Sunday Love Songs 01

She paused in thought for a moment or two.

"I think she just had a feeling that there was something missing from every relationship after you, enough to stop her committing. You were a complete package after all; a friend all through your teen years, then a good lover who really showed his love. She may not even be aware why she suddenly wondered what you were doing."

I was somewhat embarrassed at her assessment, and not convinced she was right, but she didn't wait for a response. Instead, she stood and grinned, and it was a grin rather than a smile.

"Well, Kevin," she said. "Fancy sharing my bed with me? The sofa is too lumpy, and the girls might be up for a while yet, and I might find out why Nicola is like she is!"

My first reaction to her invitation was to refuse. I wasn't about to perform for her erudition, but hey, she was gorgeous, her bed was kingsize and the sofa was very lumpy and at present unavailable.

I used the bathroom first, and when I returned to the bedroom she was in her bathrobe removing her make-up at her dressing table. I was stripped to the waist. She whistled, but I knew it was good-natured mockery.

"I sleep naked," she said meaningfully.

"So do I," I retorted.

"So," she grinned, lewdly and expectantly, "aren't you getting into bed?"

She turned and watched brazenly as I pushed down my pants and underpants, slipping off my socks at the same time. She smiled and nodded, but said nothing. Then she left to use the bathroom herself.

When she returned still in her bathrobe, it was my turn to stare. She stood, her hands on her hips.

"So," I grinned, every bit as lewdly, "aren't you getting into bed?"

She sighed, shook her head at the mockery and slipped off the bathrobe. There remained on her person a pale grey matching underwear set. It was plain cotton with a little purple bow in the centre of the cups of her bra and on the suspender belt and hipster briefs. Dark stockings. On her the effect was intensely erotic precisely because it was so plain and unadorned.

I stared and she stood and waited.

"Like it?" she said at length.

"Sensual. Erotic," I sighed.

She smiled.

"Good," she said, reached behind her and then slipped the bra off. Her breasts were natural, firm and medium in size.

My face betrayed me and she smiled with an air of triumph. She was used to having this effect on men. She put one foot on the bed, flicked the fastener on the suspender belt and rolled down a stocking. Then the other leg. Each time there was the tantalising shape between her thighs of her perfect bottom. Down went the briefs and off came the suspender belt. She had the obligatory landing strip and her sex was shaved.

She stood still for a moment for my enjoyment, and then climbed onto the bed, lay down beside me and we embraced each other and kissed. We kissed for a while. I resolved that I was not going to 'perform' for her. I would make love to her as I would with Beth, or any of my other friends -- except July!

I had noticed when Sarah stood naked that she was not just fair of face, and slender and sinuous of body, but she had beautiful feet! I am no foot fetishist but I had to give them attention, and so Sarah got a thorough foot massage. Her sighs and groans were evidence that this went down well. I continued until she leant up and tried to pull me up to her. Then came the leg massage. Obviously I avoided her sex, though I had some fun tormenting her knees and the backs thereof.

Then to her torso. Up, between her breasts over shoulders, down her sides, brushing the sides of said breasts. Tracing inside the elbows with a light fingernail touch went well also. I was having fun, and my lifelong friend residing between my legs clearly enjoyed it as well, standing to attention and ready for action.

Eventually she made it obvious she needed more direct treatment to her erogenous zones, and so attention was paid to her breasts and her vulva, with hands and mouth and tongue.

I could tell she was lost in the sensations because after beginning to stroke my cock, balls, perineum and bottom, her hands played randomly over my back. She was not concentrating!

She came strongly, bucking with the twitches of each orgasmic spasm, making those musical cries and groans and whimpering as she came down.

She pulled me over her from my position between her legs, and grasping my engorged member, rolled on a condom with expert hands and applied my now clothed appendage to her vaginal entrance.

I briefly wondered where the prophylactic had come from, while I accepted the invitation and we pushed and pulled our way to my orgasm, her nails scraping my back.

