English Summer Tales Pt. 01

She wanted someone's focus all on her. Wanted to know their mind wasn't somewhere else, on someone else.

Okay, so her mind was a little on Jesse, and Alex's on his Rosie; but all the same, she and Alex were here, right here, right now. And Alex's secrets were fast becoming hers, and hers his.

He was so... strange. Not strange like the men she avoided because she feared they'd murder her and leave her in a ditch somewhere, but so... Australian? Different. There was something bold about him, something solid, an assurance in his height and his broad shoulders. Most of the Englishmen she knew had a touch of femininity about them, but there was none of that in this man. He was definitely male, tall and fit, and she couldn't even begin to imagine coming home to find him lying in a puddle of another man's cum. Or accepting a blowjob under the table. Even from Jesse.

She grinned and Alex gave her a look. "What?"

"I was just thinking how refreshing it is to talk to a man who hasn't just been sucking his best mate's cock."

Alex's eyes widened slightly, and he let out a loud laugh. "Yeah, no danger of that in this lifetime. Although in college, I was a 'second favourite body' for a gay mate of mine, and a queen tried to pick me up once, coz I was buying poetry in a bookshop."

Lucy raised her eyebrow, quizzical. "You what?"

"Yeah. Modern History, English Lit, double major - course books. A stupid degree, really. No use for my job, that's for sure. Good for words, though."

Lucy pondered that for a moment - she somehow hadn't expected an Arts degree with this guy. How many more sides has he got? She was intrigued - how could a normal man be so... complex?

She reached across the table and touched his hand with the tips of her fingers.

"Alex, this has been an exceptionally fucking awful night for me. And now, I really need..." she paused, thinking of her phrasing. "I really need to be close to someone who wants to be close to me." Her eyes searched his face. "Can I trust you not to force yourself on me?"

He laughed at her voice and her expression so sincere. But Lucy was only half joking. She'd asked that question of men at clubs whose eyes had held enough of a flicker of 'maybe...' that she'd gone to the loos and never come back. More than once.

His laugh died as he realised there was an honest question here.

"Seriously?"

"I'm half your size. I don't know you. I saw Wolf Creek."

It seemed to dawn on Alex the risk she was taking, being here alone with him, a man she didn't know. Lucy couldn't help thinking, men have no idea. No idea what it's like to be prey to the twenty percent of the population that means you harm. They don't realise how many predators there really are.

Even Jesse hadn't recognised when he was being preyed upon. Men so often didn't. Assumed they were safe because, short of a fist-fight, bad things only happened to girls.

Alex took her hands between his. "No, god no, I'd never force myself on you, or anyone else. Fuck. I see what you mean, though, how would you know? Lucy, never, not me. But how do you know for sure? You're right. Don't do anything you don't want to do..."

She leaned forward over the table and kissed him. It was awkward, and the salt cellar fell over and rolled across the table into Alex's lap, but when she sat back, she seemed satisfied. The heat was burning in her eyes again, as if his lips held vital information his words of assurance couldn't convey.

"We need somewhere quiet," she said. "I'm staying with Lyle at the moment, so we can't go back there."

And she might have felt guilty about betraying Lyle if he hadn't been such a useless wanker.

"I'm at a backpackers tonight," said Alex, and she made a face. "But... there is another option. We could leave. On the train, tonight." He squeezed her hand. "Pack up your things, Lucy, and come with me. We can get a late train. Or an early one. What time is it, anyway?"

Lucy's eyes widened and her lips parted. Get on a train? With a stranger? It would be madness. When the headlines hit about her body being found on the moors, people would ask, What was she thinking, going off with someone she didn't know? Was she insane?

But Alex's hair was blond, not dark, and his eyes were blue, not brown, and there was none of the skulking guile she'd grown used to in the last two months. No secrets, no silent betrayals. Alex was open and gut-wrenchingly honest about Rosie, nobody could fake that; but right now he was paying her undivided attention. Most men just didn't do that, didn't know how. She had to trust him. Had to.

Lucy wanted to fuck him. Plain and simple. But she couldn't take stupid risks. If she did this, she did it properly.

She made a quick decision. "Give me your phone."

Alex gave her a confused look.

"Unlock your phone and give it to me."

"Why?"

"Because you want me to go to Inverness with you, and I want to go with you."

