The small box contained something Dianne had never seen before. It was a string of beads: large beads, made of gold, attached by a gold cord. They were graduated in size, ranging from golf-ball diameter to the size of a cherry. She looked at the gift. It was certainly from Brian. There was a note with an affectionate message on it accompanying the delivery.

'Wear these for me,' the note said. 'With love and much more, Brian.'

Dianne had opened the box expecting jewellery. What she found was puzzling. There was no catch: it was not a bracelet. It was too short to be a necklace. She lifted the short string of beads and they dangled and rotated, quite heavy and made of pure gold. At the end was a metallic tassel.

The doorbell rang once more. It was another package. Identical, it also carried a card that said exactly the same thing. 'Wear this for me,' it said. What did Brian mean? The second package was made of velvet, like the first, but it contained a gold chain whose purpose was unmistakable. There were two expandable rings, joined by a long chain. The rings would be wound around each nipple, and the chain would join them. But it was longer than the nipple-to-nipple adornments she had seen. This chain was meant... ah! Dianne saw it now. The chain was meant to go from one nipple, around the back, and meet the other nipple. How exciting. But what were the beads for?

She imagined herself naked, wearing the nipple jewellery, and feeling the chain caress her back as it swung, tugging on her bare breasts as she moved. It was a delicious thought. But the beads? She lifted them and they spun and sparkled in the light. A tiny label fell to the floor. She picked it and read the words. Her eyebrows rose.

'These pleasure beads are for inserting into the vagina. They will not fall out, but will adhere to internal musculature as the woman is aroused. The two largest beads contain vibrating enclosures, which will enhance the feeling of engorgement. Extract the beads slowly by pulling on the cord when orgasm is imminent.'

She could not wait to try them. But there was a problem. She and Brian were practising erotic celibacy, to keep them looking forward to the ultimate liaison they were going to have in Las Palmas. It was only a week away. Wearing these sex toys would only put them under an unbearable sexual pressure. How would they - how could they possibly - keep from engaging in full sex if she dared try these things on with Brian around?

Dianne laughed. Brian was testing her.

She lifted the phone and called his number. His throaty voice on the other end had her fiddling with buttons, pulling at her clothes. His voice alone made her want to be naked. By the time he had responded to her greeting, she had ripped off her shirt, and was fingering her bare breasts. She looked in the mirror, listening to Brian's voice, getting turned on, wanting him there, to make love to her.

'Brian... I want you.'

'You have no idea, Dianne, how much I want you.'

'I've taken off my top.'

He groaned.

'I want you to lick my nipples. I want you inside me. Your tongue inside me. Your penis.'

He groaned again.

'I got your gifts. What shall I do with them... and when?'

'Have you worked out what they are for?'

'I think so,' she breathed. Her hand felt the beads. She longed to insert them inside her. Longed to have Brian tug on the cord while she was coming. How would it feel?

'I think you should keep the beads for Las Palmas,' he said. 'But wear the nipple chain for me tonight. This is how I picture you, my lovely. I want you to wear a black transparent skirt. A short one, that splits at the thigh. I can imagine seeing the gems that Boris sent you, swinging against your upper thigh, announcing the fact they are attached to the most secret, the most delicate part of your body.'

Dianne sighed. She remembered the gems he meant. Boris, their old voyeur friend, had sent her a cascade of crystals on chains that hung from a clitoris clip. It hugged her inner lips and clit, and the jewels dangled to mid-thigh, driving her and Brian crazy with desire.

Brian went on. 'And ...' he swallowed. 'No top. Let your breasts hang free. And I will come to you and fix the nipple chain on to your body myself. At nine, tonight.'

The line closed with a click. Dianne's eyes were bright. What time was it? She had six hours. She looked in the mirror again. Without a shirt, her jeans zipped open, she wished Brian was there to see as she rid herself of the final shreds of clothing. Naked, blissfully naked, she walked upstairs trailing her clothes.

Did she have a skirt such as Brian described - a transparent black skirt that fell to mid-thigh? She could not find one in her wardrobe. But she enjoyed looking and holding up various garments to her bare skin, brushing velvet, tulle, georgette, satin, cotton and wool against her breasts and pubis, pleasuring herself in the act of posing in front of the mirror. She tossed her head. She would have to shop for a skirt.

