Davina Lust to Love and Back

Living together again was not a chore. In fact it was fun. At least it would have been without the dark shadow of Mikki hanging over me. And by that I'm very much including myself. I wanted the shadow of Mikki over me. I desperately wanted to see her again, to exchange two words without me being a "bitch", "cow" or much worse.

So, one week on and Kat resumed working at the Widget Company, by all accounts fitting back in like a hand in a glove. And astonishingly, she was contacted that very first morning by her bank manager. Yes, he told her, the bank was at fault. She was completely blameless in spite of using her cash card over all corners of the globe. She would be getting a refund rounded up to sixteen grand, paid straight into her new account, of course, and within at most a month.

When Kat told me that I had expected fury; why wait a month when it should happen there and then!

But the bank manager had already covered that. Sixteen thousand was a tad more than her loss and an interest-free overdraught had been set up in the meantime. And all interest on Kat's "emergency" credit card had been waived. The bank manager had also touched on a possibility of "compensation for inconvenience", without being nailed down to any sort of an amount.

Bloody bankers!

Theoretically cash-rich again, Kat insisted on paying board and regularly bought me slap-up meals at our local. We didn't share a bed again together, however. Not in that first week or so.

Not that I remember, anyway.

How much booze did we sink?

I read somewhere that Lee Marvin had a "drinker's cloak" which he finally . . . after umpteen years of beating all comers . . . handed over to Oliver Reed.

Or was it Richard Burton?

Whatever, Kat and I would have given all three of them a fair match over those ten days.

In the interim, in my more sober moments, I went grovelling by email to Mikki, getting some sort of an amnesty. That was along the lines of Kat vanishing and the two of us picking up from where we'd left off.

That's right; easy-peasy, eh?

Not!

To tell the truth, whatever I agreed I had no idea how to comply. It was like doing a jigsaw without a cover picture to guide me, and with half of the pieces missing.

So I bumbled on and on, taking each day as it came, forever hoping, much like Mr Micawber.

Yes, the rest of week two passed with Kat pretending to flat hunt and me getting more and more used to my ex-lover's company.

And I fancied her more and more as well, regularly reminding myself that I might have subconsciously intended to fuck Kat on a matey-matey basis, but only hesitantly, because of the conflict with Mikki.

Torn between two lovers or what!

Mary McGregor couldn't have put it better.

Or should I quote Dickens and say I was secretly hoping that "something will turn up".

Then came the weekend . . .

*****

To kick off with Kat insisted her new place had to be in Bingley. I suspected that was to make sure it was trickier to find somewhere, but I had no hard evidence. Location, location in Bingley hasn't been so easy over the years, you see. Yes, there are some relatively newly built homes but the majority by far are much old terraced houses fashioned from Yorkshire stone. You know what I mean; those very "old" properties which will still be standing long after the newbies have all crumbled back to sand.

In other words prices were not . . . and are not . . . exceptionally low.

And apologies for the anti-estate agent slant; I won't let it happen again, honest.

Anyway, Saturday morning I accompanied Kat on a couple of viewings and then we retreated back to the Busfeild for lunch and a beer.

Then unannounced, Mikki turned up; perhaps after a night of sex elsewhere. Trust me; she had all the signs, just-fucked hair to the fore.

How dare she, my brain raged, unsure if she really had . . . and unsure if I really had, come to that.

Giving nothing away, Mikki nodded at me, utterly ignored Kat and sipped a Coke until a Bingley Taxi whisked her away.

Whoever had it have been, I wondered. Surely not Joyce . . .

Surely not . . .

Somehow I managed to block Mikki out of my mental ramblings and got through the rest of the day.

Somehow!

Then, latish that Saturday evening, after two more meals in the Busfeild at a miraculously reserved table, Kat and I went back to the cottage to share a bottle or two of pinot and watch an old Sharon Stone DVD.

And fuck me through and through, back in the day wasn't Sharon fit!

Okay, so in that particular DVD she was also exceptionally murderous, but what looks! What a body!

Watching together, side by side on my new settee, was enjoyable. So too was the opportunity to sip pinot. I sincerely had no naughty thoughts at all but, out of simply nowhere, maybe halfway through the film, Kat fed me a Malteser, pressing it to my lips. I hesitated before accepting.

Then ravenous hunger took over and we finished the entire box, taking turns to feed each other.

Ravenous hunger and taking turns, eh . . .

Guess what happened next.

*****

Equally out of nowhere, Kat asked me to sleep with her, as a platonic friend, no funny business at all.

