Why Should I Help Her? Part 1

Why Should I Help Her: Part 1

How I met Jo and how she got me in the sack.

Based on a post by Millsy, in 2 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Connected.

It was one of those god-awful early springtime evenings where all you want to do is just boot the pedal to the metal, to get yourself home. And have a good old drink; in order to forget about all the shit that you had to wade through during the day, in order to pay the bills and keep the wolf from the door.

It was near freezing again despite it being mid-March. The rain was falling so damn hard that you could actually see it bouncing off the pavement in little explosions as you drove gingerly through rush hour traffic. The windscreen wipers were turning the blurry world into a not so blurry world every second or so. The sweep of the blades now turned up to top speed so that the thud-thud-thud of the blades competed with the rattle of the torrential downpour against the metal roof of the car. I had to turn the stereo up just to hear it, and that's saying something when you're listening to ACDC performing Razor's Edge.

It took all my concentration just to maintain my distance to the glowing tail lights of the car ahead. If you rear end somebody in these conditions then you could kiss goodbye to your no claims bonus; and I really didn't need that worry on top of everything else right now.

I had enough on my plate what with the pressures of work during yet another recession, an increasingly messy divorce, not to mention keeping myself financially afloat while juggling the upwardly spiraling expenses of daily life, family law lawyers and an eye-watering consent order that made me seriously wonder if I should have employed a more expensive solicitor after all. Well, I mused, when you do things on the cheap, you sure as hell end up paying the price over the longer term.

Much like the owner of that car pulled over to the side of the road with its hazards on, I noted. Poor bastard, stood beside it under an umbrella while the driving rain and stormy winds tried to turn it inside out.

Then, as I got closer, my fatigue numbed brain registered a vague familiarity with the number plate on the silver Ford Fiesta. The car came from the bottom of my own street, near the corner shop, I dimly realized.

My foot lifted off the throttle without me even consciously willing it to do so, and I cruised past, glancing to the side to see that the forlorn figure by the roadside was indeed the woman that lived in the old house two doors down from my buddies Brian and Sam. I racked my brain for her name, but it wouldn't come.

And then I was past, leaving her standing forlornly in the downpour, as I made my way home to my nice warm house; less than a hundred yards from where she lived.

Guilt. That's what hit me. Some people would have just laughed and carried on. Some would have swerved at the puddle forming in the gutter near where she stood, cruelly attempting to soak her even further. Most people just didn't bother giving her a second glance, such is society these days.

As I drove on, putting more distance between myself and the stranded driver. I was getting closer and closer to my own home and the oven and the fridge stocked with Carling.

I noted that the guilt refused to subside and instead grew more and more insistent.

"Fuck." I spat, as Brian Johnson half growled, half screeched his way through the final bars of Thunderstruck. I shook my head at the coincidence then I indicated right into a cul-de-sac, three-point turned my Opel Zafira, and then rejoined the main road heading back toward work.

I passed the woman again, still standing there in the rain, and went all the way around the roundabout half a mile further on, before doubling back homeward once more, finally pulling my car in, just in front of the broken down Ford Fiesta.

See what I mean about buying cheap, only to have to spend more later on? Ford. ‘Found-on-roadside, Dead.’ A mechanic had once told me that as he laughed at my misfortune, as he continued to quote me an outrageous estimate for a replacement clutch for a three year old Mondeo. ‘Fixed-or-repaired-daily’. That's why I drove a Vauxhall, until my recent move to a German brand.

Yeah, all right. Stop laughing. It had been a great little British-made car. A little too big for me now that I'm single again, though.

I got out of the Zaffy, instantly regretting my decision as the rain immediately plastered my hair to my forehead and glued my shirt to my shoulders, I dragged my raincoat from the back seat and pulled it on as I hurried to the stranded driver's side.

"Avondale Street, right?" I asked, as she eyed me up suspiciously, then her face changed.

Maybe she recognized me. I was just a face to her, somebody who may have smiled at her, or nodded to her while I walked my dog. Or more likely she remembered me as some complete asshole who had leered drunkenly at her over Brian and Sam's garden fence, when they were having one of their weekend barbecues. Which was an almost annual occurrence down here in Cornwall.

"Yeah." She eventually said. "I know you. Black Labrador, right?"

"No no." I said, grinning. "I'm just his owner. Lewis is at home wondering why dinner is late and chewing on the table leg by now, I expect."

She blinked long and hard at that. Okay?

"Problem?" I asked.

