Zoë felt quite excited as she pushed open the door to the flat she shared with Esther. Tonight was the night of the dinner party for which they'd been preparing for ever such a long time. Ever since the last such party in fact. That one had been such a success that they could hardly wait to get another organised. She smiled at her reflection in the hall mirror as she slipped off the denim jacket she'd been wearing. It had been so much fun her pussy had been sore for a week. She could hear a chop chop chop sound coming from the kitchen.

"Esther! Is that you?" Zoë cried.

"Of course. Who else could it be? I'm just preparing the vegetables. Do you want to come and help?"

"I'll have to change first," Zoë laughed, glancing down at her smart casual cotton trousers and blouse. She wandered into the kitchen, where Esther stood with her back to her, busy slicing up the courgettes and aubergines. "Hey, you've hardly got anything on."

Esther turned round to face Zoë. "What do you mean? I'm wearing an apron." This much was true. The straps were over the shoulders and the bib came half way down her thighs, but from behind all Zoë could see was naked flesh and Esther's pert round bum. "I'm just getting into the mood for the party."

"Ooh!" Zoë sighed, taking her flatmate by her shoulders and resting her chin on her bare shoulder. "Just seeing you like this makes me feel pretty much in the mood already."

Esther lay down her knife and turned round to face Zoë, so that the stiff cold plastic of the apron, and its pictures of pre-Raphaelite nudes, were pressed against Zoë's blouse. She stood on her toes so that her mouth was the same height as Zoë's mouth and kissed her tenderly on the lips. "I know! Just having you here makes me feel pretty much in the mood already. But we haven't got the time. There's a lot of preparation to get through before the guests arrive. And besides, I don't want to be worn out before the party's even begun!"

Zoë laughed, and kissed Esther full on the mouth, while looping an arm around her bare waist. "You're so right. I'll prepare the dining room and everything else before I join you in preparing the food. I'm sure you can manage on your own for just a little longer."

The excitement just kept on building until the food was at last ready and placed in the oven, the carpet vacuumed and the places laid at the table for all the guests. Zoë counted the chairs. There were nine chairs laid out, and the tenth one could be pulled in should there be an extra guest. Zoë visualised her guests. Places for Adrian and Steve, Jane and Martin, Noelle and Mark, and, of course, Pauline who never seemed to have a steady partner but never seemed to have any difficulty in picking up casual ones. She totted it up. Four men. Five women. More women than men. Not that Zoë really minded. She'd never really been sure what her preference was. But as she thought about the feel and thrust of a good man's cock, she wasn't sure that the balance was really right. Anyway, how could she be sure that Adrian and Steve would willingly share themselves with the girls? And when she said 'girls', she really meant herself.

Bach's Adagio and Fugue trilled down the hallway in a rendition the German master would probably not have been flattered by. Zoë picked up the phone. "Hi! Who is it?" she asked breathlessly. This was always her biggest fear before a party. Someone ringing in to say they couldn't come. It was Pauline. Shit! Zoë almost said out loud. That girl was so fucking unreliable. No wonder she never kept her boyfriends for more than a week at a time. But Zoë needn't have worried. Pauline had met a man a few days ago at the office restaurant, and she'd invited him to come over that night. And then she'd noticed that the date clashed with the party, so she wondered whether she could bring him along. His name was Nigel.

Zoë smiled. If nothing else it evened up the numbers. Perhaps she'd get a bit of cock tonight after all. "Of course he can come. The more the merrier. But make sure you bring enough wine. We've only got the one crate in."

Pauline laughed on the other side of the phone. "And I'll bring a dildo as well. You'll love it, Zoë. It's a real wowser!"

Zoë could feel the juice between her legs loosen with anticipation. "As long as you bring yourself along. That's what really matters."

It took ages for Zoë and Esther to work out what to wear to the party as the food was slowly cooking in the oven. Zoë settled on a black blouse that opened ever so revealingly to reveal the swell of her relatively modest bosom, and a short skirt that rode quite high up her slim thighs.

