The Accountant

The Accountant

scribblemoose

I looked out at the evening descending over the hills, long shadows and creamy light topped with pale grey mist, idyllic church and village in the valley below us, and wished I could paint.

Although, come to think of it, maybe there are enough paintings of scenes like this in the world. And not one of them can be as good as the real thing.

There was a tent-rustle behind me as Darrell emerged with cigarettes and lighter, swearing softly at the tangle of guy ropes I\'d left abandoned in front of the tent in favour of the view.

\"You were supposed to be making tea,\" she complained. \"Fag?\"

\"If I were a man.\"

An old joke, worn through routine to ritual. I took the offered cigarette from the pack she offered me, and let her light it for me.

\"Sorry,\" I said, waving vaguely at the panorama in front of us. \"Got distracted.\"

\"Hmmm.\" She settled herself next to me, ranging her long, slender legs out in front of her, feet wiggling to a silent beat. \"Gorgeous,\" she said. \"We could go find that village tomorrow, see if they\'ve got a pub.\"

That was Darrell all over. Scenery for her was just that: a backdrop for her social life.

\"It looks like one of those \'Britain in Bloom\' winners,\" I said. \"All hanging baskets and Sam Smiths pubs. You can practically see the \'please drive carefully through our village\' sign, and some cute \'beware, ducks crossing\' warning by the village pond.\"

\"You\'re supposed to be a romantic,\" chided Darrell. \"I\'m supposed to be the cynical one.\"

\"There\'s nothing romantic about villages.\" I looked down at the little clump of houses, huddling together for warmth, tiny in the shadow of the mountain. \"I bet it\'s hell down there in winter, they\'re bound to get cut off. And in the summer they\'ll be overrun by tourists, and TV companies looking for a new location for some sappy Sunday night drama in the spring and autumn. Not romantic at all. And the locals probably hate each other, living in each others\' pockets all the time, wishing their lives were more like Emmerdale so they actually got to have sex with someone interesting for a change.\"

\"There\'s no-one interesting in Emmerdale,\" Darrell pointed out.

\"Hush, I\'m ranting,\" I said, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. \"Where was I? See, I\'ve lost my flow.\"

\"Sex,\" said Darrell. \"As usual.\"

\"Oh, yes, that\'s right. Actually I\'m not sure people in English villages are allowed to have sex. It might create the wrong impression for the tourists.\"

Darrell giggled, and I felt a little glow inside. I like making people laugh. Especially Darrell, there\'s a childish delight to her laughter that\'s pure pleasure.

\"There\'s bound to be some handsome youelloellors down there just panting to get inside the knickers of a couple of babes like us,\" she said, a little wistfully.

\"Well, he can pant.\" I brushed ash off my cigarette onto a stem of grass, thinking what a shame it was, to litter the countryside with evidence of my bad habits. I thought briefly, as I did at least twenty times a day, of giving up.

\"It could be your last fling,\" said Darrell. \"You need a last fling.\"

\"No I don\'t. I\'m getting married, not heading for execution. I\'ll be having flings the rest of my life, only it\'ll be with just one person, is all.\"

\"I can\'t believe you\'re getting married,\" she sighed.

\"You\'ve had a year and a half to get used to the idea,\" I pointed out. \"And a while before that, if everyone really did know me and Fred were destined for marital bliss from the moment we met.\"

Fred wasn\'t his real name. We\'d called him that when we first saw him, in the club, and it stuck. It made it easier to fit him into our lives without being a threat; we could take the piss out of Fred, discuss his manly faults, acknowledge his existence in our lives without feeling disloyal or threatening towards the sweet man he really was.

\"They look like doll\'s houses,\" she said. \"Look, all the little lights twinkling on.\"

\"Pathetic really, when you compare it to that.\" I pointed at the vast crimson ball of the sun, just starting to dip behind the purple-topped mountains at the end of the valley.

You could see the shadows moving across the sheep-stubbled green of the hillside. I disappeared into my own thoughts for a while, imagining what it would be like to be down there, as the shadows passed. Sun coming out… sun going in… sun coming out…

\"I\'ll make the tea, shall I?\"

\"What?\" I phased back in, wondering vaguely why there weren\'t any shadows on this side of the valley.

