Chapter 27: The Paul Robertson Experience

She didn’t change her mind. In fact, I couldn’t even get her to wait the whole two weeks until the end of the exams. She wanted her Paul Robertson Experience, and she wanted it now. Or at least, as soon as it was feasible. She even went to the trouble of contacting Amanda and booking the Saturday night in the middle of the exams. I got a text from Amanda shortly after.

Does this mean you’re back in the game? Can I tell the girls and draw up a timetable?

I sent her a one-word reply. You can guess what it was. Her reply to that?

Spoilsport. Maybe in September, huh?

I didn’t bother replying to that one.

The first week of exams went by without a hitch. Sure, they were difficult, but I’m pretty sure I did well enough. Imogen seemed pretty confident too. I couldn’t read Mark at all. Vanessa, though ... She was full of the joys of spring, and I don’t think it had anything to do with her exam performance.

Mark, Imogen, Vanessa and I spent a quiet Friday evening in front of the television and after a good night’s sleep free of the worry of any more exams for a couple of days, I woke early on Saturday and went for breakfast at Jak’s while the rest of my housemates were still asleep. I didn’t often go by myself and I couldn’t help notice Marie’s raised eyebrow when I entered and took a seat at my usual table.

She came over after she’d finished with the current customer and said, “Usual?” There was a hint of a smile on her lips. But just a hint.

“If you mean a Full English, then yes, please. And coffee.”

Her smile widened just a touch. “What else do you ever order? I’ll bring the coffee right over, food will be about five to ten, okay?”

I nodded and as she walked away I took my tablet out of my bag and opened a daily news app. She returned a few moments later with a cup of the good stuff.

“It’s Paul, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. And you’re Marie.”

She chuckled. “Aren’t the introductions supposed to be the other way around?”

“I suppose. But aren’t the introductions supposed to happen shortly after meeting and not a couple of months later?”

“Touché.” She smiled. I mean properly smiled this time. And what a smile. “You must think I’m a right miserable bitch.”

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that about anyone.”

“Yeah, right. Well, if you haven’t, I bet your girlfriend has.”

I frowned. Vanessa didn’t often come in with me and even so, it wasn’t like her to be so judgemental. Why would Marie think...? Then it dawned on me.

“You mean Imogen?”

“The pretty redhead you’re always with? She’s your girlfriend, right?”

“Actually, no. She’s not.”

“Oh. Right. Okay. I just assumed...” She was smiling again. And she sounded brighter than she usually did. Mind you, that wasn’t hard. She usually sounded like a miserable bitch. “Anyway, Mom said that I’m to tell you that since you’re such a good customer, the coffee is on the house from now on. And free refills. As much as you can drink.”

“Your mom just wants me to sit here for longer so I order more food.”

“Will it work?”

“In the mornings? Probably not. You know, lectures and stuff. And this summer I’ll have to get to the office—”

“Office?”

“I’ve got work experience at a solicitor’s office in town.”

“Oh, right. Mom said you were doing law. I thought about law, but I don’t think I could ever get my head around it properly.” She looked around the room and when she saw no new customers were waiting to order, sat opposite me. “I think I’d like to try accounting. I’m good with numbers you see. But I stuffed up my A-levels and I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance now.”

“I thought you were re-sitting them.”

“I am, but ... You know. I still failed the first time and when they hear that—”

“Then don’t tell them. Whoever them is.”

“But ... You can’t do that, can you?”

I shrugged. “It’s your CV. You can put on what you want and leave out what you want.”

She cocked her head to the side. “I never thought of it like that.” There was a distant look in her eyes for a moment before she said, “Mom said ... She said you might know someone who might be able to—”

“Marie! Service.” Jak called from the kitchen.

Marie rolled her eyes. “Guess that’ll be your breakfast.”

She got up to walk away and I said, “Marie?” She stopped, twisted her upper body around and looked at me. “It was nice talking to you.”

She nodded. “Nice talking to you too.”

After breakfast, I went back to the house to find everyone up and about. Well, I say that but actually, Mark was in the kitchen eating toast in his pyjamas while Imogen and Vanessa were getting ready to go out.

“I need to get some things for tonight,” Vanessa said.

“And you need her help?” I said nodding towards Imogen, which earned me another of her stupid question looks.

“We’ll be back after lunch, then we’ll need you to clear out for the afternoon so I can get ready,” Vanessa informed me before she kissed my cheek and left.

“How is it right I’m getting kicked out of my own house this afternoon?” I asked Mark when I went back into the kitchen. He shrugged since he could speak with his mouth full of half a slice of toast.

