Not So Special Agreement Pt. 01

Not So Special Agreement After All -- a three-part story

Yes, Jay and San had a special agreement. It took the form of a written contract, which accepted that, being young when they moved in together, the temptation to stray would be strong. They agreed on a contract that allowed them a degree of freedom so long as they remained "open and honest."

When either party is reluctant to be open and honest, problems can arise. When both are reluctant, then sparks can fly, and they risk setting fire to their relationship.

The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, is a book by Carlos Castañeda, published in 1968 by the University of California Press.

"Freshfields Animal Rescue" is an actual animal sanctuary that was founded in a three-bedroomed semi-detached house in Formby, Merseyside. In the mid-1980s, it became a charity and moved to a much larger detached property, about five miles south of its original location. It exists to this day and has a second branch, a horse sanctuary in North Wales.

This is a work of fiction (well, it is part recollections and part wish fulfilment). Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental or might be remembered from people I have met and morphed into a single character. What the fuck does it matter anyway?

Perhaps a recap might be in order, especially for those who haven't read my previous stories.

I'm Sandra Terry. I was sometimes called Sani Terry at school, until the day I beat the crap out of the school bully, or so legend would have it. No one took the piss out of my name after that. Apart from, perhaps, James Parkinson--Jay to everyone bar his parents. Jay was a cross between my two favourite stars - Donovan and Marc Bolan.

Jay used to be my best friend's boyfriend, but that's another story. As my story unfolds, Jay is my live-in lover and, you could say, fiancée because, well, we were engaged.

The engagement was a pretty low-key affair. He said, "I'd like to get married to you one day," and I said, "I'd like that as well," and he said, "Shall we get engaged then?" And that was it. We quietly went shopping for a respectable but not extravagant solitaire ring. I started wearing it and people started noticing it. There were no overblown romantic gestures; no vapour-trail writing in the sky; no billboard adverts; and thank God for it. I also bought him a ring; it was a gold signet ring with a tiny diamond.

My dad was never particularly fond of Jay. He didn't actively hate him, and I can't even say they didn't get on. They just avoided each other. My mum blew hot and cold.

I was only eighteen when we moved in together, in 1977, about eighteen months before this story starts. We paid rent to the landlady from hell, Mrs Mallory, who lived on the ground floor of the house in which we occupied a bedsit. The woman slept in the cellar and we all swore she kept her coffin full of cemetery soil down there. She had already tried to evict us, but we'd gone to court and were awarded a security of tenure for six months.

I had recently started working behind the bar at the local pub called The Riverside, which was ironic because it was more than half a mile from the river. It was frequented by bikers, hippies, 'normals' and retired men who loved darts and bowls. Those were the days of real pubs that had several rooms of differing levels of comfort.

My day job was clerking in a large insurance company office in the middle of Liverpool, so I took the barmaid job to help towards saving to get away from Mallory. Jay was over halfway through a government training scheme and drove a cab in the evenings.

Dennis and Ted were neighbours. Dennis lived in the room next to ours and was a thirty-year-old, sleazebag taxi driver while Ted lived in a room on the ground floor and, we guessed, was in his mid to late forties - maybe older, maybe younger, how was I to know?

Pam was my work mate. She, too, was engaged but wasn't averse to playing away from home and, apart from her no-work-colleague rule, she wasn't choosey.

Which brings me to the agreement.

After a near miss with Pam and a conversation about how young we were when we got together, we drew up an agreement. In a nutshell, infidelity would not be a cause of us breaking up. It didn't exactly give us each carte blanche, but we did agree not to let it affect our relationship and to be open and honest. I'd already broken that rule.

Zeb was a friend we'd met through the local Spiritualist Church. His mother was a healer, and we became friendly. He was a hippy that didn't realise that the sixties ended almost a decade before. Since Zeb was such a hippy, it meant that he was into all the same music that we were, and was a fellow spiritual seeker. Zeb was also a dab hand at hypnosis.

After a relaxation session with Zeb, I found myself in possession of some pretty hazardous erogenous zones. So dangerous were they, that one touch in the right spot would make me drop my knickers there and then; well, almost. It was fine while Jay and I were alone and, while he didn't know about them, it was fun when he found them. However, when I'm out with friends, at the Office Christmas Party, for example, the indiscriminate nature of the affliction was annoying. I started to behave like Pam, only, you know, without the no-colleagues rule. I realised I had become less discerning when Pam and I shagged the roughest pair of truckers you could meet.

