Marilyn (Maz) Foster was sitting up in my bed, her back to the bed head and I was lying across the bed with my head in her lap, looking up at her. Until a few minutes before I had been lying face down but when my objective had been achieved, I turned over.

“You’ve always been really good at that.”

“Thanks, Maz. One tries. Fancy a glass of wine?

“Marvellous.” I got up and walked to my kitchen. I was taking a month off after working on location in Singapore for a tv series in which I played a homicidal banker. It was all sharp suits and heels and a lot of blood. I swear Flick Caterham (my agent) gets me work like this deliberately. Anyway, I’d finished the series and was home in my London apartment and Maz was rehearsing for a West End show so, as often happened, she and I had got together for what she liked to call ‘a little catch-up.’

I slipped back into bed beside her and handed her a glass and rested back against the headboard.

“Oh,” said Maz. “I was meaning to tell you. You’ll never guess who I bedded when I was in Seattle.”

“I didn’t know you’d been to Seattle?”

“A screen test. Got the job, thanks for the congratulations. Anyway, guess.”

“Judi Dench?”

“Judy Hollander.”

“Judy Hollander? She’s not gay. Bugger me she’s positively the Doris Day of our times. Pure as the driven. You winding me up?”

“Not at all. She is deliciously kinky and very, very enthusiastic. She’s gone in the little red book.” The little red book was a term Maz used for those who merited a repeat performance.

“Kinky?”

“Yes, particularly about fisting.”

“Fisting? You do that?”

“Not until then.”

“Who was the fistee?”

“She was of course. What do you think?”

“What was it like? For you I mean?”

She thought about it for a few moments. “Well,” she said eventually, “it was nice and warm.”

I spluttered and spilled a little wine. “Nice and warm?” I began to laugh. Max did too and I kept saying ‘nice and warm’ through my laughter until we were both cackling inanely and laughing until it hurt. As so often happened with me and Maz our hilarity led to another bout of energetic sex. Mother nature’s way of shutting us up, I guess.

~~

My agent, Felicity (Flick) Caterham had asked me, well commanded me to attend at her office. Her new right-hand woman was what Flick’s sister, my best mate Lilly would have called exotic. She was tall, extremely beautiful, Indian and built like a wet dream, well, my wet dreams anyway.

Rita, for such was her name, told me to proceed into Flick’s inner sanctum where Flick, to my amazement, stood up, came around her desk and kissed me.

“You’re firing me?” Strictly speaking, I was the client, she the agent but as so often in these relationships, the agent is the leader because it is she who gets the work.

“Cynic. No, I am not ‘letting you go’ I am showing my genuine affection and now we’ve got that out of the way, to business.”

Business was interrupted by Rita arriving with a tray of glasses and an ice bucket with champagne.

“It’s 10 in the morning for fuck’s sake!” exclaimed Flick.

“It’s Miss Millerton, Miss Caterham.”

“If you call me Miss Caterham again I shall explode. And this,” she waved a hand vaguely in my direction, “this is Millerton.” Rita popped the cork, poured three glasses and handed one each to me and Flick then sat down crossing those impressive legs. Flick maintained that the industry was still mainly run by men and having beautiful women in her agency did no harm. Yes, she always said, politically incorrect but economically substantiated, so fuck it.

Rita raised a glass to me. “Cheers, Faye.”

I smiled beatifically at her. “Cheers Rita.” I turned to Flick, “We like her, Flick, she’s a keeper.”

“Miss,” she stressed the word, “Miss Millerton has, it must be admitted, risen higher in the firmament than might have been predicted when first my sister begged me to take her on as a client.”

“You fibber! She told me you asked her to set up a meeting at one of her parties!” Lilly’s parties were legendary.

“Sparing your feelings, no doubt. But, as I was saying Rita, my sister, Lilly, begged me to take her on and since then I have guided her gently and kindly through the maze and up the greasy pole despite,” she tapped a glossy nail on her desk, “despite a string of embarrassing and potentially career-destroying indiscretions, not least the German girl outside that sleazy bar you found her in.” (For the full story, read the first Rising Star.)

“She was American.” How many times had I said that?

‘And the Mayoress of Bradford.” Oh God, yes, that was a truly embarrassing moment.

~~

A brief digression. The manager of the Compton Theatre, Bradford was a mate from drama school. He, Lionel Gammel, was a brilliant director but also a man who believed art was good for communities and instead of going to Hollywood or the west-end where he would no doubt have made a fortune, he had chosen to work in less auspicious surroundings, doing what he loved for the people around him. I loved him and occasionally did a show for him at mate’s rates (which Flick pretended to frown on). Lionel had called me.

“Faye, I need your help.”

