Chapter 6: Sarita in the House

Having left Kari at the bike shop working with James, Sarita dragged me off to the flat. As usual, we picked some water up on the way. We never knew how long we would be staying here, and if we were forced to return we wanted to know there would be safe supply of water in my small flat.

We managed to put the boxes in the tiny camping trailer that we had on loan. I was worried that any more of this and the weak axle of the trailer would break. We agreed to only one full box and a few spare bottles per trip in future.

It occurred to me how fortunate we were in having the garage with such a secluded access. No one had yet noticed our repeated trips. I chuckled at the fact Marcie had hated the very thing that I liked about it, the seclusion of the small building where she had garaged her car.

It was a pair of exhausted water carriers who left both bikes in the hallway of the old house. I locked the front door, taking a few of the bottles upstairs with me to the apartment where I had a couple of rooms on the upper floor. They had been the focus of a very cheap conversion for students many years ago.

None of the other tenants appeared to have been around for a few days as I saw mail that had been delivered for all three of them still lying on the hall table where I had dropped it the previous day.

Sarita started, like any woman, looking around the apartment and immediately found some clean sheets for the double bed. Even though we had no intention of staying, she put the dirty ones in the wash and she reclaimed everything that we had put through the laundry earlier.

These, she threw in the tumbler drier which I shared with Canny in the flat below. He shared the use of my washer. We both used Pieter's vacuum cleaner too.

I didn't tell Sarita that. No way was I going to get roped in to clean the whole place. You know what women are like!

"I'm off for a shower," she announced after finding out where things were. "And you need one too. You can have one after me."

Yeah, you know what women are like!

I'd wait until the water warmed up again. In the meantime, I listened to her issuing orders, "Just reminding you, when it's your turn, don't get any of that water in your mouth. Leave your head and shoulders out of the shower. I'll lower the shower head."

Bossy thing!

I smiled.

She meant well.

She was in there a long time and I knew the water would be running cold by now.

There was a scream. Yep! It had a tendency just to run hot one moment and then freezing cold a second later.

Chuckling, I finished preparing the dumplings. At the bottom of the fruit bowl there was an old wrinkled apple. I chopped the good bits up finely and they went into the suet mixture.

She interrupted me, throwing her head in the direction of an opened case of bottled water, "You reckon we have enough water for me to use some for shampooing my hair?"

I nodded, "Go ahead," as I took the defrosted stew out of the microwave, put the now-mixed dumpling dough in the fridge, and dropped the stew into a hot oven to get to boiling point.

She took a bottle of water and I indicated where the shampoo was kept. "Stupid place," she muttered.

I grinned. Marcie had said the same thing. That was why I kept it there. Perhaps little things like that should have told me Marcie and I were ready for the chop.

I was all but done, putting a jar of pickled onions on the table when she called me into the bathroom.

I backed out again, "Whoaa!" A completely unclothed rear end of a gorgeously brown body met my eyes.

All I could say was, "Sorry."

She was leaning over the sink and hadn't a stitch on. Her skin was a beautiful shade of chocolatey brown. Her bottom was sticking out towards the door with her legs apart and I was VERY aware that if I had looked more closely I'd have seen her slightly-parted vulva.

The shape of her figure was delightful. I was still looking at it, mentally, with the bathroom door slammed back shut. Trying to conjure back up the image of wide hips but a narrow waist, I found it was right what they said about heavy breathers.

I found myself gasping almost aloud. With dirty thoughts.

Her presence was not in my line of sight but like an artist, I could recall vivid details of her buttocks that had a feminine roundness, yet were distinct and pert. Her body, hidden in my loose top and baggy pants had never let on that she was so...

Yep! 'Sexy' was the word.

Had I been working with her all day and not noticed a thing? I took a deep breath in and found myself whistling between my teeth, again, unconsciously.

OK, it crossed my mind that I'd missed a chance there. This girl, in a moment's stupidity had said she would give me a roll in the hay. Just imagine if... ?

I'd never been impressed with the sexual temptation of vertebrae, never thought of the backbone as being arousing, but the little indentations in her back's curve accentuated the smoothness of her outline. Bringing up the never-to-be-forgotten image for the second time again in my mind's eye, what I had seen made me made me inhale again. Deeply!

I was still trying to envision, from my imagination and memory, those charming legs with slim thighs and I'm afraid to say I was mentally comparing her with the nude figures I'd seen on the internet.

She beat them by mile.

Who would have thought it? She had a pretty face; attractive or powerful would be more accurate.

I was trying to recollect what her breasts had looked like.

One had been creased into the rim of the washbasin, to my mind, uncomfortably, when suddenly she let out an almighty scream!

She shouted again. "Get the fuck in here!"

The language was so out of character, I thought her throat was being gouged through with a knife at least. The anticlimax was almost laughable.

"I've got soap in my eyes!"

