Happy Endings

for A.G.

The principal protagonist in the tale I have to tell you is a woman by the name of Myrtle Mary Townsend. She prefers to be known as Myr, because the elegant, mysterious and slightly aromatic image that this single syllable conjures up is far more accurate than what you might imagine on hearing her given name.

Her own story is long, complicated and for the most part obscene. It is enough, for now, to say that she is twenty-nine, tall, beautiful, raven-haired and pale and, thanks to an ever-waging war for affection between her wealthy father and even wealthier step-father, has ready access to an amount of money which, if written down, might easily be mistaken for a phone number.

She has three degrees, speaks six languages, plays two musical instruments to a near-professional standard and a third merely excellently.

I know, sickening isn't it? She's reallynicetoo, which somehow makes it worse.

Unless you get on her bad side, that is.

You don't want to do that.

She has been my closest friend for many years - though our backgrounds could hardly be more different - and when we first met... ah, but I digress. Let's get started, shall we?

Myr sat alone at the bar in the smallest room of the conference-cum-party suite at the Meadway Hotel London, SW1. She wore a long, flowing black dress with a lacy crimson trim at the bust and long hanging red sleeves. Her body was encased and eye-poppingly uplifted by a tightly-bound leather corset. She had ditched the pointy hat with the trailing red ribbon, but was confident she was still pulling off the fairytale princess look. Maybe a fairytale princess whose formative years had featured a little too much Joy Division, but a fairytale princess nonetheless.

The occasion was an all-singles fancy dress Valentine's ball being thrown by... oh, somebody. Was it somebody famous, or just a friend of a friend? Could be both. She couldn't remember now. She hadn't wanted to come. It had all been Elena's idea, andshe'dpromptly disappeared off to a room somewhere upstairs with the first handsome man to pay her the slightest attention.

The main hall was full of rich, single idiots dressed as pirates and princes and historical figures and celebrities. The music was disgusting pop, as was the wine. All in all the event fell well short of even her lowest expectations.

She had escaped to this smaller, quieter part of the extensive suite, to wait until Elena returned from her giggly humping, or until Myr became too bored and left without her. There was a bar and there were relatively few people. There was no music.

Myr sat on a tall, leather-cushioned stool, one elbow on the bar, swiping text into her phone with the thumb of one hand and taking the occasional sip from a large gin and tonic held in the other. She was having an argument on twitter about sexism in the media, another on facebook about the ethics of taxation, a game of chess with a renowned Pakistani mathematician, and cybersex with someone whose gender she had yet to establish.

None of it was really going anywhere. Just passing time.

After a while she locked her phone - arguments won, game stalemated, sex abandoned - put it away in a tiny handbag and finished her drink. She looked up and saw that the extremely fit-looking barboy she had been flirting with earlier had been replaced by a short, generously and sensuously rounded barmaid with short brown hair. Myr gestured with her empty glass and smiled, and the barmaid came over.

"Yes madam?" she said.

"Please," said Myr with a grin, holding out a hand. "My name's Myr, what's yours?"

The barmaid took Myr's hand and shook it uncertainly.

"Ren," she said.

"Pleased to meet you, Ren," said Myr. "I'll have another G and T if you'd be so kind."

Myr leaned forward as she said this, folding her arms and using her elbows to push her breasts together. Her cleavage formed a deep, dark ravine barely separating two smoothly pale mountains of flesh, which drew in the eye and seductively beckoned the face to follow. Ren's gaze shifted involuntarily, falling into that inviting shadow as though at some subliminal command. She was held there for a second or two, before the spell lifted and her panicked expression flicked up to meet Myr's.

Myr met her gaze, smiled and winked, and Ren's face flushed pink. She turned away quickly and walked to the back of the bar area, where a wide counter held a bewildering array of bottles.

How cute,thought Myr, staring at the woman's curvaceous rear as she bent to get a bottle of tonic water from a glass-fronted fridge.

Like all the bar staff, Ren wore nondescript black trousers and a black shirt. It was a professional, unobtrusive and pointedly demure look, which could easily have rendered even the most desirable figure a mere background detail. Not for Myr, though. She had an eye for such things. She could spot a nice bum through a taped-up bin bag.

