Contemporary UK Story: Inhibited - Part 1

Though this story has a fantastical MC element, much of what is shown here is based on incidents witnessed in British country pubs.

Inhibited

By Tang

Part 1

As she stepped through the door, Lisa saw that the pub was a little more crowded than she had expected.  One of the few consolations of working in a mid-sized town in Hampshire was that these days she could usually get a decent Sunday lunch.  She had not been to this pub before but her usual one was undergoing refurbishment and anyway, it seemed only right that she try a few places.  She thought back to when she was living in London and the wide variety of food she could get any time of the week, even any time of the day.  The choice down here was quite a bit more limited.  The occasional gastro-pub offered something a bit different, though usually it went to the other extreme and largely consisted of jus and foam.

Lisa guessed she was lucky to have ended up working around here and should complain a little less.  As a newly qualified solicitor, it had been good to be offered a job straight off, even if it was at a market town company.  Beatrice Hammond, who she had met on the course, had revealed that her father actually owned a legal company which was why she had followed in his footsteps.  Apparently he had been impressed by Lisa on the occasions he had visited Beatrice at the house they had shared in the last two years.  He, after all, had been the landlord.  He had bought the house for use by his daughter during her studies and for anyone else she could bring in as housemates to pay him rent.

The interview had proven to be a formality.  On arriving at the company Lisa recognised that Mr. Hammond and his business partner clearly liked to have young, intelligent women in the office and she felt a little exploited.  She planned to do two years here and move on, hoping they made no fuss about the reference.  Lisa wondered if she could find a younger version of herself to put forward as a replacement; a kind of sacrifice to Hammond in exchange for letting her go.  However, Lisa did not feel quite right about misleading another woman that way.

Hampshire had proven to be little less expensive than London but she had managed to get a tiny flat above a row of shops in walking distance of where she worked.  She enjoyed that daily journey rather than being squeezed on the underground or a bus every morning.  The main problem was that, as a result, she did not really have much social life.  In an area where everyone charged around in huge cars, public transport was not up to much.  Even if it had been, entertainment seemed limited to worthy talks in village halls, amateur dramatics or the occasional pub band.  None of those was really ideal for meeting interesting people.  Any men of her age she did encounter seemed self-obsessed and barely capable of even taking over their father’s firm.

A half-decent meal on Sunday lunchtime seemed a small consolation.  She did wonder each time she came to a place like this whether there might be someone she could strike up a conversation with.  However, at best, she got talking to a ‘nice’ old woman.  Otherwise it was all kinds of social blocks in descending age order: elderly couples with or without grown-up children; big families with whining children; or moody couples alone or with a similar-looking couple that made Lisa wonder if they would swap partners there or wait until they had got home.

“I’ll see if we’ve got anywhere left.  Is it just you?”

Lisa nodded, feeling inhibited for the moment of re-declaring that fact over the hubbub of families around her.  She could understand how, in previous centuries, women living on their own in places like this had been marked out as witches.  She felt the residents of this town were not far off doing that once more and she would be a prime target.  Unlike the locals she had no grand family name.  Her parents had worked hard and owned a small terraced house.  However, she had accumulated her own debts in order to study; her father was in no position to pay her fees.  A lot of her rent had come from nights and weekends working in a small local supermarket.  However, she reminded herself, not for the first time, not even for the thousandth, that she was on the way ‘up’.  She was qualified and in work, something a lot of people her age would be pleased to be able to say.

The barman-cum-waiter returned, shaking his head.  “No, nowhere for you until 2.30pm.  You can eat at the bar.”

Lisa was a little concerned about balancing her lunch on there, but guessed the alternative was to admit defeat and go home.  She was reluctant to do that, it seemed a little like surrender in the face of these well-heeled Home Counties people.  She sat down at the bar and ordered a standard roast dinner.

“Any tables?”

Lisa looked round to see a man probably in his late twenties and a woman about Lisa’s own age.  Under a cropped leather biker-style jacket she wore a dark blue underlay lace top; figure-hugging wet-look leggings and sharp-heeled ankle boots.  Her hair was pulled back into a harsh pony tail.  She grasped an expensive smartphone.  However, she did not look like one of those bimbo types.  Rather she appeared as someone who, in ten years or so, would morph into a ‘yummy mummy’.  She would don the uniform of tight jeans, knee-length riding-style boots and a designer coat and hare her way through the narrow roads of Hampshire in a huge 4x4.  The woman already had that distant, rather aloof manner of so many well-off women around here.

“For the two of you?”  The barman-cum-waiter asked.

“Yes.”

“There’s a couple back there,” he gestured through to the part of pub where he had failed to find a table for Lisa, “by the window or by the fire, depending on what you prefer.”

“Thanks.”  The man said, “Come babe, we’ve got one.”

