Third Time Getting Lucky

In the morning, we snuggled lazily, watching the patterns of sunlight through the trees hitting the floor. When hunger drove us to move, we dressed hurriedly, and I watched as he used a battery-powered razor to shave his face by touch.

"Have I missed...?"

I reached up to touch a remaining area of bristles, slid my hand round to another. "Just here, and here." Touching someone's face, fingers running across such sensitive areas, felt more intimate than anything I'd done with anyone else so far. I was dressed already, and suggested, "How about I go down now? If we go down separately, we might escape the Spanish Inquisition..."

Tom nodded. "Their main weapon is s-s-s-s... sur... fuck, that, and Rich and Ben and Ed..."

"Exactly. See you in a bit. Coffee?"

He shook his head, tried to answer, and put his forefingers together in a T shape.

"Tea. Will see what I can do."

I slipped downstairs quietly, hoping to blend in with the crowd in the kitchen and avoid questions about what I'd been up to the night before.

Unfortunately, I walked straight into Ben.

"A'right? Didn't see you after the poker got going last night?"

"Yeah; didn't particularly care for you lot getting lairy yet again. Hung out in the kitchen and then had an early night. Well, early-ish."

"Oh, yeah? We know about you and early nights. Cough, Ed, cough..."

"Ha, ha. Caught up on my sleep nicely, so I don't look like shit this morning. How did you do at the poker, anyway? Everyone admire your body?"

Ben wasn't good at poker-face, nor at refraining from bluffing wildly. He blushed. "Toom and Eddie did worse."

"Ah, well, looks like I didn't miss much, then." He thwapped me with a tea-towel. "Where's the tea?"

Ben left the kitchen and I filled the kettle so it would take a while to boil -- there would certainly be demand for lots of caffeine when it was done. Rich wandered in, clad only in jeans, quite a pleasant sight, and started work frying up bacon -- an even better sight!

"Mornin', Karen. Where did you get to last night, after nicking the Baileys?"

"Oh, looked in at the poker for a bit, got traumatised by Eddie and Toom with most of their kit off, eventually fell asleep," I lied.

"Aye. I hear it was a poor show, all the girls being too good at cards. Oh, morning, Tom. You in the poker too?"

"I didn't see you in the poker. Shame!" I grinned, flirting so obviously that Rich might assume it was a joke. "You missed Ben and Eddie embarrassing themselves."

Tom caught on quick. "My heart bleeds from the missed opportunity," he said deadpan. "I apolo... that you had that si, si, si...picture, inflicted upon you."

"I'll live. Tea?"

Tom nodded, and managed to avail himself of the tea I'd made him, and a bacon sandwich. Once I'd plunged the coffee and had the first mug, and acquired myself an egg and bacon butty -- bless Rich, he did cater well -- I felt more positive towards the world than I ever had.

Everyone was less hung over than the night before -- Ben, Eddie and Alec being exceptions. Delia was gleefully being very loud and cheerful round Ben, and everyone was laughing at the other two.

It was a lazy morning in the house, some card games plus leisurely repeat breakfasts, so no-one was particularly aware of who was where. Tom took advantage of this to tell me, "I put my bag near the s, s, t, ... Landing. And left yours outside the room. I might have implied to people, I was in the s, same bed as last night, to everyone except Mike and Cassie of course..."

I laughed. "Ben thinks I spent last night in the kitchen until I fell asleep somewhere. Everyone else thinks I was playing poker and they just didn't notice!"

"Well, you are good at poker," he said with straight face.

"Evidently!" I failed to keep my own face straight.

We had a quick hug and kiss, and then went our separate ways with various friends until it was time to pack the cars and head down to the pub for a late lunch, once it was uncrowded. Ben looked like he needed all the energy he could get before driving us home!

By an amazing non-coincidence, Tom ended up opposite me. Less obvious than being next to each other, and I could lip-read him and he could mouth words when necessary. Cunning, eh? We weren't trying especially to keep our nascent relationship secret, just to get as far as next weekend and be totally sure there was one, before the entire world started commenting loudly on it.

It was a remarkably mellow meal, to the waitress's relief -- thirty teenagers, almost all lads, would usually be more trouble, but people were tired and partied out. Delia and I plotted to host a party at ours for a couple weeks' time, and mused as to the likelihood of Mike and Cassie lasting. It was generally agreed that the strip poker had been a waste of time, though I noted Gareth stayed silent! Finally, Ben said it was time to start driving south again.