I was going to say ‘Lovely evening for a walk.’ But something told me she wasn't really in the mood for levity. In her sodden but sensible shoes I doubted I'd be up for much of a laugh, either.

She shrugged. "The Auto Club are on their way. Should be here in five minutes."

"No point in me having a look, then." I frowned. Thank fuck, I didn't say out loud. What I knew about cars could fill a post-it note. On one side. And there'd be room for doodles.

"What happened?" I finally inquired.

Another nonchalant shrug. "Bloody thing started to make crunching noises. Then it wouldn't go into gear. Now I just get a grinding noise when I try to change up or down."

Now that sounded expensive. I winced, the best expression of sympathy I could muster. "Look, it's pouring down here. Come and wait in my car until the Auto Club arrives."

"I thought we weren't supposed to stay in the car, just in case another vehicle hits it?"

"That's why I'm a good thirty feet in front. If something hits the back of your car, we'll be fine in mine." I explained.

Her hesitation lasted a split second, and while we were walking back to my car I felt another emotion; regret. The woman was going to get my passenger seat, soaking wet.

"Jesus Christ, of all the fucking days for this to happen." She whined as she put down her umbrella and slid into my car.

I'd heard women swear before, plenty of times. These days, all teenage girls do is communicate by swearing and text messages, usually mixing the two together. But coming from her, it was a bit of a shock. If you're of my generation then you might remember listening to squeaky clean, chaste and lovely Whitney Houston (rest in peace), using the word 'fuck' in the movie 'The Bodyguard' and felt shock that such a vulgar word could come from such a mouse-like celebrity. This was just such a moment.

Women in their mid-thirties are supposed to be a little more adult about the use of such an adjective, or so I assumed. Okay, some women you learn to expect it, like the ones with a cig in hand and a pint of cider in front of them, down the bottom club on a Saturday night. Or the fat cows pushing prams around Primark in professional chav shoplifting gangs. But not this smartly-dressed, bespectacled, professional-looking lady. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a dirty word now and then, but I prefer it kept between the sheets, personally.

"How long have you been waiting?" I asked.

"Half an hour," She said, glancing at a dainty gold watch on her wrist. "The Auto Club man said he'd be here by now."

"Things tend to drag on days like this. Traffic's heavier at this time of day. Then also, people drive slower because of the weather. Accidents snarl up the roads because some idiots don't drive slower, and screw rush hour up for the rest of us. He'll be here soon enough."

"I hope they can fix it. I need that car tomorrow." She had a worried tone in her voice.

‘Don't hold your breath, honey,’ I managed to choke back, giving her a sympathetic smile instead. Crunching, grinding noises and a locked up gearbox? Dream on. Even someone with my miniscule mechanical knowledge could work out that the odds of that car getting back on the road for tomorrow weren't very promising. I'd get better odds gambling on Lewis Hamilton for the 2012 Formula One title. And that's a pretty dumb thing to be putting your money on with Jenson Button on top form.

"Thanks, by the way." She said, breaking the silence.

I'm not one of life's great conversationalists. I'm quick with a quip, but keeping a discussion going isn't one of my strengths. I find it really hard work, thinking of the next thing to say.

My ex-wife used to say I had a minimalist approach to human interaction and she was probably right. I guess that comes from being a bit of a solitary guy, working on my own, living by myself for years before marrying. And now back by myself after failing at the marriage lark, because I was much happier living by myself. Probably because we ran out of things to say halfway through the damn honeymoon.

How women can sit there and talk for hours-on-end, totally baffles me.

"No problem." I eventually managed to mumble. "I drove past you once." I continued, impressing myself with my repartee. "I recognized your car first, then you as I slowed down, so I turned around and came back."

"It's a silver Fiesta." She said, surprised. "There's like a billion of them."

"The number plate." I explained. "I pass it every morning on my way out."

"Ah." She wasn’t convinced.

"I have this game I play by myself, to keep my brain from falling asleep while I drive." I said, trying to fill the silence. "I make up acronyms from the three letter sequence on license plates. My company is big on using acronyms."

"So what does mine mean? SHB?"

Oh fuck. This was embarrassing. I could feel myself reddening as she turned to look at me. I made a show of glancing into the rear view mirror, willing the Auto Club repair man to arrive. They called themselves the fourth emergency service, and I sure as hell needed them right fucking now to pull me out of the hole that I had just dug for myself. Beam me up Scotty, dammit!

I smiled weakly. "Ah, it's silly."

