In Too Deep (3 page)

Not that I’m feeling in any way peaceful today. And my brain isn’t quiet. It’s whirling with the choice phraseology of Nemesis’s missive and action replays of me almost exhibiting my breasts to Daniel Brewster.

I pull my bottle of water out of my bag, and gulp some down. It’s icy, fresh from the fridge, and its cold bite on my tongue
calms
me down. Something clicks into place like a camera focusing. I look round, taking in the greens of the leaves and the dull grey of the gravel. This, and the fresh air, is real and normal, far from the heated world of explicit letters and speculation about handsome, quirky men who are way out of my league.

A few more sips and I feel centred again. Not ready for my sandwiches yet, but I’ll tackle them shortly. For a while, I just sit feeling very Zen, at one with nature and all that. Then, just as I decide it’s time to eat and sort out my blood sugar, I catch sight of the edge of those sheets of blue paper poking out of the side pocket of my bag. I slide them out and unfold the written madness.

Words leap out at me.

Do you take that dark juicy berry of a nipple and tweak it this way and that while you begin to squirm in your seat as you get wet and turned on?

Reading it makes me want to do it, and as I glance up momentarily I’m back in my murky parallel world of irrational lust. I’m not wearing one of those white blouses that Nemesis clearly has a fetish for, but, almost without conscious thought, I suddenly reach up and cup my own curve through the soft cotton of my top.

My nipple is hard, and doubtless, if it were exposed to the air, it
would
be dark and firm like a juicy berry. I give it a little strum through the layers of fabric – top and bra, cotton both – and a silvery flutter flies through my body. I’m convinced that Nemesis is a man, but he certainly seems to know all about the connection between tit and clit. I’m already hot between my legs, my pussy heavy and congested, even though it’s the words that are getting to me most, not the touching. Words, and the sight of a dark-haired, slightly geeky but very beautiful man in a fluster of embarrassment.

I wonder if Professor Hottie’s earlobes have cooled down yet?

I stare at the cool, green façade of the hedge that faces me – but I don’t see it. Instead, I’m imagining a scenario, doing a Nemesis, I suppose. In my little drama I dropped this letter when I ran into Daniel Brewster, and somehow it got into his papers. He’s reading it now as I sit here and dream about him.

I see those cute earlobes get even pinker, his dark eyebrows shoot up to his hairline to be masked by the kiss curls dangling on his forehead. He takes off his elegant frameless glasses and polishes them, and then wriggles in his seat, just the way I’m doing. Which is weird, because Nemesis’s letter is written to a woman, and he’s a man …

My fingers are damp where they clasp the blue pages. I know that if I had half a brain cell I’d shred this correspondence and ignore any further similar ones. That’s the sensible thing to do. Sex nuisances are like plants: they die off if you don’t water them with a response.

But the words and my collision with Daniel Brewster have got a grip on me and I just can’t sit still. My mind is a jumble of Nemesis and silk and touching myself and the image of the divine professor, all blushing and tumbled on the ground, limbs akimbo. My body is hot, full of strange energy and blood in dangerous places. Surreptitiously, I part my legs, pressing my sex down against the hard park bench and spreading and opening it. But I’m not getting the pressure I need on my clit, and I bite my lip at the gnawing, sudden need.

Dare I touch myself? Right here, right now? Not just my nipple, I mean, but down there, down below, in my pussy?

What do you think of that, Nemesis? I’ve escalated the game and you’ll never know about it. How’s that for brinksmanship, pervert?

There’s no one around. I’ve never ever seen anyone here. Theoretically, I should be able to do it. But still it seems impossibly crude and slutty to touch myself, out here in the open. And it’s weak-willed too. I’m giving in to him, and I feel as if he
would
know, although God knows how. Since my split from Simon, letting men manoeuvre me into doing things is no longer a part of my playbook. I don’t think I’d even be inclined to do what Professor Hottie wants me to do, if he were here. Although I don’t know …

This is all getting exceptionally weird. And all I’m sure of is that Nemesis would come smugly in his boxer shorts, or whatever he wears, if he knew I was squirming around on a park bench, desperate to touch myself between my legs until I orgasmed.

