The Bet - Quit Smoking, Win My Body Ch. 02

The story so far: Adrian and Laura were at college together 20 years ago. They've agreed Ade can fuck her arse if he gives up smoking for three months. As motivation, he got to kiss and cuddle her after two weeks, and now it's been a month he gets to see her topless -- and touch. After two months, he'll get to play with her naked body, but no penetration.

When making their bet, Laura also posted an online ad for him, saying he needed a guy's cock to suck to distract him from smoking, which is how Dan turned up. Adrian is just about getting over his fear of a potential relationship with him, while working too hard. Stu and Gareth were college friends of Adrian and Laura, and they're all still close.

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Over the next couple weeks, I hear about the saga of Adrian's firm needing to hire someone new. He's been overworking, so glad they're doing something about that. Not that I'm much less busy myself -- I manage to confirm a Tuesday evening for our one-month celebration. I'll need to leave by half ten, it being a school night.

He texts to confirm he's on his way, so I leave work.

Getting to Ade's was a bit of a rush, but I get there a few minutes after he does, sitting on the steps of the building to change out of my sensible lace-ups. I'd put the little skirt on on my way out of the office -- no-one could see it under my long coat. I love these stilettos -- veritable 'fuck-me shoes', but given I can't manage more than a few yards in them, they don't get worn much. Perfect for reclining on a sofa and showing off your legs, though, which is what I do after impressing Adrian with my outfit and having a quick hello snog. I could get used to that. Removing a coat to expose stockings and a skirt Dave calls a 'nice pelmet' - with crimson high heels -- is always fun. He reacts just as I'd hoped.

I stretch out my legs, pointing my toes. "I love this sushi place. Good choice." Adrian grabbed three large sushi platters and a few dumplings from a place by the station. Munching steadily through various nigiri and uramaki rolls, I'm pretty happy no matter what we end up doing.

Ade puts more pieces on his plate and snuggles up to me, all warm and male. "Mm. I love this stuff."

"Hard to believe, fifteen years ago there were no sushi take-aways here."

He agrees. "I remember when I first moved to Kilburn, wanting food, anything that wasn't an Irish pub, there was this small grotty Japanese restaurant up til Cricklewood Broadway, all painted white chipboard. They had picture menus. I got a bento box the first time, liked it, and eventually dared a platter of sushi. Shocking, raw fish was, then. I liked all but the eel."

"I remember that place. Very local-place-for-local-Japanese-people, wasn't it? They never even bothered trying to speak English at you, just carried on in Japanese and you had to figure out what was going on."

"I admired that. Nothing that wasn't solved by keeping cash on the table, so they could charge for everything as you went along. Why should they adapt to the English?"

This attitude would explain why Adrian still sounds as Irish as he did at eighteen, at least when he's not having to compromise to be understood, while Will's accent has mellowed significantly more, despite his recent years of living back in Belfast. Stubborn git, but you have to kinda admire the principle.

"They probably sold much more food once they had a basic menu in English, though. Like that BMW guy who lectured us said, 'when we want to sell to you, we will speak English. If you want to sell to us, then you must speak German.'"

"Genau. Das kann ich."

"You're a man of endless talents."

"Indeed I am!" He grins and runs the tip of his tongue along his top lip. "If you want me to be showing you some more of them, best be getting 'yer tap aff'." My top off, only in the vernacular also meaning to have a good time, like in an unexpected heatwave. "It was 'upstairs inside, downstairs outside' you were offering, yeah?"

That's one way of summarising our agreement. "I don't think anyone's seriously used that phrase since The Professionals was on! You were barely born then!"

Ade grins. "They're showing repeats at the moment. It's mostly fascinating for the backdrops, showing all this part of London, Waterloo, all blackened with coal dust, and before glass and steel became a thing."

"Uh-huh. And Bodie and Doyle driving round in their Ford Cortina like low-budget James Bonds doesn't attract at all?"

He's letching at me in ironic fashion, as if he were a Seventies spy, then changes the subject. "It's traditional to eat sushi off a naked woman's body, isn't it?"

"So they say. I think it's just an excuse to get a naked woman involved. I suppose it did help keep the fish slightly warm so you could taste it better."

"You've...?"

Always fun to get Ade speechless. One point to me. Ha!

"Oh no, I wasn't the model. Just picking up sushis with chopsticks. Then fingers. There was a long debate about potential effects of wasabi on certain body parts, I recall..."

