Never Say Never

"I'd like a cookery book. I'm a bit of a foodie and like to get a cookbook from wherever I go on my travels. Also some good quality paprika, and some dried Hungarian pinched noodles. I don't know the Hungarian word."

"Csipetke," I replied.

"My second word," said Helen.

"Well, you should be able to pick those up fairly easily at a supermarket and I can take you to a bookshop I know. It's a nice day We can walk back across the river to the Garden of Philosophers on the top of Gellert Hill. There's a fantastic view of the city and some interesting bronze and granite statues including Abraham, Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi. We can burn off a few calories from last night."

At lunchtime, we visited a small café and I excused myself to go to the restrooms. When I returned Helen was looking thoughtfully into space.

"Is something bothering you?"

"Yes," she replied. "Something is bothering me, and It has to be said, and it's this.

If I was a different person we might be doing what Tom and Susie have been doing, but if you are hoping for a holiday romance it's not going to happen. You are married and I have a partner, and long ago I vowed I would never be unfaithful or sleep with a married man. My mother was unfaithful to my father, and it broke his heart. She won me in the custody battle after an extremely messy vindictive divorce and did her best to poison me against him, even though she was to blame for it all. I'm never going to be part of that again.

I've always believed that if a man cheats on his partner to be with me, then I can never trust him to be faithful to me. I'm old-fashioned and believe in fidelity.

We missed our chance at university. I really fancied you after you stood up to those bullies from the rugby club, and now I've discovered you are a really nice guy as well.

If we sleep together, it will not just be sex for either of us. We will both hurt afterward. Please don't be angry with me but I'm not going to lead you on. Now, If you want you can take me back to my hotel. I'll understand. Your life is still here. Mine is in England. Neither of us are alone in our lives."

I sat silent for a few moments. It had crossed my mind to try to seduce her and had been hopeful. Now I needed to be honest with both Helen and myself.

"I guess you've told me something that I needed to hear. You're right I should have tried at university, but I wasn't brave enough. I was too inexperienced, and you were, and are, so beautiful. Inside and out. I was in awe of your beauty. Now that I've met you I could easily fall in love with you, and what would be the point of that? Even so, I've truly enjoyed the last two days in your company, so, if you don't mind, I won't take you back to your hotel. I'll just settle for being with you for as long as you'll let me."

Helen nodded and smiled sadly.

The next days were characterised by a flurry of sightseeing, bars, and restaurants. I showed her the Roman Military Amphitheatre, and we walked in the Szemlő Mountain Cave. We spent a couple of hours in the Pinball Museum and then walked to Szimpla Kert Ruin Bar to view it during the day before spending an evening there. We visited the fairy tale Vajdahunyad Castle and walked in City Park. In between, we did her shopping, and she managed to buy her Hungarian cookbook, some paprika, Csipetke, and a couple of Hungarian secret boxes.

On her last evening, I took her to Halaszbastya Restaurant, high on Castle Hill in Pest and with its views over the Danube. We drank a little too much wine and our mood was a little melancholic when we reached the door to her hotel, and she suddenly spoke.

"Stop." I don't want you to come inside.

Then she turned to me, looked up at me, smiled, and kissed me briefly on the lips.

"I don't want anybody to see me cry. I've had a wonderful few days with a beautiful man, but it's time for me to go home, and for you to return to your wife. She's both very lucky and very stupid. Whatever happens, have a good life, Gordon. I'll never forget you, or what might have been, but I doubt we will ever meet again. Then she turned and walked through the door and left me sad and alone on the pavement."

***

The following day, I returned to work. After a three-day unscheduled break, there was plenty to do, and it was a welcome distraction. Anna was due back after the weekend, so I spent Saturday cleaning and tidying the house. On Sunday I joined the Hash but this time no young ladies appeared.

On Monday when I returned from work Anna had already arrived home. She was already in a foul mood and ready for a fight. She ignored all the cleaning and tidying but started to complain about my dirty laundry in the laundry basket.

"What the fuck have you been doing when I was away?"

"I met a beautiful Englishwoman whom I spent time with." I replied.

Her reply was short and sharp.

"Baszd meg!" or "Fuck off!"

