Granny Smith

Apples.  Bloody Eve.  My mind shifted to a different story.  I looked at the hard lump of cold fruit in my fingers and took a vicious bite, wishing all the while that I was stuffing my face with something naughtier.  It's a good job the Wicked Queen didn't poison a cheesecake or Snow White would have been well and truly fucked. 

My stomach growled.  Death by cheesecake?  I reckon there are worse ways to go.  

I kicked off my running shoes and sat back, putting my feet up with a sigh.  Being alone can be a real bitch sometimes.  I could go down the pub, I know... but ever since my rather public failed fling with Cort, I haven't really felt comfortable there.  I was feeling a bit blue these days with my good mate Cass off in New York.  Sometimes a good natter with a girlfriend is just the ticket and I was a bit sour to have lost even that.  Chatting on the phone just isn't the same.  So here I am.  No girlfriend.  No boyfriend either.  And no damned chocolate....  It's a flaming wonder I didn't top myself. 

I did light up though, so maybe I'm just doing it by degrees.  One drag at a time?  I'm still trying to quit and doing a piss poor job of it.  Men.  Food.  Sex.  A girl can't be expected to give up everything, now can she?  I pitched the rest of my apple into the rubbish bin and got another fag.

That thought made me smile a bit.  Another fag.  I seem to be collecting them these days.

Pink Lady

Everyone knows Jeff and Paul come over to my flat pretty often.  I like men and I like having them around.  I like feeding them up and listening to how they talk.  I like watching them touch and flirt too.  So sue me.  Everyone also knows I'm a bit of a voyeur.  And I suppose the real truth is that I'm lonely.  I like it when they stay over.  We talk late into the evening over a couple bottles of good red and then I get to listen to them loving each other in the night.  Getting to sit across from them at the table the next morning is no hardship either; seeing their rough unshaven cheeks and naked golden chests sporting the odd love bite is satisfying- and not just in a prurient way.  It's a reminder.  All the best things I love about men. 

Having them underfoot is a bit like having two big enthusiastic puppies always roughhousing and knocking each other about.... only better.  They're housebroken.  Mostly.  They're also bloody gorgeous.  And they're in love.  They're also wild young men who like a bit of rough.  They can be sweet but they can be wonderfully crude too.  Blood burns hot at their age, hot enough to make them forget themselves at times.  I don't just mean a hoarse shout in the dark or forgetting to flip the latch in the loo so I walk in and find Paul on his knees in the shower, jerking himself whilst drinking back Jeff's gift. 

I am talking about when they really forget themselves.  They feel so at home at my place I sometimes think they forget it isn't actually theirs.  Once I got up in the night for a wee and found them watching porn in the lounge.  (One of my tapes- but that is neither here nor there.)  They were snoring away, covered in spunk with smiles on their faces.  Paul had his hand inside Jeff's shorts.  Paul wasn't wearing any.  He's got a gorgeous prick.  His boyfriend isn't too shabby either.

Another time I came in late from drinks with some of the girls from work and caught them in flagrante.  On my bed.  They'd even been in my toy box.  There was a lot of male flesh on display.  I couldn't tell whose wrist was attached to the bedhead with my red silk scarf.  Jeff had the good grace to blush at least and offer up by way of excuse. "Your bed's bigger.... Don't get mad, Em."  And then he giggled.  I don't suppose from the smell hanging about in the room that I had to wonder what he was on. 

Paul was more direct.  He's not as shy as Jeff.  He's also an unapologetic hedonist.  He lifted his head but didn't take his hand off Jeff's cock.  "Want to watch?"  Jeff blushed redder but the thick flesh sliding between Paul's fingers twitched at the idea.  I got wet just that fast.  Jeff whimpered slightly and got a squeeze to slow him down. 

Paul grinned knowingly.  At both of us.  And then he patted the bed.  "Best seat in the house.  Or maybe you want to join in instead of just watching?"  Bloody hell.  Talk about the Pink Lady.  He rolled back and stroked his own prick then.  The motion was languid and not at all hesitant.  An arm strained against the red silk.  I squirmed.  I'd only been with Jeff that once after his birthday party.  Sure, we talk about sex all the time.  But we never actually have it.  And for a girl who'd been in a bit of a drought, romantically speaking, the sight of two naked cocks attached to two handsome lusty young men was like manna from heaven.  Talk about getting on your knees and giving thanks.  Halleluiah!  But surely I couldn't just reach out and take it?         

Everyone needs an outlet.  For as much as I joke about my vibrator, I really don't much care for the thing.  I prefer the weight of a man to a flimsy piece of plastic.  A vibrator never leaves you with that delicious just fucked feeling where your fanny stings and your legs ache and you just want to fall into that sleepy lethargy with a man's arms wrapped around you and listen to him breathe while you both drift off.   

Paul kissed Jeff and then sat up a bit on one elbow, rolling Jeff's soft furred sac in his fingers absently when I hesitated.  "Come on.....You really going to pass us up?"  His eyes were dark and hooded, pupils wide with desire and whatever he and Jeff had been smoking.  His voice dripped with sex.  "Two big cocks on offer...."  He laughed then, low and seductive.  "We know your preference, luv."  Oral fixation.  They knew.  I'd told them myself over more sangria than I ever should have had.  I blushed.  "And Jeff here's told me all about you two.  He quite fancies your mouth."

"Jeff!"  I screeched, not sure whether I was outraged or amused.  He'd said Paul was a dirty bugger and would ask him for all the details... but it was still mortifying to hear it being spoken of like that.

"Pog!  Shut up, y'bastard!"  Jeff was grinning and blushing furiously and then there was a flurry of playful activity on the bed as they struggled to shut each other up.  It was amusing and arousing to watch two naked male bodies writhing for supremacy.  "Oh for fuck's sake...."

