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The L Word

By: StonedAsia



Pulling up to Emma's house I waited in the Astra and put some music on. It was one of the cleaner streets I had been on. There were trees where I had parked, saplings held with stakes in the earth, one every forty metres on both pavements. The bins had been put out for tomorrow. 

I saw a fluttering of curtains in the window of Emma's house and recognised the mother. She went and moments later the front door opened and Emma walked out. Her little bottle of water was in her hand. It was ten in the morning and the sun was coming and going behind clouds and she wore clothes to match, a light and airy top. 

I wondered how she got away with things like that. I remember in my lessons sweating so much my instructor used to hate getting back in the seat.

I got out as she came up.

'Ready for another lesson?' I asked.

'Go on then.'

'Come on, where's your spark? You're driving. It's exciting.'

She looked uncomfortable and said okay.

She went around to the passenger side and I stopped her.

'You want to take us there today?' I asked.

'Umm... not really.'

She put some mousey hair behind her ear and we both got in. I started the car and we drove up her road and out onto the hill. The traffic was light for the time of day but it wouldn't matter, I was taking her to a quiet road near the Carnegie library.  

'Where's the energy today lady? Late night?'

'Nope.'

'You can't drive tired. It leads to mistakes.'

I parked. The road was small and would have been too narrow if anyone came up the other side. The houses on the left had nice front gardens and there was a nursing home on the right with an entrance and high red brick wall running the length of the pavement. 

It bothered me she looked so deflated. Last week the girl was bubbling like a pot on the stove.

'Have you been reading your highway code? Where'd you get up to?'

'I was looking at roundabouts.'

'That's good. We're not going to touch on those today so don't worry. We're back here though, so what do you want to practice?'

'Starting and stopping?'

'Aren't we past that?' I said. 'Last week we were doing turning and emerging.'

'Maybe I need to go over the basics.'

I shrugged. This was going to be a waste of time. But it was her money.

'It's your money.' I said.

We opened the doors and got out. She walked around the bonnet to get to the driver door.

'Always go round the back.' I said.

She got into the seat and I adjusted my instructor mirrors. She puffed out her cheeks and blew out of her mouth and placed both hands on the steering wheel. She seemed assured but exhausted. It could also have been doubt. After a while I was sure that was it. 

The back of my seat had been straightened. Normally I kept it reclined to suit my posture. All the students thought the instructor spent most of his time behind the wheel but actually it was the opposite.

'You moved my seat.' I said.

She gave me the beginnings of a smile. Her hand went to the key in the ignition and I put mine on her arm.

'Hey, are we skipping cockpit drill?'

Emma looked in my direction but not at me and then did a few turns in the seat trying to remember the correct procedure. She held onto the steering wheel and pulled with her left hand the weight of the door against the car frame. She gripped the handbrake and tested to see if it was on and then she wobbled the gearstick to make sure it was in neutral. 

I watched her in the mirrors above my head. She was wearing a pretty necklace and she caught me looking at it. 

Still holding the wheel she took her right hand and slid the seat a little using the bar underneath. She then raised the chair (as I was taller than her), and sat back to wiggle her mirrors. An old man walked parallel to the wall. She strapped herself in.

'Good.' I said.

She looked at me, and away, and then back for longer. She was acting like a startled cat.

'Be more confident Emma. You've done this before.'

I was acting nonchalant but really it bugged me. This was all about the end of last week. Ridiculous how people let their confidence stay at the notch it got knocked down to.

She tried the handbrake again, moved the gearstick and started the engine. The car came to life. She put it in first. I felt it rise like it had been inflated but the feeling was jerky and Emma wasn't controlling the clutch properly. She got it to the bite but didn't hold it in the right place twice. She panned pavement to driver-side blind spot and went to the handbrake. With it off, she turned the steering wheel and looked confused. She raised the clutch even more and then she stalled the car.

She mouthed something and saw where my foot was and said: 'Why were you braking?' 

'What did you forget to do?'

'I don't know. What?'

'How would you let someone know what you plan to do?'

'Indicate.'

'Indicate! Mirror, signal, manoeuvre. Always let everyone know what you're doing before you do it. Come on, let's go, do it again.'

She fell back into her seat, wound up, and began the process.

When she was about to pull out a second time a car came from behind us. My foot hovered over the brake. Would she see it?

'Hang on.' She said. 

Her jaw tightened. I could see she was stressed. 

The other car went by and Emma emerged and we trundled down the road. I tapped the gearstick but I felt her hand instead and that she had switched up without my prompt. Perhaps she was remembering everything after all; she just needed a kick up the bum. 

'Stop in the next convenient place, making sure we can get out again and that you're not blocking a driveway.'

She nodded and as we slowed and came to the kerb she braked and the car stopped and stalled.

'What was that?'

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean it!'

'It's not good to stall the car.'

'I know, it's not like I wanted to!'

'Stop the engine Emma.'

'What?'

'Turn the ignition off.'

The car relaxed.

'Don't roll your eyes at me!' Emma said.

'What's the matter with you? Last time we were out you were at the top of your game. You knew what you were doing, you were confident about it, we talked to each other.'

'I'm not allowed to have a bad day?'

'No actually you're not. This is the third lesson you've had and you don't get to have an off day for two hours out of six. And in case you hadn't realised you are paying for this. Maybe you don't care about wasting your money but I care about you wasting my time so I would've thought you gave a damn.'

'I do!'

'Then before this day becomes a total write-off perhaps you'd like to tell me what the matter is and we can work at it instead of the both of us pissing into the wind.'

'I don't know! Don't talk to me like that!'

'If you don't know what it is that's affecting you why is this going wrong?'

She looked out the window at the houses opposite. They led down the bend in the road.

'Well?' I asked.

'Last week! At the end! Oh why are you making this so difficult?'

'What are you talking about?'

'When I went over the line in the road and that guy beeped and stopped and got out!'

My expression was blank but I knew what she meant.

'I came out without stopping,' she flushed, 'and that car shot by and had to swerve and then the driver got out and started shouting at me! He was this massive white guy with loads of tattoos and I'd never been so scared in my life!'

'What did I do?'

'You said something to him. Told him to get lost.'

'That was you?' I said. 'I don't even remember that.'

'Oh thanks a lot!' She cried.

'I don't care about that Emma, why should you? Mistakes happen. It's not like you're the only one who ever made some idiot get out of his car. I mean, can you imagine what kind of man a guy must be to stop, put on his handbrake, pop his belt, open the door, get out and go over and yell at a learner? We were all learners once, it'd be like someone having a go at a baby for spilling a bowl of food.'

'People do that too.'

'Do you do it? Do any of your friends do it? No, only idiots get out to shout at people, and because it's such a stupid reaction you should clear it from your mind because I bet you: in five years of driving that you're going to do after you pass your test, you won't have it happen once. Now can you forget about all this negative crap and just do us some driving? I want to have a stress-free rest of the day and for some reason I thought when I pulled up to collect you half-an-hour ago that you'd give me two hours of fun, so start providing!'

I grabbed the box on the back seat.

'Relax, forget about it. Don't let it affect how you perform today. Do you want a tissue?'

'No.' She took one anyway.

'Now are we going to sit here being pointlessly moody or are we going to have some fun?'

'It's not supposed to be fun.' She said. But she said it with some humour at the back of her throat.

'Come on, let's go. Do it again.'

At eleven o'clock I asked her to say back to me what I had gone over with the graphics cards.

'No pictures this time.' I said.

'At six I check my mirrors -- internal and off-side, at five, indicate, four get into position, three slow down, two go to second gear, one check my mirrors again.'