"Even better." She laughed. It was a nice laugh, too.

I racked my brains trying to think of something to say. I couldn't tell her that the three letters meant Sexy Hot Babe. That would totally kill the mood, send her shooting out the door and running for the hills. I shook my head from side to side and screwed up my features as I desperately stalled for time, my brain working feverishly with the letters scrabbling around between my reddening ears.

"Oh come on. I could do with a laugh, after today." She pressed.

"Schwarzenegger has biceps." I finally blurted. Oh God, ground open up and swallow me down now. That was so lame. I knew it. From her face, I could tell, so did she.

Before she could say anything, I saw the flashing amber strobe lights pulling up behind her care. Ten seconds too fucking late, I raged.

"They're here." I told her, and we both bailed out of my car and into the raging storm.

Twenty minutes later we were both back in my car, somewhat worse for wear, and she was not very happy about that. No way was her car going to be on the road for a good while, the Auto Club man had shrugged apologetically. Could be the clutch, could be the gearbox. Could be both. Maybe even the flywheel, he'd said.

It would have to be towed to a garage, he told her. And he could do that right now before the garages closed for the night, or he could take her and the vehicle to her destination and leave the car there for her to commiserate and sort out the recovery. But he couldn't do both. Not at her level of cover, he explained. Sorry and all that.

I thought that was a bit off, personally. I thought they could take you to the nearest garage, then take you home, but maybe things have changed. He wasn't actually an Auto Club man. As the Auto Club were too busy with a surge of breakdowns they had called in a local recovery service to meet their response targets, Maybe these freelancers operated to slightly different rules, but whatever the reason behind the confusion she ultimately ended up back in my car, steam rising from her clothing, not to mention coming out her ears.

"I'm Jim, by the way." I said as I pulled off into the stream of traffic, leaving the Auto Club wannabe to load her Fiesta up onto the flatbed of his truck.

"Jo," She replied distractedly. I remembered that she said she really needed the car for the next day and decided to shut my gob, leaving her trying to figure out how she was going to work around that. Maybe she was panicking about the cost of a gearbox. A refurbished one could cost near half a grand. I drove on in silence. Well, aside from the hammering of rain on the roof and the dull thud of the windscreen wipers. The ACDC CD remained muted. She didn't look like a rock chick. "Goodbye and Good Riddance to Bad Luck" didn't seem quite appropriate at that time, either.

I glanced her way occasionally as I drove. There was a reason why I had given her car the moniker 'Sexy Hot Bitch' for the SHB in her registration plate. She was a nicely built specimen of womanhood. Mid-thirties, short brown hair with a hint of artificial red tinge, long narrow glasses that she made look incredibly sexy the way some women do with spectacles. Not skinny, but not fat, either. Full figured, I guess you could call it, with a nice set of curves hidden beneath her wet clothes, and I'm talking bust and hips there.

A sensuous mouth and deep green eyes highlighted her face, and her pale complexion seemed to fluoresce the muted red gloss on her lips. She reminded me a little of Kate Bush in her Red Shoes phase.

All too soon the drive was over, having passed by in almost total silence, and I pulled up outside Brian's house. She looked up suddenly from her mobile phone where she had been busily composing a text message, surprised to find herself home already, and hurriedly gathered together the things she had retrieved from her car before the pretend Auto Club man could tow it away.

"Thanks." She said with a half smile as she got out of the car and braved the ten yard dash to her front door.

"No prob..." The slam of the car door as she closed it behind her cut off the rest of my response.

Ah well.

I drove up the hill, parked across the road from my house because one of next door's three DSS-financed death trap bangers was parked right outside my front door, and glanced at the damp passenger seat. Idly, I put my hand on the fabric to test how wet it was, and felt a comfortable warmth through my fingers from where Jo's ass had warmed up the seat.

Strangely, for no conscious reason that I could think of, I allowed my hand to linger there a while, until the temperature stabilized. Then I headed in and poured myself a drink.

Schwarzenegger has biceps? Doh!

I slapped my forehead as I tossed my car keys onto the dining table and made a bee line for the mini bar – which the less alcoholically indulged amongst you might instead call a refrigerator – pausing only to ruffle Lewis' fur while he wagged his tail expecting walkies. He could forget that tonight.

Sexy Hot Bitch

Super Hot Babe

Stunning Horny Bint

Sucking Her Boobs

Scrumptious Heavy Breasts

Stretching her bra.

Stripping her bare.

