Anais, Anais free porn video

It had taken me about three months to decide that I regretted hiring Franc. As the company FD, he’d come in, taken over, straightened things out, spotted some savings and costs we could eliminate and basically done all the accountancy that, if I was honest, I’d not had the heart to do. He was reliable, efficient and effective; in some ways, the ideal person to sit alongside me, to keep me sensible, to remind me and the rest of the team about watching cots and overheads, keeping a focus on long term viability, on delivering value for our investors, maximising returns through deploying best practice and deploying the economies of scale we could now leverage.

But Christ, he was dull.

And here he was now, little clicker for the laptop that he wouldn’t let anyone else use, running us through the month end figures, the numbers dancing before me as I tried to focus on them, knowing I needed to show I was listening, set an example for the rest of the team despite the fact that I knew the key figures already, had spent our regular hour at month end with Franc, knew that the renewal of the contract with KRM had secured revenue for the forthcoming year, knew he’d be leading the round of applause for me for having secured the deal, knew I’d do the false modesty thing and move us along, onto the deep dive he’d prepared into the ongoing cost reduction initiative about wastage and lost time incidents where I could zone out again.

I fixed a look of interest on my brow and tried to ignore the delicious feeling when I thought about the KRM meeting, about the bar by the train station, the sound of the chair being pushed back, wooden legs scraping on the polished floorboards as a woman sat down opposite me, uninvited and started talking. There had been no hello or pause, she simply dragged the chair out, sat down and started talking at me.

“I read something once about a guy in America, wrote a suicide note and left it to be found. Gist of it was he was going to walk from his apartment to the Golden Gate bridge, quite a long walk across town by the sounds of it. In his note, he explained that he’d walk there and if anyone smiled at him, any stranger at all was just to show some humanity towards him, then he’d turn back and try to get on with his life. If no-one did, then he’d jump.”

She’d looked at me as she paused, and I’d not quite know what to do. I was used to London, to the South, to the unwritten rules of never talking to strangers, no eye contact, concentrate on your phone, keep a barrier up to all uninvited conversation; but this wasn’t London or the South and the younger woman opposite me with red hair and questions in her eyes was looking intently at me, inviting me to reply as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

Franc flicked his thumb and the grid of a Powerpoint slide flickered up onto the screen, key figures picked out in the shades of red, amber and green in line with his system: consistent, clear and concise. I looked at the slide, recognised the content from our end of month meeting and nodded slightly as Franc’s oddly accented voice moved onto the overview of the Dagenham site’s performance last month and I felt the stem of the wine glass in my hand as the woman cocked her head to one side and I reflexively moved my free hand to the strap of my bag hanging off the back of the chair to reassure myself it was still there.

“I’m sorry.” I nodded at her “Who are you exactly?”

“I’m Ursula,” she extended a hand over the glasses between us, her long red hair falling slightly over her face as she leaned forward: instinctively, I reciprocated, leaning in, a smell of lavender from her somewhere: an odd, incongruous old lady smell on someone who appeared to be younger than me.

“Wow, that’s some grip you’ve got there,” she smiled, pulling her hand back and shaking it. “Go easy on me, girl.”

“Sorry.” I think I may have blushed a little. “Force of habit: I do business with a lot of men, you learn, you know.”

“Oh, what business are you in?”

“Look, Ursula wasn’t it?” she nodded. “I’m just having a quiet drink here, end of a long day and all that, so can you cut to the chase and tell me what you’re selling?”

She’d moved her lips then, pushing them close together in a look that it took me a second to recognise as pity. She moved a hand up to brush the hair back from her cheek and looked away, eyes fixed on some place over the bar.

“They found the note. Once they’d dragged his body out of the water and identified him, they found the note he’d left and, I guess, someone posted it onto the internet anyway. I read it on Facebook, made me think you know?”

“Yeah, I guess. Anyway, lovely meeting you,” and I raised the glass, taking a swig with one hand, checking my watch with the other, “but I’ve got a train to catch.”

And then, in another world, I’d stood up and left the cluttered table and got on the train and got home, fed the cats who were angry with me because I was late back and opened another bottle to celebrate and fallen asleep on the sofa again with the hazy feeling of a job well done and woken up as normal and gone into work the next day to the applause of the team and life had just carried on as it had been and it was all normal and routine.

Instead, she’d sighed and looked back at me, made a bridge of her hands in front of her, elbows on the table, chin resting on her knuckles and she’d asked me why I was sad.

I pulled my bag onto the table in front of me, checking for my purse and tickets, angry at this girl’s impertinence, determined to move on, to leave this conversation.

“Who said I was sad?” I asked as I flipped through the contents of my purse, locating the tickets.

She didn’t reply, just moved her head to the side, looking at the collection of empty glasses at my left elbow.

“Someone who drinks like that,” she arched an eyebrow, looked at me and then around the bar, “in a place like this is lingering here for a reason. Look, I do this a lot, I try to offer some solace, an ear for people who want to talk, I owe it to,” she paused then, swallowing as if she was thirsty. “I promised myself that I’d try and make a difference because someone did it for me and I try to keep his memory going.”

“And what makes you think I need someone to talk to?”

“Well,” she drew a breath, head still resting on her hands, “you’ve had five glasses of wine; you’ve not checked your phone for about an hour and,” she paused then, looking up and away, selecting the right words, “you’ve got a face like an orphaned kitten. If I was guessing, I’d guess you didn’t really want to go and get on the train. Either it’s been a bad day or there’s someone at home you want to avoid for some reason. Either way, you look like someone who could do with a sympathetic ear.”

