Barrow
In one of the secluded laneways off Macleay St in Potts Point, Sydney, sits a set of five handsome two-story Victorian brick terraces; each with a brass plaque beside the door identifying the surgeon or barrister who practices within. The westernmost of the group has no name on its plaque; just a relief impression of a woman in profile, not unlike the obverse side of a coin; one from a realm blessed with a most beautiful and elegant monarch.
This building is The Winsome Widow; a gentleman’s club of such secrecy that it has no business registration or certificate of incorporation, no advertising, no web site and as near as I could tell, no membership roll or club dues. Men come and go of an evening, but there is no evidence of debauchery, such as deliveries of alcohol or exotic dancers; no loud music, no drunken, stumbling patrons leaving at late hours and never a hint of trouble that has involved law enforcement.
Surprisingly, no disenfranchised or loose-lipped member has ever revealed the secret of what happens within its walls; but perhaps most surprising of all is that the club allows members to admit guests, and to the best of my investigations, every guest has thence become a member and maintained the secrecy of the club. Every single one; no exceptions.
It was not without some trepidation that I stood inside the gate, looking up at the barred and curtained windows as I prepared to enter what members simply called The Widow; my sole intent being to discover her secrets. Curiosity killed the cat? Ah yes, but information revived it!
“We’ll be met at the door by Stevens,” Riley explained, my reluctant co-conspirator for the evening. “He’s the butler; try not to say anything, but if you must then keep it brief.”
“Stevens?” I smirked. “How butlery. Not Mr Stevens? No first name?”
“If he has one then I don’t know what it is,” Riley said without any humour in his voice. “It would be a mistake to underestimate him. He is the most singularly enigmatic man I have ever met; I believe that very little escapes his notice.”
“Well, are we going in?” I asked ironically. “Or waiting for him to come outside and get us?”
“You might be surprised,” he answered enigmatically. Perhaps it was rubbing off from Stevens.
We walked to the wide oaken door and I looked for either a bell or a knocker but there was none. I glanced at Riley, but he made no move to announce our presence so I reached out to knock.
“Give it a moment,” he murmured.
I turned to look at him, my hand poised in mid-knock, when the door was opened by a tall, austere man of about thirty wearing a plain black suit and grey necktie. I half expected tails and a bow tie with a white linen napkin draped over one wrist, but even in his conservative modern dress, Stevens’ bearing and manner still screamed English butler.
“Welcome back, Mr Campbell,” said Stevens, his neutral accent not exactly English but not exactly Australian either.
“Thank you, Stevens,” Riley replied in neutral tones of his own. “This is Alex Barrow, a colleague.”
Colleague? I was a junior associate and Riley had his name on the door, but I suppose he could hardly introduce me as his extortionist or his blackmailer.
“Welcome to The Winsome Widow, Mr Barrow,” Stevens said dryly, managing to line up all those Ws without sounding comic.
I held out my hand but he chose that moment to step backwards and open the door fully, thereby ignoring my offer of greeting without appearing to do so. It was probably a butler thing; no fraternisation, no contact.
Riley allowed him to take his coat but Stevens made no attempt to remove my tweed jacket, something that Riley insisted I wear; his only condition before acceding to my threatening demand to be brought to the club. I had tried to get an explanation for this insistence, but even upon threat of exposure, he still refused and I had no further gambit to play. In the end I wanted The Widow more than I wanted to know why I had to wear a jacket that went out of fashion fifty years ago. I managed to spare myself the indignity of leather elbow patches and I was actually surprised at how stylish and quirky I looked with a matching waistcoat and a pair of designer, rectangular-framed eyeglasses. Riley only shook his head when he saw my attempt to ‘pull off’ the tweed look, telling me I had missed the point, but conveniently forgetting that he refused to explain the point in the first place.
I followed Riley down the corridor into a large sitting room with high Victorian ceilings and decorated in timeless gentleman’s club chic: timber panelling, burgundy patterned wallpaper, leather wing-back armchairs and an open fire with a good bed of coals and a low flame. I looked around for Stevens, but he was gone so I joined Riley at the liquor cart just inside the door; it was stocked with labelled decanters of red wine, sherry, port, cognac and scotch whiskey. No ice, no mixers, and certainly no beer; I wondered if Stevens would fetch me a Bloody Mary, but I was disinclined to ask.
Riley poured himself a red wine and I nodded when he gestured towards me with the decanter. I sipped as we walked to a vacant pair of armchairs and found it to be exquisite. Riley saw the question on my face and answered it before I could ask.
“They’re all from The Widow’s cellar,” he explained. “Nobody except Stevens has ever seen the bottle, and the most he has ever offered is that it’s a special vintage from a local vineyard. Davis is a bit of a wine snob,” he flicked his eyes at a forty-ish man reading a newspaper, “and he can’t even identify the grape.”