As Ren crouched down her trousers - a little loose, perhaps - slipped down at the back to reveal a thin crescent of flesh and a sliver of pink cotton. Myr felt a hint of warmth stir between her legs, as she imagined teasing those pink knickers gently downward and sliding her tongue into what lay beneath.

Ren straightened, tucking in the back of her shirt, and their eyes met in the large mirror over the counter. Myr gave a mischievous grin. Ren smiled nervously back, then looked away.

Movement in the mirror caught her eye, and Myr saw a tall, thin man dressed as a prince approach her from behind, staring. He licked his lips, and his throat wobbled alarmingly as he swallowed.

Oh no...

"Oh my dear princess, my lady both sweet and fair," he began in a reedy voice. Myr rolled her eyes. "Oh! How thy countenance doth reflect the very light of heaven like a still silver mere in the moonlight!"

Myr turned very slowly and looked the man up and down. He was young - about twenty, she guessed - and gangly with it, possessing no chin to speak of. His face looked oily and desperate beneath a dreadfully-coiffured mop of lank brown hair, topped with an expensive-looking silver crown. The whole outfit was quite well done, actually, but it didn't make up for the contents.

"So," she said. "My face reminds you of a puddle at night?"

"What?" the prince exclaimed, reddening. "No, not at all, I... oh, my lady, please do excuse my lack of eloquence, so stunned was I by your radiant beauty..."

Oh please,she thought,pass me the bucket!

"...please accept my most humble apologies for any, assuredly unintended, offence," he wittered on. "Allow me to get you a d... oh."

At that moment Myr's drink arrived. She accepted it gratefully and rolled her eyes at Ren, who grinned sheepishly back. She took a long sip, finishing half the large measure in one mouthful.

He introduced himself as Chester, and gradually dropped the prince charming act as his faux-medieval vocabulary failed him. He went on and on and on about nothing of interest and little of sense. Myr tried to listen at first, out of politeness, but soon found herself fantasising about Ren. She imagined laying a trail of soft kisses around the luscious curves of the barmaid's bottom and upper thighs, gently parting her legs, spiralling inward with her kisses, closer and closer, feeling a moist heat press against her face as she extended her tongue and tasted...

She snapped out of it, coming back to the room with a small cough. She straightened herself up on the stool, uncrossed her legs - she felt a little wetness soak out into her underwear as her thighs parted, and briefly pictured Ren on her knees between them, lapping it up - and then recrossed them the other way.

"...so then when the old man finally pops his clogs the whole thing'll be mine," said Chester triumphantly.

"How fabulous," said Myr, keeping all but a trace of sarcasm out of her voice. She swigged back the last of her drink.

"Another?" he asked. She nodded.

The bar was deserted. Chester leaned over it, looking around timidly.

"Er, hello?" he said. "Anybody there?"

Like a little boy in a sweetshop,Myr thought, trying not to laugh.

A door at the back of the bar area swung open, and a different barmaid came out. This one was tall, slim and blonde. The standard black uniform hid her figure much more than it could ever hide Ren's obvious sweeps and swells, but Myr stroked her gaze slowly over the newcomer's body anyway. Smallish boobs, a flat stomach and narrow hips was all she could really make out.

That and the woman's shoes - fabulous low heels with intricate silver buckles. Myr meant to ask her where she had got them but, with everything that happened later, never did.

Chester ordered the drinks - an expensive single malt for himself, the usual for her. The blonde woman's trousers were tighter, her shirt better tucked in, and Myr was denied any tantalising exposure of flesh as she bent down. Nice arse, though.

Their drinks arrived. Chester paid.

"To a fairytale evening," he said, raising his glass.

"Indeed," she said, smiling thinly. She waved her glass vaguely towards his, brought it to her mouth and then stopped with the drink centimetres from her full, red lips. She waited until he was taking a sip before adding: "With a happy ending, no doubt."

He either didn't get the reference or controlled his reaction well (the former, she suspected) because he did not cough and splutter and spit whisky all over her dress, thus depriving her of a genuine excuse to be annoyed with him.

She could of course simply tell him to piss off, but that would be - to use her father's phrase -unseemly.Certainly inelegant, she conceded, and she was a princess tonight, so it would be elegance all the fucking way.

The door behind the bar opened again, and Ren came out.

"Kerry?" she called.

The blonde barmaid, who'd been leaning against the rear counter looking bored, shoved herself upright with her elbows and turned to look at Ren.

