Freeing Kirsty

Well, if the likeness of Kirsty was that good presumably he was now looking at Mr Hairy Chest although that fuzz was hidden behind chest armour. In physique he was powerfully built, even allowing for ten percent of artistic licence. Good teeth, observed Merrick walking right up to the foot of the bed, a great smile but the dark eyes looked hard and so did the corners of the smiling mouth for that matter. Not someone to trifle with.

Disappointed that Mr Hairy Chest was not a wimpy looking man, Merrick was in the process of deciding that he'd better not be around when the knight called to revisit his princess and then something caught his attention. He'd missed it after examining her face and then flicking his gaze to her champion: a breast was exposed through a gap in her flimsy white gown. Obviously the period was not mid-winter, Merrick deduced, but it probably was not mid-summer either otherwise Hairy Chest would have been swimming in sweat in his armour. That would explain why the nipple of the princess was standing proud - she was cold!

Pleased with his speculation, he examined the breast and for the best part of a year felt himself about to drool. It was rigid and shapely. Even allowing for the aroused sensuality of the artist - whether it be male or female - at the sitting leading to fifteen percent exaggeration, it would still be a handsome breast with a hidden one to match.

The books on the cabinet on the left indicated that was Hairy Chest's side - all three were products of blood and guts writers and there was a big alarm clock - women with good eyesight would prefer a more delicate and perhaps fancier encased device - and there was a fitting for a notebook computer connection screwed to the cabinet top and a portable printer in the opening directly beneath it.

Merrick walked around to the other side of the bed where he found on the cabinet top a book on the life of Joan of Arc and an open diary that he did not read. The opening below was crammed with what appeared to be on-line shopping catalogues. He then noticed that there was a fitting for a notebook computer connection behind the Joan of Arc book.

Opening a wardrobe door Merrick closed it quickly. It was full of male clothing. The other two wardrobe openings were fully feminine - a virtual fruit salad mix of fragrances suggesting various traces of perfumes, talcs and hair sprays. Absolutely no suggestion of body odour as faintly apparent in the wardrobe of her partner.

Blessed - or alternatively, cursed - with the unrestrained ability to invade privacy honed from years as working as a freelance investigative photo-journalist, Merrick pulled open the top drawer of the wardrobe drawers. The divided drawer was filled with panties on one side, stockings on the other with no panty hose in sight. There were a number of rather sexy elastic topped stockings that one sees featured prominently in men's magazines.

The next drawer down contained bras on one side, garter belts on the other. That interested Merrick - who had the big interest in stockings supported by a garter belt. His divorced wife Kate had only acquired garter belts shortly after meeting Simon which was a liaison that would tear apart an eleven-year marriage.

Merrick opened and quickly closed the next drawer; it was filled mainly with the sort of bedroom gear a woman would wear to excite her man. However he did note a couple of rather thick night dresses that she probably wore during winter when Romeo was at home with the wife in Atlantic City or elsewhere.

The bottom drawer was of far greater interest to him. It was filled with an array of clothing and light equipment that identified Kirsty as a gym bunny. That delighted him, providing a far more positive image for him than any connected with bedroom gymnastics.

He closed the drawer knowing from this uninvited intrusion that she favoured pastel patterned underwear with frills and looking along the two open wardrobes he could see one was devoted to cooler season clothing, the other to warmer weather wear. She liked baggy shorts and black dresses. She was his kind of woman!

On the dresser sat an exotic hair brush set. Very nice. The only other item on top was a blue cut-glass spray bottle - one of those old-fashion types with a hand-pump bulb at the end of a short tube connecting to the top of the bottle. So, where were the lipsticks, powers, lotions and jewellery? In the drawers of course, bonehead!

There was an entire drawer of perfumes, each sitting in its own enclosure. Most were of French origin; very nice.

The drawer of lotions seemed to span every treatment for wrinkles, blemishes and dry patches known to mankind.

On the other side Merrick found the jewels, and gasped. He knew a little about jewellery, having bought increasingly expensive trinkets for his mother over much of his lifetime, for his sister almost over her entire lifetime and then expensive items for Kate, whose preference was for gold, silver or platinum. Some individual items in this drawer could be traded for a car and two boxed necklaces in the drawer below could perhaps be traded for an apartment or small house. No doubt even more lavish gifts from Hairy Chest were stashed away in safe custody. Sadly, Merrick accepted he was out of his league.

