Fast and Loose

‘Go get ’em,’ I said huskily, moving in for the kiss hat-trick.

Chapter Five

Later, after showering and fielding some curious questions about my dishevelment from my flatmates, I went to lie on my bed in a state of rapture for three hours.

I was so involved in this that I forgot to check my computer until nearly midnight.

When I did, I was startled by the number of replies my bland little message had hooked.

Hello, I’m new to all this and looking for local kinksters, initially for friendship, maybe for fun later. If you think you can be my travel guide on this intriguing journey, please drop me a note. Respectfully yours, Northavon Neophyte.

I was able to discount lots of them straightaway. They weren’t local enough, or they were rude and misogynistic, or they opened the batting with a photograph of their nether regions. Bad manners, if you ask me. An annoying number of them sent no more than the word ‘Hi’ or variations thereupon. I was inclined not to reply to any of these lazy bastards, but what if one of them was J?

After filtering, I had half a dozen responses worth looking into. Four were from men, two from women. I thought that, to begin with, I would play it safe and stick to making female friends on the scene – it was likely enough that one of them might have met Mia. One of them might even be Mia. The idea excited me. It would be easy enough for her to kick over the traces of her old identity and start afresh – perhaps at J’s instigation. Perhaps she was concerned that she had given away too much identifying information online. It happened all the time.

Mia could be right here, messaging me now!

The temptation to reply straightaway, with a question about whether they had a blog, was strong, but I thought I’d wait until Tom had seen the fruits of our labours.

He texted me the next day, just after my coffee break.

‘Go into the loos and send me a pic of your stocking tops,’ he messaged. Not what I’d been expecting, but I practically ran to obey his order, trying not to giggle as I did it.

‘Nice!’ was his appreciative reply. ‘Suspenders too. Might have to have you for lunch, sorry, take you out to lunch.’

‘Not in that alley, I hope,’ I texted back. Lunch could be arranged without unnecessary manoeuvring, since Tilda had shopping to do in town.

‘Why not? A hot dish ready-prepared…OK, Luca’s then?’

‘Luca’s is good! Have to take my lunch 1-2 today, is that OK?’

‘Fine by me. See you there.’

I had to appreciate Tom’s insistence on writing his messages in full. I wasn’t a fan of txtspk either.

Another thing I wasn’t a fan of was waiting around in brasseries checking my watch every half-minute as my lunch break tick-tocked away.

I had rubbed my hands over the bumps on my skirt where the suspender clips were innumerable times, and almost drained my sparkling elderflower pressé, by the time Tom strode in, letting the bell jangle and the door bang behind him in the late autumnal wind.

I felt it so keenly that I could almost have been the jangling bell and the banging door myself. He stood still for a moment, flattening his hair and darting his eyes around the dark little room with its dozen or so tables. I had taken the one in the furthest corner, as a precaution. It seemed the wise thing to do, and it gave me a couple of seconds’ grace to compose myself before this vision of studliness spotted me and commenced his approach.

‘Sorry,’ he said, slinging his backpack down on the table and sliding on to the banquette beside me. ‘Bloody local council windbag wouldn’t let me go. You can see what he’s done to the weather.’ He waved a hand at the window, beyond which crumpled leaves and cigarette packs were flying into the traffic’s embrace.

‘Ah, is that where you’re pointing your sword of justice? At the local council?’

He touched the side of his noble nose and winked.

‘Careless talk costs lives,’ he said, then, without lowering his voice, ‘So are you wearing knickers today?’

‘Tom!’

A waitress had been on her way over, but had stopped short, hovering a few feet from us with her notepad poised.

I waited for Tom to follow my pointed glance, but he seemed unrepentant.

‘Coke, please, full-fat with ice and slice. What’s the soup today?’

‘Minestrone,’ said the waitress, nerved to come closer. ‘With garlic bread.’