Chapter 28

I went to work. I pottered for much of the morning, and after lunch I phoned Viv and told her in no uncertain terms that I was thoroughly sick of her meddling in my life and that I did not want to see her in the near future. She began her usual 'only trying to help' and her espousal of Ann as my obvious partner now that Jenny was not on the scene. I hung up.

I phoned David, telling him what I said, why I said it, and her response.

"O hell!" he exclaimed. "I try to stop her but she insists on trying to help people along the way she thinks they ought to travel when they just need to be left alone. I take it we are OK for Friday, meeting of the four?"

"Yes. Nothing against you, old friend. Any luck with Stephanie Fanshaw's address?"

"Not as yet but I'll have it by Friday. Jenny told you about the high jinks last week?"

"I heard. Do you understand Ann's actions? I don't."

"No," he said. "She certainly isn't going about it the right way if she wants you to try again with her."

He paused. "Is this prohibition thing with Viv permanent?"

"Of course not!" I laughed. "But she's got to learn that I live my own life and I resent deeply her attempts, successful in this case, to take my girl-friends away from me."

"So Jenny's going with Peter?"

"Yep!"

"How d'you feel about that?"

"Haven't had time to think about it, but we've only been together for about two months and it was always on the cards. It's been good. Now it's drawing to a close."

"Sorry Allan."

"Don't be. I've had two fabulous girls who've helped me over the worst of my disabilities, not least my own self-confidence. Now it'll do me good to spend some time on my own."

I must have sounded upbeat. I didn't feel that way. There would be time to think back over the past year, and there was going to be the problem of Jenny in the office. How would we cope working together when she started going with Peter?

When I got home to the flat, Jenny was already there cooking our evening meal, some wonderful Italian thing. Afterwards we sat together on the sofa.

"OK, I suppose," she said in response to my question about her day. "I fought the temptation to put 'Blackmailer and Rapist' under 'Occupation' on the death certificate." She laughed.

"You're really free of him and his effect on you, aren't you?"

"Thanks to you, my love." She said and took my arm, snuggling into me.

"And free now to begin a new relationship on your terms," I stated quietly and peacefully.

She was silent.

"You are, you know," I persisted.

"I'm afraid," she said. I waited.

"With you I know I'm safe, but Peter..."

"Jenny, my love," I whispered, "You know what everyone says about him and you've sat and talked with him. He's made moves on you so he's got some hot blood under that shy exterior. You know the saying, 'a ship is safe in harbour, but that's not what it's for'."

"But will it work?"

"Good heavens, girl, no one knows that at the beginning. You work at it. You know that."

"What about Ann?"

"What about her?" I asked ingenuously.

"Well, you and she–"

"No chance. At least not for the foreseeable future."

"But Viv said–"

"Yes, Viv said that if you left me, I'd go back to Ann. As you said, Viv is a meddler and she's wrong. She's been working to get you away from me for weeks. She's succeeded."

There was a silence.

"As I said before," I said patiently. "Just because she's manipulated you doesn't mean Peter isn't right for you."

"OK," She said, suddenly sounding at ease. She was always like that, once her mind was made up previous misgivings were abolished.

We kissed, lightly and lovingly, looking into each other's eyes and seeing only love. We kissed again and this time her eyes closed, and shortly afterwards so did mine. There was no hurry and the urgency of our stroking and caresses was allowed to build and decrease gradually, with pauses in between when we simply sat entwined around each other. Soon I was lying on the sofa and she was leaning over me.

She sat up and grasping the hem of her tee-shirt gradually lifted the garment off and over her head. There is a moment in such an action when the woman's face is buried inside the shirt and her body is on show. She cannot see anything and it makes her feel sexy and at the same time vulnerable. She left it like that for a moment or two, as if to show her absolute trust, before lifting it clear and dropping it on the floor. She was smiling. She knew what she had done and what she was about to do.

The bra was pale lime green lace, pushing up her cleavage. I stared and she looked smug as she caught the direction of my gaze. She stood and I sat up. She undid the clasp on her slacks and slowly pushed down the zip. The slacks made their journey to the floor, to reveal matching lime green lace shorts. She picked up the slacks and, turning away, folded them and placed them on the chair, quite conscious that she was showing the lower part of her bottom, the cheeks peeping from beneath the lace, and her cleft tantalisingly half-hidden by such flimsy fabric.

I made as if to stand but she pushed me down, kneeling before me and slowly opening my shirt one button at the time. She was smiling, pushing the garment off my shoulders and tracing her fingers over my chest, caressing my scars as she loved to do.

Then she unzipped my trousers, fishing out my hard cock through the slit in my boxers. I raised my hips so she could take both off, which she did. She pulled me to the edge of the sofa and pushing my legs apart, coming between them and bending forward to take my hardness into her mouth.

