Lucy's Bedroom

Bees

We’ve only been here two days and already I’ve seen the hospital where D will be working. This is the fault of bees. Luckily, I’ve had some experience with the international mime for “I have been stung by a bee and am rapidly going into anaphylactic shock” (clutch the throat with both hands while turning blue and starting to fit) and D was on hand with my EpiPen to shoot me full of epinephrine to keep my airways clear until he could drive me to hospital. Luckily it wasn’t a bad attack and so after 4 hours of a hydrocortisone drip and observation (I don’t know how they did that, possibly through a hole in the ceiling) I was allowed home.

I’ve had three bee-related emergency dashes to hospital and although they send me home quickly each time, it’s in the knowledge that I’ll probably have a ‘rebound’ shock a few hours later. This is like the aftershock of an earthquake – the same symptoms but slightly less severe. In the past it would have meant rushing back to hospital which made the 24 hours after a shock nerve-wracking. But this time, D signed out the drugs and equipment he thought he might need and I was able to have my rebound lying on the bed. We spent the intervening hours having a huge row about whether I actually carry my EpiPen as conscientiously as I claim and whether I should wear a medical emergency bracelet.

I know I’m completely in the wrong about this, but I bitterly resent my EpiPen and the need to constantly explain to people what to do in an emergency. Apart from anything else, it’s far too much responsibility to give someone you’re not actually related to. As a result I shall certainly expire on some hot and dusty London pavement surrounded by baffled strangers. Why can’t I be life-threateningly allergic to something I’m less likely to encounter, like giraffes?

So now my dad’s coming all the way from France to see me and D’s dad’s given him a clip round the ear for not bringing me back from hospital to the farm house “Where she can be looked after properly”. D’s sulking at the implication that he can’t look after me properly – even my cat’s lurking under the wardrobe in some form of existential protest. Golly, everyone’s cross!

Things we’ve learnt from this experience:

1. Don’t repeatedly poke a stick into the hedgerow at the far end of the meadow because that’s where the bees live.

2. A grazing goat – initially suspected of being a llama - has caused train delays between Ipswich and Cambridge.

3. Local news really moves at a very slow pace in Suffolk, especially when you’ve got 4 hours with nothing to do except watch it come round on an endless loop on BBC News 24.

Amidst The Debris

That was a good party, you should have come. Big Aussie Helen, D’s favourite nurse, was first in the pool. She hadn’t actually brought a bathing suit with her but that didn’t stop her climbing to the top of the ladder, peeling off her clothes and standing for a moment like an Australian Aphrodite, as we all looked up, shielding our eyes from the glare of the sun, before she leapt into the water, spraying everyone who stood too close as they shrieked and scuttled away. D had a big soppy grin on his face. “Thank you Helen, how did you know the only way I’d stayed awake through all those night shifts was wondering what you’d look like naked and belly-flopping into a collapsible swimming pool?”

Everyone shoveled up the Persian food, making appreciative little “Mmm” sounds and chewing quickly in case there wouldn’t be seconds unless they hurried. The makeshift cocktail bar flourished on a self-serve basis. I’d photocopied lots of recipes and pinned them to a tree and to begin with at least people followed recipes but inevitably it didn’t take long before they were drinking cocktails which, when challenged, they could only describe as “Green.”

A certain amount of Persian dancing was attempted, some of it in the pool (and some of it horizontally in various parts of our flat – I had to walk through several times with my gaze averted saying brightly, “Don’t mind me, I’m just getting a tea towel”).

D had invited lots of people from work, a few of whom I know slightly, some just from his stories, others not at all. I soon lost count of the number he introduced me to who immediately said, “Oh, we’ve heard a lot about you.” I did briefly wonder whether I should attempt to stand on my dignity and pretend I had no idea what they were talking about, but it’s hard to stand on your dignity wearing a leopard skin bikini, rose-tinted diamante sunglasses and flip flops with pink plastic flowers.