\"You looked set in for a long daydream, so I thought I\'d make some tea. Or do you want chocolate? It\'ll be dark soon.\"

\"Chocolate sounds good. And marshmallows.\"

\"You and your fucking marshmallows. You\'ve been consorting with Americans again, haven\'t you?\"

I smiled. \"I just like marshmallows,\" I said. \"Marshmallows are just as English as they are American.\"

\"Not in beverages, they aren\'t. They\'re supposed to come in packets with stupid names on like \'flumps\', in neon green and pink. And they\'re probably made with gelatine.\"

\"Don\'t be absurd. Everyone knows marshmallows are perfectly organic and come from sustainable forests of marshmallow trees, run by securely employed workers in developing countries.\" I stubbed my finished cigarette out on the ground before carefully pitching it to our makeshift rubbish bin by the car. I missed. As usual.

\"You can\'t be a real vegetarian if you eat gelatine. It\'s cow\'s feet, or something.\"

\"They\'re gelatine free marshmallows, I promise you. They use pectin, or some chemical additive… Anyway, what do you care? You\'re not vegetarian.\" I got up and joined her just outside the tent, and started to roll up the guy ropes.

\"My mother brought me up to be. I still worry,\" she said. \"But don\'t tell anyone.\"

Darrell was one of a new generation, for whom meat eating and sensible clothing were a form of rebellion against their parents. Fortunately she\'d grown out of the sensible clothing part by the time I\'d met her. It had proved too expensive to buy Channel suits, she\'d told me, when she could get vintage hippy clothes from her mother for nothing.

The jeans she was wearing that evening had probably been to Woodstock, I decided. Although the tight Feeder T-shirt, slashed to reveal cleavage at one end and pierced belly button at the other, was distinctly contemporary.

\"Doesn\'t it frighten you, the idea that this time next week you\'ll be married to Fred?\" She put the little pan on the camping stove, mugs (and marshmallows) laid out neatly, waiting for the milk to heat up.

\"Not in the slightest,\" I said. \"I\'m looking forward to it. It\'ll mean that all our painful and demanding relatives will have gone home and we can get back to normal at last.\"

\"That\'s not nice. Your family are lovely.\"

\"Not if they\'re organising a wedding, they\'re not,\" I said, with feeling. \"Believe me. I swear my mum\'s turned into stereotypical sitcom mum-from-hell over the past six months. And my father\'s turned into some kind of ancient Cary Grant.\"

\"That wouldn\'t be so bad,\" mused Darrell, \"apart from the ancient part. I always fancied Cary Grant.\"

\"Well, he\'s got a dick and all his own hair,\" I pointed out, \"so yeah, you would, I guess.\"

\"That\'s mean!\" she grinned at me. \"You don\'t deserve marshmallows.\"

You get the idea, by now, anyway. Darrell and I were comfortable together. We knew each other inside out, and we loved each other. We\'d been friends forever, it felt like.

And we both knew, however much we refused to discuss it in the open, that when I married Fred, something between us would change.

I don\'t think either of us wanted it to.

* * * * * * *

It was almost dark by the time the milk was hot enough, so we retreated with mugs, marshmallows and torch to the inside of the tent. Even this high up there were too many very small biting insects around to want to risk watching the stars come out.

The tent was cosy, without being too small. Just enough room for two sleeping bags with a little extra for clothes and stuff. Darrell\'s parents had given it to her when she went to university, as part of the equipment they felt she\'d need for a life of communing with nature and surviving English summers full of festivals. The fact that Darrell preferred to spend her weekends in country hotels with guys called Nigel or Hugh must have broken their hearts. Not to mention their credit rating.

The country hotel phase ended shortly after she met me, though. One Nigel too many, who apparently was more interested in a Hugh than a Darrell, and she swore off gentry forever. The tent was brought out of storage and became our refuge, our escape from the struggle of dating and breaking up and being unwillingly (or, occasionally, willingly) single. On this occasion, it was the venue for my hen party.

