Chapter 65: Paris, Arriving
Sandi strolled across the concourse of St Pancras station, following the signs for the mid-morning train to Paris, a lone figure amidst the swirl of hurrying travellers, in her own relaxed world, her suitcase light and manageable with its wheels humming over the patterned floor, her thoughts not focussed on her schedule but mingling with her emotions and entwining with the feelings that swirled within her. In her long, warm winter coat, cashmere sweater, and charcoal skirt, she looked like any other successful thirtysomething professional. But she wasn't. The skirt was on the short side of conventional, the heels higher than the norm. Underneath, she wore black hold-up stockings with lacy tops but nothing else - no panties, no bra. The delicate friction of the cashmere against her nipples was a constant, subtle thrill. The slight, cool air that found its way up under her skirt was a promise. She wanted the feeling of being both available and accessible, a secret hidden in plain sight beneath the veneer of respectability.
Though looking for her platform, she was hoping there’d be some handsome man on the train who would want to fuck her. As she found the first-class carriage she was imagining herself worshipping his cock with her lips, tongue, and mouth. When she was finally settled in her seat she was imagining herself offering him her cunt - to fuck - because that’s what she lived for now.
The power she could wield with Caleb, with Ian, with Ryan, with Maya – was like a drug that made all her ordinary, everyday interactions, whatever their nature, seem so inconsequential as to leave her operating on autopilot - her apparent interest in anything other than sex now being a sham. Her real self was driven by the deep, obsessive need to be desired and used, her goal was to be the catalyst that turned opportunity into reality, and she now got her reward from taking the spark of a possibility, in the form of her attraction to a man, into the warm glow of having it reciprocated, and hopefully on to the wildfire of passion that men were now able to generate within her.
The train slipped from the gloom of London and into the frost-bleached fields of Kent. Sandi sat by the window, a fashion magazine open on her lap. She didn’t read it. She studied the women in the photographs, their poses, their calculated allure. Her own reflection, a faint ghost over the flashing countryside, seemed wiser, more dangerous. The carriage was almost empty. She had space. She crossed her legs slowly, letting the skirt ride up a necessary inch, the coarse, lacy stocking-top now visible to an empty aisle. It was a rehearsal.
At Ashford, the train sighed to a stop. A figure boarded, and the door to her first-class carriage slid open. He was tall, broad-shouldered, in a dark wool coat unbuttoned over a suit of charcoal so fine it seemed to absorb the low winter light. His dark hair was greying at the temples, swept back from a strong, composed face. A handsome French businessman, perhaps in his late forties. He placed a leather briefcase on the rack, slid his coat and then his jacket off to reveal a tailored waistcoat, and took the seat diagonally across from her, by the window.
A current, silent and immediate, crossed the space between them .Sandi did not look up from her magazine. She turned a page. But her entire consciousness narrowed to the man’s presence. She felt the weight of his attention before she saw it. She studied him in her peripheral vision. He was looking out of his own window now, but his posture was attentive, not relaxed. A minute passed. Then his head turned, just slightly. She could feel his gaze like a physical touch, skating over her profile, the line of her neck, the swell of her breasts beneath her sweater.
She uncrossed her legs and re-crossed them the other way, a slower, more deliberate motion. The material of her skirt whispered. She let her knee point towards the aisle, offering a longer line. She pretended to read, but her breath had deepened. She saw his reflection in her own window now that they were in the tunnel to France - his head had turned fully. He was staring. Not leering, but with a frank, assessing intensity that made her core clench with sudden wet heat. She looked up from the magazine, directly at him. Their eyes met. His were a cool, intelligent grey. He didn’t flinch or look away. The stare was a question and a statement. A slow, deliberate smile touched Sandi’s lips. It wasn’t broad or inviting; it was a small, private acknowledgement, a spark of shared understanding. She saw the barest hint of an answer in the slight tilt of his head.
But he was a gentleman. He would not presume. The ball was in her court. Dare she take the step?
Her husband had encouraged her to abandon her marriage vows on their month-long, post-children, holiday on that Greek island. She'd managed to overcome the guilt of doing so, to the extent that her promiscuity was now a part of the persona she'd adopted, first with him, and now cautiously when out in the world – with the deepening of her husband's love for her, and the strengthening of their relationship delivering her to this particular situation, where she had a choice, where a clear opportunity was presenting itself. Whereas most women, she imagined, would be held back by the guilt and same of being adulterous, Sandi was driven on by the certainty that telling her husband the tale, in bed, while having sex, would only enrapture him, to the point that an ordinary woman would be shocked by her husband's response to her infidelity. But she was no longer an ordinary woman.
