Honeyed tongues drip practised lies so sweetly. The words of him whom she has barely met are already covertly caressing places too intimate for the hand she does not yet permit, the cock she has not yet seen, the tongue only heard and not yet tasted.
One hand playing with his glass, his other is gesturing to attract the barman’s attention, and all the while the eyes that belong to the tongue, to the cock concealed in tailored pants, are fixed on her, implacably attentive. Mirrored in them she knows that what is there is no simple reflection but is what he sees, a tapestry woven of electric impulses echoing in parts of his brain, tripping switches, making connections, touching him in hidden places too, but in ways that are secret from her.
What motivates him? Why does he see what he sees, and why does he describe what he sees, in the words that he does?
Why is she here, playing this game?
It is Sadie’s fault, in part. “Let’s do the town tonight,” she’d said, winning Paula’s agreement with that bright smile and the earnest, gentle reminder that without Paula at her side Sadie would not dare venture out alone. Not fair to deny her. The King’s Head at eight, they had said, curious about its reputed recent refurbishment, and maybe Silky’s afterwards, the only disco in town one could go to, it seemed, if you were more than twelve months further on than puberty.
By 8.10 she’d grown bored of waiting outside alone, become irritated at her own timidity and ventured somewhat nervously in. At 8.15 her mobile twittered petulantly and a text from Sadie told her ‘something had come up’. The curse of the cell phone, the lie too easily told, so convenient to the liar. Had something important indeed ‘come up’ Sadie would have spoken to her, not texted. This way she avoided awkward questions, gave herself time to come up with answers when they next met at work, trusting that time would dissipate Paula’s annoyance, render the questions — when and if they came — a little less probing.
“Friend let you down?” That was his ‘in’, his opportunity smoothly, easily grasped, this man who’d sat quietly till then, furtively watching, feigning a disinterest which had never deceived her. Men rarely ignored her. Giving voice to the answer, too, responding to the gambit she could so easily have ignored, made Sadie’s thoughtlessness satisfyingly more concrete, more real, a touch more contemptible:
“Yes. She asked me to meet her here. Now she says something’s come up.”
And if anything had ‘come up’, Sadie being Sadie, it would be something hot, hard, pink and enticing. Sadie fucked like a rabbit, only with rather less discretion.
Paula saying ‘she’, of course, made his next manoeuvre easier:
“She? You were waiting for a girlfriend?” How subtle that look of surprise.
“Yes. Sadie. We work together.”
“I was sure you’d be meeting a boyfriend.”
Of course he was. Paula smiled inwardly. Nothing said yet that was beyond being simple fabrication. It amused her to play, though:
“You were?”
“Yes. Someone as lovely as you. I was sitting here feeling quite envious of him.”
A nice touch, that last, with just a hint of the right ruefulness, just the right hesitation.
“You’re very kind.”
The man denied kindness with a gentle shake of his head and she studied him quietly. He’d a good head of hair, looked in pretty good shape if thickening some around the middle. He looked like a businessman, was dressed for it in his dark pin-stripe suit. Fortuitous that she emptied her glass even then.
“Perhaps you’ll allow me to buy you a drink, Miss…?”
“Paula. You can call me Paula. And yes, I’d be glad of a drink.”
“Same again?”
“A Breezer, yes, please.”
She’d moved, then; left the bar and walked to a corner table in one of the King’s many little oak and leather nooks. She was not entirely alone, though. The guy in the worn leather jacket had slipped in at the next table even as she sat down, and for her to rise and leave, now, would appear an act of rudeness. She tried, instead, to ignore him, half turned her back upon him.
Her host identified himself when he returned from the bar with her drink:
“I’m John,” he told her smiling; “John Mitford. I live out Huddersfield way, but I’d a meeting in town this morning.”
“This morning?” He could have been home by now.
“Yes, and another tomorrow. That’s why I’m staying tonight. Hardly worth the trip home.”
“Staying here at the King’s?”
“Yes.”
She sensed even now that the other guy was listening in. He’d been in the pub since she arrived, propping up a far corner of the bar, and had smiled at her fleetingly when she came in, but the smile had died a chill death in the face of her set, closed expression. It had not been easy; it was one hell of a smile, that smile, kind of open and unguarded, but she had decided quickly — and still anticipating Sadie’s arrival— that it was not a smile she wanted to investigate.
He looked more Sadie’s type, anyway. Maybe five or six years younger than Paula, blue jeans, a shock of very black, thick hair above quite piercing dark eyes and thin lips perhaps accidentally cruel. A jewelled stud gleamed in one earlobe too. Not her preference, not a Mitford. The guy in the worn leather jacket looked like he might just be scraping by, whilst Mitford looked like he had money and enjoyed spending it. There was nothing shabby about his suit, his shirt or tie, nothing mean about the density of his wallet, the shine of his shoes. He had good, perfectly manicured teeth, too, and carefully presented hair with hints of un-hidden silver around the ears. No ring on his finger, either, though that didn’t prove anything.
