Wives and Lovers Ch. 01

*

I had written my first novel when I was at Cambridge reading history with the intention of entering into a career as a teacher. By the time that I was twenty-one the idea of the scholarly life was starting to lose its appeal, I was much more interested in rowing, rugby and real ale than studying.... Oh, and girls...girls and women of all shapes and sizes and all ages... in fact by that time I had already developed an unhealthy attraction to older women. The fact that they were also attracted to me was great, until their husbands found out. How I managed to get through university without getting sent down was a bloody miracle but I managed to escape with a decent degree and my legs unbroken.

That first book, 'DIRK'S CONQUESTS' had been written in a rush whilst I was confined to my digs with a broken toe, caused by a stupid accident with a run-away stake boat in the boat sheds. I was unable to row or play rugby and out of sheer boredom turned my hand to bashing out the pages of garbled rubbish on my ancient portable typewriter, a project well fueled by copious amounts of cheap red wine, chain smoking several packets of Will's Gold Flake cigarettes and it was a completed project in less than three days. I have never claimed to be a good novelist but I am a fast writer. The painful broken toe had also fucked up my sex life temporarily and I guess that my frustration was the root source of the strongly erotic theme to the story which introduced my now well-known, incompetent but sexy spy character, Dirk Black.

I really hadn't intended to do anything with the completed manuscript, it was rubbish, written as a break from my history paper on 'The Impact of early Christianity on Roman Law', and needed to be binned but by chance some weeks later it fell into the hands of Nancy Randell, a fellow student who was occasionally sharing my bed at the time. Poor Nancy really wasn't that bright and had sat up all one night in my digs reading the typescript after she had shagged me to sleep and the following morning had awakened me with a mug of coffee and some scorched toast full of misplaced enthusiasm for my writing skills.

"It is absolutely brill!" She had enthused. "You must get it published...it will sell millions....Felix." Nobody had ever called me anything but Felix since my mother died.... I struggled with my given name Richard at junior school, the other kids insisted on calling me Dick, or Dickie, or Dickhead, or Dick-a-licker, and so as soon as Uncle Frederick took over my care and sent me to boarding school where nobody ever used first names I was happy just to be addressed as Felix.

"It's crap... put it in the rubbish bin..." I told her.

"Let me photocopy the manuscript and send it to some agents for you..... I don't mind doing it...really."

"Just dump it!" I repeated.

"If you let me send it off....I'll give you a blow-job...." She advocated, already crawling up the bed under the duvet. By the time that her hot lips touched the tip of my prick I would have agreed for her to send it to the Prime Minister or the Pope. Nancy might not have been the brightness star in the firmament but she knew how to give head and ten minutes later I was begging her to send off the manuscript if she would let me ejaculate. She made both happen.

In truth, I had completely forgotten about the book and had almost forgotten Nancy a couple of months later. Both were brought back to mind when I received a letter from RUBENS & GOLDBERG (LITERARY AND THEATRICAL AGENTS) thanking me for my submission and asking me to contact them to discuss their acting on my behalf. That was how I came to meet Gabby Rubens.

I had driven up to London to meet her at the Dorchester Hotel to discuss my book over afternoon tea.... I learned later that only her established bestselling authors warranted the Dorchester lunch in The Grill.

Gabriella Rubens was not at all as I had imagined her. My mental image of a female literary agent was a rather dowdy, dusty looking woman in her fifties wearing a tweed suit and wrinkly stockings rather like a modern day Miss Marple with a stack of loose manuscript pages stuffed into a huge overflowing shoulder bag.

What I got was an extremely handsome woman in her mid-thirties, with a firm, slim waisted mature figure, slender shapely legs and eye catching tight rounded arse and full breasts. Her face was oval with high arched eyebrows over huge deep brown eyes and a generous mouth which was painted just the right shade of red to compliment her Mediterranean complexion and jet black hair twisted into a glossy bun. She was dressed in a charcoal grey sheer silk business skirt suit which was as far from tweeds as you could get and probably cost more than my car. If she wasn't the incarnation of my sexual fantasies come true she certainly wasn't far off of it.