"Huh. I've seen you knocking back entire packets of the stuff."

"Easy way to impress laddy students, that was! Yeah. I still like it, but I don't eat that much unless I'm desperate to clear a really bad cold. Wanna test how skin temperature affects the flavour?"

I'm here to get topless; might as well get a move on.

I pull off my T-shirt. I'm wearing a lined bra that's pretty modest, and turn round to let him deal with the fiddly catches.

Once I've slithered the contraption down my arms and rubbed over the red lines on my sides, I turn back towards him.

Adrian is mesmerised. I have to admit, my tits are my best asset. They've grown as I've put weight on over the years.

"Go on then, pick up a couple pieces and put them on me." I indicate the top of my breasts. If I lie back on his sofa, it's near enough to horizontal.

Shaking his head, he picks up a salmon and a tuna sashimi slice and lays them reverently on my left breast with his chopsticks. "What else?"

"Sea bass," I suggest. It's my favourite.

He lays the nigiri rectangle on its side, both rice and fish against me, then reaches for another nigiri.

"No, not mackerel! The smell's too much!"

He drops that and goes for a California roll, instead. It's not like this is any authentic experience, after all.

I stay still.

"Pass me a whisky too, would you? Anything that goes..."

Adrian stands up, fetches another tumbler, and selects a bottle. "Japanese one. This is one of their peated whiskies, this -- Hakushu. They say it goes with shrimp; let's give it a whirl."

He pours a generous measure for each of us.

"Cheers," I say, from my reclining position.

"Sláinte." You can take the boy out of Ireland...

"Why don't you take your shirt off, too?"

It's another loose brushed-cotton, the lack of wrinkles less impressive once I'd learned Ade took his shirts to the dry-cleaner's over the road. Tactile. But then, so's his body.

He meets my eyes as he slowly unbuttons.

Topless, he sits down, carefully shifting to be next to me again, and picks up the tuna off my breast. He holds it to his nose. "Mm. Adds a certain something." Transferring it to his chopsticks he takes a bite, then offers the remaining piece to me.

We both chew, solemnly.

"Not bad."

We do the same with the salmon and the seabass, though I let him munch the whole California roll.

"Full?"

"For now. Come here."

He solemnly licks the last of the fishiness off my décolletage, suppressed laughter twitching at the corner of his mouth. We share a kiss, but rapidly want somewhere more comfortable.

Ade stands up, pours himself a drink. "Try this." He passes me a glass with a dribble of golden liquid. Lagavulin.

"It's my new smoking substitute. Beats that fucking gum."

It is indeed smoky, and peaty, with a bit of saltiness offsetting both. "That's rather good! I don't think I'd buy it myself, but it's good."

"Wait up." He's poured a measure of another. I didn't see what it was, but he's replaced the bottle in its box and there's a gap on his top shelf. "Try that, before heading to the bedroom."

I take a sip.

"Smooth, smoky and stylish, the reviews say. Kinda like me, really."

It's good. Similar to the previous one, only so much more refined and interesting, like a top wooden musical instrument versus the plastic basic version. It's smoky, yes, but flows in my mouth smooth as silk. There's a sweetness in the aftertaste that balances out the salt and the peat. "I like the warm sweet notes at the end. Did they use sherry casks?"

"I think so." He checks the box. "Aye, you're right. Good spot. It's the Distillers edition, 1991, bottled in '07." He pours himself a similarly restrained measure. "Bring it with you."

I set my glass on the far bedside table and turn back to where Adrian is lying on his side. He's looking happy, with what can only be described as a shit-eating grin.

"Enjoying the view?" I ask.

"Obviously. I mean, I know I've seen you topless before..."

"Oh god. That party." Half-way through first year. That might have been the one where Adrian passed out on the stairs and had to be bumped down to the bottom, with people stepping and tripping over him in the hallway all night. Or maybe not, if he could remember me running around, thanks to that game of Truth or Dare?

"Aye, that one. That was when I first got it together with Gareth, too."

"First? You mean it was more than that once?"

"Aw, fuck."

"Tell."

He takes a larger sip of the Lagavulin. "Not much to tell. Half a dozen times, from then to late second year, couple of times relieving stress before Finals... That's it. Couldn't do more; he's too much of a romantic wee sod..."

"Ah. Can see how that wouldn't work."

"Mm. You, now. You know what you're getting into. Just something you do with a mate."

