Allie Pt 01 1

I have decided, after a lot of agonising, to write this story because when I publish part four of Five Years it will provide more context. Thanks to Ashley, Kat, Gari, Mari, Vero, Diana, Gina, Angel, Jen and, most importantly, Jodie, for their support and encouragement.

Anna

xxx

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Phone Calls

I was in my office on a Monday morning sitting with Sandra, my wonderful PA, going through the week's schedule, when my mobile rang. I saw it was Sasha so I looked at Sandra and, smiling an apology, said, "Sorry. Give me a minute?"

She smiled and nodded, getting up to leave. I answered the call as she was closing the door.

"Hi Sasha. What's up? Is everything okay?"

"Hey Anna. Yeah, all good. Look, I don't suppose you're free two weeks on Friday are you?"

With a glance I knew I would be available but, before I made any commitment, I wanted to know what I might have to be available

for

.

"Uh, I'll have to check. Why? What's happening?"

"It's Mike's thirtieth. I'm throwing him a surprise party. I'd love you to come."

I'd known Sasha and Mike for three years, ever since my return to Cambridge, and they'd become good friends. We tended to socialise on weekends with a small group, sometimes at each other's houses, other times in pubs or restaurants.

"Sounds fun. At your place? Who's going to be there?" I asked.

"Yes, our place... and why does it matter who's there?"

I chuckled, "Because the last time you tried to set me up on that blind date with the boring banker or stockbroker or whatever it was he did."

I heard a sigh, "Will I ever be forgiven for that? I just thought, you know, with you being single and everything..."

"It's okay, Sasha. I'm only teasing. As long as you're not trying to get me hitched, I'd love to come. What time should I get there?"

"Let's say seven. It's just going to be drinks and a buffet. Nothing too formal."

"So I don't need to go and buy a ballgown or anything?"

She laughed, "No, hun, just wear something nice. For Mike's sake."

I wasn't sure how to take that.

"I have to wear something nice for

Mike

?"

She laughed, "No, silly. Look nice because it's his birthday. I probably don't need to ask because I don't think I've ever seen you in anything that wasn't stylish unless it's jeans at the pub."

I laughed. She knew me so well. "Okay hun. See you then if I don't see you before."

"Bye, and thanks, Anna. See you soon. Mwah."

The call disconnected. I noted the appointment in my personal calendar and then sat and took a few minutes in self reflection.

Very few of my friends in Cambridge knew about my rather rocky past. The break up with Becky after three wonderful years together. The spiral down into depression. Moving to London. Various jobs, girlfriends, boyfriends. Drinking too much, taking too many drugs, all in the name of trying to numb the pain of my loss. It had all come to a head when I walked out on The LEB, my "Last Ever Boyfriend", and moved in with Hailey.

She'd helped me clean myself up. I gave up the pot, I only drank on weekends and I suddenly had a stable job working for a small accountancy firm. This led to a job offer from a similarly small firm in my old home town of Cambridge. It was a tough choice but it was a pay rise and with slightly lower living costs. Hailey and I parted on good terms. We were never in love, I wasn't sure I would ever love again, or even wanted to, but we just got on well and sex was just a happy part of who we were. She would occasionally come up to visit and we'd have a wonderful weekend, or I would pop down to see her, staying in our old apartment, going to our old haunts and making glorious love at every opportunity.

I'd been at the job for only a few months when the couple who owned it came and said that, sadly, they had financial problems and were probably going to have to shut the operation down if they couldn't find a buyer for the business.

In another world I would have been devastated but the emotional barriers I'd erected after my recovery meant that I went into auto-pilot. Things were working out for me and I wasn't about to let a little thing like the company closing stop me. I went to the bank, somehow persuaded them to give me a loan to buy them out, reorganised the business so that every employee, all eight of them, had a personal interest in our success, and had paid off the loan as quickly as was possible, and sensible, and we were now starting to expand slowly.

I wasn't ready to have a new partner in my life. I didn't know that I ever would, but I was potentially ready to start seeing someone. The trouble was that everyone who tried to matchmake me thought I was straight.

With these thoughts in my mind, on the spur of the moment, I called Hailey. She would most likely be home on a Monday morning. She was an artist and tended to work in the afternoons and evenings, sometimes on commissions for public buildings, sometimes on private works, which she sold through a couple of galleries, and made a decent living from.

