Back to what I am, a lipstick
Part 4
With Richard spending more and more time at his lawyer's firm in London, entertaining clients at top restaurants and clubs and travelling to the firm's offices and clients all over the fucking world, I had so much time on my hands. I started playing tennis more frequently, began a course of golf lessons and joined a group to learn how to play bridge. My affair with Jane Clements had ended. After my last time with her when she and two of her dykie friends had as good as raped me, I was off girly sex. Well that's not quite true for I still masturbated about being with my first bi lover Emma and some of the better times with Jane. I also fantasised about sex with women I knew and found attractive and such celebrities as Sharon Stone and particularly Kylie. So I wasn't off it, there just wasn't any available!
At the tennis club I resurrected a number of old friendships including some girls I had known for years who had now split from their partners. That provided me with a quite busy social life. One of the 'old' friends I hooked up with again was Amanda or Mandy as she was mostly called. We had been doubles partners and had won a few county level competitions as well as being the club's ladies doubles champions three years in a row when we were in our mid twenties. When I married Richard I stopped playing much, whereas Amanda went onto become a fairly successful coach earning a good living giving lessons and continued playing 'veteran's' tennis.
We played together occasionally, had a few drinks in the clubhouse and chatted at club do, as indeed I did with most of the 'single' women. I truly wasn't looking for a sex partner, simply a social life. I had no thoughts in my mind that anything could happen between one of the women in the club and me, it was all just too close to home, and in any case Richard came to may of the club social events
I was at one of these when Richard was away, as usual, that I was dancing next to her in a circle of girls, yes very Essex and Herts I know, but there were no handbags or white stilettos! As the music changed we were together dancing and she took me in her arms for a jive. After, we sat at the bar and she asked how things were going at home. She knew both Peter, my son, and Charlotte, my daughter and was interested, but surprised when I told her both were at university.
"Shit, it only seems yesterday that I was giving them lessons and the racquets were as big as them" she laughed.
"Time flies Mands" I replied.
"And Richard?"
"He's fine, when I see him."
"How do you mean?"
I explained about the crazy hours he worked and the murderous one week in three away from home travel schedule.
"Poor you, still you can spend more time at the club can't you?"
We talked for ages as old friends, I thought, for I had never had any feeling that she had come onto me or had any interest in me as a sexual partner, although there had always been some 'talk' about her. We had all rather wondered about her when she played on one of the UK tennis circuits with their rumoured strong lesbian content. It had been resurrected when she and her husband parted leaving her with a daughter to bring up.
Over the next few months, we played tennis together quite a lot, chatted at the club and saw each other at club events and parties. It was at one of these given by a club member when we chatted a lot and danced together not in any way sexual, but just like any two 'ordinary' women. I told her that I was getting quite pissed off with Richard being away and was lonely now the kids had left home. The vodka I'd drunk was making feel quite morose and she must have noticed that. Sitting in the garden away from the crowd, I was absolutely, as some say, gobsmacked when she looked right into my eyes and said almost expressionlessly.
"Maybe Cat, it's time you and I had an affair."
Totally shocked I replied rather inanely. "And why do you say that Amanda?" as I frantically tried to gather my thoughts.
"Well I think we are both lost souls in this rather messy world and that we might be able to help each other."
I didn't reply, but just sat there looking at her wondering what would come next. Although my heart was pounding, I wasn't that excited I realised or even surprised, insulted, worried or particularly concerned. I guess interest and intrigue together, in some ways with relief were the paramount emotions. It hit me then that I had gone through over twenty five years of my sexually active life without any bisexual feelings, involvement or adventures, yet in under two of my post forty years this was my third encounter. I couldn't put a reason on that.
"Yes," she continued "I think we both don't know where we are going or what we are after and we are good mates aren't we so perhaps we should stick together?"
I smiled and said. "Rather tortuous logic there Amanda for proposing that I should have an affair with you."
"What is?"
"Because we mates we should have sex."
She again smiled and went on. "Maybe but don't tell me you haven't tried the "forbidden fruits" Cat for I'm sure you have."
Rather foolishly I fell into the trap of asking. "How do you know that?"
