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      The Usual Dress Code

      Elizabeth Coldwell

      The e-mail arrives in her inbox without warning. ‘Meet me at the Windsor Club for lunch tomorrow. One o’clock sharp. Be sure to observe the usual dress code.’

      Even that simple message is enough to have her juices flowing as she reads and rereads it. So the lecture tour’s over and he’s back in the country, is he? So like him, she thinks, to arrive with no prior notice and expect her to fall back into their usual routine. But he knows she’ll be there. She doesn’t have plans for tomorrow lunchtime and, even if she did, she’d cancel them to be with him.

      Though the work is stacked high on her desk, data needing to be inputted from a pile of forms, it’s hard to concentrate on anything now she knows she’s going to be seeing him again. Thoughts of him, and what he’ll require her to do, push everything else to the back of her mind.

      ‘The usual dress code.’ Those four words contain the essential truth of their relationship: that he gives the orders and she willingly obeys them. From the day they met, he recognised the submissive heart of her, the part she’d never revealed to anyone for fear of being misunderstood. Even now, she still dreads the reaction from some friends and colleagues if they were ever to find out about the things he makes her do. To them, submissive means weak, easily trampled on, a personality lost and submerged beneath another’s. She knows the truth: submitting makes her stronger, allows her to explore desires that would otherwise go unfulfilled. And the rules of the game are simple. If she says ‘stop’, they stop.

      He’ll love the outfit she bought in his absence, she thinks, giving up any pretence of work for the afternoon. His dress code is weirdly specific. If pressed, she’d define it as ‘slutty 1950s secretary’, fantasy fodder for the older, highly educated gentleman. Underwear that nips in her waist and thrusts out her breasts, giving her an exaggerated hourglass figure she suspects no real woman has ever possessed. Tight pencil skirts that give a wiggle to her walk, blouses with a fussy pussy bow at the neck, and gorgeous but impractical stockings. He likes them so sheer as to be practically invisible, with a fully fashioned heel and a seam running arrow-straight up the back of her legs. The straightness of the seam is very important – she’s learned that over the years – and leaving them crooked is the quickest way to earn a couple of hard swats to her barely clad backside. If feminine intuition isn’t a myth, it must have compelled her to spend time browsing her favourite vintage lingerie site, snapping up a couple of pairs of stockings in her size in preparation for his return. The parcel sits in her top desk drawer, delivered to her this morning by the office post-boy, who doesn’t have a clue about her secret life but would probably nurse his erection for the rest of the day if he knew she was planning to truss herself up in seamed nylons and a six-strap suspender belt for the delight of a man who loves to see her wearing nothing else.

      Every minute will drag till she’s in his company once more. Her pussy is already wet and swollen with need but, from the time she receives his written instructions to the time she meets him, playing with herself is forbidden. He’s very insistent about that. Once, he made her wait from Monday till Friday, four whole days spent stewing with frustration so acute she could barely stand it. She’d never be able to properly explain why she obeys him to the letter in this regard. All she can say is that if she disobeyed him, he’d know. He always knows.

      The Windsor Club belongs to a bygone world. It is set on a quiet side street just off Piccadilly, a place where men can eat and doze and chat, away from any kind of female influence. Although the staff who fetch drinks on silver salvers and serve generous portions of nursery food at tables covered with crisp white cloths are all pretty young waitresses, she can’t help but notice.

      Arriving a couple of minutes before one, she announces herself at the front desk. The black-jacketed flunky looks her up and down, regarding her from tight blonde chignon to dizzying four-inch heels. Clearly not the usual choice of dining companion for the club’s members, but he responds with a polite ‘Ah, yes, Miss Culver. Professor Matlow is expecting you. Please come through.’

      The club’s main room is almost soporific in its warmth, after the February chill of the West End. He’s sitting in a wing-backed leather armchair, reading this morning’s copy of The Times. All she can see is the top of his head, dark curls shot through with more grey than she remembers, and his long legs in faded olive corduroys, crossed at the ankles. Just that glimpse causes her heart to lurch and a thin trickle of juice to seep into her black silk French knickers.

      Robert Matlow, professor of English at one of the country’s most respected universities and a world-renowned authority on the work of John Donne. Not that she ever addresses him by his given name. To her, he is never anything other than ‘Sir’.

      Hearing her approach, he folds his paper and lays it on the table in front of him, next to the inevitable glass of twelve-year-old single malt. She wonders whether his instructions to the waitress as to how it should be served are as precise as the ones he always gives her. Two ice cubes. No more, no less. He requires his whisky to be chilled, not watered down. Nothing should impair its subtle, peaty taste, as he so often tells her. Perhaps one day he’ll realise she’s sometimes careless with the number of cubes simply to earn herself an extra stroke on her final punishment. Perhaps he already knows, and indulges her. Though she doubts that. From her experience, he is very seldom indulgent.

      ‘Matilda. Punctual as ever, I see.’ For the second time in a minute, she is scrutinised from head to toe. Where the door flunky looked at her with politely concealed lechery, this is a very different kind of inspection. His deep-set blue eyes check that she has, as he requested, observed the dress code – at least as far as he can tell from the outer layers of her clothing. They seek out any imperfections in her appearance: smudged lipstick; a stain on the sleeve of her cream jacket; a slight deviation in the straight lines of her stocking seams. He appears almost disappointed to find none.

      ‘Do sit down,’ he urges her, before beckoning the waitress over. ‘Could you fetch the young lady a glass of white Burgundy?’

      ‘Certainly, sir.’

      And so it begins. He hasn’t asked her what she might like, and by taking the choice away from her he has subtly reinforced his dominance within their relationship. She can’t explain quite why this show of control turns her on so much; all she knows is that it’s suddenly hard to focus on anything but the pulse beating insistently in her pussy.

      ‘So, how are you, Matilda?’

      With those words, he gives her permission to enter into conversation. He could just as easily have returned to his perusal of the obituaries, making her wait till he was ready to speak to her, but even though he’d never admit it to her face, she knows he’s missed their regular chats.

      ‘I’m fine, thank you, sir. Work’s as boring as ever. How was America?’

      The waitress returns and places a glass in front of her. He motions with his eyes for her to take a sip. She does, savouring the complex, buttery taste of the wine. It’s an excellent choice, but she wouldn’t have expected anything less. He’s taught her so much in the time they’ve been together, not only in the bedroom. Before him, she existed on microwaved ready meals and supermarket plonk and never read anything more challenging than the weekly gossip magazines. He has refined her palate, given her a thirst to learn more about the world and fill the many gaps in her education.

      He grins, the lines around his eyes deepening, one of the few reminders that he’s almost fifteen years older than her. With his boundless vitality and body he keeps honed with an exercise regime bordering on the obsessive, it’s sometimes hard to believe they aren’t the same age. ‘Oh, it’s always nice to have a new audience for my one-liners.’

      At his urging, she once sat in on one of his lectures, hidden away at the back of the darkened theatre. His dissection of love metaphors in metaphysical poetry went completely over her head,