Act of Exposure (13 page)

Lance
continued to observe the back of the other man's neck. From where
he was standing, 'the man' could have as easily been black as
white. Like a silhouette, he told himself. A black shadow. That's
all he was, all he ever had been. Not once had he ever seen the
man's face.

The man made
him feel uncomfortable. Always he had only seen the darkness of him
against the lights of the city, and heard the sound of his
voice.

As on other
occasions, he wanted to be away, but this time for a secondary
reason.

He achieved
his objective and left before any questions could be asked about
why some of the tapes he handed in were so much shorter than
others. Awkward questions were something to be avoided. Whatever he
had spliced from the originals, he regarded as his private
property.

As the scenic lift travelled slowly down the outside of the
building, Lance Vector surveyed the high towers of modern offices
and lower yet somehow more imposing dome of St Paul's which was
half-hidden behind one particular building.
A bit like the people I expose
, he
said to himself.
Only a portion of their
life is actually showing
.

When Abby
arrived at Stephen's apartment, he hugged her tightly against him.
His tension was obvious.

'I'll get you
out of this, Stephen,' she promised, her fingers stroking his neck
and her words half-smothered by the closeness of his chest. 'I
promise I'll get the charge dismissed.'

He shook his
head emphatically. 'It's not enough for you to defend me. I need
you to find out who set me up.'

Wincing at the
pressure of his fingers on her arms, she looked up into his face.
Dark circles emphasized the brown of his eyes, and his breath smelt
of too much wine. Lines of worry had given him a permanent frown.
'I know I'm asking a lot of you, Abby.' His voice was anxious, but
gentle.

She patted his
arms, shook him a little as though he were being a silly little
boy. Her face was serene, though her brows were furrowed. Never had
she seen Stephen looking so helpless, so fragile. Her heart went
out to him.

Now was the
time for her professional capabilities to add dimension to her
private life. This man had need of her entire attention. She took a
deep breath before saying what had to be said.

'Listen. If I
am to help you, you must listen. I will do all I can, but I do need
to question the rent boy who said you bought his services.
According to the police, he's adamant that you propositioned
him.'

Stephen shook
his head. 'He's my so-called witness. The one who's been asking me
to meet him. I told you he asked me to meet him in some pretty
dreadful places. He asked me to go to those lavatories. As I told
you, he said he had some evidence that would be more than useful in
the Swan and Swallow case, and you know how sorry I feel for old
Rheingold. He refused to come to my office or my house. I was
foolish to go. I know that now. But it is so important that I get
to the bottom of this scandal. I know someone else is involved,
Abby, someone very powerful. I just know it!'

'So what
persuaded you?'

There was a
swallowing motion in Stephen's throat as a look of shame came to
his face. She had an urge to touch his throat, to follow the
hardness of his Adam's apple just as she did the jerking of his
penis when he got excited.

'I took your
advice. I went in disguise.'

Suddenly, it
was Abigail's turn to feel guilty.

'I saw the
photograph. But into a gents' lavatory?'

'I thought I'd
be OK. I used the same disguise as I used at the Red Devil Club on
that night we first met.'

'Oh
Stephen!'

He hung his
head and guiltily she hung hers too. What could she have been
thinking of in suggesting such a thing, casual as it may have
been?

'What a fool I
was.' He leaned his head against hers and the smell of him made her
want to drink his skin and eat his body.

She settled
for kissing his cheek. 'And what a fool I was for suggesting it in
the first place.' She sighed. 'Never mind. It's happened. You've
been accused of something you did not do, and we now have to do
something about it.'

She took a
deep breath, tilted her chin like she always did when the whiff of
battle was in the air. Gently, she cupped his face in her hands.
Inside she was crying. From the moment of their first meeting in
the Red Devil Club, she had instinctively trusted him. She trusted
him now. Like his approach to sex, Stephen's approach to his job
and to justice was completely honest.

He sighed
regretfully. 'If only he had agreed to meet me here.'

