This story is 24 000 words long. I’ll be publishing it here in multiple parts but the whole thing is available on Amazon - affiliate link here - and it will be free to read on Substack until I put up another story after a full analysis of the way it is structured and presented. So, about a month, and after that only paid subscribers get the full story. Originally published 7 July 2019.
Arrival
Clooney drove the familiar road for the first time. Every hill, every bend, every clattering wooden bridge brought him closer to camp.
He could feel the excitement mounting inside. Every Easter, it wasn’t the chocolate eggs he craved, but the challenges and adventures he found here, with companions bold and true and nerdish.
Not that he wasn’t getting his fair share of thrills right now. A tight downhill curve, a blind corner, and he almost lost it on the gravel road. His father would have swung around the bends with easy confidence, one hand on the wheel, the other tapping the ash from a cigarette, smiling across at Clooney as he hit the accelerator to roar up the next hill.
But now it was Clooney at the wheel, his sparkling new drivers licence in his wallet, his heart in his mouth as he wondered whether to hit the brakes when a passing car threw up a cloud of blinding dust, or power through the haze into the morning sun and laugh at the doubt.
“Stuff it,” he muttered, slowing down to a sane speed, where he could at least stop in time if some obstacle appeared in the few metres of road he could actually see. His father’s Audi probably had a bit more grip and power than this Volvo, almost as old as he was.
He felt the tension come off as the speed dropped. He might be late for registration, but at least he’d make it there alive. Alive and with the car in one piece, which was probably more important, given the sad state of his finances.
There was a sudden horn blast. Another car shot out of the dust behind, and damn near rammed him, headlights flashing angrily.
For the next few kilometres the guy behind sat on his tail as Clooney grew increasingly frustrated. He was driving as fast as he dared, and there wasn’t any room to pull over and let the other guy pass. The trees leaned over the road which curved and rose with the contours of the land. No freeways or even paved roads out here in this wild part of rural Victoria.
Only two hours from Melbourne, but you could imagine stagecoaches, mounted troopers, bushrangers left over from the roaring days of the gold rush.
At last a straight stretch opened up and Mister Impatient pulled out to pass, just as a logging truck poked out of a side track. The driver behind threw up his hands and then pushed furiously on his horn.
As if it were Clooney’s fault.
Luckily the truck was heading the other way, back towards Melbourne, and as Clooney guided his car around the next curve, he caught sight of the turn-off to Camp Myrtle. The big green sign was unmistakable. At last he’d be rid of the nut job sitting on his bumper.
He indicated left and smiled with relief. Maybe his heart would slow down a bit on the road into the camp. There was a creek beside the road, old river gums standing in majesty, blackberry bushes climbing the hill; a picture of rural harmony. He loved it here.
But the car behind indicated and followed him, the driver not giving him an inch.
The camp buildings came into sight and Clooney paused at the carpark entrance looking for an open spot. The car behind shot past - the driver giving a rude gesture out of his open window - and slammed into the disabled park beside the reception door, leaving Clooney to edge his dusty Volvo under the trees in an unmarked spot on the far side.
* * *
He shut off the engine and paused for a moment. It had been a long drive along increasingly rural roads, but here he was. For the next three days of the Easter break, he and a hundred other teenagers would be having the time of their lives cutting code, learning the latest programming techniques, making all sorts of cool apps and just having a totally nerdy time.
But it wasn’t the computers and the programming languages and the development software suites which had occupied his thoughts during the intervening year so much as two women who had managed to find places in his mind where they greeted him every morning and kissed him goodnight as he climbed into bed.
If he were being honest, there was more than kissing going on in his imagination.
Clooney mentally shrugged his shoulders. If they were at camp again this year, good. If not, there was nothing he could do about it.
He opened the door, retrieved his bag from the boot and headed towards reception.
He gave the car in the disabled zone a sneer as he passed it. Some big black American saloon, squared-off and ugly. No disabled permit sticker. Of course.
There were two ahead of him in the line for registration, but he only had eyes for one. A slender teenager, brunette ponytail, pale blue top and a tan skirt. She turned as he approached, her glasses flashing in the flourescent light.
Welcome
Erin looked around excitedly as her father led her into reception. There was a table set up, one of the tutors sitting behind it, rearranging an assortment of name tags and envelopes. Not many left; everyone else must be here already. Teenagers were standing in clumps, chatting. Erin waved to a few she remembered from last year. So good to be back!
She broke into a smile when she saw Clooney entering. Look at him. Beanpole in jeans and a t-shirt. Thick glasses, unruly blond hair, blue eyes twinkling with joy. She held out her arms for a hug. And gave him a smooch on the cheek.
“Erin! So good to see you!”
“You too! Hey, Dad, here’s the smartest guy in camp.”
Her father, heavyset, balding, probably the only person here in a shirt and tie, gave the teenager a scowl.
“Are you the moron in that baby-poo brown Volvo? Christ Almighty, when did you get your license?”
Clooney glanced at his watch. “Um, glad to meet you Mr Ross.”
He held out his hand. Erin’s father grimaced, took it, and did his best to crush it into pulp.
“Are you still with the police, Mr Ross? The ah, precision driving squad, was it?”
Oh man, look at Dad’s face! Erin laughed. “Dad’s heading up the Marijuana Strike Force nowadays. You find a plantation, he’s the guy to call.”
Her father turned to her, “I’ll be back to pick you up at noon on Monday, but if there’s any trouble at all, just give me a call, and I’ll drive up and fix it.” He gave her a peck on the cheek, before glaring at Clooney. “And you, sonny, you might want to think about staying off the roads until you can drive properly.”
* * *
“Nice guy, your dad,” Clooney commented, once he had stomped out the door, leaving the two teens grinning at each other.
“Oh, he just doesn’t have a lot of time for smart-arse punks like you. You should have heard him when he almost ran into you!”
“Yeah, I got the idea he wasn’t happy. I slowed down because I couldn’t see through the dust. Seemed reasonable to me.”
“Well, Dad thought you could have gone a bit faster. Hey, when did you get your licence?”
“Yesterday,” Clooney smiled.
That was what she wanted. Cheeky, gawky, dorky Clooney. She ruffled his hair. “Poor Dad,” she said. “He’s going to drive back home worrying that he’s left his only child at the lunatic asylum.”
Once they had their room assignments, Clooney picked up Erin’s bag. “Let me help. Hey, what you got in here, rocks?”
She giggled. “Toothbrush, hankie, and my swimmers.”
“No pyjamas, eh? Your bunkmates are in for a treat.”
“Oh, maybe a few other things, then.”
Yeah. A few other things. This might cause some tension later, but for the moment there was no help for it.
They walked along shaded paths between huts artfully scattered on the slope. Knots of teenagers were moving the other way, down towards the main building.
“Welcome address starts in five minutes,” Erin said, studying her programme. “You better get your stuff into your room.”
“I’m in Hut 14, so we’re almost there anyway.” Clooney looked at the numbered sign on the next hut. “Ah, Hut 3. Which room?”
“Room A,” she said. “This one.”
Clooney pushed through the door. “Knock, knock, coming in, anybody getting changed?”
Erin looked at her room. “Oh great. I get the top bunk. I should have gotten here earlier. I blame you, of course.”
“I don’t know. You’ve got three teenage girls to share with. Sounds like a sweet deal to me. Hey, I gotta go. See ya.”
He left at a run, his own bag swinging from side to side. Erin looked at him fondly. Hut 14 was at the other end of camp.
She hoisted her bag easily onto the remaining bunk. She’d save a place for him in the meeting room.
* * *
All the good seats in the meeting hall were already taken, but there were still a few in front, and Erin found a couple of empty ones together. She sat down in one, “bagged” the other with her document folder, and craned her head around for Clooney.
The camp leader, a tubby, bearded forty-something fellow, finished shuffling his papers, tapped the microphone and began speaking: welcoming the students, introducing the tutors, outlining the weekend’s program.
About ten minutes in, Clooney came poking down the aisle. Erin waved her hand and he plonked down beside her. “Sorry,” he muttered, “Echidna on the path. Had to get a shot.”
He showed her his phone, with a photo of a small spiny creature with stumpy legs and a long snout ambling along.
“Awww, how cute!”
Erin noticed the camp leader glaring at them. “We’re not supposed to be looking at our phones right now,” she whispered to Clooney. “Show me later?”
The camp leader resumed. They were to check their registration documents, where they had been assigned to a group, and to meet their group tutors for an introductory session before the morning tea break.
“Have fun, everybody, and happy coding!”
