The EA

"I do to my girlfriend."

"Everything?"

"Pretty much."

She got very quiet.

I was blown away with the place. Totally. I told her up front I was going to be no help to her because the moment I saw the stack of high-end, sparkling condos ... without even looking inside, I was buying, here and now — in my dreams.

It took her a little longer, not much, a walk through the show home did it, bright, cheerful, ultra-efficient, biggish but with smallish rooms, she liked that. We went to the three units that were left. She chose the one that was the most private: her lawyer would see their lawyer.

Was she in a good mood on the way back to the office? No, but she did thank me for coming along; she appreciated my enthusiasm, the enthusiasm she didn't have. I wondered why.

I was looking for company first, note-taking ability second, sex third, unless sex was first which it wasn't with any of them — none of them gave any hint of that; all of them wanted the room. A fourth woman contacted me later that night after I had seen them all. I told her to come over immediately. She did and as soon as I saw her I knew she was the one. I liked her immediately, could see being friends with me, she assured me she took good notes, I could tell she'd be the type who would. When we were sipping wine she told me she had just broke up with her girlfriend. I asked her if she was interested in another. She looked at me with her very serious eyes, Chinese eyes, and smiled.

Gloria

It might not be the most appropriate time to think of this, sitting in front of a computer in granny panties, an electric vibrator teasing, but Gemma might just be the daughter I never had, I was inching towards that thought. She is intelligent, open, honest and modern ... as a daughter would be to an ageing mother. Call it freshness.

I could feel myself drawn to her. She could be anything, go anywhere; she seemed blissfully free of the shackles of convention that always bound me — her underwear on the floor, vibrator on the table, bra on the chair. There seemed not to be a hint of artifice or humility in her, just an unassuming confidence that she deserved to occupy her space every bit as much as the next person. At her age I had been cowering, covering up all my insecurities with faux bravado. Not her.

And not these days. I thought of what would have happened if I told a bunch of walkers about my husband, the philanderer, the drunk, the druggy ... dump him would have been the unanimous chorus, a chorus I should have heard years ago, decades ago.

Still, it isn't easy not caring about anything, anybody. Life becomes senseless, empty, hardly worth living. Thus the shock ... which I got in Chicago on Tuesday night.

Gemma

The meeting was short but seemed to have gone well, gone predictably, gone quickly. We had assumed our places in the elevator and were heading back up to our rooms when I said, trying to control my nerves (like at no time in my life), "I have no business doing this, but I've done it, or I'm prepared to do it — I've got everything lined up." The scowl almost made me bail but I sucked it up and pressed on. "You're going to say no to what I'm going to suggest, that will be your instinct but I don't think you should. And I don't think you should think about it, either, it's not one of those things you debate with yourself. You either do it and learn from it or you don't."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Her scowl was now mixed with confusion.

"I'll tell you in your room; we'll have to discuss it a little."

My legs felt like noddles as I followed her ... while all the time debating whether this wasn't utterly insane. But I kept my focus because I honestly thought she needed it ... needed to find out, and the timing was perfect — I'm an EA, I'm supposed to anticipate these things.

When we got inside I told her to have one of those, pointing to the tiny bottles of rye on the table. She hesitated but poured herself a short one, adding a little water then sat properly in a chair, looking up at me expectantly.

"Shock, right? This is that. This will shock you." I steeled all my courage and got on point. "I told them you are 42, attractive, newly separated ... innocent, inexperienced, shy ... I told them I wanted them to send over a woman for you to be with ... they want to know what kind of woman you want, they have a selection."

I was looking for shock, I got it. She froze, stunned and sat motionless for a full minute then drank from her glass, deeply. "Who gave you permission to do anything like that?"

"No one." I turned towards the door as if to flee but immediately turned back. "Nothing has to happen. You can just talk about it or you can test it out; you can do nothing or you can do everything — you can confront this part of you ... if there is this part of you, or you can ignore it, if it's there to be ignored. Either way, you can deal with it."

"And you think this is a part of me?"

"I have a bias. I think there is a little of this in all of us."

"In you?"

"In me, yes."

Her eyes were locked on mine, the scowl was in them, too. "Than why not you? Why make a phone call?"

I had thought of this but if I had it wrong my action would have been terminal ... to me. "The consequences," I said, trying to meet her force with my own. "The complications."

The scowl now trumped her confusion. "We deal with them."

I stood there stupidly.

She sat back further in her chair, her confidence suddenly fully returned. She crossed her legs and sipped her drink. "I have never done anything like this before. I would like to try it ... with you."

My legs felt like noddles again. "Have you thought of it?"

"That morning in your hotel room ... and since."

"What about the complications?"

