The Third Daughter Ch. 01

I went to the bar that I usually frequented on a Friday evening. It was, as it proclaimed loudly from a blackboard outside, gay friendly, but it wasn't one of those that encouraged overt exhibition, and its clientele was nearer to my age than others in the city.

Denise, owner as well as barkeep this evening, asked me. "What's your poison, sweetheart?" She called everyone sweetheart but kept her actual affection for a woman called Glen who worked for her. Glen was a mousey looking woman but, according to Denise, she was as 'hot as all fuck' in bed. Lucky Denise. I asked for Merlot. "Sorry, sweetheart, no Merlot."

"Sure, there is. Right behind you." I turned towards the voice and there was a woman, sitting at the end of the bar. I hadn't noticed her until that moment. She was, I guessed, pretty tall, and she had long, black hair that fell to her mid back. Black eyes, her clothes were dark, a dress of velvet in a mix of deep red and black. I couldn't see her feet. When, I asked myself, had she come in?

Denise looked a tiny bit exasperated. As she turned to the shelf, she started to say, "I used the last..." but stopped and picked up an unopened bottle of Merlot. "I must be getting old," she said, shaking her head. Pouring me a drink, Denise kept shaking her head and muttering to herself, "I know I finished the last bottle."

I raised my glass to the woman who'd spotted the bottle. "Thanks for being observant. Can I buy you a drink?"

"That'd be nice, thanks, Maggie."

"Have we met?"

"Don't think so."

"So, how do you know my name?"

"Could I have Merlot too, please?"

"Er, sure, yes." Denise poured another glass and I carried it along the bar to the woman. "How do you know my name?"

"I don't know, I must have overheard someone calling you that."

"I haven't seen you here before. What's your name?"

"Clemency." She took the glass from my hand. "Thanks. I like your dress."

I'd changed at work as I usually do if I am going to Denise's bar. I'd shed the boring grey skirt, white blouse and black cardigan and replaced it with a dark blue wraparound dress that was held with a small tied bow at my right hip.

"Thanks. I work in a library and I like to dress up a little when work is over. What do you do?"

She was, she told me, a conjuror. "You know, the sort you see at big parties doing sleight of hand, mind reading, hypnotism, that sort of thing."

"You do all that?"

She smiled. "I do, yes." We talked our way through a couple more drinks, she was really easy company. I found myself liking her a lot. She was easy on the eye, and taller than I had imagined. Her fingers were long, her voice mellow. The dress was more complicated than I'd first noticed. The top was the deep red velvet with a panel of, I thought, sheer black silk in a thin V sewn from her throat to her waist, revealing her cleavage subtly. The sleeves, made from the same fabric as the central panel, extended to her elbows. The skirt of the dress mirrored the top, with another inverted V of sheer black stitched with its point a few inches below her crotch to the hem at her shins. The two silk panels were like arrows, pointing directly at her sex. Her feet were clad in black velvet slippers. The whole impression was one of sumptuous, erotic warmth. But, there you go, that's how my mind works.

It was a disappointment when she told me she had to go. "Will you be here again?"

A shiver ran down my arm when she touched it and said, "If you wear that dress, I promise to be."

I watched her as she walked to the door. She turned and said, "Call me." Before I could ask her for her number, she'd gone. So how the fuck was I supposed to call her. What a bitch. How could she tease me like that?

I went home and poured myself a large brandy and sat in the dark, the only light in the room coming from the log burner. I went over the events of the evening and decided she was the sort who hold up promise like bait, the sort of woman who flirts but never intends actually to take thigs further. How I detest that. Why arouse hope if you have no intention of following it up? Nevertheless, I had that lovely feeling in my cunt that told me her flirtation had worked on me. Untying the little bow at my hip, I spread the dress, revealing the suspenders and stockings I'd worn in the faint hope someone might find them.

"What the?" There was a small piece of dark red, folded silk, like a conjuror's handkerchief, held to my thigh by my suspender, just below the hem of my knickers. Tentatively, I touched it, then held it, then pulled it out, feeling the fabric whisper over my skin. Unfolding it, I discovered a phone number embroidered in black. She hadn't touched my leg. I'd have noticed, for Christ's sake. So, how the fuck had that got there?

How did you do it?

Do what?

Put that handkerhief under my dress?

Oh that. A little sleight of hand. Are you impressed?"

"I called you, didn't I? Why did you leave?"

"Because I had to. I'll see you on Friday."

I asked how she knew I'd be, wherever it was we'd meet, but she'd hung up.

The week in the library passed agonisingly slowly. My evenings passed interminably. I slept badly, I even masturbated badly, my thoughts constantly in turmoil. Why did she have to be so mysterious? Why couldn't she just say, hey, let's have a date. In the few hours that I slept and in one of my black and red dreams, she told me, 'you like mystery, you like different, you like fear,' and I orgasmed in my dream and woke to find my nightdress pushed, wet, between my cunt lips.

"If," she had said, "you wear that dress."

I almost didn't. I'd thought a few times, 'fuck her and her mind games.' But, in the toilet behind the staff room, I stripped off the black tights and white cotton knickers, the grey skirt and the white, cotton blouse, and rolled on and clipped the stockings and pulled up the silk knickers and touched my damp cunt through them. I put on the dress, tied the bow, slipped my feet into the heels and, Friday being the late evening at the library, went directly to Denise's.

"Merlot, sweetie?"

"You sure you've got some, Den?"

"Never take the piss out of a club owner. I found a case of it I didn't know I had in the cellar. Good stuff, too. Buggered if I know how that got there."

