Fallen Angels and other stories

by Chloe Thurlow

Genres: Fantasy Romance

Synopsis

A collection of six erotic novellas detailing the sexual adventures of women on both sides of the Atlantic. From a bored housewife who discovers her kinky side via a steamy affair to the university student who enters a secret world of girl-on-girl pleasure, these characters are not afraid to act on their darkest and most powerful sexual desires.

Release date: April 3, 2017

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 300

Sample

Michelle pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and looked around, as if someone might be watching. Her eyes ran along the rail of costumes – Little Red Riding Hood, a nun, Marie-Antoinette with a plunging neckline, a schoolgirl with a tartan skirt and a blouse cut to reveal everything normally kept hidden.

In the corner hung a selection of red and black dominatrix outfits; rubber suits with zippers in strange places, and masks that covered the entire head. In a display case lit by pale green light was an array of what were called ball-gags, canes, whips, handcuffs, and a saddle with stirrups, to serve what purpose she didn’t even want to imagine.

Her throat had gone dry. Her heart pounded like she’d just jogged the eight miles from her house to the end of the beach. Her armpits tingled. Since that day, six months ago, when she’d found on her husband’s iPhone some photographs of a Chinese girl who looked as though she had barely left school, sex had raised its voice like an echo from the past; like a jingle you can’t get out of your head; like a fixation that has to be fed. She had never liked the idea of affairs. They were so vulgar, so predictable.

But that was then. This was now.

She stared at the display of love’s weapons of war. She was holding her breath, and wondered if she was ready to take this stride into the unknown.

Michelle glanced at the flight of stairs that descended to the basement. Oliver had arrived from New York mid-morning and they had followed the GPS straight to the seedy stretch of East Hampton where Jaxx Masquerade – the sign in pink neon – occupied the corner opposite the gas station.

He had given her instructions not to descend those stairs, and she had become used to obeying. He had a surprise for her, he’d said, and surprises fall flat if you can guess what they are.

Flat. That was the word that described her life, until she’d met Oliver. Flat as a flapjack, flat as her marriage. She had been with Paul for 15 years. It was hardly any wonder he was bored with her. She was bored with him. She was bored with herself. Love has to be renewed, not just replayed.

Melissa and Marcus had just started boarding school, contented, doing OK, no drug problems, as far as she knew. Her role was to organise the holidays, pay the bills from the house allowance, call the pool man, the plumber, the gardener. She jogged every day – the closest she got to an orgasm – and gossiped over low-cal lunches with Bonnie, Hester, Honey and Justine, who had introduced her to the 5:2 diet: five days eating normally, two days fasting; something she had kept up until Oliver said: if you don’t eat every day, you lose the will to live. He had a wise head for one so young. Young! She hated that word.

* * *

He emerged from the lower floor, carrying two black boxes tied in red ribbon. He had a smile on his full lips, a swag of hair like a curtain had fallen over one eye and, in the brilliant, aquamarine blue of the visible eye, she could see a look of satisfaction. Oliver had freckles in constellations on his cheekbones, a wide jaw, and broad shoulders. He looked boyish in a white T-shirt without decals or slogans, a brown leather jacket, Levis that stretched snugly over a gloriously round backside, and a wide leather belt. He was 27 and did something in IT that he’d explained the first time they’d had dinner together and she’d sat naked across the table from him with no idea what he was talking about.

He shook his head to toss his hair back.

‘Don’t ask,’ he said.

‘Will I get a spank if I do?’

‘If that’s what you want?’

‘You have no idea what I want.’

He paused mid-step to look at her more closely. ‘Then again, perhaps I do,’ he said, and jerked the boxes so that the top one rose into the air and came down again with a slap.

‘Are they presents for me?’ she asked.

‘No ...’ he replied. ‘You are so spoiled.’

‘Me, spoiled?’ Michelle lowered her Ray-Bans; it was mid-winter, the sun just a glimmer, but she looked good in shades.