The woman gave a distant smile and followed the man through as if led on a leash by him.  Lisa suppressed her feelings about what she had witnessed.  It was clear there were tables for a couple that were not to be given to a woman alone.  She could have been angry but found she was a little embarrassed instead.  Was she so out of step with this place that she simply got the leftovers?  Should she try harder to get a boyfriend; a man?  If so, would she have to put up with being called ‘babe’?  Anyway, she imagined that maybe her intelligence; her animated manner would put men off.  She found it hard to accept that to thrive in this place she would have to adopt that kind of distant manner she had seen on the woman.  It was as if her mind was detached from her body; a body shaped by hard work at the gym and squeezed into skin-tight clothes to make it extra appealing.

“Haven’t you thought that she might look distant because her mind is preoccupied with sexual thoughts?”

Lisa turned abruptly at the sound of the man’s voice.  She had not even been aware of him sitting down beside her.  For a moment she thought he was the man he had just seen walk through with the ‘babe’.  However, as she looked she saw his clothes were different: similar in style but blacks rather than dark blues and browns.  She guessed it was no surprise - here he might be that man’s cousin or brother by a different mother.  Lisa let go of those concerns as she recognised, with some alarm but also a frisson that it was as if the man had read her mind.  Well, the answer he gave was different from what she might have thought, but, perhaps, it was an answer to what she had been thinking.

“Sorry?”  Lisa fell back on the standard British response.

“You were looking at that woman and wondering why she looked so distant.  I was just suggesting an answer.”

Lisa recalled he had said something about sex, but was uncertain now if he had just misheard him.  She wondered if his words were some kind of chat-up line.  Normally she would have withdrawn from such an approach.  However, she found that this time - looking him over and seeing he did not look like an obvious pervert or a drunkard and in fact might have been called handsome - she did not seek to shake him off immediately.  To do so, she recognised, would probably mean foregoing her lunch.

“Alex Webb.”  The man said, putting his hand forward in a formal way.

“Lisa Mackenzie.”  She said taking it.

The gesture suggested that he was politer than many men she met through work, let alone in pubs.  However, she now found she worried that he simply wanted to talk to her as an intellectual exercise, nothing more.  It seemed ironic that now she suddenly she wished he would chat her up and not simply talk to her to pass the time while he waited for his lunch.  Lisa stopped herself – recognising she was flicking back and forth between different rules she was conjuring up, none of which seemed to provide her any benefit.  She told herself that if he wanted an intellectual discussion then she should not dismiss him.  After all, she had nothing else more pressing to do.

“You are not certain what you want are you?”  Alex noted.

Lisa smiled even though his ability to read her so astutely remained disconcerting.  “Yes, Alex, you’re probably right in that.”  She found herself confessing.

“I don’t think you even know what you don’t want yet.”  He gestured to the pub around her.  “Do you want to fit in here or do you want to rail against it?”

Lisa hesitated.  “You’re right, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you want to be like that young woman who went through there or if you want to be unhappy at what she represents.”

Lisa guessed that the ‘babe’ had not been rude or offensive; the young man might have meant it affectionately; as his pet name for her, something they shared to show their intimacy.  Like Lisa, the woman presumably liked a decent Sunday lunch.  Maybe she felt compelled to have a boyfriend but maybe she was not at all naïve and knew some men could trap women.  Certainly there was nothing much in what Lisa had seen that suggested the man had been like that.  Lisa had already admitted to herself that she could quite enjoy having a boyfriend and continuing to talk with Alex was in part as a result of that desire.

Prompted by Alex’s comments, Lisa tried to analyse what her opinion actually was.  Was her dislike at the woman as a result of how she dressed?  Lisa certainly owned no clothes like that, but the woman had been of her height, the same build; even the same quite generous bust size somewhat emphasised by the lacy top.  Lisa knew that if she had fancied she could have dressed the same.  Lisa conceded that, perhaps her clothes choices were not driven as much by fashion as that woman’s.  Then again, Lisa always hoped to avoid looking too ‘fusty’ and old beyond her years.  Here, where even late middle-aged women dressed in the latest styles; perhaps that was a challenge.

“To answer your question, I guess I am not certain, but I would have nothing against being like that woman.” 

Lisa spoke with sincerity, happier that she had clarified things in her own mind.  She wondered if that as a result of that admission she had effectively just agreed to go out with Alex or whether this was all some kind of intellectual game that he relished as a way to pass the time.

“I am not surprised.  She was a great deal happier than you.”

“How do you know that?”

Lisa now felt put out by Alex’s observation.

“Well, as I said at the start, I have the feeling that her manner comes from sexual thoughts filling her mind.  I imagine they are pretty pleasurable and will make her happy.”

Lisa imagined that she could challenge the assumption; yet, there was something about Alex that made what he said seem to be consistently accurate.  Lisa found she could not even really be indignant about him daring to be a stranger talking about sex in a public space.  For some reason, nothing in Alex gave her cause for concern.  In fact, instead, Lisa then recognised she was actually enjoying this conversation; that  little bit of a frisson was enduring.

“You read people well.”  Lisa found herself saying.

“Yes, yes, I do.”

“Do you …” Lisa had been going to say ‘manipulate’ but that seemed too harsh, “shape them as well?”  She settled for.

“Only in part.  I can’t make anyone utterly different from what they are.  However, a lot of people, especially those who are relatively young, can take different paths to the ones they are currently on.”

