Free Universal Carnal Knowledge Pt. 24

XXIV

"Whatever you want"

Wasting no time I told the twins, who were disappointed but instantly compliant, to get dressed and catch a train back to Cambridge. They were a little consoled when I told them I should be glad to see them in London this coming Saturday. Then I rang Wendy and told her what I had decided and that I should be late home. After this there was nothing for it but to take the now naked Fran, Connie and Gabby to bed and fuck the daylights out of them.

Then I returned to the sitting room and got down to business. First I rang Yvonne, for whom I had special plans. After that I drew out the list of girls and telephone numbers that Wendy had kindly typed out the night before and worked my way through, again getting an almost immediate reply each time. I told each girl to clear her diary for the end of the following week; I would give further details, I promised, nearer the time. The overwhelming response was one of relief to have a definite date; waiting for the intervening ten days would be agony, they told me in their various ways, but at least now they knew when they would be seeing me. One girl, Felicity, had a distressing weeping fit in which she sobbed that she had been terrified since we spoke the night before that I might never contact her again. She kept apologising for being so silly and would pull herself together for a moment only to break down again. She sounded frighteningly vulnerable and utterly helpless in the face of what I had done to her.

Felicity's tears had brought on a severe attack of conscience and when I got to the end of the list I rang her back to tell her again that we should see each other soon and to say how sorry I was to have caused her such upset. This attempt at reassurance served only to set her off again. "Oh, no, James, it's not your fault," she wailed. "It's only me being silly. It's just that I can't believe how lucky I am to have found you and if, if ..." she paused to summon the strength to continue, "if anything bad happened and I couldn't see you, everything would just be so empty and pointless and the idea of it scares me so much I can't think straight and I just well up and --"

Fitting action to words she broke down again. I looked helplessly at Fran, who had emerged from the bedroom half-way through my telephone marathon wearing nothing but a blissed-out smile and the customary accessory of cum dripping down her legs. With a vacantly happy expression she had watched me make my calls but now, as I attempted to console Felicity, she began to look more concerned.

By the time I had managed to stem Felicity's tears and get her off the phone I felt the need to unburden myself to Fran.

"Poor girl," I said. "I know you could only hear one end of that, but ..."

"I got the gist," she said. "Remember, I've got some inkling how she feels. It's awful, James, you've no idea how bad it is. For days I couldn't think about anything except how much I loved you and needed you."

It was only when she uttered these words that I realised with dismay and remorse that in my absorption with my own concerns I had not given a thought to the way my poor Fran must have suffered between her initial exposure to FUCK and our confrontation in the office a full six days later.

"Fran, I'm so sorry," I said guiltily. "You must have been so miserable and confused."

She looked surprised. "Confused, yes, you're right about that, but not miserable," she replied. "At least, not at first. To begin with I thought it was just a mix-up." And so Fran told me her tale.

As I briefed her on the report that day in the office she had been surprised to find that her natural sympathy for my bereavement grew into an unaccountable and almost irresistible urge to throw her arms around me and cover me in kisses. But after I had removed my distracting physical presence she found it easier to concentrate on work and made some solid progress on the report. Once she returned to the flat, however, she could not get me off her mind. Thinking she must be overtired, she skipped supper and was in bed by nine-thirty, early even for her.

"But that was when things got really strange," she went on. "I had this dream that you and I were making amazing love. I'd never known anything like it; the feelings were far stronger than they'd ever been with a real boy, and in the end the climax was just shattering and I found myself awake in bed, covered in sweat and with this wonderful uplifted feeling. I just lay there for ages, savouring it and thinking how glad I was that Gabby was at Manlio's because I was sure I must have called out your name and it would have been hard to explain."

"But didn't it trouble you," I asked, "that of all the men you could have dreamt about, you chose me?"

She hesitated. "Well, I --" she began, then thought better of it. "Why do you say that?" she asked eventually.

"Fran, look at me," I replied, rather irritated at having to spell out the obvious. "I'm twice your age, I'm carrying far too much weight and hardly any hair, and on top of everything I'm married. Do you really think I'm a likely candidate for a sexy dream?"

