Cougar

THE GALLERY DOMINATED ONE corner of the Meatpacking District, turning its chic facade disdainfully away from the wind blasting off the Hudson River and instead facing a huge Abercrombie and Fitch billboard of a naked male torso in monochrome. Up above, greenery trailed off the rusting steel struts of the old High Line.

‘You take that photograph, Sophie?’ Stella asked, draping an arm around Sophie’s neck as they stared out of the huge window. ‘Looks just your style.’

‘Honey, if I had we’d all be millionaires.’ Sophie tapped her fingernails on the glass. ‘I wouldn’t be criss-crossing the Pond like this selling my wares.’

‘You make it sound like you’re some kind of tinker.’ Stella handed her old friend another glass of champagne. ‘This is art, girl. Your art. You’ve been taking classy photographs since we left school. And at last people are starting to get it. You’ve made more money this evening than that wheeler dealer husband of yours makes in a month.’

‘How do you know how much my Martin makes?’

Stella ran her tongue over her blood-red lips and winked. ‘Pillow talk, darling. You know, a few years back when you had other fish to fry and you lent him to me that long hot summer?’

Sophie laughed. The kind of laughter that came very close to tears. ‘OK, fair enough. You’re the only one who can knock some sense into him –’

‘Fuck some sense you mean –’

‘OK, enough already.’ Sophie held her hands up in mock surrender. ‘You’re only allowed to borrow him when he’s gone too far with this open marriage lark. When even I’ve had enough of fucking his friends.’ Sophie stared again at the monochrome six-pack on the billboard opposite and the traffic lights swaying in the wind in front of it. ‘When he’s taken one mistress too far –’

‘So you find some friends of your own to fuck.’ Stella turned quickly away. Too quickly.

‘Well, he’s promised to abstain while I’m here. It’s a test. A big test.’

‘Oh, quit fretting. He’ll be good as gold.’ Stella was distracted. I could tell by the way she was tugging at her dress. ‘But in the meantime you’ll have to make do with me for company. See that young sales chappie at the back desk, there? The one who’s been flogging your work all night and is now adding up all those lovely numbers? Those numbers equal your success, girl. Enjoy!’

She waved her hand at the few remaining punters padding quietly round the gallery, gazing thoughtfully at the images framed on the whitewashed walls. At the red dots in the corner of nearly half the frames.

‘That reminds me,’ said Sophie, glancing at her watch. ‘Jake and Seb are meeting us a bit later at the Gramercy rooftop bar.’

‘It was a shame they were too busy to pop by this evening to support you.’

‘I forgive them. They’re tycoons in the making –’

‘Just like Daddy?’

‘And they’re taking you and me out for a slap-up meal later!’

‘Oh, they’re good boys really.’ Stella nodded vaguely, but she had that look in her eye. That Italian mumma look, like she wanted to eat something juicy for breakfast. ‘But isn’t he just the cutest?’

Sophie glanced over at the guy behind the desk. Daniele, the gallery owner, had jetted off somewhere, leaving his assistant in charge. But she’d not really noticed him once the party started. He was cute, sure, in a squeaky-clean kind of way. Sleek and groomed, but still young enough, she noticed, to cut himself shaving.

Stella licked her finger and smoothed down one unruly curl. ‘He looks like a young, just discovered Brad Pitt, no? When he was about to fuck Thelma. Or was it Louise?’

Sophie slapped at her friend’s bare arm. ‘Thelma and Louise is right, doll. We’re old enough to be his mothers!’

‘You reckon he can handle two mothers?’ Stella put her arm round Sophie’s waist. ‘Well, you’re the Susan Sarandon one, whichever she was. You’ve got the hair and the eyes and the tits.’

‘Yeah, I’m a dead ringer,’ Sophie breathed, mirroring Stella’s gesture as the young guy ushered the last remaining guests out of the gallery. ‘But she wasn’t the one who got fucked by a boy in cowboy boots, was she?’

