Emma

XLVII

The shock of losing Maisie hit Emma harder than she could have ever imagined. She lost the will to get up in the morning, to care for herself, and even to go to work. Every venture into the world beyond her house was a struggle. She hated the looks she got from other people, and imagined that everyone was aware of her loss, whereas, of course, most people were simply trying to establish what it was she wore underneath her loose clothes. These visits were almost always brief ones to fill her fridge with food that most often she had lost the appetite to eat, and just once to see Charlotte and her new baby at the hospital. This depressed her even more as she felt so inadequate to express to her best friend how pleased she was that the child-birth had been so successful.

She didn’t tell anyone at work for over a week she wasn’t coming in, and was extremely upset when she got a very brusque and angry phone call from Amelia who demanded that she return to work immediately. She went to bed with the full intention of returning, but when she awoke she was too depressed to carry her resolution through. Instead, she went to a doctor and got a sick note to excuse her from work. Her next communiqué from Harlot TV came as even more of a shock. She was told in no uncertain terms that her recent work was simply not of the high standard that the station had come to expect from her and was frankly totally unsatisfactory. She was given three months notice, which started retrospectively from the first day she had failed to turn up to work, and informed her that she was not expected back at the studio.

Her depression exploded into tears and cries which darkened even further the clouds which gathered in her head and made normal life impossible for her. She returned to bed where she stayed all day, wailing her misfortune, comforted only by thoughts of self-pity and tortured by rage and anger at Tanya. She had been betrayed by one who had taken advantage of her good nature and stolen the love of her life from her, and now she was left to fend for herself. And not very well either.

The days passed by, each one indistinguishable from the one before, Emma’s rests in bed often lasting all day. She lost the ability to concentrate on literature or any reading matter at all. In fact, other than weep and flagellate herself with her regrets and despair, all she could do was watch the most mindless and undemanding television programs. No programme was too banal, no show too hackneyed: quiz shows, soap operas, chat shows, and news programmes. She lost all appetite for sex television whose content only served to remind her of what she was missing. She read the mail that arrived with more attention than ever before, though most of it was junk mail, and most of the rest were bills. She lost the appetite to check her e-mails, and the only music she felt inclined to play was as despondent as the mood she felt.

It was while she was sitting on the sofa, listening to a requiem, that she heard her doorbell ring. She wasn’t expecting a visitor: in fact, she lived quite some way from her friends and was never used to calls anyway. Her heart began beating in foolish anticipation and hope. Was it Maisie? Had she had enough of Tanya? Had she come to realise that it was only with her that she’d ever find true love? She hurried to the door, and peeked through the eyehole, half-expecting Maisie and half-expecting a postman.

What she saw, distorted by the magnification of the eyehole, was Charlotte and Josephine standing at the entrance: Charlotte with Thomas clinging to the bare breast she uncovered under the long coat which was all she wore. She hesitated. Could she let her friend see her like this. A perverse sense of self-worthlessness almost persuaded her to pretend she wasn’t in, but her love for Charlotte, and her regret that she’d not seen her best friend since she’d left hospital, got the better of her, and she carefully opened the door, forgetting that she was still naked, and would once again scandalise the posh neighbourhood.

“Emma!” smiled Charlotte. “How

are

you? We were so worried. We heard you’d lost your job. And we heard about Maisie. Can we come in?”

“Of course! Of course!” said Emma, unable to smile and feeling wretched for her lack of friendliness.

Charlotte and Josephine entered the house; Charlotte immediately feeling guilty that she’d not come to see her friend sooner. But it was not easy being a mother. Thomas was so demanding, and it was only recently she had recovered sufficiently to venture out of the flat herself. Emma was clearly not herself. Her home showed the signs of neglect. Nothing had been cleaned, polished or even tidied away. An untidy row of empty bottles lined the hall-way, and some magazines had been left on the floor in an untidy heap where Emma had dropped them and had never bothered to throw away. The living room where Emma took them to was similarly untidy. Cushions lying on the floor, a rug turned up at the corner, records and books scattered about randomly. Normally Emma was so tidy. Almost obsessively so. And now everything was untidy and unclean. Even her long hair was tangled and unwashed, and Charlotte couldn’t help noticing there was the slight smell of mustiness from her unshowered skin. She handed Thomas over to Josephine, who was wearing a sobre blue blouse and white skirt, and grabbed Emma around the shoulders and pulled her towards her.