Okay, I realise for most people a hen party involves rampaging around the streets of Dublin or Edinburgh with L-plates and little horns that light up, and probably some muscle-bound type in a glittery thong being paid to wave his hips at you. Or possibly hours of sweating in a turkish bath at some log-cabin spa complex, followed by being wrapped in mud and cling film in the name of pampering.

Not for me.

Well, not until tomorrow, anyway.

And then not the cling film, ever. Hopefully the rest of my friends were getting that over with now, while Darrell and I were hiding up this mountain. We planned join them tomorrow, just in time for a massage from a nice lean man called Sven, and a few bottles of champagne in front of a roaring fire in the log cabin.

\"You\'re quiet tonight.\"

\"Sorry.\" I didn\'t mean to be. I\'m not usually the brooding reflective type. But that night was just begging for it, somehow. Nostalgia and hope for the future all mingling into one deliciously emotional moment, that needed to be savoured, explored and, probably, written down.

Only I couldn\'t be bothered to find a pen, as usual.

\"I wonder if I\'ll ever get married,\" she said, a little wistfully.

\"Of course,\" I replied. \"There\'s a wealthy accountant out there somewhere tonight, just waiting for an English rose like you to sweep him off his feet.\"

\"Not an accountant!\" she wailed. \"That\'s not fair! Why do you get the interesting musician-types and I get an accountant?\"

u cou couldn\'t do without the money. Besides, you could always distract him from his life of boring accountancy. You could go up to him in his office, wearing a tiny miniskirt and killer heels, and rip the ponytail band from his hair…\"

\"Oh, releasing cascades of fiery red hair down his back?\"

\"… of course. And you\'d look deep in his amethyst eyes…\"

\"Accountants don\'t have amethyst eyes.\"

\"… this one does. And…\"

\"Real people don\'t have amethyst eyes, come to that.\"

\"Well, maybe he\'s wearing contacts. Do you want me to make your accountant more interesting, or not?\"

\"Sorry. Go ahead. Amethyst eyes, then.\"

\"Hn. Yes. And you\'d look into his amethyst eyes, and think to yourself…\"

\"I bet those are contacts.\"

\"Well, maybe. And then you\'d think to yourself, \'how have I missed the inner depths of this man for so long, working beside him, day in, day out, oblivious to his charms\'…\"

\"Oh, am I an accountant, too?\"

\"Hush. No, you\'re something exotic in marketing, I expect.\"

\"Okay. Carry on.\"

\"And you take his completely-for-ornament-only glasses off and say to him, \'why, Mr Jones, but you\'re beautiful!\' and then sweep him into your arms, and live happily ever after.\"

\"And..? You can\'t leave it there!\"

\"What? Is a life of eternal bliss with a rich, beautiful man good enough for you?\" I teased.

Darrell humphed. \"I\'m going to brush my teeth and get into my sleeping bag,\" she said, \"and then I want the rest of my happy ending.\"

\"You mean the details about how many snotty kids you have together, and how he always pays the bills on time and gives you platinum credit cards and diamonds every birthday…\"

\"No,\" said Darrel, squirting a long line of gel onto her toothbrush. \"The other stuff.\"

She retreated from the tent, brushing as she went.

I gathered the chocolate-encrusted mugs and put them safely out of the way before retrieving my own wash bag and following her outside.

Darrell was standing with her head flung back, gazing at a sky full-to-bursting with stars.

\"Do you know any constellations?\" she asked. \"They look like a jumble to me.\"

\"There\'s the Plough,\" I pointed vaguely at a galaxy, probably far, far away. \"And those three in a line, that\'s Orion\'s belt.\"

\"Where?\" she frowned.

I took her hand and pointed with it. \"There. See, that slightly brighter one and the two next to it. Just there.\"

\"Oooh yes!\" she exclaimed, with delight, and I smiled recognition. I remembered the first time Fred had shown me the stars, putting names to the patterns in the pinpricks of light in the sky. I missed him, just a bit, even though it was only a day since I\'d seen him.



We got ready for bed and reunited in the tent, snuggling into sleeping bags, Darrell complaining about her feet being cold. I offered her a pair of socks and she accepted them gratefully, struggling somewhat in the confines of her sleeping bag to put them on.

