Professional Excellence

Monica first appeared momentarily in

Entertaining at Large Chapter XV

and then had a starring role in the next one. That's how this all started. Be worth reading if you want to be fully in the picture, but I hope this story will stand alone. I also set myself the test of trying to make these tales shorter than the

Entertaining at Large

marathons. I'd be interested to know what readers think as well as any other comments. Suggestions and support are always appreciated.

*****

I was sitting on the edge of the bed, tapping my riding crop against my ankle. I was waiting for Howard to come home from his lodge meeting. For the last few weeks we had had regular assignations on Tuesday evenings. It was Tuesday today, it was after ten and he still wasn't home. I stretched out my left leg and admired my new boots. They were leather, thigh-length and just on the comfortable side of skin tight. I tested the crop against the ankle again. Howard was flirting with punishment; I was encouraging him, but he was calling the shots.

After Monique

serviced

him for the first time - he liked the term and used it frequently to describe our trysts - we had continued as if nothing had happened. The following morning over breakfast he drank his coffee and ate his toast behind his copy of the

Financial Times

as usual. The week followed its normal routine and I came to the conclusion that the episode had been a one-off, an aberration in an unerringly dull life. Once the slight soreness in my bottom wore off after a couple of days, I smiled about it occasionally, but was also happy I didn't have to discover the rationale for what it could mean.

It is, after all, not unusual for husbands and wives to engage in a little role playing now and then. It was so mundane, in fact, that a number of my friends were quite happy to share stories of the games they enjoyed at home. That Howard insisted on paying to be jerked off, a job I would happily have done for free as his wife, was a little more disturbing, but not excessively so. That I went along with it in my guise as Monique troubled me more. By the weekend I was satisfied it was a one-time incident and that I should go back to easing my libido by screwing my son's friends and picking up businessmen in the bar at the local hotel.

The next Tuesday, however, Howard entered the kitchen as Nigel and I were finishing dinner, took a bottle of champagne out his brief case and placed it in the fridge to chill. I had risen immediately to get his meal from the oven and did not see him do it.

'Wow Dad, it's not my birthday for ages yet, but that's very generous.'

'What is darling?'

'Dad's bought champagne. I'm assuming it's for me.'

'Cheeky devil. I shall be buying champagne if you pass these exams and get into university. Your mother and I will be drinking it as you drive away and we can get some peace at last.'

The two of them were grinning at each other across the island when I placed the warm plate in front of Howard. I liked it. They had an affable relationship. I always thought Nigel understood his father much better than I did. He always seemed to be able to bring out his more human side.

'You bought champagne?'

'Yes. I may be entertaining later. Someone I have a business relationship with. I thought it might oil the wheels as they say. Make the transaction more stimulating for both of us.'

He was expressionless as he spoke, but I hoped that I was correct in assuming that he was soliciting another assignation with Monique. I was still trying to come up with a form of words with which I could raise my suspicions when Nigel got up and announced he would be spending the night at his girlfriend Alice's so not to wait up for him. By the time the mini tornado which always accompanied his entrance or exit had subsided, Howard was engrossed in business papers and I just put on the coffee machine and loaded the dishwasher.

A couple of hours later I got my answer. I was lying on my bed half watching a documentary on TV when there was a thud against the door. Howard was standing there with the champagne in a bucket I had forgotten we even owned, probably a wedding present from one of his richer relatives. There was an envelope tucked between two flutes on the tray. He nodded to it. He couldn't speak because he held a red rose between his teeth. In his dressing gown and pyjamas he looked like a cross between a 1930s Hollywood rake and the caretaker of a block of expensive flats. It was hard not to laugh.

I opened the envelope and flicked the wad of ten pound notes. There were ten of them. My husband wanted a blow job from Monique. I gestured him in with a flick of my head and turned immediately to go into the bathroom.

I had made one or two purchases over the previous week. Working clothes. I undressed and slipped into an absolutely sheer panties and bra set which left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Even the women in the

Nightie Nook

had raised eyebrows when I picked them out. I reassured them.

'For my husband.'

