Lucy's Bedroom

Going Away

No time to blog today, I'm cooking fish pie for eight. It's a bit of a going-away dinner before I head off for Wales tomorrow. I've got a long list of things I'm not allowed to take to the clinic and they include laptops and mobile devices so I shall be out of blogging range for a week. I've set D a challenge while I'm gone to mind the blog as he did once before but this time he has to stick to its alleged topic of sex (this is a bit mean really, as I don't stick to it). He blanched visibly at the prospect, so don't be surprised if you don't hear from him.

I've got one little suitcase, my knitted rabbit and a biography of Emmaline Pankhurst. It doesn't look enough for a week.

Chocolate Frogs

After the 'lost day' yesterday, today I did get up and go to lectures, leaving D to amuse himself, which he did by inviting his friend James round to spend all day in a haze of non-nicotinal smoke with the curtains drawn playing Grand Theft Auto. To be fair to him he also did some shopping. And when I say shopping, he's essentially transported the contents of the deli from their shop to our fridge and filled the fruit bowl with chocolate frogs. He's had worse shopping experiences than this, like the time he came home with six multi-packs of pickled onion flavoured Monster Munch or the time he ordered a gift-wrapped box of cup cakes on line at what worked out (including delivery) to be the bargain price of £3.49 each, so I eat hummous and olives and decide not to mention the frogs.

With James sparked out on the sofa, D comes over all amorous and drags me onto his knee, tickling my waist and burying his nose in my cleavage. I’m feeling headache-y from the smoky room and I wrestle free, pulling my skirt down primly. (Yes, I know, ‘Lucy turns down sex’ shocker. But I just don’t feel like it and besides, with the amount he’s smoked today I have no faith in the staying power of D’s fledgling erection.)

By way of an apology for handcuffing me to St Pancras Station, Andy the Gay Policeman has given me a Sarah Palin t-shirt which he's edited with laundry-marker pen to give her devil's horns. I'm very pleased with this and I'm wearing it sitting up in bed.

Driving Anxiety From The Door

I’m buzzing around the bedroom in my knickers getting ready to go to lectures. D’s in bed looking resentful.

“I don’t know why you bother your fluffy little head with education. You can already make chocolate cake and suck cock, what else do you need to know?”

“I’m putting that in my blog so everyone can see you for the chauvinist swine you really are.”

“Shut up and take your knickers off.”

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you probably already know that this is going to end with D bullying me into staying at home all day rutting like a bitch in heat. Oh, I’ll put up a token resistance but then completely capitulate to his every sordid whim until I end up, bruised and exhausted, with a red bum and a sore throat, typing up today’s entry while D goes to collect takeaway curry (because that’s how much he loves me).

The reason D’s here this week is because I’m spending next week (which is a reading week at university) in a clinic. I’ve had mood swings since my mid teens without ever having a proper diagnosis apart from certain things being discounted – I’m not schizophrenic, delusional or psychotic and I’m probably not bi-polar. This clinic, which is in Wales, is one I spent some time in as a teenager and while it wasn’t an easy ride because I wasn’t there voluntarily, it did help. This time I’m going back voluntarily for a ‘top up’ therapy week and to talk some more about a diagnosis. Nice Dr Griffiths, who’s still there after all these years, wants to follow up his theory that I have cyclothymia, which is bi-polar lite.

So until then we’re driving anxiety from the door with unceasing and disgusting pornographic sex.

I can hear D’s car outside now. I’m having Aloo Mushroom Dansak and Peshwari Naan.

Places Other Than My Thumbs

D is still in London and, with the exception of some time he’ll be spending at his next hospital, he’ll be at my beck and call for most of the week. This is lovely and a huge disincentive to get out of bed in the morning and go to lectures. There’s a nice role reversal to me being the one who has to get up, though. It means that, for a change, I’m the one prodding him awake and nagging for sex.

*prod prod prod*

“Wake up, wake up, I’m naked and horny and gagging for cock.”