Everyone stood up at once. Like on a plane, Erin thought. She grabbed Clooney’s hand and tugged him back down. Mmmm, nice. She held onto it for a second or so before anyone could see.
Clooney sat down and looked at her. She looked back.
“What group are you in?” he asked.
“Dragon Two,” she replied, hoping that he had been assigned the same.
Clooney’s eyes lit up. “Same here!”
Erin smiled. Could be a good camp. Could be an excellent camp. If only…
She looked up. The crush at the entry was easing. “Hey, we need to get to um…” she checked her paper, “…Group Room Indigo. Any ideas?”
“They are like the rainbow,” Clooney said. “Same as last year, remember? So it will be the second last one along the hall.”
They rose.
Standing uncertainly at the entrance was a teenaged boy, scanning the emerging campers with a frown. He smiled when he saw Clooney.
“Boy this place is hard to find,” he said. “Hi, Clooney!”
“Hey, Frank!” Clooney turned to Erin. “Erin, this is Frank. He’s in my class at school, and this is his first time here. Bit of a hacker and troublemaker, so don’t get too close unless you like detention. And this is Erin, my coding conspirator from last year.”
Uh-oh. Erin braced herself for the inevitable, “I’ve heard so much about you,” but instead Frank extended his hand, said “Pleased to meet you, Erin. Don’t believe Clooney. He gets people into trouble, not me!”
Oh, great. Partners in crime. This would be a boys’ camp, and they’d go off and do boy things together, and where would she fit in? Then again, that could be handy for a day or two.
Group Room Indigo had a photocopied sign reading “Dragon 2” on the door, and inside five tables had been set up, one at the front for the tutor, and four tables with three laptops each. Three vacant seats remained, two together at the front, and another on the table behind.
Erin looked at Clooney, who was clearly torn. “Hey, no worries,” she said, “You sit with Frank. We’ve got heaps of time to catch up.”
Chapter 3
Class
“Oh boy! Look who is going to be our tutor!” Clooney said. This might turn out to be the best Easter coding camp ever.
“Mrs C. Parvati,” Frank read out, mispronouncing it Par-vaity. “So?”
“Parwa-tea,” Clooney automatically corrected. “I had her for a few sessions last year. You’ll see.”
“Is it a secret? What’s so special about her?”
“You’ll see. Just wait. If you’d come last time, you’d know.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Frank moaned. “When the parentals say we’re going on a cruise, well, we’re going on a cruise.”
“You’re eighteen now. You can do whatever you like.”
“Sure. If I can afford it. The way things are, I have to save up for weeks just to impulse buy a Big Mac.”
Clooney thought back to last year’s camp. That awkward stage between being too old in the junior groups, with their lame team songs and stuffed animal mascots, and not old enough for the senior classes, where the campers got to build proper apps and have unrestricted internet and there was no curfew. Mrs P. had taught a few sessions on databases, and she didn’t just read her slides and ask a few questions; she made sure every student understood the material.
He remembered her bending down beside him to check his code, and how she had ruffled his hair with delight when he found a mistake, fixed it, and the program ran perfectly. “Clooney, you’re a genius!” she had said. “Well done!”
He’d fallen in love with her that moment, and made a special effort to pay close attention whenever she presented a session to the juniors, which wasn’t often enough for his liking. And now she was going to be the primary instructor for this group of twelve.
There were footsteps in the corridor outside, and Clooney nudged his friend. “Here she is!”
Frank looked up from his computer, where he had been taking a few experimental glances at the wireless network security, just as Mrs Parvati entered the room.
“Wow!”
“Told you.”
Mrs Parvati was shorter than any of the teenagers in the room, had the dark hair and light brown skin of an upper-caste Indian, and was generously curved in her form. She wore a light patterned skirt down past her knees and a lilac shirt. What really stood out about her had entered the room a moment before she had.
“Wow!” was exactly the right word to describe her bosom, which under a shirt that was straining at its buttons, was catching the eyes of every student in the room. There was just a hint of what must be a very ample cleavage, and if that top button gave way, as it might very well do at any moment, there was no telling what sort of tumult and excitement would bust out.
She greeted the students, had them all introduce themselves - “Hi, I’m Clooney, I’ve been coming to Code Camp for five years now, I’m glad we’ve got the best tutor this year, really looking forward to learning a lot.” “Hello everyone, I’m Erin, my second year here, really love being out in the country with the trees and hills and cute wildlife.” “Hi, I’m Frank, Clooney and I go to high school together, he talked me into coming along this year.” - and described what they’d be doing the next few days. Learning how to program an app, test it, distribute it; “Who knows, it might even get into the App Store and make some money. We’ve had that happen a few times.”
She described the camp’s timetable. Friday, Saturday, Sunday were for learning and programming. The evenings after classes ended at eight-thirty were their own, though many campers were happy to stay at their computers. Sunday evening they would have an “offsite” party at the nearby sports centre - swimming, games, lots of pizza and soft drinks - and Monday morning would be given over to the students demonstrating their creations, a camp wind up, and the whole thing would be over by noon.
“Swimming, eh?” Frank whispered to Clooney. “I’d like to see her in a swimsuit.”
“She was one of the lifeguards last year,” Clooney whispered back. “I’ve been dreaming of her ever since.”
“Roll on Sunday night!”
The rest of the morning session was taken up with ensuring that every student had set up their programming environment correctly and had a basic understanding of how the tools worked. Mrs Parvati distributed copies of programming standards, listing preferred variable naming conventions, code indentation protocols, and so on.
“Of course, you don’t have to follow them,” she said, “but it makes it easier for everyone if we’re all on the same page. After morning break, we’ll divide into four teams of three, and you’ll be working on team projects for the rest of the weekend. Kind of like real life.”
Clooney stuck his hand up. “Do we get a say on who we work with, Mrs P?”
“Of course. If you want to organise yourselves, that would make my job easier. Anyone left over, I’ll assign to fill any gaps remaining.”
* * *
Morning tea was set out in the refectory hall. Hot cross buns, warm and golden with butter. Cold drinks for the younger campers, tea and coffee for those who wanted - or needed - them.
“Filter coffee,” Frank said, regarding his drink dubiously.
“You’re such a snob,” Clooney scoffed. “Don’t tell me you expected lattes and flat whites?”
“To be honest, I expected instant, so this is a win, I suppose.”
“The food’s fairly basic,” Clooney said. “Lunch will be sandwiches or rolls, and dinner something like spaghetti bolognese, or macaroni cheese. There’s always a vegetarian option as well. For the girls.”
“Oh well. I guess we’re not here to have a good time.”
Clooney laughed. “I like it. There’s a lot to learn, the tutors are great, and by the end, we’re all kind of manic from too much thinking and not enough sleep and way too much coffee. The software side is all cutting edge stuff. I usually wind up wishing it could go on for another week or two.”
Frank pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Want one?”
Clooney shook his head. “Not yet. End of camp, maybe.”
Frank lit up and took a deep drag. “Hey, that Mrs Pavarotti of yours is hot stuff.”
“Parvati. Yeah, she’s with one of the big tech firms.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He exhaled a stream of smoke, trying to make a smoke ring and failing.
“Tell me all about it. Wait till you see her in her red swimsuit.”
“Or out of it, hey?” Frank offered his cigarette to Clooney, who took a drag.
“I don’t think of her that way,” Clooney said. “Not more than two or three times a day, anyway.”
“Ooops, speak of the devil…”
* * *
“Hi, Clooney,” Mrs Parvati said, coming out from behind a knot of tutors. “And, um, Frank?”
“Hi, Mrs pa, pav, par, um, Mrs P.” Frank stammered. “Care for a smoke?”
“Thank you, but I don’t think I could face a whole one this early. I might take a puff of Clooney’s, if that’s okay?”
She reached over and took it from his mouth. Frank rolled his eyes as she sucked a long drag.
“Mmmm, that’s good. The name’s Parvati, but you won’t be tested on it. Incidentally, it’s Ms now, not Mrs. My marriage broke up some months ago, and I’m keeping the name because, well, let’s just say Indian marriages can be complicated.”
“Oh, sorry to hear it,” Clooney said.
“Don’t be. We didn’t marry for love. It’s a whole different world back there. Uh, on that subject, Clooney, can I have a private word with you?”
Frank’s eyebrows lifted as she drew Clooney away. Clooney shrugged and made a “what do I know?” face back at him.
“Come walk with me for a bit,” she said. “I never asked you last year, and it’s been eating away at me. But I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of your friends.”
“Embarrass me?” said Clooney “About getting married?”
“No,” she said. “About names. Yours is a little unusual, and I’ve been wondering if you were named after the actor?”
