Local Politics

Gina's is my favourite coffee shop. You can forget the franchises, this one is well-run and they actually deliver coffee to your table. The chairs are leather club chairs, the music is soft and calming and you can sit and read a book or paper or work on your laptop without being made to feel like you're a pain in the arse.

"Jake knows."

Valerie, who was sitting opposite me, looked great in a deep brown leather skirt and beige cashmere sweater, her thick, chestnut hair a little wild over her shoulders.

"What does he know?" I couldn't stop looking at the chestnut-brown shoe that dangled from her foot. It had a heel that made my nipples hard. Her long, beautiful shaped legs were crossed and I couldn't see the other shoe of the pair. It was an inspiring sight nonetheless.

"For fuck's sake, Cath" she hissed, "about us."

'"Be specific."

"He saw us at the fireworks party." Valerie, Val, is beautiful and incredibly talented. She's also tall, slim and happily married. Except when she isn't, happily married that is.

~


I first met her at a press conference she spoke at and at which she represented the Council Leader's office. It was a shitty conference because they were pretending to have listened to the views off the electorate regarding (and opposing) Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) when, in fact, the leader was determined to push them through and, I suspected, had even massaged the figures to suggest support was stronger than in fact it was.

Val was by far the most convincing speaker and, after the lie-fest was over I'd hung around hoping to get her alone. I had, and we talked briefly. I had offered to buy her coffee because, I said, I'd like to get the truth; not for publication but to educate me. She'd refused saying she had to get back to work so I gave her my card and said I'd like to talk to her, off the record, sometime.

"Maybe." With that she'd hurried away and I'd thought, oh well, maybe is better than 'fuck off.' Her call a couple of days later was most welcome and we met at Gina's. And, God, did she look good? Those legs were covered by well cut, high-waisted trousers, dark blue and with pleated front. The blouse beneath her cream blazer was grey and, I guessed, silk with a mandarin collar. That chestnut hair, wild and untamed as it was contrasted beautifully with the cream jacket. She had fine cheek bones and a tiny amount of eye makeup. Around her neck was a thin, gold chain. A gold ring on her wedding finger was the only disappointment.

I got the impression she was nervous at first. "We're not supposed to speak to the press. The press office does that."

"I just want to understand why, if the public living in the proposed LTNs are so strongly opposed to them, why is the Mayor's office pressing ahead with them?"

As if to a child, Val explained. I learned the more I got to know her that this was her natural way, almost as if she was explaining herself to herself as well as me.

"There are two bye-elections coming up." I nodded. "We, the leaders' staff believe his party will lose them, and if that's true, his majority is gone.. You promise not to print any of this?" I assured her I'd only print with her consent. "So, Ridley," the leader, "has done a deal with the Green Party. If they promise to maintain his majority no matter what the outcome of the elections might be, he'll guarantee the LTNs which are their big policy issue."

"So he cant fail to deliver and stay in power?"


"That's the threat. Personally, I think the Greens would support him anyway because otherwise they'd lose all influence and they are just as power hungry as all the rest."

We talked a lot more and then she said, suddenly, "Catherine, I'd really like a gin and tonic. Care to join me?"

We walked to a pub quite close by and I ordered. We sat at a table away from the bar and talked more. We talked about her marriage which was to Jake, a primary schoolteacher with an absence of ambition but who was great with their two children. We talked about my life, single, gay, more ambitious than her husband but determined not to leave our lovely city.

She reached across the table and pushed my hair behind my earner finger lingering. "You look better with your eyes more visible." A small frisson of excitement passed through me. Moving someone's hair like that is an incredible invasion of personal space; an intimacy.

"Do you fancy a drink at my place?" She nodded. I was pretty sure we both knew what I meant.

In the Uber, I saw her fiddling with her wedding ring, trying to take it off. "Leave it, it's who you are." Her hand dropped away and rested on my thigh. I turned a little and kissed her ear. She sighed. We arrived at my flat and there was no pretence of wanting more to drink. We kissed, hard, the minute I'd closed the door. I had to bend my neck back because she was at least four inches taller than I and her shoes had at least three inch heels where mine were trainers beneath my black jeans. I had a thick sweater on and her hands went under it and I felt her nails on my skin. I pressed into her and she bit my lower lip gently, pulling it away from my teeth a bit.

