case, and?1,000 for a handbag. Xavier had no idea what a ‘creative director’, senior or otherwise, actually did. The job had been secured for her by her father in Milan, in return for various, unspecified, favours done for the retailer’s chief executive. Privately, after a few drinks late one night, Walter Sarfatti had told his son-in-law that these ‘favours’ had helped keep the CEO out of prison. Xavier didn’t really believe that, though. As far as he could see, no one went to jail in Italy for white-collar crime. And if the slammer had beckoned, Walter would surely have got much more for his services than just a job for his daughter.
Whatever the ‘job’, however she got it, Xavier didn’t see the point of his wife going out to work. They certainly didn’t need the money. The net gain to the family finances, once you factored in the childcare costs and the amount Lilli spent on clothes and networking and so forth, was negligible. For all Xavier knew, it could easily be costing him money to send her out to work. He personally would rather let the kids have their mother around more often. But the job kept Lilli happy and that was the most important thing. An unhappy Lilli was not good. Not good indeed.
One problem created by their domestic arrangements was the constant turnover in the hired help. Full of enthusiasm and brio, they came from around the world, from China, from Turkey, from South Africa, from various places that Xavier had never even heard of, only to slink off months if not weeks later, crushed by the reality of trying to deal with the Sarfatti-Carlton brood. If anything, the rate of churn was accelerating. They had gone through three au pairs in the last nine months alone.
The current nanny was from Venezuela. She was called Yulexis, so Xavier had nicknamed her ‘Christmas’. She was almost two months into her stint and he hoped that she would last longer than the others, not least because she was only twenty-two, extremely hot (she had been a semi-finalist in the Miss Venezuela pageant, the year before coming to London) and took a very broad view of her job description. This meant that he was fucking her at every opportunity. Banging the nanny was, he knew, embarrassing, a total cliche, but he wasn’t about to give up his droit de seigneur just because of that consideration. If ‘Christmas’ lasted for six months to a year, that would be perfect. Any less than that and he would feel terribly frustrated (in various ways). Any longer, and she would go from being a bonus to becoming a liability.
He finally worked up the energy to rise from the table and head towards the front door. Standing in the hall was his Cannondale Super 6 Dura Ace Compact Road Bike. Costing more than four grand, it depressed the hell out of Xavier. His brother had talked him into cycling to the Commons as another grand statement, demonstrating the party’s vitality, as well as its ‘green’ credentials. When had everyone gone green? The whole eco-thing was so ubiquitous now that you forgot that only a very few years ago, no one had mentioned it at all, or had cared in the slightest about the melting ice caps or the fate of bloody polar bears. It was such a bore, and such a fraud. Xavier was sure that it was only a fad that couldn’t last. He certainly hoped so.
Whatever he hoped, he knew that all this green business wouldn’t fade this side of the election. So, in the meantime, he was stuck with the harsh reality that they had set the bar too high for him, bike-wise. Now every time he stepped into a car, even his much trumpeted hybrid, he faced cries of ‘ hypocrite! ’. The bike thing had become a complete liability, but Edgar insisted that he couldn’t give it up. Even though he was followed every morning by a chauffeur-driven limo containing his suits and papers, he still had to get on the bike. It was ridiculous that he couldn’t just jump in the back of the car and have a well-earned snooze or read the Sun. It wasn’t like the cycling image-wise was risk-free; there were several videos of him on YouTube breaking basic traffic laws and almost mowing down pedestrians. He had been dubbed ‘ The most dangerous thing on two wheels ’ and some joker had started an online petition to get him back in his car. Xavier had signed it himself, using twenty-five fake names, in a failed attempt to get Edgar to relent.
At one stage, almost inevitably, the bike had been stolen. Xavier had been ecstatic but to his horror, in defiance of statistical possibility, it had been found again. He couldn’t believe it; he owned the only bloody stolen bike in the whole of London ever to be safely returned to its rightful owner. It was just his rotten luck. Xavier dropped the book in his pannier, sticking a bulky fleece underneath, so that enough of the title was visible for the photo op. With gritted teeth, he grabbed the machine and pushed it towards the front door. It was light as a feather and an object of genuine beauty and craftsmanship, but the first thing he was going to do, after their election victory, was to throw the sodding thing under a bus and jump back into his official Jag.
FOUR
Ian couldn’t believe his luck. Naked and sated, he stretched out on the bed and savoured the cool white crispness of the hotel sheets beneath him. Hooking up with people in chatrooms was, he knew from bitter experience, hit and miss at best. But tonight had been an epiphany. Closing his eyes, and grinning like an idiot, he recalled the gentle but insistent pressure of cool, unyielding enamel on tender flesh and the demented explosion that followed. His heart rate was only now beginning to return to something like normal. Looking down, he ran his left foot over the nine-inch ‘Heart of Glass’ ribbed dildo lying on the bed and felt a shiver of anticipation. But even here, even now, he was a pragmatist. He didn’t want to push his luck. There would be other times. For now, he told himself that he should be happy to let the mixture of endorphins and champagne bliss him out as he waited for sleep.
‘Turn over.’ He felt playful fingers on his warm, damp balls, and the cool, wet probing of a tongue on his penis.
‘I’m done,’ he croaked.
‘Turn over!’ The voice was half laughing, half ordering. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet.’
Ian opened his eyes and smiled. ‘Oh, well,’ he sighed, ‘if you insist.’ Rolling on to his stomach, he buried his head into a plump pillow, groaning slightly in anticipation of the pleasure to come. Immediately, he felt his legs being moved gently apart. He let his mind drift off, thinking about nothing in particular. A few moments later, he was brought back to the present as a pair of fingers slipped between his buttocks and began gently probing his arsehole. He grunted in anticipation.
‘Be my guest,’ he mumbled into the pillow. ‘It’s clean.’
Under the slow, steady caresses that rippled up his spine, he finally dozed off. After what could have been a few minutes, could have been half an hour, he woke with a start as cold oil was poured over his shoulders and trickled down his back.
‘Ahh!’
‘Sorry. It’s just geranium and orange oil. I should have warmed it first.’ The voice was solicitous, calm, mature, compelling. ‘Go back to sleep.’
‘OK.’ He relaxed back into the pillow and felt the oil turn warm as it was rubbed into his shoulders. Once again, his eyes closed and sleep came quickly.
‘Ian?’
He was woken for a second time, with a whisper in his ear. At the same time, a pair of hands gently lifted his hips off the bed, pulling his buttocks apart. Smiling, he automatically tensed his cheeks. Buns of steel, he thought. Not bad for a man my age. Sleep fell away as a hand grabbed his cock and the ‘Heart of Glass’ was pushed firmly up his backside. Cool and insistent, he felt the skin stretch and threaten to tear. He gasped, unable to distinguish the pleasure from the pain. Pushing the hand away, he grabbed his now firm member and began pumping furiously.
For ten, fifteen, twenty seconds, they established a rhythm. Rapidly reaching the point of no return, he dismissed the idea of holding back and gave one final stroke, before coming for the second time. There was less semen this time, but still a respectable amount. With a grunt of satisfaction, he collapsed back on the bed, taking care to avoid his own mess.
Still well embedded up his arse, the dildo came to a stop. ‘Ian? I’m not finished yet.’
‘Do what you will,’ he said yawning, as he stuck the pillow over his head. ‘I am spent. Take me as you please.’
With more than a hint of petulance, the dildo was thrust roughly further inside him.
‘Gently!’
‘I’m not hurting you, am I?’ A hand gently stroked the back of his neck.
‘No… Well, maybe just a little. Be careful. Don’t damage the nerve ends.’
