Local Politics Ch. 05

"My guest tonight, the first guest in the Rant Room is a writer, dramatist and social commentator. She was brought up in the deep south of America, a childhood she describes as 'tense for a black kid.' She has written a great deal about her experiences as a child and says that, if she has a mission in life, it is to forget most of them. Carmen Jenkins, welcome to the Rant Room."

"Thank you, Catherine, it's great to be here."

"So tell us, what are you going to rant about?"

~

I first met Sally Watson at a gay journalist meeting in our fair city. I normally wouldn't go anywhere near a meeting described that way but my good friend, Rosie, told me that Sally would be there and that she reckoned we'd get on. Rosie is a close friend, occasional bed-mate and wise counsellor. So I went. It seems she had briefed Sally who made a beeline for me during the drinks reception after the meeting and embraced me and, to my slight consternation, kissed me. I knew who she was but, well, it seemed a little forward by any standards.

"Why fuck about? Rosie told me you're enjoyable and she is always right."

I mulled the word, 'enjoyable,'. "Is Rosie passing me around?"

"Shit, that came out all wrong, and, no, she's not passing you round, she meant you were great company! Foot well and truly in my mouth there, sorry."

You couldn't get mad with Sally. She was like a big puppy, full of energy and affection and I warmed to her immediately. I took a little longer, however, to get into her bed.

Sally has what Rosie calls the 'misery face.' She means she looks like she's sick of everything until she smiles when it transforms into a lively, happy countenance. Framed with mousy, quite short hair and with uneven teeth and a short neck she is not immediately appealing, despite a nice body and legs which she tends to dress in jeans and hoodies. A 'tom boy' as my mother would have described her.

My initial concerns dissipated and, over the next few weeks, I saw Sally for a beer a couple of times and grew very much to like her. She was quick-witted and amusing and clever. She ran a local radio channel and had a liking for output that challenged her audience.

She also had a penchant for sex, sex in all its lesbian varieties. "Men are great,C," she always called me C. "I actually prefer the company of men in social groups, just as long as they know it's social and ends there. I mean, they don't do the girly thing when the bill comes, 'I had this, you had that blah blah,' they talk about sport most of the time and most of them drink well." Well? "A lot, but without getting pissed." Ah.

The first time she fucked me, and that is all it was, she fucked me, I was visiting her flat over her studio for a drink and, after our second bottle of beer, she said, "You know, it's really time we fucked, darling," and took me there and then on her sofa. She'd worn a long, black T with, 'This way down' and an arrow pointing at her crotch, over faded blue jeans. The T came off to reveal large, firm breasts with dark pink nipples that were indicative of her state of arousal, not unlike my own. She pulled me to her and kissed me, hard and, without moving her mouth from mine, undressed me skilfully, demonstrating plenty of previous experience. Her hands wandered freely over my body and she sucked my tongue, held my nipples, and, finally, entered me, her fingers curling inside me.

Breaking the kiss, her fingers still busy, she entertained herself, licking and sucking my nipples. I was getting pretty worked up and she seemed to realise because she stoped, stood and peeled her jeans down, a glimpse of white panties at the crotch as they descended, revealing good, firm, shapely legs.

She straddled me and fed me her tits, pressing her cunt down on me while I sucked her nipples. Then she dismounted and sat on the sofa and spread her legs and, pulling me gently by my hair, guided me to kneel between her feet and feast on her. Wet, and slick, her cunt tasted divine. Her orgasm was a roar of delight and release, music to my ears.

My own followed shortly as I rode her thigh and kissed her, her fingers playing with my nipples.

~

It was a few weeks later that she invited me to host the Rant Room. I'd floated the idea as a possible programme format and she'd said she would think about it. It had never occurred to me she might invite me to host it. At first I resisted, having no experience of broadcasting but, well, Sally could be persuasive and, post orgasm, I am malleable.

And so, at 11pm that first night, I was hosting a 15 minute slot with Carmen Jenkins.

"I'm going," she said, "to rant about apologies."

And boy, did she?

"No matter what the perceived sin committed by any company, institution, political party or whatever, they seem to think an apology with atone for it. The Church apologises when a vicar abuses a child, a school likewise. A nation apologises for being involved in slavery and, lo and behold, it's fine?