Clooney smiled. “My mother. How she tells the story, I was conceived just after seeing ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’, and when my father tells it, it was some time in the middle. Sad disappointment, the way I turned out.” He indicated his skinny frame.
“Oh, I don’t think so! Don’t sell yourself short. You’re built for speed, not comfort.” She withdrew the diminished cigarette, leaned towards him and placed it back in his mouth. “Thanks. A silly thing, but you know how some questions niggle away at you until you get an answer. Kept me thinking about you, so I was happy to see your name on the list this year.”
They were walking away from the main camp along a path leading up a low rise. At the top they stopped, looking out over the steep green hills on the far side of the valley. A few hundred metres down the path was the sports centre, with a cricket oval, football goalposts, a swimming pool fenced off by chainlink, some tiers of seating, and a pavilion with change rooms and a refreshment counter. The buildings of the town rose above trees on the far side of the river.
“I love coming here. So good to get away from the city. Listen to the birds in the morning, breathe in the fresh air, have some green to look at. And you know the best part, Clooney?”
“Um, the food?”
“God, no!” she laughed. “All those horrible pizzas! No, it’s seeing the way young people like you take what I teach and go way beyond anything I can dream of. The creativity gets me every year. Gives me hope for the future.”
Clooney took a final draw on the cigarette and carefully stubbed it out on a rock. He looked at the lipstick on the butt, hesitated, and slipped it into his pocket.
She looked at him thoughtfully. He looked back at her, wondering what was coming next.
“Look, this may be a bit bold of me, Clooney, but if I can repay you for the smoke, I’ve got some good stuff you might like to share in private. After classes end, I like to unwind a bit. Recharge the batteries. We can talk, or at least I can bore the pants off you while you pretend to listen.”
“Ah, that sounds nice. But it’s only one cigarette. I can bum one off you sometime; you don’t need to make any special effort.”
She smiled. “Don’t be silly. I come down to the oval for a smoke every night anyway. Can’t use the stuff in camp. It’s better to have some company to help scare off the kangaroos. You’d be doing me a favour.”
“Well, okay. If you put it like that.”
“Good. That’s settled. It’s a date. Classes finish at eight thirty. Meet me there at nine o’clock?”
Team
Erin and Frank had it sorted out by the time Clooney returned. What better team could there be than Clooney and his two friends? They sat together and listened while Ms Parvati described their first project.
“I’ve been put in charge of the Sunday sports night. We’ll be having various competitions. Tug of war, three-legged race, volleyball, hot dog eating, that sort of thing. Each team here will spend the rest of the day designing and building an app to track the results and calculate a winner. They will be real apps, running on real iPads, and they will have to work on the night.
“Saturday and Sunday will be team projects. You can make an app for anything you want, so long as it has internet access and uses an SQL database. Monday morning you’ll demonstrate your work to the whole camp, and there will be a vote on the best one, with a range of fabulous prizes donated by our sponsors.”
Erin took the leadership role in the team. Frank, as a newbie, was not a contender, nor was Clooney, because all his brains were theory and not practice. Dragon Team Puff - Clooney’s choice, for some unknown reason - would build the app for the swimming races.
“Good choice,” Ms Parvati said. “I’ll be supervising the swimming pool, and last year I had to use an app that worked at a crawl and wouldn’t sync. This year I expect you to put out a product that is bulletproof, if not watertight.”
* * *
By lunchtime, they had a framework. The app loaded, flashed up “Hello Swimming World!” and that was it. But it was a start.
* * *
“Hey, Clooney,” Erin said as they lined up at the refectory. “How’s your room? You have to settle for a top bunk?”
“Huh,” said Frank. “That’s all I had left. Lucky I like the high life.”
“Strange,” mused Clooney. “This year I’ve gotten a room all to myself. Just two beds. Anyone want to move in with me?”
“Too right!” Frank said.
Erin gave Clooney a kick.
“Ahhh,” Clooney said, “on second thoughts, best hang fire on that. There may be a late arrival with dibs on the extra bed. Someone like yourself, but worse. I’d better check before I start renting out.”
* * *
After lunch - everyone loves hot dogs, right? - Clooney managed to take Erin aside on the pretext of hunting down the echidna he’d seen earlier.
“It went off in this direction,” he said, indicating a particularly thick patch of scrub. “Looks like a good place for an echidna lair.”
“Looks like a good place for snakes,” Erin muttered. “The last thing I want is a tiger snake chewing on my leg.”
“I think I felt one earlier. Probably took a chip out of my ankle. Certainly leave a bruise.”
“Sorry about that. I didn’t think you really wanted Frank moving in with you.”
“Because you would be a better roommate. Right. And you wouldn’t have to sleep in a top bunk in a dorm room. Gotcha. Totally on board with that.”
Erin, took Clooney’s hand. “Hold it, buster. I can’t move in with you. I have a female relative I need to look after right now.”
“Oh. A cousin?”
“Aunty. Let’s just be friends for the moment, Clooney?”
“Uh, yeah, right. Of course.”
“Oh, don’t look sad. I do want to be with you. Just not at the moment. Hug?”
Erin wrapped her arms around Clooney. She wasn’t entirely sure he’d gotten the message, but there was only so far she was prepared to go.
“Mmmm,” Clooney purred. “You smell so good. Been wanting to hold you for a long time. Hey, I just thought of something. One of the tutors invited me to share something nice to smoke this evening. Maybe you’d like to come along as well?”
“Benefits of being in the senior level, huh?” Erin shook her head. “No, I need to wash my hair tonight. You go along and have fun. Get some ideas; we need to come up with something good for our app project.”
* * *
Frank had a gadget to show them when they returned to Group Room Indigo. “Look,” he said. “It plugs into the USB, and reads cards. Credit cards, library cards, anything with a magnetic stripe.”
He pulled out his room key card and ran it through. Letters and numbers flashed on the screen. “See? That’s Hut 12, room D, the start time and date for access, number of hours it’s valid, and some other stuff I’ll have to figure out.”
“Is that legal?” Erin asked.
“As legal as a barcode reader. Reading stuff is okay. It’s writing data that can get you into trouble.”
“That thing writes on credit cards?” Clooney asked, imagining the possibilities.
“Yes, well in theory. But they have all sorts of encryption on them. Low level stuff like parking cards, who cares?”
“The parking company, maybe?”
“Right. It’s a win. Um, in theory, of course.”
“Oh dear,” Erin groaned. “I can see we’re going to have to keep an eye on him, Clooney.”
“Tell me all about it. Worst part is that he always blames me.”
Path
Clooney paused at the top of the hill. So far as he could see, he was alone; nobody was sharing the path. Behind lay the lights of camp, the main building lit up in the dark, silhouetting his gangling body. It would be active all night long, with teenage coders coming and going. Six hours from now at three in the morning, there would be wasted all-nighters cracking open one more energy drink from the vending machine, and early risers fresh for a new start. What coder worth the name was going to lie in bed when they could be creating the next Facebook?
Ahead lay the sports pavilion. Dark, dismal, deserted; deep shadows in the faint moonlight. Clooney considered waiting here until Ms Parvati came along. What if he was caught prowling around the locked pavilion by some night security guard? How would he explain himself? “Ah, just going to smoke some weed with my teacher.” Yeah, that’d work.
As he paused, his phone rang. He pulled it out, the screen bright in the gloom. Not a number he recognised, and they hung up before he could answer. Odd.
It buzzed before he could put it away. A text.
“Waiting 4U. Swim first?”
Clooney thought for a moment, remembering back to his conversation with Frank. Yes, he’d love to see her in a bathing costume again, those big round boobs pressing up against the tight fabric. Maybe even a bikini.
Down below, he could feel the first gentle stirrings as his body responded to the images swimming before his mind’s eye.
Ah. But.
He replied, “Might sit it out. Haven’t got my swimmers.”
A response came back at once. “Nor have I.”
He heard a splash from the sports pavilion. No point sending any sort of reply now. Besides, something between his legs had a mind of its own and was pointing the way with eager desire. Forward!
He hobbled down the path as best he could. Now that his eyes, straining through the gloom, knew where to look, he could see ripples on the surface of the pool, and pale moving shapes that must be the limbs of a swimmer.
The gate in the tall chain-link fence was closed, and he struggled back and forth with the handle.
“There’s a child lock. Reach up.” Definitely Ms. P’s voice. “Do you want me to get out and open it for you, dear?”
Oh yes! The thought of her, water dripping off her skin as her body stretched up made him moan quietly.
“No, I’m fine.”
There it was. A hard knob. He gave it a tug or two, and with a jerk it was free and the gate opened.