***

We were divorced six months later. The process was simple. Each one of us submitted a statement saying our marriage was irreparably damaged and the court issued a divorce. As part of the agreement, I agreed to split our property equally with Anna. Anna's father agreed to buy my business from me for four hundred million Forints which was around one million, two hundred thousand pounds. Anna got half so it wasn't a bad deal for her family.

I returned to the UK in the late summer. First I went to Dundee to see my parents, but after a fortnight I returned to London and rented a small flat in Kingston. I had decided I wanted to return abroad. Living in Budapest had encouraged a wanderlust. After a little thought, I enrolled in a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course. This would allow me to teach in a foreign country.

I thought of Helen often, but I didn't know how to contact her, until one evening in November, I remembered I had taken her phone number in Budapest. It was in my mobile phone's memory, and I sat for a long time trying to decide whether to message her. In the end, I decided it would be a selfish thing to do and put the phone away. For weeks I did nothing, but it was inevitable that my will would weaken.

I needed to tell her I was back in London and divorced. Only when I knew she was unavailable would I ever be able to move on with my life. One evening in December, a couple of days before Christmas, and after sitting alone in my flat and drinking a quarter bottle of Scotch, I messaged her.

FYI, I am back in London and Alone. Gordon

I don't know what I expected to happen, but nothing did. By Christmas, it was clear that either Helen had changed her number or simply didn't want to revive our friendship. So I headed north to Scotland and spent Christmas in Dundee with my parents and a drunken New Year in Perth with my brother and his wife. For my New Year's resolution, I decided to go back on the market for a girlfriend.

Then on the 2^nd of January, around seven o'clock in the evening, my phone pinged, and a message appeared.

Are you still Alone? Helen

I hurriedly replied. Yes

Can I come to you tonight?

Of course

Address?

So I told her and two minutes later my heart leapt when a message appeared.

I'll be there within an hour XXXX

***

Time seemed to stand still as I waited for Helen, but then forty-five minutes later the doorbell rang, and there she was. It had been raining hard and her hair was wet and bedraggled. She was wearing a long grey coat which was also wet, and in her hands, she was carrying a large suitcase and her handbag.

"Come in out of the cold," I said.

She entered the room and put her case down and as she came into the light I saw that her left eye was bruised, and she had been crying. Instinctively I put my arms around her and held her tight, and she started to cry again. I said nothing but just continued to hold her until eventually, she grew silent. I started to disengage myself from her when she spoke for the first time.

"Hold me a little longer. Please. I've been such a fool."

After a few minutes, she was calmer. I gave her a hot sweet cup of tea with a shot of whisky in it and a cold compress for her eye. She sat opposite me in an armchair and started to speak.

"I seem to specialise in dating bullies. At university, it was Bruce and lately Edward. The bastard was a real gentleman when we met but became more controlling and jealous. Our relationship has been running on empty for a little while. I left home over Xmas to see my father and to get away from him and think. When you messaged me I didn't see it. I've had my phone switched off for days. I switched it back on a few hours ago and read it. Today I arrived home and he searched my phone and found the message. He accused me of having an affair and did this. I've finished with him. I was going to finish with him anyway. I just walked out of the house... I didn't want to be alone...and I thought of you. I never dreamed you lived so close.

I've been thinking of you, almost continuously. I couldn't help it. I'd never have an affair. You know that, but maybe he picked up on something".

"I'm so sorry," I said. "I should never have messaged you. I was selfish and stupid. It was never my intention to break up your relationship."

"You did me a favour," she replied. "It was going to happen anyway. The black eye made it so much easier!"

She looked across the room at me.

"I'm so glad you found me. You look good, Divorce suits you."

I laughed.

"I'm lonely and looking for the love of a good woman. Do you know anybody?"

For the first time that evening, her beautiful, freckled face lit with a smile.

"Now, are you hungry?"

She nodded.

"Why don't you get out of your wet clothes and have a hot bath, and I'll make you something to eat."

"I'm not sure I've got a lot to wear. Most of the stuff in my suitcase is dirty, and I normally sleep nude I've got work clothes for the morning, but I left the house in a real hurry."

