Lust and Longing Read online

  He slid down the mirrored wall, leaving a smear of sweat in his wake, and the pair collapsed in a heap on the padded floor mat.

  ‘I’ve wanted to do that ever since I first saw you,’ murmured Barrington. ‘You’re quite a fuck.’

  Jenna was reeling from the discovery that such good sex could be had without adopting her dominatrix persona. Sure, she had initiated it, and she had set the pace. But she had come, and come hard, without giving any orders or using any dirty talk.

  ‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ she said, flexing her cunt to squeeze the last remaining droplets of spunk from Barrington’s subsiding erection, laughing as his face distorted with something midway between pleasure and pain. ‘I take it that training session was on the house?’

  Jenna was not able to discuss the incident with Barrington or her feelings for Alexander Louth with her colleagues, but she could with her friends from the scene. The next day, she had lunch with Karl and Jacqueline in a café near work. Karl and Jacqueline were thrilled to meet each other, and to be surrounded by so many men in suits, and took great delight in pointing out men they’d seen at fetish nights. Jenna filed their faces away for later reference. It didn’t take long for the discussion to turn, as it always seemed to these days, to Alexander and what Jenna could do about him. It became a heated debate on the nature of sexuality.

  ‘Maybe he’s just not interested,’ said Jacqueline. ‘Maybe he’s a top, like you, and that thing in Sydney was just a one-off.’

  ‘No,’ replied Jenna. ‘I know what happened in Sydney. I saw him, I recognised him. I’m never wrong.’

  ‘People change,’ argued Karl. ‘Maybe he’s both; maybe he just doesn’t want to get involved with somebody at work. It could be any number of reasons. Why are you beating yourself up about this guy? You’ve only been in London a few weeks and already every sub in London wants you to dom him. You could have your pick of any guy in the city. What’s so special about him?’

  ‘Because he’s a challenge,’ explained Jenna. ‘There’s something about him I can’t control, and I need to. Even if he won’t admit it himself, I know that when we finally get together and he lets me take charge, everything is just going to explode. I can’t concentrate on anything until it happens. It sounds stupid, but I feel that we’re destined for it. Otherwise why would I have met him twice like that?’ Karl looked at Jenna, his blue eyes serious and piercing.

  ‘It sounds to me,’ he said, his face deadly serious, ‘that when it comes to Alexander Louth, it’s yourself you can’t control.’

  Karl’s words echoed in Jenna’s head. There she was thinking that she had met her match. But what if Alexander Louth was more than a match for her? And what if that was why she was seeking him out?

  Back at her desk, Jenna picked up a voicemail from Simon saying to call her urgently. Her heart sank. She was full of wine and pasta, and not in the mood to phonedom Simon. But she called him back anyway, and was glad she had as he told her of an opportunity for promotion in another department.

  ‘You’ve already outgrown the role you’re doing now,’ he explained. ‘You will be dealing with a completely new department, and you will be heading people who have been working here longer than you have. But I think you can rise to the challenge.’

  Jenna thrilled at the idea of another challenge, something to help her focus on work while she was deciding what to do about her revenge campaign on Alexander Louth.

  ‘Sounds interesting,’ she said, ‘but it would have to be worth my while. In terms of money, as well as what it would do for my CV.’

  ‘Jenna, you’d be a fool to turn this opportunity down. You don’t even have to interview for it. They’re desperate for someone dynamic to begin really soon, so they’re taking my recommendation. You’d have a decent pay rise. Enough to buy a flat. Enough to trade your PVC whip for a diamond-encrusted cat-o’-nine-tails.’ Jenna had to laugh at that.

  ‘OK, Simon, you’ve persuaded me. I’ll take it.’ She was only half-listening as Simon described the new duties she would have and the various training courses she would need to complete to progress in her role. She twirled a finger around the phone cord and doodled on her pad; drew the profile of a man who looked like Alexander. As Simon was about to put the phone down, Jenna interrupted him.

  ‘God, Simon, I forgot to ask which department it’s in.’

  ‘Jenna, don’t you listen to anything I say?’ sighed Simon, exasperated. ‘You will be head of research for Alexander Louth.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  JENNA WAS LOOKING forward to seeing Alexander’s face when she reported for work on the Monday morning, but she was disappointed. His rooms were deserted. An email from Simon soon shed light on the empty offices.

