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Sunday Love Songs 01

By: Alwaysraining



I wrote this story as a present for my wife, who loved it (she said), so I decided to post it to see what a less biased audience would make of it. It is rather long, and is in two parts, both of which have been submitted. It is my first submission and depending on the response, it may also be my last!

It is written in British English. Though written in the first person, it is not autobiographical. 

All persons in sexual situations are 18 years old or older. The age of students in the final year of many British High Schools is eighteen years and many students go straight on to university from school.

------ 

Every Sunday on the BBC's Radio 2 Programme, there is a two hour programme called 'Sunday Love Songs'. Listeners ring, email or write in with requests for loved ones. Children ring in about parents, husbands about wives and vice versa; wedding anniversaries and birthdays are celebrated. It is generally a programme to give one optimism about the human condition. All these people love each other and want to extol their love, while surprising their loved ones. Wonderful.

Well, yes. Except there is one part of the show when 'long lost loves' are featured. Someone would ring in and tell of a person with whom they have lost touch. It was when my name was mentioned that I wondered about the wisdom of listening to this particular programme.

"Nicola Grayson has emailed us to find a lost love. Ten years ago she was at school with Kevin Connors and they lived near each other in Sunderland. They were 'close' for their final year at school, but after school they lost touch. Kevin it seems went off to Oxford University, while Nicola went to Durham. She wrote for a while but then university life intervened and the letters stopped."

Yes, I bet it did, I thought, and I bet I know what she was doing to lose concentration! 

Also I didn't think 'close' aptly described how we were for the final year of High School.

"So, Kevin, once of Sunderland, if you'd like to link up with Nicola, ring us at BBC..."

I had severe doubts that I wanted to 'link up with' Nicola. The intervening ten years had been peaceful; enjoyable. Busy, but peaceful. The same could not be said of that final school year, 'the year of Nicola'.

I still called it that; it was etched, bitter sweet, in my memory. Mainly bitter, come to think of it.

----- 

Nicola Grayson was by far the prettiest girl in the school. She had always been pretty, but at eighteen, in our final year at High School, she was stunningly beautiful.

Let's start at the top. She had shoulder length straight lustrous rich dark brown hair with lighter highlights, all natural. She kept it clean and it always shone. It was thick and she sometimes wore it in a pony tail, sometimes in a chignon, or an updo style. She had blue eyes, very blue, startlingly so. Delicate features, small nose, wide mouth. Her neck was long and slender; she was slim, her breasts medium in size, her waist narrow and her hips still slim but wider, giving her a graceful hour-glass figure, and there were those long shapely legs. The effect was staggering. She smiled easily, and when she smiled, her face seemed to shine. 

She took after her mother in looks. We had all seen her mother, who was a devastating beauty in her own right. Her father was some sort of executive. She was highly intelligent, but tended towards languages, where I was into maths and science.

However she had always been held on a tight leash by her parents ever since we all started at school at age eleven. They never let her out of their sight, always collecting her after school. She was never seen at weekends or evenings. 

However, from second year, she and I always walked to school together. It seemed that her parents thought she was safe enough to walk to school on her own. None of her friends lived on her route, so she walked alone until we met one morning.

It happened like this.

I had to take a message to one of my aunts on the way to school. I emerged from Aunt Mary's front gate to find Nicola with her back against the garden wall, and in front of her a large dog growling. She was crying and terrified, and the dog sensed her terror. There was no dog owner in evidence.

At that time we had a dog, and I knew what to do. I strode confidently up to the animal and shouted at it in as gruff voice as I could manage. I think I told it to go home. Its tail went down between its legs and it slunk off.

"You OK?" I asked.

"Yes thanks," she said giving me a grateful smile.

We fell in step and I walked with her to school. We talked about our families, where we lived, and school. The dog was not mentioned. 

When we reached the school gates, she said offhandedly, "If I come by your place tomorrow morning -- walk in with me?"

"OK." 

No more was said. I got some grief from my mates, but I realised they were jealous and told them so. So began a routine that continued throughout our school life, until that fateful last year. We walked to school together, and parted at the gates. She joined her mates, and I joined mine. On the way our conversations changed as we grew, and we shared a great deal about our lives, our hopes and dreams. We promised each other that our talks would never go further than each other, and they never did.

She lived a number of roads away from our house. We were an average income family, but her family were wealthy, and thought they were a cut above the rest. 

That daily routine changed in our final school year. She was now eighteen and as I said, was strikingly beautiful. Something had changed at home for her: her father had to spend a year in the middle east and her parents both went, leaving her to lodge with an aunt who lived even closer to my house, only two roads away.

Now her parents were not picking her up from school, she and I walked to and from school together. My delight could hardly be hidden: I was walking the prettiest girl to and from school, though once at school she was monopolised by the captain of the football team. 

My younger sister Lorraine teased me unmercifully about her.

My relationship with Nicola was all to change dramatically for the worse shortly after Christmas. 

Nicola asked me out. Astonishment is a word that does not do justice to my feelings.

"May I take you out for a meal?" she asked on the way to school.

"Pardon?"

"May I take you out for a meal? I want to talk with you."

"Um, well, yes!" I replied. Heaven opened its doors and the heavenly choir sang loudly.

"Friday?"

"OK, thanks Nicola."

If I was surprised by her invitation, I was about to be confounded by what she had to say. She picked me up at home in a taxi, and took me to a high-end restaurant. My family had a little money, but I knew she had much, much more. We passed the time chatting until the dessert and coffee. I was in a mellow mood having consumed half a bottle of red wine with her (eighteen is the legal drinking age in Britain), when she got to business.

"Kevin, I asked you out for a meal to ask you a favour."

"Yes?" At that stage I would have granted her anything, but I was not prepared for what followed.

"You know I'm going with Barry?" 

Barry Wilkes was the aforesaid Captain -- one of the jocks. I was what is now termed a 'nerd'. I was not on a school team, and had little interest or association with those who were. I was on my way, I hoped, to Oxford and a well paid job thereafter. 

"Well, he's on at me to have sex." 

She stopped and looked at me inquiringly, as if waiting for a reaction.

"So?" I replied, wondering where this was going.

"I want to as well," she stumbled on, "but I want it to be good."

"That's up to you and him, isn't it?" I rejoined, now totally at a loss and miffed at the direction in which her sexual interest lay.

"Well," she hesitated, "there's a problem. Thanks to the vigilance of my parents, I've never done the deed, you see. I know first time sex is painful, and I don't want my first time with Barry to be a disaster, because I'm still a... you know... a virgin."

"I don't follow," I said. "What's this to do with me?"

"Well," she said looking even more lost, "don't take this the wrong way, but I want you to be my first."

Now I was floored. The most beautiful girl in the school, bar none, was asking me to deflower her. My first reaction was YES! Then wiser counsels prevailed. I was to break her in for Barry, the idiot (relatively speaking) jock, just so she could give him a good time. I was interrupted in my thoughts.

"What do you say?" she asked.

"Let me think about it." 

She looked surprised. She was a highly intelligent girl, and she knew she was gorgeous. Why was her geek friend having to think about this gift from heaven? However she sat still and waited.

I thought some more. OK, so she would fuck Barry, and after him probably the rest of the football team, then a train of blokes at university. I was not in her league, and there was no chance of her hooking up with me long term. On the other hand...

I was pretty certain that I was now a pretty skilled practitioner in the art of love-making. I could give her a really good time, even with the defloration. Barry would have a lot to live up to. Then a question popped into my mind, and out of my mouth before I could stop it, and when I heard the answer I wished I had had more control of my tongue.

"Why me?"

Now she really was embarrassed. It was not going the way she had envisaged it, I could tell. Still, she wanted to use me, so serve her right.

"Well," she ventured, "Pamela told me about what you did with her, so I know you're experienced."

I had had one girlfriend, Pamela, in that final year. We had sex shortly after she turned eighteen and had been deflowered by her boyfriend as a birthday present. She had not been impressed and finished with him. I had studied sex intensively in text books, manuals, videos, magazines and the internet, and not just for my own gratification. I had learned about the way women react, what turns them on, and how to set the scene. Pamela was apparently impressed. We went together for a few weeks and finished after Christmas: at that age there was no such thing as a permanent relationship.

Nicola had not finished, and this was the crusher. "And Barry's supposed to have a big thing, and that would hurt." 

A long pause, then she gave the coup de grace, "I don't know how to say this, and I don't want to hurt you, but..." another long pause. "Rumour has it you are quite... small... thin. So it won't hurt so much."

Well, thanks a bunch, I thought. 

Then thought again. 

Where did that idea come from? I'd been in the showers with Barry and the rest of the Form. Some of the lads had bigger cocks than I did, but Barry didn't look all that big. My cock looked small and wizened when at rest, but by the heavens when it grew, it grew. I was a good seven inches erect (which boy hasn't measured himself?). OK, six and a half inches and a bit, but I was also thick in proportion. No one in the showers had seen me 'in action', so no one knew my engorged dimensions.

I swallowed the insult. I was annoyed. I would sort this girl out. She might find I was a little bigger than she expected, but c'est la vie!

"OK," I said. "When and where?"

She smiled ecstatically. "Oh, thank you, thank you!" she gushed. Then, more sensibly, "My aunt is going away next weekend; how about Friday?"

"I need the whole weekend," I said. "I want you for the whole time."

"But I was going to go with Barry on Saturday night..." she countered hesitantly.

"No chance! Listen. I know about these things. You might well be sore on Saturday, and that would ruin things for you. I need to be with you from Friday to Sunday. By the time I finish with you on Sunday evening, you will not only be healed, but you will have a certain expertise. So that's my condition for doing this."

She seemed impressed. She thought for a moment. 

"OK," she said. 

I smiled inwardly. I was now going to be her first, something no one could take from me, no matter how many partners she had for the rest of her life. I was going to have my way with her for a whole weekend. It could not be better and I had put the captain of the football team off for the weekend to boot (pun intended)!

"Protection?" I asked. "You're a virgin, and I'm clean." 

It was nearly a lie, for Pamela and her boyfriend were both virgins according to Pamela, but I didn't know how honest was her previous beau. 

"Pill?" I added.

She nodded shyly, "I don't want a condom between us for my first time."