I smiled at her then, satisfied that she’d got it wrong, that I wasn’t as transparent as I’d feared. With no small amount of scorn in my voice, I’d told her then, told her about the fact that I was celebrating, that I was in town to sign a major contract for my business, a business that I’d built up from scratch into a six-figure turnover enterprise: that I’d won a major renewal with improved margins and secured the jobs of the team working for me, kept the business afloat for another year. I was boasting, asserting myself, letting this girl opposite me with her unconditioned hair and cheap coat know that I was successful, rich, a business owner with all the accoutrements and accessories that I wanted. I certainly didn’t need help from someone who had dyed her own hair, whose nail varnish needing touching up, whose rings were cheap little silver things sat in bunches on her fingers.

And, in the room, Marc’s voiced continued, approaching the end of the slide I knew, summarising the end result of the initiative to reduce headcount and increase efficiency with additional investment in the IT package he’d integrated that removed the need for the admin team and automated payroll, his monotone voice and odd stresses laying in slightly the wrong places reminding us all that English was his second language. A little red dot, the pointer on his handheld device, danced over an area of dense figures, trying to tell the story of the successful change he’d made, the cost-saving highlighted in green. It had made me wince when I first saw it, and I winced again as the little red dot played over the square, the conversation focussed on the money saved, the potential to reinvest, to expand the same deployment across other areas to achieve further savings. I listened, waiting, wondering if anyone around the table would ask about how many people were represented by that number; about what had happened to them when their jobs disappeared, replaced with a bot that could endlessly, perfectly enact the process that we’d paid them to do. I wondered if I knew them, wondered if I’d met them at some point, what they thought about the diktat handed down from the distant HQ, the message that the work they were doing was worthless, redundant, superceded by technology. I’d acquiesced to the original suggestion with a shrug and a “why not” when Franc had suggested we implement a trial; now I was looking at a green number on a grid that represented the consequence of my shrug, the end result of my indifference, upheaval and concern pushed into people’s lives for the sake of a little green number in a box.

“And does running the business, seeing it grow, all that success, does it make you happy?”

I’d laughed at her, trying to project an edge of incredulity, as if it was a silly question, an absurd idea that I’d be anything less than ecstatic with my life, hoping that it masked the sharp twist I felt at the accuracy of her question.

“So, it doesn’t, then,” and it was pity on her face again, a sad little flex of the mouth.

I remember I glared at her, shocked and surprised at her bluntness and accuracy, knowing she was right, scared to death to concede the point she was making. She was right. My little business, the vision that had become a livelihood, then a career, now an obligation and a runaway train that sucked up all my time and energy, that stole my evenings, filled in my weekends. It had been fun when I’d started, the wild and hard days when we made do, when we cobbled things together, when we’d worked through the night to fulfil our first big order. I thought about how Arty and I had banged on the door of the local pizza shop after they’d closed and persuaded them to open back up again so I could feed the guys and it had cleaned me out, down to my last pound in the bank but it had felt good, felt like I was alive and riding on the crest of optimism and excitement and energy, back when I knew everyone’s name, their kid’s names, knew them personally. I remembered the weekends packing boxes, my parents and sisters helping out, how Arty had done his back in from lifting too much, how we’d laughed with relief when we got the order away in time the next morning and staggered into the local pub for lunch and how Dad had fallen asleep in his chair and no-one noticed until the waitress asked him for his order and Arty had nearly choked on his drink laughing and spat it all out over the table. And I remembered when Arty proposed; and when he left, and how it had felt strange wearing a ring at first and then strange when I took it off for the last time, an admission that something had ended. I felt the numbness of how time had passed, how I’d moved on, drifting apart from the pain like an estuary opening into the ocean.

In the stuffy room, Marc paused and looked around, inviting questions. I shook my head gently, indicating I was happy, knowing that Glen would take issue with the contention around the proposed expansion of the new system: it would remove the need for some of his team in Coventry and Glen was fiercely protective of his people and position. Marc and I had discussed it beforehand; we’d agreed I’d leave it to him to bat off the counter proposal, let him take the lead on this as a Finance issue.

Franc moved on to the next slide, another grid, the projected deployment timeline and summary of the impacted areas, the next teams to fall under the axe. I watched Glen, saw the tension in his jawline, the deep breath as he prepared to get into the conversation: I glanced at Franc, caught his eye and sat back in my seat, handing the conversation over to him.

I still don’t know why I’d told her. I mean, I’ve reflected on it a lot: best I can tell you is that I was drunk and, if I’m honest, she was right. I’d been reflecting, steadily drinking away and reflecting on the fact that I’d done this, got the contract renewed, a tremendous victory for me and the business and I was going home to an empty flat and some ungrateful cats and no-one to share it with. I felt empty. I knew some of it was the adrenaline crash, the relief and nervous energy dissipating, that I’d been more concerned about the fact that this could fail than I’d dared to admit and now I just wanted to share it with someone and, once I got on that train, I’d be back in an empty shell of a flat, a place that should feel like home but didn’t, a place that would magnify this feeling of loneliness.

It just came out, all of it. She listened, asking questions where I lost her, nodding a lot. When I got into being single she took my hand between hers and offered reassurance and I had a sudden thought, pulled my hand away, sitting up straight.

“Look, er, this isn’t, I mean, you aren’t trying to pick me up here, are you?” I asked her and felt a sudden little thrill at the idea as I saw the surprise flutter across her face.

“No,” and she’d said it flatly and I’d been surprised at the disappointment I felt, “you just needed someone to talk to.”

“Oh good, because I’m not gay or, a lesbian or, you know, whatever it is you say nowadays. Not that I wouldn’t be flattered, I mean, if you were,” and I’d smiled awkwardly at the gaucheness of what I’d said, at how stupid I’d suddenly felt, while she laughed at my awkwardness and she’d ordered us some more drinks.

