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Alice Takes a Cruise Ch. 01

By: BobbiR



When I stepped out of the shower in my cabin that morning, there was a naked girl lying on my bed. She was nineteen, maybe twenty, with straight blonde hair to just below her shoulders and a severe centre parting which made her unsmiling face look even more serious. I checked that the towel was securely tucked in around me, then smiled to show her that I wasn’t embarrassed - though I was.

‘Hello.’

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You’re Alice, aren’t you?’

‘That’s right. Who are you?’

‘Billie.’

‘That’s a pretty name.’

She turned down her mouth. ‘I hate it. It’s a boy’s name.’

Her tan showed dark and rich. She was slim, with almost boyish hips. Her breasts were small but nicely rounded. She caught the direction of my glance and grimaced.

‘Even my tits are too small.’

‘Oh, no, they’re lovely,’ I protested, my frankness surprising even myself. ‘I mean, they’re just fine.’

‘Oh, sure,’ she sneered. ‘Boys just love little tits. All my friends have much bigger ones and you can see the way guys look at them. You know, like every girl is only four feet tall, because that’s as high as guys can lift their eyes.’

I couldn’t stop a laugh escaping.

‘Yeah, funny,’ said Billie. ‘I’m the only girl who ever gets eye-contact. It’s like my body doesn’t exist.’

I stopped laughing. I remembered how much I had hated my own body when I had been her age - and how much I still did, on bad days.

‘Well, I’m looking at them,’ I said, again surprised by myself. Was I still drunk from last night?

‘Huh, some consolation.’ She looked down at herself, thrusting her chest out experimentally. Her budding nipples stood out clearly.

‘And you have beautiful nipples.’ No doubt I wanted to appear sophisticated, a woman of the world.

She accepted my frankness as if it were entirely natural. She considered them for a moment, her chin pressed in, then as if the effort were all too much, let the air escape from her lungs in a frustrated sigh. ‘Oh, it’s no good. I do that every morning about a million times and they just carry on looking like lemons. Aren’t there exercises I can do to make them bigger?’

I laughed again, but this time sympathetically. ‘I’m afraid not.’ A worrying thought struck me. ‘And whatever you do, don’t go thinking about silicon implants, not at your age.’

‘Why not?’

I could tell from her expression that she’d been considering nothing else for goodness knows how long. ‘Oh, dear, you do have it bad.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, think of this. All these friends of yours with big breasts, when they get to my age they’ll be sagging down to their navels and no man will look twice at them. You, on the other hand, will still have breasts like a girl’s.’

She looked doubtful. ‘You reckon?’

‘I do.’

We were still in the same positions, she on the bed, I by the door to the shower. The towel around my head was beginning to feel insecure. Damp strands of hair stuck to my neck. I began to wonder how I could politely engineer the end of the conversation, so that I could dry myself properly and get dressed.

‘You really like them?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes. Truthfully. Cross my heart and hope to die.’ Now I was beginning to sound like a teenager.

‘Good,’ she said, pleased with herself, almost smug. She got up and walked towards me. Involuntarily I took a step back. I don’t know what I feared exactly, but I could suddenly feel my heart beating beneath the towel.

But she only wanted to look at herself in the mirror behind me. She flicked her hair behind her shoulders, then put her hands under each breast and pouted at her reflection like a girl in a top-shelf magazine. 

‘I guess they don’t look too bad.’

She gathered her hair from her shoulders and held it to the top of her head. Strands fell down the nape of her neck and it was as much as I could do to stop myself reaching out and tucking them back up for her. Her small breasts stretched against her chest, the lower curves mere suggestions of the softer flesh above, her dark nipples almost indistinguishable from her all-over tan.

In the mirror she saw where I was looking. ‘You really do like them, don’t you?’

There seemed no point in pretending otherwise. ‘I told you. They’re lovely. I only wish mine were the same.’

‘Why?’ Her eyes were already back on her own reflection. ‘I bet yours are gorgeous.’

‘As if.’

‘Well,’ she said, turning to face me. ‘Let me have a look. I’ll soon tell you.’

‘What?’ My voice sounded like that of an outraged old spinster. ‘I’m not showing you my breasts.’

‘Why not? I’ve shown you mine.’ It was the simple logic of youth. ‘Besides, everyone sunbathes topless here. I’ll see them soon enough.’

‘That’s different.’ Even to me it sounded feeble.

‘Come on,’ she insisted. ‘They can’t be that bad.’

‘No, they’re not. But that doesn’t mean I have to show them to everyone who asks.’

She went back to pouting. ‘That’s not fair. You’ve seen mine.’

‘You showed them to me,’ I reminded her. ‘I didn’t ask you to.’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But you’re glad I did, aren’t you?’

Her triumphant tone silenced me. I didn’t want to admit that she was right, but I could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t sound like a ridiculous evasion. Somehow this nineteen-year-old girl was making me feel like a prude. She was right. She was only asking to see what every woman would happily reveal to all and sundry on a Mediterranean beach any day of the year.

‘All right,’ I conceded. ‘At least then you’ll see you have nothing to be ashamed of.’

I fumbled with the towel tucked beneath my armpits, intending only to lower it a few inches, but the towel round my hair chose exactly that moment to unravel. Involuntarily my hand went up to catch it, with the consequence that the towel round my body gaped open. I clutched it back across my front.

Billie laughed at my contortions. ‘Here, I’ll do it.’ She caught the loose end of the hair towel and reached up to tuck it in. ‘Can’t have you exposing yourself, can we?’

I was a little taller than her, by only an inch or so, but it was enough to make her stretch. We stood almost nose to nose and I could smell the faint tang of underarm deodorant. Her nipples brushed momentarily against the backs of my hand, little shocks that made me start.

Evidently she felt them too. She looked down and smiled. ‘That was nice.’

She stepped back and admired her work with my hair towel. ‘You look like one of those Indians - you know, sikhs.’

I pretended offence. ‘Thanks very much. I can change my mind, you know.’

‘Oh no,’ she protested. ‘You promised.’

‘OK. I’m a woman of my word.’ I lowered the towel and made sure it was tucked securely beneath my breasts. This was ridiculous, quite ridiculous. Then I threw my arms wide, one up, one down, and put one knee across the other, like I imagined dancers did at the Folies Bergeres, to make a silly performance out of it. ‘Dadahh!’

I wanted her to giggle at my pose, but instead it seemed to strike her dumb. She simply stared, as intently as if she had suddenly come across a Michelangelo. The silence lasted a few seconds, then a few seconds more. I began to feel awkward. What was I doing showing myself to this teenager? I let my arms fall.

‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘Don’t move.’

It was a command. Reluctantly I resumed my pose. ‘Well, say something. I feel stupid.’

‘I’m just looking,’ she said. ‘You’ve had long enough looking at mine.’

‘Well, I’m embarrassed.’

‘Why?’ All this time she hadn’t taken her eyes off my bosom. ‘I’m not. And you’re a lot older than me.’

I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Thanks for reminding me. I’m only thirty-one.’

That made her look up. ‘You’re kidding me. My mom’s in her thirties and she’s got wrinkles.’

‘Well, so have I. If you look hard enough.’

She looked scornful. ‘I can’t see any. All I can see is a pair of fabulous tits.’

It was totally idiotic, but I felt flattered. No one had ever complimented me on my body in quite such an open, straightforward way before. For some reason it meant more to me than all the smoothly seductive words I’d heard from men.

‘Can I put my arms down now?’ I asked. ‘They’re beginning to ache.’

‘Oh, sure.’ She nodded absentmindedly, her eyes totally absorbed by my body. Her unwavering gaze was starting to have an effect, as if she were playing a warm spotlight over me. I felt a tingling inside me, some kind of nervous anticipation, as if I were about to appear on stage.

‘Haven’t you ever looked at a woman’s breasts before?’ I asked, to fill the silence.

‘Not really. Only in the shower at school, that kind of thing. And that doesn’t really count, because you have to look away quick or people get the wrong idea. I’ve never really looked at a woman, not really looked like now, so’s I can see every curve, every colour, the way they dip and hold up at the same time. And you lied,’ she added accusingly, looking up at my face.

‘I lied? What do you mean?’

She laced her fingers over her own breasts, trying to hide them. ‘You said mine are more beautiful than yours. But they’re not. Even I can see that.’

‘Oh, Billie. They are, believe me. You may not think so now, but you will. When you get to my age you will.’

She unlaced her fingers and cupped each of her breasts. Her hands just covered them. ‘Do you mind if I touch them?’

‘What?’ I stepped back.

‘I just want to feel the difference,’ she added. ‘I mean, mine feel so hard and sort of funny and yours look so soft and, well, kind of comfortable.’

I could think of nothing to say, but she took my silence as acquiescence. Before I could stop her, she had reached out a hand and touched the side of my breast, a touch that made me shiver involuntarily. Then she laid her palm on me and slid it lower to cup me. Her expression was one of intense concentration, totally absorbed in the feel of my skin under her fingers. I closed my eyes, unable both to watch her and to control the sensations inside me at the same time. She lifted me gently.

‘It feels so soft and smooth, yet so heavy.’ Her thumb found my nipple, which instantly hardened under her touch. It made her laugh. ‘Oh, that’s what mine does.’

I tried to join in her laughter but could manage only a faint inarticulate noise.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

I opened my eyes and saw a look of concern on her face, as if worried she might have hurt me. 

‘Yes,’ I managed to get out. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Good,’ she smiled. ‘Because I don’t want to stop.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t want you to either.’

‘Can I touch the other one too?’

‘If you want to.’ What was I doing? A girl I barely knew was making love to me.

‘I want to see if they’re the same.’ Her right hand cupped my left breast and her thumb rubbed across my nipple. I felt air rush into my nostrils. ‘Because I always thought they would be, you know. But now I look at them closely, one’s a little bigger, isn’t it?’

‘Well, we’re none of us completely symmetrical. That would be too boring, don’t you think?’

‘I guess so,’ she conceded. She started gently to squeeze each nipple between thumb and forefinger. They hardened even more. I wondered if Billie could feel my heart pounding beneath my ribs. ‘When they harden like that, does that mean you like it?’

‘Yes,’ I said, trying to catch my breath. ‘And because you have very gentle hands.’

‘Oh, I’m just doing what I like doing to myself.’

‘That,’ I smiled, ‘is a good rule to follow with everything in life.’

‘Yeah,’ she went on, ‘and I like rubbing them with the flat of my hands, like this.’ And she held her palms against me so they were just touching the tips of my nipples and rotated them slowly. Involuntarily I took a deep breath, with the result that they pressed into her hands.

‘Oh, yes,’ she laughed. ‘That’s what I do too. You try hard not to, but you just can’t help pushing, can you?’

‘No.’ I seemed unable to let the air out of my lungs. I noticed that her own miniature nipples were sticking out further and seemed to have become more brightly pink.

She followed the direction of my gaze and withdrew a hand to press a finger to her own. ‘They’re harder too,’ she said. ‘D’you think they’re coming out in sympathy?’

‘Something like that.’

She rubbed the flat of her hand over it, round and round, up and down, just as she had done with mine, at first watching herself intently, then watching me watching her movements. ‘Mmm, that is so good, isn’t it? Is this what you feel when I do it to you?’

‘Probably. We’re not that different.’

She returned her hand to my breast and continued her explorations. ‘But yours feel different, like I said. Softer, heavier, and they move more. How come you get the same feelings?’

‘Because we’re both women. And the same things turn us on.’

She smiled mischievously. ‘Is that what’s happening? Am I turning you on?’

‘Come on, Billie, you’re not that young. Of course you’re turning me on.’

She took her hands away, but kept her eyes on mine. ‘Maybe we’d better stop then.’

My nipples were aching from her caresses, but I held her gaze and adopted my sternest schoolteacher’s voice. ‘Yes, I think we’d better.’ I hitched the towel up under my armpits again. ‘And you’d better run along to your own cabin. I have to dress for breakfast. People will be wondering where I’ve got to.’

I made a purposeful move towards the dressing table, but she was standing in my path and made no attempt to step out of my way. In the small cabin there was no way round her, other than by clambering over the bed, which would have been undignified. 

We stood facing each other. As if of their own volition her hands drifted up to her breasts again and started moving. Unable to take my eyes off them I became mesmerized by their strokes, their caresses. In order to accentuate their effect, she moved her body in the opposite direction, swaying from side to side.

‘Do you want to touch them?’ she asked.

‘I...’ I began, but couldn’t think of any words to follow.

She let her arms fall to her sides. Her eyes seemed to swim out of focus. But her body continued to move and sway before me, now as if against invisible caresses only she could feel.

‘You know you want to.’

‘I...’ I began again, but again nothing would follow.

‘I want you to.’ She reached out and lifted my hand and put it flat against her small, firm chest. It felt surprisingly hard, almost like a young boy’s, but there was enough softness for my fingers to trace the outline of her breast.

‘I was right,’ I finally got out. ‘They are lovely.’

I felt the nipple grow instantly into my palm, a delicate nut that I could roll from side to side. She took my other hand and placed it alongside.

‘Do to me what you like to do to yourself,’ she commanded.

I delicately traced the underside contour of each swelling with the tips of my fingers. I could hear the intake of breath with each movement. Her eyes regained their sharpness and fixed on my hands.

‘I’m memorizing,’ she explained when she noticed me smiling at the intensity of her gaze.

Her flawless adolescent skin felt soft and smooth, like the finest silk. ‘You have to tell me what you like,’ I said, gently squeezing each nipple in turn between my thumb and forefinger.

There was another intake of breath, sharper this time. ‘Oh, just keep doing that.’ The pink of her nipples was vivid, as if I had been rubbing them raw. ‘Oh, yes, that’s great. Please, don’t stop.’ The motions of her body had become almost trancelike, as if she were no longer in control. ‘Oh yes, please.’

I suddenly seemed to come round. I was making love to her, this girl. It had to stop. I snatched my hands away as if I had thrust them into a fire. 

At which she did something absolutely unexpected. She fell backwards on the bed. 

‘Billie!’ 

At first I thought she had fainted, but she was perfectly conscious. While her delicate chest continued to move slowly from side to side as if still under my caresses, her hands got busy elsewhere. My first reaction was fear. Surely she wasn’t going to masturbate in front of me? Yet part of me, I had to admit, was more aroused by the prospect of watching her. I had never seen a woman make herself come, her hands busy, her body writhing, her face screwed up as if in pain. Is this what I looked like when I did it, secretly, in my bedroom with the door locked?

