Three Blind Mice

Quiet as mice they scuttled along the dark lane, backs bent, hugging the high hedge to stay out of sight, the three Clancy brothers up to no good as usual. Half a mile behind them was the car, parked in a lay-by on the main road, ahead the farmhouse, its lights glimpsed through gaps in the hedge.

"You sure her husband's away, Bri?" asked the youngest, Den, a scrawny eighteen year old, scuffing along in heavy boots that his skinny legs could barely lift. "He never goes away, hardly ever leaves the house even."

"He's away," the eldest brother assured him. "Saw him at the station this morning, a case big enough to mean that he's away for a couple of nights at least. Now shut the fuck up! Your wheezing's enough to give us away, let alone your big fat gob!"

"Yes, shut the fuck up," echoed Kev, in agreement with his elder brother as always, bullying the younger one whenever he could.

"And you shut the fuck up too!" Bri hissed.

As the lane curved the farmhouse came into full view and Bri, in the lead, stretched out an arm to stop his two brothers, squatted on his haunches to give the place a quick once over. The ground floor was in darkness now, a single light burned in an upstairs window.

"Sound," he said, nodding his head. "Sound. This'll be as easy as….as…"

"Taking candy from a baby?" Kev suggested.

"Don't get fucking smart with me!" Bri said, digging an elbow into his brother, who was quicker with words. "That's what I was gonna say!"

"Here, Bri, she ain't got any dogs about the place, has she?" asked Den nervously.

"For Christ's sake don't be such a wimp!"

"But farmhouses always have dogs," Den continued.

"No! She ain't got any fucking dogs!" said Bri impatiently. "Now come on! Quiet as-"

"Mice?" Kev chipped in, and Bri rounded on him, grabbed him by the shirt.

"I'm warning you, Kev! Do that once more and I'll plant one on you!"

"Sorry, Bri! Sorry!"

"Now come on," said Bri, rising a little, moving forward at a crouch.

In line, according to seniority and the long-established hierarchy, the three brothers reached the farmhouse and flattened themselves against the wall. Peering cautiously into one window, confirming that the ground floor was indeed in darkness, Bri gestured silently to his two brothers and then led the way around the side of the house to the rear. At the kitchen window he checked again, reassured himself that there was no one downstairs, then moved to the door. Taking a roll of heavy tape from his pocket he began to press strip after strip to the glass pane nearest the lock until it was fully covered. A sharp crack of the elbow broke the glass with not too much noise, he pulled away the tape and with it the shattered fragments, then slipped his hand through to turn the lock.

"See?" he said, turning to grin at his brothers. "As easy as…."

Kev said nothing this time.

"….easy as pie."

Claire had heard them coming minutes ago, living in such a solitary location a person became attuned to the silence and their blundering along the lane could not be missed. Visitors at night, on foot, could not have anything sociable in mind, and though she had not heard them early enough to dress she did have time down the stairs barefoot in her nightgown and be waiting for them in the kitchen.

She let them close the door after them -quietly, as they thought- then clicked on the light and levelled the shotgun at the temple of the largest one.

"I would suggest that you all remain still and silent," she said evenly, calmly, as they blinked their eyes in the harsh light. "Because if you don't then this one might lose more brain cells than he can afford."

"Sorry Missus!" said the youngest one. "We just came to-"

"Silent," Claire repeated, and his mouth hung slack and dumb.

Claire waited, to make sure that none of them was going to make any rash moves, regarded the three of them line abreast before her, one obviously all brawn but little brain, another with a little more wit about his eyes, and the third a quivering wreck of a wimp.

Al last she said, "I assume you're here because you've somehow guessed that I'm alone, my husband away."

"It was Bri, he works at the station, saw him," spluttered the wimpish one.

"Shut the fuck up, Den!" said the largest one.

"Yes, shut the fuck up, Den," said Claire, and guessing this one to be the weakest of the three, told him to go across to the Welsh dresser, to open the centre drawer. "You will find a few sets of handcuffs there," she told him.

"Handcuffs? You've got us breaking into a policewoman's house, Bri!"

"A policewoman? Oh no!" Claire laughed.

"Then what you doing with handcuffs, lady?"

"Why I would have thought that was obvious. It's the best way to keep my husband home of an evening," Claire answered. "Now be a good boy and go across there to get them."

The dim-witted one named Den went open to the drawer and slid it open, "For fuck's sake, Bri! She's got a scrap yard full of the things in here!"

