Talent Spotting

The following day Roxy asked me to join the band.

All my instincts told me to refuse but there was no doubting that I had enjoyed my time on the road with them and when Roxy puts her mind to something she usually gets her way.

The lure was the studio time they already had booked to rehearse for their first album. Roxy told me that they wanted to include a number of my songs and that she saw "Halo" as a single. With my ego suitably massaged I agreed to join for a trial period.

I should have seen the warning signs at the end of the tour. Roxy peremptorily announced that Jen, the band's rhythm guitarist, had been sacked to make way for me.

This was completely unexpected, and upsetting, but it had a brutal logic. Jen was the weak link in terms of musicianship and her dismissal made way for Roxy to pick up on rhythm whilst I stepped up to play lead. I was a better guitarist than Roxy and it also allowed her to give more focus to the vocals.

I was still lost in my own self-pity when my reverie was disturbed. Meena was back on her feet and shooing Kadri away as she dressed herself hurriedly. She pushed the chair back to its spot and, with heated whispers, ushered Kadri from the room.

She must have been worried about Hannah's return as she tidied up and sprayed cheap perfume into the air; then, bizarrely, given what had transpired, she draped a bed sheet over my naked body.

She was still making running repairs to her make-up when the entrance bell chimed softly. She opened the door to let Hannah in and, after a brief whispered exchange, punctuated by sly giggles, she left me at the mercy of my American nemesis.

"I hope those girls looked after you."

I could have ripped the smug smile from her face but she still held all the cards.

"Well if you don't want to talk about it I guess I'll just have a look see."

Wondering what she meant I turned my head to follow her as she sat down at the cabin's hand carved writing bureau. I had not paid any heed to the laptop which lay open and seemingly dormant but, at touch of a button, it flared into life.

It took a second or two to appreciate that the image on the screen was showing the interior of the cabin in real time and, more particularly, the area around the bed. With a sense of foreboding I watched as her fingers flashed over the keys and the images began to run backwards at high speed.

"My, my..."

She had frozen the screen at a point showing Kadri between Meena's legs. Increasing the volume she allowed the scene to unfold.

For a built-in web cam the image was astonishingly well defined, even from where I lay, but she could afford the best that money could buy. She chuckled as she watched for a few seconds before skipping still further back.

"Oh this I'll save 'til later."

I saw myself with my back arched and Meena teasing the vibrator away from me. I felt a blush of embarrassment but, at the same time, a renewed, unwanted, tingling between my legs. With another deft flick of the finger she cleared the screen and then stood up.

"Well, well, my own little 'Katie'"

She knew that I hated her nickname for me. It came about when she said that my image needed a makeover. She wanted me to make more of my sexuality to give the band an appeal beyond Roxy's raunchy stage costumes. She told me that my brown eyes, and dark, tousled, hair gave me a resemblance to Katie Melua and she arranged for her make-up people to show me how to exaggerate the similarities.

As first I was resentful but when I saw the finished result I have to admit that I was impressed. My conventional features now seemed subtly imbued with the smouldering appeal of an untamed gypsy.

I shivered as she lightly ran the back of her finger across my cheek before slowly pulling away the sheet as if revealing a succulent delicacy.

It was at that point that I rebelled. For a little while I had dared hope that the humiliation I had suffered at the hands of the two cabin girls was to be the full extent of my ordeal but the voracious look in her eyes told me otherwise.

Nothing was worth this and if it meant losing the house then so be it.

"I'm through with this. I'm through with you and the band. Untie me and let me out of here."

My fit of pique only seemed to amuse her. She made no move to unfasten me and, instead, she slipped the ties of her evening dress and let it fall to the floor.

In days past she must have been a very desirable young woman and she had lost none of the confidence that came from knowing the effect she could have. She was heavier now but still held herself with a warranted self belief.

Her grey, silk fringed, underwear looked very expensive and I wondered, for a fleeting moment, if it was custom made. The bra appeared perfectly moulded to her impressive breasts and the matching panties helped disguise the slight roundness of her belly. She was wearing stockings with a garter belt exhibiting legs that would be the envy of many a younger woman.