As it grew dark, the pool became a popular venue for snogging and we had to warn several people (just like life guards at the municipal baths warn you against running or bombing) that urgently pressing your inamorata up against the side of an essentially collapsible structure filled with 5,000 gallons of water is a bad thing. Ushering some of the more fevered snoggers inside (where there are actual walls to thrust each other up against) I was caught by D’s friend James who wrapped his arm round my waist, swirled me round while I shrieked and then said, “Go on Lucy, show me your tits, just a flash.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, alright then but quickly” I replied and untied the strings of my bikini top, peeling it down and giving them a jiggle.

“Man, I can’t believe that worked” said a slightly stoned-looking doctor.

At this moment a small scuffle broke out, over in a flash and broken up. I never found out what had happened but as everyone milled around, standing on tip toes to see, I found myself standing next to D again.

“So, what have you been up to?” he asked, eyeing my toplessness.

“Nothing much…well…no, nothing…just the voices in my head suggesting to me that I might go for a little ride on James but the moment’s passed.”

“I’m glad to hear it – it’s your loyalty I value most. Well, perhaps not ‘most’…maybe eighth…after your willingness to be the designated driver.”

We're off to Suffolk tonight and I face some new challenges as a blogger - lack of electricity, a two mile trek to get my batteries re-charged, uncertain wireless broadband - which mean I may post less frequently between now and September. I don't really know what it will be like until I try so play nicely while you're waiting for an update.

Floating

Tomorrow’s weather forecast is no longer for humidity and showers, now apparently it’s going to be hot and sunny. The forecast had better be right, because I’ve impulse-bought what’s called a family swimming pool. This is constructed in the same way you would put up a tent and is around 15 feet across and 4 feet high, with steps to climb in and a filter pump. It came with a DVD that showed you how to build it but naturally we didn’t watch that. The only bit of the instructions we read was the bit that said it only took 45 minutes to assemble. Well that turned out to be completely wrong so I’m glad we didn’t waste our time reading any of the other instructions!

It’s finally finished and impressively sturdy. D’s patiently filling it with 5,000 gallons of water as I type, and discovering that the garden isn’t quite as flat as it looks.

I’ve spent the rest of today sweet-talking the men at Majestic Wines into putting us at the end of their delivery list for tomorrow so the bath full of ice I’ve ordered doesn’t have time to melt. And I also had a brainwave walking past the local Sikh temple and got the free loan of some wedding lights to drape down the front of the house.

Neighbours have been apologised to in advance, last-minute text messages about bikinis have been sent and I think we’re just about ready. Tomorrow will just be deliveries, skimming dead insects out of the pool and wrestling a table out of the house (our table must have got upstairs somehow so we’re guessing it’ll come down again).

Later: We’ve had a dip. Having been summoned all the way downstairs to admire D’s handiwork (if that is indeed how one describes standing in the garden holding a hose in one hand and a library book in the other) I couldn’t be bothered going all the way upstairs again to get changed, so I just kicked off my flip flops and climbed in wearing my dress, which floated around me as I doggy-paddled about. I’m guessing there won’t be a lot of actual swimming on the night, more lounging with drinks and perhaps some vivacious splashing and climbing up and down the ladder enough times to make sure everyone’s noticed you (and that’s just the men).

D took off his t-shirt and climbed in wearing his shorts and together we floated, squinting up at the sun.

Undulating

I had a Persian dance lesson today, courtesy of the family in Paddington who run the restaurant that’s catering our party on Saturday. I was much tutted at for setting off wiggling like a belly dancer. Apparently that’s not the right thing at all. Persian dance is much more undulating with lots of expressive arm movements. It has a narrative and the arm movements and facial expressions are very precise and important but frankly I was having enough trouble undulating to take all that in.

My descriptive powers aren’t really up to conveying dance but if you click here you’ll see a rather gorgeous Iranian girl doing it beautifully while her aunties look on approvingly. I hardly need to tell you I wasn’t this good.

