It was around eight in the evening and I was just getting ready to leave when my mobile rang. It was Annie phoning from her office.
"Hi Sam, it's me." I could hear her giggling to herself.
"Annie, what the fuck is going on?" I snapped irritably.
"Are you okay to drive?" Her slurred voice sounded urgent.
"Of course I am. I'm still at work. Like I have been for the past few hours, waiting for you to fucking call me! Remember?" I answered starting to wonder why she was back at her office, my irritation suddenly starting to slide into concern. "Is something wrong?"
"No, it's just that I've had rather too much to drink to drive and anyway I've got a little surprise for you."
"What about the drinks and I thought you were leaving early because..." but she cut across me.
"Well everyone else should have left the pub by now I'd imagine. Look can you just get over here as soon as possible or else you'll ruin your surprise." She paused as if waiting for me to say something but I couldn't think straight so she continued, "In fact, the surprise might just evaporate!" She was laughing now, obviously pleased with her apparent joke and the fact that I hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about.
"Okay, I'll be there in about 15 minutes. I'll see you outside the main door." I wasn't sure what was going on but it was obvious I wasn't going to get any sense out of a drunken Annie over the phone.
"No Sam, come to my office. I've told security that I'm expecting you so they'll send you straight up." And with that the line went dead leaving me with a head full of unanswered questions. Why was she back at the office if she'd gone out for drinks? What on earth did she mean by an 'evaporating' surprise? Why couldn't she meet me at the main door? But then given recent events nothing should have surprised me much anymore especially given my complete complicity in them.
*
Annie and I met in the mid nineties at a pub in the centre of town; individual members of separate thirty-something groups who had somehow found themselves detached from their peers and who ended up spending the majority of the evening together. She was slim and pretty, dressed in what a decade later would become officially known as Bo-Ho Chic, her honey blonde hair cut short and spiky. I was very much an 'homme ordinaire', pretty average, mousy hair, medium build and height; an advertiser's dream I often thought. Even then we must have made an odd looking couple.
Annie, on a major rebound from a relationship that had ended in violence, spent most of the evening telling me what was wrong with the world and with her bright blue eyes sparkling with confidence exactly what needed to be done to change it. As for me, I was just meandering through life, my failed marriage now almost a distant memory. So I just stood and listened and smiled and occasionally nodded, and before I knew it I was totally infatuated.
When closing time arrived we left together and I walked her back to her place; she invited me in and we spent the rest of the night making love every which way. We did it slowly: we did it so gently that I thought my heart would explode; we did it in positions I'd never even thought of trying before; and finally, as the first faint glow of dawn arrived, we fucked violently; our mouths locked together; her clawing at my back, her long pointed nails driving me on as I rammed my cock in and out of her pussy as hard and as rapidly as she demanded. And afterwards, exhausted, we went to sleep wrapped in each others' arms.
We got up sometime around midday, went to the pub for Sunday lunch and spent the afternoon reading the papers and kissing. Just before I left we were at it again; Annie, her slim 5' 4" frame perched on the edge of the kitchen worktop, her long lithe legs wrapped around my back, pulling me into her.
We loosely arranged to see each other sometime the following weekend. However a couple of days later we met for lunch and the next evening I found myself back at her flat, looking up at her small pert breasts, her nipples pointing proudly upwards as she rode my face with her pussy for all she was worth. From then on we spent every spare moment of our lives together and it seemed as if we had fallen madly in love or lust or both. Within a few brief months, our conversations were even including the possibility of moving in together.
It was a roller-coaster ride that I was just happy to stay on to the end but once we were moving towards a more 'serious' relationship Annie suddenly started taking a much more cautious approach. For her it seemed that if we were to make such a major move then it had to be based on total and unequivocal honesty. On this she would brook no argument. There would be a sort of contract between us which we would discuss at length and then sign!
I went along with it all although I couldn't understand what the point was. It all sounded a bit like one of those stupid 'away day' workshops that modern businesses invest in, in the vain hope that it will somehow make staff more productive! Anyway on a designated Friday she came over to my flat; I opened what was by then an obligatory bottle of red wine and with Annie sitting opposite me on the floor, clipboard in hand, we began.
"Sam this is really, really important to me. I know you think I'm being stupid but I need to do this; I need for us to have a clear understanding of the boundaries." She stared straight at me waiting for a response.
"Okay," I replied a bit off-handedly, "but you must know how I feel about you Annie."