Getting wet
He could see Ms Parvati at the side of the pool, her white teeth smiling in her dusky face, eyes twinkling points of reflected moonlight. As he walked over, she pushed off, backstroking her way into the middle of the pool.
The light was far too dim for details, but there was definitely no swimsuit involved. He could make out a pair of beautiful shapes rising on her chest, a darker spot marking the summit of each.
And a glimpse of a dark triangle below, moving left and right as her legs kicked her into the deeper water.
“Leave your things on that bench,” she commanded. “Coming in?”
“How’s the water?” Cold water could do awful things to a man, he knew.
“Lovely and warm from the sun. You’ll see.”
He wanted to see. All he could see now was a swirl of water as she turned and duck-dived under, her back end two glorious moons, an enticing dark crevice between.
* * *
He walked around the pool. There was a row of benches against the wall of the pavilion, and one of them had a neat pile of feminine garments. Normally he’d take a certain interest in them, but at the moment, he was more concerned about freeing himself from his own clothes without serious injury. His t-shirt slipped over his head easily, and his sandals vanished, but his jeans had an unbelievably hard pole barring progress. He groaned as he struggled to unzip without anything catching.
“Need some help there?” Ms Parvati called softly.
“Um, I’m fine.”
A little spot of dampness had appeared at the front of his underpants. Maybe some cold water would be useful, slowing down the eruption that was surely building. He eased his undies down and stepped out of his clothes. He bent to pick them up and place them on the bench, and there was a long sigh from the water.
He almost forgot his watch, and turned back at the last moment to place it beside the jumble of his clothing. And his glasses.
Oh great. Now he’d be as blind as a bat. If he wanted to see Ms Parvati’s curves up close, he’d have to get really close.
He turned to face her and there was another gasp from the pool. He looked down. His skinny body was all edges and angles, but there was one part of him that needed no bulking up.
“Hey, Clooney?”
Ms Parvati was now just a delicious blur in an out of focus world.
“Just wanted to make one thing clear. No sex on a first date. Okay?”
“Uh, um, of course,” he stammered. “I wasn’t planning anything like that.”
“That’s not what I see,” chuckled that tantalising shape in the water. “But a kiss would be fine. If you can catch me.”
He could see movement and hear splashes. She was getting away!
* * *
Clooney had been planning on testing the water before cautiously immersing himself. He could swim, kind of, but swimming - or sport of any kind, for that matter - had never been high on his list of priorities. Not when there were books to be read, internet games to be played, and um, all sorts of fascinating activities to pursue on the web late at night.
Mucking about in a swimming pool he could do. Just so long as his feet could touch the bottom.
Now he dived right in. That prong on his front was pointing the way, and everything parted before it. He hit the water like a spear point.
Oh! She had lied! The water wasn’t at all warm. Not cold, but there was definitely a shock as he went under.
Now, where was she? He came to the surface and peered around in the gloom.
Nothing. No sound, no splashing, no movement beyond the ripples moving away. How could she suddenly become invisible? That mountain range she was wearing on her chest must surely be visible from orbit.
He felt a gentle touch on his back and spun around. She was right there: an arm’s length away. Well, that hadn’t been hard at all!
She looked into his face, and he, well, he was distracted. Who wouldn’t be, with what looked like twin basketballs bouncing in the water, right there?
He couldn’t help himself. “Wow!”
“Mind if I kiss them? And stroke them? And squeeze and lick and wobble them? And maybe bury myself in between?” he didn’t say, but instead he reached out. Possibly with his tongue. And maybe other parts of his anatomy.
She backed away, just out of reach. Slowly, gently, softly at first, and when he lunged out, she kicked away with a splash and like a fish escaping a rod she was gone in a swirl of water.
She swam like a fish. She lured him into the deep end, where he floundered and gasped, while she laughed and splashed water at him. Whenever he came close, and once he almost had her by the foot, she was as slippery as an eel, wriggling free.
Arms outstretched, he cornered her in the shallow end, and she was right there in the circle of his arms, but before he could close them on her, she flicked water in his face, kicked off from the edge and slipped past him. Just a soft brush against his thigh and she was suddenly back in the deep end, laughing at him.
* * *
Clooney took a break. He was getting nowhere. She was a mermaid, for sure. He found a spot where he could stand, elbows hooked over the side of the pool, and slow his breathing down. The mermaid cautiously approached, keeping a safe distance, but he let her be. A mermaid.
“Your name must be Ariel,” he said. “Princess Ariel, like the movie.”
He could see her smile, flashing white in the shadows. The quarter moon had almost gone now, the water was still, and his heart was racing.
“I loved that movie! But I don’t have a tail. See!”
She leaned back in the water and kept going, turning a half circle, standing on her hands, legs rising into the air. They lifted out, stood vertical, and parted.
Oh God, if only he had his glasses. There it was, right there, but just a dark shape in the gloom. Her legs closed and collapsed under the water as she turned and rose again, facing him with that teasing smile.
“Ms Parvati…” he began. Stop torturing me. Let me catch you. Let me kiss you, like you promised. Let me touch and stroke and feel your skin, your legs, your breasts, your everything.
She held up a finger. “No. Not Ms Parvati. Not Ariel. Call me Chandra.”
“Chandra,” he repeated. “Princess Chandra.”
She giggled. “Like the moon. Chandra means moon in Sanskrit.”
She looked around. “Oh, it’s gone now.”
And then he pushed away from the side of the pool, his legs steel springs against the hard surface. His arms reached out and closed on her, seizing her between hip and chest with no escape possible.
She didn’t even try. Just looked at him, eyes twinkling in the starlight.
“I’m not letting go. Chandra.”
“You got me. Fair’s fair.” She reached up with her hands and drew his head down to hers. Her lips were soft on his, a perfect fit, and they were parted. Her hands held him tight and then slipped down, touching his cheeks, his neck, his shoulders.
She drew back and took a breath. “Oh, I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”
Her eyes were open, searching his, just a breath away. Clooney pulled her tighter and bent his head down again, finding her lips and feeling a tingle on his that he had somehow never noticed with anyone else.
He loosened his grip on her body, but she only moved in closer, pressing herself hungrily against him. He could feel her against his bare skin, her breasts a delightful, delicious pressure on his chest. And what was this? Two hard little points drilling into him.
Her lips parted again, and her tongue began exploring, gently touching - tasting - his lips. He opened them, just enough to let his tip touch hers. She tasted different, sweeter, delicious.
His hands dropped, tracing the curve of her back. It came in and then flared out again at her hips. He reached lower and cupped her rounded bottom, his hands full of soft female flesh. Glorious twin moons, he thought, and a rumble of laughter came welling up.
“What’s funny, Clooney? Are you laughing at me?”
“No, Chandra. Chandra means moon, and when I saw you before…” he stroked those rounded cheeks. “It all makes sense now.”
“Mmmmm, you can do that again if you like.” But instead he kissed her some more.
Her hands were tracing his flanks now, a firm pressure, not tickling the sensitive flesh, reaching for his own skinny bottom, reaching around…
Oh God, he was all but drilling a hole into her belly. Her fingers were moving him aside, holding him, stroking him.
“We should get out soon,” she murmured. “I’m starting to get wet.”
What a strange thing to say, Clooney thought. Here they were in a swimming pool. They couldn’t get any wetter unless it started raining.
Her fingers had closed around him down there, and he could feel every ridge of her fingerprints, it seemed. He drew in his breath. He wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer in what was turning into a rushing wave of sensation in every part of his body.
Suddenly bright light washed over them, and his eyes jerked open. They looked at each other in alarm, every detail of eyes and lashes and wet hair picked out in the glare reflecting off the silvered surface of the water.
Raw hide
The dazzling light swept past them, leaving them blinking and blinded. They could hear the crunch of wheels on the gravel driveway.
“Crap,” Chandra muttered. “That bloody security guard, I’ll bet. Quick, inside and we’ll lock the door. I’ve got the keys.”
The car had vanished around the side of the pavilion, but they heard the engine stop and a door open and thunk closed.
“Hurry!” Chandra said. She scooped up her neat pile of clothes and scampered for the pavilion door, holding it open for Clooney as he fumbled for his scattered belongings. She closed the door behind him and turned the lock.
* * *
They were in a hall dividing the pavilion. Ladies change rooms to the left, Gents to the right. An open kitchen to one side, store room on the other. The front door at the far end was full length glass, and through it a dim figure was approaching, a torch lighting the way.
Chandra held a finger up to her lips and beckoned him into the pitch-black storeroom. “Careful,” she whispered, “there’s stuff piled up everywhere. Don’t touch anything.”
