by Noel Amos
'I want to be in it.'
'What?'
'I want to be a character in your book, Perce - Big Balls Brendan the superstud of the beach. All you've got to do is tell the truth - well, maybe you could add a couple of inches here and there, know what I mean?'
Perce nodded. He knew all right. He'd give Brendan a two-foot python in his pants if the boy donated enough material to help him dash off To the Hilt. The beauty of it was that it didn't matter if Brendan told him a pack of lies - that's all a novel like this was in the first place.
For the first time since he'd smashed his ankle, Percy found himself smiling. He held out his hand. 'It's a deal.'
'You won't regret it,' said Brendan, returning Percy's grip. 'Just wait till I tell you about No Knickers Night.'
'What's that?' Percy was instantly agog, his imagination already working overtime.
'Hey, break it up, fellers.' Carol-Anne, looking spectacular in a skintight electric-blue leotard, appeared out of nowhere. 'Count your fingers, Percy, after shaking hands with this guy.'
'You're looking good today, Carol,' said Brendan. 'The sight of, you in Lycra blue could move a man to verse, wouldn't you say so Perce?'
Percy, trying hard not to look at the girl's breasts exquisitely defined in the straining fabric inches from his nose, grinned stupidly.
'Aren't you required on the beach about now, Brendan?' said Carol-Anne. 'Mr Carmichael and I have to discuss his schedule.'
'Schedule?' said Percy as Brendan jogged off and Carol-Anne took his seat.
'I've worked out a rota with the girls. I've been through most of it with Mrs Carmichael so she has round-the-clock assistance with the children. She says you need nurse-maiding too and, as she's going to be busy, I've arranged for people to keep an eye on you.'
'Oh.' Percy hadn't foreseen this. He rather hoped he'd be left alone with his writing pad.
'One of our waitresses, Philippa, is going to take the mornings. She'll put an ice pack on your ankle and fetch and carry for you. Then after lunch, Lucia - she's a local girl who works here in the mornings as a cleaner - will keep you company—'
'Actually, Carol-Anne, I'm not sure all this will be necessary. I mean, I've got a lot of work to do and I was hoping...'
Percy's words trailed off as he saw the busty blonde waitress who had served him coffee make her way towards them. She had changed into shorts and a blue gingham halter that groaned under the weight of her mesmerising chest.
'Philippa's going to make sure you're comfortable,' said Carol-Anne, 'unless you'd rather be left in peace.'
'Oh no,' said Percy in haste as the luscious waitress stood in front of him. He could make out the individual freckles on her deep cleavage and fine golden hairs glinting on her bronzed bare thighs.
'I've got a first-aid certificate,' said Philippa in the languid tones of the upper-crust Home Counties, 'and I've lots of experience helping chaps with wonky legs. My brothers all play rugger.'
'So you'll be in good hands,' said Carol-Anne.
Percy had no doubt about it.
Chapter 15
Whack! Felicity hit the tennis ball with all her considerable strength. From the back of the court the ball flew over the net like a bullet and dipped inside the line, leaving Henry, her tennis coach, stranded in mid-court.
'Love thirty,' shouted Felicity with unconcealed satisfaction and marched along the baseline to receive serve. She was enjoying this. Every time she crunched the ball she imagined she was thumping Percy's head. It gave her considerable satisfaction.
Henry was preparing to serve, his jaw set in a determined line. She could see he had not been prepared for her skill or her aggression. He wasn't going to give her an easy ball this time.
He was a tall, lithe youth, agile but not beefy. And he was by no means the best opponent she had ever faced. Though he was possibly - a voice in her head suggested - the prettiest.
He served to her backhand, much faster than before, but her old instincts did not let her down. She drilled it across court past his groping racquet. He stood at the net and gave her a rueful grin.
'I thought you said you hadn't played for years.'
'I haven't. I've been breeding - it doesn't give you time for much else. Love forty, I believe.'
She waited for Henry, enjoying the sight of his tight neat rump in his tiny white shorts as he bent over to retrieve the balls. Then she summoned her concentration as she had always done by thinking of something that made her blood boil. That was easy. The picture of Percy reclining on the sun terrace, a beer in his hand and a little blonde trollop fussing around him with her chest half exposed. That really fired her up!
