"Shall I help you wash up?" Lucy asked, bringing me the last of the dishes.
"No, it's OK," I replied, adding some more washing up liquid to the water in the sink. "Can you go up to my room and fetch the DVD? It's on top of the shelf with my hi-fi." I began scrubbing the plates as she left. My housemates had all gone home for the weekend, so Lucy had suggested we have a night in and watch Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for the nth time, as we both loved that film. I'd already cooked us both a stir fry to get into the Chinese spirit, as it were, and once I'd finished the dishes I got the sake that Lucy had bought (she couldn't find a Chinese wine, so she thought a Japanese one would have to do) and poured some for each of us while she settled herself on the sofa and flicked through the menu. Turning off the light, I sat down next to her and got ready to enjoy the film.
As I practically knew the film off by heart, for the first few minutes I could just sip my rice wine and let my mind wander, glancing occasionally at Lucy out of the corner of my eye. She was sat very neatly, her legs crossed under her skirt, which had ridden up slightly above her knee, her smooth calves and perfect, fairly small bare feet glowing white from the light of the TV. The warmth of the alcohol suddenly made me feel how close her warm body was to me, only a few inches away. With a smile I remembered the first time I met her, nearly a year ago now.
I'd gone to see Kill Bill Volume 1 for the fifth time, and for the second time I noticed her buying a bag of peanuts at the food counter, but I didn't think she could be going to see the film again, she looked more like an indie girl to me, and I didn't think it was the type of film she would be into, so I pushed my idle thoughts of talking to her to the back of my mind and entered the room. The lights were still on, so I could see there was no one else in there, which suited me fine, I could sit in my favourite place, exactly in the middle of the room so that the screen filled my vision when I leant my head back and looked straight in front. But a few minutes later, I heard someone else come in, and looking round I noticed it was the pretty dark haired indie girl, who walked automatically to my row, spotted me and hesitated. She gave a little shrug and walked along the row and sat down in the seat next to me.
"Hi," she said, sounding a bit shy. "Haven't I seen you before at a Kill Bill screening?"
"Yeah, probably," I replied, feeling the heat rise to my face. I was never very good at talking to strangers, even when they didn't have incredible large brown eyes that seemed to hold my gaze in a vice. "This is the fifth time I've seen it."
"Really? Cool! I've seen it three times, I couldn't persuade any of my friends to see it again with me." Her shyness seemed to have vanished, and I wished mine would. She held out her hand. "My name's Lucy, what's yours?"
"Jack," I replied, shaking her hand, and we began talking about the film, and Tarantino in general, when the lights went out for the ads to start, and we fell silent. She offered me some peanuts when the second trailer came on, and then from the moment the film started it was fantastic. We both sang along to the Nancy Sinatra song at the beginning, laughed at the same scenes of ridiculous violence and spoke along to the same bits of clever dialogue.
Then afterwards we went for a pizza together and talked for another couple of hours about films. Although to begin with I did consider asking her out, but wasn't confident enough to, then she went out with someone else a week or so after we met. After she broke up with him we were such close friends that I didn't want to risk souring our relationship by asking her out, as I couldn't bare the thought of not having her around and the indefinable sense of utter contentment that any conversation with her or even her very presence filled me with.
Anyway, before I got completely lost in my reminiscing, I was distracted by the first really amazing fight sequence and started concentrating on the film. Once that scene was over, Lucy paused it to go to the toilet while I poured some more sake, and when she came back she sat much closer to me, so our bodies were touching. When she put her head on my shoulder I finally mastered myself and put my arm around her, feeling her snuggle nearer, but not saying anything.
We watched the rest of the film like this, my cheeks pressed lightly to her warm silky hair, and when it got to the really romantic scene with Lo telling Jen Lu that he'd found the brightest star of all I felt her hand reach for mine, sending odd shivers through my body. Finally, the film ended and we reluctantly separated and stood up, both our eyes a bit wet from the ending, and neither of us saying anything or holding each other's gaze for long. Lucy said she'd go upstairs, so I cleared the glasses and empty bottle of sake away and followed.
Entering my room I saw her bent over the desk lighting the last of the candles she'd placed around the room, dancing slightly in time to the Elvis compilation she'd put on, then she turned around and told me to switch the light off, so there was only the warm orange glow from the candles.
"Dance with me," she said with a smile, holding out her hand, so I took it and we both started twisting and jiving, singing along and laughing good naturedly at each other's dancing. Lucy changed the CD to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, and we did our best impression of Uma Thurman and John Travolta before collapsing in a giggling heap by the bed, and began chatting, slightly more manically than usual, our eyes constantly meeting and then one of us would look away a few seconds later.
When the CD finished, Lucy got up again and took a while choosing a new one. As she came back to sit cross-legged in front of me again, I couldn't help grin as the soothing voice of Nancy Sinatra came from the speakers, and we continued our conversation until the end of the first song. As the second one started though, she seemed to make up her mind about something, and grabbed my hand, looking me straight in the eye.