  ‘Louth is on a cultural tour of Holland. His PA and junior researchers are with him. You have ten days to get this office – which is a bloody shambles – up to scratch.

  I know you won’t let me down,

  Simon.’

  Jenna experienced a conflict of emotions. She was bitterly disappointed not to be seeing him today: she had been carrying the sexual anticipation around her like a heavy sack all weekend. But she was also pleased that she would have a chance to prove herself professionally before asserting herself sexually.

  She took her first call from Alexander at 10 am.

  ‘Alexander Louth’s office,’ said Jenna.

  ‘Hello?’ said a nervous female voice, obviously talking on a mobile phone with a bad signal. ‘Is that the new researcher? It’s Kerry here, Mr Louth’s PA. I’ve got him on the phone for you.’

  ‘Hello Kerry, I’m Jenna …’ she began, but the phone was snatched away from Kerry and the next voice Jenna heard was Alexander’s. His clipped, upper-class tones made Jenna wet, even though she knew he was in another country. She parted her legs and began to stroke her clit. The ruder he was, the more sensitive her clit became. The more powerful and authoritative he appeared, the more she wanted to subdue him.

  ‘I haven’t got much time, so don’t bother with introductions. There’s a list of letters and files that need sorting on your desk. Have them done before I’m back.’

  ‘I’m on top of things, Mr Louth,’ said Jenna, in her best phone voice which obscured all traces of her Australian accent. She tried to explain the new system she was devising for logging calls from constituents and researching possible solutions, but he cut her off.

  ‘I fucking told you, I haven’t got time for this,’ he said brusquely. ‘We’ll meet next week. Good day.’

  Jenna wasn’t used to being spoken to like that, not even by people in authority. But she kept working at her clit, furiously massaging it with the back of her knuckles, closing her eyes and picturing his face, trawling her memory banks for the image of his hard dick as she came.

  * * *

  Jenna spent the remaining week chucking sheaves of outdated papers into the recycling bin and tidying up the office in physical as well as administrative terms. She also had her work cut out arranging a lunch meeting with the PM and his wife the following week. She was excited about setting foot in Downing Street because she knew that the concentration of power and money which went back decades would instil in her the inspiration she needed to raise her game with Alexander. She got on well with the PM’s secretaries: so much more efficient than the hapless Kerry, whose lack of ambition and organisation seemed to be the main reason why Alexander’s office was in such a state.

  She didn’t go clubbing that weekend, but took advantage of a rare and glorious sunny weekend in London, running up and down the Thames path, soaking up the sun’s rays and enjoying the natural highlights and deepening tan she had by Sunday evening, when she read her book in St James’s Park, feeling the chimes of Big Ben send a resonance through her primed body.

  When Monday came, the heatwave showed no signs of abating, and Jenna dressed in a light linen skirt suit and a silk camisole. The look was slick and professional as long as the fitted jacket stayed on. If it came o
ff, the silk clung to every tight contour of Jenna’s athletic body. An erect nipple, say, would be distractingly visible through the sheer fabric. Jenna knew that Louth would be helpless when he saw it

  He was already in when Jenna walked into the office at 8.30 am. He didn’t bother looking up from his big wooden desk when she walked to his in-tray and began to lay sorted papers in front of him on the desk.

  ‘This is your schedule for the week,’ she said, pointing to the first memo. ‘You and I are going to Downing Street for lunch today. This pile of papers here is department stuff. You need to sign off this bill soon. This pile of papers here is constituency stuff. I’ve placed both in order of what I consider to be your priorities. Oh, sorry – didn’t I introduce myself? I’m Jenna Bailey. Your new head of research.’

  Eye contact was made and for a few seconds there was nowhere for him to hide. He was looking vulnerable, gasping for air like a caught fish. It looked a bit like his orgasm face, she thought, remembering. Now, surely, the situation would come to a head. Now that they were working together he would admit what had happened in Sydney and they could resume the roles they were destined to fall into, mistress and slave, their night-time relationship a direct inversion of the daytime power structure. But a steel curtain of resolve seemed to fall down across his features, and when he looked at her again, she knew that he had determined not to acknowledge the past they shared.

