by Timothy Lea
‘I suppose he is,’ I say. ‘To tell you the truth I hadn’t thought about it a lot.’ I stop the float and grab hold of a few tubes.
‘The familiar jangle of the crates. The cheerful, toothy grin. I think the milkman was more familiar than my father when I was a little girl.’
‘It’s quite possible,’ I say, shoving open the garden gate with my bum. Sue pads up the path behind me.
‘Mummy can remember when he had a horse.’
‘Your old man? What was he, a cowboy?’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m talking about the milkman.’
I put the pintas in the shade and pick up the empties. Nicely rinsed out. Just the way I hope to find them. ‘Do you want to do a bit of chat?’
Sue shakes her head. ‘I don’t stop at every house. If I did I’d never be finished.’ She looks at me searchingly. ‘What made you decide to be a milkman?’
‘Dunno,’ I say. ‘It’s a job, isn’t it? Open air, you’re on your own. I prefer that.’
‘It’s funny,’ she says. ‘The stories you hear.’ She is looking at me out of the corner of her eye, watching my reaction.
‘Stories?’ I shove the empties into the crate.
‘About milkmen. Like window cleaners.’
‘I used to be a window cleaner too,’ I say.
Sue’s eyes widen. ‘Did—er anything happen?’ I look at her. ‘I mean, did anybody proposition you?’
‘You mean, make a pass at me?’
‘That kind of thing.’
‘That would be telling, wouldn’t it?’ I help myself to some more milk and start up another garden path. Sue’s interest bodes well but I sense that it will pay to play her along a bit.
‘You never hear anything about postmen. That’s funny, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not a very glamorous uniform. And delivering bills and all that. It doesn’t exactly put you in the mood, does it? Still, I believe the blokes who did the North Sea Gas conversions had a few laughs.’
‘The opportunity to get inside the house must make a difference.’
‘You’ve really thought about it, haven’t you?’
‘I’m fascinated by the idea of women making love to a perfect stranger.’
‘He’s not a stranger. If you roll up at a bird’s house every day, you’re part of the scenery.’ I bend down and pick up the piece of paper stuck in the empty milk bottle. It reads ‘Door not locked. Please pop milk in fridge. Thank you, Ellen Grant.’ ‘See what I mean?’ I say, handing Sue the note. ‘She’s quite happy for me to poke around inside her house.’ I didn’t mean anything by my choice of words but from the way Sue looks at me I can see that she may have got the wrong impression.
‘I’ll pop in, just in case she’s lurking,’ she says. ‘What kind of things do they say?’
‘You mean, if they fancy you? Oh, they might suggest a cup of tea.’ I open the front door and Sue follows me inside clutching her leaflets. ‘It’s more a question of their general behaviour though.’
‘What do you mean?’
Well, if they seem really pleased to see you and give you lots of chat. Drop little hints about how they bet you get involved in some funny situations.’
‘Like me, in fact?’ says Sue.
‘That’s right,’ I say coolly. ‘Then there’s the way they dress. If they’ve made a special effort and you can niff a pong of perfume that’s always favourite. Chanel Number Five often leads to Channel Number One.’
‘How coarse.’ Sue gives a ladylike shiver.
‘Well you did ask. Open the door, will you?’
Sue does what I ask and looks round the small kitchen. ‘And this is where you sit with your cup of tea, is it? Swopping small talk and sizing up the situation.’
‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘But I can’t hang about because the battery on the float might run down and I’d have to push it back to the depot. Do you fancy a bit?’ I have got the door of the fridge open and she peers over my shoulder at a bowl of dripping.
‘That?’
‘A bit of the other. What you’re so interested in.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘You’ve talked about nothing else. I’d have thought you were doing a survey on the sex life of a milkman.’
‘My interest is purely academic. I didn’t mean to give you any ideas.’
‘I started getting ideas the first moment I saw you.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘I’m not being silly. You’re a knockout looking bird. Fantastic eyes.’ What is encouraging about this conversation is that the lady from the Milk Marketing Board is showing no sign of moving towards the door.
