Bridge with the Stauntons Ch. 02

The broad chested reprobate, of course, as I had rightly surmised he would, positively swelled. I noted the rotten glint in his rotten eyes as he digested what I'd just said. And then, prompted no doubt by the galaxy-sized ego I knew he possessed, he retorted, "And I would love to play with you, too, Judy my dear." (Yet another innuendo-worth of aircraft carrier slipped beneath the waves). Sophie was glaring at me as if I'd lost my sanity. But I was ready to pounce. And pounce I did!

"Right, that's decided," I said, at ninety miles an hour. "Mr Staunton and I are partners. Against Sophie and Mr Marone. As hostess I will take this seat, nearest the kitchen. Partner, you sit opposite. Sophie, why don't you sit on my right. Mr Marone, here on my left. Excellent. Fine. Right." I sat down. "High card to deal." I dealt.

I was positively tingling, I was so proud of myself. I had said it so firmly, so decisively, so quickly, that when I'd finished and pulled back my chair and sat down, and started to deal four cards to decide who would deal the first hand, EM and Sophie were already in theirs, and Staunton was left with no option but to pull out his chair and sit down. Way over there. Out of arms reach! Of me! So proud!

Elgar to deal.

Ten minutes later, or so, we were one game up -- playing rubber bridge -- when my partner opened one no trump. I responded two spades, showing strength, and length in spades. A little to my surprise he raised to three spades, (rather than three no trumps, which would have given us a painless game, and a two game rubber). I didn't think we had the points for a slam, and assumed he felt four spades was an easier game than three no trumps, so accordingly raised it to four. He nodded, approvingly. But when he laid down his cards (face up, the dummy hand for me to play,) it was clear that three no trumps was an easier contract than the four spades he'd left me in.

I glanced at him, but his eyes were down. He had pushed his chair back and his forehead was inches above dummy. His elbows were on his knees and his hands beneath the table. For a brief (alarming) moment I wondered if he could reach me from there? I eased my seat back, just in case. No contact made. I relaxed. EM had led a diamond. I played a high diamond from table. Sophie played low. I won the trick from table. Dummy's lead.

Four spades wasn't easy to make. I needed a finesse to work. But I played assuredly, confidently, keeping the whereabouts of all the cards in my mind as my parents had taught me. With eight cards played from my hand I was ready to spring the finesse. But Sophie kept holding us up. She knew how to play, but was not very good. Now she was taking an age. She was starting to play so slowly it was making it difficult for me to remember the cards. I glanced at her. Then stared.

I suddenly knew what her problem was. And why my partner had left me in spades. He wanted me to play the hand so that he could do other things with his. I stared at him. Sure enough, from his hunched posture and the angle he was sitting, (aimed towards Sophie,) and the way his shoulders dipped and weaved, it was clear he was playing with his PA beneath the table, in much the same way he had played with me the last time he was here.

No wonder the girl was distracted!

Her already shaky memory of what cards had been played, and what card she should play, and when, was being hopelessly confounded by what he was doing to her under the table. Her eyes were on her cards, but they were glazed. She clearly wasn't focussed on the game. Her mind was elsewhere. Suddenly she tensed and wrinkled her nose as if something had hurt her. Then her shoulders rose as her head sunk between them, yawed softly backward and she gasped, then caught herself. Sitting suddenly straight she glancing at me, sharply, guilt all over her face.

"I'm sorry," she stammered, eyes back on her cards.

"Take your time," I said softly, supportively. I knew what she was going through. I knew what it was like having this man's fingers toying with your sensitive parts. It wasn't easy. The glaze drifted back to her eyes. I let my own swing left, to EM. But his were on Sophie, his partner. He showed no sign of impatience. No sign of anything, really. Just watching her, it seemed. "No hurry," I said, studying my own cards before looking back at the girl. Our eyes met. She gave me a wan smile as if appreciating my concern for her. I returned her my most supportive look. 'Chin up. Be brave,' my look encouraged.

