Nailing Neely Jordan - Part 2

12/06/10 21:18 GMT

(extract)

Well, Carlotta –

There are few things which set the blood coursing to one’s dick more urgently than contemplation of deflowering a feisty young virgin who has kept her hymen intact for reasons of religion. I hadn’t considered the matter greatly, but so it turns out. It makes shower-room dalliances with skinny college sluts seem somewhat pointless and tawdry. Not that I should be totally dismissive of young Katie. She was a hot slippery little thing and her cunt clutched my cock like a rubber grip on a handlebar. Which only makes me imagine what a chaste Christian girl’s untried tunnel will feel like once it’s naturally lubed and accepting of its first pre-marital dick.

Now if the aforementioned virgin were a timid little mouse choosing between a variety of loose-fitting sweaters for her daywear, it wouldn’t be worth my time. The seduction would be torturous without a payoff sufficient to make it worth the effort. I want a girl to do more than squeak feebly underneath me. No – sex has to be present and sniffable in the prey, however tightly bottled up within a prudish exterior.

Not that Neely, I should add, is a prim starchy kind of Christian. Her inner vixen is rather closer to the surface. Rather more prone to come frothing out of the bottle, to sustain my original metaphor. I plan a steady shaking-up over several dates, before ‘pop’ goes her cork. And what a frothy explosion I envisage.

I sensed the degree of her potential when I heard her speak during that risible ‘interview’ she went through with her pastor. She did her damnedest to appear cool and progressive as she danced around her godly leader’s fatuous questions that first night, but she still took pains to express it – how much she cherished her chastity. “It’s precious, a gift to be stored up…” My cock was thunderously hard – and Carlotta you’ll surely agree following that distant summer’s worth of rigorous demonstration that I’m not overselling myself – after she said that. Now she knew I was listening, having clearly caught my eye on a couple of occasions. She could have phrased it any of a hundred other ways. We hardly need to bring in Sigmund Freud to point out how much pent-up simmering need there is within this comely twenty-four-year-old paragon of Christian temperance. Oh joy to him on whom the ‘gift’ is bestowed…

Our encounters thus far, I should say, have been very satisfactory, albeit low-key. There have been various afternoon coffees, impromptu walks in the park (complete with a little tentative hand-holding)… All perfectly innocent stuff. More than that there have been two further car-seat kisses, rounding off two eminently respectable official ‘dates’ in preparation for which I groomed and she primped like we were both teenagers. (In some ways, of course, she still is.) Those kisses, following along from that from the day we first met, did more to undermine our girl’s defences than any amount of crude attempted-groping. The sense of her body involuntarily shaping its languid curves closer to me on each key encounter, the spark of awareness in her eyes that my cock is pulsing-huge for her – they were both most gratifying.

Okay, official date one - meal and movie at a local arts complex. She does quite a nice line in charity-shop chic, it has to be said, finely balanced between Christian modesty and “I can be demurely sexy too, you know”. I’ll strip away the demure part in due course. That evening was all about establishing trust – assuring her as cunningly as I could that I wouldn’t be making any crass attempts to get my hand down her knickers. Skirting around the fringes of my own sexual history with enough tease to peak her interest (and she is interested) and enough reticence to make her think I’m embarrassed in her presence by my past coxsploits. What a fun game it is.

Date two - country picnic - that was something of a tour de force. I called her on a promise she’d made to help me with an article – and managed to steer the topic conveniently to that of chastity. We sat there on the rug sipping fizzy wine and delving, in the most moderate terminology possible, into why she doesn’t take any dick. How better to focus someone on the idea of fucking than with in-depth discussion on not doing that very thing? Yearning for release, is this girl. I could almost hear her bosom straining against her blouse-buttons by the end of that encounter.

She went to pains to insist, on both occasions, how much better it would be for both of us if we remain as friends. How much less complicated, since I know she can’t “respond to me physically” the way I might expect with another girl. I insisted that part of her appeal, ironically, is that she is principled and that she values her sexuality, and I could almost smell her moistening cunt as the words sank in. So it goes – the subtle dance of heathen seducer and sweet Christian prey.

Which brings us to date three and an additional risk taken. One that paid off quite magnificently, I think, though that remains to be proven. On that encounter a little more detail is required. The evening started with a few innocent beers, while we sat listening to some adequate rock band in a local bar…

12/06/10 19:31 PST

Well blow me down, the boy has got some restraint. It almost makes me forgive you for coining the word ‘coxploits’. Almost.

I recall during the Summer of Ray’s Seething Lust you couldn’t wait to get said cock out of your pants and into one of my ready, wet holes. Or at the very least to let it swing free while you provided me with oral attention. I’ll give you your due, Ray, you knew how to put a shit-eating grin all over my face with that tongue of yours, before completing the job with your robust member. Do not take this the wrong way, but I occasionally miss the thorough selfish manner in which you worked me over. Like now for example. My sex life is healthy. I’m fucking my friend’s husband and it’s an arrangement that works for me very well. He’s enthusiastic and just loves what I do to his dick, so that he’s constantly at my beck, like a young dog sporting a permanent hard-on. And I can bring him to heel with the merest hint that I might withdraw my favours or make trouble between him and his wife. She’s not that much of a friend. It’s regular, convenient and enough fun to make it worthwhile. But he’s just not the kind of hard-playing bastard you were Ray.

There. A compliment. From me. You know for all your bullshit I still sometimes consider a trip across the pond sometime to put my body at your disposal, and you haven’t heard me say that in a while. I could easily tie in a trip with work now that the company’s expanding to the UK. But of course for that to happen I’d need to feel sure you’re living up to your potential. That you haven’t lost that steely edge, the thing that attracted me in the first place. That it’s even keener than before and that you’re acquiring some additional skills in the process. Right now what you’re doing is proving yourself to me. All over.

