Tom and the Dazzling Fiona Ch. 07

This story is entirely fictional.

*****

Now the problems begin.

Fiona Cassavettes lay in the bath, water up to her chin, with the bubbles gradually subsiding. The bathroom was stocked with all manner of exotic expensive bath oils but she still obstinately preferred the Badedas which she had used since she was a teenager. She pulled herself up and let more hot water trickle in before subsiding back with her head against the inflatable cushion. She had been lost in a very salacious memory and was anxious to return to the powerful day dream.

Fiona and her husband Tom Cassavettes had spent the previous week in Paris. Knowing her passion for tennis he had accepted an invitation for them to stay with a Parisian couple and attend the French Open at Roland Garros.

She was lying there in her bath feeling warm and sexy and recalling the Ball held at the French Foreign Office immediately after the finals. There she had been thoroughly kissed and expertly felt up by a rather dishy Davis Cup professional. The memory was so vivid that she could recall every sensation as if it were burned into her consciousness. The overwhelming desire to repeat his caresses there and then was building not helped by her neglected libido.

She hadn't particularly looked forward to staying with a couple whom she had never met but since her marriage to Tom it was becoming a regular occurrence. In the event she found their hostess rather patronizing.

Okay so they had an amazing Parisian apartment and Chantelle loved shopping, but she could speak two or three languages and Fiona knew she looked down on her guest for being so poorly educated. Well maybe her brain was not as powerful as Chantelle's but that was no reason for her to act so superior.

Perhaps it was a good thing that she was unaware of Chantelle's description of her. In a moment of jealousy the Frenchwoman had described Fiona to her husband as an 'uptight English beauty with nothing at all between her ears' but although the man agreed it didn't stop him behaving gallantly to their knockout looking guest. But Fiona would have put up with a lot worse than a snotty hostess just to see the tennis and anyway it would mean she had Tom in her bed each night for nearly a whole week.

They had tickets for the last four days of the tournament and Fiona used hers for every session. Tom was not nearly so keen on the game although she had noticed that he enjoyed the women's matches. So apart from making sure she got there and back safely he sometimes disappeared off to who knows where.

"You only like ogling those women in their sports bras," she kidded him.

"And why not, I bet they're amazing in bed. Who wouldn't turn down that opportunity."

She hoped that Tom would, but could she ever be sure?

Fiona found in the end that she preferred sitting there without him, a fidgeting husband was a distraction she could do without. The Centre Court was like a gladiatorial amphitheatre, steeply raked with its rows of green plastic seating reaching up to the sky from the hot roasted chilli colour of the playing surface. Even the noise of the crowd was like a Roman mob baying for blood interspersed with the despairing grunts of the combatants and the screech of their non-slip soles on the clay surface.

Their seats were in the VIP enclosure and she found that she was in general surrounded by other players. Her classic beauty had not gone without notice and the men's locker room had summed her up as a bored rich girl ripe for mischief.

Sometimes that was just how she thought of herself as the daily parade of strong muscular men began to work insidiously on her imagination. Being surrounded for hours on end by waves of testosterone was proving to be an intense aphrodisiac which it seemed dishonest to use her husband to relieve. So despite looking forward to having Tom in her bed for a week she perversely found excuses for denying him sex and was forced into nightly masturbation, once he was asleep, just to relieve her stoked up desire.

Tom joined her for the men's final and found himself taking a back seat to his wife's single minded enthusiasm. He was already feeling guilty having clandestinely spent much of the preceding day on the phone to his office but Fiona seemed happy enough and he tried to square his conscience by remembering that he was taking her to the French Foreign Office ball later that night.

But he was strangely put out to find that Fiona had made so many friends in the enclosure and surprised at his reaction. She casually acknowledged the greetings which her arrival provoked and made high fives with what seemed a never ending stream of players and their coaches who were watching nearby or finding an excuse to pass by her seat.