"Five or six will do," Claire said patiently. "Bring them."

Den did as he was told.

"Now put them on your friends, their wrists behind their backs," she told him, waiting while he did so, pressing the barrel of the shotgun harder against the big one's temple when she thought he might be about to move. "And now, another cuff through linked through his and over to the Aga, another cuff through his and across to the sink," she said, her eyes flicking quickly to direct him.

She held the shotgun steady while the first was fastened to the door of the Aga, then followed the other as he was led to the sink, secured to the stout waist pipe beneath it to force him into a squat.

Then she levelled the shotgun at the one who had done her bidding, said, "And you now, little boy. Put some cuffs on yourself."

Den quickly slipped a bracelet of his wrist, fumbled clumsily behind his back to slip on the other, all the while looking anxiously at the barrels of the shotgun which was pointed at his chest. Claire poked him with it to hurry him up, then again when she heard the cuffs snap shut, backing him up to the kitchen door. Reaching past him, holding the shotgun hard against his chest with one hand, she took down the collar and leash which hung from the coat hook on the door.

"See Bri!" said Den in dismay. "I told you she'd have fucking dogs! All farms do!"

"No, no dogs," Claire smiled, looping the collar around his neck. "This? Like the handcuffs, it's one more way of keeping my husband in check."

Working the buckle with the fingers of one hand, she took a minute to fasten it snugly, then wound the leash around the coat hook, fastened it tight so that Den was lifted onto the tips of his toes. Finally satisfied that all three were secure, she went over to the kitchen table and sat there, the shotgun resting across her lap, to regard them with a mixture of mockery and disdain.

"What a sad bunch," she said at last. "So tell me, what did you come here to do? To rob me or ravish me?"

"We-"

"Shut it, Den!" said the eldest.

"Thank you Bri, he does tend to interrupt somewhat," said Claire, remembering how the eldest had been addressed, and he glared back at her as if he resented her familiarity. "So, the reason you came. Well to judge by your dress you're in quite a state of penury, so I suppose robbing me was very much on the cards. Yes? And what about ravishing me?"

The eldest gave a low grunt; the youngest blushed, and swallowed as best he could with the collar tight around his throat; the middle one, Claire noticed, said nothing. No doubt he was already getting cramp in his legs through having to squat so uncomfortably against the sink.

Claire took the shotgun from her lap and set it on the table, then yawned, stretched, as if all they had done was wake her, threw her arms out and wide, her long legs splayed, so that the silk of the nightgown was pulled tight against her straining body. Then she relaxed, drew her legs up to plant her feet on the edge of the chair, wrapped her arms around them and rested her chin on her knees, smiling at each of them in turn.

"Like what you see, boys? Imagining what you might have done to me?" she asked. "I bet you've all got hard-ons. Wouldn't surprise me if the little one has come already."

"You're mad, lady," said Bri with a sneer.

"Yes I am! Furious!" snapped Claire, suddenly on her feet and striding over to slap him hard across the face. "Fucking furious that you should have the nerve to break into my home!"

"You bitch!" said Bri, rocked by the blow.

"Oh yes, I can be! A real bitch at times!" Claire snarled, whirling like a dervish and sweeping over to the cutlery drawer, yanking it viciously open.

Den's eyes popped when he saw her take out the carving knife, even Bri looked alarmed, and not wholly relaxed when it seemed that her only purpose was to go across to the linen basket and tear some bed linen to shreds.

There was an audible sigh of relief from him, though, when he saw her place the knife onto the table, next to the shotgun.

"No more feasting on me for a while," she said, coming slowly towards him, the long strips of cotton trailing from her hand. "Instead it will be me feasting on you boys."

Coming up beside Bri, she wound a length of the fabric twice around his eyes, knotted it so tight, with such a vicious tug, that it yanked his head back.

Sidling across to Den, suspended from the coat hook, she pressed her body against his as she reached up to blindfold him, beginning to sing softly as she did so: "Three blind mice, three blind mice, see how they run….if only they could!"

She heard him whimper as the blindfold was knotted, as her sing-song words scorched his cheek, and she was grinning as she finally squatted before the third one.

"And you, quiet one, you know what the farmer's wife did, don't you?" she asked, her voice a low purr, and slipped her hand between his splayed thighs, squeezed. "She cut off a cock with a carving knife," she whispered in his ear.

He gasped at the pressure on his balls; Claire chuckled and blindfolded him, then stood.

