Jen-My birthday And Paula's Present

"Really. I thought it was childish. You're so mature. So professional and clever. I thought you'd think I was just a silly kid," She said into my chest as I hugged her.

"You're not a silly kid. If you were I wouldn't have asked you for a date. Actually I was sure you'd say no and I'd have to leave the practice because of the turmoil it would have caused. Having said that, you will have to feed me better than today's breakfast," I told her and was rewarded with a thump to my midriff. "You know? You could take up a sport. Let's see now. I know. Boxing." Which suggestion rewarded me with another thump, slightly lower down. It was getting too close to my tender bits so I didn't go on anymore.

"What are we doing today?" Cynthia asked me, drawing away. "Before we go for dinner."

"I wouldn't mind going to a sports shop. I need some new trainers so I can go jogging. Are you O.K. with that? Oh yes, a pair of football boots as well." I asked her.

"So you're going to do a bit of exercise? You're really going to do it? Don't you need rugby boots, not football boots?" She asked me breathlessly. "You're going to do what I ask?"

"Yes." I replied, simply. "And I play in the backs so I need football boots. It's the forwards who need to toughness and extra studs in rugby boots," I told her.

"The Trafford Centre? That's the best place to go. Emma works there. We could meet her and go for lunch together." Cynthia suggested and I had to admit I didn't have a problem meeting this Emma close up.

We put away the breakfast plates and cups, put on our coats and went downstairs to the car park and my car. It looked odd, Jen's car not being there. Something, I assumed I would have to get used to. I opened the door for Cynthia and she climbed in and when I was behind the wheel leaned over and gave me a kiss on my cheek. "Happy birthday Steve," and after a pause, she continued, "I didn't blush!" She was quite elated.

"Thank you." And I meant it.

The Trafford centre was slow to get going but became very busy as lunchtime approached so we decided to shop first and then pick up Emma for lunch. Cynthia called her on her mobile to tell her and apparently she agreed. I bought my trainers, boots and some kit for my jogging and made our way to the restaurant area.

Where the lovely Emma was waiting for us. She was wearing a very short, white mini skirt and lightweight V necked jumper and finished off with a pair of flat heeled white shoes. "She works in a fashion shop," Cynthia explained why she was wearing what she had on. Up close she was just as pretty as I had seen her that night I had dropped Cynthia off at her house. Cynthia looked up at me as we approached her, "Calm down stallion." She told me. I assumed she had misread the look on my face.

"There's nothing to calm Cynthia. Nothing at all." I hoped I was reassuring her. We arrived at a small restaurant hoping to just have a sandwich and a coffee each which we ordered and waited for it to be served to us. Cynthia and Emma chatted away happily together, but I felt her leg rub up against mine on more than one occasion, each time complemented with a sultry glance and a smile. We finished lunch and Cynthia insisted paying the bill and was her contributing to my birthday eating. I was left on my own with Emma who slipped me a piece of paper which I opened there and then. She tried to snatch it back as Cynthia came back, without success and so I read it to myself. It was her phone number and e-mail address. I tore it up and left it on my empty plate. Cynthia came back and looked at it, then me and then Emma. "Ready?" She asked us both.

"I'm ready," I said followed by Emma.

"I'll have to get back to work so thanks for the lunch and have a lovely birthday Steve," She said, turning to look at me. While Cynthia wasn't looking at her she blew me a kiss. It didn't work, I was still only interested in Cynthia. She was my girlfriend now. We left her to go back to work while we left the shopping centre to go back to my place. And our evening meal out. Cynthia didn't say much on the way back and I sensed a king of tension which finally broke when we entered the underground car park under my apartment.

"Emma still fancies you, doesn't she?" Cynthia broke the silence with a hell of a question.

"Probably. Why?" I asked back.

"She's pretty," Cynthia said.

"Yes, she is," I said.

"You fancy her don't you?" Cynthia asked me.

"In fact, no I don't. I think she's a brazen slut."

"Really?" Cynthia asked, perking up after I'd told her my opinion.

"Yes, she is. A pretty slut, like you said, but a slut nonetheless," I reassured Cynthia.

"She's prettier than me isn't she?" Another question from Cynthia.

"She's just pretty in a different way, that's all. Look, you're a very pretty girl and you're mine. She's an easy lay and once she's been laid she'll be looking for the next one. She just wants what you've got. That's all."

"You mean she's jealous?" Asked Cynthia.

