(With thanks to Mike for his tireless help with proofing and editing - you know who you are!)
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Jessica left her office, or to be more precise, her Chambers, in Lincoln's Inn, near Fleet Street in London and negotiated the underground.
It was a sultry summer evening and the train was hot and crowded. She could have taken a taxi, but that just seemed like an unnecessary expense, and anyway, the tube journey was making her hot and sweaty and she knew he would like that.
Exiting the train at Clapham, in south London, she walked a few hundred yards to an Edwardian mansion block of flats. She rang the bell and was immediately buzzed into the building.
She walked up three flights of stairs, and was mildly annoyed that she felt a little out breath. She kept herself pretty fit, with swimming, tennis and Pilates, and it was an affront to her self-esteem to feel that simply climbing some stairs was an exertion.
The door to the flat was, as she expected, ajar, so she pushed it open and went inside, closing it firmly behind her.
There was nobody in sight and she was drawn to her own reflection in the full-length mirror across the hall. She studied herself, looking demure and professional in her black two-piece business suit, the barrister's uniform.
For that was her profession. She was not just a barrister, but a very senior one at that. For those who care about such things, she was a "KC" or "King's Counsel" - the very top tier of the legal profession in the UK.
So, at forty eight years old, she had a big job. She worked really hard and was very successful professionally. But she didn't always feel quite so successful in her personal life.
The face looking back at her was beautiful in a (she ruefully recognised) slightly faded way. Her hair was cut in a neat bob. Dark brown, with a little grey showing at the temples. She had meant to touch up her hair dye that week, but her case-load had been manic and she just hadn't had the chance to get to the hairdresser's.
It was a well structured face, with grey eyes, good cheek bones, a patrician nose and firm jaw line. A little sun damage from time spent as a young woman in southern Europe, resulting in crows' feet at the corners of her eyes and irritating grooves from her nose to the corners of her mouth.
She realised these were inevitable signs of age, but she resolutely refused to resort to Botox or similar. She wanted to age gracefully - in her looks at least. She was quite prepared to age disgracefully in many other ways! With that thought she went through the next part of the familiar routine.
She removed her jacket and skirt and hung them on a coat rack attached to the wall next to the door. Next, she removed her shoes, silk slip, bra, panties and stockings. Now, completely naked, she checked herself in the mirror again.
Even though her body was, objectively, extremely sexy she, as always, noticed only the flaws: slight belly and stretch marks from childbirth; breasts although never large, drooping a little; a bit of cellulite on her thighs and a slight loosening of the skin on her upper arms. Her body had also suffered a little from the Mediterranean sun, but her breasts and bottom were smooth, white and unblemished where they had been protected by the swimsuits which she had (ahem, usually) worn.
She consoled herself with the knowledge that the man waiting for her in the room at the end of the corridor desired her body. He desired it more fiercely than anyone she had ever known. And he would do things to it, and with it, that nobody else had ever done.
She was aware that her therapist, her girlfriends and her younger self would all tell her that she had to love her own body first and not rely on the approval of a man. And she knew they were right. But being lusted after by a hot twenty-something did boost her, sometimes rather fragile, ego!
Her younger self, she further reflected, would have been shocked by some of the things he was going to do to her. But her current self now knew that her younger self, whilst principled, nubile and unlined, had known almost nothing about sex!
She looked again at her full-length reflection and noticed the two weeks of growth in her pubic hair that was developing into a bush again. But she knew that would be dealt with shortly.
She took a small notebook and her reading glasses from her bag and then walked, naked, down the corridor to the rear of the property and knocked at the door at the end.
"Come in."
A tall, dark haired, young man was waiting inside, sitting in a leather armchair. He was dressed simply in a pair of faded jeans. Nothing else. His feet were bare, as was his lean torso.
He wasn't a muscle-bound gym jockey, but he was slim, lean and hard. She knew he had rowed competitively to a high level at university and that he still trained and sculled regularly, which kept him in very respectable shape.
Next to him was a low table with a number of items arranged on it. She didn't need to look. She knew what they were. He gestured to the other leather armchair opposite.
She handed him the notebook and her glasses then, as usual, settled into the chair, reclining backwards, and hitching a leg over each of the arms, displaying herself to him completely.
Neither spoke.
The man then knelt in front of her chair and examined her pubis closely. He stroked the growth of the pubic hair, and then, rather unceremoniously, opened her pussy lips to reveal the pink inside. He leant forward to put his nose a couple of inches from her pussy and inhaled. He looked up at her, smiled, and said simply "Good."
He had a generally serious countenance, perhaps saturnine wouldn't be overstating it, but when he smiled his face lit-up, and his kind eyes looked directly into her soul. The kind eyes always reassured her. The things that she knew he was going to do to her over the ensuing minutes and hours, indeed over the course of the weekend were potentially frightening, but those eyes were always there and they made her feel safe.
He always insisted that she not wash on the days she came to see him. He hated the smell of soap, masking what he regarded as the delicious, natural, scent of her vagina. She always felt slightly uncomfortable until this "sniff test" had been passed. It was also part of the process of his humiliation of her. It turned him on, so it turned her on.
On one occasion, early on in their relationship, she had been tempted to cheat, and had washed her pussy in the office lavatories before leaving to visit him. She hadn't really believed he wanted her truly "au naturel". But she was wrong.
He had detected it immediately. He was angry. He made her stuff an entire bar of soap, painfully, into her pussy and then put her knickers back on. She had to keep it in there for the whole evening. And he refused to touch her.
Finally, when he allowed her to remove the soap, he had given her a bathroom nail brush and told her to scrub herself clean, while he watched. This was incredibly uncomfortable - as the stiff nylon bristles scoured her pussy - and humiliating, but she complied. She didn't have to of course. She could have just left. But that wasn't how their relationship worked. She had never made the same mistake again! Humiliation, pain and power exchange were at the heart of their relationship, and this was just another manifestation of that. And she craved it.
She made herself comfortable for the next phase of preparation, leaning backwards and closing her eyes. He ran his fingers through her pubic hair, giving it a gentle tug.
"This needs to go doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, it does."
He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. She thought she could see the twitch of an amused smile
