Lovers in Their Fashion (10 page)

‘And you’ll stay in Brighton?’

‘Can’t think of any reason to move. London’s no distance by train. When I have to fly I can get to Gatwick or Heathrow. I like it here.’

‘That’s fantastic.’

‘Enough of me. Tell me about Fran Nolan. What do you do?’

‘T E F L. I’m one of Brighton’s many teflons.’

‘What on earth is a teflon?’

‘I teach English as a foreign language. There are hundreds of us. This place is full of language schools. Foreign students love coming here.’

She caught John’s ironic smile. ‘You don’t think an Aussie should teach English?’

‘Of course I…’

‘No need to be defensive. I did it back home, too. Australia’s full of immigrants who don’t speak the language when they arrive. When my granddad arrived from Croydon, we still had the White Australia policy. And white was very strangely defined. We only wanted Brits. Now it’s wide open. If you’ve got talent and a positive attitude, you can make it in Oz. We get ‘em from the Balkans, Russia, Poland. People from Hong Kong, escaping while they can still get out with their money. India. Escapees from Africa. I don’t like them so much.’

‘Why not? I’d have thought you’d have a lot in common.’

‘Oh, wow! Scratch a Brit, find a colonialist. We were all colonies so we should be like each other, right?’

‘I didn’t mean…’

‘It’s okay. I’m used to it. I’ll tell you what I don’t like. It seems to me the whites in South Africa and Zimbabwe treated the locals like shit. Then, when power passed to the other side, they didn’t like it and they wanted to run away. I don’t think we should give them a home. It’s importing racism.’

‘They made their bed and now they can lie on it?’

‘Something like that.’

‘I lived in Cape Town for a while. You might be amazed how many young mixed race couples you see there.’

‘Oh, I don’t mean they’re all like that.’ She forked another mouthful of lamb into her mouth. ‘Every time there’s a riot in Indonesia Australia gets another wave of Chinese from there. And they have a lot of riots in Indonesia.’

‘Tell me about it. I landed in Jakarta one May Day. I said, What the hell’s going on here? They said, Don’t worry about it. It’s just a riot. A small riot, as it turned out. Only seven or eight people killed. All of them Chinese, of course. Hardly worth a paragraph in the paper. How did we get onto this?’

‘It’s me showing you my serious side. It’s like I’m fanning a deck of cards, holding them out. Lots of Fran Nolans. Which one do you want? ‘Cos that’s the one I’ll be for you.’

‘I see. And which is the real Fran Nolan?’

She studied him coolly. ‘The real Fran Nolan has a wet spot in her panties and it’s getting bigger by the minute.’

He was so taken aback he laughed out loud. He dropped his napkin on the table. ‘That was good. The meal, I mean. Coffee?’

‘You can get good coffee back at my place. You want to try?’

Decision time. She caught the look of uncertainty on his face. ‘This hasn’t been a success, has it?’ she said.

‘I’ve enjoyed it. We had a nice meal. I liked talking to you.’

‘But?’

‘Who says there’s a but?’

‘Your face says it. You’re not certain you want to come back to my place. And if you’re not certain that really means you don’t want to. You’re the real thing. An alpha male. There aren’t too many like you, you know that? Lots of wannabes, but not many who mean it. Do it. Live it. If you wanted to come back to mine, you wouldn’t have to weigh it up. You’d know. You’re looking for something and you don’t see it here. I’m right, aren’t I?’

‘I’m sorry, Fran. I really have enjoyed myself.’

‘I’ll settle for crumbs from the table. Come back, have coffee. We’ll take our clothes off and you can show me how an alpha male treats his woman. No commitments. No afterwards. Just bed. For one night.’ She studied his face. ‘But that’s not how you are, is it? Not what you do. You’re one of those all or nothing guys. If you don’t want a girl completely, you don’t want her.’

He thought of Cathy, romping in his Hemsley bedroom overlooking Central Park. Was it really true? Was he an all or nothing guy? He couldn’t be, could he? He had not in the last ten years taken his pleasure only where he felt committed. Quite the opposite, in fact. If he’d thought there was the slightest chance he’d end up feeling involved, he’d walked away. He’d only been an all or nothing, one woman guy once in his whole life – and look how that had ended.