  ‘You seem to be on top of things,’ he said, his words a sneering reminder that she was not on top of him. ‘I’m sure you’ve got enough work to be getting on with for the rest of the morning. Thank you.’

  Jenna stood there, arms folded, wondering how to salvage the situation. She placed her hands on her hips.

  ‘Are you sure that’s all?’

  ‘Close the door lightly when you go,’ he said, returning to his papers.

  On the other side of the door, Jenna leaned on the oak panel and breathed deeply. She had expected things to go her way and she felt engulfed by a swirl of panic at the lack of control she had over Alexander. If she was honest, she was also bewildered by the lack of control she had over her own reactions. Just seeing him made her hot. How would she be able to stand working with him and not to make him bend to her will? She sat at her desk, beads of perspiration trickling down between her breasts in a tantalising caress that corresponded to the dampness between her legs.

  As the morning wore on, it became apparent that Alexander’s inscrutability was the least of her problems: dealing with Kerry, the PA, and Josh, the junior researcher, was going to be a nightmare. They were both clearly too terrified of Louth to defy him. Kerry was a dizzy woman in her late forties preoccupied with calories and magazines, and Josh was the kind of posh boy Jenna despised. He lacked the brash confidence she found so sexy and challenging, and was instead a wimp who spent more time on the phone asking his mother for advice than he did doing his job. Jenna was glad that she alone would be accompanying Louth to Downing Street at lunchtime.

  At 12.30 precisely Alexander left his office and stalked out. He didn’t summon Jenna but it was obvious that she was meant to follow him like a puppy. This she did with a sting of humiliation, trotting down the corridor after him, the heels she had worn to elongate her legs and bring a touch of dominatrix chic to her formal work clothes crippling her feet. By the time she got to the car she could feel the makeup sliding down her face – not a good look.

  Once in the car, however, Jenna’s mood improved. They were only travelling a few hundred yards but they did so in style, in a chauffered, air-conditioned town car which was icy cold inside. Jenna’s nipples, which had remained like the rest of her body, pretty much on a state of high alert since that morning, stiffened with the temperature drop. She shrugged off the cropped linen jacket and turned her upper body towards Louth. She knew that her tits were splendid like this; the underside full and round, the upper slope smooth, the nipples slap bang in the middle. So what was his problem? The car crawled through the London traffic, sweltering tourists wandering up and down Whitehall.

  To Jenna’s delight, beads of sweat began to form on Alexander’s lip. A corresponding slick of juice began to moisten Jenna’s pussy and she extended her leg, pointing her sharp stiletto down into the leather of the passenger seat, like she wanted to do with his flesh, leaving an imprint of the pointed heel. It worked. She didn’t see the bulge exactly but Louth spread out the folder that he had been reading and placed it over his lap, like a teenage boy trying to cover up an in-class hard-on with his school books. If only he would let her see that bulge, she could let the games begin.

  The car swung around into Downing Street. Jenna chose that moment to pull down her silk cami and expose her left breast to Alexander while the policeman was checking the chauffeur’s credentials. She spread her legs, pulled her panties aside, treating him to a view of the moist clamshell of her pussy.

  But again, her tormentor proved that he was the master of mind over matter. He closed his eyes and looked away and when they pulled up outside the actual door of number ten, he had managed to subdue his hard-on. Jenna had to cover herself up with clumsy haste. Alexander got out of the opened door, leaving her humiliated. For a brief moment, she had been in control but somehow he had managed to control himself, showing that he had the greater self-discipline. And what was worse, Jenna’s flashing and fantasising about Alexander’s dick meant that she was now horny as hell.

  Once on the other side of the famous door, she was surprised at how shabby the place was. The PM himself was surprisingly uncharismatic: Jenna felt that he lacked even one tenth of the authority and sex appeal of her own boss. More interesting was his wife, Tania De Souza, a flamboyant Portuguese lawyer who attracted more column inches than her husband for the way she combined a glittering legal career with a wardrobe to die for. Her voluptuous body, her black snaky curls and her refusal to be seen without full jewellery and makeup, even on the beach, made her a larger-than-life character. Jenna liked her; clever and powerful, witty and challenging, she felt that she had found a kindred spirit. And there was a degree of narcissism in this attraction: Jenna had to admit that Tania looked rather like an older, more sophisticated version of herself. Her body was softer and her clothes were sharper, but they were both of the same long-haired, olive-skinned type.

