Meeting an Actress

Winter penetrated the classroom. Cold lethargy firmly settled over Ian Abercrombie's Advanced American Literature class. Even the few good-looking coeds bound in light nipple tracing sweaters and woolen skirts short enough to reveal interesting amounts of well-turned legs failed boosting his spirit.

Bad as the climate was, news preceding this hour further worsened Abercrombie's mood.

The combination made him morose. Without any exertion beforehand Abercrombie's body felt sluggish, his overcoat a heavy mantle piled on his shoulders. Already regarded by faculty and students as stern, instinct told him he now showed an ogre's frown.

Fortunately falling snow masked most of his harder face outside.

After class' merciful end, fat snowflakes obscured the campus while he trudged back to his office. Inside the English Building, loud hissing steam pipes annoyed him as much as sniffling secretaries and snuffling colleagues.

Were Abercrombie still in the newspaper racket, at least one of his desk drawers would've held a quart bottle of bourbon. That was one hoary journalistic trait he missed. Of course it was another attribute of old journalism which horrified its new corporate overseers. All of which they meant to stamp out under stinking conformity.

Fairly soon the quirky personalities populating newsrooms, the ones who gave those offices individuality, would be sacrificed to homogeneity altogether. The Des Moines daily could just as soon share perspectives with San Francisco affiliates. B-school thinking applied to j-school products: rob the local and regional outlets of their distinctions, transform them into indistinguishable franchises, and lure undiscerning customers with safe sameness. After all it worked with burgers and fries.

Forget nourishment. Just deliver empty calories profitably. And fast. Somehow Abercrombie always saw good news as pungent and chewy.

Abercrombie's phone rang. Paul Lowery's happy voice filled his ear from Colorado.

"Two more feet over the last three days!" Lowery exclaimed. "On top of a two-foot base! Shit, man, we are in high cotton! Everybody gets laid tonight!"

Lowery had just returned from busting through virgin snow. Despite having his office blinds canted, the walls dazzled from the reflective glare blasting past slats. Coffee, cocoa and cinnamon waked the resort's recreational management suite. The cheeks of the paler female staff were ruddy, their smiles seemingly more vibrant.

After an hour of skiing through new money, Lowery barged into his office. There he fired up his PC, his opening page the online New York Times.

"Old habits are hard to break," Lowery said. "Especially when they've been browbeaten into you. Mrs. Pomfret, bless her witchy soul, would be giddy to know her constant harangues got through my thick skull. Even here in the Back Range."

"You saw it?" Abercrombie asked. "The obit?"

"Yeah. Sad to say."

Notable as they considered the deceased, both knew the woman too high-falutin' for any Denver Post or the Rocky Mountain Times mention. In the galaxy beyond the cosmopolitan Northeast and its L.A. outpost, she had thrived unknown.

"I think this is one of those signposts telling us we can start counting the days until we can't jump buildings in a single bound anymore," Abercrombie said.

Lowery guffawed at his friend's morbid exaggeration. "Christ, Ian! She the first chick you've ever banged go out and die on you!?"

On the other end in New York Abercrombie smiled.

"Just think, Ian. If you hadn't dragged us to all those damn movies with subtitles, nobody could commiserate with you."

Abercrombie scoffed. "Yours isn't a sympathy call."

"Why sure it is," Lowery purred. "I'm damned sorry I'll never see her naked again in another picture. I'm just going to have to survive on muscle memories."

In 1989 Paul Lowery attended business courses in London. Despite a seven-year reprieve since his last classroom attendance, he jumped at the opportunity of that graduate summer. At the end of the 80s he merely served as one more miniscule cog in corporate America. He felt himself becoming grayer than his suits.

Stipends floated him, while a university-affiliated UK Realtor found him an Earls Court flat. Perhaps once the building had housed a hotel. Those glory days long gone, the structure had been converted into short-term apartments. Ideally at least. Squeezed as the rentals were, Lowery couldn't imagine anyone making that his or her address for long.

The Paki managing the property promptly collected rents but lagged behind upkeep and repairs. Lowery lived on the fifth floor. Weak water pressure reduced his shower to unreliable trickles. When it operated the lift transformed those flights into Coney Island rattle rides.