"Barry has had quite a few girls," I cautioned. "I'd make sure he wears one. He's been with some real slags from the local college; you don't know if he's clean."

She did look thoughtful, then grateful, and nodded.

At her gate, she turned to me, put her arms round my neck and kissed me. It was a long kiss and my arms went round her waist. She pressed against me and must have felt my growing erection. She looked confused, as well she might.

"Sorry," I said, "but you do that to me."

"Not that," she said, smiled and kissed me again. We necked for about half an hour and then she went in.

For the rest of the following week we continued our journeys to and from school, and she continued to hang out with Barry during the day. 

On Thursday morning she said, "Come home with me tomorrow. I'll order in." 

I told my parents I would be spending the weekend with a friend; I was eighteen and an adult, so they did not question it; they had my mobile number. Lorraine knew what I was up to, don't ask me how, but assured me of her silence. My mate Joshua was green with envy.

On Friday, with my clothing I packed a tube of lubricant jelly and a vibrator I had bought as an experiment. It did nothing for me, but it sent Pamela through the roof. 

Nicola and I walked to her aunt's house side by side, not touching, in case someone from school saw us and took the news back to Barry.

She smiled nervously as she ushered me into the house and there was a short moment of discomfort as we faced one another in the hallway. She broke the spell by taking me on a tour of the house and we ended in her room.

"Would you like to shower and get out of that uniform, while I order us a meal?" she suggested.

She offered me a bath towel and left the room. I unpacked, undressed and took my toilet bag to the bathroom, where I showered.

I came out of the bathroom wearing the towel round my waist, to find Nicola in the bedroom, sitting on the bed.

"The meal will be here in twenty minutes," she said. 

I went to the other side of the bed where my rucksack was, and fished out some boxers, which I put on. She kept her back to me, but I noticed she could see me through the mirror on her dressing table. I caught her eye, and she smiled at being found out looking at my naked body.

"If you go down, I'll have my shower and change," she said. 

I found a tee shirt and put it on, and then went down as I was. I heard her giggle and then the shower running. I resisted the temptation to do as she had done and sit on the bed waiting for her to appear naked in front of me.

She came down wearing a housecoat and smiled shyly. She knew I was wondering what, if anything, she was wearing under it. I smiled in my turn and then the doorbell rang and the meal arrived.

We ate Chinese together with chopsticks, talking about the day and the various teachers we had encountered. We talked about our plans for university after this last year. She was on edge, and nervously played with the belt on her housecoat, glancing at me as she talked too fast. The meal over I interrupted her flow.

"Nicola, let's go and sit in the other room."

She looked startled and stood up, and I followed her into the living room and onto the sofa. She now looked frightened.

I sat facing her, and took her hands in mine.

"Nicky," I said quietly and with what I hoped was a gentle smile. "Calm down. Nothing will happen this weekend that you don't want to happen. You can call the whole thing off now. I won't be offended or even upset. Relax. You want this?"

She nodded, and smiled, but it was obvious she was still unsure of me and of herself.

"OK," I said, sitting back on the cushions. "Come here."

She moved over the few inches. I held out an arm and she came within it and rested her head on my shoulder.

"That's better," I said, holding her against me. "Let's just sit here in the growing darkness and relax. You comfortable?"

Again she nodded, and looked up into my eyes. I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. She looked puzzled.

"I don't understand," she said, nestling into my shoulder. "Aren't we going to--"

"Make love? Have sex?"

"Yes, I thought you'd--"

"Jump on you?"

She laughed. "Sort of."

"Do you want your first time to be good for you?"

She nodded again.

"Do you trust me?"

"I do now," she said, and her smile was trusting. 

What a warm feeling that comment gave me! I could hardly keep my hands off her.

"I asked for the whole weekend so it would be good for you," I said, "and to make it good, you have to get in the right mood. You need the atmosphere to be right. The situation -- ambiance -- is more important for women than men. Making love is about our brains as well."

She nestled deeper. I continued. 

I told her that I was doing this because I cared for her, and wanted her to be happy. I talked of how the boys in our form wanted her, lusted after her, but were in awe of her beauty. How we all worshipped her.

"You too?" she asked.

"Yes, me too," I replied. "but now I know you, I care about you and how you feel."

"You love me?"

"Yes, of course I love you. I want your happiness, I'm doing this because I love you."

She made a small contented sound. Then, "I think I'd like to go to bed now."

So we stood up, and she embraced my neck and I her waist and we kissed at length, soft lips caressing each other's mouth, nibbling. Then her hands began to roam over my back and mine over hers.

"Come on," I said, and we ascended the stairs, our arms around each other, and entered her room. By the bed we disengaged, and I undid the belt on her robe, and pushed it off her shoulders.

Under it she had a sheer dazzling white baby-doll nightie, and, I was later to find, a pair of translucent dazzling white hipster knickers in the same fabric. Her legs seemed impossibly long and slender below the short nightie. My cock twitched in recognition. She giggled.

"What now?" she asked, with arched eyebrows and a devilish smile. 

"Now you get into bed and so do I."

She climbed onto the bed affording me the first glimpse of her pudenda, shadowy through the sheer fabric of her knickers, and lay on her back, her legs a little apart. The panties stretched over her sex, outlining her lips. 

I went round the bed and took off my tee shirt and slid down the boxers before getting into bed with her. She looked a little surprised as her glance travelled south. She stared for a moment, puzzled, then seemed to shake herself.

"And now?" she asked, as I moved closer to her body, and leaned on my arm facing her.

"Now, my darling," I smiled, "we do whatever you want to do. Take your time, we have all night and all day tomorrow and then tomorrow night and all day Sunday. You can just chill for a while, sleep with me. Wake with me. Whatever you want."

"But we're here to take my virginity," she said, almost plaintively. 

"We are here for a weekend of love," I said, beginning to sound like Barry White without the deep voice. "It will happen when you are ready and only then. No pressure, no hurry." How I managed to suppress the urgency of my desire, I don't know. I was desperate to fuck her.

"Oh." There was a silence. Then, "OK."


Sunday Love Songs 01



She turned onto her side and faced me. She smiled. "This is not what I thought was going to happen," she said and traced a finger over my face, my eyebrows and along my lips. "You are very good."

If only she knew!

I lay back and pulled her against me. She snuggled and then began tracing her fingers over my chest, and down to my stomach. 

I kissed her hair, and ran my hand over her back, returning along her side, over her flimsy nightie. We continued to do this for a while, and then she suddenly sat up.

"This is in the way," she said, and pulled the garment over her head. Her breasts now displayed were so perfect it hurt, perfect in shape and in proportion to her body, her nipples pointing slightly upward and already standing proud. She looked down at her new nakedness, then glanced at my enraptured gaze and coloured, but made no attempt to cover up.

She was so slim. Her back was elegantly curved and her spine rested in a delightful depression from her neck down to her buttocks. She lay down again and this time her bare breasts were pressed against my side and my chest. It provoked the inevitable reaction and I stiffened even further. 

At first she avoided touching my cock. She continued her stroking me in safe areas, while I caressed her back and side, brushing her breast as I did so. She sighed. This time my hand went over the roundness of her buttock, came back in the crease of her behind through her knickers, and once again brushed her breast. She gave another contented sigh.

Now her hand strayed further down and found my erect cock. She grazed it, and then my balls, and she made another little sound of pleasure. It was the sign I needed.

I pushed her onto her back and knelt up to stroke her legs, over her calves and her knees. She bent them upward and I caressed behind them. She groaned, and her legs fell apart, inviting my hands to journey up her thighs then under her knickers along the creases of her groin. She lifted her hips to encourage me to touch her sex, but it was too early. She moaned in frustration and grasped my cock firmly.

My hands were now on her stomach and up to her breasts, taking my palms lightly over her nipples. Her eyes had been closed, but now they opened wide in surprise.

"Oh," she reacted to the sensation, "again please, Kevin." 

I obliged and she smiled as she sucked in a breath. Her nipples were now even more erect and hard and I made a third pass over them, and cupped them, squeezing gently, and rubbing the nipples. Her eyes closed with the pleasure, and she began to tug idly on my cock. It was an involuntary action on her part.

I kissed her lips and her eyes opened again and gazed into mine. She had not expected it. I kissed down to her breasts and tongued those hard nips. Now she was gyrating her hips. I felt her hips rise and her hands left my cock; she was sliding her panties down her slim thighs. I looked upwards to her face, and she smiled and nodded, her breath coming in gasps.

I kissed onward, downward, until I met her bush. It was dark brown, trimmed neatly and short. As I reached the junction of her legs, she opened them wide. There was no shyness, she was bold and open to me. I looked up and her eyes, a darkened blue, smouldered in her desire for me.

Now I was using everything I'd learned to give her a good time. My fingers glided slowly over to the inside of her thighs from her knees, and along each side of her sex. She moved her hips to feel a touch on her vulva but I denied her. Again and again I followed that path and her gyrations became more violent in her frustration, until at last I heard what I wanted.

"Ah! Kevin, stop teasing me!"

Immediately I scooted down the bed and off the end, pulling her legs with me, so her sex was near the edge and her legs over my shoulders. She yelped with the sudden movement, but only once. 

How was it possible for a perfect girl to have a perfect pussy as well? It was tidy and the lips, while now inflamed and delicately swollen, covered her inner lips perfectly. There was little time to admire it though; there was work to do.

Then I began a series of finger touches from anus to clitoris, but avoiding the now hard button. Her moans were becoming more intense, begging for touch. She was panting and sighing and giving little yelps of anguish. At last I applied my tongue to the same journey, dipping into her vagina on my way along her inner lips until I brushed her clitoris firmly with a flat tongue.

"Aah Yess" she cried, and exploded in her climax with a series of loud cries and guttural shouts and yelps, while her legs gripped my head, pressing my tongue to her little nub, which I continued to lick to and fro. Her climax went on and on, but eventually she quietened and relaxed her grip completely.

"Ohh, Kev!" she gasped. "That was..."

I crawled up the bed and pulled her to me. She hugged me tightly for what seemed an age, and then we worked our way back up the bed, until we lay together, heads on pillows.

"Oh, Kevin!" she repeated. It was all she said, as she hugged me and kissed me, open mouthed, her tongue darting in and out. We parted, her eyes locked on mine adoringly, satiated.

