Chapter One

They tell us The World was made in six days and that Sunday is the day of rest afterwards, but I don’t believe them. These days it takes six years, two public enquires and a judicial review just to get planning permission for a house, so the idea that the whole world took just six days seems a little improbable to me. I will however concede to the God Squad that they might have something right about Sunday. It should be a day when the shops aren’t open. Saturday is shopping day, not Sunday. Sunday is for dinner with the in-laws, or for meeting the boyfriend’s parents if you haven’t got round to having in-laws yet. Personally I’ve never made it as far as either of those, so Sunday for me used to be about seeing if the man I’d picked up the night before had any lead left in his pencil and if he didn’t, which usually seemed to be the case given my appetite during the night, getting him out of the house as quickly as possible so I could spend the rest of the day windsurfing. Recently though, it’s not just the cold winter weather that’s been interrupting my Sunday worship of the wind and waves. Sue never seems to be able to manage Saturday shopping now on account of her being “busy” at her boyfriend’s house, and so we’re having to move the shopping to Sunday. I assume that by “busy” she means having sex, but quite why she always has to do it on a Saturday afternoon when the shops are beckoning is something of a mystery to me. And while the wind still blows on a Saturday, Sunday shopping just doesn’t feel right. We can’t even get a decent cup of coffee because our favourite coffee shop is one of the few that’s not open on a Sunday. So here I am, stuck in Costa with a dodgy Cortado, being leered at by a bunch of hoodies, and waiting for Sue, who’s fashionably late as usual.   

 

On this particular Sunday, Sue is stretching the fashionable part of being late towards haute bloody couture, but I can’t really get that annoyed with her. I’ve known Sue for over thirteen years and she’s never been on time for anything. With neither of us having any real family to speak of, we’ve become close friends, almost sisters, and we share pretty much everything. There are no secrets between us. Well, except maybe one teeny, tiny little secret that I keep from her. And that is that I’m in love with her, and have been almost since we first met. I love her, not just as my close friend, soul mate and confidante, but in a deeply sexual way too. When I’m with her I can feel the lust rising within me, heating me up and making my insides go gooey. I often fantasize about making love to her while she dominates me in unspeakable ways, which is all very strange because I’m not a lesbian and I’m not really submissive either, quite the opposite of both normally, and I don’t think I’m even properly bi-sexual because I’ve never had desires about any other woman. But I keep my feelings strictly under wraps. Sue has told me of most, if not all of her sexual exploits and fantasies and if there’s one thing that has never featured, it’s another woman. I like to think of myself as a very attractive woman, but I’m not naïve enough to think I’m so irresistible as to be able to turn her, and have us both ride off into some lesbian sunset. Coming out to her would probably just ruin our friendship which is something I don’t think I could bear. It all tears me apart sometimes and is probably the reason I have never made a long term relationship with anyone else. I rather dread the day that Sue meets some Mr Right and drifts away from me to become a wife and mother, but I know it will come eventually. Maybe it’s even happening now as she’s been seeing this guy Richard for over six months and our girly shopping days are having to play second fiddle to Sue’s love life with him. Perhaps I should just do it: throw myself upon her and see what happens. And if she runs a mile, then maybe that will turn out to be a good thing. It might shake me out of my teenage-like crush on her and allow me to find a not-so-forbidden and lasting fruit to chew on. After all, I’m thirty five years old and it’s probably time I started to think about trading in my hedonistic, single lifestyle for something more compatible with my age.

 

There is another problem with my lust-filled love for Sue which is that I like having sex with men. Lots of it. The rougher and more full-on the better. And it’s something that, if I say so myself, I’m bloody good at. In fact my only complaint with my sex life, other than Sue’s non-participation, is that I find so many men are just not up to the job. I like the sort of sex in which my dress doesn’t survive. I want to be fucked and fucked well, not made lovey-dovey love to. But there seem to be so few misogynistic, bastard heroes around these days. What happened to all the “fuck ‘em and forget ‘em” macho types. Nowadays they all seem to be “new age and in touch with their feminine side” or “looking for a relationship, not just sex” and that’s no sodding good to me. Maybe I’m just not going to the right sort of parties anymore. I never seem to be able to find a good Gene Hunt type. Or maybe Bond, James Bond would do.