“It’s not the goats again?”

He laughed. “No, it’s subsidence.”

“What?”
 

“The fucking theatre is falling down!” The long and the short of it was he needed to raise over a million pounds to get the building repaired. We mounted a campaign and I got a few actor and actress friends to do a show gratis and we all did a few local and national tv appearances to raise interest and eventually we raised the money.

The incident to which Flick referred was the night of the last performance of the charity show. It had been a review, a series of sketches or extracts from plays etc. Maz Foster was with me and we shared a dressing room. Most nights we left at the interval because we had nothing to do in the second half but because there was going to be a bit of a presentation when the curtain came down, we stayed in the dressing room and, inevitably, shared a bottle of gin Maz had brought.

We sat there in our underwear and drank and chatted and, because Maz looked fabulous I knelt in front of her and gave her a good tongue exercise until she had a fairly noisy orgasm. None of this would have mattered if, whilst wired for a microphone and later on stage, I had not forgotten said microphone and whispered, ‘I can still taste you,’ and it was heard by, the press, the cast, a few of the audience and, of course, the Lady Mayoress. Needless to say, in our cups, Maz and I thought this was hilarious but not everyone shared our opinion.

Flick was absolutely incandescent and would have told us both to fuck off had it not been for lovely Lionel who called her and said the publicity had gone ape and he’d had money pouring in from all over. Every cloud.

~~

“So,” said Flick, “despite her success it is incumbent on us, you and me, when she is here in England and on Hattie, when she is in the States, to keep her fucking leash on.” Her voice had risen a little. “She is a loose cannon; totally unreliable, juvenile, idiotic.”

I poked my tongue out at her and said, “You missed out adorable.”

“QED. She has been doing the Singapore thing and, so far as we are aware there have been no unfortunate incidents there. But she is about to be considered for a part, a very big part.” I could tell Rita knew all this, so it was for my benefit. “Tell her, Rita, I cannot bring myself to give the silly cow good news.”

Rita smiled. “It’s called ‘The Court of the Kennedys.’ You get to play Jackie.”

“If,” Flick interrupted, “if you behave!”

“Is it right for me?” Now, I knew Flick would never let me do something that wasn’t right for me but I always loved winding her up.

She slapped her hand on her desk. “No, you moron, it’s completely fucking wrong for you so it’ll end your career and I shall earn no more fees from you. I’ve been trying to sabotage you for years!”

I raised my glass and did my sweetest smile. “Well, cheers Flick, cheers Rita. Let’s see if I can fuck this up?”

~~

The director, Delia Coraventone met me, early one evening, at the Savoy, one of London’s most opulent hotels. She was a striking women, not much taller than I but very slim, understated clothes which were obviously expensive, short greying brown hair, minimal makeup, absolutely no jewellery.

“What do you know about her?” I’d read all I had time to read and reeled it off as if I was dragging it from my memory – I’m an actress don’t forget. She seemed impressed. “Let me hear your American accent.” That seemed to pass muster. “You have a reputation.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“In your case it is, I would say, mixed. Okay, you can act and you’re bankable but you have been described as accident-prone.” Her tilted eyebrow made it a question.

I knew either she or the producers or both wanted me for the role and I knew this was a bit of posturing; maybe even an attempt to keep my fees down. “Cora, you have an amazing reputation. People say you are brilliant, demanding, eccentric, passionate and a fucking nightmare to work with. We’ll get on well, don’t you think.” It’s funny how having a shed load of money makes one braver. Fifteen years earlier and I’d have been on my knees begging.

Despite my lack of need, I was relieved when she smiled. “Yes, I rather think we will. I’ll get the suits to sort things with Flick. We don’t need to sully our hands with money, do we?”

We ordered champagne and drank it. Cora, disappointingly, was straight so the meeting over I made my way to one of the clubs that I’d learned about from other stars who shared my interests. If Maz had still been around I’d have called her but she was off on a trip to what she called her ‘almost woman’ who lived in Scotland so she could have some fun before her West End opening.

The club was elegant, expensive and exclusive. I went into the bar and took a seat at a small table. It was almost ten o’clock and the place was busy.

“You’re Faye Millerton.” I hate it when people say that. It’s as if I might have forgotten and the temptation is always to reply with something like, “Gosh, really? I thought I was Joan of Arc,” but I didn’t because the woman who said it was tall, slim, very short-haired, a little more than slightly androgynous (which often does it for me) and a front bench member of the government.

“You’re Martina Hope.” She smiled. Who wouldn’t recognise the Home Secretary? What if I were to be photographed entering or leaving her home? Well, I thought, she’s open about her sexuality, she’s single, what can go wrong?