'And if there's a pedestrian crossing the road?'

'Run them down?'

'What about if you're turning right but someone is emerging?'

'It's my priority.'

'And if someone is coming toward you on the other side of the road?'

'I stop and let them go.'

'How are your wheels?'

'What do you mean?'

'Where is the steering wheel when you're waiting to turn right?'

'I keep it straight.'

'Tell me why.'

'If they're facing right and somebody bumps me I'll go into oncoming traffic.'

'But the handbrake will be on.' I said.

'Oh so I can keep them at right angles.'

'No you can't. You may not have put the handbrake on properly.'

'You tricked me.'

'You can't account for what somebody else will do. Make sure you know only what you're doing and hope that everyone else is telling themselves the same thing. You don't want to get bumped by a stranger.'

She smirked.

Later, when it had clouded over and I was getting hungry, I navigated us to a route that would be quiet enough for her to drive home. I wanted to kick her confidence into gear but realised it was a bit of a gamble because if something bad happened it would be hanging over her head until next week. She was that kind of person. I met them all the time. In fact it was the people who didn't care about a poor performance the previous lesson that were the uninteresting ones.

'So,' I said, 'are you going to drive me this time? I'm tired of switching seats with you.'

'Would you consider it working out if you had to open a car door?'

'Yeah I might. Why, do I look out of shape?'

'No you don't look out of shape. You look okay.'

'Right. So come on then, let's go.'

'What if someone has to stop and yell at me?'

She gave me a toothy smile and she had good teeth. 

'I'll stand up to them. Besides,' I said, 'who could shout at you?'

She looked at me a moment and I felt a thickness clogging my throat.

'Woah,' I said, 'remember your cockpit drill.'

She mumbled and I leaned over.

'What?' I asked.

She grinned. 'I called it "cock drill".'

I laughed and then stopped and thought how inappropriate it was that I'd laughed at all. 

As we drove away I wondered what she meant. I stayed in a daze turning it over in my head like a slinky. The mirrors above me reflected her movements but I wasn't paying attention to them. I was not doing my job.

The streets were quiet and at five to twelve we were in the middle of her road. I pointed to a gap in the parked cars and told her to slow down, slow it down more and as we were on a hill just to use the clutch to get us in. I covered her on the brake pedal I had on my side. She suddenly seemed to want to do everything fast.

'Easy!' I said.

The car fit awkwardly into the space and rolled up onto a speed bump and she stopped it and put the handbrake on. She was sheepish. 

'That's okay, we'll go over this next time.'

'Do you have enough space to get out?'

'Yeah, I reckon. Astras can move sideways, can't they?'

'Do you want my book?'

I took it from her and turned to the disciplines. My chicken-scratching writing had marked the pages from the previous lessons. She watched me as I graded her performance. There was silence and then in the silence there was the sound of the tiny movements she made in the cushioning of the seat next to me. I was very aware of her being there as I wrote down a three under her emerging discipline. Then I thought to myself why I had made it so high. She was just a beginner. 

I scribbled the mark out and lowered it to a two.

'Hey!' She said.

'Marks can go up as well as down.' I replied.

'But that's the first time you've put anything under that one!'

'Yeah, I was too generous. Last week I didn't put anything there because I didn't want you to feel disheartened. Now you can do it I don't want to make you complacent.'

'But I feel crap now.' She said.

'I'm proud of you. You earned that two. And come on, what, do you expect a five straight away? You're not Louis Hamilton.'

'Why do you always talk to me like you're my dad?'

She shifted in her seat to face me.

'How old are you?' She asked.

'Twenty-nine.'

My face was going red.

'Well I'm nineteen and I'm not a kid, so you don't have to relate to me like one.'

'I don't.'

'You do. I'm sorry I was one last week but I was in shock. It won't happen again.'

I was kind of shocked myself that she talked to me like this. I must've been different when I saw her crying. It's tough when students do that. I'm the third and final child in my family and I had never had that great a skill in dealing with people who were crying. I tried to solve the problem, not comfort them and sometimes people just wanted you to agree and say "yeah, life is tough" instead of thrusting cold and bureaucratic tactics down their throat.

'It's not a problem.' I said.

'Well I think it is because I don't want you seeing me like that.'

I gave her back her booklet and told her I'd see her next lesson. She had that determined expression she'd had at the start but I wasn't sure what it meant now.

Why did I care?

When she was in the house I lifted myself up and, hovering briefly over the gearstick, deposited myself into the driver's seat. She had left her bottle, empty. I thought about ringing on the door, but she probably had things she was doing. There was a solitary bead of moisture on the neck of the bottle. I wiped it off and licked my finger. 

I wondered if she had really seen me looking at her necklace or whether her eyes were just in that direction at the time. 

Had she sweated through that top she was wearing? I lifted my own t-shirt up at the back and pressed my skin into the seat cushion. Was it damp? 

Then suddenly I was looking out of the windshield, out of the windows and in the mirrors. How perverted I was.

"You don't have to relate to me like one."

Was I actually old now, or did I act older simply to stop myself from being tempted by the queue of bubbly and curious teenagers that stepped into the driving seat? Did I relate to her like a she was a kid because I had a girlfriend and I'd always been faithful to my girlfriends no matter what? So faithful, in fact, I didn't even look at other women when I was in a relationship let alone flirt with them. I'd never been the kind of person who liked much younger girls. And why shouldn't I have related to Emma like she was a kid, she was nineteen! I was months shy from thirty -- time for my midlife crisis! 

I started the car and drove into my lunch hour, late by twenty minutes.

*** 

'How was work today?' Kate asked, walking in the kitchen. She put her briefcase on the sink.

'I had this one guy who broke down because we ran over a pigeon in the road.'

'That's terrible!'

'It was already dead. He was this real environmentalist guy. You could tell he smoked loads of dope.'

'What happened?'

'I stuffed it with rosemary and garlic. We're having it for dinner. What do you think happened? I told him to keep going. Then I had to take the wheel while he cried like a girl.'

'God why are you being like that, I thought your dad was a birdwatcher.'

'So? Dad's a twitcher and I'm not allowed to run over a dead bird?'

'What are we really having?'

'I put on some pork chops and you're having a bean chilli thingy.'

'I'm going to jump in the shower.' She said.

I started doing the washing up as she went in and I found Emma's bottle. While the stove was doing its work I filled the sink with suds and massaged the forks and plates and chopping board and all the other stuff I'd used. 

When it came to Emma's bottle I submerged the whole thing for a second and then took the top in my thumb and forefinger. I twisted and popped the top and saw the air bubbles cough and splutter out of their home until the whole thing was filled with frothy water. I grabbed the lip of the bottle and rubbed it. It probably didn't need cleaning, but I suppose I wasn't concentrating.

What was I concentrating on? 

Kate was the shower. She'd come home done up in her community law maroon suit. I could imagine her taking off her tights and shimmying out of the skirt that stretched over her bum when I watched her leave in the morning. She would be holding back her hair with one hand while she rubbed the sponge down her belly under the running water.

The foam of water boiling over a pot doused the flame on the hob and it sizzled and I shook myself away from the daydream.

I was just horny, that was it.

'Where's your pork?' She asked.

Kate put her head on my shoulder. I took the rubber gloves off and she turned me around and gave me a kiss. I wanted to put my hands in her hair, which smelled really good. She was clean and her skin was pink and everything tasted and smelled of her.

'Don't put those nasty rubber glove hands in my hair.'

'There still hot water?' I asked.