At one point she was shouting "Rafa, Rafa, Rafa" in unison with a large section of the crowd, and bouncing up and down on her seat with shining eyes. Tom hadn't seen Fiona so animated for some time and was pleased that she was so wrapped up in the action and obviously so enjoying the occasion. But she gripped his hand as the Spanish player lost the second set.

"He's just lost concentration," she was sure she was right. "But he'll get it right next set you'll see."

But Tom's mind had slipped far away into current business matters when he was recalled to the present by a sustained roar of applause.

"He's won, didn't I tell you."

Fiona was on her feet as were all the crowd and cheering the new champion. At least Tom recognised Federer who was presented with the runner's up award but he had no idea who was giving the prizes.

That evening Fiona knew for sure that on just this one occasion she had scored a resounding victory over her hostess. Chantelle had appeared wearing a fussy over complicated outfit and it was clear that her native French sense of style had badly let her down. Normally so chic, tonight she merely looked frumpy. Maybe it was the thought of visiting the Quai d'Orsay and not wanting to let her husband down but whatever the reason she had got her wardrobe badly wrong on this occasion.

Her guest in contrast was wearing a simple low cut boned cream silk bustier, a long shimmering midnight blue skirt split up to her thigh, and five inch heels. Fiona's thick blond hair was coiled up on her head exposing the slender vulnerable neck that so frequently turned men's knees to water teamed with the simplest of her honeymoon jewels and she looked sensational.

Chantelle's husband quickly made the obvious comparison and became short tempered with his wife who had unaccountably not come up to the same high standards.

The knowledge of this triumph over such a patronising woman kept Fiona's head high and her courage up as they entered the glitzy ball room where they were formally presented to the French Foreign Minister. He lingered appreciatively over Fiona's hand as the press photographed them together resulting in one of those pictures making the lead in all the following day's papers and much to the chagrin of Chantelle.

To Fiona's initial disappointment Tom was almost immediately intercepted by a senior member of the French Ministry staff leaving Fiona alone. But not for long as she was soon surrounded by a group of the players she had met at the stadium.

So despite the absence of Tom from her side she had a magical night. She was made welcome by the tennis glitterati both male and female. Passed from one athlete to another she danced every number and lost count of the nationalities, only remembering a South American, a Spaniard, and a moody Russian. But in the early hours she found herself within the capable arms of a dashingly handsome Serbo Croat.

Champagne had flowed freely and her days of watching these men in shorts and tight shirts combined with the close contact of so many super fit bodies had made her careless of propriety. She was steered without protest into a concealed corner of an outlying Orangery and kissed by an expert. Her mouth opened involuntarily and their tongues played tennis. His hand later found the long slit in her skirt and then the soft inside of her thighs. Her legs parted and he bought her to the juddering orgasm that despite her own efforts had been building in her body and mind all that day.

...

"What if I'd been seen?"

As she came on her own fingers Fiona cried out despairingly, repeated in waves by the echoing wall tiles.

...

The housekeeper waited on Fiona's reply as her employer sat at the breakfast table. Mrs Fielding had just asked if the couple would be dining in that night.

"I'm not sure? Just let me call down to Tom's office."

Fiona picked up the phone and dialled.

"Hello Angela is Tom there? ... Oh yes of course he's out of town. How stupid of me to forget. Never mind, I only rang to see if we would be eating in tonight."

She put the phone down annoyed with herself for being so nervous about the forthcoming day. So anxious that she had forgotten completely that he was already well on his way to Australia.

"No Mrs Fielding but thank you, He won't be back for a fortnight so it will just be me tonight."

Fiona had cudgelled her mind over what to wear on this particular day. She had never been to consult a Harley Street specialist before and had made the appointment without mentioning it to her husband and moreover had set the date to coincide with a time when she knew that Tom would be absent.

The chauffeur dropped her off almost at the door and she squeezed between the parked cars to mount the three black and white tiled steps to the imposing door. On entering timidly she discovered a haughty looking woman sat at a small reception desk but who greeted her with surprising friendliness.

"Mrs. Cassavettes, good morning. Dr. Bryant will be ready in a moment if you would kindly wait."