A nice voice, John’s; measured, controlled, manly. A nice voice for telling her what a stunner she was, and how glad he was to be able to spend part of this lonely evening in her company. She liked listening to his voice, studying his eyes, enjoying what he said and enjoying what he did not yet say but only looked.
Paula had good tits, good hips, a good waist, long hair that guys often went into raptures over, and she knew all that, and she knew he knew all that and that he wanted to tell her all about it. He made a manful effort to keep his gaze above the level of the breasts that bunted against the soft fabric of her blouse, but he could not altogether hide his admiration or his yearning.
He wanted to fuck her. He knew that. She knew that. Neither said so, though; for that part of the game had not been reached yet. She wondered if she would let him, thinking it would be nice to feel a man inside her, to be gazed at and fondled, talked and listened to. It was usually pretty nice that first time, whilst they were still making the effort.
He talked little about himself, beyond affirming that he was the director of a small, modern company sufficiently thriving that he did not have to count the pennies and could own and drive a Beamer. Indeed, John Mitford talked only, for the most part, to ask questions about her and to demonstrate his interest in her answers, or to subtly remind her how very beautiful he thought she was. She was the focus of his attention and he hung on every word she uttered, and despite her natural cynicism Paula was beginning to feel a real connection.
The courteous invitation to dine with him, at the new, up-market Thai place out at Bingley, used a very few, gentlemanly words to say a very great deal. You didn’t get into the new, up-market Thai place without a booking unless you had money to spare, and you didn’t dine with a woman this late at the Thai place, since it was already, now, after nine and they’d a way to travel to get there, and expect to go home on your own. If she went with him there could be but one ending. One question, only, remained, if any did, and Paula asked it, smiling gently:
“You’re not married, are you?”
Surprise and amusement showed in his face; no resentment at all that she might think him a possible philanderer because, after all, there are so many such men about, and the final affirmation from his warmly smiling lips:
“No, I’m not married.”
With the prospect of dinner and so much before her, Paula set about repairing her make-up — only ever a brief requirement — whilst Mitford went to the john to ease his bladder and, no doubt, to fumble a few coins into the condom machine. Pressing her lips together to fix the lipstick newly applied, Paula observed the shock-haired, leather-jacketed smiler returning from the bar, saw one of the barmen pass out of the staff doorway too. Smiler was carrying two drinks, one of which resembled the pink Breezers she favoured, whilst the other was another half pint of the beer he’d been sipping since she arrived. Since he was and had been alone, the combination was a surprising one.
His setting the Breezer down on her own table was rather more of a surprise. Not in an acerbic mood now, still there was some ice in the voice which pointed out to him: “No thank you; I am with somebody.”
“You are?”
She gazed at him intently, wondering what planet he had just descended from. He’d been there since she arrived and she had absolutely no doubt that he had been observing them, even to some extent listening to them. It is something one accepts in the enforced proximity of the small, quiet English inn.
“You know I am.”
“Ah… Mr Mitford?”
“You were listening closely, weren’t you!” Paula’s voice was an icicle, dripping chill sarcasm, yet it produced only a wry grimace of a smile in its intended target. He said:
“Yes. Sorry about that.”
“You should be.”
“I couldn’t really help myself, I’m afraid. When you walked in, just the sight of you really hit me where it matters and hit me hard. Even though you froze me out I really hoped I might get to know you a little better.”
“You hung around in case he left? Well, you may not have noticed but he hasn’t, and Mr Mitford and I have plans.”
“Ah…”
What did that sound mean? What did that look, in those bold but quiet dark eyes mean?
“Ah?”
“Just that your plans might be changing.”
“Changing?” Playing Little Miss Echo was getting on her nerves.
“If you lean forward and take a peek past the coat rack you’ll notice he’s on the phone in the lobby.”
“So?”
“Dave the barman just told Mitford that he’d received a garbled phone call, that Mitford might have some trouble at home. Mitford’s phoning his wife to check.”
His wife? Shit. Another fucking liar.
“I come in here most evenings, you see,” the smiler added. ” I live just round the corner. So I have seen Mitford at work before.”
“So he’s married; so what?” It was not easy to keep the anger out of her voice. “What makes you think I wouldn’t happily spend time with a married man?”
“You asked him. He lied. I thought you might not like that. But you’re right; it might not matter, and if it doesn’t all it has cost me is a word or two with Dave the barman and the price of a drink, both of which you’re welcome to.”