One of the family’s sons has promised to burn me a CD of Iranian music for the party and we’ve secured the loan of the garden (the weather forecast is hot and humid with the sort of showers that don’t lift the humidity). What I really want is some sort of canopy I can erect so we can stay outside if there’s a shower but I’m not sure where to get one. The phrase ‘Territorial Army’ has flitted briefly across my mind – they must have tents for all occasions including for dancing in during a shower. I even got as far as Googling ‘Territorial Army Camp North London’ but all I got were recruiting offices. And I can foresee an unfortunate mix up in which I turn up smiling broadly and offering to show them my Persian Dance if they’ll let me have a free tent – and then wake up in a fox hole just outside Basra with my hair shaved off.

I’ve just had an absurdly over-excited phone call from my friend Caroline during the interval of David Tennant’s Hamlet – it’s the first preview tonight. Most of what she said was at a pitch only discernable by dolphins but I was able to make out that she’s sitting next to Gordon Brown and then there was something about Hamlet being barefoot and in a dinner jacket. So it’s nice to know she’s concentrating on the important aspects of the play. I’m going to see it in September so I’m trying not to be spoiled.

It’s too hot to go on typing, my fingers are slipping off the keys. I’m going to use the fact that we need to empty the freezer before we move as an excuse to finish the chocolate chip mint ice cream.

Audrey Hepburn

Today, I have been mostly pretending to be Audrey Hepburn. D wanted me to have a proper portrait photo taken as I inherited a trunk of my late great aunt’s effects including a rather handsome tortoise shell photo frame. I think he has romantic notions of saying goodnight to my lovely image when he’s in Suffolk and I’m back in London in the autumn (though this plan is not to be confused with whatever plans he has for all the nudie shots and film clips he’s amassed on his hard drive).

Now let’s be honest, I don’t look very much like Audrey Hepburn but I did my best, with my hair up in a smooth chignon (is that the word?), my fringe gelled and sculpted into that short half-fringe she had, false eyelashes, pale 1960s lipstick and my face lowered to create the heart-shaped look. A little eyebrow pencil, some professional lighting and careful cropping of anything resembling a tattoo and it’s not half bad. Why I do believe, with a little effort, I could look positively normal.

D’s very pleased and has the photo framed and propped up on his side of the bed. I only have snapshots and camera phone pictures of D and he’s generally drunk/asleep in those but somehow I prefer these fleeting, fractured images to the carefully-constructed and artificial studio one.

The flat is stuffy and the air is heavy and humid tonight. We run out of steam part-way through fucking with the bedroom window flung open. D lies on top of me, his weight pinning me to the bed, his cock still buried in my cunt, stiff now but softening as I unpeel my arms from round his neck and let them flop onto the bed. Our bellies are slippery with sweat and I yawn into the side of his neck, his stubble scratching my cheek.

Eventually we drag ourselves into the bathroom and stand under the shower, the water cool. I soap his cock, wrapping a sponge around it and wanking it slowly as we kiss, squeezing my sponge out and letting soapy water trickle down his belly before soaping him up again, rubbing the sponge in lazy circles against his balls.

D snatches the sponge off me and tosses it out of the shower. Grabbing my upper arms he forces me back against the tiled wall, his lips grinding against mine, our teeth clashing as he forces his tongue into my mouth and I suck on it greedily. His cock presses stiffly into my belly and I moan, rolling my hips but my encouragement goes unheeded. He cups my face, his kiss furious, overwhelming as I fall in love with him all over again.

No Aubergines

A slightly lairy moment with one of my neighbours today after I signed for a parcel on his behalf and then trotted across the road to deliver it when I saw him. He invited me into his house, which was oddly blank and unornamented, as though nobody lived there. He seemed very keen to keep me there talking as he opened the parcel and I had a sudden flashback to the postman this morning – maybe his flustered sweatiness and eagerness to get away wasn’t because it’s a hot day and he’s busy, perhaps he knows something about this man. As the parcel was ripped open I became suddenly gripped with the conviction that it was going to be an inflatable sex doll and when it turned out to be fishing equipment I screeched, “How-lovely-I-must-be-going” and darted home.

He’s probably writing a blog entry right now about his odd encounter with the peculiar nervy woman from across the road.

