Beginnings

by L. T. Smith

With the flat of my tongue, I eased from her opening and upwards in an agonisingly slow movement, my fingers slipping to the side, up, and over her thigh. I pushed her legs apart and she scooted backwards to spread herself wider. Inside my gut, the muscles clenched and spasmed, and I just wanted to take her roughly … take her fully … take her and own her and make her mine.

  But I didn’t.

  I brought my tongue back downwards, using just the tip along her swollen clit until it reached her core once again. Ash’s stomach sucked in and I could hear and feel the air being held and released emitting a groan in its wake. I gripped her thighs, one under, and one over, and pulled her towards me as I buried my face into her, breathing her in deeply.

  ‘Jesus, Lou … God yes … Take me … take me.’ I rubbed my face into her like I was giving her an open mouthed kiss, my lips moving in the motion of speech, miming the words ‘I love you’, hoping they would be swallowed up inside her, just like I wanted to be.

  Another stroke with my tongue upwards … then down … up … then down … up … then …

  ‘I need … to taste … you … need to …taste you … too.’ Words undulated into the air, but I knew what she wanted. I slipped my hand back between her legs and eased my fingers into the place my tongue had just left.

  Effortlessly, I swung my leg over her middle and scooted backwards until I straddled her face, my fingers never missing a beat. Her hands gripped my hips and eased me downwards until I felt the sensation of her tongue flicking against my nub. Involuntarily, I jerked forwards as a spasm shot along every nerve in me.

  A couple more flicks and then a suck and then … oh god … it was ecstasy. My eyes closed and I rocked on her tongue, my fingers still pushing and pulling along slick folds. One minute I was rocking, the next my face was once again between those precious thighs and I was delighting in the taste and texture of this woman … my woman … underneath me …

  Without warning, we entered each other with tongues ready to be lost inside … tongues ready to caress walls that begged to be loved … tongues eager to fulfil this quest … this destiny that was burgeoning on the exquisite.

  Or was it exquisite already? Who cared? The intense feeling of an approaching climax was mushrooming and filling and exacting a promise of forever in this ecstasy … the promise of completeness between one person and another.

  Two people seeping into one, becoming complete once again.

  Actions were becoming frantic. Mouths were eating. Consuming. Devouring. Sucking. Tongues were dancing and flicking …hoping and dying to love and be loved. I could barely breath and I could hear Ash’s ragged breaths coming from underneath me … neither of us wanting to stop … both of us needing to cum …

  I could taste the change in her … salty yet still as sweet as honey, and I knew she was close … as close as I was. My hips were trying to escape the confines of her hands, as they wanted to pound into her, but I had to take it out on her clit … on her opening …

  I delved deeper into her as she delved deeper into me.

  Harder and faster. Harder and faster. Hard and fast… hard and fast.

  Her cry entered me just as mine entered her. I felt the wetness shoot from inside me and coat her face, my nails were digging into her thighs and I was riding her unabashed. Her hips lifted and floundered in the air as her climax robbed her of all coordination.

  My name was inside me. Chanted through parted lips … lips that we soft and moist and pliable in their weakness.

  It was blinding, but I knew at that moment I had never seen so clearly in all my life.

  I fell forward and half on top of her, uncaring about how I looked, totally exhausted, both physically and emotionally. Her hand was trying to grip my fingers and pull me towards her, and I had to force my traitorous body to comply and get me to her … get me in her arms.

  But I made it. Safe. Secure. Wrapped tightly in the arms of the woman who even after twenty years held my heart so easily. The woman who held my everything so easily.

  And there we lay. Ensconced. Content to just be, if only for a little while.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  SHE LEFT THIRTY minutes later, freshly showered and looking like perfection. I felt the pang of loneliness hit my gut as soon as I shut the front door behind her.

  In my head I had so many things I needed to sort and reflect upon. Mainly about what was going to happen next … and what I was going to do about Jo and the phone call. Events of the past seemed too much to even contemplate at the moment. I had to concentrate on the here and now.

