Chapter Four
Don’t you just hate the aftermath?
I woke up as I rolled over and ended up on a sticky, wet bed sheet.
Yuck. I rolled back the way I’d come.
I opened my eyes, and to my horror noticed daylight flooded the room. Had I overslept? Why would I?
Ah, yes.
Sex, and the little death.
Seemed I’d overdosed. But what a way to go. Except—I patted all around me.
Had I dreamed it all? A very wet dream to get me off and sate my newfound horniness.
Was it true when they said fair, fat, forty, and fucking happened? Even without de-fuzzing. I sure hoped so. Otherwise my itch was never going to be totally scratched. Okay, Bertie the bullet was a good helper, but silver steel with variable speeds and pulses was only a substitute for silky skin and the ability to reach two places at once. After all a cock filled me from tip to top. A bullet didn’t.
A strange buzzing noise permeated my fuzzy brain. It sounded like … an alarm. Not mine though. Mine did a gentle let me swim to the surface warble, not this sleep to hitting the ceiling in three seconds flat sound. And where on earth was it?
I sat up and swung my legs to the side of the bed.
The clock I didn’t even know had an alarm flashed at me from the bedside cabinet. I scowled and wondered how the hell I could turn the thing off.
In the end I pulled the plug out from the socket. It was only then I noticed the time. Six AM, the time I needed to get up to make sure I had two cups of coffee and still be at the surgery for early consultations. And something else. A white sheet of paper anchored to the surface of the cabinet by the offending clock.
The writing was bold and black. Written with what I guessed was a felt-tipped pen and on the back of the shopping list I’d left on the hall table so I didn’t forget it. If I didn’t head into town and do a stock up I’d be out of such essentials as decent gin and loo roll.
I snatched it up and read it once fast and then slower to take it in.
“Hi, darling doc,
You were so far gone that when I finally pried your mouth from my dick (very reluctantly I assure you) you were determined not to wake up. You told me to “goway” and sleep like a proper person on my side of the bed.
As I’d been the perfect gentleman and moved you to the dry side very slimy it was, too, but for you, anything.
Except sadly stay until you woke up. I did ask you what time you needed to get up, and you mumbled six, so I set your alarm for you. Hope it worked. I went around four, unwilling but knowing I had to. Think of me up to my neck in mud today, will you?
And I’ve added a few essentials to your shopping list. So next time we don’t have to stop.
Love (I know it’s so sudden, but I mean that. You, my darling doc, have knocked me for seven … that’s more than six, you understand)
Will be up to my ears in mud and gore the next few days. Being a demon is never easy. Take care, and do your shopping as soon as you can. Will be in touch, and won’t be on the bike next time. It was supposed to curb my need to fuck you senseless for the evening. Didn’t really work, did it?”
It was signed with a smiley heart, three kisses, and a slashing “A”, followed by a postscript or three.
“PS Watching you come apart all for me was the most erotic thing ever. I’m gonna remember it when I need to look interested in my co-star. Who is a friend and never has been or will be a friend with benefits.
“PPS I have two co-stars. One, Erica, is married to my best mate. (The other one is called Damon. I don’t fancy him either, nor he me. He is married to my other best mate.)
“PPPS Didn’t think it right and proper to sign this ‘Sir’. Not yet, but I live in hope.”
So did I.
****
How the hell I got myself together, carried out the surgery successfully—well I think I did, no one had complained yet—and drove to the supermarket twenty miles away I have no idea. My eyes were gritty, and I had, according to Sandie, who pointed an accusing finger at me, got a dreamy but gleeful cat who got the cream expression on my face.
“You’ve had sex,” she said in an accusing voice. “Hot sex and you never mentioned it. We always tell each other.”
How could I say, not anymore? I know she had been sort of all loved up and happy, but I got snippets. Like when Jason, her partner, introduced a bit of kink one night and she discovered she liked nipple clamps. I wondered if they still played or if she’d told him not in a million years after his escapades. Then there was the time when I’d thrown up over an ex when unbeknown to me he’d fed me gluten, because he was of the opinion it was all in the mind. That night he soon learned it wasn’t. His silk sheets would never be the same. What an asshole. But this maybe relationship mattered too much to giggle over. It wasn’t just sex, I was darned sure of that. It was deeper, more important than a simple screw.
“Come on, Sandy, fess up. Who was it, and on a scale of one to ten, how was it?”
I hesitated. It was all so new I wasn’t ready to share, and well, because of who and what Alistair was, could I really do it to him? Not that Sandie—that’s the practice manager with an ie—would share anything, but I wanted to protect him.
Screwy or what?
“I can’t share who with yet. I will when I can. It’s all a bit new and scary. I don’t want to jinx it.” I guessed she’d understand that. As she looked crestfallen, but nodded, I felt a right shit, but needs must. “Hot though.”
“Ah good, I was getting worried.”
So had I been. That I didn’t have time to get to the supermarket and back before I needed to check with the locum all was well. It had been a fantastic stroke of luck that Andy McCluskie was available for this week, and the next three when I had decided I was on holiday and doing nothing. He was much in demand. A great GP who, as he said, got itchy feet, and this way when he wanted to travel he could just up and go when his current post ended.