I could see her toes wriggling, contented once more, under the quilted fabric.

\"So, about this accountant,\" she said.

\"Ah,\" I smiled knowingly. \"The accountant.\"

\"Yes. Tell me what happens, after I tell him he\'s beautiful. Do you want the light off?\"

\"Not especially.\" I don\'t like the dark, much, and the torchlight makes the interior of the tent look cosy and familiar, a pleasant girly jumble of clothes and books and hairbrushes.

\"Good. Okay. What\'s he wearing?\"

\"Well, it\'ll be a suit, because he\'s at work.\"

\"That\'s okay. Has he got his jacket on?\"

\"Oh, God no. He works far too hard for that. He\'s wearing a clean white shirt, tucked into well-cut trousers with a leather belt that\'s just a bit too exciting for an accountant.\"

\"Hmmm. I like belts,\" she murmured. \"Has it got a big buckle?\"

\"Just big enough to be a statement,\" I said. \"Not flashy.\"

\"What was I wearing again?\"

\"Your suede miniskirt. With your link-chain belt with the tassles on, and my floaty blue top.\"

\"I like that top.\"

\"That\'s why you haven\'t given it back, I suppose?\"

\"I will give it back. It\'s at home, though.\"

That was a lie. I knew for a fact it was in her bag, no more than a yard away. But I didn\'t say anything. It looked better on her than me, anyway.

\"And your black boots.\"

\"I thoug was was wearing heels?\"

\"I changed my mind.\"

\"Okay. So what does he do?\"

\"He looks startled at first,\" I said. \"And then you kiss him.\"

\"Ooh, I get to kiss him before he kisses me?\"

\"Yep.\"

\

\"Ooh good. What\'s he kiss like?\"

\"His lips are soft and pliant at first, and then as you tease his lips with your tongue he gets more and more passionate.\"

\"Yum.\"

\"His head tilts back as you explore each others\' mouths, and you run your fingers through his long, silky hair, his arms sliding around your waist and pulling you ever closer to him…\"

\"Wow.\"

\"… Breathless, you pull back and look into his deep violet eyes…\"

\"I thought they were amethyst?\"

\"Shut up, amethyst is a kind of violet.\"

\"Oh.\"

\"Where was I?\"

\"Looking deep into his eyes?\"

\"Oh yes. And you see the heat, the passion behind this office-bound bureaucrat, and you know you just have to unleash it.\"

\"What, right there in the office?\"

\"No, silly,\" I giggled. \"Not his Dick, his emotions.\"

\"Oh, I see. Well, it could be the same thing…\"

\"Okay, I can see you\'re not interested in the romantic build up…\"

\"No, I am, really,\" she protested. \"Only… could we skip through the first date and pick it up in the bedroom?\"

\"You\'re putting out on the first date?\"

\"Putting out? I swear you\'re turning into a yank.\"

\"Don\'t be ridiculous.\"

\"That\'s better. And yes, I think I will, seeing as he\'s going to be my soul mate and all. You slept with Fred the first night, remember?\"

\"That was different.\"

\"How?\"

I thought for a moment.

\"I fancied him so much I\'d have died of frustration if I hadn\'t ripped all his clothes off,\" I said, eventually.

\"Well, why can\'t I fancy my accountant like that?\" she wailed. \"You\'re so mean.\"

\"Alright. You can. But don\'t blame me if he doesn\'t respect you in the morning.\"

\"Honey,\" she drawled hypocritically, \"if he don\'t respect me after, I\'m just plain doin\' it wrong.\"

\"Stop it. This is a romantic story.\"

\"Your stories are never romantic. Besides, my knickers are getting wet.\"

\"They are not.\"

\"Yes they are. Well, they would be, if I were wearing any. It\'s just a figure of speech. It\'s hot, the way you tell things.\"

There was nothing in this conversation that we hadn\'t said before, and yet it felt different. Maybe because my mind was in such a strange place, or perhaps because we were both feeling a little more fragile than we were willing to confess.