Tom gave me a hug, which we prolonged for quite a while, even risking a kiss when facing away from the others. It was quite fun trying to be subtle, given there wasn't anything in particular riding on it. It wasn't like the fear in Annie's eyes, walking through town with me.

"I could come up Friday, or the day after?"

"Friday," I said firmly.

"Traffic will be bad. Can't promise to be there before eight, maybe even nine. You know what it's like."

"I know. Don't worry, I'm not planning to have an early night!"

"Oh? I rather li, li, liked it, when you had an 'early night'!"

We separated, laughing. Delia and Ben clearly copped on when I refused to explain what was so funny. "First it's private jokes, then it's love," Delia said.

I rolled my eyes. "You'd know. Promise not to distract Ben from his driving?"

We squeezed back into the Fiesta, Alec falling asleep almost immediately. I might have somewhat exaggerated my inability to hear Ben and Delia quizzing me on exactly what I'd been doing with Tom and my intentions towards him, and dozed off myself. Once home, it was pretty much time to do laundry and ironing and such tasks before bed -- we all needed that early night.

Rarely had I actually looked forward to work on a Monday. Never as much as that day. I logged on, pulled some code up on one screen, and started Say on another.

TOM: SAY KAREN Morning! How are you on this delightful sunny day?

KAREN: SAY TOM Well I'm at work, which on the plus side means I can chat to you.

TOM: SAY KAREN :-)

KAREN: SAY TOM for a bit anyhow, work's getting tough. I Don't suppose you know how 8502 assembler assigns memory? Sooner I fix this memory bug, sooner I'll have time...

TOM: SAY KAREN no idea. Ask Davy, he's the assembler king.

TOM: SAY KAREN sympathy, sounds tedious. Give me Fortran any day.

KAREN: SAY TOM yup. I'm trying to rescue this control code...

That's geek romance for you.

Eventually, Friday rolled around. Ben and Delia were being kind and not teasing me too much; Alec was bring forcedly cheerful and annoying, so no change from usual. Charlie was gleefully telling me everything he'd heard from the lads up north -- Tom was 'pining' for me, Mike claimed to have been kept awake by our loud noise in bed -- the hypocrisy of that one stunned me -- and there was a book running on how many students I'd give a blow job to by the end of the year.

I mentioned the existence of some of these rumours to Tom.

TOM: SAY KAREN Pining? For the fjords or just resembling a coniferous tree? Either way, no. Though very much looking forward to tonight.

TOM: SAY KAREN I'm not a gambling man, but it would seem churlish to lay any money on such a bet.

TOM: SAY KAREN unless I had insider info of course.

KAREN: SAY TOM if you split the winnings!

TOM: SAY KAREN of course

KAREN: SAY TOM well it's zero so far... Ah. OK, one.

TOM: SAY KAREN Rich? Could have done worse, sound bloke.

TOM: SAY KAREN Rumour mill's in overdrive then. Heard there was a chap at your party before Christmas? I didn't believe the rumours about Ben and Charlie...

KAREN: SAY TOM!!!

KAREN: SAY TOM OK, there was a chap before Christmas, one night stand, all fine but just no to anything else, but he wasn't one of us.

KAREN: SAY TOM Ben and Charlie?? In their dreams!!!

TOM: SAY KAREN Next you'll be saying you never shagged Steve, either!

KAREN: SAY TOM What? STEVE?? Yes, cos I haven't!

TOM: SAY KAREN yeah, thought that was the case cos it wasn't him saying it -- he'd had the opportunity & was denying it.

KAREN: SAY TOM oh god, I know, it's from that party that ended up at his, and I was talking to him on the stairs. I'll tell you what it was -- he got upset about his dad dying so then we went in his room so

KAREN: SAY TOM the guys didn't see him crying, and then we talked loads, and eventually he gave me his bed and he slept on the floor. Really nice guy. I've got a lot of time for Steve.

TOM: SAY KAREN Yeah, good bloke. Like I said, it hasn't been him saying he slept with you, just all his housemates jumping to conclusions. And that Mike being a right stirring arse, as usual.

Another hurdle passed -- Tom didn't think I was a total slapper. Or didn't care.

Betting aside, I wanted desperately to double the number of students I'd sucked off, to a mildly-slutty two!

Cassie had probably had more of the guys than me, now. I shook myself. It wasn't a contest, either to be chaste nor to score. Now, I knew what I wanted. Who. Just had to wait until that evening to get started.

Once home, I ate a snacky dinner, thinking I probably had a couple hours before Tom arrived.