“So that is what you want to do with me?  Convince me that I can step off this path and on to one like that woman.  Would I end up with someone calling me ‘babe’ and my mind so filled with whatever wonderful orgasm I had on a Sunday morning, that even at lunch time, I am in a daze?”

“Does it sound too bad?  I imagine that it’s not all just about the one she’s had already but the one later today.”

“Just one?”  Lisa joked.

“Well, she can have a few more, but it’s a choice she can make and you can’t.”

Lisa was about to respond that if he was so certain, Alex should give it a try and see if he could bring her to a climax.  However, as she was about to speak, she realised what she was about to offer.  Had he really managed to manoeuvre her into not only agreeing to have sex with him, but actually asking him to have sex with her?

“You are very clever.”

Lisa realised that in part her statement was as much praise as a protest or complaint.

“Thank you.”  Alex smiled and bowed his head to accept the compliment.  “And as I had suspected, I have found that you are too.  Very beautiful as well and with the potential to be at least as sexy as that woman.”

Lisa shuddered.  For a moment it was as if a void had opened beneath her and if she took one tiny step she could tumble right into it.  It was unsettling but strangely pleasurable too.  She worried that all of this was simply a game and that Alex was making some point about the fact that, at heart, women were all the same and that their intelligence was always going to disappear quickly beneath their lusts whether their desires were to look pretty or sexy or fashionable or to have a man giving them sex.  Yet, as she looked at him and reflected on all that he said, once more, she felt he was genuine.  She guessed that he would not have bothered with so much effort if he had simply wanted to toy with her.  Presumably there were more than enough single women for him to pick on, even in this town.  If she had found his approach that unpleasant, then she knew that she could have made it difficult for him here in front of all the families.  She glanced around to see if anyone had been concerned about where the conversation had been going, but absolutely no-one appeared to be paying Lisa or Alex any attention.

“Your food.”  The barman placed Lisa’s lunch in front of her.

“This is your order.”

To one side a small waitress placed Alex’s in front of him.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were together.”  The waitress explained.  “If you’d prefer there’s a couple of tables through in the snug.  If you go ahead, I’ll bring these through.”

For a moment Lisa felt like protesting, but realised that by a convoluted way about she had got what she had wanted - she would be able to sit at a proper table.  She smiled to herself to think that next time she wanted a table she would clearly have to simply pick up a man at random.  In minutes she and Alex were installed at the table by the window.  For some reason Lisa felt warm and knew the one by the fire would have been too much.  Given that these tables remained free she wondered where the couple that had triggered her conversation with Alex, had actually ended up; there was no sign of them now.  Perhaps they had changed their minds about lunch or been invited somewhere else.

“Wine?”  Alex asked.

For a moment Lisa was hesitant, wondering if this was another element in whatever Alex was trying to achieve.  However, she felt with reflection that that attitude was ungracious.  She imagined that like herself, he had walked here.

“Yes, why not?”

Alex turned to the waitress and ordered something that Lisa did not hear.  She wondered why he did not confer with her about the choice, but then again, she imagined he was paying so she would go with whatever he thought suitable.  Lisa concentrated on her food and it proved to be far better than the average carvery lunch.  She could imagine coming back here.

“Are you enjoying yourself?”  Alex asked.

“Yes.”  Lisa said immediately and surprised herself in doing so.

“So, you see: some changes can make a difference; make you happy.”

“I accept that, but I am still me.”  She laughed.

“I am not saying you should ever stop being you, I am just saying that maybe with some changes, you could enjoy being you a lot more.”

“Yes, yes, I accept that: I’d get the post-coital gaze and I’d look genuinely my age not like a woman in her forties, well, in some people’s view …”

“You don’t agree with that perspective?”

“Well …” Lisa recalled her thoughts from earlier.  “Okay, maybe you are right.  But you know, sometimes it is easy to get into a rut.”

“You see it as a ‘rut’ and I’m just suggesting we lift you out of that.”

“Yes …” Lisa was going to respond ‘I get that’, but it sounded ungrateful and that was not what she felt.  “I’d like that.”

Then the wine was there and Lisa was soon enjoying it, thinking how well it went with the food.

“I think we have come to an agreement.  What are you going to do about it?”  Alex teased.

For a moment Lisa felt like saying, ‘what are you going to do about it?’ but recognised that she would be handing over the initiative to Alex.  For a moment she worried that he would then simply expect her to turn into a fake-breasted bimbo who would give him a blow job whenever he fancied.

Lisa smiled.  “Well, I have some ideas,” Lisa lied, it was all vaguer and less developed than that, “but I can … well access … get to those whenever I like.  What about you?”

“You want access to me whenever you want?”  He made an affected shocked expression to show it was a joke.

Lisa laughed, realising she had not done that for a while.

“Well, assuming I change on to this other ‘path’ maybe I’ll be wanting to have lunch out with you after … well, after, you know having what you think that woman had been up to.”