Her eyes dropped back to her cards. She swallowed. Her left hand lifted to her hair and she started to twirl some strands. All the while my partner's shoulders weaved and curled as he worked interference on the girl. She stretched her head, almost languidly around the cradle of her shoulders, as if it might help her return to earth -- from wherever Staunton's fingering was sending her. (I knew how distracting the damn man's hands could be.) But just as it seemed she might be reasserting some semblance of control, her shoulders shot round her ears and her face -- what a beauty she was -- voided of wrinkles and concern, angled to the ceiling as her eyes drifted closed. Eyes closed, lips open, face ceilingward ... she let out a low-pitched groan.

My eyes slipped left, then straight ahead, then back to her. I was concerned at this response. This unequivocal signal, for all of us to see, that all was not well with the girl. But the men's reaction was zero. Zilch. Not a flicker of concern from either one. As if the groan was expected. As if there was nothing surprising in something in this, even if it seemed like an overflowing of womanly emotion. Maybe even climax, of a sort.

Sophie recovered her wits at about the same time as she recovered a realisation of where she was -- and who else was here -- and what we were meant to be doing. Her hand dropped the tresses of her hair and suddenly pecked, like the beak of a bird, at the cards in her other hand. They grabbed the first one they found. Flipped it to the table. Her eyes, full of guilt, embarrassment, and mild alarm, swept past the men's and alighted on mine.

"That's a club, Sophie," I said to her softly, sympathetically, reaching out and touching her wrist. "You have to play a diamond."

With mumbled apologies the poor girl recovered her card, put it back in her hand, and hesitated some more. I turned my eyes on my partner. If he hadn't been Brian's boss, my expression would have been accusing. Maybe even damning. But he was Brian's boss. It was perhaps no surprise to find his eyes on me. As if this whole display was somehow in my honour.

He was leaning so far forward on his seat all I could see was the top of his shoulders, and his bull like head ... and his eyes on mine. His shoulders continued to move as if this was his way of informing me that his hands were in at work beneath the table. Working on his Personal Assistant's more personal parts. Informing me that he was arousing her just as he had, me. That he could, or so the subtext seemed to read, arouse anyone he desired, whenever he chose, such was his power.

I looked away.

Sophie played the seven of diamond. I took it with the nine. Leaving me the high card queen in dummy. The finesse had worked. Sophie gave a lurch in her chair and her neck snapped back and her face showed pain. (But not the nasty kind.) She groaned again. A deep down guttural sound: animal desperation. I laid my remaining cards face up on the table. "Four spades, made," I announced, conceding one last trick to the opposition. Winning the hand, and rubber. I quickly collected up the cards and pushed them at my partner. "You to shuffle," I said to my partner, intent on getting his hands back to where they belonged.

As Staunton straightened, and his hands came from under the table, I couldn't help noticing how his middle fingers glistened.

"Ladies break," I announced, pushing my chair back, reaching out a hand to Sophie.

Her face was suddenly suffused with a look of pure gratitude.

"Fill me in," I said, once I had her in my bathroom. "Sorry about the mess," I added, noticing her eyes take in the clutter of my stuff all over the marble counter.

Sophie shook her head, as if embarrassed to have noticed in the first place.

Girls clutter. I shrugged. "What's happening here?" I said, staring at the mirror as I automatically started to straighten my face.

She shrugged, starting to do the same.

Here we were, two young, prettily built and good looking ladies, making ourselves even more presentable -- dare I say, even more appetising -- than we already were, for two older men, neither of whom were our husbands.

Why were we doing this?

I stopped, and looked at my companion in the mirror.

"Sophie." I reached out and stopped her from continuing her work on her already damn near perfect looks. "What is happening here?"

She looked at me, then reached into her purse for lip gloss.

"Sophie," I interrupted, closing my hand over hers. "I need you to answer."