 

My phone goes. It’s a text. “Cu in 5. Americano pls. S”

 

I get up and wander to the counter to order Sue’s Americano and another Cortado for myself. As I return to the table my eye is caught by one of the paintings that hang around the walls of the shop. It depicts a simple scene of a man and a woman dressed in Victorian clothes, holding hands in the evening, or more likely in my dirty mind, the dawn light. He looks handsome and smart in his suit, but it is the lady who I really notice. She is impossibly beautiful, almost a caricature of femininity, with her long, flowing hair, large eyes, tiny waist and long, shapely, blue grey dress. It’s an image from a time I rather hanker for, when men were men and women were women and there was none of this equality nonsense. Equality to me means “just the same” and I don’t want to be “just the same” in a boring world of politically correct blandness. I want to dress up and look good and be a woman to be desired and fought over by strong and handsome men. Failing that, being whistled at by himbos on building sites will have to suffice. And personally, I could put up with quite a lot of inequality if it meant I got to wear a dress like hers every day, although I think I’d have to lift the hem a bit. The world would truly be a sadder place if we couldn’t admire the art of the shoe designer.

 

“Am I so hopelessly late that my best friend has gone into hibernation in the middle of Costa?” Sue’s voice breaks me from my philosophical daydreaming.

 

“Is that my favourite tardy temptress I hear behind me?” I turn and see my friend and the object of my desire looking a little flushed, almost as if she’s been running but I know she hasn’t. You don’t run in heels like those. “I wasn’t hibernating. Just admiring this painting that’s all.”

 

Sue glances at the painting but doesn’t seem to see anything very remarkable in it. “Very Mills & Boon,” she says dismissively.

 

“Maybe. But I thought I saw something a bit deeper in it.” I give Sue a quick peck on the cheek and hold up the two coffees. “Shall we sit?”

 

Sue looks uncomfortable. “Err, actually can we stand at the bar instead?” she replies sheepishly.

 

“It’s a coffee shop Sue. They don’t have a bar.”

 

“Well they’ve got some bar thingies over there.”

 

She gestures towards a line of high, breakfast style tables with tall stools, and sets off towards them. I take a final glance at the lady in the painting and then take in the view of the real-life beautiful lady in front of me. I could go on forever describing Sue’s wonderful features and use up the whole stock of superlatives in the dictionary but I’ll limit myself to just saying that the whole package is amazing and the hair, the face, the eyes, the legs and especially the bottom are all without equal. But then, being as I’m in love with her, I might be slightly biased. And I can hold my own alongside her, as I’m no ugly duckling either. Big hair, big boobs, big bum, tiny waist, that’s me. I’m so curvy I’m almost a freak, and when I make enough effort I might look like I’ve just escaped from the golden age of Hollywood. I’m not quite as tall as Sue, but I can do higher heels than she can and so we usually top out about the same. We both have rather a lot of hair and there is something of an unspoken rivalry between as to whose is the longest. Usually Sue is a little ahead in this game, but she has an unfair advantage in that her jet black hair falls straight as an arrow down her back whereas my tresses curl and wind about, covering at least three times the distance to get below my shoulders, but giving me an impressively voluminous red mane of which I’m rather proud. It is impossibly red. Everyone assumes I dye it, which really pisses me off because I don’t, except for the very ends which I sometimes dye black. Today though, it is Sue that is a picture in red and black. She has on the short, black, Muubaa asymmetric leather jacket she often wears. It has a zip which is offset well to one side leaving an unbroken, clean panel of leather over her front which perfectly displays the shape of her bust and waist. The jacket looks fabulous when teamed with a short skirt or skinny jeans, but today she has chosen a loose, floaty, longish red skirt that looks incongruously mismatched to the snug, fitted lines of the jacket. An unusual for her, fashion faux pas. She has however rescued the look somewhat with a pair of black Jimmy Choos, red gloves and a red beret. We reach the bar tables and I perch on one of the tall stools. Sue shuns the stools, preferring to stand and lean forward against the table.

 

“Are you sure you want to prop yourself there like that? You’re doing terrible things to the hormones of hoody central over there. It’ll make their spots worse.”

 

Sue glances round casually at the bunch of teenagers at the back of the shop who were ogling me earlier and now seem transfixed by her bottom which is pointed in their direction.

 

“Let ‘em stare” she says. “I doubt they’d survive having sex with us.”

 

“Probably true. But it’s sometimes fun to ruin a youngster now and then. Give him an experience any future girlfriend will never match up to.”

 

“You’re a dirty slut Helena. Dirty and evil.”