She answered on the fourth ring.

"Well if it isn't the gorgeous Anna. I was just thinking about you, babe."

I was surprised, "You were? Really?"

I heard a low chuckle, "Mmhm. Haven't got out of bed yet and, well, imagined you were here."

I suddenly felt a familiar warmth and tingle between my legs.

"Well someone is pleased to hear that," I said in a low voice.

She practically purred over the phone, "I miss my little friend. How is she? Your little friend is standing up so I'm patting her head gently. She's such a good girl."

I was now seriously turned on. I said, "Your little friend would love you to be able to kiss her."

As I was talking I went to my door and turned the lock as quietly as I could. I went back to my desk and sat in my chair, lifting the hem of my skirt and pushing my panties to one side. I was, by this point, so turned on that it was like an electric shock travelling through me when I stroked her.

"Mmm. Yes. I can taste you. Are you in the office?"

I croaked out, "Yes."

"I love it when we do this. I'm stroking your little friend thinking about you. I want you to come for me, Anna. In your office."

"I'm going to. God, I can see you."

And I could. I could see her, as I had many times before, lying on her bed, the sheets thrown back, her long wavy, chestnut hair arrayed around her head, her legs open, bent at the knees, her fingers rubbing rapidly. I could just about hear the slightly wet sound down the phone.

There was an urgency in her voice as she said, "Come for me, Anna. Come for me."

I had to keep as quiet as possible. I didn't want to alert anyone in the office and have them interrupt me by knocking on the door. I felt my orgasm approaching and reached for it, moaning quietly, "Oh fuck, coming..."

I heard Hailey call out loudly. It was almost a scream, "Oh yes. Yes!"

It rushed through me and I scrunched into myself in my chair, rocking as my orgasm rushed through me.

I slowed down and finally managed, slightly shakily, to say, "God you're fucking good, you know that?"

There was a little chuckle, "What a lovely way to start my day. I feel inspired. I think I'm going to do a painting of my little friend. Nobody will guess. It will look like flower petals with a large stamen at just the right place."

I chuckled, "As long as you don't credit me on it, it sounds wonderful."

"Why don't you come down this weekend? I could do one of you from real life?"

"Like you don't have loads of those already but, yeah, sounds fun. I'll be down on Saturday morning."

"Brilliant. It'll be like old times."

I smiled, "Yeah. It will," I said wistfully.

We ended the conversation and I took a deep breath, rearranged my clothes, checked my hair in my hand mirror then took a moment to meditate and clean my soul and, eventually, went to my door, unlocked and opened it, "Sandra. Sorry about that. All done. Ready when you are."

Hailey

I got to Kings Cross at just after ten on Saturday morning and took a cab to Hailey's flat. In keeping with the way we always were I'd gone full hippy chick. I was wearing a short, flower power dress with open shoulders and full length bell sleeves. I had open sandals on, long drop earrings and my hair was loose. Over my shoulder I had a weekend bag with only a couple of changes of clothes. I knew that, with Hailey, I wouldn't be clothed very often.

I paid the cab and spent a moment looking up and down the street that had been my home for the couple of years we had been together. There was nostalgia there but really no longing to return to the way we were.

I pressed the bell for her flat and I heard her voice, all squawky through the speaker, "Hello?"

"Special delivery for Hailey," I said.

I heard the door click and went in, climbing up the narrow staircase to her flat and, when I got to the top, there she was in her doorway, her hair all loose around her shoulders, looking a little like she'd just got out of bed, which she clearly had because she just had her short, kimono style dressing gown on.

She smiled and hugged me as I got to her door.

"Hey, welcome home, stranger. Come on in."

I followed her into her lounge where we'd spent many nights watching old movies and making love. We'd christened every room in the apartment at one time or another, including out in the hallway one late Friday night after getting home from one of our favourite bars.

I looked at the canvasses propped up against the walls and furniture. She'd obviously had a creative spurt and I knew she'd be selling them soon enough. I always wondered how she could do that with art that had cost her so much passion but she was ever practical about the need to pay rent and eat.

I dumped my bag on her couch and she came over and took me in her arms. I wrapped mine around her and we kissed for an age. It was nice to have human touch again and, for a moment, I felt a catch of emotion which I quickly suppressed.