"What you complaining about?  S'true!"  Paul snorted.  "And when'd you get to be such an old prude?  That wasn't how it was when you were telling me about her sweet little mouth and how much it turned you on."

"Jesus!"  Jeff groaned and hid his face. 

Paul grinned.  "Take no notice of him.  He likes it- and he half fancies you. You think I'm the dirty bugger?  He was creaming himself before he even finished the story and-"  

More wrestling.  Christ, it was turning me on.  Paul won.  But only because Jeff's wrist was tied to the bedhead. 

"You didn't have to tell her all that!"  He scowled and then ruined it by giggling.  "It's private!"  Jeff's protest touched me all the same.  I didn't really mind that he'd shared the details.  In fact, I was half wondering what had happened after he did.  Had it turned Paul on?  I wouldn't mind the sharing of a few details either, boys.  Works both ways, you know?  I also suppose some small part of me also wondered which of us was better.  Or were we just different? 

Paul just shrugged.  "Why hide it?  So she likes your cock?  I do too, mate..."  His voice was soft as he stroked Jeff's face with a surprising tenderness.  Jeff's swarthy sexy lover turned his chiseled face back to me.  "Maybe I want to watch the two of you, hey?"  He squeezed Jeff's hand and reached for mine.  Their sexy mood was affecting me.  So was the lingering smoke in the room.  I was already tipsy and the buzz hit me doubly hard. 

His sex talk had stopped seeming crude to me and had started sounding arousing and exciting.  Paul nuzzled Jeff with a sort of rough masculine affection.  "I want to see you suck him."  I shivered.  This time he turned his face to Jeff and looked deeply into his eyes.  "I want to watch your face when you come....and..."  He broke off, a hint of colour in his cheeks for the first time and I suddenly twigged.  He was curious about me.  Or maybe just about women's bodies in general.  And he was so easy about sex.  He did whatever felt good.  Typical male logic.  We both liked Jeff.  Why not explore it together and have a wild night of pleasure that we all would enjoy for different reasons?

"Em..." Jeff's voice trailed off.  I could tell he wasn't sure if he wanted to apologise to me for Paul's candor or to offer to kick Paul's arse for me or to invite me to join them himself.  Young men.  Don't you adore them? 

It wasn't the sex talk or even the sight of two naked aroused men that overcame my reluctance.  It was the idea of falling asleep with them afterwards.  Laying there, wrapped up safe.  Hearing their heavier breathing as they drifted off.  Waking up to a hairy leg or heavy arm thrown over me in the morning.  Rubbing up against rough stubble or a hard prick.  Feeling a warm palm on my back and a muscled shoulder under my head.  It had been months since I felt the touch of another living, breathing human.  And here were two I quite fancied, offering up a double dose of everything that I'd been missing. 

I stripped off and joined them, just like that.  And you know what?  It was bloody brilliant.  Raunchy and tender and explicit.  For a voyeur like me, it was sheer bliss.  For once, I just turned off that stupid part of me that just wants to have the love that everyone else seems to find so easily and only listened to that other part of me.  The part that found satisfaction in multiple orgasms and multiple partners and two beautiful young men who were horny and curious and excruciatingly inventive.  But I was right.  Falling asleep cradled between them afterwards was the best part.  And it was the first time in so long that sleep came without lonely tears and dreams of longing.

I quite enjoyed the morning too.  We woke in a heap.  It was impossible to tell what body part belonged to whom.  I felt a lazy hand grope my bum and the press of a warm hairy body. A knee sleepily shoved my leg up and a hard cock soon followed.

"That's my leg."

"Bugger me!"  The sleep-roughened voice seemed genuinely surprised but the advancing cock didn't even slow as it pressed forward in that sleepy languid search for a warm wet resting place.  A moment later another deep groan told me the other sleepy morning cock had found another resting place.  Imagine fucking while being fucked?  Sometimes I think men are so bloody lucky.  And every now and then, sometimes I think I'm pretty lucky too.

Crabapple

My dad.  He always has the worst timing.  I can be home alone for hours bored out of my skull but inevitably he will call when I've finally gotten tired of dripping about at home and gone out.  This time he caught me on the front steps.  I fumbled through my bag for my cell and punched the button with a grin.  I adore my dad.  Well this one, anyway.  My Mum's on husband seven at the moment.  We Abbott women stink at love.  Where do you think I got it from?

Anyway, even though he's really my step-dad, I always think of him as my Dad.  He was Mum's third husband but he's the one who raised me.  Taught me to ride a bike and to drive and gave my boyfriends hell and helped put me through Uni. 

I just plopped myself down on the steps in the weak summer sunshine and jabbered away.  Sometimes there isn't a man in the world except a girl's Dad who can make her feel better.  He wanted me to come for a visit.  It's been too long, he said in that way that only a girl's Dad can that makes her feel all of six again.  For a moment I was that fat little girl once more, assaulted by memories of pigtails and skinned knees and the flavour of cherry popsicles.

Or at least I was until a man stopped before me, looked me up and down and said "I'll have the coconut chicken, three stars... no need to burn my tongue off.  I want to taste it after all... oh yeah, and an order of fried prawns on the side."

I said, "Bugger off, Terry."

He said, "I didn't know you spoke Thai."  

It figures he'd think I was ordering food.  What else would fat old Esme be doing speaking Thai, hey?  I rang off with my Dad and lit up.  I didn't offer him one.  I don't know what it is about him, but he always rubs me wrong.  Maybe it's because I live here?  He used to come around a lot more a while back, and I've seen him quite a few times without the dapper polish he affects for the ladies.  Or maybe it's just because of the women he goes with.  I'll never be a delicate little beauty.  Nobody likes to be reminded of what they can't have.

"There's a lot about me you don't know."

There's a lot about me everyone doesn't know.  Like that my 'Dad's' Thai.  And that I've sold foraged art.  Recently.  And that I speak about twelve other languages.  And that I join Jeff and Paul for an occasional threesome hot enough to blister glass.        

