Chance Meeting

That night I barely slept. What did she want of me? Was I just a passing acquaintance, someone to serve as a guide and companion while she remained in the city? She had done a lot of the paying for our trips and entertainments; was I just her toy boy set up for her amusement? I had to masturbate twice before I could get off to sleep.

During the times we had been out together I had revealed something of my life with Agnes, but now I began to realise that Alicia had spoken hardly at all about her own life, even where she came from, what she did in the way of work, who her friends and relatives were. Her side of the conversations always concerned the immediate or very recent events and experiences.

We continued to go out together but on my side the relationship had changed. I became eaten up with desire for her and was unable to concentrate properly on her talk and the things we were doing. I think the change in my manner must have been obvious, but Alicia appeared not to notice and went on in her now familiar quietly lively manner.

How or why I did not try to make a sexual attempt on her I am not sure now, but feeling as I did I knew things could not go on as they were. Something had to give way, and when it did it was Alicia who initiated the action.

It was a Saturday night and we had been out to see a show at the Royal Theatre. We had driven back to her hotel afterwards and I was anticipating the usual goodnight peck on the cheek and Alicia disappearing into the hotel. This night proved different.

Instead of getting out of the car Alicia sat on. She was silent for a while and I waited, expecting her to say something about our next date. Then, with typical openness, she said, “You want to make love with me, don’t you Malcolm?”

“I…I…er…I…”

“It’s all right, Malcolm, I knew…I saw that day on the beach. I know why you’ve been so quiet since then; come up to my room.” I went with her in a daze, unable to believe that I was about to make love with her, and shaking with anticipation for what was to come.

For all her frankness, when we had entered her room Alicia seemed overcome by shyness, and it was for me to make the moves. I began by kissing her gently and slowly removing her clothing as I did so. She was shaking as much as I was and once I had stripped her down to her panties – she was not wearing bras – I undressed myself and then lifted her onto the bed.

There I removed her panties and deep kissing her I started to explore her breasts with my hand. She began to make little murmuring sounds as I started to suck her nipple, the sweet pink little mounds that I had come so close to seeing on the beach that day. Now they were there for me to enjoy.

As I sucked I started to explore her vagina, and feeling its wet warmth I knew she was ready for penetration. Being at exploding point myself I drew her legs apart and came down between them, probing with my penis for her entrance. It was then she spoke those words, “You won’t be rough with me, will you?”

Now our first sexual union was over, the union that I hoped would be one on many to come, and she stunned me with those other words, “Malcolm, I have to leave on Monday.”

So what had this been a sort of farewell bonus? But then she asked if I wanted her to come back.

She had come to occupy a foremost place my life; she had in a sense given me back a life and finally drawn me out of the sexual desert I had been wandering in, and now she asked if I wanted her to come back! Of course I wanted her to come back!

Yet some reticence remained in me and I asked cautiously, “How long will you be gone?”

Being Alicia she cut through my ambivalent response. “That does not answer my question, Malcolm. Do you want me to come back?”

I still played my little game. “Do you want to come back?”

“We’ve made love Malcolm, and I don’t do that lightly. I’ve said I love you and I don’t say that frivolously. Can’t you be honest with me and say what you really want?”

“Yes, I want you to come back.”

“Then I will come back; and in answer to your question about how long I’ll be away, probably a month, maybe a little more.”

“What are you going to do?”

“There is some business I have to settle. I’ll tell you all about it at the right time.”

So there I had to leave it. I spent the rest of the night with her making love, continuing for most of Sunday. She had released the old devil in me and, so it seemed, it had been the same for her.

She had not been a virgin at our first coupling and I wondered who had been the lucky man to split her maidenhead. I felt a nagging jealousy about that, but did not dare to ask any questions about her past sex life, despite the fact she knew about mine with Agnes. I tried to tell myself that what is past is past and has no bearing on what happens now and in the future. Despite my own experience with Agnes and what had followed from her death, I had still not learned how people are often held in thrall by past events in their lives.

Late Sunday evening I left her. The next day I had to go to work and would be unable to see her off at the airport as she began her journey to “The Place.” She had said she would write to me and I could reply to an anonymous post office box that by its postal code I managed to identify as a small, remote township in the northern state.

