Missing Baggage

I sat up to face her.

"Look, I promise I didn't look and it seems that we've both got things in our suitcases that are well... personal and there's nothing wrong with that is there but meeting you has changed everything."

"So you don't need the handcuffs and lubes with me then?"

"Well, no unless you want to try and now that you know what's in my suitcase, how about you tell me what's in yours?"

Emma looked embarrassed and blushed.

"No."

"What do you mean 'no'. What was all that stuff about being honest and not lying or deceiving by the way? Was that just for while we were in the shower?"

There was a silence between us.

"Are we having our first row?"

Emma looked at me, shaking her head. "No Sam, no, it's just ... it's just that this, you and me, well it's all so new and well..." she paused searching for the right word, "So overwhelming and no I don't mean that, it's just so big, so beautiful and I've never felt like this about anyone before, so close, so in tune with you and yes, overwhelming and well, I'm embarrassed to tell you."

I smiled at her and pulled her to me, hugging her tight.

"Well, if that's all it is then it doesn't matter. I guess we've both got some naughty things in our suitcases and we wouldn't have brought them if we hadn't used them before or at least, intended to use them if we got a chance. And I'm sorry I looked through your books but I was only trying to find out whose suitcase I had and I didn't look in any of your bags, I promise."

I gave her a kiss on her cheek.

"Can we make up?"

Sam had tears in her eyes. "Oh yes, oh yes please. I don't want us to be like this and I promise that when I've plucked up enough courage, I'll show you what's in those little bags."

We walk to the beach in silence and despite our words about making up it feels like there's a dark cloud hanging over us.

"Doesn't feel like we're on fire anymore does it." I say gloomily.

Emma stops and turns me to her.

"No, we're not on fire right now but the embers are still glowing and if we blow on them we'll soon have the flames leaping." Emma purses her lips and blows on my face, just gently, but her message is clear and then she kisses me.

"Come on, let's swim."

We swim for a while and then walk back along the beach to the bar and I order a couple of mojitos. The rum and crushed mint are delicious but we're still feeling down and I just don't know what to do or say then Emma solves the problem.

"I fancy a lie down. Is that ok?" she says, brightening a little.

"Yes, I'd like that too." I sign the drinks to the room and we walk hand in hand and it feels better already and again, I love Emma's resilience, she's not someone who wears her woes for long.

In the room we undress and slip under the sheet which is enough in the afternoon's heat.

"Give me a cuddle."

We lie there holding each other, just being together, and drift off to sleep. I don't remember falling asleep, but I wake and find Emma totally nestled in my arms, curled up against me, her head on my shoulder, with her hand on my belly. I listen for a while, and over the gentle rising of her chest as she breaths slowly, I can hear the surf as it caresses the beach. Something tells me it's early evening, the high heat is gone, and waves of warm air move the curtains and waft over us. I need to pee and try to disentangle myself but Emma won't let go so I figure the only thing to do is slide down the bed and as I pass her belly I can't resist kissing her and then lower, nuzzling my mouth between her legs and kissing her there. She stirs.

"Mm that's nice."

I slip out of the bed into the bathroom, turning on the bath taps and then relieving myself.

In the cool of the evening the bathroom is soon steamy and as I pass the mirror again I can see that whoever cleaned the room that morning left a patch in the middle where the steam from the bath taps isn't uniform and as if by magic three words appear:

'I love you Sam'.

I smile and add my own words:

'I love you too' and then return to her in the bedroom.

She's lying curled on her side, watching the bathroom door, waiting for me.

She is just beautiful, not exceptional or stunning or any other shallow superlative, just beautiful and I crawl across to her and kiss her shoulder and then her breast. I can't resist her and need to have her taste and the scent of her in my mouth and nose; her nipple stiffens and puckers at the touch of my tongue and goosebumps suddenly appear on her arms and she gives a little shiver as I nuzzle the fullness of her breasts.

Now below her breasts I bury my face where they meet her torso, savouring the smell of her and then lower across her belly to the smudge of her closely trimmed pubic hair until my lips are on her mound and the smell of her sex fills my head.