Sandi let her gaze drift back to her magazine, but her heart was pounding. She needed to be brazen, to erase all doubt. So she shifted in her seat, as if uncomfortable, and let her hand fall to her thigh. With agonising slowness, she gathered the fabric of her skirt in her fingers. She eased it upwards, inch by inch. First her stocking-top but then the pale skin of her upper thigh emerged, the lace trim a stark contrast against her flesh. She didn’t stop there. She hooked a thumb under the band, as if testing its hold. She then smoothed her skirt back down, but not all the way. She left a revelatory three inches of lacy stocking-top exposed. Then she looked up. His eyes were fixed on her legs. They travelled slowly, meticulously, from the exposed stocking top up the line of her thigh to where the skirt hem now rested, a borderland of implication. His gaze rose, meeting hers. His expression had changed. The cool intelligence was now charged with a raw, hungry heat. It was a silent confession. He wanted her. She saw the bulge, already significant, tenting the fine wool of his trousers.
Sandi’s smile deepened, just a fraction. She gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
He moved. It was fluid, decisive. He stood, a powerful unfolding of his frame. He didn’t speak. He walked the two steps to her seat, and held out his hand, palm up. An offer. A command. Sandi placed her hand in his. His grip was warm, firm, encompassing. He drew her to her feet. She was unsteady for a second, not from the train’s motion, but from the vertigo of the moment. He didn’t let go. He turned, leading her down the aisle toward the small vestibule between carriages and the toilet door. He opened it, glanced inside—a clean, compact space—and guided her in.
The door clicked shut behind them, sealing them in a bright, humming capsule hurtling through the French countryside. The world outside ceased to exist. He turned her to face him, his hands on her shoulders. Still, not a word. His eyes searched her face, for permission, for confirmation. Sandi answered by reaching for his belt. Her fingers, usually so sure, fumbled slightly. He watched, his breath coming faster. She undid the buckle, the button, the zip. She reached into the opening of his trousers and briefs and took his cock in her hand. It was thick, solid, already leaking a pearl of moisture at the tip. She stroked its length, feeling the velvety skin over the iron-hard core. A low groan escaped him, the first sound between them.
That was all the dialogue they needed. He pushed her gently back against the sink. His hands went to her hem, hiking her skirt up around her hips, baring her completely. The sight of her shaven pussy, glistening and openly wet for him, made him suck in a sharp breath. He didn’t kiss her. He didn’t fondle her. He simply bent his knees to lower himself, and positioned the broad head of his cock so it touched against her soaked entrance.
He looked into her eyes one last time. Sandi arched her back, offering herself, and gave that small, definitive nod again.
He pushed inside. It was a deep, complete, filling invasion. Sandi gasped, her head falling back against the mirror. She let him lift her and helped by wrapping her legs around his was. He felt big as he slipped fully into her, stretching her wonderfully. He didn’t start slow. He drew back and thrust again, setting a relentless, driving rhythm dictated by the rocking of the train. Each jolt forward slammed him deeper into her. The only sounds were their ragged breathing, the wet slap of flesh, the clatter of the train over the tracks.
“Oh god,” Sandi moaned, abandoning silence.“Yes. Fuck me. Just like that.”
He understood. One hand gripped her hip, the other braced against the wall. His thrusts became harder, faster, purely animalistic. He was fucking her with a single-minded intensity that had no room for gentility. It was raw possession. Sandi matched him, meeting each thrust, her nails digging into his shoulders through his shirt. The pleasure was a sharp, coiling wire tightening in her belly, amplified by the anonymity, the danger, the sheer class of him.
“You have a beautiful cunt,” he growled, his English accented, perfect. His first full sentence.“So tight. So hungry for it.”
“It’s yours,” she panted, the words a trigger. “Come in me. Fill me up.”
He pistoned into her, his control snapping. With a series of brutal, deep strokes, he emptied himself inside her, a hot, pulsing flood that triggered her own climax. It ripped through her, a silent scream contorting her face as her body clamped around his, milking him dry.