"I can taste myself," she said, licking her lips. Then her expression changed to a look of trepidation and anticipation. 

"I think I'm ready."

She began to stroke my cock again, which was hard and wet. I knew her sex was wet. I ran a finger up and down her vulva, swirling round her clit, and her excitement began to rise again, as she moved her hips against my hand. When her breathing became ragged, I pulled her over me.

"Sit up," I ordered, he looked puzzled but did so.

"Now lift yourself over my cock. Now position me at your entrance."

She did all this and hovered over me, as I rubbed her clit. with a finger and her breathing became ragged once more.

"Sink down, in your own time." I groaned as I began to caress her breasts, fondling them and gently pinching her nips, while resisting the urge to push up into her waiting virginal passage.

She stared wild-eyed into my eyes as she sank down and the head of my cock pushed between her lips and made its entrance. 

"Ahh!" came from her lips, surprise on her face at the sensation.

She was tight, very tight. Then she winced and stopped.

"Your maidenhead," I said softly. "Your hymen. Now you can do it quickly, or slowly," I moaned at the grasp of her vaginal entrance, "but you have to push through. Or do you want me to do it?"

"When I say now," she gasped, "will you push up hard?"

"You want it quick?"

She nodded. Smiled. Then she raised herself slightly, screwed her eyes tight, and "NOW!"

She dropped and I pushed up hard. She cried out and was fully impaled on me, her bush against my root. Her sheath gripped my cock tightly, and so warm.

"Ugh!" she groaned and made as if to rise.

"Sit still!" I urged, as I held her hips firmly in place. "Give yourself time to get used to it."

"I feel so full of you," she breathed, looking into my eyes with love. "It's wonderful. It's done isn't it? I'm not a virgin."

I nodded, "We can have some fun, but first, get used to it. Try lifting a little and falling back."

She winced again, and exhaled.

"Stings a little?" I asked.

"Not as bad," she replied and repeated the action, this time with a concentrated grin. 

From then on she began to learn for herself. She rose and fell, higher and higher, she rotated, she fell forward, leaned back, and gradually increased her pace until she was quite frantic. Her hair was flying and her firm breasts bouncing, straight armed, her hands on my shoulders, and concentration etched into her face.

Her eyes were so expressive as she sampled each new sensation, sometimes closed, sometimes squinting and other times open wide in surprise. It had its effect on me and I warned her I was near to coming.

"Come Kev! Come now!" she shouted, and I spewed my juice into her. It was intense.

She came as well, a heartbeat later, with a high pitched squeal, and then fell forward onto me. 

"Urgh! Ah! Oh! So good! I love you!" she gasped out as the climax rippled through her, and she wriggled against me to get maximum sensation from my cock, until it wilted and slipped from her.

She gripped my left thigh between her thighs, and in that position we rested a while.

When she lifted off me, she looked down and gasped. My pubic area and my left thigh were red. "What's--?

"Your blood," I laughed. "Proves you were a virgin. You know in days of yore when girls had to be virgins when they married, they used to hang the bloodstained sheets out of the window so everyone would know their girl had been a virgin."

I climbed out of bed and we looked at the sheet. 

"That'll need changing as well," I said, as we noted the few blood marks.

We stripped the bed, remade it, and then had a shower together, which was difficult In a bathtub with a shower above! We soaped each other, and needless to say, eventually, with much giggling, touching, stroking and kissing all over each other, washed the blood from me and from between her legs.

Then she herself bent forward away from me as an invitation, and I entered her from behind and we fucked under the falling water until it ran cold and we shouted and squealed, and scrambled out of the tub, laughing loudly.

We dried each other everywhere, which was a supremely intimate moment, and then, dressed in bathrobes, went down to the living room and drank some wine.

"Is there more?" she asked. "Have you more to show me?" 

Her smile was really lustful and lascivious. My sated cock twitched and began to grow again. Oh yes!

I had of course a number of things to demonstrate, and we set to immediately. Over the weekend we made gentle, slow, intense love, we fucked hard and violently, we cuddled, and we hammered at each other. She tried as many positions as I could think of with varying success. 

We enjoyed oral and manual sex. She confessed to giving Brad a hand job but she had never had a cock in her mouth. After begging me not to come in her mouth, when I warned her I was near, she would not let go. She grimaced at the sharpness of it, but swallowed and gave a triumphant grin. Fortunately there was not a great deal to expel from my drained prostate. It was not the only time she took me that way.

By Sunday evening we lay exhausted in the bed. She said she had never had so many orgasms and couldn't manage any more. At last it was time to go. I had deflowered, and had sex with the most perfectly formed teenage girl I had ever seen, in as many positions as I could remember. I had seen her most intimate parts, and fingered and licked them to her distraction. I had given her orgasms both mild and intense, and had them myself.

At that moment I forgot all my previous realism about the weekend and naively thought that surely now she was going to be mine for the future. We had been so close, so affectionate, so in tune in all our love-making. This must be true love. We were meant for each other. Then it was all shattered. 

"I can't thank you enough," she said as I stood at the front door, and we kissed for the last time. "I feel more than ready to do it with Barry now."

It hit me like a brick in the face. All that was so she could forget me and fuck the school jock. I felt a deep jealousy and anger, but kept a bland face. 

I just thought the bitch, she just used me! 

All that love talk of hers, all those adoring looks -- an illusion, it meant nothing to her.

"Good night," I said, turned and walked away. 

The fact she had told me this would happen did not impinge on my anger and feeling of rejection one jot. At that age all emotions are intense, and I was steaming! The wonderful girl I had tutored was a manipulating bitch. It was unfair of me; I had known the score before we had the weekend, but during it she had professed love for me, and the tryst had been supremely intimate, affectionate and more than just sex.

The following day, I went to school earlier and by a different way, and dodged her at the end of the day -- in any case she went home with Barry.

------ 

I avoided Nicola all week, and on Thursday she found me in school.

"Where've you been?" she asked with a worried frown. "I missed our morning walks."

"You haven't a clue, have you?" I muttered. "I give you a whole weekend. I love you to death, give you pleasure you'd never known before. Did you hear yourself on Sunday? 'I'm more than ready to do it with Barry now'. Work it out. I'm only a geek, you hang out with the jocks. You used me and dropped me like a piece of used wrapping paper. Now I mean nothing to you; you got what you wanted. I don't want to walk with you any more knowing that. I don't want it, knowing you're fucking someone else and couldn't care a damn about my feelings. So fucking leave me alone."

I walked away, leaving her looking puzzled. For a highly intelligent girl, she could be really thick. At the back of my mind I think I knew I was being unfair, but I couldn't help my feelings.

I saw nothing of her after that, except at a distance in Form Time, when she ignored me pointedly, and I ignored her. Then three weeks later, my mother called me downstairs one Saturday evening, saying I had a visitor. Yes, it was Nicola.

She looked embarrassed, worried and fearful. 

"Kevin," she said hesitantly, "can we talk?"

I took her to my room and she sat on the bed. I sat at my desk.

"I miss you," she said, after a long silence I had no intention of breaking.

"I'm sorry about that, but you know my feelings," I said. "Barry should be filling your life and your cunt now."

"Please Kevin, don't be like that; I'm not with Barry any more."

"Oh?"

"He dumped me after we had sex. I'm not sorry, he was useless. Apparently he just wanted to be the first to break me in. I let him think that. By the way, he's smaller than you."

"As if his size matters; don't be so fucking crass," I growled at her. "So it was really pointless using me wasn't it?" 

"No, Kev," she said with some feeling, "I'll never forget that weekend."

"Big deal!" I said with some heat. "So you want me to fill in until you find another jock boyfriend to wrap your legs round, is that it?"

She winced. "No, I'm with another boyfriend. I'm with Lee now."

"Lee?" I laughed loudly. "My, you're really slumming now aren't you? He's a Neanderthal!"

"He's very nice," she said angrily. "He's very patient. We're not having sex."

"Yet."

"So?" she said scornfully. "I'll sleep with whoever I like!"

"Exactly," I said. "You can sleep with anyone. They'll be falling over themselves to get between your legs; you're quite a trophy fuck, or didn't you know?"

I could see her trying to control her anger. 

"Kevin," she said at length, "I came because I miss you as a friend. Can't we be friends?"

"After what you did?" I snapped. "I don't think so. There's a saying about sex you know, 'once you've done it, you can't go back to holding hands.'"

"We were such close friends, can't we be that again?" she begged. "I feel sort of lonely without you."

"OK," I said. "You become my girlfriend, we start going together exclusively. That's what it will take. You willing to do that?"

She looked embarrassed and uncomfortable, and said nothing, but it was as clear a reply as if she had said it. She did not want me like that.

"I thought so. That's your answer, I'm not good enough: going with me will hurt your image in school. So, I suggest you use your current boyfriend to cure your loneliness," I said with some heat. "I don't like being used. You even want to use me as a walk to school friend only. 

"Your last chance. Us together, all or nothing. What do you say?"

She looked at me sadly. That was enough for me.

"That's how much you care for me. I knew it. Good bye, Nicola."

I sat eyeing her stonily until she got up and left.

That was the last time we talked, but I suddenly found that a number of the fit girls in class now wanted to go with me, and most made no secret about wanting sex. I had a whale of a time with a succession of hot randy eighteen year old nymphs. Apparently Nicola had rashly shared details of our weekend with her best friend, who told her best friend, etc, etc. 

From time to time, I caught Nicola looking wistfully at me when I was with yet another girl and clearly about to score again. It was little consolation.

------

I said that that meeting in my bedroom was the last time I talked with her; that is not strictly true. After exams we had the leavers' promenade dance and I was a victim of a sting. Cloe, the girl who must have been the second most beddable in the year and whom I had proved to be so, asked me to the prom. Heavenly!

I did notice Nicola at the prom. How could one not? Her dark green gown was held up by two spaghetti straps, and hugged her form like a second skin. The skirt of the dress was slit up the side almost to the waist, revealing tantalising glimpses of her hold-up stockings and even her high-cut knickers. The 'V' of the bodice dipped low enough and showed enough of her breasts to assure all the males in the hall that there was no bra, and that her breasts were firm and pert. She was devastating. I noticed she danced with a succession of guys, while I kept to Cloe, who was an entrancing partner and a lot of fun, especially in some of the slow dances!

