Tim Connor Hits Trouble Page 17

  ‘Go ahead. Are you in love with her?’

  ‘Tim, that’s a bit simplistic.’

  ‘Sorry, I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘I’m not in love with her romantically, if that’s what you mean. She’s my best friend. And neither of us sees any point in putting arbitrary limits on our friendship although it’s not particularly sexual from my point of view. I mean my motive isn’t sexual. Anyway I don’t intend to talk about that side of our relationship. It would be disloyal’

  ‘And I wouldn’t ask you. But, so what do you get out of it? Are you attracted to each other?’

  ‘Tim, you’re still going on about the same thing. Of course we’re attracted to each other but as people, not just as bodies… You’re the body expert,’ she added with a flash of annoyance.

  Tim decided to ignore the jibe, suppressing the obvious retort that Erica was hardly lacking in that department herself. He wanted to hear more about Erica and Rachel.

  ‘She must be twenty years older than you or more.’

  ‘Yes. She was one of my lecturers, as you probably know. She was very kind to me when I needed someone to be. And she’s a bright, interesting person.’

  ‘So she was a cradle-snatcher. You still seem slightly in awe of her.’

  The remark riled Erica. ‘Tim for a psychologist you seem naively willing to stereotype us. Do you think I haven’t thought about that side of my relationship with her? Well I have. I respect Rachel, but it’s a pretty equal partnership,’ she paused for a second before adding, ‘anyway, more than at first.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry. I’m just trying to understand where I fit in. It seems like you’ve manoeuvred me into a very particular role.’

  ‘How do you mean ‘manoeuvred’ you? Aren’t you enjoying yourself? I’m beginning to think you’re jealous of Rachel.’

  Tim was half-inclined to back off. He wanted to get closer to Erica and he seemed to be achieving the opposite. But he needed to unload his feelings and at least he was getting some response.

  ‘I promise you I’m not jealous. There’s no point. Maybe I just want our relationship to open up a bit, perhaps see more of you, change the scenery a bit. After all I’m only here today because I invited myself.’

  At the risk of annoying Erica he attempted some instant psychoanalysis.

  ‘Are you sure you aren’t applying Rachel-type control to our relationship? I know you see yourself as her equal now, but she’s been your mentor for a long time and not just academically. Maybe you’re imitating her behaviour without being aware of it. But you and I… I mean we could loosen up a bit?’

  Erica’s irritation flared again; more intense because she saw some truth in Tim’s remark. ‘I thought you men are only interested in one thing? Especially you. You have a bit of a reputation you know. It preceded you to Wash.’

  Tim flinched. Now he was annoyed.

  ‘Who dug that out? Rachel, I suppose.’

  ‘No. Leave Rachel out of it.’

  Caught up in their conversation they had not even sat down again following Rachel’s departure. They stood starring at each other, stiff with tension, on the point of open anger. Simultaneously self-awareness dawned on them.

  ‘Christ, look at us. All set for battle.’ It was Erica who broke the spell. ‘Tim, I didn’t mean to upset you. Let’s forget about all this for now. It’s enough for one session. I’m going to get a bottle of wine from the fridge. Then I’m going to spoil you while we drink. Would you like that?’

  He quickly agreed. He was in need of affection and it looked like he was about to get some. The change of mood was instant and total. ‘Being spoilt’ took the form of a leisurely massage to the gentle sounds of sitar-led music unfamiliar to Tim. He lay face down, closed his eyes and surrendered to relaxation. After several minutes Erica asked him to turn over. He watched her as she continued to massage him, his member on the rise.

  Making love was not exactly the calm after the storm but they connected more tenderly than in their usual lust-fuelled explosions. Once inside her, Tim held back and kept holding back wanting to extend their pleasure and intimacy as long as possible. Slowly the warmth and pleasure in Erica’s eyes intensified into fierce, shining desire.

  Still, he held back before the rhythm of love took over, rapid and urgent. There bodies locked, immobile, rigid for a moment.

  ‘Now,’ cried Erica.

  ‘Aaa…’

  ‘Got you!’

