Chapter 3

I must have stood there amid the panic and chaos for seconds, but to me as I froze to the spot, it seemed like forever. Then someone took me gently by the arm.

"Come with me,” He said, "You need to get away from here."

I looked around and there he was again, my handsome stranger.

He put his arm around me and led me out of the pub, straight into the car park and unlocked his car.

"Get in.” He said.

I was glad he wanted to get away from there. As we headed up the road police cars were heading the other way, towards the pub.

He just drove straight past them.

"Should we have left like that?” I asked him.

"Definitely.” He replied, "I didn't see anything, you didn't see anything, so what's the point in waiting to give a statement, plus you're bleeding."

I glanced down at my hand. The glass was still there. I reached over and carefully took the jagged edge between my thumb and forefinger and began to draw it out.

"No! Don't do that -”

I was too drunk to listen. Besides, it was hurting me now and I wanted it out. I lifted it up. There was a pop as the glass came free. And blood started to run down my hand much faster.

"Oh no, help me!”

I admit I was squealing like a baby.

He turned the car down a side road and parked, then took hold of my hand and placed a tissue over it. He took my other hand and told me to keep it over the wound.

Then he pulled a small bag from the back seat and took out what looked like a first aid kit.

He started to clean up my hand.

"It's not bad,” He told me, "You haven't done any major damage, that will be ok in a couple of days. Keep it covered."

And he pressed a plaster over the cut.

"Thanks.” I said, still entranced by him and drunk enough for the horror of the shooting to vanish from my mind.

"Where did your friend go?" He asked me.

"Home. She left ages ago, at least half an hour ago. She got the bus and went home."

"Ok, fine. I'm taking you for a drink. Not around here. Further up the road. I think its best if you pretend you left before the shooting. That way no one's going to bother you with questions."

It made sense. And at the time I could only think, at least he's making a move on me. Knowing that made the whole evening worthwhile despite what had happened.

We drove further up the road, on for several miles until we came to a pub called The Vine. He told me to call my friend and say we were at The Vine, and had left just after she did.

There was a phone box near by and I did call her, he smiled when he heard me say, “I've pulled him, Alice...We're at The Vine."

When I hung up he told me to wait while he made a call.

He was very quick, said something about everything being fine and he was on his way back but he was making a detour and it was nothing to worry about. Then he hung up.

He took me into the pub and sat me down in a corner and went to the bar.

When he came back he gave me something orange in a tall glass.

"Harvey wall banger?" I guessed.

"Fruit juice."He replied, "I think you've had enough to drink, you don't want a hangover and a sore hand in the morning."

I wasn't about to complain. Besides, he was right.

"What's your name?” I asked him.

"Jonny." He replied, "And before you ask, I work in security - well, sort of. It's a bit of a long story."

I couldn't help myself. I had to touch him. I put my hand on his knee. I let it slide up his leg slowly. I got to the top of his thigh and his hand closed over mine, then he slid it back down to his knee again.

We talked. I kept trying to caress him but each time he stopped me, he didn't mind me sitting close or putting my hand on his leg, but he was controlling himself. I couldn't help not controlling myself because I wanted him so much. We got on well. He was someone I instantly warmed to, I wanted to get to know him better but after I finished my drink he told me he was driving me home.

"I have to be somewhere.” He explained, "Or I'll be in trouble."

He did drive me home. He parked outside my house and we chatted some more. I wanted to put my arms around him and kiss him. I had a burning desire to kiss him till my head swam with the beautiful scent of his skin.

He checked his watch finally and said, "I really have to go now, Eve."

"Goodnight.” I said, and leaned closer.

I lacked skill and experience, but made my move out of sheer determination. My hand slid up his thigh. As our lips touched, we kissed gently. I kissed him harder, my tongue slipping into his mouth, as he started to kiss me back I moved my hand right between his legs. He had a lovely hard on. I wanted to keep my hand pressed against him forever, but he stopped me quickly.

He pulled away.

"Eve, I really have to go now."

I was still drunk, but not so drunk that I was about to try for a second move. He said he had to go, he had to be somewhere. I looked into his eyes and in that moment, my mind said words I dared not say aloud, I want you, I want you so much, I want to hold you and kiss you and never stop kissing you. You're my prince. The man I've always dreamed of. And yes, he could have had me any way he wanted me, he could have had sex with me, taken me over and I would have surrendered myself to him. I was (and still am) a believer in safe sex. But he could have ravished me and shot me full of cum and I would have thanked him for it. But he was a gentleman and like he said, he had to go. So I said goodnight, I got out of the car and he drove away.

When I went upstairs that night I took off my clothes and left them in a heap on the floor, slid into bed and closed my eyes, warm and wet with thoughts of him, at the same time my heart ached but it felt so good when I thought of him. I knew it could be a crush. If it was, it was the biggest one I'd ever had. And I was at the kind of age where I was realising sometimes feelings ran deeper than a crush. I knew there was a little piece of my heart that would keep my memory of him forever. That night I put my hand between my legs and stroked myself. While I did it I imagined being in his arms, kissing him, running my hands all over him and covering his body with my kisses. While I did it I got wetter and felt more and more that I wanted to make myself come, but what I felt for him was beautiful so I kept these thoughts playing in my mind while I held onto the longing inside I felt for him. And then I slept till morning.

