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From: bronwen@anon.nymserver.com (Bronwen)
Subject: Celeste's top Oct story: "The Sad, Bad Man" by BronwenSM (M/F, romantic)
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Copyright BronwenSM 1997. Adults only.
"The Sad, Bad Man"
(M/F, romantic)
by BronwenSM
@---}---}-----
When I first moved to London in search of fame, fun 'n' fortune I
found a taste of all three, but I found something else, too.
Sexual frustration.
I was used to having a large pool of known, trusted people to choose
from. And I do mean people. Most of my lovers have been men, but not
all. Oh, no, not all...
In my little city, the network was large but tight. No date rape for
us - a guy fool enough to try that shit would have to leave town -
everyone would know within a day or so. So when deciding to spend the
night with a new man I didn't have to think too much about risks -
well, apart from disease and contraceptive failure.
On any evening I might meet up with - let's say - Tom, Dick or Harry -
Tom being an ex-boyfriend, Dick being half of a previous one-night
stand we both remembered warmly, and Harry a fresh piece of mystery
blown into my favorite bar by the West wind. I guess you get the
picture. Cosy.
So I was used to quantity - and variety...
But London was a different matter. Go out clubbing in London, meet a
guy, he could be planning to make a rug out of you, or drug you and
hand you around. Sexual assault is a major consideration in any
woman's life. It's common, and it's nasty - however wild and horny the
woman.
So I held back. But the sexual drought made me restless on my office
chair. Masturbation is no long-term solution, it's like living on bar
snacks. And as for settling down with a nice young professional... How
could I settle down when I was preparing for take-off?
For that's why I needed to be in London. London was where my career
was taking me. London was bright lights, big city. It was also lonely
until I hit on what looked like the perfect solution. Jump on the
first train home Friday night, back last train Sunday (first train
Monday if pushed). An hour and a half drinking gin & tonic on the
train and a taxi to the pub. Meet up with everyone, sleep wherever I
found myself; then, Cinderella-like, turn into an ambitious young
graduate for work on Monday.
No worries about becoming a statistic of either drink-driving or
homicide. All the sex I could eat. The ideal solution.
Then I met Liam.
I was leaning on the bar one Friday night, fresh off the train; a log
fire scenting the air, relaxing into the camaraderie of old friends,
the twinkle of brass in the dim light, when a man stood up from the
shadows by the fireside and walked up to the bar for a refill. I can
still remember how he moved. A shabby tiger, worn but magnificent.
He was a big man, not heavy, but tall, broad-shouldered, narrow
hipped. His knees, elbows, feet were too big, like a Great Dane puppy.
Not an elegant man. But there was something so powerful, so
unconscious about his loose grace.
He slouched up beside me and ordered. I could feel myself prickle with
the tension of his proximity. Then someone called across the bar:
"D'you know Bron, Liam?"
"No, I don't think we've met," he said, and we looked at each other.
Everyone goes on about eyes, but his were one of the few pairs I
honestly remember. They were dark shadowed, what the Celts call 'put
in with a sooty finger'. The sweep of his eyebrows directed my gaze
into his.
And when I did, I fell. His eyes were colored wheels; the spokes
shards of green, blue, orange and gray. They didn't match. I did the
whole cliche thing. I tumbled straight into them and floated
downstream. I didn't care. Why should I? I was young, free and single.
Of course he never went back to his seat, and when closing time came I
walked out with him without invitation either offered or accepted.
Where else would I dream of going?
Have you ever done that? Met someone and known you had to have each
other without a word spoken? Not the wisest thing to do, or most
mature. But I've done a lot of unwise things I'll always be glad of -
and this is one of them.
We climbed into his car. It was ancient, largely held together with
rope. He was house-sitting for friends out in the country, he said. So
we set off. The heater didn't work, but I didn't mind about the cold.
I was already frozen with expectation.
The English countryside: winding lanes with high hedges, tiny ancient
villages, rolling patchwork fields scattered with copses and little
tracts of woodland. All sprawled out around us in autumn darkness
under a bright moon.
A huge stag was loose up on the top of the hills, Liam told me.
Somehow he had lost his harem, perhaps through escape from some big
estate. Unnaturally alone, he would come out in the dark to challenge
the cars.
"Some people say he isn't real," Liam said. "They think he's some
lonely ghost."
I could well believe it. This was a time for magic. Outside the verges
were touched with frost, but inside the car the space between us
shivered like a road surface under the sun. All I could think about
was touching him, but we drove sedately until he turned down a rutted
driveway and stopped the car. He turned to me.
We stared at each other in the darkness for a long fraction of a
second and fell on each other like survivors of a shipwreck...
Our cold faces met, hot tongues stretching out to taste everything.
