Chapter Two

Jill felt Jackie’s firm grip on her shoulders once more as she was spun round, given another stinging, playful slap on her bottom, and a little shove towards the bathtub. ‘Now hop in and get yourself cleaned up. Unless you want me to do it for you,’ Jackie laughed and, scooping up the clothing, made her exit. ‘And leave the door ajar. “Never lock a bathroom door”, my old ma used to say. Lie back and relax. I’ll bring you in a medicinal brandy in a while.’

Jill’s head was in a whirl as she lowered herself gingerly into the fragrant embrace of the warm water. She was shivering slightly still, from shock, but also... she wasn’t sure just what her feelings were on this monumentally surreal day. She felt a brief clutch of fear again, recalling the terrifying interval when she hung upside down two hundred feet in the air, literally in the hands of those terrible harpies. She leaned back, the bubbles of foam rising about her shoulders, and lifted her legs, one after the other, to inspect them. There were the dark smudges, the fingerprints of their thankfully tight grip on her ankles, and her calves, the backs of her knees. The tears pricked, and then rolled slowly from her blurred eyes. How could she ever recover from such a disaster, on her very first assignment? But then she felt a quiver of excitement pass through her, stirring her limbs under the surface of the water, as her thoughts were powerfully diverted in another direction altogether. That kiss...

Her attraction towards members of her own sex was one which Jill had learned to live with, had largely sublimated throughout her adolescence, telling herself that there was nothing wrong. She could even apply the word ‘natural’ to it - apart from those shameful solitary fantasies, the desires which forced her to resort to those actions behind the locked doors of bedroom or bathroom, which caused her so much subsequent distress, yet brought, too, such hectic relief.

It wasn’t until she got to college that those secret yearnings ever found expression outside the lonely dreams and self-gratification. Sharon was both a revelation and an utter delight, a mirror image in so many ways: in looks - they relished the number of times people enquired if they were sisters - and in temperament. Their friendship swiftly blossomed into something much more - an exclusive bond that held them in its exquisite grip. At first the physical side went no further than handholding and ‘big hugs’, which they exchanged at every greeting and parting. ‘Bloody lipstick lezzies, you two!’ one of the hefty rowing and rugby females declared, with a hearty humour tinged with envy.

They laughed, and guyed it up a little after that, until one afternoon in Jill’s room, trying on some new clothes, Sharon said out of the blue, ‘Do you mind if I kiss you? Properly, I mean?’

They both giggled, nerves jangling as they approached, and self-consciously embraced, brought their seeking mouths together. An endless minute later they fell back onto Jill’s narrow bed, panting in bras and panties, breathless and clawing, in agonies of embarrassment and heavens of delight, tore off each other’s scraps of clothing and wrestled, rolled, and clamped their naked bodies together with moans of ecstatic frustration. ‘What do we do?’ they gasped, and wept for joy. They both knew the answer, and did it, taking turns, their limbs entangled, heated bodies twisting as first one and then the other was aggressor and victim.

They were lovers for over a year. Jill was deeply hurt when Sharon tearfully announced one day that she could carry on no longer. ‘There’s someone else.’ Jill was even more deeply injured to learn that the ‘someone’ was a young man. The break-up drove Jill back inside a carefully constructed shell, and probably helped her to achieve a Top Second degree. Maybe it even influenced her unexpected decision to opt for a career in the police force, as an unconscious reaction against the rarefied, precious world of femininity she had shared with Sharon.

But this kiss! This was different - a whole new ballgame and kettle of fish swimming around inside her tummy. She lay back in the scented water, aware of every tingling centimetre of her reclining body, in this strange bathroom, in this strange flat, of a stranger, who was as different as chalk could be to Sharon’s sweet cheese. For a start she was older - she must be at least in her mid to late thirties, Jill calculated. It couldn’t be easy for a woman to achieve the rank of Inspector, especially in CID. In Benbrough there were only two ahead of her. Bridget O’Keefe’s appointment as Assistant Chief Constable had caused more than a minor ripple through the ranks of the constabulary, and elsewhere. DCS Sharp was the only other female in the department, two ranks ahead of Barlow. DI Barlow must be over ten years her senior, Jill guessed. And a whole lifetime ahead, as far as experience went.

She had stripped her! And Jill had just stood there, like a kid, while she did it... and then the kiss. She felt her arms around her, strong, drawing her in until she felt the brush of the clothing against her own nude body, those lips settling over hers, claiming her, that brief, eloquent flicker of tongue, only a micro-second but so telling, so plainly sexual.

