My phone rang, which was a surprise. I'm not a great one for chatting, and my friends know that. But it was Mary, so she probably didn't want to just talk.

Mary and I had a nice, relaxed relationship. We would meet every couple of weeks or so for a drink, a meal or as each other's plus-one for a function. And we would always end up in bed together, and it was always great, because we had similar ideas, likes and dislikes. The first time we did it, after three dates and her initial reluctance, I slipped into her when I was just getting into position but didn't think I was there yet. Maybe her pussy was slightly prominent or something, I don't know. What I do know is that she loved sucking me. When we were alone together sometimes and I was doing something else - sorting out a DVD, fixing something or whatever - I could sense her just sitting there waiting for me to finish so she could take me in her mouth.

I really appreciated what we had in that respect. I just didn't want to have a proper boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. She liked me a lot, probably more than I liked her, and she talked to me about personal things, sex things. She had told me, for instance, about the time she had two men one after the other, outside on a common by the beach at night. She had also confided in me about the one time she had had sex with another woman. She knew it wouldn't bother me, and that I would keep it to myself. What man would be bothered by that? It's a huge turn-on. Even if she was the love of your life and you didn't want any other man to have her, a lesbian episode is more than fine.

Highlights of these thoughts were flitting through my mind as I spoke to her on the phone. It was Friday and I was having a quiet bottle of wine and watching a film.

"We're just up the road at Buchu San," Mary said excitedly above the background hum of conversation. "Me and Abi and Sarah. Had a really nice meal and now we're heading back to my place. You want to join us?"

I was most of the way through my bottle of Beaujolais and feeling sleepy, so I hesitated.

"You and three women?" Mary persisted. "I thought you might like the idea." Her friends scolded her good-naturedly and I could imagine her making only-joking gestures to them.

"I'm a bit pissed," I said.

"So are we," Mary countered. "But I can make us all some strong coffee and we'll behave ourselves for a while. Go on, don't let me down."

Half an hour later, I was walking into Mary's house to find her on the settee and the others in armchairs. Mary was wearing an expression I knew well: the one where she was waiting to suck my cock.

I sat down but was immediately given instructions to put some music on and get a bottle of Kahlua to go with the coffee which somebody had made already.

Abi was pale and slim with a shock of wild black hair, which I always imagined was matched by a riotous jungle between her legs. I didn't find her particularly attractive, although I could see she might be good fun in bed.

Sarah, on the other hand, was tall and statuesque: substantial and voluptuous like a sculpture. Her hair was short and a sort of mousy ginger. She had large breasts and a meaty arse, all of which made her my kind of woman.

I had, in fact, gone out with her once several years earlier, having met her through a dating website. It wasn't a sex site, just a normal I'm-divorced-and-you're-divorced- site on which you don't state your sexual intentions, but in my opinion, 99.9% of the men and 99% of the women are secretly hoping for some bed action in due course, perhaps after a couple of platonic dates.

Sarah and I had had dinner at a new Indian restaurant where they gave you chunks of fresh chili in with the dish, so you could administer it yourself and have it as hot or as mild as you wanted. It was a strange idea and I wondered how experienced the chef was, but I couldn't discuss it with Sarah because she spent the whole time moaning about how badly she had been treated by her ex-husband, even though she clearly wanted to get back with him. After a while, I had given up expecting any sort of physical exchange, but I couldn't keep my eyes off her body and still hoped she might relent when I took her home, in a sort of "Well, he's a guy, and I haven't had sex for a long time" sort of way. But no, she had "Forget it" written all over her back as she hurried up the garden path of the large farmhouse which she was determined to keep, with or without her ex.

When we had met again through our mutual friend Mary, she had given no indication of remembering me and her frostiness persuaded me not to mention it either.

Following Steely Dan's advice, "Feed her some hungry reggae, she'll love you twice", I put on a CD of reggae hits. When I sat down, Abi and Sarah were absorbed in conversation, so Mary opened her arms wide and we kissed and cuddled. Then, as bold as brass, she unzipped my jeans and pulled out my throbbing member. Still no reaction from the others, so Mary went down and took me in her mouth. I closed my eyes in bliss and then opened one of them just to observe the reactions across the room. Abi was watching us intently, while Sarah rummaged in her handbag.

I leaned back while Mary poked her naughty, dainty little tongue in my crack, as she was wont to do. Having achieved that, she too looked across at the girls, then came up and whispered in my ear.

"What would you like to do now?"

"I want to lick Sarah's arse," I said.

This was something that Mary wouldn't let me do to her, even if she did it to me. She walked over to the girls and there was a brief, muffled conversation which ended with Sarah's indignant harrumph and her stomping out of the room. I waited for the front door to slam but it didn't. Her footsteps tramped angrily up the stairs. Mary went into the kitchen and Abi came and sat next to me.

"Oh dear," she said, then launched herself at me and we kissed. She was fully clothed and I was naked, with another woman's saliva all over me, but this only seemed to turn Abi on. She sucked my cock and placed my right hand inside her top so I could feel her breasts. She was so enthusiastic and so good at it that, already revved up by Mary's earlier attentions, I quickly found myself exploding in Abi's mouth just as Mary came back in and said, "I'll go and see how she is."

Abi sucked and swallowed as much of my semen as she could find and licked my softening dick with affection as I listened for noises from above. Then Mary came back down and wordlessly gestured for me to go upstairs.

"Really?" I said.

"Go," said Mary with expressive eyebrows.

There were just three rooms up there: the bathroom and two bedrooms. I peered into the spare room, but it was empty, dead, still spare. I walked purposefully into Mary's room, where a bedside light was on and a bulky presence lurked beneath the duvet. I pulled it back just enough to slide in and found Sarah naked with her knees pulled up, facing away from me. I gently spooned her and she must have felt my cock nestle between her cheeks.

I laid my arm across her as innocently as I could, making sure not to touch her chest with my hand, and kissed her sweetly on the shoulder.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," she conceded. There was a short silence as she waited for me to say something, and when I tossed the silence back at her, he said, "Mary said there was something you would like to do.'

I kissed her shoulder again.

"I don't want to see when you do it,' she said as noncommittally as she could manage. Then she assumed a kneeling position with her head on her collapsed arms and her arse in the air. I got behind her and felt her tense up as I put my face in her arse. I licked her up and down the right and then on the left and I felt her relax. But she didn't like it when I poked my tongue at her hole.

"Lick," she commanded. So lick I did. I gave her the full-service tongue treatment, such as you see referred to as "ass worship". I could feel Sarah beginning to mellow. Was this some kind of turning point for her? She wriggled contentedly and breathed the words, "Lick my arse. Mmm, I like that. Make me cum. Aaahh. Make me cum."

And then, miracle of miracles, Sarah came through the erotic power of my tongue in her crack. She hissed and she mumbled. She wouldn't give me the satisfaction of sounding grateful or impressed, but she had had an orgasm and I had facilitated it for her.

I moved up so my chest was against her back and I kissed her shoulder again, and as my hand hung innocently in front of her chest, she took it and placed it on her right breast.

Could I have a relationship with this woman? Even if she consented to it, I knew it would be asking for trouble. But perhaps she and I could meet in secret now and then, and I could give her the sexual satisfaction that even she needed. I could lick her arse again. Maybe I could fuck her from behind, then face to face, with the lights off of course. And her body might persuade her to give in to the urge to suck my cock.

For now, I would just have to wait and see.