"Where's your bed?"

I led her to it and we stripped each other. We took our time, and, as each new bit of skin was revealed our lips touched it. Her jacket fell to the floor. I undid her blouse and found, delighted, that her breasts were bare so I bent to her nipples and kissed them, my hands on her back under the open blouse. I did the shoe dance, one shoe front holding the heel of the other as I slipped my foot out, then repeated. She kicked her shoes off. She heaved my jumper over my head, undid my bra and tackled my nipples.

"Fuck it," she said and, stepping back, undid her trousers and slipped them off, taking her panties with them. So I did the same until I was standing naked but for a par of white socks and we tumbled onto the bed. It wasn't slow, we devoured each other. She was prone on the bed and I lay beside her, our mouths joined and our hands exploring. I loved the gasp she gave when my fingers closed tightly, but not too tightly, around her nipple. My turn to gasp came when her hand moved between my legs, which spread invitingly so she could find my cunt. If anything it got more intense. She went down on me and licked me, her tongue pushing and caressing and I gripped that beautiful mane of hair, not too tightly, and wallowed in the sensations.

I cant tell you the exact order of things. I found myself between her legs, her knees raised and my mouth firmly on her, opening her, tasting her. Then we were mouth to mouth again, each of us with a hand between the other's legs and working into each other. I found myself on my front with her hair on my back and her tongue on my spine, down and down until she lifted my hips and licked my cunt from behind.

I wrestled myself on top and thrust my thigh between hers, clutching her face in both hands and kissing her as she pressed against my thigh. Her face was a picture of ecstasy as her orgasm came. She was almost silent until the peak, when she gave along, extended guttural exclamation, her eyes closed, her mouth wide.

My own climax came when she fingered me, her thumb on my clit and she kissed me. I'm usually noisy and this was no exception. My body stiffened and I arched as the fire passed through me. As so often with a great orgasm, I lay silent after, my eyes shut. I felt her body on top of me, her lips on my face.

"Noisy cow!" We both laughed.

That had been in Spring and over the next few months we met quite frequently, she told me things but I was ultra-careful to write up anything she told me in a way that ensured nobody could pin it on her. We fucked a few times too.

~

And now here we were in Gina's again, but Val was clearly worried.

"So what has he said to you?"

"He hasn't said anything, well, not to me."

"So how do you know he saw us?"

"His sister, Betty told me. That's how I met him. I was at University with his sister."

"Did you?"

"With Betty? No, no we were just mates. We still are but she is fucking angry with me."

~


I was invited to a firework party at the home of the Council's chief press officer.

The large, red brick house overlooked the famous bridge in our city. I arrived, it being a firework party, in wellington boots, heavy corduroy trousers and a thick sweater with a duffel coat on against the cold November evening. It seemed to me that Guy Fawkes' night was always the first really bitter day of the winter. The press officer's wife, Maggie, opened the door at my knock and smiled.

"You'll be a bit warm." I discovered that we were watching the display from a huge living room with floor to ceiling windows. Maggie explained that the Council had organise the display and for Health and Safety reasons, here she rolled her eyes, we would be indoors with the lights out and a professional was running the show outdoors. So, it was off with boots, coat and sweater beneath which I had a T shirt. "You might want to pull your trousers out of your socks?"

'Fuck," I said and Maggie laughed. "Nobody will give a damn. Come on through and we'll get you a drink. What would you like?"

"Do you have an embarrassment cocktail?"

"Drink two glasses of the punch and you wont feel any pain whatsoever."

I hadn't known Val would be there. She, like most of the women, wore a skirt and top and we smiled at each other across the room. I grabbed a big glass of punch, took a large swig and thought I might fall over. Perfect. I made my way through the group, saying hi to people I knew, sharing a laugh at my scruffy clothes until I found myself beside her.

"Where's Jake?"

"He's over there, with that group of men, talking about rugby and drinking far too much."

