I got a bit of a surprise the first time that I met Penny. She and Gayle worked together. And Gayle often spoke about her. 'Penny and I did this. Penny and I did that.' And, in my mind, I had this picture of Penny as a tallish, willowy woman with shoulder-length dark hair. I guess it may have had something to do with Penny Barton, a girl I had known when I was growing up.
'Penny is going to drop some stuff off later,' Gayle said. 'I've suggested she stay for a drink. I've put some wine in the fridge. I was thinking that it might be nice to have it outside, out on the terrace. Now that it's daylight saving, we should make the most of it.'
'Makes sense,' I said.
And, in due course, Penny arrived. My mind's eye picture of her had been partly right. She was tall. Five-ten? Something like that. And she had shoulder-length dark hair. But there was nothing willowy about her. Penny was a sturdy oak. But a very attractive sturdy oak. She was a full-on BBW.
I think that some people use the term BBW when what the really mean is that a woman is a bit on the fat side. Big? Tick. Woman? Tick. But beautiful? Mmm... maybe not so much. At least, not in the conventional sense. However, Penny really was beautiful. She really was a BBW. Trust me.
'Mike, meet Penny,' Gayle said.
'I've heard so much about you,' Penny said, as she held out a carefully-manicured hand.
'Hmm... well, in my defence, fifty percent of what you've probably heard is just a case of mistaken identity,' I told her. 'And the other half, I simply deny.'
Penny laughed. 'Oh, not all of it has been bad.'
'Really? Well, in that case, perhaps you could email me a list of the ones I should own up to,' I suggested. And Penny laughed again.
* * *
'So, that was Penny,' I said, as Gayle and I tidied up after Penny had disappeared into the night.
'Yes.'
'She's nice,' I said. 'Very nice.'
'She is. Why? What were you expecting?' Gayle asked.
'I'm not sure. I think, in my mind, I was expecting someone a bit like Penny Barton.'
'Who's Penny Barton?'
'A girl who used to live along the road from us when I was growing up. Tall. Dark hair. And built like a bean pole.'
Gayle laughed. 'Not the same Penny then.'
'No. Definitely not.'
* * *
It may have been my imagination, but I thought that, once I had met Penny, Gayle seemed to mention her rather more often. And then Gayle announced that she and Penny were going to go and check out the new Bar None. Would I like to join them? I would have. Yes. But I had a meeting at the yacht club. A group of boat-owners were lobbying for a change in the classification rules. They reckoned that the rules as they stood favoured the newer boats. And those who thought this way did sort of have a point. 'Have fun though,' I said.
'We will. We're going to see if we can find Penny a man,' Gayle said.
'Oh? Does she fly solo? I didn't realise.'
'She had a chap. But he took a job up north. Now she's on her own.'
'Well... good luck,' I said.
As things turned out, the girls didn't find a chap for Penny. But they did rather enjoy Bar None. 'We'll have to make a return visit,' Gayle said when she was telling me about it. 'Perhaps one night when you're available.'
'I'd like that,' I said.
Later that night, when I had Gayle naked on the bed and I was 'giving the dog a bone' (so to speak), I wondered about Penny. Gayle was slim, trim, and fit (in both senses of the word). Penny was neither slim nor trim. And yet there was definitely something very sexy about her.
* * *
A few nights after Gayle and Penny's unsuccessful trip to Bar None, I had a dream about Penny.
I was in the bar at the yacht club. Reading the draft version of the new classification rules. The rules started out quite sensibly, and then they wandered off into pizza recipes and the need to carry lawn mowers on all boats with a waterline length exceeding eight metres. Weird. And then Penny arrived.
'Hello,' she said. 'Gayle said that I would find you here.'
'Oh, hello. How are you?'
'I've come to be measured,' Penny said.
'Measured?'
'Yes. It says here that I need to have my waterline, my boobs, and my mainsail measured by a certified measurer.' And she waved some kind of form.
'Am I a certified measurer?' I asked.
'Gayle said that you were.'
'Oh. Well, we had better go up to the billiard room then,' I said.
The funny thing was, by the time that I got up to the billiard room, Penny was already there. She had her skirt hitched up around her waist and her knickers were down around her knees. 'Which bit do you need to measure?' she asked. 'The front? Or the back?' And then I woke up.