The next morning, as I looked into her eyes wrapped in the scent of her lavender smell, one hand brushing the hair from her forehead, the other inside the flannel warmth of her pyjama bottoms, fingers clamped to the delicious curve of her naked buttock, she reminded me of those words, asking me if I was sure, if I really wanted to and I’d moved my hand, found her wrist and pulled it toward me, sucking on her fingers as I stared in her smiling pale blue eyes, holding her wrist, leading her from my mouth down into the intense heat I held for her.

“Anais?” I heard my name and realised I’d lost track of where we were in the room, that Glen’s spectacled face was looking at me with concern, waiting for an answer to a question I’d not heard.

“Sorry, Glen, I think I’m still feeling a little bit out of sorts. Could I have a minute?” I asked and stood up, realising I felt slightly dizzy, moved blindly to where the door should be and stepped out into the corridor, on auto pilot, seeking the toilet.

“Anais? That’s an unusual name.” I could hear the question in her voice over the sound of the bar, the usual one where I explained I was named after my maternal grandmother in France, not the novelist. She’d whispered my name, calling me as I crawled back up from under the covers, my chin wet with her, the taste of her still dancing on my lips and she had held me wrapped in her as she repeated my name, her body pushed against me, her face flushed and delighted, the syllables a song on her lips. And she’d said it when she asked me what I wanted, and I’d said I didn’t know and she braced my face with her hands, holding me, looking me in the eye and had told me that I needed to stop worrying, to stop being concerned what everyone else thought, that I needed to just tell her what I wanted.

I pushed at the toilet door, the smell of the chemicals and sudden coolness welcoming distractions, pulling me back into the real world, the now, the place of focus. I ran the tap, cold water running across my fingers as I looked at myself in the mirror, saw the telltale flush of red skin across my throat and chest against the white cotton shirt, the dazed look hiding there in my eyes as I peered into the face of someone I recognised but didn’t really know.

“I just don’t want to be alone tonight,” is what I’d managed, eventually, as I peered into the half-empty glass in front of me. I looked at her, she said nothing so I carried on, “I mean, I came out of the meeting and they agreed the renewal and I was on a high, you know. Did the whole handshakes thing and kept it all calm and cool until I get into the cab then I called the guys back at the office and I told them and it was wonderful, all cheers and I felt like a hero, you know. Then we got stuck in traffic and the battery kind of died so I dialled off and I was sat in the back of this cab and all the euphoria just drifted off and I thought about getting on the train and getting home and feeding the cats and I just felt…”

“Lonely?” she offered.

I looked at her, checking for a smirk, for any judgement, for any sign in her face that she was mocking me: I couldn’t see any.

“Yeah,” I said.

I cupped my hands, let the cool water pool like I would when I was a kid. The face in the mirror was made up, the face that I was expected to wear, a layer of foundation and eyeliner between me and the world, a mask to hide behind, a thing to obscure and contain the real me, the face I used for investors, for the team, when taking the stage to deliver another scripted update to the team. I took the cupped water and threw it over my cheeks, welcoming the cool touch, seeing the smudges it produced in the reflection opposite me, washing away the false shades, the lies I’d painted on to hide behind.

“I told you, I’m not gay, I mean, well, I fooled around some at university, but I’m not gay.”

“Good,” she’d said and leaned across the space between us on her couch so her face was in front of mine, her wonderful lips just a movement away from me, “because I’m not either,” she’d said this and laughed at me, skipping off the sofa, disappearing into the kitchen to fetch the cheap bottle she’d opened when we got into her little terrace, a scent of lavender hanging in the air as she passed. I’d wondered what the hell I was doing, why I’d accepted her invitation, how I was going to get home, concerned at the obvious confines of the house that could only have a single bedroom, worried and excited at what this meant, at where I’d be sleeping.

She came back, filled the glasses and sat, cross-legged, opposite me on the single sofa her front room could accommodate, her elbow resting on the top of the cushion and she played with her hair, sipping at the wine she’d poured, asked me about how I’d fooled around at Uni and I’d told her about Emma as I found myself admiring the curve of her neck, told her how Emma and I had been friends and she’d come out and I’d been fascinated, curious, how I’d deliberately spent an evening getting her drunk, had ended up with her back in my room, the tension of thinking how pretty she was and wanting to kiss her, scared that she’d reject me, terrified at the excitement I felt.

The cubicle was a mess. I grabbed a handful of toilet roll, dipped it under the running water and used a wet corner to try, as best as I could, to clean my face, to wipe off the falseness, the layer of cloying foundation that hid the real me, covered what I was with what I thought I needed to be.

Ursula had come back from the bathroom, the smell of toothpaste and the lavender soap she used and I’d made do with what we’d brought from the little supermarket on the way over, drunkenly taking off my make up with some baby wipes, apprehensive about what I was doing in this strange house with this stranger whose bathroom I was stood in, white tiles streaked with soapy residue, shelf cluttered with supermarket own brand bottles, stray long red hairs in the hairbrush before me. I stared at the naked face in the mirror, the crow’s feet, the sagginess at the corners of my mouth, this aging parody of my reflection. I stepped back, undressing, reaching for the spare pyjamas she’d handed me, feeling self-conscious of the stubble on my legs, of the flabbiness of my thighs, at how the years had pulled at me, regretting the evenings sat at my laptop catching up with work, how the sedentary life had slowly grown around me, swaddling me with the flab that I now resented, that embarrassed me.