Her hands evidently found what they were looking for. ‘Oh, yes!’ Her fingers fluttered like a trapped bird, then in only a few seconds were still. Her face relaxed into a sigh. Her body ceased its writhing. 

It was over. That quickly. 

I remembered then how speedily I was sometimes able to achieve my own release. Convenient perhaps, but not very satisfying.

She lay with her eyes closed, her arms spreadeagled. I sat on the edge of the bed. After a while she opened her eyes.

‘Better now?’ I asked.

‘You bet,’ she smiled, like a child who had just eaten a chocolate sundae. ‘Neat, huh?’

‘Very,’ I agreed. ‘And so uninhibited.’

‘Well,’ she grinned, ‘when you’ve gotta come...’

‘Maybe.’

She looked at me sharply. ‘What do you mean, maybe?’

‘Have you never heard of pleasures deferred?’ I asked.

She sat up. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, most things that give one pleasure are even better if one puts them off for as long as possible.’ I should know all about that.

She laughed scornfully. ‘You’re kidding me. When I get like that you’d have to chain me down. I’ve got to finish or I’d go mad.’

I got up and went over to the mirror and starting rubbing my hair with the damp towel. ‘I was the same when I was your age. But you’ll learn.’

It was the wrong thing to say. It seemed to throw her instantly into a temper. ‘Jeez, you really are like my mom, aren’t you? That’s the trouble with old people, always reminding you how young you are, how little you know.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ I looked round to see if there was a hair-dryer anywhere. There had to be one in such an otherwise well-equipped cabin. ‘It’s just that when you’re young you always want everything straight away. You want it now, this instant. You’re never prepared to wait.’

It calmed her, but only a little. ‘But if you can get it right away, why wait?’

‘Because, as I said, it’s better if you wait.’ I’d opened all the cupboards. No dryer.

‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ Billie got off the bed and snapped a flexible hose off the wall beside the mirror. All built-in. I might have guessed. I reached out for it, but she held it back.

‘No, let me. You sit down.’

I started to object. ‘I don’t know...’

I felt her hands on my shoulders, firmly pressing me down into the chair before the mirror. ‘It’s OK. Just relax.’ She flicked a switch and I felt warm air.

‘Only if you’re...’

The warm air brushed my temple. ‘I used to do this for my mom. You don’t have to worry; I know what I’m doing.’

She picked up my hairbrush and started on the ends of my hair, short, slow strokes. There is nothing quite so relaxing as having one’s hair brushed. It must be some reminder of childhood. I allowed my eyes to close.

‘So is this, like, a pleasure deferred?’ asked Billie after a while.

I opened my eyes. ‘I don’t think there’s much one can put off about brushing one’s hair.’

‘I guess not.’

‘Besides, it’s a very small pleasure really.’

‘Oh.’ I could detect the disappointment in her voice.

‘But it’s still a pleasure,’ I amended. ‘And you can carry on doing it for as long as you like.’

‘Good,’ she said with an air of satisfaction. ‘Because you have nice soft air and I like doing it.’

I watched her in the mirror. She was right: she did know what she was doing. She was moving the brush and the dryer together in long full strokes from the top of my head to the ends of my hair six inches below my shoulders. As she leant forward at the beginning of each stroke I could see how her breasts almost touched my hair. Hoping that she wouldn’t notice, I let my head fall back a little until I could just feel the hardened tips. I could see the faint blonde down of adolescent pubic hair.


Alice Takes a Cruise Ch. 01



‘You have beautiful hair,’ she said. ‘So dark and shiny. Is that red colour natural?’

I laughed at her frankness. ‘No. I put henna on it. It’s a nightmare.’

‘It’s very...’ She searched for the right word. ‘...dramatic.’

‘The only dramatic thing about me. It must be a compensation for my shy and retiring personality.’

Even though it was true, I’d meant it as a joke. But Billie took it at face value. ‘Oh, you’re not shy.’ She switched off the dryer. 

I looked at her in the mirror and nodded meaningfully at her naked top. ‘Well, you certainly aren’t.’

‘This?’ She gestured dismissively. ‘Being naked is no big deal.’ She propped herself on her elbows. ‘Don’t you ever want to just throw off all your clothes?’

‘Maybe, but in company I usually resist. There’s a time and a place.’

‘Oh, don’t be such a prude. What do you think I’m going to do, rape you?’

‘Of course not. But...’ Well, what did I think she was going to do? ‘You’re not a little girl any more, Billie, you’re a young woman. An attractive young woman. You can’t just walk round naked in front of people.’

‘You’re not people. You’re a friend.’

‘Well, thank you. But that doesn’t make any difference.’

She smirked at me. ‘And you’ve seen me do it. I’d have thought that made a difference. I don’t do that in front of just anybody, you know.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ I suddenly realised the implication. ‘You mean you’ve done it in front of other people? Billie!’

‘Oh, don’t get on your high horse. Only once with a guy in the back of his car and once with a couple of girlfriends from school.’ She put on her pout. ‘I’m not a slut, you know.’

‘I didn’t say you were. And did you and the boy, I mean, the guy...?’ Why was I curious? Her sex life was no concern of mine.

‘Oh, he wanted to all right.’ She grinned at the recollection. ‘But I didn’t like him enough for him to be the first. So I said I’d do it to myself and he could watch.’ She laughed out loud. ‘It drove him wild. Then I watched him do it. Funny, he didn’t seem so hot after that. Acted like he was ashamed or something.’

‘Masturbation guilt,’ I explained knowledgeably. ‘It explains a lot about the way men behave. That’s another thing you’ll discover as you get older.’

‘Yeah?’ She seemed barely interested. ‘Anyway, it was a lot better with the girls.’ She lay back and stared at the ceiling, lost in the memory. A hand drifted onto her belly.

‘Well.’ I tried to sound decisive. ‘Now I have to get dressed.’

She made no move.

‘Billie.’

She glanced over. ‘Sure. Go ahead. Don’t mind me.’ She raised her eyebrows, daring me to object.

For a moment I considered pushing her out, but then decided to hell with her. I’d had enough of being made to feel like some maiden aunt. I was on holiday. I was supposed to be freeing myself, wasn’t I? I could be as carefree and uninhibited as any nineteen year old. I sat down in front of the mirror, making sure the towel was still wrapped securely round me, and started to do my face.

‘So,’ said Billie. I could see her in the mirror, leaning on an elbow, her head on one side. ‘Do you want to hear about it?’

‘Do I want to hear about what?’

‘The time with me and the girls.’

‘If you’ve nothing better to do.’ Where was my foundation?

‘Jeez, Alice,’ she scoffed. ‘You’re such a fraud. Of course you want to hear about it.’

‘If you say so.’

In the mirror I saw her lie back on the bed again, absentmindedly examining a nipple as if looking for blemishes. ‘Yeah, well, I’m going to tell you anyway. It was a sleepover, five weeks ago, beginning of the summer. We were all going away to different places, Sandie up north, Liz to the coast and me down here, so it was the last time we’d see each other til September, so we thought we’d make one last night of it. Sandie’s mom and dad gave us the room over their garage because they knew we’d be up talking half the night and they didn’t want us disturbing the rest of the house. Which was fine by us.’

I wondered if I was expected to prompt. ‘So what did you do?’

‘We went to a pizza place in town and acted all grown up and Sandie put the bill on her dad’s account and all the waiters called us Miss Sandie and Miss Billie and Miss Liz as if we were someone special and that was cool. I didn’t much like the anchovies though.’

‘I know just what you mean,’ I said.

‘Yeah, yuk city. Then we went to a movie, some romantic garbage we giggled most of the way through, mainly because Sandie was sitting between me and Liz and we kept tickling her til some people in front told us to stop. Then Sandie’s dad picked us up and took us back to the room over the garage.’

There was a pause. Which became a silence.

‘Then what?’ I asked.

‘See?’ Billie was triumphant. ‘I knew it. You’re just dying to hear about it.’

‘Nonsense.’ I concentrated on my eyelashes.

She turned to face me and rolled on her front, propping her chin in her hands. ‘Anyway, Sandie’s mom had put doughnuts up there for us, so we sat and ate those.’

‘It can’t have been very comfortable, a room over a garage.’ I thought of the bare roof space over the lean-to up against the side of my mother’s - no, now my - semi-detached house in Ruislip.

‘Oh, it was a regular bedroom, carpets, TV, big enough for two beds, a kingsize double and a single.’ She grinned mischievously. ‘We drew lots for who’d get the single, but in the end we all shared the kingsize. Still, that was much later. After we’d lit candles and sat and talked for about ten hours.’

‘Ten hours?’

‘Well, one or two. It was still early, not much after eleven. We’d planned to stay up all night. We had an idea we were going to watch the sun come up, pretend we’d been to some all-night party, stupid stuff like that. We changed into our t-shirts. Mine had a picture of a sleeping cat on it and came down practically to my knees; Sandie’s was even longer, it was a football shirt she’d got off her brother when he went to Cornell. Liz wore some weird stripey shirt thing with buttons that looked like it belonged to her grandpa. We teased her about that for a while, til she told us to leave her alone. Then we just sat cross-legged on the kingsize and talked.’

‘What about?’

‘Stuff. School. Classmates. Teachers. People we hated. Then Liz said, why don’t we tell ghost stories? It must have been way past midnight then and really quiet. Actually it was a bit creepy, what with the candles and all the shadows flickering up in the roof and you couldn’t really see into the corners of the room and Sandie said, what if some murdering maniac has crept into the garage downstairs? Yeah, I said, or crawling over the roof or climbing up the tree outside? And Liz screamed and said, no, I mean real ghost stories, the ones like with ghosts and everyone dressed up like people out of Dickens. And me and Sandie had to laugh at that, because when it comes to videos, Liz is always the one who wants to try and get Scream II or the slasher movies her brother is always telling her about. Then like when we do get to watch one, she always acts like they don’t frighten her and pretends she’s perfectly fine. That is, until we get to the end of her driveway and she always says, stay here and watch me until I go indoors, like she was about eight years old still.

‘So anyway, we tried to take turns telling some ghost story, but it all fell apart, because as soon as we got to a scary bit I would run my fingers up Liz’s back like a spider and make her jump a mile. And in the end she went all grumpy and said she was going to bed. So she got into the single bed and me and Sandie shared the kingsize. We blew all the candles out except one, but it was too much for Liz. About every five seconds she went, what was that? what was that noise? who’s there? And Sandie didn’t help, because half the time she was leaning out of bed and making scratching noises with her fingernails on the floorboards. In the dark it sounded just like someone dragging their feet along. And then she’d make a sort of low moaning noise, like someone rising from the dead. That was enough for Liz. She was out of her bed and into ours like she’d been stung.’

I decided to experiment with some new mascara.

‘For a long time we just lay there, but you could tell none of us were sleepy. We’d probably frightened ourselves too much. Then Sandie said, so, have either of you two done it yet? 

‘It’s funny, but I think we were all thinking about the same thing. After we’d scared ourselves so much, I just wanted to cuddle someone, you know, sort of feel safe, but I didn’t like to, because I thought it might make me look like a kid. But when Sandie said that, it was like a way out for us, like a good way for us to feel better again, warmer, safer.’ She looked at me in the mirror. ‘You know what I mean?’

‘Yes, I know what you mean.’

‘Because that’s what it was like, really. It wasn’t sex - well, not to begin with - it was just wanting to cuddle, to be together.’

‘I know.’ I remembered Jenny, the drunken evening, that first embrace.

‘Anyway, none of us had done it, of course, not with a boy. Though we took a long time admitting it. So that was a bit of a dead end. We all wanted to know what it was like, but no one knew. Liz had once caught her brother doing something to himself in bed and we all had a pretty good idea what that was, but since it had been under the covers and she’d only seen it for a second or two, she wasn’t much help with the finer details. Sandie had seen her dad peeing once and we’d all seen pictures of men’s cocks, of course. Frankly they all looked a bit weird. We couldn’t quite see what it was about them that was supposed to turn us on.’

Concentrating on my left eyelid I couldn’t help smiling.

‘What we needed were details, you know, first-hand experience.’

‘So this was before you and that boy...’ I put in.

‘Oh yeah,’ she said, dismissing him instantly. ‘That was only a couple of weeks ago. And that didn’t teach me much, either.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Except how rough they are with themselves. I guess now I know why they call it ‘beating the meat’.’

‘Yes,’ I laughed. ‘They take a while to learn to do things slowly too.’

‘OK, OK,’ said Billie. ‘Enough with the lessons.’

I held up my hands in surrender. ‘I shan’t say another word.’

Billie rolled over on her back again and stuck her legs straight in the air, pointing her toes like a ballerina, then folded them neatly. ‘So we got off boys pretty quick and started talking about doing it ourselves. It was kind of awkward at first, you know, lying in bed together, even though the bed was so big none of us were actually touching. But when Sandie admitted she liked doing it lying on her front with a pillow between her legs, it sort of opened the floodgates.’

‘That’s one I used to like,’ I said, before I could stop myself.

‘Yeah?’ said Billie absentmindedly. ‘Maybe I should try it some time. So then we started comparing. Liz said she used a sort of shower attachment to the faucet in her tub, which sounded pretty wild until she admitted she had to practically bend over backwards to get the angle right and the last time her foot had slipped and she’d banged her head on the side. I said that I liked looking at my dad’s girlie mags first, which the others pretended to be shocked at til I got them to admit they liked looking at pictures of sexy naked women too. And we all agreed we liked rubbing our breasts, which I was a bit embarrassed about because mine were so small compared with Liz and Sandie’s.

‘Then we just lay there for a bit. And I realised I was getting that itchy feeling between my legs, when I always knew that’s what I wanted to do. My hands were just up around my waist and I really wanted to move one down to between my legs, just to stop the itching. But I couldn’t. Not with Liz one side and Sandie the other. There wasn’t a sound. It was so still, I could hear the candle guttering. So I just lay there, in a kind of torture.

‘Then out of the corner of my eye I caught a faint movement. At first I thought it was just another shadow thrown by the candle. But then I heard a little rustle at the same time. It was coming from Sandie’s side, I was sure of it. I kind of pretended to start and snort, you know, like you do when you’re just falling asleep, and turn my head a little towards her, just so’s I could get a better view. But of course she just stopped. At least for a bit. Then whatever she was feeling must have got the better of her, because I caught it again. And this time I saw it, a faint rising and falling of the bed sheet over her middle and the tiniest sound of cotton rustling. I watched it fascinated for a minute or two, the way her hand slid down for a moment and rested - or maybe her fingers were busy below - then rose up again before quickly going back down again. I squinted up at her face. She looked, well, what’s the word, lost. Her eyes were tight shut and her lips were just a little bit open, like she was short of air.