  There was also an arrogance to Tania, evident in the domineering way she talked to her husband, that Jenna recognised. There was no doubt who controlled this relationship: in fact, Tania was better informed and more opinionated on many of the policies under discussion than her husband, and Jenna found herself wondering just who was behind many of the major decisions made about the country’s future.

  When all three courses of lunch had been eaten, the PM and Alexander disappeared into an office to look over some documents. Jenna found herself alone with Tania, abandoned with the PM’s wife as though she were a mere consort and not his chief researcher. The slight smarted but she was determined not to show it.

  Alone with Tania, there was a different kind of tension in the air. Jenna could not fully relax in Alexander’s company, but felt comfortable in Tania’s.

  ‘This is your first time at number ten, isn’t it?’ said Tania. Jenna nodded. ‘Let me show you around. We’ll start with my room.’

  The chamber she ushered Jenna into couldn’t have been more different to the shabby, outdated décor of the rest of the apartment. This was stripped-back chic not dissimilar to Jenna’s own apartment, but with the accoutrements of the rich, well travelled and well connected. Paintings and sculptures dominated the white walls. The drawn curtains were made of silver shot silk. Jenna took in a floor-to-ceiling mirror with a huge gold rococo frame, a reclining female nude painted in vivid blues and silvers, and a large chrome ornament on a plinth, which looked familiar. Jenna thought that it looked like two silver shoehorns stuck together but that wasn’t it. Tania broke the silence in her husky voice.

  ‘So,’ said Tania, ‘you’re working for the mysterious Alexander
Louth.’

  ‘Mysterious?’ Jenna raised an eyebrow.

  ‘He’s always fascinated me. So cruel. Such a bully. Ruthless, of course, and quite brilliant. Just the kind of man who usually has a string of women falling at his feet: a wife, a mistress, a whore …’ Jenna was astonished. ‘He’s a top, of course, but he would punish even the most compliant bottom beyond endurance.’ Jenna was shocked to hear the PM’s wife converse in fluent fetish speak.

  ‘Oh, don’t be surprised,’ said Tania. ‘I had quite a wild life in my younger days,’ she said. ‘You kids think you invented bondage. That’s where I met my husband, in a little club just around the corner from here. Of course, we like to play in private, but I do miss the thrill of experimenting with new lovers, too.’

  Jenna’s heart rate doubled and she rocked subtly back and forth on her chair, legs squeezed together, massaging a clitoris that was beginning to flicker into life for the second time that day.

  ‘I knew as soon as you came in, Jenna. I recognise another player when I see one,’ said Tania. Jenna smiled. ‘You’re a top, right? I bet you’ve got some amazing outfits.’ Jenna was gratified to know that, despite her failure to dominate Alexander, her prowess was still obvious to strangers. She asked the question Tania had set up for her.

  ‘And you,’ she asked. ‘What’s your kink?’

  Tania gave a wordless reply that was infinitely more erotic than any spoken rejoinder could have been. She stood up, undid the slim red leather belt which cinched her dress in at her tiny waist, and wrapped it twice around her neck, making an impromptu slave collar, the international and instant sign for someone who wants to be dominated.

  Tania closed her eyes and tilted her head back. Her red dress hung looser about her curvy body now, but her nipples protruded and her legs were subtly parted. Everything about her was glamorous and powerful yet she closed her eyes and feigned submission. Jenna stepped closer to the other woman and with her fingers traced the belt which wrapped twice around Tania’s neck, marvelling at the contrast between the shiny red leather and the soft olive flesh. Jenna pulled a little, constricting Tania, pulling the older woman’s head towards her for a kiss. They paused, lips subtly touching, for what seemed like an eternity. Then Tania slipped her tongue between Jenna’s lips. This boldness could not be tolerated if Jenna was to remain in control.