Wage Slave Read online

  “As serious as you want to be. I have only a percentage interest in your not frittering away valuable time and talent in the supermarket. Art supplies? Fine. Browse all you want. But baked beans and bacon belong to Deborah. You asked and I’ve given you my opinion. Don’t like it, don’t take it. But - and it is a big but - you may be my favourite artist, BUT if the work deteriorates my loss will be small compared with yours. The wrong decision, or none at all, could ruin a fruitful career,” Peter stated with finality.

  “I have to do something. I suppose,” Adam mused, conceding to himself that Peter’s words rung with the knell of truth. “It just seems so extreme.”

  “SO IS BANKRUPTCY! Think about it. Give yourself time to rationalise the situation. If you want to talk it out, ring me. Any time.” Peter laughed gruffly: “And I mean that, Adam. Any time. As a friend. Okay?”

  “Right,” Adam agreed, consoled by the offer. He and Peter had always skirted the fringes of friendship, though he sensed that it was only because there had never been sufficient cause to justify the juggling of personal and professional priorities. Now there was, he, Adam, considered the step as natural as confiding one’s phobias to an emphatic counsellor.

  Unexpectedly relieved by Peter’s sincere if somewhat tangential contribution, it was some time before Adam realised he was frozen In an attitude of rapt attention with the burr of the dialling tone in his cowed ear.

  ***

  By that time Debbie was in the doldrums. the well of tears having dried up She knew that from there on in, it would be a question of survival and marshalling her resources for the onslaught. Adam’s rage had contained an edge, a keenness never before evident in the tiffs. She guessed it was due to frustration: at his failure to anticipate her irresponsibility and then respond effectively once It was apparent Debbie only hoped he hadn’t detected her own response: for she had experienced an emotional maelstrom which shook her to the ovaries. Crying not as a woman before an indignant husband but a girl before a disillusioned father.

  Her guilt had been so overwhelming that only an effort of will had kept her from clinging to his knees and begging forgiveness Not that she didn’t want it, but surely such a display could only have ruined their relationship. For what man wanted an ineffectual child as a wife? Debbie decided her turmoil was best left to find its own equilibrium and that would most easily be achieved by taking her mind off things in her usual manner. So, gathering her kit plus a few extras snatched up on the spur of the moment, she crept unnoticed out of the flat and set off to the health club and an afternoon of strain, pain and gain.

  Arch-buddy Heather was already there, voluptuous curves contrasting incongruously with her sweet, butter-wouldn’t-melt face. In reality, Heather was an angel-faced man-eater with the predatory instincts of a Great White Shark. Rumour had it that, like the Great White, she was capable of swallowing her victim whole. Indeed, some men laid proud claim to having suffered just such ingestion, though Debbie knew it for macho bull-shitting. Heather’s genuine victims never fucked and told; not unless they wanted denigrating stories of their sexual prowess spread abroad. Heather was a strong believer in taking her pleasures hot, heaving, but above all honourably. Her perspicacity, however, was a less apocryphal legend among her female cohorts, sensing emotional trauma at greater distances than the Great White smells blood. No sooner had Debbie pushed open the changing room door than the inquisition began.

  “Okay, let’s have it. What’s he done?”

  “Nothing,” responded Debbie.

  “Course not.

  “No. Really.

  “That’s the reason for the poached-egg eyes, I suppose?”

  “Adam hasn’t done anything.”

  Heather smirked crudely: “What should he have done?”

  “Heather!”

  “You, then? Ah!” The note of triumph. ‘Money? It couldn’t really be sex with you two stoats.”

  “Adam destroyed my credit card.

  “Wow. Tell all,” Heather demanded.

  Debbie did.

  Heather being Heather, withholding details only sent her for the thumb-screws. so the story was uncensored. By the time Debbie straightened up in her garishly fashionable outfit of lemon yellow tights, shocking pink leotard, cerulean sweatband and fluorescent orange trainers. Heather knew as much as she.

  “Hmmm, Heather murmured. “Come on, let’s have it out,” and led the way to the aerobics salon where, forty-five minutes later, the two women leaned on each other’s shoulders breathing heavily.

