"You didn't come?"
In the past I've had partners take this personally so I wanted to put her mind at rest. Fact is, for me at least, it just takes longer as I get older. The fact that lately there's usually a fairly strong analgesic wandering around my circulatory system, definitely makes a difference. Whatever. The fact is it takes me quite a while to finish these days, which is a bit of a two edged sword. To be honest I've come to believe that the need to spurt jism into, or onto a partner is as much a socialised thing as a biological imperative. Fucking feels good in so many ways. Orgasm is the cherry on the cake, but it's still good to eat the cake, even if you set the cherry aside, right? How to say all this and more to the girl looking at me now?
"Old age I think. It doesn't matter as much as it did when I was seventeen - I had a great time."
A shout down to Nicola gave us five minutes grace to shower, which we did together, and it seems a shame to condense all of the fun we had doing it into one short sentence, but five wet, laughing, slippery minutes later, we were back in our clothes and through the bedroom door. The unmistakeable aroma of Italian food was waiting on the other side and suddenly I was aware of how hungry I was.
Nicola had made an effort with the presentation. She'd left the worktop lights on in the kitchen area and turned the main lights off. The lower floor was open plan, with a kitchen area at the far end, partitioned off from the living area by a breakfast bar. Between the two, in a pool of candlelight, a circular table was set for a meal. Alison and I walked past the sofabed and armchairs that denoted the living area. At the far end of the room, on the breakfast bar a folded tea towel lay next to a large bowl of salad and a stack of plates. Nicola sat on a stool, behind the breakfast bar, facing us, a glass of wine in her hand which she raised in a salute as we approached.
"How are you feeling guys? Nice and relaxed Ali?"
"Mmmmmm, very. But suddenly I feel hungry for some reason."
"Yeah, that relaxing works up an appetite doesn't it?" returned Nic with a knowing look.
"Well, as the most "relaxed" lady in the Golden state, I guess you'd know about that." returned Alison, somewhat archly.
"Aaah, don't sell yourself short mate, that's a joint title and you know it!"
"That sounds like a story I want to hear." I responded as the girls grinned at each other.
"Yeah, I bet you do." replied Nic, draining her wine. "And sparing my poor bruised ankle by grabbing the Lasagne out of the oven will earn you points towards that. Put the dish on the tea towel..."
Soon we were sitting down to eat and for a while conversation stopped as we applied ourselves to the food in front of us. The lasagne was delicious and the salad spoke to my tastebuds of the inventive mind of its creator. I'm not going to try to analyse it. I caught a hint of garlic and tabasco in the dressing, and the roasted pine nuts were a nice touch. The point is, it was put together by someone who cared. Nicola basked in her well earned compliments. Even Alison, presumably more familiar with her friend's culinary skills, seemed to think she'd outdone herself.
But soon the edge was taken off our hunger and conversation resumed. The girls told me their story: They were from Perth and were spending a year travelling and working their way around the UK, with a vague intention to go further afield. Nicola's grandfather was originally from Kent and Nicola had always wanted to go there. Nic idolised her grandfather. He was fifteen at the outbreak of the Second World War and he'd joined the army as soon as he was old enough. He'd have joined sooner, but his father, a veteran of the trenches, had taken him for a long walk during which he broke his twenty-year silence on the subject, to tell his son of boys, himself one of them, who had rushed off in patriotic fervour, many of them lying about their age in their eagerness to join the great adventure. The war he described was a terrible thing. A machine that ate youth and vitality. Those it didn't destroy it spat back out as old men in young bodies, the boys they'd once been, lost forever. The message wasn't lost on Nic's grandfather. He joined up on his eighteenth birthday, and in the two and a half years preceding that, he did his best to never miss an opportunity to have fun, regardless of the consequences. He'd survived the war, but on his return had been completely unable to settle back into the life he'd known before, and so he'd left it behind, emigrating to Australia, where he'd spent the next twelve years drifting across the continent. Eventually he'd met Nic's Grandma in Perth and settled there. Nic had loved the old man fiercely. The light in her eyes said it so eloquently that she didn't need to say the words. Hell. I'd never met the guy and in ten minutes Nic had me in love with him too. I want someone to remember me like that.
"Here's to your Grandad Nic. He sounds like one in a million." We clinked glasses...
Alison smiled fondly at her friend as she told the story of her Grandfather and how he'd made his way from a village just outside Gravesend, to Perth. She'd heard the stories many times before, but she never tired of watching her tell them. Then as they lowered their glasses after toasting the old man's memory, Nic asked their guest for his story...
Phil's family wasn't a close one. He'd joined the army after leaving school early, as much to get away from his parents as any other reason. Lifelong issues with authority had meant it wasn't the best environment for him. and after not quite nine years he'd been medically discharged, when it was discovered he was virtually deaf in one ear.
"I'd love to tell you a story with bullets and bombs in, but it was probably firing a rifle without ear protection that did it. Mind you, after the Andytown bomb everyone's ears were ringing for a week. My mistake was telling someone about it."
He'd left the army with no trade, and a skillset that was of no real use in civilian life. He'd spent some of his discharge money on a trip to India. He'd meant to stay three months but ended up spending a year there. That's what saved him, he tells them with a grin.
"Is that where you learned to give those *wonderful* backrubs?" asked Nic with a theatrical sigh, drawing out the word "Wonderful" and gazing longingly into the distance as if remembering a lost love. Phil laughed and Alison shook her head, grinning.
"last time I saw ham like that, it was on offer in Waitrose. A fan of the Shatner school of acting I see."
"Well, *I* thought it was nice, and I know Alison agrees because I heard her agreeing quite loudly while I was making the salad." she replied teasingly. "So is that where you learned? In India?"
"That's where I realised that everything I knew about the human body was about either damaging it or fixing the damage someone else had done. I decided to learn how to do something nice." replied Phil. "So what prompted you to leave Perth? Or was it just time to go?"
"I guess Fran's wedding is what really did it." Said Alison. She was speaking to Nicola. "The wedding, and bloody Lyndsey Nolan and her friends."
"Yeah. Nasty Nolan." added Nic'. "Still, she did do us a favour in one way, I mean she brought us together in the way only a common enemy can."
"Well there's that." agreed Alison, "But honestly, what is it about people who need someone else to be miserable so they can be happy? Fuck her."
"So what did she do to drive you away from your hometown?" I asked as she refilled our glasses. "It sounds like she made an impression."
Alison told the story. She was a bridesmaid at a cousin's wedding. Nicola was there as a guest. They were friends at this point, but not especially close friends. Anyway outside the church, after the ceremony, the bride had tossed the bouquet and Alison had been horrified to see it descending towards her. Without thinking, she'd stepped away. This didn't go unnoticed and later at the reception she was the butt of some teasing about it. Nicola had sought her out to talk to her about her reasons why. They'd found themselves on the hotel verandah talking about their shared desire to see something of the world and their mutual horror of marrying young and tying themselves to one person and one place for the remainder of their lives. And then...
"Lyndsey fucking Nolan." said Nicola with feeling. "She wandered out looking for someone else's business to stick her nose into and took exception to being told to keep it out of ours."
"Yeah." Added Alison. "So she decided to go back inside and tell her friends how she'd caught us making out. I mean why else would a girl not want to catch the bridal bouquet? She had me bang to rights."
