Operation Fit Bird

Julia's bedroom was roughly the size of Will's house, only with a much better view. Instead of a narrow strip of garden and his dad's vegetable plot Julia's bedroom opened out onto a balcony and took in vistas of a vast lawn, woodland and, to one side, a tennis court. Will had to do his very best not to be overawed.

"Just what is it your dad does?" he asked, rather indiscreetly. He'd been brought up to not trust people who made their money in less than obvious ways, especially if the spent it in highly obvious ways.

Julia laughed and handed him one of the bottles of water she'd brought from the kitchen. "He runs a promotions company. You know, concert venues, nightclubs, that kind of thing."

"Wow," said Will. "He must do it very well."

Julia laughed again. "Yeah, I think he does. Don't worry though, he's dead chilled." She took a sip of water and sat on a sofa facing the window.

"He doesn't mind you mixing with the underclass then?" Will asked, sitting next to her.

"Oh God, don't be ridiculous. We're not posh at all. He and my mum are dead normal."

"Sorry. I guess all southerners sound posh to me," Will said sheepishly.

Julia stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry. "Prefer it if I was all cockney?" she asked, exaggerating the accent.

"Fuck, no," Will laughed and ducked as Julia flung a cushion at his head. "To be honest, I'll be going down south soon myself. Brighton, hopefully."

"For uni?" she asked. Will nodded. "Oh, cool. I had an offer from there. Think I'm going to London though."

"Which college?"

"LSE. Economics."

"Wow, right," said Will. "Not just a pretty face eh?" he grinned.

Julia stuck out her tongue and they both fell silent for a few moments making Will wonder if he'd overstepped a mark with his last comment. Julia stared vaguely into space. He didn't think it was an awkward silence but couldn't be completely sure. He decided to chance his arm.

"You know how your dad's into concerts and stuff?" he asked. Julia turned and nodded. "I don't suppose he could get tickets for Chase and Status on Friday could he?"

Julia gave him a cheeky grin. "VIP okay?" she asked.

Will couldn't work out whether she was teasing him. "Really?" he asked.

"Course! How many?"

"Fuck! That's sick! Is three okay? My mate Ant's hooked up with Charlotte you see."

"No probs. I'll text dad now," she said and picked up her phone.

"Thanks, Julia. I really mean it."

"It's cool," she smiled. "Charlotte's really into your mate, you know?"

"Yeah, I think he is too. I don't think I've ever heard him talk about a girl so much."

"So how about you and Louise?" Julia asked.

Will stiffened and looked away. "Umm," he stalled. "I don't think it'll go anywhere. Just a fling, you know?"

Julia winked and grinned again. "Just another notch on your bedpost, eh Will?"

Will squirmed and took a nervous sip of water. "No, you know what I mean. I was a bit pissed and she came on pretty strong. It just happened."

Julia was looking straight at him. "Just love 'em and leave 'em eh? She's heartbroken you know?"

"Fuck, really?" Will asked. He could hear the fear in his own voice.

"Yeah, she's been asking for your number, saying she thinks she's pregnant and how she wants your baby."

That gnawing feeling he'd had after sleeping with Louise was back. Oh Christ, why did he let her do it? That was it. He was fucked. Father to a child he didn't want with a woman he didn't like. The town would never let him go.

"You okay, Will? You've gone a bit pale."

He looked at Julia. Her eyes bored into his. He felt sick. "Fuck," was all he could say. His mouth had gone dry and he fumbled with the lid of the water bottle. Julia held his gaze, not saying anything. The silence in the room was like a physical presence. This must have been why Julia asked him here: to break the news to him before Louise tracked him down. He stared blankly at the bearer of these tidings and Julia looked at him impassively. Will's grasp of time left him as he contemplated his future until slowly, almost imperceptibly, the corners of Julia's mouth began to move, then her eyes, then her shoulders until suddenly she exploded in laughter.

"Oh my God!" she yelled. "Your face! Fuck me, I wish I'd taken a picture!"

Will's mouth fell open as he searched for words. "So... she's not... you were winding me up..."

"Fucking hell, course I was!" Julia fell against him, shaking them both with the force of her mirth.

"You total bitch," Will said quietly. "Fuck, I thought that was it then."

Julia held his arm for support. "I'm sorry. I just couldn't resist it. You looked so uncomfortable on Friday night I just had to see how far I could take it."