'If only.'
Abigail measured her words carefully as she gave the matter serious
thought. 'But why didn't he meet you here? You could have been as
easily accused here as anywhere else. The tabloids would still have
gloated over all the gory details. Obviously, that was not enough.
They wanted a court case, an act of obscenity, lurid enough to
spark public outcry. But they must also have wanted you out of
here.' She eyed him coolly, but spoke quickly. 'Was anything
planted while you were gone?'

Stephen
stared. Although he had bedded her, the look on his face was
incredulous, as though he had only just realized how intelligent
she was. 'How did you know that?'

She smiled,
felt it was weak, but hoped it wouldn't seem that way to him. 'It
seemed elementary - to use a much abused and famous phrase. Get you
out - get some in.'

He groaned and
held his head in both hands.

'Later the
investigators came in and took away some tapes and some
photographs, which I swear I've never seen before. I swear it!' He
shook his head mournfully.

She reached
for the wine he had poured her and studied him over the rim of her
glass. Where was that confident character who oozed masculinity and
had dominated their sex games?

Head still in
his hands, he was now staring at the floor. From the sound of his
voice and the fact that there was little wine left in the bottle,
she could tell that his confidence was now swimming in a hazy mind.
Because their bodies had fused, their minds and their emotions were
fusing too. She could feel his anguish. She reached out and trailed
her fingers through his hair.

Dark,
frightened eyes in a flushed face glanced up at her. Then, almost
as though he were melting, he sunk to his knees, folded his arms on
her lap, and closed his eyes.

Touched by his
aura of helplessness, Abigail sighed and ran her fingers through
his hair again.

The back of
his head reminded her of the last time they had been in such a
position. She had been driving, and he had rolled up her skirt,
pushed her legs apart, then kissed the thigh nearest to him before
his mouth and tongue had kissed her pubic lips.

As she had
changed up into top gear, she had climaxed, her hips jerking off
the driving seat, her wet pussy saturating his mouth.

Despite his
present forlorn demeanour she could not help but be aroused by the
closeness of his body, the feel of his head in her lap, his arms
against her thighs, his chest against her shins.

'Oh, Stephen.
I feel for you. I'm so sorry.'

She saw his
eyes close.

'Keep doing
that,' he said. 'It's incredibly soothing. Marvellously
pleasant.'

'Enjoy it and
I'll keep doing it.'

She bent her
head nearer to his.

Humming
softly, she smoothed his hair away from his face and thought how
vulnerable he looked.

'I'm going to
ask a lot of you, Abby,' he murmured. 'I'm asking you to bare your
body, your soul, to be nice - very nice - to licentious and cruel
men in the hope of saving me and my career. This is just the
beginning, you know.'

'I know. But I
wouldn't be doing it just for you. I would also be doing it in the
interests of justice.' She said it softly, sincerely. 'Where do I
start? Who was this boy, and how did he get your telephone
number?'

'He said he
got it from a friend of mine - a parliamentary friend; Douglas
Dermott-Embledon.'

'A would-be
peer.'

Stephen moved
his head. 'How do you know that?'

'Is the House
of Commons leak-proof?'

He relaxed and
let his head fall back into her lap. 'Is it hell!'

Abby
congratulated herself on her natural ability for a quick
response.

Douglas
Dermott-Embledon was from a privileged family and held an equally
privileged post in the Ministry of Defence.

He was also a
member of the Red Devil Club. It had once been his great pleasure
to take her from the club and drive with her down to where HMS
Belfast was berthed.

How, she did
not know, but he had a key to the old tub and seemed to know when
security was at its most minimal.

Breasts
swinging backwards and forwards over the chart table, she had
moaned with pleasure as Douglas had licked her behind, then pushed
his fair-sized member into her welcoming portal.

So far,
Abigail - in her guise as Carmel and thus Jezebel Justice - had
been very successful in discerning the better endowed men from the
lesser. In Douglas, as with Stephen, she had not been disappointed.
Neither had he been. Abby felt sure he would not be averse to a
repeat encounter.