"In a way yes. She thinks she can take me off you and score a point over you. It's not because it's me, it's because you've got me. She's poison," I told Cynthia. How could you do that to a friend. "I could prove it to you if you're not sore. Are you?"

"I don't know. It doesn't feel sore at the moment," She whispered. "Can we stop if it's hurting?"

"Of course. I don't want to hurt you," I reassured her. "It's only 4:00pm though so it's a bit early to go to bed. And I want to go out for that meal with you." Cynthia laughed at that.

We left the shopping centre and drove back to my apartment and went upstairs. It would be a good few hours before we went out for dinner. "What shall we do now?" I asked her.

"Yes, we'll go out and then come back here to bed. O.K.?" She asked.

"I'm O.K. with that. Shall we get ready and amble over. We can stop in a pub on the way and have a drink together can't we?" I suggested.

"Yeah, we'll only get bored waiting. But we don't want either of us drunk when we get back. Do we?" She emphasised the word 'we' making sure I understood what she meant. It was a fairly warm afternoon for the end of May and we wore fairly light clothes for our meal. Cynthia wore a light cotton dress, beige with matching beige shoes and handbag, finished with a simple light gold chain around her neck and a gold watch and a beaming smile. "I'm looking forwards to this. I've never taken a guy out to dinner before."

"May be the last time as well if I don't like it," I teased her. As usual I was rewarded with a playful thump on my upper arm. I held my arm out so Cynthia could link with me but she pushed it down and took my hand instead.

"I prefer holding hands. Linking arms is old fashioned," She told me.

"Whatever you prefer Cynthia," I told her, "Whatever you prefer." I turned to look at her. Really look this time, not just a glance or glimpse. A real look and I liked what I saw. Here was a nice girl. Really pretty to look at and dressed well. Her eyes gleamed at me with her smile.

"What is it?" She asked me.

"Nothing. I just wanted a real look at you. That's all," I told her.

"A look? You see me all day at work. What's so special about now?" She asked me.

"You're my girlfriend now. You're my nurse at work, that's why," I replied.

Her smile grew wider with that and she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "I am now aren't I?"

"You're well and truly my girlfriend now." I confirmed. "Shall we go?"

We left the apartment and went down to the ground floor, left the block and started walking to the restaurant; it would take around twenty minutes to get there but I planned on a stop at a pub for a drink on the way. A beer for me and a glass of wine for Cynthia as usual. We walked in silence, simply holding each other's hand. A remark made by my English teacher came to mind, 'you'll know when you're in love. You won't need to speak or say anything. You'll just be happy being with them', he had said. It hadn't been Paula. We were walking without talking or saying anything and I was simply happy being with her. Was I in love? I thought to myself. Maybe. We arrived in The Town Hall Square, Albert Square and found a pub where I sat Cynthia down and started off for the bar. "Don't you want to know what I want to drink?" She asked me.

"Wine?" I replied simply.

"No, not this time. Can I have a glass of cider please?" She told me.

"Pint?" I asked her, smiling.

"It's a good job you're not in range or your arm would be thumped again," She said, smiling back.

I bought the drinks and took them back to our table. Cynthia was staring at the Town Hall and didn't realise I was back. "It's a beautiful building isn't it? Very Gothic I think." She spoke as if she were miles away.

"Never really thought about it I suppose," I told her. "It's very imposing though." I continued after a moment's pause. "I prefer this view." I said as I looked at her.

"Me too," She said simply as she sipped her cider. "That's lovely, what is it?"

"It's a French cider. From Normandy they told me behind the bar. A special drink for a special lady I asked them. There's an even better one but they only served that in pints." I joked with her, and as usual was rewarded with another thump on my arm. My beer was cold and refreshing and we talked about what we fancied to eat. Cynthia wanted plenty of vegetarian food and was quite keen to try Middle Eastern cuisine. As was I, when I thought about it. We eat too much meat in the West and I wanted to cut down a little: but most vegetarian food was so bland and unappetising. Having finished our drink, we made our way to the restaurant, a five-minute walk away. The tables were all downstairs in the cellar and as we went down the carpet looked a bit threadbare and old. The paint on the woodwork was cracked and peeling and the wallpaper was stained with age. It didn't look promising but we continued down to be met by a middle aged guy in a shabby suit who appeared to be the owner and who looked middle-eastern. He guided to a table and told us who our waiter would be and that he would be over I just a couple of minutes.

