Two Thousand and Ten Ch. 01

Once morning registration had been taken care of she had to prepare for her first lesson of the day - now that her year 11 pupils were approaching the business end of their GCSE's it was crucial that she both inspired and coached them to get the best grades possible and prepare them for the final exam. She had a good success rate - 95% of her pupils achieved a grade of C and above and she was keen to keep it that way. This morning's lesson was to be about the Jacobite uprising of 1745 when the massed army of Bonnie Prince Charlie attempted to restore his family to the throne of England - an uprising that ultimately proved unsuccessful. His forces defeated at the battle of Culloden, the young prince was forced to flee, via the Isle of Skye, to exile in France. An old folk song had been written about the young Prince's escape - 'Speed bonny boat, like a bird on the wing, onward! the sailors cry. Carry the lad that's born to be King, over the sea to Skye'. Lindi recalled the words with a smile.

She dressed, applied some makeup - not too much as it was unseemly for a teacher to be too 'dolled up' as her mother always told her, and then set about making some breakfast.

Monday, January 4^th 2010 - 7:35am

Peter was already waiting for her in the lobby when she came downstairs.

"What time do you call this?" He said with a wry grin.

"Sorry - I just needed to take care of something." Lindi replied.

They made their way out through the rear door of the building towards the garages that housed the resident's cars. Peter and Lindi always car-shared on the way to their respective places of work. Not because of any concern for the environment or anything as noble as that - it was simply a case of convenient practicality. Lindi's school lay directly on the route to the mechanical engineering firm where Peter worked. He had been with the company for the last eight years and specialised in designing machines for manufacturing processes. During that time he had garnered a reputation for his skill and competence and was earmarked for a place on the board of directors. His boss Trevor was approaching retirement and Peter saw himself as Trevor's natural successor.

Lindi turned on the radio as they pulled out into the morning traffic. The lead item on the news was the opening of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the word - other than that it was the usual mix of stories from the war in Afghanistan and the most recent developments in whatever the latest political scandal was.

Ten minutes later, Peter dropped his friend at the school gates. She headed straight for the staff room to pick up her mail and the latest notices in her pigeonhole before heading to her classroom ready for the arrival of her pupils.

Monday, January 4^th 2010 - 12:04pm

Lindi was just tucking in to her lunch in the staff room when her phone rang in her pocket. She didn't recognise the number.

"Hello?" She answered.

"Um... hi - is that Linda?" Came a woman's voice on the other end of the line.

"Lindi." She corrected tersely.

"Sorry, Lindi." The woman said apologetically, "Hi, my name is Alison - you don't know me but I was at the party the other night at Michaela's place."

"I see..." Lindi replied.

"I'm Michaela's sister, we saw you dancing with that guy in the tiger costume. Michaela tells me that he's your friend and that the two of you aren't an item." Alison explained.

"Peter? What about him? What exactly is it that you want? And what has us not being an item got to do with anything?" Lindi said impatiently.

"Well... It's a little complicated but we were wondering if we could... sort of... borrow him."

"Borrow him?"

"We'd like to ask him if he would be willing to do a... rather big favour for us. Look, this is rather complicated as I said - would it be ok to meet up to discuss it later today?"

"Well, I'll ask him but I don't know if he'll be free." Lindi said.

"That's ok, it's you that we want to discuss it with to begin with. We just want to gauge your opinion before getting... what was his name? Phillip?"

"Peter."

"Before getting Peter involved. Can we meet up at say... Lorenzo's? You know the place - down on the seafront near the pier."

Lindi did know the place - everyone in Westborough-on-sea knew it. Lorenzo's coffee shop had been a local hangout for the citizens of Westborough-on-sea since 1954 when Lorenzo, an immigrant from Italy, brought with him the secret to making the most sublime coffee imaginable. Bigger coffee chains had sprung up in town since then and the man himself had died years ago, but Lorenzo's Coffee Shop remained as popular as ever.

"Um... sure, I guess." Lindi said, "It'll have to wait until I finish work though. Would six o'clock be ok?"

