A Night in Brighton

So it transpired, in late November, after we heard that Richard and both of his brothers were spending the coming weekend in Liverpool to see a big money boxing match, that Frieda was quite surprised when we were left alone again, and that this time I whispered that I would like to take her to Brighton the following Friday. She lifted an elegant eyebrow in surprise, before she smiled and asked, "when and where do we meet?"

"Indeed," Frieda continued our conversation in our Brighton suite, "I have suffered from his temper before and now I fear he is no longer in love with me."

"How have you suffered? And why do you feel unloved? When I am dining with you and Richard, he is quite attentive to you," I said.

"He slaps me around, punches me where it won't show, unpleasant but survivable. I think he has to show others that I am his when we are in company, although when we are alone I feel he is no longer mine, inattentive and distracted, particularly these last few days, and he disappears at all hours of the night."

I nod, after all she lives with him and knows him well, I do not.

"Bathe or shower and change as you will, but we need to be at our table by seven sharp. I know a lot of the places you eat in the East and West Ends are supplied by the black market, but this hotel complies with the rules of rationing and it's a set three-course meal and served in one sitting at seven."

She put on a brief pout, but then smiled her brilliant smile.

"Well, we do have all the rest of the night, don't we?"

"Yes, Frieda, we do, dancing until midnight, but we have to be up early to catch the boat to France at the Pier. I brought my travel alarm clock, set for half-past five."

"Half-five! I need my beauty sleep!"

"Just think, Caron, Coty, Chanel...."

"Half-five, can we order coffee, black, for five-thirty-five?"

"I've brought my favourite coffee with me and handed it to the Concierge as we arrived. It's still in short supply and the quality varies so much. They will have plenty over to enjoy a few pots themselves with my compliments after we have our early morning beverage."

"All right, I'll change in the bedroom and be ready in ten minutes."

I changed in the sitting room of the suite having bathed at home before I left. I had a new dinner jacket, again from my tailor, so that I would feel dressed differently to our shared meals with her husband. She noticed and complimented me. I would have taken bets she wouldn't have noticed, but it both made me feel good about tonight and bad, too. Until now, I had never knowingly slept with a married woman. As for my own marriage, that was over thirteen years ago and I wouldn't recognise Janice now even if I partnered her in a 'Gentleman's Excuse Me' tonight.

She looked stunning in her yellow silk evening dress that left little to the imagination. It made her pale skin even more translucent and her dark hair darker and more lustrous. Her eye shadow made her eyes look bigger, somehow more innocent and in need of protection, and, in her red glossy lipstick she could have been a Hollywood film star. Funnily enough, her fragrance I recognised as N'Aimez Que Moi, one that my mother always wore and somehow this softened my ardour and made me feel a little warmer towards her as a person rather than simply an object of desire.

The meal was all right, edible, but couldn't hold a candle to her normal evening meal cooked and served by her own staff. But we enjoyed each other's company, speaking in whispers over our meal and single glass of wine. Frieda told me she was married in Berlin just before the war when she was 19, to her childhood sweetheart, so she was older than I thought at 32, nine years my junior. She was from a middle class family and had worked as an English language teacher during the war, which was why her English was so good. Her husband died on the Russian Front in 1943. When the war ended, she was trapped in the American Sector and her parents were shut up in the Russian. Long before the end of the war the Berlin colleges closed and there was no money or appetite to reopen them immediately after the war. She worked for American Intelligence for a while as a translator but when the Russian grip on East Germany intensified, the Americans found out she had close family living in East Berlin and could no longer work for them as she was considered a security risk.

"To stay in my tiny flat I had to sleep with my landlord," she looked at me, waiting for censure.

"I know a little of your history, Frieda," I whispered back, "go on." Yes, I knew her history. Unable to avoid links with the East End thugs, I had to be particularly careful with the Williamson family, who were active in backstreet prostitution, pornography and racketeering as well as illegal off-course bookies. At the time I had little choice but deal with them. At one time in the late forties I was smuggling in young girls from countries even worse off than we were, like Germans, Italians and Greek girls for Williamson's brothels, some of them being quite classy West End "gentlemen's clubs".

