Wild Desire

It had been a long day. Every time Clare had arrived home since the building work had begun Gary had still been busying himself in the back, usually on his own, his two other workmates long gone. But tonight Clare was late and he too had gone. The house felt empty. She missed the banter they usually shared. It was already seven thirty. She went upstairs to the bathroom at the front of the house, stripping off her black suit as she went. In the new bathroom she would have a separate shower cubicle with a powerful shower, but at the moment she had to make do with the shower attached to the mixer taps of the bath and a glass screen at the side of it to prevent the water splashing over the floor. She adjusted the temperature to lukewarm, pulled off the rest of her clothes and stood in the rather sluggish stream, allowing the water to wash over her. As she closed her eyes and turned her face into the water she thought of Gary, his hard body covered with sweat. She wondered what it would f

HAD SHE KNOWN Bridget Goldsmith planned to descend on London, Clare would never have allowed work to start on the extension. What with all the necessary planning and work the visit entailed, the last thing she needed was to come home at night to a house that looked as though it were in the process of being demolished. She could have moved out. She could have gone to stay with her friend Angela. Instead, once the builders had breached the back wall, she had moved her clothes and make-up into the front bedroom, next to the bathroom, and she had made do, eating out, since her kitchen had disappeared, and taking comfort from the fact that George Wickes assured her the building work would definitely be finished in two weeks’ time. There were, however, two compensations. The first was that she could see the work in progress and check it was all going to plan. It only took two days to knock out the wall to which the extension would be fitted and after that every day brought new additions,

Clare felt a strong and powerful pulse emanating from her sex. It caused her nipples to pucker. She felt cold, little chips of marble nestling in her bra. Getting up off the bed, she switched off the television. She usually had a bath or shower when she got home but had decided to wait until Gary had finished. She supposed she felt faintly embarrassed about being naked while he was in the house, however silly that seemed. Clare thought of herself as liberated and independently minded. She wasn’t too concerned with social niceties or the quibbles and taboos of conventional morality. That did not mean, unfortunately, she thought, that she had escaped the conventions of the sexual role that she had been nurtured in from an earlier age. In the mood she was in she would have loved: to be able to go downstairs, not fancifully dressed in flimsy lingerie like something from a scene in a porno film, but dressed as she was now, and ask Gary if he would like to go to bed with her. As simple as

She could see it, feel it, even taste what it had been like. She could remember exactly how he had felt as he plunged into her vagina, precisely how he had held her effortlessly in his arms. It was like she had been given a wonderful present, which she could take out and examine-with huge delight whenever she felt the urge. The urge had become urgent. Twice since Tuesday night Clare had masturbated and on both occasions had come ferociously as she relived the experience with the builder. She had deliberately recreated the conditions, masturbating in the bathroom, bent over the side of the bath. She masturbated on the bed. Both the places he had taken her. Usually she could extend her masturbation rites for a long time, luxuriating in the feelings she created, but the thoughts of Gary had provoked her too powerfully, and her orgasms had been achieved in no time at all. She sipped her coffee, wondering what David had dreamed up for tonight. If Bridget had not intervened she might well

She saw his red Toyota pick-up park a little way down the street. She had been waiting, guiltily, in the front bedroom watching for it, the love-sick schoolgirl unable to do anything else. . She managed to resist the temptation to run downstairs and fling open the front door before he’d walked up the garden path. Instead she waited at the top of the stairs and walked down sedately once he’d rung the bell. ‘Hi,’ she said. 'That was very nice of you.’ She sat down next to him and touched his arm. ‘I thought Mr Wickes had hired a professional cleaner.’ She nodded at the bottle. 'Would you rather have a glass?’ 'This is fine.’ Clare realised she couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him outside the subject of the work on her house. They didn’t know each other well enough for silence to be comfortable, so she scratched around desperately for something to say. 'What's your next job?’ she asked, finally coming up with a topic. ‘Fulham. House conversion into two flats.’ ‘That’s i