Gabby was practical and down to earth as well as beautiful and we hit it off immediately. We had tea, we talked about Cambridge, and Oxford...she had been to Somerville College, and got a First in English Literature; we talked about music and movies, we were both classic film fanatics, and finally we talked about my writing. She agreed with me...the book was crap... but she thought that the story was worth saving and produced a copy of the manuscript from her elegant slim leather brief case which was covered in corrections and suggestions. She had obviously thought that it was worthwhile having an editor work on it for me and signed me up there and then.

Gabby was the boss and managed the agency single handed, her late father had been Goldberg and her deceased husband Rubens. From that moment on Gabby's firm did everything for me, negotiated with publishers and editors, handled my legal affairs and my accounts and even paid my household bills for me.

Six months later I received a call from her to say that the revised book had been accepted by a mainstream publisher and a cheque would follow for the advanced royalties...less her 20% representation fee of course. It was the beginning of a long and comfortable association. That first cheque changed my entire direction in life.... I decided that writing for a living was a lot easier than working and gave me a lot more time for the important things like playing golf, cooking and chasing women.... not necessarily in that order.

The money was not a desperately important factor. I never had been a starving young author struggling with my art on the breadline in some slum garret. In fact I was probably more in the category of the idle rich...... well mostly idle and relatively comfortable anyway. I had no living family but my last surviving relative had been an eccentric elderly uncle who had paid my school and college fees and then shuffled off the mortal coil leaving me a reasonable chunk of money and a very handsome apartment in St. John's Wood. The perfect start in life for a young man whose main ambition was the pursuit of pussy and the avoidance of hard work.

*

"So are you coming to bed, Felix?" She asked arching a delicate eyebrow.

"I'm not sure that I should let you seduce me any more..." I said with a chuckle, "I am a married man now!"

"So... I am a married woman....."

"No you are not... you just got divorced again... remember.... What was this one.... Number Four or Number Five?"

"Four you arsehole! My divorce makes it even more important that you don't let me get lonely at night... you know what happens then..."

"Yeah, you get married again...."

I really did not want to go through another one of Gabby's traumatic Love-Marriage-Divorce cycles in the near future. I never met her first husband Josh Rubens the founder of Reubens and Goldberg, he had been a lot older than her and had died before we met. Her later choices of partner were an anathema to common sense, the latest lasting the longest.... all of seven weeks. Gabby seemed to attract pretty young morons who were more interested in getting into her bank account than her bed and inevitably got caught either screwing some young bimbo or stealing from her, or both. I was very fond of Gabby and hated to see her pissed about...No.2 Husband I punched at the golf club and No.3 Husband I kicked in the arse in Langan's Brasserie, earning a free bottle of champagne from Sir Michael Caine.... Everybody loves Gabby.

I carefully moved her computer to my dressing chair and slid beneath the cool slippery sheets. God but that felt erotic...almost as good as slithering up against Gabby's equally smooth and silky flank. I found one of her round firm breasts with my hand and cupped in into my palm, the already engorged nipple felt hot and hard and I rubbed it gently with my thumb.

"OK so now it's now acceptable for the newly married man to seduce his business manager...is it?" She teased. Her fingers brushed down over my ribs and my thigh and curled around my rigid prick.

"I had better warn you that that meat is not kosher!" I chuckled. This had been an old running joke with us for years.

"Well I ain't about to eat it...buster!" She retorted, becoming Mai West again. Gabby was a fantastic shag but had never been into BJs, she just didn't do it and I had never pushed or asked why. We just had great sex and enjoyed each other's company on a casual basis I found it hard to remember that she was the wrong side of fifty... to me she looked and felt no different to the way she had the first time we slept together fifteen years ago, just a few more grey hairs which I thought looked stylish on her.

I rolled so that I was laid half over her and we kissed gasping into each other's mouths as the urgency of our lust increased and I swept my hand up and down her silk skinned back from the shoulders to her rounded firm buttocks and back again. I pressed my lips to hers; her mouth responded instantly, her lips, soft and moist, opened and her tongue pushed into my mouth seeking mine, her hands grasping at my hair to hold my face to hers. I thrust my tongue at hers and our mouths joined to became a cavern of hot moistness in which our tongues performed a sinuous dance of lust and desire, until we broke away gasping for air.

