Chapter 12

He didn’t know when Suzanne came through to his bed but the deluge of emotions as he realised he was holding her in his arms threatened his composure. She was naked, just like him, and he was cradling her breast in his hand. Suzanne had not just climbed into bed, she had spooned in against him. Andrew had no recollection of his run that morning and when he returned to the flat Suzanne was ready for swimming with a look on her face daring him to make any comment. So rather than say anything he waited at the pool and blatantly eyed her up as she came out, filling her swimsuit in her usual gloriously curvy manner.

Who the hell knew what they were doing, what was going on, but Andrew left her the car and walked down to the offices to catch up with everyone. He was lucky that Morag was an equally early riser as it was just her there when he arrived.

“Good morning Andrew, the coffee is fresh. How are you?”

“Good Morag, and you?”

“Missing all the excitement of Shetland Models.”

“Yeah right.”

“Everything is fine at the moment. I am kept busy but it is not frantic and now that Julian is here there is a nice vibe to the place.”

“I thought he worked downstairs?”

“When he starts hiring I am sure he will move downstairs but until then he is still in the office the two of you share.”

She said it so matter of factly.

“What office that we share?”

“Your office. You mean you didn’t know you had an office?”

“No.”

“Come on I’ll show you.”

They walked down the corridor.

“This is just the empty office that I use when I am here.”

Morag waited patiently for the penny to hit him.

“Oh.”

“It was always empty because it is yours, well you and Julian. Anyway, as you can see this is where he works.”

It was memories of the winter of 1980 that ran through Andrew’s mind. He and Julian working over a succession of weekends in a variety of businesses and here he was five years later with an office, in the building he jointly owned. It was those little moments of wonder that stood out. Andrew had used the office for ages, more than a year and it never occurred to him that it was actually his office. He needed to get Leslie to agree to names on the doors, but that horse had bolted. Morag left him in the office and it was only a few minutes later that Julian came and grabbed him in a big man-hug.

“Good to see you, on another one of your flying visits.”

They caught up but that was not going to take long with them. All the photos and stories from the honeymoon could wait until the evening, Suzanne would care more than he did anyway.

“I am glad you are here.”

And with that Julian and Andrew lost track of time as they talked computing. Julian had a bunch of ideas for areas where there was an opportunity for computerisation. They sat and talked, marked up a bunch of different flip charts and tuned out the rest of the world. When Leslie arrived with sandwiches for them they realised that it was 1.15 already. The previous four hours had flown by. Andrew hugged Leslie and she sat and ate with them.

“I put my head round the door once I was finished with my call but the two of you were scribbling away on that flip chart so I just left you to it. How are you Andrew?”

Happy to sit around and talk computing with his friend but he didn’t think that was what she meant.

“Good. Got back yesterday morning. There never seems to be enough time.”

As they ate he gave them the short version of the summer.

“So you modelling in Cyprus and last week in Paris.”

“Yes. Too much I think; the days were long in Paris. I met with a potential agent on Saturday that is why I didn’t get here until yesterday.”

“So you are going to get an agent?”

“Yes. I need someone familiar with the industry, the people, the process. The contract is done but it is the details that I need someone to manage. So yes.”

After they finished lunch Andrew wandered down to Creighton’s office and explained what was happening with the photography business. Creighton had advised Mhairi when Tony had set up his photography company and had dealt with him on the property fund. The only thing that was kept completely separate was EPIC. Neither Andrew nor Tony used Creighton for that.

“I can become Tony’s accountant, and Maggie’s, that is not a problem. But when you are doing a deal together then they need to consider getting a second opinion. Mhairi will paper everything so that everyone knows that we both work for all parties but it is an issue. Whenever you and Leslie and Julian are involved in a deal, we always get you to sign that you know we are advising each of you.”

“Is it a big deal?”

“Yes and no. The big concern is if things change between you. Now it is extremely unlikely but things do change. The other issue is that you were first. For both Mhairi and myself. It was not long before Leslie also used us both and then Julian used me. It was much later before he used Mhairi not his father. But if something happened then people could make the accusation, fair or not, that you were more important than the others.”