"I really thought you were for real," Will said, still shocked. "I saw my whole life flash before me."

"Ha! Family life with Louise Cooper," Julia giggled. "Or would it be Louise Weston? God, what a thought!"

"You're fucking cruel."

Julia squeezed his arm harder. "I'm sorry, hon. Will you forgive me?" she asked, fluttering her eyelids.

"Maybe," Will muttered. He slumped back on the sofa then, catching a coquettish look from Julia, finally smiled. Seeing he'd relaxed at last made Julia grin.

"I am sorry. It was pretty funny though. And you really don't need to worry about Lou. She's a bit strange sometimes, especially when it comes to men. You'd know about it by now if she was into you. I think you might have been a fall-back on Friday. She'd got it into her head that she had to lose her virginity before her star sign changed or something like that and the guy she's been sort of seeing didn't turn up so she made do with you," Julia said with another wink.

A variety of emotions were sweeping through Will's brain and Julia's tease barely registered. Although highly relieved he also felt a bit guilty that Louise's first time had been so crap. He hoped she hadn't been put off sex. "I did wonder if it was her first time," he mused.

"Deflowered by Will Weston eh? I bet she's not the first though," Julia ribbed.

Will stared through the window at the sweeping panorama of Julia's gardens. Dusk was gathering and assorted garden lamps were switching themselves on, highlighting key planting, features and paths. It was like looking out at a perfectly tended park rather than a back garden. He replayed some of his encounter with Louise and heard Ant's teasing about the rubbish sex being down to Will, not Louise. Ant was probably right. If she was a virgin Will could hardly blame her for it. He tried to put the whole encounter out of his mind and realised Julia was still right up against him so decided to enjoy the present moment and not dwell on the past. Julia's fingernails gently grazed his upper arm.

"Are you okay then?" she asked, sounding genuinely concerned that her prank hadn't left him traumatised.

He looked at her and smiled. "Yeah, I'm fine. You properly had me going though."

She grinned again, her perfectly white teeth sparkling. "I get that from my dad. He's such a practical joker." Will shuddered inside at the thought of being on the receiving end of one of Mr Miller's practical jokes. With absolutely nothing more than his own prejudices to go on Will had already decided that Julia's dad was an east end gangster made good. "And my sister," she added. "Between them they taught me everything I know." Her eyes twinkled in the LED lights. Will could have sworn her lips pouted just a little more, too. The merest mention of Julia's sister and what he knew about them both was enough to increase his sexual antennae. God, she was a flirt.

Julia leapt off the sofa and headed off across the huge expanse of thick carpet towards a door, ditching her suit jacket as she went. The door, it transpired, contained the kind of walk-in wardrobe Will had seen on TV but didn't think really existed outside of the world of celebrity though a glance around reminded him that seemed to be pretty much where he was. "I've got a dance class at five," she called over her shoulder. "I'll drop you home if you like?"

"Yeah, great," Will called back, as Julia returned, what he assumed was her dancing attire in her hand.

"Cool," she said. "Shame you can't stay longer. Maybe come for dinner soon?"

Will nodded but failed to reply clearly due to the fact Julia had begun shedding the rest of her clothes right in front of him. As if undressing in front of someone she didn't know terribly well was the most normal thing in the world Julia kicked off her shoes and undid her skirt, then wiggled it down to the floor and stepped out of it.

"My dance studio's on Derwent Road. That's quite near you, isn't it?" she asked, unbuttoning her blouse cuffs, then the blouse itself before dropping it on the arm of the sofa, leaving her in her tights and white, lacy, and very see-through bra. Will cleared his throat and tried to keep his eyes on Julia's, rather than her delicious body as it was revealed before him.

"Erm, yeah. It's not far," he said, feeling a distinct tingle in his boxer shorts.

"Thought so," Julia said, peeling off her tights and dropping them next to the discarded blouse. Her French knickers matched her bra. As much as he tried to stop them, Will's eyes flicked to Julia's crotch. As see-through as her bra, her knickers revealed that her pubic hair seemed to exist only as a minimal line. Too late he realised he'd licked his lips.

He told himself to play it cool, that Julia was just comfortable with her body; that her undressing in front of him was just so she could carry on talking to him. "You been dancing long?" Will asked, as nonchalantly as he could, whilst he memorised every inch of her athletic form.