Jesus, they were coming thick and fast now, like my semen when I had fantasized about Jo last summer, I recalled, but I still couldn't fucking use them, I laughed out loud as the ring pull on the can succumbed with a short, loud hiss. I didn't bother with a glass, just necked the top third of the can down without breathing, then slammed it down on the kitchen worktop and opened a can of Chum for Hamilton.

Spanking her butt.

I rolled my eyes, feeling myself beginning to stiffen at the mental imagery my wordplay was creating.

Stroking her body.

Screwing her box

My prick was getting harder and fucking harder. I distracted myself by rummaging around the freezer, then slammed a TV dinner into the microwave, taking a long pull from the can that drained it down to halfway while the turntable turned and the magnetron fan roared.

Shagging her behind.

Slamming hard butt-fuck

For fuck sake stop it! I commanded myself, then flicked on the telly to catch what was left of the news while waiting for dinner to ping. I settled down for the night, eventually running out of SHB acronyms when I got to shaving her bush. Emmerdale was endured. Corrie was switched off. An old film, Maximum Overdrive, came on one of the Sky channels around 9 o'clock, and as I was settling in to enjoy the deaths of dozens of Americans on a malfunctioning highway drawbridge the doorbell rang and Lewis jumped up from under the dinner table and padded out into the hallway.

Outside stood Jo, umbrella held aloft. I blinked in surprise. Lewis sat on his haunches, not wanting to venture outside tonight, his tail sweeping the laminate hallway flooring enthusiastically as he looked up at her, tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and panting.

I knew just how he felt.

"You must really like standing out in the rain." I smiled. "Come on in, quickly." I told her.

Jo closed down her umbrella, shook it wildly to shake off the worst of the rain, then padded in, leaning over a very excited Lewis who, I suspected, might be leaking pee onto the floor as she proceeded to stroke him vigorously.

Boy, I knew just how he felt.

"I just thought I'd better say thank you properly for what you did today." Jo said as Lewis weaved in and out of her jeans clad legs. "I was a bit distracted when I got out of the car. It's been playing on my mind."

"That's all right. I'd be exactly the same I expect." I nodded. "Drink?"

"Well......"

"It's not like you have to drive home, is it?" I pointed out, not sure if that would actually be funny or not from her perspective. I really am a social ignoramus. That's a direct quote from my bitch of an ex-wife, incidentally. Fortunately Jo smiled and gave a little polite laugh.

"Oh, don't get me started on bloody cars." She warned me. "I've had a right shit of a night."

Women and swearing again. They really should keep it confined to the bedroom. "Any news?"

"On my car? No." She frowned. "Haven't heard a thing. I've been trying to beg and borrow a car for tomorrow, but I've been hitting brick walls all night. I may have to turn to crime and steal one the way things are going. I can't get a hire car in time, and they are way too expensive anyway. Taxi fares will cost more for a day than I bloody earn!" She complained.

"Bus?"

"Yep. I could probably manage by bus after tomorrow, but that's going to mean I'm up earlier and home later because I have to change halfway and then there's another half mile walk through God only knows what weather to the office. And I can't do that tomorrow. What a bloody nightmare."

"White, red, lager or vodka?" I asked.

"Fuck it, I'll have a vodka. I could do with a stiff one after the day I've had." I almost choked when I heard her say that, but my mind is quite often in the gutter. "Any coke?" She enquired hopefully.

"Coming right up." I smiled. "Take a seat. Hamilton, behave." I admonished him before he could start shagging Jo's leg.

I knew just how he felt. I'd definitely give her a stiff one any day.

"I thought you called him Lewis?" Jo piped up.

"When he's good he's Lewis, when he's getting told off I call him Hamilton. He knows the difference. "

She still didn't seem to get it.

"He's black and when he was a puppy he was so bloody fast I could never catch him while I was trying to house train him." I explained. "So I named him after my favorite Formula One driver."

"Ah." She said, laughing. "I thought it was an Inspector Morse and his sidekick sort of thing."

"I'm not that much into television." I confessed, handing her a large vodka and coke. She took a long sip and gave me a thumbs up.

"So what's up with tomorrow?" I asked. I got the feeling that I was being set up here, as if she knew she couldn't get another car but just happened to know a kindly soul with a streak of good Samaritan in him who lived just up the road. Surely she had friends or family she could cadge a ride from? Yeah, I know I'm a sucker for a hard luck story and a pretty face but I didn't think it was that obvious.