The cuddle wasn’t just for show. She loved Stella. She loved her big, warm body, her warped loyalty, and her filthy mind. The guy glanced at them as he flicked the spotlights off over the door to show the gallery was closed. Stella couldn’t resist it. She slid her mouth across Sophie’s pale cheek and let her tongue flick out, like a snake’s, across the other woman’s scarlet-painted lips.

‘Which means he’s mine.’ Stella chuckled. Sophie parted her lips very slightly, almost reluctantly, keeping her eyes on the boy, and delicately sucked at the tip of Stella’s tongue. Martin would be stunned. She squirmed against Stella’s hip. ‘Ooh, fuck, I’m horny. Look at him. Box fresh. And he’s got that young boy’s mouth, you know, all red and wet and glistening, like he’s only just spat out the teat?’ Stella moved away from Sophie and tipped her spine so that her big breasts swelled out of her low-cut black dress. She actually purred. ‘Todd? Or is it Grant?’

The guy gulped. His hands flew up to the knot in his tie. ‘Er, it’s Matt, actually.’

‘Talk about Bambi caught in the headlights! You’ve scared the poor baby out of his wits,’ Sophie hissed as Stella strained at the leash. ‘Forget Brad Pitt. Those glasses make him look like Clark Kent!’

‘So, Matt darling.’ Stella swayed across the polished wooden floor. She was in full Sophia Loren mode. I’d seen grown men – my husband, amongst others – go pale when she bore down on them like this. And I mean bore down. I knew her favourite position was on top, because I’d seen her in action, crushing them beneath her warm, curvy body, working up a sweat, clamping them between her strong brown thighs like some kind of Venus fly trap. Suffocating them between her breasts, pushing her huge dark nipples, elongated and stiff with desire, into their eager, sucking mouths. ‘What are you doing after you lock up here tonight?’

The guy clicked his pen shut, stared straight at the huge breasts curving out of Stella’s tight dress. He smoothed his silk tie down over his crisp white shirt, plucked his jacket closed.

‘Have to go over these figures with Mrs Epsom.’

Stella stopped and flung her hands on her jutting hips, Carmen-style. ‘Well, hush my mouth! You turning me down, boy?’

‘Signor Tremelli told me to be sure to get the figures checked.’ Matt glanced past her bare shoulder at Sophie. He licked his lips nervously. Just spat out the teat, huh? Sophie’s stomach tightened. Good. It reminded her to suck it in. The dove grey Roland Mouret dress and these teetering red Laboutin heels took no prisoners, after all.

‘Daniele Tremelli has spoken, Stella. So put him down!’ Sophie exclaimed, flushing hot. The dress felt too tight now, pulling in around her breasts, squeezing her bottom so all you could do was wiggle. Stella swore under her breath. Matt scuttled back to the desk and held the accounts book in front of him like a shield. ‘Go make yourself useful. Get yourself to the Gramercy Park and tell my sons I’ll be a little late.’

‘Fifty says you’re so busy obsessing about that no-good husband of yours back home you won’t have this lovely boy’s cock out in half an hour.’ Stella crooked a finger through the window and by magic a yellow cab stopped outside. ‘It’s your big night, after all, honey,’ she called, swaying out of the door. ‘So don’t let me down!’

It was like Stella had sucked the life out of the room once she’d gone. Sophie couldn’t breathe. She stared at Matt across the half-lit gallery.

‘You’ve gone way over Daniele’s projected target figures, Mrs Epsom,’ Matt said, perching on the edge of the desk and swinging one long leg. ‘It’s all good news.’

‘All down to you, Matt, seducing the clients.’ Sophie murmured, coming closer and staring at his flushed cheek. ‘So which is your favourite?’

‘Favourite what?’ He took his glasses off wearily and pinched the top of his nose. ‘Client?’

She stood in front of him. A baby spot light was beaming straight down on to her head. Sweat trickled down her spine. God, her feet hurt.

She swallowed the rest of her champagne. ‘No. Photograph.’

They both looked up at the huge signature photograph dominating the wall above the desk. It faced the door, the world, when you first came in to the gallery. The one they’d used for the all the press and publicity. The posters. The flyers.

‘That one. It makes me want to come every time I look at it.’