I squeezed her hand and then the lights went out. We stood side by side as the fireworks display started with huge bang that made some of the assembled worthies exclaim. There were the customary oohs and ahs as the entertainment proceeded and then at last, with a huge burst of colour in a cloud of sparks, the show ended. Lights were relit and the food was served. I circulated through the crowd, saying hello to people and drinking more punch; more than I ought anyway. People started to drift away and I decided to get my coat and go home. As I reached up to unhook the duffel, a hand stroked my arse. I turned and there was Val.

I was pulled into her arms and we kissed. It was firm and involved a bit of tongue but, for obvious reasons it couldn't last. I stepped away, pulling my coat on and asked if we could see each other soon. She nodded and with a brief hand squeeze, left.

Walking home, I remembered how she had tried to remove her wedding ring that first night and I wondered if it was something she did when she was being adulterous, was she often playing away from Jake? Who, I asked myself, cares?

~

"So why don't you tell him the truth?"


"That we're, what, having an affair? I couldn't."

"I didn't mean that. Why don't you tell him that I'm gay, that I was drunk and that I just went for it and you were a bit stunned and didn't know how to react immediately but gently put me down and told me to fuck off? It's almost true."

She thought about this. "Are you always this good at lying?"

"I'm a journalist."

She called me a couple of days later. She said she had raised the matter with Jake, explaining that Betty had told her what he'd said to her. He was, she said, a bit ashamed of himself for having doubted her and apologised which made her feel a bit wretched.

"Do you want us to stop?"

~

The Christmases I enjoy the most are those I spend alone. Since my parents moved to Singapore for Dad's work I couldn't join them and, since none of us cared that much about Christmas anyway it was fine. A quick FaceTime was more than enough.

I'd seen Val twice since the fireworks. Once was a meal out in a small country pub. We had travelled separately in taxis and we met in the warm bar with a huge log fire blazing in the hearth. Even muffled in a heavy coat her body looked great as she arrived and I felt the familiar stirring as she stripped it off and put it over a chair then gave me a hug and a happy kiss.

"How're things?" I asked.

"Fine. Jake's fine and seems to have forgotten the whole thing."

"And how do you feel?"

She looked at me intently. I poured her a glass from the bottle of red I'd bought while she seemed to collect her thoughts.

Then she started. She had, she said, wanted to come home with me after the fireworks. She knew she couldn't but being with me made her feel alive, more alive than ever she had since marrying.

"It's the sex," she said quietly. "I don't want to scare you into thinking I'm getting all romantic. Oh, that came out wrong. I do really, really like you but you make me feel attractive and wanted, physically and, well, Jake doesn't. Honestly, he never has."

"Have you had other lovers?"

I knew the answer when she fiddled with her wedding ring. She nodded. "Two."

"Don't tell me, it's none of my business."

"Do you have others?"

"No lovers. I see other women from time to time."

She leaned forward and a bit of her hair touched my face. "No lovers but you see other women? What do you mean?"

"I fuck when I want to. I'm not," I assumed a pompous tone, "romantically involved with anyone."

We both laughed.

"Am I just a fuck?"

Dangerous territory. "Being with you, having sex with you is utterly fabulous. A woman like me learns to take what she can, accept limitations, manage expectations. I don't normally get involved with married women but you are different. I'd never ask you to give me more than you can, more than you want to. I'd never deliberately put you under pressure. I love what we have and, so, no, you're not just a fuck." Her smile told me she was happy with that answer. If i'd told her the truth, that I thought I might be in love with her, well, all that would do would be to make it more difficult for her.

We had a lovely evening and she gave me some more insight into the machinations of the Council and, particularly, the unscrupulous nature of the leader, Ridley. Then she dropped a bombshell. "He's fucking the leader of the Greens, Melanie Butcher."

"Butcher!" You learn, at journalist school, to exclaim quietly. "She's a fucking bull dyke."

"I always wondered. Maybe she's the 'man' in the relationship?"

"Is this true?"


"Yes, it is. Councils are septic tanks. All the shit gets mixed up and stirred and everyone knows. What they don't know they make up. It's poisonous and they love it. Ridley's secretary is a friend. She told me."

"Can I work on it?"


"Of course. you've never revealed anything I've told you but I can, sometimes, see how I may have guided you."

We went home separately, she to her Jake and me to my bed and thoughts of her in it with me.

~

The second time before that Christmas that I saw Val was when she'd called me.