"Everything." She said, throwing her hands up in the air and rolling her eyes. "Work first, and I have clients coming in at nine for a presentation so I have to be there early to get everything ready, then I've arranged to finish after lunch so that I can take my sister to hospital because she doesn't drive, then after I drop her off back home I've got a friend's birthday bash in town. It's like the perfect storm of stuff you need a car for when you don't have one."

"Yep." I nodded, taking a sip from my can. She did need a hire car, but now we were out of hours, and she wouldn't be able to get one early enough in the morning to meet her work commitments. And a taxi running her to work, then running her around to hospital and back to her sisters and then back here would cost crazy money. Jo did have a bit of a problem.

"Nobody you could borrow a car from?" I asked.

"My mum and dad are in Turkey on holiday, my friends that have cars need them and can't take the time off to help me with my sister, and the ones that don't work don't have cars available for them tomorrow. I guess I'm just going to have to get my sister to defer her hospital appointment."

"No need for that." I said, before my brain could catch up with what my hormones were telling my mouth to say. "I'll help out if you like?"

She looked genuinely taken aback. Maybe I had been harsh to judge her as flirting with me to sucker me into being her chauffeur for the day. Maybe not. It was still early doors and I'm not the best at reading deception or manipulation, especially where women are concerned. My ex-wife and her divorce lawyer could testify to that, laughing behind their hands no doubt. Some women are experts at it. Maybe all women are.

"Really." I said, the words coming out of my mouth while my brain was screaming 'what the fuck are you doing?' to my voice box. Her lips were parted and I could see the brilliant whiteness of her teeth.

SHB my subconscious was repeating as my gaze fixated on her mouth.

Stonking hot bird

Sucking his balls.

Semen hurtling bellywards.

I blinked hard.

"Well....." She began again, and this time my cock began talking for me without even consulting my brain.

"I'll pull a sicky. I could do with the time off. It's been ages since I've had a day off. They won't mind. It's quiet right now, anyway."

Lewis cocked his head and looked at me oddly. How the fuck did he know we were really mental busy in work and the boss would go bananas if I phoned in sick tomorrow?

"That's...."

"Nothing," I interrupted her with a smile. "What time shall I pick you up?"

"About 7:15?"

"Okay." I agreed. I just hoped none of the other engineers saw me out on the road when I was supposed to be in bed sleeping off man-flu. Jo downed some more of her vodka and coke and then made her excuses to leave. Lewis and I saw her to the door. She struggled to pop her umbrella up then stepped out into the wet, windy night.

"Well, thank you again." She said as she turned to face us.

"Pleasure." I said, meaning it.

"See you in the morning, then."

"It's a date." I said without thinking. Jo's eyebrows raised slightly behind her glasses, not much but enough that I noticed it, then she smiled and headed off down the street without another word, rolling her eyes no doubt. I closed the door, then stood there staring at the white plastic.

"It's a date?" I asked myself disbelievingly. "Stupid hapless bonehead!"

"Woof" Agreed Lewis. I felt sure that the hound was mocking me.

The next day passed uncomfortably. I took Joanne to work, complimenting her on her appearance and wishing her luck with her presentation, then later on in the day I ferried her and her sister back and fore to hospital. Her sister was quite tasty, too, but skinnier and a little older, I thought. A bit like Kate Bush in her Aerials phase. They shared a look as they travelled in the back seat behind me that I caught in the rear view mirror. It looked like Sue was asking Jo if we were an item, only for Jo to shake her head, look absolutely mortified and then go a little red. That killed off my aspirations of getting Jo in the sack completely.

Some women are best off as friends. I'm no great catch, I understand that, and have learned to avoid relationships with really attractive women because, simply put, I know that they can do much better and so do they. Joanne was just that type of woman. Sometimes you have to let these friendships roll along at their own momentum and see where they lead. If they end up in the bedroom, then so much the better, but forcing the issue early on runs a high chance of breaking the friendship and getting nowhere.

So after witnessing that look on Joanne's face I decided to put any romantic aspirations on the back burner for all time, if need be, and just concentrate on being a friend because the more friends you have, the more options are available to you when you need to lean on somebody. One day the roles might be reversed, and if you have no friends because you drove them away by trying to get in their knickers then you have nobody to ask a favor of.

For the week and a half that her car was off the road I ferried her to work in the mornings, while a colleague brought her back home in the evenings as my finishing times were variable – if there was no work I got home early, and if we were busy then I was quite often out until late. On the two weekends I didn't see her at all, which was quite a disappointment truth be told. Hamilton, however, got more walkies than an ageing dog would like as I took him down the street, past Jo's house, and down to the river more often than was normal. In all kinds of weather.