“Still, looks like we’ve got the place to ourselves for the morning. Shall I fire up the Playstation?”

Having swallowed enough of his mouthful to respond, Mark said, “Hmmph. Dressed, yeah? Five Mins.”

I smirked and said, “Is that five minutes to finish the toast or five minutes to get dressed.”

He swallowed the last of his toast, shot me a dirty look and raced upstairs. Ten minutes later he was dressed and sat next to me on the sofa with a controller in his hands and another slice of toast in his mouth.

The girls arrived back at the house at around one, which I suppose is technically after lunch but Mark and I had been so busy on the Playstation we hadn’t noticed. Besides, we’d been snacking all morning so it’s not like we could rely on our stomachs to tell us it was time to eat. So we texted Jem and agreed to meet up in The Union bar for a couple of pints, some pizza, a few games of pool and a general catch up.

We headed back to the house at six, stopping off on the way at the chippy by Jak’s. The girls appreciated the gesture. Take-away fish and chips before getting ready to go out had become the norm on Friday and Saturday evenings since we had moved in.

Vanessa had already showered and done her makeup but was still dressed in her terry-cloth robe and had her hair wrapped in a towel while we ate. She finished getting ready while I took care of the three ‘s’s—a Shit, a Shower and a Shave.

I was standing in front of the mirror in my room buttoning up the white shirt I’d chosen to match with a new pair of black-on-black jeans when there was a knock on my door, it swung open and Vanessa walked it. And she looked...

“Wow!” I said. “I mean ... Wow!”

She smiled that stunning smile of hers. “You like?” She did a little curtsey then a pirouette to show me all the way around.

“That’s the same...?”

She nodded. “I figured you liked it last time, so...”

“Yeah, I like it.”

It was the same black, mid-thigh length A-line skirt with the large white flower pattern and white top with a black flower pattern that she’d worn to our first non-date back when Amanda was still playing at being my pimp. Even her hair was in the same style—sleek and straight. The only difference was that instead of Flesh coloured tights, her legs were covered with black nylon to match the black high heels.

“I must admit, I’m surprised.”

“Why?”

“You’ve been out all morning. I guess I just assumed you’d bought a new outfit.”

She grinned. “I have.” She closed the distance between us. “I’m wearing it.” Then she stood on tiptoes to whisper in my ear. “It’s underneath.”

Her smile and the twinkle in her eye said all any man needed to know about her intentions for the evening.

Vanessa wanted to try and re-create our first non-date as closely as she could and to that end, we walked into town hand in hand and headed for The Railwayman’s Arms first to share a bowl of cheesy chips—despite having already eaten some chips from the chippy not long before. Vanessa’s argument was two-fold. First, the walk into town gave her an appetite and second there is, or so she said, always room for cheesy chips.

Of course, the problem with recreating the first non-date was that we, or rather she, spent a lot of it doing the whole getting to know you background chatter. But we knew each other’s backgrounds this time. We knew pretty much all there was to know about each other.

Didn’t stop her from chatting incessantly though, but I guess that’s girls for you.

After wolfing down the cheesy chips in what must have been a record time, we headed to The Mariner to meet up with Mark, Imogen, Emily and the girls and our old Wintersmith hall-mates. From there it was off to Porky’s, just like last time.

And just like last time we spent the whole time there very close together—even more so than last time, in fact. Aside from the odd few times one of us had to answer the call of nature, we were pretty much in constant physical contact. When waiting at the bar, we held hands. When dancing, we held hands or pulled each other close up for a bit of bump-n-grind. When we took a break, she sat on my lap, her arms around me. Okay, these sessions sitting weren’t exactly a break—the activity was just as physical as if we had been dancing. For example, during one break around midnight, Vanessa sat across my lap with her tongue firmly lodged in the back of my throat. She had one hand on the back of my head and the other on my cheek. I had one wandering hand stroking her back and the other taking liberties by rubbing up and down the outside of her leg furthest away from me. I rubbed from just above her knee to just underneath her skirt, squeezing at each end before changing direction.

While we locked lips, she ground her backside into my lap, causing a hard-on that had no place to go, confined as it was in my jeans.

In fairness, this particular scenario wasn’t all that unusual for the two of us but that was usually as far as things went. I might grab a handful of boob, but nothing more.

But this wasn’t a usual night.

Vanessa took her hand away from my face, ran it down my arm all the way to the hand stroking her leg. She pulled my hand away and moved it to her other leg. To the inside of her other leg. I started rubbing again, but obviously not quick enough or high enough because she pushed on my arm, forcing my hand higher. Higher. When I felt the lacy tops of her stocking, sighed into my mouth and opened her legs a little wider.