"Exactly." I giggle. "Dave asked me recently, if I wanted to see the full Lord of the Rings trilogy at the IMAX. The director's cut. Twelve hours of bloody hobbits and goblins! I told him, that's something you do with your other girlfriend, you sick pervert..."

Ade laughs. "Did they?"

"They did. All-night showing, so I bet they fell asleep for a bit. I mean, yet another orc battle -- how would you tell?"

"Eh, they were all right. Not bad fillums."

"Oh no, not bad. Just I wasn't particularly interested the first time round!"

Another chuckle from Ade. "The second fillum, we saw on Boxing Day, evening. Me, Will and Linz. Cinema was packed out, loads of people not caring what fillum it was, just couldn't take their families any more and bought tickets to the longest thing going..."

"Lots of booze smuggled in, too?"

"Aye, most of the audience was half-cut, so by the end of the opening credits they were heckling. By the time you got to Gimli the dwarf going 'Toss me, Legolas...!'" He wipes his eye, still mirthful over it.

We'd laughed at the idea of the elf giving the dwarf a hand-job, too. "Could have done with that down our way. Actually, I enjoyed them well enough, until halfway through the last, when I started muttering "Push him in, Gollum!" And then finally they get home, and I knew from the news they'd left out the whole Return to the Shire bit which is the best bit of the books, so I thought finally, we can go home in a minute -- but no! They've axed the Shire only to replace it with forty-five minutes of them all meandering around gormlessly, that wasn't even in the bloody book!"

He pats me on the shoulder. "I feel your pain."

He's being sarky again. Then he's feeling round the side of my breast and I pull him on top of me. My arms are all round his back, lovely warm smooth skin, nigh on hairless, and I'm enjoying running my hand over this different man. Ade's both more slender and shorter than Dave, who's almost furry, with thick curly hair so it's much more obvious even to look at. Adrian, from the back, could almost be a woman, just with more muscle in the shoulders and a smaller narrow arse, which is fun to squeeze, through his jeans. I wrap my ankles over his to hold him in place, and snuggle with my human blanket, his weight falling just between my legs.

He's smiling above my face. Then a kiss, followed by scooping up one breast in his hands and applying kisses to that. It's intense, that time of the month when every touch to my breasts is treble the sensation, and I'm sighing even before he applies his mouth to my nipple.

When he does, squeezing my breast into his mouth, I can't help bucking up against him, moving my hands to his denim-covered thighs, gripping the solid flesh there. All that cycling has given him what must be beautiful leg muscles, and I really want to see them. Actually, no -- his leg firm between mine, me rocking against it to make it good, a hard bump starting to push on my pubic bone, his mouth returning to mine for a whisky-tasting kiss... this is good. Very good.

I clutch his shoulders to encourage him to keep moving against me. He does.

And then he manages to get one hand between my legs and pinches my nipple with the other, and life really couldn't get any better.

By the time I've returned to Earth, Ade's given up on any plan to wait until I leave before getting his own rocks off, belt undone and hand inside his pants. He looks embarrassed when I meet his eyes.

"Sorry..."

"No, go on. I'll watch." I undo his fly-buttons for him and he moans with the sudden freedom of movement. I don't think he meant to, but his briefs don't cover him as he pulls his cock, exposing his head, already leaking over his hand. It's not the biggest cock I've seen, but assuming he knows what to do with it, it should be perfectly satisfactory.

He's still looking slightly awkward, jerking off in front of a woman he's known for twenty years, so I lean over to put my mouth over his prick.

My lips hardly touch his tip before he's come, all over everywhere.

Unsurprisingly, his come tastes of the usual salt water with a hint of whisky. It's an improvement over most, I have to say. I lie back down next to him -- he can look at my tits again -- and smile at him.

"You a happy boy?"

He rolls his eyes. "You have to ask? A happy man with a beautiful view -" he gestures at me from head to stocking-clad toe - "and a rare fine whisky. What's not to like? I should buy you sushi more often."

"Oi! I'm not being bought! I mean, not that I'm ever going to say no to good sushi. Or your booze."

"No, sorry. Not a transaction, you're right." He sucks an urgent mouthful of whisky through his teeth, reminiscent of inhaling a cigarette. "Never really had a thing for prostitutes."

He takes another sip, looking a bit maudlin.

"Never? Or just never-a-thing for? Given you've tried bloody everything, I'd have thought...?" I run to a halt.