I half watched the bar door. I had a few words with Denise and, when I next turned, there she was, Clemency, same stool at the end of the bar. I almost didn't recognise her. Her dress was long and like a tapestry, less modest in the bust. I could see the swell of her breasts. Her hair was tied into a tight ponytail and, I swear, her eyes were blue. I'd remembered them as black, but these were piercing, sapphire blue. Contacts, I guessed.

"Why didn't you sit beside me?" I asked her.

"Because I wanted to watch you. You wore the dress." Her smile struck me as a bit smug, as if she were saying that she knew I would.

"Would you like a drink?"

"My turn." She asked Denise for two glasses and a bottle, which arrived quickly. Denise stayed with us.

"I haven't seen you here before last Friday." Clemency shrugged, so what? "I'd notice a woman like you."

Clemency looked at me and put her hand on my knee, "I might," she said, but was it to me or Denise? "I might, become a regular."

"You'd be welcome," said Denise, wandering away.

"Your hair looks better loose," I said.

"I like it loose and I like it tied. Tonight, for now, it's tied."

Right. "So, tell me, how did you get the hankie up my skirt?"

"I told you, sleight of hand."

"I couldn't believe it when I found it."

She seemed to have lost interest in that. "Have you been sleeping well?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Nice dreams?"

I didn't think I could take much more of her mystery. "I brought it back, your hankie. I figured you might want it back." I opened my small clasp bag and looked but the bloody thing wasn't there. "I must have forgotten to move it from my other bag."

"It's there, in the little zipped pocket."

I looked and it was. I never ever put anything in there. I looked at her, and she must have been smiling because of the look on my face. I said, "I didn't put it in there," and she shrugged that shrug again.

"You must have." She moved closer, shuffling her stool nearer to mine so our knees touched. "Can you imagine where else I could have put it last week?" Her voice was low, quiet, barely a whisper. "My hand so tantalisingly close to you, I could sense how wet you were. Like you are now. Give it to me." For a moment I had no idea what she was talking about, then pulled the small square of silk out of my bag and gave it to her. "Tell me if you want it back later."

She had, she told me, learned her trade from her Grandmother. Her mother had been the third daughter of that marriage and Clemency, coincidentally, was the third of her own Mother's. "They say the art passes to the third daughter of the third daughter." She laughed. "My Grandmother was truly gifted. She worked in the theatre but that has never appealed to me, I like to be close to the audience, it's more exciting. Give me your locket." I unclipped the large silver locket that dangled at my throat, the one a former lover had given me. She took it and held it in her closed fist.

After she'd taken a sip of her wine, she opened her fist and the necklace was gone.

"Impressive," I said, trying not to seem impressed.

I'd left my glass empty on the bar but when I turned to refill it, it was full. How had I not noticed her or Denise filling it. I tried hard not to ask, and succeeded.

She smiled. "I like a woman who resists, doesn't believe. It's so much more of a victory when she finally does. Have you had many lovers?"

"A few. What about you?"

"I've had sex with a lot of women, very few lovers though. Love is something very different from sex isn't it?"

We talked, although I didn't learn much more about her, and drank, and, after a few hours, I asked her if she'd like to come home with me. I was incredibly aroused by her by that time and, frankly, all I wanted was for her to fuck me.

"I can't come home with you tonight. But you will see me later." She kissed my cheek softly, and the touch of her lips on my skin was hot, lie a gentle branding. "Sleep well."

"My necklace?"

"I've given it back." Before I could protest that she hadn't, she was gone. The necklace was back around my neck.

I walked home. I wanted the cold air, the gentle breeze to blow the mist, the confusion from my mind.

I got into my house, and went once again, to sit by the fire with a brandy although God knew I didn't need another drink. I finished the brandy and went to my bedroom, stripped off and had a shower. I have no idea what compelled me to open the locket but I did and there, folded small, was the silk square. I almost dropped it, as if it burned my fingers, just as her kiss had seemed to burn my cheek.

I dreamt again that night. The dream was vivid, in colour. Clemency was sitting on her stool at the end of the bar wearing a long, white dress that was almost transparent. I could see the smudges of her nipples. Her eyes were that same blue, her hair, loose. Her knees parted and so did the dress to reveal a black triangle of hair. I couldn't see her cunt. I looked up and now her tongue's tip was at her lips. Suddenly, I felt her tongue enter my mouth. It was strong, long and delved into me, deeper and deeper but I felt no sense of gagging even though it seemed to reach deep into my throat. She was still yards away from me, I could still see her face and her tongue's tip between her lips but I knew it was her tongue inside me. Then, equally abruptly, it was gone and then, oh then, I felt it against my thigh, then the other, then at my cunt lips and then entering me, hard, almost alive within me. On and on it slithered in and out, moving inside me and caressing me. It grew bigger and I felt myself stretch and then it curled and, in my dream, I climaxed violently, screaming with unalloyed pleasure and sensing rather than seeing the copious river of my juices that erupted as if it had burst a dam.

When I woke up, hours later, I had that feeling of dried fluids on my thighs and under my arse. The fabric of my nightdress was pushed inside me. The dress itself was soaked.

I decided I was going mad. I did normal things: stripped the bed, remade it with clean, dry sheet and duvet, stuffed the washing machine, made breakfast and coffee, all the mundane things I could think of. I went shopping and bought groceries, toilet rolls. I wanted numb practicality. The fantastic was simply too much.

There was no way I was going back to Denise's that night. I only ever went on a Friday, after the library's late closing. At 9, I decided to go and read in bed, so I went into my bedroom and stripped off. But, of course, I didn't go to bed. I dressed, stockings, knickers, a different dress, heels and off I went to Denise's.