She gasped with shocked laughter. It was like he’d touched a burning taper to her cunt. He blushed red. Sophie clamped her thighs, not difficult under that dress. Her legs rubbed together, and she felt a slick of dampness seeping out of her pussy. Of course! She’d gone commando, the way Martin liked her. The only way to go in a dress tight as a second skin.

The picture was of a silhouette against a shuttered Gothic window. A female spine arched, lifting a bare female bottom brazenly in the air. What looked like a long tongue, its bright red the only colour staining the picture, extending in from behind as if it was going to take a long, wet lick of a dripping ice cream.

Sophie shifted on those infernal heels and leaned forwards heavily across the desk. Matt laid the book open in front of her and stepped behind her to take a better look.

‘Where did you take it? Who is the woman? Whose is the tongue?’

Sophie was in front of him. Leaning on the desk meant sticking her bottom out at him, but she was so tired. She wanted to kick off the shoes, but then again they tilted her in just the right position, almost in the same way as the naked figure in the photograph.

‘I took it in Daniele’s palazzo in Venice. He wanted a portrait of his daughter. You ever met Maria? She’s ferocious. One of these vestali, these vigilantes who stalk round the city dressed in black combat gear hauling tourists over the coals for lowering the tone.’

‘Is that her with the bottom stuck out, gagging to be licked out?’ His voice was quiet but she heard him swallowing, right up close behind her. Sophie tilted her bottom towards him a little more. The dress, too tight to rise or fall, stuck to her, sucked in between her butt cheeks. The edge of the desk dug into her belly, just above her pussy. There was a slight stinging as the urge to pee nudged her, and her pussy twitched in response. She thought of Stella’s challenge.

‘Hers is the tongue. But it’s all done very tastefully, don’t you think?’ She giggled softly. Tasteful was the word, as she recalled. Maria’s was the first pussy she’d ever eaten. ‘And the bottom, gagging, as you so charmingly put it, to be licked –’ she swayed from side to side, her legs straining against the skyscraper heels, the dress holding her in, only just concealing her no-knickers, every movement turning her on. ‘ – is mine.’

‘That makes you one horny cougar, Mrs Epsom!’ The breath juddered out of him. ‘Christ. Can’t believe I just said that. Sorry!’

‘Oh, I forgive you.’ She swivelled round on her heels to face him. ‘So what’s a cougar? Other than a wild cat?’

‘A word we use over here for an older woman.’ He fiddled with his tie again. ‘A sexy older woman. Mature, you know. Gorgeous. Sophisticated –’

‘And?’

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. ‘Like Samantha in Sex in the City. Hungry. Voracious, in fact. Goes for much younger men.’

‘Like my friend Stella, you mean? Although she’s not fussy if he’s old, young, fat, thin – Husbands, sons –’

‘Maybe not as addicted as that.’ He stopped fidgeting and the way he was looking at her calmed her down. ‘She’s basically a cougar if she stalks, you know, hunts – wants – someone much younger.’

‘Does that go for a younger woman, too? Because you know, that’s what’s going on in this photograph.’ Sophie let the tension sizzle in the air as she swung one sore foot. His hands moved from his tie down to rest on the desk close to her. ‘But I don’t know if I’m a cougar, really, Matt, because Maria there seduced me. ‘She swung round to look at the photograph. ‘I wonder how we can find out if I fit the profile.’

Even her voice didn’t sound like her own. It was a hoarse whisper. Not surprising, wearing a dress tighter than a corset. And not surprising, when the way she was rubbing meant she was about to cream herself against the desk.

‘If the cougar doesn’t know if she is, I wonder how her young prey knows? Maybe you just suck it, and see.’ He came up behind her and rested his hands on her hips, started moving them down towards the hem of her short dress. Sophie tensed up with shocked excitement. But then he stopped. ‘Oh, Christ. I can’t touch you – I can’t do this. You’re married. And I have to tell you something –’

‘Sssh, no you don’t. You should see what my husband gets up to. Nothing to tell. You can blame me for misbehaving.’ Sophie tossed her hair back impatiently and kept moving her hips from side to side. ‘I’m a big girl now.’

