Chapter One
Nat isn't my real name. I'm using it for two reasons. One: because it's short for "Natalie", which I think is very sexy and would've picked for myself, given the opportunity. And two: because I feel the need to preserve identities of guilty parties, for reasons that will soon become apparent.
I'll let you decide exactly who is "guilty" as my story of last weekend progresses.
In keeping with my false name I'm going to withhold a lot of personal details. All I'll say is that I left my West Yorkshire home town to go to university a little over two years ago. And that, flying visits aside, I haven't been back since. Not that I fell out with my parents or anything . . . not really.
And I definitely did not fall out with my daddy!
At this stage (conscious I'm sounding like a lady of much mystery) I'd like to make a couple of things clear. I am not a tease and I'm not a woman who doesn't know her own mind. On the contrary, I'll be twenty-one next month and I have been sexually active since I turned eighteen.
Want to know a little more about the loss of my virginity . . . in the strictest of confidence? Okay, here goes. Unlike a lot of my friends I kept my legs clamped tight together throughout the upper sixth, only surrendering in-between school and uni. I got a job at a local supermarket for the summer, you see, and so did a guy I'd known most of my life.
Talk about a slow-burning relationship! We had eighteen years of being school chums without either of us feeling any attraction at all and then, after a week on the same shelf-stacking shift, we were at it like bunny rabbits.
I'm going to tell the whole truth in this narrative so I won't pretend that the earth moved for me on our very first time. No, it was our fourth date and third shag until that happened. And was I glad that we'd persisted. After that third shag we simply could not get enough of each other.
Updated into the twenty-tens . . . our Summer of Love or what!
Once at uni, forgetting about my (deliberately nameless) school/workmate, I soon found new interests most of them prominently featuring sex. Don't get me wrong; I haven't been quite as much of a whore as some, but I have certainly enjoyed myself. As a ballpark figure, I've had an additional seven lovers: six male and one very, very female.
This is the truth speaking, remember? My female friend Jude (with apologies for another false name!) is also my flat-mate. We share her bed most nights. It's far bigger and better than my bed . . . and it goes without saying that Jude is absolutely brilliant at making love.
Hesitating as I write this, I'm going to confess that I used to believe that Jude was the best lover I had ever had. And that I admit I may just be slightly in love with her. I definitely love her (as a friend) with a passion that no man has ever stirred in me. Not that I am even remotely lezzie; I don't fancy any other women at all; Jude is the only one for me.
Yes, I know how mixed up that sounds. Let's just say that I'm still at that experimental age. And that Jude is research I want to keep undertaking again and again.
Honest!!
That much said we have a ladette-like relationship too. By that I mean we often go out on the pull and nearly always succeed. Okay, so we nearly always pull the same pair of blokes (Tom and Dick will do, as far as their ID goes). We can be adventurous with it, though. Usually it's me going with Tom, Jude with Dick, but not every time. Sometimes it's been vice versa and once or twice it's been all four of us in Jude's wonderful big bed.
Tom and Dick love to watch us sixty-nine, by the way; they love that to bits.
Right then; after confessing that I'm a slutty woman of the world I'm going to leave it at that. All I'll add is that I have never once regretted a single sexual experiment. I'd repeat every last one of them, given the opportunity.
Well, virtually every last one of them. A few would need more practice . . . especially those involving guys who were a lot less experienced than me.
*****
Enough of who I am (or aren't), it's time to cut to the chase. I got the call last Thursday evening. Jude was out, allegedly at "chess club". I believed that perhaps a shade more than I would have believed it if she'd said "bible class". At this point anyone who is into chess or religion should please excuse me, but neither fit in with the sort of social life Jude leads. If she'd claimed she was meeting settlers from Mars I'd have been more credulous . . . or, knowing her, settlers from Uranus.
So there I was, my dry white chilling in the fridge, sipping Diet Coke and concentrating on coursework when my mobile rang.
'Nat,' my mother began, skipping the small talk, 'I have news. Your darling Daddy has moved out. He has left me on my lonesome.'
Now don't get me wrong, my upbringing hadn't been far short of idyllic. There had been no arguments or hardships in my childhood. Corporal punishment never happened and even on the rare occasions I got grounded, it was never for more than an hour or so. I'd been a much-loved only child, only ever in danger of being cuddled to death.
Yet I had noticed undertones since my eighteenth. Nothing directed against me, understand. No, all of the stress had been between my parents. Innocent youth as I was, I had even wondered if they'd had a secret accord: one along the lines of looking after me until I became "of age" and then taking a view as to the rest of their lives.