Icy cheeks, burning mouths. We were eating each other's faces. Saliva
was dripping everywhere, mouths watering with desire, hands all over,
wanting to take it all in in a second, consumed with a desperate greed
to have it all, be it all, experience it all. Those moments when
freezing air meets warm flesh. My cunt was molten, his breathing
ragged. The house was less than a hundred feet away, but neither of us
could wait.
Lust of that intensity stays in the mind forever. A lust as beautiful
as a horse galloping up a hill on a bright morning, as the big breaker
that throws you onto the beach. Beyond horny. Almost as pure as love.
How did two people still kissing, still groping, senses electric;
chaotic, get out of a small car, half-way across a field and into the
farmhouse without stumbling, without relinquishing hold on that
life-giving flesh?
Inside it was half-furnished and bitterly cold. No curtains, no lamps,
just brilliant overhead lighting, so we turned it off. We hit the
floor on a pile of sheepskin rugs by the dead fireplace. When his bare
chest touched mine I felt that sense of perfection, of relief, that
the touch of certain people's skins provides.
No hesitation, no complication. I sank back in the moonlight, my
thighs wide, raising my arms to welcome him home. And then we fucked.
We didn't change position, we didn't talk - we didn't stop. We were
that runaway train. We fucked for hours and slept, finally, wrapped
tightly around each other under his huge Army surplus coat.
When I awoke it was freezing. The house was very bare and new. We
looked like burglars in the middle of the huge living room. I found
one stocking and my garter belt wrapped round my feet. My skirt was by
the door. When Liam woke up I sent him out to look for the rest...
After all, he was the one who still had shoes.... My other stocking
was on the path, one of my high heels was by the car, the other was
inside it. My bra and blouse were over the steering wheel. We never
did find my g-string. We shared smiles.
But there was a constraint between us. "I'd better be dropping you
back, then," he said.
"Great," I answered, and chattered on the ride back into town, giving
him the impression of a packed social calendar. The truth was that I
was as free as a bird and would have gone wherever he suggested, but I
was scared of seeming needy. "I had such a good time," I said as I got
out of the car, but I didn't offer him my number. After all, he hadn't
asked for it...
But that night we ran into each other again, accidentally-on-purpose,
and if anything the attraction was stronger. We were joined at the hip
from the moment our eyes met.
On Sunday morning I woke again, hung over in the cold farmhouse, and
lay watching him sleep.
I was struck by just how beautiful he was. Liam's hair was rich brown,
thick and curly. Not tight curls, but big loose ones, like a baby. He
was the only person I've ever known who managed to have rich copper
lights in his hair without having ginger pubes. He had an aura of
immense sexual self-confidence and the charm of a child - all 6 foot 2
of him.
Weekend after weekend followed. Nearly every weekend we ran into each
other. We never, not once, arranged to meet. But we met just the same.
Liam called himself an antique dealer which, in his case, involved
scouring country house sales, junk shops, anywhere old debris was on
sale. Then he'd tart the stuff up and sell it on to other dealers.
He never had a shop, he never had a proper home. Just his old car and
lodging from friends. I got the impression these friends were wealthy
women whose interest in him was all too easy to understand. It was
their husbands who encouraged him to keep moving...
He drank too much, he owned nothing, he had a child he never saw. His
life was without form, our talk was shallow. But sex with him was like
a fire burning. He ripped all my clothes, he bit my breasts, he wept
at orgasm. He made love as if it was going to be the last thing he
ever did. Afterwards he held me fiercely all night.
For quite a while he had a workshop in a tiny picturesque village. The
terms of the lease strictly forbade sleeping in the workshops. Of
course, Liam lived in his. It was like sleeping in a garden shed. The
things that stick in my mind now are the lava heat of our lust and the
cold hard floors on which we fucked out our brains.
We'd cling to each other, battered by passion, oblivious to our
surroundings, and come down to find ourselves on an old mattress
surrounded by sandpaper, varnish pots and flagons of cider. He was
often filthy, hands stained with restorative treatments for wood,
metal filings in his hair. His trousers, always too big, were held up
with string, but he aroused me to the bone.
Out of bed he had a disheveled but generalized charisma. A lot of men
liked him, and every woman did. He was constantly being offered hot
meals, second-hand clothes. He accepted everything, one of nature's
babies, an endearing parasite. He seemed ultra-masculine, emotionally
self-contained but helpless.
One evening we ran into his ex-wife. Even she was clearly delighted to
see him, but affectionately exasperated. Her manner was motherly. Was
he eating properly? When was he going to get his hair cut?
I might be neck-deep in lust but I was wary. I noticed his manner with
certain other women. I observed his warmth, and their proprietorial
body language: they would rest a hand on his wrist, or nestle close
with chins uplifted. It was obvious he was much in demand. And I was
in London most nights. How could I expect any sort of commitment? I
knew I could handle a no-strings affair but not an unfaithful lover,
so I never even brought the subject up.