Lisa trailed off, a little worried that it was quickly seeming like an all too possible scenario.  She had to admit that she was not averse to dating Alex and in that case, given that she was an adult, did that not mean sex as well?  However, such a rapid advance seemed impossible to her, it was not something that Lisa Mackenzie did.  Then she recognised that that was Alex’s point: why should she not meet a man and, if she liked him, why should she not think about sex with him; very good sex.  Lisa pondered: was she being seduced?  It seemed a little odd to think that as it typically was the woman who seduced the man, but then again, she reminded herself, to think way that was probably to be very old fashioned.  More than that, she was not even certain if Alex was seducing her into sleeping with him or simply into being the kind of woman who might do so.  Could the two be separated?  Perhaps they could.  If she became the orgasm-hungry raver he suggested, then what was to stop her going out and finding some other man; a group of men even, to have sex with instead of Alex?

“Do you really believe what I am saying or once you’ve left here are you simply going to retreat to your home and forget all about it?”

Lisa felt a little reluctant to think about what would happen after the lunch and she took that as a clear signal that she was enjoying Alex’s company even if he had adopted an unusual approach to getting to know her.

“Why do you think I would do that?”

“Because you are too afraid to take a dare.”

Lisa laughed lightly.  “I guess you are right.”

“However, I think you would regret your … lack of courage, maybe not now, but sometime in the future.”

“When I am struggling to get a seat in a pub?”

“Perhaps, but more likely when you looked back on whether you had lived your life or simply spectated it.”

Lisa had to admit Alex came out with some perceptive phrases.  However, he stopped short of sounding like a self-help guru or an evangelist.

“If you do nothing else, show me you’re going to make a change.”

It sounded as if he was truly concerned about the quality of her life and that he would be disappointed if she continued as she was.  Perhaps this was some kind of entertainment for him or a type of challenge he had set himself.  Lisa would have to confess, however, that he did a good job of making it sound as if he genuinely wanted something good for her.

“Here,” Alex slid over his smartphone, “pick some things for yourself.  The only rule is that they have got be sexy, either in how they look or how they feel.”

Lisa could see that he had opened an online clothing shopping website.  A lot of it seemed to be trendy without being high fashion and certainly sexier than anything she wore.

“Are you paying?”

Alex smiled.  “I’ll buy the lingerie.”  He joked.  “No, this is not about me making you into someone else, but you seeing that you can become different for yourself.”

“Okay.”

Lisa tried not to be too influenced by the woman she had seen but found her thoughts coming back to her style.  Maybe, she admitted, that she had actually liked it and that was perhaps what had made it easy for Alex to prompt her to change.  In the next few minutes she had bought her first leather jacket and some leggings more exotic than any she had worn before; tops that were not blouses and ankle boots with heels.  Having done so, she turned the phone back to Alex.  He nodded approval.

“I think I am due for a visit to the hairdresser’s.”  Lisa confessed.

If she was going to get a new set of clothes, it made no sense to turn up with her hair a little ragged.  She wondered if she was viewing these things from her own perspective or what she thought; she hoped, that Alex would like.

“No comment.”  He responded.

Lisa pulled up local places that looked feasible.

“You know a lady, rather than a woman, thinks about it all; not just the hair.”  Alex tapped her nails.

Lisa guessed he was right and so ended up booking a whole ‘package’ at the nearest big town.  A manicure and pedicure had always seemed a little excessive.  However, she knew Beatrice would approve and if that was all she needed to let her fit into her work all the better, then maybe it was a small price.

“So, the lingerie is down to me; but it’ll be on your account so you’ll be encouraged to wear it.”

Lisa did not see what he added until he passed the phone back to her.  She could not envisage herself wearing a black lacy thong and it took some searches before she understood what a camisole was.  These would be the first silk items she had ever owned.

“What about work?”

“I wear a suit to work.”

“There are suits and there are suits.  You want to look like you mean business not that you are just there to make the coffee.”

Lisa wondered how he knew the way she might dress for work.  However, she found she was enjoying this too much to complain.  Quickly some sharp looking suits were on the screen; looking elegant rather than power-dressing though she did wonder how they would go down in a place like this.  Perhaps that was what Alex meant.

“Excellent, but no stockings?”

Lisa laughed, “it’s not 1955.”

“No, but that is the point.  Any woman can be tarty even play the whore, but sexy, true sexy is about being distinctive which can mean having; wearing things from outside your time.  You have wonderful legs, from what I can see from those cargo pants.”

“Well, I now own some leggings and a pair of skinny jeans, you can see them from that.”

“I look forward to it.”

“So we are meeting again?”  Lisa asked tentatively.

“You don’t want to?”

Lisa hesitated.  “I guess you want to see how your project turns out?”

Alex smiled.  “You could say that, but I would rather say that I want to see how your project turns out.”

“You want to see me when I am all sexy?”

Though Lisa said it as a joke it sounded mischievous in a way she realised she liked.

“How would you respond to that question?”

