10 comments/ 8305 views/ 5 favorites The de Winter's Tale By: NaokoSmith The de Winter's Tale. Copyright © Naoko Smith 2015 Many thanks to Sara, curl4ever and Oggbashan for beta reading and giving me their insights into this story. It was the best job in the world! To start with, the pool belonged to Jeff Somers -- the millionaire writer who created the Dara Cruft character. Carl had of course grown up playing the spin-off games from Somers' books -- and surreptitiously reading the books. To actually have a job taking care of Jeff Somers' swimming pool was enough to make the kid in him punch the air with joy. The job was designed as a sinecure to cover the summer break from college. You had a little money, a room over Somers' garage, meals with the rest of the household staff and you were supposed to take as much time off as you liked to write fiction. Presumably Somers gave you tips on writing? Carl had what he later realised was a premonitionary qualm when the Head of English, Prof. Jones, said: "and of course, you will have guidance from Dr. de Winter." He thought the manic gleam in Jones' eye was just a reflection of light on his glasses but there was no disguising the reverential awe in Jones' voice. Still, any guidance on his stories would be good, right. Even Jones' pedantic lectures about the use of the semi-colon had value and Carl had heard other students say de Winter gave top quality critique. Carl laughed to himself about most of the feedback on his writing. He already had successful stories under a pseudonym on erotic writing websites and a substantial fanbase. What he wanted was Somers' advice. How did you write something that hit the big money like Somers had done? Carl knew, of course, that a degenerative disease meant Somers now used a wheelchair. Was it to sublimate his wish for a more active life that he still wrote the Dara Cruft stories in which she loped effortlessly through jungles rescuing near-extinct species of moss and fungi? Carl did feel it for the old man, who had been a minor star on tennis circuits in the early days. You could sometimes still find an old copy of one of his books with a photo of him on the back wielding a racquet. Laughing with his blue eyes as well as his mouth, a sweater knotted carelessly over his broad shoulders, his thick blond hair swept back from a patrician brow. He had looked something like Carl, although it was swimming that was Carl's sport. For Christ's sake! He was a junior league swimming champion and he had a summer job looking after a freaking swimming pool! Carl still swam regularly for exercise, although he no longer put in the long hours per day necessary for championship standard. Sure, they had murmured about Olympic hopeful to his parents but Carl was well aware that even if he hit that big time; even if he won one or two or three gold medals, it would all be over in a very short time. He would be left to make a living coaching the next set of hopefuls -- and some overly ambitious hopelesses. He wanted an easier route to fame and fortune. "Feel free to use the pool yourself whenever you like," Somers said to Carl. "I usually use it myself mid-morning for half an hour, with my physio." The big wheels on his chair were running smoothly along the marble floors of the hallway. Everything about the house was designed to suit Somers' mobility. The main living quarters were on the flat, with kitchens and staff quarters built into the basement. Carl wondered if Somers was trying to tell him not to use the pool during that time. He felt supremely conscious of his own fully fit muscular body, walking in a lazy stride through the hall beside the man in a wheelchair. "I'll make sure I have the pool clean by then, sir," he said. Somers tilted his head sideways at Carl. His hair was thinning and white now but he still wore it swept back off the patrician brow. His brow was lined, you could see the suffering etched into it. Carl had that uncomfortable feeling that came over him sometimes. He had the knack of seeing how other people's lives might be from the inside. What kind of pathetic struggles with pain and the indignity of loss of physical control coiled in Somers' mind? Carl didn't want to feel it. Then he saw a laugh twinkling in Somers' rheumy blue eye at odds with the assumptions Carl was making about him. "Don't worry about that," Somers drawled. "Use the pool yourself whenever you like. Neither my wife nor I will mind. We just like to encourage a fresh writer if we can." Carl realised that the old man was explaining his routine, in case Carl should find it difficult to see his spindly legs -- just now neatly encased in beautifully pressed navy blue wool slacks -- floating uselessly in the shimmering water. "My wife will be back this evening," Somers added. "She'll be tired after her journey. She says she hopes you won't mind waiting till tomorrow to meet her." He seemed to look with particular