#dysfuncentine

She's right on the edge of coming against Ingrid's tongue when Emma’s name tumbles out of her mouth. 

Immediately, Ingrid stills and Diana’s head falls back onto the pillow underneath, groaning in frustration and irritation with herself. Fuck.

She looks down just as Ingrid’s raising her head from between her legs. "I should be offended," she says, her breath ragged, "but I'm rather intrigued. I take it you've fucked her?"

Diana, head still swimming from the effects of Ingrid’s mouth, hesitates. 

"Oh no, she's fucked you,” Ingrid realises, amusement in her voice. “Hmm, I see."

She wipes Diana's arousal off her face with a few sweeps of her thumb and crawls up the bed to lie beside her. 

And then a hand is slipping down between Diana's legs where she's so slick with her own need and the saliva Ingrid left behind. It’s almost unbearable how sensitive she is. Her hips buck insistently against the movements Ingrid makes, far too slow and gentle for the level of where her want is at.

"Tell me," Ingrid breathes against her ear. "Tell me how she fucked you. And don't you dare come until you've told me the whole story."

So Diana does. Her recounting of how she'd allowed Emma to fuck her in the back seat of her chauffeured Range Rover after telling her driver to park up and take a walk is punctuated with moans and whimpers as Ingrid draws circles against her.

She tells her in broken sentences about how Emma's fingers had curled inside her, how she'd had to scold her for treating her like glass and instruct her to instead fuck her harder, faster. All the while Ingrid's fingers push deep inside her and follow along and Diana has to try so incredibly hard not to come her eyes start to water. 

When she does get to the end, to when her thighs had clamped around Emma’s hand and she’d told her, in the aftermath, to clean up and watched how Emma had licked her fingers clean, only then does Ingrid give her permission, a whisper in her ear, “now.” 

It takes her several minutes to recover after she comes, which she did more loudly than usual. When, eventually, she turns to Ingrid, she’s met with a playful smile. “I’m going to need you to demonstrate to me how you plan on rewarding her,” Ingrid tells her. 

Which Diana is only too happy to do. And a few days later, with Emma between her legs, underneath her on the white sofa in her office, repeats once more.

the target is a test as well, she likes to think. she wants to know how far she can follow flyte without her realising. anymore than about ten minutes from the doors of the park and she's going to haul her in for a disciplinary meeting. at least that's what she tells herself when they leave at the end of the day.

it's what she tries to remember when she's standing opposite a shabby house somewhere much further down the northern line than she'd usually deign to travel, leaning against a conveniently placed bus stop and watching through ridiculously thin net curtains as flyte undresses for the evening.

there's no disciplinary meeting the next morning.

or the morning after that, or the week after, or the month after.

but there are more trips to that dreary street in south west london. a tab permanently open on diana's personal phone with flyte's instagram, each story watched over and over by an account made under the name of a friend from her university days until they're gone. pictures taken of flyte, cropped from CCTV footage in the office, in the gym, wherever diana can find her. calls made late at night from an untraceable phone, answered by a woman almost panting with fear, listening for something, anything on the other end of the line.

it's intoxicating.

diana knows she'll never let herself have flyte in any way that could matter, not when she's made it this far. but she can have flyte like this, all these pieces of her life she's collected to surround herself with.

and then one night, as she's loitering by the bus stop, a cigarette in hand, a cab pulls up in front of flyte's place and she tumbles out, followed by a woman. an older woman, one who pays the fare with a flash of her credit card and then takes flyte by the hand and drags her to the door.

and diana, a creature of habit, breaks one.

she drops the cigarette, crushes the butt under her heel and strides across the road. flyte and her companion have made it inside now, and given that the living room light hasn't come on, diana assumes they've gone straight upstairs.

but then there's a dull thunk on the other side of the door.

a giggle that she would recognise anywhere.

a moan that she wouldn't.

she shifts into the shadow of the porch, still close enough to hear.

to imagine.

-

In the early 80s, it was easier to be married if you wanted to be taken seriously. Jackson Lamb was a good choice for Diana Taverner. He was Service, he was clever, he was easy enough on the eyes. He was also being dropped into Berlin in three days. 