Henry served - a kicking, swerving thunderbolt right into her body. She chipped it back and he went for the cross-court line. She reached it somehow, panting hard, and lobbed it over him as he took command of the net. He turned and chased. It was a valiant effort but his return bounced mid-court and she was on it. 'Ugh!' her grunt rang out as she smashed the ball as hard as she could. It caught Henry, dashing back to cover the net, flush in the solar plexus like a boxer's low blow and doubled him over in windless agony.
She led him to the bench at the side of the court and patted his back as he crouched over, his head between his knees, unable to speak.
'I'm sorry, Henry,' she said without meaning it and thinking that (a) he wasn't much of a tennis coach if he couldn't beat an out-of-practice, out-of-condition mother-of-three and (b) he was a wimp.
But a pretty wimp, said that sly voice in her head again. A handsome, tanned, blue-eyed, youthful wimp whose blond hair was soft and sweet-smelling as she cradled his head on her chest. And whose bare skin was under her fingers, his shirt riding up his back as he sobbed and heaved.
He lifted his head and there was wonder in his azure eyes. 'Christ,' he said at last, 'you're not Martina Navratilova's sister, are you? You're bloody good.'
'I used to be,' said Felicity. 'I was a schoolgirl champion, Junior Wimbledon and all that, but I couldn't give anyone decent a proper game now.'
'Thanks a lot,' said Henry.
'Sorry, I didn't mean—'
'It's OK, Felicity, you've found me out. I'm not the tennis coach. The real one quit last week and I'm standing in till they get a replacement. I thought I was doing pretty well till you came along. You're entering the tennis competition, I take it?'
'I haven't got a partner. My husband's hopeless and anyway he's sprained his ankle.'
Henry sat up straight and rubbed his stomach. 'Don't worry, I'll find you someone. The water-ski instructor is dead keen, though he's pretty wild. As he's staff he's only allowed to play to make up the numbers. I guess that's what he'd be doing if he partnered you.'
While he was speaking Henry had stood up, feeling his stomach. Now he pulled up his shirt and tugged his shorts halfway down to examine the damage.
The white skin below his bikini line was a flaming red and the beginnings of a painful bruise could be seen. Felicity gazed at the exposed strip of skin, at the taut and youthful belly and the blond strip of hair running down from his navel in a thickening line, turning a coppery hue as it disappeared from sight into his shorts.
Felicity was hit by a wave of emotion she had thought she would never feel again. A thudding, tummy-turning bolt of lust that she recognised from a distant past and another life. She wanted to bend forward and place her mouth on that exposed skin, to feel the springy curls of Henry's belly hair between her teeth, to plunge her lips down, down into his crotch and root there like a pig after truffles.
And then she realised, from the way he was standing there, gazing at her with those innocent blue eyes, that she could. 'Do you want me to kiss it better?' she asked.
He nodded his head.
If it hadn't been for the blonde girl with the bosom fussing over Percy she probably would have pulled back. But she had seen the way her husband ogled that yawning cleavage, as if he were committing the position of every freckle to memory. Well, two could
play at that and, as with most games, she was going to play it better.
She kissed gently round the edge of Henry' s bruise, just brushing the skin with her lips. Then she trailed her tongue, snail-like, up to his belly button. He tasted hot and sweaty but not disagreeably so. On the contrary, he was fresh and alive in her mouth, ravishing her senses with the sweet succulence of youth. He was the first young strong male she had embraced in how long - twelve years? Fifteen? Maybe more, way back in her loose-hipped, free-swinging, tennis-playing heyday when she was sought after off the court as well as on it. When the boys at tennis parties had ever-ready, always-reliable, spring-loaded erections in their pants.
Just like Henry.
'Oh yes!' she muttered as her fingers peeled down his shorts to bare a white and throbbing staff, an object of irresistible beauty to her with its curling copper-coloured hairs and the scarlet cap glistening with excitement. She didn't resist.
'Oh yes!' he moaned as she sucked the knob into her mouth, her hot lips sliding down the shaft, swallowing him to the root.