How could he stop himself from touching things he couldn’t see, Clooney wondered, but Chandra held out her hand and led him in, closing the door behind her. Now it was really black, just a crack of dim torchlight under the door as the guard inspected the interior of the pavilion through the locked front door. They heard him give it a rattle.
Clooney put out a slow hand. It encountered something soft and warm, before being seized and redirected. “Not now!” Chandra hissed.
Clooney leant in, finding her ear with his lips. “If the guard goes around the side,” he said, resisting the urge to nibble it, just a little, “then he’ll see our wet footprints. I think I forgot my sandals.”
Chandra’s mouth pressed into his ear. “You think? Don’t you have them?”
“Um, well, okay. I left them under the bench.”
The scrap of light had faded from under the door now. Clooney listened, ears straining out on stalks. He heard footsteps fade and grow louder. A beam of light played on curtains over the room’s only window and then flicked away.
They both held their breath, listening for some sign that the guard had noticed the signs of a midnight swim and hasty, dripping, exit.
A minute passed, as Clooney accepted the surreal fact that he was actually holding hands - and touching skin - with a beautiful nude woman who for some reason seemed to find him equally interesting. Just not at the moment.
Chandra let her breath out with a long sigh as the sounds of the car door opening and closing again, the engine starting, and the diminishing noise of wheels on gravel made their way through the black stillness.
* * *
“You, my young friend,” she said, her voice shockingly loud after the hush, “are one lucky fellow.”
And don’t I know it, Clooney thought.
“I know for a fact that smoking a bit of dope would be overlooked by the camp leader. But being caught naked with a teacher, well, they would have thrown the book at you!”
“Me?” Clooney spluttered. “What about you?”
“Oh, I’d only lose my job, and what little reputation I have. We’d have to run away together and make a startup.”
Clooney could think of worse things to do with his life. He disentangled one of his hands and set it to explore the soft warm territory beside him.
“Sorry, sweetie.” Chandra said, moving away. “I’ve gone off the boil. And I think you have too.”
She fumbled in the dark for a moment, found her phone, flicked it on and aimed the screenlight downwards. “Yep. What a pity.”
She handed it to him. “Here, hold this while I find my things.”
He aimed the phone here and there, illuminating various points of interest as best he could. He had his glasses on, but he really needed that security guard and his military grade torch to get the full picture. Then again, he wasn’t complaining. What he could see was pretty impressive.
He groaned in disappointment as Chandra picked out a super-sized sports bra from her pile of clothing and wriggled into it. A shame to see those beauties locked away.
Chandra snorted at the sound. “Huh. You try carrying these things around all day.”
“Uh, okay.” He reached out and cradled them. Not bad.
“Men!” she snorted, swatting him away. “All the same. Never a practical thought in their heads.”
“I suppose I’d better get dressed too,” he said, looking through the chaotic tangle of his clothes.”Oh well, it was a nice swim.”
“That’s what I mean, right there.” Chandra said. “Don’t you dare. I’ve got other plans for you. Ah. Got it.”
She held up a cigarette lighter and flicked it on. Clooney smiled. She hadn’t forgotten the promised weed after all!
The flame revealed more of the room, piled here and there with random items of sports equipment. Gym mats, footballs, a line marker…
Chandra held the flame to a candle sitting on a shelf, and turned to another, and another, and a fourth.
* * *
“Right. Up on the table, you.”
She indicated a high, narrow, padded table, now candlelit from four sides.
“Uh, okay.”
Clooney clambered up, sitting on the table, dangling his feet. The candles were throwing a clear golden light, and he admired their effect on Chandra’s profile as she turned away, pulling items out of her bag.
“Lie down. No, no, the other way. Put your face in here.” She indicated a cut-out in the padding. Clooney did as he was instructed. Now he couldn’t see anything at all, except for floor. And Chandra’s feet, as she moved to the head of the table. And her knees, and thighs, and…
“Here, give me those.”
She gently removed Clooney’s glasses.
“Just relax and enjoy, honey. Don’t go to sleep on me, okay? I want you to keep up with me.”
Clooney felt a towel being draped across his bottom.
“First thing is to cover up any distractions. And keep you warm.”
Now Clooney could hear some liquid gurgling.
“Second step. Warm up the oil. Nothing worse than cold oil on warm skin.”
Clooney raised his head. Chandra was pouring something from a small bottle into her cupped hand. She held it under his nose.
He sniffed. “Mmmm. Coconut.”
She carefully set the bottle to one side and with her free hand flipped the top shut. “Head down again. No strain in your neck and shoulders. Have you got any injuries I need to know about? Sprains? Broken bones? Cuts? Rashes? Anything at all?”
Just an ache in the groin region, but he shook his head no.
“Right. First is effleurage. Long strokes to spread the oil, and let me get a feel for your body. Tell me if I’m starting to tickle you, or anything like that, okay?”
He could feel the warm oil flowing over his back, and then her hands gliding over his skin. A caress at first, and then firmer, her fingers seeking out any tension. Her fingers pressed against his shoulder blades.
“Hmmmm. Curse of the computer programmer. Spend hours hunched over a keyboard, all tensed up, your whole upper body turns into a disaster area. Feel that? You need federal funding to sort that out. A back massage once a week after you go home. And read up on better posture. You know how to use Google to find things?”
Clooney chuckled.
“Next is friction,” Chandra went on, the nature of her strokes changing into deeper, quicker movements. “The idea is to break up muscle knots, by putting gentle pressure along the lines of muscle.”
“Ow, that’s gentle?”
“Hah, you should be glad I’m not giving you the full treatment. Some would be using the points of their elbows on your back, and you’d be begging for mercy. Trust me. You need some serious work.”
But she eased back the force a little, and he relaxed. God, but it felt good. The candles had their own scent, a warm spicy fragrance that blended with the smell of coconut. He inhaled deeply.
He could hear the smile in Chandra’s voice. “That’s the way. Just let it happen. Enjoy the moment. Be aware, but don’t analyse.”
“Petrissage next,” Chandra went on. “Squeeze the muscles with short circular strokes. Get rid of all the acids and poisons. Help the body cleanse itself.”
Clooney wondered how that worked.
“Don’t think about it, my sweet,” Chandra breathed, bending over to kiss his ear. Just let it work.”
She began singing; softly, almost under her breath. Some Indian song, he imagined. Again her strokes changed, to short tapping, beating movements in time with the melody.
“Tapotement. That means hitting. Gently hitting. I’m using the side of my hand here, and only where there isn’t bone directly underneath. Down past your ribs.” Her song began again, this time in English. “Gently, gently, goes the elephant. Tinkle, tinkle, hear the harness bells. Gently, gently, goes the elephant.”
Clooney chuckled. “I can feel each step. You are being very good to me, Chandra. This is heavenly.”
She leaned over him, kissing the back of his neck. “Oh, I’m enjoying it too, you know. I’ve wanted to massage you for a long time. And besides, I expect something in return. Why do you think I’m telling you the names of the strokes, and what they are good for?”
She moved her attention back down to the base of his spine. The elephant hopped on one leg for a moment as the towel was rolled back, and then started trampling - softly, but firmly - on his buttocks.
“Petrissage again. Like kneading the dough for the buns.” She chuckled again. “You have such lovely buns.”
He couldn’t tell for sure, but there may have been a couple of light kisses on those buns, as her hands rhythmically grabbed alternate handfuls of his glutes.
“And finish off with effleurage before we move onto the next part.” Those long strokes, taking in all of his back and shoulders. There may have been some fingernails lightly getting into the action, and he moaned at the pleasure of it.
She stroked him one handed for a moment, and again the gurgle of oil.
“Never break the skin bond,” she instructed. “Never let your massage partner feel that they are alone.”
The towel, he could feel, was being folded back to cover his middle.
“Right arm first.” Chandra said, taking it from under his head. “Effleurage first, to spread the oil.”
Long gliding strokes. She went through the sequence again, explaining as she went.
“Firmly on the inner arms. Nothing light, or you’ll tickle, and there’s nothing breaks up the serenity of a good massage like an attack of the giggles.”
“Take each finger one by one, and clasp both hands to work on the palm. Link your fingers to make a good grip.”
He felt her hands applying pressure to his hand; front and back at the same time.
“The arms and legs are the easiest of all. Just start at one end and move along.”
“Try to aim the direction of your strokes towards the heart. It’s an act of love, after all.” He felt her lips brush his shoulder.
“And effleurage to finish off. Other arm, please!”
He drew it out and tucked the first one back, tingling and utterly relaxed. She kept one hand on his shoulder as she crossed over at the head of the table, and he felt the warmth of her body when she leaned in to nibble gently on his ear.
