Heather Honey

Scarlett Rush

Lost in the rainswept heather of the Highlands, she finds refuge in a cottage owned by the person she would least expect to find there: a gorgeous red-headed cougar, all dressed up ready to seduce. It seems she has walked straight into the kind of scene one only finds in erotic tales. Surely her fantasy is about to come true? However, when Ailsa and Lexi also turn up, things take an unexpected turn...

The heather is a carpet of vivid purples and greens as far as the eye can see. The bees buzz and bumble from flower to flower in lazy contentment. Ahead of me the sky is pinking behind the clouds that have bubbled up over the sharp-cragged mountains. There is still clear late afternoon blue above these clouds, but below I can see the watercolour mix of grey and orange that tells me the rain is already falling there. It would all be utterly beautiful seen through the window of my crofter’s cottage holiday home, but I am outside, it is coming my way, and I am totally lost.

It was meant to be a simple jaunt, a mere four-miler. I know roughly where I went wrong but in trying to retrace my steps I have become even more lost. The map is useless since I don’t know where upon it I am, or even in which direction I am pointing. I have a compass app on my phone and might even be able to pinpoint my position via GPS if I could get a signal. However, this is immaterial since my phone, along with my purse, is in the pocket of my other, fully-waterproof, far more sensible jacket, which is in the boot of the car. And Lord knows where the car is.

It is his fault. In a moment of indignation aimed silently at him, I decided at the very last second to live dangerously and swap jackets, to embrace the blue sky and the moment and forget the nagging voice in my head reminding me that conditions here could change in a flash. I would show him. That’s what I was thinking as I swapped coats, trying to send him my anger and defiance across the miles. That’s why I forgot to swap over my purse and phone. It totally slipped my mind because he was on it. In a moment so massively uncharacteristic of me I set off unprepared, then compounded the error by “just going for it” when I wasn’t sure which of the two barely visible paths to take across the moor. So now here I am, twenty six and single after a succession of failed relationships, set to die from either exposure or Scottish Highland poisoning, because I have got myself into the very danger I am ever so scrupulous to avoid, I don’t know how to get myself out of it.

For all my bravado the anxiety is kicking in with the first few traces of rain wetting my face. In a few minutes the colder air I feel through my thin waterproof is going to bring the sharp, chilling, almost horizontal rain in off the mountains and onto me. In an hour the sun will dip with alarming speed and the darkness will descend. Then I am going to be in big trouble. Mark would know what to do - Mr Intrepid, Mr Try Anything Once, Mr Know It All - but then he isn’t here. He decided to split up with me a week ago, after two long years together, just because I said I didn’t want to do the all-day kayaking trip around the loch. It was me all over, he said: boring; unadventurous; safe; sterile. Well, I could stick my holiday and my mind-numbing life right up my frigid virgin arse, he said.

I was too full of shock and righteous anger to form a proper defence. His was too swift and concise an attack to be anything other than well-planned. It was clearly the fruit of the resentment he had been storing up over our time together. Plus it was true. I am unadventurous, although I never considered this a fault. He wasn’t just referring to holidays either. He was referring to sex. The fact that I didn’t want to swing from chandeliers once more counted against me. Bum sex and spankings were just a couple of suggestions I’d often had to bat away over the years, meeting incredulousness from boyfriends who thought such things “normal” - as normal as spraying your face for a climax.

I was unfamiliar with internet porn so it never shaped my notions as it did the men I was with. Threesomes were another thing - always with another girl, of course, never another man. What is this male obsession with lesbianism? Mark once said: ‘It should be compulsory for any non-munter female to have lesbian sex at least once a month. It should be the law.’

Preferably while he watched, he explained. When I asked if non-munterish males should have similar same-sex couplings, he looked at me as if I were mad, and said I was disgusting. I don’t feel like a prude, I just don’t feel any particular urges to do kinky stuff. I like simple. I see no need to do things just to tick a box. I am sure having sex with another woman has countless merits. Right now it feels a far more enticing option than wasting oneself on another man, but I just cannot conceive of me being in a situation in which it could occur. I am way too shy and body-conscious to try a seduction and the thought of having any boyfriend “bring in an outsider” makes me cringe. I don’t want to perform for others. I want love-making to be private and close and intimate, not a spectator sport for some red-faced gurning bastard clutching and rubbing his stiff thingy - the very same bastard who once drunkenly claimed he could ‘never marry any girl who didn’t take it up the arse.’ I should have seen the signs.

So, okay, I am a prude, and maybe I occasionally regret my timidity. But not now - not now I’m standing miles from anywhere getting drenched, with no notion of how to find my way back to safety. Now I regret deciding to come on holiday in spite of his exit. I could kick myself for determining to foster a new audacious side to my personality, just to prove him wrong. I hate him right now more than ever, but he will be having the last laugh for sure. This jacket is as rain-resistant as a tissue and I can feel the wetness running down my arms. The fabric is sticking to my skin and I am getting very cold very quickly.

