Decade

by Roberto Rabaiotti

  ‘No, it was a present from my parents for my twenty-first a couple of months back,’ Vicki replied, slightly embarrassed.

  ‘You’re very lucky,’ Rhys returned, patting the bonnet, but with no hint of envy, ridicule or sarcasm. He was genuinely happy for her.

  Vicki opened the driver’s door and retrieved a scrap of paper and pen from the glove compartment. ‘This is my number in Godalming and this one is for my house in uni. And this is the address, by the way,’ Vicki advised as she scribbled away with Rhys peering over her shoulder. ‘I’ve got yours.’ She handed it to him. He looked at it briefly before stuffing it in his back pocket. ‘Don’t lose it now!’ Vicki sounded almost desperate.

  ‘Don’t worry. There’s no chance of that.’

  Having returned the pen to the glove compartment, Vicki turned round, stood full square to Rhys and grasped both his hands. ‘I’ve had a fantastic day, a fantastic New Year. I’ll never forget it,’ she declared, looking him full in the eye.

  ‘The same here. It feels like a dream almost, just perfect. I can’t wait to see you next weekend.’

  ‘Nor me. Make sure you ring before, though. I just love listening to that voice of yours and we’ll have to tie down the arrangements.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I will.’ A few seconds later, Rhys ran his hands up Vicki’s arms and placed them on her shoulders, easing her towards him. He gave her a protective, loving cuddle before kissing her fully on the mouth for more than a minute, uncaring of what any passers-by might think. After a final hug and slow release of hands, they parted, Vicki taking her place in the driver’s seat. ‘Drive carefully now.’

  After a short pause, during which Vicki started the engine, Rhys found a question to ask. ‘Does this house of yours in Exeter have a spare room? If not, I’ll be quite happy to crash out in the living room. I’ll bring a sleeping bag with me.’

  Vicki glanced up at him with eyes overflowing with mischief. ‘We don’t have any spare rooms and the living room’s chock-a-block. Oh, and there’ll be no need for the sleeping bag.’

  Rhys had smiled a lot during the afternoon but he gave his widest one of all at this moment. ‘I was hoping you’d say that!’

  CHAPTER 4

  Vicki shifted nervously on her feet on the concourse of St David’s railway station in Exeter. The train from Cardiff Central was running four minutes late. Those four minutes seemed like a lifetime to her. The past week had been a living hell waiting for this moment to arrive, dragging on so slowly she thought the sand in the timer was defying gravity. She never believed a week could last so long and concluded that God must have been dawdling when creating the heavens and earth. And now those damned infernal demons were teasing her for a few minutes longer.

  The concourse was a hustle and bustle of activity, as it always was at five-thirty on a Friday evening, as travellers arrived and departed for the weekend. Long gangly-haired students in scruffy clothes mingled with soberly-dressed business people who invariably looked suspiciously and often snobbishly at them. Vicki’s Afghan coat gave her away as a student, but, beneath it, she wore impeccably pressed Wrangler’s which showed off her pert round behind and long straight legs perfectly. They were tucked into high-heeled, pointy-toed, black and white cowboy boots. The extra height, she knew, would show off her legs even more. The whole afternoon had been a period of bother and fluster as she contemplated what to wear, flinging virtually her whole wardrobe onto the bed before finally deciding. Her choice of top was also intended to show off her figure to the maximum. The tight, black, lambswool roll-neck sweater succeeded in this objective and, when posing in front of the mirror back in her bedroom, she had expressed a quiet ‘Thank you’ to Diana Rigg, who, as Emma Peel in The Avengers, had given her the inspiration for it. She wore, as ever, no make-up. She did not need to and her only accessory was the CND chain. The majority of the men and more than one or two women who passed close to her eyed her with sexual intent. Vicki was aware of this though she gave nothing away in her facial expression. She was used to it, after all. At last, the Cardiff train pulled in.