“Zzzzzzzzzz”

“Being asleep won’t save you, I’m an evil succubus and I’m going to drain every drop of spunk from your body until it’s a withered husk.”

“Zzzzzzzzzz”

*SMACK*

“You are not asleep, stop pretending you beast!”

And he wasn’t. Either that or he holds the world land speed record for going from completely asleep to snatching hold of his girlfriend’s legs and lifting them up in the air until she’s bent double then fucking her brains out and cumming all over her tits. Either way, I staggered to the shower with a dopey grin on my face.

At lunchtime I texted him.

“Are you out of bed yet?”

“Of course, what sort of idler do you take me for?”

“Send me a picture to prove it.”

“No.”

By the time I got home he had just about managed to drag himself out of bed but not to shower, comb his hair or shave. He looked particularly villainous, an image he did his very best to live up to armed only with the twist ties from a box of freezer bags (applied to my thumbs) and an icily cold cucumber from the fridge (applied to places other than my thumbs).

Dancing

I’m back from the wedding and Joe and Helen will be on their way to New York by now. All weddings are the same so I’ll spare you the blow by blow account. Everyone took 300 photos, small children slid up and down the dancefloor, their faces entirely covered in chocolate cake, Helen’s grandmother, despite being in a wheelchair, insisted on ‘dancing’ to Blondie by being pushed and whirled around and Helen threw her bouquet in my direction but I was looking the wrong way and it just bounced off my head.

Back in our hotel room (which is a turret of the Edwardian pile the reception has been held in), I’m shaking confetti out of my bra and D, who is a little bleary from the free bar, is advancing menacingly, pointing his finger at me.

“You, young lady…”

I’m already giggling and backing away.

“…have been altogether too provocative, gyrating around the dancefloor in that…”

He struggles to find a word to describe my dress.

“…dress, all bare shoulders and…knees…”

I’m backed against a wall and slip past him, squealing. He follows me back round the bed, frowning and wagging his finger threateningly.

“Don’t think I didn’t see you flaunting yourself at strange men…”

This is untrue; I’ve waltzed with my dad, danced to Abba with cousins and carried some small children around the dancefloor while pretending to dance with them. I’ve been the model of rectitude. It’s time to fight back against these vile calumnies.

“It’s only because you never dance with me.”

“Never dance with you? Never dance with you!?! I’ll show you dancing…”

And he snatches up the remote control to switch the television to a radio channel. Unfortunately this turns out to be a discussion of the economy on Radio 4. He switches it off again.

“That’s enough dancing…”

We are in all honesty, a little bit too drunk for anything requiring co-ordination and not starting to snore half way through.

I’m woken the next morning by a blast of icy air. D is sitting by the wide open window with his arm stuck out so his fag doesn’t set off the smoke alarm. It’s only 6 o’clock but we get our first good view of the grounds in daylight – rolling fields and trees and sheep as far as you can see in every direction, and a heavy frost, much sharper and whiter than anything you ever see in London. We’re both wide awake with the cold now and so get hurriedly dressed and go for a walk while we can still have the gardens to ourselves.

There’s a formal garden at the back with topiary and parterres and fountains. We spend quite a bit of time looking for a branch to stick into the fountain at an angle as a frog is struggling in the water – the sides of the fountain too smooth and with an overlapping lip that means it can’t climb out on its own. But we’re too late to help a poor drowned rabbit that gazes up through the water with one milky dead eye fixed on the sky.

On the way round the side of the house and through some woods, we find a summerhouse that various small children are already playing in. We go in and sit down and spend a few minutes being given imaginary cups of tea which we drink appreciatively. Then we are treated to a rendition of ‘The Farmer Comes to Scatter the Seed’ complete with hand actions. I make the mistake of mentioning the very similar song, ‘The Farmer Comes to Scatter the Sheep’, which instantly becomes the funniest thing any four-year-old has ever heard and it quickly develops a number of additional verses in which pigs, horses, chickens and elephants are scattered across the fields of Oxfordshire.