\"Whatever. You\'ve come back from your date…\"

\"Where did he take me?\"

\"I thought you wanted to skip that part?\"

\"I do, but I need to know how I\'m feeling. You know, all warm and satisfied from a nice dinner, or culturally stimulated from the theatre, bored rigid from the opera…\"

\"Dinner and a movie.\"

\"We\'re in London, not New York.\"

\"It\'s my story, it can be wherever I want.\"

\"It\'s my accountant. So it\'s London.\"

I sighed melodramatically. \"I\'ve no idea how I\'m supposed to work under these conditions.\"

\"Oh, just get to the smut.\"

\"You\'re such a slut.\"

\"Half as much as you.\"

\"I\'ll take your accountant away.\"

\"No, please,\" she turned towards me, mock-desperation in her bright blue eyes. \"Please don\'t take my accountant away! I\'ll be good, I promise!\"

\"Hn. Well, alright then. If you\'re going to be good.\"

She shuffled a little closer, looking at me with rapt attention.

\"See,\" she said, \"being good.\"

\"Okay. So you get back from the West End, where he took you to the most expensive, hard-to-get-tickets-for show in existence…\"

She silently mouthed \'thank you\'.

\"And you sit on his expensive sofa, drinking perfect coffee, and he leans over to you and says \'I\'d like to thank you for a perfect evening.\'\"

\"Oh, that\'s a bit lame.\"

I shot her a warning look.

\"Sorry. Shutting up again.\"

\"And you say \'oh, I don\'t think it\'s got all the way to perfect yet.P>
P>

\"I stand corrected. Cliché followed by cool-chick response. A literary classic, and beautifully delivered, if I may say so.\"

\"Why, thank you.\"

\"Don\'t mention it.\"

An owl was hooting outside, the only hint of a life outside of the tent.

\"And then you kiss him again, gently at first and then a little harder, pressing yourself against him as he tangles his fingers in your hair and slides his tongue inside your mouth. You moan into the kiss and start to undo his shirt…\"

\"Oh yes… hairy chest, or smooth?\"

\"Smooth.\"

\"Okay. Carry on.\"

\"… and you feel his hand gently cupping your breast, flicking his thumb of your nipple, so hard that he can feel it, even through your padded bra.\"

\"Bitch.\"

\"Well, it\'s true.\"

\"So? This is a fantasy. Can\'t I have big breasts?\"

\"No. I\'m not that kind of writer. I have to root my fiction in real-life observation. Besides, this isn\'t a fantasy. It\'s a prediction.\"

\"Oh, all right. Carry on.\"

\"He suddenly feels the need to feel you without all the fabric in the way, and slides his hand inside your top, inching towards the creamy flesh of your breast. He skillfully releases your bra with one deft movement…\"

\"…that\'ll be the day. Why can\'t men do that?\"

\"… no idea, but this one can,\" so can Fred, but I\'m not telling you that, \"… and he gasps with delight as he brushes his fingers across your breast to find your bullet-hard nipple…\"

\"They are, too.\"

\"What?\"

\"Bullet hard. Look.\"

She pushed down the sleeping bag to reveal her small, perfect breasts, topped, as she had so accurately claimed, with hard, rosy nipples.

I should have laughed and made some kind of witty remark, but I couldn\'t. I just couldn\'t. All I could do was stare.

It wasn\'t that I was shocked; this was all part of our routine, one way and another. We\'d both seen each other naked, on occasion, and God knows we talked about sex often enough. It was how our friendship worked, trying every now and then to shock each other a little, test the boundaries, make the bond between us stronger.

I grinned at her, pushing the rising feelings back down inside myself.

\"Put them away,\" I said, more gently than I\'d intended. \"Looks like you\'re cold enough already.\"

She grinned back, but she didn\'t pull the sleeping bag up again, she just rolled onto her back.

\"Carry on,\" she said. \"He\'d just found my bullet-hard nipple.\"

\"Yeah, that\'s right.\" I thought for a moment, trying to catch my breath. \"You\'ve taken off his shirt by now, and you decide it\'s time to get his pants down.\"

\"Quite right too.\"

She was playing with her left nipple, just teasing it gently between finger and thumb. I pretended not to notice.

