janey_chance-meeting

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A CHANCE MEETING by Janey

PART 1

It was easy to ascertain precisely where my friend lived, the noise coming from her home was a tell tale give away. Roisin had invited a lot of her old school friends, neighbours and work colleagues to her house warming party, having made her parents promise that they would not attend, knowing that the revelry would be too much for them.

“Lindy!” she gushed, crushing me over enthusiastically when I eventually managed to reach her. “Glad you made it honey.”
How much she had had to drink was anyone’s guess, but it must have been quite a bit, her speech was slurred and she was unsteady on her feet.
“I see you’ve got yourself a drink, good girl! If you waited for me you would wait all night, my hostess skills are sadly lacking.”

“Don’t worry,” I bellowed over some irritating dance music. “Dan gave me this.”
“What?”
“Dan gave me this!” I shouted louder and pointed to my glass of wine.
“Ah good. See you later.”
Suddenly she was off, dragging a startled young man into the middle of the lounge for a dance. Poor guy, I pitied him, he looked well out of his depth. Protest as he may, Roisin wasn’t listening, if anything it served to make her more determined. I shuddered at the pathetic sight then circulated the room.

Already I had made up my mind not to stay for very long. I was probably the last to arrive and judging the state of the others, they had drunk enough alcohol to sink a ship.
“Care to be rescued?”
It couldn’t be; it was.

“Richey!”
“Lindy, it’s been a long time.”
Dumbfounded, I had no idea what the hell to say.
“Why don’t we get out of here? I live a few doors away.”
“Erm I’m….”
“You’re not enjoying it Lindy so let’s go. I’ll be good.”
One flash of his smile and I melted. How could any woman not be affected by that beautiful smile?

“When did you move to London Lindy?” Richey asked, handing me a mug of steaming black coffee. “I thought you went to work in Liverpool.”
“I did; lived there for a couple of years, got promotion which eventually led to a move to London.”
“Wow, the girl done good!”
“You haven’t done so bad,” I smiled. The coffee was just as I liked, strong. “What happened to the insistence that you’d never live here?”
Richey sniggered. “Seemed logical with all the commitments that we have here. My base is still Wales though, Cardiff.”

“That’s what I heard.”
“Rumour mill huh?”
“Music press!” I chuckled. “The others, how are they?”
“Nicky and Sean are still happily married with kids, James is still the ladies man about town.”
“He always was like a kid in a sweet shop.”
“He gets bored easily, familiarity breeds contempt and all that.”

I stared down at the black steaming liquid, my wavy reflection staring back at me. “And you?”
“Still single,” he said sadly. “My own fault of course.”
I refused to bite.

“Why Rich? It’s a big decision getting hooked up with someone, more so if you enter into marriage.”
“Doesn’t alter the fact that I was a twat.”
“There must have been chances Rich, good-looking guy like you.”
“Don’t patronise me Lindy.”
“I didn’t intend to, I was being honest, you are still a good-looking man Richey.”
A slight smile spread over his lips. “Sorry, I guess I’m a bit sensitive where you are concerned.”
“You know what I’m like, I say it as I see it, no matter how uncomfortable. If nothing else I’m honest, to a fault at times.”

“Very true. There have been many times, too numerous to mention when I had wished that you’d kept your opinions to yourself.”
“Not my style.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So are you going to tell me about some of the chances you’ve had to opt for domestic couple-dom or do we ignore the subject?”

“You want me to lay bare my soul, get down and beg for forgiveness? It won’t happen.”
“Sounds like you need to forgive yourself,” I offered.
“I’ve accepted it, why can’t you?”
Suddenly he was so vulnerable.

“Maybe I ought to go. There was good reason for us ceasing contact; it was foolish to think that things have changed. There’s still too much crap surrounding us that we can’t get rid of.”
“Running away you mean? Be honest Lindy, you couldn’t get away quick enough.”
“Do you blame me?” I spat. “Different girls every night Richey! The final straw was finding you in MY bed, in MY home with one of those fucking trollops! You couldn’t have humiliated me more if you’d planned to.”
“Like I said, I was a twat; are you still?”
“To a degree,” he snickered.

“Meaning?”
“I avoid contact with women, no groupies at all.”
“There must have been someone, it’s been a long time.”
“A couple. One didn’t feel the same way about me, another I didn’t want anything more with.”
“What constitutes ‘anything more’?” He had got me curious now.
“We hadn’t slept together, then decided to have a break and to book a room with a double bed. We never actually booked the break, I realised that I didn’t want to sleep with her.”
“Oh I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled sarcastically, “of course you are.”