meaning at Carl as he said this. Carl wondered what Mrs. Somers was like. Some chubby motherly woman, perhaps, not quite so faded and lined as Jeff Somers? Keen to make sure Carl ate properly. He made a polite reply. He mentally sketched then rejected a story scenario featuring a plump MILF type who brought an apple pie to the fit pool boy and made it clear she needed servicing as well as the pool. In the morning, he rose early and dutifully took the cover from the pool, inspected its sparkling waters and wrote a few hundred words of a story about a female spaceship officer to show Somers. Then he thought he would go for a swim, before poor old Somers had his turn in the pool. He walked to the grassy slope of the closely mowed lawn from the garage. As he came up the fresh green slope, the swimming pool was laid out in angular splendour before him. It was right by the house but a neatly trimmed privet hedge hid it from the windows, forming a dark green backdrop. The white stone edging of the pool sparkled in the sunlight, the waters in the turquoise pool gleamed. Centrally placed, right before his eyes as he came up the slope, a woman lay on a white sunlounger in a jade green swimsuit. The lounger was tilted so he saw her whole body as he came towards the pool. Her long dark hair cascaded around a magnolia petal face. She wore dark glasses so he couldn't see her eyes. Her mouth was perfect. The upper lip had some kind of tuck in it. Combined with the full lower lip it made her look as if she were perpetually pouting in anticipation of your cock pushing at that plump lower lip. The jade green swimsuit was ruched about the bosom to enhance breasts that didn't need any enhancement. They were sweet melons hanging in the dusky green of her costume, their full curves further emphasised by the trim figure of her narrow waist. The swimsuit was cut high in the leg but again, her long shapely muscular legs needed nothing to showcase their beauty. Water drops were scattered like glistening jewels on her pale clear skin. Her toenails were jade green tips to her pale toes, matching her swimsuit. Carl's cock was filling against his thigh. He was glad he had worn swimming shorts and not a pair of tightly fitted speedos. He carried on walking up the slope under the blank stare of the sunglasses. The light breeze made his t-shirt flutter against his muscular chest. He felt intensely conscious of the breeze on his skin, of his strong legs moving up the lawn, of the rough nap of the rolled towel he was carrying, tucked under one arm. Jeff Somers appeared, wheeling his chair round the hedge. He was carrying a tray on his lap with two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice on it. "Oh Camille," he said. "This is Carl. Carl -- my wife. Would you like some juice too, Carl? I'll call for another glass." The perfectly pouted lips parted. "Carl may have my juice," she said. The perfect fucking job! Surely, surely that was the real reason they took on a student every summer who didn't actually have to clean the pool. The gardener took care of the pool because he knew what balance of chemicals to put in it, and when. They got someone in to take care of Mrs. Somers' ... needs, just like they got people in to cook and clean and take care of their swimming pool and of Jeff Somers' needs. She threw Carl into a fever. He couldn't think clearly. All he could think about were those legs wrapped around him. Perhaps while he stood in the shed where the pool cover and extra sunloungers were stored, his physical prowess allowing him to support all her weight while his cock sank satisfyingly deep up into her cunt. All he could think about was sucking on her magnificent tits. How would it happen? Would she appear with an apple pie; he laughed heartily at the absurd incongruities this picture presented to his mind. Next morning, he was hurrying up the dew bedabbled slope of the lawn early. She was also an early riser -- there before him. As he came up over the brow of the sloping lawn, he saw she was already in the rippling waters. She wore a lapis lazuli blue bikini. Her head stood up high and proud, out of the wake going before her. She was doing breast-stroke and every time her arms cut back in the clear water, her cleavage thrust forward into the ripples. Her long strong legs streamed out behind in her kick. She swam to the side and held onto the white stone. Her fingers were right by his feet in flipflops. Her nails were painted blue today to match her bikini. She looked up at him and he saw that she had green eyes. Green eyes like woodland pools, fringed with long curling black lashes. "Good morning, Carl," she said. "Jeff told me you are a championship level swimmer." "I've won a cup or two," he acknowledged. He was looking in the green eyes tipped to stare up at him. On the edge of his vision he could see down into the dark cleft between those fabulous breasts. "Perhaps you can help