Ladies Who Lust: An Erotica Collection. Various

of what lay just under my skirt – my silky knickers, and then the secret nestling between my thighs. I read somewhere that men like stockings because they make the legs look bare, vulnerable, yet make them a brazen gateway, or pathway, straight up to the cunt.

      My smile grew wider. Perhaps I could do what I’d always fantasised about, especially so far from home. Pull a gorgeous stranger in Manhattan, shag him senseless in his loft apartment somewhere near here until the sun came up, then do all the things they do in movies like sit in shiny diners eating waffles, walk in Central Park, get windblown on the Staten Island ferry, eat some more from a hot-dog vendor, go dancing, back to his for more crazy fucking in front of a huge plate-glass window so millions of other penthouse people could see, then go home flying the flag for English girls. Hell, it had been over a year since I’d had sex, and thanks to this job I’d had a total makeover and felt pretty hot. I was more than up for it, especially with another couple of Sauvignons inside me.

      I swung my foot gently, so that the sliver of flesh between skirt and stocking stretched and shrank with the movement. I refused to catch anyone’s eye just yet.

      An ice blonde with cropped hair, teetering silver heels and a minuscule sequinned dress appeared in the doorway. She was all alone, and surveyed the half-empty room, presumably looking for her date. I thought her glance fell on me, but with the hall light behind her all I could see was a kind of devilish glitter in her eyes, and anyway I would have been a disappointment

      She walked just like Charlize Theron in the J’Adore advert, where she’s sashaying through a Paris apartment pulling off her dress and her pearls. She swayed straight up to the bar and sat down confidently on a tall stool. As the barman leaned across to take her order the girl slowly crossed her legs Sharon Stone style and I noticed with a thump of shock that she wasn’t wearing any knickers. The quick flash of pink slit was unmistakeable. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

      Her long fingers swizzled the cocktail the guy had given her, then she turned and her eyes locked on to me again. She tipped her head upwards in a kind of greeting. Or invitation.

      There was a dampness across my upper lip now. I really was too hot. I stood up, feeling the leather seat of my chair sticking to my damp skin. I was desperate just to throw the jacket right off so that I could cool myself. I grasped the lapels, ready to do it. She was still watching me. I had a mad urge to strip, to really surprise her, and make the scattering of sombre men wake up at the sight of my bare breasts, invite them to touch me, do more to me if they chose.

      But I closed the lapels again, breathing hard, trying to ignore the nipples stiffening against the jacket lining. Don’t be daft. Be discreet. I repeated this mantra. Don’t be daft, be discreet. It would be a good title for my next article. And it summed up the two halves of my personality. Up until now I had crashed through life dressed like a boy and was totally daft. But now I was doing the job I’d always craved, in a city I’d always dreamed about, and I had to be discreet. If I played my cards right at the magazine there was the possibility of a permanent relocation to New York.

      A central switch suddenly dimmed the lighting even more, and some low, jazzy music came on. The barman seemed to be in charge of the ambience, if it was he who had dimmed the lighting. He was deep in conversation with the girl. Perhaps he was her date. Or perhaps she’d asked him to change the mood.

      I was hot, I was thirsty again, and for some reason I must have been nervous, because my heart was pounding. I walked up to the bar. The barman was serving a group of older women at the far end, and the ice blonde was still there on her chair, still alone. She glanced at me. Up close her eyes had the depth and facets of a pale-blue diamond. Her glance travelled on down the front of my blouse, button by button. Then she glanced away, twisting the stem of her glass. One foot swung idly, dangling its spiked stiletto.

      I drummed my fingers on the chrome, trying to attract the attention of the barman. But the cougars weren’t going to let him go. One of them had her bejewelled hand on his wrist as if to trap him, and was slipping a piece of paper into his hand.

      The icy blonde looked at me again. Her pale, frosted lips parted.

      ‘Allow me.’

      She hitched herself up onto the shiny bar, swung her legs over and dropped down on the other side. She started tossing the cocktail shakers around like a juggler, throwing ice, spouting colourful liquids, shaking them round her head and behind her back, and this was all for me. No one else was watching. It was just her and me, and then she was slamming two elegant glasses down on the bar.

      ‘Daiquiri Delilah.’ Her voice was husky, crackling with too many cigarettes, which made it quite manly. But the soft white breasts squeezed between her slender arms as she pushed the drink over to me were pure woman.

      ‘Delilah?’

      ‘My name.’

      She was back up on the bar, and this time as she swung herself back over to my side I could see the full glory of her fully waxed pussy, the white sex lips gleaming like juicy scallops stripped of their shell, barely concealed in the slight shadow of her dress.

      ‘And what’s yours?’

      There was the rough edge of a foreign accent in her voice. Nordic, I guessed. She chinked her glass against mine, and now our knees were touching as we sat face to face. Not a difficult question, but then again this was the one chance in my life to be totally anonymous. The freedom of it was hitting me, filling me with a dark excitement. I could tell her whatever I liked. Be whoever I liked. Let her befriend me, show me the city, show me her friends.

      ‘I’m Clara.’ OK, so I’d run out of original ideas. After all, I’m never going to see her again. I shrugged my jacket off and flung it onto the back of my stool. ‘Thanks for the drink.’

      The alcohol started to take hold, heating up my veins. I was going to loosen up, and enjoy myself. I bent my elbow to rest it on the bar. I drew my hand slowly inside the loose collar of my blouse and caressed my warm skin.

      ‘You alone here in the States?’ she asked, watching the way my hand was moving.

      ‘Yeah. On business. And now I’m snowed in and can’t get home.’

      She nodded thoughtfully. ‘You got somewhere to stay?’

      If I had told her I was staying right here, at the Library Hotel, she wouldn’t have to come to my rescue and there wouldn’t be any adventure.

      I shook my head and a shy blush rose perfectly naturally to my cheeks. At the same time my fiddling fingertips brushed lower, onto my warm breast swelling under the flimsy camisole. She couldn’t have missed it. This lightest of touches sent a bolt of excitement sizzling through me. I hadn’t realised how horny the intimate, closed atmosphere of the bar – and the growing intensity between the two of us – had made me. Still looking at Delilah I spread my fingers over my breast under the camisole and when I felt my nipple perk up eagerly against the palm of my hand I slowly started to rub it.

      Delilah’s eyes flashed directly at what my hand was doing. She shifted on her chair and smiled. Her mouth was wide, her teeth a perfect white row. She started to mirror the action, except that her hand moved over the surface of her sparkly dress, tracing the small swell of her own breast.

      ‘Why don’t we get disgracefully drunk together and then later if you like I can show you the real New York,’ she murmured, running her tongue over her lower lip in such an outrageously clichéd yet thoroughly sexy gesture that my pussy squeezed with longing and I could hear my breath rasping in my ears. ‘I wouldn’t want you to be all alone tonight.’

      ‘Yes,’ I answered thickly, pinching my nipple until it was hot.

      ‘Yes to what?’ she asked, dragging the cocktail shaker across and filling our glasses.

      I glanced over my shoulder. The barman was still talking to the cougars, polishing the same wineglass over and over as if he had been hypnotised. The only other customers seemed to be a couple of businessmen drinking whisky in the corner.

      ‘Yes please. To everything.’

      She