  Decision made, I called Jo’s number and fiddled with a pen as I waited for her to pick up. Her voice echoed through the phone as I distinctly heard her shouting at her youngest son to ‘Leave the bloody gerbil alone.’

  ‘I need to meet with you and have a chat.’

  ‘Lou? What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’ve been talking to an old friend of ours … or should I say an old friend of mine.’

  It went quiet for a few seconds, and then her voice came back distinctly softer. ‘Who?’

  ‘Ashley Richards.’ I let the two words hang in the air, and waited for a response. And I waited. I knew she was trying to think of something to say, but what could she actually say to me that would stop the fireworks she knew were going to happen?

  ‘When do you want to meet?’ She didn’t ask why or how I’d met Ash again. Didn’t question the fact I’d asked to see her … or the way I’d asked her. She must have known I knew what she’d done – what they had both done. So I told her, simply, that Ash was down on business and I had met her at the police station. I didn’t mention why … just that we had met again.

  It was a strange call, distant. Usually our calls to each other were full of fun and ribbing, but at the moment that was the last thing this could ever be.

  We made arrangements to meet later that day in town after she had got rid of the kids. It was a sure fire way of telling her I was angry, as I didn’t invite her around to meet at my place. The only thing I thought was strange was that my parents hadn’t called her and warned her of my visit to them yesterday, which made me wonder if she knew about our stepbrother.

  I showered, dressed and ate some lunch, knowing I wouldn’t feel like it after my confrontation later. The thought of Jo doing anything to hurt me stuck in my throat. How could she? She loved me, didn’t she? She always said she wanted me to be happy, and look how that turned out.

  I was thirty-seven years of age and I hadn’t been in a serious relationship in my life … not since Sarah that is. And thinking about that, was Sarah really serious or just an aside until I could get what I craved for? Ash. Had I been holding out for Ash all of these years, not allowing myself to move on with my life?

  But was that Jo’s fault? Or mine? Training told me that I was in charge of my own happiness, no one could dictate to me how I should feel, only I could make the decision how others affected me – well – to a degree. After all was said and done, it had been me who had pulled back from any commitment, preferring to keep relationships light, and if the other person wanted something more, I just made my excuses and left.

  Time moved so quickly, I found myself rushing to get myself in order before I had to meet Jo. I was rummaging through my bag looking for my mobile, when the doorbell sounded. Fuck. I decided the best thing to do was to answer it on my way out and call Jo to tell her I was going to be late.

  A bloody double-glazing bloke stood there, grinning inanely and tried to sell me windows. They are so insistent … and smarmy. He tried to use his charm on me but I gave him the look that he had a cat in hell’s chance of getting me to buy anything from him. I grimaced a smile and tried to tell him I was running late, and like all salesmen, he didn’t listen to a word I said.

  Keys. Bag. Phone. The only thing I could do was push past him, throw an excuse over my shoulder and make a run for it. But before I could I heard a smashing sound coming from the back of the house.

  ‘What the fuck?�
�� I turned in the doorway, trying to listen to the noises of the house.

  ‘It seems like one of your windows needs replacing.’ I looked over my shoulder at the salesman, whose face was full of concern now. ‘Do you need a hand, love?’

  I frowned at him, but before I could say anything else I heard movement coming from near the kitchen area. Whatever made me step inside the house I will never know. Whatever made me so open and vulnerable like that will never be repeated. I was inside, the salesman behind me, and then someone came out through my kitchen door.

  Sam Read. Shit.

  I turned to tell the bloke behind me, but he was smiling. Not at me, but past me.

  ‘I’m in, Danny.’

  ‘I know son. Well done.’

  Danny? Danny Spencer and Sam Read?

  I heard the door slam, and felt my stomach hit my knees. There I was, in my house with two people I would never want to be found alone with.

  It’s amazing. The smarmy bugger I had spoken to minutes before was completely gone, and in front of me stood a man who looked like trouble. With a capital T. The smiling charmer was laid to rest, and someone sinister had taken root. In short … I was shitting myself.