me with my ... technique," she said. "I'll be happy to help any way I can," he answered. She pushed off from the side to swim back up the pool. As he went to put his towel on a lounger and take off his t-shirt, he surreptitiously watched her peach of an ass moving up the pool. Her globular firm buns moved easily through the ripples. The dark blue of her bikini contrasted with her pale skin, making it pearlescent in the shimmering water. He slid into the cool water, a shiver going over his whole body. Early morning swimming was the best: the sensation of the chill ripples against your warm skin intense on a body not yet dulled by the long day. Never mind when he was hyper-conscious of his own muscular strength, his golden tanned skin, his broad shoulders gliding through the waters in tandem with a beautiful woman. She swam a couple more lengths then pulled over to the side near the house. He watched her white arms as she pulled herself out, water cascading off her ivory limbs and lapis lazuli bikini, her pearlescent skin. She took the clutch out of her dark hair and it fanned out, shining and free, around her head and shoulders as she turned. "Will you have something for me by this afternoon?" she asked. He felt as if her green gaze could see through his loose swimming trunks to the cock which was already turgid and thick for her, bobbing in the water. She turned without waiting for his answer. Tossing her white towelling robe around her shoulders, she walked back to the house, diamond drops falling from her jewelled limbs. Annoyingly, he found an email when he got back to his room, making an appointment for him at 2.30 in the library with Dr. de Winter. de Winter asked him to email a piece of descriptive writing outlining a character for feedback. Carl hoped Camille Somers would hear of this and understand why he wasn't at the pool early in the afternoon. He planned to rush over there as soon as de Winter had done of course. Would she fuck him in the pool? Just strip off those lapis lazuli bikini bottoms and straddle him in the limpid waters. You couldn't see the pool from the house, but he had a feeling she was shy. Carl tidied his room scrupulously in case she wanted to come back there for privacy. There were the cars in the garage, too. He kept his mind assiduously off the thought of fucking her on the bonnet of the Mercedes Benz GLE Coupé. He desperately didn't want to wank off and waste his spunk before the afternoon's delights. Carl's female spaceship officer had long been lost in the space his fevered imagination inferred between Camille Somers' breasts. All he had were some descriptions of Camille, whom he had located in a strip joint from which she was to be rescued by a strong silent Marine. He intended to come clean, or should he say dirty! about his erotic writing. Sex sells, doesn't it. He knew his erotica was shit hot, he had fans worldwide begging for more. He wanted to impress Somers - who presumably got the dibs from de Winter before he came in with his advice - with his best stuff. He had lined up Starry Starry Night: the stomach-churning, spine-tingling tale of an artist driven to extremes of erotically described self-harming by his passion for a model with a perfect ass (described in considerable luscious detail). However, de Winter had specifically asked for character development and Carl was honest enough to admit that characterisation was not one of the strong points in Starry Starry Night. In describing Camille-the-stripper, he had of course mainly focussed on capturing in lyrical prose the beauty of those priceless boobs and ass. However he had provided her some character in dialogue with her friend the obligatory natural redhead for stripper stories (red down there as well). He had sought to pull audience sympathy by depicting Camille-the-stripper as a tart with a heart; kindly advising her friend on how to get through the strip act. He had made her intelligent with world-weary cynical insights into the exploitation of hers and the redhead's beauty. This allowed for a quick and exhilarating pen picture of the mean manly atmosphere in the strip joint although he knew he would have written it out in later drafts as too heavy. In the little time left after tidying round his room, he hurriedly emailed what he had to keep de Winter going. He could pretend he had just left the over-heavy characterisation in so as to discuss with de Winter whether that was too much for a commercialised erotic story. He doubted de Winter would recognise Camille-the-stripper. In his experience, people barely knew even themselves well enough to recognise when he had slipped them into a story. He was nervous as he knocked on the door of the library. Not about his writing, of course. His mind was an hour ahead, already by the poolside. He had worn swimming trunks under his jeans: speedos. He came in to the room shelved with books and well lit by two large French