She smiled wanly.

"And then, when he tired of me, he sent me out onto the streets to earn money for him. I was arrested a couple of times for prostitution and then it was the Police who sold me to the first whore house, who sold me on to another a few months later, and then I ended up in a false floor in the floor of a van loaded with other goods and released into the slavery of another whore house in London. Richard seemed to be a regular nightly customer; I didn't realise he was actually the owner until he decided to take me out of the brothel and install me in his flat."

Then she giggled.

"Why is that funny?" I asked.

"Well, Richard's Mother's a bossy Northerner with a really funny accent and quite straight laced, even if she is married to an East End London gangster and murderer, as are her offspring. She didn't realise that I was a prostitute, and Richard couldn't tell her that he had bought me, owned me. The old dear thought I was a nice girl, but living in sin with her son and she insisted to Richard that we get married immediately and make an honest woman of me. I think she was hoping for grandchildren. So we married in a registry office with forged papers for me as a Dutch woman."

"I know, I got the papers for him, I know a dodgy but very skilful printer in Hackney Borough, prints all sorts of things, including American dollars, on his night shift, while his day staff are in ignorance of what he does."

Once we had dined on what was fairly average food for most of Britain still under food rationing, seven years after the war ended, we danced. In her high heels she was exactly the same height as me so we could look into each other's eyes all night as we danced. Frieda moved like a dream, whether it was old-time, waltzes or swing and, with a long slit up one leg, flashed me her shapely leg all the way up to her stocking top. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see other men trying to bribe the band to play an 'Excuse Me' without them taking the bribe, but I'd already paid the band double their night's wages not to.

By 11 the bar closed and at midnight the band stopped playing and we retired to our suite. We clung together in the lift, in part exhaustion and part passion, as Frieda had insisted on only one glass of wine with her meal and one glass of champagne after, and shared the rest of the bottle with the diners at the tables either side of us.

We entered the bedroom and Frieda immediately flopped on the bed. I was the sensible one and turned out the lights in the sitting room, and turned on one of the bedroom side lights and turned off the stark overhead light. It was a lot easier on our tired eyes. I removed my dinner jacket and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling my bow tie undone and loosening the top buttons on my shirt. I removed my cuff links and put them in the clean ash tray on the bedside table on the right hand side of the bed. Where Frieda flopped was clearly favouring the left side, nearest the bathroom. She could have it, I didn't mind what side I slept. As I dropped my second cuff link I felt a slender hand on my shoulder.

"Unzip me, please?" Frieda said.

She stood up at the bottom of the bed and turned her back to me. I stood and walked around the bed and unfastened the zip, down to the top of the groove of her lovely rounded bum.

"Thank you," she said quietly and pushed the dress off both shoulders and let it drop to the floor, leaving her with long gloves, tiny panties, white suspenders and white stockings and still wearing her high heels. She pulled off the heels, turned to face me with her arms folded across her bare breasts and put her right leg on the bed.

"Would you like to help me take off my stockings?" she asked, with a seductive smile, inserting an index finger between her lips and biting it, while keeping her elbow over her nipple.

"Of course," I replied, the perfect gentleman. I unclasped the front two then the one behind and started to roll the stockings carefully down her thigh, past the knee. When I got to her ankle she lifted it so I could slip the stocking past her heel, then she pressed down her heel and lifted her toe so I could remove the stocking completely.

"Be a dear and place it over the back of that chair for me, would you, Jack?"

"Of course." By the time I turned around she had the other leg up on the bed and we repeated the same ritual. This time, instead of looking at what I was doing, I looked her in the eye. She looked straight back at me with a Mona Lisa smile on her ruby lips. I turned to hook the other stocking over the chair next to the first, hearing a rustle behind me and by the time I turned she was in bed with the sheets pulled up to her chin.

"Aren't you going to help me with my shirt buttons?" I asked, as I picked up her dress to hang over the chair.

"As a grown man, do you really need help with your buttons, Jack?" she replied coyly.

"I helped you with yours...."

"Are you comparing poor helpless little me with a big strong boy like you, Jack?"