 

“Ha, and so says the woman who is pointing her arse at them in the most suggestive manner. What’s with all the standing up anyway? Sore bum or something?”

 

“Well, yes actually.” She looks embarrassed and doesn’t elaborate.

 

“OK then, sore bum. You can’t just leave it at that Sue. Are you going to tell me, or just leave me to assume?” I don’t know whether to be amused or concerned for her yet, although I’m suspecting the former.

 

“Assume what exactly?” she says, but I can see a hint of amusement creep across her face even though she tries to hide it.

 

“Well either it’s a case of haemorrhoids, in which case you don’t need to be embarrassed and you’ll have my sympathy, or Richard’s been spanking you and got carried away, in which case I’ll laugh my arse off and then I won’t be able to sit down either. But I don’t know if hoody central back there could stand the view in stereo. Their heads might explode.”

 

“It won’t be their heads that’ll explode.” She laughs and her embarrassment begins to melt away. “I haven’t got piles and you’re wrong about Richard spanking me. But maybe not quite as wrong as you were thinking.”

 

“Ooh, do tell, do tell. If not Richard then who?”

 

“Well it’s not so much who, more of a what really. I’ve been going to tell you about it for a while, partly because it’s quite a laugh, but also because I feel a bit guilty about not being around on Saturdays for our little retail therapy sessions lately.”

 

“Oh, you don’t need to feel guilty about that. Other than the crappy coffee, Sunday shopping’s alright.” I’m lying of course and she knows it.

 

“Hmm.” Sue takes a swig of her Americano. “It’s just that the football’s normally on a Saturday.”

 

“Football? Ok, now I think it's my head that's about to explode. A sore arse that might be due to spanking I can cope with, but now you can’t do Saturday shopping because you’re watching football? What happened to ‘Richard and his bloody football’ or ‘I’m not going round to Richard’s today because there’s bloody football on and I’ll get ignored’ or ‘Oh no his mates are coming round tomorrow to watch bloody football’?”

 

“I know, I know. I never used to like football. And I still don’t like Richard’s slobby friends who come over to freeload on his beer and watch the match on that monster telly he’s got. But it used to be fine because while they all drank lager and shouted at the telly, I would spend the afternoon out shopping with you. But a couple of months ago, Richard decided I needed to be educated in the joys of football. To err… understand the agony and ecstasy of being a fan watching your team play. So he’s built this sort of…err… machine.”

 

“A machine? He’s built a machine to … what, throw footballs at you or something?” I shake my head as I ask the question. This conversation is becoming rather bizarre, even for one of ours.

 

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s a sort of… erm… pleasure, pain machine. And it’s linked to his Sky TV box so the football match controls it. I pick a team and if they’re winning I get, err pleasured, and if they lose I get pain. It makes the match incredibly exciting.”

 

I only just manage to avoid spraying my mouthful of Cortado all over the inside of Costa’s front window. I’m speechless.

 

“Why you look shocked Helena. Did I never say how clever Richard is? I don’t just love him for his cock you know.”

 

“Uh, yes but… err…” I can’t seem to string any coherent words together. “A machine? Wh…what sort of machine? Pleasure, pain? What does it do? Does it fuck you or something?” My question is meant to be an attempt at humour.

 

“Oh yes, it certainly does that. And in ways no man could manage. For a start, it can keep going for ninety minutes, and not just in the honeypot, it can go looking for chocolate mousse too. And do milkshakes. And just about everything else on the naughty menu as well. It’s really quite intense.”

 

Costa’s front window seems at risk again, but fortunately I’ve no coffee left. I just stare at her, open mouthed. She’s told me about plenty of kinky things she’s got up to in the past, indeed I’ve shared hot stuff from my sex life too, but this? This is on a whole new level. Her boyfriend’s built her a sex machine? Well that’s weird enough, but a sex machine that’s controlled by a football match? I imagine a picture of Sue sitting on some sort of chair watching football and screaming for her team while being pummelled by a mechanical dildo through a hole in the seat. Even if I didn’t have the hots for her, it would still be quite a scene. It takes a while before I can think and speak again.

 

“OKay, I err… I wasn’t expecting that. It does fuck you then. Shit. And it does pain as well?”