Suddenly the vision of Stella and Martin flickered like a movie in front of her. Why had it never bothered her before? She’d encouraged them to do it that summer, for God’s sake. Stella’s gleaming body, brown from all the sunshine, straddling her husband, those dancer’s legs gripping him, his strong hands lifting those broad hips on to him, his mouth biting and sucking those enormous nipples, his cock sliding in, that familiar, sweet-smelling cock, the two of them moaning and sweating and chuckling, joined by old times. Something – determination? Daring? Desire? – coiled and burned inside her. ‘Your girlfriend won’t know. We’re just talking. You’re not doing anything wrong –’

‘No, it’s not that – don’t have a girlfriend –’ He groaned, with a boyish catch in his throat. ‘It’s just – they never told me you were like this. Such a horny bitch. Christ, sorry, I shouldn’t speak to you like that –’

‘Daniele spank you if he heard?’

‘Yeah. No. Not just Daniele. Your husband. The others. They’d kill me –’

‘Who? My husband?’ I liked the idea of the others, whoever they were, warning him off.

‘Fuck. No one. Just, I’ve had a hard on all evening, just watching you working the room.’ His long, clean fingers fiddled and tugged at the dress, stroking over the fabric, not daring to go closer. ‘Go on, tell me about Daniele’s daughter –’

Sophie shivered with frustration.

‘It’s so hot in Venice in the summer you know. So sweaty. Not the best time for an assignment. Everyone’s cranky. The canals stink. But Daniele’s an old friend, and I was fed up with my husband, and I needed the money. Anyway, I was crawling around on this big four poster, sorting out my camera. I had no knickers on. Just like now.’ She reached between her legs and ran her finger up her crack, easing open her throbbing pussy to show him. It was already wet.

He groaned softly and stroked his fingers tentatively over hers, just where they were tickling her buttocks.

Sophie laughed.

‘So I was on this bed, setting up the shoot, thought she was off striking a pose, when suddenly I felt a pair of hands behind me, pushing my skirt up.’ Sophie wriggled. ‘You can touch me if you like, Matt.’

He paused, and then pulled the dress higher over her legs, up towards her bottom.

‘Maria was stroking my legs, between them, you know? Up towards my pussy.’ Sophie waited. The words sounded so dirty in the silent, dark gallery. ‘It tickled at first, and I laughed, and thought she was just playing, but then it was shocking, and electrifying. It was so fucking sexy, Matt, being touched for the first time, all secret in that magical place, by a beautiful young woman.’ Outside cars occasionally swished past. The occasional footsteps on the pavement. Sophie let her head droop a little. ‘And I’ve never told anyone. It’s true. Not even Martin.’

‘Hey, hey, it’s OK, ’ he crooned, as she knew he would, all manly and strong and horny as she confessed. Then, as she also knew he would, he begged, ‘Don’t stop talking.’

‘OK,’ Sophie whispered coyly. ‘But it’ll be more exciting if you touch me.’

And at last his fingers were treading up, into the warm crack of her bottom, spreading open the cheeks, and he was breathing heavily. She was hot with desire.

‘She touched me there, just there. But then, Matt, something warm and slippery was in there, licking up my thighs, and it was her tongue! Lapping up my leg, slowly, like a cat, and just that was making my whole body shake, and then it touched my –’ she closed her eyes and swallowed. His fingers stopped, too. ‘My pussy. The lips, you know. She was licking me just there.’

Matt pulled her legs further apart. He was handling her more roughly now, more impatiently. He brought one hand up to her pussy to spread everything open.

‘You ever licked a girl, Matt?’ Sophie bit her tongue, tasting blood, and flushed hot red. The words hissed round the quiet gallery. Round this quiet corner of the city. It felt as if they were the only people in the world. Suddenly it felt weird, strange. She tried to close her thighs, straighten to get her balance on the high heels. ‘Sorry. No. We should go. Christ, what am I like –’

‘Fucking sexy, that’s what you’re like!’

Matt’s voice was thick with lust. He kicked her legs open again and pressed her down so that she was lying flat on the desk, her cheek jammed against its smooth metal. Thank God she’d worked out before coming out to New York. Her legs would look long and taut from where he was standing.