She finished up making the meal while I went in the bathroom. The white tiles on the wall that shined normally with the reflection of the light had their reflection dulled with the fine spray of condensation. The tiny window was open and steam was being wafting out in wisps. I went to put a CD in the boombox. 

I loved music. I had Longpigs, Stereo MCs, a Chrome Children compilation and some Kitchens of Distinction. I played the Kitchens. I always played the Kitchens when I was happy; something about them made me feel very reflective, but in a comforting way, like they were a blanket you could put over you in front of a fire, or a good film.

In the shower, under the spray from the showerhead I started masturbating. 

I liked having Kate show she was pleased to see me. I hadn't done this for a couple of days and the abstinence would mean I'd pop inside her like a burst pipe. 

I was quick to get hard. More than a couple of times that day I'd had thoughts running through my head that made it difficult to sit still in the passenger seat. I thought seeing Emma today had let something out. I had felt myself blushing when we were speaking, right before she left. I was acting like I was suddenly her age, like I was shy again in front of this girl who flashed her nice teeth at me. Then I started thinking about the other girls who I had picked up and taken out today. 

It was insane; I had never fantasized about them in this way before. It was a fundamental rule I had in my brain: never to look at anyone but Kate, and never to think about being with anyone but my girlfriend who was now in the next room, moisturising her thighs. 

I held myself against the tiles. They were so damn cold. I'd been going for five minutes and it wasn't happening. I should've come just thinking about sex. About Kate; about Emma, separate, together; a blonde and a mousy brunette, tangled up. 


The L Word



Edited by Connie Ann.

*****

My name is Anna and I live together with my partner John and our gorgeous son Leo in our small town. We live in an apartment on the outskirts of town and we enjoy the closeness of being together in our small apartment. My hubby is a regular guy, but very sexy with his shaved head and goatee beard with mustache. He reminds me of Edward Norton in American History X. 

His body shape is much like most 35 year olds. Fairly strong but with a beer belly like most men in our small town. He is very kind and gentle and works hard to support our family. I think I look like an average girl but John thinks I look like a porn star and that is all that really matters. We enjoy each other when we spend time together in bed.A couple of years ago we had a really tough period, as we seemed to drift apart. I started to feel horny so I got an account on Adult Friend Finder and I received many offers.

Most were like, "Can I lick you? Can you suck my cock?" 

So it didn't take long time before I was going to delete my account as I found these offers repetitive and boring but one day I got a slightly different message. 

"Hey, I know what you are looking for. Have you ever had sex with a young woman?" 

I didn't know what to say but she had put a thought in my head and I found it hard to let it go. I'm a bi-sexual and in these circumstances it awakened my excitement. John had many times in our relationship asked me if I would someday like to try group sex and I had always said no. Just the thought of licking or being licked by a girl made me horny. I wrote a response because John liked to hang out with his friends rather than with me. 

"Well, the memories has been going through my mind, but I haven't done anything for a long time. Do you have any good times?" 

I received an answer the following day with her email address and I added it when John and I were going to work the next day. 

A few hours later, "Emma" is online and immediately writes, "Hello."

We chat a little and Emma gets right to the point. She asks if I want to see her so that we can meet. We decided a time that worked for both of us. I'm sat at the computer for a while and didn't know what I've done. Should I have lesbian sex on Saturday? I was filled with excitement as I tried to understand what I was looking forward to. On Saturday when John is getting ready for work, I sit and watch TV while I pretend to be uninterested. I gave him a kiss when he walked to the door. 

It felt like time stood still when I played video games with Leo until he fell asleep and I put him in his bed. I sat on the couch and waited for ages. The clock is over eight but she didn't show up. A little disappointed, I started looking for messages on Adult Friend Finder and MSN. She didn't care about me and found someone more experienced than me. I starting to watch some short lesbian movies. I felt a yearning and a craving to play with a woman. 

How could she say that she would come and then just forget about it? Had it been a man I would have understood it but not from a woman. I don't know but maybe some lesbian girls are more male than female. When the clock became ten, I went to the kitchen and made a sandwich. I spread out the butter and took a piece of cheese. Then the bell rang and it felt like my whole life stopped. It was the woman I've been waiting for. She was a little shorter than me, had large breasts, short hair and looked out of breath. 

"Sorry I'm late, everything is messed up today. The car didn't work," she said. 

"It's okay, I've watched TV and just made a sandwich. Do you want a sandwich?" I replied.

"Yes, please," she said. 

Emma stepped in and took off her jacket. She sat down in a kitchen chair and I made some sandwiches. I wondered if this encounter would lead to something. In my thoughts we'd already been naked in bed with her hands all over me. This was more like a date. I sat down beside her on a chair and we started to talk. I was curious to know more about her and wanted to have sex. I explained to Emma that I haven't had sex with a woman for a long time and I wanted to know more about her. 

"That's no problem. If there is anything you wonder, just ask me," Emma said. 

"Have you done this many times?" I asked.

"Well, several times but it rarely begins with coffee and sandwiches for some reason. I usually take that afterwards," she said and laughed. 

"Well, yes. I understand that. I'm a little nervous, curious and horny at once," I said. 

"When does the man of the house come home?" Emma wondered. 

"I don't know, maybe at two o'clock. He usually messages me before he comes."

"Ok, even if we don't get as much time as planned, we got a couple of hours together," Emma said and smiled. 

"Yes, we have time to play with each other."

Emma took my hand and said, "Let's go."

Then she led me into the bedroom and we sat on the bed. I was so nervous that I was shaking. 

"It's okay, you don't need to get nervous," Emma said.

"I'm sorry," I said. 

"You don't have to say sorry to me sweetie. We don't start until you feel ready," she continued. 

We sat there in the bed and Emma caressed my arms outside my shirt. We talked a little longer, until my heart rate started to go down. Emma talked about her ex-girlfriend who dumped her because Emma didn't like that she would get fake boobs. 

"Lie down and relax, I will take care of everything for you tonight." Emma said when she saw that I had calmed down.

I lie down on the bed and Emma sat next to me and stroked me over my stomach and around my small breasts. 

When I reached up my hand to get hold of her breasts she said, "Not yet but soon sweetie." 

She took her hand inside my bra and slowly kneaded my breast. She pulled down the bra and the short dress to expose my breasts. She took out her right breast and leaned over my face so that I could suck on her breasts. I took the nipple in my mouth and sucked lightly on it before I opened my mouth and tried to get more of her lovely soft breast in my mouth. I felt how her hand stroked between my legs and the only thing between my wet pussy and her hand was my panties and dress. While I sucked on her breasts and nipples Emma caressed over my pussy under the dress and this was erotically frustrating. I raised my hips in an attempt to get her to fondle me a bit harder. 

But she escaped my attempts and caressed my chest again. I sucked on her breast and moaned low but it became increasingly louder when her hand once again found its way under my dress. She caressed my breasts again and let her hand caress my pussy again but this time she pulled my dress up. When she got to the panties her hand moved them aside and I groaned high when I let her fingers caress my pussy. She pulled out her breast from my mouth and my lips yearned for more and she gave me a passionate kiss, while she continued picking on my pussy. I moaned into her mouth during our kiss. 

After a while, I couldn´t breathe and moan in her mouth more and turned my head away and broke the kiss. Emma's mouth kissed and licked my ear and her finger found its way into my pussy for the first time. I moaned even deeper now because the feeling was indescribable. If she had been a guy I would have screamed for his cock now but I could only wait and see what she did next. She gave me a quick kiss again before she leaned over my chest. 