\"You peel back his trousers to reveal a beautiful, rock-hard, seven inch cock.\"

\"Not too big? I don\'t like the too big.\"

\"No, just seven lovely inches, and nice and thick, perfectly in proportion. It has precome oozing from it\'s head. And fuzzy bollocks, not too dangly.\>
>

\"Mmmm. I thought only gay guys have precome?\"

\"Don\'t be silly. They just have more use for it, is all.\"

\"Oh, okay. Does it taste nice?\"

I found myself suddenly breathless again.

\"You want to find out?\" I asked, my voice a little croaky.

\"Oh yeah. I love going down on a guy all of a sudden, just when they\'re not expecting it. They go \'omigodDarrell,\' and look like they\'d do anything for you.\"

I giggled. \"Yeah, I know what you mean. Okay. It tastes good, not very strong but nice enough you want to find out what his spunk tastes like.\"

She gave a little shiver of delight. \"Oh yes, lovely. Carry on.\"

\"You suck and lick him for a bit, until you\'re certain of his undying devotion forever, and then you feel him gently lifting you off his dick, and he kisses you again, reacquainting himself with your breasts.

Darrell was still stroking hers, I noticed, brushing her pink nipple lazily with her thumb.

\"Oh, I love a breast man.\"

\"Hmmm. Then he runs his spare hand up your thigh, squeezing a little…\"

\"Of course not. Just so it feels good. He pushes your skirt up a little, and keeps kissing you, gradually moving his hand around so that…\"

I realised at that point that the hand Darrell wasn\'t using to caress her breast had snaked under the covers.

We\'d masturbated together before, not in front of each other, exactly, but just to take the pressure off, when we were horny, in the dark. Not like this. This was new.

\"…you part your thighs enough to encourage him,\" I said, experimentally. \"So he can…\" Sure enough, her legs shifted, I could make out the shape of her knees under the thick quilting, parted just wide enough for her to… \"slide his fingers softly inside your tiny knickers and tease your curls.\"

She closed her eyes, a little smile on her face.

She looked beautiful.

\"Carry on,\" she breathed.

\"Darrell, I…\"

\"You can\'t stop now, I\'m so horny…\"

\"So am I,\" I whispered. \"So fucking horny I hardly know what to do with myself.\"

\"Good God, woman, you\'re twenty five years old. If you don\'t know what to do by now…\"

We both burst out laughing, diffusing some of the tense atmosphere that had built up between us.

\"I\'ll lose track of the story if I wank,\" I elucidated.

\"Well, you\'ll just have ontrontrol yourself,\" she said. \"I need more story.\"

\"Okay.\" I rolled onto my side, propped myself up on one elbow. \"He\'s still kissing you, and you feel his fingers sliding between the lips of your cunt, gently stroking the wet velvet of…\"

\"I love that word.\"

\"Velvet?\"

\"No, cunt. I hate that people use it as a swear word. We have so few words for our bits that aren\'t clinical or dirty.\"

\"There\'s pussy. Fanny.\"

\"Fanny\'s a girl\'s name.\"

\"Or an ass.\"

\"There you go again with the Americanisms. How many times do I have to tell you?\" she scolded.

I shrugged, almost relieved to be back on home ground.

\"Either way. I\'m with you, I like cunt, too.\"

That came out wrong. I swear.

There was more giggling.

\"So, he\'s fingering me,\" she said, and I could sense the flex of her arm muscles under the covers as she stroked herself, \"what next?\"

\"He makes sure you\'re good and wet, and then he pulls you on top of him.\"

\"What, no orgasm first? No head?\"

\"Not the first time. He wants you too much.\"

\"Really?\"

\"Desperately. Pre-come doesn\'t adequately describe what\'s pumping out of his cock. He\'s throbbing for you, his eyes are heated almost-purple, and he pulls his fingers to his lips to taste you…\"

\"Can I watch?\" I breathed, suddenly, a thought that came from nowhere and somehow escaped before I noticed it.

\"You are doing,\" she said.

I smiled, a little embarrassed. \"Sorry,\" I offered.