Terry pulled a face but his eyes were sparkling with mischief.  "So, no coconut chicken then?"  

I wondered how much Thai he knew.  There probably aren't too many women who ring off to the takeout man with 'Love you, Papa!  See you Friday next.'

He cocked his head and appraised me.  "Why do I get the feeling there's a story there?"   

"Cos there is one, mate."  I gave him the eye.  "Esmerelda Abbott, international agent and authority on covert actions in foreign lands.  In a crisis?  I'm your man..."  Blowing out a stream of smoke in his general direction, I rolled my eyes.  "Oh, wait... that's you.  My mistake."

You know, I think he actually tsked at me.  He really is hard not to like.  "Yeah.  Job's a bitch, isn't it?"  His lips twitched.  "And I call my boss 'daddy', too."

I couldn't help but laugh.  "Some people might consider that harassment.  I hope you get a bonus for that sort of thing, mate."

That time he did laugh.  "Hazard pay."  He looked on down towards the pub's entrance.  "So come on over and I'll buy you a pint and you can tell me the story.  Been a while since I saw you about.  New regime?  You sworn off drinking?"

Sworn off men more like.  I shrugged.  "Not exactly."  I willed him to work this one out on his own.  He's a professional in human relations for god's sake.  Don't make me spell this one out. 

It wasn't just the breakup that had me keeping my distance.  Not too long after that, Cort got hurt.  I know this sounds awful, but imagine how that was for me?  Breaking up hadn't exactly been easy but being apart didn't make me feel too sunny either.  Despite the cuts he left in my heart, I still care about him.  I wanted to help.  I even came for moral support when he was in hospital.  Bou was gracious but it was clear that all my presence did there was make a difficult situation even harder and more awkward.  So I did the only thing that I could do to help anyone.  I left. 

I guess I've been doing it ever since.  It seemed like the thing to do at the time.  Only after I'd done it once, it was like precedent had been set and now I just kept away because it was habit.  And it was easier than going back, facing them all.  I reckon I really am a coward at heart. 

Thankfully, the astute Mr Thorne seemed to have worked that one out, standing there eyeing me shrewdly.  And then the bastard laughed.  He bloody laughed at me!  "And here I was thinking Uma had cornered the market on tragedy queen performances." 

I laughed and thumped him but he just shook it off and steered me round with a grin, saying how a walk in the sun with his White Knight hat on was just what he'd been in the mood for this arvo.  His irreverent candor seemed to be just the thing to snap me from the funk I'd been in for weeks.

Bloody hell.  Just when had I sunk so low as to be the sort of helpless woman Terry was known so well for rescuing?  That smarted.  I thought I was stronger than that.  Or at least less pathetic.  I suddenly felt energised.  I wanted to go for another run or go home and clean my flat and rearrange the furniture and dye my hair and-

"So, you going to tell me where you learned Thai?"

Wow.  He really is good at this, isn't he girls?  I could have kissed him for the subject change.  Well, almost.  He is The Enemy, after all.

I shrugged.  "My Dad."

"He some kinda professor or something?"

That made me smile.  "Or something.  When I was four, my Mum and Dad split up."  He was her Archie Bunker.  A Welsh one.  That's where I picked up my first foreign language.  "Mum went to work as a secretary at Uni.  Department of Antiquities."

"Ahhh....So he was the expert in the Far East then?"

"Not so fast, mate.  She fell for this dashing young professor from Morocco."  He was so handsome, swarthy and dark.  Quite the handsomest of all her husbands by far.

"So that's where you learned Thai?"

"No.  That's where I learned Arabic."  He whistled softly.  "Anyway, he was working on his PhD all the time and was hardly ever around.  Research."  I rolled my eyes.  "Mum and I were forever waiting on him.  His favourite place to write was this little Thai restaurant.  He'd say he was going to meet us there and never show or he'd come and we'd spend hours there amusing ourselves while he drank endless cups of tea and scratched in his stupid journal...."

I could see the light bulb come on in his eyes as he worked it out.  "Your Mum left him for the owner?"

I laughed.  "Close.  The cook!"  He looked stunned a few moments and then chuckled.  "My Dad has his own place now though.  The Tamarind House."

"Hey, I've been there.  They have good Duck Choo-Chee."  He was shaking his head.  "Small world, hey?"

"It sure is."  We swung round back towards the pub.  I saw him glance at his watch.  It made me smile.  He must have a date.  From the smell of his cologne and the spring in his step, I can only say that Gaia is one lucky girl.

"So, Thai and Arabic?  You got any others?"  

"Loads.  Welsh.  Mandarin.  Russian.  Mum fancies exotic foreign men."

"What happened to the cook?"

"Well, she was with him for the longest, nearly ten years.  I guess that's why I think of him as my 'real' Dad.... but eventually she left him for a jeweller." 

"What language you learn that time?"

"Hebrew."

"Jesus, Esme."

"Crazy, isn't it?  It's the only thing I've ever been really good at."  Besides falling for all the wrong men.  But that's an Abbott trait I can't really escape from, now can I?  That and bloody big hips.  "Mum's on husband seven at the moment.  Though I wouldn't at all be surprised if number eight was coming soon.  Last time we chatted she was going on about this gorgeous Persian lawyer she met."

"So, going to be adding Farsi to the collection then?"

"No, Turkish I think.  I got Farsi from number four.  He was a diplomat."

"What about numbers five and six?"

"Sanskrit and Berber."

"Esme, luv... You are in the wrong line of work."  No I'm not.  It serves me to keep a low profile.  I still sell the odd forgery here and there.  "If you ever need a job....."

"Mate, if you were my boss, I'd hang myself."