Putting on a tight jersey mini-dress, she pondered whether she should bother with underwear, then relented to modesty and slipped on a g-string. It was pointless shocking innocent shop assistants, and just as pointless getting too het up. Arriving at Calypso Drive, she entered a series of boutiques, window-shopping for the sexiest garments she could find.

'I am after a transparent mini skirt, in black, with a slit up the thigh,' she said repeatedly. No one could help. She tried on a series of attractive skirts. One was made of stretch fabric in bright red. It hugged her buttocks perfectly - she had to have it. The shop assistant had her try it on with a red halter, which was just as clingy and seductive.

'How would it look on its own?' Dianne asked.

The shop assistant blushed. 'What - you mean...?'

'Yes - what if I wore the skirt on its own?' she proceeded to unhook the halter and stood in front of the narrow changing room mirror, her breasts bare. 'My goodness. Stunning.'

'Madam... I don't ... um - ' The red face of the young girl was a sight in itself.

'There's some jewellery, you see, which I'd love to show off.' Dianne was enjoying the fact she was teasing the young woman. Shocking her. 'I'll have the skirt. But I really need a black one for tonight.'

The girl left the cubicle and returned with a shimmery garment in a very transparent fabric. 'This dress may suit,' she said primly. 'It's meant to be worn over a camisole, but...' she blushed.

Dianne slipped the dress over her head. The girl was right. It was so revealing even Dianne felt her face redden, feeling herself to be more confronting than when she was naked. Her breasts showed plainly under the fabric, and so did the rest of her. The skirt was just the right length - mid-thigh. 'I'll take this too,' she said. She would simply have to do some needlework at home.

The alterations did not take a long time. Dianne unstitched the bodice from the skirt on the black garment, creating two separate items she could tantalise Brian with on different occasions. She split the skirt neatly, up the left side, hemming the edge, which looked as if it was made that way by the time she was finished. There! She now had a black skirt exactly as Brian had described, and a fetching bonus top, scandalously indecent, which she would leave for another time.

She got ready. When the doorbell rang, she looked exquisite: dark hair falling to her shoulders, a bare torso and a thin nominal skirt draped loosely around her lower hips. As she moved to the door, the gems that fell from her clitoris tinkled audibly.

'Good heavens,' Brian breathed when he saw her. His eyes took her in all at once, his lips parted and he licked them, as if he was ready to eat her there and then. He saw her breasts, each nipple rising especially for him, the areola around the centre bud becoming erect as well. It was what he loved about her, she knew. He looked for the dangling crystals, and saw them, moving slightly against the milky flesh of her inner thighs. Up those chains, there was a slick clip that surrounded her inner labia and clit, exciting her and causing her unclothed vulva to dampen and open slightly.

'Hello, Brian. I must thank you for the gifts that arrived today.' She pecked him chastely on the lips.

His hand caressed her arm and she could see he could not trust himself to draw too close. They had promised each other to tempt and titillate until they could not stand it any longer. But that was all. No sex.

She led him in, walking toward a table where the box with the chain lay. She knew he had perfect vision of her buttocks under the thin fabric, and her bare back. It was more than any man could take.

'Dianne... you look perfect. Tonight is one of the nights I fear it's going to be hardest to keep my hands to myself.'

'Do we have to?' She turned, knowing the sight of the tempting smile on her glossy lips, and her inflamed nipples, would drive him to distraction.

'Yes - can you imagine what it's going to be like in Las Palmas? We will hit the highest high.'

'I have no idea what you have planned for us.'

He drew nearer, took her hand and turned it palm up. His tongue caressed the skin of her wrist, and his fingers hovered close to her breasts. His thumb grazed one of her nipples and she trembled visibly, her eyelids fluttering for a split second.

'Please...' she mumbled. 'Please. Touch me.'

He cupped her left breast, lifted it, and gripped the lengthening nipple between finger and thumb of his other hand.

She sighed.