"Don't worry. If you've got your house keys I'll take you back in the morning and you can take what you want when he's at work. We'll take a cab. You can borrow a pair of my pyjamas and a tee shirt tonight."

Forty minutes later she reappeared from my bedroom. Her red hair was towel dry and she was wearing a pair of grey striped pyjama bottoms and a white tee shirt. Despite them being several times too big, her ample curves were easy to discern. Braless as she was, the outline of her breasts was easy to see under the baggy tee shirt.

"You're truly beautiful," I said.

I watched her eat the gammon, eggs, and chips I had prepared, and we both had another scotch. Then I told her about the divorce, how I had sold my business, and my plans to go abroad to teach. I wondered whether I might have to rethink until I heard Helen speak.

"What a great idea. Can I come with you?"

I crossed the room bent down and kissed her hard and long on her eggy lips, and she kissed me back.

I heard my voice...

"I love you, Helen. I feel like I've loved you all my adult life".

And her reply.

"I know. I didn't want to admit it until now. I love you too. I've missed you so much."

***

We lay side by side in my bed. A little earlier Helen had taken the lead. She had insisted on helping me clear the dishes away and do the washup.

"Start as you mean to go on."

Then she turned to me and smiled.

"I'm very tired. I'm going to bed."

She said no more but padded into my (now our) bedroom, calling over her shoulder as she entered.

"Which side do you sleep on?"

"The right."

"OK, I'll take the left side."

She got into bed wearing my pyjamas, and so after I had showered, I put on pyjama trousers before I got into bed. She was already sleeping when I snuggled up against her, put my arms around her, and held her tight. I kissed the nape of her neck, and she murmured in pleasure, and then I lay in the dark and listened to her soft breathing and wondered at the fates that had finally brought us together. Soon, I too was asleep.

I woke up when it was still dark outside, and the clock said a quarter to five. I sensed that Helen was already awake.

"Are you awake?" I murmured softly.

"Yes," she replied." I'm going to put the bedside light on. I want to watch you when we make love, and I want you to be able to see me. You've been so patient. I promise to make it up to you."

Then the light came on and I saw Helen's beautiful warm brown eyes peering intently into mine.

"I switched the electric radiator on," she said. "The room is toasty warm. Now no more talking."

She kissed me and I drew her body close to mine and hungrily I kissed her back. I could feel her breasts against my chest. Her nipples were erect. My penis was hard and pressing against her groin.

Suddenly she rose and threw the duvet to the floor, and then whilst still on her knees she pulled her (my) tee shirt over her head and threw it to join the duvet. For the first time, I saw her breasts; milky white globes with large pink aureolae, and nipples. She lay on her back and quickly discarded the trousers and then turned and knelt once more, this time at my feet, and pulled my pyjama bottoms off.

I saw her view my naked body, and she smiled.

"Oh my," she said appreciatively, as I stared back at her.

Her skin was pale white, her tummy ever so slightly plump, her hips narrow, and her neatly trimmed red bush was framed by her smooth firm thighs.

We kissed again, and I heard her voice, now dripping with desire.

"I'm on the pill."

I reached down between her legs and found her clitoris. Her slit was already moist, but soon, under my gentle touch, her juices flowed. As I worked on her I felt her fingers on my prick, as she slowly pulled my foreskin back and forth over my swollen glans. And all the time we kissed.

She spoke again. Just one word. Softly but urgently.

"Pleaaase!"

She lay on her back legs spread wide and I lay between them, then with her hand, she guided me between her lips, and I slowly slid inside her. Her vagina was tight around me as I started to move, slowly at first and then faster and faster. As I moved against her I watched her pleasure grow, and then she started to moan, gently at first and then louder and louder.

Never before in my life had I so badly wanted to make a women writhe in sexual rapture, to give her sexual release and the ecstasy of orgasm. My penis was rock hard, harder than I could ever remember, as I drove myself into her and our bellies bumped.

She continued to moan, and then as I looked down at her she started to move her head frantically from side to side on the pillow whilst pushing her pelvis up against me. Then her head stopped moving and she looked up, her eyes wide and yearning, pupils dilated, mouth wide, and she let out a long drawn out sigh of release, as she bucked and moved beneath me, and her nails clawed at my back.