The tune has a vaguely 3/4 time and so, while children sing and giggle and roll on the floor, D waltzes me around the summerhouse.

A Ham Salad And A Crate Of Babycham

We’re off to Oxfordshire for the weekend for my brother Joe’s wedding. I have a hat box, a suitcase, a suit hanger, another suitcase and a Tupperware box filled with cheese and tomato sandwiches. My cat has been sub-let for the weekend to a neighbour and this time I’ve remembered to lock the back door (which I didn’t manage to do when we were in Stratford). I’m staying at the hotel where the reception is being held tonight and D’s meeting me there tomorrow morning.

Last minute panics that I’ve only half-listened to include something to do with a magician (in all honesty this could be something else that just sounds like ‘magician’); the non-appearance of a lace bolero (nope, no idea); and a very polite but nonetheless ferocious argument about crèche facilities.

I think the real problem with this wedding is the fatal English tendency to romanticise the past. The whole thing’s a fantasy of Edwardian elegance. If we’re going to live in the past, why choose Merchant Ivory? Why not choose the black and white working class drabness of early 1960s British films? Why don’t people just nip down the local registry office and then hire a room at the working men’s club? A ham salad, a crate of Babycham and it could all be over by tea time. Of course, then he’d have to spend his early married life sharing the back parlour with his in-laws and a whippet, relived only by solitary walks across the pit head and a quick knee trembler with the local good-time girl in an alley by the gas works. And she’d have to spend her days pegging out baby clothes, drinking milk stout and wearing a head scarf over her rollers. But think of the money they’d save.

St Pancras Station

So today I got handcuffed to some railings. I was having a mild disagreement with Andy the Gay Policeman, who has a black eye and two stitches in the palm of his hand and was, with hindsight, in no mood for this sort of thing. He’s a resourceful man and never without those plastic handcuffs the police use these days in his pocket when off duty (principally for the purposes of kinky gay sex, it has to be admitted, but you never know when they’ll come in handy for something like handcuffing your fag hag girlfriend to St Pancras Station).

In that odd way that accidents seem to happen slowly enough for you to think “Oh, now I’m falling over”, I had enough time to stand and watch him cuff my right wrist to the wrought iron gates at the bottom of the steps up the side of the Midland Hotel and then stalk away before I’d really registered what had happened. You feel so silly just standing there attached to a railway station. People walked past and ignored me. Others walked past and stared. I smiled weakly at them. Andy wasn’t coming back. I began to wonder what I’d say if someone asked me “What are you doing?” or “Are you alright?” but I couldn’t think of anything.

I decided to phone – well, I wasn’t sure who, but someone. My bag had slipped off my shoulder and was getting in the way as I tried to scrabble for my right pocket with my left hand. In the end I lost patience and said, “Excuse me” to a woman walking past. She ignored me. I tried again, a bit louder. “Excuse me!” A smartly-dressed elderly man stopped and looked at me, surprised. “I’m so sorry but I wonder if you’d help me get my phone out of my pocket?” I’m a girl handcuffed to a railway station. He chooses to ignore that. “Certainly my dear, there you are.” He hands me my phone, tips his hat and then walks off.

I scroll through the names in my phone with a sinking heart – none of these people are going to be any help at all. And even if they were, they’d all want to know why I’m handcuffed to a railway station and I’m not sure I can answer that. In the end I phone J, Lynda’s boyfriend, as he’s a policeman too. He’s on duty but promises to send someone to rescue me.

I stand in the freezing cold, trying to look nonchalant. Eventually a squad car pulls up and two smirking policemen climb out slowly, buttoning their tunics and putting on their hats. They do the slow, policeman walk towards me. “Now then Miss, what exactly seems to be the problem?” Damn them, they’re enjoying this far more than I want them to.

They make a big show of examining the handcuff, with sharp intakes of breath and much head shaking. “Could be tricky, this one.” “Not sure we’ve got the tools in the car.” I resist the temptation to kick their shins. Eventually they cut me free. “Now don’t you be a silly girl and go getting yourself handcuffed to any other railway stations.”

