by Noel Amos
No, I'm not. I can live without sex. It's not important to me.
You didn't think that on holiday, did you? You couldn't get enough of him then, could you? And his friend.
That's what holidays are for. This is real life. I've got the kids and Percy to cope with and lots of work to do and somehow I've got to find another au pair who has more brains than that miserable Swede and actually likes children. The last thing I need is sex.
Is it? Really? You've missed it, haven't you? Missed his big cock up you. Missed his tongue in your mouth and his mouth on your breasts. And his magic hands on your body. Like they are now.
But this is different.
Is it? He's making your pain go away and your nerves jangle and your skin glow and now you want—
No.
—fucking. Don't you?
No!
Yes, you do. Admit it.
No, no, no! Oh God, yes. Of course I do.
You horny cow.
Yes. Yes, I am.
'There, how's that?'
Brendan had worked all the way up Felicity's spine, cajoling her stiff tendons and freeing up the joints. He had finished off by folding her in a body-crunching embrace until, with an unexpected twist of his arms, her last vertebra had clicked loose.
Now she felt as if she were floating in the air, her mind and body freed of their habitual tension. Even the dialogue playing in her head had ceased. She didn't care that she lay on her side, her breasts lolling and her bottom almost completely exposed. She didn't care about her domestic anguish. She didn't care how or why this marvellous Irish boy had appeared again in her life like a saviour.
But she did care, fiercely, that he shouldn't leave her alone just now. That he should see to her every need. That his thrilling fingers should remain on her tingling skin to rove at will, to cup and squeeze her big dangling breasts, to lay bare her thrusting buttocks and plunge into the wet warm cavern between.
He did not let her down.
When he was finished and her every atom was singing with contentment, he pulled the bedspread over her flushed body and, for the first time in months, she slept without a care in the world.
Chapter 33
Percy plodded the half-mile from St Marchmont's station to his home with a heavy heart. Since the birth of Crispin he had worked in the spare office of a designer friend near St Pancras. The rent was negligible, the train journey short and he had been able to avoid the daily dramas of domestic strife that ate into his time when he used the study at home. At the end of the day, however, he returned to the bosom of his family with little expectation of domestic harmony. Felicity resented his absence, though she was never overjoyed by his presence, and since their blissful summer holiday things had got worse.
Tonight, Percy knew, there would be trouble. After a frustrating day grinding out his company history of Stamp & Mame, he'd gone for a drink. Only after it was too late to make the seven-fifteen train had he remembered that two of Flick's operatic friends were coming to dinner.
He put the key in the lock with dread and stepped into the house.
Since Ingrid had walked out the week before the place had been littered with dressing-up clothes, junk models with flaking and up-ended boxes of jigsaws. So he gazed in surprise at the hallway and the fresh flowers on the table. Of jigsaw pieces and stray toys there was no sign. And someone had replaced the blown bulb in the alcove lamp.
From the front room came the sound of a string quartet and in the air was the faint aroma of food being prepared - herbs and wine and roasting meat. He remembered he hadn't eaten all day.
A smiling woman in a scarlet sheaf dress cut low on the bust and tight on the hip emerged from the front room and kissed him. Her thick chestnut hair was loose over her creamy shoulders and she was warm and scented in his arms. For a split second he did not recognise his wife.
'Flick, I'm sorry. I got held up and missed the train. Tonight of all nights - I'm mortified. What can I do?'
'Calm down, Percy. There's no rush.'
'But don't you need me to clear up or make gravy or read to the kids or—?'
'Ssh, darling. Everything's under control. You go and freshen up; the Presleys won't be here for a few minutes.'
Percy climbed the stairs in a daze. What the hell had happened? Whatever it was, he was all in favour.
As he was about to step into the bedroom, he looked up the next flight of stairs and froze in disbelief. A young woman in a tight pink top and a black mini-skirt was standing outside Crispin's room, her ear pressed to the door. From this angle Percy had an unrestricted view up her bronzed and deliciously toned thighs. Percy remembered those thighs well - and what lay between them. He'd thought about this gorgeous blonde vision almost every night since he had returned from Italy but had never dreamed he would ever see her or her legs again. Or the wide pretty face that now turned to him, finger pressed to her lips.