“Well, now that we have reminded each other who we are, can I get you a drink?”

“I’ve ordered but you’d be very welcome to join me.”

She sat. “Are you a new member?”

“Yes, I am relatively new. I joined but had to go abroad for a while, so I only came in once before.”

“Well, welcome then.” We sat in silence as the waitress, legs to heaven, good tits, big smile, long hair, served our drinks. “It’s a very discreet club which is, of course why I like it.”

“My agent likes it, she thinks I am indiscreet.”

“And are you?”

“No, but I like to wind her up.”

“You like mischief.”

“Of course. I live in a trivial world and sometimes it’s fun to make a bit of mischief.”

“I live in a very serious world and mischief is good there too.”

So we chatted, fenced verbally and generally sniffed around each other, drinking good Champagne until we both knew we were going to fuck.

“It had better be my place,” she said, “my bodyguard hates strange places.”

Her place was in Chelsea, near the harbour, a delightful little mews cottage. We travelled in her car with mine following. We sat together in the back and her bodyguard, a very athletic looking woman called, apparently, Michelle, sat in the front. She called me Ma’am and had checked my bag before we left the club. I nearly said, ‘you’re ok, I am not an assassin,’ but decided that might not be a good idea.

“Goodnight, Michelle. We’ll be fine till the morning. Would you tell Miss Millerton’s driver to come back around 8?” She turned to me. “I’m sorry if it makes you feel like a diary entry but that is what being in politics is I’m afraid.”

When Michelle had left, she sat down and said, “Would you mind taking your clothes off?” It was phrased like a request but this woman had command, authority and, I thought, an armed bodyguard. I stripped. She watched and if she was salivating, it wasn’t obvious. “Everything, please.” I had intended to but I thought a little display of modesty might wind her up a bit so I hesitated, then slowly eased my knickers down.

She stood up and came close. She touched me, first my hair, then my face, then my shoulder, then her hands grazed down my arms and she moved close. I could smell brandy on her breath. She loosened her tie (yes, a real man’s tie but, unusually, done right up – she even had a hankie in her breast pocket). She turned me around and pulled me back against her and continued her exploration, my tits, my stomach, my arse. Very gently, she pushed me so I was almost face down on what looked like a very expensive table. The next thing I knew she was tying her tie around my eyes. “Stay there.”

I heard her padding away and, after a few minutes, returning. Her hands roamed over my arse, my hips and at last and thank fuck between my legs because Faye was getting eager now and I wanted it. I knew it was going to be rough, I could tell. Without warning, she grabbed my hair tightly and pulled my head up. At the same time, she pushed the tip of her strapon between my lips, held it there for a few seconds and then, leaning down and kissing my neck she rammed it into me.

I gasped and I am sure she growled. She was having me, taking me and it was all for her. No question it worked for me too but this was a straight forward, rough rogering which was exactly what I had wanted. She didn’t last long. She suddenly tensed, drove into me and held herself there, deep, pressing and pulling my hair and a long moan escaped her lips. Seconds later, she stood me up, indifferent to whether I had cum or not and removed the blindfold. She was naked and her body was fabulous in the half-light. Her tits were high and proud and her nipples were hard, her eyes dilated.

“Come with me.”

Taking my hand she led me upstairs to a small, tidy bedroom. The sex that followed was gentler. “I needed that, “she said, “selfish, I know but I did. You were fabulous.”

“I thought you upheld Home Office values splendidly.”

She laughed. “Get on that bed, legs apart and welcome the Minister of State into you.”

“Like the holy ghost?”

“Oh, fuck no. Not the least like the holy ghost.” She fucked me again, over me and, a little later behind me and then with me on my knees. I don’t know how many times I climaxed but I do know that by morning I had slept about fifteen minutes and knew I needed a good sleep when I got home.

~~

“Do you ever fucking learn?” Flick on my phone a couple of days later. “The Telegraph has an exclusive. I quote, ‘Does this mean a Damehood for Millerton? Famous actress leaves the Home Secretary’s home in Chelsea after an early breakfast meeting.’ I simply don’t believe you.”

“I’d like a Damehood.”

“I’ve had the producers of the Kennedys on.”

“They must be pleased I have an interest in politics. Breakfast meetings are very much the thing with senior politicians. Very useful background for my role.”

“I have no idea why, but they do seem okay about it. They were simply asking if you were in a relationship with the Home Secretary and that it might make any of the political stuff difficult. I told them you were a total imbecile, incapable of any sort of intelligent behaviour and the Home Secretary was simply interested in the arts.”

“Well, that’s all good then. Delia Coraventoni liked me.”

“Don’t tell me you tried to bed her too.” I hung up, smiling.