Chapter 1

My dreams are, according to a therapist I used to see, unusual. They are coherent, narrative episodes, in colour and extremely detailed, in a way that makes them very vivid. That’s why I’ve been having to pinch myself on a regular basis to persuade myself that Alison is real.

“Alison, eh?” My best friend Nuala roared with laughter. Heads turned at other tables in the cafeteria of the Sports Centre. She calmed down. “Well, I can put your mind at rest on one front. She’s hetero. I know, because I asked her.”

“You did?”

“I did. Pretty lady. Super body. I’m not the only one eying her in the changing room, believe me. So why would I not ask? Them as doesn’t ask, doesn’t get. I don’t think I’ve ever been turned down so politely. Doesn’t mean I won’t try again, though. So, what’s bothering you about lovely Alison?”

“Her height ... and mine. She’s so tall.”

“Look at Rupert Murdoch and Bernie Eccleston,” Nuala said. “They’re both shorter than you and that hasn’t stopped them from attracting tall women.”

“Well, yes, but the bulge in their trousers is a well-stuffed wallet,” I protested. “The only bulge I can offer Alison is firmly attached to the rest of me.”

“Well, thank you kindly, good sir.” Nuala pulled her appalled and disgusted face. “That’s far more information than I would ever want. More to the point is that you’re not too bad looking, you’re a good person, making allowances for the fact that you’re a man, of course. You’re intelligent and you’re fun.” She grinned and waved through the window at where the Beast was parked. “You may not have millions, but you’re not a pauper either.”

My other weakness is cars, and the XK120 Jaguar that Nuala was pointing at through the cafeteria window is my pride and joy. I’d lived on baked beans and not much else to be able, first to afford the wreck that she was and then, while I restored her to her present glory. I’d decided that if Alison accepted the beast as part of my life, she and I might work out.

Nuala said: “So. You and Alison, huh? Why not?” That was good enough for me. One of the many great things about Nuala, is that as an ostentatiously butch lesbian with a buzz cut, (her, not me), I can trust her not to lie to me when I ask her what she thinks of my potential dates. She’s saved me from heartache more than once. I’ve known Nuala since we were at primary school, and once we’d reached a standoff in our fights as six-year-olds, we had become friends for life, if reaching the age of twenty-seven counts.

Nuala is a fierce five foot four of solid muscle, a gym trainer in good standing. Alison is a little over six feet tall, as against my five feet seven and a bit, willowy where I’m chunky, and, I was starting to suspect, decisive where I’m permanently rethinking things. We met through work. I’m a regional manager and she runs one of our IT offshoots.

“Hi, I’m Alison,” she said as she shook my hand. “What have we done wrong now?” It was said with a rueful grin that I found myself returning. Her voice was low and warm, and it reverberated in a spot at the base of my spine.

“On the personal level, I wanted to thank you and your team for fixing the software update,” I said. “Officially, I’m here to cite a memo to you from the big bosses across the pond re the avalanche of emails in which you brought the glitch to their attention. I’m to remind you, quote, that the firm does not ever have problems, although it may encounter issues. These are speedily and efficiently resolved and at no point do they impact on the positive client experience, unquote”.

Alison laughed, a frank belly laugh that did things deep down in my entrails. Bloody hell, she’s tall. Magnificent breasts not far below my eye-level. Don’t stare at them. Look her in the eyes. Bugger, that’s no better. Big, honest hazel eyes. I could drown in those. Concentrate on how business-like she looks. Big breaths, John ... I said breaths, not breasts! Alison was speaking to me, but all I was hearing was the music in her voice. My head was spinning as she gave me the tour of her gang, as she called them. Their respect and affection for their boss was apparent. I tried to walk alongside her, so as not to be transfixed by the undulations of a neatly-turned bum.

I made an excuse to visit her section again the following week, pretexting a very minor question about security. The impression Alison had made on our first contact persisted. Two weeks later, I was there again, unable to keep away. She was wearing a skirt this time. It was a perfectly decent, just-above-the-knee-fine-for-the-office skirt, but it might as well have been a micro-mini by what it was doing to my pulse-rate, which was about to reach machine-gun levels. I didn’t get a chance to use my carefully-thought-out excuse for being there.