I had spent a little on updating my make up as well. I found a lipstick that was even tartier than the red I usually wore to work and added a matching nail varnish. Cheap it had been and cheap was the look I was going for, at least for home work. In my highest of high heels I almost knocked my head on the top of the door as I left the bathroom. I waited for Howard to notice me. He had opened and poured the champagne and was playing with the crop again.

'If you are thinking of using that on my bottom, I'm going to have to charge you extra. Lovely to see you again, I'd hoped we might have some more fun together.'

I said it with a laugh. I didn't want him running out of the door. He stayed. And the champagne-fuelled blow job I gave him about an hour later was one of my best. The first of many.

The low rumble of a Diesel engine and the crunch of wheels on our gravel drive brought me back to the present. Howard was not a big social drinker, but tonight had been a so-called gentlemen's charity evening, and I had insisted on driving him there and that he take a cab home. There was the muffled sound of voices and then the taxi drove away. I straightened my boots expectantly and crossed my ankles as I stretched out on the bed.

I heard the sound of metal scraping against metal as he tried to get his key in the lock. I silently congratulated myself on not letting him drive. The front door opened with a crash which would have woken the dead and the sound of laughter and two male voices drifted up from the hall. I groaned and strained to try and hear exactly what was going on.

I was still buttoning the wrists on one of my most conservative blouses when I found Howard and another man still trying to get the door closed. Leather hot pants and halter top are never considered suitable attire for an at-home in our neighbourhood. The boots had been replaced by a sensible pair of flat pumps. It was unusual for Howard to bring anyone back with him. I had no idea who it might be. They both turned around when they heard me approach.

'Darling, I'm home.'

'Monica. I do hope I'm not intruding.'

'David. Of course not. It's wonderful to see you. I'm always telling Howard he should invite you to dinner.'

David Smythe is a dapper man probably in his early-sixties now. When Howard and I were first married and I was introduced to the lodge, Veronica, his wife, had mother-henned me until I found my feet. She had taken me shopping for the right clothes, always made sure I knew everyone at social gatherings and even helped keep me calm when I panicked over imagined illnesses and other self-imposed crises when the boys were little. They had no children of their own and Aunty Veronica had been a central figure in their childhoods, always willing to spoil them rotten at the slightest excuse.

She had died suddenly and tragically two years earlier from a vigorous and inoperable cancer she had insisted for too long was nothing. I still missed her. When at a lodge function, my eyes still wandered the room unconsciously looking to see if she was there. I had probably only seen David once or twice in the last year. After the initial grief had been survived he had left town to travel the country and later the world. It had been Veronica's dying wish that he do this, apparently.

At home, he kept himself to himself always making excuses to turn down invitations, and leaving early whenever an event was unavoidable. I hugged him and caught a strong whiff of a scent which was part whisky and part cheap perfume. There was the faint smudge of lipstick on his cheek which looked like he had tried to rub off but not completely managed.

'You two look like you've had a good time. Get yourselves into the lounge, I'll put on the coffee.'

A glassy-eyed Howard - I was glad to see they were not completely glazed - started to protest in a leave-it-to-me or I-know-what-I'm-doing sort of a way. I cut him off.

'Go in there, sit down and try not to break anything. I'll be five minutes.'

He giggled and nudged at the place David had been before he moved to kiss me. He almost fell over and then stared around himself until his eyes found his friend, got him into focus and thought again about what he wanted to say which he had clearly forgotten.

'See. I told you she could be strict.'

He moved towards me arms outstretched and lips formed into a bow. I sidestepped him, grabbed his arm and pushed the both of them through the door into the sitting room. I flicked on the lights, turned on the TV and made sure they were both sedentary before leaving the room. They were silent through the whole process, but erupted into raucous laughter as soon as I closed the door behind me.

When I came back with the coffee they had both managed to take off their jackets and loosen their ties. They were slumped together on the sofa. Howard had got them each a large whisky; the evidence of his attempts to hit the glasses lay in pools on the coffee table. I wiped it up with the cloth I had presciently brought with me. I smiled at them indulgently as I poured and carefully placed the cups in front of them. They both followed my every move as if they had never seen anything like it before. A highly made-up reporter on the television murmured quietly in the background about Brexit.