‘I didn’t know what to do. The itching between my own legs had gotten much worse now and I was dying to touch myself, but equally I didn’t want to miss what Sandie was doing. I looked at her and at her hand going up and down. She seemed to have forgotten where she was. Ever so slowly I moved my own hand under the sheet until it touched her thigh. And the moment it did, she opened her eyes and looked at me, almost in panic. I didn’t know quite what look to give her back. I could hardly tell her anything out loud, not with Liz the other side. So I tried smiling. But it may not have come out right, because she just stared back at me, like a rabbit caught in car headlights.’

I had done my eyelid at least three times now. ‘So what did you do?’

‘I just carried on smiling. And carried on moving my hand until it had reached hers. I didn’t really know what I intended to do, just put mine over it, I guess, feel it moving. But as soon as she felt it she slid hers away, so that instead of feeling her fingers what I could feel was soft hair, sort of like mine but thicker, nicer. She was still looking at me, still frozen, but now expectant, like she was waiting to see what I would do. And her eyes had a sort of hooded look. So I slowly moved my hand down, almost experimentally, as if I wasn’t sure that she’d feel pretty much the same as me. As if to make it easier for me, she moved her legs apart. Then I felt all that lovely warm wetness, all smooth and soft and clinging, and it was so nice, I could feel her kind of relax with the way I touched her, and her face lost that scared rabbit look a bit.’

I tried to start on the other eye, but my hand was shaking too much. In the corner of the mirror I could see Billie lying on her back, one knee bent, a hand idly stroking the blonde triangle between her legs. ‘Didn’t Liz notice?’ I asked, trying to keep the catch out of my voice.

‘Not straight away. Or maybe she did,’ she conceded, ‘but she didn’t want to say. Anyway I just carried on moving my fingers, just a little, because I guess we were both a little scared. But apart from moving her leg, Sandie stayed as still as a rock, like she’d been struck dead or something, just stared at me with her mouth open. But I could tell it was doing something to her because her breath was coming in little spurts, especially when I touched a sensitive spot. You know the place.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I know.’ Billie’s fingers had now disappeared beneath the blonde triangle. I got up from in front of the mirror and stood by the bed.

She opened her eyes. ‘You look funny.’

‘Do I?’

‘You look like you’ve got a black eye.’

‘I’ve given up for the time being. I can’t concentrate.’

She looked at me for a moment, an expression of great seriousness which almost made me laugh out loud it looked so incongruous on her innocent features, then nodded decisively at the towel wrapped round me. ‘Take that off, then,’ she commanded.

I stood rooted to the spot. I wanted to be naked too, to display the uninhibitedness she so carelessly flaunted, but too much of me was still stuck in that semi-detached house in Ruislip. ‘I can’t.’

She got on her knees on the bed in front of me. ‘I’ll have to do it for you, then.’ And she put her hands on the knot of towel.

‘No, don’t,’ I said, but I didn’t step back.

‘Yes,’ she insisted and tugged at the edges of the towel.

I pressed my arms to my side to prevent it falling.

Billie pulled gently. ‘What are you afraid of?’

‘I don’t know.’

Gradually I let my arms relax. The towel fell to the floor. Instantly I could feel her eyes exploring every part of me. But surprisingly, now I was actually naked in front of her I felt no embarrassment, rather an unaccustomed freedom, a thrill of nervous anticipation.

‘See,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’

‘No.’

She continued to study me. ‘You’re very beautiful, aren’t you?’

‘I’m not, but thank you for saying so.’

She looked down. ‘Your hair is different there.’

‘Well, I don’t bother to henna it there.’

‘It’s still nice.’

‘I’m glad you like it. Yours is nice too.’

She regarded herself critically. ‘I don’t know. Blonde hair looks kind of funny against skin. Especially when it isn’t tanned.’

‘Use fake tan, then,’ I suggested.

She looked dubious. ‘I guess I could. That all seems like too much effort. Especially when hardly anyone sees it.’

‘I know what you mean. That’s why I don’t henna mine.’

She fixed her eyes on my belly. ‘It still looks better than mine.’ She looked up. ‘Can I touch it?’

‘No, you can’t.’ I laughed - a feeble, nervous laugh. ‘I want to hear the rest of your story.’

‘OK,’ she agreed. ‘Lie down then.’ And she patted the bed beside her.

‘All right.’ I sat on the bed with my head propped up against the pillows, my arms crossed.

It didn’t satisfy her. ‘No, like this,’ she said and crawled up alongside me, put my arm round her and rested her head on my shoulder. ‘OK?’

I could smell the faint tang of seasalt in her hair; it felt a little heady. ‘OK.’

She suddenly kissed my nipple. ‘Where was I?’

I suppressed a tremor. ‘Giving Sandie a good time?’

‘Oh, yes. So anyway, there I was with my hand between Sandie’s legs and she was breathing like she was about to die, but neither of us moving a muscle in case Liz got wind of what we were doing.’

‘And what did it feel like?’ I asked.

‘What? Oh, great. No question. All soft and wet, just like when I do it to myself, only different. I mean, she felt different but a lot the same, like I knew where to put my fingers, what would make her feel good, even though I couldn’t feel it. Because although I’d never felt another girl’s, it was more or less the same as mine, everything was a bit bigger in Sandie’s case but it was all there and I knew just which bits to touch to make her feel what I felt.’

‘She must have appreciated that.’

‘I reckon she did. Because then she started moaning, and I thought, oh, right, here’s where Liz wakes up and wants to know what’s going on. So I whisper to Sandie, shush, do you want me to stop? But she just carried on moaning and said, no, no, please, just keep going.’

I realised that I was stroking Billie’s hair in rhythm too and that her hand was stroking my nipple in a gentle circular motion. I had the urge to press my legs together. ‘And did you keep going?’ I prompted.

‘Of course. What do you think I am, some kind of sadist?’

‘But what about Liz?’

‘Well, she woke up. Sandie and me were so engrossed we hardly noticed. But then there she was, kneeling over me and saying like some teacher who’s just found someone smoking, what’s going on? what are you two doing? Huh. Like she didn’t know.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘Carried on. What else? Sandie was too far gone. There was no way she was going to stop. And by this time I had my other hand between my own legs, I had such an itch. So Liz just pulls the bedsheet right off and stares. Sandie and me were lying there, me with one hand between her legs and the other between my own, and Sandie just gone completely. She was moaning and crying out, please, don’t stop, don’t stop, and Liz just stared with her mouth open. Then Sandie said, oh God, and went all rigid and squeezed her legs together so hard she almost crushed my hand. And that was it.’




Alice Takes a Cruise Ch. 01



‘That was it?’

‘Yeah. Well, for Sandie.’

‘What did Liz say?’

‘Oh, she went all huffy and said, you two are absolutely disgusting, or something like that, and went and lay on the other bed with her back to us and pulled the sheet over her head.’

‘Oh, dear.’

Billie was unsympathetic. ‘Yeah, well, more fool her. Sandie and I just looked at each other for a bit, and I said, you almost crushed my hand, and she said, sorry, then we just cracked up. And the fact we felt we had to be quiet because of Liz made us even worse. Do you think we’ll go to hell? Sandie whispered, and that made us crack up again. Liz said, shut up and go to sleep, but by that time anything set us off. We just lay there looking at each other, biting our lips fit to burst. Then Sandie whispered, I’m still itchy; do it to me again.’

‘That was greedy,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ agreed Billie, ‘that’s what I thought. I said, it’s my turn. So she said, OK, so long as you don’t go crushing my hand like I did, which set us off again. So she slid her hand down and touched me. To begin with it didn’t feel that great, perhaps because we’d been laughing so much, but then she seemed to find the right place and I felt all these shivers going down my legs, especially because this time we were lying facing each other and looking at each other to see our expressions. And by that time we didn’t care about Liz, nor about how much noise we made, so I could moan out loud when she touched the right spot and she would ask me what it felt like and I’d tell her where to move her fingers. And pretty soon I came too, and Sandie looked at me all surprised, like she couldn’t believe she could do it to me so easily.’

I shifted my weight a little.

‘Are you OK?’ asked Billie.

‘Just getting comfortable.’

She pressed her ear to my breast. ‘I can hear your heart beating. It’s really going some.’

I tried to sound indifferent. ‘Is it?’

She propped herself up so that she could look at where her ear had been, presumably to see if my pulse was visible. Disappointed at finding nothing she instead bent forward and put her lips on my nipple, at first gently, then more firmly, opening her mouth wide so that she could take as much of it in as possible. I could feel her tongue exploring the tip.

‘Billie!’ I tried to twist away, but somehow the movement came out more as if I were pushing myself against her. I couldn’t catch my breath.

She lifted her head. ‘Is that nice?’

‘Yes. But you shouldn’t do it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t want you to.’

‘It’s nice but you don’t want me to,’ she repeated.

‘That’s right.’

She shook her head in amazement. ‘OK.’ And put it back on my shoulder.

I tried to will my heart to slow down. I should get up now, I told myself.

‘Anyway, we soon fixed Liz.’

‘Oh?’

‘Well, Sandie and I had both done it and we felt sort of, what’s the word, satiated, but also, you know, wanted to do something else. The trouble is, we didn’t know what. Somehow we didn’t want to do the same thing again, but neither of us could think of what else. So we just sort of lay there for a bit. And then Liz said, all miserable, have you two finished? And we said, yeah, and I felt kind of guilty at her being over on the other bed, so I said, come over here with us. But she said, only if you promise you’ve finished; I don’t want to do that. So Sandie said, it’s all right, we just want to go to sleep now. And Liz said, promise? And we both said, promise. And after a bit more back and forth, she finally got up and crawled in between us. Then we all had a sort of girlfriend cuddle and she seemed a lot happier. And it was nice now we were all friends again.’

‘So you all went to sleep?’

‘Well, we tried for a bit. But it was Liz who started it. Suddenly she says, what were you two doing? And I said, what? And then Sandie and I realised at the same time, because Sandie said, you’ve never done it! 

‘Of course she tried to deny it, but eventually she admitted she’d only pretended she had because all the girls talked about it, but whenever she actually touched herself ‘down there’ it made her feel dirty. But it’s great, said Sandie, we’ll show you, and immediately started to lift Liz’s old grandpa nightshirt. No, said Liz, trying to hold it down. But then I joined in and with the two of us she had no chance. She struggled, but pretty soon we had it off over her head.

‘Actually we were all a bit struck dumb then, because none of us had actually seen one of us naked before, not close to like that, not even me and Sandie when we were doing it to each other, and we just sort of stared at her because her body looked really beautiful, what with the candlelight and all, really like a woman’s. She tried to cover herself with her hands and kept saying, don’t look at me. Sandie said, why not? you look great. Which she seemed to like. Anyway eventually she stopped trying to get her nightshirt back on and said, OK, but you’ve got to take yours off too. Well, Sandie and me didn’t need asking twice, so in a second all three of us were naked. And we all lay down again, Liz between me and Sandie. Now what? asked Liz, and you could hear she was really scared, but kind of excited too.

‘It’s all right, I told her and started stroking her hair. Sandie put a hand on her breast but she tried to push it off. No, she cried, like she’d been stabbed. But Sandie was persistent. Come on, Liz, you’ll like it; let me touch you there and if you don’t like it I’ll stop. OK, she said. And Sandie put her hand back and started stroking in time to my stroking her hair. It was like calming a frightened animal or something. Anyway, she looked from me to Sandie and back again, and gradually she seemed to realise she wasn’t going to die. Sandie started on her other breast and I could see where the first one’s nipple had started to stand up and go all pink and I knew it was working on her. Oh stop, she moaned, it’s making me feel funny. Which made us laugh. It’s meant to, I said, that’s the point.

‘Then Sandy took one of her nipples right in her mouth, which made her leap like she’d been stung. No, no, she said, don’t do that. Which only made me and Sandie want to do it more. So I bent down and kissed her other nipple, which was really nice because I’d never kissed another girl’s tits before and hers were really great, all full and soft, like yours.’

Without asking my permission this time, Billie moved forward and put her lips around my nipple. And this time I didn’t protest. I just concentrated on the sensation of her tongue brushing back and forth.

She lifted her head and smiled. ‘But yours are better.’

I smiled back. ‘Flatterer.’

‘By this time Liz was beginning to enjoy it, though she still pretended she wasn’t. So when Sandie started moving her hand down her tummy she got all panicky again and said, no, not there; you can kiss my tits but don’t touch me anywhere else.’

‘She sounds a bit tiresome,’ I said.

‘Yeah, right. Sandie and me were beginning to get a bit pissed by her whining too. Sandie said, oh shut up and keep still, we’re not going to kill you. Which froze her long enough for Sandie to get her hand down to the top of her legs. But Liz just clamped her legs together and wouldn’t move. Open your legs, commanded Sandie, but Liz said, kiss my tits some more, then maybe I will. So we kissed her a bit more and she started to moan a bit and push herself against us - you know, the way you do.’

‘Oh, do I?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t. And gradually she forgot to keep her legs closed. In fact, she opened them real wide and practically begged Sandie to touch her, or she’d die, she knew she would. So then Sandie started teasing her, now we’d got her begging for it, and said, oh no, you didn’t want it, so we’re not going to do it, and just sat there with her arms crossed. Liz turned to me and cried, please Billie, you do it, please, please. But I said, oh I agree with Sandie, how do we know you won’t change your mind again? Oh, no, she said, absolutely desperate now, I won’t, I promise, I really want you to do it to me. It was kind of funny, the way she’d changed her tune, and it was as much as me and Sandie could do to stop ourselves laughing out loud at her lying there with her legs apart pleading with us to finish her off, even though she looked so amazingly sexy I was practically coming myself just looking at her.’

I found that my own hand had drifted down to my belly and that I had bent one knee. Billie noticed.

‘Am I turning you on too?’

‘A little,’ I admitted.

‘Good,’ she said, with a childlike smile of pleasure, and kissed my breast again, a long leisurely exploration. 

I felt my hand slip further down. 

‘Go on, then,’ she prompted.

‘Go on then, what?’ I asked.

‘Touch yourself.’ She looked up at me and grinned. ‘You know you want to.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Billie,’ I protested. ‘Of course I can’t.’

‘Why not? I won’t tell.’

‘It’s not that...’ Well, what was it?

‘I’ve done it in front of you,’ she reminded me. As if I needed reminding: her blonde hair splayed on the bed, her lost expression, her fingers busy beneath the faded cotton.

‘Oh, not that argument again, Billie,’ I laughed. ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. We’re not six year olds.’

