by Various
‘Tell me about your accident,’ I say quietly.
She shrugs again.
‘Not much to say. I was doing the trot down Ackerman Lane and suddenly I got thrown. Don’t know why – it just reared up and off I came.’
It’s clear I’m not going to get any more out of her on the subject than that.
‘I came off there once too, jumping fallen branches,’ I say, which is true. ‘Not sure how Old Jackie made it because he came down pretty hard. I was lucky – I landed right on my bonce, so no harm done!’
There is just a hint of a smile from her. She has been busy chewing on her bottom lip or the inside of her cheek, looking very edgy, so any sign of a thawing in her demeanour is welcome.
‘Well, anyway, until I’m mended I’m not allowed to go out hunting,’ she says, staring wistfully back at the floor. ‘I’m always getting stuck here on my own with no one to talk to, which is why I thought there would be no one around this morning …’
I hadn’t intended to drag any mention from her about how I found her, although the memory is still very much in my mind. While her gaze is averted I catch myself looking down at her chest. Her top may be loose on her but there is definitely a swell beneath the fabric, her bust obviously larger than my own flat chest. I have a sudden image of them, bare, just beneath my opening mouth, the skin as white as her cheeks, the little teats as pale as her lips. I blink and guiltily fight the image away. Her hips are wider than mine too, although her frame does not look large. I wonder if she has borne a child recently. Lord knows most girls have to get out to work these days, children or otherwise. There is no sign of a wedding ring.
‘Do you get lonely often?’ I ask, fishing for information. ‘You must get some time off. Are none of the chaps in the village after a pretty girl like you? Don’t you get a million offers to be taken to the clubs in town, to have a few cocktails and dance the night away?’
I’m saying all this with humour and I get another brief smile from her, although it is extinguished soon enough to be replaced by more lip-chewing.
‘I’m not,’ she says, her eyes now bashfully fixed on the floor, ‘I’m not really into boys.’
My belly doesn’t just flip this time, it does a series of somersaults. So, then, it seems there is something else that we share, although in this instance I cannot confide our similarity. I think of telling her that there are clubs in town for girls like us too, if you know where to look, but I cannot bring myself to divulge such things about my private life, even though I’ve wrenched this same secret from her.
‘That thing you were doing,’ I say, hesitantly, ‘it’s all right, you know – I won’t mention it ever. I do understand.’
She is all agitated, shifting on her straw bale seat, not looking up. I’m sure my cheeks are crimson but amazingly hers don’t show any sign of a blush at all – they remain the palest pink I have ever seen on another person, with just a couple of tiny moles to convince me that she isn’t actually made of porcelain.
‘It’s the riding,’ she says, ‘it just makes me, so, you know …’
‘I do know,’ I say, truthfully. It is more than I have ever admitted to anyone before, even my friends.
There is a moment between us, a frisson. I’m not sure what it is but we sit looking into each other’s eyes and something passes in the ether from one to the other. I think of saying something to encourage it but then hesitate, perhaps silenced by the reminder of the gulf in our social standings, perhaps simply because of the strange mystery surrounding her.
‘I have to go,’ she says and suddenly is up and heading out. I tell her to wait so we can talk. She doesn’t listen, even though in her position she has to do as I say. I expect her to return with her eyes cast down but she doesn’t. I get up and follow her out of the stall, out through the stable door. There is no way she could have got far but as I stare out into the sunlit yard I find it is completely deserted.
* * *
I don’t know how long it is until I see her again. I want it all the time and it feels like ages. I seem to float around on this cloud where nothing else matters but having her come again. I don’t dwell on the manner of her departure or the mystery of her. I’m not scared by another meeting; I dream of it constantly. With all those similarities between us it is obvious she appeared to me in the stable for a reason, and I need to know more. When I’d all but lost hope, finally she is there again, and I know instantly we will be all alone.
It is just like the last time. The hunt is out all morning. She sits in the stall upon the straw bale, resting back against the loose pile, her eyes tight shut. She would have heard me coming. She would have heard Jackie-Boy’s hooves on the stone outside and his snorts in the stall but she doesn’t look up at me, even though she must know I’m here. She wears the same grubby grey flannelette clothes and mucky rubber boots. I half expect her eyes to ping open and for us to repeat the same conversation as before. This time, however, her hand is outside her clothes, pressing and squeezing at her crotch as she emits her lovely little sighs. She has been waiting for me.
I see it will be easier for her to just stay quiet. I know her way is for the best. I go into her stall without a word and sit quietly down upon the bale opposite her. I part my legs to mirror her position. I have so many butterflies I can barely stand it. I’m glad she doesn’t open her eyes – being watched might make me lose my nerve. Her hand is at her waistband now, the fingers stretching it to slide underneath. I wonder what underwear she has on. I watch the bulge from the burrowing fingers as they slowly move downwards until they stop exactly where they had that first time. She gasps and her shoulders come forward as her belly clenches. She falls back flat against the hay pile, that first wave of pleasure ridden. The fingers begin the same movements beneath the material as I saw before, those little circles interspersed with presses that bring sighs and shivers from her.
