Chapter 5: Needs a Man's Touch

Kevin was a few minutes late. Not that I was holding him to his fifteen minute promise, but I felt kind of proud on Belinda's behalf of what she had achieved in so little time. I was also keyed up and excited, I ended up peeking out the front window waiting for him.

Like a doting mother, she made me bring him inside and tried the old 'Have her home by ten o'clock, young man' line. We both laughed at her; it must have been the nervous tension because it really wasn't very funny. She also made me show off my outfit; twirling to make the skirt flare up and causing me to blush, even though I knew it couldn't flare high enough to see I wore no panties. Then she started to grill Kevin mercilessly about how pretty he thought I looked, making his ears go red. I finally put a stop to it and dragged him out the door to the sounds of Belinda's musical laughter.

"I won't be here later," she called after us. "I'm spending the night at Andrew's."

Good to know.

We left his car and walked to the train station, then we caught the train in to Circular Quay, holding hands all the way and sitting close enough for our legs to touch.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked as we walked down from the train platform, my hair and skirt bouncing playfully with every step.

"Do you want to know?" he replied. "Or do you want it to be a surprise?"

"Surprise," I said, giving his hand a squeeze. I'm a sucker for surprises.

He made me stand away from him while he went to the ferry terminal and bought tickets, which kind of narrowed down the possibilities for a surprise; the ferries go to a lot of places in Sydney Harbour, but not all of them are date-worthy. Twilight at Taronga Park Zoo was my guess, and that was fine with me; the red pumps only had a two-inch heel so I could manage a bit of walking, and walking meant holding hands, and stopping at exhibits meant touching, maybe some hugging. Hopefully not too much kissing though; my lips still hurt from the night before.

"C'mon, let's go get coffee," he said, tucking the tickets into his pocket and taking my hand again. We walked around the quay-side to the Opera House, stopping for take-away coffee along the way, which we then carried up to foot of the steps.

"Do you want to sit down here?" he offered.

"Um ... this skirt isn't ideal for sitting on the ground," I said, wondering how many tourists' cameras would appear if I began flashing my pussy to the entire Sydney Opera House forecourt. "It's a bit... ," I didn't finish the sentence; I just held the hem out on both sides, demonstrating how short and open it was.

"Mmmm," he mused thoughtfully, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips. "It could have been worse."

"How?" I asked, sensing a joke.

"You could have forgotten to wear panties," he laughed.

Blush! Oh my goodness, I was burning up.

"I didn't forget," I said, gathering my courage. "I didn't wear any deliberately."

That silenced him. I wonder what he'll be thinking about for the rest of the afternoon now!

"Let's go stand at the railing," I suggested.

We walked out onto Bennelong Point and watched the ferries come and go under the Harbour Bridge; leaning against the railing and sipping coffee while the breeze nipped at the hem of my skirt, threatening to expose my bottom. I put an arm around Kevin's waist and pulled close so that our hips were touching. He turned to look at me, his eyes dark shadows behind his sunglasses, and I craned my neck up to give him a coffee-flavoured kiss; just a soft one, lips only.

Kevin put his arm around me; his fingers resting lightly on the curve of my waist and his thumb a scant couple of inches beneath the support of my bra. Suddenly I wanted that hand to head north; I was glad we didn't get more intimate the previous night, but now – after all of that talk of first-time sex with Belinda – I was curious, and I was so ready.

He kissed me back, more deeply and insistently.

"Ow!" I pulled back, just an inch. "I'm still sore. From last night. Pash-rash" I smiled, indicating the skin around my lips and my chin, still heavily made up.

"Oh!" he said, the disappointment obvious. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," I said, and then smiled. "Well, not entirely, anyway. You just have to be gentle with me." I gave him another kiss; soft, dry, lips only. "Like that," I whispered, our noses still touching.

He kissed back again, more gently this time. "Is that better?"

"A bit," I said. "Maybe you need to practice. Here, hold this." I gave him my coffee cup and now, with his hands full, I turned him to face me and embraced him with both arms, pecking at his lips with short, gentle kisses while I explored the contours of his back, following the lean lines of muscle under his shoulder-blades, down over his kidneys, and finally sliding my fingers into the back pockets of his jeans, feeling the shape of his backside until he tensed the muscles deliciously beneath my fingertips.

"That's not fair," he murmured through my kisses, his hands full and using his forearms to hug me ineffectually around my bra-strap, yet still managing to press by breasts deliciously into his chest.