‘Why not, then?’ she insisted.

‘I just can’t, that’s all.’ But I let my hand rest where it was. ‘Finish your story. Did you leave Liz dying of frustration?’

‘Of course not. We wanted to do it to her as much as she wanted it done. Sandie put her fingers on her and found the spot pretty quickly. Then we both watched Liz’s expression as she had her first ever orgasm. She looked really beautiful, even though she lay there with her eyes tight closed as if she’d been watching some really scarey horror flick. As Sandie moved her fingers, she just went oh, oh, oh, over and over, and I got turned on so much I just had to touch myself again. When she came she sort of went all rigid and put both her hands over Sandie’s to stop her moving it any more, then let out a big oooh! and lay there like she’d been poleaxed, only difference being she had this huge grin on her face, like the cat that got the cream.’

‘So she liked it?’ I asked, needlessly.

‘Oh yeah, she liked it so much, we had to do it two more times, me then Sandie again. Then she wanted us to watch while she tried to do it to herself, but she couldn’t find the spot, so I did it for her again.’

I could feel my hair beneath my fingers. I bent my knee further. ‘And what about you and Sandie, did you get another turn?’

‘Oh sure, in between. It almost turned into a competition. You know, who could do it quickest, who could have the most. But the best turn on was being watched. On my third Liz said, wait, I want to see everything, and went and squatted at my feet, so I just lay back with my legs apart and my knees up and she and Sandie peered really close at me doing it and kept saying things like, tell us what each bit feels like, and hold it apart with your fingers, and stroke yourself there, and there, and there. It felt so great to be looked at that I came in seconds.’

I started to part my hair, to slide my middle finger down. ‘What happened then?’ I spoke mainly to reassure myself that I still could.

‘Nothing much. I really wanted to ask them to kiss me, but I just couldn’t. If Sandie or Liz had asked me to, I might have, but no one ever did.’

‘So you’ve never been kissed there?’

‘No, more’s the pity. Have you?’

I remembered Jenny again, how soft her lips had been. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘What’s it like?’

I could feel swollen flesh. ‘Like nothing else on earth.’

She nodded. ‘I knew it would be. I should have asked.’

‘Yes, you should have.’

She looked at me. ‘Will you do it?’

I laughed. ‘Certainly not.’

‘Why not?’ she pouted. ‘I’ll kiss yours if you like.’

‘Billie!’

‘What’s the matter? Where’s the harm in it?’ She looked down and saw where my hand was. ‘There, I knew it. You’re doing it.’

I knew that I should move my hand, but I couldn’t. My finger was where it wanted to be, warm, enclosed. It felt heavy, captive, I had no strength to free it. ‘I’m not,’ I said, feebly.

She pushed herself onto her knees and regarded me eagerly. ‘Show me,’ she demanded. ‘Teach me how to do this pleasure deterred thing.’

‘Pleasure deferred.’

‘Yeah, that.’

I freed my hand and let my leg close. ‘I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can,’ she insisted. ‘Look at you. You’re as turned on as me.’

‘Maybe,’ I admitted.

‘Well, then,’ she said and immediately put her hand flat on my belly.

I laid my own on top of it, but couldn’t bring myself to move it away. Her mere touch felt electric. ‘Please,’ I said.

She gave me her cunning smile. ‘Please no or please yes?’

‘Please, no.’ My voice seemed to have become distant, remote. I let my hand fall to my side, leaving hers where it was.

Still regarding me she moved her hand slowly down until her fingertips encountered my hair.

‘Please,’ I said again.

Her hand stopped. She moved it to my arm. She took her gaze from my face and let it travel down my body. ‘I wish I looked like you.’

‘Don’t,’ I told her. ‘You’re beautiful too. We’re all beautiful, in our own way.’

She didn’t hear it. ‘You’re like Liz, with lovely full breasts and a narrow waist and rounded hips and long slim legs.’

I couldn’t help stretching under her flattering gaze. ‘Stop it. You’re making me blush.’

I felt her hand come back to my belly and this time move straight onto the triangle at the top of my legs, brushing gently to and fro. I was frozen, unable to move. ‘And your hair is so soft and springy. Do you ever comb it?’

I laughed, surprised to find I could still breathe. ‘No. Of course not.’

She twined it in her fingers. ‘Why is it so curly when the hair on your head is so straight?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ My voice had become distant again. I could hardly hear it. I felt as if I might float away after it at any moment.

‘It sort of comes together in the middle,’ she said. ‘Mine does that too.’

I looked at the blonde triangle between her legs. The soft down seemed to be escaping from between her legs as if in a gentle fountain. ‘So it does.’

She put her free hand to it, then moved both her hands in identical motions, as if to compare us both. I watched the hand on herself move from side to side, and felt the same movements on me, gentle, hardly touching. Then her fingers slipped down and disappeared. I heard a moan and only after I had heard it realised it had come from me. She was watching me intently. 

‘Please,’ I said.

‘Please no or please yes?’ she asked, smiling.

‘Please no,’ I said.

Her eyes travelled down my body. ‘I don’t think the rest of you agrees.’

I followed her gaze and was surprised to see that my legs were now parted, my knees raised. I tried to lower them, but my brain refused to send the right message. Her hand slipped further down. I felt as if I were at the mouth of some long tunnel.

‘Please,’ I said, feeling helpless, weightless.

She bent and kissed my breast. ‘Please no or please yes?’ She smiled, mischievously this time, already knowing the answer.

What was I doing? Did I really want Billie to make love to me? Oh yes, I wanted her. I wanted the affection of this nineteen year old girl. I wanted to feel her arms around me, her lips on me. ‘Please yes,’ I whispered.

Teasingly she put her head on one side. ‘What? I didn’t quite catch you.’

I closed my eyes.

‘No,’ she commanded. ‘Look at me.’

Her middle finger was between my lips; I could feel them gently grasping as it slipped further between them. ‘I can’t.’

‘Yes,’ she insisted. ‘Or I’ll stop.’

I opened my eyes and looked at her.

‘I want you to watch me while I’m doing it to you. I want you to tell me what everything feels like.’

Her finger rose and brushed my clitoris, whether by accident or design I couldn’t tell. But it hardly mattered. My hips rose by themselves to meet it. ‘Please be quick.’

‘Why? I thought you said it was better slow.’

‘Someone may come.’

‘Sure,’ she giggled. ‘We both know that’s going to happen.’

Her finger dipped again, deeper into me. ‘Oh, God.’ Involuntarily my eyes closed.

‘Eyes open,’ Billie admonished. Her hand withdrew. 

‘No, don’t stop, please.’ My legs widened. My hand moved down to the inside of my thigh, anxious to continue what she had started.

‘And no touching,’ she said, slapping it away.

Her fingertips, still damp with me, caressed my nipple. She bent forward and licked the place where she had made it shiny, turning to look at me as she was doing it. ‘Do you like that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then tell me.’

‘I like it,’ I said. My breath seemed to be coming in spurts, as if I no longer had complete control over my lungs. ‘In fact I love it. So please don’t talk. Just keep doing it.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, no, we have to talk. That’s one of the best things, isn’t it, talking about it while it’s happening?’

‘How do you know?’

She took my nipple in her mouth and rolled the hard tip gently between her teeth. It teetered just the right side of pain. Perhaps it was at that point I realised she knew a lot more than she had led me to believe.

‘Oh, I know lots of things,’ she said, as if she had been reading my thoughts. She bit a little harder. 

An involuntary cry escaped me and I pushed my breast into her mouth. I wanted her to take it all in. ‘Suck it, please.’

‘Not yet.’

‘Please.’

‘No. I like to bite them a bit first, make them ache.’

Them? ‘How many women have you made love to, Billie?’

She grinned at me over my breasts. ‘Some.’

I felt her teeth biting, then her tongue playing, then her teeth again. I felt like a fish on a line. My nipples ached to be kissed, to be soothed.

‘OK, now you get to be sucked,’ she smiled, and bent her lips to me and took me all in, gently sucking and swirling her tongue over me, her blonde hair falling over my other breast, caressing it softly.

‘Kiss me all over,’ I pleaded.

‘All over?’

‘Yes.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘You don’t mean all over, do you?’

‘No.’ My voice sounded like a little girl’s.

‘Where then?’

Why couldn’t I say it? ‘You know where.’

‘Tell me,’ she commanded. ‘Say it.’

‘I can’t.’ Our roles had completely reversed. I felt like a child being asked to admit to something naughty.

Billie looked at me sternly for a moment, then relented. ‘Poor Alice. You really are shy, aren’t you?’ She put her hand on my rib-cage below my breasts. ‘Do you want me to kiss you here?’

‘No.’

She moved it to my stomach. ‘Here?’

‘No.’

She moved it to my belly. ‘Here?’

‘Warmer.’

She moved it slowly down until her fingers were resting on my curly hair. ‘Here?’

‘Very warm.’

Watching me all the time, she slid her fingers lower until I could feel her middle finger between my lips, her forefinger and ring finger either side. ‘Here?’

A long sigh escaped me. ‘Oh, yes. Just there.’

Her fingers began to slide up and down, a little deeper at each stroke. I wanted to close my eyes, so that I could concentrate on the sensation, but her own eyes held me fast. ‘Look at me,’ she insisted. ‘I like to see the way your eyes go all soft and hooded.’

‘You’re a sadist,’ I smiled, through lips that suddenly seemed devoid of moisture.

At each downward stroke I could feel her middle finger enter me, deeper each time, and at the top of each stroke just touch my clitoris, tantalisingly, almost carelessly - though I had realised by then that there was nothing careless about anything Billie did. She knew exactly what she was doing, and probably had done from the moment she had entered my cabin.

‘What are you feeling?’ she asked.

I tried a smile. ‘That I might come soon.’

‘Oh, we can’t have that.’ And she changed her movements, though as with everything else she had done so far, without once taking her eyes off me, as if she knew exactly where she was solely by touch. She stopped teasing my clitoris and concentrated on exploring my lips with her fingers, occasionally slipping one or two slowly into me then out again. At the same time she lay down alongside me and kissed me, my cheeks, my eyelids, the corners of my lips and finally my mouth, all the while keeping her eyes open and willing me to do the same. I felt as if I had never before been touched so thoroughly, so tenderly. 




Alice Takes a Cruise Ch. 02



It was difficult to believe that only a week ago I had been sitting in the drab lounge of my mother’s drab house in a drab grey suburb of London wondering if there was ever going to be any excitement in my life. I was already thirtyone years old, single and so little experienced in the ways of the world I hadn’t even had a boyfriend since leaving college ten years before. It had been round about then my mother had fallen seriously ill and I had had to sacrifice my own life to look after hers. My father had left home when I was two and I had no siblings. I was working, of course, but my social life stopped dead. 

Within a few weeks I was as housebound as her.

I didn’t begrudge her my time – I loved my mother, naturally – but as the years dragged by and she slowly deteriorated, I became all too conscious of how my life was slipping away from me. Friends fell in love, fell out of love, fell in love more suitably, got married, had children, moved away, stopped phoning. What little time I had outside work I spent catering to the constant demands of my mother then falling into exhausted sleeps in front of the TV. I realised that to all intents and purposes I had become a nun.

Then, quite suddenly, a month ago my mother died. I say suddenly, because by then I had become resigned to the fact that though she had been almost continually at death’s door for ten years, she would always be there, barely alive, but just enough to stop me being so.

It took me some time to adjust to my new circumstances. I spent the next few days busying myself with all the bureaucracy a death seems to generate. Then there was the funeral. Then I was alone.

To tell the truth I was at a bit of a loss. My mother – like so many of her generation – had been frugal, and what with being housebound for the last few years of her life, had managed to save quite a bit of money, which I, as her only child, inherited. It wasn’t enough to make me wealthy, but it was enough to enable me to stop working. So I handed in my notice. Not so much because I wanted to – work had been, after all, virtually my only contact with other people for the last ten years – but simply because I could.

I spent the next week in bed. Or so it seemed. I suppose I must have got up to go shopping, eat, wash, and so on; I wasn’t about to become a recluse. But it must have been the accumulated exhaustion of the last ten years; I just needed a rest.

Until one morning – an unusually blue sky for England, an even more unusually bright sun filtering through my bedroom curtains – I awoke and found that I was no longer tired. I lay feeling the unaccustomed warmth on my face and smiled the first smile I had allowed myself for what seemed like my entire life. It was a strange feeling and for a moment I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. 

Then it came to me. I was actually looking forward to the day.

I showered, wrapped myself in a kimono and had breakfast on mother’s small patio. The morning sun on my skin felt exhilarating, the ordinary food tasted delicious. Absurdly I felt like throwing off the kimono, running out into the garden and rolling naked on the lawn. What would the neighbours say? I imagined the horror on the faces of the middle-aged couple who lived next door, he who I had only ever seen washing his car in the drive every Sunday morning and she who had knocked on my mother’s door only once during the last ten years “to see how you’re coping, dear”. Perhaps their sixteen-year old son would have taken it in his stride, a rather skinny, awkward but athletic looking boy who was already taller than his father but who was so shy he had never said a word to me, not even when we had almost collided with each other outside our front gates.

I imagined him peeping out at me from behind the curtains of his bedroom window, fascinated by the sight of his first, live, naked woman. And not an unattractive woman, either, I flattered myself. All right, I wasn’t a page three model – which was probably his immature ideal of feminine beauty – but everything was in proportion. I had good sized breasts – not too large, not too small – a trim waist, smooth rounded hips, slim legs I was never ashamed to show off in a knee-length skirt. Perhaps most importantly, the hard physical exercise of looking after mother – all that running up and down stairs, lifting her in and out of bed – had kept me completely free of cellulite. 

For a thirtyone-year old, I told myself, I didn’t look bad. And all topped off by a head of dramatic henna’d hair, the one feminine indulgence I had allowed myself during the last ten years.

I smiled to myself. What was I doing, thinking like this? Imagining a sixteen-year old boy admiring my body. No man had ever seen my body, not even Peter, my last boyfriend at university, not completely naked anyway. I recalled our amateurish fumblings in the dark with embarrassment and shut them out of my mind. Today wasn’t a day for looking back, for regret. Today was a day for looking forward, for enjoying sunshine, for relishing my new-found freedom. I almost giggled to myself. For thinking about athletic sixteen-year old boys.

