Letters Around Midnight (7 page)

“I love you hairless” he whispered in my ear.

“I am glad you approve, now why don't you give me what I need?”

We were both wet, soapy and horny as hell. I turned my back to him as he hugged me running his hands over my body and breasts and down to my hips. He pushed me forwards and as I leant over I rubbed my bum against his cock. He pulled my panties to one side and then pushed himself into me. I could feel him slipping into me with the water pummelling on my back. I pushed my hands up against the tiled wall and braced myself, pushing back against him as he fucked me. Luckily I've got long legs and I could reach the edge of the shower tray and get my feet in the corners. He had great leg muscles and though he must have cycled a long way he still had a good few miles in him. He pumped into me better than I had had for ages. I felt each thrust filling me completely, he sped up until he was taking me furiously. He rubbed my tummy with his hands and then let them slide around my back and held onto my hair pulling my head up. The feeling of being penetrated and having my head pulled back by my hair is guaranteed to send me over the edge and I came, bucking my hips back against him as he held them. I felt him shudder and could tell he was coming; boy, did he scream. I thought he was going to yell the place down. It took him a while to stop coming; he couldn't have had sex in a while. I stepped away from him to let his softening cock slide out of my pussy. The shower hit him in the chest and he pushed his hair back over his face tightening his stomach and chest. He looked so good. I knelt down in front of him and took his cock in my mouth again and sucked what remained of his cum off him cupping his balls in my mouth. I must have taken all he had to give because his cock sagged. I was disappointed, but it was perhaps best I left, as it was getting late and other customers would be arriving soon. I took his towel and rubbed myself down in front of him.

“Here” I said,

“I think you will be needing this” and tossed it to him. I turned around, picked up my things and walked to the door,

“Don't let your coffee go cold.” I said at the door and left him. I ran into the girls changing area and got dressed into my work outfit. I was barefoot, commando and back at the bar when he came out of the locker room in his suit ten minutes later. He came up to the bar,

“So” I said,

“Early mornings working out okay for you?”

“Yeah” he nodded.

“Any chance of a spicy topping on my skinny latte tomorrow?” he asked.

“I will see what I can do,” I said.

 

***

 

Anya told me she and Adrian tried every combination on the menu over the next few weeks and some combos the management hadn't thought of. The cafe is doing great and she has been promoted to manager. The word got out that the cycle cafe was opening earlier and a whole new load of clients started coming in; sadly, their early mornings aren't what they used to be. Anya promises me she still manages to get Adrian worked up into a sweat and when he comes to stay at her flat at the weekend, the first thing they do is have a shower. It's costing her fortune in shower gel so I'm told.

 

 

The first time I saw Cass was when she applied for the job as my secretary. I had never interviewed anyone before. I had always got what I was given. For a while I had the feeling, being a woman, I got what no-one else wanted. So I was determined to make my own choice this time.

Cass was the last applicant in a dwindling line of demure applicants who all studiously avoided looking at her; but you could see what they were thinking. Everything she wore was in “toos”. Her skirt was too short, her heels were too high and the colours of everything were too loud. Her skirt, as a friend of mine would say, was evidently “made out of mountaineering cloth”; it was constantly riding up. She teetered into my office pulling down the hem at the front of her skirt; then offered me the hand to shake,

“Charmed, I'm sure,” she said. I felt like I was interviewing Elisa Doolittle.

“God, them out there” she hoicked a thumb at the door,

“Need a fart or what?” She cackled, sat, crossed her legs and pulled the hem of the skirt down.

She was in all respects the antithesis of a sober legal secretary and I wondered what qualities she had that could suit her for the position. The other candidates had been okay, but I was looking for someone special. Someone who could handle tough demanding clients and not take any nonsense.

“Why did you leave your last position?” I asked, noting it had been as a PA to a friend of mine.

“Irreconcilable differences,” she said bluntly. I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.

“‘E told me to give you this,” she thrust a tatty envelope at me. It smelled strongly of tobacco.

The once sealed envelope had my name on it. I recognised the handwriting. The note said “If you don't give this girl a job, you will regret it”. So that was it then, on a sudden impulse, I found myself saying,

“You're hired.”

“Oh shit, really?” Stand, pull, handshake.

Cass turned out to be brilliant. If she had one failing, it was her voice. Compared to her, a fishwife would sound like Katherine Jenkins. Right from the start, the other secretarial “ladies” gave her the cold shoulder. They had done the same to me. We were rebels together.

On the first morning she came in to work dressed exactly the same but in different colours. I learned later that her take on fashion was she had found what suited her, so why change. Who was I to argue. She bustled in to my office,

“Coffee, Darlin'?” I nodded.

“Biscuits?” I shook my head.

“Nah, probably best not eh” she looked me up and down, and tottered out with my mug.

I stood up and looked at myself in the glass doors of my cabinets. My reflection stared back at me disapprovingly. I had gained a few pounds. My suits had been getting progressively tighter. No one had said anything, not my friends, not my partner, no-one. Weight gain is similar to your partner having an affair. Everyone sees it, everyone knows it, but no-one tells you. Cass earned my respect right there. My friend had been right. She saw it, and told it as it was; ergo she was invaluable.

We got on like a house on fire and it was largely thanks to her that I got as far as I did in the next twelve months. Sadly, her wanderlust took over and she left to go travelling. Well, when I say travelling, it turned out to be a yearlong pub crawl around Ibiza.

“That's travelling inn' it?” she cackled as she left. I was genuinely sorry to see her go. The rest of the office was relived she was going.