'Your nipples must be the longest in the... where is that chain?' He reached for the velvet package, took the length of chain and started to fasten one of the rings onto her left nipple. The feeling was exquisite. Dianne closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of Brian's fingers and the cold pressure of the gold spiral being wound onto the stem of her nipple. She looked down, and saw the metal held the nub stiff and straight, sexily announcing its full length and exaggerating the extremity into a hard round button. Brian strung the chain around her back, looping it sexily and taking the ring round the front to her other nipple. Her breasts were now linked, via the back. The result was unusual and felt strange, the outward tug on Dianne's nipples exciting her.

'Wow,' she said. Speechless, she wanted to look in a mirror, but Brian held both her hands and held her out at arm's length, taking her in, visibly aroused and delighted.

'I want all the world to see you like this,' he said.

'I want all the world to see me like this,' she repeated.

'You little exhibitionist!'

They laughed together and a bit of the sexual tension was diffused. Brian poured champagne and watched her move, enchanted by her body. He allowed his hands to stray, stroking her thighs and playing with the crystals. 'I want you so much I'm aching all over.'

'Especially here.' Dianne stroked the bulge in his pants, fleetingly and lightly, knowing that if her hand lingered, they would never be able to keep their promise of chastity.

Suddenly, his mouth found hers, and magnetically, they kissed. Hot, passionate and infinitely rousing, their mouths played out an enactment of intercourse, tongues plunging, hard, or gently exploring, wetly wide with abandon, wild with a kind of desperate longing they had kept up for so long.

'Why are we putting ourselves through this?' Dianne asked. 'I want you inside me.' She pulled at his shirt, tried to insert a hand in the waistband of his trousers.

'If I get naked,' he said, 'I'll never be able to hold back.' He pushed her away gently, smiled, caressed her flank like one would a wild and irrepressible pony. 'I'm going to take you outside into your garden, kiss you under the moon, look at your breasts for a while... perhaps I will...'

'Perhaps you will suckle me... only a little.'

'Perhaps.'

He led her down the steps and they both shivered as the night air engulfed them. The moon was a small sliver overhead, throwing hardly any light. He turned and cupped her breasts, kissed her lips.

'Please,' she begged. 'Just a little.'

His hand played with the crystals falling from her vulva, pulling a little, causing irreversible arousal, wetness, wild longing. Dianne whined like a kitten. She wanted his fingers where he could strum her labia and bring her to some sort of conclusion.

She lifted her nipples to him. His lips parted, and he took one slowly and smoothly, and starting to suck. It was audible in the quiet garden, and Dianne threw her head back, absorbing the pleasure greedily because she knew it would be brief. He continued to suck, languorously, thirstily. Her nipple, snaked all around as it was with the golden ring, extended even more, grew inside his mouth until the button end was so swollen and tender she had to cry out. Still, he sucked.

'I'm...'

Brian withdrew. 'No - you can't come.' His mouth descended to her other breast, and he gave identical treatment, sucking firmly and steadily, his mouth working until he achieved the same result. Dianne swooned with pleasure and desire for more.

'Look at you,' he said, when both breasts looked rosy, plump and extended to their fullest. The areolas were blushed and stiff, as well as the moistened nipples. He passed a thumb over each blunt button, and waited for her sigh.

'Goodnight, my lovely,' he whispered, and he was gone in a flash, leaving her bereft and empty, in the middle of her garden, looking like a half naked nymph that had been denied fulfilment. But Dianne knew that in five or six days, her hour would come, and she would explode in his arms as he strummed her like a musical instrument.

Planning her wardrobe for Las Palmas was exciting. She packed sexy exciting wear she knew would be ripped off in a few seconds, or languorously tugged from her body in the sexual throes they would rouse in each other. She wanted to divest Brian of his clothing too: watch him naked, his tumescence forming as he contemplated entering her and staying there, for long minutes on end.

She received messages: cards, texts and emails full of the language of physical love. Brian was being both a temptation and a romantic counterpart, and she was continually delighted with the game they were playing. Still, sexual frustration was taking its toll. She throbbed and ached with desire and unfulfilled physical demands. She stopped roaming naked through the house, stopped masturbating, because she knew it only made her condition worsen. She had to drive sex from her mind until Las Palmas.