She pulled back and looked at me, "Is everything okay, Anna?"

I smiled, "I'm here. Of course I'm okay. Now take me to bed. Your little friend wants you and I need my little friend."

She smiled and took me through to the bedroom where her bed was, as usual, unmade. I didn't care because I was distracted by her undoing her kimono, revealing her pert little breasts and her full thatch of pubic hair which she only ever trimmed if she was going to the beach.

I felt my own need, my urgency at seeing her, and I turned so that she could undo me, slipping my dress off my shoulders and down, undoing my bra and sliding my panties to the floor. I turned and we both sat on the bed turned to each other and entwined, kissing each other with urgency and passion. We fell back on the bed, our naked bodies pressed together. I felt her warmth against me and it drove the urgency higher.

There was something almost feral about the way we made love. No restraints, just pure, animal lust. I felt her push me onto my back and willingly lay down as she kissed my body, down over my trimmed mound of red hair. I opened my legs to her, desperate for her touch. I needed it.

She lay between my legs and I pulled them up, holding my calves, giving myself to her completely. I waited for her touch, her tongue, her fingers and, when it didn't come, I looked down and saw her studying me.

"This is how I want to paint you. Exactly like this. Like a lily or a lotus blossom. So beautiful."

I was used to this side of Hailey and smiled, saying, "She is all yours, all weekend, but I need you now."

She raised her eyes to me and winked, "I know... I love to see how much I can tease you."

With that I shuddered as her tongue came out and slid up from my entrance to my clit, flicking up and down then left and right.

"Mmmm. My little friend. Missed you. You taste wonderful. I hope you've been looking after Anna?"

I moaned, "You want me to beg?"

She smiled up, "That might be fun. Yes. Beg me."

It was a game we used to play. It was part of the way for us.

"Hailey, please. Fuck me. Lick me. Finger me. Make me come. Fuck me now, please," I practically cried out.

"Well, you only had to ask," she said with a smile in her voice.

I felt her fingers at my entrance. She pushed in and I sighed. She was filling me, stretching me and I was so ready. She clamped her mouth over me and sucked gently as her tongue flicked me.

She started moving her fingers in and out, speeding up and I could feel myself getting closer and closer, right on the edge. She knew me well enough to know what I needed right at that moment and as I was right on the tipping point she gently grazed my clit with her teeth and then flicked rapidly. It was all I needed. I felt my cunt walls contract onto her. It was big, and strong enough to stop her fingers moving so quickly. My orgasm rushed out over me, the blessed, complete release that I had craved since our phone call, was finally mine. I shut down, my mind in a whirl of dizziness. I felt her fingers finally slide out of me and she crawled up to lie next to me.

I smiled at her, "God you're good."

She grinned, "I seem to remember you're pretty good too. Wanna prove my memory still works?"

I laughed and pushed her back on the bed, kissing down over her, taking one of her nipples in my mouth and letting my fingers travel down through her bush, finding her clit, already proud and poking out. Hailey had a rather large clit, over a centimetre when she was really aroused, and she was clearly

very

aroused at that moment.

I stroked on either side of it with my thumb and forefinger, up and down and I heard her moan, "Oh, god. Yes. Just like that."

I bit her nipple softly, something I knew she liked, and she ran her fingers through my hair, pushing me onto her.

I slid down her body and lay between her legs, taking her clit in my mouth and sucking on it. Her taste was gorgeous as always and she was incredibly wet.

I slid my fingers down to her entrance and felt her open to me. I placed my middle three fingers, with my palm up, at her entrance and pushed in gently, feeling her opening to me. I knew she liked the extra fullness and I curled my fingers up slightly inside, finding her spot and almost vibrating my fingers on it.

"Oh fuck, yeah," she said, "nobody does that like you. Fuck. Oh fuck."

I felt her clit stiffen in my mouth and she started shuddering, her legs stretching out, her hips rising. I kept up my movements until she finally subsided and I released her and slid my fingers out, taking a moment to admire her dark, crinkley, puffy lips and slowly subsiding clit.

I smiled and said, "You know, I want to draw you as well. Quite gorgeous."

I slid back up and we spent a while kissing and finally we relaxed. Our weekend had started properly.