In other neighbourhood news, I’ve been to the cat table to retrieve a pair of socks. One of my neighbours has a Siamese cat that creeps into people’s houses and steals random soft things – apparently this is quite normal behaviour for Siamese. Every so often, a table is set up outside the house with the stolen items displayed beside a sign that reads, “My cat is very sorry, please recover your stuff.” Today’s haul includes some uncompleted knitting, still on the needles, a glove puppet and a single fluffy slipper.

In expansive mood now that he’s got a few days off, D went shopping, which I never normally allow him to do because he always comes home, as he did today, with a ridiculous excess of non-biodegradable plastic bags filled with things I don’t like – aubergines, minced beef, strawberries and cornflakes being among today’s offenders.

A spark of irritation ignited in me and I tied him to a kitchen chair with clothes line, all the while berating him that it was people like him, with their careless over-reliance on plastic and aubergines, who were ruining the planet. In my enthusiasm, I think I may have pulled the clothes line a little tightly – certainly by the time I’d finished he’d stopped doing comedy wriggling and was breathing quite deeply with an erection straining against his jeans.

I put my head on one side and surveyed my handiwork – you know by now I’m not a natural at being in charge but he did look a fine sight all flushed and annoyed and criss-crossed with pink clothes line digging into his arms and his thighs, his body lashed tightly to the upright back of the chair, his ankles tied firmly to the legs. I leaned forward, cleavage in his face and hand on his bulge. “And now I suppose you expect me to do something about this?” and I popped open his top button.

On my knees, sucking happily, slowly savouring his cock and rolling it around in my mouth, I could feel his body straining against the clothes line, the chair creaking and rocking as he tried to arch and squirm. Ignoring him, not looking up into his face, I kept my head bent, lapping and nibbling and sucking, tormenting the tip of his cock then sliding my lips down along the underside of his shaft, rubbing them slowly up and down. Every time I felt his excitement rising, his cock twitching, I slowed the pace right down to long slow licks and gentle fluttery kisses, smirking to myself as I felt the tension in his belly, his thigh muscles knotted.

Sliding my hands up under his t-shirt I could feel the clammy sweat on his skin, the heat of the day mingling with his excitement. Standing, I opened the fridge and brought out the ice tray, smiling blandly at him as he watched me warily. With a crash I emptied the ice into the sink, taking a single cube and rubbing it across my hot brow then down my neck, letting it drip into my cleavage. I popped it into my mouth, sucking hard at its sharp edges then kneeling again, listening for his gasp as I slid my lips back down the shaft of his cock, the ice pressing against it.

I felt his head flop back, staring at the ceiling, panting, his body tense again, his cock taut and pulsing in my mouth as I rolled the melting ice cube around it until the last drops of cold water trickled down my throat. Then I pressed my lips down to the base of his cock, holding it there for as long as I could, pulling back gasping as it popped from my mouth then swallowing it again, bobbing my head now, fucking it into my throat as he groaned and spurted, salty spunk spraying down my throat as I swallowed hard.

As I stood, he licked his dry lips and went to speak but I put my finger on his lips. “Now let that be a lesson to you. No aubergines.”

Ooh, That's Nasty, She'll Be Out For The Rest Of The Season With That

I have a sex injury today. Not my normal compliment of spanked arse, carpet burns and fingertip-shaped bruises, though I have all of those too. This is a thigh muscle strain acquired as D held my thighs wide open, his hands gripping the backs of my knees, on the sofa with my bum slightly overhanging the edge, my feet waving in the air as he pounded his cock into my slippery, squelching cunt.

I suddenly felt a sharp ripping sensation in the back of my right thigh and let out an almighty shriek. D, assuming he’d accidentally stumbled on my G spot (which is the only way either of us has ever found it), pressed my thighs wider, leaning his weight on them and fucking faster until he realised that my screams and accompanying blows with my fists to his chest and shoulders were not entirely joyful.