She sat upright suddenly, with a splash, shocked to find her fingers lightly stroking the puckered folds of her vulva, caressing the soft pubis. She pulled her hands away quickly, just as Jackie appeared in the doorway. She was carrying two glasses, one of which she handed to the slim figure, before perching on the rim of the tub. ‘Feeling better now, sweety? You’re certainly looking good. You’ve got a bit of colour back in your cheeks.’

Jill instinctively draped her left arm over her soapy breasts as she took the drink and sipped obediently. ‘I haven’t made a very good start, have I?’ The deep brown eyes filled with tears again as she gazed woefully up at Jackie. ‘Why did you... let me... send me over to them, Ma’am?’ The eyes were big with gentle reproach now.

‘Like I told you, you’ve got a lot to learn.’

Jill felt her throat closing, and the tears were close again. ‘Please, Ma’am,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t tell anybody - please!’ She shivered. ‘I duh... don’t know if I can hack it. Being in the force. I - ’

‘Listen, darling. Baptism of fire. You can’t beat it.’ She eased her behind off the rim and swivelled round to kneel on the floor, facing Jill. She took the glass from the delicate fingers and put it with hers at the foot of the bath. She held the sad face in both hands, turned it towards her as she brought her own close to the solemn girl’s. ‘I know you’re a very bright kid, and you’ll probably leave us all way behind one of these fine days, but at the moment you’re a rookie, whatever they may have told you. Lowest of the low, sweety, got it? It’s what we call the chain of command. And at the moment you’re on the end of my chain. You stick to me. Watch and wait, and learn, above all. When I say jump you say “how high?” Got it? You do that and I’ll see you make the grade. Right?’

Jill nodded against the clamping grip of those strong fingers holding her. Jackie leaned even closer, and placed a light kiss on the damp forehead. Her lips moved against the skin. Jill felt the warm breath flowing over her. ‘There’s one other thing we’ve got to settle here and now, baby. Something you should know about me.’

The hands were withdrawn. The water was cooling, and Jill shivered. The hands pressed on her wet shoulders, pushing her down until her back made contact once more with the curve of the tub, and she was lying almost supine. Jackie’s left hand remained resting on Jill’s shoulder, cupping the delicate spot at the base of the slim neck, over the hollow formed by the prominent thinness of the bone. Her right slid with a soft splash beneath the surface, where the bubbles of foam had thinned out, largely dissolved, so that the pale curve of the belly showed, and the dark, mossy patch of pubic hair, through which Jackie’s fingers combed and explored like nibbling fish until they moved caressingly over the cushion of the mons, delved beneath, to the folds of the labia, the fissure of the sex, and nuzzled at its soft tissue. Jill gave a soft gasp and her frame stiffened, her belly rose until it broke surface, and the small dish of her navel gleamed with its miniature pool of trapped water. Her thighs tightened, their muscles standing out against the slenderness, and she felt Jackie’s wrist and forearm trapped in their hold. Then the spasm passed, the belly sank and the thighs fell slackly apart. Now it was the buttocks which clenched on the hard acrylic base at the invidiously gentle, remorseless touch of those fingers. They prised through the yielding cleft and Jill’s head jerked back, her hair scraped against the slope of the tub and her lips opened as though in synchronisation with those other hidden lips being so rousingly invaded by the woman who held her.

Jackie’s mouth rested against hers. ‘You like that, baby, don’t you? I guessed as soon as I laid eyes on you, sweety. I’m not wrong, am I? Tell me I’m not.’

Jill’s head moved. Whether she knew it or not, it gave a little shake. Jackie’s lips covered hers, this time claiming ownership with a glorious unbridling of her passion, and her tongue dived deep into the sweet cavern surrendered to her. Below, her fingers had unerringly penetrated through the upper folds of the cleft, to the sensitised area about the throbbing clitoris, which emerged in its tiny budding excitement, from which the sensations spread, seducing, conquering every fibre and nerve-end of Jill’s quivering body. The knees came up, shining with the water on them, the belly lifted, entirely in response to the all-powerful caresses which had taken over.

She was whimpering with desire, undulating with need, when Jackie withdrew her hand from between the spread thighs. ‘You’ll catch your death of cold. Come on, out you get.’