She did not come again, but she clearly liked being filled, as her kegel muscles held on to me until I felt I was deflating and the condom would become useless as protection. She realised the same thing and as we gazed into each other's eyes she allowed me to escape. I rolled off her, pulled the bag off my tool and tied off the end, as she cuddled up to me. She slept immediately, and I followed shortly afterwards.

Not a word was spoken throughout our coupling, though our eyes spoke of our affection for each other -- not eternal love, but the love of new friends who like each other and want to give each other pleasure, comfort and assurance.

It had been a relaxed fuck. I gave her all I could, and we were both fully satisfied.

I awoke alone. Sarah was already up and arrived in the bedroom when she heard me using the bathroom. The other girls had left for work, so there were no embarrassing meetings on the landing. I was still naked and getting clean underwear out of my case when she slapped me on my behind.

"Nice bum!" she said playfully, "but it's time to visit her office. Want some breakfast?"

I made do with a coffee, after seeing which cereals she and her friends ate. Then we were on our way.

"Let me do the talking when we get there," she said as she drove us decisively and worryingly to Nicola's firm's offices.

"Last night," she added, almost demolishing a cyclist who had unwisely tried to overtake us on the inside, "You're pretty good."

"You going to give me marks for technical ability and then artistic impression?" I asked dryly.

"Eight point nine, and straight ten," she said not batting an eyelid and narrowly avoiding being crushed by the bus she cut in on. "You're good in bed; you do all the right things, and you do original things -- I loved your work on my feet."

"Thank you." I murmured as we crashed a red light.

"You didn't get the ten for that," she said, turning right across closely approaching traffic (we drive on the left here, at least most of us do), "I actually had to think about it, 'cause I couldn't work out what it was. You didn't work hard at impressing me by the way you fucked me, I loved how relaxed you were, but you sort of immersed yourself in me. You really made love to me. It was as if at the time no one else mattered to you in the world. Understand?"

We had stopped by a parking meter and my relief was deep that we were still alive.

"I understand what you're saying," I replied, "but I don't recognise myself in what you say."

"Suffice it to say that if you are like that with every girl you fuck, and you gave something extra to Nicola, I can understand why she wanted to find you. Now let's get to her office."

She fed the meter and we entered a big office building fifty metres away, which must have been built in the nineteenth century, built large and solid from Portland Stone.

We scanned the board in the foyer, and found the company on the fourth floor. The lift was old and venerable and creaked and moaned reluctantly all the way to the floor we wanted. We emerged onto a narrow corridor and in front of us was a door with the publisher's name on it. Passing through it we found ourselves in a large reception area with a receptionist in one corner behind an impressive Victorian desk.

I was pleased Sarah did the talking. She was better dressed than I, and her accent inspired a good servile response. Could we please see Ms Nicola Greyson, her flatmate. She had an urgent message for her.

"I'm sorry," said the girl, "Nicola isn't here. She's taken leave of absence -- I think it's for three weeks."

"She hasn't been near the flat," said Sarah, "and there's post. Can you give me her forwarding address?"

"I'm sorry," answered the girl, "I can't give you that -- Data Protection Act, you know."

Back in the car, "Gone to ground," she said with resignation, using the fox-hunting term. I wondered if she rode to hounds at her ancestral home, and had a distracting vision of her tight backside outlined obscenely in jodhpurs. Mind you, I didn't know anything about her home, though I was by now somewhat of an expert on her behind!

"I'm sorry, Kevin, my fault entirely," she was saying. "Shouldn't have told her. I thought it better she wasn't surprised. Never thought she'd run."

"You weren't to know," I assured her. "I can't understand why she now wants to avoid me. It's par for the course with her, I suppose."

We picked up my baggage and she drove me frighteningly to the station. We kissed fondly on the platform.

"If ever you're in London," she said with a beguiling smile, "come and stay with me. You can pay for your board and lodging in my bed. My feet will miss you!"

"Sounds like a good plan," I smiled back. "I'll check you have a vacancy there before coming."

We laughed and kissed again.

"If the elusive Nicola ever returns," I said more seriously, "try to find out what she really wants from me, and if I figure at all in her plans. If I don't, I can stop worrying about her."

"Will do."