I wanted to turn my head aside to express my disdain but I could not avert my eyes and her knowing smile implied that she understood more of what was going on in my head than I did myself.

"Hannah, I'm serious, untie me or so help me I'll scream."

"You can scream as much as you like. These staterooms are pretty much soundproof and I can assure you that my neighbours will be fawning at the captain's table for a little while yet."

As she spoke she took off her bra and panties and slid onto the bed to kneel astride my stomach. In a panic I made a pathetic attempt to shout for help but my mouth was dry and all I managed was strangled whine.

"There's something you should know honey. One way or another you are going to do this for me and if you're going to scream it's only going to turn me so much more."

"Is this what gets you off you sadistic bitch?"

Even as I spoke the words I recognized my own hypocrisy. She was only taking to extremes the very thoughts that had aroused me as I watched Meena manipulate her older friend.

Hannah made no response other than to shimmy forwards until her knees slipped over my pinioned arms.

Her stockinged thighs, so attractive only seconds before, now assumed an aspect of dark menace as they walled in the sides of my head.

Instinctively, I closed my eyes but I felt her looming up over me. I wanted to disembody myself but my senses were heightened. I could feel the heat from her skin and, when I dared breathe once more, it was to overwhelm my nostrils with a hideously familiar scent.

She had not lied when she said that she would be thinking about me during dinner; she had obviously been aroused for a very long time.

I breathed as shallowly as I could but rising panic was urging me to do the exact opposite. I fought it down and tried to remain still but, as I did so, I felt a faint, rhythmic, movement.

I tried to dispel the images that my mind was conjuring but I could no longer ignore the reality of the situation when I heard the slow sucking sound of moisture. From my imprisoned position the sound seemed grotesquely loud, as she fully appreciated, and for the next few seconds she must have worked her fingers deep inside to leave me in no doubt of the fate that awaited me.

I shivered in revulsion but, at the same time, I became keenly aware of a knot of tension centred on my sex.

The sounds ceased and the gentle movement resumed. The impulse to open my eyes to see what was actually happening was strong but I felt paralyzed. That was suddenly changed by an unexpected wetness on my lips.

That instant will remain branded into my memory forever. I found her looking down at me with a blissful smile on her face but there were so many impressions. Her stockings darkened by the sheen of perspiration slicking her inner thighs, the slight swell of her belly and, above, the imperiousness of her heavy breasts but, more than anything else, it was that first sight of her sex.

She was perfectly depilated and her skin glowed. Taking her fingers away she invited me to look as if she were bestowing a gift.

I have never considered a woman's sexual anatomy in terms of its proportions but the contrast was so stark that I felt almost juvenile by comparison. Much of it had to do my unwelcome vantage point and the fact that I had never been in such intimate proximity but it went well beyond that.

Her mons bulged almost arrogantly and her labia bloomed proudly in a way that mine never could. Their dun colouring, shading to a more vivid pink at the tips, instilled them with a curious, but frightening, beauty.

As I watched she brushed a fingertip along the fringe and they parted in welcome revealing a glistening interior sowing the air with her scent. She turned her finger slowly back and forth and then held it over my face.

It was so wet that a viscous droplet slowly formed at the tip and I could do nothing as it pendulously broke free and fell to my lips.

I clenched my teeth to prevent my tongue from doing what would otherwise come naturally but this only served to increase her amusement. She touched her finger to my mouth and then rubbed gently.

Her touch was so delicate that it set up a ticklish sensation and, before I could stop myself, I licked my lips clean.

She stared at me intently as I assimilated the taste of another woman for the very first time. My immediate impression was that it was unpleasantly strong and I tried to clear my mouth but, in so doing, some new facet was revealed.

It was not sweetness but rather a mellow richness that excited my tongue and chimed with something deep in my subconscious.

The look on her face was one of anticipation, and barely restrained excitement, and I knew then that I was not the first to be thus deflowered. She recognized something in my expression and brought her finger back to my mouth.

