Perfectly Terrible

The clouds hung dark and impatient in the London sky, their suspecting prey scuttling along below on Kensington Road and Knightsbridge, inadequate umbrellas primed and ready for the onslaught. The man-with-no-umbrella glanced at the sky and slipped, resignedly, from nature's anger into man made purgatory as he passed underneath the largeHarrod'ssign. Saturday was not the day to be doing this, he thought.

Weaving his way through the myriad of shoppers lining the pockets of the Egyptian, he wished for better timing of this visit. Things would only get worse. Looking at the store guide, he realised he was on the correct floor and smiled inwardly at the department's name: 'Beauty'. Looking about, he saw several people who most definitely did not fitthatcriterion.

An absurdly made up late middle-aged woman, doing her utmost to continue the mutton-dressed-up-as-lamb cliché shuffled by; a couple, the husband wishing he was at home listening to the football results rather than being dragged around this little corner of make-up hell; an excited gaggle of sixteen year old schoolgirls wanting perfumes, lipstick and the knowledge of how to attract Darren from the year above into their beds; a tall, slim twenty-something sex bomb, with belly showing under the obligatory too-short top, breasts pouting at the world; a pretty, married, middle-aged woman trying to find something that would attract her illicit lover.

Andher.

The first time he saw her in the flesh he actually drew a short breath. He'd seen pictures of her of course, but even though she was photogenic, what a camera could approximate didn't even begin to do her justice. Unable to help himself he just stared at her for a while as she stood at the counter, animatedly talking to the assistants. She had a classic beauty, one that made the faux glamour of the perfume saleswomen pale. What wasshedoing here, he wondered. What amIdoing here, he scolded himself. Go. Now.

The woman a few metres away had caught his attention though, and he couldn't shift his eyes. The bustle of three score shoppers might have stripped bare and started an orgy on the shop floor, smearing themselves with blusher and rouge, but he wouldn't have noticed a thing.

A song floated into his head: 'My eyes go out in vain, She's got perfect skin'. The music in his mind, a discordant accompaniment to the Mantovani-bland pap seeping through the shop's PA. He shook his head like a wet dog trying to rid itself of rain, as if trying to scatter the ridiculous thoughts that were gathering in his head across the shop floor.

He could see her look up - she'd seen him; must've felt his gaze on her. It didn't really matter. He could go now and he would be nothing but a momentary image, soon to fade to an irretrievable ghost of a memory. In his mind he had turned away. Gone. He was back under the clouds that were pouring their grief onto London streets.

So how come his legs were moving where he shouldn't be going? Towardsher.

This was all wrong. He shouldn't be doing this. Nothing good could come of it. Leave and go away; you have commitments, she is not for you.

The air hung heavy with the sickly sweet melange of a hundred perfumes, baked in the still heat only a department store can muster as he moved towards her. The voice in his head, in unison with the click click of his heels, beat out the same warning: 'Turn. Back. Turn. Back. Turn. Back.'

She looked up again; the attractive man was now standing next to her. Blonde, tall and lean – no, not just lean - wiry; he looked as hard as diamond and his piercing eyes looked cool and fjord blue. The attractive man was now talking to her, words that the man did not want to be saying. His common sense was screaming at him to leave, but his mouth opened, as if belonging to someone else; he could hear himself speaking to the beautiful woman, though to him it seemed like he was listening to another person.

She smiled at him, made it feel like a million butterflies has been released into his belly. The music snapped into his head again: 'Cheekbones like geometry'. Perfect teeth hid themselves behind full, sumptuous lips that he wanted so badly to kiss, but was afraid he'd kiss them so badly. Huge, hazel eyes, pupils melting into irises that held his gaze and colour-matched the hair that tumbled down around her slight shoulders.

The noise of the shop faded away as she talked, biting her bottom lip, feeling self concious as his eyes bore into her. She felt almost little-girlish as this stranger with a strangely detached intensity held her gaze and her rapt attention. Normally, she would blow off approaches from men with hurricane efficiency; today she was nothing more than a nervous summer breeze.

He couldn't remember later that night what he'd said to her in the department store; all he could recall was the sound of her voice, how she spoke with that crystal clear Oxford English accent and how he couldn't imagine her sounding any other way.