What was it Cathy had said? “We’re two grown-up people who’ve lost someone, and we’re giving each other a helping hand. This isn’t a long term thing. Not for me, and I hope not for you.” That’s how he’d chosen his bed partners—because bed partners was all they wanted to be. Which was what Fran said she was offering. And Heaven knew, if he’d thought he was lost before it was nothing to how he felt now.

‘I’m not that awful to look at, am I?’ she asked.

He made up his mind. ‘You’re quite lovely to look at.’ He called for the bill. ‘Let me settle up here and you can show me where you keep your coffee.’

W
hen they got to Fran’s apartment they decided coffee could wait. They had stopped on the way at a late-opening convenience store and he’d bought a bottle of champagne from the chiller cabinet and a bottle of blackcurrant cordial. Fran showed him where she kept her glasses and John prepared kirs—champagne colored pale lilac by the blackcurrant—while she slipped away for the traditional “change into something more comfortable.”

John was stunned when he carried the drinks into the sitting room. If he’d thought about it at all, he supposed he’d expected red satin, black silk, something like that. Even a garter belt and fishnets. In fact, Fran entered the room entirely in simple white cotton. Her breasts were softly rounded beneath a short chemise in broderie anglaise that fell only to her waist. Below it, the feminine curves of her exquisite derriere were encased in matching panties.

‘Oh, wow,’ murmured John.

‘You like my little sleep suit?’ she whispered throatily.

‘It’s exquisite.
You’re
exquisite.’

‘Thank you, my love.’

She took a glass from his hand. ‘Shall we sit? I think you’ll find this sofa comfy for two.’

When he was seated, she curled up on his knee. ‘You drink your champagne,’ she murmured. ‘Let me do this.’

Between sips of kir, Fran kissed him. On the forehead, the cheeks, the lips, the throat. Gently at first and then with increasing fervour. When John raised his hand to her breast, she brushed it away. ‘Sometimes even alpha males have to wait.’

She put down her empty glass and slipped to the floor, kneeling before him. Her hands went to his pants. She loosened the button and clip at the waist, then gently drew the zipper down. His uncoiling power was visible inside his shorts. ‘Oh, my,’ she sighed. ‘Apollo didn’t leave you lacking in any department, did he? Was your mother ravished by a swan?’ She drew him out, held him in her warm hand. Her lips brushed against his tip in the lightest of kisses. He groaned.

‘Not enjoying this, my cherub?’

‘It’s wonderful.’

Taking her time, she drew him slowly into her mouth. First the tip, then the shaft. Her lips held him; her tongue swirled, exciting a myriad nerve endings to the point – way beyond the point – of total exaltation. He had been loved in this manner before, but never quite this skilfully, never with quite this joyous delight. He stirred, placing his hands on her head. ‘Darling, please…’

She withdrew her mouth but went on holding the firm shaft. ‘Please?’

‘Let me be inside you?’

She laughed, a low snicker of pleasure and anticipation. ‘All in due course, my darling.’ Her head dipped again and her tongue resumed its delicious work. There was nothing for it. He laid his head back, relaxed, let it happen.

When it was over she licked him clean, like a cat washing its fur. She raised her face, a look of bliss on her slightly pink features. ‘You like?’

He was sunk in erotic reverie. ‘Oh, my darling. Oh, I like.’

She stood. ‘I have to go into the bathroom. Won’t be long.’

W
hen she emerged, he took her place. He noticed that the bidet was damp, a fluffy towel dropped across it. He smiled.

Fran was waiting for him in the bedroom, face down on the bed. It was a big bed, a bed wide enough for more than two, a bed made for loving. The covers had been drawn back and thrown onto the floor. He sat beside her, his hand going to the wonderful soft rise of her bottom. She moaned in encouragement. His hands moved upwards. One by one, from the lowest up to the highest, he undid the buttons of her virginal white chemise. When it lay completely open and he pushed the two sides apart she helped him get them off her arms, but when he went to turn her over, she resisted. Playing? Or was there something else she wanted first?

He placed his hands at the waistband of the white panties. Fran’s moan this time was of greater intensity. He peeled the tight-fitting garment down, over the beautiful fleshy globes, bringing them half way down her thighs. His hands played over the in-curving crevice with its secret, forbidden centre. No mistaking the urgency of her signals now. He pulled the panties down. All the way. Off. Her legs moved slightly apart. From where he sat behind her, her aroused sex was clearly visible.

