The gravel crunches under my high heels and the sound of girls' laughter drifts down from the bedroom window as I walk up the drive. At least someone had fun tonight, I think. The night is hot and airless and I can feel the sweat beginning to bead on the small of my back under my ballgown. Surely the storm must break soon. I raise one gloved hand to mop my brow, flicking a stray lock of my long auburn hair out of my eyes and brushing a bead of sweat out of my neatly plucked eyebrows.
My head feels woozy with the champagne. I'm not meant to drink much of the stuff, just raise a toast for the photographers then discretely dispose of it but there are only so many of these charity dinners I can take. I care about their causes but I grew up dreaming I'd be manning the barricades, not listening patiently to blue-rinse old dears who want Ray ask the Prime Minister about funding their local donkey sanctuary.
It's not so bad when Ray's there with me, I think as I near the house, I've a co-conspirator then: I know he finds it as ridiculous as me, subtly raising one eyebrow whenever some local busybody's wheeled on to announce how many stray dogs they've rounded up or tons of newspaper they've recycled in Sutton or Esher or Surbiton this quarter. That's Ray though; the consummate politician; smiling politely, pressing the flesh, looking concerned when concern is required; indulging the pet concerns of the hoi polloi without ever betraying his disinterest.
That's how our lives are now: squeaky clean in public, keeping all the excitement behind closed doors. And when those doors are closed, we have plenty of fun. I feel sorry for some of the party wives, painting on their smiles for the press and then taking solace in plastic toys while their husbands are working late with the young intern again.
Mind you, without being catty, I can see why some of Ray's colleagues take their kicks away from home: their wives, mousy little broodmares selected to sire their offspring, run the office and stay out of trouble. Not me and Ray though: Jessica Rabbit, my friends call me for my big breasts, voluptuous bum and long auburn hair.
The party top brass tried to warn him off me: my bohemian background, my unexplained years abroad and the curvy 5'11" body that the tabloids never fail to mention whenever we're snapped out together. I've always been very discreet though and they've never been able to pin anything from my wild past on me. If only they knew what Ray and I get up to!
I sigh as I realise it will a week before I can feel his hands on me again. The summer recess is normally a good time for us but Ray was invited to join a select committee working in Brussels: great for his career, less so for our sex lives. Phone sex doesn't really do it for me and I know Ray's paranoid about phone tapping. I imagine his cock inside me and I'm shocked to realise my hand's between my legs and I'm rubbing myself through the ballgown, moisture and sweat starting to soak through onto the white gloves.
My god, how much champagne did I drink? I raise my fingers clad in the white silk of the gloves to my nose. The smell of my juices turns me on even more and I find I'm licking and sucking on my fingers. What's come over me? I know it's been a few days but I haven't felt this horny since I was a teenager. It must be the heat, that and the champagne.
I have to be more careful: there are a lot of bitter, sexually frustrated little men in Fleet Street and in Westminster just waiting for a chance to nail me if I slip up and let my guard down. I sigh and resign myself to another night with the dildo, biting my finger so I won't risk crying out and letting my daughter's friends know what I'm up to.
Walking past the grand entrance, round to the side door of the house, I fumble in my handbag for the keys. Shit, not there. I'm just about to call out to Emma to throw the spare keys down to me when I hear the back door open.
"Sweetie, it's just me; forgot my keys, just another boring charity do...my god, they do go on..." I'm silenced mid-sentence as I round the back of the house: it's not Emma, my daughter but another girl I don't recognise: petite, can't be more than 5'6", blonde hair cut into jagged bangs framing an almost elfin face, light tan which could be fake but is more likely the result of a gap year spent partying somewhere exotic. She flicks one of the bangs out of her face then runs her hand down her cut off Ramones T-shirt to her little denim hot pants and looks at me with these piercing blue eyes.
"Oh...oh...hello...I'm Jessica...Emma's mother..." I'm babbling, "you mustn't listen to me, I'm only joking when I say it was boring...it's a little joke Emma and I have...I'm really into my charity work". The girl's startled expression turns into a smile and then a giggle.
"Belle. I'm Belle, Emma's friend...I've heard about you...you're not like I expected you to be!" She has the disarming candour of youth and I feel completely dumbstruck, sure my face must be bright red. It's only then that I see the joint in her other hand. What must I look like? Babbling excuses like a naughty girl caught by the headmistress when I should be scolding her for smoking pot in my garden.
I've always enjoyed the power I've had over my daughter's friends: I'm fun and sexy, so they want to be my friend but I always play slightly aloof so that they never forget I'm the glamorous politician's wife: the one their boyfriends secretly lust over, call a MILF, pretending to their friends that they could ever handle a woman like me.
I know the girls notice my body too and I must confess, when I'm bored and Emma's not looking, I play with them a bit, using my height and build to my advantage, leaning my cleavage a bit too close to their blushing faces, placing a hand on a buttock or hip just a fraction of a second too long; fuelling the feelings they probably don't even realise they have for me.
Well, tonight the tables are turned: I'm standing here, tongue-tied and blushing like I'm trying to get in with the cool girl at school. I'm sure she can see I'm drunk and I really need to pee. My mouth is dry and my head pounds in the sticky heat. I want to run away to my room where I can comfort myself with my dildo, away from this girl and her unnerving, penetrating stare.
"Listen" says Belle "I'm going to smoke this. You wanna come?" I feel like all my powers are draining away. Did this teenage girl just invite me to smoke pot with her in my own garden? "You don't have to smoke if you don't want...we can just chat...I want to talk to you." My head throbs in the heat at her gauche mix of nerve and naivetΓ©. Was I like this when I was her age? Am I turning into one of those sad old women who corner me at parties to complain about Young Girls Today?
I try to recover some of my poise, pulling myself up to my full height, considerable in my heels and speaking in my best modern but concerned mum voice with just a hint of sexy dorm mistress.