A Date with The Devil

What was that saying? The world's to hell in a handcart . . .

'Sorry,' she said into her phone. 'I'm just home from work and I'm whacked. I'm probably not my usual self when it comes to comparing sex stories.'

'You and me both,' said Mary Rose, patently exaggerating. 'They're still trying to work me to death at the office. But that's only to be expected. It's like proving your utter, total dedication.' Then, her voice questioning, 'Did you just say you've been into work on a Saturday morning?'

The way she said "Saturday" made working weekends sound blasphemous.

'No,' Heather replied, 'not exactly; I never went home last night. I nipped out for a quick Shama curry then went straight back to it.'

'Are you saying you worked all the way through?'

'Of course I am.'

'Jeez, that's well out of order.'

'It's the way things are. But never mind me. Tell me more about last night for you.'

'There isn't anything else to tell. Not apart from feelings and suspicions.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'I'm not exactly sure. I remember my first few partners then . . . Well, I'm not sure if what happened to me didn't really happen to someone else. As if I had experienced it vicariously, you know? There was a wide range of outrageous activity going on everywhere I looked.'

'Mare, I don't believe I'm hearing this.'

'Get real, Hev. Your track record is second to none.'

'My track record is buried back in the mists of time. I haven't had sex in . . .' Heather hesitated before laughing. 'Well, not in three days . . . arguably four.'

'Get out of here. As if I'd believe that. Three days and you will have been round at that neighbour of yours, borrowing a cup of sex.'

Heather laughed again. Graham's apartment was next to hers. Between them they occupied the top floor of the Old Tannery in its entirety. As they were both still young and single, sex had been known to take place, and not just by the cupful.

Come to think about it, before the big crunch it had been more like the bucketful.

'He's away in Mumbai again,' she said. 'I'm beginning to think he's got a secret family over there, with a wife who looks like Shilpa Shetty.'

'I bet that would make you envious . . . Of him, I mean.'

'Yes, as a matter of fact it would.'

'So if he's playing away what's wrong with that gangster of yours, or one of your many girlfriends?'

'Sean's hardly ever available and, as for girlfriends, I've forgotten what a fanny looks like.'

Cue a sudden, thoughtful silence.

'Have you forgotten what to do with one?' Mary Rose resumed in deep, husky tones.

No, her tones were downright seductive.

'I think I might have a bit of an idea,' said Heather. 'But stop distracting me. It's not your rash and very immoral behaviour that's worrying me. That only makes me jealous; it's this black mass nonsense that will keep me awake.'

'It wasn't a black mass. It was role playing.'

'Tell that to the Marines.'

'Hev, it was theatrics, setting the scene. No more, no less.'

'What about the semen and menstrual blood?'

'It could have been milk and raspberry juice for all I know.'

'What about the pee?'

'That was real enough,' Mary Rose conceded. 'But I don't know if anyone actually drank it. They might have pretended.'

'Aren't you even slightly disturbed about . . . about the sort of folk you're messing with?'

'I'll probably never see any of them again. And I wouldn't recognize them even if I did. Like I said, we all wore masks.'

'It's all too Dennis Wheatley for me,' said Heather. 'Are you sure there wasn't anything else?'

'Do you mean like sacrificing chickens?' Mare chuckled. 'I did wonder at one stage, but no, it never came to pass. And you've no room to talk about sacrificing chickens anyway. Not as a farm lass.'

'What do you mean?'

'At school you used to brag about how many creatures you'd slaughtered: absolutely zillions of rabbits and chickens . . . and the odd cow, if my memory serves me right.'

'That's a fib. I never rendered a cow. There was this guy who'd come in special if that needed doing.'

'Okay, but there were still zillions of rabbits and chickens.'

Heather scowled at that. Her dad had sold the family farm when she was thirteen, finally beaten by all the taxes and supermarket pressures. Up until then she had indeed been a "farm lass". Being sent off to a fancy and exclusive all-girls school had been a shock to her system.

Leastways it had been for all of three seconds, after which Mare had knocked on her door.

"You look lots more interesting than the other newbies," she had said boldly. "Don't shilly-shally about with them. Stick with me. I know everything there is to know about this place. I'll show you the ropes."

Heather had been in love with her ever since. Always would be . . . But never enough to overlook their natural rivalry.

'I've never sacrificed a chicken in my life,' she said indignantly.