It was all the explanation she gave him.

For a moment he was concerned she might try and call Rosie, but he looked into her eyes and decided, no, that's not what was going on here. And one glance down at those breasts, imagining their softness under his hands, imagining her thighs parted, her back arching, those breasts thrust up to the ceiling as he tongued her hot cunt... yeah, she could look at his phone. He had nothing to hide.

Alex unlocked his phone and handed it to her, expecting her to look at his pictures, searching for evidence of other women. Lucy would find castles, but not much else. Rosie had purged herself from his phone before she left.

Instead, she searched his contacts and pressed 'call' on the one she wanted.

"What are you doing?" Alex hissed, alarmed. "It's the middle of the night!"

The phone answered after five long rings.

"Hello?" A woman's sleepy voice.

"Hello, Mrs Cain?" She put a finger to Alex's lips, ssshh. "Sorry, it's late at night. My name's Lucy, and your son's asked me to travel to Inverness with him. I just wanted to check that he wasn't going to murder me. He's not going to murder me, is he?"

Alex gave her a look that said he was the worried one now. He watched helplessly as Lucy spoke to his mother, ending on the incongruous note, "Yes, of course I'll use protection. Thank you. Sorry again for waking you up." There was a final word from his mother, to which Lucy replied, "Yes, I think he will. Thank you again. Yes, bye."

Lucy ended the call and handed the phone back to Alex. "She says you won't murder me, and she's fairly sure you're not a rapist."

"What else did she say?"

"Oh, you know. Mothers and their sons."

"Fucking hell, Lucy." He slid his phone into his pocket where she couldn't snatch it back again.

Lucy gave him a stubborn, cold-eyed stare. "Have you ever met a man you'd trust your daughter to disappear with in the middle of the night?"

Alex had to admit, that while he didn't have a daughter, the idea did give him the shivers.

"Survival, Alex. Allows us to indulge our passion—" said with a mocking smile, "—without me worrying about dying at the end of it."

Lucy smiled at him, and her eyes glittered with wickedness. Oh, the things she wanted to do to this gorgeous man. She wondered how kinked up he was. One thing she knew, if anyone was getting tied up, it was going to be Alex.

"So now, let's talk how we're going to get to Inverness," she said. "The train sounds more romantic than easyJet, but I'm a student, and you've been travelling a while. A flight's likely cheaper. And besides, I've always wanted to join the mile high club."

She gave Alex a wicked grin and licked her lips, blatantly teasing him.

"Then again, maybe we should fuck a few times before I meet your parents. Don't you think? Otherwise, you know, what would they think? What's the slowest way to get there, the long way around?"

Fuck, thought Alex, there was nothing subtle about Lucy. Small and furious and as blunt as a fucking hammer to the forehead.

Then Alex thought of the looks his father gave his high-school girlfriends, over the top of his glasses, quietly scrutinising them against his criteria of a suitable girl for his son. And he thought his dad might quite like Lucy, she was so determined and certain of herself. His parents hadn't liked Rosie much. "She doesn't love you enough," his mother had said, in a moment of truth.

Alex had no idea quite what to make of Lucy, but he was starting to feel some sympathy for her ex. He suspected he saw the dynamic of their relationship, the sheer will of this girl. She might be sheathed in satin and lace and look like a pretty little thing, but Lucy was no music box ballerina. Her sexuality was like a bushfire raging inside her, and his mind flicked back to what he saw in the club. Had it consumed her man, Alex wondered, that fire? Had it burnt up Jesse, had he just found himself not enough for her?

But then, Alex had willingly stepped into her flame. The intensity in Lucy's eyes, her quick intelligence. Her willingness to call his challenge, his bluff. Alex thought back to the moment in the street where he'd made her catch up to him in her three-inch heels, and got a feeling that would come back to haunt him.

"So, what'll it be, Australian Alex?" Those lips, plump with scarlet lipstick and the blaze of hair around her face. "How are we riding to Isengard?"

Fucking hell, Alex wanted this woman to fuck him and ride him and come against his tongue. Wanted to hear Lucy call his name, to see that waterfall of hair flood across his pillow while he plunged into her, to see the curve of her back, and that mane of red over her shoulders as he explored the darker place he suspected a girl like Lucy had explored many times before.

