** Part one: The Bus from Killarney **
It had been a terrible summer: tough work and girlfriend trouble.
After graduating from university, I had taken an internship with a national newspaper in London. I had worked hard at the paper, and was rewarded with a contract at the end of the internship. The work was demanding and relentless. I was churning out copy like there was no tomorrow, and every sub-par piece led to a call into the editor's office. Working for the paper was my dream job, but my naïve idea that I could change the world through my writing was beaten out of me in a matter of days.
Then there was Rachael. We had met in our second year at university, introduced by mutual friends. A little too much cheap wine and a night of passion led to love. As graduation neared, the constant in our plans was a life together. When I moved to London to start the internship, I persuaded her to live with me in my small London flat. Setting up the flat and enjoying London life was great for a while. Rachael got a job in a café, even though she had a good degree in economics. I was immersed in my work, and she soon grew unhappy with our situation. Our carefree student lifestyle had ended, our sex life fizzled out, and reality was a disappointment. Our relationship turned sour and ended bitterly.
A few weeks after things finished with Rachael, I booked some much needed time off work. I decided I needed to get away from it all, to get some breathing space. It was a bit of a whim to backpack around Ireland. In Dublin, I had tried to get into the nightlife in the tourist-trap of Temple Bar. I had tried to psych myself up to pulling a girl in a bar, but just couldn't bring myself to it. I left Dublin, and travelled round Cork, Blarney, Cobh and the Ring of Kerry.
Staying in youth hostels and travelling by bus, the closest I had got to a sexual encounter was sitting on a cliff near Portmagee, overlooking the Atlantic, and wanking into the ocean. It sounds rather sad as I write about it, but it was a necessary release, and a fond memory. After walking for a couple of hours, I had sat down on the cliff edge to eat my sandwiches looking out over the ocean. No one was around, and I was relaxed and desperate for some release. I thought about how great sex once was with Rachael, and my cock was hard in seconds. I unzipped, and jerked myself off in long, slow strokes for an age. The ocean lapped below, and the sea breeze breathed over me. It was sweet agony as my balls contracted and I pumped my cum into the void between cliff and ocean. A minute or so later, a German couple came hiking by, and I put my cock away in haste.
It was time to head home. Rather stupidly, I had bought a bus ticket all the way from Killarney to Dublin Airport, a journey of over six hours. Either the train or the plane would have been a far better idea, albeit more expensive. I had been travelling on Bus Éireann coaches everywhere since leaving Dublin, and they were cheap and fairly reliable. It was thus out of habit that I hadn't thought of any other alternative than making the epic bus journey from Killarney to Dublin.
The number 40 bus sat in Killarney bus station: white and red, emblazoned with the Irish red setter running down the side. There were fewer than a dozen people spread out around the coach, but I moved to the back, ensconcing myself in the back corner seat. The energetic setter motif was repeated on the grey-and-red upholstery of the seats. The emergency exit at the back afforded a little more legroom, so I settled down into my lonely corner spot. As the bus pulled out of the bus station, I prepared myself mentally for the long journey ahead. Suddenly, the coach came a jolting halt, as the driver slammed on the brakes. The driver opened the door, and a young woman with long wavy black hair hauled herself aboard. "You near ran me over, you old fecker!" she exclaimed. The driver didn't seem too taken aback by her address. She showed him her ticket, and then disappeared from my sight, down out of the door of the bus. The driver reluctantly followed her, with his polyester company tie positioned like the swoosh of a ski slope over his beer belly. I heard the luggage compartment open, then close. The driver huffed back on board and lowered himself in behind the wheel.
There she was again, striding up the aisle as if she owned the bus and everyone on it. As she moved up the bus, I saw she was wearing low-slung skin-tight jeans, under a white vest top, with a cloth bag swinging from her right shoulder. As she came closer, I could see her vest was thin, translucent, revealing her dark bra underneath. I marvelled at the work of engineering: the vest was a snug fit around her breasts, but then hung in loose, shifting folds over her abdomen, falling a little short of the top of her jeans, revealing momentary flashes of flesh as she walked toward me.
The bus began moving again. The beautiful woman reached up to the luggage racks on each side to stabilise herself, pushing her breasts up and out, in a perfect display. The coach turned out onto the street, and the arc made the woman's hips sway one way and the next. The movement continued up her body, and her breasts were a marvel of pendulum motion, with the material below rippling like a thin curtain, emphasizing the motion. I was transfixed, and I left it a little too late to pull my gaze away. Her eyes — azure pools — met mine, and she grinned in full knowledge that she was in control of the situation. My cock hardened, and I shifted in my seat.
"Do you mind if I join you back here? I just like sitting at the back, so I do." She was well spoken, but her voice was musical — not the music of a symphony, but a fiddle band. It made me smile.
I was flustered and let out a vague "OK, sure".
She beamed me a smile, and my cock twitched, hidden under my stone-coloured chinos. She turned to put her cloth bag up in the luggage rack. The bag had a logo and 'School of Medicine, UCC' printed on it. As she turned from me and reached up, I got my first look at her bubble-shaped backside, straining denim, and my cock twitched again. She turned back, and as the bus turned another corner, she put her arms out to grab the seat headrests on either side, and her breasts shimmied again right in front of me. Braced against the swaying bus, she leant forward and swung herself around onto the back seat. I got a perfect view of her cleavage, framed by the two rising mounds of her breasts. I didn't know where to look, and she knew it. It was almost as if she was putting on a show, toying with my inability to resist her control.
The young Irish woman's raven hair framed the pale skin of her face and vibrant blue eyes. High, round cheeks hoisted the ends of her winning smile — thin, but expressive pink lips that smirked, beamed and surprised as they spoke their own language. She wore no makeup — unsullied and natural was her beauty. She bounced into the seat beside me. The waves of her dark tresses brushed back and forth over the pale skin of her sculpted shoulders, covered only by the spaghetti straps of her vest top and the dark-green satin straps of her bra. Her hand jutted out towards me. "How yuh doin'? I'm Aoife", she introduced herself.
I raised my clammy hand and took hold of her long, thin fingers in a rather imperfect handshake: "Uh...'Ee-fuh'?" I tried to pronounce her Irish name right, and she nodded. "Hi! I'm Mark", I returned.
"So, Mark, me young fella, were you getting an eyeful of me tits just then, or just watching out in case I fell over like?" She opened our conversation with a cheeky smirk.
Her directness flustered me, but it was too late to deny it. "Killing two birds with one stone", I replied, and rather pleased at myself with the witty response.
Her lips curved once more into that smile, and she let out a low, throaty laugh. "Hah! So, you're English, are you? Always having your cake and eating it, bloody imperialist bastards!"
It was now my turn to laugh at the banter. "Yeah, I've come over here and colonised a fair few Irish pints and sea views!"
"Maybe you've seen and viewed a little too much now!" she shot back, steering the conversation back to her breasts.
It was almost as if she had made me take another look — my gaze lingered — magnificent — and she smiled as she watched me ogle her.
She licked her lips, moistening them. "I could bloody murder a pint right now!" It was a warm summer afternoon, and the air on the bus was a little clammy.
"I've got a couple of cans of Guinness in my bag", I blurted out. I stopped at a small supermarket on the way to the bus and bought some sandwiches and two tin cans of stout to keep me going on the journey.
"'Tis all Guinness and leprechauns for ye'r lot, so it is!" Her voice contorted into mock 'Hollywood' Irish.
"You don't have to have one; I was saving them for the journey."
"Are you going to Cork?"