 

“Well, that’s the weird thing,” she says, leaning close to me and lowering her voice almost to a whisper. Her previous display of confidence and bravado in telling me all this seems to have evaporated and she’s now obviously uncomfortable, but unable to stop her confessional now that it’s gotten momentum. “Sometimes, when it’s done right, I get off on the pain just as much as the pleasure stuff. In twenty odd years of having sex I’ve never known just what a turn on pain can be. I mean, I’ve had the odd spanking before, but as soon as it hurt I just pulled away and stopped it. No fun. No turn on. But when you’re strapped down and can’t move; can’t stop it; well it’s something very different.”

 

“Whoa, whoa. Strapped down? You mean you’re tied to this thing?”

 

“Well, yes. It wouldn’t work if I wasn’t. Where’s the excitement if you can just walk away as soon as it gets a bit tough?” Sue’s confidence seems to be returning. “Take yesterday for example. I chose to support Arsenal because I’ve heard of them and think they must be a big team. But they’re hopeless and get thrashed five nil, and my bottom gets whacked and whacked every time the other team score. If I hadn’t been strapped in I would have been out of there after the first ten minutes, but I had to take it for the whole ninety, and as it turned out I think I had more orgasms than maybe any other game I’ve done.”

 

“More orgasms? Why, how many do you normally have?”

 

“I don’t know really. I’ve never been able to keep count, but maybe ten or twelve.”

 

“Twelve? In ninety minutes? Jesus Sue. It’s a wonder you can still walk. Is this why you can’t sit down today?” I’m starting to crack up.

 

“Well yes.” She looks embarrassed again. “My bum was so sore this morning I couldn’t face wearing panties or tights. And jeans were a definite no no. So I covered up with this monstrosity.” She gestures at her skirt.

 

“You mean you’re going commando under that? Woohoo, draughty in January. If only the hoodies knew.” The hilarious story finally wins out over my incredulity and I burst into fits of laughter.

 

“Har har. Laugh all you want. I’ll have you know it was absolutely worth it.”

 

“Really? They must have been some orgasms.”

 

“The best. You should come over and try it sometime.”

 

“Oh Fuck no. I’m actually rather fond of being able to sit down, and wear pants when I want to.”

 

“Suit yourself then. Your loss” she says, and flicks her eyebrows smugly at me. She knows she’s sown a seed. She looks at her watch and downs the last of her Americano. “Come on. Let’s shop,” she says as she straightens up. “I have an urgent need to buy stockings.”  

 

We leave the Costa and head into the vastness of the shopping arcade. As we shop, I try to press Sue for more details of the machine and what it actually does, but she has turned coy about it and just changes the subject each time I mention it. It seems however that this mysterious machine is having an effect on my state of mind, as I splash out on some really risqué, red Myla that goes with my hair, and a pair of thoroughly gorgeous Manolo Blahnik Timberlands. They are knee length, light brown, have unfeasibly high stiletto heels, pointy toes and lace all the way up the front with wasp-like yellow and black laces that run through tiny metal D rings. There’s no quick release zip and I have to unthread half the laces to get them on or off. They are incredibly silly, but my feet feel like royalty in them, cossetted in the finest, soft leather, and I feel like a she-wolf as I strut from the shop wearing them. I’m about to spring for some amazing, black Bordelle, when the four figures my Manolos and Myla just planted on my credit card sink in, and I decide to call it a day. But Sue also seems to be feeling rather flustered, because as well as fulfilling her urgent stocking requirement, she buys a very long and very tight leather skirt that looks to me strictly like party wear, and for rather raunchy parties at that. But she says it’s to wear to work. I find myself wondering exactly what goes on in the offices of the Wildlife and Wetland Trust, of which Sue is the boss. Maybe there’s more than one kind of wild life they preserve there.

 

oOo

 

I get home from our shopping session and strut around the house, still wearing my new boots. I kid myself that it’s just because they’re such an effort to unlace and take off, but I know that really it’s because I’m feeling hot and horny and the boots are pushing up more than just my heels. I can’t get the thought of Sue and her sex machine out of my head and my feet seem to sum up the dilemma I feel about it. They’re really quite sore from hours of shopping in the silly, pointy heels, but I somehow feel aroused and invigorated wearing the boots, even though there isn’t anyone else here to see me in them. Why do I get such a thrill from torturing my own feet? Likewise, the concept of Sue’s machine seems utterly ridiculous. What’s the point of being strapped to, and fucked by a machine when you’ve got a perfectly functional man there to satisfy you? Especially a machine that can turn round and bite you on the whim of a football match. Totally stupid, totally bizarre, and yet so totally beguiling. Just like my boots really.