In the following weeks brief letters came from her telling me that all was going well and ending with, “I love you.” I replied in similar vein, being unwilling to reveal the depths of the loneliness I was experiencing and, since my release from sexual inability, how urgently was my hunger for her body.

The weeks seemed to drag by and by the fourth week I began to get those feelings of doubt again. Was she just playing with me – still playing with me – and soon would tire of the game and I would hear no more from her? What was this “business” she had to deal with? Had I been a fool to let myself fall in love with her? I tried to tell myself I didn’t need her; that I would soon forget her, but none of this worked.

It was during the fifth week of her absence that a brief note came; “Arriving airport Sunday 4-30 p.m. Please meet me. Can I stay in your house?” Then the usual, “I love you.” That was all.

It was too late to write and tell her that she could stay at my house, but how was she to stay? Was she to share my bed – the bed where Agnes and I had made love so often? Should I get the single bed ready in the second bedroom? Before she had been stopping in a rather luxurious hotel, how could I compete with that in my comparatively humble suburban cottage? I decided that I would have to wait and find out the answer to my questions.

I was at the airport and 4 p.m. almost shaking with excitement at the thought of being with Alicia again. The plane was late and I felt those feelings of agitation many experience on such occasions, and then the feeling of relief when the arrival is announced.

Alicia came towards me in the arrival lounge smiling. I wasn’t sure how I was to greet her but as so often she took the initiative, pulling close to me and lifting her face to be kissed. With our arms round each other we kissed avidly much, I suspect, to the amusement of the other passengers and their welcomers.

When we finally managed to stop the kiss Alicia said in her soft manner, “I’ve missed you so much Malcolm. I do love you.” Trying to swallow a lump in my throat I managed to croak out, “And I love you very dearly.”

We collected and trundled off with her baggage. The quantity of her luggage gave the indication that she was intending to stay for a long time. I didn’t know then for just how long she would stay.

Arriving home we had barely got her gear into the house when she flung her arms round me and pulled herself tightly to me saying, “Make love with me, Malcolm, make love now.”

She was wearing a skirt for once, so I carried her to the old divan in the lounge, lifted up her skirt, removed her panties and with my trousers half way down my legs I penetrated her without any preliminaries.

She was hot and very wet, her thighs soaked with lubricant, indicating that she had been sexually aroused for some time. I was in no better case, having suffered an erection from first sighting her at the airport.

She came very quickly, beginning with soft gasps that climaxed in a squeal of ecstasy, as I shot my sperm into her.

When we had finished she whispered, “I needed that so badly, my love.”

I chuckled and replied, “Not nearly as much as I did.”

I could very quickly have repeated the union but thought it better if I got Alicia settled in, after which, Alicia willing, we could continue with a less restricted period of conviviality. I might easily have conjectured that our activity indicated that Alicia would be sharing my bed, which of course was a double bed. Nevertheless, I thought it best to give her the choice.

“Where would you like to sleep?” I asked somewhat sheepishly.

She looked a trifle hurt at this question and replied, “With you, of course,” then sharply, “Don’t you want me to?”

“Of course, darling,” I replied hastily, “I just wanted to give you the choice.”

“You mean you wanted that silly self-doubt you seem to suffer from overcome, that’s it, isn’t it? You were testing me. Well I tried to reassure you as soon as I could. We could hardly have copulated at the airport.”

“Sorry I muttered,” feeling a thorough idiot.

We were standing, and she came to me and put her arms round me. “I have my doubts too, Malcolm, but of one thing I want you to be sure, I love you and want to be with you. At least trust me in that. Now kiss me and then show me where the shower is. I’ve had a long flight, I’ve made love, and now I’ve got your sperm and my juice running down my thighs and it’s uncomfortable – by the way, do you always ejaculate so much semen?”

She laughed and went on, “Don’t answer that, just let me find out from experience.” She opened one of her suitcases and dug out a bathrobe, and after showing her the shower I carted the rest of her things into my bedroom.