She had decided to begin with the eldest, the strongest, picked up the shotgun and walked across to him. "Biggest first, I think," she said.

Three blindfolded heads searched out her voice, but only one felt the shotgun against it. Reaching behind Bri, Claire released the cuffs which linked him to the oven door, left the ones in place which fastened his hands behind him.

"Come with me, big man," she said, nudging him, turning him, moving him forward with the barrel of the gun. "Careful now, mind how you go. There are stairs to negotiate."

"Where are you taking him? What are you going to do with him?" asked Den in a blind panic.

"You don't want to know, little one," said Claire. "But be patient, don't go away. I will be back for you."

Claire was like a spectre, a wraith, she was silent as she circled Bri, moving with the elegant grace of a predator. He was blindfolded still and the only clue he had of her presence was the faint hint of her perfume, the soft warmth of her body whenever it came near. A hand brushed his shoulder and he flinched, a nail scratched his back and he shuddered. The silence was intimidating, the anticipation intense.

Claire had led him stumbling, sometimes cursing, up the stairs and along the hall to her bedroom. Backing him towards the bed, sitting him on the edge, she had removed his shoes, unbuckled his belt, then had him kick his jeans free. Once she had torn the shirt from his shoulders, the shreds of it hanging from his cuffed wrists, she had him stand again, naked before her.

Her touch quickened now, coming from the left and from the right, from the front and from the back, sometimes softly caressing and sometimes cruelly abrasive. Unable to see, Bri became dizzy beneath her touch, as if he was being spun on a carousel of sensation. Not knowing where the next caress might come from, or if it would be kind or painful, his body trembled, leant first one way and then the other, as if he was searching out her body or trying to escape it.

"Be still!" said Claire, striking him hard across the arse, and heard a threatening grumble escape him.

"I can take pain, lady," he hissed.

"Oh I'm sure you can, a big man like you!" Claire smiled.

"So if you're going to kick the shit out of me for breaking into your house get it over with."

"Tsk! So crude!" she tutted, and then he knew she was before him again, he could feel her scented breath on his face, as soft as a veil drawn slowly over it.

Her hands rested lightly on his shoulders, ran down his arms, took hold of his wrists. She stepped back, drew him with her towards the bed, then turned and pushed him back onto it.

Bri cried out as his cuffed arms were crushed painfully beneath his weight, then felt the mattress shift again as Claire climbed onto it, felt the silk of her nightgown brush across his thighs, his belly, as she moved slowly up his body. Astride his chest she turned, faced his feet, and he was aware of the heat of her body above his face.

His other senses heightened, still unable to see, Bri heard a sound which was of her mounting excitement, a soft and rhythmic liquid noise which was followed by a low chuckle.

"I am playing with myself," Claire told him, her fingers stroking between her thighs, dipping into her cunt. "I am wet and you are thirsty for me. Taste me, big man, drink me, drown in me."

"Fuck off!" he tried to say, but then there was a smothering musky silence as her body lowered itself onto his face, pressing down heavily before he could turn aside.

Claire ground her body on him, demanded his service, and smothered as he was he had to lick dutifully at her cunt. It was the only way he could get a gasp of breath. He sucked in the thick musky air as she moved, gagged as he licked, found some relief in the juices which flowed into his mouth, drinking them in like an elixir.

He was not aware of her leaning forward until he felt her breasts heavy against his belly. Then there was a warm gasp and his cock twitched excitedly as she blew on it.

Claire laughed out loud at his response, cackled like a banshee who was wailing from room to room, and touched her lips to the swollen tip, licked her tongue once across it before sucking it between her teeth, harshly, causing him to cry into her cunt.

She lifted from his face as her teeth grazed it again, letting his cry ring out freely, so that it might be heard by the two below, then smothered his screams once more, before his two companions could guess if they were of delight or dismay.

"That's it, big man, stay hard for me," she encouraged him, letting his now erect cock slip from her lips. "Stay hard in case I need you, in case I should want to fuck your cock as well as your mouth."

Claire's hands stroked the inside of his thighs, carefully avoiding his cock and balls, which were now aching for her touch. Slowly she ran her hands up and down, sometimes barely touching, making him squirm beneath her and lap at her more greedily. Then she felt his muffled scream in her cunt as her nails dug deep into his thighs, scratched up his belly and raked his chest, bore her whole weight down on him, stifling him, letting the screams build inside.