"I need complications. I'm way too," she smiled, it was like a chink in her armour, "buttoned down."

Power, I knew I was finding power alluring, I could feel it in the boardrooms looking at the men; I was feeling it now. "Would you like dinner first?"

"No. Maybe another drink ... and you get one."

I went over to her fridge, took out a split of white wine, stood in front of her and twisted it open while digging inside for my assertiveness, I was going to need it. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm not," she said with some exasperation, "I'm frazzled ... I want to do this ... experiment, I never knew I did."

I filled a glass and sipped, taking my time. "Never ever thought about it?"

"Not consciously, no. But you see it in me? How? What are the signs?"

"There are no signs, just a feeling that it would be good for you ... to use the shock of your separation to try new things."

"So it isn't anything sexual?"

"A little, a feeling ... I felt it in the car when we were driving to the condo and today, after the meeting — you relax immediately after meetings. I called the agency this morning ... yellow pages. I wanted to see if it was doable. I thought it would be good for you."

"And now?" She smiled. "Now that you're involved, do you still think it would be good for me?"

I went over, sat on the bed, sipped my wine then put the glass on the table and lay down on my side. "I think you have a sexy mind, or could have."

She had to twist in her chair to look at me. "I haven't had a sexy thought in my entire life."

"I think it's there ... the boss-acolyte thing, is it on hold?"

She thought but just for a moment. "No, I want that, I have to be me, but there will be no recriminations, nothing like that. We deal with it."

I didn't need courage now, it felt like we were already heading down a slippery slope that was about to get more slippery. This was it. I patted the bedding in front of me. "Fill your drink, come here, sit, let me touch you."

The Ice Queen rose, cool, calm, deliberate — this version compliant. When she did as she was told I touched her back feeling her heat, feeling a shiver run through me. "I can feel your power; I can feel how you got where you are." This wasn't Brenda clawing at my clothes, this would be cautious, deliberate, explorative perhaps with bail-out points at every step of the way.

She tried to look back at me but couldn't. "You've done this before."

"I have a friend ... my roommate in college," I laughed at the memory. "A very needy friend. Only with her." I didn't tell her about my new roommate who may or may not work out, I just concentrated on my touch, bringing my fingers up under her jacket, feeling her silky blouse, almost hot to the touch, feeling her shiver, feeling her tension ... wondering if she would have the courage.

"I saw your vibrator on the table. You can add that to my shocks. Who keeps a vibrator on her bed-side table? Probably half the women in the country. I sucked up the courage the next morning to ask the consigliere where the nearest sex shop was and went there and got one like your's. I was a very quick convert: the first big change of the shock of my separation is to find out I'm a sexual woman, news to me and it sure would be news to Harold, may he rest in peace."

A jolt. "He died?"

She chuckled. "To me."

I had been slowly rubbing her back, just trying to connect, trying to judge her reaction. "I like touching you," I said. "It excites me to think of the complexities of our relationship in the future." I worked my hand around to her ribs and pulled at her, feeling her willing compliance, feeling her shifting over so she could lie down beside me on her back. I kissed her lips, a little kiss but I left my lips there and licked her's, something Brenda does to me a lot. She had both hands tight on my arm, perhaps to control me, perhaps in fear, perhaps to steady herself, I didn't know. "Stop me if you want." I could feel her squeeze my arm then the tip of her tongue touched mine and I thought I heard a moan then her fingers went into my hair and I could feel a flinch when my hand cupped her breast, then her tight body soften in surrender.

What did this say about me that I could do this with a woman 20 years older than me, a woman who might be attractive but who didn't attract me at all? Not her body, not at all but her power did and her vulnerability and the virginity of it — her need, all that excited me ... and it excited me that I had been right, that this would be alluring to her and it excited me most that I was playing with fire. I pulled my dress up and crawled on her forcing my leg between her thighs, pressing my knee hard into her crotch as I pressed my pussy hard against her ... the first bail out point.

Her moans were slight but her breathing hard and her right hand left my hair and gripped my back as she settled herself closer into me, pressing her pussy hard into my knee, pulling down on me so her chest was squashing into mine, her lips opening, her tongue timidly probing between my lips.

I could feel her almost melting into me now. "My God," she said as her eyes opened wide as if she had just seen something shocking. "I'm in a hurry but I don't want to be."

I smiled and kissed her reassuringly as I started in on her buttons, slowly, deliberately, treating each one as a bail-out point.

It was the fourth one, just below the yellow bra; both her hands gripping my arm, her eyes shut, head turning away. "Do you want me to stop?"

A long hesitation. "No."

"I could tie you up?" Brenda had done this to me when it first started with us. It helped a lot.