There's a sweetness about her, a warm sensuous and heady mix of her sex and perspiration and I nibble at her labia and dip my tongue between them, tasting the very essence of her but we have the whole evening before us yet and there will be time for these intimacies later so I move up the bed and kiss her on her lips and her mouth seeks mine, wanting to know the taste that I have savoured.

"Come on, the bath's ready, you can wash my back...and my front," I say and I take her hand, pulling her to sitting and then standing.

"Oh, and by the way, someone's been writing on your mirror!"

Emma can't take her eyes off the mirror, our words there reassuring her and she leans against the door frame, watching the words fade slowly away as the mirror slowly dries.

"That's the most romantic thing I've ever seen," she says and kisses me. "Can we get in the bath now?"

Taking a bath is something that you do either to just wash or relax or sometimes, if you're lucky enough, to do both of those and to have some fun as well.

Believe me, taking a bath with Emma and playing 'hunt the soap' is all of those things.

We were quiet, noisy, serious, playful, thoughtful, sensuous...naughty...all of those things, my hands on her breasts and between her legs and Emma's fingers tantalisingly on my cock, but most of all we were together.

As I towelled Emma dry it felt like this was something that we'd been doing forever and it also felt like this was something that I'd like to do forever, just me and Emma.

We shared her toothbrush, kissing with mouths full of mint-flavoured foam, and then returned to the bedroom, chasing each other as we jumped naked onto the bed and tumbled around.

It was the smell that stopped us.

"My god this place stinks of sex!" I say, raising my head and sniffing the air and then diving down onto Emma to sniff at her.

"It's not you." I say and she smacks me on my butt.

But the room is full of our lovemaking from earlier even though the windows have been open all day and it's arousing us both again. We look at each other, quiet and serious for a moment knowing that sex is just a touch away but we're both starving hungry and eager to go out and have some dinner but first we have to unpack.

Our suitcases have been side by side on the floor since yesterday and our clothes need to be hung up in the wardrobe.

So we start, the regular stuff, shirts and blouses, chinos and shorts, jeans, my never-to-be-used boxer shorts and socks, Emma's lingerie and in a corner of my case the silk scarves that my friend Jeremy insisted I pack, and the handcuffs.

For a moment I wonder whether to try to hide them from Emma but then she already knows about them and I notice that she is having a similar problem

In the bottom of her now empty suitcase is the black velvet bag with a heart embroidered on it. All her other bags of make-up and hair stuff have been unpacked into the bathroom and onto the dressing table.

I look at Emma and she looks at me and we smile, eyebrows raised as if daring the other to go first.

I relent.

"Ok, I'll tell you about the silk scarves if you tell me about the velvet bag."

She looks at me as if saying "How did that happen, you were supposed to go first" but she takes a deep breath and starts.

"OK, two vibrators, a clit stimulator for my finger, flavoured condoms, a bottle of lube and massage oils. Nothing too wild I know, but not something I'd want going missing and found by a stranger, especially a tall sexy guy who just happens to have lost his suitcase as well ok? Now you, and honey," she laughs, "Just know, if you like wearing silk scarves it's ok, really I'll still love you, I promise."

I'm amazed. She's just blurted it all out as if she were telling me what groceries she bought and then I realise that it's Emma's way of telling me in a way that she can manage and I love her for it; she'll never be able to keep anything from me nor I from her.

"Wow, that's quite an arsenal." I say and then "Well not arsenal as in arse but...well you know what I mean." and now I'm blushing and we're laughing.

But it is quite a contents list and I wonder if Emma had intended them all for her own use or for sharing if she just happened to meet someone on her holiday. I decide to hold that question for the moment and tell her about the scarves.

"Ok, not sure I can match your list but here goes. I have this friend Jeremy. We were at school together and never really knew each other, but a couple of years ago we met at a reunion and kind of clicked, in a friendly way."

Emma is looking at me as if to say: 'Go on, dig the hole a little deeper...' so I continue.

"Anyway, he invited me to his place to a party with some of his friends, a really good fun crowd, all types, men and women and we seem to have just fallen into being best mates; he tells me his woes and triumphs and I tell him mine."