Fiona took a seat on a slender Hepplewhite chair but it was a commendably short delay not at all like attending the local doctor's surgery which she had been accustomed to do in the past. She was directed to a first floor consulting room and met the specialist there.

"Mrs. Cassavettes'" the woman greeted her warmly, "I'm Susan Bryant, we spoke on the telephone. May I call you Fiona?"

Fiona had been in a quandary having no idea how to go about selecting a specialist of any sort and she had no one she trusted to ask for advice. So she had looked in the telephone directory and virtually used a pin. So to find this calm middle aged woman facing her was a considerable relief.

"Please do," said the slightly overwhelmed patient.

"Now, I propose to give you a detailed examination and I will take samples for analysis, but first I must ask you a few questions."

The woman settled herself with a pad before her and pen poised. Her questionnaire was detailed and often Fiona couldn't help her, not because she wouldn't but because she genuinely didn't know the answer.

"How about your periods, are they regular?"

She could answer that one. After the first embarrassing show of blood as a young teenager they had never been regular. Since her marriage they had sometimes been so late that she had thought can I really be pregnant at long last? She had sat in the bathroom with a pregnancy kit on a number of occasions only to be bitterly disappointed at the negative results.

The intrusive examination which then followed was an altogether miserable experience and Fiona fled back to the apartment there to run herself a warm bath. The all-encompassing examination of her genitalia had been like a violation and she wondered how women could find childbirth in any way enjoyable.

When Tom was away she settled into a rather indolent pattern of living. She had no housework to do; if she tried she would have offended the staff and she had no job and no hobbies other than shopping or lunching out. Although Tom had the use of company jets, helicopters, and chauffeur driven cars on his global journeys the job still meant he was absent from his wife for long periods of time. Moreover Margaret, her mother-in-law, was insisting that Nicholas Cassavettes reduced his work load in exchange for more leisure time at Tremaine Place and so Tom inevitably took up the slack.

He revelled in the increased responsibility but selfishly ignored the affect it was having on his wife. They were spending less and less time together and Fiona was suffering bouts of depression. As Margaret had so presciently forecast Fiona's lack of inner resources, interests or pastimes meant she had nothing substantial with which to fill her empty days.

Even her mother Jean Napier had been spectacularly unhelpful on Fiona's last visit to Glebe House.

"You weren't brought up for this sort of life, no wonder you feel so empty. But it will all change as soon as you get pregnant and have a baby, you mark my words."

Well it wasn't for lack of trying, Tom, when home, was still as ardent as ever and she hadn't used her cap since they were married, it lay unused in the box at her bedside.

So she continued meeting her new found acquaintances for coffee or in Bond Street for a little shopping, or attending a fashion show, or taking in the latest Art Gallery exhibition. Her husband, or rather Angela, paid what Fiona considered her outrageous Credit Card bills without question. It might have amused her to have known that Tom actually thought them modest and quite unexceptional.

Later she was summoned by her specialist and sat in the Harley Street waiting room once again before going up the stairs to the same first floor consulting room where Susan Bryant was waiting. Having seated Fiona she asked if she would like coffee or tea. So there was a hiatus while coffee was brought and served to them both but with Fiona struggling valiantly to curb her impatience. However the bad news which she fully expected soon arrived.

"I have had the results of your tests and I'm afraid they are very disappointing."

Fiona sat rigid, listening in abject despair while all her worst fears were being confirmed.

"Your fallopian tubes show evidence of damage, and I believe that hostile cervical mucus is present. This is not a new condition, it has probable always been so."

Later she had rung Tom, who was now in Hong Kong, wanting to confess all and seek reassurance. The hotel receptionist put her straight through to his suite.

"Tom, I've failed you," she was keening softly, "you and your father so wanted a son."

It was true that they had talked of it, but when he thought about the whole matter dispassionately he wasn't so sure about his own feelings in that direction. But convincing Fiona of his own lack of ambition to sire a son was quite another matter.