You know the thought of you actually dating, biding your time and working your way through stages of seduction from a cold start with no absolute certainty that you’ll ever get to sink that dick, it does impress.

How are you doing it, Ray? Are you getting some, aside from the main event, that you’re not telling me about? Calling up one of those slutty little friends listed in your Blackberry? Or are you as single-minded in your pursuit as that FBI agent in The Fugitive? Hunting down a prissy young virgin on the run from her own scary sex-instinct? Part of me hopes the latter. I like that thought of you panting for it, Ray. Denying yourself and channelling all that frustration into your evil efforts. But then the realist in me knows you’d only get overwhelmed by your own rampant libido and screw up one of those subtle manoeuvres you’ve been crowing about. Maybe you should go blow an occasional load into some little slut-on-the-side so you can keep your focus. In fact I positively encourage it.

Because I do want you to nail this girl, my horny friend. More so since you directed me to her pics in on the church website. You didn’t exaggerate. She’s just as attractive as you’d suggested and with not a trace of the traditional young-Christian frumpiness. Not in her dress-sense at any rate. But I could still sense it in her cheery grin and her isn’t-God-fab posturing as she wrapped arms around members of her junior flock. Her inner frump was all on display. She’s got the whole deal worked out, hasn’t she? There she is, just drawing the lost to the Jesus-club. Take your time and fuck her good, Ray. Bone her every which way and make her come like a screaming whore of Babylon with all her God-thoughts still intact and judging her.

Excuse me if that seems a little over-the-top. It comes of being a born cynic smothered by an Evangelical upbringing. Too many memories of being lost amongst hymn-singing mini-believers, whose holy self-satisfaction radiated more heat than the campfire they sat around. Pretending to follow the herd just so I could avoid all their cloying concern-for-the-heathen and being the object of their impromptu late-night prayer sessions. Bad, bad days. Seriously, Ray, don’t screw this up. Take your time, do her good and tell me everything.

I await those regular reports.

Carlotta.

* * * *

Neely made sure, this time, that Jasmin was not around when she picked up Odyssey of Lust. She was sure that her roommate was leaving the creased paperback around the living space deliberately, in mischievous hope that Neely would further sample its prose. Its vulgar and strangely compelling prose. Temptation was striking at the end of a lengthy working Sunday and within twenty-four hours of her most recent contact with Ray. This held true to a recently established pattern, she noted. Coming out of a meeting with Pastor Simmons, during which he had harped endlessly to her and Jonas on their forthcoming ‘sexual ethics’ workshops, she felt punch-drunk from piety and her lifting of the book was almost an act of rebellion.

She riffled through the first few chapters to a particularly salacious passage. Sapphire, who came across as a sort of accidental slut on her journey of self-discovery, had ended up in Jamaica, the first stop on a trans-global tour funded by the money she had inherited from her sadly-departed uncle. The heroine was now semi-sozzled on tequila in a beach-bar and the only remaining patron. This much Neely had picked up from her skimming of the pages as she nestled deep into the sofa; she’d been drawn there as though by an inexorable force of gravity, as the words pulled her in. Usually she would resist, but there was a strange luxury in giving up to this unexpected moment of weakness, to this tawdry dog-eared sex-novel.

A fever was upon her, prickling her skin and accelerating her heart rate as she immersed herself. Sapphire the heroine was in a permanent state of confused arousal, it seemed to Neely, as her erotic misadventures unfolded, not least on page sixty-three, when Deshane shoved her up against the bar’s front, his broad frame trapping her completely.

“Now it’s just you and me, my American beauty,” he said, his face splitting into a wide mocking grin.

“What? But I thought you just wanted me to help clean up some glasses! You said I could help around!” Sapphire gasped, as she felt a great python uncoiling inside his close-pressed beach shorts. Now there was an arresting metaphor.

“So why would a spoilt rich girl from California want to work in my humble little bar?” he asked, his eyes glinting wickedly in his dark handsome face. “And why would I want a beautiful girl like you serving my tables when there are better things you can do on them?”

“I just wanted to try something different,” Sapphire panted, her loins moistening to be squeezed so tightly against his manhood as it extended within his shorts.

“I know exactly what you wanted to try,” he grinned, his hands starting to wander all over her neck and chest. “That’s why you have been wiggling that ass in those tight little shorts and showing off these ripe firm mangos inside this tiny little top. And why you’ve been giving Deshane the eye all this afternoon.” Neely could not fathom why she found this character appealing, why she felt possessed to read on to where… He groped her breasts freely through the thin material of her cut-off tee-shirt and they filled his large hands. She felt her nipples inflate as he fondled her.

“But I – I didn’t realise… I was just flirting a little, being – being friendly,” she stammered.

“Oh you’re going to be friendly, my sweet girl,” he told her. He picked her up by her slim waist, his biceps and chest muscles bulging against his coloured shirt as he set her ass easily down onto the bar. “And I’m going to be friendly to you first.”

Sapphire breathed in hard once again – Neely was having much the same reaction - as the bar owner seized her white beach shorts in both hands and tore them, along with her g-string, away from her thighs, exposing her bare pussy. She watched in astonishment as he ripped the skimpy pieces of clothing off her sandaled feet and pulled her legs apart, revealing all she had to his gaze.

“Oh yes, baby, I’m going to enjoy this,” he said, his eyes shining with lust as he gazed at her spread cunt. “I want to know how California pussy tastes.”

She cried out as he pulled her towards him, his tongue already stretching, and plunged the large fleshy muscle into her open grotto. She fell back and knocked glasses smashing to the floor as her arms reached out to prop herself up. Deshane’s face was crushed between her legs and his tongue lashed her clit and thrust into her now oozing passage. Oh sweet Lord… His eyes were on fire, glaring at her as he ate her out ravenously.