Back in the bathroom Merrick felt dry and hungry. The coffee he'd been offered had not been served.

Washing his face he looked into the mirror. Reflected back was the face of a youngish thirty-five year old, square jawed, clean-shaven and not unduly lined and lightly tanned. Women still referred to him as being handsome - female relatives including his sister, that is - but Merrick had been inclined to dismiss that as flattery. His nose was a little too wide and flat, his green eyes a little too recessed and his hair did not have the right colour for him to be called handsome.

The hair was a mousy brown infiltrated with fair streaks. Merrick was unaware that women existed who were unimpressed by blond or black haired men, suspicious that such men lack fidelity. He assumed his overhanging eyebrows served to frame the luminosity of eyes that had attracted Kirsty whether or not she wished to admit that.

Merrick's build was solid - his shoulders square and wide but his straight down trunk meant he missed having the copybook tapered waist that women writers love to go on about. At least he knew he scored with a firm and perhaps noticeable butt in terms of a feminine appraisal. Legs as with arms were strongly muscular from gym work and sports and physical recreational activity.

Well, Little Brother - the name he used for himself when in an uncertain situation of introspection - what now? Leave after writing a note, or stay till she wakes? A conventional person would have answered that poser without hesitation – go. Merrick was habitually a little devious so it suited him to reply, stay Buddy as she has still to serve you coffee.

In the kitchen he found a beer in the fridge and demolished that while making himself a salad sandwich. No way could Kirsty be a slut, he insisted; she was too tidy to be anything but top shelf. He grinned, thinking that had she been after a piece of his ass she would have not rolled down her stocking so discreetly - she would have allowed him to manage that delicate operation while staring into his eyes, tongue tip protruding between her teeth with the sexiness perfected by the sexiest of American women. Wow, that was a up tempo piece of thinking.

Merrick cleaned up, leaving the kitchen how he'd found it.

It was not quite 7:00, now well dark outside. He pulled a chair over to sit near and facing his beautiful hostess, having dimmed the lights. When she awoke she could give him the promised cup of coffee and he'd depart.

Hours later Merrick awoke. Taking a few seconds to adjust to his situation - and realising that he was still recovering from jet-lag - he noted Kirsty was no longer on the couch. The throw rug that he'd placed over her was now over him.

He checked the time - just after 4:00. Well, Aunt Betty and Uncle James had been warned he may be late returning home so would have gone to bed perhaps not particularly worried. He'd better phone them at 6:00 before they called up a posse.

Merrick peeped into the bedroom. Kirsty was a shapeless hump in the bed, just the back of her hair showing. He carried his chair into the bedroom to just inside the door, and settled down facing her. Within minutes he'd drifted off to sleep with the image of her in a bubble bath holding up a shapely leg for him to remove a stocking.

Just before 6:00 he awoke to feel something fluttering on his unshaven cheek, knowing from old that it was a feathery kiss, one of the best kisses of all. As his eyes opened she stepped back, all smiles.

"I had hoped you'd stay," she said, simply.

"I'm waiting for my coffee."

She giggled.

"Then you are going to have to wait for some time as I am in no hurry to let you go. I'm off for a run with a group of friends through Central Park. Please be here when I return."

"Can I come with you?"

Kirsty looked surprised and pleased.

"Do you run? We are all quite good and keep up a keen pace. Of course I could always fall back to keep with you. I just run with the group as one never knows who one will meet at this time of day in the park."

"You won't have to bother about me not keeping up. What size are your running shoes?"

"Sixes."

"Oh."

"Spiros's are tens."

Ah, the name, a man of European descent it would seem.

"I guess your foot is a bit smaller?"

"Yes, a full size actually."

"Well I get some clothes out for you and a pair of his ordinary socks as well as his thick winter socks."

"Thanks - meanwhile may I phone my Aunt in Bellmore - she'll call out the police if she wakes and finds I did not come home last night."

"Of course, not that the police would do anything but record details. We are a big city, people go missing all the time. Here's my phone."

