Club Crème Page 6

  As if it had been watching me, my mobile phone trilled the moment I slid into the cracked leather seat of the MG. I had crept back through the house and walked gingerly over to my horse, but Merlin’s tender care had done the trick. The frozen peas had prevented any bad bruising in my foot and brought down the swelling.

  I had thought about his own swelling, his ample cock rising and hardening as I lay upstairs on Sir Simeon’s bed. I had to close my eyes as the watery rush of remembered pleasure flowed through me again. But I had to put that sensational encounter down to the heat of the moment. It wasn’t to be repeated. Sir Simeon would be livid if he knew what we’d been doing on his bed and, anyway, Merlin had just told me he was having a laugh at my expense.

  I had gritted my teeth and got up on to the horse, urging her into a fast gallop back to the stables so that the breath was knocked out of me and I couldn’t think about anything else. In the yard, a couple of stringy girls I hadn’t seen earlier were mournfully raking dirty straw in to the back of Merlin’s truck. They had taken the horse off me, eyeing me up and down suspiciously as if I’d stolen him, and I had dashed to the car. It was only as I settled into the seat and answered my mobile, that I realised my bra was hanging out of my jacket pocket as I’d been in such a hurry.

  ‘You’re rather breathless, Summers?’

  It was Mimi.

  ‘Yes. I’ve been riding.’

  ‘Sir Simeon will be pleased.’

  ‘Hope so.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I’d like to see you tomorrow morning, at my place, if that’s OK?’ Mimi said. ‘You’re excused for tonight. I daresay you’ve earned your stripes dealing with the Greys. She’s notoriously difficult . . .’

  ‘Not really, I’m afraid. They went hunting without me. I hurt my foot. I’ve been well looked after, though.’

  I couldn’t wipe the smirk off my face. If Merlin wanted to see it as just a laugh, then I could, too. And now I was irritated that if I didn’t need to report for duty at the club, I needn’t have left that smooth brown body in such a rush after all.

  ‘Oh? Who looked after you?’

  I thought I’d better make light of my recent juicy encounter on Sir Simeon’s bed. ‘Just some arrogant little oik named after a wizard who seemed to know more about my new job than I did.’

  There was a gasp, followed by a throaty laugh at the other end of the mobile. ‘Miss Summers,’ Mimi said at last, ‘wash your mouth out with saddle soap.’

  ‘I’m livid with him, if you want to know. The day hasn’t turned out at all as I thought it would, and I think I’ve disappointed Sir Simeon. This chap wouldn’t let me do anything. He wanted to take over everything, including the clients. Sorry, members. Why should I wash my mouth out?’

  ‘Because, dear girl, that arrogant little oik is Merlin Symes. Sir Simeon’s son.’

  5

  Chrissie would have cackled with disbelief if she’d seen the transformed me finally taking up my duties at the club. But I was determined not to tell her, for the time being, about the exact details of my new job.

  Miss Breeze had told me to meet her at her tall white house in Kensington. When I pressed the doorbell and stared into the video entryphone, a buzzer sounded, and the heavy door clicked open electronically.

  The interior of the house was all white, cream and blood red, hopelessly elegant. Even the lilies in their tall vases and the candles flickering on every surface were either white or red.

  ‘Up here, Summers,’ her throaty voice called from somewhere above my head, and I obeyed the direction, following her heavy scent up the curving stone staircase until it wafted out in almost visible clouds from the first white door I came to. I pushed it open and stepped inside. There was the sound of running water from the en-suite bathroom, and no sign of Miss Breeze. This had to be her bedroom, but I felt as if I’d wandered into Aladdin’s cave. Draped over the bed, over the chairs, on the shelves, was a stunning array of sensational underwear. Creamy satin kickers, midnight-blue camisoles, burgundy bras with delicate straps, black basques, sheer pink stockings and see-through negligees, everything you could think of, were heaped in abundant piles around the room. A haughty mannequin posed in the window, dressed in a scarlet corset with suspenders and stockings to match, one plastic hand thrust brazenly between her legs and her chin tossed sideways.

  ‘Well, underwear is your weakness, isn’t it? Or your strength.’