“Ohhhhh!’ she moaned piteously. Her little pink top was riding up over her full tits. Deshane reached up and pulled it higher, ripping her skimpy bikini to the side as well so that her quivering mounds were completely on show. He continued to slurp hungrily at her cunt, while his great hands reached up and squeezed the fulsome flesh of her breasts, tugging hard at her swollen nipples.

“You taste even better than tequila, California girl,” he grinned with his mouth all wet and shining from her soaking pussy. “And I love those big ripe juicy melons.” He lifted the pink top and hooked it behind her head and then tore away the flimsy bikini so he could grope her freely with both hands. Then he grabbed the tequila bottle from beside her on the bar and drank from the nozzle. He made Sapphire suck on it as well. “Go on, beautiful girl, enjoy the party,” he told her with a grin. She felt the hot sweet liquid rush down her throat. He pulled the nozzle from her mouth and poured tequila all over her breasts until she felt it gush down between them to her navel. Then she felt his lips and thick tongue sliding all over her tits, slurping up all the liquor. He sucked on both nipples, making her yell out. Such debauchery, such decadence, Neely should not have been entertained by this in any way…

“God, Dashone needs to stick his cock inside his beautiful American bitch,” he said. She gasped as he tore off his shirt because of his great muscular black torso and also because she knew she was going to get fucked hard. He took off his shorts and climbed onto the bar with her. His shiny black cock stuck out in front of him and Sapphire’s bright blue eyes stared at the huge ebony pole in amazement.

“Oh my God!” she cried, gasping at its size. Neely could feel her shock and his smugness. She felt compelled to read on to the inevitable…

“I know what you’re thinking, girl,” he said, leering as he climbed above her. “How is all that cock going to fit itself inside my tight little white-girl pussy? Well don’t worry yourself. It’ll fit just fine.”

She could not believe her eyes as he pushed the head of his massive cock to her slinky pussy lips and thrust it inside. She felt it stretch her open and this was only the start. She watched his cock slide inside inch by inch right down to the base, filling her up even more than Don had done. “Look at that,” he said with a soft evil laugh. “That big thick pole sliding into your tight wet love-hole slow and easy. Alllllll the way. Niiiiice.’

His great muscled body was right on top of her with her thighs spread either side of his ass and his mighty spear thrust to the balls inside her. “Ohhhh yeah, California,” he whispered. “Feels so good. When you came to this town I said ‘I’m going to fuck that pussy before it leaves. That’s why I closed my bar early today. So that my cock could be right here deep inside you.” Sapphire stared into his blazing eyes and knew that she wanted everything he had to give. She gripped his bulging shoulders and wrapped her legs around him tightly. “That’s right, hold on tight my sweet California girl, because Deshane is going to fuck you so good, fuck you all night long…”

Neely’s phone buzzed in her jeans pocket and startled her out of her breathless sinful reverie. Damnation! She dropped the novel on the sofa, irritated that something so asinine, so blunt in its stereotypes, ludicrous in its premise and sub-standard in its prose could exert such a hold on her. Stupid! Why was she letting herself read this… this bullshit? Big arrogant Jamaican bar owner shows cossetted millionaire-girl what’s what on his bar – takes her virtually by force in the crudest way possible, as the hapless heroine just lets him. And then she starts enjoying it. God, to allow this utter rubbish to… to forge her nipples into such hard points and soak her panties the way it had done. She should be ashamed. She was ashamed.

It was Jonas on her mobile. That made her feel even worse. He’d promised he’d call her, she remembered, since he had to leave abruptly after their meeting with the Pastor. “Hey, Neelers, sorry I had to rush off. Something planned with Leona. Didn’t get a chance to brainstorm many ideas re the workshops with you.”

“It’s fine, it’s not a problem.” Neely was flustered, guilty, as though she’d been surprised in the middle of some immoral encounter.

“You okay, Neels? You sound a bit… I don’t know… hassled.”

“No, no, I’m good. I’m great. You… ehh… have any more thoughts about the sessions?”

“What, the sex sessions?” Jonas laughed at his own joke and sounded surprised that Neely had not joined in. “Yeah, yeah… I’ve got a few ideas. I know you feel as pressured as I do about the whole thing.”

“I do?”

“Well yeah, that’s what I figured. Kind of being the Pastor’s mouthpiece and all that. Look, the way I see it, he’s going to supervise some of it, so it’s got to be tailored a bit to what he’ll expect. We can look at – you know – sexualisation in the media, brainstorm ways kids might be influenced by images of sex, discuss peer pressure…”

“Yes, yes, that’s good…” Neely felt her breathing return towards normal.

“Basically present the Christian route as a sane alternative. Give J S what he wants to hear, but not lean on the whole divine judgement thing, not guilt-trip them too much. You know, God forgives our screw-ups…”

“Well yes, that’s good…” Neely liked Jonas’ laid-back attitude, his irreverence towards Jack Simmons, though she felt something more was needed in their approach to the youth group.

“But look, Neely, between you and me, I don’t think that covers all the kids’ needs.” His voice was confidential, more earnest than she had expected. “You know as well as I do that some of them are sexually active. Gary Warnock’s been sleeping with Amber Jenkins for God knows how long and I’m pretty sure young Ben’s at it with that new girl he’s brought along, you know, Shaz.”

“How do you know this?” Neely had her suspicions, but was taken aback to hear it expressed so bluntly.

“I know. Some of them confide in me. Gary was terrified a while back that Amber was pregnant.”

“He was? I’d no idea!” No one had confided that stuff to her.

“Well they were both going up the walls for a few days. And it seems to me that the teens need a bit more than just having abstinence shoved down their throats all the time. Know what I mean?”

