This evening it was even busier than normal, with people, regulars and visitors, wedged tightly on the terracotta coloured benches and occupying all the seats. Around the bar a scrum of people thronged idly, some waiting to be served, some seated by the bar, and others simply standing, chatting. There was steady thrum of conversation, and the bar was full of life; a popular and well run bar exudes a certain relaxed ambience, and this evening The Jug was relaxation personified.

My Master was sipping his second pint of bitter, and I had a half pint of Stella before me.

"So," he said, holding his glass to the light and studying it, admiring its clarity, "now tell me about Old Tom."

My heart leapt into my mouth. "Here?" I whispered, knowing full well what was his answer would be. I was right.

"Of course. I don't like to have to ask twice."

The bar, as I said, was packed, and we were forced together like passengers in the standard class train carriages at rush hour. There was no possibility of discretion: whatever I said would be overheard by everyone around me. I looked pleadingly at my Master, but he returned my gaze steadfastly, irresolutely. I would have to do it, I knew.

"Well," I began, "I tried on Wednesday, and it went quite well. He invited me in for a cup of tea, and things progressed okay, but I'm sorry, I didn't manage to do it. I'm really sorry, Master, but I lost my nerve."

My Master looked at me reprovingly. A couple of people beside us, I noticed, had stopped talking and were surreptitiously listening to our conversation, alerted, presumably, by my use of the word Master. Not that they'd heard anything interesting. Yet.

"And yesterday?" my Master asked.

"Yes, yesterday I did it."

"Did what?"

I paused. They were still listening, pretending to sip their drinks. Well, they were going to get an earful now. "I gave him a blowjob, Master," I whispered.

"Pardon?" My Master could be very cruel.

"I gave him a blowjob, Master," I repeated, louder. The woman opposite me jolted with surprise, unable to keep up her pretence of disinterest. I knew her vaguely. She was a regular in the pub, and I also knew her from work, I think. I had worked with her on a couple of projects a year or so back, and hadn't liked her much. Bit of a gossip, as I recalled, which wasn't good news, considering what she was about to overhear.

"Is that all?"

"No, Master, it isn't."

There was a pause, as my Master clearly expected me to elucidate. I didn't.

"So, continue. What else did you do?"

By now our whole area of the pub was hushed. All the myriad conversations which had been flowing, the laughter which had rung round the old stone walls, the heated debates, jocular exhanges, lovers lullabies, they all wound to a halt, an edgy silence settling over us, embarrassed, mute, expectant.

"First, I did a striptease. He told me he hadn't seen anyone my age naked for forty years, and asked me to show him." My words sounded as if they were echoing off every wall and reverberating the length and breadth of the room, full volume, insistent, haunting me, humiliating me. I ploughed on, head bowed, tearing at the beermat with my fingernail. "And so I did. I stripped off for him, dancing and putting on a show. He seemed to enjoy it very much, and so when I finished I started sucking him again. Then, as I was doing that, he asked if he could lick me."

"Lick you?"

"Lick my pussy, Master. He wanted to go down on me."

"And did you let him?"

"Yes."

"How old is he?"

"Seventy, Master."

"You let a seventy year old man do that?"

I nodded. Not a person in the bar was now making any effort to conceal the fact that they were listening to my report. Faces, familiar and unfamiliar, were pointed at me, ears straining to hear my every utterance, eyes trained on my mouth. "I did, yes. I sat on the sofa and let him. And Master, I enjoyed it. And then, when I worried that he might be hurting his knees by bending down for so long, I asked him to lie down on the carpet."

I stopped and refreshed my dry, nervous mouth with a sip of Stella.

"And then," I continued, facing out the woman opposite me, daring her to respond, "I lay on top of him and lowered my pussy onto his face. I felt him inside me; I felt his tongue in me. And as he licked me out, I took his cock in my mouth and sucked him off."

"Did you come?"

"Yes I did, Master."

"And did he?"

"Yes, Master. He came in my mouth. I swallowed it all."

The total silence in the bar was intense, almost alive. Every single person had heard me confess to giving a blowjob to a seventy year old man, and then doing a striptease, and then letting him go down on me: people I knew, people I saw every day. It would be round the town by the end of the weekend.

"And when are you going to see him again?"

"I... I haven't arranged anything Master."

"Why not? Surely there's something missing in what you've done for him so far?"

"Master?" I asked.

"You haven't let him fuck you yet. You must do that and tell me about it when we come back next Friday. Our audience will no doubt appreciate it too." My Master made no effort to look round at the others in the bar, but on hearing that they all, to a person, looked away shame-facedly and struck up embarrassed conversations amongst themselves again. "Would you like that?" he continued.

"Yes, Master."