  ‘What do you want?’ Fear was precedent in my voice. I heard Read laugh behind me, and it was closer than before. I turned my head and looked into those cold grey eyes, turned back and was greeted by green, familiar green. Green like mine … like Jo’s.

  ‘You, sis. I want you.’ His lip curled upwards showing the left side of his teeth, almost doglike, and I felt like a small animal that had been cornered.

  I gripped my keys more tightly, the metal sticking into my hand … the other one held my mobile, which I slipped into my jacket pocket. My brain was fucked … I was fucked if I couldn’t get my brain to stop being fucked. Ah shit … I know … I’m swearing too much. But I had also lost the capability of stringing a sentence together without the aid of the anti euphemism.

  All I knew was I needed to be on the other side of that door. Images of a bloke slumped over a steering wheel in Manchester came skipping into my head. I didn’t want a repeat performance. I didn’t want to be the star of the show. I didn’t want to have my identity found out through dental records.

  There was only one thing I could think of doing, and that was to make a run for it. Problem was Spencer was in front and Read was behind … therefore the front and the back exits were blocked.

  Read was snug up behind me now, as I could feel his rancid breath burning my neck. Spencer was grinning a wolfish grin … a grin of a bloke who was about to get what he wanted.

  Not on my shift he wasn’t.

  ‘Ok … What do you want with me?’ He was just about to open his mouth to speak when I kicked him in the shin. Hard. Then with the keys half hanging from my hand I thumped him squarely on the bridge of his nose, hearing the satisfying crack as his nose broke underneath it. Read grabbed my hair and I elbowed him, an ‘oof’ splattering out before I followed through with a backwards punch in the face.

  I knew I had seconds; Spencer was smearing the blood and tears around his face, so I punched him again, before stamping on his foot. ‘Fucking bitch!’ spewed from his mouth, as he half bent over. I pushed and ran.

  The door loomed ahead and my legs felt like they belonged to someone else. Frantic hands grappled with the lock and panic was another enemy. The cool afternoon air brushed against my face and I was so close to escaping. A strong hand grabbed the back of my jacket and yanked, ultimately pulling the door open with it, exposing the scene to the outside world, my keys flying outside.

  ‘Help me!’ Two words. That’s all I had chance to scream before the door slammed shut again, and I was face to face with a very angry and bloody Danny Spencer.

  He came right up to my face and yelled words I couldn’t decipher, and I felt my body cringe backwards as the spit splattered over my face and neck. An arm raised. A hand loomed …

  And then it was goodnight Vienna.

  I felt like crap. My head felt like crap. My lip and cheek felt like shit. Unfocused images played tiggy it with reality and my stomach was playing right alongside.

  It was my front room. I was stuffed into the corner of my front room, on the floor … out of sight. I didn’t even know how long I had been out for … didn’t remember getting here.

  Bollocks.

  Spencer was on the sofa staring at me, a bag of ice pressed to the side of his nose, waiting for me to fully focus on him before he moved. Read was rooting through the drawers of my cabinet and systematically pocketing whatever took his fancy.

  ‘Sit down, Sam.’ Spencer’s voice was low, and this made matters worse. It had the tone of the controlled, yet uncontrolled, if you know what I mean. He leaned forward placing the ice pack to the side of him, and stared intently into my face, waiting for me to be fully alert.

  ‘So … there’s a family trait lurking there after all.’ He gently touched his nose and looked at his fingers to check for blood. Read slouched against the wall and tried out his most sinister leer for size. ‘Seems to me we’re more alike than I realised.’

  ‘I’m nothing like you.’ I spat out. Cheeky fucker. As if.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. You have a mean left hook.’ And he smiled … or tried to smile, but the swelling made him seem deformed. ‘Bet you’re wondering why I thought I pay you a special visit didn’t you?’

  The glare I gave him told him I didn’t give two fucks why he was here. I had nothing to do with him … we may be related by the wankstain of a father, but that was where the connection ended.

  ‘You’re right. It all stems down to dear old dad.’

  ‘I haven’t heard a word from him in thirty years. Why do you think I want to know about him now?’