“You mean…”

“I mean they need to know about bloody contraception, Neels. Not as part of the official programme, obviously. J S would never green-light that, but… I mean it’s just the responsible thing to do.”

Neely saw his point, but felt the hackles rise within her nonetheless. Why, she was not altogether sure. “Well yes, I know, but… surely we should be emphasizing that they stop. Restrain themselves.”

Jonas could be heard almost to laugh. “Okay, but let’s get real. They’re modern teenagers. Once the genie’s out of the bottle…”

“What?” Neely couldn’t believe him. “Is that it? Just accept that they’re having sex? What about the teaching of the Bible, Jonas? What about holiness, or has that become an embarrassing word for us now? Don’t we believe in making a difference, standing up for what Christianity teaches anymore?”

“Well yes, yes of course we do…” Jonas seemed taken aback by her sudden passion. “But Neely, we can’t always expect these kids to live up to… to our ideals.”

What about living up to God’s ideals? She almost said it, but it struck her as so much like Jack Simmons that she swallowed the thought. “I… Jonas, I think we sell them short if… if we don’t even hope that they can do better. We can’t just give them a get-out clause where sex is concerned. If we do that, then how are they going to be any different from everybody else? You’ll want to slip them condoms at the end of the Wednesday night meetings next!”

“Neels…” It was Jonas’ turn to be exasperated. “I’m not saying that… exactly. I’m not saying we tell them it’s okay. I just… Come on, you’re a smart girl. You care about the youth group members. You put so much time and effort into them. I really thought you’d be with me on this. Do you really want one of our teens getting pregnant because we weren’t willing to face up to the fact that they’re human? That they make mistakes? Do you want something like that to happen?”

“No, no of course I don’t!” Neely found herself wrestling with host of uncomfortable truths. “You know I don’t. It’s just… It’s finding the balance I suppose. It’s so difficult…”

“I know, I know. Look, I’m sorry. It’s late. I shouldn’t have hit you with this out of the blue…”

“It’s okay. I’m just tired. I need to sleep on it. Pray a bit. I can see this is something we need to discuss. Okay, so the Pastor was doing my head in, tonight, again, but I don’t disagree with everything he says. We are all on the same side after all.”

“Yeah, I know we are,” Jonas conceded. “He’s a strange bedfellow, though, you’ve got to admit.”

Neely grimaced. “You know, Jonas, I really don’t want to think of the Pastor as my ‘bedfellow’.” Her comment had them laughing together as they normally did and the conversation wound to a cordial close.

Not that this made Neely feel a great deal better as she put the phone down. Were she and he co-worker the only ones left still flying the flag for moral virtue? And was everyone else just slip-sliding into the swamp of modern sexual excess? The thought was still in her head as she went to return Jasmin’s book to the coffee table from where she had dropped it. But it was still open at the same page and before she knew it, she was reading how Deshane’s thick meaty shaft sawed in and out of Sapphire’s succulent hole. Her body accepted all he had to give on each probing thrust. She clung onto his great brawny glistening body, as his steel buttocks flexed and he filled up her young cunt time after time with huge hard island-cock.

“That’s right, California girl, learn how to take Deshane’s cock! It’s going to be inside your pussy a lonnnnng time…”

“Fuck!” Neely slapped the novel shut, infuriated to find herself reading such mucky prose all over again. “Shit! Sorry!” She set it where she had found it and as often happened, her prayers spilled out of her, spoken aloud. “Sorry… For the swearing. And the book. It was just… there. I keep find it lying around. I know! I know, that’s no excuse. It’s just when I’m tired… Forgive me, please.” She took her conversation into the kitchen, continuing as she uncorked a half-drunk bottle of Merlot. “I just feel… distracted right now. Unfocused. It’s… it’s difficult, you know? I… I…” She tried honesty. She knew what was causing this confusion and had never been good at lying to herself. She knew exactly where her mind had been when reading about Sapphire and Deshane, and it hadn’t been Jamaica. “I should… drop the whole Ray business, shouldn’t I? Or at least make it clear that we can just be friends…”

But she’d already done that, hadn’t she? From the first ‘proper’ date. Her praying tailed away and she took memories to her room along with a full glass of red. She summoned up Florence and the Machine on her i-Pod, nestled down into her cushioned basket chair and sipped.

“You seem a really great guy, Ray, and it’s just… really easy, really relaxing to hang out with you…” Thus she had attempted to initiate a serious chat over nachos in the Watershed Arts Centre’s café before they went in to see their Swedish vampire movie. It was easy to be with him, although not relaxing in every sense. Her stomach was inevitably tight in his presence.

He had leant across the table, totally focused on her. His long eye-lashes were blond-tipped and his eyes that rather steely grey-blue. “Is there a ‘but’ hovering in the air here?” She had gone to answer, but he got in before her. “You’re committed to the church and I’ve got no religious or spiritual beliefs at all worth talking about. So is there any real point in pursuing anything beyond friendship, however well we might seem to get along initially? Am I right?”

Her sentiments, stolen from her before she could even express them. “Well, I might have put it something like that.” She had put so much effort into looking like she had put in just so much effort and no more. Trendy and sexy, but not too sexy. The jeans and cowboy boots, the slightly distressed black-leather coat and the blue feather boa, the paler-blue ruffled shirt with its two buttons undone. Just enough so her claddagh necklace could be seen settled discreetly between the very beginnings of her cleavage. Yes God gave me breasts and they’re not at all unimpressive, but I don’t go flaunting them. She shouldn’t have allowed her appearance to matter so much to her. But there he was, looking so sharp and metrosexual, yet so utterly masculine, in his dark linen suit and open-necked shirt, that strong clean-shaven chin tilted back just slightly as he eyed her and responded.