'He's just dropped off,' said Carol-Anne as she descended the stairs, her big blue eyes smiling.
He ushered her into the bedroom, his arm looping round her waist without conscious intent.
'Hiya, Perce,' she said and lifted her face to be kissed. Her tongue was in his mouth before he knew it.
'Good God,' he said as their mouths drew apart. 'What are you doing here?'
'Aren't you pleased to see me?'
'Pleased? I'm ecstatic.'
'Yeah, I can feel it,' she said, palming his stiffening cock through his trousers. 'Take it out and show me.'
'What?'
'Come on, Perce, don't play hard to get. Your guests aren't due for five minutes. Time for you to slip me a length.'
It was an utterly mad situation, Percy knew that. His brain was bursting with all sorts of questions that his sane, boring, workaday self needed an answer to. Like: is this glorious girl real? What's she doing here? Is she actually pulling her skirt up so I can fuck her? And: how long will I have left to live when Felicity walks in and catches me?
The Australian appeared to read his mind. 'It's OK, Perce. The kids are asleep and Brendan's in the kitchen with your wife. They'll be fixing up the hors d'oeuvres. Seize the moment, sport, and fuck my pussy. Or have you gone off me?'
He threw her backwards onto the bed and dived on top of her. Somehow her hand was in his fly and her tiny skirt was round her waist baring the long slim limbs he dreamed of nightly. His cock was hard and thick in her small hand and she was pressing the gleaming red head into the soft cleft at the base of her belly, tugging at him urgently as if she too could hardly believe her luck.
In a flash he was inside her and pumping, her supple body cleaving to him, her mouth on his and her fingers beneath his shirt. There was no time to savour the reunion, just time to grab and squeeze and fondle and thrust-thrust-thrust, his swollen length plundering her soft hairless nook in greedy juddering jolts as he lost all sense of time and place and, all too soon, erupted inside her.
For a moment they lay panting in a sticky heap on the ruined bed. It occurred to Percy it must have been all of ten minutes since he had walked into the house.
Downstairs the doorbell rang.
Later, when the asparagus and the roast lamb and the tarte Tatin had been washed down by Chablis and Fleurie and Armagnac, when the Bendicks mints had been scoffed and the coffee cups cleared and the dishwasher sent on its second merry cycle, when the Presleys had lurched cheerfully into the night, replete and impressed, Felicity and Percy lay side by side in bed and talked.
'It was a miracle,' said Felicity.
'Amen to that,' said Percy, 'but I still don't understand why they're here.
'Brendan was looking for you, he said. Something to do with that book you were writing on holiday.'
'Oh?' Percy tried to sound disinterested. 'That book' was a potentially dangerous subject - Felicity did not approve. But for once she was not interested in picking a fight.
'He just took over. Fixed my back, organised the children and rang up Carol-Anne to help out.'
&
nbsp; 'That was the best dinner party we've ever had.'
'And the children went to bed on time and the house was cleaned up.'
'Perhaps they should move in permanently.'
'You know, Percy, I was thinking that. But could we afford them?'
'If they took the load off you, you could earn some money to pay them. But frankly, Flick, they're worth their weight in gold. I've not seen you looking so happy since that holiday. Or looking so good either. You were lovely tonight.'
'You old schmoozer, Percy,' she said but she rubbed her cheek against his on the pillow. Then she sighed. 'They'll never go for it, though,' she said.
'Why not?'
'I don't think they get on that well. Brendan said they were just sharing a flat because they knew each other from Cascade. They wouldn't want to live in that little room upstairs.'
'How are they managing tonight then?'
'She's got a sleeping bag so I guess one of them is dossing down on the floor.'
'Oh,' said Percy, relieved by this information even though it spelt the end of his hopes for installing the pair on a long-term basis. He yawned and muttered, 'Goodnight, darling.'