  ‘Where is he?’ Vicki muttered impatiently, straining to look over and around the heads and backs of the other waiting people blocking her view. A steady flow of passengers from the train walked past her but there was no sign of Rhys. Vicki fretted, wondering if he had missed it for some reason, but, finally, after an anxious couple of minutes, she saw him at the back of a mass of travellers in the distance walking in her direction. She shivered with excitement and nerves at this first sighting and broke out into a broad smile. She was tempted to shout out his name, like one of the paparazzi might to a distant celebrity, but he was too far back. A few moments later and yards closer, Rhys’s scanning eyes homed in on a wildly flailing arm and his smile, Vicki swore, lit up the whole railway station. Her body tingled when she realised he had seen her. She thought he looked wonderful and noticed some similarities in the way they were dressed, for he, too, was wearing a black roll-neck sweater, though more loosely fitting than hers, and it was only the brand that distinguished their jeans, Rhys wearing his favourite Levi’s. Their coats and footwear differed, however, Rhys wearing a heavy, leather biker’s jacket and shiny, black winkle-pickers. In his right hand he was carrying a holdall.

  ‘It’s great to see you again, Vicki,’ Rhys declared, his eyes open wide with delight. He let go of the holdall and gave her such a big hug that he lifted her off her feet.

  ‘And you,’ Vicki replied before kissing him on the lips, her arms wrapped around his neck and shoulders and feet still dangling in the air.

  ‘You look fantastic,’ Rhys commented, finally lowering her to the ground.

  ‘You, too. My God, we must be telepathic or something. You’d think we were twins,’ she added, eyeing his clothes and her own up and down.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Rhys chuckled without knowing what ‘telepathic’ meant.

  ‘The car’s outside. It’s only a short drive to the house; we’ll be home in a tick.’

  Rhys picked up his holdall with one hand and, clasping Vicki’s hand with his other, they walked out of the station into the misty, freezing night air that hung around them like spectres.

  ‘Sophie and Jill are dying to meet you. I’ve been boring them all week about you coming.’

  ‘Well, I hope I come up to expectations then. If I remember right, you said you shared with just the two of them?’

  ‘That’s right. They’re lovely girls, a bit mad and scatty, but really good friends. I think they’re out at the moment but we’ll all set off together for the Cowley Bridge later. There’s a good crowd meeting up at the pub tonight. You’ll like them.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Rhys replied nervously, hoping he’d fit in well with the gang. Of more immediate concern was whether he would fit into the passenger seat of the MG Roadster as he bent his legs almost right up to his chest. Vicki roared up the engine and pulled sharply out of the car park. She could not wait to get home quickly enough.

  ‘Like I mentioned on the phone, there’s a party tomorrow night at Bill and Mike’s place. It’s a real tip but they know how to throw a good party. It should be great.’

  ‘I’m up for it. Can’t beat a good party.’ Vicki turned her head towards him and smiled. ‘Keep your eyes on the road! I haven’t come all this way just to see the inside of Exeter A&E.’

  A few minutes later, Vicki pulled up outside her house. It was in total darkness, confirming, as she thought, that her friends were not yet at home. They crossed the threshold and she flicked a switch, bathing the hallway, which had deep primrose walls, in a dirty-yellow hue.

  ‘This way.’

  Vicki led Rhys up the stairs onto a landing. They walked past a bedroom and then entered another, the next one along, opposite which was a bathroom, the freshly painted white door of which included a large pane of frosted glass. Rhys’s immediate impression was that the house was in excellent condition. He had been expecting something more in keeping with the drear
y housing that accommodated students of the Polytechnic of Wales in Pontypridd. There was a mirror-bright parquet floor in the hallway at the base of an imposing staircase, which possessed such a heavy brown varnished banister that Rhys wondered whether it had been constructed from reclaimed railway sleepers. It was glistening, just like the parquet floor, and so much so that both their sheens could only have come about through years of thorough polishing. The steps and landing were adorned with a thick, green and white patterned carpet, which looked virtually new to his eyes, with no threadbare areas as far as he could see, and all the brass fixtures and fittings shimmered when the light from the mock Victorian glass globes beamed down on them from the ceiling.

  ‘Make yourself comfortable, I’m just going to the bathroom a sec.’