Jill was shivering more violently now, and weeping helplessly. Jackie had to help her from the bath. She enveloped her in a huge white towel, then bent and picked her up, manoeuvring her in her arms through the doorway and across the corridor the few steps to the bedroom. She sat on the double bed, holding Jill on her knee, and their lips remained together through the whole of the brief time Jackie dried her, and then pushed the damp form back on the bed, with the wet towel still beneath her. ‘You want me to finish you, babe?’ Jackie whispered hoarsely.

Jill was sobbing. Her knees drew up, close together in an instinctive gesture of modesty to hide her loins, and then fell apart. Her legs straightened in a long Y of need and submission. ‘Y-yes, please. I’ve never... never before been like this,’ she lied, scarcely aware of her deception, for this, under the capable domination of the older woman, did indeed feel different.

Jackie laughed deeply, and there was an underlying cruel satisfaction and an awareness of that domination, which comprised the chief element of the throbbing thrill that she relished through her own still fully clothed body.

‘Not too quick though, baby, eh?’ Jackie purred. ‘Let’s take our time.’ She dipped her head, let the tip of her tongue flicker over the small erect left nipple of the figure spread invitingly under her. Because of the way Jill was lying her breasts were stretched, almost flattened. The sweetly tormenting tongue alighted on the other teat now, teased it too, before the lips closed about it and the puckered circle of darkening pink around it, then suckled fiercely. The toned form lifted and Jill let out a wavering cry. Jackie felt the fragility of the body, the outline of the delicate ribcage, then she moved, her mouth possessing the other nipple again before her tongue trailed its wet course down, over the quivering midriff, to lap at the shallow little eye of the belly button, and then lower still, over the soft curls of pubis, down at last to the wet, clamorous groove at the centre of the helpless figure’s hunger.

Jill’s tight buttocks lifted clear of the towel, but this time her thighs were wide apart, begging, proffering herself to her conqueror. The head sank, the hot face and pressing nose rooted, burrowed, the tongue lapped along the soaking fissure, the teeth nipped, and the mouth sought the centre of Jill’s consuming need.

Finally Jackie showed some mercy, or was herself lost to her own pulsing need. Jill’s back arched, thrusting Jackie’s head violently upward with the force of her heaving tummy, then collapsed, and her pink heels drummed on the counterpane while she threshed and twisted, rolling her head from side to side, her face contorted with the power of the climax tearing through her, and continuing until the ripples spread through to her clawed fingers and curling toes, and she sank, utterly spent and exhausted, into the drifting dreamtime of complete consummation.

Jill woke with a pounding heart, her body convulsed with terror at the reliving of those dreadful seconds when she was hung between sky and earth, in the merciless grip of those young harpies. She was lost as she came to full awareness, to find herself lying naked on top of Jackie’s bed, in a room she did not recognise. Then memory returned with a rush, along with the consciousness of her tender vagina, and the most recent imprints of vigorous loving on the whiteness of her breasts and her upper thighs. Although it was summer the window to her left, with its curtains undrawn, showed squares of deep dusk, a faint reflection of the lamp-lit room already framed in the dark panes.

The light came from a small lamp at the side of the bed, its flowered shade ensuring a rosy depth to the illumination. It fell across Jill’s body, highlighting her pale form and prominent jut of hipbone, causing a deep shadow to fall over her lower belly and loins as she lay half turned from the source of light.

She sat up as Jackie Barlow came in. Her superior was wearing a short black towelling robe, which covered her only to mid-thigh. Jill noted the sturdy shapeliness of the legs, and their considerable tan. ‘Ah, the sleeping beauty wakes at last. How are you feeling? Pretty relaxed now, yeah?’

Jill was afire with blushes, sitting with shoulders hunched, her arms crossed over her breasts, her legs crossed, the knees slightly raised. She wished she was under the covers, but lacked the courage to draw them over her now. ‘Yes, thank you, Ma’am,’ she muttered.

‘I’ve done us a bit of supper. Nothing special. Some cold bits and salad. I’m no shakes as a chef. Usually I either eat out or bring back takeaways. Come on. Get that lazy little arse of yours out of my pit right now.’

Jill stood, feeling more embarrassingly exposed than ever. Her hands moved from breasts to loins indecisively.

‘For fuck’s sake, sweety. Don’t stand there like Venus surprised at her bath or whatever. Bit late for that, isn’t it?’

Jill gestured helplessly, her face still flaming. ‘I... it’s late. My clothes... I must be getting back to my digs.’

‘No sweat. I’ve phoned your landlady. Told her you won’t be in tonight.’

‘But... but - ’

‘You sound like a farting moped!’ Jackie laughed. ‘Come on through to the living room.’