I'm so horny and excited and curious about what to do. When she gave my nipple a kiss and then spit on it I got surprised. But when she lowered her own breasts and rubbed them over my exposed breasts, the astonishment turned into an erotic experience. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the combination of our wrestling nipples and her fingers that played with my pussy. She moved her chest away from me and leaned down over my pussy. 

She kissed and licked on my panties over my pussy. I thought I would pass out soon. I teared down my dress and my two breasts got free. She came up again and gave me a kiss and pulled off my panties. and Emma dove down to lick and kiss my pussy. I groaned out loud and I wanted to rip her clothes off. I closed my eyes and caressed my breasts simultaneously while Emma licked my extremely horny pussy faster. 

She spit a bit on it and let her middle finger go into me again while the thumb massaged my clitoris. I closed my eyes and enjoyed it. When I put my hand between her legs, I felt that her pussy was shaved, but she had saved a small triangle of pubic hair. I let my fingers play with her pussy the same way I usually like when I play with myself and it seemed to make her groan. We continued to fondle each other at an increasing pace and she leaned over me and kissed me again. 

I don´t know for how long we did this but it felt like several hours even though it probably was only a few minutes. She broke the kiss and moved down between my legs. I closed my eyes again and enjoyed it when her tongue began to play with my pussy between my legs. I felt how a finger penetrated me and how her mouth enclosed the entire area around my clit to suck on it. It felt I would come soon and my body started to swing up and down as her finger fucked me. She got more eager because of my reactions and continued to suck harder around my clit and played with it with her tongue. 

"I want to make you come. I won't stop before you do. Please come now," she said.

"I cannot handle more," I said and stopped her treatment by pushing her away.

"Oh my God, so wonderful. Do you want me to lick you?" I asked her a little anxiously. 

I usually don't like to give oral sex for some reason. 

"No, I want to ride you," she answered to my delight. 

I wondered what she meant with that while she finally took her clothes off and put me a little on the side, with one leg for support. Then she straddled my other leg but she sat down with her clit against mine. Then she rode me back and forth. It was unbelievable how nice it was and came with a scream. Then she got of me and lay down next to me in bed. 

"You didn't like it? Most women usually come at least once." 

"Well, it was wonderful. I have a hard time coming," I answered her. 

And it was true. I usually very rarely come. John may be pretty good in bed but he seldom makes me come. He usually gets annoyed over it but it's not his fault and I usually try to explain that I´m too tense. I looked at the clock and it was only twelve. I was totally relaxed in the bed. Emma wondered what I thought of lesbian sex. 

"It's fucking wonderful," I answered. 

"Amazing, we can rest for a while so that we can do something more later."

"Okey," I answered and fell asleep almost instantly. 

I woke up when my phone beeped. It could only be John that was his way home. I red his message and he he would be at some after-party. Thank God what a relief. I answered the message and remained calm. Emma was asleep in the bed with me and held my naked body in her arms. I didn´t want to wake her when John probably wouldn´t be home for a long time. I fell asleep again. 

Emma woke up to the sound from my phone. To my horror, John wrote that he was s almost home. Fuck! I told Emma that she must hide somewhere. Because I don´t know if John comes in two minutes or twenty. Emma took her clothes and sneaked into the closet. I went to the couch in front of the TV and waited for my boyfriend to show up. 

John showed up after an hour and was drunk as hell but he told me a few stories about what they had done during the evening. I felt guilty, but I craved for the naked girl that perhaps got dressed inside the closet. John maked some overtures. He was a horny poor thing. I ignored him anyway and he gave up and went to bed. After around five minutes he fell asleep. I called on him to see if he woke up but I got no reaction from him.

I had to escort Emma to the door now. I asked her if I could lick her just a little. It would have been sad if I didn´t taste the sexy girl's pussy. Emma meddled in the couch and pulled her panties aside. I sat between her legs and caressed the pussy with a finger before I tasted her. I thought that she probably tasted almost as salty as I usually taste. So it wasn´t so strange. I licked her a little longer before Emma interrupted me. 

"Don't make your hubby wake up dear."

"He would probably just think it was the world's best dream anyway," I replied.

"Yeah, you are right. But you must lick me more another time," Emma said and smiled. 

"Okey, I will be longing for you," I answered and followed her to the door. 

She gave me a kiss on the cheek before she said goodbye. I put myself in bed next John. I lay down and looked at him when he was sleeping. Now the huge wave of guilt came over me. He was actually the world's nicest guy and I have done this to him. I had denied him sex because I wanted to lick a lesbian pussy. It takes over an hour for me to fall asleep and I promised myself that I would give my loved John something he always dreamed of. I will let him come in my mouth and swallow his cum. This thought made me feel a little less guilty.



The L Word



There was Emma, just on her knees, hand on her pants and clutching her breast through that white top she had on earlier. She had her eyes closed. I watched her knuckle pulse against the fabric of the white cotton pants as it bulged and sunk in, came out and went back in again and her mouth hung open, pouting at me like she was on show, or being videotaped, and I held the dial on the shower unit and pulled and pulled on myself and imagined Emma wriggling out the driver's seat to straddle me in mine, imagined her kicking the latch from the chair and it falling back and us with it and her, stopping putting her hands on me to open her shirt and showing me her breasts and I took one and bit into the nipple and in reality I bit into my lip and felt my asshole clench and she ran through my brain like a bullet through a bottle and I fired into the rain of hot water from the shower, spitting again and again until I could control my breath and exhale and relax, and then I let go of myself and felt my shoulders unwind. 

I coughed and swallowed and I felt really good. I turned the shower off and got out and dried myself while the CD played "4 Men".

The door opened and Kate was buzzing round the table. As I watched her I felt guilty. Her dressing gown was split up to her thigh as she walked. In the light it was hard to make out if she had any underwear on. 

I looked at her from the back. Kate had long hair down to between her shoulder blades but Emma's was cropped to the top of her neck. Emma had it in gradations, a slope, which must have been very expensive because it looked good. She was also shorter than Kate, whom was nearly as tall as me, but Emma's height suited her whereas I suppose Kate was a bit unnaturally tall.

God, I must've been crazy thinking about a student when my girlfriend was sitting for the meal we made together in nothing but a dressing gown.

As I sat too she gave me a smile and her toes found their way up my leg and along my thigh. I pushed Emma to the back of my head. Why was she still there in the first place, guilt? Was it that I didn't want her not to be there when I went to bed tonight? I was sick, I was sure of it. But who didn't think about other people sometimes? 

I didn't. 

I was good, and I certainly didn't think of my students when I jerked off in the shower. Didn't think about whether they were experienced or not. 

I was hard again just thinking over the whole deranged mess. Before this I hadn't come for days, it was no wonder I was like a stick of pink rock.

Kate knew; I had to keep shifting, but I don't know why I was trying to hide it.

The fork was laid tines down on the half-empty plate as she got up and moved around the table, shifting her hips a little to let the dressing gown open up along the white of her thigh. 

I swallowed and drew my eyes to the centre of her as she hid it again and bent forward and opened her legs and sat over me. She nuzzled my neck and I could feel how hot she was down there against my knees. 

My mind flashed to the bottle in the pile of wiping up to be done, and then to Emma and her white and airy top and whether I would have been able to see her breasts in their little bra if I had just leaned over a little more in my seat today.

I took my hands and I stroked Kate's hair back until I held it like it didn't exist from my fist downwards and it looked like Emma's, cut in a glorious incline of light brown, thin and fine and brushing against her white neck with the mole I had seen there.

'I'm still hungry.' Kate said.