He kissed her behind one knee. He kissed her behind the other knee. Her foot drummed lightly against the bed. As his lips moved slowly upwards, trailing kisses up her thigh, the drumming increased in intensity. He placed his hands lightly on her cheeks, pressing them gently apart. Her words were muffled by the pillow in which she had buried her face. John smiled. ‘What was that, my love?’

She raised her head for just a second and stabbed a finger towards the bedside table to her left. ‘Jelly. Top drawer.’

‘All in due course, my darling,’ he replied, playing her own words back to her. His face hovered inches over her squirming bottom, breathing in the scent of arousal. His fingers moved tenderly up the space between her cheeks.

‘Please, John,’ she urged. ‘The jelly. Please.’

He smacked her playfully on the bottom. ‘Are you doing this? Or am I?’

As his fingers moved gently along the parting of her alabaster flesh, prying it yet further apart, his tongue snaked out and found the tightly puckered rosebud. Her moan now was almost a scream; her fists clenched; her thighs slid wider and wider. He licked the inside of one soft cheek. He licked the other. ‘Oh, please,’ she panted. ‘Oh,
please.’

He reached out, slid open the drawer, fished out the little blue tube that lay there. Fran grabbed a pillow, raised herself and pushed it under her hips. He unscrewed the cap, squeezed a little jelly onto his finger tip, spread it at the heart of her bottom. His cock, so recently pleasured, was once more ramrod stiff. When he pressed his finger into the tight little rosebud she pushed backwards, welcoming his finger as it slid deep within her. With his other hand he rolled her, more forcefully this time, onto her back without allowing his finger to be dislodged.

‘What…?’ she murmured.

His finger moving gently in her bottom, his mouth came down to kiss the insides of her thighs.

‘Oh, God,’ she burst out. ‘Oh, my
God!’

His mouth moved on to the coral pink lips. First his lips in the gentlest of kisses. Then his tongue – on the lips; along the folds; on the clitoris itself peeping so proudly from its little hood of flesh. And still his finger gently probed – beneath; behind.

Her hands were buried in his curly hair, her bucking hips beyond her control. With all the art he had learned in a decade of physical love, he brought her to the brink and took her over. At the climax it was as though he rode a wild yearling mare, using all his knowledge and all his strength to break her to his will. She came in screams and cries of utter abandon.

John removed his finger and sat back on his haunches. Fran’s eyes were tightly closed. After a seeming eternity, they opened. She blinked up at him. ‘Oh, John. Oh, you…I have
never
…oh, John.’

He smiled. ‘More champagne?’

‘Later.’

‘Later?’

‘John Pagan, if you don’t put that wonderful thing inside me and do me now, I’ll never speak to you again.’

And so he did.

T
hey never did have that coffee. The champagne drunk, they fell asleep in each other’s arms. When the early morning sun woke John, Fran’s face was inches from his, her eyes gazing at him as though they could never get enough.

He smiled. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello, my darling.’

‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Too long. One shouldn’t sleep when the bed has you in it.’

When he kissed her she rolled onto her back, pulling him so that he followed. She stared up into his face. ‘You were magnificent. You
are
magnificent.’

‘I’m glad. But I have to go to the bathroom.’

‘Oh. I thought maybe you were pleased to see me.’

‘I am, my treasure. That will still be there when I come back.’

After doing what he had to do, he sat on the bidet and refreshed himself. One should always be considerate towards a lover. However temporary the love may be. When he returned to the bedroom, Fran was holding two glasses of orange juice. She handed one to him, then sat on the bed and patted the place beside her.

‘Hold me,’ she said.

Wrapped in his arms, she pressed close against him, her cheek against his. He tried to draw back to kiss her but she held him tight. ‘No. I don’t want you to see my face when I say this.’

He nuzzled her throat. ‘Here, then.’

Her face invisible to him, she spoke in a low voice. ‘Last night.’

‘Yes?’

‘When you did…that thing…’

‘That thing?’ he teased.

‘With your finger.’

‘Oh.
That
thing.’

‘It was wonderful.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘There are other things, though.’

‘Other things?’

‘That you can do with a bottom. With my bottom.’

‘Oh. Yes.’

‘You don’t like that?’

‘I don’t know, darling. I’ve never done it.’

‘It can be nice. More than nice.’