Secret Seductress (What's Her Secret?) (2 page)

“Mmmmm,” I said, hoping I’d sound turned on, seductive. “That’s enough for now, big boy.”

Laughter erupted around us, and I pulled my hands out, gave his nipple another quick bite, then pushed in between Gary and Jen, taking her hand and leading her back to our table. We sat, me out of breath and her almost wetting herself with laughter, and picked up our glasses, attempting to drink and make out we’d been there all along. Harry let go of the T-shirt, and Leon yanked it back down, looking around to see if he could spot Pussy Pwoar.

Pussy wants more
, I’d say.

“You bunch of bastards,” Leon said, laughing to hide what I could only imagine was embarrassment. “Who the bloody hell arranged that?”

No one admitted to anything.

Leon looked our way. “Girls? Did you see?”

“Oh, we saw, all right,” Jen said. “Quite the hard six-pack you’ve got there—along with something else.”

I thought of that something else and how it had felt. I wanted it inside me more than ever.

“Mandy?” Leon said, raising an eyebrow and covering his bulge with one hand.

“Hmm?” Feigning nonchalance was probably my best bet.

“Did you see?” He tilted his head.

“I did.”

“And?”

“All I saw was Pussy Pwoar groping you.” I wanted to tell him it had been me, that I’d made his cock hard and had bitten his nipple, but it really wasn’t the right time. He might give a negative reaction, and then where would I be? In the hall of shame, that was where. And everyone knew that friends getting intimate always ended in tears.

“You fuckers,” he said, shaking his head then sipping his beer. “I’ll get you all back for this, you’ll see.”

“How was it?” Jen asked quietly, leaning close to me and resting her head on my shoulder.

“Lovely,” I said. “No, better than lovely. I wish I’d done more, but I didn’t want to give the old duffers in here a heart attack.”

“So why didn’t you admit it was you?”

I sipped some voddy through my straw, swallowed and shook my head. “What, and have to see the disgust on his face? No thanks.”

“You’re daft, you are. He wouldn’t be disgusted.” Jen sucked on her straw, and it made a sound like harsh wind through a window crack where her drink was almost gone.

“Of course he would be. We’re all friends. We don’t fuck each other.”

“Bollocks.” Jen sat upright. “The sad thing is, you’re right, which means I’ll never get my greedy little hands on Gary. They see us as their mates. Two of the lads.” She paused, stared down at her drink, then jumped up and said, “Want another? We may as well get rat-arsed, drown our sorrows.”

“I’m drunk enough as it is,” I said, although thinking about it, I’d sobered up since the nipple-licking, cock-fondling incident. Instead of alcohol flooding my veins, I now had lust to contend with. I couldn’t work out which one was worse for making my legs weak.

“One more for the road, go on,” Jen said. “And we’ll drink them up at the bar with the blokes. If I can manage to cop a feel of Gary at some point tonight, even if it’s just me swatting his arm when he tells a joke, I’ll be happy.”

I knew how she felt. The times I’d done that to Leon…

“All right,” I said, getting up and skirting around the table. “
One
for the road. And I
mean
one.”

Chapter Two

We ended up having another
five
for the road. I’d known we would, and it hadn’t seemed a problem until me and Jen went out into the cool summer night and staggered against one another. A pair of lushes, that was what we were. Cracking up and weaving down the road, we headed in the direction of our places. We lived next door to one another in little flats above a Chinese take-away that had all-you-can-eat nights on Sundays, which went down a treat and soaked up the alcohol we’d sunk over the weekends. It was our routine, and we always joked about one of us getting upset and feeling abandoned if we ever found ourselves a permanent boyfriend.

Oh, we’d had men, plenty of them, but nothing too serious. All the blokes we’d picked seemed to want to tame us, stop us being so loud and having a good time. I wasn’t prepared to give up the majority of what I did for a fella yet—but that was a big fat lie, because I’d do it for Leon. I’d do quite a bit for him. Still, that wasn’t an option, more of a pipe dream, one that I could entertain when the fancy took me, which would be all too often.