‘This is stupid. We’ve only just met. I think I’ll leave a leaflet. After all, she did invite us in.’
‘Let’s make the most of it. Hop upstairs for a few minutes. Nobody’s going to be any the wiser.’
‘You’re mad. Supposing she came back?’
‘She won’t come back. That’s why she left the note. Oh, Sue—’ I grab her to me and dive on to her small, pink mouth. ‘You really are so beautiful.’ Don’t ever underestimate the importance of telling a bird she is beautiful. They can never hear it enough. You could go round the world on ‘You are beautiful’ in forty-two languages.
Sue breaks away from me and looks searchingly into my eyes. I try and adopt an expression which combines passionate sincerity with sincere passion. This is a vital moment. Sue sighs a sigh that could mean anything. Eventually, she speaks, ‘I’ll have to go to the bathroom.’
When she comes out, I have located the back bedroom and turned down the bedspread. I am very thoughtful like that. She has still got her suit on and is clearly going through the second thoughts stage so beloved of women. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ she says.
I take her hand. It is cold and presumably freshly washed. The chill touch has the opposite effect to cooling me down. ‘Come on,’ I say. I give her my look of scarce-concealed animal desire and draw her after me towards the bedroom.
‘Do you do this a lot?’ she says. ‘Ooh. I don’t like this wallpaper.’
‘Try looking at the ceiling,’ I say, pushing her gently backward on to the bed.
‘I couldn’t sleep with those curtains,’ she says, her hands going automatically to her shoulders.
‘You won’t have to.’ I help her off with her jacket and sit down on the bed so that I can kiss her while I undo the buttons down the front of her blouse. ‘That’s a very pretty bra. It deserves you.’
‘It’s French,’ she says. ‘They have some lovely things.’
‘So do you,’ I murmur, gently pinching one of her nipples through the material. ‘You’ve got a marvellous figure.’
I unbutton her blouse and then slip my hands round the small of her back so that I can unhook her bra. I sense that she is a bit shy and that it would be a bad move to pull everything off before she is warmed up. I also prefer birds when they are half-undressed. It is more sexy somehow. ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she says.
‘Which one?’ I take her lower lip between my teeth and bite it ever so gently.
‘About whether you do this often – oooh!’ I have slipped my hand under her hanging bra and started drawing circles round her raspberries.
‘Do you like that?’
‘Uhm,’ She leans forward and suddenly starts licking my ear. ‘I suppose that answers my question?’
I don’t say anything but lower my head between her breasts and start following the pattern of my fingers with my tongue. Her bristols hang beautifully following the curve of a crescent moon lying on its back. I nuzzle the teats with my nose and then rasp my tongue along their tips before taking them, one by one, into my mouth.
Sue shivers and digs her fingers into my back. ‘Yum!’ she says. ‘Now the other one, please.’ Her hands move round to the front of my shirt and she unbuttons it swiftly. ‘You’re making me want you,’ she says.
‘That’s the idea.’ I lift my head from he
r breasts and she kisses me hard on the mouth, pushing her hand clumsily between my legs.
‘It’s very bad to wear tight jeans.’
‘I’d better take them off.’ We rise in unison and I strip off my shirt and unbuckle my belt. I pull down the zip and percy tumbles out like a pack of hounds from the back of a van.
Sue looks down in the middle of taking off her skirt and shakes her head. ‘I don’t know how there’s room for him in there,’ she says.
‘He folds flat for travelling,’ I say. I step out of my shoes and sit down on the bed so that I can feed off my jeans, pants and socks in what is meant to be one flowing movement. It doesn’t work out quite like that because I have to grit my teeth to force my jeans over my heels. Sue slips off her bra and blouse and is now down to her panties. She starts to take them off and then pulls them up again.
‘You can take them off,’ she says.