“How about it?” he asked her. “You’ll get my death benefits if someone takes me out, I’ll get yours if you get hit by a bus on your way to HQ. They might let me come home at some point if I’ve got someone to come back to.”

“All right,” Diana agreed. “But I’m keeping my name.”

And so they signed the papers. They put on rings. They spent the night together but did not consummate the union. 

Diana’s life didn’t change much. She got to tick ‘Mrs’ on forms, updated her details with HR. She noticed a subtle difference in the way people treated her with a ring on her finger, but her behaviour didn’t change one whit.

“Mrs Jackson Lamb,” Ingrid teased, tickling Diana’s inner thighs. “Maybe I should be wearing a strap, just to cuckold him properly.”

Diana smiled. “He might be into that,” she said. “We certainly never talked about fidelity.”

Their sex life was better than ever with Diana’s heterosexual disguise in place. 

Then Jackson got captured, tortured by the Stasi, evacuated on medical grounds. He came home with haunted eyes and had to endure months of skin grafts and bed-bound recovery. Had to move in with her. They were married, after all. 

“He’s messy,” she complained to Ingrid, “he’s obstinate. He comes home smelling like a distillery.”

“Like you come home smelling of me?” Ingrid asked. She was lying on her side in the bed they shared, watching Diana dress. “How much of a wife are you to him? Do you fuck him?”

“I’m not sure he even wants to fuck me,” Diana muttered, cinching her belt. “He’s never tried.”

“Maybe a helping hand would let you live together peacefully,” Ingrid said. “I wouldn’t mind. I am the other woman, after all.”

Diana grunted, non-committal, settled onto the bed to pull stockings over her toes. She didn’t find the idea repellent, but the potential messiness of it didn’t appeal, either. 

As she fussed, Ingrid curled up behind her, sinuous as a leopard. “Do you think he has one?” she asked, laying her fingers on Diana’s shoulder. “Another woman?”

“Maybe,” Diana answered, straightening her back and turning her head toward Ingrid, letting herself be kissed. “Or a man. We don’t trust each other enough to talk about it.”

She took Ingrid’s advice, though. On the next available evening, she went to him in the dark and pressed herself close, pulled his hand up against her breast, then rode him with starlight slanting in through the window. 

“Goddess of the moon,” Jackson told her, and gave her a lopsided smile in the dark. 

After that they found a sort of equilibrium, a rhythm to run their lives by. They’d compare notes on marks and ops, him lending her street smarts and her giving him reads on political undercurrents. Their bickering was pedestrian: “Don’t leave your socks on my coffee table,” she’d tell him, and he’d say, “Isn’t it all ours, now?” just to annoy her. 

Then they sent him back to Berlin.

“You don’t miss him, surely,” Ingrid said, finally able to visit her place again, drinking from a lowball glass in Diana’s living room. 

“Of course not,” Diana told her, but she’d bought Jackson’s brand of scotch and went to bed with the radio on now because she was used to hearing him shuffle around. 

“That’s pathetic, you know,” Ingrid said, and didn’t stay the night. 

Diana didn’t even know he was back in the country until he fell down at her door. 

“I killed him,” he groaned, “I fucking killed him.”

Diana backed up a step. “Jesus, Jackson, did you drink the entire barrel?” Then she processed what he’d said. “Who did you kill?”

“Partner,” Lamb rasped, blurry eyes and blurry face. 

Irritated bafflement turned to sharp-edged fear in an instant. “Fucking hell,” she hissed. “Don’t say that out here. Come on, come in.”

She bent down and caught his arm, helped him stumble over the threshold and spill onto the settee. 

“Let me make you a cup of tea.” She left him alone while she did. When she returned with mugs in hand she found him almost melted into the cushions, eyes streaming with silent tears. 

She set the tea down beside him and didn’t need to prompt him to speak. “Hated him,” he whispered, staring blankly at the ceiling. “Loved him too. Fucking Cartwright.”

“The hit was ordered?” she asked, perching herself beside him and wrapping her hands around her mug. 