  Miss Breeze was beside me, draped very loosely in a white silk dressing gown embroidered with tiny red flowers. I looked at her, and was taken aback. In the dim light of the office at the club I had thought her face was white, but now I could see that she had simply been caked in make-up. The black kohl and spidery mascara had gone. She looked years younger, though I was still sure she was older than me. Her skin was the colour of light toffee, and there was a light dusting of freckles over her throat, leading into the dark shadow between her breasts.

  ‘Won’t you call me Suki?’ I asked, as she took my coat off and threw it to one side.

  ‘Perhaps, in time. But remember, for the moment, you work for me. But you can call me Mimi.’

  ‘Do you ever invite the members to this lovely house?’ I asked, as she sat me on a low window seat and thrust a cup of coffee at me. ‘It’s as beautiful as the club.’

  ‘That’s because I designed both of them, darling,’ she said, disappearing into a small dressing room. ‘And in answer to your question, no. On the whole, I feel it’s best to separate business and pleasure. I say on the whole. I can always break my own rules. And frequently do.’

  Mimi Breeze emerged with an armful of clothes which she dumped on the floor and came to sit beside me on the window seat. She started playing with my hair again, and my scalp tingled in anticipation of feeling her fingers and nails massaging me to light-headedness again. Thank goodness I’d brushed it that morning as I rushed out of my cheap bed and breakfast in the Earls Court Road, hoping that I wouldn’t bump into Chrissie or her new fiancé Jeremy on their way to work.

  ‘Tell me more about what I have to do,’ I said hesitantly, my eyes closing as she soothed me. ‘That Merlin rather knocked me for six with his disdain for anything to do with the club.’

  ‘Ignore him. He likes to play the bumpkin. His father and he are always at each other’s throats. Too similar, if you ask me. Did you really not notice the eyes? Surely the eyes gave him away?’

  ‘I wasn’t looking at the eyes,’ I said, and laughed. Mimi watched the flush rise up on my cheeks, perfectly aware of what I meant.

  ‘Give him a wide berth, Suki,’ she advised quietly. ‘Sir Simeon would have a fit if he knew. And I’m not too happy about it, either . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mimi.’

  ‘Right.’ She was happy again, pressing her fingers firmly across the plates of my head. ‘Now. The first thing we do this morning is to sort you out. It’ll have to be a full makeover, I’m afraid. A shower first, my girl. The full works, in fact. I have a hairdresser coming in, and a manicurist.’ She picked up my hands and held them close to her face so that I could feel her breath on them. ‘What have you been doing with your hands in the last few years? They’re rough, like a navvy’s.’

  I laughed, and tried to pull my hands away, but she held them fast.

  ‘Miss Sugar obviously didn’t show you the famous CV,’ I said. I looked at Mimi’s hands holding mine. ‘I’m better with my hands. Brain work bores me.’

  ‘You will need both in this game,’ Mimi said, lowering my hands to my lap but still holding on to them. ‘Though, to be fair, the brain only has to engage if there’s a problem. You very quickly have to work out what to do if the member isn’t happy with you or with the club. Dear, dear. The manicurist has her work cut out to soften these digits.’

  ‘Do you see the job as a game, then?’ I asked, letting her cluck over my nails.

  Mimi waved her hand dismissively.

  ‘Not at all. It has its serious side, like any other jo
b, and of course we are all paid for it. But it’s fun, as well, and totally unique.’ She looked up at me through thick dark eyelashes, bit her lip as if choosing her words. ‘Basically in this job you will often have to act like a wife. That’s what they all want, deep down, you know – a wife.’

  ‘But I thought that’s what they were running away from?’

  ‘That’s what they think, darling, but they’re mistaken. They just want a wife with knobs on, as it were.’

  She lifted her hands and her eyebrows in theatrical amusement at her own joke, and I obliged by giving a disbelieving, filthy snort of laughter. ‘What does a wife with a knob do?’

  ‘She gives them everything that they want and more and demands nothing in return.’ She paused, then peered at me down her nose like a schoolteacher. ‘And what are the main things that a wife does?’

  I was enjoying this conversation. Mimi had dropped the initial severe veneer. Perhaps it was because we weren’t in the confines of the club. In her own home she was just being great company.

  ‘Fuck husband and keep house?’ I replied.

  Mimi clapped her hands with more theatrical flourish, then tapped my cheeks triumphantly.