Then Cloe disappeared. It was nearly at the end of the evening's proceedings. I looked for her and eventually saw her deep in the arms of Craig, the lad who had brought Nicola. I should have suspected a trap, but I was nearly nineteen and leaving school. I fell into it.

Nicola was suddenly by my side.

"Kev?" she said gently, "Cloe and Craig always fancied each other and this is their last chance to be together. I told him to go to her. I know this is an imposition, but would you dance the last dance with me and take me home?"

Yes, of course muggins would, and did. I held her and she held me. Tight. It brought back all the memories of our sex-laden weekend. Then on to her aunt's who was not in evidence. She asked me in for 'a coffee'. Even in my callow youth I knew what this meant -- especially after the prom! We were parting for good, and I wasn't passing up the chance of another fuck. This time I wouldn't be so loving and caring.

In her bedroom, suddenly the spaghetti straps were off her shoulders and the dress gently floated to the floor. There was no bra, as everyone at the dance suspected, and her knickers were the laciest high leg briefs, which she slipped to the floor to keep the dress company.

I was faced with the dream girl of the year, whom I had loved all the time though I would not admit it even to myself, standing before me in a pair of thigh-high stockings with lacy tops, high heels and nothing else. 

"Please, Kev," she pleaded, "we might never see each other again. You were my first lover, and the best one believe me. Please, love me again."

Look, we're not talking about a mature man of the world. We're talking about a girl standing in front of a lad in nothing but lacy thigh-highs, inviting him to have sex. There is no flesh weaker than a hormone driven teenage boy-man.

If there was any reasoning it might have gone like this: "Girl, naked, wants sex with me. Does it matter that she's slept with most of the hunks of the year? No, of course not. Go for it!"

There was no need for any justification. I'd wanted her since we'd made love. It was quite selfish. Now nothing would stop me, certainly not she. At least I thought so. I was to be dreadfully disappointed. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the pack of condoms. She frowned.

"What do you need those for?" she asked. 

"Every girl I've been with since you, I've been protected. Have you never heard of STDs? AIDS, Clap, Chlamydia? You've been with a lot of guys and I don't know if they are clean -- I doubt it if the rumours I've heard are true. So you're no longer safe; I can't take the risk."




Sunday Love Songs 01



Her face clouded, "But--"

"No buts, Nicola. Have you done it bareback with anyone?"

"Well, yes, always. I hate condoms; I'm on the pill, but I'm sure they were all clean."

"You want to have sex, I wear one of these. Otherwise it's good night."

She looked with a certain eagerness, but hesitated just too long. Then shook her head, full of regret. 

"Good bye, Nicola," I said quietly. "I loved you so much, you know, before you became the class bike. At the very least, get yourself tested for Chlamydia if you want to have babies later on." 

I left, and I could hear her sobbing as I closed the front door. It sounds as if I had a hard determination in our exchange, but in fact I was sorely tempted to risk it and fuck her brains out. The result was that I was angry, not at her so much, but because I desperately needed to have sex, and I dared not.

I did not see her again. She wrote to me a terse letter, telling me she was grateful I'd told her to get tested. She had the disease, but no others. It was caught early, and she was safe. She would never have bareback sex again until she married, she wrote. Was I telling the truth about loving her?

I wrote back telling her I did love her to distraction until she started sleeping around. Even though I was put off by her sluttish behaviour, I would always remember her fondly and treasure the memory of our early friendship. That was rank hypocrisy on my part: I had slept around as much as she had.

She wrote back a last time, telling me she was looking for someone who would really turn her on as I had done. 

I wrote telling her that was utterly stupid. She did not write again.

------ 

Now here was a Sunday morning sloppy 'lurve' programme, telling me she wanted to contact me again. I was not in a relationship, though I had a couple of girlfriends who were friends-with-benefits. They felt it was too early for them to be committed long term to anyone. Beth and Julie were good friends and each knew the other was sleeping with me, and I was happy as I was, who wouldn't be? 

I wondered what good it would do to see Nicola. Why did she suddenly want to meet me again? After ten years? There must be an underlying motive; that intrigued me. Why not meet her? What harm could it do?

Who was I kidding? All the feelings I'd had while at school returned. Who knew what might happen? That's curiosity for you!

Thus I managed to talk myself into it. I rang the BBC and jumped through all their hoops to prove I was who I said I was, then they took my address and phone number and told me to wait for her to contact me.

A month passed and there was nothing. Par for the course, I thought. Playing her games. I forgot about it, and I didn't listen to that stupid programme on Sundays any more! 

The other reason I forgot about Nicola was the financial crash.

I should explain that after leaving university I was employed as a market trader -- finance, not vegetables. I was with one of the big fish companies (you know, the ones that have caused us all such grief), and in a few years I made a lot of money, and I mean an obscene amount! 

Towards the end of the first year I noticed I was getting fat. It's possible to gloss over the issue and talk of 'well built' and 'bulky', but I was too much of a realist. I was fat, even bordering on obese. Too much sitting at a computer, pub lunches and too much alcohol. I got out of breath running for a bus. Not that I took buses very often, or ran after anything come to think about it.

So I joined a Gym, and acquired a personal trainer. She, yes, it was a woman, was a very pretty and a very, very fit young woman, but she was also a harridan! She was merciless, designing my exercise routine and ratcheting it up rather faster than I liked. She gave me a diet sheet and I had to fill it in daily; woe betide me if I missed a day! She recommended running to and from the Gym, a distance of one and a half miles.

I attended that place of torture three times a week and ran daily -- not jogged -- ran. Once she got me fit and slim, she began to build my musculature. So I now had a routine. Each day I would rise at six and run. I went to the gym three evenings a week for an hour's work out. 

Many of my colleagues continued to live the high life on their immense salaries and bonuses; instead, I was now taking care of my health, living a simple life and investing my wealth privately using my expertise. In addition to feeling very virtuous, I trebled my own money in the following years, as well as raking in my immense salary and investing that. Ah! It was so easy to make money in those heady golden days. 

So I retired! Imagine, retiring at twenty six! 

I moved from London to Manchester, and found myself a very large house at a fraction of London prices, in a good area of a suburban town called Wilmslow, and furnished it -- the house, not Wilmslow. I had made a new home, and I liked where I had made it. Beth and Julie added the furnishing (and finishing) touches which helped to make the house a home. Having one of two nubile young women in bed on Sunday mornings after a strenuous night's coupling helped me settle in as well.

I found a gym two miles from the house and enlisted, following the routine I had had in London, though I was more flexible in timings, being at home all day. My (male) trainer was a pussycat compared with Dolores. She who had put me through hell, shed a tear when I told her I was leaving the smoke for the sticks, and how grateful I was to her. What a sweetie!

Strictly speaking I did not actually retire of course; I worked for myself from home working the markets, and made a packet more. Money flowed in during those extravagantly profligate financial times. With hindsight anyone could have seen it could not last, and leaving the firm was the saving of me. 

Having escaped the heady bubble of the trading 'floor', which made many complacent, I noted the wailings of the prophets of doom, and as a result spotted the first signs of trouble with the banks and their risky self-certified mortgages, and set about making my fortune safe. 

It was March and April 2007 and it was hard work finding companies round the world that would continue to grow, or at least only sink a little when the world finances would eventually crash. I kept at it, doing my research for long hours even over the Easter Holiday. Unusually I did not go home to my parents for that holiday. It was hot work, the weather being unusually warm as well. Having done that, I was able to continue to make some money even in the middle of the crisis, but that was later.

So I was in bed by ten on Thursday 19th April (I remember the date clearly) absolutely exhausted, and was asleep within minutes. I know that because ten minutes after I hit the pillow, the phone rang and woke me up again.

I regained consciousness in a bad temper. I felt drained and dazed. Still, it could be an emergency involving my parents or my brother or sister. I picked up the instrument.

"Yes?" I sighed, and gave my number. Silence, though I could hear breathing. Typical, I thought, exhausted and I get a practical joker!

"Hello?" I tried again, and then I heard a small sound.

"Who is this?" I grumbled.

"Kevin?"

I knew her immediately, and all sorts of emotions arose unbidden. 

"Nicola!" I said. "Sorry for being so gruff, but you woke me. I've had a hard day."

"I'm sorry," she spoke quietly, and was that a sob? "It's not very late; I thought you'd be awake."

"No matter," I said. 

There was another silence. I was not going to break it, after all, she had phoned me.

"If you're tired," she said more brightly, "I'll let you get back to sleep. Shall I phone tomorrow at a better time?"

By now I was fully awake again. 

"No," I sighed, "I'm awake now. Did you want to talk?"

"D'you think we could meet? I don't like talking on the phone."

"Yes, if that's what you want. Where are you?"

"London. Where are you?"

"Manchester. Shall I come down to London?"

"Since I've called you, I should come to you. I have next weekend free."

I wondered afresh what her motives were, but remembering her, could not refuse. In any case I was now even more curious. We made arrangements for her to let me know when her train would arrive and I would meet her at Piccadilly Station.

So on the following Friday I went for my run early, and mid-afternoon I was waiting at the end of the platform for the London train to disgorge its passengers. I searched as the suitcase-toting crowd passed me by, until there she was. 

I could not believe it, she was with a man! He was talking to her and she was smiling and replying. There was a flash of memory; I was used, she had arrived with another man! Was he her boyfriend, or her husband? What was going on?

She was still breathtakingly beautiful, dressed in designer jeans and a short tan coat. I had forgotten how beautiful she was when a teenager, but now she was in the full bloom of adult womanhood and I could not believe how much more beautiful it was possible for a woman to be.

Then she saw me, and I assume she also saw the expression on my face. She broke from her companion with a half wave and made a beeline for me. I realised it was just a fellow passenger hitting on her, and I smiled, feeling a bit of a fool. 

She walked right up to me and dropped her case. I opened my arms and she fell into them, and we lost ourselves in a long hug. At length we pulled apart and then kissed hello. A short, soft kiss.

"Oh, Kev," she sighed, "I've--"

"Hello," I said softly, cutting in. "Come on, we have to catch another train."

As we changed platforms, she began to babble. She talked about everything and anything, and it was clear she was very nervous and unsure of me. After all, she had treated me badly and it I think she knew it and didn't know how I'd react once we were alone.