I lay back in mother’s recliner and closed my eyes against the sun. The patio was a perfect sun-trap, backed by the house and protected from the wind – and prying eyes – by a high wall on one side and a thick hedge on the other. Vainly I tried to think just of the sun warming me, of plans I needed to make for my future, but against my will my mind kept returning to the boy. I imagined him gazing at me from his window, wanting me, but too shy to do anything about it. I imagined him comparing me with the pictures of naked girls in the magazines I knew every teenage boy kept hidden in their bedrooms. Wasn’t my naked body so much more attractive in the flesh than all those photographs?

I imagined him in an agony of frustration. I saw the telltale bulge in his – what? pyjamas? No, too middle-aged. Boxers. Which he touched, unable to stop himself. I saw his hand rubbing gently along the length of his erection, hidden under the front of his shorts. The touch of cotton was exquisite, but eventually his desire was too much and he had to take them off. In a hurry now, he pushed them down his legs and his – yes, I told myself, call it his cock, that crude exciting word – his cock stood tall and thick and naked. 

Still gazing longingly at my body lying unaware on the lawn, he put his hand around his cock and started to pump it. Being young, he was inexperienced in the techniques of prolonging his pleasure, and within only a minute or two, his face contorted, he climaxed, his other hand vainly trying to catch his spurting semen to prevent it landing on the curtain or staining the carpet. Then I imagined him collapsing back on the bed, his face a mixture of relief and the guilt I knew most boys felt when they masturbated. Didn’t I feel the same myself when I did it?

Without realising, I had put my hand under my kimono and between my legs. As if coming to, I felt a familiar wetness under my middle fingertip and a blush of embarrassment creep up my face. Instinctively I pulled my hand away, as if I had been caught in some forbidden act. But then my new reality came back to me. I was alone. No one could see me. Mother wouldn’t be calling me. Not now. Not ever. I was free to do what I liked. The sun was shining. It was a new day. It was a new life.

With an inner smile at my own wickedness I returned my hand to the place it wanted to be. I even allowed my kimono to loosen a little, though should anyone have happened to see me, I would still have looked perfectly decent. After years of lonely practice I knew exactly how to please myself, where and for how long to stroke myself before finally succumbing to the demands of my clitoris to be touched. To help me I conjured up another picture of the boy next door. This time I wanted him to discover me – in flagrante, as it were.

This time, his desire for me overcoming his shyness, he actually appeared in mother’s garden – now, for the purposes of my fantasy, completely secluded and impossible to be overlooked. Oblivious to his approach, I dozed in the sun, naked, my legs slightly apart, my breasts and sex exposed, my fingers almost casually at their work. Only when his shadow fell across me did I realise I was no longer alone.

I pretended shock. “Oh!” 

But then my verbal imagination failed me. I could dream up no answering dialogue. Plainly he was the strong silent type. Dressed in shorts and t-shirt, his answer was a long thick bulge pointing upwards to his waist.

“What do you want?” I asked, putting a little girlish tremor into my voice.

“You’re beautiful,” he answered in a surprisingly deep voice. (Perhaps I was beginning to feel guilty about having such a young boy in my fantasy.) “I want to watch you do it.”

“Do what?” I teased.

“You know.”

“This?” Watching him to see his reaction, I opened my legs wider and moved my hand up and down between them.

He swallowed. “Yes.”

I smiled. “Only if you do it too.”

Shyly he pulled his shorts down to his ankles. His large red cock sprang upwards, its smooth head shining in the sun, already glistening with a drop or two of semen.

“Stroke it,” I commanded. He immediately began pumping it energetically. “But slowly.” With what looked like a great effort of will, he slowed his hand to a gentle stroking. Fascinated, I watched as the head slowly disappeared beneath his fingers, then reappeared. Did it seem bigger each time, or was that just my fantasy getting out of control?

While my eyes were locked on his throbbing manhood, his own were fixed on my hand, busy between my legs.

“Open your legs more.” I did as he urged. I watched him lick his lips nervously. Though I was prone and he was standing above me, I knew I was the one in control. I was the one who was turning him on. He was hard because of me, because of my nakedness, because of what I was doing to myself.

On the other hand, I was also nearing my climax. Back in the real world, alone, lying back on the recliner, I had allowed my finger to find my clitoris. Its aching need to be touched had become too much to resist. I was stroking it, rolling it between my fingers, pinching it gently. Opening my eyes I could see that the kimono had fallen open. A naked leg was bent at the knee and propped to one side. My hand was visible, but I made no move to cover it. I was beyond the point of caring. 

I could feel flamingos inside me wanting to take off. I closed my eyes and conjured up my sixteen-year old admirer again. From the expression on his face, he was also close to orgasm. The movements of his hand were becoming jerky, uncontrollable. 

“Oh Jesus!” he cried, just once, then closed his eyes tight shut – unlike me, who wanted to see everything. A silky white ribbon shot from the end of his cock and landed across my breasts, and another, and another. (At least, that is what I imagined. In truth I had never seen a man ejaculate, so complete had been my decade-long incarceration.) Some dribbled down his hand as he continued to pump himself, but slowly now. I smiled in triumph. Though it had been his hand doing the work, I had been the inspiration.

It was enough to tip me over the edge. Done with him now I made him disappear from the garden and my own body return to the recliner. The kimono was gaping, my other leg bent and propped apart while my fingers brought me to that place where all thought evaporates and only intense pleasure remains. Starting at the soles of my feet a thousand flamingos began to take off, one or two to begin with, then the whole flock, up through my legs, through my pelvis and stomach, over my breasts and out into the sun, soaring, wings beating, until the exquisite pleasure beneath my fingers became too much to bear and I had to stop. 

I lay listening to the rapid beating in my breast, the short bursts of breath from my open mouth. Under my fingers my clitoris throbbed. Gently I patted and soothed it, as if calming a fretful child. The flamingos wheeled high in the sky until they eventually disappeared from view. I gradually became aware of my surroundings. The garden, the trees, the patio, the recliner, my open kimono, my unseen neighbours. 

I closed the kimono, tied it securely, got up and went inside mother’s house to wash the breakfast things.

For the next few days I set about trying to rebuild a social life, but it proved fruitless. My old friends from college days had found new lives for themselves. Phone calls were answered by strangers, letters returned unopened. I went to old haunts but found them closed, empty or packed with people ten years younger than me. 

Eventually I realised I couldn’t hope to restart my old life; I would have to begin a new one.

And in truth the prospect thrilled rather than daunted me. It felt like being on the verge of birth, but with all the advantages of adulthood. I was intelligent, educated, attractive and comfortably off. And though I wasn’t very experienced in the areas of sex, love and romance, at least I was mature enough not to have to go through all that ghastly teenage angst. I would soon find new friends, male and female, but I would take my time. I wasn’t so desperate that I would rush into whatever relationships came my way. To begin with I would – what was the expression? – play the field. It hardly sounded like me – a woman who had barely said hello to another person for ten years – but I was going to have some fun.

So I booked myself a singles holiday in Greece.

From almost the moment I arrived at the airport for check-in I realised I had made a mistake. I found myself surrounded by girls who seemed from the way they behaved to be not much more than half my age and boys already so drunk they could hardly stand. Gritting my teeth through the flight, I went in search of another hotel as soon as we landed, taking the first bus I could see, hardly caring where it was going.

Squeezed for an hour between Australian backpackers and old women in black headscarves, eventually I found myself deposited on the opposite side of the island in a whitewashed fishing village almost entirely devoid of tourists. With relief I took what felt like my first breath since I had left England. Evidently I was not yet ready for ‘fun’. Solitude was what I had become used to. Solitude was obviously what I liked.

The only hotel overlooked the harbour and I took a small plain room at the front with a little balcony on which I could take breakfast in the morning and enjoy a pre-dinner glass of wine in the evening. It was, quite simply, idyllic.

During the day I explored the nearby beaches, which though small were very pretty, hidden down dusty paths through olive groves. Most were well frequented, though none were busy by European standards, and as I ventured further afield I found one or two that remained completely deserted all day. I suppose I could be accused of being unadventurous – I had, after all, intended to come on this holiday in order to kickstart my social life – but those were the beaches I found myself drawn to. With a novel for company and no sound but the gentle lapping of the tideless Mediterranean and the cicadas to disturb me I was happy. When the heat became too much I would dive into the sea or retreat under the shade of an olive tree. Though it was costing me money I pretended that I was living the simple life. True, I was making no friends – other than the aged moustached owner of my favourite café – but what of that? For the first time in my life I was truly without a care in the world.

It was on the fifth day of my holiday – my illusion, as I subsequently came to think of it – that my peace was shattered.

I was alone on my favourite beach. The intensity of the midday sun had forced me back under the olive trees and I was lying on my front, eyes closed – my book boring me temporarily – half-dozing, but not quite asleep, when I heard voices. Suppressing a quick flash of irritation at having what I had come to regard as my own private beach invaded – I was after all supposed to be looking for new friends – I lifted my head to see who had arrived.

At first all I could see was a large outboard-powered inflatable half in the sea and half on the sand, but then I noticed two men walking a little way down the beach, dressed only in swimming trunks and carrying what appeared to be snorkelling gear. As they walked, they looked around at the beach, presumably assessing its qualities, and judging by their satisfied expressions, coming to positive conclusions. Though their eyes swept past where I was lying, evidently they didn’t see me. I was well inside the grove of trees and had no brightly coloured towel or costume to make me stand out. Furthermore, more by accident than by design, I had positioned myself behind a couple of large rocks, so was almost completely hidden from the beach, except perhaps by someone who was particularly looking for me.

Part of me wanted to stand up and make my presence known. I told myself I wasn’t shy – and truth to tell I was growing a little bored with my own company. But another part of me – the recluse? the voyeur? – decided to stay hidden, to watch them unobserved, to be – well, why not? – entertained for a while. 

They donned the snorkelling gear amid a lot of boyish pushing around and elbowing. They looked in their early 20s, though I couldn’t tell for sure at that distance and though I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I could tell by their accents that they were American. They were tanned and lean and had – what would the girls at the airport have called them? – prominent sixpacks. They looked as if they had spent the entire summer in Greece, perhaps even swimming from island to island. They certainly looked physically capable of it.

They dived into the water and disappeared from view, only the tops of their snorkels and the occasional flop of a flipper giving away their positions. They seemed to cover enormous distances effortlessly. I recalled with embarrassment my own painfully awkward breast stroke and was relieved I had after all decided to stay low.

After a few minutes I became bored and dug my book out. But I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew I was woken by the sound of their voices again. Surreptitiously I looked up. They were sitting on the sand, their snorkelling gear discarded. At that moment one of them – dark-haired – stood up and with a quick glance round to make sure they really were alone, slipped his swimming costume off.

I was so surprised I didn’t even have the presence of mind to pretend to be asleep, just in case he did see me. I just stared. He was the first naked man I had ever seen. Though evidently nudity wasn’t a rare experience for him: I could see only the faintest hint of a tan line. His belly and limp penis were almost as brown as the rest of him.

He took a towel and rubbed himself cursorily. At first I assumed that was why he had stripped and that now he would dress – a prospect that disappointed me, I admit it – but he showed no sign of doing so. Instead he said something to his blond friend, evidently a suggestion that he do the same, though as I say I couldn’t hear the words. But equally evidently, his friend demurred, shaking his head and lying back on the sand.

The dark-haired one regarded him with contempt for a moment, then lunged for his friend’s trunks, attempting to pull them off him. Laughing and pretending to be frightened, the blond one leapt up and ran down the beach. The dark one gave chase, making whooping noises like a red indian. By rights he shouldn’t have caught his friend but he was, I now saw, slightly taller and older, and just had the edge on speed. The blond one zigzagged to avoid being caught, but the dark-haired one was soon upon him. He grabbed for the blond’s trunks and brought his friend down. Within a second the trunks were off and in his hand. Triumphantly he whirled them in the air, then let them go. They sailed ten yards into the sea, from where the blond had to rescue them.




Alice Takes a Cruise Ch. 02



Again prepared for disappointment I half-expected him to put them back on, but he didn’t bother. Perhaps he realised they’d soon be taken off again – or perhaps he had been merely playing hard to get. Like the dark-haired one he was also tanned all over, his blond pubic hair standing out against his skin like gold. Evidently he was no more a stranger to nude sunbathing than his friend.

They walked back to their spot on the sand and lay down, perhaps thirty yards from me, their feet pointing towards the water, their bodies at an angle to me so that, though I couldn’t really see their faces, I could see the rest of them. In particular I could see their flaccid penises lolling on their thighs – though naturally I told myself not to concentrate exclusively on that area.

The blond handed the older one a bottle of sun cream and rolled over on his front. Obligingly his friend squeezed a line of the cream down his back and proceeded to rub it in, using long circular strokes that gradually worked their way down his body. When they reached the blond’s buttocks I assumed he would stop, which indeed he did, but only for a moment. He got up on his knees and straddled the blond’s legs, then, pouring a liberal amount of cream onto each buttock – the coldness causing the blond to shiver and twist against the restraint of the older one’s legs – used the same firm strokes to rub it in as he had on the blond’s back.

By this time, of course, an inner voice was telling me I was intruding on something private. These two thought they were alone. At the very least I should cough. But at the same time a louder voice was telling me that I had already kept my presence hidden for too long, that I should keep quite, that I should simply enjoy what was happening. An even louder voice was coming from a region between my legs, though I tried to ignore it. I was becoming aroused by the sight of these two naked men, though there was nothing overtly sexual in the act of one rubbing sun cream into the buttocks of the other.

The dark-haired one finished and resumed his position on his back. Was it my imagination or had his penis grown slightly? As if privy to my thoughts, his hand drfited to it, gave it a couple of casual caresses, then lay by his side. The men started talking. Only this time not the laddish shouting and laughter that had accompanied their arrival and their chase; just quiet almost sleepy meandering talk which I could barely hear, let alone make out. It was somehow soothing, yet frustrating at the same time. Absurdly I wanted to crawl closer so that I could eavesdrop properly, though I knew that effectively I was trapped in my hiding place until they decided to leave.

The dark one’s hand drifted to his cock again, this time stroking it more regularly, but also playing with it, teasing it, pulling the foreskin back to expose the head, then running his fingers around beneath the crown. I knew that I shouldn’t have been watching, that they thought they were alone, that it was a private thing he was doing – furthermore that I was a lone woman on a remote beach with two strange men. What might happen to me?

But I didn’t move. I knew I should have ignored the sensations coming from between my legs, gone back to my book and pretended it wasn’t happening, but I was transfixed. Within a few minutes the object of the man’s caresses had grown beautifully erect, long enough for him to hold it upright with one hand and stroke the tip with the other. I wondered if his friend had noticed. Would he baulk at the sight of him playing with himself? Or was this the kind of thing that men often did together when they were alone?