  Spencer sat back on the sofa and eyed me warily, whilst Read looked at his grubby fingernails, methodically cleaning them with his teeth. The room was quiet … too quiet actually. If I concentrated hard enough I had the distinct impression I could hear the air move.

  After a few minutes Spencer leaned forward again, cleared his throat and spoke clearly and slowly. ‘Funny you should say that … I haven’t seen the old man for well over twenty years myself.’

  ‘And?’

  The look he gave me told me to shut up … he was speaking, and however much I wanted to tell him what I thought of his little escapade I knew now was not the right time.

  ‘As I was saying…’ Read snorted behind him, and Spencer threw him a look over his shoulder that made the young boy’s face pale. ‘ Dear old absent dad.’ He stood up and came closer to me, and I felt all the hairs on my neck stand to attention. ‘I could say that I missed him, but it’d be a lie. All he ever talked about was his little girls … his little angels who were taken away from him.’

  Now that was a surprise. I had never thought he’d given us a minute … thought he treated us all as dead or non-existent.

  ‘Imagine. All your life being compared to someone else. How clever they were, how they were a credit to him … how he missed them.’ Claustrophobia clambered around me. Spencer was close, not overly so, but his presence was oppressive. I didn’t feel safe. He didn’t seem quite with it.

  He began to walk away, and I physically felt the fear lift from me. A tingling sensation vibrated at my side and I initially thought it was nerves until the realisation dawned on me.

  It was my phone. Vibrating. In my pocket. Thank fuck.

  After making sure Spencer and Read were looking away, I slipped my hand inside and pressed a key. Whoever had called would now be expecting me to answer, but instead they would be greeted by either the sound of nothing or the muffled conversation I could make happen in the room.

  ‘For ten years I was told how I wasn’t good enough, or bright enough or anything enough. He blamed me for him losing his family.’ The way he said this was a mixture of pain and anger … and I could hear the anger winning out. He was slowly losing it, and I didn’t want to be here when he did.

&nb
sp; ‘But if you wanted to introduce yourself as my brother, why didn’t you just knock on my door instead of imprisoning me in my own home?’ I just hoped the person on the other end hadn’t hung up the phone, but stuck around and heard the last part.

  ‘Did I say you could speak?’ Once again, I prayed whoever had called could hear. This was not the joyous family reunion you saw on daytime TV, unless of course it was Jerry Springer. This could get ugly.

  No. There was no ‘could’ here. This would get ugly if someone didn’t stop it …stop him.

  He started muttering under his breath, and I couldn’t grasp what he was saying, probably because I didn’t want to hear it. I wasn’t sure he was speaking to anybody apart from himself, and that’s what unnerved me. I looked at Read, and he even had the sense to look concerned.

  ‘You know … I’ve not been a good boy.’ His attention was back to me. ‘Even killed someone once.’ A smile flitted over his face, and it mingled with his fucked up sense of pride in what he had said. ‘Now he was a bad ‘un. Poor old Mike.’

  A confession. In front of me … in front of Read … in front of the person who I hoped was listening in.

  ‘Then I thought I would pay my other family a visit. See if they were all he cracked up them up to be.’ Spencer was on the other side of the room by now, standing next to Read. ‘It’s nice in Norfolk isn’t it?’ I didn’t answer him, just glared. ‘I said … it’s nice here isn’t it?’ Still I didn’t answer.

  And that was a big mistake.

  ‘Come on now … you’re not giving your little brother the silent treatment are you?’ I looked at him.

  ‘What do you expect? You force entry into my house, hit me and throw me in the corner. What did you want? The red carpet?’

  The words were no sooner out from my mouth before I felt the sting of a backhander slamming into my face. Now it would have hurt anyway, but my cheek and lip were already swollen from the last time. My hands were up and trying to protect the already sensitive area, but he wasn’t having any of it.

  He grabbed my wrist and yanked me to my feet, giving me a violent shake on the way. ‘A little fucking respect would be a start!’ Another hand on the top of my arm, fingers digging in helping him grip me tighter. ‘You think you’re so fucking perfect in your flashy job and flashy life. You’re no fucking better than I am!’