  Vicki’s bedroom was much the same. The walls were all newly painted in an ivory cream while the matching pine double wardrobe, chest of drawers, desk and chair all looked in top condition even if the furniture appeared too modern for the Victorian dwelling. The carpet was the same as that of the landing and stairs. The only piece of furniture that appeared remotely in keeping with the age of the house was a beaten-up old leather armchair, not dissimilar to the one in his own bedroom, which was festooned with soft toys and one large burgundy and white cushion. Unsurprisingly for such a house, the ceiling was high and the room spacious. On the walls, Vicki had taped a number of posters. Two of them depicted colourful Parisian nightclub scenes. Rhys was only familiar with the can-can dancers, flaunting their knickers as they kicked their legs high up in the air on stage at the Moulin Rouge. Two other posters were more recognisable. Rhys marvelled at the one of the incomparable Jimi Hendrix plucking at his guitar with his teeth before fixing his eyes on the laughing Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, who, as Bonnie and Clyde, were speeding away in their getaway car. The only item of furniture that raised his eyebrows was the bed. It, and the bedside table, matched the other pine furniture exactly but was only a single. ‘Well, at least it’ll be cosy,’ he muttered under his breath with a grin.

  While waiting for Vicki, Rhys took off his jacket as the room was boiling hot, the heat emanating from two large, charcoal-grey cast-iron radiators. He placed the jacket over the back of the armchair, just avoiding the head of the green egg-shaped Humpty from Play School, and rolled up the sleeves of his sweater. At the same time, he heard a distant hiss from the bathroom and the door unlocking. Vicki soon reappeared in the bedroom, considerably shorter than before, as she was holding her boots in her left hand with the socks stuffed inside. She pushed the door behind her and it shut with a reassuring thud. She tossed the boots onto the floor and walked over to Rhys. On tiptoe, she placed her arms around his neck, pressed her crotch into his and sought out his mouth with hers. They kissed passionately, both of them conscious that Rhys was becoming aroused.

  After a moment, Rhys took half a step back and removed the CND chain from around Vicki’s neck and put it on the bedside table. He then gripped the bottom of Vicki’s sweater and carefully lifted it over her head, flinging it onto the armchair behind him. He unfastened her bra and eased her arms through the straps, letting it drop to the floor. The sight of her naked body took his breath away. Staring at her breasts with a delicious grin, he cupped them in his hands and ran his thumbs across her nipples. Vicki, too, looked down at her breasts and then back up at Rhys, smiling, as if to convey that they were all his to play with. She looked down towards the front of Rhys’s jeans and began to unfasten his belt and unbutton his fly. The fourth button gave her difficulties and Rhys helped her with the task, drawing chuckles from them both at their impatience. Once unbuttoned, Rhys sat down on the edge of the bed and removed his boots and socks. He then stood up and pulled both his jeans and underpants down simultaneously, stepping out of both inelegantly and nearly toppling over. Vicki eagerly grabbed the bottom of his sweater and pulled it over his head. Rhys helped her and removed his T-shirt with the same movement. She marvelled at his body, his chest so broad and shoulders so strong that Adonis himself would have been proud of them. His stomach rippled with rock-solid muscles and his skin had the sheen of a Derby winner.

  Rhys stood naked, his erection at its maximum, angling upwards and prodding firmly into Vicki’s stomach. He gently clasped Vicki’s arms and guided her to the foot of the bed, sitting her down and directing her to lie back. He undid a top button and pulled down the zip of her jeans. As he grabbed them by the waistband, Vicki raised her hips to allow him to pull them off more easily; he removed her skimpy white panties in the same movement and dropped them both onto the carpet. Vicki’s head was slightly raised, looking down the full length of her body, her stomach flat and taut. She could see Rhys gazing at the tightly curled light brown hair between her legs.

  ‘You look amazing, Vicki, just amazing.’

  ‘You don’t look so bad yourself.’

  With a smile on his face, Rhys knelt down, parted her legs further, and moved his face towards her crotch. Instinctively, Vicki laid her head back and closed her eyes in anticipation of what was to come next. She felt the tip of his tongue and Vicki came almost immediately, so turned on had she been, her head pulling forward before thudding back onto the pillow. Rhys heard Vicki sigh and felt the tension in her body as he ran his hands over her stomach and waist. Holding her firmly, he tasted the gorgeous moisture and Vicki came again. This time the sigh morphed into a groan before she raised her legs so that her feet rested across his back. She lowered her left leg and slid the front of her foot up and down his right buttock. Rhys felt a toenail digging into his flesh, arousing him even further, before Vicki moved both her feet round to his front. He had to edge back to allow them to pass.

