Chapter 58: Audience 2
He followed the pointing finger back into the gents. It was empty now, the scent of the bread-roll woman’s talcum powder and his own exertions hanging in the damp air. The stern woman followed him in, her heels clicking on the linoleum. She didn’t guide him to the stall. Instead, she turned him to face the bank of urinals and placed her hands on his shoulders, pushing down firmly.
“On your knees,” she instructed, her voice that of an abrupt Scottish martinet.
Paul knelt again. The tiles were unforgiving. She stood before him, a businesslike silhouette against the grimy window light. She unbuttoned her sensible trousers, unzipped, and pushed them and her plain cotton knickers down to her mid-thigh in one efficient motion. Her pubic hair was dark, trimmed into a severe triangle. She spread her legs, planted her feet apart, and looked down at him over the rims of her glasses.
“Now,” she said. “You will not touch my clitoris. You will only use your tongue inside the vaginal canal. Is that understood?”
The clinical instruction, delivered like a courtroom order, sent a jolt through his fatigue. “Yes,” he whispered.
“Begin.”
He leaned forward. The coarse hair tickled his nose. He bypassed the small, hidden nub of her clit, aiming lower. He found her entrance, already slick with a clear, thin arousal. He pushed his tongue inside.
It was a different kind of work. Methodical, restricted, deep. He fucked her with his tongue, in and out, his jaw working. He concentrated on the inner walls, lapping at them, probing for sensitive spots. The taste was clean, slightly metallic, like licking a battery.
She made little sound. A sharp intake of breath, a quiet, controlled exhalation. Her hands rested on his head, not to force or encourage, but to monitor, as if checking his compliance. Her thighs, under his palms, were taut, unyielding muscle.
“Deeper,” she commanded softly.
He pressed his face harder into her, his nose buried in her coarse curls. He pushed his tongue as far as it would go, then curled it, exploring. A muscle in her inner wall fluttered against the tip of his tongue.
“There. Like that.”
He obeyed, establishing a steady, penetrating pace. His world narrowed to the dark, musky space between her legs, the sound of his own wet efforts, the faint smell of her soap and a sharper, intimate scent. His own arousal was a distant, irrelevant throb, ignored, compartmentalized.
After a few minutes of this silent, focused labor, she spoke again, her voice still measured but now carrying a conversational tone, as if discussing a mildly interesting case study.
“You know,” she said, her hips giving a minute, involuntary jerk against his mouth, “imagine if the situation were reversed.”
Paul paused, confused. She tightened her fingers in his hair. “Did I tell you to stop? Keep licking. Inside me. That’s it.”
He resumed, his tongue sliding in and out.
“Imagine,” she continued, breath a little tighter now, “a beautiful young woman. Friendly. Mid twenties, say. Pretty. She comes into a pub like this. Someone finds out she’ll give an expert blowy to any man who asks.”
Paul moaned softly against her, the image flashing in his mind, unwanted, corrosive.
“No questions asked, no names…How much cock do you reckon she’d end up sucking?” Her voice was a dry, intellectual murmur above him. “Swallowing so much she wouldn’t need dinner.”
Her analysis was brutal, dispassionate. It stripped the fantasy of any romance, reducing it to a logistics of degradation. And in doing so, it became unbearably arousing. He worked his tongue faster, spurred on by her vile, vivid picture.
“She’d suck off half the pub before last orders,” the woman stated, a finality in her tone. Her body was beginning to tense, a rigidity seizing her thighs. “Maybe more. Until her lips were raw and her throat was sore. There’s not many men would pass on that offer.”
Her hips began to stutter against his face, violating her own imposed rhythm. She was close. He kept his tongue plunging inside her, deliberately avoiding the clitoris she’d forbidden.
“That’s… what you should expect boy,” she gasped, her administrative composure fracturing.
With a final, shuddering clamp of her muscles around his tongue, she came. It was a silent, intense, inward convulsion. A hot pulse against his probing muscle. No cries, just a series of sharp, snatched breaths above him. Then stillness.
She held his head there for a long moment, then pushed him away with a sigh. She pulled up her knickers and trousers, re-zipped, re-buttoned with swift, precise movements. She smoothed her blouse, adjusted her glasses, and looked down at him as if reviewing a completed task.
“It’s not quite the same for lasses,” she said. “But you’ve got another two at least before you’re going anywhere.” Then she turned and left, her heels echoing away.
Paul stayed on his knees, forearms braced on the cold porcelain of the urinal base. Spit and her wetness dripped from his chin onto the floor.
Spit and her wetness dripped from his chin onto the floor. The acidic tang of her climax still coated his tongue. He saw, with a clarity that felt detached, the hypothetical girl the Scottish woman had described. He saw her on her knees in a different stall, a different pub, her lips stretched around a stranger’s cock, again and again until her jaw ached. A strange, hollow fellowship bloomed in his chest. They were kin, in service.
He could stand up. He could walk out. The pub door was thirty feet away. Odette was in Zurich. He didn’t have to do this.