They stayed like that, locked together, panting, as the train raced on. Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. He reached for paper towels, wet them, and tenderly cleaned her. Then he attended to himself. Still, no names. No future. He helped her straighten her skirt, smoothed her hair. His fingers brushed her cheek, a gesture of astonishing tenderness after the savage act. He kissed her, finally—a soft, lingering kiss that tasted of salt and shared secrets.
Then he opened the door, checked the aisle, and led her back to her seat. He retrieved his briefcase, gave her one last, long look—a look that held respect, lust, and a farewell—and moved to a seat farther down the carriage. Sandi sat down, her body humming, his release a warm trickle between her thighs. She looked out the window. The suburbs of Paris began to blur past. She had been fucked, thoroughly and wordlessly, by a stranger. And she felt, more than ever, like herself. The woman in the ghost-reflection smiled back, knowing everything.
The train hissed to a final stop under the vast, iron-vaulted ceiling of the Gare du Nord. Sandi gathered her coat and suitcase, her body still humming with the stranger’s possession. She moved through the bustling crowd, her senses heightened, studying every man she passed—the harried commuter, the lounging student, the uniformed agent. None sparked sparked her interest, none triggered the flaring of her need. She followed signs to the taxi rank, saw an orderly queue that snaked towards the damp Parisian afternoon. The man was there in the queue so she scribbled her number on the back page of her fashion magazine and ripped off the corner. As she came up to him she stooped as if picking up the scrap of paper.
“You dropped this,” she said, catching his eye only for a second, before walking on to the back of the fast-moving queue.
Her taxi driver was a middle-aged man with tired eyes and rough hands. He loaded her suitcase without comment. Sandi settled into the back seat, watching his profile in the rear-view mirror as he navigated the dense traffic. There was a weary masculinity about him, a potential for crude, anonymous release, but she felt the lingering ache from the train and thought, No, not now. The thought was a calibration, not a denial. She simply wanted the specific degradation Tom would bring, and she needed to save some hunger for him.
Her hotel on the Champs-Elysée was all muted elegance and discreet perfumes. The man at the reception desk was impeccably groomed, young, with a smile that suggested more than professional courtesy. “Bonjour, Madame,” he said, his eyes flickering over her with appreciative interest. Sandi met his gaze, held it a beat too long, and thought, maybe later. She accepted her key card, her fingers brushing his intentionally.
Her room was a plush capsule high above the famous avenue. She unzipped her suitcase but left the clothes inside. Her first act was to walk into the marbled bathroom, strip off her sweater and skirt, and examine herself in the full-length mirror. Her sex was swollen, glistening with a dried, sticky coating. She wet a hand towel with warm water and dabbed gently at her slit, cleaning the evidence of the stranger from her skin. The sensation was tender, ritualistic, and only when she'd finished did she unpack.
Lunch in the hotel’s restaurant was a solitary affair of salad and mineral water. The waiter was attentive, handsome in a classical way. Each time he approached—“More bread, Madame?” “Everything is to your taste?”—his proximity was a subtle inquiry. She imagined his hands venturing up under her skirt, the weight of him lying on top of her. She decided no, maybe tonight if Tom let's me down and nothing else turns up.
With hours to kill and a restless energy in her limbs, she left the hotel, buttoned her coat up, and walked, the chill air sharp on her cheeks. She crossed the Place de la Concorde, the vast, grey expanse feeling like a stage, the obelisk a stone audience. She was intensely aware of her nakedness beneath her clothes, the slight friction of the wool skirt against her thighs, the empty, vulnerable feeling of being without underwear. It was a deliberate state of being, a prepared offering. The Henderson Group headquarters on Boulevard Haussmann was a monument to glass and polished steel. The reception area was a cathedral of corporate quiet. Sandi approached the vast desk, her heels clicking softly on the stone floor. Two receptionists looked up. “Bonjour,” Sandi said, her French accent deliberate and flawless.“I am Sandi Walker. I have a secondment here.”
Their reaction was a minor symphony of confusion. A flurry of keystrokes, hushed consultation.“You are expected, Madame Walker,” the senior one said, “but… tomorrow. Not today.”
Sandi smiled, a gentle, unconcerned curve of her lips the product of her new-found confidence and composure. “I’m a day early. My apologies.” She let the smile linger, allowing it to communicate that no apology was truly meant.“Is Tom Miller available? He’s the only person I know here.”
