Graham, Just One Shade

by Guy Lilburne

  I had quite enjoyed the Christmas periods since I had been single. I always bought myself some little presents and wrapped them up addressed ‘To Graham from Yourself.’ It may sound a stupid thing to do, but it worked quite well, for me anyway! I always got CDs that I wanted to listen to, books that I wanted to read, and clothes that actually fitted me and that I would actually wear. I always got a bottle of brandy and a bottle of Southern Comfort. What great Christmas presents! I was always delighted when I opened them, although I was never really surprised with what I had given myself.

  At around 1.00 pm on 22nd December we had the Office Christmas ‘Do’, for the managerial staff. It was a cosy little affair that consisted of me and Clive Jennings. He was an easy going delightful man who knew a bit about everything, had big red rosy cheeks and did interesting things in his spare time. He did things like canoeing, mountain climbing, growing big onions in an allotment and bird watching. OK. So not everything he did was all that interesting. He had a good sense of humour and giggled like a girl when something tickled that humour. Then he would hold his stomach and break into a huge belly laugh and his cheeks got redder. Nigel Gibson, affectionately known as ‘Gibbo’, was the next member of the group. He was one of my new managers at the time. Gibbo was in the Masons and knew everybody that was worth knowing. He laughed easily and was a friendly extrovert character. Gibbo was a huge man as a result of good living and no exercise. His physique clearly answered the eternal football supporter’s question of ‘Who ate all the pies?’ My best mate Raz also came along, even though he was now an area manager ’up north’ and the four of us went on a pub-crawl that was to last for some ten hours. The laughter and the jokes, like the beer, flowed steadily and were enjoyed by all. It was a great Christmas Do.

  As all men do when they are getting steadily drunk, we got louder and more boisterous. We flirted in good humour with any females that stood within talking range of us. In Yates Wine Bar we were served by a very pretty, but slightly over-weight barmaid. She had a fantastic Geordie accent and was good fun, laughing and joking with us as she served us. She really was quite charming. Even as she served other customers she regularly looked over to us and smiled. A little while later the manageress, who recognised us as being local businessmen, came over to say hello.

  “Your Geordie barmaid is lovely” I slurred.

  “Yes she is” said the manageress.

  “Have you anymore like her, maybe just as pretty, but slightly slimmer?”

  I was joking and everybody laughed including the manageress. But then they all stopped laughing suddenly as one and, even before I turned around, I knew that the Geordie barmaid was behind me and had heard what I had said. I turned around and she really didn’t look very happy with me at all.

  “I’m really very sorry. I was joking. It’s just my sense of humour. You know, the kind that isn’t very funny. I didn’t mean it. Sorry!”

  It was no use. No amount of apology, no matter how sincere I tried to make it sound, was going to make up for it. I think it was only her professionalism that stopped her from slapping me around the face, or just telling me to ‘fuck off’.

  I felt terrible but the others were delighted in my discomfort. As we left for the next pub I apologised again, but she ignored me. A few drinks later and the incident was forgotten.

  At around 7.00 pm we went into one of those American style bars that have sprung up all over England. You know - the type that serve sizzling steaks and the staff pretend they actually like you and talk too much at you. Gibbo had gone home because he was either drunk or maybe just hungry. He never liked to eat on an empty stomach, so we were down to three. As we stood at the bar I looked around and I could hardly believe my luck. Sitting on a high stool at one of the circular tables in the centre of the pub was the girl who had walked past me outside Tesco’s, just two months before.

  Again, she looked fantastic. She was surrounded by 12 to 15 men of all ages. They were all in suits. It was obviously their ‘Office Do’. There were some other women in the group, but they had sat away from the star attraction at some nearby tables. Some men sat with these other women, but all eyes were on the beautiful girl sitting on the high stool.