I want to do the same. Just riding here has made me ready, as I knew it would. I wish I could throw off my reticence. My hand is on my thigh. I have my new Chanel-style jodhpurs on, knowing how tight they would be down there. The best I can manage is to run a nail up my inner thighs, barely grazing the sensitive area between them. She shows no hesitancy. Her pace has increased and she squirms against the bale. Her head is back and her mouth open. The long fair hair spreads out behind her. She is so pretty. I wish I could see those eyes but then I doubt I could do this if I did. Her cheeks still show no sign of colour. I wonder what the skin on the rest of her body is like. She looks cold to touch but smooth, like marble. She looks innocent and yet so wild, like nothing of this world.
She lifts herself from the straw and in a whirl her top is slipped off over her head and cast aside. She will have heard my little gasp. Beneath her top there is nothing but pale flesh. Her bosom bounces free, as large as I’d been imagining it through all those endless hours, the tips as delicate and lightly pink as I’d hoped. Her little paunch flattens as she reclines again, so sweet. The skin is flawless, with the notable exception of a vivid dark-pink scar halfway up her left side, running six inches or more from her ribs down towards her back. I shiver at the thought of her accident and what it quite possibly has taken from her. For her, though, now is the only moment worth consideration and down comes the hand again, sliding beneath the waistband once more.
The movements beneath the material this time are unbridled. I can tell her attention is no longer confined to that one spot but extends downwards too. Her fingers must be spreading and penetrating her wet desire. With this frantic passion and her legs wide open she seems almost possessed. Certainly I have never found myself showing this much abandon, even when safely behind closed doors. I would never have thought so seemingly simple a girl could be so full of rude spirit. Her free hand comes down to the waistband. It was at this moment, the first time, that her eyes sprang open. Now they stay firmly shut. The fingers do not slip inside the waistband but grip it instead, and then pull at it, dragging her leggings down to reveal her nau
ghty hand in action.
She squirms and tugs at the material and then lifts her bottom and the leggings come away, the waistband now stretched taut between her open thighs. With her knees raised I can see everything. It makes me gasp. She has no underwear on and I see her bareness in all its glory. Gazing at her, I force my hand between my legs at last and clutch myself hard. She drops her knees and parts them. The leggings are rucked up around the top of her wellingtons. I watch the way she presses the heel of her hand to her sweet spot and then runs her middle finger up her slit to slicken it, and then uses the same finger to rub in those small circles. I know she is showing me how to do it, and wants me to copy her actions – we are so much alike, after all.
I cannot believe I could do this sort of thing out in the open but she has possessed me and I am fumbling at the buttons of my tight leggings to get them open. My hand slides within and I almost double up with the joy of that first touch. It fills me with feeling for her: love and sorrow in equal measure. I want to kiss and hold her, if that is indeed possible. With my hand still between my thighs I fall on my knees before her, drawn in by the sight of her beautiful rudeness. I would like to part her legs and kneel between them but her boots and rucked-up leggings prevent this. Instead I sit on the bale beside her, looking at that gorgeous flawless body and angelic face.
Her eyes still stay shut. Her mouth is open and wet, the little sighs catching in her throat. I need to kiss her. Then I do something I cannot believe I would ever do: I slide the finger out from inside me and tentatively reach forward to run it over her full bottom lip. The touch shocks me. There is a tingle in my fingertip, a gentle warm fizz, but I cannot actually feel her. There is no experience of pressure or substance, yet I know my finger would meet with resistance if it tried to prod further. I stroke her again and she sighs and runs her tongue tip out across where my finger is, as if to register the tickle upon them. I don’t feel the touch of her tongue at all.
There is nothing for it but to kiss her, even though her mouth is so open. I lean down, slowly bringing myself closer. I can smell her sweet perfume, even sense the warmth of her breath – she must be real! But when I close in and our lips meet I feel that same tingle. There is no soft give, no wetness, no substance. I press against something but cannot feel a sense of the pressure on my lips. I know that if I lay upon her I wouldn’t sink into the straw, I would be suspended above as if she were there, even though I would feel no contact other than that light warm fizzle. My flesh would not squash or stretch against her. It is as if nature knows her essence is there in some form, even if the accident took her substance away.
She sighs as I kiss her and her tongue traces the contact on her lips once more, but I cannot feel its movement. Now I wish she would open her eyes to see the love and wonder in mine, but she does not. I move down upon her, gliding almost, because there is no friction. I see those little teats, stiff now from her longing. I bend to take one into my mouth and I feel her shiver. I know my lips are in a little O around it, my tongue can feel the pressure upon it, but there is no actual weight, no taste, no heat except that same warm buzzing tingle on the surface of my skin wherever we are touching. I give the other swollen tip the same attention and she gives a little moan once more, letting me know that, whatever else she has been robbed of, still she can feel these sensations. I raise my head to regard her. I see there isn’t a trace of my wetness upon her skin.