He giggled.  "So, you won't be calling me 'daddy' any time soon?  Pity."  More like a relief.  He can joke all he wants- but we all know he'd run screaming if I ever took a shine to him.  We stopped at the pub's entrance.  He stepped towards the door.  I didn't.  "The offer for a pint still stands, you know."

"Another time.  And thanks.... you know.... from one tragedy queen to another."

He just shook his head and chuffed out an amused breath before he stepped inside.  I stood alone in the street after, feeling surprisingly good.  Terry Thorne, I just may like you yet.

Red Delicious

I love going home.  My Dad still owns the same house I grew up in.  Every time I go through the scuffed old door, it's like stepping back in time.  He never remarried.  My Mum broke his heart.  Her picture is still on the table in the foyer, surrounded by a tasteful smattering of candles and a jade Buddha with a fat round belly.  The house smelled like it always had to me.  Like home, a blend of musky incense and lemon wax and spicy sweet curry.

Dad nearly died when he saw me.  It had been months.  He scolded me for getting too thin.  Me!  Thin!  I laughed in his face.  I think he needs thicker glasses.  But then again, he fancies that Rubenesque look in women.  It always used to make me laugh as a kid, this imagine in my mind of little skinny Asian man bouncing off Mum's soft round body.  He dragged me straight back to the kitchen and busied himself fixing me my favourite summer dish, mango with coconut milk sticky rice.  I didn't even have the heart to refuse him.  I ate it and asked for more, thinking that I would just have to fast for a week after I left.  I can live on wine and fags.  And cigarettes...

Dad was Dad.  For a respectable businessman, he sure is cheeky.  I helped him in the garden out back and we talked and got bombed on dark cream Singha beer.  He told me all about Mai, his new little girlfriend.  She's younger than I am.  It doesn't surprise me really.  He's a handsome man, golden skin and thick black hair.  I'm taller than he is now but he still makes me feel like his little girl.  I still sit on his knee and he still strokes my hair and calls me by his pet name for me. 

It's funny.  He's a lot more stable of a person than my flighty Mum ever was.  Thank god she fell for someone like him just once or my childhood might have really been awful.  At least I got a few years where she wasn't dragging me round the world, dumping me off somewhere so she could flit after some man. 

As for my Dad... well, he's clever and witty but he's still, you know, my Dad.  Which means there are things he does that drive completely around the bend.  Like look up from his paper and say out of the blue, "Did you know that there was 140,864 tons of steel used in the construction of the..."  That's usually about where I zone out. 

What it really means is that he's watched some programme on bridges or dams and wants to tell someone all the boring details he finds so fascinating.  Men!  Last time I listed to him talk for an hour about the elaborate system of 20 ton anchors used by the oil drilling platforms off Newfoundland.

I settled in for a long night.  By the time he'd talked himself out, we were in front of the telly watching some documentary on WWII, complete with original footage of the troops; beautiful young men and women blown to bloody bits or sent home missing an arm or a leg... or quite possibly from the looks of them, their soul as well.  They looked like children, so bloody young and naïve and optimistic.  Dad droned on about tanks and armaments.  My mind wandered. 

I think it was the cheeky young soldiers waving spiritedly to the camera and blowing kisses to their girls back home that made me think of Lachlan.  With the flickering of the telly in the background, it was disturbing and made me sad to think of him in that horrible place.  Nobody ever likes to think of the people they know suffering something so awful.  And to be honest, it's easy to forget when there isn't old footage around to remind a body. 

Finally I couldn't take any more.  I shoved up from the old couch and went to kiss my Dad goodnight.  He'd fallen asleep in his chair.  Same old Dad.  I covered him with a blanket and took off his glasses.  He smiled in his sleep and called me by Mum's name.  Poor heartbroken bastard.  She really did a job on him.

It was strange and comforting to stay in my old room.  Dad hadn't touched a thing in it.  It was the same as it had been when I went off to Uni.  Time warp.  There was a Duran Duran poster on the wall surrounded by pinned up snaps of all my mates from school.  A gauzy orange scarf hung over the lampshade.  I'd liked ambiance even then.  The bed was buried in soft plush bears and my collection of fantasy unicorn figurines was gathering dust on a high shelf next to a clarinet that probably hadn't been touched in nearly two decades. 

That bizarre girlish atmosphere contrasted so starkly with the images that played in my head every time I closed my eyes.  Young men waving to the camera before marching off to the slaughter.  Bombs throwing up sprays of black dirt.  Planes crashing.  Cities burning.  And then my eyes would open and I would see Simon LeBon with black eyeliner and shiny leather pants staring at me from behind a crush of glittery girlish birthday cards that I'd pinned up.  Then my eyes would close as I lay there in that too-small bed and I would think again of those young boys going off to war.

It's hard to marry that up with the images of Lachlan that I have now.  I never think of him like that, a young man flying off like some lamb to the slaughter.  To be honest, he doesn't feature much in my thoughts these days, past or present.  He's just a mate.  Or at least he's become one ever since that rough patch he had with Cass where they poured him onto my couch now and again to sleep it off.  He started coming round every so often after that, popping in to say hello or to have a quick cuppa.  I think it's because he felt guilty or like he owed me or that had to make something up to me for those nights he slept on my couch.  I don't reckon he remembers that I cried my eyes out in his arms as well. 

I don't suppose it really matters.  There's nothing the slightest bit romantic about his erratic visits.  He doesn't bring me flowers or anything.  It's more like he chases off any young hoons loitering down on my front steps or sorts out my car (Jeff is hopeless with engines) when it starts making that dreadful pinging noise.  Actually, he treats me a bit like some kid sister he's looking out for which annoys me at times and puts the shits up Jeff and Paul.  Especially because he never thinks or rings ahead- he just drops by.

Now he doesn't have a clue about me and Jeff and Paul.  We don't advertise that... but he's copped them a few times coming out of the bedroom or the shower while I'm in the kitchen fixing up a sarnie.  I can't help it.  I love that disapproving face he puts on.  I can just hear him.

