In The Beginning

I might as well start at the beginning, many years ago. The first time I ever saw Trish, my beloved wife and lover of several years' standing, was really quite a revealing occasion.

Back in those days, I was about 19 or 20, and I usually woke and got up quite early. On this particular sunny spring morning, I was up and about at around 6:00 am. I went down and fetched the milk in off the front doorstep (our milkman always was an early bird) and got myself some Corn Flakes in the kitchen while I waited for George, my flatmate, to surface.

As I tucked into my cereal, I happened to cast an eye out through the garden window; and said eye was immediately caught by a movement in the garden of the house that backed onto ours. I noticed that a girl had just emerged into their garden, carrying a basket of washing; I guess she wanted to get it onto the line to benefit from the day's sunshine before she went off to work.

Hmmm. Now, that was funny; last I knew, it was an elderly couple who lived in that house. Apparently someone else had moved in without our noticing. Well, she was certainly an improvement over the previous residents!

She was maybe two or three years older than me, and perhaps a bit on the plump side, but still she was pretty tasty. (Yes, I know, to a bloke the age I was then, anything female is tasty ... still, she really wasn't at all bad-looking, and I'm not just saying that because Trish is going to be reading this!) But what really caught my attention was that she was standing there in her garden, hanging out her washing, wearing a not very substantial nightie.

Well, that was a nice enough start to the day - but my eyes really came out on stalks a moment later, when I cottoned on that the early morning sun was shining clear through her nightie. Clear enough, I might say, to give me a damn good view of parts of her figure that wouldn't usually be on public exhibition!

Then things got better still - she stretched up to peg some smaller items onto the line. And I realised now that not only was that nightie almost see-through, it was also pretty damn short. I couldn't quite believe it at first - I thought she must be wearing a pair of tiny, dark panties. But then she turned round and bent down (from the waist - most indiscreet with that nightie, really) to pick up the next item out of her washing basket. And all unknowing as far as I could tell, she presented me with a perfect view of her bum, along with an enticing little dark triangle, before she turned back to the line and stretched up even higher.

There was no doubt about it, she was flashing her pussy at me each time she stretched up, and her pleasantly plump bottom each time she bent down!

Well, needless to say, I forgot all about my cereal and concentrated on the view.

I could only imagine that either she wasn't bothered about the chance of being seen because she thought it was too early for anyone else to be about, or else she simply hadn't realised how much was on show as she bent and stretched. I thought about calling George to wake up and come down for a gander... No, he always took a long time to surface, and she'd probably be gone in again by the time he got here. I'd miss my own chance to watch if I left the window to try to wake him up.

Oh, well, tough titty, George! I always said the early bird catches the worm - although in this case it was more of a case of the early worm watching the bird, I suppose.

And after about ten minutes, the object of my voyeuristic delight finished hanging out her washing and went back indoors, leaving me staring at a bowl of very soggy Corn Flakes, trying to adjust my trousers and wondering whether I'd been dreaming.

- o -

Over the next week or two, I came to realise that this bird was a bit of a closet exhibitionist, as you might say; or at least she was when she could pretend to herself that it was accidental. When I thought about it, I realised that thanks to some well-placed trees and fences, ours was the only house that looked onto the back of theirs, and the ground floor window from which I watched her wasn't actually all that obvious. She must have decided that meant there wasn't too much chance of her being observed during her little flashing episodes.

Anyway, whatever her reasons, over the next few weeks I spotted her in the early mornings in her garden several more times, always "dressed" in a similarly translucent nightie (but not always the same one - I have to say, I approved of her taste in nightwear). Sometimes she was putting the washing out, and sometimes she was doing some sort of gentle wake-up gymnastics, which she apparently preferred to do in the open air. I became a very regular early riser - in more than one sense of the word!

Just once, indeed, first thing in the morning after a particularly hot and muggy night, she opened her back door, and stood there looking out into the garden, in the sunlight, completely starkers. Maybe she'd been sleeping in the raw, or just come out of the shower, or something. She had her usual light nightie in her hand, and after a quick stretch in the sunlight she slipped into it. But hell, she could have done that before opening the door - it had to have been a deliberate little dare to herself, even if she was pretty sure there was nobody to see her. And nice firm little knockers she had too, (as if I hadn't already seen them in silhouette through her nighties often enough).