She held the door for him and remembered her mother once saying, ‘Never, hold a door for a man. Always say yes when you mean to say no and say no when you mean to say yes.’ It wasn’t bad advice and her mother, having lost her third husband the previous year, was still living by it among the widower bridge players of Palm Beach. Was that her destiny, to follow in the footsteps of her mother?

Michelle’s breath steamed in the icy air and she snuggled into her jacket, grey fur to match grey Armani jeans and black boots. Oliver placed the boxes – they were the size of cases for six bottles of wine – side by side in the back of the car, a black Jeep, and took a grip on her collar. His eyes sparkled.

‘I love you in this coat,’ he said. ‘Fur suits you.’

He kissed her, in the street, in the open, for the world to see. A trucker pulling into the gas station blasted his air horn. He gave them a sign; she wasn’t sure what it meant. Oliver stroked her back, her butt. She purred and he closed the trunk with a decisive snap.

‘Shall we?’ he added, and opened the car door for her to climb in.

He accelerated out of East Hampton, headed for the highway, and she watched the needle on the speedometer climb to 75. He was taking risks. So was she. She thought of the boxes behind them as a ticking bomb and played a mind game, imagining being stopped by the cops and shamed by their contents.

So, tell me, lady, what’s inside the boxes?

I really have no idea.

Let’s take a look, then, shall we?

Michelle caught a glimpse of her reflection in the side window. She was smiling. She had a feeling that whatever it was that lay hidden in the black boxes was going to be life-changing; that she was at the beginning of a journey, destination unknown. She ran her palm over Oliver’s leg. Wherever he was taking her, she was ready; ready for anything.

He took the beach road, and the couple jogging on the dunes reminded Michelle of how it came to pass that she was sitting beside Oliver Doyle with a surprise fizzing in the trunk.

It was a coincidence, but more than a coincidence. It was the act of fate she had known was waiting for her since that day when she found the images of the sweet-faced girl on her husband’s phone and it struck her that the babe in the little black dress was not a buyer, a sales agent, a business associate.

How did she know they were lovers? She knew because Paul had started to be polite, kind, considerate; when love’s gone, kindness replaces it. Those last months when he was home he had been so pleasant that her life felt flatter than ever.

Why didn’t she say something? She didn’t because Justine had advised her not to. ‘Wait and see,’ she’d said. ‘Email the photos to yourself and keep them hidden. Remember, darling, he probably has everything in his name. If he wants out, make sure he pays for it.’

It struck a chord. He had built up his business while she brought up the children. As Justine had astutely guessed, every cent was tied up in complicated companies and offshore accounts. She was not in a strong position; his brother was a lawyer, for heaven’s sake. Paul – Paul Goss – made gloves: fur, leather, and sheepskin lined with alpaca, cashmere, and lamb’s wool. Luxury goods looking for new markets. He had a design office in Manhattan, manufactured in Guatemala, and did most of his trade in China. It was one world, now, and everyone in it was getting younger.

Michelle’s escape was running as if to flee from the past, from the monotony of the present, from the void of the future. She had been in training for the New York Marathon for a year. She was stuck on an obstinate 4.20 and knew if she didn’t break four hours with the roar of the crowd behind her, she never would.

Paul, as always, was away that November day when the runners gathered for the start of the race at Staten Island. Fifty thousand competitors, the field stretching out as they crossed Brooklyn and Queens, the crowds shouting encouragement, the cold disappearing as her heart pumped and her legs pounded like pistons.

She reached Queensboro Bridge and realised she had completed two-thirds of the course. Only the home stretch across Manhattan was in front of her.

Come on, girl, you can do it.

She was running behind a club team: six guys and two girls in pale blue. She had maintained a pace faster than she was used to and had made up the twenty minutes she needed. She was in the zone. She was cruising. She glanced at her watch, and that moment, when she felt a wave of confidence, the wind whipped the sweat from her cheeks, her legs turned to rubber, and she hit the wall, confidence meeting calamity.