------

It was on the train going home that I thought of contacting her parents. I had met them from time to time during my school life, but it was always clear that they did not like me, though they were always civil in that cool polite way people have who aspire to a higher class. They somehow managed to convey how far below their rank I was. It seemed to me that Nicola might go home to her parents, or at least keep them informed where she was.

I phoned as soon as I was settled at home. Her mother answered. I identified myself and asked if Nicola was at home.

"No, Mr Connors," she said rather abruptly. It seemed her opinion of me had not improved. "She is not here. I suggest you contact her flat in London. They may be able to help you."

With that she rang off.

So that was that.

Then I found her email address and sent a mail asking her to contact me. It bounced. The address was no longer in service.

Another dead end, and with no further ideas about how to find her, I returned to my normal life, though my worries about her frame of mind kept surfacing. I couldn't get her out of my head. Never a day went by without a thought of her cropping up in an unguarded moment. It was annoying but I became resigned to it.

I think it was the unresolved nature of our relationship that did it. I needed closure, and reassurance she was all right since it seemed she was not at all well, and now I knew I wasn't going to get it.

So life went on. The financial crisis was getting more pervasive, but I was still making a meagre profit, and I now had a few customers to deal with. Time flew and before I knew it, it was nearly the first week of December. Time to buy Christmas cards!

Yes, it is a chore, but it does keep people in touch with each other, even if it's the only time they communicate. I would spend a Saturday writing them and answering some of those that had already fallen onto the doormat, and some from the previous year!

For those who don't know, in Britain we have oblong letter-shaped holes in our front doors called letterboxes, through which postal personnel push the letters. The upside is that we do not have to go wandering down the drive in the pouring rain to retrieve the mail. The downside is that we have to go to a post box some distance away to post our outgoing mail.

So, as the first week of December began, a card dropped onto the mat, the first of all the cards by at least a week. I did not recognise the writing, though this was not a unique experience. So I tore it open and took out the card. A folded piece of paper fell from it and came to rest on the table.

The card showed a Christian Nativity scene, and inside:

To my dearest Kevin Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year All my love Nicola

At the foot of the card was a further inscription.

Please, Kevin read the letter I've enclosed. I never got the chance to say all I wanted to but I've tried to say it in the letter.

The sense of foreboding was almost tangible. I looked at the folded sheet for a long time as if it were a poisonous snake, and then...

I went and made a pot of coffee and stayed in the kitchen to drink it, then took the second mug into my office and worked. I avoided the dining room table all day as if it carried some fatal infection, but after eating my evening meal in the kitchen, I berated myself for my timidity and picked up the paper between finger and thumb as if it were a bomb, carrying it into the living room and settling in my armchair. I opened the sheet. Oh dear. Handwritten.

Dearest Kevin,

This is very hard for me to write, but I've got to do it.

I need to try to explain why I've acted the way I have. When I came and stayed with you, I lied to you. I said that I had finished with Terry and was not seeing anyone. It wasn't true, and I don't know why I did it, except that I thought the truth might close the door to a relationship with you. The truth is that I had been living with him, and when he asked me to marry him I told him I wasn't sure. I didn't turn him down flat as I said. Anyway, I moved out of his flat and went to live with Sarah and the others, but I continued to see him, and spent a few nights a week with him.

I was trying to work out why I couldn't commit to any of my long term boyfriends. It was when I was looking through my stuff and found my year book. Do you know, you were the only boy who didn't sign it? It set me thinking that perhaps you would have the answer. There was always something special about our relationship, so I tried to find you and failed. I should have asked your parents, but I did not really know them and after our last meeting after the prom, I was afraid to. So I did that stupid thing on 'Sunday Love Songs', and no one was more surprised that I was when you got in touch with the BBC.

That weekend with you answered my questions. You were still the loving, caring self you always were. You looked after me so well. You didn't flirt, and you didn't try to take me to bed. When I flashed you that morning, you reacted badly. I knew then I wanted you, I think. I realised that none of the other men I've known quite came up to your standard. I panicked when you asked me about my life, and I lied rather than put you off and lose you again.