'Yes you have.'

'No I haven't. I've moved lots on, but only ever commercially or for Sunday dinner.'

'You're playing with semantics.'

'No I'm not. I only did it when I had to, and I only ever wrung chickens necks. Anything else is cruel. The silly things don't realize that they're dead if you do it any other way.'

Mare fell silent again at that.

'Aren't you even slightly concerned about the implications?' Heather went on.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean the implications of being passed around like a . . . like a . . .'

'Like a parcel?' Mary Rose suggested, recovering enough to giggle. 'Come on, Hev, get real. It was all about me hunting the next partner, not the other way around.'

'What was your precious boyfriend doing through all this? Watching you?'

'I dunno. I rather suspect he was hunting in his own right.'

'I'd have my doubts if I was you. What do you know about him, anyway?'

'He works in the City.'

'Doing what?'

'How should I know? I presume it's something financial.'

'Mare . . .'

'Listen, Hev. He keeps himself to himself, but so do I. And so do you whenever I ask about your work. All I need to know is that I like to fuck him. That's as far as we're ever going to get. No more, no less.'

'I wish you wouldn't swear. You don't catch me using language like that. It's not what they taught us at The Manor, is it?'

'You can be extremely vulgar without swearing,' Mare countered. Then, deep and husky again, 'What were you doing when I called?'

'I was napping.'

'Where were you napping?'

'I was on my bed.'

'Are you still there?'

'Yes.'

'Are you naked?'

'Not really.'

'Come on, Hev. Are you naked?'

'I'm in my knickers.'

'And nothing else?'

'That's right. I'm in my knickers and nothing else.'

'Are your tits still as brown as the rest of you?'

'Yes.'

'What about your fanny? Does that still match your around-the-world tan?'

'It's been years since I went around the world.'

'And it's been years since you went a day without a sunbed. So does it still match?'

'Take a guess.'

'I don't have to. I can picture it. And I can picture your hand in your panties too. You're thinking about Bruno and jilling, aren't you?'

'No, I'm thinking about you, not that abusive so-and-so.'

'He's not abusive. Unlike me; I'm ready to be self-abusive. And I'm more than ready to share a few fantasies. Are you?'

Heather never could resist phone sex with Mare.

'I wish you were here,' she breathed. 'Never mind nine or ten strangers, I'd make you happy.'

'Tell me how.'

'Are you naked?'

'Of course I am.'

'Are you jilling?'

'Do you really need to ask?'

'Okay, so we're both jilling. But it's not enough. Do you want to know what I'm going to do to you next time you venture north of Watford?'

'I bet it's nothing compared to what I'm going to do to you.'

'Bet it is.'

'Okay then, tell me.'

So Heather did . . . in very fine detail.

Chapter Seven

After finally ringing off Heather stayed on her bed a while, her heartbeat and breathing slowly sinking back to normal levels. In an ideal world she'd catch forty winks before her date with Nina but just then there was no chance. She'd not been joking when she had said worrying about black masses would keep her awake.

How could an incredibly intelligent girl like Mare get involved in something like that!

Heather was precisely two days younger than Mary Rose. They'd been together at The Manor for five years and kept in touch ever after, regularly meeting up and holidaying together at least twice a year. They were lovers, soul-mates and best friends. Very few sisters were closer than they were.

And now Mare was into Satanism!!

Growing up on the farm had opened Heather's eyes from an early age. The things Dad's "beasts" did to each other had been patiently explained to her. She seemed to have known how cows got with calf and why some hens' eggs hatched chicks forever. In her opinion God's mysterious ways didn't come into farming. Farming was totally natural, with natural events leading to natural outcomes.

Consequently church-going hadn't played a big part in her life.

That much said she did believe there were forces out there. And, as the odd good harvest vied with lots of bad ones, she'd become prepared to accept those forces could be positive or negative.

Not that she really thought Mare was in the process of stirring up evil spirits. No, she was concerned she was getting involved with fraudsters and charlatans. Maybe she was even getting involved with the odd lunatic or rapist.

Raped, strangled and her bank account emptied! Couldn't the flipping redhead see what was coming her way?

Heather dearly wanted to head south and punch sense into her.

But what could she do from two hundred miles away in Bingley? Come to that, what could anyone do when Mare had made up her mind? Arguing with her had only ever made her more determined.