It is funny how birds like you to take their knickers off. Maybe it has something to do with a subconscious desire to be violated. Or maybe if you take them off they don’t feel that they are giving themselves too easily – or they feel that they are not really giving themselves at all, the whole thing is being done by you. Or maybe they just like having their knickers taken off. Either way, I am always happy to oblige. Especially with a chick like Sue. The suit does not do her justice. She is a right little bundle of curves without it. She sits down on the bed and sticks out a finger to pat my mad mick.
‘He looks so red and angry,’ she says. ‘You really shouldn’t coop him up like that.’
‘Maybe I should wear him sticking out all the time,’ I say. ‘I wouldn’t get very far, would I?’
‘You would with some people,’ she says. And, blow me up and down, before you can say ‘light the blue touch paper and retire immediately’ she has lowered her beautiful little head into my lap and slapped her rose lips round my delighted dongler. What a nice girl. The refined ones are often the best. I lie back across the bed and cop the lovely view of her nut bobbing up and down while her hair flops down like a modesty curtain. What a performer. She could see off a tray of ice cubes in thirty seconds without drawing breath. Thank goodness I got that book out of Battersea Public Library which taught me all about control. How the great lovers think about their Y-fronts being full of walnut shells so that they don’t come their load. The art of stopping yourself enjoying what you are enjoying so that you can go on enjoying it for longer. Blooming stupid, really. If I followed by natural inclination I would treat Sue to a mad mick milkshake and get my head down for a nice little kip – and talking of getting my head down. Yes, I had better do more for my keep than help Susan develop bow lips. I slide my hand round her back bumpers and slip my fingers inside her panties. The flesh is firm and stretched as she bends forwards and I work into the cleft and then follow it round till I am tickling her dilly pot. It is moist as an oyster.
‘Come on,’ I pull her up on to my mouth and push her panties down while we kiss. I am alternately sucking her tongue and pushing my own deep into her cakehole to give her a taste of what she can look forward to. Her panties are down around her thighs, a tight band of blue, and I press the palm of my hand against her pelvic bone and dabble my fingers in the trench that runs beneath it. She begins to moan and I press harder and lay her whole body back against the bed. She looks up at me with her lips trembling and I slide off her panties and lean forward so that I can part her lower lips and run my tongue down the already slippery channel. Not entirely by accident, my hampton is parked outside her north and south and gratitude is one of the sensations I experience when she once again uses him to part her lips. The classic sixty-nine – or soixante-neuf as they call it in Birmingham. Down goes my head and I press firmly into snatchville trying to take as much of that article into my mouth as I can. Sue’s thighs are clamped on either side of head and – ouch! A stinging slap on the bum makes me wonder if she is kinky for violence. I look up and – oh dear. There is a middle-aged lady I have never seen before and she is bristling, literally bristling. Summing the situation up in a glance, I do what comes naturally – panic.
‘Oh, sorry. Didn’t hear you coming – ha, ha, er – yes. I’m your new milkman. This young lady is from the Milk Marketing Board. Would you like a recipe leaflet? – take two, take some for your friends. Very good for you, milk. Lots of energy and a rich, creamy complexion. How about a competition? I can enter you if you like—’ the woman’s expression changes from alarm to horror ‘—in the competition, of course, ha, ha.’
If only my cock would stop bouncing up and down while I am talking. ‘How dare you!’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’m very sorry. We got carried away. I put the cat in the fridge – I mean, the milk in the fridge. Are you sure you won’t go in for the competition? Miss Dangerfield, could you spare a moment to run through the details?’
Sue is dressing so fast that you would think the house was on fire. ‘It’s very simple,’ she says, shoving her blouse into her skirt and trying to smile. ‘It’s all about the countryside.’
The woman snorts. ‘With a special accent on the farmyard, I suppose?’
‘Oh yes,’ I say. ‘Very jovial. I’m glad you can accept our little escapade in the light-hearted manner in which it was—’
‘Silence, you dolt!’ interrupts the woman. ‘Your tongue has done enough damage for one afternoon.’
‘Er – yes,’ I say. ‘Well, we’d better get on the job again – ha, ha.’