Esther was typically less modest, choosing a top that bared her arms and waist, and emphasised her much larger breasts. She chose not to wear a skirt or trousers, but a strap-on dildo that dangled down onto her inner thigh. It looked quite realistic with plastic veins and a bulbous head. She combed her straight dyed-blonde hair, which framed her face and showed off the beauty of her long neck.

Zoë's own hair was bushy and dark brown, and showed off her own slim neck and angular shoulders. She gazed at her reflection. Her eyelids were light blue and her lips were painted a dark seductive red. Behind her she could see the dildo bouncing up and down, and swaying side-to-side as Esther vigorously combed her hair. God! Zoë could really do with a cock tonight! A strap-on might do, but it never felt as warm as a man's prick. And it never had that pulsing beat of the veins against her sensitive cunt-lips. Please let it be so!

The guests soon arrived. First were Adrian and Steve, dressed as always in jeans and tight tee shirts that showed off the rewards of their many dedicated hours in the gym. They kissed Zoë and Esther tenderly on the cheeks, and waltzed hand-in-hand into the living room where, as always, they were soon leafing through the pile of magazines stacked up on the coffee table.

Then there was Jane and Martin both dressed in leather. Jane just loved the sight of Esther's dildo. While Martin kissed Zoë long and lingeringly, his leather singlet brushing against the nipples under her blouse, Jane knelt down and playfully ran her tongue up and down the length of the plastic toy. But this was just foreplay. The couple strode into the living room and chatted to the two men who still held onto their magazines, and, as they always did, started riffling through the girls' CD collection to find some chill-out dance music.

Noelle and Mark arrived a few minutes later. Mark was wearing a shirt and tie, jacket and trousers: dressed more like the executive he was during the day rather than a partygoer. Noelle was rather more unrestrained. She wore a tight strapless dress that emphasised the heave of her breasts and the long neck that curved up to her inch-long hair.

The couples sat in the living room, nibbling on canapés, nachos and dips, with glasses of white wine and, in Noelle's case a glass of sherry. Mark pulled out a small packet and started skinning up a fat one on the cover of Business Weekly. Jane was spreading Esther's CDs about the floor and selecting tunes that she particularly enjoyed. Zoë wasn't sure she appreciated all Jane's taste. She was looking forward to when she could wrest the stereo off Jane and put on some restful jazz or some ambient drum and bass.

Finally, Mark's joint had been round the room a couple of times, the nibbles were mostly finished, and still Pauline hadn't arrived. This was only to be expected. The girl was so fucking unreliable! But Esther decided that it wasn't a good idea to wait, or the potatoes would get burnt and the vegetables too soggy. So the party adjourned to the dining room section of the living room, while Zoë slipped on a Nitin Sawhney album she thought would better suit the ambience than fucking Armand Van Helden.

It was only when the plates were set out and forks and knives were poised to tuck in, that the sitar sounds were interrupted by the strangled sound of the Fanfare for the Common Man. It was the doorbell. Zoë leaped out of her seat. After all, Pauline had been her friend longer than she had known Esther. She ran to the door, partly miffed at Pauline's lateness, but relieved she'd turned up at all.

Pauline was there at the door with that sweet winning smile that always melted Zoë's heart however undependable her friend was. She was wearing a smart trouser suit with a wide tie over her blouse and pushed forward by the thrust of her bosom.

"Hi! Meet Nigel," she said, standing to one side so that Zoë could see her chaperone. Zoë smiled, but was slightly alarmed. Nice looking though Nigel was, he didn't really look the kind of guy you'd expect to find at the sort of party she and Esther were holding. He was well built, quite tall, with averagely short curly brown hair, a short-sleeved blue shirt and neatly creased trousers. This in itself was not what alarmed Zoë. After all, how did she expect her guests to dress? In fucking manacles and black leather hoods? What concerned Zoë were his disarmingly pleasant smile and his polite demeanour.

"Hello, Nigel," Zoë said with as welcoming a smile as she could muster, but as soon as she could she gave Pauline a quizzical glare. "Shall we take your bottle into the kitchen so we can cool it in the fridge?"

As Nigel walked ahead into the kitchen carrying his bottle, Zoë whispered urgently to Pauline. "Does Nigel know what sort of party this is?"

Pauline smiled. "Well. Not really. I didn't want to put him off coming."