I was teetering at the edge of a precipice but I could not help myself. I licked, almost without thought, trying to pin down the haunting familiarity.

I felt disorientated and when she took her finger away it was almost as if she had been touching my sex and had now left me bereft. I should have been fighting her but hours of pent up arousal were exerting an aberrant influence.

Confident of my capitulation she gave a gentle sigh and allowed her body to relax. Reflexively, I stiffened in defence but her immediate intent was not to smother me. Rather, she settled unhurriedly and teased her labia across my mouth.

I was frozen in indecision, still desperately trying to summon the will to resist, when she moved fractionally brushing against my nose. What possessed me just then I could not say but I drew a deep breath filling my lungs with the very essence of her.

I have tried cannabis just once in my life but the effects paled into insignificance when compared to the intoxication that I felt at that moment. My heart raced and I felt a flush of heat across my whole body.

I wrenched my arm as I tried to touch myself and my bondage assumed a new significance. I had thought that it was to allow her to force herself on me, and I have no doubt that she would have done so if necessary, but now I saw that it was a way to keep me absolutely focused.

She wanted me at a pitch of arousal but with no means of alleviation. I was to be allowed just one outlet for my frustration and that was the unalloyed attention that I was expected to lavish on her sex.

As I came to this understanding I was angered but, at the same time, I squirmed as a fevered pulsing between my legs refused to be ignored.

I tried to resist but she began to lazily graze her sex against my mouth once more. Her scent seemed to cloak my face making me uncomfortably warm and I reflexively parted my lips a little in order to breathe more deeply.

This was her cue to take things to a new level of intimacy. Her labia pressed against my lips in a parody of a kiss and I met her with my tongue.

Afterwards, I would tell myself that there had been no choice but there was no denying the forbidden excitement so intense that I felt light headed.

Her lips were surprisingly cool, glassy smooth, as they folded about my tongue in welcome. I responded by pressing a little deeper and was almost immediately overwhelmed by her taste. It was warm and abundant filling my mouth with its intensity.

The echoes of Kadri's discovery of Meena sounded somewhere deep in my mind but I could no more help myself than she had. I thrust deeper still and felt experienced muscles holding me in place, a silent reminder of who was in control.

The steady pressure was oddly comforting and I sealed my lips about her sex whilst moisture continued to leach over my tongue. We remained locked as one and I attuned her inner rhythm as her whole body exuded a sense of self satisfaction.

After a while she stretched a little and entwined her fingers at the back of her head. It was only the slight trembling of her breasts that betrayed the fact that she was in the throes of a perfectly controlled orgasm.

All I could do was lay there and watch until my tongue registered a final rippling sensation as she reached the summit and held herself there before relaxing into a slow descent.

It was then that I was struck by raw, feminine, power that she exuded. Here was a woman who believed that the world, and everyone in it, was there for the taking and she took as if by right.

For just a second I felt a shiver of fear but then consoled myself with the thought that she might have made things a whole lot worse for me -- and then she proceeded to do just that.

The pressure on my abused tongue eased but, as I prepared to slide free, I felt a reproving squeeze. I was left with no time to consider this new turn of events as she slid herself forward a little as she had done before.

With cold deliberation she used her fingers to close her labia around my nose completely sealing me in. I opened my mouth to breathe but only managed to inhale the wetness of her sex.

I began to struggle beneath her but she retained her poise and held herself in place. I forced myself to remain calm and opened my mouth wider still. I now had a little air but every painstaking breath bore her humid taint.

I knew that I must not exert myself and only when she was happy that I had learned this lesson did she proceed.

She began to move her body, a gentle oscillation which brought a slightly uncomfortable pressure to bear on my nose but kept her sex centred on my mouth.

It took me a few seconds to adjust and to realize that I could actually feel the firm nub of her clitoris.

That I was so aware suggested a degree of development that left me, by contrast, sadly lacking. I tried to dismiss the thought from my mind but it remained in sharp focus as, over the next few minutes, she languorously rode my face.