"In my day they court-martialed you for that-" 

"Still do, mate." At which point Paul snapped Jeff's arse with the towel.  "Don't ask, don't tell!"  He struck a pose and waggled his eyebrows at Lachlan.  "I won't if you won't........ daaaaarling."

Lach grimaced in distaste.  "That is if the rest of the lads didn't kick your head in first."  He'd added tartly.  It wasn't a threat- merely an observation.  Paul and Jeff just ignored him and fell into the spare room.  The door slammed and there was the sound of a heavy body being thumped back against it rather sharply.  Sexplay or horseplay?  One in the same for those two.

Lachlan was not impressed.  He'd tossed over a new set of wiper blades for my car and took a cup of tea but got all pinched faced again when a particularly loud groan came from behind that closed door.  I don't suppose I can really blame him.  He's from a time when men sheltered girls from that sort of thing.  And here they are cavorting around in front of me.  God only knows what he'd think if he knew that I occasionally cavorted right along with them.  He'd probably fall over stone dead.  After kicking their heads in. 

I think he likes them, I really do.  He's not mean or unkind.  I think he just prefers not to think of the things they do behind closed doors.  Or in front of me.  Though sometimes I do wonder.  Once over a pint he asked me... 'So......... what do they do?' but then he immediately changed the subject.  'Jesus!  It makes me sick!'  I wasn't so sure about that.  I think he might be a bit curious. 

Not that he's anything but completely straight.  Even the blind could see that.  I just think there is always that frisson of arousal watching another man be blown or whatever and imagining...  Personally, I think men like him repress that and get angry at the mention of it probably because on some level it arouses them and that freaks them out.  I wonder what Jeff and Paul think of it?  It's one of the few things we don't talk about.

Lachlan is a bit of an enigma.  He drops in now and again for no reason at all.  It's kind of strange how he does that.  He doesn't confide in me or anything.  At least, nothing like he had those nights he was bombed out of his head.  I reckon the real root of it is because Cass is one of my best mates.  He always gets some little detail about her out of me.  The same as she does when she rings and I mention that Lachlan's been over.  I feel like some sort of bloody go between.  And I hate it.  Sometimes I wish they would both shut up and leave me alone.  But then I'd miss Cass dreadfully and I'd even miss Lachlan and his casual brotherly zooming in and out of the fringes of my life. 

Reality intruded again.  My stomach gurgled.  It felt strange to be full again.  And also a little bit nauseating.  The weird dance of thoughts in my head wasn't helping either.  Duran Duran.  Crashing planes.  Lachlan Curry and his wiper blades.  Jeff's cheek and Paul's sharp tongue.  It was a blur of spurting cocks and coconut milk sticky rice and beautiful young men marching off to war who somehow became drunk men on my couch who morphed and split into two men in my bed. 

I thought I might be sick.

Maiden's Blush

That night in my old childhood bed, I had the most erotic dream I think I've ever had.  Serves me right for going to bed on a full stomach of spicy food after starving myself for so long.  And this is ME we are talking about, after all.  Is it any wonder my brain melded together my three most favourite things in the world....?  Men.  Sex.  And food.    

I lay there in that small cramped bed, still groggy enough to almost believe it was real for the sensations still tingling through my blood and between my legs.  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to remember every last detail while I slid a leg over a pillow I'd shoved down under the covers.  I rocked against it, feeling loose and wet as if I really had been loved hard all night long.  All that was missing was the ache the weight of a man's body leaves behind when he's ridden you hard. 

But that thought was too much like reality.  I burrowed deeper into the covers and into my dream, trying to catch the last glimmering threads before they vanished.  Embarrassment over the subject matter would come later.  Right then I wanted to revel in the sensual erotic plateau of my dreamscape.  I wanted the fantasy in dreamland where there was no guilt for eating bad food or fucking the wrong man.  I wanted them both.  And I wanted to come.... slow and wet and decadent before reality intruded and I was back to being myself.    

Bloody apples again.  Lachlan and I were in the Garden of Eden eating the fruit off the Tree of Knowledge..... only it wasn't a serpent who slithered out.  It was Simon LeBon dressed up like the Cowardly Lion and he trilled to me with that stupid rolling 'R': "Esmer-r-r-r-r-elda, if you only had cour-r-r-r-age!"

And in the way of things that only make sense in fevered curry dreams, the apples on the tree dried up to wizened old cores and the light faded from Lachlan's smiling eyes where he had his head thrown back in laughter.  The sky blackened and my mouth tasted like ashes.  Lachlan turned into a yellow biplane and flew away.  His belly opened and I fell out with the bombs, falling... falling down onto a burning city.  He wasn't laughing any more. 

There was a great silent whooshing and then we were in an old country kitchen.  It smelt of apples and nutmeg and vanilla.  Lachlan was there in his uniform, sitting at a table.  He had a massive erection.  I was wearing a pale pink 1940's corset, nude stockings with a seam up the back and black pumps.  The dream was still so vivid that I could feel a lingering sensation of compression of the corset's laces when I breathed in deeply.  It felt like breathing with the weight of a man on my chest, pressing... squeezing.  Holding me down.  Holding me in.  Just holding me period.

It felt like.... expectation.  

Every pressing breath that I drew in seemed to count down the seconds until we touched.  

There was a warm apple pie on the table between us.  Not one of the pretty ones made to show off.  A real one, made by someone who'd done it a thousand times.  Someone who knew that all the perfect fluting and exact symmetry in the world wasn't a replacement for what was inside.  It was the kind of rustic pie where the sweet gooey inside bubbles out through the cracks in the lattice, letting you see the dark savoury flecks of cinnamon and spice, sticky and sweet against the crispy glitter of golden caramelized sugar on the crust. 