A few days later I was sitting on the bed round Alice's house. We were in her sister's bedroom and I was wearing her sister's t-shirt because mine had been soaked when washing her mum's car had turned stupid, (my own t-shirt was white with a green and pink smiley on it, I never got it back, and I still miss it to this day). Hers was black and didn't go too well with my vivid green cycle shorts.

They were talking about her boyfriend again so I drifted off into my own thoughts. Then I picked up my notepad and started to write.

"Eve's writing poetry again." Said Alice.

"It's a private one.” I said, and carried on. This was not one to share with my friends. It was a verse I was writing for him. It was one of those moments when writing just flowed from me. But not from the usual places; not from anger or moodiness or a love of playing with words, this was different. It came from my heart, flowing from my heart to my mind to my hands, to the pen and out onto the paper. It didn't take me long to write it and as I silently read it back to myself I knew I had captured what I felt perfectly:

If I could find a quiet place,

Away from the rest of the human race,

I'd sleep awhile by a magical stream,

And try and find you in my dreams.

Once I'd found you, I'd want to keep

On dreaming and not wake from this sleep,

Until I'd found the perfect place

To be the sunlight that kisses your face.

"Can I see?" Asked Alice's sister.

I felt my cheeks glowing scarlet. She was likely to tease me over this. I was the loud and crazy one in the group, not considered to be the slightest bit romantic. I folded the paper, folded it again and put it in my bag. Then I changed the subject very quickly.

"Let's drink your dad's vodka and top it up with water." I said.

I walked home very drunk. By the time I got back I was tired and horny as hell, as thoughts and images played through my mind. I was still a teenager, I had all this immense desire building in me and as I thought of him I thought of the most erotic images I'd ever dreamed up: Me, on my knees in front of him. Jonny slowly unbuckling his belt and sliding it off. It was a leather belt. Then he drew me into his arms, kissed me, my hands slid down his shirt and began to undo the buttons... Looking back, even then my erotic thoughts leaned towards hints at being dominated, but in those days I didn't know a thing about bondage or domination. I was yet to learn of the beautiful pleasure that danced through my senses when I was kneeling before a man I adored and wanted to serve and worship. I didn't know what being submissive meant. I thought it was about being tied up and whipped - not for me at all. But as I said, that was then. I was yet to learn being dominated could mean many other things, that kinky could be anything I wanted it to be. And at that young age, those images were as far as I got. I was upstairs, in the bathroom and sliding the bolt across the door quickly. Then I ran a bath and while the water was running I sat on the edge of the bath and rubbed at the burning ache between my legs. I slid a finger in myself several times, and then rubbed my clit. I came very hard and very quickly, and although it didn't ease the ache in my heart, the unbearable swelling ache between my legs felt better - it certainly helped to relive the burning, powerful urges Jonny had given me.

But that relief was only temporary. Coming over those thoughts became something I did quite often. I would lay in bed at night and think about him, images would flood my mind, I would put a hand between my legs and as my clit began to tingle I would gently rub it until my juices flowed. I knew little at that age about how to use a fantasy to assist orgasm, the woman I would become later would have a virtual library up in her mind, taking a book off the shelf and flooding her mind with pure filth before an orgasm every time, but here in my youth, mild erotica played about lightly with my thoughts, flitted backwards and forwards through my mental vision while I got wet and sticky. Then those thoughts more or less slipped away as I concentrated on the serious business of making myself have an orgasm.

Sometimes on wet days if I had nothing to do I would sit by my window and watch the rain trace trickling paths down the pane, then look past the glass, across the garden to the houses that lie

beyond and just a little further back, right on the edge of my view I saw the pub that held my memories of him. As I watched rain gleaming on the far-off red tiled rooftop, I told myself we would meet again and I believed it the way only a teenager with dreams could. And I kept that poem folded neatly in the zip pocket inside my black leather handbag, ready for the day when I would give it to him.

I hadn't really thought about what I would actually say when it happened.

Except that knew I loved him.

Would he love me back?

I hoped so!

The letter stayed in my bag for a long time waiting for that meeting.

And then eventually I took it out, unfolded it and filed it away with all the poetry from my youth. Of all my poems that was the one I cherished, it had come straight from my heart to a man I knew so little about and yet loved so much. I never forgot him and of all the men to come and go in what would turn out to be a long, hard learning curve in life, not one of their names etched as deeply and permanently in my heart as Jonny's did.

Time passed.

No matter what happened in my life I often found my thoughts strayed back to him, to the night we met, often wishing it had played out differently. I went back time and again to that kiss, then later, older, I would lie on my bed and gently fuck myself with a standard five inch vibrator, sliding it in and out as I wished I had known his flesh on mine, his cock inside me, our bodies joined together as his hardness filled me up and slammed into me so deep he pounded my cervix as he shot his come. That was my idea of hot sex even then, Jonny taking me any way he wanted to. My thoughts and dreams of our encounters would change over the years as my sexuality evolved and matured but one thing remained a constant: I knew what I felt the day we met had been no crush. I knew it had been that real, precious and rare thing known as true love - and no matter what happened in life he was never far from my thoughts. I still hoped that one day we would meet again.

I didn't know almost twenty years would pass before our paths crossed for the second time.