Not long ago, I got a text from Cass. She was back. My “ass” was ordered over for a drink at her local in the East End. So that is how at 9:30 one evening, I came to be standing on a pavement outside an East End pub in heels and designer jeans looking down at the text and up at the shabby building in front of me. With a sigh, I noted they matched.

“You gonna be all right luv?” asked the taxi driver. I was concerned he looked concerned.

“Er, yes, I'm meeting a friend.” He looked around on all sides like a fighter pilot watching out for bandits.

“Okay, your call” he said, gunned his engine and left me standing there.

“You in the right place luv?” I turned around slap bang into the chest of Hagrid out of Harry Potter. I looked up past the ZZ top beard into a pair of startlingly black eyes. I'm five foot eleven in flats so, to my Hermione, this chap had to be, well, much taller, maths was never my strong point.

“Er, yes.” I hesitated,

“I'm meeting a friend”

“You sure?”

“Er, Yes” I was having doubts but had no taxi and nowhere to go except in there. The door of the pub looked ominous. It was the doorway to every bad dream I had ever had.

“Cass, my friend” I don't know why I added her name as an explanation.

“She said she'd meet me in there.” I pointed a finger round him at the nightmare door.

“You a friend of Cass?” There was a hint of a twinkle in the blackness but it disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

“Yes.”

“You'd better come in, then.” He turned and strode into the pub, forcing the door open like they do in Westerns. Light flooded out. He paused at the door, looked back at me one final time as if to satisfy himself I wasn't a figment of his imagination, and bellowed inside,

“Cass?”

“What?” The response had a familiar shriek to it. Memories surged back.

“I found this outside, says she's with you.”

Silence. Shriek.

Cass came down the aisle of the pub like a steam train on acid. She hadn't changed. Denim skirt, cowboy hat, cowboy boots, tight white T-shirt and frizzy blonde hair. The only thing missing before she crashed into me was the pull of the hem. As she squeezed the life out of me, I had the chance to look round the inside of the pub. Through the red haze of my asphyxia, I took in Cass' local. If you can imagine the space bar scene from Star Wars but shot in the East End, you've got it.

“You met Tone then?” She had let me out of the death hug and had hooked her arm into mine.

“Who?”

“Tone,” she slapped the man-mountain to indicate who she meant,

“my baby” she slapped him again.

“Thanks Babe” she stood on tiptoe and gave the man-mountain a kiss full on the lips holding on to her hat. If it was possible, I would have said Tone blushed.

“Come on” said Cass and dragged me bodily through the crowd,

“Ain't he gorgeous?” she whispered to me as we made our way to a table in the far corner,

“Yeah, real cute.”

We got to our table. I was introduced to a line of men, all in bike leathers. When the introductions were finished, Cass shrilled,

“Okay boys, piss off, girl talk.” The men dutifully “pissed off”.

“‘ere” she said not lowering her voice one decibel.

“You still collecting them mucky stories?” A few people looked around. I'm hardly a prude, considering what I write, but I do want to keep a modicum of secrecy over the matter,

“Erotic encounters” I replied lowering my voice,

“Yeah them.”

I nodded.

“Brill, I've got one for you.” I leant forward to hear her better as thankfully she had lowered her voice,

“‘Ere Tone” she bellowed at full register, I shot back in my seat again, clicking my jaw to get my hearing back,

“Grab us some Asti will yah, we're celebratin'.” My taste buds shrivelled in horror.

“You up for it?” She asked.

“Yeah absolutely” I said, “fire away.”

 

***

 

I was walking past this garage in the East End after I got back from Ibiza last summer. I knew this guy rented it to do up old bikes. I love bikes. Nothing beats the smell of oil and leather. Anyway, I'd never been in and so I thought, well, why not?

I got level with the doors and there was this awesome throaty roar. Not the whine of some modern Japanese thing. I'm talking deep, like a lion in heat on the Discovery Channel. The alley was shaking with it.

I stuck my head around the door and there was this huge guy, Tone. T shirt, beard, leathers, revving this 1960s classic Triumph Bonneville. He was intent on this baby, like there was nothing else in the world. I didn't think he had noticed me as I walked in. I can make an entrance especially as I had my beach body on and was brown as a nut from Ibiza; but, bugger me, he was so concentrated on this bike the world could have ended and he wouldn't have known it'd gone.

The place was immaculate: it wasn't so much a garage as a shrine. This guy was obviously a real engine-head. Tools were laid out in order, engine parts were laid out on benches. The lathes and grinders were sparkling. There's this smell in the air of engine oil, petrol, grease and sweat. Working on bikes is real heavy work. You can't work on a bike without generating serious body heat. Last summer was hot and it was hotter in the garage than it was outside. As I walked in, he was squatting down by the tail pipe and was teasing the throttle. His eyes were closed, he was communing with it. In real deep, zoned out. The noise was deafening. I couldn't hear myself think. He said afterwards he heard me come in, said my heels were off with the tappets. He stood up wiping his great big hands on this rag. Tone is tall and he kept going up. He was a full two foot taller than me when he stopped. I barely came up to his chest. He was like a great big grizzly bear. He didn't say much. He's a man of few words. He doesn't need many. He's got these great eyes, and great big hairy arms. Hands as rough as shovels when he holds you. God knows how many pairs of tights I've gone through since I met him.

He was looking at me, like, what you doing here.

“Hi” I said all nonchalantly, and he just stares at me.