Then the doorbell rang. It was only six-thirty. Delia answered it.

"Sorry, no beggars or hawkers..."

"Very fu, fu, fu, fu, funny," Tom groaned, partly at himself, and came in. I came into the hall and let Delia squeeze out past me. Tom and I looked at each other a bit awkwardly, and then put our arms round each other, decided we didn't care who in the house saw, and kissed deeply. It was great.

"Oh, stop putting me off my dinner," Alec snapped.

"Aw, they're sweet!" Delia retorted.

"You'll cope. Tea, Tom?" He nodded vigorously and gave a thumbs-up.

I put the kettle on and gave him the tour, such as was needed -- front room, kitchen, bathroom at the back. Yard off the kitchen. Alec had put on a loud action movie and was looking unwelcoming, so I figured inviting Tom to my room would actually be quite appropriate.

"With the famous c-comedy bed? Lead on!"

We went upstairs. I indicated the bathroom, the others' bedrooms and mine, and opened my door. Thankfully I'd tidied up already, which really just meant making the bed, as that was the only thing anyone ever noticed. I squeezed down along the wall to let him into the room.

"Wow. That's a... bed!"

"Yup." I scrambled up onto it, got Tom to pass me our teas so they could go on the unit that served as a bedside table, and he sprang up to land beside me. The three mattresses wobbled under our combined weight. I giggled at his shock, and rolled over to him, obviously wobbling us about even more. We silently agreed that kissing and cuddling, while rolling about and bouncing up and down, was a good way to spend the next half hour or so, like small children on a bouncy castle, before we finally pulled ourselves up to sitting, quite out of breath, and drank our lukewarm tea.

I remembered my responsibilities as a host. "You wanted to see the new Bond film? It's on at 8:30. Or nine. D'you want to see if we can get tickets? Ah, but have you eaten?"

Tom considered a minute. "Had a s-andwich, as I left. Yeah! You? Eaten, or ready?"

I decided I was ready to go. We could have popcorn and ice-cream there, after all. We escaped the house before anyone could suggest joining us, and set to wander down across the park to the cinema.

Like I had with Annie. Only, as we held hands and grinned at each other, so very very different.

We reached the cinema with twenty minutes to spare, and managed to get tickets central enough that, with luck, my neck and body shouldn't get too painfully contorted. I mentioned, as casually as I could, that my neck would hurt if it had to stay in any twisted position for more than a moment. I didn't think that would be enough to put Tom off me, but years of being told I was 'crap', 'malingering', 'a spaz', 'always whinging', not allowed in mainstream school, takes its toll.

"Oh? Will you be OK tonight? Anything help?"

"It should be fine, thanks." Someone not running away to find a different girl, one without 'all my issues' as my mum charmingly put it, was a magical relaxant, it seemed.

It was still a pleasant surprise to feel his hand on the back of my neck, stroking and keeping it warm. Having scored seats, we bought ice cream tubs and, we decided decadently, popcorn too. He'd paid for the tickets, so I got the food.

" You OK getting that popcorn, too?"

"No worries. As long as you aren't going to throw it at people?"

He pretended to think. "Hm. They might th-throw us out."

"Yes. I've been thrown out for that." As he laughed and pretended to admonish me, I added, "You think that's bad? It was on a school trip, and it was the teacher telling us who to throw it at!"

"Well. You have to obey teachers, don't you?" He couldn't hold the laughter in any more. We sat down, ate our ices, and lay back with the popcorn between us, as the lights went down further and the curtains opened wider.

We could have kissed during the show, in traditional movie-date fashion, but the film was too good -- apart from Tom's odd sarcastic comment, "Big Ben's gone walkies, I see," and my "God, can't he keep it in his pants for once?" - we stayed silent; the cinematography was too enthralling for us to do anything but watch, holding hands once Tom had scoffed most of the popcorn. The car chases and action scenes were, as expected, brilliant.

As the credits rolled past, we turned towards each other, nodding in approval, and might have got a kiss in if people hadn't been tutting over us, waiting to file out. Instead we got outside, into the park, found the first handy tree to lean me against, and finally managed an uninterrupted session of making out as much as we wanted to, ignoring everyone walking to and fro.

Apart from a slight sadness I'd never been able to do that with Annie, it was thoroughly enjoyable. I felt relief of some internal pressure. Now I just wanted more of the same, equally undisturbed, somewhere I could lie down and we could remove clothes without freezing... Yet again, I blessed Delia for insisting she and I had the single rooms!