Lisa reflected on what she felt.  Everything seemed very mixed up.  She could never have envisaged things turning out this way when she had entered this pub.  She marvelled at how effectively Alex had ensnared her without ever asking her out.  What he had said had ‘chatted her up’ without it ever appearing that way.  As her empty plate was removed, she also recognised that they had already had a date though it had never been described that way.  Part of her admired how adept Alex had been.  She was attracted to his intelligence and, she admitted now, to his face and body as well.  She came back to what had long ago been recommended as a test of whether to see a man again – had she enjoyed spending time with him?  The answer to that was a clear ‘yes’.  In fact he had gone beyond that to – did he make her feel special?  That was probably another ‘yes’ though in Alex’s case it seemed to have a twist, he had made her want to make herself feel special.

“Yes.  Saturday night; you pick the venue.”

Alex smiled at that.  “Agreed.”  He said.

****

Lisa walked a little uncertainly into the office; she did not wear high-heels very often.  The fact that these were shoe boots gave her greater stability but she worried that the ‘game’, as she saw it, which she had started with Alex, had unleashed things that had gone a little too far.  It had been a bit of a shock to the system when the clothes she had ordered had come by express delivery.  She wondered about the Sunday meeting in the pub and whether she had dreamt at least some of it or misremembered parts.  However, with the tangible evidence of her new leather jacket, her tops, leggings and boots it was impossible to deny that she had embarked down a path that was changing her life.

The evening appointment the day before, at what had turned out to be a beauticians rather than simply a hairdresser’s, had been a further revelation.  She guessed the new cut and the highlights were far from extreme and she liked how her nails looked now painted a dark plum; matched with the rather striking lipstick she wore and more subtle shading at her eyes.  Lisa had never been averse to make-up but had ended sticking to the same simple patterns for her work.  The darker shades had never crossed her mind but they seemed striking with her rather pale skin.  The treatments had gone further than she had expected; she found she had signed up for waxing.  Lisa had never been waxed and certainly not around her pussy.  However, with a now smooth sex, fantasies of a man, or even one man in particular, pressing his tongue to her lips were something she had difficulty keeping out of her mind.  Almost as a nervous twitch she touched her hair, today left to hang long but brushed to be on one side, resting on her shoulder.

This morning’s clothes may have been another step too far.  On one hand she worried that Mr. Hammond might send her home to change.  However, pressed on by a sense of Alex daring her to doing something more, she had turned up in a knee-length pencil skirt but of charcoal grey leather; a grey silk blouse with a sharp ‘v’ and buttoned at the side plus a midnight blue raincoat that stretched a little shorter than her skirt.  She also wore stockings for the first time; they slid into the black patent leather shoe-boots detailed with small buttons.  The woman in the boutique had been as eager as Alex that she bought ‘proper’ clothes suited for a ‘real’ woman.  She seemed to have made it her mission not to dismiss fashion for going out to a pub but when it came to work wear had vocally despaired at the ‘shapeless, bland’ outfits she so often saw. 

Given the shop assistant’s enthusiasm Lisa wondered if she had somehow changed into being a prime target to become people’s ‘projects’.  However, though she remained hesitant, she could not deny that the outfit made her feel confident and sexy.  She remembered someone, it might have been Alex, saying that what a lot of people did not understand was that confidence was at the basis of sexiness.  Without the confidence it did not matter how revealing, clingy or shiny what you wore might be, it would lack that foundation.  Saying that, Lisa did wonder if a bit of a feedback look could be going on and that dressing this way made her feel sexy and feeling sexy boosted the very confidence that made her sexy.

“Can I help you?”  Beatrice bowled up.

As always she was dressed in designer wear, but somehow, Lisa could see now, this made her work clothes look mundane.

Lisa laughed.  “Bea it’s me.”

This triggered a sequence of OMGs from her friend.

“I thought you looked perky this week.  What’s brought this on?  You’re seeing someone aren’t you?  Is it Bernard?”

Lisa barely recalled the dullard Beatrice had tried to set her up with.

“Did he insist you wear this stuff?  I guess we don’t have a dress-down Friday so maybe we need dress-up.”

Lisa protested that these had been her own choices.  For a moment she felt a little put own that it was felt she could not have made such a selection and that Beatrice was effectively dismissing it as ‘dress-up’.  However, something stopped her being riled and instead told her that it was just that Beatrice was jealous.  Furthermore, like a lot of people, they were never really happy if they found that someone they had put into a particular category had got up and moved themselves into one that was very different.  Beatrice’s father appeared from his office and Lisa braced herself for some comment about her looking like she was auditioning for a French crime drama.  However, catching sight of her he slowed to a halt and took her in fully.  Lisa wondered if it was simply lust; a further manifestation of him enjoying young women around him.

“Good morning, Lisa.”

Was that a step forward?  Generally he referred to her as ‘Miss. Mackenzie’ making her feel like a spinster teacher or, even worse, like one of the pupils.

“Good morning, Jeremy.”

Though Lisa had worried in the past about the imbalance of calling him by his first name, now she felt it was as if they were colleagues.  Could a change of attire and her hair have had that impact?

“I wondered if I could have a word with you about working on the Rodgers preparatory work.”

“But Dad, I thought I was going to be doing that.”

“Beatrice, you’ve got more than enough to do.”

