by Primula Bond
I spin round, getting dizzy. Someone is hunched over the bike, chaining it up or unchaining it, I can’t see, and I call out. ‘Excuse me?’
The cruise boat slides under me, pale faces turned upwards, mouths open. I must have yelled louder than I meant. Screamed, even.
‘Can you help me?’ Christ, I’m not in London or New York now. This is Holland. ‘I’m looking for the Keizersgracht. Or was it the Prinsengracht? Please! Do you speak English?’
The bike rattles against the stonework and he turns round. Tall, ruffled and blond and, oh my God, ridiculously tall, like a basket ball player. They say the Dutch have the highest average height in the world but they’re not freaks or giants. They match their height with broad shoulders, strong chins, such a chic way with clothes and amazing glossy fitness. My eyes travel skywards – and I’m pretty tall, you know – before they arrive at a handsome tanned face, young cheeks flushed with cycling or rushing through the stiff breeze, and wide, sea-green eyes.
‘The Dylan Hotel?’ I wail. ‘Do you speak English?’
‘Yeah. I speak English.’
I hold on to my map and wait as he takes a couple of loping steps to meet me on the brow of the bridge. Something about the way he walks – we keep staring at each other. He lifts his hand as it to point something out over my shoulder, but then stops dead and runs it through his hair instead, making it stand up in spikes.
‘Mrs Epsom?’
I freeze, like a thief in the night. Is this how it happens? Is this how adultery is discovered?
‘Sophie Epsom, yes, but –’
He runs his hand through his hair again, then holds it out, palm upwards, as if asking for something.
‘I’m Skylar. Skylar Singer? I was at school and then uni’ with Seb and Rickie – but my family’s back here now.’
His voice is extraordinarily deep for someone so young, and has a lazy drawl, like he just woke up. I remember that voice, with the slight edge of his father’s Dutch accent, and that loping walk, those long legs in tight shorts and wet wellies, lifting the boat off the river along with my gorgeous sons and the rest of the crew. God, he was strong. All the cute girls like a bunch of Pussy Cat Dolls wiggling their miniskirts like they needed to pee and adjusting their sunglasses on the boat house balcony to attract the boys’ attention.
‘Skylar! Sara’s boy. Yes! How could I forget that heavenly name! You were all in the rowing club together –’
He leans against the bridge, crossing his arms over his pale blue sweater as if it isn’t getting cold and dark and he has all the time in the world.
‘And how could I forget?’
I clutch my hands together as if in prayer, shivering slightly. ‘I’m a bit late, Skylar, and a bit lost –’
He steps nearer and runs his finger down my neck. I actually close my eyes because it tickles my skin. How’s he to know how sensitive it is just there? He holds up a leaf that has got tangled in my hair. I ought to slap him. Instead I’m pinned there. That pulse in my pussy is throbbing rhythmically now, and beneath my coat and my cashmere cardigan my nipples go tight.
Skylar is so close I can see the gold prickles in his skin waiting to be shaved. I can see his tongue and his white teeth as he smiles easily at me. My tongue runs across my mouth. He runs his finger down my neck again, follows a trail across my cheek to my mouth, and pushes gently at my lips till they pout open. Then he puts his finger in his own mouth, and sucks it.
‘Where did a good boy like you learn to be so dirty?’ I whisper, shivering violently now. ‘You, Skylar, were the polite one. The only boy who ever said thank you.’
He pulls at me roughly so that I bang against him and feel the long hard outline of his cock against my stomach. He puts his mouth in my hair to say something.
‘And you, Mrs Epsom, were the only mother any of us wanted to fuck.’
My phone vibrates angrily and I jump and screech like a naughty schoolgirl.
‘Excuse me, Skylar – a text –’
Waited two hours. Gone to meeting. Have booked dinner at D’Vijff Vlieghen. All OK?
I reply with shaking fingers. Yes. Sorry. Tell all later.
‘You look knackered. I could take you to the Dylan if you like,’ says Skylar, walking away down the other side of the bridge as if nothing dirty was ever said, ‘or you could come and take a beer at my place.’
I am too cold to think straight now. A wind cuts off the canal below us, lifting my skirt and freezing my knees.
