standing in front of the mirror fully dressed. She had to admire her own body and especially her vagina. It was alright for Lucy with her posh accent, but she still experienced difficulty saying the word cunt. She stripped off and resumed her pose, closed her eyes and pictured Lucy. Lucy wouldn’t want that, she was supposed to watch as she gave herself pleasure, but it was better this way. With her eyes closed she could imagine it was not her hand but Lucy’s delicious mouth which was responsible for a wonderful orgasm.
‘Black or white? The question snapped her back to reality.
‘White please, no sugar.’ Lucy smiled at her and she smiled back. She was beginning to feel nervous, what was there to talk about? Was she going to suggest they live together? Please let it be that – please. Lucy handed her the mug of coffee.
‘Let’s go to the dining room, I’ve got everything we need to discuss laid out there.’ Julie followed and only then, as she fixed her eyes on Lucy’s wonderful bottom, did she notice the tight fitting, feint pinstripe skirt from one of the business suits she so much admired. Surely she wasn’t going to clean the Travel Plan office in that? As if reading her thoughts, Lucy stopped by the dining room door to let her go first. ‘No cleaning today, Ju, I’ve left some space for us at the end of the table.’ Julie walked past the neat piles of papers which she had seen the previous afternoon, what was this all about? She waited pensively behind one of two chairs, almost facing each other on the elliptical end of the table. Lucy put her mug of coffee on a coaster, pulled out her chair and sat down; Julie followed her lead, taking a sip of coffee when Lucy sipped hers. They looked at each other over steaming coffee mugs. Lucy broke the spell by reaching for a pile of papers.
‘Sorry if this all seems a bit formal Julie, but I think we both know what would happen if we had this discussion on my bed.’ Julie smiled and nodded, she wanted to tell her she masturbated whilst thinking of her last night, but thought better of it. Lucy was obviously making a big effort to be businesslike so she asked the obvious question. ‘Why no cleaning today?’
‘I should have told you yesterday, but we were so happy I didn’t want to break the spell.’ Lucy couldn’t very well say they ran out of time because a client had unexpectedly asked for an appointment and she didn’t like to refuse Sir Ken Allerby because he was instrumental in winning the Travel Plan contract. She always repaid favours, not that he was over demanding. It was no great sweat to let him masturbate whilst watching her use a vibrator. Other times he would want her to push a dildo up his anus; she had a long, slim, strap-on, reserved exclusively for him. He was easy to please although not very satisfying from her point of view. She took an envelope from the top of the pile of papers closest to her and slid it across to Julie. ‘The fact is, we have sold Pro-Clean and got a good price for it. There’s a cheque in there for you. Hope you’ll agree that it’s all been worthwhile.’
Julie was stunned by the news; it was not what she had expected. Pro-Clean would have kept her close to her lover. Without it, where would their relationship go? A dark cloud of anger elbowed her usual calm, reasoned nature aside. She felt deceived. She felt used. She felt soiled.
‘I thought we were partners?’
‘We are.’
‘Why didn’t you discuss it with me then?’ More thoughts formed into words and the dark cloud of disappointment burst in an outpouring of anger and disillusion. ‘ProClean is a good business; we’ve just had the Travel Plan contract extended. I thought we were going to use that as a springboard to other contracts and employ a team of cleaners? Why have you done this? What do you think gives you the right to trample over my feelings in this way? You have used me to get what you wanted to satisfy your greed and lust.’
Lucy put a calming hand over Julie’s, but Julie snatched her hand away.
‘How could you do it Lucy? How could you?’ She ran out of breath and the last word ended in a high pitched squeak. Lucy slapped the table with the palm of her rejected hand and snapped back at her. ‘Calm down Julie and listen! Listen to what I have to say.’
Shocked by the sever tone coming from the woman she had been on such intimate terms with the previous evening, Julie stifled a sob and sat up straight. Lucy looked at her kindly and spoke softly.