So, I returned to Zeb and, after orgasms or two, which I was not in control of, a shag with Zeb, also not in my control (well...?), and a bit of exhibitionism, he agreed to hypnotise the zones out of me.

Oddly, I was sometimes nostalgic for them.

I arrived back at 32 Sandside Road with about half an hour to spare. As I entered the front door, I noticed a large brown envelope addressed to us on the hall table. With a great deal of trepidation, I peeled it open as I walked up the stairs. Unlocking our door, I entered before pulling out its contents partway. My heart dropped into my stomach.

I ruminated over the contents of that envelope while I undressed and put away my clothes.

After putting on my night dress, I decided to put the envelope in the drawer for now. I spent some time in the bathroom washing the traces of Zeb from me as best I could before settling back into bed with a cup of tea and a copy of Castañeda's The Teachings of Don Juan.

Before I finished my tea, Jay returned.

"Hello, sweetie," I said.

"Hi, Babska," He responded. This was a very recent term of endearment in Jay's vocabulary. I think it may have come from one of his foreign sailor passengers. "Have you been in bed all day?"

"No! I've been up and made cups of tea." Well, I had.

"That it?"

"I went out for a walk early on, but felt like getting back to bed when I got home." Well, that wasn't a lie, either.

"Just going for a piss and a wash up."

While he was in the bathroom, I made us both a coffee and checked myself for any tell-tale leakage. Handing Jay his coffee as he re-entered, I sat back up on the bed.

"Come and join me," I said.

He crawled onto the bed and sat next to me.

"Did you enjoy your afternoon?" Jay asked.

The thought flashed through my mind that he knew something. "What?"

"Your walk."

"Oh. Yes. It made me feel better." Fucking wonderful, actually, I thought to myself. "Blew away the cobwebs."

"Feeling better?"

"A bit."

"Are you working tonight?"

"No," I replied, "I've arranged cover. Don't feel like it. You?"

"Well, I was going to. Unless you want me to stay at home."

"No. No. you go. We need all the spare cash we can get."

"Well, if you don't mind."

"D'you fancy nipping to the chippy for our tea?" I asked.

"Okay."

"Good. Then we've got some spare time," I informed him, taking his cup from him and placing it next to mine.

"Why? What have you got planned?"

I kneeled up beside him. "This," I said, unbuttoning his shirt.

"Wow! What's this about?"

"Shut up!" I leaned over, kissing him while caressing his chest. I learned a long time ago that men's nipples are as sensitive as ours and that we do them a disservice by neglecting them.

First stroking Jay's lips with my tongue, I pushed them open to find his tongue, toying with the tip in a foreshadow of what might come. Sliding my hand down his body, I found the encased bulk of his inflating manhood. I stopped and helped him remove his shirt, following which I slid off his trousers and briefs.

Kneeling at his feet, I admired the view. His dark, wavy hair tickled his broad shoulders. His chest was not hairy, like some men I'd seen. While he was no muscle-bound hulk -- not a look we women were so attracted to in those days -- gazing at his torso did more for me than any of the men in those magazines, such was its sexiness; I often wondered what he could see in my less-than-perfect body. My eyes wandered down to his developing erection, which inched higher in knowing it was being observed. I could resist no longer.

After peeling off my nightie, exposing my nakedness, I lay on my stomach next to Jay, legs dangling over the end of the bed and head at crotch level. I stoked his engorged member into a harder erection, rolling my thumb around the underside of his glans with an ever-so light touch across his frenulum. This got me tingling in the nether regions as I watched Jay's head lean hard against the wall and his back arched in pleasure.

I forced my free hand beneath me to find my own pleasure spot and began to stroke. After a short couple of minutes, the head of Jay's love toy glistened as it seeped its juices, allowing my fingers to glide across the slime.

I placed my mouth over his elegant cock and slid down to encase its bulbous end, brushing my tongue up and down, caressing the sensitive under-parts, tasting his secretions. I had a thought.

Stretching over the side of the bed, I took a mouthful of my coffee. Jay opened his eyes to see what I was doing. He saw I was only getting my drink, so he closed them again. Forcing my lips apart with his wonderful tool, I slid down its length.