And somewhere inside her was the deep kindness it'd taken to love someone as she'd described her ex, her Jesse. That skinny little now-I'm-gay boy had touched her deeply —Alex had no idea how—and Alex wanted that too. Wanted to see not just the dangerous glitter in her eyes, but her softness too. The love that clashed against her pain when she spoke of Jesse.

But with Lucy, he knew instinctively, he would have to earn it. This girl wouldn't simply offer up her vulnerability to a stranger off the street, however much she fancied him. No. He would need to give her time, and in time, perhaps she'd one day look on him as she had Jesse. If he could prove himself worthy of her.

But until then, she was a living blade, a sharp knife —and it was up to him to ensure he didn't get cut.

* * * * *

In the end the night ran out and it turned into a simple matter of logistics, shuffling time and place, before they could get away. Lucy established with a crisp series of texts that Lyle had figured she 'needed time to herself', had taken himself elsewhere with some mates from work, and was now home. She quickly replied, 'Staying with mum, don't know how long. Will call you.'

"Shit. I'll have to wait until he goes to work tomorrow to get some things. What do we do, Alex?" Lucy was close to tears again. "I'm so tired, I can't think straight."

"It's OK. I've got a lock-out too, so I can't get my gear till morning. We'll doss down at the station, I'll go early from there to get my pack, soon as the hostel opens. Then we'll go to yours after Lyle leaves for work." Alex was practical, used to transit lounges, luggage lockers, getting sleep sitting up, waiting for nothing to happen slowly.

He'd wait for this girl, wait for what she promised. Alex was good at waiting. When it happened, when she was ready... it wouldn't happen slowly. Alex thought more a torrent and a storm, and even that wouldn't be enough to put out Lucy's fire.

They made their way down through the inner city streets and arrived at the station.

"Don't expect it to be pretty," said Alex, "we'll be lucky to find a bench or a wall to lean against, and hopefully Security will see we're harmless. But I've done this before. If we get hassled, let me do the talking. Everyone's heard of Bondi Beach, and who doesn't like an Aussie?"

Lucy was reassured by Alex's confidence, and was beginning to realise his way with words got him pretty much what he wanted. Including a good way under her skin—in a good way. It was the way she lived her own life. Confident, self-assured. A man with Alex's confidence, she'd found over the course of her life, could go one of two ways. Either making decisions without consulting her, assuming she'd defer to his judgement, or they worked in equal partnership. As she had once, it seemed like a lifetime ago, with Jesse.

She looked up at Alex walking tall beside her, and saw he had a natural bounce in his walk. Not like a boxer or a sportsman, nothing like that, just a lightness on his feet. She looped her arm through his and walked beside him. She was so much smaller, and Alex had to slow his walk to match her pace, but he automatically did so, and it made her feel he was the second type. A man who understood her size and gender meant she had to take precautions, but it wasn't a weakness. Just a feature of how she'd been born, who she was.

That really was something she liked about Alex—he walked beside her. Not like Lyle, who walked everywhere with his eyes on his phone. Before Will, Jesse had been like this, her hand in his, held in the warmth of his coat pocket, his grin on her from time to time, checking she was happy, a look of pride that Luce was his. She'd loved that look, had returned it; Jesse had been confident then. Quiet and introspective, sure, but he'd never doubted himself. He'd loved her, and respected her. Had been certain of himself - respected himself.

But after Will entered their lives, when the three of them were together, all that changed. Jesse's attention was always on Will, his checks on Lucy more to make sure she wasn't upset with him, rather than enjoying her pleasure at being with him. Are we okay? Are we still okay? It hurt her to see it; and Will, always Will, walking behind them, smoking away like a little cancer factory built out the back of their relationship. Lucy had felt Will's drag on Jesse, feeding on his insecurity, sucking at his soul. Creating a neediness in her Jess that hadn't been there before. Fucking Will, what a parasite.

Lucy realised her mind was too much on Jesse, and she brought herself back to now. The past was broken and gone, and there was no point in letting her mind touch it. She glanced up at Alex I drifted away and he glanced down at her with a soft smile I know, I felt you go and it felt right, being here with him. Oddly right. Her curiosity was growing about Alex, and that in itself made her curious.

Alex though, beside her. Feeling her arm inside his, he thought to himself, I like being seen with Lucy. People, night-time wanderers, smiled at them as they walked past, and that made him feel good too.