It was over.

Another small failure she’d have to put behind her. Her head dropped back, as if she were trying to draw air out of the universe. Her chest was on fire and she was about to stumble when she felt an arm steadying her shoulders.

‘Slowly now. Slowly. Deep breaths. Take the next step. Go slow. One more step. You don’t need to worry about finishing. Just take the next step.’

His voice was smooth as cream, American, but there was that soft burr of the Irish.

‘That’s it. One more step. Don’t think about your legs. Think about the finishing line. You keep thinking about that, just the finishing line, and you’re going to reach it.’

Her breath started to come easier. By the time they’d crossed Queensboro, she’d found her rhythm and the runner stayed at her side, whispering words of comfort all the way to a 3.57 finish in Central Park. She was dead. She was exhilarated. She was a mess. Again, Michelle was about to topple, and it felt good when she dropped into his arms, their damp bodies sticking like glue, like two halves of something.

They drank sugar-water. He wrapped her in a silver sheet. He held her close, so close she could feel the swelling bulge through her shorts. Her breath caught. This isn’t right, she thought. But it felt right. It felt good. She pressed back. Her legs were shaking. Her body seemed to move involuntarily against him. She felt him harden, and a zip of pleasure passed from her groin and ran like a charge of electricity through her entire body. She wanted him, now, on the frosty November grass with the crowds all around them. Watching. She gulped and swallowed air. Her cheeks were flushed and she eased herself away.

‘Thank you. Thank you. I wouldn’t have made it without you.’

‘First time I’ve come in under four. I don’t think I would have done it without you,’ he replied.

They looked at each other, red-faced, sweating, at their worst, and there was that, what was the word, that frisson, that ... something.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Michelle. Michelle Goss.’

‘Oliver Doyle.’

‘You really saved me ...’

‘Sometimes, people just need a little boost, that’s all.’

‘It was my dream.’

Michelle wanted to hold him again but, where it had felt right, now it would be wrong. She had not been aware of the cheers and applause as more runners finished the course. It was like the volume had been turned down, and now it went up again, swallowing their words.

‘Under four,’ she said, and he said the same.

‘Under four.’

They laughed. They swapped phone numbers. She drove home and next day she had lunch with Justine. She was aching all over, not just her legs, but her back, her arms, her shoulders, the soles of her feet, her toes. Even her teeth.

She ordered a bottle of champagne.

‘You are, like, so glowing,’ Justine said.

‘I broke four hours.’

‘In the bedroom?’

‘No ...’

‘Sounds amazing, whatever it means. You are such a star, Michelle. I’m totally jealous.’

‘I wouldn’t have done it, but some guy just kind of carried me along.’

‘Handsome?’

‘You really know how to cut to the chase. Yes, staggering, black Irish ...’

Justine’s eyes grew bigger and her mouth dropped open in that are you kidding me? kind of look.

‘Jet black hair, brilliant blue eyes, freckles, muscles.’ Michelle sighed. ‘Gorgeous.’

‘About time.’

‘For what?’

‘What’s good for the ... whatever, is good for the ... whatever. Right? Paul and his Chinese whore. Did you exchange numbers?’

There was a pause, and Justine leaned closer, eyes big again.

‘You did.’

‘I did.’

‘You don’t exchange numbers unless you’re planning to call someone.’

‘It’s just a courtesy, Justine. He’s a boy. He’s like twenty ...’

‘How old are you?’

I’m not going to tell you. I don’t tell anyone.’

‘How old do you think I am?’

Michelle looked back across the table. Justine had dark, curly hair, thick, arched eyebrows, and cheeks symmetrically carved in a line to her little, round chin. Her lips were full, bowed and shiny red. Her nose was like a decoration you might find on a cupcake and she had big, shiny brown eyes that had seen everything.

‘No idea.’

‘Forty-one,’ Justine said.

‘I don’t believe you. You look ... thirty, tops.’

‘Thank you, all compliments weighed and considered. You haven’t told me.’