The waiter duly arrived and gave us a couple of menus and took our drinks order. "Wine this time" I asked Cynthia who simply nodded. "House white wine please."

Once he was out of earshot Cynthia leaned over to me and whispered, "This doesn't look promising, does it?" She said. The menus were stained with both food and wine. I nodded at her in response. The wine took only a few moments to arrive and the glasses were plonked on the table with the carafe of wine. I poured Cynthia's first then mine and I tried a drop first, pulling my face in anticipation. But it was surprisingly good and I nodded at Cynthia who tasted hers'. She smiled "That was a surprise," She said simply. We both picked up our menus to decide what to eat and agreed on the meat banquet, so we could try a lot of the vegetarian dishes but still have some meat, particularly lamb and chicken. The waiter came back and took our order and left us. Service was perfunctory but with a smile, but hardly a word was spoken.

The meal arrived on a huge platter which dominated the whole table. There were several salads, hummous, couscous and meats. A kebab of vegetables and one of meat completed the ensemble along with several pitta breads, although how they thought we'd eat all this was beyond me. Cynthia looked completely lost. "What order do you think you eat this," She asked me.

"It's Middle Eastern so may not have an order like we do in Europe. Maybe?" I asked questioningly, not really expecting an answer. "It doesn't matter. Let's just eat."

I started by putting some salad on my plate and a piece of lamb. I didn't know what it was called but when I put the lamb and salad in my mouth and chewed it was as if I had arrived in a culinary heaven. The taste was divine, simply divine. I closed my eyes in reverie. "What's the matter Steve," Cynthia asked me. I opened my eyes to see she was looking at me with a worried look on her face.

"There's nothing the matter. Have you tried it yet?" I asked her. She shook her head in reply. "Just do it Cynthia," I told her.

She looked down at her food asked me. "Is it very spicy?"

"There's some spice in it but it's not very hot and there's lots of herbs," I assured her. She wasn't as keen on chilli as I was. "Try it Cynthia. It's great."

She speared a meatball, which the waiter later told me was a kofta, and bit a piece out of it and chewed thoughtfully. Her eyes widened in delight. "That is so different. And nice. I never thought it would be this tasty. The décor doesn't do it justice does it?" She said, and popped the remainder of the kofta into her mouth. "Our kissing might be a little tastier tonight. Don't you think?" And she blushed as she said it.

"One way or another. Probably." I replied, giggling. This was so good I couldn't believe it was happening. We didn't talk much during the meal, just concentrating on eating all this delicious food. I asked the waiter to tell us what everything was. Along with the koftas there were a couple of donner kebabs, a spicy chicken kebab and the hummous. A baba ghanoush and jewelled cous-cous, which was jewelled by cranberries sprinkled in it. There was a genuine Greek salad on the table which the waiter assured us had been introduced to Greece by Armenian adventurers over two thousand years ago. The main miracle of the evening though, was that we finished all the food on the platter. Only a couple of pitas defeated us and we had to leave them I regretted having a beer and Cynthia regretted having her cider, only because we could have eaten more if we'd not filled our stomachs with the booze before we had arrived.

We didn't rush back to the flat, but took our time, with Cynthia pointing out some of the landmarks of our city that I hadn't noticed before. John Ryland's' library, The Free Trade Hall, Petersfield where there had been a massacre of protesters in the nineteenth century. "Did you know that the suffragettes, the Pankhurst's were born and lived in Manchester?" Cynthia asked me.

"No I didn't know," I admitted.

"And that the Manchester Ship Canal was built to avoid paying tolls to Liverpool?"

"No, I didn't know that either." I admitted again.

"And the first Rolls Royce was made in Manchester. Well, it was a Royce really. He built it and met Rolls later that year," She went on.

"No, I didn't know that either," I was becoming anxious at my lack of knowledge about my home city.

"And Rutherford split the atom in Manchester before anyone else. He said that if anyone thought it could be used for energy they were talking moonshine," She added.

"No, I didn't know that either. Where do you find all this stuff?" I asked her.

"Don't worry about it. I can't do a root canal or take a tooth out." And I think it was her way of consoling me. "I just like to read books. I read lots of books."

In no time we were back at my apartment block and after travelling up in the lift we were in my flat and I closed the door behind us both. Cynthia turned round and kissed me, this time using our tongues like lovers do. She broke off. "I'm not ready for bed yet, I'm too full," She told me and I had to agree. The walk home had not lessened the tension in my stomach, "Besides, it's only 10:00pm."