‘So what did she do next, this dykey Maria? How did she do it?’

Sophie couldn’t breathe properly. She was squashed against the desk and the dress was like a strait jacket imprisoning her ribs.

‘She licked me like a little cat –’ It came out as a kind of death rattle. ‘She licked me, and she made me come.’

‘That’s all I need.’ He yanked her cheeks apart, stretching the skin so that it felt hot and raw. ‘So that’s what I’m going to do.’

The world shrank round Matt and Sophie, all focus on her cunt, bare, exposed there, throbbing like lit kindling. She was light-headed from lack of air. Humiliated, sprawled there like a dolly. And so, so dirty.

Sophie went tight inside as she felt first his fingers, then his tongue, probing. Stella said he looked like he’d just spat out the teat. Well, he’d grown up a whole lot in the last five minutes. That fifty bucks was hers. She strained greedily towards him as he blew over her pussy lips, making them tingle, then started licking. She wriggled and gasped, spittle trickling from her mouth onto the desk as his tongue flicked at her clit.

‘Oh, fuck!’ she groaned, jumping and writhing.

‘Just like the picture,’ he sighed, with his mouth full.

She was stiff with desire now. His tongue started to circle round her clit, making it stand out and burn. She jerked frantically, but he held her still, his breath rasping against her skin. Then he closed his lips around the bud and sucked mercilessly so that tiny ripples of fire sizzled through her. The pressure was building. She started to grind herself against his face, to force him to lick faster and harder, and he nipped and bit until she squealed.

‘Your pussy tastes so good.’ Matt sucked and lapped, savouring her juices, and she pushed her bottom into his face. Sensations radiated through her but she wanted more now. And he knew it, because he pushed his tongue right inside, fucking her with it. Then his fingers thrust in. She could feel her cunt closing round everything like a little pulsating fist, and her knees gave way, weak with pleasure.

There were footsteps hurrying along the street outside. The crazy thought occurred that Daniele, or Stella, or any of the clients, or heaven forbid, one of her sons, could be rushing back to find her. But the footsteps hurried past. Sophie’s body relaxed into the moment.

Matt pulled away to hoist her upright again, slamming her down against the desk, and the change in movement and rhythm altered the gear. Cold air rushed between them. There was a tense silence. She was more distracted than she realised. She blushed hot again, and tried to push herself up.

‘Matt, darling, I really have to go. My sons –’

‘Don’t talk about them. Don’t dare stop me now.’

She thought she heard the clicking of heels again on the pavement, but then he was undoing his trousers. Isn’t the sound of a zipper the sexiest? Yanked angrily down the front of neat tailored trousers, the promise of the hard beast that’s going to thrust itself out of there. The pause before the storm. He put his hand on her back again, more gently this time, then he was cupping her bush to lift her towards him, running his fingers down the slick wet crack. His knee pushed her legs open and then, oh God, there was the rigid length of his big hard cock pressing between her cheeks, rubbing itself up and down, those cute buttocks of his clenching to thrust himself against her, turning himself on.

‘This is what you’ve done to me, Mrs Epsom. Now I guess this really makes me a mother fucker –and you’re the mother I’d like to fuck.’

And there it was.His gorgeous young cock, banging at her for attention. How is it that no matter how many cocks you see or know, a new one, pulled out in the naughtiest of situations, is the biggest thrill of all?

Sophie gripped the far edge of the desk as if it was the bucking deck of a ship or a tipping raft as he lifted her bottomup to get at her, just like in the picture, and then with no more fuss or frills young Matt tilted her hips, opened her up, and pushed his cock into her, her sweet juices and his salty lick making it easy and then he was in and thrusting hard, pushing her across the desk, hurting her arms and chest. She had to lift her face to stop it scraping and her legs started to melt apart and falter off the heels as he went at her.

‘Oh Christ, Matt, someone’s out there!’

There was definitely something, voices, laughter, outside.She thought she heard the glass door rattle in the sharp wind.