Fran spoke slowly in reply, choosing her words with obvious deliberation. "At the time, as I lay there that night, you seemed the handsomest and most desirable man in the world. It was only the next morning, as I remembered how wonderful it had been and wished I had someone I could tell about it, that it even crossed my mind that a confidante would be surprised at my choice of dream lover. So, yes, then I did puzzle over why most women wouldn't find you as sexy as I did, just as I couldn't see why it had taken me so long to notice it." Having said this, she sighed with relief as if not having fancied me from the start were some shameful secret she had had to steel herself to own up to.

"How did you account for it, then?"

She smiled. "With a bit of amateur psychoanalysis," she said. "I thought, first of all, it's natural that a young woman should want a man, and second, it's also natural that a lovely kind man like James should be on my mind when he's suffered a family tragedy and needs my help. So, I thought, these two perfectly natural things must have got somehow jumbled up in my brain. But really, they're quite separate so I'll deal with them separately and everything will be all right. So when I got to work I got busy with the report and when I had a break I rang Gabby and told her I'd changed my mind about that blind date."

This was news to me. "Blind date?"

"Yes. An old friend of Manlio's from Spain is a journalist and he'd just come to work in his paper's London office. Gabby and Manlio were taking him out for a meal and she asked me to make up the foursome. She kept telling me he was single so it was obvious what she had in mind, but I felt awkward about it so I said no. But once I'd decided that the dream was nature's way of telling me I needed a boyfriend, I thought, 'Why not?' and I agreed to join them on the Friday night.

"Things weren't too bad when I was in the office because although I kept thinking about you it just spurred me on to keep working on the report. 'He's relying on me,' I told myself. I kept drifting off into little fantasies about what you'd say when you got back to the office -- would you give me a thank-you peck on the cheek? -- and I tried to work out what I might say or do in response, silly schoolgirlish stuff like that. But then I'd tell myself how disappointed you'd be if I didn't finish the report, and that would mean there'd be no chance of the thank-you peck, so I'd buckle down. So the office was bearable, but at the flat on Thursday evening I didn't know where to put myself. Gabby was at Manlio's again so there was no one to distract me and in the end I just sat there thinking how lovely you were until it was time to go to bed.

"And James, darling, that was the night you just blew me away. As soon as I dozed off I had a dream that started where the night before had left off, and all night through I had one amazing dream after another. I'd never imagined that sex could be like that. In the end I hardly knew whether I was asleep or awake or whether you were real or my imagination. I'm still not sure how much sleep I got but in the morning I felt fantastic and I had a smile on my face that wouldn't go away; at the office people kept asking me what I was looking so cheerful about.

"I kept telling myself that you were happily married to Wendy and wouldn't be interested in me and that the whole thing was some kind of delayed schoolgirl crush and that I shouldn't feel bad about it because that evening I'd meet this man Jose and he'd be so attractive I'd get you out of my system and everything would be straightened out."

"But he turned out to be geeky and weedy?" I hazarded.

"Oh, no, not at all. He was lovely. He was very good-looking in a Spanish sort of way, with beautiful piercing eyes and he was sharp and funny and I could see he really liked me."

"Sounds like perfect boyfriend material," I retorted with a touch of petulance that, in all the circumstances, was wholly uncalled-for.

"Exactly," she agreed, "which is why it really worried me that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't muster the least interest. I even let him kiss me in the hope that it would start some sort of response but not a flicker: I just wished it were you. In the end I made some excuse and left them at the restaurant and went home. I put off going to bed as long as I could because I knew what would happen and I was right: it was just like the night before, maybe even more so.

"By this time I was getting really worried, and to make matters worse it was a Saturday so I had no work to distract me. I remembered that back home I used to go for long walks if something was bothering me; I'd never tried it in London but I thought it had to be better than staying cooped up in the flat so off I went.

"I didn't have any plan. I just headed off randomly and kept away from main roads as much as I could and finally I found myself in this big park with people wandering about enjoying the sun so I sat down and watched them for a bit.