I downed the last of my latest drink and said okay.

The proposal was irresistible, wasn't it? Not girl in her right mind could possibly decline.

'Okay,' I repeated, 'but not naked. Keep it platonic, right?'

Kat leant in and kissed my lips, no doubt sampling the traces of the chocolate she'd left there.

And I resisted not one whit. Well, not apart from reminding her about the platonic aspect.

'Spoilsport,' she grinned. 'But anything's better than nothing. Let's go for it, girl.'

Chapter Seven

Sunday lunch, after Saturday night not-quite-naked and tempted indeed, I met Kat in the Busfeild for another bite to eat. As I know now, Kat had been pretending to flat hunt and went watching women's soccer matches instead.

That news item doesn't greatly upset me, by the way. Kat was evidently hoodwinking me but watching women play soccer wasn't an issue. If I'd been hoodwinking her I'd have watched twenty-two women playing soccer too.

Not to mention what, six or up to ten subs?

Wouldn't I just!

So there I was, first into the pub . . . first ahead of Kat, anyhow; the gang of barflies was there before I got in . . . and what did I see?

Only Mikki again . . . and she in was there with Joyce!

Kat arrived while I sat in indecision, unsure as to which of my workmates I should be annoyed with.

No, that's inaccurate; I was annoyed with good-as-gold Mikki and amazed at Joyce's brazenness.

Kat wasn't nearly so indecisive. Reportedly she tore into Mikki in a confrontation in the ladies' rest room, away from prying eyes. And, knowing Kat, she'd have won said confrontation hands down.

Problem was, I still had feelings for Mikki.

And I didn't know all of the background until a day or so later,

Me being an innocent abroad, or what!

Not that having feelings prevented me spending the rest of Sunday afternoon in the pub, sipping wine before going home to munch more Maltesers and watch DVDs, beside Kat all the time, obviously.

To my way of thinking my "amnesty" with Mikki was as good as over. Tomorrow, Monday, was a make or break situation . . . one which had suddenly got more complex than ever.

To my way of thinking, drunk and full of choccy as I was, I had nothing to lose.

Well, nothing apart from the rest of my life.

Yet again I slept as-good-as naked with Kat without the seemingly inevitable happening.

I think.

Or should that be, I hope.

*****

Monday morning, driving in to work, Kat beside me yet again, I was on bricks. Nothing to lose, I kept assuring myself.

Everything to lose, some deep, dark part of my brain kept replying.

And where were those alter egos when I needed them?

Maybe they were basking in the sun. Not that we had so much sunshine in 2016.

'Are you okay?' Kat asked me.

'I'm cool,' I lied, 'never better.'

'Are we on for lunch in the canteen, then?'

'I'll take a rain check,' said I.

Kat dried up at that. Unaware of yesterday's face-off with Mikki, I played along like a good 'un.

*****

Initially corresponding by the safety of email, me opening with "Hi Mikki, I love you", I then proposed quite daringly we met face to face for lunch, for the first time in a long while.

Thankfully Mikki agreed, even though she did specify not in the office canteen.

That worked for me. After a little negotiating we settled on a relatively secluded pub, the recently refurbished Lord Rodney (according to my inner me, somewhere way too posh for the "Trekkies").

And omigod weren't my knees trembling when I went in through the still old-fashioned, door, over a simply impressive stone-flagged floor.

Not that we met up in the pub. No, we met up at the top of Cavendish Street, walking together along North Street like young, carefree lovers.

Maybe that's me imagining things out of thin air. All I can say for sure is that, when we were close to Kat's (Nat-west) bank, Mikki took hold of my hand and tugged me to a halt.

'I want to go back to "how we were"', she assured me, before kissing me in the busiest part of town.

I kissed her back even more fervently. 'Me too you,' I echoed.

*****

We'd both arranged extended lunch breaks, ninety minutes instead of just an hour and, initially at least, we revelled in the freedom. At first we chatted like old times, touching on that glorious break we'd had up in the Lake District; sad and sepia toned by then, but still evocative.

'Screw sad and sepia toned,' I said in a burst of enthusiasm. 'Let's do it again this weekend, Bugger the place with the four-poster bed; let's just go do it anywhere that'll have us.'

Mikki's interest was only too apparent but she showed caution. 'What about Kat?' she wondered.

'We're still friends but no more,' I assured her, perhaps not one hundred per cent certain, yet talking straight from my heart, 'so how about it?'