"You're right, Frieda, there's absolutely no comparison."

"That's good thinking, Jack, that's why I like you and why I'd like to watch you undress."

"I might go and clean my teeth first," I suggested.

"What? And risk getting toothpaste or tooth powder on that lovely shirt, or on your nice snuggly fitted trousers?" she countered.

"No," I agreed, "I wouldn't want to spoil anything at all tonight," and started slowly undoing the buttons on my shirt, with Frieda watching my every move, her broad smile above the sheets, her eyes sparkling with amusement. I pulled the shirt out of my trousers and peeled it off, turned my back and hung it over the back of the same chair as her stockings and dress.

"Nice body," Frieda said quietly, "do you exercise regularly?"

"I go to a boxing gym for three or four hours a week, mostly skipping, a little shadow boxing and bag work, and some sparing."

"You don't have cauliflower ears or a busted nose," she observed.

"I try not to get hit, and Jimmy, the owner, makes sure we amateurs wear head gear in the ring. I like to join in because the good boxers need the ring practice and a dozen rounds with twelve different enthusiastic and fresh boxers gives them a good workout and teaches them to expect the unexpected."

"So, you exercise for fun?"

"Yes," I agreed as I unbuttoned my trousers, Jermyn Street do like to stick to their traditions, and removed my trousers, "if it wasn't fun, I might not go so regularly." I held the bottom of the trousers under my chin, to help fold them along the creases, and hung those over the chair on top of my shirt, too. Then I took off my socks and suspenders, made from 60% nylon for stretching comfort and harder wearing than plain cotton.

"Nice white briefs," she commented, her voice on the edge of another giggle.

"We call them y-fronts here ... I don't mind these getting toothpaste on," I said as I walked to the bathroom.

"Spoilsport!" she called after me.

After cleaning my teeth I emerged and said, "Now it's your turn."

I pulled up the bedclothes on my side of the bed and slipped inside the bed, while she slipped off to the bathroom. I followed her by eye all the way, her body was very slim but still had enough feminine curves to make it more than just interesting.

"Nice white panties," I called out, "if you need any help...."

"I'll know who to call," she half-turned, her right arm across her chest, "what about your briefs?"

"Just slipping them off now," I said, "they'd suddenly shrunk and were getting painfully tighter and tighter."

She laughed, "I'll just hold that thought in mind. Next time, if there is a next time, wear shorts for comfort."

"But shorts ride up when dancing, very uncomfortable."

"You could always underdress, like a 'Piccadilly Commando'," she giggled.

"And how's that?"

"I'll tell you later," as, just for a moment, with the much brighter bathroom light on behind her, she spread her arms across the door and the door jamb, as she slowly closed the bathroom door. All I could see was her silhouette, but she presented a very nice shape indeed to my fertile imagination.

Lying in the bed I could smell her perfume and her own natural musk from the exertion of dancing. She definitely didn't smell anything like my mother any more.

I thought about all the dancing we enjoyed. She said Richard didn't dance at all and didn't let her dance with anyone either, so on this night of freedom we danced a lot, for most of the four hours available to us. A couple of times, when we were sitting a dance out, and once when I went to the toilet, she would be approached by single men to dance, but she turned them all down as she was there, she said, with "her husband". She still wore her full wedding and engagement ring set and an expensive diamond necklace. We had spoken during and between dancing about regrets, about her life and lack of children. Richard didn't want any, she said, so they used condoms all the time, which led to speak of her lack of choices and admitted to her anxiety over what we were here for tonight and the consequences of making a mistake.

xxxXxxx

"What do you think I am doing here, Jack?" She had asked earlier during a gentle waltz, "Why are you here with me when you had rejected me before?" and "Where do we go from here, Jack?"

And there was little substance in my replies too, "Opportunities, for you or for me perhaps. As for where you and I go, I travel as light as your overnight case and haven't had a settled life for years. Ever since the war I have remained baseless, living in hotels, flats or more recently houses rented by the week. I keep cash in various safe deposit boxes around the city and suburbs with the bare minimum in known bank accounts."

"Minimising your risks?"