The rest of that day, and through to Sunday afternoon, we spent making love, eating, drinking and drawing each other. I did a pencil sketch of her, naked on the bed, she did the flower painting of my pussy and I loved it. She gave it to me as a present and I put it in my hallway when I got home. Nobody ever knew what it was unless I told them.

On Sunday we rose and had a late breakfast after making love again. As we sat drinking our coffee Hailey said, "So, no sign of a regular squeeze up in Cambridge then?"

I smiled, "Why? Tired of me coming down and fucking your brains out?"

She laughed, "Nah, but you should get someone, Anna. You ain't like me. You need someone."

I reacted almost too fiercely, "I do not need someone. I'll never need anyone ever again."

She put on a slightly mocking tone, "Yeah, yeah, Becky, yeah, yeah."

I was stung but was not going to react. Hailey had saved me and I owed her everything.

"Yeah, well, it's not going to happen. Not getting hurt like that again."

She suddenly looked seriously at me and said, "Get hurt, Anna. It's the only way you'll ever know for sure."

I left with a heavy heart, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. On the train back up home I closed my mind once more. Hailey was fun but she had a way of seeing through me that I didn't really like at that time and place in my life.

It was the last time for nearly five years that I saw her. We talked regularly enough but I didn't want to confront that much in my life.

Needless to say, we are still good friends.

The Party - I Kissed A Girl

I finished work early on the Friday so that I could get home and shower, do my hair and makeup and put on the new outfit which consisted of a knee length, figure hugging dress with a slit up to the top of the thigh on the left, combining this with a small link, silver necklace, a full length black wool cardigan, for when the temperature dropped if we ended up outside, and simple white sandals. I know I'd made a fuss to Sasha on the phone but I genuinely enjoyed shopping for clothes and a party was as good an excuse as any.

I made sure all my essentials were in my small shoulder bag, picked up Mike's present and a bottle of cold white wine from the fridge, then called a cab. Twenty minutes later I arrived and walked up to the front door of their rather grand victorian house and pressed the doorbell. Sasha opened the door, dressed in a gorgeous little black dress that showed off her wonderful legs and generous bust. It contrasted beautifully with her golden curls tumbling over her shoulders. She'd obviously had it styled recently because it looked wonderfully radiant.

"Anna!" She said, stepping forward to give me a hug, "Wow, gorgeous outfit, babe. Come on through."

"You're not so bad looking yourself. Love what you've done with your hair."

She pressed at it with her palm, "Thanks. I haven't told Mike how much it cost. Don't want to spoil his birthday," she said, laughing.

I followed her through to their spacious kitchen and she took the bottle off me, placing it in their enormous, American style fridge. I could hear voices drifting in from the back garden.

"Glass of bubbly?" She asked, lifting a champagne flute off the counter and taking out an already open bottle.

"Mmm. You bet. How many people are here?"

She started pouring, "About a dozen so far. You'll know a few. Most of the usual suspects. Look, it's help yourself from here. Just refill any time. Don't wait for me to offer. There's plenty of everything."

She handed me my glass and lifted one of her own which was half full.

"Come on out the back and say

'Hi'

to everyone."

I followed her through their large lounge and out onto the patio to find a small host of people already there. Sasha had the place festooned with

'Happy 30th Birthday'

banners and bunting.

I went over to Mike and gave him a kiss and wished him a happy birthday, handing him his present.

"Oh, Anna, thank you. That's so kind."

Mike is a lovely guy. He works in finance so we have a sort of link, but try to avoid shop talk whenever possible. He was in jeans and a tee shirt, which Sasha apologised for.

"Sorry about Mike's dress sense, Anna."

He got a rueful look and said, "It's my birthday and I hate wearing a suit all week. If I can't dress down on my birthday, when can I?"

"You look gorgeous Mike, as always," I said truthfully. He's a good looking guy with a lovely sense of humour.

He unwrapped his present, opened the little box and found the two tickets to see Katy Perry live at the O2 arena the following month.

Mike looked at me and showed them to Sasha who squealed in delight. I knew they were both huge fans.

"Oh my god, Anna! Oh my god! Thank you! Mike, please don't wear jeans that night?"

Mike gave me a huge hug and said, "Thank you, honestly. Best present. Brilliant."

Sasha then hugged me and surprised me with a kiss, not on the cheek but full on my lips.