Andrew shrugged but understood. Money changed friendships. He phoned Tony who had kept the afternoon free and he came down to the offices and sat with him and Creighton. While he was waiting he called Mhairi and arranged to meet her at 2.30 the following day. Creighton talked through all the options, and told them how to structure the purchase. Just as they were wrapping up Julian put his head round the door. And Andrew’s friends completely surprised him.

“Oh hi Tony. Are you done?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going back to the studio or are you going to stay here?”

“I was going to head back to the studio and wait for Maggie and then come out with her to the house.”

“Leslie will get her when she goes to get Suzanne. Stay and give us your ideas.”

Tony left with Julian and Andrew sat looking confused. His final question was to Creighton and was about his own money so they were on their own.

“Andrew, all three companies that you licensed AIMS to have made significant sales. That is hardly surprising given how much they paid. Now CSG pays no royalty but both Siemens and ComputerCom have paid significant royalty cheques in the last 18 months. You can fund the purchase of this property, or your half of it, without an issue. As a student you just don’t spend much money.”

It was too easy. When he returned to their office Julian was talking through what they had done from the morning. And the two of them were relaxed and easy going around each other. He discovered that Maggie and Leslie had hit it off. The two of them were cut from the same cloth and each tried to be more of a business tycoon than the other. And this had led to them becoming social friends, over for dinner, that sort of thing. At first it had been more of a challenge for Julian and Tony but they had started to talk about the computerisation of businesses and that had broken the reserve between the two of them. Andrew could not be more pleased. They thinned more than a dozen possibilities down to three and it felt like they had made progress. Leslie called a halt and left the three of them to walk back to the house while she went to collect Suzanne and Maggie.

“What about you? Had any more thoughts on engineering?”

Andrew filled them in on his current thoughts, and the problems he was facing.

“It might not help you with your final year project but why don’t you start the application process for an explosives licence. You are an engineer, have experience of explosives in the OTC and with the Engineers as well as a security clearance of some description that you never talk about. So apply for a licence to use explosives for research. What the hell else can they ask you?”

It was a simple solution and Andrew had no idea whether individuals were granted a licence but he did have the Engineering Company. Tony’s face showed he had a million questions but he just listened as they walked along.

“The Engineering Company is nothing more than paperwork at the moment. The only address is Drummonds.”

“I would tell you to transfer it out to the office but that makes no sense if you are not going to be here. Maybe you need to get an office down south somewhere. London?”

“The mail could go to a PO Box to start, if I did get an office I could rent it out until I was ready to run the company. I will think about it. I am seeing Mhairi tomorrow and add it to the list of things to talk to her about.”

“Can I ask what you are seeing her about?”

“Sure. I want to talk to her about the agent. I want to let her know my thoughts on the agency contract. But the main reason for going to see her is I want to understand patent law, and what can be patented from an engineering point of view.”

“Your usual thorough preparation.”

“I suppose, but it is more I want to understand if it is possible. Let’s take a hypothetical, reinforcing concrete. If I discovered that concrete reinforced with titanium, stainless steel, whatever, is more blast resistant than ‘regular’ reinforced concrete, is that patentable. I just don’t know. One hand I don’t see how you enforce the patent but on the other if I spend the time, and potentially money, to make buildings safer then why not. I don’t expect answers but I would like her to have someone investigate for me. Hell, I need them to confirm that if I discover something during my project that it is not owned by the University.”

“We have both been thoroughly corrupted by Leslie. We are scientists at heart but we also think like businessmen. I never would have guessed.”

They arrived at the house and discovered the ladies with glasses of wine in hand already. The evening was full of tales of the southern hemisphere and the south seas. The thought of being away for six weeks with nothing to do seemed so alien but then Andrew remembered that he and Suzanne had spent two weeks in Italy and it had flown by. He smiled at the thought of six weeks alone with Suzanne. She had met Tony and Maggie both at Andrew’s party but also at Leslie and Julian’s wedding, so knew them, not well but they were not strangers.