* * *
He could see her lower body as she worked on his arms. The candle light gave a golden edge to the dark curls that made such an eye-catching triangle. He tried to get a glimpse of her skin below, but everything was shadowed. A hint of a deeper and darker valley, maybe. Now and then her legs parted as she stretched over him, but if there were any details to be seen, they were only in his imagination.
But what was very real was the musky scent rising from somewhere close, somewhere under that curly jungle just a few centimetres from his outstretched nose. Like nothing he’d ever inhaled before, the fragrance was tugging directly on his pleasure centres. Warm, sweet, tangy, and heavenly all at once.
Those long strokes moving up his arm now. What was next after the arms?
“Roll over now, darling. I’ll hold the towel steady.”
* * *
Would she notice the physical proof of his thoughts, Clooney wondered, as he turned his body over, trying to stay centred on the narrow table.
“Oho! I thought I told you to relax?”
“Not my fault!” Clooney protested. “How can I think of anything else? I’ve been dreaming about you for a year, and you think I can stop now, when you are right here in front of me with nothing on?”
“Well, just relax. Don’t worry about it. If it happens, it happens: enjoy! I’ve got plenty of towels to tidy you up. Just close your eyes and listen. How would you like to learn some Sanskrit songs? I’ll sing a line and you repeat along with me. The first one is a counting song: Ekam, Dway, Trini…”
Her voice took on a rhythm and he did his best to follow her words. She poured oil on his legs, and made him describe the strokes in between verses.
It actually worked. When she massaged her way up his right leg and then to the top of the left, leaving him tingling from toe tips all the way up - always closer to the heart, remember - he was able to name each massage stroke and count to twenty, and the swelling had almost subsided.
Almost. It was difficult to ignore the long strokes - “Effleurage, to finish the leg,” he said, wondering what was coming next - as they reached higher and higher up his thighs, each one brushing the towel just a little bit further up, he could feel himself rising just a little higher too.
Finally, he sensed the towel had pushed way past the point of modesty and that he must be fully exposed to her gaze. He opened his eyes and saw that yes, the towel had fallen completely off, and her own eyes were locked onto what was coming next.
Chandra was bending ever him, lower and lower with each stroke, and as the final one reached the top of his leg, she bent her head and gave him a kiss with a lot of tongue in it.
He groaned at the pleasure of it, and she looked up along the length of his body.
“Kissing is okay on the first date, yeah?” she asked.
“Oh yeah!”
Her lips closed over him completely now, and her fingers climbed the length of his shaft.
He closed his eyes again, and set himself to taking in every last sensation as he sensed her lips around him, her tongue gently exploring every point, every ridge, every fold of skin.
When one hand closed lightly around his ballsack, barely touching the skin, he knew it wouldn’t take long. “Relax, enjoy,” he heard her voice in his mind, because he knew for certain that she had her mouth full right at this moment.
She was setting a faster pace now, lips, tongue, fingers working together.
He tried to delay the inevitable by casting his mind forward to what might happen if there was another session, when he guessed that he would be the one oiling up Chandra’s nude body and stroking every last part of it, but that thought didn’t help at all.
He gasped as the first pulses of pure pleasure began, arching his back, pushing himself deeper into her mouth and her hands. “Don’t stop!” he moaned.
Chandra kept going, pumping him dry while he groaned and shuddered. As he subsided into stillness, her movements became lighter and lighter, vanishing entirely as she lifted her head.
“That was good,” she said after a moment. It was a statement, not a question.
Clooney nodded. “Oh, man!”
The towel reappeared over his midsection. She tucked him into a fold.
“Just rest for a minute, Clooney. I’ll be right here if you need me.”
She kissed him lightly on the forehead and he closed his eyes, feeling a warm glow that had nothing to do with the candles. He could hear her moving about, the rustle of clothes, the sound of a zipper, and thought sadly that she must be getting dressed. It had certainly been an evening to remember.
He opened his eyes again as her fingers stroked his cheek. She was standing beside him, her sports bra had vanished, and those big round boobs were aimed right at him.
“My turn now.”
Safety briefing
Clooney was torn. He felt warm and sleepy and content. He could happily lie back and regard those sweet breasts right before his eyes, drift off and have the most wonderful dreams.
On the other hand, if he got up, he’d have a well-stacked lady with no clothes on at his finger tips. Every centimetre his to explore and stroke and kiss.
If Chandra’s idea of a first date was one that stopped at kissing, he wondered what she imagined a second date would involve.
“Up and at ‘em, big boy!”
Chandra gave her shoulders a shake and her breasts wobbled delightfully. That did it.
Clooney got up from the table. His body was jelly, every muscle relaxed and feeling no pain. Chandra helped support him as he stood, and her arms went around him, drawing him in for a deep kiss. She tasted interesting. Like minty freshness. Hang on…
“Mouthwash,” she said. “There’s a bottle by the sink. Not that you tasted bad or anything. On the contrary. Still…”
“Always prepared,” he said.
“Put that towel in the laundry bag,” she said, indicating a zippered hold-all beside the door. “Here’s a fresh one for me.”
“Do I have to?” Clooney wasn’t sure he wanted to cover up any of that fabulous body. Chandra held out his glasses, and he put them on. That was better. Wow.
“We want to be focused. You get too many things going through your mind all at once, nothing works out well. Everything in due course.”
She lay down on the table, facing up, and Clooney looked at her with interest. Well, more interest.
“Aren’t I going to do your back first, like you did with me?”
“Yes, but first, a safety briefing. This is for both of us, because if you don’t follow my instructions, I may accidentally rip off your testicles and throw them out of the window for the magpies to eat. Clear?”
“Yes, Ma’am!”
“Remember how I asked if you had any injuries, or things of that nature? Well, I have some areas that I need you to be gentle with. First, my knee. See the scar?”
She raised her left knee up. With some difficulty, Clooney turned his attention to it, and found a long pale scar on the outside.
“It’s very sensitive there. You can stroke it and maybe kiss it, but anything else, and I’m going to turn into a very unhappy lady. Okay?”
Clooney gently touched the scar and raised his eyebrows.
“Yes, that’s fine. You can go a little harder, but if you start probing or punching it, you’ll be hurting me. Some goes for these bits.”
She indicated her breasts and that enchanting dark triangle. Clooney studied them diligently.
“Stroking, kissing, licking; I can take a lot of that! But if you do that kneading thing on my boobs like they were bags of dough, there’ll be trouble. Okay, now I’m guessing that you haven’t been with many women?”
Clooney considered. Technically speaking, he’d lost his virginity twelve months ago, but there had been a lot of fumbling in the dark by two complete amateurs and he still wasn’t entirely sure if everything had happened the right way.
“Um, one or two,” he hedged.
“Hmmm. Well, let’s treat this as a refresher course. Fold that towel up a few times and put it under my bum.”
Chandra raised her hips in the air and Clooney put the folded towel underneath. She spread her legs.
“Right, pay close attention. Geez, I didn’t need to say that, did I? Look at you. I’ve never seen eyes so wide.”
She had Clooney’s complete attention. The dark curly triangle had opened up below to reveal an area of the human body that he’d never actually seen in real life. The sight was enthralling, and the rising fragrance was intoxicating. He breathed it all in.
“I can’t actually see any of this, you know; you’ve got a better view than I’ve ever had. We’ll work from the bottom up. See my bumhole?”
Clooney nodded.
“I don’t care what you’ve seen on the internet. Nothing goes there. You don’t touch it at all.”
“Fair enough.”
“Good. Now this whole area is extra sensitive. The coconut oil is fine everywhere else, but not here. If you need lubrication - and you will - the easiest place to get it is my vagina. That’s the next hole up, and if you slide your finger in, you’ll get all you need. Try it now; you may have to dig around a little. Gently does it.”
Clooney had a rough idea of where to go digging. He ran his finger down Chandra’s inner lips - the whole area was slick and wet - and poked his finger in just before he got to the end. It was all soft and slippery, but he found a place that admitted his finger. And held it tight.
“Bingo,” Chandra said. “You have no idea how good that feels.”
“It feels pretty good from this side, Ms P.”
“Right. Your finger and your tongue can go in there, if you want, but nothing else unless I say so. Okay?”
Well, that was an excellent start for a first date. “Okay,” Clooney agreed. The grip on his finger loosened. He wondered how she did that.
“Now, if you feel towards the front of my vagina, that’s where you’d go looking for my G-spot. We won’t worry about it for now, but… ohhh.”
Clooney turned his finger around and felt a harder area, some ridges and bumps. He pushed at it experimentally.