The panic is rising. I have cobbled together one single plan of action, which is to head up the rise to the east, because that is the direction I think the sea to be in, and I parked just inland from the coast. Maybe I will be able to pick up a track and follow the headland around, if I don’t freeze to death in the meantime. I’m into the wind this way and I have to squint through the rain. The going underfoot is getting boggier, even on this rise. My boots are saturated and I feel the tell-tale squelch that lets me know they are leaking. The sea is not coming into view as I’d hoped. I need to turn back, but I have no idea which way back is. I hate him - hate him and all those no-good bastard men who have brought my life to this ridiculous dead-end.

I see smoke. My heart almost jumps for joy. Clever me for taking this hill after all! I peer through the gloom to make sure it isn’t some kind of sodden-moor mirage. The cottage is almost completely hidden by the slope of the hill a good mile away, but I see enough to know that I am saved. I find renewed strength and set off, trudging through the bog, already rehearsing my speech to the grey-bearded, ancient crofter resident, begging his pardon for the intrusion, asking merely or directions but somehow also conveying a non-rebuffable requirement for shelter, respite, dry clothes, food and a phone number for a taxi. I pray to find a kind heart therein.

It takes me nearly half an hour to get to his door, by which time I am soaked to the skin and shivering. All that keeps me going is the knowledge that chimney smoke means occupancy. Surely no one could refuse me help, having seen the state of me? As I approach it is clear there are no other dwellings within sight, so if I am turned away here I am back to square one. I bang on the door and hope the occupant isn’t stone deaf, or too superstitious to answer unexpected calls on wild nights. The door opens and throws orange light out into the gloom. I stand bedraggled, my hair plastered to my face, my teeth chattering.

Thankfully he is not stone deaf, nor guarded against the trickery of naughty visiting spirits who call just to steal your soul. He isn’t even sumptuously grey-bearded. In fact he is a she: an attractive forty-something in a thick towelling dressing gown, sporting reddy-brown hair and dark eye make-up - quite possibly the last person I would expect to find in such a place. I am clearly similarly unexpected. She goes to speak but is then silenced by the sight of me, looking first surprised then a little put out. I begin to gabble my apologies before she can shut the door in my face. I rush through my tale of woe, my sob story about the forgotten phone and purse, how I’m never usually this stupid, how I just need directions back to my car. However, surely she realises my jaw is too numb to form the words properly and it is getting blacker outside by the second? She considers me awhile, gives a sigh perhaps of annoyance, and then says,

‘You had better come in then.’

Her voice is soft, like an angel’s.

I stand dripping on the flagstones. The fire is burning well - often a must in these parts even in late summer, as my three days here have already taught me. Already I feel stronger. The relief of safety is sending the blood running hotter through my body. There are candles and tea-lights all around, giving off their orange flicker, dotted around on ledges and tables. They produce a sweeter fragrance to mix with the wood smoke. There are flowers too, and heather bunches in vases. It looks like she is set up for an evening of romance, and I wonder if we will be joined at any moment by her beau, and my hopes of being taken in will be shattered. It is clear this rather handsome woman would never be stuck out here all on her own.

Then I see it on the wall - a large, sumptuous portrait of a woman, sat naked by a river, looking over her shoulder at me, inviting me in. It has me transfixed. It says so much without words. It is a picture to celebrate the female form. I look away, feeling heat in my cheeks, knowing I have been caught staring. My heart is going and butterflies are unleashed within. My head is making deductions using the scant evidence of the room and its furnishings. I even find myself glancing down at her fingers to check for a wedding ring. There is none. I am being ridiculous: one painting of a naked woman does not a lesbian make. She is too good-looking, too conventionally “normal” to swing that way. She is far from butch and not a hippy-type either. I know my stereotyping is shallow and ridiculous, but the cold at my core and the joy of my reprieve has turned me scatty.

My nervousness is evident in the way I’m chattering on auto-pilot, though thankfully both this and my flaming cheeks could be put down to my drenched state. I apologise for my stupidity for the gazillianth time in quick succession and promise to get out of her hair as soon as I can borrow her phone to ring a taxi.

‘There are no taxis here,’ she replies in that wonderful soft accent of hers.

‘Just some directions then...’ I blather, hoping she doesn’t call my bluff, although we both know she can’t possibly send me out into the descending blackness in my state and expect me not to die within a hundred yards of her door. I could do with drying out, a drink, some food, a rest, a lift or maybe even a bed for the night. My belly lurches suddenly. Stuck here all alone, all night, with her - why did that thought make me tingle?