The telly was on when we returned. I stuck my head round to confirm I was in, didn't mention Tom, and we went back upstairs. Back on the incredibly comfortable high bed, I passed an object to him. "Picked this up when I was shopping. Might be useful."

He turned over the grey rubber door wedge. "... Genius! I hope you calculated the height of the gap and the rotational force of the door, to confirm this will have enough resistance..."

I could tell, by now, he was joking. "Nope. Life's too short! Besides, they come in one size only. And like anything could resist Ben and Charlie's curiosity if they really put their minds to it! Or to barging a door. Don't worry, I checked for bugs earlier and we're clear." I hadn't. Though I had triple-checked that our Say messages weren't being secretly copied to anyone else, any more.

Wedge safely installed before Ben could find another excuse to check I was OK, we began removing each other's clothes; again, a surprisingly intimate act, having done for me functions I'd always done for myself. I scraped my arms upwards to let my T-shirt be removed, leaned forward slightly to allow my bra to be chucked away. Now, both topless, mere hugging was a warmer, sexier experience. His solid chest pressing on my skin; I really liked that. I wanted more of it.

I wanted to feel Tom's legs, too. I felt years of female conditioning weighing me down, telling me not to be too forward, don't push, let him make the first move... and determinedly pushed it aside, reminding myself that Tom clearly wanted me, not just a generic girlfriend to possess.

Besides, he was quite capable of making clear what he did and didn't like.

I looked into his eyes while I found his jeans button by feel. As I tried undoing the button, fumbling it, his lips parted with a deeper breath. When the zip came down, he continued gazing at me, exhaling, then cupping my denim-clad arse in both hands. I managed to pull his jeans down; he did the same for me. Equality. A quick pause for the always-undignified getting trousers over our feet and flinging them aside, but finally, there was Tom's body, long and golden-pink and beautiful across my bed, best thighs I'd ever seen, dark-green boxers hinting by their shape as to what lay beneath. For a moment all I could do was look, almost scared to touch. Well, you aren't allowed to touch the exhibits in art galleries, are you?

I got over that within a minute, running my hands up his slightly-rough furry legs to those firm muscles above his knees. He was doing much the same, more gently, more slow and curious. We were in no hurry. Thus we spent a good hour on top of each other, stroking unfamiliar skin with a different texture, inhaling and nibbling a different scent, smiling at each other, enjoying being able to see each other. Definitely, a hobby.

Eventually, especially after some squeezing and stroking over the parts of my knickers he could see, that strange bit of my cunt began to throb and swell even more than usual. I was starting to master ways to generate that feeling, and knew I wanted more of it. Could Tom help me with that?

Obviously this wasn't the time to bring out my vibrator, a smooth beige plastic stick that I'd daringly acquired from a petrol station late one night. Best tenner I ever spent.

Did this mean I wanted sex? I wasn't sure.

Tom's finger snuck down over the damp gusset of my pants. I gasped, and knew that one thing I definitely did want was to touch him under where his pants were. I started pulling them down at the back. He glanced at me, realised I was serious, and obligingly wriggled out of them.

What a gent.

What an amazing arse!

And finally, I could actually see his cock properly. Not that I'd really been thinking about it. To be fair, cocks always looked a bit weird to me, but this was certainly a good example of the genre. Long, smooth, right size to get my hand around.

And stiff.

Definitely nice to hold.

I played with it, all velvet-soft on the outside, solid core. No foreskin, though given his reaction when I ran a licked finger along where it should have been, he probably wasn't missing it. Clearly still hugely sensitive! In a good way.

I felt his hand slide onto my knickers to squeeze a buttock. I couldn't see his face to express to him that was more than OK, so pushed them down myself.

There was something particularly filthy about pants pulled to half-mast. Nudity had connotations of being care-free and pure; clothes pushed aside was clearly only about getting access for sexual pleasure. Dirty, slutty -- all those words I wasn't sure I could embrace, then.

Tom yanked off my pants and chucked them aside somewhere. He looked nervous suddenly, like he was unsure about what to do next. Or about what I'd let him do? Or maybe, about what I expected?

We needed an obvious piece of communication. I knew one thing I did want. I took his hand and placed it between my legs. His fingers, flat against my cunt, made such a good sensation I just had to push myself onto them. He got the idea, pushing and rubbing firmly back, and I gasped and squeaked.

"Should I stop?" he whispered.

"No!" I wailed, devastated at the mere thought.