  “Well?” asked Debbie.

  “Beats me,” Heather shrugged. “Massage?”

  While oiled fingers kneaded and teased at knotted muscles, Debbie suffered her habitual envy at the sight of Heather’s generous proportions. Men had it easy, she thought, only worrying about the size of their cocks and indifferent to the thickness of their thighs, the puffiness of their hips or the consistency and convexity of their breasts. Pigs! To make matters worse, she well knew that Heather admired Debbie’s own svelte figure and dismissed her classic Marilyn Monroe aerodynamics as verging on the tubby. Men again! Always that same unspoken fear that secretly ‘he’ might really prefer the other sort of build. Were they worth it?

  Heather raised her blonde head to peer intently into Debbie’s eyes.

  “You really love that man, don’t you?” She smiled at the answering sigh. “Then nothing can be that bad. He certainly thinks every star in the universe shines out of your fanny.” There was a long pause, then Heather added, more seriously: “Trust him, babe. Yourself, too. Feelings aren’t wrong. Ever. Leave manipulation to those of us who enjoy the game, and be honest with the guy. Remember, once you start building a wall it only needs one brick to trip the pair of you up.”

  While they showered, Heather made only light conversation so as not to spoil Debbie’s prurient mood. She even refrained from comment when Debbie laid out the things she’d picked up on the not-so-spur of the moment as she’d perhaps thought, for Heather decided she couldn’t have given better advice herself. Even when Debbie was dressed she only said: “Wearing the tracksuit over them? Good.”

  They parted with a subliminal message of “Thanks” and “You’re welcome” flashing between them

  By the time she arrived home, some of Debbie’s nervousness had returned, stage-fright replacing post-exercise languor. She took a deep breath, opened the front door and, head high, waited.

  Nothing.

  No charging, enraged husband. No bellowed demand to know where she’d been. Not so much as a crumpled ego left out for Ironing.

  Nothing.

  Had he taken off, too? Or gone to sleep, maybe? But the bedroom door was ajar and she could see the empty bed .Her eyes strayed timorously across every flat surface in search of a ‘Dear Jane’ letter. Ah! A sound from the bathroom. A clink and splash? Dear God, he was cutting his wrists! Leaping to the door she threw it open.

  ‘Hi,” said Adam, a big grin on his face as he looked up from the piece of cloth he was examining. “Here, d’you like ‘em?” Climbing to his feet he stood with soapy water running down his heat flushed legs. Holding a pair of tan boxer shorts across his middle, he displayed the motif, a facsimilied Post Office stamp reading ‘First Class’. Reversing them, he showed her the stencilled seat: ‘Plain Brown Wrapper’, and awaited her approving laugh.

  “What was the bang?” she demanded.

  “Bang?”

  “A bang and a splash!”

  “Oh.” Adam bent and probed the sudsy depths around his ankles. “This? I dropped it,” he explained, holding up a small tin can with the lid ripped back. “It’s what the pants came in. You know, canned undies.” And he watched, dumbfounded, as Debbie snorted and slammed out. It was definitely a day for door slamming, he thought.

  It opened again.

  “I ... I though
t ...” she stammered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry. Forget it.” This time she left the door open.

  Adam decided he might as well get out of the bath as top up the hot water. Pulling the plug, he sat on the bath side to mop himself off. Over the gurgle of escaping water, minor sounds came from the living room; indeterminate indications of activity. Detecting a flash of colour at the periphery of his vision, he glanced up in time to see Debbie’s trainers bounce onto the sofa. Her sports socks followed, falling as bright slashes on the maroon cushion. Then, silence.

  He paused expectantly, watching the doorway. Just when the temptation to call out was almost unendurable, the purple tracksuit flew past to bundle softly against the window and drop in a tangle of emptiness. Satisfied, he returned to his task. When Debbie spoke, he didn’t look up.

  “It reminds me of the Labrador I had as a girl.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Goldie - the Labrador - used to lie on the sofa and sleep with her head hanging over the edge. Soggy lipped. Her tongue drooping down. It reminds me of her.”

  “What does, love?”