'Then I'll go
to see him.'

As though he
were a sad child, Abigail cradled Stephen's head to her breast,
unbuttoned her blouse, and let him suck at her nipple. As he
sucked, she crooned to him, stroking his hair, his face, and
cradling him close with both arms. With her breast still firmly
between his lips, she huddled over him, undid his trousers, and let
her hand go down to his member. She kissed his face as his penis
jumped in her fingers.

His eyes were
closed, and as he sucked, his fingers pummelled at her breast.

'There,
there,' she said softly. 'Relax. Leave it all to me, and I'll make
it feel better.'

Her fingers
curved around his hardening flesh.

She opened her
legs so he could more easily fit between them and continue to find
comfort in the feel and taste of her breast. His ribs pressed
against her naked sex.

A sweet,
wordless melody came from her throat as she rocked him in her arms
and began to pull his erection to greater promise. Slowly, he
hardened. Pulsating and hot, his erection grew.

Stephen did
not want to open his eyes. Her breast was a comfort to him, a
comfort he did not want to let go of. Behind the darkness of his
eyelids, he could escape the world, but could not, and did not want
to, escape what she was doing to him.

Her fingers
were cool on his penis, her breast warm against his mouth.

The event
reported in the newspaper had knocked him from where he had been,
from being someone with status, a man of integrity, to being
someone sordid, cheap, nasty.

He had his
weaknesses. He was aware of them in himself, just as he was aware
of them in others. In politics, in public, and in private, he was
guilty of many things - but not of what he had been accused of -
never of that!

Sex to him was
the smell of female armpits, shaved, waxed, and perfumed with
essence of roses, musk, sandalwood, or lemon. It was also the rise
of a firm, female breast, it was a curving spine that swept from
well-defined shoulder-blades to the pouting rise of a rounded
behind. It was rich pink nipples that responded to the gentlest
kisses, the tenderest touch; a narrow waist, flared hips. It was
legs opening to reveal a pink slash of flesh between a forest or a
feathering of blonde, russet, or black hair. And the scent of a
woman; a smell that enticed, wafted and snared, drawing him closer
until his nose was buried against a ruby-red clitoris, his tongue
lapping, his throat swallowing her ambrosaic offering.

His penis was
pulsing with a tempo that almost matched the one she was humming.
The sounds, like her touch, were calming his fears, comforting his
scarred soul. Her hands stroked his head, his neck, his torso and
hips, his penis.

When he came,
his hips jerked in time with her dancing fingers. As his cream
trickled over her fingers, he gripped her breast more tightly,
clamped his lips, his teeth around the hardness of her nipple so
she could not possibly escape him until the last, tense throb had
left his stem and his body.

Vaguely, he
was aware of her sighing above him. Her song, and her climax, were
finished.

'Have I made
you feel better?' she asked as she stroked his hair.

He sighed. 'Oh
yes.' He looked up at her suddenly, got up on his elbow so his face
was close to hers. 'But you know we have to be careful, don't you?
You know we can't afford to go back to the way we were, to playing
in the countryside, and taking a room at the Railway Hotel.'

Her smile was
sad and her nod of assent was slow, regretful. 'What a shame. I
truly came alive in that grim little room. I shall miss seeing your
body outlined by that awful yellow streetlight outside the window.
And then there's our tune - you know - the song the trains scream
as they rattle along the rails.'

It made him
smile. She was glad of that.

He kissed one
arched eyebrow, then the other. 'So will I, and perhaps, until
then, I shall never quite be the man I was. I shall depend on you
for moments like these, moments when desire has to be coaxed rather
than expected from my body.'

She
understood, and understanding saddened her. It was even more
imperative that she find out all she could about those who were so
determined to ruin him.

They talked
some more as they bathed together. Normally, Stephen would have
chosen such a moment to instigate some sexual games, some scenario
in which he would be the dominant one, and her his submissive
slave. But as he had already said, sexual arousal in him was no
longer an instant response.