"Coming? Does he 'come' in any sense of the word? Has he, for instance, 'come' in you, Pauline?"

"Well, not yet, sweetest. But I'm sure he will."

Zoë screwed up her face. This could be embarrassing. But the die was cast now. There was no way back now that Nigel had passed the threshold. He wandered back to the girls, smiling appreciatively.

"You've sure got a nice place here. Esther. Or is it Zoë?"

"Zoë," the hostess corrected him. "Yes, but it cost a lot. Property prices. You know. I couldn't have afforded it by myself."

"Oh. So that's why you share with Esther."

Zoë didn't choose to correct him this time. "Come on, you two. Dinner is served."

She pushed open the door to the dining room where the other guests were already eating. Zoë noted with relief that nobody was behaving in any way that might have alarmed Nigel. Indeed, the dinner party looked decidedly unthreatening, and plates of food were laid out for the two latecomers.

And then Esther stood up to greet her guests. Zoë felt a certain anxiety at this point. How would Nigel react as Esther walked towards them, her dildo swaying gently in front of her and a glimpse of nipple seeking to escape from her skimpy top? She regarded Nigel and noted that he had visibly blanched.

"Hi there, Pauline. Glad you could make it," Esther said, kissing her on the lips. "And you must be Nigel?" She kissed him gently on the cheeks.

Nigel's voice seemed to be failing him. "Er. Yes. That's me. That's who I am," he replied uncertainly.

"Well, I hope you enjoy your meal. Pauline didn't tell me whether you were a vegetarian, but you needn't worry. Zoë's a vegetarian herself, so there's no meat here."

Zoë was sure that Nigel's anxiety wasn't caused by dietary concerns. But he took his seat between Pauline and Adrian, just opposite Mark and herself. She could see Nigel exchange worried glances with Pauline, but she merely smiled in that ambiguous way she excelled in and shrugged her shoulders.

The conversation over the meal was fairly unexceptional. Jane chatted about the nightclubs she'd been to and how she was beginning to get a bit old for that sort of thing. Mark discussed recent movements on the stock exchange. Adrian and Steve competed with each other to express the greater enthusiasm for some musical they'd seen. Esther presided over it all with her usual skill, ensuring that nobody dominated the conversation and that boring subjects weren't pursued beyond other guests' endurance. Zoë watched Pauline and Nigel chat, and was interested in observing how his expression alternated from interest in his partner to discomfort in his environment. Every now and then he would glance towards Esther, perhaps visualising her dildo under the table. Or perhaps regarding her nipple as it occasionally popped out from the cleavage of her top.

Adrian started chatting to Nigel, which at first troubled Zoë. Perhaps Nigel was gay himself, and this party would just disintegrate into two separate groups of exclusive homosexual preference. However, she could tell from Adrian's expression that Nigel was not even aware that he was being chatted up and that Adrian was getting nowhere at all with this little fishy.

"So, Nigel, you work at the same place as Pauline?" Zoë wondered, noticing that his companion was having a rather animated conversation with Martin about drugs and dance music.

Nigel looked at her gratefully. He had noticed that Adrian had shifted his attention to Mark who was much less choosy than him and had perhaps began to realise what Adrian liked most in a man. "Well, we share the same staff restaurant. I'm a systems analyst on the ZEN project…"

"'Zen'? Sounds a bit mystical."

"No, it's just an acronym. It's a fund management system."

"Oh really," said Zoë, regretting already this turn in the conversation. She glanced around her in the hope that she could change the focus toward some other conversationalist. She latched onto Pauline. "What do you know about 'ZEN', Pauline?"

"Bugger all!" Pauline laughed. "Is Nigel talking shop again?" She placed a firm hand on his upper leg, and Zoë could see him visibly jump. "I don't know anything about 'Zen', but I wouldn't mind trying out some Tantric Sex."

At this, almost everyone on the table chortled and laughed in a way that alarmed Nigel even more. Even he realised that what she'd said wasn't really that funny.

After the pudding and coffees, everyone was beginning to get a little nervous. How was it all going to progress to the next stage? A strange quietness descended on the party, broken when Esther stood up and announced she'd better clear up the dirty plates.