  ‘Aaa…’

  Her body closed over his quivering cock as they released together. Their eyes open to each other in blue on brown-eyed wonder.

  Desire slaked, they drifted together half-conscious.

  Tim slowly eased away rolling onto the soft carpet, reaching for Erica’s hand wanting to maintain intimacy. After a few minutes he moved closer again laying his head on her breasts.

  ‘Phew!’

  ‘Phew!’

  ‘Thank you, that was…’

  ‘It was…’

  ‘Beautiful.’

  ‘It was.’

  Erica began to stroke Tim’s forehead.

  ‘Tim,’ she was hesitant as she continued to caress him.

  ‘Tim, I don’t want to go back to what we were talking about before but I just want to say something so we don’t fall out about it later.’

  ‘Ok. Go ahead.’ Tim was expecting Erica to say something personal, perhaps about her feelings for him or her relationship with Rachel.

  ‘Tim, this Henry thing… I’m more in agreement with Rachel than with you. She exaggerates, but basically she’s right. He’s not doing the job.’

  Tim was also reluctant to start again on Henry. But somehow he had become the man’s defender.

  ‘Erica, I don’t know. Don’t you think this is partly personal? Rachel and Swankie don’t like Henry. And it’s Henry that’s lost out. They’re banging him up really. I think he’s been through enough. I’ll talk to him, see what he has to say. Maybe there’s some solution short of him being kicked out?’

  ‘You can try but Henry’s pretty stubborn. It’s up to you. I just don’t want us to fall out about it.’

  She gave his hair a gentle pull. Shifting his head from her breasts he wriggled up to look into her eyes. For once they were face to face, albeit at floor level.

  ‘I’ve got something else to tell you,’ Erica smiled slightly coy.

  ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘That was maybe the best sex I’ve ever had.’

  ‘That’s nice, but only maybe?’

  ‘Not only but also. It was so good I can’t wait for more.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  Erica spread her long, Olympic class legs. Tim leaned back to get the full view. Abruptly she closed them again.

  Tim groaned.

  ‘Surely a cat can look at a queen?’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s not you,’ she gave his perpendicular a friendly pat as she got to her feet. ‘Can you hold that for a couple of minutes? I just want to pop into the bedroom for a second.’

  Tim got to his feet pacing the room, aroused and impatient for her to return. It was worth the wait. Erica re-entered in full erotic regalia, her breasts bursting proudly through a cup-less bra and her backside and crotch bare through cut-out leather leotards. In six-inch stiletto heels she was almost as tall as Tim. If she hadn’t been so drop-dead sexy Tim might have laughed. But desire overwhelmed any comedic impulse. The sheer beauty of her glorious body ensured that fantasy routed bathos. And that arse. You could travel continents and still not find its equal. Epochs must have passed without the appearance of quite so marvellous a bum.

  Silently she walked to a low antique desk. Stretching out her arms she touched its edge and bent over, her buttocks jutting high in the air. She spread her legs carefully, wobbling slightly on the stilettos, the perfectly etched muscles of her legs and rump clenching as she struggled to hold her balance.

  The mind plays its own tricks. The phrase ‘Don’t look a gift
-horse in the mouth’ popped into his head. But perversely the ludicrous image intensified his lust - ride a horse cock. He gazed greedily on the smooth dipping contours of her bottom.

  ‘I’ll take you from the rear,’ said Tim redundantly.

  ‘From, not up, please,’ she said quickly.

  ‘Not an issue.’

  He moved urgently towards her but curbing his lust began to stroke her upturned backside, feather light, barely touching. Erica felt as though static was crackling across its exposed surface. Her buttocks began to quiver, first one, then the other and then losing control, both together. Gripping the gyrating muscles, he eased his cock onto her warm, wet hole.

  ‘Oh… Ah. Fuck me! Don’t wait! Fuck me now!’

  This was an invitation to which he was well poised to respond but still he played on the edge, teasing her. Erica was agonising for release. Finally she took the play away, dropping almost onto the full length of his cock. She shouted wildly, somewhere between ecstasy and execution. They bucked like animals, her rampant nates juddering like a pair of pistons, driving Tim to his roaring, cursing climax.