‘I don’t know, Skylar, I really should be getting – is it far?’
‘We’re here already.’
He’s disappeared along the tree-lined corniche by the canal, and then I look down and see him leaning one foot on the edge of a square jawed wooden houseboat. I start to follow him awkwardly down the bridge, then I wrench my shoes off. When he sees me running towards him, ripping my stockings on the stones, he nods slowly, looking me up and down in the lazy way of a hungry man about to enjoy a leisurely meal.
‘Just one beer, Skylar, OK? Then you must take me to the Dylan Hotel.’
He hands me aboard and through a pair of little glass doors into a warm, wood-panelled interior done out like a Moroccan riad strewn with cushions and hung with lights. I cross the room and look out over his deck to the water, rippling with lights from the houses lining the canals, and from the neighbouring boats.
Behind me he lights candles in coloured glass pots and lanterns, and cracks open two beers. I glance about for any feminine touches, flowers, scent bottles, silk scarves, tasteful photographs, but this is a lad’s pad all right. All quick comfort.
‘Take your coat off, why don’t you, Mrs Epsom? It gets hot in here,’ he says softly, kicking off his biker boots and leaning on the galley counter. He pushes my feet in the sluttishly ripped stockings with his toe. ‘You’re half undressed already.’
I blush scarlet and then he’s undoing the buttons on my coat. Before my arms are properly out of the sleeves I try to take a swig out of my beer can and spill it down my chin and onto my caramel cashmere.
‘Not nervous, are you, Mrs Epsom?’ He tuts his teeth and dabs at me with a towel. I freeze as the cloth swipes between my breasts, and so does he. He clears his throat. ‘I mean, about your night at the Dylan? Very sexy hotel. You haven’t told me what you’re doing in Amsterdam.’
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and take another swig of beer. It feels good, flowing down my throat. I realise that despite my cold, anxious walk the nerves have made me thirsty. My head swims comfortably now.
‘I’m meeting a friend, Sky. Actually, I’m meeting my lover. And it’s all wrong. Here I am, with you, late for our rendezvous, and I’ve realised it’s all wrong.’
He raises his eyebrows, then pulls his pale blue jumper off. The old white shirt he’s wearing underneath rucks up his back as he tugs everything off, and I see the muscles flickering between his ribs and the inward curve of his brown stomach with its low down fuzz of golden hair.
‘You don’t fancy him any more?’
I laugh. ‘Oh, sweetie, it’s not as simple as that –’
He glares at me now, flopping down on the cushions. His shirt flies open over his stomach. ‘Calling me too young to understand?’
I bite my lip. ‘No, not at all. Look at you. You’re all grown-up. You’re gorgeous.’
He laces his fingers behind his head, and waits. I come and sit beside him. My tight skirt makes it difficult to sit easily, so I kind of curl my legs primly under me and as I shift about trying to look and feel at ease, I feel a ladder run in my stocking from my ankle right up to my thigh. ‘You always were.’
‘So what’s the problem with this guy?’
‘It’s all wrong, that’s what. I’m not feeling the fun or the pleasure of it any more. And I think you may be right – maybe I don’t fancy him any more.’
His shoulder is warm against mine. One of those tourist boats swishes past. It’s all lit up, with dressed-up diners in there this tim
e, not looking out or up or taking photographs, just gazing at the food they’re forking into their mouths.
‘Not good in bed, then?’
‘Do we really need to talk about him?’ But again, I start to laugh. ‘He’s incredible in bed, actually – I mean, he loves sex. He likes it really rough, sometimes. I’ve let him tie me up. I’ve – he’s done things to me nobody else has, not even my husband, and Christ knows he’s virtually a sex addict –’
‘You’re beautiful when you laugh, Mrs Epsom.’
Skylar strokes my mouth, all wet with beer, and then I find him kissing me. I try to purse my lips against him, this is the last thing I need, fumbling and groping with some kid, but when his tongue slides across my mouth it makes my lips tingle and they fall open, I can’t help it, his tongue is so warm and firm, and eager, and young, and his hands come up to hold my face and it’s so tender, as if in some way I’m fragile.
‘Let’s not talk about my lover,’ I whisper.