***

I was rubbish with women when I was a kid. I could never speak to girls I didn't know, even though I was a good conversationalist. My friends found me interesting, at least, they told me to my face they did. But girls that I'd just met or seen on the tube or bus -- if I said more than five words to them I'd circulate it in my head whether I thought they liked me or not, and even if I didn't speak to them but just saw them, I could sometimes think about it for days after, fantasizing about them, even if it was just the briefest of glimpses. 

When I had a girlfriend it was different. I had been brought up the product of a stable marriage, an increasingly rare thing nowadays, and I suppose seeing mum and dad content with one another after many years made me realise that I didn't need anyone else, not to think about, not to fantasize, not to have an affair with, when I had a girlfriend. So did that make me a prude? Or just really boring?

The thing about Emma though, I couldn't stop thinking about her all week. Had I picked up signals from her in the car and were they real or was I imagining it in hindsight because I fancied her? 

It was all ridiculous.

Besides, I'd see today that I was making it up when we had our lesson at ten.

What would she be wearing?

The door slammed and I looked from the CD going in the hi-fi to the front garden and realised I was acting stupid and decided not to stare at her like a puppy.

I think she waved at me from outside the windshield.

'What the hell's this?' She asked as she got in, swinging on the handle to settle herself.

'Cave In.'

'God, I hate metal.'

'No it's really good, you've just come in on the bit where he's roaring. The rest is this really beautiful spacey guitar rock, really heavy but not extreme.'

I had purposefully put that bit on because it made me feel superhuman when I heard it. But she didn't like it. She didn't like metal and that was a big difference between us. Then again was it that big a difference? 

Oh what was I thinking about our differences for?

'Yeah I like rock. This bit. This is more like what I listen to.'

'Who do you like?'

'Foo Fighters. Their new album is amazing.'

'It's all right. Who else?'

'Aren't we going to do some driving?' She asked, smiling, and a little confused.

I slapped myself mentally. I was not picking her up in a bar.

'Yeah, sure. I was... um, how about you take us there today?'

'You feeling lazy?' She asked.

We got out of our doors. She stood up and she was in a fleece or something but the point was it covered her up and I looked at the sky as if I hadn't been checking her out and why shouldn't she have been wearing it, there was nothing but grey cloud out. I was disappointed. I was trying to get her to talk about music, like we'd be more compatible if she loved it as much as me.

'Always round the back Em.'

We got back into our respective seats and she turned to me with this lopsided face on and said: 'Did you just call me Em?'

'No.'

'The wind must have taken it.' She said rather dramatically.

'Where's that from?' I asked.

'It's a line from Gattaca.'

'Oh I love that film.' 

'I watched it last night.'

'What did you think?'

'I thought Ethan Hawke was really sexy. The guy who played his brother too.'

'Yeah, he looks like Chris Morris.'

'Who's Chris Morris?'

My mouth froze in a startle and then I caught myself doing it, and tried to knock us back on track, tried to forget anything I happened to think that I felt and concentrate on doing my job.

But holy crap, how could she not know who Chris Morris was? She must have been too young.

'Are you ready to go?' I asked. 'Have you done your cockpit drill?'

'My cock drill?' She smirked.

I tried not to laugh. 

'I think it's safe to go.' I said. 

We pulled out and immediately a car flew down the road and passed us and the brakes went on. The seatbelt yanked at my ribs.

'Check your mirrors and go again.'

We came out very slowly and she straightened the wheel and went to second and very leisurely (or it would seem to someone outside) we arrived at the bottom of her road. 

I was pleased because even with the near miss I had not had to lift my trainer onto the pedals once.

Twenty minutes later I was looking at her in my instructor mirrors and saw her mouthing the words: "mirror", "signal", "manoeuvre", and we slid into a gap in the traffic as a Range Rover went past. I detected a momentary panic when a pedestrian charged across the road metres in front of us, but we were travelling slowly, and again I didn't have to step on the brake pedal. She did though, and we lurched to a stop. And the car stalled.

'I'm sorry I couldn't help it.' Emma announced.

I was going to say it was okay but I didn't, and instead told her that again it wasn't good to stall the car.

'I know, I'm very wired right now.'

'Shall we take a breather? Have a smoke?'

'Oh, do you smoke?' She asked.

'No but you might, I don't know; it seems like we need to sit still for a minute. Start her up again and we'll park.'

Emma drove us to a large gap between a BMW and a Ford Ka. I winced as she came in too fast, barely missing the bumper at the back of the expensive-looking silver BMW. I knew the owner would be newly married, with one child, and probably inside his house, working from home, ready to jump on learners and their idiot instructors as they landed an Astra behind their car, like a turd had fallen out the BMW's exhaust pipe.

'God, it's so stressful.' Emma said, facing me. 'Sometimes I look onto the road and I think I won't be able to help going into someone.'

'I've never been in the car with a student and that happened to me. Just remember why you're doing it. Why are you doing it?'

'I want to be a paramedic, and you've got to have a driving licence to even apply.'

'Oh that's very... philanthropic of you.'

She laughed. 'Isn't it? I decided one day I was going to do something useful with my life and help people. I used to want to be a doctor, like a psychiatrist, and then I was really into ER and I wanted to be like them. Do you watch it?'

'Yeah I saw the first few series when they were on.'

'But you're much more a music person.' She said.

'Yeah I like TV but nowadays I watch DVDs. There's too much rubbish on TV to watch it without having planned what you were going to watch. Reality shows, adverts all the time. Great big mess.'

'Hah, you're such an old man.' She said, slapping my arm.

I looked down at where she touched me. 

'Sorry.' She said.

'It's fine,' I said quickly, 'I er... do you really think I'm old?'

'No. You said you were twenty-nine. That's a nice age. You've outgrown all the stuff post-teenager types are into, like getting smashed every weekend and taking loads of drugs and you're more serious about life.'

'What makes you say that?'

'The way you constantly remind me which way to walk round the car, or go over the procedures and stuff.'

'That's my job.'

'Yeah but some driving instructors don't care and they tell you something and if you mess it up they don't say so and carry on and as long as you pass the test they're okay.'

'Was you previous instructor like that then?'

'No, I told you, you are my first.'

'You heard this from friends?'

'I goggled it.'

She watched me and I felt the redness in my cheeks for some reason. Even though I wasn't teaching her anything and this was costing her money I wanted it to stay that way, her asking me things and me being able to look directly at her instead of in the mirrors.

'Sorry,' she said, 'I'm bet you don't want to talk about this. We should probably get back to it.'

I nodded okay and was angry our conversation had ended. Something was stagnant; I didn't feel like we were developing a relationship. 

'You don't want to hear about me.' She said. 

I could tell she wanted to tell me though.

'I don't mind;' I said, 'talk to me while you drive.'

People were more honest when they couldn't concentrate on what they were saying. The nuances, innuendo and double-think were all filtered out.

'I want to get comfortable doing turning and emerging in these streets.'

'You've been doing enough of that. We have to keep moving forward. Life is a process of change and to stand still is to stagnate; we must move with life or we will die.'

'Wow, how zen.'

I nodded, smug, but she probably didn't see it.

'Take this right.' I said, and I flicked up her indicator.

'I was going to do it myself!'

'Yeah but I jumped on you with it so I'm helping out.'

Then I looked quickly at her but she didn't seem to notice what I had said, or if she did she was hiding it.

I checked her out in the offside mirror and I caught her mouth going into a smirk. That was a late reaction to what I'd said?

'What's that?' Emma asked.