I started to pay more attention to our garden during weekends and summer evenings, too. And over a few weeks, it became quite clear to George and me that neither she nor her flatmate were all that shy anyway. Even apart from the early mornings when "my" bird presumably thought there was nobody watching, they didn't seem much bothered about their bits being on view.

It was a sunny summer that year, and the girls spent quite a bit of it sunbathing, usually in pleasantly brief bikinis. And quite often, though only (worse luck!) when they were lying face-down, the bikini tops would be unfastened. George and I had a wonderful time, apart from trying very hard not to be too obvious about staring! But I never did tell him then about the early morning shows I was getting - serve him right for being such a slug-a-bed.

Trouble is, I was young; and at that age I was very shy. Even when both we and they were in our respective gardens, I never quite dared to try to make an excuse to talk to her over the fence, though by now we were on nodding acquaintance. I mean, it would spoil all my fantasies if she had a steady boyfriend or something already. I could hardly go up to her and say, "Hi - I saw you flashing your naughty bits in the garden a few mornings ago - fancy a date?" - and I just couldn't think of a proper line to start a conversation with. So I kept her as the object of my fantasies.

Then, later that summer, George and I heard through a mate about a house that was coming up for rent in a little village a few miles away. Despite the attractions we were enjoying in the garden behind ours, this other place was a lot bigger for about the same money, and the village was a nice "Olde Worlde" one with a couple of first-class pubs; so, slightly reluctantly, we decided to go for it.

We were just finishing moving all our stuff out into the Hertz rent-a-van for the final trip, when I remembered that my old man's lawn-mower was still in the garden shed. We'd borrowed it a day or two before to cut our back lawn, so as to leave the place looking tidyish, and never got round to returning it. I dashed round the back to get it, so that we could drop it in as we went past my parents' place on our way to our new home.

Well, I hadn't been paying any attention at all to our garden neighbours that day, simply because we'd been too damn busy with the moving. I now saw that they were both out in their garden sunbathing (as usual in good weather), and both were reading. But now, as I went back into the garden to get the mower, I realised to my delight that both of them were also, as was admittedly not unusual, sunbathing topless.

However, while the one I'd been fancying was lying face down as usual, her mate was lying on her back! She was reading a paperback held above her, using it to shade her face from the sun and getting some of that sun on her tits. And the fact that I was on the other side of the fence, and that her knockers were clearly visible to me, just didn't seem to bother her at all. She didn't stir, or react in any way to my presence. I couldn't help noticing that she had quite remarkably long, dark brown nipples; they must have been near-on ½" long! (not that I was staring, of course - heaven forfend!)

As I came nearer their end of our garden, heading for our shed, she started to move her book. I thought, of course, that she'd seen me coming and was going to shield her boobs from view with it. But whether she'd seen me or not (and I'm sure she must have), she just lowered the book over her face as if she was taking a nap for a minute. Of course, this meant she could pretend she hadn't noticed me - but her tits were still clearly on show, and by obscuring her own face she was giving me tacit permission to cop an eyeful!

Well, of course I stopped and stared for a moment or two, but then the one I thought of as "mine" noticed me, lifted herself up on one arm (giving me a fairish flash of her own tits - small but perfectly formed, as you might say) and said, "Well? Are you going to stand there staring at Claire's boobs all day? If you're that nosy, it's a good thing you're moving!"

I blushed beetroot (like I said, I was still pretty young and innocent) and turned rapidly back to the shed, totally lost for words and feeling very small and embarrassed. Shy wasn't the word!

I got the lawn-mower, then walked back out to the front of the house, being very careful not to look back - I thought I could feel eyes on the back of my neck, and I really didn't know what to do with myself. I carried the mower out to the van where George was waiting in the driver's seat, and we drove off.

It wasn't until we were nearly at our destination that I managed to get myself back together enough to tell George what had just happened.