windows. You could carry books out onto the terrace, where there was a wrought iron table and loungers, if you wanted. Today, though, the windows were firmly shut. Camille stood at the far end of the room, beyond a big table surrounded by chairs, by a desk scattered with books and papers. She was dressed in a perfectly tailored sharp grey skirt suit with a silk blouse which lay softly over her body under her double-breasted jacket. The sheen of the pale silk make her skin look like porcelain. Her long dark hair was up in a severe bun. She held some papers in her hand. As Carl approached across the carpeted floor, he saw that it was his stripper story. It had been marked all over with comments in differently coloured inks. The green eyes were glacial and the perfect mouth was pouting with scorn. "Seriously?" was all she said. He began to blush. Inside his speedos his dick shrivelled under her cold glare. "Camille ...," he stammered. "Uh, Mrs. Somers. I never meant you to see ..." She tilted her head. Her expression became if possible even colder. "I am happy for you to call me Camille," she said, in a voice so chilled that you could've poured it into a glass and put an olive in it. "However while we are working together, perhaps you had better address me as Dr. de Winter." Even so expressive a writer as he himself, praised for the manner in which he set thrusting sexual activity in erotically charged sordid locations, could not find the words to describe the heat of burning shame which seemed to boil his cheeks as crimson red as the spanked buttocks of the sex slave in his Dungeon of Ultimate Pain. Camille de Winter was indicating a chair at the table. He was intensely grateful for the opportunity to take the weight off his shaking legs. He bowed his head over the table and waited for her to tell him what a disgusting act of violation he had committed against her and her husband's generosity and hospitality. To his horror, she began to talk about his story. Seriously. "... and in paragraph three, you put another semi-colon when what you want is a comma. The semi-colon would work here, of course, then you could at least drop that second 'but'. Try to avoid using 'but' wherever you can -- you have got it three times in this paragraph ..." Devoutly he wished he could get his fucking butt out. "Yes, I see," he whimpered, although he could barely make out through his unshed tears her blue-lacquered fingernail resting on the offending 'but' on the page in front of him. Finally she stood up from the rags of his dignity which her excoriating review had left shredded before her. Straightening a small crease in her jacket with an efficient tug on the bottom of it, she walked to the library door. She turned as she opened the door. "You have a real skill for characterisation," she said. Her voice was as cold as the summer sun on the terrace outside was hot. "You can draw on real life people and show us highly complex motivations in a sympathetic way. You provide excellent back story for your central character, making us understand why she might have chosen the difficult working environment of a strip joint. But do you really think a character like that would just be waiting around for some man to come and save her? So what? What does that do for us, to read a story like that? Where does it take me, the reader? Back into the Stone Age? Is that all you want to do with your skills?" Finally Carl managed to raise his scarlet face from hanging over the table and slide a look over his shoulder at her. "Sex sells," he mumbled desperately. "Like ... adventure stories? I just thought ... perhaps, I could sell my writing." Camille's look could not have become colder but it seemed to become harder. "Selling sells," she said. "People who know how to sell can use sex, adventure, cream cakes to sell things we would not normally buy. If you just want to sell things, go down to the used car lot. "Jeff and I wrote the adventure stories for fun .... I mean Jeff writes them," she spluttered. For the first time her composure was ruffled. Carl lifted his head higher. He looked at the arrows drawn over his story which told him parts of the action would work better in other sections of the story, that he had revealed too much back story too early in one place and needed less about a minor character, more about a major one. Camille had recovered her poise: "Jeff always made sure Dara Cruft's motivation was to think about a fragile ecology. Do you want to know how many people wrote and said they realised a career in entomology was more important than becoming an astronaut because of the stories Jeff wrote? A whole team of PR specialists use the adventure in the stories to 'sell' them; neither Jeff nor I could sell ice in the Sahara. If you just want to make money, it doesn't matter a toss how well your stories are written; you should go back to school and switch your degree programme from creative