  Vicki’s feet found Rhys’s erection and, placing them either side, she ran them gently along the shaft. He closed his eyes, held her feet, and increased the tempo. He began to pant and became worried that he might come too quickly so he stopped and moved her feet apart. Leaning down, he ran his tongue teasingly along the insides of her legs and, when he arrived at her feet, he slowly sucked at her toes, starting with the little one of her left foot and working his way along until he ended with the little toe of her right. At the same time, he placed two fingers inside her and lightly rubbed her with his thumb. Vicki came again, loudly. Rhys then told her to turn over; she responded without hesitation. He knelt over and gently kissed her buttocks; their whiteness contrasted vividly against the golden skin of her back and legs. He began to nibble at them, bringing a smile to Vicki’s face and a number of red marks formed.

  Parting her cheeks, he ran his tongue up and down and in-between them before he moved his face away and stood up. His tongue was aching so much he thought it was going to break off. He placed his hands onto Vicki’s hips and beckoned her to raise them higher still. She did so, supporting herself on her hands and knees. Rhys penetrated her at once and thrust as hard as he could, slapping noisily into her buttocks. Vicki thought that her eyes were going to pop out of their sockets, and this time the sighs gave way to high-pitched cries. The louder she cried, the harder Rhys thrust until she emitted an extended shriek that Rhys was worried would disturb the whole neighbourhood. He, too, was on the point of coming, but not just yet, he thought. He pulled himself out of Vicki and lay down on his back next to her. Droplets of sweat dripped from the end of her nose onto his chest as she leaned over him.

  ‘It’s my turn now,’ she whispered with a dirty grin. ‘There’s still plenty of life down there, I see,’ she added before pushing back her hair and lowering her head. Very slowly, she slid her mouth up and down the shaft, every so often pushing down on it so hard that it hit the back of her throat. She heard Rhys moan and pant softly, which turned her on immensely. Rhys tilted his head forward to observe Vicki’s actions. Her breasts were hanging freely and he cupped his left hand around her right one and fondled it with the lightest of touches, massaging the nipple between his forefinger and thumb. To reciprocate, Vicki massaged his balls. Rhys allowed his head to fall back onto
the pillow; the pleasure was overwhelming. While continuing to slide her mouth up and down the shaft, Vicki occasionally looked up at Rhys out of the corner of her eye to see whether he was enjoying the experience. She need not have worried. A short time later, Rhys tugged at Vicki’s arm and beckoned her to straddle him.

  ‘I’d better put a johnny on first,’ Rhys panted. ‘I’m not sure how much longer I can hang on; you’ve got me going so much. I brought some with me.’

  ‘I’ve got some as well. Hold on.’ Vicki quickly leaned over and opened the drawer of the bedside table. She removed a newly purchased packet containing twelve condoms, hurriedly ripped off the transparent paper, opened it and pulled one out. She tore off the top of the wrapper with her teeth and removed the condom, the smell of rubber and spermicide hitting their nostrils simultaneously.

  ‘That’s exactly the same brand and size packet I bought,’ Rhys said inanely, as if it was somehow interesting.

  Vicki did not reply, her attention fixed firmly on putting the condom on Rhys as quickly as she could. The second she had done this, she raised her hips and manoeuvred him inside her. She leaned forward, resting on her hands and moved her hips up and down. Her eyes closed and she began to sigh before pushing ever harder and faster and her sighs once more turned into loud cries. Rhys observed her face crumple with the effort as the sensation permeated her body. Her concentration was total. He raised his head and found her nipples with his lips, sucking and licking at them avidly. Immediately, Vicki emitted her highest-pitched cry yet and her head fell forward, her sweat-soaked hair lashing against Rhys’s face and chest. A few moments later, she raised her head, her mouth open, her eyes closed. Sweat dripped from her nose and chin. She finally opened her eyes to observe Rhys gazing at her. ‘I’m not finished with you yet,’ he whispered with a glint in his eye.

  ‘You’re unreal,’ Vicki replied, panting.