I wondered what she’d think of this, this doughy mess of age, these thighs that wobbled, this older woman who’d talked her way into her house, into her bed, imposing on her in my need for company, for someone to talk to, someone to be with on a night when I felt alone. I wiped off the lipstick and I was back sat in Emma’s room breathing quickly and flushed with embarrassed excitement, the fumbling and frustration, how I should have been able to second guess what she wanted, how Emma had undone my jeans, reached inside, had pleasured me with her fingers, the delicious flickering until I had come and how I had wanted to please her but felt too intimidated, overawed with what I was feeling, with what it would mean, what it would entail admitting about myself, how I’d mumbled something, leaving her, fleeing off into the night.

I knocked on Ursula’s bedroom door and she told me to stop being stupid. She was sat up in her bed in some grey flannel pyjamas sat on her side of the bed, her hair pulled back behind her ears. I stood awkwardly in my borrowed nightclothes, looking around the little room, beige walls with some framed pictures of her with people I assumed were family, the wall behind the headboard a deep pink colour, brushstrokes visible where the shaky paint met the ceiling; the covers a lighter pink shade, her knees drawn up in a hillock in front of her.

“Well, are you joining me or not?” she’d asked, smoothing some hand cream over her fingers.

“Ursula, I,” and I glanced around the room, massaging the bundle of clothes I held in my hands, “I mean, what were you planning?” and I felt embarrassed and stupid, apprehensive, my bare toes on the rough carpet, the loose pyjamas suddenly stifling as I toyed with the notion that she’d throw me down and have her way with me, at the conflicting emotions the idea produced.

“Well, Anais,” she glanced at me and resumed smoothing the cream over her hand “I’m going to sleep. Lovely as you are, we’ve both been drinking and I could just do with a good night’s kip. How about you?”

I’d felt relieved and disappointed, trying to hide both by turning my back to her as I looked for a clear spot in the clutter strewn around the room where I could put down my bundle of clothes, the reluctance I felt as I pulled back the covers, looked at her as she laid on the pillow, as I climbed into the strange warmth and wrap of her bed.

We’d slept together, side by side that night. She smoothed my hair and I’d drifted off, my hand in hers, the unfamiliar mix of smells around me reminding me of somewhere I couldn’t quite pin down.

The face opposite me in the bathroom mirror now was honest; rougher, coarser, paler, but honest. I flexed my jaw to one side to check for the scar I knew was there, the result of a cycling accident when I was thirteen: something I always covered up nowadays. It arced across me, pale curve against my still reddened skin, against the blotchiness of embarrassment and fluster. I stepped back and looked at the suit, at the shoes, at the shirt, the watch: I thought about when we’d started and I’d spend days in jeans or joggers, would get home dirty and dusty from the sites we were outfitting, blistered hands and broken nails, sore shoulders from lifting. I was happy then; happy at the thrill, at the adventure, at the excitement, at making things up as we went along, at the lack of structure and need to make it work. The years between had been successful, massively successful, but now I was sat in a month end briefing on the accounts; would then move to our two-hour governance session and end the day with a three-hour presentation from the outsource company Marc had lined up to pitch to us, flowing on to the evening, time set aside to catch up with e-mails and complaints, another evening sat at the kitchen island in front of the laptop as London happened outside.

I’d woken up next to her, an odd sense of déjà vu in the adjustment, a moment of panic in waking up in an unfamiliar place next to a strange person. She was looking at me, even in the half-light, I knew she was looking at me, could feel her breath on me, the warmth of us combined under the covers, face to face across the inches of tension between us, sensing the possibilities, the excitement swelling in me, the additional warmth soaking me as I watched her watching me in the dim light of the morning. I was trying to formulate the words, to capture what I wanted to say, the invitation I wanted to extend, the consent I wanted to obtain but the fear of rejection held me back, stopped the words in my throat.

She smiled at my fear and leaned in close, her lips tantalisingly close, teasingly near to mine.

“You know I’m not gay, right?” she whispered across the tiny gap between us, and she darted forward, her lips touching mine briefly with an electricity that ran through me before she moved back, her eyes searching mine, looking for my reaction.

“Neither am I,” I said and reached for her, finding her lips, my hands finding her under the covers, pulling her into me, into the need and desire I felt, the swelling heat that she could assuage, the painful hardness in my chest and trembling in my breath.

We’d rolled together, hands roughly seeking each other, the swell of her bare buttock under my hand, the shock of her tongue on mine, of her hand in my hair, of her thigh sliding between mine so I could push my arousal against her, the heat of us pressing together, side by side and joined.

She had drawn back, reaching to quickly strip off her clothes, steering my hand into the warmth of her, the strangely familiar feeling of her on my fingertips, the heat and clamp of her thighs around my wrist. I momentarily remembered Emma, how it was my own fear that had driven me to flee that evening, the fear in how I’d relished her fingers sliding over me, that I’d preferred the softness of her to the stubbly forcefulness of the boys I’d dated, that I had wanted to seize her, to strip her and dive into her, to feel her heat on my tongue. It had been too much to admit to myself then, too huge an admission for me to make to myself and I had left, the belt buckle on my loosened jeans rattling as I’d fled, as she called after me, asking me what she’d done wrong. I’d regretted it ever since, felt guilty at my cowardice, at having taken advantage of Emma’s vulnerability, at the chasm it had opened between us.

My tongue met Ursula’s and I resolved that here, I was not going to regret anything. I knew this would be a one-off, a moment of madness, just getting it out of my system before I went back to work and reality. I kissed her neck and started to make my way to the place I’d always sought, across her collar bone and nipple, feeling the excitement grip me as I pecked little kisses, wiggled down under the covers and into the dark heat that covered her naked body, the enticing smell of her beckoning me, yearning for the drag of my tongue, the push of lips against her: the desire I knew that had driven me to run from Emma all those years ago in fear of admitting it to myself, the desire to taste her, to satisfy my curiosity, to indulge in the pleasure of giving pleasure, to make this beautiful young woman beneath me, hips bucked forward, flat belly under my mouth, hands in my hair, to make her melt with satisfaction and that intense sensation of release.