The woman winces and looks at Sue in a not unkindly fashion. ‘You’re worthy of better things, my dear,’ she says. ‘Let this horrible experience be a lesson to you. Do not let your standards tumble into the gutter. Contact with this kind of man can only soil you.’
‘Even if I give Green Shield stamps?’ I say.
The woman grits her teeth. ‘They will know what to do with you at the Depot.’
‘Please,’ I say. ‘Don’t report me. I’ll do anything.’
The woman’s face softens a fraction. ‘Anything?’
‘Well, almost anything,’ I say. ‘I couldn’t teach Anthony Wedgwood Benn to french kiss.’
‘That will not be necessary.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I—’ my voice dies away as I see that the woman is glancing at me in a very funny way. A thoughtful expression is occupying those parts of her mug not currently covered by an overabundance of facial hair. She looks down towards my feet and then up again. Surely she can’t be—? I quickly pull my underpants over my still-rampant cock – too quickly as it turns out – and start to back towards the door, picking up clothes along the way.
‘Miss Dangerfield,’ I say. ‘We’d better—’
‘No!’ Oh no. The woman clearly has plans for my firm young flesh which are too horrible even for a new television sit-com series. The sight of proud percy soaring ceilingwards must have liberated something deep inside her subconscious. Something that first revealed itself as fear and disgust, secondly interest, and now ravening lust. Oh, why do you have this effect on women, Lea? Why can’t you be like ordinary men. Your multiple gifts rebound on you.
‘You stay here.’ I pause in the doorway and prepare for the inevitable. At least I will be protecting Sue from exposure. I might as well look on the bright side. ‘Not you.’ Wait a minute! The woman is looking at me. ‘You get out and go about your business.’
‘Me?’ I say.
‘Yes, you.’ She turns to Sue. ‘You stay here, my dear. I want a word with you.’ She shoos me out of the door and closes it in my face. What a carry on. Am I to assume that Sue is to be the repository of the woman’s unnatural desires. I drop to my knee and look through the keyhole. Dead in front of me is an eyeball.
‘Goodbye,’ says the woman’s voice.
I get up and go downstairs. Percy is still rearing up like a dog standing on its hind legs after everybody else has left the room. What a stupid prick he is.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Then what happened?’ says Sid.
‘Obviously loving every minute of it,’ says Sid. ‘I read somewhere that only a woman can really satisfy another woman.’
‘That’s wonderful news for us all,’ I say. ‘I hope word doesn’t get around.’
‘I don’t tell everybody,’ says Sid. ‘So you got back on the round, did you?’
‘I couldn’t stay there all day. Not with the sun beating down and my battery getting flat.’
‘Very wise,’ says Sid. ‘It would pay you to concentrate on the job the whole time and not get involved in these foolish romantic adventures. There’s money to be made in this game, you know.’
‘I sold a hundred and forty yoghurts last week,’ I say. ‘At half a penny per yoghurt that’s—’
‘There’s a naivety about you that is almost refreshing in this harsh, commercial age,’ interrupts Sid, stopping his float. ‘The trouble is that it’s going to leave you skint. Take a look at this lot.’ He opens a suitcase resting on the crates and I see a dazzling mass of jewellery.
‘Blimey, Sid,’ I say. ‘What do you do? Nip upstairs when they’re looking for their purses?’
‘I didn’t nick it, you berk!’ says Sid. ‘This is to sell. Why should we only flog Meadowfresh stuff? There’s a great chance to make a bit on the side. Look at this for value: a digital, quartz crystal, electronic watch for only fifty-two pence – less than the postage and packing on a normal watch. Press the button and – oh well, you do get the odd one that has slipped through the factory checks.’ He throws the watch back into the case and picks up a flashy ring. ‘This is the little wonder. It reads your moods. If you’re worried it turns yellow, if you’re sexy it turns red.’
‘What does it mean when it’s tin-coloured?’ I ask.
‘It means the stone has fallen out,’ says Sid. ‘We’re not having a lot of luck, are we? Funny, because the bloke in the pub told me they were some of the finest pieces to pass through his hands.’