It seemed as if every muscle was now voicing a complaint, after hours of abuse and restraint, but I had no choice but to endure. The only exception was my disregarded sex which was manifesting an ache of an altogether different nature.

I could not understand why, when subjected to this torture, my body was still aroused.

Slowly, insidiously, her movements became just a little less controlled and discomfort threatened to tip over into real pain but then came a series of forceful jerks until she stopped altogether.

Once again I felt the pulsing that heralded the onset of her climax but the first had only been a prelude to this. She gave a low groan and then there was a sudden release.

I thought I would be drowned as my mouth was filled with spurts of warm moisture, one succeeding another. Such was the force of her inundation that I was swallowing involuntarily.

I knew that some women experienced this and, on one occasion, whilst alone with my vibrator, I had been taken by surprise but it was nothing of this order. It seemed to take minutes until she yielded up the last seeping drops.

When it was over she got up from the bed, still breathing hard, and went to fetch a robe from the bathroom. When she returned she began to unfasten my bindings.

"I hope you enjoyed lesson one...I'm already looking forward to tomorrow..."

Chapter 3

I could not bring myself to go back to my cabin straight away. Instead, I went down to the fitness suite, picked up a towel, and spent a long time just standing under a shower.

The warm water helped to ease my aching muscles but I was left with the impression that the scent of her still remained on me. Dismissing this as a ridiculous notion I took a long walk around the promenade deck to get some fresh air.

It was a still night, the only breeze coming from the stately motion of the ship across the calm Atlantic. By contrast, my mind was in turmoil. The evening's surreal proceedings had set up so many conflicting emotions that I felt nauseous and I tried to focus my mind on a way out.

Everything had been going so well. The thrill of being in the studio, and hearing my songs professionally produced for the first time, was exhilarating and the more so when the rough edges of the band's musicianship were smoothed off. I really thought that we had the makings of a very special album.

Then Glennys disappeared.

In retrospect my trust in her as the band's manager was stupidly naive but she was, after all, one of Roxy's, oldest friends. Not only did the tour proceeds disappear with her but it transpired that none of the studio time had actually been paid for.

We faced a bill for tens of thousands and, after Roxy had finished hollowly swearing a bloody vengeance, I found out just what a house of straw 'Samois' really was. The girls did not even own their own instruments, everything was leased, the only one with any real assets was me.

I had actually managed to make a living when I was touring solo but that was simply because I owned outright the home I lived in. When my mother became seriously ill my coward of a father walked out leaving us to cope alone. My mother divorced him in absentia and then bequeathed everything to me but I would have given it all up if I could have just have had just a few more months with her.

It seemed a total betrayal of her trust in me when I raised a mortgage on the property to bail out the band; but what choice did I have? The recording studio retained the rights to the master tracks and were threatening court proceedings.

I invested in some legal advice but it appeared that, as a band, we were jointly and severally liable and, armed with a judgement, the bailiffs would distrain on the sole asset available to them, my home.

I began to cry at my own stupidity and the sky appeared to sympathise as a gentle rain began to fall. No nearer a solution I headed back to my cabin.

I tried the key but the door was already unlocked. I thought this odd as there were no lights on and then I heard sounds. I wondered if we were being burgled but I immediately dismissed this as an absurd notion given we were at sea.

Nevertheless I found myself creeping in and, as my eyes adjusted, I was astonished to find Sophie lying on top of her bed with fingers busy between her legs.

In the half light I could see that she had her eyes tightly closed lost to the world.

My innate sense of probity was telling me to retreat as quietly as I had crept in but I remained riveted in place. I had always thought her beautiful, in the manner of a classical English rose, but the faint illumination leant her nakedness an almost ethereal quality.

My eyes gave shape to her pale limbs by referencing the points of contrasting darkness, the swollen nipples, a deep set navel but, most, of all, the inky triangle in which her fingers were seemingly enmeshed.

As I watched I flared my nostrils just a little but all that I could smell was the lingering remnant of the perfume that she had sprayed on so liberally earlier in the evening.