On his way home, J came to see me. “How, in the name of all that’s holy, do you get yourself handcuffed to St Pancras Station?” I still can’t really explain it so I show him my wrist, which is still red. He holds my hand, rubbing his thumb across my red stripe and says, “You’re a drain on police resources, Lucy. Next time you get handcuffed to a building I’m only sending a squad car if you’re completely naked, do you understand?” I nod, solemnly. “And even then I shall instruct the officers not to release you unless you’ve been horribly and repeatedly molested.”

I’ve texted Andy. “You will be pleased to hear I am no longer handcuffed to St Pancras Station”. He has replied, “Aren’t you? Never mind.”

Ladies' Day

It’s ladies’ day at the Turkish Steam Baths in Ironmonger Row. I wasted the morning there with my friend Sara – I was a bit sceptical that the whole thing would keep me entertained for the 3 hours our entrance entitled us to but I could easily have stayed far longer.

There’s a relaxed attitude to undressed-ness on ladies’ day. Most people seemed to be wrapped in towels in the corridors so we didn’t flout convention but elsewhere we bathed naked. It has a lovely pool that makes me sorry I bothered joining a gym as it’s larger, less chlorinated and has a lovely vaulted ceiling which is calming to gaze at as you swim on your back.

The Sudatorium, or steam room is the first one you go into. When you open the door you’re hit by a wall of thick white steam that instantly opens all your pores and drenches you in sweat, even before you’ve felt your way to the bench. It’s dizzying and nobody talks because it’s too boiling hot. After ten minutes I could hardly breathe and we slithered our way out – to a choice between a cold shower or the plunge pool. Sara, who has been before, opted for the shower; I have not been before and am also an idiot, so I opted for the plunge pool. I thought my heart would stop – it was icy. My skin hurt from the cold, tight and prickling all over as my nerve endings screamed. I leapt straight out again, goose pimpled all over and with nipples like granite.

There are three hot rooms of varying temperature: the Tepidarium; the Calidarium; and the Laconium. You can do these in any order you choose but we warmed up gradually going from cooler to hotter. There was more room in here than in the steam room and we lay on the benches, alternately chatting and dozing.

And then, to my dismay, it was back to the plunge pool. I’d completely lied to Sara first time round (“No, it’s bracing”) which meant I had to do it again, squealing as I slid in and the freezing water lapped against my pussy, then gasping with shock as I slipped the rest of the way in, gritting my teeth to stop them chattering.

Blue with cold, I scuttled back to the Laconium to get warm again. It’s too hot to talk in here so I just lay limply on a bench, feeling all the energy melt out of my body and drip from my fingertips. Sara spared me the plunge pool again and we had showers and then went for a massage, which was admirably free of new age nonsense and left my spine feeling straighter than it ever has.

A last shower and then we went for a cup of tea in the lounge, where I was so relaxed I immediately fell asleep with my mouth open and apparently snored lightly until Sara elbowed me awake and I woke with a snort to discover drool all down my chin.

Sadly, the tingly clean feeling you’re left with after all this doesn’t weather the London grime very well. I shall definitely be going again though, and I can’t help noticing (because I checked thoroughly) that Mondays are mixed bathing days, so I shall be bringing D with me.

No sex happened – sorry. You’ll have to make do with a mental image of me naked in a municipal building and your own swamp-like imaginations.

Something A Bit Edgier

“Can I take your photo in just your bra?”

Well, it’ll never replace “Hello” as the way to start a telephone call but he had my attention. Patrick, who has taken my photo in the past, is putting in a tender for a contract with a catalogue that wants some fairly funky photos to sell saucy undies, so to add to his usual portfolio he’s decided he needs to prove that actual saucy undies will prove no barrier to his talents.

A few hours later, I’m shivering in frankly see-through lace with dangerous amounts of underwiring while he gives me puzzling instructions like, “Lie on the sofa and be a famous courtesan dying beautifully of consumption.”