‘You know my name means “shield”?’ he whispers back.
And then I’m kissing him back, half crying as well, and we’re falling against the cushions, kissing wetly and noisily like teenagers, and he’s undoing my cashmere cardigan very carefully, popping open one pearl button at a time, making my breasts push eagerly at his hands, until I’m scrabbling at his shirt to feel his smooth warm skin underneath. His heart is thumping under my hand and then he pulls me on top of him, still kissing me, my cardi slipping off my shoulders, my skirt still on, his hands sliding up under it, feeling the tops of my ripped stockings –
‘I should go.’ I pull away and look down at him, shaking my head. ‘We can’t do this, Sky. I’m too old for you, and I’m too confused –’
He looks steadily back at me, his mouth bruised and wet. His hands rest easily on my thighs as if he already owns me.
‘I want you, though, Mrs Epsom. Right now. I told you. I always have. And you want me.’
I laugh at the simplicity of it all, at the way he calls me Mrs Epsom, and that makes me feel beautiful. My stomach coils with excitement. We stare at each other for the moment in the flickering candlelight.
‘And especially tonight,’ he says, reaching behind me and unclipping my bra, ‘you look as if you need a good fucking.’
My breasts tumble out, big and white in the darkened room, the nipples already taut and scarlet with longing. But a shadow falls over me. I think of the other bras he’s undone, the girls he’s seduced so coolly here in his Moroccan house boat. I think of the girlfriend he must have, who could be near, who could be about to burst in.
I try to cover myself.
‘Skylar, this isn’t right –’
‘Don’t stress, Sophie.’ He pulls my hands away from my breasts and stares at them. ‘It’s totally right. And look what you’ve done to me.’
He plants one of my hands down to feel the hardness of his cock in his jeans, pushing between my thighs. I rub it, feeling it stir in response, and I start to arch my back, cup my breasts in my hands, squeeze them together, make them swell and push, pinch the nipples longer and harder until they’re tingling with excitement.
‘You look like one of those whores wriggling about in their windows. Who would have thought a lady like you could move like that?’
He pulls me down and pushes his face between my breasts, breathes on them, runs his tongue up between them and then over and round the jutting nipples, teasing and nibbling while his hands move under my skirt, feeling for my bottom.
I hang over him, watching his face, the light on his hair, feel the bristles on his chin scratching my skin. The world has shrunk to just this vulnerable little boat, unlocked, open to all comers, moored in the shadows of this lovely bridge, rocking inside this amazing city.
So I cup one breast and offer it to him. His tongue flicks across the nipple again, and I nearly scream out loud. His hands squeeze the breasts together until they sing with delicious pain. Then his soft lips nibble up the little nub of the nipple. His tongue laps round it. He draws the burning bud into his mouth, pulling hard on it, and begins to suck. It makes my whole body ripple with desire.
He turns from one bulging breast to the other, breathing more heavily now, biting and kneading harder and harder and the lovely pain empties my mind of everything else.
His mouth is getting rougher, more ferocious, and I’m pushing more roughly against him, daring him, searching for more pain to communicate more pleasure. I’m on top of him, my tits dangling down over him, their size and weight accentuated by hanging there, the soft globes pale in his brown fingers. I hitch my skirt right up and tilt my pussy desperately towards his groin and rub it briefly against the outline of his gorgeous cock
My knickers are getting wet, and his cock is getting harder, and we are really grinding against each other when I think I can hear footsteps on the pavement outside. Suddenly I remember the surfer boys I’d seen earlier, whirring silently with him on their bikes.
‘Skylar – someone’s coming!’
He pulls his head away, listens for a moment, then shakes his head.
‘Just passing,’ he says. ‘And if they see in, how kinky is that? It won’t be the first time.’
He lifts his hips, with me still on top of him, and slips his jeans down, and there’s his cock, lying on his stomach, pulsing slightly, poking up big and warm and heavy between my legs.
‘What do you mean, not the first time? For God’s sake, Skylar, I’m sure I can hear – wasn’t that someone on the deck? Christ, your girlfriend!’
I try to wriggle off him, but he’s stronger than me. He fans his hands across my bottom, stroking it, and how weirdly soothing is that, because like my neck it’s another very sensitive part of me, and the stroking makes my cunt clench with frustration.