Chaste, calm, almost serene, she prepared for the trip: the trip where she and Brian would become one. It was not to be a marriage but a sexual promise, an agreement between a man and a woman about their bodies. She had known this from the start: from the instant Brian had bared her breast openly, at a restaurant, and suckled her in plain sight of a waiter. She was to give him her body, unconditionally, with no restrictions of time or place, and it was to be as exciting and novel as he could make it. She was going to promise him the earth: and give it to him. Not only at Las Palmas, but for as long as he wanted it.

Would he promise her the same in return? She was not sure. He had said he wanted to be hers, but his promise was more vague. She did not care. Her body cried out for him, and she willingly enslaved herself to the idea. He was loving and generous, and had promised her life would be a continual affair of nakedness, sex and beautiful jewellery. What else could she want?

He also liked to show her off, and display the sexual compatibility they had found. Boris Petrowski, the famous musician, was a frequent watcher of their trysts. He was a voyeur, and loved to sit to one side while Dianne and Brian engaged in the most explicit of orgiastic moves. They frolicked before him naked, joined at the groin, sweating and reddened from their physical union. It excited her, after the initial shock when the concept was introduced to her, and now she was the initiator of scenes where Brian would take possession of her body in front of the older man, time after time. It was ecstasy. She loved it.

To think there was a time when she was embarrassed to note that her sweater was too tight, or that her nipples showed through her bathing costume! Ha! She now loved to display herself much more intimately. So much more outrageously. She had allowed Boris to watch while Brian gently prised her vagina open, showing the delicious pink folds of the secret lips, and licked her to orgasm.

She had allowed Boris to watch her play his piano, topless, her breasts shaking with the movements she made to create the emotional music. Even when properly clothed, Brian would stand behind her as she sat talking, eating or reading, and lazily - negligently - smooth his hands over her, parting her clothing to expose areas of flesh she had never before shown to anyone.

She remembered an evening when they had dined with Boris and one of his musician friends. With glasses of champagne in hand, they wandered out to the waterfall and pool in Boris's estate. Hidden lights showed the beautiful setting that at night was still and mysterious. The old composer and his friend sat in a rocky niche and Dianne and Brian had walked to the opposite side of the pool, where the noise of falling water was soothing, the gushing and tinkling screening their conversation from the older men.

'It's warm enough for a dip,' Brian said, suggestively.

'Now?'

He proceeded to unclasp her cocktail dress, which fell to crushed folds around her hips. Her hair, which was caught in an artful twist, did not cover her shoulders as usual - she felt exposed, looking at the older men, who watched on unabashed.

'They're watching, Brian.'

'Of course.' He had slipped out of his tuxedo, slickly divesting himself of everything until he stood naked before her, his erection huge in the garden lights, quivering with expectation.

She did not want to remove her crumpled dress from her loins. It would expose the fact she wore French knickers that did not quite cover her buttocks, deliciously framing them in lace. She felt Brian's hands on her bare shoulders, and sank to her knees, taking his tumescence in both hands and cupping him tenderly.

He did not speak, but she heard his breathing above the cascading water.

Her tongue emerged, and she started a long protracted session of fellatio, using everything she remembered would wind her man to a point he could not contain himself. Her mouth encased his shaft, pulling and pushing sensuously. She withdrew, licked, blew, licked again and took him in once more, fully, pulling back again and tonguing the membrane so that he shivered violently. His groans were louder than the water. Her fist grasped his penis, engorging its head until it shone, purple and inviting. She licked wetly, sucked and cupped his balls firmly in her other hand. She knew Brian thought this to be exquisite torture, that it would pitch him into a trajectory of no return. She did not stop. Both her hands stroked, and her mouth welcomed his hugely enlarged shaft. Her own red-glossed lips grew swollen as she sucked him.

She squatted, saving her knees from the pebbled pool surround, and spread her thighs as she shifted. The creased dress parted to show the brilliant white of the French knickers. In the halflight of the garden, the lace was very conspicuous, drawing attention to her nether parts. But still she went on, giving Brian head until his moans of extreme pleasure drove her to stop and stand.

'My goodness,' he breathed, looking down at himself.

'I've never seen you that big,' she said softly, in disbelief at what she had done.

'Slip the dress off.'

She shook her head shyly.

Brian took the hem and tugged. The dress fell to the pebbles and she was left standing in the brilliant white lace fragment that bared more than clothed her groin. He started to caress her buttocks, playing and massaging the skin. Kneading and frotting, he turned her round to face away from him, knowing the old men would delight in the sight of her breasts dangling as he nudged her forward to lean away from his erection. He was preparing her, exciting her for a very long bout of outdoor coitus.

Ah - how long ago it seemed. It had lasted nearly an hour. Dianne was - in some part of her mind that was not exploding with sheer pleasure - amazed at Brian's ability to last. He left her knickers on, parting them only slightly to finger her anus and vaginal slit from the back. She leaned further forward, longing for the sensation to continue. It did. His fingers magically stroked and caressed until she was dripping with moisture of her own making. It fell from his fingers to the pebbles, and her moans joined his. He moved her to a low embankment of rock, and made her steady herself while leaning over, holding her hands against the granite. He continued to pleasure her, erotically insinuating his fingers inside, around and over her clitoris and curly pink inner lips. Then she felt his tongue: hot, moist and as stiff as his penis. He licked her inner lips, exciting her because his chin and nose also touched secret parts of her rear. His mouth made a feast of her slit, eating her through and through, and she shook with a tremor that equalled an earthquake.

Her squeals of pleasure filled the garden. She did not care that her erotic interlude was both audible and visible to two men sitting at the other end of the space. She cared only that her vulva was on fire, that her dangling breasts tingled and her buttocks grew so sensitive that every slightest touch from Brian's face or hands set her screaming.

'Ahhh! Arrrhhh!' She could not breath without exclaiming her ecstasy.

Brian pushed her back and she fell forward from the waist, becoming fully open to him. His penis entered her slowly, in one long smooth movement, and its tip hit the wall of her cervix in a heavenly collision. She started to come. He thrust, four times, violently, making her lose her breath, losing his own. He grunted with exertion. He bellowed furiously, as his passion rose and the sensations in his groin beat him on, further extending their pleasure together.

He thrust and thrust, then stopped, and she groaned. 'Please. Please. More.' Grinding her hips, she clenched her muscles so her vagina trapped him inside her. Then she moved violently to bring him to his orgasm. Still, he had room for another three or four thrusts. He rammed her hard, falling forward and grabbing her by the waist so hard she gasped.

'Ahhhh.'

'Ooooghh.'

They came together, their cries of passion raising a small flock of sparrows from their night perch.

Dianne felt soreness in her crotch, but it was pleasurable. Brian pulled away.

They did not get back in their clothes. Brian smiled, snapping the knickers away from his woman's body and throwing them to the ground. 'That was so sexy,' he whispered, drawing her into his arms. 'You deserve a kiss.'

'Oh, Brian.' Her sigh was smothered by his mouth, that still smelled of her. The kiss was lingering, their bodies hot from the encounter. He played his tongue on hers, and she returned every loving stroke. He pecked and bit her lips, swelling them provocatively. No one would doubt, seeing her like that, that she was a sexual object.

After the explicit kiss, he led her to where the older men sat, not caring - either of them - that they were naked, breathless and tousled.

'Would you like a swim?' asked Boris formally. His demeanour was never vulgar. 'The water is at body temperature... your body temperature.'

Brian led Dianne down the steps, and the water level rose from her knees to her hips, then to her navel. It rose to brush wetly against her reddened nipples. It was as soothing as ointment. Brian scooped warm water over her. They swam to the far end together, and engaged in another kissing session when they held onto the rocks over there.

'They are thinking that they have never seen a body as beautiful as yours,' Brian complemented.

Dianne blushed with pleasure.

'Your breasts are stunning... unusual.' He pulled at a nipple. 'They should never ever be hidden away.'

She laughed. 'What? Should I go topless forever?'

'Yes,' he answered. 'Yes.'

She reached for his manly bulge in the water and held it, feeling a return of hardness, a throb and a beat that suggested more.

Draping her legs around him, buoyant in the water, she adjusted her position until it was inevitable that he should enter her as he grew stiffer and longer. She felt the insistence of the penis as it grew, pushing and broadening her entrance, wet as it was.

Brian allowed her every single demand, every overture. His body was hers. She moved, her legs hugging his waist, and their union was complete. But she was not content to keep still then either. She bucked and grinded, lifted and dropped her hips, exciting him to a point where he closed his eyes and smiled.