“You orchestrated the phone call?”
“Yes. Sorry. Guilty as charged.”
“Why the fuck would you do that?”
“Because you are worth better than lies.”
Because you are worth better than lies… His face as he said it, that wry tug of self-deprecating smile. And what a smile, dammit.
She told him all that she needed to tell him, simply by raising the fresh glass to her lips.
“You all set to go?” John was smiling too, shrugging his coat on, jingling the keys of the Beamer. The shock haired youth having slipped quietly back into his seat, the fresh drink went unnoticed, or unquestioned, by the older man. She answered coolly;
“Your wife won’t mind? That is who you were phoning, isn’t it?”
What a picture the shock on his face and his struggle to contain it:
“I… What… How…?”
Caught in the lie, afraid of its imminent consequence, Mitford backed away a few paces. Paula turned to the stranger and smiled:
“You were saying?”
Michael, as she was to learn he was called, turned his seat towards her, spoke as if Mitford was simply not there, as indeed, in a very real sense, he had ceased to be there for either of them:
“There’s a very nice Italian place just up the hill from here. It’s not as exclusive as the Golden Dragon, or as expensive, but it’s nice. I’d be very glad if you would join me.”
Over Pollo Ripieno and a modest Chianti, Paula learned Michael’s truths, that he was the few years younger that she’d suspected, that he was a mature student at the city’s college of art, that he had broken up six months before with another student who’d since tilted her cap at the sculpture tutor. She liked that he was a friend of the owner, had designed the menus, that he loved things Italian as she did, and she warmed to his gentle words, affirming her loveliness, speaking softly of desire.
No surprise to her, this strange, disorganized dream of an evening, that she should find herself in his small, cluttered apartment, that she should watch him undress, watch Michael becoming Michelangelo’s David, but larger of cock.
Such a lovely thing, that. Such a gut-melting, curly-hair tingling thing that, so flushed and so purpling under her gaze, veins cording around it so thick and so hard.
Michael is sweet and attentive, listening so carefully, touching her hesitantly, gazing on her adoringly. His mouth is so gentle around the chocolate bullets of her nipples, his tongue so very fine, smooth and subtly moist there. The kisses on her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, on her chin and her breasts and her breast bone are so soft.
Four or five years makes a lifetime of difference, the grown man a child to her, so different in experience. Such delight he takes in her, as if it were Christmas and she in his stocking and gift-wrapped and wonderfully wanted. Her cunt is his new toy and precious, for treasuring, and his tongue and his fingers so diffidently play with it, eager yet fearful as if she might break.
Few words from his lips now, no spoken lies possible, voice muffled to silence in the mouth wrapped around her, tongue sucking and slithering, warm breath inflating her, so tight are his lips. No stranger to such, yet still she is writhing, thick snakes of want rippling hungrily upward from their nest in her cunt, wrapping round her belly, constricting her throat. Her mouth growing needful, her own hands are flailing, empty and wanting, flushed breast and belly each seeking their mate, yet she is despairing that the miraculous liquid pink dance of his tongue must soon stop.
“Yes, please,” she answers, to a hesitant question, answered of itself in tremor of mattress and his cock at her lips, his tongue sweetly returning to those others so full, and filling herself with that dear satin firmness, the ripples of vein like Braille to her tongue, his own tongue makes music, conducts its own symphony, deep in her core.
In mutual urgency they change in their wanting and his lips meet hers craving, tongue dancing with hers as his cock, hot and hard, fills her rippling channel, balls drum on her butt cheeks and soft bellies embrace. His hands grip her ass to the edge of discomfort, his dark fullness bouncing and thrusting deep in her, her own full lips sucking so greedily, that sweet fat stem hers now, never wanting to part from it.
A softly pounding liquid prayer whispered deep in her meets her own wet ovation, surging and rolling and so full of marvel that it is hard to believe the simplicity of function achieved by this joining. Softly, now, sated, her cunt gently weeping, they fold into each other, wrapped into each other, two bodies made one, bonded by sweat, heat and want.
Playful and sweet is the boy she has lain with, kissing her often, hungry to gaze at her, pouring more wine for her from a low budget box. How much he admires her and how closely he embraces her when they finally curl up for the night.
A brief break for a pee, though, on her part, resisting any urge for more cleansing, content yet with the anointment of the juices of both of them drying so sweetly upon her, and a quick text call too.
“I LUV U” she keys to her man at his duty, working the night shift, and pictures him smiling. The curse of the cell phone, the lie too easily told, so convenient to the liar. She’ll be home in bed, warm for him, before he returns.
© 2006 Richard V Raiment. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.