Author: Karl Shawlton Title: Spontaneity 4 Summary: Sexiness in a south London suburb. Chapter 4. Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder Keywords: MF cons © 2017. All rights reserved, Karl Shawlton This all happened when I was sharing a house in an unfashionable suburb in south London with some friends. The line-up varied a little, but for several years there were three ever-presents: Dan (that’s me), my girlfriend Kate, and Becky. Now read on. *** It began when Tim, one of the housemates, brought back a bottle of absinthe from summer holidays somewhere. “Absinthe?” said Becky. “I thought that was illegal.” “Not any more,” said someone. “You can sell it now, within strict legal limits. It’s nowhere near as strong as it was a hundred years ago, of course, but still pretty powerful. We should have a session some time. Beautiful colour, isn’t it?” In fact, nothing happened for more than six months. The absinthe lay almost forgotten at the back of a cupboard. To tell the truth, we weren’t quite sure how it should be drunk. But one day, when Tim’s birthday was almost upon us, we decided to club together to give him a present of the whole caboodle traditionally necessary for the drinking of absinthe: the fountain, the spoons, the glasses, even the sugarlumps. “I’ve been reading up on it,” said Penny. “You put a little in the glass, than you run water into it from the fountain, using these slotted spoons to filter the water through a sugarlump. The sugarlump dissolves, so when it’s gone you have a diluted, sweetened drink.” A quick digression about Penny. She’d moved into the house recently, and I’d hit it off with her straight away. As friends, that is. We were happy going out to the pub together, occasionally a pizza or something. We’d chat endlessly about everything and nothing and never seemed to tire of each other’s company. But there was a boyfriend (away studying a lot of the time), and talk of an engagement … and that was as far as things had gone between us. So, back to the story. I’ll skip the preliminaries and just say that one Sunday afternoon, after a copious lunch, the four of us found ourselves seated at the dining table around a sort of miniature glass tea-urn full of water, with taps to let it trickle out slowly over a sugarlump balanced on a slotted spoon; which in its turn released the sweetened liquid into the green absinthe in the glass below. When we each had a full glass we looked around at each other. “Well, bottoms up,” said Tim, raising his glass. We followed suit, and took a sip. Quite pleasant, really. A bit like Pernod, or one of those aniseed-flavoured drinks, thinned down and sweetened. And yet, despite the large sugarlump dissolved in it, the drink wasn’t especially sweet. Someone said it had wormwood in it, which is notoriously bitter. Perhaps that counteracts the sugar. Now, I don’t normally care much for aniseed. But I had to admit that this mixture was quite pleasant. And when the glass was empty, I was happy to see Tim dishing out another helping. “Very more-ish, isn’t it?” said Penny. Becky giggled. “Moorish? I thought it was French.” For some reason we all found this hilarious. “I don’t know about that,” said Tim. “But who’s for another? My last, I think. It’s rather gone to my head.” With that he poured another round. We sipped in silence. Looking around, I saw the others seemed to have silly grins on their faces, and wondered if I looked the same. But it didn’t seem to matter. We were all enjoying the novel experience of the atmosphere created by “the green fairy”. After the third glass, Becky slipped away, Tim following shortly after. “Don’t mind me, you two,” he said. “I don’t want to spoil your enjoyment. But I think I need to lie down.” I looked at Penny. “Another one?” She smiled, and nodded vigorously. “And let’s move over to the sofa,” she suggested. “Could watch TV for a bit.” So we took the glasses (together with the bottle and the rest of the paraphernalia) down to the coffee table, settled down on the sofa and switched on the TV to some music programme. We sat close, our thighs touching. After a couple of minutes I put my hand on her leg. She didn’t seem to mind, and I began to stroke it gently. She was wearing a pair of tight jeans, so my touch wasn’t especially intimate; but it’s not something I had ventured to do before. With her opposite arm she reached across and placed her hand on mine. I thought she was going to push me away, but instead she ran her hand up my arm, above the elbow and up the sleeve of my t-shirt to the shoulder. Then down again, then up, slowly, but firmly. Then broke away and reached for her glass. I took a drink too, and motioned to ask if she wanted a refill. She nodded. I gave us each a measure of the green liquid, and we watched the water trickle through the spoons into our glasses. We drank and, setting my glass on the table, I turned towards her to look into her eyes. She smiled back at me. I realised I felt euphoric, but peaceful at the same time. Putting her glass down, Penny slipped off the sofa and knelt in front of