My mouth wandered through her hair, found the beginning of her, the edge of her swollen lips brushed against my mouth, the scent of her centimetres from me, her heat radiating against my face. I wrapped my arms around her thighs, extended my tongue and gave a long, slow lick from bottom to top of her, enticed and encouraged by the way she moved her hips to follow my movement, how she held herself where my tongue flowed back and forth over her and the squeeze of her hand in my hair. She tasted slightly bitter, her wiry hair tickling at my nose as I clamped my lips over her most sensitive spot and sucked, pulling at her as I moved one arm free, aligning my hand with her heat, letting my index finger brush at her lips as I sucked on her clitoris, feasting on her with a hunger I’d always tried to suppress, an exhilaration at the freedom I felt, the enormous release of finding that the reality was even better than I had imagined in my lonely nights with only the vibrator for company.

“Just tell me what you want,” she’d said, her reddened face beside mine on the pillow after I felt the tension and spasm in her thighs, the bucking of her against my mouth, the pull of her hand in my hair driving me into her, dictating the rhythm and roughness she wanted. I’d felt terribly afraid of her then, afraid of being open, of being selfish, of telling her what I wanted, of admitting it to her, admitting it to myself. No-one had ever asked me that before. They’d asked me if I liked things, the usual polite checking in that men had learned to do, but this was different. This would be an insight into my most private world, the one I shared with my pillow and laptop on the nights where I locked the cats out of the room, into the deep desires that I’d never shared with anyone before, the things I thought were too outré, too deviant, too unconventional to admit out loud.

She’d watched me as I thought all of this, saw the hesitation in my face and cupped my cheeks with her hands, kissing me lightly on the lips as her hair fell across her face and she smiled.

“Just be honest.” Her eyes had searched mine. “Be honest with yourself and tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. Just trust me, Anais, just tell me what you want.”

And I thought about my favourite video, how I’d kept the thumbnail saved, knew exactly where it was on the website and I told her what I wanted, expecting to see shock and disgust on her face, expecting her to make excuses and explain that she wouldn’t do that, that the idea was disgusting. Instead, she smiled at me, quickly kissed me on the lips and said that she knew that I’d be fun.

I left the bathroom, the air-conditioned breeze of the corridor cold against my wet hair and damp face. I clamped the phone to my face, making noises like I was talking to someone and set off down the soulless beige corridor hung with corporate art, back toward the meeting room where expectant faces turned towards me.

“Anais, are you all right?” Glen stood up as I looked in through the open door, stepping towards me as the others variously stopped their conversations or looked up from their laptops. I spoke into the dead phone, begging the non-existent caller to give me a second and covered it one hand as if I were pausing.

“Fine, Glen, fine. I think I’m just still feeling a little groggy from the flu; just needed a breather. I’ve just got to deal with this, got a call while I was freshening up. Shall we reconvene in five? Grab and coffee or whatever?”

I had called into the office from Ursula’s bed, told them I was sick and wouldn’t be in that day while she sucked at my nipple; I made some vague references to the nerves, exhaustion catching up with me, flu symptoms that sort of thing as her hand ran up and along my inner thigh, giving me shivers while I got Marc and Glen to deputise across the day. She probed at me as I turned my phone off, placed it on the cluttered bedside table and told her she was an evil bitch for doing that while I was talking to people. She’d laughed at me and told me she was ready for me and I’d felt a thrill of excitement as I rolled on top of her, kissing her, wanting her to make my darkest desires a reality, wondering if she’d really do what I’d asked of her.

We’d kissed, me on top of her, the smell of her sweat and desire combined in the air, the unusual and wonderful feeling of my breasts squeezing against hers, my hips grinding on hers. She’d pulled her chin back, breaking off, opening her eyes and looking hard at me.

“Anais.”

I’d raised my head, hooking my hair behind my ear to keep it out of her face.

“I really want to do it to you now,” she said, thrusting her hips against me, a smile on her lips, a wicked look around her eyes “so do I need to move or do you?”

I gazed in her eyes, wondering about the practicalities of things, about the positions and how it would work.

“I don’t know, I mean, what do you think?” I asked, feeling a little foolish and she’d rubbed her hand over my back, one finger tracing the bumps of my spine from my ribs down to my buttocks and back up and I’d shivered with the delight that she was causing to ripple through me.

“Well,” she said flatly, “it’s your asshole. How do you usually like it?” and she’d recognised the confusion on my face and guessed then, laughing and stretching under me, her hand on my cheek as she kissed me hard and told me to sit up on her face.

Feeling a little foolish and extremely excited, I’d moved out from under the covers and straddled her, feeling the cool air hit my naked skin, feeling the dampness of my thighs, relishing in the view I now had of her lower half, the smooth skin, the whiteness of her belly and fluffy thatch of hair slick with my saliva as I lowered myself back towards her, feeling her breath against the damp heat of my inner thigh, my hesitation to move back tempered with the insistent pull of her hands on my hips, the slow rock of her open thighs, the electricity of her tongue as it connected with my buttock. I thought of the video I’d stumbled on, remembered the first time I’d watched, the wave of arousal and repulsion I’d felt as the tip of the girl’s tongue had embedded itself in the other girl, the idea chiming with a deep need in me, a desire I’d never explored but had always known, a fascination with the taboo of the act. I knew the video, the fantasy I used for myself, the fantasy Ursula was about to make reality as she pulled at my hips, urging me down, the idea that I now lowered myself onto, her tongue flickering between my buttocks, closing in on what I’d asked for, what I’d never admitted to any other lover as her hand slid across my pelvis, her fingers unerringly aimed at my clit. I was almost overwhelmed, the feeling of her tongue delving at my ass, her fingers thrumming across my clit, the abandon with which I was rocking against her insistent push, the feeling of the slightly cold air on my chest, the sounds I was making as I pushed and yearned and held myself against her as she forced herself against me, her wet tip pushing at me, her fingers rubbing along my clit. Finally, wonderfully, she breached me and I came so hard that I collapsed, my head resting on her thigh as I spasmed and bucked against her, every muscle and nerve alive and jangling with the overload of sensation.