\"Don\'t be silly,\" she said. \"Of course you can.\"

She took her hand from her breast and deftly undid the sleeping bag, pushing it impatiently open.

Somehow she\'d managed to take off whatever sleepwear she\'d been wearing, and was lying suddenly naked before me - well, except for my socks. She was softly stroking between her legs, and I could smell her arousal, sweet, heady, intoxicating.

\"He tells you you\'re beautiful,\" I whispered, \"says how much he loves your long, silky hair, and he kneels between your thighs, teasing your entrance with his dripping cockhead. You sigh with pleasure and gaze into his eyes as he slowly pushes inside you, and…\"

\"Fen?\"

\"Yeah?\"

\"Does he kiss me?\"

\"Of course. I was justtingting to that part.\"

\"Show me.\"

We looked at each other for a long time, or at least it felt like a long time. It was as if she were on the opposite side of a canyon in some adventure film, and I wasn\'t sure I trusted the rope ladder enough to dare to cross over to her.

It was plenty strong enough, as it turned out.

I brushed my lips over hers softly, a thousand fantasies springing to life. She didn\'t respond at first, just let me explore with little butterfly kisses, until I settled to the right fit of mouth to mouth. I kissed her properly, then, lacing mygersgers through her hair, teasing her lips with my tongue. She gave a little moan, as if she\'d been waiting for me a long time, and kissed me back with a gentle passion I\'d never encountered before, in man or woman. It was soft and sweet, and absolutely honest.

\"Wow,\" she breathed, when I finally pulled back. \"Will he kiss me like that?\"

I shook my head, smiling at her. \"No-one\'ll ever kiss you liket but but me.\"

\"What a pity,\" she said. \"I suppose I\'d better make the most of it, then.\"

She pulled my head down to kiss me, this time taking the opportunity to unzip my sleeping bag so I could slide my naked body next to hers.

What? Oh, I always sleep naked. Always have.

Her skin was soft and warm, and mine was so sensitive that I could feel every tiny part of her that was touching me. I pulled her close, so our breasts could caress each other, hard nipple to hard nipple, soft flesh to soft flesh, as I plundered her mouth.

\"Fen…\"

\"Hmm…\"

\"You\'ll have to show me whatdo, do, babe. I\'ve not done this before.\"

She sounded as though she was asking me to show her how to programme her video recorder.

I smiled at. \". \"You daft cow,\" I said, affectionately. \"You\'ve never been with a woman before?\"<
<

\"No. You know that.\"

I didn\'t, actually. She\'d never said anything, one way or the other, but I had to admit I\'d assumed she had.

\"You sure you want to?\"

If ever there was such a thing as a rhetorical question, that was it. She was pressing her soft, willing body against me, I could feel her wetness against my leg and her nipples were making serious indentations in my breasts. Even someone as slow to pick up signals as I am couldn\'t have missed it. But I needed to ask, I needed to hear her say it.

\"Yes. Oh, God, yes. I want you.\"

I ran one hand along the delicious curves of her body, stopping to cup one baby-soft buttock. \"You don\'t need me to tell you what to do,\" I said. \"You\'ve been making love to me for at least half an hour.\"

\"Oh no,\" her eyes twinkled, deep blue framed with dark lashes. \"That wasn\'t you. That was the accountant.\"

I laughed, and took a few brief, lush kisses, like mouthfuls of ripe peach.

\"FuFen,Fen, I\'m so horny.\"

\"Let me take care of that for you,\" I suggested, moving my hand round to her hip.

\"Do you want me to…\"

\"Later,\" I said. \"You first.\"

She sighed happily, then chased my lips for more kisses, letting me roll her onto her back again, parting her thighs. Her belly fluttered under my hand, the little green jewel in her navel twinkling as it caught the soft torchlight. I didn\'t have the heart to tease anymore; I watched her face as I dipped my fingers into her wetness, gently parting the swollen folds of her cunt, stroking back and forth, just exploring the landscape for now, not headed anywhere in particular.

\"Oh, Fen… oh, fuck, that\'s so nice…\"

Her eyes flickered shut, so I kissed them, teasing her lashes with my lips.