My own hand had not been idle. At the sight of the swollen penis the voice between my legs had risen to such a pitch that I had to silence it. I squeezed my legs together, but that brought only a little relief. I ground my pelvis into the dusty earth beneath me, but that merely hurt. I needed my fingers. 

Keeping my eyes on the men so as to be aware should they hear me – though I knew I was too far away and there was enough noise from the sea and cicadas to cover any I should make – I slid my hand beneath me and over the already damp patch on the crotch of my bikini bottom. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but at least it silenced that voice.

While the low murmur of their talk drifted over to me, the dark-haired man continued to stroke himself, slowly, utterly unhurried, varying the positions of his hands, now concentrating on the glistening crown, now only on the thick dark shaft, as if he had all the time in the world. Surely, I thought, his friend must be aware of what he was doing by now. And at that moment, as if in answer, the blond propped himself on his elbows and looked down his friend’s body to watch. The older one neither stopped nor changed his pace. They merely exchanged encouraging smiles.

The blond sat up so that he could watch his friend more easily. Obligingly the older one occasionally stopped his stroking and held the tall thick cock upright so that they could both admire it. He murmured something to the blond, who took the sun cream in his hand then knelt astride the other’s legs, in much the same way as the other had knelt astride him, only this time so that they were facing each other. He then dribbled a line down the older man’s chest and abdomen. This time it was the latter’s turn to give an involuntary shiver at the sudden coldness. The blond smeared it over his body, starting at his shoulders and chest and gradually working his way down towards the man’s cock. 

Though the dark-haired man had released the object of his pleasure the easier for his friend to apply the sun cream, I had certainly not released mine. The crotch of my bikini was now sopping, drenched with the lubrication pouring from me. I knew from experience that caressing myself through cotton or lycra produced indescribable sensations – and this was certainly one of those times – but that it rarely produced an orgasm. I needed to feel my fingers on my flesh. But I wanted to prolong this new experience for as long as possible. I knew it was ridiculous the moment I had the thought, but I didn’t want to climax before one of them did.

Though he had by now reached his friend’s erect cock, the blond teasingly massaged all around it first: abdomen, hips, inner thighs. Closing his eyes in frustration, the older man thrust his hips upwards, urging the blond to to take the cock in his hands. Finally, the blond relented. Dribbling another small line of sun cream down the length of the cock, he grasped it with both hands and started to gently massage the cream in, holding the base with one hand, using the other to slide gently up and down the crown, occasionally gripping a little harder just below the head and moving ever so slightly, a technique that seemed to cause the dark-haired man an exquisite agony, judging by the expression on his face.

I meanwhile had had to turn on my side, the better to get at my throbbing clitoris. Hardly caring whether they might see it, I bent my right leg up so that I could move my fingers over my sopping cleft. But their touch served only to heighten my need. Almost desperate now, I slipped them under my bikini bottom so that I could touch myself directly. Oh God.

The blond was now moving his hands more rapidly, looking intently at his friend’s engorged and glistening member as he slid them up and down its length. The dark-haired one was also watching it, almost as if it was a third entity, separate from both of them. And now I could hear clearly what he was saying, lost in the pleasure of his approaching orgasm. 

‘Oh yeah! Stroke it! Stroke it! Look how hard you’re making it. Make it come! Make it come!’

Plainly needing no urging, his friend continued – and I kept pace, hardly knowing I was doing so, but unable to stop myself. My middle finger was inside me, slipping deep among all my wetness, then out and up to touch my burning clitoris. Again and again and again.

‘Oh, yeah! I’m gonna come! I’m gonna come!’

He threw his head back with his eyes tightly closed, as if in agony, then evidently not wanting to miss any of the show, looked down again at his now pulsating cock. The blond paused momentarily, then drew both hands to the base of the cock, pulling the foreskin down from the head – which suddenly produced thicks gobbets of milky cream. (Not quite the white streamers of my imagination, but far more arousing in reality.) 

‘Oh Jesus! Yeah! I’m coming! I’m coming! Don’t stop!’

The command was unnecessary. The blond seemed to know exactly what to do. He resumed his stroking, but at a more gentle pace, using the added lubrication of his friend’s semen to aid the smooth sliding of his hands up and down the full length of the shaft, which still jerking, sent two or three more spurts of cream into the air, to land softly on his friend’s abdomen.

Exciting, thrilling, arousing – and forbidden – as it was, it was as much as I could do to keep my own eyes on the scene before me. My own climax was at the point of no return. My fingers were now pressing my clitoris exclusively, which was so awash with the juices pouring from me that I could barely maintain a purchase. And as the first of those flamingoes started to lift into the air I couldn’t stop an involuntary moan escaping from somewhere deep in my throat. 

‘Ooooohh Goddd!’

They might have heard it, but I doubt it. They were far too engrossed. In any case I was so far gone at that moment I wouldn’t have cared if half of Greece had heard me. The birds took off and whirled through my body, but this time they seemed to take so much longer than usual. I wondered if my orgasm was ever going to stop. I couldn’t bear to take my fingers from my still quivering clitoris, but neither could I bear to leave them there. Wave after wave of intense pleasure swept up through my body. The quivering between my legs seemed gradually to infect my arms, my legs, my torso – until I seemed to be shaking from head to toe. Another cry escaped me.

‘Aaaaahhh!’

Until finally with a supreme effort I dragged my hand out from under my bikini. I pressed my legs together to try to calm the sensations. Gradually my body subsided. I glanced over at the men on the sand, but they were still oblivious of my presence, still engrossed only in each other, or rather the thick red object between them – which was now beginning to noticeably shrink.

I lay on my back, closed my eyes and waited for the beating of my heart to slow down to a safer rate.

The shy and proper part of me now thrust itself forward. What had I just done? What kind of person was I? I had just spied on two men, who had assumed they were alone and had performed an act of masturbation. And watching them I had masturbated too. I should be ashamed. And not just for my act – which was morally reprehensible enough – but for watching them in theirs. They were probably, I now realised, a gay couple, perhaps deeply in love, no doubt expressing that love in one of the ways gay couples did. What right had I to witness it, to use it as the fuel for my own sexual activities?

On the other hand, there was no doubting the fact I had had perhaps the most intense and prolonged orgasm of my lif as a result. Why punish myself over it? What harm had I done? They were doubtless finished now. They would climb into their boat and leave, none the wiser. Then I would leave. We would never see each other again. And even if they did see me now, I reasoned, I would simply pretend to have been asleep.

Pleased with myself for having settled the matter to my satisfaction I rolled over on my front and glanced at the men. Unfortunately any expectation I might have had that things were over was quickly dispelled.

The blond was standing facing his friend, who was now kneeling before him, his previously erect member limp and lying quietly between his legs. But the blond’s cock was now in its turn stiff and erect, thick and dark, its swollen glistening head only inches from the dark-haired man’s face. Almost immediately my heart started beating wildly and the sensations between my legs that I had thought safely locked away began to tingle through me again. A part of me knew what was going to happen next, but perversely wanted it to and yet wanted it not to, all at the same time. I almost opened my mouth to shout ‘No!’ but luckily had no time even to utter that small word.

As I watched, the man on his knees leaned forward and kissed the tip of the blond’s cock, as lovingly as if it had been the toe of the Madonna. Fully erect it was even bigger than the older man’s, though perhaps that was the angle at which I was viewing it – almost full on. With a groan I felt the tingling at the top of my thighs demand to be dealt with. Again I slipped my fingers beneath the waistband of my bikini, but this time not simply to touch myself, but to get rid of the restriction completely. Impatiently I slid it down my legs and off. The sudden feeling of air and sun on that secret part of me felt thrilling and naughty.

The kneeling man put both his hands on the cock in front of him and stroked it up and down a few times. I could hear the blond’s groan of pleasure clearly. Then he guided the throbbing organ towards the waiting lips. Involuntarily I opened my own mouth, as if it had been my lips about to envelope the thick glistening organ. As it happened, my other lips were busy enveloping their own intruders – my fingers. Now caring little about whether or not I could be seen, I was lying with my legs wide apart, my knees bent, one hand holding myself open, while the other tried to insert as many fingers inside me as I could accommodate. I wanted them to feel as large as I imagined the blond’s cock would feel.

Which was now almost completely inside his friend’s mouth. Intense pleasure written clearly on his face, he was watching it disappear and reappear, maybe three or four inches at each stroke, the shaft held steady by the older man’s hand. 

‘Suck it, yeah! Suck it!’ he urged, though his friend seemed to be gaining at least as much pleasure, judging by the way his previously limp cock was now gradually resuming its full size. Fascinated, I watched as the blond’s thick cock bulged against the side of the man’s cheeks as he sucked it in. How could he do that without gagging?

Sadly it seemed to reach a climax very quickly. Perhaps the blond was too young, too eager, inexperienced in holding himself back. (Here was I, thinking myself an expert!) All too soon, his hips started to jerk as if in spasm, thrusting his cock rapidly in and out of the older man’s eager mouth. But the older man held on, never losing his grip or his rhythm. 

‘Aaah! Oh Jesus!’ the blond cried. ‘Yeah, I’m coming! I’m coming! Suck it!’

And he thrust hard, drew back, then thrust hard again, then again, a little less hard, then again, slower, then again. And all the time the older man kept his lips closed around his cock, still lovingly sucking. 

There was no evidence of the blond having ejaculated, though I knew from his actions that he must have done. There was a little dribble of white at the corner of the older man’s mouth, but that was all. Somehow the knowledge that all the blond’s thick milky cream must have gone into his friend’s mouth and that he must even now be swallowing it was enough to push me over the edge. All four fingers of one hand were inside me. I could feel my knuckles pushing hard against my opening while my thumb was busy at my clitoris.

‘Aaaaahhhh!’

Horror! Was that me who cried out? My imminent orgasm instantly forgotten I was ready for flight. Suddenly terrified, I looked at the men. They must have heard it. 

They had. They sprang apart, as startled as me. But they didn’t look in my direction. Instead they turned towards the far end of the beach, away from me.

I followed their gaze but could see nothing.

‘Ooooohhhh God!’

The cry came again. This time I could tell it came from where they were looking. It was a woman’s voice and it didn’t take much imagination to guess what had caused her to cry out. Goodness knows I had enough experience of female masturbation. After ten years of nothing but, I was probably the world’s expert. 

So the exhibition put on by the two men hadn’t been observed – nor enjoyed – by me alone.

It was a conclusion the men evidently came to as quickly as I did. With a mischievous smile at each other, they set off at a fast run down the beach. Within a few seconds they were a hundred yards away. It was, I realised, my opportunity. I was near the path. They could no longer have seen me, even had they been looking in my direction. I could have been away and gone before they even returned. It was the prudent thing to do.

That was the trouble. Part of me had had enough of being prudent. Part of me wanted to know what was going to happen next. Part of me wanted the day not to end quite yet. And part of me had an orgasm owing.

In less than a minute the men reappeared, still naked, walking back down the sand towards their snorkelling gear. Only now there was a girl of about twenty between them, wearing a black one-piece halter-neck swimsuit. Her shoulder-length hair was dark against her rather sunburnt skin – or was it a flush of anger? Although she was walking between them, it was plain she was doing so reluctantly. 

Each man was holding one of her wrists firmly – because she was struggling furiously to free herself, like a wild horse on the end of a rope.



Alice Takes a Cruise Ch. 03



Yes, it was anger. 

Lashing out with her feet, the girl attempted to kick her captors as they dragged her back to their spot on the deserted beach. But they merely laughed and held her more tightly, moving easily out of range. She even tried biting the hands gripping her wrists, but the older man simply grabbed her shoulder-length brown hair and pulled her head back.

'Fucking pricks! Let me go!'

Forty yards away, still hidden behind my little protective barrier of rocks, I hurriedly pulled my bikini bottom back on. If I was to be discovered, I wanted to be decently dressed.

I could hear her angry words, but found it difficult to place her accent. She didn't sound English like me, and I was fairly sure she wasn't American. Perhaps she was one of the Australian backpackers I had shared the bus with five days ago, though her skin looked a little pink and burnt for a sun-worshipper. For the sake of placing her somewhere – an infuriating habit of we English, I know – I decided she was Swedish. That would explain the good – though ripe – language. An explanation of her dark hair – unusual for a Scandinavian – would have to wait.

But how important was all that? Annoyed with myself for thinking such irrelevant thoughts, I watched in growing agitation as the two men forced her to kneel on the sand by their gear. How quickly the mood of the day had changed. The sky was still an uninterrupted blue, the hot sun beat down, the cicadas rattled – yet it was as if a violent storm had been unleashed. An hour ago I had been lying alone on this beach without a care in the world. A few minutes ago I had even been about to enjoy my second orgasm of the day.

Perhaps that is why this awful thing had happened. It was punishment for my gaining pleasure from watching two men perform unnatural acts. 

Almost as soon as the thought entered my head, I dismissed it. I, after all, wasn't the person being punished. It was that poor Swedish girl, she – who had almost certainly witnessed – and enjoyed – the same sight – who was now being made to suffer for her voyeurism.

Though she wasn't giving up without a struggle. The men may have forced her to her knees, but she still lashed out at them as best she could, not only with her limbs, but with her tongue as well.

'Let me go, you fucking pricks! I'll fucking kill you!'

The blond one laughed at his friend. 'Hey, this one's wild.'

'Yeah,' agreed the other. 'The wild ones are best.'

My eyes widened at his words. But before I could dwell on their alarming implication, the girl's foot suddenly leaped into the air between his legs and caught the tenderest part of his naked body a fierce blow.

The air shot from his lungs. 'Jesus!' His face contorted with agony, he collapsed, bent double on the sand.

For a brief moment, the blond's attention was distracted as he looked with concern at his friend. The girl seized her chance. In an instant she was up and running.

Straight towards me.

Immediately the blond set off after her, but in growing horror I realised she had too much of a head start. She would reach my hiding place before he reached her. 

I was about to be discovered.

My options raced before my mind's eye. I could stand up and announce my presence, thereby saving the girl from whatever fate the two men had in store for her. On the other hand, how would I then explain what I'd been doing for the last hour or so? And who's to say I wouldn't become another of their captives? They were in their twenties and looked strong enough to handle both me and the Swedish girl. Worse still, perhaps they would let her go and take me instead.

Alternatively, I could stand up and run for all I was worth. I was still the nearest to the path that led from the beach. If I got up now I might make it to safety before they caught me. It was perhaps the best option. But in truth my legs felt like jelly. I was terrified. What if I could barely stand, let alone run?