We spent that Friday pretty much entirely in her room. We had tea and toast in bed, watching some shitty daytime TV shows as we snuggled under the covers and bitched about the actresses. I was supposed to be having a working lunch with a client at the local bistro; instead, I ate homemade cheese sandwiches and half a packet of slightly soft custard creams as she and I talked. I told her everything; the bits from my childhood, school, early days at work, how I’d set up my own business, a lot about how that was going, how it had taken off. She’d listened, her head on my breast, asking questions, clarifying things when I went into detail or forgot that she didn’t know people’s names. When I got onto Arty I was scared I’d make a fool of myself, get all het up, emotional: I was surprised when it didn’t catch me like it used to, surprised to find a numbness where I had expected pain. With distance it was a routine story really, boy meets girl, they get engaged, he has doubts, he leaves; she cries.

“And there’s been no-one for you since then?” she asked, lifting her chin to look at me.

“Well, there’s been people. I mean, you know, it’s not that hard to find a man is it?”

She smiled at me, stroking my stomach in a way that made me feel giddy as she gazed at the ceiling, a look I already recognised as her thinking of something.

“It was Zappa,” she exclaimed, snuggling back into me, “Frank Zappa. Said something like getting laid is easy, it’s just about lowering your standards.”

And she’d told me about her failed marriage, how he’d preferred the bottle to her and she’d eventually kicked him out when his drunken anger had turned physical. It was ironic, she said, because she knew all about alcohol abuse from her work as a Probation Officer, and we moved on, she told me about how she’d put herself through evening classes to get the qualifications, was hoping to move up the ladder, some stories about the sorts of people she dealt with, the men she tried to rehabilitate, the things they’d done, how she knew the sorts from her time as a kid and she escorted me through her childhood, the estate and the council house, her mother trying to cope on her own, her siblings and extended family, how her ex had seemed like an exciting way to escape, to get her freedom, and how it had backfired.

We’d spent ages swapping stories of bad relationships and awful hook-ups and laughed like kids as we snuggled under the covers telling dirty stories of disappointment and embarrassment. I’d been with more men, suffered more of the routine failures of stamina and performance, the disappointments familiar to women everywhere; she’d been with less people, but had done more, to my mind, liberated things with them. I’d had drunken and unsatisfying fumbles in hotel corridors at conferences, given a guy a blow job in a car park after a date, had got rope burns the one time Arty and I had tried some S and M; she’d dated two different women, one for much longer than the other, had been in a couple of threesomes with her ex and his best mate, and had dated a bloke who got off on doing it in public until they’d been caught in the local park and cautioned by the police.

We’d ordered take out and squabbled over who should pay and she’d berated me when she had to get dressed to answer the door and I’d watched her naked form rise from the bed, her smooth back and the roll of her hips, the way her hair tumbled as she dressed and I’d been mesmerised. She returned with the boxes and a bottle of something awful that we’d choked down as we ate, drinking bad red wine from mismatched glasses while she sat on the bed and explained what was going on with the trash TV we were watching, using her slice of pizza to point at each character, her hair untidily tied behind her, her face alive with the intricacies of the story.

The episode finished and, as she collected the empty boxes, she’d kissed me and told me that she wanted to share some more things with me, words that gave me a twinge under the covers. She disappeared downstairs with the trash and, when she returned, she’d opened the top drawer of the chest under the TV, rooting around for something that she kept hidden behind her back as she approached the bed, a wicked smile on her face.

“You need to get undressed if you’re coming back to bed,” I said, arching one eyebrow in a way I hoped conveyed a certain sultry air.

“And you,” she leaned down and kissed me softly, “need to put something on for me,” and her hand appeared, her index finger holding up a dildo dangling from a strange lattice of belts and buckles. “This,” she looked at it, a smile on her face, “was a present from Kerry, you know, my ex. It’s the best thing she ever did.”

“What is it?”

“Oh my God, Anais, do you even go out? It’s a strapon; but this,” she smiled at me again and reached for the dildo, flicking something and my interest was piqued with the sound of the buzzing it made, “has three different speeds and a vibrator at both ends.”

She let the buzzing plastic phallus dangle between us, swaying slightly as she looked me in the eye. “Adjusted properly, it sits on your clit so whether you are banging or being banged, it feels a-may-zing.” She gazed at it affectionately then back at me. “So, as I made your little fantasy come true, I was wondering….”

I’d wrestled her out of her t-shirt and joggers, delighted that she’d not worn underwear, my hands over her as she knelt before me, pressing the tip of the buzzing toy against me, smiling as I moaned at the sensation.

She’d had to help me get into it, the loops and buckles needed some adjusting but she was right, as she pulled it tight across my thigh, the vibration sat hard against me, making it difficult to stand. I’d tried to move but she’d held my hips, forcing me to stay and I’d followed her gaze, looking at the peculiar erection that I sprouted now, the way it curved up slightly to meet me, almost looking at me as it appeared from under my belly. I couldn’t help but laugh at it and we collapsed on the bed, giggling and aroused, her hand helping me locate her until this temporary appendage sank into her and our hips met as I thrust against her, the vibrations and her gasping moans my rewards for each thrust.