"People claim they want an apology. But the truth is that, even if they get one, they will want more or they wont accept the apology given.

"Apologies are a waste of time and energy. Action is the only thing that makes a difference.

"The government, your government, apologises for health service failings. But, they don't DO anything. Anything, except throw more money down the same drain.

"I'm not knocking your country, merely using it as an example. Every country, with a couple of noticeable exceptions, apologises for something. Those that don't usually have a lot more to apologise for."

She continued in this vein for all of the remaining time of the programme.

I walked out of the studio, led Carmen to the hospitality room and poured us both a large brandy.

Sally burst in and hugged me. "Pour me one too." She turned to Carmen, hugged her as well and, doing her bouncy puppy routine, told her she'd been fantastic.

She kissed Carmen who seemed slightly put out if not actually appalled.

"She does that, Carmen," I said. "It's like shaking hands for her."

When Carmen had gone, Sally invited me up to her flat. It was more of a command than an invitation really. "Get that arse upstairs. I always get horny when things go well."

And I have to say she did not lie. The door of her flat closed, she pushed me hard against the wall and as her moth closed on mine, firm and intrusive, one hand massaged my breast while the other went up under my dark blue, full, leather skirt. Pulling my knickers aside she invaded me, two fingers curling firmly into me. I wasn't so much a participant as a sex object. No complaints there.

She almost dragged me to her bed and I sat down on it and watched as she undressed and then, to my intense delight, strapped on a lovely, blue, soft leather harness with a matching blue dildo dangling merrily from it.

I mentioned she is like a big puppy. Well, she fucked me like one, hands on the bed, feet on the floor and about a yard apart, she flipped my skirt up and, knowing I was well and truly wet, drove her girl-cock slowly and deliberately into me. It was the perfect length for me, because I really dislike anything banging into my cervix and this little beauty went all the way in without any contact. She held like that, her hips against my arse, before she started to rock back and forth, one hand gripping my hair, the other under me, rolling my nipple, which she had liberated from my pale blue silk blouse.

Her rhythm increased and she started to bite my neck and lick it and my ear. her hand released my hair and went under me to massage my clit and it was combination of that, the sheer animal lust and her breasts rubbing on my back that took me over the edge.

I was sated but Sally had only just got going and with a hasty rearrangement of our bodies, she prone, spread and unharnessed, I still dressed (if in disarray) with my head between her open thighs and her hand gripping my hair again she pulled me int her and whilst I needed no encouragement, she demanded I lick, nibble and suck. I did so until with a groan that started as a 'fuuuuuuuu,' growing by degrees from there, through, 'ohhhhh,' to 'yesssss,' and ultimately to a full blooded bellow accompanied by her body almost levitating us both of the bed, she flooded my face and came. It was a protracted orgasm, with perhaps three or more distinct elements and then little aftershocks as she descended from her high and I licked her clean.

As she lay recovering, I stood and started to tidy my clothes up.

"Where do you think you're going? Get those clothes off and get in to bed with me."

~

If Carmen Jenkins was a success, so too were the next few guests. One ranted about politicians who wouldn't resign when caught with their, as she put it, 'Hands in the till, or someone else's underwear. They abuse their positions and claim false expenses, they waste OUR money on foreign 'research' trips without a thought for the poor devils who have to pay their taxes. They are blatant and without shame."

The next was no celebrity but a guy who described himself as a 'normal husband, father and worker' from our city who was represented or rather misrepresented by people who had political agendas that had no relation to his needs.

The Rant Room was an amazingly popular invention. So much so that Sally wanted to make it longer but I resisted saying that it was the brevity that gave it immediacy. Contributors had to make their point quickly and marshal their facts. Sally accepted that but decided to move it to an earlier slot for more listeners to hear it.

Maraig (pronounced Mary) McAlister was a Scottish standup. I introduced her and asked her what she intended to rant about.

"Gay women like you." Before I could interject she was off and running. "See, women like you don't look gay which can be a challenge for women like me. So I want gay women to wear badges." Badges? "Aye, to make things clear. So you, for example, would wear a badge with 'G/F' meaning gay femme. I'd wear one with 'G/B' indicating gay butch." Maraig has a wicked smile and I knew this might get out of hand. "Then, I'd wear a badge of a different colour with 'G/F' on it to show I was looking for a gay femme. The different colours indicates what I am and what I am looking for. Get it?" I nodded. "There'd be badges for single, married, committed, and the whole range of different things we all want to know about someone when we're interested in her."