  She wasn’t just sitting. She was posing on the stool. Legs elegantly crossed, showing just enough thigh. She laughed and flirted and soaked up the adoring attentions of her male co-workers. She touched them all quite a lot, on their arms, shoulders, chests and faces. She did it easily and naturally and the recipients of her touch beamed with a flustered pride, as if they had been knighted. This queen bee was certainly holding court and I could see that it was a position that she was very used to holding.

  I could also tell from the occasional glances and murmurs from her female co-workers and a few of the males sat with them, that she wasn’t universally loved by everyone. I think it must have been jealousy because you couldn’t help but be drawn in by her. She was captivating and charismatic. She was beautiful and charming and sexy. Her smile was pure sunshine and her laugh was rich, sincere and infectious. I looked around the pub. It wasn’t just her co-workers who were held spell bound. This charming beauty was the centre of attention of everybody in the pub. Did she even realise it? Of course she did. She was quite clearly working it. Every now and again she would scan the room to see who was watching her as she pretended to listen to one of the chat up lines from her ever-growing crowd of male fans. Then she would break off eye contact and laugh or toss her hair back, or gently put a hand on the shoulder of one of the lucky few in the crowd that surrounded her. Then the next man would say something, then the next, then the next. All trying to get a moment of her attention.

  She really fancied herself, but then again, everybody else fancied her too and I realised I did as well. Raz and Clive had also noticed her and I have no doubt that she was the subject of a lot of conversations around the pub. I have no doubt that she would have been disappointed if she hadn’t been.

  “How would you get a woman like that then Graham?” asked Clive.

  “I’d get her phone number and ring her.”

  “Go on then, let’s see the master shagger in action.”

  I fancied the pants off her. I had already had quite a lot to drink, so I was a bit braver than usual and I thought ‘what the hell’.

  I straightened my tie, adjusted my jacket and walked over to her group.

  “Excuse me mate” I said several times, as I picked my way through the crowd of men who had her surrounded, until I came face to face with her. She looked up at me and smiled.

  “Hello” I said, offering my hand. “My name’s Graham. How are you?”

  She shook my hand. The crowd of men around us fell silent. I don’t think that they liked me very much.

  “I’m Naomie” she grinned.

  “I was going to the toilet, but I wanted to say hello to you. I thought that you would probably prefer to shake my hand before I went to the toilet……rather than afterwards!” She burst out laughing.

  “Although I am a gentleman” I continued, “and would, of course, have pretended that I had washed them.”

  She laughed even more.

  “I’d really like to talk to you, but I think I might get lynched by this lot if I tried to talk to you right now” I smiled.

  “Yes. You probably would” she agreed jokingly.

  “Well, I’m standing over there by the bar. If you give me your phone number before you leave, I’d love to ring you sometime. I give great phone and text. With me I think you’d be very textually satisfied.”

  “OK” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Bye Naomie.”

  “Bye Graham.”

  I went to the toilet and then returned and stood at the bar with Raz and Clive, who were laughing at me because they thought that I had crashed and burned.

  Naomie looke
d over enough times to let me know that she was interested, but not enough to discourage the rest of her many admirers.

  An hour later her group gathered up to the leave the pub. Naomie came over to me and wrote her name and telephone number on my cigarette packet. She kissed me on the cheek.

  “Ring me” she whispered and breezed out of the pub.

  “Fucking hell” said Raz and Clive in unison.

  I have to say, I felt great. Whatever else happened tonight, it just didn’t matter. It was already a great night.

  Nothing much else did happen that night. We just got drunk. Clive walked home, but got lost and had to phone his wife to come and find him. Raz and I got a taxi and Raz stayed at my house the night. The next morning I still had Naomie’s name and phone number on my cigarette packet. Thank God I hadn’t lost it!

  I went to work and, at lunchtime, I went out and bought a bouquet of flowers. I wrote a note that simply said ‘I’m sorry!’

  I took them around to the Yates Wine Bar and handed them over the bar to the Geordie barmaid.

  “I’m really very sorry” I said

  “That’s OK” she smiled.