As I lay on my tummy on the sofa with a bag of frozen peas balanced on the back of my thigh, D excavated individual frozen peas from a hole he’d ripped in the bag and flicked them down my buttocks, trying to get them to roll in a perfect line along my spine. While this wasn’t exactly helpful, I recognised it as the sort of repetitive, obsessive behaviour that could keep him quietly occupied until it was time to go to work, and I shut my eyes.

It’s his last day today – he’s been working extra shifts to use his duty up and that, coupled with some holiday owing, means we’ve got nearly a fortnight to plan a leaving party and move down to Suffolk before he starts his new post.

When he’d finally gone and the peas had thawed, I rang Lynda to find out how she’d got on with J, who did ask her out on a proper date to the pictures. At first, when I asked “How are you?” she just laughed for several minutes. She then took quite a long time to explain exactly how she was, in fairly graphic detail, but it boils down to ‘energetically fucked in all orifices and with a big dopey grin on her face’. She’s also broken up formally with the ever unreliable Greg by sending him a camera-phone picture with the message “Me sucking my new boyfriend’s cock”.

I’ve been warned that I have to plan a respectable party (which now I come to think of it, probably means I can’t invite Lynda) as D’s inviting people from work. I’m planning to break into some of Great Aunt Jane’s legacy, currently burning a hole in my bank account, and go a bit mad. There’s a Persian restaurant in Paddington that was the venue of an early date with D and which we’ve been back to regularly since. Their food is fantastic and I’m going to see if they’ll cater for us. I’m also going to see if I can get someone to run the bar/music as I’ve done at other people’s parties. And I’ll talk to the lady in the flat downstairs and see whether, if we invite her/send her somewhere nice for the evening we can use the garden.

London’s hot and grimy and it’s going to get worse as the tourist season kicks in so I should feel happier to be going than I am.

Thirteen Plus Eight

However much I tried to position yesterday as a heart-warming tale of young lovers, D was having none of it. I’ve been led to understand that getting hammered and having threesomes while he’s on nights is a bad thing deserving proper punishment.

It turns out he wasn’t kidding about that and thirteen (one “for luck”) hard swishes with a thin, whippy carbon-fibre cane later, my arse is striped and glowing and I’m snivelling back tears as I lie curled up on my side on the bed, my wrists still tied behind my back. D lies beside me.

D: What do you say, Lucy?

Lucy: (bites lip)

D: What was that? Did I hear you say you want me to do it all over again?

Lucy: (shakes head crossly)

D: So what do you say?

Lucy: (mutters) Thank you.

D: That’s better.

Lucy: (sniffs)

D: Though now of course I have to punish you for being sulky…

Lucy: (wide eyed) Nooooooo! Oh God, that’s so unfair!

D: It is not unfair young lady and to prove it I’m going to let you decide how many strokes you deserve.

Lucy: (seethes in silent fury – this is always a trap)

D: (tapping cane impatiently on Lucy’s thigh) I’m waiting…

Lucy: (blurts out) Eight!

D: (stifles laugh) Eight? Well that’s sufficiently random to stand unchallenged, eight it is.

D grabbed my ankles, gripping them in one hand and lifting them up in the air, rolling me onto my back with my arms trapped beneath me. For a while he just stroked the cane along the back of my thighs and across the fold of my buttocks. I watched him, his face grim with concentration, licking his dry lips and breathing hard as he stroked me. Then he slid his hand down to the backs of my knees, pressed down, bending me double and glanced towards me, catching me watching him.

“This is going to be hard, Lu” he said quietly. We both held our breath for a moment and then I nodded.

I squirmed and gasped, not able to breathe as the strokes fell, hard and fast, right on the top of my thighs, landing one after another in the same place until it was burning hot and throbbing painfully. He let go and I rolled away from him, curling up again, gulping down air and crying properly now, dimly aware of an insistent, wet, pulsing in my pussy.

D curled his body around mine, untied my wrists and slid one finger into my slit, drawing it out and sucking it clean. Then we lay in silence until I’d finished crying. Wincing slightly as I rolled back to face him, I said “Are you really angry?”

“No.”