We emerged from the local train into the Wilmslow sunshine. She exclaimed at my car at the station, she really exclaimed at the house. I brewed some tea while she nattered on and on, and eventually we sat down in the living room with it. 

"Nicola!" I interrupted her quite sharply. "Stop! You're making my head ache!"

She stopped, surprised and with a tinge of embarrassment and worry.

"Nicola," I said soothingly, "you don't need to do this. Just sit for a while. You came because you want something or you're looking for something, and eventually you'll tell me what it is. 

"I'm so very happy to see you again after all this time, and over dinner at a restaurant I've booked, you can tell me all about your life and what you've been doing. Then, when the time is right, you'll tell me what's on your mind. Yes?"

She looked shamefaced. "Is it that obvious?"

"Yes it is. Relax. You know me well enough that if I'd not wanted to see you, I would not have answered your request on the BBC."

She relaxed. "No, I suppose you wouldn't." 

Then she smiled that smile, sending shivers down my spine.

"Now," I said. "Our booking is in two hours' time. Let me show you to your room and let you unpack and freshen up."

I took her upstairs and showed her to her room. It was en suite, and was, if I say so myself, nicely decorated in a feminine style. Not my work, in fact it was designed by Beth, one of my two friends-with-benefits. Nicola enthused about the view from the window, the décor, the bathroom, and the bed. I felt unaccountably very gratified.

"Dress casual," I said. "It's an ordinary restaurant in a hotel, with wonderful food."

An hour later she came down, and she was dressed casually in a knee length skirt and a silk blouse, set off with a silver necklace and earrings to match, but in reality she could have worn anything. I looked at her, and smiled.

"You always were stunning," I said, "but now you've matured you look superb." 

She seemed embarrassed!

I had booked a taxi to the restaurant, and we spoke little on the way, and little during the meal. She agreed the food was special and devoted her full attention to it. We discussed food and wine. After dessert, we relaxed and moved to a lounge, and sat together on a huge sofa, while we were served coffee, mint chocolates and cognac.

"Well," she said, and I laughed.

"What?" she looked puzzled, disconcerted.

"You always used to begin conversations with 'well'. Go on!"

She laughed and began again, "Well--"

This time we both laughed and she shook her head at me.

"OK," she said, "I was going to say you seem to have done all right for yourself. Beautiful car, house, area. And you look great! So fit! Are you with anyone?"

"Very direct," I replied with a smile. "Did you actually see a woman back at home?"

She looked discomfited, but recovered. 

"No, but my bedroom; you didn't design that!" she said with an air of triumph. "So I wondered."

"I have a number of women friends, and one of them, Beth, decorated your room."

She smiled with an air of smugness. "But not anyone serious?" she probed.

"No."

She looked relieved, and I began to feel uneasy. There was a silence as we sipped our drinks.

"You look good," she repeated. "Do you work out?"

I nodded. Now I knew I was being cross-examined. 

"Fit body -- you were always handsome, you know. Nice car, nice house. But Manchester?" 

"I worked for a bank in London until two years ago. It's cheaper and less stressful up here."

"Different job?" she asked. It was an offhand question, but I thought she was eager to know all about my life. Why?

"You could say that," I said, but no more. She would have to work harder to get whatever it was she wanted. 

"Enough about me," I said, wanting to frustrate her aims whatever they were. "What about you? What have you been doing since school?"

"After my degree, I got a job doing translating for a publisher in London, and got some work fashion modelling. The modelling pays a lot better than the translating. I've got a place in a shared house in Putney; I'm sharing with three other girls. We get on well."

She paused. Looked uncertain, and then plunged on.

"I've been in a number of relationships over the years, but never really settled down. I still remember your scorn after the prom so vividly, and you saved me from disaster as far as having children is concerned. It taught me a sharp lesson. I had been a real slut in school -- I still feel embarrassed about my behaviour then -- but I was a lot more choosy at University. I lived with a guy for nearly a year in third year but in the end it just didn't feel right.

"After University I was alone in London and what with the day job and the modelling I didn't have much time for men. I got hit on by all sorts of characters in the modelling game. They think if you're a model you're an easy lay. Well, I wasn't. By the way, I don't do glamour modelling -- tits out stuff.

"I've got used to being hit on," she said with a shy smile. "That guy on the train tried really hard, in spite of me telling him I was visiting my boyfriend."

She looked horrified for a moment, "Kev, I don't mean--"

"It's OK," I hastened to tell her, "Any story will do to put the hounds off, but go on."

"Well," she smiled at her repeated use of the word, "I did date a few, but no one lasted beyond the first or second date, until Terry.

"I was with Terry for two years. You know after your harsh words after the prom, I never let anyone have me without a condom. After a year with Terry, we dispensed with them. I began to think he was the one for me to settle with, but when he asked me to marry him I couldn't say yes."

She stopped for a second or two as she remembered. 

"He was upset, and we gradually began to grow apart. Eventually a friend told me she'd seen him with another woman while I was away on a photo shoot. I asked him and he admitted it. He was sorry, he said, but he wanted to settle down and I had turned him down. I left his flat and moved in with my three housemates.

She stopped now and relaxed against the cushions of the sofa. "That's it," she said after a pause, "the story of my life."

"What do you think stopped you saying yes, when he asked you?" I asked after a while.

"I've asked myself that question many times," she answered. "All I can say is that something did not feel right. It was as if something was missing that I needed in a man, and I don't know what that something is."

She shrugged. 

"What about you?" she asked, as if telling her story gave her permission to pry. I did not mind.

"I enjoyed Oxford," I said. "After sowing my oats in that last year at school, like you I settled down. I had two girlfriends the whole time, and made a number of good girl friends who were only friends. I have some good mates from that time as well.

"Then after university I got a job in London in a merchant bank, trading in shares. It was boom time and I made a pile of money on commissions and bonuses. I was very busy working very long hours, just like you, and didn't have much time for a relationship. The women I did get with, were in banking or insurance like me. There were a few casual friendships 'with benefits'. It was recreational after working hard. No commitments. Fun.

"A couple of years ago, I decided to get out of London and work for myself. London was always too big for me, too expensive and the traffic is horrible. Since it doesn't really matter where you work if you have internet access, I decided on Manchester. It's central in Britain, good motorways to everywhere, in easy reach of the Lake District and Wales, and the Peak District is on the doorstep. I love hiking in the hills. Actually, two girl friends had already moved up here together and loved it. I've made some more good friends through them and some of my other university friends already live round here.

"So that's it really," I said in conclusion, "I'm relaxed, comfortable and enjoying life."

"Not looking for someone permanent?" she asked, with some intensity I thought.

"I've not come across anyone I'd remotely consider settling with," I replied. "All my friends are pretty flexible and no one wants to be tied down -- unless they're into S & M!" 

I laughed at my own joke, and she obligingly smiled. That smile I remembered so clearly that made her pretty face devastatingly beautiful. There was a stirring in my trousers.

I called up a taxi and we went home. On the walk from the hotel to the taxi she took my arm, and kept her own tucked into mine during the taxi ride and on the walk to the front door. I felt her breast against my upper arm, and liked the feeling. After all, we were old friends weren't we?

When we got inside, I offered her a nightcap, and she asked for a whisky, which led to a survey of my array of malts, which she admired. She opted for a well aged Old Pultney from Wick in the north east Highlands. Good expensive taste! Then I sat her down and we planned the next day. 

I asked if she liked walking and she said she used to walk with her father but had got out of the habit since moving to London. I said I'd show her a good walk, and she looked worried.

"Don't you trust me?" I asked.

"Of course," she said, though she did not look as if she believed her own words.

I then suggested that in the evening we should go to a dinner dance in one of the best hotels in Manchester. Of course she had nothing to wear for such an occasion. I would take her into Wilmslow, I said, and we would kit her out. Show me a woman who is tired of shopping and I'll show you one who is tired of life!

So that was arranged. Having finished her drink, she yawned and said she'd turn in. I suggested a mug of cocoa, and she looked surprised, thought about it, and then nodded.

"You go on up," I said, "and I'll bring it to you when I've made it. Shout when you're ready."

"You don't want to burst in and find me half dressed?" she said coquettishly.




Sunday Love Songs 01



"That's no way to treat a guest. No matter how much I'd like to!"

"Touché!" and a grin.

I had just finished when she shouted she was in bed. So I put the house to bed and took our cocoas upstairs.

When I entered her room, she was sitting demurely in bed with a smile, the covers pulled up over her chest. 

"I didn't bring any nightwear," she said, "so I'm not wearing very much," and that smile again.

I put the drink into her hands, said goodnight, and leant in and kissed her lips. It was a light, gentle and short kiss. She smiled again, and was that a suppressed sigh?

I went to bed, but did not sleep. Too excited and too many questions.

What was going on? What did she want? I sure as hell wasn't going to ask her. She would have to come out with it. 

Who was I kidding? What I really thought was that perhaps she wanted to get together again. My heart gave a little twitch at the thought, soon quelled; not much chance of that when she was in London and I was in Manchester. 

More likely it was nostalgia on her part; wanting to see what had become of her friend from school, her confidant in those growing years? The one who had been her first lover, and who had rejected her after the prom? 

She was more beautiful than when she was at school. She was mature, self-assured and knew her own mind. She knew she was beautiful, she modelled for catalogues and adverts, mainly fashion and hair products and perfume. 

I fancied her, who wouldn't? She was used to being hit on, but I had never done that to her and I wasn't about to start now. She had always made the first move. Had she made a first move by paging me on the BBC and coming to stay? Well, I would not make any moves on her unless invited. 

Too many questions, but I would not be asking for the answers. At present she was my friend and my guest. Perhaps things should stay that way. 

Next morning, I did my morning run, and when I got back, after my shower, I forgot myself and made her a cup of tea with my own, taking it to her room. I knocked. No answer. I entered.

She was lying half under and half out of the covers. One breast and one leg as far as her pussy were on view. I put the tea down and gently covered her.

She opened her eyes with a mischievous smile, "Thanks."

I was caught. 

"Not funny," I said and walked out.

I was in the kitchen making breakfast when she came in, fully dressed. 

"Sorry," she said, "I shouldn't have done that."

"That's OK. It's not as if I haven't seen it before, but we're not eighteen any more."