She seems hesitant about what to do with me but surely I’ve presented her with a fait accompli? My needs are evident, as displayed by my pleading eyes. Common decency decrees she must come to my aid, even if I cannot pay her until I get back to my purse. I am at her mercy. I would have thought a woman with pictures of naked females on her wall would be only too glad that fate has driven me to her door and left the two of us stuck together. Hang on - it is just warmth and sustenance I’m hoping for from this woman, isn’t it? I need to pull myself together. Whatever silly notions I’m having about our fated meeting, she still looks like she might not cave. She is mulling options, I can tell. What about the option of me expiring right here in your lounge if you don’t let me stand by the fire?! Then she sighs again, shakes her head a little in resigned defeat and says,

‘Look, I’m just about to take a bath. You can go in after if you don’t mind sharing water. There’s not enough hot in the tank to run one fresh. In the meantime, get your coat and boots off and at least start to dry out. I have a couple of girlfriends coming over in a while so there’s not much I can do for you now. When they have gone I will give you a lift back to your car.’

The relief bursts through me. For one unfeasible moment there I thought she was going to send me away. Girlfriends. I’m saying thanks but I’m thinking girlfriends. Of course, people use that phrase to mean female buddies - it doesn’t have to have any sexual connotation. And anyway, who would invite girlfriends plural? No, my numbed brain is running riot. She is merely having a couple of mates over for a girly night of wine, chocolate and a rom-com DVD, however odd the thought of that out here in the wilds seems. What is one as lovely as her doing out here?

She disappears upstairs and I begin to shed my soaking layers. I need the warmth of the fire. I hope she doesn’t mind me hanging my coat on the back of a chair. Cougar. That’s the third or fourth time that word has popped into my head in the last few minutes. Mark used to use it. I take it to mean a good-looking woman of certain years, assured in her sexuality, on the prowl for younger conquests. I always picture them as long blonde-haired Americans, perhaps living in LA rather than isolated parts of the Highlands, but there has to be a reason she is looking so fine on a Wednesday night out here all alone, with only her girlfriends for company. It explains her hesitancy regarding me, at least. I have interrupted her plans, but now I’m stuck here she will have no option but to conquer me and make me a part of her secret nights.

I need to get a grip. The cold has sent me doolally. I never have such thoughts, but then I’ve never been in this position before, one that seems to have come straight out of the pages of an erotic tale: lost girl stumbles across remote cottage that just happens to be owned not by some old hag or octogenarian shepherd as you might expect, but by a curvy cougar beauty with sleek dyed red hair, one clearly set up for seduction. In the books or films she would wait until I’m in the bath and all defenceless, and then come up to seduce me, wouldn’t she? Perhaps she is a vampiress? Perhaps I’m just thinking all this nonsense because I’m still so affronted by shit-bag Mark’s jibes about my lack of adventure and sexual prowess.

I strip my fleece but my undershirt is wet and clinging. I can see my nipples poking through the thin material and my belly lurches again. It must be the cold. Will she think that? I should hide them, put my fleece back on, but something tells me to be bold and let things ride as they are. If she takes it as a come-on then so be it. My socks are leaving damp patches on the flagstones. I need to take them off but I don’t want to stand on the stones if they are cold, and my trousers will drip on the hearth rug if I stand on that. In a flurry I’ve acted: the socks have come off and the trousers too. I reason they all need to dry. She will see they had to. She will understand I have to be standing here in my knickers.

I am shaking again and I stand closer to the flames, constantly fighting off the urge to dress again. Perhaps my clothes will have dried enough to put them back on before she returns. I might be getting way out of my depth here. That picture of the naked woman is beguiling. She looks all sweet and innocent but there is definitely something else there, an allure. It’s in her half-closed eyes and plump ruby lips. Imagine kissing those lips, the softness. Imagine being here, so unexpectedly, when a woman just as beautiful came down naked, all hot from the bath, took you gently in her arms, and kissed you.

I realise that I want it to happen. My head might still be scatty with the euphoria of my escape from certain hypothermic death, but it is clear enough to realise this is a unique situation. This is possibly the one truly erotic episode I have ever had in my life. It is one that could never be engineered, and that makes it way too scintillating to ignore. I have somehow blundered into the arms of a gorgeous cougar lesbian - and she gets more gorgeous the more I picture her - and I cannot escape whether I like it or not. There can be no excuses this time. I need to fall into the arms of fate and let it take its course.