"This'll do, we can at least stretch out a bit."

They found a waiting lounge just off the main station concourse, containing a couple of wide couches up against the wall of a refreshments counter, closed for the night. Alex propped himself into the corner of a couch, stretching his long legs out, boots crossed at the ankles.

"Come here, keep warm," he said to Lucy, spreading an arm wide along the back of the couch and holding his jacket up with his other hand. Lucy snuggled up beside him, her body close up against his, her legs tucked up on the seat. She placed her shoes on the couch between them. She'd wear them again, and kick them off when she reached up to kiss him, but not yet. Alex covered her with the jacket (soft leather, bought in China) and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. After a while they warmed each other up like wild animals in a burrow.

And by an unspoken agreement, they were content with this half-way arrangement, as if knowing they were in between the tentative, gentle intimacy of the cafe and the promise of something far, far hotter in the future. Other than the single permitted touch of Alex's fingers to her cheek when he loosened her tumbling hair, and Lucy's single kiss across the table when she read his lips, their contact had been limited to hands held and now this shared heat, this simple human warmth. The single kiss, remembered later, lasted a long, long time. The salt cellar fell to the ground, and that time was over.

Where on earth did he learn his restraint?, thought Lucy; but she knew that she too must wait, wait, wait. Her heart beat faster, to speed the waiting time. She didn't want to wait, but knew she must.

But it wasn't long before Lucy slept, her sheer nervous energy run down like an un-wound watch, yet safe with this man. Alex took the opportunity to gently stroke her hair, soft like a cat; staying awake, watching over her, not sleeping yet. Every now and then she'd whimper, and he saw the movement of her eyes back and forth under eyelids. "Sshh, sshh," he soothed, and Lucy was still. Her right hand crept up near her mouth, and she played with her own lips as she slept, and Alex saw how young she really was. His mind flickered back to another time he had held and soothed a troubled, passionate girl, and she was so young; and he remembered the older woman she became. He looked up, seeing a shimmer on the air, but no one was there.

Later, he too slept, ghosts crowding his dreams; and in his sleep his arm twitched and Lucy startled awake."Sshh, sshh," she soothed, and her hand crept inside his shirt to feel the slow, steady beat of Alex's heart and the slow rise and fall of his breathing. Lucy knew she would sleep on this man's chest, but not yet. Wait.

In the morning, Alex woke first and found the warm heat of Lucy's hand against his skin. He didn't move, just looked at her face, counted her freckles, saw how her lips were slightly open, just showing her teeth. He saw a tiny round scar on her temple, and thought it was probably a childhood chicken-pox scar. He knew he'd touch it with the tip of his finger later, sometime later in a quiet place, brushing her hair from her brow after they'd made love, her skin still shining with her sweat. His back would bleed on cream sheets, and Lucy would mark him hers, but not yet.

Lucy woke, and she too remained motionless, just opening her eyes to find him gazing at her. Oh God, his smile when he saw her eyes! "Hello Lucy, it's early."

"Alex." Just to say his name. And Lucy knew that she wanted, she wanted it so very, very much, to be the first thing Alex saw when he woke from sleep in a morning, so she too could say, Hello Alex, it's early. And take him back to bed and make love to him oh so very slowly like he was some precious, fragile thing, fallen to earth just for her. And Lucy would mark him hers, but not yet, and his back would bleed where she scratched away his wings. But not yet.

* * * * *

Later in the morning, Lucy and Alex went to the hostel where Alex collected his back-pack and checked out. Lucy found a little German girl returning home who was selling her hiking boots, and they were just the right size. Lucy looked incongruous trying them on in her stockings and slinky dress, wearing Alex's jacket for warmth.

She smirked. "Kick ass boots, Alex, watch yourself. You and your dad's mountains! You get to the top, I'll be there."

"I don't doubt it, Lucy, don't doubt that at all."

With a bit of sleep on her bones, Alex could see Lucy's energy returning, sensing a relentless force. Not for the first time, he was caught nearly breathless by the vitality of the girl, and he wondered how you caught a whirlwind and tied it down. Carefully, he decided, with great caution.

Her mood dampened with the reality of her hit and run on Lyle's place. Even though she had keys and her own belongings were inside, she still felt like a thief.