"Fancy a coffee?" Cynthia asked.

"That's a good idea. There's a jar in the cupboard above the fridge," I told her.

"I may not know as much about food as you but I do know about coffee. Where's the real stuff? Beans or ground," She asked. "Filter or cafetiere?" She said looking around and seeing my filter coffee maker.

"There's a bag opened in the door of the fridge. Kenyan," I told her and she started making a pot of the stuff.

"It'll take a few minutes. Shall we sit on the balcony and enjoy the sun setting?" She asked me. "Do you have any Cognac. Not Brandy, Cognac?"

"Yes, there's a bottle of Courvoisier XO in the lounge. I keep it for very special occasions. I'll get it," I volunteered and then poured a couple of glasses, one for each of us and took them out onto the balcony where Cynthia was sat on one of my chairs. Cognac, I have always found, is a great settler of full tummies. Indeed, the French call if 'un digestif' and it worked so that within five minutes we were both feeling a lot better. "I would never have had you down as a Brandy drinker," I told her. She seemed much too innocent for that sort of drink.

"Cognac, not Brandy. Brandy isn't made in the town of Cognac. It's an 'eau de vie', entirely different in quality. Consider yourself better informed from now on. I like originals, not copies. Like you. You're an original, and you don't suffer fools gladly. But then there's the little lost boy part of you as well," She told me as he took another sip of her Cognac.

"I'll go get the coffee, shall I?" I asked.

"Black please. No sugar. I'm sweet enough," She giggled at the last bit and I think the Cognac was beginning to have an effect. When I came back she was already coming inside. "It's getting a bit cold out there so shall we have our coffee in here?" Meaning the lounge.

"Yes, O.K.," I said and placed her cup on the table.

"I'm cold, warm me up," She said in a little girl, pleading voice, and came and wrapped her arms around the back of my head. We both leaned in to kiss again and I started to unzip her dress. "That's not going to warm me up," she giggled as she pushed away from me.

"No," I said, "But what I'm going to do next will." I took her by her hand and led her into the bedroom, leaving the coffee and sat her on the edge of the bed and started with another kiss, and finished unzipping her dress. "Do I turn out the light again?" I asked her. "I don't want you all embarrassed."

"Yes, but not because I'm embarrassed this time. It's more fun by feeling your way," She said and pulled me onto her. I pulled the dress off and then her bra and panties. "Aren't you getting undressed?" She asked as she climbed under the bedclothes.

"Yep. Once you're starkers," I told her. "Any second now I think," As I pulled off the panties. I stood up, took off my shirt, shoes and jeans and got into bed alongside her. We started kissing again and I ran my hand over her stomach and onto her breast, massaging it gently before working on her nipple between my finger and thumb. Cynthia started gasping and took hold of my cock, stroking it gently.

"Lube I think," She said and leaned over, took the bottle out of the drawer and put a few drops on her hand and started again, the slippery feeling wonderful on my rapidly hardening cock. "It's getting bigger," She said as her massage continued and I slipped a finger inside her. She jumped.

"You O.K.?" I asked, hoping that her soreness had gone. I spread a little of the lube on my fingertips as I spoke.

"You just tickled me again, that's all and that stuff was cold. It surprised me, that's all. Now, don't stop," She whispered in my ear before turning to start a kiss again, our tongues darting in and out of each other's mouths, exploring every corner of each other. Cynthia started writhing and said, "Are you ready? I am."

"Me too," She parted her legs and climbed between them and aimed my cock at her vaginal entrance and gently slid forwards. Her hand came down and guided it to the right place.

"I don't want any aiming error. I'm not ready for that," She said bluntly as I slid completely inside her. "I've never known a feeling that good."

"Me neither," I said back, meaning it. "You're not too sore?" I asked her.

"A little, but not enough to stop me enjoying this, keep going," She replied, gasping as she enjoyed the feeling of me inside her, moving gently in and out. With a louder gasp she stiffened and I felt the heat of her body surge as she came with a deeply violent orgasm as she clutched me closer with her hands and pulled me in with her legs around my back. "Oh my God, that was awesome," She whispered in my ear as she came down from her high. We stayed locked together for a few moments longer and then started moving again. It didn't take long and I came as well, pumping spurt after spurt of my semen deep inside her. Pushing deeper as I came Cynthia had another small orgasm and gasped again as she came as well.