“I’m just going for lunch,” Alison said. “There’s a pub up the road. Fancy a pint? You look as if you could do with one.”

I’ve no idea what I replied, but ten minutes later we were sitting facing one another in the bar, with only the two beer glasses on the table between us dissuading me from begging on my knees for her phone number.

“Are you all right, John?” Alison asked, pushing her shoulder-length, light-brown hair back from her forehead. No ring. That’s a start. “You look a bit concerned about something. Can I help?”

The voice was mine, but I had no control over what it was saying. “I think I’m in love.”

“That’s nice for you.” She sounded as if she was just being polite. “I hope she deserves you.”

“It’s more a question of whether I deserve her. It’s you.”

Alison raised her eyebrows. “That’s an ... interesting ... thing to say, John. Thank you. Can I point out that you don’t know me at all?”

“True. I’d like to, though.”

“Supposing I might be interested, what are you going to do about it?”

“Can we meet up sometime, perhaps?” I stammered. I picked up my glass, for something to do with my hands.

“Hmm.” There was a silence. Well, at least she’s thinking about how to turn me down, rather than laughing in my face. “I have a gym session until eight tonight,” she said, “but after that I’m all yours, if you’re not too busy,”

Not too busy? I just avoided spraying her with my mouthful of beer. I swallowed hard and croaked: “Meet up here? I assume this is your local?”

“Oh, no. I’ve never set foot in here before. How about a bite somewhere? I’m always starving after the gym.”

“Which one? Can I pick you up?”

It turned out to be the gym where Nuala is based, which is why she and I had now been sitting in the coffee bar there since seven, so she could figuratively steady my shaking knees and hands. A tall silhouette appeared behind the frosted-glass doors that led to the changing rooms.

“Right. I’m off,” Nuala said. “Here she comes. She’d better be nice to you, or I’ll kill her. You can tell her that from me.”

A baggy, oversize Fair-Isle sweater hid the charms of Alison almost down to her Lycra-clad knees, as she plonked herself down at my table.

“I’m shattered. John, could you be a dear and get me a glass of water?” Alison asked. I leapt to obey that voice.

“I’m sorry,” she said, taking the glass. “It’s only just now I realised I’m not fit to be seen in public. Looking like this, no self-respecting restaurant is going to let me through the door.”

I was about to protest when she added: “I can offer you a decent meal at home, though, if you can put up with that?”

Can I? Oh yes, please!

She finished her water and I led her out to the beast. Her eyes lit up.

“Oh, so she’s yours. I was wondering who the lucky owner was. A real 120. She must be worth a fortune. She’s beautiful.”

“I’m impressed. That she’s a Jaguar is obvious, but how can you tell the model?”

“Easy. The split screen.”

I was speechless. Nobody but a real car nut would have known that. Head buzzing, I followed her to the outskirts of town and to an industrial estate. She got out of her car, an ancient but beautifully restored Triumph TR3.

“Give me a minute,” she said. She got out and disappeared round a corner. There was the sound of machinery and a huge garage door rolled slowly upwards. Alison waved for me to drive in. I parked the beast, got out and looked around. My car looked at home here, among other classic cars in various states of assembly.

“My brother’s repair and reno shop,” Alison explained. “I test the cars when they’re done.”

“Hence the Triumph?”

“Yes. I don’t own one myself. I have the flat above.”

I followed her up the metal staircase, curbing the urge to lift her sweater and bite that tempting bum through her Lycra leggings. Upstairs was an open space with a double bed, a kitchenette, a sofa, an old wardrobe, a table and a single chair. A curtained-off corner had to be a loo and shower. More minimal you could not get. Posters of vintage cars covered the walls and I could have spent the following half hour drooling over them.

I had another reason to dribble, though, as Alison went over to the wardrobe and took out a pink, Indian-style robe. She pulled off her sweater, revealing a white sports bra, and slipped the knee-length robe on. I tried not to stare when she reached up under it and pulled her tights down. She caught me looking, of course.

“Sorry,” she said. “I spend so much time here on my own. I was thinking about what to cook. Just for a moment, I’d forgotten you were here.”

“That’s me. I’m easy to ignore, and if it means I get to see a pretty lady changing her clothes, I can live with that.” Keep it light. It doesn’t mean anything to her.