  ‘Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but I’d say that definition will do. Oh, Suki Summers, I’m thinking you’re just made for Club Crème.’

  ‘Hang on. I didn’t mean I could do all that,’ I protested. ‘Look at me. I’m a scruff. They wouldn’t look at me twice. I wouldn’t have a clue where to start.’

  ‘You don’t need to start at all unless the situation crops up and then, believe me, you’ll know what to do. It’ll come to you when you’re least expecting it,’ she soothed as my voice rose in alarm. ‘These guys don’t know how lucky they are. Don’t you realise your particular understated image is what will make you all the hotter? All the better? We can’t employ knowing little minxes who will stroll about with all guns blazing, can we? We’d be out of business in no time. No. We need girls who are beautiful but subtle, so they don’t know what’s hitting them. We found you in the nick of time, didn’t we? I knew you had this . . . unquenched quality when I saw you, and you won’t let me down.’

  Mimi stroked my cheek again, and held up her finger. I looked out of the window at the smart street below. A man was hurrying towards the house, dressed in a trilby hat and a long dark overcoat. From up here I couldn’t see his face at all, only the top of his head, but he was definitely limping.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I asked, jabbing at the window to get her to stop looking at me.

  ‘Sir Simeon probably, come to attend to some business or other,’ Mimi said, without looking out. She frowned slightly, as if she didn’t want to be distracted from our conversation. ‘I recognise the sound of his walk.’

  I felt a flush circling my throat. I still hadn’t worked out whether it was alarm or interest every time Sir Simeon was mentioned. ‘He looks smarter than he did yesterday.’

  ‘Like all of us, a master of disguises.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to let him in?’

  ‘He has his own key. He often pops in and out to check on the running of things. He doesn’t always bother us if he’s dealing with matters of accounts. Which is none of your concern, by the way, Summers,’ she said. She sighed, a little impatiently, and pulled me away from the window towards the bathroom. ‘And on the topic of Sir Simeon, I think we’d better keep your unguarded description of his son a secret between ourselves, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Mimi,’ I said obediently. ‘But just one more question: why was Sir Simeon riding his horse in such a state that he broke his leg like that?’

  ‘It happened after his wife died. Merlin’s mother. He was devastated. But in the end the accident knocked some sense into him. Now there’s more life in the old dog than anyone I know.’

  She seemed to switch off for a moment, and I had a chance to really study her. Mimi was like a duchess, or a queen. The queen bee, sitting in her hive, drawing her drones and workers towards her. I wondered if that was how the club members saw her. Sir Simeon obviously did. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Maybe it was because the attention she was lavishing on me was making up for the lack of something permanently male in my life, something which I had been reminded of yesterday with Merlin. It was certainly very pleasant being around Mimi, I thought drowsily, as she started to run the water and the steam hissed out of the cubicle. But it wasn’t just a man I needed. It was the whole package, the whispering, the holding, the touching . . .

  Shaking her head and tutting softly as if she was reading my mind, Mimi took my old sheepskin jacket off and dropped it on the floor, then pulled my sweater roughly over my head.

  ‘No ill-fitting trouser suit today, then?’ she asked. She laughed softly, flicking at my hair. ‘Is all this – combat gear – your natural style?’

  I hesitated, then pulled my T-shirt off in front of her, and threw that on to the floor. I was getting less shy every minute. After being fucked for England on Sir Simeon’s bed yesterday, what was the point of being shy? I was wearing a camisole today which held my breasts in invisibly elastic cups. The heavy mounds were supported in the pale-green lace, which then hugged my torso to my waist like a vest. It looked better under T-shirts. In fact, it looked great on its own in the summer, with my favourite pair of low-slung Levis.

  ‘This is how I’m most comfortable,’ I answered, unbuckling my jeans and kicking them off. Mimi’s eyes gleamed, and her hand went up to her throat and stroked the tender skin just above her breastbone.

  ‘But see how good you look undressed,’ she remarked, stepping close to me and circling my waist with her hands. ‘These long legs; I didn’t notice those at the interview that never was. And these breasts, which I did notice. These breasts could nail an unsuspecting victim all on their own!’

  She was so elegant and actually half-naked herself in the dressing gown which was slipping dangerously off one shoulder, that I didn’t mind undressing in front of her. In fact I was enjoying it because she looked me up and down with truly appreciative eyes, and I felt relaxed under her scrutiny.