‘Thirty-seven.’

‘That’s a baby. You haven’t even started yet.’

‘But he’s a boy.’

‘There is nothing like a younger man – the scent, the feel, the flesh.’ She took a breath. ‘The stamina.’

‘I didn’t know you were such an expert.’

‘Give me your fingers. Here, touch my skin.’

Michelle did so. ‘It’s really soft.’

‘Honey, that ain’t face cream.’

‘You’re not saying ...’

‘I’m not saying anything. Now, give me your phone.’

‘What?’

‘I mean it. I’m older than you. I know how these things work. Give me your phone.’

Michelle handed it over. She was happy to delegate the responsibility to Justine. It was nothing to do with her.

‘Name?’ she asked.

‘Oliver Doyle.’

She scrolled, she pressed, she listened for the ring, and then she passed the phone back to Michelle.

He answered.

He drove out the following Saturday. She cancelled a dinner. She gave the maid the weekend off. She trimmed her pubes, filed her nails, checked there was no grey in her dark hair, and stared at her naked body full-length in the mirror. Not bad. Not twenty. But not bad. Perky breasts. Hips round, with hipbones that pushed into her white flesh like fingertips into a balloon, a curved bottom, long legs with muscles and strong thighs; thin, delicate shoulders, lips she painted with Dior and teeth Dr Silverstone kept white, straight, and pristine.

She took a long time staring into her closet.

‘Who am I?’ she said aloud and grinned.

I am a woman about to have an affair. An affair. Just the word was exciting. I have a lover – well, I am going to have a lover, and he’s young, handsome, and he bullied me through the New York Marathon in under four hours.

She chose an ivory-coloured shirt with cross ties, red velvet trousers as snug as a Paul Goss glove, and red heels. She wore a simple gold necklace, drop ear-rings, and pinned her hair up, the stray strands artfully falling from the tortoiseshell clip and giving her the wanton look of a woman ready to be wild.

He liked what he saw. A woman always knows. He was casual: jeans, leather jacket, a white shirt, a big grey woollen scarf. They kissed, lightly, nervously. How do you start these things? Should I lead the way? I am the eldest, after all. Or should I wait for him? She felt like a teenager: nervous, excited, happy.

‘Are you hungry?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘What would you like?’

‘You know the answer to that, Michelle.’

Yes, she knew the answer. She tried to think of something witty. But her mind was blank. She was a virgin. Practically. At least when it came to affairs. He was younger than her and older than her. He glanced about the room: the photos and paintings, the Chinese figurines, the Turkish rugs.

‘Would you like to see the rest of the house?’ she asked, and he grinned.

‘Only your bedroom.’

There. He had said it. Taken the lead. A 26-mile run, one hug – one very erotic hug – one telephone call, and they were climbing the staircase with its bird prints in blue frames on saffron wallpaper. The bedroom was at the back of the house and looked out over trees, a pool covered for winter, a stretch of grass where on sunny days she could practice yoga in private. Dark now, cold with sparkles of frost.

He took her in his arms. They kissed and, as they kissed, Michelle realised that no one had kissed her for a long time, a very long time. Yes, pecks on her cheek from her children, from Paul, from friends; they were always kissing. But not kissing.

His tongue glided into her mouth. Her tongue glided into his mouth. He untied the ties on her shirt and released the catch on her bra. He unzipped the zipper on her velvet pants and slid his hands below her white silk panties with satin bows that she had imagined him admiring before he took them off. He clutched the soft skin of her backside and squeezed hard, the pressure driving air through her body and out through her lips in a long, trembling sigh. She caught a glimpse of the photo of Paul in his tennis kit across the room and the stab of guilt made the feeling of Oliver Doyle holding her all the more carnal.

She slipped down to the bed so he could remove her shoes, her red pants, her panties with satin bows. She was with a man 17 years younger than her, and she thought about something Justine had said: why had she waited so long? She was naked, finally, and being naked, with this stranger she didn’t know and knew nothing about, made her nipples harden.