I rolled off her and lay on my back and Helen straddled me, slowly eased my penis inside her now sodden pocket, and started to ride. Immediate need stated she was in no hurry, and she kept up a slow steady rhythm.

As she rocked back and forth I watched her beautiful body. Milk-white smooth round breasts bobbed as she moved. Her waist was perfectly curved and her thighs firm and muscular. She was slim without being anorexic.

"Is this good?" she asked.

"Oh yes!"

She watched me as she worked. Her eyes were wide and her lips moist as she smiled down at me.

I saw the expression on her face start to change, her mouth opened wide, and her pace increased. Then with her head thrown back, she came again; long and hard. Her thighs trembled and tightened around me, Her vaginal muscles gripped me tight, and as I held her breasts in my outstretched hands she ground her sex against me, whilst all the time she moaned gently.

Her orgasm seemed to last forever, and then she stilled and collapsed forward across me.

She lay beside me, and I kissed her breasts in turn. Her nipples were hard and erect.

"More," I asked.

She smiled.

"Tonight. Your turn now."

She knelt beside me and let me see her big round bum, and then I felt her tongue against my shaft. She was unhurried and worked slowly up and down alternating long strokes with flicks of her tongue. Next, she sucked my balls, and only when I was bone hard, did she take me in her mouth.

She knelt between my legs facing me. My dick was in her mouth as she gripped the base of my shaft in her dainty hand. She was an expert at giving pleasure, and it was obvious she loved doing it. She studied me intently, her eyes smiling down on me. it was the sexiest sight of my life, her innocent face framed by her wavy red hair, and her mouth sucking my dick.

First, she swirled her tongue around my glans before taking me deep inside and starting to move her head up and down. My pleasure was indescribable. Every time I came close she stopped before starting again until finally, she relented. Then as her head bobbed rapidly I came, and as my shaft rhythmically pulsed, I ejaculated inside her mouth.

She smiled in triumph as my semen dribbled out of the corner of her mouth.

***

Around three months later we returned to Budapest.

We had a beer in the bar we had sat in after the run. We walked down the banks of the Danube where we had walked on the afternoon we had first properly met. As we looked out over the water, she spoke.

"I liked and admired you at university, but this place will always be special to me. This is where I started to love you. I never wanted to admit it, not even to myself. it seemed so hopeless and so wrong. Now, a year later it seems so right."

The following morning, exactly a year to the day when we had first walked together in the Garden of the Philosophers, this time hand in hand, we walked there again. Then we returned to the coffee shop where Helen had told me she would not sleep with me. We sat at the same table and sipped our coffee.

"Never say never," said Helen.

I excused myself and went to the restrooms, and when I returned Helen was looking thoughtful. I laughed. We had been here before, in more ways than one!

"What's bothering you this time?"

"Nothing you need to worry about," she said. "I'm as horny as hell. Let's go back to the Corinthia and you can take me to bed."

And so I did. But that's a different story.

Helen's Story

When I saw Gordon at the Hash I was caught completely off my guard, and it must have shown. I had seen him around at university and had guessed he liked me. I saw him eying me up around the campus on several occasions, and if I hadn't been going out with Bruce at the time I would probably have given him the come-on. He was tall, well-built, fair-haired, and handsome: Just my type. By the time I finished with Bruce, it was too late, and I wasn't going to break my cardinal rule. Never two-time anybody, and don't go around breaking up relationships.

My rule was inviolate. My mother was unfaithful to my father and broke up their marriage. After I was sent to live with my vitriolic mother I never got to see him as much as I would have liked and treasured my occasional weekends with him.

He is a tall man with broad shoulders and big hands, a true "gentle giant." Maybe that's why I like tall, strong men.

I am considered beautiful by many, and that comes with its problems. Only assertive men like Bruce ever dared to ask me out. Bruce may have been manly and assertive, but as I found out later he was a bully.

The episode of the beer keg was a turning point. Bruce and his six friends were quite happy to steal an expensive barrel of beer and then fight Bruce and two others who bravely and stupidly stood up to them. It was after that I learned Gordon's name. Bruce disliked him intensely after that, and I fancied him even more.