writing to an MBA." The de Winter's Tale The scorn with which those flinty green eyes looked down her beautiful nose at him was worthy of a scene from the aristocratic romances of one of Carl's fellow writers on the erotic writing site. She even tossed her head, although she closed the door behind her with a firmness short of a slam. "Jesus H. Fucking Christ!" Camille stormed across the bedroom, jerking the buttons open on her sharp grey jacket. She stood in the middle of the room, her hands on her curving hips, and glowered hotly. Filthy profane language spilled from her perfectly pouting mouth. "For fuck's sake." "Aww, Cami-knickers," Jeff laughed, wheeling himself across the room towards her. "Don't get yourself in a twist." He was wearing only a dressing-gown, his thin hair tousled and his eyes sleepy from his afternoon nap. "That fucking boy," she raged. "Poor kid," Jeff laughed. "Did you give him the straight feedback like I suggested? I wish you would've let me read his story!" He went into a fit of giggles. "My God, you're joking!" She exclaimed in fury. "It was filth. Sexist tosh. He described my breasts as twin peaks of pleasure!" Jeff could barely contain his mirth at this revelation. "Shut up, you fucking bastard," Camille fumed. "What do you want me to do?" Jeff laughed. "Get out of my wheelchair and horsewhip the kid on the steps of our swimming pool?" "How am I going to be able to swim now?" Camille grumbled. "With his lecherous little eyes on my body." "I expect he'll sneak away early, pretending there's been a family emergency," her husband said consolingly. "It's a pity," he added. "I thought he was serious about writing. He actually talked to me about the Dara Cruft stories -- the books, not the gaming series." "I think we should tell Mike Jones only to give women students the summer job," Camille said. "You mean like Lisabet, who accused you of homophobia when you wouldn't sleep with her?" "Fuck it," Camille said sulkily. She bit angrily at her perfectly pouting lower lip. A green glare darted about the room in search of something -- or someone -- on whom to vent her frustration. "Aren't you jealous at all?" She demanded. Jeff laughed again, lolling back in his wheelchair. The folds of the dressing-gown fell about a weak chest. Stubble made his thin face with the rheumy eyes look even more disreputable and seedy than usual. However his pain-killers had kicked in and a good afternoon rest was always refreshing for him. He was energised too by the unexpected entertainment of the rumpus over Carl's dreadful faux pas. This was more amusement than he had got out of any of the other writing students he and Camille had hosted, who often tried to avoid his acutely intelligent wife and get him to read their desperate scribbles. "Some muscle-bound college stud wants to fuck my gorgeous wife but she'd rather have me?" He asked. "No, I find it a turnon." She looked apprehensively at him lounging in the wheelchair. There was a glint in his eye. "Stop it, Jeff, I'm not in the mood," she said. "Oh yeah?" he replied. "C'mon darlin'," he added in a bad Cockney accent. "Show us yer knickers." "Oh my God, not that one," she said, snorting with laughter. She had begun to blush. She suddenly stood in an extraordinary gawky pose for a senior university lecturer: her feet in their chic high heeled shoes at angles, her slender ankles twisted, one hip up and her arms awkwardly crossed over her magnificent breasts in the soft silk blouse. "C'mon Cami-knickers," he said. "Show me the goods." "Oh Jesus!" she moaned, already backing towards the bed. "Not now. I ought to email Mike about that silly boy." "Fuck Mike," he said, wheeling after her as she stumbled backwards on her high heels. The edge of the bed caught the backs of her shapely calves and she suddenly sat down, her knees splaying apart in an involuntary jerk. That assertive tone of voice, the keen gleam in his eye. She was panting lightly already and he had not even started. "Awww baby," he crooned. "You're trembling. Come on, my cute whoor. You know you want to." "Oh my God," she tried to laugh it off. "Jeff, please!" "Your filthy little secret is safe with me," he sniggered. "Your über feminist colleagues need never know that you like to be demeaningly called 'baby' and to show me your cunt." "Oh oh!" she cried in an anguish of embarrassed desire. He had wheeled over and had placed his hands on her legs above the knees. Exercised by the use of his wheelchair, his grip was exceptionally strong. Even if she wanted to resist, she knew he was physically capable of forcing her legs apart. But resistance was futile. It was all too evident from her panting breath and the flush brightening her porcelain pale skin, how turned on she was. "Visibilising the pudenda is a perfectly legitimate means of overcoming the shame which is encoded in the very name of female sex organs," she said in between panting breaths. "Yes yes," he