A big white garbage truck was square in the middle of the road, wedged between the two cliffs of parked cars. Men in green-yellow jackets extended and withdrew from its constant opening doors like arms from a machine at a manufacturing plant. 

'Roll up your window.' I said.

The truck laboured to get around the corner into another tiny road, small houses lining it and their bins out to be collected. As it vanished a roundabout appeared.

My eyes flicked to gauge Emma's reaction. The determined expression was out. 

'Shall we attempt this?'

I was being too damn soft on her. Normally I would have thrown her in there and said get on with it. She didn't answer and I showed her the graphics as the rear view was empty and there was no traffic.

'You approach the spaced double lines and you switch down to second. Signal for the road you want after you pass the penultimate road. If you're going left or straight, stay on the left of the roundabout. If you're going right, hug the roundabout and signal right. Never go over the roundabout. If you're going immediately left signal left before you get to the roundabout. If you're going straight through, signal for the road you want after passing the one before it. Stop -- do not move -- if traffic comes from the right. They have priority. Understand?'

'No.'

'Have you been reading your highway code? Then let's do it, come on, go while the way is clear. Take it slow.'

She raised the clutch to the bite and the car wobbled as she struggled with her confidence. We were about thirty metres away.

'We're going straight on. Accelerate real hard and put it straight into third gear, then change down two car lengths before you hit the lines. Check your mirrors one car length and then drive on through.'

Emma pressed very hard on the accelerator and I was surprised at how hard. We shot forward and she thrust the gearstick into third, jerking the car as the clutch transition wasn't good and right before we hit the lines she broke quickly, changed down, checked her mirrors and the right and sped on through and into the new road. Her indicator was still on as we hadn't moved enough for the gyroscope to flick it off.

But at least she had done it. I felt a little surge of adrenaline go through me. 

'Good, just not breakneck speed next time, okay?'

'Yes.' She sweated.

I took control of the Astra and did a turn in the new road. I had to lean right over her lap and take the wheel. I wondered whether I leaned too far, or if she watched my back as I stretched for it. I was only wearing a t-shirt. Her hands went up, suspended, as she was, by the invasion. Leaning across her I was conscious of them at my head height, near enough to touch my hair or ears. I listened for her breathing but she might have been hiding it from me, playing it cool.

'Again.' I said.

Emma approached it from the other direction. She went slower and this time the car bumped up as two wheels rolled over the bulge in the centre. The indicator was still on afterward.

'Don't go over the roundabout Emma. Also, although it's good manners to signal on a mini-roundabout like this, you may not always have time, so assume that the priority is yours and don't waste time checking your mirrors. By the time you've done the whole thing you'll be on the other side.'

She nodded and I saw a little dampness on her forehead in the mirrors. Her eyes were manic and darting like a little bird waiting for crumbs.

'You're doing well. We'll try going left this time. Make an effort to steer the car as left as possible. We should do that anyway, even if we're going straight, but I'll let you off.'

I flicked to see her reaction but there wasn't one. I was so stupid bandying back and forth in my head contemplating whether a nineteen year-old student fancied her instructor.

Emma rolled the steering wheel to the left and we passed the lines and she kept the signal on and it was going well and then a woman with a dog was in the road and Emma and I were yanked back into our seats as I did an emergency stop and the bonnet dipped and the wheels squeaked so much I didn't hear them for a second.

'God!' Emma yelled.

'It's all right! It's okay, relax, you're not hurt are you? Are you?'

'No!'

'Pedestrians,' I muttered, 'did you check your mirrors?'

'Yes! How could you say that?'

Why did I ask her that? It wasn't her responsibility in the end, it was mine. 

The woman outside was waving up and down like she was guiding light aircraft to the ground. Emma covered her face.

I got out as the woman was mouthing off.

'You're trying to kill me! Why don't you look where you're going? What's your licence plate? Why do they let people like that out on the road?'

She went round to tap on the driver's side window. Her hair was a mess and she held one of those bags that looked like a cheap blue and white chessboard.

'Don't you yell at her,' I shouted, 'why don't you watch where you're going, are you deaf or just stupid?'

She screamed, moving her head back like I was a bad smell. 'How dare you talk to me like that? I'll have your job!'

'Go and shit in your bag.' I said. 'And take your mutt with you.'

It was a mangy looking sad thing indeed.

I got back in the car and Emma was breathing into a muzzle of her hands.

'Are you hyperventilating? Take you feet away from the pedals. Start the engine. Emma, start the engine.'

I depressed the clutch, put it in first and let it up and just with my clutch pedal, moved the car into and away from the old woman yelling at us with her scruffy bag. She retreated in the view from the mirror and I parked the car around a corner and in a driveway.

Presently Emma composed herself.

'Why do these things keep happening to me?'

'You're lucky I guess. It helps build character.'

'It's terrible! I feel awful!'

'It was a mistake Emma, nothing more. Let it go. It wasn't your fault. That old woman didn't look where she was crossing. That's how people die. There's an award for it, it's in the Guinness Book of Records or something.'

'I'm not cut out for this, it's a mistake, I shouldn't be doing it; it's a sign.'

'You believe in that?'

'Maybe I'm just not meant to be driving right now. It's the second time that's happened!'

'And it'll happen a whole lot more.'

'You said only real idiots are involved in roadside confrontations, and I've only been driving ten hours and I've seen one twice!'

'You've been driving eight hours and I've been teaching driving for a million, and in the last year I've seen it both times with you, so forget your average and take my average instead. You're probably not going to get another one for the rest of the year. That's a real small percentage.'

'It's an omen! I'm cursed!'

'You can look at it that way if you want. I choose to concentrate on the positive.'

'Which is?'

'That it's a really low number of times that it happens, and even when it does happen, the experience helps toughen you up. It's going to happen all the time, trust me.'

'You said it didn't!'

'Fine, don't believe what I say.'

'Why are you being like this?'

'Like what?' 

'Like you're trying to make me feel better by joking! Like my dad!'

'Not my age again, Emma, I'm only twenty-nine!'

'Then tell me it's a nightmare and I'm not alone and it happens to everyone and just try and make me feel better not by lying or joking or doing anything stupid, just try to say that this is the way it is and don't sugarcoat it or give me any other rubbish!'




The L Word



'Alright, okay, I'm sorry --'

'Don't be sorry, it's not your fault!'

'I'm only trying to protect you.'

'There's your "dad" voice talking again.'

'No,' I said, 'my voice, it's me talking, relating to you.'

'I don't want you to "relate" to me, I want you to speak truthfully when we talk. I want to know the real you.'

'You know who I am.'

'I know you're my driving instructor and that's about it. I don't even know your last name.'

'What does that matter?'

'It's just a show of trust.'

'Oh. Well it's in the book, isn't it?'

'No,' she picked the book up, 'you didn't put it in.'

'I'll put it in there.'

She watched me write my name under the contact details page. An image of Kate flashed into my head.

'What about your mobile number?' Emma asked. I stared at her and she stayed very still staring back at me. Weren't we arguing a minute ago?

'If,' she continued, 'I need to schedule another lesson. Or something.'

'You can do that through the office.' I said, my face blank.

What did I say that for? Didn't I want her to be thinking about me? 

I held the pen steady and looked at her. She was trying to appear calm but the tops of her cheeks were red as if she had been hiking in the cold. She was ten years my junior. Now I was speaking in my head like an old man.

I wrote down my number.

'We could arrange something.' She said, shifting in her seat. I stared at her feet just for somewhere to look. She wore a thin set of shoes on her feet but no socks, or socks so small they only showed at the heel.