But first I had to go to town.
As I pushed my trolley—with a wonky wheel, natch—along the aisle and consulted my list, Alistair’s additions shouted at me. “Condoms lots and I intend to use them all, I have no chance of getting to buy any”. “Squirty cream”. (With a winking emoji that made me splutter as I remembered my last thoughts regarding the stuff) and weirdly, “a toothbrush”, and “a sponge”. I had plenty of spare toothbrushes, but not sponges. Ah well, no doubt I’d find out why they were so important when he chose to tell me. Mine not to question why.
And that little thought made me go hot, cold, hot and damp. It was a long while since I’d thought of deferring to someone, and I relished the idea it might happen again. This time, properly.
I added them to my groceries. Three boxes of nine for the condoms—surely that would be enough? Two tubes of the cream and a manly green and grey toothbrush. The sponge had me stumped for a while until I spotted some stashed away in a corner. Real or synthetic? Big or small? In the end I chose a large real one. No point in it otherwise. It had a bit of a gritty feel to it, but a few uses would sort that out. Along with the stuff from my list, the damned trolley with a mind of its own was full and not very cooperative, but I managed to get it to the checkout, load my stuff onto the conveyor, then load it into the bloody thing again. Pay and leave with the trolley doing a sideways crab act and get back to my car.
By the time I drove past the thirty mile an hour sign at the beginning of the village my tummy was rumbling. I never seemed to have enough hours in the day to find time for lunch. Luckily, I always kept a stash of gluten-free bars all over the place. So as long as somehow I got a cuppa I could nibble and natter to Andy before his first surgery of the week.
Sorted. Of course, I would have preferred to get my shopping home and unpacked, but knowing the pace I seemed to go at, I’d used several insulated bags to keep stuff cool, so it’d be okay for an hour or two.
Andy, bless him, took one look at me and waved his stethoscope in my direction, even as he threw me one of those aforementioned bars. I caught it, unwrapped it, and took a healthy mouthful without a pause.
Grief, it was good.
“You look like death warmed up,” he proclaimed in a sepulchral voice. “Doctor prescribes you go home have a long soak in a bath, put your jammies on, and sleep eight hours, no interruptions. What on earth have you been up to?”
I swallowed my mouthful of oats and honey. “Trying to cram too much into the few spare hours we get.” Well, I couldn’t say rampant sex, but not enough, now could I? “I’m off before someone finds something for me to do.” I sketched a wave and went out to my car the back way.
****
I hate unpacking shopping, but I knew better than to leave it and make coffee or check my answer machine, or more important than anything, sit down. If I did the shopping would stay where it was—in eight bags and insulated carriers—for goodness knows how long. So I opened the fridge and stashed the perishables, the freezer for what few bits of frozen food I had room for, cupboards to add tins and bottles, and finally filled the kettle and switched it on. Only then did I glance through the mail, and notice the answering machine light was flashing.
What took precedence?
Seriously, first world problems.
I decided on the answering machine. I doubted there would be a message from Alistair. I hadn’t given him my number for here, or I realized—with duh for fuck’s sake what am I like—my mobile number.
However as I pressed play I understood I’d underestimated him.
“Darling doc, I’ve just spent the day playing angels and demons, and luckily the demons won to fight another day. The downside, my pet, is tomorrow I’ll spend my day neck deep in your local river. Never fear, a demon—well, this demon—will survive. Then oh glorious joy, I have a half day, and next week, why next week, so far I’m not needed. Can we run away together? Or at least hole up somewhere for the afternoon? I miss you already.” He rattled off a number for his mobile, and ended with, “Love, all ways and always.”
I burst into tears. Me, who was up until then the most unsentimental person I knew. I had to be or half my job would send me crazy. I might cry at puppies in TV adverts or over sloppy films, but not about real life. Well let’s face it, I never ever thought, at what people called the wrong side of forty I’d want to find love, let alone see it find me and me grab at it with both hands and my fanny.
The afternoon was out. We had a mum and baby clinic, and Andy would be knee deep in weighing babies and dodging wee. The boys were great at waiting until they were naked and trying to soak the doc. Meanwhile I’d give jabs and wipe up tears. The adults, not the kids. They seemed to take it in their stride.
But next week. I was off. My mind went into overdrive. A week of uninterrupted sex sounded great. And kink? Oh yes please. The problem was where? I’d intended to get right away and go to my underused and really I ought to sell it cottage, in Devon. It was an indulgence, an extravagance, but one I couldn’t bear to part with. Would Alistair be prepared to come with me?
Well there was only one way to find out. Send him a text.
I hesitated what to put. Could I really not ring him? I decided no, in case he was still at work. A cop out maybe, but hey, we’re all allowed the odd one or two.
I did the quick message before I changed my mind, explaining my rota, and detailing my week off with an invitation to him to join me, and was gratified when within 30 seconds I got a reply. Bummer re the afternoon. Yes, how, where, when re the rest. Will call when I can and hope you’re in.
That of course got me wondering again. Did he mean call as in drop by, or as in phone? Honestly, the English language was as clear as mud sometimes.