'Is Kat really flat hunting?'

'Of course she is. I've got her job back, somewhere to rest her weary head; she's out and about just every non-working hour.'

'Do you think she's really trying?' Mikki asked after a brief lull in conversation. 'It didn't seem like it yesterday in the pub.'

Unaware of what exactly had transpired between the two of them, I shrugged.

'Are you sure,' Mikki persisted, 'when she collared me in the ladies' she made it sound like she'd no intention of moving out anytime soon.'

I must have been scowling for a while by then but Mikki missed all the warning signs.

'She called me a loser,' Mikki went on. 'She said she'd be living at yours until she's old and grey.'

Ditching or ignoring the Kat implications, I growled: 'What were you doing in the pub yesterday? It's two days in a row, isn't it; you've slept with Joyce, haven't you, once at least.'

Mikki tried to hedge but only made matters worse. She might as well have had Joyce's fingerprints on her pussy.

In fact she probably did have Joyce's fingerprints on her pussy . . .

Going off on a tangent, can they do that? Fingerprint a pussy, I mean. Isn't flesh on flesh dodgy?

And how many prints on mine would I have if flesh on flesh wasn't dodgy at all!

Moving swiftly on . . .

Chapter Eight

'I hate you,' I concluded, not allowing common sense into my vocabulary, 'all the things you've said about me and Kat and you're at it as well. At least I'm not two-faced about what I do.'

Making things worse for herself, Mikki offered zero defence. Bizarrely, I held nothing against Joyce, seeing her as incidental. Way I saw it, if a babe like Mikki wanted fucking then why not?

I'd have done it at the drop of a pair of panties, so why should Joyce have restrained herself?

Well, apart from being Mikki's line manager and mentor, why should she?

Not that I really concentrated on our Credit Manageress. No, instead I concentrated on Mikki.

'Kat's given me every opportunity,' I told her. 'But I've kept turning her down, because of you. What an idiot I have been.'

Mikki tried to excuse herself but failed miserably.

'Fuck you,' I declared finally. 'I'm off to open my legs for anyone passing by. I might even open them for a guy. Guys have to be more loyal than you.'

And what a low shot was that! I'm gold star and always will be.

Non-man-hater or not, I could never betray the cause.

Not just to piss off Mikki, anyway.

*****

I suppose I was somewhat unapproachable at work over the next few days. Everyone gave me a wide berth. Only Kat dared fetch me a coffee.

And even she limited herself to one tentative pat on the shoulder before scarpering.

Wise girl!

Later in the week, recomposed a little, I sent Mikki an email:

"I'm sorry I said I hate you, but not as sorry as I am for trusting you in the first place. Do not contact me ever again. Whatever we had is over. And that's a full stop."

That evening, head-to-head in the pub, I told Kat Mikki was a two-faced bitch. Faced with Kat's return Mikki had wantonly thrown herself at Joyce, both down in Brighton and over a long weekend, up here in Morton.

Less stressed, and to make matters worse, Joyce was on my list of lovers, albeit in the commitment-free section.

I kept that little gem to myself, naturally.

But why hadn't Kat told me all about her confrontation with Mikki in the pub Sunday lunch?

Okay, so I knew . . . sort of . . . but why was I lacking the details?

Probably lying through her teeth, Kat told me Mikki had "just fucked eyes" and said that she'd wanted to spare my feelings.

(Kat apparently hadn't noticed Mikki's just fucked hair. Or am I jumping a day or so?)

Increasingly annoyed, I announced it was all over between me and Mikki and flounced off across the pub carpark, declining Kat's offer of yet another drink.

Brooding at home, not really focusing on anything, I waited for Kat to return and, after rudely refusing her offer of preparing food and/or drink I stayed slouched over my laptop.

But I wasn't stubborn for long. The urge to be comforted . . . or whatever . . . soon overcame me.

Before I knew it I was knocking on the spare bedroom door.

That is to say I was dressed in an absolutely diaphanous night dress and strapped-up with a decent-sized black attachment. Glasses-less for once . . . I CAN'T SEE WITHOUT MY GLASSES! . . . I soon pushed my way inside when the door opened.

'Fuck me, yes,' Kat breathed.

What more encouragement did a girl need?

*****

To cut a long story short I dived on the larger, stronger girl, pushing her onto her back before fucking her and fucking her and fucking her.

For hours I took her and took her again and again, for hours and hours.

At last, when I was spent, Kat murmured, 'I love you, Dave, and I always will.'