Emma is just standing, smiling and nodding at me as if she knows what's coming next.

"Thing is he's gay and in a funny way that makes us non-threatening to each other: I know he's gay and he knows that I'm straight so there's no competing between us, we are just best friends. He seems to have taken me under his wing in a sort of life-coach sort of way and when he heard that I was coming on holiday on my own he insisted that I pack the scarves and ..." I'm blushing now.

Emma is struggling not to laugh but I have to finish.

"He said that the lube and condoms were obvious but that I could use the scarves either to keep myself warm, to use as a sling if I happened to break my arm or to tie up some willing and sexy maiden that I met while I was away and since I haven't broken my arm and the weather is too hot to need to keep warm that just leaves the tying up of a willing and sexy maiden."

I pause for a moment.

"What do you think, was he right to make me pack them?"

She smiles at me.

"And the handcuffs?"

I blush again.

"Well the same as the scarves I suppose. Jeremy didn't offer any particular suggestion for their use but I suppose they might come in handy?"

Emma is standing with her arms crossed, smiling all over her face.

"And you think it's just me that's going to be hand cuffed as well as tied up with your pal Jeremy's scarves do you? I think I'll have to have a word with Mr Jeremy when we get home, don't you?"

And suddenly we stop, the realisation of what Emma has said hitting us both. This isn't just some holiday fling, this is for real and for a moment we just look at each other and then kiss wildly and passionately, hands all over each other, Emma grabbing at my erection and pulling me to the bed, my fingers finding her wetness and her clit and she's on top of me, guiding me into her, grinding herself against me and fingering herself at the same time, her hand a blur, oblivious to everything except her own need to cum and she does, her juices soaking me as I ram into her from below, penetrating her as deeply as I can to fill her with my sperm, that primitive urge to impregnate.

Emma collapses onto me, the sheen of perspiration between us making us slick and I hold onto her, not wanting to lose contact with her. She starts to laugh, a low chuckling laugh, one that speaks of contentment and satisfaction.

"My god, what are we like. Do you know how good you are for me?" She rolls off me and props herself up on her elbow and taps me on my chest. Her tone is more serious now.

"I'm going to tell you somethings now that I've never told anyone else before ok? Because I want you to know all there is to know about me, no secrets, no 'it might be best if I didn't tell him that', everything ok?"

I nod mutely as Emma watches her finger on my chest so that she doesn't have to look at me.

"I've had sex with four different men and with one woman." She pauses and glances at me, gauging my reaction before glancing away and continuing. "The first man, the one who took my virginity, or rather the one I made take my virginity, I was at university with. We were good friends, a nice guy, and a little on the outside of what was a pretty wild circle of fellow students who seemed to be getting pissed and shagging around all the time instead of studying. We were both reading biology so knew everything there is to know about bodies and sex ... well everything you know? And we got into one of those 'have you done it' conversations and it turned out that neither of us had so then we got to 'shall we?' and so we did. No romance, no burning desire, almost like a research project, just one of those things and a box ticked. Then I had a longish relationship with a guy when I was in my second year which was fine but it wasn't going anywhere so we split and curiously I met his ex, Jayne, the one he'd been out with before me so we got to comparing notes and one evening after a bottle of wine we decided to try the other version and went to bed together and we were on and off like that for maybe four or five months before our final exams and it was good. We didn't love each other or anything, just enjoyed each other's company and the sex which was great." She paused and looked at me.

"Are you ok with this?"

I had to clear my throat to speak. I had a raging erection imagining Emma with this other woman but I managed to say "Yes fine. Go on."

"OK. Then I had a fling with another student when we got our results. We'd both got Firsts and as a way of celebrating we went away for a weekend, a whole bunch of us, a graduation party, and well... you know how it goes. Then I was celibate for almost two years, post grad studies, research in South America and then I met Harry and we were together for over a year and a half and I was in love with him but apparently, he wasn't in love with me and when we split it broke my heart and I was determined never to let that happen to me again. But here I am, three years later with burnt fingers as far as relationships are concerned, almost twenty-nine years old, independent, resourceful, my own person and I've met you so you see Sam, although this feels absolutely great and I so want you to be the one I just don't want to have my heart broken again. Do you understand? So if, as your friend Jeremy thinks, you've got lucky and happen to have all the right kit with you, then I'm not the one for you. Sure, I have some toys with me but apart from the condoms, it's all self-help. But if you think that we could be the real thing then I'll love you with all my heart for ever and ever which is why I asked you about love lasting for ever this morning."