"Harvey's just arrived with the Roederer for tomorrow. He needs a hand."

"Oh," said Kerry. "I'll go. Thanks Ren."

Interesting,thought Myr, watching the way Kerry's face flushed as she all but ran out through the door. Ren watched her go with a thoughtful look on her face, smiled nervously at Myr and then busied herself with a cloth, redundantly wiping the already-gleaming surfaces beneath the large mirror. Myr watched the woman's reflection, noting the distracted expression on her face.

One of Myr's well-honed senses kicked in. Somebody, somewhere, was about to fuck. That sounded much more interesting than the evening she was currently having, and she made up her mind to get involved.

She turned to her prince and smiled resignedly.

"Look, Chester," she said. "I know where you think this is going. I'm a princess, you're a prince, it's Valentine's day - clearly you hope that your gallantry will win my heart. Or some mildly related organ at least."

"I, er, well..." he began, blushing.

"But in all the stories," she cut him off, "the prince completes a quest before he gets the girl, correct? He kills the dragon, ogre, tax-collector, whatever it might be, and somehow this insipid act of violence melts the heart - or other aforementioned organs - of the hapless princess. I don't see any dragons around here, do you?"

"Well, no..."

"Quite," she said. "And to be honest I'm really not the sort of girl who fancies being romantically whisked away so that her beau can claim his kingdom and leave his pampered queen in the north tower polishing her unicorn all day."

"But..."

"What wouldreallyinterest me," she went on, lowering her voice, "is an evening that was about more than just the prince and princess."

The boy looked confused for a moment, then suddenly got it.

"Oh, er," he stammered, "you mean, um..."

"Yes," she said. "I think it would bemuchmore interesting if the royal couple got a friend involved. Don't you?"

The boy's mouth opened and closed a few times.

"Yes?" he said at last.

"I'msoglad you agree," said Myr with a smile. "Perhaps you, my charming suitor, could set forth on a quest to find such a friend. Could you do that? For me?"

"Absolutely," he said, drawing himself up and jutting out the place where his chin should be.

"Oh good," said Myr breathily, fanning her face theatrically with one hand. "It gets me so...hot,you know, thinking about it."

"Me, er, yes, as well," he said, leaning closer.

"The height of eroticism, surely," she whispered. "The very thought of it! Pleasuring two dicks at once. Can you imagine?"

"Oh yes," he said, then jolted as though slapped. "Wait, what?Dicks?" He looked horrified, and lowered his voice. "You mean you want me to find you another..."

"Dick, yes," she said with a grin, then shook her head suddenly. "I meanman,obviously. Sorry, I always get those two words mixed up."

From the look on his face she could tell he wasn't keen. Strange that homophobia could be so rampant among public school-boys, but there you were. She needed to sweeten the deal, and if she'd judged him correctly there was one thing that ought to do it.

"Though you were here first, of course," she said, leaning close to him, one hand brushing the outside of his thigh, "my brave prince. Which means you get to choose whether you go in front, or..." her eyes locked onto his, drawing him in "...behind."

His throat wobbled again as he swallowed, and without taking her eyes off his she could see a bulge spring up in his trousers as his imagination finally kicked in. It wasn't a large bulge. Somehow she hadn't expected it to be.

Just this euphemistic allusion to anal sex brought on a sudden flash of memory, and she found herself recalling the occasion - some years previously - when a man had first entered her that way. He had also been somewhat under-endowed (that was the only reason she'd agreed to that much-coveted penetration in the first place) but had been skilled enough in other ways for it not to matter very much. Certainly a memorable evening. It was, in fact, one of those select few entries in her mental log of sexual experiences that she often replayed when she was alone and bored. Usually her masturbatory fantasies were outlandish and unreal, but one or two had really happened. She vividly, and often, recalled how her fingernails had left grooves in the wooden headboard of her bed as she knelt there on all fours, feeling the chap's well-lubricated manhood fill her tight virgin rear. Even with a relatively small man it had hurt like, well, like buggery, but she had persisted. Eventually she grew to like it. On occasion.

She shook herself and came back to the room, intensely aroused at the recollection. Chester obviously saw this in her eyes and mistook it for an interest in him. He leaned closer, licking his lips.