I know that I'm being wise after the event, but that was the impression I got. That was also the reason I'd rarely revisited "home" since heading off for pastures new. Well one reason. In reality freedom had acted on me like a drug; I was addicted and couldn't give it up for more than the odd day or two.
Alcohol aside, I didn't do drugs, but I did freedom more keenly than the most dedicated of cokeheads.
Here's another "wise after the event" observation. Those undertones I mentioned were always down to my mother. I know how crazy it sounds, but Daddy was the homemaker. It was always Daddy who suggested the days out: weekends in Morecambe or Whitby; trips to the cinema; holidays in Cornwall; rambling in the Lake District . . .
Daddy worked hard, long hours but was always ready to entertain his beloved daughter. My mother worked part-time in an office where she didn't seem to do much apart from flashing passing glimpses of leg, ass and tit. Not that I'm saying she wasn't glamorous and good company. It was more a matter of her needing to drip bling and perpetually be the centre of attention.
With my hand on heart, I had long suspected she might have strayed, and more than once at that. Put on the spot, I'd have put my money on her moving out centuries before Daddy ever would.
Upset and suspicious, I tried to get for details out of Mother. Abrupt and unhelpful, she told me sod all.
It was a shame I didn't have a video link: face-to-face, I'd only ever needed to look at her to see what was going on in her mind.
And yes, I am a bitchy daughter; ask me if I'm ashamed of that!
'This has been coming for years,' Mother said before dismissively hanging up on me. 'I warned him if he walked out it'd be final, but did he hesitate? Good riddance, in my opinion.'
Chapter Two
That chilled bottle of wine didn't help me sleep one wink. I got up early Friday morning, stuffed a few essentials into my backpack and, skipping lectures for the day, footed it to the railway station. As if by magic, three or four hours and a lot of rail fare later, I was back in God's Own County.
Footing it again, I made my way "home", noticing at once that the two parking spaces outside our so-very-smart semi were empty. It wasn't too long beyond midday, however. And Daddy always worked until at least five o'clock, six days a week. Come to that, whether she was due in the office or not, my mother was never back before two.
No surprise there, then . . . and not that I really expected Daddy to roll up that particular day.
Using the long-unused Yale key on my ring, I unlocked the front door and hesitated. There was music coming from inside.
Don't say Mother's given up her car already, my mind reeled, alarmed at the speed things could fall apart.
'Hello,' I called, 'it's me . . . Nat.'
Dead silence ensued.
Kicking the door shut behind me, I went along a familiar corridor and into the kitchen.
And I widened my eyes in shock.
There was a strange girl sitting at the breakfast bar, reading a glossy and paying me zero attention.
'Excuse me,' I managed, 'but who are you?'
Taking a visible effort to look up from her trashy magazine article, the girl said, 'I'm Amy. Who in fuck are you?'
'I'm Nat,' I replied, 'I happen to live here.'
'Oh,' said she, 'I heard about you.'
And that was as much as I got. She went back to whatever crappy rag she was reading and blanked me altogether.
Anger tolerance has never been my strong point. I glared at her. She was perhaps fifteen and, unless her attitude dramatically improved, her chances of making sixteen weren't good. Fortunately, before I could mash her face into photos of big-titted celebs, I heard tyres on gravel.
Mother was getting out of her car when I reopened the front door. If I'd expected distraught I would've been disappointed. She might have been into work for a change but she equally might have been out early doors clubbing. I took in yards of bare thigh and heels that must have needed crampons to climb onto.
'Oh,' she said in greeting, 'it's you. What are you doing here?'
'I thought I ought to come and help out,' I said. 'I thought you'd be heartbroken.'
'I am,' she said, forcing a supposedly brave smile, 'obviously. But I didn't expect you to come dashing to my rescue.'
'Well here I am,' I countered, unsettled by her generally unruffled appearance. Then, jerking a thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the kitchen, I mouthed: "Who's she?"
Mother nodded and, brushing past me, led the way into the lounge.
'That's Amy,' she said after shutting the door behind us. 'She's Lionel's daughter.'
'And Lionel is . . .'
As if in answer, another car pulled up outside the house.
'This is Lionel,' Mother said.
I joined her at the window in time to see a guy climb out of an expensive-looking Audi. He was at least ten years younger than Mother and probably worked in advertising. You know what I mean, promoting fancy aftershave or the likes . . . and getting to fuck lots of drop-dead-gorgeous models as a perk.