In stealth mode and glancing around warily, I slide my hand from the rounded curve of my breast, down over my waist and my hip to my thigh. There’s plenty of territory to cover but, as Nemesis obviously likes my acreage and Professor Hottie certainly isn’t immune to my boobs, that’s not a problem. In fact I’m beginning to see the advantages of my ampleness.

Even more sneakily, I begin to inch up the folds of my skirt with my fingertips, keeping it bunched so it drapes over my wrist and hand. With a degree of dexterity worthy of a conjurer, I craftily slide my fingers across my bare thigh, then wiggle them inside the boundary of my knicker-elastic.

Almost there. We approach the heart of the matter.

I flick at a wiry pubic curl then start to forge into the forest, searching for its hot, magic centre. As soon as I part the lips, the tips of my fingers are saturated. I’m swimming with juice, and it’s a shock that there’s so much, even though I knew I was pretty excited.

My clit gives a single hard deep throb as I reach it, saying ‘hello’ so intensely that I gasp.

I’m part horrified with myself, part bursting with excitement. I’ve never been much of a thrill-seeker and a risk-taker until now, but it suddenly seems as if I’m making up for lost time. I’m dancing on the edge of madness and, if I stopped to think about it, I’d probably run a mile back to the safety of the staff lunch room. But I’ve no time to think. I just feel.

After a tentative stroke or two, my entire body pulsates with captive energy. I’m an overflowing well of sexiness and every slight qualm I ever had about being curvy, chubby, plump or whatever you want to call it disappears. Every inch and every ounce of me is ‘goddess’ – just as Nemesis told me.

I gulp in breath. My legs tense and I push my heels out across the path, bracing myself. I’m desperate to climax, and even begin a little flutter – and then to my horror I hear something I’ve never heard here before. The sound of footsteps, swiftly approaching along the gravel.

I just manage to whip my hand out from under my skirt, and shuffle up straight into some kind of normal sitting position, when a familiar figure in tweed jacket, blue jeans and running shoes rounds the corner. It’s Professor Hottie – and he’s almost caught me touching myself.

‘Oh, hi!’ he says uncertainly. He blinks behind his spectacles and offers me a crooked, cautious smile. Then he purses his lips and darts forwards, and I have to edge along the seat. He compels me to allow him to sit down.

‘I’m so glad I’ve found you, Gwendolynne. I was anxious to apologise to you for earlier.’ He taps his long fingers against his denim-clad knee as if he’s filled with unresolved energy, like me.

I’m so dumbfounded that it’s difficult to grasp words from the swarm that buzz around me. But what can I say when my brain is still off in masturbation-land?

My new companion still seems acutely embarrassed and
pulls
off his glasses, whips out a large pristine white handkerchief and begins to polish them with almost manic fervour.

‘But why? It was me who knocked you over.’ Amazingly, I’ve captured a few of those words. But they come out rather more abruptly than I would have liked.

He stows away the hankie, still looking ridiculously uncomfortable. Which is ironic, because it should be me who’s more nervous, given how close he’s sitting. Surely he can smell the musk on my fingers?

‘No, I’m at fault. When I was down on the ground, I was looking at your breasts, and I know you saw me doing so. Please forgive me. It was inexcusable to ogle you that way.’

Aw, he’s an old-fashioned gentleman on top of being a hunk of male pulchritude. I’m about to say ‘no problemo’ or something like that, but my attention’s suddenly caught by his brow-crinkling frown and the way he pulls off his glasses and rubs wearily at his eyes. My sex mist clears like a shot as another sentiment grips me. I’ve seen him do this quite a lot in the library, as if he’s bothered by eyestrain or headaches, and, even though I barely know him, I suddenly hate the thought of him suffering. Someone so gorgeous should always be able to smile.

‘Are you OK, Professor Brewster? Is there something wrong? If you’ve got a headache I’ve some paracetamol in my bag.’

‘No, it’s nothing, thanks. I’m just tired. I’ve been working since early, back at my hotel, and I thought a change of scene and a change of light would buck me up a bit … but it hasn’t. That was why I came out here to apologise instead of catching you in the library. I really need some air.’ The frown unfurls and his beautiful eyes clear as he sets his spectacles back in place, ‘And please do call me “Daniel” … I would appreciate that.’