“Yes, that’s it. Um, we may come back to that later on, but if you keep on doing what you’re doing, I’m going to miss out on my massage. Take your finger out and run it up to the top, inside the lips. Gently now. Keep going, more, and stop right there. Back down a smidge. That’s my clitoris.”
Clooney found a little ridge running along where the smaller lips joined. He gave it an experimental rub.
Chandra sucked in her breath. “Oh sweet lord. Yes. Yes, that’s it. Stop right now.”
Clooney stopped, and reluctantly withdrew his finger. “Was I hurting you?”
“Ah, no, in fact that was just right. Listen to me when the time comes and if I ask you to go harder or softer, or faster or slower, we’ll do fine. Now I want you to look real close.”
She reached down and pulled her lips wide apart. Clooney looked on, enthralled.
“See that bit you were just touching? There’s a fold of skin covering it, just like your foreskin. And just peeping out at the bottom of that, is my actual clitoris. It should look like a shiny little pink bean, but it may not be visible right now; it kind of comes and goes, and like I said, I can’t see it.
“It’s as tender as I get. If you rub it when it’s dry, or I’m not warmed up, or you stick it with a fingernail, it will feel about as painful as if I chomped down on the head of your penis with my teeth, okay? Kiss and lick that little bit as much as you want and I’ll be a happy camper, but be very careful with fingers.”
She closed her legs.
“Right. Lesson’s over. There’ll be revision soon, but for now, it’s my turn for a massage.”
Rub Chandra up the right way
Clooney thought that the evening had been pretty good so far, but he found that the next half hour was, far from being a chore, about as satisfying as anything he’d ever done. The act of giving pleasure to another human being was its own reward, and Chandra made sure to give him plenty of feedback.
She had been right; focusing on one thing at a time meant that he gave what he was doing his full attention, and as he worked over Chandra’s back, shoulders and arms, he found that he was becoming attuned to the texture of the skin and flesh under his hands, and every little movement or sigh from the person beneath was a direction that he was either on the right track, or maybe straying a little off course. All he had to do was listen carefully and respond.
Chandra’s body was, as she said, built for comfort, not speed. She wasn’t chubby or plump, so much as well-padded over her bones. He had plenty to work with and it was almost an intellectual exercise to make sure he paid attention to not just the surface area of skin covering her body, but the three dimensions of the flesh below. Finding the strings of muscles and reaching down to them took a bit of doing here and there.
His attention wavered a little as he rolled the white towel down and contemplated the generous curves of her buttocks. And the dark valley between. And the scent rising from from the hidden treasures below.
“Mind on the job, Clooney,” Chandra reminded him. “Knead the dough!”
He did just that, taking handfuls of flesh and working them rhythmically: one cheek and then the other. He bent down to kiss each one, before pulling the towel back up and signalling for her to stretch out an arm.
It crossed his mind as he worked on each arm that perhaps she was, as he had done, taking a private look at his legs. He glanced down at himself when he was warming another handful of oil. Not erect - he would have felt that - but nor was he curled up small. His shaft was full, and the head was poking out and paying attention. Perhaps it was returning Chandra’s gaze. If she was looking.
“Keep your focus, honey. Your mind should be on the working surface. Where your hands meet my skin. That’s what I did for you.”
He finished the arms, kissed her on the back of the neck, and she rolled over without prompting. He remembered just in time to hold the towel for her.
* * *
She smiled up at him, as he wondered where to work on next.
“Warm up some more oil. You’ve got a lot to cover. Chest first, and no tickling over my ribs and tummy. Lightly on top, and firmer as you go down. Not too firm; there’s no bones underneath, and I don’t need my liver poked. Clockwise around the tummy to follow the big intestine, but if you feel anything but flat muscle, you’re going too deep. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you!”
Clooney poured a generous palmful of oil, and as he waited for it to warm, he maintained body contact, smoothing the towel down over Chandra’s thighs, wondering where to put his free hand.
And his eyes. In the candlelight, Chandra’s full breasts rose over her ribcage, every curved contour soft in the golden light. Each one was crowned by a darker circle, and her nipples rose proud.
As he watched, the dark areas crinkled up. What had been smooth flesh a moment ago dimpled and contracted into tiny bumps. He bent his head and kissed each one in turn, feeling the hard little nubbins against his tongue.
“Suck them if you feel like it,”Chandra said, her voice low and husky. “But not too hard; I bruise easy.”
He tried that, and almost forgot the handful of coconut oil he was holding. Chandra shivered under him and arched her back up. It was only when a few droplets spilt out and onto her breast that he put his mind back to the task.
Long effleurage strokes to spread the oil. He went lightly, as instructed, and then traced his fingertips in circles - ever-widening circles - over each breast in turn.
No kneading, no tapping, no probing. Just silken strokes and caresses. And more than a few kisses.
This was a year’s worth of fantasy come true. In his hands he held those fantastic female objects that had dominated his private thoughts for so long. A hint of cleavage, the undeniable swell under a tight shirt, the cherished image of Chandra in a swimming costume at last year’s sports evening; these were the visual memories that he held close and revisited time and time again.
And now he had these sweet curves to hold and touch and taste. He licked a circle around each nipple and trembled with joy.
Eventually he left the highlands behind and headed south. Firm strokes on the flanks, steady circles on the tummy. His hands were making intrusions under the towel canopy and exploring the edges of the triangular rainforest, and Chandra was making little sounds of delight.
Decision time - give in to lust now, or do the job properly and gain a greater reward - and he drew the towel back up over her navel, poured some more oil, gave each breast a last lingering kiss, and moved down to Chandra’s feet.
He did her one leg at a time, as she had with him. Right leg first, because he was on that side of the massage table, and after he’d oiled up her feet, ankle and calf with long stroking movements, he gave each toe his complete attention, then held the foot between his hands and did his best to crush it flat with his palms, using his fingers like a hinge, as Chandra had demonstrated earlier.
Then up over the ankle, a very nicely turned calf, the knee - was it this one with the scar? No, he’d been on the other side of the table - and a thigh with plenty of meat on it. Lots of kneading potential there.
He methodically worked his way up, keeping his teeth gritted, and attention focussed firmly away from the dark slit between her legs which was coming more and more into view as he pushed back the towel. When he rolled her thigh to the side, stroking some oil onto her inner thigh, she moaned and quivered under his hands. He planted a kiss right at the top of her thigh, and nearly called a halt to the task right there.
It would be wrong to say that he wasn’t paying attention to the working surface as he massaged his way up her left leg, but he was definitely going faster on the home stretch. He dutifully avoided her left knee entirely, and only lightly oiled her thigh, rolling it to one side as well.
He carefully wiped his hands on the white towel, aiming to lose every last trace of coconut oil. And then he dropped the towel onto the floor.
Chandra lay on the table, fully exposed, legs well parted, her hands moving over her breasts, and Clooney paused for just a moment to admire the sight, her body gold in the candlelight, shadowed here and there.
Especially there, where her thick triangle glistened. He bent over it, inhaling the delectable scent, and lowered his lips to hers.
She smelt fantastic, that musky fragrance overpowering him, but the first taste of her made him moan with delight. Tangy, salty, delicious. He lapped at her outer lips, and pushed his tongue between, seeking more. He found her vagina, a motherlode of tasty delight, and she arched her back, pressing herself harder against him.
He lifted his tongue higher, sliding a finger inside her to seek out that rough, ridged area he’d found before. When his hungry tongue discovered her clitoris and began licking the length of it, she gasped, and he realised there were words in her ragged breaths.
“Harder, harder, more, more, keep going, don’t stop, keep it up.”
He didn’t. He pressed harder and went a little faster. She was gripping his finger tightly with her internal muscles, but he was able to move the rest of his hand against her, as he kept on stroking against that roughness inside.
Now her body was pulsing against his face, bucking back and forth, and she was making little sobbing noises. Now her words changed, “Stop, hold it there, darling, don’t move, keep pressing, sweetie.”
Clooney held everything tight, his unmoving lips pressed against hers, his tongue firm against that little ridge, his finger still, even though he could feel her vagina pulsing against it, waves of contractions trying to draw him in deeper.
At last she let out a long sigh and quivered into stillness.
“Hold me, Clooney,” she whispered. “Come up here and give me a cuddle.”
He lifted his face, withdrew his hand, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She nuzzled against him, her lips searching out his, and they kissed for a long minute, their tongues moving against each other, tasting, caressing, teasing.
She let him loose, her eyes searching his face.
“You smell like me, you darling man.”
He laughed at that. “I must smell like heaven then. You taste divine. I could bury myself in your scent.”