“Life can be a bit shit sometimes, can’t it?” Jen asked, sliding her arm into the crook of mine. She wavered, stopped walking for a second, then must have decided she was okay to carry on.

“What do you mean?” I hiccoughed, and my vision doubled for a second or two.

“Well, them,” she said. “Those mates of ours. Not interested in us when we really want them to be.”

“Ah, well. We can’t expect them to fall all over us when they don’t know how we feel. And, yes,” I said, before she could say anything, “we won’t tell them because we’re worried it’ll affect things between us.” I thought about our little quintet. “And if we did get together with Gary and Leon, poor Marshall would be left out.”

“I’m not having it away with him just to keep him happy,” Jen said. “He’s more like my brother.”

“Same here. So, basically we’re fucked.”

“I wish we were.”

We laughed uproariously at that, stupid, over-the-top laughter that the comment hadn’t warranted. Such was the reaction of a pair of pissed-up mares. At the front of the Chinese, we stared through the window at people eating and played our usual game of ‘Tell Their Story’ while Jen sparked up a menthol cigarette.

“That one there,” she said, “the woman who looks like Jackie O, sitting with the bloke twice her age.”

“What’s her secret?”

“She’s his bit on the side. She drives a red convertible Merc with the roof down on sunny days so the wind flaps her hair about and she looks all sexy and stuff. She even wears sunglasses so her hair doesn’t get in her eyes.”

“What would she be doing with him, then, other than for money?” I asked, watching the man looking at his companion as though she’d said something particularly amusing.

“Oh, you wouldn’t think it, but she loves him silly. People reckon she’s after him for his money, but she’s not. She didn’t know he was loaded when she met him, and by the time she’d found out, she’d already fallen head over heels. Nice thought, that.”

“It is,” I said, eyeing the diners because it was my turn to pick a person. “All right, that one there. The thirty-something woman with the headscarf on.”

“What’s her secret?”

“She’s come here to dine alone because she hasn’t got anyone to eat with. She lost her lover years ago and adored him so much she never went with anyone else after he died. So, every week, on the night they’d always dined out, she comes here and thinks of him with every bite.”

“Oh, Mandy! I’ve gone all maudlin now.” Jen blew a big puff of smoke out then sniffed. “What if that’s true? What if she really is alone like that?”

“She isn’t,” I said. “Look, there’s a bloke coming to sit with her. Probably had to make a quick dash to the toilet. Ate a curry that was a bit too spicy.”

Jen stubbed her cigarette out with the sole of her shoe, giggling. “You’re mad, you are.”

Yes, I was quite mad. The funny, jolly friend who always cheered people up. Inside, though, was a different matter. But before I got maudlin myself, I fished my keys out of my bag then unlocked the street door.

“Come on, woman,” I said. “We need our beauty sleep before we head back to The Rusty Nail tomorrow for another session. Lunchtimes there are always nice.”

“Yeah, laid back, and the lads sit with us the whole time then.” She sighed, meaning to lean against the wall but bumping into it instead. She rubbed her shoulder. “Ow. But…shit, we’ve got no chance of getting them without messing it up, have we?”

“No,” I said, going for cheery but failing miserably. “And if we talk about it any more tonight while we’re in this state, we’ll start blubbing and look wrecks tomorrow when we all meet up.” I pushed the door open.

“Right. Yes. On we go!” She charged through the doorway then scrabbled up the stairs using her hands to help her.

I followed after closing the door, more sober now as I thought about what she’d said. ‘No chance’. That was about the sum of it. At the top of the stairs, I looked down at her sitting outside her front door, her back to it. She stared up at me and giggled.

“I’m so fucked, Mandy,” she said.

“I can see that, and not in the way you’d rather either, I’d bet.”

“No. Haven’t have a good fuck in ages.” She hauled herself upright only to veer to the side.

“Me neither.” I caught her and held my hand out for her keys. “Still, not to worry. Plenty of fish in the sea and all that, and there’s always next weekend. Time enough to meet a bloke.”