Inconveniences aside, Lowery's flat offered three marvelous amenities. One, it was private. Two, the view gazed over westward London slates. Three, recent issues of Tatler, Blitz, Melody Maker and NME littered the coffee table.

The first meant having visitors minus regarding any roommates' sensibilities. The second helped beguile those women he eventually lured and snaked there. The third burnished his cool quotient. Desirous of news from America, Lowery of course read the International Herald Tribune. But to signal he was "going native" Lowery usually had copies of the Sun or Daily Mirror carelessly placed strategically.

Nevertheless only an undergraduate could've mistaken this pit for commodious. A further detraction: that summer normally temperate London, all Europe for that matter, often sweltered under Gulf Coast sultriness.

Having gotten situated, Lowery invited his now inseparable friends from college, Abercrombie and Ransome Farrell. His offer to Farrell was a courtesy. The second man toiled proudly in what portended a professional military career. However, should he be assigned a fortuitous posting, Lowery's other best friend had somewhere else to flop. From which both could exploit the city's party centrals, a la college.

Except now with impressive gravitas, greater suavity and more money.

Back in the late 80s Abercrombie still wrote for newspapers. Until Lowery's invitation, he never considered applying for a passport, much less travel abroad.

They reverted to freshman days during Abercrombie's first week. Their accents and ready Yank cash attracted those not-so-rare shop girls and secretaries seeking amusement.

Then, Americans had over a decade yet before earning the planet's enmity. Besides, the Soviet Empire still lurked menacingly and civilization required resolute ideologues for its protection.

Freshman revival, though, took its toll on the now 30-year-olds. Lowery's classroom diligence became spotty, if not outright bumpy. Their stamina flagged at weeks' end.

Nonetheless ...

Abhorring generalizations as he did, Abercrombie quickly concluded English roses must've been an entirely different species than their North American sisters. Such distinctions bypassed Lowery. All he sought were warm, tight, wet babes in whom to bury his dick.

To him the difference amounted between plonk and Chateau Lafitte. The goal remained the same.

Whereas too many American women prefaced their carnal congress with arbitrary good-girl reluctance, Canadians cool almost dismissive along the horizontal route, the Latin variations unbridled while committing the acts only crippled by religious remorse afterwards, the English were sexually precocious. They were ahead of the game.

Although Abercrombie sensed the difference almost from the start, years passed before he fully sorted it out to his satisfaction. Even then ...

They began their evenings in pubs. Pub grub further sodden under HP sauce fortified them. Neatly drawn pints rounded a lot of edges. The barkeep's 11 o'clock "time!" bellow (the early closing hour an archaic holdover from the Great War) sent them reeling into night. There the Americans immediately learned to check right first rather than left before crossing streets.

Lowery always knew of nearby cellars masquerading as dance palais. Inside them the two Yanks invariably attracted a like number of women. Abercrombie never discovered whether their accents or clothing (right down to freshly buffed shoes) baited women. Perhaps it was as simple as new meat amidst so many old cuts.

Both were tall and broad shouldered, Lowery leaner than the much muscular Abercrombie. Short neat hair topped their confident demeanors.

Ascertaining then synthesizing some personal particulars, and struggling not to respond in processed fashion, began that evening's quartet's binding. Were there any reserved women around these hours, Lowery and Abercrombie managed evading them altogether. The pair drew flirty and tart ones. Their eyes lively orbs below the era's bias hairstyles, rubbery painted mouths ready to elongate the syllables and vowels Americans properly bit off.

Alas, nary a one compared to either Wendy James or Christine Amphlett.

The dieting mania was less pernicious then. More often plump in its succulent permutations, the girls forced the Yanks, accustomed to measured and not monumental idealization, to appreciate pale bountiful bosoms jiggling atop scooped waists whose hips and flanks were dense packs beneath the foreigners' large palms.

First impressions greatly influenced future resolutions, yes. However, what proceeded actually decided the matter.

It wasn't the drinks the toffs stood. Or rather, plied the women with. Nor was it the men's feigned interest which further relaxed the women. Neither did it derive from them purposely mispronouncing British English or bollixing certain subject/verb agreements.

No. Abercrombie and Lowery usually found themselves escorting nattering women back to the latter's Earls Court fifth-floor lair for sighing/sweating/swearing fuck sessions by strutting their stuff on the pleasure parquet. While neither man would never have guaranteed his sinuous moves foretold sensual aptitude, their undulations certainly paved the way for a lot of happy-end discovery.