“And it would have made total sense if you had said that. I think the wiser part of me probably agrees with it...” He paused and appeared to reach for the appropriate words. “Thing is, Neely, you’re not like anyone else I’ve dated. You’re committed to something beyond yourself. You’ve got an integrity, a… sense of purpose - understated but strong nonetheless - which I find… impressive. It draws me. It’s – and look, shut me up if I’m going to far here – it’s intoxicating. I suppose there’s a kind of irony there. The aspects of you which attract me the most are the very ones which will no doubt make you say ‘let’s just be friends’.”

Whatever Neely had been expecting, it was not this. Any clarification of their date’s nature expired in her throat. “Well I haven’t actually told you that, have I?” she said without having meant to. It felt like a compromise of everything she had intended, but it was also exciting in a way that made her shudder. The moment elongated as a flattered smile played on his face and she tried to reach for the nachos without sticking her fingers in the salsa.

“Doesn’t mean I’m going to try and compromise you in anything you believe,” he said. “I mean, this is the first time we’ve been out properly. I don’t know what this is yet, I’m just feeling my way. All I know is it’s nice. It’s fun.”

“Yes – it is fun,” she smiled, and her insides were strangely warmed. “We’re having fun, what the hell’s wrong with that?” She felt herself break into a full beam. “So let’s just relax and have fun, for crying out loud.” They did, as they finished their nachos and shuddered and gasped in shocked laughter and surprise at their sophisticated horror flick. It was all so unproblematic now, until, that was, they kissed again when he dropped her off.

It happened more easily than the first time. Yes there had been that nagging concern as they travelled back to the drop-off point, how the moment would work out. On arrival, however, once the hand-brake was on it just happened spontaneously mid-sentence – she’d been talking about her preference for werewolves over vampires – and her mouth was adhered to his. She could not say for sure that she had not moved first, prompted by the lightest of touches on her arm. It felt natural to be stroking his tongue with hers, letting the slow wet rhythm of their united mouths intensify. Already there was a growing familiarity, something that made her feel acknowledged as a proper woman for the first time, by someone very far from a boy.

A few coffee interludes and a stroll through the park saw nothing more than a little intertwining of fingers and coy hand-holding, all of which sent the same frissons via her spine all around her body. Never since her twentieth birthday had she felt quite so teenage. The whole effect was increased at the close of their picnic date – wet-mouthed contact again and longer this time; the touches of their hands on each other’s face, neck and back more lingering and bold, her sense of his upper body’s coiled strength more tangible, the gravitational force of that body upon hers more insistent. So that their late-evening farewell seemed to undermine the integrity of what she had professed that afternoon in radiant sunshine, over champagne and a variety of berry fruits.

To take part in an interview on modern Christian lifestyle for the article he had described, briefly articulating her stance on pre-marital celibacy, had seemed a good idea. Lay down some ground-rules regarding their emerging friendship – for herself, she knew, rather than the attractive guy who had so far treated her with faultless respect. She had lain on the picnic rug wearing comfort-fit jeans and a tie-dyed vest not too plunging, emphasizing sensuality without being provocative. She had striven to sound nonchalant, totally at peace with her lifestyle choices.

“Sexuality’s important. So important.” Tippling on sangria, as she weighed her words. He was recording her for his later writing. “It’s a key facet of our natures and a beautiful one, but it sometimes threatens to kind of consume every other aspect and cause loads of pain and mayhem. Ideally – and I suppose I’m an idealist – it’s something that should grow and be expressed in balance with everything else. Cherished and nurtured, but only as the two people experiencing it grow into a full commitment to each other. Does that make sense?”

“It makes a surprising lot of sense,” he said with quiet admiration. “It’s uncanny… You make me rethink issues I haven’t given consideration in years. If ever. My own experience, my own behaviour, is so far from that. I’ve treated sex like just another appetite to be sated. When I meet someone I’m attracted to, I normally just… you know… take and enjoy.” He said it wistfully, with a seeming tinge of regret, but it still speeded up Neely’s heart. “And because I flatter myself to think that my partner enjoys as well, more than a little, I assume it’s okay. Do you think I’m a terrible sinner, Neely?”

“What? Sorry? Gosh, no…” Neely had been distracted by the thought of how much Ray’s former partners might have enjoyed. “No, you’re not doing anything earth-shatteringly awful, you’re just… pursuing pleasure I suppose. For its own sake.” It occurred to her that there could be a whole lot of pleasure to be had with a guy like Ray. “When maybe there’s something deeper you could be experiencing.” Dear God, even saying that sounded like she were trying to land the guy as a steady boyfriend. Which she couldn’t do, not if they didn’t share the worldview which was so essential to her. “At least that’s what I believe,” she finished, her voice tailing off a little.

“You make it sound very convincing,” Ray said, just as quietly. “I’m not sure whether it’s the idea itself or the fact that it’s you expressing it. All of which fills me with very conflicting feelings.”

Me too , thought Neely, a little miserably. Me too… She felt the conflict again on the plush seats of his car that evening, when it occurred to her what a sexually experienced male she had in her arms. Almost between her legs, they had ended up crushed so close, her thighs splayed by the thrust of his knees. With the chemicals firing in her own brain, the rush of blood to various significant regions of her body, she could only suppose their embrace was having precisely the same effect on him.

“Look, Neely,” he said, still holding her fresh from the luxurious mutual caress of their lips, “this is all new to me.” He sounded short of breath and slightly confused, but striving to marshal his thoughts. “I’m sure you’ve guessed how I’m used to behaving in situations like this. Not in any very restrained fashion. Certainly not very Christian. I generally act on my instincts. But…” He sounded curiously abashed and she gave him a reassuring squeeze, touched and not a little stirred-up by his tense confession. “…I just want you to be clear that I’m not trying to do that here. I’m not hoping to overwhelm you with passion or anything like that.” He added hurriedly, “And it’s not because I don’t want to, Neely, trust me on that. I find you immensely attractive and very, very sexy. Fact.” He said it with a slight laugh, as though to draw some of the intensity from the words. It did not altogether work. Neely’s resolve felt slightly weakened by the declaration.

