Chapter 3

The following Wednesday I got the phone call at work.

“Rod, I want to see you. Tonight.” The tone was short and belligerent.

“You know where I live.”

“Not there, neutral ground.”

“Where then?”

“The usual pub.”

“OK, eight thirty.”

He disconnected.

I got there first and bought my pint of bitter, but did not buy him a pint, not knowing if he was driving.

I had finished my first when he arrived half an hour late. He was going to get a taxi home, so I got him a pint for himself and another for me. The pub was quite empty, Wednesday being a slack evening, so we were able to sit by ourselves a good distance from anyone else.

There was no general chat; he got straight down to it.

“Rachel and I have had a chat about you, and we’ve decided to call your meetings to a halt.”

I found his use of pronouns interesting after my conversation with Rachel, but I nodded, saying nothing. There was nothing to say on my part, though Gary obviously felt the need to say more.

“She never really wanted to do this with you.”

Now he understands, I thought.

“Neither did I,” I replied. “This was your idea. I seem to rememb–”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t want it!” he growled. “You’ve been fucking her for weeks. I know how good she is. You did want it.”

“We told you at the beginning that I did not want to do it and neither did she, for the damage it might do to your marriage. Obviously I’ve enjoyed my meetings with her since, and so has she!” I had to get that dig in. “But it was you that wanted it. It would never have happened if you–”

“Yes, I know,” he interrupted, testily. “I wanted the experience. Well, I had it, and enjoyed it until you started wanting her to stay longer and longer.”

I wasn’t gong to let that distortion of the truth stand.

“Gary,” I snapped, “No one wanted any of this but you. You are the cause of this. Don’t try loading any of this on me. If she asked me to stay longer, do more, I agreed. If she wanted to go home, I took her home. She called the shots, and I assumed so did you. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t had your perverted little fetish.”

I drew breath and then carried on, having grown angry. “You want to stop Rachel seeing me? Fine. I really don’t care. You’re the one with his knickers in a twist. You had a perfectly happy marriage. You still have a beautiful and loving wife and you bugger it all up and for what? Some batty cuckold theory; more excitement for you, you selfish prick.

“So if she enjoyed our time together, and wanted to stay longer, what of it? Isn’t she entitled to that? You were getting your rocks off on it, why not her? Why not me? I’m telling you I don’t care what the pair of you do from here on.

“Tell you what, why don’t you just fuck off and keep out of my life from now on. You’re nothing but trouble. I don’t need this.”

I stood, drained my pot and left him sitting there. I walked home briskly and put the whole thing out of my mind.

Who was I kidding? I seethed all the way home, which accounted for the briskness of the walk, and all the rest of the evening. I’m still not clear at whom I was directing my anger, or why I was angry at all. I think it was the feeling that I’d been used, cast aside and then blamed for the whole thing. It wasn’t clear to me which of the two of them had used me more!

Really who was I kidding? It was the loss of Rachel as a companion and her obvious growing affection for me. My affection for her was already fully grown!

However, that wasn’t the time for rational thought, so I conveniently forgot that I invited Rachel to all the ‘events’ to which I took her.

That triggered the memory of the last parting with Rachel. She would miss me? She asked me to kiss her, and that kiss was not a kiss between friends but lovers, but we were not lovers – or were we? Whatever it was, it was wrong. As an advert used to say as its strap line, it was ‘Naughty but Nice’.

Rachel and I had talked and talked, we had shared experiences of a wide and deep nature. We held hands, walked arm in arm, and of course there were those kisses that promised but could never deliver. Can you be lovers without sex? Were we in fact more lovers than many who only seek sex with each other? Interesting questions. I did not want to look into it too deeply for an answer: I felt guilty enough already.

Well, I was not about to go pining after that particular lady love. Move on; it had been a very pleasurable interlude, but now time to get on with my life. Let’s face it, I was used to that: the really beautiful, stunning girls never put out for me and never would.

So it was back to work in earnest, having loosened my grip and my concentration a little to entertain Rachel, and back to flirting with girls in clubs and those from other companies with whom we had dealings or socialised.

Yes, I did take out my frustration on the willing and appreciative bodies of one or two pretty women. They howled out their climaxes so it was obviously not one-sided. They seemed to leave the flat happy and with ‘that look’ next day.

Two months went by and autumn was on the distant horizon. I think it was the first week in August, a Saturday.

Deirdre, was a well built blonde with whom I had seemed to hit it off, and who was with some staff from one of two other companies at a meet at the local pub. She had been willing to return to my place the night before. We got to sleep early in the morning. She had been athletic and voracious, very affectionate and indeed insatiable. And naked. Just how I like ‘em!

I awoke with my chest pressed against her formidable twin assets, and with my hand over a soft, generous and pliable buttock. Needless to say I was hard and it pressed against her stomach.

She stirred, opened one eye and gasped, “Oh no! Not again!”

However, her lustful look, her roving hands over my bottom and her enthusiastic grasp of my willing and urgent penis belied her comment, and we fell into a clinch where she enfolded my cock within her lithe thighs, pressing me into her furrow and working gently to and fro.

“Oh yes!” came from her lips. This (I mean my penis) could only go one way, I thought excitedly.

I thought wrongly as it happened.

At the thrusting moment of entry there came a long ring at my doorbell. Perhaps it would go away, I thought as I moved keenly to enter her further.

The bell did not stop ringing. I withdrew the inch and a half I had progressed.

“Fuck!” mouthed Deirdre.

“‘Fraid not!” I said, getting out of bed, my prick waving in the air as I donned a dressing gown over my naked body, and went to the intercom.

“Yes?”

Sobbing.

“Who?”

“Oh, Roddy!“ came the anguished cry.

