From Teen Bride To Hot Wife, 5: Back To Reality, Joe The Cuckold free porn video

Joe stands behind Caroline as she sits at the table writing. He lifts her long hair to one side to uncover the nape of her neck, kisses it gently before saying, "Tell me again, Caz. Tell me how his cock tasted."

"I've an essay to finish," Caroline says, her pen moving quickly across the page.

"Please, Caz. It won't take long. I've got a hard-on just thinking about him having you like that."

It's five nights since Caroline's visit to Dammartin Manor. This evening she's sat at home doing coursework at the table, the one set against the back wall in the living room. Her psychology textbook is open and weighed down with another book to stop it closing on itself. Pens and paper litter the table among the condiments, along with a small pile of clean washing awaiting the iron. Music is playing on the hi-fi; Queen's latest album, "A Night at the Opera". There's one track she loves. By Christmas, she will be sick of hearing it.

She swings her legs from under the table, half turns to face him as she sits. She looks up and sees the need in his eyes and remembers his controlled hurt when she first related the events of her evening at Dammartin Manor.

"Which bit do you want me to tell you?" she asks.

"Tell me about that butler guy again, when he was naked with you and how you licked all down his belly until you got to his cock and . . ."

"Are you sure? Wouldn't you rather hear about Lady Dammartin and her maids again?"

Caroline is trying to sound bored, even though the thought of Harrington is anything but boring; she has spent most of the day thinking about little else but Harrington.

"Not the old boot and her maids; I want to hear about the butler again," Joe says.

She is beginning to understand how much Joe likes to hear about her escapades up at the manor. Her telling becomes like reciting lines memorised for a school play:

 "I've already told you about his cock and how it's circumcised, the end all swollen and raw — not like yours at all. And I told you how big it was, didn't I?"

She had been surprised at how much hearing about Harrington's cock had turned Joe on so that now she does not feel guilty about exaggerating the size of it, even though it was only marginally larger than his.

As if reading her thoughts, he asks, "Was it really as big as you said?"

"It really was big, Joe. You should have seen the size of it." She tries to sound excited, a chore she is quickly warming to as she brings the memory of Harrington's cock to mind. She finds it oh-so-easy to get excited about Harrington. In the gate-lodge of Dammartin Manor, he'd excited her more than Joe will ever know.

"You sucked his cock just after he'd fucked you, didn't you?"

"No, Joe, not straight after — because I was exhausted by the time he'd done fucking me. God! He was like a machine: a fucking-machine.  After he'd cum — so deep inside me, Joe — we lay on our sides and kissed and kissed for ages, and I could feel how full of his cum my cunt was — so, so, much of it, and I couldn't contain it all, and it trickled out of my cunt. And I was sore as well,  because of how long he'd spent fucking me, from how it went on and on, and from how big he was. Even though I was still tender I wanted him again so much, and so I went down on him and took him in my mouth, and he was all yucky with my cunt-cum, but I wanted him hard, so I licked and sucked him until he was."

Caroline loves how words come to her, their frantic flow, the filthiness of their half-truth.

"I feel so stupid," Joe says. "Did you know that when he ran me home, he said he'd take care of you? I never thought he meant it like that. God, I wished I'd stayed and seen him take care of you, watched how he fucked you, and how you sucked his cock. Tell me how it tasted, Caz."

"He was all sour . . . Yet I could smell his soap too, and it mixed in with my pussy smell, see, 'cause I was all icky from my long day."

"Did you like his cock in your mouth?"

"You know I did."

"Did it take you long to get him hard again."

"Not very. And while I sucked him, he told me I was beautiful, that he wanted me more than any of the other girls."

"Other girls?"

"Oh. Didn't I say about them?"

"No, you never mentioned any other girls."

"You see, Joe, Lord Dammartin has spanked lots of girls like me, and Harrington gets to have them after he's done with them."

"The dirty fucking dog! You never said."

"Well, he does. I'm one of their girls now."

"How many girls are there?"

"Lots."

"That butler's a jammy twat! Tell me how he moaned when you sucked him off."

"He really moaned when I sucked him, Joe. You could tell how much he loved me sucking him by how much he moaned."

"Oh, god, Caz. You fucking loved sucking him, didn't you? You fucking slut! You so fucking loved it didn't you?"

"You know I did. I've told how much I loved it —  every night this week I've told you how much I loved it." Her eyes are wide and slutty, looking up at him, taunting him with the pleasure that she feels. She cannot hide the joy Harrington has given her.