There is no doubt what she is now but still I am not scared. We share so much and this is meant to be. I bend down and kiss the scar of the wound that took it all away from her. I kiss her belly and see the clench of the muscles. I cannot feel her but if she can sense me then we can indeed be lovers. I am down on my knees again in front of her. I see she is pinching and pressing that spot, trying to build the desire, to tease every last bit of joy to the surface before it breaks over her. I want to be in there but those damned odd grey leggings are thwarting me. I don’t know why I think it will work but I try it anyway – lightly reaching down to the backs of her ankles within the boots as if to lift them. I don’t feel the cold of the rubber but I can feel pressure, so I gently lift and suddenly her knees are rising and they don’t stop until they are almost touching her bosom.
This is the rudest way you could ever see a girl yet still she looks innocent. The hair is little wisps of blonde, a short sparse covering. The opening is so pink and bare, so delicate. I am only inches from it now. I can smell the sweetness of it, hear the wetness. I would love to taste it but I know I cannot. The fingers working above will stop me kissing her there anyway. There are other ways though. I pull my jodhpurs down past my thighs so that I have unrestricted access between them. I copy her motions, those small rubbing circles, feeling the exquisite immediate rush of pleasure from that little place. Then with two fingers extended I reach forward to where she is open and at her wettest, and I slide inside her.
She lets out a long squeal and her hips rise to meet my forward push. I sense an extra rush of the warm tingle in my fingers, as if she is clenching them. I wish I could feel the heat of her in there and the velvety gush of her desire upon me. The flow is evident, running out of her to glisten on the straw below, although each time I slide my fingers from her before pushing them back in, there is no sign of her wetness upon my skin. She writhes and grinds against the bales beneath her. How she can tolerate the scratch of the straw on her bare skin is beyond me, but maybe she doesn’t feel it. She can feel me though for sure.
I curl my fingers upwards and let her grind and ride against them. What she senses inside her is anyone’s guess. Her rubbing becomes more frantic and I mirror this. As she begins to moan and squeal and buck I feel a greater tingle, not just in my fingers but rapidly spreading up my arm, becoming a fizzle and then a buzz as it sweeps all around my body. Then our fingers are a blur down below. I see her whole body stretched and tensed before I have to close my eyes. I can just hear her suppressed yells beneath my own. I have no power to stay upright so I slide from her and fall on my back, my knees up and open like hers, pinching that little spot hard to keep the pleasure pulsing right through me. I’m off the cliff and falling, shuddering with bliss as the darkness comes up to greet me. When I am finally able to see again I hope she will be there smiling down upon me, but of course she has disappeared, so I close my eyes tight and I’m already on that cloud of longing, dying for the next time she will appear to me.
* * *
Once more I have no idea how long it is. It seems such an age that I’m crushed when she looks so shocked at the sight of me. She came out of nowhere as always: one minute an empty stall, the next she is right there, unbuckling the saddle on Charlie, the sleek chestnut ghost horse. I want her to know that I know, and that everything is all right. I know what we can give each other even if true togetherness is impossible. I still feel something like love for her. She looks even paler today, her face white as a sheet and her expression troubled.
‘You have to leave me alone,’ she says, almost in a whisper.
I jolt inside. She looks scared. She must know things I cannot possibly fathom but I need to show her that I am willing to learn.
‘I know about you, what your accident did to you,’ I tell her.
She raises her eyebrows and looks suddenly alarmed.
‘My accident?’ she says, her voice strained. ‘I got a fractured wrist, three cracked ribs and a ruptured spleen. It was certainly serious, but not that serious. What about your accident? Were you even wearing a helmet when you came off, or just that weird bonnet thing you’ve got on now?’
My head is swimming. I don’t understand where all this is coming from. What on earth is weird about my cloche hat and why is she asking me about my accident when it is hers that is important in all this? Why is she showing me such animosity after what we shared?
‘I only ever dress in casuals when I’m riding unless I’m out hunting,’ I say defensively, pointlessly. ‘Talk about protective clothing, those things you have on aren’t going
to stop any injuries, are they? What are those trousers anyway?’
She looks incredulous.
‘They’re just tracky bottoms!’ she exclaims. ‘Same as everyone wears.’
I am lost now, not grasping anything she says, everything falling away. It’s as if she can’t even remember our beautiful roll in the hay.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘I thought we were close now.’
‘You are making me dream of you, making me need to do those things to myself. I know it’s you doing it, all the time getting into my head when I am here alone. You are haunting me.’
‘But all those things we share,’ I plead, verging on tears now, ‘our names, the QA thing, the fact that we both fell off our horses in the same place, even the jiggy feeling we get when we ride!’
I try to smile at this last bit, hoping the reminder of this shared intimacy will make her come forward and throw her arms around me, even if I cannot feel her warmth or her squeeze. Instead she wraps her arms defensively around her own body, and I see her shiver.
‘Is that why I can see you?’ she asks, still with solemn quietness. ‘Because of the similarities?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I say, the coldness all through me.
‘You said you just came back from working at Selly Oak,’ she says, ‘but I know all the QAs in Birmingham now work at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.’
What is she on about? I was just there, at Selly Oak, with the soldiers. I got back just the other day. I went riding as soon as I returned and that’s when I saw her in the stables. I’ve never even heard of any hospital up there named after the Virgin Queen. Poor Ellie must have had her accident a very, very long time ago.