'I won't ask what you've been up to. I can see it involved a lot of drinking and from the lipstick on David's face I'd say there were girls.'

The lodge was no longer one of those all-male bastions which used to be so common in the UK. Women had been admitted long before my time, but there was an old bequest which left a sum of money for 'the men of the lodge' to have an evening's entertainment once a year. Some of the wives had tried to get it stopped about a decade before - in other words about thirty years after the birth of feminism. The struggle had been abandoned after some of the sisters pointed out that they had their best shag of the year when their husbands came home. Others agreed that the guilt alone was good for at least a new outfit and sometimes as much as a two week holiday somewhere warm. The campaign was quietly dropped.

'We had this really good comic as well. He told this one about.'

I held up my hand smiling indulgently. Howard was drunker than I had seen him since our wedding night. He was struggling to start a sentence but then the words came tumbling out all at once until he ran out of breath.

'Spare me the details. I think we all need a little mystery in our lives. So David, how are you? You're looking really well.'

I wasn't flattering him. In the immediate aftermath of Veronica's death he had looked like a deflated balloon, a lost soul. His hair had become greyer, he had put on weight and though always presentable had a dishevelled air about him which his wife would never have allowed. Now, he looked tanned and trim. He was a living testimony to eating regular meals and taking exercise.

'I'm just back from a walking holiday in the Alps. Two weeks of snow and solitude. It was wonderful.'

'I'm glad Howard persuaded you to come back with him. Thank you for keeping an eye on him, he's clearly had a bit too much.'

He laughed and the two of them looked at each other grinning. I smiled internally. It was no secret to us wives that the evenings followed a set pattern of a blue comedian, two strippers and drinking games masquerading as charity competitions. It was the same every year. The lodge was conservative in all things. Traditions were traditions and zealously adhered to. I noticed that the two of them kept staring at my legs. I put it down to residual lust, but smoothed down my skirt to check I wasn't inadvertently exposing too much. I smiled openly, waiting for one of them to pick up the conversation. They didn't, or perhaps couldn't.

'I've made up a bed for you in the spare room, David. I hope you'll stay the night. It might be best. Perhaps we can talk about your holiday in the morning.'

I made to rise. I was caught in a dilemma. Part of me hoped that Howard may still make one of his nocturnal visits, while the sensible side of my brain told me that even if he did it would probably be unsatisfying for both of us given his state of inebriation. Either way, my retreating to my room would resolve the matter. David gave Howard a look something akin to panic. I was confused, so settled back in the armchair I had taken opposite the two of them.

'I brought him back to meet Monique.'

'I beg your pardon?'

Howard's words had fallen out of him like the final admission of a suspect after hours of police interrogation. I understood what he had said, but couldn't quite believe it. He took a swig of his coffee, then a mouthful of whisky and finally a deep breath.

'After the female entertainers had finished their acts.'

'You mean strippers?'

'Yes. There was this one girl, Scarlett. Very pretty. Red hair, skin like porcelain. Very slim, slender almost.'

'I get the picture. She's the one who smeared her lipstick on David's cheek I imagine.'

'Yes. Anyway, we started talking. You know, the way men do.'

'Not really. Do you mean about how much you would like to screw her?'

I had been deliberately crude. I was taken aback by Howard's continuing ability to confuse me and once more remind me of how little I understood of what was going on in our intimate life. I needed to get a handle on exactly what he was suggesting.

'It's my fault. Allow me to apologise. I told Howard how much I missed the sexual act since Veronica passed away.'

David looked downcast as he made his admission.

'There's no need to be sorry. I'm not angry, just confused. I'm trying to understand exactly what Howard said and precisely what he expects.'

I looked across at my husband who fortified himself for another verbal outpouring. He nodded at David.

'He said he had been considering going to a prostitute, but didn't know how to go about it.'

'I did, though I have no experience in these matters. I understand that these days there's the Internet and so on.'