‘We have other things to do you and I Julie. I don’t want my lover spending her days cleaning; I want you to help me run my other business interests – as a partner.’ Lucy got to her feet, moved behind the first stack of papers and folders, placed a hand on it and waved her other hand to encompass the other neat piles. ‘Each pile of papers relates to a business I either own outright, or have a substantial interest in.’ She touched the first pile of folders. ‘This is my Property Portfolio. I’ve got over thirty properties, including this one and whilst that gives me a good rent book I need to keep on top of decorating, and repairs – that sort of thing.’ She moved to the next pile. ‘Over the years, as a spin-off from my properties, I’ve acquired a substantial financial interest in a well known firm of Estate Agents. Then, because I had difficulty in obtaining the security I needed for my properties, I bought and developed a security business. A retired police officer runs that for me.’ Moving towards the other end of the table she picked up and waved a folder enthusiastically at Julie. ‘You’ll love visiting this one, an antiques shop in Chelsea, a fantastic business. It’s managed by an old school friend of mine, you‘ll like her.’ She moved on. ‘I have a substantial interest in a small chain of exclusive cosmetic shops. Another spin-off, from my property interests, is this specialist kitchen and bedroom fitting company.’ She touched the next pile briefly. ‘This is my website,’ and moved quickly to the last two folders. ‘This is Top Choice Dynamic, my travel company and finally, until yesterday, Pro-Clean, our little cleaning company.’ She arrived behind Julie and gently stroked her hair. Catlike, Julie moved her head in appreciation. Lucy carried on stroking as she whispered softly in her ear. ‘All my businesses are growing Julie and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of what’s going on. I need someone I can trust to help me and that someone is you.’
Julie reached up for Lucy‘s hand. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered, ‘it’s just that yesterday seemed too good to be true. I guess I was half expecting something to go wrong.’
‘I understand, but it hasn’t. So let me tell you precisely what I’m offering, so there can be no doubts’ Lucy gave her hand an affectionate squeeze before returning to her chair. ‘It’s a very complex situation Julie, I’m going to tell you everything and when I have, you may not wish to remain close to me. I hope that will not be the case, because I love you very much, but you must know what you are getting into.’
‘I’ll always want to be close to you.’
Lucy returned her smile. ‘Let’s see, shall we?’ Julie gave a silent nod of assent. Lucy reached across and took the envelope back. ‘That was very thoughtless of me, it’s not money that motivates you and I like that. I wish I could be more like you, but I can’t. I’m driven by two things, money and sex. Most of the time they go together, or they certainly did in the early days, but I’ll come to that later. First, let me tell you about Pro-Clean. I set up our cleaning company for two reasons. One because I didn’t want to see you go off, do something else and lose contact with you.’
Julie flashed her a grateful smile. Lucy returned the smile and continued.
‘The second and you must believe me, nowhere near as compelling a reason as the first, despite what I’ve said about being motivated by money, was to get close to Travel Plan and gain some information on their dynamic travel business.’
Julie was wondering what dynamic travel was all about. She was a bit shocked about the industrial espionage, but delighted to think Lucy didn’t want to lose her. ‘It’s probably just as well I didn’t know about your spying. What is dynamic travel?’
Lucy smiled, she was thankful that Julie had calmed down, but there was the biggest hurdle still to overcome. How was she going to react when she found out where the money for all her ventures came from? One thing at a time though, first she had to convince her that selling Pro-Clean had been the right thing to do.
‘Travel Plan have a new division called Travel Plan Dynamic. Basically, what they do is identify the people who have outgrown, or wouldn’t be seen dead on a package holiday and, for a fee, offer to put an individual dream holiday package together for them. It’s a fast growing area in travel and one I identified as offering great profit potential for my flagging travel business, especially if I could get hold of Travel Plan Dynamic’s customer data base.’
‘Isn’t that illegal?’
‘It would be if they could prove anything, but it will probably be some weeks before they realise they’re losing business and even longer, if ever, before they trace that loss to a cleaning lady. As far as I’m concerned they shouldn’t leave stuff lying around.’
‘You mean you just picked up lists of customer names and walked off with them?’
‘Not exactly, I had to hack into their computer system.’ She was tempted to tell her about the unwitting help she received from the sales director, but thought better of it. Perhaps later when they knew each other better and