We’d fucked all afternoon; sometimes with the dildo, sometimes with some of the other toys she liberated from her drawers, sometimes with fingers, mouths, with pushing ourselves against each other. I lost track of time, lost track of who had done what to who, I simply indulged and indulged her, found a release in the sweaty heat of her, in the hair stuck to her thigh with my saliva and her juices, in the hot need of her mouth, the curve of her breast, the rippling of her tongue across me as she licked me from buttock to clit and I quivered with delight.

I knew that I would have work piling up, e-mails arriving which would need answering as the traffic rolled past her little house, but she was in my arms and just for that time, it didn’t matter. For that weekend, with her against me, wrapped against me under the covers, her scent all over me, our hair entangled on the pillow as we lay together, hands idly stroking each other as I gazed into her half-closed eyes and grinned at her, work didn’t matter.

“You’re amazing,” I whispered to her and she’d raised her head, kissed me lightly and settled her head under my chin, the scent of her hair enveloping me.

“So are you,” she’d said, and she’d kissed at my collar bone, her fingers stroked my stomach, downwards, across my hipbone and she’d looked up at me with her open mouth and leaned into my kiss just as her fingers found me again.

I made it to the canteen, ordered myself an espresso while still making noises into the dead phone at my ear, gazed around at the people, the teams and small groups: the man in warehouse overalls and the hi-viz vest at the table next to me eating beans on toast and reading the paper; a young man in a tie and an older woman deep in conversation in the corner, paperwork between them; a pretty young girl with ginger hair sipping a tea and checking her phone: all strangers, all people I didn’t know, had never seen, never connected with, people who worked for me but who I didn’t know.

I thought about when we’d first got kettles and cups for the warehouse teams, how it had been a suggestion from one of the pickers, older guy, name of Terry, clad in overalls and speaking up at one of my briefings. I’d gone out and equipped it all over the weekend out of petty cash, so it was there when Terry and his mates turned up on Monday morning. I wondered what had happened to him, wondered if he still patrolled the warehouse with his paunch and overalls; I recalled he’d had a son, joined the forces, either the Army or RAF because Terry had told me he was petrified he’d be deployed to Iraq.

I watched the pretty ginger girl smile at her screen and realised that had been nearly fifteen years ago, after we first took on the site; when we first moved in and it was all chaos and Arty nearly had a breakdown about the bills stacking up because I’d not realised our new client was on ninety-day payment terms and we’d had to sell my car to tide us over. And now we had this, a canteen with staff and hot food, nicely decorated, comfortable, free wi-fi for the girl to use as she checked her messages and it was all much better, but so much worse. I missed those days, the days when I knew people, when it was about being the boss, about winning hearts and minds and the sense of a team working together. I’d still smoked then, had found out about Terry’s lad in the smoking area, had missed a meeting to spend time talking it over with him, just let him get it off his chest; I’d never do that for this girl, for the people here, we’d never connect like that, never connect as people. This job was a transaction for them, lines in a resume, dates and numbers and achievement listed in emotionless bullet points when Marc’s relentless drive for efficiency finally automated or outsourced their roles too. I’d started the business to build something, to achieve something and now, looking at what it had become this robotic juggernaut that made money but discarded people, now I didn’t know if I was proud or not.

“You know, usually, I resent people like you.”

“What?” she’d said, lifting her head and looking at me as if I’d offended her.

“I’d resent you; feel jealous of you. When I go out, with the girls and we go to a bar, I used to feel like I stood a chance, that, if someone caught my eye, I’d be able to flutter my eyelashes and they’d come running. But now, now we go out and I feel invisible. We don’t do bars and wild drunken nights anymore; we do nice meals and conversations about work or house prices or kids and schools. And I resent it; I feel old, Ursula, I feel old and useless and left on the shelf. And people like you, pretty young things like you, I guess I just feel jealous.”

“Don’t be such a twat,” she’d said and kissed me, “you really think I’m pretty?”

“Yes,” I’d said, and she’d wiggled herself up the bed, putting her lips on mine, letting her hand rest on my lower stomach, letting her fingers brush against me. We’d sunk back into each other, into the hot warmth of kissing, the aching overwhelming of skin on skin, of her mouth wrapped around my nipple, the taste of her, the feel of her hips bucking against my hand, the angle of her neck as she strained and moaned when I made her come, the abandon of seeking and being sought, of wanting to give and aching to receive.

I huddled on a seat and watched the people, watched the canteen, the flow and ebb, ignoring the calls from Marc and others looking for me. I swallowed the espresso and made up my mind.

Ursula and I parted on Sunday evening, swapping numbers and goodbyes, rushing because my taxi had arrived early. I’d spent the journey back feeling wistfully happy, replaying events from the weekend, wondering if she was doing the same, toying with the new number in my phone, the new contact, wondering if I’d ever use it, guessing I’d chalk this all up to an exciting episode and get back into the routine, the everyday pressures of the business and work and keeping everything afloat.

Reality kicked in as I clattered across the white concourses at Birmingham looking for my connection. I was looking at the screens when I saw the name of her town roll through on the departures board and then, just then I knew it wouldn’t work - knew that it couldn’t work. Opposite me, in the glass of the closed coffee house, was my reflection: the professional woman with her briefcase and laptop bag, the CEO and founder of a company pushing for a spot in the FTSE 500, a market leader in a thriving new sector, someone who’d been interviewed in the trade press, who spoke at industry conferences. That women, the one in the reflection, could not be having a wild lesbian affair with a Probation Officer in a northern town. It didn’t work, it couldn’t work. The scandal of it would ruin the business, the PR Team would have a nightmare with the rumours, with the press, with the gossip it would cause, the reputational damage, the feeling that it was not quite right.