We both laughed at my faux pas and she said. "Well it's my business to know such things." To my relief she continued, "Of course I don't know who with and how much but I can tell Cat that you are not unknown to other women. Actually I saw Jane Clements a while ago and when she realised my club she asked if I knew you."
"What else did she say?" I asked feeling guilty and hoping against hope that Jane hadn't' told Amanda what I had got up to with her.
"Only that you'd done some coaching at one of her schools in Spain.
We chatted on for a while but then we got asked to dance and we didn't have the chance to talk any more that evening. A few days later I was at the club and had dropped my car off for a service. Someone from the dealer had given me a lift to the club and had said that I should ring them later and they would bring it to the club. I played in the late morning had some lunch and then had a knock around in the afternoon. As I finished Amanda came up to me and said that we had to talk and could we go somewhere. I explained about the car and she said. "Let me run you there to pick it up we can talk on the way."
In our tracksuits and tennis gear we started off just as the sun was going down. It was March and although it wasn't cold it was damp and drizzly as we drove along the country lanes and into the forest. Pulling into a car park cut into the forest, she said.
"Best if we stop to chat Cat if that's ok?"
There were a couple of other cars in the large car park both with very steamed up windows indicating what was probably going on in them. The light had pretty much now gone so when Amanda stopped the car in the furthest corner from the road and turned off the engine it was quite dark, the only light coming from the dash board.
"You have been on my mind ever since Saturday," she blurted out adding, "I probably should not have said what I did."
I said. "Don't worry Amanda, probably the booze."
She leaned forward and turned to me as she replied. "No Cat it wasn't. I meant what I said, but maybe should not have expressed it."
We talked along those lines for a while until she said.
"And I shouldn't have said what I did about you and other girls, it was purely speculation." I nearly confirmed to her that I had been with others but something told me to keep that to myself and she whittered on for a while until she said. "But of course you know that I have don't you?"
I told her that I had guessed that she had, and she went on. "And I can't help telling you Cat that for years I have wanted to go with you and that since Saturday I have hardly thought about anything else."
That hit me hard. I didn't want that sort of pressure but, I must admit, I was flattered. I looked at her and said.
"Oh Amanda don't" as I put my hand without thinking onto her arm.
She said. "I can't help it Cat, I have never fancied a woman as I do you," her right arm going around my shoulder. "Oh Cat," she purred, "Will you think about it?"
I said nothing and we sat there for what seemed an age but was probably not even a minute simply looking at each other. I didn't back off or do anything to deter her nor did I encourage her, but I knew what was coming next. All my womanly instincts screamed that she was going to kiss me and I knew that if I was to avoid that I would have to do something to change the mood. I could change the subject and thus get us out of the situation without any undue loss of face on her part or I could do nothing and accept the inevitable. I was strangely calm as I had been when undressing for Jane that first time in Spain when she came to my room and made such staggeringly exciting love to me. I simply sat there doing absolutely nothing. Possibly I wanted something to happen, maybe I knew that she wanted me and that caused my actions. It could have been that the latent desire that had been satisfied on just a few occasions in my life was now resurfacing.
But then on the other hand as Amanda had said, we were mates, and I didn't think mates fucked each other, at least male and female mates don't, do they?
Whatever the motivation I sat there as her hand touched my cheek and as her face moved closer to mine. She stopped just inches from me her breath warm on my cheeks and her lips slightly parted as if asking my permission to go on. I again made no movement to detract her and thus implicitly, I suppose, gave that permission.
And then we were kissing.
It was tremendous des ja vu as that vaguely familiar but almost forgotten softness of a woman's lips touched mine. But it just didn't seem right. I wasn't prepared or ready for it. And on top of that two women snogging in a public car park did strike me as slightly sordid.
I moved my face and said. "No Amanda, no."
She immediately pulled away apologising and saying how sorry she was. I felt sorry for her for I had certainly led on her on a little and I told her there was no need to be. We talked a little more and I explained how confused I was over my marriage, which was nearly sexless other than when Richard took photos of me in my underwear or naked. I tried to explain that it was not her I was rejecting nor a female but sex and involvement altogether.