Higher I went, past the stocking-top to the smooth, soft flesh beyond. But even that wasn’t enough for her, and she shoved my hand until I met her silky knickers. Her soaking wet, silky knickers.

She broke our lip-lock, tipped her head up slightly and moaned gently. Then she looked me square in the eyes and said, “Touch me, Paul.” She kissed me hard once more while pushing on my hand. “Touch me properly.”

Who was I to refuse a lady?

I ran my finger up and down the saturated material, tracing her slit beneath. She moaned and once more shoved her tongue into my mouth. Then I pushed the gusset aside and pushed a finger into the sodden furnace of her femininity. It slipped in all the way with ease and she breathed a single word into my mouth. “Yesss!”

I moved my finger in and out of her slowly, not wanting it to be too obvious to those around us what we were doing. Not that any of them would have cared much. There were probably a few other couples up to the same thing. Hell, there might well have been some up to much more.

I was able to reach the sensitive little nub of her clit with my thumb and rubbing it gently while my finger was all the way inside her, made her rock her hips urgently while kissing me even harder.

As her hips rocked, her delightfully tight round bum rubbed against my crotch, ever-strengthening my hard, aching cock, trapped in its denim prison. I knew she could feel it. How could she not? And I sensed this only served to heighten her arousal.

Suddenly she began to tremble. Just a small quake that I could feel as I held her, but I doubt anyone around us would be able to see. She clamped her legs shut, trapping my hand, and even though I could no longer move my fingers back and forth, I could wiggle the two buried inside her and was still able to rub her clit with my thumb, and this, I think, is what prolonged her ecstasy. I don’t know exactly how long she shook, but it felt like one of the longest I’ve ever encountered.

And then she froze. Her whole body went rigid and I swear she stopped breathing for a few seconds at least, before letting out a huge sigh and collapsing against me like a rag doll.

She nuzzled her face into my neck and whimpered. I’m sure she was trying to say something, but with the volume of the music from the speaker not five feet from where we sat, I couldn’t hear a word.

Shortly after that she dragged me back onto the dance floor, even though her legs were clearly still shaky, and we spent what was left of the night dancing. The slow songs started just a few tracks after we hit the floor, and she wrapped her arms around my neck as I wrapped mine around her waist (and rested my hands on her arse, obviously) and we held each other close through every single one.

Well, almost every one.

The fifth slow song was My Wounded Heart. The song that had meant so much to me and Clarissa. The last time that Vanessa and I had danced to this song had been on our first non-date and I’d ended up crying halfway through it.

“Shit,” said Vanessa quietly. So quietly that the only reason I heard her was because her head rested on my shoulder as we danced and this put her mouth was right next to my ear.

“What’s wrong?”

“I deliberately asked him not to play this.”

“Why?”

She pulled her head up off my shoulder to look in my eyes and said, “Isn’t it obvious? I know this song upsets you, that why. The stupid idiot must have misheard me or something and thought I wanted him to play it. I’m sorry, Paul.”

“Don’t be. It’s a great song.”

“But I thought...” Her eyes finished her sentence for her.

I shrugged. “It’s a good song. Whatever it meant to me before, however it might have made me feel before, doesn’t change the fact that it’s a good song.”

“But ... I mean...” She looked confused.

I smiled. “It’ll always remind me of her. How can it not? But I refuse to be haunted by it. I refuse to avoid it and all of Tina’s other songs, just because Clarissa liked it so much. That way lies madness. Believe me, I know.”

She nodded her understanding. “Still ... Want to get out of here? Beat the rush? We could go walking along the seafront again, like we did the first time.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice. And hopefully we won’t get soaked like we did last time.”

She grinned. “As you already know, Paul, I’m already soaked. Just not from the rain.” She stepped back and took my hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

A very light, warm breeze swept in from the sea and made our walk along the promenade very pleasant. We walked from East Pier, all along the seafront to West Pier, where we turned back into the town centre and the mile-long walk up Westmouth Hill Road to home. Vanessa clutched my arm as we walked, holding herself against me. We barely talked. Even though Vanessa had been very talkative on the way down the hill, she seemed more contemplative on the way back up.

It was after one when we got back to the house. I opened the door then put my finger to my lips to tell Vanessa to be quiet as we entered.

She smiled and said, “They’re not here.”

I frowned. “How do you know? We left Porky’s early, but that was ages ago. They could have left any time after us and gotten back first if they took a taxi.”

“Probably. But both Mark and Gen are staying in their old Wintersmith rooms tonight.”