"What about trans women?"

"Let's not go down that rabbit hole. But lesbians like you need to advertise unless you're inclined to say, 'Hi, I'm a gay femme,' and give us dim dykes a heads up.'

Once more in the hospitality room, Maraig and I opened a bottle of Scotch (appropriate) and I poured a couple of large ones, then a third as Sally burst in, doing her untrained labrador impression.

"Great stuff, girls." Sally kissed us both and then turned to me. "Isn't Maraig just the perfect dyke?"

The perfect dyke, I thought to myself, and remembered telling Rosie she was 'dyke perfection.

I should tell you something at this point. Rosie, I think I have explained, was a determined singleton, free to be promiscuous and adventurous. I was happy with that except when I wasn't. You see the truth is that if I had ever thought about committing to someone, it was to Rosie. Val, mentioned early on in this saga and married to Jake was a fabulous friend and lover but, well, she was married and I could not see that ending, anymore than I could see myself committing to a bisexual woman. Nothing against them, but eventually they are going to want a real cock and, all too often, want me to try one too. And I was well past that.

I'd never tell Rosie how I felt about her. I suspect she'd have run a mile or would be sad because she knew I was keen and always going to be disappointed. So I remained silent and took what Rosie had to offer when she chose to.

~

"Are you still with us," Sally asked. "You seem away with the fairies."

"Sorry, I'm a bit preoccupied." I drank my Scotch, thanked Maraig again and said my goodbyes. Sally wanted a 3some, I think, so looked a bit pissed off but I wandered out and into the dark of the night.

I went to a pub called the Harbour Master's Office. It's known for late drinking and women like me. More importantly, it was a spot Rosie liked. If she'd have been anywhere, it was there. But, predictably, she wasn't. Two goth girls about middle twenties invited me to join them in the loo and I declined thinking it was a long time since I'd been prepared to have sex in a pub toilet. They didn't say anything but moved away and were soon to be seen walking, hand in hand with another 'older' woman in the direction of the toilets.

Dispirited and a bit sad, I went home, got even more drunk and went to bed.

~

I was dragged to wakefulness by the indecently loud ringing of my 'phone which made it clear how bad my hangover was. The 'phone told me it was Val calling.

"What's so urgent you wake me up at this hour?" If I sounded cross it was because I was.

"It's gone 11, Cath."

"Oh, is it?"


"Bit of a bender last night?"

"You could say that, sorry."


"Cath, it's Jake."

"What is?"

"He's been having an affair." Oh fuck. "With his secretary, the one he travels with." Double fuck.

"Come over and I'll cook us something and you can get it all out."

She arrived, as arranged, at 6 which had given me time to medicate my hangover and buy something at the supermarket that almost looked as if I had cooked it myself. It was ready, in a casserole, to be put in the oven and the packaging was hidden in the bottom of the bin. I'd showered, covered the black rings and swollen flesh of my eyes and put on a red shirt waister dress.

Val looked ok for someone who had just discovered she had a complete bastard for a husband. I'd always suspected it. So we drank wine, well, she did, I stuck to fizzy water for a while, and talked. I moved onto whisky when she started crying. It almost made me glad that Rosie would never be able to hurt me as Jake had hurt her.

"Why don't you throw him out?"

"Because the house is his." They had never changed the ownership of the property since he owned it before she moved in. No, there was no pre-nup. Thank fuck she had never put her salary into a joint account so she had access to her own money, but she had few savings and certainly not enough for the deposit on a house.

So, I asked, what was she going to do? She thought she'd have to leave her job and go back to somewhere ghastly where her parents lived, Orpington I think, and try and get a job there.

And so it was that Val moved in with me. My second bedroom was also my home office and it took a load of shifting to make it suitable for her by the time she returned the following afternoon with a suitcase and some loose stuff in her car which I helped her get up to the flat. I'd said she needed a room of her own, even if we would sleep together and she agreed and when I saw how much she'd brought I was glad I had.