His hands were in the chestnut tangle of her hair and hers were on his bare firm buttocks, her nails cutting cruelly into the taut flesh. Her head bobbed as she gorged on him, the plum of his glans butting the soft skin of her upper palate. He tried to stop her but she was in charge. She ringed his shaft with one hand and pumped him as she conquered him with her mouth. It was all over in under a minute.
'Jesus!' he cried as he emptied himself between her lips, his cock twitching and his legs giving way as she brought him to his knees for the second time in twenty minutes. Not that he was feeling any pain this time.
She sat back on the seat, her mouth overflowing with the salty tang of his juices. She swallowed it slowly, the first draft of young man's spunk she'd tasted in years - probably since those tennis parties. She'd sampled a lot then, she recalled. And after she'd sampled, it was time for her partner to return the favour.
She pulled her tennis skirt to her waist and spread her legs, exposing a bulging vee of white cotton. A line of dark perspiration marked the vertical mouth of her quim. Curling brown hairs peeked out from her panty hem, promising a wild pubic growth that could not be contained.
Henry, still on his haunches before her, stared. She hoped he was man enough to accept the challenge.
She pulled the gusset of her knickers to one side, showing him her tangled bush and the thick wet lips pouting with obvious need.' Felicity's was a big hairy cunt - a mature woman's organ that had once gorged on youthful thrills, had given birth three times and had fasted ever since. Now it had a powerful hunger.
Henry shuffled forward and placed his hands on her thighs. He regarded her shyly from under long, girlish eyelashes. He looked about ten years old. But the distended penis that swung up from his loins was not that of a boy. The shaft was long and broad and, praise be, as firm as before she'd taken him between her lips. Her fingers closed round it as his mouth descended on hers and they kissed.
Oh, he tasted good! And he felt good, too, as she hugged him in her arms. A hand delved between her legs to explore the juicy purse of her pussy and, God, that felt fantastic!
Then Henry was all over her, tugging her shirt out of her waist, unclipping her bra and - bliss - crushing her bare breasts to his chest. His fingers were in her crotch, stroking and fondling her labia and rimming her hole and teasing the skin near her aching, needful clit.
She tugged on his cock, muttering, 'Put it in, put it in!' but he wouldn't and just teased and tweaked and pinched her intimate flesh till she was trembling on the brink of that feeling once so familiar and now so foreign to her—
'Oh!' she sighed as his finger circled her clit and 'Ohhh!' as he rubbed the fat head of his penis up and down her gaping crack and 'OHHH!' as he thrust his cock inside her long-neglected cunt, sending her moaning and sobbing over the edge on a wave of ecstasy that drove all the hurt and anger and self-pity from her mind.
It was the best tennis lesson she had ever had.
Chapter 16
Miranda Lynch dug the point of her pencil into the notepad on her desk, pondering the problem Lucian had set before her. The typescript of The Novelist's Wife sat by her elbow, its pages obviously well thumbed.
'It's going to cost a lot, isn't it?' she said. It was the kind of question that did not require an answer, nevertheless Lucian felt duty-bound to fill the silence which followed.
'Marilyn's never been known to undersell a property.'
'I'm aware of that.'
Stab, stab went the point of the pencil, spearing lead-rimmed holes into the paper.
'You know her quite well, don't you?' Miranda said.
'Well, yes. She's an old family friend, I suppose.'
'Right.' The pencil stopped its destructive work as Miranda scribbled something down. She ripped the page out and handed it to Lucian. It said: £25,000.
'That's the most you can offer. It's subject to this legal indemnity she's told you about, sight of the author's documentary archive - and we've got to meet her.'
'OK.'
'If you can pull it off, Lucian, I'll buy you lunch at Grimaldi's. Of course, if you don't...'
His stomach lurched. 'If I don't?'
'Your P45, remember?'
The swirling grey eyes were on him, full of promised grief. But the mouth, that pink Cupid's bow, was twitching uncharacteristically at the ends.
'Just joking,' she said. 'Good luck with your old family friend.'