'Like another lesson. Mid-week.'

My voice was heavy in the throat. 'I could make some room.'

Loads of instructors gave their numbers to their students. It was standard.

'Thanks, this means a lot.' She said, taking the book back.

I looked at the freckles across the bridge of her nose. I smiled at her to get her nose to wrinkle and hide or show more freckles when she smiled back.

God, this was some sort of courtship ritual I was doing! Ten ways on how to seduce your student. There must have been rules about this sort of thing, like time-spent-in-prison rules, or at least promise of a sacking, gross misconduct or whatever for making your student smile at you of her own accord.

'What,' she asked, 'do I have something in my teeth?' 

She twisted to check in the mirror hidden in the sun visor above her.

Her profile was amazing.

I dropped her off at home and drove away to get an early lunch. 

Was I satisfied with how the morning had gone? And would it be because I thought she had done well, despite flying over the roundabout and nearly hitting some old woman or because I was glad just to sit with her for two hours? 

***

For days after I thought about her. At four o'clock on Saturday we were going down the hill in Upper Norwood and I thought I saw her and then I wasn't concentrating on watching the guy next to me and he overtook a bus when we couldn't see ahead properly. I couldn't say anything to him, even though I felt like slapping him afterwards. It was my fault. The whole thing was my fault. I was encouraging her behaviour. She was at an incorrigible age! Me and my perverted predilections; I was old enough to be her very young father. 

That night I was round at Ed's. 

When we went out for some chips I saw her with a group of people walking to the bar they had opened a few weeks ago on Norwood Road. It was tastefully lit on the inside and it seemed a bit more quiet and upmarket than I thought she would care for. Of course I didn't think she wasn't upmarket or cool enough to get in, I'm sure she was, I just figured she would want something a bit more jumping. 

I was by the cashpoint and my friends were in the chicken shop. I suddenly didn't want to eat anything and was really nervous. I had clearly seen her before she had seen me, and her group of friends were all similarly flirty and dressed up and laughing with each other. She did a slow double-take and stopped, her face caught in an incredulous open-mouthed smile.

'Oh my god!' She said. 

'What's wrong?' They asked.

'It's... it's my driving instructor.' She said, trying to downplay her initial reaction.

My hands were in the pockets of my jacket and I raised my eyebrows at her in recognition. It was such a nerdy, indifferent greeting. I should've been practically picking her up in my arms she looked so good.

'How are you?' She asked, surprised. She told them who I was.

I nodded but this time I wasn't playing it cool, she was a lot closer and she was stunning looking. I mean, I knew she was attractive but this was something new. She had heels on with many straps covering her feet in a criss-cross pattern; a small skirt that let her legs run to the ground like the earth wire in a plug. She was wearing a shimmering halter top and her hair was combed back to show her pretty earrings. I had seen people dress like her and her friends before and it made them look terrible but they all looked great.

'You awake? What are you doing here?' She asked.

'I'm getting some money out.'

'You live in Norwood?'

'No, further down, nearer West Dulwich station. My friend lives up there.'

I pointed to the fire station.

'He's a fireman?' One of Emma's friend's face lit up. She joined us like an empty bottle hitting your foot on the bus.

'No they just live there. No uniform, no hose, no pole.'

'No pole? That's a shame.' The girl said.

I asked her to excuse me while the cashpoint was free and I slid my card in.

'How have you been?' Emma asked leaning against the wall.

'Good. Have you been reading your highway code?'

'Yes,' she intoned, 'although I stopped because I started this really great book the other day. The Lovely Bones. Have you read it?'

'No I don't know that one.'

I pressed for withdrawal without receipt.

'How much do you get a month?' The friend asked.

'Um... it varies I guess,' I took the card as it came out, 'some months more than others...'

'Alice Sebold. It's about this girl who dies at the start of the book -- she's murdered -- and she exists in the ether around her family, staying with them to follow them as they grow up and away from the horror of their middle child getting killed. It even follows the killer's life. It's beautifully written. Full of emotion and the sensations evoked from watching her sister fool around with this boy she had a crush on when she was alive. It's really disarming, but in a good way. Metaphysical.'

I nodded, wondering here was some real depth in a person where they wanted to talk to me about books instead of all of us having to listen to Andy complain about his pay rise.

I put the money into my wallet and nodded as she was almost leaning on my arm and I was trying to sense whether she had been drinking or not and if she had was she acting like this because she was drunk or was this what she was really like?

'So... have you thought anymore about what car you want when you pass?'

'No! God, do you like never get off work or something?' She said.

'It's a fraternity;' I explained, 'once you're in you can't ever stop being an instructor.' And the nausea I had as I told her that sad line rose inside me and then sunk to the pit of my stomach. 

One of the boys in her group had her attention and had her by the arm and she was being dragged away despite protests and I thought I was such boring bastard who was unable to ever solidly engage with girls and what a stunningly thick thing it was to say. We didn't even have fraternities in this country.

Ed and Andy stepped from the chicken shop and I saw them and god, we must've looked lame to her and her cool friends.

Ed gave me a raised eyebrow in response to the group that grew and recoiled like a sea anemone and suddenly Emma was at my side again for a split second, and her whole body clinked with the little bits of jewellery she was wearing and she said: 'Do you want to come with us, we're going to Pullen's and they're doing a thing on Tia Maria? We can talk about books.'

I stared at my feet and I flapped about and said that I couldn't possibly intrude and she pouted and was yanked away on the arm of a boy that looked half my age but twice as dark and handsome.

She made what I thought could have been the phone sign and mouthed "call me", but I wasn't sure of either because I hadn't been expecting it. Then she left.

'Why didn't you ask them back to the flat?' Andy said.

'I thought it would be inappropriate.' 

'Who are they?' Ed asked.

'One of them is my student.'

'Are they legal?'

'What? What do you mean?' I said.

'Either they're legal or they're not. We should go in there with them.'

'I thought you were seeing someone Andy?' 

'So what if I am? They want to party.'

***

In bed, Sunday morning, I lay awake with a pillow over my face. The kids next door were out in force, whooping and hollering and doing all manner of irritating things that make children make noise when the neighbours gave them sugar. 

Light filtered through the tree outside my window and lit up the photo frames on Kate's dresser. She had gone to the office, an unfortunate part of being a partner in the firm's main case at the moment.

Last night I had been drinking water as a substitute for alcohol because I didn't drink much, and when I did it was usually with a meal, but that coupled with the fact that sometime around one o'clock we had been inhaling nitrous oxide from a balloon as well made my head throb. The nitrous oxide was like standing up after having spent ages sitting down and it made your eyes go black as if you had a head rush. It also made you laugh at anything and everything for about three minutes, because it was more commonly known as laughing gas. 

We listened to drum n' bass and I was a bad boy. 

Lying prone in the bed I felt younger and more reckless than I had for months.

I went to the bathroom and splashed some water on my face and then came back to bed and gambolled under the covers. It was ten. Normally I was a morning person but I was a little lazier today and I lay there thinking about meeting Emma last night. I didn't know what time Kate would be back. 

I thought about Emma in the clothes she had on when I met her. Her top was so flimsy it would've come off if the wind had blown the wrong way. 

Was she wearing a bra underneath it? She couldn't have been, it would've shown when she turned away. But it was difficult to see last night. She might've had one, or it might've been some new technology that just held them at the front, cupping them like two small hands. It might have been invisible, like a clear plastic that wouldn't have been obvious unless you were right there next to her, breathing in the scent of her, standing a foot taller than her, looking down on the crown of her head, where her hair moved in lines like a heat mirage.

