Twelve Across

"No. My name is Charles, always Charles, never 'Charlie' or, God forbid, 'Chuck'. Do you prefer Samantha or 'Sam'?"

"I don't really know, no-one has ever called me Sam, but when you did it seemed to fit."

"Well, Sam, where do I start?"

"What I've been doing is to gather a pile of books and stack them on the desk, that way I'm not bent over or squatting all the time. Once I've sorted them into order I can then stack them more easily back on the shelves. I've just about finished the fixtures, there's only the one at the back to go, and then it's the side shelves."

"Let's get to it then." I bent down and gathered a pile of books and carried them to the desk. Several trips later we were sorting them, they were reference books, into piles by subject and author. Working together seemed so natural for us and we got through the stacks quickly, carrying them to the shelves, they were stacked in no time at all.

"Time for a break. I hope that you like lasagne?"

"Love it." I did actually, I wasn't just saying that.

"That's good. I have to tell you that it's one of the few dishes that I can cook. It was my speciality at Uni, once a week was lasagne night." We walked up to her flat and I was looking around. "The bathroom is through that door, you can wash up in there." She pointed to a door on the right of the short hallway.

I washed my hands and joined her in the kitchen. "Would you open that bottle of wine, I assume that you drink wine?"

"I don't. I haven't since Julie died." I was almost ready to walk out of there.

"There I go again. I should have asked if you wanted a wine before telling you to open the bottle."

"It's alright. It's just that I blame my drinking for her death. If I hadn't had too much to drink she wouldn't have been driving."

"But if you'd been driving you both would probably still have been killed. The car would still have crashed even if you were the driver."

"But she was the driver and I survived, that's the difference."

"You can tell me to mind my own business and you can probably walk out and I won't blame you, but I feel that I have to say this. I've read up on what happened that day and the guys that shot and killed Julie weren't about to let her survive even if they killed you outright. They just don't leave witnesses. If there hadn't been people nearby they would have walked into that hardware store and finished the job. And as for blaming the drink, the same thing applies, they were out to get you and, drunk or sober, you weren't going to get out of it alive. I think that you should just thank your lucky stars that you managed to survive. The initial reports weren't confident of a successful outcome for you, it was believed that, even if you pulled through you would never fully recover. You had significant brain damage. You have made a remarkable recovery, don't throw that away now."

"On the outside maybe. But there is still a lot of healing to do inside."

"Yes there is, and it will always be there while ever you continue to blame yourself for this. It wasn't your fault. You were doing your job and doing it well. That's not your fault. You were dealing with men who have a totally different concept of how we live to you. That's not your fault. The fact that they decided to eliminate you so that you couldn't give evidence against them in court, that's not your fault. What you achieved was that men who committed those major crimes, who killed many people who got in their way, who put many lives at risk with their drugs, were tried and found guilty of their crimes, was down to you and your efforts, your belief in doing the right thing. That is something that you should be proud of."

"You should talk to my bathroom mirror, it tells me the opposite, it tells me that it is all my fault."

"I think that I'm going to have to go around to your place and smash that mirror." She had poured herself a glass of wine. She passed it over to me. "Would you like a sip?"

I was about to refuse but her words had sunk in, I had been beating myself up over what had happened. I took the glass and sipped the wine and memories of a time past flooded back. "I like that, will you pour me a glass?"

By the time the lasagne was finished so too was the bottle and I wasn't drunk, and I wasn't hanging out for another drink. What I was hanging out for was the company of this wonderful, insightful, woman who sat opposite me.

We finished our meal with coffee and I helped her with the dishes before going into the living room where we sat side by side on the sofa and watched the TV news followed by something else. I didn't want to go and I didn't want to stay and stack more shelves because there would be no reason for me to come back tomorrow night if we finished them. I stood up. "I think that I'd better be getting along, I don't want to keep you up too late, and there is still a lot to do downstairs."

"Do you really have to go? I wish you could stay a little longer, I've really enjoyed having you here tonight, with me." She stood in front of me, very close in front of me, I could feel her warmth. I wanted to stay but I couldn't. I was afraid, not of her but of me. I was afraid of taking the step toward a relationship with this woman only to have it end the way my marriage did.

Samantha stood on her toes and kissed me with much more passion than I would have expected from a good Catholic girl who was saving herself for her husband. "I can't stop you from going but I can give you something to bring you back. And I haven't been to church for years."