She had exhibited no interest in taking IVF treatment, whether it went against some strongly held religious view or whether she had lost all faith in her body being able to reproduce was never discussed. She merely threw herself back into her shallow social whirl and on the surface she was as she had always been, but underneath there was a trickle of despair which gradually deepened to a torrent.

A despair which reached new depths when she was put through to her husband in his hotel bedroom in New York only to find that the call was answered by a breathless woman. Having immediately disconnected and without speaking she fumed for the rest of the day but in her lonely bed that night tried to come to terms with the situation.

Okay, she hadn't yet succumbed to the many invitations she received to stray but it was sometimes a near run thing. She was remembering occasions such as Paris where only the threat of interruption had made copulation a non starter. So a red blooded man, a man separated for long periods from his wife, would be tempted. After all she knew he was often surrounded by women who could ease his loneliness without a second thought.

...

Fiona was in Milan Station and deeply angry. Her luggage was being taken on board the overnight sleeper for Paris and the Coach attendant was fussing interminably over her tickets. But finally she was alone in her first class sleeping compartment and could give way to bitter tears.

"Why does he treat me like this," she wailed at the mirror, "I always have to take second place to the bloody business."

She subsided into a second bout of tears only to suffer an attack of hiccups which annoyed her even more.

"It would serve him right...hic...if I wasn't at home...hic...when he deigned to return."

Having eventually controlled the convulsive gasping Fiona examined herself in the mirror and was horrified to see the damage this hysterical outburst was having on her appearance. That and her own sense of fairness soon dried up the tears of frustration. When feeling a little calmer she accepted that Tom had no alternative on this occasion but to jet straight off from their Italian weekend break. After all it wasn't often that the Company suffered a maritime piracy attack but at least by the time he left they had already enjoyed the use of their La Scala opera tickets and not missed the very thing they had been in Northern Italy to see.

As a result here she was making her own way home. He had offered to charter her a private plane and after making the call handed the phone to Fiona to settle the details with his PA. Tom then kissed her cheek with a look of regret and departed.

"What can I do for you Fiona?" Angela had waited patiently as she overheard the farewells.

"Nothing thank you Angela, I'm sorry Tom bothered you, I can manage quite well for myself."

Now she was mentally kicking herself for being churlish to Tom's PA, even more so for giving way to her anger and obstinately refusing what she now wished with all her heart she had accepted. Well, she had made her own bed and now she would have to lie in it.

Amused at her own terrible joke she freshened her make up and, resolving to make the best of her stupidity, put on a fresh outfit and went along to the dining car.

Fiona, since her marriage to Tom, had been slow in adapting to the perks of being super rich. Apart from her love of shopping and the respect her various merchant bank credit cards provided she did not think like those who were born to affluence. Tom would ask why she had used a taxi when she had a chauffeur sitting twiddling his thumbs in the garage, why she had used the train to visit her mother when the helicopter was sitting idle. She could only answer him truthfully by saying "because I don't think that way."

But her demeanour, her jewellery, and her clothes now shouted privilege and, recognising it instinctively in the woman who had entered alone, the head waiter bowed before he himself guided Fiona to an empty table for two. Settled in her seat and sipping a champagne cocktail she leisurely surveyed the occupants of the coach. It was under half full with a sprinkling of couples, parties of four, and the occasional lone diner such as herself.

She was enjoying her anti-pasta with head bowed over the plate when she was conscious of a man taking the empty seat at her table.

"Please find another seat, I much prefer to dine alone."

Fiona had not even looked up and expected the interloper to depart but he remained seated. Now, unreasonably annoyed, she finally raised her eyes only to see a lined but handsome face which she recognised immediately but could not quite put a name to.

"Alain Dupuis."

He introduced himself in a voice that she knew instantly. Now she could place the man. How many times had she seen him on the TV screen when she was an impressionable teenager? She had thrilled then to his velvet singing voice and its primal effect on Fiona had obviously not changed over time for her vagina immediately flooded.

"Fiona Cassavettes." She replied after a pause having been momentarily mesmerised.

"I know very well who you are."