I told myself all we had was incredible sex. This was a man superbly
at ease with the physical - and I was pretty sure he used his powers
all over town. And why not? He owed me nothing.
He never said he'd see me. In the all the time I knew him he never
called me. I never said where I'd be either but, amazingly, we hardly
spent a weekend apart for months. The few times we missed each other
I'd pick up with an old flame to keep me warm, prove I wasn't strung
out over Liam. Just a good time. That's all.
My biggest fears in those young, blind days were making a fool of
myself and being tied down. Now I've done both - the first many, many
times and the second, I hope, once for all - I can see it's not such a
big deal. But at that time my fear made me a worse fool than I already
was - or maybe not... Maybe what happened was for the best.
All week at work my thoughts would turn to him. I was angry with
myself, I felt exposed. I knew I was too dependent on him - I never
even admitted to myself I was in love with Liam, but I was.
Passionately in love and determined not to show it. I might be one
among many but I still had my dignity. I was sure he would find me
pathetic if he found out how much he meant to me. I was scared of
being exploited.
Then one Sunday night he actually ran me to the station for the last
train. This was unusual, too conventional for our oh-so-casual
relationship. He didn't just stop the car so I could hop out, he
parked it. Something was going to be said.
I looked at his profile apprehensively. Was some sort of kiss-off
coming? Had he sensed my real feelings?
But when I looked anxiously into his astonishing eyes they were filled
with tears.
"I can't go on like this, Bron," he said. My guts churned. Miserably I
stared ahead, waiting for the next blow.
"There you are, off in London, making a success of your life - new
people, new places - and I feel all I get are the crumbs left over,"
he said, shakily. "I never know if you're coming down. I need someone
who's there for me."
I was stunned. All this time and I had no idea. I struggled to come to
terms with a completely alien concept. Liam a supplicant, Liam the
besotted lover - this wasn't someone I knew.
I turned, trying to reassure him through my own wet eyes. "But Liam, I
care about you too."
But it was too late. It was too late for both of us.
Somehow the time for us had passed. Too many games. The immense
trouble I'd taken to convince him and myself I was just having fun had
been all too effective. He had suffered for months wanting more than
he thought I'd be willing to give him. But then it worked both ways. A
pair of fools, we were.
They say: "You can't make proper tea unless you use boiling water."
Well, Liam and I had lost the heat that might have made fusion
possible. Our weekend meetings with their marathon fucks grew
gradually further and further apart until they just tailed off. No
scenes, no agony, just a quiet pain. I began to realize that although
I had felt a lot of things in Liam's presence, 'at ease' had never
been one of them.
And the saddest thing of all was that within a year he died driving
his car into a wall. No, that's not true. Even sadder was the fact
that he killed some poor man who happened to be standing nearby. Liam
was out of his brains on pills and booze at the time. He was being
treated for severe depression. The sense of desperation in his passion
had been more real than I ever understood.
At the funeral I was one of seven ersatz widows dressed in black. We
linked arms, we wept on each other's shoulders. One ravishing
flame-haired woman even tried to throw herself into the open grave.
Afterwards we clustered in the pub, drinking ourselves wild and
talkative. We swapped stories of his sexual splendor and misdemeanors.
As well as the 'widows', he left behind a tiny, sickly daughter. She
didn't attend, but his ex-wife did. He'd never paid child support and
said he found it 'too painful' to keep in touch with his ill child.
His wife had carried their tragedy single-handed.
Once drunk she told us that although she believed Liam when he
insisted he had always truly loved her, he'd also fucked one of her
bridesmaids on their wedding night.
Oh, he'd been terribly remorseful, yes, but said he just couldn't help
it. Oddly, none of us were terribly surprised. Everything I learned
after his death showed just how shabby my tiger had been.
Liam left sorrow and undealt-with responsibilities - yet we all missed
him desperately. He meant so much to each of us; even his wife who,
after all, knew him best and had by far the most to forgive.
Oh, love, you were a sad, bad man but I for one will never forget you.
And you taught me one vital lesson. Always wear your heart on your
sleeve. That way, at least it's legible.
@---}---}-----
If you enjoyed this, please let me know at bronwen@anon.nymserver.com.
All Bronwen's other stories, plus a wacky tour of the life of her
wicked slut-twin Bikini-Barbie-Bronwen, are at
http://www.cyber-mall.com/Bronwen, courtesy of Joe Parsons. Thanks,
Joe!
Bronwen
@--->--->-----
http://www.cyber-mall.com/Bronwen,
courtesy of Joe Parsons. Thanks, Joe!
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