Sure, there is the small matter of my heterosexuality, but I have played with the thought of other women over the years, what with boyfriends implanting the ideas, then those same boyfriends going on to break my heart. No woman would ever treat me the way they have. And I can certainly appreciate beauty, and she has plenty of that. The stairs creak and I jump so violently I nearly catapult myself into the fire. She comes into the room, looking even more stunning than before, in a black silk negligee over a black lace basque and knickers. She has fishnet stockings on. I might explode. These are clothes to slay hearts with. Her intentions towards me could not be more obvious. The sight of me so scantily clad arrests her words momentarily. She looks a little stumped. Maybe this seduction will be easier than she thinks.

‘I’ve left you my other gown in the bathroom,’ she says, pointing vaguely towards the upstairs, her eyes still on my knickers.

I whisper my thanks and pull myself away from the fire, my hands instinctively going down into a clutch in front of my crotch, to shyly hide it. Maybe she will be turned on by my natural bashfulness. I pass her with my eyes down and my cheeks aflame. I smell her sweetness. I think for one minute she will gather me in right there, but no. Of course not, I think, as I climb the stairs - she will wait until I’m warm from the bath and my nerves have come alive.

There are more candles lit around the rim of the large claw-foot bath. I feel my insides dance a jig of glee. I fight off my undershirt and drop it heavy and wet to the floor. Even my bra is soaked. I strip completely and dip a toe in. It feels like a furnace on my freezing skin. I climb in and sink down, gasping out loud as the heat of the water sweeps over my numbed body. It’s like a mini climax in itself. I am enveloped in bubbles. She must have whipped them up for me again once she had got out. The grin is plastered across my face. I am relaxed. I am habitually tense in these moments but now I feel loose and free and expectant. I feel sexy.

I sit back and enjoy the bliss of the warmth. I soap myself, noting how smooth my skin feels in this water. I wash myself beneath the bubbles, biting my lip as my hand goes there. I’m almost scared to touch it, in case I cannot control myself. I make a mental note not to stay in too long, to be out before my fingers begin to wrinkle. No one wants to be stroked by a prune. She will know exactly when to pounce. Her timing will be impeccable, and it is. The stairs creak again and she is coming for me. I shiver, even in the heat of the water, and the goose-bumps spread over me as much as when I first submerged. I quickly arrange the bubbles so they just about cover my swollen nipples. I don’t want to seem too obvious.

She comes in and flashes a brief smile.

‘I forgot this,’ she says, holding up a plush-looking towel. Yes, of course you did - a fine excuse! She places it on the seat of a painted wooden chair. Is she going to climb in with me, still in her lingerie? The tub is nearly big enough. Perhaps she will drag me up and kiss me, holding my dripping body ever so close, grasping my slippery bottom in both hands. She holds my gaze momentarily, then stoops down to collect my underwear, remarking how soaked it all is. I think about a rude quip but thankfully my jaw won’t work to get the words out, and then she is gone.

I’m a little surprised by her exit but my body is still fizzing, so maybe with her expertise she knows exactly how exquisite a tease she is being. I catch a glimpse of her behind in those skimpy knickers. It is full and firm. I have never really thought of female bottoms before, not intricately. I wonder if she will tell me what to do with it. It certainly needs something doing to it - it looks far too sexy and inviting to ignore. My inexperience suddenly causes butterflies, but I fight them. This is a golden opportunity not to be messed up, a chance in a billion. She will guide me.

I get out and towel myself off quickly, careful not to be too rough with the cotton so that I’m left looking like I’ve just fallen through gorse. She will hear the water running away and know I am soon to join her. I decide to leave my long hair damp, thinking this the more alluring look, even if it does lead to diphtheria at a later date. It will signal my desire to be back quickly by her side. I don her towelling dressing gown and smell her sweet fragrance at the collar. This is it. This is going to be my moment to treasure; an experience I never dreamt could materialize. I feel virginal, and ecstatic. When I go down she will be waiting for me. There probably won’t be many words. I have to pull myself together so that these silly jelly legs don’t collapse as I’m going downstairs. Arriving in a speedy heap will not be considered erotic.

I make it down in one piece. One deep breath before turning the corner into the lounge. She isn’t draped on the sofa as expected. She has her back to me, over by the small dining table in the darker part of the room. She has put black high heels on to accompany her lingerie; a final touch to ensnare me. I see a mug of steaming tea on the side. I had thought it would be wine, or even a wee dram, but this is the sensible option. Actually, I don’t want sensible for once. I want erratic and wild, guiltless and abandoned. I want softness and pliability, passion and heated wetness. I want a girl. I want her. She turns and stares straight at me. Her expression is hard to quantify. Defiant? Slight amusement mixed with defiance perhaps, like she has just spilled some terrible secret about herself and is thrilled to have done it. She gives a little shrug and motions with her eyes towards the table top she has just been busy at.

‘Well, I did say I was having some girlfriends over,’ she says by way of explanation.

