops over buttons covered in gilt thread. She twisted a rope of variegated semi-precious stones about her neck, and hooked a pair of dangling beaded earrings into her lobes. Beautifully crafted jewelled sandals had come with the outfit, a copy of those found in a pharaoh’s tomb, flat soled, supported by a thong between the big toe and its neighbour, the kind of footwear in which she was most at ease. Beneath this exotic creation Karen wore absolutely nothing, the silk caressing her skin like a lover’s lips. Such attire called for equally colourful make-up and she didn’t hesitate, eyes accentuated