"Minimising risks would mean never doing anything. I get offers in my line of business all the time, but I am not compulsive, and I really have to weigh up the risks of each opportunity and consider that I may be saddled with an item too hot to hold and cannot shift as quickly as I'd like."

"Am I an item that you cannot shift?" she had asked as we danced, both physically and literally around our present situation.

"I don't think so, but at your flat, with Richard saying he was coming back in hours or minutes, who knew when that would be? It could've been a problem."

"But tonight you think we can be free of problems?"

"Not necessarily, we still have to be careful," I had said and she had nodded.

"Do you have someone at home that you have to be careful about, Jack?"

"No, I don't have any woman in my life. Ever since the war I've remained free of ties. I was married to a girl called Janice Evans back in '35 and we'd rented a three-bed semi-detached in Beckenham by '39 when I voluntarily enlisted, but she'd disappeared with everything in our bank account by the time I was home on leave after my first six weeks' basic training. All her clothes and stuff gone. I never heard from her again. Fortunately, we never started that family we had talked about having."

I didn't tell Frieda that although I didn't like using working girls for my pleasure much, every couple of months or so I felt I needed to relieve the pressure.

xxxXxxx

I could see the light was off in the bathroom and the door opened. As she scooted across the room I turned out the bedside light.

"Brrr! It's cold," she shivered next to me, her right side touching my left. "The heating's gone off."

"Let me put my arms around you, warm you up," I said, and we cuddled.

"Can we kiss?" she asked. "That was a lovely kiss we had during the last waltz when the lights went down."

I remembered that kiss and the shorter one in the lift. It was a very slow waltz, everybody was up out of their seats for it, the last dance, perhaps our last dance, holding her close to me, feeling her heat against my torso, the lights dropped as low as they went. I just forgot myself and pressed my lips against hers and she responded with growing passion. I think we stopped dancing as we kissed until the music stopped and the lights lifted. We separated and applauded the band and thanked each other for the dance before we joined the evacuating throng.

In bed we kissed and kissed, holding on to each other as if our lives depended on it, and under the circumstances of our tryst, perhaps they did. Eventually, my lips explored her throat, her neck, her chest and firm breasts, her hot, hard nipples, her moans urging me on to explore her deeper. Her softly rounded belly was covered in my kisses and I worked down to her springy, downy fur, a mass of dark curls just discernible in the street lights, driven on by the enticing musk of her sex. Never, since Janice, had I licked a woman's cunt, I hadn't wanted to for a long time, but with Frieda, I couldn't resist, and I simply couldn't get enough of her essence. Her moans were my reward as I licked her lips as her sex opened like a flower and I lathed her, nub to taint and back again, delving with my tongue tip in search for nectar. I lapped as furiously as I could and, just as my tongue reached the end of its endurance, Frieda's back arched, her thighs crushed my head setting my ears ringing, her hands clenched my hair and tried to drag me into her hot centre. Then, suddenly, she collapsed, her legs sagged and she fainted dead away.

Frieda was laid on her back, as limp as a pan of overboiled greens, her mouth open. She was still breathing, emanating a feint snoring, reminiscent of a babbling brook bubbling over smooth pebbles.

I laid on my back and pulled the covers over us, our hot sweat chilling on our bodies in the cold room. I was wide awake, remembering the risks weighed, the discussion agreed and decisions made. I laid there until I heard her snuffle and her breathing changed. I felt the bed move and sensed rather than saw her looking at me.

"Did I?...." she asked.

"I must've bored you," I replied softly.

"No, no-one ever...."

Then she grasped my cock with a warm hand. I was as hard as iron and had been for a while. Next she was under the sheets and licking and sucking me for all she was worth. She licked around my little head, while jacking me off, just like Janice used to. But then Frieda did something incredible, somehow she swallowed me completely, all the way down until her nose hit my pubes, sucking and licking me all the way down and all the way up again, releasing her hand to massage my balls until I was ready to explode. But then she'd ease off, relax, taking me a notch away from coming, and then running me through the gauntlet again of imminent release and relaxing, over and over.

"Please, Frieda, this is wonderful, but it's absolute torture, please let me come, please."