The four of them walked back up to Marchmont at the end of the night and after they separated to head to their respective flats Suzanne finally talked about the previous night.

“Thank you for not making a big deal out of this morning. I was lying there last night lonely in my bed and the thought of you holding me in your arms just seemed so warm and comforting. I could claim that it was sleep-walking but I was wide awake. But I will also tell you that it felt like a compulsion. And I would like to come to bed with you tonight from the start and have you hold me tight in your arms.”

As they were talking Suzanne had taken his hand in hers.

“What about sex? Is that the next stage?”

“The answer is yes, no and I don’t know, which makes no sense. Yes, I want it, no I don’t think it is a good idea, at least not right now, but I don’t know whether that is a good enough reason for me to stop.”

She stopped walking and buried her head in Andrew’s chest. Her voice was faint and muffled.

“I want you to fuck me so badly but how I want you to fuck me is the core issue between us. Which means that it dangerous and stupid to even talk about it but that isn’t stopping me. This Friday is the anniversary of the last time I was with a man. As you can imagine it is making me more than a little squirrelly.”

As they got to the flat the choice was easy; stupid and dangerous, but easy. But the truth was it was also Suzanne. The first woman Andrew ever kissed; the woman who he once thought was just a friend and no more; the woman who talked with him openly about their being something missing between them; the woman who had defined his approach to sex more than any other; the woman who had grown with him so much that the talk of the missing spark became less and less frequent. Now Andrew didn’t know what to think any more. All he did know was that he wanted her very badly indeed.

All the problems, the fundamental sexual problem, they were all pushed aside. Suzanne Jenner was the person in the whole world that Andrew was most comfortable with, in or out of bed. No one else was close. And he missed her. So when they got to the flat he closed the front door and just led her to his room. The only words spoken were ‘safe’ from both of them. Suzanne bounced into the middle of the bed, one ankle tantalisingly within his grasp. That they both smiled as he pulled her to the end of the bed should have been no surprise. Andrew pulled her to him, her legs straight up his body, hands upon her thighs and it was familiar, yet unique and absolutely perfect. He was harder than granite and she was wetter than the deck of the Maid of the Mist. There was no point for him to try to capture in thoughts or words the feelings of those two minutes. It was a sensory-overload and it was incredible. Yet moments later the world came back into focus and Suzanne was lying on him, another moment that resonated through him.

“You spend your formative teenage years fucking the same person for five years and you get really good at it.”

With a wink and a kiss Suzanne slid down his body and set about reviving him as quickly as possible. Once she was satisfied with her efforts she knee-walked back up the bed and dropped on him without fanfare or delay.

“You need to hurry up, fuck me and come. Because it is only after you have come twice that I am going to suck you back to hardness, get on my knees, put my head down and my arse up.”

When Andrew flipped her onto her back and bent her in half all she did was smile. She pulled his head down and twisted it closer so that she could kiss him before pulling it beside her own. And then the whispering started. Suzanne Jenner painted word pictures of her own.

“You can imagine me at the end of the bed, can’t you Andrew? I haven’t missed a day of exercise in a year. You’ve seen me at the pool, I watched you ravish me with your eyes this morning. You know how my body is pinched at the waist, you like that I have a defined waist don’t you Andrew? But we both know what you really like. The way my hips flare out from that waist, how they just call your name, your hands were made to rest on my hips. Think about looking down at the sight before you Andrew. Can you see the drops of sweat from your nose dripping onto me as you fuck me harder and harder? But you can’t look down because we both know you will come. Your big-headed dick ravaging my poor little pussy, my delicate little arsehole all fresh and clean for you. Winking away at you. Think about that view.”

There was a pause, a second no more, before she grabbed his head and stared him in the eye.

“Come for me right now Andrew.”