“I’m glad,” was all she said for a long while. Then, “And I know you’re not planning on jumping me, I appreciate that.” The fact that his stated intention was not to jump her made part of her wish he would.

And then on official date three, he did. Kind of. Briefly.

The all-important third date, Jasmin would have called it. With everything that ensued. “You don’t know what you’re missing, Neely,” the exotic little imp would smile. “Those butterflies in the pit of your stomach, because you know that tonight he’s going to try, and that you’re going to let him.”

“Well he’s not and I’m not,” she had responded on this occasion, trying not to come off as too prim.

“He’s not one of your church guys,” Jasmin had warned her. “Just as long as he knows the score. You sure he’ll not be expecting any Neely-love tonight?”

“We have talked about it, Jaz. He’s cool with it.”

“If you say so. But I wonder how cool can he be with you looking so damn hot tonight.”

Neely had accepted the compliment and laughed off the rest. Jasmin always dressed so sexily; she was glad her little minx of a friend didn’t think she was hiding her light under a bushel. (Oops, misappropriation of Holy Scripture there.) It was wonderful how effectively the right fit of slacks and a simple pastel blouse could do to show off a girl’s figure as she headed out for an evening with her new ‘friend’.

At the end of and evening spent munching pub snacks and watching a rising London rock band, she and Ray had shared a smile over Neely’s coffee invitation. “With anyone else I’d assume that was a euphemism, but I’m guessing you probably do have some really good coffee in the larder.”

“Java,” Neely informed him, hoping her lightness of tone disguised the inappropriate degree of excitement she felt at inviting a self-confessed hedonist non-believer into her home late at night. “With little Biscotti biscuits. Because I’m classy like that. Although it’s a chunk out of my salary, let me tell you.”

“I’ll drink with due respect and appreciation,” he assured her as they went inside.

“Make sure you do.”

They relaxed back into Neely’s living-room sofa with mugs of non-euphemistic coffee and he expressed amusement that she should enjoy a band called The Devil’s Rejects.

“I’ve got time for the most stubborn of sinners if they play well,” she explained, keeping a straight face.

“Maybe I should learn to play in that case.”

“You don’t have to. I like you just as you are. Besides, you’ve got words, Mr Hotshot Journalist.” She set aside her mug and stroked his face. He responded by depositing his own mug on the coffee table, drawing her to him and kissing her fully. She kissed in return and they sank deeper into the sofa, wrapped together. His hands were gripping her upper body; she could feel the tight clutch of his fingers through the thin cotton of her blouse. Then his mouth was progressing to her neck, one of his hands rising to cradle her jaw. Her head rolled back involuntarily, giving his mouth easier access; she felt it hot and tender on the lower curve of her neck and it robbed her of breath.

She was aware, acutely so, of his body close to hers, of the hard muscles that flexed in his arms as he held her so firmly. There was passion channelling to her through his lips – experienced lips that knew how to caress a girl’s skin. ‘Experienced’… the word stuck with her as he gently mussed her hair and came up to kiss her mouth again. This man was experienced in who knew what type of wild carnal activity. To him this sofa canoodling wasn’t an end in itself, an expression of fondness between two people both of whom knew when to apply the brakes and put on a DVD. (Neely had not always wanted to watch a DVD on such occasions, but had made herself.) To him it was an avenue which led to vistas of panting writhing naked delight. However noble he was being by his own standards, however restrained, his body was telling him to embark on that journey right now. He would be good to his word though, right? She could enjoy making out a little more without it getting out of control, surely…

Neely let her lips stray from Ray’s mouth along his clean-shaven jaw, till she could press them two the hollow under his ear. The temptation to bite a little on his lobe, even after all the protestations of virtue she had made to him, she resisted. He was gasping a little at her light oral exploration and she couldn’t help but love the response. His fingers continued to weave amongst the thick tresses of her hair, then one hand moved to her waist, brushing the collar and buttoned front of her blouse along the way. She felt his palm kneading her middle very gently and was glad she had always managed to maintain a trim figure. Her shirt had come a little free of her jeans and she could feel one of his fingers tracing a circle on her bare skin.

Neely’s legs had been curled up on the sofa and as Ray’s solid frame pressed in against them, she was sure she was going to lose circulation in the left. She shifted position towards him and ended up kneeling with her legs either side of him, his hands still clutching her. It was her instinct to shift somewhere less intimate, less dangerous, but the risk of looking like a clumsy teen prevented her. She leaned in and kissed him again, made it look like she’d intended the move. The angle was awkward, however, and he responded by taking her waist and drawing her towards him, into a seated position in his lap.

Their jean-clad loins pressed close and she felt it, what she had known would be there but had tried not to acknowledge during all their making-out. The robust hardness of his arousal, all that blood coursing urgently to his manhood on a fierce biological imperative, as they grappled each other so close. Then she realised her own biology - the heat that was rising throughout her, the moisture leaking from her sex to soak her panties, getting her all ready whether her mind objected or not, for what was going on within his pants. High School lessons on which she had never acted came vividly to life like never before in her near-twenty-five years. Vagina and penis were textbook words – this was wet pussy and hard cock, prevented by a few thin layers of fabric from locking together in tight throbbing union.