"Yeah, years," Julia said as she reached behind her back to unhook her bra, and slipped it off her shoulders, the flimsy lace falling away. Now Will really had no hope of not looking but as Julia stood before him, re-tying her hair into a ponytail, her full breasts unaffected by gravity, she seemed completely unfazed by his eyes drinking in her body. "It's great for staying fit," she said.

"So I see," said Will, unable to resist a flirtatious comment despite his desire to hide just how exciting this really was. He shifted on the sofa to try and hide his growing hard on.

Julia paused for a second and smiled demurely then picked up the blue Lycra leggings she'd brought and stepped into them. "So what do you want to do about Friday?" She asked as she wiggled the tights up her body, her tits trembling with the movement of her hips. "Shall we meet there? We can go to the VIP bar if you like?"

It was taking all of Will's self-restraint to stop him grabbing Julia and satisfying the enormous urges he was experiencing. There was no way she was doing this innocently, she couldn't be. After all, her sister taught her everything she knew. Having considered his options, his cock telling him one thing, his brain another, he decided that yes, she was flirting but no, she wasn't doing it in the hope he'd pin her to the sofa and nail her. He blew his hair off his forehead and tore his eyes from her big brown nipples. "Yeah, cool. I just hope Ant behaves himself. He's not properly housetrained you see."

Reaching for her sports bra Julia laughed. "I'm sure he'll be fine. He'll have Charlotte to keep him occupied anyway so he's not gonna have much time for mischief," she said, pulling the bra over her breasts and so ending Will's little show. Although he could happily have taken in that view for several hours Will felt a tiny sense of relief. The moment had passed. If it had been some kind of test he'd just have to wait for the results. Julia pulled a thick white hoody over her head and slipped on a pair of trainers. Will tried to wish his erection away so his arousal wasn't quite as obvious through the thin material of his trousers when he stood. "Ready," she said cheerily, an eyebrow twitching a little as her eyes flicked to his groin, adding to Will's embarrassment.

The drive back to town from Julia's had done nothing to tell Will what her intentions were. They'd chatted and laughed and seemed to be getting on well but there had been no quick stop in a lay by or down a side street. The flirting was less obvious, too although of course it was dark so harder to tell.

*

Will had been summoned to Ant's house that evening to report on his ticket search but as the pair of them roamed the digitally-rendered streets, causing mayhem and destruction Ant's sole conversation topic was his and Charlotte's sordid antics. After a blow-by-blow account of the couple's most recent dalliance in her walk-in shower Will felt it was time to change the subject.

"So you interested in hearing how I got on finding us some tickets?" he asked Ant, who was sealing the bottom of his bedroom door with a towel so they could smoke in there.

"Bollocks," Ant sneered. "You never got any."

"If you say so," Will said. "So you'll be staying in on Friday then will you?"

Ant looked across the room at Will. "If you're winding me up...?"

Will grinned. "How does being a VIP sound?"

"Fuckin' 'ell! Off fit bird?"

Will nodded.

"Nice one Willy!" Ant ruffled Will's hair then stopped, and looked very serious. "You get Charlotte one?" he asked gravely.

"Yes," Will sighed. "I got your fucking girlfriend one."

Ant beamed. "Good lad! You can spark this reefer for that," Ant said, throwing the joint, followed by the lighter at Will.

"I'm honoured," said Will.

"Fuckin' should be, too," grinned Ant.

Will lit the joint and sat back on Ant's bed, leaning against the wall. He took a few drags and passed to Ant. "I haven't seen you like this over a girl since Tanya Moreton let you finger her," said Will. "You really into her then?"

Ant smiled and nodded as he held in a lungful of smoke. "She's fuckin mint," he finally said, exhaling. "A good laugh, horny, dirty as fuck."

"What more could you ask for," Will laughed.

"I dunno, we just seem to get on dead well. Have, like, proper conversations and that. And her dad's loaded," Ant added. "I don't wanna sound all gay or anything but I do really like her."

Will chuckled at the irony of Ant's admission but decided not to pick him up on it. For Ant to have much to say about a girl other than whether he'd do her or not was a genuine rarity and he wasn't going to spoil his friend's mood for the sake of pedantry or political correctness. "That's cool, mate," he said. "And you don't think she'd be bothered if she knew you were telling your mates everything you've done to each other?"