Unlike too many men worldwide, the Americans were two who determined dancing as the best way to initially impress women. And surely it helped both enjoyed shakin' 'em on down.

Where American women would've voiced dismay at screwing with a friend so near, the English women Lowery and Abercrombie ploughed skipped unnecessary modesty. Their attitudes realistic because Lowery's flat stinted on acoustics as well as roominess. One clearly heard cushions squish, springs squeak and hot flesh meet. Far as space itself, the sofa ruled what served as sitting room. In the sleeper, dark blocky dressers and an armoire hemmed in the pallet-width bed.

The Yanks made the most of such limitations. Although Abercrombie and Lowery didn't introduce foreplay to the British Isles, they certainly practiced it!

Oral adroitness and manual dexterity not only compelled female subordination but reaped their sincerest gratitude. Some mornings the lads had women regarding them with near divinity.

Both were proficient, Abercrombie the more "caring" of the pair. He attended women's mysteries with unhurried tenderness. His tongue tip slowly, for some wonderfully agonizing, sought out concealed lips' secrets. Thus whetted, he crept into the honeyed canals seeking merely to tickle nubs. Once found, Abercrombie lingered there, his tongue's cleverness making them crumble into waves.

Seeing a woman was on her way, he'd let his fingers softly jab deep-rooted messages her instincts decoded. Abercrombie's big fingers, especially his outsized knuckles, prompted indecipherable declarations among her sharp catches of breath.

Given over to tidal forces, he'd mouth and lick her nipples. Sometimes she'd grab the back of his head imploring him farther.

Although a few pled for his cock, Abercrombie never rushed. His internal sense timed when he plunged.

Several mornings he awoke being drowsily called "torturer" or "beast" by the previous night's partner. Naturally "torturer" or "beast" from a dreamily disposed Brit chick flattered him. As it ought have.

When the moment right, the excited woman beneath him hurriedly abetted his maneuvering. More than one tugged on his cock hard enough to jerk errant pubic hairs or dislodge otherwise fast johnny bag sheathing him.

Lowery learned that also like their American sisters, British women exhibited little restraint or reserve when "willy" was very good to them. From what Lowery heard happening beneath him and out of the other room, he believed he and his friend induced plenty of horizontal Tourettes.

He was a much harsher master than Abercrombie. While the reporter rigged his game by ragging time before settling into fixed rhythm, his friend placed little value on thoroughly eating pussy and diligent diddling. Therefore devoting less time and effort on both, he preferred becoming a steady ramrod from the first beat.

Lowery fucked violently. He often numbed women under him. Their eyes, when open, were vacant; heads lolled; his driving made arms useless; tits, big tits especially, heaved through his application of rough physics.

Legs became his to support while their bodies shuddered. Afterwards, on those few times he considered past moments, Lowery wondered whether the women succumbed to his raw insistence and believed it pleasure or had repetition crossed over into surrendered enjoyment?

Either man's guest usually remained overnight. In Lowery's case through exhaustion; with Abercrombie satisfied comfort.

Unless it a weekend, when morning grayed the previous night's guests couldn't lounge around. They needed to clock in at work. More than once Lowery and Abercrombie stood aside or reclined while two female cyclones showered then primped, making the best of the prior night's clothing. Tiny as the bathroom was, both girls somehow fit and shared the mirror to simultaneously apply new makeup, daub fresh perfume, smoke cigarettes and gulp dodgily brewed coffee.

Hurried but plaintive "byes" followed emptied cups.

During those laggard intervals between rousing and rushing Abercrombie noticed how daylight accentuated their respective complexions.

Perhaps like tens of thousands of Southwestern undergraduates the two men indulged themselves under the sun. Since then such carefree days of wandering around shirtless wearing only shorts and flip-flops had become precious. Work rarely lent itself to prime tanning. Nonetheless their faces and arms caught fair amounts of sunlight.

Compared to the Britons, Abercrombie and Lowery could've been Torrid Zone aboriginals.

On the streets, clothed, the disparity wasn't clear. Only naked did it become apparent.

Except for the odd Maltese or Gibraltan, the women were powdery pale from head to toe. Most even recognized the Americans' "colour." Envy often underlined the women's comments.