In the space of a split second I made up my mind. I would simply close my eyes, put my head in the sand and pretend I wasn't there.

I did so. With my eyes tight shut, I could feel the gritty earth against my cheek. My heart pounded beneath my breast. At any moment I expected the footsteps of the girl and her pursuer to be on me.

But they never came.

After a few seconds – long enough for them to have reached me twice over – I ventured an open eye. The girl had been caught under the first of the olive trees, barely twenty yards from my hiding place. It was easy to guess what had happened. She had tripped and fallen and the blond had pounced. 

Now he held her, face down on the ground, her arm twisted viciously up behind her back so that she was helpless. Winded by her fall and crushed by his weight, she could no longer even vent her anger in words. But her eyes were open and staring straight at me.

'Help me,' I saw her lips form the silent words. 'Help me, please.'

-----------------------

After they had gone – the Swedish girl and her two captors – those words returned to haunt me.

What a coward I was. She had asked for my help and I had failed her. Even as her lips had desperately implored me, she had still had fight in her eyes. But it had faded as soon as she'd realised I was going to do nothing. 

No doubt she'd seen the fear in my own eyes.

Hardly bothering to give me even a glance of contempt, she'd gone limp and allowed the blond man to frogmarch her back to where the dark-haired man had been recovering from the kick she'd given him. Without a word he'd hit her hard round the face with the back of his hand. A few minutes later they'd bundled her unceremoniously into their inflatable, sped off round the headland and out of sight.

Yes, I was a coward. I was pathetic. A few days ago, full of courage and optimism, I had decided to start a new life for myself.

I had fallen at the first fence. 

In a mood of utter self-loathing I stood and collected my things. Even now, knowing they were gone, I still looked around me nervously, half-expecting someone else to appear. But I was alone. The beach, the olive grove, the sea were all unchanged.

I walked over to the spot where the men had stopped to put on and take off their snorkelling gear, but other than a few trampled footprints there was no sign that anyone had ever been there. In a childish fit of petulance I kicked furiously at the sand. The empty beach no longer seemed idyllic, it felt threatening. The sea no longer felt inviting, its dull flatness merely seemed boring. The sun? Well, I'm English. The sun was just too bloody hot.

Back at my hotel overlooking the little fishing harbour I almost started to pack. In fact, I did get my bag from the bottom of the wardrobe and open it on the bed. But then I decided to sleep on it. I wasn't one for impulsive decisions. Hadn't the last few hours taught me that?

I briefly considered going to the police, but quickly rejected that idea too. What would I say? That I had spied on two gay men making love then watched them kidnap a girl? I couldn't even make it sound believable to myself, let alone justify my part in it. And the thought of trying to explain everything to a couple of sniggering Greek policemen – never mind the language barrier – made me shiver with disgust. 

If I had known other English speakers there, I suppose I could have gone to them. But again, what could I say? How could I identify the kidnappers and their victim? I didn't know who the girl was. I didn't know who the men were. There were no doubt hundreds of similar inflatables all over Greece.

I had to face it. I could do nothing.

That evening, in a self-pitying mood, I had more than my usual pre-dinner glass of wine on my balcony. I drank half a whole bottle before weaving my lightheaded way to my usual restaurant, where the ageing moustached owner made a great show of welcoming me.

'Ah, Miss Alice! You are so beautiful this evening.' He clasped my elbows with both hands (being too short to comfortably clasp my shoulders) and stage-whispered, 'I leave my wife tonight. We fly to England, yes? We have lots of children.'

I smiled thinly. I wasn't in the mood for this. 'Not tonight, Stephan. I feel a bit tired.'

Immediately he became solicitous. 'I bring you nice glass of ouzo, Miss Alice. It make you feel whole lot better. Then I cook you number one fish.' He put his grouped fingertips to his lips. 'He very good today. Only caught this morning. You want to see?'

I put up my hand. 'No, thank you.' The thought of looking into an icebox full of raw fish didn't appeal right now. 'I'll take your word for it.'

When the ouzo arrived I drank it almost immediately, hardly waiting for the water to turn milky. It reminded me too much of what I had witnessed on the beach that afternoon. Momentarily I shut my eyes to blot out the sight of the dark-haired man's semen spurting onto his abdomen. It seemed ridiculous – even revolting – to think that only a few hours ago the sight had raised me to a hitherto unknown level of passion. Right now, all I wanted to do was wipe it from my memory.

Stephan's fish helped. He'd been right. It was very good. Cooked simply over a charcoal fire in the corner of the patch of ground where he set out his tables and chairs it was flavoured with nothing more than a little olive oil and lemon juice. Yet it tasted divine.

And the wine I had with it helped more. By the time I had finished my meal I had forgotten all about my ghastly experience. I had almost forgotten what country I was in.

Inadvertently banging my knee against the table leg and knocking over my empty wine glass I got unsteadily to my feet. Stephan hovered. 'You OK, Miss Alice?' I smiled reassuringly. I must have been very drunk. Even he – all five feet of him – was beginning to look attractive.

Back in my room I flopped on the bed. Even with the balcony doors wide open the night air was stifling. There wasn't a breath of wind. With a view of nothing but the sea, I watched the lights of the fishing boats as they left the harbour to get the night's catch. The sea was so still and flat, they seemed hardly to waver.

I closed my eyes but the act produced an almost instant whirling sensation, as if I were spinning in space. I opened them and the room slowed down. I stood up – with difficulty – and undressed – with even more difficulty. Standing on the cool tiles in the tiny en-suite bathroom I splashed cold water on my face, but it brought only temporary relief. Back on the bed, though now completely naked, I was soon hot again.

With a sinking heart I knew the night was going to be a long one.

----------------------------

I don't know what it was that made me think of her – but unbidden, suddenly there was Jenny. Maybe it was thinking about that Swedish girl that brought her memory back, the connection between them I'd been trying to deny all evening. Not that they were alike in any way. Jenny would be thirty-three, no thirty-four, by now and the Swedish girl looked maybe ten years younger.

No, outwardly they had nothing in common. The connection lay in me, in what I had done to them both. I had let them down. The cowardice that had prevented me from saving that girl was the same cowardice that had lost me Jenny.

Feebly I tried to shut the memory away again. I was too drunk for this. It wasn't fair. What was the point of raking it all up? I'd managed to stop thinking about her years ago. I knew what would happen. I would end up in tears, just as I had always done.

Ten years ago. Such a long time. Such a short time.

I was twenty-one and I was vulnerable. Boy, was I vulnerable. I had just broken up with Peter – my last ever boyfriend, though I didn't know it at the time – and mother's illness had just been diagnosed.

Actually, that's misleading. It was my mother's illness that caused my breakup with Peter. When I knew I would have to devote the next few years of my life to caring for her I told him I couldn't carry on seeing him. It was only fair. There was no way I could have any kind of serious relationship if I was going to do my best for mother.

I don't know what I expected in response – sympathy, perhaps, understanding, resignation even – certainly not the endless arguments we immediately descended into. He kept telling me that he loved me, that he would stand by me whatever happened, that he would learn to care for mother as much as I did, that we could 'work it out together'.

He was being ridiculous, of course. And I told him so. There was no way I could have balanced his demands with hers. She was my number one priority. She was my responsibility and mine alone. It was my duty.

He protested, of course, but I stuck to my guns. Eventually he gave up. He knew how firm I was when I set my mind on something – though he called it stubborn. His parting shot was to accuse me of being 'afraid of life', and that to disguise it I was 'playing the martyr'.

That was delivered on a rainy autumn night outside the student bar of the college we both attended, and though in the following weeks we occasionally passed each other in the library or on the way to lectures, it was the last time we ever spoke. 

Actually, his parting words were that he would wait for me, 'however long it took'. Of course I ignored him. That was the kind of romantic nonsense everybody says at that age.

Jenny came along just after my finals the following spring. I had got over Peter – or so I believed – and was just beginning to realise what a handful mother was going to be. Health workers advised me to attend a support group for carers of people with similar conditions.

Jenny was one of the group.

We didn't exactly hit it off from the word go. In fact, I disliked her almost on sight. Although she was only twenty-four at the time, she affected a superior air, as if she had all the answers. Most of the other members of the group were simply exhausted, thankful to be away from their demanding charges for an hour or two, to be able to sit down with a cup of tea and have a moan with people who knew only too well what they were going through.

Not Jenny. She wanted to give advice. She wanted everyone to listen to her. She wanted to gee everyone up, get them on the right track, sort themselves out. I could tell almost from the first meeting that she was heartily disliked. True, as I learnt later, she had been caring for her older brother for almost six years by then and knew what she was talking about. She had studied his illness at length, something she recommended we all did. 'How else are you going to know whether those bloody doctors are doing the right thing?'

Annoyingly, she was right most of the time. Which of course only made her more disliked. And she made no allowances for anyone's lack of energy – something we all suffered from to a greater or lesser extent. Full of an almost manic determination, she couldn't understand anyone less motivated than herself. Not only did she urge us to study our relatives' conditions, she also expected us to become agitators on their behalf: write letters to the press, lobby our MPs, etc, etc. As if we didn't have enough on our plates!

So it was with a certain relief that we heard her brother had died. An unkind reaction, yes, but one thing we had all grown used to was the inevitability of death. At least it meant she would no longer be pestering us.

Yet to everyone's surprise she continued to attend the meetings. She was no longer quite so vociferous, of course, but still offered advice when she thought we needed it, still urged us on when she saw our spirits flagging. From then on, though, no one took much notice. It was as if with the death of her brother, her moral right to lecture us had vanished. Why should we listen to her? What did she know? As time passed she became more ostracised from the group, less vocal. Until eventually she just used to come and sit quietly by herself, drinking tea and talking to no one. It was as if she were no longer one of us.

It was round about that time I started going through a particularly bad patch with mother. Understandably depressed at her condition, she started to take it out on her daytime carers. Every evening when I came home from work I'd be presented with a long list of trivial complaints. They were too rough with her, her bathwater was too hot, it was too cold, her food was inedible, and so on and so on, until eventually I was so sick of her whining I resigned from my job and told her I would look after her full-time.

At the next support group meeting I told everyone what I'd done. Not to boast, not to be told what a wonderfully devoted daughter I was – simply to get a bit of sympathy. Which, thankfully, is what I got, though not from where I expected it. Of course, they were all very supportive. I received lots of pats on the knee and cups of tea. Then – exhaustion and self-pity taking over – I burst into tears, much to my embarrassment.

Not that people didn't burst into tears on a regular basis, but it wasn't exactly the done thing. We were British, after all; we were all expected to bear our burdens stoically, with irony and humour our social props. When someone admitted their patient had fallen out of bed and it had taken an hour to get them back in, the story was supposed to be accompanied by laughter, not tears.

So I took myself outside into the corridor of the school where we met and tried to pull myself together.

But before I could, I felt an arm around my shoulders. It was Jenny.

I pulled away and started to dab my eyes ineffectually with a tissue. 'I'm OK.'

She looked at me with a softness I had never seen before on her determined face. 'It's all right to cry, you know. It is allowed.'

It was absurd, but it was as if her permission was all I needed. I immediately cried more. I couldn't stop. It was as if all the tiredness and pent-up frustration of the last few months were finally bursting free. Jenny put her arms around me again, and this time I didn't resist. I just put my head on her shoulder and bawled like a baby.

I didn't go back into the meeting. Jenny took me out to her car and drove me home to mother's. I invited her in – or did she invite herself? I can't remember – then went upstairs to check that mother was asleep and to tell the part-time carer she could go.

Downstairs Jenny was looking at mother's photos. I suggested coffee.

'Don't you have any alcohol?'

Had I? I'd no idea. I was so terrified I might do something wrong to mother while under the influence, I'd more or less cut drink completely from my diet. Birthdays and Christmases only. 'There might be some wine somewhere.'

Jenny headed for the kitchen. 'Don't worry, I'll find it.' She smiled conspiratorially. 'I have a nose for it.' After only a minute or two of searching she emerged from a bottom cupboard with a dusty bottle in her hand. 'Eureka!'

I found two wine glasses, automatically going to wash them. They probably hadn't been used for months.

Jenny turned down her mouth. 'Oh don't bother with that. It's not £20 a bottle, is it?'

'Not if I bought it,' I said.

We talked. And talked.

At first about my mother and her brother; what had made me so upset that day; how she felt now her brother was dead. But it was old ground. We already knew only too well that side of our lives. I asked her why she continued to come to the meetings, now she had no reason to.

'Isn't it obvious?'

'No.'

She looked away, as if afraid to admit the truth, but then looked me straight in the eye. 'I come because you're my only friends.'

That night we drank the bottle – the first of many to come – and I probably became very giggly and stupid, though I can't really remember. Jenny stayed until about 11.30, then – no doubt concerned about my inebriated condition – told me to go to bed.




Alice Takes a Cruise Ch. 03



At the front door I thanked her for looking after me.

'It's me who should be thanking you,' she said seriously.

I gave her a girlish hug, expecting her to disengage after a polite length of time. But instead she returned my embrace more firmly. Involuntarily I relaxed into her arms, breathing in the faint scent of her hair.

She pulled away with a laugh and kissed me lightly on the cheek, as the French do to anyone above mere acquaintance. 'You'd better get some sleep. And drink lots of water, or you'll wake with a hangover.'

'Yes, miss.' I attempted a salute, but succeeded only in almost poking my eye out. 'Come round again tomorrow,' I added impulsively, as she walked down the path.

She turned and smiled, surprised and pleased. 'I'd like that.' She opened the front gate. 'You know you have lovely hair, Alice.' 

Then she was gone.

Did she deliberately set out to seduce me? I've no idea. Maybe a part of me was ready to be seduced – though it didn't feel like it at the time. After the trauma of parting with Peter, I felt that any relationship which demanded emotional commitment was impossible. And sex? That was even more out of the question. I masturbated, of course. I wasn't frigid. But rarely, and always behind my bedroom door, in the dark, when I knew mother was safely asleep. With practice I became quite good at pleasing myself, but in truth they were fairly joyless occasions, always followed by massive helpings of guilt.

I suppose I had tried to shut that side of me down after Peter. I knew that I could never fall in love with anyone while mother still needed me, so I simply pretended that any desires of that kind didn't exist.

Perhaps Jenny sensed that in me. Or perhaps she saw it in herself and guessed that I felt the same way. Once she told me that it had been a whole week after her brother died before she'd been able to look at herself naked. She'd felt as if she were flaunting the fact she was still alive. It struck a chord. How could I ever think of enjoying myself - particularly in a physical way – while mother was suffering so much?