Everything somehow fitted into her room and we went out to eat because we were both too knackered to cook.

"We can set the rules over dinner," said Val. Rules? What rules? "You still need to live your life so you'll want privacy and so on, we can work that out."

A good Italian meal inside us along with a bottle of Chianti, obviously, we returned home.

"I need a bath," I said. For me the steamy warmth of a bathroom is the most relaxing environment at times of need. I stripped off and reclined luxuriously in the hot water. The sight of her chestnut hair appearing around the bathroom door was made even better by the fact she was naked and carrying two glasses of brandy. I had a shelf along the side of the bath that I called the cocktail shelf for just such an eventuality.

"Room for a small one?"

"So much for privacy!" I smiled as I beckoned her in to join me.

The taps were to the side of the bath and the tub was pretty capacious so it accommodated us both easily. We lay there, chatting amicably and drinking the brandy. Her foot found my cunt and mine found hers which somehow made conversation difficult but we managed for a while. Then we got out, dried each other off and moved quickly to my bedroom.

We didn't have sex though. We held each other for a while, talked a little and drifted off to sleep. Somehow though, I knew something was missing and after a while, a few days, I realised what it was. It was risk. Val loved being unfaithful but only, she had once said, with me and definitely not a man. That, she said, would be unforgivable. So I wondered if Jake had been over the side with a man if she'd have been fine about it.

Living together was fine but without the excitement and jeopardy, Val grew less dominant and more remote.

~

"So, you have a live-in lover now?"

It was Friday evening. Rosie and I were sitting at a table in the hole in the wall pub she liked near her office. She was in her work clothes since it was about 7 and she'd been working until I called her.

"I have Val living with me." I told her the story.

"How is that going?"

So I told her. Sex was rare and dull, she missed Jake, she paid her way and was a good cook. "I like her a lot, Rosie, but she's not the Val she was."

"She probably liked being unfaithful. So now it's just, well, normal. No excitement, no danger." Which is, of course, precisely what I thought. "You like danger too, do't you?" As she said this, her hand rested on my thigh and she rucked my skirt up a little. "Do you sleep together every night?"

"No, just now and then."

Her hand stroked the skin of my thigh. "Sleeping with the same woman every night would be so boring." Her nails raked my skin. "Come home with me."

I nodded. In that moment, I wanted her to hurt me, to make me cry. I couldn't express it so didn't try. But maybe Rosie knew. She always seemed to know.

We got to her home and she led me by the hand to her sitting room. A large mirror, oval and with a mahogany frame hung over the unlit fireplace. She stood me facing it while she stood behind me. She kissed my neck softly. My neck is one of my real buttons and she knew it. She sucked my earlobe and her hands cupped my tits. She undid my blouse, opening it to reveal to both of us my bare breasts, the nipples hard, almost straining.

One hand held my nipple between her fingertips, between her nails and she squeezed. She'd used clamps once before and I'd relished the exquisite pain but this was more personal as she varied the intensity of the squeeze, licking my neck and watching my eyes in the mirror.

Rosie had a real talent for getting my clothes off and I barely noticed as my skirt slid down my legs, my knickers following as far as my knees. Then, as she bit my neck softly, and squeezed my nipple harder, she slapped my arse, hard.

"You want this, don't you?" I nodded. "You have to say it."

"I want it, Rosie."

She slapped it again and smiled at me. Her reflection held my focus. "Say, please."

"Please Rosie."

She suddenly gripped my hair, really tightly and took me to the chair, my knickers impeding my legs as I tried to walk. My scalp hurt, my nipples hurt and my cunt was so, so wet and when she put her hand between my legs and cupped me she smiled. She bent me over the back of the sofa and, standing where I could see, she slowly stripped off. She knelt on the sofa so her cunt was right in front of my face and, gripping my hair again, she pulled my face to her.

"I'm wet too. Exciting, isn't it?"

For obvious reasons I couldn't answer but, yes, it was exciting. As I licked her, she slapped my arse again but harder. The little yelps she elicited from me seemed to ct like a vibrator on her clit and she was gasping with pleasure. I was disappointed when she climbed off the sofa and came behind me and stroked my arse before giving it a mighty slap that took my breath away.