The two men remarked years later that England had given them greater appreciations of two rather ordinary words. The first, "love" tickled their ears as "luv." The other, "darling," left itself open to more interpretations than "really."

Any itinerary Abercrombie had planned got scotched his first days in London. Many of the touristy sites he glimpsed by happenstance. However, thanks to a road-clogging tube strike, he gaped at Queen Elizabeth. HRM's motorized retinue had been solidly stuck in commoners' traffic. She looked regally unamused.

A weekend in Amsterdam was Lowery's and Abercrombie's random choice. The former realized his studies and stamina suffered. The latter accepted his host's admission better than hoped. For the guest too was running down.

The remedy Lowery proposed suited both. It was the sort of decision three decades of living manifested. One without remorse or recrimination. The kind 18-year-olds couldn't possibly fathom for another decade or so.

Instead of burning through the gallivanting candle using a blowtorch on both ends, Lowery would properly resume his academic load leaving his friend to explore the Continent. Weekends they'd meet somewhere in order to dance that mess around again.

Perfect! Mondays through late Thursdays Lowery attended his lectures fully conscious as Abercrombie did his best refuting the abstruse American stereotype.

An overnight ferry from Harwich delivered them to the Hook of Holland. No gambling. No duty free. Just breakfast.

At disembarkation they trained into Amsterdam. The short blue and egg yolk locomotive made all local stops.

The duo chugged through polders in a sparsely peopled carriage. A single woman and two couples also enjoyed the passing countryside. The woman sat in the seat ahead, her back to them. One couple sat in the aisle beside, the other stuffed corner seats.

Thanks to the woman's prompting all within earshot discovered her neighbors visited from Oklahoma. Apparently she hoped drawing them out through questions. Despite her wheedling, the Okies answered monosyllabically.

'Maybe they're just overwhelmed,' Abercrombie thought. 'Or maybe it's just being from Oklahoma.'

Abercrombie deduced this train carried few passengers. The peddler trundled her cart with frequency. Unaware of the paucity of customers, Lowery bought a decent beer supply on her first swing. Unfortunately the stubby green cans held insufficient suds. Worse, the railroad charged rip-off prices for pony amounts.

Obviously the vendor knew the woman sitting ahead. Every pass let them converse familiarly in Dutch. Probably gossip.

Lowery suggested that at the next station they bolt on a beer run. Every station had a sundries store. He'd already checked the schedule. Ten minutes to sprint back and forth, filling a bag and paying in between.

"Piece of cake," he said. "Just as long as the locals don't mistake it for a jailbreak."

Though the desolate train station seemed lacking, its store offered the essentials: rolling papers, crisps, rubbers and, yes, beer. They sat in their carriage with minutes to spare.

During their absence the woman ahead of them reversed her seating. She now faced them. Abercrombie hazily recognized the ginger-haired stranger but Lowery distracted him before he solidly identified her.

All the carriages weren't furnished with WC's. The car behind lacked; the front of theirs had one. That restroom attracted a head-swerving promenade. By stroke of dumb luck all needing relief were female, quite tall, shapely. Red-blooded American males as Abercrombie and Lowery were, both felt obliged to eye-ball each who passed.

Their antics embarrassed the Oklahomans. Yet they amused the woman facing them. Abercrombie evaluated her during a lull. His internal clock must've been slow. He stared at her long enough to unnerve himself. She, though, accepted his impertinence with aplomb.

A fair-complexioned redhead, the woman appeared comfortably disposed. The lower portion of her round face inclined towards involuntary mirth. Mischief flashed behind her blue eyes. Turquoise combs kept her ginger in check. All except for a thick red flip which exaggerated the carriage's minor sway. Occasionally that flip tumbled across her forehead, swiping her nose and eyes.

Delicate fingers restored the rebellious lank but never for long. When she smiled at Abercrombie slick curling lips whose ends twisted into whirlpools framed perfect teeth.

Dimples put a name to her face.

Forgetting they clacked through the Netherlands, and presuming she'd understand, Abercrombie said, "I know you."

She answered in dulcet-toned, Dutch-accented English. "Do you?"

Lowery whose mind had been elsewhere took notice of his friend's contact. Pretty women always interested him. Those bearing pert breasts -- like this honey -- especially interested him. He asked Abercrombie to introduce them.