Come on.  Like I wouldn't notice the pie in detail?  This is me, after all.  I adore food and I've been deprived far too long.  I wondered briefly what it meant that even in my dreams I felt guilty for eating.  But that sinking feeling of guilt spun away when Lachlan plucked off his cap and reached across to plop it down on my head, tweaking it to a jaunty little angle whilst appraising me; a slow drag with hungry eyes.

"Don't you look a treat?"

He moved in and put his hand on my hip.  I could feel the pressure of his fingers even through the drum-tight press of the fabric.  I might as well have been bird trapped in a man's fist, its tiny heart beating a frantic tattoo against his strong fingers.  He squeezed tighter and I struggled to catch my breath as he rose and stood over me.  His eyes held mine.  As he moved, my chin came up to keep his gaze and he stroked my bared throat softly with a fingertip, smiling with satisfaction as he let it rest on the pulse throbbing there.

I shivered and felt my nipples tighten.  It was as if my entire body was being drawn from within.  A current flowed along some hidden thread, resonating in my blood until I hummed with it, ready to fly apart. 

A touch.  My chest strained against the tight lacing.  He reached behind me and his fingertips brushed lightly over the strip of soft white skin exposed between the top my stocking and the shapely curve of my bum.  He was wordlessly flaunting his erection.  The awkward bulge was impossible to miss in the rough serge of his uniform.  Hooking a finger on a garter, he stretched it playfully, pulling me against the fat heavy bulge of his prick with a soft laugh.  He wasn't so crude as to say 'feel this, baby' but he was as proud of his cock as any other man and wanted me to feel it and be impressed by him.  I was.  It was huge.

Reality intruded just then, a little unwelcome frisson.  It still made me smile though.  I've seen Lachlan's cock once.  But to be fair, he was drunk and cold and having a wee out my window in the dead of winter one of those nights he was crashed on my couch.  Under those conditions it certainly wasn't the monster Cass had said it was.  Unfortunately Cass is a bit of a talker when she drinks.  I know quite a bit more about Mr Curry's glorious cock and what he likes to do with it than any person who is not his lover should ever be privy to.  That knowledge only seemed to heighten the eroticism in my dream.  Made it more believable for the flickers of reality twined so surely with my own fantasy images.      

Suddenly the cheeky, cheery, chappie vanished as he pulled me against him hard, digging his strong hands into my soft bum and hauling me up to receive his bruising kiss.  For a moment, just a brief moment, I thought I saw henna on his skin and heard him rumble darlin' against my throat but when he lifted his head, it was Lachlan again, smiling down at me with a wicked gleam in his eye as he plunked me down roughly on the sturdy table and reached for the pie with one hand whilst gripping the naked skin of my thigh with the other.

Slipping a hand between my legs, he slid his fingers along the sensitive skin at the edge of my panties teasingly, taking care to keep from touching the silky fabric.  Or what it covered.  It was torture.  But he sure did smile when it made my legs fall open and my breath catch a needy little noise that I tried to swallow down.

"That's it, luv.  Show me..."  He stepped between my parted legs and glanced down first at me and then at himself.  "I want you too."  A dark wet circle had formed on the front of his trousers.  Damn Cass for telling me he dripped like a faucet when he was really excited.  I've never quite forgotten that startlingly visual imagery.  It appears my subconscious hasn't either.  I could almost hear her in the back of my mind, jabbering on about how he loved to bite her naked peachy bum, growling and giggling when she squealed.  I think there's more of the caveman in him than he ever lets on. 

Would he ever show it to me?  

At that moment, fantasy and reality were so mixed up that I didn't even feel guilty for thinking that about a good mate's old flame.  I am a horrible woman.  It didn't stop me from wondering though.  Especially when he dragged the pie over with a cheeky grin and teased one of the sticky glistening slits in the crust with his finger, exactly like a man would do with a woman's cunt.  Like I wanted him to do to my cunt. 

The room spun when he jabbed a finger inside and wiggled it about.

"S'warm...."  That cheeky look was back on his face.  I nearly melted off the table when he withdrew his wet slick finger, licked it and moaned with pleasure before sticking it straight back in for another taste.  The hand he had on my thigh hadn't moved but now he was gripping me hard enough to leave a bruise.  Red, like the colour in his ruddy cheeks as the fingers on his other hand mucked about in the pie, widening the slit and exposing the gooey center and the sweet fruit inside.

In that moment, I was not sure what I wanted more- to be myself... or the pie.  And I wanted to swallow them both down so desperately I was shaking with it.  There were flecks of sugar on his lips.  His pink tongue lapped at them and that gorgeous smile of his got a whole lot dirtier. 

"I like sweet things, don't you?"  He pulled his fingers from the pie and slipped them into his mouth.  A fleeting image of watching Paul suck Jeff flashed in my head and I swayed.  He seemed to enjoy having me in his power.  It was clear I wasn't going to get a taste of it until we kissed.  He looked up from licking his fingers and grinned.  "Sorry.... can't help m'self.......I'm a greedy bugger." 

"It needs cream," I mumbled, half out of my head already just watching the slow thrust of his finger in and out....  I was having visions of cold melted ice cream dripping around islands of warm syrupy pie.  

His laughing eyes crinkled and got even more hooded.  "You made the pie, sweetheart.  Supplying the 'cream' is my job."  I suddenly had an image in my head of a sticky gooey slit running with a very different sort of cream.  My mouth watered.  I thought I might faint.  Blood was rushing in my ears and it must have showed in my cheeks, two high spots of colour in an otherwise pale face.  I was nervous and quite on the edge of not being able to drag enough air into my lungs to slow the thready feeling of my heart beating too frantically against my ribs.  "I will show you things you've never even dreamed....." 

The world began to swim.