He must have seen something in her eyes that made him do it. He gripped the side of her face, drew her mouth again to his and kissed her harder than he had ever done before, his tongue invading. His other hand seized her breast, claimed it, moulded it. He broke from her mouth and kissed her throat, palm squeezing on the soft flesh of her tit through blouse and gauzy brassiere, compressing her engorged nipple. And his pelvis was moving too, thrusting back and forth so that she was riding him, feeling how big he was – big like the guys in Jasmin’s book…

The moment terrified her, set her heart thumping, so unexpected was the whole thing. “Ray… Ray…” It came out as a panicked squeak.

He looked up at her and seemed to gauge her reaction instantly. His pelvis stopped mid-grind and his hands fell away from her, sudden mortification registering in his face. “Shit… Sorry… Sorry Neely, I’m so sorry…” Then “Fuck!” as though enraged at himself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean it to happen, I swear. It just did…”

“It’s okay, it’s okay…” She put her hands reassuringly on his face. “I know, it’s fine…”

“I’m sorry, so sorry…” The shame-faced apologies continued to flow.

She extricated herself from her compromised position, but kept her hands on him, so stricken did he seem with guilt. She was aroused and ashamed herself, but touched as well by the sudden display of contrition by the powerfully sexual male as he almost cringed under her touch. “It’s all right, Ray, I know it just happened.”

“It’s not all right.” He was moving away from her, shifting to accommodate the great erection in his trousers, a clenched hand pressed to his forehead. “I told you I wouldn’t act like that, I fucking promised you…”

“I know, and I know you didn’t intend to…”

“You’ve told me from the day we met and I said I understood and then I… I’m sorry, babe, I just totally disrespected that. Disrespected you and everything you’ve told me about yourself.”

She gripped his shoulders, held him side-on till his breathing had calmed and the emotion had ebbed away from both of them. “Okay, so maybe you did. But I understand.” She tried to jaunt him out of his pained mood. “You know, what with me being so hot and everything…” He looked around at her and saw her smiling, then he smiled too and she saw a degree of relief in his eyes.

“Thing is, you are,” he told her. “Not… Not just the way you look, which by the way is damned gorgeous…” If any of the redness had left her face, she knew it returned full-on at that point. “It’s the way you are. Your principles, your commitment to what you’ve chosen, to your job, the kids at your church… Those things should probably calm me down, make me less inclined to do what I just did, but… but they don’t. They intensify it. They just make you more attractive to me. It’s… It’s… I…” He took a moment as though to calm himself, so that he could say what he wanted to as coolly and rationally as possible. “Neely, okay – I want to make love to you, that’s just a fact. And I know what you’re probably thinking… He wants to have sex with every woman he dates, so that’s no big deal. And to a point that’s true – I mean, I like sex, I enjoy sex, I… I love sex, there, I’ve said it. But… with you I need to you believe that it’s more than that.” He gazed at her full-on and arrested the whirl of perplexed, excited thoughts his sex-declaration had stirred up. “That I think you’re this vibrant, intelligent, spirited person, warm and funny and… and good-hearted, and more sexy than you know… And I suppose I just want to be close to all that. Physically close. Intimately physically close. And for a second I let that impulse get the better of me.” His words ran to a stop and he appeared embarrassed anew. “Look, it won’t happen again. I’d better go.”

He had risen from the sofa and was grabbing his jacket before Neely had had a chance to react. She rose and went to him, arresting his move towards the door. “Ray, it’s okay. I’m flattered. I’m so, so flattered, and you know I want what you want. You know I feel it too, don’t you? It’s just that I can’t express it. Not in that way. You do understand, don’t you?” She held both his hands and looked at him with a plea in her eyes.

“Of course I do.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Look, I really had better go.”

They bumped into a just-arriving Jasmin at the front door. “Hey,” the slinky dark-haired roommate said cheerily, and Neely did formal introductions, still reeling inwardly from the actions and words of the past few moments.

“This is Jasmin… Jasmin, Ray. You saw him that day at the café.”

“Yeah, I remember. Nice to meet you, Ray. I keep hearing about you. Maybe Neely’s going to stop hiding you away.” She beamed at them both as though enchanted by their being together, then seemed to pick up on Neely’s discomfort. “Sorry, I’m interrupting. See you again Ray…”

Once Jasmin had disappeared indoors, Neely shook off her embarrassment at her friend’s chirpy comments and they said their uneasy goodnights. “I don’t want you to be upset about tonight,” she assured Ray.

“Are we okay, you and me?”

“Yes, yes we are!” she replied hastily. “We can… We can do something next week, go bowling or… or… something.” Crap, it sounded like she were angling for a deliberately safe date. Which was totally the case.

“Yeah, yeah, that’d be fun.” It actually sounded like he meant it. That he was just relieved he was going to see her again. “Look, Neely, I’ll call you. Soon. Bye.” He returned her earlier kiss on the cheek and was gone.

That had been one day ago. She swilled the last of the Merlot around her glass as she recalled the whole fraught scene, then drank it, reaching automatically for the bottle again. Small wonder she was so uptight and had been so short with Jonas. It wasn’t her co-worker’s fault that she had got herself into this emotional bind, that when she had read from Jasmin’s tacky novel it was Ray’s tumescent organ she was thinking of, not that of anyone called Deshane. Dear God, she hadn’t meant it to get crazy the way it had. She’d never expected his hand exquisitely groping her and his hardness grinding against her so insistent. But how could she blame him when up to that point she’d been so happy to let the situation unfold? She’d shown all the enjoyment he had, with no proper thought as to what it was doing to the libido he was so used to satisfying. Sweet Lord, she was turning into another Danny Woodward – another sexual hypocrite ready to bring down shame on the Alton Bridge congregation. She’d be infamous, no better than the maligned Pastor Danny. The justly maligned Pastor Danny. Remember that Neely Jordan? Preaching about celibacy and shagging some guy on the side? Why did Ray have so be so damned sweet to her?