murmured. "Very good, my dear." His hands were sliding up the prickly nylon on her legs. "I look forward to your paper on the topic with ... ah! considerable anticipation." He smacked his lips as he said this and she couldn't help laughing back to the laugh in his eyes. His hands had arrived at the tops of her legs. He felt the bands across them, the straps of the suspenders. "Stockings," he murmured. "You know me too well, my dear." He made a filthy snigger and felt her thighs quiver as she writhed under his hands. The power of it would make the feelings surge about his body; the power to reduce this distinguished proud beauty to quivering jelly with his wordplay and the touch of his fingers. She was panting heavily. Her magnificent full bosom was heaving in the soft silk of her blouse. Now that her jacket was unbuttoned, he could clearly see the tracery of white lace bra that cupped her pale tits through the transparent fine white silk. He imagined the dark nipples springing out on her white breasts, those few fine dark hairs growing in the circle of her areolae. When was it he had discovered her exhibitionist streak? She was shy, it took time for her to admit even to herself that she loved to be looked at. The lightest critical comment about a see-through blouse could make her budding arousal shrivel, shamed tears come to her beautiful eyes. If he gave his approval, though, she would allow herself the pleasure of those milky mild teasing displays of leg or cleavage. He licked his lips with a grin. Only for him, and to their mutual excitement, she had begun to go much further than the tease of a see-through blouse. "Pull up your skirt," he commanded in a voice hoarse with lust. He loved to see the eagerness with which she scrambled to obey. Her usual elegant poise shattered, she jerked clumsily at her grey skirt, heaving her hips up to get the skirt right up around her waist in her desperation to show him her cunt. "Ahhhh! Cami-knickers," he gloated, fingering the lace-edged silk shorties which clad her bottom. He put his fingers easily straight into the wide legholes to her pussy. She jerked up, her green eyes going wide, and cried out with the shocking sensation of pleasure. He laughed triumphantly again. She was already wet for him, her juices soaking the gusset of her shorty cami-knickers. He played his fingers in the slick soft warm pool formed by her vulva, flicking occasionally at her clitoris -- too infrequently for her to start to cum. Every time, she would let slip an involuntary gasp of pleasure. He laughed softly. "Pull them off," he commanded. He liked to make her do it, to see her trembling fingers awkwardly jerking the silk and lace from her own body on his orders. He watched greedily as she exposed herself to his gaze. There was a string of cunt juice already glistening in her trimmed dark bush of pubic hair. She heaved up to get the knickers over her buttocks and he saw a flash of her dark female hole and the plum of her arsehole between the cracks of her butt cheeks. Her long legs were scrabbling about to kick the knickers away, now throwing wide. She was whimpering. She was so keen for him that she put her hands to her cunt lips herself, spreading them, opening up to him the view straight into her pink glistening vulva. He was panting himself now. There was nothing in his groin, of course, no feeling. Even little blue pills would not help there. But who cared for the crude power of the penis when he could have this delicate set of exquisitely controlled pleasures. The sight, the smell, even the sucking sound as his finger pulled in and out of her cunt. He chose when and whether she could come off, fingering her clit, her cunt, refining his touch in tune with her moans, her pleading. "C'mon, you fucking slut!" He shouted suddenly. Her cunt muscles clamped on his fingers as she rose in indignant ecstasy at this disgraceful sexy insult. He thrust two fingers of one hand to her rhythm, gently rolling at her clit with a fingertip of the other hand. She gave a final quivering heave. He himself was shaking and lightly beaded with sweat. He stooped and laid his lips to her cunt lips, to taste his triumph. She moaned at the caress of his tongue. He used his powerful arms to pull himself up onto the bed and over her. He lay in her embrace, pressed his sticky lips to her kiss. He as much as she was exhausted with pleasure. They lay in a heap of tired limbs, covered by his body and his dressing gown. She still had her skirt rucked up around her waist. She stared at the side of his head. These kids with their veneration of their own fleetingly divine physiques would never understand. She did not long for sex; she longed for sex with him. This man with the laugh in his eyes and the wicked sense of wordplay, her life's companion. She trusted him absolutely. He controlled her sexuality as finely as she controlled his crude spurts of creative writing. They