Beatrice went off a little sulky and for a moment Lisa wondered if she would be paying for the favour shown by Hammond this morning.  Then she reminded herself that Beatrice was pretty much a spoilt girl and no real match for her, much more a woman of the world.  Lisa followed her boss back into his office, feeling once more that she had made a number of good decisions.

****

As Lisa walked into the wine bar, she wondered for the thousandth time that day how she was going to play this.  She had agreed with herself that she was dating Alex.  It had been what she had told Beatrice anyway.  Thus, she would assume that there would be other dates after this and that the relationship would get intimate.  She had sent what she felt had been a mature response to his text giving time and venue.  She tried to remain calm about the date but she had to confess that the more she thought of Alex the more she realised he excited her.  Any ambivalence seemed to have stemmed for her being rather surprised that she had ended up in her first relationship since university and one that felt more adult than any she had before.  Added to that, it was not as if it had started in the way she ever would have anticipated.  However, now Lisa saw that as a positive thing: that Alex had been more adept than most men she had met and had flattered her mind first.  She did feel, still, however, that they were playing a bit of a game.  For a while she had wondered if she should resent the fact that he had prompted her to get a new style.  Yet, that sense did not last long, especially as all he had done was prompt, not direct and the specific choices had been left to her.

Of course, she could have chosen to turn up tonight in much the same clothes as last Sunday, but she was too excited to be in some of her new stuff.  She recognised too that they made her feel good; they showed off her best assets and so made her feel sexy.  No-one was interested in a partner who felt dreary.  While sex on the second date seemed a bit fast, Lisa had agreed with herself not to rule anything in or out and decided to go with what felt right at the time.  She walked into the bar almost entirely in black, with where new leather jacket, skinny jeans and ankle boots; the tight, smooth dark maroon top broke the single colour.  Her hair was pulled into a pony tail, because she recalled women were advised to keep their hair up so a man might release it for her when things got close.  The fact that she had fantasised more than once on the taxi ride over of Alex letting it free to fall to her shoulders, she was sure was telling her something about where she hoped things might end up tonight.

As Lisa walked into the wine bar and Alex stood as she entered, she felt a frisson.  All her worries about trying to find a man or hitting on one she saw and fancied now seemed ridiculous.  Fear seemed to have been denying her opportunities of happiness.  Of course, there was never any guarantee that they would work out, but it was certain that if she never tried then she never stood a chance of having some fun.  Alex might not prove to be a keeper, but she knew her week had been far better than if she had not had this date to look forward to.  Alex kissed her cheek as she reached him.  Soon he had brought her a drink over from the bar and they were chatting away.

“So, do you think I was right?”  Alex asked.

“About what?”  Lisa asked, almost teasing him; she had a suspicion but wanted to hear it directly from him.

“That you could become a woman so distracted by thoughts of sex that she would seem in a daze?”

It was not precisely what she had expected, though she recalled that it had been the trigger for them talking and that had been what had got her here.

“I suppose it depends on the woman and what she might have experienced.”

“And you don’t feel you could be that kind of woman?  Even with the changes you’ve carried out this week?”

A little self-consciously Lisa looked down at the clothes she wore and nervously touched her new earrings.  She wondered what to say.  The focus on the beauty treatments and then this date had rather pushed aside any other considerations.

“I am sure you can be.”  Alex asserted.

Lisa’s heart was pounding as she said the next words but she felt that she had to voice them.  “Are you going to prove it to me?  Will you make me so aroused that I won’t know if I’m coming or going?”

Lisa felt excited just by saying this.  She realised that on a second date with a man she was asking him to have sex with her.  A small voice said she was being risky; something stronger told her she was an adult, in control of her own destiny and that her body needed precisely what she was asking for.

“I can.”

Alex responded and Lisa somehow knew it was the truth; not bragging but based on his knowledge and experience.  She shifted a little awkwardly, conscious of her nipples were becoming excited and pressing against her bra and the tight top that held them.  Her smooth pussy felt incredibly alert and sensitive so that any shift of her thighs fired off a delicious spark.  Given this evidence, Lisa felt that Alex was certainly not over-estimating his abilities.

****

On the taxi ride to Alex’s house, Lisa had wondered what she had been letting herself in for.  Part of her had worried about going home with a man she barely knew.  However, such concerns kept on being drowned by an excitement at what she was doing.  The whole evening made her feel as if she had somehow finally grown-up and had shaken off lingering anxieties that she felt now had simply hung on from her teenage years.  In their place was a woman in charge of her own sexuality; dressing in a way which indicated she was unashamed of that and indeed wanted to use it to the full.  Consequently she made no move away when Alex’s hand rested on her thigh.  Part of her wanted to take it and slide it to press on her sex, but she knew there was nothing to gain from impatience.

“I can feel your heat.”  Alex whispered into Lisa’s ear.