"Let's walk back through the gardens," I said, letting him go and taking my cup back. We crossed the forecourt again towards Farm Cove and through the gates into the Royal Botanic Gardens, where we binned the coffee cups and took the steps up to the low bluff that overlooks the Sydney Opera House. There's lots of little paths and thick, shady trees and not so many tourists, so it feels kind of private. We walked slowly with arms around each other; his on my waist and mine in his back-pocket, feeling his backside though the denim. It was slow progress because we stopped at regular intervals to hold and kiss, his hands occasionally straying down to cup my bottom, making me wonder whether he was checking for a panty-line that wasn't there.

Back at Circular Quay, Kevin led me to what might be Australia's most recognisable water-craft: the Manly Ferry. So much for a surprise. I wasn't disappointed though, I like Manly; nice cafes and restaurants, nice beaches, and the ferry ride is romantic – it's quaint and old-fashioned like a vintage train ride.

We went straight to the seats by the port-side railing on the upper deck where we could sit in the sunshine and look out at the Harbour Bridge. A few minutes later the ferry got underway, the massive engines turning Wharf 3 into a vicious, white washing machine; and before long we had rounded Bennelong Point and were motoring at something close to full speed, which we found out later is only a stately eighteen knots on the old ferries.

Most of the other passengers were either downstairs or inside and we had the port-side rail to ourselves. Looking out over the fancy North Shore houses, we laughed and joked about which one would be best to live in. Would it have room for our yacht? And what about our vintage car collection? We settled on the one next door to Kirribilli House, just so we could drop in on the Prime Minister and ask to borrow his lawnmower. In other words, we were being immature, but we were having fun nonetheless. The combination of sunshine and laughter had me feeling frisky and holding hands wasn't doing the job for me anymore.

"Oooh, look at that one over there!" I pointed past Kevin, and when he turned around I quickly hopped into his lap with an arm around his neck and folded my bare legs into the seat I had just vacated.

"This is new," he smiled happily.

"My seat was uncomfortable," I said, kissing him. "But this is better."

Conversation suffered after that. I undid one of the buttons of his shirt and slid my hand in to stroke his chest; combing my fingers through the hairs while his hand gradually grew bolder (and my seat grew lumpier!) as he first cupped my bottom over the skirt and then slid it beneath the hem to explore my smooth upper thigh. By the time the ferry crossed into North Harbour my lipstick was mostly on Kevin, and his other hand – ostensibly supporting my back – had migrated upwards to measure the modest swell of my breast through the bra cup. It surprised me not-at-all that Belinda was completely right about the unsatisfying nature of being felt-up through a bra.

"I need to freshen up my lipstick," I said as the ferry decelerated coming into Manly Cove.

"How's mine?" Kevin asked, leaning back to let me look at his lips.

"Smeared," I laughed, wiping off the worst of it with my thumb. "You could use a touch-up."

"You go ahead. I'll mind the seats," he said enigmatically, although his reluctance to get up might be informed by the bulge in his jeans that I had been wriggling around on, trying unsuccessfully to seat it between my legs where it seemed to belong.

Walking off to the toilet, I knew that Kevin was watching my bottom so I took longer strides to make the skirt bounce and swish, but it had the unexpected side-effect of making my engorged pussy lips rub together with wet friction, sending a shiver of desire through me that raised goose-bumps all over my body. As I fixed my lipstick in the mirror, I noticed the flushed cheeks, the dilated pupils, the hard nipples poking through my bra and felt the burning warmth between my thighs; and I wondered whether I was going to make it all the way through this date, or maybe I should just rent a hotel room in Manly and get Kevin to finish me off then and there.

Dinner was sweet and romantic in its simplicity. We walked across the neck of land between Manly Cove on the harbour side to Manly Beach on the Pacific Ocean, and found a bottle-O – where we bought a bottle of South Australian champagne (oops, je suis désolé France, I mean Sparkling White Wine) – and a discount shop where we picked up two plastic champagne flutes for a dollar each. With drinks sorted, we ordered a seafood basket from a take-away fish shop and took it across the road to eat and drink and watch the waves as the sun went down behind us.

Like a couple of idiots, we replayed the Lady and The Tramp spaghetti scene with a crumbed calamari ring, nibbling into the middle and then stealing a greasy kiss and laughing when our lips met. As the darkness slowly deepened and the bottle slowly emptied, our sense of privacy and intimacy grew out of proportion to the situation, which was essentially a very public – though sparsely populated – city beach.