“We’ve been

so

worried!” Charlotte cried. “We haven’t heard from you so long! We thought you might be busy at work, but Maisie told us how you’d been sacked. Is it because you’re sad that Maisie’s left you?”

Emma nodded and sniffed bitterly. “It was that cow Tanya! She picked me up, exploited me and then just threw me away. And then, as if that wasn’t enough she took my Maisie away from me!”

Charlotte smiled sadly at Josephine, as if to say that it was as they’d suspected. “You must forget about Maisie now. She’s gone. I don’t know what this Tanya’s like. I’ve never spoken to her; but Maisie’s made her choice and what’s done is done. It’s you that you should think about. Did you lose your job because of Maisie? Or was there some other reason?”

Emma sank her head onto Charlotte’s bare shoulder, tears bursting through and onto her friend. “I was so depressed. I

am

so depressed. I just lost the will to go to work. Or even, sometimes, to live. It’s been so hard.”

“Now, now,” said Charlotte comfortingly, patting her friend on her bare back, aware of the desire returning in her for her friend, despite her express intention to not feel that way. She held Emma to her, while Josephine watched with sympathy, Thomas gurgling contentedly in her arms.

Josephine then placed the baby in the carry-cot the girls had brought along with them, and tucked him under the thin woollen blanket, naked except for his nappies. She then removed her clothes and sat down on a chair, her legs crossed and her arms folded. Charlotte took this as a cue, and eased Emma off her, as she removed her coat to reveal her own naked body. Despite herself Emma was interested to see the changes childbirth had brought on her friend. Her breasts were fuller and her nipples much more prominent. She was still somewhat fatter round the waist than she used to be and there were stretch marks on her stomach. She kissed Charlotte tenderly, aware of her selfishness in not paying more attention to her friend’s needs.

“How is Thomas?” she asked.

“He’s doing very well. He had a small fever last week. We were very worried, but apparently it’s quite normal in small babies.”

Conversation became more relaxed as the girls discussed motherhood, and then gradually took in gossip on the girls’ friends and how life was back at the flat. Charlotte complained how the flat somehow didn’t seem right for the needs of parenthood. Josephine joked about the trials of feeding the baby and changing his nappies. Despite herself, Emma felt a smile break across her face as Josephine described in detail the problems they’d faced in cleaning up his sick and excrement, and some of the comments that had been made to them as a lesbian couple with a baby.

Charlotte sat next to Emma on the sofa and stroked and kissed her as they spoke, her mind flashing back to her earlier desires for her friend, and finding that they were still inside her. On occasion her lust for Emma overwhelmed her and she would kiss her friend on the cheek or on the face, tenderly wiping off the tears with her tongue, her arms around Emma’s shoulders. Emma also began to feel the warmth in her feelings for Charlotte return, gingerly at first, and then ever more boldly, her own arms looped around Charlotte’s waist and she stroked the stomach which had so recently carried such a greater load.

It was Josephine though who had the presence of mind to take the initiative. She eased herself up out of the chair and walked over to the other side of Emma and trailed her arms around the girl. Emma smiled as conversation dwindled to nothing and everything was spoken in gestures and smiles. And then, inevitable as it was, Josephine put her lips to Emma’s and held them there. Emma’s mouth opened and tongues joined together.

Charlotte meanwhile allowed her hands to probe down her friend’s stomach, as Emma’s had on hers, but her fingers trailed between her legs. Emma responded with a sigh and parted her thighs to let Charlotte’s fingers more welcome entry, while her tongue and teeth battled with those of Josephine’s. The three girls remained in this position, sitting on the sofa, Thomas snoozing away in his cot, as the caresses became bolder and more sensual.

And soon the three girls were stretched out, on the floor, on the sofa, arms and legs stretched, fingers, tongues and lips probing and exploring the folds and contours of bodies known so familiarly but not enjoyed together for so long. Emma’s curiosity about Charlotte’s changed body was satisfied, while Josephine cuddled her spouse and tongued Emma’s vagina. Gradually and sensually, their bodies became hotter and sweatier: words not passing any lips but instead concentration focused on genitals, breasts and faces. Their bodies shook and shuddered sympathetically, only grunts and moans coming from any of them. Emma’s long tangled hair mixed in the strands of Charlotte’s own long hair, while beneath them Josephine busied herself as equally as she could between the two vaginas, fingers in both and a tongue now in one and then with a sigh transferred to the other.