“Hang on a sec here Rich, don’t fucking start on me, you invited me here, remember? Don’t worry, I’ll leave. Who knows maybe it’ll be another 12 years or so until we meet again? Then again if we are really lucky, we won’t meet again.”
In temper some of my coffee spilled on the table when I slammed my cup down with fury as I stood up. Richey prevented me leaving the room by blocking the doorway.

“You don’t fool me,” he grinned.
Damn him when he did that! Vacantly I stared at him.
“There has always been an undeniable passion Lindy; it’s still there, that’s what scares you.”
“Scares me? How dare you be so impudent?”
“That’s what I said.”

Strong muscular arms gently pushed me back into the wall, my desire to fight him or to flee had gone, disintegrated like a sandcastle. I’d never known Richey act this way, the passion he had mentioned was flowing like a torrent, from both of us.

If I weren’t so captivated by him willing him to continue, I would have berated myself for allowing him to get under my skin so quickly. However, staring into those velvety hazel eyes, seeing want and desire had my nerves on edge. I didn’t want him to stop.

All of the hurt, all of the years without seeing him, forgotten. The realisation hit me with a jolt; I still loved him. That was why I was happy to move with my job, I was scared of seeing him, just as he’d said. Scared because burned deep in my subconscious was the awkwardness and knowledge that I still wanted him. In turn there was a logical conclusion, I would be hurt and humiliated all over again.

I am not a stupid woman, not only do I have four degrees with honours, plus other academic achievements, I am logical, methodical, determined, sensible, prepared, organised, in control and had the ability to think on my feet. You wouldn’t believe it to see me now, practically begging Richey with my eyes and body language to touch and kiss me. What I really craved was for him to make love to me.

Work that one out!

“I ache for you Lindy,” he whispered, his arms now touching the wall, holding me captive, his chest pressed against mine.
Unable to find my voice at that moment, I nodded and angled my head, inviting him to kiss me. This was sweet torture. Slowly I ran the tips of my stiletto shoes over his ankles, shins, calves then rubbed my right knee up to his groin, teasing him by pulling quickly away from the contact.
“That has intensified the ache.”

My arms were still by my side, my handbag long since landed on the floor with a thud. I needed to touch him, what was the point in denying myself the pleasure?
Keeping eye contact with him, I placed my hands on his shirt-covered chest, the silk warm and luscious to my touch. Using touch as my guide I began to open his shirt buttons, his ever-growing smile giving me an added incentive to carry on.

A voice in my head warned of my recklessness; that nothing good will come of this folly. I had a silent tussle with my conscience – I was willing to pay the price of sacrifice if we could make love. For one or two hours of unmitigated happiness, desire and satisfaction with this man, I would sacrifice a further lifetime of happiness in return. Clearly my common sense and business acumen had deserted me.

“Richey,” I simpered.
“Yes or no?”
“Yes.”

Warmth flooded over me, his tongue being the catalyst. “Richey!” I screamed. I’d never experienced anything remotely like it; it was so intense.
“Shush, I don’t want to stop.”
He didn’t. He continued using his fingers, tongue and mouth on me till I slumped to the floor in a sated exhausted breathless heap.

He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly against his body; a body that was still clothed aside from his chest where his shirt was open.
“I have wanted to make you happy for so long,” he sighed.
“You have, I feel wonderful.”

He lowered his head to shield his glowing rosy cheeks from my gaze. “It’s no less than you deserve. Do you have enough strength to walk to the bedroom or shall I carry you?”
“It would be safer if you carried me,” I grinned, “I still feel a bit shaky. Oh and erm, you owe me a dress.”
In his, no OUR haste the zip on the back of my dress had broken, it was utterly useless.
“I can sort that for you,” he tittered, kissing my nose. “You can wear some jeans of mine later and a t-shirt or whatever.”
“That’s a relief.”

“I wouldn’t let you leave here tomorrow with no clothes on Lindy, only I can see you like that from now on.”
“From now on?” I stared at him; his smile was radiant. “You are being presumptuous Richey.”
“I’m putting right a wrong. I should have looked after you when you were my girl, instead of screwing around and entertaining all those groupies. There has never been another woman in my life because YOU have always been the only one I loved. Let’s try again, if it doesn’t work we can be friends, but we owe it to ourselves to try.”
“If you’re inviting me to stay the night, I will. The rest is in the lap of the gods.”
“I know I’m asking a lot Lindy. If one night is all that I can have, I’ll take it, gladly.”