‘So they see the famous photographer at work, that’s all! Perfectly posed, spot lit in front of the masterpiece.’ He laughed hoarsely, all masterful now and yanking her hard so that his cock sank in up to the hilt. ‘Now work with me, Mrs Epsom. Let me fuck you.’

And so he did, hard and rough across the desk, driving her onto spikes of pleasure and beyond as he fucked her and now she definitely heard laughter out there and saw something, a movement framed in the window, hands, mouths, eyes, watching.

‘Better stop!’ she practically sobbed as someone tapped gently on the glass.

‘Not a fucking snowball’s hope in hell!’ he groaned, warm fingers gripping her,yanking her against him again and again as his hot cock pumped into her.

They’d see her white thighs parted, the dress up round her waist, Matt in his suit pulling back to fuck her, his cute butt thrusting rapidly like a dog, pushing her roughly across the desk, her throat arched with pleasure, his hands gripping her. They’d get wet or hard watching.

Matt’s cock pushed on until she was burning with excitement. She slammed against him. And then he held her hips totally still, forcing them to pause again.

‘Sexy mother,’ he murmured.He pulled out the pins in her hair and messed it up, then smoothed it against her back as if she was a horse. Her body jolted with pleasure. Then he started thrusting violently, ramming hard, lifting her off the desk with the force of it.

She let myself go limp, enjoyed his youthful power, let him fuck her, felt the desk edge jamming into her belly, felt the pleasure expanding, thick, deep inside.His cock rammed faster and faster into her hot, tightening pussy. Someone laughed, and then so did Sophie, laughter and her thoughts scattering as she started to come, arching her back in a beautiful, perfect pose, shaking and moaning as Matt thrust into her from behind and with two more thrusts he came, shuddering and silent.

They stayed in position, stiff like dancers, Matt gripping her hips so as not to slip out and waste a single drop.His cock stayed hard. There was another pause, and then he lifted his hands away from her.

There was a ruffle of conversation outside, and then a ripple of applause.Matt pulled her dress down and held her against him. Pussy juice trickled down her legs as they stayed silent and at last the watchers moved away down the street.

She could feel his young heart hammering in his crisp white shirt.Idly she glanced at her watch.

‘Christ! I’m late!’

Sophie turned, kissed that gorgeous mouth, and burst through the door into the street, empty now, and yanking her tight dress halfway back down she ran as fast along the sidewalk as her heels, and the stickiness squeaking between her legs, would allow.Behind her Matt was shouting something, but she relished that brief Cinderella moment, and the urge, suddenly, to show Martin what she’d done, too much to look behind.

She was born to stalk about in a place like this, sipping Watermelon Mint Martini, heavy on the Reyka vodka. The Manhattan sky was tinted violet, lights sparking around, above, far away. Below the terrace the trees in Gramercy Park whispered.

A few glossy people entered and drank and mingled under the chandelier installation inside, laughing beneath a froth of glass bubbles, but out here there was no one. Sophie gave herself ten seconds out to relish the soreness of her cunt, fucked raw by young matinee idol Matt.

Herthree sons and Stella were waiting, perched on blue velvet stools. Rickie, her eldest, and Stella looked oddly chaotic. He had lipstick on his neck, and her dress was only half zipped at the back.

‘You look a million dollars, Mum,’ said Rickie, handing hera flute of champagne. ‘I hear the show nearly sold out?’

‘Yeah, and talking of a million dollars,’ shewinked at Stella. ‘You owe me fifty.’

Jake peered at her.‘You look feverish. Like, really flushed!’

‘Matt not with you?’ Seb looked over my shoulder.

Her heart lurched.‘Matt? How do you know –?’

‘Great! Here he is now! Hi mate! You made our mum rich tonight?’

The boys high-fived and back-slapped him and here he was, walking towards her, neat as a pin, hand outstretched, her all-American boy.

‘Hello again, Mrs Epsom.’ He took her hand and kissed it. God, that tongue! The boys all whooped and elbowed each other. Stella was having a hard time keeping a straight face. ‘Didn’t the boys tell you?’ Matt said, stepping away but grinning as if he owned her. ‘We’re all roommates.’