"Did he lick your pussy?"

"You don't want to hear that again, do you?"

"Don't play games, Caz. You know I do."

 "That was the best part for me, him licking my pussy — as well as all the fucking, and the kissing, and him holding me like I was special, and then him fucking me again. It was all wonderful."

"How many time did he lick your pussy?"

"The amount doesn't change, Joe."

"Repeat the words, Caz. Say how many times. The number? Just say it out loud."

"Twice! He licked me once before he shagged me, and . . ."

"— and you cum didn't you, cum before he fucked you — didn't you? He gave you an orgasm."

"I told you yesterday how powerful my orgasm was when his tongue was on my clit, his bristled chin pushing at my cunt. I clawed his head because it was so wonderful. I thought I was going to die, that's how wonderful it was."

"Jeeeez!"

He leans forward and kisses her. His tongue goes deep to find hers. From the way he kisses her, Caroline senses the ambivalence that torments him, the arousal and hurt he battles with. And his pain stirs some cruelty within her, perverseness she has never felt before, an irresistible urge to torment the boy.  And though she loves Joe profoundly, this ability to ferment his emotions gives her a power that delights her.

She has never seen him so aroused, so thrown off kilter by her words.  Knowing of his hardly contained excitement only ads to her own arousal, stoked from reliving and telling of her time with Harrington.

"Why don't we go upstairs," she says, "and I'll show you exactly what it was like with him."

"You'll show me how you sucked him, and tell me how he fucked you, so I can fuck you the same?"

"Yeah, we can do all of that."

Caroline is learning about Joe, discovering what he likes to hear.

                                                   **********

Later they look at the photos they took up in the woods last Sunday, both of them naked in black and white. Such horrid, soul-destroying images Caroline thinks. She tells herself she has never looked so ugly.

She has no patience, can hardly wait for something to happen. It's taking Joe forever to arrange their ad. He says the wording has to be just right, says maybe they should do some more photos, better ones. She thinks he is getting cold feet.

He says that when he's happy with everything he will send it all off in the post. Caroline does not like the thought of their address in the hands of the people who produce the contact magazine but knows it is the only way. She wonders when she will receive the photos Penelope promised to send her when she had done with them. They will be proper photographs, not these horrid Polaroids. Her camera had looked expensive.

Five days a week, nine to six, Caroline works on the record counter in Woolworths. But her mind is no longer on her job, all the time at work her thoughts are back at Dammartin Manor.

During her day behind the record counter, she meets so many young men. She finds herself flirting outrageously with the long-haired boys who come to her for their fix of Led Zepplin and Pink Floyd. Her glances and innuendos grow shameless.

There's one boy she thinks cute. Most days before they close he comes to browse the albums but rarely buys one. She imagines he's an art student from the Polytechnic. He has that look. His hair has grown over his shoulders, dense as a girl's. He looks like a poet from another time, reminds her of the singer with the prog-rock group Yes. Sometimes as he fingers through the albums in their rack, he sees her looking at him, smiles and quickly looks away. She wonders if Joe would mind if she chose this boy who seems so sweet, not at all like Harrington, the ex-army hunk. With a boy like this student, she imagines it might almost be like being with a girl. If she chose this one she would be honest with Joe, hold nothing back when the time came to tell.

She will have to think.

At lunchtime, when the weather is warm, she goes out into the precinct to eat her lunch. She chooses the same bench each time, the one by the fountains. Usually, it's sandwiches brought from home, other times chips from the chippy, or maybe a pasty.  Sometimes other girls from work keep her company. There is a new girl now. Dorothy is slightly younger than Caroline. She works on the haberdashery counter. The pair gossip and watch the men and boys come and go, rate them and laugh. Dorothy is chatty and fun. Caroline has taken to her, wishes Dorothy was her sister, the little sister she never had. If only she had someone to open to like you could to a sister, to tell her thoughts to. Not like with Joe; just the sex stuff.

It is the first week in October, and the weather is still warm. As she walks along the main road on her way home from work, a car slows to check her out, the driver turning to watch her as he passes. He catches her eye, and she quickly turns away, affects a haughty disregard and increases her pace. The car picks up speed, and she watches it go.  Two hundred yards ahead, it turns off the main road and out of sight.

She draws level with the side road into which the car has turned and sees it parked up by the curb. It faces her direction now, the engine idling. When she crosses the road, the car inches forward and the driver winds down his window and calls to her. She does not stop. He calls again:

 "Please, Miss! A moment of your time."