“Then why so hard?”

“Because I like fucking you after you’ve been crying.”

“That’s twisted.”

“Shut up and spread your legs.”

The Green Fairy Casts A Spell

That Ernest Hemmingway, what a card. When he wasn’t watching animals slaughtered for fun or pretending he’d helped liberate Paris from the Nazis he was busy inventing the most lethal cocktail known to womankind. It’s called Death in the Afternoon, which I suppose ought to be a clue, and It’s a measure of absinthe topped up with champagne and accompanied by the instruction ‘Drink three to five of these very slowly’.

Lynda and I did exactly as we were told, sitting in the bath while she told me the sorry story of how nostalgia for his cock made her get back together again with the ever-unreliable Greg, who comes out of the story with a certain consistency by continuing to be unreliable. By the third drink we were both going “Oh our sad lives” and having a bit of a weep. By the fourth we were angrily making plans to run away to Mexico and spend the rest of our lives in some fly-blown border cantina, one of us doling out bad tequila and luring men into the back room with the promise of blow-jobs while the other steals their wallet (“No, really, it would totally work!”). By the fifth drink, Lynda had started nagging me again about J.

If you’ve been with me for a while, you’ve met J here but Lynda has never met him, which drives her crazy. “What’s he like? Is he nice? Is he funny? Does he have a big cock? What colour is his hair? How does he kiss? Does he like pussy-licking? Is he any good at it? Does he ever wear his uniform? Can I meet him? Can I, please? Can I?” is how it generally goes.

Full of poisonous alcohol, I stepped out of the bath and stood there dripping while I crossly phoned him. “Look, sorry to call out of the blue but I’ve got a very drunk girlfriend who wants to meet you and…”

“Tell him I need a good fucking!” shrieked Lynda from the bath.

“She says…oh, you heard, well can you please do something about it because she keeps nagging me?”

And that, give or take some drunken giggling and dashing about the flat clumsily tidying up before he got here, is how we ended up leaning naked over the banisters, waving an absinthe bottle at him and beckoning him up the stairs, singing our made-up-on-the-spot siren song that consists of the herbs listed on the bottle’s label (wormwood, hyssop, star anise, juniper, angelica, coriander, nutmeg) to something approximating a tune (though not the same tune).

J made an effort to keep a straight face and announced “I can see I’m going to have to take control of this situation.”

And here’s a demonstration of how Lynda and I are different. I quietened down and stopped waving my bottle straight away, ready to meekly perform whatever sordid and degrading acts he had in mind. Lynda said “How lovely, but let’s fuck first” grabbed him by his belt and dragged him into the bedroom while I followed, giggling.

While Lynda straddled him, grunting softly as she rode his cock, her buttocks slapping against his thighs and her tits bouncing with each thrust, I knelt on the floor between his parted thighs, sucking on his balls and rolling them around inside my mouth with my tongue until his was groaning, “No, stop…”

“Yes Lucy, stop that!” snapped Lynda “You’re going to make him cum too quickly. Come here…”

I scrambled up onto the bed and let Lynda position me, sitting on J’s face, squirming as he lapped at my cunt and moaning into Lynda’s kiss as she writhed on his cock. J slid a finger deep into my cunt and drew it out dripping, screwing it into my arsehole and I bit at Lynda’s bottom lip, sucking and teasing it as I groaned.

Then, while Lynda sat impaled on J’s cock with her back to him, leaning back to let him cup her tits, I kissed and licked her clit, sliding my tongue down over the base of his cock, tasting her juices on it, then lapping back up to suck and nibble her clit again, cupping his balls and rubbing my thumb across them as Lynda arched and yelped and her stomach muscles twitched as she began to cum.

As she climbed off his stiff cock, I sucked it briefly, keeping it warm for her as she squirmed down the bed. Then I sucked his balls again while Lynda swallowed down his cock, bobbing her head and letting it pop from between her lips. As she tormented its tip with her fluttering tongue, I rubbed its shaft, one hand on Lynda’s neck and aiming it into her face as it spat spunk across her lips and chin. I leaned in to nip her earlobe and kiss her cheek as I sprayed her with the last drops of J’s spunk and he groaned loudly.