It didn't seem a terrible affliction until you realised that she couldn't use the water in the tap. I swerved back out and fielded another bottle and was tearing off the seal as I charged back in.

"Now pour the water over my hair."

I did so, trying not to touch her nakedness.

Finally she blinked and lifted her head. I passed the bottle to her outstretched hand. She poured until there was little left, the last drop went over one upturned, bloodshot eye and she started blinking wildly.

"Where are you going?" she asked, almost aggressively.

"I'm leaving you alone here." It went without saying she had on no clothes. "I'm going to sort out the food."

"Am I so ugly that you can't bear to look at me?"

Suddenly she stood hands by her side, naked, willing me to stare at her. "You can't even look at me!"

I'd discovered my voice and expressed the real rationale for my trying to leave her, "The true reason I'm not looking at you is that I'm trying not to be impolite."

"Sorry," she laughed, "I've had a hard day." She sighed, "If I didn't want you to look at me, I'd have put something on."

She took a deep breath. "You can look all you want. You've earned the right." She was quieter now.

I smiled briefly at her eyes, lovely deep brown and large enough to swallow me. I was almost drawn into them, floundering. My eyes, my feelings, emotions, took in her slightly parted lips.

It was all I could to keep my eyes from being submerged into hers as my sight fell lower to evade being encompassed by them. I saw a hesitant expression there but let my gaze glance down over her upturned breasts and lower to her flat tummy.

"You are pretty." My voice quavered. What an understatement!

"I can see you think so." Cheekily, she drew my attention to below my waist.

Oh damn! My jeans looked as if there was an escapee trying to get out of the waistband. I looked up.

"That answers one question," she said almost to herself.

"Er?"

"You have been so polite all day; I asked myself if you batted for the other side?"

"Er?"

"I'm relieved to see you're not gay."

Was all this to ascertain if I were a heterosexual?

Did she want me to look at her, really? "But you're embarrassed with me staring at you."

"You are certainly not staring, mesmerised perhaps, but not gawking at me. And no, I'm not used to showing people what I look like. I'm more used to students, doctors and patients coming on to me all the time, that's why I tend to dress down."

"You're certainly dressed down now!"

"You like?" She spun around, slowly, very s-l-o-w-l-y!

I liked!

"That's for later." With those words, she dramatically picked up a tee shirt, one of mine, and dropped it over her head.

What a pity.

She confused me.

Examining the tee shirt's wording, I recalled it was from the 2003 Wild Bull's quiz finals. I have no idea where I got it, a cheap offload at the market probably. It looked the best it had ever looked on her. I'd remember that tee shirt.

She shook her head from side to side. "There's no sign on this says you can't touch the produce though."

I wanted to grab the produce and run my hands all over it but that wasn't me. That was probably why she was offering. She was safe teasing me. A and she knew it.

After clearing my stuff off the table I was so confused, not knowing how to take her, that I didn't put knives and forks out. I couldn't think straight.

The meal wasn't bad. She had found my store of wine and even found the best bottle I was keeping for Results' Day. Oh well.

She'd never eaten dumplings before and I mused if they had them in India "I've heard of apple dumplings," she admitted with a puzzled expression.

No, I never told her what they were made of. But she couldn't fathom out how they were so light and airy. I grinned to myself. They were just pure animal fat and self-raising flour; the most fattening thing she'd ever eaten, I reckoned. The faintly subtle apple flavour made a huge difference and the tang of a pickled onion made this a real stew to remember. I made good stews. I should have, I had lived off them for four years.

Yes. I'd remember sitting opposite that tee shirt sitting with bulges filling it in a way I'd never creased it.

"What are we doing tonight?" She gave me one of those looks that had me wondering what I had done wrong. Almost casually she asked "What have you been doing about sex since your Marcie graduated?"

Women! What a question to ask!

But then she was a doctor. Did that have anything to do with her blatant attitude?

"I haven't seen anyone, I was too busy over the summer helping Gramps. Since then, Final Year is a hell of a hard grind if you want to be the best."

"You're the best?"

"Maybe not on my course, there are some very clever students under Prof. Dalton. But my forté is this semester's work. I had a lot of background knowledge before the lectures even started and then selected this field to specialise in. I know I've a good chance of winning the Carnegie Prize with my dissertation."

She opened her eyes, "You sure?"

"Not positive but I've got more than a fair chance. Now, I'm not even sure it will ever be submitted." I was on safe ground here. But the moment I started speaking, I became concerned about the future. Would the weeks of work be wasted? Would the dissertation ever see the light of day? That was what I had my mind on but can you ever follow the logic of a woman's mind?

"Heh, I asked what you proposed to do tonight. You changed the topic quickly. Listen, there's no other way of putting this. I've seen the results of indiscriminate sex. I've always insisted on condoms. I don't like bringing this up but ... with you playing the field..."

What was she going on about?