me. She repeated the arm-stroking but, since she was now facing me, she was able to do it with both hands. When she reached shoulder-level, I put my arms around her waist and pulled her closer. I leant forward and kissed her gently on the lips. Moving my hands under her blouse, I stroked her lower back. She still had her hands somewhere between my elbows and my shoulders. Time was passing very slowly, it seemed. I rubbed my hands up her back, on her bare skin, passing the bra strap on the way. Then I moved one hand in front to caress her breast through the bra. She leant forward and kissed me again. “You haven’t seen my breasts, have you?” she said. I shook my head, but took that as an invitation. Reaching for the fastening, after a bit of fumbling I managed to undo her bra strap. I sat back for a second, not without feeling a touch of satisfaction. “Well, I might as well finish the job,” murmured Penny, peeling off her blouse, followed by the bra. Her pert breasts, tipped by rosy nipples, stood out less than an arm’s length in front of my eyes. “Wow,” I said, as I reached out to fondle them. Soft, but firm. I buried my head in her chest, and kissed wherever my mouth touched. She pushed me away, not unkindly, and looked at me. “Danny, what are we doing? This is you and me. We’re best friends.” “Is there a good reason why friends can’t make love sometimes?” She said nothing, just lowered her eyes. I decided it was time to take off my t-shirt. Then, raising her chin with my finger, I leaned forward and kissed her again on the lips – a long kiss, but not what you’d call passionate. She smiled once again, that bewitching smile. “Sit back,” she said. “Relax, and let me kiss you properly.” Closing my eyes, I backed off a bit. She moved towards me, and put her lips on mine, her tongue twisting around inside my mouth. Meanwhile, my hands were busy feeling her nipples, her shoulders, around her back, everywhere I could reach. She hoisted herself up a bit so she was half-sitting on the sofa, and I was able to begin caressing her bum through the tight jeans and give it a couple of light slaps. I ran my finger between her legs, pressing hard, feeling the heat. Penny squirmed on the sofa, and I used my finger and thumb to grip her crotch, still outside the jeans. She’d been wiggling and making little moaning noises in a way that suggested she enjoyed this; but I didn’t realise how much until, suddenly, in one movement, she flung herself down on all fours, somehow unzipping her jeans at the same time and yanking them down below her knees. “Fuck me, now!” she screamed. I dragged her jeans and knickers off her completely. “God, you’ve got a great arse!” I panted, as I tore off my own trousers and positioned myself to kneel behind her. Curving my body around her backside, I reached over to put my hand between her legs from the front, and ran a finger along her slit. The lips parted immediately, and my finger slid easily into her wetness. My thumb pressed into the cropped patch of her pubic hair, and I remembered she’d once told me she kept it well-trimmed. (I did say we were good friends.) Moving my finger in and out, I found the spot that I hoped would give her the most pleasure; and I must have been doing something right, because she moaned loudly, putting her hand on mine to help with the movement, and to speed it up. Together we pumped my finger (or maybe two at times) in and out, faster and faster, while she panted and screamed. After a bit, she calmed down, and knelt there breathing heavily. I decided it was my turn, and pushed the head of my cock towards her open pussy from behind. It was then that things got complicated. It’s not that I wasn’t hard enough, but there was something in the angle which wasn't right. She was too low, or I was too high. Our sexes touched, and with my hand I could feel the tip of my cock rubbing somewhere close to the slippery spot where my finger had been until then, but I couldn’t get it any nearer to slide right into her. My first thought was to turn her over, and that might have worked. But somewhere I got the idea that we’d be more comfortable on the sofa. So, pushing and pulling, with some help from the now almost inert Penny, I managed to get us both on to the sofa, lying on our sides facing each other, with her curled up in my arms. And as I stroked her back, wondering how best to get into a position where I could make use of my fading erection … I heard her breathing change to the regular rhythm of deep sleep. Enough of the absinthe-induced euphoria remained in me to see the funny side of things, and I didn’t want to have sex with a sleeping woman. So I gave her a quick kiss to waken her and whispered gently that she’d be better off in bed. “No,” she mumbled. “Just cover me up.” With some difficulty I disentangled myself from her, and slipped off the sofa to fetch a blanket. By the time I came back she was already asleep again, curled up like a baby. Carefully, I tucked the blanket around her, and went off to my own bedroom – wondering how much of this adventure we’d remember when we woke up.