Sighing deeply, Heather decided to put her worries on hold and think about the night ahead instead.

Ah yes . . . the night ahead with a long-legged blonde whose boyfriend didn't understand her.

That didn't work, though. Good old Mary Rose had given out too much information about her orgy. Try as she might to picture her own lovely lovers, all Heather could see was a seemingly endless parade of masked men and women.

'Six guys and three gals,' she said aloud, chuckling. If she'd been there she'd have gone for six three in the other direction. But then she always had classed herself as "well on the lezzie side of bi".

Unlike Mare; Mare had always classed herself as "well on the nympho side of maniac".

Heather chuckled some more, distancing herself from her concerns as best she could. Dad still felt guilty about it but "selling out" to a monopoly of a construction company was the best thing he ever did. With one stroke of a pen he'd gone instantly from penniless farmer to the Six Million Dollar Man.

Except he hadn't walked away with a mere six million dollars, had he?

And now his banker daughter was in the process of buying Hunters Farm back.

Well, she was buying some of it back. A lot of land was already covered in identical matchbox houses but the dreaded recession had stopped the later phases, dead in their tracks. And the farmhouse was still standing. Okay, it had got dilapidated, but it would soon mend. And best of all, thanks to that awful yet wonderful recession, she'd been able to buy her select package for peanuts.

Maybe Gordon wasn't so bad after all.

Or maybe there was a God.

Heather had always loved the farm. As a child she'd been a proper little tomboy, shooting rabbits for the pot, climbing atop the highest trees and running farther and faster than any of the local boys. But, for her, leaving the place had been a massive leap in the right direction.

Leaving the place had given her an education and experiences she would never had got at Bingley Grammar School, good as it was.

Yes, under the old status quo she'd have done well but wouldn't have excelled. By leaving the farm she'd had new horizons opening all around her.

Getting a decent chunk of farm back (for next to nothing!) was just an indicator of her success.

Look at that beautiful house, folk would say as they passed. Who owns it, a millionaire?

A local girl made good, someone would reply. She bought back the old family home, made it better than ever.

Not that she was hoping to recreate the past. Dad had expressed admiration for her enterprise but no interest in making a return. And she had become a different person. Who wouldn't be after spending her adolescence in an all-female environment?

Bugger the available guys in the all-boys school next door. Where had they been in the early hours of the morning, when a girl really needed a friend?

*****

Fresh out of the shower Heather examined her naked self in a full-length mirror, liking what she saw. Tall, over five-ten, with a mane of long, jet-back hair that flowed down her back; a six-pack stomach and arms which were muscled yet shapely . . . and ditto for her legs; that wonderful all-over tan; eyes of a startling green.

Oh those eyes! They could enchant almost anyone without trying, and had done, on many occasions.

Girls mostly, but by no means exclusively . . .

Smiling to herself, knowing what she would find, she strolled back into her bedroom and retrieved her phone. The message from Mary Rose had arrived about quarter of an hour ago. It had an attachment and read: STILL THINKING ABOUT U.

Heather opened the attachment to find a video selfie. It showed Mare's hand between her parted legs, her fingers stroking down her hood, over her clit and into the mouth of her vagina.

She'd probably looped the recording. If she hadn't her timing was perfection. Musicians working with metronomes couldn't have matched it. Again and again, she went, again and again and again.

Not to be outdone, Heather took a selfie of her chest, holding the phone in her right hand and using her left to bring her nipples erect. Most of her body was perfectly proportioned but she had, by any standards, large nips. It didn't take much input to bring them up like thimbles. Two minutes later, well satisfied with the finished result, she sent her own message and attachment.

I'M THINKING ABOUT U 2.

Mare replied almost immediately: GET A LOAD OF THIS!

Her latest video had a soundtrack. She was using a blue dildo on herself. Heather could hear the loud liquid sounds as it went in and out, each in-stroke accompanied by an appreciative yelp.

Make that a yelp that Heather knew only too well.

Even at a quite vigorous pace Mare could last a long while. Heather got on the bed and quickly, quite expertly, brought herself to a peak. Then, tottering on the brink, not wanting to move one inch forward or back, she hit redial.

'Hello,' a husky, gaspy voice replied, 'Mary Rose Archer speaking.'

'It's me and you're making me cum,' Heather gasped back at her. 'Your tongue's inside me and I can't hold off any longer.'