Marilyn took the offer as Lucian knew she would - with scorn. 'Twenty thousand pounds! For God's sake, Lucian, haven't you got any clout these days? If this were a phone conversation I'd hang up, that's such a piddling little amount.'
But it wasn't a phone conversation. Lucian had gone round to Marilyn's mews cottage in Chelsea after work, bearing an ostentatious bouquet of flowers and a bottle of ten-year-old MacLavish, her favourite tipple. He'd waited till the flowers were carelessly flung in a vase and two glasses reverently poured before he'd made his offer. He'd kept five grand in reserve though it was little enough room for manoeuvre.
'But, Marilyn, that's about ten times what we'd usually pay someone to write us an erotic novel. It represents an unparalleled commitment to a writer in this genre...'
'Oh Lucian, please don't give me that ghastly publisher-speak.' She downed her glass of neat malt and reached for the bottle. 'Look, we both know this book is dynamite—'
'If the legal stuff checks out and if the author is promotable—'
'Are you mad?' Down went another half-inch of liquid nectar without touching the sides. It occurred to Lucian that he could have bought five-year-old MacSpit at half the price. 'Karen Hastings is the most desirable author I have ever represented. In every sense. Wait till you meet her.'
'I'd love to.'
'You shall, darling boy. The moment she signs a contract with GrabCo, you can come to dinner and watch Rodney Branscombe crawl all over her.'
Lucian shot bolt upright. 'Marilyn, you've not shown it to him, have you? I thought I had an exclusive!'
'And so you have - for the moment. But I'll remind you that the word "exclusive" is close to "elastic" in my dictionary and I'm not sure how much longer I can stretch your first look. Rodney would write me a blank cheque.'
'He's a prick,' muttered Lucian sulkily. 'You said so yourself.'
'True but sometimes a prick is precisely what is required. Have a drop more of this delightful cough mixture.' And she poured him a generous slug without waiting for answer.
'Talking of pricks,' she went on, 'I've always been curious about yours.'
The words came at him through a blur of whisky and self-pity, he was convinced he had lost this battle and in familiar fashion was already savouring his disappointment.
'What did you say, Marilyn?'
'I said I've always been curious about your penis, sweetheart. Ever since you were a schoolboy frolicking in Basil's pool in the summer. Have I never mentioned it to you?'
Lucian s
wirled the pungent alcohol around his mouth, feeling dull-witted and tongue-tied. 'But, what about it?' he said, wondering what ghastly schoolboy faux pas he had committed which she was doubtless about to remind him of to complete his misery.
Marilyn got to her feet, collecting the bottle and her glass. 'I remember that promising bulge in your swimming trunks. I've often wondered just how big it turned out to be in the end.' As she walked to the door she said, 'I'm going to finish getting ready for dinner. Why don't you come and keep me company?'
Marilyn's bedroom was pink and chintzy with Regency-striped wallpaper and a button-backed chaise-longue on which she was reclining when Lucian entered the room. She had discarded the silk dressing-gown which she had been wearing and now sat in a tangerine half-slip and matching knickers trimmed with lace.
Lucian hovered in the doorway, bewitched and unnerved. He'd never seen her like this before. She was an honorary aunt, for Christ's sake! He was embarrassed - but she wasn't.
'Come in, darling,' she said, 'and pass me those stockings on the bed. In fact, why don't you put them on for me? I'm feeling very lazy.'
Lucian obeyed without thinking, slipping to the floor at her feet and fitting her toes into the wispy material. They were the kind of stockings that required no suspender belt. Hold-ups. Caroline had worn them frequently and he was practised at smoothing them up a dainty female limb.
'But what about this book?' he cried. 'You know you don't want Branscombe to have it, Marilyn. Sell it to me, please. It's perfect for Blue Desire. I can go to twenty-five thousand.'
'Ah. That might make a difference.'
For a moment Lucian thought she meant the extra money. Then he realised exactly what she did mean. Her small slim leg was extended towards his crotch and her foot was massaging his bulging loins.
'I want to see it, Lucian, don't you understand? Stand up like a good boy and let me look at your cock.'
It was stiff, of course. How could it not be when he had spent the past minute sliding a stocking over the silky sheen of her slender calf and creamy thigh?