He was not sure he had even finished coming when Suzanne almost threw him onto his back and took his slick and throbbing dick into her mouth. At first it was more pain than pleasure but the feral glint in her eye made Andrew be brave. The vision that Suzanne painted resonated in his mind as the words and images helped stiffen his ardour. But it also gave him an idea. When Suzanne had him standing to attention once again she pushed herself down the bed and into position. Andrew opened the nightstand drawer and picked up the lube and a condom. Sadly rather than widen her eyes in surprise all she said, in a very gloating tone, was.

“I like a man who can pick up on a suggestion.”

Ouch. He really needed to up his game with her. Wrapped with the condom lubed Andrew squeezed a dollop of lube onto the aforementioned gleaming pink arsehole and massaged it round the muscle and into Suzanne’s anal passage. But other than the choice of her arse rather than her pussy the rest of the occasion played out exactly as she described. Eventually you run out of synonyms for amazing and just have to accept that it was an unparalleled experience. Her arse, her hips, her thighs were built to be fucked doggie style. And the perfect positioning of his hands to pull her onto him, to feel the power, the tension, the raw sexual energy in her body. When Andrew came it was draining, he was doing the coming equivalent of the dry heaves, and slumped to his knees on the floor, his balls desiccated husks. All that either of them were capable of was to climb under the covers and fall asleep.

There was no way Andrew was running the next morning and so again they swam without addressing the ever multiplying elephants in the room. That morning his swimming was one step up from floating in the water so the distance covered was trivial. But it was cleansing and relaxing and when he returned to the flat he heard the hairdryer in the bathroom and just smiled. Starting the coffee he then stripped the bed, laughing as he again ruefully recognised that while condom free sex with Suzanne was just sublime, it sure was messy. As Andrew bundled all the bedding up in preparation for the wash the lady herself was standing at the doorway, freshly coiffed and bare arse naked. With a smile she sashayed across the hall to her room. He started the laundry, poured coffee for them both and took them into the dining room. Suzanne, now dressed joined him. Before she sat down she kissed him gently on the cheek.

“I have decided the thing to do this week is go full ostrich. We have so many things we need to deal with and we will, but this week I don’t want to talk about them, worry about them, I am going to try and not think about them. Let’s enjoy this week and then think about the future after that. Not very grown up but I am happy, so very happy and want to enjoy that feeling for a week. Everything else will work itself out.”

Andrew’s only doubt, and it was washed away by the deluge of positives, was that they were storing up more problems, but each term and year a little more of his need for endless overthinking disappeared. There were more and more impulsive gestures and actions. What was one more? He leaned over and kissed Suzanne.

“Yes dear.”

That was so bad it wasn’t even worth a whack. With a roll of her eyes she took her cup through to the kitchen.

“I am meeting Mary for a day of shopping. When will you be done with Mhairi?”

“No later than 5.00. Do you want to take the car so you don’t have to carry all the bags?”

He was surprised at the depth of feeling in the hug but 10 minutes later he was on his own. Sitting at the dining room table Andrew started his project application for the university. Then listed who he would ask about support. He could make some of the visits and calls before classes started the following Thursday. That was the work part of the morning taken care of leaving him with a personal letter of great importance.

Mandy Brown had started her final year at school, more than 18 months free of cancer, and she was applying to Trinity College just as Andrew had challenged her to back when he showed her round the place the day she was released. She had asked him to write one of her two letters of recommendation. Andrew had no idea if she had the grades to be applying and no knowledge of whether there was someone more suitable to write this letter. As he had come to realise Mandy was an incredibly important woman, totemic of his doing some good with his volunteering at Addenbrooke’s. Mandy’s accompanying note told him to be honest, in this one instance she wasn’t worried about being ‘cancer girl’. It took him three drafts to get what he wanted to say right but was pleased with the final letter. It was all about where she had come from, in a much shorter time than he had for instance, and the importance of ‘stepping through the gate’. One two hour visit inspired this application from a family who had lived near, and shopped in, Cambridge their whole life and yet had never been past the gate. He was still smiling as he walked down to Tony’s having mailed the letter off. The importance of Mandy Brown, the survivor, could not be overstated.