And then, exaggerating a little but mostly authentic, she orgasmed as vocally as she could.

Legendary actresses couldn't have been more convincing. If that had been filmed she'd be on a plane any moment, bound for LA, Grauman's and concrete handprints.

It was Mare's turn not to be outdone. Using exceptionally vulgar language, she retold one of her better orgy stories, substituting Heather for a (presumably) Chinese guy with a big willy.

In the story Heather was presumably Chinese too. She was also performing miracles no ordinary guy could ever aspire to.

'So good,' Mare repeated endlessly, 'so, so good.'

Heather egged her on, ignoring her frequent swearwords, cunningly transforming a race to cum into a race not to cum. Needless to say, that was a race neither of them wanted to lose.

After aeons and aeons, by then snarling at each other over the phone, Heather's language almost but not quite as foul as Mare's, they called it a draw.

'On ten,' Heather groaned.

'No,' moaned Mare, 'we go on three. One . . .'

'Two . . .'

'Three!!'

And that was that; they had lift-off.

*****

Almost exactly four hours later, under cover of darkness, Tony paused in the solicitors' office. He was expert in getting into and out of places undetected and this latest had been no special challenge.

Not with his skills.

Hovering over the lawyer's desk Tony produced his mobile, his ears ever alert, all of his other senses on standby.

Nothing moved. Nothing breathed, not even a spider, waiting for its latest fly.

Back in the day Tony had fallen in with a bad lot. Older kids than him, they'd been very much into the smash and grab approach. He'd quickly distanced himself from them. Why go in with alarms blaring and the (admittedly remote) possibility of cops on their way?

Why not go in by stealth?

Why not target small items that wouldn't be missed for a while?

Why steal videos and CD players when antique jewellery was worth infinitely more?

But antique jewellery was not on the agenda tonight.

No, not here in this highfalutin solicitors' office.

Not when he'd been employed to photograph just one page of legal pad.

Chapter Eight

(Friday 4th June 2010)

Mary Rose hadn't seen Bruno since last Saturday, when she'd woken up in bed with him somewhere near Hyde Park. The view out of the window had been exceptionally spectacular.

If only she could remember how they'd got there!

Telling Hev that her memories had been "hazy" had been seriously understating the truth. Perhaps it'd been the regular top-ups of (drugged) vino, but the sexual activities got dimmer in her memory as the night went on. Quite frankly, she didn't know if she'd taken ten partners or twenty.

Or how many times, ways and means!

All she did know for sure was that she'd enjoyed every second and came awake with Bruno on and in her.

Happy days!

The place overlooking Hyde Park hadn't been explained. She'd asked, naturally, and Bruno had given her some crap about it being "a mate's pad". Then, sweaty and tousle-haired but still oozing sex, he'd asked if she was up for more of the same next week. Similar orgies happened, he assured her, every Friday without fail.

Being a good little lawyer, Mary Rose had checked her diary. As she'd feared, her firm had scheduled a client meeting for next Friday evening. And it was a three-line whip. The question of attendance was not to be debated.

Bruno accepted the position readily enough, particularly when she told him she guaranteed she'd be at the orgy the following week. In fact he'd come over all amorous again. And she'd accepted when he proposed "Friday lunch instead of Friday night".

Now here he was, twelve on the dot, outside in his Ferrari, half a dozen secretaries scrutinizing him out of their office windows.

'I'll be back at two,' she called to her PA (even though the girl already knew she'd been cleared for an extra hour).

Six secretaries audibly drew in breath, wondering exactly how she'd fill the next hundred and twenty minutes.

Wondering a little along the same lines herself, Mary Rose rode down in the lift and joined Bruno on the wide sidewalk, getting there shortly after one of the office block's security officers.

For once Bruno had parked in a slot rather than on double lines. Grinning broadly, clearly knowing he was over the waiting limit, he reached out and shook the officer's hand.

Mary Rose was convinced that a £20 note had just been successfully palmed.

So was the security officer. He vanished like a ghost before dawn.

'Hey,' Bruno said in greeting, 'Congrats about Monday, hell of a result.'

Mary Rose beamed at him. The judge had been more on side than she'd hoped in any of her wildest dreams. In fact the bastard DJ had been lucky to escape the death sentence.

Well, he'd escaped it so far. Maybe next time . . .