My jaw drops. If by some remote possibility I had misread the signs before, this is decisive proof of her intent. Atop the table are laid out all manner of sexual apparatus. There are vibrators with little rabbit attachments. I’ve never owned one but a couple of my friends have, so at least I can recognise these. There are other phallic objects: false plastic pricks held in harnesses; glass dildos that would be utterly beautiful to look at and feel if not quite so alarming at this precise moment - five of them in different styles and sizes, their surfaces gleaming and flashing in the flickering candle light. I didn’t even know you could buy such things up here. These cannot hold my gaze because there are other things requiring attention. There are paddles. I’ve not seen one before but their function is obvious. Flat black bodies with leather handles. Whips too; a multitude of long black strands laid out like thick hair. Cuffs to keep me in check, leather straps and clips the use of which I don’t dare to fathom.

The cold of shock spills through my veins but tellingly I feel the warm twinge between my legs. This should be the bit where I back out, haul on my wet clothes and step back out into the night shouting excuses over my shoulder. But I don’t want to. All the things I thought would scare me most are laid out on this table, and all I can feel is the heat seeping back into my body at the thought that she wants to use them on me. This is like hitting Everest from Base Camp in one bound for me, like nought to sixty in one second. A lifetime of reservations and preconceptions of correctness blown away by the sudden realisation that it is OK after all, that it will be safe and wonderful. It took a woman to show me this.

‘What are they for?’ I whisper, my body trembling.

It is obvious what they are for, but I want to hear her say it. I want her to say “to fuck you with”. If she says that she will have to catch me before my knees buckle and I hit the ground. She could scoop me up and carry me to the sofa and make love to me. She could kiss me all over and part my legs and slide one of those beautiful pieces of glass artistry right up inside me, because I am more than ready to take it.

‘They are for Lexi and Ailsa when they come,’ she says. ‘Ailsa can’t get up here so Lexi brings her on the back of her motorbike, since she goes right past her front door. They don’t mind sharing.’

My mind is racing now. It’s an oddly sterile answer considering the moment, but it is still laced with imagery. Girls sharing. She’s telling me I have to be prepared to share. Of course it would be churlish to refuse, since I arrived here uninvited! She’s telling me my first ever lesbian experience, my first ever truly naughty sexual adventure of any kind, is going to be a foursome! All of us together, a writhing mass on the floor in front of the fire.

‘I’ve never made love to a woman before,’ I whisper.

I want to convey that they need to be a little gentle with me, show me the ropes first before going on to ruder things. She looks at me earnestly, chewing on her bottom lip a little.

‘Well, it is rather nice,’ she says, but looks away.

‘Sometimes I think it might be the most wonderful thing,’ I say. It takes all my efforts to do so. I have never put myself out there like this before, but the moment, the fire in the lovely little cottage, the sight of this sensual woman - it has all made me feel as confident and relaxed as I have ever been.

‘I could do you a sandwich if you like,’ she says, eyes still fixed everywhere but on mine.

What? That’s like a bolt from the blue, a bump in the smooth seduction carrying me along. Why would I want this, unless she is actually meaning some kind of Ailsa and Lexi sandwich? Perhaps she is not as confident as I take her for. I need to grasp the initiative. I take another deep breath. I move forward to the table, so I am right there beside her.

‘I’ve always wanted to make love to another woman,’ I coo, stroking my fingers along the length of a glass dildo to enforce the point. It’s not quite the truth, but it suits the moment. ‘I would give anything to find out what it feels like to have a beautiful woman like you make me come.’

My voice falters because I have never said anything so openly suggestive in my life, but I get it out and press on, because this is a carpe diem moment if ever there was one.

‘I really want you to make love to me...’ I don’t know her name. It’s a little embarrassing to tail off so vaguely but maybe this is how it should be, taken by a beautiful, anonymous cougar. It will seem like a dream when I recall it again and again over the years. ‘I’d love you to fuck me.’

There, I’ve said it. It made me shake to do so but the words are out there and now there are no barriers.

She looks a little dumbfounded. I can’t work out why someone as obviously strong as her is stumped by my proclamation. It should be music to her ears. She should be all over me. Then an approaching rippling sound of motorbike engine breaks the silence. She says, almost relieved:

‘That will be the girls.’

My stomach lurches for the umpteenth time that evening. It could be that she wants to wait but it feels like rejection, like I’m being stonewalled. What could be sexier for the girls than to enter and find their cougar love already entwined with a naked stranger? I stare at her, my eyes still burning with passion. Surely she cannot fail to see that I’m dying for her?

‘We tend to start down here and then move upstairs,’ she says, with an apologetic look on her face, ‘so I’m afraid there isn’t anywhere particularly private for you to go. You could go in the spare room but it’s cold and dingy.’