But final orgasm was not achieved. Just as Charlotte felt that for the first time since she’d given birth she would once again feel those delicious feelings erupt in her body, scramble her senses and dissolve her soul into a total oneness with her friend and her wife, Thomas chose to release a loud wail that totally startled Emma who had never heard such a sound before in such close proximity.

“The darling’s hungry!” exclaimed Charlotte pulling her senses together and leaping out of the sofa as quickly as her battered sweaty body could allow her.

Thomas continued crying until Charlotte picked him up, cradled his nappied body to her breasts, and offered him a red raw nipple to suckle: which he did with a voracious hunger that rather alarmed Emma. Did Charlotte have enough milk in her to satisfy the little monster’s appetite? she wondered ungraciously.

Without Charlotte, Josephine felt it was not right that she should continue making love to Emma, so she took her tongue and fingers away from the swelling mound of her vagina, and sat on the sofa next to her, her arms around Emma’s shoulders and a hand in Emma’s hand.

“Thomas is

such

a demanding baby!” she commented to Emma with a broad, almost maternal, grin. “I love him

so

much! I’m so lucky to have him almost for my own. And Charlotte too, of course!”

Emma nodded, agreeing and also feeling a pang of regret that she had so often spurned Charlotte’s affection and had instead focused it on a girl who was ultimately so ungrateful. She watched indulgently as Charlotte’s breast which she’d so recently enjoyed for her own pleasure was now giving so much succour to the young baby, who held onto it so greedily, his brown skin such a contrast against Charlotte’s own pale flesh.

When Charlotte had finished suckling Thomas, the girls didn’t resume their lovemaking. Instead, they sat together on the sofa, arms around each other, making no attempt to resurrect their interrupted passion.

“So, what are you going to do now?” asked Charlotte. “Now that you’ve lost your job? Are you going to look for another?”

“I don’t know,” sniffed Emma sadly. “I’ve made such a mess of everything. Soon all the money will run out, and I’ve got a mortgage on this house to maintain. I don’t know how I can find a job that pays as well as the one I’ve had. And I don’t think I’ve got the self-confidence to look for another one in the television industry.”

“Any job would do to start off with,” Josephine remarked. “Any job which gets you out and about. Or anything at all that gets you out of the house.”

“I just don’t know what to do. There aren’t many jobs for committed naturists like me. I just wouldn’t know what to do if I had to work wearing clothes.”

“Aren’t there naturist resorts with jobs, though?” wondered Josephine. “I’m sure there must be. There are loads of them. Why don’t you go to one of those?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. They’re always advertising for committed naturists. To work in the hotels, restaurants and things. But that would mean leaving the house. What would happen to it then? Would I have to give it up?”

Josephine sighed. She looked at Charlotte imploringly. “I don’t know. Perhaps you’ll have to sell it. Or take on lodgers or something.”

“Or we could stay here,” announced Charlotte. “We need more space. Would that be a good idea, Emma darling?”

Emma frowned. She’d not really thought at all on what she should do next. She’d worried so much about what she had lost, and had worried so much on what more that there was left to lose, that she’d never really entertained any options other than despair and further loss.

“It’s a good idea,” she mused. “And any work would be better than none, I suppose. And there

are

quite a few naturist resorts. I’ve never visited any of them. Well, not since I was a student. And that was with friends from the university Naturist Society. NatSoc it was called.” She smiled good-humouredly, despite herself. “We took ourselves

so

seriously. We thought that all you had to do was take your clothes off and not eat meat, and the whole world’s problems would end. But all we ever did was drink too much and talk a load of rubbish.”

Emma mused quietly as she recalled her youth. Where had all that idealism gone? But Josephine and Charlotte were right. It was a realistic solution. Once out of the house, maybe memories of Maisie would fade and she could regain the confidence she needed to make her way in her chosen profession.

“But what’ll happen to the flat?” she asked, recalling all the days she had spent there with Charlotte and Harriett.

“A month’s notice and we can be out,” said Charlotte. “And we can move in and keep you company before you leave. What do you think?”

Emma smiled at her friend gratefully. All the weight of her depression seemed to be lifting from her. The dark cloud that had beset her these last few weeks was dispelling. She loved Charlotte and Josephine so much! They were her real friends. She was sad that she’d never given the appreciation they’d deserved.

“I would like that. I would like that

so

very much!”