Her head and shoulders drooped. She stared at my hand, over hers. Then she disengaged her hand, turned from the mirror, put her pert little butt against the marble counter top, and stared at the towel in the rack on the opposite wall. She was chewing her lip.

"Sophie?" I pressed.

She stopped chewing, breathed in, then blew out long and slow, the way you fill a balloon.

"He's sometimes ... demanding," she said, and left it there.

"Go on."

"Well ... you know."

"I don't."

"I have a boyfriend," she said to the towels. "Weekends he knows is mine. My boyfriend and mine, I mean."

"Staunton?"

"Yes."

"So?" I queried.

"It includes Friday night. He knows that. We agreed." Still she seemed to be addressing the towels. "But I think, as I'm here, Mr Staunton feels I'm his tonight."

"What does that mean?"

She blew another long gasp of air, filling another balloon. Started to twiddle her hair. "Mondays," she said, gazing vacantly at her reflection in the mirror.

"Mondays," I repeated, without understanding a word she was saying.

She shook her head, found some focus and put it into her eyes, then caught my eye in the mirror. "I'm paid very well," she explained.

I waited. Nothing. "Well?" I asked. Then added, "So?"

She raised her eyebrows, and what may have been a condecending smile slipped over these lovely lips of hers. She had the most beautiful lips. Plump and full and gorgeously shaped. Expressive too. "How old are you, Judy?" she asked.

Not a question I'd expected. "Twenty two," I said.

"Two years younger than me. But so innocent."

What was that supposed to mean?

"Let me explain how it works," she said, gazing back at the towels. "I am paid as well as I am not merely because I am good at my job." Her eyes wandered down to the floor and looked at whatever she fount there. "But also because I look reasonably good."

"Sophie, you look spectacular," I had to correct her.

"Whatever," she said, unimpressed by the correction. "It is because I look reasonably good, or however you wish to describe it, and behave ... let us say, 'appropriately' ... that I command the salary I do." Her eyes left the floor. Met mine. "There are a lot of people out there who could do the job as well as me. Better than me, in fact. But few of them ..." she let it trail off to nothing.

"Look like you ... and behave, 'appropriately'" I said, astonished at what I was saying, and realising that in fact I had little right to be astonished, as I had done much the same thing!

"Yes." She left it at that. Her eyes went back to studying whatever it was she had found on the floor.

"Who is EM?" I asked.

The line of her lips tightened, then one side climbed, pushing the other side towards her chin. "Staunton's Uncle," she confided, eyes still on the floor, as if this was something she'd rather not share. Before I could tell her that didn't help, she went on, "He controls the money in the family. He is a financier. He is thinking about investing in the company."

"Staunton's company?"

"Yes."

"David mentioned an investment," I said. "Is this the guy?"

She nodded.

I looked at the floor to see if I could find what she found so compelling.

But couldn't.

"Does he want a piece of us too?" I asked, suddenly finding the blunt approach the only one that made sense -- as we seemed to be in this together.

"He likes to watch," she said, joining in my bluntness.

"How the hell do you know that?" I exploded, finding the bluntness embarrassing.

She shrugged.

Damn her! What did that explain! "Sophie!" I tried to keep my cool, but this was becoming absurd. "Your boss feels he can do what he likes with you because of the salary he pays you." I suddenly felt uncomfortable putting it like that. "Despite the fact it's Friday night, which it was agreed is yours." Even that didn't help a whole lot. "And now you have been ... (what the hell was the word) ... inveigled, into assisting him ... (was I right in this?) ... obtain the financing he needs for his expansion ... (the expansion David was talking about) ... by -- what? -- letting him watch you be pawed by your boss?" How absurd was that?

All she damn well did, was shrug.

"How absurd is that?" I demanded of the woman.

Her eyes lifted up from the floor and she turned, and looked in the mirror, and caught my eyes.

"I think he expects you to help," she said.

*

(The author would like to hear from any people out there who have experiences, or ideas, or fantasies that would make good erotic stories. Viewpoint: female perspective. Please contact me through my profile.)