She turns and goes to him, the polite and handsome man with the winning smile. There is a map spread on the passenger seat.

"I've got myself a bit lost. Do you know Talbot Street — the big engineering works, Baker and Caldwell?"

"You're miles out," Caroline says. It's over the other side of town."

"Can you show me on the map," he gets out of the car and brings the map to her.

Caroline is not stupid, knows it is a ruse to talk to her, and it amuses her that he thinks himself subtle when he is so blatant. But there again, she is perhaps more flattered than she cares to admit to herself, pleased that he is keen to put on this pantomime so he can speak to her.

"Show me on here," he says opening the map for her to see. He stands close, his side brushing against her. He is in his shirt sleeves, soap-powder-ad-white, crisp and pressed.

"Here, see?" Caroline says pointing. But now she can smell the man's cologne, subtle yet unmistakably rich. Its redolence and his closeness have shaken loose the butterflies in her belly.

He folds his map, says, "Thanks. You're a life saver. Would you like me to drop you somewhere?"

He's about twenty-five, clean-cut, looks successful. She thinks yes she might like to go somewhere with a man like him.

"You can run me home if you like."  

"Where do you live?"

"Not far."

He gets back in his car, but Caroline hesitates to join him. When she reaches out to open the passenger door, for a moment there is the niggling thought that this is stupid. He might be the serial killer, the one her mother fretted over when she started to go out at night to hang out on street corners with her mates, back when she was fourteen. Now she looks at the man, the smiling handsome man who sits waiting for her to join him, and she wonders. They say killers can seem so ordinary, could be anyone you know: father, brother, boss, lover, priest. She has read books about them. But she is Caroline, and her life is stretched out before her without the possibility of an ending. And besides, today she is feeling lucky.

She settles into the passenger seat. It is a big car, German she thinks. The seats are leather, the dash veneered. The man wears a suit and tie, and she thinks of Kraftwerk and their haircuts. He's not her usual type, not Paul Rogers or Rory Gallagher at all. He's more like Harrington, though younger. She thinks about these new men, these older men who appeal. She believes her taste is changing.

"Where do you live?" the man asks as he pulls onto the main road.

She stares ahead as she speaks, " The next turning on the left." She points. "See?"

"You're practically home," he says.

"It's not really a lift I need."

"I don't know your name."

"I'm Caroline. And you?

"You can call me Neil?"

"My husband is working in Birmingham this week. He won't be back till gone nine, but just at the moment I need a little male company."

The handsome stranger drives Caroline to her home. Soon he will be fucking her, and she will have another story to tell Joe.

When the man is long gone, she showers and puts her clothes in the washer, the bedding too. Neil's fragrance adheres to everything.

When Joe is home they discuss their advert. She does not mention the man or the fucking she has just received. She will save that tale for the weekend.

There is an envelope on the table that is stuffed with words and photos; their completed small ad. On her way work tomorrow she will pop it in the post box, sending it on its way to a PO box number in London. Joe says it will be at least a month before there is even the chance of a reply.

                                                                         ************
                             

It's time to tell him what she did.

"Joe," she says. She can hardly continue; this is different. This is her own thing. She is confessing something appalling, almost a betrayal because it is an encounter initiated by her alone. She knows this will be her crisis, his test.

"Yeah?" he says, hardly drawing his eyes away from the telly; the Generation Game.

"I have something new to tell you."

"New?"

"You know, a story. The sort you like."

"I thought you'd told me everything."

"Not about last Sunday — something different."

His attention is focused now, an animal at a watering hole sensing threat. "Something different?" he asks.

"What I did last week."

"What was it?"

"There was a man."

"A man?"

"Just someone who gave me a lift when I was walking home from work."

"Some guy picked you up off the street?"

"Pretty much."

"And you went somewhere with him? "

"If you like, yeah."

"Where did he take you?"

"He brought me back here. It was at tea time. Before you got home."

Joe's mind is torn. Civil war, two factions. A fight-flight response and Joe cannot move, struggles to speak.

Finally, he exhales: "Jeeez! And you're only just telling me this."

"I wanted the time to be right."

"This is like so sudden. You never said you had something planned."

"I didn't plan it, Joe. Besides, I don't have to ask. We had an agreement. Remember?"

"Yeah, but . . ."

She repeats herself, this time emphasising her words, "We had an agreement! We discussed this, over and over, that I would be able to please myself as to whom I slept with as long as I promised to tell you about it. Remember? Well, this is me telling you about it."