"That was certainly worth coming home for....." I panted.

"I'm glad you're home too, Felix....I have missed you..." She sighed.

"You are just worried that I will get behind schedule with the new book and want me where you can watch me..... you mercenary bitch....I'll bet you haven't looked at the chapter that I e-mailed you the link for last week yet..." I teased and rolled my hips so that my stiff prick was pressing hard against her pussy, parting the lips and rubbing against her now swollen clit. Her soft cloud of dark pubic hair tickled my glans. I playfully squeezed her buttocks, hard.

"Ow!" She yelped. "I will have you know that I have been reading it tonight.... The chapter where Dirk Black seduces the gorgeous Israeli Mossad agent and thrusts his thick, hard erection deep inside her waiting.... A-h-h-h-h-h! YES! Oh!....... Just like that......"

I settled myself firmly inside her hot, moist love tunnel and began to pump gently, each thrust no more than a couple of inches forward and back. It was like fucking a tube of soft pliant velvet soaked in warm honey. I felt her legs settle around mine drawing me tighter into her and ensuring that I would not be able to escape until she chose to release me. I certainly wasn't going anywhere, Gabby and I were very comfortable in our lovemaking and could go on for hours just humping and kissing and caressing.... the way that all good friends do!

My watch had just pinged to announce that it was two o'clock when I felt her whole body stiffen momentarily and start to tremble, her legs making little jerking motions, her thighs tightening around mine like two pythons going in for the kill.

"Oh God! I'm going to.... I'm going to...." She gasped loudly. And she did. Her body jerked and spasmed as a huge orgasm rolled through her body and she clamped her hands to my head burrowing her fingers tightly into my already dangerously thinning hair. Shit she did that every time we screwed, I was going to be bald years ahead of time... but it was worth it. The quaking of her climax slowed and she reached up and pulled my face close to hers.

"Do it, Felix... please!" She hissed breathlessly.

She did not need to draw me a map, I was already far beyond the point of no return and eased myself even deeper into her vagina which was hot and wet from her orgasm and thrust forward until I was as far into her as I could go.

She locked her legs tightly around mine and dragged my prick even more firmly into her as I started to thrust into her, long hard thrusts which increased in speed and force until we were slamming together madly each thrust raising her gorgeous mature body off the mattress and then slamming it back down again. She was gasping and mumbling incoherently and I guess that I was as well; I felt her shudder beneath me and I guess that she had probably orgasmed again but then I too reached my limit as her vagina swelled and rippled around my already over sensitised prick and I exploded like a water cannon pumping what I ludicrously imagined to be pints of semen into her in long thick pungent streams.

We lay side by side on the bed for several silent minutes my arm beneath her shoulders and my face buried in her hair, it smelled erotically of expensive salon shampoo and felt sexy and silky across my face and throat.

"Welcome home Felix." She whispered in my ear. "Have you got a cigarette.... I left mine in the car..."

I slid from the bed and walked a bit wobbly kneed through to the lounge and returned with the cigarette box from my desk and two extremely large vodka and tonics clinking with cubes of ice. I handed her one of the glasses.

"Are you staying for breakfast?"

"Who is making it?"

"Your turn I think..." I said hopefully. "My kitchen is at your disposal..."

"In that case wake me early and I'll drive down and get coffee and croissants from Starbucks....."

"You've never done it yet....I always end up going...." I whined

"Sounds good to me..." She laughed.

I pulled one of my plain linen shirts from the wardrobe and tossing it to her to use as a nightshirt, then slid back onto the bed next to her. After fifteen years of staying at my place Gabby still never left any of her gear at the flat. It was probably some sort of subconscious statement that we were just friends not a couple. It would probably not be a good idea now that I was married, Chrissy and I had a fairly open relationship but I doubt she would tolerate another woman's dressing gown or nightshirt in the wardrobe or bathroom.

For tonight we were together and could enjoy our special friendship. I certainly intended to enjoy it at least once more before going out in the cold to fetch breakfast.