He stayed on his knees. The cold ache in his joints was a penance he craved. This hunger to submit, to serve, to drown in the taste and scent of a woman’s cunt—it was his fiercest, truest passion. Odette hadn’t created it. She had simply seen the lurking, shameful beast inside him and unchained it. She was his liberator, his damnation, his gift.
The toilet door swung inward with a soft creak. He didn’t turn. Footsteps approached, hesitant, rubber-soled flats on linoleum. They stopped a few feet behind him. A long silence stretched, broken only by the drip of a tap and the distant pub murmur.
“Are you… Paul?” The voice was soft, tentative, with a slight London lilt. It was hard to place her age from the sound alone.
He nodded, his forehead resting against the cool porcelain urinal. He couldn’t bring himself to speak.
“She said you would be here,” the voice whispered. “Davina. She… pointed you out earlier.”
Paul said nothing. He waited.
“Would you… could you close your eyes?” Her request was almost a plea, tinged with embarrassment. “Before you… you know.”
He closed his eyes. The dark behind his lids was a relief. He heard the rustle of clothing, the whisper of fabric against skin. A skirt being gathered. The closer scent of lavender body spray and nervous sweat enveloped him.
“Okay,” she breathed.
He shuffled forward on his knees, guided by the heat radiating from her. His face met the soft, bare skin of her inner thighs. She flinched at the contact, a sharp intake of breath. He gently pressed his lips to her vulva.
She was clean-shaven, utterly smooth. The lips were soft, plump, and dry. There was no natural slickness, no prelude of arousal. It was like approaching a locked door. He swiped his tongue along her seam, tasting soap and skin.
She gasped, a shocked, delicate sound. Her hands fluttered to his head but didn’t settle, just rested there lightly as if unsure they were allowed. He probed gently with the tip of his tongue, seeking entry. She was tense, clenched shut.
“Relax,” he murmured against her, the first words he’d spoken in what felt like hours. His voice was hoarse.
He felt her try, a conscious effort in the softening of her thighs. He circled her entrance with a flat, patient tongue, coating her with saliva. He licked broader, slower strokes, working her into a lather. Gradually, under his persistent, rhythmic attention, a hint of moisture began to seep from within.
He found her clit, a small, hard bead. He flicked it once, experimentally.
Her whole body jolted. “Oh! Oh, God… what was… don’t stop.” The words tumbled out, astonished.
He didn’t stop. He suckled it gently, then with more firmness, his tongue dancing over the sensitive nub. Her breath became ragged, panting little cries escaping her. She was utterly responsive, every touch a seismic event. Her inexperience was palpable, a raw nerve exposed. He worked her with a focused, impersonal efficiency, a technician operating on a novel machine.
He was thorough, working her from the tight bud of her clit to the wet depth of her opening until her thighs quivered around his ears. Her breath hitched in broken syllables, “Oh, fuck, oh, please,” until her whole body seized. She came with a devastating, grunting whimper, a sound of pure, shocked release that seemed to pain her even as it tore from her throat. Her cunt clenched rhythmically around the flat of his tongue, spilling a hot, tangy rush against his lips.
She slumped back against the tiled wall, her breath coming in ragged, disbelieving sobs. For a moment, she was silent, just the sound of her trying to compose herself in the stale air. Then, a shaky, whispered, “Oh my goodness.”
Her hands, which had been gripping his hair, now gently pushed him back. He looked up, blinking in the low light. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes wide with a bewildered awe. She hastily wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, pulling her skirt down with a frantic modesty that seemed absurd given what had just transpired.
“Thank you,” she breathed, her voice raw. Then her brow furrowed, a look of dawning horror replacing the gratitude. “Do you… do you have to do that all the time?”
Paul wiped his mouth with a trembling hand, the taste of her still stark on his tongue. He gave a single, exhausted nod, the motion feeling heavy as stone. “Yes. Any woman who asks.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. The sympathy in her eyes was immediate and profound, tinged with a kind of disgust—not for him, but for the situation. “That’s… that’s horrible,” she whispered. “That’s revolting. To have to… Christ.” She looked at him, really looked at him, kneeling ruined on the pub toilet floor. “I’m so sorry. And… thank you. Gosh. I’m…”
She trailed off, her eyes wide and searching his ruined face, as if trying to reconcile the handsome man from the pub with the kneeling servant before her. She shifted her weight, the rubber sole of her flat squeaking on the damp floor. “But… what if a woman’s just had a wee?” she blurted out, her voice hushed with a kind of fascinated dread.
“I’ve been asked to drink it,” Paul replied, his own voice a flat, toneless thing. The memory of sharp, bitter warmth in his throat surfaced, then sank.
She flinched. “Right. Okay.” She swallowed. “What if a woman’s not… you know. Very clean?”
He nodded again, a slow, mechanical dip of his head. “Sometimes they want me to clean them. After a busy day.”
The young woman shuddered, a full-body convulsion of revulsion that rippled through her. She opened her mouth, closed it, stared at the stained tiles. She couldn’t bring herself to say the next thing. The words stuck in her throat, wedged behind her teeth. She took a shaky breath. “What if… what if a woman’s on her…” She paused, using the old-fashioned term her gran might use, a quaint shield against the vulgar reality. “On her Menzies?”