He pulled a penknife from his pocket and spun me, pushing his leg between mine hard and leant in to keep me steady while he worked.  "Hold still."  The order was calm and reassuring.  A second later he'd sliced through the lacing holding the corset closed and it fell away, leaving just the stockings, the black pumps and his jaunty little cap.  I could hear Cass in my head again, her voice high and slurred with the wine we'd shared that evening.  'He quite fancies it, you know?  Feeling the fine silk of my stockings while he's rutting way.  Says the tickle of my silky feet on his bum drives him half mad... Once I even took one off and tied it round his dick.... what a night that was!  I didn't know one man could make that much spunk in a single night.  I called him Old Faithful for weeks after that just to see him blush....'

In the dream he was so gentle when he turned me and took me into his arms but when he lowered me back down, the kitchen became my old childhood bedroom and the hard sturdy table became my small soft bed.  His clothes had disappeared.  I couldn't see his thick cock but I could feel it pressed up against my thigh.  He was rubbing it against the silky stocking and laughing as he chucked the plush bears aside, telling them that he didn't share and that they weren't to so much as even turn a button eye in our direction or he'd cut it off and send them to bed without dessert.  At which point I noticed the pie was on the bed as well.

Before I'd even drawn in the warm spicy scent of it, the cheery chappie had disappeared from his countenance leaving only a very intense, very aroused man staring down at me with a wicked fire in his eyes.  I'm not entirely sure what I'd been expecting.  Some sort of vanilla food sex, I think.... the kind most of us have tasted at least once in our lives.  A sticky sweet dollop on this nipple and a smear on that nipple and maybe a squirt of crème or a dribble of honey on your fanny if you're really being naughty....

This was something else entirely.  It wasn't neat or proper and I nearly came just watching his face as his eyes glinted and he dug both hands straight into the warm gooey center of the pie.  He has big hands and they held a lot.  I could feel the sticky warmth and chunks of soft squishy apple and the harder grittier chunks of flakey sugary crust as he smeared it over my breasts, up my throat and down over my soft belly to the naked mound of my cunt.  He grunted with satisfaction when his fingers encountered my own slippery cream. 

His hands left me to go back for more.  Bits of sticky fruit ran in the sugary sauce warmed by my body, tickling erotically as he dug a hand in for more and tossed the nearly empty tin aside.  He put one big hand on my thigh to hold my legs open and pressed the other, full of a mound of oozing warm dessert, against me.  It began to melt slightly with my body heat and I could feel it beginning to run down between my legs and tickle between my cheeks. 

I squirmed. 

He just grinned wider and tightened his grip on my leg.  "Hold still now, luv."  He pushed and I began to feel it ooze inside.  "Told you I was a greedy bugger.... I want more than a taste."  He used two fingers to push a soft slice of apple deep inside.  "I want more than bite as well."  I moaned as he filled me up and as he fell over me, I could hear him murmur, "gonna eat you up...."

I came.  Hard.  He just laughed and pushed the sticky mess back in where my muscles and forced it out.  He was still grinning.  "Jesus, I can't wait to feel that later.... feel you squeeze round me like that..... Oh, Christ..."  He dropped his head and ate.  Not licked.  Not nibbled.  Ate.  Chewing.  Swallowing.  Licking at me with his soft wet tongue.  It felt like being swallowed alive.  He made me come again, grunting greedily in pleasure as he lapped away the sweet ooze and my own creamy fluid. 

He rose over me, jerking himself with sticky sugary fingers.  In the gelatinous fruity gel, I could see flecks of cinnamon and nutmeg.  I wanted to put my mouth on him so bad but he just knocked me away, easily holding me down with his superior strength.  "Later.  After...." he moaned, shivering as he rubbed the tip against me and juddering when bits of crumbly crust scraped his tender skin.  Peeling off a slice of tender apple from my breast, he slipped it up inside me with a grin.  "I fancy feeling that..... don't you?" 

And then before I could answer, he'd shoved up in me so hard and fast and deep that we both groaned at the feel of it squishing out around where we were so tightly joined.  He grunted.  I whimpered and the world twisted away madly.  I called for him to fuck me, to love me with his fine strong body and he did, pulling away and making us both watch, wiping away chunks of smushy apple only to feed them to me and kiss me wildly as he thrust and rut and pounded me into the too-small bed. 

But before either of us could come the scene had shifted as dreams so often do.  All traces of the sticky pie were gone but he still tasted of apples and vanilla when we kissed.  We were in the back of some shadowy place, a barn or hangar.  I was still wearing the silk stockings but he was back in uniform.  Mostly.  Well, all but where he'd opened the fly to let out his swollen prick.  He was fucking me there, hard against a shadowy back wall.  His hands were cupped under my bum like they had been when we first kissed back in the country kitchen.  I felt like was going in circles.  Spiraling down... down....

He was rough.  Cursing like how Cass says he does when he's too excited to keep that part of himself in check.  I was whimpering, pierced again and again on him as he rammed me back against the wall.  He leant in and used his weight to brace me there, adrenaline fueling his lust to a fever pitch.  Pulsing flesh.  Glossy wet heat.  Sweaty, straining...

Someone came in and called his name.

I froze in his arms which only seemed to excite him more.  He snarled at them to leave.  That he was busy.  He didn't even stop thrusting.  I wondered what they could see?  A man's broad back and a pair of shapely legs in silk stockings spread round his driving hips?  There's only one reason why a man moves like that. 

He ground down hard.  It forced a rush soft rush of air from my lungs.  "Oh!"  I felt his teeth and the drip of sweat.  "What if he saw....?"

His sinewy young body flexed and surged.  "He..... won't...... come back."  He grunted the words out to me and suddenly he was pulling my hair and kissing me and the world was ripped away in a pulsating decadent ripple and an obscene gush of creamy white sperm. 