  I went back to work feeling slightly better about myself.

  I wanted to ring Naomie, but I didn’t think it would be cool to ring her so soon. I thought that three days might be a cool time to wait until I rang her. Three days might have been a cool time to wait, but I wasn’t so cool. I rang her the next day, on Christmas Eve. We chatted on the phone for about twenty minutes and I made her laugh a lot, but then again, I think that everybody made her laugh a lot. She told me that she would love to go out for a drink with me sometime, but that she was really busy over the Christmas and New Year period, with parties and other pre-arranged social functions. She told me that the previous year she had still been giving Christmas presents out in March, because it took her as long as that to get around to seeing everybody. She said that if I would ring her next week then we could probably sort something out.

  When I got home after work it suddenly felt like Christmas Eve and I was ready for Christmas. The kids were happy and excited. The presents were around the tree and the house was full of Christmas treats. Samson and Delia helped me to prepare the vegetables for the next day and lay out the table for a magnificent Christmas Day feast. It was one of those nights when everything felt right with the world.

  Samson awoke me at 7.30 am on Christmas morning. We all got up and drank tea and opened presents, as families do all over the world. Well, all over the Christian world. Well, in England that’s how we do it. Well, in my house anyway! We like drinking tea. OK!

  I made a traditional turkey dinner for the three of us and it was lovely. We had just finished eating and it was 2.00 pm. Their mother was parked in the road outside the front of my house, blaring her horn. The kids kissed and hugged me. We said goodbye and told each other how much we loved each other, and that we’d see each other on New Year’s Day. A sudden sadness descended over the three of us. It was going to be the first time that we had been apart since the initial split with their mother. I knew that Samson and Delia could feel it too. They smiled and they went. The house was suddenly empty and quiet. I washed the dishes and cleaned up a bit. It was 2.30 pm on Christmas Day and I was standing alone in the conservatory. I had thought that I was mentally prepared to be without the kids, but I wasn’t. The emptiness and loneliness hit me like a hammer blow. A gloominess and despair came down on me like a heavy weight.

  “What the fuck do I do now?” I said out loud.

  It was Christmas and I was all alone and feeling sorry for myself. I didn’t know what to do to shake off this sadness. I opened a bottle of brandy that I had treated myself to for Christmas, and drank it. When I finished the bottle I opened up a bottle of Southern Comfort and drank that too. But in truth, I didn’t find any Comfort in that Southern bottle.

  At 5.30 pm I was hopelessly drunk and I had smoked 20 cigarettes in three hours. I went to bed and awoke at 8.30 am on Boxing Day. Samson rang me at about 10.30 am and asked if he and Delia could come home. They didn’t want to stay at their mother’s anymore. I was so happy to have them back home. I felt better already and the kids said that they did too.

  I rang Naomie on 27th December and we met for lunch on the 28th. It was a short lunch because she was going for another drink with her work colleagues as soon as she left me. The time went past far too quickly and before I knew it she was leaving. We had a good time and seemed to get along very well. It was comfortable and easy. I discovered that she was Greek - well her parents were anyway! She had told me that she was spending the New Year in Liverpool. She was going up there with a girlfriend of hers, but she would ring me when she got back after the New Year. I was excited about meeting Naomie and I couldn’t wait to get the New Year over with. I didn’t do anything on New Year’s Eve and just after midnight I got a text message from Naomie saying ‘Happy New Year’. I thought that it was lovely of her to think about me.

  Naomie rang me on 4th January 2001 and we went out on a date on the 6th January. Naomie lived miles away in a small stone cottage in a little country village. It was near to the border with Derbyshire and on the edge of the Peak District. For our first date we decided to meet half way, so we met in a lovely pub called the ‘Isaac Walton Inn’. For a first date it went really well. Naomie looked beautiful. She was dressed in a silky, figure hugging, black dress with red flashes, black seamed stockings, high heels, and a fake fur coat. She smelled great too. I was glad that I had put a suit on. We were going to have a meal, but Naomie told me she hadn’t felt very well all day and that she didn’t fancy eating. So we had a few drinks and shared a packet of crisps. (Wow, what a cheap date!)