Lisa wondered if he was just being flirtatious or whether it was the truth and her arousal was making her that warm to the touch.  It was another thing she realised she had never considered.  For a moment she felt embarrassed at her naivety; the sense of being truly adult slipping away and being replaced by the old youthful fears.  However, Alex being close beside her seemed to quickly chase them away.  Resting her hand on his, she slid it up towards the shiny leggings pressed on the lacy silk panties over her delightfully smooth and increasingly excited sex.  From then on it felt that only seconds had passed by the time they were entering Alex’s house.  It was modern and well equipped inside; seeming to mirror the man who owned it.  For a moment Lisa wondered if they would start in the hallway but instead he led her by the hand into the lounge.  Alex directed her to sit on the long leather sofa.  Lisa moved awkwardly, aware of the very demading need to have sex with Alex.

“Do you yet think that a woman can be so distracted by sexual thoughts to drift away?”

Lisa shook her head.  “They’re just making me irritable.  I just want to …”

“Want to what?”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“Why not?  If you want it, say it.”

“You’re making it worse?”

“Worse or better?”  He smiled.

Lisa did not respond but stared at him, not in anger, more to read any clues, any help for her predicament his expression might offer.

“What do you want?”

“To … to … to take off all my clothes and have you fuck me.”  Lisa said forcefully, a little shocked at the strength of her words.  “What have you done to me?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve made me into this lustful … woman, this whore.”

“You’re never that; I don’t intend paying.  I haven’t made you anything, whatever you are is what you are.”

“Then why am I sitting here in a strange man’s house asking him to ‘fuck’ me?”

“It’s because it’s what you want.  Is it so unusual?  You’re a healthy, beautiful woman in her twenties why would you not want to have sex?  You’ve dressed in a sleek, fashionable, sexy way – is that not sending out at least some kind of signal.  You look confident …”

“And confidence equates to sexy.”

“Naturally.  However, if you want to do something else, it’s your choice.”

“So you’re saying you won’t fuck me?”  Though she would not admit it, Lisa realised she was actually liking using that term.

“No, but I only will if you want me to.”

“I do want you to … I need you to fuck me.”  Lisa insisted but then laughed almost with incredulity.  “How have you got me to be begging you to have sex with me?”

“You are very, very aroused and we are developing a relationship and you think – no, you know, that you will enjoy it.”

“No.”  Lisa shook her head.  “How have you got me to this state?”

“Is it not obvious?  I’ve alerted you to what you might want and yet not provided it.  Were you thinking about sex with me before tonight?”

Lisa felt she had to nod.

“There you are then – anticipation.  Very few men and, in fact, too few women recognise the importance of anticipation.  Women take time to ‘warm up’; to rise up to the plateau from where they launch into orgasms.  However, if you start to light the fire early on then, by the time evening comes, a woman is ready for it; to enjoy it all to the full.”

Lisa would have had to confess that she had no experience of this approach.  However, from what she had experienced today it appeared that all that Alex said sounded correct.  It would explain why she had been becoming so steadily aroused and why she had got to a situation of her begging him for sex.  Alex rose and walked over to her, lifting her to her feet, she was yielding as he began to kiss her and with his hands grasped her excited breasts.  He then slid down the zip of her jeans but did not take them off any further.  He then stepped back from her and produced a small knife.  Now Lisa felt she should panic, but something stopped her from doing so.  Was it that she had come to trust him so much?  With a deft movement he sliced away the panties she wore and the knife was gone.  Instead, he pressed his fingers against her pussy and ran them up and down her slick lips.  He caught her clitoris between two of them and uncontrollably Lisa let out a moan, something she had only ever faked before.

Now Alex stepped back and he released his cock between his unbuttoned fly.  To Lisa that made sense, there were no zipper teeth to catch its skin.  He was fully aroused.  He was big enough for her and yet not of a scale that could have caused pain.  She knew the myths of the internet were discomfort when in reality.

“We’re going to be doing it … the sex … here, standing up; fully clothed?”

Alex put his lips close to her ear; his breath making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up delightfully.

“The clothes are important.  Imagine what you’ll think when you next put them on: that these were what you wore when you last had sex.  Can you see how that might excite you; get you nice and ready for more?”

As if to emphasise that fact, he now zipped her leather jacket tightly closed, pressing it down on her erect nipples.  He grasped her bum in its skin-tight jeans and then ran his cock up and down her smooth sex once more.  He lent back, his cock the only contact between them and produced a condom that he deftly put on.  This time as he came forward once more, his cock slid right into her and she was aware of the nodules on its latex covering stimulating her in a way she had never envisaged.  Usually her partners used the thinnest they could find.  With the gentle rubbing in so many places as Alex slid back and forth inside her Lisa gasped, startled, excited; desperate for more.

Lisa came quickly, shuddering in Alex’s gasp.  He let her gently down on to the sofa and she sat there with little control of her body as her legs and chest shook; her arms felt weak and she twisted in her tight clothes; feeling this experience being imprinted into them.  The recognition of how she was dressed and what she was doing, looped around making her feel excited once more; gasping, shuddering in the sensation.  Dazed, she saw herself as emerging as a new woman; ready for all that an active sex life could deliver.  Alex stood smiling, her performance clearly exciting him too.  In moments he was jerking, his eyes closed and his voice grunting his pleasure.  Lisa watched dimly as jism flooded into his condom.  The evidence of his climax seemed to stoke hers much more and she was startled as she understood that a new orgasm was coming over her once more, as if determined to throw her into this new life so strongly that there was no way back to the old.