"Huh. No, you're right, as bloody usual." He pauses, swirls his glass around. "Lost my virginity to one."

"Really?"

"'Twas like in that song about blood brothers: 'Danny knew this good-time girl, we each threw in a ten; she took us to this cheap motel, and turned us into men... Oh we were so young...'" He's aiming for an American accent, nasal, East Coast. The tune sounds almost country, suiting his bass voice.

"Is that a blues song?"

"Not quite. Bon Jovi, end of their New Jersey album. Not quite the good Catholic boy, our Jonny." Another sigh. "Blood brothers. Now there's something that died out sharpish in the Eighties."

"Ha! I'd forgotten. Yeah, I bet. Though it was about the same time as kids stopped being encouraged to carry a useful penknife, too. I always thought it was knife crime panic, but yeah, you're probably right." AIDS changed so much.

His lips are pursed and he nods distractedly, running his fingers round my breast.

That face usually means there's something else he needs to get off his chest. I think for a moment.

"That the only time you've seen a prostitute, then?" I stick to the formal word. I'm sure there's enough people who've called him a whore.

"One other. After graduation, working my first job in the City, didn't know anyone really in London. The usual guff; lonely guy gets hammered and wanders through Soho..."

"Mm." I try to encourage him to spit out what's bothering him. I'm not shocked -- he really did get through everything Britain's capital offered to get out of his head, back then. It's a bloody miracle the man's still alive and well. I assume well; I wouldn't be surprised if he's HIV-positive, but thank fuck for modern drugs.

"So I get easily persuaded to go up a staircase, this bloke shows me pics in a ring-binder, I point at a girl, hand over me cash, and get taken to a room.

The girl's there. She's trying to smile. She didn't really speak English, but I'm thinking, how much speaking do we need to do? Then I reach to touch her, just on the shoulder, like, and she flinches." He demonstrates, then knocks back more of his glass. "And I knew she didn't want to."

He sighs. "She knew some German, picked up some English from her customers -- obvious words... I told her I'd go, don't worry, but she said she'd be in trouble with him outside, wanted me to stay for the time I'd paid for. It was kinda excruciating, not really know how to make conversation. She'd been had by six guys that day, one had really slapped her about... She got me to get my cock out and have a wank, but me being banjaxed and all, couldn't get off. She put her hand on me a bit, then once I was done, she just put her head on my shoulder and cried.

"Eventually I left and the guy asks if I'd had a good ride. I just lamped him one in the face.

Not such a great idea, seeing he was double my size an' sober -- he kicked me down the stairs and the bouncer on the door kicked me down the street."

"Bad night all round." Ouch. Too flippant. I'm horribly tactless, sometimes.

"Aye. Nigh on twenty years ago, though. OK, sixteen. She'd be nearly our age. I wonder what happens to trafficked whores once they hit middle age?"

"No idea."

"Me neither. Sorry, that was a depressing trip down memory lane! I kept thinking I should have done something, you know, but I had no idea even what street I'd been on..."

"And what would the plods have done? 'There's an unhappy whore in Soho? No shit.'"

"That's true. Few years later the story came up with guys at work. This man, right tosser, he goes till me, 'Cully, you fool! Bet she does that to all the guys, so she doesn't have to spread her legs and do any fucking work!' Fucking cunt.."

I think for a minute. "Was that the job you got fired from, for decking your boss after lunch one day?"

Ade's sad repose melts into a wry grin. "Aye, it was. Worth every penny, I tell you!"

"I thought that was out of character for you. Not like you've never had arsehole bosses!"

"I'd never realised how notorious he was in the industry. Searching for a new job that time wasn't hard at all. Got three offers in a week and it was suggested me trailing that bastard was a positive, not a black mark...

Enough about me. How are you doing here, all decorative in my bed?"

"All right." I snuggle closer with him. It's kinda nice, gabbing on like we normally do, but getting to directly cuddle his bare chest. Like I do with Dave, most nights. "You said you were going to meet Stu earlier -- sorry I couldn't make it. How's he?"

"Same old. About to get another promotion, as usual. But, though, Julie's pregnant. He's excited, he'll be able to teach the wee'un how to look a tosser in a posh suit, an' all."

"Oh." The jealousy curdles all the joy I'd just been feeling. I manage to say, "Pass on my congratulations," but it's flat.

Ade notices something's not right, but not, as a woman would, quite what. "Will do. You might see them first, though. Y'know, I always thought you and Dave would have kids. No?"