“Yeah,” Jackson answered. “Partner was a traitor. A few too many secrets given away, most of them planted on purpose lately. Pillow talk.”

“I see. And they made you…”

“Yeah. He bought me gifts, see. Little nothings mostly, but he was taking money for secrets, so. Had to prove my loyalty.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She reached up to smooth his hair back. He didn’t object.

“Don’t know how I’m going to put a brave face on this,” he said, “show up at the Park like everything's fine.” He flexed his fingers like there was something in his hand. “Tempted to put a gun in my own mouth.”

“Don’t do that,” Diana whispered. She sat with him for a while, watched his face for a time, the steam curling off her mug for longer. 

Eventually, she looked up again. “We could get divorced,” she suggested. 

His tone was one of disbelief: “What?”

Diana elaborated. “Bitter, acrimonious. No one would expect you to put on a brave face through that. Maybe they could even find you something away from the Park."

"Bitch and moan at each other, snark up the place?"

"Yes."

-

The first time it happens is an accident. 

They’re talking about ‘this miraculous new invention called the post-it note’ that Jackson has just discovered. “They’re great, Diana, perfect for an office like this one. You can write down passwords, classified file numbers, the addresses of your marks, all sorts. You should get some for anyone you want to get rid of. You’ll be sending them my way in no time.”

“I’ll look into it,” Diana tells him, smiling as she steps into the lift. 

“I’ll slip you one when I see you next,” he says, and then she hears the cadence of his breath change as he realises what he’s said. She’s not sure he’s capable of feeling embarrassment or shame, but it’s very clear to her that he did not intend for what he said to be an innuendo. 

But Diana is in a good mood. “Will you?” she asks, and lets it hang for a moment before she adds: “Where will that be, do you think?”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Where are you now?”

“In a lift,” she tells him. 

“Cameras?” he asks. 

“I’m at the Park.”

“Hm. Suppose that’s a yes, then. Could still manage it there, though. Probably.”

“Probably?” she asks, challenging. 

“Well, it depends. Are you wearing a skirt?” 

“Yes.”

“Stockings?” 

“Not at the moment.”

“Hm, that’s easy then,” he murmurs. “Lean against the back wall, get my hand up under your skirt…”

“And then what, Jackson?” she asks. She doesn’t know why she’s encouraging him, doesn’t know why she’s so turned on. 

“Hm. You’d feel my fingers tickling your thighs, tugging whatever fancy knickers you were wearing aside,” he murmurs, then pauses. 

“And?” she asks, feeling warm in the cheeks and in other places, too. 

“You’d feel my finger opening that lovely slit of yours, cupping you from behind. I’d hold you up, fuck you right there. I could keep a straight face. Could you?”

Diana feels her breath rattle out of her, wonders if her AirPods pick it up. The lift dings open at the basement car park and she steps out of the carefully monitored steel box. 

“You’re assuming I’d let your disgusting fingers touch me at all,” she says, and approaches the waiting car. 

-

The first time is an accident, but then they can’t stop. 

A few days later, she calls him late. She’s lying in bed, can’t sleep, picks up the phone and dials his number before she can think about it twice. 

“Being First Desk is exhausting,” she tells him. “I can’t turn off my brain.”

“Bet I could,” he says. She can hear the lascivious smile in his voice. 

“How?” She puts him on speaker beside her head. 

“I’d creep into your room,” he tells her. “No lights, completely in the dark.” 

Diana reaches out and flicks the bedside lamp off. “Go on.”

“I’d lift up the duvet,” he says, “crawl right underneath. You wouldn’t be able to see me, but you’d feel me, alright. I’d kiss your feet, your calves, stroke that spot behind your knees. You’d feel my whiskers against your thighs, and maybe my teeth too. If you weren’t making enough noise, that is.”

She takes the hint. Pressing her head back, she lets her breath well up in her then expels it as a moan. It feels strange, performative, but the sound vibrates through her limbs as well as her throat and wakes up her nerves. She lays her hands on herself as he continues. 

“What would you be wearing on this night?” he asks. 

“Silk,” she answers in a breath. “Shoestring nightie. No knickers.” The cotton she is actually wearing feels silky under her hands at the suggestion. She cups a breast, slides a hand over her abdomen and down between her legs. 