****

As Alex drove them out for a Sunday lunch, Lisa reflected that today marked only two weeks since they had met.  She would have sworn it was longer.  She guessed the reason for that was because her life before seemed very distant.  Alex had not invited her round on any specific evening, he had said it was up to her, but Lisa had found herself yearning to be with him more and more.  She never now seemed unaroused.  Maybe her body was making up for lost time.  Maybe she had always been so sexual and for so long had been denying her true feelings.  Perhaps she was addicted to sex, to Alex or to them both, especially in combination.  It was clear that Alex was a skilled lover.  He had made her come with his cock, his tongue, his fingers and this morning with a lovely dildo as he had licked her nipples.  He had taken her in a range of outfits and as he had promised, she now found it difficult to put on those clothes without her having a flashback to all the sex she had had in them.  Even when she tried to dress in a dowdy manner for work, she found she could not leave off the new lingerie he had promised and delivered on.  She was delighted in how he had managed to provide her with items that were sensuous rather than tarty and she knew she was going to find it hard not to wear silk next to her skin ever again.

Lisa now found she viewed herself in a very different way and wanted others to see it.  She wanted tight and shiny clothes and in idle moments searched out long boots and a leather dress to buy, items she knew would please Alex, but that would also add more to her sense of her own sexual self.  She had begun to take sexual photos of herself on her new smartphone and to send them to Alex when it took her fancy.  Such mischief built the sense of anticipation that was the basis of their sex sessions.  Her pussy now often felt hungry and she had eagerly accepted the jiggle balls that Alex had offered.  They rode inside her now and at some random movement would ignite her lust once more.

As Alex pulled the car into the pub car park, Lisa became aware of how oblivious she had been to the journey.  Coming out rather than spending the rest of the day in bed, she knew, would enhance the pleasure later.  To try to appear ‘ordinary’ was like when Alex held back from slipping in her, it simply made her want the consummation all the more.

“We’re here, babe.”  Alex said.

Lisa had quickly come to like the pet name.  It seemed to represent her as a sex kitten, something she knew she had to accept she had become; perhaps had always been, just undercover.

“Great, Lix.”

Her name for him had come from shortening his name in a casual, playful way, but she liked how every time she said it she was reminded of just how good his tongue felt on her pussy lips and circling her clit.  As Lisa clambered from the car, he had brushed over the front of her leggings and she gave a delightful shudder.  Lisa thought she had always disapproved of any woman wearing anything that gave her a ‘camel toe’, but realised now that she had misunderstood what was going on.  As a result of hers, rather than her arousal decreasing it was rising with every step she took.  Her engorged pussy lips pressed against her silk thong and the skin-tight leggings beyond.  She knew there was no way of concealing how aroused she was and was just glad that her leggings were PU so that they would not reveal how truly wet she was beneath their wet-look sheen.

“What have you made me into?”  Lisa asked a little breathlessly.

“Nothing.”  Alex responded, smiling broadly.

For a moment she wondered if he meant that she had simply become a cipher, nothing without him, but she understood that that was not the case; it did not characterise their relationship.

Alex smiled warmly.  “I have made you into nothing that you were not already.  You are Lisa Mackenzie just as you were when you last came here.”

“I’m nothing like that.  Last time I came here there was not a dozen pairs of eyes on me.  I was not hungry for my next sex session, worried that if I brush my hand against the front of these leggings I am going to come right here.  I wasn’t that kind of woman.”

“No, but you always had the capacity to become that woman.”

“Okay, we’ll agree to disagree on that.  You must accept you had some hand in this … you were the catalyst.”

“I certainly like to have a hand in you and if I’m the catalyst then you’re certainly the cat.”

Lisa gave a meow.  She liked these games with Alex.  It reminded her how bright he was and yet it was also a kind of verbal foreplay.  Alex held the door for Lisa and they walked inside.  Her arrival seemed to attract the attention of various men and women at a number of tables and she realised it was busier than she had expected.  With that thought, Lisa found she had a feeling of déjà vu that shook her for an instant.  Then a sudden jolt of arousal came over her as her thighs brushed together.  For a moment she worried she was going to drop her new phone.  She looked around trying to get her orientation.

“Any tables?”  Alex asked.

“For the two of you?”  The man behind the bar asked.

“Yes.”

“There’s a couple back there,” he gestured through to the back of the pub, “by the window or by the fire, depending on what you prefer.”

“Thanks.”  Alex responded, “Come babe, we’ve got one.”

Lisa followed on rather dimly, her mind filled with so much: loving being here with Alex as a couple; loving the clothes she wore and the attention they got her; above all how sexually excited she felt.  It was the tantalising of not being able to reveal too much while she was here and hunger of wanting to have Alex once more grasping her, licking, sucking, penetrating her sexy body that pushed her so far.  As she stepped forward, following her lover, Lisa closed her eyes.