I looked round the room, remembering where Agnes’s clothing had hung and been stored in drawers; the dressing table where all those little items of feminine make up had once lain; then at the bed. For a moment I felt a pang of doubt spear through me. How could I share the bed with another woman?

Then the thought, “I loved Agnes in life and beyond. I still loved her memory – would always love it – but life with all its joys and pains goes on whether we want it to or not, and now I loved another woman and would, I believed, continue to love her.” I remembered that Agnes had never been the possessive type, and would hardly have wished me to remain on hold for the rest of my life.

Alicia entered the bedroom in her bathrobe. My own genitals and groin were somewhat sticky with our drying fluids, so I opted for a shower myself.

I pointed out where Alicia could stow her things, and putting on my own bath robe headed for the shower. The incipient erection I had been experiencing came to full flower under the shower, and I decided that for once I would be the initiator when I got back to the bedroom.

My decision was in vain. Arriving back at the bedroom Alicia was lying on the bed, her bathrobe open. “I thought you’d be ready for more loving, darling,” she said. “Come and make love slowly.”

I looked at her; the small firm breasts with their inviting nipples; the long slender neck and those lovely hazel eyes, now half closed with a sort of relaxed desire; the narrow band of pubic hair, beginning on her mons and running down to her vagina.

I felt the urge to taste her, something that I had not done with her so far. I took her by the hands and raised her up to stand on the floor. I pushed the robe from her shoulders and it fell to the floor. Mine quickly followed. I then sat her down carefully on the edge of the bed and kneeling before her parted her legs, and then raised her feet to rest on the bed.

Her womanhood was open before me, the outer lips parted to show a hint of the soft, pink, inner lips. Above I could see the little hood on flesh covering her clitoris. I raised the hood and touched her clitoris. She gave a gasp of pleasure. I parted the outer lips with my fingers to expose more of the inner lips and bent forward and kissed them.

At this Alicia started to try and struggle free of me crying out, “What are you doing to me? You can’t, you can’t…you might…”

She did not finish whatever she wanted to say. I held on to her and converted my vaginal kiss to a thrusting tongue, pushing into her vaginal tunnel. She ceased struggling almost immediately, but continued to cry out, “What are you doing to me? You’re driving me mad…Oh Malcolm…what are you doing.”

I transferred my tongue to her clitoris and her cries changed to a wordless sighing wail. I could feel her right on the edge as I continued to lick her, tasting the sweet liquor of her female juice and smelling her fragrance.

She began to quiver, then gave a sudden convulsion accompanied by a long scream, then body shaking sobs as the delicious agony of her orgasm engulfed her. Passing her climax her cries became broken words; “Don’t…don’t…stop…please don’t sto…oh God…”

When the last tremors of her orgasm had passed she fell back on the bed wailing, “What have you done to me…what have you done?”

I came beside her on the bed intending for the moment to embrace her until I thought she was recovered enough for me to penetrate. She recovered more rapidly than I imagined. I was no sooner beside her than she sprang to life and began to smother my lubricant soaked face with kisses.

Between the kisses she gasped out, “What have you done…what have you done to me you beast…you’ve ruined me you animal…I’ve never…I’ll always want…oh God, what have you done?”

Clumsily I asked, “Haven’t you had cunnilingus before?”

She seemed to shrink from me and muttered, “No.”

I knew I had stepped on to painful territory so I tried to comfort her. “It’s all right darling, as long as you enjoyed it. Did you like it?”

“You know bloody well I liked it, Malcolm, and I hope you did because I’m not going to be without it in future.”

“That will be no problem,” I grinned, and with that I decided my time had come and apparently so did Alicia because she spread her legs wide as if ready to receive me. I came between them and felt her hand guiding me into her.

Once more there was the sweet clinging warmth and a sensation of being sucked down into her depths. She was soaking wet with lubricant and my movements produced soft sloshing sounds that I found increased the urgency of my need to fire into her.

When I finally came it was to the sounds of her voice murmuring, “I love you Malcolm, I love you so much.”

Inspired by her declarations I struggled deep into her, and somewhere in the midst of this, and to my amazement, Alicia was having another orgasm. We howled and groaned together, words of love and desire pouring out of us along with my sperm and her juices.