"Make me wetter with your tears, sob for me, please me with your pain," she told him, and then arched her back, rose on her knees to release his face, saying, "And now scream out, howl like a dog, bay like a hound who needs his bitch!"

"What the fuck is she doing to him up there?" wondered Den, voice quaking with fear at what might be to come.

The sobs, the yelps, the cries had mounted in intensity, sounds never before associated with their eldest brother, grown to such a pitch that each sent a shiver of terror through Den's body, as if the pain which must surely be their cause was something he shared.

"What's she doing Kev?" he asked again.

"How the fuck should I know?"

"What are we gonna do?"

"Shut the fuck up and-"

Kev's words were suddenly cut short as a soft hand clamped on his mouth, another caught him at the back of the head, and a length of electrical tape was pressed to his lips.

Claire had returned unheard, was crouching before him, holding his head firmly to ensure that the tape stuck fast to his mouth.

"Kev? Kev?" asked his younger brother, alarmed by the sudden silence.

"So the quiet one's name is Kev, is it?" Claire whispered in his ear. "Well hush, Kev -as if you now had any option- and let's give the young one something to worry about."

"Kev? Where are you? What's happening?"

Kev struggled in her grip but Claire held him long enough to the tape to stick fast, gluing his lips together, then released him, letting her fingers run lightly across his face as she took her hands away.

"Kev! Come back to me!" pleaded Den, and began to softly sob.

"I hope you're braver than him," said Claire in Kev's ear, her voice still low so that only he could hear. She licked his ear, ran her tongue around inside it, then took the lobe between her teeth and bit. "Are you, Kev? Braver than the wimp?" she asked, through teeth clenched fast on the fleshy nub.

A stifled gasp escaped his gagged lips and Den called out, "You still there Kev?"

Then he sobbed once more to hear no answer.

Releasing Kev's ear, Claire began to unbutton his shirt, baring his chest, then unfastened his trousers and tugged them to his knees.

""No shorts?" she remarked. "You did come prepared, didn't you?" She weighed his cock in her hand, said, "Now some people find pain a turn-on. Let's see if you're one of them, you have room to grow now so let's see if the wimp's cries make you hard. I do so hope you get hard for me, quiet one. Now patience, I will be back."

Silently Claire rose, tip-toed to the door she had entered by, glanced across at the other door where the youngest still hung, softly sobbing. He was still unaware of her presence, had heard none of her exchange with the gagged one. Taking firm hold of the door, she slammed it as hard as she could.

"Who's that?" Den cried out, and started so violently that he almost throttled himself on the collar.

"Who do you think, bile for brains?" said Claire, walking towards him.

"What've you done to Bri, lady?" he asked. "Where's Kev? What's happening?"

"My! What an inquisitive young fellow you are," Claire remarked, stopping before him, and began to unbutton his shirt, wanting this one as naked as the other two, pale and scrawny though he may be.

"Please don't hurt me, missus!" he said, flinching at her touch, twisting when he felt her fingers at the waist of his jeans. "Please don't!"

"Ssh!" she said, putting a finger to his lips as his trousers fell to his ankles. "Ssh!"

She sounded almost soothing, perhaps he took some hope from this, complained feebly, "My legs are aching."

"And what do you expect me to do about that?" she wondered. "Release you?"

"Please? Will you?"

"Don't be absurd, little boy!" she scoffed. "Now less of the chat. Let's see where else we can make the little wimp ache."

Slyly Claire slipped her hand down to his groin and took his cock loosely between her fingers. The sudden gasp this brought from him made her guess that perhaps this was the first hand other than his which had touched him there. She squeezed him a little, saw his weak chest heave.

"Nice? You like that? Lots of ladies touch you there?" she asked, beginning to stroke him, and his delight was too much to permit a reply. She tugged on his cock, demanded, "Do they? Lots of ladies?"

"Course! Lots!" he gasped.

Claire doubted that, but continued to stroke him, said, "Then show me what I have missed, what all those ladies have enjoyed. Get hard for me, little man."

As she masturbated him with one hand her other walked up his belly, nails scratching at his skin like tiny stilettos to add to his delight. Her thumb stroked one nipple, the other, feeling them prick at her touch, as his cock hardened in her grasp she lifted it and folded it up against his belly, pressed her body against his to hold it there. Both hands now free, they roamed his chest and ran down his sides, her fingertips flicked over his nipples to bring tiny sobs of joy from him.

"Oh lady-!" he gushed. "Oh!"