'Goodnight,' she replied and wormed her hand into his. He squeezed it companionably.
Percy's last thought before he drifted into sleep was that he could still smell fucking in the air. Next to him, a smiling Felicity was thinking the same thing.
On the floor above, in the attic bedroom, two naked bodies were wedged together in the small bed, gently savouring the proximity of their most intimate flesh.
'You're a horny sod, Brendan O'Reilly,' said Carol-Anne, clasping his outsize erection in both hands. 'I bet you really enjoyed putting this wicked thing in her again.'
'Of course, I did. She's a glorious woman.'
'She's twice my size.'
'And twice as sexy. Ow! That was a joke. Now, are you going to put my cock somewhere safe or are you planning to pull it off?'
'I thought I might milk you all night, so you've nothing left to give our hostess in the morning.'
He chuckled and rolled her onto her back, his strong hands spreading her legs. 'If it's an all-night shag with me you're after then I guarantee you'll not be able to face Percy either.'
She tilted her pelvis to ease the passage of his big knob into her vagina and moaned in contentment as it slid all the way home. She wrapped her arms round his broad back and yielded to the spiral of lust that flickered upwards from her quivering belly. 'Do me quick then, Brendan. In this house I think we're both going to need our beauty sleep.'
He clasped her buttocks and began to thrust.
Chapter 34
Publishing parties were not Miranda Lynch's favourite events. She didn't drink much and hated cigarette smoke and couldn't stand the shifting crush of half-sozzled nonentities. But, as an industry mover-and-shaker, she was obliged to play the game and now she had it down to a fine art. Stick to one glass of wine, only talk to important guests and leave within an hour of arrival - those were her rules.
Tonight she was cutting it fine. She had five minutes to go and she'd failed to stop a waiter topping up her glass. Her attention had been on a group of pinstriped men in the far corner, wreathed in cigar smoke. Dinosaurs, all of them, in her view - old-style publishers who treated the business like a horse race: back enough runners and you're bound to have a winner. Miranda despised that philosophy. To her, book publishing was a modern industry in which planning and method could eliminate risk, not a seat-of-the-pants skylark for indulgent amateurs like these chortling inebriates.
She approached the group, ignoring other invitations to chit-chat. She knew most of these men, she had even been employed by one or two in the distant past. Back then, of course, they had considered her perfect employee fodder - an eager workhorse with great legs. Too late they had discovered she had brains as well as a body. Now they feared her, though their admiration of her physical allure was undimmed. They knew she was the future of the industry and they were heading out to grass. And some of them were meant to be grazing full-time. Like her quarry, Basil Swan.
'Miranda, sweetheart, how wonderful to see you. You're look as sexy as ever.'
'You, too, Basil darling,' replied Miranda, giving him the benefit of her best teeth-and-eyes smile as she kissed both his smoothly shaved cheeks. Miranda knew how to go through the motions when she had to.
She took his arm and neatly cut him out from the herd. 'You've been avoiding me, Basil.'
'Never!' His bushy eyebrows shot upwards and his murky eyes bulged with sincerity. 'Miranda, you are the last person I would wish to avoid, I swear.'
'But I've been calling you for months.' Miranda couldn't keep the pique from her voice, the matter irritated her too much.
'Well, I have been frightfully busy recently. Been living like a hermit. This is my first party for yonks.' He grabbed a glass of wine from a passing waiter and downed half of it.
'We need to talk, Basil. I have a proposition for you.'
'How exciting. Why don't you ring my assistant and we'll fix something up.' His eyes were already gazing over Miranda's shoulder, looking for an avenue of escape.
'I have called your assistant dozens of times, Basil, and frankly she is downright rude.'
'Really? Lorna? I'm most surprised. I'll get her over.' He raised his hand to wave to a tall girl with a mop of henna-ed hair who was giggling amongst a group of low-grade editorial pond life. Miranda's surprise was momentary. She had wondered why the voice on Basil's phone was familiar.
'I didn't know Lorna Prentice was working for you.'