We ended, and I was overwhelmed by what I seemed to have unleashed in Alicia. The quiet little woman seemed to have turned into a consuming fire of sexual desire. And what had she done to me? I too was overpowered by my thirst for her. Laying there, my penis still in her vagina, I felt as if I never wanted to separate from her.

That of course is the tragic dimension of sexual intercourse. No matter how long it may last; however many orgasm may be experienced, the time comes when the beloved ones must separate. And so it was for us. Other basic needs took over and eating was the order of the day.

As together we prepared a meal and sat down to eat it, new thoughts about the relationship between Alicia and I arose. You may laugh at my antiquated ideas, but I am the sort who believes that the feelings Alicia and I had for each other, betokened marriage.

That night in bed I said as much. Alicia seemed to freeze and I asked her if I had said something to hurt her.

In a voice so low I had to strain to hear her she said, “I didn’t expect that marriage would be mentioned so soon.”

“I don’t want to put any pressure on you Alicia, I just wanted you to know how I felt.”

“I know, darling,” she said, but still remaining separate from me she was silent for a long time.

Finally she said seriously, “I have something to tell you, Malcolm, something that might change your feelings for me.”

“There’s nothing you could tell me that would do that,” I replied.

“We’ll see. When I finished high school I went on to study at the Agricultural College. It was my intention when I finished to go home and work on the place. Before that I took a year to travel overseas…at least that was the intention.”

“While I was away I met a man – oh, he was good looking, charming with all the right talk. I was twenty two, and would you believe, still a virgin. He talked about loving me and wanting to marry me and I was absolutely, and no doubt naively, taken in by him. I thought myself in love with him and that led on to my agreeing to have sex with him.”

I thought that might be the end of the story, and I began to say, “But that’s something that happens to…”

“No Malcolm, that isn’t the end. I was a virgin and let him split my hymen. It was very painful and I thought if he loved me he wouldn’t press on when I begged him not to. He didn’t stop and he hurt me badly.”

“So you had no more to do with him?”

“Please Malcolm; let me get it all out.”

She was speaking more quietly than ever so I really had to strain to hear her, especially as she had got as far away from me on the bed as possible.

“Malcolm, he did something terrible. I had been set up. He no sooner finished than he got off the bed, opened the door and called out, “Okay boys, she’s all yours.”

She had turned her back to me and alI managed to hear at first were broken phrases but she became more distinct as her emotions took over.

“Six…more…I tried…down…I don’t know…they hurt me so badly. He was…was laughing at me…’slut’…’whore’…getting ‘what women like you deserved’…and….and they kept on and on…the pain, the humiliation.”

She stopped, sobbing pitifully, but then struggled on. “They left me bleeding. I was so broken… humiliated, I felt defiled…filthy, and I hated them…I hated men. I’ve never told anyone until now…no one. I didn’t even wait to report it but fled home as soon as I could and lost myself in work at The Place.”

“Then mother died and father was killed. I worked on until I decided…until I decided to come here for a month. I suppose I’d got over it a bit by then, but I was still bent on avoiding men until I saw the back of your neck.”

The weeping continued as she stammered out, “So now you know what a degraded woman you say you want to marry.”

Her voice became unusually shrill and sharp as she turned to look me with tear filled eyes – looking at me with such intensity. “Do you still want to marry a slut, I filthy defiled woman?”

I was horrified by the story she had told me but even more appalled at the terrible words she used about herself. I had wanted to ask her why she had never said anything to anyone before. Why had her loathing of men had not included me? Why was she revealing this now? But I had little time for contemplating these questions and certainly no wish to add to her pain by asking them, at least for the present.

She was weeping heart-rendingly again, the sobs shaking her body. I let my heart speak at that moment and said, “Yes, Alicia, I want to marry you.”

Plain words- perhaps too plain, but their effect was equally plain. She looked at me for a moment, then taking a long shuddering inward breath she then breathed out, “Oh Malcolm,” and flung herself against me.

I held her in my arms as she wept out the poison she had retained so long. A small woman, she seemed even smaller now, and buried herself against me like a child seeking protection from the monsters of a nightmare. This petite woman, normally so strong and forthright, was now a sobbing little one in my arms.