I shushed him with a wave of my hand as I kept Howard's attention with my stare. He took another deep breath.

'Well one thing led to another and I told him about Monique. About how exciting she is and the new experiences I have had with her.'

'Go on.'

'I don't know if it was me who suggested it, or whether David brought it up, but the question arose as to whether he might avail himself of her services.'

I was amused by the way he spoke about my alter ego as a completely separate being. And how he was trying to put a little space between himself and the suggestion that I fuck his friend. That was now the elephant in the room which had to be addressed. I glanced at David, he was clearly offering nothing in the way of clarification despite of the amount he had had to drink. Sensible man, I thought.

'And you're OK with this?'

He let out a high-pitched giggle; more like the whinny of a frightened horse than a laugh.

'A girl's got to earn a living.'

I took a moment to think. My mind was racing. I had a thousand questions. Was he serious? And if so thank goodness he didn't work at the job centre. Did he know about my regular trips to the Royal and what went on there? Had he any idea why it was that there always seemed to be one or two of Nigel's friends the house all the time? Was he getting turned on by the thought of me and other men? Or would he claim it was the booze talking and I'd wake in the morning to find our marriage ruined? Too much to think about. I deliberately placed my hands on my knees and used them to lever myself upright.

Both men seemed more sober now. The ruddy flush of their faces had paled; both pairs of eyes bored into my face searching for an answer. Another voice from the TV was talking about property prices in the south east of England. I used the remote to switch on a music channel and smiled to myself as a soft-jazz version of

Girl From Ipanema

came on: a Hideaway Bar standard. I walked over to the drinks' cabinet and selected a whisky tumbler, fully aware from the hurried shuffling behind me that my butt had their full attention.

When I returned to stand in front of them I stood for a while cradling the empty glass against my boobs and looked slowly from one to the other holding their gaze. They both had a look of trepidation. Howard's weak grin looked shifty as his eyes flicked away from me. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. David looked more scared, perhaps fearing that what had seemed like a good idea when full of Dutch courage had possible negative consequences he was about to find out about. I flashed him a quick smile of reassurance before leaning over slowly and placing the glass on the table. Their eyes followed me down. I enjoyed the drunken stares. I was completely covered, of course, but my 35DDs are always attention grabbers and I heard an intake of breath from David as I felt my breasts ease slightly away from my chest under the pull of gravity.

'Pour Monique a stiff one will you?'

I left the room without looking back. The masculine laughter erupted as the door clicked closed. I was sure I detected a note of I-told-you-so from Howard. I skipped upstairs allowing myself to get excited for the first time as I wondered what to wear. The sight of my new boots on the floor and the leather shorts lying on the bed settled it for me. I had toyed with the idea of my usual Royal uniform of skimpy cocktail dress. But this wasn't the hotel, I reasoned, and all three of us were fully aware of what was on offer here.

I got the confirmation that my decision was the right one by the two dropped jaws and sudden ceasing of chatter when I reentered the room. I walked slowly across gesturing for them to make room for me to sit down. They each scurried to opposite ends of the long sofa and I arranged myself slowly between them, crossing my legs and enjoying the feeling of the leather tightening around them and the increased tension in my suspenders as the straps stretched to accommodate the pose. I looked from one to the other before leaning over to pick up my over-filled glass.

'Good times.'

I raised my glass. Both of them had to move closer to clink glasses. After a shuddering gulp of the strong spirit I put the glass down and put a hand on a knee of each of them.

'You don't have to try and get me drunk, boys.'

I smiled at each of them.

'I'm always up for entertaining special gentlemen. And besides, I've been drinking wine all evening waiting for customers.'

I hadn't. But I wanted to have a prepared excuse if a hung-over and regretful Howard tried to pass responsibility for whatever happened next over to me. David kept glancing over at Howard nervously as I stroked his leg. Neither of them was saying anything. Howard's bleary gaze was fixed on my leather clad legs, David kept sneaking glances down the front of the crop top. It was tight over my breasts with a spray of small studs more or less where my nipples stood firm. I teased them both with little touches and stretches. But this was not something I was going to keep up all night.