"Jack, how do you feel about me?" she asked, a note of impatience in her voice. For a moment I just stared, caught off guard, felt my blood rushing to my head, and tried to look away, but couldn't. I took a deep breath.
"I... love you." I'd finally said it. And to my delight, none of my paranoid fears came true once I had. Instead Lucy's eyes widened and she blushed too, a big smile spreading across her face.
"Well I love you Jack! Why didn't you say before? When - I mean, how long have you been in love with me?"
"I don't know. Months. Since before you split up with Jason I suppose. Why didn't you say anything?"
"Oh, I don't know. We've both been stupid obviously..."
We paused for a few seconds, but it was a different type to the pauses before, and we kept eye contact, then both leaned forward, a little hesitantly, until our lips met. Lifting the hand that she wasn't holding, I gently brushed her hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear, placing it around her head to pull her closer as our kiss became steadily more passionate. Lucy released my hand and drew me into an embrace, a bit awkwardly as we were both still sat cross-legged facing each other, until she pulled me up and pushed me back to the bed, still kissing me, and we ended up with me underneath her.
Things started to go a little faster than I expected, her hands wandering firmly over my chest, then I felt one slip under my t-shirt, her smooth hand caressing the side of my stomach, so I allowed my hand that wasn't stroking her hair to push up the back of her sweater and the top beneath to feel her warm bare back. Lucy pushed herself up, kneeling over me, and pulled her top off, so above her waist she was only wearing her bra, her skin gold in the flickering candlelight.
"You're so beautiful Lucy," I told her, and she grinned.
Sitting up a bit myself, I wrapped my arms around her and carefully rolled over until she was lying on her back and I kissed her again, running my hands up her arms, following them from the silky underside near her shoulders, past her elbows and eventually to her open palms, our fingers meshing as she closed her hands around mine. By now I had just let my instincts take over, kissing down her neck to her shoulders and the small hollow beneath her windpipe, working my way over her chest until I was kissing the top exposed part of her breasts.
Gently, I pulled my hands out of hers and slipped them under her back, fumbling with the clasp of her bra, and to my surprise managed by pure luck to unfasten it fairly quickly. I knelt up to help remove it and then went down again, my lips finally touching her tits, feeling the soft warm skin against my mouth as I explored it, the faint scent of her body filling my nostrils, while I let my fingertips do the same as my mouth on her other breast. Deliberately, I ignored her tempting pink nipple at first, kissing all the way down to the underside where it met her chest, then I extended my tongue, dragging it slowly up, tasting her skin, and then circling her nipple. As I closed my hand around her other breast, discovering that I'd been right in thinking they were the perfect size to hold, I could feel how she was tensing, her breathing having quickened and glancing up at her face I could see the tips of her white teeth biting her bottom lip in
anticipation.
When I finally decided I'd teased her long enough, I licked her round pink nipple, pushing against it with my tongue, feeling it getting stiffer, and then I closed my lips around it and tentatively sucked on it, getting a small squeak and intake of breath from Lucy. I continued like this, sucking and licking her nipple until it was as erect as I could get it, all the while squeezing her other breast rhythmically, enjoying the sensation of her soft flesh in my palm, then I swapped to see to her other nipple.
Once I'd finished there, I cupped both her breasts in my hands and resumed my journey of kisses down over her stomach, right down to the place were her flesh bulged ever so slightly from the waistband of her skirt digging in. Occasionally she'd asked me before if I thought she was fat, but she wasn't, this small amount of body fat to me made her more beautiful then the skeletal models in magazines, and it was far more arousing to the touch than if it was just skin over bone.
"How do I undo your skirt, Lucy?" I asked.
"There's a zip at the back," she replied, a little breathlessly, and reaching around I found it. Now kneeling on the floor between her legs, I pulled her skirt off slowly, discarding it to the side, then began kissing up her hairless legs, starting at her ankles, moving up her calves fairly quickly then slowing down as I reached her thighs. Stroking the inside of her knees with my hands and then up the outside of her legs, I peppered her inner thighs with kisses, working my way very gradually up to her crotch. Once there, I stroked the front of her black knickers, her pubic hair beneath forming a kind of cushion covered by the material, with only a couple of individual curls escaping under the elastic, and a damp patch, while not too visible in the dim light, was perfectly evident to my fingers as they played over where her hole was.
Holding her firmly with both hands around her waist, I pulled her a few inches closer to me so only the very tops of her legs were still on the bed, tucked my fingers under the waistband of her knickers and peeled them off her, then took my t-shirt off. I lowered my head down so her short curly black hair was brushing my face, inhaling the faint but delicious aroma emanating from her pussy, and started to kiss all around her hole, not going too close, but close enough to get some of the juice that was clinging in droplets to her hair on my cheek.