Is she mad? Did she not hear that I wanted to be a part of it? Can she not see I need to have them bring me into their naughty games? With my belly sinking I suddenly realise her rejection might be more personal, that she might simply not fancy me. Suddenly I’m gabbling, saying that I want her, that there is nothing wrong with me. I am driven by embarrassment as well as frustration. She is trying to placate me, her arm out, saying she does think me pretty and it’s not that at all. I’m surprised how emotional I feel, the effects of the last hour’s events bubbling up inside me.

‘So what,’ I say loudly, suddenly close to tears, ‘have Lexi and Ailsa got that I haven’t?’

She looks at me with that earnest expression again, and her words stop me dead in my tracks.

‘They pay for me,’ she replies, quietly.

Ah, yes. The clarity breaks through the jumble in my head like a dawn. That does rather explain it all - why I found her looking so lovely on a wild Wednesday evening; the reluctance to let me in; the failure to grab me when I was naked and ready in the bath; the failure to call up and waylay her visitors so she could have a hot secret tryst with a stranger; the lingerie; the sex toys; the girlfriends; the sharing; the sandwich; what she of all people is doing in this place at all. I consider telling her it was bad business sense not to see me as a potential customer, but then I remember that one of the first things I told her was that I had no money. I apologised many times for not being able to pay her for her troubles.

I hear voices in the kitchen. The girls have let themselves in the back way and are presumably getting their wet things off too. I’m just standing like a lemon, staring at her, not knowing what to do. I can’t go. I’m stuck here, having inveigled my way into her private affairs. Her eyes seem harder suddenly. Everything about her demeanour is suddenly stronger. She looks taller, and not just because of the heels. Her chest is out, her hands on her hips.

‘Hurry up and get your gear off and come in here,’ she calls out, making me jump. Her voice is no longer soft.

‘Yes, Mistress,’ the reply comes in unison from the kitchen.

Mistress.

‘You are already three minutes late so that means three extra smacks for both of you, both cheeks.’

She is still staring straight at me. I am trembling, but the picture is forming in my head. The door from the kitchen opens and they come in, both surprised to see me there, although she quickly orders them to take their eyes off me and stand facing her, hands behind backs. They obey her instantly. One is tall and willowy, wearing a floral summer dress. I guess she is about my age, maybe a little older. She wears no make-up, is plain though not un-pretty. She has long ginger hair, a little unkempt, but that may be because of the helmet she must have just removed. Her skin where exposed is ghostly white, like she has never seen the sun.

The other girl is shorter, a little dumpy in fact. She is younger than me, maybe only just out of her teens. She wears a drab grey hoody and tight, worn jeans. Her haircut looks like it might well have been done at home, with some sheep shears. It is jet black and shaved at the nape, the jagged fringe long over her eyes, like the whole lot has been moved forward. She has rings all up both ears and one in her nose. Her eye-liner is thick and black, her lips pale and bare. She is quite pretty, despite all this. She would be prettier still with a make-over, but this is how I pictured the locals to look - not pristine, elegant cougars like my host, although that mystery has now been solved.

The girls are standing upright as commanded. She still stares straight at me. The girls want to look but daren’t disobey her. My presence still needs to be explained away. I am an elephant in the room.

‘This is my student,’ she says. ‘She has come to observe how I do things, so that she can become like me in her own home town. Her name is Mistress Heather Honey.’

As an off the cuff alias it’s pretty damn good. It makes me feel sweet somehow. I smile at her ingenuity and she gives me a little nod of assurance. The collusion between us gives me hope. The girls don’t seem to worry that I don’t look like a Mistress, or that there is no obvious means of transport outside that could have got me there, or that my clothes are steaming away on a rack by the fire. They are just happy with whatever she says. So, a cover story has been fabricated and it seems I am not to be banished to the spare room. It seems that if I just stay put I can do nothing but watch. My pulse begins to race again. I am instructed to sit down and I do as she says. Then I get to watch her do her stuff.

She starts off with simple questions demanding immediate answers. They start benign and end up being about when they last masturbated and what they thought of whilst doing it. Both the girls have flushed cheeks. I can already feel their desire in the air. I can also feel her dominance, how she can drag you under her spell. It is clear in minutes what particularly unique service she gives, why they prefer to come here and pay for her rather than just stay at home and make the best of each other.

She has them strip their outer layers, and then remove their bras. I cannot see their breasts because they are turned away from me. The younger girl, the goth one, has the word Bitch tattooed in black script across the small of her back. Just the thought of baring my tits on command has my nerves going, but it is all I can do not to join them and carry out her command. She has them play with their own nipples, instructing them to make them hard. Then she uses a thin crop, with a little leather tongue at its end, to lightly punish the erect teats. They gasp in turn but fall silent under her command. I can’t imagine what such a punishment would feel like, but my nipples are aching to find out.