She handed her keys over, and I let her in, went inside with her to put her to bed. If I didn’t, she’d have slept right there on the hallway rug. As I drew the quilt over her, she mumbled then appeared to fall asleep. I left her keys on her bedside table and went to my own flat. It felt empty, more so than usual, and to stop myself from dwelling on it, I had a quick shower then put on my trusty cotton pajamas. In bed in the dark, sober enough to access Facebook on my phone, I browsed what everyone else had been up to, hoping I’d grow tired.

Gary had put a comment on Leon’s wall.

Did you have a hard time tonight with Pussy Pwoar?

I laughed, remembering how hard he’d been. God, he’d felt so bloody good. Shame I couldn’t tell him it had been me. I looked at the comments. Quite a few of them.

Leon: Piss off, mate.

Gary: You sound frustrated.

Leon: Very sodding funny.

Gary: Go on, admit it. You are, aren’t you?

Leon: I’m not biting.

Gary: Pussy did.

Leon: Who was she?

Gary: Wouldn’t you like to know.

Leon: I would, that’s why I asked.

Gary: I can take you round there, if you like.

Leon: What, you know where she lives?

Gary: Of course I bloody do! You’d have to wear a blindfold, though.

Leon: What?

Gary: Yep. She likes to keep her identity a secret.

Leon: I don’t even know her. Going round to her place wouldn’t be right.

Gary: Why, because of ________?

Leon: Yep.

Gary: It’ll be fine. Trust me.

Leon: That’s the problem, we might be mates, but I don’t trust you sometimes.

Gary: You need to on this.

Leon: Christ. It was one thing in the pub, but to go to her house? Bit rude!

Gary: It will be rude, if you’d let it. I’ll come and get you now.

My stomach rolled over. They were coming here? Now?

I bolted out of bed and hopped from foot to foot, working out what to do next. I couldn’t think straight. My heart seemed to have grown arms and legs that were flapping about wildly, churning up all my insides. I thought I might be sick—with excitement and fear. Not the gut-wrenching fear that comes with being afraid, but the type where the unknown was ahead and any possible outcome would end up as a disaster. What were they coming here for anyway? For a chat? For me to bite Leon’s nipples again? I wouldn’t mind doing that, but blimey, me and him alone? Or worse, Gary perving in the background?

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said, switching on the light then hurtling toward my chest of drawers and yanking the top one open. “Just get a move on!”

I tossed knickers and bras aside, none of them suitable for if Leon and me… Oh, God, the thought of that had me coming over all skew-whiff. What if Gary left us and I had to…we had to…

There was no alternative. If I wanted him, I had to become Pussy Pwoar.

I dashed to my wardrobe, diving down on all fours to ferret about in the back. Amongst the piles of shoes and clothes that had fallen off hangers was a black corset. I hadn’t worn it for a good couple of years. What if it didn’t fit anymore?

Bugger.

I panicked at not finding it, then sighed with relief as I brushed my fingers over familiar fabric, leather and the criss-cross ties that went up the front. I dragged it out, grazing my wrist on the end of a stiletto heel that had the little black tip missing. A nail must have been sticking out, and I made a mental note to get them fixed. I plunked back on my arse and held the corset in my lap. I was going to wear it?
Really
?

“It’s what Pussy Pwoar would wear,” I said, running my fingers over the front, the tip of one fingernail juddering over the zip. “And Pussy Pwoar is a sexy bitch who isn’t afraid to get what she wants.”

I got up and stripped off my pajamas, my nipples perking up from the change in temperature. I undid the side zip on the corset, wrapped the leathery goodness around me, then zipped it back up. I stared down at myself. Thankfully, I didn’t look too bad. I had a bit of extra flesh where my armpits were, but all in all it fitted okay. I felt a bit saucy in it, actually, and went over to my full-length mirror to have a nose at myself. No, not too bad at all, although my legs seemed a bit undressed.