She had a strong gag reflex and so never took me completely into her mouth but the combination of mouth and hands was always enough for me. Her tongue did its magic on the underside of my cock's head; her mouth, closing over the head and gently squeezing it against the roof of her mouth made me sigh with pleasure while her fingers delved between my thighs and stroked with the lightest of touches my anus and perineum. My eyes were filled with the view of her almost covered upward thrusting breasts as she pulled her mouth almost off my cock, and of her wonderful back with the deep valley of her spine, as she sank back onto it.

It did not take me long.

"I'm coming," I groaned. It made no difference. She continued nodding her head over my organ with unchanging regularity until I cried out with the intensity of it, and ejaculated into her mouth.

Knowing how sensitive I immediately become after orgasm she softened her grip on the head of my cock, allowing her mouth to become slack and some of my semen to escape. She swallowed, and licked round her mouth.

She sat back on her haunches, looking smug. I smiled a smile of replete satisfaction and then she leant forward and rested her cheek on my thigh, playing with my wilting cock, while I stroked her hair and her back, enjoying the sight of its nakedness and her barely clothed buttocks, and the feel of her pert breasts still enclosed in the bra. She looked and felt more naked than if she had shed them earlier.

At length I stirred. "My turn," I suggested.

"You had your turn last night," she murmured against my thigh.

"By hand. I have other plans now."

"Your friend down here is asleep."

"I still have plans," and I moved her.

"On the sofa," I said and arranged her on its edge, with me this time on the floor, my face level with her crotch. I slipped my hands each side of her knickers and gently began to pull downwards; she lifted herself to help me.

Pulling down a woman's panties is an intensely erotic act. It opens her up to be taken sexually, and by agreeing to remove them, she agrees implicitly to have her inner self penetrated by her partner. So it is best done slowly and relished by both partners.

I felt the fabric resisting and then acquiescing to my insistence, and then the gradual revelation of her pudenda, that secret place where only true lovers should be admitted. The movement continued down over her thighs, her eyes closing as she felt them leaving her unprotected and displayed. Then they were gone.

I knew Jenny loved to be teased, and spread her legs wide as she lay back, her vulva over the edge of the sofa. Now I had the leisure and was in a relaxed position to pleasure her all night if necessary. So fingers, palms, lips, teeth and tongue were all brought into play as I tantalisingly licked and nibbled the outer lips of her sex, while fingers strayed so lightly over her anus, her perineum and the horizontal creases of her bottom.

She knew the routine, and kept as still as she could, the longer to enjoy those sensations. She knew that eventually she would lose control and begin to undulate those hips in an invitation to go within the folds of her beautiful sex. There were sighs and little high-pitched sounds and indeed before long she began to move.

I spread her outer lips with fingers, allowing my tongue to travel so slowly over her inner lips, up and down each side. Any lover pleasuring a woman knows to avoid the clitoris as long as possible, and knows also not to plunder her vagina with rough fingers until it is quite clear she is begging wordlessly to be thus invaded. So the tongue's journey was along the inner and outer lips, and perineum to her anus and back, occasionally brushing the centre but lifting before reaching the clit or her hole.

Soon her hips were moving urgently. She knew better than to try to push my head into her furrow. I would immediately stop until she removed her hands. But I knew and she knew that there would come a moment when she wouldn't be able to stop herself.

She touched my head, the lightest touch. I stopped.

"Please!" she groaned, "Please Allan!"

I began what she knew would be my tongue's first touch on her clit. I began at her anus, while reaching a hand up to her breasts, only to find she was there before me, and was mauling them herself. Now she was completely out of control, grunting and moaning and writhing. My tongue crept more and more slowly, until I reached the spot I where I could feel the root of her little organ, when I stopped.

"Argh!" she cried in abject frustration. I swept over it. She came with a howl, bucking and crying out. Another sweep and another violent reaction. Then gently two fingers into her wide-open tunnel.

At this her hands were pulling me upwards. I was hard again. She grabbed my buttocks and pulled me towards her. I lifted her legs over my shoulders and her fingers grasped my tool, guiding it to the opening and then pulling me into her. Now was the time to thrust hard and fast, my balls bouncing against her buttocks. She grunted and groaned her encouragement, wanting it harder and faster until she began to cry out as a second orgasm took her.

"Keep going damn you! Don't stop!" So I teased her by stopping in mid thrust, "Please don't DO that!" as she pushed herself up and down to keep me going. I obliged until she once again crested and gradually began to come down. I had not come.

"Let me lie down," she said, and I disengaged. She lay on the sofa and opened her legs wide for me, one against the sofa back and the other dangling onto the floor.

"Do me gently." She said languidly, and I pushed into her. She smiled as I gently stroked in her for some minutes.

"OK, my love," she whispered, "Get yourself off."

I speeded up but kept it gentle. As I felt my orgasm arriving, I slowed and let it subside, then brought myself to the edge again, before backing off. A look of mischief flashed across her face, as she realised what I was doing, and saw how near I was. She tried some thrusting of her own, which I dampened allowing my full weight to rest on her. She capitulated, smiling and lying still.