were the same age, had met as divinely beautiful college kids, had grown together: working side by side to raise their two children, to maintain her academic career while she utilised her fine critical skills to hone his flair for telling stories. A cruel fate left him looking so much older, her so much younger so that people assumed she was his trophy wife, insulting his intelligence as much as hers. "I'm sorry, Jeff," she whispered. "Thank you, thank you." He had never been able to explain to her the pleasures of scrutinising her body with his eyes, his fingers, his tongue. She was unable to prevent herself apologising, in her shame at how wanton she thought her innocent little displays were. She thought he did it just to pleasure her, to bring her off. No matter how many times he told her, she could not believe he wanted to look at the cunt she was ashamed of. After all the many feminist lectures on women's bodies she had heard -- and had given herself. Of course if they talked, she denied it. But every time he jockeyed her into showing him her body, as she lay afterwards in his arms, she apologised. ~o~0~o~ It was the worst fucking job in the world. Carl sat with his head in his hands and burnt with shame. He was too ashamed to cry. He had been sitting like this for what felt like hours, trying to get motivated enough to think up a family emergency that meant he could leave. Immediately. Without ever having to look in that fucking Ice Queen's frigid green eyes again. The worst of it was that she had taken his writing seriously. She had gone through it line by line, pointing out the lame imagery, the feeble background scenario, the weak grammatical mistakes. The 'utter disregard for any distinction between comma and semi-colon'. Two fucking paragraphs she had written about how his story played into outdated gender dynamics and racially dubious stereotypes. He would never write again. Why did she bother? Just to pussy-whip him in punishment for jerking off to the thought of those beautiful boobs, the twin peaks of pleasure? Tears came to his eyes. OK, fair enough that she resented how her intellectual talent always got obscured by the way her body made men's minds go to mush, but was that a good enough reason for kicking his story in the balls? Did he have a talent for characterisation? It was true, he had always had this capacity to get what people were thinking, how they viewed the world and why. Fuck use was that, if you wanted to hit the big time with your writing? Talk to him about a 'difficult working environment', trying to pay his way through college and just looking for a decent way to earn enough for a fucking swimming pool and a woman who might mean more than a fuck. Why the fuck should a jerk like Jeff Somers get all that. He was in a wheelchair, he couldn't appreciate the half of it. Could he? He must be bombed out of his mind on either pain or painkillers most of the time. To have a pool built like that, just so he could watch his fit fucking wife go up and down and do a few stupid exercises with his physio. Did he enjoy the feel of the lapping waters about his weedy chest like Carl enjoyed parting them with his strong arms? Carl tilted his head as he thought this, and frowned. Did Somers, could Somers enjoy that statuesque beauty? Or did the two of them suit each other because she was just an Ice Queen who could freeze all your hopes with a couple of acid words, and he was only capable of enjoying looking at her. Although Carl had to admit, she was worth fucking looking at. She dressed like she knew it, in her heart, however hard she pretended she only cared about her mind. What was it like to look at that body that was so worth looking at, when the person inside it only admitted their beauty in secret? Camille cast a cautious glance down the slope of the lawn in the cool early morning light. It was a chilly day with rain at its back. She had no objection to swimming in the rain -- you were already wet so, whatever. She just wanted to get her swim over before young Hotspur -- as Jeff had inevitably christened him -- came panting along to annoy her. There was a light on in the room over the garage, outlining the window as a yellow square in the dull grey morning. She wondered if he had done a runner in the night, leaving the light on in his haste. After her swim, she went back for breakfast. She lazily opened her email while eating a bowl of fruit and yoghurt. To her great surprise, there was an email from Carl, with an attachment. Jeff wheeled himself into the usually light sunny dining room, yawning and scratching. He was still in his pyjamas and unshaven. It was grey and cold outside. Rain was softly blowing on the window panes. Camille sat in the grey light by the windows at the foot of the dining table, still in her swimsuit and a towelling robe. She was hunched over her laptop. A bowl of barely touched fruit and yoghurt was pushed away