I went home with your promise to come and see me ringing in my ears. I so looked forward to you coming, and you seemed to hint that we might take things further. I was so excited. So I went back to Terry and moved in with him for the final time. I know it sounds stupid, but I wanted to make quite sure it wasn't to be. I felt I owed that much to him. It became clear very quickly. I knew I loved you then, and that you were very special to me.

On that dreadful Friday, I had told Terry it was over and we were bringing back my things for the last time. I did not know he had told Sarah that he had decided to take me to Paris in the hope that I would change my mind about breaking up. When she told me you had been and now knew I had been with Terry, I broke down. I knew that I had carried you in my heart all these years and now I had lost you. Your email cemented that fact. I knew I deserved what you said, because I had lied to you. I know I have lost you and I feel lost.

Sarah and Terry urged me to go to Paris with him. What had I to lose? It was a disaster of course.

I knew I had to obey your instruction and let you go, and I told Sarah on no account to contact you, even though I went downhill rather afterwards. Then she told me she had told you. I couldn't face you and I ran. It would have been too painful to meet you again and see the expression on your face, and know I had lost my only chance. I know everything to do with you and me has been catastrophic, and that's why I think it's better for you to forget me. I'll just have to live with it.

I know now I love you and I will always regret deeply that I've lost you, the true and only real love of my life.

There is nothing I long for more than to give myself completely to you, but I know it is not to be. I have cried so long over you, I think my tears have dried up.

All my love, dearest Kevin, and goodbye.

Nicola.

I sat with the letter in my hand, for a long time.

She had put no address. I picked up the envelope. Now in the good old days of yore, envelopes were stamped with the town in which they were posted. Not any more. Often there is a general mark, and at Christmas often no franking mark at all! So there was nothing to show where she was living.

I phoned Sarah. Nicola had been back, but she was no longer living in London, and would not say where she was.

"I think she knew I would tell you," she said. "She said she loved you and wouldn't get in your way any more. I told her she was being the biggest fool on the planet and that I was sure you loved her to bits. She obviously didn't believe me. I'm so sorry Kevin, if I'd not told her you were coming to see her, you might be together."

I soothed her and rang off. I began to think that I'd missed a vital opportunity in my life, and I felt dejected.

My parents rang and asked if I was going to dignify them with a visit at Christmas, and I assured them I would arrive on the Friday before Christmas, which feast that year fell on a Tuesday, and I would leave on the twenty-ninth. Each year there was a party for New Year in Manchester.

The Thursday before Christmas the whole gang met for a Christmas meal at the Regency and then some clubbing in the Grey Cat. I was going easy on the drink and was going to leave the party early, since I would be driving to the North East the next morning.

The Grey Cat club 'quiet room' maintained its reputation for its quiet music, because we wanted to dance a little but talk a lot. When midnight came, I began to take my leave. It was then that Julie asked the question.

"Hey, Kev," she said as I was hugging Beth goodbye, "hear anything from your girl -- Nick somebody was it?"

"Nicola. No."

Then I thought.

"Actually," I said, remembering, "I got a Christmas card and a letter."

I took the letter out of my pocket. Yes, I'd been carrying round with me! I gave it to Julie, and Beth craned over to read it as well. They passed it to Mike and Shona, who passed it to Karen, then it was Brendan and Catherine's turn.

"You have to find her," said Beth. Cath nodded vigorously.

"You know you're in love with her," said Julie.

"Bloody hell!" exploded Mike, "If I had a woman with that much love, I'd settle down tomorrow!"

"You have!" asserted Shona, "and you have settled down!"

He had the grace to look embarrassed, "Sorry darling, it takes some getting used to!"

She punched his arm, but they were both laughing.

"Seriously," he told me, "don't let her go."

"Too right," said Brendan. "Sure isn't she totally gone on you?"

"She's disappeared," I said with some resignation. "No idea where she is."

"Perhaps she'll go home for Christmas?" suggested Beth.

"Perhaps," I said, and felt a frisson of excitement and butterflies in the stomach in anticipation and hope.

Next morning, I set off early for my home city and my parents' house.