Alison came over and used those eyes on me. “Oh, I’ve no intention of ignoring you,” she said. “But first, I’m going to cook. I hope you like Thai?”

“Love it. What can I do to help?”

Alison laughed. “You said that as if you meant it,”

“Because I did. I live on my own, too. You can trust me not to cut myself if you give me a knife.”

We spent the next twenty minutes chopping, peeling and preparing food. I’m a decent cook and I could tell Alison was good. We hardly spoke. It was almost as if we had been cooking together for ages and didn’t need to.

“There’s beer in the fridge,” she said as we took dishes over to the table. While I fetched it, she pulled a box over to make a second seat. “As the guest, you get the chair,” she said. I didn’t comment on the fact that the box was a few inches lower than the chair and brought her down to my height. We ate, concentrating on the food.

As Alison was gathering up the empty dishes, she said: “I think you and I have a problem in common,”

“We do?”

“Can I be straight with you?”

“I suspect you usually are with people. Remember, that’s how I met you.”

“You noticed. So. Our problem is that I’m far too tall for a woman and you’re a bit short for a man.”

Ouch. Unflattering, but accurate.

“And?”

“In general, men overact with me, as if they are doing me a favour by asking me out. There isn’t a lame joke about my height that I haven’t heard. I’m not sensing that with you.”

“Then I’m hiding how intimidated I’m feeling better than I thought,”

“I feel relaxed with you, have done from the moment we met. I want us to be friends, John. We’ll see what happens after that. You are an attractive man.”

“For a short-arse,” I chipped in.

Alison reached across and took my hand. “I know that’s your defence mechanism, but you don’t need it with me. I’m a lot further outside the norm than you are. Trust me, I know how it feels.”

“In the attractiveness stakes,” I riposted, as I struggled to get my pulse-rate back down from the touch of her fingers, “you’re well beyond the norm on the plus side. My best friend Nuala thinks you’re lovely and so do I.”

“Pretty Nuala from the gym? Has she told you what I look like with no clothes on yet?” Alison laughed.

“No.”

“I’m amazed. She has no discretion at all. She eyes up any woman with a decent body. It’s interesting, though, that you have a female best friend.”

“Why?”

“Because it gives me hope that you and I can be friends, too.”

Here goes...

“I might find that difficult.”

“Oh.” Alison’s face fell. “Why?”

“When I said I was in love, I meant it ... at least that’s how it feels. Nuala is different, because she isn’t interested in me as a man. Objectively, I’m aware she’s attractive, but I’m used to her and her being a woman never really crosses my mind. You, on the other hand...” I got stuck for words.

“You find me physically attractive?”

“I do.”

“Then it’s mutual. Let me do some thinking about that.” She gathered up the dishes and deposited them beside the sink. “So right now, I think it’s best if you go home. Leave me your number and I promise I’ll call you tomorrow.”

And that was that. Five minutes later I was on my way home, with a bone in my pants that ached. When Alison had bent over to put the plates down, her thin cotton shift had clung to her bum. No VPL. A thong? No knickers? Had I been sitting making light conversation with a woman without underwear? If so, was it a message to me? Did she bend down on purpose? Did she notice that I’d noticed ... if, of course, it wasn’t just my dirty mind playing tricks on me? It was a hard night in all senses.

My concentration at work next morning was shot, not great when you’re checking spreadsheets done by an inexperienced member of staff. Eventually, I took the coward’s way out and delegated it, we call it giving someone else experience. I was sliding into a black hole by going-home time with no word from Alison. I’d already left my desk when my private email pinged. “It’s Alison. I lost your number. Please forgive me. I had to use dark arts to dig out this address. Busy tonight? If you’re available, I am. Come when you’re ready.”

The sun came out, birds sang and a brass band blew a fanfare. I was on my way within minutes, hoping that I could find Alison’s flat again and that arriving on a bicycle wouldn’t make me look too ridiculous. Work was still in progress in the garage, but one of the guys jerked a thumb towards the stairs.

“If you’re the one she’s waiting for, you’re in trouble. She’s been singing.”

We met at the halfway point. Alison let me get one step further up, and then kissed me. It wasn’t a full-on, tongues and tonsils kiss, but the lip contact was generous and sent bolts of lightning down my spine. She pulled back and looked at the cycling helmet in my hand.