"You know, back home it always puzzled me when I heard anyone say that you're never so much alone as when you're surrounded by people but it's true, isn't it, darling? I mean, there I was, in one of the biggest cities on earth with people all around me getting on with their lives and paying me no attention at all. It seemed like I was on a different planet to everybody else. I'd never felt so lost and isolated in my life. When someone suddenly said 'Hello' to me I nearly fell off the seat, it was such a shock.

"It was an adorably cute little mixed-race boy. 'My name's Louis,' he announced proudly. 'I'm four. How old are you?' I thought how wonderful to be at the age when this is a perfectly acceptable way of starting a conversation with a total stranger. So I told him my name and that I was twenty-two and we were happily chatting away when someone called, 'Louis!' and this woman hurried up and said to me, 'He's terrible for talking to strangers, I'm sorry he bothered you.'

" 'No bother at all,' I said. 'We were getting on really well. What a lovely little boy.'

"To prove I didn't mind I offered to buy Louis an ice-cream and the mother and I fell into conversation. I liked her at once. She was about thirty, I think, and she had this beautiful Irish accent and before I knew what was happening she was telling me all about herself and Louis and the trouble she'd had with her family when she first took up with Louis's dad, who was a musician from Senegal, and I don't know if it was because she'd been so confiding or just my pleasure at running into a fellow Celt but I felt this urge to tell her about my predicament. I was fighting it down but she must have realised I had something on my mind because all of a sudden she paused and gave me a shrewd look and said, 'But enough about me. What about you? Are you in some kind of trouble?' And I just blurted out the whole thing."

"What, everything?"

"Well, yes, pretty well. I said I was completely bowled over by this lovely man at work but I was sure he didn't want me and I couldn't stop thinking about it and it was driving me crazy."

"Plus he was married and old enough to be your father."

"I might have been a bit vague about your age. It would have needed too much explaining. I just said you were a bit older."

"And married."

"Well, all right, maybe I didn't get round to mentioning that either."

"That's hardly 'everything', is it, Fran?"

"James, please stop being difficult. The point is, I told her as much as I could without getting involved in complicated explanations, and she said that if it was what I wanted I had to tell you how I felt.

" 'But he won't want me,' I told her. 'I couldn't bear it.'

" 'Well,' she said, 'even if he doesn't, at least you'll know. And you wouldn't really be any worse off than you are now, would you?'

"This seemed to make sense. 'I suppose not,' I said uncertainly.

" 'Listen,' she said. 'This life of ours: it's the only one we get. It's not a rehearsal. Go for it.'

"Oh, James, I felt so much better. I thanked her and gave her a big hug and I hurried back to the tube and went home. I wasn't moping about any more: I was thinking, planning, working out what I could do to make you mine. I knew people wouldn't understand, that they'd say I was doing the wrong thing, and I felt terrible about poor Wendy, but I knew I had to face up to all that because I'd regret it all my life if I didn't at least try. And that evening, I didn't put off going to bed; although I knew that the night would be the same as the previous ones, I was resigned to it by now."

Fran blushed slightly. "Well, to tell the truth, I was rather looking forward to it. I had a nasty feeling these nights of solitary passion were the closest I was ever going to get to the real thing, and as I put out the bedside light and turned over to go to sleep I pretended you were in the bed waiting for me and I muttered, 'Here I am, darling, back into your arms again.'

" 'Glad to hear it,' you said.

"Hearing your voice electrified me. I hit the light switch and sat bolt upright in bed, my heart pounding. James, darling, it had sounded so real. It took me several moments to pull myself together and realise I must have fallen asleep and started dreaming as soon as my head hit the pillow, and even then I had to get up and do a quick check round the flat to be sure I really was alone. And, needless to say, the night was just the same as before, and next morning I stayed in bed for ages just enjoying how good it had been. I didn't get up until nearly half-past eight."

In conversation with Fran over the previous several months, I had picked up that she was one of nature's larks, almost always up before six and usually in bed by ten. Even so, I was a little taken aback at the revelation that she apparently regarded it as the height of decadence to remain in bed until eight-thirty on a Sunday.