That's when I woke feeling wet and loose and confused because I should have felt that delicious aching sting a man leaves behind-and the pillow was suddenly too soft and not at all like Lachlan's hard virile body.  Part of me was glad it had just been a dream.  That much sugar up anyone's fanny and you are bound for a trip to the clinic for a cream of a very different sort.  The other part of me just wanted to forget my guilty feelings for lusting after Cass' old flame and sink back into the dream....

And that's exactly what I did.

Cameo

A week later, I still hadn't recovered.  I was still feeling guilty and still blushing every time I passed the bowl of fruit in my kitchen.  Jeff and Paul kept asking what the hell was wrong with me.  That time of the month?  Was I on something?  Taken some of that aphrodisiac tea they fancy so much?  Was my Dad okay?  Everything fine at home? 

I waved away their concerns.  And then cut the devil out of my hand one night with a paring knife because Jeff had plopped himself down on the counter, reached over and crunched into a crisp juicy apple while I was slicing up an onion.  He's good in a crisis.  I will give him that.  Calm and nattering away at me, washing out my cut and wrapping it up whilst I bumbled about in a fog.

Paul just rolled his eyes, shivering.  He doesn't do blood very well.  Especially not his own, he says.  Liar.  He's always taking knocks playing footie.  He just laughed at me.  "Jesus, Em.  You're worse than Jess dripping after Lachlan.  Not sure her feet have touched the ground in days.  I think it may have something to do with his joystick...."

Lachlan?  The fog started to clear a little.  Lachlan and Jessie?  I'd liked her ever since I heard she'd tricked Cort into drinking a shot of curdled crème.  So sue me.  I don't hate him but I'm still sore enough to get a pathetic charge out of her juvenile caper.  I suddenly didn't like how I felt.  Hurt.  Angry.  Like someone had taken something away from me that I never even knew I wanted.  Why would some stupid dream make me feel that?  Jealous over that?  A fantasy?  How fucking pathetic.

I sat down and lit a fag with shaking fingers while Jeff loped back to help Paul with dinner.  Another few drags and I'd calmed down.  A few more drags and I was crushing out the cigarette with rather more force than was needed.  I was not about to trade one crush for another.  Cort was bad enough.  Lachlan and his flaming apples can go right to hell.  I've sworn off men and I mean it.  That includes sexy dream men as well. 

Marching back into the kitchen, I grabbed the bowl of fruit, tossed it into the rubbish and ripped the sack from the bin, stomping out the door with it.  Paul was shaking his head and I could hear Jeff.  'I'm so bloody glad you're not a woman, mate....  You reckon homosexuality is an evolutionary response to PMS?'  Fucking men.  Sometimes even the poofters get on my tits.  

And wouldn't you just know it?  My bloody luck.  Lachlan Curry was outside on his way to the pub.  He waved.  I blushed and offered my soul to the devil if he would just let the ground open up and swallow me before I threw up from the wave of embarrassed guilt that was burning in the back of my throat.  Holding that damned sack of apples, I felt like some ruddy cat burglar copped with a bag of blunt at the scene of the crime. 

For once I was glad nobody ever gives me a real look.  He disappeared into the pub without even slowing down.  I doubt his feet even touched the ground.  That new bartender is one lucky girl.  And me?  The Abbott genes for picking the wrong man sure haven't landed this apple far from the tree, now have they?  Thanks, Mum.   

So I did what any mature woman in my situation would do.  I pulled my tongue out and made a very rude, very satisfying hand gesture in the pub's general direction and stomped back up the stairs.  Sod.  Off.  Sod.  Off.  Sod.  Off.  With each step, it seemed to ring louder in my head, growing in power and strength.  Filling me up.  Charging me up.  It almost even drowned out those two other little words that were ringing in my brain.

Love.  Stinks.     

Golden Delicious

I love those rare days of summer when the evenings are balmy and the setting sun colours everything with a warm golden light.  I still hate running and it still makes me feel like I'm going to hurl my guts up... but I love the euphoria I feel afterwards.  I also love how the light at this time of day catches in my glass and bounces around, spinning a web of light and making the honey coloured liquid glow.  I also like how it goes straight to my head on an empty stomach.  By the time Lachlan came strolling by, I almost didn't even feel that pang of guilt.  I even managed not to blush when he stopped to chat for a moment.

He looked dapper.  Sharp as anything and dressed so fine.  Neat creamed hair.  Shined shoes.  Smart clothes.  I could smell his shaving soap.  I can remember thinking I was born in the wrong era.  I'd have done well back in his day when curves turned a man's head and men treated women like ladies and shined themselves up like a new penny when they had a date. 

I swallowed down a smile along with a sip of sherry.  Well, Paul does that.  He primps more than most girls I know.  But he hardly counts!  He bats for the other team.

Lachlan was higher than a kite, besotted and chattering on like a magpie.  Jiggling about like a bent penny.  He couldn't keep still and it wasn't long before he blew through like a warm wind.  I half expected him to break into song.  I lingered on the steps long after he'd gone, just enjoying the feel of the sun on my shoulders and the way it made my new hair colour (caramel apple) shine. 

I was still there when Jeff and Paul came loping up.  Jeff had his arm thrown round Paul's neck in that rough affectionate way that young men have.  Jeff took one look at my hair and whistled.  "Christ, Esme!  Warn a body before you do that!  I need some shades!"  He pulled Paul's glasses off and slipped them on with a swagger.  "That's better..."

Paul nearly choked.  "Be careful!  Those are Prada!  Two-hundred quid...."

Jeff choked then.  "Two-hundred quid?  For fucking glasses...?"  Their voices trailed off, still arguing like two old women as they ran up the steps.  There was an energy bleeding from them though.  A wildness, erotic and already buzzing under their skin.  I crushed out my fag and smiled as I rose to join them.  I might not have love but I have the next best thing, hey?  In stereo.  And tonight was going to be one of those nights...