“You won’t say that in an hour. We both need a shower, otherwise the whole camp will know what we’ve been doing.”
She levered her body up, and slid her feet to the floor. Her eyes dropped down. “Oh my.”
He hadn’t noticed in the turmoil, but somehow his penis had pumped itself up hard. As they both watched, it moved and throbbed.
“You know how I said no sex on a first date?” Chandra said. “Well, I lied.”
Joint pleasure
Chandra bent to recover the towel from the floor, spread it over a pile of gym mats, and pushed Clooney down.
“Just relax,” she instructed. “I can see this won’t take long.”
She reached into her pile of clothes, still neatly folded, and pulled out a little plastic package. Tearing it open with her teeth, she extracted a rolled condom, peered at it for a moment, and then bent over Clooney. She kissed him lightly on the top of his penis, then rolled the condom down the length of his shaft.
Clooney felt every millimetre of it.
Then she straddled him, not letting go, and guided him into her, before lowering himself completely onto him.
He moaned at the exquisite pleasure of it as she gripped him tightly from inside, and then began rocking slowly backwards and forwards.
Her breasts moved in front of him and he reached up to hold them, stroke them, caress them. Her nipples tightened immediately, and she bent lower, until he could take one into his mouth. He wrapped his tongue around the nipple and sucked.
“Not too hard,” she cautioned. “That’s nice as it is.”
She was doing something with her hips, rising up until he was barely inside, and then steadily lowering herself again.
She moved her chest, swapping one breast for the other. “Balance,” she whispered. “Give them both a go.”
He licked and teased that nipple too. For balance. It was as hard and firm as the first.
His breath began quickening, and she moved her hips faster.
“Oh lord,” she whispered, and changed her movements, pressing herself fully against him. Her whole weight seemed to be balanced on his pubic bone, moving quickly back and forth, but he was past the point of no return by then, and he was thrusting himself, pushing up hard against her, feeling the tightness of her inner muscles drawing him in, letting him go, tightening again and again.
He heaved up against her as the first spasm began, followed by another so long and intense that he felt sure the rubber must burst from the force.
Half a dozen more - less intense, but still high on whatever seismological scale the sex scientists use for these things - and his back stopped arching up.
Chandra was still moving, moving fast, her breath gasping and urgent. “Don’t stop, push up, don’t let go, push up, push hard.”
Clooney lifted his hips against her, feeling the urgency of her movements to and fro, grinding into his bones, and then the divine internal spasming as she came again, squeezing him in a series of intense contractions.
“Oh, oh, oh,” she panted. “Oh my sweet.”
Then she collapsed against him, shuddering with aftershocks.
Her breath slowly returned to normal and she sighed, “You beautiful man. I don’t know if I can let you go now. But you know, you can let go of my boob before it breaks off.”
He realised he still had a nipple in his mouth, gave it one last kiss, and let it swing loose.
Chandra rolled off him, and pressed her front against his side, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. “Mmmm, that was pretty good for a first date, don’t you think?”
* * *
Clooney was in heaven. No dispute at all. Thinking back over the events of the evening, he’d ticked a few of the boxes that had been stacking up in his mind for the past year. And he could hardly believe that right at this moment he was snuggling with the gorgeous Mrs Parvati, excuse me, Chandra.
He could open his eyes and feast on the sight of her uncovered body, take a deep breath and her fragrance - and his - filled his senses. Right at the moment he was tasting her lips, gently tracing the outline of her full and smiling mouth. And his skin told him that the sense of touch was working well.
In fact, Chandra was moving above him; he could feel those incredible breasts against his chest, as she raised up. Hot damn! Was there yet more to come?
“Got another lesson for you, Clooney darling,” she was saying. “It’s called, how to shower with a friend and get clean instead of dirty.”
* * *
The lesson involved a lot of hot water and soap and shampoo and perhaps a bit more attention to certain body parts than was strictly necessary.
“My boobs have never been so clean, Clooney,” Chandra said at last. “I don’t think they are going to take a polish.”
With some reluctance, Clooney stopped what he was doing. Chandra stepped out of the shower stall and beckoned to him. “If you like, you can towel me down…”
* * *
It was getting close to midnight when Clooney finally took a puff of Chandra’s promised smoke. They were sitting on the benches overlooking the dark and empty sports oval, smelling of soap and mouthwash, the stars clean and bright above.
“Don’t you just love the skies out here?” Chandra said. “No haze, no streetlights, just you and God.”
“And kangaroos,” Clooney pointed out a few grazing on the oval.
“Don’t get them in the city, no. When I came to Australia I thought there might be kangaroos hopping along Swanston Street. I think it’s sweet to see the lady kangaroos with a baby in their pockets here.”
“Yes, but you don’t want to meet the big males in the dark. They can kill people.”
“Some of them are bigger than me!” Chandra took a long drag and passed the joint to Clooney. “Hey, before I get too rotten, there’s something important.”
“Uh-oh. Is this the ‘we need to talk’ thing?” Clooney took a puff. “Already?”
“No. I just want to rub something in. Tonight has been wonderful, but there’s only one person you can tell about it. Me.”
“Oh, okay.” Clooney took another drag and gave it back. “Tonight was like going to heaven. It was better than I thought it could be, and this was something I thought about a lot. I, uh, hope we can do it again. Soon?”
“Me too, darling. But I’m serious. We have to keep this a secret. For your sake, as well as mine.”
“We’re both adults,”Clooney said. “And we both wanted it.”
“Something you should know about women, Clooney. We like sex as much as men do, if we can find someone who will take their time and do a good job. What we don’t like, is when our sex partner tells everyone about how good we were. Or not.
“So, maybe you go back to your team and say, ‘Hey, guess what? I fucked Ms P last night, it was fantastic!’ and Frank and Erin say they are glad to hear it, and maybe you think I can use the free advertising.
“But I don’t want or need the publicity, and if Erin had any thoughts of maybe getting into bed with you one day, she’d be reconsidering, because the last thing she wants is a reputation based on your after-action report. Same for any other girl who heard that you were handing out sex ratings.”
“Do you think Erin…” Clooney began.
“No,” Chandra said. “She’s just an example. I don’t know if she’s got the hots for you or not. You’d have to ask her.”
Clooney pondered how one might go about asking such a question and getting a useful answer.
“Okay, Chandra, thanks for that. Not a word from me about us.”
“Not a word, not a glance, not the slightest whiff of a relationship. People pick up on these things. Well, women do. Men seem to have their heads full of other stuff. Why do you think I insisted on such a long shower together?”
“I thought you just liked touching my naked bod.”
Chandra pulled him close and took his hand in hers. “I like touching you, Clooney. Whether you have clothes on or not isn’t important. I mean it’s nicer to have nothing in the way, and you sure do turn me on, but just holding hands can be wonderful. Don’t you feel like you are king of the world when you are walking down the street with someone you love and everyone is smiling at you? I do. Well, queen of the world, I guess.”
Clooney considered. “I think the last person to hold my hand in public was my mother.”
“You need to fix that right away, darling. Get a girlfriend. You are way too good to waste.”
“What about you, Chandra?”
Chandra squeezed his hand, “Oh you are sweet, and I am very fond of you, but no, dear, it wouldn’t work out. You’re still going to school, for one thing. What would people say?”
“I don’t care what they say. Being with you is heaven. What more could I possibly want?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Education, a career, a family. Hey, for the moment, we have each other, and we’ve got three more days here. Let’s see how it works out?”
“Well, what about another date?” Clooney asked. “Tomorrow night? Back here?”
“Oh, I think we can do better than a pile of mouldy gym mats, Clooney. For one thing, you’ve got a room all to yourself. We could use that in a pinch.”
“Yes, it was lucky how that worked out.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Who do you think allocated the accommodation?”
“We could go try it out now, do you think?”
“Not on your life, young man! I don’t want to wake up at breakfast time in your room looking - and smelling - like I’ve been having mind-blowing sex all night and only got a half hour’s sleep soaking in each other’s juices.”
“I dunno,” Clooney said. “Sounds pretty good to me.”
Chandra got to her feet and hauled Clooney up as well. She handed him what was left of the joint.
“Come on. We’d better get out of here before you lead me totally astray and I get my panties all damp. Here, finish this off as we walk.”
Clooney couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t let his hand go as they walked up the hill. She was right. It felt wonderful. Kangaroos scattered before them, bounding off into the trees. At the top, just before the camp lights hit them, she pulled him aside, wrapped her arms - and her breasts and legs - around him and gave him a goodnight kiss that set a new record.
Finally she tousled his hair and set him loose. “Sweet dreams, you darling man.”
To be continued: