Around seven, Alex left the pool and changed into the red underwear and the matching stockings. She immediately joined Susan, Tamsin and one of the triplets in the kitchen. 'Can I help?'

'Not really! You're a bit late! We're all done now!' Tamsin spoke first. She looked critically at Susan and Alex. 'Like mother-in-law! Like daughter-in-law!'

'Stop it! Red wasn't my choice!'

'Turn round, Alex!' Susan checked that Alex was properly dressed. 'Not bad! You've got all the suspenders and stockings straight! And the knickers outside!'

'I wouldn't have come, if I'd known I'd be treated like a child!' She turned and stuck her tongue out at her mother-in-law!

'Thank you, Alex!' Susan was drinking champagne and she offered Alex a newly filled cold glass. Tamsin was satisfied with orange. 'Tamsin and the girls have been great! We've got all the food and wine in the dining room! There's just a few hot things in the bottom left oven of the AGA! And a very disgusting un-PC pudding in the fridge! They can come through when everybody starts eating!'

***

Susan turned to the window as she heard a car arrive. Not any car but a new Bentley Continental! 'It looks like it's David, as clerks are the only ones I know who have flash cars like that. Do you know him, Tamsin? He used to be your father's clerk before he was made a judge.' Tamsin joined her. 'Apparently, they got into several scrapes together! He's great fun!'

'I know!' She beamed. 'I can remember Mum, bringing both home several times. I don't think she minded sobering Dad up! But his clerk as well!'

'There was a lot more than that!' Susan looked again. 'Oh dear! He's not with his wife!' A woman wearing a black corset, matching stockings, high heels, long gloves and a hat with a veil had just stepped out of the car, as David held the door. 'That looks like Jane, your father's favourite QC. She said she was coming. But where's her husband and David's wife?'

'Perhaps, they've read your rules, Susan.' Alex was giggling. 'And decided to have a little bit of fun! Or they're swapping partners for the night!'

'Don't laugh!' Susan was giggling too! 'Years ago, we had a dinner party here, when two couples both had blazing rows with their respective other halves and decided to swap for the evening for the sake of peace. They went home still swapped and last heard of they were still the same living happily ever after! I think the lawyers had a good time with that mess!'

***

'Susan! It's good to see you!' Jane had removed the hat. The two kissed cheeks.

'Why the hat and veil?' Susan was placing it on the now empty kitchen table.

'I didn't want to be recognised!'

'Who would know you anyway?' Susan turned her towards Alex. 'Do you know my daughter-in-law, Alex?'

'I don't think so! Other than through chats with Alistair and yourself!' Jane pulled the two into her. 'I was so sorry about David for both of you! You may think I've rather a hard-boiled old lawyer, but that was absolutely the pits for both of you!'

'Thank you!' Alex exchanged kisses with Jane. 'We've talked long and hard! Especially today! We're trying to look forward!'

'I just don't know what to say!' She cuddled Alex tightly.

'It's funny, but I've never seen you lost for words in my Court! And you don't hug people there, either!'

***

'Where's David?' Susan handed one of two drinks she had poured to Jane.

'I think he went to find Dad!' Tamsin took the spare glass. 'I'll go and give this to him!'

'I do like the corset! And the tie-side knickers!' Susan turned her around. 'Are they for quick access?'

'You said it would be an interesting party!' Jane smiled. 'I've come prepared for anything!'

Susan was fiddling with the laces of Jane's corset. 'You haven't got it on very tight! How much does it reduce your waist?'

'Agent Provocateur said that it would take ten centimetres off!'

'It would do with practice. And also if you wore it fully closed.' Susan took hold of the laces. 'You've got quite a few centimetres to go! I'll tighten it properly for you!'

'This looks like it's going to be painful!' Alex was intrigued as Susan started to untie the knot.

'Watch this Alex!' Susan carefully pulled the laces tighter starting at Jane's waist and gradually moving upwards and downwards. Slowly but surely the gap between the two sides of the corset disappeared. 'You must do it slowly, Alex! Knowing, Lady Jane here, she probably did it all in a hurry!'

'I'm not Lady Jane!' Susan pulled hard! 'Ow! That hurt!'

'You know everybody calls you that!' She pulled again. 'How does that feel?'

'Tight! Very tight!' She felt her waist. 'I wish I could be like this always. But without this instrument of torture.' She felt her stomach. 'I'm so flat! And very solid, too!'

'You should feel like that!' Susan tied off the laces with a very professional looking knot. 'Just wait until you have sex constrained like this! You'll understand, why corsets are so good!'

'Are they really, Susan?' Alex could see Jane's expression. 'I don't think you've convinced Jane!'

'She just needs to wait an hour or so, until her body accepts the corset!'

'If I last that long!' Jane turned to face Susan. 'I hope this evening will be worth all the pain!'

'Several million Victorian woman must have found it so!' Susan admired her handiwork. 'That's much better! On the other hand they probably needed something to hold themselves together after all those children!'

***

'Do you think my husband and Lizzie have got lost?' Jane was looking through the kitchen window. 'Or do you think they've got into the back of the Volvo?'

'Of course not in both cases! Do you want to phone?' Susan started to walk towards the phone on the wall.

'I'll wait a bit! You realise we're obeying your rules tonight!'

'You're joking!' Susan wasn't sure whether Jane was telling the truth.

'Why not?' Jane was her usual confident self. 'We've known each other for over twenty years! We've been on a couple of holidays to our house in France. So why shouldn't I sleep with David and Lizzie with Alan? Just the once for a change! Especially at a party like this!'

Before a speechless Susan could answer a Volvo pulled into the drive and parked next to the Bentley.

Celia took action and after opening the front door, she welcomed and brought the newcomers into the kitchen.

'Lizzie! Alan!' Greetings followed and Susan offered drinks. 'Pleased to see you!'

'We've got cases here!' Alan spoke. 'Where are we all sleeping?'

Susan laughed. 'You'd better follow Alex. I've told her where the ladies are supposed to be. I'll go and find David!'

***

'Jane!' Alex was showing her into the Blue Room. 'Do you mind if I ask if you get on with Susan? She said to show you into the Blue Room as you're too posh to walk all the way to the Red! She also said that it would suit your mood and colouring!'

'We go back a long way!' Jane smiled. 'We've always been rude and cutting to each other! It may be because we seemed to end up on the other side of cases so often! I can remember when one day at the Bailey I passed her a very serious note to say she'd laddered her stockings!'

'That must have upset her!' Alex knew how Susan would react.

'Especially, as I rubbed it in all day! She got me back though!'

'How?' Alex knew that Susan hated to lose at anything from the law to a supposedly friendly board game.

'That Friday was our Chambers dinner. And she was in charge of who sat where!' Jane was shaking her head at what had happened! 'The rotten devil sat Alan and myself on a table with all the most boring and extremely worthy idiots, who didn't seem to drink much! It was a real night to forget! I was stuck between someone's husband who was fifty years older than me and a Methodist minister! What fun!'

'Sounds like it!' Alex laughed! 'She certainly seemed to enjoy lacing you into that corset!'

'She did! And I suspect she'll be in one before the end of the night!' Jane put her arm round Alex. 'And I suspect she'll have you dressed the same too!'

'I think you might be right! She would hate to be upstaged.' Alex thought before continuing. 'I hope I don't fall out with her. She can be rather frightening!'

'Don't worry! She can be very formidable at times. Especially when she puts her glasses on!' Alex showed surprise, as she'd never seen her mother-in-law wear them! 'But remember she's the best young Judge anywhere! And also that she never harbours any grudges. You'll never fall out with her! No-one ever does!'

***

'Hello!' Alex tapped on the door of the Red Room and put her head round. 'Can I come in?'

Lizzie was alone and sitting on the bed, still in the dress she had worn for the journey. 'Yes! Of course!'

'Are you OK?' Alex sat beside her! 'If you don't mind me saying, you look a bit apprehensive. Worried even!'

'I am!' Tears could be seen in her eyes.

'Is it the sleeping arrangements?' Alex tried to comfort her by holding her hand. 'Jane seems to get want she wants. Was that all her idea to get at Susan?'

'No!' Lizzie smiled a small amount. 'Not at all! I've shared a bedroom with Alan before. He's good company! If we sleep together, I'll let it happen if we both want it!'

'Oh! You said you shared a bedroom!'

'Yes!' Lizzie continued. 'All four of us were at Alan and Jane's house near Montpelier two summers ago. Alan suggested that we all take the train along to Nice as a sort of adventure. He's a Professor of Engineering at London University and completely fanatical about trains of all sorts!'

'It's all news to me!' Susan hadn't told Alex anything about the guests.

'Well!' Lizzie started again. 'At the last minute, Jane gets a call from London and they send this enormous brief for her. As David really couldn't understand why anybody wanted to take the train along the South of France, he suggested we go together! David's also a bird-watcher and he wanted to see the flamingos at Sete! Again!'

'I didn't know you can see them in Europe!'

'There are thousands of them there on the salt lakes. So Alan and I got on the train and ambled towards Nice. It was a lovely journey. We drunk a lot on the way and got into Nice about four in the afternoon. He suggested we stay in a good hotel, so we tried the Negresso! And guess what?'

'There was only one double room!' Alex guessed.

'There always is in tales like these!' She laughed. 'So we had a beautiful meal on the Promenade des Anglais and then went to bed with a pillow down the middle! We were very good! We even put the lights out when we got undressed. And yet, he'd seen me topless in the garden!'

'I know how you mean! I've been sunbathing topless on holiday before I had Jake and yet was quite embarrassed to do that beside Susan's pool!' She omitted to say they were actually naked!

***

'So why the apprehension?' Alex still couldn't work it out.

'Look at them all!' Lizzie started to unbutton her dress. 'They're all judges, top lawyers, high-ranking policemen, serious academics. That sort of thing! I'm just a part-time secretary for the council in Southend. Not very grand!'

Alex remembered something her father had told her. 'They're all the same when they smile!' She added something that Susan had said when she had used the phrase to her. 'And on the toilet!'

'I suppose so!' Lizzie stood up, laughed at what Alex had said and dropped the dress to reveal an ornate blue and burgundy basque, matching knickers and dark blue stockings. 'Look at me! I got this lot from Selfridges! It isn't really me at all! It makes me look like an embroidered sofa!'

'It's great!' Alex started giggling. 'You've made one mistake though!'

'What's that! Please don't laugh!'

'You've put the suspenders over the knickers!' Lizzie realised the problem and saw the funny side. 'I did that this morning! Susan told me off and corrected me! Don't worry, us two are rather naive at this sex party thing!'

'But look at me!' Lizzie turned towards one of the many mirrors. 'Your make-up is fantastic and almost over the top. Whereas mine is crap and very Essex on a bad day!'

'Susan has thought about that! She hired a beautician and she did mine an hour or so ago! She did a wonderful job. I'm worse at it than you! If she's still here would you like to be professionally made up? Then would you come to the party?'

'It's a deal!'

She picked up the phone and dialled the kitchen. 'Is the beautician still here? Lizzie would like to be made up!'

Copyright 2004 by Ewart Higgins