"Ha, no she fuckin' loves it, mate. She tells hers to. I don't give a shit. Like I said, she's dirty as fuck! Anyway," Ant said, holding his crotch, "I've got nothing to be ashamed of here, unlike some," he said, raising an eyebrow and kicking Will.

Will made a half-hearted attempt to retaliate then thought better of it. "Whatever you say, winkle cock," he said, and fended off another kick. True love hadn't completely changed Ant, obviously. What he was now thinking of as his poor performance with Louise was still playing on his mind and he didn't want to dredge it up if he could help it. To divert the conversation, and before he'd thought about the implications, he asked, "What's she doing next year? Going to uni or what?"

"Nah, that's the best thing. She's gonna work for her dad so she's not going anywhere," Ant said happily.

Poor cow, Will thought but instead said, "That's cool, mate. I'm pleased for you."

Ant grinned again. "I know. Good, innit?" He passed the joint and stretched out on the bed. "So how'd you get these tickets then? I thought you'd given up on her?"

Will thought about telling Ant about going to Julia's and her impromptu striptease but, for once, he didn't feel like sharing everything about a girl with Ant. If Charlotte was okay with him telling all then that was fine but for some reason Will didn't want Ant knowing as much about Julia. He was still trying to work out just what had happened in her bedroom that afternoon, whether it was a young woman happy with her body and mature enough to feel she could be open and free with a friend or whether it was the sexy little minx that Mark had told him about teasing him outrageously. Whatever it was, Will was going to keep it under his hat to see how things panned out. For now, anyway. He turned to Ant. "We just chatted again, had a bit of a laugh and I thought it couldn't hurt to ask her," he said, hoping that with Ant's current focus being almost entirely Charlotte-centric that would satisfy his curiosity.

"Well, nice one fit bird," Ant said, and picked up the game controller to recommence the infliction of random violence. "A bit of VIP sex'll do me nicely."

Chapter Three

The interminable drag of Thursday and Friday had given Will plenty of time to think -- probably too much - about Julia and what had gone on in her bedroom. She was definitely a different proposition to most girls he knew. Certainly, he thought, no one else he'd met would feel comfortable undressing in front of a relative stranger, for whatever reason. It hadn't been that long ago, after all, that his girlfriend at the time had taken three months to let him see her naked at all, and they'd been having sex for a month before that. Yes, a lot had changed in those eighteen months; he'd matured emotionally and physically and had gained a reasonable, he felt, amount of experience with the opposite sex, but he'd never met anyone like Julia.

Biology lessons had taught him that girls matured faster than boys and Will had seen that play out in real life -- the childish antics of some of his friends made him shudder even now -- but he'd still been taken aback by Julia stripping off like that. He'd run through so many possibilities of why she did it that he'd only succeeded in confusing himself further although the good number of wanks along the way were an enjoyable bonus. If only his photographic memory for the female form was matched by an ability to remember essential academic information his exams really would be a formality. At 3.45 pm on Friday, as he walked towards the thudding hotbox of Ant's Corsa his latest thinking was that Julia was indeed a tease and a flirt, had a fantastic body she was happy to flaunt, felt comfortable in his presence but quite liked the idea of arousing him in an awkward situation, and had undressed in front of him knowing he'd like it but was both mature and experienced enough not to come in his pants or try and rape her there and then, and also because she wanted to carry on talking to him and it was convenient. In other words, a jumbled combination of most of the thoughts he'd had over the previous 48 hours that left him absolutely no clearer whether he was in with a chance of shagging her.

"All right gayboy?" Ant said as Will climbed into the car.

"As enlightened as ever, I see," yelled Will, accepting the freshly-lit joint, turning what sounded like a Pharrell track down to a less ear-damaging volume, and relieving Ant of the atlas.

"Fuckin' too right, mate," Ant said, revving the engine and pulling out of a blind junction to the sound of blared horns from other motorists and tortured rubber from his car's front tyres. "University of life, mate. Not like you, you arty ponce."

Will decided not to retaliate but instead inhaled the pungent smoke and watched through the window as the buildings began to thin and eventually give way to open countryside. An example of the disparity between boys' and girls' maturity was never more evident than right here, he thought as Ant hurled abuse at a farmer who had the temerity to hold them up briefly in his tractor. Julia wouldn't do that. She'd calmly wait and then thank the farmer for his generosity when he pulled over to let them pass. She was sophisticated, he thought to himself; open-minded, not hung-up on boring social norms. A free spirit. And very, very fit.