  “Your dick. When it thinks it isn’t being watched. Just sort of hangs there. Peaceful, but potent. And prone to dribble.”

  Adam’s instinctive glance down constricted his throat, so that the guffaw which burst from him detoured up his sinuses and erupted as a painful nasal snort. He straightened just in time for the next explosion to throw him backwards across the tub.

  “Ha! Ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.” The laughter grew until he teetered helplessly over the enamel chasm, hands sliding on the damp rim, legs throw out to regain his balance. Clawing back to a sitting position, Adam wiped the tears from his eyes and looked up at Debbie, who stood in the doorway smiling quietly. “Nice one,” he murmured, as his brain registered what he was seeing and his jaw dropped in comical amazement. A strangled hiss was all that squeezed past his paralysed palate.

  She was wearing ‘that skirt’! The silver lame one she’d bought to model for ... never mind ! A twelve inch swathe of wrap-around gloss, pleated like a real tennis skirt. How had the mail order catalogue described it: ‘Make every service an ace’? Yes, that was it. ‘Stop those passing shots. Keep your man in every time, for a love-all score.’ Two days’ work had been ruined because he’d had his finger on the airbrush control when she’d made that remark about stuffing his balls up her knicker leg. History was made that day - the only time he ever came in his trousers!

  The micro-skirt was teamed with a white leotard whose slender straps rested feather light on her shoulders. The bodice clung skin-tight to her torso slavishly obedient to the gentle curve of the small breasts peaking delicately on the succulent nipples. Clasping her slender waist, it peeped from below the skirt in a beckoning promise. While his eyes followed the inexorable path to her crux - warm and safe in the oh-so-tender of her thighs - Adam saluted the lissom beauty in his equally habitual way: Debbie’s athletic poise was nothing if not habit forming. His heat flush became more elemental, climbing like mercury towards his scalp. And with it rose his cock.

  Debbie’s lips pursed. Three paces and she stood before him. Unhooking the skirt. she ran the gleaming platinum cloth teasingly through her fingers before folding and lowering it gently to where the ramrod throbbed. It hung like a scarf on a hook, shrouding the straining circumcised crown. Adam gasped with pleasure and gnawed his lip. There was always something; a surprise; some small unlikely gesture which caught him unawares. As Debbie straightened up and stood, feet apart, hands confidently as her sides: he wallowed in the view, the towel falling from his nerveless grasp.

  Divested of the skirt, what remained was not in fact a leotard, but a Teddy. One he hadn’t seen before. Of silky polyester. Matt, but marvellous to the touch. A frotteur’s delight. The high cut, scalloped legs brushing her hips suggestively. Free of elasticated knickers, her legs acquired fragile vulnerability that Adam ached to respond to; just as soon as he’d looked his full. For the centre-piece was most rivetting of all. From the indented navel the garment stretched flush with her belly, arching over the hispid mound to sweep from view with a hint of sexual cleavage. And just there, out of sight against her treasured place, nestled the key no leotard possessed - was Teddies button at the crotch!

  “Come here,” he croaked, snatching for thighs which nimbly evaded and skipped out the door. He followed, the silver stole slipping from its perch and freeing the bobbing cock to peer for its prey - an air-to-air missile tracking a heat source. Arms outstretched like a beater aiding the stalk, Adam trailed behind his dogged Nimrod prompting Debbie’s jigging figure into ever more provocative gyrations as she climbed and dodged and leaped.

  “That’s my girl, get ‘em bouncing. Don’t worry about jogger’s nipple, I’ll soon have that problem licked.” As she turned to vault the sofa: “Neat bum. But don’t open ‘em so wide; might catch a chill. Mind you ...” his fingertips brushed a heel as she tripped “... I’ve got the cure for that, too: a nice hot poultice.”

  “Dirty beast.

  “Recommended by doctors. ‘Specially Masters and Johnson,” he laughed as she squirmed away, dodging into the bedroom. “Fee, fi, fo fum,” Adam sang, “here is where I get to come. And you get y’cummupance, me gel.” He advanced like wicked Uncle Silas intent on stealing her favours.

  “Oh, sir,” falsettoed Debbie. “Would you ravish a helpless maid?”