She sees him thinking, remembering. Is this going to be the big renege, the stick he'll use to beat her with? Then it passes, and he has taken a new reality on board, is ready to listen. There is anticipation in his eyes.

"Can we go upstairs?" he asks.

"It might be best," she says.

He lies naked on the bed. Caroline comes to him naked too. His cock is already hard, heavy and resting along his abdomen.

"So tell me about your new lover," Joe says.

"He's not my lover. A one-off, that's all. I did it for you as much as me, because I know how you like to hear this stuff.

"What was his name?"

"He called himself Neil."

"Neil what?"

"I never asked."

"He could have hurt you."

"He was nice."

"He might not have been."

"I could tell he would be."

She tells Joe how Neil had called to her. She describes how she had climbed into his car because she thought he was handsome and because he spoke so nicely. She tells Joe how she saw that he wanted her. And because she was horny as hell from thinking about Harrington all day, and because Joe was not home and she was desperate for sex with a man, she decided the handsome smiling man was a gift from God, the one sent by Him to give her a fucking.

"Did you bring him up here?"

"At first we stood downstairs by the front door kissing."

She does not say that as soon as Neil entered the door, she couldn't wait to be in Neil's arms and that she had gone to him and initiated their kissing by throwing her arms around him. As she pulled herself against him, she had felt his erection grow in an instant, pushing for her through his pants, hard into her belly. Her kissing had excited him so thoroughly that it took his breath away and he had eventually broken from her to get it back.

Joe asks, "Where did he fuck you?

"Here. I was lying right here."

"Our bed?"

"Did I do a bad thing?"

"God! I don't believe you."

"I changed the sheets after."

"Did you undress for him or did he undress you?"

"After we'd kissed some more standing at the foot of the bed, he pushed me onto it and unzipped my boots, then pulled down my tights and knickers. He didn't bother with my top, his head went straight between my legs, and he began licking my pussy."

"I bet you fucking loved that, didn't you, Caz."

"Mmmm! I so love having my pussy licked — especially by a handsome stranger, a man I'd only just met. That really turned me on."

"Did you open your legs wide for him?"

She moves away from Joe, positions herself: "Here let me show how I lay for him. I had my top on, of course." She lies flat on her back, "Here, like this." She spreads her legs, knees a little arched and angled out. "Would you like to lick me now, like Neil did?"

He doesn't answer, just positions himself and begins to lap at her.

"Not like that. He didn't go straight to my clit, Joe," she says. "He opened my cunt with his fingers and pushed his tongue in as far as he could— Oooo! Yes. That's it . . . "

As Joe pushes his tongue into her cunt, Caroline imagines it's Neil again, remembers how expertly he had worked her pussy.  She recalls his fragrance, his aftershave and the lingering redolence of his shower soap and shampoo.

"Then my Clit, Joe. That's it! He did it like that till I came. Please, Joe, do it like he did; do it like Neil. Please. Oh god!"

His tongue on her clit, Joe wonders if he's doing it the same as this Neil bloke did.

"Faster, Joe. He was faster. His hands went behind me — yes. Then his fingers into butt-cheeks, stretching me apart. Ooo! Yeah, just like that. Ooooh!"

Joe pushes his chin against her cunt so that it becomes enfolded by her labia. Caroline wants to feel his fingers against her anus, so she undulates her hips to draw them between her cushioning flesh. When she cums, she cries out like she did for Neil, claws at hair, her head thrashes left and right on her pillow. Her orgasm runs through her nerves like lightning. Her torso bucks and her thighs clamp Joe's head to fix it in place until her orgasm has run its course. Finally she becomes still.

"Did he fuck you soon as you'd cum?" Joe asks.

She can hardly speak, still dazed she says, "Yeah. Pretty much."

"Like this," Joe says while taking up position, kneeling between her legs, his cock ready to lead him forward.

"Did you put it in for him?"

"No. He knew what he was doing."

"Was he gentle?"

"No. When he pushed it into me, it was like his cock was a wedge, and I was wood; I thought he wanted to split me. There was so much pent-up energy he wanted to empty into me. He gave this great big lunge. He made me cry out loud."

"Like this?" Joe said.

And then through his cock, he gives her all the pain that curdles his mind. And she cannot speak because his cock is punitive inside her and she is left helpless by its gravity. Her fingers claw the bedding beneath her. Joe is fucking her like he never has done before, fiercely, relentlessly. She tells herself she deserves this for taking a stranger into their bed. She has hurt him, betrayed him. She is so grateful when he empties himself into her, relieved it has ended.