Sprawled on the bed, I half-lay on top of Lynda, licking J’s cum from her face and kissing her while J smoked a cigarette. Eventually he joined in, his cock semi-stiff as he fed it into Lynda’s mouth. I listened to her slurping eagerly at it as I kissed my way down over her belly and between her thighs, curling two fingers into her sloppy pussy and frigging her as I fluttered the tip of my tongue across the tip of her clit, drawing back its hood and making her squeak and twitch. Looking up for a moment I could see that J had Lynda’s face cupped between both hands, her cheek bulging as he fucked his cock into it, her eyes turned up to return his gaze.

J began to re-assert himself a bit, ordering me to sit at the head of the bed propped up on pillows and then depositing a giggling Lynda on all fours, her face buried in my pussy while he grabbed hold of her hips and slammed his cock into her from behind, giving her an occasional hard spank. I ground my pussy against Lynda’s face, whimpering and, looking up, I caught J’s eye.

“I like your friend” he grunted, fucking her with sharp jabs. “Has she got a boyfriend?”

I laughed as I felt Lynda’s head start to jerk up, to complain that we were talking about her as though she wasn’t there and I pressed her back down into my cunt. “Yes, she’s got a boyfriend but she doesn’t like him.”

“Good. I think I’ll take her home with me.” He slapped her arse again. “Would you like that?”

I lifted her head up, her hair wrapped round my hand. He eyes were bright and her mouth hung open as she panted. I yanked her hair and nodded her head. “Yes, I think she’d like that.”

I woke in the middle of the night with a pounding head and parched mouth. I was alone in the bed but too hung over to be curious about that for the moment. Stumbling to the bathroom for some water, I heard a soft, rhythmic thudding that I gradually realised was happening outside my head. Standing in the hall I held my breath and listened to Lynda and J in the sitting room, her sharp intakes of breath and tiny gasps and whimpers mingling with his hissed “Take it! Take it!” and the squelch of his cock hammering into her wet cunt.

I scurried back into bed, absurdly shocked and guilty and turned on by what I’d heard. I hope he wasn’t joking and he is going to ask her out properly. There would be a pleasing symmetry to it – D was a discarded casual fuck of Lynda’s who I tidied up after her so it seems somehow fitting for Lynda to run off with my neglected recreational fuck.

Besides, think of the story they’d have to tell their grandchildren about how they first met.

Surprised-Looking Sleepy People

The trouble with going to bed ridiculously early, as we did yesterday, is that you’re wide awake at 4 in the morning. We got dressed and, with dark rings around our eyes and chattering teeth in the dawn chill, crossed the road and climbed the gates into Alexandra Park.

We skirted the palace and sat in the rose garden, huddled on a bench drinking our flask of coffee. And as we sat, deer walked across the lawn and gawped at us. There’s a deer enclosure but I never see any there and certainly not wandering the park staring at surprised-looking sleepy people.

After a while we flapped at them to send them back in the direction of the deer enclosure and then walked around the lake watching cormorants argue and splash each other.

There’s a stage of early-morning wide-awakeness when you’re ready to crawl back into bed but if you do it will cause more harm than good. We battled on through the wave of tiredness and walked to the other end of the park, down by the reservoir where a tree-filled, scrubby, overgrown area is grandly called the conservation area. Sitting on a fallen tree, we sucked peppermints and then had a bit of a snog – D’s hand creeping up under my jumper, my hands in his coat pockets.

Then as the first trains began to rattle past the edge of the park we climbed back up to the palace, stopping on the terrace to look right out across London from the top of the world, all the way to Bermondsey and the docks.

I had to run and touch the lucky stone on the corner of the palace, underneath the old BBC transmitter – a childhood conceit my dad made up on the spot one particularly fractious Sunday when my brother and I were little. He was silent on what might happen to us if we failed to touch the lucky stone and neither of us has ever been tempted to find out.