She places little clamps joined by a chain on the goth girl’s teats. I can see the victim’s hands clench and unclench behind her, and her knees give just a little. Then both of them are put over the table where the sex toys are laid. Then a whip is used, the long many tresses put down in light, swirling strokes over back and legs.

‘This is not to be hard,’ she says to me, as if I’m actually there to learn. ‘It is just to sensitise the skin.’

It must be working because the girls are panting and squirming. A paddle is next; short back-lifts and measured force on covered bottoms. I can see the flesh moving beneath the cotton. The girls hardly sigh; they can take this easily. The goth is the one I’m drawn to most. Her knickers are tight and clinging, starting to travel into the deep crack as she jerks under the blows. Odd, out on the street I wouldn’t give these girls the slightest thought, but now, bent over like this, they look as sexy as any girl I’ve seen. I don’t know what I want to do with them - either join them over the table or pull down their undies and get to their nakedness.

The Mistress looks delicious, so commanding and beautiful, her soft bosom nearly jiggling out of her basque as she deals out her slaps. You would have to go to her, if you could. Down come the girls’ knickers to mid thigh and my legs jerk apart involuntarily. The paddle is still used, but the blows are landing harder now, the sounds stark and sharp against the cosy crackle of the fire. The sight of their juddering flesh has me mesmerised. Their sighs and yelps are glorious. My own buttocks clench with each loud contact, wanting to feel the sting.

The goth’s backside is stuck right out. Her cheeks judder and jump apart and I glimpse all of her rudeness. Imagine being so much on show. I can see how wet she is. Imagine pushing your face in there to taste her. She must be dying to touch herself, just like I am. I cannot stop quivering. The ginger girl is getting palpably harder smacks, despite having a less well-padded rear. She even gets a cane. She is told to count them out loud, and ask for another one. The goth just lies there with bright eyes and listens as the Mistress lays down six swishing strokes on the older girl’s little behind. She cries out with each one, but the Mistress clearly knows the tolerances.

The beatings are over and both have to sit on the table on their sore behinds. They are both panting and flushed, the little teats of the goth still clasped and swollen in the jaws of the clamps. The Mistress pulls on the chain to stretch them further. My hand slips inside my gown and I pinch one aching nipple. I can’t remember ever, ever being this ready. They are ordered to open their legs and play with themselves for me. Two such ordinary girls, two I have never seen before, with thighs apart and heads thrown back as their fingers slide up into their wet holes for my delectation. The sound is again as enthralling as the sight. To be made to do this. Jesus, I can hardly breathe.

The Mistress has fastened a harness and I am greeted by the shock of her with a long, veined cock protruding from her middle. It seems to suit her. Back over the table the girls go and the older one is done first. The Mistress grasps the shaft of the toy and sinks it in from the rear, her buttocks clenching beneath her knickers as she drives home. She has her victim by the hips and slams home with force. I am transfixed again, both by the sight of her rough fucking and the chubby red-cheeked bottom of the younger girl, stuck out invitingly.

The Mistress stays inside Ginger, but stops to pour clear oil from a bottle onto Goth’s ample rump. She soothes it in, getting her hand right into the dark crack. My heart jumps as the goth squeals and I know a finger has slipped up inside her smaller hole. Still in the older girl, the Mistress takes one of the smooth glass dildos and orders Goth to open herself. I watch stunned as the dildo is carefully and slowly slipped into the girl’s tiny little bottom hole, stretching her open and filling the narrow passage. All the way up it goes, my heart racing faster with every next centimetre that disappears inside her. All that is left outside her is a little glass ball that acts as a handle. It doesn’t look gratuitous or nasty, or painful. She looks tight and full and enraptured. I am close to coming, without even touching myself there. Spanking and now bum sex - two of the things I always ran scared from, here looking like two of the most delicious acts you could ever indulge in. I am desperate to feel it all.

And that’s the thing; that’s when I know I have been wrong all these years. All the time I have been here I have not wanted to leave. I have been compelled by it all. It hasn’t seemed dirty or sordid, despite the acts which in my head were too much to think about, despite the rewards the Mistress gets for carrying out these acts. My only regret it that I was stupid enough to leave my purse at home, thus denying me the chance to buy my way into their fun. Because I would; at the drop of a hat I would because I cannot imagine anything sexier than all this. All my taboos have been blown away and I feel anything but a prude. I would love to do it all - I am dying to do it all, my frustration almost bringing me to tears - and show Mark just how wrong he was about me. But I wouldn’t give that bastard or any man the satisfaction, since it took a woman to show me the light.