He remains over her, does not try to move. She has to push at him before he eases himself from her.

When he is by her side, he asks, "Was that how he fucked you?"

"No, Joe. That wasn't how it was. He wanted to please me, not punish me."

"I was excited. The thought of you and him in our bed made me feel . . . I can' describe it . . . There is a pain as if you've taken a knife to my belly and cut flesh from something vital inside — and yet I am excited in a way that powers up my body to this pitch of intensity I've never felt before. Does that make sense, Caz?"

"Your cock told me everything." She reaches out and clears the strands of his long hair from his face, "I'm sorry, Joe."

"Don't be. What we have is so beautiful, Caz. Don't let anything spoil this," Joe says and kisses her. "Did you talk to Neil? You know, after?"

"For a while. Half an hour, maybe. Then he had to go, said his wife would be putting out their evening meal."

"What did you two talk about?"

"You. His wife."

"What did you say about me?"

"That we have an open marriage, that you were a good husband, and that I love you more than anything in the world."

"Will you bring men back here when I'm working in Germany?" He asks.

"Would you mind if I did."

"I don't know, Caz."

"There will be all those Fräulein in Dresden."

"It's easier for women. They only have to give a man a look to get themselves bedded. It's fucking hard work for blokes."

She stands and begins to dress. "I know, it must be so tragic for you all."

                                              *****************

Joe is a bricklayer. The building firm he works for has landed a big contract in Germany. He will be gone for a month. He hopes to make enough for a deposit on a house of their own so that they can move out of the one they rent. He sends Caroline love letters that arrive on Thursdays. She misses him desperately.

Saturday afternoon and the sudden horror of Mike standing at the record counter. He hands her the sleeve of Neil Young's "Tonight's The Night." Caroline knows he isn't here just to buy a record.

"Hi, Mike," she says almost shyly and thinks what the fuck are you doing here? "I've not seen you here before."

"I was down this way so thought I'd call in." He hands her the sleeve, and she takes it from him as he says, "There's a message for you in that title."

She looks at the front cover, reads the title. What is he trying to tell her?  Already her mind is racing.

"How's Kate?" As she says her old friend's name the image of Kate's crown of blonde hair flashes across her mind as she had eaten Caroline's pussy.

"Kate's still as lovely as when you last saw her — remember that night, Caz? She keeps saying the four of us should get together again. I know Joe is up for it. Are you up for it again?"

"I don't think that's a good idea, Mike."

It's the busiest time of day. A queue is forming behind Mike. Other customers watch her and Mike talking, and she senses their impatience. She is anxious to be rid of him, turns quickly and retrieves the disc from its slot behind the counter. She inspects it for scratches then slips it into its sleeve and hands it to him.

 "Have you and Joe got anything planned for tonight?" he asks as he hands over his money.

"Joe's in Germany on a job."  As if he didn't know.

"Oh, that's a shame. Kate would love to see you both again."

"That's never going to happen."

"Is it because of Kate. I understand you're not one for the ladies." He winks at Caroline. "Joe tells me he has a magazine of his own, that you two have plans. Is that right?"

"— It's none of your business." She looks over his shoulder and sees the queue. "Please, Mike. You'll get me in trouble. I have lots of customers to serve. So if you would just . . ."

He affects a conspiratorial tone, looks her intently in the eyes and then leans forward to whisper across the counter. "You loved it that Thursday, especially my cock inside you. You can't hide it, Caz. I felt how your pussy gripped my cock. We should try again, without your husband interrupting us this time. Just say the word, and I'll be over. It must be so frustrating for you now your little man is away. What do you say, Caz?"

Standing behind Mike is a middle-aged man holding the empty sleeve of Mantovani's Greatest Hits who says, "Please, Miss! could you conduct your love life in your own time."

All she wants is for Mike to be gone. But he's just standing there, waiting for an answer. Mrs Smithers her supervisor has seen the queue and is heading over. Caroline blanks Mike and looks past him, her arm already reaching out to take the sleeve of Mantovani's Greatest Hits.

That night at home, she lies in bed alone and holds one of Joe's work T-shirts to her cheeks, one she put aside from the last wash before he went away. She inhales the fading essence of her man and sobs gently until sleep takes her.  
                                  