  On the fuck/love spectrum this was off the scale at the fuck end.

  Afterwards, sated and exhausted, they slept in each others arms. It felt to Tim as though some barrier had been shifted between them, not removed but jolted. It was a feeling beyond the intensity of carnal pleasure and Tim yearned not to lose it.

  ‘I wish we could be as loving and affectionate as we are now even without making love, just sometimes. Do you think that’s possible?’

  Erica thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know. I hope so.’

  ‘I do, too. Let’s see how it goes. But staying in the moment, I could murder that Indian.’

  ‘Good idea. I’ll give it a whiz in the micro-wave.’

  It mattered to Tim that he got to stay the night. Two months previously it wouldn’t have bothered him so much. They made easy love again as dawn spread its crisp light across the bedroom. They ate breakfast by a broad semi-circular window that gave a panoramic view of the city. But smiling and relaxed most of their attention was on themselves.

  Tim put off leaving for as long as he could. At the door of the flat, bare-foot, Erica stretched to kiss him goodbye.

  ‘Do you fancy one for the road, then?’

  Tim smiled down at her.

  ‘Come on now, give piece a chance.’

  ‘Idiot!’ Erica planted a giant kiss on his lips before they finally parted.

  Tim felt a warm glow as he strolled back home through the city. He was pleased with himself, besotted with Erica and inclined to give the world at large the benefit of the doubt. ‘Give peace a chance,’ he repeated to himself as he beamed cheerfully at the passing public, ‘she’s certainly done that.’

  Chapter 14

  Henry and Tim Play Golf

  ‘Is that you Henry?’

  ‘I think so. I’m not fully awake yet. Is that you, Tim?’

  ‘Yes, no doubt about it. How are things Henry?’

  ‘Pretty average Tim. And yourself?’

  ‘Fine. Not to beat about the bush, how would you like to meet up for a drink and a chat?’

  ‘The drink sounds good. Any particular reason for a chat? Are you in trouble or something; in need of solace and advice from a wise if fast fading colleague?’

  Tim throttled a laugh. He wasn’t quite sure how to take Henry’s self-mockery.

  ‘No, no more than usual. I just wanted to talk about a few work-related things with you, and see how you are.’

  ‘Well yeah, good idea. Aren’t we both free from teaching by late afternoon? I finish at three thirty. We could meet then. Do you fancy a round of golf followed by a barrel of ale? I seem to have run out of playing partners these days so it would be just you and me. Can you play the game, by the way?’

  ‘Not really. It’s always seemed like a slow way of boring yourself to death to me. But maybe I should learn. I’m about reaching the stage when I’ll have to give up soccer for something less physically punishing.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ How about we leave from the campus shortly after three thirty? I’ll come and get you from your room. Is that OK?’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it. See you later.’

  ‘So you will. Cheers.’

  On the golf course Henry was a revelation. He hit shots and sank putts to a standard that looked almost professional to Tim’s untrained eyes. Without ever giving the matter much thought Tim had assumed that a man’s physical strength was well past its peak by the age of sixty. At below average height and with a prominent beer-belly Henry looked even less athletic than many of his age. But this was deceptive. His wide chest and shoulders and low centre of gravity were well suited to golf and by no means all his muscle had turned to fat. He hammered drives in excess of two hundred yards with seemingly little effort. Tim knew from the first hole that two very different rounds of golf were about to unfold.

  ‘Hell’s bells, Henry, where do you find the strength to do that?’ asked Tim as another of Henry’s drives sailed majestically down the fairway.

  ‘It’s more timing than strength or at least strength isn’t much use unless you’ve got timing. If club and ball come together on the sweet-spot you hardly know you’ve hit anything. Direction helps as well,’ Henry added with a grin. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll improve with practice.’

  ‘That’s some consolation, then,’ said Tim whose own drives were a mixture of air-shots and random connections that flew off briskly at unhelpful if interesting angles. One pinged close to a dog of the square-headed, crocodile-jawed variety. The animal was about to make a lively riposte when its agitated owner managed to restrain it.

