And in the middle of that, from out of the blue, the ghastliness of the past few days of destruction, death and despair, the strain of having had to be strong for others in the midst of it all, the knowledge that it wasn’t a dream that I’d wake up from to find that everything was all right, and the emotional impact of Fenella’s intrusion into my life in the middle of all that, burst on me like a tsunami. Dimly aware of Gemma looking at me with a concerned expression on her face, I pushed my food and drink to one side, pillowed my head on the table and started to shake and sob uncontrollably.
She let me be for a few moments; then I felt an arm round my shoulders and a hand stroking my hair. She raised me up, walked me over to the big settee in the living room, and arranged us so that she was sitting at one end and I was lying with my upper body cradled in her arms, my head resting in the hollow of her shoulder. I was still sobbing and shaking, she was cuddling and babying me, caressing and kissing my hair and my face, stroking my arm and shoulder, taking care not to let her hands go anywhere where her touch might arouse me sexually.
How well this woman knew me! She had known that morning that what I needed most was sexual release to the point of exhaustion; now she knew that it was a different kind of release that I needed.
“I’ve been watching you, baby,” she murmured into my hair. “I haven’t asked. But tell me.”
And I just let it spill out: the horror of knowing that more than a hundred people had died in the collapse of a single building; of my own paralyzed terror as I sat at my desk in my swaying office, unable even to scream, let alone move to get under my desk as we had been trained to do, gripping my computer to stop it sliding towards the edge of the desk as fragments of ceiling fell on and around me and objects flew off shelves – some hitting me; of hearing again and again the same stories of terror and despair from the people streaming into the shelter where I had been assigned to work; of driving home through the darkened streets of a city seemingly under military occupation, with soldiers and armoured vehicles positioned at roadblocks; of familiar streetscapes turned into something reminiscent of photographs I had seen of shattered post-war Berlin…
Eventually I ran out of words and lay in Gemma’s arms, my breath coming in shuddering gulps. She dabbed my eyes, planting light, soothing kisses on my face and my hair.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“No, sweetheart. You needed that. I don’t know how I’d handle what you’ve been through, or do what you’ve been doing.”
“But you’re so strong.”
“Maybe. But I know I must have my breaking point too. Everyone does. I just haven’t reached mine yet. If I’m lucky, perhaps I never will. How are you feeling now?”
“Better,” I said truthfully. “Stronger. I’d been dreading going back, but now I feel I’ll be able to face it.”
We stayed like that for a while, she cradling me and gently stroking and kissing me, I turning my face to kiss her in return.
Presently she gave my shoulders a squeeze, then said briskly: “Now, here’s my plan for the evening. We’ll finish our beer, maybe have another drink or two, and I’ll re-heat the food and we’ll finish eating – it’s too nice to waste. Then I’ll run you a nice hot bubble-bath, and I’ll bath you – just the way I sometimes did for your mum when you were very little.”
She chuckled, and I knew I was blushing, as I always did when she reminded me of that. “Then,” she went on, “I’ll put you to bed and you can sleep – you look exhausted, and I think I might have rather added to that exhaustion, eh darling? I’ve got some work to do, but I’ll join you later. How does that sound?”
And that was what we did.
As she tucked me up, Gemma knelt down by the bed and kissed me long and tenderly full on the mouth, stroking my face and my hair. “If you wake up in the night, “ she murmured, “wake me too if you want me.”
I remained asleep when she came to bed; but I certainly did wake her.
My sleep was full of intensely erotic dreams, most of which featured Fenella. In the last one that I remember, the scene that had ended in her rejection of me was played through again – only her face was that of the new Fenella, and the kissing and caressing didn’t stop. It went on until we both came, and I awoke, shaking and breathless, my cunt dripping.
And there was Gemma, warmly naked, lying on her side facing irresistibly towards me, stroking my hair.
“My god, girl,” she murmured, “that was some hot dream you were having.”
“Mmmm…” I hoped she wouldn’t ask who I had been dreaming about.
I turned towards her, leaned forward, put an arm round her and kissed her, first on the mouth and then in the hollow of her neck, where she loved to be kissed. She gave a long, quiet, contented sigh and I felt her body begin to stir and move closer to me.
For a while we just lay there together, drowsily amorous, kissing, exchanging sighs and endearments, caressing hands wandering here and there almost casually, almost but not quite aimlessly, bodies sliding gently against each other.
“Fuck me please, darling,” I murmured into the hollow of her neck. “Fuck me now.”
She moved on top of me – at first with one thigh between mine, pressing gently but with a firm rhythm against my wet cunt, then shifting to lie between my legs, pushing them apart and positioning herself exactly so that each thrust of her hips would deliver a delicious pressure to my clit and to hers.
She moved slowly and almost delicately at first, holding her full weight off me and sliding back and forth, her breasts brushing caressingly against my skin. Then the sliding stopped and I felt more of her weight, and her hips began the steady thrusting that, whether slow or fast, never failed to bring us both to orgasm.
But this was not the frenzied fucking of the afternoon in the paddock. It was slow and tender, slow but sure, even after the gentle raking of my nails down her back, buttocks and thighs had spurred her into adding speed and weight to her thrusts, which my body was now returning.
I wasn’t long before I felt us getting close, could hear our breathy moans turning into throaty growls and grunts. At last she pushed my legs up and back so that my knees almost touched my ears, raising her upper body and grinding her wet cunt against mine. And then we both came; after a final thrust I felt her go into a trembling spasm, felt pulsing magma-like currents flowing through my whole body, heard our mingled cries… At last she collapsed on top of me and our bodies melted into each other, still shaking with delicious aftershocks.
Presently she moved to lie beside me, and we lay, half turned towards each other in a loose embrace, exchanging occasional kisses and caresses, until sleep overcame us.
I woke to a delicious aroma of bacon and coffee and pottered out to the kitchen, where Gemma was putting the finishing touches to breakfast, naked except for an apron. I embraced her from behind, pressing my body into hers, reaching inside the bib of the apron to fondle her voluptuous breasts.
“Thank you for a beautiful night,” I murmured into the back of her neck.
Her answering “Mmmm…” segue’d into a chuckle and she playfully broke free from me. “For once that appetite can wait,” she teased. “Breakfast can’t!”
My tablet still lay where I had left it on the table the previous night. I automatically checked my emails, to find that Fenella had sent me a long message with “I have some explaining to do” as the subject line.
It began: “Jo my dear, I’ve so often thought back over the years to our time together at uni, and that night when we came so close to becoming lovers and I shied away. Seeing you on TV the other day brought that memory back very sharply, and how I wished, as I have so often before, that I could have that moment again – and this time surrender myself to you…”
Her words stunned me in mid-breath, and I could read no further. I summoned my wits sufficiently to tap out a brief reply: “I’m staying with an old and dear friend at the moment. I’ll read and digest your message and write a proper reply when I get home later today. Love, Joxxxxx”
I was about to tell Gemma about having received Fenella’s message, but something stopped me. I felt I needed to absorb and deal with whatever it contained when I was alone, at home, undistracted. And suddenly nothing was more urgent than that need.
So it was that, after breakfast and a tenderly loving leave-taking, I headed back to Christchurch.
