The Bonk Squad (17 page)

Tigger waggled her hand in a
maybe/maybe not motion. “Or she might have the baby, and her
student could grow up a bit and become a responsible young
father?”

“
But where’s the drama and
conflict in that?”

“
You’re right—maybe the
termination and angst is better,” Tigger agreed, dreadlocks
bouncing.

“
How’s Dad’s book going?”
Eloise asked, trying to look as though she didn’t give a
damn.

“
Oh, fine, fine...I think
he’s set it in Noumea where you had that holiday.”

Eloise had to be content with that
tiny morsel because Tigger trotted toward the door, burying her
nose in the other mug.

Noumea? So was it a spy story, or a
travel thing, or what? Johnno writing half a novel without ever
mentioning it really rankled. She’d slide it into the dinner
conversation and see what he’d tell her.

And where was Tigger disappearing to
each evening after she’d eaten? Not movies every night—she’d have
seen everything in Hastings twice over by now.

She didn’t need money for it, whatever
it was. She hoped her daughter had found a young man with the cash
to treat her. A man with a more suitable name than ‘Tank’. She’d
been shown many photos of Tank on Tigger’s cell-phone a few days
ago, and not been too impressed. A drummer in a pop band. Plainly
he’d encouraged the dreadlocks. At least Tigger didn’t have any
obvious bits of herself tattooed or pierced with spikes or rings,
so that was a relief. Tank!

The front door creaked open and banged
shut. Johnno’s steady steps advanced along the polished floorboards
in the hallway. “Anyone about?” he called.

Eloise pressed Save and went to greet
him with an unexpected peck on the cheek.

“
What’s all this, then?” he
queried, eyes sharp.

“
I’m just pleased with the
way my writing’s going,” Eloise said. “How’s yours? Tig’s told me
all about it,” she added, unrepentant at the dishonesty. “Noumea,
darling? That was a nice holiday—we should go back some time. You
could do some more research.”

“
It’s coming along...coming
along,” he acknowledged. “Mind you, I’m only doing it in dribs and
drabs. As I can, you know.”

She nodded and raised her eyebrows
encouragingly. “It’s hell, sometimes, isn’t it? When it just won’t
do what you want it to? When you know what has to happen and the
words don’t come?”

His eyebrows drew together in genuine
surprise. “No, the words are never a problem. It’s finding the
time. I’ve always been able to spin a good yarn, but I never
realized how long it would take to write it all down.”

“
So it’s going
well?”

Johnno stroked his chin. “I’ve got
this yachtie, see. And he sails single handed to New Caledonia. And
the Frenchies are very suspicious of him. Is he a spy? Is he
smuggling something they ought to know about? Is he a terrorist?
That’s the current thing of course. So they’ve got a bit of a honey
trap going with an undercover woman. Francine. Very tasty.”
Johnno’s eyes rolled heavenward as he thought of her.

“
Huge breasts, I suppose?”
(Her own weren’t.)

“
About a 36C, but a very
narrow waist, so the effect is intensified.”

Eloise fumed. She itched to get her
hands on his book. “If you’d like me to read any of it aloud to
you, you might find that helpful? We do that at the writers’ group.
It’s very interesting hearing your sentences as someone else
construes them.”

“
Construes...” he murmured.
“What a lovely word. I shall have to work it in
somewhere.”

“
I’ll read for you after
dinner,” she offered. “Tigger will be out with her new friend.” The
girl had been very secretive. Perhaps the new man was
married?

“
No, no, no,” Johnno
replied. “I don’t want to take you away from yours if it’s going
well. Some other time perhaps...”

He preceded her into the bedroom to
set down his briefcase and hang up his jacket.

Eloise pressed her lips together in
frustration.

She’d re-work the other night’s story
if it killed her! It must be possible to spice things up a bit. She
took a generous sip of the sherry she’d just poured, and read the
original beginning she’d typed.

He glared, infuriated, at
his ravaged vegetable plot.

She considered that for a while, had
another sip, and began again.

He stood tall and furious,
glaring down at his ravaged vegetable plot with eyes the color of
ebony.

Better.

The sun flowed over the
strong lines of his nude body.

Much
better. She sipped again.

It would be the cat from
next door. The furry little Persian that Miss Smith cradled against
her trembling white breasts.

Okay, so how would he see her
breasts?

...trembling white
breasts, framed by the cross-over neckline of her revealing pink
dressing gown.

Revealing...revealing...not
really. Maybe her
gaping
pink dressing gown? Vi nodded, x’d out the line,
and inserted the new one.

He inspected her from the
privacy of the balcony outside his lonely bachelor
bedroom.

“
Oh, for heaven’s sake!”
she exclaimed out loud, wondering how to describe a desirable young
man’s room. Her twin grandsons weren’t helpful examples; last time
she’d visited them in Australia their walls had been awash with
posters of sneering pop stars and over-tanned sporting heroes.
Little did she know how many semi-naked girls had been covered over
to save her blushes.

...outside his sexily
appointed bedroom? ...outside the mirror-walled bedroom whose only
furniture was a king-sized bed and some bottles (tubes?) of
massage...um...of musky massage oil?

She wrinkled her nose and took another
swig of sherry.

Suddenly Miss Smith cast
her huge green eyes upward. Her pupils dilated as they met his, and
the little cat sprang from her arms onto the moist soft earth of
his broccoli plot. She exclaimed as the claws from Lulu’s hind feet
scored her skin. Blood welled from a long scratch. She dabbed at
herself as her neighbor watched, his face impassive in the hard
light.

Serve her right for having
such a naughty cat, he thought.

Vi sighed, back-spaced on the old
Brother, x’d the last sentence out, and tried to conjure up a
devastating hero.