  ‘Careful Mate, you shouldn’t be playing if you can’t hit the ball straight, it’s your own fault if the dog rips a piece off you.’ Tim was about to contest this proposition when he was suddenly struck by a disconcerting resemblance between the snarling pair. If anything the dog was the less repellent of the two.

  Confronted by two sets of unfriendly teeth he decided against a withering retort. Instead he waved an apologetic hand and hastened off in pursuit of his ball which had veered erratically towards a dense patch of brambles. Failing to find it, he took a drop and finished the hole in eight.

  Their round had by now taken on a distinctive shape, or in Tim’s case, shapelessness. Henry’s opening drives invariably settled on or close to the fairway a hundred or so yards ahead of Tim’s, depending on the length of the hole and the direction Tim’s shot had travelled in. The two men then walked to Tim’s ball usually to retrieve it from the long rough or even more remote locations. Tim then took the necessary number of shots to catch up with Henry. On the longer holes this routine was repeated a second or third time until they reached the green.

  Henry was modestly enjoying his moment as top banana. He chatted and smiled encouragingly as Tim hacked round in his wake. He observed kindly that once Tim’s ball was within a foot or so of the hole, he putted with ‘an iron nerve.’ Accepting that his round was beyond embarrassment and pleased for the older man, Tim took the piss-taking compliment with good grace. At Henry’s insistence they abandoned any pretence of competition and treated the round as Tim’s introduction to the game.

  The eighteenth hole offered Henry a moment of transcendence and Tim one of partial redemption. The hole was a four-fifty yarder which dog-legged at forty-five degrees from about halfway. It was lined with thick-trunked trees on either side of the fairway.

  ‘Tim, I’ve had the honour all the way, so you go first on the last hole. It might change your luck.’

  ‘I doubt it. But ok. Make sure you stand well behind me. The one mistake I don’t think I’ll make is clubbing the ball backwards. But remember I have a long swing. I don’t want to decapitate you.’

  Tim selected a driver and squared up to the ball with renewed intent – a last chance to shine. He launched the club and himself savagely at the blameless orb. Seventeen holes worth of
frustration cascaded through his long arms and the whirling blade. Man and ball left the ground at the moment of impact.

  ‘Crack!’

  Tim stumbled to the floor but the ball was motoring. A second crack rang out as it smacked into a tree trunk. It then angled back across the fairway cannoning into another tree propelling it a further fifty or so yards forward. The ball had reached the dogleg and came to rest in the middle of the fairway. The law of averages had finally worked in Tim’s favour, aided by several touches of contingency.

  Tim got up from the floor and waved his fists in triumph.

  ‘Got you at last, Henry. You might equal that but you can’t beat it.’

  Henry nodded in appreciation. ‘Cometh the moment, cometh the man.’

  He carefully teed up his own ball before holding up a moistened finger to test the direction of the wind. Satisfied he selected a wood from his golf-bag. He loosened his shoulders and steadied himself as he addressed the ball. The club travelled swiftly in a perfect arch from one shoulder to the other, striking the ball almost noiselessly. The ball was still rising fifty yards short of the dogleg where it caught a gust of wind that carried it round the angle. They were just able to see it beginning to dip into the second part of the fairway.

  The two men stood for a moment in awed contemplation, witnesses to an act of golfing perfection.

  It was Henry who broke the silence.

  ‘Tim, let’s leave it at that. If I never play golf again, I’ll live happily with the memory of that shot. Indulge me, young man, and give me an honourable draw. This is my Nicklaus-Jacklin moment.’

  ‘Henry, the honour is all yours. You can call it a draw if you like but I’m calling it a lesson – and not just in golf. You’re a model of sporting grace. By the way the next round is mine, in the bar that is.’

  In the clubhouse the first pint of well-kept local ale tasted better than amber nectar. They talked sport before spending a few minutes effortlessly solving the world’s major problems. Eventually Tim felt relaxed enough to bring the conversation round to Henry’s difficulties at work. He had no clear idea of what he wanted their talk to achieve other than persuading Henry not to provoke the hierarchy into sacking him. On the other hand the fighter in him warmed to the fighter in Henry. But fight or flight he knew he was on the older man’s side. This was the ethics of the gut but that was the way he felt.