'Exquisite,' he hissed. He backed away, then drew her with him to a place he could sit, his legs still in water and Dianne still impaled on his new erection. She moved some more and they started to rock in unison, sexily coming to orgasm afresh together, joined wetly from groin to chest. Her breasts were crushed against him, in pleasurable pressure that turned her on. The wetness of pool water made them shiver.

A towelling robe was finally thrown over her shoulders as Brian helped her up and away. She was exhausted, fully replete, only now starting to blush at the fact the two older musicians had watched everything she succumbed to, every sexual overture she made and received.

Memories like those assailed Dianne regularly. She had not had full sex now for well over two months, and it was a punishing regime. She could not remember any more whether she could bring herself to excitement, to orgasm, to ecstasy. She would have to rely on Brian at Las Palmas.

She remembered his words to her, his messages.

'You were made for sex,' he said aloud to her once, sitting in a hotel lobby, his voice not lowered or discreet. A couple sitting close by had stared at them. 'Your body, your eyes and mouth... you are a creature specifically constructed for sex.'

She had flushed a deep red on that night. He had delighted in teasing her, embarrassing her with explicit words that others could hear.

'Raise your skirt, my lovely,' he had said.

And she pulled at the fabric until her thighs glowed in the foyer lights.

'Higher,' he ordered.

And he looked pointedly at the mound clothed in a miniscule net cache-sex that she uncovered for him. The lobby was crowded, but he did not care. Her g-string was on display, and with it, the fact her vulva under it was completely hairless and smooth.

'Oh,' he joked. 'I was hoping you had forgotten underwear! And where are all your beautiful sex curls?'

The couple behind them rose to leave, their faces full of disapproval. They did not stay to watch Brian stroke Dianne's thigh before they got up to enter the restaurant.

Memories like those made Dianne hot and eager for the next few days to fly past. She was going to Las Palmas, to give herself to Brian, and she would once more revel in his physical generosity. She would swoon with delight at whatever he was planning for them. No doubt, it would be highly charged and erotic.

'We'll travel there separately,' he said on the phone. 'I want Astra to accompany you. She will prepare you for the feast.'

'Feast!'

'You'll see.'

Astra was the stern masseuse that Boris employed in his mansion. Despite her appearance, her size, the tight bun of hair scraped back from a square forehead, she had magical hands that had stroked pleasure into her very core a number of times.

Her bag was packed, her mind was full of expectation, her body yearned to thrill from Brian's touch. It had been a long time. She wanted to be ready for him.

The masseuse was very quiet on the plane. They sat in first class together, but it was as if they travelled alone, separately, eating their meal and drinking their wine in silence. Dianne was conscious that this woman knew her body intimately and well, every inch of it, including the parts massage does not usually involve. She shifted in the aeroplane seat, longing to see Brian, wanting at last to melt in his embrace. But first, she had to be 'prepared'. She wondered, as they registered at a big hotel on arrival, what it was that Astra was about to do to her.

'First,' said the Russian masseuse, in her gruff tones, 'you have a fitting appointment with a master jeweller. Then, you have two sessions with me, and several with a brigade of beauticians. We have orders to make you look spectacular, and you will feel so, too.'

Dianne waited.

'The master jeweller will need to take precise measurements, so please undress.'

'Undress!'

There was a knock on the hotel room door, and Astra let in a tall youthful man carrying a bag.

'Go in there and get into a robe,' Astra bade Dianne.

She entered the bathroom and stripped off, slipping on a thick expensive hotel robe and edging the door open.

'Well,' said Astra gruffly. 'Let's proceed. I don't want this to take all day.'

The jeweller raised an eyebrow, but brought out of his bag a pair of dividers, a measuring tape and a notebook. For the next twenty minutes or so, he took minute measurements of Dianne's anatomy. Blushing deeply, she allowed him to look at her, naked, and to open the dividers to calculate the exact distance between her nipples, the precise diameter of the nubs, the length of the erect stems, the distance from her sternum to the opening of her vaginal slit.

He muttered numbers under his breath, wrote tiny figures in his notebook, closed his eyes and made mental calculations.

'What is this for?' Dianne asked, intrigued. She stood as still as she was asked, moving her limbs as she was bade, obedient and passive.

'Please - hold them up so, while I measure... so!' said the man, making her cup her breasts, passing the tape around her body.

'Please - lean forward so I can measure the extent...' He nudged gently at her elbow until she leaned and allowed her breasts to swing.

'Please - could you open...' He measured the horizontals and verticals of her labia, outer and inner, and thanked her after writing down all figures.

'Goodbye.' He bowed and left, making Dianne smile.

'Now,' said Astra, relieved she could get on with business. 'Onto the massage table, this minute.'

There followed ninety minutes of sheer pleasure, being pounded and kneaded by hands so capable they would elicit groans from a block of wood. Astra took Dianne's body and oiled it, lightly, with unguent so hot it almost burned. She pulled, sleeked and pushed, manhandling her muscles deftly. Inch by inch, she played with Dianne's skin until it tingled, glowed and thrummed. Dianne yearned for more. Her body so wanted sex she felt a tremor of desire even when Astra rubbed her ankles and wrists.

It must have shown on her face.

'No madam. No extras today - the master said plainly. Muscles, tendons, skin... non-sexual, please.'

'No Yoni, Astra?' Dianne remembered the exquisite pleasure of the intimate massage of the vulva that Astra had treated her with in the past.

'Definitely not.'

Dianne would have to wait for Brian: for his fingers, his tongue and his penis. She could not contain herself. Her body leapt on the massage table as Astra kneaded her limbs. 'Patience, madam,' the older woman entreated.

Then it was the beauticians' turn. For several hours they worked on Dianne's hair, skin, and nails. Their tools: brushes, files, boards, oils, depilatory creams, lotions and pads, cotton balls and smoothers were of the best quality, so that she revelled in their care.

'We were given exact instructions about your hair, your nails - what colours to use, that sort of thing,' said one of the women. 'Your hair must be swept up off your neck and shoulders, in a chignon that's loose and elegant. Your toenails must be painted a dull pink, and your fingernails must be well shaped and lacquered in see-through beige polish. We are to oil your navel and the surrounding skin, aiming for a sheen, and your breasts and buttocks too must be buffed and oiled. There's not to be a stub or hair in sight anywhere! Baby-smooth, is what we are aiming for.'

'Luckily,' said another woman, smiling, 'you are incredibly amazing, physically - it's great to work on you - your hair and skin are perfect. Your body...' she raised her eyes to the ceiling. 'It's to die for,' she finished. 'And what is this?'

The woman took the shiny black pearl that dangled on a chain below Dianne's navel.

'It's my pendant. Brian gave it to me soon after we met. He made me promise to wear it only when I am naked.'

The girl raised a hand to her lips. 'Oh!'

'I wear it very often,' Dianne added.

'Oh!'

They showed her their handiwork in a full-length mirror. 'What do you think?'

Dianne loved what they had done to her. They had wrapped her in a length of soft towelling, but she let it drop to the floor and examined her whole body. From top to toe, she was perfectly groomed.

'You look stunning,' they agreed.

Dianne looked at the pendant, twirling and bumping against her skin. When would Brian look at it again: take it in his fingers and trail it over her skin?

The knock on the door surprised Dianne. When would she see Brian? Was this Brian come to claim her? No - it was a delivery. Flowers. Baskets and baskets were carried in, turning her hotel room into a bower of colour and scent. There were orchids, roses, chrysanthemums, tulips and dianthus, all in clumps, groups and bunches, delighting her with their presence. Ribbons and bows, all blue, held them together. The vases and baskets in which they stood were glorious and well designed.

'You are to be ready at midnight,' Astra instructed. 'The items you are to wear will arrive shortly before that, and then Maestro Petrowski will come to collect you.'

Boris! So Boris was in Las Palmas too. Of course: there was to be a ceremony of some sort. Dianne was curious about the 'items' she was told she must wear. What had Brian ordered for her? What sort of outfit was it? She could not wait. She slipped into a warm robe and relaxed on a chaise longue, looking like a mysterious princess. She almost fell asleep, but was woken by a knock. She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was eleven. Soon, she would be taken to Brian. Soon, they would be one.