We ate breakfast, then into Wilmslow we went.

"Can I do the shopping alone?" she asked. "Give you a surprise?"

We argued over who should pay for her finery, but she asserted that she was more than able to pay for herself, thank you very much! I backed off and left her to it.

I waited in the car, after doing a little of my own shopping, and eventually she arrived with a number of bags and a mysterious expression on her face.

I took her to Alderley Edge, and we walked the paths through the woods, cool under the clear sky and a warm sun, and gazed over the sunlit Cheshire plain spread out below, the farms and livestock looking like models from our exalted height. She enjoyed it, she said, though she looked tired when we returned and she disappeared to have a nap. We had a light afternoon tea and then she disappeared again, this time to spend a couple of hours getting ready.

Once ready myself, I waited downstairs for her. The dinner dance was 'smart casual' so I had on my usual jacket and trousers with a decent shirt. Nothing special.

When she came down the stairs, I got my surprise. The dress was deeply V necked showing the tops and insides of her breasts. It was quite short, though not slutty, form fitting but not tight with a slightly flared skirt, black with an embroidered design on the bodice, and dark stockings or tights, I could not tell which. On her feet were a pair of silver high heels. She had added the silver necklace and earrings, and there was a silver handbag to complete the outfit. 

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "You're stunning, gorgeous, amazing!"

She smiled with satisfaction, "You don't look so bad yourself."

"Oh, this old thing!" I replied, and we both laughed.

The evening went well. We chatted about times past and life in general, and danced until the small hours. It was not the sort of hotel where men try to pick up women, and so we were left in peace.

We took a taxi back home, and I got us a couple of whiskies to finish the evening. This time she asked for an peaty malt. I gave her an Ardbeg. We settled into a couple of armchairs. I wanted to ask her what it was she really wanted, but something was stopping me, and once again we talked about everything but the one thing. Once again we went to separate rooms, kissing lightly and hugging gently on the landing.

Next morning she only had time for a quick breakfast before she had to catch her train back to London, and I had to drive her into the city to catch it. I couldn't leave the car since it was a drop-off zone, but I got out, and extracted her case from the car. 

Then we kissed. This time it was a long kiss initiated by her, and a strong hug, pressing hard against the length of my whole body, and full of everything she had not said. She was telling me she wanted something from me, and I was telling her I still fancied her. She pressed a piece of paper into my hand. Her address and phone number.

"Will you come to London and see me? Please?" she asked when we broke. "It's been wonderful to be with you again, and you obviously have a lovely life here. There's so much I wanted to say, but somehow--"

"Me too," I said to save her, "Yes, I'd really love to come and see you."

"Soon?"

"Soon."

Another steamy kiss and she was gone. 

That evening there was a phone call. She was telling me, she said, that she had arrived safely, and was thanking me for a wonderful weekend. How she had been worried that we would be uncomfortable with each other but we got on so well. How we seemed to think alike. How she enjoyed the things we did, but she said never got round to really talking, whatever that might mean. I would come to see her soon wouldn't I? 

She ended with, "Miss you darling!"

I realised that I missed her as well, and I said so. She made a little 'mmh' sound of pleasure.

After all these years she had done it again. I was preoccupied with her. I'd get pictures in my mind of her half exposed body in the bed. I would find myself wondering what she was doing now, and what she was after when she made contact.

I did not have long to wonder. Four days later I had an evening phone call. She thought she would 'just call' to tell me she was going on a photo shoot and would not be at home for a fortnight. I wished her good luck and that was it. It was clear she wanted to keep the contact fresh.

Then the weekend after she went on the shoot. Another phone call, this time from Bristol where she was doing the shoot.

"You don't mind me phoning you, Kevin, do you?" she said, quite plaintively I thought. "There's nothing to do at the weekend. It's poured with rain all day. I should have gone back to London."

"No," I said, "I'm not doing anything either, and it's been showery all day here."

As if I thought our happy chatter about the weather might cheer us up!

"None of your girls keeping you occupied?" Another loaded question!

"No," I replied. "All on my own." 

She was fishing, no doubt about it. What did the woman want?

Instead of telling me, she regaled me with an account of the week's shooting, an underwear selection for an internet catalogue. Her description was quite vivid and arousing. Apparently, while Nicola was beautifully proportioned in every dimension and slim, she was, shall we say, too ample to be one of the stick insects that strut the catwalks, but did a lot of catalogue and internet clothing sites. 

Then she became serious.

"Kevin, I'm very sorry," she said.

"Sorry? What for?"

"Long story. I'll leave it till you come. It's just that I treated you very badly at school."

"Nicky, it's a long time ago. Water under the bridge."

"Not for me, I'd prefer to do it face to face. When are you coming?"

"Well, I need to be in the smoke fairly soon for a meeting, how about three weeks from this weekend, Friday to Sunday? I need to give my people chance to get a report together for me, and you can get back from your shoot and settle down again."

"I'm afraid my place is rather cramped, and we have an agreement not to bring men back to the house," she said apologetically.

"Don't worry," I told her, "I'll get a room in a hotel. So, shall I pick you up on the Friday evening? We could do dinner and take it from there."

"About seven?"

"OK."

------ 

The people I was going to see were a small but growing advertising agency. I wanted some discrete advertising of my services. I had discussed it with them on the phone, and they had sent mockups by email, but I wanted to meet them face to face, and see the stuff in the flesh, so to speak.

I thought that with tweaking, a contract would take two days to finalise, and so I booked Thursday afternoon and all day Friday with them. I booked my train, getting a ridiculously low first class fare by booking ahead and going after ten thirty in the morning. No point in wasting money!

I must say I was looking forward eagerly to spending the weekend with Nicola. I wondered if this time she would actually get round to saying what she had in mind, apart from another grovelling apology about how she'd treated me in school. 

I would not allow myself to speculate, but suspected she wanted some sort of relationship with me, though how that would work I did not know. Neither did I know how I felt about the prospect. I was strongly attracted to her, as I always had been, but feared being let down again if we got too serious. She had been good at letting me down. In that light, my coming to London to see her was a commitment on my part; a risk in that it gave her some sort of positive message that I wasn't sure I wanted to convey.

It was the end of May, but I left Manchester in a welter of cool, heavy showers, and arrived at lunchtime in London in warm bright sunshine. It cheered me up. The meeting went very well, and in fact they were so efficient and fair to me that we finished the work by six on Thursday. 

I wondered what to do. I was now a day early, so I decided to phone her and make a date for that evening -- just a drink in a pub or something like that. She would hardly baulk at an extra day after all she said. 

The call went to voice mail twice and she did not reply. I decided to get a taxi from my hotel to her flat, and see if she was in. I knew she sometimes did evening photo shoots so may not be at home, but perhaps her housemates would know where she was.

"Hello?" said the tall blonde. The accent was 'upper clears'; the sort of pronunciation the Queen uses. She was exquisite (the blonde not the Queen), there was no other word for her. She was as tall as I was, though she was wearing heels. She was slim, perfectly proportioned, and wearing impeccable make up, a designer casual form-fitting sweater and tight jeans. Her hair shone, her face was very pretty -- not delicate, but symmetrical. Her perfume was understated but enticing. 

All my male biology wanted to stand there for the rest of the evening and gaze at her, but I controlled myself.

"Good evening," I replied, "I wonder, would Nicola be at home this evening?"

She stared at me, unsmiling. "I'm afraid not. She's not been here all week, and some of last week come to that."

"Oh. I am a day early. I told her I would be in town tomorrow evening--"

"Well, she won't be here tomorrow or the weekend. Her boyfriend is taking her away for the weekend. They've only just got back together after a while apart, and they dropped off some of her stuff on Tuesday. While she was sorting her stuff, Terry, her man, told me they would be going to Paris tomorrow for the weekend. So you're out of luck, I'm afraid." There was no encouraging smile.

I was stunned for a moment. Nicola had done it again. This time she had burnt her boats. This was a calculated insult.

"I'm sorry I've troubled you," I said. "Would you be kind enough to tell her when you see her that I came calling, and not to bother calling me any more. Kevin Connors."

She nodded and shut the door.

I stood before the closed door for a moment, trying to make sense of what had transpired. Why had she not rung me and said she was back with her boyfriend? Why bring me all this way, to go away with someone else for the weekend? 

I decided I did not want to know the answer. The woman was bad news. She was bad news in school and was bad news still. I wanted to put as much distance between me and her as possible, as quickly as possible. I went back to the hotel and checked out, paying the cancellation fee and then the exorbitant train fare back home.

On the train I phoned Beth.

"Doing anything tomorrow night, or the weekend? I need some TLC."

"Thought you were seeing this old school friend? She let you down?"

"You could say that. Wasted trip to London. I could have done the contract business on conference call. Tell you tomorrow."

"I'll come to you."

It was drier and brighter than it had been in the morning and warmer when I left the local train. I bought fish and chips on the way home, and ate them with a beer in the kitchen. Then a second beer. The greasy food and the alcohol, both of which tasted wonderful, all the more so for being seriously sinful, made me feel a good deal better.

I looked back over the preceding weeks. I had a relaxed, comfortable life before that stupid BBC programme. Programmes like that should carry a health warning. 

She seemed intent on finding me, then intent on meeting me, then intent on explaining to me, except that she didn't. What was her intent after that? I had suspected that she wanted a relationship again, why else would she want me to go to London for the weekend? So I jump through all the hoops. She gazes at me with love and sincerity, kisses goodbye with a good deal of promise, I commit to seeing her and she drops me in the shit again. Enough, I thought. No more. Let her go back to her life and leave me to live mine.

I caught myself. She had already gone back to her life. She had decided on this Terry. So be it. 

However I was still angry certainly, but something else. Frustrated? Jealous? That was it. She had left me hanging -- again.

Darling Beth arrived full of concern and compassion on Friday evening. We went out locally for an Italian meal and arrived back to find the answer-phone blinking. Four messages. Beth went to the loo, and I scrolled through.

Answer one. Nicola. "Kevin --" Erase.

Answer two. Nicola. "Kevin--" Erase.

And so on for three and four. There was nothing she could say. It would only lead to more trouble and more distress on my part.

I disconnected the phone, and put my mobile on silent. No distractions. Beth needed all her attention to comfort me. That is what I thought, and she agreed with me. Very agreeable, Beth!