The bag with the clothes pegs in it was hanging by the door, and as she put her lips to his nipple to suck she reach into it to take out one.

"Oh my! Oh my!" Den heaved, his body writhing as if his delirium was now constant and unending.

"Oh Den-?" said Claire, taking her lips from his nipple, her body no longer caressing him, her hands still.

"Lady?" asked Den, ceasing his ecstatic thrashing.

"Welcome to my world," she said, as she let the clothes peg clamp viciously on the engorged nipple.

The scream was as loud as she expected of the wimp, anguished, almost blood-curdling, and she drew back a little to enjoy the rictus of pain which twisted his mouth.

His cock fell free as she stepped back, and she caught it in her hand, resumed stroking it to keep it erect.

"Still nice?" she asked softly, as if she cared.

"Shit no!" he cried.

"What? You don't like me stroking this handsome cock that has delighted so many women?" she crooned, her hand slowing a little.

"Yes! No! Take this off, whatever it is!"

"But it's only a silly little clothes peg," Claire told him. "Why my husband can take crocodile clips and not make the fuss you do. And on his cock and balls too."

"Take it off!" he begged.

"Not yet, little boy," she said, without compassion. "Not yet."

He was biting his lip to fight the pain, behind the blindfold there would be tears, and in her hand his cock wept too, the tip sticky between his fingers.

"It's strange how there can be pleasure and there can be pain at the same time," Claire commented idly, fingers keeping up a steady rhythm around his cock. "It's as though the one enhances the other. Or as if one cannot be truly appreciated without the other. Don't you think, little one?"

He was suffering the pain, now, rather than screaming in protest, but it was still too much of a distraction to permit him a reply. Claire clicked her tongue, as if disappointed with his silence, brought her mouth forward once more to lick at his other nipple.

"Make it swell for me, little one, make it grow," she mumbled over it, tongue flicking at it as quickly as any serpent's

"No!"

"Oh yes!" she said, so sure of his response, and felt it grow hard between her lips.

His whole body tensed when she took her mouth away, perhaps he had a little more with than she had credited him with and guessed what was to come, and so she waited, said nothing, held his cock still until the agony of the silence turned his tension to a trembling.

When she let the peg clamp cruelly on his nipple her laughter rose to match his scream, her laughter as delighted as his cry was despairing.

"The little one cried so beautifully! Did you hear, quiet one?" asked Claire, sitting on the floor, legs stretched out, her back against the cabinet next to the sink. "Well Kev? Did you hear?"

Of course, there was no answer.

"Oh dear! Cat got your tongue?" she wondered, her arm resting across his thigh, her hand dangling between them, fingertips lightly brushing against them. "But no! I forgot! it's the electrical tape that has your tongue! How silly of me!"

Plucking with a nail at the edge of the tape, she peeled away enough to take hold of between finger and thumb, took a firm grip and then tore it viciously from his mouth. The sharp intake of breath was as much to do with pain as it was with the need for air, and his chest swelled as he inhaled deeply, and then with greedy gulps.

"So," said Claire, almost amicably, shuffled closer to him, pressing her body against his and wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "You did enjoy the little one's cries?"

Kev turned his face silently towards her, and though sightless behind the blindfold Claire could imagine hatred burning in his eyes. Her hand had found its way between his thighs again, fingers plucking at the mat of pubic hair, twisting it in curls, combing through it.

"I'd much rather you answered me, quiet one," she said, her tone such that it would let him know she was pouting. "I took you to be the one who might have a modicum of wit and intelligence, thought you might have more than just your body to offer me, to share with me."

"Go to hell!" he said.

"Oh, I've been there many times," she giggled, her roaming fingers now finding the root of his cock. "Would you like to come with me? Share your soul with me? I could take it, you know," she added, a finger and thumb now running the full length of his cock, from the root to the tip.

He fell silent again, his head bowed, still taking deep breaths to savour the fresh air.

"Okay, then tell me," said Claire, patiently like an adult who has to draw conversation from a recalcitrant child, "tell me how you are. It took me so long dealing with the others that you must have felt quite neglected. How have you been, quiet one? How do you feel?"

"My legs ache, I have cramp," Kev admitted reluctantly.

Claire's hand slipped lower, to the back of his thighs, his calves. "Oh yes, I can feel how knotted they are. How brave of you to bear the pain so stoically." She craned her head to peer behind him, to where his cuffed wrists were linked to the waste pipe. "Perhaps if I moved the cuffs lower down you might be able to sit more comfortable, as I am? Yes?"

