Gemma’s suggestion of an afternoon’s horseriding was just the right prescription for me. To be out in the fresh country air, away from the inescapable wind-blown dust of the rubble-strewn, earthquake-stricken city, to empty my head of the stresses of the past few days and the emotional turmoil that Fenella had stirred up in me, and to focus mentally and physically on controlling a powerful, beautiful animal, using the skills Gemma had taught me - yes, that was exactly what I needed.

We went to the stables in Gemma’s Range Rover. She had phoned ahead, and as we walked into the reception area a young blonde woman, pretty and trim in a check bush shirt and nicely clinging jodhpurs, was waiting for us with a warm smile. She was new since the last time I had visited.

“Hi Gemma.”

“Hello Kylie. This is my niece Joanna.”

We shook hands. Hers was soft, with delicately-shaped fingers but a strong grip, “Holly and Buster are all saddled up and ready for you, Gemma,” she said. Buster, a large, spirited chestnut stallion, was Gemma’s own horse; Holly, a smaller, and quieter dapple-grey mare, was the horse Gemma usually booked for me.

“You put my other saddle on Holly, did you?” Gemma asked.

“Oh yes.” I sensed something knowing in Kylie’s voice and the almost imperceptible smile that flickered across her face.

“Nice girl,” Gemma murmured lingeringly, in a tone that suggested she was mentally fondling Kylie’s quite caressable bottom, as we walked out into the yard where the head stable girl, Annette Vickery, was holding the reins of both horses. I knew Annette from many previous visits: a compact, almost jockey-built woman in her mid-forties, with a slightly weatherbeaten face, who ran the stables with firm competence and was known as an expert horsewoman as well as a ferociously accurate snooker and pool player. Cheeks were kissed warmly all round before Gemma and I mounted up and rode out of the yard.

Gemma had a long-standing permission from a local sheep farmer to ride over his land, which was mostly grassy paddocks, with bits of tussock and scrub and some lightly wooded areas. We made our way at a walking pace to what we called our Steeplechase paddock. It sloped slightly downwards and was about a kilometre and a half from the upper to the lower pine shelterbelt, with rows of four drinking troughs conveniently arrayed at roughly half-kilometre intervals. Conveniently for us, that is, because they marked out a course for our Steeplechase, which was what we were going to do now.

We rode up to the top shelterbelt and turned to face down the length of the paddock. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Gemma easing herself forward in the saddle so that her crotch would be pressing gently against the special mound built into the front of the saddle; I did the same, and felt the familiar flicker of pleasure as my clit responded. She looked towards me, gave the nod I was waiting for, and we started walking our horses forward.

The rules of the game were simple. At the first row of troughs we would speed the horses to a trot, then at the second row to a canter, the object being to see which of us had achieved more orgasms by the time we pulled up at the lower shelterbelt – strict honesty being taken for granted, and the loser to buy the drinks at the pub on the way home, with each of us having to buy our own in the case of a tie. Another rule was that we keep our horses more or less abreast – it was an orgasm race, not a horse race. Both of us cum very easily, and a score of two was not uncommon. Once or twice there had been a score of three – more often by Gemma. It just depended on how horny we might be at the time – or how focussed.

Something else I hope I’ll have when I’m her age is her sexual stamina. Even before drawing level with the first row of troughs I knew I was not going to make it to three; Gemma’s earlier attentions had made serious inroads on my orgasmic capacity. But she might be another matter. I don’t know where she gets it from; whatever she’s having, I’ll have some of the same, please.

One of Gemma’s very characteristic orgasmic patterns is a sequence of three climaxes in a row, with hardly a break between them, each stronger than the one before. There’s a pause after the first, while she draws a few gasping breaths, then the second one begins to build. She doesn’t really do anything to start it; it’s as if some kind of dynamo deep inside her starts up and begins sending out pulses of erotic energy all through her body, and she gets caught up in the current – at least that’s how she describes it. Then no sooner has that orgasm erupted, much more powerfully than the first, than the process starts again, even more strongly. By this time not only is her face flushed scarlet, the flush is spreading down her neck, over her shoulders and down her back and front, and before she’s finished – or, rather, before her third orgasm has finished with her – even her breasts will be suffused with a rich rose colour. And on her way to that third orgasm Gemma typically becomes a wild, feral creature driven by some elemental force from god-knows-where. Typhoon Gemma is my name for her when she’s in this state. Sometimes she doesn’t just moan and scream but grunts, roars and bellows. Her face becomes distorted into a savage grimace, with wide staring eyes, lips drawn way back from her teeth, tongue splaying out of her mouth, spittle flying on her gusting breath.

I was still only seventeen when I first experienced this three-orgasm phenomenon, and on that first occasion it initially terrified me. For one thing, I was underneath her, she lying between my widespread thighs. Being a fully grown woman, she was considerably bigger and more physically powerful than the girl I still was, and to have her weight pounding down on me as she thrust her cunt against my pubis, seemingly uncontrollably, was literally quite bruising. For another, I had never imagined, let alone witnessed, such a transformation in another human being. Even more shocking to me at the time was that she triggered a responding capacity for sexual frenzy that I had never dreamed might be lurking within myself.

She tells me that I am one of just a few people with whom over the years she has felt able to let go to this extent (I suspect that another one might be Annette at the stables), but that when on her own she quite often gives herself what she calls one of her “triple treats”.

These being such noisy occasions, it’s as well she hasn’t got near neighbours.