‘OK … Daniel.’ For a moment, I wish I’d not just been masturbating and that I wasn’t all flustered and in a tizzy about Nemesis. There’s something both sweet and perplexing about the good professor that makes me go all fluttery in a good but different way. It’s like the crushes I used to have as a girl, the sweet, innocent ones before sex had ever reared its horny head. I was forever lost in daydreams of walking through flower meadows, holding hands with some sublime, unattainable hero. But the rose-tinted visions dissipate again, because the hand that romantic hero would be holding right now is all sticky from me touching myself.

And it reeks of sex. I can smell it, so Daniel surely can as well. But his handsome and every so slightly imperial nose doesn’t wrinkle in the slightest. Even when he reaches for the offending hand and gives it a quick squeeze.

‘I really am sorry, you know. You’ve been so helpful to me in the library, and I respect you as … well, as a friend. I would hate to spoil an excellent working relationship because I’ve done something inappropriate.’ His lips twist and he gives a little shrug. Irrational as it is, he seems really nervous, and I wonder why a man so handsome and accomplished gives the impression that he’s unused to talking to a woman. Someone of his academic stature, who’s been on television and has such a distinguished CV and a high profile, probably has whole battalions of groupies all ready and willing to lay down their knickers for him.

‘Please don’t worry about it,’ I reassure him, rocked by the flash image of
me
removing
my
knickers for Daniel Brewster. What the hell is wrong with me? The fact that he seems to be shy is getting me horny now! Along with the thought of tutoring him, the great scholar, in the ways of women’s lustiness … which pushes strange sexual buttons that I didn’t know I had. ‘No harm done. I’m sure … well, in fact I’ve got documented
proof
that you’re far from the only man who looks at my breasts while I’m on duty in the library.’

His fine brow puckers again.

‘Documented proof? Whatever do you mean?’

Uh oh, now I’ve done it. I’m sitting next to the very quintessence of an enquiring mind, a man used to searching out every clue and bit of background to any historical topic. To ferreting out facts from the skimpiest of sources.

In the same instant, our gazes flit to the pages of Nemesis’s letter, still lying beside me on the other side of the bench from where Daniel sits. I feel as if I’m rocking on the tips of my toes on another of those precipices. The ones between behaving sensibly or doing something light-years beyond foolhardy.

Item. I barely know Daniel Brewster, and we’ve just had an awkward moment, skirting like a pair of fencers around the very edge of sex.

Item. This letter is tantamount to sexual harassment by a bona fide pervert, or even a deranged sex criminal. I should be careful, not flash it around indiscriminately.

Item. If I share this secret communication with another living soul, I’m betraying Nemesis. And how irrational a concept is that? I don’t know the guy, and he’s imposed his lust upon me. But, still, the feeling’s there. I can’t deny it.

Before I can think through the reasons why, I reach for the letter and hand it across.

‘I received this today. If you read it, you’ll realise that your accidentally enjoying a fleeting glance at my breasts is pretty mild stuff compared to what other men … well, what
one
other man is thinking.’

He reads, and for a moment I just stare at his tapered fingertips holding the paper. Suddenly I’m all about hands, thinking of what Nemesis said he wanted me to do, and what I actually did, and what Nemesis
might
do if he got the chance
to
lay
his
hands on me. My heart and my gut somehow know that he doesn’t mean me any real harm and that, if words were deeds, I’d only gain, not lose.

Daniel’s hands are works of art. They’re slender but strong-looking, hands that seem to settle into elegant, classical shapes. Every nerve-end in my body tells me that if
those
hands had a fraction of the skills that Nemesis lays claim to, they’d blow my mind, and then some, and some more. But now they’re shaking as he holds those wild blue pages and reads their elegant blue script.

And not only that. He swallows repeatedly. His black brows shoot towards his hairline again. He gnaws his soft lower lip as his eyes widen and a touch of colour rises beneath his smooth skin and the delicious stubble around his jaw-line.

Like the unashamed trollop I seem to have every intention of becoming, I glance swiftly towards his groin. Life is stirring there too, burgeoning behind his zip. He’s got a hard-on.

Now I’ve done it. Respectable librarian Gwendolynne chastises me for being unutterably stupid for starting all this, while Gwen the wannabe libertine and sensualist grins inside and thinks ‘Oh boy! Oh, boy oh boy oh boy!’