'Me too you,' I replied instinctively. And at that moment I meant it; I meant it with all of my heart.

Old times, old arrangements quickly resumed. We spent that Monday night there in Kat's bed then, Tuesday to Thursday, we slept in mine. Not that we did much sleeping. No, sleeping didn't feature very much at all.

Omigod, that taste of her! However could I have gone nine months or more wishing that I'd never sample her again? How when she was the most yummy woman on the planet!

And how good was it when she sampled me! How on earth had I existed without the feel of her lips and tongue on me? How had I existed without her!

We had sex elsewhere as well, notably on my kitchen table and worktops, just like old times!

Speaking of which . . .

Interflora visited on Wednesday evening, while we were hard at it on the table, bearing twelve red roses from Mikki. Kat scoffed at the "pathetic gesture" and I did my best to shrug it off, as if it meant nothing to me.

But it did.

Ultra-secretively, I sent Mikki an email saying I was sorry it was all over but thanking her sincerely for the flowers.

Mikki replied by saying Kat was a heartless bitch only out for herself. And by assuring me there was only one true love in my life . . .

And she sure as fuck wasn't called "Kat" . . .

Bottling it yet again, I didn't respond. Not straightaway, anyhow.

*****

Then, following on from Tuesday to Thursday, came Friday night.

Almost unbelievably Kat had a date arranged with Tommy, her contact from one of the factories at the Widget Company. I wasn't happy about that but kept my feelings to myself. Kat's bisexual, I reminded myself. And Tommy's quite a dish. Not that I'd ever stray . . . but he'd be high on my list if I ever did.

So much for Friday night! I dined at the Busfeild (Kat having somehow booked me another table) then I made my weary way into the Middle Bar, intending to swap politically incorrect tales with some of her gang of fellow barflies.

That entertainment was as . . . well, it was as entertaining as per always. But it wasn't as entertaining as three hours alone in bed with my favourite Rampant Rabbit

Then cue the bad news. I was not pleased when Kat texted me early Saturday: "OK IF I DO T20 THIS AFT?"

As I have already implied, I like cricket. But the idea of Kat getting pissed with a crowd of mostly male fans filling in schoolboy scoresheets . . . and, even worse, Tommy . . . did nothing for my morale.

"Whatever," I texted back, after snarling, growling and sticking needles into make-believe effigies.

Working Saturday morning (as opposed to re-wrapping myself around Tommy, as Kat was doubtless doing) I parked up in Maxine 2's usual slot and went into the pub.

And I bumped into Mikki almost immediately.

'Where's Joyce?' I asked instinctively, hating myself for it because I genuinely liked Joyce.

Turned out Joyce was being "Auntie Joyce", taking her eleven year-old nephew and three of his best mates to Flamingo Land before treating them to a night in a fancy Scarborough hotel.

'I only wish I had an auntie like her when I was a kid,' Mikki concluded

'So do I,' I agreed. Then, surprising myself beyond all reason, I asked Mikki to come "home" with me, saying we needed to talk.

For some strange reason she agreed and a minute or so later we were in my kitchen, Interflora roses very much in evidence, by then three days old but still smelling divine.

And we proceeded to literally fall over each other in our bids to apologize and explain.

I confessed I'd known of the bank account robbery two weeks before I'd told Mikki. That I'd called in an interior designer . . . Alana . . . to redecorate the spare room, admitting that Alana freelanced in her spare time.

And I admitted I had and on/off thing going with the sexy so-and-so.

Mikki laughed at that and told me she'd snooped out the redecorated spare room and thought it had been done for her, and done exceptionally well at that.

I almost died of shame.

Then Mikki showed me a selection of Kat's emails, saying she was just playing along, that she knew I was lost to her but wanting to . . . somehow . . . expose Kat as the bitch she was.

And what a selection that was. Kat made the Wicked Witch of the West seem like Joan of Arc.

But it was all believable; I knew the way Kat put sentences together and these were all handwritten by the lady herself.

Yes, I instinctively believed all the evidence. So much so that I forgot all about the pint I'd left back at the pub and hauled Mikki up to my bedroom instead.

'We can't do anything about yesterday,' I said as we went, 'but anything is possible for tomorrow.'

Afterword

Well, I very nearly made good my promise to get up to date with the end of Kat's and Mikki's accounts of our so-sexy three. But guess what? Although I'm now only a handful of hours short of their finishing points I can still see there is more to tell.

That's right: there's lots more to tell . . . long-winded old me, eh?