I sent Nicola a text. 

Nicola every time we meet you mess up my life. You invite me to spend the weekend and go off with your boyfriend or is it fiancé? Leave me alone. Go and have a good life with Terry. Goodbye. Kevin.

Over the meal, I had told Beth the tale. She had sat back after dessert and looked at me.

"So," she said, "that's the woman you are in love with."

I exploded in denial, but she shook her head. 

"No, Kev," she said gently, "she might keep messing you up, but you are in love with her. We all knew there was a woman in your life somewhere, but we couldn't think who. You'll get over it. She's mixed up, that's her trouble."

"I can't take any more," I said plaintively, almost whining, "Every time she contacts me, she buggers up my life. I really had put her a long way behind me, until that stupid programme. I'd even forgotten about her -- well, as much as you ever do."

"You may not have been conscious of her," she said wisely, "but somewhere it's kept you from committing to any of us."

"You never wanted commitment. You want the free life."

"At the moment, but most women want to settle down eventually. We all have bio-clocks ticking you know -- men don't."

"But you don't want to settle with me." 

"We talk about you, you know," she smiled. "We all agreed that you would be a good catch, but you weren't really fully available -- not that we want you available just yet, but in the future. There was something..." she searched for the word, "sort of 'spoken-for' about you. Now I know why. I'm sure you'll get over her in time. She'll become a warm memory."

I shook my head. 

"I'm over her now, and I don't think the memory will ever be warm. What sort of woman invites you for an intimate weekend where she promises she will bare her soul at the very least, gets you there and then goes off to Paris with someone else? She's a bitch."

Beth shrugged her shoulders. "Seems odd, not right somehow."

"Somehow? You don't know her," I said warming to the task. "She got me to take her virginity so she could enjoy having sex with the captain of the soccer team! Get this, she told me I had a reputation of having a small thin cock, so it wouldn't hurt her as much as the big butch footballer. After a whole weekend of her multiple orgasms, and her cherry almost painlessly plucked, her final comment was, 'Thanks, Kevin, now I'm really ready to enjoy doing it with Barry.'"

"But you knew why you were having sex with her. All right, it was crass of her, but she didn't try to trick you. You'd fallen for her, that was your trouble."

"The only upside was she told me I was actually bigger than him! She could have been done by him all along, though from what she said he was not much good in bed either!"

"I don't know," she giggled, "you men and your size obsession!"

I knew she was right, I had fallen for Nicola afresh. She was sex on legs. I then told Beth of the prom night, and her rejection of sex because I wanted to wear a condom, and my walking out on her. 

She sighed sympathetically. "You were both young, Kev, and you're right, she was stupid. I liked that you told her about the STD, and what she did. She'll be grateful to you for the rest of her life if she has kids."

"Grateful enough to beg me to meet her and go off with someone else," I said bitterly.

She sighed and took me to bed. She divined that words were not going to cut it. She would try her warm body instead.

Beth is warm hearted and thorough. When she fucks she fucks, when she comforts she comforts, and I was thoroughly comforted that night. Come to think about it, the fucking was pretty thorough as well. 

Beth was what most would call 'statuesque', by which is meant she was perfectly proportioned from her head to her toes, it was simply that every dimension was generous. No, she was not fat; in fact her body was perfectly toned and sculptured. There was no fat, all tight muscle: she worked out.

She was five feet ten tall, she had a large frame -- big bones, and long legs. So her breasts were not overly large for her frame, nor was her bottom unduly ample, but her breasts were firm and stood proud as if to say, 'no implants here!', and her bottom was tight and even hard, as were her thighs. 

She was the perfect embodiment of the renaissance woman.

Her hair was fairly nondescript though -- curly brown, her face was delicate, with almond shaped eyes, a straight nose and wide lips (all the better to suck you with, she would say). Her neck was sinuous and strong, her back curved exquisitely down to the swell of her buttocks. Her sex, like the rest of her was generous, her crevice was deep and contained her inner lips completely. Her clitoris was reticent and by proportion small, but non-the-less intensely sensitive. Just as well, since ordinary missionary sex only grazed it in the most perfunctory manner.




Sunday Love Songs 01



It meant that she was a formidable partner in strenuous fucking, because she was physically strong, but she was also the softest and most comforting body when comfort was needed. Her breasts were like pillows then.

We did it all that warm night, as my moods changed. She was utterly sensitive to my every mood and reacted accordingly. 

It was as if this wonderfully accommodating body and soul sucked out all my anger and dissatisfaction and jealousy and frustration, and left me peaceful and in repose.

Beth was a friend and would always remain so, never more. We were not soul-mates, but she was comfortable and comforting.

We did not mention Nicola again that weekend. We went walking on Saturday afternoon in the warm June sunshine, and went for a curry in the evening, followed by another though shorter night of delicious passion, followed by a morning of the same. By the time Beth left that Sunday evening I felt we had exorcised Nicola from my life.

I felt at peace and exhausted, but I forced myself to go for a run; vertical exercise after horizontal. My, that Beth had stamina! My world was back in balance, I thought. How naïve of me!

The following week at my trading I was on edge wondering if I'd been too hasty in predicting a financial catastrophe. Everything seemed rather more secure than I predicted, but I resisted the temptation to change my policies which were now making me far less money. Most of the week was spent looking at a monitor screen, and making minor adjustments to my portfolio.

I realised on Friday afternoon that I had not seen anyone in the flesh the whole week long, apart from at the gym, and I resolved to remedy the situation.

When Karen and Julie rang me to tell me of a gathering at the Grey Cat Club in Manchester, I jumped at the chance. 

The Grey Cat Club was a large club in the basement of the Regency Hotel, a hotel I often used when staying over in Manchester, and with whom I had an account. The hotel had a very good restaurant serving superb food. It was the hotel to which I had taken Nicola for the dinner dance.

The club had a number of different 'rooms' with differing types of music. The one in which we met had dance music at a volume level allowing conversation without having to shout in each other's ears.

There was a mix of folk there to celebrate Mike's birthday. Mike and I had been friends through university, and he had moved up to Manchester after graduating. I picked up a bottle of well-aged malt whisky as a present for him and joined the party, having booked a room in the hotel and parked the car in their underground car park.

We were not binge drinkers, but after the first two hours, we had all taken plenty, and were feeling no pain. The jokes and laughter came thick and fast and the DJ was particularly good that evening, so we danced. It was our custom for the men to dance with each of the girls in turn, which meant we got a chance to talk more personally with one person at a time. Couples' partners were respected.

At about two in the morning, the music became slower and I suddenly found that everyone had gone home and there I was with Julie, with whom I had been in close conversation on the dance floor for a number of dances.

If you like variety in women, Beth and Julie give it in spades. Julie is model-thin. Thin arms, thin legs, thin body, small breasts, but long sharp nipples, large diameter areolae. Long delicate fingers. Lovely tight small arse, and tighter vagina, with a clitoris to match her nipples, long and very sensitive. In fact all her body was very sensitive. 

"My hotel room or a taxi home?" I asked her.

"Your room," she answered, tucking her arm in mine as we called the lift at 2am.

We entered the room and used the bathroom after each other, undressed methodically and climbed nakedly into the large bed. 

"Let's sleep now," she said, yawning. "Time for fun in the morning."

I got out of bed and hung the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door. Julie was asleep by the time I got back. I did not stay awake for long either.

It is a common fantasy that a man wakes up with a woman's mouth engulfing his penis, as she gives him his morning blow. Not for me with Julie. Julie could enter the Olympics for sleeping and gain a gold. 

I woke at eight thirty, and was immediately desperate for the loo. Having relieved myself, I got my kit out of the car and used the hotel's gym. I decided to shower in our room, and shave while I was in there, and when I emerged clean and smooth, healthy and relaxed, Julie was still spark out. 

I was in no hurry to wake her, and went down to breakfast. When I returned, replete and set up for the day, she was still asleep. Time to awaken my sleeping beauty. 

With Julie one has to be very careful. She is extremely ticklish. I stroked her hair until her eyelids fluttered and she smiled.

"Breakfast?" I asked, sitting on the side of the bed.

She grimaced. "Coffee!" she groaned.

I made her a cup and she leant on one elbow as she sipped the scaldingly hot brew, her breasts crushed together and for once forming an enticing if minimal cleavage. I stared and she grinned. She put the cup down, half finished, climbed out of bed and used the bathroom, walking nakedly to that room with a sexy catwalk sway, showing me her active, perfectly slim bottom, which in turn activated my own equipment.

Returning she climbed back into bed and finished the coffee. 

"Get your kit off and see to me!" she commanded,

I did as I was told and climbed back into the bed that I had left a good hour before. I began to work on her. No gentle caresses for Julie; simply stroking her flanks would set her off into uncontrollable giggles. 

So it was with strong and firm touch I took her breasts and pinched the nipples, evincing an appreciative groan. A heavy traverse with one hand down her stomach was answered by a parting of her legs as she welcomed my attention to her sex. Her sensitivity was such that she went into her first orgasm immediately I dragged my hand over her vulva and clitoris, and she instantly pulled me over her to enter her. 

We fucked hard, she lifting to me in response and coming to her second release. I was nowhere near and carried on while she had her prolonged orgasm, or was it a succession of smaller ones? The clenching of her vaginal walls hastened my own resolution and I filled the condom.

It was enough for us that morning. We both felt the relaxing of sexual tension and lay together for half an hour before getting dressed and leaving the hotel.

To be truthful, I never felt totally satisfied with Julie's love-making. I enjoy exploring a woman's body with hands and mouth, varying touches in intensity and speed. With Julie it was impossible. We had discussed it before and she had expressed herself totally satisfied with her experience; she certainly had enough orgasms! 

However, I was sad she never got to enjoy the relaxing foreplay other women revel in. I tried once but she dissolved in such uncontrollable laughter that it destroyed the atmosphere completely.

It takes all sorts...

------ 

For the rest of June I heard nothing from Nicola. It was a relief, though I thought about her often in passing, usually while out running. At first I wondered what was going on in her mind to do such things, then later if she came to mind, I wondered what she might be doing, and whether she had at last decided to settle for her two year boyfriend. After that she came briefly to mind every now and then; a memory and no more.