"I'll see you tomorrow then." How did I get those words out so calmly, when my heart was racing?

I spoke to members of the Greene family separately during the next day and got conflicting alibis. His mother, Beryl, confirmed that Julian had been in bed all night, at least from ten when the movie on TV finished. She couldn't tell me the name of the film. A girl called Trudy who claimed to be his girlfriend claimed that they had spent the night together in her flat. She stated that they had sex many times during the course of the night, 'He's a bull in bed, Spike is, I'm still sore.' She couldn't provide any intimate details that would corroborate her statement, like the size of his penis, other than it was 'huge'. Spike wasn't that well endowed and was the butt of jokes at school, which probably explains a lot.

His father, Fred, and Uncle Teddy, both swore that he was helping them in their entirely honest furniture removal business. They couldn't give me the address of the place that the furniture came from or was delivered to. Which of these alibis, if any, was right?

Samantha looked different when she opened the door to me. It wasn't just her hair that was now loose and fell over her shoulders, it wasn't the clothes that were more casual, or was it that she wore makeup when she hadn't yesterday, it was her eyes, they weren't hiding behind her glasses. "Hello, I'm glad you could come." She stepped aside for me to enter. As she closed the door and pulled down the blind that had 'CLOSED' printed on the other side, I reached out and placed my hand on her waist. She turned and came into my arms, her arms around my neck and her lips seeking mine and hungrily devouring them. This was not the way that the nuns taught young ladies to behave.

"Wow, that was some welcome. What brought that on?"

"You, you brought it on. I couldn't sleep last night and what was going through my head was you, and none of the thoughts were the kind of thing that I'd been taught. They were so far from pure that it shocked me and, for the first time in my life I masturbated, and in another first, I had an orgasm, or at least it fitted the description in the books that I've read"

"You haven't had much experience sexually have you?"

"No, I'm ashamed to admit that, at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I'm a virgin." The way that she said it had no shame, disappointment maybe, but no shame. "What allowed me to get to sleep was my decision to ask you to be the man who takes my virginity from me. I tried to imagine what it would be like but I must have drifted off to sleep while I was thinking about it. I have no idea what it will be like or what I have to do, you'll have to show me."

"I'm having trouble getting my head around this. I meet you yesterday and, while I enjoyed your company last evening, I never thought that it would come to this. I'm flattered of course, but I'm wondering if you've thought this through properly, it is a major step for you to take."

"It was our conversation last night that led to this. You have been beating yourself to death with your negative thoughts about what has happened in your life, and I realised that I'd been doing the same thing for years. It is time to stop thinking about our lives and do something about them. You need someone in your life, not to replace Julie, that can never happen, but someone who will love you and be your companion, to fill the void that her death left in your life. I need someone to replace my parents in my life, not parents, that's not possible, but when children leave home they're not looking for parents but for someone to fill the next phase in their lives, a husband or wife to be a companion and lover."

"Why have you chosen me?"

"I believe that a higher authority has chosen you to be my lover and companion. Think about it, if I hadn't had an unwelcome visitor you wouldn't have come to see me. You didn't have to volunteer to help me, because that's not in your job description. We didn't have to pour our hearts out to each other, and if we hadn't we wouldn't have realised, at least I wouldn't have realised, that you and I are the best people to fill the void in each other's lives."

"You've obviously given it a great deal of thought. Where do we go from here?"

"Come with me." She took me by the hand and led me upstairs. She didn't need to take my hand, I would have followed her regardless. She led me into the living room that was different from last night, the lights were dimmed, there was a scented candle burning on the coffee table and soft music wafted from the stereo. She had been prepared. She came into my arms again. "I've set the scene, it's now up to you, I am in your hands." This time her lips were soft against mine.

I kissed her lips, her throat, her eyes, she must have contacts in tonight, and back to her lips. My tongue pressed against them and she opened them to allow access. It was all very gentle, I was in no hurry to proceed to the next phase although I could feel the passion rising in her, she began to moan softly into my mouth. My hand found the buttons of her blouse and opened them, as my hand slipped around her body she pushed herself hard against me.

I caressed her bare flesh for several minutes and she surely must have been able to feel my hardened cock against her thrusting body. Her bra strap fell to my fingers and her breasts, now no longer confined in their lace bondage, reacted to my kisses, her nipples hardened under my tongue. I felt a hand on my cock, caressing it through my trousers, squeezing it almost to the point of pain.