I'm afraid you're not getting near any of my orifices, you little twerp,Myr thought.I wouldn't let you pick my nose.

"Of course," she said aloud, drawing back, "if you're not interested..."

"No, I er, of course, I..." he hesitated, but she gave him a sweet, almost pleading look, and at last he surrendered himself. "I will do this for you, my lady. I will find another... man... who is worthy to gaze upon you, and, um..." he tailed off.

"Fuck me in whichever hole you don't?" she suggested sweetly.

He swallowed again - the wobbly throat thing really was quite off-putting - but said nothing. He took a pace backwards, bowed low, straightened and turned. She saw him take a deep breath before walking uncertainly out of the door, headed for the main room.

Well,she thought,that gets rid of him.

She drained her glass and turned to the bar, but there was no one there. She took a quick look around. There were only a few people in the small room, mostly sat at low tables, talking loudly. No one seemed to be paying her any attention.

She clambered up onto her stool and vaulted one-handed over the bar, the many layers of her dress whirling around her as she landed gracefully and made for the staff door. She pushed it open and found herself in a dim, bare-brick corridor. The door swung softly shut behind her, and she waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.

There was a T-junction ahead of her. She peered carefully around each corner. To the right was a padlocked double-door; to the left, a way off in the dim distance, she could see a figure. It looked like Ren, and she looked like she was standing with her forehead leaning against the wall.

Odd.

Myr made her way silently along the corridor - thankful she had opted for appropriately slipper-like footwear instead of her usual heels. As she drew closer she could see that Ren was actually peering through the thin crack of a slightly-open sliding door.

The room beyond was lit only a little more brightly than the corridor, but now her eyes had adjusted Myr could see Ren's face as she watched, intently, whatever was happening behind the door. From her expression it was easy enough to guess what that might be.

Her right hand was down the front of her trousers, moving slowly in a circle, and as Myr crept along the corridor she heard a cry of pleasure - female - from the room beyond. Finally Myr stood directly behind Ren as she stood there masturbating, transfixed, and could see into the room for herself.

A tall dark-haired man, trousers in a heap around his ankles, stood with his back to them about three metres away. His taut, tanned buttocks rippled and flexed as he thrust into someone lying on a stack of crates in front of him. All that was visible of the other person was a pair of long, naked legs sticking out in a great V to either side of him, but Myr could tell immediately that it was Kerry. She had removed her trousers, obviously, but for some reason was still wearing the shoes Myr had been admiring earlier.

They really were very nice shoes.

The man began to thrust harder, grunting, and Kerry let out a sharp cry of pleasure - not quite climactic but clearly getting close. Ren whimpered quietly in response, her shoulders quaking as her hand moved faster. She was close, too.

Myr grinned wickedly in the darkness, and stepped up right behind the quivering Ren.

"Enjoying the view?" she whispered, sliding one hand around the shorter woman's waist. Ren nearly jumped out of her skin, swallowing a tiny scream, but Myr shushed her gently and grasped her wrist as she pulled it out of her trousers.

"Don't be shy," Myr whispered, drawing Ren's unresisting hand up to her mouth. "I want to watch, too."

Myr took two of Ren's glistening fingers into her mouth and sucked on them. Her eyes rolled back, half closed, and she moaned softly as the woman's intimate taste melted onto her tongue. She let go of the hand, opened her eyes and smiled, leaning forwards to plant a soft kiss on one flushed cheek.

"Watch," she whispered, turning Ren's face gently back towards the room, where the man - Harvey, presumably - was still fucking Kerry into a state of senseless moaning.

Myr pulled herself close behind Ren, theirs bodies touching, meshing, and began to kiss the back of her neck. She slid her left hand down the front of Ren's open trousers, down inside her pink cotton underwear, through a trimmed patch of curls, down between the full, wet lips of her pussy.

Myr was ambidextrous, though she tended to favour her left hand when she masturbated, and her expert fingers quickly found Ren's clitoris and began to circle around it. Her right hand stroked gently up the woman's stomach, over her large, heavy breasts, almost to her neck, then down again. Her left hand circled ever-quicker between the woman's legs.

"Oh fuck yes!" shouted Kerry from the room in front of them. "Fuck me! Harder! Yes! Oh fuck... ah... ah... I'm going to cum! Fuck me! Yes! FUCK ME! Ahhh!"