It was Cassandra, my ‘little’ sister. I pressed the button and heard her clattering up the stairs. I opened the flat door. She didn’t like lifts.

“Cassie, what the–”

“He’s dumped me! This morning!” she wept. “Said he’d fallen out of love. We needed to move on with our lives. The Bastard!”

She swept past me into the kitchen, where she put the kettle to boil – a practical girl even in grief, our Cassie.

“I need tea!” she explained, “and breakfast. And help to move my stuff out of the bastard’s flat.”

This was not an unusual occurrence. Cassie had an unerring knack of picking handsome wastrels, users and liars. With her good looks I often wondered why she could not do better, be a little more selective.

That was not the moment to deliver a little sermon on her deplorable lack of taste in men. I went to make the tea, while she sat at the kitchen table, sniffing.

“Tissues on the side there,” I said, pouring the boiling water into the teapot. Then I went back to Deirdre while it brewed.

She had put on her micro skirt and tee shirt, without underwear as far as I could see, and that was pretty far.

“Who?” she asked diffidently. “Girlfriend?”

“Sister,” I replied. “Cassie. Got dumped this morning.”

“Oh, poor little kid!” she said.

This was amusing, since Cassie was twenty two, and Deirdre about twenty three. My bed partner didn’t wait for correction, but sallied forth to the kitchen to administer woman to woman solace.

By the time I was shaved and dressed, the two of them were deep into some sort of female therapy involving a good deal of slating the male half of the race. Apparently we were ‘all the same’ and ‘bastards’, and they were ‘better off without us’. I shrugged and made them toast for breakfast.

Over the simple meal the two chatted about their love-lorn lives and I kept quiet, refilling their mugs and providing more toast until they were both satisfied.

“R-o-ddy?” Cassie said in that wheedling tone I knew so well.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Can I stay with you for a while? I don’t want to go back to my flat. I need company.”

“Of course. You know my place is yours whenever you want to stay.”

“Thanks.” She came over and kissed me, smiling with gratitude.

Cassie was no trouble, and in other circumstances was always fun to have around. She more than pulled her weight round the flat and was a superb cook, which talent she always insisted on using to the full.

So I went shopping for food and household goods, while Deirdre went with Cassie to Colin’s flat to collect her things. Cassie had phoned in advance and Colin said he would be there.

“What a prat!” exclaimed Deirdre, when they returned and Cassie was in her room unpacking. “Stared at my legs the whole time he was talking to Cassie. I told her she was well rid of him – pervert.”

“Dee,” I chided her, “in a skirt that short, and with your legs, no conscious male is going to be looking anywhere else! You did put your knickers on before you went, didn’t you?”

She giggled and flipped her skirt to show her delightful nakedness, “I hate wearing yesterday’s knickers,” she explained. I had a fleeting thought that it was most unfair that Colin should have been so lucky after what he did to Cassie.

Then Deirdre took her leave, giving Cassie a hug, and me a prolonged hug complete with a smouldering kiss before going on her way, throwing the comment over her shoulder that ‘we must do this again sometime’.

I agreed, she really was a lot of fun.

“She your latest?” asked Cassie, coming into the hallway.

“Just a friend,” I said.

“Yeah, and then some!” scoffed Cassie. She obviously felt a lot better already, not surprising really: she had a lot of practice getting over being dumped. “She’s nice,” she added.

I said nothing.

So began three weeks of house sharing with my sister. She was very good, doing more than she needed: cooking meals, bringing me tea in the morning, even doing my washing!

In return I took her out at least once a week. We went to a gig by a band she liked and another time took in a play and a concert. I remembered how alike our tastes are – she is very musical and is an accomplished pianist.

Towards the end of the three weeks, life took another unpredictable turn: three signifiant events though I did not see them as such at the time they occurred.

The first was on a Thursday at the end of August. I had arrived home after work to find Cassie already cooking something with an Italian aroma – oregano figured, and garlic, and did I detect bacon or ham?

“Smells great!” I greeted her.

“Carbonara,” she said.

I went to get changed and showered, and returned on her call that dinner was ready.

“Visitor this afternoon just before you arrived,” she said.

“Mm?” I responded, deeply into the creamy tagliatelle dish; she really is a great cook!

“Some woman,” she said. “One of your ‘friends’ perhaps? Looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her. She obviously didn’t know me.”

“Oh?” I replied, looking up from my meal as an invitation for her to continue.

“She looked surprised to see me, then said she had wanted a chat with you, but that it didn’t really matter; not that important. Then she turned and walked away.”

“Didn’t leave her name?”

“No. Brown hair, very pretty face, slim, nice well tailored coat, really good legs. Business suit underneath the coat, I think.”

It didn’t ring any bells, as I mentally trawled through ‘women I have known (carnally)’.

“Well, if she really wants to talk, she can phone or come back,” I said.

The matter dropped, we went on to other things.

The second event seems unconnected, but I think it affected my state of mind later in the year, due to the stress it brought me. The CEO, Declan Briggs, called me to the office and introduced a woman who exuded power and dress sense, Deborah Wheeler by name, and a big wheel in a large transport company (pun intended, more to follow), Transit International UK Ltd.

“Call me Deborah,” she said shaking hands. I told her to call me Rod. Seemed a fair exchange, big wheel engaging with smaller cog, or even a connecting Rod (told you).

“We have a problem, Rod,” she said, “and you were recommended to us after some work you did for Pilbream Brothers, which Ann Roberts assures me was quite brilliant.” It transpired that Mz Roberts was their IT guru.

She then outlined what they needed. There were two arms to their company, an import/export arm and a goods transport arm with a fleet of trucks mainly operating in the British Isles.

They had software which kept tabs on goods being moved in and out of the country from origin to destination, and also purported to control all aspects of the trucking arm as well.