\"Open your eyes, babe, I want to see you.\"

She did as I asked, her brilliant blue gaze locked onto my deep brown.

She was so wet that my fingers were making little clicking noises as I stroked her, and a loud but adorable squelch as I sank my middle finger inside, not far, just far enough to check how she liked it. Judging by the arch of her back and the little murmur of disappointment as I pulled it out n, sn, she liked it a lot.

I increased the pressure a little, and found her clitoris. She liked that even more.

I rubbed around it firmly in circles, copying the movements she\'d started to use earlier, finding the rhythm that got her hips pumpinge wae was so ready for it that she came in just a few moments, her eyes on mine until the very last minute, panting into it, gasping as I slid my finger back inside her to feel the pulse of her pleasure. Her body shuddered all over and she hugged me tight; I caressed ear ear with my lips and told her I loved her.

She curled up in my arms for a while, and we kept a peaceful silence. I was nearly asleep, despite the throbbing between my own thighs, when I felt her hand snake down my body.

The first time she touched me, I honestly thought I was going to cry. This was something I\'d not known I\'d wanted until that night, and now I had it I knew I had to grasp it, keep it, remember it forever, because it could only ever, ever be then. Just that one night, out in the mi of of nowhere.

I was so wound up it took me a while to come, that first timee die didn\'t mind, she said it gave her a good chance to practice. When I finally felt the inevitability of orgasm coiling deepmy bmy belly, her fingers buried deep inside me, her thumb running slickly around my clitoris, I yelled her name loud enough to startle the sheep. I\'m a screamer with men, I confess, but that was the only time it\'s ever been that intense with a woman.

We formed a pattern, taking it in turns to pleasure each other, with cuddles in between, only broken once, when I was giving her head and she decided to do exactly the same to me, matching me lick for lick, finger fuck for finger fuck.

I think I actually passed out for a minute after that one.

She taught me that I like having my ass played with, and I showed her how to reach her own G-spot without resorting to artificial aids.

We tested the sexual potential of different designs of hairbrush handle, and decided fingers were better than any of them.

We ate bread and cheese at three in the morning.

I drenched a piece of marshmallow in her juices, and she took it from me and drenched it in mine. We fed it to each other, piece by piece, gazing at each other with lust-hungry eyes until we collapsed in giggles.

We watched the sunrise together, cuddled up together in jeans and old sweaters, using mugs of hot tea to warm our hands.

* * * * * * *

The idyllic English Village [TM] emerged from the morning mist, taking it\'s place once more in the unpaintable scenery.

\"You alright?\" she murmured, after a long silence.

\"Yeah.\" I kissed the top of her head, knowing that soon I wouldn\'t be able to any more. Well, I would, but it would never be the same.

\"No regrets?\"

\"Fuck no,\" I said. \"Never. It was perfect. You?\"

\"Oh no, it was… well, perfect.\" She sighed. \"You always have the right words.\"

Five days later I married Fred. Darrell and I are still best friends, and neither of us can look at a marshmallow without laughing.

Darrell got together briefly with one of Fred\'s cousins, who she picked up at the wedding reception. She called me a couple of weeks after I got back from honeymoon to tell me it hadn\'t worked out with him after all.

\"Never mind, babe,\" I told her. \"One day your accountant will come.\"

\"He was an accountant,\" she said, a little tearfully. \"And he did come. A lot. That wasn\'t the problem. The problem was his stupid wife.\"

\"Oh. Oh fuck, Darrell, that\'s awful.\"

She blew her nose loudly down the phone at me. \"Bastard,\" she said, vaguely.

\"Well, have you got a while, babe?\"

\"Good. Because I\'m going to tell you a story.\"

\"I like your stories.\"

\"I know you do. Are you ready?\"

There was a sniff. \"Yes,\" she said.

\"Once upon a time, there was a merchant banker.\"

\"Rich?\"

\"Of course.\"

\"Okay.\"

\"But better even than his Amex card with its eight figure credit limit, he had gorgeous violet eyes and the longest plait of hair down his back anyone in the City of London had ever seen…\"

~owari~

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