He stood there, waiting for her to unbuckle his belt, unsnap the button at the top of his jeans, lower the zipper. He was wearing white shorts and when his cock emerged from the folds she hesitated only long enough to admire this thing, this creature that is man, this work of art, this object with a will of its own. His cock was long, wide, the head pale pink, and it felt as smooth as porcelain as it slid between her lips and down her throat.

‘That’s it, slowly now, up and down, up and down. Don’t think, just go with the flow,’ he said and she remembered the way he had encouraged her with his velvety voice as they crossed the Queensboro Bridge.

She paused for breath. She flicked her tongue across the indent at the tip of his cock and softly squeezed the sack of his balls. He sighed. He liked that. She dropped to her knees. She pulled his jeans and boxers down to his feet. He tossed his jacket on a chair, removed his T-shirt and took hold of the hair at the nape of her neck before setting her back in motion.

‘Open your eyes, look up at me,’ he said and she did.

Michelle could hear the whoosh and slap of flesh against flesh. She held the globes of his backside and slid rhythmically up and down the length of his cock, her mouth expanding and contracting, her senses pricked by the scent of roses. She hadn’t done this for a long time, longer than she could recall, but, she thought, it’s like ... Like swimming. You don’t forget. It’s natural, it’s feminine. She had no idea why it felt so right but it felt so right; it felt as if she were born to be down on her knees, eyes wide, a beautiful cock sliding in and out of her throat.

The moon stood still. Time was suspended. There was no Paul, no appointments, no past. There was no angst about not living in the present. There was only the present, this moment rolling into the next moment, the warm flesh that filled her mouth as if the elusive ephemera that had been missing from her life, that driving force that had taken her through the marathon in four hours, was there, where it belonged, and the void that held her in its grip had gone. She felt his muscles tense. She thought he was going to come, but he stopped and eased himself away from her.

‘You like that?’ he said, and she nodded.

‘You are so vain,’ she replied, and he laughed.

He removed his shoes and jeans. She pulled back the covers. He stretched out across the middle of the bed, his head propped up on the pillows, legs parted, arms wide, his cock, quaking like a sea anemone, moving with the pulse of his heartbeat. He was lean from running, strong from exercise, those blue eyes like stars in the dim light of the table lamp.

She kissed his mouth, his nose, his chin, the hollow of his throat, his chest with its fine spray of dark hair. He pulled one of the pillows from under his head and pushed it below the pit of his back. He raised his legs and she kneeled like a serving girl at the temple of his cock, which she devoured in one gulp.

‘Slowly, slowly, catch a monkey,’ he whispered.

She did as she was told, her hair falling over her eyes, her breasts bobbing with the movement, her breathing slow and even. She marvelled, in an abstract way, in the back of her mind, at the very design of humanity; how this stranger’s cock fitted her mouth as if it belonged there, as if they were two parts of something, a new key in an old lock. Like a garden that had grown barren and needed the scent of roses to come back to life again.

He cupped her ears and held the side of her head between his palms, directing the motion. She slowed, a spring uncoiling, taking the entire shaft down her throat to her tonsils; slowly down and slowly up, absorbing him until he became a part of her; he belonged to her. She moved like a nodding oil pump, drawing energy from the shaft of his cock and, for a moment, she became weightless, something ethereal released from the will of gravity.

She looked up across his chest and his eyes opened as if he felt her gaze, her feeling of awe and wonder. He watched her rocking up and down, sucking at his cock as if she were a small animal, greedily feeding. Michelle didn’t want to rule the world. She didn’t want to be a business executive, a high flyer. She wanted to be just as she was at that moment, on her knees, nursing his balls between her palms, her breasts swaying, her bottom pushed out, her mouth stretched in a rictus, her tightly clamped lips creating a vacuum, the warmth of her throat warming his essence.

He tensed and his palm clamped over the back of her head.

‘Ah, ah, ah.’

He pu. . .