Merrick went into the living room and made the call to his aunt who was grumpy at being woken when it was still dark. She'd not even missed him and when Merrick explained where he was Aunty Betty expressed disgust.

"She's not a street prostitute, Aunty Betty - far from it."

Horrified that Kirsty could hear the conversation, Merrick was relieved to hear her cracking up with laughter in the bedroom.

"No, I can't indicate when I will return, she wants to keep me here until she makes me coffee and she won't be doing that until it suits her."

"No, it's not deviate behaviour - she's a regular woman, no doubt exactly like you were when you were twenty-five Aunty Betty."

By now Kirsty sounded almost in hysterics.

"Goodbye, Aunty Betty. And tell Uncle James not to worry."

"Yes, I will use protection if the need arises, which I'm sure it won't."

The call had terminated before Merrick had mischievously added that last comment. He went into the bedroom where Kirsty was dabbing her eyes.

"That call - that call was one of the funniest I've ever overheard," she giggled. "She'll think you are lying, you know. Old aunts usually expect randy nephews to lie to them."

"Randy? Have I given you justification to earn such a title?"

"No, not at all. But I know how old aunts think, that's all I'm saying."

"Thank God for that. I have been on my best behaviour since I wounded you, apart from poking around your apartment while you slept."

"Really? Trying on my underwear?"

"No, not even tempted. But I would like to see you in one of those little black dresses."

Kirsty looked at him through narrowed eyes, and then said, "Come on –get into these clothes. We must rush if we are to join the pack. Here, let me help you."

Merrick hauled off his polo shirt and she handed him a running singlet, turning her back as she held out a pair of lined running shorts. They were rather baggy, he found, after dropping his track suit pants and underpants.

"Put the thin socks on first," she ordered, turning the instant he said he was decent.

As soon as he'd laced up the shoes they were out the door and into the elevator.

She smiled and hauled open the door as Merrick pulled in the waist ties of his shorts even tighter.

They met a pack of ten runners aged from around seventeen to sixty-five perhaps, jogging up and down rarin' to go.

"This is a New Zealander who goes by the name of Merrick, who is staying temporarily in the apartment next door to me," Kirsty lied. "No time for all round introductions, let's go!"

As they entered the apartment Kirsty said, "I'm running a bath. You can either go first, last or with me." Merrick said "With you", not giving himself the chance to teeter.

"Right, you do the bath and I'll get us a couple of energy drinks and bagels."

Merrick fancied he detected a touch of excitement in her voice but dismissed that as wishful thinking. She was just being sisterly - or perhaps there were water restrictions? No, she'd made no mention of that. Christ, he hoped he didn't get a boner before climbing into the bath!

As he turned on the water he tried to fill his mind with a hundred thousand look-alike Chinese on a great march alongside a walled city - no it was a the Great Wall - no it was in India and they were Indians. Dark clouds came into the image and it began to rain with everyone appearing to be depressed. The rain lifted and a plague of flying mice arrived overhead, somewhere in South Australia perhaps? There were wheat fields.

He looked down and found it was time to turn off the water. Kirsty arrived with the refreshments. She appeared to have done her hair and definitely had applied make-up; she'd only had lipstick on previously. There was need to recall the mind-filling image of flying mice over the wheat field in South Australia to avert a boner.

"Oh," said Kirsty. "You haven't put in bubble bath mix. It's lovely to luxuriate in bubbles."

Or to conceal one's form, mused Merrick, preparing to be asked to turn around.

Kirsty tipped in a dollop of bubble mix then stood back, faced him and dropped her track suit. She was totally nude and devoid of pubic hair. Her body was gorgeous.

"How do I look?" she asked, head tipped on an enquiring angle.

"Stunning, absolutely stunning."

She looked pleased and stepping into the bath, laying back to watch him.

The vision of flying mice had now become two mountain peaks in the Southern Alps of New Zealand and with a start Merrick realised that they were conical in shape. With relief both were struck simultaneously by huge avalanches, losing any connection with the shape of a woman's breasts. He removed his top and allowed his over-size shorts to fall to the ground.

"H-how do I look," he stammered.

She leisurely eyed him up and down.

"Prime, very promising if I may say so."

"Anything you say is honky-dory with me," said Merrick, relieved that his mind control exercises had been eighty-plus percent effective.