“I was looking forward to a drive in the Jag,” she said, “but I suppose I could sit on your crossbar. Never mind. I have a better idea.” She turned to the very tall guy who had to be the brother: “Marcus, can I borrow the Morgan?”

Our first outing, therefore, was with us squeezed into a 1938 three-wheel sports car, with a big v-twin engine on the front that made conversation impossible. It was one of those cars that you don’t so much get into, as put on, and I could have trailed my knuckles along the ground as Alison wrestled it round corners at speed. She stopped in a carpark by the river and turned to me with glowing eyes.

“How was that?”

“That was fun,” I said. “Nice driving.”

“Thank you, John. Okay. You pass. You weren’t sick, you didn’t scream, and you didn’t try to grope me.”

“Too busy hanging on for dear life,” I joked.

We extricated ourselves and set off down the riverside path. After a moment, Alison took my hand. Shortly after that, I kissed her properly for the first time. The difference in our heights was less of an issue because we were sitting on a bench.

“Can I tell you about me?” Alison said. She moved back a little. “You have a right to know what you’re getting yourself into ... assuming that you still do when I’ve finished.” She held up her hand to cut short my protest. “And after that, I’ll expect you to be just as open as I’m going to be. Is that fair?”

“Of course,” the words were out of my mouth before my brain was in gear. It was too late to pull back, though, because Alison had started her story.

“I’m thirty. Does that matter to you?” Alison asked.

“Absolutely not. I’d assumed you were my age. But it’s only a number anyway.”

“I’ve been as tall as this since I was fifteen. Tall, oddball Alison, the computer nerd with no father, big tits and the posh, seriously weird mother with her drug problem. I was convinced I was a freak, because I felt everyone treated me like one ... that included my mother, by the way. Marcus escaped that; he was away at boarding school. For a girl who’s feeling left out by other girls, there’s one easy way to be apparently popular ... at least with boys. So I had a lot of bad sex from a far-too-early age, starting with letting boys grope my tits, then hand-jobs, blowjobs...”

Alison looked at me hard. I concentrated on letting my concern show in my facial expression. Anything I might say was far too risky, but my heart was bleeding for her. Alison went on, after a pause

. “By the time it was legal, I was letting boys ... anyone, really ... screw me, because that was all I imagined I deserved. At eighteen, I cut myself off from my dysfunctional mother and got married, ignoring Marcus’ warning that this was a disastrous mistake. For nine years, from the moment I signed the register, I had plenty of time to learn how right he’d been. My ex was ten years older than me. He was two metres tall, and I’d hoped that he would understand my anxieties.

I made the mistake of telling him all about my past sexual history and he renamed me, calling me Ellen-whore. He treated me like a sex doll, for him to play with when he felt like it, and to ignore or put down when he didn’t. One day, he’d say I looked a frump, the next day, with the same outfit, apparently I looked like the tart he told me – and other people - I was.

He was angry when I didn’t get pregnant. At first it was unintentional, but then I decided that if I was going to have a child, I didn’t want it to be his, so I took the pill in secret. He made my life a misery. Marcus helped me to get away and let me set up home above the garage. Luckily it’s the width of the country away from where I was before. That was two years ago. It’s only really in the past year that I’ve been able to do the things I like doing.”

“Such as?” I asked, relieved that her tale of woe seemed to have come to an end. I swore to myself that if she’d have me, she would always know she was loved.

“You know about the gym. You’ve seen that I love to drive fast. I go to track days when I can afford it.” She gave me an embarrassed glance. “My sex life since then ... and to an increasing extent during those nine years ... has largely involved me and my fingers, or, since six months ago, a little vibrator.”

“What a nice thought. I’ll look forward to watching you in action, if I may.”

Alison kissed me, rather than replying.

“Now you,” she said.

“The simple bit first,” I began. “I’m twenty-seven. Never been married. I’ve had girlfriends and a few longer-term relationships.” I paused.

“That’s it? After I just told you all the nasty bits about my past?” Alison’s mock outrage was accompanied with a smile. I prayed that she’d still be smiling when I finished what I had to say.

“I’m only just getting started,” I said. “I hope you’re ready for the next bit.”

