Looking back, it was amazing how quickly Barbara and Art managed to get an agreement done. In the end Barbara agreed a worse deal than Art originally offered but with a clause to put her on the Board of Directors with an increased percentage after two years if everything went well. Forward thinking, and yes things did go well and now, six months after the clause was triggered, there are the five of us on the board and John, the electrician has been promoted to Associate Director with two assistants. One of them, his long-term tenant, Pete, has moved up to Manchester and runs the northern group and Yasmin, a young girl who was at Uni with Cindy, Luther, Jon and Chris has taken his place down here. She finished her masters in Electronics and Computing and was bored silly working for an electronics firm making kitchen equipment. It did not take much to persuade her to move and she now lives with Darren in his new apartment and mentally wired in to the project. She and Darren now regularly partake of the lifestyle without actually having their flat plugged in. She is also giving him a run for his money in Computing abilities. Her more recent degree and updated knowledge has led to all sorts of state-of-the-art innovations, with wireless, moving cameras and mobility triggers to the fore. Tracy who had been shagging Darren from time to time was not too upset as she was the ultimate party-girl and Darren was very much a one-girl guy.
We have grown to a total of fourteen apartments here in the south and another nine around Manchester and Bury. The fact that there are now twenty-three apartments to choose from does mean that there is rarely any moment in a twenty-four hour day when one cannot idly watch sexual antics of one form or another. Plus of course, now, the two regular VSX parties, one still at the King's Arms run by Ed, in combination with his other fortnightly party, and the other, organised by Susan, with Pete's help, at the Coach and Horses in Bury. Susan and I, and usually quite a few more of the London tenants, still go up in a mini-bus there monthly for the parties. One of these days I will write the story of some of the mini-bus trips, a party in themselves. Running the Manchester parties from London has been no bother, as they are closed-door, for tenants only. Saul at the Coach and Horses, after over a year, now knows what we want and it almost runs itself. All the tenants and employees are welcome at both parties which means that the London party normally has about forty to fifty people there and the Bury party, thirty or so. Both parties are very popular on VSX, attracting a good regular number of viewers.
Susan, while still a VSX director, now runs independently four 'Party Nights', all around South London, all monthly, on different nights in different pubs. She has been able to use them for both recruiting tenants and advertising the project. We have found that a lot of the regular attendees are now VSX members. She is looking for a couple of venues in Manchester and the surrounding towns, to start a couple up there as well.
Barbara, well, what a girl. Barbara had claimed to be able to lead from the front when it came to sexual antics in an apartment, and boy, she did. She had a succession of sexy dinner parties, massage evenings, lingerie parties, hen nights and on one occasion a guy with a snake came round for a 'quiet' evening. Don't ask, but it turned out to be required viewing. She had to give notice to most of her tenants but had little problem replacing them with people happy to try the lifestyle. It was no longer necessary to use the sort of tactics that Mark had used for Susan and I. Nowadays we give the prospective tenant a one-month membership of VSX and tell them what we expect. She has a nice mix of both the sexes, all under twenty-five, and all party-animals. She is now looking to tenant the next flat using Janet and Dave as her model. She is looking for something a little bit kinky, all in the name of diversity. She herself stayed in her flat for two years before replacing it with a cheaper one and staying, alone, in the original flat, now without the cameras. She has distributed her rota of activities amongst her tenants and is still a regular visitor to them.
'Just keeping her hand in,' she will tell you.
She and Susan are firm friends now, possibly because they are really kindred souls, but more likely because Barbara has shown no appetite for getting me on my own. We have been known to do a little groping at some of the parties, but Susan can hardly hold that against either of us, when everybody is doing the same. In fact, it would look quite odd if we had to try to avoid each other.
Susan and I are still in our original flat and regularly see a lot of the girls in the new block nearby, Joanne and Pete, and Tracy and her dad. We also have a regular dinner and games party with Emily, Graham, Greta and Tom and of course Joanne and Pete. Even their friends Helen and Ian occasionally join us. They are still not quite into the lifestyle. You can see that they are never first to get undressed or to be outrageous. They always need a bit of persuading, but tend to get there in the end. They also enjoy it enough that after missing a meeting they are almost keen to come to the next one. Greta and Tom on the other hand are just waiting for the next apartment that we fit out.
Gordon now. There was another story. He had come back from his trip apparently hot for my blood. Elise had told him the truth of the evening that 'Gordon' had not been her safe word, that it had in fact been 'architect' and that she had always felt, if not comfortable, never in pain or in danger. While that mollified him a little he was still after my blood for winding him up so successfully. After visiting Susan and giving her the lingerie as a present, he came round again one night just after nine. I can only believe that he thought I was going to be out. I had told Susan that I had expected to be late after meeting with a couple of new tenants, but it turned out that they had decided that they were not right for the lifestyle so it was very quick. A 'thanks but no thanks' drink. The girls downstairs had invited Susan and Elise in for a few drinks but Susan, in Elise's company had said that she would come later, as with me out until late she would be able to have a long phone call with her mum. Elise had somehow relayed this to Gordon. As I said, I had arrived home and was changing in the bedroom when the doorbell rang. Susan, wearing just a pair of bikini panties, answered the door, after presumably, looking through the spy hole.
As I listened to hear who was at the door, really expecting it to be one of the girls downstairs, 'I heard her say 'Oh Gordon, hello, come in won't you.'
It went a little quiet and as I completed dressing, throwing on just a pair of old shorts, I heard a thump. Going into the lounge I had seen that Gordon appeared to have thrown Susan to the sofa and was in the act of dropping his trousers. I had no idea at this stage whether Susan was in agreement, or even had been consulted.
In retrospect it was very funny. 'Good evening Gordon,' I said. 'How are you? I haven't seen you for weeks.'