They called his extension. A few minutes later, Tom emerged from the elevator bank, looking anxious as if he thought everyone would be able to tell, from just looking at Sandi, that their relationship had gone way beyond the merely professional. He led her, not up to his office, but to a quiet seating area of low leather sofas.
“Your office isn’t ready yet,” he explained, sitting close enough that their knees almost touched. “They weren’t prepared for you until tomorrow.”
Sandi sat with her legs demurely together, her hands folded in her lap. She let her prim and proper posture contradict the message in her eyes. She gave a small, philosophical shrug, a gesture that said the offices, the job, the entire corporate machinery mattered less to her than dust. “I just wanted to see you, Tom,” she said, her voice low.“I was wondering if we could have dinner tonight... It's why I'm a day early... I know it’s only January going on February, and spring is still a couple of months away, but I was hoping there’d be some quiet restaurant you could take me that encapsulates the magic of Paris. Or a quiet Bohemian cellar bar.”
Tom leaned forward, dropping his voice. “I’ve been warned off by Francois. He’s the top man here. You know that so why am I telling you.” A pause, heavy with implication. “I suppose it's because he’s got his sights set on you, Sandi... With having warned me that he doesn't want you liaising with me, on my level, but with him, up at the very highest...”
The smile that spread across her face was instant and unguarded, a bloom of pure pleasure. She made no attempt to hide it, and didn't care whether it stemmed from his respect for her professional capabilities or his interest in her as a sexual creature.
“So we have tonight,” she said, the words a soft conspirator’s whisper. “Our secret. And I’ll wear whatever you want. Seamed stockings. Or nothing but a coat. Anything, just say.” She reached into her purse, pulled out her hotel’s business card, and scribbled her room number on the back. She pressed it into his palm, closing his fingers over it.
“You can bathe me, Tom,” she continued, her gaze holding his, stripping their interaction of any pretence. “Shave me. Dress me in whatever you want. Treat me like a doll. Take me anywhere you want. Flaunt me. Take full possession of me. Do whatever you want to me. Either at my hotel, or wherever it is that you live here in Paris. I’m yours, Tom. Until tomorrow morning, it seems.”
She stood then, smooth and unhurried, as if the offer were a casual remark about the weather. She took two steps, three, towards the exit. His voice caught her just before she was out of earshot. “7 PM.” he said.
She paused, a brief hitch in her stride, but did not turn. She simply walked on, the smile returning to her lips, a private victory etched in the curve of her mouth.
At 6:55 PM, a soft knock came at her hotel room door. Sandi opened it. Tom stood there, a leather satchel in his hand, his coat smelling of cold city air. He stepped in, closed the door behind him, and looked at her. She wore the hotel’s white robe, nothing else.
“On the bed,” he said, no greeting necessary. Sandi obeyed, lying back on the crisp duvet. He opened his satchel and laid out items with a quiet, methodical precision: a straight razor, a badger-hair shaving brush, a bowl of cream, a thick towel. He filled the bathroom sink with hot water. He did not speak. He returned, peeled the robe from her body, and draped the hot towel over her mound. The heat was startling, intense.
He lathered the shaving cream in his bowl, the brush moving in slow, deliberate circles. He removed the towel and applied the warm, slick foam to her skin, coating her completely. His fingers worked it into every fold, every crevice. The sensation was clinical and deeply intimate. He picked up the razor.
“Don’t move,” he instructed, his voice calm. The blade was a cold, sharp whisper against her skin. He used his other hand to stretch her flesh taut, pulling her labia flat. The sound of the razor scraping was loud in the silent room. He rinsed the blade in the bowl of hot water after every stroke. He shaved her entire sex with meticulous care. He was thorough, leaving her hairless and utterly exposed.
He wiped her clean with a damp, warm cloth, patting her dry. Then he reached into his bag and produced a small bottle of oil. He poured it into his palms, warming it, before rubbing it into her freshly shaved skin. His massage was not sensual; it was proprietorial, like conditioning fine leather. He stood back, examined his work, and gave a curt nod.
“Now, the bath.”
He ran a deep, hot bath, scattering salts that fizzed and smelled of bergamot. He guided her into the tub and, kneeling on the tiled floor, washed her himself. He used a sponge, scrubbing her back, her arms, her breasts, between her legs with the same detached efficiency. He rinsed her with a hand shower, the water sluicing over her obedient form. When she was done, he wrapped her in a large towel and dried her, his movements firm and complete.