to the side of it. To his horror, Jeff saw that she was crying. "What's happened?" he demanded. "What's the matter?" She looked up and tried to smile through her tears. "It's nothing," she hurried to reassure him. "It's just Carl's story. He didn't make an excuse to go. He started writing seriously instead." "Really?" Jeff said. "Can I read it?" "Um ... no," she said, closing her laptop and wiping the tears off her face with the back of her hand. "It's a bit ... rough still. Maybe later, darling." "Oh ... OK," he said carelessly. He of course never bothered to read the high falutin' crap her students churned out. He liked a good bit of porn to relax to, on video for preference. He liked to watch ... things, much more than to read about other things. "What's it about." "It's about ... a man who has everything," she said. "Who loses it all ... in a way, but finds true love." Jesus! What fucking bullshit. "The man gives so much to those around him," Camille continued, a misty look in her lovely tear-diamonded green eyes. "Pass the butter," Jeff said, helping himself happily to a hot golden crumpet out of a pile wrapped in a white linen napkin. He loved the melted butter on his tongue, even if his loss of muscular control meant it sometimes spilled over his chin. The feel of the oily melted butter in his early morning bristles was pleasurable too. He had always been an intensely sensual person, living in the sensations of the moment. Camille got up and stood beside him holding the butter out, to his surprise. She put her hand on his shoulder and when the butter dripped off the crisp crumpet down his chin, she ran her finger over his chin and then put it in his mouth. He sucked on it in astonished pleasure. She giggled instead of looking anxiously to make sure one of the staff wasn't about to break in and catch her being affectionate with her own husband. ~o~0~o~ Carl put the pile of heavy books on his desk and sat down to check the dull titles with a grimace. Tort Law, for Chrissake. The summer had been hard enough work, crafting his writing under Camille's gimlet school ma'am eye, but this year was going to be a killer. She made him sign up for Latin lessons on top of all the law lectures, told him if he wanted to cut it at the top, he should graft it at the bottom and be grateful for the opportunity. He turned his head at the tap on his open door and smiled. The willowy tall blonde smiled warmly back at him, her grey eyes dipping shyly. His eyes lingered on her long shapely legs, well displayed for his admiration since she wore a mini skirt. "Did you have a good break?" She asked, putting one leg slightly forward. "You weren't on Facebook much." How much she gave away in that simple acknowledgement. She had noticed. She had looked out for his posts, maybe even checked his home page. He could not help a shy tender smile of his own. He bent his head away to hide it. "It was hard work," he said. "I didn't have much time for FB. I saw you had a good time -- on your uncle's yacht." "Oh yeah," she said. "Uncle Freddie and Aunt Vee say I can crew for them any time," her eyes lit up with excitement. He smiled again, for he understood that passion of hers for the wild ocean wind blowing her blonde hair about, the struggle with the sails on the high seas. "You switched subjects," there was a hurt question in her voice. She came into the room and stood by him at the desk, her puzzled eyes looking at the pile of heavy dull law books. "Creative writing isn't a sure source of income," he answered her. "I like it, but I can always write in my spare time." "Oh ... money," she said, curling her fine lip dismissively. He understood that too, the disregard for money that is born of always having some. He hoped she would never understand what it felt like not to have it. He meant to make sure she didn't. "What's this?" she said curiously. She picked up a book lying at the back of his desk: a first edition copy of the first Dara Cruft story. "Did Jeff Somers give this to you?" she asked in mounting excitement. "No," he said. "His wife did. Dr. de Winter." "Oh my God!" she said enthusiastically. "Dr. de Winter is so cool! I mean ... so bae. I signed up to all her classes this year. Don't you want to carry on working with her?" The book opened in her hand to the flyleaf, where in fine script was written: Nothing you have to learn now, my young padawan. "I guess I'll just put my head down to law," he said, twinkling his eyes at her. "Does that make me not 'bae'?" "Oh, y'know," she laughed. "You will always be bae." Her cheeks had flushed. He felt so thrilled he felt embarrassed. "Hey, let's go for a swim," he said, getting hurriedly up. "Oh sure! That would be bae," she laughed, dipping her grey eyes in her flushed shy smile. The de Winter's Tale "Come on then, bae-by," he laughed, taking her hand. He felt a deep thrill as he saw a sparkle lighting up her eyes at the touch of his fingers.