The next day Kate was arriving back in town for her summer Uni break; staying with her mum.
Regular readers will remember what Kate is like. I think she is best pictured as being a near ringer for the swimsuit model Kate Upton at her young slimmest best.
She's got that same angelic face with a smile that makes men melt.
The same naturally blonde hair (well at least in the case of our Kate it's natural; I suspect from the colour of her eyebrows, the other one might not be)
That same flawlessly clear skin.
The same tall hour-glass figure, except our Kate displays a slimmer, more athletic waist and the sort of less padded butt that suggests she's going to find it easier to keep her figure as she grows older and has babies.
In part that's because Kate is an iron woman competitor through her surf lifesaving club. She might not be well known at a national level, but like Greg in his iron man competition, is no slouch at club and regional levels. In fact Kate is not unlike what seems to be the typical profile of the present generation of famous and up and coming Australian surf iron women in that athletic blonde Australian beach girl sort of way.
[Authors note. The historic surf lifesaving ironman/ woman competitions should not be mistaken for the more recently introduced Ironman triathlons. The former consists of running, swimming, board paddling and surf ski legs; those things that a surf lifesaver needs to do]
Our Kate must be the only woman in the world capable of making Ms Upton feel frumpy by comparison.
And of course the guys will want to know our Kate has the same bikini top busting breasts as her model namesake, her D cups rarely covered by anything more than the skimpiest of string tie bikini tops which in the surf nearly always prove inadequate to doing their job of retaining them; not that our Kate seems to give a damn about that. Indeed that might be Kate's one distinguishing feature from the more famous Australian iron women; who have nice figures but generally seem to have less prominent breasts.
When I've walked down the street with Kate I've regularly seen guys walk into lamp posts or bust their knees tripping over seats and other street furniture as they're distracted by her. She's just that sort of girl; especially given the skimpy, figure displaying clothes she is nearly always dressed in.
But the real killer is her big smile; her "come fuck me" smile as I teasingly call it. The trouble is that most guys flashed the smile have an initial reaction of just dissolving into jelly; often missing the opportunity it offers. Which is the reason I think Kate so often in the past ended up with what I called the Neanderthals; bodice ripper style guys with plenty of confidence and front, but not much to offer in the brains or personality department. Which was an incredible waste given Kate's intelligence.
In part that choice of partner had been Kate's. Yes she liked guys with a good body; but really her problem - as she knew - was the inability to commit that her family's screwed up background had left her with. She had sort of deliberately picked guys who presented no danger of wanting or needing a longer term relationship.
I had seen her start to revise that approach as she'd watched Greg and my relationship develop over last summer. By her own admission, she had started to yearn for something similar and was trying to overcome her own limitations to find it.
And now we had been warned a new 'proper' boyfriend was in tow. We'd seen a bit of him on Facebook; but apart from an impression that he looked more like a slightly heavier built version of Greg than her usual Neanderthal, it was difficult to know what to expect. After all, the relationship was still fairly new; indeed new enough I thought it was a risk having him committed to staying with Kate for the three months.
Still, for the first time ever, Kate had used the word 'love' in relation to one of her boyfriends; at least in the positive "I do love him" sense. That was a good start, but I was interested to find out where on the love scale he really sat. Kate had a long history to overcome and these things don't happen overnight.
Kate had got in late the previous night and, allowing her time to sleep in, we'd arranged that she'd meet us at the spot Greg and I left our gear for our morning run and swim more or less at our usual finishing time (which given what we normally get up to in the sand dunes afterwards was no small sacrifice on our part).
As we came running back along the beach I could see Kate in a typically Kate bikini sitting with a guy on their towels just outside the entrance to the gully in the sand dunes where our gear was. At first I could see Kate was in animated conversation with her partner, but eventually she looked our way and saw us coming.
Never one to do things by half measures, Kate stood up and sprinted towards us, arms outreached, squealing her delight at seeing us after all this time; no doubt leaving her boyfriend wondering what was happening. About 50 metres from her towels Kate intercepted us; bundling the three of us together with her arms as she nearly bowled us over backward with the speed of her intercept. Then as she held us together tightly she alternated kissing us on each of our cheeks as she rattled off a dozen questions about how we'd been and our trip up.
I thought the greeting was nearly over when she finally separated from us, standing facing us arms spread apart with a hand lightly gripping each of Greg and my outside shoulder. But suddenly her flow of conversation faltered as she looked me in the eyes and captured me in a full body embrace. Apart from Greg I don't think I've had many boyfriends - if any - who've embraced me so intimately. She even had a hand on my bum drawing my crutch into hers; the fronts of each of our bikinis squashed together, our nipples pushing into each other's breasts.
Of course she's done this to me before when we were both naked; once at Zoe's naked beach party and once after our threesome, but this was more prolonged, more contemplative. Maybe even more sexual; certainly more sensual. After a minute, she gave me a sloppy kiss on the cheek and separated, turning to Greg.