The following evening Jenny came round. After ensuring mother was asleep, I had prepared a little dinner for us both – in the kitchen because that was the least audible room from her bedroom. But I could hear her through a baby alarm if she awoke.

I had put a white linen cloth over the small table and some late roses from the garden in a vase. It looked a bit over the top, but I had no real idea what was appropriate. I hadn't entertained for months. Suddenly convinced it all looked ridiculous, I was on the point of removing them both and laying the cutlery on the bare table top, when the doorbell rang.

She was beautiful.

I don't know why it struck me as the most immediately obvious thing about her, but it was so true I couldn't ignore it. How had I not seen it before? She had had her hair done – that was the first thing. A deep brown – almost black – it shone and cascaded in soft curls to just below her shoulders (this was almost ten years ago, so forgive me if it sounds unfashionable). And she had put on lipstick and makeup, adornments she had never bothered with for the support group meetings. Her dress was a shimmering turquoise silk sheath to her knees, far too cold for the time of year, but she had probably only had to walk from her car. She seemed slimmer too, and taller. I glanced at her feet. She was perched on elegant, strappy stilettos, so minimal as to be almost non-existent. Her toenails were painted the same deep red as her lips.

'Are you going to let me in? I can only stand in these shoes for up to five minutes.'

I felt myself blush as I realised I must have been staring. 'Of course. Of course. Come in. Come in.' I asked her for her coat, then saw she didn't have one. I may even have asked her if she wanted to use the bathroom, I was so tongue-tied.

She laughed. 'And I thought I was nervous.' She leant forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek, just as she had the previous night. 

I felt myself sway slightly from the enveloping sweetness of her perfume, then we were apart again.

'Ralph Lauren,' she said.

'What?'

'My perfume,' she smiled.

'It's lovely,' I said. I seemed to have developed a slight catch in my throat. 'I must try it.'

Jenny started for the living room, but I steered her towards the kitchen. 'I've set the table in the kitchen. Mother won't be disturbed by us then. Do you mind?'

She admired the white linen, the roses. 'It's perfect.'

'I've made some dinner. I hope you're hungry.'

'I could eat a horse.' She sat down and bent to unstrap her shoes. 'And do you mind if I take these off? They're killing me.'

'I feel distinctly underdressed,' I admitted. I was wearing a pair of loose linen trousers and a pale pink cotton top. They didn't sound much, but they had taken me over an hour to choose. I had fiddled with my hair for another hour – in between ministering to mother and preparing the dinner.

Jenny appraised me steadily from head to toe, one of those serious looks I was already coming to know. 'You look gorgeous.'

Well, it wasn't quite the word I would have chosen – one girl to another – but it had the effect it was no doubt intended to. I glowed.

Dinner went well. Oh, why be modest? It was a triumph. Though I was still barely twenty-two, preparing most of mother's meals had made me quite an expert in the kitchen – though, naturally, the dishes I prepared for Jenny and me were nothing like the largely pureed babyfood I took upstairs. I had even managed to find a few more bottles of wine hiding behind a lot of junk in the cupboard under the stairs.

Jenny told me about her family; how her parents had divorced soon after her brother's illness had been diagnosed; how her mother had been totally unable to deal with it and was now living alone 'somewhere up north'. It was plain Jenny thought she had deserted them and that it was still too painful to talk about.

'Don't you ever see her?'

'I used to,' she admitted. 'But then I got tired of trying to get her off all the prescription drugs she was taking.' She looked at me. 'Does that sound callous?'

It did, but I didn't want to say so. 'I don't know her.'

'Very diplomatic.' She laughed and took a large gulp of wine. 'Oh, maybe I'll try again one day. Not yet, though.'

'What about your father?'

'I see him occasionally. He's in the film business and spends nearly all his time in America.'

'Leaving you to look after your brother.'

She waved her glass. 'Oh, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. He would have been useless. When he became more successful he offered to pay for full-time care for Jack, but I told him to pay me instead. I was doing most of it anyway. With his money it meant I could give up work.'

'You must have really wanted to look after him.'

She poured us both another glass of wine, emptying the bottle. 'Yes, well, I had an ulterior motive.'

I waited for her to say more, but she seemed reluctant. She held the empty bottle in front of her. 'Let's open another.'

'Don't you have to drive home?'

'I'll get a taxi.' She gave me a look, half unsure, half challenge. 'Or I could stay.'

I must have hesitated too long.

'No, of course I'll get a taxi. You won't want to disturb your mother.'

I was grateful for her understanding. 'It's ridiculous, but she doesn't like people even to know about her condition.'

'Don't worry.' Jenny stretched her hand across the table and gave mine a firm squeeze. 'I know what you mean.'

'Thanks.' I returned the pressure of her hand and for a moment we just looked at each other. Her fingers felt cool, strong, reassuring, and she seemed happy to leave them there.

I withdrew my hand. Jenny laughed. 'What about that wine?'

I blew the dust off another bottle and she opened it and poured us both generous glasses. I was already a little lightheaded; this one was going to last me the rest of the evening. I took a genteel sip. Jenny gulped down a mouthful. I tried to remember what we'd been talking about.

'You said you'd had an ulterior motive.'

'What?'

'For giving up work and looking after your brother.'

'Oh that.' She seemed reluctant to elaborate, but then evidently decided she would. 'Have you ever been in love, Alice?'

The apparent change of direction confused me. 'What? No.' I remembered Peter. 'No,' I repeated, though less certainly. 'I don't think so.'

But she seemed hardly to be listening.

'You'll know it when it happens. It's like being hit by a bus.'

'Is that why you were glad to give up work and look after your brother? It was an excuse?' I wasn't so befuddled with drink I couldn't put two and two together and still get four.

She immediately became defensive, though I hadn't intended it as an accusation. 'I don't feel particularly proud of myself, but he was still the most important person to me. I made sure his needs always came first. He never suffered because of…' Uncharacteristically she suddenly seemed lost for the right word, as if she were about to say one thing, but then decided on another. '…because of anything else I was doing.'

'So who was he?'

She frowned in genuine puzzlement. 'Who was who?'

'The man you fell in love with.'

It silenced her. She took another gulp of her wine, looking at me steadily over the glass. 'There was no man.'

'Oh,' I said, thinking I understood. 

She waited, knowing I didn't.

'Oh,' I said again, this time really understanding.

'Yes. Oh,' she echoed. 'Shall I go now?'

I felt a blush creep up my neck. Had I looked so disapproving? Was I really such a prude? 'Of course not.'

Uncertainly, she tried the beginnings of a smile. 'You're not frightened to be alone with me?'

Yes, part of me wanted to scream out, but I silenced it. I tried to think of something to say that would make me sound like a woman of the world, but failed miserably. 'I've never met a real, live lesbian before. You're not what I would have expected.'

Her smile turned to a laugh. 'Next time I'll wear corduroys and smoke a pipe.'

'Don't laugh at me. You know what I mean.'

She stopped laughing and put her hand on mine. 'Poor Alice. You're a bit of an innocent, aren't you?'

Petulantly I took my hand away. The worst thing in life is to be accused of something you know to be true. 'Of lesbianism? I should think so.' Even to myself I sounded idiotic.

'I'm sorry.' She drained her glass and stood up. 'Perhaps I should call for that taxi.'

'No, don't.' The words were out before I could stop them. 'I mean you don't have to go.'

Jenny looked at me as if she were trying to gauge my sincerity, a gaze as steady as if she had merely drunk a glass of water instead of almost a bottle of wine. 'Are you sure you wouldn't rather pretend you'd never met me?'

I tried to match her gaze. 'No. I want you to stay.'

There was a long silence. I could almost hear her considering her judgment on me.

'Please.'

It seemed to be the right word. She smiled and sat down again. 'Well, you're going to have to drink your share.' She filled my glass to the top and refilled her own. By unspoken agreement we both raised them and clinked. 'You need to be drunk if you're going to listen to my sob story.'

In truth, despite being my first – albeit vicarious – experience of lesbian love, it wasn't so bizarre. If I substituted Jenny's girlfriend for any man it would have sounded as mundane as a million other doomed affairs.

They had met at a club; they had gone out together a few times; they had fallen in love – or rather, Jenny had. Financed by her father, she had given up her job not only to look after her brother, but to spend as much time as possible with her lover. To Jenny, it had been the beginning of a long-term relationship. The object of her love, unfortunately, had had other ideas. Within a few weeks Jenny had discovered she was seeing another girl. A few stand-up rows and lots of tears later, it had all been over.

Related so baldly it seems a brief business, ended almost before it began. But in truth, Jenny took the best part of an hour to tell the tale, dwelling particularly on the feelings the girl had prompted in her, how she had been unable to sleep for weeks, how she had walked in a daze, how she had longed for her every waking moment. Then how she had hated her, how it had taken her almost a year to get over her.

'And what do you think of her now?' I asked.

She laughed. 'That she was great in bed.'

'Oh.' I could feel another blush coming.

'Whoops, sorry.'

But actually I didn't feel embarrassed any more, not in front of her. Maybe it was the drink, or maybe I was actually beginning to think of her as a friend again. 'No, don't apologise. You were right. I am a bit of an innocent.'

For an answer she stood up, leant over the small table and before I realised what was happening, took my face between her hands and gave me a kiss on the lips. 'Yes, but a very beautiful one.'

I was struck dumb. I could feel the blush returning. I couldn't decide whether to be outraged or flattered.

Amused by my discomfort, Jenny smiled. 'That was nice. In fact, I'd like to have another go.'

But this time I was quicker. I was out of my chair, already a step away. 'Perhaps it is time for that taxi.'

Jenny closed her eyes and swayed a little on her feet, putting a hand to her forehead. 'Oh dear, I don't think I should have done that.' She slumped to her chair and put her head in her hands.

'Are you all right? Would you like a glass of water?'

She raised her head. 'I'm not really used to drink,' she said, attempting a weak smile.

I raised my eyebrows. 'Really?'

She spoke as if it were obvious to anyone: 'I told you I was nervous.'

She slept in my room and I slept on the sofa in the lounge, the room immediately below mother's. I warned her to be as quiet as possible; I didn't want mother knowing anyone else was in the house. I knew from bitter experience that she reacted badly enough when one of her previous carers had had to stay over – she would probably have complained about it for a week if she'd learnt a complete stranger had stayed the night.

But I needn't have worried. When I put my head round the door after settling mother, Jenny was already sound asleep, an elegant naked foot sticking out from under my duvet.

I washed the dishes then made up the sofabed. I'd slept there often enough before. If mother was going through one of her restless phases, it was easier for her to bang on the floor with her stick than call to me in my bedroom. But that night I just couldn't drop off. I kept thinking of the evening just passed, of Jenny, how beautiful she had looked in her turquoise silk dress, her large eyes, how they had gradually become hooded with drink, of how – well, why didn't I admit it to myself? – how amazingly sexy she had looked.

And though I tried not to, I also thought of the kiss she had given me. Brief though it had been, fleeting even, I could still remember every moment of it, her hands on my cheeks, her lips approaching mine, then the touch of her soft flesh. And now I came to think of it in detail, to really study it, as it were, I decided that it had been no ordinary kiss, not the kind of kiss one receives, say, from a relative at a wedding. There had been a distinct pressure, a firmness, even a certain lingering involved.

Of course, part of me was horrified at the thought I had been kissed on the lips by a lesbian. But another part of me – perhaps the lonely, frustrated, unloved part – was excited by it. I could feel my heart beating that little bit quicker just at the thought of it. Wanting to recapture the feeling, I even put the back of my hand to my lips, closed my eyes and tried to imagine I was kissing her. Ridiculous, of course.

Mother woke me only twice during the night. The first time she wanted turning; an hour later she wanted a drink. I stayed until she was asleep again, then went downstairs to the kitchen to wash the glass. I was standing at the sink in my long t-shirt when Jenny came in, my duvet clutched around her.

'I heard you moving about,' she said. 'I thought it'd be OK if I got myself some water.'

The vision of beauty of the previous evening was a little tarnished. Her hair was anyhow and her makeup had smudged.

'How do you feel?'

'Not too great.' She caught sight of herself in the mirror. 'God, I look terrible. I should have stayed in bed.'

I took a couple of tissues and wetted them. 'Here.'

She took them, but then held them out to me. 'Would you mind? I don't seem to be able to focus too well.'

For a moment I was reluctant. But she looked so helpless, I almost laughed at my timidity. What could possibly happen to me?

I wiped the tissues over her forehead and cheeks. She closed her eyes so that I could wipe the remains of her mascara off, then wetted another tissue and wiped away the last traces of her lipstick. I tried to pretend otherwise, but it felt very sensual to be stroking her skin, albeit with pieces of soggy recycled paper, and judging by the somewhat dreamy expression on her face, Jenny felt it too. Or perhaps she was just half-asleep.

'I've got some cleanser in the bathroom.'

'No, that was lovely. You have very gentle hands.' She smiled. 'But you know what?'

'What?'

'I'd kill for a cup of tea.'

'Why not?' I laughed. 'It's only four o'clock in the morning.'

So we sat at the table again and drank tea. And talked. And laughed. And sat in silence occasionally. It felt so natural to be with her, so comfortable. It was as if we had known each other for years. Though she was very different from me – more worldly, more knowing – we seemed to be kindred spirits. I felt as if I could tell her anything.

Which was maybe why I ended up in tears again.

I don't know what we were talking about – mother, probably – but quite suddenly all the exhaustion and frustration and loneliness of my life welled up inside me and burst out. I could feel the tears pricking my eyes and immediately tried to hide behind a tissue. But the sight of Jenny's immediate look of concern told me to just let go, no matter how hard I tried to hold back.

'Oh, Alice,' was all she said. Then she was out of her chair and round my side of the table.

Without thinking, I rested my head against the softness of the duvet. I wanted her arms round me again, just as she'd done outside the support group meeting. I wanted to bawl like a baby and be comforted like one. But the duvet was not very helpful. I could feel her trying to free her arms, while still keeping it wrapped around her.

Then, 'Oh, bugger it.' She let it drop. I felt her naked arms come round me and hold me. Suddenly my head was resting on her skin. I opened my eyes and found myself looking at two beautiful breasts, soft, welcoming. I tried to pull away, but Jenny's arms held me – not fast, but enough for it to be somehow ungrateful of me to force them away.

Jenny looked down at me. 'They wash clean,' she smiled. 'Just let go.'

So I did as I was told. Just as outside the support group meeting, I let myself go. I cried and cried, while Jenny held me, stroked my hair and said 'there, there,' over and over and my tears ran down the smooth valley between her breasts.