                               **************************

Monday is sunny. One of the last good days she will see this year. Caroline and Dorothy while away their lunch hour in the midday sunshine. A girl in butt-hugging tailored pants walks past where the two girls sit. She is tall and fair and quite beautiful. Caroline envies her, her face and body, the clothes she wears, her poise and grace of movement, notices even her painted toes and how they peek from open-toed wedges with sunlight reflected by each one's silver gloss.  Caroline wonders if she would look as good in similar clothes. She has seen the girl come and go before. She carries a thick wallet, is off to the post office to dispatch the law firm's morning's business. Caroline allows herself to imagine kissing the lovely blonde girl who appears so much more herself than Caroline could ever hope to be. She muses that with a person so pretty, so deliciously assured, that lesbian thing that Joe hankers to see might be okay, not the chore it was with the Dammartin woman.

Dorothy watches Caroline looking at the passing girl but does not say a word. When the girl is lost in the throng of shoppers, Caroline turns to speak to Dorothy and is startled to see the way she looks back at her. Oh god! Caroline thinks, am I that obvious?  She feels her inner thoughts flutter gaudy as bunting under Dorothy's knowing smile. Caroline blushes.

Words to hide her embarrassment. "I was thinking of getting some pants like hers? Did you see?"

"The gorgeous blonde you couldn't take your eyes off?"

"Only her clothes."

"Who needs men when there are girls like her walking the streets."

Dorothy's words shock Caroline, and Caroline scrutinises Dorothy as if for the first time. She decides Dorothy is quite pretty in a freckly, peasant-girl kind of way; her lips a sulking invitation, a passive-aggressive demand to be kissed. She wonders if it is herself, Caroline, who is the odd one, that maybe other girls have no hang-ups about an attraction to their own sex. After all, she's no longer at school with all those other girls from the big estate who called her all those names.

She decides to be as equally shocking as Dorothy, asking as brazenly as she can, "Have you ever been bi-curious, Dorothy?"  She tries hard to affect the tone of a research psychologist and fails. But still, she can hardly believe her own words as the terror of ridicule grips her.

"Bi-curious? What do you mean?" Dorothy asks.

"Have you ever wanted a girl in the same way you would a fellah?"

"Like that blonde girl?"

"Would you —  with a girl like her?" Caroline asks.

"I might — if I couldn't have you."

Dorothy's eyes are searching for Caroline's inner truth, and Caroline becomes illuminated under the younger girl's gaze. She feels she no longer has anywhere to hide that long-denied shard of herself. How had she been so dense as to not have noticed Dorothy's simple beauty, her quiet intelligence?

Each girl is enthralled by the other. Silently they share the moment's realisation of mutual attraction. Caroline wonders what it would be like to hold Dorothy, rest her head against her large breasts, taste her clean young skin. The smile of understanding and pleasure that Dorothy gifts to Caroline stir an ache in Caroline for a time when she will take the younger girl in her arms and kiss her spoilt-girl lips.

Later, while straightening the album sleeves, Caroline imagines her and Joe making a fuss of Dorothy in their bed. Will Dorothy find Joe attractive enough to take a step like that? If Dorothy meets Joe and likes him, Joe will be so pleased. He will surely think how smart Caroline is to have found someone as lovely as Dorothy, a girl so young and pretty. Yes, Dorothy is precisely the kind of girl the couples in those magazines fantasise about. And if Dorothy doesn't take to Joe . . . Well, she and Caroline will still be such good friends.

Her thoughts are full of Dorothy that evening as she walks home. Joe is still away. The house is such a lonely place now he's gone. When she opens her front door she sees scattered mail on the floor: two bills, some junk mail, and a picture postcard from her mum holidaying in Tenerife. She stoops to pick it up, sorts through it all until the sight of Joe's letter brings a smile to her face.

But there is another letter that has fallen to one side that she did not at first notice. Its presence on the tiled hall floor transfixes her like an unforeseen accusation. There it is, a thing whose possibility she only half-believed might come about; something longed for and yet dreaded: the expensive parchment envelope, a Dammartin monogram seal. Caroline stares and stares, and when she picks it up the other mail falls from her hand. She takes the Dammartin letter through to the kitchen, grabs a knife from its drawer and gingerly slits the seal of the envelope.

She reads it sitting on a breakfast bar stool. It's an invitation to the manor in December. She is to phone Harrington;  a number to call to arrange her terms. She hardly dares believe they want her again.

She never drinks alone, but tonight she takes the gin bottle from the wall unit cupboard. She rereads the invitation while sipping her gin and tonic from a glass loaded with ice. The letter is what she has longed for. Now she has Harrington's number, and she can't wait to speak to him again. Maybe he can come over one night and they can make love again. Afterwards, he can tell her what the Dammartin's have planned for her.