Fran was continuing. "That day, Gabby put in an appearance to pick up some clothes and she drove me up the wall with chatting about Manlio and saying what a lovely guy Jose was and how he really liked me. I was annoyed when she decided to stay the night because I knew I'd have the dreams again and she was bound to hear me. But next morning all she did was give me a funny look and say, 'Fran darling, if that's what going to bed by ten does for you I'll have to try it myself,' and left it at that.

"The next twenty-four hours was the worst time. It just crawled by. The trouble was I knew you'd be back next day and I just couldn't wait. I needed a definite time to focus on so I decided you'd be in at nine sharp next morning and every few minutes I'd look at the clock on the wall and work out how many hours, minutes, and seconds there were to go. The evening was even worse; it was lucky I had the flat to myself again because I paced up and down and couldn't settle for a moment. For days and days I'd been living for the moment we'd meet again and now it was getting closer I was more and more convinced that you wouldn't want me and you'd be so angry and disappointed with me that you'd say something cruel and humiliating to punish me.

"I thought I was bound to have the dreams again but in fact I had the most awful night. I know people say they didn't sleep a wink when what they really mean is they slept fitfully, but I'm serious. The whole night long I simply lay there, my eyes wide open, terrified of what might happen next day. I was so relieved when I could get dressed and leave for work, and I was at my desk by seven. I waited and waited for you to come in and ticked off the minutes until nine o'clock. When it got to half-past and you still hadn't appeared I began to get frantic and I convinced myself that something terrible must have happened to you. I thought I was going to choke so I had to hurry off to the kitchen for a glass of water. I was only gone a few minutes but, of course, in that time you'd come in and Connie had slipped in your office ahead of me, the little slyboots. I couldn't think why she would want to see you or what you could be talking about for so long: I was so frustrated that I wanted to scream or start smashing the furniture. I'd never ever felt that way in my life before. I thought I must be going mad."

"Maybe you were," I replied gloomily.

"Well," she smiled consolingly, "if I was, it's not a madness I'd ever want to be cured of. Because," she went on more seriously, "that's the killer, James. Take that poor girl Felicity you were talking to earlier: even if I rang her back and told her all about your uncle's potion, even if I could somehow get her to believe me, she'd still want you, James darling, she'd go on wanting you more desperately than she ever thought it was possible for anyone to want anything. That's how it works."

Fran's thoughtful analysis sobered me as much as Connie's more superficial one had cheered me up earlier. I reflected that Fran was, with the possible exception of Wendy, clearly the most intelligent of my "captives". I appealed to her for counsel.

"Fran, what do you think I should do?"

"Whatever you want," was the disappointing reply.

"Fran, that's not helpful. You're a clever girl and I need your advice here."

My rebuke clearly distressed her. "But James, it's the only advice I can give. You are the centre of my life. All I want is your happiness. I'd gladly walk barefoot over hot coals to get you what you want, my darling, but I can't tell you what to want. Only you can do that."

There seemed nothing more to be said and we looked at each other in silence. Eventually she started picking at the discarded clothing lying about the room and began to put on a bra. It was clearly too small for her and she had trouble doing it up. Her fiddling irritated me.

"Fran, put that down please."

She put it aside. "It doesn't fit me anyway," she replied. "I've been eating non-stop for the last week. All my clothes are tight and my bras won't fit at all."

"FUCK," I explained.

She looked upset again. "Oh, James, darling, I didn't know it bothered you. I'll go on a diet and join a gym tomorrow."

I corrected her misunderstanding. "It's another effect of the potion. It reprogrammes your brain to store more fat, especially on the breasts and backside. Albert liked his women curvy," I explained, "and so do I. Don't you go anywhere near that gym."

Fran cradled her growing bosoms. "I used to be able to get into a B cup," she said, "but I'm verging on a D now." She stood up and leant over me so I could have a good feel. "You like them, don't you, James darling? All right, forget the gym. I'll go clothes shopping on Saturday."

"Fran, I have plans for Saturday. I'll need you all day. Connie and Gabby too."