The goth is getting it from behind now. The glass toy is still inside her and the Mistress has fed the thicker toy into her pussy below. She is getting a double-fucking, something I can barely bring myself to even dream about. Her wails tell me there is nothing to compare to this. Ginger is holding herself apart and has the Mistress’s thumb up her bottom and maybe three fingers in her soaking puss. It’s all too much for me now. I throw my gown open, not caring if they see me, not caring that I’ve always thought my boobs too small and my belly too large, or that I look like a complete and utter slut. I slide my fingers up into my hot pool. I don’t even care that they can see how I masturbate. She is looking too; the Mistress is watching me, because I am making so much noise.

Through the blur I see them being taken in turn, the toys going in and out of both holes. Then I see the Mistress sit on the table top and spread her thighs wide. She slips the material of her panties aside and a beautifully plump, completely smooth pussy comes on view. Goth is ordered to lick first. I hope against hope that I get a turn on her too, even though I know I won’t. Ginger is begging for a go and is granted her wish. I have cloth ears from my pounding heart but I hear goth girl’s request:

‘Can I lick Mistress Heather, please?’

‘Two minutes only,’ comes the reply, and then I want you upstairs with me. And she is not to be paid. Anything today she does for free.’

She doesn’t want to make a whore out of me. The Mistress grabs a handful of toys, smacks Ginger’s behind, propelling her towards the door to the stairs. I close my eyes, open wide, feel the warm breath on my wetness, the slide of the fingers inside, and then the heat of the mouth as it closes over me. I come louder and more noisily than I have ever done before, because out here in this wilderness I can.

I’m still seeing stars as Goth slips away as instructed, leaving me alone in the chair, legs still wide apart. I have no idea what they get up to for the next half hour. My brain is in no state to think. Maybe later I will be able to picture the scenarios. I’m bleary as the girls come back down, giggling and shy of their nudity now it is over. They dress quickly and are gone, out of my life, just like that. The engine guns outside and disappears into the night. I am tired enough to fall asleep and might have done so, because my eyes jerk open when she speaks.

‘Your clothes are still wet so I’ll lend you these,’ she says quietly, the voice of the disciplinarian now gone.

I take the jogging bottoms and sweat top offered, I’m still horny but the moment has gone and I’m expected to go too. I dress quickly, pulling the borrowed clothes over my naked body, a little shame-faced that I was on display when she came down. I want to stay but I can’t. I want her to kiss me and tell me she was glad I came into her world. It seems like something huge has happened between us but in reality there was nothing. I am lucky she made it as erotic for me as she did. She could have made me stand outside in her open porch until it was over. All I did was push myself into her business and now I must leave. I feel empty and a little heartbroken.

She has my wet things in a carrier bag. She lends me some pumps and I follow her out into the pitch black and get in her car. I tell her where I parked and she suppresses a laugh and says she thinks she knows the place. We drive a small way down a narrow track then out onto a wider road, still in the pitch black. I try and pretend the whole episode hasn’t just happened, that it was a normal evening and she is just a kindly soul giving me a lift home.

‘I can’t thank you enough,’ I say. ‘I will pay you as soon as I get to the car.’

She flashes me a look. I meant for the lift, and the tea.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ she replies, a little tersely.

After less than a mile she indicates left and turns. I see my car in the beam of her headlights. I feel ridiculous. If earlier I had just gone with my instincts and kept to the rise as planned, I would have been back here in less time than it took to get to her cottage. And then all this would never have happened. It almost looks like I planned the whole thing, to get myself through her door. I quickly say,

‘I didn’t realise what it was you do.’

I know it’s come out wrong.

‘Would you have me fishing prawn from the loch?’ she asks.

‘I’m not judging you,’ I say, digging deeper.

‘Good, because you are in no position to.’

She doesn’t let me get the next apology out. I so need to tell her that I still want her, despite knowing her truth. I really do not judge her. I am confused as to whether I see myself as her lover or as her paying slave, but she is even more beguiling than the painted woman on her wall and I hate being driven into the darkness away from her. I want to be back as a part of her cosy, secret, exhilarating world. None of this I am able to say. She asks if I can find my way back to my cottage from here and I mumble yes. I am going to go but then suddenly, against my nature, I blurt out a whole stream of nonsense, how she is the most gorgeous and wonderful person I have ever met, the most invigorating, exciting and inspiring. I tell her she cannot imagine how much the evening has meant to me, how she is going to change my life for the better and give me new focus.

‘Finished?’ she says when my gush runs out of steam.

Then she leans over and kisses me, soft and full on the lips. Her hand slips into the elasticated waistband of my jogging bottoms and her fingers find my bare cunt. As her tongue snakes into my mouth, I feel her fingers inside me. She breaks off her kiss and I am jellified once more. She looks into my eyes and says,

‘Come and visit me again tomorrow night.’

They have very, very long nights up here in the highlands, and I simply cannot wait for the next one.