  The conversation flowed easily and, luckily, I was on top form and made her laugh a lot with clever and intelligent, witty remarks. At the end of the night I walked her to her car and we kissed goodnight under a clear starry sky. It was just a gentle kiss, but it felt fantastic. She had beautiful soft lips and for a first date it was probably just the perfect kiss to end with.

  We texted each other a few times the next day. The day after that we texted and rang each other. That night we had our second date. It was even better than the first date. I could tell that we had both decided that we liked each other and we flirted outrageously.

  Naomie came back to my house and we ended up kissing and cuddling on the settee. It got very hot and steamy….. very quickly. We touched each other over the top of each other’s clothing, which was becoming looser and more undone by the minute in the passionate clinch. Naomie was making lots of noise, which is always a great encouragement. She was sighing and gasping, gently moaning. It was so sexy. She was so sexy. I was so hard. I slid my hand up along her thigh and over her stocking top. I could feel her skin, smooth and cool. I gently put my hand between her legs. Her knickers were silky, warm and damp. My fingers slid inside them and inside her. She wriggled, gently at first, but gaining in momentum all the time until she was thrusting and grinding on my fingers. She continued until she came, and she came like a train.

  We kissed some more and pulled each other’s clothes off until I was naked and Naomie was just wearing a black suspender belt and stockings. We managed a clumsy 69 on the settee before we ended up with me sitting upright and Naomie sitting astride me. I slid into her wet pussy and we ground in a long slow fuck, ending in a frenzied pumping until I could hold on no longer and came inside her with an explosion of ecstasy.

  The second date turned into a third, then a fourth, fifth and sixth. We soon started seeing each other nearly every day. It was exciting. We were having a wonderful time and fantastic sex. We missed each other when we were apart, however briefly. We were falling in love. I could hardly believe my luck. What a beautiful sexy girl and she was with me. We often met for lunch as well as seeing each other during the evening and Naomie stayed more and more at my hous
e.

  She was very sexy and loved being sexy. She liked doing shocking things and was forever pushing back the boundaries. Oral, anal and bondage were her things. We were having sex in public places and she would give me a blow job at every chance she had, which I have to say is a very appealing quality in a woman. Sometimes the possibility of getting caught was frightening. Naomie loved it. Sometimes it bothered me, but I could never resist her.

  One lunchtime we were having lunch in a beautiful little restaurant called ‘The Bank House Café’ and, in a scene straight out of a movie, she leaned over the table and grabbed my tie, pulling me closer. She climbed over the table and started kissing me. A full slow passionate kiss. A shocked silence fell on the room and then she pushed me back into the chair. Everyone started clapping. Naomie smiled and nodded her acknowledgement to the clapping crowd and then reapplied her lipstick. I was blushing and a bit shocked, but it was sexy and one of those moments that you remember forever. I was delighted that Naomie was my girlfriend. This was one of the happiest times of my life.

  At the end of January Naomie asked me if I would go with her to one of her colleague’s retirement party. I was secretly quite thrilled that she had asked me and, even though I wouldn’t know anybody else there, I thought that it would be nice to meet her work colleagues properly. I think I must have already met most of the men that she worked with. I wondered if they would remember me as the bloke who pushed his way through them all to get to Naomie just before Christmas.

  We dressed up and went to the retirement party. It was being held in the ballroom of a hotel. The first twenty minutes were great. Naomie introduced me to everybody. She seemed quite proud of me. I could tell that the blokes didn’t like me very much, but the women were all very nice. There was only one real prick! A little fat bald headed guy, who was one of the bosses. He thought that it was really funny to keep calling out to me ‘A pound of apples and a bag of sugar please’. I thought he was about as funny as rabies in a dog’s home, but I kept smiling for Naomie’s sake.