19
When Tiffany returned from her trip, she didn't need Chloe to tell her about her fling with Hunter; she could tell what had happened from the bloom that she wore. When Tiffany heard about his prowess, she had what she immediately identified as a most dishonourable thought, wondering how she could manufacture a scenario in which she could be the recipient of all that the Australian had to offer.
She needn't have tortured herself or wasted time strategising, as her friend very generously offered to share him with her - not, I hasten to add, in the shape of a threesome, but after the manner of a baton change in a relay race. Tiffany was confident that she could hold her end up - there would be no dropping of the baton from her to deny her Gold.
When Briony saw the two older women chatting and laughing with Hunter at the pool (which had become the natural habitat for the oldies, as she called them), she knew what was afoot. With only a couple more nights at the hotel, she embraced a paradigm shift that would see her have the final night with Hunter.
'He'll be leaving the best till last,' she thought, confident in her ability to snag him on the eve of their flight back to England.
The three girls decided at the last minute to go on a half-day boat trip, taking in a visit to a nearby island as well as dinner at a restaurant that had received a recommendation, if not a star, from Michelin. Briony made a point of going over to where he was sitting by the pool and giving him a kiss before she left - in front of the two Americans. As she sashayed away, working her hips overtime, Tiffany knew instinctively that the black girl hadn't had Hunter. Her estimation of him rose considerably, even if the way he reddened noticeably as he mumbled something about her looking for a father figure indicated how excited he must be feeling. Looking down at his swimming trunks, Tiffany could clearly make out the outline of his arousal.
'What a day to choose to wear my Speedos!' thought Hunter, who reckoned he could safely do so when he learnt at lunch that the girls would not be at the pool that afternoon.
After half an hour or so, Chloe said she was going off to a Greek cooking class she had booked. This was the first Hunter had heard about this activity. He attempted to cover his excitement at the thought of being alone with Tiffany by making a joke about what a short class it must be - all Greek cooking consisting of feta cheese and lashings of olive oil. Chloe laughed politely, while Tiffany set her plan in motion. Nothing in it was going to be original, but she thought that might just make it more effective, Hunter being such an old-fashioned sort of fellow.
The first part required him to get up close and personal with her in a non-threatening environment. And what was more natural than asking him to apply a bit of browning lotion? Engaging Hunter in some meaningless chitchat, Tiffany was sure she had Hunter's attention before removing her blue floral beach shawl. She watched his reaction as she revealed her ivory bikini. The tall Australian's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
His first thought was that she looked like Ursula Andress in
Dr No
. He'd really had the hots for her when he first saw the film as a teenager, following it up by renting every film he could find in his local video shop which featured her. There had been
The Blue Max
and
She
, and a whole bunch of turkeys he couldn't remember now. Anyway, he found himself
really
regretting wearing his Speedos as she bent over to straighten her towel, giving him an eyeful of her butt, before laying down and waiting for him to perform his allotted task.
He decided to start with her feet. This both pleased and surprised Tiffany, who thought he would just be doing her back. He was, in fact, unbeknownst to her, on automatic pilot, since he was following the same template he had used for years with Mia. This was the best coping mechanism he could think of with all the stimuli he was receiving, not least from the now very prominent bulge in his swimsuit. He used perhaps more lotion than he needed to, since in his nervous state he kept going to the bottle, which he placed when not using it on the grass, and which, on account of the humps and hollows in the turf, would keep falling over.
'I seem to be all fingers and thumbs today,' he said with something of a forced laugh, as some of the lotion missed its intended target and landed on her sandals.
Tiffany scolded him for his lack of attention and asked him what he was thinking about. If he found the job such a chore, that was okay - she'd do the best she could herself. Hunter assured her that it was no chore at all; in fact, it was the sort of thing he enjoyed doing. Thinking that this sounded a bit pervy, he said that he liked doing things that gave pleasure to women, before realising that he'd dug himself even deeper into the hole.
'Well, you know what I mean, don't you?' he spluttered.
Tiffany replied that she wasn't sure that she did. She had heard from Chloe how sensitive and attentive to her needs he was, but he didn't seem to want to extend the same courtesies to her. Hunter found himself between a rock and a (now very) hard place and decided that the only way forward was to focus on doing a really first-rate job with the lotion. He was now on the thighs and was about to move to her lower back when she told him to do her 'upper thighs'. At this request, Hunter's hands began to shake so badly that a bit of lotion spilled onto her bikini bottoms.
'Oh my god, sorry!' he exclaimed. 'Look! I'll pay for the dry-cleaning.'