And that guy that was on her arm like a parasite, like a remora fish, like a tick, grabbing for her attention as if she couldn't give it to two or more people at the same time, like he was a dog without his master's voice, like he was totally useless without her watching him all the time, like some child or a mental patient; I mean, who was he? 

Was he the boyfriend? 

Did she have one and it wasn't him but it was someone else in the group I met last night? Was she just being friendly when she might have said "call me", or mouthed it as I thought she had done? 

Maybe the boyfriend, who wasn't the guy I saw her with, wasn't even in the group last night, was actually off somewhere else, being really cool, being the kind of boy all teenage girls swoon over and what if he was surrounded by girls, like a harem of nineteen year-olds and Emma, who was way too good for him, was only one of a hundred of his girlfriends, like some concubine that he slept with when he felt like it, and she was to all intents and purposes unavailable to anyone else, ready and willing for just that one go with a boy not fit to kiss her feet.

And what if she had actually asked me to call her? To save her, take her away from this idiot? What if she had known exactly what she was doing and she wasn't drunk and she didn't mind asking in front of her friends because she thought I was cool and saw something in me that was more mature and interesting than him and any other boys she had met. 

And what if she had really wanted to meet up with me and ask me what I read, and what I really wanted to listen to in the car as we stopped at the side of a road somewhere, no cars around us and what if she put her lips on my earlobe and chewed it there as if she were putting on lip balm or trapping a tissue between them to absorb the lipstick or had her fingertips tracing my chest and I could smell her hair as she would lean further into me and put her lips against mine and what if I would feel her nose press against mine and sense the minute movements of her closed eyelids as they fluttered across my cheek as we kissed, open-mouthed, me tasting her tongue and holding her face close to mine and thinking how young and fresh and beautiful she was and having her hands roam further over my body -- feeling the boiling of orgasm between my legs as I jerked off under the white covers of my girlfriend's bedding while I thought of this -- and Emma's mouth would part as the muscles in her body went haywire as she let me into her, inside of her, stretching the walls of her pussy as she let gravity draw her down the length of me, and the rigid strength in her arms as she held my shoulders, experiencing every fraction of my erection as I penetrated her and then went to the hilt, her face astonished, her eyes betraying what she thought of under her own covers, rubbing herself and imagining me doing this to her, her breasts exposed to my teeth and fingers and the roughness of our contact where our legs met and then it becoming a blur as our voices rose and mingled and I wouldn't be able to tell whether it was the right thing to do or not, because I was so much older, and my girlfriend could find out, and what if she did and what if the driving school discovered us, filmed it somehow in the front seat, and would they see me trace the curvature of her ass and slip a finger into her, into the behind of where she was on top of me? And would they watch and report on how she looked so surprised as she came, whimpering with my finger in her ass and my cock inside her, her lips clamping shut to stifle the groan as I held her breast in my grip, biting my lip and spewing inside her, banging my head against the headrest and gasping her name as I held onto her, not letting go like she were my lifejacket in a swell in the sea and I was coming into my hand and over my belly, staining Kate's sheets even as I called out for Emma to keep going, not to stop, me shooting puddles onto the bed and then feeling guilty as Kate would know what I had done oh my god yesss oh god.

Everything went into the washing machine. 

Around one o'clock I went on the Internet and checked my schedule for next week. It was generated on Saturday night and it was a grid on a spreadsheet where cells were filled with colours depending on location of client and whether they were new or not. I looked for Emma's usual slot, trying to find it among the reds, greens and oranges. I couldn't find it. Then I reminded myself I wasn't being cool about things and maybe I had been thinking about her too much, fantasizing about her scant hours ago, but now I was in control of my emotions, however runaway they tried to be, and if I was going to ruin my boxer shorts every time I thought about her, that wouldn't do. 

As the lock on the front door came undone I glanced up from my perch on the piano stool and saw Kate come in. 

'Sweetie I'm back.' She called. It was nice to see her but somehow not as great as it would've been a few weeks ago, had I been out the night before and woke up ready for sex. I moved the mouse to the X in the corner of Excel and saw that my Monday was packed unusually full.

'You had lunch?' I asked.

'There were bits and pieces at the office from yesterday, I'm not hungry, sorry.'

I had closed the laptop out of respect for us having lunch together; Café Rouge or a place near there. Now she wasn't up for it I wanted to know which idiot was stuffing my Monday morning so full I'd have to get up early, as if I had a real job.

Then, looking at my inbox, I received a new rota. An updated one. 

That was strange.

'What are you looking at?'

I clamped the screen down again. 

'Nothing. Reuters. Outlook. Usual.'

'So I talked to Brian and he said I'd be able to lead the defence in court. He said he was so confident with me that after this one was done I'd be heading up each case assigned to my team alone! I'd be by myself with new clients in court! Isn't that brilliant?'

'Brilliant honey.' I said.

She took off her jacket and bag and hung them on the banister, approaching me.

'I'm going to be entering a new band when that happens.'

'Great.'

'And we can maybe book somewhere to celebrate, once I've got this case over and done with?'

'Yeah I love curry.'

'I was thinking more along the lines of going somewhere further afield... not as glamorous as the Rosendale Road curry house you understand, but how about the Mediterranean?'

'Wow.' I said, not really thinking about the impact of her announcement.

She entered the bedroom and disappeared from my sight. I cracked open the laptop again and looked at the spreadsheet. What was on it was unexpected. 

'Sun, sea, swimming, sardines for you...' she came back out and into the front room, 'oh it would be incredible, just what I need. Why has the bed been stripped?'

'Hmm?'

'The bed. Why are all the sheets off? Where've they gone?'

I checked my watch. Thoughts raced through my head. Three hours was it, that'd passed by and it hadn't occurred to me to put the new sheets on? What was I supposed to tell her? 

She gave me a funny look. 

'I wanked.' I said. 'I woke up and I had a wank.'

'A monster wank that soaked the bed? Good thing I wasn't here.'

She snorted and went back into the bedroom. 

At least it was the truth.

I took clean sheets from the spare bedroom's dresser and brought them into our bedroom. Unbuttoning the buttons carefully done up to pack the sheets away I put the duvet covers in and sealed them up. There was quite a lot of dust when I shook them.

Kate called out from the front room.

'What?' I asked. I hadn't really heard her but there was this strange sensation in my chest that hadn't been there a moment ago, like I had run for the bus and missed it.

'Who's Emma?' She asked.

My arms and legs went dead. The duvet flew out of my hands and sailed into a heap on her nightstand. 

'What's going on with you two?'

The invisible weight on my chest pressed harder and I tried controlling my breathing. There seemed to be an age before anything happened, me sweating and standing scared over an unmade bed and her in the front room, not saying anything.

'What is it,' I asked, 'that you're looking at?'

'Your rota for next week. You've got her down Monday morning and then again on Tuesday. Is it near her test?'

I swallowed but my throat was dry.

'They've sent this twice. Look -- first one was from last night and now they've sent you an updated one. Is she any good?'

I approached the piano.

'I'm... er... she's okay...?'

Kate nodded slowly. 

'That good huh? Well this is all super but I'd rather be on Expedia. Do you mind if I close this?'

She worked her fingers over the keys, navigating away from the now not so secret information.

'Would you want self-catering or a package holiday?' She asked.

I stumbled into the kitchen and ran the tap into a glass. 

'Can you at least complete one job today?' I heard her walk back into the bedroom. 'I know it's your day off but I like our room to be nice when I come home from working on a Sunday.'