He watched as I swirled and sniffed and tasted the sublime flavours of berry and liquorice and black current. “The Widow has many mysteries,” he said. “You soon learn to accept and not to question.” I smiled inwardly; I planned to answer at least a few of those mysteries before the evening was over.
I heard a familiar voice at the front door and flashed my eyes at Riley.
“It’s Evan,” I hissed. “Where can we go? I don’t want him to recognise me.”
“The last time he saw you, you had tits and no beard,” Riley said in a low voice, making no indication that he was matching my movements to leave. “Relax. I don’t even recognise you.”
I watched the door in a dull panic, trying to control my breathing as I mentally practiced my man’s voice in my head. Evan walked through the door and I felt a familiar surge of wanting; he looked characteristically hot in a tailored gunmetal grey suit, stylish eyeglasses and square-toed Oxfords polished to a mirror shine.
He poured himself a scotch and – looking around – caught Riley’s eye with practiced ease and came over.
“Farrer,” Riley greeted him, making no attempt to stand up. “This is Alex Barrow.” I wasn’t used to this all-male informality of surnames and casual introductions; I didn’t know whether to stand and shake hands or to smile and nod.
“Evan Farrer,” he said, stepping close enough to obviate the need for me to stand, clearly he didn’t expect me to get up.
Making sure I got a good grip, I tried to squeeze in an un-womanly manner and misdirect his attention from my small hand. I felt a spark of lust as we touched, silently reproaching myself at the same time; I dumped him, for fuck’s sake; it frustrated me no end that I couldn’t just forget about him.
“Evening,” I said, deliberately using a one-word greeting so that I could mask my voice with a croak and a cough to clear my throat. I was suddenly very conscious of my disguise; I was accustomed to men running a slow gaze down to my thighs and then haltingly back up over my hips and breasts, currently strapped painfully flat while padding in the lining of my waistcoat straightened out the curves of my waist. I was almost disappointed; Evan didn’t check out my tits or my legs; he just smiled and looked at my eyes as we shook hands, two quick pumps and then he let me go.
“I see you’re in tweed tonight, Mr Barrow,” he smiled with an ironic nod to my jacket. “That’s probably sensible for your debut at The Widow.”
I just smiled and nodded, raising an ironic eyebrow of acknowledgement indicating a shared understanding that I didn’t actually share.
“Yes, that was my recommendation,” Riley interjected. “I myself wore a navy blazer on my first visit and I don’t mind admitting that I left that night a tad shaken.”
“I bet!” Evan laughed quietly. “I bet you did! Oh, I would pay a high price to have seen the look on your face.”
“Well you can ask Johanssen then,” Riley smiled disarmingly. “He was the one who invited me. He can wax loquacious after a couple of ports, so you should get a pretty vivid description even now, twenty-eight years after the event.”
“I know,” Evan returned enthusiastically. “I’m told he has the chair tonight? We should hear a fine tale with a long, slow burn.”
“Indeed, indeed!” Riley nodded knowingly. “With Waterhouse gone, Johanssen is the last of the old men. If we’re lucky he might treat us to one of the old tales; I bet he has a few from the early days that none of us have heard before.”
“We can only hope.” And then changing the subject, “Actually, I’m glad you’re here, Campbell,” I was unaccustomed to anyone using Riley’s surname without ‘Mr’ in front of it. “I wanted to pick your brain about a commercial property in the city.”
“Well,” Riley smiled. “Sit down. I just finished telling Barrow about the library and he was keen to abandon me for a quiet read.” This was news to me, but I was more than happy to be out of the way of any conversation; I would just have to trust that my hold over Riley was strong enough that he wouldn’t reveal me to Evan.
I took my cue and stood up; even with the lifts in my shoes I was still six inches shorter than Evan and had to stifle an urge to stand on my toes and kiss him. I followed Riley’s gaze towards a door and walked off with a smirk as I thought about the quid-pro-quo of giving Evan a beard-burn with my fake facial hair.
Evan and I were six months separated but we lived together for almost two years prior to that. The initial attraction was mutual; we were both successful professionals in our late twenties with similar interests in food, music and movies. We are both considered more than moderately attractive and are rarely short of options in our choice of partners, but we had the good fortune to meet at a time when we were both in relationships that were circling the drain.
The mutual attraction and mutual interests led to a string of ‘chance’ meetings, which led to a date, which led to the swift despatch of our respective partners so that we could finally consummate our attraction in my bedroom.
I wouldn’t describe our early sex life as electric, but to give Evan due credit, he was a most attentive lover who always ensured that I came; although far more often it was under the ministrations of his tongue than his cock. If a girl can possibly complain about coming every single time she had sex with her lover, then I suppose I am complaining. Even though I relished the sweet relief of climax with his tongue on my clitoris, I longed to share that moment with him inside me, arching and straining with my own crescendo as his cock throbbed deep within my womanhood and emptied his seed into my molten core.