 

I flick through my phone’s contact list and think about calling to see if any of my occasional lovers are in town. Mike perhaps, or James. Yes James. The last time he was here we said maybe six words to each other the whole evening, but we made plenty of other noise. But then, no. Tonight actually feels like it should be a Hitachi night.

 

I eat dinner, and then take a large glass of Ten Minutes by Tractor 2012 to my bedroom where I strip off my boots and everything else. I fish in my shopping bag for my new Myla and slip into it. I look in the mirror and ooh, I like what I see. I’m not sure if my body was made by God or by The Devil, but I suspect whoever designed it had sin on their mind. I fancy I could fill out a dress made for the likes of Monroe or Mansfield in all the right places and there’d still be slack around my waist. This feast of curves is complimented by my enormous red mane and the matching lingerie. The lacy and sheer bra is strapless but has short sleeves attached to it which go around my arms to complete a fiery red streak right across my body, which my hair grazes dangerously. The suspender belt sits alluringly low on my hips, not interfering with my hourglass waist and it has a tiny, sheer skirt attached which hangs over, but doesn’t really obscure the minimal triangle of the panties. The only thing that spoils the look is the suspender straps that hang limply down my thighs. Well that’s easily fixed. I rummage in my stocking drawer and come up with some black fishnets. They make me giggle as I think of Sue at work tomorrow in her stockings, wincing as she sits down at her desk. I slip them on and connect the suspenders, remembering to thread them under my panties. It’s just not sexy if you wear them over the top. Now I’m complete. I look in the mirror again and promenade about like a catwalk model. Ooh yes, can’t cook, can’t dance, can’t sing but who cares? Hello boys. Or even hello Sue. Surely she couldn’t resist me if she were here now. I wonder what the Victorian man from the painting would make of me and whether he would prefer me to his beautiful princess. But my ego takes a slight knock as I decide that she might still be more lovely and sexy than I am, even though most of her is covered up by that long dress. But it’s a close thing and anyway, she’s just a caricature in a painting and I’m a real woman who’s feeling very real and very woman tonight.

 

I slip onto my bed, swill some wine and open up my iPad. I Google up “sex machine” and explore what’s there. I’ve seen a few before on the internet; yes I do look at that sort of stuff occasionally, but they’ve never caught my interest before. As with anything to do with sex, there’s loads of stuff on the web, even entire sites dedicated to machine sex. Many of the machines look home-made and a wide variety of household items have been pressed into service. Power tools, washing machines, bits of bicycle, vacuum cleaners, gym equipment, the ingenuity of man and womankind seems to know no bounds. There’s even one made of Lego! Most of the machines follow a similar theme: a rod with a dildo on one end, and on the other end, a motor or piston that drives the thing back and forth. The ladies (and a good sprinkling of men) using them all seem to be having a good time, especially when there’s a double dildo involved and both front and rear openings can be “loved” at once. But I don’t really find them much of a turn on, although I suppose there are some practical attractions. A machine won’t get anxious and fail to work, or make a mess before we even start, or suddenly remember its wife, or pull out and squirt all over my tummy just when I’m about to cum. It won’t want to smoke afterwards and stink my bedroom out, or spray piss over my bathroom floor. And it won’t come knocking on my door for weeks afterwards, proclaiming its love for me.

 

But it all looks much more fun if the woman (and now it seems to be exclusively a woman) is strapped or tied to the machine. The element of bondage adds another level that does get my attention. I’m not usually submissive, unless I’m thinking about Sue, but I do appreciate the difference that being tied up makes to a good fucking, and the thought of being helpless while a machine relentlessly screws me is rather exciting. And didn’t Sue say that she got strapped to hers? And that unlike the stuff I see on the web, hers can apparently do a load more than just slide in and out. This is a machine I have to see. And just maybe even try.

 

I switch off my iPad and drink some more wine. It’s Hitachi time. I slide off my panties, which by now are distinctly moist, and congratulate myself for having done the suspenders the right side of them. I get the Hitachi from my bedside drawer along with its lovely Triple Pleaser Wand attachment and my favourite blindfold, a red one of course. I like to be blindfolded while I masturbate so I can see sexy scenes around me in the blackness. I think of Sue strapping me to her machine and switching it on, then settling down to watch the show. And it must be quite a show that I put on in real-life tonight, right here on my bed. The red lady in red who screams herself hoarse. It’s a bit of a shame there’s no-one here to see it.