I had gotten quite comfortable with Jo's company in the mornings. She brought me out of my hermit like existence and we had some very comfortable conversations. Normally I'm trying to wisecrack my way through those things, trying to make myself look clever and witty, but I slipped effortlessly into listen and respond mode with Jo. Perhaps because I knew there was no chance of getting my leg over. I'd stopped seeing her as a potential conquest and as such she didn't intimidate me emotionally. Good looking women tend to make me feel inferior. I wasn't on edge around her, second guessing my every word and action in some misguided attempt at seduction. The look that she had given her sister had totally killed any such aspirations.

Then, on the Monday at the beginning of her third week without a car I got a text from her telling me that the garage said her car was ready to be collected and that she wouldn't need a ride to work the next day. I felt like I'd been dumped by SMS. Well, not quite but I'm sure you know what I mean. I knew there would be an emptiness in my days, now that I wouldn't have a lovely young lady accompanying me halfway to work from now on, that I'd have nothing to warm my hand on when her ass vacated the passenger seat outside her office. I stared at the text for a while, then, frowning, flipped the phone shut and went back to work.

When I got home that night I saw her car parked outside her house as I drove past. SHB. Stop hassling beauties. I parked up, kicked the door shut behind me, allowed Lewis to lick my hand, then headed to the fridge for a consoling Carling. Before I got back to the living room the doorbell was ringing.

I answered the door to find Joanne there in baggy jeans and a thick sweater. "Hi. Car all right?" I asked.

"Fine." She smiled. "I just popped up to say thank you for the last couple of weeks. Really. I appreciate everything you've done for me."

"No problem." I smiled. "Would you like to come in."

"No, no." She said hastily, which I'd suspected she'd do. "I thought of buying you a bottle of wine as a thank you but that doesn't really cut it for me."

"No need." I smiled. "I actually enjoyed ferrying you around."

"So did I." She said. "So how about I cook you dinner tonight? If you've got nothing planned, of course." She added quickly.

Me? Having plans? Ha! "Well, if you're sure." I replied. At the very least it gave me a night off from cooking.

"Nothing fancy, mind." She added quickly.

"What time?"

"Eight?"

"I'll be there. Shall I fetch white or red?"

"Red." She smiled.

"Okay. See you at eight." I said.

"It's a date." She winked at me.

Some women can be such heartless cockteasers.

Dinner was, as Jo had promised, nothing special. Spicy curried soup for starters, pilau rice and a microwave chicken jalfrezi with a selection of onion bahjis from the deli counter at Asda, and a trifle from the dairy section that I knew cost about £3 because I shop there myself and had bought one the last time I'd cooked for a date. Which, by my reckoning, was four months previously.

The company, however, was beyond exceptional. With half a bottle of wine inside her Joanne was completely at ease, and so was I. We traded stories of our pasts, discussed where we had gone wrong both career wise and with our romantic entanglements, until we were both red faced with laughter and generally fixed everything that was wrong with the United Kingdom in about two hours. My biggest regret was turning up in jeans and a t-shirt, expecting Joanne to have stayed in the clothes she'd been wearing when she'd invited me to dinner, only to find her wearing a really nice knee length black dress and heels, with a candle burning on the table and soft music playing in the background at a muted level on the stereo. Not quite the raucous noise that I preferred, but a mix of Suzanne Vega, and All About Eve that was very pleasing upon the ears, regardless. Relaxing.

At the end of the evening, a pair of empty dessert dishes and a guttering tea lite candle between us, I was beginning to wish that the night wouldn't end.

"Coffee? Tea?" She asked.

I once had a girlfriend who use to add "Me?" to the end of that enquiry, I recalled as I waited for her to do likewise. Needless to say the third option was not presented by Joanne.

"Coffee." I said, eventually. She rose to clear away the dishes and I glanced about me, noting her reading material tossed on the welsh dresser to my right, The latest issue of Cosmopolitan – otherwise known as the fuck book of choice for discerning females - lay on the coffee table, along with the Radio Times and an Oliver Stark novel. I picked up the book, reading the back cover synopsis about an American serial killer, then lay it back down on the dresser and studied the features advertised on the cover of this month’s Cosmo.

· Bad Girl Sex – 75 ideas for nights when you want to be just a little naughtier.