“Mm,” he murmurs. “I see it. ‘Cept I wouldn’t, not in the dark. I’d be navigating by feel, pushing your legs open, bending them back. I’d tease you a little bit, nuzzling into your thigh like I didn’t know the way, taking the time to smell you. You’d be begging me by the end of it, no thoughts in your head at all.”

“And then?” Diana asks, pinching her nipple and stroking herself. 

Jackson doesn’t reply, so Diana repeats, “And then?”

Still nothing, just the sound of his breath, a sudden absence of input that leaves her dangling. 

“Go on,” Jackson murmurs, and Diana relents. She knows what he wants. 

“Please,” she whispers. “Please, now.”

Jackson gives a satisfied hum. “I’d spread your cunt open with my tongue,” he says. “You’d be my favourite meal of the day. I’d suck on you, push my tongue into you and fuck you with it, get my fingers in you and stroke you all inside.” Diana’s fingers follow his suggestion, pressing up into herself, and as her wrist flexes and her other hand drifts between nipple and clitoris, he keeps up a vivid commentary. “I’d roll over and pull you onto me, one hand on your arse and the other reaching up to pinch your nipple. My face is great for riding, you know. I’d spread your cheeks, stroke your hole. I’d suck on your clit until you were shaking.” 

She is now, whimpering with need, and now he just makes sounds with his mouth, heavy breathing and wet slurps.   

That does it. With a gasp, she comes, pressing her head back against the pillow and her heels into the sheets. There is a profound silence on the line as she collapses, boneless, as he listens to her breath recover. 

“I can imagine your face when you do that,” he says. 

“Keep imagining it. Take yourself in hand.” It’s all she gives him. 

-

They meet by the canal to discuss an op, and it’s business as usual. Clever insights and sly insults, an odour that might be Chinese food or stale chips. 

“Call you tonight?” he asks, and breaks wind. 

-

One of the horses is sleeping with an American. Usually, that wouldn’t be a problem - they can sleep with whoever they like. But this one is sleeping with someone who works in the embassy, and whoever it is is being indiscreet with MI5 secrets. Granted, they shouldn’t be able to do too much damage from Slough House, but Diana has learned never to underestimate how badly a slow horse can fuck things up for the rest of them. 

She meets Lamb on their bench and demands to know who his leak is. 

“Don’t worry about that,” he tells her. “I’ll skin ‘em myself.”

“That’s not good enough, Jackson. I need a name.”

But he’s already leaving. 

Well, Diana thinks. If he won’t tell her, she’ll find someone who will. 

Catherine Standish's meeting place of choice is a cafe, because of course it is. They meet mid-morning, so it's not out of place, but Diana knows that Catherine wouldn’t meet her in a bar even if it was an acceptable time for a drink. 

Catherine orders a pot of Lady Grey and a slice of Victoria sponge. It’s an order as prim as her appearance, confirms Diana’s expectations of her as unimaginative, an intellectual lightweight who pickled her brain years ago and now exists in a land of paperwork and twee. 

“I’m concerned that Jackson won’t deal with the situation delicately,” Diana says, giving her espresso a stir. 

“He probably won't,” Catherine replies, “but I can’t undermine his leadership. None of us at Slough House know anything too sensitive, surely.”

Except the location of a file, or how to call in a Code September, or how to hack the Park’s fucking mainframe, apparently. 

“I understand that,” Diana says, “but still. Upholding security is my job, not his.” 

“They’re my colleagues,” Catherine replies. “None of them are malicious, and Jackson will put a stop to the information sharing. Let them keep the relationship. God knows we all get lonely in the service.”

“Do you get lonely?” Diana asks. She runs a finger over the back of Catherine’s hand, leaves the I can help you out with that if you’ll tell me what I want to know unsaid. Naive and twee she might be, but Catherine must be able to read that subtext. And she does have a lovely body beneath those frills. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon. 