Shortly after we moved in together, I was contemplating how to brooch the subject of a light bondage fantasy in which he could restrain me and take me with animal abandon, not worrying about my orgasm but trusting that the raw physicality of the moment would bring me through … and if it didn’t, well a smart girl always keeps a ready supply of batteries, right?
My plans had progressed so far as lingerie shopping, which was fun; to browsing bondage aids at the adult superstore, which was terrifying. My little bag of tricks included sheer red stockings with lace trim and matching garters and belt, no panties (I congratulated myself on the savings), and a red lace quarter-cup bra that lifted and separated my B-cup breasts but covered only the undersides, leaving my nipples deliciously free for his entertainment and mine.
With these things bagged and paid for at my favourite boutique, I entered and then circled the sex shop for more than an hour, finally proceeding to the counter with cheeks redder than my new lingerie and – clutched in my white-knuckled fist – a spreader bar; a lightweight rod about two feet long with thick velcro ankle straps at either end. I also eyed the handcuffs, but the metal ones looked too scary and the furry ones looked ridiculous, so I bypassed them altogether and chose to consolidate further practical savings by calling into service one or several of my own silk scarves to bind my wrists.
As I waited to pay for my new acquisition (cash, of course), I held my breath in silent terror of the clerk calling over a crackling PA system ‘Kinks and Fetish to the register, kinks and fetish; I need a price check on a spreader, that’s a price check on a K24 BondMaster leg-spreader, thank you Kinks and Fetish!‘ How a woman can buy tampons from a 15-year-old boy at the supermarket but baulk at showing her chosen sex aid to a fat middle-aged woman in a sex superstore beggars belief; but that was my reality.
On my way home on the train with my new purchase safely concealed in a nondescript bag, I looked around at my fellow passengers and tried to imagine what they would think if they knew the long package in my hands was a leg spreader. I admit that I found the thought titillating. Then of course, I wondered what they would do if I took it out and tried it on; hiking my charcoal pencil skirt up my thighs so that I could open my legs wide enough to strap myself in, exposing my lacy panties which at that moment would be showing a spreading stain that betrayed my arousal. I desperately wanted to reach down and touch myself, and it was a sweet agony to be helpless with my sexy thoughts, wriggling in my seat and squeezing my thighs together so that I could feel the lips of my pussy slide against each other.
Upon arriving home I almost ran to the bedroom to try on my purchases. I stripped naked and immediately plunged a finger into my open slit; the relief of finally being able to pleasure myself was like a physical weight being lifted. With considerable willpower I stopped myself from going further and withdrew to gently massage just the outer lips, still wanting to save myself for Evan. Enjoying the sensation of denying myself, I tried on the lingerie first, even though I longed to strap myself in to the spreader. With slow, deliberate movements, I sat naked on the bed and watched in the mirror as I pulled the ruby stockings over my shapely calves and up my trim thighs. As I stood to put on the garter belt, I could see the level of my arousal in the mirror; the smooth lips of my outer labia pink and engorged from the rubbing, while the deeper coral pink of my opening glistened with wet promise.
Lastly, the quarter-cup bra; its sheer and lacy crescents hoisting my breasts to a level of perkiness unseen since my teenage years, their shape drawing focus to the hard, pink points of my nipples. With no panties, the belt, garters and lacy tops of the stockings formed a crimson picture frame around the wanton, pink perfection of my shaved pussy. The overall effect was … stunning! God, I looked so hot, I wanted to fuck myself!
Breathing heavily, I unwrapped the long package and held the spreader, feeling its potent energy course through me like quicksilver as I fingered the soft padding of the thick ankle straps. Sitting on the bed before the mirror again, I first strapped it on to one ankle and then, drawing a shuddering breath, I opened my legs wide and leaned down to strap on the other end.
Nervously licking my lips to a glossy sheen, I looked in the mirror, trying to remember the last time my legs had been spread this wide. Gymnastics at school? Goodness, that was 15 years ago. Certainly I never opened myself up like this for sex; I only ever spread my legs modestly wide and then lifted my knees to give my lover access. This? This was perverted! Prostitutes probably opened their legs like this to their seething, salivating clients. I had never felt so … fuck it; I had never felt so God-damned HOT in my entire life.
I tried pulling my knees together, straining uselessly against the ankle straps, but the bar was too long. With my hands tied I would be utterly helpless; my pussy wide open and inviting for anyone or anything that happened by and needed a hot wet place to park. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to reach into my drawer for a vibrator and buzz myself to a cataclysmic orgasm; I figured it would take all of about forty-five seconds.
I was saved by serendipity as the phone beside the bed rang; I looked longingly at my reflection and then at the bottom drawer where my toy awaited, and with a resigned sigh I reached for the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey babe, it’s me,” Evan, of course.
“I was just thinking about you,” I smiled, treating myself to some discreet fingering while I talked. “Will you be long?”
“Actually, that’s why I called,” he sounded a little disappointed to be the bearer of bad news, but there was an undercurrent of excitement as well. “One of our clients has invited me to his club and I was calling to tell you to have dinner without me.”