Over the next months, the markets were jittery as banks crashed and were bailed out by governments, but by judicious buying and selling I continued to make a profit, though a very small one by previous standards. I made losses some days but by and large came out on top. The majority of my investments were spread around the world and were safer.

While my finances were calm and secure, the weather was not. June and July were cloudy, or cloudy and wet, or windy and wet. It was depressing, and running became a chore. I decided that if I were to get any results from my advertising, the work would come in September and not before, and that if I didn't escape the awful weather I would not last that long.

I decided to visit two of my Canadian cousins, one in Vancouver, and the other in Revelstoke in the Rockies, and I also opted to treat myself to a week in Lake Louise at the famous Lake Louise Hotel. 

My third cousin Brigid in Vancouver was at a loose end, having just finished her degree, and I invited her to accompany me on my trip, sharing the driving. Patrick, and Moira his wife, in Revelstoke were delighted to entertain us, and so I set about booking the trip.

I left Britain half way through July. Vancouver with Brigid was as good and better than my previous visit, when, if I remember, it rained solidly the whole time. The sun shone on our journey to Revelstoke and we spent a very happy week with Patrick and Moira. Then on to Lake Louise where we spent another week. That hotel is so wonderful, both for service, food and the view, that it defies a description that would do it justice.

I was enjoying Canada so much that I stayed in Vancouver with Brigid for another week, and so it was mid August when I returned to England to find the weather improved and the financial world in worse turmoil. I had purposely refused to keep up with the news while away, and felt rested as a result.

Thanks to the crisis no one had responded to my advertising -- there were no enquiries on my answer-phone, but when my business phone rang on the third Tuesday of August I felt elated, a customer at last -- until I answered it.

"Mr Connors?" she asked, since I had given my 'company' name.

"We met some weeks ago," she continued on my affirmative answer. "You came to our flat looking for Nicola Grayson. I'm Sarah Wilkinson-Howard."

I now recognised the accent and smiled at the double-barrelled name, while all the while my spirits dropped though the floor. What now? My silence seemed to unnerve her.

"Hello?" she asked, probably thinking I had either fainted or left the phone, not surprisingly, I thought.

"I'm still here," I said in a dull monotone, remembering that she was not exactly welcoming when I knocked at her door. A nameless dread rose in my soul.

"Oh dear," she sighed, "this isn't going well. Look, I have to apologise for that evening. I didn't know Nicola was expecting you; I thought you were another hopeful -- and she had plenty of those. She had indeed set aside that weekend for you, and I messed it up."

That came as a surprise! But it occurred as quickly that she was with Terry when she had said she had long finished with him. 

"I don't think you've waited weeks just to apologise," I said, but gently. "There is something else, isn't there?"

"Yes, there is. When she arrived on the Friday afternoon, I asked her about her weekend in Paris. She laughed and said Terry was a fool, and she had no intention of going anywhere with him. I was puzzled, and she told me she was meeting you. She was so upset when I told her you had been there the day before and I'd told you about the Paris trip. She phoned you twice at least, but there was no reply. Then she got your email and went to pieces."

"I can't think why, we weren't that close. We'd only met once recently since we were at school together, and she wanted to talk with me about something, but never got round to it. You said yourself she was back with Terry. Perhaps she was mildly disappointed, but surely not destroyed."

"Well, Kevin, all I can say is that she's been miserable ever since, and she's going downhill. That's why I'm ringing; I'm worried about her, and wondered if you would see her."

"You say she's been depressed since that weekend," I said with some patience. "Why have you waited so long to ask me?"

"I suggested to her that I ring you, but she refused and made me promise not to tell you, but this is serious. She doesn't know I'm doing this."

"I really don't understand. You said yourself she was back with the guy who had asked her to marry him. Why me?"

"She finished with him finally before coming home that Friday. I asked her about that, but apparently she wanted to be sure she had been right to finish the first time. He had been without a steady girlfriend since, and they tried to give it another go, but it didn't work."

I had a sudden idea. I wondered if Nicola... 

"Sarah," I asked, "what did Nicola do that weekend after she got the email?"

Silence. A long silence.

I broke it. "She went to Paris with him, didn't she?" 

"She was upset and despondent, and I said 'Why waste it?' I told her to go; I thought it would cheer her up. Apparently the weekend was a total disaster."

Here we go again, I thought. 

Nicola was still bad news. She was beautiful, she was intelligent, she was affectionate, and certainly highly desirable, but chaos always ensued for me when she was involved. I helped her out, and she always dumped me in the shit. It happened even when she did not intend or perpetrate the disaster. There could be no future in this.

I sighed. 

"Look, Sarah," I muttered, "in all my interactions with Nicky, she has asked me to do things. I have always agreed and then she has dumped me in the garbage. Now you want me to do it again. I don't know whether I can. I can only take so much."

"Please, Kevin," she begged, "I don't know what to do with her. She does her translation work nine to five, comes home and watches TV and goes to bed. She never smiles, never speaks unless absolutely necessary. She goes to bed early and sleeps through the night -- ten or eleven hours. She's pale and getting thinner. I don't know who to turn to and you seem to be the key to this. Please, can it hurt to come and meet her?"

Her logic was impeccable, her moral arm-twisting emotionally painful. On a purely human level I had to help. At least I knew what I was getting into. I might as well pour the shit over my own head to save her the trouble. Yes. I would go.

"OK," I sighed with resignation. "It's Tuesday today. I need a couple of days to catch up after my holiday -- get over jet lag. I'll come down on Thursday."

She enthused her thanks and rang off. My thought was that I was being a mug -- again. I wondered how it would go wrong this time. 

After a busy Wednesday sleeping, I caught the train on the Thursday mid-morning feeling a lot better. I lunched with John, a friend from university, who had been in the banking industry like me, and had been 'downsized' thanks to the crisis. He had a financial cushion and was not too worried. We had a good time, and after taking my leave of him, I made my way to the flat at about four in the afternoon.

On knocking I was greeted with a dazzling smile from Sarah. I'd forgotten how pretty she was.

"Kevin!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad you came. Come in!"

She led me to the living room. There was no sign of her housemates. She served me tea and scones and ate with me.

"Nicola should arrive about five thirty," she said. "I'm sure you can help her."

"I hope so," I said, "though I don't feel very confident; she's always been something of a mystery to me. You know our history?"

"She only said you were a good friend. She never said much about her life."

"A good friend, eh?" I smiled. "Well, I suppose so."

"There's more isn't there?" she probed.

"Oh yes, but I don't want to go into details now. Let's just say we were good friends at school until she disappointed me twice and we parted. Then after, what, ten years, she contacted me through the BBC, came to see me, and then disappointed me when I came to London at her request. So I don't hold much hope for this meeting either."

"You're very loyal to her." It was a statement, rather than a question.

"I'm constantly puzzled by her behaviour. She seems to make a habit of saying one thing and doing something else. I wouldn't mind, but I had a nice quiet fulfilled life until she came back into it. Now I seem to be running round after her, and she keeps messing me up!"

"Well, last time was a misunderstanding. We can put that right tonight."

I thought that really if she had not been with Terry she would have been home that Thursday. She had lied about him. I said nothing but sighed and she smiled encouragingly, and then mercifully changed the subject to our respective careers. It came as no surprise that she was an air cabin crew member -- what in a less enlightened age we called an air hostess. She kept me enthralled with her stories of foreign parts and even more so the antics of air crew on stopovers. She was quite explicit. Before we realised it, it was seven o'clock and there was no sign of Nicola.

"Oh hell," Sarah muttered. "I shouldn't have told her."

"Told her? What?"

"That I'd phoned you and that you were coming." 

She looked apologetically at me, "I'm sorry."

"You think she's keeping out of the way?" The question was superfluous. 

Sarah stood abruptly and ran up the stairs. I heard drawers and cupboard doors being opened and closed. Then she came back to the living room.

"I don't believe it!" she groaned with a grimace. "She's gone! I mean she's emptied her drawers of practically everything. All her bathroom stuff is missing, and her two big suitcases. No note; no phone-call, nothing!"

I stared at her. There was nothing to say. Nicola had done it again. 

Sarah acted. She took her mobile and tapped Nicola's number -- at least I assumed it was. She listened then clicked the phone shut. She sat down heavily on the sofa next to me.

"Discontinued," she said. "She's either changed her number or her phone. In any case, I've nothing to say to her. I bet she wouldn't answer if I'd been able to leave a message. How could she do that?" She shook her head in disbelief.

I sat still. 

Nothing new here then is what I think went through my head at that moment. 

Then I was annoyed. If she knew I was coming, she could have emailed me not to come; or she could have texted me. That would have been thoughtful. Not Nicola's way, obviously.

Sarah sat still next to me for a long while. Then she seemed to gather herself.

"Kevin," she said, turning to me and speaking earnestly. "We need to eat. I've brought you here on a wild goose chase, since the silly goose has flown. Let me take you out to dinner."

"Oh, Sarah," I said gratefully, "that's very kind, but there's no need. I can get a train home and eat on the train."

"Please, Kevin," she begged. "It's the least I can do, and I rather hoped you'd stay the night and we could try to catch her at work tomorrow. I'm not flying again until Tuesday. Please say you'll stay."

"I thought men were not allowed," I said with a grin.

"They're not," she answered with a wicked smile in her turn, "but since I pay more of the rent than the others, I can bend the rules for tonight."

"In that case--"

"Good!" she said, "Come on, let's eat."

She insisted on paying for a delicious meal, and in return I had to tell her the story of Nicola and Kevin. I explained that in school we were young, and Sarah should make allowances, but she was amazed at Nicola's use of me, and then her casual manipulation to get at me again after months of promiscuity. She laughed at my refusal to have sex and my injunction to get tested. 

We went back to her house. She introduced me to the other girls, who smiled, and then returned to whatever they were doing. 

In the kitchen, we talked about our relationships over the years and I found her attitude to sex was very like my own.

She had known about Nicola's mail to the BBC, and told me that Gail, one of the girls, had teased her about her 'crush' on me, and had dared her to write to the BBC.

"You know," she said, "she was so bubbly when she got back from visiting you. She said you were just as loving and caring as you always had been, and now I know exactly what she meant. She really put you through it, and she was genuinely guilty and rightly so, about what she did in school."