"You bastard, Dave! You might have told me while there was still time for me to sneak a peek too!"

Well, it was too late now - we'd already dropped the mower off, and passed the estate agents and returned the key, and we couldn't think of a good excuse to ask for it back. George was well pissed off, but there wasn't much to be said, so we carried on to our new residence and moved our stuff in.

- o -

Once we'd moved in to the new place, we naturally assumed that was the last we'd see of "our" two girls; but to my surprise we met them again a few months later, when the winter party season started. As it turned out, we had mutual acquaintances; and a whole bunch of us seemed to go to the same round of parties and constantly bump into each other.

The first time we saw them again, George didn't even recognise them in their party gear. But there was no way I'd forget the one I'd been peeping at and lusting after, even if I still didn't know her name yet! I could hardly believe my eyes -I'd been fantasising about her as my 'lost love', on and off, for months; and here she was in front of me again. Mind you, she was dressed a lot more decently than she'd tended to be in her own garden. In fact, she was wearing a surprisingly conservative dress. I soon discovered that she was a lot less free and easy about showing off her charms in company than when she thought there was nobody about, especially when her more liberated friend Claire wasn't egging her on.

She greeted me cheerfully enough, though. "Hello, Nosey Parker!" she grinned, "Come back for another stare, then, have you?" And she made as if to slip one strap of her dress off her shoulder.

Then she hesitated a moment, and said, "Oh, come on, let's have a dance - after all, we do sort of know each other already, and the talent here's pretty lousy apart from you!"

Backhanded compliments, yet?

We danced for a few numbers and exchanged names. Hers, I finally discovered, was Trish. "Well," she continued in a rather posh accent, "actually, Patricia to my Mum, but that's too snooty - I tell all my friends to call me Trish." I positively preened at the implication that this rather sophisticated bird already had me categorised as a friend!

At her request I went to get us each a glass of wine when the number finished, and we sat down in a corner to chat for a bit. She mentioned that Claire was there too (I hadn't spotted her yet). I told her that George was around also, then both of them happened past in rapid succession, and next thing all four of us were sitting together, chatting as if we were all old friends. And I suppose in a way we were.

Over the next few times that we met at parties, I soon realised there was something about Trish that I just couldn't get out of my mind. George didn't think all that much to her at all; he was much more attracted by Claire, who had a head of heavy, waist-length hair that was so dark as to be almost blue-black. She was also rather tall and leggy, with a high-cheeked Romany sort of look to her. Totally mismatched to her name, in fact, come to think of it. But Trish, although much less exotic looking, was definitely the one that took my fancy.

As I said, we kept on bumping into the two of them on and off during that autumn and winter at parties, and we usually had a dance or two with each other. I found Trish quite willing to snuggle up against me sexily in the slow numbers, but still I couldn't get up the nerve to ask her for a proper date. Like I said, I was painfully shy, and I just didn't realise that she was giving me fairly clear "come-on" signals.

The girls told us that they still lived together in the town house that backed onto our old one, while George and I were now about 10-15 miles away in the village we'd moved to. So we really didn't have much opportunity to get to know them better, except when we met them at parties - but we took good advantage of those fairly frequent opportunities.

In the end, George got his nerve up before me. He eventually made a date to take Claire to the cinema (to see "Where Eagles Dare"), one night in the depths of that winter. He and I agreed that I would drive him into town (we shared a car as well as a house), then I was going to go and spend the evening with my Mum and Dad, who lived quite nearby. Mind you, I must admit that a major reason for this show of filial devotion was so I could drop my washing off with my Mum and snitch a few cakes off her!

Then I was to come back to collect George later on, when the film was over.

All this went according to plan, despite some fairly filthy winter weather as we drove in; but unknown to me, Claire nearly chickened out of her date after I dropped George and left. She got nervous, then ended up asking Trish to come along to the movie too, to "play gooseberry".

I gather George wasn't too impressed at first (I imagine he'd been hoping for a bit of back-row nookie), but he accepted the decision gracefully enough when he thought it through. After all, it meant that he got to squire two birds, which always makes you look good! So they all three walked round to the cinema together - it was just a few hundred yards round the block from Trish and Claire's house.

