Molly and the Sewing Machines
Chapter 7 - A Rugby Victory
Suffering from the excesses of the weekend, Adrian and the two women told Nicole to go back to sleep as they dressed in the dark of their encampment in the building and made their way to the early train. Inish brought them three cups of terrible coffee from the mobile canteen as the train headed north into a hard rainstorm.
"It will have to do. The muffins in plastic looked worse. I'm glad I have good memories of the weekend to get me by." She knicked Adrian in the head to wake him up. His eyes were unfocused and he was a mess. Vicky asked, "This is the handsome gentleman who took us to dinner?"
His head was whirling, trying to organize itself for a busy week. There were hard rugby practices every day before the weekend competition. He had an English paper due Wednesday that was hardly started. There was a practice passing out exam in math on Thursday. He dimly realized why schoolmasters preferred to keep the sexes apart. Hormones needed to be suppressed if book learning was to occur.
He took Vicky's hand and slapped himself with it.
"Can't get your feet on the ground, is it?" she inquired evilly.
"I'm so infatuated with an older woman that I can't think straight."
They were on a three abreast seat with the other side empty. The women each had an ear, pulling viciously.
"Behave. We don't need schoolboy behavior. You have responsibilities now. There are only six weeks until your graduation."
He took their hands in his and kissed fingers. "What about the silliness brought on by love?"
They whispered, "Yes, but you have to save that for the bedroom."
The evil coffee gave him a bad stomach but snapped him back to life. They shared to-do lists and were at Kingham in a few more minutes.
The week passed in a blur. The women were circumspect around him during the day, coming late in the evening to his bed. The afternoon scrimmages and evening homework left him little energy for sex. This was commented on as the light went out and their naked bodies wiggled into place.
"Our gentleman lover is having a long recuperation..."
"Yes, not quite the inexhaustible male, is he?"
"Stop, or I'll beat you." It was a completely false threat and they giggled to sleep.
The evening reports from Nicole were full of interesting details. The architect was a woman and completely thrilled by the prospect of helping to remake the gloomy building with the strong fundamentals. Much of the utilities could be salvaged. The two of them had lunch with a young contractor with a small operation mostly in their industrial district south of the Thames. She hoped to bring a proposal with her on Saturday.
On Wednesday afternoon, which he had off, Vicky and Inish were lounging on his bed. He was tired and sore, but feeling better about the match on Saturday. He gazed at their smiling faces and wondered how he could keep three women happy.
Inish said, "Vicky is in a dither because her plan was that I would look after the Inn when she needed time off, but I told her I was too jealous to stay behind when the two of you are loving it up in London."
He launched himself into the bed, kissing and tickling. "I couldn't bear not having you both in my bed, along with Nicole! A man needs many women to keep him warm."
They pushed him down and sat on him, pounding fists into his ribs. "Such arrogance! I suppose you think your school is going to win on Saturday?"
He turned over, "I'm certain of it. Are you going to come and watch?"
Inish said, "We wouldn't miss seeing you flattened, you imp."
He kissed them again and said, "We have to find a strong person to mind the Inn while we are working on the building."
It turned out that Molly had the answer for them. Her cousin Mary, one of the sewing ladies, needed more room for her work, because the expanding brood at home was into her sewing things at all times of the day.
"If we clear out the back pantry, she can have it for sewing and look after the premises at the same time on weekends when we are gone."
It rained Friday night, but was clearing on Saturday morning as he finished breakfast and headed to the dressing room in the gym. Vicky and Inish gave him hot kisses and wished him luck and said they would be there for game time, after collecting Nicole at the station.
Adrian's team was light but leggy. They had improbably won their last four matches, mostly by being fast and adroit. Their opponents that day were from another one of the public schools in the league, and aiming for a second straight conference championship. Adrian wore number ten, and was renowned for his ability to take a lateral and race it in. The initial scrum sent the ball to Adrian's side, and he scooped it up on the fly. As a beefy opponent closed, another back was handy for a lateral and he took it for a goal and a conversion.
After that, the game settled down into a long series of incomplete drives, with a number of rucks. The strategy of the opponents was clearly to shut down the fleet runners on Adrian's team and illegal tackles were frequent.