"He's taken the kids to see his parents. If you're not busy, could I come over?"

"I'd love that. Shall I cook or should I order a delivery."

We agreed on a Chinese delivery which I ordered and which arrived a short while before Val did. I put it in the over and waited, a glass of wine in my hand. She looked fabulous. It was one of those really sharply cold December evenings. The sky was cloudless and we went out onto my small balcony to take in the city's lights while we had a drink. She was in a long camel coat with a soft scarf around her neck. I could see the bottoms of black trouser legs over her well-heeled shoes. I'd pulled a Barbour over my dress against the cold and we stood, close, hand in hand, my head on her shoulder and sipped our wine and looked at the view.

'All hell's going to break out at work," she told me. "Ridley has decided he's going to fire Butcher."

"Wow, how do you know?"

Val worked in the Council Leader's office and, apparently, the chief aide had held a meeting with his team to discuss how to manage it. The news was going to be released in a couple of days time. "So there's enough time for you to write it up."

I looked at her. "You're telling me I can publish?"

"It's going to be a shit storm. Butcher doesn't know and, when she finds out, she'll fight like an alley cat. Every skeleton will come rattling out of the cupboard."


"But how can I write it without exposing you?"

She'd thought about that and, over the spare ribs and fried rice and probably the best char siu I'd ever had but, because of her revelations I barely tasted, she told me.

"I've got a friend, Barry, who works in Butcher's office. He detests her. She's a bully and a thug. Barry suspects that Ridley is going to fire her, there's been tension for a long time. I haven't told him what I know but I have listened to him. He told me that at a recent team meet, Butcher told her lot that Ridley was increasingly side-lining her and that she intended, in her words, to castrate the feeble bastard."

"Political loyalties are remarkable aren't they?"

"I think you should interview Butcher. She's looking for a chance to shaft Ridley.."


"I thought she'd already done that."

"Metaphorically in this case." Val put her fork down and reached across the table and held my hand. "Can we go to bed now?"

I stood up and we abandoned the table and made our way to my bedroom. There, we kissed, standing and swayed together, enjoying the proximity of our clothed bodies.

We undressed each other, slowly. She asked, "Where is it?" I knew what she meant and nodded at my bedside drawer. She opened it and took to the strapon harness I'd bought some years ago in a sex shop in Amsterdam. It was beautifully soft, black leather with a slender dildo fixed through the O ring. Smiling at me, she slipped the harness on.

"Do you have any lube?' I had a dumb moment. I put my finger to my cunt and showed her the glistening juice on it. "Not there, dopey."

I knelt on the bed as I extracted the lube from the drawer and handed it to her. What followed was the most intimate, delicate anal massage I have ever experienced. She worked slowly, massaging my perineum as well as my arse and slowly she introduced her fingers inside me. Not once did she touch my cunt. I was getting more and more aroused and when she told me to get ice down, arse up, I needed no second bidding. More massage and I was on the brink of shouting at her to get the fuck on with it when I felt the tip at my hole and she held it there momentarily, then pushed. I have never eased open so readily. Sh held it again, little way inside me and then, as she bent down over me, she slowly pushed more and deeper. Deeper until I could feel the harness against me. She stayed still except that she bent closer to me, her hair brushing over my shoulders and her breath against my ear.

"Ask me."

"Please, Val, fuck me."

"Ask me to fuck my bitch."

"Val, please, fuck your bitch."

"Who is my bitch?"

'I am, for fucks sake."

With a stinging slap on my buttock, she said, "Filthy mouth," but there was no anger in it and, as she delivered another stinging slap so she started to bugger me. She started slowly but built up to a fast, rough fucking interspersed with more slaps. She lent tighter over me and reached under, first to squeeze my nipples, hard, but then one hand went down to my cunt and she strummed my clit until, with a scream of ecstasy, I came. I roared into the pillow and she didn't stop. She continued to work my clit and fuck my arse until I almost had to beg her to stop, following a number of aftershocks.

As she pulled out of me, I rolled onto my back and watched her unstrap the harness and then straddle my face and press her cunt down onto my mouth. Delicious. I worked my tongue into her, my hands caressing her thighs and buttocks until she, with her mouth on my cunt, screamed into me.