"Woooow!" Jay uttered as the hot coffee engulfed his shaft. I swallowed the coffee while still holding Jay in my mouth. The pressure of my tongue as I did so forced another "Woooow," from Jay's throat as his whole body stiffened in ecstasy. My own sex was, by now, dripping and aching to get that masterpiece of human biology inside me.

I kneeled up, shuffled up the bed to straddle him, and lowered myself so that his penis barely rested at my vestibule. I slid back and forth, teasing both of us. Grasping his shaft, I guided it in and slid all the way down. Jay was near that sublime cliff edge, I could tell. I grinded my hips up and down against his and his whole frame stiffened as he exploded inside me, mixing with whatever might remain of Zeb. I continued my grinding and milked every drop from him.

"Do that twitchy thing," I instructed him, as he subsided. He obeyed, like the dutiful fiancé he was, and contracted his pelvic muscles, over and over. I felt the pulsating within me, bringing me closer to release; could feel his eyes watching me as I leaned back on one hand, finding my clitoris with the other. Momentarily, I opened my eyes and grinned. Jay kept twitching inside. I kept rubbing outside, faster and faster until... I let go, steadying myself with both hands as I arched back and yelled out an orgasm.

I collapsed on top of Jay and smothered him with kisses.

"What do you think you're doing, you?" I said as I stopped kissing him, "You're supposed to be at the chip shop."

"Yes, Ma'am," He said, pushing me off and springing up.

He wiped the gooey mess from himself with a tea towel and threw it over to me. I looked at him, then the tea towel, then back to his grinning face before cleaning myself with the same cloth and throwing it back at him.

"Better put that in the wash pile," I said, "Wouldn't want to be drying the cups with that."

"Oh, I don't know," he responded. "It might add a bit of extra flavour to our guests' tea."

We both laughed at the thought.

"When you're at the chippy, would you nip into the offie and pick up a bottle of sherry?"

"Erm, okay?" Jay seemed puzzled.

"And will you drop me off at Aunty Jean's before going to work?"

"Wha' ever ya wish, M'lady," he replied, in his best Cockney chauffeur accent.

Jean was like a favourite aunty because, well, she was my aunty, and she was my favourite. Come to think of it, she was my only aunty. My dad had two brothers that we never saw, even though he was in business with one of them. My mum had a brother as well as a sister.

A wayward fifties child, my aunty was barely twenty when she moved in with her sugar daddy, who was more than twice her age. My mother did not approve of her shameless sister. Jean was not promiscuous like Pam. She was a lot more choosey, but she was a very experienced seeker of carnal pleasure, so she was the perfect private tutor for my sexual education.

Jean and Brian, her current live-in lover, as she would refer to him to wind up my mother, had bought a house together about ten miles away on the edge of the next county. But Jay didn't mind dropping me off, as he could sometimes pick up a stray fare on the way back. I packed a small overnight bag so I could stop over rather than asking Jay to come all the way across to collect me. If I was lucky, I'd get a lift into work the following morning, as Brian's workplace was in Liverpool.

I knew my aunty would be at home; when you're the proud parents of a one-year-old, you don't go out much. I arrived at about seven thirty. She answered the door holding Katy in a mei-tai, a type of carrier almost unheard of in the seventies.

"Hiya, San," she greeted, with the nearest she could manage to a hug, "What brings you here?" Baby or no baby, my aunty was a glamorous woman. Her wavy brown hair cascaded over her shoulders and she always managed to look as if she were about to go for a night on the town.

"Just a visit and a chat," I said, waving to Jay as he drove away.

"How did you know I'd be in?"

I pointed at the baby. Jean laughed, and I realised she was joking. As we walked into the living room, a Chocolate Labrador bounded up.

"Oh, my God!" I exclaimed. "You got a dog."

"Yes. Her name's Elsie. Just got her from Freshfields."

"What? Where?" I was stroking and cuddling Elsie.

"Animal rescue in Formby."

"Not heard of it."

"A woman runs it on her own. Turned her suburban semi into an animal sanctuary. Nutty as a fruitcake, but loves her dogs. Not too fond of people."

"Is it a charity or something?"

"No, just Leslie. Can't see it lasting long. From what I can see, she's got no one helping her. Spends half her day walking dogs in the woods. Tea or coffee?"

"Oh, yeah. Coffee. Has she been doing it long?"

"A couple of years." She switched the kettle on and prepared three coffees. "No kids and her husband pissed off, I think."

"Wish we could have a dog."