  ‘I haven’t been as bare as this in front of a woman since my modelling days,’ I remarked, trying to make light of the situation. ‘And even then I was always part of a herd of models shoved about in a crowded, stuffy studio.’

  Mimi didn’t reply. It was as if she wasn’t interested in my past. Now I was sure she hadn’t even looked at my CV, despite Miss Sugar’s hanging on to it.

  I stepped into the shower and stood there for ages, frothing up the soap over my skin, buffing the blood flow so that my whole body tingled and holding my face under the needles of harsh spray until I was totally invigorated. I turned the water off and groped about for a towel, and Mimi was there, rubbing me dry.

  ‘I can’t help it, Suki,’ she said. She rested her wide mouth against my face, just beside my lips. I stood perfectly still, motionless with surprise. She puckered her lips and kissed me slowly, leaving a damp patch on the corner of my mouth. ‘I just can’t resist a challenge. If you haven’t been touched by a woman before, I want to be the first one.’

  Mimi’s hands slid down my ribcage, over my hips and round to my buttocks, before rising up my body again. Suddenly, she whisked the towel away and the breath rasped in my throat as my breasts thumped softly into her waiting hands, the nipples shrinking instantly into points as the steamy air met them. My insides started swirling as Mimi moulded my breasts in her palms, pressing them together as each forefinger circled each raspberry nipple. I couldn’t look at her face, but instead found myself staring at her own, almost exposed breasts beneath the open dressing gown.

  My legs were shaking. To steady myself I went to grab Mimi’s shoulder, but by accident, or not, my hand fell on the neck of her dressing gown. It slithered away like a shy animal, falling off her like a skin, and one brown breast was exposed, round and ripe, with an incredibly large, chocolate-coloured nipple sitting in the middle. She was casting a spell on me
, I was sure of it. I had never had any interest in touching or being caressed by another woman before, despite what Chrissie used to think. Nothing like this. There were electrical charges sizzling through my belly, forbidden and intoxicating, seizing me with the violent, unthought-of urge to crush Mimi’s red mouth with mine, but more violent than that, to lick at that chocolate nipple, knowing it would harden with the pleasure my own nipples would feel, knowing that it would elongate and spring against my teeth.

  Mimi chuckled. I was sure she could read my thoughts. She was like some kind of beautiful witch. She released my eager breasts and glanced down at her own. Then she stepped behind me and pushed me back into the bedroom, where there was a huge Venetian mirror dominating one wall. Normally, I avoided my own reflection, but now I straightened, gazing at my curvaceous, clean body prickling with all this untried pleasure. All I could see of Mimi was her face smiling over my shoulder and her hands, smoothing up and down my sides, towards my tingling breasts and away again. My green eyes, set wide apart in my face, grew larger as I watched her brown fingers start to march down my stomach. I could feel her breath on my still-damp neck.

  ‘I thought you asked me here to tart me up a bit,’ I said, when I could form the words. ‘I didn’t realise you felt like this about me.’

  ‘Oh, don’t take this too seriously, Suki. I’m only doing this to wake you up a little,’ she murmured, her fingers tickling my skin. ‘Let’s call it an initiation. My own sort of initiation, unlike Sir Simeon’s ideas of initiation. My initiation doesn’t involve horses, nor arrogant little oafs. You don’t mind. I can tell. And I can’t have you going into battle without being warmed up, can I?’

  ‘Battle?’ I asked.

  ‘Taking up the cudgels at the club. It’ll be a walk in the park, for you,’ she soothed.

  I shook my head, watching her fingers walking towards the curls of my tawny bush, still dark with the shower water. My thighs parted a little, even though my legs were still shaking. Her fingers paused, then traced the hidden crack, sliding right down it until she reached the secret opening located there, then whisking up again. My reflected mouth was open as I gasped for breath. I wasn’t even trying to look cool now. I pulled Mimi roughly round so that we were breast to breast. Our faces were so close that her dark eyes merged. I closed my own eyes and pushed my still open mouth on to hers. Her lips were like cushions, giving softly as I ground mine on to hers. Was I acting too much like a man? I didn’t want to because I felt completely womanly, doubly womanly in a way, as there were two of us in the quiet room.