Nine. The Old Friend

It had been a very long time coming.

Somehow, through almost 25 years of platonic relationship, there had never been any frisson. There was chemistry, sure, but never anything either of us could call ‘sexual chemistry’. I had made a clumsy move once, but it was in the midst of the most complicated of my relationships. And I think we were both drunk, and it was by text message, too.  So all-in-all, thoroughly unlikely to ever receive a serious response.

And then fate threw me in her direction. It was during the desolate months. I barely had two euros to rub together, yet needed to be in London for a meeting. For some reason, I could always count on her, just as she could me, once upon a time.

I arrived at her flat, feeling flat. Yet she welcomed me with the open arms I had come to expect, and a delight on her face that I had no reason to receive. Her arms were literally open to me. Her hug felt like a cozy blanket. I still don’t understand how we became friends, but somehow she had become one of my best. Someone I confided in, trusted, loved, and adored.

She had just got back from the gym. I cursed the inventor of yoga pants again. Surely these things were doomed to torment warm-blooded males? I threw my bag down, and we sat and chatted. A bottle of Hardy’s Shiraz the currency for our catch-up. It had been several months, so we had much to discuss – life, love, work, grievances. The stuff you work through with friends that somehow are always friends, despite everything.

The second bottle was opened, and our life stories continued to flow as the twilight sank slowly below the threshold of the sash windows. We laughed, as we often did, and gave one another advice on issues that we were as useless as one another on. My last time here, she  had stretched herself out, wearing, I’m not sure what; either a mini-skirt or a micro-dress, giving me the occasional glimpse of her inner thighs that I, as the friend and gentleman that I pretended to be, pretended not to look at. But it was hard to ignore the fact that she was one of the sexiest, and most beautiful, women, I had ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Since she had hurt her neck, even sitting upright was sometimes painful. Rolling her head, she tried to make herself more comfortable by sliding down the back cushions of the sofa, before aspiring to go to bed as the only way she could be properly relaxed.

I never believed myself capable of blurting out the words, however confident I could be with a random stranger, this was altogether something different… But blurt them out I did. “Let me massage your shoulders, my lovely”, I said, so innocently.

Somehow, she acceded. I think, at this point, because she just trusted me, despite everything she knew about me. The Shiraz clearly helped, too.

She sat facing the back of her favourite sofa, still kneeling as she normally did, as I sat beside her and plunged my thumbs into her shoulder blades. In all the lustful moments I had enjoyed until that point, I swear I had never heard such a pleasurable moan as that first pressing into the knots in her shoulders. She had physio once a week, yet somehow this was deeper, less relenting perhaps, yet still more tender and caring. As my hands slid down her back gently, she stretched herself out slowly. I was still slightly fixated on those yoga pants, fitting so neatly over her pert bottom and delicious legs. But now I had to focus on the waist upwards. She wore two tops, one tight lycra gym bra-top, and a loose-fitting thin cotton sleeveless t-shirt.  As I worked my thumbs into her shoulders, she voluntarily allowed the flimsy cotton to slip gently from her shoulders and down to her elbows, while the Y-backed lycra stayed firmly in place. It seemed only a matter of seconds before she reached her hand around to stay my massaging fingers, in order to peel the cotton t-shirt off over her head.

As she did so, I focused my attention on her sacral dips, despite knowing that this was the weakest part of her back, gently splaying my fingers across her lower back whilst carefully pushing them away from her spine and into the muscles and flesh that were now exposed to me. Worrying about this weakness, she wriggled as if to tell me to stop, instantly making me switch back to her shoulders. The ‘Y’ of the lycra top was now interfering with the planned pathways of my extended thumbs, and so I kept moving it from one side of her backbone to the other as I pushed deep into her knotted tissue, moving slowly up towards her delicate shoulders.

Now I’ve mentioned my fascination with freckles already, but these shoulders were a sight to behold for the frecklephiliac in me, and this lycra top was really starting to annoy me. Having allowed her to be in control until now, I decided it was time to have my own way – my fingers pushing into her neck, I allowed myself to gently slip down the shoulder straps of the top down over her shoulders and let them rest on her upper arms. There wasn’t a flicker of discontent on her face as I did so, her eyes closed tight shut in relaxed delight as I continued to work the stresses of work from beneath her shoulder blades.

