On the train between London and Brighton, you've got time to watch one of the world's biggest cities give way to country side, to dream about getting away for good one day, and to read your Sunday paper from cover to cover. But if you're the adventurous type, you might just find time to fuck with all the passion of two soul mates denied each other for too long. That's what happened to me, or should I say us not so long ago.
We'd not been getting on, Stuart and me - and I put it down to the fact that we were working and living together. It wasn't just the tension that was getting to me, I realised with a sense of horror that even the automatic, mindless, magnificent sex had dried up. Arguments went unsolved, anxiety gave birth to more anxiety, and I decided to do something about it.
We owed Stu's family a visit, so on our next day off together, we decided to jump on the train down to Brighton, which had the added bonus of giving us over an hour's worth of 'enforced' togetherness. Which is why I wore no knickers. Because Stu was on automatic pilot that morning, he didn't notice my glaring omission as we got dressed, nor did he see that I had shaved myself beautifully bare, and he wasn't to know that I was so ready to be fucked that I could feel my heart beating deep in my vagina. And I wasn't about to tell him. Let him find out for himself.
We hadn't arranged to be picked up from the station, because we decided that if the weather allowed it, we'd go for a leisurely nose around the Laines where you always hope you'll make the find of a lifetime, but where you invariably just get frustrated. So, despite the thunderclouds clinging ominously to the coast, we descended into the inner maze of Brighton.
When tropical rain fell fifteen minutes later, we were thoroughly unprepared, despite the obvious warnings, and by the time we'd tried and failed to find a cab, caught a bus, and walked the ten minutes to Stu's house, needless to say, we were soaked to the skin. Even as my clothes clung to me uncomfortably, I allowed myself an inward smile at the knowledge that my condition couldn't be blamed entirely on the weather.
We must have been quite a sight standing there at the door of this magnificent terraced house, puddles gathering at our feet. I was acutely aware of the transparency of my favourite summer top, and the fact that the sheer bra beneath was totally incapable of preserving my modesty. At least I had the grace to blush when the paternal look Stu's Dad gave me turned into something more primal at the discovery of my nipples peeking out from beneath two layers of virtual nothingness. But before the moment could become uncomfortable, Stu's sister poked her head round the door and told me that she could lend me some clothes while mine dried. Thankful for the interruption, and the hospitality, I followed Lauren upstairs, trying not to focus on the intense feelings being created by my lips rubbing together with each step I took.
Lauren's room was the sort that made you wish you could trade childhoods. High ceilings, sash windows, en-suite, walk-in wardrobe - it made me smile to think of my poster covered single room in Swansea. I must have been in one of my zones, because Lauren was waving her hand in front of my face with a look on her face that told me she clearly thought I was unhinged. With a shake of the head and a raise of the eyebrows I was back with her, and I grabbed the proffered towel and had an invigorating shower that did nothing to cool my ardour. When I got out it was then that I noticed her holding out a bra, t-shirt, knickers and track pants for me to wear. The T shirt was fine, as were the track pants - but there was simply no way in hell my breasts were going to fit into that bra, and I was surprised she hadn't thought of this herself.
"I know you're a little bigger than me in the boob department, Ali, but we can't have you prancing around without a bra - the men in the house wouldn't know what to do with themselves."
I laughed at her comment, and decided she was right considering the once over I had received from the head of the family just half an hour earlier. Lauren then gathered up the rest of my clothes to take them to the dryer, and looked suddenly confused.
"Um, I'll just dry your clothes for you, but - I can't find your knickers..."
"That'll be because there aren't any" I replied. At this she looked shocked, and I was secretly pleased at the prospect of being a comparative wild child.
"Right. None at all? Doesn't that feel - odd?" She enquired.
"Do you sleep in knickers?"
"No, but no-one sees me when I'm sleeping."
"And - unless something drastic happens, no one will see that I'm knickerless, either."
"Cool. So you won't be needing these, then, will you?" She smiled reaching out for the pretty knickers she'd just lent me.
"Not so fast!" I said, jerking them away from her, "as it happens, I could do with them on." And seeing as she didn't appear to be going anywhere in a hurry, I let the towel drape open and made to step into the knickers. At this point I heard a very audible gasp which caused me to look up, and I saw her eyes locked on my very naked vagina, and I realised without having to look that from her vantage point on the bed, she would have had a clear view of my wet, open sex.
"My God, you're wicked!" she declared. "No wonder Stu's always looking so smug!"
With that she clapped her hand over mouth as if she was afraid she'd say the wrong thing. For my part, I was half wishing she'd look away, and half wanting to hear her say the wrong thing.
"I take it you don't shave down there" I said.
"No, although I do keep it pretty short, I like a well tended garden."
Her attempt at levity was welcome, although I couldn't get rid of the feeling that there was an opportunity about to be lost forever.
"What do you call well tended?" I offered.
"You know - nothing peeking it's way around the edges, that sort of thing."
"Show me."
She looked stunned, but not frightened, or disgusted.