‘But,’ Jill’s voice rose in distress. ‘Can I put something on?’

‘Why? I’ve got the electric fire. And you look so abso-fuckin-lutely gorgeous, sweetheart. Why spoil a lonely old dike’s bit of pleasure?’

She grinned, her white teeth gleaming as she threw the word at Jill like a challenge, laying the situation baldly between them. Jill gave a little shiver, dropped her gaze. She felt bested somehow, both ashamed and perversely excited by her submission. She followed Jackie to the living room, noting the delineation of the calf muscles, the trimness of the bare heels. She was relieved to see that the curtains had been pulled across. The room looked cosy; there was a sense of comfort and insulation from the outside world in the pools of light and shadow cast by several lamps strategically positioned about the room, and in the cheering glow cast by the fire and the flicker of the magi-coal effect. That feeling of insulation was something she badly needed just now, Jill realised. She curled into an armchair, drawing her legs up to one side and tucking her heels into her buttocks. The slight roughness of the upholstery on her sensitive skin, the novelty of being entirely unclothed in this setting, had a startlingly rousing effect on her. She felt the pulse of that arousal beat within her, despite the discomfort. Without thinking, she picked up the small cushion and hugged it to her lap, thus hiding her lower belly and partly concealing her breasts, whose nipples had hardened, though not through cold. Jackie stared so pointedly, and with such a smile, that Jill thought she must have noticed, and blushed even more. The firelight and the flickering coal effect dappled her flesh, gave it a roseate hue.

‘Come on, help yourself. Coffee pot’s on, I’ll pour us a cup later. Just make yourself at home, sweety.’

The meal had been set out on the dining table, which stood in the bay of the large window. In spite of her embarrassment, Jill was able to note the impressive proportions of the room, the height of the ceiling, the ornate scrolls of the plaster cornice which crowned the walls, and the elaborate circle of the ceiling rose in its centre. The fire was set into the broad chimney-breast which stood more than six feet across in the middle of one wall, and thus created alcoves either side of it, which were lined with shelves containing an impressive array of books and a variety of ornaments. In one of the alcoves, the one furthest from the window, on a wider shelf only a couple of feet from the floor, stood a TV set and a hi-fi tower. The broad chimney breast was covered in a dark wallpaper of vertical stripes, which accentuated the height of the room. The rest of the walls were plain, the embossed pattern of the thick paper covered with a pale pastel colour, close to white but described as ‘apple green’. Surrounding the fire was a tiled fireplace and hearth, with a darkly panelled surround and high mantelshelf, in keeping with the original Victorian atmosphere still strongly stamped upon the room. However, the thickly piled plain carpet, laid wall to wall in a rich mossy green was, like the electric fire, one of a number of concessions to modernity and comfort.

‘It’s lovely.’ Jill reluctantly unfolded herself and rose. For a second she kept the cushion clamped to her stomach, then surrendered it. She moved awkwardly, taking small steps, aware of every inch of herself, the feel of the thick carpet against her soles, the warm eddies of air over her uncovered form. ‘I’m not used to being naked,’ she confessed, her face burning, her eyes unable to meet Jackie’s steady, amused gaze. ‘Not like this.’ She gestured around her. ‘Can’t I... won’t you let me put something on? A dressing gown or something?’ She noted the amended form of her request; another example of her submission, of her recognition of Jackie’s authority over her. Why was she surrendering like this, so easily, without resistance?

Jackie laughed. ‘Christ, if that’s all that’s worrying you... there, is that better?’ She tugged at the cord of the short robe and flung it off, tossing it carelessly onto the high-backed sofa. ‘Now you can feel good, comparing your lip-smacking loveliness with my raddled old bod. Go on, have a good laugh and get it over with.’

But her words were far from the truth, and she knew it, Jill guessed. She couldn’t help staring at the displayed form, naked as her own now. Jackie stood legs apart, arms akimbo, offering herself. She had a splendid body, Jill acknowledged, though her figure was fuller than some might consider as fashionable. The musculature of her frame was well defined; it was clear she kept herself in shape, though the curve of her belly and the hang of her full breasts, as well as the tops of her thighs and generous buttocks, indicated that some might say she could afford to shed a pound or two. But they would be quibbling. Certainly, the ghosts of the former dwellers of this solid house would look on her as a fine example of female pulchritude.