I was kneeling on the floor now, there being no more room on the sofa as she stretched herself out across it, her head prone, her body stretched out with bended knee to fit herself on the two-seater, toes, and calves, clad in that white demon yoga-fabric, pointed upright to the ceiling. I had been trying to ignore her slim white panties beneath the yoga pants, but as the sweeps of my extended fingers and persistent thumbs continued down her back, it was increasingly difficult to do so. I tried my hardest not to push too far down her lower back in that gently curve that rose to her buttocks, but as I continued the massage, it was impossible not to. With each slip of my hand down her back, the thin cotton leggings pushed down a few millimetres…

I had been trying to focus on the friend, the person I was trying to be there for, but every touch of her silky skin and every curve I followed made it impossible. I was suddenly aware that I was aroused now, especially as the leggings pushed down ever further. I looked up and realised that since the shoulder straps of her top were now loose around her upper arms, it allowed just the slightest glimpse of the gentle curvature of the sides of her perfectly formed breasts. Arousal now was not something I could contain… I became ever so slightly more sensual with every touch of her back, letting my fingers run along the sides of her body, and worrying less and less about how far I was allowing the white cotton to push over the curvature of her arse.

To my amazement, the next move was hers. Her arms came down from above her head, slipping her yoga pants the few extra inches to provide a perfect view of her rump, so deliciously pert, the backside of someone who worked out regularly. And then further, halfway down her thighs, sending my head into a slight spin.

I took this as a signal that my lower-back thumb pushes could go perhaps just a little further into the taut muscles of her bum, before deciding, as she stretched her arms above her head once more with a delighted groan, that her thighs were my next target.

Slowly, gently, massaging the muscles of her upper thighs, my thumbs pressing and slowly reaching higher, to my surprise I hear a very slight moan of pleasure. Rotating my hands 45 degrees, I allow my fingers now to reach the tops of her thighs, pushing ever so slightly upwards with each movement.

Eventually, my fingertips are brushing the fabric of her panties, just barely. I’m still expecting a refusal, a complaint, an angry rebuke, yet none comes. Amazed, I allow my fingertips to touch just a little more, a little less gentle, making my desire obvious now, as if it hadn’t already been.

Again, where I expect a sharp ‘no’, I receive only a soft, murmured ‘mmmm’. This is a cue, with any other woman, I would be very clear now, pushing those panties aside to touch, just with the lightest of glances, her outer lips. But this is the Old Friend. I still can’t be sure. Of course I want her, but perhaps this is all still trust, still friendship, still just a massage.

It is time to test it, I fear. I slide my hands up her back, pushing the lycra upwards, and letting my fingertips glance along her sides, over the swell of her breasts. She pushes her head upwards, and arches her back, and allows me to do what it is clear I want to do – the lycra top slips easily over her head, and she settles back down into her previous position. But she is topless now, and my fingers have touched her in places no mere friend should ever be allowed. I complete the action by pulling the leggings gently down her slender limbs, giving just a little kiss to the inside of her knees as I do so. I wonder, do I remove the white cotton panties too, or is this a step too far yet?

I’m answered again by her own hand. She pushes downwards at the sides of her underwear, an encouragement I need not second guess. I slip them slowly down her legs, over her heels, and with one fell swoop off her toes.

Naked now, she remains face-down, eyes-closed, and, to my surprise, smiling.

There is no pretence any longer, my hands search out every inch of her naked flesh, gently touching her, as I lean forward to kiss her perky bum. I ever so gently part her thighs a little way further, displaying now her pussy, glistening ever-so-slightly. I cannot help myself. I plunge my face between her thighs, and push my tongue along the furrow of her cunt, the tip of my tongue lingering on her clitoris as it darts across the tiny sensitive ridge. Her back arches again, her arse lifts off the sofa a little way, to make room for me to push my head into her a little deeper, letting my tongue explore her all the more.

She gasps, and allows me to lap gently at her as I let my roaming fingers discover the insides of her beautiful, tight, hole. Pushing one finger inside her and towards the front wall of her cunt, my tongue gets hyperactive now, flicking and licking her clitoris until she moans with pleasure. I shall make her cum right here, just this way. And indeed I do.

Sleepy, she rolls her head a little way and says to me, “a little rest, then do with me what you will”. I kiss the small of her back, turn away,  and pour myself another wine.