Her head turned, her eyes popped open and were riveted on mine, fear and curiosity in them. "Tie me up?"

"You would feel captured, submissive, totally vulnerable to me ... I would take your clothes off first, leave your underwear on, tie you up, have my way." I smiled down at her, an encouraging smile. "The powerful becomes powerless."

"Yes, yes," her decision was instantaneous. She struggled to sit up, taking her jacket off as she did, then she was dealing with her skirt, she was pushing as I was pulling.

It didn't take long. She seemed scared but cooperative. I used our panty hose to tie her spread eagled.

I got down to my underwear when I bent over her and whispered, "You don't want this. I broken into your house, caught you unawares. Tied you up. You are on your bed at home, you have no choice, your power is gone, I can do to you whatever I want. Do you understand?"

"Yes, yes." Already she was straining.

I knew what to do; I had been subjected to it enough: one girl in need, a girl into kink, and a me, safe with Brenda but afraid ... not of my safety but of my feelings; afraid of crossing a boundary into an unknown, not willingly, it could never happen willingly, especially for her, but ...

I straddled her thigh and slowly, very slowly so her understanding would be slow, started to hump, hump as I kissed, humped as I roughly grabbed her breast, pulling at her bra, a bra I was about to ruin.

Immediately, she was straining at her bindings as I always had with Brenda, straining and panting as I abused her body with mine, abused her mouth with mine, her breast with my grip: fucking with power. And then I moved up and was grinding my pussy into hers. Her moans were loud now ... they took me back to the moment when the realization dawns: I can do this, I want this, I need this. She was there, she was humping back, like I had with Brenda, kissing back, as I had, and surrendering to the emerging joy deep inside her, the coalescing of all the exquisite sensations ... but more than that: the mind demanding the body surrender yes, but the mind demanding that the body surrender to a woman. I felt her cry in my mouth when it all came together for her; I felt her body go from a bucking frenzy to a spent force leaving only a heaving chest and a gaping mouth.

She thought it was over. She was wrong.

The gentle touching is pleasant, I remembered that, the gentle tracings around the bra and the panties and the inner thigh as I kissed her gently and licked her lips, pressing my tongue against her teeth and my fingers crept under her panties.

You can recover quickly, I always had, she did too, at first with moans, then with straining, then the kissing came back. I whispered all the time now, as Brenda does, whispered encouraging words about her beauty and how it affected me, how much I liked to touch her and taste her and smell her, Brenda's words, but I understood them, used them and they got to her like they always got to me.

She was starting to pant when I did it, her pussy was rising up to seek my fingers. I went to the bathroom, broke a glass in the sink and brought a long shard of glass back and when I quickly cut at her panties her concern disappeared and her surrender was complete.

Brenda, the sensualist, had re-introduced me to the female body, showed me how to look at it, where it's secrets lay; showed me how it expressed itself, with its own language, separate from the mind; an involuntary language devoid of all deceit; a language of pleasure.

She was learning this language, learning it as my fingers went where Brenda's have gone on me. She reacted as I had, surrendering, succumbing. The bounds stayed tight until they were no longer necessary and I let her loose to stretch and strain and curl.

In the end she was sitting collapsed against me like a dependent child, my fingers still in her. She was whimpering as the last of the orgasms oozed out onto my fingers; whimpering as she held onto me and allowed her new reality to possess her.

We all react differently when we awake from our sexual swoon, Brenda taught me that. I become cool and remote she claims, feeling abused. Gloria would be all of that and more.

Much more. When she pushed away I could see her gathering her senses as she gathered the two pieces of her bra and the slashed and ripped panties. When she turned away I knew she had to be alone. The moment she disappeared into the bathroom I quickly dressed and left.

There was a note on my desk when I got into the office the next day. 'See me immediately. Dick Cremble' — the head of HR.

Ah, the complexities I was so looking forward to. They begin.

And they can be dealt with ... easily. Very easily.

My excellent 'record;' her extolling recommendation; my enrolment towards a Commerce degree — all evidence of my commitment to the company. I am on the fast track now, moved off the first wrung and out of the 34th floor; I'm on a high-speed elevator up, singled out, back patted, pay raised ... tuition covered. Congratulations. Your things have been moved to your new cubicle. Any questions?

No questions. A little dizzy but no questions. The Ice Queen hath spoken, complications have been dealt with ... as she said they would be.

But I got my complexity anyway.

The Asian girl had moved in by the time I had returned ... and moved out 33 days later — you have to be a lesbian to live with a lesbian, that was my conclusion. I would have to invest in the commitment, the jealousies, the life, all perfectly natural to her. I couldn't ... but I could with the guy who moved in, plus he didn't have to take notes, I wasn't going anywhere except on the way up.