He cursed himself as the words tumbled from his mouth, cursed as she accepted his invitation to go, and cursed again as the rain tumbled from the sky, finding himself sheltering from the rain under the woman's umbrella as they bundled into a cab to make a short journey to Chelsea.

He had no idea what he'd said to her that made him find himself, sitting in the exclusive wine bar in Chelsea, with a woman who was far too exclusive for him; and someone he knew he could never be with. Should never be with.Mustnever be with. As he entered the wine bar, he wasn't himself, he was someone else. He wasn't impulsive - he was calm, calculating, hard and cold. Someone else though was doing the talking for him; someone he didn't know and couldn't control. He took the back seat, reallynotenjoying the ride.

The newly opened wine bar was dim; the light swallowed by dark wooden furniture that gave a false impression of age. Bottles of wine sat in racks and coolers behind the bar, a spiral staircase just to the left spun down to a cellar full of perfectly kept wines; another flight in the corner led upstairs to a mezzanine floor that looked out over the well-to-do clientèle and outside to the Thames as it snaked its weary way through the old capital. Awash with the excited chatter of its patrons, the place was alive.

They looked at the board: expansively decorated, advertising special wines at extraordinary prices and he invited her to choose.

She ordered a Montrachet Grand Cru as she twisted a strand of hair around her fingers, wondering how he'd react to such an expensive wine, but he didn't flinch. A wine like her: fine, delicate and a little dry. Out of the reach of most people at £200 a bottle, but as close to perfection as you could get. They found a table in a dim corner of the already dim room and sat at forty-five degrees to each other, looking out over the room, water dripping from her coat and umbrella.

Rivulets of condensation slid down the glass as she sipped the Chardonnay fine wine; she twirled the glass as she spoke, looking at him, wondering what it was in this stranger that made her drop her guard and open up.

The level of the wine in bottle fell and level of the alcohol in the bloodstreams of the couple rose. As the wine flowed, so did the conversation. In the way alcohol does, it eased inhibitions; it lubricated the machinations of conversation and the time slipped quickly away as it does when you're in the company of those who attract you. She nodded, listened and laughed intently as he spoke, drinking his words as she did her wine. He stared intently into the pools of her eyes as she spoke, little movement but holding on her her words as if they might save his life.

A man whose features they wouldn't have noticed if he was green and had antennae in his head asked if he could have the ashtray and without looking she passed it over hitting his hand and knocking the man's cigarette to the ground. Her companion apologised for her behaviour and smiled a dismissive smile at the smoker.

She looked at her new companion coyly, head cocked. 'You always ask strange women out to wine bars?'

A pause. A cool smile from the blonde man. 'Do you always accept offers from strange men to go to wine bars?'

'Are you strange?'

'Hmmm, depends how you define strange.' A little pocket of silence.

'In all honesty,' he continued, 'I wouldn't normally approach a woman I didn't know - for a whole host of reasons. I certainly wouldn't normally approach a woman half as beautiful as you. I don't stand a chance with a woman like you.'

'But here you are – with a woman exactly like me.'

'Well, you'requitelike you. I wouldn't say exactly though!' She laughed. The laugh of someone whowantedto laugh at something that didn't quite merit the intensity.

'You're a strange stranger; I see in your face a lost little boy, a lifeless lost soul in your eyes and an alert athlete in your body. You're a mystery that I find myself compelled to solve. A danger that holds me no fear. I would have passed you by in the street a thousand times out of a thousand, but when you looked at me like in the store...' Her words trailed off, the end of the sentence unnecessary.

'I've seen a thousand beautiful women in my life; they would turn my head, I would turn away and my life would continue. I have enough reasons not to engage with you - more than enough – but I...I just found myself drawn to you. You made me feel raw passion.'

She could remember later that night everything that had been said. It was like a favourite film she'd watched over and over again, burnt onto her memory. She remembered the feeling of liberation: the spoiled bitch who got everything she wanted, who did anything she wanted - who cared nothing for the thoughts, desires or feelings of others was finally starting to have that nervous predilection for someone new. Just havingsomeonenew was not the issue; her parents, when fishing in the gene pool, had pulled out only theverybest chromosomes for their daughter. She was stunningly attractive, intelligent - and although this combination sometimes frightened men away – would almost always get her way. Now, that little seed of nervous intoxication was growing in her stomach and she liked it very much. She didn't want to lose it, or him.