He nodded, and she kissed him lightly on the cheek to reward him for his response.

"In a while perhaps, when the discomfort gets too much to bear," she told him.

His legs trembled a little now, it was as if his mentioning the cramp had served to remind him of it, to make it worse, and Claire made soft cooing noises of sympathy as she kissed his cheek, his neck.

"I'll tell you what, quiet one," she decided, her arm tightening around his shoulders, her other hand returning to his groin to cup his balls lightly. "If you get hard for me, really hard, then I might unfasten you, let you stretch out, ease the discomfort in those aching limbs. Do you think you can do that for me?"

Her fingers closed, she rolled his balls around in her hand with a pressure that was on the exciting side of excruciating, and as she felt them slip and slide against each other she whispered gentle words of encouragement in his ear.

"Come on quiet one, I know you can do it. I know you want to do it. Just a little harder, for me."

And slowly, whether it was what Kev wanted or not, she saw his cock begin to rise, moved her hand from his balls to take hold of it and offer it more encouragement still.

"Good boy," she congratulated him, moving her hand from his shoulders, her fingers trailing lightly down his spine to his cuffed wrists, then along the second pair of cuffs to where he was fasted to the waste pipe.

Releasing him, her hand in the small of his back pushed him gently forward, then turned him so that he fell on his side, her other hand all this while maintaining its hold on his cock.

"Stretch, ease those aches, such agonising bliss it will be," she told him, but even as he was trying to unfold his cramped legs she was kneeling astride him, slipping his cock into her. "And such agony and bliss we will share," she promised him, "though not in equal proportions."

He groaned out loud as he fought to stretch his legs, felt the locked knees protest, the knotted muscles resist. Impatiently, or perhaps simply maliciously, Claire grasped one ankle and tugged it out behind her, then the other, sending excruciating pain shooting through each.

His mouth fell open to let out another anguished groan and her lips fastened on his, her mouth savaged his as she began to move up and down on his cock.

"Come on quiet one, sob for me," she said. "Your cries will be of delight, of desire, where the others' were of pain. And what you desire will be my delight."

The basement was dimly lit, weak wall lights at intervals seeming more for ambience than any practical illumination, but still each of the brothers blinked as their blindfolds were removed.

Claire was no more than a shadow to them as their eyes adjusted to the light, almost an incidental as their heads turned to take in the room, or as much of it as they could see from the frame each was strapped inside, arms and legs stretched out to each corner. The frames were positioned at an angle to each other, so that each brother could see the other two but also a different aspect of the room. One view that all three were afforded, though, was the far end of the room, and the large chair which was there, of studded blood red leather, so large that it might almost have passed for a throne.

It was into a brighter light which fell on this that Claire now stepped.

If the leather of the chair was as red as blood then the leather of her dress was as black as skin, it fell down to her knees in a soft jet swathe, wrapped her belly and breasts so closely that it seemed like some dark knight's armour.

She sat comfortably, crossed her legs to show boots with wickedly high heels, said affably, "Hello again boys."

"Why the costume?" asked the eldest, assuming the role of leader again, now that the three of them were together once more, while the young wimp regarded her with what amounted to stark terror and the third with what might have been intrigue.

"It's what I'm comfortable in," she answered simply.

"Okay," the eldest accepted. "So what next?"

"We wait for my husband."

"It's him that's police, Bri!" blurted out Den, now finding his voice. "I knew it had to be one of em!"

"It's him that's going to kick the shit out of us?" Bri supposed. "Or try to?"

Smiling, shaking her head as she stood, Claire said, "No, neither of those things."

There was something mesmerising about her as she moved towards them, slowly in the high boots, passing from light to light, wraithlike in the shadows. She stood between the three frames, coldly regarding each occupant, then walked around behind them, caressing the shoulders of one, scoring the back of another, then stopping behind the third.

"My husband is neither a policeman nor a pugilist," she said, bringing her mouth close to Bri's ear but speaking loudly enough for all to hear. "Nor is he the submissive wimp you might have understood him to be," she added, her hand slipping over his bare buttocks, a finger forcing itself between them. "He is in fact a bisexual, which is why I allow him to go away every once in a while, to satisfy that need, that passion." And her voice took on a certain joy as she began to work her sharp nail inside him, saying, "Oh he will be so pleased to come back and find your three tight arses to play with! It will make him more devoted to me than ever!"