She lies back down beside me, clutching my hand as if hoping she hasn't said too much and I'm amazed. I've never had a woman tell me about herself like this before but equally, I've never told any woman about me like this either and I realise that just like Emma's question about love lasting for ever, this too is a make or break moment for her but like Emma, I've nothing to hide, it's just life, so I take a deep breath and begin.

"I've had four lovers too and then there's a fifth person I would say I love. Like you, I had two relationships at university, you know, studying together, cramming for exams, late nights studying and well one thing often leads to another. Apart from being lovers we were good friends and I was invited to both their weddings and I felt very honoured to be invited. Then I spent two years in Hong Kong in banking, making my fortune I suppose, and it's a crazy life there, very ambitious people working very hard and as a consequence playing very hard and I was with a lady for over a year which for Hong Kong is a long time but we both moved on, me back to London and her to Singapore, both still in banking. And then, back in London I was with a lady for over five years but we were very different people, different outlooks, different politics and however much you try to intellectualise these things the cracks start to open up until eventually our relationship fell into the widest one. That was two years ago and since then my friend Jeremy has set me up with a few dates, nice people but not a match amongst them. I've never had my heart broken but I've seen that happen to my friends and also to the fifth person, the one that I love, and that's Jeremy who I would move heaven and earth to help and will always be there for him. Yes we're friends but we love each other like brothers. So that's me, thirty-three and until yesterday, fancy free and I say until yesterday because that's when I met you."

We lie next to each other for a few seconds and then as one, turn to each other.

"Wow."

After a moment Emma asks "You know that box of condoms you packed and the ones I have in my little velvet bag, why are they still where we packed them?

"Well I ..."

Emma continues with a smile. "We haven't been very careful have we?"

"No, I suppose we haven't but it's been two years for me and three years for you ... do you think we just knew it was alright?"

"Well I suppose so. Do you mind?"

"No, I've always hated them but what about ...?"

Emma laughs.

"It's ok, I'm on the pill and before you ask, it's not so I can shag around although I'm not averse to sex as you probably know by now, it's just that they help with my periods but in our case, I'm glad that the condoms are still where we packed them because I love the intimacy of making love like that, feeling you in me and even if it means having you flown home on a stretcher, I'm going to want a lot more of that so tonight you'd better eat well." And with that she grabbed my rapidly hardening cock and kissed the end of it and then kissed me, her tongue swirling in my mouth.

"Right, a quick shower so that we don't set every dog howling and then dinner I'm starving."

Now that we've told each other what we've had hidden in our baggage and in our lives we walk into town for drinks and supper.

There's a difference in the way we are, as if with the intimacy of disclosure we've opened up a whole new chapter of our relationship and sexuality and what is now permitted between us.

I don't know if we've been holding back, not wanting to go too far or to reveal too much of ourselves, but knowing now about Emma's previous lovers and what she had packed for her own amusement I'm eager to know if she has any other sexual predilections still to be discovered or disclosed.

That we are sexually compatible and excited by each other is not in any doubt but is there a more adventurous side to our sexuality still waiting for our mutual discovery?

The produce stalls have given way to the tourist tat that is on sale in the evening and as we wander through the stalls I catch myself looking at Emma in an almost detached way, looking at her legs and her thighs, knowing and yet imagining the pleasure that lies between them.

She has a beautiful bottom that stretches the fabric of her dress and, in an almost pornographic way, the two hemispheres of her cheeks are clearly visible moving against her dress as she walks.

My erection is a clear indication of how she makes me feel and a vision of her tied to the bed, our bed, with the silk scarves suddenly fills my mind and I have to rearrange my chinos to ease the pressure on my straining penis.