Alison looked hard at me. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Okay. Shoot.”

“It goes back to my last girlfriend but two, Imogen.”

“Whoo. Posh name!” Alison interrupted.

“Posh family, too. Company directors in the City. Imogen was a sexual obsessive, hardly thought of anything else.”

“That doesn’t sound much different from most men,” Alison interrupted.

“You might say so, Alison. I couldn’t possibly comment. Anyway, straight sex wasn’t enough for Imogen. She talked me into finding out about a load of the weird things that people do to get themselves off. The thing about spending time with someone like that, when you’re both getting wound up by crazy things on the internet, is that you can’t unlearn them.”

“What sort of crazy things?”

“You name it.”

“I can’t. I never got beyond Sex 101, the dummy’s guide. Pull knickers off, lie flat on back, open legs, go ooh and aah, fake orgasm, repeat,” Alison grimaced. “Go on, John. Explain to me what it is that you can’t unlearn.”

“Imogen didn’t get off on porn stars, so it was always amateur film we watched. At first, relatively normal couples doing relatively common things, like flashing and having sex in risky places. Then it moved to dogging.”

“Dogging?”

“Having sex with random strangers. Then bigger and bigger vibrators and more and more people at a time. After that, it got too gross for me. I don’t understand how people get turned on by being peed on ... or worse, but I’ve seen videos of it happening and so I know it does happen.”

“Yuck. I’d rather not know about that.”

“That’s the point I was making: that I can’t not know about it.”

“You’ll let me know in advance if you’re planning any of this stuff with me, won’t you, John?” Alison half-joked. Her face said that she was not entirely happy, reasonably enough. Not every woman likes the idea of a new man spending his time watching other, possibly more attractive women, being filmed in action on the outer fringes of sexual activity.

“We never actually did any of it,” I said. “It was the watching that turned Imogen on – okay, and me, too. She needed that to get her in the mood for real sex. Looking back on it, it was never sustainable as a relationship.”

“Why did it end? If you don’t mind me asking?”

“I’ll be brief, but it’s an odd story. This was all happening while I was working in London. We had a date fixed up and she called to say she wouldn’t be available. No explanation, but no problem. The following weekend, I was travelling on the Tube, and the guy opposite was reading a scandal-rag. There was Imogen in a full-page spread about her wedding in the Maldives, getting hitched to a Dutch industrialist.”

Alison looked astonished, but then she laughed. “As far as not being available is concerned, that’s pretty terminal,” she said. “So no more kinky sex for you. Did you miss it?”

“I’ll admit that some parts of it were fascinating.”

“Maybe we’ll talk about those parts some other time. But with me, what is it you want?”

“With you, I just want to make love.”

“We will,” Alison said. I heaved a silent sigh of relief. “Soon,” she said. “When both of us are ready.”

“And you’re sure that being with a miniature man isn’t a problem?”

“Stop it. You’re not that small. Besides, it won’t matter once we’re lying down,” she said.

It was a good month before we explored that option. In the meantime, we only met in public, at Alison’s insistence.

“I don’t want to have sex with you just because we can,” she explained. “It’s a temptation, but I’d like it to mean something more. I’ve had too much bad sex in my life, and I’m looking forward to doing it with you, because I think I’m actually going to enjoy it.”

So, I took her for drives in the Jag and she took me for drives in vintage cars she “borrowed” from the garage. For what it was, it was very enjoyable, but I did a lot of beating off each time we parted.

When Alison said she was ready to become more intimate, I lashed out on a new king-size bed, mattress and bedding for my flat, in her honour. After I’d fed her, and we had spent a little canoodling time on the sofa, I led her to the bedroom.

“Are you sure about this?” Alison asked. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

“Totally.”

“Then will you undress me, please?”

Alison had come to dinner wearing another loose ethnic dress, turquoise this time, just above knee-length and not unlike the one that had set my heart pounding at her place. Now she stood in my bedroom, arms raised above her head, waiting.

I knelt and started with her shoes, dancing pumps without heels. I caressed each foot with care. Her legs were bare and smooth, and I worked my way slowly up them, stroking and kissing her calves and knees. There was a sharp intake of breath as I began to slide her dress upwards, so I paused, stood up and kissed her. This time there was no holding back. We clung to each other until we were both panting. I closed my eyes, wanting to explore her by touch alone. When I ran my hands up the backs of her thighs under her dress, they found only bare skin.