He dragged on a pair of
skin-tight black leather trousers, and leapt, bare-chested, down
the spiral staircase into the shared courtyard...or maybe...into
the warm and private garden with the high surrounding
walls?

“
Let me help you,” he
murmured, peeling the fabric down to bare the topmost curves of her
creamy breasts. A pulse beat there with a steady rhythm. Rupert
watched, fascinated.

Vi ground her teeth and tried to find
him a more modern name.

Zac
watched, fascinated, as the warm red blood poured from the
cruel weal.

Damn
, Vi thought.
She sounds too injured.
Maybe ‘leaked from her tempting flesh’ would be better?
She yanked the page out of the typewriter and got
to work with a black marker pen. Cross that out...and that...and
that. She took up a pencil and began to scrawl across the paper. It
was better—much better. Why hadn’t she been able to write like this
the other night? She swigged at the sherry again.

He stood tall and furious,
glaring down at his ravaged vegetable plot with eyes the color of
ebony. The sun flowed over the strong lines of his nude
body.

It would be the cat from
next door. The furry little Persian that Miss Smith cradled against
her trembling white breasts, revealed by the cross-over neckline of
her sensuous silver boudoir robe.

Vi took another sip of sherry and
swirled it around her teeth. Yes, a sensuous silver boudoir robe
sounded a lot sexier than a gaping pink dressing gown.

He inspected her from the
privacy of the balcony outside his mirror-walled bedroom whose only
furniture was a king-sized bed and some bottles of musky massage
oil.

Suddenly Miss Smith cast
her huge green eyes upward. Her pupils dilated as they met his, and
the little cat sprang from her arms onto the moist soft earth of
his broccoli plot.

She exclaimed as the claws
from Lulu’s hind feet scored her skin. Blood welled from a long
scratch. She dabbed at herself as her neighbor watched, face
impassive in the hard light.

Zac dragged on a pair of
skin-tight black leather trousers and leapt, bare- chested, down
the stairs and into the warm and private garden with the high
surrounding walls. They were entirely alone. Birds flittered. Bees
buzzed.

“
Let me... help you,” he
murmured, peeling the glimmering silver fabric aside.

Her flesh shuddered with
every heartbeat. A pulse beat there with a steady
rhythm.

He watched, fascinated, as
a trickle of warm red blood leaked from her pale skin.

She was tiny and delicate,
but the curves of her breasts were sumptuous.

He bent and
licked.

She moaned as he took her
blood onto his teasing tongue, lapping as fastidiously as any cat
with a tempting treat.

Vi crossed her legs.
Goodness!

This calls for a second
sherry
, she thought, polishing off the last
mouthful of the current one. She rose and meandered across to the
cocktail cabinet, pushed up the mirrored lid, and poured herself
another generous tot.

She sipped with pleasure and returned
to her story.

But could she take it any further?
Once again she’d set up the scene, and her readers could guess what
might happen next. But this time she’d try and get them into bed
together, even if his jutting arousal and her slippery pink folds
and nerve-filled nub were just too much to describe.

She took up her pencil
again.

His hot tongue slid over her warm
skin, advancing toward her rosy nipple. He detected the change in
skin texture, and marveled as he felt the little peak grow to fill
his mouth.

No, of course not! That
makes it sound the size of half a lemon. She’s small and
delicate.

How about…’his hot tongue slid over
her warm skin, advancing ever onward toward her firm rosy nipple?’
Because surely he would have turned her on enough with the licks to
get her perky? Vi smiled and nodded to herself. And sipped her
sherry.

He swept his tongue over
the tight peak, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth
with an indrawn breath.

With a sensuous moan, perhaps? Or a
hiss of desire? Vi tried a few noises and went back to the indrawn
breath. She didn’t want the woman hissing like a snake. She’d never
hissed herself, as far as she was aware.

He bit. With infinite
tenderness. She tried to lean away from him and found she could
not. As easily as that he’d caught her. And now he suckled in tiny
tugs and deep delicious draws. She shuddered with the sensual bliss
of it, cradling his head in her hands as he pleasured
her.

His smooth golden skin
needed stroking. She surrendered—running her hands out over his
broad shoulders. Her nails dug little crescents as he sent waves of
sensation through the age-old pathway to her center. She became
liquid with desire.

Suddenly Zac released her.
He straightened, and gazed down into her eyes.

She saw a muscle jumping
in his firm jaw, tensing and relaxing. So he was not quite in
control? Good, she thought.

What’s her name, Vi wondered. Tiffany?
Annelise? Or something modern like Britney?

Britney felt barely in
control herself. She’d admired her handsome new neighbor for
several weeks now, weaving lustful fantasies as she lay sleepless
in her formerly comfortable bed. Knowing he was only feet away in
the adjoining apartment’s bedroom made her imagination so much more
vivid...

“
Take me
now
,” she
demanded.

He lifted her against his
body and she wrapped her slim legs around his waist and her arms
around his neck. She hung there, drinking from his lips as he
climbed slowly toward the mirrored bedroom.

Their bodies ground
together. Every step he took angled his arousal against the cradle
of her hips with explicit need as he carried her to the heaven
she’d so far only dreamed about.

He kicked the door closed
behind them.

She slid down his muscular
frame until she stood pressed against him. His lips roamed her
face, her hair, her neck.

Britney breathed in his
musky maleness, and he drew her down onto the bed.

Vi flicked the pencil away with a
triumphant little exclamation and had another swig of sherry. She
could do it!

She would not be pursuing the story to
the point where he ripped aside the silver boudoir robe and made
her admire the contrast of their bodies in the mirrored walls. His
so strong and dark...hers so pale and delicate in
comparison.