I fetched my phone from my pocket, hovered my thumb over the button that would delete her number and consign Ursula to the past so I could move on, keep building the business, take it on to the next phase of growth, the four-year plan that Marc and I had worked through, the partnership deal to expand into North America. I looked at the button and noticed my nail varnish was ratty: I shut the phone down and put it away, reaching into my bag for the bottle of polish I carried with me just for these sorts of emergencies.

The train rattled through the solemn flatness of the autumn evening, through towns with increasingly familiar names, through the flat grey urban sites, past the tower blocks and corrugated iron, past the messes of litter caught in the ragged sidings, old tracks reclaimed by nature. I put it off; delayed the moment when I’d delete her number while the wet coldness of the midlands slipped by outside.

“Hey Anais, long time no speak!”

“Hey Ursula, sorry I haven’t called you back before, work’s been awful and I needed to sort something out. Sorry to call so late, I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

“Anais, it’s only ten o’clock, it’s fine.”

“So, do you have five minutes now?”

“Of course: hold on, let me just,” a sound of movement, the noise of the TV in the background diminishing. I guessed she’d reached for the remote. “That’s better; so yeah, I’ve got time, what’s up?”

I took a deep breath, recognised the symptoms of stage fright: the tightness in my throat that I used to get before I went on stage to talk to the team, the slight shakiness in my limbs, the phantom feeling of needing to pee.

“Anais? Are you there?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m here, I’m just. Look, I don’t know where to start with this so just bear with me, okay? So, you know how you asked me to just be honest and tell you what I want?”

“Well, of course I remember that.” I heard the smile in her voice as she emphasised the last word, felt a delightful thrill as I remembered it too, but I shoved it aside for now.

“Yes, well, not that. I mean, that was great, but I didn’t mean that. I meant when you told me I should just decide what I wanted to be, what would make me happy.”

“Did I?”

“Yes, yes you did - when you were talking about your job, about the people you have to try and help.”

“Okay, I don’t really remember, but it sounds like something I’d say. You are allowed to be happy, Anais. You spend all this time and energy worrying about the people who work for you and you don’t look after yourself.”

“Well, I quit.”

“You what!”

“I quit.”

“Fucking hell, Anais. Can you do that? I mean, I thought you owned the place, can you quit?”

“I still own the majority of shares, but I quit, walked out today, told them to find a new MD and walked out.”

“Shit a brick. So what are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to take your advice, do what makes me happy.”

“Great. Well good for you. Time you started caring for yourself and being a bit selfish. A girl can’t spend her entire life living alone with cats.”

“I just wanted to let you know that you helped, you know, that you persuaded me, gave me the push to do what I needed to do, what I wanted to do but didn’t dare.”

“Okay,” she drawled and I could sense her apprehension. “Look, Anais, is this really what you want, I mean, it’s your business. You said it was your baby. Are you sure that you can just walk away from it?”

“Yes,” and as I said it, I thought about telling her, telling her about how I’d left the meeting, how I’d realised that it wasn’t my baby anymore, that the little business I’d started had transformed, become a giant, a thing I didn’t connect with anymore; a place where people were reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet, where money drove decisions not people, that success and growth had stolen the bits of the job I actually enjoyed and paid for their loss with stifling boredom and constricting need to be professional at all times, humourless and inhuman and wooden. I thought about the looks around the table when I’d stepped back into the room and said my piece, the shock and surprise closely followed by the smirking ambition that sprang forth on several faces, the hunger to take over, to lead. I’d thought about saying more and decided against it, had grabbed my bag and walked out, out of the office, back to my car, to my flat.

“Anais? Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, you went all weird there for a second. So, what are you going to do now?”

“I told you. I’m going to stop worrying about who I ought to be, about being the professional businesswoman who never stops. I’ve had some calls already: seems that word has got around and I reckon I can sell my controlling shares to some Investment Bankers for a tidy sum and live off that for a while.”

“Well, good for you.”

“I hoped you’d say that.” I drew a deep breath, teetered on the edge and asked her the question I’d been building towards, “So, do you want to help me celebrate?”

I listened as she paused, heard the indecision in her silence, the hesitation.

“Anais. I mean, look, I’m flattered but are you sure? I mean, properly sure about all of this? Now don’t get me wrong, last weekend was great but the train fare down to London is quite a bit and I’ve got a shift this Sunday so I’d have to get back.”

“Who said anything about London?”

“Well, I assumed you meant, I mean, well, I imagine your flat’s worth seeing, and” she trailed off, “Sorry, let’s start again. Yes, Anais, I’d love to celebrate with you. What are you proposing?”

“I thought maybe a bottle or three of champagne, maybe with some takeaway pizza and tubs of Ben and Jerry's.”

“Ah I see, a sophisticated and chic celebration, Anais. Well, it sounds good. So when, this weekend?”

“Well,” I swallowed hard, my throat dry with nerves, feeling the weight of the shopping bag as I picked it up, “at the risk of sounding presumptuous, I was thinking of sometime sooner.”

“Anais, I can’t get away this week, I’ve got shifts to cover.”

“I know.” I sucked in the air, steeled myself. “That’s why I came to you.”

“What?”

I felt the emotion then, the swelling, the terrible risk that this would backfire, the utter devastation I’d feel if it did. I steadied my breathing, a long exhalation, and told her.

“I’m stood outside, on your doorstep. I brought champagne. I didn’t want to celebrate on my own.”

The dark barrier of the closed curtains was pushed aside and I saw her face in the window, a mixture of surprise and delight as I waved and grinned at her. She threw open the door and the light fell on me like a redemption, and I was washed with relief and joy as her arms wrapped around me and I slipped into the cocoon of her lavender smell, into her kisses and warmth and acceptance.