· Am I Normal Down There? – Very private sex questions only we would tackle.

· The surprising touch that whips a guy on date #1

· A Cougar Stole My Man.

At least men's magazines are honest about it. This was little more than soft porn in disguise. I guess that makes it easier for women to pick up this stuff in a newsagent without embarrassment. Just another example that shows how women are more like men these days than they care to admit.

I wonder if she masturbated to internet porn like most men do nowadays, thinking about how I whiled away many of my boring evenings.

Soon enough Joanne came back with the coffee and we sat opposite each other at the dining table. I was reminded of the song by Hazel O'Connor called Will You which starts with a guy drinking his coffee while she sips at her tea, both of them playing it cool and thinking that what will be will be, if I remembered the words correctly. I made a note to download it for my seduction cd.

Don't ask. It's something I threw together when I got back into the dating game after the divorce, some music to play in the car while driving a date home, a sort of subliminal brainwashing to get my date in the mood for taking things a little further than just a peck on the cheek to say goodnight at the front door.

Taste It, by INXS, was on there. Prince's Take Me With You, Kate Bush's Feel It, Foreigner's Urgent, Garbage's Hammering In My Head, Stay With Me Til Dawn from Judie Tzuke, Kiki Dee's Amoureuse - nothing overtly sexual, just stuff that gets me in the mood, that I figured might also work on women. Not that it ever did, mind. That Hazel O'Connor track would probably work a treat, though, I figured.

"Dinner was lovely." I said finally as she tidied away the cups and saucers, blew out the candle and cleared the table. The evening, it seemed, was drawing to its inevitable close. "Thank you."

"No. Thank you for all your help." She smiled back at me. "I struggled to think of some way to show you how much I appreciate what you've done – a bottle of wine, some HMV, WH Smith or NEXT vouchers, I even considered getting you a bunch of flowers, but in the end I figured I'd give you something we both wanted. It was my sister's idea, actually."

"No complaints, here." I said, misunderstanding where the conversation was going. "The Jalfrezi was top notch. That's all the thanks I'll need."

"So," She continued, as if I hadn't even spoken, "I've got something to give you under the table, and no peeking!" She told me as she ducked down and disappeared beneath the table cloth.

I figured she'd stashed a Lynx gift box or something under there. Maybe I should have bought a new air freshener for the car, I frowned.

"You shouldn't have..." I began, then I felt a hand at the crotch of my jeans searching for my zipper. I held my breath as she worked at the zip, at the button, then her hand slipped inside and began to massage my rapidly hardening bulge through my boxer shorts.

"Jo," I began, but then the words died in my throat as her hand curled around my cock and drew it out through the opening that she had made in the fly of my jeans. I swallowed dryly as her massage took on a more sexual purpose, her fingers closing around the hardening shaft, easing the foreskin back to expose the swelling glans.

In moments my hard cock was sticking up like a flag pole before her face. I could feel her warm breath playing across the sensitive head, but I couldn't see a thing because of the tablecloth bunched up in my lap. Her sharp fingernails grazed the length of my rod, clawing lightly at my balls on the down stroke, then I felt a wave of liquid heat envelope my cock head as she puckered her lips and planted a warm, wet kiss on the taut, shiny glans. Her tongue flicked out and circled around the fat knob, making my cock jerk spasmodically. I couldn't help myself and lifted up the table cloth to see Jo in action.

She looked up to find me staring down at her with wide eyes as she licked around the head of my rock hard cock. "What are you looking at?" She murmured seductively, her hands closing into a fist around my cock and squeezing firmly. "I said no peeking!" She stroked me slowly, her hands milking the full length of my hard cock as she waited for an answer that never came. Her eyes bored into mine and her tongue flicked out to lick along her upper lip as her other hand tugged my jeans further down my legs.

Her tongue flicked out again, lashing at my swollen glans, then she lowered her mouth down onto the bulbous head of my prick, sucking lightly upon it, trying to force her tongue into the tiny slit of the corona. I moaned with pleasure, and my hands were making a total mess of her hair beneath the table as I encouraged her to go further down on me, to eat my meat, to fill her mouth with my manhood.

"Watch this Jim," she whispered to me as she went all the way down on me, deep throating my cock until all that was visible was a tangle of pubic hair mashed hard against her lips. She gagged as it filled her throat and then retreated, choking back a cough before repeating the action until she had trained herself to suppress the gag reflex. My fingers clutched her hair tightly as she face-fucked my cock, kneading the balls on the down stroke, milking the shaft with a firm two handed grip on the upstroke.