She immersed herself in his words, hanging on to every detail of his tales of growing up - his loves, likes and dislikes. He was strong, not just physically, but mentally she could tell. There was a steely assured air to him, reflected in his eyes, in his demeanour and his words. He talked fluently, but with a guarded air. She asked him about his education and he talked about school and university with no obvious passion; she wondered aloud about his job and he would only proffer that he was a 'problem solver', not willing to talk any more about it, claiming it was 'uninteresting'.

They talked the afternoon away and he knew his life could never be the same again. They held each other's gaze, moved closer to each other with each sip of wine, until they were brushing against each other, each – for differing reasons - finding shivers of excitement coursing through their bodies. Both luring each other into an inevitable sexual liaison, and although he was a savage, hard man she was the spider luring him into her web. He was the fly who didn't really want to escape, but who should have flown away before he was involved.

In a half-trance lubricated by half a bottle of the most expensive of wines, he glided back along the King's Road to her penthouse suite, the femme fatale locked to one arm, his bag strewn over his other. Past expensive designer outfit shops, past shoppers spending third world debts on clothes, past red double decker buses carrying people through tortoise slow traffic. Turning off towards her building, she slid her arm round him and down on to his backside. Whispering into his ear and gently squeezing: 'This is going to be mine.' Then, leaning him against the wall and pressing her lips to his, feeling like a giddy teenager, snogging her first boyfriend in the street, she kissed hard and deep. Pushing herself against his groin and feeling him respond she pulled away. 'I think I need to be inside.' And then, a heat spreading through her body, 'I thinkyouneed to be... inside.'

She slipped her key inside the door, pushing her way into the normally air conditioned hallway of the apartment block. No lights, no power, no lift. She muttered under her breath something about some gentle exercise being a good way to warm up and the man she had under her spell felt his mood finally slip from overwhelmed to libidinous. Having given way to the forbidden female hours ago, his mood finally allowed him just to immerse himself in the sin.

As he followed her up the stairs, eyes locked on her backside, all her traces of little-girlishness vanished, he looked at the number on the door. Level 8. He frowned to himself. The song: 'Up eight flights of stairs...' She pushed her key into the lock as he stood behind her, fondling her arse. She half-heartedly told him to desist as she was finding difficulty finding the hole with his attentions to her details.

The flat stretched out in front of them as she dropped her keys onto the table and her coat lazily onto the back of a chair. The dull remains of the late afternoon's light leaked languidly into the room as she lit candles that cast a flimsy, flickering light round the room. An African tapestry hung over the fireplace; an expensive Persian rug lay on the polished wooden floor in front of a huge, inviting sofa; fruit sat in a showroom-perfect arrangement in a bowl on a hand made table; beautiful crystal glasses of all descriptions sat on the shelf next to a comprehensively stocked drinks cabinet; a door at the far end of the room stood open, showing a perfectly made and perfectly huge bed.

'Drink?' she asked, stretching the sexual tension that was wracking his body.

'Whisky', he nodded, 'no ice'. She poured them both a large Talisker and he nodded in appreciation.

'Sit,' she ordered, and he obeyed. She inhaled the aroma of the whisky and took a sharp mouthful savouring the peaty warmth as it disappeared to join the wine. She looked at him, intensity in eyes that sparkled with mischievous intent. The music again swamping his thoughts: 'Eyes like sin'. Momentarily distracted, he thought, 'Whatwasthat song?' And as a lascivious smile crept across her face, as she started to unbutton her blouse, he couldn't keep the music out of his head 'She's sexually enlightened'. Fuck, was she sexually enlightened.

Transfixed, he watched the strip show, the whisky causing a warm glow in his stomach, the milky flesh of the perfect English Rose causing a hot rush of desire to his libido. She slid the blouse from her back and let it land in a crumpled heap behind her. His eyes fixed on the nipples now straining through the sheer material of her bra, his penis already straining hard against the light material of his trousers. He moved to raise from the chair.