“Drinking alone? That’s never a good sign. Join you in a glass?” Jasmin had put her head around the door. She was back from dinner with a friend. “We ended up having a few Margaritas,” she said with a tipsy grin, as she settled her slim petite self on Neely’s bed, having fetched a second wineglass from the kitchen and filled it well from the Merlot bottle. “What’s the matter, babe? You look deep in thought.”

“Nothing.” Neely shook herself from the stupor which had descended. Way too much mental wrangling that evening. “Just… winding down after work.”

“Bet you wish you were winding down with a certain someone.” Neely looked at Jasmin warily. She was in no frame of mind for girl-chat right now. “You’re got sexy Ray on your mind, I can tell,” her silk-haired friend pursued. “He got you all in a kerfuffle last night, did he? You looked all hot and bothered at the door. What happened with you two? Come on, spill the juice.”

“There’s no juice to spill. I don’t have any juice.” Neely winced immediately at having said it.

“What? Right now you’ve got more juice than the café served all last week,” Jasmin leaped in. “You’re way juicy for this guy.”

“We’re just friends…”

“Balls! Don’t even try that with me. He made a move on you last night, didn’t he?” Jasmin was enjoying her pursuit of the truth. “What did you two get up to? Was it in here? No, it wasn’t… The sofa cushions were all messed up.”

“Nothing happened!” Neely insisted, irritated.

“But he wanted it to…”

“Jaz…”

“And you wanted it too. Go on, admit it. But then you showed him the door instead, right?”

“Jaz, please…”

“And now you’re sitting here all lonely, thinking about him.”

“You don’t know what I’m…”

“While he’s at his place thinking about you.”

“Jaz, I…” Neely’s protest drained away. “You think?” There was something undeniably appealing about that thought.

“Neely, I know it. And I know exactly what he’s doing while he’s thinking.” Jasmin’s eyes glinted wicked. “Party for one. Wishing the hot Christian girl was there to share in the festivities.”

“Jasmin!” Her friend’s innuendo was agonising. The image in Neely’s mind had resolved into one of near-unbearable heat. “I don’t need this! Not right now. Look, Ray’s okay with the whole thing. He understands. He’s being very patient.”

“Yeah? Well then he’s better than most guys.” Jasmin’s tone was sharper, as though she felt the need to dispense some home-truths. “Look, I’m sure he’s doing his best to be patient, Neely, ‘cos you’re one hell of a great girl and he obviously sees that. But he’s still a guy. He’ll be understanding for so long and then the frustration will just get too much for him. I don’t want you to lose out because you can’t just… go with what you feel!”

“Jaz, it’s not as simple as that!” Neely just couldn’t get the girl to understand. “This affects my faith! It runs to the very heart of what I believe! ‘Flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace’!” She didn’t often quote Scripture to Jasmin, it occurred to her. Things must be bad. “I can’t just toss that aside because I fancy some guy!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know…” To her credit, Jasmin’s face did display a little sympathy. “Your beliefs and your job at the church and doing what Jesus would do. It’s everything to you, it’s what you base your life on. It’s absolutely crucial to you, I know that. It’s just, well… Come on, Neely, he’s so fucking hot!”

There was a pause between them before they burst into spontaneous laughter together. Then Neely’s mobile buzzed and when she saw the incoming call was tagged ‘Ray’, her heart jumped like she’d been defibrillated.

“It’s him?” Neely nodded at her friend’s inquiry, staring at the phone with trepidation. “I’ll leave you to it.” Jasmin discreetly absented herself, wineglass in hand.

Neely held the mobile some seconds, as though it might explode if she answered the call. Sudden anguish seized her. God, I can’t pursue this. It just doesn’t make any sense. I’m sorry, I’m being stupid and selfish about the whole thing. To both of us. I’ll just tell him. I’ll tell him now. Here goes. “Ray, hi. I…”

“Hey there, beautiful.”

Three words, spoken softly, but they took out Neely’s rapidly assembled defences like a guided missile. “Hey there you,” she managed, after a breathless pause, sounding to herself like one of those soppy teenage girls she occasionally counselled regarding their latest crush.

“Sorry to call this late, I know Sunday’s kind of a big work day for you. Neely, I’m still feeling wretched about overstepping the mark yesterday.”

“You didn’t. I mean… You… Look, it was both our doing. It’s…” Neely had no idea what was the right thing to say. She just knew that above all else she wanted everything to be good between her and Ray. “Forget about it.”

“Unlikely,” he said quickly, and the words made her liquidize more than Deshane’s ravishing of Sapphire could ever have done. “Just as long as it’s cool.”

“It is. It is. It’s… It’s totally cool.”

“Hey, that bowling idea… You still up for that?”

Neely jumped at it. A no-pressure kind of date. More of those, please. No fraught sofa-interludes, just Ray’s lovely, sexy presence somewhere safe. Her eagerness had them both laughing. “I’ll take you out, Mister. I’ve got some serious bowling form. You’d better watch yourself!”

“Got me scared already, girl…” There was a tenderness between them as he wrapped up the conversation to let her go to sleep. “Sweet dreams, Neely J.”

They would be, if she ever got to sleep properly. Which, short of caving in to her masturbation-urge, seemed unlikely. She would try very hard to resist. “You too, Ray,” she said. “Sweet dreams.”

* * * *

13/06/10 22:48 GMT

Carlotta -

All’s well. Last night’s gamble paid off, it seems, and we’re firmly on track. Time to cool things for a little while – but this girl’s cunt is ready. It’s just her conscience that needs over-riding. And that’ll happen by degrees…

Ray

13/06/10 19:26 PST

Nice work, Ray. Glad to see you’re still in control of things, my cunning friend. I meant what I said – you nail hers, you get to nail mine. Any nasty way you like. Keep the faith.

Carlotta.