“Well, make her let you drive. You’ve been too dependent on her.”
“Oh and by the way, I’m now firmly vegetarian, and heading towards veganism.”
“No way, Jose! Well I’m not changing my eating habits.”
“No, you don’t need to change your whole life for me.”
“I suppose that was your girlfriend’s stupid idea?”
“No, it’s not a stupid idea. Bryony didn’t make me, of course not, but she has had no trouble at all in...”
Here Jane broke in again and complained.
“Are you going to talk about nothing else but the sainted Bryony?”
“No, I’m not going to keep talking about her!”
The conversation was getting out of hand. Honestly, Jane was as bad as Carrie had been, in arguing all the time. Isabel closed her phone, and took a deep breath.
Bryony came through the room, waving the car keys.
“Come on, Madam, let’s get your sea legs going again. Do you want to drive from here, or shall I take us up on the hills somewhere first, and then we can swap and you can drive us home?”
“You drive first. I know this is ridiculous. I’ve driven since I was seventeen. But I keep getting flashbacks of the collision, and I seem to have lost my nerve. “
Bryony came over and kissed her on the cheek. “Let’s go. It will only be a little outing, but it will break the spell. I think you’ll be fine, but if you feel wobbly, then I’ll be there for you.”
She drove Isabel a few miles even further up into the hills so they could look north across to the mass of Snowdonia, and then parked beside the road, and jumped out. Isabel cautiously took her place in the driver’s seat and adjusted the mirrors.
Bryony said, “Why don’t you drive us back to that little café we passed? Then we can stop for coffee and buns.”
Isabel put the car into gear, reversed up onto the grass verge and then started to drive them back down the single track road. She was breathing heavily, and could feel her heart thumping, but within five minutes the threat of panicking had passed and she was driving as smoothly as she always had.
A farm tractor pulling a trailer full of sheep came into view, but he pulled over for her, and she passed him without incident. By the time they had reached the café, she was ready to hand back to Bryony, but she’d conquered her nerves once, and could do it again. They went inside and Isabel ordered a flat white coffee and two welsh cakes. Bryony’s order of the same drink, alongside a toasted tea-cake provided a very pleasant pit-stop for them.
“What will you do when you get back into London?” asked Isabel.
“Book back into the student accommodation, in a shared flat probably. And then finish this dissertation I’ve been working on. I have a few weeks before my next placement starts and I want to get it finished.”
Isabel nodded. “Did I answer all your questions OK? Do you have enough material?”
Bryony had given her sheets of questions to fill in, and had also done a series of mini videos on her phone, charting her progress week by week. Coupled with all the tables of weight gain, sleep patterns and flexibility tests, she knew she had enough data to make it a competent submission.
“Would you still like to read the final version, before I submit it?”
“Of course. Please send it to me. Bryony...”
“Yes, Isabel?”
“I hope, after a while, after what I think has to be a necessary separation, I do hope we can stay friends. I will take a keen interest in your progress.”
Bryony tried to think through what Isabel was asking. Did she really imagine it would work, to turn what was the love of her life, so far, into just a friendship? She tried to compare what she felt for Isabel with her affection for Aiden. It was in another universe.
Aiden had not contacted her since their explosive lunch meeting, and she had not missed him at all. But Isabel? She really didn’t see how she could live if there was even a faint chance that Isabel might call her anytime for a chatty Cathy catch-up. The true depths of her attachment only now really came home to her.
“I’m...I’m not sure. I don’t know how I am going to adjust. Can we leave it, at least for a month or more? You are breaking up with me, Isabel. Have pity on my poor heart.”
“I will miss you more than...”
“Don’t say it, please. This is your choice, your decision, which I respect. I don’t even want to think about next week now, so let’s concentrate on the here and now.”
They went back to the car. She offered the keys to Isabel, who shook her head. “No, enough is enough. You drive.” For some reason she wanted Bryony to carry on looking after her. The girl’s reticence about keeping in touch as friends made her realize what a huge hole she was digging for herself in her life, and it made her very sad.
Bryony said, as they set off, “When we get home, I have a heap of cleaning and packing to do, but then I thought we might have a little party tonight. I have a little surprise for you, to remember me by.”
Isabel raised her eyebrows.
“Oh? I wonder what that can be about.”
“Wait and find out!”
Chapter 27
The cottage was scrubbed clean, the windows washed, and the carpets hoovered within an inch of their lives. Isabel marveled at how efficient Bryony was in all things domestic. She even polished all the glasses with a linen cloth she found, and had washed and ironed the sheets and the pillow cases from her own bed.
The only bed still to strip and make up again, was the double bed, which had been their location for so many happy hours of fun.
“I’ll sort that tomorrow.”
“Do you like housework? You are certainly wonderfully efficient.”
“Strong working class stock. My granny would have chalked her doorstep if her knees had let her. I don’t know, I have always been like it, cleaning and clearing out my environment helps steady what goes on inside my head.”
“I’m sorry, darling. I don’t think I have helped with any of this. And I’m sure I have messed up your life, with all my sexual advances, and my silly fantasies. Will you forgive me?”