"Sure, that'll be fine." Alison said.

"Who is this 'we' exactly? It can't be anything to do with Michaela because she would have come straight to me here." Lindi said.

"It'll all become clear later on." Alison said, "We'll see you later at six. Oh, and one more thing..."

"Yes?"

"We'd appreciate it if you don't say anything to Peter about this - at least until you've had the opportunity to hear us out."

"Okay, I promise. Six o'clock, Lorenzo's."

Monday, January 4^th 2010 - 4:57pm

Peter dropped his keys in the bowl on the table in the hallway of his flat. It had been a stressful day - the first day back after the Christmas break always was. He headed straight for the kitchen and fixed himself a large mug of black coffee. Lindi had called him earlier that afternoon to say that she didn't need him to pick her up from work - she was meeting someone in town at six o'clock. Peter didn't mind of course, she was a grown woman and she could do whatever she wanted. Just as long as she wasn't out too late - the two friends had arranged for a night in to watch 'Dead Snow' - Peter's latest acquisition to his DVD collection. It concerned a group of Norwegian teenagers who run into a battalion of Nazi zombies living in the mountains. They had planned to indulge in the Nazi zombie-killing adventure of blood, guts and gore and consume plenty of popcorn and scare themselves silly in order to soften the blow of having to be back at work.

After draining his mug, Peter headed for his bathroom and then turned on his shower. As he stripped naked he looked out across the rooftops and the twinkling lights of the town and to the sea beyond. At this time of year it was already dark outside. Some people complained of feeling depressed by the long hours of darkness - Seasonal Affective Disorder, they called it - but Peter was not one of them. He didn't exactly relish the long nights and short days of a British winter but he always eagerly anticipated the coming of spring when the days grew longer and the weather warmer.

Peter's flat was on the top floor and was at such a height that no one in any of the neighbouring buildings could see in, which negated the need for privacy glass. Anyway, within moments the room was full of steam and a layer of condensation had obscured the view from the window. The extractor fan would take care of that in due course however.

He stepped under the warm deluge and he relaxed every muscle in his body as the heat of the water permeated his skin and soothed his tired muscles. Bliss!

He grabbed his bottle of shower gel, deposited a generous amount in his hand and proceeded to lather himself up. He always preferred taking a shower rather than a bath - he couldn't explain why exactly - it was just a preference.

Rinsing himself off, he turned his attention to his hair. As he massaged the shampoo into his scalp he thought back over the working day. The Dutch light bulb manufacturer that had employed his company's services had, over the course of the holidays, decided to amend their design brief for the machine they needed for folding the little cardboard boxes that their finished product was to be transported and ultimately sold in. As a result, Peter had to spend the whole day with his CAD technicians picking their original design apart and trying to incorporate the new features the client wanted. Ugh!

Peter allowed the soothingly warm water to wash away the stresses of the day. But it wasn't enough on its own.

Peter reached down.

He started by softly caressing his penis, coaxing it to come to life in his hand. Peter's penis wasn't the largest in the world - but it was by no means the smallest either. Peter's penis was, pretty much like the rest of him, distinctly average.

He didn't know it, but the women he had been with over the years interpreted his 'average-ness' not as a negative, but rather that he was perfectly proportioned. He was neither too fat nor too thin. He was neither too muscular nor too skinny. He was neither too tall nor to short. He was just an average, normal guy and that's what they had liked about him. Part of Peter's problem in life was just that - he was just too nice, too likeable. To all the women that had been in his life he was definitely more friend material than a potentially exciting lover.

Peter began picturing his favourite female celebrity, a young TV actress in one of his favourite shows. She was undressing herself before him - gradually peeling off her clothes and revealing her nakedness to him, and only to him. She was his. His personal property that would do as he wished. She was the ideal woman. The woman who would do everything she could to appease her master's every whim.

She was of course, apart from her looks, a total fantasy - Peter never treated women that way in real life and had no desire to do so. The idea of this fantasy woman was appealing to him in so much as any woman would find the idea of having a man entirely at her service, equally as enticing.

The fantasy woman's hands started to caress her breasts and then circle around her naked vulva. Peter's arousal grew and grew. Eventually he had to place his free hand against the glass of the shower cubicle to steady himself as his right hand pumped furiously at his penis.

His legs began to give way underneath him and he fought hard to remain upright as he masturbated, the stresses of the day finally dissipating as he approached his climax.

The hot water raining down on his naked body, the steam he inhaled and the sound of water splashing on his nude form provided another layer of tactile stimulation and before long he felt the familiar feeling of his scrotal sac contracting, his cremaster muscles drawing his testicles up into his body ready to deposit their precious cargo into his ejaculatory ducts. Then, the intense tingling of his semen gathering in his prostate and his bulbo-urethral glands, signaled the imminence of his ejaculation.

With a final rush of intense joy and a deep, guttural and almost involuntary exultation from Peter's vocal chords, a thick rope of semen erupted from his erection, hitting the glass wall of the cubicle and dribbling down towards the drain.

Peter stood there, panting from his exertion and observed what he had made as it trickled down the side of the cubicle. That felt SO much better!

Monday, January 4^th 2010 - 6:02pm

Lindi ordered herself a simple pot of tea from the barista behind the counter at Lorenzo's Coffee Shop. If there was one thing that annoyed her it was people ordering ridiculously complicated coffees. If she had a pound, she thought, for every time she'd been stuck in a queue behind someone ordering a tall, skinny, mocha-chocachino with chocolate sprinkles, whipped cream, marshmallows, a shot of hazelnut syrup and a flake, for themselves and then a large latte with cinnamon, extra cream, a shot of vanilla and chocolate shavings (not sprinkles!) for their friend - an order which invariably took an age to assemble - she would be a very rich woman indeed. She always resolved, out of consideration for others, to keep her own order simple. Complicated coffee, she reasoned, should be banned on the grounds of the inconvenience caused to other customers who were in a hurry and whose only wish was for a nice hot beverage prepared with the minimum of fuss.

Lorenzo's was a favourite among the local residents, especially at this time of year outside of the tourist season. It was always a warm, welcoming place where the citizens of Westborough-on-sea could gather to gossip and exchange opinion over a cup of hot coffee or tea and one of the coffee shop's homemade cakes and pastries. As she sat down at a table she looked out of the large plate glass windows at the reflection of the coloured lights of the pier as they danced on the surface of the sea. Who on earth was this Alison woman? Who was this 'we' she had referred to? And what, more to the point, did they want with Peter and why wasn't she allowed to tell him?

Lindi didn't have to wait long for an answer.

Two women entered the warm surroundings of the coffee shop from the cold darkness of the seafront promenade outside, shrugging off their thick overcoats as they entered. She vaguely recognised them, they had been at the same party the other night after all. But beyond that she had no idea who they were. One of them seemed to recognise Lindi however. She was a redhead and wore black plastic-rimmed glasses and clothes that to Lindi's eyes, looked typically feminine; she wore a floral print blouse and a coordinating plain skirt with matching stockings.

Her companion however, was almost the exact opposite - wearing baggy jeans and a thick sweater, clothes that to Lindi, looked too masculine for any self-respecting woman to be wearing. It took Lindi a quick double take to realise she actually was a woman.

"Hi, you must be Lindi," the redheaded woman said with a smile of greeting, "I'm Alison - we spoke on the phone earlier."

Lindi greeted the woman courteously and invited her and her companion to sit down.

"And this," Alison said introducing the other woman, "is Becky - my partner."

Lindi made another startled double take. They were... lesbians?? Not that there was anything wrong with that, but same-sex couples were something of a rarity in a sleepy little seaside town like Westborough-on-sea. Lindi had never encountered any lesbians before - at least, not that she could recall. What surprised her most however, was the way that Alison was so upfront about it.

"Your partner?" Lindi found herself saying almost without thinking.

"We've been together for ten years now." Becky said as she took Alison's hand in her own, "Technically we're civil partners, at least until the law changes to recognise gay marriage in this country."

"You'll have to forgive me, but I can't hang around here for too long. What exactly is it that the two of you want? Where does Peter come into all of this?" Lindi said. She was impatient to get home after a long day and was in no mood to listen to an in-depth preamble.

"Well, last year we realised that neither of us are getting any younger." Becky said, "Y'know, the whole biological clock ticking and all that. And we realised that something was missing in our relationship."

"To cut a long story short, we realised that what was missing was... children." Alison said.

With a resounding clink in the back of Lindi's mind, the penny dropped.

"And you were wondering if Peter would be willing to... donate his um... sperm." She said, whispering the last word.

"I know that this is a bit 'out of the blue' but basically, yes." Becky said.

This was insane! Two women, whom she had never properly met before, were asking her if her best friend would be willing to donate his sperm in order to father a child with them. An obvious question came to her mind almost immediately.

"Why??" Lindi asked.

"What do you mean?" Becky asked, "Why do we want to have children? Why do we want your help? Why do we want your friend to help us?"

"Well, all of those really." Lindi said.

"Well," Alison began, "we've been on the lookout for a suitable man for some time now. To begin with we wanted it to be totally anonymous - to just obtain some semen and go through artificial insemination."

"But then, as time went on," Becky took over, "the whole idea of an anonymous donor just seemed, kind of cold somehow. Distant, if you will."

"So..." Lindi said.

"So, we decided that we want to actually get to know the donor - the surrogate father." Alison said, "We would like it to be someone local. And of course, we would like it to be someone trustworthy and decent. My sister Michaela tells me you speak very highly of... what's-his-name... Peter."

"Well, we've been friends for as long as I can remember." Lindi said.

"But you guys aren't an item?" Becky asked.

Lindi was always tired of answering that particular question.

"You know, it's not unheard of for a man and a woman to be nothing more than friends you know." Lindi answered with a hint of impatience in her voice, "No, we are not an item. We have never dated, never snogged or made out with each other, never had sex with each other. Hell, we've never even seen each other in just our underwear, let alone naked. We are just... good... friends."

"Well, that's a good thing." Alison said, "Which is kind of why we've come to you."

"I mean... you must know Peter really well." Becky said, "What kind of person he is, what his personal opinion is of... y'know... people like us. Whether agreeing to help us is something he would give serious consideration."

"So basically, you want a character reference." Lindi said.

"Well, that would be a start I suppose." Alison said.

Lindi took a sip of her tea.

"Well, at least I can help you there." She said as she placed her cup back on the table, "Like I said, I've known him since we were little. And I can honestly say that he is the nicest, most gentle, loyal and courteous man I've ever known. Quite how we've never become more than good friends is beyond me - I mean, sure there have been opportunities to um... y'know... take things further. But I guess at the end of the day, we're just content with being best mates. Having sex with each other would probably spoil it and neither of us wants that - I guess our friendship is too valuable to us to want to risk it."

"But do you think he'd be willing to help us?" Becky asked.

"Well, on that point I'm afraid I can't be much help." Lindi said, "You'd have to ask him that question yourself. I wouldn't go so far as to say that he would refuse outright - if I know him the way I think I do, he would probably be quite flattered I guess. But he... and I for that matter... would want to know that the two of you are genuine - I mean, we've only just met... you could be anybody. How do we know you're genuine? How do we know that you won't just use him to get pregnant and then sting him for thousands of pounds of child support? Peter is my very best friend and I wouldn't want him to be hurt by any of what you propose."

"We'd be willing to give him some character references of our own." Alison said, "And as far as child support is concerned, we wouldn't need him to contribute in any way. Both of us are in good jobs - Becky works as a planning officer for the local council and I work from home as a graphic designer. We've got a solid income, we don't need the money."

"Yes, well you might say that you don't need the money," Lindi said, "but you and I both know that the Child Support Agency won't see it like that and they will sting him for thousands of pounds a year if you don't."