The room was vast. It was also boiling hot —a welcome contrast to the rest of the chateau. An open fire was roaring in the grate, and two radiators beneath the enormous windows were belting out even more heat. The fact that the room was largely painted red added to the impression of an inferno. Kate shrugged off her coat and sat on the edge of the bed. It was king-sized. She smiled. Would she need this bed? Who did the comtesse think she was going to share it with? Half an hour later, Kate descended to the salon. The others were already assembled. The comtesse, again elegant, rushed forward and took Kate’s hands. Kate nearly flinched: the comtesse’s own hands were freezing, yet she didn’t look cold. She was wearing an ice-blue strapless dress that fell simply and beautifully all the way to her feet. Her blonde hair was tied in a chic French plait and her eyes — the same colour as her dress ~again bored into Kate’s. ‘Come and meet,’ she said, ‘our other guests.’ Then she shrugged almo

KATE WAS FLYING. She was in a plane that was flying violently and erratically. Now they were on the level; now they were upside-down; now they were in mid-spin and all the faces around her loomed closely and leered grotesquely. She knew .the faces. They belonged to Nero, Ghislaine, Georges and Elodie. They were mocking her, taunting her and teasing her. Next they were smiling lasciviously at her, pleading with her to play with them. With their contorted expressions and irregular features they puzzled her. She wished they would stay still instead of blurring together into a shifting kaleidoscope of uneasy emotion. Only Nero’s face resembled the man as he really was; it retained its dark, arrogant and supercilious expression. It was, of all the faces, the one she knew best. It was also the only one that frightened her. His sensuous lips appeared to be forming words, but she could hear nothing. She sensed that he was saying something that frightened her, yet still she could make out no s

‘Turn round,’ said Rupert. Kate obeyed. She would accept whatever this man decided to do to her. As she turned, Rupert pressed lightly on her shoulders, bending her forwards, at the same time forcing her legs further apart and exposing her buttocks to him. His erection nestled briefly on the small of her back. Then it moved down, following the curve of her buttocks, pausing at the entrance of her anus. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Not there! Please, Rupert, not there.’ ‘No,’ he replied from behind her. ‘Not there.’ Kate’s flames of desire now flickered again as his cock found her other entrance. His long, stiff penis burrowed into the satin membranes of her vagina and she moaned as her awareness focused only on the long, sweet and total entry of his body into hers. Her flesh jumped around him as he pushed forwards, her inner walls twitched and caressed him of their own accord. She was only dimly aware of the discomfort of her situation, of her arms flailing wildly around as she searched for so

SOMEONE CAME TO her in the middle of the night. At first she didn’t know who it was; at first she was completely unaware of where she was. Sebastian and Rupert had enveloped her around them as she slept on the balcony and later, she dimly remembered, they had taken her inside when the caress of the night breeze had cooled. Then she had slept again, a sleep induced by extreme fatigue, yet disturbed by the same events that had made her tired. She had been tested. She had been made love to as no one had ever made love to her before. Kate the stockbroker was appalled by what she had done in this house. Kate the uninhibited sexual temptress was proud; a dangerous side of her, a hitherto buried aspect of her nature had, from somewhere in the depths of her soul, risen forth to meet the cutting edge of carnality, and to rejoice. Her sleep was disturbed. Someone was getting into bed with her. Someone with a lightness of touch that seemed familiar to her. Her befuddled brain cried out at the t

TWO DAYS LATER, she met her next client. She opened the door to him and to a strange sensation that she had met him before, that she knew who he was. He was tall, very tall, and exuded an air of supreme confidence. He appeared worldly in the sense that he was accustomed to bending the world to his will, that other people's rules didn’t apply to him. Yet, like the man of two nights ago, he was charming, polite, and well-mannered. She wondered why such men had to seek illicit pleasures. ‘I’m Jim,’ said the man as she ushered him through the front door. ‘And I’m Cleo.’ So normal, so formal. So at odds with the reasons why they were both here. Yet she wasn’t called Cleo and he wasn’t called Jim. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew what his real name was. She had either heard it or read it somewhere. No matter, she thought. Names go with personalities. This isn’t a personality. It’s a client. He was, however, quite interesting. Over champagne he talked about shares, bonds and fu