'Oh yes, marvellous girl. I took her on at Whimsical, you know, so I was only too keen to give her a berth when you kicked her out. Big mistake, if you ask me. That girl's going far.'
'Not if she can't pass on a simple message.'
'Ah, well, I will have words with her—'
'Don't bother, Basil. Just tell me when we can meet. How about now? I'll buy you dinner.'
'Sorry, Miranda, I'm booked.'
'Tomorrow morning then. I'll come to your house at eleven.'
'I say, Miranda, you are persistent. You make a fellow seem truly desired.'
She stepped closer to him so he was backed into the corner. 'You are desired, Basil,' she replied and enjoyed the starburst of surprise in his big watery eyes as she palmed his crotch.
'Miranda! Good God!'
'There's only two ways to get your attention, Basil. And this is one of them.' She fondled the expanding bulge in his trousers.
'And what's the other?'
'A deal, of course. The deal we're going to talk about at eleven tomorrow morning.'
'Basil!' A woman's voice intruded from behind Miranda. 'Let's go. I booked the table for half an hour ago.'
Miranda turned to look into the face of Lorna Prentice. 'Hello, Lorna,' she said, her voice warm.
'Hello, Miranda.' Lorna didn't sound quite so enthusiastic.
'You'll be delighted to hear I've finally managed to pin Basil down to a meeting. Thanks so much for all your assistance. I'll leave him in your hands now.' And she stepped back so Lorna could appreciate the sight of Basil standing with embarrassment on his face and an enormous hard-on straining at his trousers.
'You told me you hated her,' snarled Lorna. 'You said she was poison - the biggest bitch in the entire book business. You're a two-faced bastard, Basil Swan.'
'Calm down, Lorna. There's no need to blow this out of proportion.'
'Your bloody cock was out of proportion, Basil. That's the point. How could you?' And she burst into tears.
They were sitting in Basil's BMW, supposedly en route to Chez Adolfo after the party. But they hadn't moved an inch before Laura's outburst began.
Basil let her snivel into his shoulder and hugged her tight. 'My darling, I've been doing my best to avoid her, as you know. But I couldn't duck her tonight.'
'But why did you have an erection? You fancy her, don't you? I bet you had an affair and now she
wants you back and you're going to chuck me and I'll have to find another job—'
Basil shut her up in the time-honoured fashion. As they kissed the tension began to ebb from the slim body in his arms. He stroked her hair and slipped a hand inside her coat to find the gentle curve of her small breast. He took his mouth from hers and gently licked tears from her cheeks.
'You silly, lovely, adorable girl. Believe me, I've never had an affair with that witch and I swear I'll never let you go. You can work for me for as long as you like, I promise. I think I'm the luckiest, happiest old publishing fart there's ever been to have such a passionate and sexy girl prepared to let me make love to her like this - and this - and this...'
Basil had had a long experience of women and knew just when to let them shout and scream, when to fold their trembling bodies in his arms and when to take their clothes off. He was very good at all these things and within seconds, it seemed, Lorna's supple coltish body was bared beneath the warmth of her winter coat. Fortunately Basil had also had the presence of mind to put the heating on.
He slipped to the floor between her legs, wedging his bulk with surprising agility into the space in front of the passenger seat, the millionth time in recent months he congratulated himself on having taken his health in hand last summer.
Beneath her coat Laura's breasts were naked, the nipples dark and wet with his saliva. Her frock had been raised to her waist and he lifted her apple-cheeked bottom to slip her panties down her slender legs. The black muff of her curls was soft on his cheeks as he bent to kiss the pouting mouth of her pussy, slicking the length of her cleft with his tongue.
He leaned back and released his cock. It looked huge in the small space, broad and veined and thick as a club. Basil felt a surge of masculine pride as he pulled it into the open, easing his full balls out of his trousers as well. A memory of what used to happen in situations like this flashed into his head. He banished it swiftly; negative sex images and thrusting erections were not compatible in his experience. He focused on the succulent and gleaming split of flesh spread before him and prepared to take his pleasure.