It’s actually even less fun than that sounds because most of the time I’m just watching him fiddle with lights, bend to look through his camera at the result, tut impatiently and then fiddle with the lights again.

After around 37 hours of this he’s almost satisfied. He straightens up and smiles at me. “Fancy finishing with something a bit edgier?”

Now this is almost what he always says at the end of a session, except usually it’s “Fancy finishing with something for D?” which signals it’s time for a few filthy postcard shots which constitute my payment for doing this. What, I wonder, does ‘something a bit edgier’ mean?

Behind Patrick’s studio there’s a courtyard with a rotten wooden door out into an alley. And that’s where I stand, in knee boots and see-through lace bra, my feet parted, my fingers curled around the edge of my bra, pulling one side down just enough to let a nipple poke out. Patrick takes deep focus shots that show the alley disappearing behind me. Then he stands me against the wall, my bum pressed against the slimy brick, the straps of my bra tugged down over my shoulders and both hands modestly placed over the mound of my pussy. Finally he has me unhook my bra altogether and, in only my boots, walk away from him down the alley while he takes shots of my wobbling bum.

Back inside, with my coat on and still shivering, I watch him project photos onto his light box and try to pretend it was just a bit of fun and I’m not outrageously turned on.

I drive home, naked under my coat with my knickers stuffed in my pocket, and fling myself down on the bed, watched by a sleepy cat as I fuck myself with a dildo, sucking it clean as my fingers finish me off in a sighing orgasm. I lie there breathing hard, still wearing my unbuttoned coat, my arms and legs splayed, one finger still curled around the dildo. My cat yawns, stretches and pads onto my tummy, making me yell as she kneads my full bladder before turning round seven times and curling up in a hot little purring ball.

Kenwood House

A walk on Sunday afternoon, before D went back to Suffolk, took us across Hampstead Heath and into the grounds of Kenwood House. I took photos of D looking cold and in need of a cigarette leaning against the Henry Moores and Barbara Hepworths. D took me into the woods and spooked me by pretending to see bats as dusk fell. In the gathering gloom he pressed me up against a tree and valiantly battled his way through a coat, skirt and thick woolly tights to wriggle his hand inside my knickers, leaning with one hand on the tree trunk above my head, one finger of the other hand slowly frigging my cunt while he watched my face.

I blushed under his gaze and he grinned, slipping a second finger into me and circling my clit with the pad of his thumb. I wriggled my bum against the tree trunk, slipped my cold hands into his pockets as he leaned against me, and looked up through the tattered trees at the grey sky. Slowly I let my body rock against his fingers, their thrust as they stabbed into my wet cunt swaying me back and forth as though my whole body was balanced on them. My head nodded as I swayed, my jaw slack, my mouth open, my eyes half closed, my whole body limp except for my clit, which pulsed and ached, sending little warning stabs of electrified nerve endings as D’s thumb slipped across its tip.

Then with a gasp I was breathless, gulping for air as my orgasm wrenched my body away from the tree, my arms braced against D, pushing him away even as my fingers gripped the folds of his coat, his fingers still inside me now as his thumb fluttered, barely touching the very tip of my clit, agonising and thrilling. I can feel my eyes fill with hot tears and his touch is painful now, the last shudders of my orgasm ripped from my shivering body. I breathe, “Please stop” and he presses his thumb hard against my clit, swooping down to kiss me, grinding his lips against mine, forcing his tongue into my mouth. His thumb is still but my clit throbs hard against it, the double pulse of my heart and my clit gradually slowing as we slump back against the tree again, still kissing lazily, his cock hard against my belly.

Finally we break apart, laugh, a little embarrassed and still trembling. I rest my hand on his thigh, run my thumbnail along the shaft of his cock through his jeans and he sighs heavily and whispers, “No, let’s go home.”

As we walk back across the gardens, the windows of Kenwood House are lit up and throw stripes of light across the lawn. We hold hands and I can still feel him trembling – or maybe what I can feel is my body trembling against his, I can’t tell the difference any more.