From his satchel, he drew out a pair of sheer, fully-fashioned seamed stockings, and a black, lacy suspender belt. He held them up. “You said you never wear these. Only hold-ups. Tonight, you wear what I choose.”
He dressed her, leaning her against the wall as he rolled the stockings up her legs, clipping them to the garter straps with sharp, final snaps. He produced a dress - simple, sleeveless black sheath of stretch wool, shockingly short. It hugged her body like a second skin, stopping mid-thigh. “No panties, no bra,” he warned her.
“The shoes,” he said, pointing to a pair of severe black stilettos he had also brought.
She stepped into them, her height elongating, her posture transforming. He walked around her, a critic assessing a piece of art. He nodded, seemingly satisfied with the doll he had crafted.
“Now, we go out.”
He took her to a small, subterranean bar in the Marais, all dim crimson lights and velvet banquettes. It was not yet crowded. He seated her at the bar, on a high stool, and stood beside her, close but not touching. He ordered two glasses of wine. He made her keep her knees together for precisely ten minutes, sipping her drink in silence. Then, with a barely perceptible gesture, he indicated she should part them. She did. The short dress rode higher. The stocking-tops were visible to anyone who cared to look. A man two stools down glanced, then looked again, his eyes lingering. Tom saw it. He leaned in, his lips brushing her ear.“See? You’re a spectacle. My spectacle. Every man in here is imagining fucking that clean-shaven cunt. And only I know it’s already wet for them.”
His words were a spike of pure arousal. A warmth flooded her, a dampness she knew would be visible if the light hit her just right. They did not finish their drinks. Tom placed money on the bar and took her elbow, guiding her out. They did not return to the hotel.
He took her to his apartment, a compact, modern space in a nondescript building. It was neat, impersonal, a placeholder for a life. He didn’t give her a tour. In the bedroom, he finally kissed her, a hard, possessive kiss that tasted of wine and control. He pushed her back onto the bed, her stockinged legs splayed.“Don’t move,” he ordered again.
He undressed himself quickly, his own body lean and functional. His cock was hard, jutting out with an urgent need. He didn’t bother with foreplay. He knelt between her legs, positioned himself, and pushed into her with one relentless thrust. She was so wet he slid in to the hilt instantly, a gasp ripped from her throat.
“This is what you wanted,” he grunted, starting a brutal, punishing rhythm.“To be used. To be a thing for me to fuck.”
“Yes,” she moaned, arching to meet him.“Use me, Tom. It’s yours.”
He fucked her with a concentrated, joyless intensity, each drive aimed at domination, not pleasure. He pulled her legs over his shoulders, burying himself deeper, the angle making her feel speared. The sound was raw—skin slapping, the creak of the bed, their ragged breath. He reached down, his thumb finding her clit, but he rubbed it with a rough, almost abrasive pressure, less to please her than to prove he could command her body’s response.“Come for me,” he demanded, his voice a harsh scrape. “Come on my cock like the slut you are.”
The combination of the crude words, the deep penetration, and his utter authority tipped her over. Her orgasm crashed through her, a violent, shuddering wave that clenched around his driving length. Feeling her convulse, he followed, slamming deep and holding there as he emptied himself inside her with a guttural cry.
He collapsed on her for a moment, then rolled off. He lay beside her, staring at the ceiling. The silence stretched, filled only with their slowing breath. After a long while, he spoke, his voice flat.
“Francois will summon you tomorrow.” He turned his head to look at her, his eyes hard.“This was tonight. It ends now.”
Sandi looked back at him, her body still thrumming, the feeling of his release leaking onto the sheets beneath her. She didn’t feel sadness, only a sharp, clean finality. She had been shaved, bathed, dressed, displayed, and fucked as a belonging. The degradation was complete, and it was the most authentic she had felt in weeks. She simply nodded.
“What's he like?” asked Sandi.
“He's not like Klaus,” said Tom, his eyes narrowing. “Everybody knows how you humiliated him... So Francois obviously will...”
Sandi laughed to herself and got up to leave.
“You're not staying the night?” asked Tom.
She shook her head. She needed more than he'd given her, so she phoned the hotel and asked them to send a taxi for her, with Tom giving them the address.