“Do you like that? Remember the first evening we ate together?” Alison asked. “At the gym I wear a thong under my tights and it came off when I was changing. I could feel your eyes on my backside when I bent over, so I thought you’d enjoy it if I didn’t wear knickers tonight.”

“What a lovely surprise,” I said, running my hands over the smooth skin of her firm bottom. “May I continue?”

“Please.”

Alison was, however, wearing a bra, so I unclipped it and enjoyed the feel of her warm, heavy breasts through the thin cotton shift. Her nipples were hard. When my hand started to travel down her belly, she flinched, so I stopped.

“Alison? Tell me if something is wrong, won’t you?” She nodded, her face buried in my shoulder. Her pubic hair was thick and untamed and my fingers combed through it. Just as I was expecting them to slip into the slot of her sex, my fingertips hit an obstruction and Alison shuddered. It had to be her clitoris, standing out from between her labia, hot and swollen. I touched it again and she groaned. Her knees wobbled.

“I think you need to lie down,” I said and eased her on to the bed. She lay on her back, one arm hiding her eyes.

“May I look?” I asked. Alison wrapped her arm more tightly across her face and gave a vestigial nod. Her chest rose and fell quickly with her shallow breaths. I could feel her anxiety without touching her. I lifted her dress to expose her sex. Her prominent, fleshy outer labia had been pushed aside by what looked like a miniature blind penis, almost an inch long, protruding from its hood.

“Wow. Spectacular!”

“You don’t mind?” Alison sounded surprised.

“Mind? It’s beautiful. Quite wonderful,” I said. “Let me show you just how wonderful it is.” Unable to resist, I buried my face between her legs and filled my mouth with her labia and that gorgeous, proud clitoris. Alison came once and then again. When she begged for a moment’s respite. I came up for air.

“So far, so good?” I asked.

“Completely wrecked,” Alison said. “I’d better not ask how you learned to do that, had I?”

“Well, get used to it, because if it’s anything to do with me, it’s going to be happening quite often from now on.”

Alison laughed, and I sensed the tension leaving her body. “Threat or promise?” she asked.

“Promise.”

She pulled her dress off over her head and I admired the rest of her body. Her full, firm breasts had small, tight, dark-brown nipples that were standing up. I kissed her there and she shivered.

“Sensitive?”

Alison pulled a face. “There’s a very fine line with them between pleasure and discomfort. Kissing them is lovely, but anything more vigorous just hurts. As long as you are gentle with my nipples, though, you can play with my tits as enthusiastically as you like. And please, John, you call them tits when you play with them, not breasts, okay?”

I made a mental note, but I think we both knew that a major focus of our sex life was going to be Alison’s amazing clitoris. When she got onto hands and knees on the bed and asked me to take her, though, that came a very close second. To watch her reflection in the mirror, with her breasts swinging and her face showing how much she was enjoying my thrusting into her, made me sure she was the right woman for me. I was in love, or at least in lust with Alison, and she, it seemed, with me. Cue a lot of fucking for the next few months...

The firm’s Christmas party was our first public outing together. I went to pick her up and found her dressed as if for a board meeting.

“When I walked out on my ex,” Alison explained, “I left behind everything that I associated with that period, and I’ve never got round to buying much in the way of new clothes. I’m sorry, John. I can tell you’re disappointed. My current wardrobe stretches to gym wear, work outfits and the few Indian bits and pieces like the shifts you’ve seen.”

Off we went, anyway. For some bizarre reason, I’m quite popular with the people who work for me, and I saw a couple of them shutting down off-colour comments about her outfit and the disparity in our heights. I made eye contact with the people concerned too, so they knew that they’d been noticed. It calmed things down.

A few days later, Alison turned up at my flat after supper, with her laptop under her arm. She sat me down at the kitchen table and fired it up.

“Watch,” she said. She’d made a slide show of tall women with shorter men. “What do you notice?”

“That you’re at least as attractive as any of these women and I’m not as fat or as ugly as most of the men?” I ventured. “At least I hope I’m not,”

“You’re not. Concentrate on the women. Apart from height, what do they have in common?”