My daughters friend Francesca is one of those lovely quiet women who underestimates her own beauty. She has been a loyal friend to Delia since the two met at university. Delia is twenty-three and the spitting image of her late mother, Nessy. Vanessa died to leukemia two years ago. One day she was feeling run down, the next she went to hospital to get some blood tests and never came home. Three weeks later she was dead.
Francesca was a wonderful support for Delia through her grief and I think that's what makes them so close now. She's slightly older; I don't know her exact age but she's older than Delia. Perhaps her relative maturity, combined with her fierce loyalty is what solidifies their friendship. She is also the most spectacularly beautiful woman I have ever seen naked. No offence, Nessy. Let me explain how I came to this evaluation.
I work in a soulless accounts department. It pays bills and crushes my will to live quite reliably. Today, the power went out unexpectedly after an afternoon thunderstorm, so 'oh the eternal horror', we were told to pack up and go home early. Being Friday, you can understand my absolute heartbreak at leaving the computer terminal.
Except outside... Despite the recent deluge; the fierce winds and carnage, in the wake of the storm the temperature has returned to what it was this morning. Now, it's just muggy as well as bloody hot. I put on my helmet, tied my briefcase to the pillion seat of my bike and thumbed the ignition. Thankfully, the lining of my helmet soaked the rivulets of sweat that tried to run down my forehead into my eyes.
They reckon every twenty kilometres an hour makes for minus one degree's Celsius of windchill. My calculations tell me that at legal speeds that will still only drop the temperature by five degrees or so. I live about thirty kilometres out of the city in a little town called Peak Crossing and enjoyed the ride home and the slight reprieve from the crushing heat and humidity.
On arriving home, I parked in the garage, picked up a black garden bucket, stopped at the fridge and filled it with six beers and ice. Then I went directly to the pool area. The power was out locally as well, so the air-conditioning was going to be no help, but the landscaped pool seemed like the best option.
Poolside, I stripped and dipped. That's what privacy fences are for. I felt pretty safe, but still a little schoolboy skinny dip naughty. Delia usually stays at Francesca's place on campus on Friday nights and comes home some time Saturday afternoon after waking up from clubbing. I took a beer from the bucket and found my favourite spot to chill; under the water feature in the deeper end. It's shaded by palms and offers relent from the sun that beats down brutally.
Two hawks circled high above in the still ominous cloudy sky. I watched them hunt and my mind drifted with them as my body cooled. My beer was almost empty when I was startled by the sound of the screen door opening and closing.
Looking up, I almost spoke in welcome as I saw Francesca step out on the tiles. She looked hot and pissed off, so I sipped my beer and watched her pull her hair out of its bun. Her father is Asian and her mother Italian, so her hair is this dark straight cleopatra cut waterfall that she combs now with her fingers.
Then my beer freezes at my lips as I see her glance left then right then rip her blouse straight up and off. Now I've seen her in her bikini on weekends when she visits with Delia, but standing there struggling with the clasp of her simple black bra, I'm struck frozen by the tan lines and swollen breasts that press above the cups. The cups that suddenly fall away, discarded to the tiles.
Francesca wipes her hands under her breasts scowling at the sweaty weather and lifts them and squeezes them, then stretches her neck. They're large but pert with youth and she must feel it in her neck. Her skin is that wonderful olive tan that she works hard on, but her breasts are a lighter latte colour, crowned with nipples that are very long and hard.
From her backpack she pulls a red bikini top and settles her breasts into its cups after tying it and clipping it closed at the back. Lifting them and assembling them correctly with her hands she smiles and then I almost drop my beer when she hooks her fingers in the waist of her leggings and pulls them and her knickers down quickly over her knees and then pulls each foot free.
Lifting the leggings, she uses them to wipe her tummy and legs clean of sweat and throws them to fall with her blouse. I watch as she cocks one knee to the side and fuck... She takes a finger and curls it into her vagina. Her shaven vagina. She seems to dig around a bit, she's not masturbating, then draws her finger to her nose and sniffs.
Satisfied apparently, she pulls a pair of matching bikini bottoms from her bag and pulls them up over her long legs to settle them in place and flick the back properly with her fingers to un-wedgie it. She's a very tall girl and the journey of her bottoms up her legs seemed to take forever. I watched every inch, memorising the length and shape of her legs.
Her hips flare beneath her waist and her bum; my god; Sports Illustrated style perfection. I swallow a hard lump in my throat and develop a very hard lump in the water and watch as she looks curiously at my black bucket.
Walking towards it, she stops. She frowns hard at the bucket and the pile of my clothes beside it, then looks back inside the windows to the house. She shrugs and takes a beer, opens it, lifts it to her lips and her eyes to mine where she finally sees me in the darker part of the pool at the back.
Both of us are frozen with our beers to our lips. Her in embarrassment. Me in awe. Her arm starts shaking, her bottom lip folds in and her chin quivers then she drops the beer in the bucket and runs crying inside.
Fuck.
Moments later my phone starts ringing from my trouser pocket, so I swim my silly erection over toward that side of the pool and fetch it from my pants.
"Dad?"
"Delie darlin?"
"What the fuck is going on? Fran rang me in tears. All I can get out of her is something about you being naked and her fingering herself. What the actual, Dad?"
"Oh god Delie," I shake my head and tell her the story and that I'll, "try going in to talk with her."
"That's actually pretty funny Dad, but I bet she's fucking scarlet. I forgot to tell you we were coming home this arvo. She finished early cause the power was out on her campus. I'll be there in thirty minutes or so. Good luck. Be gentle. Who am I kidding? You're a teddy bear. Love ya Daddio."
"You too kiddo."
I had the forethought to bring a towel with me, so I wrap that around my waist and collect two new beers from the bucket. Hell knows I needed one.
"Fran darlin?" I hold out a beer to her. She looks up with her red eyes and grimaces, taking it from me. "Can we talk, hon?"
She nods and sniffs.
"I'm sorry love, I got home early and didn't expect anyone. Through the week I don't bother with clothes. I'm sorry you had to be mentally harmed by the dad bod."
Opening her beer, she just shakes her head and cries some more. I stand to find the girl tissues and she says, "I'm sorry you had to see what you saw."
"Trust me darlin, no creepy, but you have not got a fucking single thing to be sorry for." I hand her the tissues. "You're absolutely stunning. I think I'll frame that mental image."
"Haha..." It's wonderful to see her smile through her embarrassment. "Thanks Mr Br-"
"Fran, we've had this talk."
"Sorry Paul." She finally makes eye contact. "Sorry about the... ugh, the finger thing. I wasn't you know..."
I shrug. I really don't know. If any man tells you he really knows what chicks are up to ninety percent of the time, he's full of shit.
"My... god... my periods are due and I..." She's crying again.
"Fran, I was married for twenty-three years and I have a daughter. I understand your embarrassment but really wish you'd give yourself a break. We all do things in private that other people wouldn't necessarily understand."
"That's not it. I just... It's you... I didn't want... Not you to see... Not you."
I have no idea what she's on about or what to say so I just sit and drink my beer and watch her shoulders bob in time with her sobs.