His eyes were full of sincerity and I didn’t want to stop holding him, not ever. He was right, we deserved to try again if nothing else I had to be sure that if I walked out on him again he would be out of my system and I would know I’ve done the right thing. Finding him in bed with that girl broke my heart but we never talked about it, I made my decision and left, consequently I had spent years questioning my actions; wondering if we could have worked it out. The fact that he was older also played its part; groupies no longer held any allure for him. Perhaps, just perhaps, we had both learned enough to be able to make it work.

It was lunchtime when we finally staggered into the shower after only a few hours sleep. Needless to say we couldn’t control our lust and spent more time having sex than actually showering. Leaving Richey to shave I dressed in a pair of his black jeans and added a dark red button through t-shirt. Checking how I looked in the mirror vision of him ripping the zip of my dress flashed through my mind making me smile. Thank goodness we were pretty much the same size or I would have been in trouble.

Waiting for him to join me, I searched through his cupboards for tea or coffee, found both and decided to make a large pot of tea for us both. Whilst it was brewing the phone rang.
“Get that for me please Lindy,” he called, “I won’t be a minute.”
“Richey, can’t you pick it up?”
“I’m on my way, all you need to do is ask them to wait a minute.”
Reluctantly I did as he asked.

“If you can just hold on James, Richey won’t be long,” I said.
“Ok, thanks. How did you know who it was? Do you know me? Do I know you?”
“I knew as soon as you spoke James. As for who I am, you’ll have to keep guessing won’t you?”
“Give me a clue, come on!”
“Here’s Richey, nice talking to you James.”

I handed the phone to Rich. “Don’t tell him who I am, I wanna see if he can guess.”
Richey tittered and smacked me playfully on my backside, wagging his finger at me. “Hi Bradders, what can I do for you?”
It was hard for me not to giggle, listening to Richey constantly repeating ‘guess again’ to James, well, he was being asked to remember someone from a time when he spent much of his time pissed.
“Yey!” yelled Richey, “took you long enough.”

I smiled at Richey but inside a part of me ached, how many girls had Richey been with for James to take so long in naming me? Did I have a right to be jealous? No, of course I didn’t but that didn’t help take the pain away. I nursed my cup of tea, a myriad of uncomfortable thoughts racing through my mind. Perhaps if I couldn’t deal with what had happened to Richey in those intervening years I would be better off walking away and calling it quits before either of us got attached or hurt. What I ought to do and what I was able to do were two separate things though; the little scamp had worked his way under my skin. I needed to see where our adventure would take us.

“How is he?” I peered over the morning paper to ask.
“Surprised but happy for us.” Richey checked the teapot and discovering it was almost cold filled the kettle again and put it on to boil. “And a bit concerned.”
I screwed my eyes at him, making my frown lines very prominent. “Oh?”
“He’s worried we’re romanticising.”
“He has a point.”
“I know, that’s what worries me.”
“Do you think that that’s what we’re doing Rich?” I was dreading his answer.
“A little but there’s more to it than that. You have this strange affect on me Lindy. No other woman has come close to making me feel like that, I do believe I truly am in love with you. The shitty thing is the amount of time it took me to fucking realise it.”

I stood up and walked over to him, putting my arms round his slender waist, resting my head between his shoulders. “This is what we make of it Richey, we have a clean slate.”
Nervously he giggled. “You say the sweetest and most diplomatic things Lindy.”
“It’s true though isn’t it? What’s gone is gone all we can do is learn from our mistakes and see what happens.”
“And I have learned from them honey,” he smiled, turning around and holding me to his body. “I only went to that party ‘cos I didn’t want to offend my new neighbour. Talk about fate.”

“She works with me, she’s a bit nuts but I didn’t want to be the only one that didn’t turn up.”
“Are you her boss or do you do the same thing?”
“I’m her boss, have been for a couple of years. We started there at the same time doing the same job and became friends.”
“Is it hard being friends as well as being her boss?”
“Nah, she’s cool about it. If I bollock her about not doing her job she doesn’t take it outside of the office, neither of us do.”

His brown eyes shone with devilment, his hands playing with my backside. “What are you up to Richey? You have a dangerous glint in your eyes.”
“I do?” he winked.
“Stop messing about!”
“You smell so good, good enough to eat in fact!”
I laughed, kissing the side of his neck. “That’s the last time I use your orange and lemon shower gel.”
“I’d wanna eat you without that.”
“Oh Richey shut up, that sounds terrible.” I sniggered, “although it’s having the desired effect on me.”

“Good.” He leaned into me and whispered in my ear; “I want to make love to you till I can’t raise my dick any more.”
“Oh stop it with all the smut, it doesn’t suit you.”
“So why are you smiling so much then?”
“Can’t help it. For some strange reason I feel good with you.”
“And that is the way that it shall always be from here on in.”