“Forgive you? You have transformed me! Isabel, please don’t imagine for a moment I haven’t had a ball this summer. I’ve actually grown up. If I was a kid before, I now feel a woman. I can cope with pain and passion. I even know what an orgasm feels like! Let’s have one last beautiful night together, without any regrets or guilt. OK?”
“OK.”
The nights were drawing in now, compared to the mid-summer long evenings of eight weeks before, and Isabel drew the curtains across the cottage windows. The lamp-light was low, and she moved through to the bedroom to finish her own packing, very heavy at heart, but trying to copy Bryony’s apparently positive attitude to their imminent parting, one for which she was solely responsible.
“Isabel...”
“Yes?”
She turned at the sound of her name, and caught her breath at the sight of Bryony in the doorway. She was dressed in very little, a school girl shirt which was held together at the front with just one button, and a grey mini skirt which showed the length of her slim, tanned legs.
Round her neck she wore a loosely fastened school tie, and she carried an open bottle of champagne in one hand and two narrow glasses in the other. She waved the bottle cheerfully, and then placed it beside the bed. Her hair was loose, and she already looked a little tipsy.
“I thought it would be fun to have a little role play, as a piece of end of term fun.”
“Oh, yes? St. Trinian’s?”
“Not quite. How would you like to play my old Math teacher? The one who gave me private coaching to get me through additional math early?”
“Ah, did she achieve it?”
“Yes, in the end, but it was touch and go for a while. I was dangerously close to not succeeding. I was so unmotivated. I needed convincing I should work harder.”
“You mean, you respond well to discipline?”
“You could say that. Would you like a drink? I’ve been hiding this bottle out in the woodshed.”
Bryony’s eyes were huge, and the lamplight reflected gold flecks in them. She poured out two glasses and passed one to Isabel. Isabel came forward and slipped effortlessly into her role. She looked caustically at her attempt at a uniform.
“How dare you come to a private lesson like that? Is this your idea of proper attire? Your tie is not even done up properly.”
She swallowed most of the glass of champagne and then went forward, tightening Bryony’s tie so it lay tightly round her neck, well above her collar. She took one end of it and gave it a little tug.
“Now, let’s examine this shirt. I think you have bought the wrong size here. Take it off at once and show me the label.”
Bryony caught her breath and then slipped her finger behind the little white button on her breastbone. When it opened, her naked breasts tumbled out, and the size ten shirt jumped back. She let it fall and then held it up for Isabel’s attention.
“Hmm, as I thought. It’s a nice little shirt but far too small for you. I suspect your skirt is equally inadequate. Let me look at that.”
She couldn’t keep her hands off Bryony any longer. The tie was left for now, and Isabel slowly rolled up the little grey skirt, until it bunched round Bryony’s waist. Then, she unzipped it and let it fall to the ground.
Bryony was now naked apart from the tie. Isabel grasped it and pulled Bryony onto the bed. She lay on top of her and adjusted the tie so one end was much longer than the other, and then fastened the long end round the bed head. Bryony could keep her head on the pillow, but not move much beyond it.
“A little light discipline might improve your adherence to a dress code, I think. But first I need to give you something to numb any pain.”
She took another drink, this time from Bryony’s glass, and then holding the champagne in her mouth, slipped it down Bryony’s throat as she enveloped her in a kiss. Bryony was caught under her and forced to swallow. The champagne made her nose feel fizzy as the bubbles invaded her throat. This was repeated at least four times, until the champagne bottle was seriously depleted.
Isabel was now really getting into character. She was still fully dressed, but now stripped down to the waist to give her arms freedom of movement.
Bryony began to pant as she watched her throw off her shirt and bra, and Isabel decided she needed further restraints. She pushed her over until she was lying on her front on the bed and then fastened her arms above her head with the twisted shirt acting as a set of soft handcuffs.
“Up!”
Bryony lifted her bottom up in response to a light slap, and Isabel placed a large pillow under her pelvis so that her buttocks were fully tilted skywards.
“Now, then, you say this is a math lesson? How about a little mental arithmetic?”
“Hmm?”
“If you get the answers right, you’ll have nothing to fear. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Isabel.”
“Right. We’ll start with something easy. 17 x 9? ”
“170 less 9. 161”
“Good. That’s 161 in your prize fund. 42+ 138?”
“Um, 180.”
“Good, but not quickly enough. 189+584?”
Bryony felt her brain turning to mush and her insides beginning to catch on fire. This was her game, but she wondered if she’d been wise to invoke the spirit of her math teacher.
“Er, I’m sorry, I can’t think...”
Isabel’s hand came suddenly crashing down on her buttocks.
“Concentrate, Bryony, or I’ll keep smacking you.”
“Ow, oh, wait please, 684, and...”
Another slap, this time just on the left hand side.
“684 and 100 less 11.”
The smack came from the right this time. It really hurt.
“773!”
Isabel heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief.
“At last! I couldn’t have carried on much longer without getting something else to hit you with. My poor hand is throbbing.”
“Poor you. Maybe you need to rub it up against something smooth and soft.”
Isabel released Bryony’s arms and turned her over. She saw her staring as she removed the rest of her clothes and then poured lotion over her stinging hand.
Bryony’s sore backside was pushed back firmly against the sheets, and her legs roughly parted. Isabel then invaded her with her hands and mouth and wiped the lotion from her belly, right down under her sexual organs and through until she reached her behind. She could feel the heat still in the delicious mounds of flesh, and it enflamed her. Bryony, now that she could use her hands, tore away the tie holding her neck against the pillow and brought Isabel’s breasts into her mouth. They were entwined together like Venus and Adonis. Their bodies blended into one. And the sex was very, very good.
***
It was late when they woke up in the morning, as Bryony had turned into some wild animal in the night and had woken Isabel, demanding another lesson and bonus orgasms. She was a different girl in the dark, completely raunchy and outrageous, and hugely disrespectful of Isabel’s seniority and status.
It worked really well. There was no way she was passing into Isabel’s memory as a casual lay. She had decided she would make Isabel really, really miss her, and judging by the sobbing, the cries for help and the screams at multiple orgasms coming from her lover, she had achieved her ambition.
However, morning did come, and it was raining heavily, and the clouds were dark, and Isabel finally achieved the cosmic sympathy for her emotional state that she had asked for on the day they had first met. Bryony was calm, and tight-lipped, and totally into healthcare assistant mode. She drove her down to the station, and helped her on to the train with her suitcases.
“I’ve registered online for you to have assistance at Birmingham, when you change onto the Bristol train. It’s all sorted.”
“Bryony, thank you. For everything. How about a hug?”
But Bryony shook her head. “Not a good idea. Sorry, but I need to stay focused. I need to be able to see the road, and I’ll turn into a blubbering wreck if we touch again.”
“Bye, then, darling. I am so sorry...”
“Bye, Isabel.”
So their summer ended, as it had begun, with two journeys, but this time, in opposite directions.
Chapter 28
The train left the station and Bryony drove back to the cottage, finished loading the car, left the key as instructed under the third pot from the left, and drove north to Chester. Her face was set in steel, and her lip almost bled from the way she forced herself to bite back the tears.
When she handed over the car, and all the medical equipment borrowed from the hospital, Edward and Claire thought what a sensible and placid girl she must have been, to have coped so calmly with their crazy sister all this time. They saw her off, as arranged at Chester station, with her little suitcase, and rucksack and Edward handed her a brown envelope as he said goodbye.
“Isabel wanted you to have this. She said it’s a small present, towards your student debt bill. Don’t worry that it’s my signature on it. But it comes from her part of our family trust fund.”
As the train pulled out, Isabel opened the envelope. Her salary had been paid into her bank account already, but this “small present” was something else. It was a check for £10,000. She honestly didn’t know what to say or think, and when the train reached London, she still didn’t.
Of course, nothing ended, neither for Isabel nor Bryony. Isabel felt she could have written the script herself, about how horrible she felt as the train moved south towards Birmingham. A great wave of longing engulfed her for Bryony, for that last forbidden hug, for the sweet perfume of her, for the touch of her almost magically healing hands.
It was all quite ridiculous. They had only known each other for eight weeks, and yet they had somehow fitted together, more perfectly, and, yes, she could now adm
it it, even better than Carrie and she had.
Where Carrie had thrown everything in the air when she was upset, tossed every toy out of the pram, caused a huge emotional showdown, what had Bryony done? She had internalized everything, had stoically absorbed the pain Isabel caused her, accepted it, and had not made any fuss, carried on loving and helping her to the very end.
It was hard to read Bryony, but it wasn’t that hard. Isabel knew she was hurting, knew how much the girl truly loved her, so why had she done this to them both? Why had she made them both so miserable?
Isabel had arrived in Bristol, being met off the train by the ever competent Jane, and shuttled off towards her house, before she had begun to solve that question. Jane seemed oblivious to anything Isabel could identify as mixed feelings about the wisdom of her decision. She seemed to be more interested in what they were going to do together in the coming weeks, the sports matches they could watch together, meeting up with the girls, even introductions Jane had lined up for Isabel.
“Now that you’ve obviously worked Carrie out of your system, you can start dating again, move forwards.”
Isabel looked at her in horror. There was nothing less she wanted in the whole world, and she tried to say so.
“No, it’s too soon, much too soon.”
“It’s been nearly two years, for heaven’s sake!”
“Not after Carrie, I mean Bryony. I’m just not interested. Sorry.”
“Oh, pooh, that was just a little summer fling. She’ll have forgotten you by the weekend, and you should do the same.”
Isabel wondered if anyone could be quite as insensitive as Jane. She might have been granted more understanding by Ted and Claire even, and regretted her decision to come to Bristol if she was going to have to endure all this bullying positivity.
But Jane ploughed on regardless. She had cleared the exercise bike, and all the weights out of her spare room, and Isabel could see a month stretching ahead for her having to fit all her global passions, and her squandered love for Bryony, into a narrow bedroom, looking at the terraced houses from her dormer window. Bryony had always given her space, had let her have agency, even when she’d been at her most vulnerable. This made her feel claustrophobic.
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