They check into a hotel. A little exploration confirms what Diana suspected: Catherine Standish is touch-starved. Diana has her before they even make it to the bed, watching her bend over the room’s armchair to neatly drape her clothes. It’s an easy thing to slide up behind her and smooth a hand over her arse, to fuck her right there, holding her up with two fingers and watching her back blush pink. 

"First touch you've had in years, is it?" Diana asks after Catherine has come, all trembling thighs and silence, just a little hitch of breath like it's something to be ashamed of. "Don't worry, I won't expect too much in return if you're out of practice." Just the information I asked for.

Diana is still in her underwear when Catherine turns around. The set is lacy, matching; she seems to like it. Diana doubts she's got anything similar in her overly fastidious wardrobe. 

“I can repay the favour," Catherine says. "Will you leave that on?” She draws Diana close, tugs the cups of her bra down to expose her nipples, sucks on one. “I like to look.” She reaches into the handbag she’d set on the armchair and pulls from it a hairbrush - full-sized, wooden, decorated on the back with roses. A similar shade blooms in her cheeks when she asks: “May I spank you?” 

It’s not really Diana’s thing, but the promise of information hangs in the air, and it is enjoyable to learn that the prim librarian is a secret freak. Indulging her might be mildly amusing. Diana consents and finds herself sans knickers over Catherine’s knee. 

“Madame First Desk,” she says, and brings the hairbrush down on Diana’s behind. 

It’s surprisingly painful and unexpectedly sexy. Catherine’s brush paints Diana’s backside. Even though she can’t see it, Diana can feel the flush in her skin, her arse burning with it. She hears herself cry out. Catherine calls her Madame again, then, but this time there's a note of ironic disdain that makes it sound like ‘slut’ - Do you like that, Madame? - and Diana feels her face heating, too, because yes, actually, there’s a fire in her cunt as well as her cheeks, both sets. It’s a physical reminder of just what she’ll do to win, to maintain control, and when Catherine turns the brush around and pushes its handle between her cunt lips she asks do you want this too, Madame, and Diana can do nothing but answer yes in a voice growing ragged with want. 

Afterwards, as Catherine redresses herself, she fixes her hair with that same brush and looks at Diana in the mirror. “I have no idea who my colleagues are sleeping with,” she says, smiling sweetly, only now it makes her look more like an evil doll - all that twee hiding eyes as knowing as a fox. “I’m sure I can find out by next week, though, if you care to do this again.”

-

The first time they fuck is after Charles Partner’s funeral. 

“I really never imagined that I’d care,” Ingrid tells Diana at the wake, “but I suppose he was my mentor.” They’re both nursing drinks and wearing black: appropriate, demure, as befit Mi5’s two up-and-comings. “How do you think you’d manage, if it was Cartwright?”

“Oh,” Diana says, “David Cartwright wouldn’t kill himself in a million years.”

“Hm,” Ingrid murmurs, but privately doesn’t think Charles Partner would either. 

Later, leaning against the bar and watching service legends have whispered conversations, she asks, “What do you think it’s about, this pitting us against each other?” and Diana looks up at her, almost bored.

“It’s fear,” she says. “They know we’d be dangerous if we joined forces, even unstoppable if we trusted each other.”

“I like the sound of being dangerous,” Ingrid says. 

Diana’s black is far less demure when it’s strewn all over Ingrid’s bedroom floor. 

A week later, as Ingrid stretches Diana’s wrists above her head and lays kisses on her neck, she asks: “So, why were the internal review team taking files out of First Desk’s office, today?” They’ve installed Cartwright in there in an interim capacity, not yet official. “And why do I know nothing about it?” Her free hand trails over Diana’s abdomen, traces her hip. 

“I can’t say,” Diana murmurs, then whimpers when Ingrid pinches her thigh. “Really, I can’t.”

“Hm,” Ingrid hums. Her hand slides between Diana’s thighs, nudges them apart. Fingers find their way to the crease of Diana’s cunt, spread her open. 

“Mm,” Diana murmurs, hips straining forward, “yes.”

Ingrid lets her fingers stroke, flutter, spreads Diana’s wet across her velvet. She gives Diana her palm, but keeps the pressure of her hand light, teasing. Listens to Diana’s breathing. She can feel the sinews of Diana’s throat beneath her mouth, feel the strain of her jaw as she arches, pushing up into Ingrid’s hand. 