But I couldn't hold out and began to work harder, making deeper and deeper strokes until I was over the edge and into that wordless imageless ecstasy, totally lost to the world.

Except that soon I could hear her.

"Keep going!" she cried urgently, so I did my best and she came again. Not mind-blowing but comfortable she told me later.

So at that we both relaxed, feeling exhausted. She moved over to the edge, allowing me to lie down on my back and enfold her in my arms. She picked up the radio remote and found some quiet music. There was nothing to say. Life was perfect at that moment, that half-hour, cuddled together.

Strangely, timeless moments end and we had to return to cold reality, as we prepared for the next day, and then sat and drank some wine before going arm in arm to bed. Did we make love again? You must be joking! I was forty odd years old, and no super-stud. Jenny assured me she was sated; so in bed it was some time in each other's arms with some kisses and gentle stroking, then sleep.

At breakfast she looked a little edgy. I thought I knew what it was.

"Seeing Peter tonight?" I hazarded. She looked startled.

"Yes, do you mind?"

"After all we said? Of course I don't mind. Go for it!"

She looked relieved, "I thought after last night..."

"You'll need to train him, you know. You owe those orgasms last night to Trish's training!"

"God bless Trish!" she said, laughing.

All the tension was gone and, I thought, so was Jenny. I felt at peace. I was doing the right thing.

If the tension was gone with Jenny, it soon returned with Ann.

"Are you going to Ann's tonight?" A casual question from Jenny in the office mid-morning.

"Oh God!" I blasphemed. "I said I'd ring to arrange this week."

"Well, you'd better get to it," she retorted. I put my tongue out at her, and she laughed, but I did as I was told.

I rang Ann at work and arranged to go for the evening meal on the next three days.

However, after I put the phone down the memory of Keith's report and his comments on it returned. The woman was impossible. There was no way I could trust her. I needed time to see Stephanie and get some facts.

So I arrived on Tuesday in good time for our evening meal which here in the North of England we call 'tea'. In the South they call it 'dinner' or 'supper'.

I parked the car and was making my way to the front door when I saw old Mrs Gregory looking over the fence. We exchanged greetings.

"I'm so glad your family is back here again," she said in her quavering voice, "and even more glad that you have returned, though it's terrible what you've been through."

I didn't enlighten her that we were not quite as together as a family as she thought, and she continued chatting on, my stomach rumbling with hunger,

"Bill and I used to say you could set your clock by the family's coming and going. You leaving early, the children off to school, and then Ann's brother, or was it cousin, visiting during the day. It's nice to see everyone coming and going again though we haven't seen him since you all got back, but of course Ann's working now."

I was puzzled by her remarks.

"Her brother you say?" I asked.

"Or her cousin, he had that huge car."

Now I was really puzzled. Peter had a small car, he always said he didn't need a family size car, not having a family. I did not know of any male cousins.

"Did he visit often?" I asked. "You understand I don't have a very good memory."

"Oh, usually once or twice a week. My! It's getting on for four years ago, isn't it? He was very good, it must have been before Ann started work, when she was at home with the children. Mind you, they were all at school then."

I collected myself rapidly. "D'you think Bill would remember what type of car her cousin drove? I can't place which one it would be." I was praying she wouldn't suggest I ask Ann.

"Won't be a minute." She said and wandered into the house. She was back in no time.

"He says it was a Bentley, high end of the range he thought, whatever that means."

"Thanks, Mrs Gregory," I said, "I think I know who it was now."

"Bill said he was back yesterday, but in a different car, a black BMW? He didn't stay long."

"Oh great," I said. "It's good to know he looks after her."

My feelings were quite the opposite. I would need to think about that. The cars belonged to Derek. Another piece of the jigsaw that was Ann's behaviour before my 'accident'.

As it happened the children made conversation of any depth between us impossible on all three days I went for tea, the exception being Tuesday when she got me to agree to our first meeting at the flat on the following Sunday.

The only conversations we managed were as follows.

On Tuesday:

"How's Jenny?" She asked.

"Fine. She's out with Peter tonight."

"Oh." A smile of satisfaction.

On Wednesday:

"Things sorted out with Peter?" She asked, after Peter left after talking with me.

"Yes."

"Oh." A questioning look.

On Thursday:

"Seeing Jenny tonight?" She asked.

"Yes," I answered, monotone, but I think my look gave me away.

"Oh." A look I could interpret as sympathetic.

The reason for the question on Wednesday, was that Peter arrived after tea and wanted a word with me. He was not happy. I took him into the Computer room.

"So what is this about?" I asked by way of beginning.

"Don't you think it's time you let Jenny go?" he asked, quite aggressively I thought.

"I wasn't aware she was imprisoned," I answered.

"Don't be flippant Allan, you know what I mean," he said with a frown.

"Peter, she's a free, independent woman. She does what she wants. If she wants to leave me she's free to so."