That morning Gemma’s lovemaking had been more like a gentle but powerfully erotic massage, focussing on pleasuring me, and knowing just where and how to use lips, tongue, fingers and her entire body, especially her breasts, to make me cum intensely again and again with little effort on her part. Her own climaxes had been relatively quiet, and I had probably had three or four to her one or two; at several points in fact she had restrained my attempts to return caresses.

So I knew her sexual energy banks would be pretty well full, even after our pre-lunch romp – which meant that I’d probably be buying the drinks.

My first orgasm took me by surprise when we were about half-way down the paddock; one moment I couldn’t feel much happening – then the muscles in my cunt, arse and belly suddenly began to contract strongly and deliciously, squeezing a cry from me, and currents of sensation curled my toes, making me fight against the impulse to straighten my legs ramrod-stiff as I sometimes do when I cum.

I sat back in the saddle for a few moments, recovering some of my breath, then eased forward again, feeling that magical mound pushing firmly against my crotch and delivering delicious rhythmic pressure in time with Holly’s and my reciprocal movements.

I was getting noticeably wet. Soon my stomach muscles were clenching rhythmically, squeezing the breath out of me, and with each exhalation I could feel my vocal cords vibrating in a low-pitched growl. I was having to open my mouth to gulp in more air. Through my bra I could feel my shirt brushing against my already hard nipples, sending pulses of pleasure flashing through every fibre in my body. I was having to fight to control my hands so as to control Holly. I was close, and getting closer; but already we were into the final half-kilometre canter.

I looked sideways at Gemma. I could see a tell-tale flush on her face; her hips were making powerful movements – up, down, backwards, forwards. Borne through the rushing of the air over my ears as well as the sound of Holly’s breathing and hoofbeats and my own increasingly loud gasps and cries of approaching orgasm, I heard breathy yells that told me Gemma’s third climax must be very close indeed.

As I started to rein Holly in, still post-orgasmically shuddering and shaking in the saddle, I heard Gemma explode. If Buster had not been such a superbly trained and obedient animal, she would have had trouble controlling him; but I could see that he was already slowing to a trot - rather like a cavalry horse trained to keep calm under fire, I thought incongruously.

I dismounted, still breathless and shaky on my feet, tethered Holly to a stump, and turned to see Gemma, bent over Buster’s neck, patting him with a trembling hand, her shoulders heaving and shuddering. I could see aftershocks slamming through her, hear the almost animal grunts that punctuated each convulsion. Weakly she held up one hand, a thumb and two fingers extended, and I nodded and smiled in reply. There could be no question of not believing her.

I went over to her and reached out to pat her thigh, then her back, and then stood with my arm resting across the back of the saddle. Presently she made to dismount, and I braced to hold her steady as she slid down to the ground.

There was no way she was going to be able to stand, and I started to lower her to the grass. As I did so, she grabbed me and pulled me down on top of her, opening her thighs to envelop my hips. “Come here,” she grunted, “there’s one more in me. Come on. Fuck me hard. Fuck me fast. Come on – fuckmefuckmefuckmefuck…fuck…fuck…fuck!” She grabbed my hips and pulled me so that my crotch rode up over hers, then pushed me back. Pull, push, pull, push, up, down, faster, harder… My own body took up the movement, making it bigger, stronger, faster – and in no time at all we were cunt to cunt, shagging each other’s brains out through our clothes.

It didn’t take either of us long to cum yet again, and then I collapsed onto her and we lay, panting and groaning, utterly spent, my head pillowed on her heaving breasts. She gave a huge, shuddering sigh, then pulled me up by the hair and kissed me full on the mouth, and we continued to lie there as if sucking each other’s souls out of our bodies.

Amazingly, Buster and Holly had stood calmly, grazing through it all.

Presently I raised my head and looked down into her wide-open eyes. Gemma’s usual drink on these occasions was a double Glenfiddich. “This calls for a triple at least, I think,” I said. “You’ll really need a stiff one inside you after this.”

Gemma started to giggle at the double-entendre. “Naughty girl!” She smacked my bottom; then we were both rolling from side to side in helpless laughter.

We at last got shakily to our feet, went through the motions of tidying ourselves up, retrieved our riding helmets from where they had fallen from our heads at some stage in our proceedings, and rode gently back to the stables; I was sure Gemma must be feeling at least as tender round the seat as I did. As we said goodbye to Kylie I thought I saw that knowing expression flit across her face again.

Gemma handed me the car keys. “Even without a drink inside me I think it would be better if I didn’t drive.”

The pub we stopped at used to be called “The Lincoln Arms” – then a thirty-something couple, Joe and Bronwen Sturgis, took it over and, as part of what they considered to be a necessary image upgrade (their word for it), renamed it “The Cheeky Fox.” In the forecourt stands a traditional–style inn sign portraying the head of a fox, whiskers and ears jauntily angled, flashing a broad wink, while across the whitewashed front of the building a fresco depicts a running fox looking back over its shoulder with the same wink, lifting its tail and blowing a fart at a pack of vainly pursuing hounds.

Bronwen was at the bar when we walked in. She looked us up and down in our riding gear, and we must have still looked a bit dishevelled, because she asked us cheerily, “Been through a few hedges backwards today, have we, ladies?”

I ordered a pinot gris for myself and the triple Glenfiddich I had promised Gemma, at which Bronwen whistled mock-dramatically. “Wow - celebrating a successful flutter on the horses are we?”

“Mmmm.” Gemma flashed her a cat-that’s-had-the-cream smile. “Sort of.”