"Are you still watching?" She asked, taking a breather and raising her eyes to find me still staring down at her. I nodded, swallowing, somehow lacking the strength to say anything in response.

Joanne took me deep into her mouth again and timed her energetic cocksucking to the encouragement of my hands. A little light pressure on the back of her head prompted her to bury my cock inside her face, and conversely a hint of a tug on her hair triggered an abrupt withdrawal, but I had to be careful not to bash her head against the underside of the dining table. I was now in control, and under my guidance the face-fuck increased in tempo until Joanne was going down on me just as fast as she was capable of, then when she could take it no more she wrenched her head away to gasp in some air and to allow a gout of trapped saliva to spill out over my thick shaft and run down into my bush.

She wrapped her fist tightly around the root of my cock, holding it firmly in place, then she began to lick up and down the throbbing shaft, sucking up the saliva, pausing after a while to tease my swollen balls with her tongue, occasionally sucking one of my dangling testicles whole into her mouth. Her tongue worked hungrily over my stretched ball sac, lapping expertly at the region between my testes and my anus. She sucked on both of my wetly glistening balls one at a time, then managed to open her jaws wide enough to take the whole of my sac inside her mouth and chewed on them both together. I cried out with raw pleasure, precum fluid oozing from the tip of my cock as I struggled to hold myself back, then Karen worked her way back to the glistening, slickened head by planting wet, noisy kisses against the underside of my rigid shaft as she moved upward.

She resumed jacking me off with her left hand while her right delved between her own thighs and diddled her clit impatiently through her knickers. Her tongue traced back up the entire length of my cock, flicking at the sensitive skin that connected glans to shaft at the end of each sweep, driving me wild with her ministrations. She could taste the salt of my precum as a bubble of the clear liquid cascaded down the veined ridges of my cock.

Joanne opened her mouth and slid her greasy crimson lips over my big cock head, the manly odor of my leaking cock strong in her nostrils as the salty, musky taste of my leaked fluids flooded her taste buds. Once again she closed her fingers around the thick base of my prick, this time sliding her mouth all the way down the twitching shaft to meet her fist. I moaned in ecstasy, the grip of my fingers in her hair tightening involuntarily as the tip of my cock nudged against the back of her throat.

She drew back her head against the insistent pressure that I was applying, her lips smacking wetly as the engorged cock head slipped out of her mouth. "You like that?" She murmured seductively, licking around the base of my glans and slowly pulling on my cock with her one handed grip, the other hand still lazily working at the damp heat between her own thighs.

"Fucking Hell yes!" I said, almost a sob.

"This is nothing." She told me. "I haven't even started yet." Jo sucked me deep into her mouth again and gently scraped her teeth against my thick shaft. She began bobbing her head more rapidly. Her hand pumped my cock into her softly sucking mouth, taking more and more of it down her throat with every plunge. The room was filled with my moans and the lewd, liquid slurping of her enthusiastic fellatio, my cock as hard as a rod of steel as I fucked it between her warm, wet, noisy lips to the background soundtrack of Katie Melua singing something I'd never heard before and probably wouldn't recognize if I heard it again.

Her tongue swirled around and around the trapped cock-head. Her hands alternately squeezed, kneaded and caressed my full, swollen testes. I bucked reflexively beneath her, sometimes struggling to get away from her mouth, so intense was the suction that she was applying, and sometimes jerking my hips up to impatiently bury more of my meat in her throat.

“Hmm," she moaned around my cock. Her hand releasing the shaft, and she reached around my hips and grabbed two handfuls of my ass, pulling me almost under the table with her, forcing my cock even deeper into her mouth, drools of juicy saliva spilling from the corners as my fat knob battered against the back of her throat.

"Oh Jesus!" I groaned, grabbing fistfuls of her black hair and pumping my member in and out of her hungry mouth. She gagged on it momentarily before resuming control, nostrils flaring as she breathed, the hard, firm, thrusting jabs of the saliva slickened cock between her stretched, encircling lips increasing in pace as I lost myself in the bliss of the moment, one second my big cock hitting the back of her throat, the next ballooning her cheeks outward as I twitched and shivered under her expert assault. I think she could sense that this was not going to take much longer.

I rammed my prick into her mouth, almost knocking her head against the table, such was the violence of my out of control face fucking.

To be continued, Based on a post by Millsy in 2 parts, for Literotica.