Her breasts hung ripely, crowned with vividly dark areola, and nipples appropriately sized, standing proudly forth from their surrounds. The pubic bush was ample too, spreading over the mound at the base of the belly, but its neat triangle and even texture of dark hair testified to the grooming it received.

She stepped close and slipped her arm around Jill’s waist. Jill felt their hips nudge companionably together as Jackie guided her to the table. ‘Get used to it, baby. Every chance I get I’m going to have you out of your clobber. In fact, I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to keep my hands off you.’

Jill curled up in the chair again. She placed the cushion on her lap, this time with the excuse of using it as a resting place for her plate. She felt the conflict stirring within her. What was happening to her? How had she got here, like this? How had she become this woman’s... whatever it was? Not ‘lover’, surely? She had simply taken her, possessed her, while Jill was still in a kind of stupor after being terrified out of her wits up on that balcony. Was that why she had been taken there? Was that what Barlow had intended, to scare her so badly that she would be able to have her wicked way with her? Now she was beginning to sound like one of those wimpy heroines in the Gothic novels the original inhabitants of this building probably revelled in.

She cleared her throat nervously. ‘Look, about today, I hardly... we don’t know each other. I mean, I’ve never, you know...’ her voice died away, she gestured at her own body then at Jackie sprawled unselfconsciously, or rather displaying herself, in the chair on the other side of the hearth. One leg was hooked over the upholstered arm, the other stretched out, the foot close to the replica fender. Thus, the area of her genitals, crowned by that luxuriant bush of dark pubic hair, was carelessly - or probably knowingly - exposed. Jill could see the dark coral colour fringing the slit of the labia, the folds gathered at the uppermost peak. It made her aware again of her own soreness, and the violent power of the orgasm this woman had caused.

Jackie gave a deep laugh. ‘You’re telling me I’m wrong? You’re not a les at all? I didn’t rape you, sugar, believe me. Or have you forgotten how you were begging me to finish it for you? “Make it happen!” You were squealing like a little piggie and your cute little heels were drumming on my back nineteen to the dozen! If that was your first time then all I can say is you should be bloody grateful, because you were born to it. And now you know that too.’

Jill felt she was at a crisis point. She had to put an end to this. She jumped up, placing the plate down on the fireside rug. ‘I want to leave. I want to go now. I want my things, my clothes, please.’

‘You’re going nowhere, my girl. Sit down and stop getting your non-existent knickers in a twist.’

Jill gave what was close to another squeal, of frustration and anger this time. ‘I’ll get them myself then. I’m leaving, right now. You’ve absolutely no right to...’ her breath caught on a sob and she strode determinedly towards the door. But she gasped and shrieked as for the second time - or was it the third? - her world turned on its head and spun madly out of kilter. She felt an arm clamp itself about her waist, another slid under her left shoulder and she was swung round and borne back to land with a breath-expelling thump onto the mercifully soft fullness of the settee. Her legs and arms waved feebly in useless defence as everything she thought she had learnt in her recent training fled her spinning mind. In a trice Jackie was on her and she was lifted and turned again, until she found herself sprawled facedown, bent across Jackie’s firm knees and thighs, which rubbed against her own belly as she struggled hopelessly, her feet beating the cushions in a rapid, fruitless tattoo. A loud crack and a simultaneous flare of burn across her bottom marked the first of a torrent of sharp, stinging blows delivered with the open palm, as Jackie spanked and Jill howled and twisted, held easily across her aggressor’s knee while her bottom grew fiery red and burned abominably, and her sobs of frustration and rage were transformed to sobs of pleading and abject apology.

When the punishment ceased Jackie pushed her off her lap, and Jill fell to the carpet. For several seconds she squirmed inelegantly, blubbering and clawing at her hot and throbbing behind, unmindful of the spectacle she offered. Jackie’s mouth twitched in a smile of pleasure, while her vaginal passage spasmed with fiercely rekindled desire. At last Jill stood, head down, weeping softly, her hands still massaging her aching buttocks.

‘Now, sweety,’ Jackie said, reaching out for the woebegone figure and pulling her back down onto the couch. ‘So far you’ve had at least ninety percent of the fun. I may be butch, girlie, but even I need satisfying. So here comes lesson number three in keeping the boss happy. Right?’ She pushed Jill down along the length of the settee and spread herself over her, breast to breast, belly to belly, their limbs interlocked. ‘I said, right?’ Her hands clamped like iron bands around Jill’s arms and the girl gave a soft little whimper.

‘Yuh-yes, Ma’am,’ she stuttered, before Jackie sealed her mouth with her own.