I lit two cigarettes and passed one to her, settling a large glass ashtray on my stomach trusting her not to drop hot ash onto my dick. I was unsure what the future held for our very special friendship when Chrissy got back to England and was not going to spoil the closeness of that moment by raising the subject. We both knew that my being married would change our special relationship in a way that Gabby's marriages never had. I did know that whatever the future brought for us I would find it impossible to go through life without sharing these intimate nights with my best friend. If that makes me a cad...then I guess that I am.

*

*

As luck would have it the politics of East Africa intervened to change our plans. Chrissy was originally scheduled to stay in Ethiopia until early June but the flare up of terrorist activity and the threat to European aid workers posed by the renewed presence of Al-Shabaab activists in the refugee camps changed that. The terror campaign culminating in the bombing of the Anwar Mosque caused the group of charities that she was working for to pull back most of their front line workers and UK citizens were advised to return home by the British Government.

Personally I was only too pleased that she was withdrawing from the danger zone and flew over to Addis Ababa to meet her when she got back to the city. She still had a couple of weeks work to complete at the Besegah Hospital and so I booked a suite at the Sheraton Addis and we moved in together. The atmosphere in Ethiopia was electric with danger for foreigners and so I spent most of my time acting as her chauffeur, shadowing her around the city or sitting waiting for her in the hospital. The upside was that I managed to get a couple of chapters of the new book written with my laptop balanced on my knees, a temperamental writer I am not.

The other bonus was that I used the Ethiopian experience for research and changed the location of Dirk Black's latest adventure from Syria to East Africa with a little bit of judicious rewriting, utilising the local colour for realistic background. I also toyed with the idea of changing the working title to something more in keeping with the new location. That decision caused a massive hissing fit from Gabby when I telephoned and told her, it seemed that I was screwing up her planned pre-release publicity again. However, thanks to the marvels of Cloud Storage, once she had looked over the revised manuscript she and the publishers were happy with the text changes if less so with the proposed new title. I was just on the point of believing that I was about to score a minor victory for art over capitalism when Chrissy intercepted one of my calls from Gabby and I found myself facing an all-girls tag team. Inevitably, the original title stayed and my new title got flushed. At least I no longer had to worry about the two of them not hitting it off, in a fifteen minute Skype call they had become as tight as a bung seal.

We finally managed to get on a connecting flight back to the UK just a couple of days before Easter. Our shuttle flight from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris got us into Heathrow mid-afternoon. We had arranged to spend the holiday weekend at her mother's home so that I could get to know my new in-laws.

Chrissy was keen to go straight home to her mother's place at Gerrards Cross about an hour and a half drive from central London in South Buckinghamshire, understandably so as she had not actually seen her mother and sister in person for close on six months. It was her family home and she had been living there until we met and all her possessions were there. I, on the other hand had a suitcase holding dirty hot weather clothing packed hurriedly for my trip to Ethiopia and my lap top bag containing the important parts of my life. After a couple of hurried phone calls it was finally decided that we would take a cab back to my apartment so that I could collect some sensible clothing for a weekend in the country, have a shower and check the morning mail. There would only be one day's letters as Gabby had been collecting and dealing with my post whilst I was away. We would then be able to pick up my car and drive down to Gerrards Cross in time for dinner with her family.

It was the first time that Chrissy had been to my apartment and I could tell that she was impressed. I think what impressed her most was that I had the common sense to employ a housekeeper to keep the place clean and tidy...... actually it had been at Gabby's insistence following her first visit to my flat years ago.

Over the past fifteen years I had carefully replaced Uncle Frederick's antique furniture with minimalist designer couches, chairs, tables and units by the likes of Kjaerholm or Lissoni and most of his heavily framed Victorian oil paintings had given way to subdued geometric canvases and my small collection of original Richard MacNeil cityscapes plus two very special watercolours of St. Michael's Mount by Janine Welsh, before she got famous, painted from our bedroom window at the Godolphin Arms in Marazion, souvenirs of a fabulous summer sailing and shagging in South Cornwall. How Janny had produced a clutch of watercolours and I had written most of that year's novel, 'DIRK AT SEA' I shall never know as we spent all our time afloat or in bed.