He wished she would sit up so he could see her sculptured chest.

She laughed, sitting upright and moving back as he got in: "Honky-dory - what kind of saying is that?"

"I am unaware of its origins but it's a variation for it's very OK," he replied, desperately attempting - and barely succeeding - from unabashed pinpoint focusing on the slightly upturned orbs gracing her chest.

"Flying mice over South Australia," he groaned aloud.

"Pardon me?" she queried. "Did you say flying nice over Australia?"

"A daily ritual of mine," he lied. "I feel so humble at being privileged to be temporarily resident in your great city of New York."

"Oh Lordy!" she exclaimed. "If only you knew what a maelstrom of human beings were are and soaring from the geniuses and creative leading lights to the riff-raff at the bottom of the barrel. In truth your arrival will have raised the bar, albeit microscopically."

As he sunk down into the bath and ran his legs past her hips she lifted her legs and settled them on to his belly. Without thinking he gently grasped her ankles down low clear of her inquiry and sighed. He felt absolutely contented and no longer worried about the antics of his clowning penis that occasionally took on a mind of its own; it too, seem to be wallowing in lethargy.

Directing a warm and dazzling smile at him, Kirsty asked, "Did you envisaged being in a situation such as this within three days of your arrival in the Big Apple as the tourism likes to call it."

"In here, with you, naked?" Merrick stalled.

Kirsty nodded encouragingly, her distracting superstructure now returned into the water.

"I-I-I honestly haven't thought about it."

She raised an eyebrow in the most sophisticated rebuttal, signalling, LIAR.

"No, I didn't."

The eyebrow arched even higher.

A feeling of dread swept over Merrick. Obviously his response was considered to be inadequate. Worries about a rampant penis were no longer with him. The poor fellow was attempting curl up in shame in his under belly. It was time to be upfront.

"Kirsty, my new friend," he began. "Please excuse me but right now I am out of my depth."

"The water is shallow, it's barely over my tits," she giggled.

Then placing a hand over her mouth she released it to say, "Oh, excuse me. I forgot myself for a moment."

"Certainly - after all, this is your home but in my more relaxed moments I as uncouth as the next fellow, though that's unlikely to be of any consolation to you."

"On the contrary," she countered. "I am finding you to be a complex character - someone to trifle with perhaps. Certainly I never had invited another man back to this apartment before, which is saying something. But please proceed, I feel you were about to tickle my fancy with your utterances."

Merrick was gratified to be encouraged to continue. He felt compelled to explain his submissive behaviour, the reason being it was completely out of character.

"I've enjoyed numerous relationships with females of varying ages and in varying circumstances," he confessed, eyes riveted on her left little finger which she was sucking.

God, how can women be so incredibly sexy in indulging in an innocent baby like action like that. Then he spotted the other half: while the little finger was being sucked the thumb and other three fingers were stroking up and down her cheek very sensuously.

The small curled form under his belly stirred and Merrick frantically thought of flying mice over the cornfields - no, dammit, the wheat fields of South Australia.

Kirsty's left foot curled down Merrick's belly.

He gulped as it halted, just short of the hibernating penis.

Flying foxes over the wheat fields of South Australia he thought, urgently trying to conjure up a relieving image. But an error message came back: "Possess no clipart of flying foxes." Bugger, the limitations of one's imagination can at times be rather inconvenient!

"This procrastination," began Kirsty. "I assume that I am correct that you never had had a bath with a female before other than your mother when a babe and after marriage with your wife?"

"You've hit the bull's-eye with that one, Kirsty," said the much relieved man under interrogation, "My mother would be ever so proud of you for arriving at that conclusion."

"And you, Merrick?" Kirsty asked with considerable interest. "How does such activity fit into your expectations?"

"Well, I can only be truthful, Kirsty. In my life there have been one a series of one-nighters and the only extended stayover was with my wife Kate prior to our marriage, now terminated."

"Terminated? I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was her decision to engage with someone else and flee the nest."

"Children?"

"Yes, two. Bella eleven and Giles fourteen."

"Well, I guess just young enough to avoid major dislocation?"

"Yes, the other man is older, her pottery tutor, and fortunately he was childless and just adores the kids."