I slipped her blouse and bra from her body and admired her, her breasts were firm and stood proudly from her chest, I realised that I was probably the first person other than her to see them. I slid the zipper of her slacks down and they dropped to the floor revealing a pair of lace panties, not what I'd expected. I dropped to my knees in front of her and lowered them to the floor before burying my face in her. My tongue found her pussy and a gasp escaped from her, "Oh my goodness, oh that feels so good." Her hands held my head to her. "Oh no, oh yes, oh my God!" Her body shook for a long time. "Oh God that was so much better than my finger. Come with me."

She led me into her bedroom, it too had low lighting and scented candles, the bed covers had been turned down in readiness. She began to undress me, fist the jacket and tie, then my shoes and socks followed by my trousers and underpants. Freed from its confines my cock sprang to life, standing out from my body like some cannon, primed ready for action. A voice from down there said, just before she took me into her mouth, "I read somewhere that most men like to have the women suck on his cock." Her technique wasn't all that good to begin with, she took his head into her mouth and just sucked it, so I put my hand behind her head and pushed him deeper into her mouth and then pulled him out. She got the message and was soon sliding back and forth on him. I was about to come when I decided that to shoot a load into her mouth just now might not be a good thing, so I withdrew him lifted her to her feet.

I lifted her up and lowered her onto the bed and began kissing her, starting from her mouth and working down until I reached her pussy once more. An orgasm later I was ready to try my cock in her pussy. "This might hurt a little, I'll be as gentle as I can."

"I know you will. Don't worry I've read all about the hymen and how it hurts the first time and it bleeds as well, I want you to do it so much that I'm prepared to put up with any pain." I was as gentle as I could be, but that was hard because she kept pushing down on him trying to force him deeper inside her before I was ready for the breakthrough. When it did come she gave a short sob and her arms closed tighter around me. "Wait a moment, I want to feel him all the way inside me."

I left him as deep inside her body as I could for several minutes, I was enjoying it probably as much as she, it had been a while after all. When I began to move him in her body she began to move in synch with me, slowly gathering pace until we both reached our climax. This was near to a perfect sexual experience as I could remember. Her lips found mine and didn't leave them for many seconds. "My darling Charles that was everything that I imagined it would be. I want more of the same, I want you to make love to me forever, I want to love you and I want us to have the most extraordinary love life. I'm not asking you to marry me, just be the best lover for me."

"All that I can think about right now is just how good that was, it's as if we were made for each other. As for the marriage thing, I think that your Catholic upbringing might get in the way, so before you say anything, let me tell you this, I can't think of anyone that I'd rather have as a wife, having said that, I want us to be absolutely sure that we want this before we take that next step. If for some reason we decide against marriage I want there to be no regrets."

I didn't go home until the next morning to shave and put on clean clothes. I, we had showered after an almost sleepless night of loving, I lost count of the number of times we'd come together, she was insatiable, always wanting more of him and me until we collapsed, exhausted sometime after midnight.

As I walked into the squad room, my paper under my arm and coffee in my hand, I was subjected to all sorts of comments like, 'you look different somehow', to one that was close to the mark, 'looks like someone might have got laid last night.' I sat down, I guess I had that satisfied look on my face that said that I was happy, not obvious of late, and sipped my coffee as I leafed through the paper.

"How're things going, with the investigation, that is?" The DCI was standing next to me.

"Fine, I have several alibis from the Greene family as expected, none of which match any of the others, as expected, all I have to do is decide which if any, is the truth. Apart from that it's going fine."

"And the other thing, you're coping with the job?"

"I'm coping better than expected, it's given me a new lease on life, I've been helping Samantha tidy up the mess."

"Samantha is it, not Miss Morgan? I hope you're not moving too quickly, I wouldn't want to see you hurt."

"No chance of that." He left me to the crossword. I had worked out a few of the clues when my phone rang. "Detective Sergeant Forbes."

"My, don't you sound formal? Hi Darling, have you had a chance to look at today's crossword?"

"Yes, I've just started."

"Have a look at twelve across and tell me if it reminds you of something." I looked at the clue; 'Policeman subtracts from praise. (10 letters)' Policeman is usually 'cop' not subtract is add, praise is adulation, take 'ad' away and you have 'ulation', stick the cop on the front of it and you have what Samantha and I had done all last night, 'copulation'. I chuckled and heard her chuckling on the other end of the line. "I thought you'd like that, and I want more of the same tonight."

"Only tonight? I want it forever."