"One day."

Brian walked in from the shed.

"Hi, Sandra." He greeted me with a cursory hug. "Not seen you for a while."

"No, I've got a night job in the pub and Jay's cabbing a lot of nights."

"Brian's off out soon, aren't you, love?" Jean said, "Football team buddies. So, we can have a girlie night in. I see you brought an overnight bag."

I had. "Yes, I thought you'd be okay with it."

"Of course we are," Brian reassured.

"Yes, of course," Jean agreed.

We chatted for the next hour or so while Brian was pottering about getting ready to go out. It was a mundane conversation covering jobs, dogs, and motherhood.

Jean settled Katy down in her own room and plugged in the first baby monitor I had ever seen. A grotty beige colour, the listening end was about the size of a house brick, had to be plugged into a mains socket and had aerial like a small walking cane. Since I'd forgotten to pack the sherry, I cracked open the bottle of Jean's wine and poured a couple of glasses.

"Okay," Jean spurted, "Spill!"

"What?" I was thrown by bluntness.

"You came here for a visit and a chat, you said. So, something's on your mind."

"I've been unfaithful to Jay!" I spat it out. No preamble; no beating about the bush.

"I see." She was surprised but not shocked like I thought she would be. "Not the end of the world."

So, I told her all about Zeb, where we met, how the friendships had developed. I described our evening in his flat with the pill and Hergest Ridge. Jean was silent as I spoke about Pamela and Jay, our contract, my subsequent visit to Zeb's and anything I could remember.

"Well, good on you, girl. Sounds like Jay wouldn't mind so much."

"You don't think I'm a s..."

"Don't you dare say it!" she admonished. "No, I don't. I think you're a girl that likes to experiment."

"That's..." I paused, suddenly tongue tied.

"What?"

"I thought I might get a lecture."

"What me? Of course not."

"It's quite a relief."

"What you do is your own business, as long as you're not harming anyone."

I sighed like the accused that has just been acquitted. "How about some more of that wine?" I offered her my glass, and she obliged.

"Imagine what my mum would say?"

"None of her business. As it's none of mine. I'm honoured that you told me."

"Okay," I said, "Then there's Roger."

Jean nearly spat out her drink. "Who the fuck is Roger?"

"He's kind of a..." I hesitated, "a work colleague."

I sat on the settee and retold the story of the office Christmas party, Pamela, and her sudden discovery of a moral code, Charlie and the room key, meeting Roger and Simon, the inadvertent finding of the hottest erogenous zone on my body, stealing of the key, the joys of exhibitionist pissing and the best sex I've ever had with a stranger. She said not a single word.

"Well?"

"You really are a worthy apprentice, my girl." Her grin near split her face in half. "Look, you're not even twenty yet. You moved in with Jay not that long ago."

"It's two years!"

"Eighteen months."

"It's almost two years."

"It's still not long," she reminded me. "Do you love him?"

"With all of my heart!"

"Are you going to be together for the foreseeable future?"

"All my life."

"I wouldn't be making any big bets on that, young Grasshopper. But you're planning on it being a long time."

"Of course."

"And these flings of yours, are they likely to jeopardise that?"

"I love him even more now."

"Well, then. Where's the harm?"

"Well, then there was Jimmy," I said.

Jean's jaw dropped. "Another one!" It sounded almost like a judgement, but I knew my aunty well enough to know different.

I continued with the tale of the Dock Road pub, Pamela again, the band playing, the randy sailors, Scottish truck drivers, Pamela's flirting, the other hottest erogenous zone on my body, the big rig, and the worst sex I'd ever had with a stranger.

"And he didn't even ask me my name," I informed her.

"You should be careful, my lady. You know about the Yorkshire Ripper?"

"Jean. This is Merseyside," I began.

"Lancashire." She corrected me.

"You know what I mean. That was Merseyside and I'm not a prostitute!"

"Still. Take care getting into strange men's lorries. Anyway, you had fun, didn't you?"

"Not really. Not that time, anyway," I admitted. "Anyhow, that problem's sorted now."

"How do you mean?"

I explained all about my last visit to Zeb, how I'd made him remove the erogenous zones that he'd programmed without me wanting them, how he'd made me come first and me ending up almost naked, at least naked where it mattered. left out the lady wank part.

"I see," Jean said, "Sounds like you enjoyed it."

"Yeah." I sounded doubtful.