I stayed the Saturday night with him as well but had to return home on Sunday because I had reports to complete and a presentation to organise that was to take place in America on Wednesday.   My flight out was midday Monday so I didn’t have a lot of time to collate all of my information and statistics, and printout all of the overheads and information packs that were required.

New York wasn’t my favourite place on the planet. It’s dirty, expensive and too bloody busy, not to mention I don’t feel safe. My hotel room is like a jail cell; I daren’t venture out, with good reason. On my previous three visits I was mugged violently, requiring hospital attention. Despite my protestations at having to return my boss had insisted that I was the only one that could do it. I’d stuck up for myself up to the point were he had informed me he would have to fire me for insubordination if I didn’t carry out his instructions.

Richey had been upset when I’d told him that I didn’t know if I’d have a lot of time to call him. My experience told me that we’d be working into the night and starting early in the mornings giving us only free time to eat, drink and sleep, then it was reluctantly. I swear that they wanted us to work 24/7, well I’m sorry but I need to take a break every so often or it affects the way I take in information and my thought processes.

When I got home at teatime Sunday, I set my alarm for the morning, arranged an alarm call, had a quick shower, picked out my clothes and went to bed. Next thing I know my alarm is singing away and I can’t believe it’s time to get out of bed. Despite sleeping more than twelve hours solidly I was still shattered. It was tempting to work from home that morning, typing up all of the outcomes and plotting charts and graphs on my computer but deep inside I knew that that would give me the temptation of my bed.

Rather than going out for lunch I stayed in the office, feverishly working at the pc stopping only to have a sip of water or stretch my legs. Although I knew that I needed time away from the screen I also knew that I had to get everything done whilst it was fresh in my mind before I totally succumbed to jetlag. My previous travels had taught me that I had approximately another couple of hours before my brain would turn to jelly and I would hardly be able to focus.

“Lindy,” my boss surprised me. “You look tired, that flight must have taken its toll on you, go home and take tomorrow off as well.”
“Thanks but I just want to get these stats entered and get the graph printed out or I’ll forget where I’m up to.”
“Leave it, go home.”
“It will only take me five minutes and then all I have are the projections and outcomes to do; they are the easy bit!”
“Five minutes and you go home or I will unplug the computer ok?”
I smiled and nodded; it wasn’t like him to be so nice to me, so perhaps he was on a promise with his wife.

Once home I showered, put my clothes in the machine and called Richey, only to get his answerphone. I left him a message, put on a pair of old and very comfortable cotton pyjamas and flopped on the sofa, watching the television programmes I’d taped whilst away. Amazingly I didn’t fall asleep so was able to hang my washing on the line when it was done thus reducing the creases and the need for ironing.

By 7.30 p.m. I was so tired I had difficulty focusing; it was time to get some sleep. I brought my washing in, hung up what didn’t need ironing and put the few items that did in the basket for tomorrow. No light was flashing on the answer machine so Richey hadn’t called me back. Feeling sad and strangely empty, I sloped off to bed.

Shamefully it was lunchtime when I woke up. I grabbed some jeans and a shirt then went to the supermarket to get a paper and some essentials. My eyes fixed on the gossip page and I had to put my tea down, I was actually shaking and had a wave of nausea wash over me. Confronting me was a large picture of Richey making eyes at a silicon-enhanced model who had her tits hanging out. Common sense told me to turn the page and ignore it but curiosity made me read it:

Richey Manic spent the whole of the after party captivated by the charms of Loran. On several occasions they disappeared to the toilets together, we can only imagine the fun they had because they emerged each time with huge grins on their faces. Richey is notorious for avoiding relationships and involvement and Loran is the original good time that was had by all. Something tells us that this is one relationship that will not last longer than the one night though Loran had the smuggest of smug expressions when they left together, hand in hand, stopping to snog for all to see; not a pretty sight. To think we always credited Richey with more taste, how wrong can you be?

Not again, he had promised me. What was it he had said? Oh yes: “ ‘you have this strange affect on me Lindy. No other woman has come close to making me feel like that, I do believe I truly am in love with you. The shitty thing is the amount of time it took me to fucking realise it.’”

How nice to know he was being so honest. I had been taken in by his charm all over again, would I never learn my lesson? Thankfully he didn’t know my address and because I was ex-directory I knew that he wouldn’t be able to ask for it but as an added precaution I asked to change my number and after lots of persuading and inventiveness on my part, the telephone company finally agreed. The laborious task of having to inform everyone I knew (minus Richey) then began, but it was a small price to pay.

part 2 >>>

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