I had arranged to meet Trina today. The right depth in, "both of us knowing exactly what it meant", as the Overnight Editor put it so beautifully, (as he always did), at a similar stage.
On the bus, a man a few seats in front of me was flicking endlessly through the Daily Sport. One of the small ads for sex lines had the heading "Jerk Off!"; on the opposite side, a full page picture of a woman's face. Presumably you ring one of the numbers in the adverts and then ejaculate over the picture. It was unpleasant, something you shouldn't look at in public, but I had Middlemarch and was glad to divert myself into the details of Dorothea's mismatch with Casaubon.
It was wet and after parking the car, she gave me her mother's wellies to save a soggy sock. She unlocked a padlock by the side of the road and led us on to what she called the "off" side of the canal. In her narrowboat, I saw the bottle of red and suddenly remembered the bottle of Prosecco I'd left in my fridge. She'd bought cheese and salami and crackers "because I know you like that down the Sun." We sat on the settee, eating and talking, and were a little coy, not touching each other as much as we normally do. I was wondering how we were going to manage to translate ourselves into bed.
We finished the wine and I again silently regretted forgetting the Prosecco. "Would you like to continue this in a horizontal position?" she said, and we moved into the bedroom. We stood up in the tiny space available and started to kiss. She undid my shirt, sloughing it for me to the floor. "It's got buttons, you know" she said, pushing her tits forward. But I wanted to slow the whiteness of her shirt and her bra. "I did promise you fantastic tits," she said.
As I was sliding her knickers to the floor and we both looked down, I was relieved to see my cock was hard. Suddenly, the boat jolted to its side, vanishing the fragility of sex. "Oooh!" I said. "What was that?" "It's a bloody plastic cruiser--they always go too fast." We recovered with good intentions, laughing, and got into bed. Tried the duvet, too hot; and luxuriated, implicitly showing ourselves to each other as the last stage of trialling. This is how I look. I hope you like it. Late afternoon, we fell into a sexed, wined, relieved sleep.
On the bus back I texted Kim and Kitty: "I've just had a right good seeing to. On a canal boat. First of many I hope." In Lancaster, I didn't want to go home. I went to a pub I don't often go to, and had an engaging two hours with an acquaintance, a Recorder and Premiership rugby referee. He's applied to be a judge in the Crown Court. He's being sent to the south coast to sit in a case concerning a solicitor accused of defrauding his chambers, but before then, he's off to sail to Belle Île. "Is it your own boat?" I asked. "Yes, I've got a few. I've got two moored up at H--- and we rent out eighteen at G--- Marina." I enjoyed it and didn't feel the slightest sense of envy for his money. I didn't mention Trina.
Everything is sex--in town, everywhere. The woman in the pub tonight, long orange silky scarf, tight white trousers, with her son and daughter. Me and the Recorder looking indecorously at the tight seam middling her arse, but continuing to talk, only thinking the phwoar. In the pub with Trina, the pretty young girl with artfully scruffy blonde hair and a London accent sitting behind us. "Well, I sort of knew we'd get on because even on our first date, well, I'd already sort of known you and knew you weren't... you know."