Page 16 of Audacity

‘I hope you can tell me how the fuck this thing is going to work, because I haven’t got a bloody clue.’

She sets down her glass, narrowing her eyes. ‘Please tell me you’re not talking about your dick, because that would be very disappointing.’

I bark out a shocked laugh, both at the fact that she’s gone there so soon and at her perfectly deadpan delivery. My guffaw is loud enough that a woman at the nearest table glances over in alarm.

‘No. I’m pretty well versed in how that works.’

‘Are you sure?’ She arches a perfectly groomed eyebrow. ‘You can take the guy out of the priesthood…’

So this is how it’s going to be. I needn’t worry about transitioning from our mostly formal conversation yesterday to something darker and hotter and slicker, because she’s already setting the tone. It makes sense, I suppose. I’d hardly expect her to clutch her pearls.

‘I promise. Anton’s had me in training for this.Hard.’

At Anton’s name, something flickers across her face. Agitation, maybe. She looks a little flustered. ‘That’s one hell of a visual,’ she murmurs, and I shake my head, diverted.

‘He signed me up to Alchemy.’

‘Oh, yes. That’ll do the trick.’

We’re silent again for a moment, then she says, ‘In terms of how this works, the answer is that it works however you’d like it to work, and it can be fluid.’

I nod. ‘Without breaking confidentiality, can you give me any idea of how you’ve managed in the past?’

‘It really depends on my employer. I’ve only had four placements so far. Some of them liked the kink factor, obviously. As in, the actual fact that they were paying me to fuck them whenever they wanted was the primary appeal.’

I nod again, reaching desperately for my champagne flute. Jesus. Having this conversation sober and dispassionately and face to face with this beautiful, sexy woman will be harder than I’ve anticipated. I wonder if she can see how out of my depth I am.

‘Often, I’m a tool. An upper or a downer. In the same way that leaders with a lot of responsibility might deal with it by snorting coke, or drinking too early in the day, or having a masseur or a chiropractor or a PT, depending on how health-conscious they are, other guys use women like me to screw it all out of their system. They need to fluff themselves up beforea big meeting—they fuck me. They need to celebrate a win or get over a bad meeting—they fuck me. It’s amazing just how many professional headaches can be eliminated by an excellent blowjob.’

She pauses, and I focus very hard on not reacting outwardly, because the fact that my reality will soon consist of a woman who looks like Athena getting on her knees for me whenever I want during the working day is really breaking my brain.

‘Some guys want me as a trophy. And,’ she continues with an elegant little shrug, ‘some guys just want efficiency. Or productivity. The ones who are less patient than you, naturally.’

She gives me a teasing smile that I find I like a lot. She didn’t smile much yesterday, but she’s undoubtedly more mellow this evening.

‘You talked a good game about productivity yesterday, Athena. But the way you look is going to be by far the biggest risk to any productivity I might have.’

‘You’d be surprised.’ She licks her lips. ‘Don’t underestimate me—or yourself. All those transition reports I said I could draw up for you? You can read them while I’m under your desk, sucking yo?—’

I lean forward, cutting her off. When I speak, my eyes are on her little pink mouth and my voice is lower, gruffer, than I’ve intended. ‘If you think I’d be able to focus onanythingbut you when you were getting me off, you are far more naïve than I thought you were. Remember what I told you? Sometimes slow is way better.’

The smile she shoots me is self-satisfied. ‘So thatwasan innuendo yesterday. You were fucking with me. I couldn’t be completely sure.’

I sigh. ‘A parish priest has to be almost as patient as a lifer in prison. I was telling the truth. I am a patient man.’ A pause. ‘Butyeah, I was fucking with you. Just a little bit. I wanted to see if I could get a rise out of you.’

‘I like that.’ She hesitates and looks down, twirling the stem of her glass between her fingers. ‘As soon as you said that, I imagined your mouth between my legs and your hand on my stomach, holding me down while you took your time with me.’

A muscle clenches, low and insistent, in my belly.

I realise she’s paid to do this. I realise it's her job, and she’s very, very good at it. I realise she’s essentially an echo chamber for my ego and my desires.

But God if it doesn’t feel real when she says things like that.

More pertinently, real or not, it seems like it’s going to happen tonight.

‘Good. I wanted you to imagine that, because I was imagining that too.’

She looks up at me, her face rapt. ‘I was a little worried you’d be holier than thou.’

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