Meanwhile, I went back to my parents' place and spent a pleasant enough evening with them - Mum's cakes were as good as ever, and now that I'd moved out, my Dad and I seemed to get on with each other a lot better than we had when I was still living at home.

Around 10 o'clock that night, I came back to the girls' pad to pick George up, but found nobody at home. Of course, I assumed that Trish must have gone somewhere else separately. I sat around in the car waiting for them for a bit, but it was getting bitterly cold by now, and just for good measure it had started to snow quite heavily. We couldn't afford the petrol to run the engine to keep the heater working while I sat there, and I soon got very chilly.

So, for lack of anything else to do, I buttoned up my coat, shoved my hands deep into my pockets to keep them warm, and trekked round to the cinema to meet them. I reckoned I'd keep warmer walking, even in the snow, than I would if I just sat in the car with the engine off.

It was a bloody cold walk, but it was indeed warmer than sitting slowly freezing in a cooling car. I soon got round to the cinema, and passed a few minutes reading the "Forthcoming Attractions" posters.

Just as I was starting to get a bit fed up waiting, the three of them came out of the auditorium. Of course, I wasn't expecting to see Trish there, as I hadn't realised she was going along. Seeing her was quite a pleasant surprise - I suddenly realised I'd been feeling a bit lonely, what with George seeing Claire while I hadn't been expecting to be seeing Trish.

We walked back to their house together in a group. George naturally walked beside Claire, so I strolled along behind them with Trish and listened to her as she chatted to me about the film, which she'd really enjoyed.

It seemed that Claire had dressed quite lightly for her date, even if she had had second thoughts at the last moment about being alone with a strange man; and now she started feeling the cold and was shivering quite violently. So good old George showed off his Yorkshire macho, shucking his coat off and wrapping it round her shoulders while he walked casually along in the frost and snow in his shirt sleeves. Very romantic I'm sure, but a bit bloody brassy for my taste!

Trish had dressed more sensibly for the weather - after all, she wasn't the one originally expecting a bit of a snog - and she didn't seem to feel the need any extra wrapping, for which I was heartily thankful! However, as we ambled back she suddenly slipped on a patch of ice under the snow, and she could have fallen quite painfully if I hadn't quickly put an arm out to steady her. And of course, once I'd put that arm round her, it seemed like a good idea to keep it there. Hmmm. She didn't seem to mind - indeed, she snuggled into me - and she made a remarkably comfortable armful!

We soon got back to their pad, and the girls invited us in for a (very) welcome hot drink before we drove back to our own place. All four of us sat in their front room around the electric fire for a while, drinking coffee and nattering; and then Claire, who'd been holding hands with George for some time, exchanged a knowing look with him that I suspect Trish and I weren't supposed to notice.

"'Scuse us," she said, "but I think George and I are going to go and sit in the other room for a few minutes to - er - say goodbye. You two don't mind being left alone for a bit, do you?"

Naturally we excused them, and they went off into the back room, presumably for a quick goodnight snog - Claire seemed to have lost her previous nervousness with George completely!

Since George and Claire had already suggested the idea, I took the opportunity to sidle up to Trish on their sofa, and put an arm round her shoulder as we chatted; and before long we were having a kiss and cuddle ourselves. And a very cuddly person she was too, as I'd already noticed during the walk back.

So, being the randy young sod I was, I decided now was the time to try my favourite party trick. I'd managed to develop the knack of unfastening a bird's bra with only one hand, from outside her dress, while just seeming to be kneading the middle of her back. It didn't always work, depending on the type of clasp; but if it failed, the victim usually didn't even realise what I'd been up to, which to my mind made it a fairly safe game to play.

This time, it worked a charm. Trish gasped in surprise as her bra suddenly pinged undone under my ministrations. I eyed her a bit nervously for a moment while I waited for her reaction - would I get a smack in the puss for my cheek? But she just raised her eyebrows, grinned back at me and snuggled a bit closer.