‘Don’t have a girlfriend,’ he laughs quietly, opening my legs wider and moving me so that my wet knickers slide up and down, catching on his resting, waiting cock. ‘Who needs one when I get all the sex I need –’
I moan desperately. God, his cock’s a work of art. Its surface is smooth like velvet, the mauve plum emerging from the soft foreskin which wrinkles back to show itself all gleaming. I weigh it in my hand and as I do it he bites my nipple so hard that I scream out with delight. I lean over him, kicking off the knickers I bought especially for Ernst to play with, and settle myself just above my living, breathing sex toy.
I want him to think he’s died and gone to heaven. Any minute now I’m going to heaven, too. I’m just preparing the way.
Greedily I press him down, tilting myself over his still sucking mouth. I smile as I raise myself on my knees and aim the tip of his cock into my pussy. I let it rest there, at the opening, just nudging it past my wet sex lips. I wait. I smile again, lowering myself a little more, gasping as each inch goes in. I reach under him to cup his balls in one hand and he snaps his mouth away from my nipple with a loud groan of surprise.
This tension is ecstasy, but I can’t hold on to it for much longer, and slowly, luxuriously, I let my boy’s knob slide up inside me, further in, till I’m rubbing my open, wet pussy on his groin. It’s so tempting to ram it, let our hips start jerking, but once it’s right in I force myself to pull away again. He frowns, impatient for action, but I just ease myself down again, moaning and tossing my head back, and the next time I do that he’s with me, pulling his own hips back, waiting when I wait.
I keep my eyes open the whole time. He’s so beautiful. I try to see the cute but callow boy he used to be but all I see is this stud, who wants me and is fucking me in his little boat house and I’m riding him, pushing him back into the cushions, his lips on my tits and his cock moving slowly into me and I’m just thinking he’s mine, all mine, he’ll never forget this, when the candles gutter in their holders next to us and I see another shadow falling across his face. Someone, very close up behind me, so close I can smell cigarette smoke, says something unmistakably obscene, even though it’s in Dutch.
‘Oh, piss off, Piete
r!’ Skylar growls, but he’s still looking at me, still hoisting me up with the strength of his hips, still fucking me. ‘Go back to your poker game!’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it!I came back for more beer, but this looks like a hell of a lot more fun than poker!’
The new voice has a much stronger accent than Skylar’s. It’s speaking from just behind me. I go hot and cold but I can’t move. Skylar’s cock is locked inside me. I try to read his expression, but he’s so goddamn mellow he keeps moving inside me, keeping me sweet, even though I’m drying up here with embarrassment.
Then there’s the unzipping sound of another pair of jeans.‘Where you find this one, Sky? Down the railway station?’
Skylar frowns and shakes his head furiously, and then a filthy grin spreads across his face.He winks at me. I should be soothed, but I’m not. He looks bigger and suddenly he’s a horny man on a mission, not a boy. Glancing past me at the newcomer, Skylar starts squeezing my breasts again.
The man behind me takes my hair, and bunches it up in a fist.Did I mention my hair is very sensitive? How I love to have it brushed, and stroked and, yes, pulled?
‘She looks like Janni, from the knicker shop round the corner. Janni, is that you?’
He yanks my head round.He’s one of those blond boys on the bikes, all right. Older-looking than Skylar, and with more of a beard, but very, very hunky. Brown, searching eyes, but what looks like a constant grin.
‘This is no tart, P, this is Mrs Epsom, mother of some old mates from London, and she’s red hot,’ says Skylar, stroking my breasts possessively. ‘We were just getting it on, so if you don’t mind, fuck off.’
He pulls me forwards, jamming my tits into his mouth again, and now my backside is up in the air.I want to protest but I can’t pull away from him. My butt is all exposed, bouncing in front of this Pieter guy, but so gorgeous is the feel of Skylar’s newly confident, no, aggressivemouth sucking on my sore nipples that I can’t stop him. As first one nipple then the other grinds into his mouth I automatically start rocking on his cock again. I’m acutely aware of my new audience. And it’s unutterably sexy to be watched.