“More,” she whispers, but there’s a pleading note in it.

“Hmm,” Ingrid hums again, right against her throat. She gives Diana a little more pressure, feeling her palm slick with Diana's wet. It’s not enough, though, and Ingrid knows it. “I really can’t,” she whispers, and lays her teeth against Diana’s throat. 

Maybe that’s a threat. It’s certainly controlled enough to be a promise. I could do this all day, it says, sliding, grinding. 

To her credit, Diana holds out longer than Ingrid expects, until she’s pink all over, until Ingrid’s hand is beginning to cramp. 

But. “You’re being investigated,” she gasps eventually, guttural, raw. “Everyone connected to Partner is. He was dirty.”

“Dirty?” Ingrid asks, curling two fingers up into Diana.

“Dirty,” Diana echoes. “God, please don’t make me say more than that.”

It’s enough. Ingrid is far more interested in being a different kind of dirty. 

“So if I’m tainted,” Ingrid says after, as she wraps herself in mulberry satin while Diana is still tangled in the sheets, “I suppose that means you’ll be Second Desk to Cartwright’s First.”

“Cartwright won’t be First Desk,” Diana tells her, inspecting some blemish she’s discovered on her big toe. “He’s slated for retirement.”

Which is news to Ingrid, so probably means it’s not his choice. She was right - Partner’s death wasn’t a suicide. It’s likely Cartwright had something to do with it. 

“So First Desk will be anyone’s game, then.” Ingrid’s tone is deliberately casual, but Diana looks up, and Ingrid can feel the temperature of the room shift, just slightly. 

Ingrid knows the internal review team won’t find anything on her. Whatever Partner was doing, she had no part in it, so there’s no reason she couldn’t be a contender for the top job. But if Cartwright’s being forced into retirement for his involvement in an assassination, that’s going to taint everyone around him, Diana included. 

First Desk is a public figure, and public figures shouldn’t have secret dalliances. But Catherine likes secret dalliances, though less for the secrecy than for the dallying.

As Catherine re-buttons her blouse, Diana’s hands find her hips. Her lips trace the shell of Catherine’s ear. “We really should stop meeting like this,” she says. “We’re making it look like I have something to hide. How would you feel about being a bit more known?”

Catherine leans back against Diana for a moment, finishes her buttons. Then she pulls away with a smile, can’t hide her amusement. “Known how, Diana?” she asks. “Known for what?” She turns to face her.

It’s a Moment. Here they are in Diana’s home, but it’s the anonymous middle of the day. They’re in the sitting room rather than the bedroom, flushed and glowing and smoothing their rumples. As far as Catherine’s concerned, they meet like this to give Diana the energy she needs to get through a long evening. They meet like this to alleviate Catherine’s boredom. It doesn’t need to be anything else, but is Diana suggesting it should be?

Catherine searches her face, wonders if there’s something more that Diana wants, a need she’ll express. Catherine knows she’s naturally wary, protective of her peace and unwilling to burden another with the rigid structures she needs to maintain in her life, but she’s open to the possibility of change, if that’s what Diana is suggesting.

The moment hangs, teeters. Catherine can feel Diana swaying - not physically, physically she’s all stillness, tension mitigated by the climax Catherine had pulled from her a few minutes earlier. It’s in her eyes, though, calculation, maybe even fear - her question has allowed Catherine to corner her, pin her down, place her in a sort of emotional Check. What move will she make?

She doesn’t answer, and eventually, Catherine takes pity on her. “Is it because I can’t just meet you for a drink?” she asks. “If we need to be seen together in public, there’s always brunch or coffee.”

Catherine sees relief in Diana’s eyes and can’t help but be a little disappointed despite herself. Maybe it would be nice to make room in her life for someone else, even a little. She gives another smile, this one a tiny bit sad, and gathers her things.

Before she leaves, though, Diana speaks again, echoes her words. “Brunch or coffee,” she says. “Like a date.”

It’s something, at least. Diana says the word like she’s never had it in her mouth before, but she does say it.