'No, sit there. Move your hands.' she commanded. 'Put them on the arms of the chair, I want to see just what I'm...', she paused, '...doingto you.'

Looking her in the eye, he sat down again, spreading his arms wide, feeling both intense desire and frustration. She smiled again. 'Better.'

She walked over towards him, pulling up a chair and placing a foot on the chair. 'Remove it.'

He took the back of her calf and slid the Italian leather from her foot, feeling the stockings under his hands, sending a little shock up her leg as she felt the power of his hand against her. No words necessary, she presented the other leg and he removed the other shoe. Now she stood, five-and-a-half feet tall in her exquisitely stockinged feet, an elfin smile back on her face as she looked down at the effect she was having on his penis.

She turned, undoing the button at the back of her skirt and bending forward slightly, wriggled the skirt over her hips until it lay in a little pool at her feet. Unable to resist any longer he started to stroke himself through his trousers. 'No', she said turning round, sensing what he was doing. 'Not yet.' Grimly compliant, he moved his hands back to the chair arms.

She swayed towards him, right up close. Close enough so he could inhale the scent of her arousal, she slid her hands into her panties and running a finger along her lips, she dipped her fingers into the honey pot; lubricating her finger, pulling her hand from her knickers and moving it slowly past his nose. Momentarily time stood still as she held her finger to her mouth, pulling her bottom lip down, before sliding her tongue out under the finger and engulfing it, tasting herself.

He smiled as she ran her fingers over the flesh between knickers and stockings at the top of her thigh then underneath her panties, pulling them aside to give a glimpse of the small strip of dark pubic hair that ran down her pale skin. He closed his eyes, as if wanting to capture that image forever, quickly opening them so as not to miss the next part of the show.

Again, turning her back to him, she bent forward, and slid her panties down, millimetre, by millimetre; how could a woman look so elegant and prurient at the same time? Bending down, to volunteer a view that was as far from elegant as could be imagined, she picked up her panties and, standing, held them to her nose, inhaling deeply.

She turned. 'Mmm, I think I might be a little aroused, tell me what you think.' Running the panties slowly over his face and dropping them on to his lap, she pushed her rudely scented finger to his lips. 'Shhhhh. You don't have to tell me. I can see it in your eyes.

'What can you see inmyeyes?' she huskily whispered 'Can you see that I have to cum?'

She stood, inches away from him, her eyes locked to his, she caressed herself. 'Keep looking me in the face,' she commanded. 'I want you to see me as I cum.'

Her fingers worked as expertly as only she could know how to touch herself; she started to make little murmurs as she started to drift away. Lightly touching her clitoris, moving her fingers along her lips, slipping her fingers inside her and pinching her nipples with her spare hand, increasing the pressure on her sex, she treated him to an intimate show no amount of money could afford with the most exclusive of strippers. This wasn't a false, cheap whore, this was unaffordable.

Finding it harder and harder to keep her eyes open, she neared an orgasm fuelled by salacious exhibitionist desire; faster and faster her fingers moved; louder and louder the moans until she cried out and knees buckling she collapsed in front of him. Head bowed, she rested her hand on his knee and breathing very deeply looked up, she whispered, 'Now I wantyou. Fuck me. Undress yourself and fuck me.'

Standing and pulling her sharply up with a strength that surprised her, he pushed her to the sofa and stripped himself. She lay back: bra twisted, legs parted, hair scattered, stockings crooked, lips puffed, clitoris vulgarly exposed. She looked like a cheap whore and felt like a proud slut. 'Quickly,'she hissed, as he removed shoes and stuffed the socks deliberately inside the shoes. Unbuttoning his shirt to reveal a chest lightly covered in hair and a stomach borne of many hours hard gymnasium work, she smiled approvingly and started to touch herself again as she was now treated to her own strip show. Shirt draped over his chair, trousers followed, removed carefully, almost as if he had to be dignified in this exchange. She pushed fingers inside her and lightly teased her clitoris as he removed his briefs, penis rudely exposed and radar-like pointing towards where she wanted it to be. She frowned momentarily as something jolted in her mind; something odd, that she couldn't put her finger on. Then he entered her and anything but the impending onslaught of her second orgasm was all that filled her mind.