Paul almost laughed, a choked, airless sound that died in his raw throat. The absurdity of the childish euphemism, here in this reeking place, was a stark, beautiful joke. He nodded a third time. “Yes.”
She was silent. Horrified. Intrigued. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, still glistening from her. A complex war raged behind her eyes—disgust, pity, a flicker of dark curiosity. The silence stretched, thick with unasked questions and the ghost of her own climax still tingling in her veins.
“Was it good for you?” Paul asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He needed to know. It was the only currency he had left.
She nodded sharply, a quick, guilty jerk of her chin. A fresh tear escaped, tracing a clean path through the smudged mascara under her eye.
“Then it’s worth it,” he said, the words feeling ancient and true in his mouth. “To taste that. To know I made it happen.”
She seemed shocked to hear that, her lips parting in a soft ‘o’ of surprise. Then, something in her face softened, unclenched. A faint, disbelieving smile touched her mouth, ghostly and brief. She touched his shoulder, a fleeting, almost motherly pat. Then she turned and left, her footsteps hurried, escaping the knowledge he’d given her.
The cubicle door swung shut with a soft, definitive click.
Paul stayed on the floor. The cold from the tiles had seeped into his bones, a deep, permanent chill. He could smell them all on him—Davina’s sharp musk, the bread-roll woman’s talc, the Scottish woman’s clean, metallic tang, the last girl’s lavender and shocked salt. He was a living archive of their pleasure. He gripped the edge of the urinal and hauled himself up. His knees protested, crackling with pain. His suit was a crumpled, damp disaster. He shuffled to the sink, avoided the wreckage in the mirror, and splashed tepid water on his face. It didn’t help.
He pushed the pub door open, the blast of noise and warm, beery air feeling alien. He moved through the crowd. No one looked at him. He was invisible, a man-shaped collection of stains and smells.
“Fuck me. Look at the state of you.”
The voice cut through the pub’s din, sharp and familiar. He turned slowly, his body stiff and heavy. A woman stood there, her hand still resting on his shoulder with a proprietorial weight. She was in her mid-fifties, attractive in a curvy, substantial way, her figure lush beneath a well-cut wine-coloured dress. Her dark hair was swept up in an elegant, slightly messy chignon, and her face, while kind, held a piercing, appraising intelligence. She looked like Nigella Lawson’s more aggressive sister, a woman who knew every ingredient in a pantry and precisely how to use each one to devastating effect.
She surveyed him, her eyes—a clear, unsettling grey—taking in his damp, stained tie, his wild hair, the hollow exhaustion in his face. A slow, warm smile spread across her features, not of sympathy, but of deep, genuine pleasure. “Darling Paul,” she said, her voice a rich, cultured contralto he knew intimately from the darkness. “Look at the state of you. Absolutely delicious.”
The voice. That specific, honeyed modulation. It unlocked a vault of sense-memory: the scent of her perfume in a darkened room, the sound of a leather strap whistling through air, the taste of his own blood and her expensive soap. This was Clarissa. The woman who had fucked him, beaten him, commanded him to drink from a bottle she had filled herself. He had never seen her face, only ever felt her hands and heard her voice from behind the blindfold. Seeing her now, in the mundane glare of a pub, was profoundly disorienting.
“Clarissa,” he breathed, the name escaping him like a confession.
“Mm-hmm,” she purred, her thumb rubbing a small, possessive circle on his shoulder. “I thought I might find you here. Odette mentioned you’d be… available for service. But seeing it firsthand is so much better.” She leaned in slightly, her perfume—orange blossom and something darker, like vetiver—enveloping him. “You smell like a busy evening, my dear. A veritable smorgasbord.”
Paul could say nothing. He stood frozen under her touch, under her gaze.
“Come along,” she said, her tone leaving no room for debate. She slid her hand down his arm, her grip firm, and began to lead him. Not towards the door, but deeper into the pub, towards a shadowed corridor marked ‘Private’. She pushed open a door, revealing a small, dimly lit storeroom. Shelves held boxes of crisps and bottled beer; the air smelled of dry cardboard and dust.
She guided him inside and closed the door, plunging them into near-darkness save for a strip of light under the door. In the close gloom, her presence was immense. She turned him to face her, her hands on his chest. “Let’s have a proper look,” she murmured.
Her fingers went to his ruined tie, pulling it from his pocket. She tutted softly, holding the damp silk up to the faint light. “Souvenirs,” she whispered, then let it drop to the floor. She unbuttoned his suit jacket, pushed it off his shoulders. It fell in a heap. Her hands then went to his belt buckle, the click loud in the quiet room.
“Clarissa, I—” he began, a weak protest born of sheer, overloaded fatigue.
“Shhh,” she soothed, her fingers working his trouser button and zip. “You’ve finished thinking for tonight. You’re just a thing to be used. And I have a number of uses in mind.” She pushed his trousers and boxers down to his knees in one smooth motion. The cool air of the storeroom kissed his skin. His cock was hard, a traitorous response to her authority and the sheer volume of sexual exposure.
“Good boy,” she crooned, glancing down.