  “It’s me duty, gel.”

  ‘I - I ... I feel faint, sir. The prospect makes me feel quite weak.”

  “A damsel in distress! Pray allow me to offer you support. Come, sit upon my shooting stick.”

  “Why, thank you, sir. My, it’s such a handsome one!”

  “Take a closer look, me dear.”

  “Gladly.” Debbie sat on the bed, knees wide. Taking his penis between finger and thumb, she raised the shiny bulb. A squeeze opened the slit. “My. sir,” she breathed. “What a dark, brooding eye he has. And see, he stirs so forlornly. Has he a troubled soul?”

  Adam firmly removed her hand. “No, Deb. But I will if we don’t slow down.” Taking her face in his hands, he guided her further onto the bed and lay beside her, hips drawn warily back. Slowly, he kissed her.

  For long breathless minutes they lay, stroking and searching. Sweat welled and ran and dripped as they disrobed and pleasured each other like first-time lovers. Soon her nipples stood hard through the cloth saturated by his nipping. sucking mouth. His balls lay tender in her cool, reflective fingers while she lightly caressed the bulging sac. Thigh teased thigh as bodies fought to conquer restraining minds - in vain. And slowly the relentless pressure built,

  until:

  “Now,” husked Debbie. “Please,’’ her need as strong as his.

  Rising, she knelt astride his belly, hands behind her on his thighs, hips thrust out to give him access. Panting, Adam tore at the buttoned gusset, hearing her gasp as he dragged on hair. Pushing his urgent fingers through, he ripped the buttons off! Freed, the Teddy shrivelled to her waist revealing all her succour to his devouring gaze: the tangled auburn hair, glinting with gold and orange highlights: the moistened lips, swollen and distended: the bright pink core of slick, voracious sex. Reaching round, he cupped her cheeks and pulled, bringing the musky vale towards his drooling mouth “No!” she cried, pleading to be free. As he complied she caught his prick and raised it, brushing the bursting glans against her clit.

  “Uuuuuh!” groaned Adam, as the red hot tip slid, squishing, in her quim.

  Eyes locked, breath rasping in their throats, Debbie took the plunge, working his aching length Inside her streaming sheath. Their matted hair twined like velcro as she bumped and ground their pubic bones together. Almost at once it started. at her knees. rising like a ripple through a pool of cream. Until, with one ball-basting shriek, Debbie came shuddering, heaving, clenching rou
nd his cock.

  Locked onto target, his missile found its mark. Scalding liquid torrented forth, filling her thirsty depths. Drowned in joy, everything was light and colour as he bucked. Sated, they rolled and lay together. content for him to wither on the vine. Their breathing slowed. They slept.

  ***

  Waking together, still entwined, his flaccid cock nested neatly in her thighs, they shared a lingering look.

  Adam could never in one lifetime have expressed his love for Debbie, his frankly abject adoration for each curve and plane texture. His regard for her beggared description: in all areas save one!

  She smiled at him: “Thanks for the celebration.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Mine, too. Believe me.”

  “Good.” Gently, Adam untangled himself and sat up, stretching happily. “Ah, well. Can’t stay here forever.”

  “Why not?”

  He sighed and gave her an oddly distant look.

  “There’s something I have to do.”

  “Me?”

  He patted her thigh: “Later. Right now I’d better make a phone call. Get it over with.”

  “To whom?”

  “Peter Wardle.

  Chapter Two

  “Smith?”

  “?”

  “Does it say ‘Smith?’” Adam demanded tetchily.

  “Back up a bit. I can’t see.”

  Adam and Debbie were both possessively fond of their aged camper, Viktor the VeeWee. But their diverse redirections led to occasional contretemps. For instance, overshooting the target was a frequent consequence of Debbie’s hesitant navigation, leaving Adam to back up although almost blinded by the net curtains she insisted on drawing over all but the cab windows. A problem he now faced.

  “This is a winding single track road,` he announced unnecessarily but understandably. “And I can’t see clearly. Unless ...” he added wickedly, “... you want to take down the nearside curtains? No? Then just get out and see me into the gateway. Please!”